Daydreaming

“So?” Barbara asked to break the silence.

Mikey sat across from her, running his finger through the condensation on his water glass with his brows pulled tight and his mouth pressed in a thin line like he’s trying to keep the words from spilling out, words he was desperate to tell her only yesterday.

Finally, he looked at her, opened his mouth, and let out a rush of air along with a single word, “So…”

And, like, really? He was really going to torture her like this? She wanted to grab him and shake him, but she shoved the impulse aside because they were in public, and instead pummeled him with questions, “What are we doing here, Mikey? What do you want to talk about? Where have you been for the last month?”

He sat up straighter then, wiped his hands on his jeans and said, “I’ll tell you. I promise. But can we talk about you first?”

“Me?”

“Yeah, how are classes? Work? Are you doing okay?”

She stared at him incredulously. Something weird had been going on with him lately. She didn’t like it. She also didn’t like the implication in his tone. “I’m fine. I am capable functioning without you.”

“I never said you weren’t. I’m just checking in. I know I haven’t been around much, and I’m sorry for that, but it doesn’t mean I don’t still care.”

She deflated a bit at that. At the softness in his eyes and the sincerity in his voice. Sometimes it was impossible to hold on to her anger around him. She nodded slightly, conceding that perhaps a conversation would be more effective than an interrogation. For now. “I’m doing good. A couple of classes have been tough, and it’s been hard to focus on studying. The house is too quiet without you there. But it’s nothing I can’t handle. Mostly, I just miss you.”

“I miss you too.” He gave her a small smile that she couldn’t help but return.

Their waitress, a bubbly woman with dark hair pulled high into a messy bun, showed up then. She set their tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches in front of them with a smile and told them to give her a holler if there’s anything else they need before disappearing into the familiar hustle and bustle of the diner.

“So,” Mikey said around a bite of his sandwich, “are you going to tell me about that guy at the library?”

Barbara stopped mid-opening a packet of saltines and looked up at him. He crooked an eyebrow at her, and she thought about playing dumb, but knew it wouldn’t get her very far. She crushed the crackers into her soup and stirred them around as she answered, “Nothing to tell really. I don’t know him. I just think he’s… interesting.”

“Interesting?”

“Yeah. I mean, he goes to Britechester, but he studies at the public library four days a week rather than the university library. He’s studying microbiology, but he’s always pouring through books about Selvadorada. The culture, geography, rare plants, myths, all kinds of stuff. He’s so focused and smart and quiet. So quiet. I’ve never heard him speak. But he stares off sometimes and I can tell his mind is just spinning with thoughts, and I want to know every one of them. I want to be the person he tells all his thoughts to.” She stopped. Her face felt like it was on fire. She hadn’t meant to say that last part out loud.

Thankfully, Mikey didn’t try to embarrass her. He just breathed a laugh through his nose and said, “That’s quite a crush.”

“Yeah, well,” she shrugged, a gesture of nonchalance that was doomed to fail given her previous statement.

“Are you going to do anything about it?”

“I don’t know.” She hesitated for a moment before deciding to continue. He was, after all, the only person she could talk to about this. “He always has this little toy car with him.”

Mikey froze, but didn’t say anything.

“He puts it on the desk while he works. Sometimes he holds it, running his thumb over the tires. But most the time, it just sits there. I think it could work.”

He sighed, “Why can’t you just talk to him like a normal person?”

“I will. I just want to get a sense of him first. If you were smart, you’d do the same thing with Katie.”

“Her name is Catherine. And I’m not going to do that. You never should have done that.”

“I’m glad I did. Mikey, if you felt what I felt, you’d understand.”

“It was just a dream! It doesn’t mean anything. This, right here,” he knocked on the table as if to make a point, “you and me, awake, this is what’s real.”

“I know that. But this being reality doesn’t make dreams meaningless. They’re a window.”

“Not the way you think. They’re memories. Distorted and jumbled. They can be interpreted a million different ways. But most of all, they’re private. We don’t belong in other people’s heads.”

She slumped. She couldn’t argue with him on that, not without sounding awful, and he knew it. But that didn’t mean she believed there wasn’t a middle ground. Because, selfishly, she did want to get a sense of Gabriel. And after spending thirty seconds in Catherine’s head, she felt it was important now more than ever. Because people manipulate, and they lie. But dreams, distorted and jumbled though they could be, were honest.

They finished their meal in silence, saying nothing until their waitress came by and they thanked her as she stacked their dishes and took them away.

“So, are you going to tell me where you’ve been or what?” Barbara finally asked because she wasn’t going to let him get away with leaving without fulfilling that promise.

Mikey nodded and leaned forward on his elbows, “Okay, but I need you to promise me that you’ll listen before you react. Set your judgments aside because I really need you to be happy for me. Or at least supportive.”

She didn’t know what to make of that. She scanned his worried expression. What could possibly… Oh no. Oh no. “Oh my god, Mikey, please tell me Catherine isn’t pregnant.”

“What? No! Is that really the first place your mind goes? We haven’t even… done… that.”

She laughed, mostly in relief, “What are you, saving yourself for marriage?” She’d meant it as a joke, but the way Mikey looked at her told her that was exactly what he was doing, and she laughed again, “Seriously? She does know you’re not a virgin, right?”

He sighed, that exasperated one she knew so well, the one she sometimes thought he reserved only for her, “Yes. She knows that. So does her father.”

She nearly choked, “I’m sorry, what?!”

“It’s not… He’s on the church council, so it’s unavoidable. Listen, that’s what I’m trying to tell you. I’ve been in Willow Creek, preparing to join the church. I told them everything… about my life so far. Prayed. Repented. It’s a whole process of shedding the life of sin and stepping into a new one. To walk in the Light of God.”

Barbara was speechless.

She knew Catherine was religious. She knew Mikey had been going to church with her on weekends in an attempt to be supportive. But this. This, she didn’t know what to do with. She’d never heard him talk like this before. They grew up in a secular household. Their parents were academics. Atheists even. Though, it’s not like she couldn’t understand. At least a little bit. When Dawn passed away, even Barbara questioned things. Wanted to believe in something more. Some grand design or purpose. But she knew there were no concrete answers to be had, and organized religion always gave her the ick, so she settled comfortably in agnosticism.

“B? Will you say something, please?”

She opened her mouth. Closed it again. Her voice trapped between his need for support and her need to ask him if he’d lost his fucking mind. But then one thought came barreling through in a rush, “You told them everything?”

He closed his eyes, as if he couldn’t bear to look at her when he said, “Everything.”

“Traveling?”

He nodded and opened his eyes again. “But it’s okay. I promise.”

“How is that okay?”

“They’re going to help me. Make sure it never happens again.”

“What? How? Why? I… Mikey, how many times do I have to tell you? This is a gift. It’s not a curse.”

“I disagree.”

He said it so simply that she didn’t know how to respond.

He reached out and put a hand over hers, “My baptism is on Sunday. I really want you to be there. Listen to them. Just once. And I promise you’ll understand.”

The depth of sincerity in his eyes terrified her for reasons she couldn’t quite understand. She didn’t know how she was supposed to react. Of course, he was allowed to believe in whatever he wanted to believe in. But who the fuck were these people, and could they really take away his ability to Travel?

She already felt like they were growing apart, moving in two different directions, and it made her sad, angry, maybe a little jealous, but this… This was different. She felt like a part of her was being ripped away and she couldn’t take it.

She pulled away from him and shook her head, “I’m can’t. I’m sorry. I have to go.”

And she left.

Prev // Next

Prev | Next

AN: 40 isn't old and George is dramatic asf (George deserves to get bullied though so its ok) 👹

The kitchen was obviously not an ideal location for a corpse, but Amos Gibbons had been paranoid. Anytime he was in the same room as Ben, his soul refused to shut up, prattling on about everything from the problems with the drinking water to a conspiracy about aliens and some military base. 

With barely a wisp of magic, Ben flicks him out of the way. Amos's body careens into the wall, barely missing the television and jostling the microwave.

Instantly, the neighbor, Mrs. Hobson, bangs on the wall. “For the love of llamas, Amos! This is the last time you pull this shit! I’m calling the cops!”

Ben sighs. Partly because the fridge is empty of alcohol, and partly because of the yelling. This was definitely a sign that it was time to find another apartment. Preferably, one large enough that he and the dead could co-exist peacefully, driven by the shared goal of Ben avoiding rent and them getting a few final tasks done while hiding from the reapers.

Although Amos’s task list was extensive. Ben had long given up any pretense of working on it. Maybe that’s why the man didn’t even try to avoid making a sound.

Ignoring the insistent tug of his ex-roommate’s soul—Amos was not yet a ghost—Ben manages to dress quickly. He avoids the cops with something the fae would call glamour, but he simply calls a mortal aversion to anything with a whiff of the uncanny.

It’s obvious from their less-than-enthusiastic knock that the only reason they responded so quickly was to stop Mrs. Hobson from calling every five minutes. Lucky for them, they were about to get their wish.

Her doctor told her all that yelling was going to give her a heart attack, and he was right. 

The ripple over his skin from Patricia L. Hobson’s untimely passing is enough to get Ben moving, winding through the streets of Evergreen Harbor. 

As he walks, he wonders if Alice has been to the Netherworld and if it feels like home yet. Realms were a loophole the Devil negotiated. They lay adjacent to the flow of time, which made them exempt from culling and the Divine’s influence. He’d built the Netherworld lovingly. It was a hodgepodge, sure, and there were some (many) unfinished bits. But it was a respite from an ever-changing world. 

Oh, but what if she hated the Netherworld?

This Alice was not the same as the last Alice, or even the first Alice he knew. Her every incarnation was a shadow of her first self until now, so many timelines later, she was a muted version of that girl from Strangerville who shared a body with a god and got a never-ending loop of reincarnation for her trouble. 

Ben hadn’t meant to pass on his godhood. At first, her body was simply a hiding place. The target on his back, combined with his (allegedly) annoying personality, made lying low a necessity.

But they got along, and he didn’t want her to die when he left, so he asked for help. The Devil worked out a way around the divine laws. A few whispered vows and quick bursts of dark magic later, and Ben had a new job, and Alice was the god who took his place.

—A living god, who could still technically die (Ben had sort of failed on that part), but at least when she did, she belonged to herself, and so she came back. 

Actually, it was sort of great. Alice’s rebirth never appeared until sometime in the 20th century. It usually took her decades to even figure out that something was going on, and by that time, Vladislaus had usually found her, so staying alive wasn’t a problem.

It was true that she and Vlad were usually at the center of the apocalypse. It had been that way since Akira disappeared. But gods understood that she was the key to even the barest amount of stability, so they intervened to protect her.

Okay, yes, sometimes they had tried to kill her, but that hadn’t happened for many timelines. These days, they tended to get along by completely ignoring each other and eking out some approximation of “living.” Did that mean he had been effectively getting divorced for the equivalent of an eon? Sure. But Ben was still pretty attached to his ex-wife.

He was a mess, but he loved Elmyra. Not despite her being the Goddess of War, but because of it.

And yes, he slept with Omar’s husband, but a man had needs, and everyone knew they were on the verge of falling out anyway. They’d been living separately for ages, and frankly, Bromios (Bro, as he preferred to be called now) was objectively gorgeous and, as the God of Revelry, a lot more fun than Omar. It might sound like the God of the Sun would have a friendly disposition, but he does not.

And anyway, Omar was definitely having an affair with some mortal—Calvin or Cameron or whatever.

Listen, Ben knows he did a shitty thing, okay? But he spent most of his experience desperately trying to find his footing. He couldn’t settle into a world anymore unless he was numb, and while he had experimented with a drug habit in a few timelines, he really was trying to give that up.

For whatever reason, he kept waiting for the other shoe to drop, even though he knew that nothing truly earth-shattering was ever going to—

Wait.

He glances down at his drink but surreptitiously slides his gaze over to a group of sims watching the TV and placing bets. Why were they betting on a game that already happened? 

Just as he’s trying to figure that out, a woman bursts into the bar. That alone isn’t odd, but the tiny motes of time magic slipping from her shoulders are.

“Is Titania here?” Her voice is panicked. 

“Kibo?” the bartender laughs as he continues pouring drinks. “Small thing? Perky tits. Bad attitude? She dances at Desire on the weekends. Better tips.”

The woman falters. “Y-your…your ears.”

“Uh, yeah, obviously, you’ve seen a fae if you know Titania. What is your problem?”

"Besides, you objectifying her for literally no reason? For your information, I know her from the library," she snaps.

"Yeah, and she is also a dancer with great tits. If I had great tits, I'd work at Desire too. Money is gross but necessary, and you really can't replicate the party atmosphere anywhere else. It's good eating." He shakes his head. "Mortals are such prudes."

The woman mumbles to herself—something Ben can't quite make out. She seems to be handling the information about her friend well, but then she turns and sees him.

He lowers the bottle from his mouth. “Don’t scream. You’ve just seen a time loop, so now you can see—”

She screams.

“—Everything,” he finishes as she runs out the door.

Barbara’s head slumped down for the third time in as many minutes. She jerked it back up with a sigh and tried to refocus on her textbook. History had never been her favorite subject, but this was the first time her solid ‘A’ average had been threatened. She had never got a ‘B’ in her life, and she wasn’t going to start now. It was a slippery slope. With a shake of her head, she looked up at the clock to check the time. 4:17 She smiled to herself. Gabriel would be there soon. The realization filled her with renewed energy, and she returned to her textbook, refusing to look toward the entrance.

If she was caught watching the doors when he walked in, he may think she was waiting for him, and that would be far too embarrassing. Because she wasn’t waiting for him. Not really. Not like that. She just appreciated the consistency of his routine. She’d grown to anticipate the moment he walked through the door. The way he would stop at the same shelf to pull the same books that he returned the evening before and sit at the desk by the far window to continue working on… whatever it was he was working on. She’d never had the courage to ask. Or to speak to him at all, for that matter. He didn’t seem the type that wanted to be bothered.

The only reason Barbara knew Gabriel’s name, and the fact that he went to her school, was because she happened to mention him to Imogen, her friend and former roommate, who somehow found his student profile within minutes of Barbara describing him.

One minute Barbara was going on about his dark hair and eyes, and the way he tended to cover his mouth with his hand—gripping it tight with his brow furrowed, or scraping his thumbnail along his lower lip as he stared off with unfocused eyes—and the next minute, those eyes were staring back at her from Imogen’s screen. “That him?” she had asked.

“Yes. How did you do that?”

“It’s a gift,” Imogen shrugged like it was nothing, “His name is Gabriel Russo. He’s a grad student, majoring in Microbiology.”

When Barbara caught herself daydreaming yet again, she stretched and chanced another glance at the clock. 4:21 Apparently, this day was never going to end. Giving up, she pushed her textbook aside and decided to start scanning the books from the return bin instead. Might as well work while, you know, at work.

The doors opened a minute later, briefly letting in a draft of cool air and the smell of wet concrete. It was raining again. Not a heavy rain, just a quiet drizzle. Barbara smiled to herself, waiting for Gabriel to walk by before she would allow herself to glance up and watch him navigate his now familiar path through the shelves. But he didn’t walk by. Instead, soft footsteps walked closer and stopped behind her.

She was about to turn around and ask if the person needed help when they knocked on the counter. Three knocks, to be precise, in quick succession. Followed by two slow knocks. Left then right. Michael. Mikey, to her. Her twin brother. And the last person she wanted to deal with right now.

She turned to him, her face going from customer-service-smile to you’re-dead-to-me-glower so fast that she wasn’t sure if she was successful. For good measure, she added a succinct, “Fuck off,” and turned her chair back around.

“B,” he said, sounding more exasperated than he had any right to.

“I’m sorry,” he tried again when she didn’t respond.

Barbara went back to scanning the books, one by one, “I’m working.”

“If you’d answer my calls, I wouldn’t have to bug you at work.”

Now that pissed her off.

She whirled around on him, no doubt she was giving him the full force of her glower this time, “We live together, asshole. You could come home some time.”

He took a deep breath as if he needed to gather strength before saying, “Can we just talk, please?”

“I’m working,” she said again through gritted teeth.

“Can we meet for lunch tomorrow?”

“Depends. Is Katie going to be there?” She infused all the bitterness she felt into the name. It was rare these days for her brother to be without his girlfriend. Barbara wouldn’t be surprised if she was waiting for him outside, and the thought made her tense.

He rubbed a hand over his face and sighed, exasperated all over again, “No, Catherine will not be there. Just you and me.”

Barbara was going to dig in deeper, but was distracted when the doors opened and Gabriel walked in. She stared for a beat longer than she intended and he glanced at her. Not just glanced. He smiled. Okay, more like the smallest quirk of one corner of his mouth, but it felt like the sun bursting through her cloud-covered day and made her heart trip over itself.

She looked back at Mikey, but he was looking curiously at Gabriel as he walked away, and she wanted nothing more in that moment than for Mikey to leave.

“Fine,” she said, pulling his attention back to her. “Lunch. Tomorrow.”

“Who’s that?” he asked.

“He’s no one.”

“Liar.”

“He’s none of your business.”

“That’s how it’s going to be now?”

“Yep.”

He sighed yet again in that way of his. As if talking to her had depleted all his energy stores and then some. “Noon. Our usual spot.”

“Can’t wait,” Barbara said without an ounce of sincerity.

Prev // Next

Ben (he hadn’t been B’Ollithiranon in a very long time) tosses the phone down and slides back on the bed. He lied to Parker, not about Sulani—the end for his friend was coming, but they still had time to travel. He lied about Melisandre. She might’ve been the worst creature he’d known in all his long life.

Although “life” was kind of a misnomer. Ben wasn’t alive because he couldn’t die.

No god could. 

He lets out a dry laugh at the thought. The gods petitioned the Divine for the chance once. The Creators, though, were adamantly against it. The dead belonged to the God of Death, and no god could belong to another god. The imbalance of power would unmake the world. 

They did not mention the imbalance of power that already existed by their own action. 

They were so eager to make sims, so enamored of their mortal creation that they did not hesitate to let the oldest of the gods create more beings. Spellcasters, werewolves, vampires, fae, mermaids, and everything in between wreaked havoc at first. In searching for the right tool to force the gods to rein in their progeny, the Divine Creators landed upon death.

Every living thing dies, they decreed. Even supernatural creatures with their long life spans or immortality could be welcomed into Death’s embrace, could belong to it. But gods did not live. If they faded, if they were culled or forgotten, then gods did not get death. 

Gods got nothing.

The message was clear: control your spawn, or they will go where you cannot follow. The message the gods absorbed was to paint a target on Ben’s back. 

The most egregious part was that necromancy was a near-useless power when Ben was young. Death was for clearing out the harvest, and resurrection was for bringing it back. He had been a gardener, not a god.

Although no one was a god at first. Sims and Supernaturals came up with that. When there were only a few beings with enough power to do the impossible, it made sense to call them gods. But in the old tongue, the dead one that no one speaks anymore, the word for “god” didn’t even exist.

In that language of Ben’s youth, when there weren’t just a couple like him, but hundreds of thousands; they were called Made. Premade, if they were very old. 

Existence wasn’t a curse then. That came because of the war. 

Ben was a child when it happened; he’s sure of that. He can remember Somnus, the God of Sleep, snatching him up and fleeing a burning tower. But even Diego, as Somnus now called himself, couldn’t recall what the tower looked like or what the war was even about.

The Divine Creators had broken apart the very essence of time and space and wove a new set of circumstances. As a result, the Made and the Premade like him—the ones that endured—were left with memories that functioned like half-finished autobiographies written by someone who was largely incoherent. 

The Divine called it culling, but that was a pretty set of syllables to hide the horror. In the new timeline, the world was similar but also different in ways the Made and Premade could not articulate. If there were less of them, if there were buildings missing, or rituals gone, no one could confirm it. The loss they felt was an unnamed placeholder. 

Now, it had been ages since that first timeline—that first world. It was hard to know how many he’d been through. Hundreds? Thousands? 

Once the world was full of gods, and now there were just under twelve, with a few demigods and aberrations thrown in for good measure.

Some timelines, they avoided each other completely. In others, they were so driven by rage or ennui that they created any number of horrors. Hence, the plagues and the Dark Ages and their most recent monstrous achievement, Operation Eternal Flame. 

What a mess this existence was. 

Ben lets the dark thoughts wash over him a little while longer before he hauls himself out of bed. He heads for the kitchen to grab a barley bale or six.

Sober was no way to endure an endless existence. 

PREV |  NAVIGATION | NEXT

Transcript

The Spice District; San Myshuno, USA

{Text from Clara: Dulce! How are you enjoying the city so far, dear?}

{Texts from Dulce: We just landed, but I love it already 😍 Auntie Hilary challenged me to try food from every stall I possibly can before I leave}

{Texts from Clara: 😯 You should listen to her. The local cuisine is divine. However.. 😊 Do you have time to fill in as a judge for my baking class? We had one fall through.}

{Text from Dulce: OMG!! For you? Of course!!}

[Fortunately, the class’s exam is scheduled the same day that Antonio has a deposition, so their plans remain completely unaffected.]

DULCE: I mean, I hope nothing terrible happened to the original judge, but this is a fantastic opportunity. My expertise is being sought!

ANTONIO: I’m excited for you. How do you know Clara, by the way?

DULCE: She’s been friends with my mom since I was little. Her students are lucky to have a kind and wise instructor like her.

Transcript

Somewhere in the sky

DULCE: What’s the matter?

ANTONIO: I think Selene snatched my neck pillow before I left...

DULCE: At least she didn’t become a stowaway again.

ANTONIO (nods): I triple-check my suitcase now.

DULCE: But you forgot to triple-check your backpack for the pillow.

ANTONIO: I was going to in the cab, but I got distracted when I saw that the restaurant down Starlight Boulevard is up for sale.

DULCE: Oh yeah, it is.

ANTONIO: You knew this? So, you’re going to buy it?

DULCE: I..... I don’t know, to be honest.

ANTONIO: You changed your mind?

After you’ve been eyeing it for an eternity?

DULCE: I thought I’d be eyeing it for a little longer. The owner retired sooner than I expected.

ANTONIO: Which is bad because...?

DULCE: With everything I’m putting my money into right now, I’m hesitant about making such a huge purchase like that.

DULCE: It’s tough. I keep going back and forth because it’s now or never if I want that property. My financial advisor reassured me that I make more than enough to justify the purchase, but...

DULCE: I worry. What if something unexpected happens down the line, and then I’m left struggling to stay afloat and having to make tough cuts?

ANTONIO: Oh....

DULCE: I’m sorry if this is weird for you, but you know I don’t hold anything against you, right?

ANTONIO: I know. And it isn’t weird.

DULCE: I’m probably overthinking.

ANTONIO: Your feelings make sense given what you’ve been through. If you’re really not comfortable spending more, that’s fine.

ANTONIO: But you need to remember that you’re not alone. If another lowlife with nothing better to do comes after you, we’ll deal with them.

ANTONIO: Whatever you need, I’m here.

DULCE: Thank you.

DULCE: All I need right now is to rest my eyes.

ANTONIO: Me too. Come here.

DULCE: Are you using my head as a pillow?