#copper & reagan

[blackcatxmagic]

Smiling, Copper replied, "Ah, I should have known you'd have knowledge of tarot too." That just seemed like something Reagan would know about given the way their conversation had gone so far. "Sixes in general are about balance and harmony," he said, though Copper clearly didn't need to tell Reagan that. As Reagan explained about her brand of magic, Copper realized just how little he knew. His dads had tried to help him learn more about his powers, but they were both human, so there was only so much he could do. And as a result, Copper felt like he was behind in his magical studies, especially as he listened to Reagan and realized he didn't know anything of what she was telling him. But that didn't lessen his interest in the slightest - Copper was incredibly fascinated by what Reagan was telling him. "I never knew that there was magic like that," Copper said. "Most of magical knowledge comes from obscure books I could find in libraries and what I could source from my time working for a publisher, and not all of it accurate. Some of it was probably all exaggerations and rumors, and also just reading the theory of magic didn't help me much when it came to actually practicing it. But I'm trying to get better now that I'm here." He'd managed to repair the shattered windows of his shop, after all. "So are you saying some of the things you sell here are imbued with magic?" Copper asked, amazed all over again. "Are we actually eating magic then? What about everything I just ate? Did that have magic in it too?" Copper wondered just how often he had ingested magic. In response to Reagan's question, he said, "I wrote stories. Horror mostly. But I sort of lost my muse." That was an understatement; Copper hadn't written a thing since Damon had died, nor had he had the desire to.

"Practice makes perfect, right?" Copper asked with a grin. "Maybe you could help me sometime? I feel like that's something you know more about than me. Honestly you probably know a lot more than I do about magic." Copper tried not to feel discouraged, but he felt so behind. "I know I have power and a lot of untapped potential," Copper stated, "but I just don't know how to...uh, tap it I guess." As he said this, Copper laughed, knowing it sounded silly. But how else was he supposed to phrase that?

"So you get me," Copper replied, happy that Reagan could understand. "I should have studied like Business or something at Brown. But my precognition wasn't strong enough to see this future." More than once, Copper had thought about this, and he continued, "I wish it had been. I wish I could have seen what was coming." Then maybe he would have been able to stop it. Wanting to get back on a happier subject, Copper told Reagan, "If you come into the shop, I'll have you try the different teas I'm experimenting with. No charge."

"IT IS, AND COMBINED WITH SIX OF CUPS, it encourages balance in transition." A lesson for both of them, perhaps, as they settled into their respective places in town. Her guard steadily dropped as he stopped tiptoeing around the obvious. He asked the questions he wanted to and, in doing so, drew on the topics she held far too much interest in. "It's a blend of herbalism and kitchen witch practice." After nearly three decades of practice, it felt intuitive, but had it always been that way? "As a kitchen witch, I see food as a medium to transfer energy and intention — last week I had a customer ask for a protection spell. It can be as deliberate as scoring the dough with a protection symbol, or as simple as sprinkling crushed sage on top of a roll." She laughed then, a full-bodied sound. "Divination might be the most uncertain branch of magic. The universe has a bad habit of speaking in riddles." Her shoulders raised in a noncommittal shrug. "I wouldn't be surprised if they could. What did you write about?"

Palmistry, unlike tarot, was a practice she had never taken the time to learn. However, if he could draw meaning from lines etched into skin, there was an opportunity to push further. "You might give it another try sometime, there may be something to what you've felt." Untapped power is a waste, her mentor would chide. She paused, her expression softening in thought. "I can show you sometime. I'm rusty, but I know enough to set you on the right track."

Reagan nodded in understanding, remembering what it had first been like establishing herself in the town. "It's strange, isn't it, stepping into the role of a business owner? I still struggle with it, and I was an accounting major." Learning names and faces, likes and dislikes, slowing her pace to suit Cardinal Hill's sleepy atmosphere — it all took time. "You'll figure it out," she decided. Then, teasingly, "And if you don't, you'll have your tarot to fall back on. Something tells me there's a crowd out there that would eat up a traveling tarot brother duo."

[heather1815]

Art made by @xurviving

[veilxstars]

For: Copper | @blackcatxmagic Location: Maplewood Inn Time: Halloween Night (post festivities) Character: Scout

It was late. The trick-or-treaters were long abed. The festivities had settled and were fading into memory -- and Scout couldn't sleep. So, instead, she cooked.... and she was still dressed as the Sixth Doctor, not having the energy to go upstairs and get undressed... though she did leave the scarf draped over the chair where Panda was sleeping, as he had claimed it as his blanket. As Scout stirred the pot, the rich aroma of a beef stew filled the kitchen, its warmth enveloping the inn. She had been experimenting with flavors, searching for the perfect blend that would evoke the feeling of home—something hearty to nourish weary travelers. Tonight’s stew simmered with earthy cumin, a touch of smoked paprika, and a splash of red wine, creating a medley of scents that danced in the air, inviting and comforting.

In the corner, her brick oven remained warm -- how many times lately had she curled up with her back against it while the bread baked and she was able to read or sketch? The thick, stone walls radiated heat, comfort. She took pride in each loaf that emerged golden and crackling, their crusts a perfect balance of crisp and soft.

The air was infused with the spicy warmth of cinnamon and nutmeg, an aromatic signature of her magic. But as she mixed and stirred, her thoughts drifted to Reagan, Reagan had an innate ability to elevate simple dishes into something extraordinary, and Scout often found herself captivated by her ex-girlfriend’s flair for spices and creativity.

With a soft sigh, Scout pulled herself back to the present, focusing on the meal before her. She ladled the steaming stew into a rustic bowl, the savory scent curling up in lazy spirals, rich and inviting. “For you, Copper,” she said, her smile genuine as she set the bowl down. This dish was crafted not only to satisfy hunger but to weave a story—of home, of heart, and of the spicy warmth that lingered long after the last bite was taken. "I know it's late, but I appreciate you being willing to be the taste-tester. I'm working on the winter menu. We'll be open two weeks before Christmas if I keep working at this pace, and I'll start taking reservations again in another week or so."

[artcallednaturalviews]

My Circulation

My see in circulation would be

Just to watch Olympian’s

Break Dancing

None of rumpt y chump friends

Rose up cause now it’s dangerous

No fucking ones

After Baldwin dismissal

Ear charge blew

Fall down quick

I see me standing

I felt it

Quicker than a bullet

Play out jams and pajamas

No ties for choking out

Or paying off still breathing

Shooter down, paid none like

Storm weather

My circumstances

My circumstantial

My feed us both

Human meat, he has deformed

Right ear, right here near

In the cochlea

Pressures causing me deaf

In cold & heat waves

Bling my eyesight

From the drone sights

Manufactured wood turned

Into splinters from vast west borderlands

So phat but fat in obnoxious

From to here through 2035

Medical problemas in mind making run towards flushing toilets, child educations, gun toting killers never brought in stage

Like bullet in a rust gun

The target hit

If I was an actor

The white faces should have made it

To overall control you

My see in circulation would be

Just to watch Olympian’s

Break Dancing

None of rumpt y chump friends

Rose up cause now it’s dangerous

No fucking ones

The LB existing

Nappy dirt Fred

My see in circulation would be

Just to watch Olympian’s

Break Dancing

None of rumpt y chump friends

Rose up cause now it’s dangerous

No fucking ones

El ignore yo circulation

Only English

Give your accents speak English

As I’m still understanding

You

All

I heard of blood orange

But prop blood falls quicker than

Hemoglobin’s

Too soon for Halloween

Your blood dries in likes of actors swiped in fake, that’s capsule blew before I knew

“He never kept surprise”

Video from front states!

Backers behind paid for up front in cameras

Not like punk ass Reagan

Sorry conglomerates seeking CEO higher pay

President doesn’t pay well

For dictator ship

But here’s to your come back, Trump

Ex former gunk

Your junk was ex outed by stormy weather

Wether you are rump trump T

Down on the grounds

When coach says falls after Pom Pom’s

Raise a fist

Coached and well rehearsed

From my circulations and sight seeing’s

After Covid country shutdowns

Who took advantage of?

Feel the suppressing heat

Become casualty

For it again again and after again

You voted,

Trump

Fuck youu, too!

In a circulation always spinning

.|.

Sit pleased

*********||*********

Redacted

The pages black and white highlighted

Fuck youu, too!

In a circulation always spinning

.|.

Sit pleased

*********||*********

Redacted

The pages black and white highlighted

Blood Orange colors

No rhymes

Sweet to taste movie

No copper additives in life likes

All of paid shooter dead

Ponzi pacifier pansy

In death

[cabinscreaking]

On June 17, 1885, the dismantled Statue of Liberty, a gift of friendship from the people of France to the people of America, arrives in New York Harbor after being shipped across the Atlantic Ocean in 350 individual pieces packed in more than 200 cases. The copper and iron statue, which was reassembled and dedicated the following year in a ceremony presided over by U.S. President Grover Cleveland, became known around the world as an enduring symbol of freedom and democracy.

Intended to commemorate the American Revolution and a century of friendship between the U.S. and France, the statue was designed by French sculptor Frederic-Auguste Bartholdi (who modeled it after his own mother), with assistance from engineer Gustave Eiffel, who later developed the iconic tower in Paris bearing his name. The statue was initially scheduled to be finished by 1876, the 100th anniversary of America’s Declaration of Independence; however, fundraising efforts, which included auctions, a lottery and boxing matches, took longer than anticipated, both in Europe and the U.S., where the statue’s pedestal was to be financed and constructed. The statue alone cost the French an estimated $250,000 (more than $5.5 million in today’s money).

Finally completed in Paris in the summer of 1884, the statue, a robed female figure with an uplifted arm holding a torch, reached its new home on Bedloe’s Island in New York Harbor on June 17, 1885. After being reassembled, the 450,000-pound statue was officially dedicated on October 28, 1886, by President Cleveland, who said, “We will not forget that Liberty has here made her home; nor shall her chosen altar be neglected.” Standing more than 305 feet from the foundation of its pedestal to the top of its torch, the statue, dubbed “Liberty Enlightening the World” by Bartholdi, was taller than any structure in New York City at the time. The statue was originally copper-colored, but over the years it underwent a natural color-change process called patination that produced its current greenish-blue hue.

In 1892, Ellis Island, located near Bedloe’s Island (which in 1956 was renamed Liberty Island), opened as America’s chief immigration station, and for the next 62 years Lady Liberty, as the statue is nicknamed, stood watch over the more than 12 million immigrants who sailed into New York Harbor. In 1903, a plaque inscribed with a sonnet titled “The New Colossus” by American poet Emma Lazarus, written 20 years earlier for a pedestal fundraiser, was placed on an interior wall of the pedestal. Lazarus’ now-famous words, which include “Give me your tired, your poor/Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,” became symbolic of America’s vision of itself as a land of opportunity for immigrants.

Some 60 years after President Calvin Coolidge designated the statue a national monument in 1924, it underwent a multi-million-dollar restoration (which included a new torch and gold leaf-covered flame) and was rededicated by President Ronald Reagan on July 4, 1986, in a lavish celebration. Following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the statue was closed; its base, pedestal and observation deck re-opened in 2004, while its crown re-opened to the public on July 4, 2009.

[kaystories]

Checkmate: Chapter 2 - Lorelei Caddel

I must have yawned a thousand times during the meeting. Mother glared at me with a look that ordered me to shut my mouth. I sighed and refrained from rolling my eyes, it would be incredibly disrespectful to do such at a council meeting. Not that I was part of said council, but Mother felt that a sophisticated Baroness knew everything that was happening in the Empire. I doubted I needed to know of a Baron’s acquiring of new land, or a new battalion added to the army.

If I had had any say in how my days would pass, I would be helping the villagers, or singing with the bard. Instead, I found myself strapped into a tight corset, under hundreds of layers of petticoats, and falling asleep to one of the Baron’s monotone voices.

I pulled myself to sit up straight and lift my chin a little bit more. I organized my face to be somewhat interested and pretty. A pretty face never hurt anyone, Mother said.

The meeting seemed to go on for hours. Emperor Elio called up yet another Baron to the stand, one after another. Each talked about the land he owned, mostly that it existed. Sometimes there was the occasional report of a new sheep or horse. Nothing that ever interested me.

Finally, after what had felt like an eternity, Emperor Elio dismissed the Barons and his council. Mother freed me from my boredom and I sprinted as fast as I could in my corset. I ran down the corridors to turn to my quarters. I threw the door open and fell onto my cushy bed. From a corner of my room, I heard a soft “Ma’am?” I sat up and looked in the direction of the sound.

The maid looked slightly startled, but she had seen me escape from meetings before. “Hello Aubry,” I sighed. “Are you all right Miss. Lorelei?” Aubry asked, worried. Aubry was a kind woman who was doomed to live a life within the palace due to her family’s need for support. Only the royal family could provide that.

I stood from my bed and walked to sit in front of my vanity. “Yes, thank you. I’ve just come from a meeting.” I didn’t restrain myself from eye-rolling now. I started plucking hair pins out of my light brown hair and felt the relief on my scalp. “Oh dear,” Aubry chuckled. The maid must’ve been old enough to be a mother, although I knew she couldn’t support children. “Shall I pull a different dress for you, miss?” Aubry asked. “Yes, please!” I replied Aubry knew exactly what happened following the events of a meeting for me.

Aubry helped me break free from my corsets and petticoats and in turn, I wore a simple red dress, the color of the Schwar Empire. Aubry brushed out my hair whilst I wrote down everything I remembered from the meeting. I recounted what had happened to Aubry, who listened quietly.

When I looked up from my notebook, I could see my face in the mirror. I saw pale blue eyes staring back at me. Light copper hair fell straight down my back. I supposed I was somewhat pretty, button nose, full lips, and big eyes. I had the pale skin that most people in Central Schwar did, as well as the light hair and eyes. I liked that, it made me feel more like the people of my Empire. But I didn’t have the high, regal cheekbones that Empress Reagan did, long eyelashes that Mother did, or Aubry’s charming dimples. But I was attractive enough to court a Baron and uphold my family’s legacy.

I shook out my hair and stood. “Thank you, Aubry.” I said to the maid, “I don’t know whatever I would do without you!”

“Oh, I’m sure you would fall apart, ma’am.” Aubry joked. I giggled as well, then walked from my quarters.

The Citadel was a gorgeous place. It was built on a tall island with a view of the mainland and the beautiful ocean. It was the core of everything that held the Schwar Empire together, as anyone of importance lived here. Of course, there were smaller builds known as towers around the Empire. But of course, it was ever-expanding as our ambitious rulers conquered more and more land into our Empire, bringing peace and unity to the continent.

Some might refer to Schwar as brutal, but I believed in my ruler’s dream of peace.

It felt hard to believe in the wars that surrounded our empire in the Citadel. Water from the ocean reflected onto the grey walls, casting color across the spectacular home. Schwar was the most powerful and safe power around, but the central lands, the original ones, were the most gorgeous.

“Miss Lorelei!” Someone called from behind me. I blinked and turned. I saw dark blue eyes shining at me and caught the infectious smile he sent my way. I sank into a bow, lowering my head respectfully. “Your majesty,” I murmured, hiding a smile.

“Oh, please stand, Lorelei,” Grayson said, sounding exasperated. I giggled as I stood to my feet. “I only mean to follow the rules!” I joked and brushed the edges of my dress. Grayson rolled his eyes and ran a finger through his blonde locks. “Please, I’ve known you ever since you arrived at the palace.”

“But you’re the Prince!” I insisted. “Exactly, and I hereby order you to stop bowing to me in personal meetings,” Grayson said, putting on a haughty expression that matched his father’s. I grinned. “As you wish,” I replied. “Well, pray tell, what did you call for me?” I inquired. Grayson shrugged “I saw you and want to check on you.” He said simply. “Truly?” I asked, not sure how believable the Prince’s statement was.

“You have my word as a Prince,” Grayson promised with sarcastic solemnity. He walked in the direction I had been headed before, I followed, only slightly behind him in the names of appearances. “So, I am soon to turn twenty years old. And you will be nineteen in a couple of months, yes?” Grayson asked me. I nodded, “Yes, I will.” Grayson hesitated for a moment. “I know you’re still young, but most nobles are wed by twenty-four and are courted by twenty. You will be having to deal with those things soon enough. And I, as a prince, am expected to be in a steady relationship by twenty, at least by my father.” Grayson explained.

“Hmm… I suppose so. But I don’t intend to put much thought into the prospect until I’ve secured myself in the hierarchy.” I sighed. It was the truth, so far, I had no intention of being romantically swayed.

“I see.” Grayson nodded. We dropped into silence for a moment, walking along the perimeter of the Citadel. After a moment my friend ventured “Perhaps a stable marriage could anchor you in society.”. I thought about that for a moment. “Perhaps, but it would have to be someone of significant status. A Cavalier, or a General. Maybe a Baron of high standard.” I mused. “One day, I’d love to live in a small castle, on an island in the middle of a lake.” I sighed.

“With a fancy bridge?”

“Please.”

“What if you stayed in the Citadel?” Grayson asked. I shrugged, “It’s beautiful and has been my home for almost as long as my memory serves.”

“If you were Princess Consort, you would have to stay in the Citadel, your status would be secured, and you could take part in the affairs of the Empire.” Grayson offered.

I looked up at him, dubious. “If I were Princess Consort, I’d have to marry you.” Grayson grinned. “Would that be so awful? My parents are trying to sell me off to a foreign Princess. But I’m sure they could settle for a respectable Baroness from a good family. Besides, I’d rather spend the rest of my life married to my best friend, instead of a random monarch. It is much better than you have hoped for, but that’s the beauty of it.” Grayson smirked. Then he left, sauntering down the hall.

[marymerchandice]

Check out this listing I just added to my Poshmark closet: Free People Reagan Button Fly Denim Blue Jeans Size 30.

[twcheaded-a]

A VERY DESCRIPTIVE PROFILE OF YOUR MUSE. Repost with the information of your muse, including headcanons, etc. if you fail to achieve some of the facts, add some others of your own!

NAME. Alexander Reagan Claude

NICKNAME(S). Alex, Claude, Reggie (he hates this one,) and Reagan.

TITLE(S). The Wild Rose, The Artist.

AGE. 26

SPECIES. Human

SEX. Male

ALIGNMENT. Lawful evil.

INTERESTS. Making paint, singing, drawing/sketching (specifically with charcoal,) and art history.

PROFESSION. Artist, vocalist, nightclub performer, Gotham rogue and art forger.

BODY TYPE. Tall and lanky.

EYES. Copper brown.

HAIR. His hair is short, most always slicked back with pomade or parted to the left side of his head.

SKIN. White/peachy with red/pink undertones.

FACE. He has an oval face with a strong jawline. His nose has a straight bridge with an upturned tip.

HEIGHT. 6’0"

VOICE. Smooth, mid-pitched, the best I can describe is similar to Chris Pine.

SIGNIFICANT OTHER? Verse dependent! In his main verse, he likes to annoy Fitz/is crushing on him hard.

COMPANIONS. Tucker Vision, Henry CCD, Pickering Crane, Simon Winslow, Fitz'O'Patrick Neil Sullivan, and more!

ANTAGONISTS. The GCPD, and police in general.

COLORS. Maroon, bright red, and ochre.

FRUITS. Pomegranates, raspberries, and oranges.

DRINKS. Orange juice and espresso, tea, coffee, and red bull.

ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGES. Gin & tonics, tequila sours, merlot, champagne.

SMOKES? Yes (kamel reds, weed,) he also vapes.

DRUGS? Yes, namely cocaine and ecstasy. He's also getting high off paint fumes regularly.

DRIVERS LICENSE? Somehow he still has it, though he doesn't use it often.

[crystalroku1]

Check out this listing I just added to my Poshmark closet: REAGAN PATINA TWIST NECKLACE NWT.

[gcldengrime]

"I'm paying for what I had last night, I swear," Lennon said, squinting against the light that peeked out from the curve of her shoulder and the veil of hair that fell around it. "And I'm even getting up when the sun's not even out all the way. Though, does it count if we're still in bed?"

The hangover was pinned right between his eyes, but he found remedy in their entanglement. They held a stillness that shifted only ever so slightly, and Lennon found his footing through the sting of morning after.

At least, he thought he'd found his footing. He damned his head now and whatever slosh he allowed to fall from his mouth. He overstepped, he had to. Joy pulling away was surely a severance of that new-day hope. He could taste the staleness of poor decisions from the night before now, feel the strain from every movement outside of his own self made pedestal, turn at the beckon of the shadows where he could wallow in disappointment.

He was far from saint-like, no matter how hard he tried. There was nothing Lennon could do to prove he'd changed. He rejected the idea that he was cut from tattered cloth, that he'd been dealt feeble threads while others could tear themselves over and over again from the yards of fabric they were unraveled from. He only had so many tried before he was left bare. Consequences were instant with no cushion of that try, try again.

Artificial light challenged what Joy invited into the room. It hummed as she shuffled, and he wondered if this was his time to take his leave without ensuing a curse on this shared house. The weight of his own head, piling with every new excuse he wished he could swallow, left him there . When it dimmed, Lennon thought he'd lost until she came right back to him. Her footsteps were retraced with clear intention of returning, and more importantly, leaving space only to fill it with her own words instead of insinuating it's growth into isolation.

I need daylight. I need it every day that she's not here.

Lennon wanted to be surprised that she could belong to a box. He tried to will it in his hands, make it sting with sorrow not to recoil but to understand her pain. He just didn't expect that wisdom he didn't choose would be what moved his hand into hers, callouses scrapped against her skin to bury his resonance. No matter how many times he tripped over letters and curved meanings on a page, he knew he'd read every date right. He counted silently and how quickly it added made him certain.

"I'm sorry."

It feels rehearsed, cued by whatever ill manners had been vacated for moments like these. Lennon bites down on it and grinds his teeth into it until he can taste blood of embarrassment. The copper is just reactive, and not real. This isn't his sorrow to carry, and therefore not his ache to bleed— and not his wrong doing to fix.

For a single moment, he wondered if there was a box like this for what Catalina gave up for Liam. He reminded himself that the difference was that that was choice, and this was some string of fate turned to a noose around the wrong person.

"I'm not sure if that means anything now, but I am," Lennon said softly, carefully peering into the contents.

It's only with her hand that he dares to touch it. He doesn't want to recoil and damn her keepsakes that are the only mark of what she seemed to carry close to her longer than these belonged to someone. He also doesn't want to intrude and leave his mark on all she has left.

"Noelle," He read aloud. "She was beautiful, wasn't she? That's what everyone says about babes and it's true for every single one, I swear. I bet she was. Probably put shame to what's out your window right now."

It was a gamble to say his name aloud. When it came to Reagan, his youngest brother damned his name. He died with every trace in his eyes, faded to memory and nothing more than he could no longer do and what he would have, could have, should have. Lennon still reminded himself of him every day. He said his name every day, kept him alive by what he did do. What could be said for a life taken so early, though? He wasn't sure what Joy had to remind her of what she held for so long, and yet no time at all. All there had been was a name, a dream, and a promise he was sure had been similar to the one his own mother whispered to every brother when they'd come into this world kicking and screaming.

Lennon repeated himself, gave more than just a nod to the encapsulated memory grazing his fingertips in the few tokens Joy had. He pushed recognition of the force left behind. She'd been here just as Reagan had.

"Noelle."

Affirmation pushed her into the room, even if he'd never met her. He'd have admiration for what was not left behind, but rather what had simply been.

"I'm taking Latin for some creative credit, and this might be the one time it matters. It means birthday, I'm almost certain," Lennon muttered, thumb running over ever rise and fall of Joy's knuckles. Up and down, happiness held in its everlasting pattern just in her fist. "She was... wrapped in celebration, wasn't she? Had a birthday that lasted more than just a day like the rest of us. Everyone was still talking about her the next day, and the next, and the next. She's defined by celebration as a whole. And to be that daylight, the whole feckin' beginning of it all? Noelle's the perfect name. Every day she had was celebrated."

Nothing of Reagan lasted, and Lennon still regretted not keeping enough. Propped over his legs was the complete works of a single life even if it could be counted on a single hand whether it was Joy's or his own. He couldn't define what to feel about a life being so short to fit in a box, or one forgotten to have nothing to put in one. Was the ache the same, or did it hurt more to have more relics than memory? There was no way to define it, no way to try and do the right thing— and yet, Lennon understood simply by knowing there was pain. He didn't have to feel the very same loss to know. All needed to know was that Joy hurt, and she still did. And she always would.

"What was she like?" He asked softly, clipped only by an even softer insistence. "You don't have to tell me if you don't want to. If this enough, it's alright. This is more than enough, that she was here and yours. I'd take as much daylight in her name, too."

𝐇𝐎𝐏𝐄 𝐖𝐀𝐒 𝐍𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐑 𝐅𝐎𝐎𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐇. No matter how much the world wanted to kick her down, those four words were a reminder that kept her tethered to reality, to every passing moment in time. Even if she knew her hope was as improbable as the day was long, it was something she clung onto. She never allowed herself to grieve with Chase, immediately convincing herself that not only could she not love him anymore, but that she was too broken to carry on.

Life had become easier for a little while. Moving back to Aurora Bay, starting her job at the day care center. She had fallen into a rhythm that made her feel sane, well, sane enough to keep going. Keep trudging along year after year, until she became old and grey.

As he mentioned the insomniacs, this induces a small laugh. At times one herself, Joy could attest to the fact that he couldn't have been more right. Staying in bed with him? She certainly wouldn't mind that. The less temporary they had become, the more she had wondered how peaceful such an instance could be.

"Well -- but then there are those who see the day, but choose not to join the productive." The blonde sighs, leaning against his chest as she feels the pressure from behind her. He feels warm, bringing the peace of the bed they had shared to where she was standing. Just for a moment, she wonders what might happen if they never left again. "It's always the same, isn't it? Getting up, going through the same old routine that capitalism has set out for us before collapsing into bed and doing it all over again."

The woman rolled her eyes at the mention of the alcohol, giving him a light nudge in the gut. "Hey, it's not like you're innocent in this. You were putting back glasses almost as fast as I was." That wasn't something to be proud of, in the grand scheme of things. Even still, Joy makes the comment in jest. Even if it stings.

What made you need daylight like this?

The question rings in the air for a moment, Joy taking in a deep inhale before turning to face him at long last. Something in her hopes the next moment won't change the way he looks at her. That in his eyes, she won't be some kind of fragile butterfly that he has to hold so gently out of fear of crushing it beneath his grip.

Before she can even think about it, she crashes into him for a moment. As if something in her is saying goodbye. Not that she wants to, but because she fears that the woes she is about to unleash will destroy every moment that the pair had shared. Something in her keeps her grounded in front of him as she pulls away, knowing she's going to have to give him some kind of answer. And she isn't going to lie.

Falsehoods seem a bit too nauseating to say around him. Yet another reminder of how permanent he was becoming.

Slowly, she makes her way to the closet -- the sheet that shrouds her being the only reminder she has of what came before. God, she hoped there was an after. Turning on the light inside the wardrobe, a hand fumbles beneath her shoes until she brandishes a box.

Noelle's box.

She opens it slowly, before grimacing at the sight of the familiar items. A newspaper clipping. A sonogram. A locket. A well-loved copy of a birth certificate, identifying Noelle Williams. There was many more things within its contents, but her eyes could only acknowledge so many before she would lose herself completely.

Local football star and girlfriend in car crash: two survivors.

"See for yourself." She says this more nonchalantly than she intends, but the grief is visible on her face. Joy is only so strong, and he knows it. She is a master at playing pretend.

All she can do is stand, watching his eyes as he puts the pieces together. That is, until a hand flies to her face in protection as her face turns to the closet again. She kept all this in there for a reason. So no one would see her as breakable.

Even though right now, she felt like she could shatter. Pain that had spent a long time festering would never be burned by the sweet sting of liqour, no matter how much she drank. But it was better than feeling like herself.

"I need daylight. I need it every day that she's not here."

[missflowerrs]

Anyone else love when the gang gets together 🥰

[darth-salem-emperor-of-earth]

Reagan Ancrath | Princess of Albion | Hero of Skill and Will

“I believe my exact words were, ‘What my womb carries is none of your concern. Kindly fuck off before you lose your tongue next.’”

Holy craaaaap! I feel bad for how I long I took to post this baby up since @rayeliann finished it on Monday during an awesome live stream but I wanted to find a proper quote she uttered that was suitable. 

I had another Endurance Perk for a character bust and asked @rayeliann to draw a fairly newer (yet old) OC of mine: Reagan Ancrath from Fable 3. She transformed a simple sketch into a masterpiece and truly brought this character to life--and she looks ready to kill! XD 

Seriously, the shading everywhere is so gorgeous (especially with all the layers in her tresses, it’s a notable feature of hers) and makes the whole piece seem so more realistic. The colors in her eyes are so striking and exactly what I had in mind. Also, the eye shadow looks so beautiful! And I cannot forget the embellished and detailed work of the dragon choker, it’s so lovely and spectacular! Thank you, @rayeliann, for your amazing, awe-inspiring art! :D <3 

[sin-sidejob]

Insidious Inside Job: Halloween pt. 1

Note: Inspired by skoshibuns fanart on instagram + I have songs linked with each segment for the specific portion that goes with the monster, the plot, or both

Warnings: NSFW, 18+, Minors DNI, AFAB + GN PRONOUNS, monster-fucking, blood, inhuman creatures, the undead, various Halloween-y phenomena + food mention + cockwarming + literal blatant sex with monsters and creatures of the night + probably more

Content: smut, spooky scary spectral holiday smuttening, monster and inhuman creature fucking, usual debauchery you can expect from me, dicks and puss, inhuman and monster genitalia, reader has AFAB nethers/genitalia and a cunt but I don’t describe about tits so folks are safe, I used gender neutral pronouns all throughout as well. Mentions of underwear and generalized clothing but no bras or gendered articles of clothing except just underwear and general clothing.

! ! ! This is part one, with Gigi + JR + Glenn + a bonus character. Part two, which will be posted and located here, includes Reagan + Brett + Andre + Robotus + Myc! ! !

Gigi Thompson: V A M P I R E

• song: Bloodletting (The Vampire Song) - Concrete Blonde

- She’s quite literally the hottest woman you’ve ever met, even though her body is stone cold forevermore — you and her met by chance, her needing to feed and finding you irresistibly alluring and you thinking you’ve struck the lottery and are about to have the best fuck since — well, ever.

- Gigi kept getting confused, torn with the need to sink her teeth into your neck and taste that metallic sweetness, like copper pennies bathed in honey, but pulled back during every opportunity and opening she had in the cover of darkness to do it. She had watched you from afar for a while, far longer than you had even known her or had her on your radar. You were so naively oblivious, just a darling little thing in the line of sight from Gigi’s reddened irises.

- but the one night she forced herself to just get it over with, make a meal out of you, she kept acquiescing, changing her plan from luring you out and killing you outright to lingering a little longer, playing with her food. Then it shifted to going out, toying longer, and sharing food in some dark corner of a restaurant, to following you home and getting invited in.

- and here you are, bright-eyed and eager, so dazedly star-eyed that you’ve got no clue what her intentions truly are with you. That she could shred you into ribbons and suck you dry if every precious drop of blood within your thumping, steady veins. But she doesn’t. Oh no, Gigi’s body craves more than just the ambrosial vice seeping through your heart, she wants your touch, to taste the other parts you have to offer. She makes a full meal out of you, long manicured fingernails traipsing across your skin as she sheds you of your clothing, letting it slide off your skin to puddle on the floor in a wrinkly, hazardous mess.

- Gigi leaves little marks of deep burgundy lip prints across your collar, marking you a necklace in her kisses around your oh-so-tempting throat, shedding the last of your clothing sans some drenched underwear she peels off. She urges you into your bed, making an idle comment about the poster bed canopy that shrouds the two of you even more from sight. Gigi pries your thighs apart and settles into her hors d’oeuvre, teeth sunken in and hidden away in order to lap at your pulsing clit, sending her nerves alight. She wants to cut you open and leave you raw, eat everything from you until there’s nothing left. She wants to utterly consume you. To know everything about all of your parts, the intricacies of your thoughts, crack you open like a geode that only her undead eyes get to see. Get to feel the crystalline facets within that no one else could have ever uncovered.

- instead of carving you open, she lets you bestow your own offerings, having her touch shatter you anew and burst you open as you cum on her tongue endlessly. she treats your cunt like a blessed goblet, letting her lips and tongue worship the pooling slick that drips forth onto her awaiting mouth to savor all the facets of your taste. It’s so much better than she could have ever fathomed.

- in her latest sprawl of meals they’ve been mediocre, the equivalent of a microwave dinner in the range of quality of bloodletting. But you, the way your slick feels against her tongue and glosses her already dark, puffy lips, enveloping her heightened senses like a murky fog, you’re nothing short of bewitching. and she doesn’t plan to let you go.

- She eats you out with fervor, the pads of her fingers prying your legs apart and being careful with the digits, knowing the glossy nails are pointed and sharp, making sure her thumb against your clit rolls in circles and shapes in a pressure that drives stars behind your eyes. Humming against your weeping slit, she comes up for the air she doesn't need, lungs as still as fake flowers laid upon a grave. "Don't you taste divine," Gigi purrs in the dark of your room, eyes alight in a manner that had your pried open legs wanting to shut an rub together as you squirmed, more than just hot and bothered. No, you were practically steaming and Gigi felt it, her cold skin soaking up your warmth like the last look at a lover.

- She wishes she could just bite her nails down shorter to play with you even more, slide her hand into the warmth of your cunt and play around, finding your most tender spots and drinking whatever you have to offer her. She could live a hundred undead lifetimes in just what you have offered already in this night alone. Gigi doesn't know how or why, but she gives you her attention and care and hopes that all the words she hasn't said come forth in her lips against your heated, still full-of-life skin.

- She cages you in and has you beneath, bare and only wearing the remnants of a button-down top she tore off of you in order to bite and mark up your chest. "Can I fuck you?" emerges from you, and it's not rushed or hurried as it flies from your puffy, swollen, and kiss-abused lips. It's calculated, and your eyes are lidded low and glimmer in the light and Gigi wants to remember the sight until her final days. It has traces of what home used to feel like to her and stutters a feeling in her heart that lay dormant for decades, centuries even. God, you're so darling, so she will continue to call you as such.

_ "You dont have to ask me twice," Gigi utters with a grin so sweet, you taste the sugar in your mouth just from the sight of it, "Be a doll and help me out of this dress?" Your hands hurry to remove her clothing, practically falling asunder when you go to remove her tights and find stockings in their stead, thick bands for her garter belt, and the thin straps holding them together. She could kill you between her legs and crush your skull like a rotten melon and you'd still be beaming from ear to ear.

- Once she's stripped, clad in a lingerie set that clings to her like it was painted on, thin slivers of silk and velvet cup her breasts and have transparent panels that shimmer, making her body lie behind what looks like erotic slivers of stained glass windows. The panties match, thin bows on the sides tying them together. The garter belt emphasizes the sway of her waist and the curve of her hips and is taut lower at the ties to the stockings that make your mouth both dry and flood with too many yet not enough words. Yeah, you would willingly die at the mercy of her hands without concern.

- You get her settled among the pillows beneath the canopy of your bed, feeling as if she was meant to be there, always with her languid form curled and splayed across your sheets and rubbing her thighs together and reaching a manicured hand out to pull you closer, into a holy hell you'd enjoy ever step into the descent of.

- Paused for a moment, you shake back to reality with a sway of your head and reluctantly move away, looking back as you step away at her and cheekily utter "just stay right there, I'll be just a moment," and smile at her gentle laugh. You sort through a drawer, pulling forth a special little toy you never thought you'd get to use, a little double-ended number you'd love to christen with her cunt. Turning back, you nearly drop the toy and the bottle of lube at the sight of her, hair across her shoulders and bra straps lowering dangerously down her shoulders as she shallowly bucks into her hand that's in her panties, moving lazily. Her eyes open and peer up at you, and she grins something wicked when she reaches her free hand across her thigh and pats her flesh, beckoning you forth.

- You practically hurdled into bed.

- Eager hands pry her thighs apart while you busy yourself in darting kisses across her collar, teeth moving to bite at her bra straps and drag them both down before leaning back, settling between her spread thighs to reach back and flick the clasp off of her bra. Gigi shucks off the garment, tossing it aside in the room and enjoying the way you fall slack and in awe of her partially nude, finding her chest nothing short of exemplary.

- "are you even real?" you marvel aloud, feeling as if you're in the presence of a statue come to life as if some renaissance statue woke and wandered into your life, your heart, and your bed. Lucky you.

- "I could say the same for you. Such a sweet thing you are." Gigi murmurs in response, eyes doting in equal to her caress of your side, feeling the warmth of your ribcage and beating heart beneath, seeing the chills sprawl across your body at her ice touch. Her legs spread and she pulls the ties of her panties, silky bows undone as she removes and tosses her underwear, bare beside her garter and stockings. You wish she could kill you, it would be kinder than this.

- She smirks, leaning back and nestling against the pillows, hair sprawled around her head and shoulders as she grins up at you, "Oh but I think living suits you much more." Gigi shucks off your tattered blouse and you toss it out of the way, lowering down upon her and kissing her body, marveling at her breasts and the peak of her perked nipples with your tongue, practically at home and near creaming when she snakes a hand across your hair.

- You make your way down to her cunt and find her clit, sucking and licking with greedy eagerness, hands sliding beneath her thighs to lift them over your shoulders. She takes it from there, locking them at the ankles while she takes your hands in hers, sliding them up her body until she plants them over her tits, and you oblige, palms cupping handfuls and rolling thumbs across her nipples in flicks while you busy yourself with lowering to her lips and licking through them.

- "oh fuck, a little harder," she asks, pleading in a pitch that lifts, voice airier and lighter now that you've got her at your generous, plentiful mercy. You'd give her the world, everything you could reach and beyond. "You need not ask again." you tease, echoing her words from earlier when you nose her clit briefly through a patch of curls and return back to breach your tongue in her cunt, moaning at the taste and squeezing her chest while you did so, smiling against her cunt as you feel her shudder and draw you in.

- "you taste fucking immaculate," you murmur while breaching for air,, looking up at her from between her thighs, taking a moment to tease. One hand stays on her breast while the other lowers to help you part her lips and then slides into her cunt, two fingers entering without issue and scisssoring in her cunt, spreading and then curling upwards. Gigi jolts and arches, lip tugged between teeth you envy. You almost halt when you spot fangs, pronounced and pointed against her lower lip. A normal reaction would be fear, disgust, maybe even some anxiety or paranoia. Not you - you just fuck her faster, better, and want those teeth buried in your neck.

- "holdin' out on me, huh?" you breath against her clit, grazing teeth against it and soothing with your tongue, suckling between sentences to see her shake and tremble, "should've known you were something unearthly, too pretty to be normal." You fuck your fingers into her, sighing in gratification at the sound her soaked cunt makes when you play with it, pinching her nipple and sending her crying out as you feel her hips lift off the bed occasionally,. grinding into your face and you are savoring every single second.

- You've peaked the moment she became interested in you, but you've surpassed everything and everyone when you managed to get her attracted to you and now, rendered into a bundle of high-strung and coiled nerves, ready to snap.

- She comes with a cry of your name on her lips, mouth gaped and enticing with those sharp canines you wanna' toy with. But that's for later. Now, you clean her up and bide your time with the touch of tongue and fingertips, soothing her and ushering her down from the high of orgasm, murmuring her name like a holy prayer and beaming from between her legs, calling out once her red eyes lock upon your grinning form betwixt her stocking-clad thighs.

- "wheres that toy you had? I'll fuck us with it then suck your veins dry and keep you around, you're never leaving if you can fuck me like that and look at me with all that love in your eyes." Gigi promises, like a god laying across an offering bed, handing you the world in a gesture so soft that it wins over the pillows.

- Lucky you indeed.

JR Scheimpough: G H O S T

• song: Ghost Of A Texas Ladies Man - Concrete Blonde

- you weren’t going to let a gossipy rumor of ghosts hold you back from owning a fucking perfect Victorian mansion — listed reasonably and in your price range — in the country, just thirty minutes or so commute from your work.

- it had a goddamn greenhouse, fuck them ghosts.

- you adjusted well, reapplied polish after re-gritting the checkerboard tiles in the main walkway, weeding the garden and scattering oyster shell fragments and slate for the landscape, running gas and electrical through the house to turn on the sconces with those scalloped, filigree light fixtures now aglow. You made that house your home and even that kitchen was amazing. You loved every minute of it.

- until the house began to turn on you. Lights flickering at odd hours, almost seeming to be talking, flickering in response to words or actions. The trees whistling during overcast days in a manner that seemed too ominous for outdoors. Movements in the corner of your eye. Fuck all that.

- you were this close until the breaking point, the crux within the ordeal, to calling in someone to cleanse the house or bless it.

- the master bathroom was nothing short of lavish, marble tiles in ornate patterns littering the floor with cornflower blue ceilings and ornate wallpaper, littered with filigree and ornamental flowers and imagery, pastel greens and blues only further enamoring you with the room. It had a walk in shower, updated with an overhead shower head with a rainfall spout and jets, a bench, and one of those glass window panes. The double sink with the decorative brass faucets, resting below a giant mirror. And the pièce de résistance was the tub.

- a gorgeous oversized claw foot bathtub lay apart, seated in the center of a tri-paned window overlooking the backyard landscape and garden, drenched in sunlight. It was only furthered by the crystals you hung in the windows, fragments of prismal glow dotted around the room, twinkling like a rainbow broke and scattered it’s pieces in your home.

- you’d been taking a break from working on the house this weekend, wanting to just relish in it and let your aching bones recuperate. Bath soak makes the water almost thick, a thin gloss of it sticking to your limbs that peak out from the water. Bubbles are spread throughout the water surface, glimmering with minuscule reflections of the noon-day light from the windows that send them towards your shiny skin.

- your neck is perched on the raised lip of the tub, arched perfectly for your posture and just so that it allows you to rest your eyes. Until the crystals on the window begin to sway and spin, and the large vanity mirror above the sink fogs over with a chill that you don’t feel near you just yet. It fogs over partially, a murky space where one would sit on the sink counter makes you realize those rumors were real.

- stark naked, tub-bound is an unfortunate state to realize you did have spectral housemates.

- “if you’re going to stare, at least let me see what you look like. Even the playing field here fucko.” You’ve got no clue where you found your voice, nor why it spoke of its own accord, but you know you should not have said that but it’s too late now.

- in a shimmer, the form appears, perched in a manner that drips with cheeky and smarmy bravado, displaying an older man who seems all too glad to see a human in the flesh - yet you kinda like his spirit.

- he’s donned in glasses, framing colorless eyes drenched in a void sans the ice-blue irises gazing at you. He’s got on a pinstripe suit, a few decades too old to mean he’s died recently, looking like a Halloween advert for a Mad Men episode.

- “well, isn’t that a warm welcome.” His voice chitters, almost otherworldly with how it seems to phase in and out of your ears, hovering like even sound is trying to decide whether to believe in him. “Hello babydoll, pleasure to finally speak with you. I’d shake your hand but, Y’know.” He feigns nonchalance, gesturing vaguely and you’re not sure if he’s alluding to the fact you’re buckass nude or that he’s unable to touch things – only phasing through them in that spectral nature.

- “didn’t stop’ya from waltzing into my bathroom and watching me.” You pause for a moment, eyeing him warily and sinking lower in the tub before the curiosity creeps inwards, twisting and invading like ivy crawling up brick, “what’s your name?”

- the ghoul’s head tilts, smiling in an amused way that’s both endearing and mocking, eyes shining like ice cubes twinkling in a water glass, “JR –“ he cuts you off as your mouth opens, “No not junior, just J-R.” He trails, eyes locking on you briefly from where they would pretend to find the wallpaper interesting, “yours?”

- and so you utter your name aloud, watching him almost relish in it as if your name was a secret that he’d been searching for. He repeats it, pronouncing it correctly and seems almost casual before he grins, “pretty name for such a cute little thing such as yourself.”

- you’d strangle him is he wasn’t already dead.

- he laughs, and you realize with horror you said that aloud. “Didn’t think you were that kinky, aren’t you full of suprises!” You toss a soap bar in his direction, not expecting the thud nor the sound of it hitting the floor after it landed off his - apparently solid - chest.

- You catch a glimmer in the dead eyes of JR, they flash red — for a millisecond only, just enough to show he’s not just the pretty charmer sitting on your sink. And unfortunately for you, that unnerving danger is just your thing. He notices.

- dark eyes glint and that Cheshire grin returns, JR busying himself with rolling up his sleeves as he notes the dilation in your pupils and the way your legs rub together, water rippling and sending barely-there glimpses of what lies beneath the soapy water of your body.

- “Oh, a mighty kinky thing you are. All hot and bothered for a ghost — pity. But why leave you all to your lonesome here?” He drawls, winking as he steps off the counter and his shoes click at the tile floor, black loafers so shiny they look freshly polished in the midday light. “Why not, keep your lively, darling self company? Hmm?” JR hums a note, nearing the tub and sitting on his haunches, forearms resting on the lip of the tub and teasingly pretending to peek downwards but keeping his attention on you.

- “that —“ you pause, caught up in ice cube eyes that you cannot seem to pry away from, struggling to find the weight of your tongue and get it to work, “that may work.” And he smiles, always smiling, this specter, “what a wonderful answer. Now — how about we get you out of that tub.”

- Y’know what, you would go along with your previous advice. Fuck them ghosts.

- Sitting up, slow enough to let the water adjust and not slosh over the side of the tub and ruin the fluffy bathmat nearby, you maintain eye contact while the suds drip down your chest and expose your torso. You lean up to hover near him, not feeling any chill but just a presence, a wave, that emanates. The closer you are, the stronger it feels, and when you run a sudsy hand over his temple, brushing a stray hair back, you feel him. he’s real. and he’s determined to show you just how much.

- JR’s about to move, most likely kiss you, but you lean back. Completely pull away. And he looks dejected and it’s a dreadful sight on an already dead man. You stand, stepping out the tub and move to grab your towel. It’s gone.

- “missing something?”

- you turn, an eyebrow raised in what is currently the longest moment of you having a complete absence of self consciousness or shame, and fix him with a look and glance around for your bathrobe and towel that you knew you had in there.

- “this is a bit ridiculous,” you roll your eyes at his expectant look, muttering to yourself that this is the most ob-fucking-scene moment of your life, “towel please.”

- “nope. quite like how it’s going without one personally.” JR muses, pursing his lips to avoid smiling while standing and rocking back and forth on his heels.

- “oh sweet fucking christ—“ “I thought I told you my name” you’re this close to abandoning the plan of fucking the ghost but you turn and see he’s got your robe, which was on the other side of the room, in his hands outstretched and ready for you to step into.

- you do, bare feet against tile now sending a shudder than sprawls through you, settling goosebumps across your skin and for you to visibly squirm, only to get enveloped in your plush bathrobe and have him usher you into the sleeves. It’s quite domestic as he loosely ties the robe, large bow barely closing the fabric, still revealing the entirety of your legs and barely covering your pelvis.

- His head hovers around your shoulder, him standing behind you still with hands perched at the tie-belt of your robe, “still want company?” and with his voice, the eerily charming timbre of it, how could you deny yourself the opportunity?

- you murmur your answer before you yourself even process it, nodding and saying a soft absolutely just before you turn around, stepping backwards and grabbing onto cold hands and leading him into your bedroom. You thumb the knuckles and realize they’re very soft and that the chill isn’t so terrible, not overly cold. Warming him up wouldn’t take much if anything at all.

- “darling place you’ve got here,” he jokes, brows raising as he watches you walk then seat yourself on the edge of your bed, “just love what you’ve done with it.” JR continues to stand, fiddling with his tie and buttons before he halts his movements, hiding the hesitation by feigning the intention to move them to his pants pockets. you’re about to ask why, but then you see the glimmer of indentions near his Adam’s apple, pearlescent skin dusky mauve and periwinkle, understanding sinking into your features that he cannot miss. He chuckles, the dark and bitter kind and that red glint almost appears but instead that ice blue turns white then back to the clearish hue.

- “Guess I stuck my neck out for the wrong guy.” And you swallow, knowing that’s certainly a story for another time but you move on seeing that he wants to as well, rising to smooth your palms across his shirt vest and to begin undoing his tie. In a normal circumstance, it’s quite sweet, the image of you wrapped up in a bathrobe and undressing him from the remnants of a suit as if getting ready for bed. But this is no normal circumstance, and you two are far from a normal pair.

- And as you feel at the skin of his neck, bared of his starched shirt collar and tie, you look beyond and thumb at his jaw and lean to kiss at the juncture near his ear. “Well, I’m here now,” you trail off, feeling barely-there hands hover at your waist, “if that helps?” He barely moves and already has you splayed on the bed, peering up at him and seeing him slowly shift from being semi-transparent to completely opaque. Solid. Still ghostly but physically there and it’s a relief, not wanting to voice your concerns of spectral sex and how that really would work.

- “It does.” JR grins, chilled hands shucking off the bathrobe and leaving it beneath your frame until your bare hips lift up and he tugs it out from under, tosses it, then pauses. He leans back, hands flexing and his teeth biting into his bottom lip as he gazes up and down at all of you, admiring blatantly. “Oh honey, it really does.”

- you’re already soaked, which is a relief to you because you didn’t want to navigate foreplay or delve overly so into exploring each other’s bodies. You wanted him, wanted to know how he felt, how he’d feel filling you. JR delivers.

- cold, dead, dextrous hands lift your thighs up and rest the underside notch of your knees on his forearms. His appears shifts, like a ripple rolling over a still waters surface, appearing and disappearing all at once. His shirts unbuttoned and partially tucked into the back of his slacks, belt gone and pants undone. JR almost looks like he’s wearing a thick choker or a necklace and you pointedly avoid looking at it, knowing it’s not the place or time to call attention to a death mark.

- instead you grab onto clothing that feels like it’ll flutter away in your hold, unreal, not there, and tug him closer so he’s looming overhead — and if it wasn’t for the spectral visage, he’d look completely normal. As completely normal as a businessman from the 60’s could look. “Eager little thing, all neglected and alone in this big ol’ house.” JR croons, cheeky and feather light, feeling like a stuffed down pillow yet like a switchblade all the same, “not anymore, you’ve got me, dont’cha honey?”

- that’s the moment he removes his cock, blue tinged and with a weepy, bulbous tip, and slides it through your folds with emphasis. Snake oil salesman. Con man. You never want him to leave. You let out a thick “ungh-huh,” grunting response, squirming at the feel and wanting him in already, petty and petulant and wound up like a turn-dial toy, ceased in your puttering about.

- “Aw kitten, I’ve got you,” he murmurs once more, unnervingly genuine smile on his face. It’s crooked, imperfect. Good. “Easy for me, breathe — I’d demonstrate, but that’s just one thing I can’t do.” And just as your lips part to comment, he slides in, fat cockhead breaching your walls and nestling deep inside. It’s cold, foreign feeling, practically glasslike within you but it sends you clenching and grinding weakly back onto it, feeling your bare hips brush against wool-blend slacks and the weight of his gaze on you.

- “what a perfect, snug little fit this cunt has,” he muses, almost more intrigued than turned on. But he falters as the shift of your hips, eyes flickering like they’re phasing in and out, there one second the next they’re gone. “Fuck, do that again,” he orders after an angled grind while you clench your walls around him, sending his ragged and eyes aglow.

- you do, you clench and he bends you like a pretzel in response. Thighs to your chest, dick now kissing at your cervix which’ll end up bruised by the end of the day, and him even closer now. He’s not as cold, almost as if he’s warmed up. Did you do that?—

- “oohh yes, yes — you feel fantastic, so good to me,” JR babbles, hands splaying across your belly flat while the other is near your head, “so, so good to me.” He whines a bit in his thrusts, overwhelmed with pleasure as you feel the same. The foreign sensation fades as your hot cunt warms him, welcomes him, and stretches to accommodate. His pelvis and slacks brush against your clit, sending nerves alight and twinkling behind your eyes like the fractals from the prisms in the bathroom, rainbow shards scatter behind your eyes as JR steadily fucks into you. it takes you turning your head in an attempt to bury it in the sheets and comforter for you to realize you’re not actually on your bed. Oh, no. In fact, you’re several feet in the air above it.

- That’s hot.

- weeding a hand through his hair, you tug and bring him closer to your frame to press against you, thighs sandwiched between your body and his as his face looms above, eyes now half lidded and sapphire blue. his kiss is so cold it’s warm, tingly up to your toes, almost like spearmint threaded through your bones and body like a puppeteer’s strings. it doesn’t take many more thrusts, many more shifts of his incorporeal form to send you shuddering and gasping, clawing at him and crying out silently in an open mouthed cry as you cum.

- JR follows, unable to not fall under the same petite mort as you do, finding it much sweeter than the actual thing with the view he finds himself surrounded by. Pretty little breather, so eager to take him. He supposes having a housemate won’t be so bad.

Glenn Dolphman: SWAMP CREATURE

• song: It Will Come Back - Hozier

- you shouldn’t have gone this far out onto the boardwalks alone. Should’ve packed extra AA batteries for your flashlight, grabbed the stun gun from the glovebox of your car, sitting stagnant and useless in the National Park’s car lot.

- but now, now you’re alone and the suns starting the creep and inch downwards in the horizon, setting brackish and green water inky blue and drenched in oranges and yellows. It would be gorgeous and ethereal is you weren’t alone, and surrounded by open water and more threats than friends. You’d been there all day testing water and recording data for water pollution, making sure the water clarity was still as high as it was last month. The internship in the park’s department was new, testing your limnology skills and knowledge of freshwater ecosystems. But this place blended just likes it’s water, fresh and salt, murky and clear. And with the sun setting, that line got crossed. You’re in no man’s land, where the gators swim free.

- you won’t see morning.

- shutting off the flashlight allows you to conserve what you can for the night, same with your phone as you pace and try to figure out how far from the entrance you are and how much daylight you have left, gauging about 45 minutes to maybe 2 hours of light. Then, darkness. You feel like crying.

- there’s a tree, thick and stable with roots deep within the mud settled next to the wooden walk you’re on, and you settle against it, back rested on the wood and your legs sprawled on the walks planks, fiddling through your bag and wishing you’d brought more than your your water testing kit and supplies. Like a fucking knife, flare gun, something actually useful. What’s the goddamned chapstick gonna help with, making you look good for the gators?

- moving water unnerves you, the sound heavy and laden with weight, something slow moving underneath you and the thin, wooden slats. It has you getting on your feet in milliseconds and rushing in the opposite direction, knowing it’s at least closer to the beginning of the park. You run until you can’t and it’s already too late, suns gone down and abandoned you in the horizon, the light begins to fade with it. There’s the lurking after light, still hazy and silky in the clouds and it’s clouded the air. And you sit back down, curled in on yourself and trembling, eyes darting around yourself for any flicker of movement in the water.

- you hadn’t heard the water move beneath you as you ran earlier, hadn’t counted the shadows in the depths. Fatal mistakes.

- shadows lengthen then dissipate as they blend with the darkness that surrounds you, and you lean back and groan, practically whimpering as you hold in a cry. The water ripples around you, your form a little dot within a giant circle of ripples resting on the thin plank board walkway of the park.

- chest rattles are all that you feel, shaking like a leaf on a tree is all you can do as you worry about what we’re the last things you said to your loved ones, the last texts you sent, fuck you weren’t going to catch the show premiere for next month. Then the water ripples still, completely unnoticed by you. Again.

- you’ve turned away, looking at the horizon when it emerges, watching wistfully as the light fades and the darkness creeps in around you finally. Webbed digits spread against the wood supporting beams from underneath, it’s head precariously perched beneath the surface and slowly edging forwards and upwards until the eyes are the only lifted feature above the Spanish moss and algae-coated water surface. Golden brown eyes stare ahead, almost hazel if not for the unnaturally shaped pupils and too-glittery irises, reflective and almost iridescent as they flicker light in shades of gold leaf, chestnut, moss, and phthalo. You turn back and lock with them immediately in your line of vision, and your body seizes. You want to cry, want to scream and run, fucking beg. What the fuck is that thing. You want your friends and a blanket and to be woken up from this nightmare.

- but you’re frozen, and this is real.

- the form inches forward, so slowly you almost didn’t notice in your panicked state, creeping in the water in a way that couldn’t remind you of anything human. No alligator moves that way, no snapping turtle shifts like that. It’s too far up for a shark to make it in this brackish water, too fresh for that. Hell, catfish don’t get that big. This ain’t River Monsters. This is your reality. Hell.

- and the hell before you gets bigger until the arms splay across the wooden slats, water dripping down to soak the beams and lifting the body up and out, knees from bulky legs notched at one edge. It looms above you, dark eyes staring down into the very depth and well of your soul, practically toying with the dregs of whatever’s down in the bottom. Your eyes are wide, scream silent and stagnant in the bottom of your throat, tears welling in the corner of your saucer plate eyes while you lean down against the surface of the boardwalk and think of your loved ones and shut your eyes tight.

- It grunts then lumbers forth, head peering down at you with eyes unyielding and unrelenting, as harsh as staring directly into sunlight. It does not move after a few moments, just staying put. When your eyes open and warily look upwards, staring at what you expected to be death in the face, your mind goes blank.

- it still is a beast, a creature of proportions unknown to mankind or otherwise, something for the pages of nautical maps in the old ages to have painted alongside sea serpents and sirens. This, this is unfathomable.

- Whatever it is, looming overhead like death's scythe mid-swing sits still. Bulky arms and legs support the weight, and arms on both sides of your torso with legs kneeling outside of your own. The face is narrow, blunt nuzzle protruding with a murky green appearance all over. There are scars and gashes, all paler pinks and greys with the gouges healed and appearing old. Faded and worn, leathery.

- your attention is drawn back to reality once you hear a deep-pitched chitter, sounding more like a rattle, emanate from its chest and throat. It's almost playful, and then you catch the eyes and they've changed. They look human.

- Before you can say anything or voice a concern, the blunt nose of the beast leans down near your neck, and you freeze, wondering what it's doing. Instead of its mouth opening and teeth sinking into your flesh, tearing your throat and life out, it bumps at your pulse. The softened feel of its nose nudges at your neck, once, twice, and huffs a breath of warm air.

- It leans down on what would be the equivalent of shins and forearms, water dripping from its form and soaking your khaki shorts and your work shirt, underwear growing damp with how drenched the articles of clothing become. Your hands are at your sides, cheek pressed to the wooden board beneath you as you feel its breath and puffs of hot air at your neck. There's barely anything you can see around his form, its size so massive it blocks your peripheral.

- you hear it growl out near your ear, limbs brushing yours, and it repeats the noise then you realize with a shock that it’s speaking, the garbled, drowned tone emerging through its throat like reaching through muck and mud.

- “pretty.”

- your freezing and cold, firghtened and expecting death to soon take you, and yet the sound of the backroad gravel and unearthly, rough voice pulled you forth. Almost like a sirens song, luring the sailors directing the course of your consciousness into the sea to sink to the bottom in ribbons of flesh and tissue.

- you think, until you don’t, when a leg notches between yours and this thing, this behemoth above you, grinds against you. There’s a small, still present logical part of yourself but even that braincell jumped ship the second the thick, pulsing muscle of its thigh hit between your clothed, soaked legs.

- growls and animal-like chitters and coos go unheard as your mind blanks over and you’re lifting hands to feel across its arms, his arms from what you could understand, and dart across jagged tissue scars and roughened, thick skin as you lift your hips up and grind you hips into its groin, rewarded with a hot huff against your sticky collarbone and a thickening fleshy weight growing against you.

- “smell r’good.” Comes out slow and jumbled, but sweet for a horny swamp monster that’s about to fuck you stupid. You almost laugh, smoothing a hand up a shoulder in disbelief and wondering just how truly main character you were until you get your clothes quite literally torn off of you into ribbons upon the boardwalk planks and slats, clad barely in underwear and your shoes that stayed on your feet, your ankles hitched over his thighs. Your legs couldn’t even touch his back let alone lock over them.

- “thank you,” you murmur, grinding against him again and keening when his teeth graze, the creature pressing more weight against you once his dick unsheathes. You don’t see it, can’t with the closeness but you feel it. It’s hot, and a spare hand wanders to toy and find with wonder that it dwarfs your hand. Good for you. “Gonna’ take care of me?”

- where did the real you go and what monsterfucker took your place, fucking a swamp monster in a National Park — and no dinner? Damn.

- it huffs an approving groan, nodding a blunt nose against the slope of your neck and at your mercy as your hand plays with his dick, feeling it move and twitch wildly in your lax grip. You carry on, grazing fingertips over a blooming cockhead and weeping slit, running over ridges and veins until he grows tired and tears your underwear in half down the central seam, prying your legs open and grinding his dick through your slick, the sound echoing almost.

- with a lip tugged between your teeth, hands scramble for purchase as enormous arms and sides, digging in your nails a tad once that blunt, flared cockhead drags across your clit then slinks in, breaching your cunt slowly and stretching it. You take inch after inch in an achingly slow pace, whining and twisting in this things hold and wanting to get fucked already, but it knows better. Cant break a new fuck toy on the first go.

- it’s tedious but rewarding in the end once you get nearly three quarters of its dick in you, pulsing hot and twitching against taut walls, feeling full and warm in contrast to your icy skin from the cold, warming up slowly but surely.

- the creature edges forth in a small thrust, testing the shift then picks the pace up rapidly, hips snapping as a hand lifts your ass up from beneath in order to sink in more of his dick and see it disappear into the warmth of your cunt.

- pressure builds, making your toes curl first and your nails dig a bit into the bicep muscles of the arm your holding onto, another flattened across the back of a shoulder blade and rocking softly back in forth to meet thrusts, voice too broken to scream out, whimpering and moaning out for this monster above thats both the softest and most impressive sex partner you’ve had in a while.

- God Bless National Parks.

- after a while the pace steadies and the continuous brush of his giant dick, making a mess of your pretty cunt and sending slick dripping down your thighs, gets you close to cumming, feeling that warmth spread up the back of your legs and in your belly, blossoming forth in your rib cage and chest, curling around your heart like silken ribbon.

- the steady pat patt patting of his balls against your ass also sends you into a hormonal frenzy, loving how warm and treasured you were in the moment. The pressure builds and you start muttering and crying out, legs shaking around his thighs once it builds closer, a litany of “gonna’ cum gonna’ cum, gonna’ cum please lemme’ cum f’you.” That sends the pace to perk up as well as the behemoth, a shift lifting your ass in the palms of his webbed hands and thrusting you back and forth on its cock, using you with as much ease as one would fuck a sex toy.

- a few bruising knocks of that mushroomy, blunt tip against your cervix sends you creaming around his cock, just in time for him to cum and fill your greedy cunt while you’re agape and shut-eyed as the tremors wrack your body, falling victim to the power of orgasm, wracking your brain like a fog that slowly fades into a haze.

-The once rapid thrusts stutter and fade, continuing until you’re both fully spent and dated and you’re weighted down with a heavy beast that’s the warmest weighted blanket you’ve ever tried, feeling content all plugged up and held. Felt great, fan-fucking-tastic.

- the giant hands holding you tight splay over your heated, damp and sweat-slicked skin and shift, you press a kiss to its cheek and dart more down his neck, nosing it so sweetly he draws you even impossibly closer.

- later on, when you’ll go to work and be unafraid in the dark and cheery and bright in the day, it’ll be due to the rippling force hiding in your shadow as you make your rounds and tend to your tasks, biding the time until nightfall.

- and you feel it’s eyes on you always, but instead of a weight clutching at your throat or coiled between your ankles, it rather lies across your shoulders like a well-beloved overcoat. Warm and powerful and strong. Roughened. Uniquely yours in the best of ways. Especially when swamp creatures are concerned.

— Bonus —

Delaney Whitmore: T H E D E V I L

• song: Personal Jesus - Depeche Mode

- Waking up in the same day, over and over, endlessly for what has been a week now is already getting old. You’ve been shot, run over, electrocuted, and even gutted. Dumped into a ravine. Drowned in the lake with weights and chains, got hit by a train, even got your throat slit. You want it to be over and you’ve got no clue what’s going on. There’s only so much one can learn from Bill Murray in Groundhog Day, and it seems that even he ain’t doing you no favors. You're tired, traumatized, reeling day in and out, and facing death with a chagrin belonging to even the most exhausted reluctant heroes. But you are no hero, no, you are a stranger, a normal person, trapped in an endless loop and feel as if the eyes of ouroboros are gazing down in mocking, chiding laughter. You feel doomed.

- You find answers, or more accurately, a cause to your cruelly violent cycle. She’s been present the most out of all the passersby, with different clothes and different styles of hair, always a bystander and stranger, nearby to watch the fallout behind tinted brown sunglass lenses and a burgundy-lipped grin. God, what a bitch.

- You finally see her up close, spotting and cornering her in the back booth of a dark bistro in town, a flute of something dark and bubbly tucked between her hand and her manicured nails. They match her lipstick. “Having fun? How’s the loop treating you, I’ve tried to make at least the dying random,” she coos, stirring around the decorative garnish that rims her cocktail before turning her body to face yours, “wouldn’t want it to be overly repetitive. That just becomes so redundant, but enough about my little spoils. Introduce yourself, go on, I’ve just been dying to meet you.”

- faltering, you eye her outstretched hand warily, noting the several rings on her fingers and the watch, the gloss of her nail polish in the low light of the room. You shake her hand, noting the firm grip and authenticity behind it, and sit down across from her, shifting against the worn faux leather booth seats and hating the sound.

- “sorry about the surroundings, can’t really alter this stuff unless I wanted to immediately call attention and ruin the game. No fun in that.” She noted the visible discomfort on your face, showing interest and care that seems ingenuine with how real it felt, “now go on, introduce yourself. Treat a lady.” She all but purrs, sipping at her drink and smiling with something wicked and dark in her teeth. Her pointed, sharp teeth. Just the canines.

- and so you do, blurting out your name and watching her process it, and you take her in. Deep brown waves settle down and rest in curls upon her shoulders. She’s got big, Jackie O-style glasses on again, paired with the deep red lip. There’s twinkling gold jewelry dotted around her body, across the collar, several across the ears, her rings, and the watch.

- “what a darling name,” is what pulls you forth from the stupor you found yourself in while staring, seeing her settle her chin in her palm and her elbow upon the table, “usually it takes months or even years for someone to find me, let alone single me out. Clever.” She chimes, sipping once more at something you can’t decipher, maybe champagne with a mixer. “Would you like something to eat, or drink perhaps? They’ve got great appetizers.” Before you can answer she snaps her fingers, the thwick of the sound much louder than you’d expect it, like when hearing someone whistle for a taxi.

- a waiter appears, scattering two menus and place settings quickly before the two of you and topping off her flute with something from a corked bottle, scrawled in looping cursive and definitely champagne, then adds a bit of a syrup that smells like pomegranates. The drops sink like dye does, blooming forth in swirls that resemble the Rorschach inkblots. She catches your inquiring gaze. “I love the taste on its own, but there’s just something about the little dash of syrup I’ve come to love.” She drawls, and you finally catch the locale of it, southern. Not too deep, not too slow to be truly at the southernmost part of the United States, but lulling along enough to be southern. Drips forth like the syrup does.

- “reminds me of those myths and tales of Persephone, those pomegranates that locked her to the underworld for part of the year and to Hades’ realm. Those Grecian tales, so full of woe and death.” She rolls her eyes behind the glasses, unable to see but still noted in the movement of her brows in addition to the gesture of her hand. She asks about what you plan on eating and you’re unsure, not just about the food but about the overall situation. Trapped in a hellish loop, sitting down with the one who’s caused it all, with no clear motive, and yet you can’t feel mad. It’s like sedation, sitting with her, numbing the raw and angry parts of yourself.

- you force yourself to come up with what you’ll eat, getting urged by her for an appetizer too, saying you deserve it. Who is this woman? After giving your answer she calls back over the waiter and prattles off your meal choices and her own, kindly and hands back one of the menus but keeps the other and sidles it against the wall of the table, “in case there’s dessert,” she winks.

- you stare, questions rattling about in your head and overloading you, making you just blurt out what was pressing you the most of all the queries you had. And she laughs. It’s a twinkling, delightful sound. It’s laced with something that warns you to not trust completely. “Who am I? Oh darlin’ I was wondering when you’d get around to askin’ that,” she sips her drink then sets it aside, drumming her nails against the hardwood of the table before grinning with pointed teeth that indent at her lip. She takes off the glasses, thick lashes dusting her cheeks before opening to reveal her irises. Gold, just like her rings. Then she speaks.

- “Babydoll, I’m the devil.”

- there’s the one half of you that’s been expecting that sort of answer, relishing in a way that’s akin to an “I’m right! Suck it!” internal celebration. The other half is in a myriad of what the fucks, wondering what is going on and why you’re talking to the devil and why is she hot?? Confused, bewildered, and utterly at a loss. “Why are you doing this to me?” Is what flies from your lips next, still confused as to why you’re even here and why you’re talking with devil as you discuss your looped-in-hell situation.

- “it’s actually quite interesting, y’see, you’re the offspring of someone that owes me. Big time. The resolution was made, through crossroads bargains — Y’know the black magic, Anne Rice novel typa’ shit — and I’m sorry to break the news Sugar, but you’re the price that got paid. The loop was something I’m fiddling with to perfect it, just unfortunate luck that you were the next contestant. In summary short, your heart, soul, and ass are mine.” The devil answers, in sprawling words that sound like signatures spoken aloud as if the personality of someone’s handwriting was flung into the air to be heard.

- you stammer, words failing again, and then the food gets plated before you along with a glass poured with one of your favorite drinks. “Dig in, food won’t bite. I do on the other hand,” she teases, chiding and amused, “ask any questions you’ve got and I’m happy to answer them. I’m rarely in the company of such gorgeous creatures anyhow.”

- Blinking, you’re reeling from everything, and take a fork full of whatever food is in front of you and chew before you say another stupid thing. You watch her, and she goes about her actions as if this is any other day — and you suppose it is, her being Satan and all. She’s tall, taller than yourself you suppose, with a body that’s curved in ways that must’ve written the rules of temptation and sin, especially lust you think as you glance at cleavage that’s just too alluring. All of her is, it’s unfair. Cruel. It’s fitting. She’s the devil, Satan, the big bad, queen of darkness, etcetera.

- “is it the appearance? Sometimes people expect me to have the whole monstrous look, wings and the tail and hooves,” she prompts, eying you with a curious gaze as she sticks a fork into a piece of fried calamari, “I can slip into something hornier if you’d like.” And you almost choke on what you’re chewing before you realize it was a joke, and you see her laugh. She snorts. Imperfect. “Sorry, sorry — i just love that joke so much, it’s funnier when I make the horns show up. At least sometimes it is.”

- “do you not naturally look like that?” Is how you respond, eating another forkful afterward to stop you from rambling or commenting on her appearance, and how yes, you would like to see her step into something hornier. “I do, there’s just degrees and a range in which I look, this being the original form I was made in. The extra stuff is flair from being the devil I’d assume, and the embodiment of all that is evil,” she trails off, chewing then moving on, “it’s not like I was born and immediately formed into lady of all unholiness, what, do you think my name is just The Devil?”

- “is it?” You expect her to laugh, but she just smiles and sips her drink, eying you while she does before setting the glass back down. “It’s not. My name’s Delaney, but I haven’t heard anyone call me that in a long, long time.” And you think about that last segment, wondering how far back it was since she was seen as a person or a thing rather than just the devil.

- “it’s a lovely name,” you comment, turning back to your food only to glance up and see a subtle flush on her olive-skinned features. “Thank you.”

- you note the reaction for later, but soon enough you feel the time of your meal blurring by you, the time more fleeting than wisps of snow in winter's blanketing season. It’s the end of the meal, and conversation flows while the devil escorts you home, elbow crooked in hers as she walks nearest the road and you’re nestled between her and the buildings as the sidewalk takes you home.

- “soul for your thoughts?” She chimes, sunglasses back on her head but she glances over at you from the lens's rim, smiling impishly and turning once you arrive at the steps to your house. “No, no, just wondering about something.”

“Oh? Do tell, love t’hear what’s rattling around in that skull of yours.”

“Feels like a first date.”

- she blinks, and you watch the processing moment before she grins wicked and lazy-like, eyes half-lidded as she extends a hand in proposition. “Would you like to skip to after the third?”

- you say yes, you’re not a fool, and it’s not as if she walks you inside and fucks you silly. No, within a whirlwind you see hours go by and get your consciousness inserted back until when the third date would be. And you’re in the middle of getting eaten out when this gift of consciousness is bestowed. The timing is nothing short of absolutely glorious.

- she’s got you perched on a marble top vanity in a lavish bedroom, a blend of Victorian or Rococo with the scrollwork and filigree in the wood craftsmanship you garner while trying to prevent your orgasm so you can make it last, staring at the ceiling and an ornate tulip-shaped glass light fixture and thinking of other things to not literally black out just yet.

- “There’s my little one, back to me now, okay?” She breaks up from her assault on your pussy, thumb idly rolling circles and smoothing shapes into your puffy clit, “Let go for me so mommy can make a meal out of you.” She smooths your thighs back open and coos when she blows air upon your cunt, laughing when you shudder. She laps at your cunt and peers up at you from beneath dark bangs and even darker lashes, a knife's point of winged eyeliner making the golden hazel eyes shine. You’ve got the devil on her knees eating you out. Casually. Life unwarrantedly signed away sucks but hey, there’s at least cumming on the tongue of the most powerful demon since ever?

- soon you’re crying out and tugging at her hair and coming against her mouth, gushing around her cheeks and chin. She works you through your orgasm and the over sensitivity. And another venture through orgasm. And two additional upon that, her claiming that oral is just foreplay while she sucks your skin clean as she licks up all the aftermath of you squirting from between your thighs, nipping occasionally with tender teeth.

- she hushes your whines with hands that smooth over your belly and heated skin, calming you down until she rises and her tall form cages you in where you sit perched on the vanity.

- “calm down, angel,” she starts, tucking stray hair back into place and cupping your warm cheeks in her palms, smoothing thumbs across your cheekbones with care. She shifts, reaching to grasp your chin between your fingers as her hand wraps at an angle around your neck, “now, can I play with you for a little longer?”

- Regret was not something you had a lot of, but there was not any present in your response. Especially since you had never said yes so fast in your life. The demon laughs before pressing her lips to yours, murmuring beneath her breath in airy huffs of air that grace your teeth and tongue as hers meet yours in the middle, "welcome then, my little Persephone."

— Happy Halloween —

Tags: @mrsbretthand @mollicutes @radioactivebowtie @cognitosclowns @bluebaronness @carnalcringe

[veilxstars]

As they approached the pumpkin painting area, she noticed Copper’s eagerness, a glint of excitement in his eyes. Scout chuckled, “Easy there! We have all day. And let’s not forget—picking the perfect pumpkin is the most important part!” And Scout was a discerning artist, looking at the different pumpkins and sizes, though - the paints were a jumbled mess of colors from children's enthusiasm.

While they set up for painting, she sensed the weight of Copper’s memories tugging at him. Scout admired his strength; whatever he had -- she wished she had a tenth of it. “You know,” she said, “having you here makes this feel more like home for me too.” She picked up a paint brush and touched Copper's cheek with it, adding in the boop for a sound effect. She had started a two-person paint war, and she knew it.

As Scout settled in to paint pumpkins, she felt a sense of ease wash over her. The vibrant colors of the autumn day inspired her, and she grabbed her brushes with a smile. She began to work on a design —soft, sweeping strokes in hues of autumn, creating a dreamy landscape on the surface of the pumpkin.

“I’ve always loved to paint,” she admitted, glancing at Copper as she added delicate strokes of yellow to capture the light. “But I really fell in love with it when I was traveling. Art tells so much about a person—their emotions, their experiences. I learned how to protect people with paint, as silly as that sounds. Even tattooed someone once." She wondered if Reagan had kept the design or covered over it.

As she layered colors, her mind wandered back to the different towns she’d visited, the people she’d met, and the stories she’d collected along the way. Each brushstroke felt like a memory, a piece of her journey that she could carry forward. “I used to spend hours sketching in cafés or under trees, trying to capture the fleeting moments around me. Now - I'm here. In the place I grew up, always wondering if my parents are going to sneak up behind me with an exclamation of good faith and good will -- and wondering when I'm going to settle down with a good man for Bodhi. And I figure, I will tell them that between Uncle Coo and Uncle Beau, Bodhi has plenty of good, positive male role models, and I don't need to add to the list.”

Bodhi, only six months old, cooed and gurgled in her sling, her little hands waving in delight at the colorful scene before her. Scout chuckled softly, turning her attention back to the pumpkin. “One day, you’ll paint with me, Bee,” she promised, already dreaming of the day when Bodhi could join in the fun. "But only if Uncle Coo is sitting next to us --" she reached out with her brush again, this time aiming for Copper's hand with the paint.

As Scout painted, she couldn’t help but think about Copper’s journey. “Moving to Cardinal Hill after everything you’ve been through has got to be a lot. I mean, it’s a fresh start, but it must feel strange, too—like you’re stepping into a whole new life while leaving so much behind.”

She paused, her brush dancing over the pumpkin, creating swirls of color . “I fell in love with painting while I was traveling. It became a way for me to express everything I couldn’t put into words. It’s like each stroke gave me perspective..." Scout glanced at him, her expression warm. “I know it’s not easy to start over, and the holidays are coming up. You've got me and Bodhi. You've been helping me with so much, Copper. With Bodhi. With settling into being a mom -- and I don't...- I know I take advantage. Of you, Beau, Tabitha -- but I want you to know, you particularly, that if the holidays are hard or the winter starts looking too dark -- you can come stay at the inn."

Copper thought back to the day he'd met Scout, never realizing they'd end up here. It was nice having a unit here, a family of his own making, which helped him miss his own family back home a little less. It was going to be especially difficult as the holidays approached, Christmas and Hanukkah and Thanksgiving. At least Aris was here now, and with Scout and his other friends helping, Copper was hopeful that he would get through it. But regardless, he was so happy to have Scout and Bodhi in his life. "Of course she's taken to me. I'm awesome," Copper retorted, clearly joking. "And you know, Uncle Coo is growing on me." It was a softer sound and obviously easier for a baby to say than Copper or even Cop, and he thought that if it stuck, Bodhi would probably continue using it even as she got older. Copper like the idea of that, especially the part where he'd be around for said growing up.

Walking with Scout and Bodhi through the square, Copper kept thinking about those Renaissance Fairs he'd gone to with Damon, reaching down and absentmindedly twisting his black wedding ring around his finger. Even though Copper had claimed to go and to dress up simply to make Damon happy, the truth (a truth that Damon had been well aware of) was that Copper had enjoyed it too, and now he missed it. Copper missed everything about Damon, even the things he hadn't liked or been annoyed by (like his insistence that the Oxford comma was not necessary, which Copper would go to his grave defending). If he thought about Damon too much though, Copper would spiral, and he didn't want that now. So he stopped twisting his ring and smiled at Scout, saying, "I'm really glad we ran into each other on our first day." it seemed like fate, and he added, "I think the universe knew we needed someone to get us through this." And even if there wasn't some divine force driving them together, there was a part of that statement that was absolutely true: they had both needed a friend.

Laughing, Copper replied, "So pie-eating contest is out. Good call. And you know, that's the thing. You might win, but at what cost? Would it even be worth it?" He doubted that it would. Pumpkin painting was much safer, and Bodhi would probably enjoy it more because she would not be able to participate in the pie-eating contest. "We could always eat a piece - one singular piece - of pie while we paint," Copper suggested. And then Scout brought up Damon, and Copper's smile fell. "I appreciate the sentiment," he told Scout, and he did. "But I haven't exactly been living some grand life in his absence. Sometimes I'm barely getting by, but I probably deserve that." Not wanting to keep talking about this, Copper looked across the square and pointed, saying, "There's the pumpkin painting area!" And then he rushed in that direction.

[your-bigender-big-brother]

Looking for a neutral name? I’m thinking about names right now. Let’s make a huge list of gender neutral names! They’re all below the cut and I encourage suggestions! (Many spelling variations are not included because those are up to the user to decide.)

Please know that there is a very long list under Keep Reading!

Adair

Aden

Aeden

Aer

Aether

Aiden

Air

Aire

Alex

Alyx

Amethyst

Apricot

Arden

Argyle

Ash

Aspen

Aster

August

Auxin

Avery

Ax

Axe

Axialis

Axis

Ayden

Azimuth

Bae

Beck

Berrie

Berry

Biblo

Birch

Bird

Blu

Blue

Blake

Borage

Bracket

Brynn

Cadmium

Calyx

Camden

Canary

Canter

Carson

Casey

Cherry

Clover

Colby

Copper

Coron

Cosmo

Cove

Crow

Cuperton

Cuprum

Curve

Dakota

Dalton

Daryl

Day

Deck

Ether

Ethereal

East

Easy

Ellery

Elm

Ember

Emerson

Everest

Extra

Faven

Fig

Finch

Fir

Flair

Flaire

Fur

Future

Garnet

Gibbous

Goby

Gray

Grey

Hale

Hark

Harper

Hart

Haven

Hayden

Hayes

Heart

Helium

Henley

Hickory

Hive

Honey

Hum

Hyperbola

Hypernova

Iggy

In

Indie

Indigo

Ink

Inkwell

Jae

Jay

Jey

Jules

Juniper

Jupiter

Justice

Kap

Kapree

Kay

Keelan

Kelp

Kendall

Kennedy

Kestrel

Kilo

Kris

Lair

Laire

Landish

Lane

Lapis

Lark

Lavender

Legion

Lennon

Lennox

Lev

Lex

Lime

Locust

London

Loop

Lore

Luck

Lumen

Luster

Lustre

Lutra

Lux

Lynx

Lyric

Maple

March

Mare

Marlow

Mars

Mass

Mauve

Mercury

Milli

Moo

Moon

Muni

Neptune

Neutrix

Nine

Noon

North

Nova

Oak

Oar

Onyx

Opal

Orange

Orion

Packett

Paralax

Parker

Parsec

Patton

Pearl

Peridot

Perihelion

Petri

Peyton

Phoenix

Pigeon

Pine

Plum

Plume

Pluto

Presley

Pulsar

Purple

Pyramid

Pyre

Pyro

Quark

Quasar

Quincy

Quinn

Quint

Raine

Ram

Ramsay

Rayn

Rayne

Reagan

Rebel

Reese

Remington

Remy

Rey

Radley

Ridley

Rigby

Riley

Rin

River

Roan

Rook

Root

Rowan

Rub

Ruby

Rune

Ryder

Sage

Salem

Sapphire

Saturn

September

Shiloh

Silver

Sky

Skye

Skylar

Skyler

Solar

Solaris

South

Sphere

Squid

Star

Sun

Tailor

Tar

Tare

Tayler

Taylor

Taylore

Teagan

Terabithia

Thyme

Time

Tobi

Tobie

Toby

Trapezoid

Tree

Tri

Triangle

Tuber

Tucket

Twinkle

Tyad

Tyr

Tyre

Umbra

Under

Uni

Ursa

Vale

Valor

Value

Vapor

Veil

Vine

Vio

Wane

Wax

West

Wick

Willow

Wothen

Wren

Wylie

X

Xap

Yam

Yarn

Yarrow

Yawn

Yellow

Yield

Yoshi

Zap

Zappi

Zappy

Zenith

Zev

Ziggy

Zylith

[cognitosclowns]

okay but you mentioned their eyes and now im curious about your take on that

GRABS YOU HOLDS YOU THIS IS GONNA BE THE MOST PURPLE PROSE I'LL EVER WRITE AND I DON'T EVEN CARE I LOVE EYES SO MUCH

SFW, JUST ME BEING GAY

REAGAN

HAZEL EYES <3 you can only really see the yellowish-green flecks if you're looking closely.

In september when all the trees are just turning over from green to brown? And there's that Orange-ish tint? YEA SHE HAS THAT LOOK. The kind of brown where it's nearly amber!! <3333

They look muted a lotta the time? just,, very very tired. Smb dropped the saturation by a few too many clicks.

WHEN SMTH GOES RIGHT??? GODD ITS LIKE FIREWORKS. LIKE A CAMPFIRE. Her brows shoot up and she bites her smile and,, her eyes get bright like a charge through copper wiring. nothing in the world compares to Reagan’s eyes when she’s in her element.

RAND

The kind of green that gets so bright it loops back to looking almost yellow?

Acidic. They’re always Too Focused in the more unnerving way. The only way he knows how to look is Leering and Glaring.

His eyebags are vv heavy + his brow is strong so it just,, accentuates the whole affair. Comparable to Cats eyes? Like a tiger about to bite your ass  off smdnsd.

The epitome of ‘If Looks Could Kill’

BRETT

EMERALD GREEN <3 looks like smb plucked two perfect gems outta the ground and shoved them in this Himbo’s head

It really is,, just pure optimism distilled. you can’t help but feel like things are gonna be okay when you look at those eyes!!!

VIBRANT. They just,, look bright no matter the lighting. His lashes are super long too!! In the winter the snow hangs off em, makes his eyes look like pine trees.

If eyes are the windows to the soul, then his are Bay Windows. He has the most expressive eyes. Every emotion is,, completely given away. 

GIGI

Deep deep deep brown. A vv warm color - almost mahogany in the right lighting? The first thing that comes to mind is like,, dark Brown-Red Granite.

They look completely black, except in Very Direct Lighting. If you catch her working late in her office,, her lamp reflects this red-brown ring right at the center <3

Sharp but not in an unkind way? Very focused - every movement is purposeful

IDK HOW TO DESCRIBE IT BUT,,, HER EYES SMILE?? Like just the slightest squint with her bottom lids, like she’s laughing at a joke you haven’t caught onto yet?

ANDRE

A colder brown than Gigi's but not in an unkind way? Just,, very cool-toned - almost gray-ish?

BIG. His brows are constantly,, Up. He’s looking he’s moving his glancing his brain is moving a mile a minute, taking in everything!! And he’s loving all of it!!

He’s very detailed oriented but,, not intentionally? He just happens to pick up on a lotta stuff

master of The Double Take

His eyes don't reveal anything new in changed lighting, but BOY OH BOY DO THEY SPARKLE. swirls of reflected light, little speckles, etc. The entire universe could exist in this mans eyes.

MYC

WELL THEN. DON'T YOU JUST CAUSE A PROBLEM, MYC.

JK IM GONNA TALK ABOUT HIS ORB <3

Its,, entrancing? It,, pulses gently at all times.

There’s this,, kinda crystalline sheen?? It looks like it’d be hard to the touch, but it’s actually very soft!!

The inner orb feels like it should be too bright to look at, but it isn’t?? Looking at it directly kinda makes your head buzz around. 

Somewhere in the back of your mind it feels almost,, Predatory? Like looking at the light coming off an Anglerfish? Smth very,, primal. A threat you can’t quite place.

GLENN

Blue, but a super dark blue? They feel so Solid - looking him in the eyes just,, makes you feel instantly safe. Doesn’t matter what the problem is, he can take care of it. This man was Built to be a dad jesus

You'd mistake it for brown most of the time bc they only get bright in the sun!!

AND BOY DO THEY LIGHTEN UP <3 you'll catch these flecks of green in them when he's outside!!

They Give Off Pond Vibes?? Like this nice deep blue w/ swirls of algae?? They rarely look soft, but when they do <33 that’s the feeling they give off.

ALPHA-BETA

THE ONLY BASTARD WHOS EYES WE GET TO SEE

His eyes are,, Uncannily blue. Like even for blue eyes, they're Too blue. The pupils are almost always Pinpoint too, so it's more than a little unnerving. At least he reminds himself to blink most of the time. If anything gives away the fact that he’s Not Human, it’s his eyes.

Like,, y'know those photos of cracks in icebergs, and right in the Depths of it there's this Vibrant Light Blue? Yea that. just looking at them makes you feel cold.

Sharp In The Unkind Way. Scrutinizing. He really does look through you. The way you’d look at an ant. doesn’t matter if you’re taller than him, it always feels like he’s looking down at you. 

JR

a deep,, honey-gold?? Kinda like amber. They have a magnetic quality - his eyes definitely give him a leg up.

They just,, feel so naturally trustworthy? Those eyes have helped seal more than a few deals.

When he’s confident? He constantly has this Look like he knows he’s the most important man in the room. He isn’t, but it gives him such peace of mind to Pretend Like He’s In Control. Half-lidded confidence he’s trained himself into having? Fake it till you make it babey!

When he’s scared they give Everything Away. Wide like the ‘O’ in Oh God, Im Fucked.

It’s like if he Sees More Of Whatever's Going Wrong He’s Gonna Somehow Be Able To Stop It? They bounce around the room Constantly when he’s nervous. Cannot stay still.

GGRRRR THIS WAS FUN <333 LMK IF Y’ALL HAD OTHER IDEAS FOR THIS.