[solo] rogue machine (jeremiah)

[azuredreams]

(come and see)


In the moments that follow, the time after he came out of other ashdown that first time, Jeremiah remembers one thing the most.

It was the wonder of magic, the feeling of being uplifted on Sunny's shoulders and the sky that he had seen there. Foreign and wonderful, it sparked something inside him that he could not explain. Aleksy had called him an extension of her, a seed, in that moment. Jeremiah had been tipsy at the time they were talking and commented that perhaps he had blossomed but no.

Weeds.

Sunny did not plant flowers, she planted weeds. The thought never settled into his mind, even after that talk with Aleksy, after knowing that she was circles and endless eyes, an abyss that stares back at you as you stare into it.

That moment when Pax's coldfire was all around him and Sunny had called out for him to think about water, she had lifted him up when he needed it the most. He had been something small, his magic small, that had been bolstered by something greater, something bigger than he ever had imagined being.

The memory he had held, of jumping off of waterfalls with Algie when he had been younger, turned into a great deluge of water that flooded the entire area and saved him from the fire that could have killed him.

It is a hard thing to shake, the knowledge and feeling that it had inspired. Sunny was important: she was magic, she was the endless starry sky that was beautiful and breathtaking, she was someone who needed to be safeguarded and treated well, she was someone who needed a chance to be the human girl that she should have been. The words never came to him to explain it properly, not to Algie or anyone, and it was only with America that he had ever found someone else who knew.

Knew the feeling of being up on those shoulders, of the magic that bubbled up from within when Sunny held you to the sky and anything was possible.

Jeremiah wished that he could return to that time- to when magic was wonder and feeling and endless and the stuff that dreams were made out of. Some part of him knew the moment it shifted, knew that he had put an end to it himself. The day he struck his deal with the Burning Man, that he traded away Sunny for a favor that could make or break everything, he had started looking away from the wonder of magic.

Within him the spark was still there, the seed that Sunny had planted, but he imagined that he had stopped taking care of it as he should’ve. He would have to find his own path, seek out that place where magic was wonder and dreams and hope.

The magic was within him, just as it was all around him. All Jeremiah had to do was reach for it and it would be there waiting for him.

 

[azuredreams]

(the missing)


Jeremiah is restless in the days that follow Autumn’s rescue but he had been since she had seemingly been kidnapped. That it turned out to be just another thing that had to be quietly swept aside, some faerie having taken her, was starting to feel old even though it was not exactly a common occurrence.

There is a thought about how often he might have to do something like this: a situation where there’s no real explanation as to her return and one can’t explain why she can’t really talk about her capture and where her captor, her attacker might be. Traumatic memory loss or something else that is entirely plausible but feels flimsy to him because he knows the truth.

It’s easier to think about the paperwork that would need to filled out than think about what actually happened within the Shore mansion in other ashdown. He’s grasping at things to not think back to the way he had been chilled to his very core.

To push away the vision of Algie being flayed alive, skin peeling back and back until his heart burst. The stuff of nightmares given life, that was what it was. Jeremiah had been about to explode in fury when a switch had been flipped in him the moment he found himself where his lover had been previous.

Walking the path through the hedge maze with a thing that had the same twist of dark inky hair with galaxy colors. Jeremiah was no fool, he knew that it might have had some qualities that made it look like Zac, but it was twisted and terrible. He had not cared, truly, for finding his way to the end, no.

In those moments that he walked, ice had followed him because something and broken inside. Jeremiah would kill the thing that had killed Algie if it was the last thing he did. Yet the thing had taunted him with appearing only to finally appear not in front of him but underneath him; somehow cancelling out some of his magic as he sunk into the oily puddle it had made.

It was not fast but slow and where the oil had touched him, it burned. It was entirely at odds with the preternatural chill that had overcome him, his body nearly shutting down from that alone. There had been no screaming, no crying out, because by the time that he had managed to open his mouth - to break out past the pain - it had been going down his throat.

Burning and drowning and-

Death.

Failure.

Absolute.

Jeremiah had not expected to wake up from it, to find himself on the ground and alive but he was. That Tatiana was there had been surprising but perhaps, in the end, it should not have been. Not when Aleksy was steeped in it, not when she didn’t look any older than when they had left as teenagers.

Not at all like he knew her to look like, given that she was in Russia. It had been whiplash to come from dying to friendly banter but he thought he had handled it well.

Even if by the time it was all said and done, Sunny having saved the day once more, all Jeremiah wanted to do was retreat back to home with Algie and never come out. The magic, other ashdown, came with costs. High ones that he was sure that would come out of their minds, bodies, and very souls. What would remain after that, Jeremiah did not know.

 

[azuredreams]

(school’s out)


It was a train wreck from the beginning. There were so many injured, so many deaths, and it went downhill from there. Jeremiah cannot breathe for a few moments after it is all over, trying to gather his thoughts before he heads home. They’re alive, all those he cares for, but they might not have been.

No, he had watched too many he cared for and loved get injured within the span of one night. Blood was still spattered on him, flecking off and dried now, after he and Kuroda had spoken with Chief Edwards about what had happened. That they managed to pull it off, that it was just misinformation and fear, was something else all together.

At least they had gotten the shapeshifters out of there before the police had made it up. Jeremiah had no idea what would have happened if they had actually found someone with animalistic features and-

No, the thought was pushed away.

Instead he thought of the youths that they had taken down, that they - almost like a mob - had beaten and held until they no longer fought back. Part of him felt guilty for it but the other part of him knew the injuries they had caused.

He had watched Thorne be sliced to pieces, Zac nearly experiencing the same fate, and Aleksy was in critical condition from the beginning of it all. Algie had taken a couple hits himself but thankfully nothing too terrible. Jeremiah hadn’t even realized he had injuries that needed a few stitches until the pain started to throb past the adrenaline.

When the paramedics, who had treated everyone else, finally managed to corner him and make him sit still while his leg was stitched up and his hip was looked at as well. (Who knew that those would be two of the last injuries he would suffer. That the magic of other ashdown, that his own magic, would see him with some kind of dragon hide in the near future that lessened the damage he could take.)

Jeremiah breathed out, eyes closed and head swimming as he tried to ignore the chill and pain that throbbed through his body. His back ached and his eyes hurt, having pushed too much to try and find some natural way over to other ashdown. There was worry in the back of his mind, something he would have to think about later, about the expression on Michael’s face.

The feeling of no no no that had flooded him when they had pushed him through to the other side thinking it would help.

He hoped it did. Desperately. Just like he hoped it was the right decision to put the others through without going with them. The passage there had closed when Lady had collapsed, Jeremiah having scooped her up and hidden her so that there wouldn’t be questions about her.

A mysterious young woman who just appeared? It wouldn’t look good. So he had taken her to his car and left her there to rest. Tired, he was finally going back to the car - the one that was forever meant for the other side of the pond - and realized almost immediately that she was not there.

That there would be no asking her questions and maybe hoping for answers.

Instead THANK YOU was scrawled in red lipstick across his windshield.

It figured.

In the weeks that would follow, in the appearance of Michael's body and their apparent failure - his failure, his fault, his fault, his fault - he would wonder if keeping her there might have saved the young man.

Too many what ifs and they were slowly eating him alive.

 

[azuredreams]

(the fairy ball)


Perhaps it was not the best idea that the masquerade was his first true outing since his mind had been overwhelmed by the Burning Man. If Jeremiah had not already been disinclined towards certain foods and things, that experience cemented it.

He was still having trouble eating meats.

Still-

This was where they were meant to find Adoelle and they did along with so much more. The Court of the Sorrowful One was a place of intrigue and subterfuge and death. There were machinations within machinations, even those that had been invited finding themselves with a role to play.

Adoelle had been beautiful, brilliant and glowing as Algie had turned away from playing the part they wanted. He would not be party to ending someone’s life just because they said so.

Jeremiah was certain, in that moment, that his husband had proven he was better than him. He did not know that he would not do it. That he would not have taken the knife and sliced her throat because it would have been an affront, it would had helped things fall, but was that what they really wanted?

Liam Noor had found him, had spoken with him when his mind was reeling from a near seizure, and spoken as if he was someone that should have known. That should have understood.

He did not.

It made his head ache more, made his chest feel far more hollow than it had ever been. Jeremiah was tired of spinning without guidance, of feeling as if he was lost and all the power he had was useless without a true goal in mind. Were they really just leading them all to the slaughter?

Two of the three gone and Sunny would have her price sooner rather than later, he was certain. Even if they defeated the Enemy - whose face he knew, who he had spoken with, who was a man with a husband and family and would do what was necessary to protect them - he would still be a failure. They were not coming home and while his hands may not have been the weapons, he had not stopped them.

If anything he had helped by doing nothing, by standing to the side, by watching as Algie was elected to the council and had to help choose someone to die.

In the aftermath, Algie had shut off. His feelings muted and everything distant. Neat and compartmentalized, his husband was much better about taking things as they came. Jeremiah always had to deal with them head on, unable to push them aside or they would eat him alive because he could never forget.

Never let them go.

It was no surprise that he took Ezra’s offer when it was made. Jeremiah was an unknowing tithe. To become stronger for those he loved and care for because if he didn’t he was sure that they would all end up like Michael and Adoelle.

That he would fail and death was the result.

No longer an option, he had found his footing within the Court even if he lost something of himself in the process.

Jeremiah Mercer never did actually return from the fairy ball intact and the shattered pieces that had been left behind were molded into someone far, far stronger.

 

[azuredreams]

(the consequences)


The world changed.

Or, better put, Jeremiah changed.

Then the world changed because they changed it.

There had been purpose and strength found in being a Noble of the Court but even that could not truly prepare him for all the changes that had come from the death of the three that represented the sigil. The Sword had been broken, the Crown shattered, and the Stars felled. With all three gone, reality seemed to fall apart at it’s seams.

Sunny called them, challenged, and they had risen to the occasion (even if falling would have been more appropriate) to fix that which they had broken.

Jeremiah had, with his husband and two others (Nathaniel and Jack), stayed back to make sure that the path home was secured. It had been both tiring and invigorating at the same time, pouring magic into holding the way open. The sandwiches had been particularly good but time had not seemed stable at all and sometimes his memory of that time is hazy at best.

Before he had even realized it, Algie and himself, had reappeared with the rest of the group that had gone through the doorway. They all looked tired and ragged, some of them bearing cuts that spoke of he knew not what. Sunny had been there before she disappeared, the colors of the sunrise the last thing he remembers seeing of her.

What had happened could wait because there was a need for rest and adjustment to new world they were now part of. The world where magic existed but wasn’t common, where Jeremiah Mercer had been Chief of Police for several months as opposed to just a couple, where Ascencion Shore was murdered and he a possible suspect (along with a few others), where his life was not quite his but absolutely his at the same time.

It would take a few days and talking to others to find out what had happened within the void, to the people that had gone through the door. That they had each fallen into a different era of time and lived there for a week, experiencing something that had gone by before. The 1980s were what lured him in, the knowledge of an older self that had existed during a time-

The realization was sobering when he finally understood.

Jeremiah had come of age in that time, though there was some other self that had been older that he was now, and he remembered the fear. The uncertainty and paranoia that edged his thoughts when he had been that age and growing up. He remembered wishing that he fit into the cutout that was the perfect son and heterosexuality and all sorts of other things he most definitely was not.

It was a knowledge that put a new spin on things, that changed his perspective on what he might have known.

The lines felt like they were blurring, more so than they had after the fairy ball. The Enemy and his husband, Renard Leroux and Liam Noor, were beginning to seem not nearly as villainous as they had when things began.

The questions were piling up but he was not certain if there would be answers.

Or if he would even like them.