Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

He knew how hard a human body could shake from exhaustion and fear. That bone-deep rattle, like his skeleton would crack open to give what was left of his soul back to the universe. Fucked up as it was – it was a pain he was used to. As intimate to him as the sight he knew was waiting around the corner.

A long industrial hallway, bathed in the red light of flashing sirens and drenched in blood. Black uniforms, like security guards. It could have been back in Jackson Hydro Dam. It could have been the hospital. That concrete hallway was everywhere and nowhere, and all he knew for sure was why those bodies were there. Who’s fault it was. His.

Heather blue eyes snapped open in the cold blue light of almost dawn. Chase was still as a statue in the bed, listening and waiting for a threat that never came. The comforter rustled as Stacy turned beside him, still asleep, and settled once more. Chase rolled over and wrapped an arm around her shoulders, slotting up against her and willing his own heart to settle.

It hadn’t been an easy two years.

With the threat of the void breaking free left behind, and the threat of the glitch left behind… things felt so surreal. Marvin had moved his dimension door to the backyard shed and only intruded in their lives when invited, despite their efforts to convince him it didn’t have to be that way. The kids had spent more time outside than ever when Christmas had revealed a trampoline and a firepit, and they’d all made Christmas smores. Marvin had made the entire day magical in every way he could, and they’d felt like a family again.

Then the pandemic hit.

As much as he and Stacy had tried to smile and be optimistic for the kids, quarantine brought nightmares for all of them. The sensation of being trapped was one they’d all wanted to forget, but March of 2020 took no prisoners. Chase’s asthma hadn’t acted up in years, but he was still quietly terrified of what covid would do to him. Let alone if they could even afford another hospital stay. The Brodys were still paying off Stacy’s, and would be for a while.

Chase’s work had sent them all home, but the business didn’t look like it was going to survive. It was hard to edit videos when no one could be there in person to make one. They’d made it work somehow, spacing everyone apart and being rigid with health protocols, and the company held on by making training videos for corporations. It’d been going as fine as it could until Stacy caught covid from a coworker.

She stayed in the house while Chase and the kids moved in with Marvin. The shitty rental house was long gone by that point, and no one wanted to risk Chase’s asthma. It had been a harrowing week. Despite following every tip they could find, it still laid Stacy out something fierce. She’d quarantined herself upstairs so Chase could come in, cook for her and leave. In the meantime, Marvin’s tower had been furnished with rooms for Chase, Connor and Ellie, who got to play in a wizard’s lair while Chase paced a groove in the floor. Marvin had to explain he could heal injuries and poison, but a virus was outside his range of abilities. Although, Stacy still swore by the tea he gave her, that it opened her airways like nothing else. They had a stash of it now, in case anyone got sick or Chase’s asthma decided to play dirty.

Then came the fun of trying to put two kids through elementary school on zoom. Ellie had too much of her dad’s personality, always trying to test what she could get away with. All the structure and discipline and scolding in the world couldn’t change the fact that she was a smart, bored kid surrounded by her favorite things, with only a pixelated face to tell her no. They finally set her up at the kitchen table instead, and things improved. Both kids ended up at the kitchen table, Chase set up shop in the living room, and Stacy worked upstairs. They knew Chandler’s never-ending supply of food and toilet paper would come in handy someday, and that day had been the initial panic and hoarding at the beginning of the pandemic. Chase had made the two-hour drive to his brother’s mystical cabin of limitless shit and abused the Host’s altruism to its fullest.

While the wizard was only a stroll in the backyard away, Chase wasn’t sure what happened to the rest of the cryptids in the aftermath of sealing the void. That included… that included the glitch.

He owed Void – Imogen his life as much as he owed Marvin. The wizard had suppressed Anti enough for Chase to escape his possession, but it was Imogen who had pulled him out of the abyss before the doorway cut them in half. It still haunted him, their writhing half-dissolved body the Host tried to narrate back together. They’d died quick, and with three words from the Host, the whole world went to shit.

       It didn’t happen.

Exhaustion and terror in the moment had warped the memory of what came after, he could only recall feeling like the dam had been thrown in a blender. Lights had twisted, concrete sheared, it was like the fabric of reality was tearing apart. Chase had thrown himself over Connor and held on until it was over. Somehow, it had been enough, because Imogen was back like they never left. Dark pulled the three of them out of thin air, and Chase never saw them again. Though, every once in a great while, he caught snatches of conversation from tea party that sounded off. Every time he looked in, the light was bubblegum pink, and the extra chair was empty.

Still, he wondered.

Their lives had some loose ends, he couldn’t pretend they didn’t. But, for what they’d been through? They were doing pretty damn well. The pandemic had settled in, and they’d adapted like everyone else. Chase had the most shots, but Stacy was a close second. She never wanted the full force of “the plague” again. Now, everyone had been back to work, though Chase and Stacy still worked one alternating day at home a week. Companies could no longer pretend that hybrid or full remote jobs were impossible.

Aside from the five of them still getting nightmares every so often, though Chase firmly believed he was the heavyweight champion in terms of frequency, they were getting on the best they could. All things considered. They hadn’t seen so much as a line of static or a light flicker since they fled Jackson Hydro Dam two years ago. Just once out of the corner of his eye, Chase swore he saw Marvin’s outline glitch. The surge of fear had been followed by an immediate wave of exhaustion, strong enough that Marvin noticed and suggested he should take a nap. It’d probably been for the best, if he was tired enough to hallucinate something like that, but still. The wizard had withdrawn, sometimes even in mid conversation. There were days when Chase had knocked on his door to no answer. It’d gotten better as the months wore on, but Chase was still worried about Marvin. Something was wrong, and he hoped it was just a long adjustment to a life without vengeance. Marv had poured his everything into that two-year power struggle with the glitch, Chase couldn’t fault him for staying on edge even when it was over.

      “Go back to sleep…”

Stacy’s quiet mumble earned a startled jolt that rocked them both. She was facing away from him, and he hadn’t realized she was awake.

      “Sorry,” he whispered, and she reached up to wrap her fingers around his hand against her shoulder. Chase scooted closer and willed his eyes to shut. It was just another stupid dream, he’d do better in the morning. Almost by surprise, sleep took him again in minutes.

Ellie had stretched. It was like someone took the little girl by the head and ankles and pulled. Even at just seven years old, every day she looked more and more like her old man. Same blue eyes, same facial structure. She’d been adamant she wanted her brown hair cut like Marvin’s, and they’d compromised by shaving under her ponytail to try it out, which she’d been happy with. Chase and Stacy weren’t against that style, they just knew the meltdown would be real if they shaved the sides of Ellie’s head, and she realized she didn’t like it.

It was a Saturday morning, and Ellie carried a little basket through the backyard, picking dandelions, a cone of purple flowers off the trellis, and some mushrooms she spotted in the grass. She found a nice-looking chunk of mulch, a pebble that glittered in the sun, and the best few leaves she could find off the Japanese maple. Basket filled to her liking, Ellie knocked on the door to the shed. Three quick knocks, three slow ones, and the door was pulled open to reveal a grand entrance.

      “Uncle Marvin?”

The call went unanswered as Ellie shut the door behind her. She wasn’t deterred – the wizard lived in a big tower and didn’t always hear the first time. As always, her tiny feet carried her right to the spacious windows to see what was outside that day. She’d been told the big rainy fields with sheep were Ireland, along with the ocean and the grassy cliffs. Though, sometimes it was places like space, or a forest so bright and colorful it looked like fairies lived there. Today, it was that great expanse of ocean, lapping against the shore and the cliffs. It was overcast, so both the water and the sky were gray. Ellie climbed off the little bench that had appeared one day after Marvin had seen her craning for a look out the windows, and started checking the obvious spots one by one.

He wasn’t in the library, which took a long time to comb through. He wasn’t in the room of jars and bottles she wasn’t allowed to touch unless Marvin said it was okay. He wasn’t in the gym (it was a ‘training room’ for spells but it sure looked like a gym). The top floors had a door on the staircase and it was always locked. His bedroom door was open and empty, the kitchen was empty, so that left the study. Which was really just all the other rooms crammed into one, if you asked Ellie. It had books, potion stuff, a bed, a tiny kitchen, and a little mat that looked like a mini gym floor. It also had a desk, and bent over a journal was Marvin.

When they’d first met the wizard, he made Ellie sad every time she looked at him. Aside from the shaved head and the hair he pulled back in a bun, he looked exactly like her dad. Her dad on his saddest days, that was. He’d been slightly skinnier and more pale, and the dark circles under his eyes had been as deep as the stress lines in his gaunt face. Even without the hair, Ellie could have looked at Marvin and the monster, and known which was which. Marvin was always sad, or angry. The monster always smiled.

The Marvin she walked up to now had more color in his skin. Less signs of sleepless, stress-filled nights of going to bed without eating a thing all day. He looked more like her dad, now, and he wasn’t always just pretending to be happy.

      “Uncle Marvin?”

Marvin jolted in his chair before he slumped with a forced exhale, and a hand scrubbed over his face.

      “Child, you scared the shit out of me.”

That earned a giggle as Ellie thundered up to the desk and the journal was swept shut. “I thought you said you always knew when someone was trying to get in?” Marvin threw her a look she’d seen a thousand times on her old man, and it only made her giggle again.

      “I know when bad people are trying to get in. There aren’t enough defenses in the world against you. I see the basket, what have you got for me?”

      “Well,” Ellie consulted her stash and set the items on his desk as she did. “I got dandy lions, I got these purple flowers, I got a nice rock, I got some mushrooms, I got this wood chunk, and I got some purple leaves.” She presented her findings with a flourish, and Marvin couldn’t help but smile. “And what are we hoping to accomplish with all these today?”

      “I do need more magic tea, buuuuut,” She gave Marvin her brightest smile, the one that usually got him to cave. “I was hoping this year I could get a magic Halloween costume!” The face he made told her the answer was already no, and she pressed him again. “I brought you really good potion stuff, Uncle Marvin, I just want a little magic-!”

      “Ellie.”

That tone was the nail in the coffin, and the little girl slumped dramatically against the table. “… Jess’ca always has the best costumes. I just wanna beat her cause I got magic.”

Marvin heaved a patient sigh and planted his forearms on his knees to better meet her level, which she pointedly ignored. “I know, I know. We can’t do big magic cause a’ the monster. But, Uncle Marvin, the monster’s been gone forever.”

      “I know it’s been a while,” Marvin tried to meet her avoidant gaze, “and I know you’re not happy with me. I’ve got all this magic, and what’s the point if I don’t use it, right?” Her face twisted, and it was clear he was on the right track. “But, my job is to keep you and your family safe. And I keep you safe by not giving him, or anyone, a reason to think I’m here. If he saw you with a magic costume, what would he think?”

      “… That you made it.” Her voice was a grudging mumble. “I just thought he’d be gone cause it’s been so long.”

      “Hopefully, he is. He’s all gone, and I’m just being a silly old man. But until I know for sure, we’re going to keep magic in here, and in the house only. Okay? I can help you make a better Halloween costume than Jessica’s without magic.”

      “O-kay,” she acquiesced with a huff. “Can I still get magic tea?” Marvin chuckled and climbed to his feet. “Sure, kiddo. But I think your dad wants to talk to me first.”

Chase startled a bit at being called out, and Marvin’s gaze found him in the doorway. “I’ll bring you your magic tea, don’t worry. Why don’t you go play on the trampoline?” Ellie was still a tad resentful as she gathered her basket and left, and Chase waited until he heard the door close downstairs.

      “I’m sorry to crush her hopes like that-”

      “Marv, I get it. I’d be terrified to go trick-or-treating with her lit up like fairy dust.” Chase leaned against the study desk and cast a sideways glance at the weeds and flowers she’d gathered. “Does any of that do anything for you?”

The wizard couldn’t help a small smile. “Not a tremendous amount, no. But she gathered them with care and intent, and there’s magic in that. Plenty for sparkly tea. Nature here is barely clinging on, intent is about the only thing that can give it a ghost of what it should have. There was far more life at your brother’s cabin.”

Silence fell, and Chase watched the book that had been lying on the table disappear into the folds of Marvin’s cloak.

      “Notes on Anti, or the spell you’re still working on?”

      “Just notes,” Marvin dismissed, almost too casual in his delivery. Chase decided that wasn’t the hill he needed to die on at the moment, and shoved his hands deep into his pockets.

      “I really wanna say my kid is right, and the fucker is gone… but he waited two years after I pulled him into this world to show his stupid face again. He’s good at plotting and waiting.”

He watched as Marvin picked up the wisteria Ellie must have pulled off the trellis. With a faint shimmer of emerald, it grew vibrant with health. The wizard held it to the side of a weathered wooden bookcase, and tiny roots seeped into the cracks and held.

      “As unhinged as Anti is, you’re right. He’s patient, when he needs to be. Either he doesn’t know I’m here, or he’s waiting for me to slip. I want to believe he’s trapped in the void where he belongs, but the tear was open long enough. I just hope what the narrator did to the world left him wounded on the way out.”

It was a tantalizing thought – that either the glitch was still in the void, or had succumbed to the barrage of Marvin’s magic and the Host’s narrations. It felt like a bedtime story, and they weren’t kids anymore.

      “… I still owe you. For getting me out of there. The Host and Dark were going to lock us both in, and it wasn’t the wrong call. You used your last two brain cells to get me out of his possession. I’m still so pissed that I stood in the way of your fucking eldritch blast, back at the rental house. You didn’t see him after. He would have died right there on the street if my stupid body wasn’t holding him together.”

      “Stop,” Marvin fixed his alternate with a hard glare. “You don’t owe me anything. I made this mess myself, four years ago. None of it would have happened, and I’d still have a lover if I hadn’t used the iris.”

Silence fell, both men lost for a moment in what-ifs. Always with the what-ifs. Like they could change anything now.

      “Have you made any progress on the resurrection spell?”

      “Yes,” Marvin admitted, though his face was still drawn. “It’s not complete yet, but it’s very close. I just… I’m worried. When he died, I was… ready to conquer the world. I wanted to be a master of the arcane and now… now I just feel like a paranoid, bitter old man.”

      “Oh my god, stop.” Chase’s tone was dry with disbelief, even as Marvin huffed. “It’s been four years, you’re not an old man. And he was older than you to begin with. We’ve had two years to doom and gloom, it’s about time we start living. You said you’d bring Emmerich back after you fixed everything, and shit’s as fixed as it’s gonna get, Marv.”

The wizard said nothing, and Chase reached out to clap his shoulder. “C’mon. At least go out by your fake windows, I don’t know why the fuck you don’t have any in here. You’re making me depressed.”

Marvin’s eyebrow raised, and with a flash of emerald light, windows dotted the walls of the expansive study. Some of the overcast had burned away under weak rays of sunlight that splashed against the ocean and cliffs. The room was flooded with natural light like a breath of fresh air, and Chase beamed.

      “Love when I can sass you into self-care.”

      “Get the fuck out of my tower,” Marvin snapped, amusement clear in his voice. “I’ve got to come up with a Halloween costume for my niece and nephew. How’s Chandler, by the way?”

      “Well,” Chase squinted at his iPhone, “… he called me a bitch this morning. So, I called him a slut, and he hasn’t texted me back. He’s good. He’s fine. My sister’s annoyed at us now that we talk more than we talk to her. I can’t help that we’re bonded through trauma.”

There was a chuckle as Marvin waved him toward the hallway. Chase followed until he came across what could only be the wooden door to Chandler’s guest bedroom. A hand went to Chase’s mouth with delight at the implication.

      “Ohhhhh he’s gonna be so pissed! He’s not two hours away anymore, I can kick his door down whenever.” Before Marvin could open his mouth to suggest they warn him first, Chase threw open the door and straight into the upstairs hallway of Chandler’s log cabin.

      “Hey, Fuckface!”

Marvin’s eyes slid shut at the shout as Chase walked out of sight, and at the answering yell that followed. It dissolved into sheer sibling chaos, with shouted demands to get the fuck out of his house and take his pet wizard with him, to accusations that Chase wasn’t loved, to the sounds of actual wrestling on the living room floor. Marvin listened a moment longer, shook his head and close the door.

      “Pet wizard. I’ll show him pet-”

Frenetic energy surged through Marvin’s veins before he could stop it. Like a mirror of Anti himself, his entire body glitched. Marvin threw himself down the hall, away from the door, and locked himself inside the on-suite bathroom. Pale hands braced the porcelain sink as he glared at his own reflection, willing the lingering antimatter in his veins to fuck off. There was another faint glitch before the energy settled, and Marvin let out a slow breath of relief. He’d hoped after two years, that brief possession by Void would be forgotten. It’d been necessary in the moment, Marvin had been too far gone to help seal the veil between their world and the hungry dimension beyond, but… Anti had proven that he, and by extension his identical alternates, were unique when it came to antimatter exposure.

Despite Marvin’s efforts to purge it from his system, it was still there. Like the glitch himself. Waiting. Almost like it wanted the wizard to slip. Chase had been right, he was dragging his feet on Emmerich’s resurrection, and the antimatter was why. He needed it out of his body, one way or another, because he would rather die than be like Anti.

Marvin just hoped that wasn't the only way out.

Chapter Text

Ri-ING…… Ri-ING…… Ri-ING……

Red lights flashed in tandem with a blaring alarm. For a moment, it sounded like the siren at Jackson Hydro Dam, but it was different in pitch. It wasn’t as loud. It was wailing over music, but he couldn’t make out the song. Something dated, but upbeat. It bounced off the walls and cast a sharp contrast to the siren. Corpses in security uniforms and lab coats dotted the familiar hall. He could feel it – that static in the air. It made his hair stand on end and his heart slam against his ribcage. There were hands on him, dragging him away from the carnage, but the music grew louder. He could almost make out the words…

      “Dad?”

Chase lurched upright at the voice in his ear and the hand on his arm. Connor recoiled from the sudden movement, his eyes wide as Chase found his gaze and held it before a shaking hand scrubbed over his face. He wasn’t in peril, he was on the living room couch, and now his kid was scared.

      “Sorry, bud,” Chase pulled Connor in for a hug, and it was returned with a tight squeeze. “You sounded scared again,” Connor murmured into his shoulder, and Chase deflated a bit with guilt. “I’m sure I did. Sorry to scare you, it was just a bad dream.”

Connor didn’t answer, and Chase was struck again by how much bigger he’d gotten in the past two years. Nine years old, with a mountain of growing left to do. There was a chance he’d end up tall, Stacy was taller than Chase, and she was the shortest in a family of giants. Unlike Ellie’s determination to become a doppelganger of her father, Connor had grown to be a mix of both parents’ features. Stacy’s brown eyes, but they could see both her and himself in their son.  

      “Were you at my school today?”

The question caught him off guard, and Chase drew back to look at his boy proper. “No? Why do you ask?”

Conner went quiet, unable to meet Chase’s gaze until his chin was lifted by his dad’s hand. “… I thought I saw you at recess. On the edge of the blacktop. M-maybe it was Uncle Marvin.”

      “It coulda’ been Marv,” Chase agreed with haste, “or some other dope with a hat on. Your old man’s pretty generic-looking, I won’t lie.” That earned half a giggle, and what Chase had been looking for – some lost tension in Connor’s shoulders. God, he hated seeing his kids still so stressed, even two years later.

      “I should bring Uncle Marvin for show an’ tell. I wanna win.”

      “No,” Chase scrubbed a hand over his tilted face, eyes pressed shut as he fought the urge to laugh, “no, you’re not bringing your interdimensional wizard uncle to show and tell for fourth grade street cred, I’m sorry. I have to draw the line somewhere.”

      “But Daaaaaaaad,” Connor tried to whine through his giggling, tugging on Chase’s arm, “don’t you want me to win show and tell?”

      “I guess not,” Chase did his best to fend off the spurned child with his captured arm. “What can I say, I’m a bad father.”

A few more quips and giggles, a swipe of Chase’s hat to plant on Connor’s head, and the boy was off. It was easier now, to talk the kids down from the terror of what-if, when the monster had been gone for two years. Chase kept that face of neutrality as he crossed the living room, swiped his shoes and headed out the back door. It faded the moment the glass slid shut behind him. The three short knocks, three long knocks were delivered with far more force than usual to the garden shed door, as Chase all but barreled his way into the enchanted wizard tower.

      “MARV!”

The sound of something shattering behind closed doors, and a muffled “Fuck!” was heard from upstairs. Chase’s face was thunderous as he climbed his way to the second floor of the tower, and threw his shoulder against the study door hard enough to have it bounce against the wall. He found Marvin waving a hand over a broken vial, and it repaired itself, contents and all, with a flash of green light.

      “Were you at the fucking school!?”

      “What?” Marvin’s face was nothing but confusion as he set the vial back into its metal holder. “What school?”

      “Connor’s. Connor’s school. Where he saw someone who looked like me, watching him at recess.”

Marvin’s eyes slid shut. There was a charge in the air that made the hairs on Chase’s arms stand up, and he knew it for what it was. The wizard’s arcane power, pushing against the world in his anger. Chase hadn’t felt that in almost two years, and he realized now that he’d never wanted to feel it again. Not when it brought those dark memories screaming back to life.

      “Marv. Why now. Why Connor. Please tell me you’ve got some way of looking back to see if it was really him.”

      “I don’t,” the wizard scrubbed his face with both hands, and the strange current in the air began to ease. Chase watched him pull in a frustrated breath and let it go. “I can scry on locations as they are right now, I can’t fucking… divine what was happening there hours ago. Time is an absolute beast, and most of the mages who tried to conquer it either died, or never came back.”

Chase had begun to pace across the study, angry and desperate to move. Anything felt better than standing still when Anti might be out there. The anxiety of the past made him want to scream, but he pulled himself together enough to realize something didn’t seem right.

      “… You’re from a different fucking universe, and all it took was Anti, the hydro dam, and me.”

      “And I didn’t come home, did I?” Marvin spread both hands to gesture around him. “It was a one-way fucking trip, wasn’t it?”

The vlogger’s eyes rolled hard enough to strain muscles as he went back to his frustrated pacing. He couldn’t argue with the fact he was in Marvin’s tower, in his own back yard shed. Very much not wherever the fuck he came from.

      “Believe it or not, dragging me here was easier than trying to look or go back in time. There is a spell that can stop time around you, but it’s incredibly limited and it just shatters if you try to change anything. The force it would take to punch backwards in time is insane, and you’d be stuck there. Plus the logistics of landing exactly where and when you want to be, it’s just…” Marvin shook his head. “I’ll put it this way. None of this would have happened, and Emmerich would still be alive, if I hadn’t tried to use the Iris. You know what the fuck that cost me, and I still never tried it.”

Worn sneakers came to a halt near an enchanted window, and Chase said nothing. He knew, of course he fucking knew. He remembered Marvin’s second night at Chandler’s cabin, when Chase was still wary. He’d woken up in the middle of the night, and found the wizard casting spells over the house.

       What are you doing out here, Marv?

       What I’ve been doing for the past two years. Fixing what I broke.

The light of the false sun shined across Chase’s face, and he said nothing. Marvin had come into their lives a harrowed, desperate creature. Trying to reconcile the mistakes of his past. If he could have undone it all with a few magic words and a snap of his fingers, he would have.

      “So, what now? Do you think it was him?”

Chase looked back to find Marvin on his feet, pulling an old leather book off his shelf. From what scrawlings he managed to spy before the cover was turned toward him, it looked like Marvin’s handwriting. Maybe an old journal.

      “From where I’m sitting, there’s two options. One, it was the glitch. Though I don’t know why he would choose Connor over the rest of us. Or two, and you’ll probably like this even less…” Marvin closed the book, and lifted his gaze to meet that of his alternate. “Or, it was a figment of the stressed imagination of a traumatized little boy. Nothing more or less than that.”

Heather blue eyes slid shut beneath the brim of Chase’s hat. In the first few months after the void was sealed and Anti was gone… Chase would have taken out every loan there was to pay for counseling for his kids. They were so young, and they’d been through such hell, and they couldn’t tell a soul about it. He and Stacy had bought books on helping kids who had been through trauma and devoured them. They tried so hard to make the house as open as possible, for Connor and Ellie to talk about anything that bothered them. And it had helped. The nightmares had lessened, the smiles became less forced. The kids weren’t afraid to flop down on the couch and talk about what was making them mad or sad or scared.

But there had been so much they’d witnessed. The constant fear, the hiding. Connor had been singled out the glitch, Ellie had tried to defend her dad from him with nothing but a stick. That image alone still brought tears to Chase’s eyes. His tiny daughter, just five years old, standing her ground against the monster. They’d watched Anti possess their dad and vanish, not once but twice, and they’d stood by as the Host’s and Marvin’s lifeless bodies were dragged, bloodied and smoking, into Chase’s house.

For that first month alone, the kids wouldn’t let Chase out of their sight. Hell, Stacy wouldn’t let Chase out of her sight. And while they’d all kicked, screamed, and crawled their way back to normal, there was no erasing what they went through. What they were still going through. Was it really a stretch to think Connor may have imagined the demon of his nightmares?

No… no, it wasn’t. It wasn’t a stretch at all.

      “I would give both my arms and a leg, and pogo-stick my way through life if it meant my kids would be okay.” Chase dragged both hands down his face. “They’re doing so much better, but that shit’s still there. It’s always gonna be there, and I hate it.”

      “I know.” With a flash of green, Marvin’s glass coffee brewer manifested on the desk, along with two mugs, fresh grounds, and a steaming kettle. “But I think that’s what this is. Something stressed the kid out at school, and he imagined Anti. Or there was a man who looked similar, and his mind did the rest. He’s strong, Chase, he’s very strong. But he’s just a kid, and he’s been through hell.”

Silence filled the air, save for the trickle of hot water poured over coffee grounds. Chase dropped his stressed frame into the armchair that sat in the corner, and willed his beating heart to slow. “I think you’re right, but… Marv, I wanna be sure. Is there anything you can do for the kids, in case it was him?”

      “They’ve still got my alarm stones. All they have to do is squeeze them, and I’ll know where they are.” The kettle began to pour itself, and Marvin leaned against the desk with a frown. “They’re as safe as they can be, without telling the world, and the glitch, that I’m here. We don’t want to be found. Run a drill with the stones for both kids, and remind them that they won’t be alone for long if something happens. They’ll probably feel better.”

      “I hope so,” Chase’s elbow braced against the arm of the chair, and his face sagged heavy against his hand. “I really fucking hope so.”

Stacy froze at the sudden knock at the front door. For a long moment, she didn’t move or breathe. It was with absolute silence that she crept toward the bedroom window that faced the front of the house and peered outside. An Amazon truck was idling on the street, and a driver was climbing back inside. A fraction of tension eased from her shoulders as it pulled away. Was there anything more normal than an Amazon delivery? Chase must have bought something and didn’t tell her. As long as it wasn’t mad expensive, they hardly needed to brief each other on what was bought.

Ellie was playing with Legos in her room, Connor was reading in his, Chase was probably out back talking to Marvin. Stacy took note of her loved ones as she strode through the house to meet this unexpected package. The front door open to a small Amazon package, and it was heavier than imagined, addressed to “The Brody Family.”

Brown eyes narrowed. She’d probably sat through god knows how many ‘is a package a bomb’ training sessions across all the jobs in her life, and it checked none of the boxes except that it was slightly heavy. No weird smells, no chemicals, no odd postage. She inspected the label and found it had come from I.R.I.S. It was a familiar name, and it sent a shiver down her spine. Yes, it was the well-known name of a major corporation, but it was also the name of that stupid fucking marble that had imploded their lives.

It felt stupid, but just in case, Stacy grabbed a knife and took the package out into the garage. Away from the kids. She cut through the amazon tape and opened the flaps with held breath.

It was a surveillance camera.

Stacy’s brows furrowed as she lifted the box out of its Amazon shell, and turned it over in her hands. WTCHR, by I.R.I.S. She hadn’t ordered that shit, and Chase wouldn’t have addressed something to “The Brody Family,” so she went back to the cardboard. Inside was a sheet of paper, and she began to read.

I.R.I.S.
Inspiring Research
of Impossible Sciences

WTCHR

Hello!

We at IRIS. are pleased to present you with this promotional model of the new WTCHR camera, our most advanced surveillance system to date! With our latest scientific advances on mind-decryption and sensory-detection technology. The WTCHR captures more than ever before, so your home is safer than ever! 12K resolution gives precise observation, able to pick up an arm-hair’s worth of movement from as far as 50 feet.

Easily sync and set up your own Control Zones in minutes! Our cameras can pan, tilt and zoom on specific locations while the camera continues to monitor a staggering 240 degree field of view. Place it anywhere! Indoors or outdoors, on flat surfaces, or mount it to a wall. Lightning-fast notification whenever motion or emotion is detected with the recently upgraded E-motion mind-decryption software! Health detection technology, and auto rapid health response services built in, enables the elderly to live a safer life and not have to worry in case of a health emergency!

See, hear and speak to people through the WTCHR app on your smart device! Powered by IRIS patented AntiMatter™ generator for lifelong power, without the need for charging or messy cables! Rated by companies as the No. 1 Security System 5 years in a row, and now, fully available for non-commercial use.

With this promotional model, you can purchase additional cameras at a great discount after a mandatory 30-day trial period of use. Add the IRIS Protection Plan (subscription sold separately) and download the WTCHR app to record, review, and share any moments! We at IRIS hope you see the value in our product and the safety and peace of mind it can bring knowing your home and loved ones are protected.

Sincerely,
I.R.I.S.

With every word, dread mounted in Stacy’s gut. If she’d bought this thing, sure, but they had just sent it. Nobody asked for it, this fucking camera that could read emotion. And arm hair in the fucking wind?

      “Oh no. Oh, no, no, no.”

Still shaking her head, she dropped the camera back into the Amazon box, and took the entire thing out to the curb, where the trash can was waiting. Every inch of the situation made her skin crawl, but she held onto the promotion letter. Just in case Chase somehow looked through the trash and questioned it. As Connor would say, the vibes were atrocious.

As she walked back into the house, confident in her decision, an unmarked van down the street drove away.

Chapter Text

      “I͟ ca̛n sme̸ll͜ i͡t̕ ̕o̷n y͢óų.͘”

Marvin was turning circles in the dark. That familiar, broken, staticky voice resonated through every cell in his body.

      “W̡e're͠ pract̴i̧cal͢l̸y ̛the ̨s͠ám̨e,͜ ͠m͟a͢g͞ic͜i͠an.”

With a snarl, Marvin rubbed his hands together, and emerald sparks danced from the friction until he threw them both up, and globules of green light illuminated the world around him. Or, they would, if there had been a world to illuminate. Marvin was trapped in a pitch black nothing. A corrupted giggle echoed through the void and the wizard inched forward, his dancing lights in tow.

      “Still hiding in the shadows from me, you bastard?” Marvin’s voice raced through the dark with nothing to catch it. “Still playing games?”

      “Y͡ou̷'re tormęńti̴ng y̛ours͢elf͞ ͟b̀et͘te̸r t͜ha̴n͞ I ever c̕o͝ul͢d.”

Frenetic energy streaked through the wizard’s veins, and his entire body glitched before he could reign it in. The answering chuckle had his teeth bared as Marvin spun to check behind him, but the world was just as dark and unforgiving as the path ahead.

      “Y̕ou̕ ço͠u͜ld͏ b̵r̵ing h͟im͏ b̸a̷çk̶ today̨. ͏Bu̕t̵ ̕you ̡w̡on̡'t. W̨h͞át̵ are͞ y͠ou áf̴r͢a͢i̕d͡ ̨of,̕ ̶m̢ag̀ici͘a͘n?͞ ͝Tha̴t̷ he'̶ll͘ thi̕nk͝ ̵ỳou'̨re ͢m̷e?͞”

Marvin whipped back around and found himself face to face with Emmerich. The air was punched out of his lungs to see the man standing there, skin glowing and blue eyes ablaze with life. Taller than Marvin, with almost shoulder-length wavy auburn hair, a smattering of freckles across his cheekbones and nose, and clear blue eyes, Emmerich’s face was tight enough to snap as he took in his broken lover.

      “What have you done to yourself? Was it worth it?”

That light German accent rang through his ears, the one Marvin missed every single day. It lacerated his heart to hear it so rough with grief and betrayal.

      “I had to stop him, Em. We had to close the tear, I didn’t choose this.”

      “I warned you, Marvin.” Emmerich’s skin turned ashen. His eyes went milky. A mangled, bloodless, gaping wound opened over his heart. The wizard was left staring at his boyfriend’s animated corpse, and he felt his own face drain as the dead man spoke again.

      “At least now I’ll never have to bury you.”

Before Marvin could open his mouth, hands made of static seized his heartbroken face from behind.

9AM

Heather blue eyes snapped open, and Marvin let out a shaking breath. He was safe in his bed, and the clock on the nightstand read 9:13. The sunlight creeping through his windows was an illusion to fight the cabin fever that was wasting away in his conjured tower. One would think living there would have the opposite effect, when it was whatever he wanted it to be. It just felt like being trapped in his own mind.

Marvin scrubbed a hand over his face and found his cheeks wet.

      Y͡ou̷'re tormęńti̴ng y̛ours͢elf͞ ͟b̀et͘te̸r t͜ha̴n͞ I ever c̕o͝ul͢d.

The wizard’s expression melted into a clinical mask as the last of the evidence was wiped away from his face. His long fringe was gathered into his hands and tied back near the back of his head. His clothes were changed, his coffee poured, his day started. Marvin hadn’t yet dealt with any of the naked emotions in that dream, and he wasn’t going to start today.

Still, Marvin’s eyes were drawn to the fake sunlight shining rays across the stone floor. He found himself craving it. Maybe not the burning sun, but just some time outside those walls. The Brodys were at school and work, and he doubted they would be angry if they found him on the couch in the living room. A ball cap manifested on the kitchen counter with an emerald flash, and Marvin tugged it over his head. His hair was safely hidden, and he glanced in the mirror just to be sure. Chase looked back at him, haunted and stressed. Even their facial hair was almost identical. The trip to the entrance was both too long and too short, and with a rush of anxiety, Marvin pushed the door open.

California sunlight all but blinded him.

The Irishman couldn’t help but wince at the heat, even in fall it felt unbearable to him at 27 Celsius. Where he grew up, the hottest it got was 21. Marvin was quick to cross the yard and let himself inside the house, anything to escape both his haunted tower and the heat, and a silent breath of relief washed from him once the slider door slid shut. Even after two years, it still felt like an intrusion walking into the Brody home. Marvin knew they welcomed him, hell, Chase and Stacy had even decided he should be ‘Uncle Marvin,’ but the feeling remained. The wizard was all too aware that he was a living relic of the worst days of their lives, and they couldn’t even say with certainty that the nightmare was over. It was all just a mess. One could only hope they were heading toward a light at the end of the tunnel, and not just the flickers of a dying generator in the dark.

So caught up in those thoughts as he drifted through the kitchen, Marvin didn’t realize he was being stalked. There was a whirlwind of movement, and the wizard found himself staring down the shaking barrel of a handgun.

      “FUCK!” Marvin threw himself backward with hands raised, and stared wide-eyed at Stacy. Her face was white as a sheet, and her entire body shook as she tightened her grip and stepped forward, gun still aimed at Marvin’s face.

      “Stacy, listen to me.” Marvin’s voice was low as he stepped backward for every foot she gained. “I’m not him. We spent weeks trapped together at Chandler’s cabin. I got drunk one time and turned Chase’s hair green. Conner asked me to make the trampoline launch him into orbit. Ellie brings me flowers and mushrooms. And you tell me, every chance you get, that I’m allowed in this house and I still stay out there because I don’t want to dig up this.” He gestured to the trembling handgun that had lowered a fraction. Stacy’s breath hitched and Marvin took a step closer, hands still raised. “It’s me. It’s Marvin. I’d summon the cat if it didn’t take sudden movement. I would die to protect this family. I’m not him.”

Marvin saw the tears in her eyes before the wrenching sob broke free, and one of Stacy's hands left the gun to plaster over her face as she shook apart. Her knees buckled and she sank to the floor with a soft thud, the gun clattering against the vinyl as Marvin dropped to his own knees and wrapped the trembling woman into a hug.

      “I hate this,” she choked, like the words were being pried from her soul. “I’m s-so scared. I’m still so- fucking SCARED. And I-I ha-have to pretend that I’m NOT.”

Heather blue eyes slid shut, and Marvin tightened his arms around her.

“He was in this house- he drove me home, he-“ Stacy covered her mouth, and hot tears welled behind squeezed lids as she leaned into Marvin. “He stole Chase, h-he pretended to be Chase, and I-I-I still have moments where I think Chase might be-“ she swallowed hard, and Marvin smoothed a hand over her back as she sobbed and continued. “But I can’t- I fucking can’t- If I’m scared, the kids-! If Chase thinks I’m s-scared of- of him, when he’s come so far-!”

      “Stacy.”

There were great, shuddering breaths as she scrubbed at her face, already reigning it in. Boxing it up to rebury.

      “Chase wouldn’t want you hurting like this, pretending it’s all fine. I get- I get doing it for the kids. But he’s not going to backwards slide into depression because you’re still scared. You know him, he’d come up with code words and a secret handshake if it made you feel safer.” That earned a faint snort, and Marvin was encouraged. He drew back enough to grip her shoulders and try to meet her gaze. “I’ve been where you are. Reading the signs no one else can see and feeling so fucking alone. But you’re not. You’ve got Chase, you’ve got your kids, you’ve got a wizard in your backyard, and you’ve got your brother-in-law one magic door away. We’re all still scared. I’d be more concerned if we weren’t, but we're not alone."

      “Please don’t tell Chase.” Stacy scrubbed at her face again, and Marvin let his hands drop. “I don’t want him to worry every time I’m in this house by myself. I wasn’t even supposed to be, they’re doing a deep cleaning at work, and this was the only time it could be done, so they had us work from home.” She took a deep breath and let it go. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry you had to see that. I’m glad you finally came outside for once.”

      “To be fair, it was a good sign the world might be ending.” Marvin helped Stacy back to her feet and handed her back the gun. “Sorry I interrupted work. Settle back in, I’ll brew some coffee. Normal, mundane shit we both need.”

      “Can’t argue with that.” She took the gun and shook her head before disappearing up the stairs to her shared bedroom with Chase while Marvin did just what he said he’d do; set out to make some coffee. The world would make more sense with some caffeine in their system, or so he’d like to tell himself. Still… he couldn’t deny it did feel good to be out of the tower. Out of his own mind, made real. Marvin needed this, and now Stacy wouldn’t be paranoid in that house alone.

2 PM

Chase turned in his chair until his back cracked, and he slumped back into it with a groan. It had been a long day sitting in that chair, editing what felt like his millionth boring video. It was one of those days he missed his channel, problematic as it was. Trying to get trick shots with the boys, watching clips back to see how good they were, just having fun. It stopped being fun when he wanted to be famous, and then it just became a nightmare. Nothing was ever good enough, and there was no stopping. He put the pedal to the floor and kept it there, life and family be damned. Chase didn’t miss the pipe dream… but he missed having fun with the boys.

The current crowd of video editors was a different story. On days with no filming, everyone just put headsets on and worked. Most of his conversations with people in the same office were over teams, because talking out loud felt awkward. It wasn’t a bad job, it was easy enough work for decent pay, but it was far from what he’d dreamed of for his career. Still… after the hell he lived through two years ago, mundane was a gift. At least he was alive to be irritated. And just on cue, the YouTube playlist he had on for background noise was interrupted by a news ad. All he had to do was get an ad block extension, but it was one of those things that always got put off.

      “No new updates on the body found near Jackson Hydro Dam, but locals are convinced it may be linked to the murders of a security guard and a junior detective, just two years ago. Also tonight, a strange weather phenomenon some people have described static in the air. Our meteorologists will weigh in, more on that and other stories tonight, at eleven.”

Broken, trembling breaths were pulled through shrinking lungs, one at a time. Chase looked down at his phone, but the woman who had shaken the foundation of peace in his world was already gone, replaced by the video he had been watching before. Chase could see that guard, plain as day. Sprawled against the stairs, eyes wide, throat slashed open. It would have been traumatic enough, but the throat felt personal. He’d slit the glitch’s throat in an act of desperation, pinned down and watching his kids in danger, and the bastard had gone so far as to fake dying. Made a real fucking performance of it, only to stand up, neck still split, and take over Chase’s body.

      body found near Jackson Hydro Dam

      near Jackson Hydro

      near Jackson

Chase buried his face with both hands and took a deep breath. The house was protected by Marvin, it had to be. He’d had two years to fortify it. The dam was shut down, it could have been anyone doing anything there. It didn’t have to be the nightmare himself.

He didn’t have to sit in the dark and wonder.

With a start of surprise, Chase remembered they weren’t alone two years ago. He scrolled through his contacts and settled on a name that, in any other instance, would have made him giggle. Abe Lincoln. Chase sucked in a breath and hit the call button before settling the phone against his ear. It rang… and rang… and rang… and rang… until finally there was a connecting click, and what sounded like a door being shut before a breathless voice was in his ear.

      “Hey. I, uh. I had a feeling you were gonna call.” There was a sound of a creak and a groan, like Abe had sunk down into a chair, and Chase gripped the phone tighter.

      “Tell me I’m just being paranoid.”

      “I wish I could tell you anything. The feds took over the case, almost the minute after we got there. All I know is the guy didn’t have a broken neck or slit throat, and they fished him out of the river. I’m glad I made copies of my partner’s case and stashed them, because the feds took every scrap we had on the Jackson Hydro murders.”

Chase’s heart began to pound. He remembered their last day in that hellscape, him in the backseat of his own body, watching fucking cryptids fight to the death in their attempt to seal the veil. His blood was in that place, it had to be.

      ”I trust my office, but I want to play it safe, so keep your phone on. I’ll arrange something. In the meantime, keep your head down but your eyes open. Don’t panic just yet. It’s a big world full of sick people, that might be all this was.”

      “I know.” Chase dragged a hand down his face and inhaled. “I know. I’ll keep my phone on. Talk to you soon.”

      “Take care, man.”

The line went dead. The disconnect tone was deafening.

Chapter Text

7 PM

It felt like overkill driving an hour out of the way just for a conversation, but Chase understood. God, he understood.

Returning to life like nothing had happened… that was a gift he could never repay. The strange, blinded man with his trench coat and gold-streaked hair had narrated a world where they weren’t thrown in jail. The kids hadn’t been missed at school. Jobs had been waiting like they’d never left. Even two years later, Chase was frightened he’d blink and that second chance would shatter. So if there was even the barest hint of a possibility that it could all unravel? If a stranger overhearing would set the dominos in motion, and people would remember the month the Brodys had been missing? It wasn’t worth the risk. He’d drive ten hours, just to make sure.

Although, it wasn’t fear for his family’s strange, tentative hold on the right side of society’s graces that fed Abe’s raging paranoia.

It had been something of a surprise when the address given was for a Starbucks, but the more Chase thought about it, the more sense it made. There were thousands of them, and it was a busy area. If the pair went through the drive-thru and talked in the parking lot, no one would remember them. Chase had always pictured conversations like this happening in tiny hole-in-the-wall diners, but those were the places where everybody knew everybody. People would take note or worse, listen in. A carbon-copy in a chain of thousands, filled with frantic baristas trying to stay ahead of the crowd, they’d be forgotten the moment the transaction was over.

The car he’d been told to look out for was already sitting in the back of the lot when Chase pulled in. The drive-thru was slow but uneventful, and Chase’s car rolled to a stop beside Abe’s. The detective waved him in, and Chase locked his own car before sliding into the passenger seat. It wasn’t his police cruiser, but his personal vehicle, and it looked unremarkable against the sea that streamed down the road and through the coffeeshop parking lot.

      “Sorry for such a journey, but you can never be too careful.” Abe switched off the radio as Chase settled, and willed his racing heart to slow. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I really wasn’t looking forward to this reunion,” Chase looked through the rear windshield and was smacked on the arm for it. “Don’t do that. Sit back, drink your coffee.” Abe took a long sip of his own and watched the cars drive past, one after another. Full of people who would never understand what the two men had gone through, or why.

      “Like I said on the phone, the feds shut us down quick. They took their own statement about what happened to my partner, and then I was relieved of the case. Our whole department was.” Abe took another moody sip, and Chase did the same, just to have something to do with his hands. “I tried to get my hands on the autopsy report, but no dice. The feds have this locked up tight. All I know is they pulled a man out of the water, downriver from Jackson. But, I did manage to talk to a witness. I hit a nearby diner after the feds chased us out, and the waitress knew the old man who discovered the body. Said he told her it looked like a broken toy.”

Chase grimaced at the thought, for more reasons than one, and none he cared to voice aloud.

      “I’m sure you got a pretty good look at that river, it’s not exactly white water rafting. It’s got decent current, and it is rocky, but… I think there would had to have been more trauma done than just drowning and washing against the rocks. Now, with enough force and current, water and rocks can absolutely leave a body unrecognizable. No question. But the water level has been lower this year, and I don’t- I can’t see this as a case of some poor bastard fighting the current and losing.”

      “So, what do you think happened?”

Chase’s voice was thin, and he covered it with another healthy gulp of hot coffee as Abe pulled in a breath and continued. “Above a certain height, or even a lower height if you hit it wrong, landing in water is like landing in concrete. It’s not like a video game, it’s awful. Maybe this guy really did drown, and get tossed against the rocks just right. It’s hard to say how long he’d been in the water, and what the conditions were like. But… I know a fall from the wall of the dam would do fucked up things to the human body. A professional diver could be fine from that height if the water was deep enough, but I don’t think it was. And I don’t think he went in clean. I’d bet money this guy either jumped, fell… or was pushed.”

The detective’s words hung in the hollow air of his SUV, and it felt like the outside world was miles away. Jumped, fell, or pushed. Chase remembered what it was like, when the Glitch had control of his body. He’d been fucking helpless to do anything but watch. His limbs moved without his permission, it was like being in a straightjacket but worse. It would have been nothing to walk him off a ledge into certain doom. Chase only survived because Anti needed him.

      “Have there been… any signs of him? The news said something about a static fog.”

Abe’s eyes slid shut, and the lines in his face deepened. He pulled in a sharp breath and scrubbed a harsh hand over his jaw. “I wasn’t paying close enough attention. After the…” he gestured, “everything that happened, I pulled back from it all. Tried to tell myself the thing that killed my partner was gone, and get back to normal life. There may have been signs, but I wasn’t looking for them. I tried to move on, and accept the fact the case was never going to be closed for good.” There was something about the way Abe spoke, and the slight tension that had stolen over him as he did. Chase felt his own heart pick up speed, and again defaulted to drinking coffee. “But,” Abe continued, “while I was, uh… distracted by other matters in life, apparently some weird things had been going on in that area. Take a look at this.”

The detective’s phone was sifted through for a moment, and the screen was turned to show Chase a video. Blue eyes narrowed as the camera panned over the river, which was blanketed in fog. Thick fog. More than that, it seemed to carry sparks along the ground, trees and water. Like static in the air, grounding anywhere it could. It was with a heavy wash of relief that he noted, at the very least, the static carried no telltale tinge of green.

      “I’ve never seen anything like that. Kinda convenient that it’s not hurting the person or the camera.”

      “That’s what I said. And it turned out debunked, but the news is covering it anyway. That waitress at the diner told me a different story, how people have… seen and heard some things around the dam. Starting as far back as 2017.” Abe reached for the back seats and pulled a messenger back forward. Chase got a glimpse of folders, tapes and flash drives inside before a folder was opened to reveal photos. One was a teenager posing beside a wall-mounted TV that had the Netflix menu on screen. She was gesturing to it with one hand and holding the disconnected plug with the other. Chase’s brow furrowed as he shuffled that photo to the back of the pile. The next showed Jackson Hydro Dam, bustling with more activity than Chase had ever seen there. It was a CCTV still of the dam at night, but blurred. Yellow lights lined the exterior and the windows, and a car had its headlights on as it drove toward the main gate. With a shuffle of photographic paper, Chase was greeted with the same scene again, but the picture was rippled with static. The time stamp was a second after the first, and every light in the photo was not yellow, but bleeding red and green. Even the lights of the car that had moved further down the pavement. The next photo was the same scene again, two seconds after the first, and everything was normal. The car was halfway out of the frame, continuing on like nothing had happened.

      “We know he was there, he terrorized that place for like two years.” Chase flipped to the next photo, and it showed what looked like green lightning shooting out of a transformer on a suburban street. He let out a joyless snort and handed the picture to Abe. “I got to see that in person. That’s how he took out the Host. I don’t know how he survived.”

      “Perks of being able to warp reality, I guess.” Abe dropped the photo back in the pile and pulled a tablet from the bag instead. A flash drive was plugged into the device, and he navigated until a video was pulled up on the screen. Chase leaned forward and watched as a rocky hiking trail was lit up by torchlight. He could hear the crunch of earth beneath two sets of boots as people walked. It was early, the sky just barely lightening in the distance. As the pair walked, the flashlight flickered and strobed.

      “I just bought this thing, the battery’s fine, what the fuck.” The camera panned over to the grumbling hiker, who was now scowling as he began to take the flashlight apart. The camera shifted to a woman’s face, and she rolled her eyes. “When your man insists a hundred-dollar flashlight is going to change your life-“ her expression flickered as the man said, “what the fuck?” and the camera shifted back over to reveal him holding the still-lit flashlight, despite it being in two pieces with the battery in the opposite hand. The girl laughed at his expression as he waved the lit lens, free of its power source. “Did you prank me? What is this?” He was smiling when the light delivered a static shock to his hand, and the yellow light seared green. The girl laughed with a hint of nervousness, and panned down to show the light, now yellow, flicker and sputter on the ground. “Bro, that shit’s haunted.” She panned back to the man, but the words died in her throat at the silhouette of another person in the darkness behind him.

      “Babe.”

That single syllable was the last moment of the video. Chase tried to zoom in the image, but it refused, and it was too dark to see regardless. A slight shudder slid down his spine, and he sat back in the passenger seat with a heavy sigh. “Fucker really loved tormenting people. When was that, 2017? 18?” He took a sip of coffee as the detective navigated the tablet once more. “That was four months ago.”

Chase went still, and the coffee cup lowered.

      “Four months?”

      “Four months. That fog video is fake, but I was told people have seen it. Lights flicker, animals go berserk, electronics malfunction. If this is our guy, I don’t know what he’s doing.”

It was hard to beat back the rising panic, but Chase managed, one controlled breath at a time. That month of madness had almost ended his entire family, and it was thanks to that psychopath. The twisted thing that, at its very core… was him. The same man who sat in a detective’s car, holding a cooling latte. A Chase from a different plane of existence, violent and vengeful. If there was even a chance the Glitch was still alive, he wasn’t going to stop until he put every last one of them into the fucking ground.

      “… He was a… in a way, a fucked-up energy source. Maybe it’s just radiation. Echoes, I don’t know. TVs, flashlights, camera feeds, that’s nothing. He’s got nothing to gain from that. For all we know, that’s just leftover shit crossing streams. Why would he draw attention to himself there, when there’s not a chance in hell we’d ever go back?”

      “Speak for yourself. I’m sure Marvin would want to do something about it, and I lost a partner two years ago. And I for one, am not convinced the thing that killed him is dead. Hell, I’m not even convinced this is the one who killed him.” Chase’s breath caught, and he looked toward Abe with apprehension. “What are you saying?”

      “I’m saying,” Abe sucked in a frustrated breath and turned in his seat. “I’m saying my partner radioed in a corpse. A cadaver. A human being who was once alive, and now isn’t. He got locked in a room with a dead fucking body, and that dead body murdered him! Now, call me crazy, but out of all the- fucking cryptids I encountered, not once did Anti look like a walking corpse. Stacy said he was convincing enough as you that she actually bought it, for hours. Marvin; looked sick, never dead. Aside from the bandages and the way he talked, the Host looked like a regular guy. So that leaves Void, and that leaves Dark. Void fits the description, but they saved my life at Jackson, and I had nothing to bring to the table but bullets that didn’t do shit. Why kill my partner, and save me? Not to mention how happy Dark was to try to get them killed.”

Abe eased back in his seat, but the fire was still lit behind his eyes when they fell on his bag of evidence.

      “If Anti survived, the feds don’t stand a chance. I saw what that bastard can do. He could have killed my partner, easy. No, question… but I’ve spent the last two years wondering if I’ve got the wrong guy.”

Chapter Text

10 PM

Chase’s car grumbled up the driveway, and his shoulders caved a bit to see light still filtering through the living room curtains. He’d told Stacy where he was going, and why, and despite his reassurances that both men were just being paranoid, and Abe had asked Chase to take a different and longer way home, she was still awake. His eyes shifted to Ellie’s window, and that at least was dark. The garage door creaked shut and Chase let himself into the house with some measure of relief.

      “Babe?”

Brody’s voice was soft, and he padded into the living room to find Stacy curled on the couch, legs drawn in, half watching some documentary on Netflix. Her brown eyes found his, and she sat up straighter.

      “What’d he say?”

      “He’s not sold that it’s him. I’m not-“ Chase sank onto the couch beside her, “completely sold that it’s him, either. It’s just little shit, like things working unplugged. A split second of Marvin’s radiation is how I ended up making one-way portals, and that bastard was haunting the place for two years. It seems more like contamination than anything.”

      “Contamination doesn’t skip two years,” Stacy clicked the documentary off and tossed the remote aside. “Radiation is radiation, Chernobyl never took time off.”

      “I know that, and he said little things have been happening since back then. But he was like us, he wanted to move on, and he was worried he’d start seeing shit that wasn’t there.” Chase swiped his hat off and scrubbed a hand through his hair before letting it drop. Despite the coffee, the tension and the drive had left him exhausted. “… He’s also pretty much figured out it was Dark who killed his partner.”

That earned a beat of silence, and Chase could see the calculations behind his wife’s brown eyes. After a moment, she flipped her palms toward the ceiling with a shake of her head. “I mean, is that our problem? The world would be inside out right now if Dark hadn’t helped, sure, but I think it’s safe to say he only helped because the Host wanted him to. If Abe’s smart, he’ll understand Dark was a means to an end, not a friend of ours, and going after him would be suicide.”

      “It would be suicide. But I’m with you, I could give a shit about Dark’s wellbeing. I’m just worried about Abe doing something stupid.” Every moment Chase had tried to fight inhuman shit and lost was seared in his mind and replayed in his sleep. There was nothing they themselves could do against the cryptids, the shit in the void, none of it. The only reservation he had about Dark being somehow taken out was the Host’s reaction, and losing one of their heavy hitters against the glitch. “If he tries to bring it up again, I’ll talk to him. The important thing is, nobody’s got CCTV of me walking around places I haven’t been. I’ll panic when my face shows up on the news, and even then, it’ll probably just be Marv.”

Stacy’s shoulders lowered a bit at that, and she uncurled her legs to stand. “You’re right. This is tiny stuff. We’ve also got a wizard in our backyard this time.”

      “I know, right?” Chase took her offered hand and let himself be pulled up from the couch. “He even eats and sleeps sometimes, it’s crazy. Self-care is off the charts.”

Despite it all, Chase thought Marvin had made leaps and bounds from the wild and haggard man who had been ripped into their universe against his will. He’d had two full years of safety and support to recover and get even stronger. Even if Anti showed his face tomorrow, they were further ahead by miles. It wouldn’t be a case of Chase Brody, below average even for a human being, racing through his home to find anything that might give his stupid, fragile body a chance against demons. Sure, he felt uneasy that strange shit was happening at the dam, but none of it screamed, I’m here. I never left.

He wasn’t there. He had left. If this was the glitch, then he’d lost too much in the storm, and wasn’t half the threat he used to be. It was a thought Chase clung to as he and Stacy climbed into bed to sleep.

Bathed in the blue and white glow of several computer monitors was the silhouette of a man entrenched in work. Grayed and disheveled hair gave way to fair skin and a lab coat wrapped around a thin set of shoulders. A coffee mug with cold dregs stood vigil at one elbow, forgotten as he leaned down with ginger slowness to cradle his head. Every ounce of the man’s frame screamed weary. It spoke of hours tied to that workstation, and hours more to go. Deep breaths filled a thin chest, and his body seemed to deflate with each one as he studied a sheet of paper in one steady hand. Fatigue may have been draped over him like a second skin, but the paper did not tremble in the slightest beneath his gaze.

At the sound of footsteps down the hall, he straightened with a jerk and a curse. An urgent arm swept several printouts into a desk drawer that snicked shut without a sound right before the door behind him swung open.

      “Have you finished those reports?”

The voice behind the man was curt, and his back remained straight in his chair as he answered.

      “It is not exactly in my best interest to work faster.”

The words were flat, and carried a noticeable accent. The man didn’t turn as the guard scoffed and swaggered forward, one deliberate step at a time. The man at the desk swallowed, but refused to move, even as those boots landed just behind his chair. “You’re losing time, grandpa. Whether you like it or not. Now if you need an incentive to work faster, all you have to do is ask. My team is very bored, and they’d love the entertainment.”

The man’s head turned toward the guard by the barest amount, enough to catch the outline of rounded glasses and a hint of stubbled cheeks. “I know your name. And your rank. If I am harmed by any of you, the reports will take longer, and I will pass along your name as the reason why. I don’t care who hits me. It will be your fault.”

He all but felt the scowl behind him, and the guard squared up as if he wanted to strike the man himself, but made the choice to stay silent and watch as that head turned a bit more. “You see. I am also very bored,” a sliver of blue iris shone from the corner of one eye, but his gaze moved no further. “And I would love the entertainment.”

The echoed words were cutting and deliberate. He sat at the desk, unmoving for a few tense moments, until the guard huffed and stomped back the way he came, slamming the door shut with force behind him. The man waited until those footsteps disappeared down the hall before that ramrod posture eased, and the tension crumpled with a heavy inhale and exhale. The cup of dregs was raised to his lips before he remembered, and the betraying ceramic was all but slammed back down onto the bare desk.

      ”I can’t do this much longer.”

A faint whisper, for no one but himself. The fatigue had returned to his frame tenfold, and both hands reached under his glasses to scrub at his face. A face that almost, almost drifted into view before the blare of an alarm shattered the scene like glass on pavement.

With a sharp inhale, Marvin’s eyes snapped open, and a wild arm swung out to silence the shrieking clock on his nightstand. His pulse pounded in his neck from the adrenaline rush of being startled out of deep sleep that so often eluded him. The sound of birds chirping outside was an illusion of his own making, but it betrayed the hour of the morning outside his conjured walls. Still early, but time to rise regardless.

The sound of grinding beans was heard to his left, and they shuffled into a filter of their own accord as a kettle began to steam. Marvin wasn’t ashamed to admit one of the first things he’d learned in his arcane studies, was how to get coffee to brew itself. He could still hear Emmerich’s daily scoffing at his partner wasting energy on a task an €18 machine could perform. What he’d give to hear that bitching one more time.

       Nothing is stopping you.

There was a harsh inhale, a swipe across his face, and Marvin swung his legs over the side of the bed. The arcane pour-over coffee was going to be a minute. Time enough to dwell on the vivid dream he’d been startled from. Dreams were the subject of endless theories in the magical community, and while there were spells that could influence them, manifest them, and negate them, there was no one singular truth to encompass what passed behind the eyes in sleep. Sharp as that dream had been, it shared the same clarity as a dream he’d spent vacuuming the sidewalk. Or finding his childhood home with a staggering greenhouse attached, that bees the size of his fist flew into despite his shrieking efforts to shoo them out. Nonsense in 4k, when his body would settle enough to see it.

The man at the desk didn’t feel like nonsense.

With a tired stretch, Marvin padded to the steaming glass that held his morning brew, and poured himself a mug. The tension of the dream still threatened to tighten his shoulders, he could taste that man’s fear and defiance like it was his own, though he wasn’t familiar. The gray hair suggested an older man, but he hadn’t gotten a look at his face. Then again, the color didn’t guarantee age, there were many reasons his hair could be gray. The reason Marvin couldn’t shake the dream aside was the accent. Shared by millions upon millions of people, and yet it still drove a stake through his heart. Even hearing it from a stranger’s mouth was enough to rock him.

      ­Guten Morgen, you stunning degenerate.

Even through the painful lens of memory, Mavin snorted and shook his head. That was Emmerich, a guaranteed deadpan delivery of the most out-of-pocket lines he could think of. No one had ever made him laugh quite like that gangly bastard of a mage. To think, Marvin used to laugh all the damn time. Every fucking day. Even after two years in the Brody family’s care, he hadn’t quite dredged the man he used to be. Easy as it was to blame the glitch, the fault was his. All of it, his. Hubris and ambition had taken everything and more.

Even after Emmerich was finally resurrected from the dead, that price would still be paid. He’d passed his partner in age, and there was no denying he’d changed. The stress and trauma had carved into him deeper than saving his good man could fix. As much as Marvin lied to himself, he knew he was stalling. Guilt over what he’d done, and fear that those blue eyes would look at him and see a stranger.  

      “It should have been me.”

The words out of his own mouth almost startled him, but were they wrong? Emmerich had always been the superior mage. Had Marvin been the one struck down, Emme could have killed the glitch and fixed his mess. Gone on to either write the cautionary tale in his partner’s blood, or done what Marvin had and looked for a way to bring him back.

       He wouldn’t have waited half as long either-

A violent twitch snaked its way through the wizard’s body, and with a flash of green static, the mug fell from his hand and shattered. A cascade of scalding coffee and ceramic shards crashed over his feet, and Marvin jumped back with a howl of shock and pain. His eyes slammed shut as he seethed at the volatile energy that threatened to rock him again. To turn him to static and rage. Marvin’s teeth bared, and he forced himself to calm. The coffee vanished from the floor, and the ceramic pieces swept together in a graceful arc that carried the resurrected mug back onto the desk with a soft thunk. Deep breaths were forced in and out before his eyes opened once more.

He had to get rid of it. There had to be a way to carve the antimatter from his body. The incidents were getting more frequent, and it was a matter of time before one of the Brodys saw, and their trust in him would splinter.

       If I can carve it out of me…

Marvin’s gaze found the mirror that stood sentry on the wall, and it was easy to imagine that reflection with shorter hair and a slit throat.

       Maybe I can carve it out of you.

Chapter Text

8 PM

      “BOOM! DRAW FOUR, OW!”

Connor all but screamed his disgust as Chase jumped up from the kitchen table, punching and kicking the air with victory as his son plastered his face into the wood and reached for four Uno cards with a blind, pathetic hand. Ellie was cackling, Stacy was shaking her head and scowling with contained rage as she organized her own massive hand that had almost become too much to hold, and Marvin was eerily calm as he assessed them all from the tips of his own concealed cards. Chase did a dramatic spin and pointed at the discard pile in the middle of the table. “You make that shit GREEN!”

A green seven was slapped down by Ellie as Chase once again settled back into his chair with his three remaining cards. Once the parents had decided it really was time to stop letting her win just because she was young, all bets were off. Not that the kids, Stacy, and Marv weren’t just as capable of cutthroat maneuvers, drama and evil, it just happened to be Chase’s turn to ruin some Uno dreams.

      “I know where you sleep, you sad little man,” Marvin rearranged his cards while Ellie and Stacy took their turns and Chase shifted in his chair to give him a look. “We are the same person, you know that right?”

The wizard looked him dead in the eye while a slow, almost delicate hand placed a green ‘skip’ on the discard pile. “I said what I said.”

The table burst out laughed as Chase made like he was going to slam his three cards onto the table, and Connor was able to offload one of his cards without drawing. The room still smelled like pizza and garlic butter, the kids had sprite and orange pop, and the adults were a little buzzed. Chase had never jumped-to faster than when Stacy had come home from work, thrown her bag on the couch, and declared that she needed pizza, alcohol, and a fun activity, in that order, or she would explode. In truth, they’d all needed a little wholesome chaos, and Chase knew he at least was feeling better than he’d had in a while. They still kept the stronger stuff out of the house, but it had been a long, long time since Chase felt the urge to drain a bottle of something just to forget his life.

Ellie’s face screwed up from behind her fistful of cards, and she reached for the draw pile with great trepidation. She peeked under it the barest amount before it was flipped onto the discard pile in an instant. “YES! MAKE IT YELLOW!” Chase leaned back in his chair and groaned the groan of a man who had waited almost ten rounds with green cards, just to be foiled by his youngest. Ellie danced in her chair and Stacy was all too happy to dump a yellow ‘draw two’ on Marvin, who’s eyes slid shut with the faintest smirk at the betrayal.

      “We’re all turning against each other!” Chase declared before gulping his drink, ignoring the memory of his victory dance the round prior. The room was distorted through the liquid and glass, and he lowered the cup to find Marvin’s outstretched hand still frozen over the draw pile.

Connor and Ellie’s giggles faltered and vanished as the frozen silence fell thick around them. Chase felt his own smile slide straight to his stomach with his heart at the sudden tightness in Marvin’s face. Every trace of conspiring joy was gone from his eyes, the wizard hardly seemed to breathe. Stacy’s spine stiffened, Chase murmured his name, but Marvin didn’t move. His gaze was fixed on the empty space between Connor and Ellie, with every muscle in his body tense enough to snap.

      “You’re scaring the kids, come on.”

The only response was a low hum began to build, and they all watched as Marvin’s eyes drifted up. His head was slow to follow, chin lifting so those heather blue eyes could fix on the light that blazed over the kitchen table. The hum seemed to grow louder with every centimeter his gaze had moved, swelling in volume until it all but assaulted their ears. The bulb brightened by the second, filling the room with far more light than a hundred-watt bulb could make. Chase felt Connor grab his arm, and he realized he was holding his own breath. Every atom of his body was screaming the same song in a cacophony of dread.

       Not again.

Ellie’s gasp pulled him out of that malaise, and he followed where she pointed out the window. Chase’s face drained of color as he watched every light down the road following their example. Street lights. Porch lights. TVs. It didn’t seem to have turned anything on that wasn’t already, but what had been on was now blazing like the sun. Marvin had yet to move from that new position, frozen while Chase and Stacy pulled the kids away from the table and window. It didn’t stop the wizard from staring the light down, and Chase felt his stomach plummet again at the look in his eyes. He’d seen it before, the night he'd launched a fireball through his magic barrier, at the feet of a monster.

      “Get to the tower, go.”

Stacy was the first to move at Marvin’s order. She all but dragged the kids toward the backdoor and shouted for Chase to follow, but her husband was transfixed by the scene before him. It wasn’t until he felt nails dig into his bicep that he wrenched himself away from the scene. Even as they turned and ran, Chase could see the ’warm white’ Walmart bulb shift colors against the wall, and through the slider, the fleeing family watched every light in the world beyond do the same.

      Red

            Blue

                  GREEN

The drone of the hum warped in pitch, and Chase found himself stalling in the doorway, watching the scene unfold over a family game of Uno. Marvin was still in his seat, staring straight up while the green lights of the neighborhood brightened to a near-blinding level. Underneath it all, like it came from the lights themselves, was a distant, agonized scream.

      “GO!”

Marvin’s bellow sent Chase racing after his family. The screaming ghost was still there, even more muffled the further he sprinted from the lights, but it felt like it was resonating in his bones. Discordant.

Pained.

Familiar.

Chase reached the shed and hurled himself inside. The scream died when worn shoes crossed the threshold, and just before Stacy slammed the door shut, the family watched every light in the outside world go dark.

      “Mom, mom what was that!?”

      “Is he back!? Is the monster back!?”

     “Please, we gotta get Uncle Marvin!”

Chase’s heart hammered in his chest, almost louder in his ears than the frightened voices of his children. Marvin’s tower was chilly, as was the Irishman’s preference, and the Brodys were crumpled in its well-lit, inviting foyer. The enchanted windows did not show the power outage beyond the barrier, but the raging storm that battered the illusory glass instead brought him no comfort.

      “He can’t get in, he can’t get in,” Stacy’s voice slipped into a mantra beside Chase, and she had both arms wrapped around her children. “Marvin said he can’t get in. Even if he knows the code.”

      “What if he wears Uncle Marvin?”

Ellie’s frightened question punched a hole through Chase’s lungs, and he had a hard time swallowing around it. “I don’t… I don’t think he can. Marvin knew how to get me out, so he’d know how to get himself out. I don’t think he can wear Uncle Marvin.” It was logic Chase had to cling to with both hands, because the alternative was horrifying. On a scale of shit that could fuck their lives and beyond, the glitch with Marvin’s magic was only dethroned by the glitch with the Host’s narrations, and the void consuming their world. Still very much in the top three, in Chase’s humble opinion.

      “Should we go get him?” Connor’s voice was small, but there was a desperate gleam to his eyes as they stared down the tower door. “He’s not safe out there, he needs to be in here.”

      “He’ll come back, Connor, don’t worry.” Stacy seemed to have had her moment of fear and boxed it up. Locked it down and kicked it back into the abyss to deal with never. It scared Chase when she did that, but for the moment, he was grateful for a determined voice. Even if the implication was very much, you’re not going after him. Even though every time Chase tried to square up with monsters, cryptids and magic, it all went catastrophically wrong, there was still the screaming urge to try. Marvin was alone out there, and if something happened to him, Chase would never forgive himself. There was a lot of shit he regretted about the past, but finding his twin was not it.

Seconds stretched to minutes. The magical storm outside the tower raged on, heedless of their concern. The Brody family was slow to wander into the living space beyond the foyer, even as the tower seemed to sense their wants and needs. Items like blankets, pillows, hot chocolate, popcorn, wine bottles and glasses manifested on the coffee table that stood sentry beside the enormous couch. A fire was crackling in the stone fireplace like Marvin had never left, and Chase wondered if those conjured walls would die with him or not.

       They’re still standing, so he’s still standing.  

Connor and Ellie drifted to the couch, their young faces still pale with fear. Chase found himself pacing as his son wrapped himself up in a blanket, and Stacy helped their youngest get settled in with a mug of hot chocolate. He couldn’t sit still with the what-ifs racing through his mind. What if he’s back. What if Marvin’s in trouble. What if there’s a new rift to the void. What if this place crumbles to dust, and we get shunted out to find Marv’s body. What if the bastard is waiting for us on the other side. What if reality remembers we were gone. What if they take my kids. What if we rot in jail.

Not that it would get reception in wizard purgatory, but Chase wished he had his phone. He needed to talk to someone on the outside, any-

The frenetic pacing skidded to a halt, and Chase stood frozen for a moment before booking it up the stairs.

      “Where are you going,” Stacy called after him with alarm, but Chase didn’t slow down. “I’ll be right back, just stay with the kids!” He all but threw himself down halls and around corners until he found what he was looking for. A wooden door that didn’t match the fancy wizard aesthetic, and Chase dropped his shoulder to shove it wide open. He was met with the familiar upstairs hallway of his brother Chandler’s cabin. The door he’d tossed was to the guest bedroom he’d lived in for weeks, but there was no trace of it behind him. A burn still marred a log on the far wall from a fired spell. The railing was still cracked from where Marvin had been thrown against it. Little hints of the madness that transpired, two years before. The only light seemed to be coming from the fireplace, and Chase just managed to crane his neck over the railing before strong hands seized him from behind.

There was a grunt of impact and pain as Chase found himself slammed into a wall with an arm twisted behind his back. Even through the trauma of the past half hour, he still managed a stir of shock. “The fuck, man,” his voice was somewhat muffled from being plastered against the wood, “did you learn self-defense?”

      “Yeah, maybe I did,” Chandler’s voice was hard, and just inches from his ear, “because my brother decided to bring monsters and lunatics into my fucking life, and he likes to show up without knocking.” Chase was pulled back a bit and shoved into the wall again for good measure before Chandler let him go. The younger Brody groaned and flexed his twisted arm before turning to face his livid elder.

They had the same shade of blue eyes and a similar nose, but Chase’s face was longer, and his brother was taller, and Chandler was using every inch to tower over him now. “We had an agreement. You don’t use the magic door,” Chandler pointed for emphasis, “unless you fucking TEXT me first!”

      “Do your lights work?”

      “My what?”

      “Your fucking LIGHTS-!” Chase leaned past him and slapped the switch for the upstairs hallway, and they both looked up as the single bulb flared to life with no hum, no strange color, no issue. Chase clicked it back off again with a deep sigh, and let his spine sag against the log wall. Chandler’s gaze was slow and dangerous as it lowered from the snuffed light to his brother’s face.

      “What happened.”

Chase knew it would scare him more than words every could, but there was no fighting the urge to reach out and pull Chandler into a tight hug. He needed to feel something solid, and the reassurance that at least one of his brothers was okay. As predicted, Chandler went still as stone for a moment before arms wrapped around him in return.

      “… Is he back?”

      “I think so. And we left fucking Marv out there with him.”

There was a heavy exhale, and Chandler pulled away to study Chase again. Both men looked stronger and healthier than the last time a nightmare brought them together, but stress was etching familiar lines into both their faces again. Chase watched Chandler scrutinize every bit of his face before his eyes flicked toward the open door to Marvin’s tower.

      “Are you going to tell me what happened in here, or in there?”

      “Here, we just,” Chase scrubbed a tired hand over his mouth and jaw, “we were playing Uno, having fun. Marvin just froze in the middle of his turn, and then every light in our house and down the street lit up like the sun, turned green, and died. He told us to get in here before the power went out. And when it- when the lights were green, I swear I heard screaming.”

      “I’d be surprised if you didn’t, if every light in town turned on and changed color-“

      “No, that’s not what I-“ Chase swallowed hard, and his eyes slid shut. “… It was like it was coming from the electricity. I can’t be fucking, a hundred percent sure, but the person screaming… it sounded like me.”

Darkness washed over the wizard, and with it, blissful silence. Marvin’s ears rang from more than just the surge of power. His arcane senses had howled before the lights began to raise, but he’d felt more than just the magic in his veins answer that call. It was only moonlight that filtered through the windows, and his weak shadow warped with a violent glitch against the floor of the Brody family home. Marvin didn’t dare to move as he reigned himself in, bit by bit, against whatever sudden fuckery had made his residual antimatter sing.  

Too wrapped in the monumental task of holding himself together, Marvin missed the sudden vibration of Chase’s phone. The screen just read ‘Abe.’

Chapter Text

The sight of Uncle Chandler pulled a gasp from Connor and Ellie, and both kids put their conjured treats aside in favor of barreling into him at full speed. Anyone with eyes could see the grumpy bastard had a soft spot for his niece and nephew, with the way his face lightened and his knees bent to reach them at their level. “Hey you two, you’re getting so BIG-“ Chandler wrapped them close and heaved them into his arms like they weighed a ton each. They settled against his hip, both equal parts hugging and holding on as he carried them back to their mother.

      “What have you been feeding these little monsters?”

      “They’d live on chicken nuggets and fries if I let them.” Stacy rose from the spacious couch and crossed the distance to get a better look at her brother-in-law. “Are you alright? How’s home?”

      “Home’s fine, I’m fine, don’t worry about me.” Chandler’s eyes raked over the impossible luxury that Marvin called home, not at all sure where to look first. “Hell of a place he’s got. Wish he’d asked before he built a portal to mine.”

      “He knew you’d say no.”

That earned a tilt of his head and a quirked eyebrow as Chandler carried the kids back to the couch, where they both tried to sell their uncle on magic hot chocolate. Chase returned to the foyer, and left Stacy to answer his brother’s question as to whether or not the magic tower made whiskey instead. If someone had described this scene to him three years prior, Chase would have called them insane. Pacing in the fantasy lair of his alternate universe wizard twin, with a front door that led to his backyard, while Stacy, Chandler and the kids made anxious small talk over the biggest couch he’d ever seen, because a third evil alternate twin might be on the loose. Again.

       The green lights, the screaming…

It was a fight to bring his anxious body to a halt, and Chase slipped off his hat to run a hand over his face and hair. There was no shaking the thought that it really had sounded like him. Him, Marvin, or the glitch. The fact that it had sounded like the bastard being ripped apart, like the forces of the universe had grabbed an atom apiece and pulled for all they were worth, was the only thing that brought Chase even a scrap of comfort. Or… or maybe it had been nothing more than an echo of his own trauma. Something adjacent to the terrible shit that happened, and his brain filled in the blanks with what it assumed would come next. Helping his kids through their nightmares didn’t mean he’d sat down and dealt with his own.

       Come back, Marv.

The urge to crack open the door and find the wizard himself was growing harder to ignore, but he didn’t dare give in. If shit was bad bad, he’d be delivering 80 percent of his family to one lucky winner. That didn’t mean every moment Marvin spent with the great unknown wasn’t making his rabbit-fast pulse tick higher. It was a visceral reminder of the days Chase had thought the glitch had his children, with no leads, no hope, and no idea what came next. That had been the last time he bought a bottle just to dull the pain, and it was the reason he wanted a real drink now.

Before he was given a moment to dwell on that further, the door to the tower was thrown open, and Chase jumped out of his skin as Marvin slammed it shut behind him. The wizard was ghost pale with a sheen of sweat that clung to his skin, and it was enough for Chase to block his path further into the tower. “Are you alright!? What happened?”

      “The power’s back on,” Marvin’s chest heaved like he’d just run a marathon and a hand reached out to brace himself against the wall, “the house is- it’s clean. It’s safe.” His eyes lifted past Chase’s shoulder, where Stacy and Chandler were running to greet them. “The protections are still in place, I tested every single one.”

      “So, what was that?”

      “I don’t know.”

Chase’s jaw clenched and his fists tightened as he forced himself not to snap out at the wizard. That didn’t mean Chandler shared his determination.

      “He breaks into my house like the fucking sky is falling, and all you’ve got is an ‘I don’t know’!?”

      “Hi, Chandler, grand to see you too.” Marvin fixed the elder Brody with a hard look and swiped a hand across his own sweaty forehead. Stacy pushed her way past the boys and planted herself in front of Marvin. “Is it him. I need a verdict or your best guess right now, or I’m going to scream.” There was a beat of silence, and they all watched Marvin suck in a deep breath and pull himself off the wall.

      “It… could be. I can’t say with absolute certainty that it isn’t.”

      “What can you say with absolute certainty,” Chase took a step closer, his voice low for the sake of his kids in the other room. Marvin glanced back toward the closed door, like it would give him the answer, and it was a moment before he spoke again. “… I can say that the last time I felt anything like that, was the day I found myself on the floor of a hydro dam, in a world that wasn’t mine.”

Chase’s eyes slid shut. The way it all came screaming back, the fear and dread and enormity of the stakes they had been up against, just two years before. The pounding in his ears almost drowned out Chandler’s voice beside them.

      “… could have been him leaving? Maybe he fucked off to a world where his arch enemy isn’t living in a shed?”

      “That is a thought I considered. But we’re talking about Anti. If he was wielding that kind of power, he wouldn’t use it to run. He’d use it to end me.”

      “Or make himself stronger.”

Stacy’s quiet words drove a knife through his stomach, and it was twisted by the silence that followed. Only the hushed murmurs of Connor and Ellie and the crackle of the fireplace drifted through their ears until Chase found his voice again. “… Marv. If it wasn’t him, what then? What could it have been?”

The question had every head turn back toward the wizard, who frowned for a moment as he thought. “… If it wasn’t him, it… it could have been a rift. Something, or someone opening a rift. But I don’t think it was, because I’ve only ever seen it done through spellwork. Whatever that was, it wasn’t arcane.”

      “So what, science? Could science open a rift?” Chandler’s question was rewarded with a toss of both of Marvin’s hands into the air. “You’re standing in a wizard’s tower that’s hiding in your brother’s shed, do you think science is my domain!?”

      “Okay, alright-“ Chase put a hand up between the two of them, “so we don’t know what it is. Not for sure. The spells on the house are fine, and it was the whole fuckin’ neighborhood, not just us. You- you said it yourself, we’ve all got trauma. What are the chances this was just a hell of a power surge that had nothing to do with us, and we saw and heard shit that wasn’t there?”

      “You really think that, when the lights were screaming?” Chandler bristled, but Stacy looked to Chase with confusion. “Screaming, what screaming? All I heard was the power!”  

      “I…” Marvin’s eyes were narrowed as they searched Chase’s face. “I was more focused on the energy, I’ll admit, but I don’t remember any screaming.”

There was a moment of icy dread, but it passed almost as soon as it set in, and Chase felt some of the tension in his shoulders ease. “That actually makes me feel a lot better. If you didn’t hear it, and Mr. Magic Radar didn’t hear it, then it wasn’t fucking real. One less thing to worry about.” All three of them watched Chase with mixed expressions. Marvin’s face was still hard, Chandler’s eyes were wide and darting, and Stacy’s mouth was pressed into a thin line. It was a mix he’d seen before, the trifecta of Chase Brody is losing it. There was something of a shock when Chandler rounded on the wizard instead.

      “No offense, but there were days at the cabin when you looked less like shit. Why are you sweating like you just ran ten miles?”

      “Because I had to speed-run testing every defense on the house to make sure that fucking demon hadn’t and wouldn’t get in! It’s not like flipping a switch!”

      “Look, regardless,” Stacy looked at them all in turn, “why don’t we stay here for the night. If it was our problem, then we’re safe in here. If it was nothing, then we had an overcautious sleepover at Marvin’s, and we can laugh about it when we’re ready. Chandler can stay, right?”

Marvin scrubbed a hand over his face and started his way toward the stairs. “Yeah, sure, let me go finish his room. I thought I had more time.” Chandler did a comical double take between Stacy and Marvin’s retreating back. “You were gonna make me a room!?”

      “You’re welcome!”

3 AM

It was a long and anxious night.

Chase was stretched beside Stacy, eyes locked on the ceiling of their shared room in Marvin’s tower. Before the almost-divorce, Chase would have abused the shit out of the wizard’s magic and hospitality. Anything to make the channel more epic, anything to get him closer to the fame he thought he needed. It was easy to picture the shots he would have set up, the stakes he would have raised. The obsession over views and the need to make it bigger, grander, impossible to the point where he’d be called out for using CGI and faking the whole damn thing. All while Marvin’s fuse grew shorter, until he threw Chase out, too.

It was the first time any of them had spent the night in Marvin’s domain, and despite the luxury and possibility of that magical space, to Chase it felt like a fallout bunker. The bomb had gone off, and they’d be in the ground before the outside world was safe.

There was a whisper of fabric as the comforter was pulled off and draped back over Stacy. Chase padded his way to the enchanted window and pulled back the drapes to let a bit of moonlight spill across the stone floor. He could hear waves against the rocky shore, winds whipping across the cliffs and fields, but the storm had passed. The weather was still agitated, as Marvin was still agitated, but no longer raging. Waves weren’t battering the cliffs like the sea wanted them back, and thunder wasn’t cracking like Thor had a score to settle with the ground. Chase pressed his hand to the glass, and a deep chill met his palm, along with the vibrations of wind battering the glass. Magic or not, it felt true to life. Like Chase could open that window and race across the cliffs beyond. Hell, maybe he could.

The drapes fell, and darkness closed in around him once more. He needed sleep, god did he need sleep, but his racing mind would not settle. Chase found himself wishing for his inhaler and his phone, despite the fact neither would help him rest. He knew he’d at least feel better with settled lungs and a distraction from the nuclear wasteland outside.

A soft bump startled him almost clean out of his skin, and Chase’s head snapped around to find a soft glow coming from the nightstand on his side of the bed. It was a phone, his phone, and the screen went dark beside what looked like a brand new inhaler.

       Now I’ve seen everything.

Chase saved the inhaler for the morning, but he grabbed the phone before sliding back into bed. Care was taken not to jostle Stacy, though it felt laughable given what could happen in the tower just by thinking hard enough. He settled under the blankets, turned away from Stacy, and unlocked the screen to find a spread of thirteen missed calls and texts from Abe. All were timestamped just after the power surge.

Chapter Text

… Don’t know what’s …

      … can hear this …

            … trying to …

                  … feds are …

            … answer me …

      … wrong …

… Jackson …

Jackson

Jackson

Jackson

The phone case crackled with the squeeze of his hand as Chase tried to listen to the voicemails again. Abe sounded like a bad TV signal, just snatches of words and static. Not hurt at least, not in mortal peril, but trying like hell to be heard. The texts were no good, they were all just the same repeating symbol. An X in a skinny rectangle. Spaced and broken up like the detective had written shit his phone couldn’t read. Only one singular word was pounding through his skull like thunder.

      “Jackson...”

Chase had long since left the bedroom and fled to Marvin’s study. That early in the morning, it felt as safe a spot as any to not be disturbed. He punched the digits of Abe’s number, like that would somehow result in a stronger call than just pressing the phone icon beside the detective’s name. Using a higher spell slot to cast telephonetic link. Chase still remembered the days when the one way to call another human being was by memorizing a number and feeding it, one digit at a time, to a corded phone. The first cordless one in his house had an analog display that was a modern marvel. Sometimes it showed long-established surnames, sometimes just the number that was calling. To think the man pacing with a smartphone used to be a kid that looked for the four digits at the end of a calling number, and lit up if they meant one of his friends. These days, the ring of a phone just brought a spike of anxiety.

      “I’m too old for this shit, pick up.”

The snarl was answered by a clinical voice that again said Abe’s number was not available, please leave a message after the tone. Chase drew a deep breath, and let his forehead rest against the stone wall of Marvin’s study.

      “Abe, it’s me. I can’t read your texts, I can barely hear your voicemails, I don’t know what you’re trying to tell me. We’re safe. We’re all safe, I need you to get somewhere with a signal, and tell me you’re safe. If you’re- if you’re at Jackson, get out of there. Call me when you have a signal.”

A muffled mew reached his ears as the call was disconnected, and Chase turned in time to see a green spectral paw bat at the crack in the heavy door with all the indignation of a cat denied. The movements and meowing grew harsher until Chase tugged the door open himself to the tune of an irritated trill as the creature bounded inside. After two years, he’d gotten used to the transparent green cat that carried every bit of the feline audacity of its opaque domestic cousins. The sole difference in behavior was the fact it didn’t seem to need food or water, just attention, and the bastard wasn’t shy about it. Chase slid the phone into his pocket and followed the familiar as it jumped onto Marvin’s desk with a solid enough thump.

      “You can’t even lay on his papers right. He can read right through you.” The cat gave a mew of protest as Chase picked it up like a baby, and tucked it into his left arm. Its eyes were the same blazing, pupil-less green that Marvin’s took on when he was channeling magic, and the four card suits were still seared against its tiny forehead. That didn’t stop it from looking like every other cat contemplating violence or acceptance for being cuddled. “Level with me, kitty cat. Is Marv okay? Are you keeping him off the street and outta trouble?”

A green paw pressed against his mouth as if to shut him up, and a disgruntled meow rang through the silence of the study. Chase scoffed and set the cat down to the tune of a deliberate shake and forceful licking, like he’d violated it somehow.

      “Yeah yeah, your displeasure is noted.” Chase lowered himself into Marvin’s chair with a groan, and dwelled, not for the first time, on how much he felt like an old man. His twenties had felt invincible, his thirties were kicking his ass. He wasn’t built for pacing in the middle of the night anymore, and the ebbing anxiety was being drowned by exhaustion. The small bed in the study would have been tempting, were it not for the fact Stacy would have a heart attack in the morning if she woke up alone. It was enough to get him up and moving, and the cat darted between his legs as he pulled open the study door once more.

      “Please…”

Chase’s head snapped around at the sound of his own voice drifting down the hall. The cat took off running, and it bounded through the cracked door of Marvin’s bedroom. Before Chase even realized, he found himself following in its footsteps while the desperate echoes of Marvin grew louder.

      “You can’t…”

The door was pushed wider, and Chase found Marvin in bed, pale and sweating beneath the blankets. If that was what he looked like in the grip of a nightmare, Chase could understand why it scared Stacy so bad when he had them. Marvin looked both sick and tense enough to snap, and Chase clicked on the bedroom light before venturing further.

      “Marv?”

The brightness of the room and the sound of his name had no effect. Chase sighed and made his way to the bed to give his shoulder a shake. “Marv, wake up. It’s just a dream.” Despite the firmness of his grip, the wizard’s eyes didn’t open, and Chase shook him harder. “Marvin. Wake up, bro, c’mon.”

The frantic murmuring continued, and icy dread began to steal over Chase’s body. Both hands reached out to grip Marvin’s shoulders, and he shook him again. “Marvin, wake UP!” The man’s entire body jostled against the bed, but his eyes did not open. In fact, Chase swore he was losing even more skin color as his head tossed and his body struggled with sluggish effort against unseen torment. Chase shook him again, violent in his urgency, to no avail.

      “Get away… get AWAY FROM HIM!”

Chase, in an act of desperation, let go of Marvin’s shoulder to deliver an open-handed crack across his pallid face. The eyes that snapped open were searing green, and a flash of light was the last thing he saw before it all went dark.

Hands were on him, those hands, those evil fucking HANDS. Pain shot through the side of his face, and his assailant was met with a blast of arcane energy that sent him hurtling into the stone wall across the room. Marvin’s teeth were bared until his hands braced… a mattress. His bedroom, in the tower, but that meant-

      “CHASE!”

Marvin scrambled and fell clean out of the bed in his haste to leave it, and threw himself beside the crumpled form of his twin. Faint wisps of smoke drifted off Chase’s body as the wizard flipped him onto his back, and felt his neck for a pulse. It was weak, and it was fading. An Irish curse was snarled through clenched teeth, and Marvin sprang to his feet to rifle through the many shelves of his bedroom like a man possessed. Books and notes fell to the floor, jars of dried herbs and swirling liquids were shoved aside or shattered on the stone below. It wasn’t until his fingers brushed a hefty shard of crystal that he felt a surge of hope, and yanked it from its resting place.

The sight he returned to was grim. Arcane smoke still drifted from a body that did not seem to breathe. The what-ifs threatened to pull Marvin beneath the waves, and he found himself angry that Chase had been there at all. He’d put the Brodys on a separate level, away from him, far away from him, yet here Chase was, dying on his bedroom floor. Just days shy of the completion of the potion that could have saved his life in an instant. It was hard on the body, as Marvin knew. As the Host knew. Though, not as hard as the spell he had cast to end him.

Regardless, it wasn’t ready. He’d have enough for three bottles, but not until the full moon. This would have to be done quick and dirty, if it worked at all.

Green clouded over the magician’s eyes, and criss-crossing lines and symbols began to glow across his fingers, hands and wrists. A necessary evil after being separated from every arcane focus in the universe he had left behind. Tools etched in skin, invisible to the naked eye when he wanted them to be. That desperate moment wasn’t one of those times, and the glowing emerald lines stood in sharp contrast with his fair skin.

      “You’ve endured worse and lived. Come back to us.”

Both hands pressed in on the green crystal, and it shattered into tiny particles of glittering sand that floated before his palms. Marvin drew every speck into his right hand and pressed it down on Chase’s chest. The magic caused his twin’s back to arch, and the wizard watched as green began to glow through every vein in Chase’s body. Snaking, pulsing, twisting beneath the skin. There shouldn’t have been even a hint of arcane power to answer the call, but Marvin felt it. That deep-seeded spark of magic, his own magic, anchored to Chase’s soul. Seared into him the day Mavin touched the iris, connected them all across space and time, and let the glitch break free. It was woven through his twin like it had always been there. Accessible only when all emotional control was gone. Despite their close calls in the past, it was the first time Marvin felt the entirety of what he had done to that man… and the possibilities it could extend.

       Another time.

That buried magic was called on to meet his own, and it aided the spread of healing through Chase’s body. Color returned to his skin, the darkness receded from around his eyes, and his chest expanded with deeper breath. Bit by bit. The spell was far less efficient than the potion, and Marvin had to direct its influence with intense concentration so as not to overwhelm the body. A doctor could have done it better, but a doctor he was not. Time stretched on, and what could have been a handful of minutes felt like years on the stone floor of his conjured bedroom. The cat familiar stood vigil beside them both, watching his desperate work without a sound. The green of Chase’s veins began to bleed away, drawing from his limbs and face back to his heart, before it vanished beneath Marvin’s palm. Silence and stillness filled the two men before Chase lurched to the side with a ragged gasp and began to cough.

      “Easy, easy,” Marvin held onto his shoulder as Chase’s body spasmed, his own washed with relief. “Try to settle, take as deep a breath as you can for me, come on.”  

Despite the stakes, it wasn’t too long before Chase had rolled back onto his back, shaking but breathing strong. Both his hands reached up to rest over his face, and Marvin heard the muffled question behind them.

      “What happened…?”

      “… I thought you were him. Chase, I’m sorry.” He let Chase lay there and breathe for a long moment before he spoke again. “… Can you tell me where you are right now?”

      “… Your room. The tower.”

      “What month is it?”

      “October.”

      “Why did you come in here?”

      “You were crying out in your sleep.”

It was Marvin’s turn to scrub a hand over his face, and he sat back while Chase pulled himself upright. “You weren’t supposed to hear that.”

      “Yeah, well, I did.” Chase pressed a hand over his chest with a grimace, and his eyes pressed shut before he let out a shaking breath. “And it feels like you fucking killed me.”

      “I almost did.” There was no point in lying, Chase wasn’t stupid. The disarray of his room and the stress etched into the magician’s face was evidence enough. “Please don’t do that again. I’ll wake up, I always do.”

      “It was Emmerich, wasn’t it?”

The name alone was enough to punch the air out of Marvin’s lungs, and he turned his gaze away as he climbed to his feet and offered Chase a hand up. The grip was harsh, and both men grunted from the effort of pulling Chase to his feet. “I almost died for this dream, Marv. You owe me that much.”

      “You shouldn’t have been up here in the first place!” Marvin bristled, and a flash of green from a flourished hand sent the broken and scattered items from his search flying whole and repaired back into their rightful place. “Yes, it was him. It’s always him. You weren’t supposed to see this.”

Marvin was brought to a halt by the sudden planting of Chase right in front of him. It still caught him off guard sometimes, the fact that this entire man with a life he hadn’t lived could double as his own reflection.

      “You crashed on Chandler’s couch for weeks, while that bastard was climbing up the fucking walls, and nothing like this ever happened. You can’t tell me you weren’t having nightmares then, so why now? Why’s this happening now?”

For a tense moment, neither man moved. Marvin felt that frenetic stir in his veins, that parting trace of Void that threatened to unravel him. Somehow, after the power surge, it seemed to have strengthened. Yet, it must have stayed dormant in his sleep, because Marvin imagined they would be having a different conversation had Chase seen the wizard glitch against the tangled sheets of his bed.

      “… I’ve lost some control of my magic. Ever since the final fight.” Marvin let that silence hang in the air before taking a slow seat on the mattress. “Not all of it, obviously, or we wouldn’t be in a tower, but… when I’m dreaming or upset, sometimes things just happen. Before I can stop them. It’s almost like it was back at the academy, I have to reteach myself how to hold it in.”

      “Academy? Fucking magic school?”

      “I didn’t spring out of the ground a wizard, Chase.”

The retort went unchallenged, and Marvin felt a twinge of surprise when Chase sat down beside him on the bed. He watched his alternate lean forward, brace his arms on his legs and clasp his hands together. “… So, you’ve been struggling with this the whole time, and didn’t tell me. How many times are you gonna make me tell you, you aren’t alone anymore, Marv? Do you have any idea how fucking happy I was that you came out for pizza and uno, instead of hiding in this fucking tower?”

Marvin’s eyes slid shut. Somehow, that simple fact stung deeper than the injury he’d caused a dear friend.

      “We’ll figure this out. We’ll, I don’t know- read shit. This tower’s full of books, one of them will have an answer. We’ll get you fixed, but you gotta stop hiding shit from me. Because if this? Tonight? Went even a little more south, Stacy or Chandler would have blown your fucking head off. Especially if we could have stopped it if you just opened your mouth and asked for help.”

      “It’s not that easy-“

      “I would have taken that, if this was two months after the dam. It’s been two years, Marv. I wish you’d said something before whatever the fuck happened during the game.”

It was Marvin’s turn to hunch forward and let his shoulders cave. Chase wasn’t wrong, he still… he still struggled with the idea of letting anyone see the mess. Whether it affected them or not. He was filled with the impulse to admit it, admit to the antimatter trace in his veins and what it might turn him into, but before he could open his mouth, Chase spoke again.

      “I get nightmares about you, too. Something’s wrong with you, and I can’t fix it. I can’t fucking stop it. I try to hold on, and you just-“ he lifted his hands, palm up, “evaporate. Like mist. I hold on with both hands, and still watch you disappear. I’ve had dreams that made no sense, but those are the clearest ones. I’m not sure how many times I’ve had to watch you die in 4k.”

A heavy sigh was pushed through Marvin’s nose, and a tentative hand reached out to squeeze Chase’s shoulder. “You really think the universe would let me off the hook that easy? Just fucking fade away? That sounds way too peaceful.”

Chase let out a snort and rubbed at his tired eyes. “You’re probably right. Wish I knew why I kept having it, though.”

      “Well…” Marvin’s gaze lifted to the ceiling as he thought. “… You are carrying a bit of my magic. More than a bit, actually. Maybe my stress has been bleeding over. Sorting that feedback into dreams might just be your brain’s way of dealing with it.”

      “All the more reason to talk to us, when something’s wrong. You’ll feel better, and I won’t get your secondhand nightmares.”

      “You’ve made your point.” Marvin summoned his watch from the table with a scowl. “What were you doing up here at this hour, was I really that loud?”

      “No.” Chase dug at a pant pocket and slipped out his phone. “This manifested in here, and it had missed calls and texts from Abe. From right after that shit went down. He sounds okay, but I could only hear every other word, and the texts are corrupted. I didn’t want to scare Stacy, so I used your study.”

The wizard straightened, and his eyes narrowed at the phone. “Did you manage to catch anything he said?”

      “Not as much as I wanted. Something about ‘trying,’ ‘wrong,’ ‘feds,’ and… And Jackson. The hydro dam. He met up with me a few days ago because a body was found nearby, and he said the feds had taken over the case. They’re not letting Abe’s people near it. He’s found something, and I don’t know if it was the power surge that fucked up his messages on our end, or…”

      “Or something happened on his.”  

      “Or something happened on his.”

      “Damn it,” Marvin pushed himself off the bed, and fought the urge to pace the room. “The rift was closed, we sealed it. I almost died to seal it. But… that doesn’t mean the bastard couldn’t have slipped through. Him, or something else.”

      “You said earlier could have been a rift.”

      “I said a rift was the closest thing I’ve felt. It wasn’t arcane, and I’m not a man of science. I can’t say for certain. But what I can say, is that spell drained you dry, and you need to sleep it off.” Chase didn’t argue, which was evidence enough that Marvin was right. He pulled Chase off the bed and steered him toward the hall. “You said it yourself, Abe didn’t sound like he was in trouble. There’s nothing we can do about it right now.”

      “… We’re going back to Jackson. Aren’t we.”

Marvin let that question hang. He wanted to say no, no we aren’t, everything’s going to be fine, but Chase had almost died to Marvin’s impulse to keep shit in.

      “… I hope not. I really do.”