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unohanadaydreams · 2 years ago

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Remember that poll I made? Here is whatever the fuck this is that I wrote in honor of the results.

Features: Reader is a gender neutral fairy and they are not immune to the residents of Urahara Shoten.

Kisuke Urahara x Fairy!Reader

Dense cherry air clung to your clothes, skin, and wings making you feel like a sticky wad of hot glue. You’d given up on movement entirely.

“Poor thing’s all tuckered out,” The blonde mop said, eyes glittering through the bar of shadow his hat sat on.

Two teens jostled until their eyes were horrible distortions above you. Their constant vying for the best view and the muggy artificial air beat against your forehead in a climbing migraine.

“We should dry it off—“ a swirl of flesh and flame red tapped the glass, “Remember the one who said that is me, Jinta, when you get out.”

Big, sad eyes bobbed larger, smaller, larger, smaller next to him, “I feel bad. I don’t think it would actually go for our eyes, Urahara.”

“Of cooourse not,” Urahara sang. “I was just being cautious.”

You absolutely would of. If Ururu, the horrible girl with the water gun and amazing aim ever let her guard down, you would burrow through her cornea using your teeth alone.

“Stop bragging,” Jinta said. “It was a lucky shot.”

“I wasn’t.”

“You’re still being smug.”

“I’m not.”

Actually, they were both losing an eye. The consistent thumping stab was migrating from your forehead to behind your eyelids and still, they continued bickering.

“Enough, you two,” the cat said. It pawed your jar, shifting you toward the edge of the table. After Ururu had shot you down, stinking teeth and a rough tongue had caged you as everyone scrambled for a jar. If you were given the chance to dole punishment, this beast would suffer most.

The cat flicked an ear, inching you closer toward the floor. You did nothing, pasted to perspiring glass, hoping for an impossible reaction of flight out the still open window if the cat did indeed smash your jar against the hardwood.

“Get to the training ground before I change my mind and eat the little monster.”

The cat herded them away but they argued still, growing quiet only once they were farther away. You had always hated cats. They had pawed at you since birth, the insatiable beasts. Adding sentience was a waking nightmare. And what if its thumbs were opposable? Truly wretched possibilities.

“This air is disgusting,” you said in a rasp, almost sad you hadn’t been spilled to the floor.

“Don’t worry,” Urahara said. “Next will come the lychee; much lighter in composition but still yummy. Don’t cute little fairies love sweet smells?”

You lied and said, “Fuck no.” Juicy, ripe fruit was your favorite. But this was being forced down your nostrils so you hated it.

Sweet candy smells landed you in this sweltering prison. The lush cherry air compelled your lungs to inhale fully, body confused and convinced the fruit lay close to your lips. Panting, mouth ajar, spit trailing your chin, you let the wash of verbal nonsense fade along with your consciousness.

You moved from a jar, to a proper glass cage, then to an expansive enclosure tailored to your tastes. How they knew your tastes was a questions you didn’t want answered. The Urahara man was as disturbing as he was compelling. How did he know your tastes.

“Now, now,” he’d said taking you from proper cage to expansive enclosure. “Needless violence will get you grounded.”

The cat was suddenly there. “You’ve never grounded anyone.”

Tessai, the only one who would keep his eyes once you escaped, took you from Urahara gently, coaxing your needle teeth free from Urahara’s intersection of flesh between pointer finger and thumb before lifting you away.

You almost said thank you. He was the only one that minded your wings. Urahara was the worst, always rubbing them with obscene strokes. And the teens did so too, at least innocently.

Actually, you would thank him.

“Than—“ He misted you. Twice. With water. Like a snake.

Your wings were too wet to stay swift. Their dehumanizing version of clipping you like a bird.

Tessai’s fingers were already out of reach, beyond your teeth, smartly transporting you in a jar when you reached for him.

“I hate every one of you.” Your fists knocked against the lid, gums and teeth sliding uselessly against metal.

“Just let me eat them already,” the cat yawned.

Tessai screwed the lid with a firm twist, “Don’t indulge in their tantrum, Yoruichi.”

“Fuck you,” you said, flopping to the bottom.

“Hmm, that does sound interesting to work out the logistics of,” Urahara said. “But we hardly know each other.”

You screamed and thrashed wildly.

“Both of you are children,” Tessai said, shaking your jar lightly, “you too. Stop hurting yourself.”

“Yes, Jinta and Ururu are already so fond of you,” Urahara said.

The hallway they were carrying you through was dimly lit. And longer than you thought possible, when you’d cased the outside of the building before absolutely bungling the theft.

“Who cares?”

“I do!” Urahara tapped the lid, the metal popping in rapid succession, and you clapped your ears, the next words muffled, “So you’ll have to bear it. My original plan was to keep you out here. In a fun little enclosed for the costumers—like a sea monkey!”

Your teeth latched into Urahara’s skin the moment the world stopped moving and he opened the lid. He didn’t flinch.

Instead, he rubbed one of your wings with relish between his finger, until you curled into yourself in shaky defeat.

“But we clearly can’t trust you around our precious customers, can we?”

You bit him again, vibrating with each fondling touch passed over your wings.

“So what,” you said around his flesh. “Gonna kill me?”

“No,” Tessai said at the same time the cat said, “Yes.”

“That would yield valuable data, but Tessai’s right,” Urahara said too close to your face. “I like you better alive.”

His hold was careful but firm as he lowered you into a large terrarium, mimicking a small, rustic fairy town. The wooden buildings squatted on loamy moss. An oval of pond was the focal point, directly in the middle. Everything fanned from it, like fingers from a palm. You used the sweet water to swish away the taste of Urahara’s blood after he pinched your wings enough to work your jaw open in reflex.

A prick of pain between your shoulder blades sprung while you hunched over water and you felt a weight resting under your skin there. You flexed your back uselessly, the implantation snug beneath your skin.

Your wings were too damp to spring up and retaliate fast enough. Instead, you spluttered on the springy moss until you could breathe again.

“I’m going to kill you,” you said.

Urahara tapped the glass. “Many people have tried.”

For once, you believed him.

The enclosure was surrounded by a maze of mess that rose and fell in mysterious order. Both Urahara’s room and personal workspace, he navigated the jumble of belongings with ease. He was graceful when he forgot about playing to your audience of one, too absorbed in expansive, flickering screens and piles of manila folders, many stained and some literally moldering.

He spoke at—not with—you often.

When he forgot you, when he existed beyond any reach but the data he toiled hours analyzing, you felt lonely. It was a defeat to admit that. But after months of living an oddly cushy life, surrounded by people who seemed to want you happy, you’d become shamefully complacent.

Biting was a chore. And thoroughly unpleasant since Urahara started flavoring the flesh and blood of his gigai. Your escape attempts had grown pathetic. The last had ended with choosing to flap back to Urahara’s room over battling one moment longer with Yoruichi’s claws and teeth and fucking taunting. She did have opposable thumbs and no matter the pitch of voice or shape of body, she was always smug.

You turned away from the enclosure you’d not been forced in for weeks. The lid was ever open. You were beholden with choice. Doors were left ajar. Windows were never shut now that Summer called. Tessai had whiddled little cutlery and cups for you. Jinta & Ururu were fiercely vying for your ownership of a shiny, new—human scale—gigai. Urahara was too accommodating when you deigned to sit on his silly hat or his sturdy shoulder. And Yoruichi had mostly laid the game of cat and winged-mouse to rest.

Urahara swept his hat off to scratch his scalp, not mindful that you sat on top of the striped bucket. You clung to any fabric you could hold after being flung, landing somewhere along his back. Fluttering up his shoulder, you pinched his neck and settled there instead.

“You did that on purpose.”

His laughter fell to sheepish denial, “Not at all.” Urahara placed you next to his keyboard, lifted his arms high, and almost toppled backwards as the stretch stole his balance on the wheeled chair he loved.

“I still don’t get what all this is for,” you said, swiveling away from the subject before he could suggest you wear a bell again. You stepped over a couple keys on tip-toes, enjoying the ‘click’ sound when they sunk under your weight. “What’s the point?”

“I owe a favor,” Urahara shrugged.

“You actually repay those?” You danced over the keys, grinning when he reached for the backspace symbol.

“Well, this is an exceptional favor,” he said, undoing your gleeful work. “Kurosaki is a good kid.”

You could agree with that, at least. He and a gaggle of his friends would come at times, only a little surprised when they first saw you, like they bumped into fairies all the time.

The only one you couldn’t say was a ‘good kid’ was his girlfriend. She was beautiful and acted perfectly kind.

But when she’d first seen you, she had asked Urahara, “Oh! Is she like mine?”

“Entirely different outside of being just as tiny and cute, Inoue,” he’d said in answer. You’d slapped away his pinching near your cheek.

“There are other fairies around?” You hadn’t seen a single one in years.

Orihime held you carefully and her smile sparkled. “Not anymore. I guess I grew out of them.”

“Where’d they go?”

She gestured to the flowery blue hair clips framing her face.

“Ahaha, well…..no where? They just don’t exist anymore. Unless they work with poke-ball logic! If so, they’re probably very cozy. Unless it was up to me to imagine their home which—oh, I’ll have to do that tonight. I’ll imagine the best house! I hope they haven’t been squished all because of me!”

The girl had followed up by saying ‘Ayame, I choose you!’ and despairing a bit when the phrase did nothing but make the Kurosaki boy snort.

You had grown suspicious when Urahara could not clarify what the fuck that meant or where the fairies had gone. The image of Orihime smiling kindly as she did to you and striking down a handful of fairies stuck firm in your mind. You were wary of her label as ‘a good kid��.

But Kurosaki could keep his title, because he was obvious in his annoyance toward Urahara and Yoruichi. And anyone who did that was some kind of good.

You dropped from your tip-toes, smashing four keys all at once. “Yeah, but didn’t you say this thing may not exist?”

Urahara lifted you back to his shoulder. And you let him. Your stomach squirmed when you lost your opportunity to put up a fight and instead sat, placid.

“It does exist,” he said. “Just not today. Maybe not for years. College is statistically a stressful time.”

“This makes no sense and Tessai is right. You need an actual hobby.”

Urahara retrieved his fan and a gust almost topped you. “Are you going to teach me to paint?”

“I’d rather die,” you said, twining your fists into his robe. Woe to whoever had taught Urahara anything, ever. “And stop that!”

He tapped your head after folding the fan and said, “I don’t think you mean that anymore.”

“I really, really do,” you said, climbing up his head, back to the hat, twisting your hands and digging your feet into his hair and ear instead of flying. “You make a joke out of everything.”

“If you change your mind, you’ll be the first to see the gigai I’ve been working on.”

He waited until you were settled to place his hat to the level of his eyes, carefully and in consideration of you this time.

“I don’t want a human body,” you said with bite.

Urahara tittered, “Oh my, I wouldn’t dream of it. It’s not for you, anyhow.”

“What does that mean?”

Urahara plopped you back on his head with his hat and went back to typing.

“Teach me to paint and you’ll find out, remember?”

He was baiting you. Plain. But effective. His words were like the smell of sweet candy through an open window and the lure of a comfy life surrounded by strangers who grew to people you knew and cared for and stayed for. Even if they were annoying. And pushy. And still batted you around like fucking yarn.

Even then.

You were going to grab for it eventually.

#he is dying to be a fairy and get HIS wings fondled #also Yoruichi and Reader bully ship originally had a larger part #but then I was like no this is about Urahara #kisuke urahara x reader #kisuke Urahara x you #Bleach imagines #bleach

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streamafterlaughter · 2 years ago

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Limo 4 Emos

playlist | main master list | part ii (coming soon!)

request: no (send a request!)

summary: you’ve been sulking for three days after breaking up with your serious boyfriend. Eddie can’t let you do that anymore, though.

word count: 3,241

a/n: in the midst of all the FD angst, i thought i’d give y’all some comfortable, fluffy, sweet eddie x y/n, this time in a more modern setting! i was inspired by the song Limo 4 Emos by Watsky, pls stream his symmetry trilogy it’ll blow ur socks off. this is a mini, but i can totally write a part 2 if y’all want some less wholesome content. let me know what u think! Disclaimer: I do not give permission to have my work reposted on other sites. Reblogs are more than welcome, but please inform me if you find my work elsewhere unless otherwise stated. Reblog to support the author!

tags: modern!eddie x reader, friends to lovers, mutual pining, confessions of feelings, fluff, consumption of weed, mentions of cheating (reader was cheated on)

—

You throw a wadded tissue toward the television. You’re on your third break up movie of the day, Scenes from a Marriage. It’s been three days of chick flicks, rom-coms, and sobfests as you attempt to heal your shattered heart.

It’s dramatic, sure, but after graduating high school, and getting accepted to your dream school far, far away from Hawkins, Indiana, you really thought you had it all figured out.

Until Matt cheated on you.

You hadn’t wanted to believe it. You’d been invited out by Robin last minute, to a club you hadn’t gone to since beginning your relationship. It’s a place you’d always wanted to go, one Matt had claimed to hate, so you took the opportunity for a night out without him when he “fell ill” one Saturday night.

Sometimes you blame yourself, for not mentioning the name of the club. Maybe if you had, you wouldn’t have run into Matt there, sucking on the neck of some nameless girl in too-tight latex pants.

You’ve since thrown out his letters, blocked his number, and set fire to the pictures of you two while listening to Dead Horse by Hayley Williams, but your stupid heart is still broken. On top of that, now you’re smelly, grimy, and sweaty under far too many blankets as you watch Jessica Chastain and Oscar Isaac yell at each other.

Your phone buzzes in your lap intermittently, and you lazily screen the missed calls and texts:

bobbie🏳️‍🌈👹: (7:20pm) wanna see a movie? coke bear looks god awful. call me pls!

(missed call: bobbie🏳️‍🌈👹 x3)

stevie🏴‍☠️🍦: (8:00pm) hey, just got off work, need anything at target? lmk 🫶

(missed call: stevie🏴‍☠️🍦)

eddie❤️🦇: (9:55pm): come outside

You read the last message again, timestamped five minutes ago. You begrudgingly throw the mass of blankets from your body, revealing your baggiest sweatpants and your favorite giant t-shirt. You peer out your window, and sure enough the gas guzzling monstrosity of a vehicle sits outside on the curb, its engine rumbling loud enough to wake your parents. You snatch a hoodie off your floor and struggle to get it over your head. As an afterthought, you grab the half smoked joint and your lighter from your ashtray and tiptoe down the stairs.

Eddie reaches the door before you and flings it open. “Good evening, my liege.” He bows his head as he holds the door open while you climb into the van. The interior stinks of weed and cigarettes, and the tinny speakers blare Microwave’s Float To The Top, a favorite of yours that Eddie had grown fond of.

“Where we goin’?” You ask innocently, turning the volume down to hear Eddie, who’s adjusting himself in the driver’s seat.

“Wherever you want, sweet thing.” He motions to his phone plugged into the console. “And feel free to DJ.”

You gasp in mock surprise. “Why, you’re letting me pick the music? Has hell frozen over?!” You can’t finish your sentence before he’s nudging you with his elbow, his head thrown back in laughter. “Seriously, what’s the occasion?” You settle on your everyday playlist, avoiding the breakup songs list you’d been abusing. You skip over Phoebe Bridgers’s Halloween, knowing you’ll start sobbing, and instead settling on Watsky’s Limo 4 Emos.

“Please,” Eddie begins, turning onto the main road of Hawkins, the only one that runs through town. “You’ve been moping all weekend, the first weekend as a free bird! No more school! For at least three months. Even more, if I can convince you to join the band.”

You know he’s joking, but you scold him anyway. “I told you, I’m getting my degree so I can design your album covers once you’re famous. If you need another guitarist by then, we can discuss it.”

Eddie chuckles. “Whatever you say, love. Anyway, I had to pick you up. Every time I've driven by it’s been a different sad, heterosexual couple on your TV. I’m surprised you weren’t sucked into the mattress.” You look down, suddenly fascinated by your crocs. “Hey, I didn’t mean that to insult you, y’know. I’m just worried about you. We- we all are.” There is genuine concern in his voice, and you feel your cheeks flush. He’s always been sweet to you, from the day you’d moved into the house next to Steve when you were twelve. Most of the kids were mean to you, making fun of your weird clothes or nerdy interests, but Eddie took an immediate liking to you. He sat next to you in every class, at lunch, and invited you to play with his group of friends at recess. Six years later, and he’s never not been right next to you once.

Eddie’s voice snaps your attention back to the present. “He’s a fuckin’ idiot. If I ever catch that kid at one of my shows again….” He trails off, shaking his head, and you bite back a smile. If there’s one thing Eddie will always be, it’s protective of his people.

“Hey,” You rest your hand on his shoulder, and feel him relax under your touch. “I appreciate that. And this. I needed to get out of there.” You could swear your room had shrunken.

“Of course. I kinda did it for selfish reasons anyway.”

“Oh?”

He nods. “I hadn’t heard from you in like, a week. And, in the year you two had been dating, I’d barely seen you without that parasite attached to you.” You could be mistaken, but you think you hear a tinge of jealousy in his voice. You chock it up to a hopeful coincidence.

Truthfully, it hadn’t been a great relationship. You and Matt weren’t compatible, but both of you had been lonely. If you were being fully, completely honest with yourself, there was one man you could ever want, and he’s sitting right next to you now.

You’d never be the one to tell him first, though. You’re sure Robin and Steve already know, knowing what they do about you. You’re not good at keeping secrets, especially when they involve your feelings for your best friend. You’ve never explicitly told either of them, though.

Eddie pulls into the parking lot of Hawkins Middle, and you snort out a laugh. “Holy shit.”

“Welcome back.” Eddie gestures to the brick building in front of him. “Where it all began.”

“You think?” You rummage in your pockets until you find your lighter and what is now a very crushed, unsmokable joint. “Oh, c’mon!” You groan, inspecting the bent, squashed cone.

Eddie’s brows knit together. “What did you expect us to do with that?”

“Well, it wasn’t always this fucked up!” You begin defensively, but he holds his hand up to silence you.

“Lucky for you, I have some. And it’s good stuff.” Eddie throws his arm over your seat, and your gaze lands on his jawline. Eddie’s always been beautiful to you, despite his “freakish” nature and wide range of facial expressions. You could admire the curve of his nose and the plush of his lips for hours, if you knew he wouldn’t catch you.

You whip your head back to the windshield too quickly as Eddie turns around, and you pray he doesn’t notice.

“Everything okay?” He asks, trying to inspect your features, but you won’t look at him.

“Mhm, yeah. Totally.”

“Right, okay. Anyway,” Eddie flicks the lock of his metal box open, and cracks the lid to reveal a few pre-rolled joints, a grinder, and a lighter. He plucks the thickest of his collection from the box, and flicks the lighter as he brings the joint to his lips. He inhaled deeply, closing his eyes as the smoke fills his lungs. You take the opportunity to watch him more closely, the way the filter sits between his ring clad fingers, the tendrils of smoke escaping from between his lips and into his flared nostrils, the wrinkle in his forehead when he tries not to cough, and the shake of his head when he fails.

He holds the joint out to you, burning between his thumb and middle finger. You carefully pinch the end of the filter, and bring the paper to your own lips. You will yourself to taste the tiny remnants of Eddie’s mouth, but mostly you taste the sweet smoke and thin paper. You repeat Eddie’s ritual, inhaling deeply as your eyes slip closed, letting the flower take its hold on your brain.

Paramore’s Liar hums softly through the speakers as you and Eddie pass the joint back and forth, giggling and talking like nothing’s changed in the last six years. In a lot of ways, nothing has. Matt never liked Eddie, but that didn’t stop you from spending every Thursday afternoon at Hellfire, and every Sunday watching movies. You and Eddie were inseparable, and you had never compromised that for anyone. Matt had even asked, a few times, if you’d stop being friends with Eddie for him. You’d laughed right in his face.

If you could go back and do it all again, you’d make the same choice. Having Eddie in your life was always going to be more important.

“Penny for your thoughts?” Eddie holds out the roach for you, and you take a puff before answering his question.

“I’m just thinkin’ about how much I appreciate you.” You muse, knowing it’s bound to feed his ego.

“Oh, really?” He takes the roach and stubs it out on the console, adding a several hundredth burn mark to it. “And why is that?”

You shrug, teasing him. “You’re just so good to me, Ed. You get me out of my house, smoke me up when I’m all sad and mopey. You know how to make me laugh.” You tick each finger as you lost out your reasons, each one tugging the corners of Eddie’s mouth higher. “I know you’d do it for any of your friends.” You finish, and meet his eyes as he shakes his head.

“I wouldn’t, though.”

“Of course you would! Remember when you took Lucas out for ice cream after his first basketball game because they didn’t play him? Or, when you set Robin up with that girl you met at The Hideout?”

Eddie holds up his hands in mock surrender. “Okay, okay, fine. I’m a saint! But you’re special.”

You roll your eyes. “Shut up. I’m just saying, you’re just so good. I don’t deserve you.” Your voice cracks as you say it, and you clear your throat to cover it.

Of course, he notices anyway. “Are you being serious? You are the most deserving person I know. Deserving of way more than whatever his name is.”

You glare at Eddie with disapproval. “You know his name.”

“Even if I do, it doesn’t matter. Fuck him.” He spits, clenching his jaw. This isn’t some playful hatred of the loser that cheated on you, Eddie is holding some serious malice towards a guy he barely knew.

You touch a finger to where his jaw is locked, and feel his expression soften immediately, like your skin melts his tension.

“It’s okay. Shit happens.” You’re saying it for his sake, knowing how protective he can be of his best friends. He takes your pain personally.

“No, it’s absolutely not okay! You don’t just cheat on your partner. Especially if that partner is-“ He clamps his mouth shut, silencing the ramble before it had time to take off.

“If they’re what?” You’re clueless, unsure what he’d been planning to say about you. Your heart ticks faster, whether with anticipation or embarrassment, you’re yet to decide.

Eddie huffs, expelling a mass amount of air from his lungs like he’d been holding his breath all night. “I can’t. It’s not fair to you, to tell you what I want to while you’re still grueving.” Eddie looks forward, never taking his eyes off the windshield. “I could say so much, but I can’t imagine you taking it well.”

It’s your turn to huff.

“Nothing you could say will hurt me more than I’ve ever experienced.”

“I don’t know if they’d hurt you, I’m more worried about how you’d see me after I say ‘em.” He talks quickly, rushing the words that must be causing his cheeks to turn pink in the low light of the car.

You think you have an idea about what Eddie wants to say. You can’t pretend you haven’t noticed his feelings for you, even subconsciously. He likes to hold your hand, he greets you with rib crushing hugs, says goodbye with a kiss on the forehead. He lends you his jacket on rainy days, and you’ve slept in his bed more than your own in the last three years. He’s always been there, through your parents’ divorce, to your first bully, to your first art gallery feature. You’ve seen every Corroded Coffin show, been at most of their band practices, learned DnD, and started listening to heavy music because of him. The more you think about it, the more you realize why none of your relationships have worked out. The only one you’ve ever been interested in is yours and Eddie’s. Everyone else had been out of convenience, and in some cases because of similarities between your suitors and your best friend.

As you realize this, Eddie’s turning his head to watch you think. “I want you to tell me.” The tiptoeing is driving you crazy.

“Fine, but I have to preface it with something. This wasn’t some ploy to get you, or anything. I didn’t plan to feel like this when I approached you in seventh grade. That being said, it was probably six weeks before I realized I had a crush on you. I didn’t do anything about it, probably because I was thirteen with a buzz cut and body odor. I thought it would just go away as time went on. But it didn’t, so I got like, super stressed out. We started high school and you started dating Jack or something, and remember we didn’t talk for like a month?”

You snort at the memory. “His name was definitely not Jack, it was Simon. And we dated for two weeks. And dating meant walking to recess and back together, not even holding hands.”

“Yeah! And it broke my little heart!” Eddie gestures wildly as he speaks. “Anyway, you demanded we fix our friendship, so I obliged like a gentleman, thinking I couldn’t possibly still have a crush on you after that debacle. Wrong again! I was a lost puppy, wounded and limping behind you while you charmed everyone you met. It was fuckin’ torture.” He looks at you now, and you stay quiet, willing him to go on. “This is all so emo, I’m sorry. I’ve been in love with you the whole time. It’s taken me six years to say it to you, and I still chose the worst possible time to do it.”

You can hear him, but you aren’t absorbing what he’s saying now. Instead, his last words repeat in your head, I’ve been in love with you the whole time. The whole time?! “Why did it take you so long?” You’re whispering now, knowing your voice will betray you.

“I didn’t want to lose you. You’re my best friend, and I couldn’t have you thinking it was only because I had feelings for you. You’re my best friend first and forever. But it still hurt like a bitch, not being able to tell you. I’m sorry I’m telling you now, I don’t expect you to process something like this any time soon. I don’t want a response, I just couldn’t take watching someone hurt you like that. I can’t fathom being that fucking stupid. And I’m still pretty stupid.”

You furrow your brow at him. “Don’t talk about my best friend like that. You’re the furthest thing from stupid.”

“So, we’re still best friends then? I didn’t scare you away?”

You shake your head. “That’s impossible. Believe it or not, Ed, you probably couldn’t scare me off if ya tried.”

“Good thing. I’m still so sorry.”

You offer your hand, palm up to him. He rests his palm against yours, and you entwine your fingers with his. “Don’t be sorry. I’ve been waiting six years for you to tell me that.”

Eddie lurches forward, craning his neck to look you in the face that’s still facing the windshield. “Are you fucking with me? Don’t fuck with me, definitely not right now. Y/n?”

You shake your head, gnawing on your bottom lip as you think of a reasonable response. “Swear on Dustin’s mother, I’m not fucking with you.” You meet his eyes straight on, unblinking, trying to communicate your feelings through your expression. “It might have taken a little longer for me to realize it, but it’s been you. It has always been you.”

Eddie’s eyes stay glued to yours, the warmth of them sucking you in as he searches your face for any inch of doubt. When he seemingly can’t find it, he inches closer to you, his arm resting on the dusty console as he invades your personal space.

Feeling a burst of confidence as Hayley’s Crystal Clear hums from the radio, and you mirror his movements, nudging his forearm with yours as you lean closer to him.

“If you hate this, just let me know. No hard feelings.” Eddie’s voice is barely a whisper. You don’t respond with words, but nod your head dismissively and close the gap between his lips and yours. Eddie’s breath hitches as he catches your mouth with his, your lips crushing against his eagerly, something you’ve wanted since you were thirteen.

Eddie pulls away first, only moving far enough away to look at you again. His face is flushed, eyes wide as he examines your face, probably looking similarly. “Why’d you stop?” You’re brimming with confidence as he blushes, his eyes darting from your face to your hands, resting on the console.

“I had to make sure it was real.” He reaches up and pinches his shoulder. “Ow. Yeah, okay. I guess it’s real.”

“We should do it again. Y’know, just to make sure.” He looks back up at you, and you lean in without another word, connecting your lips once again. This time, you deepen the kiss, tongue swiping against his bottom lip as if to ask permission. Eddie’s lips part wider, and your tongue meets his as you slide your free hand into his hair. His own cups your jaw, his thumb resting lightly on your chin just below your lips. He tastes like smoke and chocolate, his lips soft against yours as he bumps your nose with his.

It could have been minutes or hours by the time you separate, untangling your fingers from his wild curls. “Okay,” You speak first, your voice breathy. “It is real.”

Eddie’s lips split into a beaming smile. “Yeah, shit. I’m so glad.” He exhales shakily and tucks a stray hair behind his ear.

“So,” You pause, fidgeting with the hem of your shirt, “now what?”

Eddie doesn’t miss a beat. “I mean, I have plenty of ideas, but-“

“I’ll do anything with you.”

“Movie at my place?”

You hope it means what you think it does. “Yeah, definitely.” You shoot your mom a text that you’re staying over Eddie’s. She sends back a “Yay! Hope he makes you feel better :)” and you respond with a heart. He already has.

#eddie x reader #modern!au #modern!eddie #gn!reader #eddie munson one shot #eddie munson fluff

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lsttcs · 9 months ago

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These people are at et., freaking stupid, this hell of a lame is freaking dumb, anyone having sex should be having a bad time, praying to me, and not hurting my heart soul and sad in any which way

So, shark, you’re going off to war?

SS/4/S Spring season

You’ve been here before

At the people biting teeny

Bits of what makes

A grand monster work

At the point of repayment

Style/Earth Realm/Contraband-Smirk

Regurgitate

Jail purple

Ten steps up

That entire height of rocket ship

Right to it

That entire hindrance of platform gap height

Ten years to ween it

Hungry as a caterpillar

As they wait for you to spit on shit

Playing real humilic

The batter for the eatery in ship

Didn’t even get a bite

Like I’m saying

Lover’s spec but it’s caterpillar steps and

Red flames of ten years till I wallow

Like go back it’s easier

A little bit of wadding,

with an easy going rumble

You crying “no pot till eight weenies deep”

No pot, easy on that wheel No those

Battered like your favorite hat

When wrapped in the dough

Crying tears

Them shaped like pizza

Hat supposed to block them

Downward so hot spiral

Mad barking

But mostly folding pizza dough to timer

Favorite time

Same as the crime that your same lame

Second hate

Hopeful the condiments are mostly the kind only used on veggies

Half eaten

But half your head

Already said together

Woof

Could this guy get a hotdog?

A keen seat bucket

Like starring favorite one

Here, think

In this movie star

Waiting punches, clean stink

Then with you

We move feet

We rob colors

To theater

Just the tech banner

Show announcement

Go off without a buddy

Last whisper

Read it under a curtain

Everyone I’d love

Just there toes and

no idea what it’s about

Babe we’re moving

Alive at whips

Not counting

Dead in the track

Turn signal has a fibia

A tuba fracture

A no instrument breath fail

Signaling allergic or any, so much in not’s

If there’s so lofty

I’ve left you

Not counting

Your recursive

They’re crosswalk

Not yours your burden

Infliction

Of my particular cross walk square

Street’s a jail

Turning sailor?

Cement and streets are square

Lover’s grid

All the same

Car’s so salty

You moved your arm, leaned

If it’s loose you

Your surely used to

Still where you stand

Still do you know how much I loved you when you were walking in there

Count mine

Arm’s not broken

Under my placemat

My feet would hop out over the car matt

My arms would eat you

Fists would teach them

That’s my tail pipe

They have no ingenue

They think they know

I’ve drifted to signal a hole

Then they’re horribly contagious

Oh so cruel to me

Let our face’s meet to that

In a clench stripe

In a free one

Their fool hung

As long a pain treck

As that which they judge to be true

Keeps them marooned

I’m praying soon your inside

You know my heart and whole’s truth

To this tick tocking going blip bloop

I’ve masked their identities

Still there faces like

“Is there a fry under there?

Good food?”

0 notes

idesofrevolution · 4 years ago

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Okay: Bad Boy Musky Transformation it is. Enjoy!

I knew, of course, that Marco sold whatever the degenerates in the neighborhood needed. Weed, Acid, Ecstasy, Shrooms, Coke... take out the hard ones and you have his menu. He always seemed to afford the good things in life with his dark money. Two weeks ago he’d bought a Ducati; a week prior it was a 60 inch TV! God knows it wasn’t from dutiful employment, but I knew damn well just what it was that afforded him these luxuries: whatever could be inhaled, snorted, or smoked. And yet, here I was, working two jobs at McDonalds & Popeyes just trying to afford my garbage studio apartment.

He’d only ever been kind to me, I’ll admit. He’d bring by a pizza he said he couldn’t finish, or his old speakers he’d upgraded. Nice guy, if a bit dim. Always out in the courtyard, laying by the pool with his shirt off. Always surrounded by other guys who’d slip him a hundred. It’s not fair! Four years of college and what did I have to show for it? Student loans and no job prospects. Yet there he was: no trade, no job, no future really; but living like a king. So it was one day where I’ll fully admit that my jealousy overwhelmed me.

I was short that month, for the first time mind you. Short only by a hundred dollars for rent, but I had already gotten a notice on my door. Pay tomorrow or get lost. It was this desperation that made me remember every deal that thug made, every 8-ball, every eighth, every pill... Would he really notice a hundred missing from his pile? I knew for a fact that every Wednesday night, precisely at 10, Marco would leave for the hookah club and not return until 4 or 5 at the earliest. I knew he locked his door, a few locks actually, but I also knew that the moron left his window cracked nearly every night. It just so happened that on that particular evening, he did just that.

In that fleeting moment of curiosity, a plan built up in my head. I watched him loudly slam his door, lock his several locks, and saunter out down the stairs. I waited about five minutes before creeping out of my apartment, careful to watch for other prying eyes. I had to be quick. I made a run for it, bolting to his open window on the balcony. It slid open quite easily, and I heaved myself over the ledge and into Marco’s dark apartment. I landed on the ratty old carpet and quickly shut the window. Looking around the apartment, it was a three bedroom for sure. In the same state of disrepair as mine, but furnished with some of the most expensive, gaudy things I’ve ever seen. Brand new leather couches, a coffee table made completely of glass, a massive stereo system next to his 60 inch TV... An absolute manchild lived here.

However, I wasn’t there for the TV or the oversized sectional. I had a sneaking suspicion that he, like many of us, kept his extra money somewhere in the bedroom. Ensuring that no noise would come from my steps, I snuck quietly down the hall, covered in paintings of scantily clad men toward the bedroom. Interesting, he swung that way, huh? Opening the door, a wafting stink hit me in the face. The room was covered in dirty laundry, used condoms, half rolled blunts, and lines of coke on nearly every surface. This is what I was expecting, and I was surely right. Holding my nose shut, I crept toward his dresser, and began to ruffle through his belongings. Damp socks, damp underwear, damp lycra, everything in there was damp and reeking. I slammed each of the drawers shut, and opened the closet. There, on the tile floor behind rows of pristine sneakers were a pair of destroyed old Vans; and inside each were rolls of hundred dollar bills. Jackpot. I knelt down and grabbed one of the rolls, momentarily unclamping my nose to remove the rubber band. The smell was unbelievable. It took me aback, just how strong it was. I’m sure each of the pairs of Huaraches, AF1′s, and the like had strong scents of their own, but from this single pair of beat up old Vans was the most salty, sweet, almost cheesy footmusk that I’d ever encountered.

For a mere second, I contemplated bringing one of the shoes to my face, letting the dirty, wet insole touch the tip of my nose. However, it was in that second that I should have just left well enough alone. The lightswitch flipped on, and looming over me was the hulking, shirtless Marco. In my right hand was his wad of cash, in the left was his grody sneaker. My face flushed, and my stomach dropped to my toes. He crossed his arms and smiled.

“If you wanted a loan you could have just asked...” Words were caught in the back of my throat. I wanted so terribly to make up some fantastic excuse as to my presence in his closet, but the frog in my throat had other ideas. The growing grin of Marco, paired with him beginning to kneel down to my level made my heart nearly stop beating. “And if you wanted a sniff I’d have given it to you.” He smirked and slowly pulled the shoe from my hand, taking a quick whiff of it’s stench. He turned quickly and laughed, waving the wafting scent away from his face before grabbing the back of my head and plunging it right into the shoe. “Okay, deep breath now.”

I tried to struggle, to fight back, but the man was nearly twice my size and pure muscle. There was no chance of me weaseling my way out of this. I had to just play along with this weird fetish that he seemed to have. I inhaled a quick breath, barely getting any stink.

“No, no. I said deep breath.” I felt a strong hand shoot to my crotch, grabbing my junk within my jeans. The shock of this invasive gesture broke my concentration, and a gasp of breath escaped from my mouth. Into my nose, my mouth, my sinuses, my brain did the musk penetrate. I moaned loudly, the confusion of a powerful grope and a powerful scent submerged me into a strange state of consciousness. Or rather, a lack thereof. I was inhaling the footsmell like air, and I couldn’t get enough. My cock began to tent in my pants, and I felt my right hand drop the roll of cash I thought I so desperately needed. “Ahh, haha. That’s right, let it in. Let me in.”

His voice seemed distorted, as if we were in a deep cavern, it echoed in my skull. He removed the shoe from my face, pulling me to my feet by my bulging groin. Guiding me toward his bed, I sat down on the smelly sheets, no longer in complete control of my faculties.

“Take your clothes off.” His words entered my ears like soft velvet, it felt wrong to disobey. In fact, I wanted to obey. For the first time, I wanted to listen to whatever this man told me to do. His bulging muscles, his plump lips, the way his crooked smile felt so dangerously mischievous, the way his smell took my breath away like a vacuum. For the first time, this man was everything I wanted. I ripped my clothes off and lay there on his bed wearing nothing but my bare, cold skin. Smiling, he took hold of my throbbing, upright cock in his rough hand. Ripples of goosebumps ran up and down my body as he slowly ran his calloused hand up and down my shaft. Each stroke allowed a groan or a moan to sneak out of my lips, before he leaned down atop me and planted a soft kiss onto my lips. He tasted like an ashtray and as his tongue slipped into my mouth, rolling atop my own, I could feel some of his taste transfer to me. I can’t explain it, as we kissed I could feel that taste of cigarettes and blunts seep into my tongue. I pulled his pants down, his thick, uncut cock tumbling out of his compression shorts onto my stomach. He smiled as he pulled away from the kiss. I stuck my finger under his foreskin, swiping it around, and brought it to my lips. It tasted like ripe, sweaty cock, and I began to crave it. “Oh yeah, babe you’re a keeper.”

He jumped up, and pulled me toward the edge of the bed. I got a perfect frontal view of his gorgeous cock and saggy balls, his virile and manly smell kept pouring into my nose and into the depths of my mind. He grabbed me by the back of my hair and pulled my eager mouth forward, engulfing his slick, smelly cock. I suckled, my loud slurping seeming making him even hornier. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him fiddling with something just out of view. As he thrust down my throat, I realized just what it was that he had. His used condom, I presume from whatever sexy fuck occurred the night prior, was in his hands. I closed my eyes as I felt its rubbery walls close tightly around the tip of my cock, slickly sliding down my shaft until his cold, creamy load touched my slit. With a loud snap, I looked down and saw his thick white cum completely enveloping my cockhead. I only got a quick glance before he’d pulled out of my mouth, replacing his succulent cock with my now favorite smelly shoe. I licked the sole, letting the thick toejam season my ashy tongue as the musk thrust into my nose once more.

I knew what was coming, and I was prepared when I felt that slippery cock slip like butter into my tight hole. He’d grabbed my cock, covered in his seed, and jerked in tandem with his thrusts into my ass. Sensory overload. His smell, his seed, his cock, his taste, the very sight of him... It was all him. He was marking me. I was his property, and I was glad to oblige. Every single hard smack against my ass cheeks, every stinking waft into my brain, every breath of his smoky breath coming out of my mouth... It was too much! He fucked like a madman, stroking my cock into his slime until I felt a strange tingling in my cockhead. It was a slick, penetrating sensation of his seed... slurping into my slit! I was nearly screaming as I felt it sink deep down my shaft, into my engorging balls. It was stewing, brewing inside my growing sack! I heard him howl as he unloaded his fresher load into me.

I felt his cock within me shooting spurt after spurt... going from ounces to gallons very quickly. His cum spread throughout my body like water into a balloon. I could feel the silky liquid beneath my skin, creeping, inflating every part of my body. It seeped up my throat, into my mouth, behind my very eyes into my brain. The pressure grew as I felt growth, I felt strength, I felt different. My body was gelatinous beneath my skin, before slowly firming into a much larger form. An improved form. I pulled Marco’s shoe from my face, and looked at my changing body. The cum kept flowing as I saw my muscled arms, my bulging abs, a grotesquely inflated ballsack... He leaned down and kissed me again, giving me another much needed taste of his addictive taste. My brain was melting, reforming, changing... Things were fuzzy and blurred before it was my turn to blow my load. In it, was who I used to be, my failures, my strife, my worries and obligations... Flowed like a jet out of my cock into his condom. Cum flowed out of the top of the condom, before Marco ripped it from me, letting the hot juices pool between us.

“Lookin’ good, babe.” He smiled at me, and I looked at the man I loved with a smirk. Yeah, I sure fuckin’ do look good. We laid there all night long, fucking and kissing and sniffing and tasting... By the time the sun came up, I was in his clothes, I reeked of his sweaty manly musk, I was wearing my favorite pair of red Vans, and I was readying an 8-ball for pickup later that morning (after a few lines for me and the boyfriend). I kicked back and lit a cigarette, enjoying the laid back life I’d come to love with my man.

It’s a love story. How touching. So let me know what you think. Give me some anons on your opinions! Also, toss a few quid into the tip jar and I’d be eternally grateful <3 <3

#male transformation #badass transformation #gay transformation #musk #musky #feet #smelly men #thuggification #male takeover #original #badboy #smoking #drugs #stoner transformation

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stereksecretsanta · 4 years ago

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Merry Christmas, obsessedbutonline!

For @obsessedbutonline, who listed fluff, angst, and ‘Derek giving Stiles gift’ as a few ‘Likes’. I hope I did those items justice. Hope you have a wonderful Christmas, Friend!

Read On AO3

*****

The Gift

The gift. He supposed it all started with the gift. Or maybe Star Trek. Derek wasn’t sure. It was Stiles, after all. One day, the younger man had been debating the cuddle rating of a Tribble, before diving into an analysis of The Voyage Home being one of the worst movies in franchise history (except for the whales, of course), and the next thing Derek knew, he’d found himself discussing how Moby Dick was one of his favorite books. The random jumps from one topic to another hadn’t been anything new for Stiles, but that had also been the year they’d legitimately gotten ‘together’ after their contentious circling of each other’s orbits, so when Derek had opened an inelegantly wrapped early edition of the novel on that first Christmas as a couple, he’d been rendered speechless.

He couldn’t remember how long he’d stared at the leather-bound copy exactly, but he did recall feeling a bout of inadequacy. He thought he’d hid it well though. “Stiles – “ he’d started. “I wasn’t expecting…This is too much.”

Stiles had shrugged like it hadn’t been a big deal, an eager grin on his face. “Nah, it wasn’t too bad. A classmate mentioned a prof who needed an assistant to help translate some Latin verses, and I thought I’d check it out. When I went, I noticed a copy of Moby Dick in his office, and you’d mentioned it was one of your favorites, so I offered my translation services for free if he would sell the book for a discounted price.”

Of course, Stiles had remembered that weird detail from a throwaway conversation. And of course, he’d been resourceful in procuring it. That was just who Stiles was. Now, Derek, on the other hand… well, he’d felt completely out of his league when he’d pulled out the gift card he’d picked up a day earlier from a comic book store. He hadn’t even known if that was a store Stiles ever visited. He really sucked at gift-giving. “Sorry, I didn’t …”

Stiles had yanked it out of his hands before he’d even finished. “I love it. Thanks, Derek!” The younger man had beamed excitedly, clutching that cheap piece of plastic in his hands as if he’d just received some personal heirloom. There had been no uptick in the man’s heartrate, so there’d been no lie in those words, but that hadn’t stop Derek from feeling bad.

And it was then that he had resolved to do better, that he would be thoughtful and meticulous in his gift selection the next time Christmas rolled around. Stiles deserved as much.

But he’d mentioned he was bad at gift-giving, right? As in, monumentally bad. Because the next Christmas, when they’d settled down on his couch after an intimate holiday dinner he’d prepared for the two of them, Stiles had presented him with a charmingly wrinkled gift bag. And when he’d pulled out a lovingly restored and framed photograph of his family from before the fire, he’d not only felt a slight lump in his throat at the sentiment, he’d also felt remarkably small and completely lacking in comparison. It was a good thing they’d come to a mutual understanding that their birthdays would be a no-gift zone, because Derek wasn’t sure he could’ve handled double the inferiority complex this time of year.

“I found a copy of the photo from the digital archives of the town newspaper. It was for some fundraiser committee your mom chaired, I think. I saved a copy, and googled around for some pointers on how to increase the resolution so I could print out a decent version of it,” Stiles had explained.

Derek had nodded absently, his fingers lightly tracing the curve of his mother’s face under the cool glass. His whole family had stared back at him, carefree and unburdened in the moment that photo had been taken, eyes all shiny from a sunny afternoon picnic. “Yeah, I remember. It was a Pets in the Park fundraiser for the local animal shelter.” There had been an ache in the pit of his stomach at the reminder of everything he’d lost, but it wasn’t as sharp as it had once been. Now, it had been dulled by time, and tempered by the meaningful relationships he’d found, foremost of which was the one with the man beside him. “Thank you,” he’d said slowly, slightly surprised that his voice hadn’t cracked at the pool of emotion swirling within him.

“Anytime, big guy.” Stiles had leaned in, his weight and warmth freely offered as a source of silent strength.

But when he’d pulled out his gift for Stiles, he had had that sinking feeling of failing an important test. He hadn’t even had time to wrap it properly, opting to place a haphazard bow on it instead. “Sorry, I didn’t know …”

Stiles had grabbed the cellophane-covered box with a puzzled expression. “A bath set?” he’d asked slowly. “Is this your way of telling me I stink?”

There had been amusement in the younger man’s tone, devoid of upset or disappointment, but that hadn’t stopped Derek from feeling upset and disappointed in himself. After Stiles had gone through all the trouble of giving him such a personal and meaningful gift, he’d reciprocated with … soap. “Remember when you were on break during Thanksgiving,” he’d started to explain. “That necromancer problem we had?”

“Oh, damn, do I ever! We spent the whole night trying to wash zombie goo out of bodily crevices I never knew I had!” Then, realization had set in as those rich brown eyes widened. “This is perfect, Derek! Thank you!” And just like that, Stiles had fallen on him with his usual gracelessness, and proceeded to express his ‘gratitude’ properly.

That had been last year. But this time around, right before Stiles had returned to campus for his final two semesters of college, Derek had stumbled upon the ideal Christmas gift, while they were cleaning, of all things. They’d been packing up and storing some of Stiles’ stuff before the younger man headed back to school when they’d gotten diverted by some dusty, old boxes in the Sheriff’s attic. Somehow, in the way of procrastination, they’d ended up flipping through old photo albums when Stiles had paused to tell him about a picture of his mother.

“Oh, there’s the locket my dad helped me buy for Mother’s Day when I was eight,” Stiles had said as he’d pointed to a picture of Claudia Stilinski, vivacious and beaming brightly at the camera. Anyone could see where Stiles had gotten his smile. “I didn’t have the greatest taste in jewelry, so it doesn’t look like much, but she was so excited when she got it. She wore it all the time.”

“It’s nice that you have a memento to remember her by,” Derek had supplied.

Stiles’ shoulders had slumped a little at the comment. “Yeah, I think we accidentally sold it during a garage sale not long after she died. Dad wasn’t exactly in the best place, and he just wanted to get rid of the memories because they hurt so much back then. Lots of regret now. Who knows? It might’ve found another home, or it might be in a garbage dump somewhere.”

And that comment had led him down the winding, convoluted path to where he was now: standing in front of a teenage girl with bright blue hair and an eclectic ensemble of a loose plaid shirt, artfully ripped leggings, and combat boots.

“A hundred bucks,” the girl re-stated, her tone indicating that this wasn’t a negotiation.

“One hundred? The pawn shop owner said you only paid five dollars for it.” He could be stubborn too, though deep down, he knew he wasn’t really in a position of power in this situation, much as that rankled him.

Ms. Blue-hair shrugged. “So? If you want it that bad, then you should be willing to pay for it.”

She had him there. Three months of diligently interviewing the Stilinski neighbors, and following a trail of multiple goodwill and pawn shops had led him to that very locket hanging from the girl’s neck, that very locket Stiles had shown him in that old photo of his mother. He gave the teen what Stiles had laughingly termed his ‘murder-brow’ look and pulled out his wallet. Of course, he would pay, especially after all the work he’d put into tracking it down, and because this was for Stiles. He didn’t have to like being swindled like this though.

“That’s a nice jacket, by the way.”

Derek looked up from pulling out the cash and froze. He glared at the girl, hoping the intensity of his stare would deter whatever she was about to insinuate. It didn’t work.

“No,” he said flatly as she watched him expectantly.

“Okay, I guess we’re done here then. Nice meeting you.” And with that, she turned and started to walk away.

Derek ground his teeth together to keep from outright growling and fought hard to not wolf out. He hated being bested like this. Life would’ve been so much simpler if he could just take the damned piece of jewelry by force and run off with it. Stupid morals.

“Fine,” he conceded with a clenched jaw after she’d managed to walk several feet away.

She turned with a triumphant smile as he started to shrug off his leather jacket. When he held it out with the wad of cash, she unclasped the chain without any further objections and handed it over. “Pleasure doing business with you, sir.”

(***)

Stiles’ name flashed on his lock screen just as he was pulling up to his loft.

“Hey, you back already?” he answered as he shifted his car into park. His regular visits to Stanford notwithstanding, he’d been anticipating Stiles’ winter break for a while, and the timing couldn’t have worked out any better with him finding the locket when he had. “I was going to pick you up tonight after you’ve had a few hours with your dad.”

Several seconds of heavy breathing greeted his words, and almost instantly, he was on alert, muscles tensing and heartrate increasing. “Stiles?”

“Yeah, Derek, I’m here,” a familiar voice sounded through the phone. “Sorry, just had to get around Scott to check something out. But no, I’m not home yet. Got sidetracked on my way into town. Can you come to the preserve right now? The trail just off Parsons. We’ve got, um, a problem.”

Since his return to Beacon Hills, the supernatural activity in the area had decreased significantly, especially with a solid pack established in the area now, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t the occasional run-in with creatures bringing in death and mayhem. This sounded like one of those times. Shifting gears into reverse, he responded without hesitation, “On my way.”

The trip to the preserve was quick, the route having been travelled so many times that he could probably drive it eyes closed. After parking in the lot off Parsons, he picked up Stiles’ scent almost immediately, along with a few others of the pack, and had no problems tracking the source down a few hundred feet off a popular running path.

Not surprisingly, Scott noticed him first, looking up from a patch of tall grass and nodding in greeting as Derek silently approached. Stiles stood more out in the open, back turned and head down as he tapped busily on his phone. Once upon a time, his quiet ‘stalking’ would’ve caused a flailing of limbs and a high-pitched yelp from the younger man, but of the familiarity borne from the years of closeness, Stiles simply turned, smiled, and greeted him with a warm ‘hey’ as if he’d known he was there the whole time. And all things considered, he probably had.

They’d never been a couple for overt displays of affection, but the way Stiles unconsciously leaned toward him, trusting and open, worked just as well in telling Derek how the other man felt. He usually did the same, subtly breathing in the scent of his boyfriend and feeling more settled in his presence. They hadn’t seen each for a couple of weeks, and he’d missed having Stiles near.

“What’s going on?” he asked, looking around for the rest of the pack. Their scents were fainter, which meant they had been here recently, but had likely wandered off or left altogether.

“It’s Christmastime in Beacon Hills, so the usual. Y’know, carolers, Santa parades, sleigh rides, tidings of comfort and joy, and oh yeah, witches.”

Derek had never been bothered by Stiles’ sarcasm, though he wouldn’t openly admit that if asked about their first encounters with each other, but now, he found the trait rather endearing. “So, we’re dealing with a witch. How bad?”

“That’s what I’m trying to figure out. I was driving back into town when I saw a kid running across the road. Freaked me out, and barely stopped in time. When I went to check on him, he was crying and said an old woman had tried to take him. At first, I thought it was an attempted kidnapping, but then, he said that there was a lot of screaming coming from her big bag, and he was scared of getting stuffed in there with all the other kid. For this town, that triggered alarm bells. Stuffing kids into bags and lugging them around is not your regular run-of-the-mill kidnapper MO. I called my dad, and he came out here with a few units, but is running interference on the supernatural front. He’d mentioned that this was the third attempted kidnapping this month, so the deputies are on high alert. They still think it’s a regular human predator, so they’re canvassing the other side of the preserve right now, which means we can do our own investigation here. I called Scott, and the others are now fanned out, doing a search to see if we can catch a scent.”

“No luck yet,” Scott added as he strode over to join them. “Just a whole bunch of the usual smells, and with the people that use the running trails, it’s hard to pinpoint a specific one. We’re not exactly sure what we’re looking for.”

“I think I have a lead though.” Stiles held out his phone to show an etching of a stooped crone with a large sack. “We might have an Icelandic witch in the area, one that kidnaps and eats children, but I’m not a hundred percent. I hope I’m not right because … well, children! But she’s supposed to be active around Christmas. I need to double-check some books at my house to make sure though.”

Derek nodded, not surprised that Stiles had pretty much figured it out already. As human as Stiles was, he was arguably one of the pack’s most valuable assets, and truth be told, Derek felt quite proud of the other man’s quick wit and life-saving accomplishments. “So, you need to go home then?”

Stiles made a sound of agreement as he tucked his phone away and gave him an apologetic look. No words were needed to communicate how sorry he was that their reunion wasn’t what they’d planned.

“Okay, call us with any info,” Scott chimed in. “Derek and I will probably be more useful if we keep scouting the area. This is children we’re talking about. I don’t want anymore of them put in danger.”

“Yes, sir, Mr. Alpha leader, sir,” Stiles replied jokingly, giving his friend a mock salute.

The years had matured Scott somewhat, enough that the erstwhile werewolf took his role and responsibilities somewhat seriously now. And for this, Derek was grateful.

Scott gave Stiles a shove to get him on his way, before shaking his head with a laugh and started to move back to the tall grass he’d been searching through earlier. “Go, you idiot.”

Stiles responded with the very mature gesture of sticking out his tongue. Then, Derek felt the younger man’s arm wrap lightly around his waist and pull him close for a quick kiss. The motion was casual, natural, and one that Derek returned without thought. “Sorry, not what we’d planned when I got back, huh? Let’s catch this witch fast so we can start our Christmas cuddle session, ‘kay?”

Derek raised an eyebrow at the comment. His boyfriend sure did have a way with words sometimes. “Christmas cuddle?”

“Hey, it is what it is.” Stiles shrugged innocently as he started to move away.

“I’m not calling it that.”

“Suit yourself, Sourwolf, but I’ve officially labelled it, and you can’t take that away from me,” Stiles said as he walked backwards toward the nearby trail. Derek half-expected him to trip on some invisible rock in the next few seconds. “Gonna say it all I want!”

He rolled his eyes as the younger man’s antics. “Go.”

“Christmas cuddle! Oh, and far be it for me to complain about seeing you in that t-shirt, but you do know it’s winter, right? We may live in California, and you may have some super-awesome internal wolfy furnace going, but I’m cold just looking at you. Where’s your jacket?”

“Go!” While he didn’t feel the chill as acutely, he didn’t need to be reminded about his fleecing by a greedy, blue-haired teenager.

After Stiles wave his acknowledgement and jogged out of sight, Derek turned back to join Scott. Their relationship may have started out roughly, but they’d fallen into a companionable pattern over the last few years. It was likely because of everything Scott had been through and his maturation, but Derek guessed part of it may have been out of respect for both their relationships with Stiles. Without much preamble, they quickly sectioned off their respective search zones, and fanned out into the thicker parts of the preserve. Derek had grown up here, had run and played amongst the trees and foliage so often that walking through it now stirred a sense of homecoming. Still, sometimes, there were things here that could still surprise him. Like the odd whiff of fear and panic he caught a few minutes after he’d split off from Scott. It was faint, probably non-existent for the newer wolves, but it was there, so out of place with the earthy scent of moss and soil. He started to follow it, his senses sharpening as he homed in on the potential prey. He hadn’t made much progress before he heard a howl off in the distance, and his entire body tensed, ready for action.

They’d found something!

Once he pinpointed the source, he was off, dashing through branches and over roots with a surety of stride that had been acquired from a lifetime of running these woods. He didn’t get very far though. He heard it first, a loud symphony of disembodied laughter all around him. Before he could stop and confront whatever it was, he caught a flutter of movement in his periphery, and then, he was flying, thrown through the air by an impact harder than anything in recent memory. He was out cold before he even landed.

(***)

He wasn’t unconscious for long. At least, he didn’t think he was, given that generations of werewolf evolution had refined his healing abilities to the point where he shouldn’t be. But however long it was, it was enough to find himself strapped to a board – or a crude table, perhaps – staring up at the flickering shadows of a stone ceiling. Or a cave? He honestly hated losing time like this and waking up in unexpected places, which, given who he was and where he lived, was an actual occupational hazard.

A whimper somewhere to his left drew his attention just then, and he tilted his head at an uncomfortable angle to take better stock of where he was, and with whom. Just within his field of vision, he could barely make out a small figure sat huddled inside a primitively constructed cage no higher than his hip. A wood fire burned beneath a big vat just a few feet away, thoroughly heating up whatever was inside if the bubbling sound was any indication.

“Hey,” he said quietly, if a little hoarsely, hoping the hunched figure would shift enough into the firelight for him to make out who it was.

The figure shuffled over, and Derek could see the tear-streaked face of a boy, probably no more than eight or nine years old. Stiles had said there’d been attempted kidnappings. It looked like one had succeeded.

“H-hello? You’re awake.”

“Yeah, I am.” He wasn’t good with children, barring the few cousins he’d played with when he was younger, yet that had been different. They’d been family. He knew this kid was scared, could hear it in the tremor of his voice and smell it in the dankness of the air, but he wasn’t sure what he could say to help with that. “I’m Derek. What’s your name?”

“A-Andy.”

“Well, Andy, if you give me a minute, we can get out of here and I’ll take you back to your parents.” He tried to sound reassuring, though he wasn’t sure it worked as well as he’d intended when he was tugging and testing the thick ropes tied around his chest, waist, and legs. They were tight, but he managed to slide a hand free enough to shift and start slicing away at the restraints with his claw.

“Just Mom,” the boy said quietly. “Dad left.”

“Okay, we’re going to find your mom then. I’m sure she’s really missing you right now.” He figured that keeping a calm tone and easy conversation going was as good a plan as any while he worked on the ropes.

Andy shuffled a little in his cage, his face dipping down again into the shadows cast by the nearby fire. “She’s working. She’s always working. She promised I’d get to see Dad, but she couldn’t take me, so I went to find him myself.”

Which might explain why the boy hadn’t been reported missing yet. There was some give to the rope by his right hip, so he tilted his head and tried to look over at the boy and hoped he properly projected the sincerity of his words. “That doesn’t mean she’s not missing you, Andy. I know she’s probably very worried. She – “

The stench assaulted him first, sour and rancid, before he felt the whole space shake with a reverberating thud. Andy quickly scooted back into the corner of his cage with a scared squeak, leaving Derek to turn and search out the source in the dim light. An old woman came into view near the foot of his table, posture bent and face haggard, each of her steps sending tiny shockwaves through the cave. Her long, gray hair hung in a greasy, unkempt mess, framing a crooked nose and a gap-toothed, mirthless grin. She resembled the picture Stiles had shown him on his phone, but the younger man had neglected to mention one thing. She was a fucking giant!

The whole cave suddenly felt cramped, and her looming presence caused his heartrate to spike. He worked faster on his ropes.

“Good dog. You’re too old and gristly for my liking, but if my lads want a pet, a pet they will get,” she said in a voice deeper than he’d expected. She patted his stomach dismissively as she passed, and he fought hard not cry out at the jarring, painful contact. “Now, where’s my little snack? Little boy for a little snack. Little boy snack.” She cackled at her own wit.

He heard Andy whimper again as the old, giant crone ambled her way over to the cage, and he wanted to tell the boy to be brave, to hold on because he was almost through his rope. Yet, as he was about to do just that, he caught the scent of metal and electricity in the air. It cut through the myriad of other unpleasant smells like an olfactory beacon, clear and crisp and a harbinger of something – or someone – familiar. He couldn’t help but smile a little at the arrival of the calvary, even as Andy shrieked when the witch pulled him roughly from the cage and shuffled over to the boiling pot.

Then, several things happened at once. First, voices that sounded like the disembodied laughter he’d heard earlier came from somewhere outside. This time, however, they were shouting out in distress, intermingled with the familiar voices of his pack. The cries gave the witch pause for a split second, just as he cut through the last of his restraints and pulled free. After that, he was up and leaping through the air, aiming to get Andy free of the old woman’s clutches and away from the fire. And he managed just that, wrapping his arms around the boy as he clawed at the large hand that held him. But he underestimated the reaction speed of the crone, and barely managed to turn his body to shield Andy before her other hand swatted his side. He landed with bone-cracking impact against the boiling pot, adrenalin enhancing his movements as he rolled quickly to avoid landing on the fire or getting splattered by the hot liquid in the toppling vat. He was pretty sure he’d probably cracked a few ribs, but they were already healing. Andy seemed none the worse for wear when he looked down, unhurt and safe in his arms still.

“My boys! What are they doing to my boys?” the witch wailed.

Derek tensed briefly, thinking the giantess would take her surprise and anger out on him. He readied himself for a fight, but instead, she turned and marched the other way, he and Andy seemingly forgotten. He eased himself up with a barely suppressed groan, and let the small body pressed against his chest slide down to his lap. He could hear the pack outside, the growls of the wolves and the foreign-sounding chants from Stiles, and he knew that they had it handled.

“You okay?” he asked as he gave Andy a good once-over.

The boy simply nodded, his whole body still trembling. Then, without a word, he leaned forward and hugged Derek as if his life depended on it. Not sure how else to respond, Derek hugged the child back.

That was how Stiles found them a few minutes later when he stumbled clumsily into the cave. After some coaxing, they both managed to talk Andy into finally letting go. Scott took it from there, coming in to take the boy away to find the Sheriff, who had been called to the area when Stiles had triangulated Derek’s location. Stiles waited a moment after Scott had left before he turned and threw himself into Derek’s arms.

“Oh, thank every deity I just prayed to you’re okay. Had me worried.”

Derek squeezed the warm, lithe body clinging to him like an octopus, and bent down to briefly nuzzle his partner’s neck. He breathed in the fortifying scent that was simply Stiles and used it to ground himself after the crazy events that had just happened. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to. I’m fine.”

“I know. You’re one tough son of a bitch, but the uncertainty always gets me.” Stiles pulled away and gave him a look with those ridiculously wide Bambi-like eyes that made Derek’s insides go warm. “And of course, you would go all superhero and save a child while we saved you. With the way the boy was holding on to you, I thought you’d replaced me with a cuter, newer model.”

Derek quirked up his lip into a lopsided, half-smile. “Never,” he returned easily. “If I did, I would at least try to get a good trade-in price for you.”

“Smartass.” As his comeback, Stiles smacked his arm with the back of his hand. He then slipped said hand into Derek’s, intertwined their fingers, and started walking out of the cave. “See if I ever send baddies back through an intercontinental gate for you again.”

“So, she wasn’t a witch?” Derek asked as he followed Stiles’ lead out of the cave

“Oh, no, she was a witch. The giantess witch, Gryla, and her sons, the Yule Lads. I don’t know how they got here, but I was working off of some quick and dirty research, so the best I could do was track down caves in the area, which is what the literature says she tends to favor, and find a spell to send her back to her native Iceland.”

Derek silently listened as Stiles explained what had happened, both grateful and proud – and not for the first or last time either – at the quick wit and resourcefulness of the guy he got to call his. They eventually emerged from the cave, and he immediately felt lighter the moment he could smell the fresh earth and foliage again. The sun was beginning to set, creating lengthening shadows of the redwoods and the oaks that stood like sentinels around them. And with that came a distinct chill in the air. He felt Stiles shiver at the lower temperature, and wished he’d had his jacket around to offer the other man. The jacket that he’d exchanged for …

With his free hand, he reached into his jeans pocket where he’d tucked the locket earlier, and –

Shit!

Without another thought, he turned and sprinted back into the cave. He quickly scanned the area and did not see the locket anywhere. His eyes then fell on the overturned pot and the still-burning embers of the woodfire. A dash of panic began to taint his actions, but he didn’t stop to quell it. Instead, he rushed over to the dying fire and started digging through the ashes. His hands burned and healed almost simultaneously as he dug desperately through the charred wood, an odd combination of frustration and helplessness clouding his judgement.

“Derek?”

He heard Stiles, but didn’t answer, mainly because his fingers wrapped around a clump of metal just then. He looked down at what used to be Stiles’ mother’s locket, the piece now misshapen by the heat and bearing no resemblance to what it used to be. He dropped the thing, both dejected and angry. This was supposed to be the year. This was supposed to be the Christmas where he would show Stiles how much the younger man meant to him by putting the care and thought into his gift that Stiles had always put into his. But everything… everything had been for nothing.

“Derek? What’s wrong? You okay?” Stiles approached and knelt beside him, looking ready to join him in whatever he was searching for.

He brushed the soot and ash off his hands, shook his head, and stood up. “Nothing. I’m good. Just thought I dropped something but I was wrong. C’mon, let’s go home.”

Puzzled, Stiles stood too, though he didn’t pry, and together, they made their way out of the cave once more, but not before Derek threw one last, longing glance at the pile of ashes.

(***)

“Oh, my god, I’m so stuffed,” Stiles said as he plopped down on the couch and rubbed his belly. “I might have to be rolled off to bed later because there’s no way I’m standing up.”

Derek smiled softly at the younger man’s dramatics, and joined him on the sofa. Christmas dinner had been an intimate one again between just the two of them, with Derek doing most of the preparation, while Stiles had ‘helped’. He didn’t mind though. He enjoyed their time together. The way they fit together, their ease with each other … it had all been hard-won, and he wouldn’t trade it for anything. The younger man had chatted animatedly throughout the meal and Derek had let him go on, wanting to prolong the whole thing because, if he was being honest, he was dreading what would happen afterwards: their gift exchange.

“Merry Christmas, Derek,” Stiles said, as if reading his thoughts. He reached over to the end table and grabbed an unevenly wrapped gift.

Derek stared at the thing for a moment, just knowing deep down it would be a typical Stiles present, all special and personal. Why did Stiles even stay with him? He must come across as an unthoughtful, unappreciative jerk. Slowly, he unwrapped the gift, and revealed a collage of artfully arranged photographs. There were trees and flowers and butterflies dancing on sunbeams across open trails. They were beautiful, more so in that Derek recognized where they had been taken: the preserve.

“You sometimes talk about how you grew up in the preserve,” Stiles explained. “How it’s a second home to you, and how you have all those memories with your family there. I know the memories are special, so I went and took some pictures during summer break. I hope these help you remember all those good times.”

Derek blinked away the prickling he felt in his eyes. Stiles may have assumed he was touched by the gift, which was fine. He didn’t need to know what Derek was really feeling. He didn’t need to know that in that moment, he thought Stiles really deserved so much better than him.

“Thank you. It’s perfect,” he choked out. “I – “ He didn’t know how to continue. What else could he say? “My present isn’t –“

He stopped. Stiles looked at him expectantly. Not finding the right words, he leaned over to the coffee table and grabbed the last-minute gift bag he’d filled the day before. “Here.”

He looked away while Stiles eagerly dug into the bag. He knew what was in there, and he didn’t need to see the lackluster reaction the younger man would have at the assortment of Reese’s candies he’d find.

“Oh, this is awesome, Derek!” Stiles exclaimed excitedly. “Holy shit, there’s a half pound peanut butter cup in here! Hello, Heaven!”

Derek felt Stiles’ arms wrap around him in gratitude, but he couldn’t find it in himself to return the gesture. The younger man seemed to notice and pulled back. “Derek?”

He turned and took in Stiles’ questioning gaze. He couldn’t do this. They complemented each other so well in everything, but somehow, in this, they were completely mismatched. “Doesn’t it bother you?” he asked in earnest.

“What?”

“My gifts. Doesn’t it bother you that my gifts are so … so bad. Yours are always so … so perfect.” It felt good to get that off his chest.

Stiles gawked at him as if he was speaking a foreign language. “Huh? But I think your gifts are perfect. And that’s not a lie. You can tell, right?”

True, Derek hadn’t heard any change in the other man’s heartrate to indicate otherwise, but no one could like his choice of gifts that much. “I just ... I wanted to show you how much I appreciate you, how much I care about you, the same way to do for me, especially with the gifts you give me. But I can’t seem to do that.” This was uncharted territory for him, this admission. He wasn’t used to revealing his insecurities like this. Yet, this was Stiles he was talking to, he reminded himself. Stiles, who never had any shame in revealing his every failure and weakness, and who gave his trust without fear of being hurt. Derek owed him the same. “I found your mother’s locket,” he finally said. “The one from the album you showed me. I found it, and was going to give it to you, but I lost it when we fought that witch last week. I’m sorry.”

He stared at the coffee table. He stared at the discard wrapping paper of the collage he’d just received. He started at everything but Stiles.

And then, “That’s what you were worried about? Not being able to show me you loved me?” Stiles’ tone was incredulous, and it was enough for Derek to turn his attention to the younger man again. “You’re an idiot, Derek,” Stiles continued. “For the record, your presents are awesome. But that’s not the point. You drive three hours each way to visit me on campus every other weekend. You cook Christmas dinner for us every year. You help me pack for college each fall. You drop everything and meet me in a forest, no questions asked, when I call. You even spent all night picking zombie guts out of my hair. If that doesn’t say ‘love’, I don’t know what does!”

To put an exclamation to his point, Stiles pulled him in for a long, lingering kiss. “I love you, Derek Hale, and I know you love me. You don’t need to give me things to show me that. You show me every day in the things you do. And that’s more than enough.”

Derek looked at the man sitting beside him, stunned and at a loss. “I –“

“It’s more than enough,” Stiles re-stated firmly. “Now, stop your self-flagellation, and show me how much you appreciate my gift by kissing me.”

Stiles pulled him in again, and this time, Derek did put everything he had into that kiss because the weight of those heartfelt words were slowly sinking in. He loved Stiles. And Stiles … Stiles knew that. He groaned in appreciation at the true gift he’d been given as he pushed the younger man down onto his back, bracing his weight on his arms as he ground their hips together. Fuck it, he felt like he’d really won the lottery in finding Stiles … because Stiles was right, he realized as he deepened their kiss, tasting and teasing the smart, sarcastic, and silly man beneath him.

This … This was more than enough.

#obsessedbutonline #stereksanta20 #*fic20 #*gifts20

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foursideharmony · 5 years ago

Text

Collateral Damage (Part 1)

Summary: Roman gets into trouble while questing in the Imagination. Rescue arrives, but will the rescuer be all right? A gift of sorts for @today-only-happens-once

Word Count: 1,829

Relationship(s): Platonic LAMP, with some extra Prinxiety focus

Warnings: It's a whump/hurt/comfort fic, sooooo... Plant-monster, violence, nausea, injury, villain!Remus, torture, blood, gross eye stuff, fainting

Roman often said the Imagination was dangerous. The vast majority of the time, this was flagrant exaggeration. The truth was that the Creative Side had an excellent handle on his realm and had learned to build in all kinds of fail-safes, in case a quest or other adventure started to turn sour in an unplanned way. One of his favorites was a staple of the “game” he called Wandering Monsters, wherein he would hat up, venture into the wilderness of the kingdom, guided by his intuition, and face whatever it threw at him. He kept the far reaches of his realm stocked with not just all manner of fantastic creatures, but conceptual fragments of them—traits that could combine unpredictably to generate new monsters, so that he never knew just what to expect.

Once he had battled a fire-breathing winged toad that exploded into thousands of regular toads upon its defeat. That had been rather disgustingly memorable. Then there had been the lamia-sphinx, who forced Roman to solve the riddle of her beauty or be devoured. On yet another occasion, instead of generating a monster, the landscape itself became more hazardous as he traveled, producing sinkholes and avalanches. It was always fresh, always exciting...and always escapable if Roman found himself in over his head, thanks to the fail-safe.

For this particular episode of Wandering Monsters, he found himself descending into a fetid marsh. (That should have been his first clue that something was amiss.) He kept to higher ground as much as possible, avoiding the standing water, but every footstep squelched in slimy mud and he was constantly harassed by clouds of gnats. He was weighing the merits of just calling off the adventure altogether when a patch of scummy water several paces ahead of him erupted in khaki spray and the monster appeared.

It was...a blob. Well, a wad—a shapeless mass of tangled plant matter about the size of an elephant, with no discernible aesthetic or grace. “I ruined my boots for this?” Roman complained aloud. “I have half a mind to just—aah!”

He trailed off in a startled scream as two vines lanced out of the mass toward him. He brought his shield up in time, but the impact still tipped him over, and he slid headfirst down a muddy embankment and into the water. For a panicked moment, Roman was trapped that way, head submerged, lacking the leverage to right himself, until he got the presence of mind to jam his sword into the mud and use it as a handhold to haul himself up. He sputtered, spitting out foul water—

—and suddenly found himself swinging wildly in the air, upside-down. The monster had extended another vine and hoisted him into the air by one ankle. Roman slashed at the ropy tendril only to realize that he didn't have his sword because, duh, it was still stuck in the bank and he had lost his grip on it when the creature yanked him away. But his shield was still there, strapped to his arm, and it was good steel, and a dull edge was still an edge.

The monster thrashed back and forth, making Roman helicopter in the air and robbing him of any chance to bring his shield within reach of the vine that held him, as well as making him faintly motion-sick. It let go on an upswing, sending him tumbling upward, and then snatched him with more vines, these lined with thorns that dug through his clothing and pricked his flesh. Roman gasped with the sudden shock of pain, only to find his breathing constricted as the vines coiled thickly around his torso, squeezing the air from his lungs.

Enough was enough: time for the fail-safe! Roman banged his feet together three times and wheezed “There's no place like home!” (because he respected the classics). The scene sloshed around him, there was a rushing sensation, and he landed on his butt on smooth tile. His sword clattered beside him.

It had worked. He was back in the hall of his castle, safe and able to assess the damage at his leisure while he waited for Phase Two of the fail-safe to kick in. The thorn-wounds stung and itched, but they didn't seem too deep; Roman figured—

The sense of something shifting behind him dragged the prince out of his train of thought. Roman whirled around to see something that should have been impossible—the marsh monster was there, in the hall with him! It had followed him, through the retrieval spell, and that could mean only one thing.

He should have realized.

“Oh, Rooooomaaaaaannnnnnn!” squealed the voice he detested. “What's wrong, brother dear? Don't you like your new friend? I made him just for you! Say hello and PLAY NICE!” Remus's voice dropped to a growl on the last two words, and the plant creature extended a heavy vine and slapped Roman, sending him tumbling over the marble and adding a multitude of bruises to the pinprick cuts he had already sustained. His whole body twinged in protest.

Roman staggered to his feet. He hadn't managed to grab his sword, and could only watch as the monster galumphed toward him, vines lashing. It moved something like a gigantic amoeba—bulging irregularly toward the front and then flowing into the bulge, its movements erratic but averaging out to forward motion. Remus was perched atop it, sitting cross-legged, his morningstar laid across his knees, grinning like he always did when serious violence was in the offing. Roman juked to the side just as they arrived, so that the mass of stinking plant matter shambled past him. It was leaving a disgusting trail of mud and scum all over his floor, and that made him angrier than the injuries. How dare—

“Whoopsie-daisy!” Remus screeched, realizing that Roman had evaded him. “None of that, now!” He swiveled atop the monster and it reversed course without even turning, shooting its vines out what had been the back and was now, apparently, the new front. If such terms even meant anything in relation to such a shapeless thing.

“Remus, go home!” Roman snarled. “You're not welcome here!”

“Oh, so you can invade my side of the Imagination, but not vice-versa? That's hardly fair!”

“I didn't invade—look, I don't have to justify myself to you!” The scratches were really starting to sting, as if the monster were made of nettles. Roman could barely manage to dodge the new strikes—he needed his sword! He turned and darted back the way he had come, and promptly slipped on the sludge left by the creature's passage. Roman's chin met the marble hard enough to fill his vision with black sparks, and he tasted blood.

“Ooh, Roman, I like the way you think!” Remus said, and before Roman could wonder what the hell he was talking about, the plant-monster had him by the ankle again—both ankles this time. Roman's stomach roiled, made more sensitive by his near-concussion, but before he got a chance to see whether he was actually going to be sick, the creature whipped him across the room.

In the next instant, he slammed into a pillar, the impact sending savage pain exploding all up and down his body. In the instant after that, the pain came again as he dropped to the floor. He could scarcely breathe, it was so excruciating, and he definitely couldn't move, even to desperately crawl away when Remus and his “pet” approached again.

“Poor little Princey,” Remus said, sing-song. “He's all black and blue! Not a very balanced color scheme—too cool, too somber. I know! We'll brighten it up with some RED!” On the last word, a thorny vine raked at Roman's back, tearing right through his sash and jacket and leaving burning scratches in his flesh. The assault continued, Remus cackling as his minion tore Roman's clothes to shreds and his skin to something not much better. Where the HELL is Phase Two? the prince wondered frantically.

“Enough!” he gasped out, prompting a pause in the torture. “P-please! What do you want, Remus?”

Remus rolled his eyes so hard that they literally popped out of his head and bounced on the floor, adding revulsion to Roman's catalog of horrible sensations. “What, you never heard of family bonding time?” he said, ichor dripping from his empty sockets.

Roman closed his eyes against the hideous sight and began to hum softly, trying to dull the pain to something manageable. He didn't get very far before Remus's voice cut in, rasping like sandpaper against his battered awareness.

“Hey! Don't ignore me when I'm talking to you! Where are your manners?”

Back in the swamp, Roman thought sourly, but he didn't bother responding out loud.

“I asked you a question!” Remus roared. Then, suddenly as mild as if they'd been discussing recent movies, he said: “You know...there's something I've always wondered. Why does the prince always get to be so handsome?”

Roman's eyes snapped open with alarm. Remus, in possession of his own eyes once again, had shifted position atop the monster, lying on his stomach, head propped up on one hand while the other twirled the morningstar almost negligently. “And whatever would he do,” the Intrusive Side continued, “if that were taken away from him?”

He made a sharp gesture, and several vines zipped out and coiled around Roman's sprawled limbs, pinning him in place. Remus twiddled his fingers in the air, and another vine, this one dotted with barbed thorns, emerged and hovered, poised over Roman's face, quivering with what seemed like monstrous anticipation.

Just as the vine struck, there was a soft explosion of ultraviolet and a smell of ozone, and someone was there, intervening. Roman's vision was becoming hopelessly blurred; all he could make out was a mass of black and purple. Virgil...?

Virgil had blocked the vine with his forearm, his baggy hoodie sleeve bunching up and cushioning him from the damage as its momentum whipped it around his wrist. “GET OUT!” he bellowed, his voice reverberating with the Tempest Tongue. The force of his shout struck Remus like a physical blow, sending him tumbling backward along the top of the marsh monster. “OUT!!” Virgil repeated, wrenching at the vine wrapped around his arm.

The stress of the situation lent him power, and the monster...unraveled, like a ball of yarn. Remus made an extremely undignified noise as he fell amid the collapsing vines, and in a puff of acrid smoke, he was gone. The remains of the plant creature...remained, strung out in slimy, noisome piles in what was supposed to be a luxurious and fashionable palace hall.

Near-silence fell over the space, punctuated only by Virgil's panting breaths as he came down from the peak of his fight-or-flight state, and by Roman's own ragged breaths. His wounds throbbed hotly, seeming to expand, and he realized why, just as the room started to spin away into blackness...

To Be Continued...

#sanders sides #fanfiction #ts remus #collateral damage

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luci-cunt · 5 years ago

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Hi, I don't know if you're still doing this, but if you're still taking prompts and have time, could you do 4. Coffe shop AU and 70. Locked in a room for whoever you want in the green creek series? I love your writing

oh absoLUTELY I can do this !!!! Nonnie I love youuuuuuuuu!!!!

4. Coffee shop AU and 70. Locked in a room

I’m vibin Gordo/ Mark lovin’ hours (also I’m thinking a completely human au, just to make it spicy >:)

aight so coffee shop: (god I love these aus)

Instead of a garage Gordo owns a coffee shop, it doubles as a bookstore and it’s kind of a local hot-spot

He’s known for being kind of bitchy and he’ll sass the hell out of you for just about everything you do but he also has every single regular’s order memorized

Queue Mark: his vibe feels to me like... idk he’s just kind of a drifter, he picks up jobs here and there--mostly construction--chills in a town for a few weeks and then packs up and heads out

He comes to Green Creek and the first thing he wants is a sandwich, he’s exhausted from traveling and he’s gonna go collapse into his truck and pass out right after this but first--sandwich

and holy FUCK the barista is cute

until he says Mark stinks

“You smell like spawn of an onion hate fucking a bunch of dead fish”

(yeah he’s just more head over heels)

“well, don’t you have a way with words, really know how to make a guy feel warm and fuzzy”

“I’m not trying to make you warm and fuzzy I’m trying to make you take a shower”

“Can I have your number if I do?”

*not even close to what Gordo had expected him to say* “No--what?? No! fuck off”

“Worth a shot” and then he winks and leaves

and Gordo is PISSED

“The AuDaCiTy of this guy--he thinks he can just come in and--”

“You’re just mad he wasn’t properly intimidated” -Tanner

“Shut up!”

“Oh--the defensive shut up, we got him boys” -Rico

“I hate all of you”

“Hopefully not like you hate Mark, I don’t want your dick” -Chris

*Gordo beating all of them with a wadded up newspaper*

Anyways, Mark coming in becomes kind of a thing(tm)

he’s also very persistently trying to get Gordo’s number

“What if you only think you’re being smooth and you’re actually just being a creepy fucking weirdo” -Gordo

“Then I’ll stop--am I being a creepy fucking weirdo?”

“Get out of my shop”

“That’s not an answer!” *grinning like a fucking idiot*

*Gordo throwing to-go cups at him* “Get out of my shop!”

So this goes on for quite a while, with Mark coming in every single day for almost a month

Gordo loves hates it

One day though, Mark doesn’t come in

The guys tease Gordo for finally managing to scare him off but Gordo isn’t so sure, and--the next day--Mark comes in again

This time very obviously not looking so good and without most of his usual pep

Gordo asks if he got attacked by a bear--trying to pretend like he doesn’t give a shit--but Mark just laughs him off and doesn’t explain, he leaves quick

Gordo mumbles something about a smokebreak and he finds Mark’s truck

It’s parked at the hotel so he pops in, demands to know which room he’s in, and is pointed in that direction

He realizes, about halfway up the stairs, that there might actually be nothing wrong, he could have been reading the situation completely wrong or--

“Gordo?”

Mark’s at the end of the hall, coming out of a room and Gordo glares.

“Fucking ass, I came to--hey! What the hell!?” but that’s just about all he manages to get out because Mark’s dragging him away and into some dark room.

Gordo is not pleased “Get your damn hands off me you--”

“Shh, he can’t see you” Well not that’s just cryptic and creepy as all fuck

“Who??”

“Uh, an.... associate.... of mine”

“Really?”

“Yeah we’re not on very good terms”

Gordo flicks on the lights because fuck you Mark and then he realizes Mark shoved them in the workout room--yeah the one with the swapped lock so you have to have a key to get out.

“Did you bring your key?”

“Uh.... no? Why?”

“Fuck”

Gordo goes to pull out his phone, which luckily is still in his pocket and he calls the front desk, they laugh, and say they’ll send someone up

In the meantime though

“So--you were worried about your favorite customer?”

“My favorite customer is a ninety year old lady who orders a triple shot macchiato and fought in the second world war”

“So--you were worried about your second favorite customer?”

“I hate you”

“You were worried!”

“Fuck off”

Then the door opens, but instead of one of the employees it’s some blond-haired kid who looks remarkably like Mark

“Uh--” the kid says

“Shit” Mark says, which just makes the kid get a shit eating grin

“You’re Gordo aren’t you?”

Gordo just turns and flicks Mark between the eyes “explaination--now”

“I’m Mark’s nephew, Carter, I was just visiting”

“Your nephew is the associate you’re not on good terms with” Gordo says flatly

“Maybe...”

Anyways, turns out Carter can drink Mark under the table which is what happened, so Marks just horrendously hung over

(also while he was drunk he may or may not have rambled a bit about the hot barista--ok he definitely did that)

But on the bright side--the next day when Mark comes in for his sandwich he also gets a to-go cup full of coffee grounds that has a middle finger on it, but, most importantly, Gordo’s number.

<333!!!

Send me some prompts + characters/ ships and I’ll tell ya how I’d mash em!

#green creek #gordo / mark #idk what's there ship name #dumbasses #XDD #fic #luci writes

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aaknopf · 5 years ago

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The poet Quan Barry is also a fiction writer, whose mischievous We Ride Upon Sticks has just been published. In the fall of 1989, the seniors on the losing Danvers Falcons field hockey team avail themselves of some locally-sourced Salem witchery, in the hope of concocting a winning season. They make a pact, signing their names in a spiral notebook with Emilio Estevez on the cover, and rip and tie strips of Falcons-blue tube sock around all their arms, sealing their dark bond. In the scene below (which includes a special guest appearance by the poet Philip Larkin), the team mingles with members of the football team at their favorite pizza joint. We meet one of the more mysterious players, Girl Cory, so-called because there’s also a Boy Cory on the squad; Boy Cory’s story, like that of Girl Cory, their teammates Jen Fiorenza (whose awesome, high-teased bangs are known to all as “the Claw”), Abby Putnam (ancestor of an original Salem accuser), and others in the mix here, is a journey of identity, community, and the magic of high school friendships.

from We Ride Upon Sticks

“Our butts are going to States this year,” said Jen. “Where are your butts going?” Just then Girl Cory walked in. For a moment the air in Rocco’s filled with the scent of aquamarine waters and palm trees, the harmonies of steel drums, then just as quickly it was back to cheese pizza and the crackling of the deep fryer. “ ’Sup?” Log called out. Most guys at Danvers High didn’t talk to Girl Cory. From what we could glean of teen-boy-dom it seemed most teen boys only have a finite amount of confidence, and they couldn’t afford to go blowing it willy-nilly on a hopeless case like Girl Cory. It was plain to see she was out of everyone’s league. Most people accepted this. It was pure science, like the apple falling from the tree. Girls like Girl Cory didn’t date regular human boys. Historically, since the invention of written records in the girls’ third-floor bathroom concerning who was banging whom, Girl Cory had never dated anyone at Danvers High. Mostly she left in her wake a trail of names from the local private-school universe, places like the Prep, Pingree, even some faraway boy at Deerfield. Log’s “ ’Sup?” was still hanging in the air. Only he among his brethren had confidence to burn. Little did he know but “ ’Sup?” was an excellent question, one we’d been secretly wondering all our lives. Yeah, Girl Cory, what’s up? As she stood at the counter, Girl Cory nodded at Log but didn’t say a word or even take off her Ray-Bans. “And what does your soon-to-be captain have to say about you hosers going to States?” whispered Brian Robinson in a small voice, only looking at Girl Cory indirectly via a shiny plaque mounted on the wall, as if she were a Medusa with the power to transform flesh to stone. “Which is it?” he said. “You guys going to States, or 2-8 again?” “For your information, we haven’t voted for captain yet,” said Jen. Her Claw gave him the stink eye. Rocco’s adult son Vinny slammed her order down on the counter. Ceremoniously, she rose to retrieve her Diet Coke and two slices of Hawaiian. She noticed Log Winters was still staring at Girl Cory. “Take a picture, my friend,” she said, bending over and whispering in Log’s ear. “It’ll last longer.” Then she raised her voice so that all of Rocco’s could partake in the annunciation. “Besides, Cory already has a boyfriend.” “Who’s that?” said Log. “Nobody you’d know,” Jen projected. “He sent her flowers today. Isn’t that right, Cory?” Girl Cory turned and flashed Jen a look that simultaneously said both shut up and keep talking. She was an enigma like that. Honestly, none of us really knew her. Even now that we were all part of the sisterhood of the blue sweat sock, it was like she had constructed a wall to keep us out, a sunroom off the kitchen where she could sit and drink her Earl Grey in peace while the rest of us crowded around a plate of stale bagels in the breakfast nook. Girl Cory pulled a wad of napkins from the dispenser and went over to where Little Smitty was sitting with Mel. What’s up, Girl Cory? All season long, the rest of us standing around wondering, Girl Cory. What. Is. Up? And then one day we’d take a big juicy bite of the apple from the Tree of Knowledge, and to our everlasting sorrow, we’d find out. “Philip” made his first appearance during the ’88 season shortly after Girl Cory passed her driver’s test. It was late October, one of those autumn days when the afternoon sky prematurely takes on a hazy shade of winter. We were just off the school bus after returning from a massacre in Gloucester, 4-0. Truthfully, the score didn’t accurately reflect the gutting we’d endured at the hands of the Gloucester Fishermen. The two senior co-captains, Gina Packer and Mary Ellen Sommers, had gotten into a fight during the coin toss over whether to pick heads or tails. At one point, Gina reached over and ran her finger through the blue face paint where Mary Ellen had spackled the letters DHS on her cheek. We winced. It was like watching someone ruin a beautifully frosted cake. When we finally arrived back at Danvers High, Julie Kaling stopped reciting that part of the Nicene Creed about God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, her crucifix glinting in the dark of the bus. To be honest, after the kind of outing it had been, some of us found her religious yammering weirdly comforting. We’d grabbed our stuff from the locker room and headed out to wait for our moms to come get us or to bum rides with the seniors who lived in our neighborhoods. Girl Cory had hit the two-fecta, having recently passed her driver’s test and been given her own wheels to boot. Her brand-new white Fiero was parked in the student lot. The Fiero had been purchased weeks before her driving test and was just sitting around in her multi-car garage collecting dust. Driving was still a novelty to her, the monogrammed fingerless gloves still fun to slip on. That day she was giving Abby Putnam a ride home. It was Abby who pointed out the mint-green envelope stuck under the windshield wipers. Girl Cory peeled the envelope off the wet glass and held it between her fingers like a dead roach. “This is a wicked bummer,” she said. “Can you get ticketed here?” Abby shook her head. She watched as her friend tore open the soggy envelope. Girl Cory’s face betrayed nothing. If anything, she looked a little more bloodless. “Lemme see,” said Abby. She took the slip of paper in her hands and stared for a long time at the blurred writing, the washed-out words as if painted in watercolor. Roses are Red— Your Fiero—it’s White— With seating for two. Don’t! Put up a fight—take me with you! The next day before practice we showed the letter around. Heather Houston performed a close reading on it worthy of a 5 on the AP English test. She commented on the juvenile use of the Dickinsonian em dash, the strange imperatives, the elisions, the contradictory tone of both fight and flight. “Whoever wrote this is not playing with a full deck,” she concluded, pushing her glasses up the bridge of her nose. “It doesn’t even make sense. Like this part. ‘Don’t!’ Don’t what? Use your words, people!” She was practically spitting she was so worked up about it. Poor Heather Houston took weak syntactical choices as a personal affront. Julie Kaling patted her comfortingly on the back. “I dunno, I think it’s sweet,” said Little Smitty softly. This was back in the days before Emilio and the blue tube sock, back when Little Smitty ate all the spinach on her plate happily with a big smile as though it were cotton candy. “What I will say,” said Heather, offering a second conclusion about the note, “is Philip Larkin he is not.” Becca Bjelica looked at AJ Johnson and silently mouthed, Philip who? We were all thinking the same thing. Nobody rolled their eyes at her. How were we supposed to know some curmudgeonly British poet, even one who’d written: They fuck you up, your mum and dad. They may not mean to, but they do. They fill you with the faults they had And add some extra, just for you. And thus “Philip” was born. That first year “Philip” mostly left little things lying around in plain sight, like a cat who brings its owner dead robins. A tube of Chanel lipstick without the actual lipstick in it. A box of chocolates, but instead of sweets slotted in each compartment, there were rocks. Girl Cory took it all in stride. We didn’t tell anyone in the adult world because what was there to say? Some poor slob had the hots for a girl so beautiful she should have been in a music video, and he left her crazy presents? Back then the word “stalker” wasn’t really part of anyone’s vocabulary. Fatal Attraction had come out the year before, but that was just stuff that happened to sexy creeps like Michael Douglas, who banged complete strangers and mostly had it coming. And so Girl Cory learned to live with it. And so we learned to live vicariously through her. In time, we began to look forward to “Philip’s” offerings. They made us feel like maybe somewhere down the road, somebody, anybody, might possibly want us. Even the time he dropped a note in her schoolbag that said, “I hate you, you stupid peckerhead,” and signed it “Much l♥ve.” We were a bunch of mostly inexperienced teen girls. We thought that’s what true romance was supposed to look like. A boy telling a girl she was a stupid peckerhead, but she was his stupid peckerhead. Lord, make us worthy, we prayed. God from God, Light from Light, Boyfriend from Boy Who Considers Us a Peckerhead. It seemed like the thing to ask for. None of us ever thought to pray for a better caliber of boy.

More on this book and author:

Learn more about We Ride Upon Sticks by Quan Barry

Browse other books by Quan Barry including her four poetry collections published in the Pitt Poetry Series

Read the full text of Philip Larkin's "This Be the Verse" at the Poetry Foundation

Peruse other poems, audio recordings, and broadsides in the Knopf poem-a-day series

To share the poem-a-day experience with friends, pass along this link.

#quan barry #we ride upon sticks #knopf poetry #poetry #poem-a-day #poetry month

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rockbelric · 7 years ago

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Back

Written for 503week Day 5: Home!!

Summary: Edward always had such strong, mixed feelings about coming back to Resembool.

Rated: K+

Please let me know what you think!! Enjoy!!

Long train rides with children were never easy. They always had to pee or got hungry or threw a tantrum at the worst times. Traveling with three of them barely under five years old was almost impossible. Luckily, Edward and Winry were pros at it.

“Theo, if the ticket inspector sees you standing on the bench he’s going to give us a talking to.” Winry chastises, adjusting her grip on the sleeping baby in her arms. Their oldest son had his face pressed up against the train window, looking out at the changing scenery.

“Woah, we’re going fast!”

Summer had just begun, and that meant that the Elric-Rockbell family would be migrating over to Resembool for the next three months. They used this time to visit Granny and escape the Rush Valley heat, which was remorseless. Also, it didn’t hurt that Winry got a break from work. She’s been running herself ragged trying to accommodate all her customers before leaving.

“Maybe if we had a private car, like I asked, we wouldn’t have to worry about the ticket inspector yelling at us.” She mused aloud, not directly addressing her husband, though he gets the message.

“Yeah, yeah, it’s not my fault they were all reserved.” He grouses. It’s totally his fault. She asked him to buy the train tickets weeks ago and he forgot, as usual, and bought them last minute, forcing them to sit in an open car. Now the other passengers eye them if the kids or their parents got too loud.

“My butt’s going to hurt after sitting on these uncomfortable benches.”

Theo and Sarah share a laugh at the word butt, looking at their mother. Edward’s busy trying to fold a piece of paper into a crane like Al had demonstrated to him for his daughter. His origami skills sucked ass, but they’re getting better. He had to keep folding the paper over and over again and he was losing his patience. Sarah was watching him intently with her big blue eyes, trying to figure out how he did it.

The kids loved all the cool things their Uncle Al showed them, from alchemy, to martial arts, to the Xingnese he could speak. He was super cool. Not as cool as their dad, of course, but pretty high up there. They couldn’t wait to see him soon.

“That’s it!” Frustrated, Edward balls up the paper and gives up. He took his anger out on the failed design, crunching it up nice and good.

“Papa, I want a bird! That’s not it!” Sarah whines.

“Sorry Bug, here’s a turtle instead.” He hands her the wad of paper. “I’ll make you a crane later.”

Not impressed with the ‘turtle’, Sarah pretends it’s a bird and introduces it to her stuffed animal, playing make believe. Theo is still looking out the window, hypnotized by the scenery whizzing by, silently watching. And thankfully Allen is still snoozing on Winry’s lap.

They won’t arrive until early evening and there are still a couple hours to go. Ed and Winry look at each other, appreciating the moment of peace. The look in her eyes tell him how excited she is to be going back to Resembool, to see Granny. To see Al. His grin gets wider the longer they gaze at each other. He brings his foot up to knock against hers, and they gently play footsie. He’s excited too, she can tell.

Suddenly their eldest interrupts the moment, turning to his mother, “Mom, I have’ta go potty.” He says holding himself and squirming in his seat. “Bad.”

“Ed?” Winry asks her husband who’s already getting up.

“Alright buddy, let’s go find the toilets.” Theo hops from the bench and follows his father down the train car and out to the adjacent one.

Sarah is still babbling to her toy dog and Edward’s paper creation, lost in her fantasy world. Winry looks down at her youngest baby. His cheeks are red and he’s a bit sweaty from being on a hot train, but still knocked out. His mother was smart enough to give him a nice meal before the ride and rock him to sleep so he could go down for a long nap. That way he’d miss a good chunk of the trip and wouldn’t fuss too much.

After a while, Ed and Theo come back from the restroom. Their son yells to his mom that his aim is getting better “I got it all in!” A couple passengers look over to the child loudly sharing his bathroom adventures, giving some choice looks at the family. Ed and Winry laugh and tell him to lower his voice.

“Yay!” Winry cheered softly, trying not to wake Allen, “I’m so proud of you!” She grins at her son who beams back.

They sit back on the bench and after a few minutes Theo asks, “How much longer?” He looks up from the window, bored of the scenery.

“About an hour and a half.” His dad ruffles his hair, “Do you want to help me read?” Edward takes a book out of his suitcase, something about beginner’s alchemy.

“Yeah!”

“Me too!” Sarah scrambles over to her father’s other side, peering at the book in his lap.

Winry watched as Edward steadily explained to their kids what the alchemy book was about, pointing at the pictures and diagrams. They listened intently to him, nodding along when he asked if they understood. Winry figured most of this was going over their heads. They just enjoyed seeing their father speak so passionately about something and wanted to share that with him. She told Edward this once he got offended, saying they were soaking up all this knowledge and would retain it for future use to be alchemical geniuses. It was sweet though, how Ed and the kids humored each other with the idea that they were actually learning about alchemy.

Allen stirred in her arms, waking up and rubbing his eyes. “Hey, sleepyhead.” Winry greeted him. “Did you have a nice nap?” His blue eyes peered at her sleepily as he sucked his pacifier. Still laying in her arms, he looks around the train car, curiously soaking in the new scenery. When he sees his dad and his siblings he twists in her arms, trying to reach out to them with his chubby little hands.

“Dah!” He squeals, getting Ed’s attention.

“Hey! Look who’s up!” Ed reaches out and takes him from Winry and bounces him up and down. Allen was now fully alert, laughing at his dad, his wide grin causes his binky to fall out of his mouth. Ed’s got the baby standing in his lap as he blows air in his face causing him to erupt in delicious baby giggles. Sarah joins in and plays with her little brother, showing him her stuffed dog and then taking him away before he could snatch it. Theo grabs the discarded alchemy book and continues to pretend to read and look at the alchemy symbols, ignoring his families play time.

“Mama,” Sarah says thoughtfully, looking up at Winry, “I wanna ‘nother baby.”

Both parents immediately look at each other in surprise. “But we already have Allen.” Winry says, “Why do you want another one?”

“Cause! I wan’ a girl!” Their daughter says seriously, eyebrows furrowed.

“I don’t know Sara—”

“Maybe someday soon.” Ed cuts in, winking at his daughter.

“Edward!” His wife scolds, “You can’t just make these decisions by yourself!”

Grinning back at her he turns Allen so she’s facing his big blue eyes and chubby cheeks. “Oh, come on Win, we can’t stop at three! Look at how cute our babies are!”

Dammit. Their babies are the cutest. She sighs in defeat when Allen gurgles, almost saying ‘Mama’, “Well besides, Sarah, even if we did have another baby, Mama can’t choose if it’s a boy or a girl.”

All Sarah heard was ‘another baby’. “Yay!”

“I don’t want another baby! We have a lot of babies with Sarah and Allen!” Theo complains.

“‘M not a baby!” Sarah retorts, “I’m a big girl!”

“Are too!” He sticks his tongue out.

“Am not!”

“Stop it!” Winry reprimands. “You’re both acting like babies.” One hard look from Winry and they immediately cease. Ed wishes he had that kind of control over his kids.

The family settles down, Theo and Sarah reluctantly sharing the alchemy book and Edward entertaining the baby. Winry decided to take a little cat nap since no one needed her attention at the moment.

She leaned her head against the window and nodded off. She wasn’t sure how long she was out before she was disturbed by somebody crawling over her.

“Sarah! Leave her alone!” she hears her husband whisper harshly.

Her hair gets tugged and Winry opened her eyes to see her daughter inches from her face peering into her eyes. “Mama, I’m hungry.” Sarah whispers.

“Mmh, Sarah I was sleeping.” Winry mumbles.

“Hey, I told you not to wake her up you little stink.” Edward reprimands his daughter.

Sarah turns and gives him an annoyed look that says, ‘butt out’. Damn, she sure gets a real attitude when she’s hungry and that face surely reminds him of somebody...

Turning back to her mom Sarah whines, “Papa ate all the snacks.” Pushing her bottom lip out.

“That was Theo! And you said you didn’t want any!” Edward defends himself and turns to his son for backup but all he gets is a shrug.

Winry sits up, “Don’t worry, we’re almost there. Just a little longer, Baby.” She smooths Sarah’s hair back. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the answer her daughter was looking for. Huffing, Sarah forces her way in between Winry and the window so she can turn her back on her family who betrayed her in her time of need. She furrows her brow while clutching her toy with her whole body.

Rolling her eyes Winry asks, “What time is it?”

Balancing the baby on his knee, Edward fishes his watch out of his pocket. “It’s almost six. We should be arriving any minute now.”

“Ooh, you hear that, Sarah? Any minute now.” Winry tickles her daughter’s sides and she flinches out of her touch, still angry at her parents for not feeding her. Edward snorted, she definitely got that from him.

Excited again, Theo presses his whole face against the train window. There were long stretches of farmland and mountains framing the background. Some of his favorite memories were in Resembool. Like swimming in the lake and watching fireworks on the grassy hills and eating Granny’s delicious cooking. Not that his mom’s cooking wasn’t good, but his Granny always gave him an extra biscuit at breakfast or let him try the fried meatballs before she added the red sauce or pretends not to see when he picks off a piece of the apple pie crust while it’s cooling.

“Look! I can see Granny’s house from here!” Theo points out the window.

“Where?” Sarah asks, forgetting her hunger and her grudge.

“Right there, see?” They’re both trying to make out a tiny house amongst the field of green.

Edward always had such strong, mixed feelings about coming back to Resembool. So many things have happened here. This is where Hohenheim left them. And where Mom died and is buried. Where he and Al committed human transmutation. Where he met Teacher, and Roy, and Riza. Where he kept coming back to after getting the shit beaten out of him. Where he was pieced together after falling apart. But, Resembool is where he and Al found a home after everything. Where Al got his strength back. Where Winry and he started their relationship. Where they got married. Where their kids were born.

It's not so much the feeling of coming home anymore. Resembool isn’t home. It hasn’t been for a long while now. No, home is his kids running to greet him when he walks through the door. It’s Allen’s cries when he wants his father to rock him to sleep. It’s seeing his brother’s face after so long, growing into a man. It’s Winry and him, curled on the couch together after a long day, just enjoying each other’s company. Home is his family. It always was.

The train lets out a loud whistle as it slows down into the station, breaking Ed from his thoughts. There weren’t many passengers disembarking here, Edward was pretty sure they were the only ones.

“Alright crew!” Ed hops up. “Let’s hit the road.” The kids clamber down from their seats.

They gather all their belongings and step off the train together. Edward counts heads to make sure they didn’t miss anyone. Everyone’s present and accounted for. “I have to talk to the station master about getting a cart for our luggage.” He hands his wife their youngest baby. “Why don’t you guys go ahead, I’ll catch up.”

“We can wait a couple minutes,” Winry bounces the baby who was tired of being carried and wanted to be let down. She gives him a smile and Ed’s mouth turns dry. “We’ll go with you, right kids?” Sarah whines again about being very hungry and Theo complains that he wants to go to Granny’s already.

He grins at his family, “Alright, then, come on!” And scoops up Sarah before she can throw a tantrum on the platform.

“Maybe Mrs. Collette has some candy for you.” Hoping that would keep their kids from tearing the station apart. “But only if you behave.” Winry warns, coolly.

They linger in the office a little longer than planned. Mrs. Collette coos over the kids, pinching their cheeks and making funny faces at Allen saying how adorable the kids are. Theo didn’t appreciate that at all and gave her a stink eye for it but didn’t say anything lest his mom gets angry and makes him apologize.

Sarah though, gobbles it up. She’s being extra cute and smiley as Mrs. Collete gives them each a piece of sticky taffy. Allan gets jealous at his brother and sister’s treats and starts squawking, opening his mouth for a bite.

“Thanks Mrs. Collette, see you around!” Ed waves to the older woman. Allan imitates him, flourishing his tiny little hand too as they walk out of the station.

They trekked up to the yellow house on the hill. Sarah happily chomping on her taffy on Ed’s shoulders while Theo had already swallowed his.

Once the house is in view Theo runs as fast as his small legs can take him and Sarah wiggles to get down too, so she can follow her brother.

Granny is standing on the porch, smoking her pipe, disposed to greet the young family. Ed and Winry wave at her from down the road, huge smiles on their faces.

It was good to be back.

“You got something good cooking for us Granny?” Edward bounds up the stairs. “We’re starving!”

“Heh, what’s the fun in a meal if you’re not there to help out?” She puffs out a long drag of smoke.

After play time, dinner, and bath time the older Elric kids are wiped out. Winry tucks them into bed and slowly closes the door to their room knowing they’ll sleep good tonight. Padding over to her own room she finds Ed and the baby on the bed. He’s tickling the boy’s belly, relishing in his peals of laughter. “Come on, I’ll give you anything you want, as long as you say ‘Dada’!”

“If you keep that up he’ll never go down.” She says, getting into bed with them.

“Nah, he’s just like his old man, loves to roughhouse before bed.” He wiggles his eyebrows at her, trying to look suggestive.

Snorting, Winry pulls the baby up to her chest and pulls her nightshirt up so he can nurse. He latches on eagerly and eats with gusto, grunting with the effort. None of their kids ever had a problem with small appetites. She guesses she has to thank Ed for that too.

They curl up together and watch their son eat, amazed by his little nose and his little hands and his wispy hair. He stares back at them, studying them just as intently. Eventually, his little blue eyes droop and he falls asleep. Ed takes him to the old crib in the kid’s room that’s been used by so many of them he can’t keep count. He kisses his soft little head, then Sarah’s, then Theo’s.

“You know Winry, another kid wouldn’t be so bad.” Edward muses as he walks back into their room and settles into bed. “It would be a disservice to this country, nay, this world if we don’t have more kids.”

“Oh really? And why is that?”

“Because! Our kids are the best!” he puffs out his chest.

Laughing, Winry turns on her side, facing the former alchemist. “Alright, I’m game.”

“Really?” His eyes are wide, “You want to?”

“Sure, the world needs more Rockbell’s.” She shrugs trying to keep a giant smile from erupting on her face.

Edward pulls her closer and kisses her softly. “Maybe we can try for one now?” They let themselves get lost in the hot, summer night.

#Edward Elric #Winry Rockbell #Edwin #503week #fic #my fic

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gadgetgirl71 · 4 years ago

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“Why does Jonathan Silver want to work with you?” Lucy demands. “And what in the world does he mean by, ‘ready to buy love? ’Are you a madame in disguise?” She sneers the last question in such a way as to suggest that’s the only way someone like Jonathan would choose to work with me.

No one in the office, except for Sky, knows about my talent for matching people to the house that will lead them to true love. It’s not something I advertise and my whole client base comes from word of mouth. One happy customer tells a friend, who tells her sister, and so on. Which leads me to believe that somebody in my Rolodex must know Jonathan Silver.

I smile at Lucy as sincerely as I can before answering, “I have no idea what he meant. I guess I should give him a call and find out.”

The throng around my desk eventually begins to disperse when they realize I’m not going to do that in front of them. The only person who doesn’t leave is my boss, Frederic. The smile on his face radiates nothing short of greed. I assume he’s salivating over the commission we’ll get from whatever house Jonathan buys.

He confirms my suspicions when he says, “Don’t sell him anything under twenty mil. I have four listings right now that you can choose from.”

“Frederic, Jonathan will make up his own mind about which house he wants. I’ll offer to show him your properties, but I can’t guarantee he’ll go for any of them.”

My boss shakes his bald head at me. Frederic looks like a villain from a Masterpiece Theatre show that takes place in Victorian London. He’s short, bald, has a pencil-thin mustache he actually waxes, and his eyes are too close together. If I didn’t know better, I’d think he had a rap sheet a mile long for offenses that include, but aren’t limited to, tying women to train tracks.

“I’m not kidding, Emily. I want you to sell him one of my listings.”

“I’m not kidding either, Frederic. I’ll do my best, but I make no promises.” My boss tolerates my non-deferential attitude, which is good because there’s no way I could fawn all over him like the other girls do. Chris Hemsworth, he��s not.

After Frederic stomps away, Sky scurries over and mouths, “OMG!” Then she leans in and whispers, “Let’s get out of here so we can talk.”

—

Love the One You’re With—Jennifer Peel

“You punched in the wrong code,” I whispered, a bit on edge. I mean, it wasn’t like I was getting ready to sneak into the home of one of the most recognizable women in the country right now. Okay, that was exactly what I was doing.

“Don’t get your panties in a wad, darlin’.” Dallas tried the code again to get into Vivian’s gated community. He had the fanciest car of anyone I knew—a Range Rover. And he was more than willing to help in the heist. Not only was he a troublemaker, but he was willing to do anything in the hope that Jake would move out of his place. I’d warned Dallas this was no guarantee that Jake and I were getting back together. In fact, I hadn’t even told Jake about the video yet. I thought maybe I should get the picture back first and then we should talk face-to-face.

“Don’t fuss at him,” Abs scolded me. “You’ll only make him nervous.”

I rolled my eyes. She was sitting in the front with Dallas, and the two had been flirting nonstop on the drive over here.

Dallas flashed Abs a devilish grin. “I’m excellent under pressure,” he drawled.

Even in the dark, I could see Abs blush. “Is that so? Would you like to prove that to me?”

Oh. My. Hello Kitty. I’d started saying that instead of hell when Maribelle was younger because there was nothing like your six-year-old telling your pastor that he gave a hell of a sermon. “Y’all, we are kind of in the middle of something important here. Can we push pause on the flirtation button?”

“I like the sound of pushing buttons,” Dallas said seductively. “Just tell me where.”

Abs giggled.

I threw up my hands and fell back against the seat. “I can’t deal with you two.”

Dallas turned around and pursed his lips together. “Now, darlin’, don’t go acting like someone licked the red off your candy. I got this under control.” Without looking, he reached out of the car window and punched in the code X had given me. The large wrought iron gate began to swing in, allowing us access to one of the glitziest neighborhoods in Nashville—Forest Hills.

“See, darlin’, I got this.”

I blew out a deep breath. I was glad someone had this under control. I didn’t know why I was doing this. If I wanted to, I could have had the picture reprinted and bought a new frame for Jake. It was just that something about Vivian got under my skin. The way she and the show’s producers manipulated those videos was wrong. They were intentionally hurting people’s lives. The lives I cared most about in the world—Maribelle’s and Jake’s. Even if Jake could be insensitive, I still loved the man. He was my first love, my only love.

—

The Love Potion – Excerpt by Becky Monson

It’s going to be a great day.

I believe this. I’m just having a bad moment. That’s all. One moment will not speak for an entire day.

“What’s that smell?” my coworker Josh asks as soon as he sees me. He’s sitting in his black, ergonomic work chair, leaning back, the cuffs of his pin-striped button-up dress shirt pulling taut as he folds his arms.

My heart is hammering in my head, my face feels flushed—even with the cool Phoenix morning—I’m sweating, my bangs are glued to my forehead with perspiration and my glasses are sliding down my nose. It could be this big chunky sweater I’m wearing. I grabbed it to put over my favorite navy dress with the white polka dots. Not even my favorite clothing item can save me from my current . . . predicament.

But it’s fine. It’s going to be fine. I push my large, blue-framed glasses up my nose—the ones my best friend Hazel calls “nerdy-cute”—and set my shoulders straight. Everything is all right. Good, even.

“Seriously, Ally, what is that?” Josh’s face is now scrunched, his light-brown eyes squinting. His extra thick brown hair styled in what can only be called a modern mullet. It’s tall and sort of unruly in the front, and the back is halfway down his neck, the ends curling just behind his ears. It’s the kind of hair that women would want to run their fingers through. I have, actually—I couldn’t help myself.

Josh Wise—never wrong, always wise. That’s how he introduced himself to me when I first started working with him. We were instant friends and not just the work kind. We spend plenty of nonworking time together, too. He’s part of my inner circle now, one of my favorite people.

“Is it bad?” I ask as I sit down in my chair at our shared workspace, the long, double-wide table where my team sits. I open the bottom drawer of the filing cabinet just under my space, putting my purse inside and shutting it with my red patent leather heel–clad foot. I wrap a hand around my long, dark-brown hair and pull it away from my neck, letting the cool air of the office hit it.

Josh crinkles his nose. “I mean . . . it’s not the worst thing I’ve smelled.” He waves his hand in front of his face, as if to ward off the offensive stink.

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technoturian · 4 years ago

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So I just finished binge-watching Shadow and Bone. Thoughts:

- Alina and Mal are babies. I adore them, especially together. One of the few (only?) YA main couples I actually support! Mal is actually not completely useless like Peeta nor is he an abusive wad like... most of the other YA love interests. Somehow he manages to be both sweet and competent? They said it couldn’t be done! And their relationship is so healthy??? Though, would it kill them to say “I love you”? If I have to hear them refer to each other as “friends” one more stinking time... I get it they have multiple more books to get through before they’ll admit it but there’s literally no reason and nothing keeping them apart.

- The Crows are my favorite and I need more of all three of them. Witty sharpshooter with some of the best lines/moves in the show + stealth assassin who actually doesn’t want to kill + brains of the outfit who is just trying his hardest and always dialed to 11 at all times??? They are the perfect team for shenanigans. Also I ship Kaz/Inej hard.

- I was told about the Darkling being abusive and was ready for that, but... Matthias can really go die in a fire. He spends several episodes imprisoning, demeaning, insulting, threatening, slut-shaming and taunting a woman, he stops actively antagonizing her and gives her the most basic lowest level of human respect (which she had to EARN by saving his life) and for some reason this is enough for her to fall for him, then one thing doesn’t go his way and he reverts back to physically aggressive misogynist bigot. Cool cool cool. Screw this guy. Why is Nina acting like she has to make it up to him when he won’t even give her the smallest benefit of the doubt or respect (again)? Girl RUN.

- So conflicted about the two red coat dudes, they were so cute but they’re also so stupid. Ivan my dude, you could’ve gone back home to your boyfriend if you’d just realized how your boss was making things really bad for you and sided with Alina the literal prophesized saint, but you had to be Lawful Dumbass about it all.

- Was not expecting Zoya of all people to become an ally and.. I love it??? Could she just join the Crows? I loved her with Inej. I saw her as the stereotypical mean jealous girl trope and I’m glad they subverted that. In hindsight the hints were there. Like, how young was Zoya when her adult (several century old) boss started sleeping with her? Yikes.

- The show didn’t really explain (or maybe I just didn’t catch) why the two shadow summoners and Alina are immortal and others aren’t, did they? The Darkling was just like “You’ll be dead and we’ve got centuries for her to pick me” but... why, though? There was something about him and his mom being descendants of the bone smith or whatever... But why does he know Alina is immortal just because her power is rare?

- Another thing the show didn’t explain! How did the Darkling keep getting put into positions of authority through several generations and fake pseudonyms in spite of people being specifically biased against him and his abilities/relation to the big thing everyone in their country is afraid of??? This country is full of bigots looking for any excuse to judge people but dude comes up with DARKNESS powers and multiple generations of kings were like, “Oooh, now there’s a trustworthy fellow~”

- I also don’t really understand why, if they think the Darkling is dead, Alina and Mal didn’t just go back to the Little Palace with Zoya as their witness. Having a bunch of grisha folks to protect you is probably a safer option than going “somewhere” for a while until an undetermined thing happens to you that makes you strong enough to do the thing you need to do.

#Shadow and Bone #Malina #Zoya Nazyalensky #Anti Matthias Helvar #Anti Helnik #Shadow and Bone Spoilers

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ecotone99 · 5 years ago

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[HR] A Wholly Superior Creature - Part II: The Priest

Part II: The Priest

Tom loomed over the warming mug of beer like a sulking vulture. Two chubby wads of bloody toilet paper jut from his swollen nostrils. He spun the mug, having no interest in what was left.

"Cheer up, Thomas," Sergeant Donnell said, slapping the sour photographer on the back. "the station is going to reimburse you for the busted camera."

"My parents bought me that camera as a gift for getting into art school, Sergeant."

I felt a quarter-past half-bad, but I did my best to try and follow the Sergeant's lead. "I know exactly how you feel, Tom."

He looked up at me. His swollen, sullen face tilting, annoyed. "Oh, really?"

"Oh yeah," I said. "When I first came on the job and I was working with Roger, I had this pocket watch that my granddad gave me as a gift for making it through the academy and passing my detective's exam. Real pricey, made out of solid steel. One of those old railroad style watches you see now in those western flicks. Had the shiny silver face plate, the wheel you'd wind at the top to keep it running. The whole deal. Authentic. He even had the inside inscribed with his favorite quote." I framed my hands as if examining a freshly hung portrait. "A man delights when he does what he was built to do."

With absolute authority the Sergeant chimed in. "William Shakespeare."

"Marcus Aurelius."

"Same difference," He said, shrugging it off like an unwelcome pat on the back.

"Anyway. So my first day in homicide, Roger takes me over to an apartment complex where a woman reported a foul smell coming from her neighbor's place. Turns out he'd been shot over some money a few days before and we bust down the door only to find that he's been laying in a pool of his own stink and filth for a few days."

Tom's eyelids started to buckle in boredom. "And?"

"And so I pull out my watch to check the time of our arrival for the report. Roger bumps into me. The watch spills out of my hand and falls slap bang into a pile of ruptured guts and excrement."

The Sergeant chuckled a fat bubble into his beer mug.

Tom's puffy cheeks snapped up like an umbrella in a rainstorm.

"Roger, he just looks at me and says. "Well, you'll never get the smell outta that."

They both started laughing.

I shook my head. "That old bastard never even said sorry."

"Roger never was one to apologize for anything," Sergeant Donnell said, then took a slug of beer.

"Consider this," I said, toasting my beer at Tom. "an olive branch from a man who has suffered the loss of something dear because a fellow officer acted rashly in the course of his duty."

Tom was laughing so hard, tears were rolling down his cheeks. As he wiped them away he asked. "Still have the watch?"

I reached into my jacket and showed it to them.

"And?"

"Doesn't work and Roger was right about the smell."

The both broke open again with laughter.

"Well if it doesn't work," Tom said, swallowing a chuckle. "why do you keep it?"

"It's right twice a day. The inscription reminds me why I do the job; and the smell, well, that keeps me grounded."

The memory reminded me just how much I missed Roger. I told myself I should go by his place, visit him and Mary.

The door of the pub groaned open. The dying light from the falling sun pierced the dark interior. Through the beams we saw a patrolman step inside. In one hand he held a paper sack, in the other was a folio. The line of his mouth was drawn taut and the ghostly color on his face didn't match his olive-tan skin.

I couldn't remember his name, but we'd told him to take Tom's camera over to the one-hour photo development place to see if they could salvage any of the pictures I'd taken.

"Officer Tasker." The Sarge was always good with names.

"Sir," Tasker said. "Here's your camera, Tom."

I knew something was wrong when the patrolman went to hand me folio, a palsied tremor quaked down his wrists to the tips of his fingers.

I flipped open the folio and pulled out a deck of photos. Most of them would turn out to be blurred snapshots of a dark figure, but one set a lump in my throat.

The last one.

What I couldn't see, even though the flash had perfectly illuminated the area around his head, was a single human feature. Where should have been eyes, a nose, and a mouth was a flat slate.

"What is it, Sam?" The Sarge asked as he pulled the photo out of my hand.

I looked up at Tasker, whose face was etched like a graven idol. "Looks like a man without a face."

***

Sergeant Donnell sat at his desk inside a windowed office that gave him the appearance of a dangerous animal in a zoo. I knocked on the glass. He waved me in without looking up from folder on his desk. Wadded gum wrappers littered the open leaf of the folder where his nose was buried.

"Any of the eggheads have anything to say about the writing on Courtney's body?"

The look he gave me wasn't a happy one. "Yes and no."

I cocked an eyebrow at him.

"Yes, in that they are pretty sure it's a language. No, in that they don't have anything to say about it. None of them know what it is. They've called the university to see if anyone there can place it."

"What's got you sweating, Sarge?"

He leaned back in his chair. "Not sure what you mean, Sam."

"I mean you're going through gum like a chain smoker goes through a carton. You're also going over those close-up shots of Courtney's skin even though you can't read them. I don't have to be a psychic to know when someone's seen a ghost."

A joyless smile crested his mouth. "Shut the door, would ya, Sam?"

I did.

His chair groaned on rusty springs as he leaned his elbows on to his desk. "Take a look at these," he said, handing me the folder.

I realized almost immediately that what I thought were the photos from today's crime scene were actually photos of a different girl with the same inane scrawling slashed into her skin. The label of the folder read 'Diana Mueller'.

"One of the boys in research found that in our unsolved crimes files. Dated about twenty-five years ago."

I scanned the contents. Sprinkled throughout the report was the name of the acting detective Brian Ortega. He and his team hadn't even come close to sniffing a suspect.

"Ortega," I said, searching my memory for a name to go with the face.

"He was the lead detective here before either you or I joined the force."

"You'd think the name would have come up though," I said.

Mike nodded. "Normally, yeah. Seems as though Detective Ortega is a bit of a splotch on the department. See, after about two weeks of working on the case, he decided to take a bite out of a twelve gauge as a final meal.

"Bad way to go," I said.

"They assigned a young detective to pick up where he left off, but he ended up on the same intersection of Jack and Shit that Ortega did."

"Who was he? We can take a look at his reports. Maybe question him," I said before digging back into Ortega's case file.

"I think that'd be a good idea, Sam. I already let him know that you'll be stopping by."

"Thanks, Sarge. What's his name?"

"Roger Dale."

The photos and smudge type of the report suddenly became distant symbols and structures that no longer made any sense. Looking up at the Sarge, I said. "Roger?"

"I'm guessing he never mentioned the case?"

I shook my head and slowly lowered myself into one of the office chairs.

"Makes sense. The department likes to let cases of a seemingly occult and gruesome nature die off in the public mind when they go unsolved. It's likely that Roger's chief told him to keep it to himself when he hit a dead end."

"Why's that?"

"Crimes rooted in religious zealotry catch in the public mind like a thorn in a lion's paw. The thorn sits there too long and folks start to get a fever—a public hysteria sets in."

"I'll talk with Roger on my way home," I said, rubbing the fatigue from my eyes. The images of the ruined skin of both girls flashed in my brain.

"Before you do that," the Sergeant said as he pulled a fresh stick of gum from the pack on his desk. He unwrapped it, then folded it over once before adding it to the unsightly pink wad in his mouth. "I've got someone I want you to talk to. Sort of an expert on these sorts of things."

"One of the university profs?"

Mike shook his head. "Nah, a consultant I worked with a few years ago. Helped me and my old partner bust up a cultist ring just outside Detroit. He's an excommunicated priest. Name's Daniel. I called and left a message with his secretary. She said he's available at his office after eight. Might be that he knows something about the symbols. Talk with him before you bother Roger."

I nodded.

"Sam," he said, a small measure of his warm returned to his voice. "Cases like this take a toll. Do me a favor and keep it in mind that it's the job. I know how you get. Don't make it an obsession."

"I hear you, Sarge."

"Sam," his tone grew taut. "I mean it."

"I hear you, Mike."

The office building was a three story derelict that looked like a little boy squished between two bigger, more professional brothers. I buzzed in and made my way to the second story. Years of rain and heat gave the long hallway a swampy aroma. The dark shoulders of closed doors ran the length of the hall. The overhead lamps had been put to bed and only a single rectangle of light threw itself against the wall at the hall's end.

I knocked on the glass and stuffed my hands in my pockets.

The door opened to reveal a gaunt, pale man whose eyes were a set of mismatched jewels hanging in dark sockets. His brow was lined with years of worry or sorrow often associated with men who saw time on the front lines of a war. He wore the familiar vestments of his trade, they weighed heavily on his bony frame.

"Can I help you?" It was an authoritative quality of sound he wielded, all big vowels and melodious baritone. Smoke curled from the egg-shaped pipe bowl clutched in his hand.

"Father Daniel," I said. "I'm Detective Maxwell. Sergeant Donnell let your answering service know I'd be coming by for a chat."

He nodded. "Come in." The priest stepped aside and gestured for me to enter. "I've just made coffee, Detective. Have some."

"I'm always ready for a cup."

Stepping inside I found myself greeted by the smell of books and ghosts of vanilla tinged soot. Scarlet rugs of an ornate pattern did their best to hide the creaking floorboards. The desk was a simple thing, as were the floral stamped lounge chairs tucked into a corner for consultation.

The lean man lead me through the stacks to a corner of the office where a wide-top drafting desk leaned. A percolator and white china cups rested on a small table behind the desk.

"Tell me how I can help you, Detective."

"Well, padre, to be honest I'm not sure you can, but Mike thinks you might be able to shed some light on these," I said, taking a folder out of the folio.

We swapped. He gave me a steaming cup. I handed him the pictures.

"Fair warning: those aren't family photos," I said, then sipped at my coffee, which was strong enough to chew.

He opened the folder.

Nothing.

Not an eyebrow tilt or an early wrinkle flattened in shock. His expression was as flat and cold as a nickel.

"The girl in the culvert was dis-"

"A moment, please," he said, then sat at the drafting desk, his hunched shoulders gave him the look of a looming vulture. He scooped up a pair of oval-lensed glasses and perched them on his nose. "Your men were unable to decipher the language."

"We don't employ many linguists, but we've given it over to the university for-"

"They cannot help you either."

"You have something against complete sentences?" I regretted the jab as soon as it came out. I hate being interrupted, like most folks, but the way he peered at me made me over the lip of the desk made me feel like a child who'd cut a fart in church.

"Time is a fire, Detective," he said, then went back to scratching his pen into the paper. "I am friends with most of the linguists at the university. They are quite qualified in Greek, Hebrew, Sumerian, and Proto-European languages, but what has been so gruesomely scrawled into these poor women falls outside their academic purview."

The ego that comes with expertise sometimes grinds my gears, but I let his tone slide. "Alright, I'll bite. What language is it?"

"Language is almost a word for it, Detective. It is a kind of conjuring via symbols known only to the narrowest of occult researchers and a wide array of demonic cultists. It is a written system of supernatural command."

"So religious quacks trying to bid for a Faustian bargain."

His mismatched eyes, one green and one ice blue, snapped up at me.

"Despite ignorant popular belief, Detective, the members of cults, be they demonic, pagan, or otherwise, are so many and varied that trying to categorize them all would be like trying to give every rat in New York a name."

I furrowed my disbelief at him.

"There are," he said. "hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of occult practitioners living in our country. They can be broadly identified by the kind of ritualistic symbolism they use; the group which uses this particular set of symbols is very old—patient, calculating, and most importantly, predatory."

I was getting tired of the lecture. "None of this helps me, Father. I don't need a history lesson. I need some direction."

He sighed, then ripped the sheet from his pad. He brought it over and handed it to me. He walked back over to the percolator and began to pour himself a cup of coffee.

I looked down at the sheet. He recited the text as I began to read.

"They arrived at the place Molech described to him. Cain built an altar there and set the stone table as it had been apportioned to him. He tied up his daughter Rachale and laid her on the altar, naked on the stone. Then Cain stretched out his hand and took the copper knife to kill his daughter as a sacrifice. Molech then appeared before his servant and said. "Apportion your child. Do not hold back your wrath; for with it, I will make your name great among all the nations."

Something cold curled up in my stomach.

"You are familiar with the story of Issac and Abraham."

I shook my head and set the paper in my lap. "Never really cared for Sunday School fairy tales."

"In the Torah, Yahweh," the priest said, while making a strange sign with his right hand. "commands Abraham to take his only son Isaac to the hill of Moriah and sacrifice him. However, God stops Abraham before he can commit the deed. Many scholars believe that this story was included in the Old Testament as a way of showing the Hebrews that their God was not like the Canaanite deity Molech—for Molech delighted in human sacrifice."

"I'm guessing what's written here is Molech's version of the story?"

"Indeed. Cain--cast out of paradise for killing his brother Abel, was exiled from paradise, given over to the rest of the unclean world. It was there that he was chosen by Molech to build a world quite different than the one promised to Abraham and his people."

"I'm no Christian, but I'm pretty sure that isn't in the Bible."

"Not in any bible you've ever read, Detective. What is even more ghastly is that after Cain has slaughtered his child like an animal, Molech has him remove his daughter's face, telling Cain that this is done because no human visage is worthy of setting its face against Molech's sight."

Father Daniel sat back down at his desk, his countenance dimmed further. As if a pile of worry had been set on his shoulders. "There are still people who follow this horrid belief system. They call themselves the Faceless Children."

"They use flat masks to hide their features, I'm guessing."

He looked up again, a measure of surprise dawned on his face. "Yes. How do you--"

"Saw one of them this morning inside that culvert." It felt good to cut him off for a change. "He was watching us examine the body. Likely admiring what he'd done. Psychos do that."

"It's dismissive to call him psychopathic, Detective," he said.

"Look at those pictures, Father. Her name is Courtney Marie Davidson. Is, not was. She has a name, she had a father and a mother who loved her just as much as you or I will ever love anything." I'd worked myself into a lather. "Any human being who would do that to someone else gets relegated to the status of a psychopath in my book" I stabbed a finger at the photos in his hand. "And with all due respect, Father--When it comes to understanding the criminal mind, my book is a lot thicker than yours!"

The priest was still, his face placid. "Forgive me if you thought I was calling into question your authority, Detective. That was not my intention. What I was trying to explain is that the mind of the religious zealot doesn't always intertwine with criminal intent. You see, these people, the ones who desecrated the body of Ms. Davidson, they do not carry with them any kind of remorse or criminal regret that we can associate with normal people. They live in a world where Molech's law holds primacy over Man's. They believe that they are wholly superior creatures who serve a wholly superior deity." His head craned forward where it swayed slowly from side to side. "So no, Detective, they are not 'psychos', they are quite mentally able and deeply convicted in the rightness of their action."

We eyed each other for a moment. A line of quiet drawn taut between us. Neither of us quite sure how to measure the other.

The beleaguered priest sighed as he stood up. "I have a consultation in Chicago in two days, Detective." He reached for his hat and coat off the rack next to the small coffee table.

I wrinkled my brow at him, confused. "Which you have to leave for all of a sudden?"

"No, of course not," he said. He wrapped his hand around the handle of black leather bag. When he lifted it I could hear the sound of clinking glass and metal inside. "It means that I'm accepting your offer to consult on the case."

"Wait a min-"

"I have one flat fee that I charge, but in this case, I'll be remitting it entirely. Your fervor for justice on behalf of Ms. Davidson showed me something I don't see much anymore."

"But I didn't ask you to consult-"

He slipped his hat on, then slapped a hand on my shoulder. "You have conviction, Samuel. Conviction is the lifeblood of good works." His voice was warmer now, and it felt like something more than a priest's bedside manner. "Let me help you with this good work."

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