#whumph community

[writereleaserepeat]

Whumpees in captivity and their facial hair.

Feeling the rough stubble on their usually smooth face. Hating the strange sensation at first, but soon realizing it's the only way to tell how long they've been imprisoned.

Begging Whumper to let them shave. Whumper agrees, but Whumper is the one who holds the razor. They leave bloodied wounds across Whumpee's chin and neck.

Alternatively: Whumpee has always carefully tended to their facial hair, it's a point of pride for them. Whumper restrains them and shaves them down to bare skin.

Whumper mocking Whumpee's unkempt appearance. Whumpee crying as soon as they're alone, because those features have always been some of their greatest insecurities.

Caretaker can't even recognize Whumpee at first, because their beard and shaggy hair have transformed their entire appearance.

[tagsecretsanta]

From @Thundergeek59

to @little-old-rachel

Secret Santa does not own this work, full credit to the author mentioned above!

AN: This is only my second fic and I thought it was only going to be a couple of paragraphs, however, Jeff decided to take this over totally and ran away with it. I now know what you writers mean when you say your characters take over!  I hope you like it, I had fun writing it

Rating: Gen/Family fun

Wordcount: 2900 ish

Jeff sat up and swing his legs over the side of the bed, toeing on his slippers.  It was still dark as he reached for his cane and shrugged his dressing gown round his shoulders. “May as well get up as toss and turn in bed”.  Stuffing his communicator cuff in his pocket, he padded out his door and headed to the kitchen.  

Grabbing a small bottle of juice and a couple of biscuits he headed out towards the pool deck and sat on one of the loungers.  Idly munching the biscuit he gazed at the pool, lit up by the underwater lights, and his mind wandering back to Gordon’s pre-Olympic training when he used to time him with his stopwatch, then chuckling as he remembered having to dive-bomb his little fishie in a vain effort to get him out of the pool, several hours later. 

“Oh Lucy, our little fish is all grown and you’d be so proud of him – of all of them”

With a sigh, he pulled himself up on his cane and continued walking down the path to the beach where Virgil had thoughtfully built a bench for him so he didn’t have to sit on the sand, which only thinly covered the sharp volcanic rock.  From here he could look out to the bird colony on Mateo.  He remembered his first few weeks back home,  when easily overwhelmed by boys and noise, he had sought the solitude by the beach.  Just listening to the waves ebb and flow calmed his mind.  

He looked to the red glint just gracing the edges of the horizon and realised Gordon would be up soon to power though his pool routine while Scott would be just behind, setting off round the island on his daily run.  Eight years and some things never changed while others were irredeemably different.

It was Virgil who caught him by surprise with a hand gently placed on his shoulder. “Hey dad, we’re going to get the tree now, do you want to come along?”  “Thanks for the offer but I think I better stay and help your Grandma with dinner preparations.” He declined. “You sure?  We’d love you to join us and anyway, Max is there to help in the kitchen and Ridley and Kayo will be available to fix any potential culinary catastrophes”.

“I’d only be a hindrance with this”  he replied, waving his stick.  “Actually dad, I have an idea I think you might like”.  Intrigued, Jeff let himself be persuaded, hoping he wouldn’t regret it.

As soon as Virgil had set down Two at the edge of the forest, Scott and John set about configuring a suitable pod.  With Gordon awaiting the arrival of Lady Penelope and Alan still in bed, the party consisted of Jeff and his three eldest and he was looking forward to just doing something social with his boys, a nice change from being ferried to hospital appointments.  He was, however, starting to wonder what form Virgil’s surprise idea would take when he heard a soft cough behind him, announcing said son’s arrival.

The sight that greeted him as he turned around was not what he was expecting.  In front of Virgil was a fully functioning hoversleigh, complete with T2’s green livery with the addition of red flames down the side, a red padded seat with a matching throw.  Words failed him, causing a worried frown to appear between Virgil’s brows, until a deep chuckle rose from Jeff, and a smile twitched at the corner of Virgil’s mouth, pleased that his dad had felt comfortable enough to let his lighter side out.  “Certainly is different” laughed Jeff as Virgil helped him into the sleigh.

Scott and John’s faces were a picture as the hatch descended with Virgil and their father.   “Oh my word, you really did it!” John exclaimed as both brothers tried to stifle their guffaws when they saw their father with a green bobble hat and gloves, looking like one of Santa’s helpers sitting in the sleigh.

“Well, I’d been tinkering with the old hover bikes back at the ranch and decided to see how far I could take the modifications and, well, here she is...”

“Well, let’s see what this baby can do” said Jeff as he pushed the controller forward and... nothing.  A quizzical look at Virgil “Safety feature.  You gotta push the red button first but be careful, I haven’t fully tested.....” He couldn’t finish the sentence due to the cloud of snow covering him. 

“WooHooooo” Jeff whooped as he surged forward down the track, leaving them all brushing snow off themselves.

“You do remember that he likes to go very, very fast” Scott said

“Yep, better jump in the pod and catch him before he heads out of sight” added John. ‘C’mon Virg, hop on”.

Scott steered the pod at speed, following the trail of snow kicked up by the sleigh. After several hair-raising twists and turns Jeff had managed to turn the sleigh into a clearing and was doing doughnut spins, thoroughly enjoying himself.  Finally he came screeching to a halt mere inches from his sons, who were once more coated with a dusting of snow.  “Gee Virgil, that’s gotta be the best fun I’ve had in years!  Reminds me of that time Lee and I tested out the moon rover on Alfie.”

“I’m pleased you had fun, but I hadn’t got around to telling giving you the low-down on all it’s features”.  

“Well, as an Airforce pilot you kinda just learn on the job, part of the fun really, isn’t that right Scott”.   “Sure dad, but you just about gave me a heart attack back there.”  “Ah sorry, Scotty, but you gotta admit, if it had been you trying her out, you’d have done the exact same thing”.  “I guess so” Scott conceded.

While Jeff and Scott had been talking, John had been surveying area, seeking out the perfect tree.  “That one, over there, what do you think Vigil”.  “Looks good to me, lemme bring the pod into position” Virgil replied as he hopped up onto the pod and drove it over to the tree, Scott and Jeff following in it’s wake.  

“Ok guys let’s do this.  John, you take that side.  Virgil, get into position with the saw and dad and I will be over here to tell you when to stop cutting and get the pod grapples ready”  Pure IR commander front and centre. “Yes, and I’ll be shouting encouragement from the sidelines” chuckled Jeff.  He’d had time to see his boys work together over the past few months and marvelled at how seamlessly they all fitted together, deferring to each other’s greater expertise.  He’d learnt from bitter experience that his opinions on the best way for them to do something, more often than not screwed with their well oil system and got them second-guessing themselves, which was not what was needed in the field.

 He was fortunate, so fortunate that his boys had developed the way they had, working in the way they did and in the process, turning IR into something more than what he had originally envisaged.  He’d been away from it all for too long to be able to step back in and run it the way he had and he was coming to terms with that, despite how much his pride and sense of usefulness had been hurt.

“You’d have loved this Lucy – just look at our boys working so well together, just like they did when they were little”. 

“You ok dad?” John was first to notice the faraway look in his fathers’ eyes.  “Yes, I’m fine, just  telling your mother about you all”.  John gave Scott a look, who in turn quirked an eyebrow at Virgil. Virgil imperceptibly shook is head.  Jeff, watching the exchange and remembering how they had been doing this since they were children – saying so much without uttering a word.  “I know those looks, and no, I’m not crazy, you gotta remember that for 8 years I only had your mother to talk to, so it’s got to be a bit of a habit.”  

The boys looked anywhere but at their father, feeling caught out with muffled apologies.  “C’mon lets get this tree strapped onto the pod and back home” Virgil successfully diverted the conversation to the matter in hand.

It didn’t take too long to get back to Thunderbird 2, Jeff taking a slightly more sedate pace on the return journey.  What the boys didn’t know was that the reason for the slower pace would make itself apparent as soon as they exited the pod.

Whooooosh...... splat!  A perfect hit and a whoop of joy from the elf in the sleigh.  Scott looked down at the remains of the snowball that was gracing his uniform.  “You did not just snowball me, did you? Scott scooped up a handful himself “You know what that means.....”   “You wouldn’t hit an old man in a sleigh?” Words were barely out of his mouth when Whumph... direct shot to the sleigh, there followed a rapid volley from the sleigh to the other two sons. Virgil and John only had time to cast a quick glance at each other when they realised what was going on before  Boooooffffff..... fluuuuufffff.......Thwaaaak!  

In the meantime, Scott was building a small cache of snowballs, ever prepared, ready to dive into the fray.  He decided that his chances were better if he and Jeff teamed up against Virgil and John.  Whilst  Jeff could quickly manoeuvre the sleigh out of some of the shots, not all could be avoided.  Virgil had the strength and John had the trajectory calculations going on in his head, weighing up the best type of snowball for the distances involved – enough to make a good splatter but not hard enough to cause damage to sleigh or person. The were quite a formidable team against age and experience.

“Okay, okay, I concede defeat” Jeff laughed as one final snowball splattered against his gloved hands raised in mock surrender.  It had been a long time since he’d seen them rosy cheeked in the cold air, just enjoying themselves, “Well, I think it’s definitely time to head back to the Island” John shivered as they loaded pod, Christmas tree and sleigh onto Two’s elevator.   “But we need to make a quick stop off en-route” added Virgil.  “What could we possibly need on Christmas eve that we haven’t already got” Jeff queried.  “Wait and see” was his reply.

Thunderbird Two took off as soon as everyone was strapped in.  Virgil and Scott in the pilot and co-pilot seats with Jeff and John behind in the passenger seats.  Jeff regarded his middle son who was staring out of the window “Penny for your thoughts” he said.  “Hmm? Oh it’s nothing, just daydreaming really”.  “Uh huh, and would that daydream have anything to do with a lovely young astronaut that’s waiting for you back home?” asked Jeff. 

 John could feel the heat creeping up to his cheeks  “Maybe, just idly looking forward to having a few days downtime together.  Our schedules rarely coincide, so it’ll be nice to spend a few days dirtside with her”.  “You thinking of bringing her into the family business?” Jeff asked.   John had not seen that one coming and, clearly agitated, tried to steer the conversation away. Truth be told, he had thought about it but that would imply a whole load of commitment he wasn’t sure either of them could give right now.  

“Not really thought about it to be honest” was all he offered.  “You sure could do with some additional help up there on Five and she is a fully trained astronaut ....and... well, I like her”  You could have knocked John down with a feather.  What the heck had happened to his father and who was this amiable alien who had taken over his body!

Vigil raised and eyebrow at Scott while all this conversation was going on, realising it was touching on a subject neither of them had even dared ask John about.  Scott quirked an eyebrow back, a small smile dancing at the corner of his mouth.  He’d love to stay and listen in but felt it was getting into personal territory that neither of them had a right to enter without invitation.

“Just stopping off here for a few minutes guys.  Scott, wanna come with?” Virgil asked, the please remained unsaid but was clear from his expression.  “Sure, we’ll be back in no time, no need to get up you two.” Scott replied as they both exited the cockpit.

“Ok, I know, it’s not my place to interfere” Jeff continued “but take it from someone who’s been there, when you find someone you just feel totally comfortable with, you don’t just let it slip away.  I’ve seen you two together John, the way you interact, believe me, I’ve never seen you look so comfortable with anybody outside this family, with the exception perhaps of  Penny.” 

Clearly blindsided, John being John, wanted a bit more clarification “Dad, when you said family business, you didn’t just mean International Rescue, did you?”  “Well son, that would be up to you” Jeff left the ball in John’s court. 

 “This thing we have, it’s quite new and we’re having to work round rotas, so we haven’t actually had a great deal of time together. Certainly not enough to make as big a decision as I think you’re suggesting”.    “Son, sometimes you just gotta trust your gut and leave your head and logic to one side. That’s all I’m saying”. 

Their conversation was interrupted by Scott and Virgil entering the cockpit with several boxes carrying the logo of a well known Swiss chocolatier and four steaming takeaway cups.  “Thought we could all use some hot chocolate” Virgil passed out the cups to welcoming hands. “Just what we needed. Got anything in these boxes to go with the cocoa?” Jeff asked. “Sadly, these are for home. I promised Kayo we’d pick up some goodies for everyone to enjoy with our Christmas mimosas and I’d hate to be the one to tell her they didn’t make it home.” Replied Virgil.  “Well it’s a good job I popped into the patisserie down the road while you were busy getting the drinks and got these”  Scott beamed, clearly collecting extra brownie points as he carefully opened the smaller box, revealing the most wonderful choux pastry creations liberally topped with dark and white chocolate ganache, lightly dusted with edible glitter and gold leaf.  “Wondered where you’d wandered off to” mumbled Virgil mid-chew, trying not to spray glitter everywhere.  “You’re not the only one who knows the little out of the way places” 

“Neither of you would know about either of those places if Eos and I hadn’t scoped them out first” John huffed.  He was pleased the conversation had moved on from the rather uncomfortable personal probing of earlier and was quite happy to keep it that way.

 “Call it teamwork” Virgil added as he slipped into the pilot’s chair.  “Well, from what I see, teamwork is certainly something you boys excel at and I couldn’t be prouder” Jeff added as he raised his hot chocolate in salute to his eldest three.

Waiting to meet them in the hangar were the two youngest, Alan bouncing on the balls of his feet, Gordon trying unsuccessfully to hide his delight at the size of the tree that was appearing from Two.  What they hadn’t expected to see was hidden behind the tree. “Oh my God!” Gordon exclaimed as he caught a glimpse of green and red.  He and Alan ran over to check out what had caught his eye and of course, check out the tree.  

Wow, it’s a beaut” enthused Gordon, gently stroking the machine.  “I thought you were all talk when you were going on about fixing up one of the old hover bikes”.  Virgil just shrugged, enjoying the youngster’s reaction to his handiwork. “You even painted on the flames!” Alan shrieked in delight.

“Well, hello to you too” said Jeff, slightly miffed but totally understanding of their enthusiasm for the new piece of kit rather than welcoming him back.

“Oh, hi dad” Alan finally waved, not taking his eyes off the machine. “You know, I was the one your brother allowed to test drive that thing” Jeff added.  That got their attention.  “Aw Virgil, I thought I was your favourite brother” whined Gordon “You know it’s always been me” replied Alan as they both turned towards there father, their interest piqued.  Virgil just rolled his eyes.  “So, how was she? Was she fast? Did you fall out? Did you test it to it’s limits?” so many questions tumbled from Alan who was now more interested in what his father had to say. “Walk me to the elevator and I’ll tell you all about it” said Jeff putting an arm around Alan’s shoulder.  “C’mon Gordon” Alan gestured for his brother to join him.  Gordon ran over, slipping quietly under Jeff’s other arm.  Jeff positively beamed as he finally had their full attention and a new tale to enthral them.  

The three older brothers looked at each other and smiled.  It’d been a long time since they’d seen their dad so relaxed and happy. 

Definitely the best day he’d had since returning from the Oort cloud and perhaps a new Christmas precedent had been set with the hoversleigh for future tree collecting.

End

[appleziel]

Tender Ache

Tw: forced feminization, noncon, implied torture

For @p-totel, @qouii and @salty-squid-queen, who are all awful enablers 

Theon couldn’t draw in enough oxygen, but that didn’t stop his lungs from trying. Shallow, straining breaths in and out. Tears gummed up his eyelashes. They clumped together when he blinked.

Kneeling over him, Ramsay smoothed his large hands up the streamlined shape of Theon’s waist, cinched and pinched as it was in the crushing grip of the corset.

“This is a good look for you, love,” he said, settling his hands into the dips of Theon’s hipbones. He stroked over the divots once with his thumbs. “It does wonders for your silhouette.” Mirth danced in his eyes and there was a cruel pinch to his smile. “Aren’t you happy I brought it home for you to wear with your dress, darling?”

Four months ago, Theon would have spat in his face for the condescending talk. Now, he fixed his eyes on the cabin’s support beams, counting their number. Maybe if he was boring, Ramsay would leave him alone. Sometimes that worked.

Usually, it didn’t. 

Judging by the jingle of the handcuffs that kept his wrists pinned above him to the headboard, he wasn’t optimistic about his chances.

Ramsay’s grip around his waist tightened. The added pressure was unbearable. Theon writhed abortively and gasped, “Yes,” just to make him stop.

“Yes…?”

Theon’s eyes burned. “Yes, love.” A pregnant silence. Fear churned in Theon’s gut. What else did Ramsay want him to say? He wracked his brain, stumbling through the slow fog that had crept in over the past few weeks. “I—I like it.”

Ramsay was still watching expectantly, ice-chip eyes glittering.

Theon moistened his lips. “It makes—it makes me feel small.” Inwardly, he cringed at himself. 

A smile broke out across Ramsay’s face. He lowered himself with a whumph to the mattress so that his wide chest shouldered open Theon’s legs. His breath gusted over Theon’s flat groin, concealed as it was under the gossamer-thin layers of the godawful pink dress he’d been forced into.

“My pretty darling,” Ramsay said, turning to brush his lips over the inside of Theon’s thigh. He closed his eyes for a moment, which was good, because it meant he missed Theon’s shudder. “Beautiful sweet girl. You’ve been so good for me. You deserve a reward.”

And so saying, he leaned forward to press his lips against—against that shameful spot, the area Theon tried to never think about and barely even looked at, even when washing himself. The light pressure, though muffled through the dress, was unbearable.

“No!” the sob wrenched out of him. Theon yanked at the handcuffs. “Ramsay—please, please, please don’t—”

“You know how I feel about ‘please,’” Ramsay reminded him absently as he moved his lips over the area. One eye cracked open; Theon felt like a butterfly fixed to a corkboard. His teeth began to chatter uncontrollably. As jumbled and disorganized as his thoughts were these days, he could not figure out how to word his pleas in a way that would make Ramsay listen.

Don’t bother touching me there, husband, let me use my mouth, maybe, except Ramsay had already used his mouth earlier today after Theon finished washing up the breakfast dishes.

Let me give you a handjob instead, except Theon’s remaining fingers were stiff and clumsy with pain.

I’d rather you beat me, except Theon was still recovering from the last one.

“No need to be shy, needy girl,” Ramsay murmured, and slipped both hands under the dress’s hem. They were ice-cold against his bare skin and crept up his thighs like fat white spiders. His hands were large enough, or maybe Theon’s thighs were wasted enough, that only a few inches of space remained between the ring made by his fingers. They pulled the hem of the dress up with them until Theon felt the kiss of cold air on that area and knew the fabric had been bunched at his waist.

Theon bit his lip so hard he bled. Of course he had seen the mutilation, in those awful months after its infliction. Usually when he was changing or figuring out how to relieve himself, even if it made his head hurt to see the injury. Ramsay had left his balls. Above them was a swollen bump of gnarled scar tissue—the remainder of the root of his cock. 

When a warm, wet tongue touched the shiny scar there, Theon shrieked.

“Sensitive,” Ramsay remarked, and bent back to his task. His tongue traced a slow, back-and-forth path, applying even pressure. Most of the nerve endings were too damaged to work properly anymore, but some still did, and in comparison to the dead zones, they felt like livewire sparks whenever Ramsay’s tongue glided over them. 

Theon tossed his head into the pillows fitfully. He wanted to bite into something, anything, to muffle his noises, but he couldn’t reach his arm. His brain couldn’t seem to make sense of the sensation. Cold, then hot, agony like a raw wound and then glitters of aching pleasure. Propped over Ramsay’s shoulder, his foot kicked helplessly.

“Is this how you pleasured those other girls?” Ramsay whispered into his freshly-wetted skin. “What was your technique, I wonder?” 

Somehow, the reminder of Theon’s past sexual encounters hurt even worse than the touch. Tears blurred his vision and streaked down his temples into his wild sweat-damp hair, spread out on the pillow. He wanted to sob, but his lungs couldn’t draw in enough air to do so.

Another touch entered the mix. Ramsay had wormed his hand up between his thighs, and now was pressing with his fingers in tight little circles over one of the live zones while his tongue darted in between them. Theon’s hips tilted up, stiff so that Ramsay’s touch would stay right there, right there—

Theon didn’t recognize the sound that dragged out of him. It belonged to an injured animal. 

Ramsay had to pause for a moment so he could hide his snicker in Theon’s thigh. “Do you like it when I touch your clitty?” When he looked back at Theon’s flushed face, he’d composed himself. “Communication is important, love. You can’t use your hands right now, so I need you to tell me what you want.” He paused, did another tight circle with his fingers. Theon’s hips jumped. “Where do you want me to touch you?”

It had been months since Theon felt any pleasure at all, and longer still since his body had had its chance to reach completion. The confusing mix of pleasure and pain crowded out all shame and dignity. He couldn’t stop himself even if he tried. In that moment, he wanted more than anything to shove his fingers in front of Ramsay’s and do it for himself, form a fist that he could rock against maybe—

“High—higher,” he choked, breathless, loathing himself. Ramsay obeyed his instructions and Theon moaned, a thin, helpless noise, thighs spreading wider in the tight confines of the bunched up dress. Spots of black swam at the edge of his vision. “Ah, to the right—lighter—y-your tongue, gods—” 

As he spoke, a sudden memory flashed in front of his eyes: him, holding a girl’s soft thighs apart so he could give it to her wet folds with long licks of his tongue while she squealed and pulled at his hair. He’d been so good at oral, every one of his partners had told him so. To be on the receiving end, in that disgusting spot of his body…his muscles clenched up in horror. For a moment, he wondered if he might be sick. Would that even stop Ramsay? 

Between his legs, Ramsay was going at it enthusiastically with long drags of the flat of his tongue. Sometimes he’d alternate, shaping it into a harder point and laving the tip in the gaps between his massaging fingers. Everything was so slippery now. Theon had a brief, delirious impression that somehow, he really did have a cunt down there—that Ramsay had reached in and sliced him open and rearranged his flesh until it was just the way he liked. In that disorienting second, he hated Ramsay more intensely than he ever had before, so much so that the feeling transcended itself and circled right back into a confusing, cringing adoration.

“Oh, gods,” he heard himself say, tortured. Another hard circle of Ramsay’s fingers. He tried to buck up, but couldn’t, stopped by the handcuffs. “Gods!” 

Something was building in his groin. It had been so long since he’d felt any real pleasure that for a few heartbeats, he thought it was the insistent demands of his bladder. But no, it was the heavy tide of warmth he remembered, starting at his groin and melting throughout the rest of his body. He curled up as much as he was able to between the handcuffs and the corset. Now that he recognized the sensation, it seemed to rise even faster, rushing through his toes and ears and even the ends of his hair—

Ramsay pressed an open-mouthed kiss to the scar and sucked, one long, perfect pulse.

Theon came.

It wasn’t exactly the way he remembered it, but gods, it was good, so good. The thin muscles in his hamstrings trembled uncontrollably and his toes curled. Through the sea of white-hot pleasure, he was vaguely horrified by the sensation of warm liquid seeping down his thighs.

“You’re leaking!” Ramsay said, delighted. “You really do come like a girl now!” He laughed cruelly, rubbing Theon’s release between his fingers.

Theon barely heard him. The orgasm still had him in its wave. There was no room for thought of anything else. The grey tinge to his vision seemed to expand like soft down, covering his eyes and muffling his ears. He could not breathe.

Far away, he felt Ramsay wipe his fingers clean on the dress, and then the numb softness swept over his skin and severed that feeling too. Theon gratefully tipped backwards into unconsciousness and knew no more.

[northelypark]

I wish you'd write a fic where...Bernard. Just Bernard. (and maybe a tongue-tied Clive who forgets how to human because he's in the presence of a beautiful chess goddess :)

Apparently I can’t even write a drabble without turning it into a 2000+ word fic. But thanks, friendo~ I had way too much fun with this. 

Bernard and Clive have their first ever heart-to-heart.

Finally.

Bernard shut his Maths textbook with a satisfying whumph. Now that homework was out of theway, it was time for a bit of leisure reading before bedtime. He turned to hisbookshelf, scanning the top right corner where all his current reads were shelved.Gibson’s The Perception of the Visual World, a shorter work by Bandura onaggression and social cognitive theory, and a few of his father’s old issues ofthe Journal of the Chemical Society (nothis favorite subject, but several of the articles had caught his interest).

He stroked his chin, considering each in turn. It was adifficult choice, but he finally decided on Gibson. There was one chapter inparticular that had given him trouble the other day and he wanted to see ifcouldn’t straighten out what the old bloke was going on about.

Settling in the small crevice between his desk and hisdresser (a new reading spot that was surprisingly comfortable), he cracked openthe musty hard-cover to the page his tattered bookmark had saved.

He had just broken into the first sentence when anexcruciating sound flailed his ears.

Thud, thud.

Bernard swore. Never failed. At least it wasn’t coming fromthe ceiling this time.

“I heard that,” came the unruffled reply.

“Good.”

Bernard squeezed himself out from hisreading spot and opened the door. Clive was waiting for him on the other side.He wore casual clothes, layered, suitable for an evening made cool by the spring shower that had let up only that afternoon.

“What.”

“Are you ready?”

Bernard gazed blankly at him.

Clive’s eyelids dropped, hooding his eyes in apatheticannoyance.

“You forgot, didn’t you?”

Forgot… A terrible dread writhed in Bernard’s stomach. Hispeaceful evening. Ruined. What had he forgotten? A meeting in the “secrethideout”? Some plan to break into a restricted area of the school? Spying onthe Patrol whilst they performed ridiculous rituals?

“The London Symphony Orchestra?”

Bernard shut his eyes. Even worse then he’d expected. But heremembered now. It had all been Gemma’s idea, of course. The London SymphonyOrchestra was holding a free concert in a park near the school that evening.Dreycott’s choir director had arranged for a bus to take any pupils who wereinterested in attending. When Gemma had found out, she had insisted they all gotogether. Something about doing more “fun” things together besides working onexposing the school’s layers of corruption and secrets. As if that wasn’tenough.

“Oh, that,” Bernard crossed his arms, “No. I changed mymind. I’m not going. I’ll weather Gemma’s wrath tomorrow.”

Despite the lingering threat of facing Gemma, he allowedhimself a small, smug smile. Nothing quite so satisfying as canceling one’splans and remaining a recluse for the evening.

“Gemma dropped out,” Clive said, “Emergency drama practice.”

“Oh? Good. Let’s all drop out, then.”

Clive hesitated, his hand moving to fiddle with his collar.Bernard prepared for the worst.

“It’s just…Amelia is rather keen on going now, I think.”

“Okay. Then you two go together. Problem solved.”

A look of panic crossed Clive’s face, as if a train wasbarreling down at him and his foot was caught in the track.

“Are you sure youdon’t want to come? You like the orchestra, don’t you?”

“Not especially.”

Why that pleading look in his eyes? Bernard had known Clivefor almost two years now, but he had never seen his friend look so desperately miserableas he did now.

“I know Amelia wanted you to come.”

Amelia. Clive’s eyes had darted to the side when he’d spokenher name and his collar-fiddling had increased slightly. He knew how to concealhis emotions well, but Bernard prided himself in his ability to read even themost guarded of persons. When he felt like it, anyway.

So. That was it. He was just needed as a sort of third wheelto keep the outing from becoming awkward. Or something. Which was ridiculous.Weren’t the two always off playing chess alone together? Why was cramming intothe back of a sweaty bus in order to cram into the back of a sweaty crowd tolisten to some strains of Mozart by musicians who knew they weren’t gettingpaid any different?

Bernard sighed. Clive was still looking at him with thoseoncoming-train eyes. If he wanted to keep his evening to himself, he’d either have to convincehis friend to stay or convince him to go. He would undoubtedly think it ungentlemanly tolet Amelia go by herself, so that left the other option.

“Come in,” Bernard said, turning on his heel.

“But what – ”

“Shut up and come in or I’ll charge double for my services.”

Clive followed him into the room and sat down on the edge ofhis bed, raising his eyebrows skeptically.

“Your services.”

“Yes. I’m going to diagnose your problem and offer suitablerecommendations for solving it.”

Bernard sat down at his desk, retrieving a notepad and pencil. If hewas honest, he and Clive mainly communicated through quips, insults,and their shared interests in reading and sarcasm. As muchas he hated to admit it, Clive was the closest thing he had to a brother, arather paltry wish he had given up on years ago.  But they rarely talked about any problemsthey had. Not seriously anyway. Bernard wasn’t even sure he could carry on aconversation like that…what did they call it? A heart-to-heart. He shuddered.It sounded like some type of high-risk surgery.

Still. Clive was his friend and it was evident he need a bitof encouragement. Bernard had a feeling that even if he did decide to tagalong, Clive would remain miserable. There had been something between him and Amelia for awhile now. Something neither seemed capable or willing to properly address. Perhaps there was a way to save hisevening of leisure reading and ease Clive’s anxiety without sacrificing eitherof their dignity…or at least his own. He had to have a bit of fun along theway, after all.

“The bus leaves in five minutes,” Clive said, “And I don’t have a problem.”

“That’s all the time I need. And you do have a problem. Myanalysis of your sorry face tells me everything.”

Clive closed his eyes.

“Why do you do this?”

“To torture you. Also, to help you using the latest in clinical psychology. Now, what are your symptoms? Particularly when you’re around Amelia.”

“I don’t know. This is ridiculous.”

“Answer the question or I’ll have to pry it out of you usingunethical methods.”

“Unethical methods,” Clive cocked an eyebrow, “You’re threatening my life, aren’t you?”

“Yes. Now answer the question. You’ll feel better. Maybe. Probably not, but answer it anyway.”

Clive rubbed his forehead.

“I don’t know,” he sighed, “Sometimes nothing. I just feelnormal around her. But other times, it’s as if all the air is being sucked out of me,as if I’m screaming inside. Into the void of space. Or I wish I could besucked into space. One of the two.”

“Hm. Yes,” Bernard looked up with a professional frown, “It’s most definitely infatuation. Textbookexample. A horrible disease, really. But not without known treatment options.”

Clive’s furious blushing was all the evidence he needed.

“What? No. I – ”

“Shut up, please,” Bernard scribbled in his notebook. “Nowthe preferred treatment option is to become a hermit and avoid all humancontact for the remainder of your life.”

“Bernard – ”

“Or to remind yourself daily of the crushing weight of your own fragile and meaningless existence.”

“Okay, I get it.”

Clive sighed again, his creased brow and slash of a frown revealinga mixture of irritation and impatience.

Bernard stopped writing. Perhaps he really was no good atthis sort of thing.

“I’m kidding,” he rolled his pencil between his fingers.

What to say? Hisdiagnosis was only half the story. It wasn’t just a matter of infatuation.Clive and Amelia were friends. They’d been through a lot together this pastyear. Cared a great deal for one another.

He racked his brain for suitable words. Words that wouldn’tcome out biting and sharp as they usually did. Advice that could help and not simplyadd salt.

Think.

He’d fancied a girl in primary school once. But then she’dstuck gum in his hair when he tried teaching her what the word photosynthesismeant. No good. He continued to pick through the last fourteen years. Lookingfor something useful.

And then, out of countless gray memories, one took form that didn’t seem to relate to Clive’s problem at all. Old, but strangely luminous. 

It was of when he and his parents had lived in that housenear the empty lot, overgrown with trees and sagging bushes. It had been abusy, and stressful, time for his parents, he recalled, when both had beenworking long days and longer nights at one of London’s biggest hospitals. Theyweren’t around much, but when he did see them they still smiled and talked andpoked fun at the other. And sometimes they would shove everything aside, allthe bills and paperwork and to-do-lists and go to that empty lot. His dad wouldlight a small fire in a homemade fire-pit, as if they were out in the middle ofthe woods, instead of the middle of London. It was most likely illegal, but noone was ever around to care. And then they would take turns reading to him, ashe was still too small to quite know how to do it himself.

Sometimes he would end up nearly asleep, curled up in the lap of oneor the other, but still alert enough to listen to their conversations.Sometimes they’d argue. Quietly. But other times they’d simply talk about howthe other’s day went. And that was enough to reassure him for the time being.

Clive stood.

“I’ve got to go. I’ll just tell her that – ”

“That you’ll go,” Bernard said, “I think you two should go. And I’m not just saying that because I want you to leave me alone.”

Clive’s brow creased, but he waited. Bernard shrugged, stillturning the memory in his mind.  “Tomorrow we’ll all be back to being busy. Dry lectures. Bland food. Four-page essays. Exposing evil livingstatues. Better take a break while you can and, I don’t know, it’s good to gosomewhere for a while with someone. To check-up on each other and sharebeing miserable, even. To remind yourself that even though you hate most everyone, there’s still one or two or three people you can stand to be with.”

He was rambling. Why was he rambling? What was he evensaying? “I guess what I’m trying to say is, maybe you’ll look back and regret notspending more time with certain people if you’re only ever worried about things. And by the time you realize it – well…” He shruggedagain, “That’s it, then.”

Clive remained silent, rubbing his chin. Considering.

Bernard looked away. He never usually wished to take backwhat he said, but he did now.  Because itwas stupid or because it was true? And if it was true, what did that make him?

There was a long pause before Clive finally spoke again, his voice quiet and thoughtful.

“I’d better go find her then, before the bus leaves.”

Bernard stood, feeling a bit disoriented.

“I’ll go with you. Make sure you don’t run away.”

Amelia was waiting for them at the bottom of the steps to the girls’dormitories. She wore a jumper with a white pawn stitched across the front, rain-boots, anda peach ribbon in her hair.

Bernard noticed Clive looked ready to pass out. He placed asteadying hand on his back.

Amelia smiled teasingly when she saw them.

“There you two are. Thought you might have gotten lost.Ready to go?”

“Yes, but Bernard’s decided to stay and read in his darkenedroom,” Clive said.

“Oh, so – ”

“Yes, just, er, just me and you, if that’s alright?”

“Oh, um – alright. I’m mean, yes, if it’s alrightwith you…”

Bernard looked between the two of them, blushing andstammering and fiddling with collars and hair, and wished he were blind anddeaf and living in Antarctica. 

“Alright. Time to go. Get out of here now,” he said, shooingthem along.

Amelia waved.

“See you, Bernard.”

“Thanks, mate,” Clive said. He smiled, but his eyes were solemn. 

Bernard nodded.

His friend’s smile shifted to a cheeky grin, “You know, you make a pretty good therapist.“

“I’m glad you think so,” he grumbled, “I expect my fees by tomorrow. One hundred quid per minute, so, that’ll be five-hundred, altogether.”

Clive’s grin faded.

Returning to his room, Bernard watched the two out the windowas they made their way towards the long drive where the bus stood idling in the pale dusk. They were laughing at something or other, dodging puddles, shoulders brushingnow and then. The bus honked and Amelia grabbed Clive’s hand, pulling him alongso he nearly tripped over his own clownish feet.

A tolerable match, Bernard decided, allowing a faint smile.He gave himself a mental pat on the back. His good deed was done for the week. Maybe it would make up for being a hypocrite. 

Then again, he thought, as the stars came out, sometimes it’s necessary to be miserable alone, too. 

With this in mind, he slipped back into his dark, dusty creviceand cracked open his book once more.

[desdemonafictional]

Super City

I guess it’s time for an Actual Superhero Au 

JTHM 

Edgar Vargas was pouring himself a cup of coffee from the communal coffee maker in the break room when the silent alarm started flashing over the doorway. He gave a deep sigh and wiped the “10” from the hanging whiteboard with his elbow, so that now it read It Has Been 0 Days Since Our Last Bullshit. He’d just finished shaking his sleeve back down over his wrist when the teller threw open the break room door, panting.

“Edgar,” she said, “we need you out front!”

There wasn’t even any sugar in his coffee yet. “Deb, you don’t need me. You just need to wait for the police or the capes to show up, whichever gets here first.”

Her teeth clicked together. “It’s Nny’s gang,” she said.

Edgar looked down at his coffee, up at her, and then shoved a handful of sugar packets into his pocket. “Alright,” he said. “Show me out.”

Out in the main lobby of the bank, people were scattered across the floor, hands over their heads, a few of the weaker constituted ones whimpering or praying. Edgar skirts them on his way to the commotion at the tellers, stirring his coffee. Johnny is shouting at someone behind the bulletproof glass, gesturing sharply with something wickedly pointed, possibly a scimitar, while five of his black-suited regulars keep an eye on the cowering crowd.

Tess sees Edgar first, as she flips through a series of pages on her clipboard. She gives him a knowing sardonic look and then taps Johnny on the shoulder. He whirls, sword swiping through the air where her head was a moment before, as she ducks easily out of the way. He spots Edgar. He lights up.

“Hello Nny,” Edgar says, giving a little wave. “What are we trying to buy today?”

Tess taps her brass knuckles against the clipboard. “You know we can’t tell you that Edgar. When the police take you in for questioning--”

“Dirty bomb,” Nny says brightly, leaving the sighing Tess behind him as he trots over. Unlike Tess, who is fastidious about her little domino mask and her identity--Edgar has been polite enough not to mention that he already knows, they do shop at the same Krogers and she has a very distinctive voice--Johnny is always one bare face and an itchy trigger finger from disaster. Edgar is given to understand he doesn’t really leave his lair except for the express purpose of enacting mayhem.

Nny lives solely for wiping Santa Carla right off the map, the bigger and uglier the splatter pattern the better, although whether that comes from a real devotion to the cause or just a lack of other interests is anybody’s guess. He certainly allows himself to be distracted easily enough.

“I need at least a grand to get a hold of the really nasty stuff,” Nny says, “but these cretins won’t hand over the cash, which is extremely inconsiderate of them.”

When Nny first started coming out into daylight, with his manic monologues and devastating weapons, for a month or so there everyone in Santa Carla really thought they were going to die.

“They’re just doing their jobs,” Edgar points out mildly.

“I know,” Nny says, stomping his boot against the marble floor, “but they could at least have the decency to come out here so I could get a hostage. Speaking of which--you don’t mind, do you?”

“Go ahead.”

“Thanks!” Nny says, and in a flash he’s behind Edgar’s back, the curved blade of his long sword hovering over Edgar’s throat. Edgar balances the coffee carefully as Nny yanks his free arm tight behind his back. “I really didn’t wanna have to blow up your bank. I know how much you like it.”

Johnny’s gang, consisting of two long term crewmates and a revolving door of dumb muscle, comes by the bank at least once every couple of months, and has done for a couple years. There are other banks in town, but they never hit any of those, which leads Edgar to suspect that they come here specifically to see him. It’s a bit sweet, although he’d get more work done if he wasn’t been held hostage every couple of days. Last week he went out to pick up milk from the corner store and ended up in the middle of a showdown with the Doughboy gang and it goes without saying which pedestrian they decided to drag into their getaway car. He missed dinner and everything. They did let him have some of their toast, though.

He doesn’t know what it is about him that makes this happen. It’s not like he goes looking for it. He always seems to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

The knife at his throat nicks him as Nny leans past him and shouts, very much in his ear, “Alright you putrescent boils on the zitty face of capitalism, let’s try this again! I wanna make it to the ice cream shop before they close!”

Edgar gives the guys behind the glass a reassuring smile, and they slink back, unlocking their drawers. They’ve all bought a fair amount of time together, at this point it’s really up to the capes and the cops to pick up the slack.

He gives the room another look over, as his coworkers fumble to comply. “Where’s Mmy?” he asks. “It’s unusually quiet today.”

He can actually hear Nny grinding his teeth, which is a bad thing to hear when you have a knife at your throat.

“He’s on lookout,” Nny tells him, “because he got his disgusting verminous bloody hands all over my NICE JACKET!”

Edgar winced.

“Anyway!” Nny said, brightening instantaneously. “We’re gonna get some ice cream after we’re done here, you wanna come along? I can have one of the idiots hold a knife on you if you’re worried about being an accomplice.”

On the one hand, some cookie dough ice cream did sound pretty good. “Sorry Nny,” he said, “I can’t today. I’m already behind on everything after that incident with the Doughboys.”

“Shit. Those uppity fuckers. They didn’t do anything nasty to you did they? ‘Cause I brought them into this world and I wouldn’t fucking mind taking them out of it.”

Edgar doesn’t really understand how that’s possible and, furthermore, would rather not find out. He starts to reassure Nny that he is perfectly unharmed when a dull whumph from the other side of the window startles him. He turns his head, just in time to see the window blown in by the force of a human being thrown bodily through it--a deadly rain of glittering glass and the meteoric body in flight overhead--

Mmy hits the floor and skids to a stop at Edgar’s feet, a mess of blood and fishnets and shining buckles. He uncurls and blinks up into the light with his bare face and smeared eyeliner, the long knife in his hand not yet bloodied.

“Oh,” he says, flashing a 100 watt smile, “Edgar! Hey! Are you coming for ice cream?”

“Jimmy!” Tess shouts from across the floor, “Who’s out there!”

Jimmy screws up his face. “Oh,” he says. “It’s Durga.”

Edgar hears Tess say Shit at the same time that the knife completely disappears from his throat. He has just enough time to duck behind one of the pillars before a motorcycle tears out what remains of the window and crashes in a mangled heap across the marble, tearing deep grooves in the stone.

“My bike!” Mmy whines, although nobody is listening.

Durga comes striding through the window, glass scattering under her feet, and leaps down onto the floor. Her long coat sweeps out around her as she lifts herself from her crouch. She fixes the full incendiary power of her glare on Nny, who is bouncing on his heels in anticipation.

She is just as terrifyingly intense as always.

“You assholes caught me at a really bad time,” she says. The skull shape of her half-mask is almost as white as her skin. She spares a finger wiggle as she adds, tiredly, “Hey Edgar.”

“What a pleasant surprise!” Nny says, and he drops the scimitar, riffling around in the lining of his own coat for something, pulling pockets open and peering down into them. “I thought it was going to be one of those philistines on the police force. You’re looking stunning, by the way, have you bulked up?”

“Johnny you piece of shit,” she says, “compliment me one more time and I’ll rip your tongue out.”

“It would be my pleasure. Ah!” From the shadows of his coat, where it absolutely should not have fit, Nny draws out the wicked curve of a sickle. “I haven’t seen you since, um. Well god damn, there goes my fucking memory. How are you though?”

Devi reaches a hand behind her neck, head tilting with a snap, rolling her shoulders as she draws out, knot by knot, the long bloody whip of vertebra and shining cartilage. It hits the ground like a snake, heavy and sinuous, a deadly thing to hold in your hands. As it always does when he’s unlucky enough to witness the hero making a mess of her own body, Edgar’s stomach churns.

“These are not,” she says, “good times to be around me.”

Nny nods, sympathetically. “Well then the last thing you need is me trying to make small talk with you,” he says, and flicks the blade of the sickle. “Let’s just try to kill each other, how about that?”

“You read my mind,” she says, and leaps across the floor.

At this point, Edgar has to look away. He gets queasy every time he sees the two of them going at it--the things that she pulls out of her own skeleton, good god, and the way that Nny knits back together after he’s been split down to the kidneys on one of those wicked bones? It’s not something a man should have to see more than once in his life.

In the crashing and shrieking and clatter of edge against stone, Edgar is forgotten enough that he can retreat to the far wall and finish off his cooling coffee. After a moment, like a slug moving his way through his own trail of blood, Mmy pulls himself over and props himself up against the same wall, watching the showdown with rapturous delight.

The things Mmy finds entertaining--well, there has to be a reason he picked the career he did.

“Isn’t he something?” Mmy says, the side of his mouth pressed to the black hilt of his knife. “Damn, look at him go. Now that’s a real doomsday device.”

Edgar sips his coffee. He thinks what he can hear Johnny shouting is some kind of a compliment, although if that’s the case then there’s something to be said for not talking out loud about how beautiful a woman’s bones are.

“They used to date, didn’t they?” he says, ignoring the rain of fingers that bounce off the marble several feet away. He doesn’t want to know whose they are.

Jimmy wrinkles his nose. “I dunno,” he says. “Nny doesn’t tell me stuff like that.”

For a second the narrow slant of Mmy’s eyes takes on a volatile cast, a chemical dangerous when shaken, but then it’s gone as soon as it appeared. He grins against the nylon handle.

“Anyway, all that shit’s in the past! Now he’s got us.”

Edgar glances sidelong at the villain. He’s not sure what us entails, but he doubts Nny would be so quick to agree.

It’s just another bothersome tuesday, a bad news day for the janitors who have to clean up the blood and fingers, but nothing Edgar hasn’t seen a dozen times before. He is already thinking about the errands he needs to run after work, if he can manage to avoid getting caught up in this super business twice in one day, and the toner that needs replacing--and basically he is not worried about any of it, except as far as keeping his clothes clean goes, which is why when the shot lands, he never sees it coming.

It hits him like lightning, in the space between one breath and the next, in the space between one rib and the next.

The last thing he knows for a long time is that sound of his own startled breath, not enough time even to wonder, as he will wonder--why me, of all people?

[toonerdyandiknowit]

Hardware

Part 2

You just wanted to live a normal life, damnit! Also, bonding with Tony.

I’m not sure how many chapters this thing is going to be, but I’m aiming for about 5.

Little bit angsty! 

[Y/N] = Your Name

[Y/H/L] = Your hair length

[Y/H/C] = Your hair colour

"So..." you hummed, "Now what?"

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

The answer to that was, apparently, move in with the Avengers.

Your new place was nice, sure. All your things had been moved and placed the way you liked them in your bedroom and living room. Stark "Call me Tony" had even gifted you with an amazing bookshelf after his first "welcome to the building" visit a week and a half ago.

You were a bit of a book hoarder, with no particular bias towards any one genre. You even had an "Engineering for dummies" that had sat gathering dust since you first discovered your powers. You'd reasoned, at the time, that you should probably know something about what you could do on instinct. You quickly gave up. Mostly, though, you just had sci-fi and fantasy. Either way, you'd never invested in buying a bookshelf yourself, preferring to just pile them up on any available space, a process you had brought over to your new place.

You'd been a little mortified when you realised he must have overseen the organisation of the enormous bookshelf himself (or maybe he just did it all, something that gave you nightmares). You were leaning towards the latter, especially when you realised all your, ahem, adult novels, had been organised by colour on the bottom shelf - and each was covered in post-its with winky faces on. You were also pretty sure there were new ones added to the collection. You were going to have to have a chat about boundaries.

The kitchen was downstairs in the community area, huge and always well stocked, seeing as it was a communal kitchen for the whole team. Thankfully your rooms came with their own bathroom and it was to die for. Also huge, the bath could seat four, had a Jacuzzi setting and built in mood lighting. There was a T.V. in the wall opposite the bath, and the remote was built into the side of the tub. The shower was also within sight of the T.V. and had more settings than you knew what to do with.

Every room was tastefully decorated in your style and in your favourite colour. All in all, living in the base was pretty great.

There was only one, teeny, tiny, problem.

The place was crawling with Avengers.

They were always trying to get you involved in their group discussions, which Tony was always somehow absent for, and at first it seemed nice. Like they were trying to get to know you and make you comfortable. It became quickly apparent that wasn't the case. They spoke about super hero things you didn't understand or want to know about, and you were treated as though that was some kind of failure on your part.

The truth was you weren't interested in the newest work out or the latest weaponry. You didn't care about how their new outfits were so much better for field work compared to the old ones. You didn't want to trade opinions about the state of this country or that country, and when would be the right time to interfere in this situation or that situation. You didn't care about being an Avenger.

It was not a popular opinion.

"If you don't want to use your powers for good, then why have them at all?" Spat Wanda one day. You'd made the mistake of comparing your situations - sure, you both had powers, but you didn't want to use them the way she did.

"Look," you sighed, pushing your half eaten bowl of cereal away, "I didn't choose this, ok? I didn't sign up, or volunteer, or whatever, for these powers. I wasn't soldier or a spy before I got them. I was a student. An English Literature student." You raised your brows, hoping that that would be enough to get the message across.

"But..." started Hawk.

"Look, no. Just no." you barked, standing, "I've been trying to play nice here why you all prodded and poked at me, trying to figure my powers out, but enough. Once your pals at SHEILD decide I can have my life back, that’s what I'm doing: Going back to my life. I fix things because my powers mean I can - and don't have to actually know anything about what I'm fixing."

" [Y/N] If you have the power to make a difference," intoned Steve, "Don't you think it's your responsibility to do something?"

"Tell me something Captain, do you think everyone who takes self defence, everyone who knows how to fire a gun, everyone who knows martial arts, do you think they should all join the army?" you snap.

"Of course not." he scoffs.

"Well? Why not? They have abilities, they can fight and look after themselves. How many times do I have to tell you? I am not a soldier. I was a librarian. Now apparently I'm the best, most ignorant mechanic alive. I do not want to be an Avenger. And no amount of whinging, complaining, or guilt trips, will change my mind." You tossed the last few sentences over your shoulder as you stormed out.

You'd never liked conflict. Sure, you'd sass your way in and out of all sorts of situations, and you'd throw a punch if you had to...but no. Conflict and arguments were not your forte.

Your feet seemed to know where to take you, even if your head wasn't caught up in the act, and you found yourself cautiously tapping at the glass doors of Tony's lab. He grinned when he saw you, hopping over to open the door for you.

"Hey Sparky, been wondering when you'd take up my invitation to come play engineer." He laughed, turning back to his desk to tinker with a pile of circuit boards. On the surface, they made no sense to you, but when you closed your eyes and focused, you could feel the little guys humming with...something. That indefinable something that let you understand tech of all kinds.

"Hm." You grunted, flicking your eyes open and darting them across the lab. Every surface was littered with electrical gear, tools, wiring, pipes and god knows what else. Some walls had burn marks and others had chunks missing piles of dust and rubble scattered around them.

"Sparky?" You heard, twisting your head to look Tony in his concerned puppy eyes, standing much closer than he was a minute ago.

"You're shaking."

It wasn't until he said it that you realised he was right, a shiver had set in deep in your bones, wracking your body with minute quakes as you folded in on yourself.

"Ok, what's going on?" Tony asked, his voice concerned, but tinged with an underlying sharpness as he slowly reached out an arm to touch your shoulder.

"I just.." you sighed, grabbing fistfuls of your [Y/H/L] [Y/H/C] hair to brush it back off your forehead, dislodging Tony's hand as you did so, "I don't like conflict. Arguments, raised voices. And all everyone wants to talk about is if I'm going to be an Avenger."

You cursed silently as you realised your voice was shaking too, and your shivers were getting stronger as you started to get angry.

"And no matter how many times I tell them no, I'm not going to be, I don't want to be...they still just keep pushing. Trying to make me feel bad." Folding your arms across your chest, you looked at the ground, waiting for Tony to tell you that they were right. That you were being selfish, that you don't get to have a normal life because you're not normal anymore.

"Steve said that I have a responsibility to help people, cause I have these stupid powers. He made it sound like I don’t have a choice." Your voice was low and miserable as you hung your head.

You chanced a look at Tony, and couldn't help but flinch at the angry look you found there.

"Alright Sparks," he sighed, scratching at the back of his head, "Come take a seat."

You dawdled behind Tony as he led the way to a worse for wear leather sofa, and you couldn't help the way your lips twitched up as he threw all the gear strewn across it onto the floor. He fell back into the seat with a whumph, and sat staring straight ahead, waiting for you to sit down, but not trying to rush you.

You sat, curled in on yourself slightly as the shivers finally started to die down, though they didn't completely go away in the face of your assumption that Tony was about to start yelling too.

"Rogers seems to be forgetting that we picked you up to register you, not recruit you." He started, and you frowned as you turned to look at him, though he continued staring straight ahead, "See, he, and the others, have this thing about heroism. And the idea that some people don't want the lives they lead is...I dunno, they're a bunch of idiots that think they know best in all things to do with the safety of the planet. My point is," here he turned to look at you, "Any idiot could see you're not cut out for this life. I mean, they raise their voices and you turn into a shivering mess. No offence... and one of these days you're gonna tell me why that is. But for now, I'll talk to them. Try to get them to back off a little. In the mean time, you're welcome to come down here and talk shop with me, or just come down on your own, whenever you need a time out from them."

As he finished his little speech, your shivering finally stopped, and you watched with wide eyes as he looked up at the ceiling and told Friday to give you clearance to the lab, whilst making sure that everyone else on the team (with the exception of Bruce) couldn't enter without being let in by someone with authorisation.

The action reminded you of when you'd spoken briefly with Spider-Man, back when you first arrived, and he'd told you he didn't live with the others. He was still just a kid under the mask, went to school and lived with his aunt, and only Tony knew his real identity. Spidey (He said you could call him that, he actually preferred it over "Kid", as Tony had taken to calling him in front of the team) said out of everyone, Tony seemed to understand wanting to balance a normal life with hero work the best. You were shocked when he told you it was Tony who tried to talk him out of being Spider-Man until he was done with school, and that Steve had actually tried to get him to move in with the Avengers, even though he'd said no.

You didn't think Steve, or the rest of the team, were bad guys...but they were starting to sound more and more like they wanted to collect powered people to defend the world. Whether they liked it or not.

"Thank you." You were in awe. You'd naturally gotten along with Tony from day one, well...after you’d exchanged a few snide comments about kidnapping and Stockholm syndrome,  but you knew he was Iron Man, an original Avenger. And you'd thought he'd be on their side. But when you thought about it...

"Why did you even come back?" The words were out of your mouth before you could take them back, "I mean, never mind."

"No no, you wanna know why I'm still here, after everything that happened with the Accords?" he chirped, seemingly cheerful as he jumped up to continue his tinkering.

"Well, the world was in danger, yadda yadda yadda, same old same old. By the time the dust had cleared we'd all fallen back into our old roles and it just seemed like a waste of time to pick at healing wounds." His voice had grown harder as he pulled at a stubborn piece of machinery.

You knew a little of what had happened, and what you did know pointed towards most of the others turning on Tony for trying to do the right thing, ending with one of the team paralysed. You felt bad for picking at that particular wound, especially since, despite what Tony said, it didn't seem like it was healing all that well. Standing up and following him to the work bench, you peeked over his shoulder.

Focusing of the lump of metal in his hands, you asked it what was wrong.

"That bit."

"Huh?"

"You said to talk shop...so, um, it says that that bit is wiggled too far to the left and that it's disrupting the flow?" You glanced up at him sheepishly as he looked at you with raised eyebrows, before turning to glare at the contraption in his hand.

Passing him the small pair of tweezers by your hand, you giggled as he swore under his breath, trying to realign the wonky piece.

Sliding it into what you could only assume was some sort of software reader, data suddenly sprung up onto the nearby screen and Tony let out a shocked laugh.

"It told you?" He asked, a genuine smile in place as he glanced between you and the screen.

"Well, yeah? It's kinda how my power works, I guess I talk to the equipment."

"Really?" he asked, spinning to face you properly, "Well, what else is the stuff in the lab saying?"

You laughed, pleased to be of some use around here, and pleased to have taken his mind off of the darker aspects of your conversation, and spun in a slow circle with your eyes closed.

There was a lot of half finished stuff here, but mostly everything was singing happily. A smile wormed its way onto your face as you listened.

"There's a few things calling out for you to come finish fixing them but mostly.."

"Mostly what?"

"Mostly it's singing."

"Singing?" he asked sceptically.

"Well, what do you expect machines to do when they're happy and working perfectly?" you sassed, your tone indicating that this was a piece of obvious information.

"All right, all right, Sparky. Damn, wish I could hear that." The wistfulness in his voice made you twist your lips in sympathy, when a strange new voice in the song caught you attention.

"Well, now who are you?" You called over to the robot in the corner, whose “voice” told you it wanted to come say hi.

Pushing your power out, you stroked along its power base until it purred, rolling your way for more attention.

"That's Dum-E." said Tony, raising his eyebrows at the whizzing and churring coming from his robotic assistant.

"He's a sweetie!" you crooned, reaching to rub your hands under Dum-E's claw slash head, simultaneously continuing to stroke his electrical currents with your powers. Dum-E stretched his head out and twisted it to the side like a cat being fussed in just the right spot.

You stayed that way for a few minutes, allowing yourself to lose the days worries while you fussed over the sweet-natured machine. When you finally looked up, Tony was watching you fondly, a new piece of machinery to tinker with in his hands.

"You sure are something else Sparky."

[dulcidyne]

Experiments in Diplomacy: Inspecting [6/?]

//Jaal x Ryder // Humor. Romance. SFW //  Me:A Spoilers// Catch up on Ao3

Good in theory . Her new life motto. If there’s a tattoo parlor in Kadara port (and why wouldn’t there be? Every seedy underbelly of the galaxy needs an equally seedy tattoo parlor), she’s going to get it embossed across her forehead. Double shielding? Good in theory. In execution, however…

Se-ah can’t remember if she washed her hair already, so she upends the Vetra-procured, limited-edition ‘Blasto Saves Christmas’ novelty shampoo bottle and vivid, gelatinous pink goops out onto her palm. She doesn’t know if the brand-marketing geniuses had ‘irradiated slime’ in mind when they rolled this product out, or if something terribly wrong happened during 600 years of dark space, but she doesn’t care and lathers it into her hair anyway. It doesn’t burn and it smells decent so long as you happen to enjoy the scent of congealed Tupari sports drink, which she does.

SAM tried to warn her. It wasn’t just the spatial issue of enclosing one kinetic shield within another on that scale, although that was a two-day migraine for her and Jaal, it was the power draw . Shields draw a huge amount from her hardsuit’s power cells. And while the omni-tool interface in her armor is wired on a separate circuit to avoid--

Pausing, she examines the shampoo bottle in her hand. Did she wash her hair already? A shower sounded like a good alternative to shouting at Margaret when the last power cycling trial turned up the same results as all the other ones before. Bad results, ‘try this in the field and you’ll short out your shields’ results. But while water a few degrees below scalding is doing wonders for her healing injuries, what she really needs is some sleep.

Sleep. Another ‘good in theory’ idea.

Frustrated, she rips up the rest of a half-peeled away ‘Sale!’ sticker from Blasto’s face (er...the hanar equivalent of a face) printed onto the front of the bottle.

“This one knows if you’ve been bad or good,” she reads aloud from the quote bubble no longer covered by the sticker.

As far as cinematic masterpieces go, ‘Blasto Saves Christmas’ is criminally underrated no matter what Liam says. How could anyone hate the movie that gave the galaxy the song ‘This one saw it’s genetic progenitor enkindling Santa Claus’ ? And elcor Santa. Jollily: Ho. Ho. Ho.

She slumps against the shower wall and watches ribbons of pink water vortex around the drain. Nothing ever goes the way it should.   

Beneath the crisply folded clothing just outside the shower, something begins to beep.

“Pathfinder, workbench telemetry is indicating abnormal readings from sensors in the containment enclosures.”

“Oh, so that isn’t one of those ‘everything is fine’ alarms then?” she deadpans, her thumping pulse freefalling into her stomach.

Like all awe-inspiring things, Mags is as beautiful as she is deadly. At the core of her circuits and wires is a multi-million credit eezo heart paired to a thermionic converter. Both are triple shielded in their own sealed enclosures--or are supposed be, at any rate.

Puddling water all over the place, she snatches up her beeping omni-tool and opens Maggie’s remote access. Warnings pop up, rapid fire, from the internal ozone sensors. Her pulse wanders back up to her chest where it belongs.

“Eezo containment is unaffected. I suspect there has been a failure in the ozone scrubbers for the thermionic converter. Accumulated O3 concentrations are approximately 510% above normal in the containment enclosure,” SAM says.

Not eezo. But ozone is no joke either. While it’s great up in the stratosphere, crammed into a tiny room with mediocre ventilation, it’s a whole other animal. One with a taste for certain carbon bonds--like the ones in lung tissue or in rubber seals. Mags pumps out a staggering amount of the stuff during operation. Without scrubbers and the sealed enclosures, she could kill every person and machine in the lab.

“I’ll need to shut her off before I can take a look at what’s wrong. Maybe the catalyst is depleted already and we just need to replace the cartridge.”

Se-ah begins remote shutdown commands, typing in an override to get past the twenty versions of the question ‘But are you sure you want to initiate shutdown processes?’. In-between override commands and obnoxious prompts, she yanks her shirt down over her dripping hair and pulls on her Initiative-issued training shorts. Both cling, plastering over skin until splotches of water tie-dye wet shadows across the fabric.

“Hang in there Mags,” she mutters before beelining for the tech-lab at a steady clip.

She collides into Jaal as soon as the door opens. Reflexively, he grips her by the elbow with a massive hand before she can fall back onto her rear. Her breath hitches while the persistent ache in her chest fusions unbearable heat. She does her best to ignore it. A difficult task when half her sleep-deprived focus is parsing out the scent he’s wearing today into Milky Way equivalents. It’s bright and brisk; night-blooming cereus blossoms, pale as moonlight and tipped in the cold starlight on the East Face of Mt. Whitney--her first real climb.

He must’ve woken up when she went to shower because he’s already dressed in his armor and holding a datapad that is currently slipping out of his grasp. Repositioning it before it can tumble to the ground, he smiles at her as if she’s a gift the universe has left on his doorstep. “Ah, Ryder, good. I was just about to go looking for you. Your Maggie has been beeping, very insistently, and--”

Brow furrowing, he releases her elbow and reaches out and catch a water droplet beading off her earlobe. “You’re wet.”

Se-ah steps back in the guise of looking him over to confirm that she’s left a damp print behind in the fabric of his rofjinn. “And now, so are you--sorry about that.”

Wincing, she tries to pat away the moisture even though the gesture is absolutely useless without a towel. With a pained smile, she withdraws her hands and adds, “And sorry about the alarm waking you up.”

“The fabric is capable of enduring a little water. It would make a poor garment if it could not. And I was already awake, there is no need to apologize.” The datapad in his hand slips down a few centimeters again and she’s close enough to glimpse a portion of the screen no longer obscured by his thumb. It doesn’t look technical. A personal letter maybe?

“Were you writing home?”

“Ah, no. I am not.” Jaal directs half his answer down to the decking when he notices that she does not have shoes on. Has he never seen human feet before? She wiggles her toes at him.

Further elaboration isn’t coming. She smothers the impulse to ask for it. Maggie. She’s here to take a look at Maggie, not pry into Jaal’s personal communications. And definitely not to ask the heart-racing question clamoring in the back of her mind. Who then? Someone special? Back to business, she offers a nod before making her way past his broad frame. Jaal follows her back into the lab, reabsorbed with his mysterious missive.

Maggie is as sullen and uncommunicative as a kid sent to time-out for misbehavior. Displays dark, mass effect fields vanished, no hums or whirs, beeps or chimes. It’s like she’s giving her the silent treatment, turning a metal shoulder with a sulky ‘hmph’. Se-ah frowns, running a hand over the glossy top. No resonant hum meets her fingertips.

“Pathfinder, you will be able to access the scrubber via the panel located near the floor on the side closest to the bulkhead. It is five centimeters to the right of the duct leading to the general ventilation system.” SAM informs her.

Of course it is. Delicately, she goes about leveraging herself down to the decking without straining her injured leg. She manages, with little grace and a lot of jerky, uncontrolled motions, to lie on her side so that she can hook her hands around the corner of the bench and pry open the least-accessible panel ever. The catalyst chamber slides out one centimeter at a time, smelling vaguely of wet stone, and she has to wiggle closer to bring her arm up to scan it.

Only...she doesn’t need to scan it, the chamber slides out all the way and she can see now that half the cartridge slots are empty. Someone’s taken them.

“Did you locate the problem?” Jaal asks, louder than she expected him to be. He’s come to kneel behind her, the datapad still in hand but momentarily forgotten again.

“Not yet,” she hisses, furious. “But when I do, I’m throwing her out the airlock.”

After she gets her cartridges back. Se-ah pushes off the decking into a crouch, too angry to remember the ruptured tendon she’s supposed to rest for at least a few more days. As her thighs flex, ready to spring her up from the deck, wrenching spasms swarm up from her knee. “Ow--fuck. Fuck.”

Somehow, when she crumple-slides back down, she ends up sitting, legs stretched in front of her, with her back against the tech bench. It feels like smacking down on the landing platform all over again--if the landing platform were covered in fire ants. Bright pinpoints fizzle and pop across the backs of her eyelids in time with the cramp. Thudding her head back twice to clear them, she directs a steady stream of profanity up towards the overhead of the compartment while digging her fingernails into her skin to take an edge off the pain with tactile stimulation.  

“Let me,” Jaal offers and she nods her assent vigorously, unable to speak through her clenched teeth. Unable to think. The missing cartridges, Maggie, they both slip into the static, forgotten.

Something falls to the ground, a soft ‘whumph’ of displaced air. Eyes still screwed shut, she can’t see what he’s dropped. But she realizes it is his glove when his bare fingers press against the skin of her inner thigh, just above her knee. Electricity hums, a low-frequency vibration rolling mild warmth up over the expanse of fluttering muscle mapped out beneath his fingertips and the base of his palm.

It’s like he’s flipped a switch on the pain. It vanishes before she can blink open her disbelieving eyes. Twitching sarcomeres relax and fall into the pulsing electrical lullaby. Relief precipitates off her lips into a breathy laugh.

“That’s a nice trick.” She watches as his hand smoothes careful circles against her leg.

“While you’re having a conversation with my muscle cells, can you tell them to get their act together before we get to the Nexus tomorrow?” Smile tugging at his lips, he meets her eyes. “Talking to your cells...that’s a different way of looking at bioelectricity.”

“Well that’s what it is, isn’t it? That’s how muscle cells communicate with each other--moving electric charges around. Which is exactly what you’re doing.” She tips a teasing smile at him. “You’re all talking about me aren’t you? About how terrible I am.”

Jaal’s laugh rumbles so loudly, his shoulders quake with mirth. “There are only good things to say about you.”

He says it so earnestly, despite the silliness, and she flushes. His hand stills and an electric pulse ripples out from his palm like a stone skipped over a pond. The voltage must be stronger because it’s warmer and it tickles a bit. Part of her wonders if he’d let her go at him with a multimeter next time he does that.

“Was that a good thing you said just now?”

“It was.” She recognizes his look for what it is. It’s the same face he uses to tell Liam the wrong definitions to things. The face that has Gil worried about his personal winning streak. Inscrutable, with a deceptive hint of innocence. She knows better. He’s messing with her, just waiting for her to play into his hands and ask for further explanation. It would serve him right for her not to give into her own curiosity and derail the joke altogether.

“So…are you going to tell me?”

Ah well, she tried.

Leaning forward, he holds her gaze as he swipes a curled hand beneath the dripping lock of hair that had untucked itself from behind her ear. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees a water droplet catch the light as it slips down over the surface of his glove.

“Of course not.” He looks pretty damn smug. “It was a secret.”

She likes the idea of his secret pressed into her cells for safe-keeping. The thought makes her greedy. She wants more. She wants to collect secrets from him, store them up in her motor synapses like muscle memories.

She wants to give him secrets of her own--intimate ones. The kind only roaming fingers and mouths can find. Stuttered gasps and hitched breath, shivers, trembling thighs and lips bitten full and red. All just for him, for his ears alone.

Desire evaporates off her damp skin like moisture, wicking into the space between them and changing it. The air feels charged and heavy and warm. It shimmers, refracting back mirage images of things that could be if she only reached out and plucked them off the horizon. Not just secrets. Habits. Shared jokes. Shared futures.

His breath stills and for a moment she thinks he can see it too. She thinks he wants it too.

Beneath the palm still on her thigh, a prickle rushes over her bare skin. It stipples the full length of her legs, the lab’s excellent lighting throwing her goosebumps into high relief. Jaal must feel the subtle change because his gaze falters down to her legs. Concern meets fascination. “What’s--Ryder, your skin is changing. ”

“Yeah, it’s not permanent.” She runs a hand over the top of her thigh, brushing against the tips of all the tiny vellus hairs standing on end. “It happens when all these little muscles under our skin contract. It’s kind of funny, they’re completely useless to us now--what we call vestigial.”

“Ah. How are they useless? What are they meant to do?”

“Well, back before our evolutionary ancestors decided to get rid of it, they used to puff up our thick body hair.”

“Hair, like--” He gestures towards the damp lock lying against her cheek.

“Yup, only all over and much shorter. When it puffs up, it makes animals look bigger than they actually are and it also traps air, which is insulating and keeps the animal warm. We lost the hair but we kept the muscles and they still respond to threats and cold.”

“You’re cold?”

“No, I’m fine,” she assures him but a pained look flickers across his face. The electric pulse radiating out from his palm gives an erratic stutter. He must have to concentrate to some extent in order to use the bioelectricity in this way. Apparently, what she said had shattered it.

Guilt swims up in his eyes, which flit away to the datapad he’d set down beside him. “Ryder, if I--”

Threats and cold. The bright little star of emotion inside her feels like it is collapsing in under its own weight and taking her lungs with it. He thinks…

“No, that’s--I mean, there are other things that trigger the response, not just those two things. I mean, I get them all the time when I’m climbing or when I’m listening to beautiful music...”

Or when someone I’m attracted to touches me.

“...no one really knows why. It’s not that beautiful music or incredible views are threatening to me or--”

She’s babbling. If she doesn’t put a stop to it, she’ll go all night. He’s meeting her eyes again and there’s no shocked guilt left so she does them both a favor and just takes a deep breath.

“Maybe...they are,” he says. “Beauty can be terrifying.”

She tries to deflect with a weak laugh. “If that’s the case, I’m a bigger coward than I thought.”

It has the opposite effect. Jaal only grows more serious and frustration with her furrows up in his brow. Fair enough, she’s frustrated with herself too. She is a coward, trying desperately to obscure her own feelings from herself and from him. Because she’s afraid.

“Cowardice and fear are different things. One is shameful, the other is not. Angara are not ashamed to fear beauty. It is an affirming feeling for us, one we cherish. To be in awe is to know something vast and incredible, to be moved beyond the realm of what we know and be lost in beauty. We call it ‘glimpsing the threads’. It is...sacred to us. Isn’t that what you feel when you climb?”

“It is,” she admits. Too little truth given too late. She owes the both of them more than that. But emotional cowardice is a learned habit. One that, until recently, she never thought much about changing. Why would she? It always worked well for her in the past. It worked well for her father. The alternative looked...messier, more contentious, like Scott’s series of heartbreaks.

“I didn’t tell you that...I’m glad you decided to stay.” A small waver works it’s way through her voice. “I should’ve said...before we got to Aya yesterday. I wanted to but the truth is, I was relieved not to have to. But you deserve to know that I am...really happy you’re here.”

Another distinctive electric pulse tingles out from his palm and her goosebumps are back, tracing the path the electrons take from the tip of his fingers to the base of his hand. “That was my thank you,” he tells her, warmth in his eyes.

She smiles and then asks the question still lingering in the periphery of her mind, just out of sight like the datapad. “So who were you writing when I came in? Someone special?”

His eyes don’t leave hers and she can see reflections in them, a hundred shimmering, refracting possibilities.

“Yes. Someone very special.”

She’s standing in front of the Tempest escape pod when SAM’s notification comes.

“Pathfinder. You have new email at your terminal.”

The door is already hissing open and Peebee is standing there, looking at her like she’s lost it.

“Ryder, why the hell are you just standing in front of my door? And why the hell are you grinning? Oh shit...this is about the cartridges, isn’t it? Okay, okay before you do whatever you’re planning, can I just say that I was going to give them back? Ryder...okay, you’re officially freaking me out. Mission accomplished.”

Se-ah spares Peebee a distracted glance. “Oh, yeah, uhm...just...put them back where you found them. I have to--I just need to check my email.”

She’s across the bridge in a handful of elated heartbeats, opening the message from Jaal.

Dearest...

[one-in-a-maxi-million]

Soul for a Soul(mate)

Words: 2805

Characters: Erik, Locke, Clover

Summary: Erik gets summoned to make a deal with a young college student named Locke. Story ensues.

Warnings for dead deer (Don’t worry, it’s brief)

_Day1

It had been a while since I had gotten to make a deal.

The man who was visible through the communication portal looked to be in his early twenties. Uncertain hazel eyes peered out from behind fluffy black hair, and his anxious movements were only exaggerated by his lanky frame. He was staring so intently at me that I had to make several rumbling noises to jolt him into introducing himself.

“Oh!” He exclaimed, suddenly realizing that his summoning spell had worked and that I was waiting impatiently for him. “My name’s Locke. Are you Erikacervon? Can you do soulmate deals?”

I chuckled. “First of all, call me Erik. Good job pronouncing it right, though. Second, yeah. I can make soulmate deals.”

Locke’s face lit up. “Excellent! I did some research. My soul will work as a proper offer in return, correct?” I considered it. Locke had relaxed upon realizing that he had summoned the right demon, but still looked ready to bolt at any second. Trying to bargain for more would likely result in him ending the summon to find a demon more willing to make a deal.

“That should work.” I said, nodding. “I’ll draw up a contract.”

In my peripheral vision I saw Locke tense. I glanced up from the paper and quill I had already pulled out, curious as to what had made him freeze up. Following his stare I turned to see a large hellhound a few steps away. Purple saliva dripped from its fangs to sizzle on the ground below. I sighed; this is what I get for accepting a summoning at the edge of my territory.

The hellhound tilted its head back in a bloodthirsty howl. Darting forward, I jabbed its neck while it was doing so, making its (admittedly pretty) howl collapse into a series of ugly gags. It quickly backed away, still retching. It shot me a glare before turning and bolting out of sight. I sighed and turned back to the scroll. The contract was written quickly, the scroll and quill turning my thoughts into writing almost instantly. Locke waited patiently as I finished drawing up the contract. With a wave of my hand, the scroll appeared in his.

“Here’s what we’re going to do. You will go out and purchase everything you need in order to remain in your apartment for a week. You will not leave the apartment after midnight tonight. Between midnight tonight and 12 am Sunday, your soulmate will show up at your apartment. Only one person will show up this week. You will contact me every day at 7 pm to report whether or not your soulmate has showed. After they have, you will have no need to remain in the apartment and may return to your normal life. When you die, your soul will be mine. Is this understood?” Locke had been reading the contract while I talked-it said essentially the same thing.

Locke nodded.

“Alright. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

“Hey, thanks for the he-” I cut the connection and turned to head back to my lair.

_Day2

The next day passed smoothly. I rearranged my hoard and did some much needed dusting; I never was a huge fan of the cobweb look. You’re far more intimidating with a lair that is clean and orderly. Otherwise you just look lazy, and we can’t have that.

I wandered away from the entrance of my lair to examine an offering of crystals laid out near the very edge of my territory, only a stone’s throw from where I had received the summon yesterday. There were several large pawprints nearby, although whether they had any relation to the pile of crystals could not be determined. I sat down and stared at the crystals, which started to float as I manipulated them with magic. Dots of light flickered across the ground as I lazily allowed the crystals to float and spin around me. I had so many crystalline treasures that were of far superior quality; maybe I could offer one to Locke as a gift for his soulmate. What to get in return, though…

Just then, a murky vortex swirled into view in front of me. I accepted the call, and Locke’s face swam into view.

    “No one showed today, although I suppose that’s understandable. It’s only the first day, after all…They could be halfway across the world or something. It might take a few days. After all, I can hardly expect someone in Australia to just manage to show up so quickly. Right?”

    I quirked an eyebrow at his anxious rambling. “Yes. That’s why I gave it a week.”

    Locke seemed to realize he had been rambling, quickly looking away from me as a faint blush crept across his features.

    Once again, our call was interrupted by a faint growling. Actually, it was more like a rumble this time-like standing too close to a bass drum after an idiot had hit it as hard as they could because they don’t understand how the dynamics of music WORK.

    Anyway.

    Low rumbling noise.

    Locke and I both looked in the direction the sound seemed to be coming from and, lo and behold, there was the same hellhound from yesterday. Locke couldn’t see it (the angles just weren’t lining up) but it sat next to the pile of crystals, one paw hovering over my territory line. I snarled at it, and it retracted its paw with an annoyed sounding huff. It then moved to lie down, and Locke made a sound like he was dying. Immediately the hellhound and I whipped our heads around to face him, ears pricking up.

    “Puppy!” Locke cried, and broke off into the most bizarre tangent I had ever heard directed at a hellhound (they usually were along the lines of “Oh god large dog don’t eat me please)

    “Oh, big war doggo with your big fangs and claws! Hell pupper! Good Dog!” He crooned. The hellhound looked as baffled as I probably did for a moment, before walking into my territory. I was (un)gracefully shoved out of the way as the hellhound stuck its huge face right in front of the call view. Locke let out a series of unintelligible noises and pressed his hand against the viewport as if he were trying to reach through and pet the (very dangerous) hellhound. The hellhound nudged the call view and whined. They continued to make noises at each other until I shoved the hellhound out of the way again.

I stared incredulously at Locke. “This is the same hellhound that made you freeze up yesterday!” I growled, trying to mask my lingering confusion over his reaction.

“You chased it off before I could react last time!” Locke replied, craning his head to look around me and at the hellhound. Happiness made his eyes seem to shine, and I was still reeling over the fact that a creature of hell apparently brought joy to this idiot. I resolved to keep our future conversations short; interacting with him too much might cause brain damage.

“I suppose she’s not yours, then? She needs a name. How about Clover? You like that name, don’t you?”

…Where did this guy even come from? It had been a long time since I’d met someone this odd.

“Clover” didn’t seem to mind, however. Her tail wagged so hard it slammed between my shoulder blades, sending me stumbling forward.

“Clover!” Locke scolded. “Stop knocking him over!” He turned to me with a concerned look. “You okay?”

Maybe I need to interact with people more. Maybe human society had changed again, and this behavior was now normal. Whatever the case was, it had been a long time since I had been this confused for this long. Why was he concerned about me, a demon he had met only yesterday? I suppose I usually make deals with people who would literally sell their own children for fortune, but that only begged the question: why would someone so ridiculously good make a deal with a demon?

“I’m fine” I said, waving off his concern. “So nothing of interest happened today?” He shook his head.

“Alright then. Bye.” I cut off the call before he could reply.

Ugh. Just talking to someone so pure left a weird feeling in my stomach.

“…What are you looking at?” Clover, of course, did not respond.

_Day3

I was so bored.

The ceiling of my lair glittered, and I entertained myself by picking out shapes in the lines of shiny minerals. It got old quick, though. I contemplated the fragile existence of life as I stared at a spider in the corner of the ceiling.

Suddenly all of the breath left my chest in a loud ‘whumph’ as Clover’s head plopped onto me.

“The fuck are you doing?” I snarled, trying to shove her off of me. Her head flopped on the ground and I stared into intent purple eyes.

I hazarded a guess as to what she was doing here. “…you want to see Locke, don’t you.” Immediately she leapt to her feet, dancing excited circles around me as I slowly sat up with an irritated groan. Secretly I was relieved for the distraction, but that was irrelevant. I snapped my fingers, and Locke responded to the call almost before the void had finished materialising.

“Hey!” he said cheerfully. Over his shoulder I could see a book that had been hurriedly (albeit carefully) tossed aside in favor of answering the call.

“Your ‘Clover’ was bothering me.”

He turned a mock serious glare to the hellhound. “Is this true, Clover?” In response she placed her head atop mine, which probably wasn’t terribly comfortable. Like most demons, a pair of horns sprouted from my head. She comprised by resting her snout in between them, almost knocking me over for the millionth time. Locke laughed.

The world stopped. I was already aware that Locke seemed ridiculously nice, but that was the purest sound I have ever heard. That might not be saying much, considering my lifestyle, but still. I half expected rainbows to frame him and angels to start singing.

“What are you reading?” I asked, trying to distract myself from the disorientation his laugh had caused. He looked confused for a moment, before glancing down at the book by his side.

“Oh, this? It’s some random romance. Kinda boring, actually.” He held up the book so I could get a good look at the cover. It featured some reeeeeeaaaallly shady looking dude standing uncomfortably close to a pretty blonde.

I narrowed my eyes at it. “Is…Is he supposed to be a demon?”

“Apparently!” Locke laughed at my disgusted expression. “Don’t worry, he’s not nearly as handsome as you are.”

“Gee, thanks.” I said sarcastically. It was a knee-jerk reaction. I wasn’t grotesque, but I was monstrous, and previous experiences with humans weren’t always as civil as the ones I had with Locke. “Who’s the blonde?” I asked.

“She’s the ‘protagonist’” Locke made air quotes when he said protagonist. “She keeps getting shoved onto the sidelines, story-wise. Her background is actually almost interesting, but the love triangle plot is more important, apparently. Guess who the other love interest is.” I checked the title before wincing.

“Heaven and Hell? Wow, how creative. My guess is an angel.”

“Bingo.”

“Why the here are you reading that?”

“I actually kinda like reading and watching terrible things so I can mock them” He said, shrugging. Suddenly a grin appeared on his face. “Have you seen Sharknado?”

“That sounds absolutely terrible.” I said, wrinkling my nose.

“It is! It’s also pretty glorious though. The whole franchise is purposely terrible.”

“Wait…how many of these things are there?”

“I’m not actually sure. Four? I wanna say four.”

My ears picked up a faint humming noise. “What’s that sound?” I asked, peering through the call view to try and locate the source of it. Locke frowned, leaning out of the frame for a moment to snag a cell phone. His frown deepened as he looked at the screen before swiping a finger across it. The noise abruptly stopped.

“Who was that?”

“Someone I’d rather not talk to.”

“Someone who’s worse for conversation than a demon?”

That managed to get him to smile a little, and I felt a flicker of relief that the frown was off of his face.

“Most definitely.” He left it at that.

I carefully steered the conversation away from what was an obviously touchy subject, and we continued to talk for well over an hour.

_Day4

There was a dead deer at the entrance of my lair.

Why.

I asked the question out loud. No answer, of course. Clover’s tail wagged violently and she gently nudged the deer closer. Apparently she pushed it harder than intended, as the deer rolled over, one of its crystalline antlers landing next to my foot. I carefully nudged it away, and some purple blood leaked from the gaping wound in its neck.

“I don’t need this!” I said, running a hand through my hair in exasperation. “I can hunt on my own, thank you very much!”

Before I could figure out what to do with the deer carcass, a call portal spiraled into existence to my right.

“That looks pleasant.” Locke said, staring down at the dead deer.

“Clover has apparently decided to stick around. Thanks for that, by the way.”

“You’re welcome!”

“No one showed up?” He frowned.

“No.”

There were a few moments of awkward silence. I cast my mind about for something to talk about, before my eyes fell on Clover.

“Have you ever heard of a CrossHound?”

_Day5

Locke seemed concerned that no one had shown up yet. I felt relieved, and I don’t know why.

_Day6

Clover and Locke had an entire conversation with each other while I made myself dinner.

I don’t mind the hellhound as much.

_Day7

Last day.

I watched the hands of one of my many pocket watches tick steadily closer to the deadline. It didn’t make any sense; I wouldn’t have been able to make the deal if the soulmate was dead. Locke had called at the appointed time, mildly frantic. We had bother agreed that he would call if the soulmate didn’t show. I changed my mind as the minute hand shifted over the twelve. I inhaled deeply, and then stepped forward.

The movement was accompanied by the usual disorientation teleporting brought. My senses quickly adjusted as I strode towards the kitchen. I passed the hallway mirror that I had conversed with Locke through.

In the kitchen I found Locke nervously making coffee despite the late hour. His eyes widened when he saw me.

“E-Erik? What are you-”

“You have my deepest apologies for this. The contract is now void. I promise you, something like this is incredibly…bizarre…” I trailed off, staring at the digital clock embedded in Locke’s microwave.

11:58

It wasn’t midnight.

Impossible.

“Does this mean what I think it means?” Locke asked uncertainly. I realized that I had froze upon seeing the time, but before I could answer Locke’s question he continued. “I…I don’t mind.”

My head snapped towards him, and he winced. I realized belatedly that I had likely turned it farther than was possible for a human. I turned my body so my neck was at a more natural angle before responding.

“Locke, I’m a demon. I can’t be your soulmate.”

“Why not?” He demanded, and I was a bit startled by the sudden intensity.

“Because-”

“It’s not like demons and humans haven’t gotten together before!”

“Locke, listen-”

“No, you listen. I like you. I like your company. I think you’re clever and funny and a million other things and don’t you fucking dare pull the ‘I’m too dark and mysterious for you’ card. Don’t be like the romance book.” I raised my hands placatingly.

“Okay.”

“Okay?” And I realized with a bit of shock that there were tears in Locke’s eyes.

“Yeah. You’re right. I don’t have a good argument.”

“Okay.” Locke said shakily, and his shoulders shook as he inhaled deeply.

We stood there, neither of us knowing what to do. Locke’s voice was the first to break the silence, and he had calmed enough that it didn’t tremble.

“Do you want to watch Sharknado?” I nodded uncertainly.

“Sure. Unless you want me to grab Clover first?” Locke laughed, and I couldn’t help but walk closer to him. My hand came up to cup his face, and we stared at each other for a moment before we both near-simultaneously leaning in towards each other. My lips met his, and we kissed. We broke apart a few moments later, and I stared into his eyes. He grinned.

“Guess you got my soul anyway, huh?”

I smiled back. “I guess so.”