#abe sapien/ofc

[wiredaughter]

@fluffyfebruary 16: kiss and makeup/reconciliation

×××

Heckle for a Pistol

I’m always telling him not to kill my drones. Not to let go of the proton gun I’ve spent eons working on and was still a bloody prototype anyway. Not to take the carbon based armour I’ve made exclusively for him for a swim in the Pacific, since I’ve not tested the material’s salt resistance. I suppose it’s on me for not asking him not to total my own motorbike I made him take with in case he needed a quick getaway. So totaled it is. Funny how that works.

I glare at the pieces of the aforementioned gun Sapien delivered back two missions ago, and throw myself despondently back on the chair. He cannot die, or I don’t think he can, but still he’d have been hard pressed to make it against those ghouls in Sonoma, say, without my hydrochloric devices. This time, he’d have got a bit chewed up by that sea abomination had he stayed close, and he didn’t. He drove my bike away, not fast enough to escape its spiked limbs, though, and it ended in a crash that left him without longterm issues, and my bike a piece of rubble.

Glad as I am he’s not dead, and of course I’m glad but that’s not the matter at hand, I’m getting tired of the way this place overlooks my department. And it’s my own fault, I joked I’d be just like Morgan Freeman for the Batman, and that’s the regard given to the rooms allocated for me to create a research and development team. What’s the point, I muse, when everything I develop gets thrashed before a patent can be finalised?

Of course, the point is keeping me away from the field, this is where I’m most useful, wouldn’t you agree? I think Manning does. Much as he resents me, he understands acting like my job here has a value gives him an edge. I smoke, indoors as I am, it’s one of the pointless rebellious acts I allow myself. I’m done with looking at diagrams for the day, and I’m mad at the loss of my bike, but honestly, my father will buy me a new one and I’ll actually have fun modding it.

It’s the gun that still eats at me, and for good reason. I’m working on a way to defeat ghosts without having to guess which amulet will do it this time, and what do I get for my troubles? A very blue agent taking it for a spin when he’s facing down demons? Please. I make tea as I try to rework the model, but my blueprints are as indescifrable for me as anyone else. That’s why I keep the prototypes.

I’ve got two nerds slaving at them all the same, in the next room. Manning had preened and boasted when he told me he’d got them on loan all the way from Washington to help me keep his agents on gear, but I don’t care much for them. They’re an alright help, but one can’t stop hinting at wanting to dine with me and the other won’t stop asking whether I went to Eton or Winchester; ever since I declared I’d never set foot on a university. A lie, of course, but I thought it’d make him back off.

Great, now I’m thinking of my temps, chainsmoking and drinking a tea that’s long gone cold as I stare hatefully through the window I insisted on, if I was to have an office. As I curse them and their families, trying to remember their names, they prove their usefulness all the same when someone walks into the office they share and I hear them protest I said no visitors. I’m thinking of humouring the one who’s not a bitch about public schools and sharing a nightcap to spite Sapien when the object of my loathing and the man I’m trying to keep safe no matter how many of my robots he gets slaughtered walks through the door, my favourite employee clinging to him. I cross my arms, blow some smoke in their general direction.

‘I told him you were not seeing anyone!’

‘Yes, thank you…’ I trail off, make a note to learn his name. ‘You can show him around, I’m done today.’

I move towards them at the door, and he makes a valiant attempt to pull Sapien out of the way.

‘We need to talk.’

‘Unless your name is Johnny Walker I’ve got nothing else to say.’

I turn around, open the window and climb out, for I will not be deterred. He’ll want to apologise for the bike and sure it was cool but I’m just done with the entire thing, and unwilling to explain it. I don’t want to think about it. I hear an argument break out and the affected speech of my least favourite intern before I’m walking away.

I’m about six drinks in or eight, paging despondently through Dorian Gray’s excesses when he knocks on my door. ‘I said go away!’

I’m trying to set the door on flames with my eyes and sheer willpower, and that’s the only reason I see a paper sliding beneath it. I get up, ready to tell him where he can shove it, but when I pick it up I realise it’s not some old timey apology letter, but diagrams. Of my gun. I open the door, annoyed at him not being there anymore, and step out to see him walking away.

‘Sapien!’ I jog to reach him, papers held tight on my hand. ‘What’s this?’

‘I was sorry about taking the proton gun the moment I did it. I thought it might help with the case, but I should have asked. I created a working schema from your notes.’

I snort, notes is maybe too kind, considering my work process. I hold his arm to steady myself, surprised in equal parts at his work and his correct guess it wasn’t about the motorbike.

‘How?’

‘I got copies of the material from Philip.’

I tilt my head. ‘Who’s Philip?'

His mouth twists, almost a smile. ‘Your staff?’

‘Oh. Well, does this work?’

‘We won’t know until you build it.’

I laugh, begin pulling him along towards my room. ‘I’ll build it when I’m not drunk. Or hungover.’

He hums as I slam the door behind us. No use letting everyone know they can annoy me with bogstandard IT issues without fearing my wrath again. Abraham goes easily when I shove him to sit on my bed, step back to put the brilliant, legible, workable pages in my desk.

‘And what are you doing now, being drunk?’

I arch a brow. So, he’s got better at innuendo. For all I like that I’d like it better if he wasn’t speaking right now, and move to climb on him to rectify that. His kisses are sweet, and I missed this, so I huff when he pulls back.

‘I’m sorry about the bike too.’

I roll my eyes. ‘Oh, fuck my bike.

[fury161]

portraits for a de au i think about a little bit

[rebornologist]

I know he is the king of softness but how about some 🚨 nasty where abe is dom, like we were teasing him so bad holding his hand all over a meeting and having nasty thoughts of him taking control that after the meeting he show us how rough and dom he can be, that he leaves us not being able to walk. I AM BLUSHING HARD RIGHT NOW THINKING OF IT

dom abe ♡ sends u to the ER?!⁎⁺˳✧༚

I love this prompt because I actually recently got into reading the BPRD comics, and our dearest agent sapien is not as much of an awkward nerdy softie mess in that depiction :’) That man is so FOINE y’all I’m obsessed..

warnings: biting, fingering, ambiguous reader parts lol, pinning reader down, it's pretty feral with a subtle prey/predator undertone, could be read as cnc, lil suggestion of facefucking, and ofc.. I love talking about his cum ♡

༚✧⁺˳₊˚‿︵‿︵‿୨୧ · ˳ · ♡ · ˳ · ୨୧‿︵‿︵‿˚₊˳⁺✧༚

So your hand brushes his during the debrief, and he innocently lifts it up to cover yours, lightly going back and forth over your knuckles and the back of your hand. His cold fingers juxtapose your warm skin, but you smile at the subtle gesture of affection. Then, your mind wanders.. to other times when his body temperature juxtaposed yours.

You notice his breathing pause for a moment, out of the corner of your eye, and you actively realize where your mind has wandered to. When he nervously exhales and draws his hand away, you double down and move your hand to his under the table, discreetly. You also lean over to rest your head on his shoulder, casually. It’s not a startling display of affection, especially because it was only HB, Liz, and Johann present at this particular meeting, but it also meant that Abe was unable to move away without drawing more attention to the two of you.

With Johann droning on and on, you let your mind wander, telepathically insisting that Abe not be shy about getting a little rougher with you. You’re an agent of the BPRD, you can handle a bit more forcefulness… To this, his eyes get a little shifty, side-eyeing you the best he can (he is literally fish-eyed) and clearing his throat, before trying to keep up with the topic at hand. He diverts the attention to you, in a vain attempt to put a pause on your dirty thoughts.

“Oh, yeah.. Kraus is onto something with that theory, I think the pieces do fit together into some kind of key,” you pip up, moving your hand off of Abe’s to brush against his bare thigh. He mentally curses himself for not wearing full length pants that day. As you casually draw little circles over the top of his leg, moving ever closer to the inside of his thigh, you continue, “and the key has to fit a lock..” you raise your eyebrow, as you picture a completely different kind of key and lock in your mind.

Abe snorts, sitting upright and putting his hand over yours to stop that incessant caressing, and clears his throat gently before adding his input to the conversation.

With that, your mind goes wild; It’s full of thoughts of him being more stern with you, suggesting that he should leave some marks for you to cover up, maybe putting you in your place so you don’t dare distract him during the next meeting, maybe making it so you are the one that has to hold in your moans this time around, the list goes on and on..

And finally, finally, when the meeting is adjourned, you happily stand and bid the team good evening, walking off down the halls back to your living space, not knowing that you’re in for a long night ahead..

You unwind a little bit, not thinking too much about how badly you teased him. The thought of apologizing for your misbehaviour crosses your mind, and you decide to pay your partner a visit in the library before you turn in for the night. He did furiously avoid your gaze as he left the meeting room, and only nodded politely and agreeably when  you said you’d see him later.

As usual, you knock lightly on the door before entering, and you’re surprised to not see him anywhere. “Abe..?” You call out, walking in slowly, ducking your head between the aisles and shelves to look for him. He’s clearly not in his tank, but you don’t see him anywhere else.

Suddenly, the record player starts up, and you breathe a sigh of relief, “Oh, I was looking for you—OH!” Your brief moment of calm is interrupted by a cold, firm grip around your wrist, as you’re pressed up against the book shelf by none other than your sweet and loving partner.

“What had gotten into you during the debrief? Were you possessed or something?” He starts, incredulously. A jumbled reply falls from your lips, but you’re still in a bit of shock to defend yourself at this point. You manage to stutter a meek, “I’m sorry?” but that’s followed by a sharp gasp as you feel his hands running down your back and groping at your ass, with the other gripping your chin and turning your head to face him.

“I’m afraid that’s not adequate reasoning for such unprofessional behaviour, my dear,” he blinks at you, clicking his tongue in disapproval as he brushes against your sensitive spots harshly. That’s when you realize he’s definitely going to make you regret asking him to be rough with you (he couldn’t if he tried, but anyway…)

"If you're going to act like such a.. brat," he bites down hard at the junction of your neck, and pulls away as you squeal. “Oh?” He would have an eyebrow raised if he had eyebrows, but the tone of his voice says it all. “Going to make a fuss now that I’m testing your bold claims, love?” He frowns, almost mockingly. You feel the heat building in your face, and you fumble your words as you try to explain that you were just messing with him. This doesn’t stop him from shaking his head and pressing you back up against the wall, littering your neck and shoulders with bites and sucking harshly at the surface wounds, licking and lapping at your hot flesh while you squirm and slap a hand over your lips to quiet your sounds.

He will catch on and replace your hand with his, and every delicious little mewl he draws from you reverberates right into his palm, and it nearly sends him into a frenzy. He uses his lanky frame to his advantage as he turns you around and presses himself up against you. “You know well enough what you do to me,” he mumbles, rubbing you through your shorts as one hand brushes up under your shirt to grope at your chest and pinch at your nipples, “and to abuse that power.. oh, your heart is racing,” he notes, almost with a hint of amusement in his tone, as he roughly pulls your shorts down just enough to swipe a finger across your warmth. “and.. so wet, huh?”

He grips your shoulder and forces you to bend over for him as he wets and slips a digit or two inside of you, curling it to brush against your sweet spot. “I guess the feeling is mutual, hm?” He teases as he fingerfucks you while you grip the edge of the bookshelf, biting down on your lip as you struggle to contain your noises.

“Ah ah ah, keep it down.. in the library,” he leans over just to whisper that in your ear, mock scolding you and lifting your shirt up to slip the hem of it between your teeth, punctuating his comment with a soft bite to your earlobe and chuckling when you whine and try to pull away. You’re just showing him how fun you are to play with, and it unlocks a new fascination within him.

You get to decide just how many orgasms he chooses to wring out of you until he deems it appropriate to push your shoulders down and listen to your sweet garbled and muffled begging while he rails you from behind, a few fallen magazines being pushed aside as you shake under him like a thoroughly fucked out mess. It was mind-blowing, simply put.

How do you feel about tasting the mix of you two together? If you’re open to it, and he’s feeling extra offended by what you thought of during the meeting, I hope you enjoy getting held down and facefucked by your darling fishman while he coos and shushes you and praises you for taking it so well. He runs out of degrading words really quickly, actually, and can only continue to praise you because he knows that you’re enjoying the rough treatment, and he thinks it’s incredibly sexy to use you like this. You end up literally covered in his cum, with it leaking out of you and painting your face and chest and lower stomach and back, because he was.. pent up, so to speak, and he feels so guilty after he’s done with you.

“Oh dear.. oh my goodness, are you okay?” He finally asks, full of worry and chest heaving from exertion as he fusses over your limp form. You nod weakly with a content smile, stifling a giggle, your nose scrunching happily as you bask in your afterglow. He's so gentle with you afterwards, apologizing for fear of taking it too far, but you reassure him that you had a great time, despite your protests.

It isn’t until a few hours later (post bath and diligent aftercare, ofc) that you realize you’re sore in places you’ve never been sore before, and he may have bitten harder than he thought in some spots. Needless to say, you refused to pull anything at the next meeting because you were too busy feeling sorry for your poor bruised and bandaged self. It was totally worth it, though.

[banbrotsu]

Thinking about how sorcerers work in the west, specifically the USA, and I think I'd probably use Hellboy, the BPRD and the Bureau of Control from the Remedy Studios games as a rough template. For one thing they're probably not called sorcerers but instead exorcists and vessels like Yuji would be called "sin eaters" going off an old tradition from the British Isles, mainly Wales, where a cake/biscuit would be made and placed upon the dead to soak up their sins and then a poor person was paid to eat the soul cake and absorb the dead person's sins so they can go to heaven. So the consumption of cursed objects is seen as an extension of that old tradition and vessels are treated both kinda like pariahs and also like they're doing a very selfless service to society.

The sorcerer community in America is probably one of the most diverse and disjointed since the country is so heavily populated by immigrants with no real incentive to seek each other out or tbh knowledge the others are even there half the time. But the two most organized factions would be the government's Department of Paranormal Investigation (name likely to change) and ofc, the Catholic Fucking Church. overall the Catholic Church has likely been the largest and most well organized group that employs sorcerers outside of Japan for like, centuries given their real world historical reach and power.

The set up in the USA doesn't really have anything like Jujutsu High and instead exorcists are usually just brought right under the wing of the government and removed from society to live at HQ/branch facilities or are being trained, managed and monitored by handlers as they live semi-normal lives. Generally whether they live on base or out in the world is decided by how inhuman they look (ex. panda or abe sapien ass lookin' guys) and how difficult they are to control (read: they were too strong to muscle into compliance so we had to let them stay in their own home). The Dept and Church have a fairly strained alliance since they have common goals but also a lot of differences and conflicting ones as well. This can get Very Interesting.

Financial compensation of exorcists is also very uh, iffy lol. The gov has very little interest in compensating exorcists, preferring to give them a small stipend and then cover their basic needs like room and board which makes the exorcists very dependent on them and unlikely to quit/defect. The dept is also very interested in experimentation. While the USA is pulling from many millennia old sorcerer traditions the Dept itself is actually very new and is thus very interested expanding their knowledge base and trying to increase the weaponization of cursed energy and curses. They've 100% tried to make like, cursed spirit super soldiers or whatever or like, cursed energy guns lol. These experiments have mixed success and have at times made things that will make life objectively worse for like, the whole world in the long run lol.

I'm still deciding on like, who are the "names to run away from" like Sukuna in the western sorcerer canon but I know one of them is definitely Faust who, while he was never known to be as powerful a fighter as Sukuna, was is regarded as one of the most knowledgeable jujutsu scholars to have ever lived, having made a deal with a cursed spirit and via this learned all kinds of mystical secrets. People will go to war to get their hands on the cursed artifacts he made but are even more covetous of his various tomes of arcane knowledge.

The Dept was only formally founded during WW2, mainly to combat Nazi use of the occult and curses but was a very scrappy and disorganized thing until they came into contact with the jujutsu sorcerers of Japan during the US occupation of the country after the war. A very tentative alliance was made between the two, mainly because Tengen was like "these guys are batshit and not in a good way" and wanted to keep an eye on them (this turned out to be a Very Wise Move later on).

In the same generation as Gojo and Co. the US gets their own special grade exorcist either like Ever or in Ages and are keen to try and make them stronger than Gojo because like... ofc that's how the US would handle this shit. Ofc they make it into an arms race lol. I'll get more into this when I write about that OC but this goes about as well as you'd think and hilariously eventually ends with that exorcist defecting to live in Japan.

RE: This shit and the whole thing to kidnap sorcerers in the manga — the reality is that even in real life the president is not 100% aware of all covert ops and what they do. The Dept is highly secretive and runs on a skeleton budget so they tend not to raise any alarms. They also likely gave up a few presidents ago about trying to get them to believe the whole "demons are real" thing and instead just pretend to be boring government agency #35348546583 to get all their shit thru. People like the president literally didn't know about curses until Kenjaku cropped up and the Dept didn't learn about Kenjaku's scheme until it was already getting underway. Bureaucracy at its finest.

[madamebaggio]

Hi may I request Abe Sapien x my mermaid oc? It would include her first day at the B.P.R.D and would also include her first mission and their first meeting. The genres would be romance and action though I don’t have a scenario in mind. ^^

Notes: So… You sent me this request a loooooong time ago. I’m sorry it took me this long to get to it.

As I said before, I don’t normally do this type of request, but I did try my best.

There were a lot of things in there, so I chose a few points to at least give you some of it.

I hope you enjoy it ;)

***

Hellboy looked from Tom to the wisp of a girl in front of him. ��Are you serious? Did you just say ‘mermaid’?”

Manning sighed. “Yes, I did.”

“That’s bullshit.” Hellboy decided.

“Oh really?” Manning rolled his eyes. “This is where we draw the line? Mermaids? Everything else; just fine. But mermaids, that’s too much.”

Hellboy snickered. “Yeah. Ariel doesn’t even have a tail.”

“Well…” The girl timidly raised her hand. “My name’s actually Riya.”

Hellboy rolled his eyes. “Whatever.” He left grumbling to himself about mermaids and Disney princesses and Riya was left wondering what she should do then.

“Don’t mind him. He’s… Processing the information.”

Riya turned to the man (?) who’d just talked to her. So… Mermaids were a problem, but fish people weren’t?

She didn’t mean to be rude or anything, she just wanted to point out the double standard, even if it was just in her head.

“Hi.” She said brilliantly.

“I’m Abe.” He told her, his voice kind and soft.

“I’m Riya.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Riya.”

For some reason she felt herself blushing for no good reason. “The same.”

“Hey!” Hellboy called. “We don’t have time for pleasantries! Bad guy destroying the city? Rings a bell?”

Oh right. It was her first mission.

Riya was tired already.

[vifetoile]

Legally Blonde 3 that opens with “Perfect Day” playing as Elle drives her perfectly pink Prius to a well appointed country house. Vivian, still played by Selma Blair ofc, greets her at the door. She’s using a cane now, but she’s still the wry, clever bff that Elle holds dear. Vivian leads Elle through the house and introduces her to her fraternal twins, Trevor and Stacy. Then their father enters, ducking to avoid hitting his head on the lintel. It’s Hellboy, played by Ron Perlman. Suddenly Legally Blonde 3 is also Hellboy 3, directed by Guillermo del Toro. Abe Sapiens is splashing in the pool out back. He makes friends with Bruiser III.

[gingerisaspice]

Unironically an Abe Sapien theme ((COMICS VERSE OFC))

[wiredaughter]

@fluffyfebruary 6: collapse

abe sapien/ofc ♡ fluff and smut ♡ misunderstandings ♡ porn with feelings ♡ sexual tension ♡ 2963 words ♡ MATURE

Any Means in Your Horizon

I think I've figured it, then. With Hellboy away on assignment there are more responsibilities Abraham has had to take on. And I’m not entirely selfish so I’ve resigned myself to having more research sessions and less of anything I want, as long as I get to do that with him. And so we toil over worn tomes and fragments of diaries, and try to match up faded maps and he kisses me. On the cheek, after I make to leave as a farawell, and my forehead the next morning after checking there’s no one around.

His mouth is cold. He’s always cold, and still the quick press of his lips sends heated waves through my skin whenever he dares. Whenever he indulges me. It hasn’t been a week since I laid Abraham and he keened and sang his pleasure against me, and it has been something alright. I allowed myself a repeat the morning after before kissing him hardest and sending him on his way, and thought nothing of it for his entire body seemed to thrum with the need for me to go harder.

So I thought we were on the level. I always seem to be with these things, for my desires had burned in obscurity for long enough by the time I got the agency to have a choice about it. And so, after a long day of pretending to care for the safety of mankind and understanding of the paranormal, I made a beeline for his quarters only to find him swamped with material on some mediaeval occultist. It got my attention and we spent the better part of the night pouring over documents of varying credibility. Shortly after midnight and halfblind, I took my leave, considering I couldn’t very well crash in his tank.

I think I've figured it, then. With Hellboy away on assignment there are more responsibilities Abraham has had to take on. And I’m not entirely selfish so I’ve resigned myself to having more research sessions and less of anything I want, as long as I get to do that with him. And so we toil over worn tomes and fragments of diaries, and try to match up faded maps and he kisses me. On the cheek, after I make to leave as a farawell, and my forehead the next morning after checking there’s no one around.

It’s always quick and I always want more, but I’m nothing if not determined to show I can be a considerate lover so I throw myself into whatever thankless work the day brings. And at night into a hot bath where I work out the want that’s been coiling below my navel, tighter with every fleeting kiss he graces me with, unwinding to memories of his firm, cool embrace pulling me so close I was twice as breathless and the awed, disbelieving sounds of his need.

And we make progress. We stack books onto tables that look way too frail to hold them up and bring out an old dusty codex to make sense of some passages and we touch. Of course, we do, but he lingers. And holds my hand and nuzzles our faces together and sits next to me even if I’m curled in an improbable position on the loveseat because my focus is a mysterious and elusive thing. And I find comfort on it, of sorts. And if this is all he can handle as things stand, I’ll deal. Last night he spent the better part of an hour parting my hair this way and the other as I worked on my pronunciation on a spell that’s got fuckall to do with the medium, which as much as I welcome I can only attribute to the relief that comes with the old man sending word about his upcoming return from Belgium, although Abraham doesn’t comment on it.

Today, he holds my hand from the other side of the table and presses a thoughtful kiss to my knuckles. I raise my gaze from the tablet I’m using to preserve and crosreferrence data and he looks so longing I sigh and don’t realise I’m moving to trace along the seam of his lips until he parts them, his breath shallow on my skin, and I get it. It’s only through years of practice hiding my emotions that I manage not to smirk at what I’ve been missing for the better part of a week; his poise steadily cracking. I stroke his cheek abstently and draw my hand back to zoom into some corner of the random grimoire scans I’m meant to be cleaning up.

And he wants. Where I thought I couldn’t possibly be more into him, the conflict of his desire now clearly laid in front of me makes him a thousand times more alluring. I see it in the way he shifts on his seat at the loss of my touch, first leaning forward then pressing against the backrest as he straightens himself. It’s in the way he, in his rather subtle way, cannot keep his hands off me. I wonder if that’s the only way he knows how to do it. If, as annoying as it’s been for me to put my most selfless foot forward and carry on, he’s not unaffected either.

My eyes move in a zigzag pattern down my screen and I make sure to scroll at regular intervals as I remember his light touches, his downcast eyes after every kiss. Had he wanted me to have him that first night again already? And how did he ever think that would translate from a peck on the cheek? I’m amused and indignant and indecent and entirely without mercy.

‘I don’t know what’s this symbol.’

I slide my tablet to him across the table and jump to my feet to lean over his shoulder as he looks over the medallion in my screen. Not something I care about, and if I had to guess it’s a variant from the seal of Murmur but the last thing in my mind really is the ars theurgia-goetia as I let my breasts brush against his back. Of Abraham’s explanation I hear just about nothing, focusing on the uncertain lilt of his voice and how still he’s got all of a sudden. I step away when he’s done, and into his field of vision pinching my nose to hide my elation at the weight of his gaze. I promise to make a note of it and resume my work.

I cannot resume my work. I’m scrolling through the unabridged ars almadel and all I think of is whatever scrying I’d need to master to figure out what goes on in that brain of his. The clueless guile in the awestruck touches of my lover. Mine.

‘Kalmia?’ I look up with a start. Fuck, I’ve forgotten even to pretend to read. ‘Are you feeling alright?’

‘Yeah, no, yeah.’ The ever turning wheels in my brain have me take off my jacket in an inspired moment, and I shrug my bare shoulders after I throw it on the table. ‘I’m just hot. Must be last night’s spellwork.’

The fins on his arms fan out, gills fluttering as his eyes find the fading hickeys on the base of my neck, and seem to grow like blackholes as they follow them down to the darker marks down my chest where they disappear under my singlet. Oh, how lucky he is I was too worried about proving myself an adequate liaison to figure him out sooner. I might have had the wherewithal to hold out until he was too desperate to function as an agent. As is, I manage to look busy by the time he’s done shifting and staring, and the hand he slides down his throat to call himself to attention is still about to undo me.

And I manage to last until night falls over the accursed bureau. I stand up and stretch like I usually do, like oiling an engine, and the only difference is I’m not blind to his awareness of my body’s movements. Of course he’s been hovering around when I do this. I lean over on half moon, and sigh when my core tenses, wondering how wet he’s got and if his thighs rub together under the table at every sound I was worried might distract him before I knew. I straighten, glaring at the books on my half of the table and looking as harassed as I know how to as I walk over and feign interest in the faded pages he’s examining.

‘I can’t even tell Halphas from Malphas anymore.’ And if I sound whiny I’m usually whiny enough. ‘I’m gonna go see if there’s any Monsters left in the machine, wanna come?’

‘Oh, no. I’m alright, thank you.’ He still slides the journal away, turning to face me.

‘Well, do you want me to grab you something? I can swing by the cafeteria. Could use the stroll too.’

‘We can continue tomorrow, if you’re feeling under the weather.’ I quirk my mouth, taking a step closer, hum indecisively. ‘You… you have been working quite hard. I’ll keep at it.’

I shake my head, practically crawling out of my skin to touch him. ‘I’m not really tired, won’t be long.’

And like I’ve been hoping he reaches out for me, hand closing around my bicep, and I move to cup his face in my hands. Playful cruelty and earnest desire battle in me as I examine his face with reverence, and as if he knows it and wants to scorch the earth he whines, low and chittering from the back of his throat, nuzzles his cheek into my hand and wins the war with the total collapse of his defenses written all over his face.

I pull him in, eager enough to be brusque, press my mouth onto his with everything I’ve been holding back, desire and frustration and hunger and he just pulls me closer and takes it. I climb onto his chair, deepening the kiss as his lips heat up from the friction and my brain goes blank when his tongue wraps around mine, filling my mouth. I give his lower lip a good bite before pulling away, gasping for air. Aided as he should be by his gills, he’s as breathless as I feel as his hands find mine to hold them against his chest.

‘Yes… please, yes…’

My hum turns into dark laughter as I dig my fingers into his chest, pulling him in for another kiss as my hands wander to his back, firm groping softening as they travel up to the small fin atop his spine and the small of his back. The sound he makes at this has me pulling back, and his blush makes him look even bluer.

‘You wanted this, didn’t you?’ He looks at me uncomprehending for a minute, tries to hold my chin to kiss me, but I turn my head, pulling his hips firmly against mine. ‘You have wanted this.’

His breathing becomes laboured as I write against his strong, slender frame, and he hides his face on the crook of my neck. And how I’ve longed for the ghost of his breath on my skin. I huff, sliding my hands under his swimshorts, still wanting my answer. ‘Well, haven’t you?

He pulls back, only long enough to measure my expression, and then it’s back to hiding with him. ‘Yes, of course, yes…’

I trace my nails down his hip bones, gentle fingers pressing on his mons, and he’s holding me closer even, so strong I stop my movements as he evens out his breath. ‘I want this Kalmia, have wanted this, so now… please-’

My back hits the edge of the table when I pull back, and he’s all desperation and bewilderment, but we’re again together in that. He’s looking to the side, and I wonder if I’m overstepping for an instant before I rise on my knees and guide his face towards my breasts, aware now that I’ll have to take what we both want, but filing it all the same for later examination. He feels so good, and I’m rougher than I expected. I slide my hand between his legs, and he’s looking up with bigger eyes than probable and his gills twitching.

‘We can’t do this here.’

His voice is low and wanting and I snort. ‘Unless you want to carry me back to the dorms, here is exactly where we’re doing it.’

He looks at my breasts, then the door without breaking away, and if he doesn’t make up his mind soon I might just make it up for him. He rises, and I’m wrapping my legs around him, hands tensing on his neck and groin in a way that steals his breath but he doesn’t sit back down. I make to protest, swear at him, because haven’t I held back enough; when I realise he’s not making it for the door but one of the study rooms. I kiss up his throat happily, dare to press my fingers against his cloaca as best I can reach it and he stops with a whine.

‘Kalmia…’

I look up at him, a perfect middle between exasperated and lewd. ‘Go on then. Let’s go study, Abraham.’

He kisses me, and I don’t know how this is better than the table we were using before, but I’m not about to complain when his mouth is welcoming as ever. He pulls back with a sigh and I, displeased at his denial, continue to make his legs shake as he resumes his walking. I’m surprised when he withdraws one hand from my back to turn the handle, and wouldn’t you know that, he made it. The door shuts behind him, and he sits on the edge of the -smaller- table, and I’m pushing him to lean back, careful not to fall off.

Again, he’s looking out of his depth but I’ve had enough seventy times over. I kiss him as I tug his shorts down, and he moans when we part as I register the marked absence of his tentacle, remembering like in a fever dream how it’d wrapped itself around my wrist the other time. No matter, that’s even convenient in the present setting, and he's so flushed at his opening I forget everything at the evidence of how bad he’s got it.

‘Don’t… look at me like that!’

I laugh in earnest. ’Like how? Like I want to eat you whole?’ I kiss his nose and he looks placated. ‘Maybe another time.’

I kiss him, sucking on his lower lip and guide his hands to my breasts and he’s finally touching me like I’ve wanted. I’m panting my breath into his mouth and teasing until I can enter him. The tight grip he’s got on my body is heavenly and I grind into his hand as he strokes my labia. Then one of his claws is brushing my clit and I jerk against him with a gasp, holding onto his thigh so hard I’m sure to leave bruises. He stops kissing me, a concerned expression in his soft features.

‘Does that hurt?’

I hum, amused, and nod. ‘I suppose.’ I kiss him, short and hungry as he tries to pull back. ‘It hurts a little like this.’

I slide a third finger inside him, and he shakes, an incredulous expression in his face as he seems to get it. He lets my breast go, cupping my face and pulling me in for a kiss that’s, true to form, softer than I’m expecting. Seems to be all the encouragement he needs, regardless, and our heartbeats speed like racing each other as we continue to put each other through oodles of agonic pain.

He moans, rough and high, and I bite down on his shoulder searching for pleasure inside him, for understanding through any means I’ve got. Then all rational thought leaves me and I’m crying out through my teeth as I climax, enough left in me to work him through it as he kisses me when he follows.

He lays back, chest hanging half off the table, his neck looking as enticing as anything from where I straddle him, tracing senseless patterns along his midriff. I let my head hang forward, breathing through the aftermath and if this isn’t what I’ve been wanting. On that note:

‘So, what was that whole academic distance, PG touching business about?’

‘I don’t… I don’t know what I’m doing, Kalmia, I never felt like this before. He sits up, and I move off him to sit next to him. ‘You make me feel so good.’

I smile to myself. ‘You wanted me.’

‘All the time. Is it always like this?’

‘Nope. Just with me.’ I jump to my feet, stretch my back, then realise he might take my words to heart. And I do want him to, but I suppose it wouldn’t be fair. ‘I don’t know, Abraham, I don't know how it’s meant to be for you. But it’s very good, isn’t it?’

I stand still to look at him, and what a mess I’ve made of him. Rake my gaze over his face; no longer flushed, down his neck that had looked just so exposed moments ago. There are bruises down his chest, and his hips… He stands to pull up his swimshorts and seems like he’s going to tell me something about the way I stare, but we’re both called to attention by the noise outside.

I growl, give him a look to stay and pull up my hair that’s grown enough to be evidently messy but also to make for an acceptable bun. I’m still smiling at Abraham’s desire, both raw and skittish, when I see Corrigan standing next to the table where my jacket still lays.

‘What?’

I’m short with her and I shouldn’t, but can’t a woman get some privacy in this hellhole? She gives me a tense smile, explains the professor is back and both me and Abraham are to join the meeting. I hold back everything I want to say about the noble succinctness of emails, assure her we’ll be along and grab my jacket. When I rejoin her, jacket looking small on Abraham but still covering the bitemarks, she doesn’t comment.

[wiredaughter]

@fluffyfebruary 13: clarity

Insanity

It’d be a plain lie, if I said I didn’t want to know. Of course I did, and of course I do. It’s why I do what I do, in part. Once an official secret, immune to moving through them, I tell myself. And that’s why I’m always watching, waiting. Trying to find a way in, to know everything that concerns me, and of course he concerns me.

It had been easy enough, if annoyingly slow, taking note of Abraham’s meetings with the old man, talking to both of them afterwards under different pretenses. Abraham is easy, I just want to make sure he’s not running you ragged, I just think it’s funny; not calling me in for the hypno freak showdown, I just want to be with you. And Brutenholm is harder, but not all that of a challenge once I work my angle; you know I care about him, I just want to keep him safe, I just want to help.

And the professor knows me. Knows me enough to distrust my selfless declarations but trust the truth underneath: I care about Abraham. Maybe the reality of that blinded him to the whole of it: I only care about Abraham. And now, now I know what he’s been hiding, not only from me, but from him; his source, his catalyst, his… his deity, of sorts.

Well, after sticking around outside the door where he does his seances and fraternises with Abraham of ages past, after sliding into the office shrouded by my attempts at invisibility, I found the tapes. Because he doesn’t need to know only, but also record it. And this must be why played down the whole Caul thing, why he steered me away from Stroebl, but did he think I’d be so easily blinded? I always need to know, and now I do.

I know the man I’ve been laying with, laughing with, making fun of when I need to and shielding from danger with my own human body is more god than man. Not that I didn’t suspect. I don’t know if I suspected, I’m just trying to keep up. I move to put the tapes back where I found them, but instead play the most incriminating ones to record them with my phone. With that insurance, I put everything where I found it and exit in silence.

I walk through the corridors like in a daze, absorbing the knowledge. The feeling of it. How Abraham has always been more than I could ever deserve, just how willing he is to die and suffer for what’s right. I want to cry. I laugh instead and, for a moment, I understand the old geezers secrecy. Such a heavy burden, and how could he put it on his shoulders. But he knows him better than I do, and he knows he’d take it. Be better, even for it.

I run for his dorm. Open the door without knocking and find him, how not, sitting in his tank with a book in hand. I cannot tell him, not yet. He’s so lovely, so at peace, so happy to see me, brooding as I’ve been lately. I’ve been undercover, and that always puts a damper on things unless you’re like me and revel in the darkness. And he doesn’t. So I’ve taken my distance, and how glad is he I’m done with all that. He greets me, putting his book down, wondering if I’m done trying to crack the secrets of the bureau. Not that he tells me this, he knows how to comfort me, and why can I not do the same for him?

I’ll tell him tomorrow, I decide, he can face it tomorrow. I don’t even need to lie to him now, I just need to love him. And I honestly do, so that’s easy. I take my shoes and trousers off, and he’s blushing, and I don’t care what he is or what he’s been as I step into his tank to straddle him.

‘I’ve missed you.'

‘And I, you.’ He holds my waist, and really, how can he factor me into it, being what he is? ‘I knew you’d come, though.’

‘Oh, did you, now?’

It’s honestly a bit too chilly for me to be even partially submerged, but I don’t mind it. He feels so good against me in the water. I look at him like we’ve got no secrets between us, and he leans his forehead on my shoulder.

‘I know you didn’t ask to be part of the bureau, it’s natural you’ll distrust it. But I hope you’ll come to feel at home here.’

I’d be screaming, if I didn’t love him, I’d yell and fight and kick up a fuss about how it’s not me they’re deceiving, but him. As is, I’m not even angry, just passingly sad. Just overwhelmed with his love. I hold his face, bottle every word I’ve heard in the last hours and throw it into the ocean of my soul. I don’t need it now. I just need him.

‘I’m at home with you. Everything else I can do without.’

He gives me an unknowable look at that, but I’m already picking up his book. A treaty on convergent evolution, and isn’t that something. I realise he’ll be fine. Whatever he makes of his own past, he’ll accept it as he does, and I’ll be around for what’s too much. Where the idea filled me with dread before, aiding someone like him being only what I am, now that I’m seeing him; feeling his strong, lithe body against mine, it makes sense. He’ll be alright, and I’ll make sure of it.

I kiss him, tender, more tender than I know how, and he sighs into it. I pull back and turn to lean on his chest, start reading out loud from the top of the page as he strokes my hair. We’ll face up to the truth tomorrow, today I’ve got him and we’re fine. And we’re in love.

[wiredaughter]

@fluffyfebruary 20: magic

abe sapien×ofc ○ war on frogs ○ magic ○ smoking ○ kissing ○ 755 words ○ ao3

When Abe second guesses his decision to step back from field work, he gets some reassurance from a fledging witch.

Some Kind of Resolution

I’ve never really thought of doing magic. What I do are illusions. Disappear for half a minute when I’ve gotta beat it, distract those who would have my head, entertain an audience. Illusion, nothing real, nothing really powerful. Still, I don’t resent the grimoire Abraham found me, and I’ve been reading it.

Now, I’m trying it out with the selfish purpose of warming up where I’m smoking outside the accursed bureau. And going in to change into something more weather ready than satin shorts and a raggedy singlet is still the more logical option, but I’m not keen to break my cigarette cycle and I believe Corrigan will try and courtmarshal me, if Manning doesn’t, if I dare take it inside for the three minutes that would take me to change. Five minutes, tops. So I shiver, I kill another cigarette and repeat some hellish word for heat in my head that doesn’t seem willing to come through for me.

The wind is wicked as it whistles around me, and maybe I manage a small spell to shield my lighter long enough to light up, or maybe I’m just lucky. I jerk away when something wraps around my shoulders, and as I turn around I’m congratulating myself for wishing a jacket into existence, but of course I didn’t. And of course he’s here, looking down at me with those eyes like the Mariana Trench and dressed up like a person like he’s taken to since he swore off field work. I sigh, happy as I am that he’s not trying to get himself killed anymore, it’s not like him.

‘Thanks, I didn’t want to practise my hot hot spell or anything.’

He gets the cigarette from my mouth and takes a slow drag. ‘Most people want a controlled environment when trying to learn a new skill.’

‘When are we ever gonna have a controlled environment in our line of work?’ I mean it as a joke, but his expression sharpens, and he hands my smoke back absentmindedly. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘Roger isn’t back yet.’

I put on the jacket properly, lean on him. ‘Roger is a grown homunculus, I’m sure he’s kicking frog arse to kingdom come.’

‘Don’t you think I should be there with him? At least, while he gets the drill down?’ I give him a guiltless smile, and get a twitch of his mouth in return. ‘Of course you don’t. But wouldn’t you like to have some backup, if it were you?’

‘If it was me I’d be too busy trying to curse Manning at a distance for getting me to spearhead a mission. But no, all the same. I’d soldier up like you do, and do the deed with the reassurance you’re safe here.’ His expression falls, bad angle. ‘And totally thankful for the intel you’re digging up. The work you do here is important, Abraham, and if the powers that be cannot see it, that just goes to show.’

He holds me, and I find I still see my deflection and halftruths more useful than any magic, for it seems I’ve put his premature survivor's guilt to bed for the moment. Truth is, Roger is getting killed, sooner rather than later if he keeps on his path. Can homunculi die? I don’t really care, and neither should Abraham. It’s not on him, but Daimio and his military fanaticism.

I shake my head, try some magic now and I find myself hovering about a foot from the floor. Abraham seems impressed, and I’m pulling him in to shotgun him, and I lose concentration as soon as his lips are on mine, but that’s alright because he’s holding me tight against him and I’m not cold at all now. I wrap my legs around him, unwilling to stand back on the ground this soon.

‘I like that you’re putting that brain of yours to work, rather than getting harpooned like cannonfodder, and I know it feels like the easy way out but it’s not. You’re taking downtime, which is the responsible option here.’

He pushes my hair down from the mess the wind is making it, and considers this. ‘Responsible?’

‘You’re kindof incredibly cutthroat when you’re off your beat, remember that marine salvage mission?’ He makes a chittering noise, between selfconscious and annoyed. ‘Exactly. The agents have got enough with Daimio, Roger has some simple lightheartedness to him that’s probably keeping them sane.’

‘Because I’m cutthroat.’

I put my cigarette to his mouth, hide my face on his gills. ‘Cutthroat and hot.’

[wiredaughter]

@augustwritingchallenge: guardian | @aug-kissed: trail of kisses

Selfish

explicit ♡ m/f ♡ possessiveness ♡ unreliable narrator ♡ abe sapien×ofc ♡ 1,914 words ♡ pwp ♡ porn with (repressed) feelings ♡ overstimulation ♡ ao3

Abraham’s skin is soft and firm under my hands, silky smooth even as it betrays the strength underneath. Very much like the man himself. Held down in my bed by nothing but my own body; about 180 pounds lighter than his own, and pliable in his pleasure in a way that takes nothing from the implicit threat of his physicality. On our feet, he’s got a whole foot and inches on me, but as I push him down where I need him that’s irrelevant. Almost irrelevant.

I tried to be mad, tried to act concerned as we returned from our mission. How come a practically immortal amphibian is about to kick it more often than a puny mortal like your girl, and how he doesn’t need to go along with the plan if the plan is stupid. Truth is I don’t know how to worry; I’ve got no future vision, complex forms of fear are something I left behind the first time I broke out of the government’s grasp, an ocean and what feels like a lifetime away.

Desire is something that eats at my chest with exponentially increasing appetite every day, and I desired him even before he came to, pale from shock and covered in enemy blood. Still, I can deduce a likely chain of events, and I know who I'm dealing with. All of Manning’s determination and Corrigan’s relatable facade translate to one simple truth: they'll kill him if it serves them.

It's that knowledge that’s like petrol to the wildfire of my want now, my small scarred hands pushing under his swimshorts, my shaking lying mouth trying to steal the secrets from his. It’s the voice that says I won't let them, won’t let him let them, that makes me break away from his cool, ever soft lips.

I say nothing, still got no words for my egoism and the way he's often exempt from it. He says nothing, breathing hard and blinking the gems he's got for eyes at me. I dig my nails, brittle and human, into his thighs and he bucks them into my touch. I want to push harder, to truly hurt someone invulnerable, but I know it's not what I really want so when he moves to kiss me again I give in. It's selfish, in a way, his willingness to deprive me of this in the name of the greater good. I kiss him like I worried, like I’d be lost without him. He lets me, whining on the back of his throat and into my mouth and his sharp teeth gnash against mine before I’m biting hard into his tongue because I want to hear more of it.

I move to his lower lip as he indulges me with the low, sweet sounds of his need. And how can he need to save the day more than he needs this? I kiss a trail down his sinewy, darling neck stopping to scrape my teeth against his gills as my fingers press small, fleeting bruises under his clothes. I’m panting on his chest grinding down against his thigh as his shorts ride up enough to let me rub a firm line down his cloaca, and he shivers with it, voice turning breathy and rising and he’s so wet when I enter him with my thumb, moving down to mouth at him through the fabric.

Abraham swears at the contact I keep up for a few moments more before he’s moving, always faster than I expect, to stop me when I make to pull apart long enough to get him naked. His grasp is solid; securing my left wrist in its place, my fingers in him, and in my hair so his eyes can burn their want into mine, as if expecting to find anything but its mirror. He blinks, surprised as usual at his own instinct, but I like it and I like it so much I lick a stripe as close as I can get to his opening where I’m held, and he’s letting go of me so I can, finally, see him.

Black looks good on him, makes the blue patterns even more vivid as I pull down on his shorts to stare at his cloaca, flushed and swelling with blood and aching for me. His hands fly to his mouth to stifle a moan when I rub my knuckles in circles along the edge, putting more pressure into it than I might had I not seen him get bodyslammed through a wall not two hours ago. I lean in, stopping with my mouth millimetres from where he needs it until he balls his fists into the duvet instead. And how I want them to hear this.

Every agent hanging around, everyone in command, everyone in this godforsaken country that thinks his life is expendable against the lives of millions. Devon with his suspicions and Manning’s attempts to pretend this isn’t happening and whoever else might think they’ve got a right to either ignore or comment on it. I stare straight into his dark eyes as I dive in with both pointer and middle fingers, pull his channel apart as it flutters and he makes to hide his face on his shoulder. I suck a bruise on his hipbone, then another lower, and another until there’s a path of violet-blue spots leading to where he’s pushing into my hands; embarrassment forgotten for the moment, his head hanging back and thighs shaking around me.

I press my mouth to him, pulling my hands away to feel the parted flesh beat against my lips, and he moans at it, gasping and hoarse. I lick into him, warmer than anyone would guess and overflowing with slick. He sobs outright with it, face flushed and gills fanning out, hips thrusting into my face like he thinks I can grow a tentacle of a tongue like him just because he wills it. I twist my own human tongue into him, pushing against his walls, and tighten my hold on his arse in a futile gesture; can’t hold him still more than I could a maelstrom, and my body ripples with every roll of his muscles, legs locked around me and chest arching up as he tears into yet another of my duvets with his claws.

I suck at his entrance spurred on by the sound of fabric ripping and he’s tight and shaking and heavenly around my tongue as he comes with a high keen that turns to low chittering when I don’t move away. His thighs fall from my shoulders, twitching as I push three fingers into him. He lets out a whining noise, allows me to push him on his side, one leg between mine and the other over my shoulder so I can see him take four fingers up to my palm. I groan at the image, cloaca puffy and spread; spasming around me, hips swaying mindlessly; getting his thigh to press against my labia just right, and my cries join his until he pushes up in an angle that’s probably painful for humans to kiss me, messy and heated and fucked out.

He cups my face with the hand he’s not using to hold himself up to tilt my face so he can explore my mouth as I rock down into him, before he’s pushing my tshirt up and his claws dig into my breasts just soft enough not to draw blood. But it’s blood I want, in a way, and so I tease my thumb along his rim, and he’s shaking so hard now I shake with it, and I apply the smallest amount of pressure which makes him twitch hard enough for him to break skin and he’s coming again and I am with him, falling forward into him and he has the decency to let himself be tackled back into bed.

He holds me close to him for a moment before realising I want up and letting me go. His face is lax and he’s looking at me with the serenity that comes from pleasure, now tinged with uncertainty. I straddle his hips, pressing small circles along his mons.

‘You don’t want to fuck me?’

He chokes out a cry when I get the right spot, and I rise on my knees to move back and see his tenta-cock pushing his sensitive cloaca open once again, making him whine at the ridges and I can’t help but think of the wanking sessions I’d have if I was like him. I can’t wait, and it’s only his hands on my trousers that remind me I need them off if I want him in me. I fumble my belt open, which is more than enough for him to push my waistband down to my knees. Abraham makes a clicking sound upon noticing I’ve, yet again, forgone underwear.

I lay him down, pulling off my top to let my breasts rest on his toned chest where his hands slide under my bra to fondle them, and his tentacle finds my pussy with no effort, sinking in as hungry for me as his cloaca is. He’s big and textured in me, twisting in a way that might be too much if I wasn’t permanently turned on for him. I clench around him, pushing my hips back into it, fingers digging bruises into his biceps. When I lean down to kiss him his mouth is pliant and open under mine, overstimulated past his ability to reciprocate in any meaningful way or too busy with the almost pained sounds that punch past it.

I don’t mind it, biting on his lips as he turns so he’s over me, hands squeezing my breasts together as he traces my nipples with his claws, still mindful of his strenght somehow, and I don’t even mind from how good it feels. I huff, twisting to one side for impulse before I’m rolling us over so I can ride him, as if you could ride the ocean. Whatever I do, his cock is prehensile enough to have a mind of its own and it’s the way I can’t anticipate what’s next combined with his hand coming to rub at my clit that makes me cry out my pleasure as I come, going so tight around him he feels even bigger as he pulses with his own release.

As much as I want to collapse down now, I want to see it even more. I arch back, leaning to see his tentacle slide out of me and back into him, and it’s so erotic I follow it with two fingers before his thighs clamp shut, trapping my hand between them as his walls pulse weakly around me. He sits up to grab my wrist before pulling me down with him in an embrace that feels way too secure for the lives we lead.

‘What’s gotten into you today?’

I look up at him, beautiful and vulnerable by his own principles, and everything I want and won’t let pesky moral judgements take from me. I nuzzle into his gills. ‘I want you to be selfish with your life. For my own sake.’

He says nothing, his arms around me holding me tight against his chest and I could stay here, for a while at least. In a fairer, better world I’d know I can stay here forever. His heart beats against mine, slowing down in sync, and this should be enough for now.

[wiredaughter]

@tropetember #14: monstrous

Selfpreservation

implied relationship ☆ abraham sapien × ofc ☆ witch ofc ☆ idk if he's a monster and i had more culture shock ideas but well. the pills are starting 2 kick in

Skipping rope, quality backtalk, infiltration. All things that come easier when you're not burning at exactly 41.3 degrees. Still, if I wasn't nearing hyperpyrexia I wouldn't need to infiltrate the medbay after being excused from physical conditioning when I managed to annoy the trainer enough he didn't care how convinced he was I was just trying to skive.

Whatever. I make it to the NSAID drawer but my vision's too blurry to read the dosage. I cough, hot, and take my bureau jacket off for the first time while technically on duty since I earned it. My shirt follows suit and then the fever hallucinations kick in. Or not. I might have imagined the click of the door, but if it's really opening and it's really him that's consistent with my intel. Fuck.

'Ssssapien.' I slur his name, take a step back.

'What are you doing?'

He sounds concerned, and of course he would. Been stalking me, hasn't he. This place is too cagey not to notice, and it's great to have confirmation but I'm not in the... what's the word. What am I doing here? I'm trying to slink back to my room so I can eat this entire box of candy and hope it cools me off before shutting my kidney function to double zero. And Sapien, my caring liaison, is an obstacle. I widen my stance, eyes burning, hands shaking as I unfold my knife.

'Out of my way.'

He advances, lips moving but I don't know what he's saying. I sway on my feet, stab out in a motion that misses him by either a palm or five, hit the floor.

Wet. I'm wet. And hot. I blink, trying to focus my vision, just in time to see him add another block of something to the water around me. Ice, just like I'm a cocktail. My head is pounding, but clearer as I glance around me.

'Why am I in your old tank?'

The look he gives me says I look just as bad as I feel. 'Your CT was normal. Thiroid and bloodwork too.' He comes closer to sit next to me. 'I'm trying to bring down your fever while they find what caused it.'

I move to the side, splashing water into the floor as I lean in his shoulder. Cold. I knew it would be cold and it's a blessing in this circumstances. He's kind enough not to comment.

'It's the blood spells.' I rasp out after a while. 'Blood is heat and I've been overexhausing mine.'

He chitters at that, presses an icepack on my forehead. It's him who got me the books and it probably follows he feels guilty. Not that I wouldn't have given it a shot by my lonesome given the chance. The one thing I like more than staying out of trouble is power, after all. In a close number three and in spite of myself, however, is a certain amphibian man. If my indisposition is already news I've got nothing to hide, I tell myself as I heroically pull myself off his skin to look at him and pull on his hand. 'Get in here.'

He gives a look around. We're alone, but he's always mindful to keep a professional head, where I'm always looking for a reprimand, in Liz's words. In the end, my febrile expression must convince him and he joins me in the tank he slept on in out last location. When I press myself to his chest closer than it'd be comfortable in a regular situation, the instinct is more selfpreservation than arousal. He's so cold.

My fever melts the ice around us like the polar ice caps, but his temperature regulation is amazing, and it keeps me cool enough to keep me from passing out. His heartbeat is slow and calming. He wraps his arms around me and, when some whitecoats come to take me in for more tests, he carries me upstairs.

[wiredaughter]

♡∇♡∇♡

@tropetember #7: historical au

palaeolithic ish ☆ platonic relationship ☆ abe sapien & ofc ☆ making friends w the fish man ☆ hyena pet ☆ 825 words ☆ ao3

blue

Blue. So blue I thought he was dying of cold and water when I first saw him, floating along the coastline. I'd readied my blade to spare him the suffering - and maybe make an easy meal after leaving my last tribe two nights ago, when he lashed at me, faster than most dying men could. Most living too. Teeth like a beast's, claws short but rather sharp looking. Oh, how bare I felt then, with my brittle nails and my agreeable teeth.

But I'm still the best lancer I know, and so we tumbled through the wet sand, trying our damnest to kill each other for a good while before I remembered I wasn't necessarily trying to hurt him in the first place. Figured he wouldn't believe or understand me unless I gave him a good reason to. Like putting him down with my weight on his chest knife to his throat, but my knees slid off his skin like wet seaweed, and then it was him holding me down unarmed. I wasn't necessarily trying to hurt him, but called for Hyena. After weeks trying to learn to cohabit with the tribe, she was dubious to hunt like she naturally does, but tackled him off alright. Then I looked down at my legs to see what I'd slipped on, and I understood.

Azure. The liquid was viscose, not water at all. His blood. Not blood, like any I'd seen, but I thought he'd die without it all the same. I called Hyena off, and she put her tail off at me, but obeyed all the same. She's a crossbreed and that's probably the only reason she hasn't killed me. But I'm a crossbreed too, my mother said, so I guess that's why I don't kill her. The idea that he might be a one as well gave me just enough bravado to approach him, letting my spear and axe down, hands raised. He tried to raise on his elbows, before giving up and falling flat on his back. I tried wrapping him on my cloak, thinking I could go for a swim anyway, but he gripped my wrist, asking me to take him to the water. I looked at Hyena, wondering what she made of all this. She looked at me with her dark intelligent eyes, then turn around and digged into the warm sand for a cosy nap spot.

But I lead him to the water. He relaxed at that. The tribe I travelled with four full months ago told stories of animalhumans. Maybe he's a fishman. I took the chance to look for molluscs. Hyena dislikes the fruit which constitutes our remaining food, and I knew I'd have to bribe her to carry this man back to our cave. We both held our ends: at first confused by the shells, she seemed to like them enough once I broke them open.

The fishman was pale and exhausted by the time we made it back, which only made his disappearance by next morning more worrying. Even more unexplainably, he was back when Hyena and I returned from our hunt, cleaning a fish bigger than I'd ever seen. I started a fire, which seemed to amaze him even though he ate his own with bones and all, just like Hyena the deer we took down earlier that day. I offered the fox I'd shot, but he rejected it abjectly. Alright, fishman. After our meal I skinned and salted the fox, carefully taking out the teeth which I fashioned into pendants to thank him for the fish. He was touched, he didn't wear any before, and seeing him wear mine felt like drizzle on a sunny day.

He's travelled with us since, after he retrieved his possessions from a cave I tried to reach with him but couldn't, least I died of water and air. He's got a woven basket with dirt where he says we'll have berries soon, a few blades as long as my thigh, and a pot that shimmers in the moonlight. I have my spear, axe and slingshot and a flute shaped like a snake tongue. At night I play it sometimes and he sings in a voice like I've never heard before. Sometimes he just fills his pot with water and we watch the shapes move inside.

We stay on the ground, close enough to the water. He runs and climbs and swims just like us. Eats, more like Hyena than me, but it's close enough. Last sunset I scored him a moa egg, and he was so delighted he weaved me a hand cover of sorts. He was right about his basket, sort of. There's a blade of grass growing on it, and I don't know it'll give us berries, but Hyena is leading us towards a warmer land, and I'm a good shot and he showed me how to find better molluscs, so I think we'll be fine anyway.

[wiredaughter]

@augustwritingchallenge 8: nomad

A Storm You're Starting

abe sapien & ofc ▪︎ 864 words ▪︎ ao3

It started with a thought. How I wish I’d got to actually know him. Kraus agreed when I vocalised it, but didn’t bring it up again so I knew he was quite indifferent. And why wouldn’t he be, neither him or I got to exchange more than a couple of words with Sapien before he quit the bureau. When asked, both Corrigan and Manning said it had nothing to do with our recruitment and they had no idea what or where for he’d left, but since when do we trust feds?

It was laughably easy, getting into their users. They’ve become complacent in their cybersecurity, shielded from public attention by their cover, and I was in faster than you can say NIST. I found they, truthfully, had no idea where he was. Doesn’t mean they didn’t look, didn’t put out feelers and got enough information to point me in the right direction.

Dare I say Manning didn’t want me to leave. Well, he didn’t, if only to keep the freak machine on. Really, the only reason I gave it a shot was Hellboy, for all the good that did me. He was gone. Now, with Sapien gone too and Sherman going through a complex recovery, their ranks are made of a paranormal gimp, an exorcist I never even met and a homunculus. And he doesn’t even wear trousers, but I digress. He asked me to stay and I declined. Guessing he’d try and have me followed, my first stop was a nightclub.

It’s an old technique, you know, you go in and go home with someone who looks like you. Morning after, make sure to wake up before her and steal her clothes, makeup, bike even. After a couple of nights, I was sure I was on the clear. To be safe, though, I kept it up for a week. I also hoped it’d distract me, remind me I don’t even like Sapien, and I don’t. As fascinating as his merman routine might be he’s a tad standoffish, right. And wouldn’t I be better off living the fast life until another business venture presents itself? Apparently not, for I couldn’t get him out of my head with all the drinks and drugs and that pirate from a pirate/mermaid act I went home with towards the end. Well I was already out of danger of being spotted and, to be fair, he did look vaguely like me after the fourth drink.

And so, after a week I went on to check my notes, the documents I’d copied and any updates on the BPRD desktops I’d cloned to my laptop. No luck. They lost him like they lost me, so the only clue I had was Cavendish Hall. Now talk about a haunted house. Got into some trouble there, but the stitchup was easy, considering. Not even that improved my mood at having missed him. Chatting with the real dead in there, though, I got my next destination. What if not another ruin of an antebellum manor.

Instead of going directly there, I figure catching up with him before getting to the resting place of old Edith Howard, and for all I know her stiff of a husband, would be the right call. So I follow his pilgrimage. Every town’s got its ghosts, and even if they’ve seen nothing, there’s also the bodies in the graveyards and they know all the earth knows. And the earth does take notice of whatever an ichtyo is walking it.

He never stays more than two nights in a place, and so I never linger past the one; making up for lost time. Sometimes he camps it out in the woods, sometimes he gets a room in a motel, all done up in a trenchcoat and a fake beard, from what I hear. I keep to churches and cemeteries, letting someone love and house me for the night from time to time. For all that, when I finally reach him it’s too late for me to learn Edith’s secrets.

The manor is shaking when I get there, lone victim of a targeted hurricane, or crumbling under a curse for all I know. Waterlogged, as I notice when I buttress my courage long enough to go in, yet not touched by time. There’s nothing here. Not that’s never been, there was grief hollow as the sea, but not now. I advance through quickly decaying halls until I come up on some sort of music room, and find him lying on the ground.

‘Sapien.’

He’s on his feet in a moment, feral as I’ve only guessed him in chapel dreams. ‘I’m not going back to the bureau.’

I arch a brow. ‘Do you think I followed you through half the country for Manning, of all people?’

He doesn’t know, I’ve left the bureau, he doesn’t trust me and I’m not leaving; we argue as we get out of the house, still taken by dying tremors before it sinks into the ground.

‘There, I saved your life, can you trust me now?’

He shakes his head. ‘I’ll let you come with, though, to Washington if you want to.’

‘What’s in Washington?’

‘Water.’

[wiredaughter]

@tropetember 19: apocalypse

b.p.r.d × war on frogs ish × 1377 words × abe sapien/ofc × ao3

Change

Not good. Things have been plain bad for so long ‘not good’ registers immediately, before I can even parse out the problem. Then, the problem is right before my eyes; same as he’s ever been. Taller, bluer and way unholier; but essentially the same. I betray nothing, arching a brow at the Zinco grunts holding him up. A suit advances, followed closely by doctor Braun and looking straight at me. ‘Well?’

‘Well, what exactly?’ I step around the group, giving Sapien a desultory once over. ‘I’m a field agent, not a whitecoat. Can’t tell you what went wrong with this one.’

‘This is not one of ours, Rai.’ He moves towards me and I make a show of stifling a yawn. ‘We intercepted a bureau transfer, we figure they’ve started taking frogs as prisoners for research, but doctor Braun has a different theory…’

He trails off, like waiting for me to ask about it. I stretch to grab an apple from the display at the centre of the table and bite into it. Quite tart, but alright enough for ornamental fruit. Doctor Braun clears his throat, ‘Don’t you think, this could be…?’

‘Evidence of a war crime?’ It’s hard to look at Sapien but I make myself. ‘Like, experiments or…’

‘Abe Sapien!’ His overexcited squeal gives me an excuse to shiver like I’ve been wanting to since I came into the conference room. ‘I told Mr Steinbeck what I thought and well, you’ve worked with him, don’t you think this could be him?’

He’s asking, but I feel Steinbeck’s eyes fixed on me. If I slip, it’s this human shark who’s gonna catch it, not the good doctor. And if I slip, that guarantees Sapien will be tortured for information, and what about me? At that point, I’d probably be disposable. What wouldn’t I give to give him up now, but I can’t. The world is going to shit, frogs are eating everyone, I’ve severed all ties with the bureau in hopes of getting in with the less losing side, but I cannot stop the lies as they flow from my mouth, heralded by an incredulous scoff. 

‘Abraham Sapien? Don’t I think? I think I’ll go with no.’ My stomach rolls as I make myself walk up to him. He’s so different from the man I remember, I knew it was him from the jump, but I know him. I can only hope whatever gave him away to me won’t to them. I take a nightstick off one of the guards, use it to brusquely tilt his head up, mouth twisted in a mask of disgust to keep my lips from shaking. ‘Where’s his nose?’

‘What?’

‘I didn’t spend my time at the bureau getting familiar with Sapien but I can tell you he’s got a nose, because I’ve broken it before. Think I could do that with your pet here?’

‘That’s your point?’ Of course Braun protests, he needs to bring the higher ups good news. ‘That he’s got no nose? I could have one reconstructed for him by tomorrow, then…’

He falls silent, must have noticed his mistake. Well, so have I. ‘Then you’d have a mutant with a rhinoplasty. Are you that invested in making this freak into a bureau agent?’

‘So you’re saying, this is not  Abe Sapien’ Steinbeck’s voice is low and tempered but he’s not fooling me.

‘Sapien could quote the stoics by heart’ did that sound too appreciative? I sneer, continue. ‘Actually, shutting up was probably harder for him. Do you even know if this thing can talk? Listen, you may get Braun to niptuck him into looking more human, but what good is that?’

‘That’s all I wanted to know.’ He checks his watch. ‘Dispose of it now please, I’ll send up a crew for cleanup.’

The guards let Abraham fall over, and I distrust my luck. ‘Me? But I’m-’

‘A field agent.’ He stops at the door, giving me a look. ‘I’m sure doctor Braun can help, if you find it too difficult.’

‘Please,’ my lip curls on its own. ‘Let the good doctor go back to planning cosmetic surgery on bloody frogs, I’ll handle this.’

Just like that, I’m left alone. I still can’t look at him. I look at my shoes. ‘Can you walk?’

‘Rai, it’s m…’

‘I’d know you if you were a cuttlefish.’ I cut him off, his voice is too much and I’m still technically an evil henchwoman. ‘Can you walk?’

He can’t, at least not for long, but manages to fold himself into the rolling bin I commandeer from the cleanup guy before introducing him to my nightstick and getting his clothes. It’s sloppy, but I’m winging this, and by the time they notice anything I’m going to be far away from here and they’ll have bigger problems I’m thinking. 

-

Sapien stares. He’s always stared at me, but now his eyes are blown out, too big in his face and it makes focusing on the road difficult. But I focus, change vehicles, repeat. No shortage of abandoned cars now that everyone is evacuating to nowhere. He follows my lead, sorts through the supplies I managed to take with, and stares. Until I cannot take any more of it.

‘What happened to your nose, anyway?’

‘You’re working with them now?’ 

His voice is also different, and I don’t know what to make of it. I’m a new person, he’s a new species. And we’re driving through ruined towns and precarious settlements. ‘I’m working with you.’

‘Kalmia…’

‘Don’t.’ I speed, vision blurring around the edges as it catches up to me. ‘You were dead, Sapien. Dead. No recovery, they said. So sure, it became apparent the bureau wasn’t winning this and you know I hate losing. What would you have had me do?’

‘They’re behind the plague, the war in…’

‘So it follows they won’t unleash it on their own people!’

He looks just as selfrighteous as ever, nose or not. I’ve, unbelievably, missed that. I drive into an abandoned mall’s carpark, turn the engine off.  The frog carcasses littering the ground seem recent enough for this to be a safe enough bet. He goes to say something, but I’m not having it.’The bureau can’t win this, the UN can’t win this. Can’t beat them, join them, well; I managed and I won’t apologise for staying alive.’

I make for the door, but he stops me with his hand on my wrist. ‘You don’t need to apologise, I don’t want you to apologise. I know you exactly as you are, and I love you for staying alive.’

Now that’s what I’ve missed the most. His touch, his words, the implied superiority of his understanding even. It makes my mouth twitch before I’m barreling into his chest, unable to stay away for another second. He holds me there, feeling colder than i remember, but my face is hot with the tears I’m holding back so it works just fine.

‘I just cannot-’ his voice catches, and it’s about bloody time. I’m kindof tired of being the resident emotional mess. ‘I’m just having trouble reconciling that with our great escape.’

I hum, pulling back, not listening to him really. ‘Did your hands get bigger?’

‘Where does this fit in your plan to stay alive?’ He presses, undeterred as I hold our hands against each other. It’s such a silly question, it makes me forget my own.

‘The way out of this mess is through you.’ I’m not sure how I know that, but I have for a while. ‘And if it’s not, I probably don’t want out anyway.’

He smiles weird now, but I can still tell it’s a smile. If I tried smiling back, would he even recognise the gesture? I’m thinking I’ve probably changed too much for that, but he holds my hand anyway, and a better woman would take this chance to tell him she loves him and whatnot, but a better woman would have gone mad with grief as he withered, instead of giving everyone the slip and siding with the bioterrorists, and then who’d have broken him out? The smile that breaks through my face is jaded, sharp with my selfknowledge, but he seems to like it all the same.