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bellaxgiornata · 28 days

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Catcalling the Devil

Pairing: Matt Murdock x fem!Reader Word Count: 3.4k

Warnings/tags: drunk Reader, humor, terrible flirtatious comments, and lots of appreciation for the Ass of Hell's Kitchen

Summary: A night out takes an amusing turn when you accidentally and drunkenly catcall the Devil of Hell's Kitchen.

a/n: This little one shot is brought to you thanks to the Murdock Tuna Team who not only inspired the idea, but helped create some of the flirtatious banter. I just couldn't resist the idea of catcalling the Devil in the black suit, okay? Feedback and reblogs are always appreciated!

Pushing open the door of Alchemy, you stepped outside and onto the sidewalk. The sweltering heat of Hell’s Kitchen greeted you, the humidity mixing with the sticky sweat already coating your skin and adding another uncomfortable layer of dampness. But it still felt far more refreshing outside in the humid evening air than it did inside the busy bar with countless other sweaty bodies packed together. The usual buzz of the city at night was even welcoming in comparison to the loud music that had been steadily aggravating the pounding in your head for the past twenty minutes.

Walking unsteadily in your heels, you turned to the right and made your way over towards the corner of the building and away from Alchemy's main doors and thumping music. One of your hands reached up as you stumble-walked, grabbing at the neck of your dress and peeling it off of your wet skin to allow some air to flow inside and cool your heated body. You’d spent a good portion of your evening drunkenly dancing with your friends as you celebrated Elise’s birthday tonight, which was why you'd decided to wait for your Uber outside of the bar–so you could catch your breath before heading home.

As you neared the alley, your ankle unexpectedly twisted when your heel caught in a crack along the sidewalk. A surprised gasp slipped past your lips as you began falling forward face-first towards the pavement. Your hand released the neck of your dress and instinctively flew out to your side, your palm landing against the brick of the building just in time to awkwardly catch yourself. Struggling to steady your inebriated self, you stayed bent in half as the pavement swirled beneath your black heels.

Once the spinning had finally stopped, you threw your other hand out and began to desperately claw your way back upright with both hands along the brick. Limping forward, you leant up against the side of the bar and tried to ease the pressure off your now sore ankle. With a low groan you attempted to find a comfortable position against the brick, supporting your weight more fully along the wall and resigning yourself to waiting right here for your Uber. Internally you cursed yourself for wearing such tall heels and drinking as much as you had tonight–hopefully you hadn’t actually injured your ankle. You’d probably be regretting your decisions in the morning, especially since you still had to go into work.

Reaching up, you ran the back of your hand across your forehead in an attempt to remove some of the sweat that had accumulated there. But just as you’d begun to lower your hand back to your side, movement out of the corner of your eye caught your attention. Your head turned in the direction of it, your vision spinning momentarily before everything came back into focus. Though the second your brain managed to make sense of the black blur on the rooftop, your mouth fell open. Because there on the roof just above you was the infamous Devil of Hell’s Kitchen.

“There’s no way I’m this drunk,” you muttered to yourself.

You watched as the dark figure crouched down low on the corner of the building, his body hunched like a gargoyle overlooking the street below. He was only a few floors above you and seemingly searching for something with the way his head was scanning the street below as it moved back and forth in sharp movements. With his back turned towards you while he was lowered in a crouch, you had been left with a perfect view of his backside under the city lights. Whether it was due to how absolutely glorious the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen’s ass looked in his black pants while you were almost directly beneath him, or due to the handful of shots and cocktails you’d recently drank down, you’d suddenly loosed a long, low whistle out into the night.

Immediately the Devil’s head snapped over his shoulder the second you’d whistled. Eyes growing wide in shock, your body straightened against the wall behind you instantly. You hadn’t even realized you’d just catcalled the Devil until you’d actually done it. And now he was crouched atop the roof and staring right down at you.

For a long time you stood there locking eyes with the masked man–or so you assumed, considering you couldn’t see his eyes beneath the black on his face. Neither of you moved, neither of you spoke, yet a tension had quickly formed in the air.

Until a peel of laughter bubbled right up out of your mouth.

The Devil’s head tilted sharply to the side as the sound echoed through the alley beside you. You threw a hand up to cover your mouth, trying to stifle the noise, but somehow that only made you laugh harder. Because no one would believe you about this later. But your laughter fell short when the Devil rose to his full height on the rooftop, spinning around to face you with a fluid grace that had made your head spin in return. Biting down on your lip, you fought back another round of laughter as tears began to form in your eyes. You’d only managed to reduce your amusement at the situation to barely restrained giggles before he spoke.

“Something wrong?” the deep voice called out.

You shook your head quickly, the Devil briefly blurring into three Devils above you. Throwing your hand up into the air, you sent him a single thumb’s up. “No!” you answered, stifling another giggle. “Everything’s fine, Devil. Just–just appreciating the view.”

His head cocked to the side even further, the sight reminding you of a dog. Another giggle slipped out of you before you could stop it. Though you once more bit down on your lip when the vigilante began to expertly climb his way down the side of the building. Openly admiring his body as you readjusted your position against the wall–which was currently still single-handedly keeping you upright at the moment–you watched as he easily made his way from the roof to the alley. If it hadn’t been for the curious, pleased smile that was clearly spread across his lips when he came to stand just a few feet away, you might’ve felt nervous that he’d suddenly taken as much of an interest in you as you had in him.

“Appreciating the view?” he asked.

“Yeah,” you replied. “Your ass.”

The Devil’s lips twitched at your bold honesty and you bit back another giggle. This whole situation was so unbelievable it was actually absurdly hilarious.

“So you’re saying that you interrupted me solely just to whistle at my ass?” the Devil inquired. “Did I hear that right?”

Pushing away from the wall, you stumbled forward a step, squaring your shoulders and looking him straight in the eyes–or where you thought they were. “Yeah. Couldn’t exactly resist,” you answered, your words slurring a bit as you spoke. “You’re carryin’ an entire bakery’s worth of devil’s food cake back there.”

You wildly waved a hand towards the Devil’s lower half, sloppily gesturing towards his ass. His head once more tilted curiously to the side, the grin on his lips growing even wider in clear amusement.

“Devil’s food cake?” he questioned.

“Y’know,” you said, waggling your eyebrows suggestively at him. “‘Cause of all that–that cake you got back there. Wouldn’t mind a piece, personally.”

A huff of laughter slipped past the Devil’s lips and you brightened at the sound as it registered in your intoxicated ears. His positive reaction was only going to encourage you now.

“Are you… flirting with me?” he asked incredulously. “Because you do realize who I am, right?”

“Wouldn’t be the worst guy I’ve hit on tonight,” you replied with a shrug.

The Devil laughed, shaking his head as his attention dropped down towards his boots. A grin lingered along his lips, something almost bashful. But your focus openly shifted back down to the profile of his ass, your eyes appreciating the way the dark fabric stretched over him.

“Y’know it’s my friend’s birthday tonight,” you told him, swaying unsteadily on the sidewalk. “Didn’t realize you were the one bringin’ the cake.”

A snort of laughter met your comment, your smile growing wide as you watched the Devil’s head rise back up. He was smirking now, something mischievous in the way his mouth had twisted beneath the hard line of his mask.

Grinning back at him, your right hand cupped around your mouth as you leaned forward towards him. “But maybe you can let me blow out the candle,” you drunkenly half-whispered.

He shook his head at you, but the mischievous twist of his lips remained beneath the black fabric of his mask. “You're a bold drunk, aren't you?” he asked.

“Maybe,” you mumbled back, your eyes fixing along his lips. Without even thinking, you blurted next, “Wouldn’t mind climbing you like a building.”

Another surprised snort of amusement fell out of him as he shook his head at you once more. “You’re full of so many terrible lines,” he teased back with a chuckle. “You do realize that, right?”

“Oh I’ve got plenty more,” you assured him with a nod, exaggeratingly waving a dismissive hand in the air between you both. “Don’t you worry. Could totally do this all night.”

“Oh really?” he asked. “Is that right? Because I certainly can make time for this.”

Your hand stopped flapping in the air between you both, a single finger raising up. “Okay, wait,” you amended. “I have an Uber coming. So maybe not all night, but probably a few more minutes.”

“Mmm,” he hummed out, his smile briefly slipping. “Shame because this is turning out to be the most fun I’ve had so far in the mask.”

“Wanna make it more fun?” you asked, grinning suggestively at him.

The Devil’s bottom lip rolled between his teeth as he tried to bite back his growing smile. Something warm heated you, starting at the base of your skull and trickling down to your toes. Your eyes focused back on his mouth as your tongue slid out, licking your lips. You'd only been jokingly flirting, but now…

“Hate to be the voice of reason here,” the Devil began, “but I don't sleep with intoxicated women that I meet in alleys. I much prefer sober consent.”

“What a pity,” you mumbled, face contorting into a pout. “Never would've thought the Devil was a gentleman .”

“I'm full of surprises,” he teased.

You hummed thoughtfully in response, taking a step into the alley towards him and stumbling a little in your heels. Ignoring the growing throbbing of your ankle, you focused on the thrill of the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen actually letting you flirt with him. You wanted to enjoy every minute of it, even if you probably wouldn't remember this moment too clearly in the morning.

“Anyone tell you you’ve got a pretty mouth?” you asked him.

The Devil shook his head, his smile returning. “No. Can't say the criminals I meet are too fond of passing out compliments when I'm hitting them,” he replied.

“Well you do ,” you assured him. “You really, really do .” Eyes narrowing at the plush lips of his still quirked into a smile, you studied the shape of them amongst the faint bit of dark stubble. “Reminds me of my boss. Now that's a mouth I'd love to do things with,” you drunkenly confessed. “But see,” you continued, pointing a firm finger at the Devil’s chest, “ he’s an asshole. Not fun like you.”

The Devil’s head tilted to the side again, his grin growing into a smirk. “Oh he is, is he?” he asked.

“Yes,” you answered. “Great ass, huge asshole. I’m–I’m sure there’s a stick shoved in there somewhere.”

The Devil barked out a laugh into the night as you reached into your purse and pulled out your phone. Squinting as the bright light assaulted your eyes, you saw that your Uber was mere minutes away. You loosed a disappointed sigh.

“Your ride almost here?” the Devil asked.

“Unfortunately,” you answered, returning your phone to your purse. “Unless you wanna be my ride tonight?”

Zipping your purse back up, you heard the Devil let out another laugh. Your smile grew along with your surprise at this whole interaction. You hadn’t anticipated just how fun the masked vigilante actually was considering how he spent his evenings. It was a shame you’d never meet him again.

“Have you fallen tonight?” the Devil asked, still grinning at you.

You held up a hand, preventing him from continuing his thought. “If you're about to ask if I fell from heaven,” you slurred, “then I'm disappointed in your lines, Devil man.”

“No,” he said, shaking his head and laughing softly. “I’m just concerned you might have a concussion because of your continued flirting with a known vigilante. You should probably get your head checked out.”

“ You can check me out,” you teased coyly, sending him an exaggerated wink.

The Devil’s mouth opened, about to reply, but then his face darted over your shoulder, the corner of his lip twitching. You frowned when he took a step back, aware the gesture meant this entire interaction was quickly coming to an end. You didn’t want it to.

“Think your ride’s about here, actually,” the Devil said, further backing up into the alley. “Seems this is where I say goodnight.”

“Oh c’mon, don’t go yet!” you begged his retreating form. “I didn’t get any devil’s food cake!” you called after him. “How ‘bout a piece to-go? Sharing is caring!”

But somehow the Devil had quickly disappeared into the darkened alley, the only proof of his presence the echo of his laughter bouncing off the brick walls. The sound sent a pleasant chill up your body, a smile still lingering along your lips as you teetered on the spot staring after him.

The pounding in your head hit you almost immediately after the sound of your alarm hit your ears. Groaning miserably as your entire body protested waking, your hand blindly flew out from beneath the sheets and felt around for your phone. Opening your eyes, you immediately hissed in pain as the bright light in your bedroom burned them. You blinked rapidly, trying to push past the growing throbbing in your head in order to shut off your irritating alarm.

Silence finally settling once more in your room, you tossed your phone back down onto your nightstand and rolled onto your side before immediately halting. A wave of nausea hit you instantly and you squeezed your eyes closed, hoping to fight the feeling back. You needed to get up and get ready for work. You had twenty minutes to wash up, brush your teeth, and throw on clothes before you had to be out the door or you'd be late, and you could only imagine how irate your one boss would be if you were. You didn’t have time to get sick.

After a few moments, you were grateful when the nausea subsided. Cautiously you tested things, slowly opening your eyes again before tentatively pushing yourself upright in bed. The pounding in your head continued to rage on, another pathetic groan slipping past your lips. Drinking like you'd done on a weeknight last night had been a horrible idea. Vaguely you recalled the evening in flashes–doing rounds of shots, dancing with your friends, flirting with some guy. Most of the night remained a blur, though.

Feeling half-alive, you climbed out of bed and focused on getting ready for work. You'd briefly washed off in the shower, scrubbing yourself just clean enough to remove the scent of alcohol that felt like it was seeping out from your pores. Then you brushed your teeth vigorously before swirling some mouthwash around in your mouth, the taste of which had you fighting bile once more back down. Then you threw on whatever clean blouse and slacks your hands touched first, shuffling through your apartment towards your shoes as you pulled your pants on.

It had ultimately taken you more than twenty minutes to get ready for work and to get out the door since you'd had to stop and brace yourself against a wall or piece of furniture multiple times–either due to the pain in your head or the roiling in your gut. Then you'd been in a hurry making your way out of your building and towards the office, the morning sun and the usual city traffic only further aggravating your headache. By the time you'd finally gotten to work, you were more than ten minutes late and out of breath.

“I am–” you pushed open the door to the office, panting hard as you spotted one of your bosses leaning against your desk, “–so sorry. Was trying to get here on time but I went out last night. This morning was a struggle.”

“Well you're here now, at least,” Foggy said, glancing up from a paper in his hands at you. His brows creased together as he eyed you, his nose visibly scrunching in distaste. “Though you smell like you slept in a bathtub of liquor and you look like you woke up to fight a pissed off honey badger.”

You laughed lightly, the noise further irritating your head as you hurried over towards your desk before making your way around it. “Yeah. I'm aware,” you replied. “I'm sorry. My friend had a birthday last night and I went out to celebrate. I definitely drank too much and I completely regret it. I promise I learned my lesson.”

“Certainly not the best decision,” Foggy agreed. “But I'm glad to hear that. Maybe next time–”

“You're late.”

Your head darted over your shoulder at the sound of your other boss. Grimacing at the stern look on Matt’s face, your shoulders slumped as you set your bag down onto the top of your desk.

“I know, I'm sorry, Mr. Murdock,” you apologized. “It was a one time thing, it won't happen again, I promise.”

“Good, it better not,” he said, leaning a shoulder against the doorframe to his office. The corner of his lip twitched upwards for a second before he raised his coffee cup to his mouth, hiding the smile threatening to spread onto his lips. “Fog's right though, you smell like you bathed in the alcohol instead of drinking it. Can you even remember your night out?”

Chewing your lip awkwardly, your brows furrowed as you tried to recall last night. Though the sight of Matt standing there casually leaning against the doorframe drinking his coffee, the buttons of his sage green dress shirt struggling as he did, was making it hard for you to focus.

“Uh, bits and pieces of it?” you answered.

“Mmm,” he hummed out, lowering his coffee cup. “Well, hopefully your evening was worth showing up late for. I certainly enjoyed my night, though. Woke up in a good mood this morning, actually.”

Your eyes narrowed at the smile on his face, something tickling at the back of your mind at the sight of it. But Matt smiling instead of scolding you when you messed up was an unusual occurrence, one that had you hesitantly and distractedly lowering down into your desk chair.

“Which is why I brought doughnuts for everyone this morning,” Matt continued, gesturing a hand towards your desk. “I hope you still have an appetite after all the alcohol.”

“They're so good,” Foggy told you. “They’re from that new bakery a block over.”

Foggy slid the white box you hadn’t noticed on your desk over towards you. You watched as he flipped the lid open, the strong and sweet aroma of sugar and chocolate hitting your nose. Your stomach rumbled hungrily as you eyed the delicious chocolate pastries.

“Since when do you bring in doughnuts?” you asked, glancing back over at Matt.

He pushed off the doorframe, shrugging his shoulder. “I don't know,” he said, a strange smile drawing itself wide across his lips. “For some reason I woke up with a craving for devil's food cake and I just thought I’d share.”

With a deep chuckle Matt turned around, making his way back into his office. Head tilting curiously to the side, your eyes lingered along his backside as that strange feeling of something trying to reach the forefront of your mind returned.

Matt Murdock One Shot/Shorts Tag List: @pazii @shouldbestudying41 @kmc1989 @ebathory997 @yeonalie @shiorimakibawrites @xxdrixx @wkndwlff @leikelle @pinkratts @lazyxsquirrel @1988-fiend @marvelcinematiquniverse @carstairswife @stilldreaming666 @kiwwia-wiwwia @willwork4dilfs @will-delete-this-later-probably @mattmurdocks6thscaleapartment @theetherealbloom @yarrystyleeza @dramaholic18 @ladywholikesreading @sleepysleepymom @tartbeanpuzzles @harleycao @sunflower-tia @gamingfeline @juskonutoh @kezibear @ninacotte @withyoutilltheendoftheline @justanerd1 @scriptedmoon @ardent-crow @lucienofthelakes @sarahskywalker-amidala @flowher @loves0phelia @a-half-empty-g1rl

#matt murdock x reader #matt murdock fluff #matt murdock x you #matt murdock #daredevil

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summerwritesfics · 2 months

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🌓As We Dance With The Devil Tonight, Chapter 1 - Still Can’t Find What Keeps Me Here

Pairing: Hanzo Hasashi/Kuai Liang Length: 5207 Words Rating: Mature Warnings: Dark Fantasy AU, Elf!Kuai Liang, Demon!Quan Chi, Whump, Abduction, Magic, Magic Eating, Torture, Chains, Demon Deals, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Non-Consensual Undressing, Non-Consensual Touching, NSFK (Not Safe For Kuai), Altho tbh it’s also not gonna be safe for Bi-Han or Tomas later in the fic either lol

As We Dance With The Devil Tonight Masterlist

Notes: This was originally going to be for Meanwhile In Another Universe but oops I got a bit carried away with it ^^;; I know, I know another chaptered fic when I already have a ridiculous amount to work on already. Shh, let me just have this lol. NGL this is going to be 99% Kuai Liang Whump. It’s quite tame in his chapter but I have some ideas for later where he’s going to be… very not okay :) I have a vague plan where this fic’s gonna go plotwise. At the moment tho I’m trying to decide how much I wanna torture Bi-Han and Tomas too. 🤔 Like, straight up, they are gonna suffer, but it’s just deciding how mean I wanna be towards them. Fic title is from “Dance With The Devil” by Breaking Benjamin and the Chapter title is from “Haunted” by Evanescence.

Kuai pulled his hood a little further over his head, desperately trying to keep warm as the wind howled around him. The forest shook, trees waving from the power of the storm. He was lost, completely and utterly so. The dark night only being slightly illuminated by the light of the moon did not help. All he could really hope for was that he would find somewhere to shelter for the night.

He kept on going, although he was certain he was probably going in circles rather than in a straight line. He swore to the gods he’d seen this tree before. Or was this just a very similar looking tree? He didn’t know, he was so cold and confused.

Then, in the distance, between the trees, he spotted what looked like a light. He broke out into a short jog, heading towards it. As he got closer, he found himself coming out into a clearing, and nestled within it was a very ornate and old looking house. Well, more than a house, it appeared to be a mansion. Why someone would live out here, Kuai did not know, but there were lights in the windows, meaning someone lived there. He just had to hope they would take pity on him and allow him shelter, at least until the morning.

He ran towards the door, and once close enough he took the large bronze knocker in his hand and slammed it against the wood. As he waited to see if there was any sign of life, he hopped from one foot to his other, trying to keep himself warm.

Slowly, the door creaked open, revealing a very tall man with long hair and a beard, wearing a yellow outfit. He glared at Kuai as if to demand what the meaning of all this was.

“Um. Hello Sir, I’m sorry to disturb you,” Kuai began, trying to keep his voice even despite how his teeth chattered. “I’m afraid I’m lost in the forest, I was hoping maybe I could shelter here for the night.” The man didn’t reply, just continued to stare at him with a cold expression. “I- I swear I will leave as soon as the sun rises and-”

“Hanzo? Who is it?” A voice called from further inside the house, prompting the man at the door, Hanzo apparently, to move aside. The second man was bald, pale to the point of his skin pretty much being white, with red tattoos decorating his skin. He stared at Kuai Liang with interest.

“He claims he’s lost,” Hanzo muttered, seeming very unhappy about the entire situation.

“Lost?” The second man questioned, stepping a little closer.

“I- I was just hoping to shelter until the sun comes up,” Kuai quietly requested again, but the more this second man looked at him, the more he got the feeling this was a very bad idea. What other choice did he have though? He didn’t really want to continue wandering the seemingly endless maze that was the forest.

“Oh, but of course you can.” The second man held out his hand to Kuai Liang, and against his better judgement, Kuai took it and let the man guide him in. “I am Quan Chi, and that is my loyal servant Hanzo.”

“My name is Kuai Liang,” he replied, reaching his free hand to pull his hood down. As he did, Quan Chi’s eyes widened and a strange smile came across his face. It made Kuai’s stomach do flips if he was being honest.

“Oh my. You wouldn’t happen to be an elf, would you?” Quan Chi questioned, leaning in a little to look closely at Kuai’s ears. Long and pointed, it gave away his species every time.

“I am, yes.” There was no point in lying, it was plain to see. That sinking feeling continued when Quan Chi licked his lips. “Is that… A problem?”

“Oh no, far from it.” Quan Chi suddenly looped an arm around Kuai’s waist, before guiding him further into the house. It made him squirm slightly, but somehow it felt far too impolite to say anything. This man was offering Kuai a place to stay the night, after all. “I am just curious what would bring you out into the forest this late at night.”

“My brothers are waiting for me in the next town over,” Kuai explained, looking around as he did. This house was full of strange artefacts, statues and artworks. “I misjudged how long it’d take for me to walk, and the next thing I knew, darkness was falling and I think I accidentally stumbled off the path.”

Quan Chi hummed, hand squeezing Kuai Liang’s hip. “I see, that is unfortunate. You are lucky to have stumbled upon my humble home.”

“Ah, I guess I am, yes.” He didn’t dare point out that the term humble absolutely did not fit this sprawling and extravagant mansion. “Thank you for opening your home to me.”

“Oh, believe me, it’s my pleasure.” Quan Chi pushed Kuai through a doorway, entering a large kitchen with a small table in the middle. “Please, take a seat, let me make you a drink.”

“Thank you.” There really was no need, but then Kuai wasn’t sure how long he’d been walking around, he was possibly a little dehydrated. He took a seat, brushing his hair back and looking around the room. “So, um, is it just yourself and Hanzo here?”

“For now.” The tone sounded like he didn’t intend for it to be that way for much longer. “I have guests every so often, but they do not stay long.”

“I see.” He supposed this was a pretty isolated location, it would make sense that people didn’t travel here that often. “It’s a shame, your house is very beautiful.”

“Well, I’m so glad you think that,” Quan Chi chuckled, and when Kuai turned to watch him, he was pouring out a dark brown liquid from a teapot. “I do try to keep things in order.”

Quan Chi turned around, two cups in his hands as he approached the table and placed them down, one directly in front of Kuai Liang, and the other closer to the seat on the other side. As Quan Chi took his place, Kuai accepted the cup, bringing it to his lips and taking a quick sip of the tea. It was warm, perfect for a cold night such as this.

But, as the liquid crossed his tongue and travelled down his throat, a strange bitter aftertaste lingered. He tried to not be rude and let it show that he didn’t like that. Maybe it was just a type of tea he’d never drank before.

“Is everything okay?” Quan Chi asked, tilting his head slightly, eyes so fixated on Kuai that it felt like he was looking into his very soul.

“Ah, y-yes, it’s lovely, thank you,” Kuai claimed, before taking another bigger mouthful of the tea. Even with the weird aftertaste, he didn’t want to be rude to his host.

“I’m so glad you like it.” Quan Chi lent back, now sipping his own tea. His gaze never broke, he just continued to watch Kuai intently. “I do hope I will be able to make it for you again.”

“Oh.” Kuai wasn’t sure what to say about that. The reason he was even here was because his brothers had a job to do in the town. Once they were done, the three of them would be gone. “I’m afraid I’m just passing by this part of the world. My brothers and I will be leaving back to Earthrealm soon.”

“Are you?” Quan Chi gave a smug smile, once more licking his lips. “Are you certain about that?”

“Pretty sure,” Kuai muttered, confused by Quan Chi’s reaction and question. It was almost like he knew something Kuai didn’t. “I wanted to do some sightseeing while they worked, but once they’ve done their job, we’ll be gone.”

Quan Chi didn’t reply, just narrowed his eyes and continued to watch Kuai Liang with a strange air. Nerves began to overtake Kuai, the intense feeling he’d made a big mistake approaching this house. Another big sip of tea, and that damned aftertaste was really starting to bother him, it seemed to get stronger with every mouthful of drink.

Even so he finished it, placing the cup down on the table and pushing it away from him. When he looked up, Quan Chi looked almost pleased by it. Kuai may have been naive, as Bi-Han always liked to tell him, but even he could tell something was wrong here.

A wave of nausea suddenly overcame him, followed by him going lightheaded. He reached a hand up to his head, as if that would somehow help.

“Ah,” Quan Chi gasped. When Kuai looked up, he saw the other man pushing himself to stand and approach him. “I see my little addition to your tea is starting to take effect.”

“What?” Kuai questioned, going to stand only for the sudden movement to make him dizzy again. His eyes flicked over to his cup. A little addition. The bitter aftertaste made sense now. He looked up at Quan Chi, eyes wide as he towered over Kuai. “You- You drugged me.”

Quan Chi laughed, reaching a hand forward. Kuai tried to dodge his touch, but it just resulted in yet another dizzy spell. Every part of his body was starting to feel heavy, but especially his eyes.

“Drugged is such an ugly way to put it.” Kuai felt Quan Chi’s fingers dig into his chin, lifting his head up. “I prefer the term sleep spell.”

Lifting his arms, he tried to push himself away, only to lose his balance and fall forward. He was horrified to realise that he landed right in Quan Chi’s arms. He went to protest, but all that came out of his mouth was a pathetic whine.

“Easy, pet,” Quan Chi cooed in his ear. Kuai could barely keep his eyes open, they kept fluttering as he desperately tried to remain conscious. “Shh, that’s it. Stop fighting, just fall asleep now.”

As much as Kuai did not want to follow that command, he found himself unable to resist it. His eyes closed, body feeling completely boneless. The sound of Quan Chi’s laugh echoed through his head as his consciousness drifted off into the void.

He had no idea how long he was out for, just that when he woke up, his head felt like it was about to explode.

He groaned, curling up in a ball, and grabbing his forehead with his hands. He remembered exactly what happened the night before, Quan Chi and the tea. There was a fear of what he’d find if he opened his eyes. Would Quan Chi be standing over him, watching him sleep? Gods, fuck, would he be in bed with him? The thought made Kuai’s skin crawl.

He reached out a hand to feel around the bed, letting out a relieved sigh when he found he was alone. Something felt weird about what he was wearing though. At the very least, it felt like he was wearing very little compared to what he’d walked into the mansion with.

He finally chanced opening his eyes, thankful that they didn’t seem too sensitive to the light all things considered. Glancing down at his body, he couldn’t help but baulk at what he was wearing.

A pastel blue lacy nightgown that barely went below his hips.

He shot upright in an instant, looking down at the offending item. It wasn’t so much the nightgown itself he was concerned about, it was actually kind of pretty and in different circumstances he might have actually enjoyed wearing it. The point was, this nightgown wasn’t his, and it wasn’t what he was wearing when he arrived. Meaning someone, and he didn’t even need to guess who it might be, had undressed him. The only relief he had was that when he lifted the bottom up, he could see he was wearing his own underwear, meaning it was unlikely that what had happened was anything more than a clothing change.

A knock on the door caught his attention, and he held his breath as it swung open.

“Good morning, Kuai Liang,” Hanzo greeted, stepping forward as he did. Kuai wasn’t sure if he should be relieved that it was the servant rather than the master. “Quan Chi has requested I wake you.” Hanzo walked over to a set of dressers, placing down a pile of clothes. “These are your clothes.”

Kuai frowned, slipping out of the bed and walking over to the drawer. The clothes placed down on the drawer were definitely not the clothes he’d arrived in.

“These aren’t my clothes,” he announced, looking over at Hanzo, who just looked on with a strange indifference.

“They are now.” Hanzo shrugged, before turning back towards the door. “I will allow you to get dressed, and then escort you to the kitchen. Quan Chi is waiting for you.”

Without another word, Hanzo left the room, shutting the door behind him. Kuai returned his attention to the clothing. There were only two items really. A cheongsam similar to the ones his mother used to wear, in the same pastel blue as the nightgown, and silver detailing. Once again, it was beautiful, and in another circumstance he’d be honoured to wear something like this. But being given them by Quan Chi made him hate it on principle. The second item of clothing was a simple pair of underwear.

He slipped the nightgown off his shoulders, letting it fall to the floor. As much as he wished to refuse these clothes, he decided addressing Quan Chi wearing the cheongsam was preferable to addressing him wearing the nightgown. He threw off his underwear, quickly replacing it with the new pair. Even though he was alone in this room, he still felt like there was something watching him. Once that was done, he quickly threw the cheongsam over him, buttoning it into place.

He placed the discarded clothes on the top of the drawer, before turning to the door. He took a deep breath, desperately trying to keep his head held high. He opened the door, to find Hanzo lent back against the wall opposite. The second he saw Kuai, he straightened up, like he didn’t want to be seen slacking.

“Ready?” Hanzo questioned, stoic as he seemed to always be.

“As I’ll ever be,” Kuai muttered, following after Hanzo as he guided him through the house.

Neither of them spoke. Kuai had no idea what was going on, and had the feeling Hanzo wasn’t about to explain anything to him. In general he had nothing to say to the other man. Hanzo himself didn’t exactly seem like the talkative type. Although every so often, Kuai caught him giving a concerned glance. It made Kuai feel like he was being marched to his execution.

They entered the kitchen, Hanzo stepping aside slightly to allow Kuai to enter. After he did, the door shut behind him. Quan Chi was already sitting at the table, and once more he had that dark grin on his face.

“Ah, good morning, I do hope you slept well,” Quan Chi greeted, as if he was expecting a cheerful response. All Kuai did was glare at him, causing Quan Chi to begin chuckling, “oh, don’t give me that look, pet.” He gestured to the food before him on the table. “Especially after I made you breakfast.” He paused for a moment. “Well, technically, Hanzo made it, but I supervised.”

“Why the hell would I eat anything you give me after last night?” Kuai snarled, hugging himself like that would somehow hide him from Quan Chi’s gaze.

“Because if you do, I’ll explain exactly what is going on here,” Quan Chi offered, patting the table as if that would encourage Kuai to sit down.

Despite everything telling him to run, he did want answers. Carefully he made his way to the empty seat, sitting down and staring at the food in front of him. It was mostly things like hams and cheese, some fruit as well. His stomach rumbled, and against his better judgement he reached for an apple and took a bite.

“Tell me everything,” Kuai demanded between bites, hoping the fact he was eating something would prompt Quan Chi to talk.

“Where to start?” Quan Chi looked mockingly thoughtful for a few seconds. “I guess, I should start with who, or rather, what I am.” He lent over the table. “Tell me, pet, have you ever met a demon before?”

Kuai Liang understood the implication of that. He had never met a demon, before now that is. He had read a lot about them in the books in Father’s library. There were different kinds, and depending on what sort Quan Chi was, Kuai Liang could be in far more danger than he anticipated.

“I’m taking that as a no,” Quan Chi interrupted Kuai’s thoughts as they both continued to stare at each other.

“No. But I have read about your kind.” Kuai placed the apple down, his appetite finally gone. “What classification are you?”

Quan Chi chuckled, “it seems you have done your research, haven’t you?” He lent across the table, pushing the apple back towards Kuai, a silent order to keep eating. “I am a high demon. What do you know about them?”

“That as the name suggests, you are the highest class of demon.” He took the apple in his hands. “Which means if you wanted me dead, I would be by now. You need me alive for some reason.”

“As a high demon, I feed off the magic energy of others.” There had been some brief mentions of that in the books, they never really went into detail on what that actually meant however. “I have been looking for a new feeder for a long time, and oh so lucky for me that a pretty little elf shows up on my doorstep, practically giving himself to me.” Quan Chi was licking his lips again, and now Kuai understood the way he was being looked at. Eyes full of hunger and Kuai Liang was a four course meal. “Elves make the best feeders, with your natural affinity to magic your energy refills quicker than any other species. Makes you perfect to keep and feed off of.”

Kuai scoffed, “If you think I will stay here, you are more delusional than I thought.”

“Oh, I don’t just think you’ll stay,” Quan Chi started, reaching to run a finger under Kuai’s chin, “I know you will.”

Kuai slapped his hand away, although Quan Chi barely reacted to the action. I need to leave. Kuai pushed himself away from the table, standing as quickly as he could and rushing towards the door.

“Oh, are you trying to leave?” Quan Chi taunted, like he didn’t think Kuai would or even could. “Please, do try. Be my guest.”

Kuai didn’t have to be told twice, he threw open the door. Slamming it behind him, he summoned ice to freeze over and hopefully slow down Quan Chi’s pursuit. He ran through the corridor, using the various nicknacks he’d noticed yesterday to help him find his way back to the entrance hall. The front door was within his grasp. He grabbed the door knob, swinging it open and went to step outside.

Suddenly, he felt something form around his wrists and throat, and roughly yanked him backwards.

He fell back onto his knees, desperately looking down to figure out what had got him. There were green glowing cuffs around his wrists and a collar around his neck, all three attached to chains to help keep him restrained.

“Ah, excellent! It worked exactly as I wanted it to.”

Kuai felt himself being pulled across the floor, away from his escape. The door slammed shut before him as if to emphasise the point. He was lifted to his feet, arms still restrained behind his back as he was spun to be face to face with Quan Chi. Wrapping one arm behind Kuai’s back, Quan Chi pulled him close, while the other hand held on to the chains attached to the collar like it were a leash.

“I had a feeling you would not stay here willingly, so I took the precaution to take the choice away from you.” Quan Chi yanked on the chain, causing Kuai to yelp as they were pressed closer together. “A simple spell to keep you bound to this place. You cannot leave its walls so long as it is in effect.” Quan Chi tilted his head slightly. “Well, you can go out into the gardens, I am not so cruel as to completely cut off your access to the outside world.”

Panic was setting in as he squirmed in Quan Chi’s grasp. The demon pressed his hand against Kuai’s chest.

“Now, let’s see how you taste, shall we?”

Kuai gasped as he felt a sharp pain in his chest. Looking down, he could see a strange blue energy seeping out of him and into Quan Chi’s hand. As more came out, the pain grew worse, like something was slowly making its way through his veins and scraping everything contained within. He threw his head back and screamed, all while Quan Chi shushed and cooed at him, but the words didn’t mean anything to Kuai. His legs started to give way, and he unsure how much more he could take.

And then, suddenly, it all stopped. The pain went, and all Kuai was left with was exhaustion. He let his head slump forward again, watching as Quan Chi held up his hand, the blue energy fit inside. He brought it to his mouth, tongue swirling around it, before he began to inhale it. Kuai could only watch as the magic disappeared, and Quan Chi’s throat bobbed as he swallowed it all.

“Perfect,” Quan Chi growled, perverse satisfaction in his tone. “I knew you’d taste divine the moment I set eyes on you.”

Quan Chi suddenly let go, causing Kuai to fall back down onto the floor. The chains and cuffs disappeared, and Kuai immediately huddled himself. He’d only over exerted himself in terms of his powers a few times, but this fatigue was still familiar to him. He wouldn’t be able to use magic for at least a few hours, and he had the feeling that as soon as he was recharged, Quan Chi would be back to have another fill.

He heard footsteps coming towards him, and he screwed his eyes shut, refusing to look at his captor. He felt a hand caress his cheek, before grabbing his chin and tilting his face up. Still he kept his eyes firmly closed, right up until he felt a second hand jab into his ribs, a strange spark causing a short sharp pang. His eyes shot open, finding them looking into Quan Chi’s.

“I’m not a monster,” Quan Chi assured him, but from Kuai’s perspective those words were nothing but a lie to justify himself. “I can make your life here with me very comfortable, if you just behave yourself.” He released Kuai’s jaw, only to grab his hands instead and lift him until he was standing. “Make yourself at home, seeing as it’s also yours now.”

Quan Chi once more wrapped his arm around Kuai’s waist, the action as uncomfortable as it was originally, but Kuai didn’t have the energy to fight it. For now, all he could do was attempt to keep his dignity, not let Quan Chi get to him or see him cry. He could try and fight again once his energy had restored. Until then, he’d wait and observe, see if he could find a weakness.

He just had to remain calm and bide his time.

“Now, I do believe we were having breakfast,” Quan Chi continued in blissful ignorance, completely unaware of Kuai’s new resolve. “It’d be a shame to let Hanzo’s hard work go to waste, wouldn’t it?”

Kuai silently nodded, letting himself be guided towards the kitchen once again. Once he got a moment alone, he’d start trying to gather ideas for how to escape this situation.

Surprisingly, Quan Chi left Kuai alone to his own devices fairly quickly after he’d finished breakfast.

Maybe the spell that kept Kuai prisoner was enough to convince Quan Chi that there was no way for him to run away. Which was true, Kuai supposed, even if at some point he wanted to test the magic. He knew from experience that even the hardiest of spells had a weakness and loopholes. There had to be something he could do.

He’d wandered the entire mansion at this point, the winding corridors were confusing at first but he was slowly starting to understand the layout. Most of the rooms were unlocked and Quan Chi had stated he was free to use them as he pleased with very few exceptions. One was Quan Chi’s master bedroom, unless Kuai had been invited in by the demon himself. Hanzo’s room, which Kuai had no real interest in anyway. Then there was the basement. It was that one which concerned Kuai Liang, the way it had been brought up sounded like a threat. There was something bad down there, and Kuai had to hope not to piss Quan Chi off enough to see what it was.

He walked into the library, deciding this was likely the room that would become his main base of operations. It was a lot like the one Father used to have, so despite where he was, the room had a weird cosy nostalgic feeling to it that somewhat quelled his nerves. There was also a possibility there would be books here that shed some light on Kuai’s current situation.

The window looked down onto the garden, the only place Kuai had not yet gone to explore. Even though Quan Chi had said he could go out there, the morning’s events left him fearful of testing the boundaries. Maybe he’d try later, for now though, he was content to just observe it through the window.

It looked large and sprawling, surrounded by a very tall stone wall. Even if Kuai could find a way to climb over it, he had a feeling the spell would kick in to prevent his escape again. Although it did make him wonder just how the spell worked. It was likely it was almost akin to a forcefield, probably towering above the mansion itself to stop him from getting out through a second story window or indeed over the wall. Would it go as far as the roof? If he were able to climb up onto it and then get down? He would maybe have to test that.

Beyond the wall, he could see the forest. Funny, how only a few hours ago that was his biggest concern. He liked to think that Bi-Han and Tomas would realise he was missing fairly quickly, but would they find this place if they came looking? It had been dark when Kuai had stumbled upon it, so he couldn’t say for sure how easy it would be to spot in daylight. As much as he believed in his brothers, he couldn’t just assume they’d come to his rescue this time. He needed to be proactive.

“Kuai Liang.”

Kuai jumped at the sound of his name, twisting around to find Hanzo entering the library. He immediately tensed up. Hanzo technically hadn’t done anything to him, but he was still Quan Chi’s servant and seemed to follow his commands without question. It wasn’t too hard to believe he would follow any orders to harm Kuai Liang too. He could hope to maybe find an ally in Hanzo eventually, but he certainly would never be a friend.

“Would you like some lunch?” Hanzo asked, not moving from his place at the door.

“I’m not really hungry,” he replied quietly, before turning back to look out the window.

Behind him he heard a sigh, and heavy footsteps walking over. “I would feel more comfortable if you ate something.” A hand touched Kuai’s shoulder and he turned to look at the other man. His usual neutral expression was marred by the frown he wore. “If you refuse to eat, he will force feed you, and from what I have observed, that is extremely unpleasant.”

From what he knew, force feeding was indeed a dreadful experience, he didn’t dispute that. What confused him was the fact Hanzo was warning him of this, like he was trying to spare Kuai the consequences. He just couldn’t find the words to question Hanzo’s motive aloud. It seemed Hanzo understood Kuai’s distrust however, as eventually he closed his eyes and sighed.

“I understand that you do not trust me right now. You have no reason to.” Hanzo squeezed Kuai’s shoulder slightly. “If I had realised you were an elf when I opened the door, I would have shut it and not let you in so to spare you this fate.”

Kuai actually raised an eyebrow at that. “If that’s true you would help me escape.”

“I… I can’t,” Hanzo muttered, voice laced with regret. “You must understand, like he has you bound to this place, I am bound to him. I have no choice but to follow his orders regardless of if I want to or not.”

So. Kuai was not the only prisoner here after all. It seemed Hanzo was just as stuck. He did wonder what Hanzo meant about being bound to Quan Chi though. Kuai was seemingly bound to the house itself. If Quan Chi could bind someone directly to himself, why didn’t he do it with Kuai Liang?

“His orders in regard to you are to make sure you are fed and comfortable, and I will do what I can to keep to that.” He patted Kuai’s shoulder a couple of times. “I will try to keep you safe from the worst of him, but I won’t be able to protect you from everything.”

Kuai closed his eyes. He supposed, at the end of the day, this was about the best he could hope for in a situation like this. He reached up to place his hand over Hanzo’s. And when he reopened his eyes the other man was looking a little flustered by the gesture.

“Thank you,” Kuai whispered, running his fingers along Hanzo’s knuckles before finally letting go. As he did, Hanzo’s own hand finally retreated.

“With that in mind,” Hanzo said while taking a step backwards, “could I please make you some lunch?”

“Yes.” Kuai nodded in agreement. Even if he wasn’t too hungry, he really did not wish to be fed forcefully. “That would be nice, thank you.”

Hanzo bowed slightly to him, before gesturing to follow. Kuai took one more glance out towards the garden, before turning to trail along after Hanzo.

Quan Chi may have the power for now, but he’d misjudged Kuai Liang’s ability to be subborn and headstrong. And with a potental ally of some sort in Hanzo?

Kuai Liang would find a way to free them both from this hell.

#mortal kombat #subscorp #kuai liang #sub zero #scorpion #hanzo hasashi #🌓as we dance with the devil tonight

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ckret2 · 15 days

Text

Chapter 68 of human Bill Cipher not looking much like the Mystery Shack's prisoner because he's just vibing on the porch: Mabel's riding high on the success of making Bill two whole friends, Ford's dealing with curses... and let's see how that camera got cursed in the first place.

####

Mabel asked, "What about Aaron Laarson?"

"I don't know," Candy said, "Aaron is cute, but he isn't a very good dancer. That's very important to me in a teen pop idol."

"He's a really good actor, though," Grenda said. "You should see him in Hot Models 2: Runway Boogaloo!" Candy looked thoughtful.

They'd spent the last thirty minutes chattering, with Grenda and Candy sitting on Bill, who was now laying his upper body on the couch cushion he'd been assaulted with earlier but otherwise hadn't moved. To all appearances, Bill was sound asleep—he even breathed like he was asleep—but every once in a while, he'd pipe up with something like, "Don't get too attached to Aaron Laarson. He's dying in a kayaking accident next summer."

Grenda groaned in disappointment. Candy said, "He should have spent that time practicing dancing instead of kayaking."

Mabel caught movement in the corner of her eye, and started when she saw Ford and Dipper. "Uh oh. I didn't expect them to come in on this side of the house."

Across the clearing, Ford shouted, "Mabel, what the devil is he doing outside with—!"

Mabel shouted, "It's okaaay, I got permission from Grunkle Staaan, I love yooou!"

Ford hesitated. "Well... if Stan okayed it."

Dipper looked at Mabel and her camera. Mabel looked at Dipper and his camera. They immediately started making the stupidest faces they could at each other's cameras. "Hey," Mabel said, "did you find the nightwigglies? It looks like they found yooou!"

Dipper self-consciously tugged up the vest he was using like a makeshift skirt. "We did! It was so great, we recorded some kind of ritual dance, how they make babies—" At Grenda's outburst of "Ewww!" he quickly clarified, "Not—not in a gross way—and we saw some kind of Nightwiggler god! It was amazing!"

"Wow! That's great!" Mabel said. "We summoned a demon and almost died."

"What?"

"By the way!" Mabel waved her camera at Ford. "Grunkle Ford, I kiiinda used your cursed camera by accident. Could you please uncurse the tape so I can keep the episode I filmed tonight? Goldie said the magic thingy he stuck on it will only keep it tame as long as the tape's in the camera."

"That's because it's technically the tape itself that's cursed, not the camera." Ford wondered if Bill had led Mabel to the camera.

"Can you uncurse it, though?"

"I think so. I'll see what I can do." Ford took the camera from Mabel. He decided not to comment on the girls' interesting makeup choices.

Bill opened one eye a sliver as he felt Ford and Dipper step on the porch, saw Ford's bare calf over his boot, and cracked up. "What happened to your pants! Did you try to join the Hokey Pokey?"

Ford gave Bill a withering look—caught sight of Bill's mismatched tween-girl-pencil-case/airbrushed-hot-rod eyeshadow, and laughed in surprise. "What happened to your face?"

"Aren't I beautiful?" Bill asked, lacing his hands under his chin (and making Ford snort again when he spied the multiple nail extensions on one hand). "Go on! Tell me I'm beautiful. I know I am."

"You're..." Ford was keenly aware that Mabel and her friends were probably behind this makeover, "...certainly colorful."

"Stanford, you flatterer!" Bill cackled.

Dipper headed inside, yawning. "I'm gonna... go to sleep or something."

That was a good idea; but Ford was hesitant to go in. He was loath to trust Bill unsupervised alone with a couple of vulnerable children, with no one to keep him in check but another child he'd already manipulated into helping him escape once.

But who was Ford to judge. Bill had manipulated him into helping him escape, too. He supposed Mabel could handle him as well as anyone else.

Grenda said, "I think we should watch Hot Models 2 anyway! It's got lots of cute boys! And girls, I guess." She turned to Bill. "Hey, do you like girls or boys?"

"Sometimes," Bill said. "Sure, I'm up for it. It's a pretty good satire of Big Fashion and I like the runway fight scene with the big light show."

To Ford, all Bill seemed to be doing was talking about movies, wearing stupid makeup, and being a chair for a couple of kids. It was so... normal.

It was something a person would do.

Ford made himself go inside. Maybe he'd start work on uncursing that tape for Mabel before he went to bed.

####

Bill had written a magic-negation seal on the back of a crumpled Mystery Shack receipt and attached it to the camcorder with an X of clear tape. Ford had only used that seal twice in his life. Once, thirty years ago, when Bill had taught it to him. And once last fall, when Ford had attempted to draw it in the Book of Bill to prevent its anomalous effects. Bill's book had absorbed the seal into its page until it disappeared—then burped. At least the symbol still seemed to work on the camcorder.

Ford tried to rewind the tape to the beginning; something inside the camcorder caught and made a nasty sound. He grimaced and hit the stop button. That wasn't good. He carefully peeled off the magic-negation seal, popped the cassette tape out of the camera, and examined it.

He pushed up the cassette's guard panel, but where there should have been a strip of magnetic tape running beneath it, there was nothing. The tape must have snapped. As he tried to inspect the damage, the cassette jumped and rattled in his hand, trying to snap the guard panel shut on his finger like it wanted to bite him.

"Stop that," Ford chided. "I'm trying to repair you." Would it listen? In his experience, objects animated by this particular curse tended to be consistently hostile. He might need to re-seal it.

To his surprise, the tape settled down sedately on his desk. That was more like it.

"Can you unreel the damaged ends of your tape?" If it could, that would save him the effort of disassembling the thing entirely.

After a short pause, the cassette flipped up its guard panel and extended two ends of broken tape.

"Thank you."

It looked like something had... burned? melted the tape? But what? The video cassette's casing was completely undamaged, how had something managed only to burn the tape inside?

Ford snipped off the damaged ends of the tape, used a little strip of masking tape to connect them back together, and carefully rewound the tape a few seconds with a pen. This was only a temporary repair; he'd have to transfer the contents of this cassette to an undamaged one. Mabel would probably want it digitized so she could make her video, too. But watching a few seconds wouldn't destroy it; and he wanted to know whether the camera had recorded whatever damaged the tape.

He carefully removed the smallest of Project Mentem's undamaged monitors, moved it to his worktable, plugged in a VHS-C player, and slid the cassette in.

As he started to play back the recording—the first thing on the screen was one of Mabel's terrified-looking friends—the monitor trembled and jumped, banging heavily as it landed back on Ford's worktable.

"Oh, behave." Ford peeled the magic-negating seal off the camcorder and slapped it on the TV. It immediately stilled. Some gratitude for repairing that tape.

When Ford turned his attention back to the screen, Mabel's friend's face had been replaced by Bill's, his curls filling the edges of the screen.

"Gold-O! You came back!" "Hey, Grend-O. Sorry for the wait..."

As Ford watched, Bill grappled with the camera, eventually managed to get a grip on it, and stared it down with nearly enough fury to make Ford forget the goofy eyeshadow. "Now let's get this straight. Everything beneath this shack's roof is my domain and under my protection! If you want to hurt anyone here—you'll have to get through m—"

The scene cut straight to Mabel's face as it skipped over the damaged section he'd had to cut out. "Welcome back to Mabel's Guide to Secret Sleepovers! Weee're—"

Ford stopped the tape. Huh.

Huh.

####

As soon as Candy and Grenda were gone, Mabel flung her arms around Bill. "Thank you for being nice to my friends," she said. "Especially Grenda. I'm so glad you liked them both after all!"

Liked them? He'd been a charming host to them, but. "Did I?"

"Yes," Mabel informed him firmly. "You did."

Well, he figured he must've, then. And Grenda had grown on him. She'd complimented his eyes, she admired gross things, she had very intelligent opinions on amphibians in general and axolotls in particular... "Hey, any friend of my friend is a friend of mine!"

"That's so much better than what I was trying to say." Mabel let go of him, beaming. "Wanna hang out with them again sometime?"

"Sure!" Bill said, shrugging. "We still have to watch some dumb action comedy movies."

"Great! I'll let them know the next sleepover's over here!" She ran upstairs.

Calling her friends to arrange the next sleepover before they'd even gotten home. Yeah—that was generally how Bill planned his parties, too.

Looked like his social circle for the foreseeable future consisted of three little girls. Wasn't ideal, but he could work with that. He'd always liked getting invited to girls' nights. And maybe at future sleepovers he could talk the kids into some real fun. When they weren't trying to keep quiet, he knew, they fed off each other's chaos. And he was sure there was a budding pyromaniac lurking in Candy's heart.

####

Ford nodded as he passed Stan in the entryway. "Just getting up?"

"Yep. Just going to bed?"

Ford shrugged ruefully. "Afraid so. We got some terrific footage last night, though."

"Oh, yeah? Anything sellable?"

"That's up to Dipper, but I think there's good potential. Bare minimum, I'd bet some cryptozoology documentaries would be interested in his findings."

"Hey, all right! Not bad for a night's work." Stan passed by, headed for the bathroom.

And Ford almost headed on to the guest bedroom—but, reluctantly made himself turn toward the kitchen.

Bill was sitting at the table, sipping at a can of cider with an empty one already on the table in front of him, staring out the window at the morning. He didn't usually drink that heavily this early; it probably meant he was heading to bed soon. The girls must have kept him up all night. Dipper had regaled Ford with tales of what Mabel's sleepovers were like.

"Bill."

"Hm?"

He should have gotten straight to business. Instead, he said, "I watched some of Mabel's video from last night."

Bill glanced over at him. (He still had that ridiculous makeup.) "Oh, yeah?"

Under my protection. Did he consider himself the household's guardian—or its owner? "I..." Ford cleared his throat. "I wondered about—the symbol you painted on your hand to disable the camera. That part of the tape melted, and—I assume it was light-activated, which means it must be different from the seal I already know, so...?"

Bill's face had immediately closed off. He turned away. "You're not my student."

Ford was surprised at how much that felt like a slap to the face. He should have been glad—he'd finally managed to get Bill to agree with what he'd been telling him all summer—but he hadn't expected Bill to ever give up. (He hadn't expected Bill to ever change.)

But he probably hadn't really given up. No doubt he was giving Ford the cold shoulder to see if he begged Bill's forgiveness.

"No. I suppose I'm not." He trudged into the kitchen, rummaged in his coat pocket, and dropped a leather pouch on the table. "Anyway, I'm just here to drop this off."

Bill reached for it, stopped himself, and warily asked, "What is it?"

"The rest of my nutrition pills from my interdimensional travels." When he'd lost his trench coat to the lake during the eclipse last week, he'd had to dig out the old tattered one he'd worn during his travels, and he'd happened to find his pills at the same time. It had occurred to him to bring them up while he was working on Mabel's tape. They were tricky to synthesize, but they lasted forever and the ingredients could be found in almost any dimension—whether there was anything otherwise edible for humans or not.

Bill eyed him suspiciously; but he opened the pouch's snap and peeked into the resealable plastic bag. They didn't look like "pills" so much as small balls of incredibly dense dark brown bread, each about the size of a wad of bubblegum. "Whyyy?"

"To make up the difference in your diet until we figure out the food problem," Ford said. "They're formulated so that four a day meets a human's... well, meets my nutritional needs. I haven't looked into your..." vague gesture, "body... type."

"Is this your emergency stash?"

"It... was." Stan had persuaded Ford to get back onto normal food (as much of a waste of time as it was), but he still had this stash left.

"Why are you giving me your emergency stash."

"Because... I'm not having an emergency and you are?" It was better than a couple of avocados and some hot sauce. Honestly, he should have thought to go looking for his nutrition pills weeks ago. If he'd realized just how severe they'd made Bill's situation... or how stubborn Bill would be about asking for help... or that they'd ever plan to keep Bill around long enough that his nutrition would be an issue.

Bill squinted at him, and for a moment Ford thought he was about to start a fight for some insane reason; but then the air seemed to leak out of him, his shoulders sagged, and he just looked at the nutrition pills. "For starters, they'll need more than twice as much iron."

"That much?"

"And more vitamin D, I don't remember the numbers right now." He shut the pouch, sat back, and lifted his cider can again. "All right."

All right? Ford supposed that was all he was getting. He turned to go.

As he did, Bill said, "Bed?"

Ford glanced back. "Yes?"

"Fine," Bill said. "Have nightmares."

He couldn't help letting out a laugh. "Fine. You too."

"It's too late for you to start trying to sweet-talk me like that, Stanford Pines!" But he tilted his can toward Ford—cheers—chugged down the rest, and cracked open a third.

####

Dipper was already in bed when Mabel charged in. He rolled over slightly, saw she was still in her sleepover pajamas, and mumbled, "Going to sleep too?"

She rummaged around in the closet by the door. "I can't waste that kind of time!" She retrieved a shoe box full of the wooden models of the townspeople she'd crudely whittled last summer at a library arts & crafts program run by Wendy's dad. She dumped them out on the floor, and, for lack of a figure representing Bill, tore a corner off a stray sheet of notebook paper and drew his eye on it. "I've got to capitalize on last night's success!"

She snatched her pyramid prism off the windowsill and taped the paper eye on it. "Hey, you." She poked Bartholomew's cradle. "Why were you a big chicken in front of my friends?"

"What, with you waving that camera around?" Bartholomew said. "I didn't want it to know I have a soul to steal."

"You knew?! You jerk!" She gave the cradle a harder poke, rocking it slightly.

Dipper yawned. "Capitalize on what success? The demon summoning?"

"No! Helping Bill make two new friends!" Mabel sat on the floor, plopped the Bill prism down amidst the other wooden figures, and started setting them upright. Waddles waddled over to sniff at them.

"Oh." Dipper groaned and rolled back over.

"The next stage of his rehabilitation is expanding his social circle. Get him some normal friends that don't want to eat people or destroy moons or whatever!" She grabbed up the notebook paper again, tore it into sections, and wrote on each with the nearest gel pen: "Friends!!!" "Maybe" "NO" "Healthy ☆ Rivals" "♡ Potential dates? ♡" She added thoughtfully, "And maybe get him a love life. We had to chase off his last girlfriend."

Dipper groaned louder. "I don't wanna think about Bill dating. That dumb eye-bat was bad enough."

"She's not dumb, she's into avant-garde experimental films. And she watches them with subtitles. Bill said so." She placed her, Grenda's, and Candy's figures in the Friends section, tentatively placed Dipper halfway between Maybe and No after checking to make sure he wasn't watching, and then started scanning her collection for more likely friends. "Who in town do you think would date Bill Cipher?"

"Nobody. Everyone hates him."

She stuck Wendy and her gang in the "Friends!!!" section, she thought they were a safe bet. "Who do you think would date Bill if they don't know he's Bill?"

"Nobody." Dipper pulled his blanket over his head.

"Pbbt, don't be so negative! You've gotta believe in him." Blubs and Durland? They were probably his friends, right? She sorted them accordingly and added Lazy Susan to the "Maybe" section. "Just you watch. I'll have Bill reintegrated into society before the end of the summer!"

Mabel had picked out several more prospective friends for Bill before Dipper sighed, rolled over again, and said, "Why do you have to make friends for Bill?"

"Bro. Come on. When he's left to his own devices, he keeps talking about pulling people's veins out of their bodies or telling them secret information about their own childhoods. He's probably talking about something creepy right now."

####

"I'm telling you," Bill said, gesticulating emphatically with a cider can. "It works. Your cousins will never argue with you again, and you guarantee they'll be with you forever! It's the perfect way to permanently resolve family disputes!"

"I can see your logic," Stan said, grimacing. "However. I'm not eating my cousins."

"Not all your cousins," Bill insisted. "Just one, to send a message. You don't even need to eat the whole guy! Just half a limb or so. If you want to look like the bigger man, you can even let him choose which one."

Looking faintly nauseous, Stan shoved over his unfinished eggs and pancakes and stood. "What the heck was your home life like?"

"Oh, it was terrific. I was the family golden child." Bill dug into Stan's eggs. "I was everything your family hoped you'd be and was disappointed you weren't!"

"Was that before or after you started eating your cousins?"

"I didn't say I did it. That's your species' thing." Bill said, with a lofty tone that suggested moral superiority, "We'reinedible."

"Ha!" Stan shook his head. "You talk a big game for a guy who's never eaten one family member!"

Bill snapped the tab off his cider can and flipped it at Stan's head.

####

"He's delightful, but he's an acquired taste," Mabel said. "He just needs somebody else to help mediate when he meets new people! Like letting two cats sniff each other under the door!"

"Okay, but why you?"

She thought about that, staring at the pyramid representing Bill; then she shrugged. "Somebody has to."

"They really don't."

"Somebody should," Mabel insisted. "I just really want to see him make friends with everybody here. It's like... making it up to the town for hurting them last year."

"I think leaving them alone would work better. After what he did, he doesn't deserve to be friends with anyone in town—"

"It's important to me, okay?" Mabel snapped. "It just is."

What was that for? Did she think he was criticizing her for befriending him? He mumbled, "I didn't mean you."

She was quiet a moment. "I know."

"Sorry." Dipper was too tired for this conversation; he was just sticking his foot in his mouth. He yawned, muttered, "Good luck scheduling him a playdate, I guess," and rolled over.

####

After sleep and lunch, Ford returned to his study, set up a second blank video cassette to copy the damaged one's data, carefully rewound the damaged one all the way to the beginning, and watched it for the first time in over thirty years.

The recording was grainy and distorted now. It looked so old. This technology had been brand new when Ford had bought his video camera—so new that he'd had to order it from overseas, it hadn't been available in the United States yet. How quickly things changed.

The camera turned to take in Ford's own, younger, beaming face. "This is Dr. Stanford Pines, with the first of what will hopefully be many video recordings of the oddities in Gravity Falls." (In the present, Ford snorted.) "The subject of this first video is a series of magic symbols that, when combined, can animate inanimate objects. Any inanimate object."

He turned the camera around. Like a vampire's morbid pulpit, one of Ford's journals was laid open atop the lid of a black casket. Two heavy chains were laid across each side of the book and locked around the casket's handles to keep them tightly secured. A couple dozen pages in the middle of the book had been left free of the chains, but were pinned down by a cinderblock.

All the security measures were clearly needed; the book was thrashing in its restraints strongly enough to make the casket lid rattle. The visible text writhed across the journal's pages, words and symbols appearing and disappearing in the margins. The susurrations of the pages rubbing against each other sounded like the hissing of a trapped animal.

Ford tipped the cinderblock off the journal and pinned the pages down with his shoe instead. "Several days ago, a local director taught me the spell he used to animate clay figures for his movies. I'd thought perhaps he was creating golems, but aside from the superficial similarity of writing symbols to animate figures of mud, there doesn't seem to be any similarity between his ritual and any golem folklore I've ever heard. Furthermore, his creations are intelligent, capable of speech, and seem to remain loyal to their creator simply out of a passion for acting and respect for his directorial talents rather than any sort of magically-compelled loyalty." A wry note entered his voice. "And I can confirm that the spell itself certainly doesn't impart any loyalty."

The page below his foot erased itself and replaced the text with large, angry text: "WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO EARN MY LOYALTY?! YOU DOG EAR MY PAGES! YOU USE ME AS A CHOPPING BOARD!"

"Wh—! Who do you think you are, a Sefer Torah?! Don't be so precious! You're made of faux leather and craft paper, I'll dog ear you all I want!" Ford snapped. "And I already apologized for the chopping board thing!"

The journal stopped moving. "My cover isn't real leather?"

"On my budget?! The closest you've ever come to real cow hide is visiting the Sprott farm!"

While the journal was stunned silent, Ford scooted his foot aside so the camcorder could see a symbol on the opposite page—one of the few bits of ink that didn't seem to shift around the journal's pages. "This is the symbol the director taught me. But it's only supposed to work if you perform an accompanying ritual to activate and power it, which I haven't." He reached down with a gloved hand to flip the loose pages over, then pinned them again under his shoe to let him record another symbol. "This symbol is supposed to power magical artifacts. I suspect writing both these sigils together in the same book has caused them to interact in unexpected ways. But, by themselves, these two are insufficient to bring a book to life—I experimented by copying them both into Journal 1—so perhaps some of the other symbols or spells written in Journal 2 are contributing to—"

"WHAT?!" Journal 2 angrily scrawled around the perimeter of the second symbol. "You tried to bring that teacher's pet to life?! What's wrong with ME!"

"You mean, besides your completely uncooperative attitude, reckless abuse of magic, and murder attempts?" Ford ignored the journal's angry "shouting" as he went on, "But until I figure out what the other symbols are, my... anonymous informant on the occult—"

"You don't mean Creature #326? Tell me it's not Creature #326!"

"—has taught me a sigil that should be able to reverse the effects of the animation spell—"

A series of magical sigils flashed across the journal's page and were quickly replaced by "HA-HA-HA!" The camera shuddered.

"What was that?!" Ford set the camera on the casket where it could watch as he tried to pin down Journal 2's fluttering pages and write on it. "We'll see who's laughing in a minute, you— Stop erasing what I write!" Ford tugged out a sticky note that had been serving as bookmark, hastily scribbled on it, and slapped it into the journal. "Ha!"

The book immediately fell still.

Ford grabbed up a tape dispenser from the floor, pulled off a short strip, and attached the sticky note more securely to the page. "Well. That was effective." He flipped through the journal. "Furthermore, it looks like all the changes Journal 2 made to itself have been reverted. Good. It defaced a lot of data I'd hate to have to reproduce..." As he spoke, the camera slowly rose into the air.

He turned to pick it up, flinched, and quickly got to his feet. "Oh! Uh. Hello."

"Hello," the camera echoed in Ford's voice.

"How did you...?" Ford smacked his forehead, eyes wide with amazement! "Of course! My recording! The symbols my journal wrote! This is fascinating. Recording the symbols on magnetic tape must be just as effective as writing them on paper, even if the symbols aren't visible without specialized equipment. I'll have to experiment with other methods of... of..." Ford petered off as the camera slowly floated higher. He held out a hand hopefully. "Please come back?"

"No," the camera said. "Please give me your soul."

"No." Ford took a deep breath, set Journal 2 on the casket, and flexed his fingers. "Okay. Let's do this again."

As the Ford of thirty-odd years ago wrestled with the camera on the TV screen, the much older Ford sighed. That had been fun. Exploring the bizarre and aberrant had still been fun, back then. That thought disconcerted him; was it no longer fun now? He supposed it still was to an extent. He was just worse at having fun. Harder to dazzle.

He wondered why Journal 2 had been so wary of Creature #326. Bill. It had been right, he was Ford's "anonymous informant"—Ford had told him about his hostile new living journal in a dream, and after Bill had finished laughing, he'd taught Ford how to counteract the spell activating it.

But how did it know?

Could it have warned him about Bill?

Ford would never find out now.

The TV went dark as, in the recording, Ford trapped the camera inside a box. Slightly muffled, Ford said, "Try getting out of that!" Under his breath, he muttered, "I think I prefer writing over narrating anyway."

The screen remained dark for another ten seconds as the camera bumped around and muttered to itself. And then it abruptly cut to a shot of Dipper's bed. Off-screen, Mabel's voice said, "Awesome, still works!" She set the camera on the table under the kids' window—

That was what Ford was looking for. He rewound several seconds and began transferring the recording of Mabel's sleepover onto a fresh tape he'd prepared earlier.

After that, maybe he'd go back to the start again so he could see the other symbols Journal 2 had flashed at the camera and copy them into Journal 5—onto a page already prepared with the magic-negating seal.

####

In the Nightmare Realm, a red book with a golden handprint on the cover boldly labeled "2" floated alone in the void, as it had since it had been tossed in the bottomless pit a year ago.

Its tattered pages were splayed open as it drifted weightlessly through the aether.

On one page near the center of the book, a sticky note with a seal drawn on it was attached to the page with a strip of tape, and surrounded by a warning never to erase the symbol on the sticky note.

The tape had lost its stick after decades buried outdoors; it stuck to the sticky note, but not to the book. The sticky note was barely holding on by a corner.

And as the book slowly wheeled through the void, the last corner peeled off, and the sticky note fluttered away.

Journal 2's pages rustled.

####

(I think y'all who have been keeping up with my posts about this fic know exactly what's coming next. 😎

Thaaat's right. 😎😎

An unrelated flashback chapter!!!

Anyway hope y'all enjoyed, let me know what you think!)

#mabel pines #dipper pines #(for the art)#bill cipher #human bill cipher #(for the fic)#gravity falls #gravity falls fic #gravity falls fanart #fanart #my art #my writing #bill goldilocks cipher

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exghul · 2 years

Text

@razorfst & ♥ !

damian considers himself to be the PERFECT fighter, one born into a legacy greater than other children. he gathers weapons & the knowledge to wield them. this is how he finds himself perched in front of a man he knows little of: razor fist. talia al ghul, leader of the league of assassins, encourages her son to seek out continued education in the form of anyone who will give her son the time of day ( not that she could stop him if she wanted ).

thus, in a smooth voice, he asks: ❝ where did you learn to do that? ❞

#razorfst #holds this out to u #i havent used the new editor yet but . from here on out ima try not being dumb & use it #⊰ ℜ ⊱ SAY GOODBYE AS WE DANCE WITH THE DEVIL TONIGHT \ verse : league of assassins.

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princesssmars · 5 months

Text

sweet✰honey✰buckin

a rodeo!abby x reader. | p.ii

its a hot spring in the south and rodeo season is here. your hunt for a new fling leads you to an up-and-coming hotshot bull rider with an aversion to groupies. maybe you can change her mind.

wc : 2.509

contains : fxf relationship. barely attempted country slang. fluff. smut. oral and penetrative sex (r!receiving). nicknames (baby, darlin', a single bunny).

a/n : yeah guess who just listened to cowboy carter. idk why i posted about this before writing a single word but i didn't procrastinate this time yall clap it up and enjoy.

if you think about it, this was really all dolly partons' fault.

you could still picture the first time you saw her, the grainy recording on your grandmother's television, the gentle melodies from the blonde bombshell wrapping around you like a warm hug. you'd only been exposed to the south for a few weeks, and you already knew who you wanted your role model to be.

and the buckle bunny stuff also wasn't your fault! you were gorgeous, as people so loved to remind you at every twist and turn. and maybe you used your looks to your advantage sometimes. the first time was when you batted your eyelashes to make a boy do your project a day before it was due in junior year. he was... good-looking, you supposed. smart enough to be on the chess team, so he would do.

so you went to a little party with your friends that night. a spacious house, nice music, and good enough booze. everything was normal until you saw her. she was lean and mysterious, and under the lid of her black ridge top hat you could see her eyes tracking your body as you danced

so yes, her eating you in the back seat of her truck until you cried, holding down your hips when you tried to move changed your brain chemistry just a bit.

now a few years later, you're a little taller, a little smarter, and have collected a handful of studs for your belt. sure you've collected a...not so savory reputation in some of the local bars, but it was nothing a smile and a little flirting couldn't help. and its only going to get better; as the air warms and the trees bloom pussy spirit starts buzzing, and you know rodeo season is upon you again.

it was a hot night at the cow belle and the people even hotter as you scoped the scene from the rim of your glass. you and your friends were perched at the bar, daisy dukes heightened and crop tops tied under your busts.

"i heard red devil rosie'd be here tonight," savannah whispers to your group from beside you, her tall dark legs relaxed with her arm resting on the wood behind you. she always had a bit of a thing for redheads, and she'd had her eyes on rosie ever since it got around that she'd broken up with her fiancee.

"jesus, sav, the poor girl just got heartbroken, now you already wanna jump her bones?" charlize laughs, taking a hard swig of the beer in her hand. standing at a solid five feet and four inches tall the little kentuckian was a handful, always the first in line to ride a mechanical bull or jump in the front of a line dance.

"whats that saying men always use? as soon as you lose one hop on a 'nother?"

"you are deplorable."

as the girls banter back and forth your eyes focus on the rising commotion at the front of the bar. with a slight rise on your toes, making sure not to scuff your boots, and you can't help the growing smile on your face when you spot that blonde hair pushed down by her signature brown stetson.

abigail anderson, the rodeo's angel. she'd only been in the circuit for under two years and sponsors were lining up and begging for her to go pro. it was always easy to spot her, frequently trailed by her already professional friends manny alvarez and owen moore, along with a handful of groupies begging her to look their way.

luckily for you, manny had flirted with you a few weeks back and remained friendly after you turned him down, and he was heading straight towards you while his friends headed to a booth.

"oh god, hide your wives and girlfriends, the buckle brood is here!" he laughs, thanking the bartender for his beer and taking a swig.

"whatever manny, you're just upset our darling here didn't give you a chance." savannah winks.

"i think god was doing me a favor. y'know dixie's been trying to call you for about a week? the poor girls even thought about sending a bouquet. dixie. a bouquet."

"i made it clear before we slept together it would be a one-time thing. 's not my fault she wants more." you sigh.

that just makes the man laugh harder. he chats it up with charlize about how the rankings are looking when he notices how your gaze keeps wandering off, following your eye straight to-

"no."

"hm? i didnt say anything!"

"you said it with your eyes. and im gonna tell you with my mouth that you don't stand a chance. abby hates groupies." he shakes his head.

"abby, huh? i like it." manny grows exasperated as his words go in one ear and out the other. "'n and im technically not a groupie. never seen the woman in my life before now."

"well, look don't touch. or maybe don't look at all, before you put a spell on her or somethin."

you pout, reaching up to wrap your arms around his neck and bring him into a hug. you see abby look your way in the corner of your eye and make sure to stretch your torso just a tiny bit until you're able to feel the bottom of your shirt ride up just that much more. when you see her eyes trail down your waist you hide a smile into the side of your arm.

you let the man go with a sweet goodbye, watching as he grabs two more beers and heads over to the booth and twisting your head before you can catch the blondes gaze.

its only a few minutes later when manny comes back with wide eyes and invites you over to sit with them.

sitting across from her, you can see why people are so attracted to her. she’s big, her muscles bulging out from the sleeves in her plaid shirt. despite her size she doesn’t try to take up more space then needed; confident but not cocky.

she clearly notices your glances, and maybe even the smile on your face when one of her past flings with a girl is brought up in conversation.

“so, you’ve had girlfriends before?” you ask, stirring your cocktail with the little colorful umbrella that came with it.

“no no, don’t answer that, you’ll regret it.” owen butts in, meeting your glare. you’d never talked before, but you were pretty sure you had slept with his fiancée a few years ago. last you’d heard they’d had a baby, maybe you’d offer to babysit sometime.

“why not? are you a groupie?” abby asks.

“can’t be a groupie if i barely know who you are. so why don’t we get to know each other better. preferably in private.”

“whatever you say, darlin.”

you hear the sudden sounds of a few hoots and claps and a familiar song that they always play to get people dancing.

“why don’t you show me some of your moves, big girl?”

she rolls her eyes, letting out a quiet sigh before following you onto the dance floor.

as much as she’s trying to fight it, you can tell abby is enjoying herself, learning quickly as you show her the moves to the dance. you’re a bit surprised she doesn’t know it already until she tells you she’s originally from utah.

“what, they don’t have country bars out in salt lake.”

“no, not like this. at least i never went to any of them.”

“wellll if you ever need a tour guide i’m available. whenever you want me.”

“god, manny told me about you.”

“really? what’s he say? i can probably guess.”

“so you know everybody thinks you’re a playgirl who sleeps with cowgirls for damn near a living and you don’t care?”

you shrug. “‘m just young and having fun. maybe everyone else, including you, is too uptight.”

“oh really? and what, you're supposed to help me loosen up?” she raises a single eyebrow. you don't answer, deciding to just look at her face for a while.

you like how pretty she is. the soft blue of her big eyes, the freckles dotted across her face that trail down her neck and disappear into her shirt. you feel pride in your chest when you see her cheeks redden.

when the song ends you pull away from her, ready to go over and tell your friends goodbye when a large hand grips your wrist, tugging your body back to its previous position. before you can question her you feel the weight of her hat sitting on your head.

"well? you gonna answer my question?"

you can still remember the looks on your friends face's when abby told them she was heading home, still gripping your hand. manny looked like he had just seen pigs fly.

it was hard to ignore the way she didn't let go of you until she was driving or the looks she was giving you when she was looking at the road, or how desperate she was when you finally got her here, dragging you to her room and attaching her strap like she'd die if she didn't get you in bed.

"i don't see what the big fuss is about, this really isn't that hard." you tease her, admiring the way she whines when you refuse to let her wrists go from your hands, using all your strength to keep her from flipping you over

but maybe you should learn when to shut your mouth because she roughly starts bucking her hips, smiling at the euphoric look on your face before you hide your face in her neck, trying and failing to muffle your moans.

"what? i thought you said this was easy?" she laughs when she hears your muffled groan, failing to ignore when you roughly bite her. you can tell she's getting frustrated at being restrained, her hands clenching into fists and repeatedly trying to get them from under your hands. "fuckin - cmon, baby, lemme help you."

god, she was so cute. you'd never say it out loud but you liked all the little nicknames she gave you, the gentle kisses she would place on your skin when she was warming you up for her. if you didn't have a one-time policy you would have chosen to keep her around. just for a little while.

but you could also see the inner turmoil in her eyes, the battle between dominance and submission. when you first met her you thought she'd be a stone top, so you decide to take advantage and reach one of your hands up to her hair and pull, forcing a loud moan from her as her mouth gaped open.

"not so uptight now, are you?" you laugh, awwing at her when she lets out a small whine.

you didnt realize until it was too late that it was a mistake to underestimate her because she was attaching her hands to your hips, planting her feet on the bed, and thrusting up into you like a wild bull, sucking a mark into your chest like she can't see you struggling to breathe.

"yeah, that's it. not so easy now, is it darlin'?"

and oh how you hate how you can't answer her, only able to muster up a weak glare as the pleasure grows, feeling the burning heat gross in your stomach. you're trying to hold off, not ready for this to end just yet, and hating the satisfied look on her face when your shaky arms wrap around her neck.

"you gettin' close, baby?" she maneuvers your legs to spread wider, hitting that spot inside you at just the right angle. god, everything feels so hot and overwhelming and so damn good-

"that's it, show me how pretty you look cummin around me." once she reaches a hand down and roughly rubs your clit it's over, moaning and gasping her name as your orgasm hits you like a freight train. she never stops her movements, in fact, you think she goes harder once she feels your nails dig into her arms.

your head flops onto her shoulder, basking in your post-orgasm bliss as her large hands rub up and down your back. mind hazy, you feel yourself drifting off and giving yourself a mental pat on the back when you're shocked upwards by a fierce thrust from below you, wide eyes darting to abby's.

"what, ya thought we were finished? if you wanna claim me you gotta earn it, bunny."

"oh no, abby i cant-" you try to decline, not sure you can take another before she presses you back into her sheets, manhandling your legs over her shoulders and your arms under your back. she can tell you're about to fight it because she's pushing her strap into you again.

it's embarrassing how close you are already after a few minutes, unable to move as she splits you open in a damn mating press. trying to hide your face in the sheets is futile so you have no choice but to keep eye contact with her, which only brings you closer to the edge because she's looking at you like she wants to fuck you until she physically can't anymore.

she's quieter now but you can hear her mumbling under her breath about how 'you're too damn fine, jesus you're gonna be the death of me,' and the next thing you know you're both cumming, feeling the wet mess grow between your legs.

she sinks into you, boneless on top of you as she gently rubs at your sides as you do the same for her head. after a few minutes she gets up, pressing a gentle kiss to your lips at your soft whine at the strap leaving you before heading off to the bathroom to get a washcloth.

it's gentle as you both clean the other, softly trailing the rag down her arms as she observes you. its almost...domestic. which you haven't done in quite a while. it feels nice.

when she gets up to throw it in the hamper you reach for your clothes on the floor before she questions you.

"excuse me, what do you think you're doin?"

"uhh...leaving?"

"nope, bad manners if i let you go home now," she tosses you a shirt from one of her drawers, finding her own pajamas before flopping on her bed. "i don't know what kinda girls in the circuit you've been seein', but I'm not like that."

you're on the fence, rubbing the fabric of her large shirt before putting it on and settling in next to her. it couldn't hurt just to sleep with her, right? "fine. but you should know i don't normally do...this."

"me neither. but there's a first time for everything, right?" she smiles, rubbing your hip from over the shirt before trailing it under. "besides, maybe we can go again in the morning. still need to prove to you I'm not uptight."

thank god for dolly parton.

sorry if this is shorter than expected i feel like death. can we all do rodeo!abby this summer. pretty please.

taglist : @euphternal @jupiter-502 @vqxen @youcallmeconnor @andersonlore i love you guys im giving you kisses rn

#rodeo!abby #buckle bunny!reader #abby anderson x reader #abby anderson #abby anderson smut #abby #tlou #abby x reader #tlou2 #tlou 2 #tlou smut #tlou x reader

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