An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Chapters: 3/3
Fandom: The Secret World
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Original Male Character/Original Female Character, Player Character (Illuminati)/Player Character (Dragon), Owen Mitchell/Hana Vali
Characters: Original Male Character, Original Female Character, Illuminati Player Character (The Secret World), Templar Player Character (The Secret World), Dragon Player Character (The Secret World), Owen Mitchell (OC), Therese Byrne (OC), Hana Vali (OC)
Additional Tags: Fluff, Developing Relationship, Theme park dates, Bad Fashion (or is it good?)
Summary:
She's an android and agent of The Dragon, searching for new data points to add to her chart of human experiences. He's an Illuminati handler, and one of the outliers she has always found fascinating. And more importantly one of the only people she can convince to participate in her idea of a good couple's outfit. Three scenes from the relationship between two field agents.
Written for The Apiary.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: The Secret World
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Riley (The Secret World)/Original Male Character, Original Male Character/Original Female Character (Mentioned), Owen Mitchell (OC)/Riley (The Secret World)
Characters: Richard Sonnac, Riley (The Secret World), Owen "Shamash" Mitchell, Therese "Ninshubur" Byrne
Additional Tags: Non-Explicit Sex
Summary:
Sonnac was having a nice day, and then he walked in on one of his least favorite field agents having sex with an Illuminati handler on his desk. Written for The Apiary
Hey hey, look who wrote something for the Apiary contest, right at the fucking deadline? This girl!
Title: The Good News
Author: Lollemu
Words: 2,047
Characters: Ninshubur, Inanna, Gilgamesh, Bryn, Shamash, Ereshkigal, Nikkidee, Osterby, IceQueenMab, Illuminaughty
Therese had, in retrospect, possibly made a tactical error.
To be fair, having a get-together with her friends in her apartment in Chicago wasn’t an all-bad idea. The apartment was bigger, since she shared it with Hana, and Chicago seemed like a much more neutral place to invite her multi-faction friends than “a templar-funded apartment in London, right in the shadow of Temple Hall.” Moreover, her neighbors weren’t all templars, liable to complain to Sonnac about Therese making unholy amounts of noise and keeping everyone up, but instead absolute strangers who had more or less adjusted to Therese and Hana’s odd comings and goings.
Really, there was only one possible downside to having the party in her apartment in Chicago.
Her mother had her address.
Worse, her mother had her address and knew she was in town for the weekend, as she’d had dinner with her mother earlier in the week, and damn her, mentioned that she’d be in town all week.
All of this flashed through her mind as the knock on her door was followed by her mother’s voice.
“Therese?”
Therese gestured wildly, trying to get everyone to shut up enough that maybe she could convince her mom that no one was home.
Owen clapped. “Oh! Is it already time to play charades? Usually everyone has to get a lot drunker before they agree to play charades.”
“I don’t think Therese is trying to suggest charades, unless she has already started and she’s acting out “please quiet down, my mom is at the door and I don’t want to have to answer it,” Hana said.
“That’s... an oddly specific prompt, Hana,” Jamie pointed out.
“Therese? I hear voices. Do you have guests over?” came through the door.
Therese sighed. She really, really hated her friends.
“Coming, Mom,” she sighed, heading towards the door. She opened it and found herself face to face with her mother. “What brings you here, unannounced, this evening, Mom?”
“I made chili, and I thought I’d bring you leftovers, since you said you’d be in town!” Sure enough, her mom held out a rather impressively large tupperware of chili.
Well, it was as good an excuse as any her mom ever came up with.
Her mom peered over her shoulder.
“You didn’t mention that you were having a party! I didn’t know you even knew this many people.”
Therese really, honestly wondered where a gaping hole in reality was when you needed one. C’mon John, come through for me, just this once.
No convenient holes into the void opened up, so Therese stepped aside, letting her mother into the apartment.
“It’s just... a few of my friends from work,” Therese muttered, as her mom stepped by her.
That was, it turned out, the wrong thing to say. Her mom’s eyes lit up with interest - Therese had been deliberately vague about the steady job she had finally taken, despite her mother’s pronounced interest. “No, Mom. We promised no work talk,” Therese lied hurriedly. She did not want her mother asking one of her friends about their jobs when they hadn’t been briefed on the correct lies. Plus, she didn’t think it was a very likely sell that every single one of them didn’t bother learning the names of their companies.
Someday, she’d really have to ask Sonnac if they had any shell corporations she could pretend to be employed by. It occurred to her, briefly, that this was one of those occasions where it might have been easier if she was with the Illuminati.
Her mother rolled her eyes, but nodded in acquiescence. “Well, aren’t you going to introduce me?”
Therese took a brief moment to beg Gaia for patience.
“Alright. So, that’s Inanna, Gil, and Bryn there on the couch. Owen and Mala are across from them. I think Liesey just went to the kitchen for more snacks? You know Hana. Over there, that’s Mab, and Grey. Jamie’s the one standing by the the mostly empty snacks. Everyone, this is my mom, Antonia Byrne.” Her friends, at least, had the courtesy to wave briefly in her mother’s direction when she said their names.
Her mom, however, remained completely, unusually, silent. Therese glanced out of the corner of her eye at her mom. Her mom looked - oh god, Therese thought, with a sinking feeling. She turned and took another look at her friends, with a less-familiar eye.
Grey had no shirt on. Mala was wearing her ridiculous glowing tentacle hat. Mab’s gloves were occasionally emitting small puffs of frost. Jamie was wearing a full set of deer antlers on his head, and Therese took a brief moment to be thankful she’d refused to let him in unless he took off the damn deer skull. Owen was comparatively normal dressed, which was possibly the worst thing Therese had ever had to admit in her life, but the bright pastels seemed downright tame compared to the others. Except, of course, for the blue hair and red eyes.
“It’s... a costume party?” Therese offered weakly. “Really relaxed, we didn’t want to go all out, but just, y’know, silly stuff.” Therese took a moment to wonder where the True Oblivion was when you needed it.
Sudden horror rose within her at the thought. Behind her mom, she caught Jamie’s eye and began gesturing wildly at the glasses of True Oblivion sitting on the snack table. Jamie grinned in sudden comprehension, tossing her a thumbs up and picked up... one glass of true oblivion, and moved to drink it.
Therese redoubled her wild gesturing. She did NOT want to explain her friend suddenly dropping dead in her apartment.
“Jamie, I believe Therese is trying to indicate that you should not engage in suicidal hijinks, as her mother is unlikely to get the joke,” Hana said.
Therese let her hands drop. Closed her eyes, and took a deep breath.
“I. Yes, Hana. That was what I was attempting to indicate.”
Therese could hear Inanna not even trying to hide her laughter. She considered, briefly, killing them all, motherly disapproval be damned.
“I... Joke?”
“Yeah. Jamie’s... he’s a real joker. A regular comedian. His favorite gag is “Play Dead.” I keep threatening to rename Bruno, my dog, after him, if he doesn’t cut it out,” Liesey said, emerging from the kitchen. Therese desperately mouthed “thank you” at Liesey, who shot her a discreet thumbs up.
Okay, so Therese was going to kill all of her friends except Liesey.
Jamie shrugged sheepishly, but at least seemed to finally get the hint and discreetly gathered up the True Oblivion.
“By the way, Therese, you’re lucky your mom showed up with chili,” Liesey said. “Are you aware that the only thing in your fridge is a bag labelled “Dimir Sausage”? Because it is. Also. Why the hell do you have that?”
“Oh, yeah. I forgot about that. I keep meaning to bring it in so we can figure out what all, exactly, is in it. Gladstone was curious, and to be totally honest, I don’t want to ask further questions after Gladstone’s curiosity. Come on, Mom, let’s heat up the chili.” Technically, it probably would have been more polite to do it by herself, but Therese was not going to leave her mom alone with her friends.
“You have sausage? Should we add it to the chili?”
“Definitely not,” Therese considered for a moment, and then, noting she could still hear Inanna laughing, added, “Maybe to Inanna’s. She just loves Silviu’s sausage.”
Inanna’s laughter abruptly cut off to indignant squawking, quickly replaced by Bryn’s laughter.
“Therese, next time you whine about needing someone with medic training, I’m gonna volunteer just so I can let you die,” Inanna said, once she caught her breath.
“Promises, promises,” Therese sing-songed, guiding her now somewhat scandalized mother into the kitchen. “Don’t mind Inanna. She’s always like that.”
“I... your friends joke about death a lot. Is that... normal? I thought you said your job wasn’t very dangerous.”
“I said it’s no more dangerous than any other job I’ve taken. Besides, don’t worry. We’ve got the best health care I’ve ever seen. It’s fine,” Therese said, rummaging through the cupboard to find a pot to heat up the chili in. She also considered that she should probably find a place to keep her spare chaos foci other than in the kitchen cabinets, as she shuffled no less than three aside to find her biggest pot.
Therese was just getting the chili to a simmer and convincing her mom that no, I’m not dating anyone, and definitely not anyone who’s here, please, I’m begging you, don’t interrogate them, because they WILL lie to you when she heard the TV turn on. She didn’t immediately think much of it, until she recalled why, exactly, she had decided to host a party with all of her terrible, terrible friends.
“QBL Media News. We are the world,” her television rang out.
No. They did not. They did not seriously turn that on. Nevermind that watching themselves on the small screen was the entire point of the get together, Therese rather thought it was common fucking sense that that feature of the evening’s entertainment would be cancelled with the unscheduled appearance of her mother.
“One second, Mom. Why don’t you watch the chili?”
Therese rushed out of the kitchen, to find that sure enough, her TV was set to the broadcast of QBL News announcing the identities of the Tokyo Bombers.
“What in the everloving fuck, you guys.”
“What? You and your mom were in the kitchen. It’s not like she can see the screen from the kitchen,” Mala pointed out.
“It was a fair point,” Jamie said.
Mab and Grey just shrugged. “We just figured we’d follow their lead.”
“And I mean, the whole point of getting together was to see our faces on the small screen. It didn’t seem right to just cancel that portion,” Inanna added. She looked entirely too smug.
“This apartment is not that big, you guys,” Therese hissed.
As if to prove her point, at that moment, her mom came wandering out of the kitchen. “What was that I heard, honey? Are you on the news?”
Therese was really, honestly, going to kill all of her friends. It was fine. They’d come back. That was the whole point of making immortal friends.
“Authorities have released images of the suspects,” the newscaster droned on, revealing a slideshow of - yes, all of her friends, including herself.
Her mom froze. Turned slowly, gazing cautiously at the oddly dressed group.
“Wow! Isn’t it great that you’re mom’s here to see you in that.. Uh... crime show? We all auditioned for?” Liesey offered.
Therese mentally swore to buy Liesey the nicest blood focus she could possibly find.
“Right!” Owen started, as if suddenly recalling he was supposed to be helpful. “I, uh, work for a talent agency! They needed some extras for the fake news broadcast, and I figured that, uh, Therese is pretty tough looking, so she’d be good for a dangerous lady.”
“And I mean, look at Inanna,” Therese added. “Frankly, I’m not convinced she hasn’t killed a dude.” At that, Inanna pointedly stepped on Owen’s foot.
“What the heck, Inanna?” he hissed. “I didn’t say anything?” She shrugged.
“Principle.”
Mab, grimacing apologetically, offered up: “We all wanted to get together to check out the preview tape that Owen picked up for us. That’s why Therese invited us all over.”
Therese waited in silence to see if her mom took the admittedly rather flimsy explanation. Her mother’s had slowly rose to cover her mouth, and Therese braced to try to figure out another excuse. (“Haha, I mean, you know what they say - everyone has a twin, right?” Yeah, that’d go over well.)
“Therese,” she gasped softly. “Why didn’t you tell me you’d taken up acting? You know how I love the theater!”
Therese honestly couldn’t decide which was worse: the way Owen’s eyes lit up at the thought of someone to talk theater to, or Inanna’s expression of incredulity that her mom actually bought that excuse.
Closing her eyes, she dropped bonelessly into the nearest chair. “Yeah, uh. Why don’t you just talk to Owen about it?” she said, and just prayed that the night would be over soon.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Title: May Death Never Stop You
Author: Aranhin
Fandom: Secret World Legends / The Secret World
Characters: A Handful of Bees
Words: 1824
The first time had hurt. Blinding pain, white hot oblivion, screaming until consciousness evaporated.
The second time had hurt. And the third. The fourth.
All of the times hurt - every time bleeding out on the pavement, or crushed by giant eldritch fists, or shot full of bullets. A sea of pain hot and bright, foggy and dark. Each new time brings a new gamut of agony, a new spike of adrenaline-panic, or blind terror, or shrieking desperation. Again and again and again, pain, then foggy darkness, then anima-bright gasps. Choking back to consciousness like a splash of cold water to the face and lungs.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: The Secret World, secret world legends
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Characters: Yumi "YumYum" Ryuuko, Maria "Pawful" King, Lynn "Niirah" Tennyson, Dragon Player Character (The Secret World)
Additional Tags: Found Family, Long Lost/Secret Relatives, apiarybuzzings
Series: Part 3 of Adventures of the Besties
Summary:
Fate works in strange ways. What are the odds of finding family halfway around the world from you?
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Title: Who’s Gonna Take You Home - or - Pining, pt. 2
Author: Aranhin
Fandom: Secret World Legends / The Secret World
Characters: Shani (mentioned), A Handful of Bees
Words: 1662
It's a Tuesday, early in the evening, and Mooney is drunk. Mooney is so drunk. Mooney is drunk in a way that he hasn't been since college, both in level of blood-alcohol content and also in level of mortifying-if-he-remembers-it-in-the-morning actions as well as words spilling forth from his mouth.
"I'm fucked, Yumi, absolutely fucked," he slurs, turning the cocktail glass in circles on the bar counter, mere inches from his face as he lay slumped over the bar in what couldn't have been a particularly comfortable position.
