#dethentines 2021

[metaldevil]

Dethentine’s Day 2: Disney or Ghibli

when marnie was there is one of my fav movies; lonely blue-eyed brunette makes friends with a mysterious blondie? had to go with kid skwistok :3

[atmilliways]

Dethentine’s Day 2

February 9th - In the Style of Disney/Studio Ghibli

Inspired by but not closely following The Little Mermaid. Charles is a merman, Nathan is a human, they... meet and stuff. 

Blood Ocean

When it storms over the open sea, flashes of lightning illuminate the upper reaches of the depths in a pale facsimile of sunlight. It lasts for only an instant, and below the surface the sound of thunder feels like the impact of whale sonar. But when the lightning comes thick enough, it takes on the strobe effect of a stop-motion picture show. 

A man falls into the water, followed by the downed mast of a wounded ship. 

Impact. 

The man is sinking faster than the debris around him, weighed down by his heavy boots and coat. He moves his limbs, but sluggishly. Too slow to make any difference, at the rate he's going. 

Impact. 

Tiny bubbles stream from the man’s mouth as he fights a losing battle to hold his breath. In the inky blackness below, just at the outside range of the storm’s light, something is beginning to dart upwards. 

Impact.

The man is gone. 

~

Charles doesn’t know what possessed him to do this. He hadn’t liked the Water God’s order to destroy any ships that ventured through their waters. That’s what the rest of the patrol are off doing, and tearing the throats out of any sailors trying to swim to safety besides—he can taste it in the water even at this distance. 

But he swims on, balancing the necessity of speed with the difficulty of keeping an airtight seal between his mouth and the now-unconscious human’s, sharing oxygen and releasing the creature’s exhales through his gills. This one must have been smart enough to try and climb to safety, and fell with the mast when the ship finally capsized. If Charles hurries, he can throw the man up onto the nearest accessible bit of shore and race back before he’s missed. 

The place he finds is rocky, but not so shallow that he can’t swim up to it or too steep that the human won’t be able to climb back to its people. Getting the man onto it takes some effort—he’s very broad, and overburdened with approximately the same amount of muscle as a blue whale. No wonder you nearly drowned, Charles thinks with an irritated frown, and gives one final heave—there, he’s up. Should be fine. The tide isn’t due to come in for another hour. 

He prods him, just to make sure, with the heel of one hand. The human groans and coughs up sea water. Yeah, he’ll be just fine. 

Suddenly a big hand closes around Charles’ wrist. “Hey,” the human he’s just rescued mumbles. “Hey, you . . . saved my life. . . .”

Charles feels his dorsal scales prickle in alarm. This isn’t good, the human wasn’t supposed to wake up. Humans aren’t supposed to know that merpeople exist, let alone go around thinking that they’re particularly friendly towards them. In spite of what Charles has just done, it wasn’t because he liked humans, it just . . . didn’t seem right, clawing holes in the bottoms of their ships as the Water God had ordered. It was like shooting birds in an air bubble. 

“No, I didn’t,” he hisses, panicking and yanking his wrist free. “And, ah . . . don’t tell anyone about this!”

The surf is trying to push him past the rocks into tide pools but Charles kicks off hard, both hearts hammering and doesn’t slow down once he’s out over deeper water. He still feels a phantom of that hand on his wrist, and he doesn’t understand why any more than he knows why he saved the man in the first place. 

He does not see the pale shape following at a distance. 

~

It takes Nathan a while, but he does manage to make his way up the rocky incline. Doesn’t help that it’s February, and that between his already wet clothes and the rain he’s shaking almost too hard to stand by the time he reaches the nearest town, but still, he gets there. 

No one believes him when he tries to explain how he survived the wreck. 

He spends the next several days in bed, still shivering. From time to time he rambles about shapes in the water and being rescued by a man who had a tail in place of legs, and people are pretty nice about it but they clearly think he’s touched in the head. By the time the fever breaks even he isn’t sure if what he thinks he remembers is actually what happened. 

Once he’s recovered enough to move on, Nathan decides to stay. It’s a nice enough town, and he’d been on that ship in the first place because he was leaving his parent’s home to find his place in the world. The town butcher needs an apprentice and has a room to rent above the butcher’s shop for cheap. He makes friends with the town drunk, who knows some guys who’re great on string instruments. They’re thinking of putting a band together. There are a lot of things that make hanging around worthwhile. . . . None of them are why he actually stays. 

Every night, Nathan dreams of his mysterious rescuer. Of hazel eyes and a blur of skin and scales. Of a mouth on his, breathing life and a heavy taste of salt into him. 

“‘Course ya dream about it,” Pickles tells him one night, when they’re both wasted past the point of Nathan being embarrassed talking about what might just be a vivid remnant of fever dream and possible head trauma. “Yer the sole survivor of that shipwreck, dood. If someone or something saved you, yer connected to it now. Gonna be until that debt is repaid. So, y’know, meybe that is why yer still here, yer all . . . connected to somethin’ by one’a those strings of fate or whatever.”

Nathan squints in conversation as he slowly absorbs this new idea. His hair falls across his face—it’s getting long, but it doesn’t bother him much so who knows when he’ll bother to cut it. “You mean like . . . an anchor?”

“Sure, either that’r survivor’s guilt.” Pickles shrugs, belches, and signals for the barman to bring them new pints. “I’d say it’s a fifty fifty chance that one’a those is true.”

That percolates in Nathan’s thoughts for a while, and in the meantime he finds himself picking his way back down to the rocky beach every day, rain or shine, and looking out across the water. 

Where are you? Nathan wonders. What are you? It had spoken to him with the voice of a man, so it, he, obviously had some reason. Nathan wonders if he has a name, and if so, what it is. 

He knows he’s obsessing. But if it’s fate or whatever, then what choice does he have?

~

Charles is going about his business, updating the abacai records for his patrol, when a great white behemoth of a merman crashes through the shell-curtain door of his office cave. Only a last minute dive saves him from being barreled into, but not before he gets a good look at the gnashing rows of teeth that belong to one of the Water God’s watchsharks. This one looks to be half Great White, and is wearing a misshapen piece of welded metal as a mask over the top half of his face. 

Fuck. This is because of that damn human, he just knows it. He’d thought he’d been so careful, and in the days since nothing had happened, reinforcing his sense of relief. . . . until now. 

The other merman has a crude knife, one of his own long teeth strapped to a handle with. After the first miss he turns—slowly, Charles notes—and lunges again. 

Everyday patrol schools are usually only taught minimal hand-to-hand combat skills, focusing mainly on hunting outer ocean game, targeted destruction of ships, and techniques for drowning struggling humans. But Charles had mastered the latter skills years ago and had, out of boredom and perfectionism, made a thorough study of the former in his free time. It’s something his colleagues often tease him about. 

Who’s laughing now?

He waits until the last second before darting to the right, counting on his own agility—and catches the arm with the knife, kicks into a spin, and pushes the razor-edged tooth into his attacker’s own side. The sand-rough skin scrapes at his palms, but if that puts any of his own blood in the water it’s definitely covered by the red gout billowing from the other merman, who Charles shoves ruthlessly into the wall before slipping out of the cave and swimming for his life. 

~

Leaving as quick as a riptide, for Charles, isn’t simply a matter of skipping town. It’s not just that he left without any of his personal effects until all this blows over. He knows his absence will be quickly noticed, and that means goodbye career. Between that and the watchshark—who could be dead or could have survived, there’s no way to know now, but even a corpse would tell a damning story—it’s goodbye colony as well. If the Water God has it out for him, no one will dare to take him in, not in any colony. He’s completely alone. 

Charles tries not to think about this, focusing instead on more immediate problems such as shelter and food. The further he gets from the colony’s heat vents, the colder the water becomes, so he’s forced to stick to the relative shallows along the coast, where there’s less chance of something spotting and ambushing him from below. 

Where he’d left that human. 

Somehow he proves harder to avoid thinking about than all the rest; when Charles floats awake at night in whatever new crevice he’s found to hole up in, he pictures the man’s face. Strong, stubborn jaw and high cheekbones. Heavy brow overshadowing eyes that are a deeper green than seaweed, with the dark depth of an ocean except without a trace of blue. Black hair that had streamed straight back during the hurried swim. Charles’ hand had brushed through it when first grabbing him and again when grappling to get him onto the rock, but out of the water it had clung to the man’s head and shoulders like an oil slick. 

He can still feel where the man had grabbed his wrist, an indelible handprint. Sometimes he catches himself rubbing at it absently. Still has no idea what possessed him to save someone only to lose everything, but for some reason he can’t move past that blankness of not knowing into being angry about it—at himself, at the human, at anything, because it just feels so . . . inevitable. As though he’d had to do it, no choice in the matter. 

This does not help him sleep, but eventually he does drift off. 

~

In some underwater caves there are pockets of air that were trapped tens of thousands of years ago when the sea levels rose. They sit, without light or wind, and do not wait because they expect nothing. 

But this one has light. This one has wind, and a smooth beach of solid rock against which Charles wakes, half out of the water. Using his lungs instead of his gills, which is more odd than uncomfortable. The air tastes clear and he smells the greenness of above-water plants. He has no idea how he got here; it’s definitely not where he fell asleep.

A human man stands above him. Not his human—Charles realizes he’s thought this an instant after doing so and feels his dorsal scales prickle—but an old man dressed in dark red and black robes. 

Somehow the old man knows that Charles is alone, an outcast in hiding. He introduces himself as Ishnifus Meadle and offers a way to escape pursuit for good. 

Naturally suspicious of both the offer and this whole set-up, Charles asks what the price is. 

Ishnifus tells him. 

Charles listens in dawning horror. It’s not the answer itself, but the scope of it; a coral outcrop that, upon further inspection, has formed an entire reef that he had until now mistaken for bedrock. Ishnifus knows things that no human should know. He knows things about Charles’ own life that no one could have possibly told him. Somehow it’s all connected, and the feeling of inevitability rises in Charles again like bile—but ultimately what Ishnifus is offering is an explanation. 

“Do you accept?” Ishnifus asks in his whispery voice. 

Impact. 

Charles takes a deep breath, slides down the rock shore briefly to wet his gills one last time, and says, “Yes.”

Impact. 

The merman is gone. 

~

On his daily visit to the rocky beach, Nathan finally sees something. He makes his way carefully but as quickly as he can down to the edge of the water, where a figure is sprawled on one of the rocks. It is in fact, he realizes when he gets there, the same rock he’d found himself on after the shipwreck, unexplained miles from where the ship actually went down. 

The naked figure is pale and hardly moving, cold and clammy to the touch, but Nathan helps him sit up because he recognizes him. Except for having legs instead of a tail, it’s the same mysterious hazel-eyed stranger who saved him from drowning. 

“It’s you,” Nathan says stupidly. He hesitates, but the guy is so weak from cold that before he even realizes he’s doing it he’s got his shirt off, a paltry offering but it’s better than nothing. It drapes hugely from the man’s damp, smaller frame, but after getting it on him Nathan feels like he’s at least provided some protection from the cold sea breeze blowing in from across the water. 

He scoops the man up—there’s something so weird about this, like their roles are reversed and how he has to stumble through the roll of rescuer like some sort of bumbling idiot with no experience in this sort of thing. But he manages to get them up the rocky incline and into town, into his room above the butcher’s shop without attracting anyone’s attention. Wraps the man in blankets and gets the kettle going until the bath is filled with steaming water. When the tub is full, Nathan turns back and sees the man struggling to unwrap himself, straining to get to the water on his own power.

“I can do it,” the man rasps as Nathan helps him, but it’s like watching a baby deer try to walk for the first time. This guy seems to have no control whatsoever over his shaking legs. But Nathan gets him stripped down again and into the hot bath, and he sinks into it with a sigh that borders on indecent. 

Nathan doesn’t know what to do with his eyes. It’s just the one room, and there’s not much to it, so it’s kind of hard to ignore the naked dude in his tub. Plus, he’s already seen everything the guy’s got to offer while carrying him in. So he settles for sitting on the end of his bed, shirtless and holding his wet shirt, and just . . . staring. He watches the man in the tub carefully pull each limb into the water and then dip under the surface, completely submerged, and stay there for a full minute. 

When he comes back up for air he uses the water streaming off him to slick his short hair back from his forehead and sits, nose just above the water to breathe, and stares at Nathan. 

“You, uh,” Nathan starts awkwardly. “You had gills before. On your neck. Right? Or did I hallucinate that?”

The man in the tub doesn’t answer, just stares at him. 

“What’s your name?” Nathan tries. “I’m Nathan.”

There’s a long pause, and then the man in the tub lifts his head just enough that his lower lip is out of the water. “Charles,” he says hoarsely, then coughs and dips down to sip from the tub. 

“Shit, don’t—You don’t know what I’ve had to scrub in there, don’t drink that. Hang on.” 

Nathan gets up and pulls on a shirt to go back out into the hall again, and returns with a glass of water. He hands it to Charles and watches him slowly try to sip from the middle of the glass. 

“It’s, uh, you gotta put the edge to your mouth and tip it,” he offers, miming it. 

Charles—fuck, it’s just so weird to finally have a name attached to the face, but a good weird, the reassuring Okay so I’m definitely not totally crazy after all kind of weird—gives him a skeptical look, but mimics the motion and successfully gulps the water down. Soon the glass is empty, and he hands it back. 

They stare at each other. 

“So, uh,” Nathan says, “you saved my life.”

“I did,” Charles replies. “And I, ah, think you might have just saved mine.”

For some reason, Nathan wants to deny this. Here he’s been, thinking about Charles literally every day for a while now, feeling at the very least like he owes him some sort of debt, then the minute he shows back up in his life they’re suddenly even again and that’s it? No. He shakes his head. “Nah, I just helped you get up the hill. You could’ve done that on your own.”

They stare at each other again. Nathan gets the distinct impression that they’re both fully aware that what he just said is all bullshit; Charles couldn’t even make it into the bath on his own. 

Charles says, carefully, “In that case, I, ah . . . I could use a place to stay.”

“You got it,” Nathan replies instantly, and is he really offering to share his small room and small bed with some stranger who he’s pretty sure is an honest to god merman, an actual mythic sea creature, no questions asked?

. . . Yeah. Yeah, he is. He’s not totally sure why, but he really means it, too. 

Charles is going about his business, updating the accounting book in the back of the butcher’s shop. Word has gotten around town that he’s good at this sort of thing; he’s due at the bakery first thing tomorrow morning to go through their books and make sure all the math is correct, and then in the afternoon the grocer wants him to perform an audit to make sure that none of the employees are stealing from the till. He actually much prefers this bloodless work to patrols. 

But he still practices hand to hand combat in his free time. Now that he’s found his land-legs it seems even more important to maintain whatever physical prowess that he can in this dry, non-buoyant environment. Nathan is helping him get better at lifting weights, and they both benefit in their own ways from the bar fights Nathan and his friends get into and that Charles finishes. 

At night, they share Nathan’s narrow bed. Charles is never cold anymore with Nathan there, although the man is strangely shy whenever he mentions this—some strange human hangup, he assumes, and doesn’t press the issue. He’s become unexpectedly fond of his human, more than fond if he’s really being honest with himself, but hasn’t yet learned the culturally appropriate way to act on this yet. 

Sometimes when he’s waiting for sleep to come, or when the figures on the page and flowing from the nib of his ink pen become so tedious he needs to tear his eyes away to stare at nothing for a moment, he thinks about what Ishnifus told him before giving him this above-water life. He wonders if it’s for the best that Nathan remains oblivious to all of it, Charles’ feelings included. 

There’s a storm coming, and Charles hopes that, if it comes to that, he’ll be able to save his human from drowning again.

[aggravatetheaxe]

MASTERLIST

Requests are: Tentatively Open

Queue: 80+

CHARACTER LIST

Request anything you like, any character or situation; if I don't do it, I'll just let you know <;3 Minors please don't interact with my NSFW content.

Disclaimer: I would fight any of these men with my bare, bloody fists and I enjoy watching the final girl kill them.

Tip jar

art by @choyboxx

FEAT. ORIGINAL CHARACTERS

Dethklok - Magpickles

BETWEEN THE HAMMER & THE ANVIL - Chapter 1 - SFW

BETWEEN THE HAMMER & THE ANVIL - Chapter 2 - SFW

BETWEEN THE HAMMER & THE ANVIL - Chapter 3 - SFW

The Sinclairs - Bo and Bird

FINDERS KEEPERS - Chapter 1: In the Woods Somewhere - SFW

FINDERS KEEPERS - Chapter 2: Fear - SFW

FINDERS KEEPERS - Chapter 3: This Street, That Man, This Life - SFW

FINDERS KEEPERS - Chapter 4: Keep the Streets Empty for Me - SFW

FINDERS KEEPERS - Chapter 5: Roads - SFW

FINDERS KEEPERS - Chapter 6: Into Dust - SFW

The Sinclairs - Victorian AU

Masque of Wax Tag

MASQUE OF WAX - Chapter 1: In which the spider lures its victim in to its web - SFW

MASQUE OF WAX - Chapter 2: In which Miss Fournier meets a popular man whom she does not hate - SFW

Michael Myers

MICHAEL MYERS (HALLOWEEN 2018) X PRIS - The Shape Returns - SFW

Deacon Billings (OC Ghostface)

Hug Blurb - SFW

Courtney Dwayne Delmont (OC slasher)

COURTNEY DWAYNE DELMONT X READER - Happy Morning - SFW

CANON X READER

Bo Sinclair

BO SINCLAIR X TRANS MAN / MAN ALIGNED READER COMING OUT - Pt. 1 - Under Your Skin - SFW

BO SINCLAIR X TRANS MAN / MAN ALIGNED READER COMING OUT - Pt. 2- Over the Moon - NSFW

BO SINCLAIR X READER - Coming In From the Rain - SFW

BO SINCLAIR X READER - Waffle House Pt. 1 - SFW

BO SINCLAIR X READER - Waffle House Pt. 2 - NSFW

BO SINCLAIR X READER - Waffle House Pt. 3 - SFW

BO SINCLAIR X READER - You Just Wanted Some Cereal - NSFW

BO SINCLAIR X READER - People Eater - SFW

Bo and Your Period - NSFW

On the Washing Machine - NSFW

Bootriding in Public - NSFW

No Birth Control - NSFW

Power Bottom Bo - NSFW

Night Terrors - SFW

BO'S HANDS - 13 Vignettes (with indigenous s/o) - SFW/NSFW

Mercy Killing - SFW

Slumber - NSFW (ft. Vincent)

You Cheated - SFW

Hold Him - SFW

You Left Suddenly - SFW

Hug Blurb - SFW

Self Defense - SFW

Gunplay Blurb - NSFW

Vincent Sinclair

Vincent and Hair Pulling - NSFW

Pulling Vincent's Hair - NSFW

Through Your Eyes - SFW

A Kiss When It's Not Allowed - SFW

Slumber - NSFW (ft. Bo)

Artist's Temperament - SFW

We Can't Keep Lying to Ourselves - SFW

Why Me? - NSFW-ish

Lester Sinclair

A Little White Lie - SFW

Drunk Reunion - SFW

You're Scaring Me - SFW

Brahms Heelshire

Breaking Your Toy - SFW

Tea and a Blanket - SFW

Bubba Sawyer

Hug Blurb - SFW

The Grabber

Grabber x GN Reader PT I - NSFW-ish

Grabber x GN Reader PT II - NSFW

Eric Draven

Can You Read My Lips? (with HOH/Deaf s/o) - SFW

Hug Blurb - SFW

Skwisgaar Skwigelf

Hug Blurb - SFW

Toki Wartooth

Hug Blurb - SFW

Magnus Hammersmith

Play With Me - NSFW

OTHER

Vincent Sinclair

Vincent is Three - SFW

Bo Sinclair - PLAYLIST

12 Days of Dethmas 2021

Day 1 - Skwisgar & Toki - SFW

Dethentines

Day 1 - Skwisgaar & Abigail - SFW

Day 2 - Edgar & Lex - SFW

Day 3 - Toki & Magnus - SFW

Day 4 - Magnus & Amber - SFW

Metalocalypse "Lost Episodes"

DETHKARTOON - ACT I

Magnus Hammersmith - PLAYLIST

Abigail Remeltindtdrinc

The Candy Shops info post

The Candy Shops playlist

Skwisgaar Skwigelf

On Your Knees (Nategaar) - NSFW

Nathan Explosion

On Your Knees (Nategaar) - NSFW

Stars Don't Shine, They Burn (Nickles) - SFW

I Could Drink a Case of You (Nickles) - NSFW (fluffy)

Pickles the Drummer

Stars Don't Shine, They Burn (Nickles) - SFW

I Could Drink a Case of You (Nickles) - NSFW (fluffy)

Metalocalypse AUs

Huldufolk AU

Pirate AU

IMAGINES

Slashers whose S/O gets hurt by a victim - SFW

Bo Sinclair stands up for his trans partner - SFW

Slashers when their partner is angry - SFW

Slashers when their S/O's dad visits - SFW

Bo tic snippet - SFW

Patching Eric up - SFW

Bo Sinclair with a stuttering S/O - SFW

Sinclairs with a paralyzed S/O in trouble - SFW

Apologizes with the Sinclairs - SFW

Courtney with an S/O lost in the woods - SFW

Slashers if you got a tattoo dedicated to them - SFW/NSFW

HEADCANONS

MOODBOARDS

ART TAG

[robinsnest2111]

"Hey, buddy. You hit your head pretty hard when you went down. Everything okay?"

"Where am I? And what am I doing here?"

Dethentines Day 5: Trope Battle: Temporary amnesia or mutual pining

Remember when I shipped my Klokateer Rapunzel with Agent 216 in my "216 survives" AU back in 2021?

Why not carry this silly little ship into 2022 as well! 💖

[atmilliways]

Dethentine’s Day 1

February 8th - A Romantic Getaway

Today I give you what seems to be the first Lavona/Trindle fic posted to Ao3. It, uh, gets kind of dark towards the end, mostly for star-crossed lovers reasons.  You’re welcome and/or I’m sorry, whichever applies.

What Matters

The late evening air of Paris is clear and crisp as the two women exit the small museum shop that marks the end of the Catacombs tour, arm in arm. 

“Well, Liebling?” the taller of the two asks in German as they cross the street. “Did you like it?”

“It was fantastic.” Her companion, who has a definite American accent, is absolutely beaming beneath her black, touristy beret. The studs in her nose and bottom lip glint silver in the streetlight. “I’ve never seen so many femurs and crania in one place before. Thousands of human skulls and bones. Skeletal remains of more than six million people. You could just . . . feel the dead, all around you.” She sighed. “This entire trip has just been perfect, Lavona. I’m so happy you were able to take the time off.”

“Anything for you, Trin,” she replies with an indulgent smile. “I wanted to make this trip special for you considering the sacrifice you’re about to make for the cause.”

“You’re doing an amazing job.” Trindle beams at the nickname, as she always does. “Where to next?”

“Cantada II,” Lavona confirms. “It’s a heavy metal absinthe bar in the 11th arrondissement.”

“Ooh. So they’ll be playing. . . ?”

“Almost definitely.”

Lavona watches her eyes light up at the prospect of drinking to Dethklok music, and knows deeper than bone that Trindle was the right choice. The young woman has the right history, the kind that the band’s manager won’t think twice about when he orders the inevitable background search: goth since middle school, tattooed and splashed all over social media photos of copious concerts from high school onwards, putting herself through life as a cosmetologist and esthetician. She is, by all accounts, a member of one of Dethklok’s many key demographics. 

Which is exactly why Succuboso Explosion had reached out to her in the first place. She’s perfect. So perfect, in fact, that Lavona sometimes finds herself wavering in her single-minded pursuit of Nathan Explosion’s seed. . . .

Only sometimes. But it’s in moments like right now, drinking in the way Trindle’s normally pale face flushes with whole-hearted excitement. Poor girl has never been out of the United States before in her life. There’s a whole world to explore, and she has an enthusiasm for taking it all in that Lavona had lost a long time ago. If things were different, her first instinct might be to protect that spark, to nurture and tend to it until maybe, just maybe, some of it might rub off on and infect her too. 

But they had both agreed. The mission is what matters. Once they all truly become vessels that hold the future, maybe then there will be time, as pregnancy allows, but for now Lavona knows it’s best to remain as dispassionate as possible. 

So she hails them a cab, and they go to a moodily lit bar with blood red walls and unsettling artistic renderings of monsters and zombies on the walls. Trindle says she recognized it from some Anthony Bourdain thing, whoever that was—Lavona doesn’t own a television, so all she gleans from the comment was that the man had died since filming it, which seemed to heighten the appeal somehow. Excited to try everything, Trindle insists on working her way systematically through the drinks menu. It’s a good night. 

They returned to the hotel late, both slightly unsteady on their feet despite Lavona’s attempts to keep her head. Trindle had insisted that she take at least a sip of each with her, and Lavona hadn’t had it in her to say no. 

It’s far from a fancy suite, the group’s finances being mostly directed in other directions. Just a standard room with two double beds. Until tonight Lavona has kept to her own side of the room, but when Trindle tangles their fingers together and hesitantly tugs her to cross the invisible line with a hopeful smile . . . Lavona follows the pull. 

Later, after Trindle had fallen asleep on her side, Lavona sits up in bed and watches the gentle tide of her bosom. The sheets are thin enough that she can make out the heavy black shapes of her tattoos. A stray lock of hair drapes across her cheek, fluttering with every exhale; gently, so as not to wake her, Lavona brushes it back behind her shoulder. 

How odd to think that soon this view will be Nathan’s. She should be jealous of Trindle. She is—and isn’t. She’s jealous of them both, with a fierce ache in her heart and between her legs, but she also feels a peacefulness that she’s never known before. Dispassionate as possible. . . . Well, apparently that had always been relative. Maybe if the silly girl hadn’t mainlined lessons on both Duolingo and Babbel for several months and then surprised her with rough but promising conversational German, Lavona might have stood a chance. 

If she could, she would suspend this final moment of their romantic getaway in amber and wear it like a jewel. 

But Trindle had agreed. 

Lavona leans across to the nightstand between the two beds and retrieves a slim black case from the top drawer. Unzipping it reveals a pre-filled syringe, which gleams in the moonlight as she uncaps and flicks it to make sure there are no air bubbles. One quick injection and Trindle will stay asleep long enough for the next step. 

When it’s done, Lavona leans down and kisses Trindle’s forehead, kisses her closed eyelids, kisses her slack lips. “I’m sorry, Liebling,” she whispers. “Godspeed. The sooner the mission is complete, the sooner we can reunite. I . . . I hope you can forgive me.”

Then she dresses and goes to the door that connects their room to the one next door, knocks, waits to hear a reply knock, and opens it. The other four members of Succubosso Explosion file in, dressed in surgical scrubs, pushing a narrow stainless-steel table, and carrying trays of sterilized equipment. 

They had outvoted her on this, arguing that the mission was of the utmost importance. Ever since their initial failure with the Loin Extractor, knowing that an outsider would have to be recruited to infiltrate Mordhaus, most of the group’s budget has gone towards the development of behavior modification technology to ensure success even without the rigorous training they’ve all undergone for years. Trindle is merely a tool; this implant will endow her with a single-minded desire to collect Nathan’s spend as often and as diligently as possible, as well as adding a certain amount of “bimbo-ification” that will put her even further beyond suspicion than her otherwise innocuous history already does. 

It hasn’t been tested on human subjects, there simply wasn’t time. They have one slim window of opportunity, a rare and coveted backstage pass which Trindle will use to approach and ensnare her target. 

All Lavona can do now is hope that the plan will go off without a fucking hitch.

[atmilliways]

Dethentine’s Day 3

February 10th - First Date or Anniversary

Kind of both? This is probably the first time they've done an Activity together, and it's definitely an anniversary of sorts.

I’m tired and don’t feel like dealing with putting the italics back in, so here’s the Ao3 link. 

@trashvarietyhour, thank you so much for letting me springboard off your comic! 

[atmilliways]

Dethentine’s Day 4

February 11th - Trope Battle: Fake Dating or Only One Bed

Deck The Halls With Ughs & F*ck Yous

Chapter 2 - Complication

The first day was mostly spent poking around the condo while passing joints back and forth until William glanced at Pickles and asked, “Think we schould open a window?”

I was going to go for both, but Fake Dating will have to wait for the next chapter. In the meantime, here's some good ol' Only One Bed.

Ao3 link

[atmilliways]

Dethentine’s Day 12/14

February 12 - In the Style of a Romance Novel / February 14 - "Will You Be My Valentine?"

Valentine Gay (part 3 in the Holiday Chuckles series)

In the time since he’d last seen Pickles, Charles had made a mental list of all the reasons he probably wouldn’t see or hear from Pickles ever again. For one thing, their only encounters had occurred only a few days apart, Christmas and then New Years; it was already February, and nothing.

[atmilliways]

Tagged by: @walkwithursus​

Total number of new, completed works in 2021: 34

Total word count: 231,004

Fandoms written in: Metalocalypse

Looking back, did you write more fic than you thought you would this year, less, or about what you’d expected? 

Hmm, somewhere between less and about what I expected. I’d meant to do more for Kloktober and Dethmas but it just wasn’t in the cards this year. 

What’s your own favorite story of the year? 

I’m going to go with An Everyday Sort of Magic That You Don’t See Every Day because I love mutual pining morons. Post Metalocalypse and mainly Pickleface, with established Narles. 

Also I just realized I had it marked as Major Character Death, of which there is none, instead of No Archives Warnings Apply, because I am dumb. Happy New Year!

Did you take any writing risks this year? 

Vaguely sure I wrote more smut this year than ever before, so… yes. 

Do you have any fanfic or profic goals for the new year? 

To read more, and comment more. 

Most popular story published this year?

In terms of comments: Underwater Friends (mermen AU, Narles)

In terms of kudos: This Might Just Stick (Pickleface)

In terms of bookmarks: This Might Just Stick (Pickleface)

In terms of hits: This Might Just Stick (Pickleface)

The Pickleface fans have spoken, I guess! 😂

Story of mine most under-appreciated by the universe, in my opinion:

Ooh, tough call. Three that have some of the lowest hit counts are Talk Therapy, which is snippets of Twinkletits’ first sessions with  my three Klokateer OCs; Laundry Day, featuring Melmord stealing Twinkletits’ lucky socks; and What Matters, my angsty Lavona/Trindle fic from Dethentines. 

Most fun story to write: Johnathan's No Good Very Bad Day

Most unintentionally telling story: Probably any of the 7 with Melmord in them, lol. 

Biggest disappointment: 

Crapping out on Dethmas fics. 😔 I got stuck on my day 2 fic for a while, and by the time I finished it I was in the car for 10 hours heading down to my parents’ place for Christmas and posting it from my phone because I forgot to pack my laptop. 

Biggest surprise: 

Someone recently reblogged one of the fics I posted with the tags #please follow them #please check them out. It was Skwistok, which I don’t write as often as other pairings. 

~

I’m not tagging anyone but if you see this and want to do it feel free!