#but may put it on ao3 later

[cry-stars]

Clora Week 2023: day one (and two)

“no apologies”

...

“I wish that I had said I was sorry. I wanted to so badly.”

“Then why didn’t you?”

“Because my apology might hurt you more than my silence would. Your smile is always so bright. I didn’t want to rip open an old wound.”

“I’m not always happy, even if I’m smiling. Sometimes I smile because I have to. Because I want to make other people happy.”

She’s smiling now.

A pained sigh escapes him, hissed between gritted teeth. “I know. Or, I should have known.”

“How could you have known, if I never told you?”

“Because I was an actor too. From the moment I lost everything, to the moment I hurt you. It’s only now that you see who I really am. Nothing but a despairing fool.”

“I don’t think that’s true.” 

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that I saw the real you in Future London. He was there, hidden behind your mask. I was scared that I’d made a mistake, that he wasn’t real. I think… that would have hurt more than anything. Even more than the lies and the betrayal. It would have hurt so much to know that the friend that I made wasn’t real.”

“Friend.”

“Yes. Is that not enough?”

“It is enough.”

“Then why are you crying?”

Hot tears burn trails in his skin. They melt him away until there’s nothing left of him but his heart.

“It’s more than I deserve.”

“But it’s not what you want, is it?”

“What you want is the most important thing to me. That’s why I never apologized.”

“I don’t think I understand.”

“I wanted to apologize, because doing so would make me feel better. But I was afraid of hurting you, so I wouldn’t.” 

“Clive…”

The way she says his name kills him.

“I want you to be happy.” With every word from his mouth, another knife stabs between his ribcage. “My plans all fell apart, and even if they had succeeded, I know now that they were pure evil. There is so little left for me on this earth anymore, but that is one of the few things that keeps me alive. That’s all I want.”

It’s not all he wants. But it’s all he should want. 

Selfishly, he wants to be with her. Cruelly, he wants to see her smile, to hear her stories, to hold her close. Unforgivably, he wants her love.

But he deserves none of those things.

“Do you think I’d be happier if you weren’t here?”

The anguish in her voice jolts him out of his stupor.

“Is that what you’re thinking? Clive, do you… do you really think that I’m that horrible? Do you really believe that I would be happier if you… if you…”

Her voice breaks, and so does Clive’s heart, for the thousandth time.

Any words he says now would be far too cruel. To tell her the truth would tear her apart. But to deny her words is impossible.

She would be happier without him.

[landwriter]

Hi! I hope you feel better soon!

This is a great prompt by @academicblorbo about Hob Gadling being the landlord of the Dead Boys. It has a wonderful fill already by @omgcinnamoncakes but I’d love to see what you come up with for it!

Alternative prompt from me if that doesn’t work for your brain: remember the date between Jenny and Maxine? How about one between Jenny and Esther? Poor Jenny is going to really question her taste in beautiful blonde women 😭

Thank you! I saw ‘landlord’ and ‘decades’ and blacked out. I love Hob having them as tenants. Maybe even before the modern day meeting in Sandman.

The Sandman/Dead Boy Detectives, 2.4k, G Dream/Hob, pre-slash, alternating/outsider POV, found family, a reunion and revelations etc.

---

Hob did not, strictly speaking, have tenants. It was more of a minor haunting. Pun intended.

The small room above the pub and below his flat wasn’t worth charging anyone rent for; when he first bought the building he had put a handsome oak desk in there and some bookshelves before wondering who he was possibly keeping up appearances for. Who was he going to take back upstairs that would stop and say, Wait, can I see your office? So he’d left it as more or less an abandoned room.

When he realized a pair of boys were using it as their clubhouse, he didn’t do anything at first. He saw them quietly coming and going a couple times, disappearing around the corner of the first landing. Brazen things. He meant to call after them, but the shout had died in his throat. He’d been young once. He still remembered the need to get away from it all. It was only when he went to check if they’d been making a mess of the room that he discovered it was still locked.

He’d crouched down and inspected the latch and found no marks at all. Huh, he’d said, and jiggled it again, and been a little more interested in whatever clever way they were getting into it after they disappeared up his stairs. Then he didn’t see them for weeks, and assumed they had gotten bored and stopped.

Until they came back. In the middle of an argument, striding through the pub like they owned it. Hob straightened up as they passed him.

“I cannot believe you broke the mirror.”

“I was in a rush! It’s not my fault you forgot you needed Arcana Incantatum after we arrived at the church. And found the demon.”

“I hardly forgot, I only made the mistake of assuming you would know to pack it by now.”

Hob raised his eyebrows. The boys disappeared into the back hallway. He followed them as they went upstairs, too preoccupied with their drama to notice Hob. They turned onto the landing, still carrying on. Even as they walked through the door. The locked, closed door.

Hob blinked. Then he drew his keys from his pocket and opened the door. The boys were still inside. One of them was pulling a mirror out of a backpack that was several times too small for it. They didn’t even look up, and Hob wondered how he couldn’t possibly have put it together earlier. He cleared his throat.

“Hello, boys.” That caught their attention. Hob grinned. “Seems we’re neighbours.”

---

Edwin abhorred getting involved with the living. He and Charles got along perfectly well on their own. They were a duo. An intrepid pair. Best mates, like Charles often stressed whenever he was about to ask something particularly ridiculous of Edwin. They were solid together. As solid as two ghost boys could be. The living, though, were messy and unpredictable.

Perhaps the most salient fact at present: Charles invariably became attached to them.

“He’s sad, mate. I can see it in his eyes.”

“You said those exact words in ‘94 about a dog. At least ask Hob himself.”

Before you decide to adopt him too.

Hob Gadling, irritatingly, was unobjectionable on every ground Edwin could think of. He had made no imposition upon them. When he found them, he only asked them their business, and then told them he was usually downstairs, or upstairs, if they needed anything they couldn’t procure themselves. He had an interest in rare and old books, as it happened. In explaining this, he had also hinted at being far older than his looks would suggest, which vexed Edwin twice over. He knew his curiosity would not be slaked until he talked to Hob, but then he would be the one getting involved with the living, and Charles would hardly let him forget it.

“Do you think he’s really immortal? Mate’s far too calm. Last week I saw him stop a fight downstairs by stepping right between these huge blokes. He just said something and smiled and they backed right off.” Charles lit up. “Do you reckon he’d teach me how to do that? Conflict de-escalation, innit? I could show him some moves with the cricket bat, I bet. Oh, do you think he’s a cricket fan?”

It was obviously a hopeless case, and since the Dead Boy Detectives never took on hopeless cases, there was only one course of action that remained. Edwin had long since disabused himself of the notion he needed to breathe. He had no beating heart, yet when he was startled, he would find himself clutching his chest. Now, he exhaled slowly through his nose in an entirely superfluous sigh of resignation. “Well, Charles, shall we go talk to him?”

---

When the millennium came around, Hob found himself celebrating it with his accidental tenants. There was something gloriously satisfying about being able to make a toast to the next one and have it taken seriously. He’d asked them if they had something better to do - spectral trouble to get into et cetera - and they both looked at him with almost identical put-upon and incredulous expressions.

Hob had a terrible suspicion they thought they were taking care of him as much as he thought he was taking care of them.

Edwin, with his insatiable curiosity and, deep underneath it, something Hob thought he recognized from himself: a sharp animal ferocity and a refusal to go until he’s good and done, natural laws be damned. Charles, still brightly, painfully alive for a ghost - who should be alive still, by all rights, but nothing of this life was fair - who joked to cover up hurt in a way Hob knew too, and glowed any time Hob turned so much as a kind word to him.

He wondered what they saw when they looked at him.

The year ticked over, and technology kept working. Charles grinned innocently and said he could probably possess the telly and break it that way if Hob wanted?

Hob’s heart twinged. He knew they weren’t his, not to keep, but it seemed that teenagers didn’t change at all over the centuries, even if the boys were only sort of teenagers in the way Hob was only sort of in his thirties. It didn’t change that they’d been punted from the mortal coil before having a chance to grow up, and figure out the kind of men they were, and make their own choices and fuck up and try to be better than their fathers, and everything everyone deserved. Hob had made more than his share of mistakes. They hadn’t been given the chance to make nearly any at all.

So they made toasts to the new millennium, to the detective agency, to themselves, all stuck out of time in different ways and refusing to move on for different reasons, and Hob allowed himself to think of Robyn and privately pretend that they were his all the same.

---

A week later, Hob was reminded of the other universal traits of teenagers when he mentioned his stranger and both boys began to grill him with terrifying alacrity. Before turning to his dating life, like ravening bloody wolves. When Edwin had asked, in a specifically nineteenth century manner that Hob remembered all too well, if Hob had always been unmarried, he’d nearly put his head in his hands.

“It can be hard for me to associate with the living too, you know. For obvious reasons.”

Charles had turned to Edwin and hissed “See? I told you.”

Right in front of him. Nobody had taught them manners.

“Manners, Charles,” replied Edwin loftily. “We will, of course, respect your privacy. A man is entitled to his secrets.”

“You’ll go upstairs and rifle through my personal things, is what you’ll do,” said Hob.

Charles coughed to hide his laugh. Edwin flushed and looked away. Hob snorted, and told them about Eleanor and Robyn. Properly. It was a strange relief. He’d told the story wrong for plausibility’s sake so many times he had been worried he’d forget the truth of it one day.

They had listened, and been remarkably quiet until Charles piped up and offered to set him up with a ‘really fit’ ghost. Hob had roundly shut that down. Woefully, not all explanations were satisfying enough. Charles cornered him again the next morning while he was cleaning the bar.

“No, mate, I still don’t get it.” Hob was about to say he no more wanted to be with someone who couldn’t feel pleasure from his touch than someone who would grow old and be taken from him while he stayed the same, when Charles went on, bafflingly, to ask, “Why don’t you meet your mysterious friend more often than once a century?”

Hob sighed. “Adults are often busy, Charles.” Nevermind that he had begun to wonder the same since the eighteenth century. He’d always just assumed time passed differently for his stranger.

Charles just laughed and perched himself on the bar top. “Ooh, low blow. We’re busy too, you know. Plenty of cases to solve.”

“Really,” said Hob. “You’re busy. Right now.”

Charles waggled his eyebrows.

“Charles, I am not a case,” said Hob, sternly as possible. “I’m not even a ghost. He’s not a ghost. No ghosts.”

“We could investigate. Maybe ghosts are involved. What even is he? Why every hundred years? Is it some sort of Persephone situation?”

Hob bit his lip against shouting I don’t know! I don’t know anything about him! Instead, he tried to smile, and felt it come out as a wince instead. “He’s very private.”

Charles scowled. “Yeah, obviously. You don’t even know his name. He can’t be that good of a friend if he’s too busy to see you more than once a century.”

Hob couldn’t see the expression on his own face, but he saw Charles’ shocked reaction well enough. It was so long ago for him, and still Hob knew at once what Charles saw now: that first time you manage to visibly hurt a grown-up’s feelings, people who seemed too old and too stern to actually feel pain, when you’d been going around kicking at them like a new foal, just to stretch your legs.

“Sorry,” said Charles, instant regret chasing his surprise. He was a good kid.

“It’s alright,” said Hob. He meant it. He looked down at the shining bartop. His hands were restless with the urge to light a cigarette. He gave in. It wasn’t like Charles would be dying of lung cancer any time soon if he decided to follow Hob’s example. “I don’t think he would say he’s very good at being a friend either. Truth is, I’d love to see him more often. But we had an awful fight the last time we met. If he forgives me, I’ll have to ask.”

“Mates always make up,” said Charles earnestly. He was such a good kid.

“I suppose they do.” Charles still looked sorry, and Hob clapped him on the shoulder. “Hey. Thanks for looking out for me, Charles.”

Charles beamed at him. “Always. We’ve got your back, me and Edwin.”

---

Charles couldn’t bloody believe it. Hob’s friend was here. There was nobody else it could be. He and Edwin were watching from a nearby table, pretending to be absorbed in their own conversation. Neither man noticed them. They were too busy looking at each other.

He couldn’t imagine spending more than a century apart from Edwin. The way Hob had talked about him and his stranger over the years, it sometimes seemed like they were best mates too, no matter how little they saw each other. He was dead sure that’s what had Hob looking so gutted when he thought nobody was looking. He had known they would make up, though. Maybe now Hob would be happier.

“Charles, we really ought not eavesdrop,” hissed Edwin. Right as he scooted his chair closer, the cheeky hypocrite. Hob and his friend were talking too quietly to properly hear, their heads bent together. Lots to catch up on, Charles reckoned. A hundred years. He couldn’t stop thinking about the number. It seemed impossible. Funny, he couldn’t imagine that long away from Edwin, but he could imagine spending that long being best mates. There was nobody he’d rather hide from Death with.

Hob’s face was doing something strange as his long-lost friend talked. Then Hob moved and grasped him by the shoulders, so tight that his knuckles stood out in relief. The man said something in low tones and Hob shook his head, and then pulled him in for a hug. The man stiffened and then relaxed, and his arms came up around Hob’s.

Their cheeks both looked wet.

Charles swallowed and it felt suddenly a little like he was choking. He should look away, only he couldn’t.

“They must be great friends,” said Edwin softly.

“Yeah,” he managed to croak. We won’t ever need to have a reunion like this because I’m never going to lose you, mate. I won’t let them take you. It was stuck behind the phantom lump in his phantom throat. His hand, without him telling it to, reached out and grabbed hold of Edwin’s. Edwin squeezed it hard, and Charles knew he didn’t have to make his voice work after all.

Then the man pushed Hob away, but only far enough to grab his face and pull him back again, thumbing over Hob’s cheeks, and beside him, Edwin honest-to-god gasped, and then Charles momentarily forgot how thoughts worked too.

---

It happens thus: in the New Inn, just next door to the White Horse, some 639 years after they first met, Hob Gadling and Dream of the Endless share their first kiss. Neither, if they had bothered to think about it, would have intended to have an audience, but it’s a well-known fact that some kisses cannot wait, and theirs was chief among them, being that it had so much to say, and was so very long overdue.

I missed you, it said, and I came back, it said, and Please don’t go away from me again, and I could not.

And atop them, like blankets, were laid invisible the daydreams of those who saw them, including two long-dead boys, whose dreams were woven from the fresh and unaccounted-for possibilities of Hob kissing his mysterious stranger. Another man, thought Edwin. His best friend, thought Charles. Dream was the only one who could have heeded this, but he did not, because Hob Gadling was holding him tight and daydreaming loudly of this kiss and more, of this today and tonight and tomorrow, ever greedy and ever easily pleased, and Dream could hear nothing at all over their clamouring and comingled joy; the bright gold daydream between the scant space of their bodies that sounded so much like at last.

[miasmaghoul]

Take Your Licks

Rating: E

Pairing: Swiss/Rain

Word Count: ~3.4k

Contains: stoned ghouls, Rain's hardcore oral fixation, lots of tongue kissin', oral, first time rimming, Rain being a pillow princess and Swiss being just fine with that

Summary: Swiss has something new in mind, and Rain isn't sure how to feel about it. He figures it out quick.

A little somethin' for our beloved @endopyre, whose ghoul designs give me heart eyes. Happy birth(yester)day Endo, I hope you like it!

On a chilly fall night, there's nowhere Rain would rather be than right here.

Kicked back on the couch with a belly full of Mountain's spiced cider, his head resting on Swiss's lap while wind rattles the ancient windows and the tv drones on. Everyone else has gone to bed, it's long past midnight, but Rain doesn't feel inclined to retire quite yet. Not while Swiss is massaging his scalp with one hand and feeding him the end of a joint with the other.

They'll get there eventually, though - he can feel Swiss's bulge slowly growing against the back of his neck. Rain chuckles as best he can with the press of Swiss's fingers against his lips, and the other ghoul shoots him a comfortably stoned grin.

"Feelin' good, starfish?" Rain hums through his exhale, offering his own dopey smile as Swiss chases his smoke, biting the air.

"Not as good as you, apparently," Rain teases, the slightest bit slurred. The seated ghoul raises an eyebrow and Rain turns his head, nuzzling his cheek against Swiss's zipper with a pointed look. Swiss snorts, gives a rude roll of his hips, and Rain purrs.

"Listen to you," Swiss coos, ruffling Rain's hair and dropping the burnt end of the joint into his empty water glass. "So noisy over my cock and I haven't even given it to you yet." Rain replies with a nip to the fabric of his fly and Swiss gives him a wink. "When did you become such a slut, huh?"

Rain chitters low in his throat, a pleased sound. His own semi twitches against the seam of his sweatpants, but the dark fabric hides the movement.

"'s that a complaint?" He drags his tongue over the place Swiss's shaft sits, saliva darkening the denim, and Swiss tilts his head.

"Nah," he says, dragging callused fingers along the pointed shell of Rain's ear. "Just surprised it happened so quick."

Honestly, so is Rain. It's only been about six weeks since his summoning, but he's certainly made the rounds.

Aether had been his first, an accidental thing borne of extreme need; a reaction to a full moon that had risen a mere six nights after his arrival on Earth. It had worked him into a frenzy, body and mind stuck at fever pitch, and Aether had been the first one at his door. An encounter filled with overwhelm, fear and a lack of control Rain truly couldn't wrap his head around.

He'd barely had a chance to explore this new body on his own, let alone with someone else while in the throes of the moon's influence. Aether had been as kind and gentle as he could, but Rain couldn't help his panicked reactions. He'd spent hours in Aether's arms once the gnawing need in his guts had dissipated, sobbing into his chest and shaking like a leaf while the other ghoul soothed him.

Something about it, though, had been intoxicating. Once the mental stress had settled, a new ache had flooded his body. Something deep and insistent, focused between his thighs, and the next morning he'd woken Aether up demanding they do it all over again.

He's given everyone a test drive since then, so to speak. They all have their plusses and minuses, their pros and cons.

Save for Swiss.

There's something to be said for every part of Swiss.

The shine of his golden eyes. The strong, angular cut of his jaw and the scratchy salt-and-pepper of his short beard. The breadth of his back and shoulders. The muscular but soft plane of his chest and stomach, all dusted in a delightful layer of very grabbable hair. The sheer size of his hands, of his fingers, and the expert way they move. The curve of his ass, the thickness of his thighs. The way his fat cock hangs between them, the way it flushes so dark when it gets hard.

All of Swiss is immaculate, really. But as far as Rain is concerned, nothing beats his mouth.

(Seriously, it's ranked number one in his little black notebook. The one that lives in his nightstand, right alongside the lube and a handful of vanilla flavored condoms. They're Dew's favorite.)

Rain stares at it while he laves at rough denim, at the plushness of Swiss's lower lip and the way his mouth curls up at the corner. It's open just enough that Rain catches glimpses of fang every few breaths. (Those are nice too, wonderful when dragged over his pulse point and sunk into the meat of his thighs.) Swiss's tongue pokes between them every now and again while Rain laps at his rapidly thickening length, and every time Rain spies that flash of pink his rhythm falters.

Swiss, ever observant, doesn't miss it.

Rain's eyes track every bit of the way Swiss drags his tongue along his bottom lip, entranced by the shine it leaves behind. It's like he's moving in slow motion, dragging it out, but maybe that's just the weed. Impossible to say. Either way, Rain's own tongue has gone useless in his mouth, lolling out the side of his mouth. He's drooling onto Swiss's crotch, but neither of them seem to care.

"You're staring," Swiss murmurs, gently flicking Rain's ear. "'s my tongue really that interesting?"

He knows the answer, but a reminder never hurts.

"Uh huh," he gurgles, pulling back his own tongue and unsubtly palming himself through his sweats. Swiss doesn't miss that either, and Rain shivers a bit at the way his lids go visibly heavier. "Since I know what it can do."

Swiss grins with all his teeth, his eyes flash with mischief, and Rain's stomach does an anticipatory flip.

"Speaking of," Swiss rumbles, relaxing back into the couch, "there's a certain tongue-related activity I've had in mind for you for a while now." A large hand comes to rest on his stomach and Rain groans when it slips beneath his t-shirt, warm against his skin. "You up for somethin' new, tadpole?"

Rain's head feels delightfully hollow. He isn't sure he's heard half of Swiss's words, the pressure behind his eyes stealing his focus, but the drag of rough fingertips along his waistband helps to ground him. His eyes follow Swiss's tongue once again, currently swiping over his fangs.

"Mmm," he hums with a nod, "sure, but can we do something I want first?"

"What would that be?"

"Gimme that fuckin' tongue," Rain demands, reaching up to grab the other ghoul by the back of the neck. Swiss's smile widens, and he doesn't fight when Rain drags him into a lazy, filthy kiss.

He refuses to let Swiss's tongue leave his mouth - licking at it, sucking it, giving it sharp little nips that tinge the kiss with copper. Distantly, Rain feels himself being moved, lifted, but he really can't be bothered to open his eyes and see what's happening. He's far too busy trying to eat Swiss alive.

"Easy," Swiss pants, voice thick, "let a guy breathe, we don't all have gills."

Rain chirps, burying his face in Swiss's throat instead. The spell of his tongue seems to be breakable by lack of sight and contact, and Rain comes back to himself enough to realize he's being carried. His arms slung over broad shoulders, long legs around narrow hips, Swiss strides down the hall towards his room. Rain feels his cheeks heat. He must have been really out of it to let someone carry him this far without realizing it.

"Let me down," he mumbles, lips rasping against Swiss's stubble. "I can walk, you don't -"

Swiss shushes him, kisses his horn.

"Nah," he sounds so pleased, "you're indulgin' me, I can let you play princess tonight."

Swiss's hands squeeze his ass and Rain's cock throbs, trapped between their stomachs. He gives his hips a wriggle, chasing stimulation, and Swiss gives one of his cheeks a slap instead.

"Stay still," he says, firm. A tone Rain rarely hears, but goes straight to his balls every time. He repeats his little grind anyway, and his reward is Swiss grunting and getting a solid grip on his slender waist. "Rain," he rumbles, and Rain's head swims, "patience. I don't want to trip and fall on top of you."

"m sorry," Rain mumbles, not sorry at all, "can't help it. You feel so nice." He rocks again and Swiss sighs.

"Look at me, Rain."

It's an order, and Rain thinks they won't get very far tonight if Swiss keeps sounding so authoritative. It's doing funny things to places he's still learning about, and he can feel where his dick has started to get his pants wet. Still, though, he meets Swiss's piercing gaze. The sparkle there betrays his calm demeanor. He opens his mouth and Rain immediately zeroes in again.

"Stay."

So much fang.

"Still."

So much tongue.

Rain's jaw drops and Swiss catches him in a wet, nasty kiss that serves to switch Rain's brain right off. All that matters is Swiss invading his mouth, the warmth of it sensual in the best way. He tastes like weed, like cider, like whisky and black pepper, and Rain has the sudden desire to taste nothing else ever again. Nothing but Swiss.

He doesn't come back to himself so easily this time, not even when Swiss pulls away for air. The other ghouls makes sure their tongues stay in contact always, and something in Rain's chest burns with it. But soon enough their lips meet again and Rain loses it all again, content to float in a space not quite anywhere. The breaks start to get longer, but Rain only notices in the most cursory way.

He doesn't come back in any meaningful way until Swiss's mouth disappears from his for minutes, and as the cobwebs filling his skull begin to fall away several things become apparent.

One, he's on a bed. Whose bed? Swiss's probably. It smells more like him. Either way, not important.

Two, he's naked as the day he was summoned. On his back, blinking at a dimly lit ceiling. He moves his legs only to realize they're folded, his feet planted on the mattress an his thighs spread. He can't get them to close, something's in the way. Which brings him to,

Three, there is something warm and wet and the juncture of his hip and thigh. Sucking pressure, it makes his bones vibrate. There are whiny, feminine sounds bouncing off the walls. Are they coming from him? Rain shakes his head in an effort to return to his body, managing at length to lift his head. It still takes a moment for him to focus enough to make out Swiss's prone form.

He's between Rain's newly marked thighs, shoulders pinning them open while he mouths at a twitching muscle in Rain's groin. There are bites all over - his chest, his thighs, his hips - in a dozen shades of purple, and he doesn't remember getting a single one. Fuck, how out of it was he? The thought makes his cock throb so hard he grunts, and Rain watches the blurt of pre it spits join a not-small puddle on his belly.

"So whaddaya say, sweetheart," Swiss sounds like he's far away, but the words feel familiar. Like this isn't the first time he's heard them. "You ready for somethin' new?"

"Yeah," Rain rasps, and his own voice surprises him. "Show me." It feels like he's been talking for a while, his throat feels sore, but he can't recall. What has he agreed to? Swiss purrs, low and lustful, and Rain thinks it may be the best sound he's ever heard.

"Good boy," he murmurs, licking his lips. That fucking tongue again. Rain blinks away the encroaching haze, forces himself to at least try to pay attention. Swiss shifts enough to get those large fingers on his thighs, patting them. "Gonna open you up now, okay?"

Rain blinks, nods without really meaning to, and Swiss gives him another wink. Before he knows what's happening those hands are at the backs of his knees, and Rain gasps when his legs are pushed apart and up towards his chest. It shocks something in him, and snippets of conversation come with it.

"You want to what?"

"Lick you out," Swiss's phantom voice echoes through his memory. "Get the tongue you're so obsessed with on you and make you sing real sweet."

Rain wonders if his stomach swooped like this the first time they had that exchange. The memory perks him up enough to catch his breath, caged by his own legs and Swiss's strong arms. Swiss gazes at him past the flushed, slick length of his cock, bobbing rigid over the flat plane of his stomach, and Rain flinches when he feels warm air ghost over his very exposed hole.

"You're so pink here," Swiss coos, "Pink and wet. All for me? I think it is." He shimmies down the bed - if Rain were able to focus on anything, he wouldn't have missed Swiss grinding into the mattress along the way - placing a wet kiss on each of Rain's balls along the way. Each one has him gasping, but the more he remembers about the things he's forgotten tonight, the clearer his head gets.

"You're gonna lick me...there?"

"Only if you want me to," Swiss had said with a shrug. Casual. "Think you'll really like it."

"Does it go...like..." Rain had made a middle school gesture, one finger stuck through a ring of two others. "In...inside?"

The sudden flash of a fox-like grin has Rain's eyelids fluttering, even just as a memory.

"Only if you ask very nicely."

The press of warm lips against his taint snaps him back to the present.

"S-Swiss," Rain hisses, grabbing on instinct for his wagging cock, achy and purpled. "W-wait, wait -"

The words are little more than a whisper, and Rain is somehow completely unprepared for the hot slide of that tongue over his slick, twitching hole.

Rain gasps, loud and shocked, as Swiss licks up to his balls and back again, pausing to circle that tight pucker. The feel of it is singular, electric jolts up his spine and deep in his pelvis. Every slow, wicked pass of that rough tongue rips utterly involuntary sounds from his throat. Quicker than he can make sense of, the hesitance and reluctance simmering at the back of his mind evaporate.

"Fuck."

It's good.

"Oh, fuck."

It's...it's so good.

He's being so loud all of a sudden. He knows it, his own yelps and whines echo around him, broken up only by the filthy sound of Swiss licking at him with what can only be called perverse reverence. Their eyes remain locked through it all, hazy cerulean with sparkling gold. Swiss looks amused, the corners of his eyes crinkles and his lips curved. Maybe more smug than amused, but Rain doesn't really care right now.

"Like it?" Swiss asks, his voice low and dark.

"Uh huh," Rain nods, breathless. He moves his leg and - oh, when had he started holding them? Had Swiss asked? "Keep going, please keep - oh."

It's faster now, just a little, but rougher too. Swiss punctuates his licks with full, messy kisses right on his hole. Every one has Rain's cock kicking and pouring pre, his skin slick and shiny with it. He can't look at it any longer, has to let his head thump back against the mattress so he can loose the deeply pained groan caught between his lungs.

"Knew you would," Swiss breathes, dragging careful fingertips along quivering thighs. He brushes soft knuckles over Rain's tight sack, and it draws all of Rain's attention back to the righteous ache between his legs.

"Fuck, touch me," he spits between grit teeth, drowning in the way Swiss worships him. His cock pulses in time with his racing heart, sways in the air. "Please, please touch it Swiss, please - fuck!"

Rain's tight pleas melt into high, hurt cries when Swiss does just what he asked. Wraps a large hand around Rain's straining shaft, grips it at the bottom and gives it a nice shake.

Swiss gives him a single stroke, a firm lick, and Rain's eyes roll back in his skull.

"Oh fuck," he gasps, "oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck -"

He's chanting it, a pained mantra pouring from between kiss swollen lips as though he can't believe any of this. He's sweaty at his hairline, and the more Swiss works him the more he shakes. He laps away like a thirsty dog, milking pre and slick and pleasure from him with each swipe. He twists his wrist just so, rubs his thumb over the frenulum, and Rain's whole being goes tense.

"Oh fuck," he squeaks, tight and almost panicky. He knows Swiss can feel the way he gets harder between his fingers, his abdomen going taut and his back bowing off the bed.

Swiss nudges at his pucker, twists his wrist, and it spells Rain's end.

He cums with a stuttering, breathy groan, spilling hot and heavy over his own chest and belly, coating his marked skin with stripes of pearly white. Swiss tugs him through the whole thing, milks him with short strokes and soft licks.

Rain barely feels any of it, at least at first. His mind has gone to soup, liquidized and useless, lost to pleasure and overwhelm. He doesn't feel it until he really feels it, sudden overstimulation that has hip dropping his shaking legs and grabbing for Swiss's horns, his hair, anything.

Swiss pulls back on his own, though. Releases Rain's slowly softening cock and presses soothing kisses to his thigh. Swiss smiles up at him, deceptively sweet.

"So, whaddaya think?"

Rain wants to tell him several things. Wants to say how good it was, but how overwhelming. So much pleasure being derived from an act he had never considered until maybe twenty minutes ago. One he had nearly panicked over when realization hit. He still has no idea how much time he lost when he was hypnotized by Swiss's tongue.

He wants to, but then Swiss licks his lips. He licks his lips and Rain notices that he's wet from nose to chin. It's a sight he's only been privy to on the few occasions they've shared Dew; Swiss always insists on burying as much of his face in the little ghoul's cunt as he can, until he's drenched and sated.

To see the same look on his face, the same wetness, just from licking him...it's enough to have Rain's body buzzing all over again.

"Again," he slurs, tucking his hands behind his thighs and folding himself. Exposing himself. "Do...do that again."

Swiss gives him a cheshire grin, nods, and for some reason Rain's fried brain has trouble processing why Swiss is hovering higher instead of slipping back down. Why he's moving to run that impossibly perfect tongue over his still-twitching abdomen. He doesn't quite manage to put it together, though.

So imagine his surprise when Swiss ducks between his cheeks, spits Rain's own mess onto his already slippery hole and dives in for seconds.

"Swiss," he chokes out, once his own stunned shout fades from his ears, "I - I want -" Rain's chest heaves, the attention being paid to his most sensitive spot hurtling him straight back into the realm of overstimulation. "Need...need - fuck!"

Swiss stares up at him, gaze heavy with pleasure, and Rain's soft cock gives a valiant twitch. He swallows hard, clenches around nothing, and forces the words to come.

"Stick it in," he demands, breathy. "Gimme your tongue. Put it - Lucifer - push it in and...and fuck me with it."

The last words are breathless and whiny, and Swiss huffs out a laugh. It blows cool against his heated rim, and Swiss pulls back just enough for Rain to catch sight of his tongue.

"Whatever you want, baby."

Rain's tired eyes go wide as he watches Swiss's tongue bifurcate and extend, the other ghoul dropping the slightest hint of his glamour. Goosebumps rocket up all over his trembling body, that flexible appendage slips inside his winking hole, and Rain keens.

It's going to be a long night.

[piningpercussionist]

transfem scott getting lots of support from ramona and kim in the early 2000's when shit's very taboo but they all 3 have a fire forged bond and lord if they aren't going to make sure they're all as happy as they can be because they've come this far and I dunno it just makes me happy all three of them

YES YES YES

It makes me very happy as well,,

Like I've said before. General Trans Scott enthusiast here- I love the idea of their little support network *violent coughing* I (we?) mean polycule *violent coughing* so fucking much.

Ramona I think has a bit of a more gentle hand with reassuring Scott with gender issues, but sometimes she just can't help herself from some pointed banter or teasing- how could you with someone so dense? (Said w affection)

And then Kim I think is more blunt. But like, in a good way mostly, you know? The kinda blunt that makes you snap to attention and go "Oh. Yeah that was silly of me." And if Ramona's started some sort of banter? Kim is SO piling on. Maybe sometimes she's a bit TOO blunt with it- but it's only because she's so firm in her support. She wants Scott to Get It Together- and be happier for it. So if some ribbing now and again is in order, then goddamnit she will do so! Anything to crack that shell.

And ohhh can you imagine how they would react to some transphobic bullshit?? Unholy terror would be driven into the offender before they walk off with an absurd amount of coins between them. I can feel it in my bones. Scott doesn't even have to lift a finger (if the transphobe is even noticed/processed at all, bc I honestly can see Scott just. Not realizing someone's being transphobic.) Kim giving someone a lashing with her tongue as distraction and then Ramona coming in with the hammer- BAM! Free Money! Paying literally with your life for your transphobia. A Better And Just World.

And of course (transfem Scott more specifically, here,) the way Scott would start to flourish under their support... cagey and maybe a little (perhaps a lot-) resistant to start- but Kim's blunt affirmations and no nonsense attitude for bullshit (which is what Scott insisting on "being cis" would be, c'mon now,) and Ramona's also low bullshit tolerance but less Stabby (bc I won't lie, that's probably how Kim's comments would feel,) assurances? Ough... My Heart... Be Still-

I would Kill for them, Your Honor-

(Ran out of tags so putting this in the body of the post- I am SO tired someone pls sound off if this isn't as coherent as I am hoping this is. I WAS trying to nap and get the extra sleep I desperately needed but the writing bug... it Bit Me.... only a little but enough to stop that process-)

[nostalgia-tblr]

having a vague "why am i writing this horrible story?" crisis about the anglo-saxon au fic that has taken over my mind since *checks* about two days ago. i have approx 2000 words of it written so it is going fairly well in that sense but i have gone a bit niche with my fics recently and am starting to think "nobody wants to read this, people will be annoyed at you if you post this" a bit more often, even though they probably won't because it's a free cake and it's rude to complain about free cake.

[arda-ancalima]

A Study in Shuffling

Characters: Genshin Asogi, Yujin Mikotoba, Herlock Sholmes Words: 1,743

For TGAA Gen Week Day 1 - Dancing @tgaa-gen-week

(Update - edited version now on ao3!)

-

Genshin stepped back outside and took a moment to glance up at the stars. He wasn’t exactly pleased to get called to a crime scene tonight, but such was detective work. He wandered to the gate of 3 Lauriston Gardens, waiting for Inspector Gregson to return from an errand. A man with a similar silhouette approached in the dark, but to Genshin’s surprise, the man who stepped into the street light was Yujin Mikotoba.

“Ah! Good evening, Genshin,” he said politely.

Genshin raised an eyebrow. They were on the other side of London from the hospital where Mikotoba worked, and farther still from the flat he just moved into on Baker Street. “Good evening. I should inform you that this is a crime scene, so whatever business you have here will have to wait.”

“Oh, it—it’s nothing like that,” Mikotoba said, oddly nervous. “Actually, I was wondering if perhaps…”

Genshin cut him off. “One moment.” He stalked along the fence to the shadow attempting to creep in between the rails. “Mr. Sholmes.”

Sholmes snapped up his head and hit it on a rail, wincing. “Why, Mr. Asogi! Fancy meeting you here of all places!”

“I could say the same,” Genshin said dryly. “All right, on your way.”

“Of course.” Sholmes’ grin shone in the lamp light. “Just as soon as I’ve had a look at the crime scene.”

“No,” Genshin said firmly. He saw Mikotoba hovering nearby and put up a hand. “One moment, Yujin.”

“Oh, er, you see…” Mikotoba began.

“He’s with me,” Sholmes said.

“Ha!” Genshin barked. “I’m sure.”

“Tell him, Doctor.”

 “Lying will get you nowhere. Now quit bothering this man and—“

“Er, Genshin,” Mikotoba interrupted. “I am here with Mr. Sholmes.”

Genshin whipped around to stare at him. “What?” he said dumbly.

“This is my flatmate, Herlock Sholmes. Mr. Sholmes, this is my friend, Genshin Asogi.”

Sholmes extended his hand and Genshin automatically went to shake it. “Pleased to—no, I know who you are!” He snatched his hand away. “What do you mean, your flatmate?”

“I told you about that flatshare on Baker Street, right?” Mikotoba said.

Horror filled him. “You didn’t tell me he lived there!”

“I didn’t know you were acquainted.”

“This is all fascinating stuff,” Sholmes said, making it clear that he thought it was anything but. “However, we are on a rather tight schedule, so if we could just…”

“I thought I made it clear on several occasions that civilians, even amateur detectives such as yourself, are not allowed at any crime scene,” Genshin said.

Sholmes drew himself up to his full height, which was still a good few inches shorter than Genshin. “And just how is Scotland Yard coming along on this case?”

Narrowing his eyes, Genshin glared at him. They were going nowhere, but he wasn’t about to admit that to Sholmes.

“That’s what I thought,” Sholmes said, his smug look doubling Genshin’s irritation. “Anyway, I was invited by Inspector Gregson.”

“Somehow I doubt that.”

“Just ask the good doctor.”

Genshin raised an eyebrow at Mikotoba, who rubbed the back of his neck.

“Well…he was doing a lot of grumbling…and he did mention the address, so…could we take a quick look?”

Genshin couldn’t believe he was actually considering this. He gave an exasperated sigh. “Five minutes.”

“Splendid!” Sholmes said, climbing up over the fence and pumping Genshin’s hand. “You won’t be disappointed, my dear fellow!”

He went ahead into the house and up the stairs, while Mikotoba followed behind with Genshin.

“I’m used to Mr. Sholmes wheedling his way onto my crime scenes,” Genshin said, “But I still don’t understand why you are here.”

Mikotoba shrugged. “I’m not sure myself. But he invited me along, and I had nothing else to do.”

“I really must warn you against him,” Genshin said, lowering his voice. “Especially as a flatmate. The man is a nuisance, and possibly insane.”

“He seems a decent enough fellow,” Mikotoba said. “Eccentric perhaps, but from what I’ve seen, a brilliant man.”

“Listen, Yujin.” Genshin stopped on a landing. “You see the best in people, which is admirable, but can get you into trouble. I don’t want to see you get in over your head. You tend to get swept along in whatever someone asks of you.”

“Yes,” Mikotoba said with a faint smile. “Like how you and Seishiro bullied me into coming to Britain in the first place.” He took the last few steps ahead of Genshin.

Genshin sighed through his nose and stepped up to the door, nodding to the bobby guarding it, and went inside.

Sholmes took a quick look at the body in the middle of the room, before turning his attention to the walls. After he had scoured them, he gestured to the body. “Doctor, if you would.”

“What—me?” Mikotoba said.

“What is your professional opinion, as a medical examiner? It would be very useful to me,” Sholmes said.

“W-Well, I…I’ve only just begun studying post-mortem examinations, but…I’ll do what I can.” He crouched beside the body, carefully turning the head to get a better look at it. “He’s dead, that’s for certain…no signs of head trauma…” He picked up a hand. “No blood, no defensive wounds…erm…heart attack, perhaps?”

“Would it be a crime scene if it was a heart attack?”

“Oh, right, then…poison?”

“Excellent!” Sholmes snapped his fingers. “Now take a look at this marking on the wall and tell me what you make of it.”

Mikotoba jumped when Sholmes pointed it out. “Oh! There is blood! It looks like writing.”

“Rachel,” Genshin said dryly. It had been the most glaringly obvious clue in the room.

“Is that indeed what it says?” Sholmes turned his grin on him, and Genshin got a sinking feeling. “Scotland Yard is falling down on the job these days. This crime is completely transparent to me!”

Mikotoba gaped, and it needled Genshin to see him so impressed. “You—you’ve worked it all out?”

“All the clues are here, we need only put them together.” Sholmes pointed aloft. “It is time for Herlock Sholmes’s Logic and Reasoning Spectacular!”

Genshin groaned as the spotlight fell on Sholmes, who twirled around the room as if it were a stage and pointed to the red writing.

“Here we have a word written on the wall. What does it say?”

“That’s obvious,” Genshin said, his arms folded as he watched from the doorway. “Rachel, though he was interrupted before he could write the ‘L.’ I believe it to be the victim writing the name of his killer.”

“Rachel, is it?” Sholmes said. “Mikotoba, is there any other meaning it might have?”

“Well, this is a bit far-fetched,” Mikotoba said. “But I know a little German. It struck me that it might be ‘rache,’ the word for revenge.”

“Precisely!” Sholmes spun around again. “Don’t lose your time looking for Miss Rachel. The word is revenge, the motive for the murder, written…in tomato paste.”

“Er, Mr. Sholmes…” Mikotoba ventured. “Don’t you think that might be blood?”

“Indeed, it is blood!” Sholmes disappeared from the wall and reappeared near the body. “And just what is this revenge all about? Strange that it was written by the victim, don’t you think?”

Mikotoba said nothing, looking intently at the victim, thinking hard. Then something seemed to light up his face. “Hold it, Mr. Sholmes. That’s not it at all.”

He tapped out a few dance steps before tipping his hat stylishly. “The victim’s fingernails are perfectly clean and smooth. Since the word was scratched onto the wall with blood, it couldn’t possibly be the victim who wrote it.”

“And thus it concludes…” Sholmes spun so that he and Mikotoba could point out the solution together.

“Rache was written by the killer!”

They began work on another clue in the same manner while Genshin watched in astonishment. From time to time, Sholmes turned over the spotlight to Mikotoba, who danced as he explained his own deductions. He was light on his feet, suggesting a certain lightness of heart that had been absent in him for a long time.

Softening at the sight, Genshin almost missed Sholmes appearing behind him.

“Brilliant, isn’t he?”

Genshin chafed at the detective so close over his shoulder. “He is. You on the other hand…”

Sholmes laughed loudly and went off to twirl around the stage again.

Once their deductions were complete, Genshin, to his chagrin, had a much better understanding of the case.

“All right, your five minutes are more than up,” he growled.

“Not a problem at all, my dear fellow,” Sholmes said. “Our work here is finished. Do excuse me, I must fetch the victim’s missing suitcase in the back alley.”

He dashed down the stairs. Genshin and Mikotoba went back outside at a slower pace, waiting by the house while Sholmes conducted his search. Genshin sighed.

“Why don’t you like him?” Mikotoba asked.

“Why don’t I—why do you like him?”

“Well, it’s hard to explain, really.” Mikotoba looked out at the dark street where Sholmes had disappeared. “He fascinates me. Yes, he has some bothersome habits, but he’s the cleverest man I’ve ever met. It’s never a dull moment with him around.”

“Yes but, not being rude Yujin, you’re more of a dull man yourself.”

Mikotoba laughed, filling Genshin with warmth to hear the sound again. “Yes, well, good to keep the mind occupied, you know? I think I’ve had rather enough dreary days all to myself. You were the one telling me to get out more—”

“Not like this!”

“—And to make new friends—”

“Not like him!”

“Genshin…” Mikotoba faced him directly. “I know you’re trying to protect me. And I know you’re older and wiser and know better. But if I am making a mistake, I’m confident I can handle myself.”

If he was honest, Genshin would agree. It was possible Sholmes did have a good side to him, and if he could make Mikotoba laugh again… Well. It’s not like Genshin had much choice in what the detective made up his mind to do, and maybe if Sholmes had Mikotoba to civilize him, he would be less of a pest at his crime scenes.

“Tell me that when I bail the pair of you out of prison,” Genshin muttered.

Sholmes appeared out of the darkness holding a packing case. “Come, Doctor, the game is afoot!” he called.

Mikotoba chuckled. “I’m sure I will.” He wished him goodnight and followed along after Sholmes.

[sastielsfandom]

Castiel landed next to Sam, raindrops falling on them both. They evaporated off of Castiel, and sank into Sam's clothing and hair. "Sam?"

"Cas." Normally Sam would greet Castiel with enthusiasm or at least look at him, but the young man stared off into the distance.

The angel tried following Sam's sight of line, but didn't understand, "Why are you standing in the rain?" Castiel asked, tilting their wing above Sam, preventing anymore droplets from covering the hunter.

"Because." Sam said, incredibly conversational, Castiel did wait for an explanation that never came. For a moment Castiel doubted they were talking to the correct Winchester, but no one carried such weight in their shoulders and eyes as Sam.

"Did you need Dean?" Sam asked, and the angel shook their head.

"No, and he's incapacitated anyway," Castiel told Sam, who scoffed, of course Dean was.

He shrugged, "Okay, then what do you need?" Sam asked, preparing for the worst. Angels don't go to Sam with good news or honoring jobs, those are reserved for the righteous man, and Sam's anything but righteous. Especially to Heaven.

"Nothing." The angel told him, "I wanted to see you." Sam's eyebrow went up, and spared a glance at the shorter appearing man.

Castiel's eyes full of curiosity as if Sam was something to dissect. "Why are you brooding?" The angel asked.

Sam's guard would've gone up if it wasn't for the amusement twinkling in the angel's eyes, "I'm not brooding." Sam tried to defend.

"Of course not." Castiel agreed, but Sam didn't feel as if they truly were. "You're going to get sick in the rain."

Sam laughed, "You sure Dean didn't send you? I'll be fine." Sam said, shaking his head, "I'll dry off on the porch or something. Bobby would kill me if I tracked in water and mud."

Castiel frowned, "I don't believe he would. I think he'd be more angry at your health when it could've been avoided. Especially at your expense of hospitality."

Sam gave Castiel a look, but stared back at the rain, "You're worst than Dean actually." Sam commented, "I'll go in."

The angel didn't believe him, Sam made no movement to go.

"It's just... I enjoy the rain." Sam told them.

"Why?" Castiel asked, "Do you enjoy being wet and cold?" Sam laughed again, the angel probably started cataloging that into their memory.

Sam shook his head, "No, no, no, nothing like that. I didn't mean to get soaked. I just hate standing on the porch." Sam corrected, "I like the smell, the breeze, the rhythm of the rain falling against the ground, just the atmosphere the rain brings. I don't know. I used to want to dance in the rain, like the movies."

Castiel listened carefully, and looked at Sam again, the man looked at peace. As much as he could, his shoulders weren't as tense, his face wasn't hardened with thoughts. It was a Sam he hadn't seen before. Not even as Sam rested, his face typically contorted as nightmares arose.

"It's stupid really," Sam told Castiel, "Rain isn't great for hunters, try digging up a grave in the rain and lighting the remains on fire while it's pouring. The spirit doesn't care that you're at a disadvantage..."

"But, I guess moments like this I remember what it's like to breath."

The hunter was lost in thought, Castiel saw that clearly, and touched Sam's shoulder, using their grace to dry Sam's clothing and hair. You would never guess he had been out in the rain at all.

Sam no longer shivered as Castiel used their vessel to radiate heat for Sam, wanting Sam to have his peace for as long as possible.

"Thank you, Cas." Sam said, surprising the angel, who simply nodded.

"The rain." Castiel said, fondly, "You called upon me in the rain. It was the first time I answered a prayer of yours."

Sam's face moved in confusion, he recalled praying to Castiel numerous times, unsure if the angel ever listened. The confirmation was nice but didn't make sense to him.

Castiel put a hand out into the rain, allowing it to drop onto them as it did Sam earlier.

"Did I?" Sam asked, and the angel nodded, putting a hand on Sam's shoulder once again, this time showing Sam a memory of him, "It was for your incantation, you were helping Bela Talbot."

Sam watched as he recited and butchered Castiel's name a bit, but it was clearly him calling to Castiel.

"I forgot about that," Sam told the angel.

Castiel nodded, "I understand, it was insignificant to you at the time," the angel said, "It was the first time I was directly allowed to help the Winchesters. The first time I was able to help you."

That made Sam wonder many things, but he didn't ask, the angel seemed happy in recalling that time. The two stared off into the rain, watching as puddles grew around them, never touching them.

Castiel's arm didn't leave Sam's shoulder, and Sam didn't dismiss it. Breathing had never been so easy for Sam. He wasn't ready to let go, and neither was the angel who kept the rain, it was good for the area they justified. Very good for the area, Castiel thought watching Sam at ease.

[teejaystumbles]

We are having snow and again the weather has inspired me to write a short dreamling thing. Enjoy :3

It starts innocently enough. Winter has come to London, in mostly rain and slush rapidly turning to mud. Real snow is a rarity these days. So when Hob wakes up to light from his window that he distinctly associates with daylight on snow, he is grinning before he has even sat up in bed. The snow is a measly thing, barely covering the ground, but Hob is elated nonetheless, especially because it is still snowing, and continues throughout the whole day. His colleagues and students are less enthusiastic, grumbling about the weather messing with transport and how it’s too early in the year to be this cold. Hob disagrees and joyfully goes about his day on campus. When he finally calls it a day in the late afternoon and steps out into the brisk air he inhales deeply, still smiling. It’s getting dark fast but Hob takes his time on his walk home, enjoying the clear cold air and the scrunch of thin iced over snow under his shoes. When he nears the New Inn he spots a tall dark shape loitering under the tree opposite. His smile blooms into a grin again and he gives a shy wave with one hand. The man under the tree slowly lifts his hand in a gesture of greeting.

This is now the fourth time Dream visits him. After the 130-year absence. He had introduced himself and explained himself to Hob, in very few words, but Hob had read between the lines. His friend had been imprisoned and had not missed their centennial meeting voluntarily. The thought that Dream now calls him friend, lets him call him friend, and now wants to meet more often still makes Hob wobbly in the knees if he thinks too long about it. They have now settled on monthly meetings, which is honestly more than Hob ever dared to hope.

Smiling he slowly heads towards the tree. Suddenly a bit of snow comes loose from a branch just over Dream – and drops onto his head. Hob can see the way Dream’s eyes widen as the cold snow slips down into his coat and down his neck. He looks like a disgruntled cat and Hob can’t help but crack up with laughter. He tries to stop when he sees Dream’s furious gaze but can barely suppress his chuckles.

“Sorry, it’s just… you should see your face.”

Stars flash in Dream’s eyes.

“You dare…” his tone is low, dangerous, and for a second Hob is distracted by worry. A second is all it takes for Dream to pull Hob a step closer and give the tree a hefty thump. When Hob sees the miniscule smirk play on his friend’s lips he is already being showered in cold white clumps of icy snow that miraculously miss Dream completely.

Hob yelps as Dream grabs his coat by the neck and draws it open so that the snow can more easily slide down his back. He sputters and struggles and grabs at the Endless.

“You tosser-!”

In his struggle against Dream’s grip Hob slips on the frozen grass, but before he can fall Dream has grabbed him with both hands and the next thing Hob knows is that he’s being pressed against the tree’s trunk. He’s staring straight into Dream’s face, the smile still playing on his lips and Hob feels himself blush fiercely.

“Ah...thanks…” he manages weakly, eyes darting between Dream’s lips, almost white from the cold and his dark, dark eyes full of stars.

“Hmm.” Dream only hums and makes no move backwards, still pressing Hob against the tree as if to keep him from sinking to the ground. Just as well, Hob thinks, because his knees are definitely weak right now.

“S-Sorry, for laughing at you.” Hob stammers and winces against the feeling of now melting snow running down his spine and reaching his buttocks. Dream is still watching him, not moving an inch. It’s starting to make Hob nervous. He desperately tries not to wonder about how it would feel to have these rosy lips press against his, if Dream would kiss him like the winter air, briskly cold and biting.

Dream tilts his head a tiny fraction, eyes sparkling. Hob hopes he cannot read minds. He’s so fucked otherwise.

“Want to...get out of the cold?” he asks tentatively, although he doesn’t want to break whatever this moment is.

“No.” Dream says simply and Hob frowns. Then his friend is leaning in and Hob can barely hear the next words for the thundering of his heart.

“I will warm you.”

The next thing he registers are Dream’s lips pressed against his. Oh, but he had it all wrong.

Hob always thought Dream would be cold. His whole aloof demeanor, the starchy, rigid posturing, the white skin, all of it had made Hob imagine Dream’s touch to feel cold and hard like ice or marble. He was wrong.

Dream is running hot. His lips are like a warm soft pillow pressed against Hob’s, his tongue, when it pushes inside his mouth, is like a hot poker. Hob moans helplessly and grabs onto Dream’s coat for support. His knees are definitely too weak now.

Dream kisses him like a drowning man and Hob tries to give back as good as he gets. When Hob finally draws back for breath, Dream chases his lips, brushes his mouth over his cheek and jaw. Hob laughs shakily, breathless. His toes and fingers are slowly going numb and he says:

“Not that I don’t appreciate your efforts to warm me, my friend, but…” he makes Dream meet his eyes with a gentle touch to his chin, “let’s still continue this inside, alright?”

Dream frowns.

“Was this… perhaps not…” he starts, and Hob can’t have that nervous look of anxiety on his face. Quickly he leans in and kisses Dream soundly, drawing a surprised moan from him.

“This...is perfect.” he gasps. “I said “continue”, love. Not stop. Now. Inside. Please.”

Dream smiles his little smile again and hums before pulling Hob off the tree and leading him towards the New Inn, Hob’s hand firmly grasped in his. Hob is grinning from ear to ear, cheeks flushed. His back is wet with sludge and he couldn’t care less. He loves winter. Best. Day. Ever.

[zecoritheweirdone]

been thinking 'bout mystery skulls animated recently!!! so, i decided to try my hand at drawing a mr. lewis pepper for the first time!

[stellarspecter]

STWG daily prompt 2/11/24: date night

pairing: platonic stobin

wc: 1000

Robin felt like a cat, curled up on Steve’s chest, her cheek pressed to his ribs and his hand running through her hair. The wine was making her sleepy and silly, and with her favorite dingus she had no reason to act like anything other than herself. So she felt completely safe to hold him tighter and nuzzle her face into his shirt, chasing the sensation of the soft fabric on her skin. The surface beneath her rumbled with laughter.

“Birdie, what’re you doing?” 

She looked up at Steve’s smiling face, the crease at the corner of his eyes as familiar to her as her own skin. “You feel nice.”

“Do I?” He asked, bemused. He really shouldn’t be. It wasn’t like she hadn’t done stuff like this before.

Robin nodded against his chest, feeling the softness again. “You should wear this shirt every day.” It was just a worn out t-shirt, but right now it was the height of fashion in her tipsy brain.

Steve chuckled. “Don’t think it’d stay soft if I did that.”

Robin made an unhappy noise at that, but didn’t bother to respond with words. He’d get what she meant. 

Steve let her keep nuzzling against him for a minute or two before he spoke again with a soft pat to her sides. “C’mon, Rob, time to get up.”

She groaned again. “Comfyyyy.”

“We could be even comfier in bed,” Steve tried to reason with her. 

Robin opened her eyes and squinted across the room. That’s right, they were still on the couch. There was still an empty popcorn bowl and bottle of wine on the coffee table, debris leftover from their Platonic Soulmate Date Night, in which they watched whichever shitty romcoms got the worst reviews that week at work. This week’s movie had been so boring that Robin had started entertaining herself by throwing popcorn in Steve’s mouth — a normal Tuesday for them.

But being in bed… now that was tempting. It was much comfier than the couch, which Robin knew from the many times a week that she slept over. Steve had one of those rich people mattresses that felt perfect on her back, and so many blankets to bundle up in. 

“Okay,” she agreed. “Let’s go to bed.”

Steve waited a beat. “You have to get off of me for us to do that.”

“Oh, right.” Robin sat up and clambered off of him, the head rush making her see spots for a second. Steve steadied her with a hand in the small of her back as she wobbled, then led her upstairs. 

They flopped down in bed with a groan, Robin immediately cozying up to Steve again. Usually when they shared a bed, they ended up spooning, or with Robin using Steve’s broad chest as a pillow. Tonight, she pulled him to face her, pressing their foreheads together for a moment. They were too close together to make proper eye contact, but she tried anyway, his eyes blurring together into one. 

“Love you, Robbie,” Steve said, hushed in the quiet of the room. By now it was a familiar phrase, but Robin still felt pinpricks of tears at the reminder. She tucked her head into the crook of his neck.

“Love you, dingus.” The words were muffled against his skin, but he still heard them. She could feel him exhale contentedly, snuggled into him as she was.

His skin was soft against her face, even better than the t-shirt, because this was the real deal. She rubbed her cheek against him, slower than before, soft and gentle. His jaw knocked against her forehead, so she moved a little higher, the bridge of her nose at the hinge of his jaw, her eye socket level with his lips. 

She felt even more like a cat than she had on the couch. She was pretty sure she had seen her parent’s cat Rowan do this before. He would press his face into a soft surface over and over, paws kneading whatever it was until he was satisfied. The only difference here was that Robin wasn’t doing anything with her hands except hold on.

Steve didn’t seem to mind. She knew that he liked cuddling — they’d talked about it before and did it often enough that it was obvious. She didn’t usually get this touchy, though. Or at least, not in this way. At the moment, though, she couldn’t remember why when it felt so good. 

The rhythmic movement of her face gradually moved up and up until Steve and Robin were cheek to cheek. She moved up and down, enjoying the scratch of his stubble against her cheek. She didn’t notice until she slowed down, but Steve was moving with her, going the opposite direction for her to rub against. She stopped for a moment, and he kept going, fully in it, moving down so that now he was nuzzled against her neck and her cheek was pressed against his hair.

Robin smiled to herself, a little teary that her favorite person was turning out to be weird in all the same ways that she was. She moved back down, pressing their faces together against the other cheek this time, making the stimulation even across both sides. They picked up speed, enthusiastically rubbing their faces together in the most platonic way possible.

It was funny, Robin thought, that this was maybe the most intimate she had ever been with another person, and she wasn’t even a little tempted to kiss him. In a way, this felt closer than kissing. It wasn’t limited to just mouths and tongues and teeth, it was cheeks and necks and foreheads, skin against blissful skin. If she could purr, she would be.

They slowed down, mutually losing steam. It was late, the bed was soft, they were wrapped in each other’s arms. The tiredness didn’t have to fight hard.

Their eyes closed, their bodies entwined, and they slept, a perfect end to a perfect Platonic Soulmate Date Night.

[backjustforberena]

Idk what this is but it's been a year since episode 9 and I just have a gut feeling that if Rhaenys had burnt the Dragonpit, Rhaenyra would have hung her out to dry to secure her reign...

“You will have to kill me.” Her voice is miraculously steady. Corlys’s hand squeezes hers tightly, his presence a reassuring pillar by her side but she cannot put her weight on him. He is too weak, and still recovering; the hand that does not hold hers grips tightly on his walking cane. He cannot protect her now. Not when the whole realm cries for her blood. 

Daemon, for his sins, looks almost remorseful. He gives a sharp nod. Rhaenys cannot say she is surprised.

“I did not think they would bend for anything less.”

“The Hightowers, the Lannisters, the Strongs and the Wyldes all lost that day. Even the Faith denounces you, for you killed their Septon. Paramount Lords call for justice for their vassals. Rhaenyra cannot suffer you to live if she is to succeed,” Daemon explains, his hands resting on the pommel of his sword. Rhaenys takes it in. Perhaps Rhaenyra could suffer it, if she wished it; what power does a monarch have if not absolute? But it is the easy way out for her. No one will blame the Queen for the death of her usurper brother if she condemns the hand that did it. The dragon that did it. Her hand. Her dragon.

“I had no choice, cousin. They would have had war.” Rhaenys wants him to know that. Her voice echoes in the cavernous Hall of Nine, bathed in twilight. She feels Corlys’s thumb trace against her knuckles, grounding her. Daemon makes a low noise in his throat, his gaze steady on her. He agrees. That is something of a surprising relief.

The moment plays in her mind, again and again. Flames everywhere. Screams ringing. She had flown straight to Dragonstone, to tell Rhaenyra of her ascension and take her granddaughters. For what purpose she did not know; to keep them safe, keep them near. But Rhaenys had only achieved the former and she had had to flee as quickly as she came, once ravens reached Rhaenyra, telling her of the desolation she had caused. 

The burning of the Dragonpit. The deaths of the High Septon and his men, of the Small Council and the Grand Maester. And the murder of the Dowager Queen and three of her children. Aegon, Aemond and Haelaena. Aegon’s crown had blackened and twisted in ashes, fallen from a head never meant to wear it.

Rhaenys had had no choice. That is what she must tell herself. There was no other way. And yet, another son lives, in Oldtown. She hopes to the Gods that Daeron Targaryen has taken his blue mount and flown far away from this cursed continent. She hopes to the Gods that, in attempting to prevent a war, she has not ensured it. But that is why they are here, is it not? That is why her cousin comes with a summons to King's Landing. To mete out justice and have her pay for her crimes. 

Slowly, she extricates her hand from her husband’s. Rhaenys can imagine what will come in the coming days. Would it be a sword or axe that felled her head from her shoulders? Perhaps even dragon fire. A spectacle, to be sure. This is not a sentence that could be carried out in darkness. It is the dawn of a new day. It is pacification. Purification. It is what must be done. 

Lost in her thoughts, she has moved a few steps, forward, as if walking to Daemon is the walk straight into the Stranger’s arms. 

Then a tight hold reasserts about her wrist, pulling her back.

“They will not take her.” Her husband growls. She sways a little, and blinks. He is glaring at Daemon. “You will not take her.”

“Corlys-” She presses a hand to his chest, willing him to stay calm, to not exert himself. He only tugs her closer to him, as if shielding her with his body will shield her from all to come. He has not lived what she has lived. He did not hear the screams. If the Queen would not come for her, then the Gods would. There's nothing more accursed than what she is now.

“She is a Princess of the Blood! She is no common criminal!” Corlys spits at Daemon, ignoring her. “The crimes are not with my wife but with those that plotted against the rightful Heir. The Heir who is now our Queen, thanks only to the Princess Rhaenys!”

“No one has ever accused your wife of being common, Lord Corlys.” There is an echo of a smirk; a red rag to a bull. If Rhaenys were feeling at all in her body, she would have scolded her cousin, by word or by expression. As it is, she remains dull. She is trying hard to be strong and to be steel. To face her fate. But all she feels is air. Corlys charges, words on his lips but she cuts across him.

“Will there be a trial?”

The attention falls back on her.

“Mayhaps.” Daemon cannot say. Gods, Rhaenys wishes he could. Instead, he looks down at his boots. Like the child she had once known. She swallows against the bile in her throat; the part of her that is afraid, like the child she once had been. None of them are recognisable now. 

She clears her throat and straightens her back. 

“Will I be chained?” She asks as if it is no matter either way. Beside her, she can feel her husband rile at the question. But Rhaenys remains calm, she will not lose herself or her dignity in the pursuit of this knowledge. Daemon looks up at her.

“Mayhaps.” She gives a short, sharp nod and takes a moment to consider.

“And Meleys?”

“Her fate is up to the Queen also.”

“She has not said?” Confusion flickers across her face. Daemon shakes his head. Has this Queen decides nothing? Should Rhaenys make the choice for her, as she did on that fateful day? Why summon her if Rhaenyra had no stomach? She may walk to her death, but do not make her dig her own grave also.

“No.” 

Rhaenys only sighs.

[aparticularbandit]

This week I have a couple of things in my backlog that can go up on Monday, so once again, y'all get a choice!

I still have another chapter of Agatha and Stephen Go on a Trip done and now have...eleven fully complete chapters of Of An Endless Infinity done, of which you would get the first.

AaSGoaT is the multi-chapter sequel to Finding Family, which focuses on Agatha and Stephen traveling to Neverland to rescue America and Wendy. (If none of those words make sense: Agatha and Stephen travel to another universe to save America and the Wanda who comes from that universe. Who is also America's girlfriend. (This makes sense in context.))

OAEI is the Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc ending rewrite I keep mentioning and (how do I say this without game spoilers) focuses on the squad who are left as they continue their lives still stuck in the school.

[sombreset]

Sometimes I think about how my idea of Yu-Gi-Oh! became so far removed so quickly that in one of the first “photoshoots” I did for one of my stories was just a casual Seto (w/ long hair) curled up in my bath tub

Like again, the absolute fuckign state of it all is just so funny to me this was my life in 2017 or whatever ig

[crehador]

there's a silly icsm convo that didn't make it into the main fic of tg!au because it just didn't seem to fit anywhere

but i still wanted to write it so here it is:

"Did you really not think," Samatoki began as they lay in bed one night.

"Never do," Ichiro joked.

"For even a second," Samatoki went on, ignoring him entirely. "That I was trying to kill you?"

Ichiro rolled onto his side and pillowed his head on one arm. Samatoki, lying next to him in the bed that was now theirs, was looking back at him. He looked serious, like he wanted an answer, and a real one at that.

"You mean when we met," Ichiro murmured. "At that construction site?"

"When I attacked you," Samatoki corrected. "You always do that. You downplay it, like it's no big deal."

Ichiro scooted a little closer and stole into the curve of Samatoki's arm as he took a moment to think back to that night. The construction site. The gaunt figure in the shadows. The shove from behind, the attempt to rip his bag away from him, the attack Samatoki had unleashed with his kagune.

Had Ichiro feared for his life, for even a second?

"I probably did," Ichiro said. "For at least a second. But that's not what I remember most clearly about that night. That's not the feeling that stuck with me."

"Then, what is?"

Ichiro hummed and thought for a moment more. "Fear, I guess, but another sort. Fear for you, rather than of you. I remember being worried about how gaunt you were, how weak you seemed, despite being a ghoul."

"And you think that's normal?" Samatoki sighed and shook his head, hugging Ichiro closer. "No, of course not. We've already established you're a weirdo."

"Your weirdo."

"My weirdo," Samatoki agreed, kissing the top of Ichiro's head. "Which is why I'm the one who's worried about you now. There's a limit to how good of a guy you can be, you know? Worrying about some stranger, a ghoul, who tried to mug you in the middle of the night is too much."

Ichiro shook his head. "Nah, it wasn't like that. It wasn't about being a good guy at all. I just remember feeling like…"

Samatoki gave him a moment before he prompted, "Like…?"

"Like my soul knew yours." Ichiro lifted his head and met Samatoki's gaze. "I don't think I realized, in that moment, that that was how I felt when I first saw you. But that's how it feels now, in my memories. I knew you wouldn't hurt me, and I knew I didn't want you to be hurt. I knew I wanted, needed, you to live.

"Because my soul was meant to live with yours, and yours with mine."

Samatoki stared at him for a long while before letting out a soft breath of laughter and lowering his head to press their foreheads together.

"Sap," he whispered.

Ichiro grinned. "Your sap."

"Mine." Samatoki nuzzled Ichiro's nose with his own, then brushed a kiss to Ichiro's lips. "In this life and the next?"

"And all the ones after that," Ichiro promised.

The next morning, he woke to find Samatoki gathering up the last volumes of the shoujo manga series they'd checked out from the library to read together.

"But we haven't finished reading those yet," Ichiro protested when Samatoki declared his intent to return them as soon as the library opened its doors that morning.

"Mm." Samatoki arched a brow at him. "There's also a limit to how sappy a guy you can be, and we both went way over that line last night."

"So you're…"

"Removing negative influences."

Ichiro tried to hold it in, he really did, but he laughed so hard for so long that he didn't even try to stop Samatoki from marching those 'negative influences' out of the house.

They wound up reading the rest of the series online.

[thesunmakesmetired]

"Why is my phone lagging so much?" I ask myself when my tab take a minute or two to load, knowing full well that I have 84 other ao3 tabs open on that browser

[vagueandominousvibes]

Fourth chapter for Febuwhump 2023 is out! I’m only doing some of the prompts, but you can read today’s under the ‘Keep reading’, or the entire fic over on Ao3!

The God in the Well

Chapter 4: Forced to Hurt a Loved One

Shadow groaned. His head felt as if someone had repeatedly hurled bricks against it from the inside — between his eyes, about an inch up. The echoes of shock waves passed through him, making his entire nervous system burn.

He forced his eyes open. A faint golden light filled his eyes, but beyond it lay only shapeless darkness. 

He rolled onto his side and pushed himself up. Another brick hit the inside of his forehead. He gasped and curled in on himself as every nerve in his body lit up. His muscles cramped. Shivers doused the fire with unbearable cold, and still his head throbbed. 

When it passed, he wiped his eyes and tried again. 

This time, he managed to get onto his knees. There was no ground or floor. Just that shapeless darkness, with neither sky nor horizon. That golden light still clouded his eyes. He tried to rub it away. It didn’t dim. He frowned. It hurt. 

Carefully, he covered his forehead. The light disappeared. He ran his fingers across the hurting spot. There were lines there, carved into his skin. He brought his fingers to his eyes. Red.

His heartbeat was getting louder. He needed a mirror. Or something to see his reflection in. Anything —

Out of the shapeless darkness, a tall ornate mirror appeared. A golden snake twisted around the rim, and ravens perched at the top, staring down at him with unseeing black eyes. At the bottom, two wolves prowled.

The mirror itself was dark. His own reflection, grey and wide-eyed, stared back at him. He pushed his hair out of the way. A single eye had been carved into his forehead. Blood pooled in the lines, but didn’t trickle. The eye emitted a soft golden glow. 

In the mirror, the eye blinked.

Shadow yelped and scrambled back. It made his head start hurting all over again, but he forced himself to ignore it. 

The eye in the mirror stared at him. 

“Mímir?” Shadow tried.

NO. The voice, heavy with years uncounted spent upon a spire, observing what no one else could see — with echoes of wars lost and won — with murmured spells in cracked tones — resounded in his head. The eye continued to stare at him.

“Who — I thought —” He swallowed. “We came for knowledge!”

AT WHAT PRICE?

“What do you mean?”

The eye closed. A sigh, like the wind hurtling through naked branches, rattled Shadow’s bones. There was no reply.

“Hello?” Shadow pushed himself to his feet and approached the mirror. 

The eye remained shut.

“Voice?” He touched the mirror. The eye disappeared. Instead he saw the clearing. Mímir’s head hung above the well. His own body lay in the moss, and Vio lay half on top of him, forehead pressed to his chest. Nearby, Green had passed out in Zelda’s arms, kneeling, with tears and blood dripping down the left side of his face. Zelda was shaking him, speaking to him.

Across the clearing stood Red and Blue. Both looked pale and deeply horrified. Red had covered his mouth with his hand. His other clutched Blue’s arm. Blue was eyeing up the back of Mímir’s head, his fingers curled around the hilt of his hunting knife. 

Fondness welled in Shadow’s chest. Blue had no idea what he was up against (none if them did, a part of Shadow whispered), but he was still ready to throw down. “Idiot,” Shadow muttered affectionately, and focused on Green, who was still unconscious and losing blood. That couldn’t be good.

Under his fingers, the mirror opened. 

·

He thunders through the night. Steam billows from his reindeer’s nostrils, thawing the snow and ice hurtling towards him. Roars thunder around them. Footsteps shake the clouds. Gleaming projectiles — arrows, spears, and broken shards — rain past them, towards the world of humans far below.

Something looms above them — a shadow, too large to make out. He digs his knees into his reindeer’s sides, releases the reins, and lifts his hands above his head. His voice rolls through the snow and ice, bathing all other sounds with its echo. A dome springs out above them. A fist the size of mountains bears down upon it and shatters. 

The thundering roar of rage chases them onwards, through broken battle lines and shattered shields, towards the Outskirts — a ravaged land of ice, blizzards, and roaming trolls, where neither gods nor fae dare enter. 

But has not been named the King of Trollwinters for nothing.

His reindeer protests. He holds the reins firmly. Jagged pillars of ice jut from the ground, with snow hurled halfway up the exposed sides. He watches the darkness, frost crackling at the tips of his fingers, and rides on. Behind him, the war still rumbles.

·

Darkness fades into blackness. He murmurs under his breath — spells taught in time immemorial — and a shimmering blue glow rises from the snow disturbed by his reindeer’s hooves. 

They ride.

·

In the Outskirts, time moves in unpredictably ways. There are swirls and eddies where it thunders past, decades and centuries slipping away in minutes and seconds, and there are stagnant pools where nothing moves.

He doesn’t know where Green is.

Still, he rides on.

·

He follows a trickle caught in centuries long gone. It smells of holly and evergreens. 

·

It is another eon until he knows. 

He pulls the reins and leaps off his reindeer. With a spell, the wind blows through him as if he was never there. He pulls his hood up. He can feel the trickle, slow and meandering — less than a step away — where time slows. It tickles his palms when he extends his hands, kissing the tips of his fingers with dangerous promises of untouched snow and silence.

Generations will fade …

They will forget …

Your friends will wait …

He grins and raises his arms. Cheeky.

It only takes one spell to stop time. A single word of monumental power. He discovered it and wrought it, curling it around his tongue for centuries, like a string wound tight. He has used it sparingly, when the need is greatest. It is a lonely word. A quiet word. A word he will entrust no other with.

He casts it now, and feels the weight bear down upon his shoulders as the world grinds to a halt. He is a wedge between two trembling seconds that threaten to slip. He is all that keeps the world frozen.

He draws a deep breath and lowers his arms. Now, he has all the time in the world to find Green. Now, he has no time at all. 

·

The stilled trickle proves large. Within it, trolls sleep off the exhaustion of war. They lie frozen, mouths agape in mid-snore. Trolls are heavy sleepers — he should know — with one exception: smells. The smell of fairy blood will wake them from a mile away, and although they lie frozen, he still walks with deeply ingrained caution. 

He finds Green chained to a rock. He is beaten and unconscious, and his armour has been stripped from him and crumpled like sheets of paper. Shadow kneels in the snow and touches his cheek. Locked in time, it is cold. In time, Shadow will apologise for not finding him sooner. Outside time, Shadow is silent.

Only one chain holds Green — but one troll-forged chain would be enough to hold continents. No amount of magic can break it, and now amount of power can shatter it. The metal has been fused around his wrist, without lock or seal. There are scratch-marks and bruises along his arm, where he has tried to pull himself free.

Shadow sighs. There is nothing for it. “I’m sorry,” he whispers, and releases time. 

Warmth returns to Green’s skin. The trolls cough awake.

Shadow draws a knife of ice and carves through Green’s wrist. Red splatters the snow. Green screams. The knife shatters in Shadow’s hand. The ice wraps itself around Green’s wrist, stemming the blood and cooling the hurt. Green is gasping, and the trolls are rising. The ground rumbles.

Shadow hoists Green into his arms and runs.

·

They make it to where he left his reindeer, but it is long gone. Closing his eyes, Shadow finds it in his mind and calls. It raises its head, fur now streaked with grey, and grunts. A long time has passed, but it will come for them, even here in the Outskirts.

Shadow finds a crevice in a pillar of ice. He shuffles inside. They will be safe here. For a while.

Carefully he sits with his back against the ice and Green in his lap. Green is shaking, jaws clenched and stump clutched to his chest. 

“May I?” Shadow asks, reaching for the stump.

Green turns his face into Shadow’s shoulder and lets him.

Blood, bones, and healing have never been Shadow’s skills. Still, he knows how to create. Holding Green’s arm, he gently shapes a new hand — a hand of snow and ice, which will do as a place-holder. Perhaps Blue can make a better one.

———

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