I Am My Own Ragged Company

Uncover our heads and reveal our souls // We were hungry before we were born

[naughtbutscars]

Anchors // Ragged Edges

[The drag on the cigarette is harsh and reedy, smoke not filling Stiles’ lungs fast enough to dampen the rabbit quick thrum through his ligaments. It’s like this a few times a day, the constant drain on his reserve to keep a heartbeat going.

And it’s down to a cherry and filter already, god he has to stop buying the cheap ones. He says that every damn time and yet he knows he never will. It’s those small rituals that ground him in some normalcy. Or again, at least it’s what he tells himself. 

Speaking of fucking normalcy… 

Stiles steps back out from under the brick arch, flicking the ash generally towards the sunken hole of a gutter, and out into the disgusting drizzle that’s been soaking his uniform for the better part of two hours.] 

Alright. Tell me what the fuck I’m looking at, who in the hell invented freezing rain, and tell me why for the love of all that is sacred, Jared was the first on the scene. 

[He doesn’t really wait for an answer, honestly doesn’t give a shit what it was. He’s already stepping over the pathetic pink puddle of Jared’s lunch — a donut, sprinkles and all, shocker — and the forensic team tries to keep up as he ducks under the caution tape.

The body is shredded in half, in the first stage of decomposition, and sloppily buried beneath a bare mid-January willow. A decaying rope sits in tangles at the base of the torso, and there are painful bright splashes of blood on the thick carpet of dead leaves. Stiles’ nose twitches.

No purse. No ID. None of the street vendors heard or saw anything. Teeth have been pulled from the roots, molars including the canines — Corey is talking.] 

Who found the body? [He says it as he turns on something more than instinct, but something he won’t put a name to when he thinks about it later, and meets a set of summer hazel eyes under a shock of dark hair. The set of cuffs, set high on pair of stubborn wrists registers a few beats later.]  

[roomforbruises-blog]

[For someone who claims he doesn’t like to fight, Derek fights a lot. And maybe he was always lying when he said he didn’t enjoy a good fight on occasion. Just not as frequently as they’ve been happening lately.

He walks away from this one with a slight limp, but in much better shape than the alpha he leaves behind, curled over himself to heal alone for a couple hours - he’ll wake up in a couple hours, embarrassed about his rabid territorial behavior. Derek almost decides to keep walking for hours, shake away the adrenaline crash, but his leg still twinges with pain, and he drops to lean against a brick wall just inside an alley. Exhaustion threatens to overtake him.

But something doesn’t feel right. Death always lingers in the air now, but this is darker. More immediate. He looks around and quickly realizes that he chose the wrong place to rest. He stumbles to his feet, but it’s too late, and he’s too shaken for a moment to react. He’s shoved against the wall face first, the rough brick scraping cold against his cheek as he’s cuffed. It would be easy to break free, but he's not ready to reveal what he is. Not when he wants to blend in. He’s tired and he can be patient.

There are people whispering about a murder and pointing at him and that’s... that’s definitely not good. But Derek doesn’t protest. Doesn’t snap at them, doesn’t fight, and definitely doesn’t bare his fangs. Doesn’t even speak.

He just waits. And he does, until others start arriving on-scene. The scents from so many people overlap the smell of decay, masking it. One smell is nostalgic, reminds him so sharply of family that Derek grimaces. He looks up, seeking distraction, and finds it in a pair of dark eyes that are already staring him down. It takes him a moment to register the words that come out of the man’s mouth -- a pretty mouth, if Derek had the chance for that sort of distraction. But he doesn’t.]

I did. That was me. You can let me out of these now. [He jingles his cuffs. Wow. Definitely the wrong attitude to have towards police. He’s fucked. Laura would be so proud if she had come along.]

I’m covered in blood. I know. But it’s mine and a guy’s down the street. Mugger. Lot of that around here lately. [Brilliant. Comments about the city’s security when you’re in fucking handcuffs. Might as well go ahead and tell that guy he should be the one who’s tied up, he admonishes himself. Still, Derek can’t help but a cursory glance at that long, lean frame. Derek wishes his hands were free so he could slap himself.]

[naughtbutscars]

verse // anchor for a heartbeat

AU: Werewolves and magic are known, dystopian setting

It started the way most of these stories do: the world was once full of magic. Nestled gently in the creases of the very earth, it served as the ligaments and veins keeping society stable, keeping a tenuous balance.

It went the way most of these stories do: A choice few got greedy. Wolves with an insatiable hunger for power and blood tore apart the earth. Their ‘ritual’ called for the murder of a coven of powerful mages, blood spilled directly into the earth where the convergence of magic was strongest. But instead of the pure rush of power they craved, the blood turned tainted, useless to them and poisonous to the entire delicate system.

Their greed and malice slipped into the network of what once was a force of unity, healing and protection. Darkness wound its way into the carved lines of magic the way venom spreads in the bloodstream. And the magic that once kept the world from tipping into chaos began to disintegrate.

New Mexico’s red rock dust took on a life of its own. Shimmering heat mirages and spinning eddies strong enough to drown victims dry appeared on the horizons of highways. The deserts of Southern California became uninhabitable, the air too thick with grime and filth to be breathable, and twisted abominations of cacti overrunning travelers’ passage.

In the Appalachian forests, moss no longer stopped at the bark of trees but continued on to its residents. Towns were blanketed in moss, growing on brick, fur and skin alike. Plants that once bore fruit produced mostly thorns.

The lights of New York City became just a bit dimmer and the shadows loomed just a bit longer. Rats began to develop sharper teeth. Grand historic buildings, solidly standing for decades, started deteriorating, crumbling at an alarming and unpredictable rate for their inhabitants.  

The truth is that magic is different everywhere, never the same twice, and gently manifested itself in every living thing. The blight carried through the lifelines of the earth not only affected the environment, but also its inhabitants. There was no predicting if or how a person may fall ill, and hysteria spread as conditions became more varied and worsened.

Packs went feral without the magic of emissaries to ground them and coax their anchors out of them. Family ties dissolved, survival instincts surfacing above all else, all wolves vying for the alpha title, for the strength to dominate a failing world.

There are agencies, desperate to concentrate any known magic on a cure, who have begun rounding up high profile and well-known mages. While a reasonable idea in theory, to bring together the best and brightest of their time, their minimal knowledge of working magic in the world hinders their progress, as the truth is that mages aren’t the cause nor the solution.

While mages and magical beings strive to protect what’s theirs at any cost, one can only ask… is there any solution to be had at all?

[stilinski-ortiz-deactivated2019]