Vlad talks over pancakes. He explains the pointy-eared man. He explains the light and the smoke and the way he’s noticed a glimmer popping up in the corner of his eye. He explains his theories, his anxieties, and the worst part of the whole thing—his attraction because it was inconvenient to be turned on by someone who might be imaginary.
They don’t dismiss him. They don’t argue.
“The world is a complicated place,” Nikolas says.
“You have systems,” Josef says, “You need to use them. You need to be tethered, or else you’ll float away.”
It’s the same thing he’s been told since he was a child. Vlad finishes his plate and curls up with his father on the couch while Nikolas gets a fire going. “I’m tired.”
“Of course you are,” Josef rustles Vlad’s hair, “Since you was a baby you never slept. You been riding all day and thinking non-stop. You need rest. You get cranky if not, hell, we all do.”
“But it’s not just sleep,” Vlad insists. “I feel on the cusp of something big. Like something is about to shift and I’ve just been waiting my whole life for it. But now I’m tired of prowling and pacing and waiting for it to come.”
“Soon,” Nikolas soothes when he sits down. “You just be patient. World is complicated, but things become clear when they’re meant to. In the meantime, I ever told you about the time I was chasing a target, and they ducked down a mine shaft?”
He has, but Vlad lets his grandfather tell it anyway because it's a good story.
---
It takes a few more days before Vlad feels like he’s back to himself. They’re strange days. He sleeps a lot. He hears his parents argue, not the usual shouting obscenities and making idle threats, but the hushed whispers that tell him it's about something real.
He meets William for that barley bale.
He manages to turn in the bare minimum of his assignments—mostly perfunctory since he intends to cheat his grades, but it’s a good exercise.
And he does catch up with Alice. He wishes he’d done it sooner. Yes, he’s still seeing an attractive pointy-eared man who might possibly be imaginary, but keeping track of her requires his undivided attention.
Like now when she was supposed to meet him at the Commons over an hour ago. Vlad can tell she was here because she’s forgotten her headphones.
It was something other sims noticed, too.
—To their detriment.
He finally locates Alice in the graduate dorm study room. “Greetings, Magpie. I’m sorry I was away for so long. I wasn’t feeling well.”
She whirls around, “Oh shit! What time is it? How late am I? I’m sorry! Are those my headphones?”
“Yes,” Vlad says, handing them over. "And don’t worry; I entertained myself. What are you doing?”
“Nothing!” She groans. “Well, not really nothing. I need to research that secret society I’ve been tracking, but I don’t read or do books. I mean, I can, but it’s hard.“ Her head dips, and she tries to avoid his gaze. “I usually use a voice reader for anything long or listen to audiobooks, but for whatever Watcher-forsaken reason, the research machine doesn’t have a headphone jack or even Bluetooth. So now I’m stuck.”
“Would you like help?”
“I’m not stupid,” she replies fiercely.
“And you like books,” he adds, arching a brow. “You simply use an alternate method to read. I think you need an assistant. And as it turns out, I love traipsing through endless reams of text and boring books.”
Immediately, her eyes light up. “So, I’m the boss of you?”
The delight etched across Alice’s face at the idea of being in charge of him is enough to send Vlad into the stratosphere. It also spawns a fantasy that makes his pulse race. Something inside him unwinds and stretches. It wraps fingers around his rib cage and peers out past his heart, pleased and bound.
“Yes, I do very well with specific instructions. Feel free to demand whatever you want.”
Once again publicly thanking St. Joseph for assisting me in getting a job that I petitioned him for, fulfilling part of my end of the contract.
If you practice folk magic or witchcraft too (and don’t have a problem working with christian spirits) and need a job I cannot recommend his novena enough, he’s always been a great spirit to work with whenever I’ve been unemployed and needed a job badly!
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(note: I’m not a catholic tumblr trying to evangelize or whatever, I’m just a gay heretic sorcerer fulfilling my end of a pact by publicly thanking/recommending him. Tradcats DNI)
a lot of satanism + demonolatry blogs have been uncovering themselves as TERFs/transphobes recently. i’m not gonna name any of them as most people will have already seen them, but as a trans person it’s really fucking scary.
this blog is 100% safe for trans women, trans men, non-binary people and everyone in between. TERFs are not welcome here, and will be dealt with accordingly :)
my pink holographic tarot deck is waiting for me but i'm fucking couchbound right now and cant make the half mile to the package room......unbelievably fucked up
was cleaning behind my hot water tank and found this??? ive never seen this before and its not in an easily accessible area... any idea what kinda symbol this is?
