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splendidissimus · 7 months

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2004 - I haven't slept in days, but who's counting?

((Content warning: brief mentions of SA / nsfwhump / incest / sexual situations, imprisonment, emotional abuse, captivity, sleep deprivation, starvation (minor) ))

((Promptspiration: @whumptober 2023: day 12: I haven't slept in days, but who's counting? / Insomnia @whumpitlikeyoumeanit: "Whumpee tied up alone in a bare room... by Caretaker." (Hey, I'm allowed to use my own prompts, right?) ))

Description I feel is necessary: Draco is going insane from lack of sleep from a new potion, and his family have to confine him until it wears off, and Draco goes Full Malfoy in trying to get out. It's frankly hard to tell who is keeping whom hostage. He is brutal. This has Big Rough Draft Energy. It should probably break 10k words when done properly, but there is some yadda-yaddaing to hit the highlights.

Genre: whump

Romance level: some

Angst level: 4/5

Draco's headspace: vicious / irrational

((words: ~8500))

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

Draco's previous record for going without sleep was five days. And then he had started hallucinating a little bit, which, yeah, obviously wasn't ideal. He had solved that, though. Now he was on day eighteen and he was fine — beyond fine. He had solved everything. Sleep was no longer a necessity, and it was glorious.

But they didn't understand. Or they were jealous. They were trying to make him sleep. They didn't know he'd already anticipated that, too. Theo had been watching him take his sleeping potions for three days now, and he obediently took it and made a show of being 'sleepy'. But what he didn't know was that Draco had developed — well, bought the formula for and then tweaked — the perfect antidote. He was now completely immune to sleeping potions, spells, hexes, curses, potions, poisons, and magical effects. Let them try.

Theo stood in front of Lucius' excruciatingly neat desk with his hands behind his back, weathering his silently judgmental gaze and the more oblique inspection of the Elizabethan portrait behind him. Time was, that would have made him feel like he was a naughty student pulled up in front of McGonagall again; now he couldn't be bothered. "I need help getting Draco to Saint Mungo's."

"Why?"

He sighed through his nose. "He hasn't slept in…" He shook his head. "I don't know how long, but I'm betting it's a lot longer than it should be. At least a week."

"It's your job to be keeping an eye on these things."

"Hey," he said firmly, rejecting the blame. "I'm doing the best I can. Do you forget how sneaky he is? I'm not the one who raised him to be a perfect liar who thinks he needs to hide stuff like this." Lucius raised one eyebrow, but Theo declined to be intimidated. "He's not just been avoiding sleep, he's been actively faking it. I knew something was up so I've sat there and watched him take his potions, watched him apparently fall asleep. I think he's developed or bought a new potion that nullifies sleep magic, so he just waits 'til I've gone. Hours, if he has to."

"I was under the impression you were the one managing his potions."

"It's not like he's not got the use of his arms!" He threw up his hands in exasperation. "If he wants to go brew potions whilst my back is turned, there's nothing going to stop him. Unless you're going to hire in two more nurses and a house elf to physically hold onto him every hour of the day, he's going to be doing some stuff on his own, and some of it's going to be wrong, with the ideas he gets in his head and chases. And frankly, two nurses, a house elf, and me wouldn't be enough to stop him doing something he really wanted to, because you know there's only one thing that can even mostly control him."

"And, unfortunately, he can control her in turn," Lucius distantly agreed, tapping a quill on the blotter and looking thoughtful.

The caught Theo a little off guard, because he was pretty sure he'd never heard Lucius agree with him so casually before, without couching it in insult or begrudging or some manner of sneer. Wait. Was the secret to getting Lucius Malfoy to interact with you like a human being just… standing up to him? Wow, that would have been nice to know years ago.

"How is he functioning?"

"Weirdly well." Theo sat down in one of the chairs this side of the desk. "I want to be clear that I'm pretty sure he's off his nut, but at a casual interaction, you don't notice it. He seems energetic and in a good mood. A little volatile, but that's not really unusual."

"Is it actually a problem, then?" Lucius pointed out. "If he's found a way to be able to function without sleep, he might benefit from it."

"I did say he was off his nut, didn't I?" he pointed out. "But that's the problem, it's so subtle it doesn't look like a problem. Doesn't even sound like a problem when I try to explain it. But it's like… Okay, you know how when he's drunk, you can have whole hours of conversation, and it seems fine because he's all confident and charismatic, but if you really pay attention you notice he's not actually really responding to what you said at all? It's like that. His confidence and charm are carrying him, but I think he's actually starting to make really questionable decisions. For the moment it's mild enough that it looks like brilliance or eccentricity, but it won't last. And I want to point out that he's interacting with the public, just, constantly. He's going in front of the Wizengamot next week. Do you want him to do that in this state?"

Lucius made an acknowledging noise without actual words, continuing his pensive look.

"Plus," Theo said, slowly, trying to choose his words to phrase this with both the proper respect for Draco but also acknowledgment of the problem, "right now, he's in a good mood. He's basically treating everything as a game. Even me trying to sedate him, it's just a competition to him. That's fine, it's a good look for him. But I'm… kind of concerned… about what happens when that changes. If someone pisses him off, you know, with his," accidental, "magic and no impulse control? Or if something scares him, how'll he react?"

"It's a concern," Lucius allowed.

Draco was naturally emotional; most of his moods were brief, but intense, turning like the weather. He was naturally cheerful and bright, and when he was up he was incandescent. But when he was down, he was brutal.

—

((yadda-yadda-ing over the cat-and-mouse of actually capturing him))

—

Lucius brought Narcissa to the drawing room. "Take us off the floo network."

"What?"

"I'll get it repermitted, we can live without it for a month."

"Tell me what is going on."

"Draco hasn't slept in weeks. We can't let him leave."

"That's absurd, if he truly hasn't slept he clearly should be in the hospital—"

"He just set fire to the house for a distraction, and Confounded you." That made her stop abruptly. "In the middle of a conversation, wandless and wordless. That is dangerous." It was impressive and could be beyond useful, but in this situation, uncontrolled… "And that's what he did to you. He can't be exposed to people he has no reason to care about."

"That's hardly our concern. It's the healers' jobs to handle situations like this."

While her focus on Draco's wellbeing at the expense of everyone else was admirable, she was perhaps overconfident in their social stability. She thought that any repercussions for what Draco did would be easy to brush off — that everyone else must give him as much leeway as she did and forgive him as easily.

"They can't hold him," he said flatly. "Putting him in the hospital will only give him more people to, at best, talk into releasing him — and more likely Confound or outright Imperius. Once he extracts himself from the hospital, he will be at large and increasingly more erratic. This may be our last chance to contain the situation."

"Draco does not need to be 'contained'. He has made it clear he has no intention of using the Imperius or of harming anyone."

"When he's in his right mind," he pointed out. "In his right mind he would not be Confounding you to control a conversation. He has proven that he is still perfectly capable of using the Imperius, wand or no." She looked flatly displeased with his analysis, but didn't argue with it. "The best case scenario, should he make it out of the house now, whether to the hospital or of his own accord, is that his madness becomes public knowledge and his reputation is irreversibly undermined. The more likely outcome is that he destroys everything he's built and is eventually locked away, first in Saint Mungo's and eventually in Azkaban when nothing else can hold him."

"They would not."

"What else is there to do with a wizard who can control anyone he talks to and has no hesitation using it? They've no compunction imprisoning lunatics alongside criminals."

Her lips pressed into a flat line.

"Disconnect us," he repeated, stepping away. "I have Nott and the elf watching the doors so he can't Disapparate. I'll find him."

She considered the fireplace thoughtfully as he left.

—

When she went to her parlour, she wasn't surprised to find Draco there; he knew his father was looking for him and knew Lucius wouldn't come here, at least not until he exhausted everywhere else. He looked up from the book in his lap, chin resting on his fingers, a little smirk playing about his lips.

She allowed that she could believe Lucius' assessment that he wasn't entirely in his right mind. Lucius only ever saw the worst possible outcomes, though.

"Is your father right, that you haven't been sleeping?"

Draco shrugged a little bit without changing expression. He seemed only mildly amused. "He might be."

"He considers this a problem worth solving." She studied him, the edge of smugness with which he was regarding her. "So do I," she added. "I need you to go to the hospital."

He looked at her for several seconds without changing expression, but turning his ring around his finger with his thumb, then shrugged a little and set his book aside to stand. "Very well."

Good — that would end this absurd situation with the least amount of drama possible. She nodded and led him out of her room, back to the floo fireplace in the drawing room.

She was reaching for the floo powder when she heard a scuffle behind her and, turning, found the house elf latched onto Draco, just before they disappeared.

—

Tolly Apparated with a struggling Draco down into a small room in the cellar where the wine had been moved out, leaving bare stone walls and ancient wooden cross-racks built into them. There was one solitary chair in the centre of the room.

The very moment they appeared, Nott cast Incarcerus and caught Draco in magical ropes that bound his limbs and wrapped around his chest. Draco threw a wandless curse at him that deflected off a shield that Lucius raised just in the nick of time, and in the same moment, the elf took his wand from his robes and vanished.

In the brief moment when Draco was disoriented by the loss of his wand, Lucius cast a different binding spell on him to replace the Incarcerus, because Draco would end that easily: the Living Rope curse, a Darker spell that needed the counter to be broken and would tighten as the subject struggled. It bound his wrists together and tied his arms behind him to the back of the chair, forcing him to sit. He also Silenced Draco, knowing that wouldn't hold long.

"I'll give you a moment to calm down," he said, pointed for Nott to leave behind him, and then stepped out of the room without turning his back, closed the heavy door firmly between them, and locked Draco in.

Nott let out a heavy breath. "We got him."

"Yes. Now you have to identify and counter whatever he's been taking that allowed this to happen."

Nott nodded. "I have a sample of it. I can take it to Saint Mungo's and work it out with them."

"Horace Slughorn," he corrected.

"Ugh."

"Invoke Draco's name, and pay him whatever he's looking for." Lucius trusted people he was paying far more than those whose loyalties were split up between institutions and ideals that were hopefully encouraging them to do what he wanted.

"I repeat: ugh. But fine. I'll work with Slughorn, for Draco."

"Master?" He looked down to see the elf at his feet, gingerly holding Draco's wand, and he immediately took it from her and set it on a high shelf that was now over-filled with disorganised wine bottles.

"You are not to free Draco," he told her, "tell anyone about this, or obey any of his orders until I tell you otherwise."

"Yes, Master…" She looked fearfully toward Draco's prison.

His eyes narrowed slightly at her expression. That could be a problem. She obeyed him out of fear, propriety, and magic — but she actually liked Draco. A willful house elf had options. She might find a way to twist his words to allow her to help Draco, or manage to disobey his orders long enough to do so and then take the punishment. He needed to head that off.

"This is for his good. He is unwell. He may sound reasonable, but he is not. Don't be fooled."

"Yes, Master." Her voice was more firm this time. "Mistress is coming," she added.

That wasn't surprising, but promised to be difficult.

Narcissa ran down to the cellar. "Lucius!" She was openly furious. The house elf cringed and disappeared, and Nott took one look at her and hurried up the stairs, managing to make his gangly frame scurry.

Lucius didn't move. "We have him," he said evenly.

"You lied to me!"

"He can read you too easily. If you'd known the plan it wouldn't have worked."

"You have no right to use me against my son!"

"Our son," he corrected patiently. "It isn't just you; he can read all of us. Whoever acted the bait would have been lied to. But you are the only one he would completely believe was trying to help him, so it had to be you leading him into the trap. I gambled that, it being for his sake, you would eventually forgive me."

If she would eventually, she hadn't yet. Her expression only grew colder. "Where is he?" she demanded.

He lifted his wand and drew a rectangle on the wall in front of him. The other side of the wall had been previously prepared, so his rectangle became semi-transparent, a greyish "window" into the room that was now Draco's cell. He was generally facing their direction, still bound to the chair, head hanging onto his chest. The light was coming from one torch beside the door, and there was a portrait on the side wall, the same Elizabethan Lucius Malfoy who hung in Lucius' study, currently looking fairly bored as he toyed with his walking stick and watched over Draco.

"What are you doing to him?" Her voice had risen, somewhere between fury and fear. Though she can't have thought he would actually harm him. It was likely just a shock to see him that way.

"Ideally, I am stopping him from hurting anyone."

"Lucius, this is mad!"

"Trust me."

Nott's heavy step came down the stairs again, and hesitated, so Lucius glanced back at him to get him to speak. "He's still got his potions," Nott said. "I just thought about that. That might not be a good idea."

He nodded toward the window again. "Relieve him of them."

"Right." He went around them and unlocked the door.

Draco lifted his head when he came in, and his eyes were wide. "Theo." His voice was breathy and relieved. "Thank Merlin, get me out of here…"

He knew better than to look him in the eyes, since that seemed to be helpful to Draco Confounding people, but it was hard. It was hard to see him like this at all. "I can't," he told him quietly, and came up to him, and started searching his pockets.

"What? What do you mean, 'you can't'?" Draco squirmed to try to stop his search, but tied as he was it was only a little inconvenient. "Please!"

"I'm sorry, Draco." He didn't find anything but Draco's potions bag and wallet in his pockets, and he cleaned them out quickly.

"Theo, Theo why are you doing this to me?" Draco pleaded, breath hitching. "Please look at me… please… Is it because I didn't want to suck your dick? I'm sorry, I just didn't feel good, but I will, I'll do whatever you want, just let me out. Please, I'll… you can fuck me, just please, please let me out," he sobbed.

Theo fled out of the room and slammed the door. He could still hear Draco sobbing with the occasional 'please' from the other side. Narcissa was staring at him coldly, while Lucius continued to look through the window at Draco.

"I didn't." His words tumbled over each other. "It's not— I wouldn't—"

"It's fine," Lucius observed clinically. "He's opening strong."

"This is not a game!" Narcissa snapped.

"We'll see. Nott, stay here a few minutes."

Theo hung around, trying not to look at Draco. Instead he unshrunk the potions bag and started setting them out on the wine shelf beside his wand, labels facing out, so they could be grabbed if they needed them.

Draco's sobbing eventually faded away to silence, and then, in a few minutes, he dropped his head across the back of the chair so that he was looking at the ceiling. A few minutes after that, he started pushing the chair up on its back legs, balancing there.

"Go back in," Lucius instructed.

Theo glanced at him, and at Draco, and then silently did as he was told.

Draco dropped his chair down when the door opened, and raised his eyebrows very slightly when Theo came in. "Oh, you're still here." Both face and voice were completely normal. "I actually thought that might work. They are watching, aren't they?"

"More like might get me killed! Why would you say something like that? You know I'd never hurt you."

"Technically, I never said you did. I suggested that you were leveraging your power over me for sex, which, let's be honest…"

"I never have done!"

Draco shrugged a little and leaned his chair back again, going back to looking at the ceiling. "If that's what you really think."

"Draco…"

"No hard feelings, right? I mean, you are keeping me prisoner."

"Draco, we're just trying to help you. You need to sleep."

"With friends and family like you, one hardly needs enemies."

"I'm sorry." Theo backed out of the room again, and this time he locked the door.

When he looked at Draco's parents, his mother was staring blankly through the window with her arms crossed, and his father had his hands clasped behind his back.

"If either of you doesn't have the stomach for this," Lucius said, "it would be best you leave now."

Neither of them answered, but neither of them left, either.

—

Near the top of the first hour, Draco began calling for his mother, and after a few minutes she gave in and went to him. He leaned forward as much as he could, bound to his chair, when she came in. "Mother, please…"

She felt his forehead with the back of her hand and summoned the elf to bring her a blanket.

"Mother." He was looking up at her with wide eyes, vulnerable in his drawn face. "Mother, look what he's doing." There was a quaver of fear in his voice. "This is insane."

"It is for your good." She put the blanket around his shoulders. "It won't be for long. Once you sleep, this will all be over."

"That's crazy, Mother. Look at this…" He twisted to try to show his bound wrists. "This isn't for sleep, it's for torture!"

"No one is here to torture you." She ran her hand down his hair. "You only need to sleep."

"I can't, not like this. Who could?"

She stood with him for a while, but it wasn't really sustainable. Eventually she made a minor adjustment to the blanket to make sure it was tucked around him to keep him warm. "I have to go, but you are not being abandoned," she promised. "I'll be right outside."

"You're going to leave me here?" His voice was getting shrill with fear.

"Only for now."

She was almost out the door when he called out to her again, voice cracking on the edge of tears. "Why are you letting him do this to me?"

She didn't allow herself to look back and quickly left, closing the door between them, only then clenching her hand into a quiet fist.

"He's trying to drive a wedge between us," Lucius said.

"I know." She still didn't want to look at him. She silently took herself back upstairs.

—

When Theo got back from meeting with Slughorn in Hogsmeade, he found Draco still tied to that same chair, in that same position. "We can't at least let him walk around, or lay down, or something…?"

"It isn't possible," Lucius said flatly. "We only barely caught him the first time. To give him back his hands is to give him back a dangerous amount of magic. He's dangerous enough as it is. Without being able to Stun him, this is what controlling him looks like."

Theo looked at Draco again with an uneasy feeling. He didn't really disagree… He'd seen, he'd been on the receiving end of, what Draco could do without a wand. But this didn't feel right…

"He's also willing to hurt himself to manipulate us," Lucius said distantly.

Theo glanced at him quickly, then looked back into the cell. There was a smudged back mark on the stone wall, that spread toward the ceiling, and he realised Draco's blanket was gone. He'd set another fire, he surmised. Trying to force them to send him to the hospital by breathing smoke? Trying to scare them?

"At least this way, his options are limited."

"I understand…"

—

"I'm bored of you," Draco commented to the portrait. "Go away,"

"Would that I could," the portrait sighed. "But you're such a scintillating conversationalist I find myself rapt."

"Of course," Draco said. "It's my conversation, not your orders to spy upon me that keep you here."

"Of course it is." He yawned delicately behind his sleeve.

Draco silently considered the painting for a minute or two, then narrowed his eyes to focus. "Diffindo," he snapped, and a great slice raked it way across the canvas. The portrait's inhabitant yelled and ran for safety in a different frame.

"And that's what I think about your spies, Lucius!" he called out to the empty room, and smirked toward the ceiling.

It was hours before anyone came to deal with that, and in that time Draco's smirk soured into a cold glare. He glowered and shoved the chair back, scraping over the floor, ramming it against the wall to try to break it, to no avail, although it did make his hands hurt. Then he started ripping out the shelves with his magic, littering the ground with broken shards of ancient wood, occasionally grabbing them and throwing them around the air with a yell. Those bastards! They just left him there to suffer…

When the door unlocked, he jerked his head up, and just as it opened he yanked his head to the side, and with that motion the ruined portrait frame flew off the wall and slammed into the floor right at his father's feet, spraying him with splinters and forcing him to cover his face.

"Oops," Draco said blandly. "I must be doing accidental magic. Seems someone's taken my wand."

His father gave him an unimpressed look and shook splinters out of his sleeve. "You know that was meant to keep you from being alone."

"You know what else keeps me from being alone? People. Like the kind that I can be around by not being locked in this room."

"That is true," his father said mildly. "You should have a nap and then go find some."

Draco raised his chin with a sniff and glared.

"Elf," Lucius said, looking over the room, and Tolly appeared at the doorway. "Clean up this mess before you bring Draco's breakfast." He looked back at Draco. "Next time you feel like throwing a tantrum and destroying your only company, perhaps wait until it isn't the middle of the night so someone will be there to deal with it."

"You know, that is the one thing you have over Rowle," Draco noted. "When he had me locked away, I could still see hints of daylight. Not with you, though. Your torture is much more effective. This deprivation really goes nicely with my warped sense of time. I can't tell if it's been an hour or a week I've been here. Bravo."

"Well, I would give you a clock," Lucius said, using his wand to draw up another chair by the door and taking a seat, legs crossed amidst the detritus of Draco's night, to look at him. "But clearly it wouldn't be long for this world."

"Well, at least the gears would be more interesting to throw around than this junk." Draco looked at a large chunk of wine shelf meaningfully and it flew across the room, making the house elf yelp.

His father didn't respond to that, just fastidiously cleaned under his fingernails, and Draco glared at him with mounting resentment. He was so smug…

"When Rowle had me prisoner," he abruptly snapped, "he made me suck his dick. You know, because that's what fairies do. Is that where we're going here?"

His father's eyes shot up. "Disgusting," he said icily.

But it gave him a reaction, that soothing balm that gave him back the feeling of control, and, satisfied, he leaned back in the chair. "I know," he agreed. "But I'm not the one who has me tied up in a cellar, just like the last guy. Forgive me if I can't help but notice some unflattering parallels."

"It doesn't have to be like this."

"Oh, no, of course not. Let me guess: I made you do this. Or Voldemort made you do this. Or your father made you do this. You didn't make any choices that led to this situation. Poor Lucius, just swept around on the currents of circumstance."

His father's eyes remained cold, but his voice turned steady and calm. Patient. "Stop this, Draco."

"You'd like that, wouldn't you?"

"Very much," he sighed. "Your only enemy here is whatever demon inside your head is making you behave this way."

"Not from where I'm sitting."

His father didn't answer, and his resentment began mounting again. In a while, he rocked the chair back into the wall, then again, testing how hard it hit his head each time.

After the third, his father summoned the chair back, scraping, to the centre of the floor, and then cast a sticking charm to hold it in place, so Draco couldn't even rock it back on its legs now. Draco twisted around in the chair, feeling the ropes tighten, and couldn't keep from yelling out his frustration. "Just fuck off already and leave me alone!"

"I will not."

—

Because he'd destroyed the portrait, it now fell on the three of them and the house elf to keep watch over Draco at all times. It wasn't safe to leave him alone, and if he was alone they wouldn't know if he actually did start giving in to sleep.

But the real reason was that Draco simply couldn't handle being alone. Isolation was far crueller to him than to most people, as had been demonstrated repeatedly in the last several years, and the point genuinely wasn't to torture him. If there were any real way to simply hold Draco in a warm, comfortable bedroom where he could chat with his friends and play games until he fell asleep, that would have been far preferable.

But no. His wandless magic — wandless but mostly assuredly not accidental, every single attempted Confounding and thrown teacup and fire set was under his complete and calculated control — turned every every small luxury into a weapon or an instrument of self-harm, so that he could have nothing but bare stone walls even he couldn't hurt himself with. He turned every attempt at care into a new gauntlet of emotional sadism as he probed for a crack in their defences to exploit, so that his mother had to steel himself before she entered the room and whatever fresh hell of accusation or pathos he was going to heap on her, and Nott threw himself into the analysis of his potion so that he had something more productive to do than weather another storm of Draco's guilting and debasement.

It was hardest to handle because probably very little of what Draco said was an outright lie. That was what made him such an excellent manipulator — he had a real gift for weaponising the truth. It was quite possible the pitiable things he was saying were his real thoughts, or had a kernel of his real thoughts at the core of them, merely now laid bare in the way calculated to elicit the most sympathy, or, if that failed, to hurt them the most. Every cruel observation wasn't merely a cutting insult but a blow to the heart of genuine insecurities he had gleaned. All of his accusations had either crossed his mind, perhaps not what he believed, but things he had at some point felt, or were things he knew they were afraid of. And he knew exactly how to turn every one of those feelings into a deadly curse.

The house elf was largely immune to Draco's attacks because he knew it was pointless to manipulate her, knowing it was impossible to get her to do anything for him against her master's orders, but she couldn't watch him at all times; aside from the needs of the house itself, which were being neglected, when Draco grew too bored he would still attack her just for amusement.

Lucius took most of the time the house elf did not. It was as much his role to keep Narcissa and Nott from being bewitched by him and giving in to him as it was to keep him bound there, and the best way to do that was to minimise their time with him.

He was the most suited to bearing Draco's attacks… and the only one who managed to turn Draco's mind elsewhere for any length of time. He was able, temporarily, to distract Draco and keep him calm by challenging him to mental chess, or directing him into debate or diatribe where his vitriol could have free rein without turning personal.

But it wasn't safe. Draco was always looking for an opening. He once used chess, of all things, as a cover to Confound him, and the elf pulled him out of the room before he could free him; Draco's laughter after that episode was still haunting. His attention could turn in an instant, and the moment Lucius let his guard down the vitriol did turn personal and he found a way to turn the words against him.

Even he could not hold up under Draco's attention indefinitely. He didn't let Draco be alone for more than a half hour at a time, but he did have to retreat to the other side of the door for respite every few hours. He stood in the same spot whenever Narcissa or Nott took his place, on guard for Draco's influence, and left the room only when the house elf took over the duty.

This was not sustainable.

—

"Damn it, Draco!" Theo was this close to throwing the toast in his face. He probably hadn't been eating enough during all that time the potion was keeping him awake, and now he was refusing food entirely. He hadn't had more than water and a few cups of tea since he'd been imprisoned, and his body was showing it. He was quickly going from thin to skeletal, with his clothes hanging off of sharp shoulders and the ropes biting into the knobs of his wrists. It was like the potion keeping him awake was eating him alive from the inside to do it. "This isn't about control!"

"Oh, I'm sorry. I must have got confused by the ropes and the locked door."

"I'm trying to save your life!"

"Of course you are; if I weren't here you'd have to go out and find yourself an actual personality. Could you be any more pathetic?"

Theo let out a helpless groan and dropped onto his knees, with his arms on Draco's lap, holding his head. "Draco… Please, just fucking don't die…"

"If I do, Theo, it's not going to be my fault."

—

Draco was crying. Not sobbing, but almost silently, shoulders shaking like he was trying to suppress it, head bowed into his chest so no one could see.

"This has gone far enough," Narcissa said sharply, going for the door.

"Stop."

"You're the one who needs to stop! Look at what you're doing!"

"He's manipulating you."

"It's not fake," Theo said quietly, staring through the window at Draco. "I've seen him cry enough… that's real."

He flicked that away. "So it's not false. It's still intentional. He's been making and allowing himself to cry to manipulate you since he was two years old; this is not a new tactic. If you let it work this time you're dooming him."

She ignored him and pushed her way into the cell. Draco looked up, eyes wide and startled, then ducked his head, embarrassed, to wipe away his tears against his shoulders.

"Mother…"

She came and wiped tears off his cheeks. He resisted at first, then gave in and leaned into her hands with a sigh, eyes closing. Maybe this would relax him. Maybe that was what he actually needed to sleep.

"Why don't you ever protect me from him…?" he asked in a faint, flat voice.

She drew a sharp breath through her nose and gently lifted his chin to search his face. His eyes flinched away from hers in quiet shame and looked away to the corner of the floor.

"I know what you're trying to do," she said quietly, and ran her hand over his hair. "It isn't going to work."

He didn't look up, or give up the act.

She ran her hand over his hair again, and stepped back out of the room. Lucius started to move, but she made a sharp gesture at him with one finger and carried on up the stairs.

Because she knew that Lucius had harmed Draco. Maybe even hurt him. She had laid ultimata when Draco was young to keep Lucius' darkness and violence away from him. She had intervened when his discipline became too harsh. But they were both prone to operating in shadows, to hiding and secrets. What did she not know? Had she been too distant? Placed too much trust in him? Should she have stood between them more? Had she failed Draco?

She knew she had, on some level. But not this badly…

—

"I'm cold," Draco said quietly. His voice was submissive, almost broken. Tired of fighting.

"Then you shouldn't have set your blanket on fire."

"You're right. I was just… scared, I guess. I thought you'd have to let me go. I wasn't thinking clearly. May I have another?"

"No."

"…I understand," he said in a small voice, and let his chin hang onto his chest. He was quiet for a little bit before he spoke up again.

"I'm sorry," he murmured. "For everything. I should have been better. You deserve better. I'm trying, I try so damn hard, I just keep… fucking everything up…"

He didn't respond. Maybe, if he'd thought Draco were actually saying something he meant, he would have, but as it was, it was better for it to just be noise.

Draco was quiet for almost long enough that he thought he meant to stay that way. When he did speak, his voice was low, but without a trace of submission or meekness. "You have to sleep eventually," he said in a quiet, nearly casual voice, and then lifted his head just enough to meet his eyes. His eyes were piercing and cold as any blade. "I don't."

Lucius was not intimidated — Draco interpreting the fact that he stood that way would be a mistake. But he was a realist, and he knew when wariness was appropriate; if there were any one of them Draco would actually try to harm, it would be him, and it would be best to change the situation before he started getting ideas. "You will, eventually," he promised, and left the room.

—

The quality of Draco's breathing changed.

Lucius looked up and studied him. He was leaning forward, gasping quietly, eyes on the floor. "Draco?" He stood warily.

"...heart..." Draco gasped out.

Damn it, he'd been afraid of this. He stepped behind him to look, but he saw exactly what he expected to: on his wrist, above the ropes biting into him, the wrist cuff that measured his heartbeat was flashing in rapid alarm. Between the fact that he couldn't take his daily heart regulating potion and the stress...

He stepped out of the room without a word, leaving the door ajar to listen to Draco and looking over the shelf of his potions. He had medications for all of this. There was an emergency sedative precisely for the times his heart ran out of control.

The problem was, they couldn't use them. Nott had brought up a good point: in Draco's mindset of subterfuge and paranoia, they had no way to know which of his medications he had laced with the problematic anti-sleep concoction, but every reason to believe he had done so.

They also had every reason to believe the specific heart medication for this situation would be completely ineffective, at best. It was a sedative. It slowed his heart, for sure, but it also put him to sleep. The chances that his anti-sleep potion would nullify the sleep effect but leave the heart effect intact were slim. It was a carefully balanced blend custom formulated for him, and mixing it with this effect would be reckless and dangerous, even if it weren't laced.

He touched the bottle of sedative, still considering it, for a moment. What was the alternative? Sit back and stonily watch him have a heart attack?

Inside the cell, Draco groaned weakly.

He supposed the real only option was to bring him to the hospital. Maybe he was weak enough or distracted enough they would be able to control him. The risks of what he might do were real, but it would keep him alive...

"Wait!" Nott's voice came from the stairs, and his tromping steps brought him into sight soon thereafter. "Hold on, Tolly got me..."

He narrowed his eyes slightly. Hadn't he been with Slughorn, presumably in Hogsmeade? Willful elf...

"You haven't given him anything, right?"

"No." He dropped his hand from the potions. "There's nothing safe to give him."

"I'll see if there's anything I can do." He hurried past into the cell.

Lucius watched from the doorway as Nott inspected Draco, crouching in front of him, taking his pulse, taking a reading with his wand... Draco weakly twisted to get away from him.

In a minute, Nott stood again, face stony. "Draco, you..." His wand hand clenched tight as he turned away. "He did it to himself," he said in a flat voice.

"What are you talking about?"

"He hyperventilated to speed up his heart to set off the alarm so we'd give him his tainted potions, or send him to the hospital where he could escape, or... fuck it, just to watch us panic, probably. Who knows. It's already slowing down because he can't keep that up."

"Then he was never in any danger," he realised coldly, staring at Draco.

"No, that's the fucking stupid part! It's so bloody dangerous! When that alarm goes off it means his heart's going a hundred and forty times a minute or more, and just because he did it on purpose doesn't magically make it all right! It's still damaging his heart, still wearing out the spells holding it together, he's still going to throw himself into shock or a heart attack, and fucking die, and he doesn't care!"

Draco could obviously hear them; they were still standing there in his cell and Nott's voice was raised nearly to a yell now. But he didn't seem to care. He took a deeper breath and leaned back in the chair.

"He's just..."

"If it's any consolation," Draco said behind him, "it feels rather unpleasant."

Nott whirled on him, wand clenched, then stormed out of the room. "You want these bloody things so badly?" He yanked a potion off the shelf on the other side of the door and threw it. It exploded like a bomb at Draco's feet, spraying shards of glass and muddy red liquid that looked like old blood. "Have them!" Another flew past his head -- Draco flinched away from it -- and exploded against the back wall. A third one hit the floor beside the leg of his chair and didn't break, but skittered away toward the corner. "Fucking choke on them."

Draco looked up without a word, and Nott stomped away. In a second he was back in the door, though. "I just really want you to know that I was aiming for you," he said. "I just fucking missed." Then he was gone. They could hear the door at the top of the stairs slam distantly.

"You don't have anything to say?" Draco shook his head, leaning forward, to make sure there was no glass in his hair.

Lucius summoned the stray potion to hand before it could be forgotten and give Draco the chance to get it. "I applaud his restraint."

—

"You're the reason I tried to kill myself," Draco said in a casual, intimate voice, too quiet for anyone outside the room to overhear even if they were watching. "The thought of living with you a moment more was unbearable. Of being beaten down by you, pushed around by you, of trying to be made to live like you. The only way I could see to get away from you was to take all my potions and never wake up." He leaned back, gaze seeming wistful. "Even afterward, I still wished it had worked. I wished that she'd been a few minutes later and hadn't saved me. Shall we tell her that?" He dropped unblinking eyes down to watch him. "I think she deserves to know that, don't you?"

Lucius watched him expressionlessly, unmoving.

"Or are you going to let me out?"

"You can say whatever you feel you need to," Lucius said evenly. "You are still not leaving this room."

"She will never forgive you."

"So be it."

—

"I've got it." Tolly was the one spending the hour with Draco, and so Theo managed to find his parents both in the room outside the cell. They could have been using this time to rest, but instead they were still using it to watch Draco, compulsively, just out of reach of his abuse.

"The antidote. Slughorn wanted credit for Draco's anti-sleep potion and I told him he was welcome to it, since it apparently drives people fucking crackers. But I've got it." He showed off a phial the size of a large finger. "Now we just need to get him to take it."

"Asking nicely seems to be out of the question," Lucius said dryly. "Will it be effective diluted in his food?" Well, tea, which was all Draco really ate.

"It would be, but I don't think he'd take it. He's so paranoid, so vigilant, he'd know something was up." Theo put the potion and his hand back into his pocket, watching Draco with them. "What about acting like it's a sleeping potion? Then he'd think he was immune to it and drink it out of arrogance, to rub it in."

"Maybe two days ago," Lucius said. "He's more likely to destroy it out of spite, now. It's useless to try to Bind him or similar, a wandless Protego is almost signature…"

"Imperius," Narcissa said.

They were both quiet.

"He wouldn't forgive you," Theo said after a long minute. "He already feels like we control him too much. The moment he got better, he'd leave and we'd never see him again. …If he got better at all, instead of having a breakdown and being locked up in Saint Mungo's."

Lucius nodded. "I would rather not, anyway," he admitted.

"…Do we have to just physically hold him down and pour it down his throat…?" Theo wondered.

"A better question is if we can."

"I have four doses. If he breaks a couple…"

Lucius glanced over at met his eyes, considering, then looked at Narcissa, and Theo followed his train of thought with a moment of realisation. It might work. He took out all four potions and held them out to Draco's parents, keeping one for himself and giving her two of them; she blinked at it and at him, then noticed they were looking at her. She looked back at Draco, and nodded as she took them.

—

On the fourth day, less than twelve hours after being fed the antidote, the quality of Draco's manipulations had changed. When Narcissa came to give him his breakfast, relieving the elf of its vigil, he jerked his head up to look. His eyes were red and sunken into dark circles. "Mother… I give in, all right? Just tell me what you want."

She studied his face as she finished up his tea. Whatever Lucius believed, she knew Draco, and she wasn't blind to his manipulations, even if she, perhaps, found them difficult to resist; she could see there was something else there now. An edge of desperation, a genuine franticness. Perhaps he was such a master manipulator he could have faked trying-and-barely-failing to cover up his desperation, but he wasn't, not now. "We don't want anything from you."

She helped him to drink his tea, but he turned his face away, and she touched his hair to urge him back toward it. "I only want you to sleep and get better," she said.

"There's got to be something else!" He whipped his head away from her, and the teacup ripped out of her hand and shattered against the wall. "Let me go!"

When he flipped the tea tray on her, she left the room and sent the elf to get Lucius. Theodore arrived swiftly as well, but Lucius kept anyone from going back into the room. It was cruel, but it was necessary; Draco was becoming more erratic in his desperation. For the first time, the flashes of his magic throwing things around the room did actually seem accidental. It was probably more dangerous than it ever had been; manipulative, he would be cruel, but erratic, he could truly hurt someone from fear or rage and regret it in the next instant, when it was too late.

They could watch the crumbling of his will as the treatment faded, quickly now that the first cracks had formed. His chin sank toward his chest and then jerked up seconds later, over and over. He lolled his head and squirmed in the chair, trying to keep himself alert. He muttered to himself, nothing really sensible, and then broke out into a scream. "Don't make me sleep! Please, I'm sorry, just don't make me!" He broke down into brittle sobs. "Please… please don't…"

He continued begging for some time, growing more incoherent, the words slurring into an exhausted mumble that faded into wordless sobs as he lost the energy even to voice his futile pleading, knowing it would do no good, no one was coming. His sobs trailed away into hitching wet breaths, and those evened out as he finally cried himself to sleep.

Narcissa closed her eyes in quiet relief once she realised he was actually, finally asleep, and Theodore actually sagged against the wall with his head in his arms. Her arms ached from gripping them so tightly. "Elf," she summoned. She heard an acknowledging squeak and, looking down, realised that it had been there watching from the corner as well.

"Wait," Lucius said grimly, staring into the other room. "It may be a ploy."

She nearly snapped at him, for caring so little about their son that he could watch even that and only see an enemy, but then she noticed his face. He looked tired. Maybe not physically, or not only physically, but from bearing most of the weight of keeping Draco imprisoned, of having to remain hard-hearted because someone must. Yet he still had to make sure that it was safe before he allowed himself to relax. While they gave in to relief, he didn't let himself feel it yet.

He was starting to move, but she touched his arm. "I'll check." She unlocked the door to Draco's cell. His wariness was contagious, and she wasn't entirely unguarded as she approached the lonely figure bound to the chair. She still didn't believe that Draco would hurt her, even now, but if he was making some last desperate effort for his freedom, he could lash out wildly…

"Draco?" She crouched in front of the chair, looking up into his face. He looked… if not peaceful, then at any rate unaware. He didn't move at her approach, and the quality of his breathing didn't change. After a moment, she reached up and lightly cupped his cheek, pulling her fingertips through his hair for a moment. Then she looked back to the window and nodded.

Theodore entered with the potion bag, taking out a Dreamless Sleep. "To keep him down," he said unnecessarily, and she held Draco's head to help him feed it to him. Draco stirred and tried to wake, alarming her, and she stroked his hair, settling him back into his sleep. She kept him until the potion had time to take effect.

He stood up, hesitating, watching Draco. "I do have some Draught of the Living Death left," he quietly, leaving the decision to them.

She glanced at him and at Lucius, looked into Draco's face, and in a moment nodded. The idea of him waking up again anytime soon was… unbearable. She held him while he fed him that, and Draco's breathing slowed to imperceptibility. Compared to the last few days, it was still a relief.

Lucius released Draco from his bindings and caught him as he collapsed. Blood dripped from Draco's fingertip, a thin line winding from the deep, raw circles that showed how he had struggled against the ropes over the last few days, and especially the last few hours.

"Put him to bed," she instructed the elf. "I'll be there shortly."

"I'll go," Theodore volunteered. "He needs healing… He might still need the hospital…"

"I'll be there regardless," she said firmly. The elf disappeared with Draco's limp body, and Theodore hurried after them.

She touched Lucius' back. "You did well."

"There is no guarantee he will be in his right mind even after sleeping," he warned, looking distantly at the now-empty chair.

"If not, we will handle it then. Rest."

#whumptober2023 #no.12 #I haven't slept in days but who's counting #insomnia #fic #harry potter #draco malfoy #draco malfoy fanfiction #narcissa malfoy #theo nott #lucius malfoy #draco is competent #draco is vicious #draco is manipulative #lucius is protective #splendidissimus writing #draco in his 20s #tolly the house elf #whumptober 2023

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snarky-badger · 1 year

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36 for the writers ask meme

36. They say to Write What You Know. Setting aside for a moment the fact that this is terrible advice…what do you Know?

I know probably too much about sharks (I wanted to be a marine biologist. Only thing that stopped me was math. I suck at math).

I know how to cook and bake practically anything, and if I don't know, I can learn pretty easily. I can repair dog toys and most clothes to the point where the spot that I fix will be the last to break. I know how to rewire a lamp, solder jewelry, fix little plumbing issues (and most toilets). I know how to grow a garden from scratch, and I have a massive knowledge of perennial and annual plants, Eastern Canadian songbirds, and Corvids.

I know a LOT of first aid, enough that I've had a registered nurse ask me if I went to nursing school, and other Doctors have asked me how I knew how to read xrays. (both human and dog xrays)

I learn things quickly so long as I have an interest in them (computers, new programs, new games). I've been able to tweak every version of Windows that I've ever owned to a point where it didn't act like a total BITCH at any moment of the day.

Thanks to living with a technologically un-savvy person, I can also rewire an entire surround sound system, debug Xboxes, computers, printers, blood-glucose monitors, blood pressure monitors, sleep apnea machines, and assemble all sorts of furniture.

I can research shit without getting fooled by fake news or dumb ass attempts at misleading. (Which seems to be a lost art in these times of stupidity). I can speak French, English, and I can read enough Spanish to be able to make sense of it.

Weird Questions for Authors

#weird author asks #snarky answers #answered asks

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patrickcharlton-oshea-author · 1 year

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Waging War: An Age of Steam and Sorcery Novel. Chapter Five

Warren found himself stuck in a weird half-awake state. Full consciousness hurt too much, the drugs faded quickly and he couldn’t even have the self administering button because his hands didn’t work. So the doctors tweaked the mix until he was awake enough to talk, but not in pain. It was a narrow window.

The worst part was the boredom. He’d been stuck in the same position for so long that he’d managed to watch every episode of everything even mildly interesting on every major streaming service. He was stuck watching the back catalogue of Downton Abbey now. The nurse that came in regularly loved the show and would often linger in his room, quoting lines along with the actors. She tried to engage him in conversation about the show but he pretended to be more out of it than he was so she’d leave him alone.

His father would come in at least once a day too and try to give him a pep talk, as though his severed nerves were simple a matter of laziness. These times were worse than the nurse trying to talk about a crappy TV show because he couldn’t fake semi-consciousness. That would just earn him a lecture about slacking off and how he needed to push through the pain. As though he could reconnect the nerves in his spine through pure force of will.

If I could manage that I’d have been out of here months ago! Warren thought to himself during one exceptionally intense lecture. What the hell does he want from me, MY SPINE IS BROKEN!

Which is why, one day in the middle of a particularly boring episode when Warren was hoping the machine would malfunction and accidentally medicate him into a coma, a doctor entered and fiddled with the settings on Warren’s bed thrusting him into full wakefulness and surprising the hell out of him.

“Warren MacGregor, patient number 42068?” the doctor confirmed. “Is this correct?”

“You people have a terrible sense of humour,” Warren grumbled. “One more, just one more.”

“I need you to confirm your name and patient number.”

“I am Warren MacGregor, patient number four two zero six eight. What’s this about?”

The doctor flipped through his notes, looking nervous. “I’m sorry I had to reduce your pain medication, I’ll make this quick. I need your full attention for this. I have been contacted by a company, a company who is making a video game. More accurately, a full-dive virtual reality game.”

Warren huffed. Nerds. What does this special case want with me? “Yeah, and?”

“You hadn’t had your implant yet, had you? Don’t answer that, it’s in your chart. The implants go above the first nerve separation you experienced and extend into your brain.” The young doctor flicked through a few more sheets on his clipboard and pressed some buttons on Warren’s bed. “We can implant the device at no cost, install the program at no cost and since it’s an alpha build you won’t be paying any subscription. In fact, the company is looking to pay playtesters.”

“Pay? As in, I can repay my father for this?” Warren perked up slightly, even though the movement elicited what could only be described as exquisite agony. “And I don’t have to watch Downton Abbey anymore? Sign me the hell up!”

“You’re still a minor and need parental permission,” the doctor said, tweaking a few more settings. “I’m returning you to your normal medication settings, but I hope you remember this. The Age of Steam and Sorcery has deep pockets and you need an out. Quid Pro Quo, Warren. Quid Pro Quo.”

Darkness welled up and took Warren away once more.

Once he regained consciousness, and the little pink elephants had put away their unicycles and meandered off to bother someone else for a bit, Warren found himself staring at the slightly pinker than usual face of his father. “Good, um,” Warren looked at the window for a cue, “evening? What’s wrong, Father?”

“Did you know about this?” Warren’s father waved a piece of glossy paper at him. “Some useless intern at The Institute handed me this when I came in today. Do you really think lying in bed all day playing videogames like some sort of influencer is going to get you anywhere?”

Warren blinked when his father practically spat the word at him. “I had no idea,” he lied. “What is that?”

“The Age of Steam and Sorcery, apparently,” his father read off the sheet. “It’s a new research project over at The Institute, trying to better integrate our implants with our nerves or some silly thing. They want guinea pigs to play their game so they can record the impulses it says here.”

“Well, I’m not doing much else for now,” Warren pointed out. “Not until they find a way to reconnect my spine. And it does come from the very people you asked for help. All I’m doing is watching TV, which you’ve always said just rots your brain.”

Somewhat mollified that there wasn’t some nefarious teen plot to slack off afoot, the elder MacGregor calmed a bit. “Well, they’re promising that they’ll include schooling in the project. As long as your grades don’t slip because you’re off playing make-believe all the time, I suppose I can allow this. Don’t make me regret it.” With that last barb, his father departed, leaving Warren in an empty room to contemplate his future. Anything has to be better than this, he thought to himself. A busted body that won’t move, boring-ass TV and dinner through a straw. I wonder if there’s a blue pill?

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jakesmashly · 1 year

Text

See lately i've been drifting away, with nightmares a bunch of demons in a fiery place

I try to keep all the fakes and haters out of my face, i know that i'm a good dude i feel like such a disgrace

And sometimes i just want to keel over and die, don't let it show too much in public but i'm dying inside

I wonder when i'm in the car if this will be my last ride i feel like

Running far away and finding somewhere to hidе

In reality i'm miserable likе most of the time but i keep pushing because i want to hit the point where i shine

I want to find myself a woman that i want to hold and call mine.. they get to know me then they leave me at the drop of a dime

And it hurts, realistically what hurts me the worst

People really only like me 'cause the sound of my verse

I'm badly wounded on the inside and i need me a nurse, see i done felt like this forever and it feels like a curse

A lot of people come around and really think that they know me, i smile all the time but they don't know that it's phony

The groupies always telling me they wish they could blow me

But that ain't what i want so i just keep being lonely and i.... am really fucked up in the head, i couldn't think of a better way for it to be said

I wasn't joking and if you heard me say that i wish that i was dead, but i don't want to go to hell 'cause i put one in my head

With that said keep it honest in the future i might

I'm sick of living in this darkness always searching for light

It's like the good and evil inside of me just constantly fight

I fill myself with drugs and alcohol to get through the night

And in reality i live my life with so much pain, since all my people passed away this shit just ain't been the same

A lot of folks i keep around think that this life is a game

My body's filled with so much hatred really i'm just ashamed

In my brain a lot of days i just don't know what to do

My question is how would you feel if all these thoughts were in you

When people never understood all of the hell you been through

So when they're mad or get depressed they come and throw it on you, it happens every single day and i just feel so weak

Like my emotions could explode because they're close to their peak

I sit and listen quietly and try not to make a peep, but in my head i'm freaking out and i'm just ready to tweak

I hate to say it but i'm honest. this is how i feel

I know a lot will probably hate me because i'm keeping it real

I'm like a fish that just got hooked i'm trying to fight with the reel

Only human so i had to come and tell you the deal, until today a lot of people didn't know that i'm stressed

They have a misconception that i have an "s" on my chest, i try to keep it positive and always hope for the best, but if you take a look inside you'll see i'm super depressed

It's been a while now that i just chose to keep this hidden

I did a lot of stupid shit that i wish that i didn't

It's been a shitty fucked up road that i've sat and just ridden

A lot of people probably hope that it's a joke and i'm kiddin'

But to be truthful there's a lot of times i just wanna cry, i feel like life is such a hassle i just wish i would die

I sit and think of shit that happens to me wondering why, that's probably the biggest reason why i keep getting high

It's all day and all night and all year that i struggle, with all this shit that's in my head that i just sit and i juggle

I sit and wait for other pieces of my life to just crumble

It's like i'm trapped inside my head and i can't get out of the rubble, and realistically i know this sounds so bad

See i can't help that every day that i'm awake that i'm sad, i sit and dwell cause growing up i really hated my dad

But in reality i'm thankful for the mother i had

See i was raised inside a christian home

It's really crazy that it's daily that i'm in the corner holding my phone

Contemplating thinking should i put a slug in my dome, or pray to god for all these demons to just leave me alone

I sit and wonder how my life's gonna end

I'm like a monster in a world that's full of angels i'm just trying to blend

And even though these people say that they're my friend

I understand that they just want what they can get and that it's really pretend

My whole life i've had a hatred for people

It fucking blows my mind that people can't just treat others with equal, and even though i sit at church while i pray in the steeple

I've always had a little feeling that everybody is evil

That's just life in the way i perceive

I stoop and think about my kin that passed away and take a second to grieve

And even though at times i wish i could leave

It's in my head then i should take a sec to chill and take a second to breathe, but all i feel is the hate

I pray to god everybody relates, and as i sit and get baked trying to maintain my faith i pray to god everybody relates.....

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applecoreart · 6 years

Photo

+WIP: Finished the shelves and did detail work today. I’m saving the pumpkin buckets for last since their shading and lighting levels are going to be affected by how the items around them are painted (eg. shelving, sales flyers).

I always really enjoy adding the detail and grunge layer when painting :) I figured Gotham stores would be a little grungy. Apparently no one’s really cleaned those shelves since Harvey Dent was first up for election as DA. Ew D:

#RA fanstuffs #Jonathan Crane #the Dent sticker is the one Nurse!Joker was wearing in TDK in case it looked familiar #currently at 85% completion #pretty much just have pumpkin buckets & the bags of fake cobwebs and final tweaks left

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abrooklynboy · 2 years

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Captain America (2012) #1 | Writer: Remender | Artist: Romita

[Remender, my nemesis. Other than these flashbacks, I do not use this run.]

//Even when I write in MCU, I use a lot of 616 because 616 is where Steve has nuance. I curse MCU just about every day for barely giving Steve any time in proper combat. 616!Cap was in the War since 1941. Before Cap and Bucky went to Europe, they were busting up spy rings on American soil. But no, just give MCU!Steve a year and some change!

But that’s not what I’m talking about. Ik this is a pretty common take. But we’ll say it in my words. Cutting for length and more discussions about alcoholism, abuse, eugenics.

To me, MCU!Steve lies about just about everything when he’s trying to enlist. Why not tweak his story to show he’s born to be in the Army? Specifically, this unit where his best friend is? Toss in the father who died in the Great War and brave mother who was an Army nurse! This is the story that propaganda and the general public remembers.

Lying about Joseph was a better use of his father than anything Joseph did when he was alive. Real Joseph was incredibly damaged by the Great War, refuses to deal with his issues, blames everyone else for his problems, and resents his son for his health issues. Granted, there’s not a lot of aid for Great War vets at the time and anti-Irish sentiment is still around. Not as bad as the 19th century but not great either. Instead of being there for his family, Joseph falls into a cycle of drinking away the money and trying to win it back at the races. He drank himself to death on rotgut fake Irish whiskey and bathtub gin.

MCU!Bucky’s dad was a better father to Steve than Joseph ever was.

Sarah is the one who works 2 jobs and gets her education. Sarah is the one who raises Steve and is his advocate from birth. He was premature and the common thought was to let him die. Who teaches him that this country still has potential. Who reminds him he has potential. MCU!Bucky’s mom is Ma #2 as far as Steve’s concerned. Bucky’s sister(s) are his sister(s). The Barnes family really embraces Sarah when the kids get close and especially after Joseph dies. She refuses to go with the status quo of wife, mother, or Catholic woman.

Everything Captain America is is because Sarah Rogers was his mom. She taught him by example to stand up to bullies and injustice in any form. Hell, she probably was the one who introduced him to Twain.

#scrawny me #headcanon #abuse cw #sarah rogers #joseph rogers #long post #//have all my thoughts and feelings about the Rogers family in one place #//where's my Steve comic where he's reflecting on the modern era and growing up in the specific time and place he's from marvel

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shorkbrian · 3 years

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Villain! Bakugo out here with a Mommy kink hoping for milk? Sign me up

I did a bunch of research on this, and am armed with practical knowledge of how Bakugou might treat you if he had a lactation kink.

(What to expect - HEAVY lactation kink, not super NSFW but it’s there, dubcon. I get a bit more explanatory and less smutty lol sorry)

At the beginning of his kink development, Bakugou wouldn’t necessarily be looking to actually make his partner lactate. He just finds the sensations comforting, lying on a pillowy chest, wrapping his lips around a nipple and sucking until he falls asleep. Does he have an oral fixation? Maybe, but that’s not necessarily why he’d do it.

Something about the closeness, the skin-to-skin contact, the trust and safety that’s felt just really gets him going. He gets all soft and relaxed, sucking on his babe’s nipples. As such a rough, irritated guy, the oxytocin he gets from committing such a deeply intimate act is literally like a drug to him. He wants more and more of that feeling, of the close connection with his darling, whether or not they’d be willing.

It’s a huge, huge act of love and generosity, especially taking the time to commit and induce lactation.

Bakugou would go all out, he’d have pumps, creams, make his darling eat a special diet, I think he’d even go to lengths to get lactation-inducing drugs. Lactation can happen outside of pregnancy, it just takes a lot of time, patience, and research.

Those drugs (like Domperidone) have to be taken 3-4 times a day, pumping has to happen pretty regularly, and the woman has to be relatively relaxed and in a good headspace. Stress, poor sleep, and a lack of water or food can result in a woman’s production lessening and drying up, so Bakugou’s darling really isn’t going to ever get a break.

Like, she’s stressed because she’s with him, because he’s so controlling and possessive and won’t let any other man even look at her. Stressed because Bakugou insists on her lactating, even if she’s not that into it or if it makes her uncomfortable. Stressed how needy and demanding the man is, how it’s his way or the highway, how if she doesn’t go along with whatever he wants, Bakugou accuses her of not loving him.

So already, it’ll be hard for lactation to happen.

But every night, just like clockwork, Bakugou’s there.

He’ll knead your breasts for a while, warming them up, enjoying the feel of them in his hands. Sometimes he’ll do this when you’re watching TV, or trying to cook dinner, or on your phone. Just sidles up behind you and grabs your chest, squeezing and groping and massaging the mounds with care.

While he’s rough and aggressive during sex, he’s more controlled during times like these, softer and less prone to acting like he’s got a toilet bristle brush shoved up his ass.

After he’s sufficiently “warmed you up” you get sat down somewhere comfy - sometimes the couch, but preferably the bed, just in case Bakugou feels a little more pent up than usual and wants to relieve some stress using your body in another way.

If he hasn’t stripped you of your shirt already, that’s next, along with your bra. Bakugou prefers you to be completely nude, but you find that extraordinarily uncomfortable, so after a couple of heated arguments, Bakugou’s decided to relent on that rule.

The man’s shirt comes off too, so he gets to lie flush against your and feel your soft flesh against his own.

The first couple of times, he had always started out far too eager, pulling and tugging at your nipple painfully, creating such a tight suction with his lips that it made you cry, and you’d begged him to stop. He hadn’t, not until you’d made milk for him. Something that you had thought to be impossible, considering you weren’t pregnant.

But not he starts of gentler, with soft kisses over your breasts, little kitten licks across your nipples, hands holding your sides, your shoulders, anywhere he could grab with uncharacteristic tenderness.

When he finally does dip down and begin sucking, it always feels weird. NO matter how many times he does this, you can’t feel comfortable with it. It’s such a strange, pulling sensation, relieving, emptying.

Bakugou’s figured out how to suckle and breath at the same time, just like a baby. He’ll purse his lips and nurse, stop for moment to breathe through his nose, then continue. This results in his warm breath intermittently puffing over your skin, making desperate little noises as he continues to drink you up.

You’d never have thought that Bakugou Katsuki could be defined as desperate, or soft.

Whichever breast he’s not sucking at gets massaged with one of his hands, tweaking the nipple, groping your flesh. You don’t know how or when he got so good with his mouth and hands, when he was able to practice coordination like that, but the movements are seamless for him.

He spends a significant amount of time lathering one breast with attention. If his jaw gets sore, or his mouth feels tired, he’ll pull of for a few moments to nuzzle at your plushy tits before latching on again.

And when he’s ready, he’ll switch to the other breast, hand immediately coming to spread his saliva around your nipple, to try and combat the chill that always makes you shiver whenever your spit-slick nipple gets exposed to the air.

All you can do is lay there and let him drink his fill.

Trying to catch his attention or try to divert him back to different activities is like trying to water a fake plant - absolutely nothing happens.

You get ignored, or Katsuki slaps at your hands if you try to pull him off, squinting up at you like a petulant child.

He usually falls asleep like that, it’s been months of the same routine, every single night. Bakugou suckling at you like you’re the first drink he’s had in years, obviously desperate and wanting, but trying his absolute best to hold himself back from devouring you.

Sometimes, if he’s excited, he’ll fuck you like that, hips slapping against your while he’s hunched over your tits, panting against your flesh.

Cumming always feels better when that happens, but it’s not like you’ll tell him that. He already pushes for you to let him nurse at your tits any chance he can get, and especially when it comes to sex.

Even after an intense, tiring fuck, Katsuki can’t fall asleep unless his mouth is on you, tongue sucking at your nipple.

Bakugou highly enjoys suckling at you at any time of day - right when he wakes up, before you’re even conscious, when you’re watching TV or reading a book, at lunch time... really any chance he gets, his face is buried in your chest. He always gets sleepy afterwards though, so he’s prone to even more irritability if he can’t take a nap, of which he completely denies. Says you try to use that as an excuse to not let him touch you, and then it’s back to the old argument of Katsuki claiming you don’t love him.

He’s manipulative, but you don’t know what else to do except give in.

During the day, he has timers set for when you’re supposed to take your lactation pills. The man had hand-fed you them at first, not trusting you to do it right yourself, considering how you were against the idea.

When he has work, Katsuki video-calls you, makes you take the pill and show him your mouth afterwords.

Pumping happens semi-regularly, only if Katsuki hasn’t been able to nurse for as long or as often as he usually does. You’ve learned not to do it while he’s around, even if he’s in the house working on paperwork. Katsuki hears the sound of the pump and suddenly appears, bulge in his trousers, a gleam in his eye.

So you do it when he’s away, per his rigid instructions. He makes you text him when you do, as a video call would make him too excited.

He’s very good at keeping you taken care of. When you’re starting to chafe and get sucked raw, he makes sure to slather your chest with cold creams and oils to speed up healing time, to heal the angry, swollen skin. It’s like your body dislikes his nursing as much as you do, with how often it seems to ache from his treatment.

Bakugou makes sure you get eat foods that help increase prolactin, the lactation hormone. Dates and Apricots are staples in your diet, and you’re sick of them. Bakugou insists you eat them anyway. You’re going to produce milk, no matter how much he has to force it.

You provide him with safety, security, a warm place to lay his head at night (your chest) and the one thing that seems to help him calm down in any situation.

When he comes home angry, you only have to wince through his rough fondling before he begins to pacify, and by the time his mouth reaches your breast, he’s quiet and relaxed.

Something’s agitating him beyond belief? he comes to you, salivating, expectant and sure of relief.

Whatever you want, however you feel - that’s all an afterthought, always has been, and always will be.

#Katsuki might be lack toes and taller ant #but he doesn't care #bakugou #katsuki bakugou #tw dubcon #tw.dubcon #yandere #but not really #Bakugou's just a horrible partner #and reader doesn't know how to get out #breastfeeding #idk if Tumblr will like get mad at that tag lol #lactation #lactating

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djmarinizelablog · 3 years

Note

Hey there!!! I’m a big fan of your fics! The way your write Levi’s and Hange’s characters doesn’t stray away from canon. I love everything about each one of your story! <3

Anyways do you accept prompts/requests? This is quite random 😅. If so, could you please write LeviHan domestic / family AU where LH are in the middle of making love and then suddenly their little child (maybe Udo?) comes inside their room because he’s “afraid of the monster under the bed”? LH pretend as if nothing happened but after small Udo falls asleep on their bed, they contemplates whether they should secretly continue having segss or not.

omg i feel bad for the child. But that would be hilarious, pls don’t make their child find out what exactly happened between his parents LMFAO

I've kinda tweaked this a little bit so I can churn this into a longer piece hehe

Here's an excerpt from my upcoming multi-chap fic entitled Handle with Care (formerly called Finally Found You):

Summary: Levi Ackerman is a single father who has been concealing the truth from his five-year-old daughter, Micia. So when Hange Zoe randomly shows up on their doorstep, Micia mistakenly believes that her family is finally complete.

------

"Hold on. You're going to let me sleep on the floor?"

The silence means yes. Levi has already settled himself into his side of the bed, reading a book and completely ignoring her.

Hange cannot believe it. They've entered this fake marriage so that his dear little daughter can feel what it's like to have both parents in her life. Hange honestly, ultimately, 100% cannot believe that she also has to deal with this man who happens to be her husband in this pretend-relationship.

Levi puts down his book to look at her, frowning. "My bed, my rules. If you don't want to sleep beside me, find another spot elsewhere."

Hange whacks him with a pillow. "Jerk." She hits him again. "Prick."

He hurls his pillow at her as payback but Hange avoids his aim and bonks him in the head. Soon enough, the two of them are having a pillow-fight in his bed, whamming and whacking and bonking each other amid all the fluff and feathers.

"Oi, stop it." Levi's trying to shield himself from Hange's playful wrath.

Bonk. "You jerk---"

"I said stop---"

Another bonk.

"Tiny old man---"

Whack.

"Shitty Four-Eyes---"

"Papa?" Micia peeps into their room.

Wham.

Levi has fallen off the bed in surprise, taking Hange with him. They both roll into the floor, feathers flying all around. It was hard to tell which limbs were which. Hange has dived headfirst into his chest, accidentally knocking her head against his chin. He groans in pain as they lay still on the other side of the room, his arms around her to prevent Hange from causing any more damage.

Micia dawdles to where they are, her huge Titan plushie in her arms, as she stares at her parents with all the innocence in the world.

"Baba, are you planning to make another baby with Papa?"

Hange jolts up and pushes Levi back into the floor. "Huh? Of course not! We were, uhm, we were..."

"Pillow fighting," Levi breathes, nursing his jaw.

She nods and forces a smile at Micia. "Yes. Pillow fighting."

"Oh, I like pillow-fighting, too," the child grins, gap-toothed. She then joins her parents on the floor and lays her head against Levi's chest. Hange's about to escape when Micia tugs her by the hand, leaving her no choice but to join them on the floor once more.

They can hear Micia giggling as she snuggles into the space in between them. "This is nice," Micia huffs, before she dozes off to sleep, one hand in Levi's while the other in Hange's.

"It probably is." Hange rolls her eyes before inching closer to the father and child as they are surrounded by all the strewn pillows and stray feathers.

Indeed, she'll have to get used to this.

#levihan #aot #snk #fanfic #fanfiction #shingeki no kyojin hanji #levi and hanji #levihan fanfic #levi x hanji #levi attack on titan #snk levi #hanji zoë #hange zoë #rom com anyone?#mine #ask #open #djmarinizela

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the-fiction-witch · 2 years

Text

Seriously?

MOVIE DEATH OF A SUPERHERO COUPLE DONALD X READER RATING: SWEET

I sat in bed drawing away as usual trying to get the shading right on this damn sketch whenever I tried the lighting never quite hit right, "Visitors" The nurse says opening the door I nodded to her barely looking up as I heard the guys come in

"We have a surprise for you"

"Ohh? did you bring me a chocolate bar again," He says

"No better!"

"okay" I sighed looking up each of them had a picture of a girl "what is this?"

"We found a solution, to your problem."

"My problem?"

"all these girls said they were down"

"with what?"

"You know... your problem"

then it hit me "did you go around asking these girls if they'd have sex with me?"

"well yeah"

"Seriously?"

"yeah"

"you went around asking girls if they would have pity sexy with me? do you not understand how much of a dick move that is"

"These are not the only ones"

"no! just no," I told them, getting back to my drawings

"Don't you wanna take a look at least?"

"No" I answered

"You sure?"

"Positive"

"even this one?" he smirks waving one of them between my face and my drawing

"I'm sure" I sighed

"even this one?" He suggested showing me another one

"No thank you" I sighed pushing it away

"You sure? this one might be interesting" he says waving it back in my face again and I noticed snatching it out his hand

"Seriously?"

"Yep"

"You asked y/n!"

"Yep"

"you went and asked y/n if she'd have sex with me!"

"We did yes"

"Why the hell would you do that!"

"because you've had a crush on y/n since you were twelve! we asked her and she said she would"

"she would?"

"When we asked she said she'd like to, so long as you wanted her too"

"did she know, you were doing this without informing me,"

"We did tell her to say you didn't know, so... you wanna text her?"

"No! I don't want some pity sex, I'm not mentioning it to her at all or any of these girls" I said

I sat finishing up my drawing when I heard the nurse again "Visitor" she smiled I rolled my eyes assuming it was the guys back again but

"Hello" she giggled I looked up and saw y/n in the doorway in her cute little dress with all her books

"Hi y/n" I smiled the nurse left us alone and she giggled coming over and getting the chair to sit by the bed

"Is it safe?" she asks opening her arms

"It is" I laughed

"yay!" she giggled giving me a hug "Ummmm I can hug my little squeezamal again" she smiled before getting her backpack off "how are you feeling?"

"Better but still like a slab of shit"

"how's it going?" she asks

"almost done all the line works and shading"

"I meant you dummy not the comic"

"Oh, alright. shoving me full of this drug and that drug, stealing my blood all the time"

"Maybe the hospital is infected with vampires" she giggled sitting down

"Umm then how do I know your not a vampire?"

"don't you trust me?" she giggled faking to be offended

"Should I?"

"No!" she giggled ticking me

"Hey! y/n!" I complained pushing her away she grabbed my hand and began nibbling at my wrist so much it tickled too "Hey! don't you bite me! you dirty little vampire"

"Fine" she sighed getting her books onto the little table too "so," she began as we compared our notes her writing and my drawings making sure everything lines up the way it should and we got to work tweaking things where they needed to be, I had to add a pannel or two she needed to reword some bits just usual stuff sitting quietly deep in our work for a while "I had a funny chat the other day"

"With who?"

"The boys"

"Ohh.... about what?" I asked trying to play innocent

"They had some silly idea in their head, honestly I'm surprised they didn't get knocked out, going around asking that"

"asking what?"

"They really didn't tell you?"

"Tell me what?"

"you really? honestly don't know?"

"I don't know if I know I would need to know what it was to know if I know or not"

"Liar"

"what!"

"You always do that when you lie. you go around and around the same point" she giggled pointing as she spoke with her pencil

"I uhhh I don't know what your talking about" I stuttered

"Umm hummm" she nods moving a little and giving my cheek a kiss "i assume you heard from them"

"They told me. after the fact. I had no idea they were going around asking anyone that they didn't tell me, they only turned up once they had the answers and told me"

"you promise?"

"I promise. I didn't know until after"

she nodded and went back to her work so I went back to mine for a while the ticking of the clock on the wall sounded impossibly loud in the silence between us "They told you they asked me then?"

"They did tell me" I nodded sheepishly

"and they told you my answer"

"They did. yes"

"and?"

"and your opinion on that is?"

"They should not have been going around asking people. much less without my permission,"

"But?"

"But... if you. wanted to." I said avoiding her eyes as she chewed on her pencil rubber a little "I mean, if I was going to with anyone like if I had anyone in the world to pick from, I'd... pick you. But as I said I didn't know they were asking and.... I don't want some pity sex of some girl who's only doing it because she feels sorry for me"

"well then." she nods "we don't need to worry about that" she smiled leaning over and giving my lips a gentle kiss, I was in shock trying my best to breathe! I kissed her back gently and rested my hand on the back of her head gently playing with her soft hair she smiled into the kiss and rested her own hand on my neck and shoulder gently stroking my skin she pulled back after a while and gave my nose a little kiss, she smiled putting all our stuff on the little table and pushing it away from the bed, climbing into my bed sitting on the little spare space gently laying her head on my chest and shoulder wrapping her arms around me, I smiled pulling her in close too "and they told me you had a crush on me"

"Honestly I don't know how it lasted this long before they told you" I sighed

"How long was it?"

"Since we were twelve"

"Yeah, they told me a lot. I always thought the girls told you I had a crush on you"

"Uhhhhh no?"

"well I did"

"How long for?"

"about we were eleven" she smiled giving me another kiss

"y/n? did you maybe wanna... be my girlfriend?"

"I thought you'd never ask"

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stevesharrlngtons · 3 years

Note

this one might be too much but 😩 mutual pining between reader & Roman and it’s a formal event and someone is pissing him off and then reader comes in all dressed up and cute like “you said you would be nice ro 🙄” because theyre the date! and then he goes soft idk JKDFNF and people are like 😳 because they’re so cute together 😔

hi! i love this idea, and i hope you don’t mind if i tweak it a lil (-: enjoy!

so here’s the thing

roman is always looking for an angle

he loves a grift and a scheme and a plan

he’s always looking for a way to work smarter, not harder

and luckily, he has you to go along with them

since junior high, you had been roman’s accomplice, sometimes willingly and sometimes reluctantly

he had this annoying knack for knowing each and every one of your buttons and just how to push them to get his way and rope you into a plan of his

and of course, just fucking of course, that’s what he did this time

because you were incredibly skeptical about being set up on a date with some slimy businessman roman was trying to shmooze

in hopes of you becoming the man’s earworm for the night and getting him to invest millions in a new vaccine that the white tower was developing

“you know actual models, roman. i don’t know why you are asking me for this”

“because you are the only person i trust with this, and anything for that matter”

you were sat on his couch in his living room while roman stood above you, giving you his best pout which he knew you couldn’t resist

“you could ask letha”

“i don’t want letha, i want you” in more ways that one, he thought

“you could ask destiny, maybe she could cast a spell or read his palm to help you out,” you crossed your arms

you really didn’t want to do this, even for roman

was it because you didn’t want to go on a date with a notorious creep? yes, of course

was it also because you didn’t want to date anyone but the man who stood in front of you, who also happened to have friendzoned you at the age of fifteen? yeah, that too

but it was mostly the gross old man thing

“i don’t want models, i don’t want letha, i don’t want destiny or any little trick she can pull. i want you there, with your cunning little mind and pretty little face,” roman dropped to his knees and jutted out his bottom lip in mock sadness, “don’t make me beg, baby”

and fuck, there was that little nickname that made your stomach flip and your heart race and you can barely keep the blush from your cheeks as you reluctantly agree

and so, the plan was set

next week you were to meet with mr. daniel reynolds, a sixty something medical investor who knew more hookers than manners and wouldn’t take his hand off your ass since the moment he saw you

in which his first words were “damn! godfrey is really pulling out all the stops for me, huh?” as he gazed at you with a smarmy expression

while your skin crawled at the gesture and you had to fake giggle to cover the retch your stomach gave, you did know he was right

you looked fucking hot and it was all on roman’s dime

a contingency for you agreeing to this night was getting to take his credit card for the afternoon to buy whatever you needed for the date, price be damned

daniel picked you up in a brand new aston martin, his hand high on your thigh as he blathered on about... something, you didn’t know or care

and neither did he, truly

you were there for his to grope and stare at, he didn’t care about what you had to say

when you got to the event, all eyes were on you

you swore that people stopped their conversations to stare at you and daniel, but you didn’t know if that was just anxiety or if was true until he whispered in your ear gross

“no one can take their eyes off you, gorgeous. feels good to know you’re all mine”

and before you could reply with your now perfected canned girlish giggle, roman approached quickly

“daniel, i see you could make it.”

and immediately, just from hearing his voice, you knew this whole plan was a bust

because roman was pissed, and he was barley containing his anger

upon turning to see his face, your suspicion was proven

roman was standing to his full height, hackles raised, predatory eyes set on daniel in a straining stare, his lips pressed in a thin line as his jaw was clenched

“roman, great to see you,” daniel slaps roman on the should to which roman didn’t budge, “you already have a leg up on this investment after you sent me this peace offering,”

he patted your ass in recognition as he appreciated your body with his eyes once more

“i don’t know where you found her, but tell ‘em i don’t know if i wanna give her back!”

you just looked straight ahead at roman with a fixed smile and a look in your eyes that said i swear to god, you owe me big

“yeah, well,” roman’s voice is wound tight as he closes his eyes and takes a swift step closer to daniel, “the thing is, i’ve decided to rescind my offer. both business and personal. you don’t get to invest and you don’t get to keep her.”

“what?” daniel said, at the same time that exact thought crossed your mind

“yep,” roman popped the word from his mouth, spit coming to splatter on reynolds skin, “i don’t need your money, i don’t need you. no one does, except maybe a nursing home or an erectile dysfunction seminar”

“you little prick! who the fuck do you think you are?”

“i’m roman fucking godfrey,” roman seethes through his teeth, “who the fuck are you?”

you stood in shock as you watched daniel do the same, before roman spoke again

“that’s what i thought. now, go stand with your nose to the wall and don’t fucking bother me again,”

and sure enough, daniel’s hand went limp and fell from your butt to his side and he turned robotically on his heel and walked at a simple pace to the nearest wall to place his nose against

roman watched with an intense anger the entire time to make sure he did what he was told

“hey -- what the fuck was that?” you whispered harshly under your breath

“i changed my mind,” he growled

“since when? you practically begged for me to do this plan with you just to ruin it the second he walked in?”

roman snapped his head to look at you with that same intense gaze as before

his body followed slowly, rotating beneath him like an owl

“i am allowed to change my mind whenever the fuck i want. and i decided i had changed my mind when i saw his filthy fucking arthritis fingers on you”

“that was the plan --”

“fuck the plan! fuck. it.”

you met his stare, doing your best to match his anger, but you couldn’t

because all you could think about was how roman had seen a man touching you and hated it

because all you could think about was how fucking sexy he looked when he was mad, when he was yelling at someone and coming out on top

all you could think about was how much you wanted to beg him to touch you and kiss you and wash away daniel’s touch with his own

and roman, for his own part was thinking similar thoughts

because he really thought that this plan could work, that he could use his jealousy to his advantage, that he could harness it and use it to be a better businessman

that he could use another man as your date as a motivator to do his best to impress you and to do anything in his power to seal the deal because nothing was more motivating to roman than getting a business deal out of the way so he could have you all to himself again

but the second you walked in, looking like that, in that fucking dress, but with that fucking man? touching you? everything left roman’s mind

all he could think about was how much he wanted you, how much he needed you, how much he was the only person allowed to touch you

and how much he wanted to maim daniel reynolds, investment be damned

“i would have loved a little heads up on this. would have been nice to know you were gonna bail on the plan so i could have just blown you off,” you bit

“well, here’s your heads up for now on,” roman stepped closer, his lips only a breath away, “no more plans where any other human being touches you. no more plans where someone touches you like that, that isn’t me. no more plans where anyone thinks that you are theirs and not mine. get it?”

his voice palpated for much passion and authority your head began to spin

and your eyes widened, and your heart raced and your palms started to sweat

for a moment you swore you might faint

for another, you swore you are just going to kiss him something roman would have no objected

but all you did do was say:

“ok.”

and roman gave you a swift nod

“good. now let’s dance, i don’t want to talk business anymore. everyone here is fucking stupid and old.”

so, with his hand around your waist, roman led you to the expansive dance floor

for the rest of the night, roman’s hands help erase the memories of their predecessor. big and warm and possessive all over your body

and anytime someone looks at you for more than a passing glance, roman pulls you in tighter

he kisses your forehead and rubs his cheeks and nose to the sides of your face, like a cat marking its territory

showing everyone there what they all should fucking know

you. were. roman’s.

#roman godfrey x reader #roman godfrey imagine #stevesharrlngtonswrites

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calchexxis · 2 years

Text

Dead by Daylight: Plague is the best Killer ever made by accident

Most people are following me for my Lightcannon stuff. That’s fair, but I play a lot of dead by daylight so I’m gonna rant about that for a second.

There are a lot of problems with that game, chief of which is that they implemented competitive matchmaking software in a game that is wildly imbalanced and it is painfully obvious how bad it was for the game’s health.

I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about the best killer in the game that only exists if you play in a very specific way. Mind you, I don’t know that I’d call her the most powerful Killer in the game. But, at least in my opinion, she’s up there.

The Plague (AKA Vommy Mommy to her degenerate fanbase) was never a very good killer to start with. Her power was unreliable due to the nature of the projectile programming that made up her ability, resulting in getting hits when it made no sense, and missing hits that definitely ought to have landed. She’s also, ultimately, an M1 Killer, and those are naturally worse than the high mobility or control Killers like Blight, Nurse, and Spirit.

So why do I say she’s the best?

Recently, Behavior did a pass on all of her addons. A great many of them were adjusted or outright changed, and her power was given a few QoL tweaks that made it feel more natural and less punishing to use. Let me be clear though when I say that none of that made Plague good. Ultimately, she was still a Killer with no movement abilities and questionable control, and that remains true except in the instance of one addon.

Prayer Tablet.

In my humble opinion, the Prayer Tablet effect should have always been Plague’s baseline power. What it does is inflict a Infection on objects that lasts about ~80 seconds, which is a solid about of time in-game. However, it strips Plague of her ability to manually effect survivors with her Infection. They can only be infected if they interact with something you previously infected.

This makes her so much more fun to play. No more charging up my power mid-chase. No more trying to make badly programmed projectiles hit a Survivor that may or may not be lagging.

Instead, it becomes a game of tactics. I can infect generators, sure. That’s how you control the map. But more actively, it means I have to be judicious about infecting Pallets that the Survivor can drop between us, and vaults that they can use to escape me. If I do that, then even while they’re evading me, they’re accruing infection, eventually suffering a wound without my hitting them. Once that happens, I can decide to keep going with the chase, or to accept price I exacted, and move to an easier target. It allows me to pressure the entire map with an M1 Killer. Something that just doesn’t exist anywhere else.

If the Survivors use my pools to clear their infection, it gives me an amplified version of my power I can use to wound them, and with the way I play, they almost have to clear themselves or else I’ll keep pressuring them.

The reason I say that Prayer Tablet should be basekit, rather than an addon, is that it actually makes her more fun and more interactive to play. It also means the Survivors can’t just get cornered and vom’d on until they’re wounded. It means they have to think twice about every infected pallet and vault they use.

Resources become minor threats, because I am the Plague Priestess of the Entity. This realm is mine.

Of course, now you might say: Well that just sounds OP.

It’s not. Because remember, at the end of the day? The Plague is still an M1 Killer. I still have to catch you to down you. My plague means nothing if I can’t hit you. That means once we’re in chase? It’s pure skill. Who can mind-game the loop? Who can predict the fake-out? Which one of us is better at this game?

If the answer is you? Then you get away, and I have to chase you and lose generators, let you go and pressure the map myself. If I win, I down you. That is still true, it’s just that the Prayer Tablet Plague does it better than any other Killer in the game.

At least, that’s my opinion.

#dead by daylight #rant #The Plague #Make Prayer Tablet Basekit Please #It's better this way

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schmokschmok · 3 years

Text

witches are real, and you think this is just a funny fic title

Fandom: The Magnus Archives

Relationship: Martin K. Blackwood x Tim Stoker

Characters: Martin K. Blackwood, Tim Stoker, Sasha James, Danny Stoker

Wordcount: 12,166

Freeform:

No Archive Warnings Apply

Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence

No Fear Entities

Supernatural Elements

Witch & HOH Tim Stoker

Danny Stoker Lives

Halloween

Tim Stoker Deserves Nice Things And I’m Giving Them To Him

Summary:

Martin fakes his way into the Magnus Institute, a research and archiving facility for magical and supernatural (or as Elias Bouchard likes to call it paranormal) encounters. He expects the people working for the institute to be kind of weird but Tim Stoker takes his commitment for a spooky aesthetic to a whole new level.

Read on AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27070366

The thing is: Martin knows what to do with crooked smiles and superficial, flattering words. He knows how to smile politely and stumble through a thank you when someone compliments the jumper he’s wearing, not knowing that he made it himself. He knows how to accept an absentminded nod as gratitude for the tea he’s making every day for the whole archival staff. He knows how to get through a wide array of flirty remarks that concern his appearance, dignity mostly intact. He knows how to smile through a detachedly welcoming nod of a co-worker for years that answers his greeting by name.

The thing he can’t handle, under any circumstances, however, is kindness. Never been good at it, not even as a kid.

He knows his mother had been kind when he had been a child, had brushed and braided his hair every single night and told him fairy tales and stories, she had stayed up with him after nightmares and during thunder storms, had told him she loved him even when he was angry with her. And she hadn’t expected him to love her back, is the thing, hadn’t wanted him to brush her hair or hold her hand or meet every of her stories with one of his own. Maybe that’s why he gives back now, loves her even if she doesn’t love him back, brushes and braids her hair even if she doesn’t want to look at him, tells her stories of his work and the friends he doesn’t have but fabricates just to maybe ease her mind. (And if she doesn’t want him coming back, then he will stop. Kindness, sometimes, is about the things you’re willing to give up for the ones that you love. – On some days she calls him cruel for coming back and coming back and coming back, but she doesn’t tell him to leave, doesn’t tell him to stay away. So, he returns like a record broken, jumping on the same syllable until she stops the needle digging into him.)

His father had been kind, too, he thinks. Had to be to be loved by a woman like his mother once had been. Martin doesn’t remember anymore.

Mostly, the kindness directed his way is about bargaining favours and weighing the things he does against sweet spoken words. Which is alright, he thinks, because giving his last shirt for a sincere thank you has been his modus operandi since his father left. He wants to give and give and if that leaves him curled up on his bed on a Wednesday evening at eight o’clock then it’s just because he’s not strong enough to carry the weight of his own thoughts.

It starts like this: Martin takes up work in the institute with no real credentials to support his curriculum vitae or his claim of knowledge about anything, really, but he’s tired of working minimal wage, of cooking mediocre food late at night for his mother who wants to move out desperately to stop being all on her own in their empty flat, of working three shifts in a row in two different jobs and still struggling to meet ends. Martin’s tired of burning on a borrowed flame, shovelling hollow coals on a dying candle.

So, he’s faking CVs, so many that he loses count of them. He sends them to every job listing he finds, twisting and tweaking the details, staying up late at night on his battered laptop that takes almost five minutes to boot. He shows up to as many interviews as he can manage but he never gets called back in. Until Elias Bouchard phones him on a cloudy day and tells him that he can start working in the library, if he’s able to move to London in the next month that is. He accepts, of course he does. His mother would never forgive him declining the only job offer that would get them to pay their bills on time and pave the way to a nice nursing home where his mother doesn’t have to be alone anymore.

Martin moves to London. His mother doesn’t.

He starts working in the Magnus Library which is a capital L kind of library as he gets told on his very first day. It’s a joke, he thinks, a library science master’s joke that he doesn’t get but laughs about anyway. (It’s a Magnus Institute’s joke, but Martin doesn’t know that yet. His hands are full juggling the Dewey Decimal and his customer service smile while looking at the impatient faces of half of the faculty members trying to loan basic material books he hasn’t ever heard the titles of.)

It’s not a secret that he’s incompetent, Martin thinks, they all know it, and no one says anything to his face which is probably meant as kindness but feels like cruelty. Because Martin isn’t daft, Martin isn’t incapable of learning, Martin isn’t unwilling to put every last ounce of himself into being better. But nobody seems to think that he’s important enough to be corrected. They see his misfiled loaning records and his misplaced books, and they say it’s not a problem, don’t worry and they take care of it without offering to teach him any better. And Martin, well, Martin is too embarrassed to ask them how to handle it in the future. He will figure it out, he thinks, in time.

(He’s right, but he doesn’t know that yet. It takes almost a year for him to memorise the layout of the library with its seemingly everchanging bookshelves and corridors. It takes almost one and a half for him to get to know every Library staff member and their preferred way to drink tea. It takes almost two years for him to remember the faces of the faculty members that don’t visit the library regularly. It takes almost three years for him to know that it’s Research and Archives and Library and Artefacts but human resources and accounting and information technology. It’s around the same time that he feels like maybe he’s part of the team now; the same time that his co-workers stop looking at him like he’s a bumbling fool without any skills; the same time that he stops calling his mother every three days or so even though she hasn’t picked up in a long time.)

The very first week that he works in the library is filled with many apologies, too many to keep record, a much and much of awkward apologeticness. A few conversations are held, he gets to know Rosie „the heart of the institute” Martinez and Lydia „from HR” Yılmaz. They are good people and talking to them makes the muscles in his back relax just the tiniest bit, although the panic never stops flaring up in his stomach that, somehow, they will know that he’s a fraud.

It’s the first day of his second week and he feels slightly more prepared because he used every minute of the weekend to pull up every article ever written about the institute and its library. He tried reading published papers, too, but without the institute’s access they’re securely locked behind a paywall he can’t get through without a credit card and loads and loads of money to spare. He snacked on canned peaches while reading about filing systems, but in the end he’s none the wiser.

So, he comes in an hour early and unlocks the front entrance of the institute with his key card. It’s eerily quiet in the dark lobby and hallways leading into the back of the building. The noisiness of the street and the embankment gets swallowed by the thick walls and the closing door behind him and the only thing he can hear is the tapping of his own shoes on the marble floor. It’s a mixture of unsettling and peaceful, but he’s not sure which takes precedence in his sleep addled mind. The unfamiliarity of the cream-coloured walls and the polished, almost black floor makes every shadow move in a way Martin can’t comprehend and he turns to look at them a few times only to realise they’re potted plants or laminated notes hung up next to different door frames. He passes a few glowing exit signs and the door to the stairwell that leads up to the second floor.

When he approaches the entrance to the library, a weight gets lifted from his stomach at the prospect of a light switch he can use to chase out the darkness that slowly gets more unnerving than comforting. Spinning the key card in his hand to keep busy and hold his anxiety at bay, he rounds the last corner and stops dead in his tracks. Because sitting right in front of the door is a person only illuminated by the harsh, cold light of their phone. Right the second Martin loses hold of his key card and it meets the floor with an echoing plasticky sound, their eyes snap up and fixate on Martin.

“Oh, lovely, you’re here,” they say, standing up from their hunched-up position without even touching the floor with their hands. (Martin takes a moment to envy that movement because every time he thinks about sitting down on the floor he has to either make sure something’s in close proximity to help him lift himself up or the ground’s not too dirty, so he doesn’t have to wash his hands right the second he stands upright again.) “I was starting to get worried I’d have to wait another hour for someone to open up.”

“Uh–,” is everything Martin gets out before the stranger picks up his key card and hands it over to him. They smile at him, slightly deranged but without a doubt handsome in a way that makes Martin’s breath catch in his chest. While Martin reaches out carefully to grab the offered card, they say: “Sorry for dropping in unexpectedly and unannounced but Veronica will have my arse if I don’t hand in this follow up today.”

Silence falls over them when Martin doesn’t react in any way and just continues staring at the stranger who keeps staring at him as if Martin should know who Veronica is and how important it is for them to do their follow up. (As if Martin should know what a follow up even is.)

“Tim,” the stranger provides when Martin doesn’t show the slightest inclination to do anything other than, well, stare at them. “I’m working upstairs in Research in Veronica’s team.” They wait for an agonising moment for Martin to return the introduction – which he fails to do, still trying to process that he’s really in an actual conversation with another human being before seven a.m.

“As lovely as it is standing here with you, …” Tim continues, allowing Martin once again to submit his name. Which he fails to do, again, because his mouth feels so dry he’s afraid if he opens it now there won’t come out anything else than a pathetic cough. Tim doesn’t seem too stressed about it. „I really need to go in there,” Tim gestures over their shoulder to the library, “and cross-reference a few things and brush up a few of my foot-notes before it’s time to clock in again. Veronica is really adamant about this follow up laying on her desk at eight thirty sharp.” The manila folder in Tim’s hand gets lifted for emphasis and apparently that’s all Martin needed to get it together and finally move. Without him intending to do so, his lips form a customer service smile that’s been ingrained into his very being from years upon years of working in ice cream shops and pizza restaurants and a movie theatre that’s long gone now.

“Yeah, uh, yeah no problem!”

He steps around Tim and presses his key card against the sensor underneath the door handle. After the soft opening click of the lock, he steps aside to let Tim enter the room behind him and he searches for the light switch with his outstretched arm because he’s pretty sure that one has to be on the wall to his left.

“Thank you, really, you’re doing me a favour, mate,” Tim says and legitimately bows with the biggest grin before he’s off into the depth of the library, swallowed by a shelf Martin could swear hadn’t stood there on Friday when he left.

Finally, he lets go of the door and gets closer to the wall to search with both hands for the switch, until the little finger of his right hand bumps against the hard plastic shell of a set of light switches.

“Gonna be bright for a second,” he warns loudly, unsure if Tim’s even able to hear him or not. Then, after a few seconds, he presses the switch and the lights above his head sputter and blink to life with the solid snugness of old halogen lamps.

His eyes take a moment to adjust to the brightness, then he treads over to the counter, rounds it and closes his eyes for just a heartbeat or two. He’s got this. Tim wandering somewhere, hidden behind shelfs, is not going to change the fact that Martin’s got this. His brain, heart and stomach just need to be convinced, that’s okay, he can handle a wee bit anxiety and nervousness.

Without further ado, he pins his name tag to his monochrome button-down (because that’s what adults wear at work) and starts to open the various drawers underneath the counter to catalogue the innards.

There's probably a system, stapler and pen and pencils in one drawer, neatly arranged in a compartment next to sticky notes and paper squares in bright colours and an uncountable amount of paper clips. In the drawer underneath, he finds envelopes, more paper in various shapes and forms and sizes. Another drawer reveals the minute book in which Martin should document Tim’s presence. (Probably? He’s not entirely sure if the minute book is for every research assistant or students only.) Right next to the minute book, Martin can see the keys for every terminal in the library, and a few personal items of his co-workers which should not be in there as far as Martin’s been informed. The last two drawers contain RFID tags, barcodes and printed ID cards. The space reserved for lost and found is surprisingly empty. (Martin thinks he remembers Janette taking everything back into the small storage room in the back on Friday afternoon.)

It takes almost fifteen minutes for him to open and close every drawer (multiple times) and he's still not sure if he memorised the most important things. It's quarter past seven, however, and he couldn’t find a single position plan, which is why Martin steps around the counter and starts to make his way through the maze that is this library. Clipboard and pencil in hand, he outlines the approximate layout of the outer walls and tries to draw in the shelfs he passes, marking them with things like Local History A—V and Ghosts (general) J—Z, scribbling down letters and numbers of the signatures that seem important to him. (He's got a run down last week but the library uses the most arbitrary synthesis of Dewey Decimal and an intern system that the first library staff must have implemented before trying to shove the Dewey Decimal into the small space left.)

Martin's good at making maps, if he's allowed to say so. He can read a map, he can draw a map. (It wouldn't hold up against a professional map but his always worked fine enough.) So, he feels righteous indignation when someone steps into his space, throws a glance on his makeshift map and says: “This isn't accurate, sorry.”

Martin furrows his brow, but the customer service smile is on his lips again before he’s able to will it away.

“Why wouldn't it be?” Martin asks even though he doesn't want to know what Tim has to say. “I mean, yeah, you couldn't do an accurate projection, but it's not meant to be. It's about the order of the shelfs, the signatures.”

“As much as I hate to disappoint you,” Tim says and lets his finger hover half a centimetre above Martin's map, “but the ghost section is three shelfs down to the right next to Russian literature. I walked past it a few seconds ago.”

“Well, the only reason this map says ghost is because I walked past the ghost section,” Martin retorts (and feels very brave about it). The desire to snatch the map away from Tim's finger and hold it close to his chest so that Tim can't spare another look is strong but Martin also knows it's childish and he shouldn't indulge in such impulses.

“Well, Martin,” Tim must have seen Martin's name tag, which is nice because Tim says his name with an exasperated fondness that Martin shouldn't have earned yet and it spares Martin from the mortifying ordeal of introducing himself after his fauxpas this morning, “I don't know if nobody told you but this Library is like the rest of the institute: A big pile of magical bullshit.”

Tim grins and the skin next to their eyes crinkle with mischief as if they're sharing an inside joke with Martin, as if Martin should understand. (And like every other time someone implies or references something Martin doesn't understand or jokes about something Martin doesn't know, he gets this violent urge to scream into the knowingly smiling face in front of him. But he chokes it down, more or less successfully.) And he smiles.

“Don't beat yourself up,” Tim continues, unaware of the wee bit of hatred Martin feels in this very second, “a map won't help but soon enough you'll get the hang of it.” Tim winks. “When I first started using the Library, I swear to you, every single shelf I walked up to was sporting the cryptid selection. Every single one. I stood between two shelfs and it didn't matter in which direction I turned, there it was: The cryptid section.” Tim's eyes don't leave Martin's face for a second, which is kind of unnerving but at the same time strangely reassuring. As if Tim's more than just aware who they're talking to. “This Library is more a Feeling than an organised space.”

Tim laughs again and Martin tries to join in, but it gets caught in his throat. Tim's flittering fingers and Tim's sing-songed “spooky!” only elevate the closed up feeling in Martin's chest and the knuckles on his hand that still holds onto his clipboard turn white in their effort to not drop it.

A quick glance to the watch on Martin's wrist puts a stop to Tim's easy posture and they say: “Fuck, I should really get going. Veronica's still waiting.” Then Tim hesitates and smiles at Martin again. “It was nice to make acquaintance with you, Martin. This won't be the last you'll see of me, but if you every think about going for a drink after work, hit me up. Sam or Rosie should have given you access to the institute's instant messaging system. I think you would get along well with Sasha — she's also in Research — and me.”

Tim shoots Martin a finger gun (which is incidentally the most obnoxious thing Martin has ever had to witness) and strides past Martin towards the library's exit.

And then he's gone like the first soft layer of frost in November after the first rays of sun.

It's quarter to eight and there's not much time until one of his colleagues will try to open up the library, but Martin uses the remaining time to lean against a shelf and stare at the ticking clock on the wall above the counter, trying to will his heart into a slower rhythm not dictated by anxiety or the sudden realisation that Tim had been close and Tim had been beautiful.

And like everything else in Martin's life: He fails.

This could have been the end and Martin's been sure that it would be. When the clock above the counter strikes twelve however and Martin gets ready to leave the library to go down to the in-house cafeteria, the door to the library gets shoved open and Tim stumbles in, closely followed by a no less beautiful stranger who Martin assumes could be Sasha.

“Martin!” Tim exclaims right before they're fist crashes into their chest right above their heart. “Thank the Lord, you're still here!”

The-stranger-who-could-be-Sasha-but-might-not-be rolls their eyes but smiles, before shoving Tim out of their way.

“Ignore him,” they say and turn a smile on Martin, he can't help but answer with one of his own. “He can be a bit …” They make a circle shaped gesture with their rolling wrist in clear search of the right word. So, Martin tries to jump in: “Dramatic?”

“Yes,” maybe!Sasha says at the same time Tim declares: „Oh, please, I have flair that's something entirely else.“

“You're a theatre kid,” maybe!Sasha says, ignoring the dismissive hand Tim waves into their face.

“Martin, you should ignore her,” Tim presses on before maybe!Sasha gets a chance to say anything else. “When I got back to my desk, I realised we never exchanged surnames which are crucial for the instant messenger.” Martin nods, slightly dazed and not at all sure if he understands the importance of Tim’s surname. “So, Tim Stoker.” He bows outlandishly.

“And Sasha James,” maybe-or-rather-definitely-Sasha jumps in, curtsying with the same kind of derisiveness. “Glad to be of service.” She rests her elbow on Tim’s shoulder and leans forward, just the tiniest bit, but it makes Martin feel strangely included. “You want to get lunch with us?”

The smile spreading across Martin’s face feels real, digging into his cheeks and showing dimples he kind of forgot he had. He casts a look at the clock above his head and says: “Yeah, sounds lovely.”

The thing is: Martin is a dreamer, day and night and dusk ‘til dusk ‘til dawn. He likes to think about all the possibilities he will never ever take, the wonderous things he wishes to happen but knows will always remain a fantasy.

When he was a child, he used to dream about his father coming back and apologising to his mother and explaining that it was all just a big misunderstanding, innit, he never would have left willingly, especially not without further notice. Martin would dream up every reasoning in existence, if his father would have come back Martin would have already heard his excuse. He’d just have to wait and find out which one was true.

When he was a teenager, he used to dream about mending the relationship with his mother, of sharing a smile with her instead of directing it at her disapproving or distant face. And he dreamt of a boy without a face but with calloused hands and experienced lips that would come and sweep him off his feet – literally at first, and figuratively when he hit that growth spurt in tenth class.

When he became an adult, he started dreaming about working nine to five and a two-day weekend. He dreamt about working in a café or restaurant and earning enough to sustain his mother and himself. He dreamt that one day he would open up his own place, a small restaurant or a flower shop or a shop selling something with turquoise. And he dreamt that he would meet a man, a nice and good man who would make everything just the tiniest bit more bearable; who Martin would like to be around and who would like to be around Martin. A man not merely tolerating him but seeking his presence.

Martin is a dreamer, but he’s not delusional. Or at least not anymore. The older Martin grew the simpler his dreams became. Now that his income is secure, he dreams about the domesticity of a social network and a warm body next to him when he tries to fall asleep. (And it’s the first time his dreams seem to be within his grasp. As if he can reach for them and cup them in the hollow of his hands. He just has to believe.)

It goes like this: Martin slowly grows desperate because the Magnus library doesn’t make any sense at all. One day Local Myths is on the shelf next to the counter, the next the shelf is empty, and the one after that Martin sees Vampires and Werewolves neatly arrayed on it. It doesn’t make sense, and frankly it makes Martin angry. This is a library for crying out loud, and Martin’s a librarian who can’t even fetch a monograph without getting lost. (Or is he a library assistant? Is Yvonne the only librarian? Everyone in this institute always seems to be an assistant, maybe Elias Bouchard is the only person with an actual degree in here.)

“Is something bugging you?”

A voice comes out of nowhere, causing Martin’s head to snap towards the frowning face of Tim Stoker. It’s been three weeks since their first getting acquainted, and Tim and Sasha drop by at irregular intervals to chit-chat for a bit. At this point, it’s something Martin has come to accept and look forward to but not necessarily expect to happen. Usually, they tell him about their research (it’s creepy and Martin never ever wants to enter artefacts, thank you very much) or their co-workers (including one Jon who Martin is yet to meet but who’s apparently really close with both Sasha and Tim) or the things they did on the weekend (they’re both incredibly busy all the time). But it’s not like they’re self-centered by any means, they ask about him, too. On a normal day, he hates this part of the conversation because he can’t really tell them nice stories about meeting friends and going out of town to kayak or whatever because he spends his time with his mother or home alone with knitting needles either documentaries or heteronormative romcoms queued up. And, let’s be honest, that’s not a compelling story to tell.

Today however Martin’s almost glad someone’s asking him about his mood because he does have an answer: “You were right! My map isn’t accurate. And I don’t get why!”

The startled look on Tim’s face makes Martin realise that he’s a bit loud and his tone is maybe a little aggressive. He ducks his head, heat spreading over his face, and continues in a more dignified manner: “It’s really not that bad. I’m just trying to shelve the returned books. But I can’t find the shelfmarks. It’s a little frustrating, is all.”

He tries to smile through his outburst, but he feels bad almost immediately. It’s not Tim’s responsibility or amicable duty to listen to Martin’s displeased rant, and they don’t know each other well enough for Martin to burden him with unimportant stuff like this. (The thought that Tim seems to be genuinely interested in what Martin has to say and that Tim complains all the time about uncooperative clerks and impossible to keep deadlines which likely means that he would be alright with Martin complaining a teeny-tiny bit crosses Martin’s mind but he tries not to dwell on it. He wouldn’t forgive himself if he would be mistaken.)

“You’ve been here for, what,” Tim says, his index finger tapping against his chin, a questioning look on his face, “like, a month?” Martin nods. “It’s absolutely normal to get confused. Like I told you: This Library is more a Feeling than an organised space. You can’t go about it with logic.” At this, he shrugs dismissively. “After that Cryptid incident, I literally brought my pendulum to work just to locate the sections I was looking for. And guess what, the Library didn’t care. It sent me running around the shelves nonetheless.”

Martin can’t help himself, his face scrunches up in a grimace. He should have anticipated weird antics when he first started working here, the Magnus Institute is a research and archiving facility for magical and supernatural (or as Elias Bouchard calls it paranormal) encounters. But Tim had seemed like a normal guy.

Quickly, he schools his expression into a more neutral one, before he says: “No offence, really, I hope I’m not intruding but using a pendulum seems kind of, well, esoteric?” The moment the words leave his mouth, he feels awful. Who raised Martin to be this impolite? Certainly not his mother. So he tries to backtrack: “I– I mean, I don’t want to impose or, uh, ascribe something to you or, or invalidate you.”

“It’s okay,” Tim interrupts him with a smile. He doesn’t seem mad. “I’m a witch, so everything I do is kinda esoteric. Can’t hold that against you.”

The wolfishness of Tim’s grin makes Martin think that this is an inside joke, too. Or, oh no, maybe it’s Tim’s religion and Martin’s a real jackass about it. Is witch a religious term? He has heard about wicca and druidism, but he has no idea if they call themselves witches. He doesn’t want to disrespect Tim or his belief system, but he also wants to know. Is it disrespectful to ask Tim about his religion? Martin wouldn’t do it if they didn’t know each other, but their friends (somewhat, kind of) and asking as a friend is more considerate than intrusive, right? (Or is he just rationalising and justifying his own curiosity, while masking it as attentiveness? Is Martin overthinking this?)

“So,” Martin starts and it’s an out of body experience where he sees himself driving against a wall without the chance to stop himself, “does that mean you’re wiccan?” He bites his tongue, waiting for Tim to tell him he’s an insensitive twat.

“Oh, no. I’m agnostic,” Tim replies, still wearing the same expression of content and reassurance.

For a moment, they’re both quiet. Tim leans against the counter, his elbows on the surface and his face almost in Martin’s space. It could be unpleasant, but he rather likes Tim’s complete disregard of personal space. (In part because he has seen Tim interact with Rosie who dislikes physical touch to a stark extreme in a respectful way, always keeping his distance. He knows if he ever were uncomfortable Tim would back off. And that’s reassuring in its own way.)

“Give yourself some time,” Tim says eventually. “Let the Library get to know you.”

“You talk about the library as if it were conscious.” It’s a statement, not a question.

“Yeah,” Tim chuckles. “Yeah, I do.” He sighs and straightens his back. “It’s not, though, so don’t worry.” The way Tim says it, though, makes Martin think that this is not the whole truth. That there is something Tim’s not telling him. But it’s not Martin’s place to inquire further, he thinks. There’s definitely a plausible explanation for all this, Tim just likes to pull his pigtails.

“Shouldn’t you be out today?” Martin asks to change the topic and feels incredibly rude at the same time. “Not that I’m not happy to see you, but it’s still quarter an hour to lunch.”

“Came back earlier than expected and thought I could mob you ‘til twelve and kidnap you for a lunch date,” Tim replies so nonchalantly, warmth spreads across Martin’s face and he attempts to swallow down the laugh that wants to escape – but he fails. (He has never been mobbed, and even though Tim doesn’t think of this as a date date, Martin wants to indulge in that thought. At least for a moment.)

“I think,” he says slowly, and a little bit mischievously, “I could take my break early today.”

The thing is: Even though Martin thought Sasha and Tim would grow bored of him sooner or later, they don’t. They stop at his desk when they use the library for their research, they pick him up sometimes for lunch or ask him to meet them outside if they’re doing field work. Martin gets roped into pub nights and trivia quizzes, Sasha takes him to her pottery class and Tim invites him to a poetry slam where his brother performs. (This is remarkable because of two things: First and foremost, because Martin has never been invited to meet family members of anyone except for the parents of a few classmates when he stayed for lunch. And secondly, because Tim and Danny are as close as brothers can be, and it feels like a seal of approval – or as if Tim needed Danny to approve of Martin before he could spend more time with him. Martin’s not sure which way round it is.)

It goes like this: Despite the cool September night air, Martin is way too warm in his thick knitted jumper. He runs hot, always has been, but today is not the day he wants to be soaked in sweat just by existing. (Truth be told, he never really wants to be this warm, but there are at least times where he doesn’t mind as much. Meeting Danny Stoker for the first time is not one of those times. But he’s also pretty sure that he can’t take off his jumper because he’s been too hot for too long at this point. Tonight’s going to be fun and he just needs to power through.)

Martin tries not to shift his weight from one foot to the other too often, instead he’s focusing on the way the soles of his shoes line up with the asphalt of the pavement and ground him. He counts his breaths, his hands burrowed deep inside the pockets of his trousers. He can absolutely do this, he has known Tim for a few weeks now and he doesn’t think Tim would introduce Danny and him if he’d think they wouldn’t get along. (This may be more of wishful thinking though.)

A small part of him wishes, Sasha would come too, to ease the tension in his shoulders and uncoil the knots in his stomach. But she's with her family, celebrating the birthday of one of her cousins, and the text she sent him a few hours ago sits in their chat, mourning her absence and telling him to enjoy Danny's performance, it will likely be one of a kind.

Right when he seriously starts contemplating to go home again and fake a stomach bug, Tim rounds the corner with a man just a few years younger than him who looks like a referenceless, free-hand drawing of Tim. Which isn't a bad thing, by any means, just noticeable in how alike they look, just different enough to not be mistaken for each other.

When Tim's gaze falls upon Martin, his face splits into a wide grin and he waves enthusiastically, almost smacking Danny in his face in the process. This causes Danny to look directly at him, too, and his eyebrows shoot up while grinning almost half as wide as Tim. (If there had been any kind of doubt about them being brothers, now there weren’t.) Danny turns his head slightly and nudges Tim with his elbow. When Tim turns to look at him, Danny says something to him, moving his hands in unison, that makes Tim stop grinning for a second and start furrowing his brow. It doesn't last long, only three or four steps, then he looks at Martin again and his face softens. (Martin desperately wants to know what Danny said because people looking at Martin and whispering usually means something bad. And if Danny already wants to make fun of him, then Martin needs to go. Immediately.)

“You came!”

While Martin was still weighing his options, measuring staying, but anxiously against going, but anxiously, Tim and Danny have come into earshot. And Tim sounds pleasantly surprised as if he had been unsure if Martin would come.

They come to a halt in front of Martin and Tim pulls Martin in for a quick hug, which isn't a surprise per se but still unexpected. Subsequently, he turns towards Danny and introduces them. (He says this is my friend Martin, I told you about him. He says friend, not co-worker. Which, yes. They're friends but it's still new and nice and positively overwhelming to hear him say it out loud.)

“Hey,” Danny says, his smile unwavering. He's either a good actor or doesn't hate Martin on sight; at this point, Martin gladly takes both over open hostility. "Tim told me so much about you. I'm really pleased to make your acquaintance." He pauses to make room for Martin returning the sentiment. (Which he does, thank you very much, just because he's a useless gay around beautiful men and can't handle surprise small talk at arse o'clock, doesn't mean he can't hold a conversation.) “I gotta be honest with you, mate, I need your help tonight. This is my first slam and Tim’s a shit critic. I need some real feedback.”

A reassuring smile takes over Martin's features because, of course, Danny is nervous. Martin would be, too, he supposes. The thing Danny had said had probably nothing to do with Martin per se and everything with meeting someone for the first time at his first performance. (And maybe his only if Sasha is right.) However, before he can retort in any way, Tim jumps in: “Danny, bro, Martin is probably the last person you should ask to tell you how awful your skid is. You didn't practice it once and he’s a nice guy.”

“Well,” Danny replies, mischief in his eyes and a mocking tilt in his voice, “I'm just gonna wing it.”

“You're lucky, you're a Stoker.”

“You're just jealous because you didn't inherit that gen,” Danny shoots back before turning to Martin and stage-whispering: “Everyone always thinks that Tim is naturally gifted and everything comes to him easily. But in reality, he has to learn things and work for them. Embarrassing, right?”

Getting roped into friendly, brotherly banter. That's good! That's involvement in a good and workmanlike manner! And, actually, way out of Martin's comfort zone right now. (Is this a test? Is Danny teasing Tim in front of Martin to see if Martin jumps in and practically stabs Tim right in the back? Or does he want Martin to disagree with him and stand in solidarity with Tim? Or is Martin’s brain just overreacting like, well, always?)

“You’re embarrassing him,” Tim accuses Danny, before shoving at him and laughing. It’s obvious he doesn’t mind Danny teasing him or Martin, because it’s good natured. (Or at least Martin wants it to be. He desperately wants it to be.)

“No, I’m honest with him,” Danny retorts, before shoving Tim back which causes him to almost crash into Martin. “Someone needs to take you down a peg or two. Once in a while at least.” He grins and it’s more on the boyish side.

“I think Sasha’s doing a good job keeping Tim in check,” Martin interjects bravely. With every second in their presence, the fists in his pockets lose a speck of tension and Martin can feel his nails easing out of the heel of his hand. He feels weird being the only one neither knowing nor using sign language while talking but he’s thankful that they’re including him, talking loud enough for him to hear. (It’s a whole new side of Tim Martin has never seen before, it’s nice. Very nice, actually.)

“I love Sasha,” Danny sighs wistfully, batting his eyes. Before Tim slings his arm around Danny’s neck and pulls him in, he says: “We’ve been through this, Sasha’s way out of your league.” (And probably aro, Martin thinks, if the small pride flag pin Martin spotted on Sasha’s satchel bag is any indication.)

“Yeah,” Danny says. “True.” Then his eyes fall on the clock inside the display window of a chemist on the other side of the street. “We should head in.”

They make their way into the pub, through a small crowd consisting mostly of people in their twenties and thirties, milling and chatting in wait for the poetry slam to begin. Danny makes a beeline for a bar table, even though multiple tables with chairs and benches are empty. Martin wants to point out that he doesn’t think standing for multiple hours is something he wants to do, but right when he decides that he can at least try, Tim grabs Danny’s arm and steers him toward a round table with four chairs at the back of the room.

“You won’t make me stand through your performance,” Tim proclaims loudly, then he sits down and pats the seat of the chair next to his. Demonstratively, Danny sits down on Tim’s other side – closest to the stage – and Martin rounds the table to sit next to Tim. While Tim and Danny shrug off their coats, Martin once again regrets his choice of clothing. (Maybe a beer or two into the evening will ease his nerves enough to pull off his jumper. Now he takes a deep breath and focuses on the soft chattering of the crowd.)

Underneath their coats, matching shirts come to light. An Aegean blue with white lettering, a loopy script proclaiming bestoked with the tiny caricature of a witch with a pointy hat on a broomstick. Below that, Martin recognises small print that reads: Witches are real, and you think this is just a funny t-shirt slogan. He chuckles.

Tim makes a questioning hmm-sound and Martin points at their shirts, saying: “It’s funny.”

“Yeah,” Danny replies, exchanging looks with Tim. “Sasha made them for us.”

“Why witches?” Martin asks. Opposed to standing outside having to face both of them, sitting next to Tim puts Martin at ease. (It feels more organic sitting alongside Tim. Most of the time when they head out together, they sit on one bench with Sasha on the other side of the table. This is almost the same, Martin tries to reason, Danny is just another Sasha. A person Tim loves and wants him to like, too. No big deal.) “Isn’t Bram Stoker known for Dracula?”

“Yeah, he is,” Danny says with a shrug and Tim adds: “Our name’s Stoker and we’re witches. It’s pretty niche but most people think it’s funny.”

Martin tilts his head in confusion, he opens his mouth through an irritated smile. Before he can actually speak though, someone on the makeshift stage steps up to the microphone and welcomes the crowd to the pub’s bi-monthly poetry slam.

“First up: Gerry with their poem osedax!”

The crowd claps and their conversation is completely forgotten. They listen to Gerry describing a life under water and a life dependent on death. It’s a bit early for spooky Halloween vibes but Martin thinks it’s probably a metaphor for Gerry’s life that’s beyond Martin to understand. (He loves poetry, writes his own in his spare time, but he’s not big on interpreting poems outside of his own limited world view. He likes reading poetry, imagining the lives inspiring the words, and applying them to his own situation. Seeing someone putting their innards on display for dozens of strangers to see, is something entirely different. It feels like trespassing, somehow, trespassing into the soul of another human being. Martin decides that he hates it here.)

Gerry concludes their poem with ragged breathing and closed eyes. For a moment, the pub is silent. Then applause rings out and Tim leans toward Martin and whispers loudly: “Gerry is the one who put the bee into Danny’s bonnet that performing here would be a good idea.”

Danny shushes Tim, swatting at him without looking. Absentmindedly, he says: “It is a good idea, though.”

Martin doesn’t say anything, while watching Gerry retreat from the stage and head back to a group at the long side of the room. They congratulate Gerry, and Martin thinks (for just one measly second) how it would feel to perform one of his own poems. One about his mother or the alienation he felt his whole life. But he’s not a word magician like Gerry, he doesn’t have plausible deniability for the things he talks about. His poetry is descriptive and more of an endeavour to capture a feeling than an analogy in form of a convoluted metaphor.

Next up is someone talking about a hamster. Martin senses a theme.

Tim and Danny stare intensely at the stage, absorbing each and every word being said. And Martin’s torn between getting up and buying drinks, and waiting quietly until the poem is over. He’s unsure about the custom. If it would be impolite to talk during the performance.

In the end, however, it doesn’t matter. They end their poem and thank the audience before they leave the stage. Martin leans into Tim’s space (a bit like Tim would do with him in this situation), his shoulder lining up with Tim’s and when Tim turns around he whispers: “I’m gonna get drinks. Can I get you something?”

“We can just get a pitcher,” Tim whispers back, before checking in with Danny: “You’re not up next, right?” Danny shakes his head and Martin gets up to get them a pitcher and three glasses. (He takes the opportunity to breathe in and out a few times. He thought they would talk more. That Danny and he would have to interact more. But, apparently, Tim and Danny are really into poetry slam and don’t want to disrespect the artists. Which is, well, nice. Considerate. And, yes, he shouldn’t be surprised about that.)

Martin orders a pitcher and pays right up, then he tries to balance the three glasses and the pitcher through the crowd back to their table. He puts everything down and almost misses the staff member announcing Danny’s performance. Lost Johns’ Cave.

With a spring in his step, Danny stands up, makes his way to the stage and takes his place behind the microphone. A small smile on his lips, he clears his throat and starts speaking: “So, John was lost and so was I.”

He pauses.

“It’s a fact and everybody knows that John got lost in this cave. It’s a deep cave, a dark cave, a cave that swallowed us up like a ravenous, soft-teethed beast. It starts with a slope, grainy and wet, and there’s only one way, so it’s impossible to get lost, even though John did.”

He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath.

“John was lost and so was I. I don’t know where he went, and I didn’t come to look, but one moment Kadir and Aylin where there and the next they were not. I didn’t reach the chockstone, I didn’t reach the climb. Three hundred and seventy-five feet and I was lost as John in his cave.”

He shifts his weight from one foot to the other. While he spoke, Martin’s sure he could recognise the spelling of John, but Danny doesn’t spell Kadir or Aylin or at least Martin’s not able to spot it.

“John was lost and so was I. Seconds after minutes after hours after years, no climb in sight, just the steady flow of the stream and my hitching breath. It should stop sometime, I thought, it should give way down to his cave and I will not be a John. Because John was lost and I won’t be.”

He pauses again, a heartbeat or two longer than before.

“John was lost and so was I. No measuring of my position with a pendulum, no signal for my phone, no chance to be heard through the thick walls of the cave. The rush of the stream died down albeit the map depicting the stream and the slope correspondent.”

The air of the pub is filled with suspense and eerily quiet for a crowd as large as this one.

“John was lost and so was I. Limestone encased me and silence took over.”

Danny stops speaking, one and a half minutes gone. If Martin’s right, Danny has three minutes and fifteen seconds left. Every other contestant spoke for about five minutes, so Danny has plenty of time left. But he doesn’t say a thing. Seconds tick by and Martin gets squeamish in his seat. He glances towards Tim, but Tim seems unwound and relaxed. As if it were to be expected of Danny to pull something like this.

Danny remains silent, and Martin uses the tense atmosphere and the quiet audience to take an unnoticed look at Tim and Danny. They really do look alike. They share the same thick, expressive eyebrows, same dark brown hair and eyes, the same sharp jawlines. But Tim is soft around the edges, he doesn’t look as muscular as he is, his tummy rolling underneath his Aegean blue shirt. Up close like this, Martin can see the hearing aid Tim is wearing, and the moles that scatter across the slope of his neck. Especially the two moles that rest approximately half a centimetre wide of his tragus.

So preoccupied with Tim’s, well, beauty, Martin almost misses Danny moving on stage. He extends his right fist, before he opens it, while dropping it a few centimetres. At the same time, he mouths something that could be the word drop but Martin’s not sure because he can’t read lips. Then Danny spreads the fingers of his left hand, holding it flat and vertically aligned in a hundred-twenty-degree angle to his upper body. His right hand is spread in the same way and he moves it towards his left hand. When the pads of his fingers connect to the palm of his left hand, he lets his hand bounce back. The movements of his right hand two sides of an equilateral triangle. Again, he mouths something and if Martin would have to guess he’d say it was echo.

By minute three, Danny has been silent for one and a half minutes and has been through two repeats of the two words. (In all honesty, Martin is surprised that the crowd still watches Danny. That they hang onto his lips like a drop of water at the rim of a cup.)

Then he starts speaking again: “John was lost and so was I. I entered his cave and I got off the right path, I fell into darkness and somehow I came back. I’m not one of the Johns, I’m a Joey deep down. Because John was lost but I am found.”

A smile tugs at Danny’s lips, then, after a moment, he bows outlandishly (in an unbelievably tim-ish way) and says: “Thank you.” Then he leaves the stage in a beeline towards their table, while the audience starts to clap hesitantly.

When Danny sits down at their table again, Tim and he exchange a few quiet sentences. (In most circumstances this would make Martin’s anxiety spike up again, but to his own surprise it doesn’t. It’s just nice to see Tim interacting with his brother. Martin doesn’t have to be included to feel like he’s part of this.)

Martin takes a sip from his drink and throws a glance at the stage. After Danny there are still four people left. The performances are about existential fatigue, about childhood fears and dreams, and (in one memorable instant) about an imaginary soap opera the poetry slammer claims to watch in their head.

When the poetry slam is finally over, Danny grins at Martin and asks: “So, comments or questions?”

“Impromptu interpretation is not my strong suit,” Martin tries to escape the discussion of Danny’s depression? Outing? He’s not lying, he can’t interpret something like this in a few minutes. Especially not while looking right into Danny’s face. “I’m not sure what the cave is a metaphor for.” His tone is apologetic, but Danny laughs startled and says: “It’s not a metaphor. I literally got lost in a cave.”

“Oh,” Martin blurts out. “Well, then … I’m not an expert by any means. But I think it was pretty good, very compelling.” His ears are burning and the coldness of his drink seeps into the palms of his hands, contrasting the warmness in every fibre of his body.

Danny grins and says: “I like him.”

“Yeah, I do, too,” Tim affirms. His smile, however, is more delicate than Danny’s. (And Martin doesn’t want to think about the possibility that Tim likes him, too. Likes likes him. He’s still trying to wrap his head around the fact that he didn’t only acquire a job three months ago but friends, too. It shouldn’t matter that Tim is nice to him, because Tim is nice to everyone. Martin isn’t special.)

The thing is: Tim is so very nice. Nice in a way no one has ever been nice to Martin. He’s nice unconditionally, doesn’t wink suggestively at Martin when he hands him a cup of tea exactly the way Martin likes, doesn’t expect Martin to do anything in turn when he lays his hand on Martin’s shoulder in a silent display of support or affection, doesn’t want him to say thank you and how much do I owe you whenever he brings lunch in that he cooked himself, enough to share it with Martin and Sasha and even Jon, if he would ever want to. Tim’s nice and considerate and most people don’t seem to see it. They take Tim’s jokes and pop-culture references as a demonstration of his whole personality, take in the beauty of his face and simmer it down to the essence of his existence.

Tim is beautiful and he is funny, Martin’s the last to argue with that. But Tim is more, Tim is beyond, Tim is the soft are you alright when Martin must step out for a second after a reprimand from an assistant, Tim is the curious no, I want to know what you think about it, Tim is the reassuring you’ve got this and the understanding and if you don’t, I’m still here. Tim is every post-it note on Martin’s desk that says delighted to see you here and you look nice today and take time for yourself.

Tim is so very nice without even trying that Martin can’t help himself but fall in love with him. Embarrassing, right?

It ends like this: Martin doesn’t argue with Tim about his insistence that he’s a witch, because: Who’s Martin to deny Tim anything at all. Yes, he would like to know more about Tim as a person and about the things he does on weekends and, yes, getting cryptic answers like hanging out with the coven is a bit frustrating, but Martin also must confess that he admires Tim dedication.

It’s almost Halloween and since the start of October, Tim has been wearing a pointy hat to work. Which is kind of ridiculous but endearing at the same time because Sasha assures Martin that Danny does it too and that they do it every year in October. (It’s not one of his finer moments, it’s true, but he couldn’t help himself asking Sasha is this is some kind of meme. A Stoker inside gag that everyone is in on, but Sasha just smiles at him and says: “Oh, Martin, love, no. It’s not a meme.”)

When Martin asks him about the hat, Tim tilts his head in mild confusion and replies: “I’m a witch, Martin. Witches wear pointy hats.”

And Martin who’s got enough practice now dealing with Tim’s antics, retorts: “No, I mean, yes, I know, I mean: You didn’t wear it in the summer, why?”

“Usually, I wear my hat to rituals and stuff because channelling energy is way easier with a hat. But in October my coven wears it to let the spirits and the fair folk know they shouldn’t fuck around with us,” Tim explains. And Martin looks him dead into his eyes and says: “Makes sense.”

Three days before Halloween (or Mischief Night as Tim likes to call it), Tim drops off a bottle of essential oil at Martin’s desk. Before Martin can ask about it, Tim says: “I brought you essential oils for your headache.”

“Because,” Martin starts and stops hesitantly, wondering when he mentioned his headaches in front of Tim, without coming up with an answer, “you’re a witch.”

Tim nods, adding however: “But, you know, essential oils don’t need magic to work.”

“Makes sense,” Martin says, for the simple reason that he doesn’t know what else to say. This is getting ridiculous, but he doesn’t want to be the buzzkill. He wants to be Tim’s friend (or date, despite the whole witch-thing) and friends are supportive of each other! Friends don’t judge you for your oddities.

Tim changes the topic: “Do you have anything planned for Mischief Night?” Martin shakes his head. “Then I would like to formally invite you to celebrate Mischief Night with me.”

“Wouldn’t a formal invite require an invitation card?” Martin asks back, propping his chin up on his hand, a curious tilt in his voice.

“I’ll get to that,” Tim replies, while he suppresses a smile that threatens to take over his face. “So, it’s a date?”

Martin closes his eyes, short enough to be mistaken with a blink, and says: “Yeah, it’s a date.” The aching in his chest makes him wish Tim would be a little less nice and a little more without ambiguity. Even though he wants it to be a romantic date, this is just a friendly outing with a guy claiming to be a witch.

Fortunately, Mischief Night (or Halloween as everyone else seems to call it) is a Saturday, which means that Tim can pick Martin up at his flat in Stockwell. Neither Tim nor Martin own a car, but Tim borrowed Danny’s well-loved VW Beetle and it’s only about thirty-seven kilometres until they reach Bocketts Farm.

Martin’s glad the midday fog has eased up, and the sun warms the skin on his forearms, since he rolled up the sleeves of his jumper. Tim is right beside him, his pointy hat decorated with probably fake cobwebs.

“I’m a bit disappointed you didn’t pick me up on your broomstick,” Martin says when they walk through the entrance of the farm. Despite the slight fear that Tim will take offence and abandon him on this farm, he feels comfortable enough to make a joke like this. He thinks he knows Tim well enough to know that Tim would tell him if he were overstepping any boundaries.

Tim’s answer is a little more defensive than Martin anticipated: “Flying is hard, okay. Usually, I ride shotgun.”

Martin gapes, for lack of a better word, and almost walks into a fencepost if it weren’t for Tim pulling him aside. Instead of letting go of Martin’s arm, Tim threads his own through and links them in the most casual way Martin has ever seen. This is nice. (Tim is nice.)

“What do you want to do first?” Tim inquires when Martin doesn’t say anything else. “I personally am inclined to start with apple-bobbing.” He points to a small group of people around a water filled barrel. Martin makes a noncommittal sound, shrugging his shoulders at the same time, and Tim steers him softly towards the event.

“Supposedly, the barrel symbolises the cauldron of rebirth,” Tim says while they walk the remaining distance. Martin casts a look in his direction. He’s a bit preoccupied with the thought that Tim wants him to stick his head into ice cold water to fish for an apple with his teeth, so he only says: “Makes sense.” Even though he’s not sure in what way rebirth is connected to divining the first letter of your future spouse’s name.

When they come to a halt in front of the barrel, it doesn’t take long until they have their turn. Tim yields to Martin and he sighs before he steps up the barrel, takes a deep breath and dives in. The water is freezing, tiny pinpricks on Martin’s skin, and it’s really, really hard to actually get his teeth on an apple because every time he touches on, it submerges and sideslips. (It’s frustrating. Like shelving books in the Magnus library is frustrating. He knows he got it right but in reality he doesn’t.)

It takes forever or at least it feels like forever, his face in cold water and his fingers in Tim’s hand. (Wait, when did Tim grab his hand? Did he grab Tim’s hand? Oh, he must have sometime between their arrival at the barrel and his endeavour to bob for an apple.) But then he catches a small one between his teeth and gets out of the water as fast as possible. Tim lets out a loud whistle and his free hand pats Martin’s shoulder in congratulation. Whereas Martin’s free hand gets rid of the water in his face and pulls the apple out of his mouth.

“This is terrible,” he says through a chuckle because he can’t be mad with the sun shining into his face like it’s late summer and not autumn. “It’s your turn.”

Martin has to let go of Tim’s hand because a member of staff hands a knife to him and he starts peeling the apple in one unbroken strip.

Apparently, Tim’s either more practiced in apple-bobbing or he’s really a witch and helped himself along with magic, because it takes him not nearly as long as Martin to catch an apple. He waits for Martin to finish peeling his apple and relieves Martin of the knife.

“You have to throw it over your left shoulder,” Tim explains earnestly. “It’s the side of the heart. It won’t work otherwise.”

“Makes sense,” Martin says, and it kind of does. Still he waits for Tim to finish peeling his own apple. Then they hand back the knife and stand side by side, throwing the peel on the count of three over their left shoulders.

“It looks like a T,” Tim says, when he catches sight of Martin’s apple peel, tapping the tip of his index finger against his chin.

Martin laughs, he's not entirely sure why but he can't stop himself. He replies: “It looks like a C, all of them look like Cs. And if they don’t, then they look like Os.” He points at Tim’s apple peel. “Look, yours looks like a C, too.”

“It’s just a tad short,” Tim retorts. “See, it started to form a small M but only came around to curve into a small N.” He laughs, too. “The apples have spoken, Martin. We’re destined for each other.”

“Well,” Martin says and he can’t shake the soft warmth that curls underneath his solar plexus, “if the apples say that, it must be right.”

They spend a good few hours on the farm, carving pumpkins and turnips, wandering through the maze and passing by goats and sheep and pigs, before they get to a bon fire Tim wants to sit down at to warm up a bit. The afternoon had been warm, but now that the sun has set cold creeps into their clothes and Tim complains about his between-season jacket. Martin who’s still warm despite the cold breeze gently extends his hand for Tim to hold.

For a few moments they fall quiet, only listening to the cracking of the fire.

But it doesn’t take long for Tim to reach into his pockets to fish for something and bring four conkers to light. He presents them to Martin and says: “Do you want to?” And Martin nods, only in part because Tim could ask anything of him and Martin would gladly do it.

They place their conkers in the flames respectively and when Martin’s first one cracks, Tim questions: “Did you name them?”

Martin shakes his head. Only a moment passes by, then:

“Did you name them?” Martin asks, and he doesn't look at Tim. His eyes are transfixed on the two conkers resting side by side. The left is already cracked. Tim doesn't look at Martin either, but he answers nevertheless: “I named both of them Martin. Didn't want to take the risk.”

And this, precisely, is the instant, Martin realises this could indeed be a date. A date date. A rendezvous Tim has asked him on, waiting for Martin to make a clear step towards him or not.

“Is this a date?” Martin blurts out, finally looking at Tim who ducks his head and blushes. He doesn’t want to sound incredulously, but the sheer ridiculousness of the situation sends his head spinning. A laugh bubbles out of his chest before he can stop it. “Tim, is this a date?”

“Well,” Tim starts and has the audacity to sound something akin to shy, “I thought it was a date. It was implied, I thought I explicitly said it was a date.” His gaze falls onto their joined hands. “I thought you knew we were dating.” Then he pales. “Oh, this is really awkward. I’m sorry.”

Tim attempts to let go of Martin’s hand, but Martin holds onto him.

“No, no, no, it’s okay,” Martin says, the laugh still on his tongue. His chest feels lighter than ever and he can’t keep the bright smile off his face. “I wanted this to be a date, honestly. I just didn’t think it could actually be one.”

“Oh, that’s,” Tim clears his throat, finally looking back at Martin’s face, “that’s good. Nice. Toit.”

“Does this have deeper cultural meaning, too?” Martin asks after sitting between stacks of hay on top of a wagon. He’s not sure if he’s a tiny bit sarcastic or if he finally accepted Tim’s commitment for his aesthetic.

“No,” Tim replies, while he sits down cross-legged next to Martin. “I just think hayrides are neat.”

“I’ve never been on a hayride before,” Martin says, before he moves closer to Tim, so that his thigh slots underneath Tim’s knee. “It’s kind of romantic.”

“Is it?” Tim teases, leaning into Martin’s space with ease. “I didn’t notice.” Then he pauses for a second, his eyes flicking down to Martin’s lips. “As soon as the tractor starts it won’t be anymore, so if you want to use the magic of hayride romanticism to kiss me, you should do it now.”

Martin moves in closer, too, now he can feel Tim’s breath on his skin. He says: “So, hayrides are magical.” But Tim doesn’t answer him. Instead he closes the remaining distance between them and kisses Martin. (And maybe, only maybe, hayrides are magic.)

Their kiss only lasts for a few seconds before the engine of the tractor starts and the hayride begins. (They’re extremely lucky or magic is involved because they’re alone. The only other option is that hayrides are typically for children and their parents and it’s too late for them to participate. At this point, Martin doesn’t care. He’s surrounded by hay and Tim kissed him.)

Martin laughs breathlessly when they break apart because he catches sight of Tim almost losing his pointy hat due to the jolt of the wagon and says: “You’re right. Romance is dead.”

“My greatest virtue and my greatest curse is always being right,” Tim replies, readjusting the hat on his head. “I’m kind of glad tomorrow is the last day and I can take this thing off afterwards.”

For a second, Martin contemplates saying that Tim doesn’t have to wear it now. That if his aesthetic gets in the way of his everyday life, it’s alright to break out. But he doesn’t. Because this is nice, and he won’t tell Tim what to do. If Tim wants to wear a pointy hat, Tim gets to wear a pointy hat.

In search of changing the topic, Martin looks around the wagon and his gaze falls onto a small lantern at the back of the wagon. It’s supposed to be lit so that crossing folks can see the wagon; like the backlights of a bicycle or car. The lid isn’t fully shut, though, and the steady breeze of the moving wagon has extinguished the flame.

Martin pats his pockets from the outside, before he turns to Tim: “Do you have a lighter?”

Unfortunately, Tim shakes his head. More unfortunately, he says: “Doesn’t matter.” Then he leans forward, opening the lid fully and reaching into the lantern. The tip of his finger connects with the wick of the candle and by the time he pulls it back, the wick ignites and a small flame flickers to life.

Martin, once again, gapes. This is magic, Tim is a witch, Tim is a witch, o my fucking god.

“What?” Tim asks as he sits back down next to Martin.

“You’re a witch,” Martin says, and to his own surprise without the exact amount of disbelief he feels. “This is magic and you’re a witch.”

Tim smiles through his irritation and ripostes: “Martin, dear, I told you I’m a witch.”

“Yeah,” Martin responds and maybe he sounds as hysterical as he is, but this is ridiculous, “I didn’t think you were serious.”

“What did you think I meant every time I told you I was out with my coven?” Tim inquires bewildered, and everything about his demeanour suggests that he’s going to burst into laughter at any given moment.

“Honest?” Martin doesn’t wait for Tim to answer. “With all the essential oils I kinda thought it was a MLM.”

Tim furrows his eyebrows, the laughter dying on his tongue. They stare at each other and Tim says slowly: “My coven is not a group of Marxists who Love Marketing.” He stops dead in his tracks. “Men Loving Marketing?” Tim screws up his eyes. “I don’t know if you’re insinuating that I love men, that I’m a comrade or part of a pyramid scheme.” Before Martin can interject something, Tim says: “I’m working for the Magnus Institute, so where’s the lie?”

He pauses, then he says: “Witches are real, and you thought this is just a funny multilevel marketing meme.”

This breaks something lose in Martin and he honest to God starts giggling: “You’re terrible. Do you know that?”

“I’m doing my best,” Tim retorts, laughing as well.

After their laughter dies away, Martin says: “Is this why you said the institute is one pile of magical bullshit?” He thinks better of it. “Is this why you said the library isn’t conscious? Is it a witch who’s rearranging the shelves?”

It takes a moment for Tim to answer: “No, it’s a ghost.”

“A ghost is rearranging the shelves,” Martin repeats. “Okay, alright, sure. A ghost. Is there something else I should know about?”

“I don’t think so. His name is Jürgen, he died in the tunnels underneath the Institute and thinks it’s really funny to fuck with us.” Tim grabs Martin’s hand again. “You can talk to him and tell him to fuck off, though. Sometimes it works.”

Martin makes a noncommittal sound and lays his head on Tim’s shoulder even though their shoulders line up and it’s incredibly uncomfortable. This is weird and this is nice and they will have to talk about this, but their ride is almost over and Martin wants to bask for a few precious minutes in Tim’s silent company before they have to get off and head back.

Tim draws nonsensical shapes on the back of Martin’s hand with his thumb, and Martin feels content and warm and perhaps a little bewitched.

Before the ride ends, Martin asks: “Do you have any plans for tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow,” Tim says hesitantly, “we’re going to celebrate All Hallow’s Day. My coven’s going to light a fire to ward off evil spirits and ghosts. The ashes of All Hallow’s fire keep calamity at bay and we use it for augury.” He sounds apologetic. “But I could come by afterwards.”

And it’s the first time, Martin doesn’t hesitate or feels that his words are tinged with an exasperated confusion when he says: “Makes sense.” So he adds after a moment: “That would be lovely.”

#the magnus archives #martim #martin k. blackwood #tim stoker #tim stoker x martin blackwood #alternate universe #witch tim stoker #schmok writes #fanfiction #hhhh martim rights

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murasaki-murasame · 3 years

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Since Higurashi Gou’s on break this week, I figure this would be a good excuse to make one big post going over all of my current theories, and also how I feel about the other popular theories in the fandom.

[This will have both Higurashi and Umineko spoilers in it]

On a meta level, my over-arching theory for Gou is that it’s basically a series of forgeries written by Featherine. Basically I think that some time after Matsuribayashi, Rika came into contact with Featherine, shared information about everything to do with Hinamizawa, and she decided to write her own stories based on that info.

Going down this route, I think the Rika we see in Gou [at least on the gameboard level] is basically a distinct fictional construct who more or less branches off from around Tsumihoroboshi or so. Basically I think this version of Rika doesn’t actually know the truth about Takano, or that her friends are starting to remember past timelines, and I also wouldn’t be surprised if whole elements of her backstory have been tweaked to fit the story that Featherine wants to write. I also think that the happy ending timeline she referenced in ep2, and her quoting stuff Keiichi said in the past in Tataridamashi, might instead be about some kind of original arc that’s just meant to trick us into assuming she’s talking about the last few arcs of the VN.

Mostly I just think that with how things have gone thus far, it really doesn’t come across like Rika actually knows about Takano being evil. This could just be a case of clunky writing where they don’t want to spoil it for new fans, so Rika’s being made to act weird and out of character in order to keep it a secret, but stuff like her rant to Keiichi in Watadamashi make me think that she straight up hasn’t been doing anything about Takano in these arcs, and her whole attitude in Tataridamashi of ‘we can change fate by saving Satoko’ while not saying or doing anything about Takano seems really weird if we assume that she remembers everything from the VN. The whole deal with Minagoroshi was that saving Satoko wasn’t actually enough to achieve a happy ending, since Takano ended up killing everyone anyway. So it’d be really weird for Rika to fall into that same mindset again.

And on the note of Takano, like most people I think she’s probably not the villain this time around, one way or another. For one thing it’d just be kinda underwhelming for old fans if they do that again, but I think they just don’t have time to actually do the whole Takano thing in Gou unless we get an entire second season after this. Which could happen, but I’m basing all of my theories on the assumption that Gou will just be 24 episodes, since that’s all that’s been confirmed.

There’s also the fact that the first half of Gou has provided far less evidence to allow new fans to even start piecing together what Takano’s deal would be. We haven’t seen Tomitake’s corpse get found with his throat clawed out, so it’d be pretty difficult for new fans to guess that Takano kills him in each arc. Technically they aren’t even shown to die in any arc in Gou yet, since they just go missing and their bodies are never found, so new fans wouldn’t even know if either or both of them die in any of the arcs. By extension, Watadamashi also didn’t have the whole plot point of ‘the police found Takano’s corpse in the mountains and figured out that it had died before the festival even ended’, which in the VN was a pretty massive hint that she was faking her own death. And since Tataridamashi avoided having Keiichi kill Teppei, while also ending before the festival can even get going, Takano and Tomitake don’t even do anything in that arc at all except show up to support the protests, even though Tatarigoroshi also provided it’s own massive hints toward Takano being suspicious, and her being responsible for Tomitake’s death.

Tatarigoroshi also ended with our first proper look at the GHD, but there was no reference to that happening in Tataridamashi, or any of the other arcs. If anything, it seems pretty intentional that every arc seems to end with a flash-forward to at least a few days after each arc ends, with no reference to the GHD happening. It’s possible everyone was just keeping it a secret from Keiichi at the end of each arc, but each arc has a different person telling him about what happened while he was unconscious, so it seems unlikely that they’re all coincidentally lying to him about the same thing. And in general I think that if the GHD happened in any arc, we would have gotten some obvious clues about it.

I know everyone disagrees about if Gou is actually meant to be accessible, let alone solvable, for new fans, but I’m on the side of thinking that it is, which is why I think the lack of any kind of evidence for the GHD happening [or Takano doing anything more suspicious than going missing in the first two arcs] says a lot about the direction Gou is taking with it’s mystery.

The question then is just whether Takano’s just being prevented from carrying out her plan in each arc, or if things have fundamentally changed with her. Personally, I’d prefer it if they committed to having her be genuinely innocent this time around. If she’s still evil but she’s just been getting killed off-screen or whatever, then presumably they’d still have to address her entire deal in order to explain why she needs to be taken out in each arc, which would defeat the whole point of not having her be the villain in Gou, and it’d feel super alienating for new fans. So I prefer the idea that she’s totally innocent. Which wouldn’t really work if Gou is a striaghtforward sequel to the VN, but it could work if Gou is an in-universe forgery. It could be built upon someone’s second-hand understanding of Hinamizawa and it’s history who doesn’t know about Takano being evil, or maybe the person writing it knows about that, but is intentionally changing it in order to set up a new mystery of their own for Rika to solve.

And one way or another, I do think that the whole meta purpose of Gou is to pose some sort of challenge or mystery for Rika to solve. It seems like some kind of third party is dragging her into a new loop with a new mystery she needs to solve, which could have a lot of different explanations, but it could be that Featherine is literally just presenting these new stories to Rika to see if she can solve them.

Anyway, when it comes to the murder mysteries themselves in each arc of Gou, my general theory is still that Keiichi’s been responsible for a lot of it, and one of the big conceits of Gou is that his whole perspective on things has been incomplete and subjective from the start.

In Onidamashi, I agree with the common theory that the events of Tsumihoroboshi were basically happening in the background, with Rena murdering people and falling into paranoia while nobody else realizes what’s going on. I think at the dump site she was genuinely considering killing Keiichi due to suspecting that he found out about her hiding the corpses there, and at the festival I think she ended up killing Takano and Tomitake because she assumed that Keiichi was somehow working with them and had told them about the murders she did.

In their fight scene in ep4, I think Rena was genuinely planning to murder him, and he only started full-on hallucinating about halfway into the fight, when he knocks her out on the table. I’ve seen a lot of people questioning her motives, but I think it’s pretty straight-forward. My theory that she killed Takano and Tomitake seems like it contradicts the idea that she’d still think later on that there needs to be more sacrifices for the curse, but considering how deep Rena’s paranoia is, it’s possible that even after killing them, she just continued to feel paranoid about everything, which made her think that those two weren’t enough to satisfy the curse for that year, and so she needed to kill more people. In general I think she was mostly just trying to protect her father out of fear that he was being targeted by Oyashiro-sama as one of the curse victims of the year, so she was trying to see if killing other people would let her father be spared.

I think that Rena probably got knocked unconscious when she hit the table during the fight, and Keiichi hallucinated her waking up and stabbing him, while in reality he was probably repeatedly stabbing her unconscious body.

Most importantly, I think that after that, instead of Keiichi passing out from blood loss [since I don’t think he actually got stabbed that much in reality], the Rena incident reignited his paranoia, and he jumped to the conclusion that Rika knew about Rena’s plans, and that she intentionally got him to lower his guard around her so that he’d get killed. So I think Keiichi took the knife Rena tried to use on him and then ran to Rika’s house and killed her, with Satoko probably being an unintended casualty. Which would also make the whole story Mion gave of the police suspecting that a burglar broke into their house surprisingly accurate.

I also think that Keiichi tried to claw his throat out after that, but he got found by the police and taken to the hospital before he died from it. Which is why I think he has a neck brace on when he wakes up later, and also why that one nurse asked him about his neck being itchy. Along the same lines of how I think Takano’s a complete red herring in Gou, I think there might not be anything going on with the clinic this time around either. That nurse might have just been asking a normal question about his condition, if they did indeed find him clawing his throat out.

So basically I think the whole arc was a mix of Rena and then Keiichi killing people, and that Takano and Tomitake were basically just innocent victims.

Watadamashi is the arc that I’m most iffy about, but basically my core theory is that Keiichi actually killed Takano and Tomitake off-screen during the festival after what happened at the Saiguden. It always stuck out to me that he seemed even more paranoid about things in this arc than he did in Watanagashi, and yet nothing really seems to come of it. But the way he freaked out at the Saiguden definitely makes me think he could have been capable of snapping and killing those two after everyone parted ways, and the show just kept that info from us.

I’m at least fairly confident about the idea that the whole phone conversation he had with Shion was her making up a fake cover story about what happened to Takano and Tomitake, and getting Keiichi to agree to it. I also think it was probably Mion on the phone posing as Shion. Either way, I think it was along the lines of how everyone in Tatarigoroshi agreed to a fake cover story to hide the fact that he killed Teppei.

After the festival, I think Mion ended up lashing out at the village elders and killing them due to them talking about how Shion and Keiichi broke into the Saiguden and needed to be punished for it. They may have also found out about Keiichi killing Takano and Tomitake, or they at least suspected him of it, so Mion ended up killing them to try and keep him safe. I’m not entirely sure if she killed Shion here, but it’s possible she did, at least if Shion agreed that Keiichi should get punished.

After that, I think a huge part of Keiichi’s paranoia was due to his fear that people would find out about everything he did, and so I think that he got set off by Rika venting at him about what he did at the festival, and her talking about how she was surprised that Takano and Tomitake’s corpses hadn’t been found yet. I think that what actually happened between that episode and the next one is that, instead of joining Satoko for dodgeball, he instead followed Rika and killed her where nobody could see them, and then he took her body to the septic tank. I think this is the whole reason why Satoko was so suspicious of him afterward.

When you think about it, with how condensed the whole flow of events there was, she’d have no real reason to suspect him if he had spent the whole time playing dodgeball with her, and there were probably other kids playing dodgeball as well who would have been able to say that Keiichi was with them the whole time. But the only person who tries to vouch for Keiich is just Mion.

Along the lines of her covering for Keiichi at the festival, I think she was just lying about seeing Rika talking to a construction worker to try and draw suspicion away from Keiichi. I guess it might have really happened, but either way I think she was just trying to cover for him. Which makes me think that maybe she witnessed what he did, and was maybe even the one who moved the corpse to the septic tank after Keiichi killed her. Which would also explain why Mion coincidentally distracted Keiichi right before he tried to go into the septic tank room.

I think she was telling the truth about suspecting that Rika was behind everything, even if she knew about Rika being dead by that point. I think it was more about her thinking that Rika is working with all of the village leaders to perpetuate the curse killings each year, so even if Rika’s dead, there’d still be people following her orders. If we assume that she really did see Rika talk to a construction worker, maybe that made her think that she was giving them orders, and then at the end of the arc when she sees them on the security footage, she thinks of them as her minions.

Then I think the rest is fairly straightforward, with Mion assuming that there’s still some nebulous organization following Rika’s orders who are a threat to Keiichi even after Rika’s death, so she arranges to get him locked up in the basement while she goes off to try and murder them all.

I think it was the construction workers who Mion saw on the security footage [like Keiichi did], but I’m not entirely sure what the deal is with Satoko being at the estate and winding up dead. My best guess is that she snuck into the estate to try and question Mion because she was suspicious about her covering for Keiichi, or maybe just because she thought Mion could help her figure things out, but then things went wrong. Maybe Mion ended up assuming that Satoko was in on the whole thing and killed her, but I’m not sure.

What happens with Keiichi is a lot more iffy. It’s possible that it just went the way it was shown, with him passing out in the safe room and then getting discovered by the police, but with how the other two arcs ended, I doubt it was that straight-forward. It’s possible that the whole scenario of him smashing his head into the door until he passed out was more like a narrative illusion or fantasy, and that Keiichi actually managed to get out of the safe room and head back to the estate, where maybe he was responsible for Satoko and/or Mion’s deaths. I’ve at least seen some people on the Higurashi subreddit point out that in a few shots you can see door handles on the inside of the door in the safe room, which seem to vanish when Keiichi’s trying to bust it open, which could imply that the whole idea of him being unable to open the door was a lie.

I’m not sure if he’d have any motive to kill Mion even if he went full L5, but it’s entirely possible he got suspicious of Satoko and wound up killing her, if he went back to the estate. Though one thing that I think is noteworthy is that, even though I think Shion was probably dead by that point, he actually would have had a motive to kill her if he at least had gone L5. He blamed her for luring him into the Saiguden, so he could have wound up murdering her as revenge for that. But I dunno if that’s actually what happened.

One idea I’ve been toying with is that maybe Keiichi actually killed Mion in the safe room, and the whole strange scenario of him smashing his head against the door and leaving a weirdly giant blood splatter behind was an illusion covering up something like him wrestling her gun off of her and shooting her with it. Then maybe he dumped her body in the well, and then went to the estate where he saw Shion, and wound up killing her. At least if we assume that maybe Mion and Shion were working together in this arc instead of one of them already being dead. Ooishi did say that it was Shion who was found in the well, but maybe it actually was Shion who took Keiich into the basement. At the very least, there’s that scene where Mion leaves him alone in her house for a while and then comes back in a different outfit, which could have represented the two of them switching places off-screen.

In general I’m kinda iffy on this arc in particular, lol. It feels a lot more ambiguous and open-ended than the other two. Or at least more so than Onidamashi.

Also on the note of Watadamashi, the biggest question mark to me in all of Gou at the moment is the whole scene with the statue in the Saiguden, and the empty slot we see in it’s neck. It’s just a really baffling scene since it feels like it’s the only scene in the entire show thus far where it comes up in any way, but it’s one of the most blatantly important pieces of evidence we’ve gotten, even if I dunno what it’s meant to imply. It even happens in the manga version, so it’s definitely an important plot point.

What I can gather from it is that someone had already broken the head off the statue, presumably to steal the sword inserted inside it, and then they stuck the pieces of the head back onto the statue to make it look intact. Although I suppose we can’t just assume that the head being broken and the sword being stolen happened back to back. It’s possible that someone broke the statue, and then at some point later on, maybe even years later, broke back into the Saiguden to steal the sword.

Part of why the statue’s so bizarre is that it seems to be fundamentally different to the statue in the VN. Or at least it’s state is different this time. Instead of how the statue’s hand was broken off in the VN, the hand is intact while the head had been broken off and put back into place. I’ve seen theories that the statue in Gou is a replica of the original, but I think that’s unlikely, both because it just sounds difficult and inconvenient to get rid of an entire statue and replace it with something else, but also because the statue we see in Gou still has the slot inside it’s neck, and it’s the one that had it’s head broken open. If the statue in Gou is just a replica, there’d be no reason to go as far as to replicate the sword slot that nobody can even see from the outside, and if the point of breaking the head was to let someone steal the sword, then there’d be no reason for the ‘replica’s’ head to be broken. So I think it might actually be one of the big hints toward Gou being a fundamentally different world altogether to the VN, where even the history of everything has been adjusted in subtle ways. Satoko originally broke the statue’s hand in the VN before the curse incidents even started, which is way earlier than the part of the timeline that Rika and Hanyuu can go back to by the end of the VN.

I think this is one of the bigger pieces of evidence people use for Satoko being a looper, since maybe she’d have the ability to go that far back in time, but I still doubt that whole theory, so I’m more inclined to think that this is Featherine straight up changing what happened with the statue as part of the new mystery she’s setting up.

One way or another it definitely comes across like the entire thing with Satoko breaking the statue’s hand has been more or less retconned out of existence in Gou. On top of the statue’s hand not being broken, Satoko also never mentions anything about believing it to be the source of her hardships like she does in Tatarigoroshi. Which is another thing where the absence of a certain plot point or clue from the VN feels very noteworthy, especially if you look at it from the perspective of new fans.

Either way, I don’t have much of an idea for who could have stolen the sword, let alone WHY they did it. There hasn’t even been any hint at all toward the sword being involved in any of the murders thus far, and I definitely think they would have pointed it out if it was. So what exactly is the whole point of it? It could just be a ritualistic thing to set up the idea of Oyashiro’s sacred statue being desecrated, but we only find out about it in one arc, and only because the group breaks into the Saiguden and then happens to bump into the statue and knock it’s head off. So if the culprit wanted it to be some public display to stir up talk of the curse or whatever, they kept it pretty hidden, lol.

There’s only a few people who should even know about the sword, but there’s been no real hints toward Rika being responsible for it, and Hanyuu seems totally distanced from the gameboard this time around. Maybe Satoko knows about it, but I’m not sure.

I also have to wonder when exactly the sword got stolen in the first place. It might have actually been way before each arc even starts.

In general it’s just a weird bit of the mystery and I don’t think anyone has any concrete idea of what the fuck’s going on with it, lol.

Anyway, for Tataridamashi, I think the whole arc was basically designed to make Satoko suspicious without her actually being responsible for anything. Across all three arcs I think she’s been set up as a bit of a red herring, but it’s pretty heavy in this arc.

Basically I think that the events of Tatarigoroshi/Minagoroshi really were just happening the same way as in the VN, even if a lot of it was off-screen this time around. And with my theory of this being Featherine’s own spin on events, it’s possible that her ‘version’ of Teppei was just abusing Satoko in a way that didn’t leave visible bruises like in the VN, to basically goad everyone into assuming that she wasn’t actually being abused in the first place. I don’t think Satoko would have any logical reason to fake the abuse, especially stuff like her panic attack which was completely identical to how it went in the VN as far as I remember. And mostly I just don’t think Ryukishi would be comfortable writing a whole plot point of a little girl intentionally faking abuse for some kind of malicious or manipulative reason, especially if it involved twisting an existing story about genuine, realistic abuse. So I just feel fundamentally put off by that whole theory, lol.

Either way, one important thing that’s central to my theory here is the idea that Keiichi was going through a lot more stress and paranoia in this arc than we were shown. Even though they seemed to avoid the Tatarigoroshi route and go down the Minagoroshi route instead with him, I think he still had a lot of paranoia and anger building up inside him about the entire situation with Satoko and Teppei. Same with how Rena and Shion seemed like they were always about two seconds away from snapping and running off to murder Teppei. i also think that an important part of this is how Rika kept talking in ominous and weirdly mature terms about fate and whatnot, and she kept quoting something that Keiichi apparently told her but he has no memory of. I think this ended up contributing a lot more to his stress than he let on, but we did still see how he caught onto what she was talking about and was uncomfortable with it.

At the festival, I think Satoko’s intentions with Keiichi were totally innocent, and that she was taking him back to her house so she could give him Satoshi’s baseball bat. I think that she also set up a harmless trap in her house where Keiichi would pull on the cord to turn on the lights, and some stuff would fall on his head. She probably just set it up to try and lighten the mood and bring things back to normal, and also as a parallel to how earlier in the arc she set up a similar trap in Keiichi’s house. Even in Onidamashi there was a scene where she set up a trap in the school with stuff falling from the ceiling during one of their games.

So basically I think it was a variation of how Onikakushi ended, where this time around it’s Satoko who’s pulling a harmless prank on Keiichi, who proceeds to completely misinterpret it as her trying to kill him.

I’ve seen people point out that it seems really sudden for him to immediately go L5 that fast at the end of the arc, but like I said, I think he’d been dealing with stress and paranoia the entire arc, and it all just burst out at the end. I think he 100% hallucinated Teppei being there because he didn’t want to imagine Satoko doing it, and what actually happened was he ended up beating her to death with the bat instead.

Like with the fight scene in Onidamashi, the way that the lighting effects and gratuitous blood splatter happen in this scene make it seem like an over-exaggerated hallucination, especially since in this scene you can also see smaller and more realistic blood sprays overlaid on top of the super exaggerated blood all over the room.

After that, I think that since Keiichi was already hallucinating Teppei being the one attacking him, it lead to him assuming it meant he was alive, and thus that the entire situation with the village elders and the police working to arrest him and save Satoko was actually a complete ruse, and that they never wanted to save her at all. So, similar to how I think Onidamashi ended, I think he then took the bat, ran back to the festival, and attacked Rika, Mion, and Shion, due to believing that they were involved in some kind of conspiracy to protect Teppei. And then I think Ooishi pulled out his gun and shot Keiichi in the head to stop him.

So that’s basically why I think only those three specifically died at the festival [ignoring Satoko who probably died at the house], and the apparent weirdness with Ooishi pulling out his gun at the festival. I think that’s just meant to mislead us, and that Rena was repressing her memory of what really happened due to being traumatized by it.

I also think that’s why it seems to take Keiichi long enough to wake up in the hospital for it to be autumn, and why he has severe headaches after waking up. It’s possible that instead of it being due to having his head bashed in by Teppei, it was because Ooishi shot him in the head, and he managed to survive it with lasting injuries, and probably memory loss.

Also, aside from all this, I think that literally nothing happened with Takano and Tomitake in this arc, even after the festival. We didn’t see how it all played out, but we didn’t hear anything about either of them going missing, and they didn’t imply anything about the GHD happening even though a lot of time had passed, so I think they probably just survived the festival without anything happening to them, and the GHD never happened. Which seems like it’d imply that Takano’s straight up innocent in Gou, and not just that she’s been killed by someone before the festival ends each time.

So yeah that’s how I think each arc went. There’s a lot of room for interpretation, but I think one of the most important clues we’ve gotten is how every arc ends in basically the same way, with Keiichi getting knocked unconscious and then waking up at the hospital days if not weeks later and being told about what happened while he was unconscious. This is a notable enough pattern that it has to be central to the mystery, which is one of the reasons why I think that the answer is more or less that Keiichi actually WAS involved in all of these off-screen incidents, or at least most of them, and he just doesn’t remember it, and we weren’t shown it.

Of course, this all would imply that there isn’t actually a central ‘villain’ orchestrating everything who needs to be dealt with, and that literally everything is just the result of everyone’s personal problems leading to tragedy. Which might disappoint some people, but I think it could still make for a perfectly satisfying resolution, and honestly if we only have 11 episodes left to work with, it’d be way easier to pull off this sort of an ending than it would be to go through the entire Takano thing, or to set up an entirely new villain and then deal with them.

I also think it might be a sort of meta commentary on how there’s always been criticism about Higurashi’s ending veering away from focusing on the main cast’s personal problems, and getting into full on political conspiracy stuff for it’s final act. So maybe this is Ryukishi’s way of basically rewriting the story so that it stays more ‘focused’ on it’s central cast and themes right to the end.

Also I just think it’d be fitting if the whole trick of Gou is that everyone’s overthinking it and looking for a deeper conspiracy that doesn’t actually exist. Which I think would honestly tie in really well with Higurashi’s central themes of paranoia and distrust, and be a fun way to mess with old fans who try and view Gou through the lens of how the VN plays out.

And even though it might seem like a surprisingly ‘simple’ answer to the mystery, I think it’s noteworthy that Rika spends all of Tataridamashi being 100% convinced that Keiichi’s going to challenge fate and save Satoko and achieve a happy ending, and since Gou feels like it’s designed to mess with Rika’s approach to fixing things, it feels like she’s being punished for having blind faith in Keiichi. So it might still take her a while to actually start suspecting him.

Anyway, that all aside, I know that the whole Satoko looper theory is probably the most popular one in the fandom at the moment, but like I said, I don’t really buy it. It feels like the obvious red herring solution that we’re being lead to believe, but I don’t think there’s any actual concrete evidence for it, especially when it comes to what her motive in any of this could be. I feel like a lot of the theory sorta ends up feeling like ‘I think Mystery Person X did the murder by using Mystery Tool Y’, where basically anyone could have done it instead of Satoko. I’m not entirely opposed to the theory as a whole though, especially with how what seems to be teenage Satoko shows up in the OP. There’s probably something going on with her, but I doubt that she’s been responsible for any murders or anything. If anything, I think it being *teenage* Satoko that shows up in the OP [presumably] might imply that whatever new importance she has is to do with stuff that hasn’t even happened yet in the story.

Considering that teenage Rika and the whole mystery of how and why she got dragged into this new loop when she did exists, I think that either the next arc or the final one might actually continue the timeline several years into the future when she and Satoko are teenagers, but I dunno how that’d play out.

There’s been lots of speculation that Lambda might tie into things here with Satoko, which I can’t help but like the idea of since I’m an Umineko fan, but I at least think that could happen without Satoko being the ‘mastermind’ or whatever.

I think they’d have to be very careful about how they portray Lambda, if she shows up in Gou, since even though Rika’s connection to Bernkastel and even Hanyuu’s connection to Featherine can be fairly easily explained to new fans, the connection between Satoko and Lambda has always been a bit more weird and ambiguous. But if the story of Gou is a fictional story in-universe, it’s possible that Lambda’s role here can contradict her role outside of Gou, for the sake of introducing her in a more understandable way.

Basically I think they might portray Lambda [if she shows up] as effectively being Satoko’s witch form, like Bernkastel is to Rika, with maybe her being responsible for the new loops, whether or not Satoko herself has been responsible for any murders.

Satoko’s motives in doing any of this is a bit iffy, but it’d be neat if they lean into the idea of how Satoshi’s fate was left kinda open-ended and unresolved after Matsuribayashi. Maybe in Gou she ends up wanting to turn back time in order to save him from disappearing to begin with, or something like that. I at least don’t think she’d have any reason to kill anyone, unless she’s being forced into it, in which case it just means there’d be a ‘real mastermind’ behind the scenes, which I doubt we have time for.

I at least think that her deaths in each arc can be easily explained as unfortunate accidents, and that a lot of the moments of her being suspicious could just be red herrings with innocent explanations. Like how maybe she was suspicious of Keiichi in Watadamashi not because she’s actually the mastermind and was trying to place blame on him, but because he didn’t actually join her for dodgeball and instead just followed Rika right before she ended up dead. And her not having any apparent bruises in Tataridamashi might be due to Teppei not using that sort of physical violence on her this time around. She also might have genuinely had her big character development moment from Minagoroshi off-screen, and was telling the truth about revealing her abuse to the CWS and letting them save her.

There’s also the whole theory of Ooishi being behind everything, which I can maybe buy for Tataridamashi and Watadamashi, but I can’t really see it with Onidamashi.

One of my favourite ‘out there’ theories I’ve seen is that Satoshi is basically the culprit this time around, but that’s just because I really want him to be more important this time around than he was in the VN. I don’t actually think there’s any solid evidence for him being responsible for anything in Gou, and even though I’ve seen some really detailed and well planned theories to do with it, it’s another one of those things where you could basically replace Satoshi with any random character you want to explain how everything happened. But I do respect how much thought some people have put into this whole theory, and part of me’s rooting for it even though I don’t thin kit’s true, just because I want to see more of Satoshi in Gou, lol.

Anyway, in terms of how the second half of Gou will play out, I’m really not sure. The fact that the next arc is called Nekodamashi really throws off some of my predictions, since I was assuming the next arc would basically be Gou’s version of Meakashi. And I still do hope that they cover Shion’s backstory from that arc, but we’ll see.

The weird thing is that it sounds like Nekodamashi might be based on the one-episode original OVA from the 2006 anime, but with that being one episode long and this being four episodes based on the BD listings, I think any inspiration it takes from that arc would be very loose, and Nekodamashi will be almost entirely original.

From what I’ve heard, the Nekogoroshi episode mainly existed to hint at the existence of the Yamainu and the stockpile of gas they had stored to trigger the GHD, which is kinda interesting, since I think that the GHD is being effectively written out of the story this time around.

It’s possible the name is just a coincidence, though. Like how there was an arc called Onidamashi in some sort of short story collection released ages ago, that has nothing to do with the Onidamashi arc in Gou.

At the very least, we have some preview images showing Rika in the fragment world, so I guess we’ll see more of her there, and maybe the focus will shift towards her trying to actually piece things together and solve the mystery.

#murasaki rambles #higurashi #higurashi gou #this is REALLY long but mainly just me going over stuff I've said before lol #I just wanted to make one big post compiling it all together #TL;DR: brown's pretty sus :/#I think I saw him venting at the Watanagashi festival >_>

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