#horseshoe huddle

[lithiumseven]

The elves of middle earth having the same “call your dad when you don’t know how to fix a problem” instinct but because they live forever it’s like

Some elf starts experiencing the elven equivalent of car trouble (idk, horse won’t go?) and calls his dad, and then his dad can’t figure it out so he calls HIS dad and so on and so forth until you’ve got this guys entire lineage all huddled together in elven cargo shorts trying to solve a dented horseshoe

#middle earth #jrr tolkien #elves #lotr #the hobbit #Tolkien #tis i #rivendell #mirkwood #lothlorien #lord of the rings #the fellowship of the ring #the two towers #the return of the king #fotr #ttt #rotk #return of the king #fellowship of the ring

[sarahwroteathing]

Cozy Season

[Wanda Maximoff x Reader]

A/N: Just a little drabble about spending time at a harvest festival with Wanda. Nothing but happy, cozy vibes here. About 700 words

The day was cold and damp, overcast skies glowing a pale grey, not quite dark enough to threaten more rain, but close. Chill air swirled with orange, gold, and scarlet around you. Once brittle and crackling beneath your feet, the fallen leaves had gained a supple new life after the late morning rains. One stuck to Wanda’s jeans, framing itself with darkened denim as its collected rainwater soaked into the fabric. She didn’t seem to notice, too enamored with the paper cup of apple cider she cradled between her palms, smiling serenely as the fragrant steam bathed her face. 

“You made a friend,” you said, tapping her thigh just above the leaf. Soft orange veined with red. 

She hummed contemplatively before reaching down to peel it away.

“She loves me…” Wanda made a show of checking for more leaves, twisting to check her backside with a thoughtful frown. “Well, that was easy.”

“I can throw some more leaves at you if you’d like,” you offered.

“It’s too late now. The leaves have exposed you.”

“Damn.”

She giggled, looping one arm around your waist to tug you closer and raising the cider towards your lips in a silent offer. You reached up to stabilize the cup as you took a sip.

“We definitely need to buy a gallon of this before we leave.”

“And some of those tiny pumpkins,” Wanda added. “And something from the bakery stands.”

“Supporting local vendors is very important. I think we’ll also need fifty fancy soaps. Maybe some candles,” you said with a sage nod that set her laughing again.

Her smile was so wide and genuine, eyes sparkling with such unbridled delight, it made you want to hold her forever. And maybe that was a bit impractical, so you’d take what you could get, brushing a kiss over her cheekbone before leaning your head against hers. And you stayed that way, huddled together and communicating with soft voices and softer smiles until the cider was gone and the clouds parted enough to afford you glances of pale sunlight. 

There were picnic tables nearby, scattered loosely within the horseshoe of stalls selling everything from honey and jam to sweaters and ceramics. Families and friends settled there, happily chatting, sharing baked treats and admiring their more long-lasting purchases. 

An elderly lady held a newly-purchased sweater up against her son, nodding her satisfaction that it seemed the right size. A little girl showed off her new bracelet to her brother, who was adequately charmed by the tiny silver acorns. A few tables away, three teenage girls and two boys were trying to throw bits of kettle corn into each other’s mouths with single-minded focus, cheering for rare moments of good aim. 

“I love this,” Wanda said quietly, taking in the small harvest festival with a serene smile. 

“Yeah, it’s cute, right?” you sighed happily. “This was a great idea.”

“It is, but that’s not what I meant.”

When you looked to her in question, Wanda was taking advantage of the parting clouds, her face tilted up to catch the sunshine. Your heart gave a little flutter, and you reached out to loop a lock of her hair around your finger. 

“What did you mean then?”

Wanda looked down, smiling at the absentminded motions of your fingers in her hair. She gave a carefree shrug.

“Just… Thanks for being normal with me.” 

You gasped dramatically.

“How dare you call me normal.” 

She gave an inelegant snort, falling into you plaintively as you laughed at her reaction. She silenced you in her own lovely way, with lips still flavored by tart apple and warm cinnamon. 

“Does this mean you’re not going to cheat in the corn maze?” you whispered against her lips.

“It means I will consider not cheating in the corn maze.” 

The two of you lapsed into giggles again, giddy and nearly overwhelmed by the easy, cozy joy of the day. The sun’s valiant attempts to provide warmth despite the damp ground and chill wind did nothing half as well as Wanda, who almost seemed to glow in her contentment and tucked herself so tightly against you that it seemed she would be a permanent fixture there. 

And in this moment, that was exactly what you both wanted.

----------------

I hope October is treating you kindly, my friends. Let me know if you enjoyed this. My first time writing Wanda

Tags: @shifutheshihtzu @internalbullshit @lilasiannerd-blog @jaqui-has-a-conspiracy-theory @iwillbeinmynest @scotlandasshole @netflixa @hardcorehippos @singingprincessstudent @sophiealiice @tinuviel015 @a-book-pressed-rose @bbparker @battlebunnyteardropsinthesun @feelmyroarrrr

#wanda maximoff x reader #wanda maximoff fluff #wanda maximoff imagine #wanda maximoff drabble

[fairytales-and-folklore]

First & Last lines

Rules: Go through your last 5 completed works and share the first and last lines without context.

Thank you for the tag @tails89! ♥️

Until You Meet Someone Who Makes The Fall Feel Like Flying | The Owl House | Huntlow

First Line: "So, as you know, Amity and I are coming up on our one year anniversary in exactly one month's time," Luz informs the pair of them, pacing the length of the living room like she's delivering her opening statement in court. Last Line: ...a trio of emeralds inlaid in a hand-carved engagement ring glittering in the soft golden glow of the early morning sunlight as she reaches across the space between them and gently threads her fingers with his.

I've Got A Feeling | Nancy Drew (TV 2019) | Nace

First Line: If someone had told Nancy Drew a year ago today that she'd be sitting in the back room of The Claw laughing with Bess and George about a cursed wedding dress imbibed with a century's worth of stolen lust she'd accidentally inhaled when she tried to douse it in acetone, she'd have told them they were crazy. Last Line: "Oh fuck, I'm in love with Ace," she whispers as she buries her face in her hands, incessant giggling ringing out across the empty canteen as her best friends huddle around her and smother her in a tackle hug.

The Universe Works In Mysterious Ways (And Who Are We To Defy The Universe?) | Nancy Drew (TV 2019) | Nace

First Line: At the edge of the forest on the outskirts of Horseshoe Bay, a seemingly ordinary moth takes flight from its hiding place in between the branches of an old ash tree. Last Line: They do eventually make it back to her bedroom…after the fourth or fifth round.

What Doesn't Kill Me Makes Me Want You More | Nancy Drew (TV 2019) | Nace

First Line: Nancy lies back against the cozy, worn-in fabric of Ace's comforter, head tilted to the side as she gazes up at him, shamelessly drinking in every detail now she finally feels like she's allowed to look. Last Line: But really, he shouldn't be surprised — they've always been a perfect fit.

I Like Shiny Things (But I'd Marry You With Paper Rings) | The Owl House | Huntlow

First Line: It starts with a wedding. Last Line: Two years later, Willow walks along a pathway lit by the golden glow of a thousand twinkling fairy lights, lush green climbing vines bursting with white and purple flowers suspended from the trellis, future husband waiting for her at the altar with tears in his eyes and a smile bright enough to rival the sun.

#tag game #writer tag #writer tag game #first and last lines #huntlow #nace

[ambiguouspuzuma]

The Kite Artist

There are some coastal towns which are famed amongst tourists for their postcard-perfect views, beloved by families for their sandy beaches and amusement arcades, or renowned by surfers for their fearsome five-foot waves, but the bay around St Triston has always been known for its artists.

Every summer, they flock like gulls to the apartments that cluster in a horseshoe looking out onto the sea, and spend their days soaking in the golden light that rises over the harbour. They travel here from miles away to make their own attempt at capturing that perfect dawn, the way the sunbeams dance across the cresting of each wave, as many famous painters have set out to in the past. In doing so, however, they often find it captures them instead.

That was why they always came back. There were only so many way to capture the idyllic blue-green of a rising swell, the glittering silver of the crashing surf, but each artist felt the need to paint the same landscape again, and again, and again. They tried different materials, watercolour or acrylic, even glass-blowing or sculpture, and styles from a delicate pointillist foam to a fauvist's vivid strokes, but none sufficed to satisfy that appetite.

Their recreations would never be enough. They were entranced by the real thing - enthralled - ensnared, like a herring at the end of the fisherman's line. Some of them might migrate north in the winter months, huddled safely by a fire somewhere inland, and even imagine themselves free. But when summer sang its siren song, they found themselves reeled back down to their second home, to St Triston, summoned to paint its portrait once again.

The town's narrow streets were filled with minor galleries, nestled in the corners between fudge shops and tea parlours, where a visitor might sample any number of differing depictions of the view a few short steps away, able to judge for themselves which attempt best did it justice and then baulk at the price of taking that memento home. It was a common way to pass the time, between light café lunches and long strolls out to the pier.

But Pia preferred to walk along the promenade. The long, sheltered beach that accompanied the esplanade was home to a different breed of artists, those who made their works out of the beach itself. Sand-sculptors, who spent their days buildings castles beyond her own childhood dreams, vast palaces complete with turrets and a curtain wall, and an entire portfolio of other forms besides.

She saw a golden retriever formed from sand alone, its fur lovingly beach-combed into life. A sea turtle mounded into shape, its carapace a mosaic of other shells. An octopus whose tentacles were made to rise and disappear beneath the surface of the beach. Many of them were familiar. Pia's family visited St Triston every summer, and some of the artists were present year-on-year, endlessly creating their temporary art: Sisyphus with a hammer and chisel, or in this case a bucket and spade.

Her favourite used to be the kite-boy. The seafront always bore a healthy breeze, and one artist was out there early every day, flying a kite upon the sands. She was an older woman, wrapped up in thermals and gloves, but there was no faulting her dedication: she'd never missed a day, as far as Pia could remember, and she'd been to watch her work on every morning they were staying there. At least she had, up until the day she'd had to stop.

It always started with the kite. A perfect diamond tiled with stones, a bladder wrack string with oarweed ribbons. The boy came next, painted in pebbles of different hues so that the sun appeared to shine upon his cold grey cheeks, his smile an arc of seashell teeth, a pair of softened seaglass eyes. The exact design varied day-by-day, but he was always perfect, and it had always given Pia a smile to see such a loving depiction of childhood innocence amongst the masterpieces on the beach.

Every morning, she went out to watch the boy fly his kite. Sometimes she went back later, as the tide came in, as fledgling waves were dashed across his pebble-dashed boots, a duvet drawn to tuck him gradually beneath the waves. Or sometimes he was painted upside-down, the kite drawn like an anchor that pulled towards the ocean - on those days, the churning tide consumed him head-first, leaving only two vast and trunkless legs of stone.

Other details changed from one dawn to the next: when emerald seaglass had been scarce, the child's eyes were the pearlescent white of upturned scallop shells, or glinted with the sheen of coins tossed down by passers-by, the artist's payment to the boatman who would take the kite-boy home. Pia had always sought out those changes with keen eyes of her own, looking forward to each day's fresh interpretation whilst the sand sculptures remained identical throughout the week. That was why he had always been her favourite.

But that had been until last summer, when she'd overheard a couple pass behind her on the esplanade, and learnt the awful truth behind this particular muse.

"Oh no, that one's a bit morbid, don't you think?"

"What do you mean?"

Pia had been watching the artist work, but she spun around at that exchange, suddenly hooked by these strangers' conversation. It was all that she could do not to ask Why? herself - her instinct to defend the kite-boy and his honour. She'd spent so much time with him, in his various guises, that she felt a certain attachment to the piece, even as it was washed away and rebuilt every day.

"There was a boy who drowned, not far from here, wasn't there?" They'd been an elderly couple; perhaps locals, perhaps artists, perhaps there for a holiday themselves. "He was flying a kite, and it pulled him into the sea?"

"Oh, gosh. Now that you mention it, yes, I did hear something about that. That's awful. You think that the artist knew?"

"It would be a strange coincidence, wouldn't it? I'm sure they mean it in the right way, but it seems a strange way to honour his memory. Recreating the way that he died."

Pia looked out towards the sea, considering the sculpture not in the golden glow of the famous St Triston dawn, but the new light of these revelations. She hadn't heard about the drowned boy. Perhaps it had been before her family had started visiting; perhaps she'd been too young to be told, and they'd just kept her closer to hand, and hugged her extra tight before bed for a few weeks afterwards.

She searched the waves for his final resting place, if it had been here, but it would be impossible to tell. There could never be a marker there, in the ever-changing patterns of the surf. If a tribute was meant, the beach was the only setting - and why not a sculpture out of pebbles and shells? A hundred tiny headstones, arrayed in a graveyard all his own. The remains of lives washed out of the sea, in exchange for one it had claimed for itself.

Pia tried her best to justify it, but she couldn't help but share the feeling it was wrong, permanently tainted by this knowledge. Would flowers have been more appropriate? She saw them at the scenes of other tragedies, on corners following a recent car crash, but even the most beautiful bouquet would die and decompose with their intended. Was that better than capturing the boy like this: alive, and lost in this moment of innocent joy? A sculpture that was made anew each day, so that his memory would never be forgotten?

She didn't know why, but it felt like it was. This felt... well, morbid, as the couple said. Disrespectful. The intention sounded good on paper, but perhaps some memories were meant to fade with time - the dead deserved to rest, and their families with them. Most headstones wished their tenants peace, not constant re-enactment of their lives, and let alone their deaths; flowers left upon a grave would wilt and shed their petals with their mourner's tears, but perhaps they were a gentler tribute for their transience.

"I wonder if the family know," one of the strangers said. Pia found herself walking slowly after them, not wanting to lose the end of their conversation. Leaving the kite-boy behind. "What must they think?"

"I read at the time that his father had a drinking problem, which was why the boy was left to entertain himself. The papers blamed him, and I dare say that he probably blamed himself. I don't know that he'd be in much a state to complain."

"And the mother?"

"Who knows."

His mother wishes that she'd been there, the kite artist thought, listening as their conversation faded away into the crowd, just as a sculpture gradually cedes into the sea. She wishes that she could have saved him. But even if he had to die, she wishes she'd had the chance to hold his hand, to be there for him as he went, to say her last goodbyes. To tell him he was loved, and that there wouldn't be a day she wouldn't wake with his reflection in her heart.

Now, Pia spent her time further down the front, throwing her arcade change to other artists - those that didn't make her feel uncomfortable, or raise those questions in her mind. The kite artist noted her absence, having become familiar with her visits every year, but she observed it in the same silence with which she watched the dawn rise over the sea. She didn't mind being left to work alone. This wasn't something that she did to be observed.

Even in the winter months, when St Triston was all-but-empty and a harsh wind whistled through the sands, she was glad to have been left to make her morbid art in peace. To stroke her kite-boy's cold grey cheeks, assembled lovingly in place, to hold his outstretched hand as the first waves came lapping at his shoes. They would never be apart for long. She would never not be there, as she'd vowed when the news first tore her world in two. She would never forget about him again.

A hundred headstones to his grave, and a hundred more tomorrow.

#writing #creative writing #original fiction #original writing #this is a sad one

[azurexsnake]

Do you think Vash would enjoy a tournament? Like a horseshoe tournament or something equally as fun but relaxed, maybe playing on a team, maybe as a weekend getaway with you as his date?

(I’m going to a small town tournament near my hometown this weekend, so I’ve got it on the brain and I wanted to know your thoughts!)

If I’m being totally honest, I can’t see Vash competing in anything. Like he’s the least competitive person I can think of and anything he wins at it’s because he just naturally outclasses people that hard. Even when he’s inting (intentionally throwing/being bad) at stuff, he’s still really good and it makes things kind of not fun in very lowkey settings. Maybe if he could get away with running around and being a dork the whole time, like a dodgeball tournament or something.

But he’d go to something with me if I wanted to. Probably an ice skating tournament for national teams or something like that since I love love love figure skating. It’s something we’ve done together on more than a few dates, just for fun. Plus, we have an excuse to huddle up and snuggle close pretty much the entire time in the rink as we watch cuz it’s just cold. And he likes how into it I get cuz figure skating is just one of those magical things to me that I deeply enjoy between the physical prowess it requires and the theatrics of it all.

We talk between each other about the routines and outfits, who we’re maybe rooting for. Go out for food and stuff during show breaks. It’d just be a good lowkey time.

#I honestly had such a hard time wrapping my brain around this for a sec #cuz I’ve never been to a tournament for anything before #you’ll have to tell me what the one you’re going to is for #cuz I had such a hard time thinking anything up #besides esports 😭 #color: red 🎨 #m34gs ❤️ #{freelance} #vluesh 💟☮️

[blueflyingturtleontheway]

This is my first time doing this, and I definitely won't do all the prompts, but why not:

Whumptober, day 3, prompt: Gun to temple (kinda) and "Say goodbye"

Fandom: Elena of Avalor

Characters: Elena, Esteban, Shuriki

Other: takes place post canon, mentions of the Secret of Avalor, Song of the Sirenas and Esteban's betrayal, no gore or actual violence I think, angst but no comfort :(

The drumming of horseshoes on stone resonated through the courtyard. The beating of the hooves was fast, almost frantic, as if the horses were galloping in a panic and it sounded sharp when echoed and multiplied by castle walls.

Elena found herself running towards this sound. The corridors for some reason were extremely long and dark, as if all the windows had disappeared, and yet she could find her way perfectly. If only she wasn't so far away.

She finally reached the balcony, running to the railing and almost falling over it as she leaned out.

The sky was bright, summer blue. A few white clouds, flowing lazily like sunflowers seeds through the air, passed the sun every now and then but didn't manage to cover it for even a moment. Sharp, but warm rays found their way safely towards the ground, where they laid gently on the polished stone castle walls and reflected in the fountain in the courtyard.

A carriage had just arrived and the passengers spilled out in a cascade of laughter. Francisco extended his hand to Luísa to help her out, and she of course eagerly took it. At the same time, Esteban got off on the other side and wanted to help Isabel out, but she rushed beside him not even noticing his gesture, too absorbed by some story she was telling. Even Mateo and Naomi were there and Gabe was taking care of the horses.

Elena sighed and felt as if the gentle breeze took a giant weight off of her shoulders. She leaned back and looked up into the sky. A wide smile spread on her lips, and she closed her eyes, taking a moment to just feel the warm sunbeams on her face.

But the sun suddenly dimmed. She opened eyes and realized it got covered by dark storm clouds, that visibly came out of nowhere. The sky, clear and bright only a moment ago was now a boiling mass of grey and black matter. Somewhere above rolled a thunder and shook the castle on its foundations.

Panic bubbled up in Elena's chest and she immediately looked back down at the courtyard.

Her friends and family had huddled together into a tight group visibly shaken and looking around for a cause of this sudden darkness. Elena shouted for them and waved to get their attention, but they didn't see her. Another thunder cracked over their heads. A dark green smoke rounded the group on the courtyard.

It writhed around them and twisted like a cursed snake and its hiss made her shake. The snake grew a second head, and another one, and two more… in a moment the whole place was covered in suffocating green fog. Then one head noticed her.

A strand of magical smoke grew slowly up from the ground, and it twisted and turned as it was going up, but she could swear it's green, vicious eyes were still watching her, not loosing her sight for even a moment. The snake rose above her head an finally stopped. Then the smoke dispelled.

"Missed me, Elena?"

"No…" Elena's voice was choked in her throat. "No, you can't be here, you're dead! I killed you!" She was now yelling.

She reached at her hip but her hand clenched on nothing. She didn't have her scepter.

"Ah, ah, ah," a familiar voice, sounding almost playfully, scolded her from behind her back and she felt something hard and cold press into her back. "You won't need this anymore, prima."

Elena turned her head just in time to see Esteban smash her scepter on the ground. The crystal shattered into million pieces, its magical glow shining for just a moment longer, seeming to break through the dark green fog, but it wasn't enough and finally, their light died down. Esteban kicked the twister handle off of the balcony.

Shuriki laughed and her horrible laugh pierced Elena's ears and heart and made the sky itself shudder in another rumble.

"You really thought you could kill me? That you could defeat me?" Shuriki hovered closer on her magical smoke. "Face it Elena, you will never be free of me. I'll find you, always, and I'll finish what's left of your family one by one." She put cold emphasis on the last words in a way that each one felt like a punch straight into Elena's face.

"You're not strong enough to protect them. You're not good enough. And if you can't protect your own family, how can you protect the whole kingdom?" Esteban hissed right into her ear and his words cut almost as much as the tip of his stuff pushed to her back.

"You're weak Elena. And you're all alone." Shuriki drew back but the bitter, triumphant smile was still reigning on her face. "And now," something glistened in her hand and Elena recognized it as the Scepter of Night. The violet gem at the top seemed to suck out all the light from the surroundings that haven't been stifled by the smoke. The scepter was aimed at her friends and family, still frozen in fear on the courtyard. "It's time to say goodbye to your family, Elena."

The world started moving in a slowed down pace. Elena sprang on Shuriki in a desperate attempt to stop her but only found herself falling through the green smoke. A blinding flash of red and purple enveloped the whole courtyard, then the balcony, Elena, Esteban and Shuriki grinning down at her with a mocking smile, and then the whole world. The dark and thundering sky, the boiling clouds of green smoke, even her family all disappeared in a flash of light that was at the same time a curtain of darkness.

And then she sprung up in her own bed, in her own room.

Her breaths were fast and hoarse, she was panting as if she just came out of a fight. She dug her fingers deep into her hair, falling on her face. Her heart, her eyes and her thoughts were racing. She could hear her heartbeat in her chest, in her veins, in her head.

Her eyes were darting. From her cover. Crumpled on the floor. To her pillow. Tossed to the sides. To the lamp that had fallen from the nightstand. Crashed. Then back to her knees, drawn to her chest and the curtains, still pulled out for the night.

Her thoughts were incoherent and tripped one over another as they flooded her brain. Where was she? Where did the smoke go? Where's her family? Are they safe? Where was Esteban? Why did he do that? What did he do? Where did Shuriki go? Where was she? What happened?

The palace was quiet, calm. Her room, apart from her bed, was in perfect order. There was no one else else there. Everything looked normal.

Slowly and gradually she calmed down her breaths. She unclenched her head and straightened her back and legs.

She looked around her room once again. Her covers were crumpled on the floor, and her pillows thrown aside. She must've done it herself, thrashing in her sleep. And the falling pillow must've knocked over the lamp. She was alone, in her own bedroom, when she went to sleep the previous evening. Her family were all sleeping in their bedrooms. They were home. They were safe. No one was there to hurt them.

She looked at her window and the drawn curtains. Through a small crack she could see the sky was only a pale, purple gray color. Hours away from sunrise.

Elena took another deep breath and another one, until she was sure she had calmed down, until she was assured what she saw was just a nightmare. She wiped away the tears from her cheeks, though she couldn't remember herself cry. Slowly, she slid down from her bed.

A shiver ran through her body when her feet touched the cold floor. She was still dizzy and could feel the strain of the sleepless night on her shoulders, but she made her way to her wardrobe.

She's not going to sleep any more this night.

#my post #elena of avalor #eoa #blue's writing #elena castillo flores #shuriki #esteban flores #princess elena #chancellor esteban #lol shuriki has no title #just like she deserves #whumptober 2022 #whump #gun to temple #say goodbye #i swear its not anything scary/unpleasant #just nervousness at best i think #at least thats what i was trying to achieve #nightmares #spoilers -> #elena has forgiven esteban really #but she doesnt control her dreams :( #and subconciously she might still be hurt or scared of what he did #but she does love and trust him #its just the side effects of all the pain and trauma of the past 4 (45) years #shes not fine :(

[fire-bear]

Just FYI, I was out till late tonight, so the word count for the 26th is 50,569 words.

That’s right! My name’s on the winner’s circle.

I am gonna keep going, though, cause I wanna finish this chapter instead of coming back to the unfinished one when I write more of this next year. (Also, it would be good to get the characters to the actual quest’s starting point. It’s been roughly 100,000 words - this year’s and last year’s NanoWrimo - to get to the stage where someone is going to tell them why they asked to meet.

They were pretty far away, though, so...

Excerpt:

As they walked through the field of tents, Benrial looked around. Most of the tents were a sandy colour and they were all roughly the same size. They had been expertly raised, all of them uniform in appearance. The flaps had been pulled back so that Benrial could see inside. Bedrolls and blankets and cushions filled most of the interiors. Some had little dolls and wooden horses and hoops and other toys. Small fires had been set up between every couple of tents; it looked as though the occupants of both tents shared the fire. Most of them were burning as they cooked meat and oats and cereal, the scent of spices and honey wafting through the air, though some were merely smouldering. Large containers of water had been situated at different points between the tents and Benrial noticed that they were much like the wells where people would stop to talk while they collected their water. 

Some of the tents were a little bigger and Benrial spotted a man standing near a tiny stoneware oven. An anvil was nearby and he was busy hammering a horseshoe into shape. The other tents were for other expertise. What appeared to be someone who dyed materials in bulk while there was someone who had more than enough room to butcher an entire Desert buffalo. Another tent contained what appeared to be a mill with bags of flour that, when Benrial peered at them, he realised had been traded for. 

It took Benrial a moment to realise that the people around them were stopping to stare. Children weren’t playing, huddling together in wide-eyed fear. The adults were suspicious, ceasing their conversation to watch them pass. From the blacksmith’s tent, the sound of clanging stopped entirely as they passed. Others dropped what they held, and one woman even fainted. Benrial wasn’t sure how to alleviate their fears and distrust so he kept close to Kita.

Finally, they came upon a much larger tent than all of the rest. It could have fit several tents in it, all of them with enough room for their fires and their water containers. Instead of the usual sandy colour, it was a deep brown. White patterns, much like on the councillors robes, had been stitched into it. Around the flaps were the depictions of Desert horses and Desert buffalo. There wasn’t any fires or water containers near it, and Benrial surmised that it was some sort of communal space.

#nanowrimo #writing

[projektnomad]

2040

You sit at the bus stop with your typewriter on your lap, the sound of your own keys clacking and the keys of other people around you is almost enough to drown out the clop of horseshoes on the broken tarmac road. Pages of other people’s writing and advertising flyers are stuck on every available surface.

You finish your status update: “Waiting for the bus, it’s late again. Lol. Peace.”

You remove the page from the paper feed and take your paste and a brush from your satchel, smear the rear of the page and stick it on the side of the bus shelter, covering up half an advert for “Kardashian premium handwriting pen nibs” and half a Polaroid selfie of a girl with a plastic dog nose and ears sellotaped to her face.

“Cock ring! Cock ring, you buy!” An excitable Asian man wearing a Wish uniform is waving a small plastic ring at you. He’s looking you up and down to attempt to judge what you might be into, he sees you’re a writer and reaches into his bag before pushing a lump of cling film wrapped heroin your way and asking for 8 dollars. You ignore him and he moves to the next person, a tall man in a camo jacket, trying to push a survival kit and compass on them.

The cock ring has reminded you it’s Valentine’s Day. You take a bundle of random meme cards out of your satchel and sift through them until you find a few good ones that look semi romantic. A picture of Hitler with ‘be mein’ written underneath, a fat cat tucking into a heart shaped box of chocolates and a frog with a crown on its head. You take your fountain pen and write a creepy love note that’s ‘just kidding. Unless...’ then insert a Polaroid of your dick into each one before addressing them to your three favourite board gamer girls and putting a Valentine’s themed stamp on each.

Drawn by four strong horses the bus pulls up, it’s an open top double decker which is nice as you’ll be able to burn-vape on the top deck. You make your way up top and get a front seat. You pack your soilvape leaves into your pipe and light it with a one use wood burner, puffing away as you watch the sights and sounds of the city roll past. It’s fairly warm and sunny for the time of year and you notice the eBay sellers at their high street stalls are taking bids on spring fashions. You happen to notice and stare a little too long at a large billboard for the new Casio clockworkz design, a striking, bulky stainless steel watch from the Watchbroz range. The marketer stood on the billboard ledge fires a rolled up leaflet at you from his air pressure powered ad-cannon. His aim is impeccable and you place the leaflet in your satchel for later.

You see the cards you’ve yet to post and the name of one of the gamer girls has reminded you about the invoice in your satchel. It’s from Twiddlykk*nks, you pledged to her Kickstarter for a new board game based on the wooden Tubbz ducks franchise. You keep forgetting to pay it, so you fill out the form ready to post at your next stop.

You leave the bus at Facebook square and try to find your group. They’re a nice bunch, you think. You can’t stand some of them, admittedly, but there’s that girl you have a massive crush on and the one who has a crush on you but you’re not really interested, it’s just nice to know someone thinks you’re cool. You’re greeted in the usual way, total indifference from some, a friendly wave from others and that one guy who hands you a Polaroid of his dick with a nipple clamp on it. He smiles as you accept it before withdrawing back into the huddled group, never breaking eye contact.

You sit with your typewriter and start to think about something funny to write for the group wall that will get that one girl’s attention while simultaneously pissing off that dude who only wears meme T-shirts even in the dead of winter.

Clack clack. Clack clack. Yes, yes you think as the words come together on the page like iron dust falling onto magnets. I am a fucking genius.

#facebook #valentines day #steampunk

[the-firebird69]

Surprising the horseshoe cove and I need someone to do research and mac daddy said he would and the word is very simple

Endow

That's what Brad was doing

End ow

And he meant to hit me in mind in the balls and he made for us to separate and go into the shadow dome and not to prep it in any way and not to reinforce it and not to have cage you and robots so he thinks like with those poor huddled mass of old women or something because he's a p**** you can't see his own hand in front of his face I didn't get knocked out stupid if you did it one more time I was going to just kill you cuz you wouldn't stop and the last time you came out I wrestled you down and I said stop that I'm going to f*** you up I did a headlock and I was going to choke you out actually I was nobody saw it because you're the only one out there choking to death I'm tired of hearing about you I'm tired of hearing your stupid f****** mouth it is f****** retard following me around as well I'm going to have you shot every time you're behind me actually anytime any of you are behind me making this stupid f****** space s*** or the dumb f****** noises or intercepting me in front of me you're going to get shot I'm putting the order out there now you stupid f****** c*** it's so dumb

And yeah it looks like you're the idiot who did the surgical thing after I got hit in the low desert which you were involved in and you know why Brad cuz you're a moron you don't have a half a brain I'm going to have someone hit you in the balls every day with a baseball bat you can say no one can do that cuz you'll see the baseball bat so we can sneak up to you we'll start small so you make fun of him everyday until your balls burst everyday

Zues Hera

So I want to leave this place forever but I'm going to stay and mess around with you until someone gets rid of me and that's what I'm going to do

Brad

You're doing it before and it doesn't change anything except for the fact that you're going to die faster and for Christ's sake the foreigners already want to kill you like no tomorrow but really this endowed stuff is going to work and you're going to be out of here probably today

Zues Hera

Good work he's a heroine no he's not he's a villain is this a****** did all this stupid s*** to us because this moron in the Army couldn't figure his ass out from his elbow

Liky

[horseshoe-bay-ledger]

Bleeding Hearts — III

Part 3: The Pretence of Pie

(Part 2 | The Whole Thing)

The other Nancy walked through the door of The Claw for the first time ever that night. She was startled slightly by the ringing of the bell as she entered. 

She had grown so used its silence. Someone must have finally got around to fixing it.

She had been looking for George but was surprised to see everyone there, huddled in a booth talking intently. From what she’d been able to glean piecemeal these past few days this didn’t happen anymore. 

She wasn’t even sure Nick was still in Horseshoe Bay but there he stood leaning against the table with his palms spread, looking at something very intently.

“All within the town lines?” she heard him say and Bess nodded.

It was fortunate she had checked on Nancy before coming here. She was at Icarus Hall buried deep in some local records, so hyper focused that any of her plans for tonight and her phone were forgotten entirely.

The other Nancy had gone there to try and find Temperance’s letters but they’d unsurprisingly been moved. She had, however, seen her opportunity to gather information without the chance of the original Nancy interrupting. Maybe she could work the letters into casual conversation if she was lucky. It was a risk coming here but it was one she had to take.

“Nancy!” Bess said delightedly, spotting her. “We didn’t think you’d make it, we hadn’t heard from you.”

She smiled, shrugging her shoulders, not knowing how else to reply.

“Grab yourself a piece of pie and get over here, you truant,” George said, turning her whole body around to address her. “We need your brain on this one.”

The other Nancy decided it was best to roll with it, she could play the part of Nancy Drew. She was made for it after all. 

Plus it would probably be weirder if she just turned around and walked out the door. And she’d come here for information, so she wasn’t going to leave with nothing.

“You know I can’t turn down an offer that good,” she replied, putting on a bright smile and serving herself a piece of pie from the two dishes on the counter, grabbing a fork and napkin purely from muscle memory.

George raised her eyebrows slightly as she put the plate of blueberry pie down on the table and slid in next Bess (as George had taken the spot next to Ace already). 

She tried to gauge George’s reaction, but she controlled her face so quickly Nancy couldn’t be sure she wasn’t just being paranoid. 

She would have fretted over it longer but her gaze properly landed on Ace for the first time that evening. For the first time with her own eyes. 

Everything within her came rushing up at the sight of him. He looked, if anything, more toned down than the usual Ace but her heart still felt like it was about to explode and implode all at the same time. His lips were slightly stained by blueberries from what she assumed had been more than one piece of pie. 

He no longer had the red splotchy stain on his shirt—she hadn’t seen him since then. It was a memory that belonged to the real Nancy. These feelings belonged to her, too, but the other Nancy felt them all the same and just as strongly. 

The pull towards him felt very, very real because, in some sense, it was. 

In her last memories she had been on the verge of allowing herself to be with him. They were finding their way together slowly but surely—and in their own time. They just needed to save his heart and the town first but she was so close allowing herself that happiness. It was only timing that hadn’t yet been on their side, her own pace being mostly to blame. 

She wondered what had happened in the weeks since. Were they together now? They had to be surely. That might complicate things for her.

But the truth was she did not know what had transpired and assumptions based only on past trajectories were dangerous to rely on to inform actions. 

She would play it safe for now, even as her instincts screamed at her to do otherwise. Keeping suspicions off her was the number one priority, she could deal with her feelings later.

So she smiled at him, just normally like she always did. It seemed safe but his face faltered for a second before returning a tight smile and going back to his laptop. The back of her mind had already started to examine that look closely. 

She turned and greeted Bess who was sat with a pile of (mostly) leather-bound books in front of her. She recognised Carson’s ‘Nature in Maine’ book in the stack. 

The pile was anchoring down the corner of a large map of Horseshoe Bay. Ace’s laptop held down the opposite corner, and two mismatching mugs were doing the same at the end closest to herself. 

Her mind began to work on what was going on, what mystery she’d walked into the middle of without any context. It had various crosses marked around sites along the border of the town in sparkly purple ink.

“Is that gel pen?” She immediately asked.

“Yes,” Bess replied tersely, “and I will not be accepting any criticism of it at this time.”

Bess directed a deadly stare in Nick’s direction.

Nancy raised her hands up in mock surrender, urging Bess to explain. However, she had taken a quick glance at the map again and was pretty sure she knew what Bess was about to tell her.

“Okay, so, we’ve marked out all the places along the town line where there has been reports of abnormal wildlife behaviour and unusual phenomena,” Bess said, pointing to each mark in turn. “Like Ace’s Hercules butterflies.”

“Moths,” Ace corrected, lifting his gaze but not his head from his laptop.

“Sorry, Hercules moths,” Bess continued. “I cross referenced the information I got from my contact at the Seabury Zoological Institute, word around town, and what Ace was able to find in his search. But we’re having difficulty finding any pattern or anything useful that would point us towards the cause other than the fact they are all along the border obviously.”

The other Nancy had had no trouble seeing the pattern. They were all points where she had unsuccessfully tried to leave Horseshoe Bay.

The mystery she’d stumbled in on the middle of was her. 

She looked to the slightly smudged mark over Trenton bridge, remembering those damn moths beating at her face like they were going to suffocate her. They would have done too. She couldn’t have taken another step past the town border even if she had tried.

It was the frogs that had thwarted her the same way as she’d tried to cross the river marked astutely by Bess’ purple gel pen. That had created a lot more havoc and attention than she had anticipated. She had thought that the water may somehow be a loophole to whatever was keeping her from leaving. 

Alas, she was trapped here just like the real Nancy had thought she was stuck in the past.

It had been frustration after frustration the past few days, leaving displaced wildlife and fauna in the wake of her failures. All of them marked out perfectly on the map right in front of her.

She had reached the realisation that it was futile. However, she knew Temperance wouldn’t have left her with no way out. She just had to find it.

She was careful not to let any of her thoughts translate onto her face. Even subtly. She couldn’t exactly share what she knew with the class so she sat back with a deliberately puzzled expression and a thoughtful noise as she considered her options. 

Should she misdirect them? Perhaps it was better to stay silent.

“Oh I almost forgot,” Bess said, pulling a pen from god knows where and marking another spot on the map in the same shimmery ink. “The ornithologists noted an endangered species of dove from south-east Asia nesting along the edge of Silvan Woods. Bleeding heart dove or something.”

“Hmmm,” Nick grumbled for some reason the other Nancy could not work out.

“They’ve got a splotch of red on their breast or something that makes them look like their heart is bleeding… or missing. I don’t know, I haven’t seen one myself. The Ornithologist Weekly was very excited about them, big coup for them apparently. Pardon the pun.”

“I will not,” Ace said, never one to pardon puns, only encourage them.

“Here,” Bess said pulling up a picture of the bird on her phone for her reference and for the others.

They all leaned across the table to look.

“Does that remind anyone of…”

“Yeah.”

“Coincidence?”

“Maybe.”

“Then it might have something to do with the old town lines, something Temperance activated when she tried to open the Veil?” Nick suggested. “Might explain the heart connection.”

“Yeah or it could be something particular about the sites themselves. Might be worth canvassing when we get the chance. There’s only so much a map can tell us,” Bess pointed out. “Temperance’s letters are back at the Historical Society too. Maybe there’ll be something useful in them that could help us out? I’m still not certain this is Temperance related though. I can’t see how it could be.”

“Yeah might give us more insight into her plans though,” Nick said. “Maybe this is just a side effect of whatever damage she did manage to do before Nancy stopped her. Like an echo. I don’t know why it would have only started now though.”

“Don’t write her off from being the bane of our existence from beyond the grave,” warned George. “Don’t forget the fish,” she added, out of nowhere.

“What fish?” Nick said, confused because no one until that point had mentioned any sort of fish at all. 

“On the map. Sorry, I thought I’d said,” George replied. “Jessie has been talking my ear off about it I lost track of who knew what. Apparently some fishers found some weird fish from the Amazon when they were out on the bay the other day. A whole school of the tiny suckers.”

“Is it abnormal for fishermen to find fish?” Bess asked.

“It is when they’re in the ocean and it’s a freshwater fish.”

Bess conceded, wielding her purple gel pen, ready to add yet another mark to their map as George wordlessly pointed out roughly where the fish had been caught.

“But wait for it,” George said monotone, without any sense of the drama the words called for.

“I wait on bated breath,” Ace said teasingly playing along, throwing in another pun for good measure.

George shot him an eye-roll but it was without any of its typical venom.

“The species of fish is called the Bleeding Heart Tetra,” she explained. “Jessie and her buddies wouldn’t stop talking about it this afternoon.”

“I’m noticing a theme here,” Ace said.

“I think I’ve been staring at this map for too long,” Nick said definitively, fingers pinching the bridge of his nose. “Should we maybe come at this with fresh minds tomorrow?”

“You might be free and easy to do whatever but some of us have to work all day tomorrow and study and do mentoring after hours,” George snapped.

She knew Nick wasn’t not busy, but it seemed she felt like getting the dig in anyway.

Nick looked simultaneously infuriated and apologetic. 

The other Nancy was having difficulty gauging the dynamic. She had thought they had been alright post-break-up. Not good but okay at least.

Ace cut in to save them all.

“I have work at the morgue tomorrow too, don’t get off until 6. Worth doing a supernatural Amazing Race this weekend?”

They all nodded. The other Nancy gave a non-committal shrug. 

She was relying on Nancy’s poor communication skills and apparent re-found isolationism to not rouse any suspicion.

“Great,” Ace said, snapping his laptop shut. “Well, thanks for the pie George.”

George nodded, grabbing Ace’s empty plate before he could and walking it to the kitchen giving Ace a firm but playful reminder that he didn’t work there anymore. 

Bess took a photo of the map with her phone before attempting (but failing) to neatly re-fold it. Nancy heard the sound of two phones vibrate and one message tone. Ace never kept his phone on silent. 

“I’ll keep researching tomorrow but I’m done for tonight as well,” Bess yawned as she collected her books. “Ace?” 

“Addy’s car still in the shop?” He asked. 

Bess nodded gratefully, glad she didn’t have to explain herself. 

Nancy moved out of the booth to let Bess out, nearly crashing into Ace. He glided past her sideways, deliberate to not brush against her. It was weird. For them, at least.

So they weren’t together, she thought. 

She couldn’t figure out what would have stopped Nancy. There was no fear involved, no uncertainty. Ace had told her how he felt and left it entirely up to her what came next. 

She dropped back down into the booth, the table was now clear except for her half eaten pie and George’s discarded phone. 

Or, maybe, they were together and hadn’t told the group yet. 

She highly doubted that. Ace couldn’t keep a secret like that for the life of him, especially not from the other three. And definitely not Bess.

They all said their goodbyes. Nick, Ace and Bess all left and, like her counterpart this morning, the other Nancy remained sitting in deep thought.

George approached the booth again and sat back down on the cracked vinyl across from her, letting out the most dramatic exhale while slumping in her seat.

“Long day?” She prompted.

“And getting longer,” George lamented.

“I know what you mean,” Nancy replied because it felt like the right thing to say. Just because she hadn’t lived Nancy’s life these past weeks didn’t mean she forgot how to be a person.

“Got a mentoring session with Judge Abbott tomorrow, too.”

“That’s a good thing right?” Nancy asked, taking a bite of her now cold pie. Obviously George had been serious about law school and was actually following through on something for herself for once.

George eyed her. 

 “Yeah, it is... Hey, I thought you’d sworn off blueberry pie after that other supplier incident,” George said, not one to beat around the bush.

Ah, so she didn’t imagine that look earlier.

The other Nancy had not known about this incident, she only remembered thinking she’d give the Claw’s blueberry pie one more chance.

“Oh, well, everyone deserves another chance,” she fumbled slightly in response. “People change.”

There was a sadness that crept in her last statement that George did not miss but did misinterpret. 

“Is that what happened with you and Ace?” George asked abruptly. “After Park left?”

She didn’t know what answer would lead her away from any potential landmines. 

“Not exactly…” Nancy said, pausing to think of what to say next. 

“Oh, c’mon Nancy I see the gross eyes the two of you make at each other,” she paused to make a face and wave her hands. “Poor boy’s clearly in love with you, and I know you like him. If you’re worried about the group, don’t be—we’re stronger than that. If you want it, you should go for it.”

Everything in her wanted it, of course, beyond rationality.

Once again, she was unsure of what to say so she settled for the safest bet.

“Thanks, George.”

“A ‘thank you’ twice in one day, Drew?” George teased. “Must be some kind of record.”

She’d stay longer but she had already gotten the information she needed. In fact, she had more than she came for.

She needed to keep moving. They were already on her trail and it looked like they might find her out sooner rather than later. 

She knew first-hand, or second-hand really, how formidable this group could be with or without Nancy. 

So she excused herself for the night and headed out of The Claw. It was time to pay a visit to the Historical Society and put Nancy’s lock-picking skills to the test.

(Part 4: The Key to The Second Floor)

#nace fic #nancy drew fic #bleeding hearts #fic

[its-deputy-caleb]

YO PLEASE WRITE MORE MORBELL I LOVE PRAISE KINK MICAH AND HIS CUTE LITTLE TUMMY

okay i wrote this in like 2hrs and did not edit it at all so i apologise for any mistakes anon but i couldn't for the life of me not do write this. i was gonna work on another request tonight but i love these two and i LOVE sub!micah so this is what i came up with. this is a part two to this fic here so pls enjoy both <33

————————————

'Hot down in Horseshoe'

Eight fucking weeks. Micah waited two goddamn months for anything to happen again with Morgan and to say he wasn’t about to burst out of his skin would be a lie.

Moving to Horseshoe Overlook was chaotic, especially when there was a train robbery, getting Sean back, a bar fight and not to mention Micah nearly died when he ran into Skinny at Strawberry.

Arthur was well and truly pissed when he came up to save him, growling and lecturing him about recklessness and house calls. Micah had known then that he fucked up so he ran off to lick his wounds for a while.

That didn’t mean that he didn’t jerk off to the thought of Arthur’s rough hands all over him while he was huddled away in his camp but it never failed to leave him feeling empty and cold afterwards.

God he hated how soft Arthur had turned him. Half of it wasn’t even about the sex, he just needed Arthur’s touch. He needed the man to brush their hands together around camp, needed when their knees bumped sitting around the campfire and he needed the man to hold him like he had up in Colter.

Arthur only gave him the peace of mind when he returned to camp with a newly robbed stagecoach under his belt. Micah was startled when Arthur leaned up next to him, patting him on the shoulder but letting his finger linger on the back of his neck.

The breath Micah was holding in as Arthur caressed the base of his neck, pretending to lean over the barrel to flick through the ledger but used it to whisper down his ear as it went unknown to everyone else around camp.

“Done a real good job here boy, brining in that coach. I think you deserve a reward hmm? Don’t you think? Common now, let’s get outta here.”

Micah followed Arthur wordlessly as he saddled up and rode with Arthur into valentine.

It was well and truly dark when the arrived, Micah having gotten back to camp in the late evening. It was relatively easy for them to get a room unnoticed but none of that mattered when he finally entered the dimly lit hotel room. He placed his hat onto the chair in the corner of the room before he dropped to his knees in front of Arthur.

His knees his the ground with a thud, a move he’ll probably regret come tomorrow morning but he didn’t have it in him to care when Arthur stood in front of him and held his head in his hands.

“Seem’s like someone’s been waiting a long time for this..”

Micah nodded, pushing his head further into Arthur’s hands as his cheek was stroked with the backs of the mans knuckles. He watched as Arthur stepped back, pulling his gun belt and coat off to leave on the chair behind his own hat. He blushed heavily, hoping it went unnoticed in the bad lighting of the room as he scolded himself for not even taking the time to remove his own gun belt, ashamed at how eager he was.

“No need to be ashamed boy— been so good waiting for me.”

Arthur removed his belt and unbuttoned his pants pulling his already half har cock out and stroking it to it’s full length. He tapped it against Micah’s bottom lip and watching as Micah held his tongue out patiently.

“Look at you...I don’t have to tell you to do a single thing do I? You’re already so eager to please me.”

Micah nodded before trying to take call of Arthur’s member down his throat, gagging softly as he whined in frustration.

“Woah easy boy, we’ve got all night now. Ya ain’t gotta rush things.”

Arthur’s hands tangled in his hair, gently guiding him into a steady bob up and down. Micah’s chin was covered in drool and precum and he whined at the tightness of his pants against his already straining erection.

He gagged again when he felt Arthur’s hips jut forward accidentally, moaning in appreciation at the roughness. Micah’s hands scrambled to claw at his thighs, holding on for dear life as Arthur fucked his throat.

Micah’s head spun from a mixture of the sound’s Morgan was making, groaning and grunting between each thrust and the lack of oxygen which made everything just that more intense.

Eventually Arthur pulled out of his mouth, not missing the whine that slipped from his partner. He flattened some of Micah’s hair which was now a mess and wiped the drool from around his mouth as he let him catch his breath.

“Don’t want all the fun to be over too soon now. Common, up on the bed, hands and knees.”

Micah didn’t need to be told twice, pushing up and stripping his clothes. He left them strewn across the floor as he scrambled onto the bed and pressed his chest flush against the mattress, raising his ass high in the air for Arthur.

While Arthur admired him, he pulled the rest of his clothes off to join Micah on the bed with a tin of lube in his hand. He dropped it to the mattress to run his hands over Micah’s ass, squeezing the soft flesh in his palm. His hands rubbed and squeezed over his muffin top and soft thighs before plastering himself to Micah’s back.

Arthur’s hands came to rub over his stomach, kneading his round tummy before moving up to grope his chest.

Micah could only moan and whimper, legs spreading wider as his back arched and he clawed at the sheets. His eyes rolled shut and his toes curled as he was overcome by a wave of pleasure at wanting this from Arthur for so long.

“Fuck, Arthur! Feels good— need more, please please!”

Micah sobbed with need as he pushed back into Arthur’s embrace. He whimpered when Arthur flicked a finger over his nipple, pinching it before sitting up and taking the can of lube and coating his fingers.

“It’s alright Micah… need you relaxed for me sweetheart.”

Arthur rubbed circles on his lower back, waiting till he saw the man visibly relax with a shaky breath before inserting one finger past his rim.

Micah was a moaning mess by the time he has three inside him, withering and moaning as his prostate was abused under Arthur’s fingers scissoring him open. His cock had a steady stream of precum leaking from the tip to the mattress as he panted and fucked himself back onto the fingers inside him. He cried out in a desperate sob as his fingers pulled free and he was left empty.

Arthur made short work of coating his cock this time, lining up and pushing the head of his cock into his hole. His hand’s grabbed at Micah’s muffin top, pulling his hips flushed to his own as he bottomed out inside him, groaning at the tight feel of Micah clenching around him.

“Mhnm fuck, yer so tight for me— feel so good.”

Micah’s arms extended out in front of him as he gasped on air, panting at feeling so full on Arthur’s cock. He clawed and pulled at the pillow in front on him, moaning under his breath. Soft happy tears spilled from the corners of his eyes as he heard Arthur praise him, sighing as he relaxed into the steady pace of his thrusts.

Arthur didn’t speed up however, didn’t get faster as fucked him with slow, deep thrusts that were calculated and intense as he hit Micah’s prostate with each jut of his hips.

He leaned down over Micah again, his hands coming up to slide under his chest and take his hands in his. He felt Micah squeeze his hands tightly, groaning as he could thrust deeper at the new angle.

Micah’s legs gave, unable to hold himself up as Arthur helped him lie flat against he mattress. Arthur used his own legs to shove his apart and spread him wide. Arthur squeezed his hands back as he fucked into him harder causing his head to loll and bump with Arthur’s own.

“You alright there pretty boy? Doin’ okay?”

Micah could only open his mouth to moan in affirmation, his mind completely fried from pleasure. He blushed at the nickname, realising just how badly he liked when it left Arthur’s mouth as he nodded shyly.

Heat was slowly pooling in his gut and the friction against his leaking cock from only added to the growing pressure.

But he wanted more… he needed more praise from the man. If it meant begging until he got it then that’s exactly what he would do.

“A-Arthur I’m close— please, please, please let me cum! I’ve been soo good for you.”

Micah’s squirmed under him, whining and crying out as Arthur littered kisses over his neck and shoulders, occasionally biting to draw more moans from him. He felt Arthur groan in approval in his ear, the noise running straight down south as he neared his orgasm.

“Mmh you’ve been such a good boy— so proud of you, go on let it go.”

He licked a stripe up Micah’s neck, biting down hard onto his earlobe.

“Cum for me pretty boy.”

Micah’s eyes screwed shut, feeling hot streaks of cum soak the mattress and his tummy as he whimpered and moaned. His blunt nails scratched at Arthur’s knuckles as the man thrust into him once, twice and then three times before he pulled out and came all over his back.

Sinking into the mattress, Micah’s body felt like jelly as he came down from his high. Arthur on the other hand was slightly less disheveled as he bent down and picked up Micah’s red shirt and used it to wipe him clean.

Arthur rolled Micah onto his back gently, pulling a light sheet over them as he bent down and kissed him. He could faintly taste himself on his tongue from before as he stroked up Micah’s sides.

He continued to litter kisses all over Micah’s collar bones, neck and jaw as he praised him in between each kiss.

“Did a real good joy sweetheart, taking me so well. Good boy.”

Eventually Micah seemed to slowly come back to it as he was praised and pampered in affection, something Arthur would take note too. He took Micah’s jaw in his hand, forcing the man to look at him and smiled as he saw the satisfied and fucked out look on his face.

Micah tucked his head in his arm, yawning in the most adorable way as he stretched and got comfortable. He fell asleep in Arthur’s warm embrace, with his hands rubbing circles on his lower back.

A final shaky breath left him, his breathing evening out into soft snores as he felt Arthur kiss his forehead— a habit he could get used to.

#morbell #micah bell #arthur morgan

[tahitianmangoes]

Snow Falls

Pairing: Charles x Arthur Summary:  After Charles had found Arthur unconscious on that mountain and he vowed that he'd never leave him again. Now he’d broken that vow. Words:3018 Chapter 1/1

Not cannon compliant | NSF W

And the snow falls, the wind calls The year turns round again 'Til then put your trust in tomorrow my friend For yesterday's over and done

****

The cabin was the best way up a mountain, far from prying eyes. They were safe here. Arthur could rest here. Charles could almost rest too but he would be lying if he said that he didn’t spend the moments that he wasn’t caring for Arthur looking over his shoulder for bounty hunters, Pinkertons or worse, Dutch and Micah.

Arthur was awake before Charles, he had gotten out of bed and was stoking the fire. “I can do that,” Charles said huskily, still half asleep and half dressed, getting out of bed and going over to Arthur.

Arthur's frame was slimmer than it had been a few months ago, a few months ago when Arthur had been well enough to eat. At that time, Charles had been able to see Arthur's spine through his paper white skin when the older outlaw let Charles bathe him. No matter how hard Charles tried to get Arthur to eat more, he didn't. He couldn't. Some days, he had no appetite. Some days, it was all he could do to get out of bed and sit by the cabin window. His brilliant blue eyes were less blood shot now though, perhaps because the stillness of the mountains allowed him to sleep compared to their tiny but noisy room in Saint Denis. The colour had returned to his sallow cheeks and he was beginning to grow stronger day by day.

But Charles could still hear Arthur's breaths sometimes, laboured and shaky. He tried to hide how breathless he became doing simple things like even brushing the horses, tried to stifle his coughs from Charles perhaps because he was embarrassed but of course, nothing escaped Charles.

“I know,” Arthur replied, “but I want to. Maybe you can let me chop the firewood from now on - you always do it.” “Oh Arthur…” Charles started. “Don’t oh Arthur me, “ Arthur said quickly. “Charles, I know you’re just trying to help but… I’m bored! I’m so damned bored, stuck in a little cabin in the middle of nowhere like… Like Little Red Riding Hood!” Charles chuckled at this. “It ain’t funny, Charles.” Arthur said huffily, continuing to stoke the fire doggedly. “You said we’d be across the border soon and I’m... I'm feeling better. We could go soon.”

Charles sighed, he reached for Arthur’s face. Arthur let Charles stroke the soft downy hair out of his eyes and caress his cheek tenderly. “I just want to take care of you, my love. You’re… well, you’re still healing.” “I’m fine…” Arthur started but Charles brushed his thumb over Arthur’s lips in a bid to silence him. They held each other’s gaze, it hadn’t gone unnoticed by Charles thart Arthur's shimmering blue eyes were more tired these days. But he was still the man Charles had fallen in love with, loved like no other. “We're lucky we've made it this far. I don't want to push the limits. We’ll go as soon as you’re ready, I promise.” Charles said gently, moving his head closer to Arthur's, “you know what the doctor said, you must rest.” “Charles-” “Arthur…”

They didn’t say it often. Arthur would flush and look away and Charles found himself getting tongue tied. So he kissed Arthur and Arthur kissed back. Arthur was always so strong but at the feel of Charles's lips to his own, he softened. He sighed into Charles’s mouth.

“You've spent your whole life taking care of other people,” Charles said to him in earnest, “let me take care of you. Just this one time.” Arthur was powerless to argue.

****

Charles chopped firewood in the morning, made sure Arthur took the medicine the doctor had prescribed for him for his pneumonia with his breakfast of eggs and potatoes. After that, Charles cleaned his guns, crafted some arrows and mended some of his clothes that seemed to miraculously sprout holes faster than he could stitch them. Arthur dozed, the medicine made him drowsy and the warmth from the fireplace only exacerbated things. Charles was glad to see Arthur resting, though. Once he was better, they would head further north into Canada and start a new life. Get some land. Maybe some animals, too. Maybe change their names. Spend every day together. Grow old together. Forget what happened out east. Love each other until they stopped drawing breath… But Arthur wasn’t well enough yet. Charles had waited this long, he could wait a while longer.

Charles’s cough started that evening after dinner. Arthur’s eyes widened, “d-did I..?” Charles shook his head and laughed softly, “it’s not contagious. I must have caught the cold, that’s all.” By the next morning, the cough had worsened and Charles's chest hurt; it felt like he was tearing through him with each swing of his axe while he chopped the firewood as usual. He fixed breakfast while Arthur slept in - he hadn’t slept well during the night, he'd woken wheezing a few times and sweating. Charles had feared it was a fever but he seemed better by the time he awoke the next day.

Charles didn’t tell Arthur that it hurt when he moved, that his head felt stuffy and the blood pounded like he’d been running. But he didn’t need to. Arthur noticed that Charles seemed groggy and tired. “It’s just a cold. I’ll be fine.” Charles said dismissively.

But Arthur saw how he shivered as he tried to stitch the clothes he hadn’t managed to finish yesterday.

“Come to bed.” “Arthur, I’m hardly in the mood-” Charles was cut off by Arthur’s rasping laugh. “I ain’t propositioning you, Mr Smith.” Charles looked over at Arthur who was still lying down and felt his cheeks burn hot with embarrassment. “It’s warm here. We can keep each other warm, pair o’ invalids together.” Arthur said, patting the bed beside him. Charles smirked. “How can I resist?”

So the pair of them spent the rest of the day in bed together, huddling under the blankets, Charles's head aching and his chest tight, dozing in each other's arms in a contended way that they’d never really been able to when they had been living a life on the run.

They spent the next few days like that until the worst of Charles's cold passed. Arthur seemed to enjoy this role reversal of taking care of Charles. He made him hot herbal tea that he said Hosea had taught him to brew. Better than that stuff you buy in the store. Whether the tea really helped or not, Charles was able to get up and back to his usual self (or near enough,) after a couple of days. But by this time, there was almost no food left in the cabin. “I’m going hunting,” Charles told Arthur that morning. “Charles… you’re not well.” Arthur said sleepily, holding his hand as he went to leave the bed to get dressed. Charles tugged away reluctantly, fingers slipping through Arthur's like water. “I’m well enough. Besides, we’ll both starve if I don’t go. I’ll be back before nightfall, I promise you.”

But he wasn’t.

The snow came down heavy and thick. Charles cursed himself for being so careless, so stupid. He’d been tracking a mountain ram, perhaps a little too far. He should have known when to give up and turn back, maybe ride into town the next day and get supplies from the general store but as much as Charles would never admit it, it was his pride that kept him out longer than he should have been. He didn’t want to return to Arthur empty handed, though he knew Arthur wouldn’t be disappointed. It was stupid, male pride. It was that pride that found him unable to get back across the mountain to the cabin, to Arthur. Taima had always been a strong horse but this had proven to be her limit. The snowstorm rolled across the hills and Charles was lucky in that he found a cave that looked like it had once been home to animals of some sort - wolves he suspected - but now seemed empty. He did his best to light a fire for them both but the wood he managed to gather in the boisterous wind was too wet and the embers soon died out.

The storm swirled and the wind howled. He was reminded of the time after the Blackwater fiasco, when the gang had been stuck in a storm at Colter. It seemed like a lifetime ago now. He had shared his first kiss with Arthur not long after that, just before the gang had moved from Horseshoe Overlook to Clemens Point. He remembered that night, when they’d camped under the stars in Big Valley, how Charles had felt so comfortable with Arthur in a way he’d never felt with anyone else. He’d never foreseen this future for himself, falling for a man, a white man, a murderer and outlaw… but Charles knew he couldn't question the way the world turns. All he knew was that he cared for Arthur in a way that set his heart on ablaze like nothing before.

Rains Fall had looked him deeply in the eyes that night when Arthur returned to Beaver Hollow and said, “go to him.” Charles had opened his mouth to protest but Rains Fall shook his head steadfastly, He had wore a sorrowful smile but the look in his eyes was as resolute as ever. “I have lost too many people I love, Mr Smith. You have too.” He lay his hand gently on Charles’s shoulder. “Mr Morgan can be saved. He needs you more than we do, now go.”

So Charles had rode into the night, the sky had gone from deepest navy to a blanket of obsidian above him. No stars shone. Charles rode desperately to Arthur, each beat of his heart was Arthur’s name as he flattened his body to Taima’s and urged her faster and faster, please, girl. Please just this once, please.

He had found Arthur unconscious on that mountain and he vowed that he'd never leave him again. Now he’d broken that vow.

As the snow came down harder and faster than ever, Charles paced the cave, flooded with images of Arthur alone in the cabin and endless “what ifs?” Eventually the night rolled in, the moon reflecting off of the snow as if it were the ocean and Charles knew he he could do nothing but wait.

Two days passed. Charles managed to start a fire and kept himself and Taima warm. It was a comfort to have her there, she'd been through a lot with him and turned out to be the most loyal of everyone in the end. On the third morning, the snow had all but stopped and it was so serene on the mountain now, as if the storm had never happened. Charles mounted up and urged Taima back to the cabin, fearing the worst with every beat of his heart.

****

It was dark by the time Charles burst through the door of the cabin, Arthur was already on his feet. Neither said anything as they embraced, Charles holding Arthur so tight to his chest, tighter than he should be he didn’t care. Needed to feel the warmth of the other man, to feel his breath on his neck as they stood like that while time seemed to stand still and all that could be heard was the crackling from the fire. He wouldn’t let Arthur go ever again.

And then they were kissing. Kissing without care nor hesitation nor complexity. Just two people so fiercely in love.

“I’ve missed you,” Charles breathed, kissing Arthur so hard it almost knocked the air from his lungs. “I love you,” came Arthur’s reply, his lips soft and warm against Charles’s cold ones.

He’d missed Arthur desperately, that feeling that he might not see him again, just like the night he went to the mountain had flooded him Every doubt he’d ever had, every time he had wondered if he had made the right decision was erased.

He kissed Arthur hard, bruisingly so. Arthur sighed into the kiss, lacing his arms around Charles’s neck and pressing their bodies together.

Charles had never loved anyone like this, never felt the branches grow, felt it take root in him until it was at his very centre. All consuming. The reason he woke up in the morning and the reason he didn't just give up when things looked bleak. The reason the sunsets looked beautiful and the reason why food tasted good.

Charles didn't know which one of them had started to the bed or maybe it was both but suddenly, he was lying Arthur down and Arthur was kissing his neck and unbuttoning his shirt.

Charles hesitated, “Arthur… Are you sure?” He asked gently.

They’d only done this a handful of times, Arthur inexperienced and shy about his body, Charles not wanting to press the issue because of Arthur’s inexperience but also because Arthur was still frail. But he’d make love to Arthur every day if he could just to see the way the older man’s eyes seemed to shine when he lay beneath Charles and how his face lost all tension when it was enraptured by bliss.

Since Arthur got sick, they hadn’t been able to be intimate. Arthur’s health was more important. And then they were moving from place to place, Charles paranoid that someone had recognised them from their bounty posters even though he would slip out at night sometimes while Arthur slept and tear them down, burning them in the fire.

This was the first time in months that they were truly alone. Arthur leaned up to kiss Charles’s lips, before pulling away, their eyes meeting in a rich gaze, “it’s ok… I want to do this.” he told him

Charles brushed Arthur’s hair from his face, the love he felt overpowering him, hands working away at Arthur’s shirt and union suit until he was bare. Charles kissed his lover’s pale, flushed skin, ran his lips tenderly over the gunshot wound at his shoulder, let his tongue flick teasingly around Arthur's nipples and softly nibble at his stomach, delighting in how Arthur quaked beneath him and gasped.

Arthur’s hands reached for Charles, too, slipping his shirt off of him, fingers working at buttons and fastenings until Charles was freed of his clothes. Arthur continued, caressing the wide expanse of Charles’s back, down his flank and kneading his ass. Charles chuckled softly. “I want you,” Arthur whispered. “You’re sure?” “Y-yeah.”

Charles rolled them both over so that Arthur was now astride him. His feet remained planted on the floor, his hips supported by the bed, Arthur straddled him. Both were panting and flushed, both achingly hard.

Arthur looked away hesitantly, arms moving up instinctively to cover himself but Charles held his wrists gently, “I want to see you, all of you.” Still not meeting Charles’s gaze, Arthur positioned himself over Charles’s length and, not able to wait any longer, after quickly slicking it with hair pomade (that tore a shiver down Charles’s spine but he managed to stop himself from bucking up into Arthur), he sunk down, swallowing Charles inch by inch.

Both of them gasped and moaned softly. Arthur’s dazzling eyes closed now as he adjusted to the length buried deep inside him to the hilt..

Arthur moved, he groaned as he did so. Charles filled him, felt so big inside. He reached down, steading himself by placing his palms on Charles's broad chest and then began to find a pace that he could enjoy. Charles watched with adoration as Arthur rode him, slow and sensual at first. He saw the flush deepening, saw his brow furrow as he found a rhythm, Charles placed his hands on Arthur’s hips to steady him Charles reached up to caress Arthur torso, his hips, the swell of his ass. The older outlaw’s weight bared down on him, engulfing him. Everything from the past few days, the past awful months felt like white noise. All Charles could focus on was his hard cock inside Arthur, his breathing, Arthur’s moans, their bodies rubbing against each other's, the feel of Arthur’s erection on his stomach as he slid in and out out of him, him becoming part of Arthur and Arthur becoming part of him.

It didn’t take long for Arthur's moans to grow louder and for him to bring himself down harder, passage squeezing Charles, making Charles growl in response. Arthur’s eyes rolled back and his body stiffened, he juddered almost collapsing if Charles hadn’t been holding him. He came without touching himself the first time. Charles saw the ecstasy clouding Arthur’s vision and as he barely came down from his first orgasm, he began to chase a second, raising his hips, grinding down on Charles with a force that Charles hadn't been certain Arthur wasn't capable of. Arthur huffed and cursed, he chanted Charles's name between low, careless moans. Charles groaned, doing his best not to spill himself in Arthur just yet and fill him up as much as would love to, Arthur’s heat was hypnotising but so was the way he moved, so was the way he looked above him, fawn coloured hair framing his handsome face, biting down on his lip, unable to hide how good this made him feel, how much he loved this,

Charles’s cock wrung orgasm after orgasm out of Arthur until he was left breathless and exhausted and finally collapsed into Charles’s arms. Charles thrust up into Arthur now, shivering and chest rumbling as he came, foreheads pressed together, breath hot on his face, Arthur’s lips trailing lazy kisses over his skin until they both stilled and lay in each others arms.

They lay like that until it began to grow light again outside and Charles could hear birdsong. "I love you," Charles murmured. Arthur slipped his hand in Charles's and whispered it back before he began to snore softly.

#charthur #rdr2 #writing #charles x arthur #arthur morgan #charles smith

[prickly-writings]

They knew this would happen eventually.

FANDOM: Pokémon Legends Arceus

CHARACTERS: Volo, Main Character (they/them) (technically could be reader the age doesn’t matter or ever come up this isn’t a / fic)

SUMMARY: Right after being kicked out from Jubilife Village, the trainer from the sky finds a place to rest. Volo comes and finds them.

~~~

They knew this would happen eventually.

It wasn’t as if they didn’t hear the way the townsfolk talked behind their back. The way the commander looked at them, bombarding them with warning after warning about “those who didn’t trust them.” Talking as if he wasn’t counted among those numbers.

They slowed as they reached the edge of the lake near Horseshoe Plains. They spent a lot of time here in their first week, just wandering around with their Oshawott and Ponyta at their side, researching all the pokémon around them and taking in all the beautiful new sights. Wide eyed and ready for adventure, they would regularly set out for days, not even returning to the base camps, content to camp along with their pokémon under the stars.

They didn’t have time to grab their camp stove from their dorm before the quick departure. Nor any of the ingredients they had gathered other than a few berries put away in their pack, but their Rapidash could light them a fire if they could find some branches. Kebabs were better than eating the food raw they supposed.

Their camp was always kind of messy. A makeshift fire, their pack laid to the side, and their pokémon all huddled together in a pile they’d join for warmth. Their Samurott and Torterra cuddled near each other, leaving just enough space for their trainer to squeeze in between. Then Walrein and Magnezone would settle down, resting their heads near each-other. Alakazam and Rapidash came in last, curling up and falling asleep. It was remarkably warm and surprisingly safe, as it seemed no pokémon were willing to disturb such a fierce looking pack, even when they were sleeping.

Tonight the trainer attempted to sleep with tears in their eyes, holding Samurott’s neck as more threatened to overflow, a silent sob choking in their throat. The pokémon cuddled closer, Torterra on the other side whimpering slightly as he nuzzled his pointy head under their arm to try and look them in the eyes.

They cried for a good long time, their party of six huddling closer than usual, all unusually somber as they saw their friend, their companion, their family in such distress. The packs of Shinx, Ponyta, and Bidoof all seemed content to give them their much needed space, the group able to stay cuddled together for a long while without interruption.

And when they were interrupted, it wasn’t by a pokémon.

They heard the footsteps approaching, but they were familiar to them. Footsteps they had come to trust. They huddled further into themself, shutting their eyes tight as they wondered if that had been a mistake too.

“Boo.” The figure spoke into the darkness, a sad smile evident in their tone as they squatted down near where the survey corps member was burying their head further below Samurott’s neck. Their Torterra looked up at Volo with sad eyes before nudging his trainer, trying to get them to look.

“I’ve been looking all over for you, you know.” He said, settling to sit near their Alakazam, looking out onto the lake.

They stayed quiet, just barely lifting their head enough to see the back of his head. Their eyes were red from crying, they didn’t need Volo to see that.

“I heard what happened.” He looked up to the sky, an indiscernible look in his eyes that the trainer wouldn’t be able to decipher even if they were looking. “They banished you, didn’t they.”

The trainer felt their chest clench as they sat up, sniffling slightly as they nodded their head. “They blame me.” They looked up. “For that.”

Volo shook his head. “And after everything you’ve done to help them,” he barked out a laugh. “Some team I’d say.”

As they looked out onto the lake, they shifted so they placed an arm around each of the pokémon at their side. They scratched their Torterra right behind the spikes on the sides of his head. He leaned into the touch. “I don’t know what to do now.” They cursed the way their voice seemed to betray them, cracking ever so slightly. “How am I supposed to fix this? I was dropped from that hole in the sky with the singular goal of completing this pokédex and now I’m expected to close it?”

They took a shaky breath and spoke in a voice almost inaudible. “What if I do fix it, and I’m stuck here.”

Volo looked over to the trainer from the sky, eyes furrowing in something that could resemble guilt for just a brief moment. He frowned. “I know a place where you can stay, a place hidden from the rest of the region. We can figure it out there.”

They looked him in the eye, trying not to think about how pathetic they looked. “We?”

He hesitated for a moment before that same smile they knew so well crossed his face. His “customer service smile” they liked to call it. He tilted his head slightly to the side. “Of course! I couldn’t bear to lose my favorite customer, now could I?”

They smiled, giving their Torterra another big scratch before standing up. Volo quickly followed, brushing himself off before being ready to lead the way to a certain retreat. As he turned to face the trainer, he stopped dead in his tracks, bracing himself as the trainer rushed forward, wrapping their arms around him in a quick hug. He hesitated for a moment before returning the gesture.

“Thank you.” They said, voice slightly muffled by his Ginkgo Guild coat.

Volo hesitated, still slightly frozen in shock. He cleared his throat and nodded. “Of course.” He forced a smile back on his face when they pulled away, gesturing in the direction they needed to go. “You start picking up camp and we’ll head out. We should be able to make it by sunrise.”

They nodded, looking down at their tired but now fully attentive pokémon. None of them really liked going back in their balls, especially when their trainer was in such low spirits, but they stood up nonetheless. It was going to be a long journey ahead of them.

#pla #pokemon legends arceus #volo #i’ve never posted fics on tumblr before! but i had to get this out of my head lol #i might post more if people like this??? i definitely have more fics written they’re just not edited ^^’

[stolensiren]

chameleon and the illuberis nightmare!!! // clay and cass

TIMING: current PARTIES: @clayanddust and @stolensiren SUMMARY: the chameleon is once again on the case, keeping white crest's most vulnerable people safe from the darkness that lurks in the city's shadows, all with the help of her trusty sidekick! this week, watch as the vigilante and the slayer battle nightmare demons... with a twist! CONTENT: addiction, drug manipulation, head trauma

Some people never really got a break. It seemed like just yesterday Cass had been fighting mind control spiders to keep the homeless population of White Crest safe, and now? Another crisis. Another series of tragedies. Another weird collection of bullshit that no one else was looking into.

It was Romi who’d turned her on to it. After the teppum shit, she’d gone back and given the other woman her number, told her to call if anything weird started going on. And it hadn’t taken long for Romi to use it, because of course it hadn’t. This was White Crest, and there was always something weird going on. Cass just found herself wishing Romi had more details to give her.

What she had was slim. A few mysterious deaths, people appearing to have suffocated in their sleep without reason or explanation. People were afraid, and Cass couldn’t blame them. She also couldn’t promise them anything. She told Romi as much, but… After the teppum invasion, these people trusted her. They had faith in her.

It was a terrifying thing.

Cass tried to push it aside as she patrolled the area, focusing on the task at hand. As she neared the homeless shelter — the center of her patrol zone for the night — a quiet clang clang clang caught her attention. Tensing, she moved towards it slowly, ready for a fight. Instead, she found a familiar figure doing a puzzling thing.

“Clay? Are you… hanging up horseshoes? Dude, respectfully, what the fuck.”

Clay looked down from where he stood on a pile of cast-off cinder-blocks. The last amber sparks of late evening cast the Hunter in stark golds and shadows as he held a hammer in one hand, a horseshoe inscribed the German prayer of Münchener Nachtsegen in the other, and a couple nails held in one side of his mouth.

“Oh heya Cass,” he slurred around the metal in his mouth, “I uh…” Clay glanced surreptitiously at the other etched horseshoes hanging from his belt. “Yup, just nailing them to some entrances and bedposts. For decoration.”

For a moment, Cass just stared. Her eyes darted from Clay to the horseshoe in his hand and back again, brow furrowed like she was trying to solve a puzzle. When she came up short, she settled on looking him in the eye with a narrowed gaze, one brow shooting up at his explanation. “Cut the bullshit,” she snorted, shaking her head. Gesturing to the homeless shelter, she tilted her head. “Do you know what’s going on around here?”

Clay’s head followed Cass’ gesture toward the interior of the homeless shelter. It had been a car dealership before the latest economic collapse in America’s relentless boom and bust market cycle had sent it under as even less people could afford high-end consumption. The squat garage-like building had largely been shorn of anything valuable. Now beds and tattered packs huddled beneath the bare metal beams of the former car showroom. The cold metal and cement floors weren’t much comfort in winter, but at least it was dry and somewhere safe from Karens and store-owners sicing the cops on them for ‘loitering.’

Clay didn’t want to drag Cass into this. He respected her competence and the Hunter culture he’d been adopted into didn’t coddle kids. But if his suspicions were correct, the threat here was more metaphysical than spider aliens. Still, Clay had been trained to always factor in his own mortality. One of these nights would be his final hunt, probably sooner rather than later. If that was tonight, then these vulnerable people would need someone who knew what was going on. They’d need a certain friendly neighborhood Chameleon to be at the top of her game.

“If you mean the suffocations and weird sickness going ‘roud this shelter, yeah I do,” Clay admitted in a mumble around the nails in his mouth. He paused to nail the prayer-inscribed horseshoe over the entrance in a rhythmic pounding that echoed in the quieting late evening street. On giving his handiwork a testing poke, Clay jumped down from the cinderblocks, workboots splattering in the muddy snow. “It’s why I’m staking out the place tonight.”

You got good, after a while, at reading people’s expressions. Clay was harder to pin down than most, but Cass still made note of the tiny changes to his face as he looked at her, the way he seemed to weigh his options in the back of his mind. She knew he was trying to decide how much to tell her, or whether to tell her anything at all. She knew he was probably having some great internal debate with himself, factoring in her safety and the safety of the people who took shelter in this building, the ones who slept on the streets outside of it.

Cass knew how to combat things like this. She stood, perfectly still, with her arms crossed over her chest. She didn’t break eye contact, didn’t let her expression shift. She was a stubborn marble statue, refusing to break. It was a hard thing to beat.

It was only when Clay admitted that he did know what was going on that Cass allowed herself to relax, a small smile pulling at the corners of her lips at the perceived victory. “Okay,” she said, “then I’m staking it out with you. No way you’re doing this alone. You need me. So you might as well explain whatever weird supernatural bullshit this is so I can be ready for it.”

Clay made an ornery sound at Cass’ statement about needing her, but there was no heart in it. “Well it's not like I can stop you, this is a public shelter,” he pointed out with a flat practicality that perhaps sounded suspiciously like Clay’s justification for letting Cass team up to fight spider aliens not too long ago.

Explanations were held off as Clay checked into the shelter with the shelter staff sitting behind what was left of the dealership's information counter. Capacity was near full but the Hunter had brought a bedroll of his own along with his duffel-bag. Clay carried through the proceeding with the weary overworked Shelter Director, with the rote air of someone who’d been through this before. He quietly nodded and listened when provided with the rules he already knew and probably was about to break before the night was through. Wake up was at five and haul out by seven, gothya.

“I think there’s someone here whose nightmares have become real,” was Clay’s version of a prelude as he spread his bead roll out on the cement floor. The Hunter criss-crossed apple-sauced on the floor and began removing food from his duffle bag. It was the hardy fare of a survivalist, hartak, soup, nutrient water power, and so on. “The horseshoes might help limit its range of movement, but it’ll probably manifest by whoever dreamed it into being,” Clay said.

The resulting grin from Clay’s words was bright and, some might say, insufferable. “Nope,” Cass agreed, popping the p. “You can’t stop me.” If this was how all their team ups were going to start, Cass was going to have fun with it. Maybe somewhere along the line, Clay would stop playing the ‘reluctant partner’ role and just accept that she was going to be around whether he wanted her there or not.

Cass followed along behind Clay, offering the Shelter Director a small smile. Familiarity sparked in the director’s eyes, and Cass found herself hoping that no one would say anything. It wasn’t as if she was ashamed that she’d once slept in shelters like this one often, but… It would be easier if Clay didn’t know. She didn’t want him looking at her differently, didn’t want things to shift between them. This weird partnership they’d formed was fun. And Cass wanted it to stay fun. She didn’t think that was so much to ask.

“That’s a thing?” Cass perched herself on the floor beside him, legs crossed and hands folded in her lap. “What causes it? A certain… creature?” When it came to supernatural knowledge, she was pretty much a blank slate. She knew about vampires and magic, and she’d learned about teppums the last time she and Clay did this dance, but everything beyond that? It was guesswork at best. And Cass really wanted to know more. She needed to know more, really, if she was going to keep doing what she was doing in White Crest. And she had no intention of stopping.

“Not to get all New Age crystal mommy ‘bout this,” Clay prevericated after a nod to Cass’ initial question. “But strong emotions are a kind of energy and some things on the spooky side feed on that.” Clay put the food, water bottles, horseshoes, and other sundries in small stacks in front of him on the cement floor, as if the pointless organization helped his thought process. “Technically any sorta recurring nightmare can become what the German’s called an Alptraum, an Elf Dream” the Hunter elaborated. “But only they have to be really intense to actually become somethin’ called an Alp, a nightmare demon if you wanna use that word,” Clay said. “Often there’s some kinna bullshit from the spooky side involved that fucks people enough to have an Alp dream but not always.”

Clay drummed twitchy fingers on one of his knees in thought, a hint of inner tension that didn’t show on the focused calm of his features. “The Alp is gonna keep manifesting and hurting people wherever its dreamer goes until we take it out.”

Cass snorted at his description, rolling her eyes with a quiet huff. The amusement was pretty clear on her face, and she didn’t bother trying to hide it. Clay could be funny, when he wanted to be. She just hoped that wouldn’t go to his head. “Well, people in the kind of situation that brings them here for a night or two tend to have some pretty intense nightmare fuel at their disposal,” she said, trying to put a disconnect up between herself and the words, trying to make it sound like she wasn’t talking from experience. She thought she did a pretty decent job, all things considered. “That might make it a little tough to narrow down the source, though. What kind of… spooky stuff could fuck them up like that?” Maybe that was where they needed to start their search.

Her expression hardened when he continued, jaw set and eyes stubbornly focused. “Okay,” she nodded, “then we take it out tonight. Nobody else gets hurt. Nobody else dies. That’s my plan here.” He’d get on board, because she was pretty sure he knew she’d do it with or without him.

“Alotta stuff unfortunately,'' Clay conceded, “we are looking for someone who is having nightmares every night and has suffered alot of physical abuse lately. We’ll also wanna check to see if folks round here’ve seen a white butterfly, or a very creepy pig, cat, dog, or snake,” the Hunter said, counting off each form on his fingers. “Alp are shapeshifters,” he added for clarity.

Clay’s dark eyebrows lifted slightly at his companions’ firmness but he didn’t try to contradict her. “I won’t use guns with so many civilians around,” Clay mused in a tone suggested that firearms might be his prefered fuck-you to the spooky side “I’ve brought my machette and somma these.” At that, Clay reached into his canvas bag and withdrew a leather sheath bearing the hefty hilt of a tactical knife. He offered the weapon to Cass with a discrete motion.

“The Alp probably wont manifest till people start goin to sleep, until then we might wanna split up to talk to folks and see who opens up.” Clay nodded down the food that spread between them, as it indicating that it might grease the weld of conversation.

It was tragic, the way the amendments Clay offered still did very little to narrow things down. Cass knew even without looking around the shelter that plenty of the people there fit every single criteria Clay laid out for them. But the animal requirements did help a little. Cass’s brow furrowed at the description. “Shapeshifters with a really specific kind of preference?” Creepy animals certainly made it easier to look out for what they needed, but… it did raise a few more questions as well.

There was some relief in her expression as he promised not to use guns because, truthfully, Cass had never liked them. She wasn’t even a huge fan of blades, but she took the knife Clay offered her anyways, carefully tucking it into her bag. “How effective are these against it?” She’d learned from Bex that some supernatural creatures had different weaknesses, like religious imagery or stakes for vampires. It stood to reason that this might be similar.

“I can do that,” she confirmed softly, glancing around the room. Her eyes settled on a corner with a familiar spread, and she nodded towards it. “His name is Stephen. I think he’d like you. You’ve got the right vibes for him.” She left out the fact that Stephen was likely to hit on Clay pretty mercilessly for the first five minutes of the conversation. She figured he’d figure it out himself pretty quick.

Clay nodded to the very specific shapeshifting question. “Yeah I can’t tell ya why.” After a point this was the result of hard experience and handed down wisdom. The rhyme and reason of many supernatural entities was still murky territory. Albeit, science is harder when it's trying to eat your tasty person-meat. “Decent if you aim for the giant cursing eye,” was Clay’s Alp-knifing wisdom for today.

Stephen, it turned out, had a thing for athletic twinks and tough but funny guys. Cass proved correct that Clay filled enough of these criteria to turn the conversation away from mysterious white butterflies and nightmares towards what exercises Clay preferred and how ‘tense’ he was. When Clay responded with lewd jokes mixed with biting self-deprecation, Stephen began to get some vibes that Cass’ straight coded tag-along was less unnerved by male flirtation then he was at an absolute mess at coquetry in general. More unnerving, Stephen got the honest impression that Clay might agree to a quickie out back right now, just to get this information, as if his body was simply a tool for the mission. Stephen felt it’d be cruel to continue.

“Its alright,” Stephen assured with a sad curve to his smile, “yeah I did see a guy like that actually…..”

“I guess if you could, I’d have to give test you to make sure you’re not a shapeshifter,” Cass joked. It was probably a bad joke considering she had no idea if there were shapeshifters out there who could go full Mystique and look like anyone they wanted, but she figured Clay might get a laugh out of it anyway. And right now? They could both probably use a laugh. “Giant cursing eye,” she repeated, closing her eyes with a soft sigh. “Right. Of course.” She felt a little less bad about siccing Stephen on him now, if only because talk of giant eyes made her feel way out of her depth.

While Clay went off to talk to Stephen, Cass busied herself with Kara, a young mother who spent a lot of time in the shelter. They chatted for a few minutes, Cass watching Clay’s back and forth with Stephen out of the corner of her eye with a faint smirk. Kara knew far less than Stephen did, unfortunately, so after a few minutes of conversation, Cass bid her a quiet farewell and went to see if Clay was having better luck.

It sounded like he might be. Cass raised a brow as she approached, smiling faintly at Stephen in greeting. “You have any idea where we might find them now?” She asked, glancing over to Clay. He didn’t even look embarrassed. She was a little disappointed.

“Yeah, I have a few ideas but…,” Clay started to rise from he’d been sitting in front of Stephen.

But Stephen caught Clay’s arm around the wrist, stopping the Hunter. “You don’t want to mess with those guys dude, their dangerous and if its he’s been seeing them…”

“I can handle it Steph,” was Clay curt reply.

“Yeah sure,” Stephen sighed, looking at the focused iron at Clay’s gaze, before flicking his own green eyes towards Cass meaningfully. “Look man,” Stephen murmured, jerking Hunter back towards him by the fabric of the Hunter's jacket . “I know what that scar means.” Stephen reached up a finger to tap a small coiling scar on Clay’s right temple.

Clay jolted back as if Stephen had just socked him in the jaw. Anger and hot-faced shame split the Hunter’s normally calm features, a painless touch and simple words able to do in a second what ten straight minutes of playful propositioning hadn’t dented.

But Stephen was having none of it. His hand in its fingerless gloves held Clay’s jacket fast. “I’ve known guys like you,” Stephen challenged directly into Clay’s face in a low fierce whisper. “Couldn’t take pain or stop thinking about jumping off a bridge? So they walk deep into the mists and come back all hollow.”

Clay didn’t bother to deny it. “It’s too late for me,” the Hunter confessed.

Stephen sighed, the warm cloud of his breath defiant against the deathly chill, against an unseen rising tide that snatched the light from those drawn to this mist-shrouded town. “Maybe,” he conceded softly, “But she can still feel so can they,” he nodded to innocents settling around for bed on cots and bedrolls around the shelter. “Please….” Stephen didn’t need to finish the plea. Clay understood. He took Stephen’s gloved hand in his, and gave a squeeze of affirmation, an assurance that he wasn’t so far gone as to endanger Cassidy or anyone else here, not yet anyway. One day, but Clay still had a little while before he’d have to be put down like a rabid dog.

“I promise,’ Clay spoke the words to Stephen that no one who has survived long on the spooky side says lightly. As he suspected, their significance was not lost on Stephen. His Shelter-Date let Clay’s arm go. The Slayer rose to his feet.

“Alright I got a dreamer suspect,” Clay told Cassidy as he strided over their little camp in a corner of the shelter, calm focus back as if nothing had happened.

Stephen had always been a little intense. Cass couldn’t make out what he was saying to Clay, but she recognized that urgent way about him, the grip on Clay’s sleeve. Maybe it had been too good an idea, sending Clay into the lion’s den. Cass hovered, unsure if she ought to interfere or not. Clay didn’t look uncomfortable, and neither did Stephen, but… There was certainly something going on. Cass shifted her weight.

Before she could make the decision to interrupt whatever intense conversation was happening. Clay was rising to his feet, a sure-fire sign that it was over. Cass didn’t know whether to be glad it had ended without drama or a little disappointed she hadn’t eavesdropped to find out what it was all about. She settled for somewhere in between, raising a brow at Clay as he approached.

“That looked serious,” she commented. “Wanna tell me what he said?” It was clear that Clay wanted to focus on the Alp, and Cass wanted the same thing, but… She was also nosey. And Stephen was still looking this way, something unreadable in his expression. Cass caught his eye and he looked away, shaking his head ever so slightly as he did. He would be impossible to get anything out of. Clay was a better bet.

But it was also probably the kind of thing you pulled from someone with a slow burn approach. Chewing her lip, Cass glanced around the shelter. “Who’s our suspect, then?” If they focused on the matter at hand now, she’d have more time to grill Clay later, when people were safe. It seemed like the best course of action.

“Steph says there is a guy named Ky Gaines who was bitten by a white snake last night and has other snakebites all over his arms,” Cole said, scratching at the small fern coil on his right temple as if referring to Stephen made it itch. “He talks in his sleep alot, self-medicates,”

Clay knelt down by his duffle bag. Although his face remained dispassionate, the Hunter handled his equipment with abrupt movements and unnecessary roughness, a departure from his usual collected manner of just a soldier organizing tools. Clay retrieved more knife sheaths and belted them beneath his jacket with a ritual repeated so often it’d become subconscious muscle memory. A machete vanished behind Clay’s back and was secretly secured with a fluid ease that’d have raised the eyebrows of any airport customs agent. Vials of pills and water adorned with hallowed script got stowed away in Clay’s pockets. Lastly, Clay took out a simple necklace that had a rough metal cross as its only crude adornment. The Slayer lowered the sacred symbol down around his neck and tucked it beneath his shirt as if were just another one of his razor-edged knives.

“The problem is that Ky isn’t the only person Steph and his friends have seen with marks like those,” Clay explained as he got back up to feet. “There’s something going on but anyone who get too deep into it vanishes.”

“Steph,” Cass repeated, a slight smirk ghosting the corner of her lip. It smoothed over quickly and she cleared her throat, nodding her head. “I know someone who knows someone who knows Ky,” she admitted. “Word on the street is he’s always been a little off. This could just be more of the same… but it’s definitely worth checking out.”

She watched Clay as he kneeled down, watched the way he handled himself. He seemed different now than he had with the Teppum, different, even, than he had been prior to his conversation with Stephen. Cass glanced over towards Stephen’s area again but found it empty. Whatever had gone down seemed to have been enough to convince Stephen to either move to a different part of the shelter or take his chances on the street for the night. Cass felt her curiosity grow deeper.

Swallowing, Cass nodded again. “So whatever this is, there’s somebody covering it up. Is that… normal, for this kind of creature?” It was hard for Cass to know what was out of the ordinary here when she had no idea what the ordinary really was.

“There’s all sorts of cults and criminal organizations that deal in paranormal stuff,” Clay began as he leaned against the wall, scanning the gathered throng of people for someone matching the description of Ky that Stephen had given him. “But an Alp? It's a nightmare given form, its like tryin’ to team up with a thunderstorm or wildfire,” the Hunter mused. “But, your right Cassidy,” he acknowledged, “someone is covering its tracks.”

Clay looked over Cassidy and gave a wane smile. “Looks like your instinct on the exact cause of Alp nightmares being key might be on point.” He nodded to his companion before giving the room another sweep. “...I don’t see Ky anybody,” Clay noted with a frown.

It made sense, the idea that criminals and cultists would take advantage of the supernatural. But from what Clay was saying, it was unlikely that the Alp was teaming up with them intentionally. “So… someone’s just taking advantage of the chaos? Or feeding into it? But why? What’s in it for them?” No one did anything without the promise of something in return. Cass had learned that a long time ago.

“I don’t think he’s here,” Cass confirmed, scanning the room along with Clay. “Maybe he took the streets tonight? If he couldn’t get in before it hit capacity…” She wondered if it was better or worse for Ky to be on the streets when his nightmares spawned an Alp. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know the answer.

“It could be that whatever they’re doin is causing Alps to form,” posited Clay. Could be a family of Mara, some witch taking new psychic magic out for a spin on people who couldn’t fight back, a swarm of Phobids, or number of other paranormal mindfuckers who wouldn’t think twice about offing some homeless humans who tried to figure out what was hurting their friends. Still way too broad. “Or might the nightmares themselves are the point,” murmured Clay before shaking his head. More clues were needed here.

“Steph said he checked in but,” Clay murmured. But what would delay Ky from taking shelter in a warm bed on a ball-freezing night. Maybe a friend or lover had a place to crash at? Of course, the Slayer knew that was the rosiest scenario compared to the grizzlier possibilities he was better acquainted with. “I’mma take a stroll outside and see what’s around the building,” he suggested, content to let Cassidy make her own call on whether to accompany him or keep watch here.

Clay made his way towards the back entrance of a shelter, craning his ears for activity as he walked through the stark stripped hall toward the back. However the Hunter’s own enhanced sense proved a liability as a whiff of cloying smoke outside sent his world into double vision and caused the cement floor to seem to undulate in physics distorting waves. “The fuck ….” Clay said, holding his face in hand as he stumbled and trips on a perfectly solid floor.

“That makes sense,” Cass nodded. She didn’t have a ready-made list in her head of things or motivations that might cause something like this, but it stood to reason that someone was gaining something from the whole ordeal. And it wasn’t the same people who were suffering from it, because it never was. The people who stood to benefit from a thing like this were never the ones who were in the most danger because of it. That sort of thing could only happen in a just world, in a fair place. And this wasn’t that.

If Ky had checked in, he was probably still nearby. There were plenty of things that could chase someone out of the nice, warm shelter for the night even after they’d earned themselves a bed there, but people in this kind of situation didn’t often have the means to travel far from where they’d planned to stay the night even if their plans changed. Cass nodded, eyes flicking up to meet Clay’s. “I’ll go with you.” Her tone left no room for argument, but she didn’t expect Clay to try one, either. He’d proven pretty good about letting Cass come along when she wanted to.

Cass trailed along behind Clay, glancing around as if searching for answers. She didn’t think they’d find Ky down this hallway — if anything, he was more likely to be in one of the alleys outside. But it never hurt, she supposed, to be aware of your surroundings. So focused on searching the hall, Cass didn’t realize something was up with Clay until he stumbled. Quickly, she moved to steady him, hand at his elbow. “Clay? What’s…” She paused, scrunching her nose. “Ugh. Something smells like balls over here.” Without enhanced senses on the level of his, the smoke wasn’t yet affecting her. But the scent was hard to miss.

Clay turned and looked in Cass’ general direction, but the Hunter’s unfocused brown eyes swept right past her, as if she was behind phantasmal veils of colors and liquid sound that sloshed with a hundred clarion tastes. “Cass where are…” Clay stumbled as some unnatural airborne hallucinogens turned the mutant’s keen senses against him. Clay reached out to stead himself against the bare metal wall, but quickly withdrew his hand in disgust, fingers raking at something unseen that crawled across his skin.

“I..I know…this is,” but a fog of scintillating colors clouded Clay’s normally quick recall. Tatters of lore and cryptozoology slipped down into a morass as his sense of touch and hearing seemed to switch places. Clay staggered down the hall, slamming into the back door with an impact that felt like an orchestra across his skin. The freezing metal was silvery violins against his cheek and fingers. “Cass I think ….a plant….nah,” Clay trailed off with his hiccuping giggles that shook his shoulder into wheezing.

Clay pushed open the back door, striding right out past the protective horseshoe he’d placed above the door into the alleyway. He turned around in place in times before abruptly stopping to point finger-guns at a slumped form beside a burning pile of wrappers that billowed noxious smoke into the air.

“Heya Kyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!”

A single white butterfly descended from the smoke, its eye-patterned wings illumined by the moonlight. It landed on Clay’s right fingergun like a living snowflake.

“Oh heya Nadia,” Clay gushed with a dopey grin. “So hey, so I think there’s something I should tell you before we….uh…y’know, see I’m a…”

The confession trailed off in a gurgling yelp as the enormous albino python crushed Clay’s right in its coils and sank frangs deep into his shoulder, bearing the Hunter to the ground.

He looked unfocused, unsteady, and Cass felt a sweeping fear overcome her because for all the game she talked, she really didn’t know if she could handle this without Clay helping her out. He was the one who knew about these creatures, the one who understood them. “Hey, Clay, focus, okay?”

Cass had no choice but to follow him as he wandered down the hall, hands hovering just over his body as if she was afraid to touch him. He was talking in disjointed sentences, but Cass caught something about plants, smelled the stench in the air getting stronger. She saw a hint of smoke and quickly put two and two together, cursing and lifting her jacket over her mouth and nose. “Shit. I think I know why Ky wasn’t in the main room.” The shelter didn’t allow drugs inside. If Ky had wanted to get high before settling down for the night, he would have had to do it outside. And from the looks of things… that was exactly what happened. The question remaining now was what he’d been getting high on. Whatever it was, Cass suspected Clay was experiencing the effects now, too.

Rushing over to the slumped form, Cass put a hand on his shoulder and shook him gently. “He’s asleep,” she said, glancing back to Clay. “Or out cold, or…” Trailing off, she watched with wide eyes as a butterfly landed on Clay’s hand. A white butterfly. “Clay, wait —” Before she could finish her warning, it transformed into a snake and bit him, and Cass stumbled back. She pulled the jacket tighter around her face, trying to block out the scent. Reaching into her bag, she produced the knife Clay had handed her earlier, swinging it at the python and catching its tail. “Hey! Asshole! Back off!”

Pain granted Clay focus in the haze. Everything still swam in bright sounds and loud colors, but Clay’s survival instincts were screaming loud enough that at least make clear that for some reason Nadia was biting his shoulder. Clay was an old fashioned guy. The fangs and constriction were coming on a little fast for the second date. God, his blood smelled like silk and bass drums tonight. Gross.

Focus.

Suddenly the Nadia snake, Snadia, retracted its fangs from Clay’s shoulder and swiveled around to hiss at Cassidy. Nadia’s jaw unhinged like a nutcracker and the snarling head of a white-furred dog split out of her throat. As singing pokedots of smelly brightness played across his vision, Clay managed to muster just enough reason in the drugged smoke to decide that the lost and haunted yet gentle woman he walked with in the Common was not in fact a secret dog-snek. The vibes were off.

“Sorry Nadia,” Clay blubbered blearily between high pitched hiccups as the white python crushing his right arm in its coils lunged at Cassidy with the snapping maw of a husky dog, enraged at the bleeding wound she’d opened on it. Clay shifted on the snow ground and managed to draw a knife with his free hand. “I…don’t…I think this is you, but if you are this uh, this snik..snek..snak dog,” Clay rambled unsteadily as Snadia seemed to split into an array of musical afterimages. “I’m sorry…maybe..its better butter this…happens now then ladybug later y’know? It’s always hat harder later. You get it. Yeah?”

The blade plunged into Snadia’s neck as the mutant buried it to the hilt in the nightmare’s flesh. Blood poured out of the dog-mouth python in the form of a swarm of black butterflies, as if flitting gossamer rather than liquid ran in its veins. Snadia thrashed but Clay’s iron grip caused the flailing Alp to only lacerate itself deeper on the tactical knife’s serrated edge, sending more geysers of black blood butterflies soaring through the snowy alleyway.

But in an instant, the Snadia, now a towering androgynous figure with cadavous skin. The enormous eye in the center of its chest swiveled in its ribbed socket to stare at Clay. The Alp slammed the Hunter to the alley floor, burying him in the muddy snow as begging to press down with its full weight.

“Don’t look into its eye,” Clay gagged as a rib popped.

The more time went on, the less sense Clay seemed to make. He was talking to someone named Nadia, like the butterfly-snake-thing was a person instead of a nightmare trying to kill him, and Cass felt lost and confused and a little unsteady herself, though she wasn’t sure if that was the smoke seeping through the fabric she’d pressed against her face or the adrenaline pumping in her veins. If it wasn’t the smoke, she suspected, it would be soon. The jacket was doing a fine enough job for now, but she wasn’t stupid enough to think it would last forever. And if she succumbed to this drug the way Clay had… they wouldn’t stand a chance.

The snake turned its attention on Cass for a moment, and she held up her knife uncertainly. “Yeah, bring it on, you stupid… long… thing.” She probably needed to work on her quips, just a little. She was nowhere near Spider-Man levels of joke-telling. Before the snake could pounce on her, Clay was burying his knife into it. “I really don’t think the snake is Nadia, buddy,” Cass assured him, though to be fair, she guessed she really couldn’t say for sure. That wasn’t really important at the moment, of course. At the moment, the most important thing was protecting everyone in this alley from the snake. With this in mind, Cass added, “In fact, I’m pretty sure Nadia would totally want you to kick this thing's ass.”

Clay seemed to be willing to stab the thing even without Cass’s reassurances, and she made a face as the snake bled black butterflies. This was getting weirder by the minute, especially when the snake transformed again into a towering, terrifying thing that slammed Clay into the ground.

Cass sucked in a breath, watching on in horror. Clay told her not to look into the eye, and Cass remembered, with a start, their earlier conversation. “Aim for the giant cursing eye,” she murmured to herself, glancing down at the knife. Shit. Okay.

Gripping the knife with all the strength she had, Cass maneuvered around the Alp so that she was in front of it, facing the eye. Per Clay’s warning, she was sure not to look directly at the eye, but she let herself look at the space around it well enough to aim before plunging the knife forward with all the strength she had in her.

Pain shot through Clay’s ribs like his guts were being whipped. But he pushed himself up to a sitting position in the grimey alley snow, and shook it off his face. The one silver-lining of being suffocated in the snow is that the wet cold had cleared his smoke-addled brain somewhat. His lungs were a gory burn in his chest, and his right arm felt like a throbbing hunk of lead, but at least Clay could take a better guess at what was real.

Clay tried to blink the dark spots out of his vision, until he realized they were just eye shadows. Black butterflies covered the snow and alley walls, silently flitting about the winter darkness. Some crawled along the Hunter’s broken and bloodstained arm where Snadia’s coils and fangs had once been.

The butterflies began to dissipate into smoke, gossamer wings and antennae unraveling into gauzy wisps. The Alp faded back into the astral plane like the memories of dreams after waking, waning into indistinctness until one could’ve doubted it’d even existed if Clay hadn’t still been bleeding profusely.

Clay looked up at Cassidy with bloodshot eyes, grinning unsteadily when his vision focused enough to see the knife in her hand. “So, killed your first demon. Congrats.”

It was over in a heartbeat. One moment, Cass was driving a knife forward into the chest of a terrifying thing that was doing its damndest to kill her friend and the next, there was nothing but a wisp of smoke floating away into the air. It was like waking up from a bad dream, the last details of a thing that had been so vivid only moments before fading before you could even open your eyes. Cass still gripped the knife, still had the jacket wrapped around her nose and mouth, still had a crazed look in her eye.

And then, Clay spoke and the first hint of hysterical laughter escaped from between her lips.

Her arm dropped, knife clattering to the concrete as she gasped around gasps that weren’t quite laughter, weren’t quite anything else. “Oh my god,” she shuddered. “Oh my god. That was fucking terrifying. I thought that thing was gonna kill you. Oh my god.” Cass launched herself at Clay suddenly, stopping short just before she could pull him into a desperate hug. “You’re hurt. Shit. You’re hurt, and you’re — You were high. Are you still high? Do you need — I don’t know. Coffee? Would coffee help? How did you get high out here? What was…” She trailed off, glancing back over to where Ky still lay, hunkered on the ground. She couldn’t tell if he was awake or asleep. She wasn’t sure if he could, either.

“Whatever he was on…” She trailed off, looking back to Clay with an expression that was suddenly stone-cold serious. “This isn’t over, is it?”

“I’m hurt and…still kinna high yeah,” Clay managed to get out before the jocular laugh became a hacking cough that sent spasms of pain from where the Alp had been crushing his rib cage. “The caffeine in coffee is a…vaseline..vas.. vasoconstrictor,” murmured Clay a bit loopily to Cassidy’s question, struggling to focus on her question’s actual intent. “So technically it would help…”

But Cassidy’s long look silenced the rambling. Clay tried to breathe deep, focusing thinking past the flaring whirls of color and singing dots framing her face. Breathing hurt and still let the acrid smoke inside his lungs, but it was enough to remember.

“No it isn’t,” Clay affirmed before lurching up to his feet, shoulder clutched in his uninjured arm. The Hunter staggered over to where Ky lay, and dropped back down to his knees. “Blazed of his fuckin mind, but not having nightmares anymore thanks to you,” Clay surmized with a very lopsided smile to Cass after checking on Ky. “Screw this,” he groused woozily, side-kicking some snow onto the fire that was making the hallucinogenic smoke.

“Shiiiiiiiiiiiit,” Clay sighed after taking some time to wash his bloody face in more snow to remove enough drug haze so he could at least examine what was left of the confire without being last in new very talkative shades of the color blue. The Hunter reached in and stabbed a charred vine with his knife and held it up to Cass to see.

It was a thick scraggly fern with thorny fronds and leaves that’d been dark even before being scoured by fire. The prodding of the hunter’s blade opened mouths full of teeth along the stem, as if it were some horrible fusion between lamprey and stinging nettle.

“This is Illuberis Fern, super dangerous hallucinogenic, they can…can… only group..gr..grow in tropics or terrariums,” Clay explained in a heavy slur as those chatty shades of blue started to argue with sassy araminthine at the edges of his vision. “Meaning…meaning…meaning uuuughh meaning,” he reasserted in a firmer voice as if struggling with himself to focus. “That means someone’s doing some Little Pet Shop of Horrors stuff.” he waved the mouth-covered fern on his knife. “An people like Ky are tripping out strong enough to dream up Alps.”

“We can get you some coffee,” Cass said, feeling smaller than she had in a long time. She’d always hated feeling helpless like this. She’d always hated looking at a situation and feeling like there was nothing she could do to repair it. That was why she’d started the whole superhero thing — to take back some of that control. But where was the control now? What chance did she have at taking this back? Clay was hurt, and Cass had gotten rid of the demon but she couldn’t fix him.

And she couldn’t fix this, either.

She watched as Clay kicked snow onto the fire, hesitantly removing the jacket from her face when the smoke dissipated enough so that she wouldn’t be affected by the smell of it. She leaned in to inspect the knife Clay held out to her, swallowing at the sight of an unfamiliar vine on the tip. It meant nothing to Cass, but it seemed to mean plenty to Clay. And as he explained it, she understood why. The reaction made sense, and so did the events that had lead up to it.

“Someone’s manufacturing drugs out of supernatural plants,” she surmised, glancing down at Ky again, “and distributing them to the homeless population.” Because Ky couldn’t have scouranged together enough to buy something this sophisticated unless it was being peddled for cheap. Whoever was doing this probably wasn’t after money. If they were, Cass and Clay would probably be on the richer side of town, talking over the slumped form of some bleach blonde housewife. Whatever was happening here, the motivations were different. They were unknown.

They were dangerous.

It had other connotations, too. Like, for example… “This is going to keep happening. Isn’t it? More people are going to dream up Alps, and they’re going to keep hurting people like Ky, people like the ones in this shelter. It’s just going to keep happening, over and over again, unless…” Unless someone did something about it. “I’m going to find who’s making this drug.” The words were firm, decisive. “Do you want to help?” She really, really hoped he’d say yes. If he didn’t, she wasn’t sure she could manage it alone. Not before it got worse, at least.

Clay nodded as Cass put together the rest of the pieces. Cassidy was smarter then she gave herself credit for, and Clay didn’t need to add anything else as the vigilante took the facts she’d given and sketched out the larger situation. She was absolutely right of course. Illuberis Fern was very valuable and hard to grow in this climate. There would be no profit in just pushing on people unable to pay. Whoever they were also must be growing a very particular straight to have Alps popping up this consistently.

Cassidy arrived at the big picture on her own, saw the looming threat to the regular people here. Honestly, it was nice to work with someone with their priorities straight.

A loopy grin brightened the livid bruises and touches of frostbite on Clay’s face. “Funny, I was gonna ask you the same thing,” he assured.

#clayanddust #clay: illuberis nightmare #addiction tw #drug manipulation tw #head trauma tw