Hello! After about four years, I decided that it was time to indulge in egoshipping properly without cluttering up my blogs. This is not my first rodeo in the JSEgo sphere!
Most everything is on the header as listed. I will respond to any respectful nicknames; this is an SFW blog, anything 18+ will go over to piedpiperr- my 18+ blog.
This post will continue to update with links as I slowly post. Lovely to meet you all!
Here's my Ko-Fi! Tip the author if you'd like; you can request something with or without a tip, although commissions for anything longer than 3k words can be negotiated at a flat rate of 5$ per 1k words; NSFW accepted but I reserve the right to turn down any commissions. Please see here for the most updated guidelines.
writing tag: spice writes
masterlist:
misc:
antiaverage- no soft anti:
Chase walks into a bar. Anti walks out.
Anti just wants to keep Chase safe. :)
antiaverage- soft anti:
A quiet day in.
Anti keeps Chase company.
Chase asks Anti out on a date.
On trust, and love.
heroaverage-
Pining at a party.
polyegos:
Marvin/Henrik/Chase: Chase comes home to his boyfriends bickering.
fae au: Chase wanders into the woods searching for an elusive fae one too many times, and walks back out with a deal and a fae companion. Amidst this, old faces come back to town, and all the consequences of their previous actions come to life.
antiaverage, installment one: Chase wanders into the woods, and wanders out with a companion. Late game: Chase stays with Anti on a rough day.
dochero, installment two: Jackie comforts Henrik after a rough day.
And to your left, a shade whispers, is the pride and joy of our Psychotronics division.
Chase ducks his head, and settles onto the balls of his feet. Crouch-walking is, actually, the devil's work, but it's better than being spotted by a Phantom and being fried to kingdom come-- or worse, being found by one of the Telepaths, and having his head genuinely, honest to God, exploded.
Top of the line.
Unheard of.
Never, in a human lifespan, been attempted.
Much less succeeded.
"Success," Chase mutters under his breath, and dares to pop his head up by a line of broken observation windows, "is a wild measure of whatever this is."
He's in luck: no aliens, mercenaries, or otherwise immediate threats to his continued bodily integrity.
(Bodily integrity. Henrik would get a kick outta that one.)
(Henrik is, also, why he's in this goddamn space station in the first place, helping them research some aliens that the fucking Russians, of all people, had found, so on second thought...)
You, of course, may never see inside that glass. Don't take it personally! Very few people do. The Yu brothers are... extremely selective.
He clears the line of broken glass with a crowbar before he vaults it. Security, apparently, is a joke when your entire top-of-the-line space station has been hijacked and wiped by aliens-- those damn aliens, dude!-- which means that he's a little underwhelmed by the entire space. Bright, white sterile lights, with unidentified stains on bright, white sterile floors that he's not looking too hard at. Glass cases are shattered, chairs upturned. There's a coffee mug on the table that he gives a conspicuous berth; it'd be just his luck to get murked by a Mimic when he's finally gotten into the goddamn Psychotronics labs.
At the core of Psychotronics, our goal is to push humanity to its very limit. To redefine innovation. To redefine what it means to be human.
So far, innovation looks like a whole lotta nothing. Chase snatches up a wad of inorganic material, and shoves it into his bag. He'll look and see what he can synthesize later. More importantly, he has to figure out where all the goods of this place are.
"All of this talk about redefining ourselves," he muses aloud, and circles through the lab, slowly prowling to the back. At the end of the day, he hasn't learned his lesson about the aliens having ears, and maybe he misses talking to other people a little bit, "what would I keep as my big reward? Neuromods? A fancy upgrade for a shotgun? Or another alien?"
He hopes not another alien.
Not any alien, anyways.
Chase, unfortunately, rarely gets what he asks for. See: every single event that dropped like one shitty domino after another, landing him on a doomed science project in a doomed space station.
Ssh, hang on... someone's coming.
Chase quietly, quietly, holsters his wrench. His pistol has three shots; he only really needs one for this. One for the headshot, and then he can smack the shit out of it.
I used to wish we weren't alone in the universe.
"Me and you both, buddy," Chase murmurs, and peeks around the corner. Luck is on his side, this once: it's facing away, and it's not one of them fancy Phantoms.
Child's play to fire off a headshot, and stumble the thing, before he's on it. Their aura always feels weird, like stepping into a cloud of dry ice, and the world goes a little bit strange inside of it. Like someone's overlaid 3D glasses over each other, and then turned up the contrast to maximum. It's why he doesn't pay the grin in the corner of his vision any mind; just the sensation of organic material pulping underneath his wrench. The Phantom flings him off; he ducks under its arm, and takes another swing. Stuns it. Feels the area where its ribs should be cave in. His eye throbs, just a little bit, like the little scar where the Neuromod went in is protesting; what a shame, buddy.
It's gone in minutes. A near record, compared to the near-hour that his first encounter had taken. Doesn't drop a whole lot of goodies, but he'll take what little exotic material he can scrounge up to put towards Chase Brody's Neuromod Fund, est. March of 2032.
A slow, slow round of applause sounds behind him, and Chase pivots on a heel, holstering the wrench and drawing his pistol in one smooth motion, and being greeted with something that probably was a man, once.
It looks like a man, anyways. He's not quite sure where its hands begin and the swirling miasma of... matter ends, but he's also not sure that matters-- God, Henrik would kill him-- as much as the fact that it's fixed the two brilliant specks of light that probably pass for pupils on him.
"I didn't know grunts were capable of art," it says, and tilts its head. His head? He looks enraptured, but Chase is mindful of the fact that it would be very, very easy to snap his very human bones right here. "You look lost, little rabbit."
So: about the Psychotronic's pride and joy. There are three very important things to know about the Talos I.
One: the Yu brothers, with every fiber of their being, meant to expand the bounds of the human race, up to and including sacrificing themselves for it.
Two: the Yu brothers, with every fiber of their being, believed that it was acceptable to sacrifice others with them, so long as the end goal was met.
And three: not everybody agreed with it. Least of all, the very people sacrificed.
Chase knows a thing or two about it. And he also knows a thing or two about negotiations. Negotiations, for example, for freedom, in exchange for revenge.
"Well, I was," he says. "They don't exactly give you a blueprint of the place that they leave you to die on."
A spark of interest flashes through the oily tendons that flex along his new companion's arms. Chase tries very hard not to get distracted by the literal expression of-- what did Henrik call them? Impulses? Nerve impulses?-- and tries to focus more on the fact that the hook's out.
"And you came here," his companion says, amusement warbling the edges of his syllables. He prowls closer; Chase runs some quick calculations, decides he's not good enough at math for it, and holds still, because the last thing he needs is to trigger some latent fucking predator instinct. Not latent, maybe. Very, very present. "To die quicker?"
"Well," Chase says, again, and thumbs the grip on his pistol. "You could try that. But then you'd also die a quick fucking death in the middle of nowhere, the Milky Way, because if you think that they're not preparing to blow this station-- and all of their work-- to smithereens, you're wrong."
"So you're negotiating," he muses, and halts, a bare breath away from Chase. Chase's teeth hum with the sheer energy that shivers through this thing, and he has to look up. Just a little bit. "As if you have something to give."
"A way off," Chase says. "Sure, you can try to brute-force your way off of this thing, but how much did it take out of you to get this far?"
"You assume a lot," he murmurs, and tilts his head. The hairs on the back of Chase's neck rise. "For someone who knew so little."
"And yet, at the end of the day, there's probably a reason you haven't blown your way out, to kingdom come," Chase points out. "So you're looking for something. They kept you here, like the world's shittiest Rapunzel. Two and two, mi amigo."
Chase has the distinct pleasure of watching an actual alien's eyebrows rise up the more he talks. It fades, of course, back to that smirk, that I know more than you, I have more than you, but if there's one thing that Chase knows about this station, it's that it was built by liars.
He wonders what that says about the Talos I's last creation before him.
"Fine," the Talos I's last creation says, Anti says, and leans a little bit back, out of his space. The oppressive presence of his being fades, and Chase plants his feet against the sudden shift in weight. "You want to talk, Chase? Let's talk. Quickly."
First off I’m super sorry if this is weird or seems pressuring, 100% not the intent - I just wanted to check you were ok? Since you mentioned having thesis work to do and I know firsthand that shit’s tough, and you haven’t posted in a while. Again, sorry if it’s weird, and no need to answer this if it makes you uncomfortable, obviously. Hope all is well!
-Vex
Hi!! I can't overstate enough how touched I am; my apologies for worrying you, but I promise I'm alright, and that you're not bothering me in the slightest!
The good news: my thesis work is done! And with that has come... a whole host of life changes 😂 in the last five months I've graduated, moved ~600 miles, and gotten a new job (...and some new brainrot; I've entered my first ever Big Bang, and have a second slated!) so suffice to say, things have been busy!
I've not forgotten you lovely folk, it's simply been a positively wild ride! But I do have.... things cooking for this block, between the Phasmo fic, a Witcher fic, a (gods help me) omegaverse fic and a handful of other things, it just may take some time!
That being said, I always welcome idle conversation, asks, or drabbles; some may simply take me longer to get to than others!
(And I hope you're doing well too, Vex! I remember us both suffering through the same graduate work so here's to hoping you've had it alright too!)
Watching phasmophobia videos now automatically puts me in a headspace to reread A Phantom's Soap Opera lol, I hope you're happy with yourself /lh
😆 I'm glad! It's one of my favorite fics to work on-- I know I've been positively silent on account of my senior thesis (and I never published your prompt, which I really ought to finish, but I wish you luck on yours!) but it's being worked on, slowly but surely. I usually have to pull up Wade's playthroughs, or play with friends, to get into the mindset.
Although, speaking of Phantom..
A treat, to promise I'm not dead. [/aff]
--
He sees four new messages when he wakes up. Two from Jackie, and one apiece from numbers he doesn’t have saved- which leaves it as either one of the other three in his… from IRIS, or maybe he’d fucked up so bad that he’d forgotten he’d given out his number at the bar.
Either way: he doesn’t open them. He can imagine well enough what’s going to be said, and he’d like to delay it for just… a little longer. Long enough for him to take a bracingly hot shower, and make some disgustingly strong coffee, and spin yesterday around his head like if he just thinks about it a bit harder, it wouldn’t have happened.
Because here’s the thing: he knows Marvin isn’t wrong. A bleeding-heart is a liability, and you’d think he’d know better when there are still faint shadows around his neck. But he’d looked at Cody, and seen little Yenna, and–
He chucks the mug into the sink with perhaps strictly more force than he needs to. It’s already half-full of bowls and mugs, remnants of nights and mornings exactly like this, where even getting out of bed is a slog followed by a heartstopping jolt of adrenaline as he realizes he has places to be, but it’s– he’ll handle it later. Just like he’s handling this later. Just like–
Swearing under his breath, Chase slings his guitar over his back, juggling his phone to also scoop up his messenger bag, and hip checks the apartment door open. Another minute to make sure he has his keys on him, before he can begin the descent down to the lot.
He’d forgotten his jacket, he notes tiredly- the hair along the back of his neck rises from the chill in the stairwell, but he’d also figured that five flights of stairs would be enough to warm him up, and either way, it shouldn’t be that cold in the morning.
You KNOW I gotta go for "summoning gone wrong" with Antiaverage! How could I not? :)c -A
Pfft, what a wonderful way to start off the Halloween bash!
The first thing that Anti hears is, somewhat fittingly, oh hell. His balance is still off, his senses compressed down to a fine point of white noise, but even from here, he can smell fear thick as blood, as the rot that's made itself at home in his bones.
That'd be the little sheep's second mistake.
Without ever opening his eyes, he reaches, rooting himself in the rabbit-quick heartbeat that echoes around them. Flickering sparks of warm umber and gold play around the edges of the blackness of his vision, and for a moment, just a moment, Anti is trapped in the cooling warmth of a dying body, Jackwenttumblingdown, before he rips himself free with a snarl, wheeling to find the fool that thought they could bind him.
They're in... a lot. A chain of abandoned storefronts stretches out to either side of them; he can hear the thunder of cars tearing down a highway beyond their sight. Across the strip of concrete, a man crouches, blue eyes wide with terror; he's white-knuckling onto a mirror, and Anti briefly traces the straining tendons under his skin, considers how slowly he wants to choke him with them. Chase, the fall coolth whispers in his ears, and oh, poor fool, hadn't even bothered to hide his name. Soot stains the ends of his fingers, and the cloying smell of honey and belladonna reaches him, next, and Anti allows this knowledge to pull his lips into a smile, brilliant and cruel.
There's no circle to restrain his movement. He lazily steps forward, watches with glee as the man scrambles to his feet to put an equal distance between them.
Maybe he will have some fun, first. Jack had been no fun, had never been afraid, only had gripped his face with a cool and clinical hand, had trapped his fingers between his own to search for a pulse while Anti had rattled at the edges of the snare he'd unwittingly set.
"Congratulations," he can't help but needle, and prowls forward another step. The night has frozen around them, and the man with it; he's close enough he can make out the whites of his eyes, luminous in the chilly dark. Another step forward and he'll be able to trace their pulsing veins, watch them pop pop pop under his careful attentions, watch the blood spill like an inkstain through his sclera. "You wanted me. You got me. Do you know what you're going to do with me?"
He's no silvertongue, no orator. Anti is everything that shouldn't be; the squirming wrongness of blood seeping through their fingers, the glistening of wet muscle and the heavy, all-knowing weight of the dark. He is certainly not meant for their little world, fragile in its balance, nor for the soft hearts of men whose tongues stutter in his mere appearance. Words are meaningless; he speaks with his hands, deft with his pretty little blade. When he speaks, he tears the night from its frozen vigil, and Chase starts again, but remains rooted. Cowardice-- or bravery-- they all look the same.
And then the brave, cowardly, stupid little man opens his mouth, and says, "what the fuck do you mean, I wanted you?"
This is so profoundly not what Anti is expecting that he actually stops in his tracks, and he's not quite sure what his expression is doing, but whatever it is, it is unwelcome. He rallies, flicks clawed fingers in a dismissive gesture. Sixty four gleaming teeth glint in the dying moonlight; there's a storm coming, Anti can feel the anticipation winding tighter under his skin, and he pulls the gale in to whip at their hair, sharp ozone stinging their noses.
"Second thoughts? Vengeance is usually uglier than what you're willing to cavort with."
Chase stares some more, and now, rather than afraid, he just looks confused. Irritated, maybe, though his heart is clocking a cool one hundred and eight beats a minute.
"Vengeance is us- dude! Dude, no! I'm not- look, I'm not here to curse someone, or kill them, I just needed to talk to somebody!"
Anti stares blankly. He stares back, brow pinched; fear still tangles his words up into knots, but he's not running, not blustering for his life.
Anti should kill him for his presumption.
He wants to know more.
Chase must misinterpret his silence, and waves the hand not gripping onto his mirror, scowling. "Not you for the record, before you get all smart and spooky on me."
"Smart and spooky," Anti echoes, flatly, and digs one clawed finger into his own palm to be sure he's not fucking hallucinating. He wouldn't put it past Desmarais, the clever little sadist.
In the midst of his reality check, Chase looks at the mirror. Looks back at him, and takes a deep breath, fiddling with the filigreed edge. "Look. I don't know what you mean, called you. I'm just looking to talk to someone. If you know how to--"
This, at least, is ground that Anti is familiar with. He rolls his neck, and slips sideways into the night air, reaching for Chase's warmth, slinging himself out of the etherspace to wrap an arm around Chase's hips with a leer.
"If I know how to," he mocks, and nestles his chin right on Chase's shoulders. A parody of a loving embrace, it puts his teeth right besides Chase's neck, and they both know it. "Maybe I do, who's to say?"
What are you willing to pay, they both hear, and Chase takes in one deep, steeling breath.
Then he tips his neck sideways, baring the full pale stretch to Anti, and Anti raises both eyebrows at the offer made. A life for a life is more binding a contract than even Desmarais will bother with.
No, he's curious, now.
"Cute," he muses, aloud, and folds himself neatly into Chase's shadow, shakes himself out of the slender shadows across the shingled roof above Chase. He slings one leg over another, the very image of ease. "Well, Chase. Don't keep a man waiting; erstwhile lover? Child, parent?"
Chase meets his eyes, mouth pressed into a firm line, and says, quietly, "friend."
Anti revises, yet again, his initial impression, from idiocy, to intrigue, back firmly into the realm of foolishness.
A life is a life, he tells himself, yet again, and he leans forward, and says, "tell me more." A life is a life, and he stays.
Hello! As promised: a short Halloween prompt list. Please specify a pairing, and whether you want it more horror-esque or if you want something softer; I will be getting around to them on break this next week.
songs:
The devil told me no room for cheats// thought I'd sold my soul but he kept the receipt
If the suspense doesn't kill you // something else will
When you look at yourself, are you a man or a monster?
Blood signed, we made a pact // yours dried out, you took it back
Head is full of angels // I've got demons at my feet
When I go // into that ground // I won't go quietly // I'm bringing my crown
I'll see you on the other side // But I'd kill to bring you back tonight
Tell me what you're scared of // When you can't wake up and your legs won't run away
Voices howling and it's out of control // until you're nothing but an animal
I'm only a nightmare // When you wake up and I'm not there
Happy Halloween! I know it's been very, very quiet (as it stands, I am 6 months out from getting my degree so I have... quite a bit of work to do) so I figured I would put together a little Halloween prompt list for you all to choose from.
Well, we've crossed 20k for Phantom. Chapter 4 is... it's shaping up to be something.
A snippet!
--
Because here’s the thing: he knows Marvin isn’t wrong. A bleeding-heart is a liability, and you’d think he’d know better when there are still faint shadows around his neck. But he’d looked at Cody, and seen little Yenna, and–
He chucks the mug into the sink with perhaps strictly more force than he needs to. It’s already half-full of bowls and mugs, remnants of nights and mornings exactly like this, where even getting out of bed is a slog followed by a heartstopping jolt of adrenaline as he realizes he has places to be, but it’s– he’ll handle it later. Just like he’s handling this later. Just like–
Swearing under his breath, Chase slings his guitar over his back, juggling his phone to also scoop up his messenger bag, and hip checks the apartment door open. Another minute to make sure he has his keys on him, before he can begin the descent down to the lot.
He’d forgotten his jacket, he notes tiredly- the hair along the back of his neck rises from the chill in the stairwell, but he’d also figured that five flights of stairs would be enough to warm him up, and either way, it shouldn’t be that cold in the morning.
Hm. At nearly 20k, I do believe that Phantom is my longest work, even still as a WIP. I am glad I decided to make this blog, in the end.
That being said: hopefully, chapter 4 will be coming out soon-ish, now that I have some free time- Stardew will follow suit, and as always, prompts are open (and I'll likely reblog a few ask games for that.)
Enjoy chapter 1 of A Phantom's Soap Opera, the polyego Phasmophobia AU that I've been working on in conjunction with another longfic.
Please remember that as far as I know, links will not show up in Tumblr's tag searches; therefore, I am wholly relying on you lot to pass it on if you enjoy it.
Thank you for your time! If you have questions, or requests, as ever, my inbox is open.
For your patience, a little snippet for A Phantom's Soap Opera:
--
The ukulele is fully tuned now; he tests out a few chords on it, before blowing out a breath the way he’s learnt to at the bar, letting the last of the tension flow out of his shoulders. He doesn’t look up from the ukulele- his eyes catch on a chip on the body of the ukulele, and he smooths a thumb over it, before strumming another chord.
Clearing his throat a little, he segues into the first bar, blending it into the background as he says, softly, “I think this is the last situation either of us want to be in. F- uh, freaking huge house, empty as a grave, and a bunch of strange people walking around. I don’t blame you for being quiet- hell, I wouldn’t blame you for being pissed.”
He has no fucking clue what he’s trying to do here. He’s kind of hoping that he doesn’t regret this decision, but it’s a little late to back out. So he does what he does best: he keeps talking, forcing the knot in his throat to take shape.
“I don’t know how long you’ve been here. Marv- that’s the long-haired one you probably saw- didn’t tell us a lot about that. We… don’t actually hear a lot about your stories before we get here. Not a great set-up, honestly, we just… know your names. But it can’t have been… it must’ve been lonely, either way. Being around a bunch of people, but none of them look at you.”
It's looking like a Phasmo win, given that one of the Stardew votes was mine in order to view the results. I have a free evening tonight; we'll see if I manage to finish the last 2k of this chapter!
And then: a little more breathing room for the boys, before we hit the Sunny Meadows arc.
His bloodshot eyes were wide open, pinned on his face with terror.
The shimmering blue and green of his irises waned between each blink into a stony grey.
“It’s okay, baby, y-you’re gonna be fine!”
The wound pulsated beneath his hands, spurting blood between his fingers with every frantic exhale. Jackie knew better than to sit there and try to stop the bleeding – he knew better. He did.
“I-I’ve gotta get you to the ambulance, okay?”
Marvin shook his head, wincing as he replaced his hands over the cavity in his side. Jackie slid his arms under his back and knees, but Marv’s head lolled with a moan of pain.
He tried to lift him but quickly set him down again as he shrieked. “I’m sorry!” He cried instinctively, tightening his grip. “Please, baby, I have to! I’m gonna pick you up on three, okay?”
Jackie had never seen him look so terrified when he finally reached three. It was a look of pure horror and pleading, but what else could he do?
He lifted, and Marvin’s back arched instantly. His taut features widened in an expression that shattered him right then and there, and the scream—
It shredded through his throat, rattling the blood caught in his mouth until it crackled. Jackie’s ears rang, and his stomach twisted as he staggered helplessly to his feet, but the sound had already faded into a sob. Marvin fell into silence. His head lolled lifelessly, then his hands slipped from his side and hung limp. Blood trickled from his agape mouth and wound, dripping like water onto the concrete.
“Marv—” Jackie ran, but he never reached the stairs. He looked down, and six stitches sealed Marvin’s gaping mouth into a thin smile—
“Marvin!”
Jackie shot bolt upright with a shuddering gasp, clasping at his chest and doubling over as he heaved air into his lungs. “Marv! Please– aagh!” Pain shot up his spine, and he clutched at the stump of his leg.
The sheets shuffled beside him as Marvin sat up, his eyes barely open. “I’m here, darling,” he said, putting his hand on his shoulder and provoking a violent flinch, “hey, it’s just me. I’m here.”
Tears spilt uncontrollably from Jackie’s widened eyes. His chest rose and fell frantically, inhaling as much as he could before his body punched it back out again.
Marvin wrapped his arms around him, pulling him against his chest and rubbing circles into his firm back. Jackie fell into his shoulder, grasping his arm too tightly. “I’m here, my darling,” he kissed his tousled hair, “what’s wrong?”
“Marv... Marv...” Jackie began to weep, crying through his teeth at another shot of pain, “my ff- fucking leg... I-I can’t...”
Marvin held him tighter and gently shushed him. “You’re awake now, don’t worry,” he said, rocking slowly. “Take a deep breath, alright?”
“I can’t!” Jackie clenched his eyes shut. “I c- couldn’t help you, I–”
Marvin’s sleep-ridden expression saddened as Jackie’s hand fumbled to lay upon his scarred side. He always did this after a nightmare, like his hands were magnetised to the memory.
His breaths had sharpened severely now, to the point where his body jolted each time he inhaled.
“Jackie, take a deep breath for me,” Marvin uttered more firmly, resting his hand on his clammy cheek. “Come on, like you taught me...”
Jackie shuddered as he inhaled, balling fabric into his fist. Marvin gently tapped his finger against his cheekbone to count the seconds alongside his whisper.
His skin was cold to the touch yet drenched in sweat. He trembled in panic and pain in his husband’s arms, choking on his sobs as he followed each tap and whisper.
“We’re safe,” Marvin promised, “nothing is going to hurt us, we’re okay...”
Inhale. Hold. Exhale.
Four taps. Pause. Then seven. Pause. Finally, eight.
“Gently... you’re doing wonderfully, just keep breathing...”
Repeat.
His head swirled, then throbbed.
Marvin rested his head upon his, caressing his neck with his free hand.
“It hurts...” Jackie sank into his chest, snaking his arms around Marvin’s waist as he sobbed. “Why won’t it go away...”
Marvin sank back into the pillows, gliding his hand up and down his back. “You’re still healing, darling, you just have to give it time.” He replied softly as Jackie whimpered. What else could he say?
“I’m so tired...” he murmured, and Marvin’s heart broke.
“I know...” he whispered into his hair, peppering it with kisses.
Jackie was always the anchor. He was always the first to break a silence with a solution or laughter, the first to carry or hold someone and wipe tears with a smile that promised the world. In the daylight, he was unbreakable.
Yet in the dark, sleep-ridden and barely awake, he was just as fragile as the rest of them. Everything he hid perfectly during the day, every ounce of exhaustion, fear, and pain, seeped out like a widening crack in a dam.
His care was not a ploy; Marvin was not silly enough to believe such a thing. He knew he cared so much, too much. He knew he cared so much that he would wake up in cold sweats, sobbing that he couldn’t save any of them, then not remember – or at least claim to – by the next morning.
Sometimes he wondered if Jackie was incapable of acknowledging that part of himself or if he was just too scared to. Nonetheless, it didn’t matter. Marvin would cradle him through an endless night if it meant he didn’t have to cry alone.
“I think you should call in tomorrow,” Marvin kissed his tousled hair, his fingers tracing the knots of his spine. “We can have a day together, just you and me?”
Jackie sniffled and nodded, burying his head into Marvin’s pyjama shirt and soaking it with tears. Marv was sure he would have a different answer in the morning, but he would hold him to this one no matter how much he objected.
“I’ll take care of you,” he whispered as Jackie’s shaky breaths soothed, “just as much as you take care of me. I promise.”
.
After the last request, I figured it was Jackie's turn! :'D
"How are you so comfy?" with Chase and Jackie? -Trick
[ warnings: none! Enjoy a little fluff as my recompense for disappearing.]
"Chase."
Something jostles him; grumbling to himself, Chase curls further into himself. The bed really is very soft, and he's exhausted after rushing to plant the cabbages before the season turns, and the sun is nice and warm against his back...
"Chase."
A hand shakes him gently, but insistently; blindly, he bats at the hand in protest.
" 's early."
"It's nearly noon," Jackie says from somewhere to his side, and even half-asleep, Chase can hear the amusement. "If you stay in bed much longer, you won't be able to water the cabbages."
The fucking cabbages.
"Can't Jamie do me a favor, just this once," he grumbles into Jackie's shoulder; Jackie's resultant laugh shakes them both, rolling like a gentle peal of thunder.
Why couldn't it rain today?
"He helped you plant them yesterday," Jackie scolds, softly; Chase grimaces, but doesn't argue the point. Jamie'd gone above and beyond, waiting for Chase to sprint, covered in mud and out of breath, into his store; he'd even saved seeds for him, knowing that he'd been about to plant his batch for the summer. And he'd accompanied him back, to help him get them planted before sunset.
Chase swears again under his breath, and then sighs, rolling to his side and cracking open an eye.
"There you are." Jackie smiles back at him, softly, and presses a kiss to his forehead; the gentleness buzzes under Chase's skin, and he bites back a gleeful little hum. This thing between them is- new. Fragile. Chase doesn't want to shatter it.
He looks well rested, for once, too; the dark circles under his eyes are starting to fade, and Chase can't help but preen at the thought of being responsible for letting him relax as he never does. Instead, he turns to kiss Jackie's shoulder, before stretching out beside him.
"How are you so comfortable?"
"Henrik says it's the muscle," Jackie says, all mischievous glee, and Chase considers that; it's a compelling image, Henrik and Jackie twined together, and he's a bit of a poet- fire and ice, summer's warmth and winter's inevitability. For his own sanity, he has to not go down that road.
"That makes sense," he says, instead of something insane like I wonder if it's just as comfortable sandwiched between you two, I wonder if it's quieter. "I'm not entirely convinced, though. Might have to confirm that with more data. Another half hour or so."
Jackie laughs, but he also curls an arm around Chase's waist, pulling him close. "Only half an hour. Then we really have to get up."
Chase huffs a soft laugh, and shuts his eyes again, basking in Jackie's warmth. Just another half hour...
Hi hi! I just rediscovered your writing tag; I know I binged the whole fae au ages ago but good grief have I caught the brain rot again. If you feel like taking a request, could I ask for fae au Chase having to deal with one of his eldritch housemates losing their temper, potentially with some protective Anti if that’s a vibe? No worries if not, but I thought it couldn’t hurt to ask :)
Pfft, you and me both. I've been thinking about them quite a bit. You can absolutely ask for it; I hope you enjoy!
Warnings for... not much, really. Nobody gets grievously injured or manipulated.
--
Chase is only aware that something is wrong because when he walks into the kitchen, Jackie has cornered himself by the cabinet, five feet and three hundred and twenty pounds of pure wolfish muscle.
He snarls at Henrik, which is the other sign that something is wrong- Jackie would cut off his own godsdamned hand before ever threatening Henrik.
Henrik, for his part, is frozen; unsure of whether to run, or approach, Chase would assume.
Circling around, Chase keeps his steps audible, his voice low.
"Jackie?"
The wolf crouched by the cabinets snarls at him, muzzle wrinkled with fury. There's no hint of recognition in those brilliant amber eyes, and Chase casts his mind back, casts his thoughts to the calendar-
He edges around the corner to the window, just enough to see the moon hang, swollen and bloody, in the sky.
Ah, shit.
He needs Henrik out of here. Then he can- he doesn't know, open a door, lure Jackie out-
"Henrik," he hisses softly. "Henrik."
He sees Henrik's eyes flick in his direction, but no other movement. Jackie picks up his head, muzzle wrinkling, and growls in Chase's direction; Chase keeps his hands out and open, movements slow.
"Easy, Jacks," he soothes, voice low, in the same tone he uses to calm a spooked Henrik, to talk down Marvin and Anti from yet another spat, to soothe the snag-toothed magic under their skin. "It's just me, yeah? It's just Chase. Bet you're feeling all sorts of trapped in this tiny apartment, I've been telling Marv for ages we needed to move, but what can you do with rent."
It's all nonsense, soothing nonsense, and it doesn't make Jackie's hackles come down, but he can see Henrik's shoulders loosen. He'll take one out of two.
He gestures, a tiny motion, with his head; Henrik begins to edge back his way, eyes back on Jackie. The wolf snarls at them, fur rising along the ruff of his neck. Really, he's a gorgeous wolf, Chase thinks idly, all rich brown fur, a pelt thick enough to sink into.
Right now, he's fucking menacing.
"We'll leave you be," Chase soothes, watching as Jackie pulls himself to his feet with more than a little concern. It's a wonder his voice doesn't shake; he's gotten good at managing the adrenaline. He has to be, when ninety percent of their household can smell if his heartrate jumps a beat because he got startled by oil popping too furiously. "Nothing to worry about here, Jacks."
Henrik gets to within inches of Chase; Chase shifts aside to let him reach the doorway.
Later, he'll wonder if one of them moved too quickly; or if Jackie had simply reached the end of his limited patience.
In the moment, Jackie uncoils, and lunges.
Henrik shouts- Chase doesn't think before pulling Henrik back. Unfortunately, this means taking a solid three hundred pounds of muscle head on- he hits the floor hard enough that he hears something crack, and his vision fuzzes out. He can't seem to catch his breath, though that could also be the fact that there's an entire direwolf on top of him.
Someone's shouting. He doesn't have the voice for it, so he's assuming Henrik's shouting something- he can't quite make out what, wheezing for breath.
Above him, Jackie snarls, and Chase can count each claw digging into his shoulders. He drags in another breath, trying to force his lungs to expand past the weight on his chest. Don't panic, don't panic, he chants in the back of his head, through the haze of fear that thickens.
This is Jackie. He won't hurt you.
This is Jackie. He doesn't recognize you.
"Jackie, Jackie, it's me," he wheezes out, forcing his arms up between him and the snarling wolf's muzzle. Jackie snaps at him; Chase can only wedge his hands between them like a prayer to a god he's long stopped believing in. He's a journalist, not built for wrestling werewolves twice his size off of himself. He'll be lucky to make it out unbitten, be lucky to make it out--
"Be still."
The corners of his vision sharpen into almost painful detail. Jackie freezes, ears swiveling straight forward before they pin flat to his skull. A wolf recognizing the bear lumbering by.
Anti stalks through the door, all liquid grace and barely restrained fury.
These last few months, he's gotten good at... not tamping his otherness, but not smothering them. Most days, the hair on the back of Chase's neck doesn't do more than prickle, a lurch in his gut that he leans into.
Right now, Anti does not give a single shit about restraining even a sliver of his thunderous nature. Chase doesn't dare to move, doesn't dare to remind Jackie that he has a very vulnerable chewtoy beneath his paws, but he thinks he could've started dancing the cancan and Jackie wouldn't have looked.
"Up."
Anti isn't even looking at him; Chase can still feel the itch in his bones to obey, as Jackie staggers to his feet, a puppet unsteady on its strings. His tail tucks between his legs, an uncertain snarl wrinkling his massive muzzle.
Anti does- Chase doesn't know how to describe the sound he makes in response. It's too guttural to be a snarl, too harsh. Chase reels back against it, and Jackie takes a step back, and then another.
Towards the open door.
If Anti commands him to leave, Chase knows that he will not return. That they'll be lucky if he doesn't run himself into a bloody grave.
Pushing himself to his feet, he watches Anti's eyes flick his way. There's flecks of silver, brilliant shards of starlight reflecting back at him; the low light of the kitchen makes it downright eerie. He is very, very keenly aware that he's the only human here.
In any other case, he would consider himself outmatched- and on some level, he knows he is.
But he exhales, and then carefully, steps away from Jackie, grimacing a little as the world spins around him. He doesn't have a chance to waver- an arm, cool and steady, wraps around his waist.
"I'm alright," Chase murmurs, half a warning, half a reassurance. Anti's lip curls at that, eyes cutting back to the frozen werewolf crouched before them. Chase swears that he can feel the walls press in around them that inch more in response, and he squeezes what he can reach of Anti's arm. "I'm fine," he repeats, knowing that Anti can taste the half-truth.
"You know Jackie wouldn't in his right mind. We were surprised." Full truth.
After a long moment, Anti only shakes his head, and with the same finality as the sun setting, tells Jackie, "sleep."
The werewolf doesn't so much curl up as he drops; Chase starts, but Anti's already steering him away, and Chase knows full well that the fae is going to be hovering.
"He will wake up," Anti says with that odd finality, before giving Chase a familiar side-eye. "You would not have if we didn't hear you. Henrik."
Chase waves a hand, and immediately regrets it; his shoulder fucking burns. He's going to have to wrap it, probably. "I knew you would. And Jackie-"
...Well. Jackie like this would have easily ripped his throat out. A full moon already heightened his irritation; an eclipse like this would only make it worse. He wisely keeps his mouth shut.
Anti must read the way his expression tightens, because the tips of his fingers prickle, the taste of winter ice seeping into his mouth. The aching eases, and Chase lists further against Anti, who all but pours him onto the couch, and curls around him. Distantly, they can hear a pair of footsteps- Henrik, then, and possibly Jameson, likely at the feeling of magic as wild as Anti's flaring within their threshold.
"Every day," Anti mutters under his breath, shifting to allow Chase to pillow his head on Anti's lap. "Every day you find new ways to flirt with death. They are not that compelling, you know."
Chase huffs a soft laugh, and shuts his eyes, floating on the dizzying feeling of Anti's magic throbbing under his skin. A nap would probably do him good.
"I thought you liked it interesting."
"I like it when you are here," Anti snips back, and tugs a little at a lock of hair. "And death will like not having to gamble against me again."
He's going to shelve that for later, instead humming, and nuzzling into Anti's touch.
"Bet you'd cheat."
"They have no proof," Anti returns archly, but Chase can read into his words well enough. He'd rob death and all of their cousins blind if he had to, and something about that warms him all the way to his bones.
He only laughs, and curls closer to Anti, who's pressed close enough that you couldn't slide a sheet of paper between them. A nap really is looking heavenly, now, and Anti seems faintly smug about that; he's safe, here.
"Wake me up when Jackie's up," he says, quietly, and Anti grumbles indistinctly; when Chase opens an eye, he finally huffs.
"Sleep," Anti says, instead, and tangles slender fingers through his hair. "I will wake you."
There's no command in his words, but he's never needed it; Chase closes his eyes, and falls.
