solemnity

At four in the afternoon, Vance sits down at his favorite bar's counter, dropping his head onto the slightly sticky wood, and grimaces. He sighs loudly. When nothing happens, he sighs louder yet. The bar is hardly packed; it's a slow night and sounds as such. Most people here right now are having quiet conversations in their own little worlds, but there are plenty of people alone, as well. Vance fits right in, his suit jacket hanging on the high chair's backrest, and his bare hands tap

As ever, the man reading the newspaper is right there on the usual bench when Vance opens his shop's door the next day. He glances around, up and down and to every side; determined not to get caught by surprise again. But there's no package waiting for him, no strange or unexpected letters. Just the evening newspaper, the one only delivered once a week. As far as Vance has noticed, the man on the bench has been reading the exact same newspaper for four years now. It's never changed; he's ne

Opening his door in the early morning to get the newspaper, he freezes. There’s a package on his doorstep, suspiciously innocuous. Vance eyes it, narrowing his eyes, and glances around—but can only see the usual folk this early in the morning. There's the man with the newspaper, who’s been there every day for the past four years, there's a person walking their dog, an alcoholic trudging home to get yelled at by his husband again. Vance has heard them sometimes, when he passes their house. T

Stepping through the apothecary's front door, Vance is greeted by Morgen's grinning face. "Good day?" Vance asks, raising an eyebrow. Glee is practically emanating from Morgen, the man fiddling with something in his hands. "You're here early," Morgen replies, beaming. He drops his spinning toy and leans against the counter. "That means your potions—" "Concoctions." "—exploded again." Vance narrows his eyes. "They didn't explode they just... went wrong." It's a somewhat simpli

Once more, Vance awakens to the eye in the sky staring at him. Breath still, lungs unmoving, he gazes back out the window, wondering again why he didn't close the curtains. They're tall, reaching all the way to the floor, and they're heavy and thick and can easily block out the eye's reach entirely. But he didn't close them last night. Hiding half his face in the pillow, he looks out with one. singular eye. He stays unmoving, still, on the bed, waiting for the alarm clock to ring shril

Vance isn’t a good alchemist. This is a fact; Vance sells mostly painkillers, muscle-relaxes, and minor diseases. He sells the basics, the easiest to make, with the cheapest ingredients. He sells the products where it's okay if he blows up the concoction as he's making it because the ingredients are cheap and he has plenty more. So Vance isn't a good alchemist, and he's well aware of this. But he leans into his strengths, always has, and it's never really been a problem. Over

Vance wakes slowly, cautiously, his eyelids fluttering open almost a dozen times before he manages to keep them that way. His hands clench on the wool sheets, the blue fabric beneath him blurry for a moment until his eyes adjusts, and the world comes into focus. The window curtains are open, he realizes as he shoves his face deeper into the plush pillow, groaning as he moves. Stiff limbs twitch weakly as he stares right back out at the eye in the sky. It's staring at him. Or—so he

The heavy bag over his shoulder swinging in time with his footsteps, Vance nods to the man on the bench as he passes by. He doesn't receive an answer; the man is still studiously reading the newspaper. Entirely covered by various pieces of clothing, Vance can not see any identifying aside from the man's height, long and gangly limbs almost too big for the bench. They don't quiet fit human anatomy—a bit too long, a bit too thin—but Vance doesn't know what else the man could be at the top of his h

@andy cannon thank you!!

The sky is bleeding. Stepping outside, Vance holds his hand over his eyes and squints as the door gently falls shut behind him. The drips of blood coming from the sky are far and few between—it's not a pouring rain, not a torrential shower of blood. He doesn't even need an umbrella, he thinks, holding out his hand out from under the door-cover's protection. It takes a minute for a stray drop of blood to land on his hand, and he quietly watches it slide over his skin until gravity pulls it down t

@drsawzall thank you for the welcome! ❤️ i've figured out the save system and hit publish on chapter 2, so that should drop tomorrow i hope you'll enjoy it!!

In which a formerly dead alchemist does no work to solve his own mysterious resurrection, instead too busy falling in love with the eldritch entity stalking him.

Vance’s head thumps loudly on the shop’s counter as he briefly dozes off, eyes shutting out of the own accord. The thud his head makes when connecting to the wooden counter startles him awake, the sound echoing through his head and he blinks rapidly, staring at the little bit of the dark wood that he can see. It takes him a long moment to understand what's happened, and when he does, he frowns. He puts his hands on the counter and pushes up, blinking again at the light from the oil-lamp bes

Cas is a very cute alien! Also I am making gimme-gimme motions to the arthritis cure, lol.