#agent crowley

it’s a long way down, a long way down - a holy hell au inspired by the creep series

there are stories are stories on stories on stories about matches made in heaven. about two pure souls destined for the other, finally reaching a ‘happily ever after’ after going through trials and tribulations that, honestly, are played out and boring.

that’s exactly what fergus macleod would tell you, anway.

he’s been inhabiting his mortal coil for a few decades now, engaging in his favorite activity--serial murder.

but lately, something has--gone out.

he’s lost his light. his passion for killing.

so he gets an idea, and puts out an ad for a videographer.

he’ll make a documentary, he decides. a magnum opus to relight the blood and the violence that had brought him so much joy over the years.

what he didn’t expect was andi.

not her beauty. not her courage. not her wit, sharp enough to make a god bleed.

and not her fangs, and a thirst to rival his--even if her moral compass was a bit more lawful.

enough of stories about matches made in heaven.

talk to me about a match made in hell.

(these--particular films are not easy watches, though i personally enjoy them. the sequel is my favorite, but remember when i said ‘explicit sexuality’ in the first warning post? the especially applies to creep 2. when i imagined this au it was less in-line with the main narrative of the movies and more, say, a meet-cute story you’d overhear at an addams’ family function.)

mini soundtrack sampler includes: lovelytheband, ‘buzz cut’ + catfish & the bottlemen, ‘longshot’ + albert natural, ‘sara loves her juicy fruit’

red sun rises like an early warning - an ancient cares au inspired by sleepy hollow

sleepy hollow was often called a “sleepy” village, in the way that meant that nothing ever happened there. marie van tassel, daughter of the richest man in town--and immediately intrigued by the arrival of one police constable walter vaughn, sent all the way from new york city--would disagree. especially in recent years.

the headless horseman had returned.

and marie, for all the occult studying she’d done far from the gaze of her father’s watchful eyes, still so haunted after her mother’s brutal and untimely passing--couldn’t figure out why.

she knew exactly who he was. what he was. but why had he returned? what had woken him?

and could see really be that mournful, when it had sprung start the machinations of fate that brought walter right to her doorstep?

“i have shed my tears for boom... and yet my heart is not broken. do you think me wicked?”

“no... but perhaps there is a little bit of witch in you, marie.”

“walter, why do you say that?”

“because you have bewitched me.”

mini soundtrack sampler includes: frank sinatra, ‘witchcraft’ + creedence clearwater revival, ‘i put a spell on you’ + the rolling stones, ‘sympathy for the devil’

drunk and driven by a devil’s hunger - a safety nets au inspired by apostle, co-starring @agent-thorn​

it was only five years into the birth of an entirely new century, and her twin brother had been taken; her father, lost in his grief, was utterly useless.

it was all up to parker jensen.

she found a fake pass easy enough, slyly dancing her way through conversations with began with “you know, i don’t remember seeing you at any of the prayer meetings...” until finally, finally, they reached that accursed island.

she’d never been to wales before.

she had no idea what to expect.

what are you supposed to expect, when you’re all alone on a solo rescue mission going toe-to-toe with what can only be described as a cult?

but ivar--son of the enigmatic priest of the island, malcolm--was a nice surprise.

the only nice surprise that she’d find.

it wasn’t until she caught jeremy, sneaking home after what she could only guess had something to do with ffion, that she got her first flash of what would be a more and more grisly truth.

this island had its own god.

and something much more sinister than genesis had happened on this soil.

mini soundtrack sampler includes: bakar, ‘hell n back’ + mumford & sons, ‘little lion man’ + neil reid, ‘mother of mine’

let that fever make the water rise - a grace & choice au inspired by the ritual

it was supposed to be like a vacation. diana hadn’t had one in at least fifteen years. vida, even longer.

so why not hiking? why not the kungsleden--the king’s trail--in northern sweden?

the first two days were bliss. nothing but rolling hills, clear skies. up until:

“ah fuck!”

“vida--shit, vida, are you okay?”

“yeah, i’m--urk!”

“all right, that was not a reassuring noise, let’s have a look at that--”

vida’s left knee went from pink to a swollen blue to an agonized, deep purple tinged with green over the course of next day. diana couldn’t bear to watch her struggle to keep up, especially when this was supposed to be a romantic break, nothing as taxing as the fieldwork happening back home.

by the light of a campfire, diana studied their map, humming. “what if we just cut through the forest?” she asked. “if we just went as the crow flies... it cuts the time in half. and you need medical attention, vida, we can’t keep going on like this.”

“has the battalion cleared this area?” vida returned her question with one of her own, eyes shining. the reflection of the fire made them look like stones polished by a river. “we wouldn’t run into anything, would we?”

diana smiled. “nothing we couldn’t handle, love, i’m sure.”

and diana didn’t change her mind when they set off the next morning... up until they found the disembowled carcass of an elk, placed up high in a tree like a religious icon.

she thought of morgan.

“diana, what--what put that up there? something had to have put that up there!”

mini soundtrack sampler includes: billie eilish, ‘bury a friend’ + two feet, ‘i feel like i’m drowning’ + coldplay, ‘paradise’

you can hear the river from my burial bed - a secret gardens au inspired by the legends of slenderman & mercy black, co-starring @agent-hood​

she wouldn’t say she wouldn’t remember. she did.

it was just that caroline janson had been in therapy for so long... she was no longer sure what of shards of her memories were real, and what would be, as dr. ward would say, hallucinations.

but she knew one thing: she was glad to be coming home.

“i hope chicken’s okay for your first night back,” parker began gently. “i’m just now realizing i forgot to ask--”

caroline smiled at her, “chicken would be great.”

she watched parker’s profile, as she opened her mouth, then closed it, then opened it again. finally, she inhaled, then began, “you know... carter’s missed you since you’ve been gone...”

caroline rolled her eyes. “parker. it’s been a decade and a half. i seriously doubt it.”

“hey, who knows my brother better right now, me or you?”

that earned a huff... and a grin. subdued, but still there. “... okay. fine. but... maybe not tonight.” parker glanced at her once, and nodded.

“i understand. besides, maybe i want you all to myself for the first few days, anybody think about that?”

and caroline laughed.

and she wished that it felt like she wasn’t still being haunted.

mini soundtrack sampler includes:  oingo boingo, ‘dead man’s party’ + shaed, ‘trampoline’ + corrina repp, ‘only a beat’

don’t let it shake your steady thread-cutting hand - a royals & robots au inspired by kristy

it was hardly tilde’s idea to spend thanksgiving alone harvard. but between the pandemic, the weather, and her own growing agitation at her father’s behavior...

it just seemed easier.

and it wasn’t all bad. she still had prudence, who opted to stay with her out of love (and perhaps a lack of family--but she didn’t ask). and they had run of essentially the entire campus--there were several buildings that stayed opened, even over the holiday. the library being one.

but it wasn’t until one night, when they made a late night trip to a convenience store not far from tilde’s housing that things became... strange.

“pru. ... pru!” she whispered, snacks in one hand, the other on pru’s elbow. “... i think she’s following us.”

“she?” pru asked, lowly, careful to keep her eyes down, as if they were just having a very, very difficult time decided on what kind of poptarts they wanted.

tilde, face oddly blanched, couldn’t find her voice, so she just nodded.

at the end of the aisle, a figure in dark hoodie and skinny jeans passed out of view.

one of pru’s arms went around tilde’s waist. “don’t worry. i’m sure she’s just here at the same time as us. it’s a small store.”

tilde would remember that when she got home in time to find a snuff film loaded onto her laptop.

“oh shit--oh shit, oh god--!”

this is why she preferred halloween.

the roanoke society.

agent seraphim.

agent succubus.

agent houdini.

agent lycan.

the scribe.

lilith.

agent sprite.

agent seance.

agent crowley.

agent specter.

mothman.

agent ondine.

agent arizona.

agent cherub.

agent rougarou.

agent annabelle.

technical officers wyvern, drake & longma - the washington avenue project.

agent sentinel.

agent zed.

agent elfin.

agent nova.

agent zenith/charlie hesketh.

agent phoenix.

agent judas.

agent pru.

agent hood.

technical officer rook.

agent chimera.

agent nightcrawler.

agent iuniore.

agent cerberus.

agent archivist.

agent thorn.

agent exorcist.

agent nephilim.

agent ainsel of the borley council.

technical officer signal.

agent bracken.

technical officer delta.

agent jötunn.

former agent nova.

technical officer alvinne.

technical officer theta.

agent umbriel.

statesman.

champ.

agent whiskey.

agent tequila.

agent rum.

ginger ale.

kingsman.

former agent galahad.

agent galahad.

agent lancelot.

merlin.

repubblica dei lupi.

agent pantalone.

agent colombina.

agent alichino.

princess tilde.

seraphim closed the front door behind her with a contented sigh, eyes flickering up to one corner of her specs as she did, checking the time in the u.k. merlin was probably dead asleep already, but she quickly typed out a message anyway: home safe. mission a success. love you. going on a food quest. message me when you wake up. next year i promise we’ll celebrate your birthday on the same continent. she winced as her stomach growled and she unzipped her jacket, hanging it up on one of the hooks by the door.

it had been a second since she’d had just a routine, local exorcism call, especially with twins. she made a note to bring that up with carter and parker at some point. ‘did you know you two have a greater chance of being possessed? you remember that the next time you want to fuck with something you shouldn’t be fucking with, carter—‘ ‘oh my g—it was one time!’

it went off without any major hitches. the bridge of her nose was a little sore, but other than feeling she was about to devour the entire manor, no other adverse side-effects, not even the usual cold chills. she still had the father’s business card in her back pocket—he’d offered the estate free plumbing work for life.

some nights, seraphim loved her job.

and she loved it even more as she walked closer to the kitchen. someone was busy, and whatever they were doing smelled wonderful.

“hey tony. you’re up late, are that many people in and out right now?” she heard agent andhrimnir hum as she grabbed a magnet shaped like a tiny ufo, putting up rory linn’s aaa plumbing service card on one of the shared refrigerators.

“you that surprised given what day it is? besides, i scored a metric fuckton of squash from the market today. thought it’d be a good idea to get started on meal prep for the week, making up a few things people can just grab and heat up.”

“no, guess it’s not that surprising…” seraphim crossed her arms over her chest, rubbing her biceps as she walked casually—a little too casually—towards andhrimnir, who just shot her a look as he tapped a wooden spoon against the rim of a giant, steel pot he had in front of him on the massive stovetop.

“… morgan.”

“yes, tony.”

“could i interest you in some mexican turkey and squash stew?”

she feigned ugly sobbing, “oh my god please.”

andhrimnir rolled his eyes. “you are so dramatic, go grab a bowl and i—“

they both jumped at the sound of heavy, quick footfalls crashing by the kitchen opening and then fading away. andrhimnir asked first: “… who the hell was that?”

“i—i think that was charlie? uhm, let me—go check on him, save me some of that, i’ll be right back.” people moving at a full sprint through the manor wasn’t exactly out of the ordinary, but seraphim had only recognized charlie briefly, not who was behind him. what was going on?

behind her, andhrimnir just sighed, shaking his head. boys will be boys… but, given the holiday, maybe a little bit of shenanigans couldn’t hurt. he started humming thriller as he turned back to the stew, grabbing a little bit of cayenne pepper from the spice rack.

as soon as seraphim started walking down the hallway, heading towards the nearest door that went downstairs, she could hear muffled shouting. “—ch it!”

and she walked down the stairwell to the tune of longma, charlie and drake’s voices all chiming something like “catch it!” “don’t let it go over there!” “are you sure this is gonna work?” “we’re going to find out!”

“what on god’s good earth are you three doing?”

drake had a small, ornate box in his hands that seraphim was fairly sure he was not supposed to have, and was flanked by longma and charlie, who all just stared at her like deer caught in headlights. drake was on his knees on the floor by a corner, which looked—unnaturally dark.

“—this was drake’s idea.”

“charlie hesketh you traitorous bastard. this is the thanks i get for trying to show a little innovation and initiative.”

longma shrugged, “bro i think we can all admit that we just really wanted to use the box.”

“yeah, morgan, look, we got this gremlin fucker cornered and—“ but drake turned around and the corner was a lot lighter. “… uh-oh.”

charlie lifted his metal hand in a signal, and all four of them stood, listening.

there was a ten-second stretch of silence followed by a skittering noise that sounded like it was coming up by the ceiling. “ohhh shit there it goes!”

“‘shit’ is right.” now all of them were jogging along the wall, staring hard upwards at a vague blob of a shadow that almost wasn’t there, like cats chasing a laser pointer.

and they were jogging towards the gate.

“woah, woah, woah, stop—“ seraphim managed to grab charlie and longma by their arms but drake kept running froward. “drake get away from there, if it turns the gate on—“

“relax, i got this! crowley brought this back after he and andi were in yokohama like all last month. guess the head of the kingdom gave it to him as a thank you gift—“ drake had his eyes up, and wasn’t watching where he was going. they could still sort of see it, trapped up at a new high angle, and it startled them by chittering, like a squirrel. seraphim hadn’t heard one make a noise like that before.

“fergus said that this could trap anything. don’t you wanna see if that includes these little guys?”

longma scoffed, “yeah, and then told you to leave it alone three seconds later—“

“hey, i don’t remember you arguing with me to put it back twenty minutes ago asshole!”

“oh my god, enough! i literally just got home and am not in the mood to play step-mom!” seraphim pulled charlie and longma back a few more steps, “charlie, watch him, drake, get back here!”

“does this make you step-dad?” “shut it.” “yes sir.”

the chittering was getting louder, more rapid-fire. it sounded like nails falling on glass.

and then a hum.

the gate was on.

fuck.

but seraphim wasn’t the only one who moved forward on instinct to grab drake—charlie did too.

*     *     *

nova and he’d had a—well. he wouldn’t call it a fight, exactly. she was more just a little exasperated. not that charlie could blame her.

“charlie,” she’d groaned, moving his hands off of her waist. “i really, really, re-he-eally, need to get this done for wyvern. he wouldn’t have asked for my help unless it was really important. this math is—hieroglyphic. but i think if we can figure out which of the formulas is the right one, then everything will make a lot more sense.”

“what is it again?” charlie asked, frowning at the endless lines of numbers, figures, scattered across her desk. his hands may have moved from her waist, but they just traveled up to her shoulders. charlie rested his chin against the top of her hair. nova opened her mouth once, closed it, and then just shook her head.

“i’m—i think wyvern’s trying to come up something he called an emergency traceback. probably just as a sort of backup because of all the uh, critters running around downstairs. but this is... sort of some kind of mix of algebraic cartography, divination and like three other kinds of math that i haven’t used in a while.” her voice vibrated through his jaw, before she tilted her head back. “so. i need to concentrate. just—for a bit. okay?”

charlie grinned. “okay.” when he kissed her he was delighted to find that she tasted like the candy corn from earlier—which didn’t give him that good of an impetus to stop…

“mm… charlie, knock it off!” she playfully smacked him. “i just said not to distract me!”

“if you could taste you, you would understand.”

a furious blush overtook her face. “oh my g—go find someone else to bother for a while!”

he’d laughed roughly as he left their bedroom, thinking about going to the kitchen—he was positive that there was some of that oktoberfest craft stuff somewhere, and he’d grown a soft spot for agent andhrimnir, despite his sometimes prickly demeanor—when he had the wind knocked out of by him drake, who slammed into him at what felt like a hundred miles an hour.

as charlie was grunting on the floor, trying to re-inflate his lungs, he could he heard clicking go right by his ear. like a dog running on hardwood. “drake? what the bloody hell—“

“charlie! charlie, my bro, my dude, my buddy, my pal, how would you like to get in on something that i am a hundred percent sure will get us all promoted?”

charlie shook his head, blinking, as longma offered him a hand up.

“uh—why does this sound one of your normal ‘good intentions bad idea’ bits?”

“that’s because it is.” longma answered for him. “but in his defense, it did all come together like magic.”

“uh, yeah, like a gremlin just so happened to be down in the archives, which never happens, and we just so happened to like, rediscover this box that we can use to finally solve this issue? guys.” drake just made a grand gesture with his arms as soon as he stood up. “… it’s providence. like. we have to. it’s like god gave it to us with a big red halloween bow on it. c’mon, charlie, please?”

right at the second that charlie found himself with both the officers looking at him expectantly, he had two thoughts alongside each other.

one was that he hadn’t thought of his own brother in about a week. the stretches of time were getting longer.

the second was that the word ‘brother’ brought only muted images of james to mind now. pictures of drake, wyvern, longma—that is, drake, cody, and jeremy—were much clearer. more reflexive. much in the same way he realized that when he looked at seraphim, or succubus, he thought ‘sister.’ as natural as a rainstorm.

and when he looked at nova—at ellie—the first word was ‘love.’ and that was even more effortless these days.

strange, how this place had sort of rewritten his mental dictionary.

“… all right, i’m in. … what are we doing?”

drake clapped him on the shoulder, and opened his mouth to speak, before glancing and then staring down the hallway.

charlie followed his gaze and his eyes landed on what looked like a tiny puff of charcoal smoke, hiding behind the leg of a side table.

and it would’ve continue to just look like a bit of darkness, until two bits of dim light blinked at him.

“what the fuck—“

“step one,” drake interrupted, whispering. “we have to catch that thing—“

as if on cue, it bolted,

and the chase was on.

*     *     *

the humming got louder, a pitch too deep. seraphim grabbed drake by the collar and flung him backward—straight into charlie, who basically caught him and tossed him.

and tendrils, like normal, formed in the gate’s mouth. but they weren’t the soft white that spawned from a normal jump. they were more of a milky pink, like the whites of an infected eye.

oh, this was bad. get out, get out, get out—

seraphim tried to sprint forward, stuck a hand out and tried to push charlie too.

but they both got caught.

longma and drake watched in muted horror as these pastel strands wrapped around both agents, starting from the base of their chest cavities and moving out in both directions. seraphim could not stop the panic building in her stomach, even as charlie was very gently lifted up and pulled to stand next to her.

they had seconds.

her eyes were wide and focused on drake’s face. he had tears in his eyes.

he couldn’t hear her. but he could read her lips.

go find jeremy and ellie. find us. ... it’s okay. it’s going to be okay.

seraphim wasn’t the only one whose heart was hammering. charlie was visibly trembling, his breath coming out in shaky gasps.

there was nothing they could do now.

“what—morgan, what’s happening—“

so she gripped his hand as hard as she could, as silence surrounded them, and they were torn line by line from home. “brace yourself. don’t let go of me. it’s going to be f—“

snap.

longma and drake stood staring at the spot where they’d been for approximately four seconds before getting up and sprinting to the monitors to try to find their signal in the aether, to try and track them as far as they could.

in the five minutes it took for them to find an estimate of where their exit split might have been—which was surrounded by coordinates that they hadn’t ever even touched—charlie and seraphim landed. and by ‘landed’ it was more ‘thrown into the side of a mountain hard enough to knock them out.’

*     *     *

seraphim wasn’t sure how much time had passed when she opened her eyes, blinking them a few times.

the sensation of an intense, dry heat made it hard to move. it was like she was lying in a tanning bed, or in direct sunlight on some lazy afternoon outside. and she almost closed her eyes and let herself be taken back under until she remembered how they got there. deep breaths. deep breaths.

charlie was lying next to her, blood oozing from his nose. it had formed a small pool by his mouth on the ground. her glasses were cracked, but—

no signal. just power. she grunted, lifting herself gingerly into a sitting position.

she didn’t wake charlie. not right away.

she didn’t want to scare him, so she took a few minutes while he stayed in the blackness to compose herself and try to get the fear off of her face as the weight of it hit her.

she was unable to tear her eyes away from the sky, and as she stared at it, she wondered what merlin would do.

charlie came to slower than she had, and seraphim turned as she heard him murmur, “ellie.”

“hey there big guy.” she prayed it didn’t sound like she’d been crying. “you ready to join me in this waking reality?”

his eyebrows went into a frown and seraphim sighed, feeling sweat form around her hairline. not the voice he wanted to hear. “don’t get up too fast—“

she didn’t have to tell him twice, as soon as he was on his knees he let out this long, low groan, his good hand going to the socket where his metal arm met his flesh. he glanced down at his side, “shit…”

“charlie? what is it?” he shifted around and she gasped.

the exit split had thrown him into the rock and right onto his arm. he hadn’t been able curl and protect himself from the machinery, there hadn’t been enough time. the socket had been driven upwards and inwards, tearing his skin open in places. he had a veinwork of blood going down his side, soaking into his v-neck. “okay… okay.” seraphim said quietly. “on a scale of one to ten, ten being it’s so bad you can’t walk, where’s your pain?”

charlie was taking huge, gulps of air, but it burned all the way down into his chest, and he coughed. “let’s say a very strong seven. i can—i can move. it’s fine. and i—“ there were whirs and clicks as he moved his arm, although he tried to hide from her that his range of motion was a little more limited than he was used to. “—can still use it. not broken. ellie can fix it when we…” his voice trailed off as his eyes lifted to the horizon. “… get home.”

seraphim was calm as he took in where they were.

the rocks beneath them were milk white, aside from where they’d been stained by blood. and they went on and on forever towards the skyline, equal parts rolling and jagged. whatever mountain range this was, they’d landed in the foothills.

if there anything else alive here, it was nowhere near them. the silence was thick.

“it’s—it’s really hot—“ he shook his head, trying to pull himself together, find any kind of solidity in his mind. his hand went to his face, rubbing it, wiping at the sweat. “morgan, are we—are we in hell?”

when seraphim didn’t answer him right away, he turned to her in time to see her gazing upward.

the sky—wasn’t a sky at all.

it was a city, hung upside-down, black, violet, and solid. it glittered overheard like a palace ceiling. a tower spiraled towards them in the center, with rings and rings of buildings going outward from it, mimicking, charlie thought ruefully, the mouth of the gate.

the light they were seeing it by was bright white. it seemed to be coming from the line in between both halves of the world, where they didn’t—couldn’t?—touch.

“no, charlie. we’re not in hell. i uh—“ she didn’t want to lie. “i think we might be somewhere worse.”

*     *     *

drake knew just from glancing at the map that they’d been ripped out of the general continuity. he knew that where they’d gone—time did not flow there like it did here.

they had still been asleep where wyvern came barreling down the stairs, out of breath, with ellie close behind him.

“my glasses went off, what happened?” he demanded, his accent coarse in his panic. he found his anger evaporating when he saw the looks on drake and longma’s faces.

at first, neither of them could speak.

until ellie broke their cautious quiet with a question.

there was something in the water. something evil, something beyond the normal known cryptozoology and collected past mission files, and field guides for the several-mile-long stretch of everglade and swampland. it had killed nine people over the course of the past ten months. there didn’t seem to be any correlating trademarks to the victims aside from the fact that they were outside at night, alone, and usually by the water.

lilith hadn’t planned on sending two executive officers, but mothman insisted on bringing yeti as soon as he saw images of the remains. nine corpses. not a single one of them found whole. then he looked closer, and added crowley to the list.

“crow… look at these. these cuts remind you of something? a specific kind of something that you’ve seen before? with enoch? once upon a time? maybe with seraphim more recently?”

“–but it’s in florida.”

“yeah, that’s what i said. i mean, i could be wrong, but it just–it looks–”

“i know, i know. lilith, let the three of us take this one. we’ll take rou with us for field medicine, just in case. if this is–well. then she’ll know what to expect. she’s the best fit.”

the case specifics remain in lilith’s office. the details were about what she’d been anticipating: the boys, with the addition of shivali, went out on a several searches over the course of more than a handful of nights. nothing. just like on a certain moor case, it was like something knew it was being looked for, and decided to be still.

until one night at a local diner, yeti groaned into his hands over a half-eaten burger, “there has to be a way to flush this thing out. there’s too much space, too many places for it to hide, it’s not like we can just drain everything…”

and rougarou, still holding on to her coffee, said quietly: “what if we used bait?”

mothman cocked a brow, immediately nervous. “what’d you have in mind, shiva?”

“… me.”

of course, it didn’t go over well. at all. “are you shitting me? no!” “absolutely fucking not!” “over my dead body!”

“okay, i don’t know if you’ve noticed this, but we already have several, and unless we suddenly acquire a tracker who can read through water, i don’t see any other options.” her voice was solid enough to quiet the men at the table, who just kept looking to each other, trying to figure out something else, anything else.

they couldn’t.

and the next night, rougarou walked out into the swamp, holding a lantern, in one piece.

she made it back in several.

mothman, crowley and yeti returned to the estate with what they’d managed to keep of her body, along with photographic evidence that the monster in question had been disposed of with great violence, driven by rage and voices that only the trees had heard, shivali, we are so sorry, we are so sorry, forgive us, forgive us…

seraphim was denied the details of her friend’s death. she was denied the truth that the monster they’d found–and the crack that explained how it’d managed to get out of centralia into jacksonville swampland–was one she’d encountered before.

lilith and joe had both agreed quietly that it would be too heavy. and her mourning was already a leaden robe. between her pennsylvania missions, a tense relationship with agent whiskey, and all the other bustle of life that leaks in as a part of the human condition–it was an exceptionally rough few months.

eventually, time forced syllables back into seraphim’s throat in medical, and it stopped being “shivali!” she’d cry out in terror and pain, and got shortened to just “aly!” their friendship had a rough start. but then, so had many important relationships in both their lives.

but if you go into a certain, quieter part of the basements, you’ll see her name engraved on black marble in gold, along with many, many others. and in seraphim’s room there was a photograph of her and shivali, smiling broadly wearing beat up sunglasses, with cinderella’s castle behind them. it went with her when she moved to borley, and is one of the pictures she keeps in her office there.

and to this day, she still doesn’t know.