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skyward-floored · 9 months ago

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Febuwhump collab day 14 — blood-stained tiles

Shhhhh don’t even look at the day this was technically supposed to be posted on okay (I’ve just. given up on posting them the correct days I think XD but that’s okay, I’m still having fun)

This one was suggested by the lovely @thepinklink! Some Legend angst for you <3

This is set after supers are legal again btw. Legend and Wild are both about 15 here.

Warnings: blood, and injury, but not described in too much detail.

Today’s lovely art

Ao3 link

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Wild scanned dully across the book page in front of him, holding back a yawn as the words smeared under his tired eyes. It was an interesting book, but it just wasn’t enough to keep his eyes from trying to close, lids heavy with exhaustion. He wanted so much to just drift off and sleep, but the nightmares had been bad again, and he knew if he closed his eyes they’d be upon him with a vengeance.

His pillow was so soft though, and his blankets were nice and warm, and resting his eyes for just a second or two couldn’t hurt...

Wild jerked himself awake from the doze, shaking his head and pressing his palms to his eyes. Maybe he needed some water. That would wake him up, right? Getting out of bed to get it would at least.

He sighed and threw back his blankets, slightly relieved he didn’t have to be quite as quiet as he normally would. Twilight was off at their grandpa’s farm for the week, and while Wild sort of enjoyed having their room to himself, he missed his brother’s snoring, and the solution and comfort he would doubtless give if he knew about Wild’s current problem.

It’s only for another few days, get a grip, Wild huffed to himself, then padded quietly out into the hallway.

He was nearly to the bathroom when he heard a small thump from inside, and Wild paused with his hand inches from the knob. The door was mostly closed, but the light wasn’t on, and Wild had assumed nobody was inside.

Maybe Four was in there? Sometimes he didn’t turn on the overhead since there was a nightlight inside, but he always shut and locked the door. Maybe it was someone else in there.

Or maybe it was something in there?

Oh if it’s mice again Mom’s gonna lose it, Wild thought. Or cockroaches. Though I really hope a cockroach didn’t make that thud.

Wild braced himself for any number of nasty things, then bravely pushed the door open and clicked on the light.

And was treated to the sight of Legend halfway out of his hero suit, leaning heavily on the counter, a hand clasped at his side, and a generous amount of blood dripping onto the floor.

Wild stared, Legend blinking in the sudden light, and it was a solid minute before his voice finally came back enough for him to speak.

“Ledge!” he gaped, and Legend glared at him, though the effect was diminished by the wearied look on his face. “Legend you’re bleeding—”

“Keep it down!” Legend hissed. “Do you want everyone running in here?”

“Maybe I do! What happened?” Wild whisper-shouted back, and Legend shushed him again before letting out a heavy sigh.

“I just... went out and ran into a little trouble, okay?” he bit out, leaning a little more heavily on the sink. “Don’t worry about it.”

Wild kept staring at him in disbelief. “Legend, we’re not supposed to go heroing out by ourselves. Dad said that was the rule until we’re older, you know that—”

“Right, and you’ve definitely never broken that rule,” Legend scoffed, and Wild faltered a second.

Admittedly, Legend had him there.

“...okay, but I’ve never come back with a great gaping hole in my side,” Wild pointed out, and Legend flicked his eyes away from him. Wild crossed his arms when Legend didn’t say anything further, and his brother sighed, giving a great big roll of his eyes.

“Okay, okay. I’m an idiot, and I learned my lesson, hooray. Now will you get out of here and leave me alone?” Legend snapped.

Wild shook his head. “No way. I’m getting Hyrule, don’t—”

“Wild don’t you dare try to wake up Hyrule, he’s been sick all week,” Legend hissed.

“You’re bleeding all over the bathroom!” Wild hissed back, “I kinda think that’s something he’d want to help with!”

Legend opened his mouth to say something equally snarky in reply, but his entire form suddenly flickered, and he closed his eyes, face drawn with pain.

Wild watched some blood drip onto the floor, and exhaled through his nose, anger fading away to be replaced with worry.

It was true Hyrule had been sick the past several days, nauseous and tired, and it was likely he wouldn’t be able to handle healing Legend up much at all. And even if he could, he really shouldn’t, since it would just wear him out further. Even if Legend was doing his best impression of a leaky faucet at the moment, and they’d all heard the stories their uncles would tell about how dangerous blood loss could be...

“Okay. Whatever,” Wild said more softly, and Legend looked at him, trembling a little. “At least let me help you bandage it up.”

“...Fine,” Legend murmured.

Wild came forward, stepping around the blood on the floor, and pushed Legend down to sit on the toilet lid. His brother did so with a pained grunt, and Wild began rummaging for something to help stop the bleeding. He pulled out some clean towels, and kneeled back down by Legend, studying his injury with nausea and worry swimming in his gut.

“Geez Legend, you really did a number on yourself,” he murmured as he looked at him.

“It wasn’t me. Some idiot with a knife just managed to guess where I was standing,” Legend muttered, hissing through his teeth as Wild pressed a towel to his side. “‘S not my fault.”

“I’m sure Mom and Dad’ll take that as an excuse,” Wild said dryly.

“Mom and Dad don’t need to know,” Legend muttered, and let out another hiss of pain as Wild shifted his grip. “Just my luck the guy got me while I was a rabbit.”

“You were in rabbit form?” Wild asked worriedly, and Legend looked away. “Didn’t changing back hurt? I know transforming is painful if Twilight’s injured, isn’t it the same for you?”

“Yeah, w-well he’s him and I’m me,” Legend shrugged, and squeezed his eyes shut again as Wild shifted the towel.

A few moments passed in silence, and Wild pulled the towel off a little, still concerned at the amount of blood coming out of Legend’s side. The towel was becoming rather red, and Legend only seemed to get paler, his hands shaking where they were gripping his middle.

“Legend... this looks really bad,” Wild said quietly. You look really bad. “I... think we should wake up Hyrule now.”

Legend immediately shook his head. “No.”

“Legend, you’re really...” Wild began, and Legend glared at him.

“No. He needs his rest and I’m fi—”

“Um.”

At the third voice, Legend and Wild both turned to stare at the doorway, where Wind was staring back at the two of them, his sleepy expression morphing quickly into one of shock and confusion.

Crud.

“...am I dreaming?” Wind asked in a bit of a dazed voice.

“Yep, better go back to bed,” Wild said quickly, and Wind blinked at them another few seconds, then shook his head, his eyes focusing a bit more.

“I’m not dreaming! Legend you’re hurt!” he gasped, and Wild and Legend both shushed him, Legend’s ears twitching as he listened for anyone else coming.

“We’re handling it Wind, go back to bed,” Legend said in an exhausted voice.

“Does handling it usually involve blood all over the floor and Mom’s good towels?” Wind asked with a raised eyebrow, and Wild winced as he realized he had, in fact, grabbed Mom’s good towels.

“...yes,” Wild said, but Wind sniffed out the uncertainty in his voice better than even Twilight could.

“Riiiiight. What happened?” Wind asked as he walked over to Legend, skirting around the blood on the floor. “How exactly did you— Oh geez— Legend that looks really bad, what did you do? Wait... you snuck out, didn’t you!”

“Genius deduction there Sherlock,” Legend growled. “Now that you’ve figured everything out, go back to bed.”

“Like heck I will, if I left you and Wild here alone you’d probably bleed out,” Wind huffed. “Haven’t you woken Rulie up yet?”

“He’s sick,” Legend hissed again, and Wind crossed his arms as he stared at Legend.

“Yeah and he’ll feel even worse if he hears you hid this from him and didn’t let him help,” Wind pointed out, and Wild blinked. He hadn’t thought about it like that. “And... it looks like you got stabbed Legend, that’s kind of a big deal?!”

“Well it’s really not,” Legend bit out, and sat up, as if to prove it.

His face went white though, and he slipped off the toilet, Wild letting out a panicked noise as he shot forward and grabbed him. Wind darted forward as well, and they both stared at Legend’s face, screwed up in a grimace. His eyes flickered back open after only a few seconds, but Wild was already falling firmly into panic mode.

“Legend?!” he asked frantically.

“Fine, I-I’m— I’m fine,” Legend got out, but the pain in his voice spoke otherwise.

“That’s a lot of blood,” Wind said quietly, sounding much more concerned then before, and Legend squeezed his eyes shut before dragging them open again.

“I... m-maybe you’d better get Hyrule,” he said in a small voice, a thin thread of fear coming through in the words.

Wild swallowed. Legend very, very rarely sounded like that.

Forget trying to avoid nightmares, Legend is trying to give me more.

“Wind? Can you get Hyrule?” Wild asked, and Wind nodded. “Do it quietly though, the last thing we need is Four waking up, or Mom and Dad.”

“Would it really be so bad if that happened?” Wind murmured, but he slipped out of the bathroom without barely a sound.

He returned a few minutes later, Hyrule shuffling quietly behind him. Their other brother seemed like he was only half-awake, and as Wild looked at the dark circles under his eyes, he felt a sting of guilt at having to resort to waking him up.

But Legend was only getting paler, and between waking up Hyrule, or waking up their parents and worrying them both and getting a lecture of some kind, Wild figured Hyrule was the safer option. Plus his parents would probably wake Hyrule up to help anyway. This just cut out the middle man.

Though if Legend loses much more blood, we probably’ll have to wake them up...

Hyrule quietly took in the scene, sniffling and wiping his nose on his sleeve as he eyeballed the blood all over the floor, then he frowned, looking intently at Legend.

“Why is it always you, Legend?” Hyrule murmured with a hint of both amusement and annoyance, and Legend looked down at his feet.

“Almost always,” Wind corrected. “There was that time with Wild and that tree, remember?”

Wild glared at him. “Not the time, Wind.”

Hyrule ignored them both, and sighed as he finished looking over Legend. “Okay. Hold still.”

“Don’t do too much,” Legend said as Hyrule kneeled on the floor beside him, Legend shakily grabbing his arm. “J-just stop the bleeding, don’t... don’t push yourself.”

“I’ll do as much as you need,” Hyrule said patiently, and lit up his hands with a soft blue light.

He pressed them both to Legend’s side, his eyes closing in concentration, and Wild and Wind watched in silence as the gouge in Legend’s side began to slowly shrink away. The glow from Hyrule’s powers lit the bathroom up in an almost eerie way, and Wild noticed Wind slide a little closer to his side, worry bright on his face.

Legend kept his eyes closed while Hyrule worked, and several quiet minutes went by before he raised his head and squeezed Hyrule’s arm.

“That’s good. You can stop.”

Hyrule dragged his eyes open and stared at Legend, the increased exhaustion on his face doing nothing to lessen the firm look in his eyes.

“I’m not finished.”

“Yes you are,” Legend said firmly, his face still pale, but much less so then before. “Rulie you look like you’re going to keel over, you’re in no shape to keep using up your energy on me.”

“What, cause of this l-little cold?” Hyrule smirked, but Legend didn’t return it.

“The sound of the faucet dripping earlier almost made you throw up,” he replied flatly.

“The bathroom is covered in blood,” Hyrule shot back, arms crossed.

“I’m not still bleeding!”

“You could easily reopen it! I’m not done!”

“You guys are both dumb, and need sleep,” Wind interrupted, and Wild couldn’t help his snort. “Let’s see how bad it looks now before you keep arguing, huh?”

Hyrule pulled back and moved the towel that was blocking Wild and Wind’s view, and revealed a shallow mark on Legend’s side. The skin was still bloody, but the injury itself didn’t seem like it was bleeding much at all, and was much less scary-looking then before.

Wild sighed in relief. “I think it’s good, ‘rule.”

“Yeah, it looks way better, I don’t think he’ll pass out now,” Wind said cheerfully, then hesitated. “Well, not from blood loss at least.”

“My own blood doesn’t make me pass out,” Legend grumbled as he began to clean himself up, but Wind ignored him.

“I think it’s good enough for now Hyrule, thanks,” Wild said, and Hyrule nodded, his eyes drooping tiredly. “We can look at it again tomorrow. You should go back to bed.”

“Legend too,” Hyrule murmured. “I can’t really fix blood loss. He needs rest.”

Wild nodded, and as soon as Legend was as clean as he was going to get and had his injury wrapped, Wild and Wind helped him and Hyrule back down the hall and into their beds. Legend didn’t even bother with his own bed, merely collapsing next to Hyrule in his blankets instead, and Hyrule snuggled up to him. Both were asleep in seconds, and Wind and Wild exchanged smiles as they shut the door.

“Finally. Makes me wonder who’s the older sibling sometimes,” Wind huffed as they walked back to the bathroom, and Wild quietly laughed.

“Well you’ll have plenty of time to think about it,” he said as he opened the door, and gestured to the mess they and Legend had left behind. “...We still have to clean all this up before Mom and Dad get up.”

Wind grimaced. “...Right. I Don’t know how we’re going to fix those towels though.”

Wild thought for a moment, then sighed. “...you think Four would know?”

“Probably.”

“I was afraid of that.”

Wind and Wild exchanged tired looks, though after a moment both of their faces cracked into smiles, followed by quickly muffled giggles. It really wasn’t that funny, but Wild at least had reached the point where it was so late and he was so tired that everything was at least a little funny.

Plus... he was still riding the wave of relief that Legend was okay.

Finally their giggles ran out though, and Wild and Wind both wordlessly turned out of the bathroom to go wake up Four, and see if he could help get the blood off of the towels.

It wasn’t the excuse Wild would have picked, but between this and lying in his bed trying not to have more nightmares... cleaning up blood and shushing Wind when he made a stupid joke was much more preferable.

#Incredibles au #incredibles au fic #linkeduniverse #lu Wild #lu legend #lu wind #lu hyrule #linked universe fanfic #writing from the floor #febuwhump #day 14 #blood-stained tiles #how many of these are going to end up happening in bathrooms absjbdjdddbh

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crosspunzel · 4 months ago

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katyawriteswhump · 17 days ago

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the freak in the penthouse part 15

I swore I posted this here, but seems not... getting ready to post the end this weekend, hopefully.

E-rated (for sexual content), accidental millionaire eddie/sex-worker steve. On tumblr: Part 1 Part 2 Part 3.1 Part 3.2 Part 4.1 Part 4.2 Part 5.1 Part 5.2 Part 6.1 Part 6.2 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10 Part 11 Part 12 Part 13 Part 14 or search #thefreakinthepenthouse :) On AO3

Chapter 15: Reunion (part 1)

Eddie lingered in that warm, fuzzy twilight zone between sleep and wakefulness. He didn’t want to wake up.

His dream—at least, the parts of it trickling back to him—had been hot, hot, hot, and sweeter than a glut of cotton candy. He’d been back in his tiny room in Wayne’s trailer, with his beloved warlock framed back on the wall where she belonged. He’d been back where he belonged, killing nine-minute ballads on air guitar and making luuuurve sweet luuurve with the guy he was beyond crazy about and…

…what the hell?

Eddie began to wake up for real. The happy glow in his breast totally rivalled his boner. Possibly because he’d gotten his nose buried in a mass of messy and mildly sticky hair.

He was spooning Steve.

His eyes flew wide, and his heart lurched. Not a dream.

The reality of yesterday totalled him. Every inch of his body tingled with joy. He notched his chin on Steve’s shoulder and burrowed in Steve’s hair, inhaling his own cheap dime-store soap. Slowly, careful not to wake Steve, Eddie crawled an arm over him, wandering fingers under Steve’s t-shirt and through the tangle of hair on his chest.

This was real. Oh my God. It was REAL, which set fears scuttling like cockroaches in the darker corners of his mind. He was on the run from the law. The trailer, devoid of most of his old stuff, rocked post-apocalyptic vibes. The pair of them snuggled on a camp bed so miniscule that they could barely move without risking a tumble over the side.

He was grinning so hard his face ached.

Because, stuck in the penthouse, this had become his ultimate dream. Not fame as a rockstar, nor even regaining his riches for any other reason than to help Steve.

This.

Eddie closed his eyes, snuggled even closer—not deliberately notching his morning wood into the cleft of Steve’s ass, though it happened anyway.

Dammit, almost wish you weren’t so sexy, Sweetheart.

Because this moment was as pure and perfect as this crappy old world could serve up. And usually the mere concept of ‘pure’ gave him the heebie-jeebies. Since that first morning, when they’d basically been strangers, they’d never woken up like this. Steve had always rushed off to work, and Eddie had wakened hours later, listless and hungover, kinda guilty.

Existing only to see Steve again.

When they’d shared that sleazy, silky Playboy bed, he’d usually been so out of it on drink and drugs, that he’d barely even listened to Steve snuffle and softly snore.

As he did now.

Not strangers anymore. No more secrets.

Yeah, they’d not discussed everything, and he knew Steve wanted to tell him more but struggled. Still, only a few hours together had reminded him how well he knew Steve, and also that it was a total gift that he’d still much to discover.

Like how Steve’s snoring was the most adorable sound that he’d ever heard.

Eddie pulled the blanket up over them both and held Steve tight while he slept on.

…

The previous day

“I love you too,” murmured Eddie. “Never leave me again, Babe. Never.”

“Not planning on it,” replied Steve, who seemed as dizzied by events as Eddie. They stood in the trailer, rain still pattering on the roof, clasping each other tight. And reeling in the afterglow of a kiss that’d stopped the freakin’ world spinning on its axis for a good thirty seconds. “You’re the one who did the Houdini act, Eds.”

Eddie’s knees sagged slightly, and he rested his forehead to Steve’s. “I’m sorry. I flaked out. I had to get out of the city pronto and I didn’t want to drag you into things with the cops on my tail, and... How is this even real? Hey, are you cold, Stevie?” Eddie pressed his knuckles to Steve’s cheek, his brow. “You’re damp. Hold on, how come you’re not wetter? This weather is mental! You want me to turn the heating on?”

“Christ, stop clucking. I’m good.” Eddie glanced around his bombsite to locate his mini convector heater. Steve grabbed Eddie’s frantic fingers and pressed them to his own lips. “Wayne gave me a ride over and leant me an umbrella.”

Eddie’s head spun faster and faster.

Wayne.

That explained a smidgen of this deliciously unholy miracle.

They stood there staring at each other, hearts pounding like they’d both sprinted all forty-one storeys of that lowlife hotel. A small, hopeful smile flirted on the mouth Eddie obsessed over. He flitted his attention, over and over, between Steve’s lips and his pretty eyes, those gorgeous curling lashes.

Yeah, this was a little weird, them staring at each other. Not as uncomfortable as it perhaps should be, and boy, Eddie basked in it.

If parting had taught him one thing, it was that every part of Steve was precious to him—every hair, whether gelled or wild, and every adorably lick-able mole. He was in goddamn thrall to the guy, as if they’d been parted for far longer than a few days.

“How did you find Wayne?” he asked, blinking himself out of his trance.

“I hooked up with your brainbox techy chums, you know, Suzie and… Hold on, that can wait.” Steve’s sudden scowl verged on a pout, setting Eddie simply dying to kiss him again. Also, fizzing with unease. “I’m not mad about you running from the cops. Great parting shot with the guitar, dude—you got me arrested!”

“Whut?”

“Jimi Hendrix’s guitar! It was real, you numbskull! And stolen—like, what the fuck? I tried to sell it and… I mean, that did get all of us together to find you, so I guess it had an upside, and Dustin started wittering about… Oh God! You’re too far away.” There was about six inches between their noses. “I don’t give a shit about any of it. I missed you so much, Eddie.”

…

Steve couldn’t quite believe this was real.

A few minutes ago, he’d been lost, rooted to the spot, his nerves knotting so tightly he felt sick. The muted beat leaking from the run-down trailer—muffled further by the noise of the rain pelting onto Wayne’s umbrella—hadn’t been enough to convince him the search was truly over.

Now, they clung to each other, clung and kissed, and there were so many words to spit out, so much to clear up. Thank Christ he didn’t need words to show Eddie how he felt, nor to be sure what Eddie felt for him was real. He was kissing Eddie like he wanted to drown in him, working the kiss like both their lives depended on it.

The fact they’d both spluttered out the ‘l’ word seemed almost redundant.

He’d never tire of the taste of Eddie. Though today, Eddie tasted slightly different for sure. Steve’s tongue swept tinges of honey crunch and coffee, maybe a hint of minty toothpaste, and best of all, something uniquely, addictively Eddie.

Something else struck him, and he broke the kiss, kind of abrupt: “You quit smoking?”

“I did.” Eddie dabbed his wet lips with his tongue and Steve found himself mimicking him. “I’m on the nicotine patches, other than that, total cold turkey. Gives me the jitters ten times a day, but—"

“You didn’t have to,” mumbled Steve, awkward, as Eddie backed him toward a giant beanbag, one of the few pieces of furniture on the paper-strewn floor. He bounced down onto it, tugging Steve with him. They landed and sprang straight back into each other’s arms.

“I wanted to, Babe. Ya know, I need my demon vocal cords on tiptop form for when I’m killin’ the Superbowl. I’m not a natural songbird like you.”

“Bullshit.” Steve lightly backhanded Eddie’s chest, but… Ugh. Eddie made light of it. They both knew the real reason why he quit. Eddie had been dreaming of a future with Steve.

And the past few days he’d kept the faith, too, right? Under darn trying circumstances, to be fair.

“I better double check I still like the taste of you.” He kissed Eddie again. No tongues this time, he just touched his lips against Eddie’s, reminding himself how lush and soft they were. Eddie went with it, touching and brushing, the back of his knuckles lightly stroking Steve’s cheek in the whispering ghost of a caress. Steve lazily winded his arms around Eddie’s shoulders.

Soon, he also grinded his semi against the very prominent bulge in the front of Eddie’s sweatpants. It was the dumb beanbag’s fault for rolling them together, basically dick-to-dick.

“Want me to do something about that?” asked Steve. “Hope you’ve got something better to use as lube than that jar of peanut butter I spotted.”

Eddie licked his lips—damn, why was that so fucking erotic? Then everything got complicated:

“What do you want, Stevie? Look, kissing you always makes me hard. We don’t have to leap straight into the gorey stuff. I mean, I’m sorry about the guitar. Jesus, I can’t believe I got you arrested. I’m sorry about so fucking much.”

Steve took a beat, flinched from Eddie’s super-sweet intensity.

What did he, Steve Harrington, want, right at this moment?

He had a ton to apologise about too. Some of those apologies sent him tumbling into areas that his memory had basically cordoned off with some hardcore crime-scene tape. Even he, dumb as a brick that he was, understood that. He was still dog-tired, though jacked up on Wayne’s coffee, and lost in Eddie’s gaze, and…

Cut the crap, Harrington. You know what you want.

“Things are totally different now,” Eddie was saying. “We need to start over. Figure out… Gnnng, fuck!”

Eddie’s eyes crossed daftly. Steve plunged his hand down the front of Eddie’s baggy sweatpants and began giving him a lazy hand-job.

“Thought that might shut you up, Munson.”

Steve giggled. Fucking giggled! He’d hardly laughed in days. Not even when Robin “deconstructed superficial categories of sex and age” by illustrating how she kicked some ass at terrible dad dancing. So yeah, he totally needed this. Moments later, they’d scrambled each other’s shirts off over their heads. Steve nearly whacked Eddie’s teeth out in the process, and they’d both gotten their pants pooled around their thighs. They giggled together like idiots, and all Steve’s thoughts rushed in tandem with his blood, to where Eddie stroked him into a gorgeous frenzy.

Eddie sure knew his way around a hand-job, slowly pressuring that g-spot on the underside of Steve’s dick, then smearing over Steve’s nub. Okay, when he touched that part, Steve was never gonna last too long. They resumed those featherlight kisses, moaning into each other’s throats. Then spattering, pretty much as one, over each other’s skin.

Steve kept on giggling and giggling. He wasn’t even sure why, apart from this was a release he desperately needed.

“I’d been dreaming of that,” sighed Eddie, hand still cupping Steve’s softening dick.

“Jerking off together like a couple of dumb teens?” panted Steve, flopping his head back and taking in a little more the trailer interior: “Sheesh! What is this place anyhow?”

“Oh, I lived here with Wayne from when I was 11. Nobody took up the lease when I bought the house, so it’s been empty for a couple of years. It’s a dump, huh?”

“It stinks of you,” smiled Steve. “The new you, Eds. I totally love it.”

“Well, you might have to get used to it,” sighed Eddie. “Remember how I was stuck in the penthouse? Well, now I’m kinda stuck here, and… C’mon, if you were here and I still smoked, I’d kill you.”

“I’d survive,” mumbled Steve, squirming a little, and then, wonder of wonders, he stuttered it out: “Erm… thank you? I honestly appreciate it. Though it’s not like we’re stuck here for… Oh!” He read the rest of the truth in Eddie’s still guilt-stricken eyes. Thunder rumbled outside, low and distant. “You mean, you’re stuck like you were stuck in the penthouse?”

“Oh yeah, Baby,” crooned Eddie. “Getting this far nearly did for me. Guess the cops will probably drag me out sooner or later, tho’.”

Not if I can help it , thought Steve. Thunder rolled again, loud enough to set his pulse jumping. The rain bounced like bullets off the metal roof, and Eddie, cool enough, spilled more about how he’d got here.

He kept things light, skirting around the ‘incident’ at the hotel. Poking out his tongue and being silly, though what he’d been forced to face must’ve been a living nightmare.

Icy fear tightened around Steve’s heart. The rain eased off.

He wanted nothing more than to help Eddie get over his agoraphobia. Truth was, he could help get the police off Eddie’s back too.

“You okay, darling?”

“Yeah, yeah.” Steve flapped a hand breezily. “It’s just before, we didn’t talk about important shit. Then you opened up to me, like you are now. I totally didn’t. Which sucks. There’s so much I need to tell you, Eddie. It’s not all bad stuff. Some of it is actually good, I guess. It’s just… really, really difficult for me.”

“It’s fine, Baby. Take your time. Or keep mum. Unless you can hear any police choppers hovering above that uproarious downpour, I got all the time in the world.” Eddie trailed his thumb down Steve’s stubbly cheek. Steve flinched from Eddie’s tight, if loving, scrutiny. “You wanna eat? Drink? I got half a flask of coffee left and—"

“I’m good. Kinda sticky, tho’.” He smeared his hand down Eddie’s tats. He’d missed them, too. “Does this place have a working shower?”

“Oh, I reckon I could get a trickle out of it, but… I got a better idea.”

“Woah… What ya… Jesus, Eddie, you’re gonna kill me.”

Eddie had rolled off the beanbag, and was nudging his way between Steve’s legs. His hands crawled up Steve’s thighs, revelling in the stickiness. Steve shrugged and slid toward where Eddie lavished attention on him with hands and now also tongue. Steve’s dick, still soft in the wake of their recent adventures, perked up a little. “I’m not gonna be able to… oh shit.”

“You like?” Eddie’s earnest question was hilarious and life-affirming all at once.

“Love, Eddie. I love it.”

Steve flopped back, exhaling unsteadily, sinking snugly into the beanbag. Eddie licked around Steve’s balls and the base of his dick. He made dopey “Mmmm, mmmm” noises, easily coaxing from Steve that renewed flush of blood. He kissed his way along Steve’s dick, then slid his lips over his tip, where fresh pre-come mingled with Eddie’s saliva.

The press of those lush lips and tongue against around his dick felt fucking amazing. Eddie palpably luxuriated in it. All Steve could do was clench his fist in Eddie’s hair, clench and unclench, and rut lightly into Eddie’s mouth.

Back in the hotel, Steve had felt kinda guilty when Eddie blew him. Like he also did when Eddie ate him out or gifted one of those kickass hand-jobs. Eddie had always been so desperate to make sure Steve came too, that it bordered on exhausting.

Steve still wasn’t convinced he could climax again so soon. It was mega-fun finding out, and the demonically sexy glint in Eddie’s eyes cheered him on. If the storm raged on outside, his own heavy breaths smothered it. His sacs tightened, and waves of tingling pleasure surged, each better than the last. By the time Eddie sucked him deep, Steve was pretty much at the point of no return. The delicate flutters at the back of Eddie’s mouth, alternated with the scrub of Eddie’s tongue, sealed the deal.

“Yes, yes, yes… Eddieeeeee!”

He came harder than the first time, hand flying from Eddie’s hair to twist in his own, screaming hoarsely as he rode out the rush. Eddie’s eyes kept grinning wickedly, while he swallowed.

He slid off Steve’s shaft, slapped his glowingly red come-spattered lips. “You taste totally metal, Baby. Who needs Skippy’s creamy?”

“We do,” gasped Steve, as Eddie crawled back onto the beanbag beside him, “if you’re gonna stop messing around and fuck me.”

“You really want that?”

All Steve could do was gawk. “I always wanted you, Eddie. In every which way. Yeah, I was kinda surprised at the start. Sex had not exactly been much fun for me, not since I was fooling around as a kid. But, honest to God, you made it more than fun—and you being the hottest freak on the planet was one of the main reasons I took the job.”

Okay, talking about this proved unexpectedly simple. Especially when Eddie did one of his ditzy smiles, wrapping his hair coyly around a finger. “Aw, shucks.”

“I’m not saying what we did wasn’t totally fucked up,” continued Steve. “But that first night, you spent more time with your fingers up my ass than your dick. The only part which was hard labor was how you always wanted to get me off too. You cared that I was enjoying it, and I was. I wasn’t faking, okay? Hardly ever. So no guilt trips.”

“Ooookay,” said Eddie, frowning, now idly twisting Steve’s hair around his fingertip. “But you—”

Steve placed his hand over Eddie’s wet mouth. “Seriously, you have got something better to use as lube than the peanut butter, right?”

Part 16 on AO3 Part 16 on tumblr

perma-tag for the best inspiration friend ever: @wheneverfeasible

Thank you for reading. Likes, reblogs and comments much appreciated and will feed the bunnies🐰💕🐰💕🐰💕🐰💕

On tumblr: Part 1 Part 2 Part 3.1 Part 3.2 Part 4.1 Part 4.2 Part 5.1 Part 5.2 Part 6.1 Part 6.2 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10 Part 11 Part 12 Part 13 Part 14 or search #thefreakinthepenthouse :)

On AO3 All my ST stuff on AO3

#thefreakinthepenthouse #steddie au #steddie fluff #steddie smut #steve harrington #eddie munson #steddie #steddie fic #steve x eddie #steddie fanfiction #steve harrington whump #bottom steve harrington #top eddie munson

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naychuchu · 1 year ago

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🐈‍⬛

tw: this is my first time actually posting anything i’ve written. i made these pretty late at night so i’m sorry if they’re bad i just wanted to write something. probably some spelling mistakes and stuff i didn’t feel like checking it throughly.

a/n: please be nice

personal

* i’ve mentioned this before but baji absolutely LOVES the yakuza game

* favorite one is yakuza 0 (definitely not because this is the only one i’ve watched so far🌚)

* john cena fanboy for absolutely no reason. has his theme as his ringtone

* number 1 baby metal fan. owns their merch and goes to every concert

* his favorite season is summer for obvious reasons but his favorite holiday is definitely christmas because he and mikey ride around with shin

* HATES horror movies. like nothing can convince this man to watch them. even the kiddie ones like goosebumps or scary stories to tell in the dark will have him act like the devil just touched his soul

* definitely the kind of guy to walk around with one lens in his glasses after a fight

* purposely named his bike cockroach knowing pah is afraid of them

* he used to hate his fangs when he was little because kids used to tease him and say he was a dog

* that was until he started saying he’d bite and give them rabies if they kept messing with him

* cannot grow facial hair to save his life

* judges people on how they interact with animals, specifically cats

* despite popular belief, i don’t think he would get any tattoos. he seems like a piercing guy and definitely cannot sit that long for a tattoo

* gave himself the alias edward because he used to watch twilight with his mom

* he even had a phase when he acted like a vampire but will vehemently deny and threaten anyone who dares to bring it up

* is lactose intolerant and just like many of us will eat dairy and instantly regret it as soon as it hits his stomach

* sometimes he feels insecure about the fact he was held back, all of his friends moving up while he’s left behind

* even though he has a reputation for committing arson and slightly unprovoked violence, keisuke is truly a model citizen☝🏽

* volunteers at shelters, helps the elderly, feeds the homeless, solves climate change. he truly is a saint and can do no wrong!

home life

* i like the idea that his mom was a teen mom and that his father was never really around and just stopped coming one day

* due to her job, his mom sometimes works really late or super early so over the years he’s learned to cook (the only good thing he can cook is yakisoba)

* on the nights he knows his mom will be back late he cooks her food and despite it not being the best she still loves it

* even though she works a lot the two of them are still very close and their favorite thing to do is read manga and watch mystery dramas whenever she’s off

* despite not knowing his dad(he only visited when he was a baby) he never felt insecure about it

* he’s a total mamas boy, and will fight anyone who says something about her

* when ryoko was younger, she wanted to have a lot of kids but after having keisuke she changed her mind. she felt it would be selfish to have so many kids when she works so much and after realizing how much of a handful he can be.

* despite that and having him at such a young age, keisuke was the best thing to ever happen to her and wouldn’t trade him or his wildness for the world.

relationship

* back on the yakuza point, whenever you’re sad he’ll grab a hair brush, turn up the radio and start singing 24-hour cinderella to you until his voice is gone

* when you guys get in a fight he’ll act like he’s in a 2000’s r&b mv and start singing bakamitai. chifuyu gets the hose to spray water above him, kazutora plays the music, and ryusei records the whole thing so baji can send it to you

* a biter, like what’s the point of him having those sharp ass teeth if he don’t try to take a chunk out of you

* whatever your favorite animal is, he’s gonna buy every single book about them so he can share little facts about it with you

* if you’re into a specific artist or group, he’ll listen to their whole discography and learn everything in the fandom

* becomes a horanghae enthusiast and will force you to be one as well

* just like he’s loyal to his friends and toman, he’s loyal to you

* like foreva togetha foreva LOCKED IN 🤞🏽

* a girl tries flirting with him and all of a sudden he’s hellen keller

* the type of boyfriend to say you’re too spoiled whoever you ask for something while doing said thing you requested

* will literally lift his ass off the seat while you’re sitting next to him and fart on you then blame it on you

* talm bout some ‘ew the hell did you eat’ like his diet doesn’t consist of yakisoba, monster energy drinks, and beef glizzies

* speaking of farts😸 keisuke will send pics of his shit to you asking if it looks normal

* will make fun of you if you’re lactose intolerant as if he don’t be upside down on the toilet fighting for his life

* is constantly in your personal space. like he’ll be standing behind you while you play like candy crush or best fiends mumbling about moves you can make. sometimes he’ll snatch your phone and play it himself

* what’s yours is his. mid chew on something he wants? he’s opening your mouth and popping it in his, no matter if it’s soggy

* absolutely loves giving and receiving hugs, being in your arms makes him feel safe and gives reassurance that despite all of his flaws you still love him

* stares at you with his mouth open, no matter what you’re doing or how you look his eyes are on you 24/7

* takes the absolute worst pictures of you on facetime and puts each one in his favorites until the end of time

* throws rocks at your window at like 4 in the morning knowing you both have school just so you can ride around with him until the sun comes up

* i feel like he’d totally like mellow down on the things he does. he doesn’t want to worry you while he’s away

* constantly checks up with you so you know he’s okay and not lying on the ground somewhere and dying 🌚

this is so scary bye 😭

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everythingismadeofchaos · 8 months ago

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Hey so I have to ask this question. I am an old, and I've been trying anime sporadically for literal decades (since I saw Twilight of the Cockroaches in the theater), but I couldn't find much I liked and didn't really start getting into it until I saw One Punch Man season 1 after it first came out and before season 2 and it made me laugh and just have a wonderful time. At that point I realized there probably was a lot of anime that was worth my time, and I started looking for it, and what I discovered was that anime is actually like most things: most of it is crap and has no interest for me, but some of it is really good and some of it is fantastic. So just recently I found Dungeon Meshi.

I love Dungeon Meshi. It's inspired me to actually try reading manga, which I've never been able to enjoy before. I sporadically tried comics over the years, but it still hasn't stuck even when it's material that I'm really interested in; I don't know why but it just doesn't work for me. Manga never has either, although I haven't really tried it much. But now I've tried reading Dungeon Meshi and I'm having kind of mixed results but I'm happy I'm trying it even though it's kind of diluted by the fact that I've already seen this story in the anime. I'm really looking forward to another manga by the same author that I ordered the other day at the suggestion of somebody on Tumblr, when I previously asked for advice. I have high hopes that I will enjoy that more than I enjoy the DM manga simply because I've never seen the stories before. Apparently there are seven short stories; that should be fun.

But my question is this. Is the inherent creepiness of anime what's really holding it back in the west? All of the sexualization of young girls, and even leaving aside young girls there's this phenomenon I'm going to call "the chainmail bikini effect" because it kind of parallels a phenomenon in Western fantasy, that all really screws up my enjoyment of the story. I can't bloody stand harem anime. I find it so, so aggravating. And the thing is, I'm really curious about this other genre with all these other ideas and settings and conventions and I really like all of that stuff. It's just the creepy pseudo-pedophilia and hypersexualization. I feel like most anime wants me to be a pedophile and that's creepy as fuck.

So how much other anime is there that isn't like this? One Punch Man really wasn't, although there were one or two characters I guess who were kind of parodies of the genre, which makes sense since the whole thing was a parody, but there's got to be more. I mean I loved Ascendance Of A Bookworm, because even though that was a young girl there was absolutely nothing sexualized about it. I loved the Saga of Tanya the Evil. It really stands out and is completely different from anything else that I'd ever seen in that genre, although it does remind me a lot of a book I read a couple of decades ago called The Blue Max, which they completely ruined in a movie starring George Peppard; the book is about this character sort of fighting against his own personal demons and losing, but the movie character is just a positive decent neato white hat hero guy and it ruins the whole concept. Tanya is like that book (not the movie obviously).

What else is out there in this department? What am I going to enjoy like Delicious in Dungeon because it doesn't carry these creepy garbage ideas? Suggestions actively solicited. And thank you very much in advance for reading this wall of text.

#anime #dungeon meshi #delicious in dungeon #harem anime #suggestions

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godsprincess444 · 9 months ago

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୨୧ biography of meee ୨୧

hiii i’m cassidy nd this is my blog!!

first and foremost i’m a 15 year old little girl ⋆ ˚｡⋆୨୧˚ (sex blogs, men 18+ please don’t interact with me)

⋆ ˚｡⋆୨ so sum things i love are poetry, literature, reading writing, dakota warren, lana del rey, hello kitty, horror movies, nature, the sturniolo triplets (IF YOU SEXUALIZE THEM (WRITE SMUT ETC.) DO NOT INTERACT. DONT LIKE, FOLLOW, REBLOG ETC.), pirates, marine biology, astronomy, psychology, philosophy, cherries, anddd so many more things that you probably can and can’t guess ୧⋆ ˚｡⋆

♡ my favorite colors are light pink, dark red, black, forest green and light grey

♡ my favorite singers/bands are lana del rey, mitski, bjork, queen, deftones, mazzy star, tv girl, nirvana, frank ocean, amy whinehouse, tchaikovsky, mozart and melanie martinez and french music !! ౨ৎ

♡ my favorite songs are every song on my playlist

♡ my favorite movies are birds of prey, twilight, scream Vl, sleeping beauty and black swan

♡ my favorite tv shows are the vampire diaries!!!, 2 broke girls, american horror story, gilmore girls, spongebob and ben and holly’s little kingdom

♡ my dislikes are clowns, racists, homophobia, anything of the demonic witchcraft supernatural shit, green beans, pain, teenage boys at my school and COCKROACHES

♡ and sum random things i’d like you to know !! i want to be a marine biologist and astronomer. i rlly could never tell you my aesthetic. i’m a christian girly, God is always first !! i LOVE tim burton movies and im very pretty, ty for reading!! i love you xx <3

ND FREE PALESTINE 🙏🏽 🇵🇸

my pinterest and musiii !! ౨ৎ

#bambixbaby #girlblogger #lana del rey #femme fatale #insane girl #coquette #lizzy grant #my virtual diary #Spotify

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mxrmaid-poet · 3 months ago

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bot drop: august 24 2024

i got a few more done this week, but not as much as I wanted. for some reason I’m sick again ☠️

requests ~

motonari mouri

as requested, interactions with user as his romantic partner as well as cute moments with his daughter. decided to give him a mischievous daughter.

nobunaga oda

nobunaga isn’t used to someone being this much of a fan of him, so he’s growing flustered by the amount of knowledge user has on him

gilbert von obsidian

just like how he and chevalier were friends when they were little in rhodolite, in this slightly altered universe, he was friends with young user and now meets her again while she’s Belle. Ofc he isn’t supposed to know ur Belle but he does…

aaa this one is so good I loved it! thanks for ur request, rey 🩷

theo

an insanely comedic prompt of user naming their pet cockroach after him. decided to set the scene that user (mitsuki) was out for drinks with arthur and got drunk, somehow bringing back a roach

so sorry to the many requests before this one, it was just so comedic I wrote this one immediately

my own ~

ellis twilight — my sister randomly gave me the idea of jude having a daughter who’s pretty hard to handle, the only person who can take her being ellis. so in this scenario, user is Jude’s young daughter.

MASTERLIST | REQUEST FORM 🩷

#seraphina’s bots #character ai #ikemen vampire #ikemen villains #ikemen prince

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goldeneyedgirl · 1 year ago

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AILess Whumptober Day 27: Locked Up/Immortal

The final entry, late but complete! I figured that I put Alice through the ringer all the time, it might be Jasper's turn. I had a very specific image of how this would look in my head that did not want to be translated to the page. I've also looked at this so long that I cannot look at it any longer.

So, enjoy whatever this is! I hope you all enjoyed Whumptober and were suitably depressed after my contributions to this event my loves <3

iron & stone. (day 27: imprisoned/immortal).

twilight, alice/jasper, pg, one-sided vampire alice/demon jasper.

very non-graphic wound description

She finds him in an old church in Tulsita, Texas. It’s a tiny place, one that has less than thirty people.

It’s a grim little town, with worn buildings and cracked roads; the air is thick and hot, even late at night. It’s the perfect place to be forgotten about, to be trapped. It’s a place that feels like it isn’t part of the real world, and like maybe time has frozen.

There’s an edge of dread in the air, and she has to wonder about that.

But mostly, she just feels anticipation.

It’s taken her thirty years to find him, she’s looked everywhere. She’s read everything. She’s recorded all her visions and made all the notes. She’s learned Spanish, Italian, Hebrew, Greek, and Latin for him. She’s practically a scholar on him and his kind now.

She’s still nervous.

(There are three kinds of demons - the oldest ones who have existed for always, those are the ones that should never been disturbed or called upon. Then there are the ones that are born naturally - very rare but possible. And then there are the ones that are made. Not like vampires - in the demon world vampires are half-breed cockroaches, endemic to humanity, according to the books she’s read. The change isn’t half the pain and suffering that being turned into a demon is - she knows that.)

She walks through forest surrounding the building carefully - it’s unlikely that anyone will see her, but she prefers to err on the side of cautious. Especially since it’s very, very clear that someone does visit regularly (relatively speaking, of course - time moves very differently for immortals.)

The church is thoroughly abandoned, the pews rotten and broken and the floor tiles cracked and scattered - what would have been an expensive point of pride lost to time and neglect. What is left of the prayer books are ruined cardboard covers covered in mould. The altar is pulled right down and destroyed; all but one of the windows is boarded up. Glass crunches underfoot - a mix of the remain window’s panes, and broken beer bottles scattered around.

And as she stands there and looks around, she wonders how anyone set foot in this place, even just to hide and drink, when she can feel his presence right here? That boiling rage, that uneasy feeling in the air - the gift of animal fear, that whatever this place contains is dangerous and they need to run. It’s all around her, yelling at her to leave and never come back.

It wouldn’t be the first time.

Edward and Carlisle would be furious she’s come here by herself. When she’d worked it all out, when she’d told them what her visions had shown her, they’d acted like he was dead and gone and she’d just have to get used to walking the world alone. They expected grief and she’d been confused - Carlisle had insisted that he was as good as dead, and Alice needed to make her peace with that.

Alice could never bring him home. That the Cullen residence, the Cullen name, had no place for monsters and terrors and the things that little children hide from. And she had agreed with them politely, told them that she understood. And she did. They had thought she was mourning, taking her time to adjust to what her life would look like now.

Esme had tried to talk with her, but Alice had refused, and just closed herself up in her bedroom. And they had let her be.

They hadn’t expected her to pack her things in the same satchel she arrived with, to leave behind her locket with a letter thanking them for their hospitality; shedding the Cullen name and creed like an unfashionable winter coat.

If there was no place for monsters amongst the Cullens, then she certainly wasn’t welcome. They forget that she was a nomad, a vampire before she arrived at their house with a smile and golden eyes. They forget that she has a whole story before she ever found them, and that it’s not all pretty and kind.

(No place for monsters, when Carlisle went and changed four innocent people without consent? When suicide is a sin and so is murder? That she loves them fiercely but to be a family is to realize that none of them are perfect and holy and unsullied by their nature? The House of Cullen is so beautifully monstrous, she almost feels sorry for them for not seeing that.)

She had made herself once, exactly how she wanted, and she could do it again. Maybe one day she’ll visit them. See if they forgive her. Esme will. Emmett will. Rose might. But Carlisle and Edward… well, it depends on a lot of things.

Like what lies beneath the church.

It takes her a while to find the little trapdoor down into the earth behind the altar, covered with broken wood and tile, and chained up with a shiny new padlock that crumples like paper in her determined hand. The steps down are mostly rotten - slats of wood wedged roughly into the earth - but she is small and light, and slips down easily, down into a cellar dug too deep and too precisely to be created for anything but a very specific purpose, with the little alcoves in the wall with wells of oil to light the way - only a few of them are still barely burning, throwing bizarre shadows onto the walls.

Everything about this is screaming for her to turn back. Every instinct, every sign is telling her to go home. Except…

She saw him so many times, in hundreds of moments that will weave between them. The laughter and the jokes and the love. She’s seen the way he’ll protect her and change her, and she’ll do the same for him. He’ll look at her with loathing and then tolerance and smug power, and finally, soul-binding love and adoration. The scars she’ll bare will be in the shape of his jaw. She’ll trace his scars with her fingers and her mouth and her tongue; she knows all the little pieces of his story - the boring and the ugly and the difficult, as well as the fragments that are light and precious.

She can’t wait.

But this… this part she’s never seen properly and maybe her brain was protecting her.

The room is small, and little more than dirt and stone held up with rotting beams - buckled and warped, but holding steady for now. It smells rotten down here, almost burnt.

And then there is him.

He lies in the middle, on the stone, his head thrown back like a sacrifice about to be cut open in the name of some ancient god. His eyes are closed and if she didn’t know better, she would think he was asleep. She can see him properly like this, the muscular lines of his torso, the tendons in his neck, the strength in his arms and legs. He looks like a classical Greek sculpture celebrating rapture.

Except… there’s pain. The pain radiates off him like heat; most of the scars are old but the wounds are not. Or maybe they can’t heal. Burns and cuts and bone-deep gouges cover every part of him. There’s a tremor to his body that she doesn’t understand.

And then he hears her shoes on the stone floor and he lunges in one swift move, alert and ready, a snarl echoing in the space.

…Or what should have been one swift move.

Instead, it’s messy and horrific and takes her a moment to process, as she tumbles backwards, losing her footing as he comes at her.

He rips himself from the stone, pieces of skin from his legs sticking to the floor when he moves, leaving open wounds that looks almost like burns on every piece of skin that the stone touched. His legs buckle and shake at the sudden movement, evidence that he has not stood in a very long time.

His eyes are so black they look like empty sockets as he looms over her. Blackness spreads up his hands and arms, spidery black veins stretching from his eyes and throat. For a moment, she thinks she catches a glimpse of the wings; ghost-like and ephemeral in the corner of her eye, tattered void stretched over ancient bone, cracking into place no longer than his arm span.

(He’s magnificent.)

And just as suddenly as he hovers over her, he is ripped backwards and hits the floor with a hiss and the heavy clank of chains pulling tight and recoiling. She gasps at his visible pain, the way he struggles to get up, the demonic visage fading back into the skin of a man. A man in the worst kind of pain she’s ever seen.

“Get out.” His voice is hoarse, the kind that hurts to listen to, and he turns away from her. She can see the chains properly now - ankles, wrists, throat, and thighs, all connecting to a back-brace of iron. The wings have sunk back into his flesh, deep scarring almost outlining them on his back, and she hates to think how painful it was to stretch them imprisoned like this.

How long has he been here, like this? As beautiful as he is, she can see every hour, day, decade he’s spent here in the gaunt shadows of his face, in the decay in his clothing, in the layers upon layers of scars and open wounds. His eyes are hard; there is no hope or trust in them at all.

She always knew it would be difficult, but she never counted on what seeing him in this state would be like. How much it would ache to see this bitter shadow of a man, and the suffering he has lived through.

“I’ve been looking for you everywhere,” she says, sitting up. Her bag has survived the fall, but she prepared for it. Nothing in the bag is breakable, for good reason. He’s liable to get angrier.

“Oh?” He looks at her. “You long for death so badly?” His voice is mocking, but she can hear the strain, the rasp of his agony. He shifts to see her better, and she can almost see ghost of his future self.

“Only of a certain kind,” she murmurs to try and lighten the mood, but it falls flat - he’s giving her the kind of look Edward reserved for fawning classmates, so she feels adequately stupid and regrets being so flippant and crude. “You’re hurt. I want to help you.”

He is so badly hurt. The fresh burns smell like alcohol, raw and weeping blood. It’s oddly matte with no shine, but demon blood isn’t like human blood. There’s also a mottled black mark on his torso that she hopes is some terrible bruise and not broken bone just beneath the skin.

“Go away.” His voice is hard, no trace of the pain or misery he’s experiencing. There is a power and a rage there that makes her skin crawl and every instinct is telling her to run. He glares at her, and his eyes… she’s seen them red and gold and black, but right now they are demonic - a black sclera and pupil with churning red iris. But there is no shine to them, just a void. They scream of danger and she understands a little better why Carlisle warned her so grimly away from him.

“No.” She rummages in her bag. Aro had allowed her to use the library for a whole summer, to learn about demon physiology and healing. He’d been amused by her request - and by the discovery she’d left Carlisle’s family in pursuit of this demon. She knows that he’s already plotting, that nothing he offers is without strings attached, but she’ll worry about that later. She has the knowledge, and that is what is most important. “Let me help you.”

“Why do you want to help me? What do you want?” He’s holding himself oddly, and she realizes he’s trying not to touch the stone again, only the soles of his feet.

“To help you. And to talk.” She checks the bottles have not split in her bag; she’d used old water bottles, and a few of them are warping from the chemicals inside of them. But she’d gone over it a dozen times at least, and these will work. He just needs to let her help. “If you don’t like what I have to say, you can leave. Nothing about this is conditional.”

He stares at her. “You don’t want to be remade?” He asked suspiciously. His breathing is labored. “You don’t want all the secrets of the underworld? Wealth? To live again?”

She shakes her head. “I have money and a home of my own. And I have no memory of ever being anything else but what I am right now. The only thing I want is to help you.”

He lets out a bark of laughter. “You say that. But you’ll expect things. Everyone who comes here does. They always want. Humans are greedy creatures and vampires are parasites. You’ll want something, they all do,” he snaps at her and then he smiles, cruel and sharp. “Not many survive being remade. Maria tried to make a dozen of us. I was the only one of my batch that made it through. You have no idea what pain can be.” He scoffs. “Especially if the change was so overwhelming for you that you blocked it out.”

“I know.” She does. She’s read all the written accounts of being remade into a demon right back to some scraps of information from the Roman Empire; the rituals are mostly anecdotal. There was nothing about how it was done; even Aro didn’t have a full copy of how to remake someone. Several of the leads pointed towards the possibility of the remaining instructions being locked up in the Vatican, but even her visions couldn’t decipher if they were genuine or just a rumor.

The fact Maria of Monterrey had found a record and managed to translate it into a ritual that actually worked was awe-inspiring. It made her one of the most dangerous people on the planet - and one of the most powerful.

But the cost of it… how many people had she killed to create Jasper? To create her army? There were the newborn recruits, the blood for the army, and the ones that she tried to remake… that was thousands, more than Alice could comprehend in the scale of human life.

No, she’s not interested. Perhaps she even fears physical pain a little, because she has no memory of human pain, of the change. She’s never bled, never ached, never really suffered like that. And that unknown void of pain, a universal emotion understood by every living thing on the planet… she doesn’t have that.

But maybe…

“I’ve never been hurt,” she says softly. “Not that I remember. I can’t stand the thought of it. That something can feel like that. If I can stop it, I want to. That’s all.”

His gaze burns into her.

“Do you know how many people have come here and promised me things?” He sounds angry but tired. “They’ll free me, they’ll give me money and food and bandage me up. My own army. Girls. Boys. Anything I goddamn want. Do you know what happens to them?”

She sits cross-legged. “Don’t pretend you killed them.”

“You don’t think I could?” The look on his face is dangerous.

“I know you could. I know that if you really wanted to, I would have been dead before I saw you move. I know that you were the most dangerous man in Texas and Mexico for decades before I was even born - before you were remade.

“But I don’t see any bodies. No bloodstains, no bones, nothing left behind. There’s nothing here. Whatever they offered you, you didn’t kill them for it.”

“When I didn’t give them what they want, they left me here,” he says finally. “All of them.”

“Were there many?” That she is curious about. There are a hundred reasons to seek out a demon, but few people are brave enough, and fewer still with the information to find one.

“More than I expected.” He looks at her, his gaze hard and bitter. “What do you want?”

“To help you,” she says obediently. “To get you out of the chains and upstairs; maybe look at some of those wounds? I’m no doctor, but I think I know what to do.”

“And what is your price?” He sounds testy again, and she’s getting annoyed that he won’t listen.

“I’m a cheap date - maybe you can just not kill me? Once you’re free, maybe we could talk for a little while? I have a house we can go to where you can recover safely, if you want to. Otherwise we part as friends.” That would be a disappointing outcome but one she is prepared for. “As long as you’re okay to be alone. I didn’t go to all this trouble to let you go off on your own and keel over in the street dead.”

The surprise on his face is genuine. “I cannot die from this. That’s the whole point of being down here,” he said slowly. “I can only suffer. It would take much, much more to end me.”

He looks sad and tired when he says that, and she wants to hold him. To reassure him that it will get better. It can be wonderful, if he gives her a chance.

“Good. Then if you want to leave me, you can. Just let me help you, and everything will be okay, I promise.”

They stare at each other for a long time, neither of them flinching before he nods his head once.

“I hold a grudge. If you double-cross me…” he begins but she’s already moving closer.

“I understand.” And she does - she’s had visions of him in battle, and the sheer violence and blood-lust had scared her. He is a dangerous creature. But she’d be more likely to rip off her own arm than intentionally harm him.

“You’ll want to take off your shoes.”

It’s an odd request but she takes off her boots and moves forward.

One foot on the stone and she can feel the warmth inside of it; when she looks down, her stockings are already being to singe from the heat.

“Keep moving, or you’ll stick,” he warns and she’s horrified.

The stains on the stone that she had assumed were age were patches of blackened skin still stuck to the stone - his skin - that had torn away from him every single time that he moved.

And then there was the sudden awareness of that fact that his feet have been resting flat against the stone since they’ve started speaking, and she wants to scream, to pry him off the stone herself. She looks at him in naked horror and his lip quirks in quasi-amusement at her expression.

“It’s consecrated ground - no matter how deep it goes, it will always burn the likes of us - me worse than you, but I wouldn’t linger. And no, your shoes wouldn’t protect you.”

Consecrated ground. Fucking consecrated ground. She’d read about it - Europe was lousy with it, but much of it has faded away forgotten and unsanctified in the last couple of centuries as religion has lost its grip on the population. It’s much rarer in the states - most of it is in New England, allegedly. But this perfectly built little prison, complete with consecrated ground… she wants to ask a million questions about the how and the why, but she knows he won’t answer. Not yet.

Right now, she needs to get him off of the floor and out of this evil little room as soon as possible. And the first step is to break the chains embedded in the wall - where a single panel of rock is placed.

She’ll worry about getting the brace off of him once they’re out of here.

He watches her, almost entertained, as she tries to break the links, inspecting the chain carefully for flaws or weaknesses. But even with all her strength, they don’t even bend. They are stubborn and as cursed as this entire basement.

She can feel it - they cannot be broken. She can’t see a way around it.

But when she looks down at him watching her, at his dead-eyed stare of acceptance that he will not be leaving, she feels the weight of what she’s promised him. That he still believes that she will fail and leave him to his fate.

But she was Emmett Cullen’s sister for nearly three years, and Emmett had never met a law, a riddle, a trap or a rule that he couldn’t find a loophole for.

Which is why she brought a screwdriver. An entire toolkit, actually. Whilst vampire strength and speed could fix so many problems, there were some things that required the precision of a toolkit or a lock pick. And maybe the last gift Emmett ever gave her was a mini pink toolkit, and she’d taken that when she’d left.

If there was one thing that all her research had taught her was that magical laws are rigid and precise. The chains will not and can not be broken - that is clear to both of them. She probably isn’t the first that has tried over the years - she could only imagine that he’s tried to free himself hundreds, probably thousands, of times.

So they cannot break them.

She doubts anyone bothered to stop them from being dismantled.

He stares at her incredulously when she pulls the screwdriver from her bag, like maybe she’s some kind of fool. And maybe she is.

But when the first screw hits the stone, she smiles brightly at the look of shock on his face.

“Pick all of them up, I don’t want anyone knowing how we figured this out,” she says bossily, hopping between her feet - her stockings have burnt through, ragged blacked edges having stretched back up above her ankle. She has more clothing at the house, but she’s mildly annoyed at the architect of this building for ruining them. It’s an uncomfortable heat, an odd sensation, but it doesn’t feel too bad as long as she keeps moving.

He fumbles for the screws as each of them fall - they are smaller than it feels like they should be for the size and weight of the chains, but there are so many of them.

And then…

And then the heavy chains drop free of the wall, and he is free. He stares at them in total bewilderment before he looks back up at her.

“Now you’re free,” she says breathlessly, jamming the screwdriver into her bag, and goes to help him stand. He’s unsteady but takes a deep breath as he begins to peel his feet from the stone. It’s horrific as the skin of his soles tears away, blistered and raw but not yet blackened, thankfully. He lets out a groan of pain, one that makes him sound every single day of his age, every single day of his pain.

She doesn’t say anything, she just supports him until they are finally, finally back on the dirt floor.

“Do you want to sit?” She asks quietly and he shakes his head.

“I want to get out,” he says stiffly, and she nods, as they move towards the exit.

It’s an awkward trip back up the stairs; the staircase is narrow, but he needs her guiding support for now, his legs shaking with each step. It takes twice as long as it should, with him pausing every so many steps, as she half-shoves him onto each step. His movements are made awkward from the brace, and she’s already trying to figure out how she’ll pry that thing off him.

And then…

She shoves open the trap door, the wood splintering. And even the feeble moonlight shining down from the broken window feels like someone has just lit up the room - the darkness of the cellar feels inky and oppressive in comparison; the oil-wells dimmer than they were when she descended.

He lets out a shuddering breath as he climbs out, into the fresh air, his eyes darting around the space.

“It’s okay, it’s only us,” she soothes. “You’re safe.”

He nods, but he doesn’t look at her. He’s staring at the boarded-up windows, at the broken glass and rotting pews and forgotten prayer books.

The look on his face reminds her of herself, when she awoke that first time in the woods alone. She knew nothing, had seen nothing in person… just the appreciation and awe of being there, in that place. A moment of simply being alive and in the world.

She remembers it well.

—

They sit inside the old church in silence for a while.

After a while, she begins to pull out first aid from her bag. “Let me,” she says softly, and he doesn’t protest - though he refuses to let her see the wounds under his threadbare clothing. She hasn’t got anything that will stitch his wounds, but she can clean the wounds and bandage them so that they at least stay sanitized and protected. The chemicals she has to use burn her nose, but they seem to work.

“Now, let’s have a look at the brace,” she says soothingly, the screwdriver back in her hand. He eyes her with suspicion but nods once for her to continue.

It’s not as easy as the chains. The brace is too tight and has bitten tight into his skin. The screws come out slowly, ad she doesn’t care that they roll amongst the glass and the debris.

The brace doesn’t fall away. Instead, she has to peal each piece away, skin and scar tissue tearing, leaving raw open wounds in their wake. But he doesn’t make a sound as each piece hits the floor. He just stares up at the piece of sky he can see.

And then it is gone. The wounds will scar, she knows it. But he has movement back, real movement again. His neck, his arms, his wings… Free again, a little bit more.

“Done,” she says softly.

“I don’t even know your name,” he finally says hoarsely, and looks back down at her, as she packs everything back up.

“Alice Cullen,” she says, and thinks about correcting herself. She’s not sure what surname she should be using honestly. She never had one of her own, and nothing else feels like it would fit. She was supposed to be Cullen for a while and then…

Well, she didn’t want to get ahead of herself. Cullen was fine.

He nods in acknowledgement before looking back up at the sliver of sky visible through the broken window.

“I want to leave this place,” he says in a steady voice.

“Of course.”

She wants to offer to burn it down. To tear it down with her bare hands for him. But he won’t understand, not yet.

“Let’s go.”

—

He finds his strength as soon as his feet hit the grass, enough to stand on his own and move away from her support, onto the grass, shivering as his feet sunk in for the first time… in so very long. His turns in a slow circle, just staring up at the clouds and the trees and the world outside he’s hellish, cursed little dirt prison.

He… to call it a scream is not accurate. It is a scream, a roar, a holler, a flood of grief and rage and resentment. It is pain and loss, swearing revenge against the one that did this to him. It is regret and heartbreak and relief.

He is free.

His wings stretch out reflexively, the black staining his hands and face faintly, and the full horror of what the brace has done to him is revealed beyond the splitting and tearing and stretching of the wounds - his wings only open as long as his arm-span; the humeral and secondaries appear to have been crushed from the brace. And the humerus bone appears to have been snapped and reset so that it cannot extend. Half of his wings are limp and crumpled against his spine, a dead and mottled colour.

He has been crippled, possibly forever.

Except…

She’s never really been in the business of giving up. Of looking at something and accepting a bad roll of the dice. She looks at his wings, slack and broken, and she wants to fix them. She’s already considering it, mentally adding splints and bandages, breaking and resetting bone, stitching back together the thin flesh that stretches over them. It would be painful and miserable and it would take a long, long time. And it might not work.

But she already knows that if it didn’t work, she’d take him to Carlisle. She’d take him to Carlisle and use every single trick in her book to convince him to help. She’d promise that Carlisle would never see her again, that she’d never bother any of them, if Carlisle would just fix him. She’d take him to Carlisle, to Aro, to goddamn Maria, if it meant helping.

Anything he needed. Or wanted. She would get it - she had waited for this for so long.

He’s silent now, and he turns to look at her with confusion on his face.

“I looked for you, you know. For almost forty years.” Her voice is soft, and his gaze turns wary. “I get …visions of the future. Of the path that I’m on. And you have always been in them. I saw you with Maria in the south. I saw you when you left with Peter and Charlotte. I never saw what happened, and how you ended up down there but I tried so hard to find you. I’m sorry I didn’t come sooner.”

And he stares at her, the black receding from his body, the wings folding back into his body.

“What did you see?” He asks, and he sounds exhausted.

“That I love you. All of you, for as long as you’ll have me.”

He shakes his head, and for a second, he looks so young. “Did you see what happened when she remade me? When she worked out how to make her army more powerful?” He asks. “Did you see what it took to become this? Did you see what I became?”

“I did.”

“Ninety days. Of pain and sacrifice and being ripped into pieces and put back together. To feel the rage boil and burn until your skin,” he murmurs, looking back up at the cloudy night. “Of having this fresh, feral monstrosity of yourself fit itself inside of you and this… clarity of the world and how everything fits together. I’m not the man you want, Alice Cullen.”

“Yes, you are. And it’s … not Cullen anymore, not really. I left them because they wouldn’t let me find you.”

He’s silent, staring at her.

“They said I should think of you as good as dead and that wasn’t… you were still here. I just had to find you. I wasn’t going to mourn you just because you weren’t a vampire anymore. What Maria did to you didn’t change our future, so it didn’t matter to me. But it did to them. So I left them.” She shrugs. “I had enough money saved that I have my own home now - our home if you want it. But it’ll just be us.”

He looks at her hard, like he’s trying to look right through her.

“I was going to destroy you, you realize,” he says finally, his knees buckling but he sinks into the soft ground with dignity, leaning against a tree. “I was going to devour you whole.”

“I mean, with a safe word…” she begins and he lets out a chuckle.

“You aren’t what I was expecting,” he says finally, and she moves closer. She can smell rain on the air. “I’ve never met anyone who didn’t want to be remade like me as payment.”

She’s seen it. In a few decades, he’ll offer it as a form of protection. That the only thing more dangerous than a mated vampire and demon would be two mated demons roaming untethered to a master or mistress.

She’s seen futures where she accepts and they are … sublime. Glorious and terrible and so very, very happy. And she’s seen futures where she’s content with herself, and they are just as happy, just as fantastic and beautiful and fatal. It was never about the venom or the magic that flowed in their veins. It was always them.

“If you don’t want to stay with me, I can help you find Peter and Charlotte,” she offers. “You can recover in my home until then, and we can part as friends.”

He looks back up at the sky as the rain begins to fall, a smile stretching across his face as the water hits his face.

How long has it been since he’s seen and felt rain?

“I think I’d like to stay here for a while,” he says finally, and she can feel how tired and confused he is.

He doesn’t trust her yet - it will be a long time until he does, she knows that. Long after his wounds have healed - she’s certainly got some ideas for his wings, but it’ll be a while before he’s willing to hear her out - he’ll still treat her with suspicion. And that’s okay. She didn’t bet everything on him to be scared off so easily.

Sitting down beside him, she’s careful not to touch him. His eyes are glazed and dreamy as he watches the clouds and the rain, the darkness swallowing them up in the woods behind the church.

“You should rest,” she says softly. “We’ll have to leave before dawn, but we have a few hours.”

“I’m fine,” he corrects, but his words are slower and easier, and she doesn’t say anything else as he slowly drifts off, the cool rain on his face.

Jasper Whitlock. Major of the Confederate Army, turned by Maria of Monterrey back in 1863. The love of her life, who was supposed to show up at a diner in Philadelphia but never made it. The scourge of the South, a mythological monster forged out of pain and horror that most people couldn’t imagine, let alone survive.

And her reason for everything.

He looks… peaceful as he sleeps, the rain clinging to him and not even disturbing him. All the stress and pain and rage slipped off his face. He looked like a different person.

She doesn’t remember what sleep is like, and it’s strange to think of just not being for a while. To just be so vulnerable.

It’s a strange feeling, waiting for so long, and now being here with him. Watching him sleep in the rain, broken up into little pieces but somehow still standing.

The real thing is so much more than she ever anticipated.

Nothing will hurt him again. No one will imprison him again. He is free. She found him. Anything he wants, anything at all.

“I’ve got you, Jasper. I’ve got you."

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