#WIP: ATN
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2024 Goals
So, I know, I'm a little late for this given it's a solid week (or so) into the new year, but hey, better late than never, right?
My Real Life this year will primarily involve working to pass my course in order to become fully qualified in my new job. Fortunately, from about June onwards, that's going to give me a fair bit of time to work on writing, so I figured I'd try and put down some relatively specific goals regarding the WIPs I have.
My biggest issue with writing is finishing things. Since I joined writeblr, I've gone from having no WIPs in anything approaching a complete state, to three completed first drafts (Absent That Night, The Monstrosity, and Miles To Go) and one completed zero draft (Psyche Shards). That in itself in astonishing for me, but I'd also like to continue to work towards having 'publishable' (read: clean, cohesive, comprehensible) drafts. With that in mind, this year I am going to work on four projects.
Project One is going to be the Vibes WIP. This is my 'first draft' project, ie something I'm starting without a whole lot of words down. I'm also approaching it in a novel way for me (working from vibes), so it's somewhat of an experiment in that sense as well. This is the project aiming to feed my need for discovery and chucking in cool shit that occurs to me over the course of my life.
(It's also pretty heavily linked to my new job, which is part of the reason I've decided to make it a key project this year. Any luck I'll be able to twist most new ideas/inspiration to fit within the scope of what I'm writing. Plus the actual form of the WIP is experimental enough that I can probably chuck in other random inspirations as well and deal with it later.)
Project Two is Psyche Shards. I have a (pretty much) complete zero draft for this, so I'll say the aim is to finish draft 1.5. This will be another new experience, in that I'll be writing from what amounts to a detailed outline; something I've never done before. I hope it will help me to pin down a process that allows me to finish more WIPs -- if writing from the zero draft works to keep the wordcount down to something reasonable, and is faster than my normal sort of draft one, then it will help to inform how I approach WIPs from here on out.
(I should mention, regarding wordcount, that the zero draft is 27k words. Not sure if I've mentioned this before, but I am a chronic fucking overwriter. So I'm hoping that having what I need to put down in front of me will help quell that issue. There's also issues with the climax of this WIP I still need to work out, but I think beginning to draft it in earnest will be the only thing that will fully help with that.)
Project Three is Absent That Night. 🥳 I've been saying for, like, over two years now that I'm going to write a second draft of this beast, and it's becoming my white whale, so it's about time I knuckle down and give it a go. It's intimidating as fuck because of how much I need to change, but I owe it to Latrell to sort my shit out, because it's a story I would really like to tell, and I cannot write either of the two sequels I have planned if I haven't wrangled the first installment into something coherent.
Project Four is theoretical, and a project-of-grace I'm giving myself in case I'm smacked with inspiration that just won't go away. I am going to try and make this a relatively high bar, however. I have an 'inspo' document where I can jot down notes and vague ideas, and I'm going to primarily use that for new ideas. If something does persist and develops on its own without my having to take time to sit down and think about it, then I will allow my muse to take me where it will and consider it project four.
(Ideally, I'd like to close out this year without touching a Project Four. Because, as I said, my main problem is starting things and then not finishing them, and this sort of random inspiration is a key reason why that happens.)
So there it is! Three/four key projects that I would like to work on for this year. I don't yet have any dates or deadlines regarding them, because up until March work is going to take priority and I don't want to stress myself out too much with anything else going on. However, I'm hoping to do a monthly update for the start of the year letting people know where I'm at, and if/when I get properly into working on any of these projects I'll increase the frequency of updates and sharing.
Another goal I have is perpetual, which is to be more active on here. I'm working on actionable steps to make this a reality, however, and I hope that that will bear fruit. There are far too many amazing, talented people on my dash to not spend at least some time on here every week. So I apologise to people who like numbers and deadlines (I'm one of them!), but these more ambiguous goals are the way I need to be at this point, and I'm enjoying the way they're inspiring me regardless. ^_^
What are you all's goals for the new year? Feel free to let me know! I'm way behind on what everybody is doing and would love to be updated by anybody who's managed to read this far. :D
#pockets muses IWL#long post#WIP: PS#WIP: ATN#vibes WIP#writeblr#original writing#let's hope the new year inspiration continues for a while#i like having goals though so narrowing things down i hope will work for me#i also have july off so i'm sideeyeing camp nano#we will see how things are going in march#love you all!#but in all seriousness tell me how things are going#i know i dip in and out and seem very enthusiastic and then disappear for weeks at a time#but i miss you all when i do!#i miss all your projects!#i miss being here! <3
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13 years of @atthenunnery already… every day I wonder if I should reboot it but there’s no capturing that moment in time 😌
ATN posts rétro queuing starts Friday!!
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I feel like an angry pash and kiriona makeout sesh is in the cards for atn
SO TRUE <3
also this ask reminded me of a kiripash wip i forgot i had... so i went ahead and finished it >:3
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📸
yes I do get straight up screencaps on my pinterest feed. anyway this one was too loaded to pass up and I'm writing a decent amount of tomshiv anyway in my Shiv&Caroline WIP... so I may as well stretch my muscles for them 🤷🏻♀️
Shiv sits at the kitchen island, dressed in comfortable but neat clothes with her bag on her shoulder as she looks at her phone, waiting for a text from her driver saying he's here. It's the middle of the day on a Friday, so by all accounts, her only company should be Mondale, currently asleep on his new dog bed in his enclosure a few feet away. When the door opens to admit her husband, she almost expects to see an ATN secretary on his arm, like he's sneaking home for a lunchtime hookup. But he's alone. Somehow that's worse.
"Oh, hey," he says too casually, clearly as surprised to see her as she is to see him. "Just getting home or-- or just leaving?"
Shiv resists the urge to squirm in her seat. "Leaving. I, um. I have my 20-week scan."
Tom blinks, something changing in his face. "Oh... can... can I come?"
Shiv opens her mouth and then closes it again. "Can-- can you come? Like, with me? It's just a doctor's appointment, Tom."
"Yeah, but we'll get to see our baby," he reminds her, and she bites the inside of her cheek. "And isn't this when we get to find out the gender?"
She'd done amniocentesis a month ago. "I already know. It's a girl."
His face lights up. Her stomach drops. Her phone buzzes in her hand.
"I guess you can come," she mutters, looking down at the confirmation text from her driver. "If you want to that bad."
#succession#succession fic#shiv roy#tom wambsgans#tomshiv#pregnancy cw#prompt fill#ask meme#dawn tag#one thing about me is that i Will be writing baby fic
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Harrow piece I’m working on. Just the sketch so far
#wips#art wip#the locked tomb trilogy#sketches#gideon the ninth#harrow the ninth#fanart#griddlehark#gtn#the locked tomb#htn#alecto the ninth#atn#my art
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Nightmarelanders!
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girl help i canNOT start another au before i post something, anything
#i have made a rule that i cannot start a new fic project before i post the first chapter of my current two WIPs#in an effort to actually publish something for once in my life instead of leaving it to die in my google docs#but :eyes: :eyes:#i am sooooo busy but now i'm thinking about heists#here's the thing#gideon would absolutely be the hitter#i think cam would be the thief#corona as the grifter#harrow as the hacker perhaps#she is very smart and angry#and pal as the mastermind#however these are based on nothing at all#i have just been insanely invested in the promised heist in atn#but augh i CANNOT start a new thing i refuse to let myself fall into this loop again#i am Yellinge
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(wip) ignored
She was smiling too, but she didn’t try to butt in like she usually would when she felt like she was being ignored or left out, which was generally five minutes into any conversation.
#reply#WIP ask#guess who lol#I don't have many WIPs so most of these are coming from ATN haha#Anonymous
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(WIP Wednesday, Succession, Naomi x Tabitha, post-s3 fic).
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After her mom dies, Naomi loses a year.
It’s not like she doesn’t know what happened exactly. Not like she doesn’t remember finding out, doesn’t remember the car accident and the tabloids and Nan trying to clean up, not like she doesn’t remember the days in hospital and the months in rehab and the physical therapy and her boyfriend ghosting and her best friend at the time, Suki, selling stories of their amphetamine and cocaine benders to ATN. Not like she doesn’t remember the cavernous grief opening its maw in her chest, eating up whatever was left of her.
But that’s the thing – reality is slower than memory, and so when she remembers it, it’s like it happened all at once. This deluge of shit from the asshole of life, a torrent, a tempest, or, no, more than that. A year spent on fire, any marker of time swallowed up by the relentlessness of every undying ember, every stream of smoke, every bit of kindling stoked at her feet.
She remembers the way the soles of them burnt, her soul burnt, remembers the scorched earth of her insides at the anniversary of her death a year later, remembers her father not meeting her eye, remembers watching people who didn’t know her mother eulogise and deify, remembers using her four-month sobriety chip to cut coke at a bar and then getting on a plane to Paris, remembers Tabitha’s hands sliding up the insides of her thighs, easing her legs apart, her soft, wet mouth like a promise that she'd made it through, and she remembers thinking that her lost year didn’t mean shit.
That time itself didn’t matter now that her life was divided up between when she had her mom and when she didn’t, because time is always moving forwards, but you’re not anymore, and then what are you left with?
Fuck if Naomi knows, but it’s the first thing she thinks of when she sees the news.
Or it’s not.
No, the first thing she thinks is she’d told Kendall this before he broke up with her, before his birthday, before the press conference, before his dad kicked her off his yacht.
She’d told him when they were in bed together in some glitzy London hotel, Kendall glassy eyed and wobbly beside her as she told him that some things are a lit match through the fabric of you and all you can do is work out what to do with the ash.
Remembers a little later, naked and drunk, quoting Macbeth from memory:
“Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, creeps in this petty pace from day to day. To the last syllable of recorded time; and all our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle! Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player, that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more. It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”
Mostly though, she remembers the way he’d cried silently into the wrinkled hotel sheets, his body wracked, wrecked, and the way she’d felt nothing and everything all at once.
She doesn’t know why she remembers that so well.
#wip wednesday#trying out posting excerpts of things again to hopefully keep me a bit more accountable#i am v much enjoying writing this fic and it's sooo close to being done#naomi x tabitha#kendall x naomi#kind of#there's a little bit of them in here#acid tongued and serpent toothed#hbo succession#my fic#succession fic
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so in talking with a friend, I counted up how many chapters I have in WIPs left...
ATN: 3 chapters left
OuEn: 6 chapters left
Pastrami: 3 chapters left
WTKV: 12 chapters left
and it’s interesting to look at it that way
I’ve got three chapters left in ATN. I keep thinking of it as “I need to finish ATN” and that’s daunting - but looking at it on a chapter basis, well, I’ve just about always struggled with writing ATN chapters. So that’s just a nose-to-the-ground getting-into-the-groove of writing and editing and despairing and rewriting and re-editing and getting it done.
OuEn is interesting, because it’s an epic, but I’ve built up my skills to encompass it; I’ve got to fine-tune and approach something new (mostly, describing wardrobes!), and I’ve got two spin-off fic (one of which needs to be posted alongside ch3), and... it’s another getting-it-done;
Pastrami I had to take a hard break on, because it involves one character with their father having cancer, and that happened just as my dad got cancer, so that made it hard to write -- but it’s multiple, short sections, and definitely doable
for WTKV... I never abandon stories, I always have an intention to finish, but that one requires a good rewatch of the entire series and a good reboot of enthusiasm, and that’s okay
and the list above is just for WIP that are already posted on AO3;
I’ve also got 5F and fic in that verse, and the Glaive!Prompto verse, the Gralea verse...
I want to finish them; I want to write them; I want to share them; I want to experience them and have others experience it
after everything that happened, after I gave up -- I languished, and existed;
I’m still not at the elevation I was before the valley, but the spark is starting to flicker back in
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First Jersey Boy updated last week and now A Thousand Natural Shocks? What other long-sleeping fics are coming back? Is this a sign of something? What is going on?! (In all seriousness, I'm so excited to read ATNS)
Oh man, I wish I knew! Though I know there’s more than a few names I would throw into the hat of “long-sleeping fics to be resurrected July 2018″ *cough cough*
(I’m hoping it’s a side-effect of all the new Gravity Falls content lately, from the DVD set to the graphic novel to the dating sim, and that it will continue for at least a little while. I know that this got me back in the groove, and I have an epilogue and a half-written chapter or two for my other WIPs that really deserve to be finished.)
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OC in Fifteen
I was tagged by the always-lovely @winterandwords for this tag game!
Rules: Share 15 or fewer lines of dialogue from an OC, ideally lines that capture the character/personality/vibe of the OC. Bonus points for just using the dialogue without other details about the scene, but you're free to include those as well!
Tagging back @winterandwords because I can never get enough, plus soft tags for @dontjudgemeimawriter @frostedlemonwriter, @artdecosupernova-writing, @sunset-a-story and @kd-holloman
In the spirit of keeping with my goals for this year (and also because I need fifteen pieces of dialogue and a lot of my brainrot-WIPs at the moment don't necessarily have that) I'm going to do this for Latrell, of Absent That Night fame (noting these are mostly random lines, not really character-revealing):
I
"So here's a fun question," he said, leaning back in his chair.
II
"I know." Nox grinned now, flashing startlingly white teeth. "You're gonna help me catch the guy that did."
"No I am fucking well not."
III
"If you have a problem," Latrell said, breaking the silence, breaking his rule, like he always ended up doing here, in this situation, with Ronan, "Feel free to elucidate any time."
IV
"Well, fuck that," Latrell snarled. "I'm done. I'm not working with a fucking criminal, especially one who has yet to provide any assistance. I'm gonna find whoever killed Carrie, but I'm not fucking looping you in on anything else. We're done."
V
“You’ve claimed it wasn’t you, and then blackmailed me into helping you prove it, and then assaulted me with the Orn when I protested. Far as I’m concerned, we’ve established fuck all.”
VI
“Yeah,” Latrell snapped, swiping up the mug and inspecting it, mostly so he didn’t have to look at Nox’s smug face. “That’s totally what it is, not that I’ve got a fucking felon on my doorstep.”
VII
“What,” he gasped out through his protesting lungs, “The fuck?”
VIII
“Fair? What the hell would you know about fair? Half the words that come out of your mouth are fucking lies, apparently you spent half of last night fucking following me around, and—”
“I wasn’t—”
“—and you act like you’re not even doing these things!”
IX
“I’m loathe to agree with anything you say.”
X
“I do not give a single fuck about your best interests. I just don’t wanna mess up my hands.”
XI
"What sort of maniac builds an aquarium underground?"
XII
“It’s… complicated, alright? And I’ll go into more detail when we get there. Just figured I shouldn’t spring it on you right after you’ve just met our favourite felon.”
XIII
“And because you can’t be lying to me.” Wretched. Pleading. Begging. “You can’t.”
XIV
Latrell said, “I’d kill a man for some caffeine.”
XV
"Say I believe you." He didn't. He didn't. "Why would you tell me this? Now?"
#tag game#OC in fifteen#WIP: ATN#as always thanks for the tag#i could DEFINITELY have spent a lot more time on this#but it was great fucking fun regardless ^_^
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So, just a brief addendum that's come about because of my weird posting today:
I think maybe that my problem with ATN is that I've been trying to do too much with the second draft. Like, I have all these little bits I need to incorporate, but I also need to remove a set of characters and change the pacing and add and delete scenes and looking at all of that is -- whew -- overwhelming.
But if I just think about the second draft as being okay, let's remove those characters and change those scenes? Suddenly it seems far more approachable.
And then, on the third draft and onwards, I can add the little foreshadowing pieces and the bits regarding worldbuilding and everything else.
So, esssentially, I don't need to do absolutely everything in just the second draft. I need to get words down to make another story, and then I can tweak it as necessary to make it fit my vision.
And that realisation, new as it is, is liberating as fuck. To the point where I feel like finally -- finally, after over three years -- I feel like I may be able to work on the second draft of ATN.
And that's an exciting thought.
#pockets muses IWL#WIP: ATN#sorry for the sudden deluge of posts#i'm planning to talk about stuff that isn't mine in the near future#it's just today has been a Day and i'm dealing with it in unhealthy ways#(read: alcohol)#it's alright we'll be alright#but yeah this was a revelation#so that's exciting
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And now, because I'm feeling miserable chaotic as fuck, after just posting some banners for Vibes WIP earlier this arvo, I'm going to post a rewritten version of the first scene of Absent That Night.
Note that this is just a first pass, so even those it's technically ~draft two~ there still may be typos, etc etc.
But regardless! I hope you enjoy. ^_^ Any feedback is welcome -- particularly things like would you like to read on, does this make sense, do you have any questions that aren't plot related? (I'm super close to and familiar with this WIP, so I sometimes forget what the reader would and wouldn't know, and I'm not sure if foreshadowing etc would come across correctly.)
Anyway, it's approximately 2.5k words, so really if you read it at all I love you for it. <3
Latrell stared at the blank space on the wall, incensed.
It used to host a painting. Much like the sections of wall to his left and right, in fact. Though those paintings were still there. Of course.
Voices drifted down the long featureless corridor from his right.
“I just don’t understand.” Shrill, piercing, unbelievably loud. A woman accustomed to getting her own way. “We pay all this money, and that is supposed to protect us from situations like these, and now you’re telling me that it doesn’t?”
Latrell narrowed his eyes until the wall in front of him almost disappeared.
“I understand your frustration, ma’am.” Albie’s voice was low, soothing, a stark contrast. Ever the professional. “And you are correct, your contract with LEAH does guarantee swift retrieval of all listed items. However, the item in question was not on the list. Surely you understand how that might change the situation.”
Latrell smiled to himself and moved down the corridor, away from the woman’s increasingly hysterical objections.
Habitually, he dipped mental fingers into the Orn, the waterlike texture of his flow shimmering in his mind’s eye. A few signatures jumped out at him, the paintings lining the corridor. Not the one that was missing. He’d never touched that one before, never even seen it, hadn’t had a chance to familiarise himself. Absolutely no chance of tracking its location.
He blinked, moving away from the Orn and back into the physical world.
The corridor was lined on both sides, no rhyme or reason to the order of the artwork, no overarching theme. The only thing the pieces had in common was their price. The corridor was an exhibition of wealth, not of passion.
At this end it opened up into a large, airy living space, made to seem even larger by the wall of windows directly opposite. They looked out over the centre of the city, all steel and glass and whitewashed concrete. Far off in the distance, the dark line of the waterfront, the ocean stretching to the horizon.
“Nice view,” Albie said from his elbow.
Latrell glanced at her. “You manage to calm Mrs. Bishop down?”
“Calm might be too strong a word.” Albie rolled her eyes. “I think I’ve talked her down from a lawsuit. And she’s going to let us actually do our jobs, so that’s something.”
“It sure is.”
“Oh, c’mon, you know you love me.”
She patted his shoulder, the bad one, and Latrell had to hide his flinch. Albie probably wouldn’t have noticed anyway; she stepped further into the living area, spinning in a slow circle as she took it in. “Got anything yet?”
“Besides the obvious? No.” Latrell rubbed at an eye under his glasses, a headache beginning to tug at his temples. “Honestly I don’t even think there’s any point searching.”
“Naw, don’t be like that. It’s not our job. Besides, he’s gotta make a mistake eventually. Today might be our lucky day.”
Latrell seriously doubted it, but he moved next to her to examine the table.
It was an ostentatious piece of furniture if he’d ever seen one. Swirling patterns from the original tree paired with spaces of black and clear resin, sitting on legs that seemed to Latrell at best impractical and at worst dangerous for the tens of thousands of dollars he was sure the tabletop cost.
Not that it would be worth that now.
Etched directly into the resin — deep enough that it hit the centuries-old wood in some places, small shavings dusting the surface around the gouges — was a series of lines, swirling around each other. An artwork in itself, really, evocative of water, or perhaps a representation of wind. Latrell couldn’t look at it without thinking of his flow. And in the centre, a single word.
Nox
Latrell brushed his gloved fingers over the edge of the carvings. They were deep yet smooth, nothing rushed or crude about them. Each line a separate groove. Not made with anything as pedestrian as a knife. Perhaps a hammer and chisel. A specialised instrument, at the very least.
“He’s getting bolder.” Albie stalked around the table as if to view the signature from every angle. “This is bigger than anything else we’ve seen.”
“More space to work with, maybe. Not often the most expensive item in a room is a table.” Latrell traced the sharp angles of the ‘N’. “Did the Bishops tell you where they were last night?”
“Dinner at the Station House, then apparently they went to a friend’s house to kick on. No plan to stay the night, but that’s what ended up happened. Got home about three hours ago, took them an hour to discover the theft.”
Surprising it was that fast. The apartment was big enough they could’ve spent days inside without visiting every room.
“Do they often stay out all night after a dinner?”
Albie was at the head of the table, arms crossed. “Took a bit of finagling, but I reckon so, yeah. Mrs. Bishop wouldn’t admit it but the way she talked gives me the impression it’s not an uncommon occurrence.”
“So no way to be certain they wouldn’t return, but the odds were pretty good.” Latrell massaged his temple with two fingers. “Still, he wouldn’t leave anything to chance. Would’ve gotten in early. Security cameras?”
The hopeful uptick in his voice made Albie smile. “Nothing.”
“I fucking hate this guy.”
“Oh, I know.” Albie’s voice was teasing, but there was a note of censure behind it. Latrell kept his eyes on the table so she wouldn’t see his wince.
Fucking Nox. The man had been a thorn in Latrell’s side for nearly three years, and that thorn was quickly turning into an entire branch.
LEAH’s Artefact Recovery Division served the clients who could afford to have their most valuable pieces insured with something more than money. Every Agent assigned to the unit had an affinity for object tracking; a location on the Orn that allowed them to see, touch, familiarise themselves with a certain item, and then use the Orn to find it. Latrell had been assigned to the ARD eight years ago, a consolation prize after an on-the-job injury had caused the police to fire him. He’d met Albie about twelve months later, and they’d been partnered six months after that.
Most of the time an ARD Agent’s job was fairly simple. If a thief managed to bypass the comprehensive security systems a LEAH client could afford, they tended to know which piece would get them the most on the black market. Unfortunately for them, so did the Agents, so the pieces were already listed and a part of an Agent’s repertoire. A brief look at what item was missing and the relevant Agent briefly checking out the Orn would usually locate the piece.
Usually. Nox was a different story.
He had an uncanny ability to target only those items that Agents hadn’t yet had a chance to itemise. Generally new acquisitions, often those on the books to be added to a client’s list within the next few days. It was specific enough that there’d been talk of Nox having some inside source.
Latrell wasn’t sure that was true. But it was getting to the point that he’d have to agree or figure out a more compelling theory soon.
Because the last six pieces that Nox had stolen — the last six households where he’d taken something and then destroyed something else, picking a room and defacing the most expensive item to leave his signature and no doubt of who it was that had committed the theft — had all been on Latrell’s register.
Once was an anomaly. Twice was coincidence. Three times was a pattern. Six times got people asking questions.
The sharp trill of Latrell’s phone cut through his musing. He answered it without looking at the screen. “Latrell.”
“Good morning, Agent,” a voice purred in his ear. Male. Smooth. Smug. “Enjoying yourself, I trust?”
“Who is this?” Latrell snapped. Albie raised an eyebrow, and he held up a hand. The voice was utterly unfamiliar, which raised a host of problems, chief among which was— “How did you get this number?”
“I have resources.” The man managed to convey the wave of his hand with the tone of his voice. “I should think you would know this by now.”
“Look, whoever you think I am, you’re mistaken. You’ve clearly got the wrong number, and I’m busy right now, so—”
“Forgive me. I thought you’d pardon the intrusion, given that it’s my handiwork you’re currently admiring.”
“What?” Latrell spun. Pointless. There was no one else in the room. “Fuck off. You think I’m going to fall for that?”
A chuckle in his ear, silky and deep. Whoever it was, they had a hell of a voice for radio. “Is it really that improbable that I would contact you, Agent Latrell?”
Latrell stopped.
Forced his mind back into its box. There was any number of reason the caller would know his name. No need to get ahead of himself. No reason to let his thoughts careen out of control down paths that made no sense—
“Have you seen the Michelson, by the way? It truly is a stunning piece. They say his use of colour is unrivalled.”
Latrell’s heart tripped. Stumbled. Caught its balance at a speed that felt unhealthy. They hadn’t known which piece had been stolen until they arrived. That information hadn’t been publicised. It hadn’t even been passed along to LEAH yet.
“Latrell,” Albie said quietly.
He waved in her direction again. Turned away. “Okay, so you’ve managed to find out some information. Congrats. Doesn’t mean I’m gonna believe—”
“Agent,” the man cut in again, “If you examine the table from the end closest to the couch, I believe that will be proof enough.”
The reference to the table, the knowledge of the signature, was proof enough. Nothing that had ever been released to the press. And it was unusual, moreso than any other scene. Not a coffee machine. Not a couch. Not, perhaps most memorably, an entire sound system. Never the artworks themselves, but always an item of incredible value — generally more than Latrell’s annual paycheck — marked, dismantled, defaced. Ruined.
Latrell stepped around the table. Stared down at it for a few long seconds. Saw only swirls and whisps and curving, branching lines.
He squinted a little, tilted his head, and it jumped out at him like an optical illusion snapping into focus. Seamlessly integrated into the pattern, a series of letters, distinct and separate from the larger, blocky moniker.
Hello, Latrell
“The hell…” The words were faint.
The man on the phone chuckled again. “You’re welcome. I am quite sure your boss will be very curious as to the meaning of that.”
“What the—”
“Apologies, Agent, but I really must be going. Places to go, paintings to fence. You know how it is. Though if I may offer some advice?”
He paused. Not long enough for Latrell to formulate a response.
“You really should make an effort to leave work earlier. Eight pm every night this week? It’s a recipe for burnout.”
Latrell dropped the phone from his ear, staring at the screen. The unknown number stared back at him, stark black numbers on a too-white screen.
Implausible. Impractical. Impossible. Beyond that, beyond the logistics and the motivation and the feasibilityof it all, it was just fucking insane. If he was right, if the man on the phone was who he thought it was, then he’d done all that, found Latrell’s number, tracked his movements, knew that he’d be at this crime scene, knew enough about his life to know when he was leaving work every night, all with the ultimate goal of calling him to— what? Gloat? Provide a clue? Hear the sound of his own fucking voice?
Each possibly theory was more insane than the last. Latrell swept off his glasses and pinched at his eyes with a thumb and forefinger.
“Brishan!” Albie all but shoved him, and Latrell realised it wasn’t the first time she’d tried to get his attention.
“Sorry,” he said, too distracted to bother with sincerity, mind racing, whirling, unmoored. He shoved his glasses back on, tried to school his expression back into neutrality. “I was just—”
“Who was that?” she demanded.
“I don’t know. It was nothing. Nobody. A prank call.” Yeah, right.
“Who’d they say it was?”
“They didn’t, actually.” He realised the truth of the statement even as it left his mouth. Not that it mattered. The content of the conversation left very little doubt just who he’d been speaking to. As much as his brain was trying to find ways to deny it. “Never actually identified themselves. They just implied— but it wasn’t really— I mean, I’m not sure—”
He exhaled, rubbed at his eye again. Spoke without lowering his hand. “I actually— I think it was Nox.”
Beat. Then: “What?”
Latrell kept rubbing at his eye. Didn’t really think that question deserved an answer.
Albie took a few moments to realise that was his conclusion, then added, “Are you sure?”
“Fuck, no, I’m not sure!” Latrell dropped his hand in time to catch the hurt look flicker over Albie’s face, shoulders tense, spine straight. He sucked in a deep breath, tried to modulate his tone. “No, I’m not sure. But… well, he was certainly pretty convincing.”
Albie chewed her lower lip for a moment. “We’re gonna have to report this.”
Irritation flickered hot and fluid in Latrell’s chest. He loosened his jaw, endeavoured to keep his voice entirely level when he said, “Of course I’m going to report it.”
It still came out sharp. Too sharp, if the slight lift to Albie’s eyebrows was anything to go by.
Latrell closed his eyes for a beat. Shoved down the slow boil of annoyance licking at his insides, forced himself to inhale, exhale. Slowly. Repeated, “I’m going to report it.”
Some of her scepticism faded, though an element of obstinance remained in the jut of her chin, the wrinkle between her brows. “Good.”
Latrell’s jaw locked. He turned away from her, back towards the table. Let his eyes skip over those two horrifying words, embedded in the centre of a criminal’s signature. Abruptly wished he’d chosen something else to look at.
“It’s… weird, right?” Albie’s voice had softened. “After the last few months…”
“Yeah it fucking is.” He sucked in a deep breath, gestured towards the table. “And this doesn’t help.”
Albie stepped up next to him. He didn’t really want to show her this. Didn’t really have a choice. It wasn’t exactly something he could hide, couldn’t change the signature so those two words were no longer a part of it.
But it was okay. Most people so far believed what he thought, that he was just a random target. Believed that he had no idea why Nox was fixated on him. Believed that he was just as in the dark as the rest of them.
But things kept piling up. Coincidence upon coincidence. As a cop Latrell had been trained to believe coincidences didn’t exist. But coming up with any other theory now seemed even harder.
He knew the instant Albie saw it. Felt her tension lurch like a physical presence in the room.
“Oh,” she said, quiet, loaded.
“I know.”
Albie turned to him, her face as earnest as her voice. “You’re fucked.”
Latrell removed his glasses to pinch his eyes again. “I know.”
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Ten First Lines
I was tagged a little while ago by the ever-wonderful @winterandwords to share ten first lines. (Thank you!) I believe I've done this for some WIPs in the past, so I'm gonna play around with my most recent writing and share the first lines from those scenes, starting with:
'Vibes WIP' First Scene (Kat POV)
It's cold, the kind of miserable cold you can only get in the city, and the drizzling rain looks like ash in my torchlight.
2. 'Vibes WIP' First Scene (Pilate POV)
Fact: the first blow always feels like a blessing.
3. 'Vibes WIP' Unknown chapter (Pilate POV)
Bleed (real blood) for me
Fact: cruelty is much subtler than mercy.
People will rarely misinterpret mercy as cruelty. But that doesn't stop them mistaking
cruelty
for mercy.
(I know it's more than one line, but I wanted to include it because that's it. That's the entire chapter. ^_^)
4. INUNDATE, Natasha POV
Natasha nursed her fury for a solid two days, giving TJ the silent treatment the entire time.
5. INUNDATE, Flint POV
Life was light, or light was life; one or the other, he couldn’t remember which one it was anymore but that was hardly surprising because he couldn’t remember much of anything anymore.
6. Psyche Shards, Casey POV
Casey found lying to journalists as easy as breathing.
7. Psyche Shards, Ira POV
The Asshole’s name was Sidhara, and it turned out she was among the better of the bunch.
...and given the above are the only WIPs I've properly worked on recently, I'll dive into the archives for the last three, for entirely random scenes from:
8. Absent That Night
Albie was into the tail end of her second astonishingly pink cocktail, and she was indeed plastered.
9. Absent That Night
The Association’s main base of operations was called the Warren for a reason.
10. Absent That Night
Latrell took a shower and examined his injuries, mostly because it was easier than examining the intricacies of the argument when it was still so fresh.
Now, I am not at all sure who has already done this; if you have and you don't want to do it again, feel free to ignore! Or do it again with a different WIP/different rules, whatever, I'm not your Mum. :D
But I am gonna tag @kd-holloman, @artdecosupernova-writing, @inkovert, @catchingbigfish, @nanashi23, @words-after-midnight, @frostedlemonwriter and @deanwax if you would like to do it! Absolutely no pressure if not, as always. ^_^
#pockets muses IWL#tag game#WIP: INUNDATE#Vibes WIP#WIP: ATN#this was kinda fun to do#i'd love to get more into tag games#wish the whole work thing wasn't kicking my ass so hard atm -.-
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So, I accidentally re-read Absent That Night yesterday (which is a whole post unto itself, which I'll probably get around to tomorrow), but I thought in honour of its almost-Second-Birthday, I'd pick some choice lines to share. ^_^
This, obviously, continues under the cut, because dude, it got long. Ten excerpts of varying length, for your perusal. ^_^
1.
Latrell managed one final, almost-genuine smile before he turned away. It evaporated almost immediately, his mind racing ahead, the day stretching out in front of him, formless, pointless. He was going to have to think of something to take up his time. Something that hopefully wouldn’t frustrate him as much as most of this morning had.
He’d think of something. He just had to be careful he didn’t end up at a bar.
[scene break]
Latrell ended up at a bar.
2.
"So here's a fun question," Latrell said, leaning back in his chair.
Albie looked up at him from where she was comparing two photos on the desk beside her monitor. Her expression was wary.
Latrell tapped his pen rapidly against the edge of the desk. "Why didn't [Nox] carve his signature into her?"
Albie pulled a face. "Seriously?"
"Yeah, seriously." Latrell sat forward again, holding her gaze. "How much is that book worth? Nearly a million? But who could put a price on a human life? Isn't that the most valuable thing in that room?"
3.
Latrell was two and a half blocks from the relative comfort of Ronan’s apartment when a car screeched to a halt at the curb in front of him and Eliza Laurie toppled out.
He almost resisted the urge to groan, and then didn’t bother. Laurie’s grin amped up the wattage by about a thousand percent when she heard it.
“Agent Latrell,” she called as she click-clacked up the sidewalk to him. “Spare a moment?”
Her lipstick today was the colour of arterial blood. Latrell tried to keep walking, but that only allowed her to invade his personal space that much quicker.
4.
What was decidedly not normal was the huge whitewashed domes rising out of the earth directly ahead of the car.
There were five of them, varying in size; the smallest maybe twenty feet across, the largest easily more than fifty. They rose out of the ground like humps, three or so feet high at their apex, their edges invisible beyond the scraggly grass and detritus that had collected around them. The bitumen upon which the car was parked extended all the way to the domes, part of the same infrastructure, and Latrell had the insane impression that they were literally stopped in a long-dead parking lot.
He was still blinking. It still wasn't helping.
"It's an aquarium," Nox said, inexplicably.
5. [deleted scene]
“You good, sunshine?” Nox said, stepping around Latrell to get to the kettle.
Latrell really needed to nip that fucking nickname in the bud. He said, “Yeah. Just thinking. Going over what we know.”
Nox arched an eyebrow, though his gaze stayed fixed on the water he poured into his mug. His voice lifted a little, carrying to the rest of the room. “You can share with the class, y’know. We don’t bite.”
“I do,” Gault called.
Nox rolled his eyes, but he couldn’t stop the quirk at the corner of his mouth. “Well, Mark does. But only in certain contexts.”
6.
“What about your Phone Friends?” Latrell managed to keep the wry twist to a minimum.
Nox waved a hand. Broad and expansive, far less carefully controlled than usual. Said, "I am unconvinced of the malleability of the people who live in my phone."
"How charmingly enigmatic." Latrell didn't bother to modulate the wryness this time.
"I am. I also have a proposal."
"Ominous."
"Look at you, hitting all my major personality traits!" Even in profile, Latrell could see the crinkle at the corner of his mouth, the parting of his lips, the fine lines fanning from his eyes. Nox took a long swallow from his coffee, continued, "We need more people."
7.
“There’s something else I have to tell you.”
Albie shot him a quick glance. “Oh?”
Latrell pulled his glasses off, pinched a forefinger and thumb across his eyes. “It’s… complicated, alright? And I’ll go into more detail when we get there. Just figured I shouldn’t spring it on you right after you’ve just met our favourite felon.”
“Your favourite felon, maybe,” Albie said. The teasing note didn’t quite conceal the apprehension, the disapproval apparent in the downturn of her mouth. She compensated by adding, “I’m yet to form an opinion.”
8.
He didn’t hesitate when he reached the glowing green exit sign. Pushed out the door and emerged into the night.
It was cooler still out here. Brighter, too, the moon nearly full, hovering just above the tips of the buildings. The emergency exit opened onto a square of bitumen, bordered on all sides by buildings with their backs turned. Nobody wanted a view of a spit of blacktop. Alleys cut paths between them, leading to… places. Somewhere else. Anywhere else.
Nox leant against Ralph’s hood, ankles crossed. He flipped the keys once around his finger as Latrell let the door fall shut behind him.
“Where to, sunshine?” he said, voice low, just loud enough to carry across the distance between them.
9.
“Oh no no no, this will not do at all! This is awful! Do you people not have charters against this sort of thing? This is simply inhumane!”
Latrell blinked rapidly. His glasses were askew, almost as much as his body, crumpled on the cold hard cot. His limbs screamed as he straightened them, which did nothing for his too-fast breathing or the too-hard slam of his pulse, but at least served to bring him more firmly into the present, into the real and the now. He removed his glasses, wiped savagely at his eyes, replaced them. Surveyed the room in front of him with more mental acuity than the first pass.
Wondered if he was still dreaming.
Cassandra Nightingale stood in the centre of the room, her back to him. She towered over whoever she was facing, but then she towered over everyone. Filled every space she entered, wall to wall and floor to ceiling, regardless of their relative size. Her dress was different to the one she’d worn at the fundraiser, though would have fit in just as well; layers upon layers of different peach materials, lace and silk and something decidedly poofy, terminating at her ankles in order to show off her terrifyingly high stiletto heels.
She shook a finger in the face of whoever she was talking to. Even with her back turned, Latrell had seen the gesture enough to place it. “This is unacceptable! Can you people not see that? Is this some form of passive torture you are trying to inflict upon innocent people? Do I need to remind you that the foundation of our justice system is innocent until proven guilty?”
10.
The thick heavy ball broke free, rising up Latrell’s throat even as he tried to grab it and swallow it back down. [Redacted]’s laugh followed the strangled choked broken sob into the echoing stillness of the room.
“Naw, don’t be like that.” [Their] voice was cutting, mocking, coming from every corner and every flat surface of the space. Latrell realised his eyes were still shut. Reluctantly pried them open. For what good it would do him. If [Redaced] didn’t want him to, he’d never see the final blow coming. “What do you say, Latrell? Should we explore more of this old aquarium? I’ll give you a sixty second headstart if you wanna make a run for it.” Beat. A laugh, loud, malicious. “Don’t think you’ll get very far with that amount of time, though. Not on that knee. Let’s say two minutes. What do you think?”
“I think,” said a second voice from nowhere and everywhere, “That you talk too fucking much.”
#pockets muses IRL#WIP: ATN#sidenote: weirdly i feel like re-RED needs a hyphen#while reREED doesn't#so that's an interesting discovery#but anyway#LOOK AT MY BOYS#i'll get more into this tomorrow i hope but dude#i'm hoping to spend a month or so with them#and it's making me feel things#i love them sm 😍
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