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magpiewritingthing · 5 years

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Liminal Space Meme

Send me a random number for a starter/drabble with our characters in the setting of a liminal space #1-104 (some repeats, mostly taken from this list)

a playground at night

rest stops on highways

deep in the mountains

churches at night

abandoned 7/11’s

your bedroom at 5 am

hospitals at midnight

warehouses that smell like dust

lighthouses with lights that don’t work anymore

empty parking lots

ponds and lakes in suburban neighborhoods

rooftops in the early morning

inside a dark cabinet

A pond on a roof

early in the morning wherever it’s just snowed trails by the highway just out of earshot of traffic schools during breaks

those little beaches right next to ferry docks

bowling alleys

a cornfield next to a country road

your friends living room once everybody but you is asleep laundromats at midnight

hospital waiting rooms  

airports from midnight to 7am

cemeteries  

abandoned penitentiaries  

hilltops at night in full moonlight  

empty barns  

marshes  

really anywhere quiet at midnight, the air vibrates  

old stones and henge  

the ocean when it’s still quiet with fog over it 

train tracks that go through the middle of the woods  

bridges  

ancient places  

stands of old growth forest  rabbit paths off hiking tails  

trails between the main ski hills  

winter twilight 

back allies between houses 

logging roads 

dirt roads on fall evenings with leaves falling off the trees  

libraries before closing 

anyplace where it’s snowing before sunrise  

the woods during a rainstorm

roads covered with snow with trees on the sideways while snowflakes are falling out of the sky 

train stations after 10 PM 

outside, right before a massive storm 

the woods just after twilight 

the beach in winter 

the bottom of swimming pools  

empty beaches when its snowing

back part of a library  

late night empty streets  

highways late at night  

windy roads  

windy roads at night when you can only see the immediate road  

abandoned parking lots (office buildings, homes)  

anywhere immediately after a really bad fight  

little towns late at night when no ones awake and the only lights on are the street posts

the lakeside anytime between 2 and 6 am

firework shows when you’re sitting on the grass

House on a lake

being the only one downstairs on christmas

stepping outside in the early morning when it has just snowed

when its dark and you see snowflakes falling down in the light of a lamppost on the lonely road

that one clear spot in the forest with trees surrounding it

a parked car in a snow/thunderstorm

corn fields with the wind blowing over them

malls when they’re about to close for the night

woods at twilight/dawn

being on a train after midnight

theme parks at night

winding back roads with rolling fog 

seeing “open” signs when its really foggy and cloudy 

being in a train that was crowded when you got in and now its quiet, looking at the seats knowing that there were people sitting there moments ago and now they’re gone 

hiking trails that have nobody on them  

being alone in an elevator for a few minutes  

looking down at the forest when you’re standing somewhere high and seeing the top of the trees with fog lingering over them 

the ferry about to take off in the middle of the night  

tree houses 

empty seats on the late night train 

4-6 am on a winter morning

Feeling chased

the clouds/damp coming out of your mouth when its really cold in the morning  

stepping out on an unfamiliar metro/train stop 

greenhouses that have been left to grow alone 

cemeteries in the middle of fields 

biking/walking on the main road when its dark without cars 

swamps with fog  

hotel corridors in the middle of the night 

anywhere where you can hear a train whistle in the distance but you can’t see it or know just how far away it is 

foggy mornings in a meadow  

that flickering streetlight 

working offices at midnight

long, dark hallways

the middle of a park when its snowing

being in a forest where there are train tracks not knowing if the train may even ever approach

bonfires

a little lake in the middle of the forest

lonely swings

overgrow field/yard

the woods on a night with a full moon

empty stables

rest stops

empty metro stations that are usually crowded

gas stations on long mountain roads

the old part of a city when you’re the only one in the street

#prompts

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magpiewritingthing · 5 years

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the hush moment

Story: silent hill: lullaby (working title)

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Summary: The library’s open. There’s no-one else around. They hope.

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Warnings: mentioned/implied attempted sexual assault with a lesbophobic lean, other lesbophobia & homophobia mentioned/implied/referenced (as well as compulsory heterosexuality/heteronormativity), suicide mentioned --- i tried to keep at least most of these implicit rather than explicit (except for the suicide warning, which is more of a hypothetical scenario explicitly stated, but still)

Other notes: A snippet of something I have in the works (read: my brain, not yet on paper or electronic words)

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The fog tastes like a jacuzzi electrical fire’s smoke, like when she was twelve and the neighbours had gone on vacation to the Bahamas or something and had apparently left their outdoor kit running. Mom had panicked like a fluttery bat when she had to call the fire brigade. Now, the taste coats the insides of Lucy’s cheeks, her gums and teeth seemingly slathered with the thickness of it, like she’d walked right up to the fire and stuck her tongue out, all madwoman.

She’s trying to run away from it. Cillian mentioned a library somewhere in town but she's got no fucking clue where it is, hasn’t even got a map, and she’s just running fuelled by pure panic and a will to live, a need to stay sane. (There’s no such thing as monsters, my silly-billy.) No such thing as a man who keeps walking even after setting himself on fire and started to chase her, laughing with outstretched hands and his fly undone. No chants of come back baby, come back baby, come back baby. Pretty girl, birthing hips, find yourself a good man to marry and have lots of little grandchildren for Mommy. Spoil them little bastards rotten, spoil them to death in the crib, spoil them spoil them spoil them while Lucy hangs herself in the attic of the neat little with the pretty little garden with the white picket fence while Husband is at Work, working for the Money. Another housewife dead, how sad.

Lucy’s still running even though it hurts, even though she wants to collapse and cry herself to sleep and wake up at home in Chicago in her and her mom’s apartment and Mom’s coming around to the idea of a lesbian for a daughter instead of a birthing machine to carry on the genetic line. Yeah, she’d like to just take it easy instead of running with lungs short of air, panicking for a library when she has no idea what it looks like.

“LUCY!”

A familiar voice, shouting from her left. A howl turning into a scream from behind (how far behind? safe? going to die?). She trips over her own feet. How so like a shitty horror movie protagonist! Honestly! Her hands are skinned by asphalt, her jeans scuff at the knees. A familiar pale and freckled hand, then arm helps her up, the stinging sudden and unwelcome in her palms and knees. Try not to think about how else it might’ve turned out, but she thinks it anyway, her breath coming in staccato hiccups. Panic.

Cillian looks like he’s been strung and kept together by wire, any muscle lean and spare against his otherwise lanky frame, and his limp in his left leg doesn't help matters either, not when he needs to be able to outpace whatever’s after him (and there is something after him, as there is something after her). Lucy’s still surprised when he’s able to pick her up in a fireman’s carry, and hurries into that godforsaken motherfucking library that she must’ve passed at least twice. Or maybe not at all, because everything in this shithole of a town looks shuttered up and brickworked all the same. And no-one would answer, no doors would yield, everywhere seemingly abandoned under the thick taste of ashy fog. She spits once Cillian slams the doors shut (silly-billy might hear that and kill me and fuck me, we’re dead, oh god, oh god, shut up be quiet, oh god), the taste making her retch.

“Lucy?” His tone is hushed now as he comes near, one hand on the loosely-attached flashlight and walkie-talkie. “Oh god, Lu, you alright?”

She shook her head and swatted at him, still spitting gobbets of what looks like black ash onto the brown-orange tiled floor. He backs off with a sharp inhale, and probably a pinched pair of eyebrows. She wonders if he knows something about this town, and decides an interrogation would do no good -- this town is Hell, she’s sure, and it’d only work to destroy them both if she took a side against her only ally (when did he get downgraded from a friend?). She only pays half of her attention to where Cillian steps away to as she spits out the last of the black and now-inky residue. At least it’s not white. Lucy almost cries at the thought. Cry-laughter, almost, but the panic’s left her numb, left her legs aching from the running.

Cillian returns with a plastic cup full of clear water; she half-remembers the repeated fills-and-empties from what must be a nearby water fountain, and notices that the water appears clear. Thankful for at least the illusion of untouched water, she gulps it down, swishing it around her mouth and teeth and gums.

“Something happened to you down there.” An educated guess barely disguised as a question, Cillian’s tone deflated like a popped balloon. She nods. He doesn’t ask any more, even with his equally burning need to know what the fuck is going on, the same as her own. No, an interrogation would do no good, but sharing what they know might. But only after they’ve recovered some, after Lucy shakes off the tremors and the want to cry and curl up into a fetal position.

“There’s nothing in here.” Right now, he means, because it’s just a matter of time. “And I’ve got a couple things we can use to defend ourselves.” She hopes he’s still got that axe -- all metal, no wood, should stand a chance so long as he doesn’t lose it. “And some more food and water.” He sounds panicked himself -- barely, like it’s fraying the edges of his voice. “And... and...”

When she looks up, finally, she sees that he’s looking at the noticeboard in the foyer where they still are. Or, rather, staring beyond it. Like he’s lost, his mouth seeming to move, but only a clicking coming out.

Her voice is still hoarse, timid. “Cillian?”

Like a broken spell, he comes back, surprise on his face, then irritation at the twinge in his leg because he’s been standing for too long. He plonks back down on one of the foyer’s benches, kneading at the epicentre of the pain in his leg. “I was just trying to think,” he says, as if to assure her that he wasn’t sinking more than he was continuing his thought, “if I had anything else, but my brain’s coming up empty right now.” Then, “Oh, actually -- I saw a girl before.”

“A girl?”

“Yeah, like twelve, I think. Yeah, she said she was nearly thirteen.” A sudden thought seemed to cross his mind, then apparent dismissal; it worries her. “I think she was... her name was Diletta, I think. Dark brown hair, dark-- I think she had dark eyes--”

“I haven’t seen her.”

“No?” Worry is plain and concrete on his face. “She-- she saw something, said the ‘monster’ was trying to get her.”

“She might be OK.” Lucy thinks it might just be another of the town’s puppets. But she might be wrong, and being wrong might cost them both.

“Maybe.” Cillian doesn’t sound convinced.

She needs a little help off the floor, her hands and knees (don’t think about it, but do think about it) still stinging, and he still needs a moment to make sure the pain isn’t going to come back and bite him at the most inopportune moment, and both head towards the computer booths where Cillian’s held the food, water, and weapons. Bread, mostly, and snack bars he must’ve devastated a vending machine for; the all-metal axe, a wooden bat, a heavy-looking wrench, and a police officer’s pistol with additional ammo set aside. She doesn’t ask.

When he slumps down into a seat (it seems the least painful way for him to sit down, instead of ‘taking it easy’), she asks, “Did anything happen to you?” Lucy is starkly aware of her half-looming over him and the table, and takes note of the way he does not look her in the eyes, the way he hesitates then bites into a slice of bread. Avoidance. She understands, but they need to understand what’s at play in this Hell of a town.

“Cillian--”

“Please.” His voice is meek. Begging for his life.

She wonders if it was anything like hers (like William).

#mine #my writing #mw: silent hill #mw: rp related #wc: 1000 – 2000 #story: silent hill: lullaby #ch: lucy milne #ch: cillian o'malley #nsft

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magpiewritingthing · 5 years

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meeting medusa

Collection: a picture (not quite one thousand words)

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Summary: Prompt 3: A myth that turns out to be true.

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Warnings: none that I can think of

Other notes: An attempt at responding to prompts @ 52prompts.tumblr.com with OCs and canon characters that I write on my multimuse, trying to keep it to 100 words or less. :^) We'll see how that goes.

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Medusa’s stare doesn’t turn her to stone. All the men around them, the soldiers, are caught in motion forever, and Brizo’s more fascinated with them than horrified.

For someone supposedly so ugly, so hideous, the famed Gorgon looks incredibly delicate, like her soul is bared on her skin. Her sisters watch from beyond the ruins; Brizo thinks they’re just as beautiful, as delicate, as fascinating as Medusa.

“Hello,” she says, the word a breath, a whisper.

“What is your name?”

“Brizo.”

“Like the goddess?”

“Yes. But... different, a little.”

Medusa smiles, warm. “Not so different, I think, my dear Brizo.”

#mine #my writing #mw: greek mythology #mw: original #mw: rp related #wc: 100 #collection: a picture (not quite one thousand words)#ch: medusa #ch: brizo selinófoto #sft

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magpiewritingthing · 5 years

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burials

Collection: a picture (not quite one thousand words)

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Summary: Prompt 2: Your character receives a mysterious letter.

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Warnings: implied child abuse

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A letter shoved through the letterbox of their front door, Chyna’s name written in script on the front of the envelope, sealed with red wax.

She couldn’t guess, before she opened it, that it would be from her mother. Thought she might’ve died, her lust for life too strong to actually keep her. But instead here’s Anne, letting her daughter know she’s alive.

Chyna crumples the paper in her fist, her breathing suddenly harsh; she fights to control it. Setting it on fire would be admitting defeat. Instead, she folds it back and puts it in the paper recycling bin.

#mine #my writing #mw: intensity #mw: rp related #wc: 100 #collection: a picture (not quite one thousand words)#ch: chyna shepherd #sft

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magpiewritingthing · 5 years

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it’s the end of the world as we know it

Collection: a picture (not quite one thousand words)

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Summary: Prompt 1: Two people have to survive a natural disaster together.

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Warnings: natural disaster (implied/referenced)

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Gabriel was at her apartment when the weather warning hit, and just before the electrics cut out. Immediately, Eugenia thought of their parents, worried what the sudden change would mean for them, and if they’d be safe. Her brother helped her huddle in the bedroom with the cats—no window in there—and promised they’d be able to weather the storm.

“Bad joke,” she’d grumbled. She flinched at the sounds of snapping phonelines and trees, and crashing glass.

“It can’t be that bad,” he’d said, though he couldn’t know. “It’ll be fine, as always.”

The cats yowled all night, disturbed.

#mine #my writing #mw: original #mw: rp related #wc: 100 #collection: a picture (not quite one thousand words)#ch: eugenia warszawska #ch: gabriel warszawski #sft

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magpiewritingthing · 5 years

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wax statue smile

Series: bug spray and other antidotes

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Summary: Jake daydreams, and so does Eva. Wistful can mean something secretly painful.

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Warnings: illness

Other notes: au where: 1) umbrella is Not That Bad (altho still shady probs), and 2) Jake & his mum live with Albert uwu (but it's not really Albert/Eva tbh, it's friends with the benefit of combined genetic material in the form of Jake)

also this is multichaptered bc uh short things 8) per chapter, altho it's not really in any chronological order

Set in 1998, when Jake is 6, Albert is 38, and Eva is 32

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When left to his own devices, Jake’s a dreamer, watching wallpaper or the vaguely-acknowledged images on the TV screen or the bright blue sky outside of his bedroom window. Eva says he gets it from her mother’s side of the family: wistful and hoping. Sometimes, when she talks about her family in Edonia, she gets a little distant look in her eyes too, like she’s daydreaming or remembering, her smile straining like her face is being pulled taut. He’s told her, once, that she looks like a wax statue when she pulls that face, and at first he thought he’d said something mean because her eyebrows scrunched together in a down-towards-the-middle way and her mouth looked like it was ready to shout, but then she rocked back in her chair a second later laughing as loud as a chainsaw and her smile is back but not taut and her eyebrows, although he couldn’t see from that angle, were no longer in an angry scrunch. He laughed and surged close to hug.

“I thought I made you angry, Mom,” he’d said in Edonian. He liked to speak English and German with Albert, and Edonian and only a bit of English with Eva, and even that last is only when they were out in public.

“No dear,” she says, her wax statue smile coming back as she hugged him close and tight. “No, you could never make me ma--” She then split off into a coughing fit, probably brought on by her (now seemingly forced) laughing fit. Jake wriggled out of his mother’s grip, not liking the harsh staccato noise right in his ear, and patted her gently on the back, muttering, “There-there, Mom, there-there.” He’d combed his little fingers through her hair like he’d seen his father do on the nights when she was really ill, before she started her treatment.

After a glass of water, they played board games, and after seven rounds of Snakes & Ladders, it was dinner time, and Jake reminded Eva to take her medicine immediately afterwards, like the doctors said. Yeah, the doctors were from the company Mom and Dad worked at, even though Mom had to take time off for her recovery, but he knows there are doctors there like the ones in a hospital. Or else they wouldn't have the title of “doctor”. Just silly. Besides, Mom’s making a recovery: no more blood in her coughs, and she only vomits rarely now, instead of every evening when Jake’s trying to sleep, and covers his ears and tries not to cry over the terrible fear of his mother dying.

Albert comes home a bit after ten, stating a heavier workload than usual, and Eva says she’s so glad to have missed it, half-sarcastic. Jake keeps telling her that rest is good, and Eva keeps telling him, in rebuttal, that she knows that, but she likes work, gives her something to do, as much as she loves staying at home with Jake and taking it easy.

Clinical as ever -- which Jake understands to a degree, because Dad explained it as an easy way of processing things without tiptoeing needlessly around the issue -- Albert asks if Eva threw up today, or coughed blood, or if there were any other abnormalities cropping up. Eva said there was only a little coughing fit, a sore chest for a few minutes from coughing so hard, but no blood. Jake didn’t recall her mentioning a hurt chest, so he frowns for a moment, then clears up and pipes up.

“I made her laugh really hard, that’s why she was coughing.”

Dad’s eyebrows raise in that questioning-for-the-sake-of-humouring-you way. “Oh? How’d you make her laugh?”

“I said her face looked like a wax statue face sometimes.”

Jake was grinning, leaning into his palm (with elbows on the table), and poking at his remaining peas, but Albert looked... a little shocked. Only by the particular way his eyebrows are still raised, but differently, and the way his eyes widen ever so slightly. One of the looks when Jake is about to receive a telling-off -- no loud voices, just a bunch of questions about what Jake thought about this and that, always waiting on an answer he didn’t really have.

Eva jumped in, snorting. “It did make me laugh. Caught me off-guard, but it made me laugh.” Then a deliberate downing of her juice glass, then her other medication: conversation closed.

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Later, when Jake was in bed and staring at the patterns of the wallpaper because he couldn’t drift off to sleep, not even after his mother read him an entire story, he hears both of his parents out in the hallway, through the crack of his slightly-open door. Mom sounded upset, sniffling, and then he thought that he actually did upset her by calling her wistful-daydream face a wax statue face, and her being upset would make her more sick, and he started to panic and started to tug the covers off when Dad’s voice, clear as glass, cut through in Edonian:

“You miss them.”

A sniff, a noise of agreement.

“I’ll stay up with you.”

“Thank you, Albert.”

Jake flopped back down onto his bed after Dad and Mom went to stay in Mom’s room, and tried to think about who she could be missing.

#mine #my writing #mw: resident evil #wc: under 1000 #series: bug spray and other antidotes #ch: jake muller #ch: eva muller #ch: albert wesker #sft

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magpiewritingthing · 5 years

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where the girls run

Series: flowers

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Summary: With her twin missing in the Henbane, the second Junior Deputy steps foot back in Faith’s domain.

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Warnings: mentioned past child abuse & sexual assault & harassment, nongraphic violence, canon character death, one use of the c word

Other notes: not entirely sure on Faith's voice here tbh lmao 8);;;;; concrit would be welcomed in that area mostly

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Jemima remembers nothing of prayers, only the fear she used to feel when the old man used to rant and rave and the old man’s wife would only sit with indifference (or fear, she doesn’t know, and doesn’t care, anyway). Mom and Dad are agnostic, and raised her and Jason that way, instilling a sense of polite scepticism; at the very least, they were polite with Jerome and Joseph equally -- before they’d left to see Mom’s sister in Indiana for the week. Thinking of them now, as she steps a booted foot into the Henbane River, she hopes they’re still there, and didn’t return early to this hellhole.

The sickly-sweet stench of the Bliss irritates her nose. She sneezes, and does her best to wipe her nose, keeping her eyes beady. Hallucinations are likely, which she knows well, Solomon’s image outlined with hazy and glittering green imprinted on her brain for the foreseeable future, as long as her memory never starts to deteriorate. A baby’s cry hurts worse, of course.

She knows that Jason came here not long after returning from the Mountains, blood having formed patterns on his shirt. The Resistance had trusted him to take care of Faith, after having dispatched the Whitetail region of Jacob (despite the deaths of several Whitetail Militia, and especially their leader, Eli Palmer, staining his shirt and his hands just as much), and Jemima had to focus on John, and getting Hudson out of that rathole bunker. Jemima had finished with John (and would’ve taken the Baptist’s head -- for herself, for Mary May, for Nick, for Kim, for Carmina, for Joey, for the entirety of Holland Valley, for her brother, and God, if there is a God, she’d swear by that cunt’s hypothetical existence that she would’ve taken Jacob’s head, too, if Jason hadn’t told her to stay far away from the mountains), and had immediately set off in search of her brother who no-one had heard from in two days. Complete radio silence conjured up nightmares of Jason as an Angel, and more of him shooting himself in the head.

A Bliss bullet hits her in the leg. Natch!

Faith scares her. Joseph does too, in a way, with his hold and influence, a human epicentre of doom and disaster. John -- oh, John enraged her more than she could be scared of him, but she was, and was scared of Jacob although she never met him. The potential of their power (those that were alive) was something that gave her pause, made her think about wanting and wishing to turn back, redo this arrest business, get the National Guard involved, for fuck’s sake -- but one has to be brave, be very brave, to fight evil things. Oh yes, like a knight in shining armour fights a fearsome dragon. Of course, of course, Jemima is that exact kinda knight, isn’t she? Delusions of grandeur! It was a toss-up between PRIDE or WRATH on her chest -- the latter won out. At least later, if she survives long enough, she can turn it into something cool. Easier to minimise these horrible things rather than to face them with real bravery, she finds.

“Hello, Jemima.”

“Hey, Faith. Girl time?” Just two young women hangin’ out in a bunker, ya know.

“Sure! That’s why you came back, right?”

She doesn’t like the way that’s phrased, but then again, Faith scares her the most out of the Seeds. Ah, your would-be sister. She needs to stop thinking like that, in wistful would-bes and coulda-beens, but it’s difficult with the Bliss starting to take a real hold. The after-effects, the way it still lingers after the initial shot.

“I guess.” Playing along, and slurring just a touch. She’d come here for that? Or to kill Faith? And upset Joseph some more? If he even gives a flying shit about Faith, and not just what she means to the Project. But then the same might come into question about his brothers. Her mind’s going to fast to pin these thoughts down and pump them full of that sweet-ass coherence juice, though. Shame. If she weren’t drugged up to the eyeballs, and drowning under it still with every minute passing, she’d probably be able to outline a neat little essay-style thing about it all. Arguments and counter-arguments and all.

Faith seems to be enjoying this, of course, kicking her legs off the desk. Yeah, of course she’s the kinda girl to sit on desks. Jemima would to, if she weren’t tied to a rather sturdy chair (without wheels!) and starting to slouch in it. Does this Bliss shit just jellify your bones? The fuck?

The sister laughs. Faith (or Rachel?) or Jemima or both (all three), it’s not immediately clear, but Jemima is smiling because she heard it and it sounded good. “Did I say that out loud?” she asks.

“Yes, you did. And you should know already,” Faith says, slipping off the desk and booping Jemima on the nose, which is kinda annoying because now it feels like she has to rub it but she can’t because she’s tied up and wow! that's annoying! But Faith keeps talking, like her brothers: “It doesn’t turn your bones to jelly, but it can do that to your mind if there’s too much.” Angels. Ah. For a moment, she’d forgotten about the real horror of what can happen, having been lost in a good ol’ laugh with Funny Faith.

“Oh yeah,” she says quietly, then asks, suddenly panicking as a spark of memory stabs through green fog: “Where’s Jason? And Sheriff Whitehorse?”

And now Faith looks disappointed. It makes Jemima want to shrink into a ball. Reminding Faith about Whitehorse brings up what he’d said before, and what everyone else had regurgitated before him: that Faith was a liar and a manipulator and nothing she said could be trusted. Tracey, she thinks, is the only person closest to the truth about Faith, but even then, that was more about Rachel Jessop from before. A manipulator and a liar -- Jemima believes that, but it can’t be about everything. Not when she knows about that kinda truth.

Not personally. Or at least, not close enough to count it as such. Or is it? If it were anyone else who's heartrate spiked up when someone had presumed enough familiarity or boldness or confidence to not face consequences of any kind, Jemima would argue so. A hand on the hip -- what is that? Just flirting. It’s only ever “just flirting”. It’s the only most-dangerous thing anyone had dared try with her. College: what circle of Hell is that? Jemima counts herself lucky that she could choose, that she chose Solomon. Sweetest Solomon, too good for her, too kind, too understanding, and he would’ve been all that still if she’d chosen the other choice. She might’ve still had him.

“They’re elsewhere.” Short answer, and she worries more about her twin than about her boss (a girl is a liar only, and a girl is dispensable, it’s only trouble not worth getting into, only lies and manipulation and attention-seeking from a little girl with glaring bruises in a nice house and a nice town and a nice fucking county), but Faith’s recovered with a smile that Jemima will pretend she’s not questioning. “I heard you were coming to see me,” her voice is sickly-sweet, the sound translation of the smell of Bliss, “so I made sure they weren’t in the way so we could have our little girl talk in peace. Boys, you know?” Hands clasp on the arms of the wooden chair, and the stench of Bliss is so strong this close-up it makes Jemima’s eyes water, and she turns her face away to avoid looking the other girl (woman, she’s an adult woman now, she’s older than you for fuck’s sake, barely but still) in the eye. “They take up your time, they waste your time, they want to make your time all. about. them.”

Is this Faith? She is so angry. It’s not very Faith-like to be angry, is it? Not so viscerally.

“They do,” Jemima agrees, finally meeting Faith’s eye again, knowing and remembering several who fit the bill from school and college. Some of the guys at the station, too, come to think of it. Then she blurts out, “I believe you.” It seemed important to say, because Faith knows what everyone else is saying, and has said, and will continue to say about her, from way back then until the day she dies. Faith is not blind nor deaf to this.

It makes Faith lean back, looking more like Rachel might when faced with someone taking her side for once (Tracey did, Tracey tried, you must remember this, you are not unique to knowing Rachel and Faith), before it washes away again under a plaster smile, pearly teeth on display. “I know you do,” sounds like I knew you would, and it sounds like relief, but not quite trust. Forehead-to-forehead, she repeats, “I know you do.” Jemima closes her eyes then, leaning into this physical contact that Faith's allowing, because Faith might need this, something soft even if momentary.

Peace is spoiled by a baby’s crying, and Jemima whips her head away, this way and that, raw panic strangling her as she pulls and rattles at the rope that’s tight around her arms and torso. “Where is she?” she shouts, starting to cry and thrash in her chair.

Faith looks at her with odd fascination, like watching an insect. Then there’s more noise outside -- gunfire -- and Jemima howls because she can’t find her, and then Faith is gone yet again, and Jemima is left with Rhoda’s screeching cries in her ears, and fear for Jason's safety.

---

Jason couldn’t bring himself to kill again, not even now when he was still wearing the same clothes unwashed. Not even a smart remark would seem to snap him out of his seemingly lasting stupor. It’s the shock, she tells herself. So it’s Jemima who takes to drowning instead. She’s not sure it’s worked, because when she turns to look back at the body, it’s disappeared. She has an hysterical thought: maybe Faith was never real.

She decides it doesn’t matter, since Joseph releases two barrels full of Bliss in front of the church.

#mine #my writing #mw: far cry 5 #mw: rp related #wc: 1000 – 2000 #series: flowers #ch: jemima flowers #ch: faith seed #sft #/ again;#/ it's not a series yet but yeet lmao

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magpiewritingthing · 5 years

Text

i did not believe in ghosts until i saw my own body

Series: steve is the ghost au

Summary: Silence falls over everything in the House.

Warnings: death, mention of mental illness, ableist language, body horror maybe ( because of the black mold? jic )

Other notes: reposted from my (now archived) rp blog aghostisawish; apologies to my RP partners who read it, and apologies to the Discord chat; title from Topaz Winter’s “battlefield”, from her book poems for the sound of the sky before thunder

Leigh wasn’t answering his calls, always letting them go to voicemail instead, probably deleting them as soon as she heard the first note of Steve’s voice. He understands that. A plethora of wishes, all sprouted and flourished and aged from the same decades-old seed, circle in his head until he’s tired and headachey and heads back to his hotel room.

All he wants to do is sleep all his fuck-ups away. His argument, if it could be called that, with Nell; lying to Leigh; the book; the night Luke and Joey came to his house on a day pass.

And there’s the… illness that’s flaring up. Just a flare-up; it’s not the first time he’s seen his mother, however distorted or silhouetted or hazy or— she was never clear anymore. She’s never been clear since — since when? Since before the House? But no, that was unfair, and it was the mold that did her in. That made her— made her die. Smashed the vanity mirror with the mold he painted over but he didn’t know, did he, he didn’t know and thought it was anything but a genuine threat—

He huffs into his pillow, his head turned to the side with one eye open, watching the red haze of his mother in the corner. Why is she in red? Does the mind put together symbols when nothing makes sense? The Red Room becomes a red mother. Sounds like a load of horseshit: the mind is nonsense and any “meaning” is straw-grabbing.

He needs real sleep, to recharge and be able to think instead of drowning in guilt and dread. Because Leigh will leave him, and it’d be better for her to do that, all the years he’s made her waste with him when he couldn’t give what they both wanted. Just as well, because this is a sign of the future and the future will repeat or rhyme with the past and he can’t put that on his kids, his never-to-be-kids. Even if he’d had the chance, even if he tried to avoid repetition he would’ve done it anyway.

Steve falls asleep against his own body’s alarm: his red mother is coming closer.

Spluttering awake at midnight, Steve sees that the lights are off like someone had flicked the switch for him. He knew they were on when he’d collapsed on the bed but now they weren’t so he must’ve, at some point during the evening, gotten up and done that himself, or one of the cleaning staff saw him and turned the light out. Do they do that? Did he turn it off? Was he so out of it that he doesn’t remember? Probably, yes, he’s often on autopilot these days. These days?

There’s a dip in the bed so real he forgets his scepticism. A hand in his hair and a little hum of a tune he can’t quite remember. Well-kept nails scraping just so against his scalp that makes his skin turn to goosebumps.

When he dares to turn, he doesn’t need the light when the moonlight from out his hotel window shines in just so and illuminates the black mold that’s riddled his mother’s face.

“Stevie, my love,”

his mother says, her mouth moving abnormally like her jaw is fractured, as she tightens her grip on his hair like a vice,

“come home.”

A cry and wrenching free and he tumbles out of bed, smacking his head against the bedside table, landing hard on bristly blue-green carpet.

The lights are on now. There are tears in Stevie’s eyes and he can’t tell if it’s from grief or fear or dread or the pain of all-too-real fingers that had threatened to rip his scalp off if he did not come home.

He’s not going to die. That’s not his plan, no, he just needs to see the House and understand. Confronting the past and the House, for it is only a house, just a building of neat bricks and walls, would do him some good. Not as much good as, say, seeing a doctor and seeking treatment, but it’ll do for now until he does.

But what is there to understand? Unsure of his own reasoning but gunning for it anyway.

The chain is easy to do away with and he should probably find a proper way of keeping this place closed ( because he’s not calling Dad to do it, no way — all the way in fucking Florida? no ). The House, once he’s out of the car, doesn’t look any different since that last night, when Dad had said that’s not your mother. If Dad saw him now, would he say that’s not my son? No relatives if you’re fucking crazy— if you’re ill.

What do you need to see, Stevie?

Like the lights, he doesn’t remember the short trek over the overgrowth of the garden to the door, or opening it up ( no locks on that, either ), just autopiloted movement and yeah, he should see a doctor at some point even if autopilot mode is normal for normal people. Just nothing but the dark House and it’s shadows.

Then there’s a whisper of his name — Stevie, my love, come home — and he turns and then he turns again and there’s light. The foyer is lit like it used to be before bedtime and it shouldn’t be because the electricity was cut off ( was it? Dad wouldn’t waste that kind of money on this place ) but it’s all on anyway.

More whispering, conspiratorial and familiar and young, and he follows the sounds, sticking to the walls while his heart thunders against his ribcage, while his mind screams to run anywhere but here, anywhere but here, anywhere but here, Stevie, what were you thinking! But he has to see it through. He has to see it through.

They’re all at the dinner table, crowded round, all casual and cosy and comfortable that it makes Steve’s heart ache. Leigh, his beautiful, wonderful wife sees him first and beams at him like she hasn’t done since sometime before the truth spilled out of him. She’s the first to collect him in her arms, and he’s missed her so much, been wanting to fix this rift he’d put between them and made a chasm, so he wraps around her just the same, his breath coming in short staccato gasps as she soothes him. God, but he doesn’t deserve it. He doesn’t deserve it when his siblings and his dad gather around him, enveloping him in warmth he doesn’t deserve.

It’s not real! It’s not real! It’s not REAL!

But they’re so warm. And they’re telling him they understand – about the book, about the money, about his struggling with distinguishing reality from a wish. This last — this last thing they tell him, that Nellie tells him, breaks him, breath becoming spluttered cries as his legs threaten to give out beneath him. Because he has been fearing the worst, that his mind was going ( and it must be, because he’s here and they shouldn’t be and it doesn’t make any sense— ), and he’d— he’d wanted it fixed, not to burden his family but hearing it being acknowledged, especially by his own younger siblings who had suffered more than him—

“It’s not a competition, Stevie, you know that,” Nellie says.

—it’s not something he wants to admit to wanting.

“We love you, Steven. We never stopped loving you.”

“We’re taking the party upstairs,” Shirley says, nudging him in the side like when she used to when they were in college. Kevin is already herding the kids up the shaky-looking metal steps of the spiral steps, followed by Luke and Theo and Dad and Leigh. Nell is hanging back with Arthur, waiting to see if Steve will follow them up. He’s wary, of course he’s wary, look at the steps—

“OK,” he says, trusting them when he shouldn’t. He follows them — Shirley, Arthur, Nellie, him.

His phone rings at the top step, showing the time to be three minutes past midnight. Wow, that’s past the kids’ bedtime. The contact’s name is Nell. He blinks, rubs his eyes, because that can’t be right ( but it is ), because Nellie’s just in front of him — except they’ve all disappeared, and what was lit by wall lights is now dark and dusty and cold. His breath shudders as he answers the phone: “Nellie?”

“Steve—” She sounds just as out of breath.

“Nellie, is that you? Where are you?” He grips the railing, keeping his eye on the archway leading into the deeper dark, fearing what he knew was coming.

“It—yes, I’m at home—? Steve, I know— I know it’s late—”

“I love you Nellie, you know that?” He has to let her know, and he only looks to the railing for a second, glancing to gauge how far a way from the stair case he is now, only a second—

“Steve—” Nell tries to get a word in edgeways just as Mom appears in front of him, her hand gently gripping his jaw to make him look at her, mold and milky eyes and all. If Nellie says anything else, he doesn’t hear it, only his mother’s words.

“Welcome home, my love.”

He’s no longer gripping the railing, or his phone: the phone drops to the floor of the balcony, clattering, clattering to the floor below, shattering and distorting the connection the House allows for this moment, and his mother pushes him backwards. The last thing he hears is the fractured and frantic, “Steve! Steve are you there—?” from the shattered phone as his head hits the floor below.

Silence falls over everything in the House.

#mine #my writing #mw: the haunting of hill house #mw: rp related #wc: 1000 – 2000 #series: steve is the ghost au #ch: steve crain #ch: olivia crain #ch: nell crain #ch: leigh crain #sft #/ it's not a series yet but yeet lmao #/ bit more liberal with the character tags bc i do what i want

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magpiewritingthing · 5 years

Text

we could’ve made worse mistakes ( you might imagine we did )

Series: leigh crain has powers au

Summary: Steven has ideas about the future. Children factor into it. They do. Truly.

He just didn't think it'd be this early on in his life.

Warnings: mental health issues, suicide, implied child abuse/neglect, death, one ( 1 ) use of the C slur, ableism, menstruation mention, mention of skipped meals & weight talk in the beginning

Other notes: for the discord chat (especially charlie bc ur ocs are Canon Now to me) and also myself because i have headcanons for Leigh; might rewrite the reveal-to-Shirley scene because she does seem wildly... not into it, idk

Two months have passed since they’d first slept together, two months since and she’s not seen blood. It might not mean anything, just stress over this semester’s workload, and cranky from skipping meals from time to time (not often! maybe she should snack more, at least, because she and Steve and Shirley have a little rota system of sorts so that could work out, right?), and... it doesn/t mean she’s pregnant, necessarily. They’d been careful -- birth control, protection, the works. Maybe it’s just her body being a little wonky even though she’s not underweight (not severely enough, or at all, not really), and she doesn’t feel stressed. Better than being at home. “Home”. An aunt and uncle and cousin do not make a home.

Leigh checks the test again. Checks the box to make sure she’s reading it correctly. Beside her, Steve looks them over as well, and her stomach clenches when he hisses through his teeth; she pulls her knees up to her chest when his brow wrinkles into a frown. A small noise (fear) climbs out of her mouth when Steve stays silent.

“I’m sorry.”

“Hey.” No judgement in his voice; an arm wraps around her shoulders, pressing them both together even tighter than thigh-to-thigh on the bathroom floor of their shared apartment. “It’s not your fault. It’s not...” She hears the smack of his lips as he struggles to find something comforting to say, something that sounds natural and not just scrambling to keep Leigh as calm as possible. It doesn’t seem possible right now, or even in the future; still too young for children, still too Markey for this new life, still too tied to Victor and lightning and ghosts for a real life. “We’re both in this, together, no matter what happens. If we keep it, or if we do something about it, or if... we give it up.” Pressing a kiss against her temple, stroking her hair, he says, “I don’t think I’d want to give it up if... if we don’t do something about it.”

It, it, it. So sure “it” is not a “them”. Funny how one’s genetics can mess with stuff like that. Twins, nature control, ghosts. She’s surprised there isn’t a spot of necromancy in there, either.

She has to squash it all down and pray her children (more than one, she can feel it like the night when Victor left, the traitorous shitstain) will not be infected.

Leigh doesn’t dare ask Steve. She knows what he’s told her.

It’s been a month since the test proved positive. They haven’t made any more to do something about it (them); they’ve talked about it (them), and safety nets.

“So.”

“... Yeah.”

“We’re keeping it?” He sounds excited about it. Barely, but the undercurrent is there in his voice, the shine in his eyes, the hopeful clasp of his hands around hers. The way his eyes keep flickering to her barely-there bump. He fucking should be, too -- she is.

“Yeah.” She laughs, exhaling long-held breath. “Yeah.”

Shirley is less than impressed when Leigh breaks the news over a later dinner. It starts off as a joke, “Oh I’m eating for two,” when Leigh really means three as she scarfs down a bigger helping of food. Shirley, looking between her now wide-eyed brother, looking as though he’d been caught out and wasn’t really trying to keep it a secret, and Leigh, looking like the cat with the canary and the cream.

“What the fuck?”

Leigh’s cheeky mood dips, sours. “Don’t be like that.”

“No, are you seriously--?”

Steve tries to placate his sister, reaching for her hand. “Shirl--”

“No!” Shirl whips away, hands to herself. It’s a miracle she doesn’t leave the table, calling them both careless idiots. “What’re you thinking? You can’t be having kids now!”

“Shirl.” He tries again, standing his ground; he knows where Shirl’s coming from, he does, because he’d react the same if she was in the same position. “Me and Leigh have talked about it, and we’ve decided to keep it.”

“Have you?” The question's a sharp wheeze. “Have you considered--”

“Yes, Shirl! We’ve talked about how we’re gonna be able to support our kid, with or without our family’s help.”

Leigh’s thankful there’s no mention of her own family, although she’s not sure if Shirl’s caught on yet. She hopes not.

“Oh Jesus, Stevie--” She's pressing the ball of her palms into her eyes, like the picture in front of her might change and this conversation will cease to be real, as though a the thing (the baby-to-be) in Leigh’s belly will simply disappear. “You’re actually serious about this?”

“Yes.” Joint answer. Shirley just shakes her head, but says no more about it.

When summer break rolls around, Leigh’s stomach is rounder (four months into it now) and she’s debating on whether to beg to go with Steve and Shirl (might as well meet her kids’ other aunts and uncle and great-aunt, right?), or whether to suffer under the eyes of her uncle and cousin and the fretting hands of her aunt. At least Cathleen means well. It’s not enough.

The night before leaving, before her ultimate decision, Victor slips into her dreams again. She’s tried so hard to keep him out while wishing he’d stayed and it’s only worked to make them both upset.

“This wouldn't have happened if you hadn’t killed yourself,” she says, more sulky than all the other times she’s told him this same thing. Her beloved brother, her idol, her hero, her sun-in-the-sky, her do-no-wrong posterboy, her motherfucking protector from all things wrong and evil in this world -- made her watch as he killed himself with that triangle of lightning.

Don’t look away, Leigh. Don’t look away. Don’t look away. Eyes on me. Eyes on me. Eyes on me, Leigh.

“I know,” he says, ever-regretful as all the times before. As much as she wants to hurt him (but God, no, not really, no no no), she knows how sorry he is, how much he regrets it. How he regretted it at the time, at the terrifying need to make something stop but having no other option he could see--

He lays beside her in the dewy nighttime grass as the eternal nighttime sky of their shared world rolls overhead, stars speeding past their eyes; the trees circle them widely, like nature’s earthly crown. Victor rolls over to his side, grasping her forearm in his hand. “You can’t go back there. You know that; if you want these kids to see the world, you won't go back to those assholes.” She shouldn’t be surprised that he knows about them since he’s never wholly left since that night, but it still makes her skin crawl. (Why didn’t he do something about it, as she knew he did with so many other things? With the playground bullies? With the teachers? Did he fear her falling into the foster system? What’s to fear now?)

Leigh's throat clogs; everything is thick with tears. “I know.”

“It’ll kill them. It’ll kill you.”

She’s not sure whether if it’ll merely hurt her, or if she’ll join him here. She doesn’t ask for clarification.

Steven, the oldest brother, the most responsible of the Crain siblings, returns home with Shirley and his pregnant girlfriend. His girlfriend of a year and a half, who came home for a couple of weekends over that time, who chimed in on calls home, who is known by name and middle name and surname and age and hobbies and prospective career. Theo doesn’t shake her hand, instead going in for a hug (and if Theo were to be asked, and if she were to answer honestly, she’d confess that she felt that beat of preternatural in Leigh's blood), and Leigh is relieved that she’s got at least three out of six on her side. The twins hug her, too, before they pay attention to their own siblings. Janet is much the same. A home run; six outta six. Not bad, kiddo, not bad.

Later, during a quiet game after dinner, Leigh offers to clean up with Janet, insisting on it despite everyone saying she should rest. C’mon, she's only four months along, give over.

“Have you told your parents you're not going home?” Janet asks. It’s an innocent presumption, but the weight of everything -- of her brother’s death, of her father’s death, of her mother’s unravelled mind, of her remaining family’s pewter-cold regard -- is suddenly crushing her shoulders. She takes a chair out from under the table and slumps down, leaning against the back of it. Her hands are clammy.

“Sweetheart?” Janet's hand curls around her shoulder, and this tenderness, this genuine care that’s freely given to her, shatters that last wall of preservation: she weeps. Collected into Janet’s arms, she weeps harder, howling into her shoulder, snot dribbling freely as she cries aloud how her father is dead and her mother let herself lose her mind because why stay sane for her only daughter and only surviving family? And it was all Victor’s fault that she was stuck with her stupid frail aunt and boar of an uncle and cunting bitch of a cousin and she hated them all and that's why she’s here instead because the babies would die and she would die and it’d be the end of her because all the love she’d had had been swept away when she was only eight years old.

Janet tells her she can stay. She’s home.

The twins, Diane and Michael, are born on a Monday. Twenty-third of October. Janet has promised to look after them along with Theo, Luke, and Nellie. It’s almost too good to be true, but it’s perhaps the one thing that’s worked out for Leigh and Steven so far.

When winter break swings around, Steven proposes to Leigh, down on one knee in their shitty green-carpeted living space, short fibres rough on his knee and shin. They’re both still sleepy from the late night and late rising, and they’ve only talked about this since August, but of course Leigh says yes.

It’s all too good to be a fairy tale.

Two years later, they’re on their honeymoon, and Leigh is positively pregnant again. Nine months later, Robin and Eleanor, “Nora”, are born, and it’s still too good.

Fifteen years later, Nellie’s dead. Steven sees her in his hotel room.

At home, his children see her too.

#mine #my writing #mw: the haunting of hill house #mw: rp related #wc: 1000 – 2000 #series: leigh crain has powers au #ch: leigh crain #ch: steve crain #sft #/ it's not a series yet but yeet lmao #/ also only tagging leigh & steve bc it's About Them

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magpiewritingthing · 5 years

Text

danny get your gun (movement, velocity, impact)

Series: got yours, got you, got mine, got me

Summary: After talking with Anne, Dan recalls his own childhood. Or at least a particularly stark event.

Warnings: past child & domestic abuse, death (both semi-graphic in flashback/nightmare scene), child disappearance, child death mention/implied

Other notes: please beware the warnings; there’s a later part in the original that may come across as ‘so-and-so had it worse’ when what I meant was that the experiences were different, and has been edited here for that

Something he learned in group therapy: talking about one’s own experiences can help open a door for someone else to talk about their own experiences, or upsets them, or both. Dan knows that from all possible angles. And now that Anne has told him what she will, and his small note-under-the-door confession having slipped out of his mouth, he can't stop thinking about it.

He hardly ever speaks to Mom anymore. And he has no idea where Dolly is these days. Diane was officially dead, has been for twenty-seven years.

Christ, he thinks, running one hand through his hair while his other arm is wrapped around Anne, who looks as small as anything all bunched up against him, it’s been that fucking long.

There was still no body in the coffin six feet underground.

When he finally falls asleep, it’s near to three o’clock in the morning. Mom’s voice seems to whisper, The witching hour, so giddily in his mind’s ear, like she used to when he was a kid and she’d tell her children stories, all horrible in some way but endlessly fascinating. He can hardly recall them now, not even a strand.

It’s long past the witching hour when he starts to remember. Mom on the kitchen floor howling like a dead bog creature. Dad, above and snarling for blood, knife in his hand, hatchet in his hand, some sort of fucking blade that keeps shapeshifting in his hand. Sisters in a cage, forced to watch. The cage part wasn't entirely truthful, but there was a basement that locked from the outside; it was always damp, and musty, and cold even in summer. And Diane still looked as young as she did when she disappeared. Sometimes younger. Sometimes much, much younger.

And Dan? Danny-boy? Danny-boy’s a statue. There’s a gun right there, Danny-boy, a pistol, a shotgun, a rifle, whatever tickles your pickle, little man, just go for it!

His own act of violence has always been surprising, and then upsetting, dismaying, horrifying. Daddy’s little murderer becomes a surgeon to save so many lives but all of Daddy’s misty chest-blood just won’t fucking wash off, will it?

Mom always screams, afterwards. Not for Dan, but for her husband. Dolly and Diane scream, too. Scream at Danny. Danny the Daddy-murderer.

It was self-defence. Dad had turned around and would’ve struck Dan with a deadly blow with the chef’s knife if Dan hadn’t fired the pistol at him first. First, second, third. Fourth, fifth, and sixth were all empties.

Mom had cried, but out of relief. Dolly was still yelling in the basement. Dad had the key on him. The neighbours called the cops. Dan was never guilty.

Breakfast in the morning sees Dan rubbing at tired, itchy eyes, and Anne wakes after he does. Unusual: Anne’s the early riser out of anyone, always has been. He wonders, briefly, guiltily, if it was just a natural habit, or home-borne. House-borne. He rubs his eyes again and smiles at her. “Mornin’.”

“Morning.” Hesitation at the end, a precursor to a sensitive question. “Bad dream last night?” The way she asks sounds as if she wants to apologise when she has nothing to apologise for. Dan curls his hand with hers, just as the night before.

“Yeah, but it’s not your fault.”

She doesn’t look convinced.

“C’mon, I’ve made breakfast.”

Still not convinced, but she sits down. Before she takes a bite, he confesses. “I shot my dad when I was fifteen.” It’s considerably more direct, more blunt than Anne last night, leaving little to the imagination. Anne says, “He deserved it.”

“Yes.”

She squeezes his hand a little tightly. “He died?”

“Yes.” He can’t meet her eyes; satisfied in the moment that Dad was dead, Dad was over, but every moment after was an aching reminder that anyone can be capable of anything, and Dan -- Dan is better than that. He deserved it. The phrase both does and doesn’t make him feel better, make him feel sick. Anne’s never had something to final and halting. And thank God -- he wouldn’t wish that cold knowledge on anyone, least of all Anne. She squeezes his hand. He laughs, nerves straining him, and says, “Breakfast is getting cold.”

Breakfast is quiet. When Anne leaves for work at the office, she leaves with a kiss and a tight hug. “Takes two to tango.” Thank you for trusting me.

If anything else aches besides the knowledge of what he’s capable of, it’s the warm, pleasant and welcome ache of love for Anne. There’s been nothing else like it.

#mine #my writing #mw: venom #wc: under 1000 #series: got yours; got you; got mine; got me #ch: dan lewis #ch: anne weying #sft

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magpiewritingthing · 5 years

Text

wouldst thou

Series: got yours, got you, got mine, got me

Summary: wouldst thou like the taste of butter? a pretty dress? wouldst thou like to live deliciously? wouldst thou like to see the world? dost thou see a book before thee? remove thy shift. i will guide thy hand.

Dan and Anne watch a movie. Anne draws comparisons. Dan is there. He gets it, kinda.

Warnings: past child abuse

Other notes: i watched the witch (2015) on halloween last year and i have DRAMATIC headcanons about anne that i’m still trying to develop

The TV stand is mostly ornamental. So’s the TV. And the DVD and Blu-ray collection. If Netflix had a physical form outside of the screen, that would be mostly ornamental, too. Anne’s just not much of a sit-down-and-watch person. Reading she can do, and work is a necessity. “Praise be to the capitalism machine,” she’s snarked more than once. Eddie laughed at that. And now Dan does.

Eddie still laughs at things. Genuine laughter, that is. He’d laughed on the phone earlier.

Anyway. Dan suggested movie night. Yes, screens strain the eyes, and yes, he’s a medical professional so yes, he should know better than to indulge in an abundance of all that. Not that he’s constantly staring into the same kinda screens, mind you--

“I get it, alright.” Anne snorts, raising her arms in surrender and almost tips her wine on the sofa. That'd be hell to scrub out. White wine might work, but she doesn’t want the smell of fermented grapes to linger where she sits, thanks. “Just sit down.”

Besides, she’s had her eye on this movie for a while. Only heard of it, and it’s difficult not to know of at least the outline by now (not to mention the Wikipedia article -- sue her, she reads lifeless outlines before watching the brushstrokes in motion sometimes). And Dan had mentioned on their first date that he’s a “bit of a fan” of horror movies. All sorts, even the shitty ones. That’d been one immediate tick in the “potential long-term partner” column.

(It’s been eight months since things ended with Eddie. It’s been four months since she started seeing Dan. It takes eighteen months for the high of a romantic relationship to plateau. What happens then? She’s a little worried. Maybe it’s worry over nothing.)

Dan puts the movie on and snuggles up close. Anne leans into him.

“So...?”

“... I liked it. It was... scary.”

“Oh yeah--”

“Uncomfortable.”

“Definitely.”

“... I didn't like Katherine.” Anne gulps down the last of her wine, which is the last of the bottle, and replaces the glass on the coffee table. She contemplates saying more. About why, and how. Thomasin is a completely uncomfortable familiarity, like a physical manifestation of teenage wishfulness. Childhood, too. Adulthood, too. But definitely her more volatile period of youth, when she was finding her stance, her gait, testing her strength, juggling her school time and her free time and her sister and her mother and her wishful, fantastical thinking. Yes, she could go into all that. Potentially scare Dan off, too. Even if he never rises to bait, never makes accusations, rolls with the fact that Venom is still around. Dan is practically perfect.

“Yeah, I didn’t like her either.” He squints. “I mean, I guess I get why she turned on her daughter in the end--”

“Mm.” Is it petulant to interrupt? She wishes she had more wine. Is there more in the fridge? “I think that was just the inevitable result.”

“What? Everyone but her dying?”

“No." She snuggles closer to Dan, feet drawn up on the sofa. Her body sighs, pressing against firm warmth. Present. Loving. She’s a little dizzy-headed, like the whole darn thing might just roll off. “That Katherine turned on her.”

“Oh.”

“She never liked Thomasin.”

“Oh... right, I see.”

She hopes not. She hopes he doesn’t. Dan threads his hand, his fingers with hers. Good thing about Dan’s hands: they’re never clammy, nor sweaty, and his nails are never too long nor too short. He's all sorts of Just Right. She hums quietly when he kisses her temple. Maybe he’s reading into things. Maybe not. Maybe too well. Maybe too wrong. She’s not quite sure which one she’d prefer, if she tells him.

Anne does tell Dan, five minutes later, after an entire glass of water to clear her head some.

“My mother was a... Katherine.”

For once, Dan is on the verge of unreadable, his face partially obscured by the blue outside and shadows inside. Neither of them have turned the bedroom light on. She feels safer without it on. She feels naked with all her clothes, with her tip-of-the-iceberg honesty, the weight of pre-college-escape lurking beneath.

Dan holds her hand. She wants a different kind of comfort. Something different, something fantastical, something that erases it all and scrubs her clean of it. It’ll never happen, but she wants it all the same. Dan still holds her hand, rubbing circles with his thumb. That’s nice, at least. He’s all sorts of Just Right. She squeezes his hand; he can let go. He doesn’t.

“Thanks.”

“It's not a problem. You can tell me anything.”

A bitter part of her, her teenage self that could’ve been Thomasin who signed away her name to the Devil himself and killed her mother with no real remorse, wants to snap that words are just words and there is no healing. But she knows Dan too well by now. Well enough. Words are portals, sometimes. Invitations. You can tell me anything means only if you want to.

“And I... kinda get it. What you mean.”

And that -- his confession -- means more to her than her bitterness. She squeezes his hand again. You can tell me anything, but only if you want to.

#mine #my writing #mw: venom #wc: under 1000 #series: got yours; got you; got mine; got me #ch: anne weying #ch: dan lewis #sft

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magpiewritingthing · 5 years

Text

your (first) final days on shit orb number one

Series: the barbershop quartet of bullshit

Summary: Starvation. Oxygen. Fire.

Pretty pathetic ways to die, really.

Warnings: character death (but then -- undeath!), suicidal thoughts

Other notes: giftfic for hauntedjaeger (saellys) on ao3, with a nod to their version of Blue & Dora surviving

Blue barely probed at Isaac's memories, merely skimming them, and watching Carlton Drake beyond the glass. A brief flick-through, then the hunger set in deep, and dire. Frightening. They’ve never been locked up before. They’ve been hungry, but not so deeply nor so insatiably, and it is so frightening. That is something they haven’t felt in so long, either. Apathy, hunger, joy (or, as these people have a name for it, schadenfreude), exasperation, but not fear. Not in so long. Not--

Isaac is gobbled up before Blue can control themselves. Launching at the glass, at Carlton Drake, is all they can do.

“Bring in the next subject.”

Fuck Venom. And Riot. Both idiots.

Fear might be a long-unfelt feeling, but grief is entirely new. When Yellow gasps and chokes and then dies, Blue nudges the current body to turn over, turn away, and lurk beneath the body’s heart. If only they could sleep.

Someone else comes in. Not a guard, but someone else who shouldn’t be here. A flash of something white illuminates the glass cage.

Then there’s noise, slamming at the glass. High noise, yelling. Woman and man, they think. Then glass smashing.

Venom is out. They know without looking.

If Yellow were still alive, Blue might’ve bothered too move the body to action, to beg for an out.

The body is dying. Surely, these dumb bastards would’ve figured it out by now, what it is that they need to survive. Phenethylamine! C’mon, people, use your fuckin’ nerdy little scientist heads to figure this shit out!

Then that doctor is frog-marched in, arms squeezed by two guards -- Treece and the other one -- and she says, “I’m sorry.”

Yes, she’s next.

Unlike every other person in that shithole, Dora Skirth isn’t a raging fucking moron. She knows how appeal to survival. Play dead. Play possum. And honestly? She is refreshing. Very interesting. Her mind is... more exquisite. Refreshing. Invigorating--

Where the fuck are all these words coming from? Yes, Dora Skirth is smart, and an enjoyable host because of that, enough that Blue is considering something of a long-term--

Oh fuck, they sound like Venom. “Long-term”, the fuck.

But staying, at least for a while, would be pragmatic. Sensible.

(When Dora climbs up to her home, and sees her sister and children, Blue feels that, too.)

(Dora is so, so smart. Much more so than everyone else Blue has ever known.)

After Drake's death, and between gobbling up one corruption incarnated as a rich white man and the next, Blue has time to consider what they’re going to do next. Whether to stay, or whether to go. The most immediate problem is finding someone else who would be so willing to be their host. Counter-question: why would they leave when they have it so good with Dora? A steady supply of chocolate, pigeon heads, the rich and powerful, and the occasional potato (jacket potatoes have become a fast favourite). And a growing... affection. Fast-growing, like a fungal infection. Venom-like. And, well, doesn’t that just irritate them to no end, to be constantly reminded of Venom because of this association of affection.

Well, there’s learning these human things, and there’s unlearning everything that’s associated with affection. New concept, that -- “unlearning”. Dora talked about it sometimes. For that, and for many other things, Blue might tell her their actual name.

But anyway, it looks like their becoming attached. Great.

Yellow was still dead, until Rosie Collins rolled up to the Skirths’ new-ish house, a little yellow blob just bobbing the left of her. Dora is flooded with relief, no questions on how Rosie survived the fallout of both Drake nor the ongoing dissolution of the Life Foundation, and smiles, and hugs her close.

Rosie didn’t leave her to die. Tried to intervene, actually.

Blue isn’t immediately concerned with that, barely paying attention when Rosie splutters how one of their fellow scientists was pinned to a wall by Drake (and Riot -- must be dead then, surely) for trying to abort the launch of the rocket. No, what’s going through Blue now is that Yellow is alive again. Maybe they should be more concerned how Yellow is undead (and the word “zombie” ebbs unpleasantly through their mind), but Rosie and Dora are in each others’ arms on the lawn, and Yellow is inching towards them along Rosie’s skin.

Blue meets them.

#mine #my writing #mw: venom #wc: under 1000 #series: the barbershop quartet of bullshit #ch: blue/toxin #ch: yellow/phage #ch: dora skirth #ch: rosie collins #sft

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magpiewritingthing · 5 years

Text

the road that leads me back to you (i thought would lead me somewhere less fucking stupid)

Series: the barbershop quartet of bullshit

Summary: Why does Riot keep Venom around?

Sex, one would suppose. Mostly that. And the fact that Venom is actually good at what they do, whether it’s total and overt destruction, or covert subterfuge.

Not that Riot would appreciate nuance.

Warnings: sexual content (not overly explicit), unhealthy relationship gore, alien cannibalism mention, typical symbiotes-eating-their-hosts dealio (including children)

Other notes: giftfic for hauntedjaeger (saellys) on ao3, with a nod to their version of Blue & Dora surviving; more of a slice-of-life fic from Blue’s pov; rewritten a tad

Hosts are needed, more often than not, for survival. It would figure that every other planet they’d taken to feast on would be oxygen-rich, which can fucking kill them. Yellow had lamented this many a time, and had also derailed onto tangents about their supposed frailty. Blue has, so far successfully, shut them up before any of the others caught wind and... misinterpreted what Yellow meant.

Well, misinterpretation of the comment wouldn’t be the problem. It would be the interpretation that Yellow just wasn’t fit for it. Shit’s harsh, but Klyntar must eat. And eat. And eat.

That’s actually annoying, if Blue thinks too hard on that. But that’s just how it is.

Thinking too much about it -- about their need for hosts, and allergy to oxygen, and constant need to eat -- is more trouble than it’s worth, and what good are they if all one does is bemoan their lot in life? Certainly gets you no favours, and it’d only get you rounded up by the likes of Riot. Which -- no, Blue hadn’t done a damn thing, never said a peep, but wherever Yellow was, you’d be sure to find Blue. Inseparable, more or less. And Riot’s decided to keep them on a short leash, as if they knew about Yellow’s misgivings. So if Riot decides to lead a mission (and very often, they do), then Yellow follows, and so does Blue.

So does Venom, for that matter. At least Venom’s not a tattling little bitch whenever Yellow complains about potential oxygen-induced death on every planet they come to devour.

Riot’s bitch, however? Yeah, that seems likely. And so keenly that, as well.

Why does Riot keep Venom around?

Sex, one would suppose. Mostly that. And the fact that Venom is actually good at what they do, whether it’s total and overt destruction, or covert subterfuge.

Not that Riot would appreciate nuance. Doesn’t appreciate much besides the feasting and destruction.

Or maybe that’s just the impression Blue got from them. Because, instead of farming and maintaining a steady food source, it’s all gobble-gobble-gobble, slurp, and wash-rinse-repeat. Hey, don’t get them wrong, Blue loves a good feast, and is always hungry, like every other, but it’d make sense for Klyntar to, you know, spread out a bit. Some here, some there, the food source is steady and not-so-finite.

Then again, Blue loves some destruction as well. Sometimes it’s just plain funny. Ever circumvented natural aging, forcing the unaware host to watch the majority their loved ones die as they stayed the same for two hundred years? And then gobbled up all their organs from the inside before taking over another relative? And then high-jacking a spacecraft to reach another planet, endangering the crew and alerting your own people to the planet you’ve been living on? Blue’s done that. Fun! Funny!

... Maybe that’s why Riot’s keeping them close, too. Gone too long, never know what “funny ideas” Blue might’ve had. Might end up like Venom. Vulnerable to attachment.

As if.

(They did miss Yellow, though. Sometimes thought about them. Wondered if they’d died. If they’d been left behind, or cannibalised.)

(Worry is weakness. Love is weakness. Anything that isn’t eating and destruction and manipulation is weakness.)

Riot got off on being the leader, whether in their own gooey form or when possessing some other life form, and oh boy, did it show.

A leader of a space-faring cruiseship? Riot gets that one, and points at the direction of the leader’s supposed spouse or second-in-command for Venom to control. Blue only ever got the second-in-command if there wasn’t a spouse, or lover, or fuck-buddy, at all. For Yellow, it was anyone’s guess -- an animal, another member of the crew, the child of leader-and-supposed-spouse in one case (Yellow would not stop gossiping about that to Blue, despite them trying to block out the details; fucking weirdo was still surprised by Riot and Venom’s... whatever they had).

In any case, at least Yellow hadn’t seen the utmost bold and brazen that Riot could be on that mission. Probably because they were gobbling one child and transferring to another. In private, of course.

Blue, piloting an errand-boy (Luk, the name might’ve been, or perhaps just the word for errand-boy, or some other term), had been wanting an update. What’s the plan, Jan? Is it a straight-up all-you-can-eat feast, or a leisurely lumber? The cruise-ship was far smaller than a planet, and last less than a year in... whatever the species was, their definition of a year. But Riot, control-freak, and Venom, bond-seeking-freak, were nowhere to be found. If they’d jumped bodies, they would’ve let Blue and Yellow know by now, surely -- they knew where the break-room was, and the children's quarters--

Maybe it’s the private quarters, seeing as leader (captain) and spouse were supposedly all over each other, even before their mission. Cute couple, apparently. Blue had filed through the boy’s mind, bored and frustrated with the lull, to pull up a map of the ship, pinpointing where Riot and Venom might be.

They’d regretted it almost immediately upon stepping through the door. Should’ve paid the noises some mind, the errand-boy thought at them, mild with his chiding.

Perhaps so. But Blue still took a spiteful bite out of an internal organ that the errand-boy didn’t immediately need.

“No wonder I couldn’t find the two of you,” they'd said, errand-boy’s mouth moving with both his and Blue’s insectoid voices.

Riot, metal-grey form overlaying the captain’s, was hunched over Venom, in a similar state of being. It was an odd thing to watch, and not particularly titillating to Blue’s mind -- to others’, perhaps, like the errand-boy’s (and it showed), but not theirs -- but fascinating in a purely scientific way. Yellow might’ve called it some fucked-up form of high art, whatever that is.

“What is it?” Riot’s voice was entirely their own; Riot’s mouth entirely their own. The only hint of the captain at all was forming as the solid structure that Riot leached off of.

Grey hand on back of black neck, pushing down. Grey hand on black hip. Claws. Teeth.

“WHAT IS IT?” A particularly hard snap of hips, body to body, like vibrations of a quake underground. A howl from a toothy mouth, overly long tongue stretching out. The pillows were shredded to ribbons.

Blue had gotten distracted. It was fascinating to watch. But not titillating.

“What’s the plan here? Do we eat them all now or do we wait until we reach another planet to freak them all out?” They could feel the errand-boy shake with fear, dull as it was; Blue had completely taken over, trying to regain control over the body and shoo away the errand-boy’s erection. Turned-on despite inevitable death? What a weirdo.

Riot only snarled in response, then seemingly rolled back their eyes, then snapped forward to bite into Venom. The squeal didn’t reach the deadly pitch, but it was close enough that Blue took the hint and shuffled out of the bedroom. Sheesh.

Later, Riot snarled at Blue again, but at least informed them that they’d wait until another planet. Then Riot asked why there was blood on the front of Blue's host's pants.

“I cut his penis off.” They’d cauterized the wound; blood loss would be fine so long as the host didn’t die too early and ruin the surprise for everyone.

To be fair, Blue thought it’d make them laugh. If nothing else, Riot’s sense of humour was something they could appreciate. But not even so much as a suppressed huff of a chuckle. Damn.

“Clean it up.”

Double-damn. Bordering on a hissy fit, right there. At least the surprise when the ship docked made up for the weirdness in the quarters. And no, Yellow barely got a peep out of Blue.

Bored and waiting for the oncoming ship to come by the meteor -- their little home away from home -- Blue took it upon themselves to bother Venom. Specifically, about Venom and Riot. That shameless display from the cruiseship was a good several decades before (by Earth’s rotations, anyhow; the mathematical mind belonged to Yellow), but it’s never really left Blue’s mind. Haunted it, actually. Difficult to shake, considering Riot had kept all four of them in that fucked-up little barbershop quartet of bullshit going on for way too fucking long.

Some room to breathe would’ve been nice, is all.

(Blue had thought about... Riot dying from a result of their own hubris. Just go on, go, die, please leave. But then they’d probably be sent elsewhere, under someone else's control. Probably split up. Yellow might be taken to task for their constant bemoaning of their lot in life. Venom might be cannibalised -- all bets going to Carnage, really -- and although Blue wouldn’t care as much, it’d be a shame, because Venom is actually good at what they do. It’d be a waste.)

You and Riot. They start, having nudged the black Klyntar to get their attention. Smart of you.

A hard, destabilizing slap was the answer. Blue almost fell down into a shallow crater. Wow, OK.

I meant you’re smart to not be starting shit with Riot.

Barely a grumble and Venom started slinking away. Maybe all four of them were dumbasses -- Venom’s a loser, Riot’s got no foresight, Yellow doesn’t shut up, and Blue doesn’t know when to let something go.

Blue follows. I’m not saying you're Riot’s bitch.

No?

No. Thinking it, but not saying it. No. I’m just saying -- again, you stubborn popped slimeball -- that you're smart, getting in with Riot. Considering you don’t actually like them.

Venom started to slink away faster. Blue’s always been quicker.

How good does actual intercourse have to be to for you to do that? It’s not that Blue thought Venom deserved the jab, but the relationship -- if it could be called that -- boggled the mind. And Yellow had seen something recently between the two. A melding, was their wording. Hostless melding. Yellow wouldn’t stop talking about it, how weird it was. How strange. How... Blue had slapped them before they started getting ideas.

Venom stilled. Turned.

Silence.

Then a snort, of sorts. It’s beyond what you know. A pause, theatrical (something they must’ve learned from a previous host), and added, Perhaps you should talk to Phage about it. You talk to them a lot.

It’s one of the few times that Venom’s managed to sound smug and superior, and it dug into Blue. There is nothing between me and Phage.

Isn’t there?

Blue lunged. Venom was prepared, and laughed as they batted Blue back, sending them tumbling down a deeper crater.

Once hitting the bottom, Blue was greeted by the sight of Yellow spread out across the crater floor. Neither one said anything. And when Riot came to round them up, they still said nothing.

Yellow, after all the shit they’ve all been through, is somewhat relieved to be back in a jar. They’re waiting for Rosie Collins; she owed Dora. Blue had noted the long silences and stutterings, and filed that away as a sign of guilt, as did Dora. There was something else under that, but Blue isn’t interested in that right now. There’s always time for later.

They carry Yellow’s jar to the living room, and all three sit in front of the TV. News channel. Carlton Drake is dead. So is Riot.

As far as they know, Venom is in limbo.

(Later, they here of criminals being eaten alive in San Francisco. Exit limbo.)

#mine #my writing #mw: venom #wc: 1000 – 2000 #series: the barbershop quartet of bullshit #ch: venom #ch: riot #ch: blue/toxin #ch: yellow/phage #nsft

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magpiewritingthing · 5 years

Text

not the bitter dead sea / 3

Part: 3; shimmyshake, resolute

Series: not the bitter dead sea

Chapter Summary: Maria considers reconciliation with the past, hoping it’ll pave a smoother path for the future.

Warnings: past alcoholism, child death, divorce, car crash

Other notes: thanks to @/symbidont’s post about timelines which helped with this; pretty sure i posted this on @/getrealfunky as well but hm

It was a joke when Eddie threw out the ‘suggestion’. “Think I should make a new years resolution.” Maria hasn’t bothered with one for three years. Probably closer to four, now.

Never been, by her own will, particularly religious or spiritual, and the only resolution she’d ever considered, seriously considered, was burying everything she had with Markus. Or at least she’s telling herself that; she almost vomits at how quickly petty spite rises up in her.

But maybe.

Eddie’s not serious about it, and she doubts he’d pay attention to Lent, either, but she’s noticed that once the New Year ticked over, paving over the last year, he hasn’t bought anymore beer. Not to say that he’s given up drinking altogether, but she’s not seen any of it in the fridge recently. A week into 2019 and not a drop in the apartment.

Hmm.

She’s bookmarked a job opening for an administrative position -- full-time, contract, previous experience -- and plans on sending a letter tomorrow. God willing, she’ll get it; she’ll need it if she’s planning on a New Year’s Resolution.

She hasn’t told Eddie nor Venom about Before. They never asked, and she wouldn’t expect them to.

But God, she can’t stop thinking about it.

(She could never stop thinking about it, homeless or co-habiting.)

The memories flood back worse than before, and muddled with the Life Foundation -- her son, her daughter, Markus. The crash. Fucking drunk bastard that he was--

Again, spite, no matter how right it felt, tasted like acid.

She’d considered looking Markus up, see if he was still alive. If he was recovering. If he was better, or worse, or in perpetual motion. But she figures it would only undo her, set her backwards, and she’d like to be on her feet and running forward before she sees a professional.

Oof. Skirting around that, right now. But eventually she will. With her own cent and dollar, thank you, Eddie.

Fuck it. She’ll send in her resume now.

(She wonders how much, if any, Venom could see in her, when they were there.)

#mine #my writing #mw: venom #wc: under 1000 #series: not the bitter dead sea #ch: maria marshall #sft

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