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bedbellyandbeyond · 3 years

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Only Vampires

(Story Post)

Nari wasn't sure why he trusted these two vampires, but he wanted to know what they knew and so he followed them to their home. They didn't live more than a block north of where the library stood. They must've lived there a long time to afford such a big house, but then again, he had no idea what the housing market was like here. Either way, any active and diligent vamp over 100 years old could secure themself considerable wealth if they tried. Nari himself hadn't focused on capital during the majority of his life though, but he still did well for himself. The front doors of the house were very big, with stained glass windows, but Wesley and Everett took him around to the back door which was average sized and let no light in. This wasn't an issue right now as it was an hour to midnight, but he guessed that any daytime travel came through here, so they'd grown accustomed to it.

Inside was a small mudroom with another door at the other end. Nari waited for Everett to take off his shoes before he removed his own because wasn't sure what the traditions were in this country, but he was only further confused when Wesley took his shoes off but Everett kept them on. “Um, shoes on or off?” Nari had to ask. Wesley wacked Everett's leg with his loafer. “Shoes off, please.” Nari was relieved and did as told. “Alright.” “I'm not sure why we adopted that,” Everett said, reluctantly removing his footwear and then promptly putting on a pair of slippers. “My family always wore their shoes inside, his family wore shoes inside… Not to mention, it doesn't matter at all what Wesley wears.” “It's for our housemates,” Wesley said. “We have several housemates from across the world, you'll find Nari. The general consensus has been shoes off. We do our best to be accommodating.” He then proceeded to pull out a set of wheel slippers and socks and maneuvered them onto his chair. Nari thought for a second and then raised a hand. “I hope you don't think I need somewhere to stay. I'm well established.” “No, no,” Wesley said. “We just like to help anyone when it comes to library matters. As you may have noticed, it is not very accessible to all vamps of all shapes, abilities, and colours. We like to help anyone find the knowledge they need.” Nari nodded. “I see. So you steal the books for them.” “I told you, we borrow them,” Everett said as he led them through to the main hall. “Evie does think of himself as a modern-day Robin Hood of Knowledge, though,” Wesley said. The main hall was a lot more modern than Nari expected for a house apparently full of vampires. It was open concept with a lovely kitchen with granite counter tops. Further on was the living room and stairs, both up to the next floor and down to the basement. An elevator had also been installed beside the stairs for easier access to all floors. Nari’s hosts took him down to the basement, which was set up as a games room and study. There was pool, and darts, and even a pinball machine on one side. Some lounge chairs, a sofa, and a set of bookshelves on the other. There, they found another pair of vampires, one with her nose in a book, the other passed out on the couch, an open book on his chest. “Ah, glad some of you are here,” Wesley said going over to the reading nook. “Inaya, please meet Nari. We met him at the library.” The conscious vampire got up and smiled. She wore a hijab and had big round eyes framed with detailed eyeliner. She offered a hand to Nari. “Nice to meet you. Are you looking at a room?” “No, no, I’m just getting a little extra help with my research,” Nari said shaking her hand. “It’s nice to meet you. I’ve never met, well, a vampire like you.” “A hijabi vampire?” Inaya chuckled. “Me neither. That’s why I’m here.” “To find more?” Nari asked. “No, to learn about being a vampire,” Inaya said. “I didn’t know anything about them really until I was turned, and I didn’t have any other vampires around to teach me. Figuring out how to be a vampire and muslim at the same time is difficult. Blood is haram, you see.” “Ah.” Nari nodded. “Have the books been helpful?” “Some, yes. Wesley seems to know how to find me good reads,” Inaya said. “I’ve tried entering the library on my own, but it’s always been a hassle. They always find some excuse not to let us in.” “I understand,” Nari said rollimg his eyes. “It's a different excuse each time.” Everett went over and kicked the end of the couch to wake its occupant. “Rise, Jeremiah! Meet our guest!” Wesley frowned. “Evie, let the boy sleep. He's probably been studying tirelessly, the poor kid.” It was too later however and the sleepy vampire stirred and sat up, rubbing his eyes. The book he had been reading fell off his chest and onto the floor. The bang made him curse and scramble to pick it up. “Shit, it better not be busted… These old ass books…” “Language, Jeremiah. You know the rules,” Everett scolded. “Shit, sorry, Ev,” the vampire huffed. “Not my fault you woke me up.” “I have half the mind to discipline you,” Everett said, crossing his arms. “Yeah, that’ll look good, you pasty old Brit beating my black ass…” the young vampire mocked. He noticed Nari. “Who’s this little mosquito?” Wesley put a hand on Nari's shoulder. “This is Nari. We're helping him in his research.” The other got up and offered a hand to the newcomer. “It's Jez, but these old farts insist on calling me by my whole name like they're my damn mother or something.” Everett huffed. “Seriously, if you don't straighten out your language, I'll—” “The entire concept of vulgar language is inherently racist,” Jez interrupted, his entire diction changing just to prove a point to old Everett. “My use of swearing is not abusive, but instead cathartic, emphatic and idiomatic, forms of swearing that are not meant to offend anyone. For you to tell me what words I can and cannot say is a blatant form of oppression and reduces my abilities to cope with pain or misfortune.” Everett frowned, his lips pursed. “Fine. But could you tone it down just a bit?” “No.” Wesley came up behind Everett and patted his back. “Relax. We're all adults. Anyway, where's Paolo?” “He's in his room,” Inaya said. “Probably working.” “Ah, okay. Nari can meet him later,” Wesley said approaching the coffee table. From out of nowhere, he pulled out a book and offered it to Inaya. “I found an Arabic tome with stories from Turkey in it. I’m hoping it might help you.” “Oh! Maybe!” Inaya took the book gratefully. “I appreciate it, Wes!” “Where did you pull that book from?” Nari asked, a bit dumbfounded. “The library?” Wesley said, a little confused by the question. “No, I mean… I didn't notice it on your person before,” Nari said. “Oh! It's pocket magic,” Wesley said. “Easier than carrying them around.” “Pocket magic is some real basic level shit,” Jez said, eyeing Nari. “If you don't know that, what abilities do you have?” Nari shook his head. “…I never learned vampire magic. Well, except a blood purifying spell I found the other day.” Everett placed his hands on Nari's shoulders. “Oh dear, so you've just been going about your life with all the cons and none of the pros to the whole vampire thing? Sounds miserable!” Nari frowned. “I didn't know I could learn any of it…” “You absolutely can!” Everett said. “We will show you the basics.” “Honestly, it's fine…” Nari said. “I don't plan on sticking around long, and my partner has enough magic for the both of us…” “Your partner knows magic but you didn't know you could learn it?” Inaya asked. “They didn't try to teach you?” “He’s not a vampire,” Nari said. “He doesn't know what I'm capable of doing as one.” “What is he, then?” Jez asked. “A dragon?” “No, he's a wizard,” Nari said. “A wizard?” Wesley inquired, his voice a little concerned. “Like, a human wizard?” “Uh, yes,” Nari said. “The magic isn't the same, though he's convinced he can learn vampire stuff…” Everett started shaking his head. “Do you always engage in romantic relationships with humans?” “Yes.” Nari frowned, reading the negative energy coming from his acquaintances. “You say that like it's bad. Are you going to tell me we're not supposed to do that? It's taboo or something?” “No, it's fine! I mean…” Everett put his hands on Wesley's shoulders. “He was unturned when I fell for him…” “But we weren't trying to reproduce, that’s for sure,” Wesley said. He placed a hand on Nari’s arm. “It’s no wonder you’ve been having trouble… You can't have children with humans. It never works.” Nari clenched his jaw. “That's not…My information came to a 1-in-8 chance that a vampire can complete live birth.” “It's more complicated than that,” Everett said, pulling out one of the books be grabbed. “It's likely the one successful time out of eight, their partner was another vampire. The odds are much better with two vampires. Like, 1-in-3.” He opened to a page that displayed a large family tree on it. “Any time in history that a vampire successfully completed a pregnancy, both parents were vampires. Any pairings with children from one unturned and a vampire were from before the vampiric parent had turned. Or, there has also been the occasional time a vampire sired a child with an unturned person, but it is rarer.” Nari frowned and sat down on the couch. “But…I… Isn’t there any magic that can help?” Wesley shook his head. “Not that we've found. Your best bet is to try with a vampire.” “But I don't want a child from someone else…” Nari said. “I want one with Diederich.” “I'm surprised you even date unturned,” Jez commented. “It's sad stuff watching humans grow old and die all the time…” “Diederich isn't just any human, he's immortal too,” Nari said. “He knows really powerful skills and spells.” Jez rolled his eyes. “So, easy fix. Just turn him.” Nari shook his head. “No, I can't do that.” “I could teach you,” Everett said. “Or I could do it.” Nari glared. “No, I don't want to turn him. I wouldn't do that to someone.” Everett sighed. “Nari, I don't know what to tell you. Your goal is to have a baby with your partner. Both of you need to be vampires for that to happen. That's all there is. We don't have any other advice.” Nari looked down at his hands, his eyes brimming with tears. “So, all those times I tried… Complete waste of time...” Wesley rubbed Nari’s shoulder. “You didn't know…” He looked to Everett. “Would you give us a moment? All of you.” “Of course, love,” Everett said, kissing Wesley on the forehead. “Come along now, children.” “We are not your kids,” Jez groaned as he got up reluctantly and followed Inaya and Everett upstairs. Once they were alone, Wesley sighed and rubbed Nari's arm. “Before you turned, did you have any children?” Nari slowly and sniffled. “Yes… My son, Tae-seok. He was just a baby when I turned…” “Is he alive?” Wesley asked. “No… He passed away around the turn of the millennia…” Wesley sighed. “When did you start trying for another baby?” “We tried for several years when Tae-seok was young… But his father, Eun-young, died in a factory accident when Tae-seok was still a child. I didn't try again until well after my son passed away too.” “With your current partner?” Wesley asked. Nari shook his head. “No, my previous relationship. It was an accident… But I wanted it to work out. I had a little hope.” “I'm really sorry, Nari,” Wesley said. “It must be difficult to hear about the circumstances of your pursuit… And I'm sorry about Evie. He thinks turning people will always fix everything. It doesn't.” “But he's right though… If Diederich were a vampire, we'd have a much better chance,” Nari said spreading his hands. “If he were turned, we could try…” Wesley shook his head. “I can tell, you don't want to do that. It sounds like your experience with being a vampire has been more negative than positive and you don't want to subject someone else to that.” “I don't. Diederich is… He’s so lovely, and he's happy…” Nari said. “I don't want to take that from him.” “I understand. It isn’t easy. I don't always love being a vampire either… And I certainly wouldn't make that decision for someone else,” Wesley said. “You do realise that if you did manage to give birth to a baby, you'd be choosing a life as a vampire for them too?” Nari blinked. “Yes, but… I…” He paused. “…With Diederich, since he's unturned, I thought that they might not be…” “Well, even if you could reproduce with a normal human being, you’re a vampire. Your kids would be vampires.” Nari grit his teeth. “…I guess I just…you know, if I could have a baby again, I didn't care what they were… But now just saying it, that’s sounds so incredibly selfish… To subject my own child to the exact same curse I've suffered for their entire life…” Wesley rubbed Nari's knee. “I think you need to think about your situation and talk to your partner. Really work out what path makes the most sense for both of you, and any possible children in the mix. What's best for everyone is what is important.” Nari nodded slowly. “Yes… I just want to be with Diederich… I should go…” Wesley checked his watch. “Where are you staying? Evie can drive you over.” “It's okay, I can walk…” “No way, this time of night, any drunk vampires tumbling out of a bar will want to pick a fight, and while I'm not saying you can't hold your own, you don't know much magic and vampires around the library know their stuff.” Nari sighed and told Wesley his hotel. “I do appreciate you guys trying to help me… You’re honestly the nicest vampires I've ever met.” “Aw, it's nothing,” Wesley said going to the elevator. “Each of us understands the difficulty of being accepted in the vampire world. But we've been very lucky and those who have should give.” “So, is this sort of a boarding house for vampires using the library?” Nari asked. “Sort of… We keep the rent super cheap though because the house was paid off many, many years ago. Our housemates just split utilities. Evie and I cover the taxes and insurance.” Wesley smiled. “If you ever need somewhere to stay, we'll be here. First month is free for long term. Of course, we won't charge you if you just want to come over and visit.” Nari nodded. “That's more than generous, thank you.” They rode the elevator together and met with Everett at the back of the house. “Good talk?” Everett asked, spinning his car keys. “Yes, I think so,” Wesley said. “Inaya and Jeremiah are back in their rooms, then?” “Yeah.” Everett unlocked the door. “Alright, Nari. We won't keep you any longer than you'd like. Wes said you needed a ride, yes? Come along.” Nari blinked. “When did he tell you?” “Come on, now.” Everett placed his hands on his hips. “You really do need a rundown on basic magic. You could teach toddlers mind connection.” “I really don't know anything, then…” Nari frowned following him out. Wesley waved as they left. “Hope to see you soon!” Nari waved again before going to the garage with Everett. “You should consider coming back tomorrow night,” Everett said, unlocking the car. “Jeremiah will teach you everything you need to know.” “I might take him up on that. At least I'll have gotten something out of this trip.” “Well, there you go. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.” “Hm… Yes, I suppose.” “Oh, and you still have to meet Paolo! He’s Asian like you too! Wouldn’t guess from his name though, would you?” “You really don’t think before you speak, do you?” “Hey, respect your elders.” “Sorry, grandpa.”

#lore #Nari #Everett #Wesley #Jez #Inaya #vampire

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ourimpavidheroine · 2 years

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Day 5 - Shopping

“Oh now these ones I love.”

She went for the gold ones, of course. Fire Nation palettes were limited, which was a damn shame. Big on red, black and gold. Thankfully she could pull it off; she couldn’t imagine if either of her sisters had to wear those colors on a regular basis. The shop assistant assigned to her bowed as she took one of them in her hands, turning it about, running her fingers along the curve of the heel.

“That one’s gorgeous.” Poppy leaned over and peered at it. “Number 11? I really like how narrow the shaft is.” She stuck out one of her dainty feet, turning it to and fro. “I could carry that off. Not in gold, though.”

Orchid snorted and rolled her eyes but continued to glance through the catalog. “Ah, what about number 8, here?” Her assistant was just finishing up measuring her feet. Naoki had always just assumed that you’d wear the same size forever but it turned out that pregnancy, for one thing, really did a number on your feet. She’d said something about it after Zan was born and Qi had actually made a crabby face over it. Which was saying something for them.

The proprietress, who had been discreetly hovering, bowed. “And what color would madame be interested in seeing?” The woman knew who was filling her dumplings, after all. There was money and prestige to be made from the women who were here with their own private appointment.

“Hmmm.” Orchid thought for a moment. “What shades of brown do you have it in again?”

“It would be smashing in the milk tea leather they showed us earlier, look at your swatches.” Poppy gestured towards the orderly rectangles of fabric they all had in front of them, taken from the design houses they’d been to earlier in the week for their clothes. “Perfect tone and shade.” She held her hand out and Naoki handed the gold heel over.

“Very good, madame,” the proprietress said, and motioned to Orchid’s assistant, who put away her measuring tape and scurried out.

“What about you, Meili?” Poppy leaned over to waggle the gold heel at her. “Please tell me you’re going to get something sexy for once.”

“I have no need for something sexy,” Meili replied, not looking up from her own catalog.

“Technically you have no need for heels, either, you fucking tree.” Poppy sniffed and Meili arched an eyebrow in return. “Liven up your bedroom, girl.”

“Shut up, Pops,” Orchid said automatically, flipping to the next page. “Oh look at number 17, Naoki.”

She grabbed her own catalog and flipped through until she found the right shoe. She frowned, thinking. “I like it, but not with the little twists that stand out from the strap. They’re cute but it’d be too easy for me to catch them on something.”

“They can be removed, of course, if her highness prefers,” the proprietress said helpfully.

“Her highness probably does prefer,” said Sayuri through a mouthful of wonton. She’d hit the fancy tea spread the design studio had put out the second they walked in the door. Meili shot her a look over the whole talking with her mouth full thing but Button ignored her, as per usual. “I don’t suppose you have anything with sparklies? Possibly in purple?” She looked hopefully up at the designer, who barely managed to keep a neutral expression.

“I am afraid we do not,” the designer answered, with a tight little smile.

Button sighed. “Well, I shall just have to look elsewhere, then.” She drank some tea, looking glum. Spirits, but she loved her baby sister. Sayuri hated couture, hated shopping, hated trying things on but she’d always wanted to go along with the rest of them, even when she’d been small. She grinned at Button and crooked her finger at her and Button obligingly left the tea tray and came and sat next to her. She air kissed her cheek fondly, keeping her lipstick to herself. Not that Button would need to do the same. She never wore cosmetics unless strong-armed into it.

“Sorry I’m late, I got held up at the office.” Iris strode into the room, pulling her hat and gloves off and handing them and her coat to the assistant who was practically trotting to keep up with her. Orchid patted the seat next to her and Iris sat down while another assistant poured her a cup of tea. “Thanks. What have I missed?”

“All of the season’s colors, for one thing.” Poppy was still peering at the golden shoe. “Including a delicious shade of dark smoky red they’re calling szechuan pepper that Naoki should get in every style. But you always stick to the basics anyhow.”

“Yeah well, not all of us like to walk around on stilts,” Iris replied and took up her cup with one hand and entwined her fingers with Orchid’s with the other. “Alright?” She smiled at Orchid.

“Now that you’re here I am,” Orchid replied, and the two of them smiled at each other.

“Ugh, twin stuff.” Poppy flicked a hand at them and took up her copy of the catalog. “Meili, you ought to get number 11 in silver. Not sexy, I’m deeply sorry to say, but very chic and if you got them in silver they’d do wonders for that midnight blue evening gown you ordered.” Poppy was a mouthy little pain in the ass, but of all of them she had the best instincts when it came to shoes. Meili knew it as well, because she nodded at her design assistant who immediately left for the stockroom. “You could match it up with some jewels in platinum. Diamonds or sapphires always look fantastic on you as well.”

It was a thing they did, now that they were adults. Republic City’s Fashion Week. All Hou-Ting and Beifong girls were invited, although the Temple cousins were too far to come (and airbenders weren’t really what you’d call fashionistas anyhow) and Rose always bowed out. It wasn’t her thing and Rose didn’t even like to travel outside of Zaofu any longer. But Orchid and Poppy always came and stayed at Papa’s house for a visit, spending the days being fitted for custom made shoes, hats, and of course couture.

She saw no point in trying to include Pearl. Pearl had made her feelings about the family crystal clear. She knew Button and Bu still tried, both for their own reasons. The rest of them? They kept their expectations low. Or, in her case, at zero.

Button, bless her, rarely ever bought anything. However, it actually got Fishy to take a few days off from her clinic, so it was a win as far as she was concerned. Fishy worked way too hard, although Tupilek kept a close eye on her nowadays. Still, though. Fishy had learned the importance of giving people the glamorous princess they wanted from Papa. She’d show up at Papa’s galas, looking breathtakingly beautiful in a gown that was the height of refined style, making nice with all of the richest citizens in the city, who would throw money at the clinic. She always was the canniest of all of them, after all.

She wasn’t sure if anyone else but Tupilek knew how much Meili hated that kind of thing, though. You’d never guess it to see her smile and make artful small talk and flash around the family jewels but Meili would always rather be at home with her fish. How Papa, of all people, had managed to raise three introverts, she had no idea. At least he had her. It had taken her awhile to find her footing at the Fire Nation court but Juziya had openly showed her support once she’d returned with Zan and after a rocky start she’d managed. She still got shit about the fashion she’d bring back from Republic City but Papa had taken her aside and impressed upon her how important it was she was seen supporting Fire Nation couturiers as well. She took his point, although she didn’t bother with the same old conservative farts so many at court preferred. She was selective in her choosing and enjoyed seeking out the more daring and up and coming Fire Nation designers, giving them her patronage and smugly enjoying the inevitable success that followed when the Dragon of the Court wore something of theirs and suddenly everyone else had to have it as well.

She was just about to ask to see number 3 in the aforementioned szechuan pepper when Meili, taking the silver shoe the assistant had brought out, spoke up. “Is there an issue with what my sister requested, Madame Siwoo?” Her voice was cool, and everyone turned to look at her. The proprietress’s eyes widened, a little alarmed.

“Do you mean number 17? There is no issue with removing whatever Her Highness would like, of course.”

“I was referring to my other sister.” Meili had gone from cool to downright chilly.

Sayuri blinked and looked up.

“I’m afraid I don’t understand, Your Highness.” The proprietress’s polite smile faltered.

“My sister requested something in purple. With sparklies. Is that perhaps too difficult for your business to accommodate? I’m certain it can’t be a question of taste. Not when Her Royal Highness Sayuri Hou-Ting has expressed her interest.” Now Fishy’s tone was icy, and she was looking down her nose at the proprietress, who looked like she had just swallowed something unspeakably nasty.

“I…no. Of course not, Your Highness. We would be delighted to accommodate Her Highness.” The proprietress was attempting to smile again. Orchid and Iris exchanged a glance; Poppy just looked delighted over the entire thing.

“Yes. I rather thought you would be.” Meili didn’t smile. “My sister did say earlier that she liked number 7. Perhaps you did not hear her?”

“Ah. Yes. I am afraid I didn’t. Number 7? In purple?” The woman bowed. “With sparklies.”

Meili leaned over to lift up Sayuri’s fabric swatches. “Something that would flatter this particular shade, I think.” She pointed to the one she meant. “My sister is having a gown made in this material.” Meili’s smile was not friendly. “It will need plenty of sparklies. The Princess Royal likes sparklies.”

The proprietress bowed deeply. “Of course, Your Highness. It would be our pleasure.”

“Yes, I know,” replied Meili, channeling Papa for all she was worth. “That’s all.” With that she turned away from the proprietress and nodded at her assistant, who was clearly trying not to smile. The girl immediately started to put the shoe model on Meili’s foot.

Sayuri gazed at Meili, tears standing in her eyes. Meili met her eyes and smiled, nodding once before looking back down at the shoe on her foot, murmuring something to the assistant, who adjusted the buckle.

“She didn’t have to do that,” Button whispered in her ear, and she put her arm around her, her beloved and odd baby sister.

“She loves you,” she replied, and Poppy, grinning, winked at the both of them.

#my fanfiction #2021 Year End Prompts #long post

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keelywolfe · 3 years

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FIC: Welcome to Backwater ch.11 (spicyhoney)

Summary: Stretch finally has Edge's address, but as always seems to happen in this town, answering one question only makes two more spring up to take its place.

Read ‘Unconventional Wisdom’ on AO3

Read it here!

~~*~~

The dog spent all morning napping behind the counter, not rising for broom bristles nudging him nor Stretch stepping over him awkwardly so he could grab a few boxes from the top shelf to fill up the front racks. He did snore loud enough to be heard over the radio, but eh, so did Red so Stretch was used to it.

It wasn’t until the jangling cowbell over the door heralded the arrival of a group of kids that the pup gave up on his snoring and wandering out to inspect the new arrivals, tail already happily wagging. Predictably, the kiddos were enamored of their newest employee, although guard dog might be overstating things a bit. Okay, maybe a lot; it looked like Red hadn’t been able to get back to sleep last night because the once-filthy dog with a mess of tangled fur was now freshly washed and brushed, and he smelled a lot like the shower gel from Red’s bathroom. Cleaned up, he was a handsome dog, looking as fluffy as an enormous toasted marshmallow. Not exactly threatening, fluffykins here was probably gonna spend most of his shift on moral support duty.

The little girl who was currently the main recipient of the dog’s enthusiastic face licking giggled and asked, “What’s his name?”

“uh.” That gave Stretch a pause. He shrugged. “doesn’t have a name yet, i’ll have to ask red what he thinks.”

“Should name him Rover,” one boy put in helpfully.

Another boy chimed in, “Or Bingo!”

“Cheeseburger!” A little gal firmly declared as though no other name would do and Stretch couldn’t help laughing.

“is that a name suggestion or a lunch request?” he teased. All the kids giggled, including the one who’d suggested the name and Stretch gave one of her pigtails a gentle tug. “tell you what, here.” He pulled out a pad of paper from under the counter, flipped past the pages filled with inventory lists and cribbage scores to a blank one and wrote carefully at the top, ‘Name Our Dog’. He set it in one corner of the counter triumphantly, “there! now anyone can suggest a name and red can choose the best one.”

All the kids seemed in agreement that this was the best course of action, each taking a turn to scribble their suggestion on the sheet. He wouldn’t be at all surprised if ‘Cheeseburger’ was at the top of Red’s picks.

The kids eventually abandoned the dog and started a round of intense negotiations over what penny treats to buy today. Stretch left them to it, settling to sit on the stool to wait for them to bring up their selections to the register. His mind wandered idly back to newest side quest: getting to 637 Wood’s End Drive.

He’d already tried to look the address up on his phone’s GPS and wasn’t too surprised to see that it didn’t come up, naw, that would be too easy. So, first was figuring out how to get there and second would be figuring out how to get there. Not like he had a car and somehow, he doubted that Backwater had a thriving Uber economy. Maybe he could hitch a lift with someone? People were always coming into town in those big ol’ pickup trucks and the folks around here were pretty friendly, plus Edge seemed to be pretty well known. They all probably knew exactly where Edge lived and stopped by for pie and tea all the time. Surely someone would be delighted to help out, particularly if they were one of the lookie-loos from Mama’s who wanted to see Stretch and Edge on another man date, thank-you-but-no-thank-you.

That would probably be the easiest way to go about it, but Stretch found he was strangely reluctant to take that route. It felt a little like cheating, considering the roundabout way Edge went about handed out his address.

Anyway, if he’d wanted to go down that path, he could’ve simply asked Red days ago, but that right there was an entirely different can of worms that he didn’t want to share with any of the early birds. Red never forbade him from hanging out with Edge, but he’d been pretty clear time and again that he wasn’t too keen on it, either. Might be best if he kept any mentions of Edge to a minimum unless Red brought him up first.

He’d just figure it out himself, thanks, and he wasn’t any puzzle master, not like his bro was, but he had a little pride buried around here somewhere. Edge set him a challenge, damn it, and he was gonna see it through.

His absent gaze strayed down to the pile of bicycles outside the store, kid-sized, sure, but hey, wait a second—

“hey, guys,” Stretch said slowly, and the debate on whether to get two packs of everlasting gobstoppers or three paused as a half-dozen heads perked up like prairie dogs from a sugary plain. “if i wanted to buy a bicycle around here, where would i go?”

Heads ducked down again in a hastily whispered conversation, then the spokeskid popped up again and said, decisively, “Try over at the thrift shop. Miss Maggie always has old bikes for sale.”

“thanks.” He should’ve known. The only other option right in town was the tractor supply shop and while driving up on a John Deere would make a hell of an impression, it was probably well out of his price range. The kids crowded over with their handfuls of spoils and Stretch dutifully rang them up and if he tossed in a dime of his own to cover them, eh, wasn’t like they’d ever know. He handed over a paper sack of treats to a chorus of thank yous and the divvying began before the kiddos even got out of the shop.

“Oh, Edgar Allen said to tell you hi!” One little girl called back to him. She was gone out of the door before he could even think of a reply, all of them clamoring onto their bikes, their faces chipmunk-cheeked with their spoils.

Edgar Allen, shit, yeah, that was right. He’d pretty much been the first stop on this questline and Stretch’d been meaning to do something for him. He’d already rethought the magazine idea; what if it turned out that scarecrows couldn’t read, kinda insensitive there. He’d have to think of something, though, owing someone didn’t sit well with him even if that person didn’t qualify for traditionally alive.

In the meantime, the dog, bereft of childish companionship, wandered back behind the counter and flopped down with a huff, sighing deeply.

“yeah, go on and take a break,” Stretch told him, “you were working pretty hard there.” He stretched out a leg to pet the dog carefully with his foot and wasn’t too surprised that it didn’t care one bit about his shoe, only pliantly rolled over to give him better access to the belly region.

Stretch obediently kept petting, hell, he obeyed better than the dog. But his thoughts were still on the upcoming journey to 637 Wood’s End Drive.

~~*~~

Red relieved him in the shop a little later than normal, looking a lot like he’d just hauled ass out of bed. His shirt was the same one as earlier, only with a fresh crop of wrinkles and his eye lights were still bleary with exhaustion.

Almost, Stretch offered to stay later and let Red get a little more sleep, considering it was his fault Red got woken up in the middle of night. But the baleful glare Red sent his way was an unspoken warning that such an offer probably wasn’t gonna go over well. He kept his jaw shut tight and took the paper sandwich bag Red handed over before heading out the door. Time to get this side quest rolling, literally, he hoped.

The few times he’d met Magdalen May he’d figured right from the get-go that she, like Red, was a partaker of the Sheriff’s son’s prize cannabis crop. Not only because of her dreamy demeanor but also whenever she came into the store, she was surrounded by an almost visible cloud of pot stank so strong that Stretch got a contact buzz while she was shopping through the meagre selection of yarn that Red kept. By the time she left, Stretch would have a craving for Cheetos so strong he’d be ready to start gnawing on his fingerbones for a cronch.

Stepping into the thrift shop was a little like hot boxing in a hoarder’s closet but Stretch soldiered on, squinting as his vision adjusted from the bright light of day to a dimness barely above attic-levels. He went past shelves of gewgaws and boxes of dusty records, old clothes hanging from racks that looked like they’d been commandeered from a lot of remaindered furniture. There were tables piled high with ancient radios, cameras, electronics that Stretch didn’t know the name of and surely didn’t work, existing only to be parted out by an amateur scientist or an electrician in search of cheap parts. Antique glass was set high on the shelves, catching dusty light and sending a kaleidoscope of color to scatter over the room, freckling it in greens, reds, and yellows.

The entire store radiated a glorious sort of chaos and if it weren’t for the fact that he already felt a little woozy, he would’ve stayed for a while and poked through some of the wares. Maybe even find a new book for Red buried in the nearby piles, see if he’d be willing branch out into cowboy romance for a change.

He heading to the back of the shop where Miss Maggie was sitting in a rocking chair surrounded by boxes and shelves, knitting with flashing speed despite the foggy miasma hanging in the air. Her long white hair was smoothly braided and pinned up on top of her head, her weathered skin tanned dark and leathery. The weave of bright yellow yarn trailing from her needles was spread across her lap in an incongruous contrast to her dark, billowing skirt and the light sweater she wore against the chill of the air conditioning.

“Hello, Papyrus,” she greeted him with the sort of rough, croaky voice made over the years by a thousand packs of Marlboros. She didn’t look up, her attention completely focused on her knit and purl.

That gave him one hell of a pause. “how did you—” Stretch stopped. Great, he was in the soothsayer chapter and hadn’t even had time to prep. Yeah, okay, he didn’t really have any room in his life for another side quest, maybe let this one go. He didn’t actually want to know where she got her intel, not really, especially not with his head already spinning a little. He stuck his hands in his pockets to hide the way they wanted to curl into fists, rocking back and forth on his heels. “heya. i haven’t gone by papyrus in years, it’s stretch, thanks.”

“A wise choice,” Miss Maggie said. She sounded…different, somehow. He’d talked to her a few times now and strangely, today he couldn’t seem to place her accent. It wasn’t like the other townsfolk, all of them had a certain warm, down-homey charm, and usually so did she. Her words today were crisp, sharp-edged, nothing like the dreamy peace he was familiar with when she came into the store for coffee creamer and vanilla wafers. She glanced up at him over the wire rims of her glasses, her gaze as sharp as her tongue. “Names have power. A wise man keeps his true name to himself.”

“um. sure,” Stretch couldn’t stop himself from giving the door a longing glance. This was starting to seem like a bad idea, Miss Maggie seemed to be having a personality crisis, maybe he should come back after lunch. “that’s some very handy wisdom, but i’m here about a bike?”

She ignored that. “You have issues with names,” Miss Maggie told him. She kept knitting, needles flashing furiously in a rhythmic clickity-clack as steady as a metronome. “don’t you.”

“huh?” Stretch didn’t exactly have any flesh to get goosebumps with, but he felt a chill nonetheless, prickling maddeningly over his bones. His head was whirling, everything around him seemed to blur except the old woman in front of him. His tongue felt strangely thick as he whispered a question he didn’t want to ask, “i don’t…what do you mean?”

“Mmm, yes,” Miss Maggie sighed out, “so many names you’ve had and rejected. Had and left behind when you ran away, far, far away.”

“stop,” Stretch said weakly. His soul was starting to pulse with aching intensity behind his breastbone. The room filled with an electric heaviness like a coming storm, the rich green smell filling the room suddenly nauseating. “please, don’t.”

“Brother, lover, yes, but never father, not even once.”

“shut up,” Stretch said thickly. Or tried to, the words seemed to clot and stick at the back of his throat, refusing to travel over his useless tongue.

“And now you’re taking on new names,” she raised her head, and here in the dim, her eyes seemed like dark pools of pure blackness that reflected nothing of the flickering overhead lights. Her grin seemed unpleasant and wide, showing pale pink gums in an endless maw. “Is it friend you seek or something else, I wonder?”

As she turned towards him, her sleeve caught on the sugar bowl set on the table next to her, sending it tumbling to the floor. The burst of sound as it shattered pushed through his dazed distance like the snap of dry twig broken over a knee. Stretch jerked, blinking hard, and all the nebulous emotion in him surged forward, gathering and coalescing into real anger. He was starting to get sick of this shit, if everyone in town wanted to act like this place was Sleepy Hollow’s second-cousin, that was fine by him. He was happy to play along, but not if they were gonna keep sticking their shovels into his past to see what other skeletons they could dig up.

“look, fuck you,” Stretch snapped out. He turned back to the door, tossing over his shoulder. “never mind, i’ll figure out something else!”

“Wait!” And he didn’t want to wait, he wanted to push on through the door, but his stubborn feet suddenly refused to move. Miss Maggie clumsily thrust aside her knitting, hardly noticing her teacup wobbling, spilling tea and leaves out into her saucer in a wild splash. That funky weird woman vibe abruptly eased and so did some of the stench in the air, flavored instead with lavender tea. She waddled over to him, her long skirt dragging on the floor. Even bent over with age, she was impressively tall, hardly shorter than Stretch was, and he was a mini-skyscraper to most Humans. She looked up at him, her eyes a watery, pale blue, surrounded by a sea of wrinkles, how could he ever have imagined they were anything else?

Miss Maggie reached up to touch his cheekbone with fingers nearly as thin as his own.

“Oh, sweet child,” she said with mournful gentleness, and her voice was the smoky-sweet, grandmotherly one he recalled. “S’all right. Ain’t nothing wrong with setting aside a name you’ve outgrown, nor in taking on a new one.”

All his bright, burning anger collapsed inwardly, a card house with the center support removed, and hurt welled in him instead. He was crying, he realized distantly, tears stinging in his sockets, running down his cheekbones to gather on wetly his chin. He didn’t realize he was going to speak until he did, choking out, “it feels wrong.”

“How you feel and how things are don’t always match,” she agreed. She held out her arms, her gnarled hands open to him and Stretch leaned into them, burying his face in the soft, knitted shawl draped over her shoulder. She smelled like weed and lavender, a strange, exotic mixture. “i’ll get you all wet,” Stretch mumbled, muffled into the cloth.

She petted his skull gently, “It’s all right, child. I’ll dry.”

He held on tightly for a long time and when she finally drew back, she lightly touched his forehead with the tips of two dry fingers.

“You can get to his home through the forest,” she said, and it seemed to Stretch he could almost see it, clear as a picture someplace behind his sight. “Follow the exchange down about a mile, you’ll see a turnoff on the left. Don’t you stray from the path, you hear me, sonny?” Those pale, rheumy eyes searched his face for understanding. “Easy to get lost out there.”

“i won’t.”

“Good.” She let him go and shuffled back to her chair to picked up her knitting again. “Now, you mentioned something about a bike.”

For a moment, Stretch stood there, practically wobbling on his feet. He felt like he’d woken up from an unexpected nap, still floating in between the sleeping and waking worlds. Then he blinked, snapping awake, and looked around almost wildly. Until his gaze snagging on one of the shelves, or more specifically, something sitting on it, and held.

“a bike, i did.” Stretch walked over to the shelf where a bandana was sitting, a bright turkey-red plaid, and picked it up, holding it out for Miss Maggie to see. “how much for this, too?”

By the time he left the shop, he was in a fine mood despite his savings being a little lighter. He was pushing a rattly old bike with a squeaky chain and a horn that let loose with a hoarse ‘awhooga’ when the dusty rubber bulb was squeezed. The bandana was stuffed into his short’s pocket and the first thing he was gonna do was deal with that, then he’d worry about some maintenance. Probably better to find out if his new bike was streetworthy before taking his act on the road.

He used the walk back to the store to draw in a few deep, refreshing breaths of the heat-smoggy air, letting it clear his head.

“miss maggie sure smokes some strong shit,” Stretch muttered to himself. He left the bike leaning against the porch around back and headed over to the main road, taking his normal walking route down towards the corn. There were no kids on the makeshift baseball diamond today, looked like they’d headed off somewhere else to enjoy their penny candy.

The grass was yellowed and dying under his sneakers as he went off the beaten path, heading towards the rustling corn. Was it his imagination, or did those whispers get louder as he approached, even eager? The corn got lonely sometimes, Edgar Allen had said, but it didn’t mean any harm.

Somehow, he didn’t think the skeleton they’d found in the fields back in Doris’s day would agree.

“um, hi?” Stretch tried. There was no one around to see him and he still felt ridiculous, talking to the damn corn. “look, i dunno if you can understand me, but if you do, could you see that edgar allen gets this? i wanted to thank him for helping me out and i thought it’d look good on him.”

Carefully, he laid the bandana over a crux of green leaves and stalk, tugging to make sure it wouldn’t simply blow away. He left it there and turned back to town, hoping that the scarecrow got the message; as much as he wanted to thank the guy, he really didn’t feel like taking a second go in the corn maze to do it. He didn’t look back until he got back to the side of the road and there he paused, frowning. The splash of red should’ve been vivid against the sea of green but there was nothing, not so much as a glimpse.

He craned his neck, searching, but it hadn’t fallen to the ground and the wind wasn’t strong enough to carry it off. Maybe the corn had gotten the message after all? Yeah, he was going with that, and he headed back to take a look at his new bike, hands in his pockets and whistling cheerfully, which was a heck of a trick for someone without lips.

Yeah, he felt pretty good today and why not? He had a place to stay, a job, someone looking after him, and a dog. And now he had a bike. Things were looking up, Stretch decided.

Things were looking up.

~~*~~

tbc

#spicyhoney #papcest #keelywolfe #underfell #underswap #underfell papyrus #underswap papyrus #welcome to backwater

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aethelflaedladyofmercia · 3 years

Text

School of Fish

Written for the @do-it-with-style-events "Who Needs a Great Plan" event, Day 2, prompt "Bastille." There's also some art from the same day at the end! (It isn't very good.)

Something I've never done before: A Greasy Johnson fic!

The Bastille stood in ruins, two of the four towers mostly complete, the others collapsed, as well as the wall between them, stones crumbling down to lay scattered on the ground below.

Tall weeds surrounded it, stringy and green, rising up through the water and rippling slightly in the current.

The water itself was clear, fresh, and warm. Nearby, a diver hovered above a treasure chest, which occasionally opened, spraying bubbles upward.

“Actually,” the nerdy kid with the glasses said, “I think the architecture looks far too German to be the Bastille.” He leaned closer, resting a finger on the glass. “See, it has—”

“Don’t tap that!” Greasy managed to keep himself from shoving the kid away, but the push was probably rougher than necessary. “Didn’t you hear me when you came in?”

“You don’t hurt him,” snapped the girl, standing with her fists clenched at her sides.

“Or what? You’ll fight me?”

She narrowed her eyes. “I don’t participate in unnecessary violence, as I am completely free from the influences of toxic masculinity. But if I did, I’d wipe the floor with you.”

Greasy stretched, towering over her, taking up more space in the room than any of the others.

“Alright,” Adam said, coming over to stand on the other side of the aquarium, his dog trailing behind. “Brian’s supposed to be getting the ice cream, but I think he got distracted or something. Can one of you run down and get him?”

Shooting glares at Greasy, they both walked away, stomping their feet like they were angry at the floor.

“I’m not going to apologize,” Greasy started. “I told all of you not to touch this. Vibrations in the water aren’t good for the fish.”

“I know.” Adam bent down, watching the little school dart around, exploring the sunken Bastille. “I’ll talk to Wensley. He didn’t mean anything by it. Probably just an accident, he’s usually very careful.”

“Well…” He deflated a little, having fully expected an argument. “Right. Good.”

“What kind of fish are these?”

Greasy crossed his arms, trying to figure out how this was a trap.

His thirteenth birthday had hit him hard. Already a big kid, he’d suddenly shot up to an uncomfortable size. One of his gang had moved away, another went to some fancy school and wrote two emails each year. The other two started dating, and their inevitable break-up had spelled the end for the Johnsonites.

By that point, Greasy was the weird giant kid who liked to look at pictures of fish. Starting a new gang proved impossible. Finding someone to eat lunch with proved impossible.

So here it was, his fourteenth birthday, and his mother had decided he should celebrate it with Adam and his crazy friends, just because he and Adam happened to have the same birthday.

He hated it. He hated not having a gang, he hated not knowing what to do with his awkward limbs and enormous shoes, he hated that he wore bigger clothes than his father.

But most of all, he hated that these kids had only come to his birthday to pity him.

“Don’t pretend you care,” Greasy snarled, trying to loom again, but Adam didn’t even seem to notice.

“I’m not. Look at that. They’ve got little stripes on them. That’s neat.” He said it so seriously. Adam was always serious these days, for the last couple years at least. Like he was looking at things no one else could see. “I always thought it was nice, the way they all play together. Always have a friend, right?”

Greasy’s stomach twisted, anger and humiliation fighting inside him. “You don’t know anything about that.”

“No, I don’t.” Adam’s eyes followed the Zebrafish around the aquarium one more time. “Pepper and Brian and Wensley are always there for me. I’ve been incredibly lucky, really. Honestly don’t know what I’d do without them. And without you.”

Greasy blinked, feeling himself grow hot. “What is that supposed to mean? We’re not—we’ve never been friends.”

“Course we have. Well. Rivals. S’a kind of friend.” He backed away from the aquarium and went to stare out the window, probably to wait for his real friends to come, though they hadn’t gone towards the airbase, so he was looking out the wrong one. “Don’t think I would have realized that if it wasn’t for you and your gang.”

“So?” Adam was somehow even weirder than he’d remembered.

“So. I owe you.” He turned with a smile, an odd smile that didn’t seem to belong on a fourteen-year-old. “Really. Any time you want to talk. Hang out. Join us in Hogback Wood—we’ve been building a house from some blueprints Wensley found. Well. More a shed, really. But there’s plenty of room.”

Greasy clenched his teeth. “Why? After all those times we fought, why would you want me anywhere near your gang?”

“Why wouldn’t I?” Adam leaned back against the windowsill. “You’ve practically been a member since we started playing together as kids, as long as any of the others. Only…an outside member. But just as much a part of it. Who would we have plotted against, and fought, and played pranks on, if not for all of you? And the same back. We still talk about that time you built that fort in the quarry. It was brilliant.”

“…Brilliant?” That had been Greasy’s idea, and the ambush they’d lain for the rival gang, though some of the Johnsonites had complained it was too much work.

“Definitely. But we’re older now. Things change. We’re not going to fight with water balloons to claim a bridge made out of sticks any time soon.” A brief frown. “Actually, we should. That really does sound fun. But, still. I mean it. You’re welcome with us whenever you want.”

“No, I’m not.” Shrugging, Greasy turned back to his zebrafish, six little minnows swimming around together. “Your girlfriend hates me.”

Adam laughed. “Pepper is most definitely not my girlfriend. Or anyone’s girlfriend, at the moment. And she doesn’t hate you.”

“But—Yeah she does, she threatened to beat me up!”

“I know. She does that to everyone. Brian. Me. Threatened to beat up a mailbox last week when it didn’t have her package.” From the noise downstairs, Adam’s friends had come back—the nerdy kid, the girl, and the messy one. Adam pushed away from the window, heading out of the room, dog trotting after him. “Look, you don’t have to join us if you don’t want to. It’s up to you. But there’s always a seat for you, anywhere we hang out. Especially Hogback Wood. We’re making the shed big enough for six.”

“Six?” Again the suspicion, the defensiveness. “Are you calling me fat?” But this time, he didn’t really feel worried about it. He wasn’t sure why not.

“Hmmm? No, course not.” Adam glanced back, eyebrows raised. “Why would I do that?”

“But…” Greasy shrugged, confused. “Look, even with me, that’s only five.”

“Yeah. The sixth won’t be here for…probably another year, at least. Just planning ahead.” He sauntered off, down the stairs, leaving Greasy alone with his fish.

He really liked them, the fish, thought they were pretty and cool. Took pride in keeping them healthy.

But they weren’t the same as having friends. And he missed that. A lot.

“Hey, Adam!” He left the room and thundered down the stairs. “Wait up!”

(I did warn you about the art)

#good omens fanfiction #good omens #the them #adam young #greasy johnson #teenaged angst #fish #do it with style events #who needs a great plan?#the art is intentionally bad #Drawn on the side of a paper bag #my writing

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willowbird · 4 years

Note

Prompts open? Bet maybe foxes(and Andrew) slowly finding out how fucked up Neil’s mom was to him?(I get it was to survive but it was still abuse)

Since this one got kinda... Uh... Long... And answered both of these prompts I decided to combine them!! I didn't include a separate one for Andrew because he's present for a couple of them and by the time I reached the end it was like 6600 words and an Andrew POV would probably add another 2000 because I'm me and I always get carried away with Andrew POV.

If you’d rather read this on AO3 you can do so here.

4 times the Foxes found out how fucked up Mary was to Neil, and the 1 time Neil actually admitted it

ONE - ALLISON

Allison had been taking Neil shopping, which in itself wasn't really a weird occurrence. Allison would take any of her teammates shopping if that's what needed to happen to get them to stop looking like a dirty hobo. As it happened, Neil was just the worst offender and so she pestered him about it more often than not. It was remarkable how the guy could be dating the Monster and still look like that. Not that Andrew Minyard was a fashion icon or anything, but the miniature psychopath at least understood the concept of aesthetic and made sure the people around him wore things that actually fit.

Well, most of the people around him.

Point being, Neil needed a bit of extra help, and Allison was more than happy to supply it. So she'd taken to dragging him out shopping with her once a week. It was basically therapy - and fuck if that boy didn't need some of that.

(But Allison wasn't going to say that in front of Neil or he'd probably get hives…)

Usually, the shopping trips all went about the same. Allison would drag Neil along, Neil would acquiesce until he got hungry, then he'd get bitchy and after Allison fed him he'd calm the fuck down enough to try on more things before refusing to get anything. On a very rare occasion she would get him to accept a shirt or a new pair of pants. His weakness was shoes, but she tries not to exploit that too often.

Today, however, was different - because today Allison caught Neil's eyes catching on a particular hoodie. If it had been just once she would have passed it off, but this was at least the fourth time Neil had sought it out in the whole ten minutes they'd been in the narrow clothing store and his eyes didn't just catch, they lingered. Which meant that Neil was interested, that he liked something. This was a breakthrough! Especially since the hoodie was new and had color, rather than the drab shit he was always wearing. It was a very pretty cerulean blue with black stitching and was of a less bulky design than the other two Neil owned (one of which was the Foxes one she'd never seen him wear off-campus). In the proper size it would fit his frame nicely, she could tell just by looking at it, and she was low-key impressed that something with general style had been the thing to catch his eye.

Allison grinned and nudged him. "Hey, just grab it. You could use a new hoodie."

Neil's attention snapped to her and Allison wasn't prepared for the flash of instinctive panic that raked through his eyes. "No, I didn't- I don't-" He raised his hands apologetically, which was weird, then seemed to catch himself and dropped them immediately. Allison could see him struggling not to look over at the sweatshirt and for the life of her she didn't understand why. But now she needed to know.

She gave him a look. "Uh, yes you did, and you do. What's the big deal? So what, you like it. Get it." She shrugged, hoping nonchalance would encourage him to stop being a weirdo about it.

"Nah," Neil said with a shrug. "It's fine. I've got hoodies."

Allison thought about letting it go, she really did, but she was too curious. But she also knew that the more she seemed to care about the answer she was prodding for, the less likely Neil was going to give it. So she pretended to look at some of the surrounding clothing without really registering what she was shuffling through. "You act like you've never bought something just because you wanted it before," she said with her usual level of scathing judgement.

"It was too dangerous," came Neil's distracted response. When Allison peaked over at him, her hand freezing on the shoulder of a sweater, about to slide it down the rack, she saw that he was looking at the hoodie again, studying it with a too-careful blankness she was beginning to recognize as Neil-in-memory.

"Getting something you wanted was too dangerous?" It was harder this time to keep her tone casual but she managed it well enough that Neil didn't fully snap out of his thoughts, wherever they were.

He shrugged. "It was distracting. If you had things you cared about you'd lose sight of survival, or make stupid mistakes."

Allison just stared at him. "You weren't allowed to have things you wanted… because they'd be distracting? Neil that's really fucked up."

Neil looked over at her and grimaced, pulling away from the hoodie. "Whatever, it's not a big deal. Come on, are you done shopping yet?"

For another moment Allison stared, then she stalked forward and violently grabbed the hoodie from the rack, ignoring Neil's startled protests.

"No," she said, pointing at him with her free hand. "You aren't some kid on the run anymore and you don't have to follow your mom's fucked up rules. If you want something, you're going to get it, damn it." If Neil tried to protest again she didn't see it because she'd already whirled around to head up toward the checkout.

Fuck you, Mary.

TWO - DAN

Team Night was something Dan instated right after finals last year. One night a week they all got dinner after practice. The whole team had to be there for at least part of the time. Sometimes they got along, sometimes they fought like half-crazed rabbis raccoons, but they were all together in a situation that wasn't about exy (no matter how many times Kevin or Neil brought it up). If there was anything Dan had learned over her years as Team Captain, it was that they would always operate better on the court if they could also work together off of it.

Tonight they'd gone out to dinner with the whole team before splitting off into various groups back at the dorms. Renee had gone off with Allison and Nicky while Aaron had left right from the restaurant to meet up with Katelyn. The freshmen had split into their own groups - they were still working out their hierarchy among themselves and Dan knew by now that she just had to let it happen - which had left her and Matt and, surprisingly enough, Neil and Andrew. She hadn't really expected the other two to accept her invitation to join them in Matt's room for a movie, but when she's offered Neil had easily agreed and Andrew hadn't protested.

A part of her had still expected Andrew to peel off and go back to his own dorm once they'd returned to Fox Tower, but the reticent goalkeeper had followed them all into the room with no complaint.

"All right!" Matt announced with a grin once the door was shut and locked behind them, crossing to where he kept the booze. "Power Couple Movie Night! Whatcha guys want? Babe?"

Dan chuckled and rolled her eyes affectionately. "You're ridiculous and I love you. I'll have a whisky sour." She looked to Andrew and Neil. "What about you guys? He just stocked up so there's a bit of everything."

"Babe, you're making me sound like an alcoholic."

Dan dismissed the complaint with a wave of her hand and smiled over at the other two.

"Whisky straight." That was Andrew.

Neil just shrugged. "I don't need anything," he said.

"Do you have Dr. Pepper?" Andrew asked, apparently not done.

Matt nodded, lifting a mostly-full two-liter for him to see and setting it on the surface of the cabinet.

"He'll have that with amaretto."

"Andrew."

"Neil."

Dan tried not to be too obvious about how closely she was watching them. It wasn't even a 'how could they be together?' thing. It was just that… Neil was this big mystery, and Andrew was also a big mystery. And now they were together and that just made the mystery balloon exponentially. The two of them fit together in a way that was somehow both surprising and like nothing in the world could make more sense. They had a whole language together of looks and gestures, of silent understandings that the rest of them couldn't even begin to interpret. In a way, this was just like any other couple. Even now, Dan shot a glance over at Matt and they shared a look of their own before resuming their subtle observations of the other couple. Somehow it was different with Andrew and Neil though. Somehow it seemed… heavier. It was fascinating and also kinda unsettling, which only made Dan want to figure it out even more.

After an extended silence where Neil and Andrew had some indecipherable conversation with their eyes alone, Neil sighed, apparently conceding defeat, and nodded agreement to his boyfriend's drink order.

"All right! Neilio is drinking with us tonight!" Matt pumped a fist into the air, shattering the residual tension with his enthusiasm. Dan had probably never loved anyone so much in her life.

Neil smirked his own affection for the big lug and flopped onto the couch, Andrew following with less flourish but a level of relaxed comfort that made Dan's heart soar. It was really happening. Andrew was letting himself trust them, letting himself be a part of the team, letting himself be… one of their friends.

Matt finished making their drinks and brought them over on a serving tray he had been a little bit too excited to buy.

Neil took his drink and cautiously sniffed it, wrinkling his nose. "It smells sweet," he complained.

"You have two choices when it comes to liquor, Josten. It either tastes sweet or it tastes like alcohol." Andrew was entirely unsympathetic, though his gaze remained focused on Neil even as he sipped his whisky. Apparently, this was some either-or that Neil was willing to concede to because he sighed and sipped the drink. After a moment he hummed and took another sip. Another sip turned into a second drink as the four of them collectively decided to skip the movie and instead hang out and talk about the worst movies they'd ever seen. Andrew, surprisingly, had a lot to contribute - as he had apparently seen a lot of movies and had Opinions about all of them. It was very weird and kinda surreal, but also made Dan feel almost giddy.

"Well shit, Neil, if it was just a matter of you not liking the taste of alcohol we'd have stocked up on wine coolers ages ago," Matt said as he handed Neil his third glass later on in the night. He grinned and perched on the armrest of her chair. Dan smiled up at him when he put his arm around her, leaning against him and sipping her own drink as she turned her attention back to the other couple.

The other couple. Well, that was weird.

"Nah, I still wouldn't have had anything," Neil said after another, fuller drink. He leaned back, comfortable. Dan noticed that he and Andrew weren't touching but there was still a weird intimacy with their proximity. It hurt her brain to think about so she didn't focus on it overmuch. Then Neil said, "Mom only brought out the alcohol when I needed to be stitched up," and Dan froze with her drink halfway back up to her mouth. Neil didn't seem to notice, looking into his cup as he continued. "No hospitals, you know, and when I was a kid I always cried a lot and was really loud about it unless I was too drunk to feel anything at all."

And when I was a kid I always cried a lot and was really loud unless I was too drunk to feel anything at all.

When I was a kid…

It felt like all the air had been sucked out of the room. Dan peripherally noticed that she wasn't the only one who had gone still. It was so rare for Neil to say anything about his time before he joined the Foxes. It was even more rare for him to bring up his mother - especially in such a… disturbingly revealing way.

Matt was the one to break the silence. "When you say you were a kid you mean…?" There was a false lightness in his voice, like he was trying not to alert Neil to how much he was revealing. Andrew cut him a glare but then looked to Neil without interrupting.

Neil shrugged, swirling his glass lightly, apparently fascinated with the ice as it clinked gently against the sides of the glass. He poked at them with his mixing straw. "Mm, Lola scared me, y'know? I didn't want her to stitch me up. So I begged mum. Dad would hurt her too if she couldn't keep me quiet. I tried, but being noisy was always a problem for me. 's how I usually got in trouble anyhow. Or by not being still enough. Or dropping knives." Neil shivered, his free hand rubbing against a spot on his abdomen like he was worrying away at a memory, some phantom ache from a past that he could never quiet escape from.

Andrew, apparently, had decided this was enough. He reached forward and pulled the glass from Neil's hand with a gentleness that shouldn't surprise Dan anymore. He set the glass on the table and stood, then tugged Neil up with him. He didn't let go of the striker's hand even when he got the other man standing. Once he was sure the other would be steady he glanced over at them with a dark, steady threat in his eyes. "We are leaving now."

A sound beside her alerted Dan to the beginning of Matt's protest and she elbowed him before he could complete it. In its place, she gave a strained smile and nodded. "Of course. You guys are probably tired. See you tomorrow!"

Neil raised his hand in a small wave but he still seemed a little lost, his expression closed, his mind somewhere else.

When the door closed behind them, Matt stood up and walked over to lock it, then he stood there for a moment before turning to face her. His expression was dark and angry and echoed the storm stirring in his own heart.

"Neil went on the run when he was ten."

It might have seemed a random statement, but Dan was following the same line of thought and she nodded. They'd known that Neil's dad was a bastard, knew he'd been hurt by him and his people when they'd been on the run and it wasn't a far toss to infer that he'd been hurt earlier too. But this confirmation was blood-chilling. Mary's part in it was not comforting.

"She did nothing, Dan. She did nothing. She let him get hurt and then she got him drunk as a little fucking kid to stitch him up again. I know it was a fucked up situation, and I'm sure it wasn't all sunshine and rainbows for her but fuck Dan. Fuck."

Dan nodded, setting down her drink and rising from the chair so she could go to Matt. She knew that she only had a surface understanding of the situation. She couldn't imagine what Mary might have gone through herself, but she couldn't find enough compassion in her heart to make excuses for her. Maybe that made her heartless, she didn't fucking care. What she cared about was that Mary let her own son be hurt badly enough that he needed to get drunk and get stitched up over and over again, before and after they went on the run. What she cared about was that Mary hurt her son over and over herself in order to control him, to keep him under her thumb. Maybe she did it because that's how she thought she was protecting him but intentions meant shit.

Lesser evils were still evil.

There are always choices, always options, and Mary's choices had traumatized Neil just as much as the Butcher's had. Maybe Neil had complicated feelings about his mother but Dan didn't. She had a very clear opinion, actually.

Fuck you, Mary.

THREE - MATT

"Okay so, but why Andrew?" Matt didn't mean anything negative with the question, but he flipped a hand in apology when Neil glared over at him. "I didn't mean it that way. I mean like -- is your type short, blond, and stabby or…?"

"I don't have a type. I don't swing."

Well that made no sense.

"Except for Andrew," Matt clarified, reminding Neil that he was self-admittedly committed to the Monster.

Neil nodded without hesitation. "Except for Andrew," he agreed.

"Right… but… why? Why only Andrew? Didn't you ever like… like other guys, or girls?" Matt studied his best friend, desperate to understand him. He wasn't even being anti-Andrew about this, he was just trying to learn more about Neil and this integral part of him. Neil said he didn't swing, and then of all people to fall for - he falls for Andrew. Matt had thought that maybe Neil had been shy about admitting he was gay or something, but Neil was pretty confident about the whole not-swinging thing. Matt got that there were other sexualities out there, but the idea of just… not wanting anything just didn't make sense to him.

He was surprised when Neil actually said -- "Sure, yeah, when I was like, fourteen or whatever. I wouldn't say I liked anyone, but I noticed girls."

Matt blinked and looked over at him, letting the game controller rest on his lap. "Wait, you did?"

Neil shrugged. "Yeah, but it wasn't allowed so…"

"It wasn't… allowed?" Matt frowned, lost.

"My mom knew they'd be a distraction, that it was too dangerous for me to fall for someone. I don't think it occurred to her that I might like a guy, so when she realized I was noticing girls she made sure I didn't anymore."

Matt was silent for a long moment, letting the implication of that sink in. "When you said she 'made sure' you didn't notice girls…?"

Neil shrugged. "I was stupid. Just telling me wasn't going to do anything." But his friend's casual nonchalance was gone and Matt watched as the other man withdrew into himself. His expression closed down and he scratched his nails through his hair, against his scalp in an anxious tick Matt was pretty sure Neil didn't even realize he did.

A flare of rage heated his lungs and it took concentrated effort to swallow it down. He could imagine what Mary might have done to her son to drill the lesson home.

"That's really fucked up, Neil."

Neil just shrugged, then nodded at the tv. "Are you gonna play or what?" Matt could see that his friend didn't want to talk about it so he let it go, but he wasn't going to forget it.

"Yeah. How about you order some pizza or something? I'm getting fucking hungry." A bit of the tension broke and Neil flashed him a small smile before pushing off the couch to go get his phone to make the order. Matt watched him go and took another breath to make sure his anger was packed away for later.

Fuck you, Mary.

FOUR - NICKY

Christmas! Nicky was so fucking excited about Christmas this year. Not only would Erik be coming into town, but the whole family would be there! Well, the family that mattered anyway. Aaron was bringing Katelyn, Andrew would be there and participating, and Neil was staying with them for the entirety of winter break. It was going to be amazing!!

Already, in the few days since school had let out, Nicky had set about Christmas-ifying the whole house and it was looking amazing if he did say so himself, which he did.

Today was going to be particularly exciting because he had managed to get Neil to agree to go Christmas shopping with him. Erik would be arriving tomorrow morning and Nicky still hadn't gotten his present. Or Aaron's. Or Andrew's. Or Neil's… He'd gotten Katelyn's though! He'd seen an absolutely gorgeous sweater at the mall the other week in just her color so he'd swiped it up. Point being, he had some catching up to do and he suspected that Neil was also behind on his Christmas shopping.

This was confirmed shortly after they arrived at the mall and Nicky asked Neil what he'd gotten for Andrew.

Neil blinked at him, like he was caught off guard by the question.

"I don't think we're getting each other anything," he said, looking downright confused.

"Oh. Oh Neil. Oh Neil no. No, you are definitely getting gifts for each other. You're a couple!"

Neil looked vaguely uncomfortable as he shrugged, but he didn't deny the label and Nicky counted that as progress. "I don't think we're the gift-giving kind…"

Clearly, Neil hadn't been paying attention to the fact that Andrew had been gifting Neil at every fucking opportunity since they'd met. Clothes, keys, food, drinks, more clothes, a phone. At first, Nicky had just thought it was Andrew being possessive in the way he was possessive of all the people he'd decided we're his. It wasn't until after the two had come clean about their relationship (relationship!!!) that Nicky had thought back and realized that Andrew wasn't half as generous with the rest of them. Honestly, Nicky was a bit embarrassed for not noticing it all sooner. This whole time, Nicky thought he was being cryptic when he was just being really, really gay. For shame.

"Mm, well," Nicky hedged, feeling pity for the poor blind idiot. At least he was cute. "You're wrong, but we won't get into it. Just trust me when I say that Andrew has definitely gotten you something." Probably multiple things, actually, but Nicky didn't want to shock the poor cute dummy. "And you can't tell me that you don't want to give him a gift." Nicky stopped, frowning at Neil in disapproval.

"It's not that," Neil admitted, and Nicky wasn't sure he'd ever seen the younger man look more awkward.

"Then what is it. Come on, kid, tell Uncle Nicky."

Neil made a face. "Only if you never say that again."

Nicky laughed, though he realized Neil had a point. That might have been a bit much. "Deal. So what is it?"

Neil shrugged, fidgeting in a restless way that Nicky recognized as one of Neil's tells when he was uncertain or nervous. Neil was someone who needed to be in motion, someone who needed to do things. Nicky related to that, heavily, so he linked his arm through Neil's and tugged him into walking again. The motion seemed to help, and after a few minutes, Neil finally spoke up.

"I've never really done the whole Christmas or birthday thing. Especially not since me and my mom, you know…" He drifted off vaguely, gesturing with one hand like that's was supposed to indicate all the time he and his mom were running from his psycho dad and his evil butcher-buddy minions. Nicky nodded like it had and Neil continued. "It just feels… weird, you know. Like it's a thing that real people do. They go to school and they have holidays with families that don't want to kill them or each other. They buy each other presents that they don't need and that's… normal. But it just doesn't make sense to me."

There was a lot to unpack there, but Nicky's mind caught on the first thing Neil had said and it kept replaying over and over on his head like a skipping record.

Like it's a thing that real people do.

Like Neil wasn't… real.

Nicky stopped walking again, his heart clenching suddenly in his chest. "Wait, hold on. Rewind. Neil, you realize that you are a real person, right?"

Tension wiped Neil's face into an awful blankness and normally Nicky would let it go. He'd make a joke and try and get them back to something lighter, but this was… something was just so wrong about that and he couldn't ignore it.

"Neil," he implored, hands on both the younger man's shoulders, gripping tightly, willing him to open up to him.

Maybe it was a testament to the season of sharing, or maybe it was proof that he and Neil had come a long way since those first few months over a year ago, but for whatever reason, Neil didn't brush him off and he didn't pull away. Instead, he sighed and gave a small shrug, shuffling his feet as he apparently searched for the right words like they were hidden between his shoelaces.

"I didn't feel real for a long time, you know. I couldn't be. Mom was the one who made all the identities for me, the one who chose the names and the covers. She was the one who created everything about the boys I was supposed to be, down to their interests in school and outside of it, just in case someone asked me when she wasn't around. She'd test me on them. I studied those boys with more dedication than I studied for my classes when I was actually in school."

Nicky frowned, confused. "What about your interests and what you were like."

Neil shrugged. "I didn't have any. I wasn't like anything, unless you can count fear as a personality trait."

That… didn't make sense. Neil was saying words, and individually, Nicky knew what they meant, but his brain was struggling to comprehend exactly what they meant when put together in that order.

"But… that's not possible. What about when you saw something you liked, or wanted, or did something that you just… enjoyed. A tv show or, fuck, math. You like math right? That's a part of your personality." He heard the desperation in his own voice but he was too distracted by the conundrum of Neil's 'I wasn't a real person's reveal that he didn't even care to attempt to rein it in.

"Not until I got to Palmetto," Neil admitted. "I didn't have to take a math class my senior year because my forged transcripts already had the required number of classes to graduate and it seemed conspicuous to take more than that. Your average teenager doesn't like math."

"But you thought about it, right? When you were signing up for classes, you thought about adding math, then actively chose not to." A picture of understanding was beginning to form and Nicky felt a little bit sick with what it showed.

Neil frowned, like he was thinking about it, then gave a small nod of reluctant agreement.

"So… there was something you liked, something that was you and you just, what, instinctively went 'No, bad idea'. Why?"

"It's what my mom would have done," was Neil's instant, confident reply. He hadn't even had to think about that one. Then, to Nicky's horror, he elaborated with, "Mom was a stickler on that kind of stuff. If I liked something, if I felt pulled to anything, it was dangerous and bad. I learned quickly enough to avoid anything that interested me so it wouldn't distract me. Surviving was what was important."

Yeah. Yeah Nicky definitely felt a bit sick now.

"When you say that you 'learned quickly enough'...?" Nicky wasn't sure he actually wanted to know, but that didn't stop him from asking the question.

"Mom--" Neil actively stopped himself this time. "It isn't important. Look… are we going to go shopping or what?"

Nicky wasn't willing to let it go. "Neil. Did she… like, hurt you? For having interests?"

Now Neil looked more than just a little uncomfortable, and the way he didn't meet Nicky's eyes was all the answer he needed. Nicky wanted to hug Neil just then, but he managed, at the last second, to hold himself back. He'd probably pushed harder than he should have already and he was trying to be better about boundaries. Instead he squeezes his shoulders and then pulled his hands away.

"Well, come on. Let's finish shopping. I'll help you pick out something for Andrew if you aren't sure what to get him."

Neil looked so visibly relieved that Nicky's heart broke. "Ah, yeah… thanks Nicky." The small smile he shot him was enough that Nicky forgot the boundary thing and just hugged him. Ugh, that poor kid. No wonder he was so confused whenever anyone was kind to him if his own mother had treated him like he wasn't even a real person to the point where Neil had legitimately started to believe it. Nicky had his issues with his parents, all the Foxes did -- it was part of what made them Foxes -- but this was kind of another level.

Nicky kept his arm around Neil's shoulders as he lead the younger man off to shop, now determined to make this the best fucking Christmas ever. Because Neil was a real fucking person and he deserved that frivolous normalcy. He deserved to like things and to want things.

Fuck you, Mary.

+1 - AARON

Aaron didn't usually care about whatever was happening in Josten's weird little brain. It wasn't a place he was eager to explore, to be perfectly fucking honest, and he was unfortunate enough to be subjected with the assshole's proximity often enough as it was. However, it was hard to ignore the man when he was having a literal mental breakdown right in front of him. He wished he could. He wished he could turn around and walk away, shut the door, and go back to not caring. Unfortunately, parallels had just been drawn that he couldn't unsee and now turning his back on Neil almost felt personal. It was incredibly uncomfortable and for a long moment Aaron just sat there, silent, in the wake of what just happened.

It had gone like this:

Andrew and Neil had been on separate ends of the couch doing homework. Nicky and Kevin were still sleeping off the trip to Eden's Twilight last night, and Aaron was slowly letting himself wake up to a hot cup of coffee and some random show on tv. Then that random show had transitioned into some kind of true crime show that had dragged everyone's attention to the screen with a single word.

Wesninski.

As it turned out, the show wasn't actually about the Wesninskis, but rather about crime in Europe. The Wesninski mention was due to the current segment on the Hatfords, a British crime syndicate -- the one Neil's mother hailed from. It was her picture on the screen when their collective attention all snapped to the screen, and the tension in the room suddenly increased tenfold.

Mothers were a bit of a complicated topic for everyone in the room. It was also probably the one thing that Andrew was unwilling to touch with a ten-foot pole, not even for Neil - and Aaron was long since past denying that those two had something going on far deeper than sexual tension and a disdain for ninety percent of humanity.

So the room had frozen, holding a breath with a shared lung. Then Andrew had stood, moving to snatch up the remote so he could turn off the TV when Neil said, "No."

Aaron had never seen Andrew stop so fast in his life. His twin's face remained blank, but there was a darkness in his eyes that Aaron was queasily familiar with. It was a cruel, angry darkness and he didn't envy Neil for being the subject of it as Andrew turned his gaze on the striker.

"If you want to cry over that bitch I am not going to stick around to suffer it." The words came out low and hissed and even Aaron could hear the sharp rage beneath the forced facade of indifference Andrew was attempting to keep in place.

Neil looked like he wanted to hit Andrew but he managed to keep his response to a sharp, venomous, "Fuck you."

Andrew held the remote up to eye level then dropped it. It landed hard enough on the table that it bounced off, the back popping off and the batteries scattering. Then he was striding out the front door. Aaron expected it to slam, but somehow the gentle click of it just under the murmur of the crime show was just as finite.

It was like getting to watch a moment he'd lived over and over again over the course of years from the outside for the first time. In fact, it wasn't like that - that's what it was. Something anxious and sick curled in the pit of his stomach as Aaron looked from the closed door to Neil's tense, shaken form. He hated this. He hated sympathising with Neil. He hated understanding Andrew's anger. He hated not being able to pick a side. Aaron had heard enough about Mary Hatford to know that she was just as fucked up as Nathan Wesninski, dragging her son around, forcing him into isolation, beating him, fucking him over socially for his whole damn life when she probably could have just saved them both by either going straight to the FBI or calling up her own crime family. He knew that Neil didn't blame his mom when he probably should. He knew he made excuses, that he grieved for her. He knew he missed her and he also knew that it was really, supremely fucked up.

He also knew that he was just as guilty for the unworthy idolization of an abuser. It had taken him years to get to the point where he was willing to admit that, though. It was meeting Katelyn that had him finally looking at his past with a sobering dose of reality. It was only after months of wrestling with himself that he'd finally been able to accept the truth. Months of Katelyn's steadfast support, months of sessions with Bee beyond the joint sessions with Andrew, months of introspection that left him mentally and emotionally wrung dry -- and Tilda hadn't had half the physical and emotional ammo that Mary Hatford had probably levied against her young son.

Aaron watched Neil vibrate in place, watched his hands curl and his throat work, watched the pain and the rage and the grief flash through his eyes even as he tried to swallow it all down. He watched Neil, but he saw himself, and it was more than disconcerting.

He didn't make the conscious decision to speak before he said, "I get it." In fact, he almost didn't realize he had spoken until Neil snapped his attention over to him like he'd forgotten he was still in the room at all.

Neil didn't respond, probably too caught up with the war in his own head to form words -- a rarity for the loud-mouthed striker.

"She was all you had," Aaron said, and he wasn't sure if he was actually talking to Neil, or talking to the version of himself that still clung to the corner of his memories, desperate to validate the only person that might have loved him, the one person that should have loved him, when he needed it the most. "She was all you had, and that's what kept you going. Not her rules and not whatever it was that she did to make sure you survived. That it was her and you, that you had each other, and that that meant something. She'd do whatever it took to protect you, she was the only one who would do that, and it was everything, right?"

He could tell by the widening of Neil's eyes that he'd hit the nail on the head. He didn't look away as he continued with his truths, knowing he was probably the only person that had ever vocalized an understanding -- that he was probably the only person who could understand.

"And then she was gone. And it wasn't only her that died. It was everything that she was supposed to be. She died, and all you had left were the 'almost's and 'not enough's and the 'never again's. And if you let yourself believe that she was just as bad then everything was for nothing. All the times you cared. All the times you tried. All the times you did everything you could to be what she expected of you. None of it would matter, because she was gone, and she could never redeem herself, and it was all pointless." Aaron heard his voice like someone else was speaking. It was too calm, too quiet, too knowing. It didn't feel the desert in his chest, scorching and dry and far too exposed. He saw Neil's reaction like he was looking in a mirror and it was more than a little bit unsettling. He understood the flash of anger in his eyes, the stubborn refusal in the set of his jaw, then the reluctant acceptance when his shoulders dropped. Aaron hated understanding anything about Neil Josten. He hated even more that it was this that they had to share. Something so raw, so close to home it had a permanent home inside his chest, nestled between his lungs. It wasn't fair.

Then again, he was a Fox for a reason he guessed. Life just wasn't fucking fair to a Fox.

Neil looked away, then deflated against his corner of the couch. He tilted his head back and Aaron saw his throat work as he fought emotions neither of them wanted Aaron to be a witness to. Aaron averted his eyes. He only looked up again when Neil spoke. The other man's voice was quiet but steady.

"The one thing she harped on most, more than anything else, was how attachments to anyone or anything other than my own survival were going to get me killed. Even to her. She told me so many times to run, leave her behind, but I… I never could. She never left me behind, even when there were times when I wanted her to. She'd probably be rolling in her grave if she could see me now…" Neil's voice drifted off as his gaze locked on the front door over Aaron's shoulder. Aaron didn't need to be psychic to know that he was thinking specifically about Andrew, about how much he'd risked for Andrew - not just to be with him, but also to protect him. Going to Evermore, allowing Nathan's men to take him quietly… yeah, Mary probably wouldn't be too happy about that, and not in the caring, not wanting Neil hurt way. She'd be pissed that Neil cared about something so much to take that risk, after all she'd done to try and beat that ability out of him.

"She was trying to make me soulless," Neil said without taking his eyes away from the door. "She hated it so much whenever I showed any glimmer of a personality. Whenever I was anything other than a possession she kept and controlled. My mother loved me, in her own way…" His mouth tensed, pursed, then he looked at Aaron.

For a moment, the two of them just looked at each other, a shared understanding between them.

"That's not enough," Aaron finally said.

Neil looked down, then up, meeting his eyes. "No," he agreed, "it's not."

On the tv, the show was still talking about the Hatfords. Not all that much time had actually passed since the segment started. Neil looked at the tv, then stood and gathered up the scattered pieces of the remote. He put it back together and spared one more glance at the screen, which now showed a picture of the Hatford family at some event when Mary and her brothers were teenagers. Then he lifted the remote and resolutely changed the channel.

"I'm going to take the car to pick up some food, you want anything?" Neil asked as he moved to get his shoes, then take his keys from the hook near the door.

Aaron snorted. "No. I'll order something if I get hungry." There was still some time until he'd want lunch, but he knew this dance by now. Neil and Andrew would drive off together. If he wanted food he was better off taking it into his own hands. It was entirely likely the other two wouldn't be back until closer to dinner.

Neil nodded once, then was out the door. Aaron watched him go, then sighed and turned back to his coffee, considering it.

He didn't like sharing something with Neil fucking Josten. It was annoying and uncomfortable. But all the same… he understood. And like it or not, they were tied together now. Maybe he wasn't ready to say 'fuck you' to the memory of his own mother, and Neil definitely wasn't ready to do the same regarding Mary Hatford, but they could acknowledge the similarities in their stories and that was a start -- for both of them.

Aaron sighed and closed his eyes. He pointedly didn't think about his own mother and instead let himself eagerly latch onto the other man's sympathetic demon as he thought, with vehemence, 'Fuck you, Mary.'

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sex-storytime · 4 years

Text

The Girl Next Door

It was early in the morning and I'd just risen from my marital bed. Melanie and I had been married for ten years. She had long since gone to her work so the space beside me was cold and empty. I work from home so I set my own hours, usually about ten a day. I remembered that my boxers shorts were all in the wash but I had a fresh pair in the dryer so I walked out to the utility room, naked, which is how I sleep. Throwing a damp towel in with the pants, I turned the dryer on to get the wrinkles out and headed for some coffee. It had long since gone cold, so I stuck a cupful in the microwave while I put some things out for breakfast. With a hot cup of coffee in hand, I walked through the house to boot up the computer. A quick check of my email and I went back to the kitchen, cup in hand, with no thought whatsoever that I was stark naked.

I’ve never had any qualms about being naked in my own house since we live in a very small town and there are only a few houses on our street, and we sit back off the street about 25 feet. There are blinds in the kitchen, but at six in the morning no one is going to be looking in my windows anyway. I mean, what are the odds that someone will be staring into my window at six in the morning on the outside chance that they’ll see me naked... they’d be welcome to the view!

When the buzzer on the dryer went off, I finished my coffee and went to get the clothes out. My hand had just touched the dryer door when the phone rang. Padding back into the kitchen, I picked up the phone to hear our neighbour's voice on the line.

"That's a very nice outfit you're wearing," she cooed.

I felt like an idiot. There I stood, stark naked, in front of the big window in the breakfast room. I jumped back to take shelter behind the cabinets.

"Rachel, what the hell are you doing looking in my window?" I yelled.

"Hell Jeff, I thought you were putting on a show for me. I'm not complaining, why are you? I just told you I liked what I saw."

"Is that all you wanted?" I asked. "I've got things to do and one of them is not making my neighbour wet. Take a cold shower or something."

"Hold on, hot shot, I need to talk to you."

"Oh, for... let me get some jeans on so I don't let it all hang out."

"Whatever," she replied. "I don't care if you're naked or not. I just need to talk to you right away."

I pulled my jeans on, remembering too late that I had a brass button and a now very hot zipper on them. After cursing a few times and pulling the hot metal away from my flesh, I finally got them snapped and zipped.

"If you're looking for Melanie, you missed her. She works the early shift today."

"I knew that, Jeff. I've been waiting for her to leave so we could talk."

"Talk? Talk about what?"

"Let's just say it's something you don't want to discuss in front of your wife."

I leaned over to search for some bagels that I'd picked up the night before, thinking about my neighbour watching me naked through that window. I never considered Rachel to be anything other than my neighbour. She moved in six months ago, she worked in forensics or something and she was at least a dozen years younger than me. She was petite and dropdeadgorgeous for sure, but she wasn’t on my radar. Rachel was much younger than me and I had a perfectly pretty wife. But... Rachel was... quite pleasant to look at... I guess. Yes, I had fantasised about her. Any man would! Her shoulder length auburn hair and sparkling blue eyes highlight her creamy complexion. She always wore oversized sweatshirts or tee shirts that were dark enough and large enough that you see no hint of how she's built, and I've spent a lot of time staring at her, guessing at what that shirt covered. I'd seen enough of her ass as she bent over to know that it was damned nice. She was a gorgeous minx and I often struggled to take my eyes off her.

"Should I be worried about where this is going?" I asked.

"I hope not," she replied, "but I don't think so."

"I guess you've got the advantage over me because I have no idea what you're trying to say."

"What would your wife say if she found out that you've been cheating on her?"

I damned near choked on my bagel. "What the hell are you talking about? I haven't been cheating on her."

"Oh really? Would you like to bet that I can convince her that you have?"

I didn't reply for a minute, suddenly realising that it wouldn't be all that hard to do since she's been insinuating for a long time that I have. Visions of being kicked out flashed through my mind. It wouldn't be the first time, but it wasn't something I'd like to repeat.

"Ok, ok, what are you saying? You know I don't have any money, Rachel. Hell, I'm trying to figure out how to pay my bills as it is."

"I don't want your damned money, Jeff. I'm not hurting for cash. Hell, I probably have more than you do. No, it's not money that I'm looking for."

"DAMN IT Rachel, what do you want?"

"Calm down, Jeff. No need to get excited. Why don't you come over and have some coffee with me so we can talk face to face. I think you'll be glad you did."

"You're a crazy, woman. You've lost your mind. If Melanie was to find out you've even seen me naked, she'd board up the damned window and quit her job so she could keep an eye on me. If one of the neighbours saw me coming over there and let it slip, it would be all over but the crying and you know it."

"I know that, but no one has to see you come over here. There's a way to take care of that."

"Damn it, Rachel, I can't do that. Can't you talk to me now?"

"I could, but I don't think I want to. I could come over there but if you want to keep this quiet, me walking into your house would be the last thing our neighbours needed to see. Think about it Jeff. I've already seen you naked and you know I can convince her of anything I want. You don't have to worry about me slipping up and letting her find out what's going on while she's gone. She'll never know unless you tell her. Get some shoes on and drive around the block. Pull in Sophie’s drive and park back where they park the motor home. They're gone for the summer and no one can see you there because of the bushes. I'll leave the back garage door open for you. Fifteen minutes, Jeff, that's all I'll wait."

The sound of the dial tone was all I heard after that. I slammed the phone down and went to sit on my recliner, where I do my best thinking. I stared at the clock as the second hand swept around, mumbling to myself about that damned infuriating woman. What the hell did she want anyway? To hell with it, let her tell Melanie whatever she wanted to. I'd catch hell and we'd fight like two cats for a week or two but that's all. What the hell, if she kicked me out, I'd be fine. Then the real world got hold of me. We wouldn't fight like cats at all, she'd scream for weeks about my infidelity and in the end, I'd be kicked out and I'd be screwed. There's no way I have enough money to make it. She'd get the house and I'd get the shaft and wind up living in a shack.

It had been almost ten minutes when I slipped into my shoes and went out to the garage, knowing she was watching me every minute. I drove down the street and turned as though I was going to town, then looped around and slipped into Sophie’s drive, pulling as far into the bushes as I could get. The back door of her garage was open so I slipped in and closed it behind me.

Her car was in the garage and she waited for me at the foot of the stairs that led to their game room over the garage. Neither of us said a word as I followed her up the stairs, watching the sway of her ass under the loose sweats she wore.

Their game room covers the whole second story of the two car garage. A professional sized pool table sits in one corner, while an oversized six sided card table sat in the opposite corner. A dart board is on one wall and a big screened TV sits below it. The other wall is blank paneling behind a fair sized wet bar.

She sat on the oversized couch and patted seat next to her. I headed for one of the bar stools but she stopped me. "You don't want to upset me Jeff but I want you to watch a video."

I sat next to her as she turned the TV on. After a few scenes from an old porn film, I saw our house. As I watched, the camera zoomed in on that big window to show me walking back and forth, stark naked. There was a shot of me bent over the dryer, taking clothes out, and one of me putting my breakfast on the table, then sitting down to eat. Then there was a shot of me with my cock in my hands as I milked it pretty hard. Seconds later, I hurried from the kitchen and I knew I was headed for some tissues. All of a sudden, I saw some more footage of me with my cock in my hands, but then another hand reached over to stroke up and down...a feminine hand. A few seconds later, I saw the naked back of what was obviously a woman's head, evidently as she went down on me.

"What the fuck, Rachel? Who is that? I've never had another woman in that house and you know it."

"Umm, I don't know, Jeff. She sure looks like she's standing right in front of you and I'd bet money she's sucking your cock. More importantly though, is that Melanie will believe it. That and about another twenty minutes of it."

"What's going on here, Rachel?: I asked. "What are you saying?"

"I decided a long time ago that you needed more action, Jeff, and I'm just the one to give it to you."

"That's blackmail," I replied.

"I don't think so Jeff. Coercion, perhaps but not blackmail. I don't want money, I just want you to fuck me silly sometimes. We both win and no one gets hurt. That video will never be seen again as long as you take care of my needs and I take care of yours."

"What the hell makes you think I need more than I'm getting?" I asked.

"Jeff, Jeff, Jeff, you jack off every time you're alone, sometimes two and three times in one day. That doesn't sound like a satisfied man to me. I haven't had an orgasm in months and damn it, I'm going to get them and you're going to help me."

"You're out of your mind, Rachel. I'm not..."

"Stand up Jeff," she ordered.

I have no idea why I did it, but I did. She walked around me, looking at the cock that was acting like it had a mind of its own. "Take your jeans off,"

"I don't think so," I replied, not moving to do so.

The next thing I knew, my jeans were yanked down, scraping over my semihard cock, giving me a jolt of pain. Before I could say anything, her hand was wrapped around my cock, sliding the tender flesh up and down my shaft. I groaned involuntarily but she took that as a sign I was enjoying it and continued. When I tried to push her hand away, she slapped at my hand and rammed the skin back so hard it was painful.

"I can hurt you if that's what you want Jeff, or I can rock your socks. It's up to you, but I promise you that I will have my way with you. Either that or the video goes to Melanie. You can destroy that one if you wish," she said, as though she was reading my mind, "but it isn't the original. Now it's time for you to decide if you want me to rape you, share some great sex, or send out the video. It's up to you."

My slumping shoulders must have been the only signal that she needed because she smiled wrapped her hand around my cock and balls. "I knew I could get you to cooperate," she said, pulling me to her by my cock. "Now let's get serious."

She pushed me back to the couch and started a slow strip. My cock was like a flag pole as she stripped off the sweatshirt and allowed her breasts their freedom. I was grateful that she didn't wear a bra but then she really didn't need one. She was about a 32A or B, small but as firm as a ripe melons, with nipples that stood out proudly, long and begging. Her sweats went next and she stood before me in nothing but black thongs. Good Lord, what a body! She was so different to Mel. Melanie was tall and skinny. She was fragile and waif like. Rachel was a hot, petite woman with curves in all the right places. Damn, I was hard as a rock with precum slipping down over my knob.

She crawled up on the couch then, straddling me, with her hands on the back of the couch. That put her wet pussy right at the same level as my face. "Eat me," she ordered, as she spread herself as wide as her knees would allow. I put my head back and reached my tongue up to lick over her thighs and the edge of her pussy lips. She moaned and pushed into my face, forcing me to reach up and spread her pussy open, while my tongue dove into her core, then started lapping at her. I love to eat a woman. I love the drama, the emotions, the eroticism of her sounds and her actions. The more audible they are, the more I try to make them moan, groan, mewl, gasp and beg for more. The ultimate high is the sound of the orgasm building, tearing them apart as my tongue lashes at their clit and into the special little spot just below it. When they slip over the top, I am in heaven.

When she came, she gushed. It's something every man dreams of but most women can't accomplish. She filled my mouth over and over again with her hot cum and I sucked every drop of her I could handle. It covered my face, my throat and my chest and I loved every minute of it.

I held her to me while I lapped at her thighs and up her ass crack to caress that hot button with my tongue. She gasped and opened herself to me while I licked into it, trying to get my tongue inside. My cock was standing high and anxious as she lowered herself onto me. The walls of her tight pussy engulfed me and pulled me in until she was completely down on me, my cock buried deep inside that hot pussy. I held her there, enjoying the feel of her wetness and the pulsing of her pussy walls until she began moving back and forth, then up and down. I knew I wouldn't last long because it had been just too long since I’d had sex. She picked up speed and began gyrating over my cock, banging my balls into me while she moaned almost constantly until I felt her begin to tighten on my cock.

It was more than I could handle and I felt my balls tighten to warn of my oncoming climax as the hot cum boiled out of my balls and sprayed into her hot pussy pulse after pulse. I spunked my fertile seed inside her, filling her, only for it to run down my cock and over my balls. Rachel crawled off of me and started to lick me clean but I pushed her back on my legs and pulled her legs over my shoulders as I sucked my cum from her pussy and licked her clean.

She pulled me up and led me to the day bed, dropping face down onto it while I crawled up next to her.

"Not bad for an older man," she panted "I think we're both going to enjoy our little adventure."

I'd forgotten that I was doing this under threat until she reminded me.

"Look, Rachel, that was great and you have a fantastic body but we just can't keep doing this. Sooner or later, one of us is going to say or do something and we're going to get caught. I can't afford to take that chance."

"Listen to me carefully Jeff. Nothing about our situation is changed except that now we both know that sex between us is pretty damned awesome. I have a lot of plans and ideas and nothing you say or do will change them. What you saw on that video is nothing compared to what is on the rest of it. Remember the woman that was going down on you? I've got a video of your cock slipping into her tight ass. Never mind how, I just have. Wonderful science, this computer enhanced fakery. You and I both know you never fucked anyone in their ass but Melanie doesn't know and she wouldn't believe you if you told her you hadn't so lets quit the bull shit and enjoy each other."

I slipped my clothes on without further comment and went for a drive to try to figure things out. Nothing I could say or do would counter the ammunition she had to use against me. I was fucked, literally and factually. I could either accept her terms or move out now and take my licks, a poor choice of words. It was while I was driving that I suddenly realised that I may have just given her the most potent weapon she could get. When I sat on the couch, she pushed me there. Was it possible that it was no accident that she'd chosen that particular spot? Could she have had cameras focused on that spot? If so, I gave her everything she needed to completely control me. I pulled to the side of the road and beat my fisted hands into the steering wheel until I could get rid of the frustration I was feeling.

I didn't hear from her for over a week but then I walked into the house one evening and saw an SD card lying on the kitchen table. My heart dropped into my shoes. I swallowed hard and walked into the living room trying to act natural.

"Jeff," she began, "why is someone sending me an empty SD card? Were you expecting a video from someone?"

"Not that I know of." I lied. "Probably put the wrong address on it or something. Who knows?"

"But why would anyone send an empty memory card? That doesn't make any sense at all." I just shrugged my shoulders and picked up the paper.

The next day I waited until Melanie went to work, then gave Rachel a call, ready for a knock down all out fight. Of course, I never got the first punch in. As soon as she answered the phone, she went on the attack.

"That was just a reminder Jeff, so you don't forget your obligations."

"That's bull shit, Rachel. I gave you what you wanted, and you turn around and scare the shit out of me? What kind of crap is that?"

"Just a reminder that we aren't done. What you gave me was good, just not enough. Lucky for you I've been on my period this week. I'm back and I'm horny. See you in ten minutes, fifteen tops. The garage door is open."

"Wait a damned minute, Rachel."

"Fifteen minutes tops, Jeff. I'm waiting and you know I don't like to be kept waiting."

I slammed the phone down and cursed the day we moved in to this house.

I slipped into some jeans and a pullover, pulled on some shoes and took the usual drive into Sophie's drive. She wasn't at the bottom of the stairs this time but she called to me, inviting me up stairs. She was standing in the middle of the room, wearing a stretch top that came just below her tits, and bikini panties. She smiled and came over to me.

"We were in too much of a hurry last time, Jeff. Let's slow down and get to know each other's bodies better. Tease me with lots of foreplay before you make me cum."

She pulled off my shirt and began chewing and sucking on my nipples while she stroked my face, neck and chest mewling into my skin. I hesitated, but couldn't deny what my body was telling me. She raised up and kissed me several times and I found my hand going to the back of her head to pull our lips into each other as our tongues began their dance. I pulled her top up over her breasts and began rubbing into my chest into her, squishing her breasts. Something inside of me said stop, stop. It was no match for the part of me that said more, more, MORE!

She reached down to rub over my now roaring erection which ended any thought of putting up any resistance. I moved her to the day bed and, without letting go of her, laid her down, with me on top. Without much pretence, I descended on her pert breasts, kissing in spirals upon her perky mounds. My lips finally cresting each globe to swirl my tongue around her hard nipples.

Still moving from breast to breast, I licked her rash nipples several times, then inhaled one as I rolled the other between my fingers. She had her hand on the back of my head, forcing my face into her as she thrust her tits up, urging me on with her moans and pleas for more.

Sucking her nipple into my mouth, I attacked with tongue and lips, stopping occasionally to nibble at the nipple before moving to the other breast. Now she was pushing my head downward and I was glad to oblige. Licking my way down her beautiful, young body, I paused to play with her navel for a while... teasing to go lower. Her breathing became fast and I could feel the heat emanating from her sex.

I propped myself up, pulling, then nearly ripping her bikini bottoms away from her body to throw them on the floor. With her naked before me I stripped quickly, then went to the foot of the day bed and lifter her foot to kiss and suck on her toes. Some women don't care for this but that wasn't the case for her. She began twisting and groaning, urging me, then begging me to lick them.

I guess I got carried away because she screamed that she needed to cum so I licked my way up one leg, then the other, stopping short of my goal, even though she sat up and grabbed my hair and tried to pull me in. I did let her force me to lick and suck on her thighs but when she was getting close, she forced my face in and wrapped her legs around me, jamming it into the very wet pussy lips.

She came quickly when I slipped my tongue into her but she wouldn't let go of my head, so I continued to attack her outer lips, slipping my tongue between them, then moving up and down over the slit, allowing it to slide into her as far as it could. She still had my head in vicelike grip as I sucked on her clit, pulling it into my lips, but she let me go to start thrusting her hips into me. I opened her with my fingers and began plunging my tongue into her, stopping once in a while to attack her clit again. I lost track of the number of times she came, but I never stopped until I sucked hard on her clit and caught it in my teeth. She nearly screamed when she came and I got rewarded with a face full of hot cum. I let her come down but kept teasing her clit with soft tongue strokes until she pushed me away, begging me to stop.

Before she caught her breath, I crawled up and buried my cock in her hot pussy in one push. She came off the bed, then began ramming her hips into me, matching me thrust for thrust. Our sex was incredible! Within minutes she was pleading for me to go faster and harder, our moist bodies slapping and sticking together as the bed began creaking. I wasn’t long until I was ramming into her vagina so hard she had to hold on to keep from being pushed off the bed. She reached down and pulled her knees to her and I pressed my throbbing cock in and out of her until neither of us could hold back any more, both reaching our climax at the same time. I tensed and blew the contents of my nuts into the body of my young, illicit lover. I held my twitching cock deep within her, pushing hard against her cervix, feeling the pulse of her orgasm moving over my cock, milking me. My sperm blasted into her in a world shattering orgasm, leaving me with no energy. I collapsed onto her, into her embrace and stayed there until I started to go limp.

There was no energy left in either of us so I rolled off her, completely fucked. I lay beside her and for nearly an hour, we held each other, stroked each other, kissed and nibbled together until we fell asleep, exhausted.

We had become lovers. I'd fought the good fight, but in the end, I never had a chance. All I could hope for now was discretion on her part, and a desperate hope that she was true to her word. She had me, as they say, right by the short hairs.

When I woke, I shot off the bed, and ran to get my watch which I'd put on the bedside table.

"You've got plenty of time," she told me, without moving from the bed.

"Thank God," I replied. Amazingly, I'd only slept a little over a half hour. I still had almost two hours before I had to be home in order to maintain my innocence. Just in case Mel got off early though, which she occasionally does, I wanted to be even home sooner than that! I didn’t want to my affaire to be so quickly and easily revealed.

When I sat back on the bed, Rachel sat up and ran her hands over my back and shoulders, then crawled over to lay her head on my shoulder. "You're still fighting this aren't you?" she asked.

"It's not you that I'm fighting, Rachel, it's what I'm doing, not who I'm doing it with. I've never cheated on her before."

"No," she replied, "no, you haven't," she admitted, "but I want you to think about something, Jeff. If all I wanted was to get laid, we both know I have no shortage of guys that would give me that. Not that I'd be caught in the same room with them, but they're out there. I did this as much for you as I did for myself. If I hadn't forced you into this, do you think it ever could have happened? You've been walking around, unhappy and unsatisfied for a long, long time. Melanie is the one that gave me the idea. She told me that she would have trouble remembering the last time you two had been intimate. If nothing else, I have proved to you that you've been missing out on the passion, and the confirmation that you are still a man, one hell of a man, I might add. I'm not sorry I did it, I'm glad. Your whole attitude has changed and Melanie told me the other day that you have been treating her much better now. I wonder why."

I didn't have an answer so I kept my mouth shut. I got up to relieve myself and make a half assed attempt at cleaning myself up. She came in and stood behind me as I washed, then took the cloth and washed my back, even over my ass cheeks.

She pushed me toward the shower then and while we waited for the water to stabilise, our lips were locked in desperate desire. She finally pulled away and pulled me into the shower. She washed me from top to bottom, but as much as I wanted it to, my cock just wasn't ready yet. When she was done, she soaped up the sponge and handed it to me with a look of pure lust in her eyes.

I washed her slowly and thoroughly paying particular attention to her beautiful breasts, especially her nipples, her thighs and that sweet wet pussy, then turned her to wash her ass. I swear I felt like my hands were shaking as I moved over those beautiful globes, the into the valley, separating the cheeks to attend to the puckered button. When I moved over it, she moaned and pushed into my hands so I spent a little extra time there. It was so tempting but I didn't want to assume anything so I just went on down to wash her pussy again. My cock was standing at attention so I dropped the sponge and moved against her, thrusting into her. She turned suddenly and took me in her arms.

"I know what you'd like right now Jeff, but I'm not ready for that. I'm not saying no, just not yet."

I followed her out of the shower, towelling off quickly as we went. When we reached the bed, she paused to arrange a pillow, then she released a padded bar that I hadn't noticed before, letting it drop down to hang about two or three feet over the centre of the bed.

Seeing my look of confusion, she kissed me and bent to rearrange the pillow. "There are many things you don't know about me Jeff. I've been setting things up for a long time and I think you'll like what I've done."

She climbed on the bed, adjusting the pillow a bit more. I wasn't sure what I was supposed to do. "I hope your hungry," she said, motioning for me to move to the foot of the bed. As I watched, she lifted her feet up to put them on the bar, raising her ass about six inches or so off the bed. It didn't take me long to decide I liked what she'd done. I almost came when she picked up a remote and pushed a button, which moved the bar away from me, pulling knees high over her chin while her feet moved to the outer ends of the bar. Her ass and pussy were displayed prominently for me.

"Don't keep me waiting, lover," she warned. "I'm all yours."

I decided to take the bold approach, no teasing, no tempting. I dove into her pussy with a vengeance, growling like a bear gone wild. Sucking her clit into my mouth, I pulled it from her pussy like a rag toy, pulling it back and forth. She was nearly screaming but it wasn't from pain, it was from sheer pleasure. Reaching up, I spread her open like a ripe peach and attacked her pussy with my tongue ramming it into her over and over again as she whipped her ass violently, trying to force my face deeper into her. I showed her no mercy, licking her wildly, plunging my tongue into the junction below her clit to move it back and forth. I felt her leg muscles begin to spasm, heard her begging for finality, tasted the beginning of what I knew would be a classic orgasm, then rammed two fingers deep before sucking her clit and chewing tenderly on it.

To say that her orgasm was monstrous would be an understatement. I'd never heard her scream so loud, never felt her pussy clamp down so hard, never knew her to squirt that much or that hard. It went on and on, even when I began to slowly and tenderly massage her stomach in an attempt to slow it. I moved up and lifted the remote from her table and returned the bar to its normal position to lower her body to the bed. She was completely wasted, twitching in the aftershocks of her orgasm. Cum actually poured from her battered pussy but I didn't want to lap at it for fear of causing her pain if her clit was irritated excessively. She lay there, trying to gain her breath, sweat pouring from her. She was so quiet, I didn't know if I should try to hold her or not but when I took her in my arms, she smiled weakly and allowed me to hold her as I kissed her tenderly. After about fifteen minutes of afterglow, I kissed her eyes and face, then her lips.

"Did I get carried away?" I asked.

She shook her head and smiled. "It's exactly what I wanted. I needed it hard and fast and you gave me all of that and then some."

For about an hour, we just snuggled, and to tell you the truth, I enjoyed that almost as much as the sex itself... almost. Unfortunately, the clock ran out on us and I had to beat a trail back to the house and tried to look like I'd been home for hours.

I almost got caught but when I heard the car pull in the drive, I dove into the bathroom and pretended that I had trouble walking when I came out. I told her that my legs went to sleep while I was sitting on the john, reading a magazine. Still it was a call back to the reality of the dangers in what I was doing and the very real possibility of getting caught or ratted out by someone other than Rachel. I knew pretty well that she wouldn't do that, although if I told her I was quitting, who knows?

The next day, Rachel called to see if I got caught and died laughing when I told her what I'd done. She told me that she'd had the best nights sleep ever before we talked about when we could see each other again. Yeah, I know, I know, I should have just taken my lumps and said no more but would you? I couldn't. Remember, I was getting nothing at home, not even encouraging words.

It was several weeks before we got together again. I was kind of curious why she didn't call, and to tell you the truth, I missed the sex. When she finally did call, she sounded different, more sensual than threatening if you know what I mean. Of course I didn't resist, I'm not that stupid.

The amazing thing was, that when I climbed the stairs, she wasn't standing there, naked, as she usually was. The lights were off and only the flickering light of a dozen candles illuminated the room. The bed was turned down and she sat on the couch, a comehither smile on her face and that sexy wicked look in her blue eyes. She patted the cushion next to her and the fact that she wasn't naked struck me as strange. I went to sit next to her. We snuggled kissed and petted for quite a long time and my cock was telling me it wanted the whole thing, not just a suggestion of what could be. Her soft moans and mewls told me she wanted me just as much as I wanted her but she repulsed every move I made to get her naked. Finally, I couldn't stand it any more.

"What's going on Rachel?" I inquired. "Am I supposed to rip your clothes off and rape you, or what?"

"Hmmmmmmm," she mused, "maybe we'll save that for another day. I wanted this to be special Jeff, I've got some specific plans for today and it doesn't involve knockdown, knockout sex. I want to start slow, a little more romantic, and build to a special climax."

I looked over at the clock but she turned me back. "You don't have to worry, Jeff. I happen to know that Melanie is working overtime today. She asked me this morning to remind you that she's bringing dinner home with her. Your line was busy, I guess. Do I have some competition?"

"That must have been the mechanic. He called to tell me the parts were in to fix the car whenever I get it there."

"We've got lots of time and I want to make it all count. Slow and easy, then building to a big finish. No one will bother us and we don't have to watch the clock."

She began stripping me, pausing to lick and kiss my nipples, neck and ears. Her soft nibbles on my nipples aroused me more than I would have thought it could. When she reached into my jeans to pull out my cock, she just let it drop while she pulled me jeans down around my knees. Her tongue rimmed my navel and probed into its depths, then slid over my body to slip into the upper thighs, then back up and down the other side. I had my hand on her head, urging her on, occasionally stroking her back and shoulders. She stood then and stripped my jeans off completely and slipped between my legs. She rolled me over on my stomach and started at my shoulders and slowly worked her way down to my ass cheeks. She licked my inner thighs, pausing to suck my flesh into her mouth to nip at it, sending little waves of pleasure through my whole body. Sucking my balls into her mouth, she worked them in and out of her hot orifice, while licking at the flesh under them with her tongue. If she was trying to drive me crazy, she was succeeding. Rachel worked her way back up, moving through the crease in my ass, brushing her tongue over the anus itself, rimming it, and moving on up to come back down and repeat the action several times.

I felt her separate the cheeks wide, pulling the flesh tight enough to hurt, then moving down to suck on that sensitive flesh around the hole that was pulsing on its own. I felt the tip of her finger circle the opening then begin probing into me. I tensed when she entered me, slowly working just the tip of her finger in and out of me, then moving deeper with each thrust, until I felt her knuckles pressing into my cheeks. As she moved in and out, she probed for my prostate until she found it, passing over it gently but repeatedly as my cock throbbed. A second finger was added and she began turning her hand about a quarter turn with each movement.

I've never had my ass probed so deep or so thoroughly but once I got used to it, and remembered who was doing it, it became quite arousing. She pulled her fingers out and rolled me over, returning to her agonising tease of my thighs and balls until she took my cock in her hand and ran her tongue all the way up the shaft before licking over and into the slit. As she licked over me, her hand slowly slid up and down my shaft and I felt the pressure building. Wrapping her fingers around my shaft, she squeezed hard at the base in an attempt to stifle the rapidly building orgasm, then she engulfed the head, sucking hard on it, while her tongue moved over the base. She pulled it out of her mouth and began running just the tip of her tongue around the puffy base and up the centre to penetrate the slit in the end.

I felt my balls throbbing from the pent up pressure and when she went down on me, she released her grip on the shaft. Two times she moved up and own the shaft until the head hit the back of her throat and I shot cum into her in surge after surge. It was one of the strongest climaxes I'd ever experienced in my life. She sucked and lapped up every single drop, milking it down over and over again while her hand massaged my balls with a finger probing my anus. When it was over, she moved over me and we shared my cum, which she had saved in her cheeks. I don't remember ever doing that before either. My balls throbbed like they'd never throbbed before. We snuggled and cuddled while our hands roamed over each other's bodies, exploring, stroking, touching, teasing.

"Jeff, there's something I think I should tell you." she muttered, her back turned to me with my arms around her.

"Oh hell, Rachel, I know what you're going to say and I've known it for a long time."

"What are you talking about?"

"You never intended to show Melanie those videos."

She laid there quietly but in my mind, I could see her smiling. "Why didn't you call my bluff then?" she finally asked.

"Don't you know? Oh, I bought into it for a while, but I finally figured you out. Besides, I was getting just as much out of it as you, sometimes even more, and you're right, I never would have done of it on my own, even though I've fantasied about it. I'm glad you did though."

"I was going to admit everything to you today anyway. That's why I wanted today to be so special. I want the memories to last forever."

I pulled her over into my arms and kissed her. "They will," I said. "Are you saying this is the last time?"

"I think it should be Jeff, don't you? I don't want it to be but there's too much chance of someone saying something. I don't think your marriage is going to last too much longer anyway but I don't want it to end because of me or anything that I do."

"I understand," I admitted. "I don't want it to end either. You've made me a much happier man than I've been for a very long time. It's going to be rough, seeing you over there is those white shorts you bought."

"Let's just enjoy today together, and put everything on hold for say three months or so. We can talk about it then if you want. Just stay busy and try not to think about it. It's going to be awfully hard on me too but it's for the best."

We made love then, slowly at first, then with a passion that is hard to describe except to compare it to a high speed pile driver until we both came at least once and collapsed, out of breath and drifted off to sleep, even as our fluids combined on the bedding.

When I woke, she was lying beside me with a smile on her face while her fingers traced invisible lines over me. "Hi, handsome," she said.

"I think all this sex has affected your vision," I replied.

"Jeff, I'm going to say something I swore I wouldn't say. I'm going to say it once and pretend it was never said."

I shrugged and turned to look in her eyes and was surprised to find a tiny tear glistening in the corner of her eye. I held her tight and kissed her hair. "I know, I know. Me too."

We lay quietly together as she fought off the tears. "I wish I hadn't done this," she whispered.

"Hush," I replied. "We both could have stopped it but we didn't because we both needed it. I don't regret it for one minute. My only regret, my only unhappiness is for what you are going through right now."

We held tight to each other for a long time, not speaking, just appreciating what we'd shared, and wishing it wasn't going to end like this. Three months would feel like years and we both knew it.

We made love again, showered and had a wild 69 that lasted for almost an hour before we couldn't breathe any more.

We were lying on the bed, with her spooned into me. "You've got to go, Jeff. She'll be home in a couple of hours. I know you don't want to, I don't want you to but we've got to just accept it."

"I know," I replied. As I pulled her even tighter to me. She reached down and stroked over my cock several times. To my amazement, it got hard. She played with it for a while, then she took it in her hand and placed it against her ass.

"You don't have to do that, Rachel," I advised. "I understand."

"I know I don't have to Jeff, I want to. I've never done it before and it's something I've wanted to try. You're the only one I'll trust to do it." She sat up and pulled a condom and a bottle of lube from the night stand. "I'm serious Jeff. I really have thought about it for a long time and it's my way of saying I'm yours whenever you want me."

She took my cock and slipped the condom on, covering it with a generous application of lube. When she bent forward, I applied a lot of lube and worked my finger into her, opening her up before inserting a second finger. I hesitated and asked her if she was sure, and she nodded.

"You'll have to relax, Rachel," I advised her, "and it helps if you push as though you were taking a dump when I push through."

I put the head of my cock against her and worked it back and forth over the tiny opening, then, holding her hips in my hands I eased the head into her as slow as I could. No matter how much lube we used though, or how careful I was, she cried out as it slipped in and on the first tentative strokes. I held it just inside and let her breathe for a minute before I moved into her further. I only allowed it to move in another inch or so, then pulled it almost out and moved back in, going just a tiny bit more. I kept doing this until she seemed comfortable, then I pulled it out and put it back in a couple of times before moving deeper. When my pubic hair was pushing against her ass, I pushed one time hard to bury it in her. After allowing her a few seconds more, I began a slow, gentle stroke, going about a third of the way with each stroke. When she began moving with me, I began full strokes, but still held it to slow and gentle strokes. When I began to feel my balls swelling, I picked up the pace and when I knew the end was imminent, I began pounding and at the last minute, I rammed her hard and held it there while my cock unloaded.

I slipped it out and peeled off the condom and we went in to shower together. It was hard to tell how much was shower water and how much was tears as we held to each other, not wanting it to end, even for a week.

When I left, she wouldn't look at me and it just tore me to pieces to hear her. She never intended for anyone to get hurt, let alone herself but it was the only way it could end.

It's been two months and it is now obvious: Rachel is pregnant. I'm torn by my emotions but whatever happens, she has control. You see, when she gave me the recordings, I gave them back. Just in case we need it, you know, to bring us together again.

#the other woman #lovers #illicit sex #having a baby #an affair to remember #forbidden sex #the girl next door #his perspective #pov #this is so wrong

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stachmousworld · 4 years

Text

Bucky’s Kitty (Part 1)

Tag: Mafia AU, Stripper!Y/N, Smut, mention of past abusive relationship, plus size!Y/N (Deal with body changes and self-confidence)

Pairing: Mafia Boss!Bucky x Librarian!Stripper!Black Y/N

SONG ALERT!!! Listen to this song on youtube or there (spotify.) It’s ‘continuum’ by Tanerélle. It’s her on the picture above, as well.

Part 2 - Part 3 -

“I’m not doing it, Darrell!” She screamed at her ex-manager. She wiped her already sweaty forehead and groaned at the oily mix between her foundation and sweat. It cemented her resolve.

She won’t do it.

Nope.

Plus, she retired a long time ago. Her body was not as lean nor gracious as before. The last thing she wanted was to be ridiculed by a crowd of horny people.

Darrell closed his eyes and massaged his temples. She took the time to watch him. His hair was slightly grayer on his temples and a few deep wrinkles appeared on his forehead. She noticed how dark the bag under his eyes were.

She felt her resolve melt slowly. She tried to hold on to the last inch of stubbornness, but it flew away when Darrell sighed. A deep sigh that came from the chest. The kind that left you hunched and empty of any positive energy.

She raised her eyes to the ceiling, inhaling three times and wrenched the piece of clothing from his grip. It’s the last time, she promised herself.

She didn’t wait to see Darrell’s reaction but heard his cry of joy and relief, as she walked away. Unable to stop herself, a little smile appeared on her plump lips.

The “clothes” were a satin bra and thong adorned with fake diamonds. She also wore a matching head piece which covered her eyes. It took her way more time to make it fit her on her big head, than she’d like to admit. She had to make it work with her afro. A full disobedient afro which liked really much diamonds and would make them disappear. The prospect of a washing day trying to get them out frightened her.

Literally.

She had to stop herself from tearing the thing material off her head. The entire ordeal made her sweaty and she hadn’t started rehearsing her dance.

It took her a few fumbles and tumbles to realize that he’d be more complicated than she thought. First, she couldn’t really see with the way the head piece falling on her face. She knew she looked gorgeous but was it really worth it. Second, she was not physically like before. She was still somewhat toned, but her thighs could now save lives, her tummy pudge looked softer than sexy and…

She sighed. The thrill and excitation of the moment turned sourer. Who was she kidding? She could never do that…Her hands went straight to her stomach and squeezed the rolls, then descended to her thighs and played with the cellulite. She shook her head and started taking her shoes off.

The door flung open, making her jump. She barely got the time to brace for the impact that her friend, Cassie, jumped on her.

“Darrell told me you were here, but I didn’t want to believe him! I thought you’d never come back.”

Cassie squeezed her in her arms and kissed both her cheeks.

“Cass’…” She started, shyly. Cass took a few steps back and took a good look at her. Y/N tried not to let her insecurities take over. Cassie was a good friend. She wouldn’t actually be mean to her. She could be blunt, but maybe that was what she needed to go back to the gym.

“Fuck me Babe, you are so fucking mesmerizing!” Cassie screamed, before walking around her. She slapped her butt a few times and squeezed it, making her yelp.

“Cassie! Don’t touch the merch,” she joked, suddenly too emotional and relieved. Tears threatened to fall and ruin her makeup.

“You know damn well you like it,” Cassie pouted, before flopping on the couch in the back of the room. “Show me what your dance, mama!”

Y/n rolled her eyes, playfully. She straightened her back, walked to her bag and grabbed her phone to play some music.

Her smile disappeared. She had missed two calls from…Bucky.

Oh.

She had forgotten to warn him. She had tried to call him a few times but was directed every time to his voicemail. God…she couldn’t do it. She couldn’t do it. Bucky didn’t even know she had been a sex worker and she didn’t know how well he’d react.

She had tried to avoid this subject for so long. Her argument to explain that was sound. Since she didn’t strip anymore, there was no reason to reveal this part of her past. Not that she was ashamed but there was a certain awkwardness when she had talked about it to her exes. None of them had truly understood what it meant to be a sex worker and most of them had treated her like shit afterwards.

They had taken it as an open door to cheat on her or offer some threesome with their “friend”. She had escaped a few dangerous situations thanks to her self-defense training and her years working as a stripper surrounded by nice and paranoid people.

She didn’t know if Bucky would be like that. He had seemed pretty conservative at first, but he was open-minded and reasoned really liberally. She had broached the subject a few times, talking about the culture of stripping in arts. He somewhat always skirted around the subject. She had, at first, been relieved that he didn’t try to ask her about her motives, but now she was left wondering.

What would be his reaction?

Maybe, it wasn’t a so good idea to go dancing now, since she wasn’t really out to him.

“What is –”

The door opened revealing an anxious Darrell. His eyes went straight to her.

“It’s your turn.”

She turned to Cassie who shrugged, as lost as her.

“I thought there were two other girls before me,” she said, somewhat with a bit of confidence back.

Darrell cleared his throat. “He didn’t really like them.”

She glanced to Cassie who looked away, avoiding her gaze.

“Who?”

Darrell mumbled something unintelligible. She felt her anxiety coming back tenfold.

“Who, Darrell?”

“The Winter Soldier,” he replied louder, eyes stuck on hers.

She stood there in shock. All thoughts of Bucky flew out of her mind. The Winter Soldier aka the Mafia Boss of this part of New-York. The one, who with the Captain, got this city working and in order. Since both of them worked together, the crime had almost disappeared. You could walk naked in dark alleys and nothing would happen to you. Well, expect maybe catching an infection because those streets were not that clean.

“Nope,” word felt foreign to her. It took her a few seconds to realize it came from her mouth.

“You can’t back off now. I have already given your name,” he retorted already on the defensive.

She spluttered. “My name?”

Darrell sent her an exasperated glare. “Not your real name, of course. After all these years, haven’t you remembered a thing I’ve taught you?”

She flipped him off. He looked at her deadpanned. “Really,” he mouthed, shaking his head. His eyes roamed her body, examining all of the changed that happened since the last time. Under his assessing eyes, she forced herself to stand straight. And if she did hold her breath, who cared.

After a long moment of silence, he waved his hand asking her she turned around. She had forgotten how he was. Always looking for the little details even if the men for whom she danced didn’t care.

She watched him through the mirror. He looked still as tired as before but there was something quite captivating with how he looked when he was doing his job. He wasn’t only there as an employer, here to receive his money and order them around. In his own twisted way, Darrell made sure he left a mark on all of them. Something they’d never forget and will carry all their lives.

Darrell snapped out of his concentration and nodded slowly.

“Who knew you could still evolve.” He turned around and left. “You have 2 minutes. I hope you remember where the stage is.”

She closed her gaping mouth and she glanced at herself in the mirror. Were they seeing the same thing as she? Didn’t they see her back and front rolls, her pudge, her flabby arms and thunder thighs. She even had to apply some lube between her legs to avoid chafing.

Cassie came behind her, grabbed her phone and pushed her toward the door.

“Go! Go! Go!”

Cassie followed her quickly, instead of taking her bag and go home. After a long day like today, she didn’t even know why her friend stayed to help her out. She wouldn’t have cared if she had gone home. She couldn’t help but feel a little bit safer with Cassie around. As she watched Cassie’s braids flow on her naked back, she thanked her silently.

Cassie stopped abruptly in front of the entrance to the stage. She turned around and grabbed her face between her cold hands.

“You are going to kill it like usual,” Cassie reassured her. All trace of amusement gone from her face and voice. She stared at her a few second then repeated, slower. “You are going to kill it like usual.”

Cassie kissed her forehead and stepped away. Y/N took a deep breath and stepped on stage. The usual thrill and peace came at once. She fell into character the more she strutted on the scene. The music started as she reached the pole. She could make up the silhouette of a man in the center. There were two other men next to him.

She was unable to refrain her pure exaltation to be the center of attention and to be able to enthrall them, make them salivated, holding this power over them. A power which was their doom, because they’d never be able to touch nor to taste her true essence.

Mix with me, unfold solutions Bare witness to my evolution Violent moans, untamed contusions We’re not really here it’s all Illusions

A few minutes before the performance…

Bucky was half-heartedly laughing at the umpteenth stupid jokes from the man. Bucky knew that it was a part of their “deal”. In order to get the city clean, they had to make a few alliances and protect some more than questionable people, like this man.

Bucky glanced at Steve on his right. Bucky knew he was trying hard not to look at the dancer and was probably embarrassed. Despite Tony reassuring him that he wasn’t jealous or that he shouldn’t be ashamed to look at other bodies, Steve had been more that stubborn. He wouldn’t look at no naked body except Tony’s.

Bucky smirked. “You know that they are not going to bite, Stevie.”

Steve glared at him. “I know Tony doesn’t particularly care, but what about your librarian, Buck?”

Bucky opened his mouth. Then closed it. Touché. What about her? He had tried to call her a little earlier. He wanted to explain that he was there for his job. But even to him this apology was ridiculous. How could he explain that it was a part of a partnership between a mafia boss and a criminal.

He shook his head letting the unruly strands of hair fall on the side of his face. The music slowed down before stopping. Bucky didn’t try to repress his sigh. He had nothing against the dancers nor the music, but he was exhausted. His knuckles were still bloody from the traitor they had to punish this morning.

He had to wake up at 4:30 to get it done. Let it not be said he wasn’t a hard worker. He tilted his back his head and looked at the ceiling.

“…sure it will please you…”

Bucky hummed not bothering to look at the man.

“The last one,” Bucky stated coldly. The man spluttered and tried to convince him to stay longer. Bucky straightened his back and glared at him through half-closed eyes. “Last dancer and we are gone.”

The man closed his mouth and looked at him, eyes wide. He tried to find some support from Steve who was, for once, on Bucky’s side. The man jumped to his feet and ran backstage.

“Did you have to scare him?” Steve asked him, not yet disapproving his “impoliteness”, as Steve like to call it..

“Would you have stayed for more?” Bucky retorted, cracking his knuckles and neck.

Steve winced. “After all of these years you’d think I was used to your habits.”

“It’s only bubbles of air stuck between the bones,” Bucky recited for the umpteenth time. “You know it doesn’t hurt, right?”

“Still. Don’t like the sound of it,” Steve mumbled.

Bucky rolled his eyes. It was unbelievable that a guy like him could work as a mafia boss. He was too nice, too open, too peaceful. Violence was always the last of his options. He trusted way too many people. It was a chance Bucky was his bestfriend. Their personality should have clashed more but they complemented each other quite well.

The man came back running.

“The last one you said?” He asked, rhetorically. Bucky hummed. The man nodded frantically, “you are going to like this one. I trust Darrell…”

Bucky didn’t know who this Darrell, but he pitied him. There was no way, he, himself, would accept to work under someone as slimy as this man.

The lights turned to an amber color.

Bucky coached himself to pretend caring for this last performance. Really, this night was too –

A tall woman walked slowly on the stage. Her body caught the sun-like lighting and reverbed golden rays. The diamonds on her two pieces and headpiece accented her ethereal body. Bucky forgot that he was surrounded by people and stared at her from top to bottom, shameless.

She spun slowly on one leg and stopped, eyes roaming the room. Bucky unbuttoned the first three buttons of his shirt and leaned backward, legs open. He played with the rings on his fingers to ground himself.

“I’m sorry…I don’t know what Darrell chose this fat --”

“I want her,” Bucky cut him off. His hands went immediately to his pocket-knife. One more word and he’d stabbed him in the thigh. How dared this asshole insult her like that. “I’ll pay whatever the price, but I want a private –”

“Buck?” Steve asked worried. “What about –.”

Thankfully, the music started, shutting Steve up. Bucky squashed his guilt down. The phone burnt through the pocket of his jeans as a painful reminder that he was crossing a line.

Mix with me, unfold solutions Bare witness to my evolution Violent moans, untamed contusions We’re not really here it’s all Illusions

She grabbed the pole and swung slowly, head tilted back. Each of her move was deliberate and calculated. She wrapped her legs around the bar in one feline jump. Her eyes never letting go of Bucky’s, even though he knew she couldn’t really see him.

Tonight we relish in design You say that I'm a state of mind I say you're space, you say I'm time

The bar secured by her legs, she leaned backward until she was head down. Her hands danced in the air on the enthralling tune. She slowly caressed the side of her face, then descended to the rest of her body.

What if the two could intertwine You grab me there your fingers sink We breathe, we tense, no time to think I take you 'til you're on the brink

Her gracious hands roamed her glistening body until they reached her the apex of her thighs. Bucky licked his dry lips and readjusted himself. She slowly raised herself up in a sitting position and let go of her legs. By the sheer strength of her arms, she pretended to walk on thin air.

Then we dive off the edge in sync

She slid down the pole swiftly, falling into a split. She rolled on her front and crawled to the front of the stage, her hips swaying gracefully. The more she approached, he more Bucky noticed details about her. Like how in her afro there were diamonds shining like stars in a dark sky.

Bucky had never been much of a religious man, but tonight he felt himself ready to go on his knees and pray to her. She was a goddess and he was a simple mortal.

She sat at the extremity of the stage and slid off the stage. Bucky didn’t dare blink in case she’d disappear, or he’d miss something. She already had him wrapped around her little finger. His heart beat faster and his breathing got out of control.

Bucky was used to be the dominant in all of his relationships. Romantic or platonic. He was a leader. It was the position he naturally filled. But now, as she stared him down like he was unworthy of her every move, the dom in him shriveled.

Her entire presence made him lightheaded. His vision tunneled and revolved only to her. If he dared look away, he only saw the plain world there were in.

The soldier in him chimed in and sarcastically reminded him that they were in the open. It could be a good opportunity for his enemies to attack…hell, if she took a knife out and slid his throat, he’d thank her.

Among the music, the scent of her perfume and the overall atmosphere, he felt possessed. He didn’t know what to do. If she wanted everyone dead in the room, he’d do it. Just for a brush of her fingers on his skin, he’d burn the city to the ground.

He inhaled sharply when she kneeled in front of him. A position linked to submission but coming from her it showed her utter dominance on him. She swayed her arms in intricated slow moves that left him speechless. It seemed she was casting a spell and it was working. He felt a headache pounding his head as he tried to take everything in. Her eyes full of what he could only imagined was mirth. But the smile…this smile was familiar.

Make love, fuck Lick me up Petals, pluck Drive me, clutch

She stood up and spun in slow motion, drawing all the attention to her full figure. She stopped her turn, with one of her foot placed between his open legs. Then, she leaned forward, hand caressing her straightened leg.

Bucky’s heart came to a slower pace. He schooled his face to remain emotionless, even though he was a mess inside.

The phone felt lighter in his pocket.

As she raised her head to look at him, only a few inches away from him, he witnessed her shock as she realized who he was.

“Hello, Kitty.”

Part 2

#mafia au #bucky #bucky barnes x poc!reader #bucky barnes × black!reader #bucky x poc!reader #stripper!reader #Mention of stony #steve rogers #tony stark #original story #stachmouworld #Plus size Y/N #bucky barnes x plus size reader

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busterkeatonfanfic · 3 years

Photo

Chapter 15

The day after the party, Nelly stayed in her apartment waiting for a phone call from Buster that never came. She left only to return the green dress, still smelling of Buster, to Carmela’s. His jacket hung on her coat tree. She buried her face in it and inhaled before she went to bed that night, and all of the sensations of the previous night flooded back in an intoxicating wave.

The next day she went to work reluctantly. She knocked on her neighbor’s door as soon as she got home to see if anyone had called for her. They hadn’t.

A week passed without a call, then two weeks. She thought that Buster would at least want his jacket; it didn’t look inexpensive. But November went by with no call.

It was a while before she could admit to herself how silly it had been to nurture the hope that the kiss with him had meant something. In hindsight, her naïveté was obvious. He was drunk, she was convenient, and since he couldn’t convince her to go to bed with him, that was that. It hurt her, of course. She’d replayed the memory of the night in her head countless times, how he’d led her to the grass and handed her the glass of whiskey, how delirious she’d felt when he bit her neck, how he’d held her hand on the loggia while they waited for his butler to bring the car. She felt sure she had not hallucinated the husk in his voice when he’d invited her into his bedroom. In the first few days following the party, the memory drove her crazy. Lying in bed or in the bathtub, she would pretend that her hand between her legs was his.

December came and went. She spent Christmas alone in the apartment, but it didn’t feel like Christmas with the sun shining and the temperatures hovering near seventy. She was used to the bleak December cold of Evanston, shopping with Ruthie and her mom in downtown Chicago as snow slanted down, stinging their faces, and the frigid wind bit through them. The opportunity to be in The Battle of the Sexes never arose, but on the third of January she received a letter from the casting office telling her that she had been chosen as an extra in John Barrymore’s Tempest. To say she was flabbergasted was an understatement. As she stared at the letter, she became more and more convinced that Buster was behind her turn of fortune. She couldn’t prove it. He was no longer near the United Artists lot, so she couldn’t ask him even if she wanted to—and she wasn’t sure she wanted to. Her dashed hopes after the party had caused heartache enough and moving on was the sensible thing. Whenever she thought of him, she reminded herself that he was a married father and that even if things had gone further, it would have been to no end. The smartest course of action was to forget him and concentrate on the reason she’d come to California in the first place.

The first night of filming for Tempest came a couple of weeks later. First she and the other girls were buttoned into ball gowns made of sumptuous combinations of taffeta, chiffon, satin, lace, and beads. Her gown was of cream-colored satin, and a makeup woman twisted her hair into an intricate chignon with braids that undergirded the rest of her hair. A girdle pulled her waist to half its size and dainty beaded slippers with a modest heel rounded out the ensemble. Not since Buster’s party had she felt so ravishing.

When costume, hair, and makeup were in order, they were driven to the set in Studebakers with two rows of seats. It was now a quarter to six and dark. The girls gabbled in anticipation, but Nelly’s thoughts were in such a tumult that she was too distracted to join in. John Barrymore would be in that ballroom and she looked stunning. She wondered if he would notice her and if he did, how their conversation would go. Most of all she wondered whether she would feel anything toward him. There was no mistake that she had felt something the night that she had danced with him, though it had been eclipsed by her more potent encounter with Buster. Well, she had an angle with Barrymore and it was no better or worse than the angle Buster had played to try to get her into bed. If she was in the same ballroom as John Barrymore, if he chanced to recognize her, she would take advantage of it.

The palace ballroom was a breathtakingly huge set on the United Artists lot, every bit as real as the actual thing. The exterior was squarish and looked Roman in style, with an open-air stone porch and columns that were forty feet high. She and the other extras went up wide stone stairs through a set of towering arched double doors. Inside, there were ceilings even higher than the columns outdoors. A chandelier the size of a small elephant hung from the main ceiling. There were more columns inside, looking as big around as the sequoias she’d seen in her childhood schoolbooks. The ceilings and higher parts of the walls were adorned in frescoes and friezes. Candles burnt in candelabras affixed to the walls. On one end of the room was a bar and a long white table lined with countless glasses, a large, deep punch bowl, and a tub filled with ice and champagne. It was a dazzling sight.

Nelly knew a little bit of the premise of the film. Camilla Horn played a Russian princess. John Barrymore, a peasant turned military officer, was in love with her. The ballroom scene would be the first time they had met since Barrymore’s station in life had changed.

She located her partner Bradford standing against a wall with his arms folded behind his back. They’d been practicing for the past week in a large ballroom on the United Artists lot, and she was relieved that her average dancing skills had drawn no attention. Bradford was good-looking, brown-haired and of medium height, but she had noticed throughout their rehearsals that he was not interested in girls. There was no delicate way to convey to him that she had known many homosexual men back at the Vista and that it wasn’t a big deal to her, though she always tried to do her best to put him at ease. Still he remained stiff and aloof.

“Some place, huh?” she said.

“It’s something,” Bradford agreed, barely looking at her.

“Barrymore here yet?” she ventured.

Bradford shook his head. “Haven’t seen him, but I don’t think Mr. Taylor’s here yet either.”

They fell into silence and watched everyone greet each other and the women compliment each other’s dresses. Bradford would never engage in more than small talk and Nelly was too excited to join in the other girls’ prattle. She liked them fine, but since she spent most of her time in the prop department, there was little opportunity for her to socialize other than in the canteen, where she listened quietly to the day’s gossip, having nothing to contribute herself and wanting to hear the latest lurid rumors. Barrymore’s marriage was indeed on the rocks as Buster had said and she found herself thinking about this fact more than was probably appropriate.

It was another twenty minutes before Barrymore and Camilla finally appeared, coming through a side door with Mr. Taylor and an entourage. Camilla was wearing a white satin gown with a full tulle skirt, a wrap to match, and earrings that brushed her shoulders. She looked every bit the princess she was playing. Barrymore was in black trousers, matching shiny knee-length boots, and a white officer’s coat with gold buttons. Her pulse quickened when she saw him and she wondered, not for the first time, if she could grow as fond of him as she had lately of Buster.

However, she had no more time to be fanciful because Mr. Taylor was soon directing them to the dance floor, spacing them at intervals and telling them to remember what they’d practiced the previous days. Someone put a waltz on the Victrola. It played tinnily into the cavernous room and was soon swallowed by the sound of footsteps and rustling skirts.

The first half hour was a thrill. Nelly relaxed, basking in the feeling of being in the midst of the greatest splendor Hollywood had to offer. All of the cameras were distant, focused on Barrymore who gazed penetratingly at Horn while she danced with a young officer and cast him contemptuous, conniving looks. There was no need to worry if she missed a few steps; trained on Barrymore and Camilla, the cameras could hardly have noticed.

Camilla was the most beautiful woman in Hollywood that Nelly had seen yet, blonde, slender, and big-eyed with perfect Cupid’s bow lips.

She could not have imagined how tiring the evening would become as the half hour wore into an hour, and the hour dragged into a second. After performing endless dances with Bradford under that dizzingly high ceiling, having always to smile and look gay, she was hot and thirsty and hungry. Her feet were swollen in her delicate shoes. Though the extras were permitted short breaks every half hour, the communal pitchers of water weren’t sufficient to quench everyone’s thirst and they were forbidden to touch the plenitude of spirits laid out in the tub and on the long tables draped with white tablecloths. The beer, champagne, and other drinks appeared to be for Barrymore’s benefit alone. One scene had him standing at the bar with cameras grouped around as he drained glass after glass. He appeared to be drinking the real thing. She could steal looks at him, but only over Bradford’s shoulder and they couldn’t be long lest she spoil the scene.

Around the third hour, now close to ten o’clock she guessed, she ceased to care about Barrymore at all. He had by now moved onto the floor with Camilla and the Victrola was trying to be heard over the dancing again. Nelly had only mind for her thirst and exhaustion. She wondered how much more of it she could take. Her lips were chapped and her smiles now felt more like grimaces. Bradford’s eyes looked glazed, though his steps were as sure and strong as ever.

Suddenly, there was a little shriek, a cry of “Mein Gott!, and the echoing sound of something hitting the floor. Bradford stopped and so did Nelly. They followed the other dancers’ eyes to the center of the room. Camilla was sitting on the floor on her behind wearing a look of shock and looking like an upended wedding cake in her disarranged white dress. The cry had been hers. Barrymore was on his hands and knees, laughing and trying to get up. One of the male dancers had to assist him, and when he was on his feet again he swayed. There was no disguising that he was really drunk. After two male extras had helped a ruffled-looking Camilla to her feet, he reached for her waist and again lost his balance, almost taking them both down again. She couldn’t say why, but Nelly was seized by the conviction that Buster had warned her that John Barrymore was like this.

Bradford dropped Nelly’s hand, clearly sensing that this was more than a momentary disruption. Mr. Taylor appeared, standing between the two parties and talking to them and his crew, his face serious. Someone brought a chair for Barrymore and he sat heavily in it. His face looked red. A few of the other dancers attempted light conversation as if the spectacle in front of them wasn’t taking place, but Nelly had no energy to pretend she was interested in anything else. The reprieve from dancing was a blessed relief.

Little by little, chatter began to filter back to Bradford and her: Barrymore was indeed drunk as a skunk and to avoid the cost of reshooting the scene on another night when he was sober, Mr. Taylor was trying to come up with a solution for him to finish his dance with Camilla.

“I need to sit down before I faint,” Nelly said.

Bradford nodded as if barely hearing her. The pitchers of water had been brought out again, so she grabbed a glass, filling and draining it twice. After the edge was gone from her thirst, she walked to the coatroom to find her handbag, keeping the glass so she could refill it in the washroom.

The washroom was empty save for one other girl. Nelly used the toilet and set to touching up her makeup once she’d washed her hands and had another two glasses of water. Somewhere in the echoing hall outside of the washroom, a clock chimed the half hour and she remembered standing in Buster’s foyer looking at his grandfather clock. Vaguely, she wondered if every famous man in Hollywood drank as much as Buster and Barrymore and, if so, what they were trying to escape from.

She was carefully coating her lips in Vaseline to address the fine cracks that hadn’t been there three hours earlier when he came in, blundering through the door like an ox.

“Mr. Barrymore!” she said, utterly amazed to see him.

“Oh, hello. Jack, please,” he said, as if he hadn’t just walked into the women’s washroom. His cheeks were rosy with color and his gait was unsteady.

He stumbled to one of the sinks and she watched in disbelief as he fumbled with the buttons of his trousers. Before she had time to do much more than look away, he was urinating into the sink. She couldn’t seem to move.

“What the hell are you doing in the men’s lavatory?” he said, swaying in her peripheral vision.

Her face was hot. “Sir I’m sorry, but it’s the ladies room,” she said, keeping her eyes straight ahead.

The appalling sound of urine splashing into the sink seemed to go on for hours. “Why in the hell would they have urinals in the ladies room?” Barrymore boomed.

She didn’t like the sense she was getting, one of being around a powerful, dangerous animal. “Sir, they’re sinks.”

“I’ll be damned.” In the corner of her eye, he shuffled and ran the tap. He had finished urinating.

Her thoughts went back to their dance at Buster's party. She’d had a drowning sensation then and had considered whether she might be love-drunk. That feeling seemed very far away now. She looked over and he was picking his nose in the mirror, wiping the contents on its edge. She couldn’t believe she was seeing what she was seeing.

“We met at Buster Keaton’s party in October,” she said, because she was embarrassed and could think of nothing else to say.

“Did we,” Barrymore stated, sounding disinterested as he peered into the mirror.

“Yes,” she said. “We danced and I told you about wanting to star in a talkie of The Taming of the Shrew.”

He narrowed his eyes, as if struggling to remember it. The approaching sound of giggling and the subsequent appearance of two extras through the door saved her just then.

“Mr. Barrymore!” said one of the extras, looking bewildered.

“By Jove, this is the ladies room!” said Barrymore. He’d finished picking his nose and was propping himself up with one hand on the sink.

“He was confused,” said Nelly. “We should take him back to Mr. Taylor.” A little voice in the back of her head asked why she was bothering to defend him at all. “Come here.” She took him by the elbow and gestured to one of the other girls to do the same. He stank of booze and she thought she caught a faint whiff of urine as they led him down the hall and back through one of the sets of arched double doors. She was no longer awed by him. Rather, she wanted to dispose of him as fast as possible.

In the crowded room, Nelly located Sam Taylor by searching out Camilla’s distinctive white dress. She and the two extras led Barrymore to them. Mr. Taylor raised an eyebrow when they approached.

“I think he needs an eye kept on, sir,” Nelly said, her arm still in Barrymore’s.

“Found me in the fucking ladies room!” said Barrymore, chuckling.

“Thank you,” said Mr. Taylor. Nelly could tell he was trying not to betray his annoyance at Barrymore.

She could have stayed and offered more of an explanation, increasing the director's chances of remembering her face, but she’d had enough of playing angles and wanted to get as far away as possible from the dangerous animal that was John Barrymore. As soon as she found Bradford again, she poured out her entire tale.

“He’s a pig!” she concluded.

“Good God,” said Bradford, making a face. She wondered if he had found Barrymore as handsome as she once had and was now reconsidering.

“You’re telling me.”

“They’re building him a sort of carousel now in the courtyard for him and Miss Horn to sit on since he can’t stand straight,” Bradford said. “They’re going to film the dance that way.”

“Looks like we’ll be here all night,” said Nelly, her spirits sinking. If she had gone back in time and told the Nelly Foster of last July that the idea of spending prolonged hours in the same room as John Barrymore would cause her intense dread, she wouldn’t have believed herself for a minute.

Her prediction turned out to be true. The clock chimed one before Mr. Taylor had the footage he wanted. Nelly was surprised that the carousel hadn’t made Barrymore vomit, but although he swayed off in the direction of the washrooms several times more, he kept down whatever he had drunk.

She piled into one of the Studebakers with the girls and fell asleep for the brief duration of the ride. Back at the United Artists costume shop, she degowned, redressed, and shoved her aching feet back into her own shoes. She lined up for a streetcar with the other girls and sank wearily into a seat when it opened its doors. It was another forty-five minutes before she was home. By now the hour was two a.m. and she had to be up at five-thirty to catch a tram in time for her seven a.m shift in the prop department. She felt like Perrault’s Cinderella, but the magic had vanished before midnight and she was, all in all, relieved to be among her rags and ashes again. Notes: You can watch Tempest here. John Barrymore really did get so drunk during the ballroom scene that he couldn’t stand. “And when we were dancing together in one scene, he fell down with me on the floor because he was so drunk. So they had to build a carousel affair for us, it was a sort of criss-cross arrangement, and we put our arms around each other, looked deeply into our eyes and somebody moved the carousel around so it looked in the film as if we were lost in each other’s arms.”

-Camilla Horn quoted in Tony Villecco’s Silent Stars Speak: Interviews with Twelve Cinema Pioneers (McFarland & Company, 2001) 32. The same page also quotes Priscilla Bonner as saying that Barrymore picked his nose all the time and his face got red with blotches when he was drunk. I did read somewhere too that he once stumbled into the women’s room by accident. Fun fact: Buster’s later paramour Dorothy Sebastian was originally cast in Camilla Horn’s role! Incidentally, the book cited here also has one actress calling Buster sweet and wholesome.

#Buster Keaton #John Barrymore #fan fiction #RPF #Actor RPF #Golden Age Hollywood #silent film #Camilla Horn

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sneakerlust · 4 years

Text

It had to be today, didn’t it?

Xander grumbled as the rain came down hard, the husky holding a backpack over his head as he walked down the street. The downpour hit hard enough for the busses to have to shut down, with flooding being a real possibility for the part of town he lived in. Still, he had to get home somehow, so if he couldn’t take the bus, he had to walk.

The backpack did nothing to stop the drenching, though, and he felt like he was soaked from head to toe. Particularly toes, as the husky’s shoes were on their last legs, so to speak.

Squish, squelch, squish, squelch went his socks, and he made a face at the disgusting sounds that filled his ears with every step. His paws felt like they were wrinkling up like raisins in the wet socks, and his shoes felt like they were warping and clinging to him like wet clothes.

Which, admittedly, they probably were. The holes in the sole and the rips in the sides were the main reasons that the water was getting in the way it was, and the parts that were still whole had been worn thin over the long time he’d worn them. How long? Probably about three years, considering money had been tight lately.

Just gotta get them home and dry them out. They’ll last for a bit longer…I hope.

He jumped down from the sidewalk, avoiding one puddle onto to splash into a deeper one. The water went up over his ankles, sweeping into his sneakers. The sheer cold and wet left him shivering, and he ran across the street as fast as his feet could carry him, right towards the other sidewalk. He jumped out of the street –

And landed right on a can. Someone’s soda can, probably, tossed out when it was done and crunched under who knew how many feet. However, it was just rough enough along the bottom of his damaged shoe to cut in, and as he slipped along the unexpected obstacle –

Riiiiiip.

His foot came down, and the water was colder than ever. Xander shivered, hopping along on one foot towards a bus stop. Taking shelter under the glass roof, he sat down and pulled his foot off of the ground.

“Oh, fucking fucker fuck…”

The husky glared at the ripped open sole, a hole the size of his palm in the bottom of his shoe. No wonder it had been so cold. The damn thing was completely ruined now. Utterly, completely ruined.

Well…no point in walking home in just one shoe…and with the socks already soaked…

The husky sighed as he sat down, pulling off his other shoe and throwing it in one of the garbage cans. The socks he wore almost went in, but they were still something he could salvage, so they went into his backpack instead. Around all of his books and stuff, of course; college stuff was expensive, even for those people that were using financial aid, like him.

Wet concrete did not feel good under his paws, but there wasn’t much choice. He got back to walking, grumbling and shivering as he went along.

“Oh, come on…”

The muddy-pawed husky finally reached the front door of his house, only to find the door locked. A note on the door told him that his roommates had gone out of town for a concert for the weekend, and wouldn’t be back for a while. They said that the key was in the ‘usual place’, and that meant only one thing.

Squelch, squelch, squelch went his toes through the mucky mud in the yard, going around the side of the house to the backyard. It felt like his toes were being sucked right into the mud, pulled down into it. Every step slid through the slimy, wet stuff, making him feel like he was struggling to keep his balance every which way. He stuck out his tongue at the feeling, shaking his head as he tried not to get soaked any further.

It didn’t work very well. The roof of the house was weirdly sloped, and it was like one of those places in a waterpark, where the water would come down unexpectedly and in great geysers. He was hit in the head four times before he could get to the backyard, and his hair was stuck against his scalp by that point.

At least he’d left his books by the front door, under the shelter of the patio cover. That way, they weren’t getting soaked.

The bare-pawed husky slid along through the backyard, looking under a number of rocks in the ‘garden’ that one of his roommates kept in the back. It was like fumbling through slime, with how wet the ground was. He swore that his feet were getting sucked into the ground just squatting there, his toes swallowed up in mud, and then his feet in general. Like quicksand, almost, except not as dry.

Finally, he found the key, slathered in mud, and stood up. He had to reach down, wrenching one foot out of the ground, then the other, before making his way up to the back door. Big, muddy footprints followed him, leaving marks on the white wood, and he sighed. One more thing to clean up later.

He wiped his feet as best he could on the mat, and then unlocked the door. Going from a downpour to a relatively warm house was…heavenly, to put it mildly, even if his clothes were still clinging to him like some lover that would never let go.

“Hello? Anyone home?”

No answer, but he didn’t expect one after that note. At least it meant he could get dry faster.

Xander pulled his shirt over his head, and threw it onto the floor. His jeans followed, leaving him in a totally soaked pair of briefs. He blushed a bit at the way that it clung to everything, but at least it was better than being freezing in the rest of his clothes.

He jogged through the house to the front door, and opened it just a crack. Nobody was around, but he didn’t step outside. Instead, he fumbled for his bag, reaching for it this way and that, and finally found the strap. He gave it a tug –

Thump.

“Huh?”

Xander blinked a few times. There hadn’t been anything out there when he’d arrived. Had a mailman come by or something?

He tugged his backpack again, letting the door open that little bit further, and saw that there was a box right beside it. Looking back and forth again to make sure that there was nobody that might see him, he opened the door that little bit more to pull it in. Then he shut it tight, and locked it, just in case someone tried to come in later.

Setting his soaked backpack down by the side of the door, he looked over the box. It was pretty plain, with brown wrapping paper and some sort of red ink spelling out his address. Nothing familiar about it, though, and everything looked rather smudged from the rain. No name, either, just the address.

The husky shrugged, taking it to the living room. It was something, at least, and he might as well open it, see whose it was.

Still can’t believe my sneakers burst on the way home…what am I gonna do now? The last bits of money he had were for lunch at school, since it was cheaper than anything here, and he didn’t want to try and borrow money from his roommates. Most of them were better off than he was, either because of a job they’d managed to score or because of more generous parents, but none of them really seemed to get along with him. He was pretty sure it was because they were all sorts of stuck up, though.

He sat down on the couch, paused, and then put a blanket under his rump to keep from soaking the cushions with his drenched clothes. The husky supposed he could finish getting changed, but when would he get the opportunity to enjoy the house like this? It wasn’t like he was a pervert, but there was something freeing about walking around a house in your underwear and nothing else.

Getting a small grin from that, the dog reached down and ripped off the wrapping paper. To his surprise, there was a shoebox inside, dryer than it should have been after sitting in the rain for any length of time, but he wasn’t about to complain. He opened the side of it, and gasped.

Oh…my…god…

Sitting in the box was the best pair of hightop sneakers that he had ever seen. The converse sneakers were a beautiful black and red, something that seemed streaked through the whole design. The red seemed to almost glow, as if it was a glow in the dark material, and he grinned at the thought of how cool that would look when walking around the campus.

But they couldn’t be –

But they were. Exactly his size, even, as if someone had picked them out special for him. It was beyond anything that he had expected.

Did…someone actually do something nice for me? That…that doesn’t sound right. But maybe…

His fingers couldn’t stop stroking along the sides of the shoe, rubbing the soft, smooth fabric that formed the body of them. The shoelaces were surprisingly soft, as well, feeling almost like silk as he ran his fingers from one to another, dragging them along. As he felt along the interior, he started to blush, feeling a different sort of excitement beginning to stir.

Xander pushed at his crotch as he felt his cock rising up, not wanting it to start tending out the briefs he wore, but it was too late. It was like the shoes were turning him on…Which, he admitted, wouldn’t be the first time that had happened. He had a thing for shoes, and sneakers in particular…and these were a really nice pair of sneakers…

“Well…since no one else would get themselves something like this…I’ll just guess that they’re mine.”

After all, it wasn’t like anyone else had a shoe size this big, right? And it wasn’t like anybody would be trying to take it from him after he’d worn them for a few days.

Socks. He needed socks to try them on. Shocked into action, the husky ran back down the hall, leaving the shoes – and that strange red glow – behind.

He returned ten minutes later, his feet washed of all the mud they’d picked up. He’d changed his underwear as well, getting rid of the soaked pair and generally drying himself off as well. He carried a pair of socks in hand, and sat down on the couch, dragging them over his feet. The white cotton felt amazing to him after walking with drenched socks for so long, and he sighed happily as he wiggled his toes at the end of them, taking some extra comfort in the nice pair.

But the real treat was still waiting. Xander smiled at the sneakers, taking them both out of the box and putting them on the floor. They looked fabulous, utterly perfect for him, though…

He paused, looking at them. They seemed a little…different, in some way, compared to how they’d looked in the box. The front of them seemed rounder, almost as if they were made specifically for his bigger toes, for the way that his feet got bigger in the front than they did in the middle or the heel.

But they were normal just a second ago…

Xander shook his head. He had to be imagining it. Yes, magic existed out there, but who had ever heard of magical shoes? It was always in the bigger amulets and stuff like that, things that the magical studies people could actually flaunt around other people. Nobody would make magical –

Mmmmph…someone…there….

The husky jumped to his feet, looking this way and that. The voice had been a gravelly one, not like any of his roommates, and for a second, he thought that someone had snuck in. He stopped himself from covering his crotch like a guilty boy caught jerking off, but he couldn’t see the source of the sound.

“Who’s there?”

Someone…here…Mmmm…someone…good…

“I’m serious! Where are you? Who are you?”

I’m right…here!

Xander yelped as his hands were suddenly grabbed by the same silken laces that he’d been fondling, staring down at the thick white lengths. Suddenly, the sneakers leaped off of the floor, dragging themselves up with the grips they had on his arms, and shoved him back with their soles in his face.

The husky went down without a fight, hitting the couch in pure shock. One of the sneakers landed on his chest, while the other pushed its treads against his cheek.

Heh…so…I got sent to another pervert, did I? Well…looks like the game’s not over yet…

“What the fuck? What the hell are you? This…”

Heh, you’re already getting it, boy. Magic. You know we’re magic.

“But…but how?”

Curses, is how. I should have been able to deal with that mage, should have been able to deal with both of them. But they were clever…Oh, too clever for their own good, though. Sealing me this way…Oh, I’ll have my revenge on them…but first, I’m going to have to get a new body. Something I can use to do what I need. And yours seems just about perfect for that.

“Wait, wait, I’m just a college student. I don’t know anything about magic!”

That’s even better. You won’t be able to fight me.

The shoes leaped back, the laces leaving his arms, but wrapping around his ankles instead. Xander pulled himself up, trying to get off the couch, but the sneakers were impossibly strong. They yanked his legs back onto the cushions, forcing his feet to face towards the other armrest as they forced his toes to point upwards.

Besides, boy, it’s not like you don’t want these shoes…I felt your lust. An incubus can always feel that.

“In – how the hell did an incubus get sealed in a pair of shoes?!”

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tisfan · 4 years

Text

For Want of a Nail

Title: For Want of a Nail Written by: @tisfan 3023 and @27dragons 3033 Tony Stark Bingo Square: (tisfan) May Adopted: Centaur AU Fantasy Bingo (both): Magic is Mundane Rating: teen and up Pairing: Winteriron Triggers/warnings: human/demi-human relationships Tags: centaur au, meet cute, culture discussions, references to abuse Created for: @tonystarkbingo, fantasy bingo

Word count: 3909

Summary: The centaur, Bucky, is traveling to the witch coven to get the herbs needed to alleviate his herd-mate’s cough. On the way, he throws a shoe. Centaurs don’t usually associate much with humans, but what choice has he got?

Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24928297/chapters/60328990

If it had been any other day of the year, Bucky might have been enjoying the weather. It was warm, but breezy, so sweat dried on his flanks, cooling him as soon as it formed. The sun was out, there were some light clouds, and it had rained the night before, so everything smelled sweet and clean.

But it wasn’t any other day of the year. It was two days before the Summer Solstice, he still had more than fifty miles to go, and he’d just thrown a shoe.

He picked the shoe up from the side of the road where it had landed when that last dubious nail had gone wobbly.

The shoe itself was not in terrible shape, but even if he had a hammer and nails -- which he didn’t -- there was no way he was flexible enough to shoe his own rear hoof. He was bendy, but not that bendy. He didn’t even think Natasha was that bendy.

He’d passed a small town about a league ago, and he was pretty sure he’d seen smoke when he passed it, which usually indicated a smithy.

Centaurs didn’t spend a lot of time in human towns, unless they had to. So Bucky had never stopped at the myriad villages and townships along the path from where he and his herd lived in Brooklyn, all the way out to the coven of healers and witches, even though he made the trip four times a year. The herbs Steve needed to calm his cough were rare, and preparing them was even harder. It required a witch. And a sacred holiday.

But there was no way he could run another fifty miles while missing a shoe. He was just going to have to hope that the town did have a blacksmith, that the blacksmith knew how to make shoe nails, and that he knew how to put a shoe on a centaur.

“Haybales,” Bucky swore. He tucked the shoe into his satchel, turned around, and limped back the other way, trying not to put too much weight on his left hind leg, and taking care to not stumble on his right front leg. It was like trying to canter and eat apples at the same time. Possible, but not recommended.

Almost an hour later, he managed to stagger into the village.

People stared at him, and no wonder, as he was moving like a horse with tetany, limping hard to one side, and then to the other.

“Blacksmith?” he demanded of the nearest human who got close enough to him.

“Down that street,” she said, pointing. “Toward the end, you can’t miss it.”

“Thank you,” he said, offering one of the small metal things that humans used. Coins, Bucky’s herd stallion called them. Centaurs didn’t trade in things so useless, so he really didn’t remember the value of them.

Her eyes widened as she took it. “Thank you, sir.”

Right. Bucky shrugged. Apparently the yellow ones were the higher value coins. Stupid, human things. Bucky took a deep breath, trying to ignore the aching in his hocks, and thudded down the human road. It would have been easier to walk in the grass, but humans didn’t put much value in grass. Follow the smoke. And as he got closer, the ringing sound of metal on metal.

Finally, he made it, and all but started to cry of sheer exhaustion, but he wasn’t a colt to cry and wail, so he settled himself as well as he could. “Ho, the blacksmith!”

“Two shakes!” The hammer kept ringing, a slow, steady beat, for another minute or two, and then Bucky heard the loud hiss of hot metal that had been quenched. Another thud and some clattering, and the smith emerged, wiping the sweat from his face. “Aye, what’s the-- Oh!” He stared up at Bucky with suddenly-wide eyes. “Hello, stranger.”

Bucky huffed. He wasn’t so very strange. If anything, the tiny little human who emerged from the smithy was strange, with his goggly eyes stuck in his hair, and the smears all over his clothes and skin, and… well, there was no denying that clothes were pretty strange, in and of themselves. But humans were always wearing clothes, so maybe, to them, centaurs were the odd ones.

“I require the services of a blacksmith,” Bucky said. “And perhaps a farrier.” In centaur herds, the job was the same; work metal into shoes and nails, attach them for their herdmates. But Bucky had heard that some humans worked metal for other things. The centaurs often had to trade for more specialized metal parts and pieces.

“I can fit shoes,” the smith said. He looked Bucky over, sharp-eyed, zeroing in on the unshod hoof. “How long have you been walking on it like that?”

Bucky scowled. “It was loose when I left the herd, but our blacksmith was away. It only kicked free maybe three or four miles ago?”

The smith grunted. “Not too bad, then. Do you need a new shoe? That might take me a little while; centaur hooves are wider than most of the dumb stock our farmers keep.”

“I found it,” Bucky said. He couldn’t have left it behind. Among the herd, he and Steve were the lowest ranking, had the least amount of grazing space. If he’d lost the shoe, he would probably have had to hire the smith to remove the other three and gone shoeless for a season or two while they scavenged for cast off human made items to melt and trade. Steve had nailed the right front shoe on for him a few times when it came loose. He pulled it out of the satchel he wore across his chest. “I have human coin.”

The smith shook his head. “Don’t worry about it; cost of a few nails won’t set me back too far, and you’re pretty enough to be worth it.” He flashed a grin up at Bucky as he took the shoe, running his hands over its worn edges with practiced ease. “What depth?”

Bucky held out one hand, showing off a broad thumb. “The length between this knuckle, and that one.” He kicked out with his left hind leg, groaning a little. “I think the frog’s bruised.” Stupid human roads and their stupid human rocks. He’d known a few of their herd who were able to afford fancy shoes, with a cover that kept rocks and dirt out. But then, some of them ended up lame anyway. Normal shoes did all right for him, and for Steve.

The smith frowned at that. “I’ve got some cream I can put on it that’ll help with the pain. And a pad, too. Come on into the shop, let’s get you fitted. Name’s Tony, by the way.” He glanced at the human-sized door he’d come through, then jerked his head and led the way around the side of the building, to where the smith’s forge was set under a roof with no wall. A hitching post stood to one side of the yard and the dirt had obviously been well-trampled by numerous hooves.

Tony. Huh. Bucky wondered if he was named for how tiny he was. But then, most humans were tiny, comparatively. “Bucky is what I am called.”

Tony twisted past the forge and reached into a barrel to draw out a handful of horseshoe nails. He held them up against Bucky’s shoe to check the fit, one by one. One nail got tossed back into the barrel and another selected. When he was satisfied, he held them out for Bucky’s inspection. “All good?”

Bucky swallowed. “You have a whole barrel full of nails?” Tony must be rich. He’d never selected nails before. They’d usually been made on the spot, the day he needed them, and sometimes driven red-hot into the hoof. Which didn’t hurt, not exactly, but it wasn’t comfortable.

Bucky took up one nail and looked at it. It looked like a centaur shoe nail. “I-- I can’t tell,” he admitted. “I don’t usually look at my own nails.”

Tony shrugged. “Okay. Speak up if it doesn’t feel right, and we’ll figure it out.” He grinned again. “At least I can trust you not to try to kick me.” He reached up on a shelf and grabbed a jar. “This’ll help that bruise.” He tucked the nails and the shoe into the pocket of the leather apron he wore and made his way toward Bucky’s rear, one hand running lightly along Bucky’s side.

That was twitchy, and Bucky found himself flicking his tail at the light touch, as if Tony were a fly he could shoo off. Except, he didn’t really want the light, ticklish touch to stop. Not really.

“I’m not used to humans being so close,” Bucky complained. “But no, I won’t kick you.”

Probably. Assuming Tony didn’t do anything horrible, like pull his tail.

“Oh, sorry!” Tony jerked his hand away. “Habit, that. You have to let horses know where you are if they can’t see you. I’ve only met a handful of centaurs before. Sorry. I, uh-- Okay, can you lift the foot for me?”

Bucky twisted around, trying to see. Tony was right in that blind spot of his, where his own rump got in the way of seeing what was behind him. “Is there a stump?” He usually rested his leg against a leather padded tree stump so the smith could work on it. He picked up his leg, sighing with relief as the pain eased, and was shocked when Tony grabbed his hock and rested it against-- Bucky twisted further, trying to see-- it looked like the human had Bucky’s hoof held between his own thighs.

“Is that how-- you usually do this?”

“Sure,” Tony said easily. “Horses do not like having their legs held up; have to brace them somehow so they stay put while I put the shoe on. Which, now that I think of it, doesn’t make sense for centaurs for like four different reasons. What are you used to?” Bucky couldn’t see exactly what he was doing, but he touched the bottom of Bucky’s hoof, little points of soreness where he was testing the bruise, and then there was something cool on it, like he’d stepped into dewy grass.

So Bucky found himself talking about the smith in his herd -- Rumlow, a big, brawny centaur with a liver chestnut coat. “It’s considered bad manners to kick another herd member,” Bucky told him, matter of fact. “And cowardly to move your hoof while the smith works.” He didn’t mention that he sometimes thought Rumlow took advantage of both of those things to be cruel. Getting shod didn’t have to be painful, even if it was never exactly pleasant.

Case in point: Tony, who rubbed the cream into Bucky’s bruised frog, then carefully fitted the shoe. “First nail’s the hardest,” he said. “I need three hands, I swear-- Okay, going in now; speak up if it doesn’t feel right.�� The shuddery jolt through Bucky’s leg as the hammer struck home, the pressure in his hoof from the nail driving into it. But it wasn’t painful; the nail stopped well short of the sensitive places covered by the hoof. “Okay?”

“Quite well, thank you,” Bucky said. Tony might have needed three hands, but Bucky needed eyes on his tail, he could swear.

“Great!” Tony wiggled the shoe a little, testing its position, then placed another nail. “Off we go, then.”

It didn’t take nearly as long, Bucky thought. Although he wasn’t sure about that; he couldn’t see the sun, so it was nearly impossible to judge the time, but no more than a finger’s worth of shadow had grown before Tony was letting his hoof down with a cheerful, “how’s that feel?”

Bucky took a couple of tentative steps. It was always those few steps that had made him want to kick Rumlow. Hard. In the chest. But everything felt… pretty good, actually. No limping home and getting Steve to bring him a bucket of ale.

He could still use a drink, really. The whole thing was nerve-wracking and made him feel twitchy and shuddery like he’d gotten bitten by flies and needed a spare tail, or some mud to roll in.

“Very well, I thank you again,” Bucky said. He reached for his satchel and pulled out the handful of assorted coins. Sometimes humans would give them to the herd for pieces of their tail. Powerful charms could be made from them, Bucky understood. One winter, when things had been very, very bad, Bucky had plucked almost his entire tail bare to get enough herbs for Steve’s salve. He still had a few coins left from that. “Here, I-- I don’t know what these mean, but humans like them.” He offered the handful to Tony.

Tony shook his head. “It’s fine, really. Save them for the next time you need to trade with humans. The conversation was worth the price of a few nails.”

“You must be very wealthy,” Bucky commented, looking around the shop now that he was shod and feeling better. He probably wouldn’t go completely lame, which was good, and maybe the witches would let him rest at their coven before the long trot back to the herd. There were piles of tools, and stacks of bars. “Are these pure iron?” He touched one of the bars tentatively.

“Those, yes. Those over there are steel.” Tony nodded toward another stack. “Is that what your people trade in? Iron?”

“Iron, yes,” Bucky said, even if he’d never seen so much iron in his life. “And leather. Special wood for our bows. Iron is good. For arrowheads and tools. Awls and hammers and dig-rods. There’s a tool, we have one in our whole herd, that cuts wheat, swish, just like that! With an iron blade.”

“You’re using an iron-bladed scythe?” Tony said. “How... Even our poorest farmers at least have steel scythes.” He glanced around the shop, then stepped into the shadows and came back with a wheat-cutter. Its handle was shaped a little differently than the one the herd had, but the blade was much the same, except for being bright and silvery. “Steel doesn’t wear down as fast as iron,” Tony explained. “Stays sharp longer.”

“Ours--” Bucky said, reaching out as if to touch the shiny blade, but not quite daring to do so. “Ours is dark, and red, and the surface is… has little dings in it. It’s very old. Our herd stallion took it as a trophy of war, some two decades ago.”

Tony sighed a little. “Yeah, that’s not surprising. And if it’s red and pitted, it’s not going to last much longer. Take this one.” He held it out, then frowned and pulled it back. “Actually, I could lengthen the handle, since your shoulders sit a good three or four feet higher than a human’s. Be easier to use with a longer handle.”

“I couldn’t possibly trade for that,” Bucky whispered. “Not even if I picked my tail bare for three seasons.”

“Picked your-- This is a common tool,” Tony said. “Three gold coins -- well, four, if I’m going to change out the handle.”

Four. Of the yellow coins? And Bucky could have a tool that would make him rich-- a wheat-cutter, long enough to use comfortably? He could clear the fields in mere weeks, before the grain rotted and the bugs infested the stalks.

Bucky found a clear space on one of the shelves and started pulling things out of his satchel. A packet of clay-made arrowheads -- Steve had made those one year when they’d had a good fire going -- and several balls of thread, his trail rations, which were mostly just berries and honey, dried until they were sticky bars. There. At the very bottom, he had what was left of the coins, twelve, altogether. “This is what I have.”

Tony leaned in to look. He plucked a few coins out of the small pile, and then picked up the arrowheads, pulling one free of the packet and testing its edge with his thumb.

“Steve usually makes beads,” Bucky said, as if apologizing for the work. “Beads for luck, and beads for good harvest… beads.” He touched the one in his hair that hung there, tiny and beautiful, that was charmed to keep away owlbears, one of the centaur’s greatest enemies. The better the carving on the bead, the better the charm worked, and Steve was an expert carver. “These were-- because we need to eat sometimes, too.”

Tony frowned. “Why wouldn’t you eat? Especially if your Steve makes beads for harvest. Our hedge-witch, who blesses our harvests, she gets a share of every crop as soon as it comes in. More than she could eat in a year, truth told. She gives a lot of it to the orphans’ home.”

“Steve’s-- well, Steve is bad luck. Born under an ill-omen, too early. Sickly. He coughs a lot and has trouble breathing. He’s very slow, too. His legs don’t always work right. We have to pay the herd stallion just to stay in the herd. We wouldn’t be safe, alone. I’d have to leave him alone to hunt and to harvest.” Bucky shuddered. Rumlow had tried a few times to convince him to let the runt go, to leave him behind. But Bucky wouldn’t do that. Couldn’t do that. Steve was his best friend.

Tony looked shocked. “You have to pay to-- That’s awful. You and your-- what, brother? Mate? -- you need a new herd.”

“Steve’s my best friend,” Bucky said, a little defensively. “I don’t even know--” He knew there were other centaur herds, but getting taken in as two unmated males, one of whom was sickly? He doubted it would be easy, and Steve probably wouldn’t live long enough to find one, anyway. As it was, Nastasha and Sam took turns watching Steve when Bucky couldn’t be there. “Maybe next year. I still need to go to the witch coven and get herbs. We’d need a good, long, dry season to even start looking.”

And that didn’t even consider the possibility that, separated from their herd, the owlbears would come. Centaur meat was their favorite, and the owlbears were predation hunters. They would just keep coming, long after a centaur had gone lame.

Tony’s face twisted. “I suppose that makes sense. Still, if you and your friend wanted to come here, we’d help you.”

Bucky blinked. Live among humans. “Why?” he asked cautiously, his tail flicking a few times and his whole lower body sidled a little bit away from Tony.

“Why not? I like you, you seem like a good person. Your friend obviously has some real skill--” Tony held up the arrowhead he’d been fiddling with. “--and the town could always use another good hunter. And, quite frankly, your herd stallion sounds like a dick.”

It wouldn’t take nearly as long to make the trip from the herdlands to the village, Bucky thought. “I will ask Steve what he thinks,” he said. Because Steve had been very outspoken against the herd stallion -- which probably had added to their burden of tithe. And because Steve wasn’t going to live much longer if things didn’t change. Maybe this would be a good change.

“Are we allowed?” Because a human would never be allowed to live among the herd, even if there wasn’t precisely a rule against it.

“Of course,” Tony said. “We’ve got a couple of elf families, and there’s a satyr who works for the tanner, and there’s a clan of dwarves who-- well, they don’t live in town, but they’re pretty close by; they come in all the time to trade with us.” He cocked his head, considering. “Might cause a few problems because the buildings aren’t really designed for anyone with four legs, but we can probably work around that.”

It was worth considering. Bucky nodded. “All right.” He eyed the scythe greedily. “How long will it take, to make these changes? I must be to the coven by the Solstice.”

Tony looked down at the scythe thoughtfully. “You’re on your way out to the coven? Stop by on your way back and it’ll be ready.”

“I shall, then,” Bucky said. He sniffed a bit, and located a bucket of somewhat dirty water. He grimaced, but it was probably better than trying to drink out of the human’s trough they kept. “Can I impose further on a bucket or two of water?”

“Sure, water’s easy,” Tony said. He edged past Bucky to a small covered pit in the yard. He pulled the cover away to reveal a deep well, water sparkling at the bottom. Tony lowered a bucket on a rope and then hauled it back up and offered it to Bucky.

Bucky peered into the well. “Did you-- make this?” Humans were perhaps not so stupid after all. The herd drank from the river, and rainwater when it could be caught up in woven straw buckets.

“Well, not me personally; that well’s been here since before I was born. But I helped one of the farms dig a new well a few years back, so I know how.”

“I don’t think we could do that,” Bucky said. He wouldn’t fit in such a small opening. “But it’s amazing. How convenient for you.”

“Important to have water close by the smithy,” Tony said. “Fire being what it is. I have some ideas for ways to make it easier to lower and raise the bucket, when I have time to build it. Maybe over the winter.”

Bucky drank from the bucket, almost thirty swallows exactly, before handing it back, empty.

“You’re very kind,” Bucky said, “and very clever. Beadwork is not what I do well, but--” He plucked out one hair from his tail and wrapped it several times around his finger, rolling it into a ring. Closed his hand around it and concentrated. It wasn’t much, a simple cantrip that anyone in the herd could do. But when he handed it over, it was a shiny, slender band, the same deep red as Bucky’s coat. “If you have need of my aid, hold this ring and think of me, and I will hear you, and come.”

Tony’s eyes widened as he took the ring. “You’re really-- I mean, this is. I didn’t do that much, you know.”

“It’s cantrip magic,” Bucky said, closing Tony’s hand around it. “Any colt in the herd can do this much. If I show up and you’re facing a parliament of owlbears, I will probably not help you.” He laughed at that joke. No one would want to face a parliament of owlbears.

Tony laughed, too. It was a nice sound. “If I’m facing an entire parliament of owlbears, then I expect I’ll be lunch long before you get to me. Luckily, there aren’t too many near here.”

“No, perhaps not,” Bucky said. “Again, I thank you. I will return for the wheat-cutter in… four days time, barring unexpected delays.” He bowed, hand over his heart, extending one foreleg. Very formal. He rarely bowed to the herd stallion so low, but Tony wouldn’t know that.

Tony echoed the gesture, as well as a being with only two legs could. “It has been my honor to meet you, Bucky.”

“The honor is mine.”

A/n - Grass tetany is a horse illness that causes them to have muscle cramps, general lack of coordination, and “staggering.” It’s usually caused by a nutritional imbalance, or too much time being transported, or stuck in a small stall. Horses need to MOVE AROUND.

#tonystarkbingo2020 #fairytale bingo #winteriron #centaur AU #magic is mundane

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seokiloquy · 4 years

Text

Howl - Kageyama Tobio

AU: Werewolf

Revamp

Word Count: 3.4K+

He could risk his life! What an idea.

Not too risky, though. That was just what he needed. An action that would push him higher in the rankings. A big self-sacrificing, ‘Hoorah!’ moment to seal the deal. The only problem is that there was currently nothing that would help him. Everything was peaceful.

The omega sighed as he stared at the castle he was meant to protect, envious of the wolf that would stay outside the chambers of the princess should a problem arise. He, whoever he was, would see her on a daily basis. Offering her guidance and protection. They were probably best friends with the princess. Did they have tea together, or go horseback riding on Sundays? Maybe they would do watercolour paintings while watching the sunset.

Kageyama slumped against the gate outside the castle. Listening to the never-ending chatter of the posh quests inside. The smell of pastries bening served was overbearing, but it couldn't begin to cover up the smell of roses. The scent that followed the princess around due to her growing them on her window sill. Ah, the princess. Kageyama tried not to slide down the wall as his legs began to weaken.

The princess was to be wed. To whom, no one knew yet. Princes, noblemen, and high standing men of law; all alpha males, arrived with their families in hopes they could win the heart of the King. Yes, the king, for it was his final decision on who would marry his daughter, and thus take away any opportunity Kageyama had to watch her water roses from the palace gates.

Kageyama studied the men that entered the castle. They wore bright colours, mostly royal blues and purples, likely hoping they'd catch the king’s eye. Their hair was either slicked back or scruffy and the clothing they wore was tight-fitting, showing off their superior build, fit for an alpha.

He looked at his own clothing that was made up of silver armour with red fabric to show he was a man of the castle, not royal. Kageyama wished the princess would be wearing the same colour even if it were in small portions. Anything that could connect the two somehow.

The celebration went on and the music played. Kageyama could hear the sound of their shoes tapping on the ballroom floor as the quests danced in circles. He could sleep soundly if the music were to lull him to sleep.

The gates of the castle closed once every guest had entered. Kageyama fastened the lock before leaning against the hard metal and allowing him to doze off, dreaming of the princess.

(Y/N) sat upon her throne observing the guests that had arrived. A sea of blues and purples danced around the room, making mosaic-like waves. The constant twists and turns of the dancers made her look away, dizzy.

Men and women alike were showing off their abilities to transform. Ripping their beautifully made clothing in the process. One man, cocky as can be, strolled up to a competing group of alfas and morphed into his furry form.

The large size of him seemed to have grabbed the king’s attention, as the ruler strolled over and struck up a conversation with the nobleman. The man changed back, his blue clothes were ripped along every stitch but still managed to cling to his body.

(Y/N) stood up from her seat, patted down the off white dress she wore and walked to the room, away from the aggressive crowd. She nodded to her personal guard with a tankful smile as she pushed the door open. The room over wasn't in any better shape. It sported refreshments and music too. Men and women talked, danced around, ate food and competed. The royal heaved and walked further until she had made it to a secluded room. Her own room. Where the only sound coming from the party was the faint chatter of the guests a fair bit away.

"Finally," she sighed in content. "They were too loud."

She strolled over to the side of the room and sat on the window sill, playing with the rose petals. Her eyes trailed along the path that led out of the castle, wondering what would be on the other side of the stone wall at the village not too far away.

Her vision landed on a figure leaning on the gate, red colour showing he was a man under her authority. She stared down at him from the window curiously, before a loud crash resonated in one of the busy rooms.

"Too loud," She groaned, looking at the now torn petal between her fingertips that dyed her skin a bright red.

"But princess, if they weren't loud. They would hear you scream."

"Bring me the knight with a keen sense of smell."

The king sat at his throne trying to stay as calm as possible. His hands shook as he gripped the armrests of his golden seat. The party guests huddled together and looked around nervously. Some wailed in fear as others just shook and clung to another.

"I will not rest until my daughter is found."

The butler at his side gave the king a firm nod, handing off his work to another as he ran off in search of the head knight.

Kageyama turned over in his sleep, hitting his head against the stone wall. He groaned in pain before settling back in his awkward position. The knight’s quarters weren’t so bad. Although they were only meant for a temporary or single night stay. Kageyama should really look into his own space.

"Kageyama."

Kageyama turned over again giggling slightly at the voice, "oh, princess you flatter me."

"Kageyama," they said again, poking his scratched forehead.

"Stop it. That tickles." Kageyama laughed again.

"Sir Kageyama, wake up. The king wishes to speak to you." A fellow knight shook Kageyama by the shoulder attempting to wake him up.

Kageyama giggled again before bolting awake as if he had a nightmare. Looking to his comrade from the corner out of his eye he let out a low grumble.

"We will never speak of this again."

"Never planned on it."

Sighing, Kageyama stood up dusting off the dirt his uniform collected from laying in the dirt of the old bed. He let out a yawn before fully turning to the other knight. He began to attach the metal pieces of his armour together as he spoke.

"So," he yawned again. "What's the problem?"

Kageyama stretched as his friend fiddled with various parts of his uniform.

"The princess has been kidnapped sir. The king is in need of your assistance."

Kageyama froze mid stretch, eyes wide.

"Princess? Kidnapped?"

"Yes, the king wishes to speak with you," the knight nodded. Before the knight could do anything further, Kageyama had morphed into his omega form, ripping apart the cloth parts of his uniform in various places and sprinted in the direction of the throne room.

When Kageyama ran in he saw the people he let in earlier that night grouped together in the many corners of the circular throne room. Reversing his transformation and patting parts of his armour back in their rightful place, he approached the king.

At the steps in front of the king’s throne, Kageyama took a knee and lowered his head to the ground.

"You wished for my presence?" he asked.

The king nodded and sat straighter in his seat. Lifting his chin higher as he looked down at the low ranking knight. He was expecting more, Kageyama thought as he caught the motion in his peripheral vision.

"I'm sure you've been informed of the predicament we have on our hands."

Kageyama nodded, keeping a straight face and not speaking a word.

"You have a strong nose, correct?"

Kageyama nodded again, not lifting his eyes from the king’s pristine shoes. Oh just thinking of the price of those made his stomach churn with jealousy. His stooped position before the king didn't stop others from staring at the interaction. The king and his knight, well not his per se, but Kageyama hoped that these onlookers thought highly of him for being requested directly. Even so, Kageyama could feel the worried stares of the party guests on his back.

"You must have known I ordered you here for a reason. You will lead the hunt to find the princess and her captor."

Kageyama ran plans through his head as soon as he was told. He breathed in, smelling the scent of the many people in the room and the food that was served to them. Oh he just wanted to take a bite. Refocusing, his mind drifted to a light smell of roses.

"Prepare in any way you need. The castles supplies should suffice—"

"No need." Kageyama interrupted. Noticing his mistake he apologized profusely and lifted his head.

"I've already gotten a trace of the princess's roses. If I were able to follow it, it should lead to the princess."

The king stared at Kageyama questionably and said, "My daughter has roses?"

"You won't get away with this."

(Y/N) sat tied up in the back of a carriage that was headed in any direction that wasn't toward her castle. The castle’s bright lights were visible but slowly falling behind the horizon as they got further away.

"Oh, but princess, I already have. Your kingdom hasn't had a proper hunter for decades. No one will be able to sniff you out. Your people are too... bland to have any specialties."

The princess grunted in disgust, "My people are peaceful and have no need for any strong abilities. They have them, but there is no need for their use. They are all too kind."

"All except one." the man said pointing to himself.

(Y/N) looked him in the eyes trying not to back down and sent a snarl his way. Her canines were delicate, having not been sharpened through labour like the knights of her kingdom.

"You are not one of my people."

Not scared at all and feigning a look of innocence, the man placed a hand on his chest. "Oh, princess you wound me. Think of all the times we had together."

"I'd rather not, thank you. Any memories we had together now only make me feel disgusted to have been in your presence for so long." (Y/N) looked outside of the carriage to see the never-ending woods.

"Oh, but dear (Y/N) you surely could never forget your favourite guard."

She huffed, grinding her teeth in the process as she tried to fight off tears. “You are the worst kind of person.”

"Hinata, slow down. We aren't going to the park, we're finding the princess."

Hinata ran toward a clearing after the deep forest. Sitting down in the middle of the road he took a deep breath.

"We've been searching for days! When will it end?!"

"When we find the princess. Now come on, the scent is much stronger now."

Hinata, despite his small stature, was a beta with incredible speed that was never utilized at his post. The two made an odd pair, never having the chance to interact with each other besides on the odd rotation when they were in their dorm at the same time. When the king had given Kageyama the choice of what resources he could need, the knight’s first thought was the hyper attacker.

“Over there.”

Coming up to what looked like a run-down village, the two knights snoop around in hopes that Kageyama would find the strengthening scent of the princesses roses.

Kageyama walked by multiple houses with Hinata until they arrived at the last door of the village.

The building was large and had greenery growing from any nook and cranny that was open. Pushing the door open, the two got into a predatory stance, morphing into their animal selves. Kageyama followed his nose up the steps and to an open door.

"What magic do these bonds have? I can't transform."

Princess.

"A spell from a local witch. She was willing to help with the right price. A debt I’ll have no struggle repaying with you here. Now what shall we start with? How about we go easy and take out your hair of yours."

The unfamiliar voice rang through the knight’s ears as he looked through the door. A man wearing a similar uniform to his own stood in front of a tied-up princess. Kageyama stared at her for a moment, taking in her beauty. Even tied up she's still beautiful.

When the princess noticed his presence however she made eye contact and tried to convey a message without words. It was fairly straight forward.

Help.

Pushing his way into the room and Hinata tailing behind him, Kageyama pounced onto the culprit and bit into the side on his shoulder.

The man screamed in pain and stepped away from the girl, toward the shattered window. Hinata morphed back normal and undid the rope holding (Y/N) hostage. He swung her onto his back running away as quickly as he could down the many levels to the exit to keep her safe.

Kageyama stared at the man in front of him and growled. The man laughed at the knight and bent down.

"Heya wolfie, wanna play?" he lifted up a piece of broken wood and bounced it in his hand before tossing it out the window. "Go fetch."

Noticing Kageyama’s unmoving form he sighed. "Not one for games huh, well let's do this then."

His body began to transform into an Alfa sized wolf that clawed at the ground, leaving marks on the stone floor. He was big, really big. Towering over Kageyama, making him look like a dog in comparison. A small, scared dog.

"Don't worry princess. You're alright now."

Minutes passed as Hinata tried to call the now restless and worried royal. He gripped her shoulders gilding her through slow breaths that she just barely managed to gasp through. She was ragged and worn. Hinata tried to dust off her clothes while holding her still, but she shook and grasped at the open air, desperate to get to the door she was just pulled out from

"But he's in there and in danger. I need to save—'' A sudden crash of glass rang through the empty village and made (Y/N) shriek loudly before going deafly quiet. She held Hinata’s arm in a death grip. He turned around to face where the noise came from.

Staring at the door, the two held each other in hopes that both they and the knight inside were safe. When Kageyama limped through the broken door, armour ripped and dented in various places, (Y/N) couldn't help but let out a broken sigh through the relieved tears. She buried her scratched face into Hinata’s arm.

"My knight in shining armour."

"Report."

"He's gone, sir."

Hinata and Kageyama stood in front of the King, both on a knee. The princess was escorted to her chamber after trying to thank the knights again, the scent of roses following after her. That didn’t make it easy for Kageyama to pay attention to the king.

"Good. It's a shame though. Oikawa was a great knight. We trusted greatly, too greatly it seems," The king said as he rested against his seat, letting his chin droop as he looked at the two knights.

"You two are dismissed, but be up early tomorrow. I wish to speak with you further."

The knights nodded as they stood. A creak was heard from the door (Y/N) had previously left. No wonder Kageyama felt woozy, she hadn’t actually left.

"Father? May I speak to you?"

The king nodded and the knights were waved off, heading to rest in their rooms.

"Darling what is it?" the king asked, sending off the rest of the knights in the room with a wave of his hand. It went quiet for a few seconds after the last door closed until (Y/N) spoke up.

"Promote them. Both of them."

(Y/N) sat on her heels as she looked up at the king.

"They are two low ranking knights, omega and beta that have shown great bravery and deserve to be of higher level. Please, father, make them alphas in the knight rankings."

Her father leaned forward, placing a hand on her head.

"I'll do you one better."

(Y/N)’s brow furrowed as she hurried up to her room. Kicking her heels off at the door she patted her way to the windowsill. The roses looked a little sad, drained of energy. With a light huff, she quickly grabbed the small watering pail in the corner of the window, drizzling the small flowers. The front gate of the castle had a lone guard standing tall. It wasn’t the one she recognized. With a disappointed sigh, the princess set down the pale and dropped off the windowsill.

The next morning (Y/N) was dressed in a bright red dress that trailed behind her. She was escorted down to the main room where the thrones sat and rested next to her father in place of the queen.

"Are you prepared?"

"I'm not sure what to be prepared for."

The king laughed and the door of the castle opened with a flick of his hand.

"Everyone welcome. Please be seated. Our guests will be here soon." The crowd dispersed among the rows of chairs that had been set in positions.

"Guests? Father what gues—-"

"Bring in the knights!"

The king sat back in his seat and asked a page that had been waiting for his sword.

"Father what are you—"

"Ah. The heroes of our kingdom. Please come forward."

(Y/N) turned her head to the side entrance where Hinata and Kageyama stood in royal armour. New armour and was clean and free of any dents or scratches with vibrant red under layers.

They made their way to the steps of the thrones and took a knee, shoulders touching. "When you said you needed to speak with us I didn't think there would be an audience," Hinata commented with a laugh.

The king laughed as well and stood from his seat holding his weapon tightly.

"You need to follow tradition. Such an event shouldn't go without the kingdom to watch." The king’s arms spread wide, gesturing to the people observing.

(Y/N) shook in her seat, afraid of what her father would do. Behead them? After such an act of bravery? Your father couldn't be that cruel.

"Heads down boys. This will be done properly."

Oh, he definitely could.

He raised his sword in the air high above his head. Light streaming through the window reflected off of the royal weapon sending beams of light in every direction. Without warning, his arms swung down taking the weapon with them, and towards the knights who had saved his daughter’s life.

"Father!"

The shining sword made contact with the knights and any light that had been absorbed into it was sent out in a gliding flash that everyone cowered away from.

Once it faded however, the people in the open room turned their heads to the scene.

Instead of what they thought would be a gruesome and bloody act, there were two large wolves bowing their heads to the panting king.

“Lord, I am not as young as I used to be,” he coughed.

The one smaller than the other, had orange specks throughout their scruffy mane, while the other was pure black and practically towered over the smaller. The king handed his sword back to his mage and took a step toward the wolves.

"Rest easy, knights."

Following his words the two wolves morphed back into the knights that wore the royal armour of the kingdom.

(Y/N), like the audience, had expected a horrific scene and hid away in her throne. Not looking at the new alphas of the kingdom's guard.

The king rested a shaking hand on Kageyama’s shoulder and patted slightly.

"That took too much energy. (Y/N) is shaken, I suggest you comfort her."

He began to walk for the exit before turning back around.

"She must be married soon. I expect you to follow my command and do so, you have my blessing."

And with that, the king left to rest. Leaving the safety of his daughter in the hands of a newly made alpha.

1st oneshot of the Revamps, which are just old oneshots from years ago that Kiwi and I decided to edit and update. -Bacon

Posted: 03/08/2020

#Haikyuu x reader #kageyama tobio #kageyama x reader #Haikyuu #x reader #oneshot #oneshots #haikyuu oneshots #haikyuu reader insert #reader insert #aus #haikyuu aus #fluff #haikyu #anime x reader #anime #manga x reader #manga

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fairygal11 · 3 years

Text

Monkie Kid Rper Wanted: Here is My OC Intro and Ideas

Monkie Kid Episode: Fox Magic It was another day in The City, a modern technological city. The citizens were going about their usual business, cars passing down their respected streets, teenagers playing at the Anti-Gravity Arcade, children playing in the park. Holographic advertisements that displayed on different rooftops around the city, not to mention the different culinary shops that were scattered around different parts of the metropolis. In the very center of the city, a young lady stared in awe at the wondrous kingdom she found herself in. Her pink eyes sparkled with bewilderment as her jaw almost dropped to the ground. She wore a chique blue cheongsam top with white cherry blossoms scattered around that matched with her blue jeans, but her shoes were pink to match with her hair. The only thing unusual about her ensemble was the blue hat on her head with a pair of “ears” on them and a white tail that swayed behind her, but she tried to keep it still from her excitement. Jia: So this is the City......It’s way bigger then I’ve ever imagined it to be....So many people, so many buildings....:She walked down the street, hoisting up her bag a bit which appeared to be a tad heavy for her like she was going on a camping trip.: A city this big must also have a wide selection of book shops scattered about....gasppp~Or maybe a library-A city like this must have more then one library. As she stopped at a nearby traffic light, waiting for the light to change so to cross, she paused to stare down at a strange-looking bracelet that was on her left arm. It was a beaded Jade bracelet, yet each one was inscribed with ancient writing on each little bead. Her excited smile shrunk to a small one upon staring at the accessory, placing her hand over it as if it was a terrible scar she did not want anyone to see. When she heard the ding of the traffic light change to “Walk”, she started walking slowly to get to the other side while deep in her thoughts.

My OC Is Jia Li she is a teenager around MK and Mei's age. She is a fox spirit. She can turn into a human, but she can't hide her ears or tail (Though she has 9 nails, but one is only shown. 9 tails when in her true fox form.) so she wears a hat to cover her ears and her tail is the only thing that sticks out-although if discovered on tail and ears she will lie that it is cosplay. She's a teen and is quite powerful, but she keeps her powers to herself for she doesn't want to be the center of attention or cause any harm or mischief to those around her. She wants to carve her own path than the ones her family has forged with their history of tricks and wickedness. She is afraid that people will not like her or resent her for being a fox spirit, all she wants is to be treated normally and like any other person. Most of all she wants to find a place of belonging while learning to hone her skills and learning to control her "other self"-She wears a Sealing Bracelet to keep her other self under check-mostly because for a fox spirit like her she rejects her mischief side and doesn't want to do bad stuff. If the bracelet is ever removed or she realizes it is gone, it will alert her other self and her other self takes over in the name of Rei. When this happens her pink/white tail and ears turns red/black to indicate Rei's arrival and her eyes change from pink to red.

she is friends with MK and Mei along with the crew. :3 Course the first episode in the game introduces her coming to THE CITY to start a new life-she comically runs into MK when he is on a noodle delivery run and neearly crashes her but turns and crashes into some trash cans. :3

ANyway Jia apologizes for the incident, but MK would say its cool and he notices he hasn't seen her around the city before and Jia says she's new and so MK decides to show her around while finishing his deliveries :3 He takes her back to the noodle shop and introduces her to his friends. :3

The first episode is MK and Mei showing Jia the fun stuff of the city and then deciding to throw her a welcome party on Sandy's Boat :3

Although during a game of volleyball-MK is hit in the face by the ball and falls overboard, Jia jumps in, but accidentally turns into her full Fox Form to get him out-When she realizes the odd looks she sees her reflection in something and shapeshifts into a falcon and flies off, but not before MK notices a bracelet she left behind when she dashed off.

Fearing that her friends will resent her for being a fox spirit, she takes refugee in a nearby abandoned theater, only to run into Yin and Jin and upon explaining her troubles to them, and being the tricksters that they are, convince Jia that MK and his pals knew she was a Fox spirit and wanted to lower her guard so to destroy her. They tell her that spirits and demons should stick to being friends with their kind. :3

Of course Jia believes this, but the brothers extend their friendship to her to be their friend and show her how REAL FRIENDS have fun-which turns out to be tricks and pranks which Jia resents deeply, but begins to find it fun to her surprise yet later discovers she lost her bracelet that keeps Rei in check and upon realizing it she transforms into her dark half-Rei. (The clothes also transform too to fit the color scheme) Rei thanks the boys for making Jia realize her bracelet was gone upon having fun with "harmless pranks" and wants to repay them by showing them how a REAL TRICKSTER does it. This causes Rei to use her Fox Magic around town and causing some chaos which alerts MK and his pals.

Upon learning "Jia" is responsible, Mk would try to get her to calm down and come back to them, but discovers it isn't Jia at all as Rei tells him that Jia was her goody goody half and the bracelet kept her from taking control of the sweetie pie. Then she says that he and his friends lied to her about being friends and want to destroy or seal her away because she is a fox spirit. And of course MK would be like, "What? Jia-Rei....Uh....Fox Girl, why would you think we'd want to harm our new friend just because she's different"?

And this will confuse Rei/Jia when she listens to MK's speech about how its okay to be different and just because she is a fox spirit doesn't mean that they hate her, they find it pretty cool and even compliments on her ears and tail. Thsi will allow Jia to gain some control over Rei upon a blush and when telling him what the Demon Bros told her, he tells her that they lied to her and friends never lie to one another.

Realizing MK and even when Mei chims in about how they like her for her, MK holds out the bracelet he found that she left behind. Touched by his act of kindness, she places the bracelet back on and reverts back to normal and reconciles with her friends and uses soem of her fox magic to fix the damage and scare the Gold and Silver demons :3

Of course this would cause the two brothers to be smitten with Jia in the next episode after the events of the first. Course this causes some sibling/love rivalry between the brothers as to wanting to win Jia's affection and comical antics take place. :3

That's what I got for a good intro episode for her :3 Plus I figure if Jin and Yin's hideout is an abandoned theater-they are tricksters and probably performers.

Also imagine how they'd scare Jia when she takes refugee in there :3 I imagine she gets scared and loses composure of her human form and reverts to her fox form.

I mean some stuff is WIP but I kinda picture it like that-ya know introvert fox spirit first time in big city, meets new pals, accidentally reveals her true form when rescuing a friend, falls into bad crowd when running off, causes some havoc, friends talk her out and reconcile is involved :3

And yeah-Jin and Yin are tricksters as we know, but also performers and they do have creative ideas and their hideout is a rundown theater :3

Plus you saw the size of that scheme book-that is like 500 years worth or more in it.

Course they should work on their steps a bit more on schemes

This is just a sample of an incredible story that is yet to be written, yet to be told and a mysterious introvert bookworm with a secret to be revealed. This little intro to a episode in progress introduces a Fox spirit named Jia Li. Uh huh....that's right THIS IS JUST A sample of my work. Of course it is a challenge to write what I got in mind. That is why I am looking for a writer who would love to collab with me on bringing Jia and my ideas and also their ideas to life in a fun game For this girl is looking for fun, creativity, flexibility and the writing prowess to make this into something more. So who among you writers finds my intro to Jia intriguing and wants to collab? Also if you wanna hear more....well BUCKLE UP. I got a good sum on this little number Soooo~Now that I dished out some hot, steamy potstickers of deliciousness and awesomeness. What do you think? :3 Anyone wanna collab and role play? Message me here or contact me on deviantart under Fairygal11 or on discord under Truffula Ghost (#9884).

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dammitadolfnomorecake · 4 years

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Once Bitten, Twice Stupid prt.69

Never had Keith gone about an investigation the way Lance did. The Pidge was strong in his boyfriend, as was the “teacher” vibe. Coloured Markers, corflute boards, budget printer print-out photos of Lotor and his gang, contrasting against the photos of the crime scenes that Shiro had fetched for them. Curtis’s idea of supplies hadn’t been up to Lance’s standards, so Lance had done some online shopping then picked up the order, as well as far too many snacks. Keith kind of thought it was over kill. His boyfriend’s room wasn’t big enough for everything, as it was Keith was squashed between Shiro and Curtis on Lance’s bed. Blue was smacking marker lids across the floor, jumping out to knock down a new marker each time one was taken away from her. Kosmo was snoring on the bed, he’d tried pulling one of Lance’s pillows apart, a sock sacrificed to keep the puppy busy.

Pacing back and forth, they’d lost Lance in the crime scene files. Lance was processing, pausing to ask the occasional question as he read, and drank from the bag of blood he’d tucked into his top pocket. Keith worried that Lance shouldn’t be on his feet, but he couldn’t point that out. His boyfriend was so busy pacing that he shouldn’t notice each time Shiro dug his elbow into Keith’s ribs, or Curtis passed over a snack, he’d fix them with a stare for a moment, before going back to reading. For a team briefing, the three of them were useless, all they could do it wait... awkwardly. Keith wanted to pull Lance into his lap and tell him to rest. He felt like maybe this was too much. That maybe he’d put too much pressure on Lance and Lance wasn’t actually reading the documents before him, and was actually procrastinating breaking up with him because he’d known he’d eaten literal trash. He hadn’t told him he’d nearly ended up a vampires dinner and that was how Shiro had found him.

Shiro caved first. For all his patience, his brother could be pretty impatient

“Lance, are you going to talk to us?”

“We have been”

Keith sucked his lips in to hide his smile. It’d been a while since Lance used that line on him

“No, you’ve been asking questions and making a hole in the floor”

“Ahhh, but we did talk, did we not. I think I want to see the bodies? Can I see the bodies?”

That wasn’t what Keith expected. Lance was gentle and piece loving person... a dead body kind of stuck with you... as did the smell

“Hold up. Why don’t you tell us what you’re thinking first?”

“I’m thinking that this was an amateur... No. someone trying hard to look like one. We know they’re not human, a human couldn’t take on a wolf like this. Each of them had to be lured. A vampire and a wolf is difficult, we’ve got egos. Even a lowly vampire has an ego. Top quality blood is a myth, selling dodgy blood to pick a fight is a possibility. We’ve all gotta eat and bad blood is bad for everyone involved... but you guys have already thought of all this...”

Keith tried not to stare at Lance. His boyfriend might be a lawyer, but he’d make a hell of a teacher too. He just had that aura about him right now. Tall, shoulders back, the way Keith kind of felt like a kid again...

“I don’t think Coran would give us access. There’s autopsy reports...”

“Yeah, but there’s some things you can’t get a from a photo. Scent, size, that kind of thing... that’s okay. It was just an idea, any scents probably wore off by now. Do we know how long Lotor’s been here?”

“From talking to him, about a month. Do you think he’s involved?”

Lance raised an eyebrow

“He’s not the killer. Can you imagine him messing up his dress shoes with a lowly vampires blood? He’d probably be insulted at the thought, and make them scrub his shoes clean before they expired. If he’s behind it, he would have sent a minion. You can Google up a thousand pages on how to kill a vampire. Nah. Not him. Axca is thinking of turning on him. She’s not happy and you can see it. She’s probably been pushed to the outside, there’s a difference between her and Lotor. Narti clearly lets her ego get the better of her. Ezor and Zethrid are dating. I’d say that’s pretty much the pecking order”

Shiro let out a whistle as he crossed his arms. Kosmo thought he was wanted as he started nosing between the pair of them, his nap interrupted. Shifting enough, his pup climbed into his arms

“You haven’t even met them”

“Don’t need to. Can we go to the park? Where the werewolf and vamp was found?”

“Why?”

“I want to take a look around?”

Lance stated it like it was obvious

“We searched...”

“I wanna get a feel for it. Use these spooky vampire senses on mine”

Lance wiggled his fingers, Shiro bringing up a hand to cover his face

“This isn’t a joke”

“No, if it was a joke, it’d be Professor Plum with a candlestick in the sewers”

Keith didn’t get the reference, but it made Curtis laugh. Looking at him, Lance sighed

“Babe, it’s from Cluedo. Shiro, how could you have not played Cluedo with him?”

Because they weren’t really board game people?

“Don’t look at me”

“I am looking at you. Fiiiiine. Can we at least do drivebys?”

“Why?”

“Because I’m trying to understand? How else am I supposed to help?”

“You’re not a hunter...”

Lance waved his hand at Shiro, like he was shooing him

“Hunter, smunter. You sound like Keith. I’m going to tell you the same thing I told him, you’ve got a team of supernatural people around you who want to help. We don’t know shit on SmallDick, only that I want to punch him and he’s Zarkon’s dog who’s hear to bring back the prodigal son. Blah. Shiro, you should totally talk to Matt and Rieva. Rieva said some pretty concerning things about Honerva being on the nuts side. Out of everywhere in the damn world... Nope. Never mind, Allura is pretty unforgettable, though Lotor has rocks in his head if he thinks she’ll be wooed so easily”

Shiro leaned in, loudly whispering

“He does this a lot, doesn’t he?”

“Yep. He didn’t warn you, but anyone judgmental gets punched in the dick and sent out into to hall”

Lance cleared his throat, reaching over, he plucked up a piece of paper from in front of his laptop

“Excuse you, you heathens. I made a sign”

He had indeed. “Free Dick Punches For Judgemental Douches”. Keith tried not to laugh. The orange writing in very neat cursive that didn’t look threatening at all. Especially not when there was a smiley face in yellow at the bottom of the page. Curtis raised his hand, Lance pointing at him

“What?”

“You’re not going to keep everything about the investigation in here, are you?”

Lance shrugged

“Why not?”

“Because we still need to fit Coran, Allura, Matt and Rieva in here”

Lance opened his mouth and closed it. Only Curtis was brave enough to point that out

“Curtis has a point. We can’t uninclude them”

“We’re not. We were just... ugh. I don’t want to leave everything upstairs where anyone could see it. We need a secret headquarters”

Lance had gone slightly crazy. Pidge’s kind of crazy. Talking too fast, thoughts a million miles an hour, crazy. They were literally inside a kind of secret headquarters. His boyfriend had used up too much of brain and needed to calm down

“Babe... You’re talking really fast again. No more permanent markers, or whiteboard markers. Curtis is right. We have a conference room for a reason. I like that you wanted me to feel safe, but if we’re going to be a team, we need everyone’s opinions”

Lance frowned at him, crossing his arms

“You didn’t raise you hand”

Shiro elbowed his side

“Yeah, Keith. You have to raise your hand”

He was not being teased by the pair of them. He didn’t sign up for that

“Fuck off. Lance and I will go to the park, while you two move all this stuff to the conference room. Or maybe ask Coran if there’s a storeroom we can use. We’re likely to be laughed at by the Blades for Lance’s use of colour if any of them saw this”

Lance looked scandalised

“My use of colour is on point. I’m not afraid to punch them in the dicks”

God. Okay. Lance needed out before Shiro started pointing out the flaws in his plan... like some members not having dicks. Standing up, Keith moved to take Lance’s hand as he cradled Kosmo against his chest with his busted hand

“Babe, we’re going. You know we talked about this”

Lance stumbled, lightly resisting being tugged along

“I knooooow, but every time I think about them hurting your feelings I want to hit them... and it makes me more determined to work this out without them”

He’d encountered determined Lance before... Determined Lance could definitely be determined, but Keith was briefinged out

“And we will... just... after we take a break and get some fresh air. I think your high or something”

Lance pulled out of his hold, crossing his arms again

“I’m not “high or something”. I’m Lance, and I think you’re fine...”

Oh lord... Now Shiro was chuckling at Lance’s dad joke. Curtis pointed out

“Keith’s right. You have grown more animated”

Lance frowned down at his pocket, pulling the bag out, he sniffed at it

“I think the blood is super fresh. When it’s really fresh or I’ve drunk too much, it’s all buzzy and my ego gets huge. Am I being weird? I feel like I’m being weird”

Lance was always kind of weird

“Yes, babe. You’re being weird. Now we’re going to take a walk and then we’re going to go for a drive”

“If we’re going for a drive, we need my keys. Our precious fur son is not going on that bike of yours”

Keith took a deep breath, before slowly releasing it. Fresh blood was like caffeine for Lance... Too much “caffeine” meant too much “ego”. Too much “ego” meant a Lance acting without thinking. He’d take Lance and Kosmo to the park, where hopefully Lance would burn off some energy...

#once bitten twice stupid #oncebittentwicestupid

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suntumarchive · 3 years

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A commission for @cafesotenbori ! Thank you so much~

Fandom/s: Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure Character/s: Yoshikage Kira x gender- and appearance neutral victim Kink/s: Fearplay, vore CW: Graphic swallowing, implied fatal

Plot: Yoshikage Kira is an unmarried man, and he has no intention of changing that anytime soon. But sometimes, going on “dates” is a great way to get to know his freshly chosen victims... especially when he invited them over for “dinner”.

___

Dark, heavy rain clouds weighed down on the peaceful city of Morioh, and enveloped the buildings in a grey haze, as if they wanted to warn the inhabitants of the approaching storm coming in from the south. Occasionally, thick rain drops landed on the still warmed up asphalt streets, causing ghostly swabs of mist to creep up from the ground. The low rumbling of Kira’s stomach cut through the gloomy silence like a sword, and he checked his wristwatch for what felt like the millionth time. Did his date decide to just not show up in that weather? That would truly be a shame… He’d been looking forward to having them over for dinner.

Eventually, though, the man was pleased to see their silhouette in the distance, getting closer in a rather hasty manner. Clearly they wanted to protect themselves from the downpour, which would soon hit the area of Morioh where the villas were located. Yoshikage Kira gestured towards his house, and greeted them with a small chuckle.

“Looks like you barely made it in time!”, he made it sound like he was talking about the rain, but honestly, there was a slight sense of anger inside him about how late they were. Kira was someone who liked it when everything was tidy and smooth, and being two minutes late was something he personally couldn’t condone. He always made sure to arrive at least five minutes early. But in his 33 years of age, he’d very often experienced that other people weren’t living their lives the same way he was… and it made his fingernails itch for murder. If nobody else was going to do it, it was up to him to get rid of the vermin among humanity, and keep Morioh as beautiful and peaceful as it should be.

“I’m so sorry, my bus was a little late”, his visitor panted, and shot him a bit of an awkward smile as they approached his house with him. Kira knew he was obligated to forgive them, but he found himself staring at the wetness that was pooling on their forehead, debating if it was sweat or rainwater… would he have to wash them…?

“Please, no need to apologize… a few minutes don’t make a big difference, do they?”, Yoshikage smiled and took his shoes off before entering the building… luckily, his date was smart enough to do the same, or he’d have gotten pretty pissed off.

Just the thought of having them in his home made him pretty uncomfortable… Kira glanced down at his fingers, and noticed his nails had already grown several millimeters from the stress. He felt disgusted… every time he let vermin into his house, he was extremely relieved once he erased them entirely. The unlucky person who happened to be the “vermin” Kira had laid his eyes on looked around his house with great curiosity, eyeing the furniture and decorations… Hm, surprisingly simplistic. The man was quick to gently pull them aside, and guide them to his living room.

“I’m so happy you made it”, he insisted.

“Please, have a seat while I prepare dinner for us.”

“Wonderful! Thank you, Yoshikage!”, the person plopped down on the couch rather loudly, making the office employee cringe inside. He hated being called by his first name by anyone but his father. Once again, his fingers began to itch, and he had to remind himself of why he was doing this… he had to stay calm if he wanted this to go smoothly. This kind of stress wasn’t good for him… Yoshikage needed to avoid anything that would cause him to lose sleep at night at all costs. He wanted his life to stay nice and quiet… inviting vermin to his house was the closest he’d ever get to committing risky murders.

But admittedly, he felt kind of excited thinking about the part that was still waiting for him… the best part of tonight. Dinner. He’d share an appetizer with his unwelcome date, mix a carefully prepared shrinking potion into their food, and have them as a little snack before the main course. He hummed to himself as he removed a wisp of blond hair from his face, and skillfully cracked open the top of the soft boiled egg he’d made before… Half of the still runny yolk was removed, and replaced with a few drops of the potion. Luckily, only a sip would be enough for his visitor to shrink to the size of a little mouse. Once again, he felt his stomach growl as he toasted the bread that he’d serve with it. Kira hushed his own belly and almost lovingly ran his hand across it.

Just be patient, my dear…

Before his visitor could snoop around his home any more, the serial killer brought the appetizer with the added potion to the table. He’d cut the bread up into even slices, and even brought a bowl for the shell, and a tiny spoon in the perfect size to eat the inside of the egg without spilling anything. His guest was pleased to see this, and chuckled lightheartedly.

“Oh, how cute! Thank you, Yoshikage!”

Once again, his first name... He dug his nails into his thighs as he sat down, hoping to prevent them from growing again this way. His urge to kill was almost unbearable at this point, and he found himself eyeing their throat, wishing to see blood gush out of it.

“Of course. I hope you enjoy. The soup will be finished soon.”

They seemed to be satisfied with that… Kira stared at their fingers as they broke the bread and dipped it into the egg… It felt like ages until they finally brought the slice towards their mouth and started eating. Yoshikage felt terribly on edge, like he was just waiting for something to spill… that would probably be what would cause him to spill as well.

“So, I take it you like to cook? Since you know, we could have just gone to a restaurant too! Not that I mind when you cook for me, don’t get me wrong! In fact, it’s nice to be here with you and not have to worry about the rain!”

“Please, be careful with the yolk, or you’re going to spill it all over yourself.”

Once again, the killer watched them drop the bread into their mouth… some orange liquid ran down their chin, which they quickly wiped up with their finger and sucked it off.

“You’re so prudent”, they chuckled, and began to dip more bread into their tiny egg… Kira could almost hear the shell cracking a bit farther, and the single drop of potion land on his table. He gritted his teeth.

“Careful. That’s messy.”

“Oh, ‘scuse me…”, and again… they wiped it up with their finger. There was a streak of yolk and potion visible on the wood of his table… Kira barely had the patience to wait anymore. Lucky for him, they’d swallowed enough of the potion for it to take effect at this point, and the blond man was delighted to see that their hands began to shrink.

For a moment, his date wore a confused expression on their face. Was it just them, or did the bread feel a bit bigger all of a sudden? And the egg? The entire table??

They looked over at Yoshikage Kira, and back down at their body. While watching the sleeves of their shirt growing longer and longer, they started stammering something the man couldn’t understand, but it made him chuckle. He had a feeling he knew what it meant.

“Oh dear… Looks like the main course is going to be served soon.”

“M-m-main- course-“

The helpless person desperately watched the world around them grow, including their date, who soon looked like a giant as he looked down at them with his sharp, blue eyes. Pretty soon, the poor soul was so tiny that their clothes pooled around them like an oversized blanket. Still confused, they attempted to squirm out of the fabric, but partly covered their body out of shame and fear when they saw Kira crouch down next to them.

“You’re bigger than I expected… I suppose I didn’t use enough of the mixture. But it’s alright. I can still swallow you with ease.”

Finally, it began to dawn on Kira’s victim. This guy…! They were the main course!!

“You lured me here because you want to eat me?!”, they squealed, and flailed about, trying to move away from him. How cute… as much as Kira wasn’t a fan of small animals, he always found it quite endearing when shrunken vermin was afraid of him.

“No, no. I didn’t lure you anywhere. You came here at your own accord, because you wanted to.”

“M-my people will notice when I don’t come home, you know?!”

“Oh, will they…?”, Kira chuckled lowly, the tone in his voice sent a shiver down his guest’s back.

“Well, if that’s the case, I’ll just have to eat them as well, wouldn’t you agree?”

The serial killer reached out for the still squirming, tiny person, and firmly grabbed them, leaving them no room to escape. No matter how much they squealed, kicked and bit him, he made it pretty clear that he wasn’t going to let go, and firmly pressed his continuously growing fingernails against their small form to remind them how easily he could kill them.

“Y-you wouldn’t dare to…”

“Oh… Believe me, I would.”

Yoshikage lifted them towards his face, and made direct eye contact with them for several seconds before he parted his lips. Terrified, the person in his grasp stared at his teeth, his wet tongue, and the saliva dripping from the roof of his mouth… When they felt his warm breath on their skin, they immediately began to squirm again. They’d rather be pierced by his nails, or at least crushed than eaten!!

“No, no!!! Don’t eat me!!”

“No? What a shame”, Kira cooed.

“I remember you saying you’d do anything for me…”

“W-what?!”

“Don’t you remember?”, his icy gaze made them shiver.

“You said you’d do anything for me if you could only go on a date with me a single time… well, here you are… we went on a date. And now it’s your turn to give me what I want.”

“I DIDN’T THINK YOU’D FUCKING EAT ME!!!”, their piercing screech hurt Kira’s ears, and he honestly couldn’t wait until they’d be silenced by the strength of his stomach… but no, not yet. He squeezed them a bit tighter, and lowered his fist towards his belly, forcing the tiny person to push their head against him.

“Shh… do you hear this?”, Kira was almost whispering when he asked that.. The poor soul in his hand had no choice but to listen to the noise coming from his gut. Constant bubbling vibrated against them from underneath his belly button, and with the aggressive churning from his audibly upset stomach, it blended into a terrifying mixture. Was this where they were going to end up soon…?

“You’re making me feel stressed…”, the killer continued, and lifted them back up towards his face, giving them a surprisingly calm look.

“I don’t like feeling stressed at all. It influences the quality of my sleep at night… I hope you’ll be quieter once my stomach takes proper care of you. Squirming makes me very gassy… I hate waking up from my own belches, it’s rather embarrassing.”

“You’re nuts…!!”

That response only caused Yoshikage to chuckle, once again forcing the poor thing between his fingers to look at his teeth…

“Is that really how you’d like to be remembered? Don’t you have any… nicer last words to say?”

“No…!! No, please, don’t do this!!!”

He liked the sound of that much better already… The more Kira lowered them down towards his mouth again, the more they squealed and squirmed, but they had no chance against his powerful grasp… or his strong jaws. It was a little uncomfortable to slip them past his lips, but once he bit down and his teeth shut around them like an unbreakable metal door, the poor soul in his mouth knew their fate was sealed, no matter how much they struggled and kicked. All it got them was more thick saliva that coated their body, more wetness they slipped on, and more liquid that brought them closer to the throat they feared so much.

“Please, Yoshikage, I love you-“

Their voice didn’t even reach the predator’s ears anymore… After tilting his head back, Kira gulped down audibly, and the tiny person in his mouth slid down his throat as if it were a dark, tight waterslide. The strong muscles of his esophagus continuously worked them down, past his heart and lungs, and down into his stomach, where they were immediately greeted by humid air and deafening noise. Several of their bones had been broken on the way down. The scent of death crept up their nose, and made them want to vomit… All they could do was desperately gasp for air, and kick the lining of Yoshikage’s stomach. But their panic only coaxed out a small, pathetic belch, which could easily be covered up by three of his fingers.

“Excuse me. Your panicking makes me feel a bit bloated”, he chuckled to himself. Not that they could hear him from out there… his voice probably just sounded like intense rumbling to them. Finally, the blissful silence he enjoyed so much settled in his home again… Well, besides his active organs getting to work underneath his shirt. He patted his belly, satisfied with his meal… Now Kira had a tough decision to make… would he let them suffocate? Or would he immediately crush them with more food?

#writing #commis

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