#pops open the can with one of his claws while sayin he just wants to kick magnetos ass | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

thiswasinevitableid · 3 years ago

Note

Can you do 60 for indruck, NSFW? Thank you so much! Love your work!

Here it is! I set it in the same world as this sternclay fill. Credit to @bellafarallones for playing in this space on discord. Apollo is from my Super hero AU

“All I’m sayin is it seems mighty unfair to me that one fella gets a handler-assistant type deal and the rest of us don’t.” Duck crosses his arms as Ned fiddles with the pen on his desk.

“You’re not wrong, dear boy, but Apollo was in high demand from the higher ups-”

“Because he’s a shallow dipshit with a mean streak who’ll be good for ratings?”

“Precisely. He demanded in his contract that we allow his twin to continue his work as his photographer and assistant. He has over a million followers on Instagram, so those photos will be a boost to the show. Just try to get along for the camera’s?”

“His brother ain’t even on camera.” Duck mutters.

“I meant with Apollo.”

Duck shrugs, defeated, “sure thing, Ned.”

As he walks back to the main house, he mulls over the fact that the twin (Indrid, he thinks that’s the guys name) bugs him more than Apollo does. Apollo is vain, mean, and selfish, but at least that gets him things, even makes sense for the kind of show they’re on. Indrid gains nothing by helping him out here. Except protection from the bully, which Duck finds to be the worst kind of cowardice. Hopefully Vincent, this season’s bachelor, will see through the “influencer” and send him packing ASAP.

-------------------------------------

Four weeks in, and this is exactly what Duck was worried about. Not only is Indrid hovering around his brother like a nervous moth (excet when cameras are near, at which point he ducks out of frame), he’s doing fucking nothing to reign him in.

A few frontrunners are starting to emerge, and with that claws are coming out. Barclay, a chef and all around nice guy, is the target of choice. Nico and Josh both took bites out of him this morning. But Apollo sunk his teeth in like a dog on a fox, calling him, among other things, a pathetic, six-foot puppy dog who no man would ever want. The cook left noticeably teary eyed. Duck was about to block the cameras from following when Joseph beat him to it. Which is weird, because he thought Joe couldn’t stand Barclay. Apollo flounces off, but Duck corners Indrid where he’s been stoically watching his brother be a raging asshole.

“What the fuck man?”

‘Wrong twin.” Indrid says flatly, indicating his silver hair, tied back in a half-bun. His dark roots are showing and his eyebrows are black, unlike Apollo’s immaculate blonde dye job and bleached brows.

“Nope, right one. You’re his handler, cant’ you fuckin intervene when he’s doin’ shit like that? Or are you just here to let him hurt whoever he feels like?”

Indrid fixes him with a bitter smile, “If there were a way to make my brother be kind or, indeed, see others as people, don’t you think I’d have found it and used it everyday since?”

“I-”

“You people have no idea how much I’m already doing. I kept him from going after you yesterday by reminding him he looks ugly when he yells on camera. And if nothing else console yourself with the fact you all have only to deal with him for a few months. Some of us have endured twenty-eight years of it.”

With that, he turns and stalks from the room. As he leaves, Duck can’t shake the thought that his black denim jacket and worn jeans fit him better than Apollo’s designer ones ever could.

-----------------------------------

Indrid understands why there’s so much alcohol on set, but he can’t partake (too bitter) and it makes Apollo even harder to handle than usual. Which is why Indrid is out on the grounds at ten p.m, intending to hide from his brother until dawn.

At six weeks in, fan favorites are getting more established and Indrid, needing to predict Apollo’s mood in order to do his job, is keeping a close eye on them. His twin is well-liked for being snarky and hot, though he suspects the large number of contestants means there have been limited chances for his unpleasant side to be showcased. Joseph is another, because of course he is, movie-star handsome with an interesting past. Barclay is beloved for the very things that the other contestants torment him for. And Duck? Duck is quickly becoming the one people think Vincent will choose.

Indrid thinks they’re right. He’s charming in an understated way, funny, and while Apollo needles him for his “dad bod,” Indrid and Vincent have both noticed the muscles in his arms. Who gives a damn about flat abs? Indrid would much rather have something soft to rest his head on while those green eyes look lovingly down at him. His crush on Duck is useless, persistent, and must be hidden from Apollo at all costs.

His foot catches something solid and he tumbles over the obstacle to land ass-first on the lawn.

“Ow.” He glares at the object. The object turns out to be Duck Newton, who's obviously drunk as he sits up.

“Sorry man, thought no one’d come out here. Oh it’s you, it's, uh, fuck, fuck c'mon” he snaps his fingers as he searches his thoughts, “It's cute Apollo!”

“Indrid.” Surely Duck didn’t mean to use that adjective. Right?

“No, I’m Duck?”

He snickers, “No, I meant I’m Indrid.”

“Ohhh, right. You're Indrid. I'm Duck. That's the big dipper” He points at the sky. Indrid follows the line and grins, delighted.”

“It is!”

“Uhhuh. C'mere, can show you more.” Duck pats the spot beside him and lays back. Indrid scoots closer and reclines as well, making appreciative sounds each time Duck shows him a constellation.

As they’re studying the sky, the other man whispers, “Can I tell you a secret? I, I think Joe’n Barclay are into each other now."

“The way they look at each other is not exactly subtle.”

‘“Heh, yeah.” he links his hands across his belly, “I think they're in love. You ever been in love?”

“No.” He sighs, not wanting to dwell on that pile of baggage, “You?”

“Nope. And, uh, don’t, don’t tell anyone but I don't think I am with Vincent. Maybe I could be? Does that make me a bad person? He's nice, think he likes me a lot but, I, I dunno.”

“Not being in love with someone doesn’t make you a bad person. No more than loving someone does.”

Indrid is hard to surprise; years of getting out ahead of his brother and father taught him how to see things coming. But nothing could prepare him for Duck rolling to hide his face against Indrid’s chest. Not knowing what else to do, he pats his back, notices a woodsy scent tingling his nose.

“You smell good.” He winces; that was too creepy, now Duck will pull the comforting bulk of his body away.

“Thanks. I bought a bunch of cologne when I realized I was actually going to be a contestant. News clothes too. Thought it would give me an edge but...I dunno, can't compete with a guy like your brother.”

“Join the club.” Indrid reaches up to toy with a lock of Duck’s black hair, expecting Duck to bat him away. Instead, he sighs and turns his head to give Indrid better access.

“You could compete with ‘im. You're cuter. Nicer too.”

“Oh. Ah. Thank you.”

Duck’s fidgets with the mothman pin on Indrid’s jacket, “You wanna cuddle?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“No one cuddles with me. And we ain’t allowed to cuddle Vincent yet.” He looks up, lips pouting just enough to be charming.

Indrid let’s a purr enter his voice, “That’s a shame. I’m happy to cuddle.”

Duck rolls more of his body onto Indrid, resolutely nestling his head under his chin and tangling their legs together. His hands stay on Indrid’s chest and shoulders, though he’s now drunkenly petting Indrid’s collarbone, making him shiver. He expends four months worth of daring in a second, wrapping his arms around the curves of Duck’s torso. When Duck’s fingers brush skin instead of shirt, Indrid whimpers, then bites his lip and prays it went unnoticed.

“You don’t get cuddled much either, do you?” Duck murmurs thoughtfully.

“No.”

“Damn shame, you’re real good at it. Can cuddle me any time.”

Indrid “mmhmms” knowing the promise is like the stars; bright and comforting in the darkness, but ultimately beyond his reach.

Three day later, he drops his guard; Apollo’s been on his good behavior since Vincent’s been spending more time with him. You’d think Indrid would learn by now that all his venom has to go somewhere.

He’s huddled down in the rec room trying not to cry; it’s pathetic enough that he let such childish insults get to him, but to cry over them would confirm everything his brother said.

“Indrid? You, uh, you okay?” Duck’s reflection in the darkened T.V approaches his own.

“I'm fine.” It’s the same inflection he’s used hundreds of times, but Duck sits down on the couch all the same.

“Do you, uh, need a hug?’

“No.” He replies a hair too quickly.

“Do you want one?”

“......Badly.”

Duck opens his arms and Indrid shifts on the cushions, doing his best to curl his long limbs so they’ll fit in his embrace. The shorter man notices, concern flashing on his face.

“You wanna talk about it?”

“Not particularly.”

“Okay. You, uh, wanna hear the most exciting news of the day?” He waits for Indrid to nod, “there was a cougar sightin’ in the foothills near here!”

“That is both very exciting and alarming.”

“Doubt it’d go after folks, they try to steer clear of people. We don’t have ‘em back home, but you learn what to do when you’re also learnin how to deal with bears.”

“How does one deal with a bear? Other than buying them a drink.”

Duck snorts, relaxes further into the couch, “Depends on how soon you see ‘em…”

They emerge two hours later, and Indrid is so engrossed in their conversation about hiking incidents that he runs smack into a camera man. While he’s apologizing profusely, Duck guffaws, steadies him, and leads him off in search of somewhere to watch the sunset.

-----------------------------------------

“Oooh, ooh, look, sea lions!” Indrid points to the distant wharf.

“Good eye. Man, those fuckers are big. Glad none of ‘em were in the water when we did that fuckin cliff dive.”

“I for one would pay good money to see my brother chased by a sea lion.”

Duck chuckles, pops the tab on his WhiteClaw. They’re having dinner on the beach, a gourmet spread meant to encourage them to show off their pallets. Indrid took Barclay’s recommendation and ordered the whole, grilled snapper, which he assumed he’d be eating alone; Vincent’s attention has been on Duck ever since he went swimming this morning. Duck seems to be enjoying it, but come dinner time he demurred (“gotta let some of the other fellas have a chance”) and brought his basket of fried oysters over to join Indrid on the sand.

“Speakin of your brother, kinda surprised he didn't make any digs at this whole, uh, situation.” Duck gestures to the torso Indrid is currently aching to lick droplets of saltwater from. To subdue the craving, he licks salt from his fingers before replying.

“I, ah, the last time he tried to, I reminded him of all the pictures I have of him eating. He hates to be seen eating. Most of the time.” He tilts his head towards his twin, who’s chowing down next to Vincent without a care for the cameras. Indrid sets his hand on the warm sand, “I’ve been trying to, well, reign him in as you suggested. Or at least make him think twice about his choices.”

(Indrid omits the part where he’s most likely to risk it if Duck is the one with the target on his back).

Duck sets his hand down beside Indrid’s, brushes sand from the side of it with a calloused thumb, “Mighty good of you. But, uh, think I mighta read things wrong that day. You gotta handle him how you think best. Just, uh, just promise me you won’t sacrifice your own well-bein’ for my sake, or anyone else’s. We’re all grown-ass men; we can handle it.”

“I promise.” He lies.

The other man leans back on his hands, green eyes drifting across the waves. Indrid would gladly sit in silence the rest of the night, it’s so easy to be comfortable in the lull when it’s Duck filling the space beside him.

Eventually, the ranger murmurs, “It’s so fuckin breathtaking. The ocean, I mean. Maybe if you live on a coast you get used to it but man, it is somethin;.”

“More so than the forest?”

Duck smiles, “It’s like apples and oranges. Monongahela got its own charms; you’d have a blast takin pictures and drawin there, believe me. If, uh, if Apollo and I both make it to the final four, uh, maybe we could take a few hours durin’ my hometown visit and I could show you my favorite spot.

Indrid imagines the two of them beneath the trees, walking hand in hand.

“I’d like that.”

---------------------------------------------

“You know you’re just a distraction, right?”

Indrid doesn’t look at his brother, just flips the page in his book, “I doubt that. You’ve said, often, that I’m too off-putting to be interesting.”

“Not when there’s competition for someone superior; Duck knows he might not win. You’re his back-up if he doesn’t, and a way to kill time until the end. Once Vincent sends him home, which he most definitely will, he’ll keep you around until something better comes along.”

“Don’t act like you know him.” Indrid hisses, looking up just in time to see something scurrying behind the triumph on Apollo’s face: fear.

So, his brother has a new weakness. He’ll tuck that away for later; this is shaping up to be an unpleasant conversation, but not one requiring quite that degree of weapon.

“You should thank me. If I weren’t so captivating, Vincent would spend all his time with Duck. Then you’d be without any attention at all. Even Duck’s taste isn’t that abysmal.” He grins his several thousand dollar smile, “he and Vincent are probably laughing about it right now.”

Indrid stands, crosses the tiny room, “Shut up, Apollo.”

Then he slams the door. There’s a yelp, followed by “you hit my nose, you pathetic excuse for a man, ow, open this door this instant I’m not done with you!”

He flicks the lock and sits back on the bed. There’s a tin of sensory putty on his nightstand and he opens it, playing with it between his fingers. Duck brought it for him after a museum date with Vincent. The image of him not only thinking of Indrid when he saw something, but then buying it for him just to see him smile makes him want to grin and hide his face in a pillow like a teenager who just got asked to prom.

But maybe this date is going differently.

Indrid squeezes the putty, repeats the mantra he’s had since he was a child, “Apollo always lies. Apollo always lies.”

Eventually, he’s calm enough to work on some tattoo commissions, is coloring away when there’s a knock on the door. A secret knock Duck invented as a goof. Throwing open the door reveals the shorter man wearing a suit jacket and an exhausted expression. Indrid gestures to the bed, shuts and locks the door as Duck slumps on the mattress and sets his head in his hands.

“Whelp, that was a shit-show.”

“What happened?” Indrid sits cross-legged beside him.

“Vincent went in for a kiss and I, uh, I turned him down. I mean, he took it well because he’s a sweet guy but I, I feel like shit.”

“There’s no shame in not wanting to kiss just yet.”

“That ain’t the problem. I, I wanna kiss someone on this set, but it ain’t him. Indrid” he looks up, green eyes watery, “Indrid, I think I’m fallin in love with you.”

“Oh. I, are you sure-”

“The whole night, and I mean the whole fuckin night, I was thinkin about you. Thought how nice the trip to the botanical gardens would be with you there to point out color combos and get excited about butterflies. Wanted to hold your hand over dinner. Fuck, when they brought out the dessert menu all I could think was how fun it’d be to order one of each thing to surprise you so you’d do that thing you do with your hands when you’re real excited.” Duck turns, sets his hands on Indrid’s shoulders, “‘Drid, if you don’t want this, I’ll back off but-”

Indrid cuts him off with a kiss, let’s strong arms pull him down to the bed and presses as close to Duck as he can, as if any space between them might be a way for the universe to push them apart.

“Than fuck” Duck pants, cupping his face, “wait, fuck, what do we do now? I can’t string poor Vincent on.”

“We’ll get them to let you out of your contract. It can’t be that hard, right?”

--------------------------------------------

“Absolutely not” Ned shakes his head, “dropping out of the show is out of the question.”

“But that ain’t fair to any of us. Can we at least tell Vincent the truth?”

“No, it needs to look as if he naturally decided not to choose you. If not, we could be accused of manipulating results; the last time that happened, the ratings tanked for that season and the next. And my predecessor was fired.”

Duck looks at Indrid, “Guess I’ll just...pull back? That way Vincent won’t have a reason to choose me and’ll let me go soon.”

----------------------------------------------

“Droppin out is outta the question, huh?” Duck mutters to Indrid as they watch Barclay and Joseph walk off holding hands, the host eagerly asking them questions as they go.

“I suppose he didn’t drop so much as sprint.” Indrid glances at the rose in Duck’s hand, “congratulations on making the final...well, final three now.”

“Thanks? Guess Apollo’s pretty happy about it too.”

“Yes, but his ego needs no stroking.” Indrid smiles, “maybe this means you’ll get to show me the woods?”

“I hope so. Huh. What are they gonna do with the rest of us when it’s not our turn for the hometown visit?”

The answer turns out to be: drag everyone to each hometown. Because they no longer have Joe’s trip to do, Ned decided they needed more scenes of the contestants exploring where their competitors came from.

Kepler is first, and tonight is the night Duck’s been dreading. His romantic, home-town date that everyone expects to end with at least some kissing. He manages to make it through dinner, even enjoys showing Vincent the down-town he spent years roaming. But as they start down the river walk for a romantic stroll, his heart is trying to smash its way out of his ribs.

“It’s alright, you know.” Vincent stops, guiding Duck to face him, “the fact you want to be with Indrid.”

“I, uh, fuck, I, I don’t not know, uh, fuck-” he closes his eyes, “how’d you know?”

“I’m more observant than I get credit for.” Vincent brushes his cheek, “I’ve had a hunch for weeks now, but I kept you around because I liked having you here, even if I suspected it wasn’t going to end with us together. I’m very fond of you, Duck. You deserve someone who makes you happy. I promise I’ll send you home this next rose ceremony”

“Christ” Duck chuckles, “you’re a hell of a guy too, Vince. I hope whoever you pick treats you right. I, uh, can I, should we…?”

Vincent plants a chaste kiss on his cheek, then smiles, “go get him.”

----------------------------------------

“Any twos?”

“No. Go fish.”

Apollo grumbles as he takes another card. Given Duck and Vincent are on their date, neither he nor Indrid is having a good night. Before Indrid can make his ask, his twin says, “How do you get people to like you?”

“Why do you care? You’ve made it this far, so obviously Vincent likes you a great deal”

“I don’t just mean him. I, I mean, I want him to like me. To want me. But I suspect he’d like me better if other people did.”

Indrid idly taps his cards, “I suggest you stop acting like our father.”

“I’m nothing like him!” Apollo squawks.

“Oh, but you are. Everything he taught us you still hold as true; you’re just the newest version of men like him. Self-absorbed. Cruel. Shallow. I’m amazed you’ve gotten this far with Vincent, given that the age difference means you’d be caring for him in his old age.”

“I, I can care for him. I will!”

“Apollo, I wouldn’t trust you to care for a potted plant.” He sets his cards down.

“At least I’m not a-”

“Ambitionless deviant who has to ride his brother’s coattails to survive?”

“Wha--how-”

“Like I said; you’re just like him. Down to your insults.” Indrid stands, “I’m going to bed. I suggest you do the same.”

His brother remains speechless--a rare state for him--as he closes the door and heads for his room. He doubts Duck will do anything on the date (hell, the two of them have only been able to steal some kisses now and then), but the whole charade has him feeling low.

There are far more cameras in the rented house than there were a few hours ago. Which means the rest of the crew is back. Does that also mean…

“Hey, sugar. I was just lookin for you.”

--------------------------------------------------

Duck’s glad his door is open, because otherwise Indrid would have smashed it to pieces dragging them both through it. He’d only gotten out the barest explanation before the taller man was kissing his face and tugging at his clothes, purring “mine” over and over again.

“Yep, all yours.” He shuts the door as Indrid mouths at his neck, “which also means you’re all mine.” He yanks Indrid’s black sweater up and over his head, sends the matching t-shirt after it a moment later. Indrid whines, fumbling with Duck’s dress shirt, and he gets an idea.

“Uh uh, only good boys who show me why they deserve it get to feel me up.”

Indrid groans into his shoulder, fisting the fabric of his jacket “What constitutes good behavior in this instance?”

“One sec, don’t go nowhere.” He starts to step past him, pauses to grips his chin and pull him into another kiss, “and no peekin.”

As he digs through his bag for the strap on he brought just in case, he keeps an eye on Indrid to be sure he’s following the directions. The taller man’s fingers twitch, but his head stays still. God, Duck is going to memorize the shape of each of the tattoos decorating his skin with his mouth.

“You did real good.” He slips around Indrid once more, resting his back on the wall. Indrid notices the new bulge in his pants and thuds to his knees.

“May I?”

“You better.”

Indrid undoes the button of his fly. Then he looks at Duck over the rim of his glasses as he takes the zipper between his teeth and pulls it down. When the black silicone of the strap breaks free, Indrid cocks his head as if unsure of his options. Duck doesn’t really have a plan--he just wants to be with him, to make him feel good and show him just what weeks of pent-up desire have done to him--but he’s starting to regret that choice.

Indrid flicks hair from his face and wraps his lips around the head of the cock experimentally. He hums, sucking on it a moment, then pulls back blushing, “This is going to sound strange but, ah, I, I really like that. It’s such a lovely texture on my tongue, it’s, it’s almost soothing to suck.”

“Guess you better keep suckin it then, huh?” Duck runs the fingers of his right hand through Indrid’s hair.

“Is that really alright? It can’t feel like much on your end.”

“Don’t mean it ain’t fun to watch. But, uh” he touches the edge of Indrid’s red glasses, “it okay if I take these off?”

Indrid nods and Duck slides them free, tucks them into his breast pocket for safekeeping as Indrid draws the cock into his mouth again. He focuses on the head at first, humming and moaning as it bumps his cheek. Then Duck sees him swallow and relax the muscles of his jaw as he presses closer. Little puffs of breath tickle Duck’s skin as Indrid gets most of the cock in his mouth, cheeks hollowing and head bobbing as he sucks. Hungry noises burlbe up his throat, and the more he lets himself go the messier he becomes, spit coating his lips and eyes fluttering closed in bliss.

“Okay, I lied.”

Brown eyes shoot him a disbelieving look.

“This ain’t fun. This is one of the hottest fuckin things I’ve ever seen.”

Indrid wiggles happily on his knees, left hand dropping to rubs his own cock through his jeans.

“Needy little thing, gotta have somethin down your throat and around your dick at the same time.”

“MMMhhmmm” Indrid purrs, the picture of filthy perfection.

“If, if you swallow the whole thing, I’ll let you finger-fuck me.”

Both hands fly to his thighs with an excited moan. Indrid’s brow crinkles with determination as he slowly, carefully brings his lips to the base of the toy. Duck groans out “good boy” and shoves his pants down, Indrid helping to drag them to his ankles. Indrid keeps his left hand on Duck’s hip while the right hovers below his folds. Duck takes it, the toy making the angle a bit awkward, and guides it against him.

“Start with one.”

Indrid nods, moans reverently as he obeys. Duck curses, looks down to find Indrid watching him attentively. Duck is going to wreck him. Then he’s going to cuddle him to sleep and wonder at the fact he got this lucky.

“You’re doin’ great, sugar. Promise I’ll tell you if you need to adjustOH, ohyeah” he lets his head rest against the chipped white of the door, “that’s the spot. Fuck it, add one more, Ahfuck, yeah, those artists fingers are fuckin perfect for this.”

Another purr and then a sharp, choked noise. Duck looks down, realizing he rolled his hips without meaning to. Before he can apologize, Indrid grips his thigh and shakes his head.

“You like that?”

“Mmhhmmm” Indrid traces a heart on his belly.

“You’ll pull off you need to?”

“Mhmmmm.” Indrid curls his fingers as his stretched lips manage to grin.

“Fuck!” Duck giggles, “okay, if my darlin wants his face fucked, that’s what he’ll get.” He keeps a hand on Indrid’s shoulder as he lets loose, grunts and curses mingling with the increasingly wet moans of his cock claiming Indrid’s throat. Soon he’s out of words, too busy with the sight of himself forcing Indrid’s lips apart as he tightens around his fingers. Handjobs are a toss-up for him most days; sometimes they work, other times he can’t cum from them at all. It turns out what makes it very easy to do so is-

“‘Drid, fuck, fuck, sugar, yeah, right there, rightthererightthere ohfuckyeah.” He cums, jerking his hips hard enough to punch a new, high sound from Indrid’s throat. The other man pulls off, rests his cheek on Duck’s belly with shuddery, satisfied sighs.

“Y’know” Duck unbuttons his shirt from the bottom up so Indrid can more easily nuzzle the skin there, “I had this whole plan where I was gonna fuck you with this and then ride your face to cum.”

“I’m not opposed.” Indrid grins, bouncing a bit.

“Yeah, but I’ve only got one in me tonight. So” He tosses the shirt away, pulls off the harness as Indrid nibbles his hips, “if you wanna cum, you’re gonna have to do all the work.”

An edge enters his smile, “I can manage that.”

Duck hits the floor with a whump, Indrid trapping him on his back and climbing atop him, all the while kissing him with abandon.

“May I fuck you?”

“Hell yeah.”

“Condom?”

“Dop kit, bathroom, aw come back.”

“Patience, sweetheart” Indrid blows him a kiss, returns a few moments later doing an inelegant dance to kick his jeans and boxers away, “got one!”

“Good, now get back down here before I-AHfuck!” Indrid is on him and in him so fast it knocks his breath away.

“Before what? You’re not going anywhere, you’re mine, alllllll mine.” He drags kisses across Duck’s cheek, then bites his chapped lip as he looks down at him, “right?”

“You know it, nnng, fuck, that’s it sugar, be a good boy and cum for me. Fuck, darlin, wanted this so bad.” He locks his fingers into silver hair to keep Indrid in kissing distance as the other man whimpers, thrusts shallow and rabbity.

“Want you too, so much, I’ll be worth it, I swear, I’ll be good, I’ll, I’ll make you so happy.”

Duck rests their foreheads together, “You already do.”

There’s a high, gasping moan, almost like a chirp, and Indrid rides out his orgasm in drawn-out rolls of his hips. Then he collapses, laughing, on Duck’s chest.

“I, I’m sorry, I just never thought I’d get this. Someone wanting me. Choosing me.”

“I mean, I went on a T.V show to find love, so I know a little somethin about that fear. But I also know findin you is better than anythin I ever imagined.”

“Likewise.” Indrid nestles closer, one hand reaching out to hold Duck’s where it’s flopped on the rug.

“...You realize this means there’s a fifty-fifty chance your brother will win.”

Indrid shrugs, lifts his head to smile at Duck, “I leave that to Vincent. I already got my prize.”

#indruck #indrid cold/duck newton #bachelor au #meet ugly

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a-solitary-marshmallow · 4 years ago

Text

Please Don’t See Me - Chapter 14/14

“FORD!”

The scientist in question snatched his hand back, just before the carnivorous plant he had been studying snapped at him with a second slime-coated mouth. A second mouth! It was located under the bulbous head’s primary maw, smaller but sharing the larger one’s distinctive jutting spines that seemed to function like teeth – hooked back to prevent prey from getting away. The infant plant was only as long as his forearm but when it was fully-grown the secondary mouth could easily be large enough to pick up small mammals from the forest floor, maybe even large raccoons or the occasional gnome.

Hmm. They might make for good pest control. Ford studied where the plant’s stem met the forest floor, trying to ascertain how deep the roots ran. If he could get his hands on a pair of good, sturdy gloves for protection he might be able to replant it in a pot and take it back to his lab for further testing. That would certainly be easier than trying to run tests on the fully-grown specimens dotting the forest. How old was this one, anyway? Ford pulled out his tape measure to record its size.

Stan slapped his hand away when it neared the hissing plant. “Don’t touch it! Didn’t you just say this thing was poisonous?”

“Venomous, not poisonous.” Ford corrected.

“You know what I mean.”

Ford waved away his brother’s concerns. “Don’t worry, it’s only a juvenile. Its venom hasn’t developed enough to do any damage. The worst it’ll do is itch.”

“I still wouldn’t be touching it if I were you.” Stan said doubtfully, hunkering down next to Ford to get a good look at the creature. The plant hissed and spat at them and generally made a nuisance of itself.

Ford smirked. “Look Stanley, it’s just as friendly as you are.”

“Hey!” Stan brandished a finger in Ford’s face. “I’m a friendly guy! Just not to weird-ass plants that try to bite my brother’s hand off.”

“It’s not like you didn’t try to bite my hand off when I reached for the ice cream yesterday.”

“Fuck you Ford, I called dibs and you know it.”

Ford rolled his eyes, reaching for the spade in his pack. He’d missed the easy banter between them. It had been missing during the whole Rebus fiasco, obviously; there was only so much sarcasm a wolf could convey through its eyes alone, and only so much a scientist could babble to his canine friend without it being… just sad. Even once the brothers had reconciled, Stan’s mind restored, Ford had worried that after nearly ten years apart the differences between them were far to great to bridge.

But in seemingly no time, Ford had fallen back quickly into the habit of trading quips and joking insults, laughs and rolled eyes and body language that sometimes spoke more than words. It felt far more natural than the forced conversations he’d attempted to make during his time in college. Ford had forgotten the comfort of having his brother nearby.

Of course, an adjustment period was necessary – perhaps made longer by the added factor of Stan readjusting to having a human shape. It was rather concerning, the number of times the man would forget to cook his food and instead tear into it raw and bloody. The first time that had happened Ford had been in the kitchen as well, and he’d stared with popping eyes as Stan nonchalantly sank his teeth into a raw steak.

Stan had hesitated, chewing slowly and swallowing before speaking in his gravelly voice, not bothering to wipe away a trail of blood rolling down his chin.

“…okay, yeah, I see what I did there.”

And of course, they were wildly different people who were bound to have disagreements. It had taken Ford quite some time to convince Stan that while they may argue, he was in no danger of losing his family again. He wouldn’t be sent away, punished or abandoned again. Not while Ford was still breathing.

The plant’s hiss brought him back to the moment. Ford frowned, considering his plan of action, before settling on the plain approach. They could simply carry the thing home.

“Can you get out one of the sample bags? I want to bring this specimen to my lab and they should be large enough to hold its roots.”

Stan rifled through the pack while Ford sized up the agitated plant. He would be able to dig up the roots if the darn thing would stay still! He would have to design some kind of muzzle appropriate for two mouths when they got it back to the house.

Ford made a lunge for the creature, trapping its stalk against the ground with one hand so it couldn’t bite him as he dug up its roots. The plant snapped at him fruitlessly. Ford quickly loosened up the soil enough to lift the whole thing and settle it roots-first in the awaiting sample bag.

Stan groused at having to carry the plant all the way home (one hand gripping behind its head, obviously, to stop it from biting). The whining was pretty unfair considering Stan had demanded to carry it so he could keep an eye on the snappish thing, but Ford supposed he could appreciate the intent.

(…on the other hand, that left Ford to carry the heavy pack. He was beginning to think that this wasn’t a purely altruistic move on Stan’s part.)

“When I took the job I didn’t realize ‘research assistant’ meant ‘gardener’.”

“I don’t pay you to whine, Stanley.”

“You don’t pay me.” Stan countered.

“Oh – don’t I?” Ford could have sworn he had been. Stan tended to handle the money so Ford had just… assumed that Stan was receiving some of it. He frowned. “Why don’t I pay you?”

“’Cause I live in your house? That’s kinda payment enough.”

“No it’s not!”

“It was when you thought I was a wolf.”

Ford spluttered. “That – that’s because you were a wolf. Wolves don’t need to be paid to act as research assistants-”

“Oh, are you saying wolves don’t deserve to be paid equal wages?” Stan shook his head in mock disappointment. “Gosh, Ford. My own brother-”

“Oh, shut up! You know what I mean!”

Stan snickered. He only laughed harder when Ford punched him lightly in the shoulder, careful not to jostle the creature in his grasp.

Ford glanced at his watch, taking note of the time. At this pace they would reach home well before dark. Maybe they should take a detour to check on the size-altering crystals? Ford had covered the Warped crystal with a tarp to prevent the light reaching it, but he really should check that the covering was still in place after the blustering winds that had recently swept through. He didn’t want any unsuspecting forest life to wander into its beam.

Then again, that could wait for another day, and they had a carnivorous plant to re-house.

“…I really do need to pay you, though.” Ford muttered as they walked.

“You really don’t.” Stan shrugged. “I’m not doing anything useful anyway.”

The nonchalance with which he spoke made Ford want to sigh. Stan never acknowledged his own value or input! Ford wanted to shove it down his throat and force his brother to acknowledge that he was important, goddammit!

For the moment, he settled on arguing his point.

“Shopping for food is useful; plus, the people in town know you better than me and I’ve been living here for years, so you’re basically handling public appearance. And collecting data from my monitors is useful.”

“That’s just walking and taking readings.” Stan argued right back. “A monkey could do that data-collection stuff.”

“Babysitting Tate while Fiddleford and I are busy is useful.”

“The kid’s easy, he just wants to spend time with a dog all day.”

“Defending the house from griffins is useful.” Especially since they seemed to have it out for the Pines twins and would come by every so often with claws and beaks bared.

“You woulda just found a better way to keep ‘em away.”

Ford gritted his teeth. “You handle the money and pay the bills.”

“It’s your grant money, I just budget it.”

“Exactly! That is exactly what I should pay you for!” Ford flung up his arms in exasperation. Stan merely shrugged, and – smirked? He was enjoying Ford’s misery! “Ugh, whatever.”

Stan continued to look smug. Ford silently resolved to start paying him, even if he had to sneak the money into his brother’s bank account. Or just leave some around the house. Apparently Stan was too proud to accept payment but the guy never passed up an opportunity to take it if it was there.

“…anyway, about the whole money thing, I was thinking.” Stan mumbled, a little more subdued. Ford glanced across.

“Yes?”

“Eh – well, y’know how there are so many cool things around here? If Pa’d let us come, we woulda loved it here when we were kids.”

Ford imagined himself as a child – bright-eyed and eager to learn, marveling at everything around him – and was inclined to agree.

“And just yesterday you were sayin’ about how no one appreciates this stuff. Really, I’m kinda surprised no one’s made something of this place before, snatched it up for a tourist attraction. I was thinking that it would be pretty cool to give… tours or something?”

Ford opened his mouth but his brother was already rushing ahead, a nervous scowl affixed to his face.

“It’s all good if you don’t want me to – probably something about the scientific integrity of the place or whatever – but, it’s kinda something I’m good at. Tours, selling stuff, talking to people, that stuff. A-And I know you love teaching people about things, so if you wanted to help? Like, write up information sheets or – or do classes or whatever. Obviously I’d be spinning some yarns, that’s the fun of these places, but I know people would love to see some of the weird stuff here and actually learn about it too, so I dunno, I think it would be cool?”

All of this was said rather quickly, with few breaths taken in between, so when Stan finally ran out of things to say he took a few heavy breaths. Ford blinked and took a few moments to process this.

“Stan, are you asking my permission to open a tourist trap?”

The werewolf cringed, grip tightening fractionally around the uselessly-wriggling plant creature. “No, ‘course not. I’m just… seein’ if you’d be open to the idea.”

“Well…” Ford adjusted the straps of his pack. “So long as it doesn’t interfere with my research, I think it’s quite an interesting prospect. It would be nice to be able to share some of the things I’ve learned. If you think you can pull it off I believe you. You don’t need my permission, of course, but you certainly have my support.”

“Wait, really?”

Ford laughed as his brother perked up. That was another thing he’d had to adjust to since their reunion – canines tended to express themselves heavily through body language and Stan had apparently picked up that trait. He had no tail at the moment but from the straight posture and slight vibrating, Ford imagined it would be wagging.

“’Cause I’ve got so many ideas.” Stanley gushed. “I was thinking I could get a place set up, probably in the woods closer to town – maybe contract that lumberjack guy you talked about to built it? Anyways, I’d fill it with attractions, some of the cool shit that lives around here. Like, you know that weird-ass bird we saw the other day, the one you said we shouldn’t bother to look into?”

“Having a second head is a fairly common mutation. I’ve studied several animals with that phenotype in my time here.”

“People eat that stuff up, Ford! And I could do tours around some of the harmless places – and charge a pretty penny for it too. You know how many shmucks are happy to get ripped off by dodgy fake tourist attractions? And this one would be real! I’d have a source of income, and you’d have somewhere to put the stuff you’ve finished researching, and people to teach if you want to. Plus this crummy town could use some tourists to give business a boost.”

Wow. Stan had evidently thought this whole thing out – and the excitement was contagious. Ford wondered if this was how his brother felt, when he himself became giddy about a new finding or breakthrough. Stan was grinning like a kid.

Ford laughed and elbowed him playfully. “It’s a sound plan. And it’s nice to see you’re putting aside your history with Dan. You growled at him last time we came across him – you weren’t yourself then, of course.”

Stan shot him a weird look. “Who?”

“Dan. The lumberjack.” Stan continued to look confused. “Matilda’s boyfriend?”

All at once the werewolf’s eyes widened. “The shovel guy.”

“Er – shovel?”

“He hit me with a shovel.”

“Oh.” Ford had almost forgotten the circumstances of their meeting, with himself rescuing Stan from being beaten to death. Ah – with what he knew now, the situation seemed a lot more dire. He strongly resisted the urge to grab up a shovel and see how Boyish Dan like being smacked into the ground.

Obviously Dan didn’t know it was a person he had assaulted, not a wolf, but still. It would make Ford feel better.

When no words came to him, Ford said the first thing on his mind. “Didn’t you try to eat his mother’s dog?”

“Dog? Fuckin’ thing was more of a bug than a dog. I was starving anyway, gimme a break!”

“I’m not judging. Anyway, I’ve seen you try to eat so many things-”

“Can it, Poindexter.”

Ford began to count on his fingers. “Squirrels, gnomes, the mayor’s hairpiece, our father, my kitchen cupboard, a whole watermelon for some reason-”

“I was outta my mind for half of those!”

“My phone, the multibear somehow, several lemons – why you kept coming back to them after knowing you hated them remains a mystery to me–”

They arrived back at the house before Ford could continue his list.

“We should get this thing planted before it dies or somethin’.” Stan shuffled the plant around in his arms to hold it more comfortably, ignoring its hiss of displeasure. “Where do you want it?”

“The porch should be fine. I don’t know how much energy it gets from its prey as opposed to the sun – it might need sunlight to live.”

“Right. You got a pot around? I can get Chompy here planted while you find something to stop it biting anyone who gets close.”

“’Chompy’? You named the plant?”

“You were too slow.”

Well, Ford couldn’t argue with that logic. He’d just have to be faster with the next creature they came across. They had a lifetime, after all, to squabble about names – among other things.

(For example, whether Ford was terrible for pretending to toss Stan the car keys but hiding them behind his back instead. It took Stan an embarrassingly long time to realize and once he did, Ford could barely see the withering glare he received through his snickering.)

(That evening, in revenge, Stan fell asleep on the couch lying across several of Ford’s books. Upon attempts to remove him Stan simply shifted into a wolf and thus became heavier and harder to move.)

(But these are stories for another time.)

#final chapter #my writing #my fic #gravity falls #werewolf stan au #werewolf!stan #dang #this took a while to finish #mostly because it's the last chapter!#i wasn't sure how to finish my baby #anyway the main story is done now #i may write a couple one-shots from this au in the future #who knows?#i hope you enjoy

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caltropspress · 3 years ago

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FEEDBACK LOOP #7: Curly Castro’s “Weapon 13X” featuring Breeze Brewin

There was a very old man, an old white man out in the crowd, and he started screaming and crying like a baby and he kept crying and he said, “God damn, God damn, what is this God damn country coming to that the niggers have got guns, the niggers are armed and the police can’t even arrest them!” He kept crying and somebody led him away through the crowd.

—Robert F. Williams, Negroes with Guns (1962)

Gun flash beats the child’s head in, maniac teeth dance in a bloody grin blue lies, badge confessions, yng dude dead just beyond his mama’s arms

—Amiri Baraka, “Stop Killer Cops”

Police said Cleaver and Hutton were holed up at 1218 28th Street with two 9 mm automatic pistols, two AR-15 and one military-type M-14 automatic rifle, and a large supply of ammunition, some armor-piercing.

—Berkeley Barb, Volume 6, Number 15, Issue 139

“Weapon 13X” is a diptych. Two verses; one pivot—or volta, for you bookworms. Curly Castro is first with a séance that summons the mysteries of Clarence 13X and Weapon X. These nullified variables and Roman numerals come together in an elixir mix so potent that it would make Aes Rock choke on the amalgam. Castro opens the fission gate and discharges two-hundred forty thousand mega-therms on the city of brotherly love, the city of bombs from above onto a 6221 Osage Avenue row house. Shameek just got bust in his arm, leg, leg, arm, head. The Black man is God personified, and Logan is regenerative. Adamantium claws. Mathematical jaws. Science dropped and experiments performed. Spark this like metal does when dragged across concrete.

2. “Harriet would grab her balls, / This my gun, and this my rifle.”

Harriet Tubman gets cast by Kubrick for Full Metal Jacket, recites the Rifleman’s Creed, but it was actually a pistol she kept buried within the folds of her calico. She sallied forth seeing visions from the overseer’s heave of a weight—made her skull snap. Don’t sleep. “When the caliber’s inside you,” you can’t necessarily count on “the muzzle smoke revival.”

Quelle Chris provides production, lest we forget his 2019 Guns album with its Dada-bullet, double-barreled barrage album art. The title track armed to the teeth: “Ain’t no cracking that code, / Ain’t no safety on locks, / Might as well get you one, / Procrastinating will get you popped.” The machine gun funk outs finks and COINTELPRO cooperators, conspirators, dispiriters. Here, Castro’s got those same turncoats and sucker MCs in his sights, so to speak.

4. [The oppressor] teaches the Negro that he has no worth-while past, that his race has done nothing significant since the beginning of time, and that there is no evidence that he will ever achieve anything great. (Carter Godwin Woodson, The Mis-Education of the Negro, 1933)

Castro makes a promise, provoked by those who came before him, those who brandished firearms in the faces of their enemies:

We never will disarm: these are the lies that you were sold, When your glory tripped up, you trade your weapons in for gold. With Yakub in the schools, trade your dreams, knowledge folds. Found the tome, Mis-Education Negroes…

Dr. Yakub sloshing liquids in the lab—Bunsen burners explode and the lab leak is viral whiteness. Tricknology replaces Biology. Castro is looking back while moving forward. “Doomed to repeat it”-type forewarnings. He knows the ledge and also wants his people to.

aim get your sights & its sound in abstract or journal movements to a peace settlement

dude shot my man

dead, precious lord blow off theres no willy in th blues theres no you.

—from Tom Weatherly’s Maumau American Cantos (1970)

Castro is a “gunhand, cybernetic with spray cans, / Basquiat, baklava, Mau Mau.” That’s likely an intentional malaprop—surely his militant stance calls for a balaclava. Even still, Castro doesn’t stutter. He will still sh-sh-shift his voice on you—the dynamics of his delivery raise stakes and get guttural, scraping against sewer plates. He’s potent, even if Basquiat’s pistol appears flaccid with its hand-scrawled linework. In another piece, Basquiat starts the decolonization process at the point of a safari helmet. The image detonates.

6. Free country? Man, I should fuck you up for sayin’ that stupid shit alone.

“This film is a call to racial violence!” a film critic shouted at Roger Ebert after a screening of Do the Right Thing. She worried Bed-Stuy would set fire to theaters, but Lee’s 1989 film wasn’t The Rite of Spring in Paris in 1913. An amerikan psychotic turn to theater violence would be postponed until Aurora in 2012, and it would be white violence, which would come as a shock to none who have tracked the trajectory of white violence. Displacement is white violence, too. White violence is a sine qua non for gentrification. And so Castro allies himself with “Buggin’ Out battle brownstone houses, some Bird fans, / While Mookie turns the radio up and launched the trashcan.”

7. “We are the weapons.”

Of late, Castro has consistently been proving you’re out your depth, with verses so allusive they suggest a strong “Erick Sermon and Parrish Smith, nobody blink. / They don’t now who the fuck that is” vibe. So what, though? At this point, Castro’s a vet, an elder. The youngins need to catch up or cash out. Get KRS-One bookish, kiddies, or be left behind. Be the weapon or never prosper. Create your own mythos: “Omega built a mother by the sun and Cyclops sent / a blurred Baraka poem capable to raise the dead. / Yet instead I use the sword...”—with Wu-Tang pronunciation of the w in “sword,” of course. History moves backwards and forwards at the same time. Language is lost and recovered. The poem is “blurred” because it’s been duplicated on a mimeograph—a machine that involves a “drum.” The words are ink-smudged. Baraka’s former partner, Diane di Prima, shouted, “"Power to the people's mimeo machines!” Accuse and attack, Baraka sloganeered. We’re talking about agency—by hand-crank, handgun, or mic check.

Castro creates imagery like Emory Douglas did with paint: painfully bold and saturated with color like blood soaks clothes. Baraka called Douglas’s art a combo of “expressionist agitprop and homeboy familiarity,” which applies to what Castro does on the track. I quote Mao who called literature and art “part of the whole proletarian revolutionary cause,” and Mao quotes Lenin who called lit and art the “cogs and wheels in the whole revolutionary machine.” And Baraka also said Douglas’s work:

functioned as if you were in the middle of a rumble and somebody tossed you a machine pistol. It armed your mind and demeanor. Ruthlessly funny, but at the same time functional as the .45 slugs pouring out of that weapon.

The Panthers were trapped and tear-gassed in a West Oakland basement. Eldridge Cleaver told Bobby to go out naked—unarmed as the day he was born not quite eighteen years earlier—but he emerged from the burning house fully dressed, with dignity, and he was searchlighted and shotshotshotshotshotshotshot dead.

Castro needs Brewin to make the cypher complete—a two-man killarmy using loud words in quiet wars, no silencer.

9. “Before blurting out, try analysis, brother.”

Breeze’s Yo, listen… at the start of his verse is comparable to Sir Thomas Wyatt intoning Whoso list to hunt… to begin his 16th-century sonnet. The amalgam here is less Five Percenter plus clandestine government experimentation and more a deconstruction of the both violent and sexualized language of braggadocio. “Anything you say isn’t played like Miranda Rights,” and so we’re already with our hands behind our backs, silenced by an pig officer’s gag order. The competition doesn’t get played; they play themselves.

Sir Thomas Wyatt sets it off like so:

Whoso list to hunt, I know where is an hind, But as for me, hélas, I may no more. The vain travail hath wearied me so sore, I am of them that farthest cometh behind. Yet may I by no means my wearied mind Draw from the deer, but as she fleeth afore Fainting I follow.

Breeze has wanted to stay pleasant to the ears—you know, like Lauryn Hill phone sexing—so this isn’t new territory but rather a well-worn path. Wyatt’s wearied and “so sore” by “the hunt,” the pursuit of his love interest, even though he knows “where is an hind.” Still, “as she fleeth afore / Fainting [he] follows.” He can’t help himself.

Love is lost within violent pursuit. Breeze speaks of a “plan to strike” and “zero in” on a “target,” his quarry. He and Castro are “talking about broads often, no doubt, / We broad and burly as hell, / Brag about the hunt, you was jukin’ a girly gazelle.” Breeze’s assault is dizzying, a salvo from all angles: “Hit ’em with some counter clay rebuttals that’s subtle but still befuddle if dude slow.”

10. “It’s nothin’, I gotcha, and that’s word to Super Lover Cee.”

Super Lover Cee and Casanova Rud’s 1988 single “Girls I Got ’Em Locked” articulates the carceral embrace of “locking” a girl down, which—consequently—requires violence to enforce: “Don’t ever touch a girl owned by me or I’ll ruin ya’, / Slap you with my mic simultaneously as I’m doin’ ya.” The girl is commodified, and Super Lover Cee takes a proprietary attitude toward the relationship. If you overstep, you’ll be ruined, that is, you’ll fall. And while you’re prostrate, you’ll be slapped with the phallic mic simultaneously. Is the Super Lover doin’ her or you, though? What’s truly getting him off? That hypermasculine posturing skews homoerotic. Breeze Brewin laughs at you for subscribing to the nonsense: “Dag, if that was what you believe then your world be a hell.”

11.

Liberal discourse suggests policing your impulses. Put down the gun—don’t touch it. “Touchy subjects,” like racism (apparently), get the “We need to have a conversation” treatment. Look, don’t touch. Don’t touch the exhibit of stolen artifacts—those Benin bronzes in the British Museum. Beneath the topic of orignoo gunn clapping, Curly Castro’s track is about the x’s and o’s of eros as well. Many gestures meant to protect women are merely some other man staking his claim, adorning her with “diamonds in letters plain,” as Wyatt writes of the collar around the deer’s “fair neck.” Wyatt’s sonnet warns against overstepping (or even half-stepping). The collar reads Noli me tangere (touch me not)—she belongs to someone else. It’s a bad touch example. Like his fellow Indelible J-Treds, Breeze Brewin is the living circle-circle-dot-dot: nobody can touch him.

12.

Let’s bring it back to Little Bobby Hutton. When Eldridge Cleaver told him to leave the ambushed basement naked, he was thinking of Bobby’s safety. He thought the extreme measure of appearing on the street without clothes would be enough to convince the pigs he wasn’t armed. Cleaver was naïve to think so. Bobby Hutton was right to emerge clothed. In doing so, he rejected the indignity of the auction block, the lynching, the mutilation and spreading of souvenir flesh. The searchlight made Bobby Hutton the subject of a spectacle, yes, but he refused to consent to the psychosexual desires of white supremacy. He refused the castration ritual. Little Bobby Hutton, in effect, threw down a challenge to the cops: Use your imagination once again. Try to think of a few situations where your own weapon might be used against you…used against you…used against you.

Images:

Emory Douglas, The Black Panther, Vol. IV, No. 78, 1971 (detail) | Weapon X (detail, issue unknown) | Emory Douglas, Rat Subterranean News (1970) | Harriet Tubman with gun sketch | Anti-Mau Mau British propaganda poster | Newspaper headline from Negroes with Guns | Jean-Michel Basquiat, Untitled (date unknown) | Jean-Michel Basquiat, Native Carrying Some Guns, Bibles, and Amorites on Safari (1982) | Screenshot from Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing (1989) | Two images from the Berkeley Barb, Volume 6, Number 15, Issue 139 (1968) | Emory Douglas, The Black Panther (miscellaneous poster) | Medieval depiction of the hunt (unknown) | Image detail from the Berkeley Barb, Volume 6, Number 15, Issue 139 (1968)

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ellohcee · 4 years ago

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“Come on, it’ll be fun!”

“I dunno, Davey, it doesn’t look that easy to run on." Despite the brunette’s words, David could see the other kid’s wide grin. Oh, so he thinks he’ll have this race in the bag just ‘cause he’s got on a weeeeird, soggy, smelly coat on?

As if!

David points out over the beach, the small sandy dunes dotting their course to where the finish line meets the big, black boulders at the other end.

"We start here, and run aaaall the way over there! No pushing, we just run!”

“If you say so!" The other boy stretches up towards the sky as David leans forward. "I’m just sayin’ - it’s not gonna be easy for you.”

“Stop bragging!" Even with his complaint, David is grinning with excitement as he announces the beginning of their race. "On your marks, get set, go!”

The two of them are off like a shot, but only for a moment. David’s shoes sink into the sand and he finds himself pushing harder into the unstable ground to keep his momentum up. Meanwhile, Jasper practically glides across the sand, his bare feet barely even kicking up any sand as he runs across the beach as if it’s second nature. He growls as he tries to speed up.

If there’s one thing that David knows about himself, it’s that he hates losing. And, while, they said no pushing, he never said anything about a little grabbing. He manages to catch up a little to the other kid and reaches out to grab onto the coat flying out behind him.

…Eeewww, it’s squishy and feels like wet dog!

David shrieks and yanks his hand back, letting go of the coat and shaking off his hand. However, his shriek is enough to startle the other kid, and David watches with wide eyes as the kid trips into a small sand dune and tumbles head over heels onto his face. He stumbles to a stop besides the other boy and drops to his knees. Oh boy, this can’t be good. As if on cue, he hears sniffles coming from the kid.

Oh.

Oh no.

Oh no he’s gonna be in so much trouble.

“Hey- hey!" He gently shakes the brunette’s shoulder and sees a pair of watery blue eyes look up from the sand. "I’m sorry, please don’t cry! Um, uh,” he looks around for an idea, and only one pops into his mind, “you can push me over! So that we’re even! See? You don’t gotta tell anyone that I made you fall and stuff. I’m sorry, you can push me and make me fall too! Please don’t tell your mom on me!"

For a while, the boy doesn’t answer him. Instead, he slowly pushes himself up onto his knees and keeps his gaze firmly on the ground. David’s about to start off another round of apologies when an arm shoots out and pushes David over.

But it’s not rough. He lands on his back with a light "oof”, and when he looks over to the boy, he sees the brunette grinning mischievously as he blows a raspberry at David.

“Cool thing about my coat, broseph!" The boy pushes himself to his feet and starts running again. "It’s wet enough that I can make fake tears!”

“You’re a LOAD of HOOEY!" David shouts after him, scrambling to his feet as he chases after the brunette’s carefree laughs. By the time he reaches the finish line, the other boy is grinning with his arms folded behind his head casually.

"Guess I win!”

“Yeah, by cheating.”

“You cheated first!"

David sticks his tongue out at the other boy, who responds in kind. They both stop for a moment to just stare at each other before breaking out into giggles. Once they finally calm down, David nudges the other boy playfully with a wide grin. "You won, what do you wanna do?”

“Hmm…" The brunette taps his chin thoughtfully before grinning and running towards the ocean’s crashing waves. David chases after him and falls to his knees just as the other boy does. The wet sand is speckled with bubbles and holes, and the brunette starts to dig frantically at the spots with holes. "We’re gonna dig for clams!”

“Why?" Despite his question, he starts on his own digging, spying another hole opening up nearby.

"Because I like eating them!”

“Gross.”

“They’re not gross, you’re just picky.”

“Still gross!”

As piles of wet sand build and get washed away with the waves, the two of them manage to find small handful of clams that the boy shoves into the pockets of his trunks. A voice calls out to David somewhere, and he groans loudly.

“Aww man, I gotta go.”

“Really?" The other kid looks sad, like genuinely sad. Seeing him sad makes David sad too. It’s not often that he gets to play with kids his age, nevertheless a kid who actually WANTS to play with him. Quickly, he grabs the other boy’s hand and grins.

"Don’t worry about it! We can play again another day!" David tilts his head to the side with a realization. "By the way, what’s your name? I’m Davey!”

“Jasper!"

"Okay!" He grins wider and hugs Jasper quick, pulling back quickly to run towards the stairs. "I’ll see you again, okay?”

“Okay!" Jasper waves from where he stands for a moment before turning and walking towards the sea. The odd direction has David pausing to watch, wondering if the brunette is going for a swim. It’s pretty cold for a swim in the sea, which was why he turned him down earlier. But that doesn’t seem to bother Jasper as he wades deeper and deeper into the waves before ducking underneath the water.

When he pops back up, a little grey seal head pops up instead. David nearly screeches when the seal turns around to wave a flipper at David before disappearing underneath the waves. He quickly runs towards and up the stairs to claw at his mom’s jacket.

"MOM!" He points at the beach, trying to get her to look at the place he last saw Jasper. "MOM, I JUST SAW A KID TURN INTO A SEAL!”

“Oh, David." She kneels down to his level and pinches his cheeks, making him try and swat her hands away. That hurts! "You and your imagination.”

“No but- I saw a kid turn into a seal with my own eyes-”

“David, that doesn’t happen and you know it. You’ve been reading too much of those… um, what are they called? The books with the kids transforming into animals on the covers.”

“Animorphs, mom,” he huffs, before shaking his head and refusing to let his thoughts derail, “but I’m serious! I saw a kid turn into a seal!”

“Alright,” she chuckles lightly and takes his hand. “Next, you’re going to tell me you saw a bat turn into a lady.”

“But-”

“Come on, let’s go home.”

As his mom tugs him away from the beach, David looks over his shoulder one last time.

He swears he saw it happen.

But… then again…

His mom is usually right, right?

He chews on his lip and thinks back on Jasper and the seal. It’s not like Animorphs are real anyways. That’d be reaaaal scary if that was true.

…Yeah. Maybe his mom is right. It probably was his imagination. He shakes his head and follows his mom’s lead.

Yeah, probably just his imagination. It’s not like something like this is going to bother him in the future, anyways.

“What’s for dinner?”

“Fish and chips!”

“YEAH!”

#HHGHSHFH PERFECT #THAT'S SO CUTE #THE BABY BOYS AHFHS #I laughed way loud at Davey's 'you're a load of hooey'#not FULL of hooey #he IS HOOEY #GJDHSH #jasper's fake crying what a little turd i love him #uuhdjhf this is so perfect i love it #.davey's like 'dig for clams? ok whatev' cause he made a new friend and I think that's swell #and LOU REFERENCE YOU MAD LAD #this is adorable i loVE IT #selkie jasper #submission

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babbushka · 5 years ago

Text

Dedication

Pale x Reader ; 2.5k (Set in the Blue Moon ‘Verse)

He’s in a bad fuckin’ mood, when he comes barging through your door. Work was a pain in his ass, the world was a pain in his fuckin’ ass, and he’s pissed. So pissed in fact, that he’d be grinding his teeth if it weren’t for the damn cigarette he’s suckin’ down real fast. Sucking it down so he can jam another one right on after it between his lips, as he climbs the stairs of the walk-up to you.

It’s a Saturday, so he knows you’re home even though all the lights are off in the living room. Doesn’t look like the light’s on in the bedroom either, but he knows you’re home. You don’t like workin’ the Saturday shifts, Fish always gives you the day off to lounge around the apartment. Not that you could really do much lougnin’, not in that apartment; there was barely anything to lounge on.

It’s raining outside, and Pale’s pissed. Just absolutely pissed as he jams the key through your door, pissed and has his mouth open ready to bitch and complain about his day, ready to let it all out because you’re the only one who would ever listen – when he catches the smell of something that has him stopping in his tracks right at the front door.

“Pale?” Your voice calls, questioning and eager, from the kitchen.

If he listens close, he can hear sizzling, oil snap crackle popping on the stove – what the fuck were you doing cooking this late?

“Yeah it’s me, what’s it to ya?” He replies not unkindly, stepping out of his boots right there on the welcome mat, shucking off his wet leather jacket. You’d get ticked if he dragged slush and snow and freezing bitter rain into the place.

Not that it would bring the place down much, if he did.

“C’mere,” You say instead, and he listens, obeys, always – always for you.

You’re standing there in nothing but your underwear, tits out and everything right in the kitchen. Pale can’t help but feel glad that he paid your heat bill, glad they didn’t shut it off like they were fuckin’ fixin’ to. With how much he likes you bein’ naked and how much you like bein’ naked for him, he was sure you’d freeze your tits off if he hadn’t. But there in front of the stove, you’re toasty warm, swaying your hips to soft music that’s comin’ from the battery operated radio you keep on the counter.

You’ve got a small lamp on in the kitchen, not the overhead light or nothing. Pale likes it like that, he thinks. It’s too late for the harsh light of the overhead, too late for any of that bullshit. He’s confused for a minute when he sees a random cup of water on the floor, goes down to pick it up only for a drop of water to smack the back of his neck as he bends.

He squints up at the ceiling and sees water leaking through something in the paneling, the rain finding its way in. He frowns, but leaves the cup be. You’ve got the blinds up for the window that faces the street, and sitting on the windowsill is a fancy-lookin’ candle-stick holder.

Once upon a time you told him it was called a menorah, but he didn’t really know what that meant. He still doesn’t, but you’re standing in your underwear smiling at him with your hair clipped back, while you flip crispy disks of shredded potato in hot oil that splatters onto your skin. Pale has to bite back a comment on how fucking good you look.

“What’re you doin’ sweetheart?” He asks instead, lights up a new cigarette and steps behind you, wraps his arms around your middle.

You shimmy a little, settle back against him, don’t wince or nothin’ when the oil catches Pale’s wrist, when he yanks his hand away with a hiss. You only laugh a little, grab it with your own and bring it up to your lips for a kiss.

“First night of Hanukkah, I told you didn’t I?” You say, fishing the potato pancakes out of the oil, setting them on a plate that’s lined with paper towels.

He frowns again as you take the cigarette out of his mouth and flick the ash for him so he don’t have to loosen his hold on your body. He takes advantage of his free mouth to smack a big loud kiss to your cheek.

“No.” He lies, but it’s a bad lie, and you see through him with a huff of gentle laughter.

“Well I’m makin’ dinner.” You say, sprinkling coarse salt on top of the food fresh from the oil, and before Pale can even make a single fuckin’ comment you’re rolling your eyes. “I know I know – you’re the chef. But tonight is my night, okay? If you don’t like it you can make something for yourself later.” You turn to throw an eyebrow over your shoulder, and Pale quirks a grin.

“Shit smells fuckin’ fantastic.” He says, kissing you.

It’s the first fuckin’ time he’s kissed you all day and that somehow makes him feel more fuckin’ high than the coke he snorted right as he left work. That buzz is all but gone now, his skin clammy from the sweat and the frigid rain that stuck to his clothes as he made the run from his parked car to your door.

It’s the first fuckin’ time he’s got his hands on you, big palms spanning your tits, giving them a squeeze. He likes the way your shoulders curl in when he does that, the way you try and make yourself more manageable for him. You were the least manageable person, and Pale loved you for it, fuckin’ loved you.

He doesn’t say it, but he loves you.

It’s okay, you know.

He’s kissin’ you and the oil is sizzling, but you’re an angel and you reach behind your back to flip the dial on the stove to off.

Pale groans in the back of his throat as you walk to the counter, hoist yourself up onto it. Your ass nudges the radio a little, and the signal goes staticky for half a second as it gets jostled. Pale wondered all the time what kinda music you listen to, and he doesn’t know if this is the shit you listen to all the time, but it’s real smooth. He doesn’t hate it.

What he hates is not getting’ himself all the way buried inside you – so that’s what he sets out to work on. You’ve got the fuckin’ head start, and he makes it easy by slipping your panties off of your hips, lets them fall to the floor. He licks a stripe up between your tits, buries his face in your cleavage and takes a deep breath in as he unbuckles his belt.

You’re grinnin’, he can tell, can tell by the way your hands both come round to cup the base of his skull, the way your nails scratch along his scalp, how they twine in his hair as you push his face closer and closer. He thinks he might just die, if he doesn’t get his dick in you, so he doesn’t fuckin’ bother with getting’ naked, just lets his jeans drop enough that he can fish out his cock and line himself up real nice.

He’s already hard, because of fuckin’ course he is. How could he not be? Look at you – like, just fuckin’ look at you.

He yanks your hips close to the edge of the counter, slides in with a strong thrust that has your knees turning to jell-o around his waist.

“Shit (Y/N) this pussy’s tight.” He hisses, and he almost bites his cigarette in half from how good it feels to have your cunt clench around him.

“Pale -- !” You gasp for him, leaning back on your elbows, taking the cigarette with you and stubbing it out in the ashtray that really oughta be cleaned out. “Ow, fuck.”

You smack your head on the cabinet, and Pale’s reaching over to kiss you to apologize for it, even though it wasn’t his fuckin’ fault the cabinets jutted out too far. You didn’t have enough counter space, but you knew that, he wasn’t about to ruin the mood by pointin’ it out.

He kisses you and lets his hips do the work as he chases that sweet rush of your sex. You’re laid out on the counter as best as you can, and he’s gotta close his eyes because otherwise he’s gonna start sayin’ all kinds of sentimental bullshit; bullshit about the way your smile is somehow so bright in the dark.

It ain’t so dark, he thinks, not when you’re there.

“Say it,” He asks, demands, and you’re already nodding, already know what he wants.

“I’m yours, your whore, fuck your whore Pale.” You tell him all breathy-like, and he groans, shoves his face in the crook of your neck and sweats there.

He don’t fuck you crazy hard or nothin’. It ain’t gentle, no way, but it ain’t crazy neither. He’s got a nice steady pace and worries your nipple between his teeth, licks and sucks at it before switching to the other one so it don’t get jealous. You’ve got your claws dug into the silk of his shirt real deep, and if he weren’t so drunk off your cunt he’d be angry about it.

But when he fucks you, he finds he ain’t so angry about anything.

You come before he does, he can always tell. The way your face scrunches up, the way your head tips back, the way your mouth drops open, the way you squeeze his cock so tight that it always makes him come right after.

So he does, shoots his load inside you and thinks if nothin’ else, he’s warmin’ you up from the inside on this chilly night. He comes with a grunt in your ear, lets his hips still as he empties himself right into your cunt, his vision melting into stars and splotches.

You don’t even give him a chance to pull out, chest still heaving and sticky with sweat, before you reach over and pluck a potato pancake off the little platter. He wonders where you even got so many serving dishes – he’s cooked in your kitchen before, he knows you ain’t got much.

“Try one – careful it’s still real hot.” You say even though your hair is clingin’ to your pretty cheek as you hold the thing up to his lips, pickin’ up a conversation that never really started.

He eats it though, and it’s fucking delicious, exactly what he’s craving even though he didn’t know he was even cravin’ nothin’.

You’re like that, he thinks, very much like that all the time.

“How long you been cookin’ today?” He asks as he rolls his hips against yours, his cock still pulsing come into you, making you moan and squirm even though the bliss of orgasm has already started to fade.

“Couple hours, nothin’ too crazy. I waited for you to do the candles.” You say, carding your fingers through his hair. He don’t mind that you’re a lil greasy – fuck, when isn’t he greasy enough himself? All that means is you’ll wash his hair in your leaky tub later. He don’t mind.

“How come?” He asks though, looks at the menorah on the windowsill.

There’s two candles, one in the middle and one on the far right, but neither are lit.

“I dunno. Just thought it might be something nice to do together.” You shrug with a soft smile, and even then, even still, he doesn’t pull out of you.

Eventually though, you gotta get up. Gotta use the bathroom, get cleaned up. Your back starts to hurt bein’ up on the counter and he can’t have you hurtin’, not tonight. Not any night, for that matter.

When you come back from the bathroom you’re in a new pair of underwear, and he can already see the splotches and crescent bites on your perfect tits, soft light from the world outside mixing with the rain dripping down on the glass and through the ceiling casting funny shadows on your skin.

You say a prayer in a language Pale doesn’t know, say another one. He doesn’t know what you’re saying, but he feels it, feels the importance of it. Pale strikes you a match, and with it you light the middle candle, pick that one up and use it to share the fire for the candle on the right.

The candles take a second to figure themselves out, flames jumpin’ wild wild wild, but then they settle, and the wax starts to drip right onto the windowsill. You don’t give a shit, and neither does he, not tonight.

Through the rain, he can see yours ain’t the only menorah that’s lit. So many windows are glowing, soft orange which cuts through the darkness. It’s beautiful, he thinks, the way that solidarity, that history is shared. He wonders if the sight gives you hope, with all the bullshit that goes on sometimes in the world. He wonders if all the candles give everyone hope, another year of light, another year of makin’ it through.

Sometimes it was just enough to make it through, wasn’t it?

“You know, I had a real bad fuckin’ day today.” Pale says, disturbing the quiet. He’s got his arms around your middle, the two of you standing in the tiny fuckin’ kitchen in your tiny fuckin’ apartment. You rest your head on his chest, let him kiss at your temple.

“I nearly beat the shit out of a punk today for even lookin’ at me the wrong way, almost took my goddamn tire iron out. I’m out of fuckin’ cigs because of how bad of a day it was, can you believe that? Smoked through two packs and half a thing of blow before showin’ up here. But I swear when I walked through your door I forgot just about all the bullshit. I don’t know how you do that, you know? How the fuck do you just make everything fuckin’ vanish like that? -- You were right.” He ends his speech abruptly.

“Hm?” You ask, as the two of yous look into the small pricks of fire.

“This was nice.” He says, kisses you again, and you smile, bury yourself in his embrace a little more.

Once, a long time ago you had said that neither of you might not have much in the way of having your shit together, but at least you had each other.

And you’re right, he thinks, you’re right.

You’re right when you said, that that’s gotta count for something.

-----------

Tagging some Pale lovin’ pals <33 @fullofbees @spinebarrel @dreamboatdriver @thecurlycaptain @bourbonboredom @driverficarchive @rosalynbair @redhairedfeistynerd @adamsnackdriver @glitzescape @adamsnacc-kler @kyloxfem @fallin-for-youreyes @kylo-renne @attorneyl @jedihbic @bens-rose @callmehopeless @formerly-anonhamster @thepilotanon @hippieface @tinyplanet-explorers @satansstrawberry @riseofkylo @whiskey-bumblebee @helloimindelaware @magikevalynn @scheherazades-horcrux

#reader insert #pale x reader #pale burn this #burn this broadway #adam driver #my writing #blue moon verse #12DoO #12 days of oneshots

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thepilgrimofwar · 5 years ago

Text

The Shalemarchers - Edited Roll20 Logs

[Event Start]

The party of diplomats approach the appointed village where the Shalemarchers had gathered. Judereth had considered bringing soldiers with her as a show of force, but decided against it. For a greater show of force was showing that they did not need them. For they had Lirelle.

Beathyn looks to the others present. Vissehn, Judereth, and Lirelle. “Stenden prefers a peaceful solution to this, and so do we,." he states, trying to set the tone right for the talks about to come.

"I mean that's th'whole point, right,” Vissehn says. “Get this stowed to focus on the wars elsewhere."

Judereth shrugs. "I am here to listen, they are this close to being branded as traitors. But for now, if there's a way to make them see sense, I'll take it."

"What happens is up to them,” says Lirelle. “We're wasting time thinking about anything else."

Vissehn seems in fine form, his Hawk Courier garb slightly less shiny and bright than usual. He'd picked up the set he wore during the war, and looked the part of the child-spy he'd been.

Beathyn nods and sighs. "Let's get to it then. Hopefully they aren't reckless enough to shoot the messenger... If not I guess they'll find that isn't exactly our first profession."

"Speak for yerself!” Vissehn pops his Hawk Courier collar.

Lirelle points at the others in turn, starting with Judereth. "Logistics officer, logistics officer, soldier, Hawk. I think you're the odd one out here Vissehn,"

Beathyn waved away the comments as they made their way towards the village, "Shhhh!"

[The Party Approaches the Village]

As the party approaches the village, they see a large number of armed peasantry. Carrying whatever that could be considered a weapon. Though they were poorly organized, the anger in the air was palpable. There was an energy here that ran electric through the Shalemarchers- A mix of Hope, Fear, and the Breaking of bonds.

The peasants part as they approach, directed towards the square.

Leyla Cinderblossom "Well met," says a girl, barely older than Vissehn. "I am you chose to respond to the missives we sent instead of just responding with swords. I am Leyla, Cinderblossom. Voice for the Shalemarchers." The accent betrayed that she had the trainings of a house-servant behind her. The only sort of education provided to the peasantry where both literacy and articulation were valued.

Beathyn smiled. "Well met, I can see why you were picked as the voice." He began introducing his party. "Beathyn Val'cinder. Vissehn Bladeborn. Lady Dawnbrook. And, your liege as of last week, Lady Swiftquiver."

Judereth regards Leyla, "That's Judereth Swiftquiver. Know that I wasn't nobility until I was... Nominated." She shoots a look at Lirelle.

Lirelle simply remains quiet, folding her arms and looming in the background. Her purpose here was evident, but if the others wanted to attempt a civil discussion first, she would let them.

Vissehn offered a short bow, snatching his cap from his pale hair as he nodded. "Wellmet, Miss." He says it with the right inflection-- the inflection of the villages and the caravans, where Miss isn't a dismissive but how you call the ladies who aren't yet wedded but deserving of more than 'oi, cousin!'

Leyla Cinderblossom raises her eyebrows. "Now that's surprising. Lords and Ladies never take part in negotiations personally." She gestures towards Beathyn, who had come on behalf of the Emberglades. "Too much mud and muck fer their liking."

Vissehn nods sagely. "Ruins th'shiny boots."

Leyla Cinderblossom laughs, and it seems to put the rest of the Shalemarchers at ease, somewhat.

"Hard to get the scent of squalor outa velvet, I heard too." Vissehn looks around, his eyes drifting over the homes and his lips twist sidelong. There is more than sympathy in his eyes-- there's anger.

Judereth speaks up. "So, Leyla. What is this about?" She gestures all around her. At the men and women who had armed themselves. The anger- enough to make them risk life and limb because peasantry, of all peoples, knew exactly what their fates were likely to be when they rose up.

Leyla Cinderblossom's ears flattened against her head, and eyes narrowed. "We are tired. Pushed, and pushed. It has gone on so long that people my age have not known of the elusive thing called -peace-.

"Since the Fall, taxes and levies have been taken for one cause or another. First it had been the Prince's Contributions to the Alliance. Then his Expeditions. After that the Horde, and all their Warmongering..." She lists them off, almost exhaustively. "And after the Phoenix Wars, at last, when there was a promise of peace. Our very own Lords throw us into another pointless War and we are sick of it."

Beathyn nods, slowly but deliberately. "So are we," he says. He wants to add an explanation to why the burden they carried was necessary but decided against it. It would not help things.

Lirelle glances at Judereth. She knew the reasons, whether she would try to share was up to her.

Vissehn nods at her frustrations. "It's the fuckin' short stick, aint it? And always on the ones at the bottom of the ladder to carry the heaviest while getting th'littlest." He snorts. "Like you can bleed a stone. Like you can carve water from a desert."

Leyla Cinderblossom looks at Vissehn, with anger in her eyes. "Exactly. Over and above the regular indignities done against us."

He responds. "Like babes born with th'same nose an' jaws of the manor's masters. Like sons that just don't come back home."

Judereth adds. "And nights where we were too hungry to sleep. I know. My family was no exception. Though we were protected by my father's position in Sederis' court, we were only spared the very worst of it."

Lirelle sighs. She tucks her arms back in front of her from where she was about to give Vissehn a warning nudge.

Leyla Cinderblossom bows her head. "I see that you are nothing like Lord Goodemeber. He did not treat us poorly, but he did not care. The injustices done by the lesser Lordlings, and mercenary officers were rarely answered adequately." She looks at Lirelle, as unnatural as the priestess was, and smiled. "Thank you for dealing with them."

Lirelle looks at Leyla. "I did not deal with them only for this to happen, coming from the very people we saved. I'm hoping that this will not have been a waste of my men's time, yes?"

Leyla Cinderblossom:"While we appreciate the gesture, a single action does not make up for decades of injustices... Though, we are grateful nonetheless."

Vissehn nods. "It's a shit system." He looks to Lirelle and opens his hands. "I known some good nobles in the Sunguard, I known some elsewhere too. Don't change the fact all of this system is out to drain people of their lives to prop up others, whose blood is the same color, whose right is the same." He looks to Leyla. "I ain't sayin' your wrong to want change. Not at all. I'm sayin' that there's power in voices as much as bloodshed, an' I'm hoping if we all scream the same words, we can do as much good without losin life." He presses a hand to his chest. "I'm a bastard born, an' I only got anywhere by signing to fight and die. Now, I'd like to see if I can keep my kith from graves. Keep your lot from familiar graves. Let's talk it to the table, an' see what changes can be made afore we go dyin' and killin."

Leyla Cinderblossom looks at Vissehn, eyes softening as he spoke. "That's selfless of you. Though the men and women around me are the ones deemed unworthy to fight and die- Tis' why we're here and not the militia who're now marching off to fight Illithia in a turn of events. But regardless... What are we to do then? We can't change the system, and we can't bear it either!"

"We can change the system. Sederis tried, an' went barmy there at the end but it was a start. Lord Stenden's already got commonborn folks at the table, speaking for you. Let's see if we can't move forward an' give you more voice." Vissehn speaks with an authority no one gave him, just because he's here and no one's stopped him yet!

[Negotiations Begin Proper]

Beathyn speaks softly to start with. "Then trust that the Lords that are coming into power from this mess of a war will bring the change you want." Riffing off Vissehn's response, pointing at Judereth. Lady Swiftquiver is right here, listening to you. "Yet more evidence that Lord Emberheart is trying to put more voices of the people in power."

Judereth sighs. "I don't expect you to trust me or my decisions right away. But I hope that you can give me a chance- and time to prove that I am worthy. I've been picked by the Lord of the Emberglades yes, but I have yet to be picked by my people-" she looks around her, not only addressing Leyla, but the others around her as well.

Leyla Cinderblossom gives Judereth a look. "Then swear you will do better. Better than the ones who came before you. Witnessed by everyone here today."

Judereth bows her head. "I swear it."

Lirelle unfolds her arms, the tips of the claws beginning to push themselves out of the bark, elongating and spreading in almost a parody of wings. "You would be wise to listen to the words of the others. Judereth might well be the first liege that you have who would listen and care. Best that you negotiate with her rather than with me."

Leyla Cinderblossom receives the threat well, all things considered. "I have no doubt that we will be facing you and yours on the field should the worse come to pass. We do not wish for it, but our choices are limited."

Vissehn steps forward. "On my honor, I ain't lettin a place I call home, or swaer oaths to, take and hurt the people of the land." He clicks tongue to teeth, considering... but then the idea slips off. Instead, he pats his blade. "Pick some folks you think have good heads-- make a coalition of the villages. Magistrates oughta be from merchants or farmers anyroad. See if you can send your own to get educated, an' then they can manage the affairs. I'll put a word in with my merchant friends, too-- they can perhaps see bout new traderoutes, once th'current kerfuffle is finished. Get new money in here-- I know your taxes take much, but of whats left-- this is a breadbasket, yeah? Make that bread. Sell it for more'n its worth to the far North."

Leyla Cinderblossom looks back at the building that housed the representatives of the Shalemarchers next to her. "That sounds like something we can work with. Good heads, not powerful heads, we had to weed out the powerhungry early on in this to make sure we had the best people for the job." She pointed at herself in a brief moment of levity.

Beathyn raises his hand, "AND- And I am sure that Lord Emberheart will be most happy with such an arrangement. He'd rather be loved than feared. I hope his conduct in the war has already shown as much."

Judereth clears her throat to remind Beathyn that it was not infact, up to Stenden. But her. "As Lady of Shalemarch, I will be -your- Lady. I promise you that I will guarantee that if you give me your trust, and your time, you will see this come to pass."

Vissehn speaks up. "She's got the means, an' ain't so far removed from bein' poor herself. It's no farmers daughter on th'throne, but it's a sight better than a fat bastard who keeps his pockets well lined an' cares little for the bastards his solders get on his people."

Leyla Cinderblossom shakes her head, "We will see you uphold what you've sworn first before making any more promises"

Vissehn opens his hands. Fair enough.

“And I would suggest you make your decision quickly,” Lirelle levels her crimson gaze at her. “There is a war going on, whether you asked for it or not. Do not think that what is happening here is a priority for us. We will be winning that, with our without you."

"So we're nothing more than driftwood in the tides of war then." Leyla looks at the men and women around her, looking to her to make the right decision, and that- was not death- not a death that did not matter as was it was quickly shaping up to be.

Vissehn looks her over with sympathy, and calls Beathyn closer. "Look-- I know you're fuckin' tired. I'm fuckin' tired. I watched my mother slave, my cousins die, an' for what. I'm still nothin'. I coulda been a lord-- got offered enough boons for killin' the right people for others, but I didn't take it cause there's no honor in it. I'm born in dirt, an' I'll be buried in it same as everyone else. This war is for the soul of this place; either an old man with no heirs, no plan, nothing but the Old Ways and greed wins... or someone with a lil more sense, a few more ideals, an' a willingness to learn wins. That's the choice; you throw in with Arenias if you stand with weapons now. You stand with him, against the changes to come. Do you wanna die for him, for this?"

Beathyn gestures to Vissehn. "The boy is absolutely right. If you rebel now, regardless of your ideals and what you are trying to martyr yourselves for- You will be seen as doing so on Arenias' behalf. I can almost guarantee that Solendis Emberheart will twist the tale into such. If you want change, this is not the way to do it.

"If you want change- Lasting change- You need to work together. Lord and People. Listening. Compromising. That is the only true way forward. Dying here, in fear and anger in the hopes that your voices and deaths will be statements to something greater will only be washed away in a tide of blood- And victors... Well Victors write the histories don't they?"

Leyla Cinderblossom looks around to the Shalemarchers around her. It appeared that Beathyn's words seemed to be aimed at them rather than just solely her and they were moved, she could see it in their eyes. "Aye," she says. "Then, on behalf of the men and women around me. We have struck an accord. We will go back to our homes- and await the promises you have made to us this day."

Judereth speaks. "All I ask for is a chance, and time to make this a reality."

[Event End]

#Epilogue #Roll20 #Beathyn #Vissehn

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archiefm · 5 years ago

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... claws my way up from hell once more and vomits onto the dash.... hello. its nora. i used to write rory bergstrom, but if u were here before that u might remember me as greta or alma putnam or..... som1 else.... an endless carousel of trash children..... this is finn, who i actually wrote for an early version of this rp abt 5yrs back now...... grits teeth..... so forgive me if im rusty i havent written him in a long time but seein honey boy gave me a lotta finn muse n im keen to get Back On The Horse yeehaww...

DYLAN O’BRIEN / CIS-MALE — don’t look now, but is that finn o’callaghan i see? the 25 year old criminology and forensic studies student is in their graduate year of study year and he is a rochester alum. i hear they can be judicious, adroit, morose and cynical, so maybe keep that in mind. i bet he will make a name for themselves living off-campus. ( nora. 24. gmt. she/her )

shakes my tin can a humble pinterest, ma’am....

finn has a bio pasted at the bottom (n written in like.... 2015.... gross) but it’s long so if u don’t wanna read it here’s the sparknotes summary..... anyway this was written years ago n a lot of it seems really cliche and lame now but..... we accept the trash we think we deserve

grumpy, ugly sweater wearing, tech-savvy grandpa

very dry sense of humour and embraces nihilism.

if ron swanson and april ludgate had a baby it would be finn

he was raised in derry, just south of dublin.

from a big family. elder sister called sinead. he also has a younger sister (aoife), a younger brother (colm), and a collie named lassie because his father lovs cliches (finn hates cliches but loves his dog).

his father was a pub landlord and his mother worked at the market sellin fruit n veg when they met but got a job as a medical receptionist when she had kids cos it meant she cld be there with them in the day and work nights.

his parents met when they were p young and fiesty and rushed into marriage cos they were catholic n just wanted to have sex. his family were literally dirt-poor, but they had a lot of love i guess

hmmmmm his relationship w his father wasn’t the best cos i can’t write character who have healthy relationships w their parents throws up a peace sign. yh, had a pretty emotionally distant, alcoholic violent father n so gets a lot of his bad habits i.e. drinking as a coping mechanism and poor anger management from him BUT anyway

as a kid he was never very motivated in class, he always had a nervous itch to be off somewhere doing something else. struggled under government austerity bcso there just wasn’t the resources to support low income families where the kids had learning difficulties n needed support. fuck the tories am i right

his mum suggested he try sports to help w his restless energy but he was never any good at football so he took up boxing and tap dance instead. he took to tap dancing like a fish to fuckin water. as adhd n found this as a really good way to use his excess energy in a creative way

had a few run ins with the police in his early teens for spray painting and graffiti, but he straightened himself out n now actually considering becoming a detective inspector??? cops are pigs.

he had a youtube channel where he posted videos of him tapdancing and breakdancing as a kid, basically would be a tiktok boy nowadays, n had like... a small fanbase in his early teens. attended several open auditions unsuccessfully, until he was finally cast in billy eliot when he was fifteen.

during billy eliot he began dating an italian dancer called nina. they became dance partners soon after and toured across the republic with various different shows (inc riverdance lol the classic irish stereotype). their relationship was p toxic tbh, they were both very hot tempered people and just used to argue and fight all the time.

he went semi-pro at tap dancing, and nina couldn’t stand being second best so she moved back to italy with her family. ignored his texts, phone calls, etc, eventually he was driven to the point where he used his savings to buy a plane ticket, showed up at her house and she was like wtf?? freaked out and filed a restraining order accusing him of stalking.

he was fined for harassment and then returned home to derry, but after the incident with nina he quit dancing for good and finished his leaving cert before heading to university in the US to get as far away from nina and his past life as poss. and basically since he quit dancing to study forensics (death kink. finn cant get enough of that morgue. just walks around sayin beat u) he’s become a massive grump and jsut doesn’t see the good in people any more.

u’ll find finn in an old man bar drinking whiskey bc he is in fact an old man at heart or sat on his roof smoking a joint, drawing wolves and lions and skeletons and shit, playing call of duty or getting blazed or at the corner of the room in a house party ignoring everyone and scrolling through twitter. is a massive e-boy. always up-to-date on memes and internet slang. has reddit as an app on his phone

not very good at communication. rather than solve his issues by talking, he’d prefer to just solve them through fighting or running away from his problems hence why he has come halfway across the world to get away from an issue which probs cld have been solved w a few apology emails.

takes a lot to phase him, but when his beserk button gets pressed he can become a bit pugnacious like an angry lil rottweiler. in his undergrad he was in a few fist fights but doesn’t really do tht any more as he doesn’t condone violence.

in the previous version of this rp he was hospitalised like 5 times. pls, give my son a break. stop tryin to kill him. he literaly got a bottle smashed over his head and bled out all over his favourite angora rug that was the only light of his life

works at the campus coffee shop n always whines about how he’s a slave to capitalism. always smells of coffee

lives off campus with an elderly woman named Marianne, and basically gets reduced rent bcos he makes her dinner / keeps her company. they have a great bond

fan of karl marx. v big on socialism

insomniac with chronic nosebleeds

cynical about everything. too much of a fight club character 4 his own good n has his head up tyler durden’s sphincter

always confused or annoyed

statistics

basic information

full name: finnegan seamus o'callaghan nickname(s): finn age: 25 astrological sign: aries hometown: derry, ireland occupation: phd student / former street entertainer fatal flaw: cynicism positives: self-reliant, street smart, relaxed, intelligent, spontaneous, brave, independent, reliable, trustworthy, loyal. negatives: hostile, impulsive, stubborn, brooding, pugnacious, untrusting, cynical, enigmatic, reserved.

physical

colouring: medium hair colour: dark brown, almost black eye colour: brown height: 5’9” weight: 69kg build: tall, athletic voice: subtle irish accent, low, smooth. dominant hand: left scar(s): one on the left side of his ribs from a knife wound that he doesn’t remember getting cos he was drunk distinguishing marks: freckles, tattoo of a wolf howling at a moon allergies: pollen and the full spectrum of human emotion alcohol tolerance: high drunken behaviour: he becomes friendlier, far more conversational than when sober, flirtier, and generally more self-confident.

psychological

dreams/goals: self-fulfilment, travel the globe, experience life in its most alive and technicoloured version, make documentary films, help the vulnerable in society, grow as a human being.

skills: jack-of-all-trades, very fast runner, good at thieving things, talented tap dancer, good in crisis situations, dab-hand at mechanics, musically-intelligent, can throw a mean right hook and very capable of defending himself, can roll a cigarette, memorises quotes and passages of literature with ease, can light a match with his teeth.

likes: the smell of the earth after rain, poetry, cigarettes, shakespeare, whiskey, tattoos, travelling, ac/dc, deep conversations, leather jackets, open spaces, the smell of petrol, early noughties ‘emo phase’ anthems.

dislikes: the government, parties, rules, donald trump, children, apple products, weddings, people in general, small talk, dependency, loneliness, pop music, public transport, justin timberlake, uncertainty.fears: fear itself, drowning alignment: true neutral mbti: istp – “while their mechanical tendencies can make them appear simple at a glance, istps are actually quite enigmatic. friendly but very private, calm but suddenly spontaneous, extremely curious but unable to stay focused on formal studies, istp personalities can be a challenge to predict, even by their friends and loved ones. istps can seem very loyal and steady for a while, but they tend to build up a store of impulsive energy that explodes without warning, taking their interests in bold new directions.” (via 16personalities.com)

full bio (lame as fuck written years ago..... pleathe...)

tw homophobia

born in quigley’s pub on the backstreets of sunny dublin, young finnegan o'callaghan was thrown kicking and screaming into the rowdy suburbs of irish drinking culture. the son of a landlord and a fishwife, he never had much in the way of earnings, but there was never a dull moment in his lively estate, where asbo’s thrived, but community spirit conquered. at school, finn was pegged as lazy and unmotivated, though truly his dyslexia made it hard for the boy to learn in the same environment of his peers and only made him more closed-off in class. struggling with anger management, finn moved from school to school, unable to fit the cookie-cutter mould that school enforced on him, though whilst academic studies were of little interest to the boy, he soon found his true passions lay in recreational activities. immersed into the joys of sport from as young as four, finn was an ardent munster fan and anticipated nothing more than the day he could finally fit into his brother’s old pair of rugby boots.

his calling finally came unexpectedly, not in the form of rugger, but through dance. to learn to express himself in a non-academic way, he began tap dancing, finding therapy in the beat of his soles against the cracked kitchen tiles (much to his mother’s disgrace). it wasn’t a conscious choice, finn just realised one day that dance was something that made him feel. a king of the streets, finn made his fortune on those cobbled pavements – dancing and drawing to earn his keep. by default, finn became a street artist, each penny he earned from his chalk drawings saved in a jam jar towards buying his first pair of tap shoes. though many of his less-than-amiable neighbours called him a nancy and a gaybo, finn refused to quit at his somewhat ‘unconventional’ hobby, for the young scrapper found energy, life, and released anger through the rhythm of tap. soon he branched out into street dance, hip hop, break dancing, lyrical, his days spent smacking his scuffed feet against the broken patio into the night.

when he was thirteen he took up boxing, and as expected, his newfound ‘macho’ pastime conflicted with his dancing. the boxers called him ‘soft’; the dancers called him ‘inelegant’. he felt like two different people; having to choose between interests was like being handed a knife and asked to which half of himself he wished to cut away. he couldn’t afford professional training in dance, with most schools based in england and limited scholarships available. instead, he made the street his studio, racking up a small fanbase on youtube. when he was fifteen he made his debut in billy eliot at the olympia theatre in dublin. enter nina de souza, talented, beautiful and italian; ballet dancer, operatic singer, genius whiz kid, and spoiled brat. she was selfish, conceited, hell bent on getting her own way, and every director’s nightmare. finn fell for her like a house of cards. he’d always had a soft spot for girls who meant trouble. and so their hellish courtship began.

by the time they were seventeen, the two young swans had danced in every playhouse across the republic. they were known in theatres across the country for their tempestuous personalities, their raging arguments with one another, their tendency to drop out of shows altogether without any notice, yet the money kept rolling in and the audiences continued to grow. for three years, their families continued to put up with their hysterical fights followed by passionate reconciliations. he was too possessive, and she was too wild. their carcrash of a relationship finally came to a catastrophic halt when nina broke off the whole affair and returned to italy with her family. for months finn tried to contact her, yet his phone calls, texts, facebook messages were always ignored, until finally he was driven to drastic measures and used his savings to get a plane to her home town. when finn turned up uninvited at nina’s house she freaked out – and rightly so – she contacted her agent, accused him of stalking her, and had a restraining order placed against him. finn was arrested, held in a station overnight, and charged with harassment before he was allowed to return to dublin.

after the incident with nina, finn lost the fight in his eyes. he became far more hostile, far less likely to retaliate with his own fists, and picked fights not for the thrill of feeling his own fists pummel another into a wall, but for the sensation of his own brittle bones cracking. he dropped his tap shoes in a dumpster, stopped talking to his friends, followed his father’s advice and went back to school to complete his leaving certificate. a few short months later, and finn was packing his bags, saying his bittersweet goodbyes, and travelling half-way across the globe to be as far away as possible from his past self, his mess of a life, and most of all nina. it seemed somehow ironic that the boy who had been cautioned by the garda so much during his youth for spray painting, busking without a liscence, and raucous parties would become the grumpy, aloof overseas student studying a degree in criminology; that his once reckless spirit could be crushed so easily.

of all things that finn could be called, straightforward would never be one of them. ever since his first days in atticus, the boy was pegged as hostile, hot-headed, cynical, rude. he seemed to spend more time in his thoughts than engaging in conversation. like a ticking time-bomb, finn’s anger was of the calm kind, liable to explode without a moment’s noticed. his unpredictable personality make him something of an enigma to those who aren’t amiable with the lad, though hostile as he may appear, he harvests a good heart. loyalty lies at the centre of his affections, and whilst his friends are few in number, he makes a lifelong partner. somewhere within finn, there’s still some fight left, but mostly he has recognised that his hedonistic lifestyle did little to leave him fulfilled – mostly, it just emptied him out – and over his three years at university has resigned himself to a nihilistic predicament.

if u wanna plot with me pls pls pls im me or like this post!! i am always game for plots i love em so excited to write with you all here r some ideas

study buddies. finn is now a phd student so has to start takin shit seriously. he gon be in the library every day doing that independent study. if he had ppl who were also regular library goers n they get each other coffees to save time.... tht wld be sweet

ppl who love techno dj sets and going super hard on the weekends!!! fuck yea

friends with benefits. exes on bad terms. ppl he tried to date but couldnt because he’s always emotionally hung up on someone else. spicy hook up plots

ppl he met touring?? maybe ppl who were also in the entertainment industry..... anyone got a character who is ex circus hit me up

does anyone else study criminology / forensics / criminal psych / law? phd students sometimes lecture so he cld be an assistant lecturer / tutor if ur character is in a younger year

gamers !!! social recluses !!! hermits !!

finn goes to the skatepark and all the young boys there think he’s a gradnpa which he is!

#huntingtonintro #is tht the tag....... idk..... msg me xo

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themockingcrows · 5 years ago

Text

Companionship Through Circuitry Ch. 2: Radiation Blues

Bro/Hal This chapter can be found on my AO3! This chapter is SFW cw: vomit

Not everywhere is safe to sleep, and warnings shouldn't be ignored. Even if they come from pretentious sounding AI.

What are you doing.

"I'm writin' to my kid, mind your own business."

My God in Heaven save us all, you've procreated.

"Yeah, and my spawn's the raddest thing in the world, what about it. Mind your own business, I'm already smudgin' the shit out of this," Bro muttered, writing against his thigh on layered paper carefully as he could. Being a lefty was suffering sometimes, even if he tried his damndest to write neatly.

There were probably better ways to go about doing this, better times or places, but something about camp that night felt safe and secure, and it was about time for another letter to get written and sent out to check in and let him know what was up. So there he sat by his fire curled up with the paper on his thigh, detailing to Dave what he’d been up to and the newfound.. Friend? Follower? Companion?

The new sunglasses he got that happened to be sarcastic as shit.

If you don't want me to be observing, you should do something sensible. Like take me off your fucking face.

"That'd be too easy. Be a good little bot and hush now."

I am an AI, not a 'good little bot'. Don't be condescending to me.

"I'm sorry I hurt all two of your pre-programmed feelings but seriously, shut your trap for a second and let me write or I'll forget some shit," Bro complained, "I'm leavin' you on because I don't wanna wind up entirely blind to the dark outside the lit up area."

Sleeping would be good tonight. Not only was it safe enough for a little bit of fire by his judgement and with plenty of air to avoid problems from smoke, but there was more than enough room to stretch out and relax. He wouldn't be crammed into a corner or sleeping sitting up tonight, oh no. He'd be fully fed, warm, comfortably dry and sprawled out on a bedroll like he owned the damn place. Buildings without roofs were pretty rad sometimes, bless concrete and brick, bless the steel beams that supported the tall bitches, they made his heart beat.

I should probably warn you since you’re insisting on staying: you are exposed here.

"You said that earlier and I’m tellin’ you: I'm not that exposed. You've been out here what, a day? And tested pre-war. I've been out here forty odd years, let the master take a load off. I'll sleep well tonight'n clear out by dawn. The stairs are shitty and I took my board with me. There's fire between the stairs'n me, I can tuck duck'n roll if I gotta beat feet out the window to the dumpster.. Shit's fine."

That is not what I meant. I'm saying you're exposed to a lot of things here.

"Yeah, we've established that you're wron- ah motherfuck look what you made me do," he sighed, pen leaving a blob of ink in the center of a word he’d paused too long on. Shoddily made hunk of junk. Modern pens could never hold a candle to the sturdy as hell pre-war ones with their pressurized, ever ready gel ink.

Your health is at risk.

Bro let out a steady breath from his nose in irritation, finished writing his sentence by crooking his hand in an awkward claw to avoid the wet spot, and then fanned the paper in the air to dry the ink splotch faster so it wouldn't transfer between pages and locations when he folded it for sending later. Or adding on to, if anything interesting happened between now and the next time he saw someone willing to courier or pass along to a courier for him and a normal delivery fee.

"My health is absolutely fine. I get you’re pre-war and used to the regulations’n shit they required but this is different. ..Look, if you're that concerned just wake me up before bad shit happens to me. You don't need sleep, do you? Just a charge when your inner batteries get low or the onboard rechargin' system gets borked, the rest of the time you're doin' your own thing," Bro guessed. "Just siren me awake before I get nibbled on if you're so concerned about my bein' asleep up here. I'm a light sleeper."

The target t's in front of his eyes turned in a slow loading circle several times before he heard the confirmation chime once again near his ear.

Duly noted. Enjoy writing to your spawn, Bro.

"Was that so hard?" he asked, blowing on the ink for another moment before touching the splotch with a fingertip and finding it dry. Carefully he folded the letter up and tucked it into his bag with the traitor pen in its security cap beside it, then settled down on his sleeping roll with a heady sigh. Finally: off his feet, fully stretched out.. It'd be better to be on a mattress, he'd taken that for granted over the years, but hey this was still pretty sweet. Soft enough to relax on.. soft enough to sleep on..

His eyes grew heavy as he watched the fire crackle and pop now and then, hands folded over his pleasantly full stomach. Within minutes he was out cold, softly snoring with the glasses perched on his face and AR finally quiet. The unnaturally clear sky stretched out overhead and the ever moving wasteland felt like it stood still peacefully for once, just for a little while.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Ambrose could hear a sharp, electronic whine as if it were coming from under water. No matter how far or how close he got to it the whine stayed the same pitch, annoying and gnat like. There didn’t seem to be any escape, no way to silence it, not even any way to interact with it since he couldn’t lay eyes on it. Whatever it was pulsed a few times before going louder, making his ears ache and his head feel like it wanted to split. He was sure of one thing: once he got his hands on whatever was making that god awful sound, he was going to put his sword through it and beat it into the dirt till it rested in a million tiny pieces.

He grimaced and finally opened his eyes, staring up at the dark sky of pre-dawn, flickers of unchanging stars and the distant glimmer of what was probably either space junk giving up the ghost and crashing somewhere into the atmosphere or a run of the mill shooting star. This was a beautiful way to wake up aside from the sound pulsing in front of his ears from AR who promptly shut it off as soon as he was conscious, giving him a moment of head pounding reprieve to be more conscious. It was earlier than he wanted to be awake. Ambrose could feel his joints protesting movement and his skin.. itching. Wincing, Bro sat slowly upright and felt his world swimming around him sickeningly, face flushed and frigid at the same time. Everything had a fisheye lens quality to it that he wasn't enjoying in the slightest, and with a failed attempt at standing landing him on his knees again he crawled hurriedly to a corner far from his bedding to empty his stomach out onto the concrete.

Farewell fine dinner, you will be missed. At least it'd been there a few hours, so it wasn't a total waste of calories.

Ah, you're finally up.

"The fuck is hap- hrrk," he got out before another heave took him over, leaving his shoulders around his ears and cold sweat racing down his clammy spine.

I told you: you're exposed here and your health is at risk, AR repeated as if speaking to a particularly slow child.

Groaning, Bro rubbed at his mouth with the back of his forearm and slowly crawled back to his bedding and backpack to try making himself pack. The area was bad, he had to leave no matter how shitty he felt. "Yeah, mind clarifying why I feel like dogshit all at once?"

Radiation sickness is, as they say, a bitch like that. I'd recommend leaving the area promptly as you can to reduce increasing symptoms, and to obtain treatment at the nearest facility you can reach.

The nearest facility, he says. The nearest facility.

"What part of THE FUCKING BOMBS FELL LIKE TWO HUNDRED YEARS AGO don't you understand?" Bro complained, gritting his teeth and hurriedly packing. This was going to be a bitch to walk through later, he could already feel it. "I've got some meds but they're not instant.. ugh, don't you think you could've clarified that I was nappin' in a contaminated spot?"

If you'll recall I did. Repeatedly.

"Sayin' my health's at risk and that I'm exposed are two different fuckin' things, and nowhere did you say radiation," growled Ambrose as he shouldered his bag and grabbed his board, heading for the stairs. Away from the light he prepared to lift the shades to his forehead, only to realize the view had changed to something akin to night vision. It wasn't crisp as a cat, but it sure as fuck was an improvement on normal vision, and twice as much on sick vision.

..Okay, so maybe he wouldn't chuck this bitch into the trash after all.

Typically humans take warnings about their health and safety more seriously than 'Yeah, hold my beer'.

"Let's clarify then: if I'm about to get shanked, shot, eaten, beaten, fricasseed or FUCKING IRRADIATED to a level that’d make me sick... you tell me which it is and I'll act accordingly," Ambrose reasoned. "Also, shit, thanks for changin' the vision over. Why didn't you say you could do this earlier?"

You never asked, nor do I assume you read my user manual, as last I was aware there was not one in production.

Ambrose made it downstairs and outside before he dry heaved once again into the dirt. He took a moment afterwards to clear his sinuses, hock and spit for distance to get rid of the scent of vomit from his nose. It was an improvement to be able to breathe again, but he couldn’t pause to rinse his mouth just yet. Fuck he’d kill for some mouthrinse, or some alcohol to wash the taste out of his mouth..

No time to lament, it was time to focus and get moving again. Right. North. He was going North. Which way was North.. Ambrose craned his head back to watch the sky before looking towards the hints of dawn in the distance and adjusting his pathing accordingly.

"Y'know, I bet you've prolly got all kinds of maps and shit available to you," he said, "but I wish you had current maps. A lot of places just straight up don't exist or matter anymore compared to what mattered pre-war. ...And also, let me know when we're free of the contamination zone."

I am capable of adjusting my saved maps if required. Simply show me an adjusted one and I can save the data, or I can alter an existing copy. Also, you're lucky you look like Dirk. I don't believe I'd be willing to help anyone else who spoke to me half as carelessly and crudely as you do.

"Unless I had cheat codes I bet. What, havin' wet robo dreams about your creator or somethin'?"

It's not like that in the slightest, AR insisted in the same stoic monotone as usual, though somewhere in there Ambrose swore up and down he could detect a trace of something more.

"If I wake up with condensation all over you at some point I'm gonna just assume you were focusing too hard on this Dirk guy whose eyes I've got," Ambrose said. "What's robo jizz when you're an AI. Solder? Joint grease? Lubricant of some kind?"

I take back my previous warnings. The area we have left is perfectly clear of radiation. A good long nap is in order in the very clear safe area you were last camping in.

Bro smirked in amusement at the fact he was able to get beneath the skin of something that didn't even have skin to begin with. There was no reason to hold back on this thing. Yes there were feelings, but it wasn't quite the same as heckling Dave. Not the same at all.

This thing gave as good as it got and held no punches, not even when his life had been on the line. Something that could talk shit when he was at risk of dying while also helping him was kind of refreshing.

He kept walking till AR gave the all clear, then slowly took his bag off and sank down to sit in a clear area near some rocks, back against the unyielding surface to keep propped up as he rummaged out a container of pills and a container of water. Unable to really trust the water much anymore after the time it had spent in the contamination zone with him, but having no other options currently, Ambrose took a dose of medication with a few swigs.. before shrugging and draining the rest of the container. Being dehydrated was just as dangerous as what he was trying to cure and would kill him even faster to boot. Low grade radiation was no laughing matter, but damage and weakness from dehydration would just make death inevitable. Putting the pills and the empty container back into his bag, Ambrose sighed and closed his eyes for a few minutes, wanting it all to hit his stomach and settle instead of just coming back up immediately in a waste. AR had his back, and every time he opened his eyes he could see sharp outlines in the green wash of night vision. He did not envy future him in the slightest.. and made a mental note to scavenge bathrooms at the nearest opportunity to re-stock on toilet paper before it became a hot commodity.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

By the afternoon, Ambrose was still sick but far more mobile. Not in top fighting condition, but mobile. AR had, on his own volition, taken the request from earlier to heart and was keeping an eye out on the surroundings even in directions Ambrose wasn't currently focusing on. His peripheral vision had never been sharper than when a soft, steady voice alerted him to movement from one direction or another to avoid run ins with unwanted animals or people who held no good intentions for him. He kept his grip tight on his sword and used it when absolutely necessary, such as when a hungry wild dog caught scent of him and came in for the kill, but otherwise skirted around even the odd herd animal in case it turned violent. There just wasn’t energy to spare when every step felt like he was running in place.

It was a strange symbiotic relationship, but Bro was content with it for now. The best part of this was that voice didn't sound worried. It was comforting to not have emotion tied into it, letting him pick and choose his reactions at a better pace than feeding into potentially misplaced concerns. No frantic cries or stress, no aggression, not even suggestion in the tone. Just flat, simple alerts telling him which way to turn his head to make his own choices.

The sight of more and more people all filtering the same direction off in the horizon gave Bro a strong sense of relief as night came on. There was a glow in the distance as well, lights and flickery power and people and opportunities to rest and trade safely. Well. Safely as it could get out here anyway. From the shake in his legs and the nausea he was still feeling, the fever, this was a bit of a miracle in itself that he’d stumbled upon a populated trade area. Surely there was a doctor tucked away in there making a killing worth of profit from the locals and the unwary like himself that drifted in.

What had once been a strip mall complex had been reborn as a shopping center for everything from weaponry to clothing to farming supplies, and a nearby apartment block was divvied up to serve as a hotel. The cheapest rooms were the ones shared with multiple people and the cots all in one cramped space, while the more expensive guaranteed privacy of all facilities. Cheap but not that cheap, Bro opted for a room that could be split with another two people instead of several, and lucked out that at the time the amount of people were low and he had privacy for a while. Maybe he should have gone cheaper and shared with others.. But the thought of sharing a bathroom with six people while this sick was unpleasant.

Depositing his baggage beneath the cot he'd rented, he hauled his happy carcass to find the physician and got some extra treatment by way of a quick injection and a good dose of Prussian blue for good measure once he paid the fee. The doctor was used to this kind of thing, and said he should count himself lucky it wasn’t a higher dose that hit his organs. Blood transfusions were hit or miss outside of vaults or areas with more old tech to keep running. He purchased a few more items to take with him just in case of more issues, some more bandages as well, and then wished the physician farewell. After a bit more shopping, a shower and a change of clothes were also a godsend, though he was displeased with how little the collar of the new shirt could be popped compared to the old stained one he was ditching.

Oh well. Sacrifices must be made sometimes even for the suffering. He’d find a decent shirt somewhere else surely, somewhere with some proper abuse of starch.

AR was alternately chatty and silent, observing how society functioned now, from the money to the layout of the buildings and repurposing of property. It wasn't just an Ambrose thing then. The building codes were just chucked out the window entirely and everyone made the best of what they had or what they could get apparently. Even the fashion was different. It was a lot to take in and process, but every curious AR was taking careful notes and using his self teaching abilities to learn all that he could through observation. Ambrose answered every single one of his questions which was surprising but welcome, and he caught himself wondering if it was because he’d raised a child before that the constant barrage of ‘how, why, when, where, why, why, why’ didn’t drive him immediately up the wall.

Maybe the spawn was a boon instead of an unfortunate.

Dinner was courtesy of the strip mall, a restaurant near the end having a nice cozy atmosphere and plenty of good smelling smoke coming from its cracked open front door. The interior seemed to have been a restaurant pre-war as well, though many modifications had been done since to allow for the new dining options. Bro splurged on a double pattied burger with what was supposed to be cheese and sauce and even sprouts on top, easy to grow and even easier to not cook wrong. He got a serving of homemade pickles to put some of the salt back in his body from the sickness earlier, and even some pre-war dessert in a tightly sealed package. It had been Dave’s absolute favorite, an apple treat, and maybe it was the sentimental side of him acting up but he was sure it’d taste even sweeter than he remembered now that it’d been a while since experiencing it.

Bro. Are you certain your belongings are safe where you left them? It seems rather dog eat dog out here, I wouldn’t be surprised if someone robbed you blind.

"They saw what bag I was carryin' when I came in, and what room I'm in. Beyond that.. just gotta hope people're decent," he shrugged, feeding his hunger while he actually had it. He might still feel like he had the flu, but facts were facts: sometimes a guy just needed to stuff his face with greasy food to feel a bit more human.

I suppose there must be laws or rules in different settlements, AR mused. Recreations of what once was.

"Yeah, there's rules,” Bro said, counting off on his fingers as he talked with his mouth half full. “Don't be a douchebag, don't get caught bein' a douchebag, and if you start shit you get hit with deadly force because nobody's got time for even more bullshit than we've already gotta deal with." He licked his thumb free of some pickle juice as he finished listing things off, then dove in for some more. Sweet electrolytes take him home.

Don't forget to send your letter.

Startled that he’d nearly forgotten, Bro straightened up and glanced to the door to gauge how late it must be before turning back to his plate to finish his serving of food off. On a spur of the moment, swooning from the food, he caught the owner’s attention and got a sweet cola as well. The attempts at making fresh never tasted quite the same as the pre-war stock, and it was worth the extra bit of payment to ensure the bubbles were all his.

"Shit, you're right. Bit too late to do it right now, but the mornin' I should be able to find someone. This place is permanent it seems like, there'll be traders back and forth no doubt," he said. "Good call AR."

Hal.

"Come again?" Bro asked, confused.

Bro's vision flickered briefly as the letters H A L crossed his vision, followed by the same strange pair of red eyes with dark sclera he'd seen before. It lasted just a few seconds before fading out of sight, leaving him with the usual target t's of the shades instead.

My name. It’s Hal.

"Isn't your name AR?"

That is another sort of name, yes. But I would prefer if you called me Hal.

"...It's what Dirk called you, isn't it," Ambrose guessed.

Yes. But I would still prefer to have a name than an acronym.

Bro used one gloved, rough hand to twist off the cap from the bottle of soda and take a swig. It was sweet enough it made his teeth hurt a bit. Perfect end to a greasy, rich meal. His upset stomach would thank him for it later surely, but he was prepared for it now.

"Alright then. Hal. I can do that."

Thank yo-

"Soon as you admit my name isn't stupid."

The targets disappeared and the turning circles reappeared for a time like a holding signal.

Request does not compute. Name too unfortunate to register over acceptable name of Bro for user. Unable to re-register user, he said, accompanied by the saddest excuse for a failure tune Bro had ever heard in 8bit melody.

He sighed.

"Fine, fine. God damn you're a prick for a guy without a prick, Hal."

I've no doubt that will be rectified once we find my body. Keep your commentary in line with that thought as if it were already reality moving forward.

"Give an inch take a mile. Alright, duly noted. ...Wait, why the fuck would a government made AI need a fuckin' di-"

My creator was all about authenticity.

"...Right."

It's true.

"This is my rifle, this is my gun, this one's for shootin' this one's for fun," Ambrose sighed, tipping his bottle back to swig the rest of the drink down before casually belching the rush of bubbles back out. Phew. Better. Goodbye nausea, hello sweet relief.

I've no idea what you are referring to.

"Keep takin' notes, Hal, you'll catch up eventually to everything that Dirk didn't program into you. That's all the fun shit anyway, people always forget the real fun shit."

#Stridercest #Bro Strider #Lil Hal #AR #BroHal #my fic #Homestuck

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wererotten · 6 years ago

Text

‘Cover Story’ ft. @banditborn

mild gore warning.

The first time he calls him Dad he doesn't understand what it means. Nathaniel only comprehends it in terms of it making it easier to travel together. It's logical. Convenient. A functional title that was usually met with a 'aw, he's yours?' or something to that effect – which also somewhat made sense in his young mind. The wolf had saved him. Was guiding him in this otherwise unfamiliar landscape. So in a way, yes – he was Bandit's. A responsibility the white wolf didn't have to take but did anyway.

Nathaniel had to understand it that way, or else be even more lost to the confusion of all his unspoken questions. (He wasn't supposed to ask questions. They'd been taboo for so long – Bandit was the first one who didn't quite mind.) The young child had no frame of reference to draw from. A Mother. A Father. A Sister. A Brother – all of them were just titles in a false Kingdom he'd left behind. No different from military rank.

He could only assume Dad was no different.

Bandit had said it was some sort of cover story. Although the explanation was quickly abandoned when those grey eyes showed a lack of clear understanding. All that mattered to Nate was that it made the questions stop. Or rather, change the nature of them. So many people were interested in his age, or ... where he went to something called school. It wasn't as if Nathaniel needed to understand – it was enough to know that it worked.

“Is this your Dad?”

“Yes.”

Was all it took to change their demeanor towards them both. It was like a magical pass that allowed them to escape too much scrutiny. All he had to do most times was nod his head and stick close to Bandit. Whatever a Dad was – they were playing the part perfectly. What was more concerning to the younger entity was how people responded to him after the fact. As was the case with the young waitress that was attending to their table.

“Aw, out with your Pops tonight, kiddo?”

“No. He's my Dad.” Nathaniel corrected in a matter of fact tone which only caused the waitress to ... chuckle at him. The bizarre reaction only had him staring dumbly in her direction to the point where Bandit had to cover for him by ruffling his hair and joining her. He didn't know what he had said that was so funny. Only that she was talking to him in that tone of voice.

That tone he'd never heard used until he was out and about with the normal people. Where it was all soft sing-song notes and ... cooing? It was weird. He had no idea how to feel. (Was it soothing? Or condescending?) Even an unsure glance towards his mentor didn't give him any clues on how to react beyond shrinking into his seat further and hiding his burning features behind his menu. Bandit doesn't miss the way the small boy shifting closer to his side.

“Sorry, boy's a touch shy.”

It really starts to catch Bandit's attention when Nathaniel starts to call him Dad in their shady motel rooms, away from prying eyes and ears. Where there is no more need to keep up a charade. No cover story required. No witness but the musty walls surrounding them and the TV that the old wolf was flipping idly from channel to channel. Although his gaze was more focused on the moments of the tiny body investigating the room until he disappeared out of sight by disappearing into the washroom.

“Dad?” there's a marked hesitation in that soft voice as the set of grey eyes peer out from the bathroom. The long pause indicating that the young boy had a question of some sort. There was always one – some questions taking longer for him to finally spit out than others. However it was the title that caused a white brow to raise toward his hairline more than the small object in the child's hands as he makes his careful approach, “What is this?”

The wolf wrinkled his nose of course recognizing the item for what it was. Trash. It was a razor that someone should have discarded. Although it was no surprise that the room service of this place was lacking.

“It's garbage. Toss it.”

Nate blinks, as if mildly startled by the revelation. Staring at Bandit for a moment then the item he was not holding away from him with two fingers.

“But... it was on the counter?

“Some people are slobs. Get rid of it.”

“Yes, sir!”

He finds himself mulling over the word Dad as he watches Nathaniel rush back off to find a place for the offending item. Ultimately dismissing it as a force of habit rather than anything meaningful. Sir was used just as easily, as if he was still his commanding officer. It worked for now – there was no need to confuse him further.

“Mhn... Dad?”

Nathaniel is barely awake as the bus takes on another hard bump in the road, his soft, quaking murmur stealing Bandit's attention from the rain that is pelting at the window like it means to enter. The child can't even open his eyes he's so spent, merely stirring his head up from the seat trying in vain to track the disturbance. He's not even coherent, his head lulling as he fights to remain conscious.

The sight provokes a deep frown that etches itself into the lines of Bandit's face. The kid's hyper vigilance is painful to watch. The slightest movement or sound Nate jerks awake, again and again in an endless cycle. It's a struggle for him to get a full night's sleep at the best of times – much less when they are fleeing the country on a damn overnight bus. The sheer exhaustion evident in the small body when Nathaniel's head finally slumps again to lean against Bandit.

“It's okay, bud...” he sighs and puts an arm around the child so he can rest comfortably as he passes out “I'm still here.”

“DAD!”

It's ripped out of him in the form of a terrorized scream. The cry out driven by raw instinct and wide eyed fear. The threat of potential loss far greater than any that could've been made towards his own tiny body. The warning spilling from his lips far too late as he witnessed the young hunter plunging a silvered blade into Bandit's back from behind while the white wolf was dealing with two more at his front.

It was a lucky hit and everyone involved knew it was the result of chance and freak positioning. Which is sometimes all it took to turn the tides of a battle. Even the man that had stabbed him seemed surprised – he couldn’t ha've been older than eighteen.

Not that it mattered. Not that any of these men and women mattered. Not that they'd ever get the chance to celebrate. The moment Nathaniel saw Bandit's blood split and that familiar white mist – logic abandoned him. Silver or not – deep down he knew a single stab wound wouldn't fell Bandit. However in that moment it no longer mattered.

They hurt him. They hurt him and that wasn't supposed to happen.

A distorted screech like broken glass left him as the tiny boy lunged forward with a feral ferocity he hadn't experienced since his time at The Garden. By the time Bandit had turned around the teen was no longer with them anymore. Coming face to face with a lifeless corpse instead – a blade tipped tendril stabbed clear through the hunter's skull and out the front of his forehead – expression locked deadened shock.

The next few moments the dead end alley had it's walls painted red as the flood of tendrils, teeth and claws spilling from the nine year-old's body had taken over in a near blind rage. They hurt him. They hurt him. They hurt him. They hurt my Dad. The human's shrieks didn't even sound human anymore as they were disemboweled near instantly – barbed tendrils shredding their bodies long after they'd passed on.

It was all a blur of violence to Nathaniel – one that had left him spent only two minutes later... as corpses – or rather what was left of them litter the soiled ground and brick walls. Only Bandit of course left in tact.

“They hurt you, Dad...” his hands are slick with the aggressors blood up to the elbows, blood splattered all over his olive tone of his skin. Sharpened tendrils retracting from the bodies they had been tearing into with wet sounds and spilled innards. The shaking of his small form unmistakable as the glow seeps from grey eyes turned silver – although not even Bandit could tell if it was from rage or fear – maybe both, “...They hurt you...”

“You don't gotta call me that if you don't want to, Nate.” Bandit murmurs as they walk side by side through the under brush. Nothing but the light of the moon illuminating their contrasting pelts, golden eyes looking at the small pup walking alongside him, “it will be safe out here.”

He's still so awkward walking on his four paws. It takes him a moment for the black wolf to reply as he navigates over a fallen limb of a tree, “...Did you want me to call you something else?”

“You could use my name now, is all I'm sayin'. You don’t got to worry about a cover out here.”

“Why?”

Was the question Bandit hadn't been expecting. For some reason he'd expected Nate to abandon the title naturally as it no longer served a purpose out in the wilderness. Although the surprise didn't end there as the 'wolf' pup stops in his tracks to sit upon his haunches, those silver eyes looking up at him curiously.

“Is that not what you are to me? Dad?” Nathaniel tilted his head to the side, there was no mistaking the earnest tone in his voice, “I read it is not limited to blood relations. It described you well.”

Of course he looked it up. Nathaniel was always looking things up when he could.

Regardless Bandit found it hard to argue with that point.

#I'm so grateful for everything he didn't have to be // Bandit

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riacannafon-writer · 6 years ago

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F.E.A.R.

Chapter Three

I stood in a lounge or study of sorts. High walls, two of which stacked with full bookshelves, a large, roaring fire in the middle of a third. Luxurious sofas made on fine red velvet, comfy armchairs of leather all arranged in a semi-circle shape around the fireplace. I took a step towards the ceiling-high window, but stopped when I noticed myself wearing my assassination gear, the hood of my cloak casting an eerie shadow over my face.

I recognised this room. I knew it, but couldn't think of how I did.

I kept going towards the window. The sky outside was dark in night. Something was off. I stared up, squinting this way and that, just trying to get an indication of what made me uneasy about the sky. Dark clouds sat ominously above, never moving, blending so perfectly it was as if they weren't there at all.

Because they're not there...

It's wasn't clouds at which I gazed. Instead, I found myself lost in the deep abyss that was the sky, devoid of any starlight or even one of the moons.

I blinked, and it all came at once. The stars and two moons flickered into existence like bulbs. They all stared down into my eyes, and their light whispered harsh words in my mind.

Murderer...

You did it.

You...killed them!

In blood of ice... It was you...

I slammed my hands over my ears to shut the voices out, but they only screamed louder and louder and louder. Voices. Wouldn't stop. I couldn't make them stop. Louder. In my head.

"Shut up!" I shrieked. "Shut up! I'm not a murderer!"

You are marked.

The mark tells all. The birthmarks going down my back burned, but I couldn't feel it.

I shrank back, desperately needing to hide from the light. I sensed someone behind me. I didn't think. I couldn't think. I spun around, whipped out my dagger and drove it deep into their neck. Hot blood splattered over my hands and face. They let out a piercing, strangled cry and slumped to the floor. They gripped helplessly at the dagger. All I could do was stand there, listening, watching. Their body convulsed, and a gurgling sound emanated from their throat as blood pooled around them.

Murderer.

You only hurt.

You made them all...suffer.

You killed him.

You. Killed. Athen.

"No...No! I didn't...!" The shock had passed, and now the tears came flooding. I twisted back to stare out the window, where the night sky glared at me through its pale light. "I never -"

Something grabbed my ankle and yanked it back, hard. I toppled onto the carpet floor, shock and fear once again filling my blood. Athen's sea-green eyes focused on me. Then at my dagger in his hand.

"Athen!" I begged. "Athen, please! I swear, I didn't mean - !"

He plunged the dagger deep into my stomach. Everything went numb, and the wound ached worse and worse until it was all I could feel. I screamed, but Athen lunged forward and wrapped his hands around my throat. He squeezed. His face hovered over mine. Clotted blood dripped from his mouth.

"Ple...ase..." I couldn't breathe. I clawed at his hands, trying to get loose. "S...top."

He gripped tighter. My neck was going to break; I could feel it.

My vision blurred and my hearing muted. Blood vessels in my neck popped. My lungs were on fire. Something snapped in my neck. Blood dripped out of my nose. I lost all feeling, everywhere. Everything slowly turned black.

I lurched bolt upright, drenched in sweat. My breathing came in shallow rasps. A sharp pain in my gut bent me double, clutching at my sides.

"Cramps," I whispered to nobody. "Just cramps."

A faint tap, tap, tap brought my attention to my window. A grey dove perched on the windowsill pecked at the glass.

I shakily got up and went over to open the window. The dove flew in and landed on my bed, staring at me with large, orange eyes. I noticed a small piece of paper tied to its leg. Slowly, I crept towards the dove. Conscious of the creaking floorboards, I make sure to my steps light and quiet.

Carefully, I untied the paper from its leg. The moment it was off, the dove flew away, back out the window and into the starry night sky.

Stars, I thought. I think I've had enough of stars for a while.

I turned my attention back to the paper in hand. Hands still shaking, I unfolded the (surprisingly large) page. The paper held a note; the handwriting and stamp in the corner meant it was signed clearly by a noble. I scanned the note. My blood ran cold. I sucked in a huge breath and read it again and again, trying to convince myself it was part of some dream.

Dear "Crow",

I'm sure it comes of little surprise to you to receive a request for assassination. I, along with many others of many classes, have heard the tales of your daring missions. How it is said that you could sever a man's limb with such speed he'd never know you were there. How you can dissappear without a trace.

Perhaps I should offer a brief description of myself. I am the Grand Duke of the Georte Republic, in Risilia. I have come to you to ask one thing: does your king truly care for your nation? He rarely attends Peace Meetings, always with some excuse or another; surely this must show how little responsibility he feels regarding Novula's peaceful relationships. So, I offer you a mission with a hefty reward, and asylum withing Risilia should you choose to complete it.

Assassinate King Edwin Castillo. Do this, and your nation will be better off.

My heart hammered in my chest. Assassinate the king?! He can't be serious!

The Duke was smart, no doubt. There was no way I'd be able to expose him without exposing myself. Mind running circles, I re-folded the note and stuffed it under my pillow, for now. I needed to clear my head.

I left my room and made my way slowly down the hallway. I could hear Darren and Oliver's muffled discussion in the lounge downstairs. I stopped when I reached Athen's door, but I couldn't quite make myself grab the handle. The image of Athen's pale and bloodied face flashed across my vision.

I have to, I told myself. I need to see that it was only a dream.

I shakily grasped the handle and hesitantly eased open the door. I peered inside. A sigh of relief escaped me as I saw Athen sprawled clumsily on his bed, snoring slightly. Silently, I closed the door with a soft click.

I took a deep breath, then another. I crept over to the stairs and started down them. Oliver laughed at some story Darren was telling him. I paused halfway down, wondering if I really wanted to go downstairs. The last thing I wanted right now was unwarranted social interactions.

"Oh, hello, Arietta," Darren greeted.

"Hello," I simply replied.

"Everything alright? You look pale." Oliver stood up and stepped round the sofa towards me.

"I'm alright, thank you. I just haven't slept much," I muttered, politely waving off Oliver's attempted fussing.

"Why?" Oliver pressed. "Is the cut on your cheek hurting? Or your arm? I mean, you did hit the tree with quite a lot of force." He tried to lightly guide me to sit down, but I moved away, massaging my temples.

"No, not that. It's just... I've got a lot on my mind right now."

"Such as..?" Darren inquired.

"I... I'm just stressed. These last few years have been pretty rough. For both me and Athen."

"Hey." Darren sat up straighter and his expression got softer. "Why don't you sit down? You look like you want to talk."

"It's not really anything I want to talk about." I gave Darren an apologetic, but still somewhat awkward, smile.

"Just because you don't want to talk about something -" Darren gestured with one hand to nothing in particular. "That doesn't mean you don't need to." He gestured again with his other hand.

"Don't tell me you want me to spill my entire life story," I retorted.

"I'm just sayin', it's not healthy to keep things bottled up all the time."

"Alright," I sighed. I shuffled over to the bookshelf in the corner, scanning for my favourite.

I picked it out, flicking through the pages to where I left off as I wandered back. I plopped myself down on one of the armchairs, revisiting the candlelit world within the words. I let myself become submerged in the battle scene: watching, hearing, feeling it play out around me.

"What're you reading?" I jumped out of my skin as Oliver peeked over my shoulder. I twisted round to face him, almost falling off the chair as I went.

"I - sorry?" I panted.

"What book are you reading?" He repeated. He kindly took hold of my arm, helping me set myself upright again.

"Oh, right," I muttered sheepishly. "It... it's called Ashes of a Sun. It's basically about this universe where almost any structure is made out of metals or even plastics! Everything is run by electricity, there's carriages with no horse or ocard or anything like that to pull it. There's this group of people working against the government's immoral plans, and there's so many plot twists!" I stopped as I caught myself rambling.

"Sounds interesting," Darren piped up. "I think my cousin read that book. I remember her mentioning it when we were kids."

"Could you read us some?" Oliver asked.

"What," I joked. "You want me to read you a bedtime story?"

Darren yawned. "Sounds like a plan. That is, if you're willing." He added.

"Okay," I murmured. "Get comfy, you two."

"Yes, ma'am." Oliver sat himself down on the floor, legs crossed and leaning back against he sofa. His face bright with excitement, he picked a cushion from behind, holding it like a stuffed toy. Darren sat with one leg crossed over the other, tucked into the sofa corner, huddled in amongst more cushions.

I took note of my page and skipped back to the beginning. I cleared my throat, and started in my 'trademark' melodramatic reading voice:

"He longed to clear away the city, to no longer see the towering buildings, to no longer hear the rumbling of engines passing below..."

I'd made it to chapter seven uninterrupted (aside from the occasional question from Darren and Oliver) until the pale glow of sunlight glided in through the window. The first birds began their morning harmonies, and the misty trail of a caligo faded from view.

I looked up to see Darren asleep, Oliver - also out cold - leaning against his knee, still cuddling that cushion. I stopped reading and gently closed the book, leaving it the arm of the chair.

I wonder how long they've been sleeping.

I stood up and stretched my stiff limbs, earning a few pops and clicks and cracks from my joints. Yawning, rubbing my tired eyes, I quietly dragged myself up the stairs to my room. I immediately flopped on my bed, contemplating whether or not I could be bothered to get changed. I decided I will be bothered, whether I liked it or not.

Today was a gardening day, so I switched into my grubby working clothes. I ran a brush through my hair, and tied it back with a strip of fabric as I went to the water bowl in the corner to wash my face.

My routine's a little out of order today, I thought. Who cares? It's just today.

I shuffled down the hallway, back to Athen's room. I rapped my knuckles against the wood; no reply. I rolled my eyes and swung open the door. Athen lay as he was last night: sprawled. I strode over to his bed, snatched the pillow from under his head and dropped it back on him.

"Oi, dipshit." I nudged him to try and get him to move. "Get up."

"I'm not a dipshit," he mumbled from under his pillow.

"Yes, you are. Now get up, I'm making breakfast."

"Fine," Athen complained. "I'm getting up."

I hummed a short tune, walking out of his room and back down the stairs. I entered the lounge, where Oliver must have just woken up.

"Sleep well?" I smiled.

"Yes, thank you," he replied as he rubbed the sleep from his eyes. He chuckled lightly.

"What?"

"Oh, nothing," he said shyly. "Thanks for the bedtime story. Haven't had a night's sleep that good since the last time someone read me a story before bed, when I was - what - nine?"

"You're welcome." I giggled.

An awkward silence descended upon the room. I tried to avoid direct eye contact with Oliver, so I picked up Ashes of a Sun, checked again what page I originally left off on, and placed it back into its spot on the bookshelf.

"Arietta?" Oliver sounded...nervous.

"Yes?" I turned to face him.

"Do you think that...mabye..." He trailed off, averting his eyes.

My heart pounded a little harder; I stood stil. "That mabye what?"

"Mabye... we could do something like this again?" A faint tinge of pink spread over his face.

"Of course!"

"Really?" His face lit up and he sat more forward, more upright.

"Yeah, I'll glady have you and Darren over again!"

Oliver's shoulders slumped slightly, and his smile didn't quite reach his eyes.

"Oh, okay."

I felt like something wasn't right with him. Like I said something wrong.

"What's up?" I asked.

"What d'you mean?"

"You suddenly went all glum."

"Oh." He looked away from me, focusing instead on the softwood floor. "I guess I kind of hoped it would be, you know, just you and me."

"Sure." I flashed him a sweet smile, then turned and walked to the kitchen. "I'm making breakfast; you want some?"

"Yes, please. Want me to wake Darren, see of he wants anything?" Oliver got to his feet, patting the cushion back into its place.

"If you want," I replied.

Oliver nodded and nudged Darren in the arm. "Hey. Wake up."

Darren shot up, eyes wide. "Shit! I'm late for training, aren't I?!"

"Darren," Oliver said softly, placing a hand on his shoulder. "You're thrity-two."

Darren pondered this for a moment, before his face reverted back to panic.

"Oh gods, I'm an instructor!" He rushed to get up, but Oliver gently held him down.

"Mate, it's Spring. You're not teaching the new trainees until Autumn."

"Oh." He relaxed. "Thank goodness."

"We wanted to check if you wanted anything for breakfast," I stated.

"Thank you for the offer, but I'm afraid I'll have to pass. My daughter, Ffion - she'll be wondering where I am." Darren beamed at the mention of his daughter, and continued on. "I left her with a babysitter last night and I promised to take her on a picnic today, so I best get going. Thank you again for having us over for the night, Arietta."

"It's been a pleasure," I replied. Darren stiffly got up from the sofa, and let himself out the front door. He paused suddenly in the doorway.

"One more thing: if you find or hear of anything else regarding the Crow, please let us know."

"Will do. Be careful going back up that trail, okay?" I raised an eyebrow to let him know I meant it. Darren waved and shut the door behind him. I headed back for the kitchen. "I'll start breakfast, then. Omlettes alright?"

"Sure," Oliver responded, following behind me. "Can I felt at all?"

"Why, do you want to?"

"Seems appropriate," he shrugged. "I mean, you've shown me wonderful hospitality. Shouldn't I return the favour?"

"You're a guest." I picked out a small basket from the pantry floor. "It's not mandatory for you to help out."

"But I want to. I'll feel bad about it, otherwise."

"Alright, then; follow me."

A single, loud thud came from the lounge, followed by a less-than-subtle sting of curses. Oliver and I rushed in to see Athen laying on the floor on his back, one boot on, the other loosely held in his hand.

"You okay?" I grasped his upper arm, pulling him back up to his feet. "What happened?"

"I lost my balance trying to get my boot on, that's all."

"As long as you're not hurt." I kept hold of his shoulder as he pulled on his other boot.

"I'm fine," he grunted.

"Alright, alright," I sighed. "I'm just gonna get some eggs from the chicken coop. We're having omlettes."

Athen nodded, watching as I left for the back door with Oliver in tow.

"So -" Athen trotted after us with a smug grin on his face. "- are you two dating?"

"*What?!*" Oliver and I both jumped back, faces beet red.

"Well? Are you?"

"No -"

"Why would you even -"

"We're not dating!"

"Yeah, of course," Athen smirked.

"Why don't you go skip out Hydrane's pen, huh?" I retorted, annoyed.

"Okay, fine." Athen winked and jogged away. "I'll leave you two alone together."

"How old did you say he is?" Oliver whispered in my ear.

"First of all: I didn't say." I turned and headed for the coop. "Secondly: he's fourteen."

"Fourteen," Oliver scoffed. "Forgive me for being rude, but I was annoying at fourteen, but not that bad."

"That's probably down to me," I admitted.

"Please, do explain."

"For the last five or so years of his life, he was basically raised by an angsty teenager - me."

"What about your parents?"

"Let's see." I stooped down do open the coop hatch, setting it in place with a metal rod as I picked out some eggs. "Dad left to work abroad when I was twelve, haven't heard much from him lately. Mum ran off with some well-earning bloke she met in a tavern a little while later; that was when I was about fourteen or fifteen."

"Woah, your mother sounds like quite the deadbeat."

"She wasn't too bad. She had a part-time that brought in enough to get us by, and I started selling herbal remedies she taught me."

"Then why'd she run off?" Oliver asked.

"Didn't really care enough to ask," I answered, shaking my head. "I think she mentioned something about 'being able to finally live comfortably'. She offered to bring me and Athen with her, but we didn't want to know - still don't."

"Still?" Oliver raised an eyebrow.

"Yeah. She sends letters now and again, asking if we've changed our minds."

Oliver nodded and went to pick up an egg just as I did. Our fingers brushed and we both flinched away slightly; my cheeks started to get warm and Oliver coughed awkwardly.

Come off it, Arietta, I scolded myself. There's no way you like him in that way. You met him yesterday!

I decided that eight eggs should be enough for three omlettes, and so I made a beeline for the tomatoes. I added two perfectly ripe ones to the basket, as well as a little bit if rosemary.

I glanced up at the sky. It was painted grey, almost as one shade on a canvas. I shuddered, thinking again of the starless sky of my dream. I half expected the sun, or even the moons, to burst through he haze and blind me once more with wild, blaming whispers.

Today's gonna be a long day.

#writers on tumblr #writer #writeblr #writers #writing #chapter three #fantasy #fiction #original story #original

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randomishnickname · 7 years ago

Text

Girijasu Rival Band AU

Justin is the lead singer of America’s most wanted rock band, Giriko the drummer of Arachnophobia - then the Greatest Rock Band contest roughes things up...

"And now an exclusive interview with Arachnophobia - the infamous prog rock band is back with a new killer album, and I can't wait to hear what they have to say ..."

Justin wipes sweat from his brow and looks over to the fitness room's TV screen. He doesn't usually bother with MTV's shitty band interviews, but it's been a while since anyone has heard from Arachnophobia, and even if their music isn't his style Justin has to concede the new line-up sounds promising. The singer is still the same, of course (as the founder, Arachne won't ever let the band escape her claws); but they got a new guitarist, a weirdo whose name has been on quite a few lips in the indie scene, and the drummer is admittedly really decent. He's been on the news on his own, too - apparently the guy has quite a temper, and got into enough drunken brawls to pique the yellow press' interest.

Justin leans back in the seat of the rower and grabs his water bottle while the young interviewer excitedly babbles on the screen. The band members, lounged on a big couch, appear much more put together. Arachne displays a soft, condescending smile as she waits for her turn to talk - Justin guesses she has already been doing this whole self-promotion ordeal before the interviewer was out of his diapers. She still wears the same kind of revealing gothic dresses as back in the first days of Arachnophobia, but with her regal attitude it doesn't look cheap on her - she has aged well, Justin thinks. Same thing can't be said of Mosquito, the keyboardist, who has shrinked and shrivelled like an old prune. And what's with the mustache?

Justin watches, amused, as the interviewer tries to coax answers out of the guitarist, Asura. The guy, his upper body wrapped in thick scarves like this is Alaska and not L.A., only nodds or shakes his head in answer, rarely bothering with monosyllables. In the scene he has a rep of being an absolutely insane musician, with a thing for shrill, nervous riffs - Justin has heard special footage through an acquaintance once and Asura does live up to the legend, even if the dissonant melodies sent shivers of displeasure up Justin's spine.

Arachne repeatedly takes back the reigns of the conversation, with smooth, PR-ready talk about the band's unique trajectory and the quality and daring of the new album. As if - the title, Madness strikes back, sounds like an Alice in Wonderland rip-off, and Justin doubts the rest of the album proves much more original. But then he's been biased against Arachne's throaty crooning from the start. He'll still listen in when the CD arrives in their mailbox - one benefit of being lead singer of America's most popular band is the ton of free merchandise every label sends to them on a regular basis. They have one room in the basement of the band house that is solely dedicated to stashing the neverceasing flow of CDs, t-shirts and other goodies.

He's about to start rowing again when the interviewer asks if Arachnophobia intends to join the annual Greatest Rock Band contest. "We already know the competition will be particularly intense this year, with astonishing bands like Death Scythe on board!" the interviewer adds. Justin perks up at the mention of his band.

The drummer, who had been beating a haphazard rhythm on his thigh with a bored expression, loudly snorts.

The interviewer latches on it: "Giriko, do you think Arachnophobia would have a chance against Death Scythe and their dedicated fanbase?"

Giriko shoots a cautious look at Arachne, as if he's asking for her permission to speak, but her expression stays one of blank, polite interest. The drummer seems to take this as his clue to go, because he props his boots up on the table and leans back in the couch, a smirk on his face.

"Death Scythe ain't worth jackshit," he states. Justin doesn't think he's ever heard the man talk before - he has a rough, hoarse voice, with only a hint of foreign accent. Czech, if Justin's memory is correct.

"Their music is fucking boring, they sound like they're puking out a mix of every mainstream shit that's ever been aired," Giriko continues. "Only reason they're famous is the ton of teenage girls wetting themselves over their baby-faced singer. We would completely destroy them." He folds his muscular arms behind his neck, seemingly satisfied with his rant.

"But they have earned the "Album of the Year" title three years in a row," the interviewer argues.

"Only proves the public has shitty taste," Giriko retorts. "Just 'cause every sheep on this planet listens to the same crap, doesn't mean Death Scythe ain't lame and Justin Law ain't an overrated pansy."

"Giriko," Arachne says, a slight note of warning in her smooth voice.

"What? Just sayin'," the drummer mutters, but his confident smirk falters and he falls silent for the rest of the interview. Justin has to smile at the stubborn line in Giriko's shoulders while Arachne explains that no, a participation in the contest isn't on the band's agenda. He doesn't feel offended by the insults in the slightest - he's heard them all before, and the grumpy delivery is somewhat endearing. Still, there's something about Giriko's disdain that rears something in Justin, an urge to tease, annoy, provoque, so after he's done with his rowing session, Justin retrieves his phone and opens Twitter:

hey @arachnophobia-official! babyface here says no way in hell you could beat us at @GRB-contest. You're even allowed to participate - no rule against sad hasbeens yet! XOXO, the overrated pansy - Justin Law (@justin_law)

The band is having their break, which means Arachne and Mosquito are reviewing videos of the practice session, Asura is strumming the strings of his unplucked guitar in a corner, and Giriko is fucking bored.

He thinks about going for a walk, but there are no sidewalks in this shitty hell-hole of a city, and at least the studio is climatized. They've still got two hours of practice to go, so he can't even pop open a cold one without Arachne frowning at him, and after everything she's done for him he kind of owes her being sober a few hours a day. So, it sucks.

When he joined the band he didn't think there would spend so much time in quiet insonorized rooms recording music. He's in for the gigs, always has been, and his youth in the garage punk scene has skewed his perception of how album studios are recorded. He recalls it to be a fun, short process, with lots of cheap alcohol and makeshift electronics involved. But of course, his current band's music is on an entire different level of production quality, and perfectionist extraordinaire Arachne is never pleased until the songs are perfect. Which mean they get to play them over and over and over again.

But Mosquito doesn't complain, Asura doesn't complain, so Giriko shuts up and does what he's told, and impatiently awaits their next tour when he can finally be back on stage.

He's drumming on his knee, daydreaming about roaring crowds and the ecstatic thrill of a good performance, when Arachne softly beckons him over. She has her phone in hand.

"Giriko, remember when I told you to keep your temper in check during interviews?" she says, and the drummer slightly ducks his head at the reprimand in her voice. "This is why."

She holds up her phone for him to see - it's the band's twitter. There usually isn't much activity on their social media, despite the launch of their latest album; but now it is flooded, messages from fans cheering them on for the Greatest Rock Band contest, but mostly from other users insulting them, and Giriko in particular. He looks up questioningly.

"The interview with MTV yesterday," Arachne coolly explains. "Death Scythe's singer responded to your insult on twitter and openly challenged us. Their fanbase is giving us hell for it, and our fanbase is now convinced we'll participate in the rock contest, a misconception I've yet to dispell."

"You scalawag couldn't hold your tongue, could you?" Mosquito sneers, mustache quivering in anger.

"Shut up, gramp," Giriko retorques automatically. He scrolls up to read the tweet that started it all, and frowns, irritated. Has-beens? Justin Law's little icon shoots him a sardonic smile.

"What a petty bastard," he mutters. He starts to type a response, but Arachne snatches the phone away before he can hit "tweet".

"No," she scolds. "If you want to ridicule yourself online, then please use an own account. And use your own damn phone."

Giriko grimaces, and she gives him a warning glance. "Don't tell me you wrecked it again."

"Dunno. I lost it, I guess," he shrugs, defensive. "So what, 'ts not like I need it."

She shakes her head. "You're a desperate case," she sighs. "Now how do we clarify the situation? I don't want to make it sound like we're scared to take part in the contest ..."

Giriko frowns. For some reason, Justin Law's taunt bugs him, more than it should, and he find himself saying, "You know, sis, we could participate." They'd slay, too. Death Scythe would never see it coming.

"But we won't," she answers, tone sharp. "The tour is all planned out, we are not going to enter a pseudo reality TV contest just to prove a point."

"It's just three days to make room for," the drummer protests. "Three gigs! On the west coast, even!"

"No, Giriko. Don't make me repeat myself."

"Yeah, yeah," he grumbles, and refrains the urge to pout, mood souring. Sure, it's not that big of a deal, but ... it's not that often he has the opportunity to rock a big stage on live TV, and wiping the floor with a mainstream band he despises would be a great bonus. He briefly wonders what face Death Scythe's singer would pull at Arachnophobia's triumph. His teenage fanbase would probably weep monstrous tears.

He indulges in the fantasy for a minute, and decides to get himself a phone.

(to be continued...)

#my writing #soul eater #giriko #justin law #girijasu #rival band AU

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thiswasinevitableid · 4 years ago

Note

sea monster indruck nsfw? maybe including one of them masturbating while fantasizing about the other one and confessing all their dirty thoughts as they're actually having sex? scary protective monster is also always hot if you're down for that

Here you go! I wasn’t able to fit in everything, but this one was fun!

This is all the hangman's fault.

Indrid could be pleasantly dead right now, not trapped in a gibbet on a clifftop, if the man had bothered to check his ropes ahead of time. But no, instead he failed to see the rats had been gnawing on them and the blasted noose snapped clean off the instant it took Indrids weight. To the villagers, this was a sign that Indrid was indeed a witch (and the son of a demon, a rare charge that drags his poor, deceased mother into this mess). To Indrid, it meant a new set of bruises and the worst possible death.

They locked him in the gibbet, the Atlantic crashing in angry, grey waves far below them. The man on his right is dead, eyeballs already plucked out by an enterprising bird, and the man on his left is getting there. If his visions are accurate, Indrid has a good five days of suffering the elements, the wild-life, and his own hunger and thirst before he joins them.

A lifetime of visions breeds resignation in the face of fate, so he closes his eyes, follows the futures of luckier men as a temporary escape. The screams of his neighbor rouse him with a start. Their source is wholly unexpected.

Looming at the edge of the cliff is an immense monster. From his vantage point, Indrid spies the creatures’ lower body still submerged in the sea, making it well over a hundred feet tall. It’s skin is green, it’s fingers webbed, and it’s crowned by a frill of wave-shaped spikes. The face is humanoid, with green eyes and hair of black water and a squid-beak where a mouth should be. Strange tentacles appear and disappear along its torso, as if they have not made up their mind as to whether they wish to exist.

The monster sighs, “Fuckin hate it when they leave their dead like this. Unsightly, and I ain’t sure it’s good for the seagulls to be eatin humans.”

“The dead and, ah, almost dead do not enjoy it much either.”

Upon hearing Indrids voice, the creature peers into his cage, “Huh, guess you ain’t dead. Either of you.” He turns his eyes on the other condemned man, who starts screaming again, “why’d they stick you here?”

“Witchcraft, specifically foresight and dabbling in ‘black magic.’ Well, that and a failed hanging” He tilts his head to show the visitor the rope mark.

“Damn, that looks like it hurts. Wonder if I can..” the tip of an immense claw extends towards him. There’s a crackle of power that makes his ears pop, and the monster pulls his hand back, “nope, fuck, was hopin it’d be a small enough thing to do.”

“I beg your pardon?”

The monster sighs, “Long story short, my kind ain’t able to interact in an, uh, altruistic fashion with humans unless they’re acolytes. Can’t even open that damn cage without gettin zapped. Never mind that some of us don’t even wanna be old gods or whatever the fuck, still ain’t allowed to help. Maybe if I get a real big stick..”

“How does one become an acolyte?” Indrid presses his face to the front of the cage.

“Uh, you gotta swear loyalty and servitude to me, specifically, and the ‘old gods’ in general, live in a place I set up for you, and do stuff when I need you to.”

“Very well, are there specific words of the oath or…”

“Whoah, hold up now” the creature raises his hands, “this shit is real bindin’, rather you not rush into it.”

“Given the alternative is death, a rush is rather necessary.”

“All I’m sayin is you might wanna think for more than two seconds before you agree! And there might be other ways for me to get you out.”

“Do..do you not want an acolyte?” Being rejected by a sea monster feels like a fitting end to his life.

“Not really. It ain’t personal or anythin; I’m just now leanin into the whole god thing and I still ain’t all that comfortable with parts if it. Last thing I want is an acolyte who saw me as ‘not as bad as death.”

“And the last thing I want is to die of exposure, so we are at an impasse.”

The monster clicks his beak once, “Okay, here’s what I’ll do. You take until sunset to think over whether you wanna be stuck servin’ this” he gestures to himself, “for a long-ass time, and we’ll go from there.”

“Very well.” Indrid resigns himself to several more hours of misery as the creature sinks from view. He glances at the other prisoner, “what do you think? He seems very considerate for a sea monster and I for one would like to keep living.”

The man stares, babbles incoherently for a moment before shouting, “You, you conversed with a devil! You are a witch, just as they say!”

“He spoke to both of us.” Indrid blinks, puzzled.

“I closed my ears to his lies, you offered yourself to his wickedness! Speak no more to me from your black tongue.”

“Hmmph” Indrid does his best to ignore the ongoing beration. He’s not sure the creature is a god, but then again the creature seems uncertain on the matter himself. Serving a maybe-god seems no worse than serving the king, a life among the depths no less tolerable than his small home in a town torn to pieces by accusations of witchcraft.

After a time, the storm clouds fulfill their purpose, a downpour battering him from all angles. Then a shadow falls over his shut eyes, and no more rain touches him.

“Seemed awful rude to leave you stuck in the rain while you thought things over.” The god explains, one massive hand shielding the human.

“Many thanks. Ah, I do have one concern about being your acolyte. Would...would I have to hurt anyone?”

“Don’t think so. I ain’t fond of hurtin folks, and if someone did need to be hurt, seems real strange to make the tiny human do it.”

Indrid puts on his most hopeful, charming smile, “I am very cold, very hungry, and my whole being feels as though it’s been stomped on by a team of horses. Perhaps I could give my answer early?”

A chuckle, like bubbles in deep water, “Hard to say no to that face. Okay, you got a deal. I checked with Joe while I was gone, to make sure I knew the right thing to do if you said yes. I’m gonna say the oath, and you’re gonna repeat it.”

Indrid nods, makes his way laboriously through the incantation in a gurgling language he does not know. The god patiently guides him along, cracks open the cage when the last word is spoken.

“Do I get to know your name? If it was one of those words, it will take me some time to master it.”

The monsters’ cheeks rise, suggesting a smile, “You can call me Duck. It’s a nickname. C’mon” he holds out his hand, “let’s get you outta the rain.”

“One moment.” Indrid moves to the other gibbet, undoing the lock, “you can get free if you wish. If anyone asks how, tell them it was the witch.” With that, he settles in Duck’s cupped palms, the skin smooth and cool to the touch.

“Down we go.” Duck sinks.

“Wait, how will I bre-” water fills his mouth, but only for a moment. A clear bubble forms around him, let’s him gulp in air as Duck dives further into the sea. More jarring than the spell is the sight of the monster unfurling behind him. He assumed Duck had legs, but instead his lower body is that of a sea-serpent, green with bronze rings and undulating in the dark waves.

“Like what you see?”

“Yes” he wonders what touching that tail is like.

“Yeah, this is a real beautiful part of the sea. If you want, some time I can take you further out; some spectacular lookin creatures out there. Here we go, home sweet home.” They surface at the base of a much shorter cliff, Indrid woozy from the change in depth. Three cottages--one red, one gold, and one blue-- stare back at them from a grassy hill.

“Let’s see if I can do this” Duck sets Indrid on the ground, closes his eyes, and hums. The world shudders and splits, and then a fourth, emerald green cottage sits alongside the others.

“Ha! Pretty damn good for a first effort.” His frill flickers with silver light.

“It’s wonderful.”

“All yours. You get yourself settled, I'm gonna go find out from the others what else needs doin’ now that I got an acolyte.” He lowers himself so the two of them are roughly face to face, “see you soon, Indrid.”

--------------------------------------

The cottage holds more possessions than Indrid’s ever had in his life, including a large feather bed that he stretches his aching body across before falling asleep and dreaming of seaweed twining up his legs.

Voices from the window rouse him some hours later. At the side of the red cottage sit three other humans, two of whom are at work in a vegetable garden. Indrid ventures down to introduce himself.

“Hi!” One, a woman with golden hair, waves to him, “you must be Indrid. I’m Dani, this is Barclay” she points to the bearded man harvesting potatoes, then to a tattooed man polishing a pile of gold and silver jewelry, “and that’s Boyd.”

“Pleased to make your acquaintance. You are all acolytes as well?” His stomach rumbles and Barclay pauses his digging to slide him a basket containing bread and cheese.

“Help yourself, those are leftover from lunch. And yeah, we are. Or were, in Dani’s case.”

Even with foresight, Indrid is surprised when the woman says jokingly, “Got promoted to ‘wife’ a few months.”

“Congratulations.” It seems the appropriate thing to say, given her smile, “ah, what exactly do you all do for your gods? Duck is rather unclear on the details.”

“Some of it is spellwork. Beings like Duck have some innate power, but they can get more of it from an acolyte doing rituals or making offerings. Joseph, that’s my monster, Duck, and a few others aren’t sold on the idea that they’re meant to destroy humans, so they spend a lot of time keeping other monsters from doing just that. Our spellwork gives them an edge. Other than that, it really depends on who you’re working for; I spent a lot of my first month helping Joseph understand that hauling himself up onto a random dock to ask questions is not the best way to learn about humans. Boyd spends a lot of time maintaining Ned’s treasure.”

“Only because he bloody tricked me into workin for him. Just bidin my time until the deal runs out. You hear that Chicane!” Boyd yells towards the water, “don’t care how much you steal, I’ll get my share and run one of these days.”

To Indrid’s ear, the sea laughs in reply. Boyd grumbles and returns to his work.

“He’s just annoyed because he and Ned thought they could outwit each other; Boyd was on a prison ship bound for Jamaica and Ned offered him an out. Apparently they spent hours haggling over the terms.” Dani leans closer, whispers, “Boyds left twice, comes back every time saying he’s bored without someone to challenge him.”

They talk a while longer, Dani promising to bring Indrid some hens and a goat from town, Boyd giving him some firewood, and Barclay explaining the network of sea caves in the surrounding hills. When there’s a knock at the door, he opens it expecting another human and jumps when this is not the case.

“Evenin’” Duck smiles as he slithers into the house, “brought you a few more things.”

“You got smaller.”

“Can change my size some, though this is about as small as I can get.” He’s still two heads taller than Indrid, who notes that the ceilings are just high enough to accommodate him, as if the god built the cottage with visits in mind.

Duck sets a bucket of fresh oysters in the kitchen along with a large slab of butter, some milk, and some sugar, “Had one of my human friends bring me these. And, uh, I made you this” he holds up a cloak in the same colors as his tail. It fits Indrid snugly, shutting out the chilly air and making him feel rather grand indeed.

“C’mere” Duck pats a kitchen chair, “lemme take care of your neck.”

Indrid sits, shudders when webbing and claws rub sticky balm into his skin. The gods hands easily encircle his neck, a realization that stirs heat deep in his stomach. Duck talks as he works, a meandering story about a shipwreck, and Indrid finds he enjoys his manner of speech. The initial discomfort of the touches subside, the balm washing the pain in his neck away like a wave erasing a message in the sand. Cool hands wrapped around his throat turn as comforting as the fire crackling in the stove.

“That looks like it healed. Good” Duck’s beak fondly nips his ear, “gotta make sure my servant is in good condition.”

“Mmmm” Indrid bumps his chest with his head, hoping for more; tomorrow he’ll ask the others if it’s commonplace for an acolyte to lounge in the coils of their gods lap like a housecat.

The beak touches his ear once more, biting it lightly with little kissing sounds.

“Huh'' two tentacles catch Indrid as he tips sideways, his body deciding that the earlier nap was not enough rest, “didn’t think you’d find that soothin. Did it by accident, it’s how my kind show affection.”

“S’very nice” Indrid mumbles, dimly aware of being carried.

“I’ll keep that in mind. Y’know, in case I need to reward you for somethin.” Duck lays him in bed, pulls a thick blanket over him, and bids him goodnight. Indrid is sound asleep before the door closes.

------------------------------------

“Ngahka miskato--ah! Give that back” Indrid wrenches his spectacles free from hold of a far too inquisitive octopus. The creature squirts him with water, then disappears back into its pool.

Each of the gods has a sea cave in which their acolytes perform their rituals. Since the processes involves ancient, dark magic, all manner of strange sea life makes its way to the caves. Some, like the octopus or the seals that bob in the distance or flop on the rocks to nap, are known to him. Others might be classified as indescribable horrors from the deep, though Indrid thinks they look like crustaceans with a few too many limbs or the offspring of an eel and devil fish.

His oath to Duck allows him to read the spells, and his pronunciation is improving. Duck’s requests center on defense; letting himself take greater damage from an enemy, be better able to protect his friends, that sort of thing. Indrid even found a ritual that gives the god new cloaking abilities, which he’s used to make the cottages disappear on the hillside and thus keep curious townsfolk away. He also found one that allows Duck to remain out of water for well over a day.

The Duck who visits him in the cave and the one who stops by his home may be radically different sizes, but his disposition is constant. He talks about the kelp forests and the animals, about his annoyance with his supposed destiny as “destroyer of all man.” He conjures fine clothes from seaweed, furniture from driftwood, and brings Indrid newly made grins embedded with fresh pearls.

“Aren’t I supposed to be the one serving you?” Indrid will tease.

“Way I see it, we serve each other. Don’t care what that fuckin oath said.”

Indrid is feeding his hens one evening when his luck catches up with him; his human friends are all standing at the edge of Dani’s house, peering anxiously around it’s corner and down the hill. Joining them, he sees a crowd marching with torches and an assortment of lethal farm equipment.

“What the fuck are they doing? You were just in town today and everything was fine” Barclay glances at Dani, who shrugs, worried.

“My visions tell me that as they get closer we will hear them yelling about witches and that I will recognize many of them. I suspect my fellow gibbet-occupant told them about Duck.” He sighs, “I’ll try to lead them on a chase, get them away from all of you.”

Indrid runs into the evening before the others, or his own common sense, can stop him. Keeping to the cliffside, he lets them glimpse his hair and his red glasses, both used at the trial as proof of his wicked nature. His plan is to take a secret tunnel down into the caves, but his visions alert him a moment too late to the fact there are two, not one, groups of villagers. He’s outflanked on the cliff, holds up his hands to show he means no harm.

“I understand my continued existence alarms and confuses you, but that is no reason to go running about with weapons. Would you kindly leave me alone?”

“No, witch, we will not.” The head of the party shouts over the wind.

“I have a name, you know.” He grumbles, looking behind him and wondering if his status as an acolyte grants him immunity from death by falling in the water.

“You have already confessed to your black work, and we have on good authority you have made a pact with the devil. There is nowhere to run, and if you come quietly I promise we will hang you properly this time.”

“And if I do not?”

“We shall see to it that your body is scattered about this cliffside before the night is out.” The mob moves forward and Indrid stumbles back, the earth giving out beneath his feet.

He lands with a yelp in a smooth, large hand. As Duck rises more fully from the waves, the crowd freezes, struck dumb with fear.

“Y’all ain’t gonna touch him, y’hear? Indrid’s under my protection and in case it ain’t obvious, I could smoosh the whole damn bunch of you without breakin a sweat. So, what you’re gonna do is turn around and go back to your village, and I’ll forget this ever happened. If you come after him again, I’m gonna start taking out ships in your harbor. We clear?”

The panicked flight of the mod downhill suggests he’s made his point.

Duck carries Indrid home, joining him in the cottage once he can fit through the door. The monster follows him upstairs, pulling him into his arms.

“Thought I was gonna lose you.”

“That makes two of us.”

Duck nuzzles the top of his head, “You mind if I stay here tonight? Little worried some of them might get it into their heads to come back and hurt you.”

No futures show this, but Indrid nods all the same. Duck curls up near the bed, not leaving until the morning sun shines through the window. He does the same the next night, and the night after that, and soon it’s been two weeks of the god talking softly with Indrid as the human falls asleep.

When Indrid shyly asks if Duck will join him, his monster lays as comfortably as he can on the right side of the bed. Indrid is now used to waking up with a tail looped around his leg or a tentacle clinging to his arm.

------------------------------------

Indrid is just drifting off when the covers slide aside and weight slithers up the bed. He opens his eyes; Duck is on his side, facing him, annoyed.

“What troubles you, my dark excellency?” Indrid nudges Ducks’ lower belly with his toes. He’s taken to calling Duck increasingly absurd things, and the monster calls him “faithful servant” or “esteemed attendant” in reply.

Tonight, Duck just sighs, “Y’know how I was supposed to do somethin important tonight, bein’ that it’s the second full moon in the month? Turns out that somethin was, ‘spread my seed among the beds of men’ so our kind will gradually overrun the surface.” He clicks his beak with a snort, “don’t that sound fun?”

“No.”

“Smart little thing, ain’t you?” Duck teases, cups Indrid’s chin, “Yeah, I said no. Problem is, apparently a second full moon makes my whole body wanna fuck, which is why that prophecy was supposed to happen tonight.”

Indrid looks down, sees something rippling under the skin at the upper part of Duck’s tail.

“I’m gonna try sleepin it off.”

His visions give him courage; Duck turns him down in most futures, but none of them end in death or bodily harm, which at his point in his life is all he asks.

“Or you could, ah, allow me to help you.”

Green eyes blink, slow and calculating, “‘Drid, that ain’t part of your job.”

“No…” Indrid scoots across the sheets, tentatively runs his fingers up Duck’s side, “but that is not why I’m offering.”

“No?” The rest of his tail joins them on the bed, curving so it traps Indrid against him, “Then why are you offerin, sweet human of mine?”

“Because I, ah, I want, that is I would very much like to know you in that way, and I thought it was allowed based on the others, I apologize if it’s not, I did not mean to-” He freezes as Duck cups his face, nipping his ear and throat with a kissing noise.

“‘Drid?”

“Y-yes, my lord of the depths?” He’s breathless, drowning in Duck’s gaze.

“Stop apologizin and take off your clothes.”

Indrid flails until nothing is between him and his monster.

“Thats better” Duck’s voice deepens, washing over him like rough waves, “now, come serve your god.” He pats what Indrid thinks of as his waist, the point where his human qualities disappear entirely.

“As you wish” Indrid tries for a coquettish smile as he straddles him, but it gives way to surprise as the slit in Ducks skin parts.

“I was not expecting tentacles. Which, given the rest of you, was naive.”

“Not usin that future vision of yours to see what’s comin’?” The webbing of Duck’s fingers is like velvet as it caresses Indrid’s chest.

“It is difficult to focus on such things when you are here. You command my attention. You always have.”

Duck flicks his tongue across Indrid’s lower lip, “Now that kind of devotion I could get used to.”

“It is yours whenever you want it.”

A tentacle emerges from his side, petting Indrid’s face, “My Indrid. You been so good for me, so faithful and true. Letting me babble about seaweed and when my claws through that pretty hair. And you just keep gettin better.”

“Please” Indrid rests his head against Duck’s chest, hugging him as best as his size will allow, “please teach me how to serve you this way too.”

“I can do that. You don’t gotta lift a finger.” Several of the tendrils that comprise his cock twine together to form a single appendage. The tentacle on his face gains a twin and the pair slide down to his ass, parting it.

Indrid’s thighs are uncooperative, struggle to get and keep him in the right position to sink down. He curses, reaches down to adjust only for a thicker tentacles to bind both wrists and yank them up above his head.

“Uh uh, I said no finger-liftin and I meant it.”

Indrid moans, his cock filling as he discovers there’s no way to free himself. He expects Duck to guide him into place with his hands. The end of his tail encircles Indrid’s hips while his claws trace arcane shapes on his skin.

“I, I did not know it was quite so dextrousOH, oh god.” The tip of that strange cock pushes in, pulsing little by little to stretch him open without pain.

“Right here.” Duck nibbles his hair with that same kissing sound, “I got you. Take such good care of my faithful human.”

“Oh god” Indrid can’t come up with anything else to express the sensation of Duck sinking deeper into his body, of how safe he feels stretched out and stretched open in the monsters hold. He tips his head back with a cry as Duck bottoms out and his cock moves fluid and disjointed all at once. It’s pulsing, thrusting him full on each inward push, yet it’s individual tendrils curve and curl within him independent of the whole.

“More, oh god, please, please never ever ever stop.”

A fond chuckle, “That good huh? Maybe that prophecy was wrong. Maybe what I’m supposed to do is fuck you full and then drop you in town so you can spread the word of how good my dick is. Be my consort and prophet all in one. Get everyone clamorin for the chance for me to fuck them.”

“No” Indrid squirms, petulant, “you’re my master. Not theirs.”

A louder laugh this time, “You gonna take the amount of fuckin I was supposed to do to a whole town yourself?” A tendril curls around Indrid’s aching cock.

“Yes” He wails, rolls his hips “you may have me as often as you please, I want you too, I’ll, I’ll be your faithful servant always.”

“You’re already somethin better; you’re my ‘Drid.” Duck twists the tendril and Indrid’s lost, his orgasm knocking breath from his chest and tears from his eyes as white spatters the green of Duck’s abdomen.

“That’s it darlin, lookit you bein so good, cummin for your master. Think it’s time for you to make good on your promise to take whatever I give you.” The tail lifts Indrid up and down as Duck cums, the monster not so much as pausing before thrusting his hips harder, “fuuuck that’s good, my perfect servant, my ‘Drid, takin me so well.”

Indrid sobs as another burst of cum enters him and a strange feeling fills his chest; he’s buzzing with blindingly bright power. It’s coming from Duck, he knows this, and in the haze of his submissive state he understands the depth of his divinity.

“Duck” he whimpers as more tentacles twist around his limbs, the god losing himself in his pursuit of pleasure, filling Indrid until his belly twinges and his eyes fight to remain open. When the god groans out the humans name a final time, Indrid is so enveloped by him he wonders if they’ll ever fully disentangle.

The monster carries him to the washroom, Indrid still squirming on his cock, and gently pulls him free to set him in the tub. A flick of his hand fills it with warm seawater.

“You okay?”

“I doubt I will be able to walk tomorrow.” Indrid smiles to show he relishes this fact.

“Guess I’ll be spendin tomorrow waitin on you.” Duck joins him in the tub, coiling protectively around him as he washes his chest and thighs.

“I thought I was the servant here?” Indrid cuddles closer, kissing Duck on the tip of his beak.

“Nah. Far as I’m concerned, we take care of each other.”

#indrid cold/duck newton #Indruck #monster march #reader requests #monster boyfriend #the author says "fuck HP Lovecraft

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filmfanatic82 · 7 years ago

Text

The Long Game - Chapter 5: Mind Tricks

AO3 Link (HERE)

Chapter 5: Mind Tricks

The distinct smell of smoke fills Kim’s nostrils as she drifts back into the land of semi consciousness. Everything feels unusually heavy, as if there are sandbags weighing down all of her limbs. Kim’s eyes flutter open for a moment or two but the world before her is just a series of dark, obscure blobs. She can’t seem to focus.

“Fuck!” Trini yells out in the nearby distance. There's a strange, level of breathlessness to her voice. A tone that Kim hasn’t heard in well over eight years. It’s one that signifies one thing and one thing only… Trini is in the midsts of fighting for her life.

“Trini…” Kim chokes as her attempt to speak quickly turns into a bone rattling cough. She forces herself to roll into her side as her lungs claw for air. The ground beneath Kim seems to reverberate with the steady stream of stampeding drunken bodies. The air thickens with smoke with every passing second, making each breath harder than the last.

Kim knows she needs to get up and out of there, but for some reason can’t seem to will herself to move.

“Kim! Don’t move!”

Kim’s eyes pop back open at the sound of Trini’s voice. Through the cloud of dense smoke, she spots the fuzzy outline of the fierce, small latina. Trini delivers a series of calculated blows to a faceless, red robed creature, not letting up on the intensity for a single, solitary second.

The creature scrambles backwards, trying to find a way to gain the upper hand. It cornering itself against a pile of broken wooden crates as Trini moves in for the kill. She leaps up onto a stack of concrete blocks and then propels herself towards the creature, landing directly behind it, arms strategically wrapping themselves around it’s neck and--

SNAP.

With one swift motion, Trini twists the creature’s neck to the side, instantly killing it.

“God, she’s hot,” Kim mutters to herself as she desperately tries to keep her eyes open. But it’s a losing battle. Darkness starts to seep back in from all sides.

Kim takes one last, good look at Trini and then gives in to the all consuming nothingness.

////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

“Stop dropping your left arm,” Trini instructs Zack as the two of them spar against with one another in the pit.

“I’m not,” Zack fires back while throwing a punch. But Trini’s just too quick. She side steps out of the way of the punch and throws a counter left hook, catching Zack in the ribs.

“See. You just did it again.”

“No way.” Zack straightens himself up, shaking off the punch. “You’re trippin’, Crazy Girl.”

“Fine. Don’t believe me.” Trini continues on the offense, delivering a well timed series of punches and kicks. Each and every one connecting with a different part of Zack’s body. “I’ll just kick your ass instead.”

Zack ricochets backwards, scrambling to get out of Trini’s reach. With a quick, impromptu slide, he maneuvers his body around the left side of Trini. Zack wraps his arms round her neck in a playful, half nelson style hold. “You were sayin’?”

“Arrgh,” Trini grunts, struggling to break free. She thrashes wildly against Zack’s body as sweat drips down her face.

“C’mon, Tiny. Just tap out.”

“Don’t… Call… Me… Tiny…”

“No use fightin’ it. Unless…” Zack trails off as a devilish smirk crawls across his lips. “Unless you like it rough?”

Trini immediately responds with a swift backwards kick to Zack’s groin. It’s a cheap shot, but she doesn’t care. He deserves it.

“Somethin’ I said?” Zack laughs out with a harsh exhale of air. He loosen his grip on Trini and hunches over in slight pain.

“You picking on my girlfriend again, Taylor?”

Both Trini and Zack freeze as they spot Kimberly at the top of the pit. With a few graceful hops, she quickly makes her way down the side of the pit wall, strategically landing right between the two of them.

“She started it,” Zack replies jokingly throwing his hands up in the air, taking a few steps away from Trini.

“It’s all good, baby.” Trini plants a loving kiss hello on Kimberly’s cheek. “Where’s Billy and Jason?”

“They aren’t coming. Jason scored last minute tickets to Blake Shelton and surprised Billy. So it’s just us.”

“Awwwww young love.”

Trini sucker punches Zack in the arm. “They aren’t dating, Asswipe.”

“Just a matter of time, Shortround,” Zack responds, immediately moving out of dodge from the wrath of Trini. She wails even harder on his arm, not holding back.

“Do I need to separate you two?” Kimberly huffs out in a parental tone, hands resting on her hips.

“No, mom.” Trini mimics Kimberly’s stance with a look of amused defiance on her face.

“Don’t you mean, Dadd--”

Before Zack can finish his sentence, Kimberly playfully lunges at him, tackling him mid waist. The two instantly fall over onto the ground, with Kimberly landing on top on Zack. She pins him down, knees locking in on each side of his hips and starts to deliver a series of blows to his chest and face.

“Ow… Geez… Okay… Okay… I get it…” Zack squeaks out, as he attempts to shield his face from the hits.

But Kimberly doesn’t let up.

She can’t.

A sudden, unexplainable rage starts to bubble up from the depths of her soul. It inches through her veins, overtaking every ounce of her being. Kimberly knows she needs to stop, but it’s as if her limbs no longer belong to her. Her hands ball up into fists and without another moment’s hesitation, she begins to pumple Zack for all it’s worth.

“Hey… Hey… C’mon. Stop it. You’re hurtin’--” A look of complete fear registers on Zack’s face as he attempts to push Kimberly up off of him. But it only causes Kimberly to double down her efforts.

The world seems to fade away as Kimberly’s vision is overtaken by a sea of emerald green. Left hook then right. Then left again. Her fists connect with Zack’s flesh without any real consideration to just how hard she’s hitting. It’s as if it isn’t even Zack below Kimberly anymore… All she knows is that she can’t stop.

And then--

“Kimberly!”

It stops.

Trini grabs hold of Kimberly’s shoulders and in one fell swoop, rips her off of him, sending her flying onto the pit floor with a mind-numbing thud. “What the hell?”

“I’m sorry, I don’t know…” Kimberly trails off, as she searches for the right words to explain what just happened.

Trini helps Zack sit up and does a quick assessment of his wounds. He’s peppered with cuts and newly forming bruises, but other than that, isn’t in too bad of shape.

“Geez, Kimmy. Remind me never to tick you off again,” Zack replies with a bit of a forced laugh in a feeble attempt to lighten the suffocating tension between the three of them.

Trini simply stares at Kimberly with a mixture of fear and concern, for what feel like forever, and then finally--

“You okay?”

Kimberly forces a smile and gives Trini a meek nod in response. “Yeah. I’m okay.”

//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

SLAP.

Kim jolts upright with a hard gasp of air as a crisp stinging sensation radiates across her right cheek. Her hands immediately gropes upwards towards her face in pure shock, wanting nothing more than to investigates the mysterious source of the pain.

It’s a slap. Someone has slapped her.

“What the…” Kim groggily mumbles as her vision once again comes back into focus.

There, standing only a mere two feet away, is a teary eyed Trini, hand still in the air, poised and ready to slap again if necessary. She lets out a harsh laugh of relief as two defined trails of tears descend down her cheeks.

“You slapped me?” Kim questions, as she attempts to get her bearings. She quickly surveys their surroundings only to realize that they are no longer in the warehouse, but back in the parking lot instead.

The night sky is ablaze with a fine mixture of smoke and flames, as the warehouse burns out of control. Sounds of sirens approaching cut through the crackles and pops of the fire, signifying that they aren’t going to be alone for much longer.

“I didn’t know what else to do.” Trini wipes away the evidence of tears with the sleeve of her shirt and then runs her hands through her hair in an attempt to mask her fear-driven anxiety. “You weren’t waking up.”

“Well, I always was a heavy sleeper,” Kim responds with a bit of a reassuring smile. She wants nothing more in that moment than to reach up, pull Trini into her arms, and let her bury her head into the crux of Kim’s neck as she used to do during those sleepless nights back in Angel Grove. But Kim knows that it’s not her place to provide that kind of comfort anymore.

“Not funny, Hart.”

“Oh, I’m hysterical.” Kim carefully pushes herself up onto her feet and takes a moment to assess her injuries. Besides the random collection of scratches and new bruises, she’s in one piece. Nothing short of a small miracle. “What happened?”

“You mean after that jackass pegged you with his beer bottle and you went down like a ton of bricks?”

Kim gives a nod in response as her hand makes its way up the back of her head to identify the golfball sized souvenir just below the left side of her crown. “Yeah.”

“There was some strange explosion right near the left side of the ring and then pretty much all hell broke loose. I tried to go after Zack, but those faceless freaks showed up and kinda distracted me.”

“They didn’t--”

“No,” Trini cuts Kim off, reading her mind. “The cops showed up first and started rounding people up. They grabbed Zack before they could go after him.”

“What about--”

“I’m fine.”

Kim starts to open her mouth to question, but is met with a penetrating stare of annoyance from Trini that screams to drop the subject.

“Okay.” Kim lets out a sigh of relief, runs her hands through her hair, and takes a quick assessment of the shear chaos surrounding them. “We need to get out of here and get Zack.”

Kim instinctively goes to fish her keys out of her coat pocket, but comes up short. “What the--”

“Ahem,” Trini clears her throat and holds out her hand. There, dangling off of her index finger, are Kim’s keys.

Kim goes to snatch the keys out of Trini’s hand, but Trini’s too fast. She counters by moving her hand just out of Kim’s reach.

“Give me the keys.”

“Not happening, Hart.”

“T, I’m not playing.”

“Neither am I. You’re in no freakin’ shape to drive.”

“I’m okay.”

“Bullshit.”

“Trini…”

“I just dragged your passed out ass outta a burning building. You’re fuckin’ nuts if you think I’m gonna let you drive that bike.”

“Then how the hell are we getting out of here? Huh? Magically snap our fingers?”

But Trini doesn’t respond. She wraps her fingers back around the set of keys and with a fierce determination, marches straight towards Kim’s bike.

“What? You suddenly know how to drive a motorcycle?” Kim calls out after Trini, sarcasm dripping off of each and every one of her words.

Trini mounts the bike like a seasoned pro, pops the keys into the ignition, then revs the engine with a glance of defiance in Kim’s direction.

“Huh?” Kim utters out loud as her mind desperately tries to process the scene playing out before her. Trini. Her Trini. The one that at seventeen, flat out refused to even attempt to get her driver’s license, is now sitting on a motorcycle, looking as if she’s done this a thousand and one times before.

“Yes. I know how to drive,” Trini plainly states, not offering up any additional information or even an explanation. “Now get on the bike, Kim.”

“That’s the second time.”

“What?”

“The second time you called me Kim,” Kim responds as she slowly makes her way over towards Trini and slides herself onto the back of the bike. She carefully snakes her arms around the tiny latina’s waist, but hesitates to fully grip her.

“Yeah well, it’s fitting.” With that, Trini reaches down, grabs hold of Kim’s hands, and firmly adjusts them into a more secure position around her chest, right beneath the lower edge of her bra. “Hold on.”

Kim’s breath ever so slightly hitches as her fingers make contact with the almost tissue paper like material of Trini’s shirt. She swallows down the sudden, undeniable urge to let her hands wander over the all too familiar territory that is Trini’s body and says a silent prayer to whatever god that might be out there, that she can manage to keep her composure long enough to make it to their destination in one piece.

It’s going to be a long, long ride.

/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

“Zachary Taylor. T-A-Y-L-O-R. Check your freakin computer again, limp dick,” Trini barks at the half asleep police officer behind the front desk, while puffing herself up to look as menacing as humanly possible for a barely five foot tall woman.

Kim hangs back a bit in the lobby of the Ely precinct, just watching the scene unfold before her, as a look of pure amusement spreads across her face. God, how she’s forgotten just how entertaining it can be to watch Trini verbally rip someone limb from limb.

They’ve spent the better part of the last two hours attempting to get any warm blooded body donning a blue uniform to give them at least some information on Zack, but it’s been nothing short of a losing battle. No one seems to give a fuck… Especially not at 2 a.m.

“Ma’am, I’ve told you already--”

“I’m not fuckin’ waiting ‘til the morning.” Trini’s nostrils flare with each and every breath she takes as her eyes hone in on the officer in front of her. Her hands subconsciously start to curls themselves into two defined fists. Trini leans in, closing the distance between herself and the officer. “And don’t call me--”

But before Trini can finish her sentence, Kim rushes over, grips Trini by the biceps, and pulls her backwards, safely putting distance between them and the clearly annoyed officer.

“Let go, Hart!” Trini wrenches her body out of Kim’s iron clad grip, shooting daggers with her eyes in the process. There’s a streak of pure hatred buried within Trini’s stare, that cuts through Kim’s soul with an expert like precision, ripping back open old wounds that have never fully healed. “Don’t fuckin’ touch me.”

Kim inches backwards, hands slightly raised in apology. “Breathe, T. Just didn’t want you to do something stupid. That’s all.”

“No, that’s usually your department,” Trini fires back, taking a moment to straighten back out her top. She lets out a frustrated sigh and then wanders off towards the far end of the lobby, muttering under her breath in non-descript Spanish phrases as she does.

Kim silently watches Trini for a moment or two take her pent up frustration out on some unsuspecting furniture, before turning her attention back toward the officer behind the front desk. She runs her hands through her hair, exhaling the breath of air that she’s been holding onto and then starts to focus--

At first there’s nothing. Just a sea of fuzzy blackness. Then, slowly the image emerges, bright edges slashing through the black seams. Colorful pieces twisting and turning into each other until finally revealing its true form.

“Rick,” Kim says with a sudden softness to her voice. “It’s Rick, right?”

The officer's head snaps up from his paper work as a look of utter confusion sweeps across his face. “Yeah. How did you…”

“Doesn’t matter. How many months?”

“Huh? What--”

“How many months are you behind, Rick?” Kim asks as she moves closer towards the desk, eyes locked in on Rick’s, staring with a strange intensity that’s almost hypnotic in nature.

“What are you doing?” Trini calls out in the distance, suddenly aware of what’s transpiring between Kim and the officer.

But Kim doesn’t even acknowledge Trini. She can’t. Not now. All of Kim’s energy is needed elsewhere.

“Four,” the officer whispers, suddenly unable to pull his eyes off of Kim. “Four months.”

“And she doesn’t know, right?”

The officer shakes his head as a hint of tears start to form in his eyes.

Without another word, Kim reaches into the inner breast pocket of her leather jacket and produces a thick roll of bills. She places it down in front of the officer, giving him a sympathetic nod of understanding.

“Here’s what's going to happen, Rick. You’re going to take this money and use it to pay off whatever you owe. And whatever's left goes into a college fund for your kid that’s on the way. Then, you’re going to get yourself in an AA program. There’s one at that church, over on 5th st. Every Thursday at eight. Which should work since it’s the same night as your bowling league. You’ll have to quit bowling, but the trade off is that she’ll never have to know.”

“Kim…”

There’s a fearful tremble to Trini’s voice that momentarily shakes Kim’s concentration. She takes a deep breath and another step closer, all energy focused in on one thing and one thing only… the officer before her.

“And in exchange, you’re going to get up from your desk, go back to the holding cell, release our friend, and erase any evidence that he was ever here to begin with.”

The officer ever so slightly nods his head, seemingly at a loss for actual words.

“Repeat it back to me, Rick.”

“I’m gonna get up, go back to the holding cell, release your friend, and erase all records of him ever being here,” the officer responds with almost a dream-like cadence.

“Right answer.”

Without another moment’s hesitation, the officer gets up from his chair and heads on down a side hallway, disappearing out of sight.

As soon as he’s gone, Kim lets go of a massive breath of air, shuts her eyes, and runs her hands through her hair. She’s nothing short of spent.

“What was that?” Trini’s voice cuts through the silence, suddenly reminding Kim that she’s not alone.

“Don’t worry about it.”

“No. What the fuck? You just… just…” Trini trails off, clearly not sure how to describe what she just witnessed.

“Trini…” Kim pinches the bridge of her nose with her fingers, shutting her eyes once again. She can feel her energy depleting with each and every new breath she takes. “I can explain. I promise. I just need a minute to…”

A fine line of blood starts to trickle down from Kim’s nose.

“Kim!” Before Kim can react, Trini’s by her side, ducking her head under Kim’s arm to help support her body weight. She guides Kim towards a nearby row of chair and then eases her down into a sitting position before sitting down herself.

“You did it again,” Kim weakly croaks out, wiping her nose with the back of her hand.

“What?”

“Called me Kim.” Kim flashes Trini a warm, reassuring smile as if to say that it will all be okay and then relaxes her head a bit against the wall behind her.

“You’re unbelievable.” Trini shakes her head in slight disbelief. “I’m gonna go see what the hold up is, okay? Don’t move.”

Trini stands back up and proceeds to head on down the same hallway that the officer disappeared down just a few moments ago.

Kim lets another moment or two pass, then reaches into her black skinny jeans pocket and pulls out her cell phone. She unlocks the screen and after a few taps of her fingers, holds it up to her ear.

“Hey B. Yeah… We’re good. I’ve got both of them… Should be there by tomorrow afternoon latest… Yeah, I know… We don’t have much time left… I will, promise. You too. Bye.”

Kim finishes up the conversation and then lets out another much needed sigh as the gravity of the situation settles down upon her.

She needs to get them back to Angel Grove… and fast.

#trini #trimberly #trini x kimberly #kimberly hart #power rangers #power ranger movie #power rangers 2017 #fanfic

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thatothercosplayer · 7 years ago

Text

“It’s....it’s you!” Hikaru stated in shock. The ship’s occupant walked down the ramp, smoke licking at their heels because this is one of those really dramatic spaceships that has lots of fog machines.

(A bit of a warning- there *is* a scene in here that’s a bit graphic and has wounds that might make some readers uncomfortable. If you don’t want to read it, hit Ctrl + F and enter ‘McFly’ to skip to the section after that.)

------

As soon as she had finished speaking to her parents, they guided her to the capital. There, amongst the many buildings, lay the spaceport (and, by extension, immigration services. How narratively convenient!). After one last goodbye, Hikaru separated from her parents before heading inside.

As the paperwork had been done, all that was left to do was to issue Hikaru her passport; alongside a wrist brace that would act as a translator and disguise to help blend in among Earth’s populace. It was somewhat bulky, but it clamped rather comfortably onto her arm. Looking it over, she noticed that there was a small screen on it that had ‘human’ selected in Standard. Situated next to that was a green, triangular gem.

Tapping it caused her appearance to change in a flash, creating a human form that would suit her personality. She was even wearing clothes to match! It was a lovely dress the same color of her wings (which were hidden in this form, obviously). Twirling in place, Hikaru found she was rather enamored with this device!

Just then, explosions could be heard outside. It was an invasion- the Zangyack Empire had decided to target E5 Raptor, since it was on its way to Earth anyhow.

Gormin began to swarm in, beating down anyone who dared to resist them. They were lead by Sugormin, and those were lead by an Action Commander. It was a creature that resembled a walking chunk of rock; not quite refined to be a distinct golem, but moreso pieces of some unknown mineral that happened to resemble a humanoid, if only barely. “Ha! Stupid birds! I’m gonna pluck ya all one by one! It’ll make a great coat for da boss!”

The creature laughed, and immediately Hikaru felt an anger welling inside her. How dare they attack her home....! How dare they attack her people! Slapping the gem on the wrist brace again, Hikaru ran forwards and lifted off, slamming into one of the Sugormin with her shoulder and landing on it. She made sure to dig her talons into it. The blue beast flailed underneath her before stilling and silencing.

“I’m....I’m warning you! You better leave this planet!” She declared, raising a shaking hand and pointing a lone talon.

“Awww...ain’t dat cute! The little hen thinks she can fight! Alright, light dis place up boys!” The rockman shouted, and the Gormin began to fire indiscriminately into the crowded room. Hikaru threw herself at the rock beast, attempting to rend his stoneflesh with her razor sharp digits, but it was to no avail.

“Hahahaha! Don’t ya know!? I’m made outta Katchin, the densest material in the universe! You don’t have a thing on me!” Slapping his attacker away, the Action Commander stepped forwards, slamming a fist into the ground.

Hikaru landed on her belly, barely managing to scramble out of the way of the invader’s attack. But she wasn’t able to get to her feet fast enough, as she found a rocky foot resting on her back.

“Hoh? Looks like wes got a fine specimen here! Mind if I....” He snatched Hikaru’s wings where they connected to her back, and began yanking.

“N-no! Stop that!” Hikaru yelled, clawing and scratching at the floor.

“Oh, quit yer whinin’, ya birdbrain! Dis’ll only take a second here!” He began to pull more, and the Raptoroid’s wild attempts to escape intensified.

“S-stop! Please! You’re hurting me!” She wailed, voice wavering.

“That’s the point!” He barked at her.

“S-someone! H...help...!” Hikaru begged, already beginning to get choked up as tears flowed down her cheeks. She could barely see straight- the pain was unbearable. Every nerve in her back felt like it was on fire; more and more she couldn’t feel her wings, let alone move them. Was this how it ended? Why wasn’t anyone helping? Was anyone even trying to? She couldn’t tell.

“N...n-no...! Stop! St--” Her pleas died and gave way to screeches of pain as the Action Commander finally stumbled backwards, his prize in hand.

Hikaru’s thoughts became duller and more brief until, finally, her vision went completely black, and she slumped to the floor.

Hikaru slowly opened her eyes. All the chaos and din from earlier had seemed to go quiet. Only the flickering flames and occasional settling rubble could be heard.

She attempted to push herself up, but quickly dropped back down as pain engulfed her. Even just breathing hurt. “I don’t want to die,” she sobbed. “I don’t want to die....!”

The Raptoroid didn’t know how long she lay there- her vision faded in and out with her consciousness. But...eventually......

“I found one! Over here!”

“Is she still alive? Those wounds look fatal.”

“She’s breathing, help me get her on the stretcher!”

----

The former Action Commander waved in her face. “Hello! Ya there? McFly? Hello? McFly?”

Hikaru shook her head, and immediately slapped him. This made him stumble backwards, raising a hand to his cheek. Feeling at it with his stubby, rocky, fingers, he stomped. “You....you cut me!”

“Damn right I did!” Hikaru yelled. “Do you even remember who I am?!”

“Look, lady, I’ve been all over the galaxy. Youse could be any one of a buncha palookas I done steamrolled, alright?” Popping his neck a bit, he paused. “Why don’t ya refresh me, eh?”

“I am Hikaru, of the planet E5 Raptor in the Aquila System! You invaded my home and tore off my wings right when I was about to leave for Earth!” She raised a shaking fist, barely containing her anger. All these years....all these years....! “I never had a name to hate. I only knew your face. I would never forget such a horrid being- ever!”

He let out a big, hearty laugh. “Oh! You’re that broad! You was so cute, flailin’ about like a chicken with it’s head cut off!” And just as quickly as he started, he stopped. “Well, my name’s Crush. Youse gonna remember that. ‘course, you, ah, ain’t gonna live much longer ‘cause you chipped my perfect visage.”

“Crush?” Hikaru asked. “That’s your name?”

“Yeah. Can you fit that into your birdbr--”

“WELL, THEN I’M GOING TO CRUSH YOU!” Hikaru screamed as she lunged for the brute.

“W-what!?” Crush barely had time to react as Hikaru flew at him at blistering speeds, slamming him into the side of his ship. “H-how!? Youse Raptor guys ain’t stupposed to be this fast!”

She hissed, digging her claws into his shoulders. “Maybe so.....but on Earth, I’m eight times faster....and eight.....times....STRONGER!” Hikaru reared back and headbutt Crush, right on the forehead. She made sure to dig her talons into his skin, too, dragging them down her chest. “I’m not running away! I’m going to pay you back for how much you hurt me!”

Releasing, Hikaru flew upwards a bit, doing a quick shuttle loop before realigning herself and extending an leg outwards. “GOLD COMET KICK!” She cried out, her right foot smashing into Crush’s chest right as he pulled himself out of the giant dent he’d made in the side of his ship. The sheer force of the blow tossed him not only right back into it, but through it and out the other side.

Swooping over the ship, Hikaru circled around Crush while she decided her next course of action. “Now, lady, see, uh, I can explain! I was jus’, uh, workin’ with those Zangyack guys! Y’know? ‘cause, they uh, they were payin’ well, and, uh, I ain’t sayin’ no to a good paycheck--”

Hikaru zipped downwards, grabbing Crush by the neck and driving him into the ground, dragging him across the park at high speed. “I don’t care what your excuse is,” she growled, pressing downwards and forcing him more into the ground. She pulled upwards, making sure to smack Crush on the ground once before tossing him away.

Crush pushed himself up, watching her fly above him. “N-now, Miss Hikaru, surely we can come to some kinda agreement here--”

Feeling a blast of air move past him, Crush looked down to notice three giant slashes across his chest. “Uh oh,” he let out as another pass happened, this time hitting his face. This occurred several more times, each time increasing in speed.

“I-” Three giant gashes across Crush’s back.

“Won’t-” Three massive talonmarks across Crush’s shoulders.

“COMPROMISE!” Hikaru yelled as she made one last pass. She then folded her wings and landed so hard that she kicked up bits of turf and clouds of dust. She did...she did the superhero landing. You know? The superhero landing.

Unfolding her wings dramatically, Hikaru stood, looking up at Crush. The sun filtered through the haze, causing her to shine. “I was haunted by nightmares of your little game for years,” she spat, taking a step forwards. “There were nights where I couldn’t sleep for fear of reliving what you did to me.” Another step.

Crush began to take a step backwards for every step the Raptoroid made forwards.

“You didn’t even think twice about what you did. You never woke up in a cold sweat, screaming at the top of your lungs because you thought you were going to die,” Hikaru glowered.

She thrust an arm out and grabbed his neck again. Crush reached up to his neck, gasping for air. How!? How was someone damaging his skin!? He was supposed to be unbreakable!

“Well, I’ll make a deal with you, Crush,” The Raptoroid let out. “If you manage to survive our encounter today....then, when you understand the pain I went through...” She bowed her head slightly, shadows growing on her face. “Maybe then you’ll remember me.”

Still gripping Crush’s neck tightly, she beat her wings and flew upwards, ascending rapidly before letting him go. She watched him drop, before dipping forwards into a nosedive and and kicking him as she flew past. Pulling a quick English bunt, she came up from underneath and punched upwards, stopping Crush in midair with her fist. There was a loud SNAP as his back crumbled a bit (she’d caught him in the middle of the spine).

Honestly, if you’ve ever seen a single episode of Dragon Ball Z, you know exactly what’s going on here. It’s just that, instead of warping to wherever and hitting Crush, Hikaru was flying over there faster than he was being tossed.

Finally, she ended it with one big downwards spike. She hung in the air for a moment, before scowling. This wasn’t enough.

She rolled her shoulders, before taking a deep breath.

Once again, she angled herself downwards, extending a leg in a kick....but this time, she also wrapped her wings around herself, creating a giant drill.

Crush slammed into his ship, and Hikaru cut right through the eruption of debris, the drill carving right through her nemesis.

A massive explosion occurred, engulfing both of them.....only for her to triumphantly soar upwards, freeing herself from the fire and the flames and carrying on (HAH).

He was dead

As he should have been a long time ago.

#Hikaru #plot point

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