Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

September 23

Poly-cool more like poly-lame

Foxy: i keep forgetting people don't know abt the supernatural here 

Errorica: omg tell me about it 

Eef: no because the way people keep seeing me have visions and asking what's happening and I keep panicking and seeing I'm epileptic 

Eef: it's a pretty convenient excuse but also I feel like it might be stolen valor 

Eef: and also people are getting concerned about my numerous “seizures”

Be-wise: i keep having to explain to people in my chem lab why I'm so good at lab techniques I think they all think I run a meth lab or something 

Eef: i keep forgetting my boyfriend is a fucking nerd 

Be-wise: you are so more of a nerd than me???

Be-wise: i think double major math/mechanical engineering trumps chemistry

Foxy: so is no one going to ask me what whacky hijinks caused me to start this conversation 

Errorica: i always want to hear about your hijinks babe

Foxy: thank you baby <3

Foxy: anyways I got hungry in the middle of class 

And i may or may not have judt grabbed a  blood substitute pouch out of my bag and started drinking 

And by drinking I mean in the normal vamp way too like I fully munched down on that bag 

Be-wise: oh wow

Foxy: back home if I did that everyone was like. Maybe a little mildly uncomfortable but they all got it y'know

Foxy: now I think everyone in POL 102 thinks I'm the kind of person to carry around weird unmarked pouches of viscous red fluid and bite into them 

Errorica: well I mean they're not exactly wrong for thinking that 

Gl(r)ory : oh man I've been doing that all the time and literally not even thinking about it 

Eef : how did we ever survive in white chapel before we came out? 

Be-wise: we barely did it was a disaster 

Eef: that's not inspiring confidence in me for how college is going to go 

Gl(r)ory: no but seriously do you guys think people have noticed me drinking the fake blood? What if I end up as the next campus celebrity on yik yak I can't deal with that sort of pressure 

Be-wise: well at least you won't end up on the class snap chat story since y'know

Be-wise: the vampires and photo thing 

Foxy: actually that's kinda concerning isn't it? 

Foxy: how long until someone is walking sound campus making a tiktok and notices the people in front of them aren't showing up on camera 

Errorica: let's burn that bridge when we get to it 

Errorica: you know I don't have any problem draining any pests who get a bit too nosy

Eef: okay Erica's terrifying-ness aside 

Errorica: you know you love me 

Eef: debatable 

Eef: does anyone want to go out tonight? 

Errorica: bar or is someone throwing?

Eef: bar 

Foxy: wait can we all acknowledge that ethan is asking to go out rn??? 

Eef: yeah yeah 

Be-wise: we always have to drag you out lmao what changed 

Eef: can't I just want to enjoy my rare mostly homework free weekend before we have to start studying for midterms in a couple weeks?

Foxy: no

Eef: damn

Eef: you got me I had a vision 

Gl(r)ory : and this vision said we have to go to a bar? 

Eef: you really want me to ruin the surprise? 

Be-wise: surprises usually don't go well for us

Eef: fair enough ig but this is a fun surprise

Errorica: i dont think i want ur fun surprise 

Eef: yeesh and you guys say Im boring 

erica ends up meeting a cute girl at the bar and they hit it off

there is that better 

Errorica: why are you getting visions of my love life

Eef: erica if I understood literally anything about how these visions worked my life would be so much less of a disaster 

Errorica: fair enough. I guess I'll go meet a cute girl tonight but only because Ethan is so pathetic and begged for us to go out with his lonely loser ass

Eef: literally fuck you??? 

Errorica: <3

Foxy: hell yeah babe get it 

Foxy: but talk to me if it gets serious <3

Errorica: ofc babe 

Errorica: why does everyone have to be there for me to get laid tn

Be-wise: that sounds so terrible out of context 

Eef: idk everyone was there in the vision 

Errocia: fair enough I suppose but you all better not interfere 

Foxy: on that note any chance I can stay the night in the triple <3

Gl(r)ory : not Erica sexiling her own gf

Eef: ofc Sara you can take my bed I'll sleep on the rug

Foxy: ethan don't be silly we can share

Be-wise: this is the classic college polycule hijinks I've been waiting for 

September 28

Poly-cool more like poly-lame

Be-wise: has anyone seen my bf

Gl(r)ory: im at the dorm

Be-wise: no the one we share 

Errorica: ah the midpoint of our weird shaped little polycule

like a triangle with a line attached to it I think 

Foxy: anyone else getting weird deju vu? 

Be-wise: yeah sure whatever, where's Ethan? 

Gl(r)ory : did you check the life 360? 

Be-wise: oh shit good idea thx babe 

oh that's a frat house 

Foxy: ???? 

Be-wise: our boyfriend is at a frat house at 8:45 pm on a Thursday night 

Errorica: have u tried calling him 

Be-wise: yeah no response that's why I'm texting here 

Errorica: ugh I have an 8 am tomorrow can't he handle himself 

Gl(r)ory: c'mon erica after everything he's done for you? 

Errorica: he maybe helped me meet 1 girl at a bar who I have not spoken to since 

Errorica: idk if that means I owe him a rescue from a frat house 

Gl(r)ory: harsh 

Be-wise: okay well someone has to help me rescue him probably so

Foxy: maybe he's there for non kidnapping related reasons? 

Be-wise; cmon Sarah this is Ethan we're talking about 

Foxy: sighs I'll meet you guys there? 

Errorica: and by you guys you mean Benny and rory right? 

Foxy: erica 🥺🥺

Errorica: christ fine see you there 

September 29

Poly-cool more like poly-lame

Eef: i lived bitch 

Errorica: yeah we were there

Gl(r)ory: dang Sarah you were right this is crazy deju vu 

Eef: did I miss anything fun? 

Errorica: no but you should back scroll

Eef: erica this is just you saying you didn't want to rescue me?

Errorica: lol

Eef: anyways 

Foxy: how did this even happen

Eef: so you know this guy in my calc class I was telling you about, who somehow thought that MTH stood for marketing and not math? 

Be-wise: the business kid? Yeah

Eef: right so he was asking for help because we have that test coming up and man is struggling with taylor series 

which is fair like this is not easy 

but also I'm not sure how he got into this class at all because calc 1 is supposed to be a pre req and I'm not even entirely sure he's taken algebra??

so I was like whatever I'll do my good deed and try to help him so we went to the library 

but he was asking if we could go to his place instead because he kept saying the library was too loud? But it was literally silent but whatever 

like I'm not trying to judge adhd king 

Errorica: this is the longest kidnapping story you've ever told I'm honk shoo-ing rn 

Eef: damn ur on my ass this week 

tldr we went to his frat house and it was creepy as hell 

he showed me this like creepy door in the basement and told me apparently it's where the new pledges sleep? Which feels like a violation of the hazing policy like did they not do the modules? 

anyways he takes me in there and well u guys saw it, classic creepy horror movie basement 

ans then he locks me in there and says they're going to ear my 😔

Errorica: ear my

Gl(r)ory : lol “ear my”

Eef: ur all literally my biggest haters???

I just went through a traumatic ordeal???

Be-wise: ethan this is just tuesday for you

Errorica: y'know what I think I'm starting to get that deju vu too

Eef: thx for rescuing me from the ghouls who wanted to kill and eat me bestiee

Erorrica: eat me? don't you mean ear my?

Be-wise: wait guys

Be-wise: don't you realize what this means 

Gl(r)ory: ??

Foxy: why are you talking like a detective in a children's story 

Be-wise: for dramatic effect 

this was our first supernatural experience in college 

Foxy: shit you're right  

Be-wise: you can take the polycule out of the supernatural town but you can't take the supernatural out of the polycule babyy

Errorica: that barely even makes sense 

Be-wise: idc new supernatural adventures baby!!!! I'm going to start reorganizing my grimoire rn fuck my lab report 

Eef: nerd <3

Gl(r)ory : nerd ❤️

Errorica: 🤮

Foxy: wait are we going to acknowledge that frat bros are apparently literally ghouls???

Chapter Text

Poly-cool more like poly-lame

Eef: besties I have bad news :(

Foxy: fuck what's wrong

Be-wise: oh fuck what is it this time

Errorica: can I seriously not have any peace in this goddamn coven 

RAWRy: plz tell me no one is dying 

Eef: what

oh fuck

not that kind of bad news

Sorry I forgot I'm a silly little prophet and saying I have bad news means someone is like dying or something 

No one is dying

More than they already are, that is

Errorica: if no one is dying then idc + handle it urself + ratio 

Eef: well you might care actually 

Eef: i know I promised another pint of special seer blood soon but I don't think that will be happening actually

RAWRy: aw booo no what's wrong 

Eef: well u know how I've been super tired lately and just generally feeling like shit 

Be-wise: yes we’ve been telling you to go to the doctor for weeks 

Eef: well I finally did

And turns out ur boy is anemic :(

Foxy: babe..

RAWRy: babe???

Be-wise: babe

Errorica: lmaooooo

Eef: h8 it here 

Errorica: how anemic are we talking here because I was really looking forward to that blood 

Eef: waif hold on

*results.jpg*

[Photo description: a screenshot of a web page showing blood test results. There's a shaky red digital circle drawn around the result for iron saturation level, which says 6%]

Errorica: idk what that means

How bad is that

Eef: normal is 25-45%

Foxy: babe?

Be-wise: babe.

RAWRy: babe??

Errorica: el oh el

Eef: sighs

I have to take these like ridiculously extra strength iron pills now

But they're going to make me so powerful probably 

Errorica: sure you tell yourself that 

Be-wise: we tell you to go the doctor for weeks and ur all nooo I'm fine 

Turns out ur lacking in vitamins and minerals smh

Eef: how was I supposed to know my iron was low I thought this was just what studying engineering and math does to you

Everyone in the engineering building always looks like they're one skipped coffee away from total annihilation 

RAWRy: i mean you do give blood a lot it was probably only a matter of time 

Eef: yeah I asked the doctor abt if I would be able to give blood again 

I mean I made it sound like I was giving through the red cross and not donating to my vampire partners and my mean vampire lesbian friend but

Errorica: its cute that you think we're friends 

Eef: .. anyways she said to take the pills for a couple months and then they would run tests again 

If I'm at at least 30% she said I can donate again 

Foxy: its fine babe ur health comes first it's not like we need it 

We have blood substitute packs from our favorite witch and Erica can always drain frat bros if she wants organic locally sourced blood

Errorica: disagree get better faster so I can have my favorite snack back loser

Eef: not Erica calling me her favorite snack

Foxy: she's trying to act unaffected but I can see her googling anemia rn and looking all concerned 

She just typed “is 7% iron saturation serious” in the search bar 

Errorica: betrayal 

Eef: omg erica in her caring abt me era <3

Errorica: i genuinely do hate all of you 

Eef: its okay erica I platonically love you too 😁

Be-wise: this is all so touching and beautiful 

I think to celebrate we should all go get boba 

Eef: what are we celebrating exactly? 

Be-wise: love Ethan

love

RAWRy: sooo true #lovewins 

October 12

Poly-cool more like poly-lame

RAWRy : okay So

You guys know how I joined that art club on campus right?

Foxy: yeah? Weren't you guys doing a project today where you were like painting a mural or something?

Be-wise: yeah I thought you were going to the YMCA intown to paint something on the side of the building 

RAWRy: aw wait it's so sweet that you remembered

But yeah and um

Haha

Erm

Errorica: can you all not go a day without causing some kind of incident what happened now

Also why are you typing stutters over text you could just choose not to do that

RAWRy: im gathering my thoughts

Errorica: Gather them faster??

RAWRy: ur feedback has been noted

apparently the YMCA contacted the local news to ask them to do a story about this

Which no one told us about 

And 

They may have had cameras

And I was like holding up a paintbrush and stuff

Foxy: oh lord

Eef: oh no

RAWRy: ahaha yeah so basically I saw the cameras and panicked because they were like doing interviews so I didn't know if this was like?? Live or being recorderwd or what

So I saw the camera and just immediately ducked out of the way

Eef: oh well that's good hopefully no one should notice anything then 

I mean I haven't gotten any visions about you guys being outed so it can't be that bad

RAWRy: well the thing is I wasn't on camera for long but a lot of people saw me duck out of the way 

And a few people from my club as well as the news person asked if I was okay 

So I panicked again

And may have told them I can't be on the news because I'm in witness protection 

Errorica: lmaooo

That's lowkey so funny 

Foxy: i mean it's not the worst excuse I've ever heard 

And least people can't really question it??

Eef: do we need to start keeping track of what excuses we've told who

List of lies we've used to cover up supernatural stuff:

- Epilepsy 

- Just really into science/ did a lot of labs in high school 

- Homemade capri suns because its better for the environment (??) 

- Witness protection 

Be-wise: Accidentally started talking to myself in latin the other day and when someone overheard I told them it was Italian because I thought that would be more normal than Latin 

So add “being italian” to the list ig? 

Eef: we're weaving such a complicated web of lies 

Foxy: genuinely at this point all of campus will know by winter break 

RAWRy: rough out here 

Chapter Text

Eef: i fucking hate being a seer sometimes 

I just grabbed my phone to do the connections for the day and I got a fucking vision of the answers 

I've yet to have a vision help me pass an exam but sure fucking ruin the one thing bringing me joy 

Foxy: saying a mini game made by an American newspaper is the only thing bringing you joy when you literally have 3 partners is crazy lowkey

It's giving boomer who hates his wife

Errorica: |_ replying to “i’ve yet to have a vision…”

What are the ethics of that

Eef: of using my seer powers to get exam answers??

Errorica: yeah

Eef: girl you literally kill people????

Errorica: we’re not talking about me

Be-wise: y'all i just found out I could try to apply to be in a lab on campus that works with rats and I was like kh hey maybe a new food source for the vamps and then I realized it's literally easier to kill a person on this campus than a rat

Like if you kill a rat they will know but some random guy eh who cares 

Errorica: what are the ethics of draining research rats anyways 

Be-wise: okay first of all what's ur deal with ethics today 

Second of all idk ask the IACUC 

Third of all girl you KILL PEOPLE 

Mostly men but they do still technically count as people I've heard 

Foxy: ignore her she's talking about ethics in one of her classes and has been constantly saying “what are the ethics of that” for the past week

Eef: oo what class? 

Errorica: its for the business track of my fashion major 

Eef: oh dang I was expecting it to be part of the comp Sci

Errorica: Computer scientists don't have any ethics they all just accept internships with lockheed martin programming bombs to hit as many innocent civilians as possible at a time 

RAWRy: Damn

On that note are we going out this weekend 

the weather is supposed to be really nice so we can wear our slutty little tank tops without getting cold 

Errorica: i mean I never pass up thr chance for a slutty tank

Eef: ur always wearing ur leather jacket tho

Errorica: what are the ethics of critiquing my lesbian self expression through fashion?

(Hint the ethics are bad)

Eef: fuck I can't really argue with that 

What are the ethics of you always critiquing my transmasc swag

Errorica: 1 you can't steal my thing 

2. U don't have transmasc swag u just have terrible fashion sense 

Eef: whatever whatever let's plan to go to red’s Saturday night? 

Foxy: sounds fun I need to get drunk 

Eef: uh oh journalism exam not go well?

Foxy: i fr gave up after like 20 mins 😭 it was so bad

I need to change my major 

Why did I pick this in the first place 😭😭 I don't even want to be a journalist I would never be able to get hired 

thr job market is so over saturated

I cant even be in front of a camera 

What was I thinking

I'm going to drop out 

Be-wise: oh girl 

Eef: Babe its going to be okay 

Maybe a change in major might be a good idea tho 

Errorica: this polycule should have a 3rd comp sci major 

Foxy: babe with all the love in my heart no

I was thinking maybe environmental science or zoology?

Not to have animals to eat

I'm perfectly capable of hunting my own rats thank you very much 

RAWRy: do you guys think vampires have a weird caveman instinct to be insulted by someone doubting our hunting skills

because Benny told me the other day about a spell he found to summon rats/ other animals ig and for some reason I got so mad I wouldn't speak to him the rest of the day 

Be-wise: it's true I was confused and sad 

Eef: it was pretty pathetic to watch 

Errorica: i think so tbh sometimes I get really pissed off when Benny offers me blood substitute 

Be-wise: i try to be a good helpful witch and provide for this coven and everyone gets mad at me for it :(

Foxy: its okay Benny I appreciate the substitute

but sometimes our lizard brains go all hunga bunga caveman 

Eef: that's so odd 

maybe seek counseling 

RAWRy: going to therapy to deal with my toxic vampir-inity 

Errorica: using I statements to describe the way I feel like i can get my own blood 

Be-wise: maybe I'll just kill myself huh. what then

Eef: id cry :(

Errorica: lol

Be-wise: what are the ethics of you mocking my cry for help

Errorica: what are the ethics of me giving you a 5 second head start before you better start running 

Be-wise: ?????

you're on the other side ofKDKFKDKSLXM

ndmx

Eef: oh my God she killed him 

Be-wise: m

RAWRy: it's like I can still hear his voice

Chapter Text

November 8

11:57 pm

Poly-cool more like poly-lame

Be weir: holyy shit 

rory is like

so pretty

wait

don't tell them I said rthat 

shhhfhfhjfjfhfhhh

secret

RAWRy : it's okay babe it'll be our secret

Be weir: wait

holdf om

this is 

the grouochat 

not my dms with e

ERRORica: and why are you dming your boyfriend secret messageso about your partner?

Be weir: WAIT

I forgot I'm dating both of you omg

this is the bear day if my life

I'm so lcky 

magic and 2 hot partners im like the coolest guy ever etf

I should do magic rn

blow everyone here's mind fr fr 

Foxy: let's not, actually 

be weir: it's so unfortuanre that you guys can't fet drunk

I'm going to figure something out

bevause u being osber rn is so boringnngngngng

what if u drank a drunk oersons blood?? Benny strikes again as a fuckimg genius that would hella work 

Foxy: not the worst idea you've ever had actually 

ERRORica: i’ve never fed from anyone who was fully drunk before, just tipsy, maybe it's worth a try

be weir: yessss rory has dibs come join me by the beer pong table and suck this blood baby

RAWRy: oh babe I will not be doing that actually

be weir: awww why not?

RAWRy: because you ?? might die??? 

be weir: ohhhhh

that's a risk I'm willing to take

ERRORica: ill just drain a frat guy no one will miss one night and experiment 

I don't want to risk it tonight because I don't know who at this party is too high profile to kill 

and I can't promise I won't kill them if they're too drunk 

Foxy: one day these messages will be read in a court of law

RAWRy: we'll have much bigger problems if so 

Eef: hey guys

didd you know

that 

seer visions 

and alcohol

are not a good mix

Foxy: oh babe are you okay

Eef: i've never vomited harder before in my life

I went straight from drunk to hungover in the span of like 20 seconds

why did I let you guys convince me to open that 5th seltzer I'm going to die forever and ever

never drinking again

ERRORica: man up and tell us what happened in the vision before you forget

Eef: chalkyhands rednailsblackdressrobesrobesrobes starsingingnodancing

bad bad bad

singing no dancing singing red black stars black

ERRORica: thx that's sooo helpful

Foxy: there was a woman? with a black dress and red nails covered in chalk?

probably a professor, right?

do you remember anything else about the woman or the people wearing robes? or the star?

Eef:  throwing up

Foxy: she was throwing up? or the people in the robes?

Eef: me

I am

throwing up

Foxy: oh babe are you in thr bathroom?

Eef: outside

ERRORica: ugh you cannot tell me you threw up on these people’s yard 

Eef: they're being really nice abt it one of the guys is offering to drive me home

i know what you guys are going to say dw I'm not going with him I'll probably get kidnapped blah blah blah 

seriously tho someone come take me home before I pass out 

Foxy: you're so concerning 

alright, I'm taking you and benny home. rory, sara, coming or staying? 

RAWRy: ill come with, this party is kinda lame tbh

the guy they have dj-ing sucks 

Eef: fair warning we're going to need to walk if someone tries to superspeed or fly me rn my entire body will disintegrate into ash 

ERRORica: im going to stay for a bit, this cute girl from one of my classes is here with her boyfriend and I'm trying to fix her

RAWRy: fix as in like. … make her gay? 

ERRORica: yes keep up

Be weir: if you wamt me to leave you'll have to find me firsttttt :)

Foxy: you literally told us where you were 5 minutes ago

also i can see you 

rory please collect him while I get the other one

RAWRy: eye eye captain

Eef: plz hurry the frat boysajust said something about an ambulance I think they think i have alcohol poising *crying emoji*

ERRORica: never type an emojis government name ever again 

anything else from your vision btw? not that I care but if the world is going to end soon I really need to be spending my time doing something better than this 

Eef: not really, normally I'm able to translate the flashes into more coherent thoughts but that was all I got

idk if it's because I'm drunk or because of this vision in particular 

but it felt really big idk

Singing not dancing

Foxy: walking them home now and he's just whispering that under his breath no wonder the frat guys were concerned 

RAWRy: welp I don't think the world is going to end tonight so this feels like a problem for tomorrow us

ERRORica: sooooo true no one contact me for thr next 3 hours I'll be busy

Be weir: 3 HIURS??!?

Errorica: you have so much to learn about lesbians drunk Benny

Be weir: you coukd teach me 🥺

ERRORica: ew.

-

November 9

2:15 pm

Why do they call it a coven when you cov-in the…

Sarah: *screenshot.jpg* [image description: screenshot of messages sent in the groupchat the night before with Ethan's description of his vision]

Jane: this is why mom and dad tell me you're a bad role model

Ethan: listen.

Sarah: oh man he wasn't even half as bad as Benny last night

Benny: ugghhghhbhhhhh

Rory: benny's still hungover he's not going to be much use in this debrief

Erica: loser

I should come play obnoxious music outside ur door at full volume

Rory: please don't kill my boyfriend I'm quite fond of him

tho then again as long as u bring him back…

Benny: 😧

Jane: that emoji evokes such a strong emotion wtf

I literally don't think I've ever seen it used before 

Sarah: okay I love y'all but. potential apocalypse ??? 

Ethan: i don't think apocalypse necessarily

just like

not good things for this school or town

or something 

bad but not like Bad

sorry it's not very easy to translate visions into actual words at the best of times but this one is particularly evasive

Jane: what triggered it? I'm guessing it happened at the party?

Ethan: i brushed up against someone, I didn't get a very good look at them but they seemed like a normal college student 

either dark red or brown hair, probably like around 6’ 

Sarah: hmmm

Rory: did you see how they were behaving?

Ethan: just walking past me and happened to bump into me I think, kept walking

nothing too weird

also someone may need to get Benny some electrolytes or something the noises he's making are getting worrying 

Jane: send me a pic of ur mini fridge

Ethan: ????

*fridge.jpg*

[image description: what looks like a normal dorm mini fridge with leftovers and a handful of energy drinks, as well as around 20 glass vials of various sizes filled with different substances. Some are glowing slightly, giving the fridge the appearance as though it's being lit through a stain glass window]

Jane: okay look at that vial on the top shelf of the arm, the skinny purple one,

see what it's labeled

unless it's not labeled then Benny deserves to die for his hubris and bad witch skills

Ethan: it is in fact labeled 

uh nothing too crazy, the little tag says peppermint, lemon, ginger, and milk thistle

and then some shit in latin because it's Benny 

Jane: okay yeah give him that

Ethan: you're sure this won't kill him?

Jane: 98%

Rory: ill take it to make the groaning stop

Benny: ….. thank you jane…. I am forever indebted ti you ….

Jane: yeah you are

Erica: is this some witch 2 witch telepathy or

Jane: no Benny just taught me that all good witches keep a hangover cure stocked at all times 

they're really easy to make they just don't last long 

and also for some reason you never remember that you have them when you need them

Sarah: hmm are these the sorts of things you should be teaching your minor apprentice 

Benny: hey look…. grandma taught it to me…

Rory: is the ellipses a side effect or are you just going that

Jane: he's just doing that

Benny: maybe this is just the new me….

Rory: yeah erica go ahead and turn him actually

Benny: wow…. you think you know someone. …

Ethan: sooooo anyways

don't talk to any women covered in chalk with red nails wearing black dresses 

and if anyone in black robes starts singing run ig

Erica: that seems like good life advice in general

Rory: unless they're carollers 

Erica: caroling more like door dash

get it because I drain them lol

Jane: i forgot that you guys were all weirdos 

white chapel is doing sooo much better with my coven taking over by the way

we even have a new member who might be joining us, he's a water mage 

he's done a few small things with us but he's not quite Coven yet, we haven't really added anyone before so we're kinda making it up as we go along

Erica: have you been practicing with your knives?

Jane: yes I've only hit one person this month 😊

Erica: that's my girl

Ethan: any civilian deaths since we left?

Jane: several!

all good tho they deserved it

probably 

they went mushroom foraging on a full moon in the woods at night, found a perfect circle of mushrooms that are not native to the area, and thought it would be a good idea to step inside the circle 

Benny: christo

your coven all okay?

Jane: yeah we dealt with it pretty quick 

shame about those people but y'know what they say 

Benny: fuck with the fae and it’ll be the last thing you do?

Jane: exactly 

but nothing else too crazy has been happening 

hate to say it but maybe y'all really were the problem

Rory: i prefer to see it as we were the ones keeping things interesting 

Jane: any other major coven updates?

Sarah: officially switched my major!

Erica: wait really you didn't say anything??

Sarah: yeah I wanted to wait until I was sure it was what I wanted to do, I just talked to my advisor yesterday 

Jane: what did you change it to?

Sarah: double major pysch and art!

Ethan: oh that's an interesting combo

Sarah: yeah I think one day I want to open my own child psychology practice and I think being a licensed art therapist would be really useful for working with kids

I need to work with my new advisors abt it more and try to find some internships and stuff but I'm just glad I'm out of journalist hell

Erica: im happy you're happy babe <3

Sarah: thanks babe <3

Jane: ewwwww

Sarah: you just called me to talk about your girlfriend for like 2 hours last weekend 

Jane: fair play

and with that

I'm gotta go do some prep stuff, we're going to go on patrol later

Rosie heard some rumors about a new werewolf park moving in which could be fine or could be terrible 

Ethan: you're using the buddy system right?

Jane: yes dad I'm going with our new water mage Kevin

Erica: kevin???

Ethan: and you're sure you trust him?

Jane: yeah like I said he's done a few small things with us 

and we’re not doing anything too wild, just taking a look around to see if there's any sign of them, we're not planning on engaging if we do come across them

we're hoping they're friendly anways but with some of the other rumors that are going around we want to be cautious 

Ethan: okay just lmk when u get home for the night so I know you're safe 

Jane: fine fine 

Erica: don't forget those silver knives I got you

Jane: oh shit ur so right those may come in handy 

Benny: theres also a few much super strength potions left in the basement fridge if you want them, unless you guys used them 

Jane: ill check but I don't think I've used them 

I've been letting the rest of the coven grab stuff as needed as long as they let me know when we're running low on something but you know how non witches are

Benny: right it's like they think we can create whole stocks of potions whenever we want like getting those ingredients takes work

Jane: fr

Bye guys!! Hope you're having fun at college!!

Sarah: bye jane!!

Rory: bye!

Erica: are we not going to acknowledge that his name is kevin tho??

Private message between Rory and Jane

November 9

2:57 pm

Rory: please don't forget to text Ethan later, he didn't want us to say anything but he had a small fear curse relapse after the whole drunk vision thing so he's extra twitchy rn

Jane: oh shit

that dumbass 

thx for the heads up I'll make sure to send updates so he knows I'm okay!

Rory: ty :)

Chapter Text

November 18

3:24 pm

Poly-cool more like poly-lame

Be weir: I GOT THE LAB SPOT

RAWRy: WHOOO LETS GO

Eef: yippee!!!!!! 

congrats babe I'm so proud of u

ERRORica: congrats loser now you can be even more of an anti social freak 

Foxy: slay that's awesome!!

isn't it super rare for freshmen to be able to join labs? especially your first semester too??

Be weir: yeah I have no idea how I actually got in 

maybe since it's a rat lab and I have a lot of experience with dissections ig??

RAWRy: how did you explain ur experience in a way that didnt make u sound like a seriel killer lmaoo

weir: i said I worked at my family's holistic all natural alternative medicine company and that we harvested from (legally acquired) animals 

Eef: i think the biggest lie there is that the animals were legally acquired 

she bought it?

Be weir: yeah grams agreed to be a reference for me since I do actually have the experience 

RAWRy: aw that's nice 

ERRORica: so ur just going to be cutting open a bunch of rats?

Eef: can't belive I'm now the only non-murderer in the polycule 

ERRORica: yeah we gotta get you your first kill

let's find someone frail and weak tho I'm not confident in ur ability to take down anyone with even the slightest bit of self defense training 

Be weir: lmaoooo

but yeah that's a part of it, ig all the studies they started before are reaching their end points now so I'll be helping take animals off study 

which is a nice way of saying euthanize them 

and then harvesting their organs and tissues for study 

Foxy: ik i really can't say anything because I'm literally a demonic undead creature but that sounds so evil scientist-y

Be weir: yeahhh I mean I feel bad for the little guys but at least they died for a noble pursuit 

hopefully this medication we're studying will actually be useful in helping people

Foxy: yeah fair enough 

when do you start? 

Be weir: i have a bunch of training to do and then hopefully I'll be able to actually start doing stuff when we get back from winter break 

Eef: dang that's awesome 

what's the professors name again? 

Be weir: dr. anastasia, she's really cool 

and scary 

like I do not want to be on her bad side 

I feel like she can see into my soul 

Eef: lmaooo

and she's in the chem department?

Be weir: yeah she has a really interesting research focus though because I guess she did her undergraduate in biology, her masters in chemistry, and then she did her pHD in this like wild crossover between botany and music??? idk it's super strange but cool

I'm trying to get through her thesis now and I'm struggling though like I barely understand this stuff 

ERRORica: wait how do you get from music botany crossover to pharmaceuticals research?? 

Be weir: so ig a big part of this medication we're testing is a certain plant ingredient that has been shown to be ineffective before 

but now she's trying it after the plant has been grown with a like

specific frequency played near it while it was growing?? 

like some sort of sound that she thinks alters the properties of the plant to make it useful for this 

which I would normally think is total bullshit but ig she did a small 6 month trial a few years ago and it actually worked???

Foxy: wow wtf that's crazy 

tho again we are literally all supernatural creatures maybe we shouldn't be so doubtful 

like didn't we fight multiple huge plant monsters 

Be weir: yeah it's just so crazy to me that she's doing something like this completely sans magic

or if she is using magic I doubt she realizes it, which would make it a pretty weak form of it that shouldn't be able to affect something this strongly 

RAWRy : as interesting as this is its all going so far over my head I gotta be real 

Eef: yeah I'm lost 

send me her thesis tho if u have a pdf it sounds so cool

Be weir: yeah ill email it to you in a bit 

I have to do so much training to prove that I'm not going to needlessly torture rats

as if I would purposefully skew our data by fucking with our very expensive lab rats 

if I wanted to torture rats I would use free ones from the woods 

ERRORica: jesus christ 

-

November 27

4:52 pm

Poly-cool more like poly-lame

RAWRy: FINAL SCHEDULES ARE OUT

Be weir: oh christo

Eef: fuckkkkk

I have an exam on Friday :(

ERRORica: HA loser

Foxy: i have one late one Thursday ugh

love having to take finals for classes that no longer count towards by major at all because they still affect my GPA

ERRORica: i only have 1 in person final Tuesday the rest are all projects due by the end of the week

RAWRy: yeah i have 1 tuesday and 1 wednesday the rest are projects 

Eef: fuck you guys i have an exam every day plus an extra one on thursday 

Be weir: 6 finals???? i thouht you were only in 5 classes how does that even happen 

Eef: idek man absolutely fuck my life

also you guys are laughing but it's my parents who are driving us all home sooooo

ERRORica: fuck. yeah 

Foxy: are we all going to fit in their mini van?? idk abt you guys but I have a lot of crap I need to take back with me 

Eef: oof good point, it might be a pretty tight squeeze with all of us 

i can have my parents drive down seperately with the van and my car so we can split up on the way back?

Be weir: that would work but it would be a bit awkward having some of us alone in a car with ur parents 

Eef: well u and Ror pretty much grew up with me so maybe you guys in the van with all our shit and Erica and Sarah with me?

Be weir: works for me me

ERRORica: ugh if I must ride with you 

RAWRy: guys wtf are you talking about 

Foxy: plans for riding home???

RAWRy: we're vampires we can just run or fly home

ERRORica: ……

well fuck

Foxy: shit so true

we'll just throw our stuff in ur folks van ethan

Eef: yeah works for me

rory got the brain cell today apparently

RAWRy: damn right

-

December 7

11:32 pm

Poly-cool more like poly-lame

ERORRica: so you guys ever do that thing where you go to the computer lab in the middle of the night because your laptop decides to die in the middle of working on your final project 

so you're working on your code and everything's fine until suddenly one of the computers starts playing this like weird laughing sound 

but you've written the words “public static void” 18 times already so you assume you're just losing your grip on reality 

and then all the computers in the room start flying together and form a giant robot who is currently towering over you as you hide under a table and text your coven 

I would simply run away or deal with this myself but I didn't get a chance to save my code and also I can't bite a computer 

so if anyone is awake and wants to join me in the computer sciences building feel free :) it's room 009

Foxy: babe what the fuck 

omw

Rory: just woke up Benny and E we'll be there ASAP

ERRORica: thxxxxx besties 

December 8

9:52 am

Poly-cool more like poly-lame

Eef: okay I think I finally figured out what caused the computers to go haywire but i don't really understand all of it it's not exactly my area of expertise 

so I think there's someone on this campus whose a technomage? 

basically like a witch who works with electricity and technology and stuff rather than nature?

Be weir: oh ew

that's disgusting 

like it just feels wrong 

ERRORica: i truly don't care at all please just tell me you were able to retrieve my code

Eef: sending you a copy as we speak

ERRORica: thank fuck

I just finally figured out how to get the stupid functions to work right as that thing formed and couldn't remember it at all today 

Foxy: waif what's this about a technomage?? 

Eef: yeah so I'm guessing it's a student because it just seemed like a really dumb prank I think?

idk my guess is that Erica rory and benny would have better luck than me in understanding all this idk why I agreed to help

but basically I got the sense that whoever created the construct was trying to get back at someone, possibly a girl who rejected him?? and it was supposed to go off that night in the computer lab when whoever it is was in there 

but idk how he planned to lure them in there 

RAWRy: wait erica didn't you say your laptop died for seemingly no reason?

ERRORica: yeah one minute it was fine and the next I had a blue screen of death 

RAWRy: turned down any date offers from creepy comp sci nerds lately?

ERRORica: you mean besides you? a few yeah 

I've been nice abt it tho I usually just tell the guys I'm a lesbian so they know not to bother trying to change my mind

RAWRy: there you have it my detective work is done 

Foxy: e did you figure anything else out?

BTW how did you figure any of this out at all

Eef: i can just kinda know things sometimes idk

it's enough to point us in the right direction but you compsci nerds are going go need to look at some of this code yourselves km lost 

whoever did this really hates whoever it was meant for 

it seems plausible that it was meant for erica though

ERRORica: great another insane person trying to get my attention 

RAWRy: another?? 

ERRORica: ive had a lot of stalkers over the years 

Be weir: yikes

well whoever this is sounds like bad news

e do you think this is connected to your vision at all? from the party?

Eef: oh yeah I forgot about that 

maybe but idk

I didn't get the sense that the woman was related to the computer science department but I guess that doesn't mean she still couldn't be involved in this 

and like I said this person seems really angry and i doubt erica getting away will make them any happier 

but maybe theyll cool off over winter break idk

RAWRy: well we'll figure it out

and we'll protect you in the meantime erica <3

ERRORica: i could kill every one of you in 20 minutes flat and make it looks like an accident 

Foxy: babe you always say the sweetest things <3

Chapter Text

Poly-cool more like poly-lame

Dec 28 

3:56 pm

RAWRy: god i forgot how much there is literally nothing to do in white chapal

Be weir:  wdym we can always go get up to some supernatural shenanigans

Ik we have those at college now too but they just dont hit the same as the classic WC ones

Eef: you just want us to go help you harvest potion ingredients don't you

Be weir: shocked and appalled by these accusations tbh

Errorica: the nerd has a point

Be weir : erm actually I consider myself more of a dork 

Errorica: the one time i agree with you on something and you have to ruin it by being the living personification of the of the poindexter emoji

but still

there is nothing to do in this god forsaken town

which you would think a town forsaken by god would be a little less boring 

Foxy: only a few more weeks until we go back thankfully

I would hope we can survive untl then 

Errorica: :/

Eef: you guys literally have access to flight and superspeed you can go wherever you want whenever you want 

you could just go fuck off to the bahamas or whatever

Foxy: and leave my favorite boyfriend behind??? never

ik you have stuff to do with ur family while ur home and wouldn't be able to flee the country on a romantic tryst

Eef: wow im so honored 

i can’t believe you would suffer through 5 total weeks of mild boredom for me <3

Foxy: <3

RAWRy: ew

i’m going to mexico 

Be weir: take me with you pleading face pleading face

RAWRy: do you want to go on a fun date or do you want to crawl through the woods looking for potions ingredients again

because I still haven't forgiven you for the rash i got last time

Be weir: i made you a salve didnt i

and it will be a cute date I promise

the ingredients I need i can just get at the market

RAWRy: sick lets go then

wanna go tm? we’ll leave in the morning and come back tomorrow night so we don’t have to find a place to sleep 

Be weir: sounds good i’ll find some place for us to go that’s more specific than “mexico” lmao

Errorica: wow everyone’s making all these grand romantic gestures I feel so left out

oh wait no i dont

I’m going to Europe for a week byeeeeee

Foxy: ah

hate to see her go love to watch her leave

Eef: sarah?????

Errorica: 😘😘

-

Pooly-cool more like poly-lame

January 3

5:52 pm

Eef: oh yeah before we go back we need to start researching houses for next year 

unless we wanna live in the dorms agian

which i do not

Foxy: oh shit yeah we probably should have started that already by now oops

RAWRy: do we want a house or an apartment? cause i think usually apartments are already furnished which is nice but i know sometimes the houses aren’t

but the apartments are probably smaller 

Be weir: well we also need to figure out how many bedrooms we want to go for

Because if we do a 5 bedroom we’ll probably all have to pay more than if we do 2 and split 

Eef: 2 might be a bit small, ik it’s what we’re doing with the dorms now but it’d be nice to have a bit more space

esp because the rental places are probably buitl with 1 person per room in mind

maybe 3 or 4? we should also see if it’s actually any cheaper because if its the same price per person we might as well just do a bigger house for more space

Be weir: yeah good point

Foxy: i’m looking around on college pads now, looks like there’s a lot of stuff still available but it will probably start booking up fast

Foxy: honestly I think a house is going to be a better bet unless we want to do 2 apartments because I don't see any big enough for all of us

but it would be kinda nice to be closer together 

Eef: yeah I agree I think we should try to find a house 

ideally one that's not too far from campus but beggars and choosers etc etc 

Foxy: i'll send over some links to a couple different places in a few and if we see any we like we can start scheduling tours 

we need to put together a list of stuff we all want 

Errorica: if we don't have a dishwasher I'll kill myself 

Foxy: noted 

RAWRy: washer and dryer would be nice but I don't really mind going to the laundromat if need be, idk if that's a deal breaker for anyone else

Eef: eh i could live without it 

Foxy: okay sounds good I'll send some stuff in a few 

Foxy: okay here we go

link1 - 4 bedroom 1 bath, about 15ish minute walk from campus, dishwasher but no laundry, rooms are kinda tiny considering we'd be sharing, furnished 

link2 - 3 bedroom 1 bath, rooms are a good bit bigger, slightly more expensive, dishwasher + laundry, unfurnished bedrooms but kitchen and living room are furnished 

link3- 4 bedroom 2 bath, dishwasher + laundry, bit further from campus (little under half an hour walk I think) but there's a bus stop nearby, unfurnished bedroom and living room, rooms are a pretty good size, bout the same amount per semester as the first one 

there's a ton more obv but I think these are the best bets for us 

Be weir: wait wait wait 

the third one has a basement???

Foxy: uh yeah looks like an unfinished one, the washer and dryer are down there but other than that it's p much empty

Be weir: we need it 

Foxy: ?? what's ur obsession with a basement 

Be weir: do you want me making all our potions and blood substitutes in the kitchen ?

genuinely the process of making the blood substitute alone is like A Lot to be doing in the same space we make food and cocktails 

Errorica: fair point 

I like #3 it's cute ish in like an ugly rental way

Eef: it has a nice little yard too that's fenced in

Be weir: omg omg omg 

we need it

there's enough room to have multiple planters with areas that have both direct sunlight and partial shade………

Eef: witches are so easy to please 

Errorica: its a nice size too 

we can host house parties ;)

Foxy: no luring victims to our house to drain its too conspicuous 

Errorica: you never let me have any fun 

Foxy: i’ll call the realtor and set up a tour, should I do either of the other ones in case this place doesn't work out?

Eef: maybe the second one if you don't mind?

Foxy: sure no problem 

Eef: mom and dad are giving me a bunch of questions we need to ask on the tour lmao 

RAWRy: aw love them 

guyssss us getting a house together is so cute

can u imagine if we went back in time and told our freshmen year selves about this?

ERRORica: there would be so many things we would need to explain before we get anywhere close to our living arrangements

Be weir: current me: yeah so we ended up getting a 4 bedroom with a-

13 year old me: wait go back what was that about a deadly pandemic? 

RAWRy: sjfjjfjfjfjf

soooo true 

well if any of us could travel back in time it would probably be you

maybe you too e I feel like ur powers are so unpredictable you could just randomly unlock time travel one day

Eef: who says I haven't?

ERRORica: you’ve done way too many embarrassing things to have the powers of time travel 

ik the first thing you'd do is go back in time to prevent that one incident in Junior year

Eef: oh god we swore to never speak of that Erica

Foxy: ??

Be weir: also I could probably time travel but I'd get heavily ostracized from thr magic community 

I'd have to go under deep cover and change my name, go through a few risky procedures to permanently change my magical signature, and move to a remote village in a different country 

ERRORica: i like that last part we should do that

Be weir: :(

RAWRy: so is time travel like forbidden or whatever 

Be weir: yeah not because it's dangerous but witches just really hate the guy who invented it 

he had really bad vibes 

Eef: fair enough honestly 

-

Poly-cool more like poly-lame

January 5

3:52 pm

Eef: okay who was going to tell me Jane's coven is like. wild

Be weir: wdym? she told us about Kyle or whatever his name is right? 

Eef: yeah but apparently there's more of them? and also they're all either dating or crushing or exes??

ERRORica: i mean have you looked at our coven

Eef: yeah but none of us are exes that's wild

Foxy: that is so iconic of them 

Eef: she drew me a diagram hold on i have to show you guys this shit 

Errorica: oh my god????

Foxy: holy shit

that's so funny 

the little drawings are so good

Eef: jane told me she made everyone draw themselves and write the captions and then she went in and added the little details and the lines 

also she said this is one is slightly out of date because I guess a siren is joining??? I genuinely don't understand what's happening anymore 

Be weir: how does a coven even get that big

Eef: she was like trying to explain it to our parents who were super confused so she tried to get me to back her up and I was like I simply cannot support you on this one that is too many people

RAWRy: imagine being in a coven with your ex that's insane 

I don't think I'm strong enough for that 

Foxy: wait when did Jane and Wendy date and break up??? 

Eef: idek ive given up

Be weir: wendy’s level of effort is so real tho

Errorica: did one of us turn Ryan?? where did he come from

Foxy: probably got turned at that party with the rest of us? idk why he would've been there tho he would have been in middle school 

Eef: i just simply can't think abt Jane's weird coven anymore it's hurting my head

Be weir: real

-

Private chat between Erica Jones and Unknown Number

January 7 

11:52 pm

Unknown Number: im going to fucking make you regret what you did to me

fucking whore

im going to make you pay

Erica Jones: ughhhhh this is so boringgggggg

Unknown Number: excuse me???

Erica Jones: see like what kind of villain says excuse me

and like no offense but I'm so not scared of you 

your stupid little robots didn't even get a scratch on me

Unknown Number: how did you know that was me

Erica Jones: i mean I usually don't have more than one incel trying to kill me at a time

Unknown Number: you should be scared of me you fucking whore

you only managed to escape me last time by calling your pathetic little boyfriend for help with his inferior magic

Erica Jones: okay first of all I only needed help to make sure I didn't destroy your shit so badly I lost my code which I needed for that end of term project 

and second of all that wasn't my boyfriend that was my girlfriend’s boyfriend’s boyfriend 

get it right

Unknown Number: what

Erica Jones: because again, I am a lesbian 

but I'm sure you’re still going to try to kill me or whatever anyways you little fucking incel

do your worst, I've already died and it wasn't even that bad

Unknown Number: what

Chapter Text

Poly-cool more like poly-lame

January 11

3:52 pm

RAWRy: we’re finally going back tomorrow woooooooo

Foxy: y’know we’re all excited now but in a week we’re going to be so done with classes again

Errorica: maybe you’ll have a better semester now that you don’t hate your major

did you get your schedule all figured out btw?

Foxy: eh mostly 

i have eight am’s every day tho 😞

Eef: noooo

that’s tragic 

Foxy: i have to kinda catch up since i’m a semester behind doing two majors

so i’m taking 19 credit hours this semester

Be weir: oh my god??? you’re going to die

Foxy: thanks i love the positivity and support

Be weir: sorry i mean it’s a good thing you don’t need to sleep anymore since you probably won’t have time for it! :) 

Foxy: ugh i know i don’t actually need sleep but i still hate staying up all night, it just gets really boring 

guess i wont have that problem if im doing work all night 

Well i mean the work will probably be boring but at least ill be doing something

Eef: i’m also doing 18 credit hours if it makes you feel any better

at least we’ll be suffering together

RAWRy: whyyyyy

Eef: math and mechanical engineering are both a lot of credit hours that don’t really overlap as much as you might think so i’m trying to get a lot of credits out of the way while the classes are still pretty easy and i can go a bit lighter once im taking like. advanced abstract linear algebra or whatever the fuck 

Foxy: yeah that’s kinda my problem as well

like psych and art aren’t really the same with classes getting necessarily harder over time but i know the upper level art classes can get really time consuming with the projects and the psych classes get a lot more in depth 

Be weir: it’s kinda funny that we have like the full spectrum of majors here 

except for business i guess the closest we have is erica’s business concentration with her fashion 

but other than that it's like we got everything

fashion and art, computer science and math, psychology, chemistry, mechanical engineering

what a well balanced coven we got the full spectrum 

Foxy: oh wait speaking of spectrums 

that was a bad way to segue way into this hmm

anyways i’m thinking of adding they/them to my pronouns but i still want to keep the she/her

not super sure abt it but i thought college was probably the best time to try it out

RAWRy: omgggg yes join me!!!

Errorica: hell yeah babe 

Eef: aw thx for telling us 

Be weir: now we got like every standard pronoun too

she/her she/they they/them he/him and any/all

We should start getting funkier with it throw in some fae/faer pronouns or something 

Errorica: i thought your pronouns were dumb/ass

Be weir: wowwww erica that joke is so politically incorrect smh

Errorica: shut the fuck up

-

Private chat between Erica Jones and Unknown Number

January 15

9:32 am 

Erica Jones: so now that we’re back on campus are you going to try to kill me again

I’d hate to break any more of your little toys, it feels a bit like taking candy from a baby

Unknown Number: has anyone ever told you you’re really fucking annoying 

Erica Jones: and yet you want to tap this so bad you tried to kill me over it

Curious 

Unknown Number: i’ve changed my mind, why would I want to fuck a fucking slut like you

Erica Jones: ugh now it’s boring again 

get new material 

Unknown Number: whatever, i’m still going to kill you for humiliating me

Erica Jones: don’t ask someone out in front of a crowd if you don’t want the crowd to hear their answer

Hey i have a question

How does the technomage shit work anyways

Is is something you were born with or is it something anyone can learn

Unknown Number: why, finally realizing how inferior your little boyfriend’s magic is?

Erica Jones: ugh y’know what this is what i get for trying to have a polite conversation with an incel

Unknown Number: do you call every man you don’t like an incel?

Erica Jones: do you call every woman you don’t like a slut?

11:56 am

Unknown Number: it’s both

Erica Jones: what?

Unknown Number: some people are born with the ability to become technomages but you still have to learn it

And not like dumbass plant witches “learn”, it's not just memorizing spells or potion recipes 

It's more like being an engineer and a chef at the same time

Erica Jones: aw did you miss our riveting conversation?

Unknown Number: i had a fucking class dumbass 

Not all of us can seduce our professors with a blowjob to get an A without cracking open a book all semester 

Erica Jones: ewww i’m not going to give some old guy a blowjob

you’re such a misogynist you freak

We’re comp sci majors why would we open books anyways 

Unknown Number: i’m not a comp sci major

Not everyone in a coding class is a computer science student idiot 

Erica Jones: do you have to call me an insult in at least every other text or your dick falls off or something 

What major are you then, incel

Unknown Number: wouldn’t you like to know

Erica Jones: not really to be quite honest 

Unknown Number: |_ replying to “ewww I’m not going to g…” why do you care about how old they are anyways aren’t you like ancient

Erica Jones: hell fucking oh???? I’m literally 19 go fuck yourself??

Unknown Number: oh i figured since you were a vampire you were older than you look

My mistake

Erica Jones: yeah it is your mistake weirdo 

Why were you trying to get with me if you thought i could be your great grandma 

Unknown Number: it’s not like i knew that at the time, i only figured it out when you said that thing about having been killed before

i put the pieces together with all the guys that have disappeared after being seen with you at parties

Plus the time in class you had blood in the corner of your mouth, how pale you are, etc etc 

Erica Jones: have you been stalking me you little creep?

Unknown Number: oh please you should feel honored to be stalked by me 

I don’t waste my time on just anyone you know

Erica Jones: wow men suck so fucking much

Unknown Number: in my experience it’s usually women who do the sucking 

Erica Jones: i genuinely can't wait to kill you 

Unknown Number: and I can't wait to see you try

When were you turned? I doubt it was recently based on the handle you seem to have on the whole vampire thing but you look roughly the age you claim to be 

Erica Jones: why the hell should I tell you anything 

Unknown Number: exchange of information? I told you about technomages so really you’re in my debt unless you tell me something in return 

Erica Jones: orrrrr you could remember that you tried to fucking kill me? Maybe?

Whatever it really doesn't matter if you know this

I was turned towards the beginning of freshmen year of HS, so just about 4 years ago 

Unknown Number: why do you not look 14 then?

Or were you just an exceptionally well developed 14 year old?

Erica Jones: see it’s when you say things like that when I start picturing your gorey death at my hands

Vampires don’t stop aging right away unless they’re exceptionally powerful, like seen once a millennium kind of power. It’s a skill that takes time to develop like making glamours 

Average vampire stops aging around 25, maybe 30 if they’re pretty weak 

Unknown Number: fascinating 

Were you not surprised to find out there was another supernatural outside your weird little club, by the way?

Erica Jones: dude do you think you’re the first supernatural outside of my coven i’ve met here?

You need to go to more parties 

And stalking me at them doesn’t count

Unknown Number: coven?

Erica Jones: yeah you’ve probably never heard of them they’re for people who have friends

Unknown Number: covens are just silly clubs for plant witches to talk about soil and fish viscera 

Erica Jones: ohhhh i see, you don’t know shit about shit 

Well i think i’ve more than held up my end of the equivalent exchange so if you want any more information on how the supernatural works you’ll need to give me something 

Unknown Number: not that i’m agreeing, but what would you want?

Erica Jones: i’ll let you know when I figure it out

See ya later incel, I look forward to your next attempt on my life

Unknown Number: farewell for now whore 

Erica Jones: yeah i like mine better

Poly-cool more like poly-lame

January 17

2:21 pm

Be weir: oh my god my PI just gave me the schedule for this semester for the lab and I think i’m going to die 

Thank god I’m only doing 16 credit hours because she has me scheduled for at least 20 hours a week in the lab 

not including the extra training and shit I have to do this first week

Foxy: jesus 

RAWRy: damn between Ethan with his 18 credit hours/ tutoring and you with ur lab I'm never going to see my boyfriends 😭😭 just going to be sad and alone in our triple 😔

Be weir: yeah like im happy for the experience but geez 

going to be a rough semester all around I guess 

Errorica: no fr

btw if you guys have any encounters with computer incel lmk

I don't think he'll do anything to you tho but he's pretty much said he's not going to stop trying to kill me so

just be on the lookout ig

Eef: waif when did he say that? did he threaten you again??

Errorica: oh we've been chatting

Foxy: yeah it's really funny they sit there and insult each other over text 

erica's insults are a lot better tho 

Errorica: yeah dw I'm going to kill him soon 

just have to catch the fucker alone which shouldn't be hard because it seems like he's a shut in antisocial weirdo 

doesn't even know what covens are

Be weir: damn that's sad 

Errorica: yeah he fucking hates witches ig but honestly I think he just doesn't know anything abt the supernatural even tho he thinks he's some sort of genius 

Be weir: well you’ll hear no arguments from me about killing him

Errorica: as if your protests would stop me anyways 

Eef: eventually we're going to have to have a conversation about the general rise in serial killer tendencies in this coven

Chapter Text

Private chat between E <3 and Roryyy :)

January 31

4:14 pm

E <3: heyy is Ben still asleep in the dorm?

Roryyy :): yeah I just got back I figured he was taking a nap after his last class

E <3: i don't think he went to that class I'm pretty sure he's been in bed all day 

Roryyy :): oh shit

should I wake them up?

E <3: id just let him be for now he might be coming down with something 

I know they've been really run down with their lab I can't believe how late they've had to stay 

Roryyy :): oof yeah 

still tho I think we should prob wake them up to eat dinner at least I don't think they've eaten all day and they skipped dinner for lab yesterday 

E <3: hm yeah true maybe I can doordash us something later so they don't have to leave the dorm if he's sick or too tired 

Roryyy :): oo good idea 

E <3: yeah in the meantime tho I'm going to have to try to go book a study room real fast so I can do this zoom call I forgot about lol 

since I can't use the room if Ben's asleep

Roryyy :): oh shit whats the call

E <3: its the internship thing I was telling you about the other day, I'll tell you more abt it at dinner 

Roryyy :): sounds good babe lmk if u need anything and good luck <3 

I'm going to go hunt down a quick bite then chill in the room with ben in case he wakes up and needs anything 

E <3: sounds good babe <3

Poly-cool more like poly-lame

February 9

10:12 am

Foxy: don't forget we have the house tour tm 

ERRORica: omg that's right 

I hope this place doesn't suck it'd be rough to find somewhere else this late

Rorster: i cant live in the dorms again i can't I wont do it 

Foxy: well at this point our options are this house or dorms 

or we could probably find an apartment tbh we'd just have to split up but that's not the end of the world 

Eboy: yeah let's see how the tour goes if we hate the place we'll look at apartments there's usually no rush for those 

Be weir: i want this house soooo bad tho it's so cute 

and the yarddddd and the basement 

plus it's pet friendly do I hear familiar??

Eboy: you can barely keep yourself alive let alone a cat

Be weir: it'd be a magic cat it would probably be better at keeping itself alive than me

what if I get a bat 

ERRORica: i can't promise I wouldn't get hungry one night and accidentally drain it

that's not even me being a bitch instinct would take over 

Be weir: bats surely don't have enough blood for it to be worth it 

it'd be like eating a single almond or something 

ERRORica: girls gotta do what a girls gotta do

Rorster: so true 

the tours at 6 right?

Foxy: yup!

Rorster: slayy we should go to dinner after 

for human food at least i just went hunting yesterday 

ERRORica: i lowkey have wanted to go to that Mexican place since we got here and haven't had a chance yet 

I'm craving quesadillas

Be weir: i'll have to see, after we're done touring i might have to run back to lab 

they're taking 4 animals off study tomorrow so I need to do two tissue harvests in the morning and two in the afternoon 

I might be done before we leave but I'm not sure sometimes the bones take sooooo long 

Eboy: boooo

Rorster: lammeeee

well if you can't come with we'll bring you home some tacos 

Be weir: thx babe

like I said I'll try to finish fast so I can come tho 

February 10

6:52 pm

Foxy has added 29 images

Eboy has added 7 images

[Image descriptions: various pictures from around a college house that looks currently lived in. some of the photos show the gang looking at parts of the house as they tour it, including some shots of backpacks or phones floating where the vampires are]

Be weir: man the floating backpacks are kinda scary 

Eboy: oop yeah guess we better make sure we don't share these with anyone 

Foxy: true

also here's the notes with all the info from the landlord

*notesappscreenshot.jpg*

[image description: notes about house rental including details about utilities, furniture, and leasing]

Rorster: ben why are you texting aren't you cutting open rats 

Be weir: not all of us have super speed babe I'm still walking back 

Rorster: so true my b 

ERRORica: well since the rest of us are sitting here texting at the table like lunatics I say we shelve the discussion until we're all ltogether but I liked the place 

Foxy: yeah ditto

Be weir: if we don't rent that place I'll fucking riot 

Foxy: everyone agree?

Eboy: yes ma'am

wait are you good with ma'am

Foxy: lol sure idc

Rorster: yeah i like the place we just have to figure out how we're doing furniture and everything 

Foxy: we can iron out logistics later but if we all like the place I'm going to tell the landlord we want to sign tomorrow 

no point putting it off until someone steals it

And it’s not like we’re going to find anything better

Be weir: so true 

please bring me back tacos im begging im starving rn

Didn’t have time to eat earlier with those other tissue harvests and classes 

Rorster: nooo babe

This lab is working you way too hard

Be weir: right and for what?? I only get paid in exposure 

ERRORica: isn’t that for like artists and influences what are you getting exposure for 

Be weir: no i mean like exposure to chemicals 

Specifically formaldehyde 

I think my lungs have started hardening 

Foxy: god you all worry me so much every day 

ERRORica: if you die i will still be expecting your ghost to pay your part of the rent 

Be weir: fair 

Private message between Rory and Sarah

February 26

3:12 pm

Sarah: have you been enjoying art club? I’ve been thinking abt joining now that i’ve added an art major

Rory: omg yesyesyes you should! It’s really fun and low commitment 

Sarah: oo okay are you sure its alright? Wouldn’t want to encroach on your territory 

Rory: pretty sure being coven means my territory is your territory 

Sarah: lmaoo true but i didn’t mean it in a vamp way more just in a “we spend a lot of time together as a polycule so it’s okay if you want something thats just for you I’ll respect that” way

Rory: aw i gotcha no it’s all good us (s)he/theys gotta stick together out here 

Plus i feel like we’ve honestly been spending a lot less time together lately since everyone’s been so busy, i mean i hardly ever see Ben somehow despite us sharing a room

Sarah: i know what you mean, erica’s always either in a computer lab or talking to that one guy who’s trying to kill her 

And you know how bad ethan is 

Rory: fr

Sarah: that's part of why i want to join a club tbh, i feel like everyone else in the coven always seems to be so busy doing stuff and i basically just go to class, hunt rats, come home and do homework

i was thinking of also trying to join the pysch club but idk if it will really be my thing, next year i might do the big sister/brother thing where you mentor a kid but you have to sign up for that in the beginning of the semester, it's too late now

Rory: ik what you mean like ben and e are never in our dorm like i don't understand how im the vampire and yet i get the most sleep out of all of us

maybe i should find another club too idk

but art club is actually meeting wednesday night if you wanna join me, people pop in and out all the time so you don’t gotta worry about it being your first meeting

i can introduce you to our president she's really chill, she's actually president of the one really big acapella group too idk how she finds the time

Sarah: oo that'd be cool! and sounds good, I’ll be there 

Rory: yess just wear clothes you’re okay getting dirty lol we’re going to painting

Sarah: got it lmao

Chapter Text

Private chat between Erica Jones and Unknown Number

February 23

2:19 am

Unknown Number: have you given our deal any thought?

Erica Jones: a lot to unpack here

One its two in the morning

Two its not really much of a deal, you just offered to owe me something in exchange for information i haven't even given you yet

And three if we’re going to keep talking on here you’re going to need to give me a name to call you, the unknown number is pissing me off

Unknown Number: three constitutes “a lot” to you? No wonder you’re comp sci and not a math major

I didn’t think a creature of the night would be overly concerned with texting at a time when even most humans on this campus are probably still up 

I don’t think it’s much of a stretch to call a potential deal a deal for simplicity's sake 

If you insist, you can can me Al

Though i hope you realize it brings your resolve to kill me into doubt when you say you want to save my contact

Erica Jones: well at least i know you’re not a law major if you think you can call what we have a deal

“AI” seriously? Ego much 

Unknown Number: as delightful as i find annoying you, i genuinely don’t know what you’re talking about this time 

Erica Jones: sure because it’s so normal to name yourself artificial intelligence 

Unless you want me to believe ai stands for something else

Unknown Number: ahh haha I see

Yes of course, you’re right, I’m so egotistical as to name myself artificial intelligence 

Either way, you can simply accept the name or don’t, you’re the one who brought it up

Erica Jones: whatever, i’ll take it

Erica Jones has changed two names 

Erica: so what’s the sudden need to know about covens 

Al: it’s not covens exactly 

I would just like to know everything you know about the supernatural 

Erica: that would take a while, some of us actually talk to people as I think we’ve discussed before 

Al: an overview then, i don’t need to know every detail about banshee diets or whatever, just information on covens 

And plant witches 

And possibly demons if you have any information i haven't found yet 

Erica: yeah im not even going to ask

what would I get in return?

Al: carte blanche madam 

Erica: god has anyone ever told you how pretentious you are

what would you even have that I would want?

Al: that’s up to you

Information on technomages, my secret major that you apparently still think about, how i managed to shut down your laptop remotely, a no questions asked favor

I’d even be willing to teach you a few technomage spells if you have good information

Erica: i like the idea of you owing me a favor

Al: i’m surprised you’re not more interested in the spells

Erica: look if you’re agreeing to the no questions asked favor, let me give you your first lesson on covens 

Witches hate technomages, my witch is no exception 

Learning technomage spells would upset my witch 

You don’t upset your coven’s witch for no reason

Al: ah, i imagine that goes especially for when your witch is already tired and stressed?

Erica: sure, i guess?? Weird hypothetical 

Listen, coven dynamics are complicated. It’s not like wolf packs with clear hierarchies and the ability to sense each others emotions and shit

witches aren't pack leaders

If our witch is pissing me off i can fight back without upsetting the coven dynamics too much 

But going out of my way to piss him off would just be unnecessary stress on the coven

And even if i don’t particularly care about upsetting our witch, i’d like to avoid pissing off the others as much as possible 

Well, id like to avoid pissing off my girlfriend which unfortunately means not pissing off her boyfriend which also means not pissing off his boyfriends

Al: is that not how any group of people works? You want to avoid needlessly aggravating each other since it would inevitably affect the whole group? 

Erica: it’s different 

Another reason covens aren’t like packs is that packs have to have at least two wolves to be a proper pack and more if it’s a large pack, and the wolves will always be the de facto leader of the pack

a coven could be a hundred people and only one witch with everyone else being a different creature 

So every coven has its own unique dynamics based on the different creatures that compose it 

It’s not a one size fits all thing

Like if there was a wolf in our coven that would really change the dynamic because wolves naturally want to take on more of a leadership role within any pack or coven they’re in and have a hard time stepping down to any non-wolf except for witches in the case of covens

Al: and what about your dynamic?

Erica: it’s hard to describe for people who haven’t experienced it

We have one witch, three vampires, and a seer 

One of our vampires relies really heavily on the witch for a potion they make so that’s part of the dynamic 

But our witch is also not the most reliable person so that affects some stuff

A lot of times a witch will be much more experienced before forming their own covens but we don’t have that

And the seer can’t really offer much in a fight, but he’s undeniably the best at planning because of his ability to just know things 

Basically, the rules are:

Don’t piss off your witch for no reason because you wouldn’t have a coven without them, this includes not turning down offers for potions and spells just because you’re prideful because most witches have an innate need to feel like they’re providing for their coven

Don’t try to imply your vampires aren’t capable of taking care of themselves, but if they ask for help give it because hunting together is a bonding activity and turning it down is offensive

If the seer has a gut instinct don’t brush him off, because he will run off on his own and get himself hurt 

Also our witch has an apprentice which is kinda complicated since he’s also still technically an apprentice himself and she’s also related to another coven member. She’s pretty much just got a protect at all costs designation even though she actually has her own coven now 

don't even get me started on her coven the dynamics are a fuckign nightmare they have a vampire and wolf idk how they haven't killed each other yet 

Al: fascinating 

You’re being much more forthcoming than i thought you would be in all honesty

Erica: well i wouldn’t want you trying to rescind your favor by claiming i didn’t hold up my end of the deal

Al: rest assured, you will get your favor

Any idea what that favor will be?

Erica: i’ll let you know

Al: don’t leave me waiting too long, it’s quite rude you know

Erica: so is trying to kill a girl so

Al: touche

So what do you know about demons?

Erica: not much honestly, hasn’t come up as much as you might think 

I know warlocks are the kids of demons and humans 

or I guess theoretically other humanoids, a demon and a vampire could probably make a Warlock too 

warlock magic is similar to witch magic but usually like? darker ig? idk i know witches hate warlocks even more than they hate technomages 

darker probably isn't the right word, it's more like heavier 

the magic has more of a physical weight to it and it feels suffocating if you cast it a lot or are around someone who does 

and also that warlocks have a reputation for deception

AI: oh? I wasn't aware of that last part 

Erica: yeah our witch’s mentor went on a rant about this once 

like any supernatural will probably lie about what they are to the general public but warlocks tend to refuse to out themselves even to other known supernaturals 

it's notoriously really difficult to get them to register with their areas supernatural governing body 

which is probably just because they get such a bad rap tbh like I wouldn't tell people if I were a warlock 

warlocks also tend to specialize in a way similar to but even more than witches do 

like a hearth witch can still do any type of magic but warlocks tend to lock in a domain

they get incredibly powerful at their domain tho

I'm trying to remember everything she said but tbh I don't really pay attention to this stuff most of the time 

typically the seer and my witch just tell me who to bite and I bite 

AI: why is it “the seer” but “my witch”?

Erica: why is anything anything 

just the way it is 

probably because every coven has a witch but it's rare to have a seer 

I'm not giving you any more information than that, I think that's worth my favor 

Also if you did want to know anything else I'd have to ask around 

AI: oh that definitely won't be necessarily 

let me know when you want to cash in that favor and I'll do my best

and if it's not stretching your good will too much, I'd prefer if we keep this conversation between us

Erica: well it's not like I'd talk to anyone outside my coven abt it

AI: id prefer if you didn't say anything to them either

Erica: sure ig, not like it would mean much to them 

well incel, you've kept me away from my code for long enough 

AI: goodbye for now whore 

Erica: i still like my nickname better 

Poly-cool more like poly-lame

February 24

8:13 pm

Eboy: good news: started to figure out how to have visions on command 

bad news: can so far only do it for finding solutions to math problems 

good news: makes tutoring a lot easier when you know the correct process and answer ahead of time

bad news: the people i tutor are starting to get really worried about the “seizures” i get every time they ask for help on a harder problem 

Rorster: shit that's a thing you can do??

also please stop telling people you're epileptic 

Eboy: its either that or say I'm dissociating and that somehow feels worse

but yeah and according to grandma weir no good coven will ever ask Benny to loan me out unless I can do visions on command

not sure if I love the idea of people asking benny if they can borrow me like I'm a lawn mower or something

but if they are I at least want to be a good lawn mower 

Rorster: lmaooo

Foxy: coven lore is so silly wdym people trade seers like they're baseball cards 

Eboy: it does seem a little insane but I guess it makes sense 

like seers are so rare I'm sure it became easier at some point to just have a system for borrowing one when you needed them instead of having covens fighting over who got to have them

ERRORica: like anyone would fight over you 

Foxy: don't listen to her she was just telling her weird little threat buddy about how useful you are to the coven 

ERRORica: babeeee you weren't supposed to tell people abt those texts Ai's going to be pissed

Foxy: don't you like pissing him off?

ERRORica: oh shit ur right i forgot 

yeah ai offered to owe me a favor in exchange for some info abt covens 

actually wait I just realized that must be why it's “the seer” and “my witch”

since seers were loaned between covens and didn't belong to any single one but every coven has a witch 

Eboy: hm yeah that tracks 

who tf is ai

Foxy: its the guy who tried to kill her that she flirt insults with 

he told her to call him AI

ERRORica: ew don't call it flirting 

Foxy: honestly sometimes when I'm reading over her shoulder I get jealous like I wish she would tell me to go fuck myself like that 

Rorster: lmaoooooo

Eboy: damn erica can't believe you're not treating out girl right 

ERRORica: i genuinely do hate all of you from the bottom of my heart 

Be weir: what were you telling him?

are you sure its a good idea to just tell people shit about the supernatural? 

especially a technomage

what could a technomage even offer you 

ERRORica: see i knew you'd react like this which I why I told him I didn't want to learn any more about technomages, we agreed upon one no questions asked favor 

i didn't tell him anything a couple days of really dedicated searching wouldn't have brought up. he was mostly interested in warlocks 

not that I need to explain myself to you

Be weir: whatever 

just don't think we should go spilling all our secrets to the guy who tried to fucking murder you and the rest of us by extension but whatever 

ERRORica: jesus christ calm down 

like I said it didn't tell him any deep dark coven secrets. he knows the basic breakdown of our coven and a little bit about our dynamic. I figured a no questions asked favor would be worth that 

no need for you to flip 

Be weir: yeah i said whatever 

it's fine

just next time he tries to kill you dont ask me for help I have my own shit to worry about 

ERRORica: noted 

Fang gang

February 24

9:02 pm

You're so vein: christ what's his fucking problem

I'm all pissed off now I need to go hunting or I'll start hissing at random sorority girls who annoy me

anyone want to join

Fangtastic: depends what you're hunting 

You're so vein: planning on helping out with the deer overpopulation problem 

its too hard to hunt humans in this weather 

Bite me: i'm down I've been starting to get hungry 

we doing north pepper woods?

You're so vein: i hadnt decided yet, that place any good? 

I've been sticking closer to campus for human prey 

Bite me: yeah i mean it's about 2 miles east but with super speed it doesn't really matter 

got a great haul last time 

Fangtastic: mhmm ror and I went after art club the other day for a quick bite then squirrels there are huge 

You're so vein: nice 

meet you there rory? 

Bite me: 👍

Chapter Text

Poly-cool more like poly-lame

February 28

8:42 pm

Be weir: me when i realize i calculated molality wrong and have to go back and redo all the trials I did today 

*image.jpg*

[Image description: A selfie of Benny at what appears to be a lab bench in a large open lab. He’s wearing a white lab coat over his clothes and large goggles. His hair is sticking up and he has dark bruises under his redshot eyes. In the background are a few other people at other lab benches doing their own work, most of them looking just as tired and stressed as Benny, though it's harder to tell from the distance. The room appears to be composed of different stations that probably belong to different labs, and the lights appear to be off in other parts of the room not being used by this lab, making most of the background dark.]

Foxy: christ

Hopefully you get to finish up soon that sucks

Eboy: wait whos that guy in the back with brown fair 

Be weir: oh idk 

He works in a diff lab i think he's in an entirely different dept actually 

he's the only person not in my lab whos here at weird hours of the night lmao

i think his name might be mike or something? 

actually its definitely micheal I've heard someone called him that

his group uses the equipment in here sometimes but they do most of their work in a different space so I've never talked to him

y?

Eboy: he looks really familiar 

i wonder if he's an engineer or something

Be weir: hm idk this lab is usually mostly just chem majors but could be ig

Eboy: weird

ERRORica: i think he just has one of those faces, he looks really familiar to me too

probably just looks like every other white guy with brown hair on this campus

Eboy: yeah probably lol

Private message between Sarah and Benny 

March 3

11:52 am

Sarah: heyyyy Benny sorry i didnt want to rush you but i'm starting to run super low on blood substitute 

Benny: okay?

Sarah: sorry Ik you've been super busy but is there any chance you'd be able to make more? it's looking like the weather's not going to warm up for a while yet and it's a lot harder to hunt in the snow :(

i've rationed it out and bit more this month but I can only stretch it out so long when theres not many animals out to supplement with

Benny: i mean like you said I've been really busy 

and that stuff isn't exactly fast to make 

plus it takes a lot of ingredients I can't harvest during the winter 

Sarah: i could totally harvest them for you! or i could just buy stuff if possible I have some graduation money saved up still 

whatever’s easiest for you

Benny: you can't really buy this shit 

plus I don't really trust non witches to harvest plants correctly 

you'd probably accidentally grab nightlock or something and id end up dying from the fumes when I go to heat it up

Sarah: oh shoot i guess that makes sense 

and I'm really sorry but you're sure you don't have time to harvest the stuff? i could run you to wherever they're in bloom right now. or just run you back home if grandma weir or Jane's apothecary girlfriend would have any in stock

Benny: jesus Sarah take a fucking hint 

i don't have time for this

between one vampire flirting with a fucking technomage who tried to kill her because she apparently doesn't give a shit about this coven, one vampire constantly breathing down my neck whining about how i don't have time to fucking coddle him, another vampire who can't even get her own fucking food, and a seer who can't even have proper fucking visions this entire goddamn coven's useless 

Sarah: shit Benny wtf

look I'm sorry i was pushing you but you shouldn't be talking about the others like that 

ill figure something else out about the blood substitute, I didn't realize it was such a big deal to make 

Benny: yeah non witches never fucking realize 

you know how much time I waste making potions for you guys 

someone always needs blood substitute or courage potions or some shit 

Sarah: its not Ethan or I's fault that we need those 

and you always offered to make them before 

but i get it, you don't have time, that's fine 

just calm down, no one's forcing you to do anything 

Benny: whatever 

can you guys just please get off my fucking back 

ever since I started this lab you're all always trying to distract me 

if you're jealous just say that 

Sarah: i don't understand where this is coming from at all 

im sorry, i’ll leave you alone

is that all you want to hear?

Benny: yeah.

thanks.

Private message between Foxy Mama and Love of my unlife 

March 3

12:21 pm

Foxy Mama: *screenshot.jpg*

[image description: screenshots of previous messages between Benny and Sarah starting from the beginning of the conversation]

Foxy Mama: i’m not overreacting right this is fucking insane 

like what the hell is his problem 

if you dont have time to make my blood substitute that's one thing but just say that 

and then to make that comment about them and then imply making ethan's courage potions for the fear spell is a waste of time??? those are your boyfriends you asshole 

Love of my unlife: oh my god

babe you were way too nice to him

I'm going to fucking kill him

and make sure he comes back as a vampire so I can kill him again 

Foxy Mama: don't do anything 

fuck

should I tell rory and ethan?? like ik Benny is under a lot of stress but that's no excuse for acting like this 

and if i was them I'd want to know he was saying that abt me 

but I also know ethan's been really stressed too and just doesn't want to show it, he has 2 midterm exams tomorrow and a paper due Friday 

Love of my unlife: he shouldn't get away with saying that stuff 

if you don't want me to confront him let me at least talk to rory 

and let him decide if we talk to Ethan 

Foxy Mama: okay okay 

i was not expecting that response oh my god 

you're sure I'm not overreacting right? like maybe I shouldn't have asked when I know he's stressed out 

Love of my unlife: baby you are underreacting if anything 

you need the blood substitute to fucking live 

and he's always going on about how he loves providing for us as our witch or fucking whatever 

if he knew he was too busy to make it for you like usual he should have given you a heads up 

Foxy Mama: okay yeah

you're right 

are you sure you want to talk to rory or do you want me to?

Love of my unlife: I'll do it 

Foxy Mama: be nice it's not their fault their boyfriend is acting like an asshole 

Love of my life: ik im usually a bitch but I'm not going to be a jerk when I tell him his boyfriends insulting him behind his back 

Foxy Mama: ik im sorry 

you're not a bitch 

even if you like making people think you are 

Love of my unlife: dont go telling people I'm actually a big softie or something 

how low is your supply? 

Foxy Mama: i’ve got a couple days left. I was trying not to rush Benny but he normally makes it for me the last week of the month 

ive still got some of that deer left but it wasn't keeping very well i think it's all clotted now 

Love of my unlife: ew yeah don't eat that 

i’ll catch you something fresh today, save the last of your blood substitute since it keeps pretty well in case we can't catch something 

i think we need to start switching up where we hunt, we've kinda done a number on the small animal population around campus 

Foxy Mama: yeah 😭😭

Love of my unlife: dw abt it baby I'll sort it out 

Foxy Mama: what would I do without you?

Love of my unlife: 😽

Private message between Murderer and First Victim 

March 3 

1:34 pm

Murderer: okay your boyfriend needs to sort his shit out 

First Victim : what

what happened 

Murderer: benny is refusing to make Sarah's blood substitute for her

First Victim: oh

well I know hes been really busy 

was he at least nice abt it?

Murderer: he's being a total fucking dick actually 

hold on 

*image.jpeg*

[image description: screenshots of Benny and Sarah's messages]

First Victim: oh my god 

fuck idk what to say actually 

Murderer: yeah it's a lot

Sarah isn't sure if she wants to tell Ethan 

First Victim: fuck

have I really been that annoying??

Murderer: no rory benny's just being a complete asshole 

being busy (with something you willingly choose to do!!) does not give you the right to treat everyone in your life like shit 

First victim: well fuck if you're defending me against my own boyfriend I know something is up

i can't believe he'd talk to Sarah like that 

i don't think we should tell ethan now 

let's just pretend everything is fine until this weekend when he's done with his exams 

putting any more stress on him right now will probably trigger a fear curse relapse honestly 

Murderer: he's been having more of those recently hasn't he?

First Victim: yeah i mean we assumed it was just stress from general college stuff 

he's gotten a better handle on them and can usually come out of them a lot faster but it throws off at least his entire day when it happens 

Murderer: god the whole fucking coven is a disaster 

are you going to talk to Benny

First Victim: only if Sarah wants me to 

im guessing she doesn't want him to know that she told you and you told me what he said 

but ig I'm going to have to talk to him eventually either way like I can't date someone who talks abt me and my friends like that 

fuck

Murderer: ik ik

First Victim: okay i think I need to slow down 

like yeah this was some shitty stuff to say but like we've all snapped and been assholes before when we're stressed 

idk i guess it's just up to how he handles it now like will he apologize or double down 

Murderer : you're better than I am lowkey

i would be actively putting his shit on the lawn outside ur building rn

First Victim: this sucks

Murderer: it does 

but we've gotten through much suckier situations soo

ugh that came out really sappy 

First Victim: aww it's nice to know you care lmaoo

Murderer: ofc i care 

ik im a heartless bitch but i also do care abt you guys

you know that right 

First Victim: aw yeah ofc sorry I was just teasing 

and you're not a heartless bitch 

well I mean technically your heart is superfluous now and you are a bit of a bitch but like you're our bitch

wait no that sounds wrong 

Murderer: okay enough being gross 

i need to go catch Sarah some extra food, wanna come? 

First victim: god yeah

let's go to fairgreen woods they have the best squirrels and those are Sarah's favorite 

Murderer: sounds good, meet up outside your dorm? faster to head over together than to try to find each other once we get there 

First Victim: 👍

-

Private message between Benny and Sarah

March 3

10:21 pm 

Benny: hey

im sorry

i shouldn't have freaked out on you like that 

Sarah: yeah you shouldn't have 

Benny: im trying to apologize 

you don't have to accept it 

Sarah: you said some really mean shit benny 

like it'd be one thing if you just said you didn't have time 

hell I wouldn't have even really cared if you just insulted me 

but going after the entire coven, including your fucking boyfriends, was way over the line

i appreciate the apology, but im not the only one who needs to hear it 

Benny: i'll apologize to the others too

i'm guessing you showed them all the messages 

Sarah: i talked to Erica and she talked to rory 

we decided not to talk to ethan until this weekend when he was less busy 

because surprise surprise, other people besides you have problems too

rory thought it'd trigger a spell relapse if he got any more stressed 

Benny: yeah probably 

and you're right I was being selfish 

but I still really don't have time to make your blood substitute or any other potions 

Sarah: and we could have avoided all of this if you just said that to begin with 

it's fine dude. you're our witch but it's not like we just see as a walking potion dispenser. yeah I appreciate it when you can make them for me since it makes my life a lot easier but I don't need them. and when you actually communicate with me that you can't make them I can adjust my plans accordingly and it's not a big deal at all 

Benny: yeah i get it 

if you want to talk to jane I think she makes some for her vampire

i can't remember his name or anything but he might've been vegan or something so she already makes it in large batches for him

and she can probably make you some as well, you'd just have to run back to white chapel to get it 

i can't remember if she makes it for anyone else or what her schedule is though 

Sarah: it's okay, i appreciate that.

I'll reach out to her 

and look, as long as you apologize to erica and rory, I'm not going to say anything to ethan unless you do 

i still think what you said was really fucked up and would prefer if you apologized to him, but right now he doesn't even know that he deserves an apology, so it might be better to just let this one lie 

Benny: i wouldnt need to talk to erica or rory either if you hadn't talked to them

Sarah: watch it dude, you're still on thin ice 

you really upset me earlier

i needed someone to talk to about it 

Benny: yeah that's fair 

sorry

again 

Sarah: apology heard. I'm not accepting it until I know that you've talked to rory and Erica tho 

Benny: fair 

-

Private message between Foxy Mama and Love of my unlife 

March 4

12:02 am

Foxy Mama: well he apologized 

it wasn't a great apology 

and it was over text 

but it's something 

he should be reaching out to you and rory soon if he knows what's good for him

Love of my unlife: damn

im actually kinda shocked i thought for sure he wouldn't even bother apologizing 

Foxy Mama: it was weirdly begrudging, like he was being forced to apologize but didn't really want to 

Love of my unlife: probably the guilty conscience making him 

whatever, all that matters is if you want to accept the apology 

Foxy Mama: i told him i wouldn't until I knew that he'd apologize to the two of you 

we kinda decided he didn't have to apologize to ethan since it might be better for him that he just doesn't find out at all

which i feel bad abt because it's like we're lying to him 

but at thr same time I'm doing it to try to protect him 

Love of my unlife: i think thats the right call 

oh shit Ben's texting me now 

im going to run back to the dorm so we can read the texts together and you can help me come up with replies

because if you leave me on my own I'm going to be really mean 

Foxy Mama: lmaoo okay ❤️

-

March 5

6:29 pm

Benny took a deep breath, hand hovering over the door in front of him. It was silly to be nervous. Stupid, even. Who's scared to talk to their own PI? She was just a normal professor, she even had a great Rate My Professor score, all of her comments agreeing that she was incredibly nice. 

But there's a hierarchy to a lab as big as the one he worked in, and he almost never interacted with Dr. Anastasia face-to-face. He learned all of the lab protocols from a master’s student who, in turn, learned them all from a PhD student who learned them all from a post doc. His job was to prepare samples for the people doing the real research or take on the grunt work that no one wanted to do, like tissue harvests. And for the most part he was fine with that. Sure he sometimes wished he had a little more free time, but he was getting incredible experience, and if he ever got time to get back to practicing witchcraft he was sure the lab skills he's been learning will have made him a better witch too. 

But people who do grunt work aren't supposed to be summoned to Dr. Anastasia's office after normal building hours for a chat. The only reason he can think of for why he'd been called down would be to talk about how he fucked up the molality calculations the other day, and he'd already been screamed at by two master's students for that. Everyone has been extremely on edge lately, including him. It's like there are people always breathing down his neck, waiting for any little mistake so they can start another rant about how useless he is and how they don't know why Dr. Anastasia bothered to hire him on in the first place. 

Which is probably why he snapped when Sarah asked for more blood substitute.

He knew as soon as he did it that he was in the wrong. Knew he should immediately take it back, apologize and tell her that, while he didn't have the time, Jane would probably be happy to make it, and he knows she knows how because he taught her himself. But for some reason he didn't. He doubled down and made a complete ass out of himself, and now Rory is probably seriously considering dumping him. It's a small mercy that they decided not to tell Ethan, but Benny knows that if they had he would have deserved whatever he got. 

But even now he can't bring himself to offer more than a half-assed apology. He wants to, he really does, but it's like something is holding him back. Like some small part of him is still insisting that he has nothing to apologize for and she's trying to manipulate him. 

But he doesn't have time to think about all of that right now. He knocks on the door and is almost immediately greeted with a ‘Come in!’ from inside the office. 

Benny pushes open the door to reveal one of the most chaotic offices he's ever been in. It doesn't look like she's put away a single paper since he was last in it months ago, and that she has in fact only acquired new materials to cover every surface of the small room. 

“Take a seat, Benjamin,” Dr. Anastasia offers from behind her desk. He does so, needing to shift a small stack of books from the only chair onto the floor. “I'm glad you could join me, sorry about it being so late, though I'm sure for a college student like yourself you'd call me old for considering this late,” she laughs.

Truthfully, Benny would like nothing more than to go home, crawl into bed, and sleep for the next week or so. Bonus points if one of his boyfriends would crawl into bed with him, which probably isn’t happening now. Double bonus points if he could eat the world's biggest hamburger first, because he thinks he maybe hasn't eaten since breakfast yesterday. 

“It's no worry,” he says instead of voicing all of that. “I just was wondering what you wanted to talk to me about though? You didn't really say in the email.”

“Oh yes, I'm sorry about that, it's just that it's not really the sort of thing you want to talk about over email…” she trails off, the hint of levity from before leaving.  She's tapping one manicured red nail against her coffee cup in a rhythm Benny can't quite place. Her hands are covered in chalk, he notices, probably from using the small chalkboard behind her that's scrawled with equations he can't even begin to understand. 

“You know Benjamin, I took on a pretty big risk accepting an undergraduate into my lab, and a freshmen one at that.” Internally, Benny winces. So this is about him fucking up. “A lot of the other professors told me they didn't understand why I would bother to do that with so many graduate students fighting to get a spot in my lab. I have students across almost every department in the College of Arts and Sciences fighting to do their thesis on an aspect of my research. And instead I accept a freshman with no real lab experience? It seemed laughable.”

She stops, staring at him very intently for several beats. Is he supposed to say something? What do you say about something like that? 

“But I sensed something in you Benjamin, I really did. There's something about you that couldn't be replicated by 10 PhD students.”

“Oh… I'm flattered?” He said and almost immediately wished the floor would open up and swallow him whole. Maybe he could nap in the hole. God he wanted a nap.

“I'm being quite truthful. I'm not sure if you're aware, Benjamin, but you have an incredible gift just waiting to be unleashed.”

“It's um, Benny, actually. Sorry, I didn't want to correct you before but no one really calls me Benjamin.” 

She tsked. 

“Name's have tremendous power, Benjamin. I can see why you'd prefer not to use your true name with others, but for people like us it's best to use the real thing.”

“People like us?” Did she just mean scientists? She didn't answer his question, instead shoving through the papers on her desk until she revealed a small box that she unlocked with a key she pulled from a chain around her neck. A faraday box, he realized as she opened it. He's seen them before, but never in person. He probably wouldn't have recognized it if it weren't for the phone already sitting inside of it. 

“This will probably sound a bit strange, but would you mind putting your phone in here for the rest of this conversation? I promise you'll get it back before you leave.”

Well. It was probably too late to say no, I'm getting a bad vibe and would like to leave, actually. So he put his phone in the box. 

“Thank you, Benjamin. Now, I just have one question for you. Do you believe in magic?”

Chapter Text

Poly-cool more like poly-lame

March 11 

6:42 pm

Eboy: anyone wanna grab dinner here in like 10 minutes? my tutoring session got cancelled so I can finally eat before like 10 pm 

Benny: can't 

busy

Foxy: sorry rory and I have an art club meeting from 7 to 8 :(

i'd tell you we can eat after but I don't want you to wait for us 

ERRORica: i don't think i can stomach any more human food today

Eboy: oh okay I'll just go by myself then dw 

ERRORica: don’t be stupid ill come with you i just won't eat anything 

I'll just window shop for my next meal

Eboy: oh you don't have to come if you don't want to its really fine 

ERRORica: are you going to the dining hall by the rec center?

Eboy: yeah i mean I can

ERRORica: then I'm definitely going

athletes always taste better

Eboy: lol okay

ill meet you there 

the rest of us have to do something this weekend or smthn tho I feel like we haven't all hung out in forever 

Benny: i’ll probably be busy 

Eboy: aw okay

well next time you have a couple days off we'll just have to plan something ig 

Benny: yeah

Rorster: i'd be down e we can get ice-cream or something 

Eboy: hell yeah 

Private message between E <3 and Roryyy :)

March 11

7:02 pm

E <3: so did I do something to really piss Benny off orrr

oh wait ur at ur club meeting sry

ignore me

we can talk later 

Roryyy :): babe it's fine 

you didn't do anything to benny

hes just in his asshole era rn 

there was a situation the other day that's been like mostly resolved 

but it's still kind of a thing 

and he knows I'm still kind of mad at him 

E <3: oh

i wish you guys would have told me something 

i normally know abt stuff like this before it will happen but one of the side effects of trying to force visions on command is getting less spontaneous ones until you master it 

so I'm kind of extra useless rn 

Roryyy :): i'm sry we didn't say anything we just didn't want to put more on ur plate 

Ben just blew up over something small but he did apologize so it wasn't really a huge deal in the end 

and you're never useless 

we dont expect you to know everything 

and its not your fault when bad stuff happens. even if you had been able to predict it happening theres no way of knowing for sure if we could have prevented it 

plus i think this was a long time coming anyways 

im hoping everyone got it all out of their system and now after the awkwardness fades we'll be back to normal 

E <3: god i hope so

thanks babe

sorry I've been so anxious lately the vibes have just been super weird 

can we talk abt the benny thing more later? i don't love the idea of us all keeping secrets from each other 

but for now get back to ur art club meeting and forget abt all this drama for a bit 

Roryyy :): gladly lol 

i promise we'll talk later <3

E <3: <3

Private message between Sarah ❤️ and Ethan 💙

March 17

10:27 pm

Sarah ❤️: okay I have a series of questions to ask you 

well one question really but depending on your answer there may be more follow ups

Ethan 💙: lol hit me

Sarah ❤️: okay first question are you awake and not extremely busy rn

Ethan💙: well I think I'm awake rn and you know I'm never too busy for you

Sarah ❤️: okay but let's say theoretically it's not really a favor for me

well it kinda is and I would really appreciate it but it's not for my own sake

Ethan💙: im starting to get nervous but if it'll make your life easier at all I'll make time 

plus I'm also straight up not that busy right now I just got off a super busy couple of weeks which means I don't really have any new assignments until next week 

Sarah ❤️: okay okay 

next question 

on a scale of one to ten how dysphoric would it would make you to wear clothes that are like technically gender neutral but pretty feminine 

like no skirts or anything but clothes you would most likely find in the women's section of the store 

Ethan 💙: my concern is growing 

like a 3 probably depending on the reason???? like will people also be calling me a girl orrrrrr

this isn't a sex thing right 

Sarah ❤️: no and no

so basically erica has a fashion midterm project right 

and it's due tomorrow 

she already has all the clothes made which is most of the grade but you get some credit for displaying the clothes on a model

and you get bonus points if you design them for a real model and not a mannequin 

and so obviously I told her I would model them for her and she could submit the pictures of me wearing them but….

Ethan 💙: now its 11 pm and you remembered you don't show up in photos but the fashion center is closed and she doesn't have any mannequins to model them on?

Sarah ❤️: bingo

Ethan 💙: i mean yeah that's fine the only people who will see the photos are her class right?

Sarah ❤️: not even, it's just an assignment to submit not a presentation, only her professor will see them 

well she said there’s like a gallery thing later in the semester where they'll display all their projects but she can just put them on a form or get someone else to model them before then and take new pictures 

Ethan 💙: oh yeah that's fine 

she doesn't have to retake the photos unless she wants to either she can use them for whatever 

Sarah ❤️: okay yayy

erica wants me to remind you it's okay if you change ur mind when you see the clothes 

i mean they're really not that girly at all but obv it's abt what ur comfortable with 

Ethan 💙: that is so sweet of you guys but are you forgetting about the cheerleader incident in high school? 

i only felt like mildly bothered by that

as long as the clothes physically fit on me im good with it 

Sarah ❤️: lmaooo thats so real 

they should fit just fine Erica made them with my dimensions in mind and we share clothes all the time

we really appreciate it!! you can come over whenever, the assignment with the photos is due tomorrow during her class so she has time 

Ethan 💙: lol sounds good let me just finish up this review video I'm watching 

honestly I'm happy for the excuse to get out of our room for a bit Benny will not stop humming this really annoying song and it keeps getting stuck in my head 

Sarah ❤️: ugh that's so annoying 

you're welcome here anytime <3

well actually you're welcome here most times sometimes erica kicks me out when she picks up random girls she wants to convince to break up with their terrible boyfriends but other than that you're welcome 

Ethan 💙: lmaoooo <3 I'll be over in 10!!

-

Private message between Janey and Sarah!

March 20

3:13 pm

Sarah!: hey is it still okay for me to grab the blood substitute from you later today?

Janey: yeah ofc! i usually make three liters at a time for Ryan since he's completely vegan and it was easiest for me to just triple it so you're getting a lot lol 

I'll just give you four, Ryan four, and then see if anyone in the support group wants the last bag 

not sure how well my recipe keeps since Ryan tends to go through it pretty fast so just let me know when you need more 

if you notice it's starting to get thicker just finish whatever you can in the next couple days and then throw the rest out 

Sarah!: omg ty you didn't need to make that much!!

sorry if it was a lot of extra work

Janey: don't worry abt it!! there's like witchy reasons for why tripling was easiest lol it made balancing out the ingredients way easier than doubling would have been 

like i said I do monthly batches for Ryan and the support group so just lmk if you want in on the next batch a couple days in advance so I can make sure I have everything prepped! 

grandma weir won't help me anymore she says I need to learn to stand on my own feet or whatever 

Sarah!: lmaoooo

in all honestly I probably will need in on the next batch, let me know if you change your mind about needing help paying to get the ingredients or anything 

Janey: please it's really no big deal to get the stuff to make blood substitute 

especially considering im dating an apothecary 

Sarah!: fair but still

speaking of your coven how's the support group going? 

Janey!: super good! I mean it's kind of insane because it's like people from the group keep popping in and out of my coven which is a bit stressful as the witch 

like everyone is pretty respectful abt asking me for potions and spells esp because they know I'm a relatively new witch of practice but it just puts a lot of pressure on me to maintain the bonds when our dynamics are so we weird 

I think I'm just going to have a coven meeting soon where i talk about how we need to have more of a clear definition between coven and support group

it was kinda fun at first but im starting to realize covens with only one witch are usually small for a reason 

Sarah!: oof yeah that sounds stressful 

communication is good!!

Janey: yeah unlike a certain witch i actually know how to tslk about my problems instead of taking them out on other people who don't deserve it

Sarah!: its alright, he apologized and we all agreed to put it behind us 

Janey: doesnt mean i have to be happy about him insulting my brother and you

benny is the one who taught me about what it means to be a witch. he even lectured me when I started forming my coven about the responsibility it requires

so it just pisses me off that hes not practicing what he preaches ig

but if you guys don't want to keep talking about it I won't make you

Sarah!: i appreciate it janey and i understand why ur still annoyed

Janey: it is what it is ig

but just in case i'm throwing in a couple extra useful potions for you guys, there's two courage potions, a few hangover cures, and a few miscellaneous things that might be useful 

Sarah!: well thats not ominous 

Janey: lol don't worry, standard coven medicine cabinet stuff

strength enhancer, pain reliever, etc 

Sarah!: omg jane when did you have time to make all of that 

Janey: i may or may not have been on a 24 hour brewing marathon since yesterday 

and before you say anything i wanted to, plus a lot of it is standard stuff i make for the coven and support group anyways, I just adjusted the recipe according to the ingredient properties to make more 

this burn salve only likes being increased in increments on five for some reason so you're getting a lot of it 

Sarah!: lol

well still thank you 

am i going to be able to carry that all back with me lol

Janey: uh

bring a backpack 

Sarah!: for the glass jars?

Janey: i'll put the standard cushioning charm on it 

how do you guys think benny and I manage not to break all our jars 

Sarah!: i guess i never thought about it 

Janey: sigh non witches are so naive 

Sarah!: haha

ill be by around 7 if that works 

Janey: yup im free whenever!

Sarah!: <3

actually just out of curiosity what made you think to add the extra potions?

Janey: oh well I was going to toss in a couple freebies anyway but e texted me yesterday and he said something about how he was getting a bad feeling, like something was going to happen soon 

i mean I personally think it's just him being anxious because he hasn't been having regular visions since he started working on prophecies but when I offered to add a couple extra things to your order he seemed relieved and it wasn't a big deal to make them so 

Sarah!: aw that's sweet of you

things have been kinda stressful here for us. I'm hoping it will settle soon

but don't think you can't talk to us if your coven is having any issues. ik you said there hasn't been as many incidents lately but if something comes up that you don't think you can handle on your own you can always reach out to us 

Janey: i will, promise

see you tonight <3

Sarah!: <3

Chapter Text

Private message between AI and Erica

March 30

9:13 pm

Al: I may regret asking but I have found myself wondering why I haven’t been receiving any texts from my favorite whore lately

Erica: the whole calling me a whore thing is really not getting any less weird the longer it goes on 

and it's a long story 

don't think i won't still cash in the favor though 

AI: wouldn't dream of it 

I wouldn't mind a bedtime story though 

Erica: everything you say just sounds so unnecessarily creepy 

it's not that exciting. my witch realized i was still talking to you and flipped, and then kinda got into with another one of my coven members over something unrelated 

and I'm not really looking to press his patience right now honestly 

AI: you know i never suspected someone like you to be so willing to let one pathetic little witch walk all over you

Erica: ugh am I going to have to explain social etiquette to you again 

I don't really give a single fuck what our witch thinks about me, but pointlessly upsetting him by talking to you will do nothing but make him more prone to fighting with the rest of our coven who will actually be hurt by it 

and yes he should be a grown adult who can handle his emotions without throwing a tantrum but unfortunately we don't all get to live in an ideal world sometimes 

plus its not like i really want to talk to you that much anyways 

AI: ouch

and here i thought we were getting closer 

Erica: closer to me shoving my foot up your ass maybe 

AI: you know you really don't make the whole coven thing sound very attractive 

Erica: eh, when its good it's great and when it's bad it's awful 

AI: isn't that what people say about abusive relationships?

maybe i should rethink retiring my plan to seduce you out of there 

Erica: still a lesbain, thanks, so unless there's something you want to tell me about yourself I'll have to pass

AI: alas, I am still a man 

one day I'll find something else to appropriately tempt you to join the dark side 

Erica: you willingly think of yourself as the dark side? 

what am I talking about, you're a misogynistic freak, of course you're the dark side 

AI: ah it's just a bit of an inside joke among my group

and I resent being referred to as a misogynist, by the way

Actually, I don't believe I ever apologized for the way I behaved during our first interactions 

To be frank I did find you attractive and was rather put out when you turned me down but would have dealt with the rejection much better under normal circumstances 

Unfortunately my actions were being influenced by outside forces during that time which caused me to behave so irrationally

When the semester started again and other students returned to campus I realized that something had been causing me to act unlike myself and have managed to take steps to mitigate the effects

I know some of the things I said and did were truly terrible so you're under no obligation to accept my apology 

Erica: well damn dude 

I'll have to mull that over but I can't believe you actually give better apologies than my own witch 

I appreciate the apology at least 

but if you're no longer being influenced by something, whatever that means, why do you still keep calling me a whore 

AI: I confess that at this point I find it funny

Erica: well i cant fault you for being honest, incel 

like i said, I'll have to mull that over

in the meantime, what's up with your “group”?

you part of a secret league of technomages or something?

AI: haha no just a normal research group

there are no other technomages on this campus to my knowledge 

Erica: that's not saying much considering you didn't think there were any other supernaturals on this campus 

AI: well i never said that 

I'm painfully aware that not everyone on this campus is human, though i will admit you've opened my eyes to how many more there were than I expected 

I suppose it's possible there are other technomages I simply haven't encountered 

Erica: probably since you'd have to actually talk to people to encounter them 

AI: you're certainly in a mood today 

has your witch’s behavior been affecting the coven that much?

Erica: you don't know the fucking half of it

never thought I'd see the day where talking to you is actually a welcome break 

AI: I'm touched 

Erica: don't get a big head over it 

AI: well I do genuinely hope things improve for you soon 

these things have a way of working out eventually 

Erica: usually things only improve for us once I kill someone 

I'm not opposed to doing that necessarily but

AI: I doubt it will be necessary for you to dirty your hands, or fangs, in this case 

Erica: we'll see ig 

ttyl incel, maybe next time we talk I'll be ready to cash in that favor

AI: I'll await your message with baited breath whore 

Private message between Sarah ❤️ and Ethan 💙

April 3

6:17 pm

Sarah ❤️: erica is out hunting tonight do you want to come over and keep me company 

Ethan 💙: sure I'm just finishing up an assignment and then I'm free 

wanna finish watching season 6 of criminal minds? 

Sarah ❤️: yessss

Private message between E <3 and Roryyy :)

April 3

6:24 pm

E <3: hey just so you know I'm going to spend the night at Sarah's dorm so don't worry abt me not being there lol

Roryyy :): alright thx for letting me know!

lucky you tbh Benny is humming that fucking song again 

I love him so much I really do but every time I hear it I just want to put my fist through the wall

E <3: oh babe 😭

you can borrow my noise canceling headphones if you want 

I know they probably won't totally block it out since ur hearing is a lot better than mine but it should help some

Roryyy :): thx babe I appreciate it 😔😔

I might just go to the library until it closes so I can get this project done anyways 

E <3: godspeed <3

-

Dr. Charlotte Anastasia has been called many different names throughout her life. When she was a child her father called her ‘Lottie,’ a childish immature name given to her by a childish immature man. When she was old enough that her father finally told her the true reason why she never knew her mother, leading her to spiral down the path of studying all she could find about the occult, she earned a multitude of charming nicknames from the other children at her school, ‘freak’ being their favorite. In college during her undergraduate and masters years she was called Charlotte by her professors and ‘Char’ by her one and only friend, Veronica, a woman who had utterly no capacity for understanding social cues but a knack for always contemplating aloud and reaching the exact conclusion that Charlotte needed to propel her research forward. 

After they completed their masters they had lost contact, Charlotte starting her doctoral program and Veronica accepting a cushy industry job and proposing to the woman she had started seeing during undergrad. Veronica had asked her to be her maid of honor, a consolation prize for the bride runner-up, but Charlotte hadn't been able to take the time to travel for the wedding, her thesis advisor insisting that it would be a waste of her time.

He'd been right, of course. All those hours she wasted with Veronica could have allowed her to accomplish so much more while she was a student. She had come out okay despite the distractions, she'd completed her Phd in three years and had gotten special approval for her unconventional thesis, inspired by what her occult research had told her about the power of sound, but she regrets that she wasn't able to do more- publish more papers, attend more conferences, explore more topics. Perhaps she would have thought earlier about how the research she'd done to learn more about her heritage in high school could be useful if applied outside the world of fiction. 

Maybe then she wouldn't be stuck teaching at this backwater university where the students were dumb as bricks. Maybe she wouldn’t have wasted years chasing theories that never worked, being laughed at by her colleagues all the while until she finally stumbled upon a solution.

The research certainly won't be winning her any Nobel prizes. A 26% increase in the average effectiveness of a standard corticosteroid used for treating infections, while admirable, will likely be considered a waste of time by many who review her research. Afterall, on paper it will look as though she's spent years minutely altering the effects of one ingredient, sacrificing over a hundred rats and, if all goes well, soon rabbits, to offer a solution to a problem no one is talking about. Sure, a more effective steroid that may be effective for mild bacterial infections without the use of an antibiotic could help reduce the large-scale issue of antibiotic resistance, but this will be a drop in the bucket, not some panacea that will get her the fame and recognition she deserves. 

But it's just the start of her plan. Now that she's proven that she can develop a frequency to affect plant growth in such a way that it has a statistically significant effect on medication effectiveness, there's no limit to what she can do.

The solution ended up being quite elegant. Lavender, an often overlooked plant whose properties are dismissed as being placebo effect and pseudoscience, provided her the key she finally needed. She'd spent years attempting to somehow increase the effects of standard ingredients already included in the formulation of common medications, only to end up with drugs that were just as, if not less, effective than they were before. Ironically, it was a memory of a conversation with Veronica that once more allowed her to finally put the pieces together. 

-

“You know,” Veronica says, spinning back and forth lazily in her desk chair while she holds a textbook in front of her, a hefty hardcover proudly displaying the title The Physics of Sound over what appears to be an abstract depiction of a violin. “Sometimes I feel like we're kinda like sound waves colliding when we work together.”

“I don't know what that means,” Charlotte replies, not looking up from her notes. Her biology undergrad had required only one basic introductory physics course, and her chemistry masters involved taking much more specialized physics classes that didn't touch on the topic of radio and sound waves.

“Like, when two waves collide with each other they can either cancel each other or make each other stronger, right? If they're already lined up, they get stronger, but if they're offset they cancel out, or at least get weaker. It's kinda like us. If one of us is in the mood to study but the other isn't, we don't end up getting much done. But if we're both trying to study, we end up getting more done while we're with each other.”

“Explain now then,” Charlotte says wryly. “I can't help but feel like I'm getting less done listening to you talk.” 

“Maybe I'm trying to say I'm not in the mood to study anymore and we should take a break,” Veronica laughs, shutting her book and tossing it onto her bed beside Charlotte, who had made herself comfortable with multiple books spread out beside her. 

“You're saying we perform both synergy and antagonism then?” Charlotte muses, allowing herself to be dragged to her feet and led out of her friend’s room towards the kitchen in her small apartment. “We both make each other stronger and counteract each other depending on the situation.”

“Sure, if you want to put it like a bio nerd, Char,” she scoffs. 

“Just trying to put it in my own language, physics nerd,” Charlotte grins. “What are we doing in the kitchen, exactly?” 

“Making cookies, duh.” Veronica shoved her into one of the barstools next to the island that separates her kitchen from the living room. “More accurately, I'm making cookies while you keep me company. I still don't understand how someone pursuing a degree in chemistry can be so bad at following recipes.”

“The formulas in a chemistry lab are a lot more precise,” Charlotte argues, scowling when Veronica laughs at the whine in her voice. “Your recipes always say to add a ‘pinch’ of something. A pinch is not a unit of measurement!”

“It is if you follow the guiding spiritual hand of your ancestors,” Veronica says seriously. She rattles around in her cupboards for a few minutes before she emerges with a cutting board, a large knife, and half a bar of semi-sweet chocolate, all of which she places in front of Charlotte. “Chop,” she orders. 

“Don't most people just buy regular chocolate chips?” She asks skeptically. 

“Girl, with what money? This was a whole two dollars cheaper.”

“Wow, two whole dollars,” Charlotte says flatly, none-the-less accepting the knife Veronica is handing her. “How do you want them chopped?”

“Y'know,” Veronica shrugs. “Like, chunks.”

“Once more I implore you to recognize that a chunk is not a unit of size.”

“Even you can't mess this up too bad. Just make them kinda chocolate chip sized.”

Charlotte just sighs and gets to work. She can't help but steal glances at Veronica as she works, only narrowly avoiding cutting off her fingers a few times as she gets distracted by the way her shirt rides up when she stretches to get something out of one of the top cabinet shelves. 

Bad thoughts, she reminds herself. Veronica has a girlfriend. And even though she's a bitch and not good enough for Veronica in any way shape or form, she has to respect that Veronica still wants to date her. For some reason. 

“Woah, those are definitely good,” Veronica says, interrupting her thoughts. She looks down to see a cutting board of very finely chopped chocolate. “Dang Char, what did the chocolate ever do to you?”

“I got distracted,” she admits, before her attention is caught by the ingredient Veronica is adding to the batter. 

“Ew,” she wrinkles her nose. “Why are you making the cookies salty?”

“They're not going to be salty, dummy,” Veronica laughs. “A little bit of salt enhances the sweetness of the cookie. It's like when people put salt on watermelon.”

“Who puts salt on watermelon?”

“Geniuses, obviously. The salt cuts out any bitterness so the sweetness is increased. Or it tastes like it is, I guess.”

“Huh. I've never heard of that.”

“Yeah, I think it was something my mom taught me when I was little. It's kinda weird, right? With waves it's like two things have to already be in sync with each other or they have a destructive effect on each other, but the salt does something else entirely…” Veronica trails off, staring out into the distance as she thinks. Suddenly, she shakes her head and resumes her normal demeanor, continuing on with baking like nothing had happened. “Well, I’m sure the science behind it would make way more sense to you. I don't get taste buds or whatever, that’s not my kind of science.”

“It's not exactly my kind of science either,” Charlotte says. She's mostly given up trying to explain to Veronica that her interest lies in botany and not anatomy, not that she's learning much about either in this chemistry program she'd been talked into doing, since apparently the job prospects were much better than biology. Still, she can't help but think about what Veronica said. It doesn't make sense to her, how adding the opposite of something causes it to enhance. That's not synergy or antagonism. It's something else entirely, as Veronica put it. 

All thoughts of science are driven from her head when Veronica turns around to face her with a spoon full of dough held aloft. 

“What do you think?” She asks, holding it up so that Charlotte has to lean it to take a bite, stomach pressing into the counter separating them. 

“Perfect,” Charlotte says, looking into Veronica's eyes. 

Veronica grins and turns back around to start scooping the dough onto the pan. Charlotte feels something cold settle into her stomach. She keeps having to remind herself that romance isn't for people like her.

She gets magic and science. What else could she possibly need?

-

It had been a waste of time. She had an exam the next day that she could have scored much better on if she hadn't wasted time making cookies of all things. But the conversation about salt had stuck with her, until one day years later it had occurred to her that if increasing the potency of the ingredients causing the desired effect wasn't working, perhaps she should try adding a little metaphorical salt to the batch. Corticosteroids were known for causing mania and mood swings, even aggravation and aggression in some patients. Maybe by adding something known for causing relaxation she could actually increase the effectiveness of the drug. 

She'd even implemented the idea of the wave interactions Veronica had first introduced her to, though she had learnt much more about them while pursuing her botany Phd with a focus on sound waves effects on plants. 

Two different frequencies out of sync, with speakers placed to maximize destructive interference, all for the sake of having an invisible effect on lavender plants that would be used to treat infections along with what was essentially prednisone.

It was beyond a shot in the dark. It had been an absolute nightmare to get IACUC approval for animal testing on something with such a slim chance of working, and she may have had to fudge the truth behind her experiments a little. But it worked. She had a freezer full of completely infection free dead rats to back her up. As skeptical as some may be, the results spoke for themselves, and there was no way they could deny her the chance to continue on with the research. Who cares if the rats undergoing the treatment had a little bit of extra aggression? In her opinion, the world could learn to get a little more aggressive overall. The self mutilating behavior observed in the rats was completely mild, easily overlooked and written off as a minor skin rash or stress response by the animal care staff, and the brilliant young masters student who disagreed and submitted a formal complaint was obviously just under too much stress and seeing things that weren't there. It had been such a shame to remove her from the lab, but her mental health simply had to come first. She'd heard through the lab grapevine that she was doing much better these days. She'd even apparently been insisting the others should leave the lab as well, saying she's felt so much better since she left. Her much more intelligent students rightly dismissed this as jealousy.

She didn't have time to concern herself with imbecile students. Moderately more effective steroids were one thing, but she had her eyes set on something bigger. She'd eventually tackle the big C, of course. Cancer research was where all the funding was, though she'd have to be careful to make sure no “accidents” happened if her name and “cure for cancer” started getting thrown together in the same sentence. That was a ways away, besides. For now, she knew her altered lavender had the ability to affect behavior, so why not start with medication for mental health issues? It wasn't quite as glamorous, but a glorified improved Prozac might at least get her an offer at a better university, where she wouldn't have to deal with teaching children who should've never been allowed to graduate middle school.

It wasn't all bad. This school had brought her Benjamin, afterall. Now there was a prodigy. A witch that young with his own coven? It took real power to do that. All baby witches loved to insist that their play groups were covens, but there was a difference between a gathering of supernaturals and the real thing, and Benny most certainly had the real thing. She could see the bonds around him, tethering him to those dead weights. Oh, she understood the advantages a coven could grant a witch, who after all could never be as powerful as a warlock, but she knew Benjamin's talents were being wasted on them. Whoever had been mentoring him had clearly not done a good enough job preparing him for the harsh realities of being a magic user in this world. There will always be people in this world wanting to take some of your power for themselves. 

She's decided that she would just have to take Benjamin under her own wing. It wasn't a completely selfless offer, she had to admit. While his help with the dissections was doubtlessly appreciated, especially by her more squeamish students, someone of his kind of talent was uniquely suited to helping tend the plants. The almost haunting melody caused by the frequencies bouncing off the greenhouse walls had been known to have an adverse effect on the mental wellbeing of some of her students. A witch could withstand such things much easier, though. They were tougher than a mere human, when they didn't go leaking their powers all over the place trying to make potions for everything that moved. 

The trick was learning how to keep your powers close to your chest. She had struggled with that, for a long time. When her father first told that her mother was a demon, she felt torn between anger and elation. Anger, that her father was foolish enough to sleep with a demon and then raise and lie to her offspring for years, and elation that she knew why she had always felt so different from other children. She'd thrown herself into the study of occult with reckless abandon, learning how to control and manipulate the world around her with ease. The thing that came most naturally to her had always been controlling plants with her voice. She'd spent many long afternoons, humming a lullaby and watching the potted plant in her lap wither and die. She'd then reluctantly speak the careful encouragements and hum the high pitched notes that would cause the plant to spring back up, just so she could get the satisfaction of watching it die again. The magic had come to her more and more easily each day, until it started to feel like all she had to do was whisper and every plant within range would obey her commands. The children at school grew even more wary of her, even her teachers beginning to look at her as little as possible, but who needed them when she had more power than they could even dream of? 

Her father hated it. He didn't like her learning about what she could do, thought she would have been better off meek and dumb and ignorant. 

Eventually, she'd invented the story that all she wanted to do was help people. She'd sold her father on the idea that maybe her special powers would let her do things others couldn't, help people who couldn't help themselves. When her father was dying in a hospital bed during her second year of undergrad, he'd made her promise that she really would use her knowledge to help people. He had never known much about the supernatural, despite having slept with a demon. Maybe he thought life really was a fairytale, and she would be beholden to her promise like some silly fae creature. But demons aren't fairies, and she had no obligation to fulfill that promise. 

And yet she did. She was using her powers for good, despite the fact that no one would ever see it that way if they knew the truth. They would dismiss her as yet another evil warlock, a hell spawn set on destroying the world. 

Why would she ever destroy the world if she could save it instead? What use would it be to try to burn the world to the ground, just to have some little twerps like Benjamin's coven try to stop her, and possibly even succeed with enough help?

She had no interest in trying to rule a kingdom run by fear only to be impaled upon her own sword. It would be much more effective to make the world love her so much they had no choice but to worship her. If a few students lost their nerve along the way, if a few animals had to be sacrificed in the name of progress, that was just an occupational hazard. 

Dr. Charlotte Anastasia has gone by many names throughout her life. These days, she almost exclusively goes by “Doctor.” 

But one day soon these fools were going to call her God. 

Chapter Text

Poly-cool more like poly-lame

April 5

9:21 pm

Eboy: has anyone seen my boyfriend recently

Rorster: chill i’ll be back with the snacks in like 2 minutes

Eboy: good to know but i meant benny

ERRORica: oh

him

Foxy: i haven’t seen them no, his life 360 says he’s in the lab?

Oh wait actually that’s just his last known location, it says his phone is dead so it wouldn’t have updated

Eboy: hence my concern 

Idk he wasn’t answering my texts even before his phone died i was hoping messaging here might work since he could see it on his computer

Foxy: im sure he’s just caught up in an experiment

Rorster: for 38 hours? He left for lab yesterday morning and no one has seen him since

Foxy: well when you put it like that

ERRORica: i feel like i recall something about how we should all be able to handle ourselves 

I’m sure our little brave and powerful witch will be fine

Eboy: c’mon guys i’m actually worried

Is this what you guys feel when i get kidnapped all the time

ERRORica: if by that you mean completely neutral and uncaring then yes

Foxy: erica

ERRORica: look i’m only kind of kidding

I’m sure he’ll be fine

9:47 pm

Foxy: did we ever hear from benny?

9:52 pm

Foxy: hello?

Rorster: you guys should come over

Ethan is making bad decisions again

Eboy: im not making bad decisions

Maybe ill-advised decisions 

Foxy: rory you gotta keep your boyfriends in line

This is getting ridiculous

Rorster: i was busy getting snacks : (

ERRORica: ugh seriously i just got comfortable in bed

but you know i never pass up an opportunity to laugh at the non vamps doing dumb shit as if they don’t have a mortality to worry about

Foxy: we’ll be over in a few, don’t do anything stupid before we get there

Rorster: too late : ((((

-

April 5

9:39 pm

“We need to do something ,” Ethan complained, jumping to his feet and beginning to pace around the small room. Rory watched on in concern from their own bed, munching on the doritos they’d brought back from their vending machine run. 

“I mean, I’m concerned too, but it’s not like disappearing like this is out of character for Ben lately. Just last week he spent all night in the lab, remember?”

“Yeah, one night, and then he came back here and crashed the whole next day. And he at least warned us that time.”

“So let’s just go over to his lab and check it out,” Rory shrugged. “Ben left his extra key card here so we can swipe in.” 

“He’d be pissed if we just show up like that,” Ethan shook his head. “Besides, I’m not just saying we need to do something about tonight. We need to do something in general. We all know Benny isn’t acting like himself. He’s being a dick to everyone, not eating, barely sleeping, he hasn’t even been studying for his classes. Somethings really wrong.”

“Yeah, E, I think we all kinda realized that,” Rory rolled his eyes, instantly feeling guilty for his harsh tone. They’d all been more than a little on edge lately. Ethan just rolls his eyes right back. Sometimes it was great to be dating someone you’ve been friends with for practically your whole lives. Surviving (for the most part) their early teen years together made it way harder to offend each other. 

“Exactly, so why is no one doing anything?”

“What can we do?” Rory asks, a little desperately. “How do you help someone who doesn’t want your help?”

“We need a better idea of what’s actually going on,” Ethan says, more a mumble to himself than a real answer to Rory’s question. “We just don’t have enough information. If I could just…” He trails off, pacing coming to a sudden halt as he stops in the middle of the room, back away from Rory as he stares off into space silently. 

“Uh, E?” Rory calls, ignoring a buzz from his phone as a message comes in from their group chat. “Are you having a vision over there?”
“No,” Ethan whips around, a slightly manic grin on his face. It’s not an expression Ethan wears often, and it fills Rory with a deep concern that he’s definitely not going to be getting any sleep tonight. “I’m going to do something better.”

“What does that mean?”

“I’m going to give a prophecy.”

“Oh, okay,” Rory says faintly, hands already grappling for his phone so he can send out an SOS to the group chat. “The same prophecies that you can barely control and usually end up with you out of commission with a migraine for at least a day?”

“Yup,” he nods, heading towards the minifridge to start sorting through the odd variety of potions and energy drinks they have stored in it. “I’ll get everything ready ahead of time. Jane sent over a few headache cures, they usually take most of the edge off. I think she had a clarity enhancer somewhere in here too…” he mumbles. “What’s the groupchat saying- Oh, rude, I’m not making a bad decision,” he argues, pulling out his phone to respond as he feels it go off. “A minor migraine is worth finally figuring out what’s up with Ben.” 

“I thought you could barely control your prophecies?”

“That’s what this is for.” Ethan waves a small glass vial with a cloudy purple liquid as he hops back onto his bed, setting the few other things he grabbed from the fridge down beside him. “It’s one of Jane’s own inventions. Can you believe she’s already inventing her own potions? A few years ago she could barely manage to avoid exploding her wound salves. Okay, I’m actually pretty sure she still exploded her last batch, but inventing her own is still pretty impressive.”

“Super impressive,” Rory agrees, nodding aggressively. “You should explain how it works to me in like, a lot of detail. Seriously, I don’t care if it takes all night!”

“Subtle,” Ethan laughs. “I promise nothing bad will happen. I'll be a bit out of it for the next couple days, but it's the weekend anyway.”
“I’m worried about you.” 

“And I’m worried about Benny,” Ethan snaps, his uncanny good mood vanishing in an instant. “Everyone is acting like him being in danger is some kind of joke, or like we should all stop caring about him because he was a bit of a dick a few times. And I’m a fucking seer, okay? It’s like, literally my only job to know about when bad things are going to happen and what we need to do about it. If something happens to Benny because we didn’t realize that whatever’s going on is serious, that’s on me.” His eyes are a bit watery by the end of his speech. 

Slowly, Rory nods, 

“Alright?” Ethan asks. 

“Yeah,” Rory says. “Just- do what you gotta do, I guess. I’ll be here.”

And the girls will be too, he doesn’t add, because part of him knows Ethan won’t like that, and he hasn’t seen the most recent texts yet. Ethan never really likes being around a lot of people when he’s sick and out of it. Well, tough fucking luck, because Rory feels like they could really use some back up here.

“It’ll be fine,” Ethan says, grin back on his face as he takes a large swig of the purple liquid, chugging the entire bottle, much to Rory’s dismay.  

Too late, Rory texts in response to Sarah’s message, looking up just in time to see Ethan’s eyes roll back into his head as he leans to the side and collapses on top of his bed.

-

“How long has he been like this?” Sarah demands as she barges into the room after a quick invitation from Rory. That’s definitely gotta be one of the top 5 most inconvenient parts of the whole vampire thing. 

“Less than a minute,” Rory reassures. “I texted right before he took it. He didn’t tell me what the potion actually does, just said it’s something Jane invented and that it helps with his prophecies somehow.” 

“Got it,” Sarah nods, marching over to the bed to grab the bottle from Ethan’s loose grip, sparing a moment to adjust his position so he’s more comfortable and less at risk for falling out of the bed. “Jane’s a stickler for labeling so I figure it should- oh my god.”

“What?” Rory asks anxiously, trying to read the label over her shoulder as he crowds behind her. 

“There’s salvia in this,” Sarah says, sounding torn between crying and laughing.”Some specific species called Seer’s Sage, appropriately enough.”  

“Damn,” Erica whistles. “Wish he would’ve saved some for the rest of us.” Upon being met with two identical glares, she holds her hands up in surrender and shrugs. “Just saying, would have made for a good time is all. Thank god psychedelics still do something for us or the afterlife would blow.”

“This is going to cause such a bad curse relapse,” Sarah groans, ignoring her girlfriend. “What the hell was he thinking?” 

“I think he was thinking that it’s his responsibility to solve all our problems,” Rory says, a bit guiltily, because in retrospect he didn’t exactly do much to dissuade him of that opinion. 

“This stupid, reckless, idiotic…” Sarah rants, voice getting quieter and more dangerous the more she rants before she’s cut off by a sudden noise from the bed they’re all gathered around. 

“Black dress,” Ethan whispers, so quietly that they have to strain to hear. “Red nails and chalk- white chalk- hands reaching grasping, black dress, singing no dancing.” 

“Oh great,” Erica groans, taking out her phone and starting a recording. “This again.” 

“Shh,” Rory hushes. It’s not exactly the same, he realizes. He’d been turning Ethan’s original vision over in their head for months now after realizing it had yet to come up. 

“No dancing,” Ethan repeats, voice harsh before dropping back into a whisper. “Growing up up up, ground without dirt, windows without walls.”

“This is useless,” Erica huffs, though she doesn't stop the recording. 

Rory doesn’t get a chance to respond before Ethan suddenly sits up, eyes flying open, unseeing. 

“Unnatural,” he says, voice choked and eyes clouded over. “Unnatural and twisted and wrong. Sound without music, ground without dirt, medicine without cure. Death without cause, life without purpose. Killing and killing and killing, senseless. The doctor-” he cuts off, voice growing even more choked to the point where he’s barely intelligible. “The doctor has claimed a favorite. Not her fault not her fault not her fault not her fault…”

He continues repeating the same phrase without pausing to breathe, face beginning to turn blue as the others can only look on in helpless panic. 

Suddenly, the spell ends as quickly as it began, and Ethan slumps forward, gasping in a quick desperate breath before shouting out “Trash!”

Realizing what he means, Sarah quickly grabs their small trash can from its position by the door to shove it in front of his face, just in time to avoid him throwing up in his lap. 

“Ew.” Erica wrinkles her nose, taking a step back and shoving her phone into her pocket. “I’m out of here, I recorded that whole thing for later in case we missed anything, I’ll send it to you guys.”

“Where are you going?” Rory asks.
“I have a plan. It’s going to involve waking up way too fucking early tomorrow and basically going through my personal hell, so I’m going to leave you two to comfort your boyfriend while I get my beauty sleep. Ciao!”

She's out the door before they can blink. 

“Well then,” Sarah says over the sound of Ethan retching.

“Here, babe.” Rory reaches for one of the bottles labeled “headache cure” in Jane's neat blocky handwriting and hands it to Ethan when he raises his head from the trash. He takes it and chugs it with a grimace, gratefully taking the water bottle Sarah offers him from their fridge to wash out the taste. 

“Yikes,” he says, before looking at them and taking them in for the first time since he finished the prophecy. “Hey guys. Are you aware you're currently corpses?”

“That's kinda part of the whole vampire thing,” Rory shrugs. 

“Ignore him,” Sarah rolls her eyes. “We're as alive as we normally are, E.”

“Oh yeah, makes sense,” Ethan says faintly, nodding like he doesn't really believe them but is willing to let it go for now.

“Do you remember what you said?” Sarah asks gently. 

“Yeah,” Ethan says, not looking at either of them, or anything in particular really. Rory's not sure how much of it is because of the curse and how much is just generally a result of giving a prophecy. “That's the difference between a prophecy and a vision. Well, that and how they happen. With prophecies you remember all of it afterwards.”

“That's good,” Sarah starts, but Ethan shakes his head before they can continue. 

“It still doesn't really make any sense though,” he says, voice lacking the frustration it would normally have when he's struggling to put together a puzzle. “The images I saw were so vague, like flashes of plants and glass in dark rooms. Clearly Erica must have understood something, though.”

“Yeah, clearly,” Sarah huffs. “I'll try to get her to explain what this big plan is before she gets herself killed. In the meantime, take care of our boy, Rory.”

“Yes ma'am,” Rory mock salutes with a cheeky grin. Ethan rolls his eyes, and then apparently immediately regrets the action as he hisses and raises a hand to his head. 

“Turn the lights out on your way, please,” he asks.

“Of course.” Sarah leans in for a kiss and then, clearly thinking better of it, settles for a quick kiss on his brow before she's heading out the room, turning the lights off behind her as requested. 

“The woman in the black dress is going to kill Benny,” Ethan says after a few seconds of silence in the dark, voice completely flat like he's delivering a prediction about the weather and not their boyfriend's life.

“That’s just the curse talking,” Rory attempts to reassure, though his voice isn't entirely confident. “I hope.”

“Maybe,” Ethan agrees. “At least we can all be dead together.” 

“No one is dying any more than they already have. Which means you and Benny aren't dying at all.” Rory tries to inject more certainty into his words this time and is pretty sure they half succeed. 

Ethan makes a noise that Rory's really not sure how to interpret. There's a good chance it's just him falling asleep, since Rory is watching him snuggle under his covers. He's tempted to force him to go brush his teeth but isn't sure subjecting him to the screaming he can faintly hear from the common area is worth it. 

He hates having no idea how to help. Thankfully, there's someone who should be able to provide at least a little clarity on the situation, and he sends her a text as he settles into his own bed. 

heyyyyyyy Jane would you be able to tell me everything about how that prophecy potion you made for e works? asking for a friend

the friend is your brother 

He doesn't have to wait long for a response 

oh god did he take that?? i told him it was for emergencies only and that he was supposed to let me know first in case he had a reaction to anything in it 

it's basically just a potion to put him into a kind of suggestive state that makes it easier to do seer stuff, we developed it with prophecies in mind but it could theoretically help with visions or other more lowkey fortune telling methods 

grandma weir says using it for prophecies is cheating and will only make it harder for him in the long run which is why it's emergencies only 

I mean a lot of the ingredients are traditionally taken by seers for fortune telling but this specific potion is like insanely potent 

Interesting. Not super helpful at the present moment. 

Gotcha

yeah he took the whole bottle 

what kind of side effects and we dealing with here 

Jane's next response comes just as quickly, in a series of short texts that arrive one after another. 

Christo

Istg sometimes i think he wants to die

hard to tell for sure since this is the first time anyone's taken this specific potion but I can guess at a few 

he'll probably be pretty tired, in his case probably have a migraine and a fear curse relapse but that's more of a him issue than something that would happen to anyone else who took it

possible hallucinations for about 20 to 30 minutes 

but with the curse those will probably just contribute to that and not really seem out of the ordinary for him 

they might be more intense and feel more realistic though, more like the original curse and not lke the weakened version he has now, maybe even worse 

he'll probably seem fine right after but that's because he'll probably have some detachment and derealization going on, so don't let him jump off any bridges or anything

the headache cures should help some with the migraine along with just some regular tylenol, not aspirin

he might want to take a clarity potion tomorrow if he needs to be up for anything important but otherwise it's better to rest it off naturally 

oh and unfortunately it's actually really hard to create potions for nausea that aren't basically the same thing as commercially available products so if he's throwing up just do tums or pepto bismol, whatever you have, then just get him to eat some bread or crackers later 

and for the love of God please do not let yourself or any of the other vampires drink his blood for at least a few days 

Rory blinks at the onslaught of information. 

got it tysm Jane

he seems to be sleeping some of it off already which is probably good right?

u making ur own potions is super impressive btw!

eh, i'm just way better at potions than spells 

besides I'm always here to help, it's what a witch does after all

what was so important he needed to give a prophecy right away? 

just some more of the stuff that's been going on with benny, i think sarah told you a bit abt it 

oh yeah damn

well best of luck with anything, if he has any symptoms I didn't mention plz lmk asap its super important

Even if ur not sure if its related or not its better if i write it down anyways 

and also take care of yourself and tell the others to as well y'all are stressing me out and I've got my own coven to stress over

lmao yes ma'am 

will do 

ttyl rory

ttyl!

Private message between AI and Erica

April 6

7:32 am

Erica: I'm ready to cash in that favor

AI: I'm all ears 

Erica: I'm guessing when you hacked into the school's computer network to try to kill me that you left yourself a back door right?

AI: …yes?

Erica: i need you to use it to get me all the information you can on Dr. Charlotte Anastasia 

AI has deleted one message 

AI: pick something else 

Erica: ?? what gives

AI: i'm sure i have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. 

i can't help you

but I'm more than happy to wait while you come up with a feasible favor to ask. 

Erica: bullshit

thought we agreed on no questions asked

AI: that was before I knew you're apparently suicidal 

Erica: its one bio professor, it's not like I'm asking you to hack into the pentagon 

AI: ah i see

to borrow a phrase 

you don't know shit about shit

Erica: ? what are you talking about

AI: it really would make life so much easier if you would just agree to pick something else and let the matter lie

Erica: yeah i don't think thats going to be an option unfortunately 

whatever's happening is bad 

and i cant just sit back and let my witch get hurt

AI: he isn't going to get any more hurt than he already is if he just keeps his head down and doesn’t do anything stupid for a bit longer

you don't have to get involved in this 

Erica: get involved in what exactly? 

AI: you seriously think no one else has noticed that something isn't right?

I have a plan 

and it doesn't involve any vampires with no concept of subtlety

Erica: tough luck, guess you're going to have to rewrite the plan 

AI: has anyone ever told you that you're incredibly irritating? 

Erica: once or twice 

AI: I'm guessing you're not going to stop pestering me unless I give you something, are you?

Erica: wrong actually

AI: really? so you'll pick something else?

Erica: no

I'm not going to stop bothering you until you tell me everything 

AI: fucking hell

this isn't the sort of conversation you want any trace of 

meet me at the library in 10 minutes, study room 3015C. come alone and don't bring any devices with a microphone

don't stop to check in at the desk, don't speak to anyone on the way in

Normally i’d say avoid the cameras outside the east entrance but i don’t suppose that will be a problem for you

Erica: jesus okay 

how do I know this isn't just a ploy to lure me somewhere and kill me?

AI: please

if either of us truly wanted the other dead, we’d have killed each other by now

i expect you in the library in 9 minutes

Erica is a bit hesitant to go, not that she'd ever admit it. She doesn't seriously think AI would be able to do anything to her without her giving back as good as she got, but the whole situation has her on edge in a way that she rarely is. She likes to project a certain level of confidence, as if there's no situation she can't charm or bite her way out of, but the truth is she has no idea what to do. It's killing her to have to rely on help from someone outside the coven, and it being him is just adding insult to injury. 

Still, there comes a point where some things are more important than pride. Even if it really, really sucks. 

It takes her a few minutes to get ready, and even with superspeed it ends up taking 11 minutes for her to get to the library. By the time she finds the room AI is already waiting inside, arms crossed as he leans against the far wall from the door. 

It's strange, seeing him in person. She'd shared a class with him for a whole semester without ever really noticing him, not even sparing him much thought after he asked her out and she turned him down. She knew that she knew what he looked like, but throughout all their conversations over text she’d only pictured a faceless blob. The one thing she remembers noticing about his appearance is how tired he looked, and it doesn't appear that that's changed much. He has dark bruising under his eyes, and he looks ruffled, like he hadn't been planning on making a rendezvous at the library today. Neither had she, but she still managed to brush her hair. 

She barely manages to shut the door behind her before he's talking.

“You're late. Phone,” he commands, tilting his chin towards a small box sitting on the table.

“Seriously?”

He just shrugs. 

Erica reluctantly opens the box to see a phone already sitting inside, which she assumes belongs to him. As she puts her phone on top of his, noting that the two devices take up almost the entirety of the box, AI grabs a key from the carabiner hooked to his belt buckle.

“Here, a show of good faith.” He tosses it at her without warning, and she only manages to catch it before it collides with the wall behind her thanks to her superspeed. 

“What are you, a rock climbing butch lesbian?” Erica snarks, none-the-less locking the box and settling into one of the chairs positioned around the table, deciding to hold on to the key for now. AI stays looming against the wall, apparently waiting for her to make the first move now that their phones have been dealt with. 

“So, A- wait, there's no way I can call you AI in person, it's dumb enough over text.”

Whatever response she had been expecting, it wasn't the genuine humour-filled grin that suddenly takes up his entire face. It feels a bit unnatural to see him smile. She's not sure what's stronger, the urge to run away or the urge to punch it off his face. 

“I really hadn't even planned for that one, honestly. I was trying to tell you to call me Al, as in short for Micheal. I didn't realize that the font in the messaging app would cause any confusion.”

“You just let me believe you named yourself artificial intelligence?”

“It was funny,” he shrugs. Erica is starting to get the sense that most of what he does is based on whether or not it will be funny. It's not a very pleasant realization, considering she doesn't think anything about their current situation is particularly amusing. 

“Whatever,” she huffs. “So, Micheal , how come you're so terrified of Dr. Anastasia?”

“What makes you think I'm terrified of her?”

“Probably your point blank refusal to do anything about her terrorizing the student population? I know you're a technomage and that means you apparently hate witches, but does that seriously mean you'll refuse to do anything about her? And what even is she, anyways?” A sudden thought occurs to her. “Wait a minute- all those questions you were asking about warlocks? Don't tell me she's literally a demon spawn.”

“And the prize for slowest on the uptake goes to,” he rolls his eyes. “Besides, my saying I won't help you with this has nothing to do with Benny being a witch. Witches like to think they're the exact opposite of technomages and that they have nothing in common with warlocks. The truth is, if magic was a spectrum, warlocks and technomages would each be at an extreme end, and witches would be in the center.”

“How are witches not the opposite of technomages? One controls nature, the other controls machinery. Seems pretty opposite to me.”

“But witches don't really control nature, do they? They harness it, use the innate properties to their advantage, but they're not really controlling anything. They can't change what's already there. A witch couldn't just decide to use a certain ingredient for the opposite of what it's usually used for. If you had to assign different kinds of magic to a field of science, technomages would be engineers, which is pretty self explanatory. We manipulate machines, things that are entirely inanimate and human made. Witches would be chemists. They can't change the properties of an element, but they can work with the natural laws to cause the reaction they need. Potions are basically just chemical reactions, and even witch spells are just speeding up or slowing down certain reactions. If a witch casts a spell to catch something on fire, all they really did is get the atoms inside of it to speed up just enough to the point where they would have to release the excess energy as heat, causing a spark and spontaneous combustion. The metaphor kind of ends there, because from a scientific viewpoint that energy would have had to come from somewhere, and if it were all coming from the witch most witches would burn out and die before they ever hit their twenties, or at least need to consume an ungodly amount of calories, but that's why it's magic and not science. Some theorize that witches expel only enough energy to increase the vibrations of one atom, causing a chain reaction, but that’s neither here nor there, the point is there’s a science to how magic works for witches.” 

Erica thinks that over. She doesn't think it would entirely hold up under scrutiny, but she doesn't see anything glaringly wrong with the metaphor. Mostly, she thinks the whole thought exercise is a waste of fucking time.

“Sure, whatever. What are warlocks, then?”

“Biologists.” At Erica's skeptical look, he continues. “No, really. Warlocks work within the natural world like witches, but they aren't beholden to the laws of nature. Chemists have learned to predict what will happen when you add two chemicals together: there are no surprises. It's literally formulas, the same way potions are recipes. With biology, things get too complicated to predict. Every living thing is different. Even when something is cloned there are going to be minute differences because of the way living systems work. Biologists can't rely on formulas. They had to learn how to force nature to bend to their will instead.”

“I'd think I would have heard about biologists apparently being able to play god,” Erica argued. “If anything I'd think chemists have figured out how to break the laws of nature more than biologists. What about nuclear reactions?”

“Those still obey all the laws of thermodynamics and conservation,” Micheal argued back. “Besides, I think physicists would have a problem with you claiming chemists have nuclear reactions, and the more fields I add to this the more the metaphor will fall apart. And maybe biologists haven't figured out everything, sure, but they’re getting there. You've heard of CRISPR, right?” 

“My primary major is fashion design. Assume all your nerd shit is going to go way over my head.”

“Not sure what advantage you think playing dumb is going to give you, but sure,” Micheal rolls his eyes. “I'll waste time saying what we both know you already know. It's gene editing, literally being able to manipulate the very code that makes up a living creature. It's in its infancy, but so was every technology once. Who knows, 100 years from now we may be able to completely eradicate the passage of genetic disease in countries with high access to doctors. One day parents will be able to choose every aspect of their baby down to their eye color.”

“How the hell did we get from warlocks to gene therapy?”

“Because warlocks are that kind of biologist. The ones that know how to break a living system down to its smallest component until the laws of nature don't apply to it anymore. Engineers have the concept of something called the continuum approach. If you're going to observe a material, you need to set your sample size, or control volume, so that it will have average values for your properties of interest, and not be affected by the microscopic properties of the atoms that compose it. In other words, we have to see the big picture. If an engineer were to try to take the time to map every individual particle in the material, we'd die before we finished our models. But biologists are sort of the opposite. They have to look at the small details, otherwise they'd never be able to get anywhere. You can't look at an animal and tell anything about what's happening at the cellular level until you look closer, and studying life is useless without that understanding. Engineers deal with materials, chemists deal with elements, and biologists deal with nucleotides, the building blocks of our building blocks.”

“I'm starting to see a lot of flaws in this metaphor.”

Micheal rolls his eyes again.

“It's not a perfect comparison. Using scientific terminology to discuss the supernatural is never going to match perfectly. All I'm really trying to say is that warlocks and technomages are the true opposites. One deals entirely with the natural world, one deals entirely with man made creations.

“But how is it natural when you're controlling it?” Erica asks, starting to feel frustrated. The conversation is reminding her of when her entrepreneurship class had been discussing ethics, and she'd felt like she was going insane listening to men give the shittiest takes she'd ever heard on what was ethical. She’d gotten so frustrated during their discussions that she'd had to start tuning them out completely so she wouldn't go feral and start biting her classmates. Sadly, she doesn't think that's an option now. “Is it really even natural anymore once you've gone in and played with its genes?”

“It's all about perspectives,” Micheal says, matching her frustration as he struggles to come up with another way of putting it. “A tumor could be thought of as entirely natural, and the medicine that destroys it as man playing God and trying to subvert nature. Or a tumor could be thought of as an unnatural growth or mutation, and the medicine as something derived from the natural world created to restore the body's natural balance. It's all about perspectives. What matters for a warlock is that they believe that what they're doing is natural, the same way a technomage has to think of what they're manipulating as a machine.”

Erica closes her eyes and starts massaging her temples. “Okay, hold on, this is getting really confusing.” First magic was magic, then magic was science, and now magic was belief and feelings? How the hell was any of this going to help her kill Dr. Anastasia anyways?

“It’s only going to get more confusing. Come on Erica, I know you have a brain under all the makeup.”

Erica opens one eye just enough to glare at him.

“You're really not selling me on the whole not a misogynist thing right now”

“If you want to be involved you need to focus. I know it's a lot to take in. This is all the information I've been able to gather over the past couple months since you gave me what information you had. It’s not like I can write you a cheat sheet, though. The less paper trail we leave the better.”

“Okay, fine,” Erica sighs. “So warlocks have to believe that what they're doing is natural. How does that help us?”

“I'm just trying to help you see the bigger picture here. Dr. Anastasia doesn't see what she's doing as evil. And honestly? She's right.” 

“If this is going to be you giving me another join the dark side speech I'm taking my phone and leaving,” Erica warns. 

“No, no,” Micheal says. “What she's doing is definitely wrong but it's not evil. ”

“What's the difference?”

“If I had an easy way to explain that I'd probably have my doctorate in philosophy.”

“Is that your secret major then? Philosophy?” Erica asks, annoyed to notice that there's genuine curiosity in her voice. There's no way that's actually his major, but she had to admit, if only to herself, that she was wondering about it.

“After my very thorough breakdown on different scientific fields, do you seriously think my major is philosophy?”

“No, I just wanted to see the look on your face. You're some sort of engineer, right? Electrical or mechanical?”

“God no, neither. Computer engineering with a minor in bioinformatics.”

“You bastard,” Erica complains. “Computer engineering and computer science are basically the same thing!”

“Um, incredibly incorrect,” he scoffs. “Computer engineers have to actually understand how the hardware works too, not just be able to write code. That's why I'll actually have a job in a couple years while your entire cohort of computer science majors will be replaced with one person who knows how to use artificial intelligence to write the code for them.”

“Jeesh, what computer science major pissed you off?”

“Oh, you wouldn't know her, it was this vampire who very rudely turned me down once. Then she even had the gall to ask me for a favor later, can you believe it?” Either Erica was hallucinating, or he looked downright amused. 

“Why does everything you say sound vaguely British in a really sinister way?” She asks, because she has a feeling if she points out all the ridiculously incorrect things in that statement they were doing to be there all day. 

“I was actually raised in London. I just moved here for college but I lost my accent in a technomage related accident. Spell gone wrong.”

“Wait, are you- no,” Erica interrupts herself, noticing the way he’s definitely trying to resist the urge to smile. “You're bullshitting me.” 

“Yeah but could you imagine? I just watch a lot of British television and it's started to affect the way I talk.”

“Like Bake Off ?”

“No, I mostly watch the game shows.”

“There are British game shows?”

“Yeah, obviously. You’ve never heard of Taskmaster ? Would I Lie to You ? Big Fat Quiz? ” At Erica's blank look he sputters. “How have you never- nevermind, this really isn't the point right now.” 

“Is there a point? I feel like we haven't actually gotten anywhere yet except establishing that warlocks are biologists and you need to get out more.”

“We were starting to get somewhere before you distracted me. What Anastasia's doing will, objectively, be a net positive for the world. She doesn't care that much for anything beyond glory, but she knows that to get that she needs to actually accomplish something of substance. What she's doing now may not seem that impressive, but it's just the first step in her plan to eventually tackle the biggest health problems our society faces. And frankly, I think she can do it. For all I was saying about how different types of magic can be compared to science, I'm fairly certain she's the first person to actually combine her magic and science like this. Most scientists are skeptics, and most magic users are taught that trying to fit themselves into the natural world is a waste of their time and talents.”

“Then why are you bothering with this at all if you think what she's doing is so great?”

“Maybe it's just because I'm selfish,” he shrugs. “Warlock magic is corrupting, you said it yourself. I'm not in her lab, but we share a space with her, and her magic has completely permeated the whole lab. I may have the ability to partially block the effects out, but prolonged contact to a warlock that powerful will fuck you up regardless.”

“I don't buy it. You have what, two semesters left after this? You’re willing to sacrifice a cure for cancer so you don't have to be around her magic for a year?”

“Or maybe I just don't agree with her scientific practices. I'm quite the bleeding heart, you know. Seeing what she does to those poor little rats truly keeps me up at night.”

“You literally tried to kill me a few months ago.”

“That was while I was still being influenced by her magic, remember? It was corrupting me the same way it's corrupting your witch.”

“Riiiight. How did you manage to stop it, by the way? If we can figure out how to replicate it-” Micheal is already shaking his head before she can finish. 

“It's not that easy. It's actually only something a technomage can do. That’s why I was trying to impress upon you how important it is that technomages and warlocks are the true opposites, not technomages and witches. It was actually quite simple to do, once I realized what was happening. It's more just creating a mental block than anything else.”

“So you just thoughts and prayers your way into no longer being a warlock magic induced misogynist?”

“If you want to put it that way, I suppose.” 

“God you're annoying. Work with me here, if you don't want to tell me the real reason you're trying to stop her that's fine, but at least tell me what your plan is.”

“What makes you think I even have an actual plan?” Micheal asks. Erica expects the question to be more of his usual sarcastic bullshit, but she gets the sense he's being strangely honest. 

“You literally told me you did.”

“People lie, Erica. You really should know this by now. I have concepts of a plan. I keep telling myself that I'm almost there, and then I hit a wall and have to start all over. I’m not like you, y'know. I didn't spend my teenage years running around slaying monsters like some weird reverse Buffy. I probably would have never even realized I was a technomage if my mom hadn't taught me herself. Our ability to block out the negative effects of a warlock’s aura is a pretty uncommon ability, actually, but it was one of the first things she taught me.” 

“Did she have a bad run in with a warlock or something?”

“The opposite, actually. She had a warlock friend in college and she always insisted it wasn’t her fault that she had that effect on people around her. It’s like how you can’t help but need to drink blood, or how your little seer boyfriend can’t help it if he gets some information about someone they might not want him knowing. It's the perils of biology.”

“I seriously can’t explain the lesbian thing again, I’m just going to start ignoring you every time you call someone my boyfriend. So you’re saying she can’t control her magic's affects?”

Micheal makes a face and raises his hand in a so-so gesture.

“Yes and no. To a certain extent she was bound to always feel somewhat off-putting to the people around her, and people who were particularly close to her might start behaving more irrationally after years of exposure, but the effects have been heightened after years of letting her magic corrupt her. I don’t know exactly what happened to cause her to be this way, but she must have given up on keeping a leash on her magic a long time ago. She probably thinks she still controls it, but it’s actually controlling her.”

“Damn,” Erica huffs. “And you can’t ask mommy dearest for any tips on how to take down a warlock?”

“Like I said, my mom was always a big believer in the idea that warlocks are just unfortunate little accidents that can’t help being the way they are. Even if she did agree with us that Dr. Anastasia needs to be stopped, she hasn’t exactly spent the past few decades researching ways to kill her old college friend.”

“That’s another thing,” Erica says. “Stopped from what, exactly? If everything she’s doing is completely legal, and the only thing she’s doing wrong is having shitty magic that she technically can't even help, there’s not much we can do about that right? I mean, I guess we could just kill her but I feel like that might attract too much attention.”

“We’re not killing her,” Micheal says flatly. “I have too big of plans for my life to go to prison. And you’re right, if all she was doing was continuing along with her experiments until they inevitably move forward to clinical trials and are whisked off to some CRO site there would be no need to interfere. She physically can’t control her magic’s effects, there’s no point in trying to threaten her to stop them. But she has something bigger planned. Her results thus far have been promising, but she needs more. You know about the plants, right? She’s infused them with a lot of magic already but it’s not enough. I’ve been watching her for a while and I can tell she’s figured it out. There’s going to be a ritual, something suitably dramatic and potentially dangerous enough to level the entire campus if even one little spark goes astray.”

“Why the hell would she do that?”

“Because she’s insane, Erica. Clinically insane, to the point where she can’t see past the immediate needs for better results. Some part of her definitely knows what she’s doing is dangerous, but she doesn’t care.”

“Well fuck,” Erica huffs. “So if we’re not going to kill her then that’s it? We have literally no idea what to do?”

“I wouldn’t say that. Think, what’s the one thing a scientist holds above all else? The one thing they can’t live without?”
“I don’t know, their fancy microscopes?”
“No- well,” Micheal stops. “Maybe, actually, but fancy microscopes can be replaced, even if it would be a bitch and a half. No, I mean their data. The hundreds of hours of experiments, the long days hunched over excel sheets, the lives of plants and rats sacrificed. If something happened to all their data, especially this far into a study, it would be beyond devastating.”

“Alright, I see the vision, but how exactly does that help us?”

“Remember how I offered to teach you a technomage spell once?”

“...Yes?” Erica hesitates. 

“Ever heard of a Trojan virus? Imagine how much more powerful they could be combined with technomage magic. In theory, you could make a virus that’s completely undetectable until it’s already infiltrated your entire system. Maybe even a virus that remains dormant until you decide to detonate it, perhaps after demands are unmet.” 

“Oh, I like that,” Erica smirks. “But what do you need me for?”

“Well, having another caster always makes spells more powerful, even if the other caster is inexperienced. And besides, for a Trojan to work the person downloading the file needs to have some level of trust in what they’re downloading. If this is going to work, we need more than just a powerful virus. We need to make her trust you.” 

“Okay, putting aside the ludicrous idea of how I, a fashion and computer science double major, is supposed to be able to reasonably interact with and gain the trust of a chemistry professor, how do you even know I’ll be able to cast a technomage spell at all?”
“You’re kidding, right?” Micheal asks. “You clearly have the potential. It’s written all over you, I could tell the second I saw you. I thought you knew and just didn’t know any other technomages to show you the ropes, or were just hoping your witch wouldn’t find out.”

“No? How the hell can you tell that?”

“It’s obvious, if you know what to look for,” he shrugs. “When you meet with Dr. Anastasia you have to learn to not be obvious. It would be best if you contacted her over email at first, especially to have a reasonable excuse to have her download a file. There’s a chance she’ll be able to tell you’re a mage if she sees you in person. At the very least she’ll probably be able to sense that you’re bonded to Benny. Apparently warlock’s can sense coven bonds, though I’ve had trouble verifying if that’s true or just a widespread rumor..”

“So I’m sending an email, sure, whatever. I still don’t buy that I’m apparently a technomage.”

“You've seriously never noticed anything strange happening around you? Besides for the obvious, I suppose.”

Suddenly, Erica remembers the Lucifractor incident. It's been years at this point, and despite the fact that it had been a pretty devastating incident for White Chapel, it hardly ever got brought up, especially now that the reconstruction efforts were well underway. 

Erica had always privately been confused about how it wasn't more devastating. Realistically, Benny and Ethan should be dead, along with the rest of the human population of White Chapel. Sarah should have been so badly injured even her advanced healing probably wouldn't have saved her. Erica and Rory should have just barely escaped with their not-lives. 

They never really figured out exactly what the Lucifractor was, was the thing. She'd always assumed it was entirely supernatural, but she was starting to realize the lines between technology and magic weren't as clear as she thought. Something had prevented the explosion that day from leveling their entire town, just like something had caused her to abruptly fall out of the glamor she had been under, even though Rory had still been deeply under it until she’d managed to break him out. The idea that maybe it was some innate power within her lashing out was a better theory than most of the others she'd considered over the years. 

“Maybe, maybe not,” Erica hedged. “Just tell me what we have to do for this virus. The sooner we can get Dr. Anastasia out of here the better.”

“Wonderful,” Micheal smiled, like the freak he was. “I think this calls for a change in scenery. The tech lounge under the engineering building is suitably unbugged and almost always empty at this hour.” 

“Lead the way,” Erica gestures. “Or are you so paranoid that you’re going to say that we need to travel separately so we’re not seen?”

“What would you say if I did?”

“I’d say I’ll meet you there with the box.” Then, without waiting for an answer, Erica grabs the locked box containing their phones and speeds to the tech lounge, having just enough time to see the equal parts exasperated and amused expression take form on Micheal’s face as she leaves. Sometimes being a vampire has its perks.