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lets-try-some-writing · 1 year

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So for teacher Optimus would there be rumors of him being a cryptid?

Absolutely. Previous part here.

Mr. Pax

The history teacher of Jasper Nevada Memorial High School always was an odd one in the eyes of just about everyone. He always turned up early to the point of it being a little concerning when he arrived before the doors were even unlocked. His classes were always so outlandish yet effective when combined with his homebrewed teaching methods. His mannerisms were strange and he always stayed late to help with clean up. Not to mention he was far more attached to his students than most thought possible.

There were many things about Mr. Pax that were brow raising, but a few key ones stuck out more than most.

He didn't eat, ever. His students watched and watched, looking for any sign that he might consume any sort of sustenance. But no, he never brought lunch, didn't go to the cafeteria, or otherwise consume anything. He didn't take any pills or even drink water for heavens sake! Even on the hottest of days he didn't stop to quench his thirst at all. Not only that but he never looked exhausted physically. He could run a mile and not break a sweat and that was startling.

Students did try to see if they could trick him into eating or just offer him food, but when they did they were greeted with one of two responses. The first was that Mr. Pax would accept the offered food with a kind fatherly smile and return the next day with something even better that was then offered to the student in question. The second response was that he would instead pass the food off to any student or teacher who looked hungry. He never took anything for himself, or at least he didn't eat anything in plain sight.

Of course that was not all. Mr. Pax always looked impeccable. Nothing was ever out of place on him unless he specifically worked to make it so. His clothing never changed much from his long-sleeved turtle neck and jeans with his signature belt. His multicolored hair was always perfectly styled and nothing ever seemed to really upset the peaceful and wise aura that surrounded him at all times. HIs eyes also seemed to have this glow to them that spoke of something more, something ancient.

He also just appeared at times. It was startling. One moment he could be in the staff room and the moment students began to get rowdy he could be in the doorway looking disappointed enough to make even the most aggressive student feel shame. Nothing escaped Mr. Pax when it came to his classes and students. He just knew things about students that shouldn't really be possible simply by looking at them.

It felt like he knew every single one of them personally, which was a tad odd despite how closely they worked with him and adored him. He always knew when the mood in the classroom was somber, and on such days he would sing. It was always a magical thing. His voice echoed and rang out in tones that shouldn't have been possible as he uttered an ancient song in a language long forgotten. Even Rafael could only parse out bits and pieces of the words Mr. Pax sang on those days. But whatever it was he sang, it never ceased to soothe the sorrowful hearts of struggling students.

His voice didn't just have an affect on his songs, no, it also gave him a way with words that could lull a student to sleep or demand attention at the drop of a hat. His way of speech was formal yet so very familiar. How he managed to put so much emotion into his manner of speech was beyond the students he taught. How could any human manage to convey so much in a few simple words? How could Mr. Pax show so much of himself yet also be so very inspiriting at the same time? It was something the students couldn't figure out even if they tried. Mr. Pax had a gift, or more likely some sort of divine gift.

It certainly didn't help their growing suspicions that he spoke of his family in a near mythological sense. He told tales of the old civilization he studied with great love and sorrow, almost like he was there. But that same way of story telling also applied to the rare instances where he spoke of his family. He never gave names, merely titles and spun stories instead of saying things in a straight forward manner. He spoke of his 'little warrior', a young man who was Mr. Pax's son based on what they gathered. The little warrior was told to have been harmed by an enemy cruelly long ago, rendering him songless, or mute based upon what the students could put together. There was also an 'old friend' who was just that, a companion of Mr. Pax who stood by his side even 'when the world burned and we were left to ponder extinction'.

There were others, the 'wrecker' who seemed to be some kind of old war buddy, and 'bluejay' who appeared to be another friend from Mr. Pax's past. They all had their own almost mythical stories so vast and long the students often wondered if these people were but figments of Mr. Pax's imagination up until he brought in something from one of them.

It was all so very mysterious. Thus the more curious students began to ponder and think, quickly coming up with only two possible reasons for Mr. Pax's nature.

He had to either be some fae from another realm walking among them for whatever purpose he had, or he was an Elder One, some sort of god-like entity from a time long gone. Either option would explain his knowledge and his nature. Both would also make his abilities and seeming untouchableness understandable. It made perfect sense, but they needed to prove it. As such the students gathered to try and make sense of their teacher.

There were three groups of students in the Mr. Pax mystery club, along with one teacher who was curious to see what would be discussed. The first group was given one mission, that being to dig into who these family members of Mr. Pax were and try to meet them through whatever means necessary to prove they existed. The second was to attempt to question Mr. Pax and draw more information out of him while testing out different things associated with the fae on him, including the concept of offering names. And the last group was obliged to locate where Mr. Pax lived and then try to figure out if he had powers to see if he was an elder god or something along those lines.

To the students, it was foolproof.

Thus the first group set off with their intent set in stone. They tried hard to convince Mr. Pax to let them meet his family, and to the surprise of the entire club, he let them. He just brought his entire family to school one day for show and tell and had them tell the class stories. It left the class flabbergasted when the 'old friend' came in looking like he should be a model with orange and white hair all while decked up in medical equipment. He did not look pleased to be there, and possibly due to being another fae, he too did the same things that Mr. Pax did. The 'little warrior' was even more fascinating in that he didn't speak at all and instead signed. He had the same mannerisms and was similarly brightly colored in black and yellow. The 'wrecker' and 'bluejay' did not come, but just seeing two of the four was enough to convince the class that Mr. Pax was either the ruler of a court of fairies with how respectfully his companions treated him, or he was an elder god and these were his lesser wards.

The second group were left similarly shocked when Mr. Pax didn't shy away from their questions and answered honestly, if a little poetically. He spoke of where he came from as if it were a place of magic. Great technological advancement at the cost of civil unrest, corruption greater than any other, slavery, abuse, discrimination. The dots connected rather quickly for the club after meeting Mr. Pax's family. They rapidly came to the conclusion that he must be some sort of deity or survivor of the old civilization he spoke of often. They hypothesized that the 'old friend' and 'little warrior' must be fellow survivors/gods, or were Mr. Pax's offspring gifted with long life. It was the only real explanation they could come up with, especially when team three set off.

Team three tried hard to follow Mr. Pax home every single day for almost a year but to no avail. A yellow sports car or a big red and blue truck would always be waiting to pick him up after school and then would disappear around a corner as if they were never there. When Mr. Pax walked the same thing happened. He would just vanish like air the moment he was out of sight. No matter how fast team three tried to go, Mr. Pax somehow managed to stay ahead and even smiled back at them at times before vanishing. It drove them up the wall with irritation, but in the end they reported back and the club came to a consensus.

Mr. Pax and his family were obviously some sort of mythical beings and they were to be respected. Best not to dig too deep into it.

#maccadam #transformers #transformers prime #optimus prime #ratchet #bumblebee #teacher au #Optimus 100% knows his students are doing this but does nothing #he's just proud they are making efforts to study him like good little archivists #ratchet is less than pleased but lets Optimus have his fun because his prime hardly ever smiles #Bee is likely just there watching it all with metaphorical popcorn

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late-to-the-magnus-archives · 9 months

Text

No Small Amount of Damage - a Malevolent x TMA fic

(wobbles in woozy from fever to post fever-dream fic)

Normally, once they were dead, he didn’t care anymore. Sure, he could destroy them, but that just wasn’t the same. It didn’t feel as good; it didn’t end in anguish; it ended in quiet silence, feeling nothing, and that was worse than boring. That was waste .

Waste not, want not! In this case, he was curious to see how they’d do in the Dark World.

He’d check on them soon enough. Should be a blast.

Part of Just a Little Side-Quest, a TMA x Malevolent crossover in the Dark World.

AO3

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

KAYNE

Things often went according to plan. Which was boring.

Who the fuck wanted that? Not him. He’d been known to cause no small amount of damage when true boredom kicked in, and oh, no one, anywhere, at any time, wanted that .

Usually, the best way out of boredom was just to kill something. The ripping of life from body, that blissful, sensual , hedonism in caramel-coated soul-shuddering lip-tingling deep- thrust euphoria, was better than any feast, than any orgasm, than any experience the worlds had to offer.

He’d do it all the time, if he could. Unfortunately, then there’d be nobody left to do it to , so delayed gratification, it had to be.

He only regretted killing Arthur because he couldn’t do it again. It had been so good! Oh! So good. Oh! He’d floated for a while afterward in some sort of condition , nearly zoned out, practically calm (as much as the chaotic ocean-wash of his self could ever calm) because he hadn’t just gotten Arthur; he’d gotten John, too. It had been a while since he’d killed a Great Old One. They were rare, and none of the gods were reproducing these days, so he tried to save them for special occasions. Well, this was a two-fer! Couldn’t be better.

Waste not, want not! In this case, he was curious to see how they’d do in the Dark World.

He’d check on them soon enough. Should be a blast.

JOHN AND ARTHUR

They clung to one another as they fell, the scarred and twisting smoke that was Arthur’s soul thoroughly tangled with the gold and shining thread that was John. They passed the Veil and the Edge of All Things (which shuddered so subtly every time the dead flew by, which would someday wake the Blind Idiot, but until then, was a low and constant thrill of warning), and into the Dark World.

John’s panic was sharp. They’d come down on the edge of the wastes, just on the border of the furthest trade routes, beyond which only the most solitary and violent monsters swarmed and stalled and slathered. This was a bad place to have landed.

Arthur’s panic was worse. It far surpassed what he’d known fear could be, what he’d known when the cave-monster was going to eat him, what he’d felt when Larson’s creature was going to pierce his brain, what he’d screamed when the Butcher was going to break his hands.

It was worse, because without a brain, he could not recall how to recall himself. Nameless, self-less, he wailed.

Arthur! Arthur!

This was dangerous. It wasn’t unusual for the dead to have no memory; if Arthur didn’t calm down and get it together before his form took weight and weft, he’d be reduced to a blank slate—fresh, new, and completely ignorant.

John knew he wouldn’t be losing Arthur, but it still felt like losing Arthur. His voice hitched. Arthur! Arthur, focus on me! Arthur! Remember yourself! Remember me! Arthur!

Arthur remembered John. In that bloodied, bowed moment, Arthur clutched him. Without a body, with only soul and heart and intent, Arthur clung as if John was the one that kept him from being swept completely away. “John?” he breathed.

You know me. The relief nearly made him cry. I’m here. I’m here.

Arthur knew John, and whatever was happening—whatever spinning-flying-falling thing was happening, through airless fire and icy cold and weird membranous reality—John was here.

Hold on, Arthur. This part won’t feel good, but you’ll make it through. Hold on. You’re almost there.

Without a throat, Arthur screamed.

John remembered the horror of growing all the parts of his body that he understood, every vein, every nerve, every inch of skin; the hell of it, and it still not coming out quite right, because one’s understanding of one’s self was never truly accurate. He yearned to relieve Arthur’s suffering, to help him, to take on the pain if he could. He could not, but he could cling.

They tangled tighter, if anything, turned toward one another, inward, even as Arthur’s understanding of himself coalesced into his new undying form.

Somehow, John’s understanding of him played into it, too.

And it was Arthur, as he knew himself, gasping and naked. The scars Arthur knew by touch, though they didn’t look quite the same. The body of his youth, because human adults usually imprinted on themselves that way. The hair John could see on his arms seemed a little lighter. The arms themselves seemed a little more full, muscles less atrophied.

And it was John, as he knew Arthur—slightly taller. Definitely stronger. Hearty in ways they would not discover for some time. A man who could go through a brick wall if he felt like doing so.

Neither of them knew that yet.

“I can’t see,” whispered Arthur.

Oh, fuck. Arthur had… somehow internalized being blind? That shouldn’t… John told himself to focus. I’m here. I can see. You’re safe with me.

Arthur hitched, curling in on himself. It hurt, everything too much , as though he’d been reborn by being skinned and dropped out of himself onto the dirt, denuded and screaming.

John let him cry for a while, keeping his eyes open. Nothing had seen them so far. Good.

Good.

I’m not letting you get hurt, John whispered. So… I need you to get up, Arthur. You have to get up.

“Why?” Arthur whimpered. “There’s no point! We’re dead.”

Yeah. But it isn’t over.

“It’s over.” Arthur curled tighter on the dirt, softly crying. “It’s just over.”

But John knew they were far from safe. Arthur. No, it’s not over. I need you to get up. We have to take stock.

“Take stock? What are you talking about?”

Arthur. I need you to function. Get up.

“Why? What’s the point?”

Because it isn’t fucking over. This is the Dark World… and if we wait too long, things will hunt us.

“Hunt? Can… we die again?”

No. But we can suffer. Horribly. Come on, Arthur. And though he almost hated himself for it, he used the button he knew would make Arthur move: We have to take care of ourselves so you can find your daughter.

Staggering, sobbing, Arthur stood.

It wasn’t like the Dreamlands, but it wasn’t unlike them, either.

It wasn’t like Earth, but it wasn’t unlike it, either.

It wasn’t like the Moon kingdom, or inhospitable Yuggoth, but it wasn’t unlike them, either.

It was all of them and none.

It responds to us, John tried to explain.

We brought echoes of reality with us, he tried to say.

Arthur couldn’t understand. That wasn’t shocking. This went beyond any simple magic humans could do, any powers they might gain by making deals with greater beings. This was the Dark World, and all the rules had changed.

They were caught twice before they found the farmhouse.

It was a barren land, with ominous fortresses here and there, rising black smoke between and before them, warnings of raiding parties. There were hungry things in the dark and even hungrier in the sky. Arthur had never been eaten before, but now, he got to add that to his resume. Masticated, screaming and torn, dropped at last as a mangled pile of sinew and bone.

He did not die. They could not.

Somehow, they dragged themselves behind a rock and hid while Arthur’s body rebuilt itself as though nothing had happened, but Arthur would not leave their hiding spot until the next morning, when the sun rose.

John understood. He felt it all, now. He remembered what it was to feel things in a body, and so fully felt Arthur.

If only Arthur could see.

At least they were together. Arthur clutched John’s hand. Clutched John. John clutched back.

John remembered more the longer they were here, and they got better at managing. He spotted some dark rocks he knew were valuable, and Arthur gathered them, carrying them in his arms against his naked chest. They walked, and Arthur burned in the sun because he believed he would, and John failed to talk him out of it.

They finally found a traveling merchant—a strange being with a head like a frog who was completely unsurprised to find a naked man wandering in the wastes, took the rocks, and gave them needful things from his flat, wheeled cart.

Clothes. Tools. Some seeds. Water.

You don’t need water, Arthur.

“But I’m thirsty…”

Only because you think you are. This concept was going to take a while.

Arthur obeyed and did not drink, and that meant they had a chance.

The farmhouse was two stories, fairly small, with flaking blue-gray paint and a garden gone to seed. It looked like it had been lived in for a long time and abandoned for even longer. When Arthur remarked, “Your description sounds like the place I grew up in, until my parents died when I was six,” John didn’t say, you created it , didn’t say, it’s been that long since anywhere just felt like home? but accepted it as the instinctive gift it was.

It sat near a weird, black chasm, a canyon that felt terrible, and remained completely dark no matter the time of day. Across that chasm was a similar small house with a wraparound porch—and a thriving garden patch.

John hoped it wasn’t a trap. I think people are over there.

“We’ll check them out later.” For now, Arthur just wanted to go home. To a place without complicated emotions, an idealized memory of happy and ignorant childhood.

They poured the water into the dry well—the kind of offering the Dark World liked—and Arthur chose to believe that would revive it.

It did. They went into the house, and found plumbing, and showered forever in lukewarm water, and finally slept in a bed—huge, proportions wrong, because everything here had been big to him when he was six.

They did not care about furniture sizes. Arthur slept, and John relaxed. They would meet their neighbors tomorrow.

THE ARCHIVIST AND HIS PLUS-ONE

Something had happened when he poured himself out to save the one he’d asked to take his life.

It hadn’t happened right away. The Panopticon had come down, and it hadn’t happened then. They’d been compressed into the Web’s tunnel like some crushing and breathless execution, and it hadn’t happened then. He took with him the marks of all the Entities, and the infusion of otherness from the Eye’s ascent, and the sacrifice he’d made of Jonah by murdering him with his own hands, and the sacrifice he’d made of himself by handing the knife to the one to who already held his heart. Still, it hadn’t happened then.

In the tunnel, breaking, suffocating, Martin was dying, and Jon had poured out everything he was, without reserve, nothing held back, in desperate burning love to shield Martin from it.

Jon had been dying, too, and it wasn’t enough.

They had both died, and never made it to wherever the Web was going; She’d had three corpses to handle when she arrived. But with that effort, that complete release of self so marked and contaminated and burdened, it happened.

Death was his birth, and like tearing through some wet, semipermeable membrane, or splashing like an alien from some goo-filled pod, Jon came out changed.

They’d landed in the Dark World like a meteor in a spray of green power like liquid magic, and were not separated because Jon would not let go. Without form, Martin had wailed, remembering nothing—but this would not be the first time Jon had saved him by anchoring him back to himself.

Then the shock of forming new bodies (and all his eyes adjusting to this strange world, this afterplace) rocked them, and they clung, and gasped, and shuddered. They whispered forgiveness (“I broke my promise, please forgive me” and “I knew you were going to do something, but I didn’t stop you, forgive me, Jon”), and through it all, Jon grew in understanding that if every single piece of his life had not fallen the way it had, this change would not have happened, and he would not be able to protect Martin now.

Martin needed it. They both did.

So many things had tried to eat them as they’d staggered, leaning on each other, naked and afraid, in the direction Jon knew they should go.

He wouldn’t let even one get close. If he really concentrated, he could see everything in a short distance around them, and he didn’t have to call on the Ceaseless Watcher (which was not here) to handle threats.

The small, nasty predators that wanted to hurt them blew apart into shrieking meat the moment he felt anger toward them, and Jon made sure he and Martin moved on before those things could recover.

He was smiting them, or something, but it wasn’t a power he could control. It just happened : he wanted the things that would hurt Martin to stop, and boy howdy, they did.

He feared he couldn’t do it to anything larger, and he feared he could only do it to one thing at a time. He also feared something else: it only happened when threatened so far, but what if he somehow hurt Martin?

Jon would not look directly at him for a week.

Martin put up with this with patience Jon knew he did not deserve.

“We need shelter,” Martin had finally said one barren morning, and the next damn day, it appeared: a lovely and quaint house, white clapboard with an open veranda and two stories. It sat beside a black chasm of unbelievable horror, but by this point, Jon was almost numb to whatever this world had to throw at them.

“Just like my grandma’s in Kent,” Martin had said in wonder about the house, and Jon knew Martin had accidentally recreated it. A safe place, better than anywhere he’d lived with his mother, better than anywhere he’d lived on his own, tainted with memories of worms and canned peaches.

“You’re incredible,” he’d told Martin, finally brave enough to look at him again, and together, they’d staggered inside.

It had gone from so very bad to so very good.

Peace. Quiet. Safety, as long as they were careful. They’d traded some of the things Martin accidentally made (like a vintage 1940’s telephone and some funky little roosters made of brass) to one of the frequently appearing merchants, and so obtained needful goods.

Their small farmed patch grew without reason or logic but according to feel, and that was fine for them both. Just because one didn’t have to eat didn’t mean it wasn’t a wonderful comfort to dig into juicy, sweet watermelon, and make a sticky, laughing mess.

They talked.

They’d both gone wrong. They owned it. It seemed unfair that the dead could cry, but the dead could also kiss and make up, so it wasn’t so bad in the end.

And Jon knew with a settling of his anxious heart (or whatever beat inside him now) that he’d have fallen in love all over again if he’d met Martin here, without the pressures of career and Jonah’s terrible gaze. Bafflingly, he knew that Martin still loved him, too—after everything, in spite of it—and that was so incredible and so precious that he could almost forgive himself.

Kayne wasn’t the first curious thing to show up at their door, but he was the one who would not leave.

Jon knew he had eyes somehow all over his body (even when he hid them), and eyes occasionally manifesting in the air all around. He knew he had moments when emotion clouded his memory of himself, when he looked deeply inhuman, which Martin described as, “A dark shape of eyes and hunger—I don’t know, but your hair goes almost like serpents and fire mixed, and I kind of want you to eat me?”

He knew he was still changing, but he could not see himself. He just knew he felt… better.

The last couple merchants had eyed Jon oddly. They’d made trades and shared no gossip, which was good; Jon felt less like maybe he was making waves. But then other people came. One after another on succeeding weeks: three people in business suits and sunglasses, who came to the door, two men and one woman, who knocked, stared at Jon, and vanished.

He didn’t know what that was about—they were hidden from him, as oblique as everyone had been when he was alive and still fully human.

Martin refused to panic. Jon quietly did it, anyway.

He still couldn’t wield whatever power he had on purpose; twice, something monstrous had come to their new home, and he had been afraid he couldn’t blast them away—and so he couldn’t. They’d had repairs to make on the house after. Somehow, Martin didn’t blame him.

Jon still blamed himself. He felt like he was trying to steer a boat—slow, imprecise, unwieldy.

He began to fear some horrible thing was going to come and crush them, smash their home, take Martin away. He heard booms in the distance, sometimes, regular and rumbling, like footsteps, and feared what they could be. Giant things, maybe, nightmare-beasts, so big they blocked the sky. Maybe they had freaky horse-legs, skinny like Nelson’s Column. Maybe they’d bring lorry-sized feet down on this sweet house, crushing them in their home, maybe—

Outside came the worst set of sounds he’d ever heard, like a goat the size of a moon being skinned alive, and though it was practically on their porch, he could not see what was happening.

“Jon!” Martin called from the living room.

Jon practically fell down the stairs trying to reach him.

Jon got there in time to see the… results.

In the sky, far away, was a figure. Spinning. Some kind of giant thing (exactly as he’d been picturing), tossing end over end, shrinking into the distance, and even from here, he knew it was huge.

And on the porch was a guy. Just… a guy, wearing denim overalls and a bright red shirt and an obnoxiously wide straw hat, grinning, holding some sort of casserole dish with a flower pattern on it and a knobbed glass lid. “Hi!” he’d said.

“Um, hi?” said Martin, because all he saw was a guy.

Jon saw—

Jon saw.

Murder. Chaos. Cackling laughter. Boredom like a black hole, devouring everything, but never filled. Power, more than this being had ever bothered to use, seemingly bottomless and enough to destroy everything.

This creature was in grabbing distance of Martin.

Martin—

“Well, hellooo, nurse, ” said the being, looking Martin up and down, and then reached.

Jon reacted.

He didn’t even mean to. It just happened, a panicked response to one who craved death so keenly and had aimed that gun toward Martin, whether or not this monster meant to pull the trigger.

Martin gasped, yanked behind Jon (by his hands? By something else? He didn’t even know). And Jon did the thing, and it… it didn’t work?

The guy on the porch sort of fluctuated, edges wavering, image doubling, as though all Jon had done was disrupt the false image.

The guy laughed.

“Jon!” Martin cried, and tried to pull him back (the fool, trying to save him, to protect him, when he already had done both and now was so unsafe).

“Hey, easy, it’s okay!” said the guy, hand up, balancing the casserole dish on his other hand. “Not here to actually hurt you! Just wanted to see what you’d do, you know?”

They stared at him.

“What?” said Martin, still gripping Jon close, uncaring about fire-snake hair or whatever else Jon was doing.

“I am just here,” said the black hole with terrible patience, “to see the baby god.”

Oh, no, Jon thought.

“Oh, yes,” said the black hole, eyes lidded, and smiled.

He’d said, “You’re the first baby god in ten thousand years! Inquiring minds want to know: how does it feel?”

Jon had no idea how to answer that. He couldn’t see himself. He simply felt like himself, just… unblocked, somehow? Like a water pipe with the mud taken out of it.

“You’re like that flailing Kermit puppet meme. You know that one? Seriously. You don’t act like a god at all!”

Jon did not know the meme. Then he did, and wasn’t sure if he was insulted.

“Oh, do be insulted, do. And how did it feel to be born?”

And Jon, suddenly confronted with his brain’s actual memories of human birth, had to go lie down for a bit.

Kayne thought that was a laugh riot.

He'd brought macaroni and cheese, which he insisted on eating with them before finally going away. (And it was a good, tasty, ridiculously rich dish, and Jon was afraid.) Kayne showed up again two days later, this time with a tiny cactus in a clay pot no taller than a teacup.

“Do you still sleep?” Kayne had said. “Do you still shit? Does the pecker work? Do you have to concentrate to look human? How does it feel when you don’t? You really can’t control that thing you do?”

No, Jon could not control that thing he did, finally hearing a question he was willing to answer.

“We gotta work on that, baby god! I mean… not that we actually know what happened to you, but see, I’ve been around since the Blind Idiot first dreamed it all real, and I have never seen such a fucking mess as you. I just can’t look away. You are a train wreck in progress, where someone hit pause before the explosion could finish.”

That felt great to hear. Really.

Kayne proceeded to tell them a wild tale about the cactus being someone who'd angered him, then changed the narrative at the last minute to say it was the angering-guy's dog, and then took it all back with "Just kidding!" Jon asked him to take the cactus away when he left, and Kayne did. He was back two days later. Now, he had German chocolate cake.

Martin tried so hard to manage all of this. Jon warned him (this is some kind of devil), but Martin had been handling devils for a while now, including as his boss, and possibly as his lover. He managed fine, made tea, laughed at all Kayne's jokes (which were increasingly horrible as if to test that determination), and Kayne just would not go away.

Martin was fine. It wasn’t his first go-round with a narcissist in power. Kayne found him amusing. Which was not great, but better than the alternative.

“So what’s it feel like to be conceived?” Kayne asked.

Jon had to go lie down.

He kept coming back. They put up with Kayne’s weird visits for a month and a half before the neighbors arrived. Before that cute little farmhouse appeared across the Chasm, before a sunburned man with a fragment of an ancient god inside him wandered into it and slept for the Dark World’s equivalent of seventy-two hours.

“If only we had some rope,” said Martin, standing on their veranda and pensively eyeing the other house.

"Rope?" said Jon.

"And a few other things," said Martin, who appeared to be tapping into an unbeknownst engineering talent.

The ropes, stakes, bells, pulleys, and hooks—exactly as Martin had imagined them!—were provided the next day by a merchant (a guy with the head of a mongoose and an enormous powdered wig), who took six watermelons in exchange.

Jon thought it was a very fair deal.

Martin had tied a rock to a rope, swung it like a bola, and hurled it across the Chasm to get things going. Arthur was amenable, and within a few hours, they had their system set up.

“It works,” said Jon, and laughed. “We did it!”

“Of course we did,” said Arthur with a confidence Jon did not feel.

“Now, as long as no monsters come along to break the thing,” Martin started.

“Who said marshmallow party? ” said Kayne, appearing as if summoned, and snapped his fingers, and then literal mountains of marshmallows appeared out of nowhere, shadowing the houses, and immediately after came a storm of creatures big and small, venomous, ravenous, descending as if they’d been tracking these things from sixty miles away.

Everybody escaped back into their houses at a run.

“What an ass!” Martin cried against the buzzing shrill of the marshmallow-eating hordes.

Nobody got bit too badly, but it was anarchy. Days of insects and six-beaked birds, and things that looked like raccoons until you saw their faces and went briefly blind, and gusts of wind that sounded like children giggling but set the soil on fire and—

Jon hoped Kayne was having fun. If causing mayhem outside the house was the worst of it, they’d be fine.

He knew that would not be the worst of it. Jon just hoped they’d be ready to handle whatever the worst was when it came.

AS I WENT WALKING ONE MORNING IN MAY

Arthur was dreaming.

John said he didn’t need to sleep, but he felt the need of it; that need to get away, leave this behind, take a break from the constant learning curve that was the Dark World. So, he slept, and remembered what was, when things made sense.

It sounded so fucking simple here: reality was what you brought with you. There you go. Done. Except that everyone brought their own, and that meant a constant overlap of conflicting realities no one could predict.

Whose reality won? Which memory prevailed? It wasn’t about accuracy; it wasn’t about depth of passion, or amounts of faith. It was random, truly random, and that was why it was hard.

The only rule was adapt or suffer.

Arthur knew they’d adapted pretty well. He knew he could stay here; maybe not forever, but for a very long time without even getting tired. They grew things (not living things, somehow, but memories of them, which meant they actually tasted better). They had neighbors to talk to from a completely different Earth. They swapped stories, and Arthur taught Jon songs (the Archivist could sing, it turned out, much to Martin’s delight), and though they were limited by the Chasm between, it wasn’t bad at all.

He knew they couldn’t stay. He knew Faroe was somewhere on the opposite side of this world, or this continent, or whatever the hell it was.

He knew John wanted to stay here.

Arthur couldn’t blame him. They had a major heads-up for trouble with the Archivist next door, whatever he was (and John wouldn’t say beyond not fucking human, that’s for sure). They had help—Martin was always generous, always kind, and knew how to turn any topic to better things.

It was safe here. Safe as any homestead in the Dark World could be. John wanted to stay, but they could not, and the choice was on Arthur. He was the one who had to decide it was time to leave, and he didn’t want that responsibility.

What he wanted was for something to make that choice for him.

So, instead of deciding, he slept, and he dreamed, and he remembered what was, and hoped, quietly, for a future in which he didn’t face this choice.

The bell woke him, jangling madly as though someone was whipping that rope back and forth with both hands.

What the fuck? said John.

“Yeah,” Arthur agreed, hurriedly pulling on some denim and a shirt, and rushing outside.

It’s the Archivist, said John. He looks frantic; his eyes are huge, and his teeth are bared. He’s braided his hair back, and he… he’s wearing something like traveling clothes.

Oh, no. “Jon?” called Arthur.

“We’ve got to go!” Jon said. “Pack! Quickly! There’s…”

He’s doing that thing—fuck. I don’t see eyes, but I feel them, crawling all over me like spider legs.

“Locusts,” said Jon now, low and smooth and resonant, and his voice was doubled. “But not as you’ve known. Eating the sky, eating the air, crawling through the soil like maggots twist upon one another in flesh. We would survive because that is not our choice, but we would suffer, and all we built will be devoured.”

“Locusts? Are you serious?” Arthur said.

He’s shaking it off.

“Here,” Jon said, using their pulley system to send something odd and bulky across. “That’s a hiking backpack. It will hold a lot of things, and it’s waterproof, and it’s lighter than you think. Go ahead and take it. We’re bringing temporary shelter, so don’t worry about a tent or anything like that.”

Arthur inspected it. He’d never seen anything like it; it had a frame, for heaven’s sake. “Jon…”

“They’re coming,” said the Archivist. “Listen: that way—” He’s pointing—“is a bridge. An actual bridge. If we both go that way, we can meet up, and help each other. We have to get out of here, Arthur. There’s no way to defend from this.”

And after all that wishing, all that yearning not to have to make the choice, Arthur found he resented it being taken from him. “Why? We could… go underground, or—“

“Not with this. Please listen to me. They’re coming. Pack up. We’re going in an hour, with or without you—but I’d rather go with you.”

He went red. Looks quite embarrassed at that little declaration of friendship, John opined. Now he’s running back to the house.

“Fuck,” said Arthur, turning around. “Fuck. Fuck. Fuck!”

Arthur, what are we going to do?

“He has no reason to lie to us. And he’s been right so far.”

He’s… it could be a trick, or…

“To what end? What, they want to steal our shovel because they already have one but like ours better? Fuck, John. I believe him.”

All right. All right. What do we take?

What a good question.

Naturally, they argued over the answer, and that took up half their packing time.

It was weird, marching along the chasm, two on each side. They all had packs like the one Jon had sent across. All were loaded down, though not with too much; in the end, John and Arthur had decided on essentials (clothes, knives, and things for trade), and it seemed like Martin and Jon had done the same.

Stars still shone overhead; John had insisted the constellations changed regularly, depending on whose reality got pushed up there—but at least there were stars.

A vast Milky Way gleamed above them tonight. Martin found it beautiful.

It’s thicker, denser than the one I saw at night in Addison.

“Wow,” whispered Arthur. “Hard to imagine. Is there really a bridge ahead of us?”

“Yes,” said Jon.

“How do you know?”

“I… just know.”

He’s red again. Careful, Arthur—you’re drifting right, toward his voice and that damned Chasm.

Arthur corrected. “I wish this wasn’t happening.”

“Tell me about it,” said Martin. “I’m gonna miss that place.”

Distant dark shapes like rocks breathed gently, as of behemoths sleeping.

“We may have our homes again one day,” said Jon. “Impossible to tell right now, but there’s no reason why not.”

There’s plenty of reason why not, said John, namely that you all seem to think you’re saying goodbye to it.

“True,” said Jon. “That affects the likelihood.”

“I still don’t get how that works?” said Martin.

The gods have tried to understand it, said John. Everyone has—why the realities change the way they do, why some win and some disappear. The problem is that it’s like patterns of oil in agitated water, and every time you think you understand the pattern, someone new dies, which alters it again.

“Which means constant change,” said Martin. “I mean, I know that, but I still had my grandma’s house.”

“Which we may have again,” Jon insisted. “At least we know it won’t be mine. I hated that place. Couldn’t wait to get out.”

“Your grandmother raised you?” said Arthur.

“My parents died when I was very young,” said Jon. “My father died when I was two, and my mother when I was four.”

“Fuck,” said Arthur. “Mine died when I was six.”

He winced.

“Sorry about all of that,” said Martin. “My dad left us when I was eight. Mum’s been gone for a while, too.” He made a face. “I’d rather not meet her here? Does that make me a bad person?”

“It does not,” said Jon. “Wait, are we all orphaned?”

“Guess we must be,” said Arthur.

I don’t… know who my parents were, said John.

“Yug and Neb,” said Jon without hesitation.

There was silence for a moment. Who? Said John.

“Twins, children of Yog-Sothoth,” said Jon, trailing off as he seemed to realize he was saying something weird.

“How’d you know that?” said Arthur.

“I just do,” Jon mumbled.

“You’ll get used to it,” said Martin.

Wow, he’s red. Wow. Even under the starlight, he’s red.

“Your… parents were twins? ” said Arthur. “Ugh! What the hell? Gross!”

Don’t blame me! All those people are crazy, said Jon. They’re all like him! Hastur! They just do what they want!

“Yucky,” said Martin in a light and teasing tone.

Fuck you, said John warmly.

Arthur finally laughed. “Don’t think it fucking matters now, does it?”

John laughed, too. No… I guess it really doesn’t.

“Might explain why Hastur was so fucked up,” said Arthur.

You know, you’ve got a point?

They both laughed.

Martin nudged Jon’s shoulder with his own. “Are you all right?”

“Sure.”

Martin knew better than that. “Didn’t know you knew that, eh?”

“I’m just… afraid,” said Jon. “And I know how unwise that is, but I can’t help it.”

“Of?”

“Losing myself. Every time I realize I knew something I couldn’t know, I’m afraid I’m losing something in its place.”

“That hasn’t happened yet,” said Martin.

“How would I even know?”

“You’ve got three people here who are all watching you really carefully for various reasons,” said Martin. “We’d know.”

Jon leaned into Martin. “I’d be so lost without you.”

“Yes, you would,” said Martin, and grinned, and stole a kiss.

Gross, said John.

Behind Jon’s back, Martin flipped him off.

Heh, heh, heh, said John. Martin flipped me off.

“Well, maybe you deserved it. Wait—wait,” said Arthur, and stopped. “Listen.”

“I don’t hear anything?” said Martin after a moment.

“They’ve begun,” said Jon softly.

John gave a shudder, and Arthur shuddered, too. I feel them.

“What?” said Martin.

“They’re eating our homes. We need to keep going,” said Jon.

They did, feet crunching. Echoes rose from the Chasm, as of rocks dropping and bouncing off precipices. In the distance, something shrieked; and every once in a while, a heavier sound, a creaking and wood-breaking sound, juddered their way.

I think I see something.

“Is that… what is that?” said Martin.

“The bridge,” said Jon. “Let me do the talking.”

“Talking?” Martin squeaked.

Talking. Because the damned thing wasn’t a bridge at all.

It was a dragon.

Long and black, it had two heads, one on each side of its tube-like body, sending up lazy gray plumes of smoke. The dragon stretched over the chasm, and seemed to be sleeping, judging by its snore.

“Okay, what,” Martin said, “if you’ll pardon my French, the fuck? It looks like one of those finger-trap toys.”

“We have to walk through it,” said Jon.

“Uh. What?” said Arthur.

Hang on. We don’t. You do. I’m not taking Arthur into the gullet of that beast.

“It’s perfectly safe,” said Jon. “And we’d have a better time on this side of the Chasm.”

No, said John.

“Can’t say this is an argument I imagined having in the middle of the night,” said Martin.

“Hold on, what are you talking about?” said Arthur.

He wants you to walk into a dragon’s stomach.

That takes Arthur a moment. “What?”

Jon sighed. “Fine. We’ll do it.”

“Wait a moment, we’re going in?” Martin squeaked.

“We don’t have time to faff about,” said Jon, and approached the head resting on his side.

Its eyes slitted open, glowing red; there was no pupil.

“Good evening,” said Jon. “I wish to barter for passage for two.”

“Is this happening?” whispered Martin.

It spoke without moving its mouth: ONE DREAM.

Jon paled. He looked toward Martin.

Martin looked lost.

Behind them, the skies had grown unnaturally dark, like surging clouds made of a billion bugs blocking the stars. Jon hardened. “Do I get to choose?” he said to the dragon.

IF YOU WISH.

Jon thought; straightened. “This one. Where the apple with teeth appeared on my desk, no matter how many times I threw it away.”

A STRANGE DREAM, the dragon said, then shuddered from stem to stern, and both mouths opened as if to yawn—or chomp. PROCEED.

“Wait, what just happened?” said Martin.

“Hold my hand, Martin.”

“What… you… wait! What’s…”

Jon took his hand and kissed it. “Trust me. I know the way.”

Martin’s gaze locked onto him. “All right, he whispered, and ducking slightly, they walked into the dragon’s mouth.

Holy fuck! They went in!

“You weren’t joking? This… there’s a dragon?”

It’s huge. Ten meters long, I’d swear. Its claws are dug into the earth on both sides of the Chasm, and it has a head at each end. How the hell does it… do anything? Eat? Shit? I have no idea.

Arthur’s jaw was open. “I almost wish we’d gone in.”

No. Damn it, Arthur, I was so afraid I’d lose you when Kayne… I can’t do that again.

“I can’t die here.” Arthur gripped his left hand. “Remember?”

You can still be lost. Separated. Hurt.

“All right, all right. Big baby,” said Arthur, but he understood. He held John’s hand more tightly.

They waited. The wind carried the sound of buzzing toward them in short, quiet bursts, and the creak of ruined wood.

“Fuck,” said Arthur, wiping his eyes. “It wasn’t even real. I shouldn’t miss it like this, but I do.”

I promise you that when we find Faroe, we’ll make a home, somehow, said John. We’ll make it, and defend it, and it’ll be perfect.

“I’m holding you to that.”

Good.

The dragon groaned, and Jon and Martin ducked their way out of the dragon’s maw on their side.

There they are!

“Are they okay?”

I think so. Hey! Are you okay?

“Yes,” said Martin. “Though I’ve got a hell of a crick in my neck.”

“No, you don’t,” said Jon. “You just think you do.”

“Do you think your hair got frizzy in there, too?”

“Er…”

“What?” said Arthur.

“It was like a sauna in there, only covered in meat. I have no idea how it was lit up, either. Freaky weird,” said Martin.

I don’t think the dragon enjoyed that, said John.

Behind them, the creature rose. Defying physics, defying gravity, it simply pivoted straight up like a drawbridge, and shuddered, its opposite head pointing at the ground. YOU DID NOT WARN ME ONE OF YOU WAS A GOD. I AM BRUISED.

“Oh, damn, I… I’m sorry, I didn’t think it mattered,” said Jon.

From ten meters up, the dragon rumbled. MY BROTHERS WILL BE WARNED.

“Please, I… I didn’t realize,” said Jon. “I apologize. Do you want another dream?”

“What’s happening?” whispered Arthur.

UNNECESSARY. BUT NOW, ALL WILL BE WARNED, said the dragon, and then did the most ridiculous thing: bent down, doubled like a sock hung over a railing, and scuttered away on the tips of its toes like a cartoon.

There were actually xylophone sounds.

Martin gawked. “What? What?”

“What was that?” said Arthur. “What was it saying?”

Jon—who was looking deeply concerned—blinked. “Wait. You couldn’t understand him?”

“No?” said Martin.

“It was a talking dragon?” said Arthur.

I heard it.

“And?” said Arthur.

And—

Jon’s face was red. “And we may have trouble crossing again that way. Because of me.”

“Then I won’t cross back,” said Martin.

“I don’t know the rules,” said Jon helplessly. “I know more than I want to, but not what I need, and I’m supposed to be this thing, but I don’t know enough.”

John snorted.

Martin had been through this freakout before. He took Jon's hand. “Hey. We’re here. We can face whatever else we have to as we go."

"I'm sorry," said Jon.

"Nonsense. You're amazing. I love you."

Will you just kiss and get it over with? John snapped. Existential crises can wait until we’ve actually escaped.

Jon laughed weakly. “You’re right. You’re right.”

“Is he, though?” said Arthur, needling.

His own left hand rose to chuck him lightly on the chin. Yes. Ass.

“Oh,” said Martin. “It’s nice to meet you, actually?”

He’s offering his hand.

Arthur shook it. “Good to finally be face to face.”

“Let’s keep moving,” said Jon, still distracted. “You really couldn’t understand it?”

“You could, and that’s what matters,” said Martin.

“Too much faith in me. I don’t know what I’m doing.”

“I bet that’s good here,” said Arthur. “If you don’t know the rules, you can probably surpass them.”

Jon stared for a moment, then grabbed his hand and shook it so enthusiastically that Arthur’s whole arm wagged. “I’m so glad you’re here.”

Martin snickered softly. “Mister Awkward, live on the Chasm’s Other Side, tonight at eleven.”

“Oh, shut up,” said Jon, but smiled.

They walked again. The sky grew briefly lighter at opposite ends, then darker again, as though someone’s idea of dawn had been erased.

I could understand the dragon, said John, suddenly. You’re not alone. Or crazy, or anything. If I remember anything important from here on out, I’ll try to warn you.

Jon understood this for what it was: comfort. “Thank you.”

“I’m glad we’re together finally,” said Arthur. “Kind of hard to play poker when you can’t reach the chips.”

“Pragmatic,” said Martin.

Arthur, said John. Sing for me?

“I can do that,” said Arthur. “Archivist? Sing with me?”

“Oh, uh… sure? I haven’t sung this much since uni,” he said.

“I still can’t believe you fronted a band and didn’t tell me,” said Martin. “Tim would have gone nuts.”

“He still might,” Jon murmured.

Martin fell silent, shocked.

“You really can sing, and you’ve got a deeper voice, so I can harmonize if you’re willing to take the lead,” said Arthur.

“In what?”

“Do you know ‘Bold Grenadier?’”

Jon was silent for the space of three seconds. “I do now.”

“Let’s do it,” said Arthur.

So they did; baritone and bass, pacing the tune with their steps, covering the sounds of demolished dreams at their backs and the screeches of who knew what far away. And if they noticed that John seemed to simmer low, as if he could wrap himself in Arthur’s voice like a blanket, or that Martin wore a small smile, and eyes just a pinch shiny, they never said a word.

They walked until morning finally dawned, found shelter in some conveniently large rocks, and took their chosen rest.

--------

Notes:

Yes, I mentioned The Mechanisms. No one can stop me.

So The Bold Grenadier is one of those songs that varies WILDLY according to who’s doing it.

The Bold Grenadier on guitar A 1975 version that is as 70s as you can get but honestly really fun: A traditional version of it And because things weren’t trippy enough, here is the infamous Hoagy Carmichael’s version, which is straight-up jazzy.

#tma #malevolent #tma fic #malevolent fic #tma x malevolent #malevolent x tma #kayne malevolent #jonathan sims #martin blackwood #jonmartin #teaholding #jmart #the archivist #john malevolent #arthur lester #malevolent crossover #tma crossover #tma au #just a little side-quest series

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