#for my self indulgent gore enjoying bone enjoying self i almost want to make it an exaggerated version- like worse than it ends up irl

[waywardsalt]

beating back my own ambitions like look i have a hard enough time reigning in my own ideas dont be pulling this shit

[sparxwrites]

@manoessay​ replied to your post:

This post activated my brain harder than most so even though you arent gonna make a fanfic i will add, Dream testing how many times you can bring a person back on quackity once he gets out.

(i absolutely fully got possessed by this idea, and then wrote this self-indulgent and weirdly experimental fic feverishly at like 1am last night. this is... probably not what you were imagining, but it’s what fell out of my brain, so! enjoy? written to “innocence” by madeon.)

cw moderately graphic torture / gore, mental breakdown, mind games, temporary character death

[ao3]

-

“How many times have you died now, Quackity?”

The words flash hot through his skull, but don’t translate into meaning. Don’t translate into anything other than noise. The floor is cold beneath his palms. Russet-brown flakes up beneath his nails when he claws at it, chest heaving, lungs trying to remember how breathing works.

His first inhale gurgles, wetly, makes him jerk on his belly like a worm on a hook. His throat is raw from disuse, from screaming, from the sword that had sliced through his trachea like a knife through so much butter. When he tries to speak, the only thing that comes out is blood.

It goes like this, every time Dream drags him back from Limbo: his ears full of a high ringing, his lungs not working, his body numb. The link between flesh and brain is faulty, sparking wrong – like the battered neurons take a few precious minutes of life to rewire back together fully. It fixes itself a little less each time, the link; he’s permanently numb down most of his left side, now. The fingers on his right hand are going insensate in terrifying inches.

“How many times?”

Crooked mask, ragged voice, cracked porcelain smile. Dream looks better than Quackity feels, but not much – crouched low on a stone floor that’s caked in layer after layer of old blood, watching Quackity like a bug under a magnifying glass. His hair’s a greasy mess, his mask dirty-white and chipped, his clothes spattered with weeks of gore. With Quackity’s gore.

There’s blood dripping out from beneath the mask, though, fresh and hot. His hands shake. The knuckles clenched around the hilt of his sword are white, the skin beneath his fingernails faintly purple-blue.

The eyes behind the mask are just a little too green.

“Can you even hear me?” There’s a giddy slur to the edge of Dream’s words, the manic lilt of a man high off the same shit that’s melting his brain out through his nose. That feeling was familiar to Quackity, in another life. “Quackity. Hey, Quackity. Anyone in there?” He laughs, short and cruel and batshit crazy. His eyes are the colour of battery acid. “Have I finally broken you?”

There’s no response – because Quackity’s still trying to remember how his lungs work, remember what ribs are, remember how to do things that aren’t screaming and curling in on himself and rocking – and the amusement in his voice turns angry, sour. “I said tell me how many times, Quackity.”

Dream stands, unsteady, swaying as he does and leaning heavily on the sword for balance. His hands are still shaking. The blood’s stopped dripping, but there’s a sickly tinge to it, and when he wipes at his chin with the back of one hand it leaves a smear that’s more brown than red.

There’s a flicker of something, as his knuckles touch the half-inch of exposed face – dirty white light, bridging the gap between skin in a static-shock flash. There and then gone, blink-and-you’ll-miss-it.

The eyes behind the mask glow a little brighter. A little greener. A little less human.

The point of Dream’s sword sinks into Quackity’s shoulder, splits open an old scar. Quackity’s covered in them, now, more scar than skin. More ruined than not. He spasms, chokes, bleeds wet and red and fresh over the dried blood that carpets the floor. The noise he makes is animal, leg-in-a-bear-trap high and thin and dying. Barely alive five minutes, and he’s bleeding out again already. It’s almost funny.

Dream laughs, and leans on the pommel of the sword. It pushes in another inch.

“Month!” manages Quackity, forcing the word out through the wetness in his lungs, through the broken-bone grind of his throat. If he weren’t so many shattered parts, pasted back together by unholy power and Dream’s capricious whims, it might have been a howl. As it is, he barely has the energy to sob, the words raw and hoarse and threadbare. “A month, a month– thirty– haha, thirty-six days in, in, in Limbo, fuck, please, please–”

There’s wet on his cheeks. Tears? Blood? Worse? He can’t tell any more. He can’t even feel the left side of his face.

He grabs for Dream’s boots, presses his forehead against them, gasps for air that doesn’t seem to bring any relief from the cold ache in his lungs. One of his hands finds an ankle, a strip of bare skin between shoe and pant leg. Dream’s skin is fever-hot, sickly, bottled lightning gone past its sell-by date.

The shock of the contact knocks him silent for a second, though. They won’t touch him, in Limbo, the ghosts – or can’t, or both, can’t and won’t. Because they’re bastards, because they hate him, because he isn’t one of them. They can’t-won’t touch him, can’t see him, won’t see him, won’t speak to him– and he’s left, alone, in a room full of the faded impressions of people he once knew, once loved, once was loved by. A room full of people who do not see him, and do not touch him, and do not hear him when he talks.

(When he screams, when he swears at them, when he tries to claw their eyes out with unsteady hands that don’t make contact– when he begs, when he pleads, when he wheedles and bribes and bargains to deaf ears– when he wraps arms around himself, when he rocks himself back and forth until the blood rushes in his ears, when he whispers to himself until his voice fades to nothing, and tries to pretend it is the same thing as being loved and held and comforted–)

“Please, don’t– hahah, don’t kill me, fuck– please, look, look, hurt me, please, hurt me– anything, anything, I don’t–” He doesn’t have the breath for this. Doesn’t have the energy. Doesn’t even really have the words any more, after screaming for thirty-six fucking days straight, after talking to himself for so long his vocal cords wore out and left him mouthing silence in a desperate attempt to keep himself company. “Don’t, don’t send me– not, don’t send me back, please, fuck, anything, ha, haha, don’t, don’t–”

“I said I’d make you beg for death,” says Dream, amused, bored, manic. “Not torture. Not that I’m complaining. It’s just kind of funny. Don’t you think? I think it’s funny.”

He pushes the sword in, another inch. Quackity sobs, desperate and pathetic, and feels no shame for it. Presses his face to Dream’s boot, clings to his ankle like a lifeline, and feels no shame for it. Shame was beaten out of him, bled out of him, several lifetimes ago. “But that’s not what I asked, though. How many times have you died now, Quackity?”

The sword in his shoulder twists, and Quackity screams. Something severs with a pop, and then another, and then another, until the joint is little more than a hot ball of pain and wet meat, grated bone. Until he can no longer scream, gasping desperately through the pain, weeping like a child. Another twist, and something else severs, something vital, a second’s resistance before a give and a spray of warm blood.

He bleeds out between one sob and the next, tumbling into darkness, the golden net of the respawn reaching up to catch him as he falls.

He wakes up three feet away, sprawled out on the filthy bed that occupies one corner of his cell, still sobbing. The respawn clings to him like a second skin, like weights around his ankles, frightening and familiar all at once. It fades slowly, reluctantly; slower each time he dies, he thinks. Like it’s getting used to holding him. Like it doesn’t want to let him go.

It’s only barely gone by the time Dream crosses the space between them, two short steps, no time for him to flinch, no time for him to hide–

Dream grabs him by the wrist, wrenches his body up from the bed, and slots the sword neatly through the front of his throat. The broad, well-used scar carved across it parts for the blade like an old friend, swallows it whole – and Quackity dies for the second time in as many minutes, choking on his own blood.

The respawn catches him. Drags him down into darkness. Drags him back up to the surface of reality, deposits him back onto a bed now sodden with crimson. He’s shaking. He should be used to it, but he’s shaking so hard his teeth clack together, so hard he’s not sure it will ever stop.

Dream drags him off the bed, back onto the floor. Back onto the filth, the layers and layers of dried gore, a carpet constructed from every time he’s been slaughtered like an animal in this tiny, lightless cell.

“Dream,” he begs, quietly. “Dream, Dream–”

Even to his ears, it sounds more like a prayer than a plea.

“It’s a simple question, Quackity. How many times have you died now? Properly died. How many times have I brought you back? I just want a number. Just a number.” The mask obscures Dream’s mouth, but his grin is audible. His eyes are so bright, they hurt to look at. “How many times have I proven to you that I’m a god?”

Quackity tries to curl in on himself, but Dream is in the way, one boot by his shoulder and the other pinning his wrist to the floor beneath its toe. He’s not surprised. Dream is everywhere, always, omnipresent. His free hand seeks out Dream’s ankle onces more, curls around that curdled-lightning skin, desperate and needy. It grounds him, touching the only real person in his whole entire world, and he hates himself for it.

“…T- ten?” he tries, and knows as he says it that it’s wrong. The panic rises like the respawn, choking him. He can’t breathe. “Ten, ten times– maybe eleven– fuck, fuck, Dream, please–”

The sword-tip finds his back, finds the space between his fourth and fifth rib. Finds the ropy scar there, beneath the rags, soft from re-use – like a zipper, easy to pry open right down to his weak, wet heart.

“Good guess,” says Dream, quietly. “Closer than before. But still not right. You need a little longer to think about it, I guess. But– hey, you know what? I’ll be nice, and give you a hint.” He pauses, and Quackity’s world stands still. “You’re guessing too low.”

He pushes the sword down. It slips between Quackity’s ribs like an old lover, lodges in the crusted filth and stone below, pins him still against the floor. His heart beats once, twice, a butterfly-flutter around the diamond skewered through it. His body convulses. He falls still.

The blood from his mouth dyes the toes of Dream’s boots crimson, as the light leaves his eyes.

He wakes in Limbo, on his knees, in a room full of people – full of impressions of people, like the ghosts of a faded photograph. He sees them all there, their backs to him, as they move amongst one another, as they talk amongst one another. Tubbo, and Schlatt, and Fundy, and Wilbur, and–

Sapnap, who looks right through him. Karl, whose eyes skate over him. They hold each other’s hands. The rings on their fourth fingers gleam weakly in the strange, nebulous light of the afterlife. They do not hear him when he says their names, ragged and desperate, like a plea. Like a prayer.

And then they, too, turn their back on him. And Quackity – still raw, still bloody, still skewered open right through his butterfly heart – screams and screams and screams.

[thekrazykeke]

See You Again [2]

Fandom(s): Tokyo Ghoul

Relationship(s): Uta & reader.

Summary: in the sound of silence, we found sanctuary. in every word unspoken, love.

Warning(s): Angst, unspoken feelings. Pre-canon events but also very ambiguous timeline-wise. Disturbing mental imagery. Canon typical gore.

This little series was never meant to have a happy ending, so no screaming at me. I’ll accept your appreciation for my love of angst in reblogs, likes, comments or tears. 

Seriously though, in all honesty, I hurt myself as I wrote this. 

I dunno, I might indulge that impulsive urge of mine and write a one shot where they actually get together. Most likely not though, so no one hold their breath ahahaha.

[i.]

~

A smart person would never have returned to the little out of the way mask shop in the 4th Ward. You’d have chalked up the experience as weird and as common sense dictated, forgotten all about it. 

That is the safer route, the sane option.

So of course, you decided to be stupid. You kept coming back to the shop, although you were careful with how you planned your visits, spacing them out in between sight seeing and being a general tourist. 

The added bonus of your frequent visits being that although Uta’s face didn’t really change much expression-wise, you got the feeling that he was always a little surprised to see you.

“Do you really like it here that much?” 

Pulling the oni mask away from your face, you glanced at Uta who stood a good distance away from you, hand in pocket, hip cocked against the edge of the counter. “What’s that now?”

“I said, ‘do you really like it here that much?’” Uta repeated himself, red on black eyes intently trained on your face. “This is the second time this week you’ve come by without buying anything.”

“Oof.” You exaggeratedly clutched at your chest. “That hurt, Uta-san. With how frequently I come by here, one would think you’d treat me as more than a customer. We’re friends now.”

“We’re not.”

The words are stated so bluntly and again, you clutch at your chest, miming being struck by an arrow. Uta didn’t respond to your joking around and playing, just stared at you. So, you cut the crap, reaching into your back pocket with a mock pout. “How much for this mask? I think it suits me.”

“10504.50 yen.” At the sight of your suddenly wide eyes and dropped jaw, Uta’s blank expression cracked, he smiled slightly and just for a split second. “Also, the mask doesn’t suit you.”

You turned your back to him, carefully returning the oni mask to the display it’d been set up on. The next second you turned around, you nearly jumped out of your skin at how close Uta is now. “Hey now! Shit, you need a bell or something.”

“It’s not my fault you don’t pay attention.” 

You can’t even pull off your comedic routine and drop your head in an ‘ashamed’ manner because you’d probably most likely hit your head against his chest, he’s standing that close. Before you could ask him to either back up and inquire what was his reason for being in your personal space, a tattooed finger reached out, lightly touching your chin, encouraging you to look up, so that’s what you did.

“...I can create a mask for you. Something that suits you.” He’s now adjusting your face, the faintest touch causing you to move this way and that. 

“Aww! That’s nice of you, Uta-sa-”

“The base color would be silver, perhaps. And the eyes would sewn shut, the better to hide your grief and... the anger.” He’s musing aloud, words quiet and almost a whisper, but you heard him. Part of you think it’s deliberate, that he’s making fun of you, mocking you.

And it worked. 

You reached a hand up, setting it upon his wrist. Uta blinked, staring down at your hand, then his unique gaze switched to you, and he.... for a lack of better words, it’s like he snapped out of that artist’s mode. He dropped his hand and took one step out of your personal bubble then another and another before whirling around and started walking away. 

He lifted a hand in farewell, waving it about in a sort of shooing manner.

“Come back again in two to three weeks.”

That should have been the end of you and his interactions. 

Regardless of how intriguing he is, he’d pressed on one of your triggers, maybe even on purpose, and you already had too short of a life to put up with the bullshit. Then again, maybe it was for that reason entirely that you decided that you were gonna keep seeing him, even after he finished the mask, to annoy him to death of course.

Until he told you upfront to go away, you wouldn’t. That’s what you decided.

And with that resolution settled in your head, you could go about your business. You enjoyed the sights, the food, and although your judgement said it’d be a bad idea, you had a couple of one night stands. The first is a lawyer that you’re like pretty sure has kids and a wife, and the other is a stressed college kid. 

The experience left you unsatisfied and irritated. 

Since your last encounter with Uta had been...awkward and strained, you decided to bring a peace offering. Cream puffs for yourself with green tea and a cup of black coffee for him. You’d picked up on the fact that he liked the beverage without sugar and cream like the total heathen he is. You idly wondered if he even enjoyed sweet things or maybe he was one of those weird folks who liked sour and spicy stuff all the time.

The fact that you’re even thinking about this and it didn’t sink in as odd or out of place until the moment you crossed the threshold of HYSY Studios, taking note of the fact that the place is as gloomy and empty of customers as always. 

“’Ey! Uta, where you at!?” 

There’s a vibration against your leg. You juggle the items in your hold carefully before tugging out your cellphone and entering the passcode to unlock the phone. The most recent text message you’d received from Uta about four minutes ago informed you of the fact that he’s in the back of the studio, like the very, very back, where all the unused and returned masks were. Now the only reason you knew all this information is because of how often you pestered Uta about it. 

You’re at an impasse. 

You could do as he asked and bring your treat to him while you were at it or you could wait and avoid the potential jump scare that Uta was totally capable of inflicting upon you. 

‘To go or not to go, that is the question.’ 

Everything pointed to the clear conclusion that no, you absolutely should not go back there. Every horror movie cliché ended with the female protagonist being killed or gravely injured because she was so stupid as to go in the dark, alone, by herself. 

‘Uta isn’t a killer though.’ That’s what you tried to tell yourself, the argument weak and pitiful in your brain. 

You did not know this man well enough to be in the back where it wouldn’t be easy access to the front door, where you couldn’t bolt if he did something strange. However, you did own a mini taser and always carried mace, just as a precaution, so... 

So....

Slowly, reluctantly, you did as he instructed, every warning and life training you’d received up to this point in your life sending out red neon signs telling you to wait, not be an idiot, to please please stay where you are. And you ignored all those survival instincts, heading deeper into the studio, your footfalls loud and eerie the further in you went. 

Until you find him. 

He’s apparently unfazed by your belated presence, focus wholly consumed with his work. Red on black eyes glanced at you for but a moment and what you carried and then at the coffee. “There’s a mini fridge, leave everything there, except the coffee. I’m almost done.” 

Having some mild experience with artists and creative sorts, you avoid looking at the mask he’s working on, instead setting down the coffee in an empty space he vaguely gestured to. 

Then you walk the short distance to where the only mini fridge in the room is, reaching out, you pull it open. And it’s the scent that alerts you; the fresh tang of blood. It’s too late to stop yourself and you see it, everything. The jar of eyeballs, the carefully wrapped packages of ‘meat’. 

‘I’m in a back room with the potential copycat Jeffery Dahmer or...or....’ 

You’re not an idiot, all these little things you’d casually dismissed because you hadn’t cared enough to pay attention, to see... And now here you are. Here you are. 

Fuck.

Swallowing, you calm and dampen the inner voice sCREAMING, then casually as possible, grip wobbling only slightly, do you put your treat inside the mini fridge right alongside the human body parts and flesh, then close the door, turning around. 

Uta is still hard at work on the mask but his movements are slowing down.

As if nothing is amiss, you stride over just as he finally pauses to take a sip of coffee. “This is one of the ways that you make masks. Really. That’s interesting…” And you meant it too. Legs crossed, you leaned against the table, watching the mask maker in his element.

He smiles at you in that enigmatic way. “Thank you.” 

The visit continues without much else in the way of incidents and subtly unsubtle revelations. 

You don’t really talk and Uta doesn’t make you. 

Less than twenty minutes later, once he deems the mask complete, he stands up and stretches, arms raising overhead, revealing an expanse of creamy, pale, lean and muscled torso. 

Glancing away a beat too late, you catch Uta as he smiles, again, the smile lengthens into a smirk. He reaches out and plucks up the half mask delicately, taking a step towards you and your heart traitorously lurches in your chest. 

Self-preservation makes you want to run as he comes closer, closer, closer...

Logic keeps you rooted in place as he carefully puts the mask on you. Tattooed fingers brush the strands of hair away from the nape of your neck, lingering as he feels the flutter of your pulse beneath his fingertips. 

“Your heart is racing like a hummingbird.” he muses. You stare out at him from beneath the safety of the mask, the bone surprisingly not pinching or cutting your skin. “And here I thought nothing could scare you.”

“Unfortunately fear makes up the majority of the human psyche.” You can’t help the quip, tone dry. “But you’re my friend, so it’s fine.” 

That last comment causes Uta to blink and stare at you in blatant surprise for a minute or two. Then he pulls himself together and shakes his head, a chuckle rumbling through his chest. “...I suppose we are friends.”

“Cool. So how much for the mask?” You reach up, about to remove it but Uta swatted at your hands, the action hard enough to sting but not leave damage. You still squawk indignantly anyway.

“It’s free. Creating it got me out of my block, so thank you.” Bringing out a cellphone, he takes a couple pictures with you, making you turn, pose, and pretty much just show off. 

Once he’s done, he snags your tea and cream puffs out the fridge, then walks you to the front of the studio, giving a small wave goodbye. Brain swimming with what you just learned, amazed that he hadn’t just killed you straight off, you glance at the chilled green tea in your hand then after mentally shrugging to yourself, you take a sip and shove a cream puff in your mouth. 

Hell, after the day you’ve had, you deserve to be rewarded.

Time passes, as it inevitably does. 

You receive more calls from Kiani, from other friends and family members, but you are resolute in staying in Japan. 

Much to your surprise, you’d actually gotten comfortable being there. Though that might have had something to do with Uta, who you continue to visit, and if he’s surprised or put out, none of that shows on his face. It’s fun to drag him places, to be around him, and you can laugh at his jokes, even the deadpan, making-fun-of-humanity ones. 

He even lets you meet his other ghoul friends, Itori and Renji. 

Through it all, these changes and fun things, your health slowly, steadily, gets worse even as you and Uta get closer, muddling about in a rather confusing grey area of friends...and more...

As always, the two of you are hanging out, this time you’d dragged him to an amusement park, and he held onto some of the prizes you won, gamely snapped a couple photos of you in ridiculous poses and making silly faces, etc. 

It felt like a date.

Like, you’re returning from a date.

When that thought ran through your brain, you automatically looked at Uta, catching sight of his profile in the light of the setting sun and your heart clenched as you realized that he’s beautiful. 

It’s with difficulty that you manage to look away but not before he catches you staring from the corner of his eye. “You’re always looking at me… Yet, you never try and get closer…” Uta’s hands are in his pockets and he is barely a foot away. “Does fear keep you at a distance…” He took a step forward. 

Coming almost uncomfortably close. 

“Or is there another….” 

Without conscious thought, you tilt your head up and your lips meet his. 

The contact is light, barely a graze, and there’s the cool sensation of his lip ring...it’s odd but hardly distracting. Your heart is beating like a jack rabbit in your chest and you know this isn’t good for you.

 As you go to pull away, to disconnect, that’s when Uta finally, finally, responds.

He places a hand on the back of your neck, keeping you close before tilting his head, leaned in and kissed you again. 

There’s nothing teasing or patient about it. He nipped your bottom lip, barely waiting for you to part your lips before his tongue twined and stroked, expertly playing with your own, and you felt a zing of excitement travel down you spine as your tongue lightly grazed his tongue ring. 

Your right hand goes to his shoulder, squeezing, holding on desperately as your legs threaten to give out. 

Effortlessly, Uta holds you up, his other hand going to the dip of your back, and when you break the kiss to get some air into your burning lungs, Uta peppers feather light kisses down the column of your throat, sucking a spot just behind your ear. Only when you gasp his name, a mere whisper of a breath really, only then, does he finally stop.

Uta tops that....bombardment off with a light kiss to your forehead, lingering. Then he murmurs into your ear, “That’s how you kiss me from now on.” 

With his piece said, as if he hadn’t pretty much swept you off your feet and left you stuck in LaLa Land, Uta brushed a hand down his shirt, straightening out imaginary wrinkles, before he walked away. It took a few seconds for your brain to reboot and then you hurried after him, chastising him for being mean.

There are a hundred different words that lingered on the edge and never escape your mouth. A thousand questions you never got the answer to. 

There are no more kisses between you and Uta. 

You pass away in your sleep that night December 31, 2XXX at 11:59 P.M. alone in your rented hotel room, dreaming of an impossible reality; of happiness between yourself and the ghoul who for a brief moment, made you feel important, seen, and desired. 

Almost as if he could love you.

[entomancy]

(Fic) One thing we can agree on

Title: One thing we can agree on (Wattpad)

Setting: The vampire nonsense / Vegas Masquerade

Warnings: Gore.  I am having fun with my crayons.

Words: 1401

Summary: Flashback into the 'Moonlight Flush' part of the timeline. Which is the framing of the events of ~twenty years ago in the Vegas Masq. setting (which set up the current ‘rules’) as an urban fantasy police procedural; where Joplin would have been the secondary main / intro to the supernatural world and Belton the Season One antagonist who ended up Sort Of Befriended(ish).

This would have been in approx. Season Three, when bits from Joplin's past come back to bite him (er, again, I guess), and involves the first time he'd actually had to team up with Belton against a larger problem.

The larger problem being: more werebears, but asshole ones.

Indulgent, but I enjoy Belton being a dramatic irritation, and ~27yr old Joplin's permanent state of exasperation. And I wanted to explore an important (?) difference in the way the vampires and were(s) of this setting work.

(Also neither tumblr nor Wattpad has any sensible way to use footnotes, so there's one just... there, in the middle. Like this is FFN cira 2003 or something.)

---

The real difference between vampires and werewolves is how they bleed.

Clearly it isn't the only difference.  There are the big, obvious - hairy - ones; and you could spend lifetimes comparing technicalities of characteristic amongst the supernatural set, searching for links or diversions or even a root cause. How magic plays in.  How inheritances work, or the fundamental incompatibility of cross-siring.  How sunlight, direct or orbitally reflected, could possibly trigger the different effects that it does.

But for Denis Joplin, as he'd scrambled to make sense of the extraordinary left turn his last decade had careened into, somehow the thing that really seemed to underline it all was the way they bled.  Maybe because he'd always had such a damn knack for getting into situations that showcased it.

That last round of gunfire had really screwed up his right arm.  He'd wedged himself in place against the thick struts of a heavy-duty shipping container - splattered almost as much now with crimson as it was with spraypainted Cyrillic – and tried to breathe quietly.  The enormous bastard wielding a goddamn helicopter canon had fucked off to yell 'roided nonsense into a different part of the warehouse, so they probably had a few minutes pause before he realised his targets had dodged.

Not dodged as well as Joplin'd have liked, but there y'go.  You worked with what you got.

Most of the bullets had gone straight through – since he wasn't an armour-plated van – but he could feel a few wedged points of pain even within the jellied miasma of broken flesh that hung unpleasantly from his torn shirt.

"Jesustapdancing­-" he bit down on the mismatched curse as he grabbed his messed-up limb with his other hand and twisted, pushing it up against himself and the steel wall behind, and tried not to go blind.

It squelched.

"Don't like that," he muttered, then glanced up at the wet snort of amusement from just down the container row. "Hey, he nailed you to the fuckin' wall about as well as I've seen; don't get lippy."

Not that his extremely temporary partner was in much shape to be more actively sarcastic.  The brunt of the recent salvo had hit taken Belton pointy-ear to hip, ripping the big grey fuck open like a side character in chainsaw splatter, which – somehow – made the look of dazed amusement on the bits of his face that weren't hanging off even more aggravating than usual.  He shifted position, bringing his torn-up arms out in front of him as if holding something narrow and invisible in both hands, and –

Joplin blinked.

Pull... yourself...

"Oh fuck off," he growled – and it was a growl, a sound that started deeper than his chest actually went and brought the pull along with it; a bestial reverb that went beneath his bones.  Joplin gritted his teeth – which felt about ready to start moving in his jaw as it was, aching with something beyond nerves – and had another unpleasant feel around where his elbow used to be.  It helped if everything was in the right place.  Last thing he needed right now was having to rebreak a limb because he'd managed to shift over all wonky.

That'd have to do.  Very pointedly not making eye contact with Belton as he did so, Joplin Changed.

There have been a lot of renditions of a lycanthropic* transformations over the years, and there have even been some that have come close to the actual reality of seeing it happen. The exact visuals tend to vary person to person, but however it looks, the world bends – just a little, at the seams – as something that was only ever the thickness of breath away steps forward.  Joplin always thought it felt like stretching should do – an all-over, unfurling release of physicality, like every fibre of you stopped hunching its shoulders all at once.

________________________________________________________________

* There's an argument that 'ursanthropic' might be a more technically correct term when the reader is considering Denis Joplin himself – or even the bellowing figure currently firing 30mm rounds into what will turn out to be a container of tinned garlic pallets – but the linguistic side of paraphylogeny isn't a popular field.  'Actually, it's wereBEAR' is only a helpful correction under certain circumstances, and this isn't one of them.**

** Yet. ________________________________________________________________

The arm took a bit more effort.  A transformation that added several feet in height, width, and summed-up hair length didn't exactly have a problem fixing a half-mulched limb, but there was clearly an additional process going on.  He wondered how people had explained what it looked like before timelapse film had been developed.

It... healed.   Torn vessels sealed over; bone shards scraped and swelled together within muscles that bulged crimson-purple as they knitted close.  Tissue bloomed, bruise-blossom hues racing through tattered skin and dragging raw pallor behind them; black-bloody tears welled up pink and grey and pink again, threaded with ribbons of tendon herded into place by a lightning flash of sudden scars, gone as fast as they appeared.  Then the fur broke surface like desert flowering, and a heartbeat later there was nothing to show for the damage that a slight extra paleness in the iron-grey pelt, as Joplin flexed his bulked-out fingers carefully.

Belton clapped.  Just once, with a softness that hands tipped with inch-long claws shouldn't be able to achieve, and it was the most sarcastic fucking sound Joplin had ever heard.  He bared his considerable teeth in a silent snarl and waved his own padded hands towards the old bat.

Hurry.  Up.

Belton's black eyes crinkled at the edges, and then he pulled himself back together.

The real difference between vampires and werewolves is how they bleed.

Belton's blood was dark, with a strangeness to its consistency that would have baffled splatter analysts on a fundamental level, but it also didn't tend to stay where it landed.  None of him did.  Metal gleamed naked against the pitted concrete as pools of inky crimson pulled away from the bullets that had torn them loose, flowing back along their own path like a retreating tide - rivulets of reversing gore that snaked and whipped back up their origin form, trailing back into ruptures that folded seamlessly shut around them.  Belton stood up, even as his chest cavity was still closing, and gently pushed his hanging jaw back into place, smoothed like fresh clay.

Vampires don't heal – you see – so much as 'rewind'.

He held Joplin's gaze, half a heartbeat longer than he needed to, and grinned.

There was a spotless bullet held between his rows of teeth.

"Oh, fuck off," Joplin repeated – before he was drowned out by a guttural roaring, and the sound of a minigun barrel being smashed through something unfortune enough to be inside its turning circle.

"Little pigs, little pigs!  I hear you!"

Both men visibly winced.

"See, someone with that little self-awareness just shouldn't be this much of a problem," Belton muttered, flicking the bullet aside like a cigarette butt. "It's genuinely a bit embarrassing."

"Yeah, well," Joplin whispered back, as he scanned the roof, taking in the environment with an eye to traversal options he hadn't had five minutes ago. "I won't tell if you don't."

Another roar burst the air, and Belton started edging down the row again, clearly doing his own version of the calculations.

"Pity he doesn't take after your side of the family, really."

"This isn't a family situation," Joplin snapped back, readying himself to move when the oncoming footsteps got a bit closer.  If he could get around, then maybe he could deke out the...

He glanced back, about to signal a go, and realised the old vampire was still looking at him, one of those impossible-to-read expressions on his weird bat face for a second, before he spoke softly.

"See, that's the thing with monsters.  It's always going to come back to blood, one way or another."

A shiver danced down Joplin's extended spine, strong enough to stir the fur.  That was a bit close for comfort – and from sodding Belton?  He shrugged dismissively, only partly to himself.

"Yeah, well, this ain't gonna be the worst it gets.  Try not t'get cut in half again."

Then the shipping container exploded in a nightmare of burning metal.  Belton went right; Joplin went up; and everything else went on from there.

----

[olga-eulalia]

You know what? I can post terrible self-indulgent fic if I want to, so here’s a Sleeping Beauty AU, featuring Silver and Flint. ~3500 words. R just to be on the safe side. Some non-con. Unbeta’d. Non-native speaker writing here.

Chapter 1

Once upon a time, when it was late winter and John Silver had been travelling across the land for many months, he came into a forest that was dark and strangely quiet, and he thought he’d lost the path when suddenly, just before nightfall, a hollow-way appeared in the gloom that brought him safely to the entrance of an inn.

The room was dimly lit, the ceiling low, and smoke came curling out when he entered. For a moment, all faces were turned towards him, squinting. But since Silver was not altogether unpleasant to look at and had the gift of a charming smile he found himself accepted rather warmly for a mere stranger passing through.

Over the years he had learned a couple of valuable things: That news, embellished, were quick to draw a crowd. That people in general enjoyed the company of a man who held their opinions in high esteem. That a ripping yarn was as good as any currency in that even the most standoffish were afflicted with an unusual bout of generosity once the teller’s tongue started to feel a bit parched. And all these, and more, came in very handy that night.

*

Now it was true even then that every place, no matter how remote, had its own stories, some of which people liked to talk about gleefully and often. While others, they only mentioned under their breath or kept secret altogether for fear of catching their oddness. And as knowing which was which was nigh impossible in advance, one had to excuse Silver. It was nothing but his natural curiosity that made him ask about the manor in the distance, whose it was, and he couldn’t have known that it would bring conversation throughout the room to a halt.

"The Devil's," a woodcutter muttered into his jug of ale.

The blacksmith, no less brawny in stature, set down his mug and corrected him.

Then, bit by bit, more people felt confident enough to chime in. Indeed, a rather fierce competition arose as to whose sources were the most reliable, whose account the most accurate. The innkeeper's face was impartiality itself as she pulled another frothy pint.

From what Silver was able to gather the building had been abandoned for more than two generations and folk in these parts believed that it was frequented by a most godless crowd: Ogres, ghosts, witches and suchlike. It was somewhat difficult to pin down the particulars of the tale since it morphed as it went from teller to teller, but in one aspect they all agreed: Don’t go near. The message was so uniform that one could almost believe everyone either in on a joke or cleverly hiding something from an outsider.

Silver, intrigued, had just made the decision to discover for himself whether the place held anything of value that could make his detour yet worthwhile when a shadow by the fire spoke up.

Hogwash! A tall, old man shifted his lined face into the light. In his days, everyone knew that the manor had been bewitched and that the only way to release its residents from the spell was to bestow one kiss on the beautiful princess trapped inside.

The old man frowned at the amusement rippling through his audience. He continued: Some of his friends had tried it in their youthful folly. Thought they could best the brambles that encased the stone walls as securely as an iron casket, but none of them were ever seen to make it through. Or return.

"Witchcraft." The woodcutter nodded.

The talk then shifted to discuss other possible doings of the Devil and whether the local magistrate was in cahoots with him, and Silver, feigning bodily discomfort, moved across the room to occupy a cosy seat by the fire as well.

"I'd very much like to see this manor house for myself," he said. Perhaps the tale and her teller's name would find their way into the book he was writing, he offered as incentive, hoping that, at the end of the day, an interested listener would make up for an empty promise. "You wouldn't happen to remember the shortest way?"

The old man studied the frayed edges of Silver's second-hand coat and his peg leg with great care, but Silver’s face yet more carefully still. From the corner of his mouth, where a missing tooth allowed him to comfortably fit the amber stem of his pipe, he admitted, “I do.”

Chapter 2

A glittering layer of ice outlined branch and fallen leaf. Overnight, the ground had frozen over and Silver’s breath fogged the air as he walked the perimeter. His snares were empty, winter mushrooms sparse. With the supplies in his bag dwindling, a longer stay would be ill-advised, and it pained him to think that he'd have to seek his good fortune elsewhere while the turreted manor sat like a most precious egg pristine in its spiky nest. His gaze roamed all that unspoiled glass and iron he'd be able to sell if only he could find a way to get his hands on it.

At one point, the house must have lorded over a large swath of land. The tree-lined road, whose faint remnants had guided him on his way, stretched for about two miles up north and the overgrown front gate was wide enough to fit six horses side by side. In an abandoned farmstead close by, under a roof that sat worryingly askew, Silver had made camp. And though he had a good view of the premises, there was nothing out of the ordinary to report on. Except for one very obvious thing:

The unusually large thornhedge that wrapped the manor in a tight embrace, covering it all the way round and almost all the way up the highest tower. Even the forest kept its distance from such an unruly, greedy growth that had swallowed up ladder, plank and axe in its past and more recently Silver’s handsaw.

He spotted the tool and began to tug at it with all his strength, hoping to pry it from the clutches of the hedge this time. The sun's rays were slanting in just so that he could make out something stuck further inside the thicket. A piece of clothing perhaps. Or perhaps it was...

"Good morning!" An old woman, snugly wrapped up in shawls, had come out of the woods and startled him.

"Good morning," he scrambled up his last ounce of cheer. Seeing that she was dragging a bundle of brushwood along on a makeshift sledge, he then offered his help, though, truth be told, he deemed his own work far more important and had no real intention of abandoning it.

She mustered him with a critical eye and declined. “You seem very busy.”

As it turned out, she was much more interested in what he was doing anyway, lingering by his side and quizzing him about his intentions.

Those were nothing but chivalrous, he assured her. Curse-breaking was his business. Drawn by the warm sparkle in her eyes, he leaned in and said, "I heard," and then recounted the old man's tale.

"Oh, nonsense!" She poked the hard ground with her walking stick. "When I was young, everyone knew that it was no princess trapped inside this bloody hedge, but a handsome prince." The edges of her smile gleamed with gold. "You let me know if you need any help in waking him from his slumber."

Despite the chill, Silver flushed terribly, seeing himself bent over a downy pillow, lips skimming across a prickly cheek, and gave a chuckle that only drew more attention to his self-conscious state.

Perceptive and kind, the old woman changed the subject, entertaining him with anecdotes of bygone days for a while, bringing to life the bustle of the estate with such clarity in his mind’s eye that he was almost tricked into mourning its loss.

“Snow's coming. Can always trust my bones to be right about that,” she eventually said and then pulled a wrinkled apple and a handful of raisins from her coat pockets -- a sweet haul which she handed to Silver in its entirety, patting his cheek. “Good luck, dear.”

*

Long after she had disappeared back into the forest, Silver was still sitting on an empty plinth with a raisin tucked between his back teeth. When was the last time someone had shown him such kindness? Gifted him food without expecting anything in return? Called him dear without disdain? He should've been more honest about wanting to help her. He should've been more honest in wanting to immortalize the old man's name in a book, too. But instead, he had chosen this. This unrewarding task. This confounded thing.

His next attempt at freeing the saw was rather ungentle. And the more he chided it for its stubbornness, the more the hedge creaked and fought against his efforts. With thorns like talons, it rewarded his impatience by goring him to the bone.

Chapter 3

In the wan morning light, slowly among the branches, snowflakes descended. The forest lay quiet and still as if it had taken a deep breath and slipped under a white cover where it now waited for the sun's return.

While Silver’s sore hands were preparing his belongings for the journey ahead, carefully cording up his burlap bag, his thoughts were far away already, imagining a warm spot, a mouth-watering meal in the next town. He was about to turn his back on the manor, erase this disappointment from memory to the best of his ability when it pierced him: Red.

Red, almost purple, amidst the fresh snow and ashen wood, a delicate bud poked its head out from an array of tender green where yesterday none had been visible, so vibrant and soaked with colour that paint might drip from it at any moment. Behind it, within reach, another blossom coiled. And then another. Dazzled, Silver quite forgot all caution and stepped closer to touch them with his fingertips. They were real, all of them. And a little further on, closer by the wall, where warmth huddled by the stones, one had unfurled its petals like a joyful welcome.

There he saw that he had come a long way already and that the forest was barely visible from this far inside the hedge. Slender rods arched above him like a protective bower, criss-crossing densely. If the old tale had been true and those been possessed of malicious intent, escape would have been quite impossible at this point.

So when the man-high wooden door at the end of the path yielded and allowed him in, Silver grinned: People like him never got stuck in fairytales.

Chapter 4

It was as quiet as the whispering snowfall outside. But a peal of laughter might ring out any moment. A door fall into its lock. A serving-maid pass by, carrying a stack of freshly folded linen. Sumptuous carpets muffled Silver’s steps as he walked the long, branching hallways of the manor, a flickering five-armed candelabra in hand that illuminated a wealth of riches difficult to wrap one’s mind around. Marble, golden ornaments, exquisite furnishings -- only the finest, most expensive materials had been good enough for the owner, whom Silver had started to think of very dearly.

Coming into the great hall by way of the kitchen, he had tried his way through the pickled goods in the pantry till his stomach was stuffed full so that his gait was unhurried now and slow while the bag in his tow grew heavier fast.  

Wherever he went, whether rounding a corner or climbing a stairway, eyes followed him, recognizing him as someone who did not belong and looking on his presence with according disdain. At times bewigged and befrilled, at times presented on black silk and ermine, a hundred unhappy faces judged his actions as he explored room after room. It filled him with an odd sense of satisfaction to see that a couple of these portraits had been knocked down and vandalised, their faces ripped out.

Following those, he discovered that someone had beat him to the library. Books had been pulled out, drawers upturned, the floor strewn with loose papers. Ransacked it appeared in stark contrast to the rest of the house which remained undisturbed in its stately splendour.

Like a box full of choice jewels, the lady's bedroom opened up to him, the surfaces sheened with mother-of-pearl gloss in the pale light. A satin evening gown had been laid out. Matching jewellery. Items that Silver thought to leave untouched, stepping past them into the adjoining chamber where he found half the curtains drawn.

In the dusk, which made it difficult to tell shadow from shape, Silver at first believed that an armful of clothes had been carelessly flung across the bed, but the glow of his candelabra soon transformed it into two knee-high boots, a dark coat and even in the dimness the red shock of hair then became unmistakable.

Silver backed away, withdrawing his light as fast as possible. A doorframe bumped his elbow and startled him into speaking. "I'm awfully sorry, sir! I didn’t mean to disturb...,” he said.

But the figure continued to sprawl facedown as if felled by a mortal blow.

Silver hesitated. He thought of the bag bulging with jewellery and artworks that was waiting for him outside in the hallway and he thought of what happened to thieves who were caught stealing from rich people's homes. And then, unbidden, the memory of the two old people and his own wheedling talk entered his mind and prompted him to drag his courage by the scruff.

It took both hands and a lot of strength to roll the body onto its back. Thick strands of hair fell aside, revealing a face both virile and elegant, its features so handsomely drawn and complexion so delicate that Silver was quite startled by its beauty. He had spent enough time in the study, rummaging through the documents there and looking at the portraits to know that this man was not the master of the house, and since there was no plunder on him except for a scrap of paper clutched in his hand, which made thievery an unlikely motive for his being here, his presence remained a mystery.

A quick examination revealed no visible wound. And another couple of minutes gave certainty that the man’s life was not altogether gone. Both his heartbeat and his breath merely came very slowly and could not be quickened by any means at hand. Whatever it was -- surely a quick peck would not be able to cure as strange a condition as this.

To distract himself from that particular thought, Silver grabbed the crumpled paper and smoothed it out. The lines there were even, the letters themselves full  of verve as their author vowed to do the utmost to mitigate the damage of the curse and apologised more than once for reneging on the promise of forever, but that these drastic measures were necessary, alas, to avert a much more dreadful fate.

“So I take it you’re James?” Silver, stirred by the intimate, imploring tone of the letter, pondered the sleeper’s face.

By the minute now, the old tale gained in plausibility until it had lodged itself in Silver’s mind like a bulky obstacle that he couldn’t think past, and he caught his gaze returning to those tender lips again and again. Considering it as a real possibility was simply absurd. And it definitely wasn’t good sense that made him lean over and study the man from up close. His thick eyelashes. His freckles. The faint lines bracketing his trim, red beard. Was his expression dreamy? Thoughtful? Mournful? Silver, watching the candlelight shift emotions around like ill-fitting puzzle pieces, couldn’t say.

Nerves aflutter, he gnawed on his lip and considered what if. He lowered his face further. "You’ll forgive me if I," he said, voice thinning to a whisper, “try,” and then hardly dared breathe while he let his mouth sink down into the midst of that soft beard and onto silken lips.

*

Satisfied, at last, that it would be considered a kiss and not only an attempt at one, Silver drew back and watched for a response. But none came.

Of course, none came. He shook his head. Truly, it was high time to put silly notions of fantastic deeds aside once and for all.

“Well,” he said, “I’m sure you’ll be back on your feet in no time. I’ll just... need to take some things to incentivise the good doctor to make the trip out here. I’m sure you’d understand.”

Concentration proved a slippery thing when he tried to picture his loot and which item he could part with painlessly and, idly searching for a clue perhaps, he glanced at the man’s face again, expecting tacit permission there, but finding green eyes instead whose focus jumped, caught and pinned with terrible accuracy. Silver’s gaze was dragged into them like light into an endless well.  

The man pushed himself upright. With an unexpectedly gentle caress, a touch so light that it was barely there, he slipped Silver’s bandaged hand into his palm.

Silver, suspended in a state of anticipation, let it happen. He was glad to be greeted with no anger and no confusion, only a persistent kind of curiosity.

They held each other's gaze for a long moment and then plaintively, evoking an overwhelming need to comfort and reassure, the man asked him, “You’ll forgive me?”

“I,” Silver said and at that instant found himself grabbed by the nape, a thumb splayed across his pulse. “Wait! No, I didn’t mean to– I thought-”

As the man pushed him back onto the bed and shifted his muscular body on top of him, it dawned on Silver too late that he had read the signs wrong, that what he had interpreted as curiosity was voracious appetite instead. And as a gust of hot breath moved over his neck and a set of sharp teeth grazed the all too tender skin there, he remembered that some people knew how to craft a spell with skill and purpose and that not all of their handiwork was meant to be broken.

Pain pierced his skin and sank deeper, sounding out the depths of him.

It seemed impossible that someone might desire such a thing as this and therefore Silver had no words at the ready that would stop the act from happening, and his tongue, which had talked him out of many a precarious situation, floundered.

Compared to the immovable grip on him, his own struggle seemed laughably weak, as if his hands were only curled into loose fists, as if his limbs were good for not much more than a twitch, as if he weren’t struggling to free himself with all his strength, now hanging from a mouth like prey.

The man’s lips were fastened tight to his neck, drinking deeply from his heart’s stream. Warmth radiated from the wound, crawling up Silver’s cheek, down over his chest. Slim-fingered, it reached into his veins and sprouted blossoms, letting them grow as tall as trees so that they tinted everything in the luminous red of their immense petals. To Silver they seemed a marvellous thing and he thought he might rest a while in their light and laze in contentment where pleasure was so abundant and he wanted for nothing. Drowsy, he was rocked. Sated, he was fed more. Aroused, he was excited further until ecstasy prickled all over his skin and every individual heartbeat was delight, so that he was a reedy whine, a writhe in the sheets, and nothing more.

His body didn’t seem to know what to do with all that bliss, and he cusped and came inside his drawers -- a feeble lift of his hips. And then he was spat out.

Waiting for just that moment, cold, slavering, laid hands on him and made him shiver. With a head full of noise and his vision flickering out, he rolled over and dragged himself across the bed, miles and miles of bright cloth stretching out ahead of him. Reason, perhaps, whispered that he was not going to make it, not in such a weakened state, and he could not counter it, not understanding why he was trying to leave in the first place when there was so much comfort and joy waiting for him just an arm’s length away, only knowing that he absolutely must.

And so he grabbed another delirious inch of his freedom and then another, and slowly, ever so slowly managed to pull himself to the edge of a cliff. He clutched at it, belatedly trying to mitigate his fall, already plummeting.

A pair of strong arms gathered him into their cradle, clasped him tight and lifted him up. “Are you trying to lose another limb?” He was deposited somewhere flat and impossibly soft and then covered in warmth. Silver let the world happen around him for a while. “When you’re awake your hand will need cleaning.” The hair was brushed from his face. “And I’m sure you’ll be hungry too.”