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titlemewickedwonderland · 1 year

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Ghoul Game Night - Swiss

Summary: Y/n is Papa's newest ghoul! Summoned during a hectic time she never had the chance to really get to know her new pack mates. What happens when they drag her into a game night of truth and dare? Well, ghoul things!

Fandom: Ghost Band

Pairing: Swiss x Ghoul!reader

Warning: Crack, fluff, and cuteness, sexual tension, dirty talk.

Workshop

The bottle took forever to spin. Well, at least it felt like forever. Y/n swore that if she stared at it any harder her eyes would go cross-eyed. Resting in between the comforting presence of Rain and Mountain as they leaned up against the edge of the couch at their backs she was content to allow them to lull her into a sense of warmth and safety. She hoped she'd get someone good; maybe Rain? he seemed pretty tame in comparison to the others. Calming as he ran his fingers through her hair. Or Mountain even wouldn't be too bad - he was very docile and gave off an aura that was protective as he idly rubbed at her lower back to ease the tension. Like Aether, they had a good quality to them that put her at ease and she could already tell despite not fully knowing them they probably would be the pair she'd hang around often.

The bottle finally stopped spinning and she followed the nose towards a cheeky grinning Swiss who was all teeth and wiggling brows. Y/n puffed out her cheeks like a chipmunk and blew out a breath. Well, so much for her wishes being granted. Licking her lips she straightened up and squinted trying to not show just how nervous she actually was. Satan seemed to favor Swiss anyways; the ghoul had been trying to bed her for such a long time since she'd been summoned - she knew he was going to give her a freaking dare.

"Aw, looks like it's your lucky night, sweetcheeks." he grinned at her before playfully clicking his teeth at her. "Because I'm a gentleman I'll let you decide whether I read a truth or dare for you and to add icing to the cake, I'll do my half first." he offered

Y/n flushed slightly. "That's not very reassuring," she replied softly before biting her lip in thought.

She would imagine a truth would be just as bad as a dare if the girls had anything to say about it - which they did since they were the ones to write the slips of paper. But if she chose a dare and didn't like it...she could always take a shot, right? But would she be seen as weak if she had? Was that even part of the game or just an add-in to get them drunk or tipsy for later-night fun? Groaning she plonked her forehead against her up-drawn knees.

"Okay..." she breathed. "Hit me with a dare."

"Which leaves me with a truth huh? Alright, fair enough. Aether my man, hand those boxes over." Swiss reached for them both as they were slid across the carpet towards the multi-ghoul.

First, he dug into the truth box and unfolded it. "Hmm, alright. My truth is....What do you want me to do when we are having sex?"

Y/n gasped and she scrambled towards him to snatch the paper. "It does not say that!" she protested but as she flipped the paper over she read the words and winced feeling a heat hotter than Dew to creep up her neck. Her ears flattened and she looked up at Swiss who was eying her up and down.

Yep, that's it. She didn't like the Ghoulettes anymore. She swallowed and pointed to the alcohol. "Drink."

"Not your choice and not your truth, baby doll." Swiss smirked leaning loser. "What? Afraid of what I'll say?"

"You don't have to answer it..."

"Who says I don't want to?" Swiss suddenly reached for her and yanked her towards him before hoisting her up by her waist to straddle his thighs. Blocking her backward escape with his legs drawing up to pin her in place as much as a way for her to lean back on if she needed it.

Y/n yelped in surprise and gripped his strong shoulders. Her face heated up like a bonfire at their closeness. At this angle, she was higher than him so she found herself staring down into his dark eyes. His face was tilted upward towards her but even having the higher leverage Y/n felt no less intimidated.

Swiss seemed to understand the rise of panic that had to have been reflected in her eyes before his expression shifted and his flirty smirk softened into a genuine smile. He freed one hand from her waist to gently brush along her flushed cheek and bring her closer until they were pressed forehead to forehead. With his other arm, he tightened his grip drawing the Ghulah tighter to his chest.

The position seemed intimate - far too intimate for the eyes on them. She glanced to the side where she could see Aether and Dew watching intently as if holding their breaths for something extraordinary to happen and their stares did little to lessen the painful thuds in her chest. Swiss didn't need to be a quintessence like Aether to realize she was slipping.

His warm hand cupped her cheek to pull her attention back to him while his thumb brushed soothing strokes below her eye. All she could see were his eyes this close and it help ground her from the prying eyes of their packmates.

"Hey, sweetheart. Don't look at them. You're okay, it's just you and me, yeah?" his smile turned bright as Y/n hesitatingly nodded and squeezed her eyes shut.

"Just you and me..." his lips brushed against her cheek and making her sigh at the sweet contact; allowing her to ground herself in the moment. It was not as if the pair of them were getting naked to fuck in front of their pack mates. It was just...a dare. Right...the dare.

The rest of their pack watched intently as the multi-ghoul cupped the back of the female's head to draw it to his shoulder so that his lips could touch her ear. Aether and Dew had a perfect view of her face that flushed so hot Dew swore he could almost see steam coming from her ears.

Swiss was whispering something into her ear - too soft for anyone but for the two of them to hear in their own little bubble but whatever he was saying was seriously making them question Y/n's innocence with the different expressions that shifted on her face. Even still, she did not move away in mortification but instead wrapped her arms around his neck to hold onto him. She nodded to whatever Swiss said before drawing back.

He tipped his head back to smile at her while his hands ran up and down her sides seemingly content to just hold her for a moment longer. They didn't say anything to each other and instead, Y/n tipped her forehead to headbutt him gently earning her a warm purr of delight and a long leathery tail to wrap around her leg.

"Ahem...." Aether coughed into a fist. "Would you like to share with the rest of the class?"

"Seriously man! What'd you say? You were supposed to tell her what you want to do during sex! Spill the hell beans!" Dew's tail was thwacked impatiently on the ground.

Y/n shared a look with Swiss before the ghoul poured a shot and the female downed it with barely a wince of the harsh fireball going down her throat. She smiled and handed Swiss the glass before climbing out of his lap and going back to join Rain and Mountain.

As she got comfortable again Mountain leaned over to whisper to her with Rain leaning in too to listen to her answer as the three others bickered in front of them.

"So what did he say?"

Y/n smiled touching her lips thoughtfully before glancing at the pair with a cute little blush. "He said he wants to take me out on a picnic dinner later this week at nighttime to star gaze." she replied softly.

"Ah but that wasn't-" Rain began frowning and Y/n grinned sheepishly as she tugged on the blanket; pulling it to partially cover her fac as her voice lowered just for the pair of them.

"He also mentioned something about making love to me under the stars until all I knew was his name and the imprint of his cock. But not before he takes his time to make me see more stars behind my eyelids than those in the night sky and only then will he brand his touch into my skin so that his touch will forever be burned into my memory."

Mountain and Rain gaped at her in silence and then the tall ghoul snorted out a laugh. He bumped his shoulder against hers and shot her a wicked little smile. "Let me know if you need the Greenhouse. I'll make sure Primo stays out of the way." he winked

"Mountain!" Y/n yelped smacking him in the arm but there was a twinkling in her eyes as the trio burst into laughter together.

"Hey, don't get too cozy missy. Swiss did his truth...you, lovely. Still need to do your dare." Aether grinned over at her and the laughter stopped immediately.

"Oh shit" Y/n bit her lip but accepted the box that was handed to her.

Digging around a moment she picked a strip of paper and unfolded it. Instead of feeling embarrassed the female ghoul actually smiled as she read it once before rereading it out loud.

"Kiss me like Mary Jane kisses Spiderman." she looked over at Swiss who was smirking over at her with a crooked little grin.

"Kissing before our date, sweetheart? Man, you know how to charm a man." he winked before pointing at Mountain. "Come on big guy give me a boost!"

The earth ghoul rose to his feet and waited until the pair joined him. Only when Swiss gave him the okay did the tall ghoul holds his hands out expectingly. Swiss ducked in a swift movement to stand on his hands in a handstand. Mountain gripped his ankles and lifted him off the ground effortlessly. This brought Swiss face to chest with Y/n. Laughing a bit the ghulah bent over and grasped the multi-ghouls face and planted a sweet kiss to his lips. She playfully nipped at his top lip earning her a growl as Swiss playfully reached for her but she was already darting out of his reach and stuck her tongue out; a pretty flush on her cheeks.

"There! Now who's next?" she asked clasping her hands together.

Maybe playing this game wasn't such a bad idea after all. She did get a date out of it at least and Swiss seemed content enough as he was placed back to his feet. She rejoined her friends in their circle and shot Swiss a little smile before turning her attention back to what Dew was talking about as he grabbed the bottle to spin next. This wasn't at all was Y/n was expecting but she sure didn't mind it too much...not yet anyway.

Feel free to ask to be tagged for a specific ghoul or for the entire series! I would love some comments too! Don't forget to check out the workshop for future Ghost content!

#Ghost #Ghost band #Ghost Swedish band #Ghost oneshot #Truth or Dare #Swiss one shot #swiss x reader #rain ghoul #mountain ghoul #aether ghoul #dewdrop ghoul

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saywhatjessie · 5 months

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I'm just hoping for some mistletoe

Day eight of the Advent calendar! Using this list. Day 8: Under the Mistletoe Fandom: Ted Lasso - Pairing: RoyJamie 1.2k[Ao3]

“Ayyy!” A cheer went up from all the greyhounds as Moe and Declan kissed in the middle of the dressing room, the team stamping their feet and pumping their fists.

“There’s no way this isn’t an HR violation,” Roy noted, glaring mistrustfully at the innocuous white berried plant hanging from the ceiling.

Beard’s expression didn’t change, standing next to Roy in the coach’s office and watching them through the window. “It’s not compulsory. Smooching is strictly up to player discretion.”

Roy grunted. “Yeah, but what about fucking peer pressure? This bunch of idiots would do anything for each other.”

“Well it’s all about mutual respect and trust, isn’t it?” Nate said from his other side. “They all trust each other to know it’s not that serious and respect each other enough not too push too far. I don’t think Isaac’s kissed anyone, nor Paul or Jeff, out of respect for their wives.” He shrugged. “The team seem fine with it.”

Roy growled, mildly.

“I got caught under there with Jan,” Beard commented. “Surprisingly gentle.”

Roy turned to look at him fully, his face screwed up with outrage. “What, they expect us to participate?”

“Mistletoe is rated E for everyone,” Beard noted. “Consenting, of course.”

“Well I don’t consent. I’m not doing it.”

“Okay.”

“I’m too old for this shit.”

“Sure.”

“And too Jewish! Why should I subscribe to your Christian centric traditions?”

“Fair point, Mr. Kent.”

Roy glared at him. Beard’s expression still gave nothing away but Roy could tell he was amused. He turned his gare on Nate who looked back up at him innocently.

“Fuck off,” he barked at both of them before slamming into the locker room and yelling at everyone to get on the pitch.

Roy suffers through watching most of his team kiss under that fucking mistletoe over the following weeks. There was Richard and Thierry, Kyle and Dani, O’briend and Robbie, Colin and Jamie, Sam and Jamie, Will and Jamie.

Jamie spent a lot of time under the mistletoe.

“S’just fun, innit?” Jamie said one evening when Roy hadn’t quite asked about it. “I love the lads. Love kissing.” He shrugged. “Feels like a win-win.”

Roy grunted.

Jamie continued to hum, unbothered, as his feet kicked back against Roy’s cabinets. “He was sat on the counter next to the stove as Roy cooked, being a general nuisance. Roy doesn’t know why he doesn’t kick him out – he’d never invited Jamie over for dinner. Jamie just showed up one day and Roy fed him. And he’d kept showing up and Roy had kept feeding him. It was mad.

“I’m pretty sure Jack is Jewish,” Jamie said. abruptly. “and he definitely kissed Tommy the other day when they got caught in it.”

“Okay?” Roy said, flummoxed.

“I’m just sayin’” Jamie said, watching his finger trace idly over the counter next to his hip. “You’ve been avoiding it like the plague it seems like and Beard said you objected on religious grounds.”

Roy’s eyebrows hiked up. “You asked Beard? Why I haven’t kissed anyone?”

“Well, no. Kind of.” Jamie’s brows furrowed. “I was talking to Sam and Will overheard and said the coaches were talking about it and then Beard just kind of appeared like the creepy cryptic shit he is.”

Roy grunted. Yeah, that sounded about right.

“And then I guess I asked him, yeah. And he said you said you were too Jewish.”

“I did say that,” Roy told him, watching as Jamie nodded in disappointed understanding.

Roy paused, not sure if he wanted to ask the next question, but needing to know the answer.

“Why were you and Sam talking about me.”

Jamie’s cheeks went red, the blush going down his neck and disappearing down his collar. “Nothing, mind your business, grandad.”

Roy put down his spoon. The sauce could simmer for a bit while he dealt with this.

He leaned back against the island counter opposite the sulking footballer on his counter. “Jamie?”

Jamie sighed, turning his head to face Roy.

“Sam asked me why I hung out so much under the mistletoe. I told him I was just waiting for you to wander close enough.”

Jamie sat there, chin jutted out, defiant and scared. He kept full eye contact with Roy during his confession but, hey. no one had ever said the little prick was lacking in courage.

Roy took a step toward him, uncrossing his arms. “So you were just going to ambush me into kissing you?”

Jamie rolled his eyes. “I wasn’t gonna assault you or nothin. Just thought maybe you needed inventive or something. Plausible deniability or whatever.”

“Incentive,” Roy corrected, gruffly and automatically. He took another step forward, hand on Jamie’s knee. “You think I’d need mistletoe as an excuse to kiss you? Like I don’t know I could have kissed you any time I wanted?”

“Well you haven’t yet,” Jamie said, bitchily. “Not sure what you’ve been waiting for, honestly.”

“Well who says I want to, Tartt?”roy asked, his voice low, as he stepped even closer, putting himself between Jamie’s spread thighs. “What makes you so special?”

Jamie spread his legs wider, making room for Roy and smirked, challengingly. “Please.”

And then Roy had to kiss him. Just to get that stupid smug look off his face.

Jamie didn’t hesitate to kiss him back, his hands immediately coming up to pull him in closer by his shoulders and grip onto his hair. His groan sounded a lot like ‘Finally’.

It went on for long enough for Roy to become familiar with what the back of Jamie’s teeth tasted like but Jamie still whined when he pulled away.

Roy laughed, dropping his forehead against Jamie’s. “Did you really think I was gonna do that in front of the whole team?”

“Well how was I supposed to know you’d kiss me like that?” Jamie grinned his shark grin. “I knew you were obsessed with me but fuck.”

“Prick,” Roy said, maybe a little fondly.

“Yup!” Jamie agreed brightly. “You should kiss me some more about it.”

Roy did. The sauce burned.

A couple weeks later, they were back in the locker room.

“Coach, can you come look at this for me?” Dani asked, beckoning Roy/

Roy grunted, meeting him by the benches and everyone started ooh-ing.

He looked up at the, startled, and saw that several of them were gesturing at the ceiling, where a little white berried plant hung.

“Fucking hell,” Roy cursed, glaring around at them. “It’s the tenth of January!”

“Yeah, weird that’s still up there.” Roy whirled around to see that Dani had vanished and Jamie now stood in his place, face overly casual and hands curled in the bottom of his shirt. He shrugged. “Nothing for it, though, is there?”

Roy raised an eyebrow at Jamie. Jamie raised an eyebrow back.

“I hate you,” Roy told him.

“Yeah?” Jamie grinned. “Show me how much.”

And Rolled his eyes, pulling Jamie in to kiss him. The team’s hooting and hollering didn’t stop for five full minutes.

#Ted Lasso #RoyJamie #mistletoe #oops I wrote a thing #writing advent

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kirliao · 2 years

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evermore: short series

fandom: top gun maverick

character(s): various members of the dagger squad

a/n: oh this was fun. it was pretty fun. and i love javy so..so much. did u guys know greg’s gonna be in the new mission impossible movie? thats rad. anyway my words got away from me

track three: gold rush ( aka “may y/n be swallowed by a whale before she admits her feelings” )

the story's simple. your mom knew his mom and that's how the two of you met. standing by awkwardly while both of your moms used the moment to catch up with each other at the supermarket.

you were about twelve years old and itching to just go home and delve into this new book you'd borrowed from the library while javy was this punk-looking thirteen year old with a perma-frown, as if his mother just dragged him out of bed for a trip to the grocery store.

she did, but you didn't know that then. you really just wanted to go home; feeling bad for this boy wasn't really at the top of your list.

but when the two of you locked eyes after your mothers have bid goodbye to each other, you'd be lying if you didn't think he was interesting. or cute. or both.

it was both. who knew mrs. machado's son was actually cute if he just, well, stopped frowning?

but then it was your turn to frown when you realized that this was the same boy that your friend had been gushing about the weekend before. apparently, he and his little posse of boys liked to hang around the mall and your friend wanted to see what all the hype was about. you remember refusing to come, thinking that it was a waste of time. you'd rather score tickets at the arcade and come home with something nicer than a boy.

you spent the ride home looking out the window, some old tune about love on the radio that your mother idly sang along to.

it was the first romance-related crisis you've ever had. and you hated that you were placed in this precarious position of having eyes for the same guy your friend did.

and you dreaded the walk to school the morning after.

"y/n? hello? earth to my best friend?" your best friend's lips were glossed. hair done up in this beautiful style that you wished to emulate but you were too scared to try. not even - hell, not especially - to gain some guy's attention.

but the pit in your stomach when you think of his face ...

"i feel kinda sick." you groaned.

she rolled her eyes and just grabbed your arm to have you fall in step with her.

"well, don't puke or something. or at least wait until after lunch. we can both call home and get picked up early!"

you wanted to ask about what was so special about lunch, but figured that your question would be answered soon enough.

and the answer wasn't what you wanted.

as relationships went in the precarious teenage years, part of you knew that this wasn't gonna last. you loved your best friend, but she grew tired of boys quicker than you finished your jawbreakers.

and the painfully executed public display of affection you saw between your best friend and javy during lunch over your homemade sandwich was just the first stone in the short paved steps of how your best friend handled life with her paramours. she’d sat on his lap and gave him a kiss or so, but you noticed that when she was distracted with a conversation or two with someone that wasn’t you or javy, he would stare right at you.

you figured that it was just the disbelief that his new girlfriend’s best friend was the same dork he’d met the day before.

you did end up calling your mom after lunch to take you home, your best friend doing the same thing. soon enough, you find yourself walking home together. you felt more queasy than anything else.

"so .. didn't i tell you? he's cute, right?" she inquired, reapplying her lip gloss for the umpteenth time.

"uhh .. yeah. he's ..he's cute."

"so i have your support?"

and when you didn't respond quick enough, she held an arm out to stop you from walking.

you looked at her arm, then at her face.

she wasn't stupid or selfish. sure, you dressed a little plainer than she did and was just a tad bit quieter but you two were attached at the hip. she favored you more than anything. she favored your thoughts and opinions over anyone else's.

your support has always meant everything.

and even if you wanted to put down javy as your first-ever full-blown crush, you favored her too. so you nodded.

"you have my support."

years after, you'd think back to that moment with great fondness.

you were right. the two of them didn't last. not that your relationship with either soured after.

it remained the same. you and your best friend continued to live life together. and while she eventually knew of your raging crush on javy, she was all too happy to help you find your own person, just as a supportive best friend does. she does it year in and out; all out of love, really.

your mother and javy's mother also started to hang out more, which meant that javy came over a lot. or you came over to the machado household more.

the two of you started to talk more and you found out that he was more than just the frown he had on his face when you first met. that he was more than the too cool for school posse he hung out with at the mall. that he was a total mama's boy and that, while it was annoying at first, he started to like it when your mothers started hanging out more.

it meant that there would be someone at home to hang out with that was his age. someone new. someone he didn't have to put up some kind of front with.

he was a lot more warm. liked to joke around and play harmless pranks on unsuspecting people. laughed a lot more than you thought he did. a lot more silly than you thought or from how you’ve seen him around his friends or your best friend.

he also didn’t like how trapped he felt in the role he had made for himself. a tough, cool dude who had to keep up appearances and make do with what he had after his father had left him and his mom a year prior. the two of you sat on a plush rug, chips and dip in between the two of you as he had recalled the day his father left. he bit his bottom lip, a nervous tic that you’ve noticed the more you spent time with him.

the lull of the old louis armstrong vinyl playing interwoven with your mothers’ laughter coming from the living room made you all too aware of the room you were in.

seventeen and eighteen years young. basketball posters on the wall. droplets of condensation on the top of your hand from the beer cans that javy had managed to swipe from the garage fridge and tossed at you, swearing that they were just way better than plain old sprites and root beers.

“the beer’s bitter.” you said, finally breaking the silence after you realized that you haven’t spoken up in a while.

“yeah, beer’s like that.” he had laughed, taking a swig from his own drink before nudging you. a gesture encouraging you to drink more.

that particular year went on.

truth is, years after initially meeting javy and his squad, you and your best friend had been unknowingly inducted into one of the cooler social spheres in your school.

so it wasn’t a surprise that for every school event, there would be gaggles of girls just wanting to be asked out by the four young men.

same for you and your best friend, though they were all frivolous little dates. none of them were ever serious; none of them paralleled the crazy feeling you felt when you had first met javy.

the only surprise was how your own best friend wanted javy to ask you out.

“but .. didn’t you guys used to date?”

she scoffed, her glossed lips pouting. “used to. it’s all in the past. we were in middle school! come on, y/n.”

but you were still unsure. that, and to be perfectly honest, competing was never really your thing.

you liked single player games. playing skee ball by yourself. you put your hand down when somebody else already raised theirs and you think that they could give a better answer during the lecture.

and you sure as hell didn’t want to compete with a dozen other girls that would stare daggers at you at the first wind of having another competitor in the arena for javy’s attention.

and that’s if they haven’t already stopped staring daggers and wishing pain on you for even being in his inner social circle.

you were about eighty percent sure that one of your nightmares has been being on ‘the bachelor’, too.

you stared at javy across the way, watching as he leaned against his locker, surrounded by his boys. after a second, he caught your gaze and he waved, flashing a grin.

“you have my support. you know that, please know that.” your best friend whispered right at your ear.

the last thing you remember after was your best friend tapping the back of your shoulder repeatedly.

you turned around, holding this big bouquet of flowers and feeling oh so erratic and nervous and all the goddamn synonyms in the entire fucking thesaurus–

“y/n! y/n! where are you?! i need – oh my god, i need my bouquet! hand it over!” it was the shrill voice, such chaos emanating from your best friend.

you cursed your heels as you walked as fast as you could to where she was, handing the bouquet to her.

even while an emotional wreck, her glossed lips and beautiful hair distracted the world, as it always did. her wedding dress was as perfect as it could be; your maid-of-honor one matching but not upstaging.

it was crazy. the two of you almost into your thirties and you get to watch her marry the love of her life. her actual person. the one, that she’s always harped on and on about. and while you had a slight cynical streak, it was pretty hard to keep when you see her with her lover. the two of them loved each other, it was obvious. it almost made you jealous.

before you left the room, she grabs your arm and pulls you close. her lips almost brushing your ear before she speaks up, “so .. this guy.. i have your support, right?”

you pulled back and looked at her, mustering the best smile you could give under stress. “you have my full support. trust me, he’s great.”

after the initial stress, the ceremony goes off without a hitch. soon enough, everyone’s ushered into the reception.

a few dances here, some teary-eyed family speeches there, and you find yourself helping to clean up some of the mess before you would make your way back to your hotel room.

the sound of someone clearing their throat caused you to turn around.

it was javy, dressed in his uniform.

your eyes widened. you saw that he was in the list, but you’ve craned your neck so many times during the ceremony and the reception that you knew that you would’ve seen him if he was there.

“sorry, i was .. really late.” oh, well, there’s that.

“it’s okay. um ..did you say hi to them already?” you craned your neck again. this time, looking for the bride or even, the groom.

“uh, yeah. i gave them my gift and apologized. honestly, i think she’s just glad this whole thing is over. weddings seem..stressful.”

you had to laugh, “yeah, they are. i’ve been busting my ass for about a year now over this engagement.” the year in question was a year you had seen him less. things change. people grow. people get jobs. and javy gains new obligations the further he gets into his career.

“well, seems that this one’s done for. you can breathe now.” he’d joked. you nodded, folding up the tablecloth in your hands. “yeah, finally.”

you took a few steps to the nearest table to set the tablecloth on it before turning back to him. “so .. are you staying long or do you have to leave soon?”

he shrugged, “up to you. i’ll stay as long as you like.”

you hummed, turning back around to fix the tablecloth that didn’t really need any fixing but god, you wanted to scream. only he could say those kind of things to you and have your nerves fraying like a full wig from the static electricity of children’s playgrounds.

“do you wanna get a drink? i’ll pay.” he finally spoke up, finding that while he appreciated the silence around you, this one wasn’t as comfortable.

you glanced back at him and gave a small smile. “well, you are paying.”

as the two of you were about to leave, you saw the dj packing up his equipment.

tapping javy on the chest to get his attention, you told him about your want to tip the man for doing a great job on the event. and that, yes, he was paid, but you were pretty sure that there were so many people that requested songs that you felt a little bad.

“what, you don’t got money?” he asked, though he’s already reaching into his own pocket.

you frowned, “i left it in my hotel room, javy. this dress isn’t really meant for holding stuff, y’know.”

he shrugs, “that’s fair. here, some few dollar bills to spare–” he’d begun before his wallet drops, you rushing to catch it in time but sadly, it drops to the floor.

it’s open when it lands, your eyes skimming through the tiny picture inserted on the side.

it was javy and you. prom night. a tiny printed picture that your best friend had no doubt had developed since you remember the moment fondly.

he had asked you to be his date, right there at the door before the entire group went in. somehow, you found yourself saying yes and amidst the cheers from your shared friend group, he had pulled you in for a picture. your best friend at the ready with her flash film camera.

javy had pulled you close to him, both hands on your waist while you had both of yours on his chest. he had the biggest grin on his face as the click signals a picture taken. it was the happiest you’ve felt in forever, laughing as he never let go of you until you reminded him that the two of you still needed to go inside the building for the actual prom.

“y/n?”

“you still have it.” you stated, picking up the wallet and holding it closer.

while you couldn’t see it, javy broke into a grin. “never left my wallet, actually.”

you looked up at him, only to see that he had already moved. he struck up a short conversation with the dj and gave him the money before making his way back to you.

“so..drinks?” was his only inquiry before he found your arms wrapped around his neck and he was finally being kissed by the woman he liked.

after pulling back, you looked right into his eyes. “it never left your wallet?”

you had said it so softly that javy wasn’t initially sure that you’d said it. he shook his head in response. you tilted your head slightly. “why not? why .. me?”

his hands on your waist pulled you in closer. “why not you?”

this time, you shrugged. “just .. “

and a badly-clipped montage of all the times you’ve seen javy with other people plays in your head. on how he always seemed to look right at you, questioning. how every time you think about taking your chance, you just never wanted to jump in the gold rush that was this man’s appeal.

because after prom, the two of you graduated. then life got in the way. and even with the reassurance that he liked you, wanted you..you just didn’t feel confident enough to take a step towards him.

until now.

“nothing, i guess. i..how..when did you know? that, you know, you…liked me?”

“honestly?”

“honestly.”

he bit his lip, the way he would before he was gonna tell you something that’s been in his mind for a while. “since our moms stopped each other at the grocery store.”

your eyes widened, before you looked down and bit your own lip momentarily.

upon looking back up, you stared right at his eyes again. “i like you too.”

“god, i sure hope so. otherwise, we’ll be making out in an almost empty room for no reason.” javy replied before pulling you in for another kiss.

so the story wasn’t simple in terms of detail. but in the end, all that ever mattered was that you and javy liked each other.

( cue your mothers rejoicing when the news of the two of you dating reached them. clinking glasses of wine over sunday brunch and shit. )

#top gun maverick #top gun fanfiction #javy machado x reader #javy machado x you #javy coyote machado #top gun x reader #javy coyote machado x reader #javy coyote machado x you #this one is happy i promise #Writes.

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scrabble-scribbles · 2 years

Text

Kinktober Day 5

and the smut had been resumed. same deal as always, no minors, enjoy, yada yada

Prompt: cockwarming

Pairing: Eleanor Levetan x Drea Torres

Fandom: Do Revenge

“Thank you so much, Mr. Broussard,” Drea said, fingers curled around her cellphone. She was speaking in a lower pitch, imitating her mother’s voice. “I’m glad to hear that Max will be facing consequences for what he did to my daughter.”

Drea placed the phone down once the dial tone sounded, picking up a notepad and crossing off an item on the list. The hand not occupied with crossing off items idly played with strands of blonde hair.

Eleanor whimpered from her spot on Drea’s lap, hips jerking forward. Drea tutted, yanking on the strand of hair.

“Stay still, Ellie,” she said, facing the girl. “You don’t want to distract me.”

Eleanor whimpered again, body shuddering as she forced herself to stay still, jaw muscles flexing. Her hands were clenched in Drea’s shirt, knuckles white from how hard she was holding.

The strap buried in her pussy was so much thicker and longer than the ones they normally used, stretching her so deliciously that her mind had practically turned off.

Drea had shown up at her house five hours ago after Eleanor had texted her, saying her parents would be out for the rest of the week. They’d done plenty of work on tying up loose ends relating to their revenge schemes, until Drea had disappeared for a few minutes into Eleanor’s bedroom.

The blonde hadn’t thought much of it, still going through their phones to get rid of any evidence they were connected to Max’s or Carissa’s downfalls. When Drea called for her to join her in the room, she hadn’t thought much of it, grabbing both of their phones just in case.

Both dropped onto the carpeted floor when she saw the brunette.

Drea was staring at her from the bed, her shirt unbuttoned to show her stomach and bra. Her skirt and panties were on the floor, the harness strapped around her waist.

When Eleanor saw the dildo in between her legs, her mouth went dry.

Long, thick and curved, way bigger than they’d ever used, and Drea was staring at her like she was something she wanted to eat.

“Drea, what-“ she said, jaw hanging open at the sight. “What are you doing?”

“I had a fun idea, baby,” she said, one hand curling around the strap, stroking up and down, Eleanor’s eyes glued to the sight. “You want to play?”

She’d nodded, already so turned on she could barely think, stumbling towards the bed like a love-drunk teenager.

Now, the strap was buried so deep inside her that she couldn’t form a coherent thought, on hour two of being stretched so much it was almost painful, of being forced to just sit there while Drea took care of phone calls, all while the brunette acted like Eleanor wasn’t falling apart on her lap. Like she wasn’t the reason Eleanor was currently fighting back tears as she buried her head into Drea’s neck.

“Oh, baby, are you crying?” Drea crooned, her hand tracing down to Eleanor’s hips, pinching the skin there, making her body jump. Her nails dug tiny little crescent marks into her skin, the pain a sharp contrast to the mind-melting pleasure.

“Hurts,” Eleanor whimpered into Drea’s skin, fingers still gripping her shirt, physically restraining herself from moving at all.

“I know baby, I’m almost done,” Drea said, picking up her phone one last time. “Last call, ok? Be good for me.”

Eleanor muttered gibberish into her shoulder, resolving herself to at least another twenty minutes of this torture. Drea’s hands left her hips to dial the number, and the ringing echoed in her ears.

When the caller picked up, Drea started talking at the same time her fingers made their way to Eleanor’s nipple, twisting it between her fingers. The blonde muffled a groan in Drea’s shoulder, a confused whine escaping moments later.

“Hi, I was hoping I could talk to….”

Eleanor’s ability to process what Drea was saying vanished when she pinched a nipple, white hot pleasure shooting through her body. She barely managed to muffle the whine, and smushed her face tighter against Drea, so tight she could hardly breathe, anything to keep her sounds under control.

Drea’s voice droned on and on, Eleanor lost in a haze of horniness-induced fog, utterly limp and spent despite not having come once. Her clit, swollen and red with her need and lack of stimulation, throbbed in time with her heartbeat, and her pelvis ached.

She thought Drea was winding down the conversation when something brushed over her clit, and she was so startled by it she couldn’t hold back her yelp.

Eleanor’s arms shuddered once, then dropped to her groin, desperate to prevent Drea from doing the same thing again, she wouldn’t be able to stay quiet if she did. Drea’s hands caught her wrists, stopping her before she could.

She squirmed in Drea’s lap, trying to escape those devilish fingers, her orgasm creeping up on her, cracking through her bones and coiling in her gut like a snake about to strike.

“Dre,” she whimpered, hips twitching uselessly. Drea didnt even acknowledge her, still talking on the phone.

She sank so deep into her mind that she could hardly sense anything besides the strap buried in her and the fingers toying with her swollen clit. Her own hands were dangling uselessly by her sides, put there by Drea, and she could only try to bite back her sobs and whimpers as her peak grew closer and closer.

Before she could even process what was happening, Drea was moving, and her legs instinctively wrapped around her waist to balance herself.

She felt the soft sheets on her bed under her back as Drea laid her down, stopping when she hovered over Eleanor, a sweet smile on her lips.

“You did so good, Ellie,” she said, and Eleanor could only blink up at her.

That got Drea chuckling. “Aww, look at you, so fucked out you can’t even think,” she said. “Stay right there, baby, let me take care of you.”

Eleanor’s vision whited out, Drea’s hips pulling back to slam right back into her. The strap was hitting her sweet spot every single time, and was filling her so well she could hardly think or breathe. Drea’s fingers were still on her clit, now pressing down on the oversensitive bud, making her whine from the pleasurable pain.

Her orgasm snuck up on her, wringing her body dry, prolonged by Drea’s gentle thrusting and the fingers now squeezing the base of her clit. Drea kept thrusting into her as she came down, until she flinched away, too oversensitive for it to feel good.

Drea petted her hair and kissed her nose and cheeks and lips until she was conscious enough to blink up at her and recognize her.

“Do you want me to pull out?” She asked, and Eleanor shook her head.

“No, feels nice,” she mumbled, already feeling her eyes drift shut. “Love you.”

Drea chuckled and moved them so Eleanor was curled up on her side, hips slotted with Drea’s and her head tucked under the brunette’s chin. Her eyes felt so heavy, and she felt Drea’s hand rubbing her back before she passed out.

#kinktober 2022 #minors dni #eleanor levetan #drea torres #eleanor x drea #smut #do revenge

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archived-kin · 3 years

Text

petty ghost haunts their murderer but doesn’t actually do anything vengeful, more at eleven

note from kin: i don’t even know what this is myself to be honest but the simple way of putting it is that you were accidentally killed by one of satan’s fits of rage and now your ghost follows him around and messes with him at any given opportunity out of pettiness

basically i came up with the prompt ‘vengeful spirit is more of a slightly miffed and extremely petty spirit who doesn’t actually do much but inconvenience their hauntee, shenanigans ensue’ and ran with it

(as a heads up, reader is not mc in this situation, and this takes place before any of the exchange program stuff, so belphie’s not in the attic and solomon and the angels aren’t in the devildom)

fandom: obey me!

character(s): gn!reader, satan, beelzebub

pairing(s): satan/reader (though it isn’t particularly romantic since you’re, y’know, dead, so it’s more of a satan & reader)

warning(s): references to death, beel eats an entire rotisserie chicken

genre: crack (with a bit of fluff i guess???)

“For the last time, [Name], put the knife down.”

“Bite me, bitch-boy.”

Satan lets out a long-suffering sigh and sets down his mug of coffee, then reaches out and carefully pushes the floating butter knife pointed directly at his jugular back down onto the table. “I don’t know why you keep trying that. You do know it wouldn’t actually get through my skin even if you did manage to hit me, right?”

“It’s the thought that counts,” comes your disembodied voice from somewhere near the ceiling. You’ve probably decided to float up there to sulk like you always do after a failed attack.

“I’d prefer you didn’t think about it at all.”

A still-wet towel pulls itself from the rack on the wall and hits him square in the face. Satan gives an exasperated groan as it slides down his face and lands on the table with a soft splat.

“That’s what you get,” You sniff indignantly, finally materialising in front of him with a scowl. You’re floating upside down in a way that makes it look like you’re standing on the ceiling. “Buttface.”

“Come on, you can come up with better material than that,” Satan shakes his head, pushing back his chair and picking up the wet towel you’ve just flung at him to hang it back up again. “Where did all your creativity from yesterday go?”

“Six feet under with the remains of my body, probably,” you reply with a scowl. Then, as an afterthought, you add, “Confounded cheese wheel.”

“Oh, that’s a new one,” He comments, mildly surprised. “Where’d you pick that up?”

“Made it up myself. Ha!” You bob past him and through the wall, most likely to go terrorise Mammon by making his lights flicker on and off again. “Guess my creativity isn’t as dead as I am after all.”

“You still haven’t gotten over that, I see.” He sighs.

Your head immediately pops back out of the wall and glares across the room at him. “Excuse me?”

“It’s been weeks now - months, even,” Satan explains carefully as he sits back down at the table, not wanting to aggravate you further. The last time he'd brought something like this up, he’d ended up making you so angry that you’d managed to become physically corporeal enough to fling him across the room. “I would have thought you’d have passed on by now, that’s all. Surely it doesn’t take this long for the gates to the Celestial Realm to open?”

You consider his words, apparently appeased by their logic. “...I guess. Maybe I’m not passing on because I can’t rest in peace yet, like the ghosts do in horror films.”

“They’re films, you can’t expect to apply what happens in them to reality,” Satan replies flatly. “Besides, even if that was the situation, you've met all the criteria to 'rest in peace’, haven't you?”

“Are you trying to tell me, the dead one here, what merits as ‘resting in peace’?” You counter, floating back through the wall so that your entire body is in the room again. “My murderer’s still walking about like he doesn’t dress in the entire green colour spectrum and think it’s a good idea. How am I supposed to rest in peace knowing that?”

Satan looks down at his outfit, a little offended. “What’s wrong with my clothes?”

“What’s right with your clothes?” You shoot back, drifting over to him and passing a ghostly hand through his shoulder, apparently too lazy to muster up the energy to make your hand physical enough to touch him. “Look at it! Your blazer doesn’t even have lapels!”

“It isn’t a blazer.”

“Jacket, then.” You make a move as if to pinch at the fabric, but your fingers just pass right through it like a hot knife through butter. “It doesn’t even fit you. The sleeves are too short.”

Satan resists the urge to roll his eyes. “I wouldn’t be able to wear it if it didn’t fit me. Besides, why does it matter to you?”

“The demon I might be doomed to be attached to for the rest of my afterlife has the worst fashion sense in all three realms is the matter,” You sigh dramatically and float up to the ceiling again. “Why do you even wear rip-off jeans if you’re going to put a belt over it?”

“First of all, they aren’t rip-off jeans,” Satan tells you as you start idly making the kitchen light flicker. He should probably tell you to stop doing that whenever you get bored, but he’s gotten so used to it at this point that he can’t really be bothered to. “And, second of all, why does it matter if I’m wearing a belt on it?”

“Rip-off jeans are meant to be ripped off,” You explain with all the patience of a mother explaining something to a curious child, completely disregarding Satan’s first point. “Putting a belt on top of it kind makes that redundant.”

Satan thinks about it for a moment and begrudgingly comes to the conclusion that your statement is correct - not that it makes a difference to him. “...they’re still not rip-off jeans.”

“Think whatever you want to think, burro verde.”

“What?”

“It means green donkey in Spanish.”

He raises an eyebrow at you. “Where’d you get that from?”

“I took Spanish for, like, three years when I was in high school,” You shrug, and the light brightens and dims slightly with the movement of your shoulders, as if it’s shrugging with you. “Failed all the exams, but at least I got something worthwhile out of it.”

“Three years of linguistic lessons and all you learn is how to string together bizarre insults,” Satan shakes his head. “You really are incorrigible.”

“That’s a big word. You sure you know what it means?”

“Of course I do,” He gives you a slightly disgruntled look. “I wouldn’t use it if I didn’t. What do you take me for?”

“Someone who doesn’t know what incorrigible means, obviously.” You pretend to aim a kick at the spider perched quietly in the corner of the ceiling, but Timothy ignores your efforts to boot him from his web. After a moment, growing tired of bothering the little guy, you ask, “...what does it mean?”

Satan snickers, then answers, sounding as if he’s reading the definition directly out of a dictionary, “In reference to a person or their behaviour, unable to be changed or reformed.”

You contemplate his words for a few seconds. “Is that a good thing?”

“Not usually when that particular word is used for it, no.”

“Oh. Bitch.”

He pauses at that, moving his mug of now marginally cooler coffee away from his mouth again, having been in the middle of taking another sip when you decided to insult him again. “Where did that come from?”

“You called me incorrigible, which you just said is not a good thing to be,” You explain as if it’s obvious, frowning down at him. “So I’m taking it as an insult and insulting you back. Bitch.”

“You didn’t have to say it again.”

“I didn’t, but it’s fun to call you names.” You snort and glide down from the ceiling to float above the table, crossing your legs and pretending to sit down on it. “It’s not as fun as it used to be, though. You never get all puffed up about it anymore.”

“That’s your own fault for doing it so much that I got used to it,” Satan reproaches. “Besides, it was pointless getting angry. It’s not like I can do anything to you in return.”

“You could ignore me and pretend I don’t exist or something.”

“Is that what you want me to do?”

“No!” You hurriedly throw up your hands in a gesture of surrender and shake your head so hard that Satan swears he actually feels a breeze - an even more impressive achievement considering that your body isn’t even tangible. “Please don’t. You’re the only being in the entire universe that I can actually interact with.”

“Sometimes I wonder if that is a good thing,” Satan mutters.

“It’s a good thing for me, and that’s all that matters,” You reply, unfazed.

No one other than Satan appears to have the ability to see you, which is an odd thing in and of itself. Ghosts aren’t a foreign thing to the Devildom - they’re so common that you could probably just walk into a convenience store and find one shelving cans of soup - but you don’t seem to follow any of the rules that they do. Sometimes Satan wonders if you’re able to actively choose to not allow his brothers to see you as you drift around the house, but then again, he’s pretty sure that, if you had the option to make Lucifer watch you pretend to fist fight that weird skeleton hanging in his room, you definitely would.

Satan doesn’t pretend to understand the laws of your otherworldly existence - he’s read so many variations on the rules behind lingering spirits like you that he can scarcely tell the difference between pure fiction and actual logical hypothesis. It’s easy enough to wrangle you into behaving for a day so that he can observe you properly by promising to leave his radio on for you while he’s out, but the observations themselves never seem to lead to anything. He knows that you’re able to pass through any physical object (as far as he knows), can make lights (of both the electronic and candle variety) flicker at will, can muster up enough physicality to move and touch things if you try, and can phase in and out of perceivable view, but he doesn’t know why you can do any of those things.

“Quit trying to come up with explanations for everything,” You’d told him wisely a month or so ago, when you’d floated in on him muttering to himself about the possibility of something called ‘ether energy’. “You’re just gonna give yourself a headache.”

Then you’d started making his candles flicker like disco lights until he stopped.

“...but I don’t think he spotted me, since he probably would’ve commented on the floating meat cleaver if he did, and— hey, big guy!”

That last exclamation is aimed at Beel, who has just walked into the kitchen and is now rummaging unceremoniously through the fridge, most likely in search of something to eat. At this point Satan’s pretty sure that you still don’t know any of his brothers’ names - at the very least, even if you do, you’ve never called them by them.

Beel continues to sort through the various already empty boxes and containers in the fridge as you start zooming back and forth through him, marvelling over the sheer broadness of his chest and shoulders. It isn’t the first time you’ve done this to him - or indeed any of the brothers - but Satan can tell that it’s more innocent awe than any kind of objectification or intent to harm, so he doesn’t mind. As mischievous as you are, he’s pretty sure you don’t have a genuinely malicious or wanton bone in your body... well, you don’t have any bones anymore - or a body, for that matter - but the point still stands.

“Hungry?” He guesses, but it’s honestly more of a statement. It is Beel, after all.

The Avatar of Gluttony withdraws from his search briefly to offer a nod. “I didn’t get to finish all of my lunch.”

“Well, there’s a surprise,” You comment as Beel sticks his head back into the fridge, finally tiring of buffeting yourself back and forth like a pendulum and choosing to start hovering just over the second youngest’s shoulders to watch his hunt. “Wonder what he was up to that got him to stop eating.”

Satan opens his mouth to reply, then stops and closes it again. It’s not that he doesn’t trust Beel with the not-really-a-secret of your existence, but he’s sure that at some point or another, Beel will end up letting it slip to Lucifer, who would most likely want to know why your death ended up attaching your spirit to his brother, and Satan’s already gone to great lengths to make sure that the oldest won’t find out about the rampage he went on that cost you your life in the first place. It'd just be a waste of that effort for Lucifer to find out anyway. Besides, it isn’t like the information will make much difference to Beel - he can’t see or hear you, and you’re pretty harmless, so there wouldn’t be any need for him to get involved in the situation anyway.

You, meanwhile, are well aware that Satan isn’t going to be saying anything to you while one of his brothers is in the room - you don’t really understand his reasoning for it, since you like to think that you’re a pleasure of a ghost to know, but you suppose you can’t really force him to make any decisions. Besides, you’re pretty content with the way things are right now; you don’t want to complicate the situation by bringing in another demon who, as far as you know, might just smite you on the spot if they find out about your existence.

Instead, you busy yourself with watching in fascination as Beel somehow pulls what looks like a rotisserie chicken from the very back of the fridge and shove the whole thing in this mouth. You exchange slightly disturbed looks with Satan as he begins to chew - you’re pretty sure you’ve just seen him dislocate his jaw like a snake to fit it in there.

“You might want to calm down, Beel,” Satan advises after a brief moment’s stunned silence, though even he knows that it’s a fruitless warning. “You’ll end up choking.”

Beel nods, but makes absolutely no move to slow in his aggressive chewing.

“This must be what the peak of evolution looks like,” You say in bemused awe as Beel finishes eating. The entire chicken has disappeared down his throat - bones and all. “How the hell does he manage that?”

Satan doesn’t answer, but his subtle shrug says that your guess is as good as his.

Much to your surprise and Satan’s resignation, Beel immediately goes back to the fridge, apparently unsatisfied by the copious amount of fowl he’s just eaten. To be honest, you feel sorry for the guy - while the you from when you’d still been able to eat would have done some unspeakable things to be able to consume as much as he does and still remain that fit, you’re sure that the black hole he calls a stomach must be an awful thing to have to deal with. At least he gets to enjoy a lot of food because of it, though you suppose it’s a double-edged sword if he’s also constantly being scolded for it. Personally, you don’t understand the reasoning behind telling someone off for eating as much food as they need, but they are demons. You probably shouldn’t expect them to have that level of compassion.

By the time you break out of your train of thought, Beel has found something else to eat amidst the many empty boxes in the fridge. It’s much smaller than the rotisserie chicken - some kind of pastry with a dollop of snowy white cream on top, decorated with a few lines of melted chocolate to look like a cat’s face. In fact, it looks almost identical to…

“Hey, wait!” You swipe a useless hand through Beel’s arm as he raises the pastry to his mouth. “Don’t eat that—!”

Too late. The pastry disappears into Beel’s mouth, and you drift backwards again, letting out a defeated groan. Satan shoots you a curious look - you can’t eat, after all, so why are you so upset about Beel eating that pastry? Is there something special about it?

His question is answered when he actually turns to look at his younger brother. The Avatar of Gluttony has gone rigid on the spot and is blinking rapidly, his eyes the size of moons.

“Beel…?” Satan questions hesitantly. “Are you feeling alright?”

Beel takes a long moment to respond, nodding slowly. “Yeah, I’m fine.”

Satan takes a closer look and realises that Beel’s pupils seem to have dilated to an almost impossible degree, resembling a cat’s eyes when it’s about to go absolutely feral. Whatever it is was in that pastry, it’s definitely hit him hard.

Now, Satan isn’t one to interrupt good fun when it’s about to happen, so instead of stepping in and performing some sort of spell that might help on his possibly-high brother like a good guy, he sits back and watches as Beel’s head swings around the room as if he's never seen anything in it before like the mischief-loving little shit he is. Beel himself doesn’t appear to be negatively affected, so it can’t be that bad, right?

You float cautiously around the giant as his hands ball into fists. His entire body is trembling slightly with pent-up energy. Then, a split second later, as if he’s been zapped by some catalystic bolt of lightning, he abruptly snaps back on his heel and positively zooms out of the room. You can practically see the cartoony cloud of dust that he’s kicking up as he disappears down the corridor.

“He’s absolutely zooted right now,” You comment, flipping upside with a resigned sigh and crossing your arms a little grumpily. “I told him not to eat it.”

“He couldn’t hear you, you know,” Satan says, moving over to the fridge and slamming it shut, since Beel has neglected to. “What was even in that thing?”

You shrug. “Don’t know. I’ve just been calling it demon-nip.”

“I suppose that it does to demons what catnip does to cats, then?” Satan doesn’t even wait for you to answer before continuing - rude. “How did you even get a hold of it? Never mind that, how did you manage to get it in a pastry and put it in the fridge?”

“I got some help from one of the poltergeists downtown to make it,” You wave your hands about dismissively. “You should pay more attention when you go out. I disappeared for, like, five hours, and you didn’t even notice.”

“When even was this?”

“Tuesday, I think. Remember when you bought that giant bag of cat paw-shaped biscuits and then accidentally dropped the bag in the hall and got them everywhere?”

You don’t miss the way that the tips of his ears go slightly pink as he coughs subtly and averts his gaze. “...why would the poltergeists help you? They hate humans.”

“I don’t know, actually…” You ponder for a moment, then decide, “...probably because I’m cute.”

“Are you?” Satan deadpans. “Cute is what you’d call a cat. You’re just… tolerable.”

“Oh, fuck you, I think I’m adorable.” You huff, flying over and poking him hard in the side of the head. Satan hisses in pain and reaches up to rub the sore spot, but he supposes he should have seen that blow coming - you’re never too humble to make yourself physical enough to hit him after an insult.

“Where did that idea even come from?” He asks quickly, not wanting to take another attack. You may be a mere imprint of a dead human, but your fingers are sharp, and he’d prefer not to provoke you further if he can avoid it.

His change of subject is so abrupt and obvious that it’s almost laughable, but you choose not to call him out on it. As much as you’d like to set him on fire or something, he hasn’t given you a really good reason to commit arson yet, and you’d just end up feeling bad for doing it. Well, to be fair, he did kill you… but still, you don’t want to keep holding that over his head.

“I read it in a book.” You answer. Satan’s eyes light up slightly.

“Do you remember the title?” He asks almost eagerly, and you disguise a snicker. His intentions are practically painted in bright red paint across his face - he’s hoping that there’ll be more schemes like the one you’ve performed that he can use against that sadist of an older brother of his.

Unfortunately for him, the book doesn’t exist. “Yeah. It’s called One Hundred Ways To Get Back At The Ass That Killed You, Free Of Murder and Actual Crimes That Might Get You Persecuted And Sent To Super Hell.”

Satan clearly isn’t thinking very hard today, because for a moment he actually looks as if he believes you - you suppose it’s because he’s grown desensitised to the oddness of such long titles after hearing so many weirdly specific anime titles from the otaku brother that you still have yet to see come out of his room. (You’ve floated in a few times to have a look around and appreciate the decor, but other than that, you’ve barely even seen his face. You’re not even sure what his name is, to be honest…)

He realises what you’re getting at after a moment, though, and immediately frowns at you in disapproval. You just grin, pleased with your small victory.

“You're insufferable,” He says, shaking his head with an long sigh.

“No, I'm cute,” You counter, frowning. “Weren't you listening to me earlier?”

He throws his hands up hastily as you drift forward with a hand brandished and a nasty glint in your eye, unwilling to get jabbed at again. “Okay, okay, I get it.”

You, however, don't relent. Eyes narrowing, you float even closer - so close that, if you'd been physical, he’d have been able to feel your breath on his face. “Say it.”

Satan may be one of the seven most powerful demons in the Devildom (below Diavolo, of course, and possibly Barbatos), but the aggression of a pissed-off ghost, especially if that ghost is you, isn't anything he wants to be on the receiving end of right now. “Fine, fine! You're adorable, you're cute, whatever. Now will you leave me alone?”

You finally pull back, beaming in a gratified fashion. “That's all I wanted to hear!”

Satan gives you an irritated look as you drift back across the kitchen, a satisfied grin on your face. “You’re insufferable.”

“You’ve said that already,” You sing back, laughing in victory when you see his eyebrow twitch slightly in annoyance. “And you had the nerve to lecture me about creativity earlier! Why don’t you come up with better material, Mr Shoes-Up-My-Ass?”

He doesn’t reply for a good moment, attempting to think of a insult to counter your admittedly slightly juvenile one. Try as he might, though, all of his good jibes seem to have evaporated. “...shut up.”

His pathetic response, of course, immediately compels you to take the piss out of him. Clutching your chest dramatically, as if Satan’s just stabbed you with the knife you’d been waving about earlier, you wail, “Oh, thy words do wound me! 'Tis like thou hath rip’d my heart out with thy own hands!”

Satan glares you for a long moment, but he doesn’t have the heart to keep it up when you’re grinning so brightly. Honestly, you’re a nuisance and a brat sometimes, sure, but he’d be lying if he said he didn’t consider you his closest friend at this point. “...do you even know how to use those words?”

You drop the act faster than Asmo throws it down on a Saturday night, shrugging and floating back over to hover just above the chair across from Satan’s. “Nope. It sounded right, though, right?”

“I haven’t read enough works in Old English to know,” Satan admits with a shake of his head. “But it did, I suppose…”

It’s kind of weird that he’s agreeing so easily, you think. Has he just had enough of your bullshit and is complying with to keep you quiet? Or has he just finally seen the light of your brilliance?

...well, you suppose it doesn’t matter. You grin and move to ruffle his hair, but forget to make your hand physical and instead end up flying right through his head. Satan shudders slightly - though he doesn’t feel it, it’s still weird to have an entire hand and arm go through his cranium.

“Could you not?” He complains as you right yourself and pull your hand back again. “This feels weird.”

“Baby.”

“Pet names aren’t going to do anything,” He sighs, pulling his chair to the side so that he’s no longer half-inside your torso. “Hands to yourself.”

“No, it was an insult,” You correct him. “I was calling you a baby. Though bitch-boy works too.”

Satan lets out a long sigh. Now you’re just back where you started.

#obey me #obey me x reader #obey me imagines #satan x reader #except it's more of a satan & reader #crack #ghosts #swd satan #swd beelzebub #I've taken a look through my obey me drafts and noticed a pattern #if i'm writing about one of the brothers beel always seems to show up as a cameo #now that i think about it this prompt has some real angst potential...#unfortunately i seem to incapable of writing anything but fluf and funny in these trying times #anyway i hope you enjoyed this!!#the ending is super abrupt but i've already spent too long on this thing so just TAKE IT

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therealvinelle · 3 years

Text

Carlisle wouldn’t want to be human

This really goes for most of the Cullens, Rosalie excepted (I think Edward would last one day without his telepathy and superpowers before this happened (well honestly I think his denial would keep him from ever admitting this but this isn’t an Edward post so we’re cutting this thought short right now before it spirals)), but I see both Edward and general fandom just sort of take it for granted that if anyone offered Carlisle a miraculous human again pill (and I’m just picturing that as some hokey pill being sold on ad TV) he’d praise Jesus and swallow that down immediately, and I’ve to see anybody argue with that so here I go.

First of, if Carlisle were to suddenly find himself human again I have every belief that Aro would materialize and go, “My dear Carlisle has been made a human? How tragic! Never fear, old friend, I’ll fix that for you. Om nom nom.” and then Carlisle would not be human. And I’m only half joking when I say that, because Carlisle has a lot of friends, and while his animal diet is all well and good, if he were to actually do something like this they’d be very sad his human obsession has gone too far and stage an intervention. “We’re doing this because we love you, Carlisle. Now please try not to be too delicious. Om nom nom.” And then we’re back to Carlisle being a vampire again, though with slightly longer hair this time.

More seriously, if Carlisle was offered this miracle pill, then as a doctor he’d probably be less than enthused about it. He was there to see what happened to the Native Americans when the Europeans came carrying brand new disease, and after viruses and bacteria have had 350 years and a globalized planet to evolve, our seventeenth century priest is going to be in trouble. He’s unvaccinated to boot. He also has a completely different intestinal bacterial flora than modern humans do, which I imagine would not be fun for his digestion. This guy would be a sickly, constipated mess.

As for the main reason - why would Carlisle ever want to be human?

Before he’d mastered his thirst, then he’d probably feel obligated to. For as long as he hadn’t mastered it there was always the risk of him losing control and killing somebody. In his early days he certainly would have jumped on the chance. But none of this is a problem anymore.

So, to take the reasons why he wouldn’t say yes in the present day - first of, why would he not want to be a vampire? He is past worrying about his thirst. His vampirism is at this point purely an asset to him. It makes him great at his job. All his friends and family are vampires. If he were to become human again, he’d not just suddenly suck at his job (as I imagine he has incorporated his super senses into his work to the point where he would pretty much have to learn everything anew if he still wanted to be a doctor), his brain would be slow and limited, and he could never see his cherished friends, people he has known for centuries, again. He’d have to start over with another fake identity in a new place, and sure, this time he could stay until he died of old age, but he’d still be lying to everybody he met about his identity. Carlisle is very much a social butterfly, and he’d be unable to form meaningful friendships when he could never get truly personal with anybody.

In other words, Carlisle would be signing himself up for a lonely life of being average if not bad at his work. And his work is incredibly important to him.

Then there’s the fact that as a doctor, modern viruses aside, when it comes to health problems Carlisle has seen it all. He would know better than everybody that even if the modern viruses don’t make him a sickly mess, even if he doesn’t join the statistics of people who die in tragic accidents, he could still get a brain aneurism at the age of 24 and his human LARP is over. And who knows, maybe he had some nasty disease lurking in his DNA just waiting to ruin his life had he lived long enough, such as ALS. But assuming that Carlisle says “I’LL RISK IT”, even if he makes it to an older age, aging is no joke. Dementia, gout, incontinence, the general and inevitable decline of his body - this is the looming shadow hanging over all our heads. For an immortal who has seen countless humans succumb to it, why choose this?

And for what?

So he could have kids of his own, presumably with Esme?

He has a whole family. Rosalie and Edward especially are his children. Just, this guy loves his whole family so much, I can’t imagine he’d throw them aside in favor of some faceless toddler concept. I also don’t think he’d even want kids of his own, but I think that’s for another post. And also mostly a vibe.

So he could grow old with Esme?

Again - why? She’d be just as much an outcast as he, and face all the same health risks (except I suppose for the modern viruses, she hasn’t been dead for that long). I can’t imagine he’d want to sit idly by and watch her either die ahead of schedule, or live long enough to become unable to care for herself.

Then there’s the fact that at most he’d have six or seven decades. To him, that’s just the blink of an eye. And, again, a very unpleasant blink where he loses everything, is less intelligent, and slowly dies.

Lastly there’s the fact that the human he was is dead, his time has passed. Carlisle doesn’t belong in the human world any longer. He interacts with it because helping humans gives him joy and meaning in life, but he’s a man out of his time and this brave new world is not the one he once lived in. He would not in any way belong, and I think he knows that quite well.

Just, the whole idea that Carlisle would want this is founded on Carlisle having some sort of innate worship of humans where being human is inherently better. I’m sorry, but that’s Edward. If Carlisle felt this way, he wouldn’t be turning others into vampires, and he wouldn’t have vampire friends all over the globe. To him, thirst isn’t a problem, and his vampirism means he can save more humans than he otherwise would. The remaining concern would be God, but Carlisle’s life philosophy is that being a vampire is not by itself a sin, so he’s fine in that regard too.

In summation, I think Carlisle is quite happy being a vampire, and wouldn’t have it any other way.

#carlisle cullen #twilight #twilight meta #twilight renaissance #note on the intestinal bacterial flora #a study was done on an african tribe whose members were eating the same food as their ancestors had for thousands of years #and a group of regular americans #they switched diets #and the african tribesmembers' gut flora was noticeably decreased after just a few weeks #and as far as i remember this was irreversible change #while the modern americans did not have noticeable change #so if i understand that correctly then this might not be such a big problem for carlisle #but it's still food for thought #and i imagine the transition period would suck #he'd probably just take the easy way out and eat unprocessed organic food #be that hipster #vegan vampire and hipster human #... i'm quitting this 'carlisle's indigestion combat tactics' tag spiral #before it gets weirder #point is this guy would lose everything #he could never see his friends again #and in exchange he gets to give a forced smile and say 'yay. i'm human. yayy...'

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danny-chase · 3 years

Note

Big Brother instinct, Dick and either Cass, Gar, Danny Chase, Steph, Kara, Rose, or anyone else u want

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Batman (Comics), Nightwing (Comics), Batgirl (Comics) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Dick Grayson & Cassandra Cain, Dick Grayson & Bruce Wayne Characters: Dick Grayson, Cassandra Cain, Bruce Wayne Additional Tags: Dick grayson centric, Fire, Burns, hair styling, Ice Cream, Hurt/Comfort, Late Nights, Fluff and Angst, Batfamily (DCU), Batfamily (DCU) Feels, Batfamily Dynamics (DCU), Missions Gone Wrong, Good Sibling Dick Grayson, Cassandra Cain is bad at feelings, Bruce Wayne is Bad at Feelings Series: Part 11 of Bad Things Happen Bingo Summary:

Dick talks with Cass after a mission doesn't go as planned.

Fic under cut

“Argh!” Dick snaps back to attention as Bruce’s angry grunt rattles through the cave. The few bats still in for the night stir, their wings rustling in the distance. An avalanche of papers fly off of Bruce’s desk, and his grizzled form slumps forward, hands firmly planted on the table. His shoulders sag under some unknown strain; as if he’s carrying the weight of the sky.

“Hmm.” Dick blinks back another wave of exhaustion, he’s not working on a case – but Bruce is – and company always makes working more fun. Besides, Bruce is on a time limit and Alfred can’t stop him from escaping his room. So. Here he is. He took an oath - it’s his job to help.

Dick’s eleven and Bruce’s a pillar of reassurance – a precariously stacked pile of rocks constantly on the verge of crumbling. He has no idea how to pick up the pieces. No idea how to seal the cracks. “Bruce?” He mumbles, swinging his legs off his spinny chair. Bruce doesn’t look up, his mouth drawn in a tight line. The ghost of tears well in his eyes. Not good.

Dick scoots off the chair, lightheaded for a moment. He shakes the stars out of his eyes, nodding back and forth, up and down, like Bruce does when he’s sleepy. It’s late. He has school tomorrow. Not that it matters. Bruce will let him skip if he asks the right way. He jogs in place for a few seconds, readying himself, warming up his muscles.

There’s not much he can do to help, but he can at least put on a little show. He runs forward launching into a cartwheel, picking up the papers as he goes – Bruce likes his tricks, sometimes they even make him laugh, sometimes –

Bruce snags his ankle out of the air, his quick reflexes saving Dick from crashing into the edge of a counter. He finds himself hanging, the world stuck upside down as his hands dangle inches from the floor. “Thanks.” He looks up at Bruce’s weary face.

A yawn escapes his lips, and the corners of Bruce’s mouth twitch. “I’m going to have to child-proof the cave at this rate.” He tries for humor but it falls flat, his hearts not in it all.

He stares up, sticking his tongue out. Bruce’s frown doesn’t fade. “Are you okay?” He asks. Bruce’s hands fumble, and Dick swings dangerously low to the floor before he’s recovered. Not willing to take the chance again, he curls up, grabbing Bruce’s forearms and pulls himself up through his arms, settling himself on sturdy shoulders.

Bruce drops his feet. “I’m fine. Why would ask that?” He sounds almost hurt and Dick’s too tired to figure out why.

He slides down easily, Bruce gently deposits him on the floor. “You looked sad.” A yawn leaves his mouth without permission, he stumbles slightly, and a hand clamps down on his shoulder. He reaches back up, and Bruce throws him up against his shoulder, wrapping him in a hug.

Dick yawns contently, his eyelids fluttering without his permission, as Bruce starts walking towards the stairs. “I’m sorry…” The arm around his back pulls him a bit tighter. “I’m just not enough.” A shaking hand combs through his hair and Dick squeezes back because he doesn’t know what to say.

Bruce grunts as he takes a step up the stairs. “Sleep on it?” Dick suggests, resting his eyes for just a moment.

“Mmhmm. It’s bedtime.” Dick’s half asleep by the time they reach the top. He’s not sure he hears Bruce whisper, “You’re a great kid, chum.”

It took Dick years before he really understood the feeling. And even more years before he made the connection that that was how Bruce had felt on late nights spent scouring for clues that just didn’t seem to exist, having worked for days straight on three hours of sleep, and watching Gotham send all of it up in flames setting you back months on an investigation.

He’s learned there’s nights it’s impossible to save everyone – hell, he’s seen Clark get his ass kicked, and Clark’s damn near close to god. Dick would know – the Titans have fought their namesake. But the Titans have fought humans and lost despite half their members being godlike, and besides that most days now he’s alone. It doesn’t matter how hard he tries, how much he plans, how prepared he is; sometimes things just go to hell and a handbasket and there’s nothing he can physically do to prevent it.

Most of the time, he’s fine with that. It’s fine he has limits. Logically, he knows he can’t be expected to everything. Logically, he knows it’s a waste of time to worry about it. Logically, he knows it’s okay to take a night off, watch a nature documentary, invite a friend over, stay in and spend the night simply existing.

But it feels like he could be doing more – should be doing more. He feels that restlessness overtake him, and springs to his feet “Bruce I-”

Bruce gives him his patented bat-glare from where he’s sitting, looking up from a familiar pile of papers. Once it would have intimidated him into sitting back down. Now he just returns it with a patented one of his own. “-I think I’ll suit up and head out for the night, Tim could probably use some back up with-”

“Dick.” There’s this exasperated tone that Bruce can only ever seem to muster when saying his name. He pauses for a just a second, his eyes flickering down to Bruce’s clenched fists and tight shoulders. “Let me handle it.” It comes out as an order, but reading between the lines, it’s a plea.

Bruce would never admit it out loud, worry practically bleeds out of the man. Guilt gnaws on the inside of his chest, though, he’s not sure what it’s even from; the guilt of making Bruce worry or the guilt of being a useless sack of broken and bruised ribs while people need Nightwing’s help. Being benched sucks, but he knows enough to compromise. “Let me run the comms? Babs could use a night off.” She sleeps less than him and Bruce knows it.

The gray streaks in Bruce’s hair stand out all the more as he lets out a bone deep sigh. Dick rolls his eyes – he doesn’t get to do this right now. “You literally let me go out last night I don’t understand why-”

“Last night was an emergency. I didn’t have a choice.” His frown widens, his face etched in an eternal look of pain, mixed with disproval. “Two nights ago… you almost…” His mouth seals itself shut, unspoken words hanging in the air between them. It’s Bruce that breaks the gaze first. “Run the comms, don’t overexert yourself. It should be a quiet night…” He stands, hesitates before walking off “And get to bed early.”

Dick bites back a laugh, Bruce hasn’t talked to him like that since he was thirteen. “Alright.” He resists the urge to poke fun, and follows Bruce through the passage behind the grandfather clock.

“So Ives was talking about the Pirates of the Caribbean movie with me the other day, and we might go see it this weekend if I have the time. Gee- I can’t remember the last time I saw movie in theaters or even really hung out with him.” Tim’s endless chatter helps him stay awake in the dimly lit cave. His throbbing ribs help too, maybe he shouldn’t have tried doing push-ups. “Dad and Dana want to drop me off, but Ives has a car now, though dad’s still worried cuz of the time some wacko tried to stop us at a traffic light.”

Dick hums, a smile creeping its way up his face. “I can drop you off if it’s an issue.”

“Really?! That’d be awesome, you could stay for the movie if you wanted to, but I don’t know if you’d like it, I mean are pirates really your thing? I always figured you’d be more into Vikings or probably aliens actually, or something like-” A red light flashes on the screen, and Dick snaps to attention.

“Hold that thought.” Tim’s chatter ceases immediately as Dick furiously types on the terminal. He punches into the main line. “Batgirl how fast can you get to the corner of 16th and Murphy’s Ave, there’s a building on fire and you’re the only one anywhere near the Upper East Side.” A 911 operator calms down a hysterical woman in his left ear, Cass asking direction in the right.

He pulls up a map. “I-I can’t find a way out!” The woman shrieks. “I don’t know what happened, I was sleeping and-” she breaks off into raspy hacks.

“Go straight, turn right after three blocks down.” Dick winces, as the lady continues chocking on smoke. “C’mon Cass. Get there.” He mutters off the line. He eyes his cycle sitting idly in the bay – he’s twenty minutes out; Cass needs backup. He opens up another line. “Batman I need you to follow Batgirl, what’s your eta?”

Bruce grunts back, he hears thudding over the line. “Fifteen minutes.” The woman screams in his other ear, he yanks the earbud out as a massive bang nearly blows out his eardrum. Picking it back up, he can’t hear the woman anymore, only the roar of flames and falling debris.

“Shit.” He pulls up video from a street camera. “Shit.” The building’s collapsing in on itself. “Permission to call the league?” He clicks through to their line of communications, his finger hovering over the button.

“Here.” Cass scrambles into view, bursting through a window. Shit.

Bruce learned his limits long ago. Dick’s finally settling into his. Cass? They simply don’t register on her radar. The buildings coming down in mere minutes; she’s going to get killed.

“What’s the situation?” Bruce yells in his ear.

“Batgirl get out of there!” He screams at Cass. She’s going to die – the building’s not stable, and he’s the one that sent her there. “Make it five minutes – the building’s coming down.” He yells to Bruce. “Batgirl!” He watches a few windows blow out. A firetruck careens down the street.

“Permission granted.” Bruce huffs and Dick can’t click the button fast enough.

A couple more windows blow out, and the building seems to lean to the side. Finally he sees Cass climb back out a window, holding a couple kids in her arms as she leaps to the ground. “BATGIRL GET THEM CLEAR!” His heart pounds in his throat as she runs forwards, the building groaning behind her, crumbling to the side. Chaos erupts, chunks of flaming debris cascading from the top of the building, as the second floor merges with the first.

Dick blinks, his mouth dry. “There’s more people-” he can’t hear Cass over the ensuing cacophony as he watches the building topple to the ground. “NO!” He faintly hears her scream as the screen erupts in static.

Dick slams his fists on the desk. His chest constricts painfully. “Nightwing. Report.” Bruce’s steady voice reminds him to breathe. His chest spasms. Shit. “Nightwing!” Bruce demands as he tries to catch his breath.

“Building collapsed.” He manages to get out. “One sec.” He takes a few deep breaths, leaning back in the chair for support. “Batgirl report.” He’s greeted with silence. “Batgirl, please, if you’re there I need you to respond.”

“I…” Cass trials off. Dick sighs in relief. “I’m sorry.” The line cuts off. Well. Shit.

“Nightwing! I’m headed to the location.” Bruce squawks. Dick sighs.

“It’s going to be a long night. Search and rescue, I’ll call in backup.” Shit. So much for an early bedtime.

“Hey.” Someone shakes his shoulder. He makes a grab for their wrist and misses, his mind processing where the hell he is. He blinks a few times.

“Cass?” Her hair’s plastered to the side of her head and she’s covered in soot. Nicks, rips, and tears decorate her costume. Dick wipes his eyes as the ashy smell of smoke overwhelms his senses. Cass takes a few steps back, heading towards the locker room. “Wait.” He had something to say to her, his mind racing to catch up.

She hops up onto a counter. His mind shuffles through the events earlier in the night. “Bruce sent you back?” Cass nods glumly. The rescue efforts weren’t going well when he dozed off. The JLA sent in everyone they could spare; there’s nothing they can do anymore. Not that Bruce won’t try.

Cass’s lips are sealed. There’s a haunting expression in her eyes, her shoulders slump forward, her hands firmly plant themselves on the counter for support.

And his friends think he’s too much like Bruce.

“Hey.” He starts. She gives him a weary look, tears welling in her eyes. Well, maybe not exactly like Bruce. “Look, I’m sorry I put you in that position.” Cass shakes her head. “Sometimes things like this happen. I should have-”

“Stop.” Cass pulls her feet up on the counter, getting dust everywhere. “I should have been faster.” She swallows, refusing to let the tears spill over. “My fault.”

Dick watches as she glides off the counter, yanking off her gloves and dropping them on the floor. Burn marks dot her hands and the edges of her hair are singed. “You did everything you could.” She hesitates, before taking a step towards the showers.

“Not enough.” She mutters before storming off, leaving a trail of soot in her wake.

He stands up. “Cass.” The lock snaps shut with a click as she slips into the bathroom. Leaving Dick in an empty cave once more.

By the time he returns downstairs, Cass is already out of the shower, looking displeased. “You took my clothes.” She notes unhappily, a pale pink towel tucked tightly around her shoulders.

Dick watches water drip down from her hair, pattering on the floor. The trail leading back to the bathroom is now mixed with water and soot. Alfred’s going to be pissed. “I took your costume.” He clarifies. “And I brought you clothes.” He gestures towards the open door.

Cass scowls, planting her feet defiantly. “I’m going out.” She reaches out a hand. Dick shrugs – there’s no way she can find where he hid her filthy suit before they get a chance to wash it.

It’s all too familiar, reading the lines across her brow, watching her shoulders slump when she stills, and scanning red rimmed eyes. “What are you going to do like that?” He points out, Cass angrily storming towards him. “You’re tired, you’ll just end up being in the way.” He dodges left as a fist flies past his face. “You would have hit if I wasn’t right.” She’s faster than him on his best days.

She glares at him with pursed lips, staring before turning on her heel and storming off towards the bathroom. The door slams behind her, triggering the rustling of far away wings.

Dick sighs – he hopes he wasn’t this temperamental when he lived with Bruce. “Come up to the kitchen when you’re done, I need your help with something.” The lie rolls easily off his tongue, though he feels a twinge of guilt as Cass groans behind closed doors.

Cass’s eyes widen as she enters the room. Dick offers a smile as she edges closer to the table. He tosses a spoon, she snags it out of the air. “Dig in.” There’s a carton of chocolate ice cream – double chocolate chunk brownie sundae with hot fudge and chocolate sprinkles to be precise – and tons of candy. It’s not stuff Bruce keeps around, but Dick’s has a stash at Tim’s house reserved for movie nights. He’ll restock later.

Cass vigorously stabs the ice cream with her spoon, a smile dancing across her face as she takes a few bites. She pauses, sticking the spoon back in the cartoon, looking up with a confused expression. “Why?” She’s wearing fluffy pajama bottoms, fuzzy socks, and an old worn college sweatshirt that’s frayed at the hems. Dick can almost pretend he’s back, talking to Donna after she broke up with Roy their sophomore year of high school.

She’s watching Dick carefully. He hums casually. “You had a rough night.” This is what the Titans always did. She shrugs.

“Things happen.” She shovels a few more bites into her mouth. “I want to go out.” It’s hard for Dick to find her tough and grizzled when she’s guzzling gummi worms, kicking her feet back and forth on the stool.

“Consider this a reason to stay in.” She gives him a sideways glance. “You did as much as you can, that’s enough.” Cass looks pointedly at her ice cream, not hesitating before diving back into it.

“Spar with me?” She licks a skittle before sticking it in her mouth.

Dick snorts. “If I don’t have a heart attack, I think Bruce would.” She snaps up to attention, grabbing his wrist and quickly finding his pulse point. “I’m fine, Cass.” Her hands are freezing. He places one of his on top of hers. “If you weren’t there I wouldn’t have been.” He says quietly, catching her eye. “Thank you.” She pulls back as if burned, quickly busying herself with the candy. He waits a moment before adding, “I think those kids you saved are grateful too.”

Cass throws a bag of M&M’s at him, he’s a second too slow and it pelts him in the face. “Noted.” He grins. “Uh, also, I’m going to have to do something with your hair.”

“What.”

“Cass, hold still.” She immediately stops squirming under his hands. “Thanks.” She hums back, tucked under an old blanket that never seems to leave the back of the couch. Bruce still isn’t here, but Tim checked in after his stakeout, and headed home a half an hour ago. He snips away another lock of burnt hair, tossing it into a trash can next to him.

He rests his forearms on the back of the sofa, contemplating which section of her hair to start with next. “You find one you like yet?” He asks, peeking over her shoulder at the images of hairstyles.

“Uhh.” She scrolls a bit more. “I don’t care.” She tosses the phone up to the top of the couch.

“Mmm.” He didn’t expect much else. Donna texted him a picture earlier to copy – something easy to pull back but still stylish. He attacks the next section, carefully brushing out the tangles, starting bottom to the top. He’s oddly grateful for all those times he did Donna and Kory’s hair.

‘Practice for when Bruce finally adopts a girl.’ They used to tease. ‘You’ll have a real sister, and if his track record holds she’ll have black hair and blue eyes.’ He’s never lived the irony down. Though, Cass’s eyes are a beautiful warm brown, so Donna and Kory can take that.

“You know.” He keeps his tone light. “Most hairdressers and their clients talk.” Cass remains set in stony silence. “Though I guess most people go to a salon to get their hair cut.” He just visits Joey. “Some people say it’s like free therapy.”

“You talk a lot.” Cass notes. He pulls up doodle jump on his phone and passes it back to her. She plays a couple rounds before the phone’s placed back beside him.

“Do you want to talk about it?” He already knows the answer, but still asks all the same.

“No.” Bruce never wanted to either. Barbara used to talk to him… before he left for the Titans and took years to look back. Though he likes to dream otherwise, he knows there’ll come a day when Tim won’t want to talk to him anymore either.

It doesn’t get any easier being shut out. “That’s alright. If you change your mind I’m here.” He grabs the shears, snipping away another dead end.

“Thanks.”

“Dick.” A hiss awakes him, light following soon after. He squints, turning away to bury his face in a cushion. “Where’s Cassandra?”

He turns, eyes snapping open as he quickly scans the sofa. The blanket hangs off the edge, Cass nowhere to be seen. One of her custom batarangs sticks out of his armchair’s armrest, a few inches from his hand. “She must have found her costume.” He notes, glancing towards the pajamas crumpled in the doorway. His eyes meet Bruce’s as he lets out a tired sigh.

His hair’s dripping, fresh from a shower, and it’s singed at the edges. Dick nods towards the sheers on the coffee table. “Tomorrow.” Bruce decides, crossing the room, picking up the blanket as he goes. Dick pushes down the footrest, slowly rising to his feet. His ribs twinge at every move, in hindsight, falling asleep hanging off the side of an armchair wasn’t his best idea. Bruce hovers closer than normal, watching carefully, worry lines set in concern. “Bed.”

Dick’s too tired to argue. “Bed.” He agrees. And though Bruce doesn’t carry him, he accompanies him up the stairs.

#bad things happen bingo #dick grayson #cassandra cain #batfam #batfamily #nightwing #batgirl #my writing #sorry i've had this request for like 2 months but you know what we made it eventually 💀😅#thanks for the request anon!#i couldn't resist doing Cass but shout out to you remembering Danny Chase exists like dang iconic

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tearsofgrace · 4 years

Text

written for suptober day 30: dress up

okay if you’re someone who made me promise to write happy for tomorrow then you are to blame for this

IF YOU WANT JUST FLUFF ONLY READ THE ITALICS AND PRETEND EVERYTHING IS FINE

word count: 1.7k, tags: mcd, in the future, dean pov, cowboy hats, tombstone, fluff

The picture was almost falling apart now. He’d made sure to fold it in the same spot every time, so there was just one crease. But that crease was so worn now that he was afraid it was going to break in half.

He added some tape to keep it together. It was stupid. Because he had other pictures, he had other memories. But this one was special. He idly rubbed his nail over a bubble that had formed in the tape and let his mind drift back to that night…

“This is ridiculous, Dean,” Cas grumbled as they walked into the store.

“No, it’s not. You’re just letting Sam get in your head.”

“They’ll talk to us as FBI-” Cas started before Dean whirled around, silencing him with a look.

“But this is way more fun. C’mon, Cas. You just got back. Live a little, okay?” Dean’s voice broke a little on the last word and he cursed himself. He couldn’t be too obvious. He couldn’t let it show just how glad he was to have Cas because-

Because what? something whispered.

Because he could never have him. Because he wasn’t worthy of him. Because Cas would never love him back.

If he wasn’t allowed to love him, though… well, at least he could get him into a goddamn cowboy hat. For no reason other than the case, of course. None at all.

Dean led the way to the back of the store where there was a whole wall of cowboy hats. He already had his own waiting in the car (shut up, he only brought it because they were in Tombstone) but looking at them all he wanted to get another.

When he looked back, Cas was staring at the wall with an almost bored expression on his face. But there was something else there that Dean couldn’t quite read. A shift that happened whenever his eyes moved to Dean.

“Alright. Which one?” Dean said, rubbing his hands together eagerly.

“Any of them. It’s not important to me.”

Dean rolled his eyes and walked over to Cas, grabbing him by the shoulders from behind and steering him closer to the wall. Cas didn’t resist, just let himself be pushed along.

“How bout this one?” Dean asked, leaving Cas’ side to pull a black hat with a thin silver strip along the base. He looked back at Cas, watched his head tilt slowly, and had to turn to hide the broad smile that filled his face. It was still hard to believe. That Cas was here. That he was right next to him, a real solid presence, and he wasn’t gone.

Dean knew it was written all over his face every time he looked at the angel. The relief. Because not having him there… he wouldn’t be alive. He could say that now. He would not have lasted any longer if Cas hadn’t come back when he did. There was no chance for moving on, for getting over it. Cas was everything.

“What about that one?” Cas said with a resigned sigh.

Dean jerked himself from his thoughts and looked back at Cas, the black cowboy hat still hanging loosely in his hands. He looked up at Cas and smiled again, this time not trying to hide it.

“It’s perfect, man,” he said with a snort.

The hat was woven with a red ribbon around it that read “Stampede.” Cas had been right. It was ridiculous. Or it would have been on anyone else. But Cas- Cas made it work.

“I missed you,” Dean said for the fourth time that day. He knew it wouldn’t be the last either. Only when Sam wasn’t there, of course. He didn’t need his brother getting any wrong ideas.

They drove to the crime scene after that. Cas lost the ribbon, they did the interviews, and before Dean knew it they were walking back to the Impala.

Cas reached up to take off the hat, squinting at the sun as he did so.

“Wait,” Dean said before he could stop himself. He bit his tongue, trying to stop the next words from coming out. But then Cas was looking at him, all confused and flustered. The sun glinted off him and his blue eyes practically glowed, and dammit Dean wanted to remember this moment, this day, this feeling of complete and utter relief forever. His angel was home. “Lemme take a picture first.”

It took a couple takes. Dean wanted to get it perfect. But by the time he’d found the exact right lighting and the exact right angle Cas was so fed up that his face turned out adorably grumpy. Which Dean was honestly fine with. In fact, it was perfect.

He slipped his phone back into his pocket and turned for the car.

“Your turn.”

He turned around and gulped. “What?”

“For a picture,” Cas went on, a small smirk on his lips.

“Uh,” Dean cleared his throat. “Yeah, sure, whatever, man.”

Cas nodded, his smirk growing a little, and then he pulled out his phone. Cas wasn’t very dramatic. Not in everyday things, anyway. But the angel played it up, positioning Dean with a perfect background and doing his best to coax out a smile.

And sue him, Dean couldn’t help but cracking up. In the end, Cas had gotten a perfect picture of him tilting his cowboy hat with laughter on his face.

Still laughing, Dean got back in the car, Cas right next to him. He silently prayed to anyone who still cared. Prayed that it could just stay like this. That his family could hunt together, be safe, be stupid with no fear of the consequences.

“We’ll be fine, Dean. I’m okay,” Cas said softly.

“Don’t listen to my thoughts,” he said gruffly.

“You prayed.”

Dean laughed again, but it was soft this time. “Right.”

They worked the case, stopped the ghoul, went back home.

A couple nights later Dean had knocked on Cas’ door with sweaty palms. In his hand were two wallet-sized photographs. One of a very disgruntled Cas and one of him lost in laughter.

Cas answered and peered into the hallway, a question in his eyes.

“I, uh-” Dean started. Off to a great start. “I have these for you,” he finally said, clearing his throat as he handed the pictures to Cas.

The angel stared at them for a minute, his expression unreadable, and Dean felt the need to fill the silence.

“I had two copies of each printed so we could both have one. You don’t have to take it if you don’t-”

“I love them,” Cas silenced him. The corners of his lips were lifted up and his eyes were shining.

“Oh,” Dean said, searching for more words. “Well. Good.” He cleared his throat again, letting his hand swing awkwardly and then he turned to walk back to his room.

He wished he turned around right then. Turned around before everything got too complicated. Wished he’d gotten over himself before it was too late. But he hadn’t. He’d just walked back to his room and pulled out his wallet.

That was the first time he folded the picture. He smiled softly at it, enjoying the smile in Cas’ eyes even while his body language screamed annoyed.

It was so perfect, so Cas, it almost seemed bad to put a crease in it. But it made him feel like it was just for him. Like Cas was his. Even when he thought he never could be.

It had been years since that picture was taken. And he still looked at it almost every night. Even now as he stared at it, as it fell apart in his hands just like everything else in his life, it brought a smile to his face. A smile that only lasted a few seconds before the crushing weight of everything fell on him again.

He took a shaky breath and tucked it away in the dark pocket of Cas’ trenchcoat before putting them back in the trunk of Baby and slamming it.

It was cold out. Snowflakes drifting from the sky and falling gently to the ground before disappearing into the mass of white. It was almost peaceful. But nothing could be anymore. Not with his family-

Sam had died taking out Chuck. Jack too. And Cas had gotten to stay. For a whole year.

They’d fallen into a steady partnership, keeping each other sane among the sea of depression and guilt. The world was better now. Less monsters, less disasters, less messes to clean up. So they got through it. They hunted together, making the world of other’s better even when their whole world was gone.

Dean wouldn’t say he was happy. Not really. But he finally felt okay, and things between Cas and him were safe. Comfortable. Home.

And then he’d fucked it all up. He thought maybe, just maybe, he was finally ready. To tell Cas how he felt. To stop choking down the feelings he’d had for years. So he’d done it. On a night much like tonight, the snow falling softly and Christmas carols echoing in the background of the small town they were in.

Cas’ eyes had gone wide and his mouth had parted. Then he was on Dean before he could say another word. Kissing away the fear, the guilt, the weight that consumed him every time he thought about them. About the ones he’d left behind.

It was only when the freezing tears hit his cheek that Dean’s heart stopped. It was only then that Cas whispered into the small space between their lips. It was only then that the angel’s voice had sounded so broken, so desperate, confessing he’d made a deal.

Then Cas had vanished. No warning. No Empty coming to take him away. Just nothing.

Dean Winchester standing in the snow with a heart full of unsaid words. And no one to share them with.

It had gotten so much harder after that. He didn’t know why he’d stuck around, really. Some stupid honor thing instilled in him by John, probably. Something about not being weak. Even when he had absolutely no reason to stay. Not anymore.

But he did stay. He hunted. He drank. He drove.

And that picture of Cas… it saved him. Every time he looked at it, it gave him a brief smile. A brief flash of happiness that faded into crushing misery. But it was enough.

So he’d keep hunting.

He didn’t have any other choice.

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@fandomstuff67 @menjiiii @witchyanaels @starlightcastiel @chaoticdean @larryforeveralways @samhainsam @flowersforcas @tlakhtwritesdestiel @wanderingcas @hallowena @spooky-things-do-happen-dean @jayus-fandom-writer @cas-you-assbutt-dean-needs-you @gmotheemo @starrynightdeancas @radiantdean @piemaker-from-gallifrey @on-a-bender @eshaninjer @trasherasswood @dreadful-delight @feraladoration @trenchcas @contemplativepancakes @misha-moose-dean-burger-lover @thefourthheadofcerberus @seffersonjtarship @randomblabbling @craftywitchywoman @supernaturalisheaven @adsp-destielcockles @tehmanda

#suptober20 #destiel fluff #mcd #destiel angst #spn fanfic #destiel fanfic #my writing

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fanfic-scribbles · 4 years

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Life of the Party

Fandom: MCU Captain America/Avengers

Summary: Hiding from the latest threat to New York isn’t exactly how you wanted to meet your soulmate, but it will be a funny story to tell later. Much later.

Quick facts: Romance – Bucky Barnes/Reader – Nondescript Reader

Warnings: Soulmate trope where the first words you say to your soulmate are written on their skin, gun-related peril that is glossed over and doesn’t result in anyone getting hurt, Reader and Bucky are awkward dorks

Soulmate words: “Don’t relax; we’re not safe yet.” and “Boy, you’re a real party, huh?”

Words: 1510

A/N: Everything sorta fell apart this week, writing-wise, but all is not lost– I have a little collection of random sentences I made into soulmate prompts and I’m finding them in the strangest places as I search for something else. I might post more of them as one-shots if this block continues, hard to say. For now please enjoy this little fic starring Bucky and Reader, featuring Steve Rogers as Excited And Supportive Mom Friend.

Living in New York was never supposed to be this dangerous.

And yet, here you are, squatting in a shot-up store that is empty save for you and this one guy who looks like he could possibly be one of the laser-gun-toting militia if he a) hadn’t saved you from getting shot in the head and b) hadn’t been hanging out with Captain America before excessive gunfire had forced the three of you to separate. Naturally, instead of being stuck with star-spangled eye candy, you’re crouching behind a man decked in all-black clothes with countless pockets that look like they’re all filled with weapons of some sort.

Admittedly, the guy is just as built as Captain America, but your brief interaction with the captain had made you feel reassured even while being stuck on the wrong side of a firefight– this guy is silent and sullen and keeps glancing back at you and huffing in frustration, like you’re an annoyance.

Today sucks.

You suck in a breath when footsteps come by you but the guy– Winter-something– somehow pivots silently in steel-toed boots and grabs both your hands with one of his. You flinch in surprise, but his grip is reassuring, and he puts his other index finger to this lips. You give him a look you hope communicates the ‘no shit’ you’re currently feeling, and one side of his mouth quirks into a small smile. Okay…intimidating, maybe, but he is certainly attractive– perhaps even more so than the captain. So sue you; all black is a good look.

He drops the straight line of his shoulders and peeks out, and you realize it’s completely silent outside. You allow yourself to slump and sigh.

“Don’t relax; we’re not safe yet.”

You don’t even realize it at first; you’re so fucking done with the whole damn day you just roll your eyes and say, “Boy, you’re a real party, huh?”

He freezes in the middle of loading a gun and you gasp when you realize when he just said. Well shit.

“You know,” you chuckle, because what is your life right now, “–I thought we’d be in the middle of pulling off a prank or something. Not, you know, a war zone.”

He shakes his head. “I didn’t…think of it,” he says, then flinches and looks at you, brows creased in worry. Or is that aggravation? No, that looks like worry.

“Cool,” you say and smile at your soulmate. “I have no expectations to live up to. That’s nice.”

The lines in his face soften. He raises one eyebrow. “What expectations do I have to live up to?”

You run your hand over your arm absently, though the words are covered by a jacket. His eyes flick there and linger. “Well, I always thought you were a troublemaker,” you say lightly. “But here you are, saving my life.”

As if remembering that you’re not just playing ‘hide from the gunmen’ for fun, he looks out of the broken window, eyes scanning the street. “We gotta find Steve,” he says and takes your hand. You follow as quickly as you can while trying to remain as small as possible. “He’ll get you out of here.”

“And you?”

“I’ll cover you.” He squeezes your hand and stops at a corner. He turns his head to look at you. “I’m…James Barnes. But call me Bucky.”

You tell him your name and you take a few seconds to revel in the surreal reality of finding your soulmate now. From the looks of it he does the same, and then reluctantly turns to peer around the corner. You hear distant noise coming all too close again, sounds of a battle you wished would stay in whatever sci-fi dystopia it came out of.

Somebody grabs your shoulder from behind and you launch yourself against Bucky, wrapping your arms around his middle. He spins around and moves so fast that you don’t know how it happens, but in the end you’re held tight against his front by one of his arms and with the other hand he’s pointing a gun in the face of Captain America. Captain Rogers, in turn, looks far too relaxed for someone literally staring down the barrel of a gun.

“Jesus Christ Steve,” Bucky says and lowers the gun, but he lets go of you very reluctantly.

“Did I miss something?” the captain asks curiously, his brow furrowing as his eyes dart between you and Bucky.

“Words,” Bucky grunts and turns back to look out. It’s stupid, but you miss his hold already.

It takes a moment, but then Captain America gets as soft as a suburban mom hearing that her teenage son has his first date tonight. “Really?”

A bullet hits the wall nearby, close enough that you feel shards of something bounce off of you. “Not the time!” you and Bucky snap in unison. You can’t help but look at him, only to find he’s already smiling at you.

But shouting from behind the slapdash blockade makes your heart speed up in the not-fun way. “You better come out of this okay,” you say, trying for a warning tone but your voice shakes too much for that. “You owe me a drink at least.”

“I’ll buy you two,” Bucky says and moves in suddenly, like he’s going to kiss you, only to come to a nearly-as-sudden stop. You both hesitate, but you lean forward and Bucky takes the opportunity to give you a light kiss. Even while looking at you he says, “Steve,” and Captain America takes your hand and pulls you away. You look back for as long as you can, until you turn a corner and can no longer see your soulmate.

A week goes by, then another, and you’re sitting at a bar in misery, idly pretending to scroll through your phone while staring at the phone number Captain Rogers (“Steve, please, you’re my best friend’s soulmate, I can’t believe he finally found–”) gave you for Bucky. You…haven’t called it. You have about a thousand different excuses that all boil down to two fears: reaching him…and not reaching him.

Someone clears their throat right next to you and you jerk hard enough that some of your drink splashes out of the cup and onto the bar. “Shit,” you curse and quickly wipe it up with the tiny napkin before you turn to see what this guy wants from you. And freeze.

Because it’s…Bucky. Wearing jeans, a soft-looking shirt, and a leather jacket with gloves that match. He shuffles awkwardly, drink in hand, and asks, “This seat taken?”

“No, uh– of course not,” you say and even pat the empty stool next to you.

He sits down and, before you can navigate away, he looks at your phone. You cringe but he smiles at you. “Just about to call me?”

You can barely look at him. “I, uh…wasn’t sure if it was okay. If you were okay.”

His eyes soften. “I’m fine.”

“Good,” you say. The two of you are silent and you take a sip of your drink so you don’t feel so bad about it. Bucky glares at something behind you and you want to turn around but…you have an idea of who’s there.

“Did Captain Rogers give you my number like he promised?” you ask.

Bucky ducks his head. “Yeah,” he mumbles and then straightens up. “Sorry, I…I was scared too,” he admits. He stops looking behind you and squints at you. “You don’t have to call him ‘Captain’ you know.”

“I know, but it bothers him, and from the looks of you he’s eavesdropping, so he can get fucked,” you say and hear a vague choking sound from somewhere behind you. Not right behind, thankfully, but you hear the loud laughter of a different man, and that makes you wince. “Not just him, I guess.”

“It’s okay; they’re all getting lost now,” Bucky says, grinning. He leans in and you can smell sweet-spiced cologne. It makes you want to get closer, bury your face in the crook of his neck, inhale everything he is (because he’s yours), lick and nibble at that soft ski–

You swallow hard and take your mind off that track before it gets too far away from you. Bucky swirls his drink and if he noticed you lusting after him he’s polite enough not to mention it. “So,” he says. “We’re both too chicken-shit to call each other. How are we going to do this?”

It’s said in jest, but he isn’t completely wrong– although you’ve taken care of yourself so far, and so has he, so it’s not so daunting to think about. “Well we know we’re both disasters.” You hold up your drink and smile. “What else might we have in common?”

Bucky looks at your drink, slowly smiles, and clinks his own glass against it. His other hand– gentle, warm even through the glove– slides over yours and lightly grips around your fingers. “I can’t wait to find out.”

#bucky barnes x reader #bucky x reader #avengers reader insert #captain america reader insert #soulmate fic #soulmate words #what is the opposite of a meet-cute

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theoreticalconstruct · 3 years

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Beach Trip (FFVI, T/L/C, SFW)

Written for PolyamShippingDay for @polyamships. Prompt: Beating the heat.

Title: Beach Trip Fandom: Final Fantasy VI Characters: Terra/Locke/Celes, Cid, the kids of Mobliz. Summary: The children want to go on a vacation. Celes helps it happen.

"The children want to go to the beach." It's Katarin who tells them, sitting and bouncing her little boy in her arms. "I don't know where they got the idea - one of the travelers must've mentioned it. But now they won't stop talking about it."

Terra is sitting in front of her, tilting her head in thought. "I've seen a few, but I've never... *gone* to one that way," she says. "What would they do?"

"Play in the water and the sand, I suppose. It's a good way to stay cool." Katarin smiles. "I've never been myself. It was too dangerous to try to travel so far through the Veldt, but...."

As she continues, and as Terra nods along, Locke turns back to Celes. Her expression is quietly, carefully neutral. Locke wonders what she’s thinking about; he doesn’t know much about her past, even now, doesn’t know if she enjoys beaches or not. Locke had never been to one, not for fun, anyway; he’d always preferred the mountains, caves and snow and rocks, since it was where he’d grown up. His only real experiences with sand had been the desert - not his idea of a good time. Maybe having the oceans there would make them more fun?

"I understand that they want to go," Terra says, snapping Locke back to the present, "but even now it's a long trip, and we can't carry the younger ones there ourselves. I think that maybe it will have to wait."

"It's too bad," Katarin says, shaking her head. "They won't stop talking about it, I fear. You know how children are, they don't understand."

"We'll have to find something else," Terra says, and Locke nods. He can't think of a way they'd be able to do it, either, not with so many young children. If only they had their own cart, but keeping one up had been difficult - someday they would have to find a way to keep a chocobo there, so that they can make trips like that -

He doesn't expect Celes to clear her throat behind him. "Actually," she says thoughtfully, "I have an idea."

---

How Celes could put this together so quickly, Locke has no idea. Even by pigeon, he would've thought the word would've taken some time to reach the others... but there they were, fresh off of one of Edgar's new miniature airships.

Celes is sitting beside her smiling old Granddad, one hand on his shoulder as the children run around his new cottage - Edgar's idea, she'd said, when she'd told him about having to leave Cid behind on the island. The old man is smiling with pure joy as Celes introduces the children to him, each one of them by name. Terra sees that Locke is watching, and she nudges him. "He never expected to have this many great-grandchildren, I'll bet," she says.

"No, I imagine not." He puts a hand on her back, briefly - he wonders how much Celes has told Cid about their relationship. Maybe they'd have to figure out a way to tell him. "How are the other children?"

"They're fine - Duane and some of the older children can swim. I told them to take the younger kids to the beach in small groups and not to let them go too far. The group that went out a few minutes ago should be back soon."

They hear Cid laughing, and then Celes clears her throat. "Terra, Locke," she says, and as Locke looks up he can see she's smiling too, just a bit. "Cid wants to get a picture of the three of us together, while the sun is high."

The old man stands up, patting one of the children on the head idly as he goes. "Yes, of course," he says, "I'm developing an improved camera I'd love to try out, you won't even have to pose for so long as the old sort. It'll be good to have a portrait for the house, and I think I can make a duplicate next time I visit Figaro, for your children."

"That would be great!" Terra says, smiling.

He hangs back a bit to let Celes join her as Cid and Terra walk out, Cid telling her a few of the details about the device - Terra's picked up a few things from Edgar and Setzer, at least enough to nod along. "Did you tell him?" he asks, curious.

"I didn't have to." She shrugs. "He told me. Said that he was glad I'd found a place where I could be happy. "

Locke smiles as they head out. When Cid takes the picture of the three of them, against the whitewashed wall of his little house, Locke takes Terra's hand and then Celes, and neither of them object.

#Final Fantasy VI #Terra Branford #Locke Cole #Celes Chere #Celes x Locke x Terra #Fanfiction #Stuff I Wrote #polyamships #ot3 #PolyamShippingDay

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lil-creatorwritings · 4 years

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Summer of Smut Writing Challenge July 7: Three’s Company [Leonardo da Vinci, Comte de Saint-Germain]

Fandom: Ikemen Vampire Pairing: Leonardo da Vinci x Reader x Comte de Saint-Germain Word Count: 2,670 words Prompt: Strip poker Warning: Pure, unadulterated smut. There is zero plot. Also poly and DP. A/N: Part of @voltage-vixen ’s Summer of Smut Writing Challenge. You can check the original post for the rules and prompts if you’d like to join in as well! I know that the deadline for all works have been move to the 20th, but I've moved my personal goalpost to finishing the 15 prompts before the month ends. That's just my choice, simply because I want to engage myself back to writing and I've found that I really enjoyed this challenge. Anyway, don't let the pairing or word count fool you--this is my first time writing a threesome. Now that I've given you that disclaimer, proceed at your own risk! Also, thank you so much to @umbralaperture for beta reading for me! Now I'm going to run away and hide myself in a hole! *runs*

---

The downfall of being inherently competitive is that there are times when you bite off more than you can chew. Granted that confidence is a key to seem proficient in something you are not, it's proven ineffective if your audience knows that you are, in fact, not good at the challenge. Even though you can be stubbornly fierce, you do at least know when to admit defeat.

It started off innocently, for the most part. When you came up to the room carrying a tray of freshly brewed tea, the two of them were already in the middle of a game. Placing a full cup in front of everyone, you sat down on one of the chairs and nursed your drink. You reached to grab the table on the book, flipping through the pages to find where you left off. It was a quiet time in the evening and even though you weren't doing anything to each other, you treasured these sorts of moments with them.

As the current round ended with Comte's win, he took a sip of tea before asking. "Would you like to join us in playing?"

Tilting your book down to meet his gaze, you shook your head. "Me? Oh, no thank you."

The other man laughed, reshuffling the cards in his hands. "Is it because you give everything away from your expression? I bet we'll be able to tell what you're thinking."

Pouting, you playfully kicked Leonardo from underneath the table. "I can be good at it! I just don't want to interrupt your game. Besides, I'm having a lot of fun with my book."

"Well then, how can we get you to play with us for a bit?"

"I know," Leonardo smirked as his hands tapped the deck on the table. "We should make a bet."

Comte gave him a look. "We are not using money, Leonardo."

"Who said it had to be? There are other things we can use as a bet."

Intrigued, you closed your book. "Okay then, what do you suppose we should use?"

"Clothes."

"So you want to play strip poker." You crossed your legs, resting your arm on your knee. It wasn't that big of a surprise for you--even in modern Japan, you've gone to several mixers that used this game as a means of socialization. Not that you had ever participated in them, but you weren't in the company of strangers today. "What does the winner get?"

Comte poured himself another cup of tea. "Anything they want, as long as it's reasonable to the others. I think that would be appropriate."

That certainly did seem fair, but you realized a big discrepancy as you looked over the two men. First, both of them had way too many layers on compared to you, even if it was just their daily clothes. Second, it would be by pure luck if you managed to win once, let alone win the entire game with your skill or lack thereof. Third, you're sure that they knew this as well, so there's no need to create an enticing incentive for you to join. Not that you needed to hang a win over either of them to ask for anything you want because you knew that they can and would give it to you.

"Well? What do you say?"

Picking the book back up, you shake your head. "You two can play by yourselves."

"Why? Afraid that you're not as good as you think you are?"

You glared at the painter, who had a mischievous glint in his eyes. "I just don't feel like it."

"Now, now, Leonardo. Don't tease her." You thought that Comte was on your side until he continued. "We cannot fault her if she does have a terrible poker face."

It was a bad idea and you knew it from the start. You shouldn't have given in to the obvious bait.

But here you were, holding up 5 cards to your face as you waited for the two men to decide whether to draw again or finally make a bet. Your skirt and shoes had been the first to join the pile of clothes along with a beige overcoat. Leonardo threw his belt in on the second round, which technically was one article of clothing. Still, it was vexing to see them barely undressed while you sat there half-naked.

To your surprise, you had won the round, prompting both men to dispose of another layer of clothing. Despite the burst of satisfaction, something told you that it didn't mean anything in the long run.

The next round ended fairly quickly. Leonardo had already removed his coat, noticing the curious expressions on their face. You chuckled, remembering how their eyes followed your hands while you were unhooking your skirt earlier. In a smooth movement, you slipped your hands up your blouse, fiddling with the ties of your corset as you looked back at them. Their heated gaze sent a dull throb between your legs, finally loosening the piece before pulling it from underneath and letting it fall to the floor.

You had already accepted the fact that you would lose. With that, you decided to put on a show instead, stretching your arms out wide and arching your back just a bit. Neither of them gave away anything save for their eyes, which were drinking up the sight of your exposed torso and breasts pressing up into your blouse.

"Hm. That's certainly one way to undress." You heard Comte say before you reached for the cards, leaning forward on the table and shuffling them well.

A few minutes later, his vest had soon joined the pile. The painter looked at you expectantly, wondering which one you were going to contribute next. You hooked your fingers in the band of your panties, dragging them down your thighs at a slow pace. As the thin fabric slid further down, you flicked it away with your foot before coyly crossing your legs.

The two men shared a look as you started to shuffle again. And as expected, the round ended with the count's win. As Leonardo pulled his gloves off, you moved to stand up, which caught both of their attention. You had turned your back to the table and sashayed to the bed, knowing full well that they'd be watching you. Lifting the covers, you slid underneath it and took off your blouse before throwing it in the mountain of clothes.

"Cara mia, that's unfair." He teased, leaning back into his chair. "Who's going to be our dealer now?"

"Your dealer has lost, so I don't see any further reason to sit by the table."

Comte gathered the cards, shuffling them mindlessly. "Leonardo. Shall we raise the stakes a bit?"

"What did you have in mind?"

He paused to distribute their hand before looking up at him. "The winner gets to monopolize her tonight."

You sighed softly as your hands started to wander on your body, idly caressing your thighs while watching them. "Won't either of you just call it a draw?"

"There must be a winner, ma chérie. That is the rule."

"Hm. Don't think I'm going to lose to you."

"You'd be mistaken to think that I'd let you win."

As entertaining as it is to watch them fight over you, the growing heat between your legs made you impatient. Settling down on the bed, you closed your eyes and started to touch yourself, fingers gently running along your wet slit. A hand reached up to cup a breast, teasing your nipple until it hardened and gave it a light squeeze. Slipping a finger inside, you pumped it slowly before adding another one. You spread your legs wider, grinding your palm against your throbbing clit for some friction. You were no longer paying attention to them as you sought after your orgasm, bucking your hips up as you continued to pleasure yourself.

A pressure on your hand made you stop, opening your eyes to meet Leonardo's intense gaze. You whimpered when he moved your hand away, keeping a firm but gentle grip as he licked your fingers. "Such a naughty girl. You couldn't wait for us, could you?"

"I think she deserves a little lesson, doesn't she, Leonardo?" Comte sat by the head of the bed, tossing the blanket away before he helped you up into a sitting position.

"That's certainly something we can agree on."

With his arm around your waist, Comte hoisted you up on his lap as he sat on the edge of the mattress. His lips trailed a line of hot kisses on your neck, making you arch your back while his hand reached down between your legs and teased at your clit. Your wanton moans were swallowed up in a demanding kiss as another pair of hands roamed over your chest and caressed your sides.

As you were reaching to undo Leonardo's pants, he stopped you and pulled away. He chuckled at the baffled look on your face. "I don't think so, cara mia. This is a punishment for you, after all."

He reached past you, hearing the rustle of smooth fabrics together before he undid the count's tie. Comte paused with his ministrations to bring your arms behind you, feeling the silk tie against your skin as it bound them together. Though there was enough slack for you to stay in it comfortably, you couldn't move them around freely anymore.

With a final tug, he asked in a soft voice. "It's not too tight, is it?"

Shaking your head, you felt your heart warming from the affection. "No, it's just right."

"You'll let us know immediately if you need it taken off, alright?"

"Mhn."

Leonardo tipped your chin up to place a kiss on your lips, smiling gently at you. "That's our good girl."

Once again, they busied themselves with your pleasure. The painter settled himself between your legs, coaxing more of your arousal as he eagerly sucked on your clit. You could feel slick fingers teasing at your other hole, gasping when one of them slipped inside and started to slowly thrust, getting used to the sensation as Comte added another one. The tongue thrusting inside your pussy made you clench, your thighs kept apart with a firm grip when you tried to close them. The orgasm had blindsided you, moaning loudly into the room as your body trembled from the sudden rush of your release.

When he moved away, you noticed the slight shine around his mouth and chin. Your cheeks flushed in embarrassment as he licked his lips, the devious look on his face telling you that it was far from over.

Both men were quick to undress, the bed creaking underneath the added weight. Comte placed you back on his lap, only this time you were facing him as he claimed your lips in a hungry kiss. A hand gripped at your waist as you felt something cool being spread on your asshole. The anticipation of what was about to happen made your heart pound with both excitement and nervousness, though this wasn't your first time taking both of them.

"Leo..." You whimpered, leaning forward as he helped to keep you steady.

"Just breathe, cara mia. You're okay."

There wasn't much you could do anymore but follow, taking a deep breath as their combined scents gave you a sense of ease. Leonardo was gentle, pushing slowly while trying to distract you from the initial discomfort by stroking your sensitive nub. The other ran his hand down your back in circles, pressing kisses all over your shoulder. The pain had already subsided by the time he was inside you, replaced with a feverish heat spreading through your body.

"Ready?" He whispered in your ear, to which you could only nod.

Keeping you close, he laid down on the bed with you on top of him. The count leaned forward on his knees, hovering over the both of you as he rested your ankles on his shoulders. He teased his cock along your slit and paused, voice taut with his desire for you. "Bear with me, ma chérie." You tossed your head back as he entered you, moaning loudly and doing your best to relax. Leonardo had let out a groan as well, his hands reaching to cup one of your breasts.

Neither of them moved, giving you time to get accustomed to the fullness. Comte turned his head to press a kiss on your leg. "The two of you make such a beautiful sight together."

"We shouldn't keep her waiting for too long, you know." The painter chuckled in your ear.

"Yes. Shall we bring her to the brink of rapture, then?"

They started slow, eventually falling into a steady pace of pumping in and out of both your holes. One of them would always be inside you while the other pulls out just enough before pushing back in, creating a rhythm that sent you higher to your peak with each thrust. With your arms pinned between you and Leonardo, you were rendered immobile as he caressed your breasts and toyed with your hardened nipples. Comte was scattering kisses from your ankle down to your knee, his thumb grinding circles on your throbbing clit as each of their free hands held onto your waist to keep you from moving.

It was nothing but bliss and all you could do was helplessly indulge in them.

Leonardo nuzzled his face in your neck, leaving kisses below your ear as he murmured. "You like it when we fill you like this, don't you, cara mia?"

"Ahhh, yes, yes...!" you nearly yelled, their ministrations provoking your unabashed response.

"Such an honest answer, ma chérie."

"Please," you rasped, the words escaping you as your head started to blank when they moved faster. "Oh fuck...!"

You could feel something tugging on your arms, realizing that your restraints were now undone. Even if they were a bit sore, you reached out to Comte, wanting to feel him close as well. He was quick to realize your feelings, moving your legs down and hooking them around his waist. Resting his forehead on your unoccupied shoulder, you wrapped an arm around him as you searched for the painter's hand with the other, interlacing your fingers with his as soon as you found him.

The sensation of being stretched by your lovers made you dizzy with need. You heard both men groan when you clenched around their cocks, only to make them slam harder and deeper in you. The increased pressure and tighter circles on your clit made you cry out, arching your back as you surrendered yourself to the immense pleasure. Their thrusts were becoming erratic as your walls clamped tighter with each push until you felt their hot release spill inside you, your intense spasms coaxing out more of their cum and filling you up.

Your shared warmth was a comfort as you waited for your heavy breathing to return to normal. One of them guided you down on the mattress, shivering as they gently eased out of you. Feeling spent and sated, you let out a soft sigh as you closed your eyes for a bit.

As you opened your eyes, it occurred to you that you had fallen asleep. You were still in bed, waiting for your vision to clear as you thought about getting up to fetch yourself some fresh clothes. The argument you had with yourself vanished when you opened your eyes and realized what was going on: your lovers had surrounded you, with Comte lying down in front of you and Leonardo behind you. Each one of them had an arm around your waist as they continued their peaceful slumber, unfazed by everyone's state of undress.

Your chest ached with the love you held for both of them. Smiling to yourself, you closed your eyes and listened to the soft sound of their breathing, the safety of being in their arms lulling you back to sleep.

#ikemen vampire #ikevamp leonardo #ikevamp comte #summer of smut #summer of smut writing challenge #idk how do we tag comte? xD #i can't tell you how anxious i was when i finished my first draft and i just had to yell for an adult #but here i am posting this so #i mean my heart will just explode for reasons hahahaha #i had to change the last part because i was about to cry with what i originally wrote there #anyway............. you get a cookie if you've read all my tags haha!#im leaving!!!! goodbye!!!! xD

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nanoland · 3 years

Text

am writing hellblazer fic asfdfsfff

title: The Cave

fandom: Hellblazer

characters: John Constantine, Chas Chandler, the First of the Fallen

blurb: John gets lost in a cave.

warnings: Depression, covid19, demons getting themselves Extremely murdered.

It was when the death toll had crested 100,000 that he’d snapped and made his way to Number 10 Downing Street with murder in his eyes and a briefcase full of every cursed artefact he owned.

“What are you gonna do, eh?” bellowed Chas, who’d been following behind him in his cab for the last half mile. He’d already tried to physically drag John into it and had received a bite on the hand for his trouble. “Chuck ‘em through the windows? That’s bulletproof glass, John! Fuck’s sake! Be reasonable!”

“Stop sodding shouting!” John shouted over his shoulder, wiping rain off his face. “You’ll spread sodding germs!”

“John, I already had it. Four months ago, remember?”

“You can have it more than once! Christ, does nobody in this city read the papers but me?”

It was fair to say that John wasn’t at his best. In his defence, he’d spent the last year sitting inside his tiny, poorly-ventilated, roach-ridden flat, vividly imagining what a respiratory virus would do to lungs that had suffered over forty years of heavy smoking, two run-ins with cancer, and the actual devil sticking his actual great big grubby clawed hand in ‘em. No fucking thank you.

Chas sighed heavily and climbed out of the cab again, slamming the door as he did. He splashed through a dozen puddles before coming to stand in John’s path, arms folded. “Listen, Conjob. I love you. Even when you’re a complete prick, which is most of the time. And I know you can do amazing things. But mate, hear me out; you cannot assassinate the British Prime Minister.”

“Someone bloody has to!” John Constantine, greatest wizard of his age, screamed at the top of his wretched, ragged, Satan-besmirched lungs.

Eventually, Chas managed to calm him down and get him home for a cup of tea.

“Sorry ‘bout that,” John grunted as his socks dried in front of the heater and the rational parts of his mind re-exerted themselves.

“S’alright.”

“How’s the bite?”

“Didn’t pierce the skin. John, you need a break. A holiday. You need to get out of town for a few weeks. Go breathe fresh country air, do some weird mystical shit with a goat, whatever it is that sorts your head out these days. But you can’t carry on like this, mate. I haven’t seen you this miserable in years.”

He handed John one of Renee’s strawberry-patterned towels. Dragging it across his face, John grunted, “Holiday? At a time like this?”

“Why not? Makes as much sense as any other time.”

“What if you come down with it again? Or Geraldine? Or Renee?”

“John,” said Chas, gently, laying a hand on his shoulder. “You already tried to cure me with magic. It didn’t work. At all. Just wasted a lot of chicken blood and Renee’s best spoons. Get this in your skull: there’s nothing you can do. Alright? I know you hate that, but it’s the truth.”

John swallowed thickly. “Yeah. Yeah. Alright.”

So he went home to his tiny flat, stuffed fresh socks and his toothbrush into a backpack, booby-trapped his front door, and fled London in the dead of night, feeling like one of those gits in Boccaccio’s Decameron.

“It’s called glamping.”

“Some new wizardy stuff, I’m guessing?”

Chas’s voice over the phone was distracted, like he was half-watching the telly. John was relieved; he’d wanted to hear another human speak but wasn’t feeling up to a proper conversation demanding his usual levels of sparkling charisma and staggering wit. Not right now. Not without weed, and he’d not thought to bring any.

Nestling deeper into his teak folding chair and drawing a thick woven blanket up over his knees, John said, “Nah. Not buggering about with any of that old guff until I’m back in town. Promised myself.”

“Right.”

“Don’t sound so sceptical, you git. I’ve done it before.”

“Mm-hmm. What’s your record? The longest you’ve ever gone without doing anything mystical and creepy?”

“‘Bout… hmm. Three days.”

“You’re coming up on the tail end of that right about now.”

“I know. Chas, on my word, I am going to make it to Sunday without so much as sniffing around a graveyard or wanking off a werewolf. I am on holiday.”

“Alright, alright, if you say so. Good for you, mate. So what’s this ‘glamping’ business, then?”

“It’s camping. But posh. I’m sitting up here atop a hill in Yorkshire with a tent the size of a cathedral and me chic woodburning stove and me box of white wine and feeling like the yuppiest old cunt who ever drew breath.”

“Sounds horrible.”

“It does, doesn’t it? That’s why I chose it over a nice comfy bed and breakfast. Figured I’d wake up with a cow shitting on my head and could use that as an excuse to come home early. Actually, though… it’s alright. Quiet. There’s a river at the bottom of the hill where these giggling honeymooners like to have a morning bonk but it’s far enough away that I can’t hear them unless they’re really having fun. And the weather’s been alright. It’s all surprisingly decent.”

“And you’re waiting for the other shoe to drop.”

“Yep.”

“Hmph. I should have come with you. You get all weird and introspective when you’re left alone for more than a couple days.”

“I’m not alone. There’re birds. Squirrels. A few ghosts hanging out by the toilets.”

“John.”

“Ain’t gonna talk to ‘em! Mind you, one did give me a wink when I was zipping up. How’s everything back home?”

“Er – look, I won’t lie, it’s shit. It’s all shit. But it’s not any more shit than it was when you left three days ago. Not any worse, not any better, yeah?”

“Right.”

(Stupid to be disappointed. Stupid that a part of him had secretly believed that as soon as he abandoned the sinking ship that was London, things would miraculously get better for everyone, even as another part of him, on the opposite side of his brain, had been convinced – maybe even hoped – that the moment he was gone, the entire city would descend into screaming anarchy, at which he could point and laugh from a safe distance.)

“Listen, John, I’ve gotta go. Renee needs groceries. Be careful, please?”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“Don’t fuck about with any occult bollocks. Don’t go foraging for brain-melting mushrooms. Don’t do anything. Just stay in your tent and read your dirty books, yeah?”

“Heard and understood, Mum.”

“Bastard.”

“Love you.”

“Yeah, you too.”

John dropped his phone onto the grass and stared up at the sky. A herd of thin grey clouds drifted past. Off in the distance, he could just make out the shape of a barn – or was it a church? Either way, there were sheep next to it.

A squirrel scurried down a nearby tree trunk and then up another one.

Yawning, he scratched his chin. (Getting scruffy. Hadn’t shaved in two days now.)

“Should prob’ly do some reading,” he mumbled to no one.

A few minutes passed.

He dangled his head back behind his seat and sang quietly: “First produced my pistol… then produced my rapier… said ‘stand and deliver’, for he were a bold deceiver… mush a-ring dum-a do dum-a da…”

Heaving a sigh, he stood up and walked around his tent to dispel pins and needles, then went inside to read his book.

“I am not bored,” he muttered fiercely, staring down at pages that might as well have been blank.

“Oh, but you are, John.”

England’s greatest wizard jumped up, wielding his novel as though it were a club, and dealt a devastating blow to empty air while screaming something along the lines of, “Raargh die die die!”

Then he waited for a moment to see if the voice returned. Tried to determine whether he could sense anything. Nope. Admittedly, that didn’t mean much these days. Lots of beasties and bastards out there had learned how to hide from him.

“Either I’m hallucinating or someone’s pissing me about,” he concluded, placing his hands on his hips. “Chas, mate, I’m sure you would agree that either constitutes a fine reason to leave this fucking tent.”

And leave he did.

He went caving.

The BBC had published an article a couple years back calling the UK’s cave systems its ‘last true wilderness’. He and Chas had had a good long laugh over that, Chas suggesting that John take the caver quoted on an expedition to Faerie or maybe direct him toward any of the two hundred portals to Hell between Plymouth and the Orkney Islands.

But the article had stuck with him. Perhaps it was the obvious love the caver had for his hobby, the clean and simple joy he got out of crawling around in dark, damp holes. John was always drawn to people like that, and not just because it sounded smutty.

(Imagine if he’d loved something clean and simple; gotten into bird-watching or carpentry instead of magic. Would have saved him a lot of hassle.)

Idly, one evening, he’d poked around on the internet – now that, that really was the last true wilderness – until he’d found a map listing all the cave systems in the UK, along with a guide to which were popular, which were dangerous, which were good for a family holiday, and yes (inevitably), which had been the scenes of grisly accidents.

(Wikipedia said that historically there’d been only 136 fatalities ‘associated with recreational caving’ in the UK and that, statistically, it wasn’t a particularly dangerous hobby. Hadn’t stopped him from having vivid dreams about bodies wedged in tiny tunnels miles below ground, cooling and rotting and bloating, except how could they bloat when there simply wasn’t enough room, what happened when…

Anyway, Chas had eventually rescued him from his maudlin musings and dragged him to the pub.)

And while his memory was a messy old thing, especially these days, that just happened to be the sort of useless information that tended to hang around in his head for years, like the words to every song in Sweeney Todd or the rituals required for an exorcism spell that didn’t actually work, doing nothing but taking up space.

There was a cave only a few miles from the campsite.

When he arrived, he beheld a clumsily painted sign nailed to an oak tree next to the entrance:

CLOSED TO THE PUBLIC UNTIL SPRING

NO TRESPASSERS

HAZARDOUS! ENTER AT OWN RISK

He lingered at the cave’s mouth. Though it was big enough for him to stand up in, it made for an unassuming sight. Squirrels played in the old oak with three sets of lovers’ initials carved into it that stood at its left and the pathway leading up to it was strewn with weeds and wildflowers.

“Am I really this stupid?” he pondered aloud, before correcting himself: “Am I really this bored?”

After five minutes’ internal debate, he decided that yes, he was.

He took a step towards the narrow crevice, before stopping himself. No. This was ridiculous. What was he thinking? Shaking his head, he turned and walked away.

Three hours later he was back, now with a good pair of leather boots (stolen from an arsehole in a nearby village), a Power Rangers backpack (given to him by a kid in exchange for a cigarette and some magic tricks), a cheap flashlight, two cans of lager, and a packet of crisps (paid for with the last of his cash).

“Off we go, then,” he said, and marched into the dark.

Like a well-fed leopard on a low-hanging branch, the First of the Fallen lounged across his throne of vertebrae, long black hair dribbling off his broad shoulders and pooling on the ground. Though he was wide awake, his eyes were closed. This, combined with the corpses of three supplicants dangling from nearby steel hooks, would hopefully discourage anyone from bothering him for the next few hours.

“My liege?”

Shit.

He kept still. Said nothing. Perhaps they would go away.

“Um… my liege, I’m terribly, monumentally sorry to disturb you, but…”

With a wave of his claw, the messenger exploded into red mist.

When, ten minutes later, a second messenger summoned up the courage to approach him, he realized that it must be very serious indeed.

“You have five seconds,” he said cordially, holding them up by the neck.

“Con… constantine!” they croaked.

Brightening, the First set them down. “Indeed? What’s the little bastard up to this time, eh?”

“Nothing, my liege. He’s dead.”

A few minutes later, a fourth corpse hung from a hook and the throne of Hell was empty.

To the First of the Fallen, caves were still a novelty.

Confined spaces, in general, were still a novelty.

At 13.6 billion years, he was only slightly younger than the universe. While solid planets had come into existence around the same time, he’d not actually visited one until the emergence of homo sapiens and his subsequent quarrel and falling-out with God – a mere 300,000 years ago.

Cast from Heaven, naked and freezing cold, he’d stumbled into a rocky cranny by the shoreline and wedged himself between its slimy walls. That was his earliest memory of ever being ‘indoors’. No surprise, then, that he avoided such places when he could. He had built no castles in Hell; his throne sat atop a mountain beneath an endless red-gold sky.

But right now, it wasn’t the cave that had his attention, dark and chilly and, yes, slimy as it was.

“Stupid turd,” he grumbled, glowering at the corpse. “Ow!”

He’d bumped his head on the cave ceiling again. It was too low for the average human to stand upright, much less an eight-foot primordial being.

Constantine stared at him, blue eyes blank and glassy. His body was unmarred save for the dent in the left side of his scalp, which had stopped leaking some time ago. As far as the First could tell, his nemesis had simply tripped and fallen onto an unfortunately positioned, unfortunately sharp rock.

The First spat on his tie and snarled, “Pathetic! What the fuck are you even doing here, eh? And – God’s hairy bollocks, when did you last bathe?”

His soul was still dangling off him, like drool from a dog’s mouth. Heaven, obviously, had no interest in him and the First hadn’t yet authorised his admission into Hell.

Because he wasn’t ready, dammit.

He’d not been expecting to welcome John home for at least another thirty years.

“Always have to make it difficult, don’t you?”

When he reached down to take hold of the soul – such a grubby, tattered thing – it bit, blazing gold for a sliver of an instant before he snatched his hand back. Stuck his index finger in his mouth until the sting abated. Fumed.

He tried again, grasping it firmly, as one might a snake. It thrashed. He gave it a disciplinary shake before opening Constantine’s mouth with a claw and forcing it down his gullet.

Coming back to life was never enjoyable. Constantine spasmed and gurgled, legs and arms contorting as pink foam gathered at his lips. The First, bored, sat down beside him, reclining against the cave wall with one knee crooked. Surveyed their surroundings. The ground was – oh dear – littered with crisp crumbs, an empty foil packet, two cans, and dozens of cigarette butts. How foul.

“Disaster in your wake, as ever,” he commented, tutting.

Constantine groaned, eyelashes fluttering.

Belatedly realizing that he wouldn’t be able to see in this subterranean gloom, and very much wanting to afflict him with the identity of his saviour, the First snapped his fingers. A dozen lit candles appeared across the cavern, hovering ghost-like in mid-air.

“Urgh… fffu… whu… oh, Christ Almighty.”

Watching him sit up, the First assumed a lordly expression, tilting his head. “And what do you have to say for yourself?”

Unhealthily pale skin and facial muscles stretched and twisted to an indeterminable end.

Then John Constantine set his jaw.

Growled: “I’m on holiday, you bellend.”

And passed out.

He awoke to the smell of slightly burnt waffles.

Better than burnt flesh, which was what he’d anticipated after His Infernal Bloody Majesty had popped in for a fag and a chat. Certainly better than sulphur.

“For you,” the First of the Fallen purred.

A white plate – averagely-sized but rendered absurdly dainty by the dimensions of the clawed fingers holding it – was set down in front of him.

He frowned at its golden-brown contents. “The catch?”

“No catch. I was peckish. I imagine you are, too.”

“Come on. Not in the mood. Did you piss on ‘em? Did you mix a baby’s blood into the batter?”

“Honestly, John.”

Scratching his chin, he reviewed the facts. Still in the same sodding cave, albeit far better illuminated than the last time he’d been conscious. Alive, but with that unmistakable stiffness that he’d come to associate with having recently been dead. Cold. Irritable.

Hungry.

His archenemy’s smug smile was almost enough to make him spit the first bite back out. Instinct borne from months of extreme poverty forced him to swallow instead.

“Tastes like shit,” he remarked, wiping his lips. “But I suppose you usually have minions to prepare food for you. Where’s the syrup?”

A regal sigh, before a bottle appeared beside the plate. He emptied a third of it and spent the next few minutes in delicious, sticky silence.

There were, as ever, consequences to allowing the First of the Fallen centre stage. The moment the big smelly git realised that John really wasn’t in the mood for banter, he waved a hand and conjured up a thin hardback with Into the Underworld: The Amateur’s Guide to Caving in Britain on the front.

As John rolled his eyes and stuffed another waffle into his mouth, the First cleared his throat and read: “‘According to the National Speleological Society, the minimum number of people required to safely embark on a recreational caving expedition is four – at least one of whom should have prior caving experience.’ Did you know that, John?”

John chewed sullenly.

“I did. I’d wager that most people do. At least, I’d wager that most people know that going caving in groups smaller than two – going caving alone – is wildly inadvisable. Caves are dangerous, John.”

Where were his cigarettes? Had the bastard nicked them?

“And… let’s see – ah! Here we are. ‘There is a great deal of commercial equipment available to a first-time caver, some of which is necessary, some of which is not. Two items, however, that are absolutely non-negotiable are a helmet and a helmet-mounted light.’ Do you have either of those, John?”

“Do I criticise your fucking hobbies?” he exploded, knowing better, knowing it would only encourage him. Sugary crumbs flew everywhere.

“You do, in fact. Often. And quite understandably. My favourite hobby is murdering your friends, after all.”

John threw the plate at his head.

He’d had a good sense of direction even before he’d learned how to see psychic residue coating streets and walls, left behind by previous travellers. Always scurrying around in places no kid should; subways, sewers, dirty basements, any haunted house his greedy little eye fell upon.

When he’d reached sixteen, burgeoning schizophrenia had muddled him up now and then. Occasionally, it’d even left him standing in streets he didn’t recognise with no earthly idea how he’d got there. PTSD had compounded the problem.

Even so, at fifty plus, he didn’t make a habit of getting lost. Meds, practice, and years of experience meant that he could walk from Chas’s house to Saint Paul’s with a blindfold on.

Long story short: This was embarrassing.

“I’m fairly sure we’re going in circles. That stalactite is very familiar.”

And he certainly wasn’t fucking helping.

(The floating candles, following them like ducklings, were. John’s torch had broken when he’d tripped. Still, he didn’t need the First of the Fallen for light. Could conjure it up himself, no bother. It just made sense to avail himself of a primordial being’s infinite magical resources before dipping into his own, far more limited stockpile.)

“Do you know the way out?” John asked, not breaking his stride.

“I do.”

“Will you tell me where it is?”

“I will not.”

“Then shut up.”

In his defence, John hadn’t thought the cave was big enough to get lost in. It hadn’t looked it from the outside.

But he’d wandered, then crawled, down at least a mile of twisting, increasingly narrow tunnels before getting himself killed. He’d kept meaning to stop; said to himself five times, ‘Okay, Conjob, this is getting stupid, let’s trot our arse back to civilisation’. Then he would notice another crevice wide enough for him to squeeze into.

“Curious place for a holiday,” the First of the Fallen commented after bravely keeping his tongue still for an unprecedented five minutes.

“Curious times we’re living in, innit?”

He hummed in agreement. “Are you really not here for any particular reason? Not – I don’t know – trying to find a missing child abducted by the fae? Searching for a wicked spirit who’s been cursing the local shepherds? Treasure-hunting, perhaps?”

“No.”

“You’re just here.”

“Yep.”

“Why?”

“I told you. I’m on holiday. Taking a nice long break.”

“John. We’ve known one another for some time. I am familiar with the ways in which you ‘take a break’. You either go to the pub or you go to several pubs. Attempting to reconnect with nature is hardly your style.”

“Being oblivious to current events – especially shit ones – is hardly your style. Been too busy shaving your chunky arse to pick up a newspaper lately?”

“Print is dying. Besides, you try managing an entire dimension. See how much spare time it leaves you. Honestly, I’m run off my feet most days.”

“So quit.”

“Don’t be silly. What else would I do?”

“I dunno. Could be a camgirl. You’ve got the legs for it.”

“Stop trying to change the subject. Why aren’t you at home?”

John stopped walking and spun to face him. “There’s a plague, you gormless, oblivious prick. I can’t go to the pub. I can’t meet up with me mates. I can’t visit people’s homes to perform exorcisms. I can’t do anything but sit indoors, on my own, for months on end, just watching everything get worse, and that… and that’s not an option. Not for me. I crack too easy. So I got out. Before I killed someone. Now, for the last time, shut up and let me concentrate.”

He bent down to tug off his shoes and socks.

Telepathic magic tended to work best when you were naked. But sod that. Not with the First of the Fuckheads watching. Waffles or no waffles, he did not deserve a treat.

“Oh, is this what we’re doing now? Marvellous! I do love watching your quaint party tricks,” he oozed with a mocking round of applause as John dropped to his knees.

Ignore him.

Taking a deep breath, John let his awareness expand.

It was hard, with the First standing right there. His presence was staggeringly heavy, weighing on the ley lines like an iron ball on a lace hammock. And so alien; elements found nowhere on Earth, bones and muscles formed before Earth had been a glint in God’s eye.

John sneered into the darkness. Piss on that. On him. This was child’s play. Buggered as his brain might be, John Constantine wasn’t going to falter at the sound, scent, or sensation of a mean-spirited old cosmic relic.

Okay, let’s see what we’ve got.

Seven years ago, three people came this way. A family. A woman; her sister; her daughter. They were having fun. The sisters had done this before; the daughter had been begging to come along for years. Afterwards, they were going for pizza. It was a good day.

Two years ago, four people came this way. All friends from work. Well – ‘friends’. One was the company CEO, the other three wanted promotions. Everyone but the boss was miserable. One was arachnophobic.

Eight months ago, a… sheep? Yeah. A sheep. Barely more than a lamb. It was lost. There was a storm and it came down here looking for shelter. Went too deep. By the time the shepherd found it, it was half-starved.

“John? What are you-…”

Ignore him.

Ten years ago, another family. Fifty years ago, a frightened child running from a monstrous father. And others – a hundred others – a thousand. The cave had a rich and storied history. Almost against his will and entirely against his better judgement, John followed its threads through the rock layers, chasing faded ghosts, brushing up against magic so ancient it had fossilised.

“John!”

Ignore him. Ignore him. Ignore-

His head was ringing. His blood was on fire.

Fuck, I’ve gone too far, too bloody deep, fuck, oh fuck.

“Constantine! Heed me!”

His eyes snapped open.

“Ah,” he said.

“Precisely,” said the First of the Fallen, who was holding him up by his coat collar like a jizz rag in need of a bin.

The cave had changed.

It was brighter, thanks to a small, well-constructed fire in its centre.

The walls were covered in paintings. Deer. Hogs. Great red and brown bulls.

A woman sat in the corner, wrapped in furs, adding detail to what might have been a fox. She didn’t seem to have noticed them.

“Did you mean to do that?” the First of the Fallen queried.

“In thirty thousand years, a monk will come down here and find them. He’ll be horrified, believing that they’re the work of… well, me. So he’ll leave and return with water in buckets and scrubbing brushes. As he lies on his deathbed, he will be firmly under the impression that this great good deed will grant him entrance into Paradise.”

The First of the Fallen paused for effect, then added, “Alas, he will be mistaken.”

Without looking away from her work, the woman spoke several words in a language miles removed from any contemporary tongue John had ever heard.

“The young lady says she doesn’t mind spirits wandering her caves, but requests that we don’t chatter while she’s trying to concentrate.”

Crouching next to freshly-etched cow and her calf, feeling uncharacteristically dazzled, John said, “Ask her if I can take a picture. Ask her!”

“Homo neanderthalensis, John. She won’t have the faintest idea what you mean.”

Rolling his eyes, he fished his phone out of his trenchcoat pocket and waved it at her. When she deliberately ignored him, he shrugged and took the shot.

The flash won her attention. She stood – revealing a faded seashell necklace and a long, curving scar across her left thigh – and approached them, limping slightly. John held out the phone to show her the picture and, after a resoundingly unimpressed inspection, she uttered a terse sentence.

“She’s unsure why the sickly-looking spirit thinks shrinking her beasts in any way improves them,” said the First of the Fallen.

The woman raised her head (hard to tell how old she was; younger than him, definitely) and looked John in the eye, squinting. Another few sentences followed, some of which sounded like questions.

Sarcastic questions, unless he was mistaken.

“She asks if you shrink them because large beasts frighten you. She speculates that, if the only beasts you can bear to approach are scrawny ones, it’s no wonder that you yourself are such a measly creature. She says that she too was scared of bulls when she was a child, but that her mother taught her not to be. She wonders why your mother failed you in this regard. Should I tell her your mother died in childbirth, John?”

“Stick your head up your own arse and choke. But ask her name first.”

Tossing back his thick black hair, he scoffed. “Why? What does it matter? She’s a primitive, doomed creature and she’s not even really here. This is just one of the cave’s memories.”

“Christ – are you jealous I’m talking to her more than I’m talking to you? Because that’s fucking inane. This is a one-in-a-lifetime type deal. I’ve never spoken to a legit bloody Neanderthal. I speak to you all the blasted time, more’s the pity.”

Yellow eyes narrowed. “Maybe I’ll kill her.”

John laughed. “You said it, squire; she’s a memory. You can’t kill her. She’s long dead. Now shut up.”

He wasn’t able to learn her name. Still, via pantomime and pointing, he eventually managed to convey his desire to find a way out of the cave – or so, at least, it seemed.

She took a bundle of sticks from beside her fire, lit them, and walked towards the nearest inky-black tunnel.

“See?” he said to the First of the Fallen as they followed her. “Politeness. All it takes.”

“Don’t act like you have any real idea what’s going on. She could be leading you straight into a trap. You’re aware, I’m sure, that archaeologists generally agree Neanderthals practised cannibalism? Ten muscular relatives might be waiting right around the corner with clubs and a cooking pot.”

“For fuck’s sake – I have literally stood and watched you slouching on that colossally pathetic bone throne of yours and nibbling the edge of someone’s pelvis like it was a turkey drumstick. Loathsome bloody hypocrite.”

“That doesn’t remotely count as cannibalism, John. That was a human pelvis. I’m not a human. I’m the prototype. A species of one. Which, I suppose, means it’s technically impossible for me to commit cannibalism. Hmm. What an interesting philosophical notion.”

Walking a short way ahead, bare feet soundless against the rock, their new self-appointed guide said something.

“What was that?” John whispered.

“‘If you must burden my ears by bickering like children, you could at least do it in a language I can understand’. Then she called us a rude word.”

Then the First of the Fallen spoke several sentences in his usual bored, drawling cadence and, to John’s surprise, she laughed.

“What was that?”

“Nothing,” the First of the Fallen said, innocently.

“I’m serious, bastard. What’re you saying to her?”

“Nothing important, John, really.”

More than once after that, he caught her glancing back at them and snickering.

The artist and the twisting stone galleries through which she led them – it couldn’t possibly have all been hers; the monk had destroyed the work of generations – were insufficient to keep John’s mind from straying back to important matters.

“Hey. Ponce. What’ve you done with my cigarettes?”

The First of the Fallen had plucked them from his trenchcoat pocket while he was unconscious. When it came to his sorcerer, he’d learned, you always wanted a bargaining chip to hand.

“We’re in the company of one whose lungs are as yet unsullied by the Industrial Revolution, Constantine. Are you really planning on exposing her to second-hand smoke?”

It was a prospect John, it seemed, hadn’t even considered. Obviously angry with himself for that (oh John), he snapped, “No! I was – it’s – look, she can’t get lung cancer, can she? She’s dead. Doesn’t matter what she breathes in now.”

Smothering a smile, the First of the Fallen said, “Oh? So the fact that she won’t actually perish upon inhaling your fumes is all that matters, is it? Never mind her comfort or dignity, I suppose; as long as you don’t have to clean up another corpse.”

Nostrils flared. Fists clenched. Blue eyes gleamed with something hotter and even more violent than divine wrath.

“Like you give a shit about her,” John growled.

So much in this miserable world reminds me of Heaven. The grass. The sky. The beauty. You alone remind me of the time before Heaven; that bizarre, unpredictable time when there were no rules, no beauty, only feelings, only sudden bursts of light, fierce and erratic, cutting through the void.

“Or anyone,” John continued, gathering steam. Nicotine withdrawal, the First of the Fallen suspected, was kicking in. “Remind me, what was that you said the day we met? ‘To be mortal is to be stupid, proud, conceited – and ultimately pathetic’. You showed your hand, idiot; you loathe us all. Ergo, any taunts that depend on you concealing that are a total bust. Forget about the ciggies. If they’ve been anywhere near you, I don’t want ‘em.”

For years, the First of the Fallen had secretly hoped John had forgotten his, in hindsight, ill-considered words.

(He’d meant every one of them, but at the time he’d been trying to come off as a Gentleman Devil, the quintessential Man of Wealth and Taste, affable and urbane, not a bitter, angry old monster.)

Should have known better. John was so foolishly protective when it came to humanity as an abstract concept, even while his attitude towards actual humans tended to be far more variable. He’d probably been furiously gnawing on that phrase – ‘ultimately pathetic’ – like a dog with a bone for thirty years.

Thirty years.

Was that really all the time they’d known one another? John Constantine, his Constantine, He Who Was Most Hated… a mere thirty year acquaintance?

“What’re you laughing at?”

“Heh. Nothing, John. Reminiscing, that’s all.”

“About what? Poor old Brendan?”

Brendan, Brendan. Who -? Oh yes. John’s friend. The one who’d sold his soul. The catalyst, in fact, for their meeting. Pity the bastard was in Heaven; he’d have liked to thank him.

“You see these?” said the artist, holding up her torch to illuminate a painted wolf pack. “My grandfather did these.”

“What’s she saying?” John demanded.

As the First of the Fallen translated, he gazed dispassionately at her.

The first time he’d encountered a human, they’d looked much the same. Small. Unremarkable. Clad in skins and hardened from a life exposed to this planet’s weather (he personally hated weather and had made sure there was no such thing in Hell).

Mind you, the ones he’d run into while naked and terrified and still injured from being swatted down to Earth like some insect had been much less hospitable. They hadn’t known what he was; only that he was wrong. When he’d tried to approach their campfire, they’d thrown stones at him. Slaying them all hadn’t even occurred to him. Father had said that they were precious and at that stage, he’d still given a toss about His rules. Instead, he’d slunk away.

Catching food wasn’t a problem. He was faster than any buck or bird. It was loneliness, not hunger, that drove him to try again, and again, and again. In time, they grew used to him. Even showed him kindness. They had an extraordinary capacity for that. (For all that it was so often conditional and withdrawn the moment one became too strange or too frightening.)

But he’d never grown used to them. They were, at heart, creatures of community. And he simply wasn’t. He was a species of one. The prototype. He’d always been alone but for God’s company, and adjusting to life as a member of a tribe had proved impossible. Their norms, their traditions, their complicated etiquette – it had all bewildered him, then intimidated him, then irritated him. That, combined with his ageless body and supernatural strength, had driven an inevitable wedge between them, and he’d returned to the wilderness to wander alone.

He considered telling John that story.

(Why not? He’d told him everything else and the idea that his nemesis might have an incomplete view of him was, for some reason, concerning.)

Then he considered John’s likely reaction. The curled lip. The scornful snort. “What, you looking for pity? ‘Boo-hoo, my rotten childhood turned me into a git’? Hah! Jog on, squire.”

No. John’s hatred was a hard-won prize. John’s contempt was to be avoided at all costs.

“You realise most people aren’t allowed down here,” the artist said, glancing his way. She was shorter than John, who himself was slightly shorter than the average man; her eyes were level with the First’s navel. “Only elders and those who’ve earned the right. There are grave penalties awaiting any who sneak in.”

“Really?” he replied, interested only in John’s furrowed brow and silent, aggravated attempts to work out what they were saying.

“Yes. Because this place is important. Sacred. When I was young, I spent years dreaming of being allowed to venture this deep. I don’t know the ways of spirits – but I’ll not pretend it doesn’t rankle that you spend more time studying your sickly friend than your surroundings.”

“You’re still young. Compared to me, everyone is.”

“He doesn’t even seem to like you very much. Why are you travelling with him?”

“I don’t know. Why do urine and semen come out the same hole?”

“‘It’s none of your business’ would have sufficed. Are you always this rude? Is that why the sickly one doesn’t like you?”

“No. No, he dislikes me for other reasons.”

“Well, well, well. Hullo,” came John’s voice, and they both realised that he’d stopped walking.

Turning, the First of the Fallen spied his nemesis standing with his hands in his pockets, studying a man dressed like a thirteenth-century peasant.

“Eh? Where did he come from?” the woman asked.

In quavering tones, the peasant said, “Are you angels?”

The First of the Fallen laughed. “John! He’s asking if-…”

“Just because I can’t speak Neanderthal doesn’t mean I don’t know sodding Middle English. Give me an ounce of credit. I’m only a cocking wizard, after all,” John snapped, before addressing the new arrival: “No. Just travellers.”

The peasant’s shoulders slumped. “Oh. I thought maybe God had sent me angels. I’ve been requesting them for several days.”

John shuddered. “Bad idea. Trust me. You don’t want to mess around with that lot.”

“But I need guidance. Protection.”

“From what?”

Eyes wide, the peasant took his hand and clutched it. “My friend, can’t you see? I am being pursued.”

“By who?”

“By demons.”

(to be continued)

#hellblazer #john constantine #chas chandler #first of the fallen #fanfic #my fic

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secretsfromwholecloth · 3 years

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Tagged by: @neurosismancer

Name: If you know it, you know it. If not, you’ve probably got no shortage of things to call me anyway.

Gender: *siiiiiigh* Goddammit, I’m tired. Potted version: Two of us in here, one woman, one agender using he/him pronouns, and the whole combined entity uses they/them and goes “enh, I guess” to the idea of “demi-woman” as a gender.

Star sign: Sagittarius. Or Ophiuchus, if we’re doing the sidereal thing, which I have a certain affection for because of who it pisses off.

Height: 5'4″/163 cm

Time: 10:41 PM US Eastern Daylight Time as I type this.

Birthdays: ...do people other than my mom have more than one? Anyway, it was a few months ago.

Favorite band(s): Are we doing this again? Anyway, I’ve recently looked back in on Triakel, Garmarna, and Hedningarna, who’ve been quite active while I was gone.

Favorite solo artist(s): Similarly with Kepa Junkera, who seems to average releasing/guesting on three albums a year. The last I’d checked in on him was in 2008 when Etxea dropped, and it took me about four days to listen to everything he’s put out since then. That’s a lot of accordion. (My dad rather liked him, even if he did have a habit of ‘humorously’ mispronouncing his name as “Creepy Junkie”, and I couldn’t help but think he would’ve liked some of the new material—one of the few occasions where I’ve felt anything other than relief that he’s gone.)

Song stuck in my head: Bok-Espok by Kepa Junkera, which he seems to reprise every other album. Which means I’ve heard it many, many times this week.

Last movie I watched: None recently, no.

Last show I watched Last game I played: I don’t watch TV, so let me hijack this question like I usually do. I’m currently partway through the When Twilight Strikes demo, and while I’m thiiiiiis close to offering my services as a local consultant for the NYC stuff and found the “exotic beauty” kind of tone to Blane’s initial description somewhat uncomfortable, it’s otherwise been great fun, and I’m looking forward to future updates.

When did I create this blog: 2013. April, if I’m not mistaken.

When I post: Post post? Not often, it’s just about wall-to-wall reblogs around here.

Last thing googled: "shaped like a friend”, because I was curious about how long ago that phrase was coined. The Internet was unhelpful on the matter.

Other blogs: Nope! I’ve been Team Let It All Hang Out since day 1.

Do I get asks: Sometimes, usually when I’ve posted an ask meme.

Why I chose my URL: Paul Celan, “Die hellen/Steine” (The bright/Stones) Celan’s good, you ought to read him. Depressing, mind.

Followers: 324, which IIRC is more than double what I had a year ago. Dragon Age fandom is probably responsible for quite a lot of the increase. I can only imagine what the people who followed me for my DA diaries think of me now!

Average hours of sleep: 6-7. A bit more when I’m not waking up early for work, but not by much.

Lucky number: 7, I’m boring.

Instruments: Not anymore. Somewhere among the infinite possibilities of the multiverse is a timeline where I’m not cursed with cloth ears, tiny fingers, and bullshit lung capacity and was able to get reasonably good at something. Maybe an instrument, maybe singing. I liked singing.

What I’m wearing: My black pajama pants again, this time with a galaxy-print T-shirt in ace flag colors. (I needed some purple shirts to go with the purple skirts in my summer wardrobe, and I was like, “I know what’s purple!”)

Dream trip: No. I’m done.

Favorite food: All of them, leave me alone. OK, not all of them, I’m actually kind of picky and a lot of fruits and vegetables that I used to like now make me violently sick, but you get the idea. I do make a point of ordering mofongo on special occasions (and Election Day), though. Good stuff.

Nationality: American. Mom thinks I might be eligible for a Greek passport, but I’m not so sure, especially since she was naturalized here years before I was born.

Favorite song: You know I’m not going to give this an actual answer, but here, have a song: Stina by Triakel, which I haven’t found an English translation of but is definitely catchy as hell.

Last book I read: Currently about halfway through Arkady Martine’s A Desolation Called Peace. What an incredible book, she’s somehow gotten even better at writing since the first one. In particular, I’m going to be shoving it in the face of anyone writing about a child being raised for rulership, like a crown prince in a monarchy—the characterization of Imperial Associate Eight Antidote (bright, socially and politically aware, and eleven goddamn years old someone please hug this child what are you doing to him) is one of the highlights of the whole thing so far.

Top 3 fictional universes i’d like to live in: Oof. Teixcalaan might not be so terrible, if I were Teixcalaanli of reasonably comfortable socioeconomic status. (Oh, stop, no way in hell was I the only one idly wondering what I might use as a Teixcalaanli name by halfway through the first book—how’s Fourteen Reflection sound?) I’m starting to feel like the Star Wars universe would be a lateral move, and if I can petition to specifically be plopped into an Alexander Freed novel, at least my self-destructive tendencies will be beautifully rendered in graceful prose. And in the universe of AJ Hackwith’s The Library of the Unwritten, I’d be curious to see what my hypothetical creations would look like (though creators aren’t supposed to see them, at least not while alive).

Favorite color: Burgundy? Purple? Silver? White? Black? I’ve got a few. Basically, if it’s not green or orange, I’m probably OK with it.

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artificialqueens · 4 years

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Something Like Love (Biadore) - Tanawrites

Summary - Bianca is scared but maybe love is just two idiots who don’t know a damn thing except that they’re willing to figure it out together.

A/N - back this time with something a little different, I hope you like it. I’d also like to send a lot of love and support to all the writers in this fandom and particularly those who’ve been affected by some recent developments, what you do is appreciated and respected and I hope you can find inspiration and peace soon. Big thanks to @chaoticnachokitten who beta'd for me as well!

They don’t talk about it. It’s been six months of neither of them acknowledging this thing happening between them. It was hard to believe with Bianca’s blunt approach to everything, unfiltered and honest and Adore’s habit of blurting out whatever it was that she was thinking, never stopping to consider the consequences. When it came to this though, when it came to them, had radio silence even from Adore.

It happened slowly. Flirting as they leaned up against the bar, eyeing each other as Bianca watched Adore perform, eventually approaching Adore and offering to buy her a drink. Drunken hookups and texting until they could see each other again. It hadn’t been conventional but it had started harmless enough. A mutual attraction, sex whenever they felt like it, no strings attached.

Somewhere along the way, late nights after Adore finished her set turned into lazy Sunday afternoons doing laundry together since so much of Adore’s was mixed with Bianca’s anyway and Bianca “educating” Adore on old TV shows she hadn’t seen.

They still didn’t talk about it. There were no labels for their relationship and for all intents and purposes, what they did was supposed to be casual. No strings attached was fine until they started to get tangled.

Bianca had brushed it off, ignoring the nagging voice in the back of her mind that screamed too close too much. If they didn’t talk about it, she didn’t have to admit to herself just how deeply their lives had intertwined. How Adore hadn’t just snuck her way in but how she had barrelled through Bianca’s long-standing walls and that even if she hadn’t, Bianca might have just been readily handing over the key.

Adore had seemed willing and ready to come along for the ride, there had been no stopping to ask questions or clarify what they were. It just simply was between them. And for that Bianca was grateful because she didn’t have an answer, only a single instinct - run.

As their whirlwind romance had dwindled to a steady flame rather than the burning inferno, it was getting harder and harder for Bianca to ignore. It was easy at the start to insist on Adore coming to her place because she didn’t have roommates but that didn’t explain why Adore now had a drawer full of clothes in Bianca’s dresser, the second toothbrush next to her own, the fact that she knew exactly how Adore liked her first coffee of the day and that Bianca left it on the nightstand while she woke Adore a few minutes before her alarm, to steal a few moments for just the two of them before the rest of the outside world made itself known again.

It’s a Thursday morning, far earlier than either of their alarms were set but it wasn’t exactly early considering Bianca hadn’t slept.

There had been a moment last night when they were curled up around each other, stomachs full on take-away food they’d ordered in and her mind clouded from a few glasses too many of wine when Bianca thought that this thing they had may have been the most like home she’d ever felt. Then, even the safety that came with her familiar bedsheets and the weight of Adore’s head nestled against her shoulder feeling like a blanket concealing them from the sharp truths of reality, wasn’t enough to stop Bianca’s cold panic.

You can’t find home in a person. Hearts don’t make for strong foundations and Bianca knew exactly what it felt to have the roof come crashing in, arms not strong enough to hold it up no matter how good they felt wrapped around her.

For the rest of the night and not for the first time in the past few weeks, Bianca stopped to consider their situation. She was wearing Adore’s shirt, brewing a pot of coffee while Adore slept. Two mugs were on the counter - her own plain white and the largest she could find while Adore’s was brightly colored in an obnoxious pattern. It had found its way into her cabinet after a trip they’d made to Ikea and it was with a roll of her eyes that it ended up in the basket but it was Adore’s mug. The thought made her shudder, recoiling from the item that usually brought a fond smile to her lips in the forgiving hours of the early morning.

She’d spent hours beside Adore’s sleeping form, a leg stretched across her hips or grabby hands when Adore stirred enough to reach for her again. Once she finally detangled herself without disturbing Adore, she spent what felt like an equal amount of time leaning against the kitchen counter, idly tapping her nails against the countertop to soothe her instinctual urge to pace.

“We can’t do this anymore.”

Adore’s head lifted from the pillow with a groan, sleep fogging her gaze as she tried and failed to focus on Bianca’s form at the end of the bed.

“What do you mean? I sleep over on weekdays all the time. You were only late to work that once.”

Assuming there would be time to finish this argument later, Adore dropped back to the bed. She clutched the sheets closer and made grabby hands at Bianca, hoping she could convince her to come back to bed. She was oblivious to the hurricane that was circling in Bianca’s mind and in any other situation, Bianca would be handling this better. But this was Adore and she was in too deep and she was hanging on to the edge by her fingertips as she desperately tried to gain some leverage again and it had been six months.

“I mean…fuck, I mean us. We can’t do this anymore.”

Bianca fought the urge to wring her hands together, stifling it by crossing her arms across her chest. It also worked as a defense mechanism as she watched emotions cross Adore’s face and willing her own to remain blank. The last traces of sleep slipped away as Adore sat up, giving way to a combination of hurt and confusion.

There was a stab in Bianca’s chest, triggered by pure emotion that ached to reach for Adore. To soothe away the crinkle of a frown between her eyebrows, to kiss away the pout on her lips, to say things that she didn’t even know if she wanted to say. Bianca’s mind had always taken precedence over her heart though and it was with ease she distanced herself as she watched thoughts starting to form in Adore’s mind.

“I have to go to work but if you could just leave the key on the counter and lock the door behind you.”

“I…what? What the fuck do you mean?”

“I’m running late, I’ve got to go.”

“Why are you doing this?”

As Bianca turned on her heel, Adore’s voice broke. It wasn’t quite a sob, there was too much anger in her tone for it to sound broken but it stopped Bianca in her tracks. She didn’t turn around, even as she heard Adore get to her feet.

She had to focus on preparing herself for when Adore no doubt reached for her, steeling her shoulders with an ease that came from a lifetime of practice. By the time Adore was reaching for her elbow and spinning her around, Bianca was ready to fix her with a cold gaze that didn’t falter when Adore stumbled over her words.

“Just talk to me! What’s going on?”

As Adore’s voice rose, Bianca sighed. The sound was exasperated and knew it would come across directed at Adore; she wanted it to be received that way. It would be easier if Adore was mad, if Adore hated her for this.

She could see the uncertainty swimming amongst a light sheen of tears in Adore’s eyes and Bianca hated it.

Adore was creative and impulsive and could be so contradicting in her own self; wise beyond her years in some moments and so naively, endearingly youthful in others. What came with that was feeling emotions to the extreme and often, not knowing how to channel or filter them before they bubbled to the surface. Any time Adore’s mind was too muddled for her to make sense of, Bianca responded with patience and compassion and watching it now, she felt defenseless.

It was an expected question but it was one she didn’t have an answer for. Not a genuine one, not one she could admit without her own voice wavering so she lied. A calm, calculated lie that she barely recognized.

“Nothing’s going on. I just think we’ve run our course. It was fun but…it’s done.”

This time she does turn away, moving around the apartment methodically, ignoring that it was nothing like her usual routine of leaving for work. By the time she had grabbed her purse, Adore had broken free from the trance-like shock Bianca had heartbreakingly left her in and a guttural, exasperated sound from Adore breaks the silence.

“Why won’t you let me in?”

Bianca paused for a mere moment, the wince that crossed her face out of Adore’s view before sliding the strap of her purse over her shoulder.

“Goodbye, Adore.”

The set of keys on her counter and the silence that greeted Bianca was a stark contrast to the last six months. There were always the lingering signs of Adore being in her apartment, even if she wasn’t there to greet Bianca. Mussed sheets because Bianca was the only one who insisted on making the bed. A stray pair of shoes or clothes littering the floor of her bedroom because Adore used it as her personal wardrobe, instead of the sections Bianca had silently cleared out for her. It was even louder when Adore was there to greet her, the smell of takeaway food wafting through the front door waiting for her or Adore’s chaotic manner of getting ready for a gig and insisting Bianca hurry up too.

It was eerily silent today. Her freshly made bed and empty floor were a bitter reminder of the morning and in an attempt to escape her new reality, Bianca barely gave herself time to change clothes before she was locking the door behind her again.

Her feet nearly carried her to their usual bar, where she’d met Adore all that time ago now and where they frequented - both because Adore got discounted drinks for being on their regular rotation of musicians and the convenience of how it was right in the middle of both of their apartments. It wasn’t a question though - she could never go there again, not even on the nights she knew Adore wasn’t performing. She reasoned it was to not add fuel to the flame but a smaller voice told her that without a doubt if she knew Adore hated her, the way Bianca wanted, she might crack. But if she heard Adore sing, if Adore even spared her a single glance, Bianca without a doubt would shatter.

She found herself in a different seedy bar, a straight spirit in front of her that she was drinking too fast, too recklessly.

She had told herself all day, she wouldn’t miss Adore. She wouldn’t allow herself to miss her because it wasn’t like that. It was good sex (earthshattering, mindnumbing, so good it was practically art) but Bianca knew she could find a warm body when her urges were particularly insatiable, without everything else that had come with Adore.

She told herself she didn’t miss Adore but there was a bartender with a raised eyebrow every time he topped up her glass and a half-empty bottle of scotch that was reminding Bianca just how hard she was trying to drown Adore’s voice out of her mind, to kill her name off her lips.

After waking up hungover and alone after that first night, Bianca immersed herself in work. It wasn’t unusual for her but less so in the past few months as she chose Adore. To fill that void, she was putting in overtime at work. She’d been the last at the office and continued at home until she was tired enough to fall asleep in her empty bed. Although she’d never admit it, Bianca had spent the entire last week trying to avoid her apartment as much as possible. The haven didn’t feel quite as warm anymore and Bianca knew it was her own mistake of getting too comfortable with Adore around.

She’d ignored phone calls and texts from her friends, namely Courtney who of course knew since she’d introduced her to Adore and they had hit it off. She had cut herself off and was justifying it as taking time for herself again, re-focusing on work and she’d be damned if Courtney saw through the flimsy walls she was desperately trying to reconstruct.

Tonight had started different than the past week, her boss forcing her out of the office when everybody else left. She’d made her way into an unfamiliar bar and sat by herself. She was nursing a glass of wine and pretending to pay attention to whatever was playing on the small television in the corner. All night, she’d been watching the clock. She was painfully aware that Adore was singing tonight, a mere block away, tantalizingly close.

Bianca could practically feel time moving slowly as if the clock was mocking her. She was never late for one of Adore’s shows if she said she’d be there. She had a usual seat, at a high table that was slightly off the side but in a spot that was illuminated just enough that when Adore glanced her way, their eyes could meet.

She told herself she would go home, that tonight would be an early night. That’s what she repeated to herself as she grabbed her purse and turned down the street in the opposite direction of her apartment.

Her jaw was tense as she walked, faster than she needed to make it in time but if she stopped to think about it for even a second, she would snap out of the haze and talk herself out of it.

She nearly did, stumbling over her words as the bouncer greeted her by name, telling her she was just in time. She spared him a smile as he held the door open for her, just as she heard the familiar strum of a guitar that Adore would use as a final soundcheck and a way to get everybody’s attention before she spoke.

(Like everybody in the room wasn’t already looking; Adore could command a room without even trying.)

She didn’t go for her usual seat but opted to sit at the back, where she had a clear view of Adore on the small, makeshift stage but hoping that the people between them was enough to mask her from Adore’s.

She knew it was a bad idea when she turned in the direction of this bar. She knew it was a bad idea when a waitress brought her usual drink over to the table. She knew it was a bad idea when the lights were dimmed and a spotlight came on the stage.

It was a bad idea but as soon as Adore’s voice broke the silence that had settled over the bar, introducing herself and began to sing, Bianca was unable to move.

Her eyes were locked on Adore from across the room and for a moment, she thought she was going to break the glass that she had clutched in her hand. It wasn’t a song she recognized but that didn’t matter. Adore could sing anything and Bianca was enthralled.

Listening to Adore sing was something unlike anything else but this right now, it hurt. Looking at Adore hurt.

Her voice was familiar, the same one that called her name from the end of the aisle in the grocery store when she was trying to convince Bianca to buy more ice cream or singing in the shower in the early hours of the morning. It was laced heavy with emotion as Adore sang right now, in a way Bianca hadn’t heard before but she shouldn’t have been so surprised. Adore expressed herself creatively, wore her heart on her sleeve and her guitar pick.

As she listened to Adore sing, Bianca’s chest felt full. Full of regret and missing Adore and loneliness but most of all fear. It ran cold through her body, encompassing all else and then leaving her empty.

She lasted one song. One song before Bianca was finishing her drink in one mouthful and rushing outside, tears pricking at her eyes and the cool air both a shock.

The phone rang once. Twice. Three times.

Bianca had her back resting against the brick of the building behind her, her eyes closed and head tilted back. It was a position she’d screw her face up at when Adore pulled her into an alleyway to smoke but she found herself mirroring it now, either too exhausted or too intoxicated to care.

She was counting the seconds that passed since she pressed the call button under Adore’s name. There was no reason Adore should answer, especially not in the middle of the night and even more so because it was Bianca calling but she was holding her breath hoping she would.

She’d made a mistake that night, going to watch Adore sing. It was the first of many for the night though, the several drinks she’d had after going back to the first bar and coming here once she was cut off, being at the top of the list.

“B?” Adore answered the phone and Bianca’s mind went blank. Adore’s voice was thick with sleep and confusion but Bianca could imagine the look on her face as the realization sunk in and Adore added, “What do you want?”

“I just wanna see you.”

Adore’s quiet scoff echoed and Bianca winced.

“I do want to see you, I know that’s fucked up-”

“Yeah it is fucked up, dude.”

“Adore, I’m sorry…I don’t know why…”

Somewhere along the way, Bianca’s slurring had become a wordless, silent cry.

“Are you cr-”

“No. Shit, I don’t know. It’s just cold out here and you sounded really good tonight and…”

Between Bianca’s sniffling, Adore repeated back what she had said, piecing together the scattered segments of what Bianca had managed to get out. When silence had settled between them, only the sounds of Adore rustling on the other end and Bianca’s poorly subdued crying, she remembered why she was here.

“I didn’t buzz up, I didn’t know if anybody else was asleep.”

“I know, I’m coming down.”

Adore didn’t sound happy but Bianca’s heart still raced as she listened to her coming down the stairs, mentally trying to count each one as they were the seconds until Adore was there with her.

Once the main door to the building opened, Bianca lifted her head from where it was resting back against the brick with more effort than it should have required.

“Hi.”

She let her phone drop from her ear, dangling from her hand instead as she took in Adore’s appearance. There were slippers on her feet and a blanket tossed around her shoulders but bare legs that made her smile. It soon slipped away when Adore cleared her throat and Bianca was glancing up into disappointed eyes instead.

“Hi.”

Bianca repeated, pushing herself off the wall in a moment of confidence that was entirely misplaced as she stumbled, reminding herself that the building was in fact keeping her up and not the other way around.

As Adore cursed and surged forwards to catch her, Bianca thought maybe it wasn’t so misplaced after all.

“God, do you know what an idiot you are?”

Despite the harsh question, Adore’s voice was softer than Bianca expected. It was softer than Bianca deserved. It was hard to focus on though as she leaned against Adore, trying to remain upright and ignoring how the smell of Adore’s perfume was more intoxicating than anything else she’d consumed that night.

It was a struggle of mumbled apologies from Bianca and a gentle hushing from Adore as they got up the few flights of stairs to Adore’s apartment. It wasn’t long until they were in Adore’s bedroom and she was set down unceremoniously on Adore’s bed amongst the mussed sheets.

It was through hooded eyes that Bianca was looking up at Adore and she didn’t know if it was a remaining layer of tears or all the alcohol but her expression was unreadable.

There were so many things Bianca wanted to say, that she was sorry, that she was just scared, that she wanted things to go back to normal, that loving Adore had happened so easily and so effortlessly that she didn’t know how that could be reciprocated. Someone like her wasn’t easy to love, all sharp edges and missing parts.

All she managed was to focus her gaze enough to reach for Adore’s hand, clumsily fumbling until she could tangle their fingers enough to tug her forward a little.

She didn’t have the words, nor the balance to sink to her knees and beg Adore for things to go back to how they were. Equally so, she didn’t know if she could take it if Adore understandably, said no.

Instead of saying anything, she pulled Adore’s hand right to her face and pressed a single kiss to her palm.

They stayed that way for a moment, Bianca turning her face to rest against Adore’s hand. Adore’s sigh broke the quiet though and she pulled away, only to bend and start untying Bianca’s shoes.

The last thing Bianca remembered before succumbing to sleep was Adore pulling the sheets up to her chin and she thought to herself if somebody was going to be home that it would be this person right here, who had all the reason and hands strong enough to break her that chose to put her back together instead.

When Bianca woke up the next day, her hangover didn’t register immediately. Instead, her attention was drawn to the sensation of fingers running along her arm, tracing invisible patterns like Adore could read something on her skin that even Bianca didn’t know was written there.

Her eyes stubbornly remained closed and she slowly came to the rest of her senses. There was a moment of disbelief, knowing there shouldn’t be any reason Adore was still taking pity on her enough to be indulging Bianca this much.

“I’m still mad at you, you know.”

There it was. Bianca thought the moment was about to be shattered but despite Adore’s words, the soft touch never faltered.

“You’re a real pain in the ass when you’re drunk too.”

“Not just when I’m drunk,” Bianca added, the sound of her croaky voice making her wince. She finally opened her eyes though and a glass of water on the nightstand. She gulped it down gratefully and then turned around to face Adore.

“You’re right about that.”

Bianca’s shifting had pushed Adore’s hand off her arm and as she looked at Adore, face turned downwards and fingers idly playing with a stray thread, she craved the contact again.

She had none of her confidence from last night though so she didn’t reach for Adore’s hand the way she wanted to. The way she would have before she messed everything up.

“I’m sor-“

“I just want to know-“

They both started speaking but Bianca gestured for Adore to continue. The last time they spoke she had been in too much of her own panic to take in anything Adore was saying and this time, she needed to hear her out.

(Bianca was hanging on every word.)

“I want to know what happened. I thought…I didn’t think anything was wrong.”

Adore stopped, a frown forming between her brows. Bianca could see on her face that she was struggling to pull full sentences from her thoughts. Thoughts that she couldn’t gauge the way she usually could. She forced herself to be patient, to bite her tongue and let Adore sort out her thoughts. The new few moments passed tantalisingly slow but Bianca remained quiet, fiddling with the corner of the sheet to busy her hands.

“I thought we were on the same page but you were like a chapter ahead of me or something. Fuck, I don’t even think you were reading the same book as me.”

Adore’s rising frustration was evident and Bianca waited until she sighed out and nodded along for Bianca to speak.

“We were on the same page, I was just…reading too much into it?” Bianca visibly winced at trying to continue Adore’s analogy. She swallowed the lump that was forming in her throat and tried again. “Nothing was wrong exactly. That was kind of the problem though.”

It was getting hard for her to continue, especially while she was stalling what she actually needed to say. There was no liquid courage or Adore’s comforting hold to help her through it either, just Bianca needing to break through the walls that were holding her back.

“I didn’t realise how…comfortable we had gotten. It just happened so easily that I didn’t even notice it happening and that scared me.”

“I get that you’re this emotional cactus or whatever but I don’t get it still. We weren’t doing anything from the norm.”

“The fact that we had a norm was the problem.”

“You know I don’t really care for labels or anything, right?”

“I didn’t because we didn’t ever talk about it - because I didn’t want to…but I realised that if you did, that I would want to be okay with it.”

Adore seemed to understand now. The confusion faded from her expression but the defiant hurt remained, her brows still laced together in a frown.

“So you realised you were happy and…didn’t want to be?”

A single chuckle, humourless and exhausted left Bianca’s parted lips.

“Yeah, that’s pretty much it.”

“You were right, you are an idiot sober too.”

Bianca paused. There were still the nagging thoughts telling her this was too much, that she was too much but she silenced them with thoughts of how empty her life was the past week. Adore was too loud and imperfect in a million ways that made Bianca’s nerves flicker out of control but she was golden. Listening to Adore sing or watching her do something as simple as pick a movie for them to watch on Netflix and just be, as exactly who she was drove Bianca crazy.

(It made Bianca want to give Adore everything the world had to offer, down to the very last drop.)

“I am and I have no idea what I’m doing but I know I want to do it with you.”

Adore seemed to be thinking it over, tasting how the words felt in her mouth before speaking them and Bianca was a wreck. Her nerves were shot and she was ready to backpedal on all of it, to haul her hungover ass out of the apartment.

“Well that’s all you had to say.”

Adore silenced everything then, all of Bianca’s fears, the words threatening to blabble out, even the catch in her throat, with a kiss planted perfectly on her mouth.

#rpdr fanfiction #bianca del rio #adore delano #biadore #angst #lesbian au #tanawrites #tw for alcohol #concrit welcome

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