a c c e l e r a t e d ;

“Why would I? What can I say, this is more entertaining then trash television.” she replied as she straddled the barrier, one foot on the same side as is, the other firmly on the ground the other side. The mention of her bloodlust had her eyes darkening a little, the dark circles that lined her hazel hues making her look more tired, pale skin making her look more like a vampire then she had ever looked as she looked at him beneath hooded lashes. She hadn’t understood what happened to her, had no idea how to control it and her fingers curled into fists at her side as she looked at him. “Smart mouth gonna get you into trouble one day darling don’t make it today, yes?”

“That seems like a pretty dumb idea,” Ronnie cleared her throat and stepped forward, “I mean, jumping- that is. I’ve read that it can be pretty painful to hit the water from such a height. You might end up shattering every bone in your body, maybe even paralyzing yourself. I guess worst case scenario, you end up dead. But hey, your choice.” She moved silently towards him and leaned against the railing, “I mean, if you’re gonna jump, would you mind sharing the alcohol? I’m gonna have to deal with a weird explanation to the authorities if I have to witness this.” Ronnie wasn’t trying to be rude or stand-offish, she was merely trying to lighten the mood. The truth was that she hardly knew this man, or his story, “Wanna enlighten me as to why you’re on that side of the railing?”  

“I won’t trust them.” She didn’t. She didn’t trust anyone, really, if she was being honest, but it seemed that maybe she trusted Wolfie. And maybe that made her want to bolt. Or puke. Or pretend that it wasn’t true. Trusting meant caring, and caring, even the smallest amount, meant that there was a very likely possibility she was going to end up hurt because of it. This was why she never made friends - she never got close enough to someone to let them see any side of her, let alone the side of her that gave a fuck. The side of her that was giving a fuck, against her better judgement. She shifted as his forehead came to rest against her shoulder, letting her hand rest against the side of his neck. It gave her easier access to push her powers through, to keep him as grounded as she could, even with the thoughts that kept flashing through. “It wasn’t your fault, Wolfie. About Winny. I don’t know a lot, but I know damn sure that it wasn’t your fault. Some things are bigger than us, some things are out of our fucking control.” There was a hefty amount of vehemence in her voice, because she meant the words that she spoke. It wasn’t easy for her to say. In fact, it was the worst topic of conversation that they could have stumbled upon. Flashes of her parents went through her mind, and she flinched, squeezing her eyes closed as she focus back on the room. On anything else. “Why would it be cosmic justice?” She asked, wanting the full story and wishing more than anything that he wouldn’t give it to her. She knew what he was talking about more than she wanted to admit. The guilt, the feeling of responsibility. Seeing their loved ones inside other people. She couldn’t count how many times she had seen her mother and father in other people and felt that there was no reason other than someone punishing her for all that she had done. “I’m fine. Besides, anything I would normally do tonight is entirely out of the question, so, it’s not like I have anywhere else to be.” 

It wasn’t your fault. He shook his head lightly, his thoughts coming to rest on the years that he spent fighting for her, fighting to save her. “It was my job to be the one to save her. It was all I had to do, I promised I would never abandon her, that I would get her out... and I broke that.” Hindsight 20/20 there was a million things he could have done. But traveling didn’t work that way, he could not change what he had already done, it was a mysterious block in their powers, in their abilities. After the explosion, their actions and the consequences that followed were final. As a result, he watched his best friend wilt away. He watched her wither, and there was no justice. Sunken eyes, stringy hair, dull skin, she was a sharp juxtaposition against the radiance and brilliance she had once been. The place had drained her, sucked the life from her, because the world had not understood. The world didn’t know. And Wolfie hadn’t quite gotten a grasp on his the power he had been given. Failures on so many levels and most of them attributed to Wolfie’s own shortcomings. “They called her crazy, I just... and now I certainly feel that. She wasn’t crazy, she was ill. But me -- this is craziness.”

The result of the fire at Jazzland had left everyone in a whirlwind. Nobody knew how or why it happened which was arguably even more terrifying than the traumatic event itself. With everyone in town on high alert and on edge, Ares was full of concern for his fellow travelers. He was aware of how much he had messed up in the past but the other five were all he had left now; they were the closest thing to family he would ever have and the overwhelming need to ensure they were all alright bubbled up inside the male the instant the fire had occurred. Following the ordeal, he had bumped into the others with the exception of Wolfgang. He’d heard on good authority that the traveler had been found on the pier but where was he right now? 

As Ares walked along the pavement near the pier, he swore he caught a glimpse of a shadowed figure by the water. His footsteps faltered as he came to a halt, squinting in the direction of the figure in his sight. It was dark and it was late and his curiosity was piqued as to why somebody would choose to stand so close to the blackness of the water. Resuming his steps, Ares’s limbs carried him toward the form until it came clearer into view. Wolfgang. With his brows furrowed, his pace picked up until he was a few feet from where the other traveler stood. “Dude,” Ares started as he approached the other from the side, “what on Earth are you doing out here?”

“Contemplating if I can travel before I hit the water,” Wolfie said honestly, and held out the bottle for the other. When it wasn’t immediately grabbed, he took another pull. Yeah good and drunk, really make a challenge, he thought as all the other fragments swirled around in his head. “Did you know that time moves differently in different realms?” Wait -- was that the real one or the fake one? He didn’t know. All the memories had gotten too mixed with something else that he could no longer determine what was real and what wasn’t. There was very much a real feeling to it. There were real memories and ones he traveled to see and others where he dreamt of it, and others that made no sense. It all swirled together in a cocktail that really wasn’t any fun to ingest. “Actually, I don’t know if that’s true. I’m not entirely certain what’s real anymore. Maybe nothing ever really was.” 

Pippa was not one to be around when in a crisis of some kind, she was in short, useless. Too cruel, too uncaring, too interested in what the effects the actions would have if allowed to continue to put a stop to it. Which is why she didn’t do what most respectable, decent citizens did. She could even hear the voices of those decent people in her head, no don’t do it, you have your whole life ahead of you. Psychobabble bullshit lifted straight from an overdramatic soap opera, and the sure thing to make the vampire roll her eyes in annoyance. Lifting her gaze back to the bartender, she moved to leaning her forearms on the railing. “So, you gonna jump or nah?” she shifted her wrist to look at her watch, before back up to him. “Just saying, you’ve been standing here for a while now.”

“So, you gonna piss off or nah?” Wolfie mocked, his eyes not even looking at her. “Just saying, you’ve been watching me for a while now.” He took another pull from the bottle and stared down at the water. He’d always flirted with the line of death and traveling, and it seemed that they were intertwined now. Finally, his head turned to look at her, “Or has the bloodlust... got ya.” His smile turned twisted, flirt with death here and flirt with death there, and flirt with hazel eyes that thought they could kill him. “Time bursting had funny effects on us all, huh?” It shouldn’t surprise anyone that Wolfie had a mean streak when he wanted to be, he’d done worse things than be mean.

Rushing back to the hospital, Diana paused when she saw someone on the bridge. As they stood up to get on the railing, Diana rushed towards them. Her voice wouldn’t escape fast enough as she snatched his shirt and pulled him off. “What on earth are you doing?!” She yelled, the rush of adrenaline all but stopped her from punching him. “Wolfgang- you- what- why?” She was lost for words until she saw the bottle and knocked it out of his hands. “Were you going to jump?!” Her heart was pounding, fear of losing one of her friends overwhelming her. “If you even dare to do that again… I’ll tell Astor. How could you be so reckless? Are you drunk?” 

As the bottle went flying, he felt his eyes trace where it went and heard it shatter on the concrete. He wasn’t only half mad, there wasn’t enough liquor left in it to be fully mad, but just irritated. Astor’s name just made him more irritated. Mentioning of being drunk just made him laugh. “No, absolutely not, that whole bottle just fucking evaporated and I poured a little out when I was contemplating whether or not to jump -- of course I am drunk. And, hey, you know, fuck Astor.” He shook her off, now in a surly mood and there could be a chance he’d get sober. He wasn’t usually this mean, this short-tempered, but the game of real or fiction was wearing on his nerves. “Do me a favor and just -- leave me alone.”

Jo could still feel it, the spinning head, the pounding temples, and the blood dripping from her ears after she’d returned to the liminal space, the burning in her lungs. It’d felt like taking a dive from a high spot but not getting back to the surface fast enough; it felt like drowning. 

     Where is Wolfgang? The question kept coming back. They found him at the pier. No, where was he now?

    Her legs were aching by the time she reached the bridge. It was a peculiar location, but nonetheless, her heart flooded with relief as they spotted the silhouette standing on the railings.  She knew it - it’d be both stupid and useless to try argue that them being pulled back had not been Jo’s fault. All that messing, all those changes, all those effects, and out of six, she’d been the one who had messed up with the timelines at such magnitude. That man had it right – she was a petulant child, through and through.

    “ Hey, Wolfgang ! ” she called as loud as her voice managed. The scent of liquor could be perceived from over where she stood? “ What the hell are you doing ? ”

Hey Wolfgang. That wasn’t God or any angel, but the way it echoed through his head made it seem like it was from some other world, other realm. He stared at the water while she asked what he was doing. He’d always entertained ending it all. Previous attempts had been thwarted, and it turned out that it was now quite difficult to end it for oneself. He lifted the bottle to his lips again, eyes not moving from the water until he took another long fucking pull. He’d never gotten alcohol poisoning either -- and he could drink. At last he stumbled away from the railing, and looked to the sky. He could see the stars -- blackness with a billion little flickers of light. “I wanted to see if I could travel before I hit the water.” He held out the bottle to her, offering her a drink. Everyone else might blame her, but Wolfie genuinely believed that he was maker of his outcome. “You look like you could use a drink.” He laughed. He couldn’t help it, he was losing his mind.

“You got out.” Out of where, that was an entirely different question, one that she would eventually get the answer for, but she had bigger fish to fry at the moment. Gritting her teeth against the wave of saliva, she would not throw up right now, she wrapped her fingers around his wrist. Focusing her thoughts again she kept projecting the room into his mind. She couldn’t let it falter until she knew that he was entirely in the present and not floating around in the universes that were filling his head. “I’m not going anywhere. I’m fine.” The new wave of visions almost took that statement and threw it out of the window, but in a spur of the moment thought she dug into herself, tapping into the healing powers and letting them flow out, targeting the panic. She didn’t know if it was going to work - she didn’t think that she had ever really used her healing powers, and they felt rusty, and hard to focus. If she wasn’t sober, she didn’t think that she would have been able to focus enough to even tap into the power, and she was reminded again that having her wits about her wasn’t the worst decision that she had ever made.  She didn’t know why she gave a shit - what did she care if she died? She shouldn’t. She shouldn’t give a shit about Wolfie, either, but there they were. “Winny?” She asked, wondering if getting him talking would make him focus more. It was a long shot, but she wasn’t an expert in time travel. If she was being honest, she still didn’t fucking understand it, and she was starting to think she may have been better off in the shitty New York City apartment she had been living in, slinging drinks in a low-cut top for money. “No one’s going to electrocute you. It’s 2017. I’m really glad your bathroom is clean because I’m probably gonna need it.” Even just the way that he was talking was making her head spin, and she narrowed her eyes slightly, still focusing her attention on both of her powers, and she had no idea how long she could keep it up. “Right now? Black. It’s late.”

“Can’t trust shrinks, okay? Don’t trust them. They just prolonged her suffering.” And his? Well, his was now stretching for three decades, he had spent more time suffering than being okay. There was still the rapid beating of his heart, his hands trembled, but his mind started to still as he latched onto the current place that he dwelled. Real? Was this real? It had to be -- he on;y saw her when it was real. But then, there was another Winny here, in this place, so how could he be certain? The second swell of clarity shoved all those thoughts aside, forcing him into the present, forcing him to anchor into this place. Black, it’s late. Time didn’t seem to change the murky yellow-green there. It felt like he was walking through a nuclear holocaust there, and he was the only one of his kind. No! That was fake! His eyelids fluttered and his forehead came to rest on her shoulder. “Winny is the reason for everything. She’s the reason why werewolves exist in this realm, she’s the reason why for everything I ever did, the reason why I am what I am. I was the only one she trusted, and I let them kill her, slowly.” That was the most he had ever spoken about her. “There is another Winny here, she’s a nurse, and I’ll be damn they look just alike. Cosmic justice, I think. All of this is just cosmic justice for everything I did and failed to do.” He paused. Being around him was dangerous, getting close was dangerous. Everyone’s life that he touched ended up in some sort of tragedy. “You should leave. I’ll be okay.” That wasn’t necessarily a lie, he always ended up being something of okay.

Had it been her choice, she wouldn’t have involved the cops at all. She still held a deep-seated mistrust for them since they had tried to lock her up for prostitution and landed her, well, here. A few too many days sober, just having recovered from the shaking and the puking, desperately needing a drink and knowing that she couldn’t have one. It seemed that to survive in the town she would need her wits about her, and she was nervous and jittery as they all stood there. She was doing her best to hold Wolfie upright, sagging slightly under the weight as the people around her debated the best course of action. “Oh, fuck off, that’s enough. He doesn’t need a fucking psychiatrist right now, he needs sleep.” She left no room for argument, employing a carefully placed thought in the sheriff’s mind as she lead Wolfie to the bar and up the familiar path to his room. She had been there almost more than she’d been in her own room, but she pushed those thoughts aside as she dumped Wolfie onto the bed, kneeling in front of him. Witnessing the blurred realities that he was experiencing was giving her the feeling that she had taken a hallucinogen, and it was enough to make her want to vomit. She had been blocking it for as long as she could, but she didn’t see him coming back from whatever tailspin he was in without help. “Hey, lad, you wanna look at me? Focus. Before you make me hurl.” She barely resisted the urge to snap her fingers in front of his face, instead putting her energy into projecting an image into his mind of his own bedroom, hoping to overwhelm the other things that he was seeing. “Focus. You’re in your room.”

Slowly, like a curtain being pulled away, like the tide receding, he could think past the layers and layers of transparency sheets that contained images he knew and some he didn’t, all moving with their own purpose. He sucked a breath in like he was just now tasting the air for the first time since the hands hand wrapped around his throat, shoved their fingers into his lungs. It was still fuzzy around the edges, but his vision snapped onto the piece of hair that was right in front of her lips. He latched it there, as his finger balled around the sheets, as if he could anchor himself without her help. He sucked in another breath, eyes wide, “I got out. I got out. I got out--” His voice dipped into a whisper of I got out as he searched around his room, his place, his heart hammering. Fake, real, fiction, biography, he couldn’t tell. “You should leave. I can’t stop this.” His fingers dug into his temple as he remembered all the blood, the smoke, builds torn by war. Wait -- no. Fake! “I suppose I deserve this -- I didn’t save Winny, I suppose this is fair. You know they electrocuted her?” His hands moved over his eyes, digging in, he remembered how cracked her lips were, how vacant her eyes were from the amount of drugs. “They’ll probably electrocute me. You should leave, Elle. The master bathroom is clean. What year is it?” Nothing made sense, too many questions. Ash in his nose. Blood on his hands. The sky was mauve with debris and smoke and pollution. “What color is the sky?” I fucked up good this time.

The world around him seemed to be like cellophane. Malleable, frosted when he looked at it, the vision distorted and moving too quickly. Flashlights had buzzed in his vision, voices whirled past him and the scenery changed, but he was unable to latch onto any of it. Where was he? His fingers clasped onto someone, a chock of red hair that he instinctively knew, in attempt to stop the feeling of time slamming past him. What do you remember? Nothing. He needs to see a psychiatrist. (Frontier psychiatry?). He was losing his mind, and he was scrambling in attempt to put it back. Wolfie recognized a blanket, the fur of a dog, his fingers immediately going to rub the ears. His vision shook, his hands shook, everything shook. It looked like he was home -- was this a bad trip? Why wouldn’t it stop? He needed it to stop.

“I don’t know. I still don’t - this whole - this whole time thing, it’s too much for me.” The thought of the ability to jump through times and realities and liminal spaces, they made her head spin. She had never been scientifically minded, she didn’t understand anything about astrophysics or what the Travelers had really done. Clearly, something had gone wrong, and she had no idea what it was, or if it would ever be fixed. “Wolfie, just breathe for a second. There are mistakes that can be undone, there’s situations that can be fixed. You all were smart enough to do - this - whatever it is -” She said with a wave of her hand, her voice firm. “You can fix it. You just have to believe in yourself.” 

“Smart?” He shook his head, the gravity of everything starting to fall on him. “We were either arrogant, or spiteful, or just overlooked -- we didn’t make ourselves time travelers because we had noble intentions. We wanted a prize.” He was willing to admit that much. His voice cracked, and he shook his head again. “Tessa, I just wanted the money from the prize to put into research for a friend.” He left out that that friend’s spitting image was in town and he was stressed the fuck out over that -- among things. “This is out of our league. You don’t see some consequences.” He wasn’t even containing just how much he wanted to jump out of his skin these days.

She chewed on her fingernail as he spoke, biting down the piece of her that wanted to comment that he was right. They had been much to young to make such decisions without thinking of the consequences, in the same way that the witches had been too young to meddle with things that they didn’t understand when they had created the Moon Servants and the Blood Cursed. Hundreds of years of deaths and the destruction of lives due to one night - one ceremony, one decision that had completely changed her life forever, and the lives of all those around her who had been killed or turned at her hands. “What’s done is done. There’s no reason to beat yourself up about something that’s in the past, now. All we can do now is work together to try and fix this." 

His head tilted and he bit his lip, eyes locking back on her screen. “The past becomes the present, Tessa. Which one of us did this? Which one of us brought this here?” This thing, whatever it was, was mad. Livid at what had been created and hell bent on destroying every last thing that they held dear. Gill had created more of these spaces, but this one, this was the best. “It’s not just a singular isolated fuck-up that made this Tess. It’s a long line of fuck-ups. How can we forgive ourselves for that? When it threatens to now destroy the one thing that is acting like something like a paradise?” It was true, he hadn’t been happy in a long time, and he still wasn’t. But he was thinking he could be. Which was something.

“Will do.” He didn’t know those were words she lived by her whole life: always alert, always observant, never letting her guard down. It was what her mother and father had ingrained in her – she knew no other way of life. Of course, at some point, she did her let her guard down, and that was not a mistake she would make again. The hunter in you is never gonna die, is it? she couldn’t help but think. 

Lana chuckled at this last comment. “Hey, you never know. If you keep practicing, you can one day – probably very far into the future – kick my ass.” 

And she didn’t know that all the fighting, the alcohol, all the drugs, the women, they were just ways to keep himself distracted. He didn’t want to be aware. He didn’t want to see what was coming. If it was coming for him, and he hoped it was, then he was ready to accept that. Things like him did not deserve to live forever. It was a curse, to be immortal, and truly unable to do anything with it. They called him a genius, but he really wasn’t. He was gifted at math and physics -- geniuses changed the world. He snorted at her, “Yeah, okay. But that’s not really a goal. I’m not really a fighter.”