barrayar

LEIA ORGANA ANTITHETIC	LUKE SKYWALKER PHOTOKINETIC	CATHERINE CHUN ARKPROJECT	GREGOR VORBARRA VORBARRA	CASSANDRA ANDERSON WRONGANSWER
CIRCE pharmaka	HAROLD FINCH ORNITHOLOGIST	SPENCER REID DOCTORAL	TAURA UNTHREATENING	CORDELIA NAISMITH KEEPNONE
MINATO ARISATO DORMITION	WILLOW ROSENBERG GUILTAPALOOZA	RUPERT GILES PATERNALLY	BRUCE BANNER ANGERMANAGING	ZUKO FLAMMATORY
PEPPER POTTS NOTSUBTLE	TONY STARK VINCIBLE	BETTY ROSS CELLSUNITE	SAM TYLER POLICEOFFICER	CADEL GREENIAUS SYSTEMIZE
NATASHA ROMANOFF MISBELIEVE	MILES VORKOSIGAN NAISMITH	BIGBY WOLF HUFFANDPUFFS	AZIRAPHALE STORESBOOKS	CROWLEY BESTOFQUEEN
RAIMEI SHIMIZU ANOMIA	LINK FAIRYBOY	AURORA STARLIGHTER	KENSHIN HIMURA SATSUJINKEN	TOPH BEIFONG FIELDTRIP
BRIAN MOSER ACROTOMOPHILE	VIVI ORNITIER ALRIGHTY	JAMES BOND COCKITUP	OLIVIA SANDERSON OFFCAMERA

Code by

pagans.

vorbarra

Duke von Riegan,

Allow me to express my thanks for your company at the conference we both attended regarding multi-planet trade agreements. As impactful as the subject is, it is a relief to have even momentary respite from engaging my full concentration with someone so cordial and perceptive.

You mentioned your disappointment in the lack of native flora installations at the venue, so I am including a sample of love-lies-itching, a native Barrayaran grass. Due to our proximity to our galaxy's star, Barrayaran plants and especially grasses typically have red leaves. The result is rolling fields that sometimes look aflame in the sunset, inspiring many traditional poems of high sentimentality and dubious accuracy.

If you wish to visit and see for yourself sometime, I promise I would not allow any dinner parties in your honor.

Respectfully,
Count Gregor Vorbarra

[ He has few affectations he's allowed, but presenting himself as Count rather than Emperor is one, and he hopes it's received as intended -- an indication that this is a personal, rather than political, gesture.

That he waits on anxious tenterhooks for the response he hopes he keeps fully to himself. ]

angermanaging

Time is a distortion. Sometimes Bruce thinks about that apocryphal anecdote of Einstein's, about the relativity of time being clear after spending an hour with a pretty woman, but that makes him think about Betty and his mind skitters around the subject.

After a few months, the boredom starts to fade into a kind of numbness that blocks out other emotion. Grief means he's supposed to feel something -- and Bruce is no stranger to grief -- but it's like whatever he should be feeling has fully eclipsed his capacity to feel it. His normal coping mechanism of burying himself in work is impossible here of his own volition; he's not about to agree to playing scientist for the military-industrial complex again, putting his head in the sand like that absolves him of the consequences.

Clearly, it hadn't absolved him of anything.

Ironic, really, that he'd spent years searching the Earth for techniques to learn absolute emotional control to no avail, and what had finally done it was Betty's death. Bruce isn't having any trouble feeling nothing now. Since it's impossible for him to die (and he'd tried that first), he's in the second-best place, locked up where he can't hurt anyone. Where he doesn't have to try anymore.

It's this blank malaise that gets sharply, acutely interrupted by the arrival of another prisoner. The implausibly clear walls (Bruce has wondered about their material composition multiple times, a better distraction than Einstein) afford no privacy, so he has a full visual on the dramatics as someone else is dragged in.

Bruce sits up shakily, mind sparking to life. No doubt they're placing them beside one another to glean intel from their eventual conversations, but, well. He's always been terrible at staying out of things.

wronganswer

It meant almost nothing in Mega-City One at first.

Anderson had long since realized she'd been naïve to think that she knew the limits of her system, that laws would hold, that she was the law. The laws themselves could be unfair, unjust, and even merciless, but they were clear text, words on a screen she could read and reread and wrestle with. There was no wrestling with the Empire. It was a slow, creeping realization like dread running across her nerves, almost like she was in an unceasing dream, where she knew something was after her but couldn't locate what. Just knew, with a certainty, that it would eventually get her.

For months, she just did her job, same as always. Slowly, the Empire seemed to realize that the United Mega-Cities had a small contingent of well-trained Force-using operatives, and the fact that she was a Judge - that she'd bled, killed, violated people for that privilege - began to stop mattering. The Megs tended to stomp out any psychic that didn't join the Hall of Justice with great prejudice, so it wasn't as if they were about to pose a threat to the Empire. Even the whole concept of 'the Force' was alien and strange to Anderson, who tended to think of that as a religious belief, unnecessary cultural layering on top of innate abilities. She'd had to learn the way the Empire saw her and the other Psi-Judges: highly competent militaristic Force-users with a narrow focus on psychic interrogations, who were above all already slavishly devoted to enforcing fascist rule.

Maybe most of the other Psi-Judges didn't know, or care, that their role was changing. There weren't many of them to start with, and she'd never had friends within the ranks. Maybe Anderson was being singled out because of her ability; she'd always rated top of her class on her interrogations, the sole reason they'd kept her around on the force. She didn't know, because she was being singled out, sent out of the Megs more and more often on special assignments to interrogate difficult prisoners. There was an advantage to sending Anderson, after all - unlike what she'd learned were considered 'dark' Force-users like the Inquisitors, she left their minds wholly intact afterward, not a whisper of damage. She was a scalpel where they were sledgehammers. Anderson could interrogate the same person multiple times, indefinitely.

This is how she found herself stalking down the corridor of another Imperial detention center, not even on the same planet as her city, expression tense with forced apathy. Every day, it felt more and more like a trap was closing in on her, like she was suffocating with the inability to do anything, change anything. But what was she going to change? So she just kept following orders, as best she could without losing herself.

Anderson nods at the guards who promptly salute her at the door, says nothing more, and steps inside. She still has her badge, for whatever it's worth; still has her Lawgiver. Sometimes she feels that's about all she has left of the identity she'd clawed toward her whole life.

"CT-7567," she says with a professional briskness as she enters the cell and the door is locked behind her. "I'm here to question you."

arkproject

The space station is clearly an industrial complex of some kind, rather than a transit hub or mercantile center or any other use for a stationary landing point in space. It has the unremitting exposed metal of a location not trying to be particularly inviting, but there's signs of life here and there: residential quarters, a cafeteria, technical work stations, all scattered with paper notes and doodles and personal effects.

The whole place is also cast over with disuse, bizarre black electrical goo dripping from ripped piping and destroyed wall panels between heavy layers of dust and rusted parts. Dead electronics are even more plentiful than the signs of life, with no human corpses to be found at first glance.

And, although there are some lights, the station is undoubtedly running on emergency power, the lighting dim and infrequent, ominous red and blue patches indicating access to computers for major industrial functions or comms points.

Interrupting all of this some ways into exploration is a bright, startled voice across the intercom, piped exclusively to the area Catherine can detect a new life sign. It'd taken her a while to notice. Time just sort of, well, runs together on auxiliary power with no new stimuli to focus her attention on, and her sensors aren't fully operational in all parts of the station. He would've had to come somewhere Catherine could detect him, and she had to be paying attention...

"Hello? Is someone there? Hello - I could really use the help..."

She tires not to sound too optimistic, more because she doesn't want to get her hopes up than because she realizes how drastically incongruous her tone of voice is with the surroundings. Catherine has long since grown inured to PATHOS-II -- even before she'd become inorganic.

paternally

It's almost a relief to finally run into vampires.

Giles never imagined himself in the post-apocalyptic world stalking teenage girls, but he probably should've. He's at a loss to figure out what else he should be doing with himself. There's more call for a Slayer than there has been in centuries, protecting unsuspecting people from predators taking advantage of the chaos, and there's so few left that have the institutional and historical knowledge Giles has inherited on the subject. It's not as if anyone can afford to lug around collections of books to reference, and in the absence of real occult reference libraries, Giles is what remains. He's probably forgotten more about demons than the average remaining person could ever hope to find these days even while deliberately scavenging for it.

In light of that, after some years of pure shock and survival after the outbreak happened, Giles has returned to his duties as a Watcher. It's been a long time since he's run across sometime so transparently a Slayer. Even now, she looks completely frozen for only a few moments, and then starts fighting back with a viciousness that Giles mentally applauds.

There's a small pack of them jeering, thinking this will be easy prey, faces transformed into their true snarled and toothy appearance.

Giles steps out and immediately fires a crossbow bolt unerringly into one's chest, and it bursts into a pile of dust just as it was about to lunge at Ellie. "Wood to the heart," he calls out, tossing a hand-whittled stake in her direction and trusting she'd catch it before fumbling out another bolt.

sourdre

Jean-Claude found the whole request terribly amusing. And more than a little gratifying to his ego, less so to have his power acknowledged and more in terms of how representative it is of his success in ingratiating himself to the human world. Vampires have not been legal ten years yet, and already Jean-Claude is considered approachable enough, dangerous yet safe enough, to receive requests like these.

There was a considerable amount of work behind that, and more than being a Master of the City or even a sourdre de sang, it is not something another vampire could do, or has done.

So it puts him in a good enough mood to accept. He has many questions of his own, but he prefers to ask them in person and on his own territory. Although he knows phones and computers, Jean-Claude has never gotten comfortable with them, as they remain a peculiarly human insistence. Important vampire functions are always carried out in person, no matter the distance to travel. The time involved feels immaterial when you are immortal until killed.

Of course, he puts on a show for his visitor, awaiting him in an old-fashioned receiving room beneath the Circus of the Damned. The Circus itself might've been an experience just to walk through on the way down - there are a couple truly singular acts, such as the world's last living lamia, a fierce and inhuman woman with the lower body of a snake. On entering the restricted area, the Circus's dark gothic decor meant for tourists gives way to a more sincere and lavish set of living quarters. Bronze sconces and both fine and modern art line the stone walls, far enough underground to be devoid of windows, and tufted area rugs scatter between clean white and black furniture. Staff and residents mill about, casting the visitor curious and sometimes covetous looks, but leave him alone given his escort, who he sheds at the door to the receiving room.

Jean-Claude himself is arranged on a wing-backed armchair, an over-the-top vision in lace and leather, as always, one leg slung over the other. He has an empty wine glass in his hand as a prop, and water and wine set out on a coffee table between the chairs and couches.

"Monsieur Sims, welcome," he says in his smooth, tactile voice, without standing. "Have a seat. Help yourself. It is a pleasure to receive such a distinguished guest so unattached from my normal circles." He smiles a politician's smile, polite and sincere while giving away nothing of substance.

paternally

[ It was a bit of an unusual situation, which is why Giles was going out to investigate it himself. Not at all because he couldn't take one more round of petty complaints from Dawn about what Buffy was up to these days. Oh no, he loves all of his adopted children, which is precisely why he's sending himself halfway across the globe to get a break from them. Much more harmonious for the relationship. He can't simply stay in Cleveland indefinitely - not that you'd know it by the round of protestations that he can't go out alone.

Honestly. He's most likely the oldest living Watcher left. He's not useless or infirm!

Though he's certainly feeling his age in other respects, and isn't at all disappointed to find his tracking spell has send him to a fight already well in hand. Giles stands by, in the dark of night in a side alley, loosely holding his crossbow at the ready.

But it seems like the man doesn't need his help. It's not a bad idea to assess if this is a potential ally, or contact, or enemy while he's out looking for this Slayer, who'd mysteriously been activated a full year after Willow's spell and in an area of the world they'd already swept for Potentials. Giles is really expecting to find a young girl who's just hit puberty. Which is why, once the literal dust settles, he clears his throat in case he hasn't been noticed already. He hopes this is one of the first two options, and not someone who'll end up hostile, or another vampire who fights vampires in the vein of Spike. ]

I'd have offered you assistance, but it seemed as if you didn't need it.

flammatory

[ Zuko occasionally needs to run off and be himself, alone, for a while. Needs to. It might seem overly dramatic, but he wouldn't characterize it as stress relief - it's more like keeping his sanity. Being Fire Lord is so much more than he'd ever expected, and honestly, Zuko hadn't tried to imagine actually being Fire Lord since before he was banished.

It was hard to imagine something he wasn't sure would ever be true. Now it's true, and it's... well. A lot.

By now, Iroh has convinced him to alert his staff to his sudden disappearances (he causes a mass panic one time!) and with this accommodation he's managed to wrangle a full week for himself through the simple expedient of bullishly refusing all attempts to talk him out of it. Or to schedule anything during that week. There has to be some kind of advantage to being an imperial dictator.

He does not need to have another formal dinner. Honestly. What he needs is some time alone practicing firebending and meditation and embarrassing himself without his crown, just so he can stay human.

As much as it riles his staff that Zuko doesn't feel like he needs personal bodyguards while he goes out, they can't exactly gainsay the Fire Lord, either, so he ignores the dangers and goes as incognito as it's possible for him, dressed in red so dark it's almost black and with his hair loose and without a crown or top knot. A simple pack is slung over his shoulder. After years of traveling on a ship and then meandering sullenly through the Earth Kingdom, then running around with Aang, Zuko travels extremely light.

Between his lack of physical burdens and his natural stealth, Zuko is fairly inconspicuous slinking through the woods. There's a lot of whispered rumors about this place, which just says to Zuko that no one else is going to be there. He isn't afraid of spirits after befriending the Avatar and meeting the dragons. If he meets one, fine. They seem more likely to leave him alone than people, these days...

Zuko goes deeper into the woods day by day, sleeping on a thin bedroll under a tiny pop-tent at night, largely scavenging for his own food and water. ]

unthreatening

It's been completely nonstop since Miles first dropped into her musty basement prison, and as a result, Taura hasn't really been able to notice or process the additional feelings filtering through. Miles might be loud as a mental presence, but Taura's constant hunger, her savage impulses and blood running high with first sex and then revenge, are strong competitors. The whirlwind of her emotions have been completely overtaking any of his thoughts or feelings leaking over.

Being rescued - joining the Dendarii - learning Dr. Canaba, and Miles, had lied - but Miles still wanted to sleep with her -

Taura feels like she's run a marathon on starvation rations, likely because she essentially has. It takes some time, a couple days of showers and food and finding clothes in her size, for her to start to even be able to notice something is amiss.

That's about when Miles, perhaps presciently, summons her to his private quarters. Taura eagerly hopes it's for round three, though she shows up in-uniform and proudly shows off that she's learned both the salute and proper etiquette when she arrives and the door slides shut behind her.

"You asked for me, sir?"

wronganswer

Anderson's been in this place - this world? - for about a week when she finds someone else. By this time she's scavenged another weapon from a local hunting store, trying to conserve ammunition on her Lawgiver. She'd wasted a disgusting amount of ammo before realizing dispatch wasn't responding to her comms because she was on a different plane of existence. She knows she's a Psi-Judge, but this is ridiculous. She'd only heard the barest whispers of things like this happening, and that from within the Psi division, not even from citizens.

She can't put aside the thought that maybe someone will come to retrieve her, but it's more likely they'll write her off as a lost cause. She's valuable as a skilled psychic, but Anderson knows she's an incompetent Judge at best, and they're not going to go through that much work to get her back even if it's possible.

That means she's on her own. Not the first time that's happened. It's the rest of this that's new.

By the time she runs into Buffy, she's a grim-faced survivor who hasn't showered in a week, hair mussed and face marred by a couple scratches quickly scabbing over. Her Judge's uniform can handle all this, at least; it's scuffed but intact, and it's not like anyone's shooting at her.

It's also not a coincidence she finds the only other living human around: zombies are like a blank one-note mass, a tuning fork continually ringing the same note, and with Anderson actively scanning for survivors, it's only a matter of time before the complex music of another person comes into range. She doesn't necessarily trust that she's going to be a friendly, and keeps her pilfered shotgun aimed at the ground but cocked and ready.

"Hey," she greets in a terse, rough voice, entering the abandoned store with a confidence that indicates she'd known she'd be there. There's a complete lack of surprise, just quick, professional assessment in her look-over. "Any idea what the hell's going on?"

flammatory

[ Zuko hasn't even really thought about the community in years. Sometimes he thinks on Azula and how she'd ended up, and how he probably won't be able to contact her ever again. That shouldn't fill him with grief or anger, but sometimes on nights where he can't sleep and it feels like the Fire Lord's bedroom is a farce that echoes too loudly around him, he can't help it. His feelings are a thorny tangle that he has no interest in teasing apart. It won't do any good. It won't help him with anything. There's nothing to do.

Azula, and everyone else on different worlds that he'd left behind, are out of his reach. And there's plenty to do as Fire Lord.

Even so, once in a while Mai blandly enforces a break onto him, or Iroh pretends he wants to see his nephew for a few days and then conspicuously leaves him to himself half the time, and Zuko knows it's their way of expressing concern when he's overworking himself, because no one else is about to tell the Fire Lord to slow down. He doesn't always appreciate it at first - he's an adult and he has responsibilities, he doesn't need to be put down for a nap like a child! - but by the end he feels a lot less likely to snap and set someone on fire, so he figures, begrudgingly, that they had a point.

This time, he uses his enforced day of solitude to work on some letters. He doesn't write too often, and Aang and everyone else don't always have time to write back to him, either, but Zuko admits it helps him feel less isolated to have people to send and receive letters from that just have him signing with a simple Zuko at the end. This still leaves him missing Toph - not that he's about to admit it - but it's usually worth doing.

Zuko sighs and sits down at his writing desk, taking out a brush and ink pot. ]

Aang,

I can't tell if you're helping me or destroying my reputation when you go around telling everyone the Fire Lord is a big softie. I've started getting twice as many people coming to me with personal requests. Think you could add 'but he has no tolerance for people wasting his time' to your public relations campaign?

Otherwise I'm going to start telling them all that I personally know the Avatar and he'd be happy to help. You probably would! So take care of it yourself. I have too much to do. Uncle keeps forcing me to take breaks, and if I refuse he comes up with increasingly embarrassing excuses for why my schedule has to be cleared for the day...

doctoral

Reid wouldn't consider talking to distressed victims his forte, but he's also not the best person to go pell-mell running after an unsub, so he lands this job. He'd definitely prefer it over what Morgan's currently doing, which is booking it across the bloodied bracken in the woods, hoping he can catch whoever did this. Given the alternative, Reid can put on his sympathetic FBI agent face and approach the young woman huddled beside an ambulance, wrapped with an emergency blanket. She must not be hurt if she's still here, or if she is, she's refusing treatment.

He approaches with intentionally unthreatening body language, hands in his pockets, handgun outwardly visible in his front carry. "Hi," he says quietly, after he's sidled up to her. "I'm Dr. Spencer Reid, I'm with the FBI. I was hoping I could ask you some questions about what happened."

wronganswer

"Sir-- stop."

It's terse, bitten off. They're not in a good situation. Cut off from the drop-ship and all the support that might come with it, comms jammed, hostiles trawling the corridors looking for them. Anderson isn't afraid, just professional, alert. Her weapon is in-hand and angled at the floor, but she isn't looking around the corner when she tells the Admiral to stop: her gaze is unfocused, straight ahead.

Damn it. There's no way around revealing this now. Sergeant Anderson has become a mask she's put on, somehow cleaving truer to her real self than Judge Anderson ever did, but a mask all the same, composed of irritatingly necessary deceptions and secrets. Nothing harmful, but things Anderson doesn't want to have to explain, doesn't want to be used for. She's had enough of being someone else's weapon in that particular way. She'll shoot anyone who deserves it and not lose any sleep over the fact, but imposing law and order on citizens who deserve better, using her mental powers to discriminate and persecute at someone else's say-so, removed from the streets she policed-- she left that far, far behind.

Using a gun is straightforward, easy. Anyone can do it. Maybe not well, but they can. Anderson's special, unique talents... These days, she uses them just for herself and her own curiosity. And apparently to save the skin of her admiral, who, despite herself, she's reluctantly come to like. It was instinctual to warn him of the minds she feels coming this way, out of her mouth before she quite realizes what it'll inevitably imply that she can detect people approaching without audio or visual cues.

As soon as she announces the warning, not a moment later, armed security forces troop by, and they hold their breath in the shadow of the alcove until they pass.

wronganswer

Anderson keeps her senses tuned in even as she zip-ties wrists together, mindful that she is extremely vulnerable as the only officer surrounded by a group of burly bare-knuckles cage fighters. Fortunately, so far it seems like her gun is keeping them at bay; Judges are entitled to use lethal force when attacked, just about the only thing that gives them a prayer given the typical numbers of criminals they face. Her mild precognitive abilities and her gun combined tend to give her enough of an edge, but it's not perfect, and she still scans the minds around her as she works, efficiently lining up and reporting perps over her transmitter.

She falters and stops mid-word, then resumes her sentence, speaking into her shoulder mic. "All set, Control," she finishes. "Five for pick-up. I'll stay until transport gets here."

"Understood. Stay safe, Judge."

"Thanks," Anderson answers shortly, cutting the call. She turns at last to the final fighter, the second member of the third match-up, and the only person she hasn't cuffed in the wake of the hastily dispersing crowd. Anderson folds her arms, leveling a gaze at him. He's an intimidating figure, and if she hadn't felt his mind herself at the periphery of her attention, she'd never have guessed he was here for more than blood and guts and money.

"It's not too late to make that six. Tell me why you got caught up in all this, and maybe I won't haul you in." It's a sincere offer. She got a vague sense of him as a person, an unexpected depth of... integrity? Loneliness? Desperation? That last is felt as a keen edge. But she's a mind-reader, not a soothsayer. She doesn't know much more than that, and she can't afford to enforce the law on feelings alone. She needs justification if she's going to let him go.

wronganswer

Truthfully, Cassandra is a little nervous. It feels akin to the nerves that come before a large scale battle, one where she knows she'll have to follow closely at Master Dredd's heels for the duration, adrenaline high. Only... those are the feelings of a Padawan. And she's not one any longer. Cassandra Anderson is a newly minted Knight, and whatever wisdom had led the Council to giving her this assignment, she doesn't need to know it. She just needs to perform to the best of her ability.

Even if, in the back of her mind, she wonders why anyone would think someone from Dredd's line would be suitable for a political assignment. They're all notoriously plain-spoken, not to mention merciless. They've produced not a few gray Jedi, aligned with the hard line of the law rather than philosophical questions of moral rectitude. Cassandra's more sociable than her master, but she's still more at home as a silent sentinel than as any kind of negotiator.

The part where she's meant to guard against assassins, at least, will be no problem. Her ability to sense malicious, violent intent in others is unparalleled, and extends into the immediate future. So the Senator will be safe, even if Cassandra anticipates ending up serving primarily as a mute shadow.

She presents herself to the Senator's offices without fanfare, taking an aircab and slipping up through the towering Coruscanti governmental buildings almost unnoticed. Jedi are hardly unusual around Coruscant's upper levels, if still noteworthy, and Cassandra is a small human woman in the characteristic drab robes. She's a model of patience until Senator Amidala finishes whatever conversation she was having before her arrival, and then she steps inside, form loose and easy and voice pitched quiet.

"Senator, I'm Jedi Knight Cassandra Anderson." A short, properly respectful bow. "I believe the Council alerted you that they wished to provide you with some personal protection while you propose such revolutionary measures."

doctoral

The first thing Reid remembers thinking when he wakes up from the haze of blood lust is wondering why he wasn't dead.

Technically, he supposes, he is dead by most physiological definitions, but by any philosophical one, he is very much alive. Cogito ergo sum. And he is once again thinking, mind restored from the blurred fixation of hunger. He doesn't remember clearly what he did. He can see that he's in a hospital, in what must be the ward for supernatural creatures-- and he is one, now, he knows; he's a creature to most of the world-- because he's in a room alone, and he's restrained effectively. Even newly turned and with not much blood in him, the average vampire could break most restraints.

He's legitimately surprised no one had killed him while bringing him in. Not his team, he knows better than that, but officers have been known to be overzealous with vampire victims, unwilling to watch another predator be made. Reid isn't sure he wouldn't be better off dead. He wants to be alive, he's glad he is, sincerely, but all of his academic knowledge about vampires does nothing to prepare him for a grotesque false life spent preying on others. He knows that not all vampires commit crimes; some never do. He knows he isn't doomed, per se, that willpower plays a role, that he can learn to manage this. But bags of blood or not, Reid has never in his life felt an impulse toward violence before, and knowing a sudden new capacity has sprung up in him, that he very likely killed the unsub who turned him, in fact, in the craze after he first woke, disturbs him on a deep and innate level. He can't remember whether he did or not. He may have killed someone, vampire or not, and he doesn't know.

He already didn't trust himself completely, between the potential for inherited schizophrenia and his ongoing recovery from addiction. He almost wants to laugh at the idea that he's free from it now, because narcotics don't work on vampires. The pain receptors in their neurons don't respond to it. He never thought he'd replace that addiction with a worse one.

Reid wants to bury his face in his hands, and can't, because of the restraints. He wonders where everyone is, how bad it had been, how bad he'd been, that no one is here sitting with him now. Likely they'd been forbidden to. He's glad. He doesn't want anyone to see him this way. There's an IV hooked up feeding him blood intravenously, likely has been for some time, which explains his cleared mental state. His tongue finds his fangs suddenly and then he can't be anything but preoccupied, like worrying at a loose tooth, except these will never leave.

He won't cry. He just needs to know if he still has his job. He tries to breathe even though he doesn't breathe anymore, to steady himself, and starts coughing instead, which is exactly, of course, when Hotch walks in. Great. Well. At least it's obvious he isn't a ravening monster at the moment (for now).

"Sorry," he wheezes, trying to wipe the water from his eyes on his hospital gown at his shoulder, the most he can move. Conveniently, it lets him hide his face for a moment, too. "Sorry, I, I tried to breathe."

doctoral

[ continued from here ]

He's not ready, but he has to be, so he is. He feels like he wants to take several hours to process what has changed in him, and he doesn't have it-- doesn't even have several minutes.

What ensues instead is a pell-mell race down from the shambles of the boathouse dock and into the murky, grimy, entirely green water of the bayou. Spencer is breathing heavily, shaky now for a different reason. They drag themselves treading water through the muck and mud as surreptitiously as they can, and he hears the cracking of boards and squeal of metal behind them as their pursuers break through at last.

He can feel algae soaking the ends of his hair. His clothes are beyond ruined, torn and bloodied and covered in slime. They're still dragging themselves through the swamp as the sounds trail behind them, Reid noticing how much longer he can hear them for in an absent, distant way. He realizes belatedly that he's begun to report his observations to Jack in a low murmur under his breath, first noticing that he's fairly certain he's in shock, then taking stock of the sensation of his healed, solid flesh and the way his senses have become more acute, and hyperfixated on Jack. His words fall from numbed lips as they clamber out of the water at last, and then he falls silent, eyes wide and looking like a drowned cat.

It's another long trek back to their local hotel room, Reid heaving himself up the stairs. He hasn't spoken in a while at this point, internally focused, until they approach their door. "I feel like I want to sleep for a week," he complains, exhausted, everything still careening inside him and just-- sapping his energy beyond belief. But.

His eyes cut over to Jack as he pulls out his water-logged and thankfully still functional room key. "But I need to know what's happened to me first. What I am now." Spencer's been trying to brace himself for these revelations the whole time. He knows he should be reporting in, that his team will kill him tomorrow for not calling them immediately. But he doesn't know what to tell them yet, doesn't even know what to tell himself, how to defend his decisions or if he even has to, or what this will mean. If he can stay on the team at all.

Oh God, he can't think about that. He can't lose his team. That's his whole family.

He stumbles into the room, all six feet and change of him, and starts mindlessly removing his squelching shoes and socks.

vorbarra

but here we go anyway!!

unthreatening

[ Taura is almost vibrating with excitement for her first day on duty. She's self-consciously cleaned her hair twice, braided it as neatly as she can, and left it to swing in a long mahogany rope down her back. Her claws are polished to a fine point, and painted a light, iridescent pink.

She knows she won't be anything next to Queen Elsa, but she doesn't want to embarrass her.

Dressed smartly in uniform, custom-made to her size of seven-and-change feet tall, Taura edges into the receiving room as if uncertain of her welcome. She's a formidable presence, an outslung jaw overflowing with fangs, a broad, flat nose, oddly bright tawny-gold eyes, and to the careful eye, a light dusting of fur over her pale skin.

She's never been somewhere like this before. She'd only grown up out in isolation, raised as a magical experiment, an attempt to make a human golem. It hadn't worked; she was the only survivor. And she'd been living off of rats, dodging rocks from scared villagers, dirty and unwanted and inhuman, until Queen Elsa's kindness. Which she won't forget.

She tries not to gnaw at her lip-- it's very unseemly, with her fangs-- and says instead, as professionally as she can,] Reporting for my first day of duty, Your Majesty.

dendarii

( In which Miles is not nearly as smart as he thinks he is. )

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Barrayar | a musebox

a musebox

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we can risk curiosity

do not disguise yourself in armor

your first sunlight reaching down

there's nobody missing, there is no reward

happily ever after

I am sincere, even when I lie

I feel the subtext is rapidly becoming text

☀⛇ hope is something you give yourself

if you couldn't be good, at least you could be discreet

it's all a deep end

post-DDD

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

I'm a wolf, you're the moon

➤ we become disguised to ourselves

➤ there is something at work in my soul, which I do not understand

this is probably a mistake

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VKS/POI PSL

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