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undressrehearsal · 7 months ago

Text

is it casual now?

chapter 1

summary: you and ellie agreed that this was just for a little fun - so what's the harm in her inviting you to joel's for a movie night?

word count: 2.3k

tags: nsfw, fingering (e and r receiving), angst, dub con?? i think?, does this count as public sex?, this shit's messy af y'all, mean reader, toxic relationship

a/n: i've wanted to write a fic based off this song for a while now. i've seen a few people write it (the song's a banger) but i only ever see ellie being written as the distant toxic one and tbh i don't think that matches her character so here's the opposite

also i hid a one last stop reference in here if you find it you get a prize (it's not hard to find)

if you wanna be tagged in the things i post, just lmk in the replies!

Joel was trying to decide what movie you should watch.

At least, Ellie thought he was. She could see the way his lips were moving - could even make out the words Dawn of the Wolf, whatever that meant - but she couldn’t actually hear him. She sat across from him at the dining table, nodding along, trying to school her expression into a pantomime of interest, but his words were drowned out by the ringing in her ears.

Your hand on her thigh crept higher.

Ellie shifted in the uncomfortable wood chair, uncrossing her legs only to recross them, and your hand didn’t move. You stroked slow circles into her jeans with your thumb; she would have thought it was absentminded if she didn’t know you so well. Ellie could see you in her peripheral. You smiled politely, nodding along as Joel listed off what movies he had found lately - it had become his mission to hunt for them while he was on patrol. (He always insisted that Ellie needed to be familiar with all the classics from before the outbreak.)

Somewhere past the sound of her heart pounding in her ears, Ellie heard Joel say her name. She blinked, shifted in her seat again, and replied intelligently, “Huh?”

He shook his head at her and laughed as he said, “Where you at, kiddo?”

She ran a hand through her hair, purposely avoiding looking at you - she knew she’d only find that shit-eating smile on your face. “Sorry, had patrol late last night. Yeah, that movie sounds cool.” She had no idea what movie he had suggested.

It didn’t matter much in the end. After switching off the lights, Joel sat back in his big old recliner (he’d looked like a fucking kid on Christmas morning when Tommy gave that to him), leaving the couch to you and Ellie. You leaned into her with your head on her shoulder; she had her arm draped over the back of the couch, not quite touching you. She was dancing a fine line between wanting to hold you and knowing you wouldn’t let her, but the tightrope was slipping from under her feet because you had put your fucking hand on her thigh again. She’d swear there was a damn magnet connecting your hand to her.

Ellie covered a gasp with a cough when your hand drifted between her legs. Your eyes were glued to the flickering television, but there was no hiding the small, satisfied smile on your lips. And she fucking hated herself for wanting to kiss it more than anything.

The tattered blanket you shared covered up the fact that the tips of your fingers were grazing across the seam of her jeans. Even the ghost of friction made her squirm, the movie becoming nothing more than white noise. You were too fucking bold, and her head spun when your nimble fingers undid the button and slid the zipper down so slowly it ached. When your fingertips dipped below the waistband of her boxers, she couldn’t stop herself from glancing at Joel. He was enthralled in the movie, and she couldn’t even pay attention to it; she hated herself for that too.

She knew she shouldn’t; she knew she should’ve grabbed your wrist, told you to stop so she could just enjoy the movie with her… with Joel. He’d been trying to plan a movie night with her for a week, and tonight she had finally been free from patrol. God, she shouldn’t have invited you, but when he asked if she wanted to bring a friend, of course your name had popped up.

She should have known it would be a mistake - an intoxicating one, but a mistake nonetheless. And when you dragged your fingers over her, pressing the lightest pressure to her clit, it took everything in her not to tilt her hips against your hand in search of friction.

Ellie bit down on her lip so hard she'd swear she tasted blood when you dipped just the tips of your fingers inside her. It was embarrassing how easy it was - how wet she already was and you had hardly even touched her. But when you circled her clit, your fingers already soaked, the shame burning in her chest evaporated. Her eyes fluttered, heat burning in her stomach, your touch setting her aflame. Her fingers dug into the back of the couch. She longed to touch you, to just wrap her arm around you and hold you close, press your head to her chest so you could hear how her heart reached for you.

Instead, she could only grip the couch behind your shoulder, gritting her teeth against the ache of it. You didn't even look at her, playing with her as though it were an afterthought, but there was no missing the smirk on your lips. She hated it; God, she wanted to kiss you.

Ellie didn't dare look at Joel - she didn't think she could handle seeing him so engrossed in the movie he had been so excited to show her while she sat only a few feet away, coming undone on his couch. She couldn't handle the shame rising in her throat again. If she looked at him, she was sure she'd be sick right there.

She tried so hard to keep it together - her hips ached from the force of holding them still, her lip surely cracked from biting it. Her chest burned with the moans she had to swallow like acid. But she couldn't keep it all in - it was overflowing. And when finally, the coil in her stomach threatening to snap, a low groan spilled from her lips, Joel turned to look at her.

Ellie didn't want to think about what he saw, but whatever it was, it made his brow pinch in concern. She couldn't meet his worried eyes when he said, “You okay, kiddo? You don't look too good.”

Your fingers hadn't even fucking slowed. You looked at her with a mask of concern, batting your eyes so innocently even as you pressed your fingers into her, curling them so you hit that spot that made her see stars. And then Ellie did grab you, gripping your shoulder in warning and glaring down at you. You wrinkled your nose, but relented and slid your fingers out of her; her grip tightened when you slid back over her clit. Fuck, she never should've invited you.

Ellie cleared her throat; she couldn't look at either of you without feeling sick, so she turned her gaze to the movie. What was it even about?

“Sorry, I just-” Her voice was strained, suffocating in her own throat. She felt like she was going to swallow her own tongue. The coil in her stomach tightened and she felt nauseous. She groaned again, and the words tripped over themselves in a rush when she said, “I don't feel good.”

Ellie stumbled to her feet, forcing you to withdraw your hand; when she glanced down, she could see that your fingers were wet and it made her stomach twist. Keeping one hand over her stomach to hide the fact that her fucking pants were undone, she hurried from the room, ignoring Joel when he called after her. She couldn't look him in the eye or else she might actually puke.

Making a beeline for the bathroom, Ellie slammed the door behind her and leaned against it, the wood cold against her back. She took a deep breath, counting the cracks in the ceiling until her heart finally stopped bashing against her ribs, her throat burning. Pinprick tears stung her eyes as she fixed her pants, her fingers shaking so hard she could hardly grasp the button.

Cursing under her breath, Ellie braced her hands on the bathroom sink, her shoulders sagging. Her eyes were rimmed red; she scrubbed her hands over her face roughly, willing her stomach to settle.

She shouldn’t have been upset, really. The first time your hand had found its way into her pants, all those months ago, you had made it perfectly clear what this was. She could still hear your voice from that night, saccharine sweet and smelling like the whiskey you had nabbed from her cabinet: Come on, Els, Jackson’s so boring. We can just have a little fun, right? She remembered the weight of your body when you climbed onto her lap, your thighs warm on either side of her hips, your hands pressing her back against the couch. She could still feel the way your breath had ghosted over her neck, your voice dripping with honeyed desire: It's just a little fun.

Her own eyes looked so unfamiliar, a stranger peering at her from the bathroom mirror.

Cursing again, she turned on the faucet, bending to splash water on her face - it was December and the water was so cold it numbed her hands. It was a welcome relief against her burning skin.

Ellie felt so fucking dirty it hurt. No matter how she scrubbed at her skin, rubbing it raw, she couldn’t seem to rid herself of it. The cold water stung her cheeks.

A knock on the door made her jump, cold water splashing down the front of her shirt. She cursed, pulling the damp fabric away from her chest with a grimace before calling, “Give me a minute, okay?”

But you had never been very good at listening, had you? You didn’t even look surprised when you pushed the door open, ignoring her protest, and found Ellie leaning against the counter, water still dripping from her chin. If anything, you looked almost amused, quirking an eyebrow at her. It was the look you gave her every time you got her worked up, your eyes showing the laughter you bit back. She fucking hated that look.

Ellie glared over her shoulder at you, but there was no real malice behind it - even when she hated you, something in her still softened when you were around. A switchblade girl with a cotton candy heart.

You closed the door softly behind you, leaning back against it with a smug smile that she wanted to wipe off your face - she just wasn’t sure how she wanted to yet. Ellie could hear how your ego tinted your voice when you said, “Joel sent me to check on you. Probably thinks you're barfing your guts out or something.”

Ellie rolled her eyes, looking away from you and mumbling, “Yeah, I guess dinner didn’t sit well….”

You scoffed and the sound went straight to her stomach. She felt rather than saw you step behind her; she tensed when you placed your hands on her hips, leaning forward to put your chin on her shoulder. Her hands gripped the edges of the sink so hard she thought the porcelain might crack. She could feel the heat of your body all the way down her back, your hips pressing into her ass, and her traitorous heart fluttered embarrassingly.

Ellie met your eyes in the reflection, watching as your smile grew into something almost mocking. You placed a kiss on the back of her neck, pressing your words into her skin: “Damn, Els, I didn’t know Dawn of the Wolf got you so hot and bothered.” Your fingers pressed into her hips, pulled her back against you. She failed to smother the sigh it pulled from her. She hated how it made your smile widen, and she hated even more how much she wanted to fucking kiss it off your stupid face. She shivered when she felt your teeth graze over her neck, and almost missed it when you muttered, laughing, “God, you’re so fucking easy, you know that?”

Ellie shoved away from the counter, spinning on her heel and grabbing your wrist before you could flinch away. You had only blinked before she slammed you back against the wall, praying that Joel didn’t hear it. Her fingers wrapped so tightly around your wrist she could feel your pounding pulse, pressing it to the wall above your head. She slipped her thigh between your legs, pressing up into you, and she only had a moment to register that smug fucking grin before she slapped a hand over your mouth. She relished in the way your eyes flashed in something akin to fear. She had to find wins where she could, right?

Leaning forward so her nose brushed yours, Ellie growled into the back of her hand, “Don’t make a fucking sound.”

And she did get to wipe that cocky smile off your face. She kept her hand over your mouth, releasing your wrist to snake her arm between your legs. She muffled your moans, hissing when your nails dug into her biceps.

Joel was in the next room, she thought distantly. Joel was in the next room, watching the movie he had been so excited to show her. He was in the next room, concerned about her, waiting for her, and here she was pressing her best friend into the wall of his bathroom. She had your pants around your ankles, two - three - fingers pushing into you. She could feel the vibrations of your moans against her hand - she wanted to press her lips to yours and swallow them, knowing you would never let her.

It came too fast, Ellie pressing into you relentlessly if only to make you fucking shut up for once. Your body shuddered against her, and she wanted to hold you through it, but by the time it was over you were already pushing her away. When her hand fell from your mouth, you were smiling again. Maybe she was going to be sick after all.

@filtered-sunlight

#are you proud of me that this isn't 10k words #idk how many chapters i'll write #i'm kinda winging it rn #ellie tlou #ellie williams #ellie williams smut #ellie williams x reader #ellie x reader #ellie x fem reader #lesbian smut #ellie x you #ellie the last of us #ellie williams tlou #tlou smut #tlou angst #this is p angsty

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novelmonger · 1 month ago

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First Contact

Written for @inklings-challenge 2024. It feels very first draft-y to me, and didn't quite end up how I initially envisioned it, but here it is.

When the first lights were seen in the sky, some said it was the end of the world. Passages from Revelation and other religious texts were thrown around, talking of stars falling from the sky or the Four Horsemen coming to bring judgment.

Others said, with slightly less drama, that it must be some sort of cosmological phenomenon—perhaps dozens of meteors falling to Earth to usher in the next Ice Age.

Still others, with an air of smugness, said these lights proved they'd been right all along. The extraterrestrials were real after all, and now they'd come in their UFOs to subjugate all of Earth at last. They'd been called crazy when they talked of inexplicable lights and experiences of being beamed into flying saucers and probed, but now the little green men were back, and everyone who'd called them liars would see the truth. Oh yes, they would see.

And then of course there were those who pointed fingers at one country after another, blaming them for sending missiles and unauthorized aircraft across the borders of peaceful nations. Some ran for their bunkers, but those who continued to pay attention to the news quickly learned that the same thing was happening all around the world. None of the world's superpowers were capable of such a feat.

Dr. Shannon Campbell wasn't sure what to think. Ever since reading War of the Worlds in high school, the thought of first contact had fascinated her. If aliens really were out there, what would they be like? Would they be hostile like so many books and movies claimed? Or might there be a way to communicate with them?

And suddenly, it wasn't just an idle imagining or the raving of lunatics. The possibility that they were not alone in the universe started to look more and more likely. And then she got a call, and then a visit from some bigwig at NASA and a General Somebody-or-Other decked out in camouflage, and the next thing she knew, she'd packed a bag and was heading to an undisclosed location in the Midwest.

It turned out everyone was a little bit wrong, and a little bit right at the same time. In the middle of a cornfield, an extraterrestrial spaceship had landed. But it was more of a shiny silver sphere than a flying saucer, and it didn't quite seem to be the end of the world just yet. Not to mention that the beings that emerged were neither little green men, nor were they Tripods or bug people or anything else Dr. Campbell had ever imagined aliens to look like.

The aliens...stepped? Floated? Well, they emerged somehow from the side of their spaceship, which shimmered to let them through but immediately looked the same as it had before. Not like a door or a hatch opening. And the aliens themselves were pale creatures that somewhat resembled octopi, or maybe jellyfish. Their bodies hovered in the air, with long, thin tentacles dangling down to the earth.

But even as the NASA scientists and soldiers surrounding the spaceship looked on, the aliens' forms began to shift. They hunkered down closer to the ground, their many tentacles sticking together and morphing into thicker, smaller limbs. Soon, instead of dozens of tentacles, they only had four, and their bodies compressed into something more like a torso and a head.

They were mimicking the humans, Dr. Campbell suddenly realized. In mere minutes, they had assumed roughly humanoid shapes, with arms and legs and...well, it looked more like two clusters of tiny eyestalks rather than eyes, but they were basically in the right place on their faces. They had no ears or noses that she could see, and their hands looked like they were wearing mittens rather than being divided into ten fingers. And where their mouths should have been was a thin membrane that glowed slightly as it vibrated with the low humming sounds the aliens had been emitting the entire time.

One of the aliens began to glide forward, holding its too-long arms out to the sides. The humming intensified, all of the aliens joining in at different pitches and frequencies, like some kind of interstellar choir. Several soldiers raised their weapons, but Dr. Campbell hastily said, “Please, don't shoot! We should at least try to communicate with them first!”

The general glanced nervously between the slowly advancing alien and Dr. Campbell, then gave her a sort of shrug as if to say, “Suit yourself.” He motioned for his soldiers to lower their weapons, and everyone took a step back.

Dr. Campbell swallowed. Now that she stood facing the alien leader, presumably, she felt like she had during her first undergrad presentation: two inches tall, and faintly sick.

But then...was that just her imagination, or were those words, garbled in mouths without tongues? Words in English?

“Gogojohnnygo. Heusedtocarryhis. Guitarinagunnysack?”

“Wait...is that...'Johnny B. Goode'?”

High-pitched trills exploded from every alien, their mouth-membranes vibrating loudly as their long tentacle arms waved excitedly in the air. At least...she thought it was excitement. For all she knew, maybe they were about to attack.

Some of the surrounding soldiers seemed to think this, as they tensed and looked ready either to bolt or to start firing.

Maybe the alien leader realized this, because his trills descended sharply in pitch and volume, like he was shushing them. The others quieted down as well, until the humming started up again. This time it was a complicated rhythm, interweaving several melodies at once, with an interesting breathy quality to their voices that almost made them sound like musical instruments on an ancient phonograph.

And yet...the longer she listened to them, the more she realized it sounded familiar too. “That's, like...Bach or something, isn't it? They're humming Bach.”

But how on earth would they know Bach? Or 'Johnny B. Goode,' for that matter. The only reason Dr. Campbell knew it was because of Back to the Future. She pressed a couple fingers against her aching temples. Multiple PhDs in linguistics and anthropology hadn't prepared her for this.

While she was pondering, the aliens moved on from their Bach concerto and suddenly started barking like a dog. Then made the clop-clop-clopping sounds of a horse trotting along. Then something that almost sounded like the pattering of rain on a roof. Then, as one, they all emitted the exact same laugh.

A sudden suspicion. Dr. Campbell whipped out her phone and frantically looked something up on Wikipedia. Sure enough, it all clicked into place. With a gasp, Dr. Campbell straightened up and looked at the aliens looming over them. “It's Voyager! They're mimicking the recordings sent with Voyager!”

“What does that mean?” the general snapped, irritation masking his nervousness at not having a handle on what was going on.

Slowly, a smile spread across Dr. Campbell's face. “It means we have a basis for communication.”

~*~*~*~*~*~

By the end of six months, Dr. Campbell had managed it at last. She'd managed to hold an entire conversation with the aliens, and was reasonably certain both sides understood what was being said. It was the greatest achievement of her life...and she was just getting started.

Once it became clear that the aliens weren't going to immediately start shooting laser guns or levitating people into their spaceship and start probing them, the army seemed to relax a little. A temporary camp of trailers and tents had been set up in the cornfield with all the equipment Dr. Campbell needed to do her work, as well as a base of operations for the soldiers who created a perimeter around the cornfield to keep curious civilians from wandering through before they could fully ascertain the aliens' intentions.

It seemed the aliens were also in favor of caution. After that first day, when Dr. Campbell had pulled up a recording of the record that had been placed in Voyager and played it for the aliens, attempting to convey that they were trying to communicate, all the other spaceships that hovered in the air around the world had returned to orbit around Earth. They linked together in a chain, like Earth were wearing a pearl necklace, and just stayed there.

Presumably, communications were carried out between those ships and the one in the cornfield, that attempts were being made to speak with the humans. Maybe now that they were finally able to speak to each other and they could ascertain their intentions, the other ships would land again.

So far, they hadn't discussed anything of particular importance. Just things like names (the leader that Dr. Campbell talked to most often was called something like Brrringgnggniiiiib, but she called him Johnny), whether the aliens could breathe the air (it seemed they could, though they preferred the pressurized atmosphere of their spaceship), and what various objects in view were called. Both parties were curious about the other, but cautious of giving too much away. Just in case.

The aliens' language was highly tonal, like Mandarin but with a whole symphony of timbres and tones, some of which were far too high or low for human vocal cords. The real breakthrough had been when the team of technicians from around the world had cobbled together a soundboard with programmable pitches. Over the months, by working with the world's most skilled computer engineers, they'd been able to create an alien translator, where a human could type in what they wanted to say on a standard computer keyboard, and it would translate to a series of music-like tones that would play on a speaker for the alien. Then when the alien spoke in its language into a microphone, the machine would translate it into English on a little screen.

It was a slow, arduous process, but it worked. It only translated to English for now, but it would be a simple matter to add more human languages to the database, a project the technicians were already hard at work to complete. And though the translator was currently the size of a pipe organ and required a mass of extension cords and portable generators and solar panels just to run for a few minutes a day, Dr. Campbell had no doubt that eventually this machine would be reduced to a pocket-sized translator everyone carried with them. That is, if the aliens were going to stay.

And that was what today was all about.

Dr. Campbell stepped out of her trailer, breathing in the crisp air of the October morning and wrapping cold fingers around her mug of coffee. As always, the shiny dome of the alien ship rose against the sky, the constant backdrop of what her life had become. It looked somewhat foggy towards the bottom—frost, perhaps?

She took another sip of coffee, swirling the bitter liquid around her mouth as she wondered what Johnny would think of the taste. They hadn't yet discussed what the aliens ate��if they ate. They didn't exactly have mouths, after all. Though Birdcall, what she called the shortest of the alien crew, had once picked up a blade of grass and seemed to absorb it through the palm of the hand, before Hellohello had whistled shrilly, apparently admonishing Birdcall, who had immediately 'spit out' the grass, leaving it a little crumpled in the dirt. Like a mother scolding her child for putting something into her mouth that she'd picked up off the ground.

Draining the last of her coffee, Dr. Campbell stretched and set off across the cornfield to the tent where the translator resided. “Time to make history, I guess.”

Just like every day, Dr. Campbell met Johnny in the middle of the cornfield with a trill she personally thought sounded like a ringing telephone. It was a greeting, one of the alien words she was actually able to say herself. She held her arms out to the sides and wiggled them a little—it was like a hand wave. She'd finally stopped feeling stupid when she did it.

Johnny also held out his arms and wiggled them, though his looked much better because his 'arms' were really just tentacles stuck together in an approximation of human arms. “HeeLLLlllooooOOOoo, DoooktoooooRRRR,” he said in his sing-song voice. Johnny was much better at speaking English than she was at speaking his language.

Dr. Campbell thought of Johnny as 'he,' mostly because she'd started calling him Johnny, but she still wasn't sure if the aliens even had genders. The conversation they'd tried to have about that had left everyone more confused than when they'd started.

“Shall we begin?” she asked, gesturing towards the tent with the translator.

Johnny 'nodded,' which for him meant bobbing in a sort of full-body bow that made him look like one of those floppy dancing inflatable things outside of a car dealership. The aliens didn't nod as a way of indicating assent, but Johnny was always trying to mimic Dr. Campbell's mannerisms. It was kind of cute, in a way. If a tall, spindly alien with eyestalks and no mouth could be called cute.

Once she'd situated herself at the console of the translator, Dr. Campbell looked across at Johnny. He knelt or sat (it was hard to tell which when the limbs he folded beneath him had no joints and just sort of glommed into a squishy mass supporting his torso) on the ground a comfortable distance away. She'd offered him a chair several times before, but even once he finally understood what to do with it, he'd assured her that he was just as comfortable without one.

Taking a deep breath, Dr. Campbell put her fingers on the keyboard and looked across at Johnny, meeting his eyes—well, at least a few of his eyestalks, anyway. He liked to keep a 360-degree visual range at all times. Then she typed in the first, and perhaps most important, question:

Why did you come to Earth?

The almost musical sound of computerized tones echoed through the still morning air. Dr. Campbell was suddenly aware of many eyes on the two of them—the general, the two guards who were always stationed at this tent to keep anyone from tampering with the translator, the technicians and scientists standing by. They couldn't understand the aliens' language just from listening to it, but everyone knew this was an important day in history. The day they would finally get some answers.

Johnny's trills and chirps were very familiar to Dr. Campbell by now, and she could almost catch a few words here and there, but he spoke much too fast when they were at the translator. She had to wait for the words to trail across the screen.

“We hear voicings we know people being in the darkness. We must bring light.”

Light? Do you mean knowledge? Dr. Campbell's heart leapt. Maybe they would share the secret to faster-than-light travel.

Johnny bobbed in a half-bow. “Knowings. We asking you a questioning now Doctor.”

Dr. Campbell looked up at Johnny and nodded. A question for a question. Only fair.

Johnny leaned forward a little. It was almost impossible to make out expressions on his mushy alien face, but he seemed eager. “Are you knowing of your origin?”

“Origin?” Dr. Campbell muttered aloud as she read the words on the screen. She frowned up at Johnny for a moment, trying to understand what he was asking. Do you mean my parents? The people who gave birth to me? She didn't even know how the aliens reproduced, or whether Johnny would understand what she was talking about.

Johnny swayed his whole body from side to side, his version of shaking his head, while humming a single note that sounded kind of like a dial tone. Every single one of Johnny's many eyestalks zeroed in on her, catching her in an unblinking alien stare. Johnny's next words came like a song, so mesmerizing it was all she could do to glance down at the screen to see what he was saying.

“Origin is life beginning. Origin is light sun star root. Origin is making planets moons we Doctor Earth. Origin is making good peace life. We are of Origin and when Earth metal rock falling to our planet we are saying we must see. We must know. Does Earth is knowing Origin? Or is only darkness?”

Dr. Campbell's mind whirled. Suddenly, after months of extreme caution and dancing around revealing too much, now she wasn't sure what to do with this influx of information. She had a dozen new questions, and it took her a moment to decide what to ask first.

Is Origin your planet?

Johnny swayed a no again. “Origin is making our planet. Origin is making Earth. Origin is making us. Origin is making you. Origin is making cooOOOoorrnnnnffffIIIiiieeeeEEEEllLLLd,” he added, switching to English for that word, since the aliens apparently didn't have corn on their planet.

Slowly, a suspicion dawned on her. This 'Origin' was something that had made everything in the universe. It almost sounded like...a creation myth. Are you talking about a god?

Johnny's long limbs flipped into the air, and he let out an excited trill as he bobbed up and down. “We are not knowing you are knowing this word Doctor. Please saying this word in your voicings so we may be learning it.”

Dr. Campbell looked up at Johnny's eyes going haywire, at his 'arms' beginning to fray into many tentacles in his excitement. Slowly and clearly, she said, “God.”

Such a short word, but when Johnny repeated it several times in his musical voice, it sounded so beautiful. Like somehow, the little song made from the membrane of his 'mouth' vibrating was part of the very fabric of the universe. The music of the spheres.

After a few minutes of repeating the word God,interspersed with the trills and chitterings of his own language that Dr. Campbell couldn't fully understand because he wasn't speaking into the mic anymore, Johnny made an effort to calm himself down. “TTTtthhhhHHHaaaAAAAaaannnngnggnkk yoooOOOOOoooooouuuuUUUU, DoooktoooooRRRR,” he said carefully in English, before pulling the mic closer so he could speak more fluently in his own tongue. “We are very exciting Doctor because we are seeing now that God is showing to you in Earth also. God is holding universe in hands and we are family with Earth. We are thinking we must fly to Earth to show God leading the way but you are already following.”

“Whoa, whoa, hold up a second,” Dr. Campbell muttered. “I haven't even been to Sunday School since I was five.” But how to explain that to...an extraterrestrial missionary, apparently? Biting her lip, she eventually went with I'm not even sure I believe in God. There are lots of people on Earth who don't. Some people believe in different gods, or none at all.

Johnny hummed for a little after the translator's tones subsided. Not humming in words, just a faint sound of discomfort. Or thoughtfulness. Dr. Campbell wasn't sure. But he grew still, with none of the excited energy of a moment ago.

Finally, Johnny leaned towards the mic again and said, “We are saddening to be hearing this Doctor. But we are also gladdening because this means we are staying in Earth for longer. We are hoping you are letting us stay. We want to be learning more of Earth. We want to be talking more about God with you and other Doctor people.”

Funny. If it had been a Jehovah's Witness or somebody like that on her doorstep, asking if she had time to talk about their Lord and Savior, she would have shut the door in their faces. But this was a literal alien saying that he wanted to have conversations with her about God and who knew what else. So she found herself smiling and typing in response:

I would like that.

#inklingschallenge #team chesterton #genre: intrusive fantasy #theme: instruct #theme: counsel #(i guess???? idk)#story: complete #i thought it was going to end up much sillier than it did #but i got too bogged down in worldbuilding and then it just ended up sounding like arrival which is a very unfunny movie :P #all the same i'm proud of myself for basically going from zero ideas to this in like two weeks #fun fact: the alien greeting is based on how my roommates in college and i used to greet each other XD

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