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purplelupins · 2 years

Text

Sweet Dreams

|The Black Phone|

Part I Part II Part III Part IV Part V

Part VI

Grabber/Albert x fem!reader

Summery: Getting away from her life as a human punching bag took her somewhere she never could have imagined. But it seemed that even a basement with a masked man watching her could become home.

Warnings: depictions of physical and verbal abuse, manipulation, pet names, power imbalance, sexual tension, mild swearing, mentions of medical trauma, nsfw

Note: PLEASE READ

This is a nsfw DARK story so if you are a minor DO NOT ENGAGE. If you are offended or triggered by the mentioned material, DO NOT ENGAGE. Simple as that. Please note that I do not condone what the Grabber has done in cannon, and I am only using him as a character in my story. If you message me with negativity or harassment, I will not respond. This is Tumblr, not Twitter. Please block the Grabber x reader tag if you are disgusted.

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Albert had just finished his coffee, and was pulling on his uniform shirt when he heard Sampson’s bark.

He waited a moment, expecting to hear that sweet voice to tell Sampson to be quiet. For her to open the door and come find him; tell him all about her walk or an idea she had, and touch him like it didn’t turn her on until he had her folded in half begging for him to let her come…but the door never opened. Albert slowly walked to the front door, and looked out the window.

Fire erupted in his veins.

Sampson was there alone, barking and standing on his hind legs. Albert wrenched the door open and he looked around outside as fury filled him. His hands shook.

She was gone.

She had tricked him.

All this time, she wanted to leave.

Without a second thought, Albert pulled Sampson inside, threw the door shut, climbed into his van, and peeled out to speed down the road. He knew where she must have been when she ran, judging by how long it had taken Sampson to get back. He started there at the main road. Before that day, he loved that part of her walk when he went with her- she hated it. It made her feel exposed; like anyone could see her. But she also had a certain love for it because that had been the first time they saw one another. Normally he would have grinned at the memory of having his bunny run into his arms for the first time, but not that morning. That morning he began to wonder if it was all a lie.

He thought about her smiles, giggles, terrible jokes and tears that she had shared with him.

He hated how easily she had lulled him into her comfortable lies. Most of all he hated how he felt hurt by it.

Albert searched everywhere he could, but she wasn’t anywhere to be found, and he knew every place she could have possibly gone. He looked down every road possible, and finally went into town to see if she was stupider than he thought and tried to find safety in numbers. It wasn’t until he passed by the local coffee shop that he heard something that made him slam on his breaks.

He leaned out of his window to the three officers standing by their cruiser and plastered on his best friendly neighbour face. “Morning officers!” He called. They turned to him and gave him a nod. “Sorry to eavesdrop but I thought I heard you say something about a missing girl found, hey?” He asked as casually as possible.

One of them nodded though the others looked apprehensive. It didn’t matter, he only needed one rat to give in.

“Oh yeah. Heard it on the radio- they found her walking some dog like it was a normal day and took her right to the station. Apparently she took a fucking chunk out of one of the officers arms!” They all laughed a little.

He felt something shift inside him.

“She wasn’t running into the officer’s arms to take her home?” Albert asked joining in their laughter, though his smile didn’t reach his eyes.

“Nope…it’s for her own good though y’know…stupid thing doesn’t know what’s best for her.” An other one added.

Albert’s eye twitched. He didn’t know anything about his sweet girl. They needed to shut up.

“Christ…kids these days eh?” He rasped but he didn’t wait for a response before he took off towards the station.

Albert was sure his steering wheel would snap under the pressure of his grip. He was surprised he wasn’t pulled over for a ticket as his foot put the gas petal down to the floor the entire drive there.

He slammed the van into park outside the building and leapt out, marching up to the doors. He pushed them open, the door slamming with a loud thwack against the wall. The officer at the front reception looked up at him, then the two other officers standing by the desk.

While he knew he should keep his composure as best as possible, Albert could taste the adrenaline on his tongue and feel the anger he had in his skin. He took a long shallow breath as he approached the counter, ignoring the staring officers to the side.

Get to work for once you rats

“Morning. There’s a girl you brought in. Where is she?” He tried to stay calm, but it didn’t work.

The two officers standing exchanged a look. “Who are you?” They asked to the side of him. He sucked in an irritated breath.

“I’m her guardian.” He rasped.

The two men elbowed each other and it was then that Albert noticed the bandage on one of their arms.

One of these men took my y/n.

“Jesus…she took a chunk outta my arm.” The man held his arm up that was now bandage that had a red stain seeping through.

Something began to switch inside him at the first hand admission.

“She really fought back? Why didn’t she just go easily?” Albert found himself asking. He needed to hear what happened from a neutral party before he heard hers. If this had been to deceive him, she still might lie.

“She fucking bolted at first. We had to run to grab her and haul her into the car. She bit me and I’m pretty sure she got a couple jabs at my partner in the other room.” The officer said shaking his head. Albert hung onto every word.

The receptionist broke into the conversation, “We called her father already, he’s comin-“

“No.” Albert snapped, “No, she’s coming with me. Go get her. Ask her for the person she wants to see. She’ll say Albert.”

The receptionist looked at Mathewson and he nodded to tell Allans. He stood and walked to the door that separated the main lobby, then as soon as the door cracked open. Albert heard her.

“I. WASN’T. FUCKING. MISSING!”

He smirked at that. His fingertips buzzed.

That’s my girl…Give them hell.

A moment later, another officer came through the door. Albert thought he had seen him in the area before.

“Who’re you?” The officer asked.

Albert’s eye twitched. “Doesn’t matter who I am, let me see her.” He bit, slamming his fist onto the counter, before sucking in a breath and becoming eerily calm, “Go and ask her who she wants to see. If she says my name, she comes with me. If not, she’s all yours to continue biting officers who can’t defend themselves against little girls.” He said pointedly.

The officer who had just come out looked over at the three others, then back to Albert. “Name?” He asked finally.

“Albert.” He snapped, running an irritated hand through his hair.

The man nodded and slowly went back into the cell room, eyeing Albert wearily. Albert crossed his arms and stared at the door. His adrenaline was at a high and he was ready to explode.

If she didn’t come out those doors, said she didn’t want to see him, he wouldn’t care. He would find her. He would watch her until he could corner her and drag her back. She belonged to him, and if she didn’t want him, no one could have her.

A few moments passed, then the door opened and the officer walked out alone. Albert sucked in a breath and was about to turn and leave, but then stopped in his tracks when out came his sweet girl, looking around the room until her eyes found him; he watched her run up to him. She leapt into his arms and wrapped her legs around his waist, not daring to let go. “They-they took me- I didn’t wanna go they just took me and I-“ she hiccuped and began sobbing into his shoulder.

Albert felt a foreign vibration in his limbs as he held her.

Relief.

He let out a long sigh, and knelt to his knees to cradle her.

“Shhh…I’ve got you bunny.” He cooed for her so gently it might have seemed paternal to most, but underneath brewed a raging fire. Albert pulled away for a moment to look at her and held her cheek in one hand; he inspected her red eyes, her blotchy skin... His eye twitched when he saw the discolouration on her opposite cheek. A bruise. His eyes snapped to Mathewson, “Is that true?” He nodded to the bandage.

The officer scoffed.

“Sure as hell is. That bi-“ he stopped when he saw the look of murder in Albert’s eyes, “…that girl bit my arm. I was fucking bleeding everywhere and she threw up in my partner’s cruiser! Took the both of us to even get her in there too. She started runnin’ away with that dog of hers…if you raised her to be like that you oughta have a firm conversation with her.” His mouth ran out of his control, and it was all Albert needed to hear, though he was barely listening.

“Then why does she have a bruise on her cheek?” He asked, pulling her face from his neck again, and setting her down beside him as they slowly stood up. She was shaking and clinging to him as tightly as she could when she remembered being taken away against her will; but even with her red eyes, she glared at the officers. Albert tilted her head to the side to get a better look. She leaned into his touch and stared up at him as if he was the only other person in the world.

“Hmm?” He hummed, then looked back to the men in uniform, “If you were just upholding the law then why the FUCK is there a goddamn bruise on her cheek?” His outburst made the officers flinch. But she didn’t. She just stared.

“Hey now…it was self defence you know- she bit my partner!” Allans said defensively.

“Oh well that’s fine then.” Albert mocked them. “What’s your name?” He looked over at Allans, suddenly very calm.

The officer in question was rooted to the spot when he stared back into Albert’s eyes. That look he gave him was the same cold and dead stare he had seen from the girl beside him. Murderous.

“O-Officer Peter Allans.” He said finally, shifting uncomfortably.

Albert nodded. “And you?” He turned to Mathewson.

This one saw the look of fear in his partners eyes, and was even more hesitant, and Albert was running out of time. And patience.

“I said what’s your name, coward?” Albert seethed.

The man blinked and stared back into Albert’s blue eyes.

“Gilbert Mathewson…But look, hey, we don’t want any trouble sir. We were just-“

“Doing your job. Right.” Albert nodded, “Well now I’m going to do mine. Let’s go sweetie.” He pulled y/n to his side and she held him like her life depended on it.

To keep up with the charade, she even looked up at him and said, “Okay daddy.” And buried her face into the side of his chest as he took her out. She failed to feel him pause at the title, or see how his pupils dilated. It was so sudden that he almost didn’t process it.

It was like the air was sucked out of his lungs.Something about the sound of that word coming from her sweet mouth made a shiver run up his spine as he led her away.

But he couldn’t think of that now. He needed to hold her.

As soon as they were outside and away from view, he pulled her back into his arms and kissed her. Tears ran down her face and she held him, moving her lips against his. It was quick, but sent the message they both wanted to.

He let her down, kissed her one more time on the head and pulled her to the van; started it up fast. His brain was already working. “Do you think anyone is at home?” He asked as he pulled out of the parking lot.

She blinked and pinched her brows. “…what do you mean?” Her mind was still playing catch-up.

“Your family’s home. Is anyone there? What’s their schedule?” He said.

Her eyes widened, “It’s Thursday…” she checked her new wrist watch, “8 o’clock…no. Mom is taking my sister to school and dad would have been just leaving for work…but he got the call…he’ll probably be down at the station for a while.”

Albert nodded sharply. “Direct me there.”

“Why are we going there?” She asked fearfully.

Albert reached over and took her hand in his.

“We’re getting you whatever you need, sweetie. Anything you’ve missed. Now tell me how to get there.” His voice was as calm as he could make it, but she knew he was still reeling from what those officers did.

Y/n was horrified at the idea of going back there, but she trusted him to keep her safe.

Albert walked down the side street from the van, and through the front yard. Just as she had said, there was a spare key under the doormat, and he let himself in. He felt a rush being in the same place where she had been…he knew that was the same door she threw open that night she chose him.

Albert found himself looking around for a moment. His eyes fell on the stairs, and he made his way up to where she said her room was. She had told him it probably would be renovated by then, but to his surprise it was just a little messy.

He stood there and stared at her bed. She had told him her father used to bend her over there and whip her until his arm was tired. Albert sucked in a breath. He drank in the space where his sweet girl had been tortured.

Then he remembered why he was there. Albert opened her nightstand, and found her small wallet there under some papers, just as she had said. Next he found her rucksack in her closet and went through her drawers, pulling out the certain items she had told him about, plus a fluffy little bear on her bed. He also kept a couple panties for himself.

Then he found a notepad on a shelf, and began writing.

“Your daughter is at 7742 south Irving St. Tell no one. Bring this note.”

He read it over one more time and nodded his head to himself before going to her father’s chair in the living room, and tucking it to the side of the cushion so it would crinkle when he sat.

Albert left the house, taking care to not be spotted by any neighbours, and walked calmly back to the van parked two blocks away.

As soon as he pulled the door open to the van, y/n almost jumped into his lap. “Did it go okay?” She asked, turning to him.

The engine revved and he wore an invigorated smile. “Peachy keen! The place was barely touched.” He said, and pulled away. “Just got in, got your things and got out. Oh I also found this little stuffed bear I thought you might like.” He pointed to the rucksack.

Y/n gasped.

“You didn’t! Really?” She gushed and grabbed the bag and opened it to find the very same stuffed bear that she had left behind. “You’re just a big softie!” She smiled and leaned over to Albert to kiss his cheek. He hummed.

She didn’t need to know about the note.

Not yet.

He helped her into the house and he watched her embrace the dog that was supposed to intimidate her. Albert took her hand and led her into the bedroom where he opened the bag and showed her each item. She smiled and kissed him again. “You’re the best. Thank you.” She whispered. But then, as he went to leave her to sort through her things, she wrapped her arms around his middle and squeezed. “I thought I wasn’t going to see you again.” She whispered.

He turned in her grasp. “Me too, bunny…thought you scampered away from me.” His voice was calm and light, but she knew his meaning was anything but.

“I wouldn’t…I couldn’t!” She pulled away to look at him, desperately trying to remind him that she was his.

And he knew it.

He nodded and kissed her forehead. “I know sweetie…I know. Why don’t I join you in the morning from now on hmm? I miss you anyways.” He purred, stroking her back.

Come on sweetie…come on you know you can’t say no to me.

She nodded quickly. “Yes please.” She smiled and kissed his cheek.

So polite. Such a good girl…I could never let you go.

Albert kissed her one more time, then walked into the other room to the phone to tell the shop he wouldn’t make it. He wasn’t about to leave her alone after what happened. While he did believe her on some level that she wouldnt leave, he needed to make sure she was truthful.

Besides, that evening they would likely have a guest.

Once he hung up, he heard her humming that song again, and he slowly followed the sound. He leaned against the doorframe of the bedroom and watched her fold her clothes neatly and stack her books and little items she wanted.

Then he remembered that moment in the police station. His pupils dilated at the thought.

“Bunny?” He said after a minute.

“Yes?” She replied joyfully.

“What was that you called me? At the station.” He asked casually, slowly walking into the room.

She thought for a moment, then remembered; it had just slipped out in the moment. But she couldn’t bring herself to say it now that her fear wasn’t clouding her mind and she wasn’t desperately trying to leave town.

“I…I don’t remember.” She lied, taking some clothes to the closet. He circled her, and sat down on the bed.

“You called me daddy.” He stated, leaning back on the mattress with his back against the headboard.

She froze. She had half hoped he didn’t remember and was actually asking her what she had said, but that was out the window. He could feel her cheeks heat up from there. “Well…I…I was just trying to tell them that you were my guardian. I didn’t want them to doubt you and take me away again.”

“Ahh I see…” he nodded in understanding, “Look at me.” He murmured. And she couldn’t.

He knew she couldn’t.

He sucked in an irritated breath. “Look at Daddy.” At that her eyes snapped to his.

Fuck.

He felt that serge of control he chased everyday fill him up at her compliance.

Seeing her so responsive to his demand made a part of his restraint with her snap clean in two. He sucked in another deep breath that turned into a growl and he calmly patted the bed beside him. “Come here sweetie.” He said gently. Her eyes were wide, and she felt like a deer caught in the headlights. He was never like that. He was always straight to the point.

This was new.

But finally, she started walking. She took the several steps towards his side, and while he wanted to grab her and pull her to him, this was a new game. So he waited, squeezing his fist so tight he thought his nails might break skin. Painfully slowly, she slipped one leg over his thighs, then the other so she hopped to his other side. She sat next to him, and smoothed out her skirt innocently, waiting for his next move.

His nostrils flared as he watched her- such a polite, sweet little thing. “That was quite the slap they gave you today, little one.” He murmured, moving to lean against the headboard on his side so he could see her.

“Slaps…they gave me two…they really hurt…” she said, biting the inside of her cheek.

God he loved it when she did that.

“Did they now? I’m sorry, sweetheart…want me to make you feel better?” He whispered, moving a little closer, and placing his hand on her thigh. He would store the two slap information for later.

He wanted to see what she would do. Was she going to give into this new game?

Albert watched her toy with her skirt’s hem, then finally she looked over at him. Her breath caught in her throat.

“Yes please, daddy.” She breathed.

There was barely any colour left in his eyes. The older man sighed through his nose and nodded. His calm exterior was the perfect mask to hide the carnal thirst inside him.

“Why don’t you undress for me, hmm?“ He cooed, brushing some hair from her face.

She nodded eagerly, and quickly rid herself of her clothes. Albert focused on his breathing to not snap, but as she slipped off her panties, a wet line of slick connected her pussy to the fabric. She was soaked.

That was it.

His eye twitched.

“Get the fuck over here.” He rasped.

She stared at him and threw the panties away before clambering onto his strong thighs.

Albert made quick work of unbuckling his belt, and she all but ripped his shirt off.

He irritatedly threw his remaining clothes away and pulled her sweet little body to his, and slipped inside her with a single thrust. He let his eyes shut momentarily and a groan slipped from him as he listened to her adorable whines.

“That feels good doesn’t it, bunny?” He purred in her ear as he held under her butt to rock her up and down his length.

She nodded helplessly.

“Is daddy making the pain go away?” His voice turned rough.

“Y-yes.” Her breath hitched. One of the best sounds she made.

Albert smirked and stretched one of his thumbs to rub against her little clit, and he was rewarded with her grip on his shoulder tightening and a violent clench of her pussy.

He chuckled darkly at the control he had over her body. Even she couldn’t do what he did.

“Are you going to be my good girl and let daddy make you come? Hmm?” He rasped as she started to meet this thrusts.

She whimpered and nodded, “Y-yes please daddy!”

Her mind began to go numb and ecstasy took over. All she could feel was him inside her. Him holding her.

Him.

It was all him.

His cock slipped so easily in and out of her that she would have felt embarrassed if it weren’t for her being completely intoxicated by the man beneath her. His thumb stroking her so perfectly, his hands holding her like a vice. His blue eyes boring into hers. His strong chest heaving as he ruined her for any other living being.

With her mind full of him, she let go. She didn’t have a choice- her body wouldn’t have listened to her even if she had tried.

“Atta Girl…that’s my girl. Fuck…” he growled.

He continued to rub her even after she came, and when she tried to pull his hand away when it became too much for her, he pushed her down onto the bed and buried himself inside her again. Tears welled in her eyes as another orgasm pooled inside her.

“Pl-please daddy...” She gasped.

“What? Is it too much?” He mocked her, “Feels too fucking good? Beg. Scream. You're just gonna cum a few more times for me.”

Y/n stared up at the man above her, and nodded again. “Okay daddy.”

And just as he had told her, she came three more times.

She came five seconds before he filled her up with his cum, and sucked a purple bruise onto her neck.

She came again when he cleaned her up with a washcloth, but was greedy and began tasting her. Sucking and licking her sweetness until she was a whimpering mess.

And she came one last time when her sweet little mewls were too much for him as he was buried between her legs, and he had to be inside her one more time. His cum dripped down her thighs for an hour even after they had showered. They laid in an early afternoon haze of euphoria. They barely even moved for the rest of the day.

The odd neighbour passed by, and looked through the slightly open curtains in the front room as they always did, but they didn’t see that girl they had started to notice inside. They knew Albert, but they didn’t know her. They supposed she was just a maid of some kind. It wasn’t until late that evening that the house looked to have any life in it at all, save for the odd bark from that big black dog he kept.

Around half passed ten that night, a brown and white 1970 Ford F100 truck drove past 7742, and parked up the road. A man with poor posture hopped out, and walked with an uneven gait towards that old brick house. He checked the note he had been told to bring with him, though in his altered state, it was difficult to read at all. He only had one thing on his mind: haul that bitch of a daughter of his back home to remind her of who she was.

What she was.

A worthless piece of trash.

The man stood at the front lawn, and checked the address one more time before harnessing his anger and marching up to the door. He rapped impolitely and crossed his arms as he waited. He could hear an old record by Ritchie Valens playing, and found himself distracted by it until the booming bark of what he guessed to be a massive dog came from right at the door. He heard some scratches too before it stopped and the door swung open.

He was met with a man far taller than himself, and perhaps a little younger, but not much judging by his greying hair.

“Can I help you?” The man asked from the doorway, looking out past the man on his doorstep.

“Uh…yea I got this note, shit-“ he quickly unfolded the paper, tearing it a little in his inebriated state. The other man stared at him in distain.

“You’re Stewart?” He asked.

“Yeah.” Stewart responded. “And you are…?”

“Al. Come in.” Albert said shortly and stood to the side to let the other man in. As the door shut, Stewart took a look around the living room, every hair on his sweaty body standing on end. If hadn’t drank that whiskey he would have noticed how stupid he was.

“She’s been hiding in my basement…my dog fucking found her. Sorry about the note…didn’t know what the hell was going on.” Al ran his hand through his hair and looked down shaking his head.

Stewart nodded and darted his eyes around, “Fucking sounds like her, that little whore. You know I’m pretty sure she fucked every guy in town? Good thing I fixed ‘er…” his words were slurred, and Albert could barely contain himself. He hated alcoholics. He hated them more than he hated himself. But he had a job to do.

“She’s down here, after you.” Albert took him to the door to the basement and opened it up before gesturing for the other man to go first. Stewart nodded and clumsily made his way down the stairs, rolling his shoulders as he readied himself to put that daughter of his into place.

“What is this some kinda bunker from the war?” He asked as they reached the thick door.

Albert laughed lightly. “Something like that. Just push on the door there, I had it locked so she wouldn’t run.” He nodded to the handle.

“Many thanks to you…” Stewart slurred, then paused as he pushed on the heavy door. “Say you look real familiar…”

Albert watched the door past him and sucked in a breath at the sight that Stewart had yet to see.

Beautiful

“I’m told I had that sort of face…” he murmured, and put a hand on the man’s back.

When Stewart finally turned away from Albert and faced the basement, he clenched his hands into fists at the sight of his daughter sitting on an old mattress, still in the same pyjamas as she had run away in.

His nostrils flared and he shook as his veins pumped with anger.

“There you are you bitch-“ Stewart was about to take a step toward her, but was cut short when his hands were taken behind his back, and the crack of metal cuffs echoed in the small space.

He tried to wrench his hands free, but it was too late. “What the fuck-“ he spat.

But the basement door was already being slammed shut, leaving the three of them to exist in their own dim little world under ground.

“Hi dad.”

Stewart whipped back around to where his daughter was sitting, but his pupils constricted when he saw her this time.

She was standing.

In one hand, she held a belt with a buckle that caught the light.

In the other hand was a well used axe- it’s blade a little dull.

But that wasn’t what made Stewart l/n freeze.

It was the demonic mask she wore. Horns protruding from her temples and a deep frown where her mouth should have been. He couldn’t even see her eyes.

But he wouldn’t let them see he was close to pissing in his pants.

He turned back to Albert who was fiddling with something in his hands. “What the fuck is this? Huh-“

Tsk tsk.

He snapped his head back to the young woman, watching him predatorily.

“Such language, Stewie…you know you always raised me to have manners…maybe you should listen to yourself for once?” She said sickly sweet, slowly approaching him.

He scoffed and looked around, barely noticing Albert, “What are you gonna do huh? Try and kill me, scare me? Well it ain’t gonna work-“

A searing pain made him lose his words as he fell to his knees. From behind him, Albert pulled out the knife he had stabbed into one of Stewart’s ankles.

This was his bunny’s game, but he wasn’t going to run the risk of that glutton hurting her.

“What the fuck!” Stewart screamed. The pain coupled with his state of mind made for a poor cocktail of confusion.

She clicked her tongue at him.

“Dad…you should really pay attention.” She was just a foot from him now. “What was it you always told me before you would beat me…? Oh! Or the time you took away my god given right over my body at that hospital? Hmm what was it.” She tapped her chin as she pretended to think, and threw the axe down beside her with a heavy thud.

“What was it?” She whispered, circling him. As she passed behind him, Albert extended his hand to her masked cheek, and stoked it tenderly before he walked to the wall on the side and crouched to watch. He too slipped on a mask- the lower half of the smiling one. He was watching her every move, entranced.

Stewart didn’t answer at first and he received a single lashing from the belt.

“I said, what. Was. It?” She seethed, grabbing a handful of his thinning hair.

He sucked in a breath, “This is for -“

“Bingo!” She released him and clapped, “This is for your own good. Well dad, this is for your own good.” She chimed.

Albert’s breathing became laboured as he watched his sweet bunny fulfil her desires. Her needs. He just wanted to help her, and when he told her about the note, she had accepted, and he had plugged her full with more cum than before. He was helping to set her free from her worst fears.

“Hey now…wha-what are you doing there pumpkin?” He eyed the belt as she raised it again.

She tilted her head to the side.

“Aww we’re using pet names now? That’s cute.” She came behind him and kicked his back so he fell forward. “Well then daddio, what this is…is retribution.” Her sweet voice lost its life, in its place was nothing short of a cold blade cutting into his mind, but to Albert it was music to his ears.

“Y/n honey you don’t have to-“ Stewart began to plead. Gone was the front he had put on. In its place was a scared little pathetic man who had finally peed himself.

“Oh but I do dad I-“ thwack,“ -really-“thwack, “-really-,” thwack, “-do!” She seethed, panting.

Albert watched her like she was the only person in the world.

Y/n could see the blood seeping through the tears in his shirt, but she wanted more. She pressed down hard on a particularly deep gash thanks to the buckle; it was right around where the one on her back that had refused to close forever was.

Snot and tears mixed together on Stewart’s face. “Please…y/n-“

Thwack!

“No. You don’t get to say my name. “ she rounded him and let him try to look up. “I don’t think you understand what it is that’s going to happen. And that’s okay. Just know that this is going to kill you. I could do it quickly…but Dad?” She stooped down so she was a little closer to his wretched face, and pulled the axe towards her, holding it in her hands.

“W-what?” He asked breathlessly.

She sighed, “I want this to really hurt.”

Not a soul heard what happened down in that basement that evening. There was a file opened for the missing man, which was closed as quickly as his daughter’s. What the city of Denver did know was he was not missed. Barely a blip. Barely a whisper.

His wife and daughter moved on. Quite happily too in a new town hours away.

No one questioned the vacant house across from 7742 or how one night there was a man disappearing inside with a bag of trash, and reappeared without it.

A few brows were raised when two officers went missing, but again, things happened and the cases were closed within five months.

A few neighbours were curious about the beautiful young woman who now lived with Albert. They would often see her tending to her beautiful garden that had seemed to sprout over night; she was even cheeky enough to wink at the old ladies who asked what her secret was to get her flowers to grow so vibrantly. She would tell them that it was a secret of hers that would die with her. It was a blessing that the flowers covered the smell.

At first they found her a little odd, especially with how she seemed to just appear, but after she visited almost every house in the block with fresh cookies, they stopped asking.

What the neighborhood knew was that Albert- the strange, quiet man who had lived there his whole life- seemed happy. On more than one occasion, that sweet young woman would run out after Albert as he left for work and she would jump into his arms for one last kiss.

They never went anywhere without each other except for work.

They took strolls through the neighbourhood with that big old dog of theirs, and people would always note the look of adoration in the older man’s eyes as he watched that sweet, sweet girl.

At the grocery store, people would stare and the odd emboldened person would ask them how they were so happy after seeing the gold bands on their fingers.

To which they would smile at one another and Albert would just say shyly, “Oh you know, common interests and communication.” And kiss her temple.

“And trust!” She would chirp and hold his arm.

Most of the families who saw them hated them. They would grumble about how they were probably faking it all. How it was like they were some happy dream.

They hated it.

They hated them.

But oh that couple really was just the sweetest.

The sweetest of dreams.

••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

@dogmatic255

@funandfancyfree

@tuttifuckinfruttifriday

@lxdyred

@ethanhawkestan

@honeycovered-bandaids

@theroadreader

@eth1calcannibal

@ratpackash

@doc-blu

@al-shaw

@possessedjoker

@destiel394

@ebiemidnightlibrarian

@darkvoidz

@belladonnaaura

@ang3l1te

@pecter-specter

#the black phone 2022 #the grabber x reader #the grabber #albert shaw #ethan hawke #slasher x reader

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pinkaditty · 7 months

Text

What In Hell Is Bad? Thoughts: Update

the recoil is REAL bro i watched it happen with my own eyes

spoilers under the cut!!!

NSFW MDNI!!!!

THE RECOIL IS REAL ‼️ YOU LITERALLY SMACK HIS ASS AND IT FUCKING JIGGLES LIKE FRESH JELLO I WISH I WAS MAKING THIS UPPPP ITS LITERALLY REAL

simultaneously i am in tears and thrilled about this

also i progressed in the story. still got mixed feelings about Satan.

like this happened, which im pleased about. he needs to stop provoking me fr before i scar him all over. ((pics r out of order I genuinely don't know how to fix this, please start with the last one))

but also this happened

and i don't like being submissive ever 💔 so this was less than ideal, but i can tolerate it for now.

and like, for sake of context, apparently sexual intercourse is how you receive "devil energy" and how you survive in Hell. Satan previously mentions that absorbing demon energy is how Solomon (our great (x5) grandfather apparently) survived in hell.

which raises the theory that our great (x5) grandfather was just casually periodically getting his back blown out by demons to survive in Hell. oh my god.

this also makes me pout bc why couldn't I receive devil energy from Sitri 💔 why did it have to be Satan 💔

yea im still crazy abt Sitri he's so silly and perfect and apparently his kink is listening to heartbeats. idk he's cute to me.

SPEAKING OF SOLOMON, THIS IS WHAT HE LOOKS LIKE:

*sighs really loudly*

what if he was super fine to me? like what if i wanted him? hm?

I might write blurbs for him too but the reader would NOT BE THE MC OF THIS STORY‼️

anyways Solomon's so fine im mad we're canonically related to him.

um... also... apparently you can touch the demon you choose to be your partner. if you satisfy them, this happens...

which is just like. CRAZY.

idk y'all I hope I don't get in trouble with Tumblr for posting this. have mercy on me.

will be playing more probably like im enjoying the gameplay tbh

#what in hell is bad #whb #whb sitri #whb beelzebub #whb satan #whb mammon #whb leviathan #whb lucifer #What In Hell Is Bad? Otome Game #otome game #otome

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possibleplatypus · 2 years

Note

Steve rogers is not real y’all need to relax

Oh boy 😂

At first I thought anon was a Disney stan or casual MCU fan who doesn’t want to see MCU criticism...

And then I thought maybe anon is concerned about my mental health since I can sound a little unhinged (though I prefer the term “passionate”) in my posts...

After thinking about it I’m pretty sure anon is the former, but just in case you’re the latter, I assure you, I’m fine. The stuff I post on Tumblr really has no effect on me in my life outside of Tumblr. I never discuss the MCU with my family. I don’t go shouting at strangers on the street about how much Disney has screwed up. I have much bigger concerns outside of what I choose to blog about. Rest assured that Steve Rogers, no matter how much I love him, does not consume my every waking thought.

But anon does bring up an interesting point: Steve Rogers isn’t real, so we shouldn’t be angry when we feel that his corporate owners have ridiculed him. Steve Rogers isn’t real, so we shouldn’t make a big deal about it when his corporate owners disrespect him. Steve Rogers isn’t real, therefore he can’t be disrespected, and we should just relax and let everything that’s been done to him roll off of our backs, like water on a duck.

I know Steve Rogers isn’t real. Everybody knows. He is a fictional comic book character created by Jewish men to inspire action against Nazis during World War II. He isn’t real, but you can’t tell me that his influence also isn’t real. He isn’t real, but he tells us that all of us, no matter how small or unloved by society we are, can rise to the challenge. We can be heroes and fight for something bigger than ourselves. That inspiration, and that message, I think, is very important.

Steve Rogers isn’t real, but our love for him is. And I don’t think you should belittle this love. You might as well belittle the love that others have for other franchises that are meaningful to them, other storybook characters, other video games, other hobbies that “aren’t real.” Why is our love not valid and worthy of note? I am sure anon loves things that I don’t love-- things that aren’t “real.” I would never tell anon to “relax”-- unless they’re hurting themselves, or hurting real people. (Honestly, the fans who tell other fans to kill themselves over fictional characters are the ones who need to relax 😬)

Steve Rogers isn’t real, but Disney’s impact on popular culture is. How real? A quick Google search told me that the MCU earned over $25 billion worldwide. 25 billion dollars, can you imagine that? $25,000,000,000. Google also tells me that in 2021, the Walt Disney Company held assets worth a total of over 203.61 billion U.S. dollars. That is more money than the GDP of some countries. That is certainly more money than most of us will see in our lives, no matter how hard we toil. That is power. That is real. That is power to buy politicians and influence real lives, such as in the United States when Disney supported backers of the Don’t Say Gay Bill in Florida. And Steve Rogers is just one small cog in the MCU machine, which is merely one cog in the bloated Disney monopoly.

I make blog posts that get reblogged maybe over a hundred times if I’m lucky. Usually they never hit triple digits-- it's a good day if I get a dozen likes. Most of these posts are really vent posts-- I vent my frustrations with likeminded fans. Compare that to Disney churning out dozens of movies and shows nonstop, and how much am I doing, really? (Honestly, Disney should be the ones told to relax-- they’re burning out VFX artists and churning out subpar content.)

Forbes tells me that the Loki series was watched by 2.5 million households when it debuted. The Falcon and the Winter Soldier debuted to 1.8 million viewers. WandaVision, to 1.6 million. That is real power.

She Hulk apparently had 1.5 million viewers. 1.5 million people watched Jennifer Walters wail and moan about how tragic it was for Steve to die a virgin. That’s Disney wailing in our ears, anon. That’s Kevin Feige and his extremely real insecurities telling us that it’s tragicomedy for a man to not have sex. And it doesn’t matter if you’re an ordinary man, or a hero who helped save the universe-- they’re still going to laugh at you. And I can tell that it’s wrong, but how many others are going to have their misguided beliefs reinforced? How many people will feel inadequate if they don’t have sex? We do not live in a bubble. We are constantly bombarded by messages from without telling us to have sex, or don’t have sex, or have the right amount of sex, etc. It is a toxic mindset that they are perpetuating, and I don’t think it’s wrong to call them out.

So Steve Rogers isn’t real. But the love that his fans have for him is. And the love that we and other likeminded fans have for the MCU translates into very real power for Disney-- the power to influence popular consciousness.

So-- maybe we should stop loving him, in order to stop supporting Disney? That’s difficult, considering how much Disney owns (and they weren't his original owners to begin with). They are a Hydra of their own making, inescapable, choking the life out of popular culture, swallowing up studios and VFX artists. And besides, Disney doesn’t want fans like me. They don’t want fans that criticize their writing, that tell them they’re not funny, that call them out when they’re toxic. They don’t want fans that have queer readings of characters they insist absolutely have to be straight. So I think that fans like me are something they desperately need.

This quote from Neil Gaiman is very apt:

“We who make stories know that we tell lies for a living. But they are good lies that say true things, and we owe it to our readers to build them as best we can. Because somewhere out there is someone who needs that story. Someone who will grow up with a different landscape, who without that story will be a different person. And who with that story may have hope, or wisdom, or kindness, or comfort. And that is why we write.”

Somewhere out there, someone needs Steve Rogers' stories, even if he isn't real. And Steve Rogers deserves better stories. We deserve better.

I will love Steve Rogers for what he was made to be-- a symbol of inspiration, a bulwark against fascism-- and not what Disney wants him to be-- a cash cow for people to point and laugh at. And I’ll relax when I want to, thanks.

(Fun fact: the second comic of Steve is from a She Hulk comic. Can you believe that? From standing up to Nazis to being laughed at for presumably dying a virgin. I know what Disney values.)

#mcu #steve rogers #asks answered #disney #long post #pretty sure that anon rolled their eyes and noped out seeing how long this answer was but that’s okay lol #she hulk critical #as an aside it's really easy to not engage with critical posts if you don't want to #keep scrolling block the tags or block me #I think we'd both be happier 😂

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sophaeros · 8 months

Text

yall i had a really wacky milex dream the other night?? i dreamt i was on tumblr and saw a video compilation someone made of random underrated milex moments but i only remember/watched up to the first three clips

for the first clip they wore identical blue and red floral print skirts that were ugly as Fuck but they were still skirts so i was like holy shit??? like the fits were Ugly ok alex had his coachella white button up and miles had a black turtleneck i think? and the skirts were almost knee length they were a Lurid blue fabric with big cartoonish just as bright red flowers patterned on them outlined in black and smaller black flowers scattered across it. just eyesearing. like i got skirts but at what cost

second clip was in the studio of a late night show for some reason they'd just finished their set and the host was patting them on the arm like thanks for coming on the show that was the last shadow puppets everybody. at some point they'd done a costume change or something so they had towels wrapped around themselves??+ pants and i was like why are yall holding the towels up to ur chests like women usually do. but anyway when they turned to leave the stage the back of alex's towel had fallen a bit so i was just staring at his upper back really hard. you know this clip from am era where he takes his shirt off? like that

third clip felt like it was set in some kind of alternate universe where alex and miles apparently didnt know each other that well..? but it was still taotu era they were in their suits and alex was interviewing miles??like they'd already done the album it was a promo video for taotu and they were sitting at different piano benches several feet apart from each other and alex was asking miles random questions. i dont remember most of them but his third question i think was what are your favourite books. miles gave his answer then alex walked over to his pile of books and admitted that he'd panicked a bit before the interview and dug up all his hashtag intellectual books and miles laughed and said he could tell because it was all shit like ulysses. and then alex said actually his first choice had been fifty shades of grey??????????I DONT EVEN LIKE THAT BOOK. (but i also just found out that he has actually mentioned it irl which i did Not know)

and then he picked up a book and sat beside miles and miles offhandedly said he'd always been curious about the stuff in fifty shades but never tried it and alex flicked a glance up at him as he opened the book and said really casually oh really? well we can try them out together later. if you'd like. and then i paused the video and went HELLO ?????? and made a post about it like was anyone gonna tell me this happened and beph rb'd my post saying oh yeah lmfao i have this clip and then the dream shifted to another segment

adding to the realism is the fuckin sexual tension in that clip like at one point it cut to a close up of miles looking at alex in that intense way he does while he talked

this is the consequence of spending upwards of 13 hours a week on tumblr

#sophaerostxt #milex #i choose to believe these clips are all real just in like. another reality. i had visions.#wait why is this post so fucking long HELPME #dreams

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disorganizedkitten · 23 days

Text

Bursting Bubbles of Bad Luck Chapter 7

Miraculous Ladybug | 2020 | 1,331 | Ao3 | Prev | Masterlist | Next

July 3rd-Boredom

So the whole discord chat idea? Magic was the less fun part. Felix should have let Allegra add him ages ago.

The Dead Fandoms Discord - Channel #Go-Go-Gadget-Chatroom

21:25

Snow Cone King: I’m just saying, Ics, that if we have to petition Walmart, we should at least do it with a lot of people.

Flutetastic: ...Almost everyone on this server and probably half of tumblr and a corner of twitter and a few people from school and my entire family

Considering my family includes you and all the cousins on your half too, that’s a lot of people.

Snow Cone King: Amb. Ics, ics you know what this means?

Speedster: Y’all, I think we should just use the online petition thingy. Get millions of email subscribers from all over the world.

Snow Cone King: My dad probably would totally sign a petition to get Inspector Gadget merch back in stores and then actually make it happen

Flutetastic: It’s sm fun to see you have one of those My Dad Is A Millionaire epiphanies.

Flutetastic: Als, why do you save your logic for the middle of our discussions?

Speedster: Gotta take the time to come up with my genius.

Snow Cone King: Show off.

Penny Could Kick Me: I find it very amusing to watch you guys casually say things like ‘one of those My Dad Is A Millionaire epiphanies’.

Snow Cone King: :Squinty eyes: i can’t tell if that’s an insult

Penny Could Kick Me: Is me laughing out loud at you insulting?

Flutetastic: Say no

Snow Cone King: I haven’t decided.

Fluteastic: FE AMB! Q ARE YOU LIKE THIS?

Snow Cone King: I think so?

Penny Could Kick Me: I love you guys.

Snow Cone King: That’s def. A compliment. Thank you.

The Dead Fandoms Discord - Channel #By-The-Power-Of-Greyskull

7:45

The Orange Death: Y’all I just found an article saying Damian Wayne and Adam are friends and someone needs to explain to me how that happened and if that means I missed a He-Man reboot

If so, Imma cri

Snow Cone King: Wait who has the rights to He-Man?

The Orange Death: Honestly I figured it was netflix ‘cause they just did that she-ra reboot but like

Apparently not?

Snow Cone King: I’m looking this up amb

Useless Ace: I thought the last reboot was in 2010?

Snow Cone King: I am apparently a very uninformed fan

There was a life action movie in 1987

The Orange Death: What

Snow Cone King: My to watch list is much bigger

I thought there were only the two versions? I don’t even know which versions they were now?

Useless Ace: Welcome to the world of fandom my friend. Experts are few, far-inbetween, and deserve mad respect bc I could care less to follow every bit of canon ever

Snow Cone King: Mood

Snow Cone King: As of dec 18, 2019, Netflix wants to do a CGI reboot

Useless Ace: Oh thank goodness. My biggest beef with the She-ra reboot was the lost potential for Adam/Adora shenanigans.

Snow Cone King: Have you watched it?

Useless Ace: See above

Snow Cone King: :facepalm:

Actually I can’t judge, it’s still collecting dust on my to-watch list

Whatever

Snow Cone King: Reading more and Mark Hamill? Will be Skeletor?? That sounds like it'll go really well

The Orange Death: Y’all I have no idea but now I’m excited

About time He-Man came back

Snow Cone King: Fr tho, I can’t find anything about ties to dc or where he’d have met Damian

Flutetastic: Whack

The Orange Death: You’re telling me

Snow Cone King: You’re telling me.

Snow Cone King: I’m giving up. Some fandom guru who actually knows stuff can figure this out

The Orange Death: Valid

8:58

Snow Cone King: I lied and looked further and apparently not only are there multiple comicverse crossovers (Injustice vs the masters of the universe)(DC Universe vs Masters of the Universe)(he Man and the Masters of the Multiverse(I’m guessing is a crossover too)), but there’s a THUNDERCATS one too!

My childhood will be complete as soon as I read that

Useless Ace: Dude that’s amazing

That’s going top of my to-read list

Snow Cone King: Mood

Gerald: Mood

The Orange Death: King, you really are a king, thank you so much!!!

Useless Ace: I rlly hope they give Adam a better costume like they did w/ Adora in the new reboot

The Orange Death: It’s a bit overdue

The Dead Fandoms Discord - Channel #Magic-Troubles

14:19

Snow Cone King: amb there’s a illusion lady in my lit class and normally Idc but she’s being so annoying and she keeps illustrating the whack tales she’s telling and the teach could care less but she’s directly in my line of sight and I wanna learn

Is there a nice way to ask her to stop?

Goldie Queen Of France: Tell her she’s making it hard to see. Rlly, just bc we’re magic doesn’t mean we have the right to be a jerk

Snow Cone King: I’m a jerk by nature

Just wanted to make sure

Flutetastic: King, you’re not magic

The Dead Fandoms Discord chat - Channel #Less-than-dead-corner

23:39

Killjoy: I’m just saying! Thanos’ plan was dumb!

Jackie of Jackaland: You didn’t even watch the movie

Killjoy: I don’t have to watch a movie to know that it’s dumb to kill people for resource management when another option is literally just to make more resources

Jackie of Jackaland: Valid point op but pls start watching movies and reading comics before you rant about them based off of someone else’s tumblr rant

Killjoy: That’s less fun

Jackie of Jackaland: You mean less headache inducing

Goldie Queen of France: @Killjoy @Jackie of Jackaland polite, remember? If you’re gonna throw hands, do it in the dms.

Killjoy: Right, sorry

Jackie of Jackaland: Sry

The Dead Fandoms Discord chat - Channel #Magic-troubles

20:13

Snow Cone King: Wait are trails colored different by sect or by person?

Coracle-Miracle: Supposed to be by person, but mine turned a purple/black after whatever happened with the heart

Snow Cone King: Ouch

Coracle-Miracle: It hurts less to use magic the more I use it, although Idk what that means. We’re just powering through

The Dead Fandoms Discord Chat - Channel #MURDOCH

4:30

Snow Cone King: If I ever leave Paris, I want to go to Canada

Mapleblood: Dude that is my entire life motto

‘Cept I’m Brazilian

Point stands

Speedster: Valid x100

The Dead Fandoms Discord Chat - Channel #Less-than-dead-corner

17:20

Flutetastic: Salut, t’all, should I watch Gravity Falls?

Pigtails ftw: I say yeah

It gets weird later on, so I never finished, but I liked what I saw in the beginning

Flutetastic: Awesome. I wanna see if it beats Paris rn

Pigtails ftw: What even is Paris rn?

Flutetastic: Mood

Pigtails ftw: No but like, legit. What’s going on over there?

Flutetastic: #That-Real-Life

The Dead Fandoms Discord Chat - Channel #That-Real-Life

17:23

Flutetastic: @Pigtails ftw so yaknow about the magic hearts thing?

Pigtails ftw: didn’t know they were real

Flutetastic: Common response

@Snow Cone King @Coracle Miracle @Rough-Glamor @Goldie Queen Of France come help me out

So the heart/miraculous of Modification got corrupted by somebody, so far no one knows if they’re a strong sorcerer or a lucky human, but it happened and is messing with all change mages.

Snow Cone King: And he uses the extra power to possess civilians and turn them into rampaging monsters who are supposed to hold the city hostage for the hearts of Destruction and Restoration

Coracle-Miracle: which are, btw, also the hearts of purity and chaos

Snow Cone King: How does that work?

Coracle-Miracle: Those two hearts are the strongest and have multiple tie-in clauses, like luck, but that translates to really dangerous and often selfish sorcerers so instead they split into sections within theirs. It’s really interesting actually! Jaclynn O’Conner wrote a really cool book on it, I suggest you read that.

Pigtails ftw: That sounds demonic

Flutetastic: It nearly is

#BBoBL #Bursting Bubbles Of Bad Luck #Miraculous Ladybug #Felix #Felinette #ml fanfic #jaymeow writes #old writing #Felix July 2019 #Felix July 2020 #Timeline what timeline #Crossposting spam #Friday update

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gurugirl · 2 months

Note

Guruuuuuuuuu it's meeeeeee 🍸 Tomorrow is the weekend and my brother is coming to town to visit and he wants me to entertain him but I'm exhausted so wish me luck! And I've been meaning to stop in and say hi but I've been so busy since I was promoted at my firm. Just everything has been a big whirlwind. But I love it.

Update ~ My ex (the one who I kept sleeping with after he broke up with me) is seeing someone else now! It's so funny too because the last time he tried to hook up with me apparently he was dating her and I almost gave him and invited him over too. I'm so glad I was too tired because when I found out he'd been seeing this chick (who I know by the way but that's a different story) I was like doing the timeline in my head and yeah... it's very possible I slept with him while they were dating but as far as I know they're not exclusive but for me that's an ick. I'm not casual like that. So I had to go get STD tested and that's when I decided to block him completely. I am a well educated, grown adult who is on her way to some very successful career and saving up to buy a house (on track for end of year) and I'm fucking around with some loser asshole still? So yeah... that's all in the past and I know last time I said it was over with us but this time it's for real 😅

How have you been?? How's school and Mexico and your adorable dog?

Also I just read the ex's dad Harry last night and I'm absolutely hooked already. I don't make it on tumblr often anymore unless I need to shut my brain off after a grueling day at work but for this one? Honey let me tell you how well written and absolutely gripping it is and it's only part 1. No one does that tension like you and this one is no different. So I'm just here to tell you that I will be reading this series and opening up Tumblr every week for this one because it's so good already. Not one paragraph was boring or out of place. That's such a pet peeve of mine when I'm really into a good story and there's a chunk that absolutely does nothing to move the plot forward or it's just for funsies but that takes me right out of the experience of reading when a writer starts to add too much just for bulk.

tootles! -🍸

OH MY GOSH! I've been wondering how you've been! Congrats on the promotion attorney girl!! Amazing! You are such an inspo! 🎉 Busy is good when you're doing something you love! And I hope you have an amazing time with your brother. How nice that he's coming to visit! I miss my brother like you can't even imagine so it's making me all teary eyed just thinking about it.

And I'm so glad you are officially done with the ex. What a weirdo trying to sleep with you while he was seeing someone else. LOL. Men just aren't always the smartest but you were right to get tested because you never know. Smart girl!

And things are good here! The weather is warming up so midday is quite warm! School is good! I took an accelerated communications class and just finished that one (8 week condensed class) and now I'm just waiting on grades to be posted and still have another class I'm taking currently but I think spring break is soon? Also my dog is so fun. He's kind of showing his age these days but he gets 3 good walks every day so he's not just relegated to using the bathroom in our backyard. The walks help with his mind and his body and it puts him in a good mood (me too lol). He has pups he likes to play with up the street but that wears him out and he limps back home after he plays with them because his hips are sort of aging so he usually winds up resting for hours after 20 minutes of playtime. Anyway I could go on about Barry... he's the love of my life (don't tell my SO lol).

So happy to hear your thoughts on ex-boyfriend's dad! Thank you hon! I'm so flattered 🥰 Love that you enjoyed it!!

xoxo

#ask #🍸 anon #ex-boyfriend's dad!harry

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thesouthernpansy · 2 years

Text

scents and sensibilities (1-6/7)

i've been uploading this chapter-by-chapter on ao3 but since tumblr is the reason i am so in love with this ship i thought i'd post it here too !

Things with the werewolves are…tense, for a while, to put it delicately (and Viago’s sensibilities do tend to favor delicacy). Despite the mutual nature of their truce, or perhaps because of it, when tempers flare on either side the spark catches everyone, which leads to a swift and nasty end to the first of their attempts to spend fun casual time as a group. Viago does his best to keep a level head, of course, for Stu’s sake. Still, even his admittedly limited success is overshadowed by Deacon’s powder-keg temper and Vladislav’s prideful refusal to back down before the raised hackles of the pack.

In the end it’s the packleader—the Alpha, as he calls himself, and in all the excitement Viago realizes that he has forgotten the man’s actual name—who manages to deescalate matters before they turn violent. Collected and stern, but not unkind, he rounds up the werewolves and ushers them out in a series of hangdog expressions and half-hearted apologies.

“Sorry about all this,” he tells Viago, turning at the door.

“Ah, yes, we are also sorry,” replies Viago, nervously eyeing a Vlad and Deacon who do not by any means seem sorry at all. He feels a little caught off-guard, his embarrassment with his own behavior tangling with a sudden sort of pleased eagerness at having apparently been singled out as the other Voice Of Reason in the room.

“They’re good lads, really. Maybe next time we can try this a bit further away from the full moon, eh?”

“Oh, is it—? I hadn’t even considered,” Viago flounders. He’s usually better at scheduling, but then again he doesn’t usually have to take the needs of werewolves into consideration. “Do you have a cellular telephone? Perhaps it would be easier to consult one another, in the future.”

“Good call,” agrees the packleader. He takes Viago’s cell and enters his contact information—Viago recognizes the method from one of Stu’s previous telephone tutorials—and Viago takes a subtle and socially acceptable amount of time to look it over.

Anton, reads the line above the unfamiliar string of numbers. Oh good. Viago feels some of the tension go out of his shoulders.

“Thanks for being willing to give this another shot.” Anton holds out a hand. “I know it means a lot to Stu.”

Viago reaches out in return and finds himself caught in a firm handshake. He registers vaguely that if he were human this might crack a bone or two, and also that werewolves apparently run quite hot.

“It means a lot to us, too,” he assures Anton sincerely. “Since you are Stu’s mates now, as well.”

“Not just mates,” corrects Anton automatically. “Packmates! Which, you know, is quite a, uh, quite a big deal.”

“Yes,” agrees Viago, feeling lost.

“My job to keep them safe and happy, of course, me being the Alpha and all.” Anton’s voice has taken on a distinctly rambling quality, and as VIago watches his face does an odd sort of spasm, like he’s registering what he’s saying only after it’s come out of his mouth. He lets out a harsh breath and claps his hands together.

“Well, bound to be a few bumps in the road when you’re charting a path no one’s gone down before, eh?”

“Oh, yes,” nods Viago, relieved to be back on even footing in their conversation. “But we are fortunate to be, all in this together, as they say!”

He bumps a fist lightly against Anton’s shoulder in a show of cool masculine camaraderie.

“Reckon we are,” says Anton, returning the gesture with an open palm against Viago’s arm, pat pat. “I oughta be off, but I’ll text you, yeah?”

“Excellent!” says Viago brightly, waving his cell at attention to assure Anton that he knows what that means.

Anton nods and looks away, thumbing at the side of his mouth. “Right, well, uh. Good night, then, Viago.”

“Good night, my new friend Anton,” Viago replies, grinning broadly. He turns to flash the cameras an excited thumbs-up.

Stu peers in around the doorframe as Anton ducks out. Leaning in next to him, Nick raises his eyebrows at Viago until Stu elbows him in the side and shakes his head. They head off together after the rest of the pack, leaving Viago with the nagging sense that he’s missed something.

Behind him, Deacon scoffs angrily. “Who does that guy think he is? I know we are supposed to have a truce with these werewolves but that does not mean he can come in here and act like he is in charge of us.”

“He is not in charge of us,” says Vlad vehemently, though it’s unclear whether or not he’s actually agreeing with Deacon. “He is in charge of the werewolves, yes? That is how it works? He is the dominant one who gets to fuck all of the others.”

“I don’t think—” Viago looks wide-eyed at the cameras, stuttering. “I don’t think that is how it works.”

Deacon goes “huh” in a way that’s not uninterested.

A sort of flustered heat rises in Viago's face.

“I am going to speak to Katherine,” he announces to the unlistening room, turning on his heel and fleeing.

Katherine is just finishing up an interview when Viago finds her, perched at a table in the sitting room in that birdlike way she has and sipping carefully out of a red-stained teacup. She’d begged off from the evening’s social activities rather early on; being such a young vampire meant that she was still adjusting to the tremendous new power of her senses, and the smell of so many werewolves in a contained space all at once had proven to be a bit too much for her, even with all the windows open.

As soon as she sees Viago she brightens and holds out a hand. He takes it gently and presses his lips chastely to her knuckles.

“Hello, my love.”

“Hi, you,” she replies, smiling. “I didn’t expect to see you so soon. It sounded very exciting out there.”

“Oh, it was,” says Viago, patting the top of her hand. He doesn’t quite have the heart to tell her the full truth. “I had a very lovely chat with their Alpha, he’s very level-headed. And he has given me his telephone number, look—” He fishes out his cell to show Katherine, who hums appreciatively in a way that does, admittedly, make VIago feel a bit humored.

“It’s nice to hear that you’re getting along,” she says.

“And how have you been in here? Are you hungry? The werewolves had to leave before their pizza arrived, so there should be a deliveryman here at any moment.”

Katherine spares a fond look for the enthusiasm of his offer. “That’s very thoughtful of you, but I’ll have to pass. Edith and I are going to bingo tonight, and I don’t want to fill up beforehand.”

“Of course,” Viago allows, his smile tightening. “Wouldn’t want to be rude.”

Edith is a friend Katherine met through Elderly Eternity, a support group of sorts that she’s been attending to meet other vampires who are spending their afterlives in their golden years. There’s something about having grown properly old in your body, she’s tried explaining to Viago, that he just doesn’t understand.

Admittedly, he had responded, in a particularly ironic twist, rather childishly to the suggestion that there was something Edith—who was barely in her hundreds!—could understand about being old that Viago couldn’t, and Katherine had sat there, still as stone, and watched with her hands folded in her lap until his tantrum had run its course. He’s tried to be better about it, since.

“I have never even met Edith,” Viago admits to the camera later, looking sheepish. “There is no reason for me to dislike her, especially because Katherine seems to like her so much. It is only that, when you have waited so long for someone, and then you are with them but they do not want to spend as much time together as you do, it does sort of sting a bit.”

In a different, earlier interview, Katherine sets her cup into its saucer with a soft clink and frowns thoughtfully.

“Of course I want to pass time with Viago,” she says. “He’s a lovely man. We have such fun, and I wouldn’t be here without him.” She pauses, as if trying to find the right way to word what she wants to say. “Eighty years, though…it’s a long time. I’ve changed such a lot since we met back then. And Viago, well. He hasn’t really, has he?”

The werewolves have declined an exit interview this time, most of them still too riled to speak calmly about what’s just happened. Even Anton seems restless, his retreating figure flicking his cell open and closed four separate times before he slips beyond the camera’s view.

---

Viago fidgets on the couch, delicate fingers tugging his cravat as his mouth twists fretfully to one side.

“So, Katherine has suggested that it might be good for me to make a friend,” he tells the camera hesitantly. “Which, to be honest, does not make very much sense to me, because I already have plenty of friends. Even Deacon, although he called Katherine a very nasty name when she went out with Edith the other night so I am quite cross with him at the moment.” He shrugs and folds his hands in his lap for something to do with them that isn’t picking at his clothes.

“He only said it because he could tell I was upset, which is what friends do. Still—” Viago stills, lost in thought for a moment before an idea comes to him, and he perks up. “Perhaps this will be a good opportunity to reach out to Anton. But he has not sent me a text message, yet, and I am not entirely familiar with the process—will I look too eager if I send him the text message first?”

He looks beseechingly at the producer interviewing him, brows knit in concern.

“Uh,” says the producer. “I think he’d be glad to hear from you.”

Viago’s expression breaks into a relieved grin.

Two nights later, Anton meets Viago and the crew outside a nondescript block of flats. As they approach, he extricates a hand from the pocket of his windbreaker to raise in greeting.

“There he is!” Viago tells the camera, waving enthusiastically in return.

“Hiya, guys.” There’s a steady set to his shoulders tonight, the self-prepossessed posture of an Alpha on his own turf.

“So cool,” Viago mouths to the cameras giddily.

Anton’s mouth quirks further upwards as he turns to hold open the door. “Come on in, Viago.”

The flat Anton leads them to is clearly occupied by more than just him alone. Half a dozen jackets hang on pegs in the entryway above a shoe rack dotted with trainers of varying sizes. On top of that, despite the very fortunate coincidence that someone has left the windows in here open, the smell of werewolf is so thick that it feels like Viago could swallow and choke on it if he isn’t careful.

“You have flatmates?” he asks tactfully—and a bit nasally, attempting to speak as best he can without engaging his sinuses at all. Scattered about the lofty, open-plan space are more signs of life: sports magazines and DVDs, memorabilia and assorted knickknacks, all carefully stacked and shelved and dustlessly in place. Viago feels a pang of envy, which is somewhat ameliorated by the sight of dirty dishes in the kitchen sink. At least some things remain an inescapable constant in the roomie lifestyle.

Anton notices the dishes at the same time Viago does. “I do—sorry, give us a moment, would you?"

He crosses the lounge and raps sharply on a door with a rugby poster taped to the front. After a moment, the door cracks open and a bespectacled face Viago recognizes but could not name appears, glancing nervously between Anton and the cameras.

"Hey, Anton."

"Hey, Dion," replies Anton, carefully neutral. "Those dishes in the sink, they wouldn't happen to be yours, would they?"

Dion’s expression turns guilty. "I was gonna get to them," he says.

Anton steps sideways, putting his shoulder between the camera and his packmate. His voice lowers, and Viago notices one of the sound guys shuffle to hold his microphone closer.

“You knew we were having guests.”

“I didn’t think it would matter. It’s just one of the vampires, their place is a dump—”

“Hey,” says Anton sharply. “Mind your manners. We’ve talked about this, haven’t we? What’ve we said?”

“We—” The sigh that heaves up out of Dion reaches teenage levels of mortification. “Werewolves, not comparewolves. But Anton—”

Anton raises a hand, and Dion stops short. “Yes, alright, it’s not one of my better ones, listen. We can only control what we do with our own lives, yeah? Our own space? You start looking at other people, thinking, ‘oh, he lets the bins pile up, oh, she lets herself have a yell at the match’, next thing you know you’re letting the wolf out in the middle of the dairy! Ripping up old ladies and that! We’ve got to have standards for ourselves.” He shakes his head and makes a frustrated chopping motion with one hand.

“Come on, Dion, I don’t usually need to have this chat with you. What’s going on?”

Dion makes a noise of begrudging acknowledgement. Briefly, his eyes flicker over to meet Viago’s and then drop away again.

“Nothing,” he mumbles.

Anton takes a slow breath, in and out, crossing both arms across his chest. He watches Dion for another moment, head tilted to the side, and just as Viago is wondering if he ought to offer to leave, Anton’s posture softens.

“Hey, is it the cameras?” he asks. Viago is fairly certain only he and the werewolf Anton's speaking to can hear him at this point. “Are they making you uncomfortable? It would make sense if they are, we're used to privacy being pretty important around here, aren't we?”

Dion shakes his head. He can’t quite look at Anton, but it’s pretty clear that he’s actively trying not to look at Viago. Some of the steel comes back into Anton’s spine.

“Ah. Is it Viago's being here that you're uncomfortable with?”

It’s a direct hit—Dion shrugs a shoulder to try and hide the flinch, but he’s not entirely successful.

“I dunno, it’s. Nah, because we’re friendly with them now, yeah?”

“We are," confirms Anton. "That's why Viago is here, to help us keep it that way. But it's a big change, isn’t it? Lots to adjust to."

"Yeah," says Dion lamely.

"Would it help if we went to another room?” asks Anton gently.

A beat, and then Dion nods, and Anton claps him encouragingly on the shoulder.

“All good, then. We’ll get there, no need to rush things. Good job communicating your needs, Dion.”

“Thanks, Anton. I’ll do my dishes.”

“I would appreciate that,” Anton tells him. “You take a bit first if you need to, though, yeah?”

He waits for another small nod from Dion, then turns and gestures towards the cameras.

“This way, lads. Viago?”

Viago startles a bit at the sound of his name. When he comes back to himself he realizes that both hands are clawed around his elbows, holding tight against the cold, buzzing panic that’s been slowly seeping into him from Dion's words.

“Alright?” asks Anton.

Viago waves a hand weakly. “If my presence here is a problem—”

“No problems here, mate.” Anton leans over to press their shoulders together, hands shoved down into the pockets of his trousers. “Just a few bumps in the road, remember?”

From the point of contact, a slow, steadying warmth. It spreads through Viago’s chest and up into his face, pulling a smile up in its wake.

“How silly of me, how could I forget?”

Anton leads them into what must be his personal bedroom, a neat, rather spartan space with utilitarian furniture and plain white walls. There are a few personal touches: a large wall calendar pinned above the desk that charts each pack member’s work schedule (with a single thick red circle like a staring eye around an otherwise nondescript Monday); a smattering of framed photographs, also featuring the other werewolves almost exclusively; and, somewhat unexpectedly, an acoustic guitar leant in the corner, of cheap make, but obviously well cared-for.

“It’s all got to be readily replaceable,” Anton says in explanation. “Just in case. Can’t be wrecking priceless family heirlooms every time you stub a toe.”

He cracks open the window and pulls out the desk chair for Viago before settling himself on the edge of the bed.

Viago recognizes the invitation to sit, but he finds himself drawn instead to the photographs. One in particular catches his eye, a candid shot of Anton mid-laugh, arm slung around a wearily smiling Stu who’s leaning heavily on him in return. They’re both in a sorry state, shreds of tracksuit hanging off skin welted with scratches and smeared with mud. The sunlight catches Anton’s face in a way that makes him look half a decade younger, and something turns over in Viago’s chest.

“That was right after Stu’s first full moon.” Anton is suddenly at his side, pride in his voice. “Would’ve been a couple months ago, now. Poor bugger was so nervous you’d think he was about to have puppies, but he came through like a real champ.”

Viago forces himself to look away from the picture. “The other werewolves, they all live here?”

“Most of them,” replies Anton, scratching idly at his chin. “Pack instinct, I think. Plus it’s easier to live with people you haven't got to hide something like this from. I'm sure I don't have to tell you that," he adds, bumping their shoulders together again.

Viago leans into the contact. It's nice, sort of grounding, like something settling into the well-worn place where it belongs.

Anton clears his throat, taking a frame from the collection and passing it over. "Clifton lives a ways down the road with his missus, but otherwise this’ll be all of us here.”

A row of werewolves in suits flank a brilliantly smiling couple, the aforementioned Clifton and a pretty redheaded woman in a lacy white gown.

“That's Denise there, obviously. She and Clifton have been together for ages. She’s solid as a rock, that woman, stuck by him through his change and never once looked back.” He sounds wistful, looking at the picture with a sad sort of distance in his eyes.

Viago nods solemnly. “You have feelings for her.”

“What? Denise?” Anton looks at Viago like he’s just bitten into a bulb of raw garlic. “Definitely not. Not in the way you’re insinuating, anyway. She’s family.”

His tone has taken on a defensive edge as he puts the photograph back in its place. He pauses, and Viago hears him mutter something under his breath that sounds like counting, one to ten, before he scrubs a hand across his face.

“Sorry for snapping,” he says. “Get away from myself a bit sometimes when it comes to the pack."

If the pack is family, and Anton won’t—if he doesn’t—then what Vlad said about being the Alpha can't be true, can it? Viago bites his own tongue against the urge to ask.

“If it is of any consolation to you," he offers instead, "your snapping is quite cordial compared even to some perfectly friendly conversations I have had with my flatmates.”

Anton gives him an odd look. "I'm not sure it is, if I'm being honest. But, speaking of your flatmates, what d’you reckon?"

He gestures towards the chair, and this time Viago sits, crossing his legs primly at the knee. Anton takes up across from him, reaching for a pen and notebook on the bedstand.

"What do vampires do for fun that we could all do together?"

The obvious things are probably right out, Viago thinks. The werewolves won’t want to have a dinner party for hapless imminent victims, and with their healthy werewolf reflections they’d only ruin mirror puppet theater.

“We do like to go clubbing,” says Viago thoughtfully. “Usually when we go we are also looking for victims to bite, but perhaps if it was a joint outing we could abstain for the evening?”

“Now there’s an idea.” Anton jots something down in his notebook, nodding. “The lads love a good night out, though—hm. Lot of variables to keep track of in that scenario. Lot of things that could go sideways, especially once booze is in the mix. Maybe that’s one for a bit further down the line, eh?’

Viago hmms in acquiescence. “Well, what do werewolves like to do for fun?”

“Heaps of stuff.” Anton sits back, tapping his pen against the side of his thigh. “Group activities mostly. We cook together quite a bit, though I reckon that doesn’t help us much now. You, uh, you lot fancy a bit of sport? Board games? Anything like that?”

Viago brightens. “Actually, Deacon has recently recovered a Cluedo game from one of the neighbor’s rubbish bins with nearly all of the pieces, and we have been having a wonderful time with that.” Before Anton’s scratching pen can sound too excited, he adds, “Deacon and Vladislav get quite competitive, though. Usually the game ends because they start shouting and threatening to show one another their lead pipes."

Anton makes a sympathetic sound. “We’re no strangers to that here. I’ll add that to the ‘Later’ column, then.”

Awkward in the ensuing silence, Viago’s fingers fiddle nervously with his cuffs as he glances around the room. Perhaps it would’ve been wise to give this matter a little more thought before he showed up to this brainstorming session with a brain like a dry old sponge.

Then his eyes alight on the guitar in the corner, and an idea hits him like lightning from the blue.

“This is yours?”

“Sure as. Been teaching myself to play on and off since, gosh, since uni. I’m surprised the thing’s made it so long in one piece. Do you play?”

“Nothing like this,” replies Viago, rising to brush the tips of his fingers gingerly along the frets. “Vladislav and Deacon have always had more of an affinity for the stringed instruments. When you live for eternity you have plenty of time to figure out where your talents lie. I have been very fond of the trumpet lately, but—not to brag—I am rather talented with just about anything that you can blow!”

Anton inhales sharply and breathes out slowly, eyes flicking sideways to glance self-consciously at the cameras.

“That’s, uh, that’s quite impressive."

Viago preens a little under the praise. “It has taken a lot of practice, since I do not usually have to breathe.”

“I’ll bet,” says Anton.

“Do any of the other werewolves play?”

The distracted look on Anton’s face drops away as understanding catches up to him all at once.

“Actually, yeah. We do a lot of percussive instruments around here, always looking for a constructive way to release some aggression. But, uh, Declan has a bass guitar as well.”

Grinning, Viago throws both arms out, ta-da! , watching gleefully as Anton’s expression shifts to mirror his excitement back to him.

“I’ll start a new column,” he says.

Viago is still buzzing with the evening’s success later on, virtually unable to sit still as he faces the cameras.

“I am very pleased with how things are progressing with Anton,” he tells the producer, leaning forward. “I was honestly a little bit worried that there would be some irreconcilable differences between us, for the obvious reasons, and that maybe we would end up at each other’s throats, but as it turns out we are actually an excellent team! He is very easy to get along with. I am looking forward to spending more time together. For all of us to spend more time together,” he adds quickly, his smile back in place practically before it slips.

“Oh I don’t reckon this would work at all without him.” The crew has managed to grab a couple minutes for final questions with Anton while they finish packing up the van. “I mean, we all want to make this happen for Stu, and I’d do my best no matter what.” He seems to lose his train of thought, staring past the camera. The cameraman turns, zooms and focuses in on Viago talking animatedly to one of the grips. When he pans back around, Anton is turned in the opposite direction, scrubbing a hand across his mouth.

“Anyway, I'm—we're all lucky to have him. I'll see you guys later, yeah?" He stuffs both hands into his pockets and shoulders open the door, which swings shut behind him with a thunk.

---

Viago sits with an excited little shimmy, tugging his waistcoat into place.

“What do you think, this—is this one good?” He’s gotten up three times to change already. It’s a big night, and it feels important that he look just right for it.

“I like it,” says the producer, for the third time. “Suits your eyes.”

“Do you think so?” asks Viago earnestly. He nods to himself, smoothes it down carefully. “Alright, I am ready, then. Where were we?”

“The werewolves are coming over today,” the producer prompts.

“Yes, of course! They will be here any moment now. We are going to have a jam session ,” he tells the camera gleefully. “We have been preparing for it all evening, I think Ant—”

He’s interrupted by a knocking at the front door. Twisting in his seat, Viago turns toward the sound, fingers gripping at the arm of the couch as he pulls himself to his feet.

“That must be them!”

“Evening, Viago.” Anton stands in the doorway like a one-man road crew, an amplifier tucked under one arm and a bass drum under the other, the strap of a guitar case slung around his shoulders. “Where should we set all this up?”

The pack shuffles in behind him, bringing what must be quite an impressive drum kit, hefted in parts into the hall. Stu brings up the rear rolling a bulky plastic case with a black bag tied around the handle, right behind a wolf who must be Declan of Declan-has-a-bass-guitar-as-well, carrying a case that looks as though it could very likely contain a bass guitar.

“Right this way.” Viago waves them onwards, fangs pricking against his lip as he turns to smile at the camera with obvious nerves. He glances almost reflexively at Anton, who nods him on, fingers flexing around the amplifier.

Vladislav and Deacon are not in the lounge when Viago arrives with the werewolves in tow, but their instruments are set up in the corner, an upright bass and antique balalaika propped by some chairs and a couple rickety music stands, cittern and lute and mandolin left in an untidy heap by the feet of a small, triangular harp.

“The drums can go over here on the carpet,” says Viago. “So they do not scratch the floor.”

“Have at it, lads.” Anton passes off the drum he’s carrying to Dion. The amplifier he gives to Stu, since he’s already familiar with the layout, and, more specifically, where the outlets are.

Viago moves to stand next to Anton, wringing his hands, watching the werewolves mill about. Anton bumps their shoulders together, almost quickly enough to be mistaken for an accident.

“This is a nice room,” he says conversationally.

“Ah, I forgot that you didn’t get to see it the last time. Would you like a tour?” He puts a hand in the crook of Anton’s elbow to guide his attention as he slowly turns them around the room.

“There is our computer desk that Stu set up for us, we have the ethernet connection now—” he leans in conspiratorially, “—I am not entirely sure what that means, but we are all very excited about it. Over here are some portraits of us—I have been thinking of having an updated version done for myself, I have not worn that shirt for decades now and it's like, it doesn't even look like me anymore, you know? Oh, here is a lovely little piano I have had since 1879, a bit out of tune, but Petyr ate the last guy who came over to fix it, and I just haven’t had the time to find someone else. And,” he draws out the word, waving with a flourish, “here is this other wall!”

A smile has been slowly spreading across Anton’s face, and by this last touch it’s almost too bright to look at. Viago feels suddenly over-aware of his hand, how long it’s been there, the heat of Anton’s skin against his fingers. He wonders if it would be awkward to take it away now. He finds he doesn’t really want to.

Anton barks out a laugh. “Really feels like I know the place now.”

Viago tugs at his sleeve. “Here, you can put the rest of your things by the couch.”

When he sees the state of the blood-stained sofa, Anton lets out a long, low whistle. Viago notices several members of the pack perk to attention briefly before returning to their tasks.

“What happened here, then? Just the, uh, the usual?”

Viago sighs. “My flatmates are not always very careful with other people’s belongings. My belongings, I mean, not—that is—would you consider your carotid artery your belonging?”

“Can’t say I’ve ever thought about it,” replies Anton. “That’s a shame about the couch, though. Blood looks well set, but I could bring round a few things that’ve worked for us if you’d like to try and get some of it out.” He pauses, frowning in thought. “Maybe a steam cleaner, too. Worth a shot to see what we can do, at any rate, stop it going to mold.”

“I would not want to impose—” begins Viago, but Anton waves a hand.

“Honestly it’ll be nice to worry about someone else’s blood stains for a change,” he laughs. “Besides, what are mates for, eh?”

“What are mates for,” repeats Viago happily. “In that case, I will accept your very generous offer. Thank you.”

Anton clears his throat, turning back towards the sofa. “Well, at least your lovely throw pillows avoided the worst of it.”

“Oh, those are new. Katherine crochets, she made them to cover the really nasty bits.”

For a moment, Anton’s expression goes dark. “Katherine, right. I didn’t get much of a chance to speak to her before. She seems quite skilled.”

“She'll be around tonight,” Viago tells him. For some reason, he finds the idea of them being in the same room oddly discomfiting. “Do you crochet?”

Anton shakes his head. “My gran did. She tried to teach me, but I didn’t have the patience for it as a lad. I do a fair bit of sewing these days, though—mending mostly. Don’t reckon it’d surprise you how often that comes in useful.”

“Katherine would probably be happy to teach you,” offers Viago. “She’s very patient. She was teaching Deacon for a little while, but I think he expected it to be easier since he already knits.”

“Yeah, I saw that scarf he made Stu. Surprisingly tasteful, actually. As for lessons, I, uh, I’ll give it a think, yeah?”

He pats the top of Viago’s hand lightly before extricating himself and going to help the rest of the pack finish setting up.

Suddenly strangely bereft, Viago leaves to fetch his flatmates.

Not unexpectedly, there’s rather a dearth of songs that both the vampires and werewolves know in common. Nick and Stu have the most overlap, which means most of the pack have at least a passing knowledge of the same. They’re also—with the exception of Declan and Anton and whichever Nathan it is on the drums—not playing anything much more complicated than maracas, which theoretically means they could jump in on just about any song, but Deacon seems opposed on principle to them joining on any they don’t technically know.

It starts boiling over all too soon, taking a significant amount of quick intervention and painstaking negotiation to keep things from hurtling to the same conclusion as last time. Little arguments break out within the groups themselves as tensions rise, as well, leading to a moment when Anton has to thrust an arm physically between Deacon and Viago, the two of them hissing furiously in one another’s faces about whether or not Katherine’s tambourine playing is out of tune.

Something in the room cracks like a dropped egg.

“How dare you interfere in a matter between vampires?” Vladislav yanks Anton back by the shoulder, which in turn sets the rest of the pack off growling and advancing on him with a distinct ripple of fur threatening beneath their skin.

Viago’s anger ebbs into shame into concern.

“Hey, hey! Stand down, lads, it’s alright. I’m just trying to help,” he adds to Vlad, both hands raised in a conciliatory gesture.

“We do not need your help, dog,” snaps Vlad in return.

A noticeable tic pulls Anton’s face into a ugly grimace at that. From the back of his throat comes a rumbling like thunder, and a full-body shudder rocks him back on his heels even as his shoulders roll forward aggressively.

From anger into shame into concern into something else, something, something —

“Anton, mate, remember your breathing.” Clifton already has an arm slung around another of the Nathans while the man struggles to come back to himself; there’s a sour tinge of panic in his voice that he’s trying very clearly to hide.

Viago steps forward without thinking. Anton’s eyes snap to his, the brown of them ringed sickly with yellow, a lack of recognition in them that sits like silver in the pit of Viago's stomach—and then he scrubs a hand across his face, sucks in an unsteady breath, and exhales slowly on a low, even count, one to ten. The tension goes out of him like a puppet cut from its strings. When he looks up again, the only thing in his eyes is exhaustion.

“Maybe we ought to take a break,” he suggests wanly. “A bite to eat might do us some good, eh, guys?” A slight wince at his choice of words.

“I could eat,” agrees Clifton instantly, followed by a chorus of similar sentiments from the other werewolves: “Oh, yeah, I’m starved,” “Sounds great, Anton,” “I’d love a break actually.”

Viago jumps at the opportunity. “Would you like your pizzas?”

“You got us pizza?” asks Anton.

“Ah, well you didn’t eat them the last time.”

"The last time we were here?”

“We kept them here for you,” confirms Viago proudly. “They smelt very strongly of garlic when they arrived, it was super gross, and at first we thought, yuck, we should get rid of those, but then I thought, well what if they come back and they want them? And here you are.”

“That’s very thoughtful, Viago—”

A presence at his elbow. “Anton, it’s been like, weeks, man.”

“It’s barely been a week. And it wouldn't be anywhere near the worst thing I’ve watched you eat, Declan, full moon or not.” Anton pauses, then leans in towards Viago.

“You have—they’ve been refrigerated and that, yeah?”

“Ah, yes,” says Viago, half-distracted, like he’s trying to conjure up a memory of actually doing that.

"They are on the shelf above the blood,” Vlad pipes up helpfully.

"See that, Declan? They’re on the shelf above the blood. That’s good then, isn’t it? Would you like, I could give you a hand getting everything together if you—”

"I will help." Vladislav stands very suddenly, cutting him off. “You stay here,” he adds, with a lilt that suggests he’s maybe trying to use hypnosis on Anton, to debatable result.

He sends Deacon a pointed look. Deacon returns it, then lets out a little grunt.

“I will also help,” he says, rising to follow.

“Team vampire it is then!” It’s a pleasant surprise, their willingness to assist with such an unexciting task. Viago waves them ahead of himself, watches them indeed head in the direction of the kitchen. Deacon and Vladislav are his friends, not his responsibilities the way the wolves seem to be for Anton, and he wouldn’t change that even if he could, but he has always hoped that trying very hard to set a good example might at least in some things lead to someone eventually actually following it. A satisfied sense of relief swells in his chest.

“We will be right ba��”

It bursts, then, with all the sensation of collateral damage, when he turns to see Katherine pat the spot by her on the couch in invitation, and an uneasy Anton hesitate, then fill it.

It’s a feeling that Viago neither likes nor understands, so he turns again and goes and leaves it behind.

Vlad is leaning against the kitchen countertop with his arms crossed at his chest, holding himself with a silent, steeled stillness. Deacon is seated with a boot up on the table, drumming his fingers in a jittery beat. When he sees Viago enter, both feet hit the floor with a prompt slam.

“Wha—?” starts Viago.

"I have come here to say that I am sorry for picking a fight with the werewolves,” says Vlad brusquely. “It was not very cool of me to do that.”

He looks at Deacon again in that sharp, expectant way, and Deacon, tight-lipped, adds, "I am also sorry. I was actually sort of starting to have fun.”

Viago blinks. Not that the apologies are without precedent (not even the fact that he didn’t have to nag them out), but something about the context of the situation makes Viago’s mind shut down and chrysalize like a caterpillar, emerging into a world that feels off, different in a way that everyone seems to have noticed but him.

“Well that’s very nice of you to say, but I think you should be apologizing to Anton, not to me.”

That’s a double-edged sword, though, isn’t it, because now he’s thinking about Anton. He and Katherine getting along would be the best case scenario for everyone, of course, there isn’t any arguing that. Viago wants them to get along. His two favorite—two of his favorite people, it would be so much worse if they didn’t, so honestly what is going on with this weird ache in his chest?

"I will definitely do that,” says Vladislav gravely, “later.” He then looks directly at the cameras and shakes his head, mouth spreading in a dismissive frown.

Viago prickles. "I am right here, you know, I can see what you are doing—”

"What?” demands Vlad. “What am I doing?”

“—if you are not going to do it you don’t have to lie about it—”

“—looking at the cameras? I can't look at the cameras? You look at the cameras all the time!"

"Besides,” Deacon cuts in, “we can all see what you’re doing too, with your Anton."

That stuns the conversation into silence like a slap to the face.

“What?”

Vladislav slams a hand down on the countertop by his hip. "Deacon! We agreed that we are going to be supportive about this, even if it is very disgusting and is probably going to end in terrible bloodshed."

"How am I supposed to be supportive when he is sneaking around and keeping it a big sneaky secret?”

"I am not keeping anything a sneaky secret,” Viago insists, though neither of them seem inclined to hear him.

"Enough!” snarls Vlad. It’s the voice he uses when he’s done , usually with a problem that he’s been the cause of. “We are going to go back out there and have fun for our friend Stu, and we are not going to talk about this anymore, and you are going to apologize to Anton, Deacon.”

“Why do I have to apologize to him—?”

“—I will leave the handling of the pizzas to you, Viago.”

With that, Vlad takes Deacon’s elbow and a crystal decanter of blood and sweeps out of the room, leaving Viago more confused than he has maybe ever been in his long, long life.

Ten minutes later the werewolves are scattered around the lounge eating cold week-old pizza with gusto, laughing and passing around a bottle of hot sauce that Clifton had been carrying in his cargo shorts. Deacon takes a long pull from a glass of blood, then holds it out for Dion to sniff, throwing his head back in a delighted cackle when the wolf gags and covers his nose. Off to the side, Vlad taps the drum kit’s hi-hat with the nail of his index finger while he chats with Nick and Stu. Katherine sits between two of the Nathans, tutting as one of them shows off a scar on his forearm.

On the couch, Anton fusses over the fingertips of Viago’s right hand, red and raw from the garlicky grease of the pizzas that had bled through the boxes he carried in.

“It’s not so bad.”

“Let me do that for you next time, would you? No need for you to be hurting yourself on our account.”

“Next time.” Viago flexes his hand, a smile pulling at his lips.

Twenty minutes later, Anton has handed his guitar off to Nick so that Nick can join the pack in a rousing rendition of ‘Werewolves of London’. Instead, he watches Viago pick out a completely unrelated tune on the abandoned cittern with supernaturally healed fingers and the serious attention of a surgeon.

“You’re better at this than you let on.” Anton tells him, reaching to gently correct his positioning on the strings.

His fingers are rough, and hot as Viago might’ve expected, if he was thinking about it enough to expect anything, which he hasn’t been, obviously.

“Not as good as you. I have simply had plenty of time to practice.”

“Well, practice is important.” Anton’s touch lights along Viago’s knuckles, little lit fuses of pressure and heat. Viago hmms at the pleasant sensation.

Anton stiffens, swallows audibly. “Uh, Viago, I—”

A jarring clatter and crash as one of the cymbals is knocked off its feet with a shout. Someone shoves someone else; the amplifier goes sliding across the floor, leaving a scratch on the hardwood in its wake.

“Guys! Again?” Anton stands to yank Nathan back up on his feet. He and Dion and Declan cluster behind Anton, shielded from a scowling Vladislav. “What’s going on?”

Vlad throws out a hand in the wolves’ direction. “They will not let me play The Girl in the Village With the One Small Foot.”

“There’s no way that’s a real song,” insistes Nathan.

“Well, Nathan, just because you haven’t heard of it doesn’t mean it’s not real.”

Viago hovers between Vlad and Anton, picking at his cuffs.

“Vladislav, I do not know if that is a very popular song these days—”

“So now it is my fault that they are uncultured? I did not throw a tantrum when you wanted to play your fake song,” he snaps at Nathan, who throws his hands in the air.

“Everybody knows Stairway to Heaven!”

Vlad and Viago both hiss, and Anton heaves a sigh.

“Come on, mate, I know you know better than that. Why don’t we just let Vladislav play his song, alright? Then you can hear that it’s real.” He leans closer to Viago, asking lowly, “It is a real song, isn’t it?”

“Oh yes,” confirms Viago happily. “It’s actually quite a toe-tapper!”

Anton is pleased to hear it, if the fond sort of expression that comes to his face is any indication.

When it finally comes time for the werewolves to leave, the vampires all line up to say their farewells at the door. They all accept hugs from Stu, and firm handshakes from the rest, with the exception of Deacon and Dion, who appear to have come up with a complicated series of high-fives and finger waggles for themselves that they execute with impressive precision.

Anton lingers in the doorway. “I’ll text you about the sofa, yeah?”

“I had almost forgotten about that,” Viago admits. “Of course, you are welcome here whenever you like.”

Anton ducks his head with a little grin. “You don’t have to invite me, mate, I’m not a vampire.”

“No, but you are very polite,” Viago tells him, and Anton laughs out loud at that.

The door has barely shut behind him before Katherine sidles up to Viago’s side, a sly sort of look on her face as she glances sideways at him.

“He’s a handsome one, isn’t he?” she says playfully, and everything inside of Viago feels like it collapses all at once.

“Yeah, it was a good night.” Anton secures the final piece of the drum kit in the pack’s van and dusts his hands off. “Got a lot smoother once everyone realized they all knew that one Fleetwood Mac album. Gonna be stuck in my head all night, now, but I reckon there’s worse things.”

“Did you have fun?”

“Me? Sure. It’s always nice to see the lads have a good time, and Viago’s great company. That Vlad and Deacon take some getting used to, but they’re alright enough once you get there. I’m a bit embarrassed to admit that I wasn’t so keen on Katherine at first, but it turns out she’s quite lovely as well.”

“You spoke for a while, the two of you. What were you talking about?”

Anton clears his throat and glances to the side. It makes the blush exploding up his neck even more painfully obvious.

“I’d, uh, rather not say, if that’s alright.”

Viago looks like a man devastated, staring dead-eyed past the cameras and chewing on his lip. A bright bead of blood wells up and slides down his chin unnoticed, dripping down onto his waistcoat, vivid against the embroidered gold.

“It makes sense, if she was going to fancy any of the werewolves, of course it would be Anton. He’s very cool, and very reasonable, and thoughtful, and funny. And also he is quite good at the guitar.” With a groan, Viago drops his face into his hands.

“What am I supposed to do?” he asks, voice muffled. “I want her to be happy. I want them both to be happy. Do I give up and step back again?”

He looks up suddenly, eyes wide and hair mussed, a little smear of blood on his cheek. “Do you think that this will mean that Anton will not have time to be my friend anymore?”

Katherine looks at the producer and frowns. Delicately, she sets her teacup down; her shoulders rise and fall as she pulls in an unnecessary lungful of air just so she can produce perhaps history’s weariest and most long-suffering sigh.

---

“I have not been slumbering very well lately.” Viago is noticeably disheveled, and though he’s dressed and his hair is combed and his cravat tied and pinned, it does all give the impression of having been done while standing out in a strong wind. “I took the picture of Katherine out of my coffin when she moved in–it felt a bit unnecessary, you know? But—”

He trails off, chewing distractedly at his thumbnail. “I wake up a lot and still expect to see it there, and I find I am a little bit sad when it isn’t. Isn’t that strange? I mean, when she is here in the flesh just a few rooms away. Perhaps it will sound foolish of me to say but it has felt farther away sometimes."

"Have you talked to Katherine about this at all?" prompts the producer gently.

Viago seems to snap back to himself, some of the focus returning to his eyes as he straightens the brooch at his throat. "No, no, I—I have tried, but she has not been alone often. Edith has been over nearly every day, and not just her, either.” His expression pinches up into a look of distaste. “Ruth has been coming here now, too.”

"And who’s Ruth?"

Viago sighs deeply. "Another of Katherine’s friends from her group. She’s only ninety-nine, still quite a wild party girl. She is always telling Katherine about all the vampire orgies and sex clubs and fuck shows and things she goes to.”

"Does that bother you?”

"No, of course not.” Viago folds his hands in his lap, frowning. “I worry a little—it just isn’t really my scene, these days. I mean, sometimes it is, I have been known to be, you know, a pretty crazy guy from time to time, but not—”

He makes a frustrated sound and shakes his head. “Most vampires find the idea of monogamy sort of stuffy and lame, but it is what I have always envisioned for myself, that I would eventually meet someone and be with them and only them. I suppose it made me sad to think that Katherine might not want the same things.”

"Does it still make you sad?"

Viago blinks, as if caught off-guard by the question. He glances away, frown deepening. The camera pans to where his eyes have fallen, on the long scratch left on the floor by the previous week’s scuffle with the werewolves. It moves back to Viago, whose expression is nearly unreadable, knuckles whitening as the hands in his lap clutch one another for dear life.

“I don’t know,” he says eventually. He sounds sad.

True to his word, Anton is at the door at half-six the next evening with a rented steam cleaner and a collection of bottles and boxes and jugs of various liquids and powders that would make a chemicals laboratory envious.

“Evening, Viago,” he says with a little wave.

The sight of him puts a fluttering joy in Viago’s chest, a caught bird trilling behind his ribs. It’s a welcome respite from the strange anxiety that’s been churning in him since his latest interview check-in.

“Hello! Come in, come in.” He recalls his manners enough this time to take one of Anton’s bags. “I am sorry to make you bring so many things over here again.”

“No worries, I offered, remember?”

“Ah, yes. Still, I appreciate it very much.”

Anton thumbs at the corner of his mouth. They’ve spent enough time together by now that Viago recognizes the gesture; it seems to be something Anton does whenever he’s trying to hide that he’s smiling, which doesn’t make much sense to Viago. He has a very nice smile.

“Nah, don’t mention it, mate. Shall, uh, shall we?”

“After you.” Viago waves him ahead. As he follows, he notices a pair of bright yellow cleaning gloves peeking out from Anton’s back pocket, and something about the innocuous little detail gives him the mad urge to reach out and snatch them, to close the space between them and make contact.

The memory comes to him, unbidden, of how his hand had settled into the crook of Anton’s elbow, and he flexes his fingers involuntarily.

Viago approaches the cleaning process with a game attempt at appearing enthusiastic, cuffing his sleeves away from his wrists and accepting the extra pair of gloves Anton digs out of his supplies. Still, he doesn’t do much to prevent it as Anton inevitably takes over more and more of the operation. Eventually (admittedly an eventually that comes rather more quickly than the word implies), it’s mostly Anton cleaning while he talks Viago through what he’s doing and why, and Viago nodding very seriously and dabbing at the edge of the stain with a damp rag.

“May I?” Anton takes his hand to demonstrate the ideal amount of pressure to apply, the smooth efficiency of a well-practiced gesture. Viago knows with an unshakable certainty that he will remember the weight of Anton’s hand on his own far better than the information it’s trying to convey.

It must be something to do with Anton being the wolfpack’s Alpha—there’s a compelling reassurance to his competence that makes it difficult to concentrate on anything else. Not that he tries to order Viago around or anything, though he does get a bit bossy once or twice—”No, no, that’ll make it worse, come on, give it here.”—in a way that’s vexing at first, but blunts into something that’s almost charming when he gets sheepish and apologetic about it almost immediately.

“I usually have to put up a fight to get any cooperation with chores,” he says by way of explanation.

“I know that feeling.” Viago waves the apologies off genially without pointing out that he’s cooperating at this point mostly by staying out of the way.

Viago doesn’t personally know anything about what it’s like to be a werewolf, obviously, which he’s very glad about, but he knows enough to extrapolate that it must be a constant effort for Anton to be as collected and genial as he is. The thought impresses and saddens him both at once.

Then Anton moves too quickly and knocks over an uncapped bottle of isopropyl alcohol and swears a bloody streak that sets Viago into stitches with laughter.

“Sorry about that,” says Anton, clearly upset with himself.

“It sounded very cathartic for you,” Viago tells him, still grinning.

Anton starts to return it, then glances away. “I try not to—I’ve got to be a good example for the pack, you know? Don’t want to be a hypocrite about things like this.”

“I will not tell anybody.” Viago nudges their shoulders together and feels Anton let out a long breath, sagging against him in relief.

Two hours go by in a flash, and then Anton finishes smearing a thick dish-powder-paste on what remains of the blood and steps back, peeling off his gloves. They sit and chat while it dries, Anton working his way through a packed lunch of three sandwiches and half a dozen chicken wings. After seeing how much pizza the wolves put away at their jam session, it doesn’t surprise Viago to see the werewolf metabolism in action, but the sheer speed with which the food disappears, bones and all, is still pretty impressive.

Anton must be following a similar train of thought. “I meant to tell you, the guys keep talking about band night. They really had a great time.”

“We also had a really great time,” Viago hastens to assure him. “Well, Nick definitely did. Vladislav has not really said anything about it, but if he had a bad time he definitely would have mentioned it. And Deacon has requested that I ask you for Dion’s electronic mailing address. Apparently he is going to teach Deacon how to play a game with him over the computer.”

“Huh,” says Anton. “That’s not half a surprise, is it? Well, I don’t envy him the task.” His eyes flick to Viago, then to the cameras. “Has, uh, has Katherine said anything about the evening at all?”

Viago had considered getting some leftovers from the kitchen and joining Anton for his meal; now he’s endlessly grateful that he hadn’t. The question plummets through him in a wave of cold, thready nausea.

“Nothing in particular,” he replies, which isn’t a lie, since they’ve barely spoken at all since then. “The two of you seemed like you got on quite well, though.”

“Yeah, I reckon we did.” Anton shrugs a shoulder. “Anyway, might be worthwhile to plan something again soon, eh? What do, uh, what do you like to do for fun?”

“We had that whole list last time,” says Viago, puzzled, and Anton glances at the cameras again and huffs out a little breath like he’s nervous about something. Viago braces himself as if for impact.

“Right, yeah, I meant more like what do you do for fun? In your free time and that.”

“Oh.” The confusion deepens. “I will warn you now that the other vampires and I do not necessarily have many overlapping hobbies, I would not hold out much hope that mine will be of interest to your pack.”

“They’re of interest to me,” says Anton gently.

Viago’s whole body floods suddenly with a prickly tingling feeling, the distant recollection of being human and coming into a warm room from the frigid outdoors, blood returning to chilled fingers and toes in a way that almost hurts. Move, his body tells him, but he doesn’t know where he’s meant to go or what he wants to do with the impulse.

“Well,” he says awkwardly, realizing how long he’s been quiet. His voice sounds a bit strangled even to his own ears. “Other than the music, of course. I have been translating some Rilke for fun, when I have a moment to myself, and I am thinking about getting into flower arranging—this house can feel a little dingy sometimes and I think it would really brighten the place up. Can you—” he scrambles up to indicate a spot by the window, a little table with a basket of Deacon’s yarn heaped in it. “—imagine a lovely vase of peonies and chrysanthemums here?”

“It would really brighten the place up,” agrees Anton readily.

Viago returns to his spot by Anton, satisfied. “That’s more of something I hope to get into,” he explains. “I think I could make a space in the room with the pottery wheel—”

Anton straightens abruptly. “Pottery wheel? Is, uh is it you who does that, or?”

“We have all tried it out,” says Viago. “But it is mostly me, yes, now that I am thinking about it.”

“And you enjoy it?” asks Anton.

Viago sits back a bit. He feels like there’s something he’s missing in this conversation, treading water while Anton feeds him a line he continually fails to notice. Mostly, though, it’s—well he can’t remember the last time Vlad or Deacon were this interested in talking in-depth about his hobbies. Nick and Deacon have gotten pretty into the pottery wheel more recently, but Viago hasn’t forgotten the week-long period Deacon spent mercilessly teasing Viago about it when he’d first acquired it.

“It is quite relaxing,” he tells Anton. “If a bit messy.”

“Seems like it would be,” says Anton. “And then afterwards you’ve got a little cup or something, I reckon, so it’d be a practical hobby, too.”

“Well, I haven’t gotten that far yet,” says Viago. The kiln still makes them all too nervous to actually fire anything.

“Would you, uh—” Anton makes a vague, aborted gesture with one hand. “There’s a place in Wellington Central that does a pottery and wine night, if you think you might fancy going some time? You’re meant to bring your own bottle,” he adds quickly. “If that, uh, helps.”

He would fancy going some time, Viago thinks. He'd fancy that very much.

“Would they be able to accommodate so many of us?”

Anton looks at him with a tight, considering expression. “I meant—I was wondering if you’d like to go together, with me. Just me.”

Viago had not even realized that was on the table. He grins broadly.

“Even better!”

“Yeah?” asks Anton, sort of breathless.

“I do not mean any offense to your pack, but I would much prefer that, just us.” He was already starting to form physically impossible ulcers from the thought of the jam session’s chaotic whirlwind in a room full of exceedingly breakable items. And there’s—well, he likes having Anton’s full focus, if he’s being honest, which seems nigh-upon impossible for more than a few minutes at a time when Anton also has to be in Alpha mode.

“No offense taken,” Anton assures him. “It’s, uh, a bit last-minute, but are you free tomorrow?”

“Yes, I believe so.” He’s free most of the time, but Anton doesn’t need to know that. Unless he wants to know that?

“I could come by around seven, if that works?”

“I will be here!” replies Viago.

“Good,” says Anton, smiling. It’s an even nicer smile when he’s not trying to hide it. “That’s good isn’t it. Well, um.” He clears his throat. “Reckon it’s about time to get that dish-powder off, how about you?”

In the end, much to Viago’s amazement, they manage to get the couch back nearly to new. There’s a pinkish tinge to it if he looks at it at an angle, when the moon hits it just so, but certainly no one would mistake it for red now, and the smell is vastly improved. Anton insists on a high-five, then claps Viago on the back in a way that forces a startled little huh out of him. He leaves it there for a beat longer, and Viago feels it like a bruise all the time he helps pack up the cleaning supplies and walk Anton to the door.

They reach it just as Katherine comes up the hall with Edith and Ruth, the three of them laughing amongst themselves. When she sees them Katherine brightens and waves.

“Anton, what a pleasant surprise,” she smirks, like it’s not actually a surprise at all.

“Hiya, Katherine. Alright, ladies?”

“Better now,” says Ruth with entirely too many teeth. “Katherine’s told us so much about you. I think it’s terribly exciting to have a werewolf about the place.”

“Uh, thank you, I think.”

Katherine bats Ruth on the arm. “Down, girl. Don’t pay her any mind, she’s like this with everyone. We’re not interrupting anything are we?”

She raises her eyebrows, to which Anton does something complex with his, and Katherine nods slightly. Viago feels very suddenly like an idiot with a stomach full of curdled blood.

“I’ll, uh, I’ll leave you all to your night, then.” Anton hitches up the strap of his bag and backs up towards the door. Then, more quietly, he adds, “See you tomorrow, yeah?”

“Seven o’clock,” confirms Viago. He can’t quite look Anton in the eyes. “Don’t be late.”

“I never am.” He sounds almost insulted. For a moment, he sort of sways towards Viago, then glances at the cameras, at Katherine and her friends, and claps him on the shoulder gamely before turning and letting himself out.

“Not a word," comes Katherine’s voice immediately, and Edith laughs.

“You’re still no fun,” Ruth pouts. “We’ll have to work on that.”

Katherine touches Viago lightly on the wrist. He startles a little; he hadn’t even noticed her getting so close.

“You and Anton are going out tomorrow?”

“He is taking me to a pottery class.”

“Hm,” says Katherine thoughtfully. Her eyes on Viago’s face are so sharp he has to turn away. “There was something I wanted to talk to you about later, but maybe that’s not necessary anymore.”

Viago has not a single fucking clue what she’s talking about, but right now he would rather stake himself in the heart and bleed out on the newly-cleaned sofa than have a talk.

“Yeah,” he says. “Probably not.”

Katherine gets on tiptoe to plant a quick, dry kiss on his cheek.

“We’ll talk about something else then,” she says, a fondness in her voice that feels like pity. “Enjoy the rest of your night, Viago.”

“Good night,” says Edith politely.

“Don’t wait up!” cackles Ruth.

And then Viago is left standing in the hall with the crew, ears ringing with the silence left in their wake.

“Do you want to talk about it?” asks the producer tentatively.

Viago’s shoulders tense up around his ears. “No,” he says simply. “I do not think that I do.”

---

The following evening sees Viago in much higher spirits. He can’t seem to sit still for his interview, already dressed and ready to leave even though Anton isn’t meant to arrive for another hour.

“Yeah, so, at first I was really worried that tonight was going to be Anton’s way of bringing me somewhere public so that I cannot make a scene when he tells me that he and Katherine have feelings for one another.” His bright mood falters for a moment, then returns with visible effort. “But then I realized that Anton is my friend, and also a really great guy, and it is unfair of me to think that he would do something like that. So I have decided that I am just going to try and have a good time and not worry so much.”

“Now why, uh—” the producer falters. “You seem very sure that the two of them are romantically involved.”

“I was not born yesterday,” says Viago, tetchy. “It has been…many hundreds of yesterdays, probably, possibly even thousands. Obviously there is something going on between them.” He swipes a bit of lint from his trousers with the flat of his hand. “Between you and I, whatever it is, I sort of hope Anton does not mention it. Even if they are wanting to be together, I—”

He glances away, blinking rapidly, and his mouth twists to one side. “I would like to have a nice time with him and not think about it, at least for tonight.”

Before the producer can respond, the door to the lounge swings open, and Vladislav leans into the room.

“I am doing an interview,” Viago protests, and Vladislav waves a hand dismissively.

“You are always doing an interview. This is more important.”

Viago’s mouth pinches up. “What is it, then?”

“I have brought something for you.” Vladislav produces what appears to be a black silk shirt, ruched at the cuffs and cut into a deep vee at the front. He holds it out to Viago, who levels it with a thoroughly unimpressed look.

“Your black silk shirt? This is the thing that is more important than my interview?”

Vladislav gives it a little shake. “I have decided that you should take it. I do not want it anymore, even though it is very sexy and makes me completely irresistible to women—and also most men.”

Viago looks between Vladislav and the shirt with evident suspicion, but not disinterest, then slowly reaches out to accept it. “Well, I am touched that you thought of me.”

Vladislav spreads his hands and offers a magnanimous little bow. “You could wear it tonight, yes? For your rendezvous with the werewolf?”

“It is not a rendezvous, it is—do you think it would be better than what I am already wearing?”

“That is what you were going to wear?” asks Vladislav, eyebrows climbing.

“What is wrong with it?” Viago tugs at his jacket. It’s the embroidered denim one, something modern and cool to match whatever Anton wears.

“No, no, the jacket is fine, it makes you look very modern and cool. I don’t know about the waistcoat, though, am I not always saying you don’t have to wear the waistcoat all the time?”

“Well I don’t want to be underdressed, Anton will think I’m not taking our time together seriously if I go out looking like some sort of hooligan.”

“You are not going to look like a hooligan if you wear the shirt I have just given you, hooligans don’t wear silk.”

“I don’t know—you are definitely sure that you don’t want it anymore?”

“Yes, definitely.” Vladislav pats Viago’s shoulder supportively, then shoots the cameras a look. “But I might want it again later so don’t do anything too weird in it, maybe.”

By ten til, Viago is already waiting in the front hall, a re-corked bottle of blood in one hand, doing his best not to start pacing up the walls. He untucks Vladislav’s black shirt from the waistband of his pants, then tucks it back in again, nearly dropping the bottle as he does so.

“Anton should be here any moment now,” he tells the cameras. “I am feeling a little nervous, but mostly excited. And also a bit chilly from here to here,” he adds bashfully, gesturing towards the parts of his neck and chest usually covered by a cravat and high collar, now bared by his borrowed attire. “Do you think I should wear a scarf?”

Anton knocks exactly five minutes early, and Viago nearly charges over one of the camera operators dashing to answer.

“He’s here!” A hushed, gleeful anticipation in his voice like he’s calling for everyone to take their places before a surprise party. On the other side of the door, Anton swipes a hand distractedly through hair that had likely been meticulously styled at some point earlier in the evening.

“Hi, I, uh—” His mouth hangs open for a moment, then shuts with a click of teeth. “Viago. Hiya.”

“Hello,” says Viago brightly. “Everything is alright?”

“Good as gold,” replies Anton quickly. “I just, uh, don’t think I’ve ever seen your neck before.” He gestures with a weak laugh at his own front, where, Viago notices, he’s wearing a pressed grey button-up under his windbreaker. It’s quite a step up in formality from his usual t-shirts and tartans, and a brief panic seizes Viago that he has managed to underdress after all.

“You, uh, ready to go, then?”

Viago isn’t exactly the best judge for what counts as flushed on someone with their own blood still in them, or he’d say that Anton looks flushed.

“I was born ready!” He wonders if that’s still a cool thing to say, then decides that it probably is. He lifts his bottle in salute, to which Anton responds by producing a bottle of his own and leaning in to clink them together.

The shop they wind up at is called Kilndred Spirits, a two-front spot with a bottle store and pottery venue side-by-side in an unassuming strip mall. Anton has managed to wrangle them a hail mary reservation, and the girl at the front counter welcomes them in cheerfully. The cameras, however, are stopped at the door while she grabs a manager, and Viago offers them a shrug through the front window. Stricter lot here than at Boogie Wonderland, it would seem.

While the manager speaks to the crew, the counter girl leads Viago and Anton to their spot at the end of a long bench. On the other side are seated a man and woman who are having a low, heated discussion, heads bowed together and wearing matching expressions of irritation. When they see Viago and Anton approaching they lean away from each other, the woman baring her teeth in a tight smile that doesn’t reach her eyes.

“You must be our new neighbors,” she says, patting the bench next to her. The man she’s with rolls his eyes behind her. “I’m Holly, this is my husband, Dave. First time here?”

“It is, yeah.” Anton returns her husband’s handshake. Dave winces a little. “I’m Anton, this is my, uh, Viago.”

“Hello.” Viago waves, then reluctantly offers Dave a half-hearted handshake. It earns him a distasteful frown.

“That’s an unusual name,” notes Holly as they take their seats, leaning across Anton to address Viago.

“I think Anton is pretty popular, actually,” Viago tells her, and Anton stifles a laugh.

Holly hesitates. “I meant your name,” she clarifies. “Viago. Don’t hear that one often.”

“Oh.” That does make more sense. “It’s German.”

“That’ll be the accent, then,” says Holly, visibly relaxing. “How long have you been in New Zealand?”

Viago glances at Anton, who grimaces at him apologetically. It’s cheering, actually, just the simple confirmation of his presence in this—well, it’s not a confrontation, per se, but in whatever this conversation is becoming.

“Longer than you have been alive, probably,” responds Viago, and after a beat of stunned, uncertain silence, Anton breaks fully into laughter. One hand finds its way to Viago’s thigh, near the knee, radiating heat. Viago wonders if werewolves are always so tactile in their expressions of friendly affection. He finds he quite likes it. Without thinking, he covers Anton’s hand with his own encouragingly.

Holly titters politely, though her narrowed eyes speak to something more shrewd. “And how long—”

“Bloody hell, Hols,” interrupts Dave. “Leave the gents alone, they don’t wanna entertain you all night. Sorry about her, mate.”

“Don’t apologize for me,” snaps Holly, snatching up the glass of wine at her station. “I’m just being friendly. You never even want to come to these things with me, now I’m not allowed to talk to anyone else?”

“Not if you’re gonna be like this,” says Dave between clenched teeth.

“Hey,” interjects Anton amiably. The pack instinct seems too built-in for him to leave a brewing argument be. “It's all good, we don’t mind a bit of a chat. This is all pretty new for us, maybe you could show us the ropes once it’s got started?”

Holly mellows almost immediately. “I’d be thrilled,” she says. Then she turns to smack her husband on the arm with the back of her hand. "See? They don't mind."

She takes another long pull of wine and adds, “I just get so excited meeting other couples, but I reckon you two'd be keen on some time to yourselves, eh? I’ll be here if you’ve got any questions!”

With a wink, she scoots closer to Dave, and the two seem to pick up on whatever they’d been discussing before Anton and Viago arrived.

Viago glances sideways at Anton, who’s gone sort of still. He doesn’t seem upset, perhaps a bit stunned.

“Other couples,” he says softly to himself, thumbing at the corner of his mouth.

By the time the instructor—a peppy woman with curly dark hair and wrists full of clinking bangle bracelets—takes her spot at the head of the room, the appropriate clearances have all been made, and a pared-down portion of the crew is set up by Viago and Anton's station. Holly is beside herself with excitement.

"Are you a diplomat or something?" she asks Viago in an eager stage whisper.

"Something like that," says Viago awkwardly, cringing at the cameras.

“You must have some fascinating stories,” says Holly suggestively.

“He can’t really talk about it, though, can he,” Anton cuts in, eyes flicking to Viago, who shakes his head almost imperceptibly. “Yeah, nah, really can't.”

“Shame,” Holly laments with a dramatic sigh.

At the head of the room, the instructor starts showing the class the basics of using the equipment in front of them while another set of employees goes around and portions out clay to the guests. Viago reaches for his immediately. He is already, not to brag, a bit of an old hand at this, and Anton will doubtlessly be very impressed by how well he can already manage on his own.

Anton nudges their shoulders together. “You aren’t going to take your rings off first?”

Viago pauses, looking at his hands. “Should I?”

“Don’t you usually? Reckon they’d get all mucky otherwise, and they’re awfully nice. Here, let me.”

He takes Viago’s hand and begins sliding his rings carefully one by one down past fingertips already caked with clay. His touch is gentle, like it always is, and it occurs to Viago just how much they’ve been touching one another’s hands lately. Has it been an unusual amount? Surely it hasn’t been too much, either he or Anton would have to want it to stop for it to be too much, right? He doesn’t want that, and it doesn’t seem like Anton does either, so there’s no reason to worry about it. No reason to even keep thinking about it either, really, so Viago is going to stop doing that. Now he’s going to stop. Right…now.

Anton zips Viago’s rings into the pocket of his windbreaker for safe keeping, then rolls up his sleeves.

“Alright,” he says conspiratorially, nodding towards the instructor. “While teacher’s not looking. Show me what to do.”

Viago grins.

The night wends on; Holly and Dave get progressively friendlier, both with one another and with Viago and Anton, as more and more of their—and then Anton’s—wine makes its way into their glasses.

"What sort of wine is that?” asks Holly at one point, gesturing towards the bottle Viago hasn’t quite finished. “Some sort of German something?”

"Ah," says Viago, panicking a little. "It's not…alcoholic."

"He’s our designated driver," adds Anton helpfully.

"How interesting," says Holly, sounding like she has actually lost all interest in the matter entirely.

Anton waits until her attention is back on her burgeoning teacup to excuse himself to the toilet, as though making sure it’s safe to leave Viago alone. Which is almost flatteringly chivalrous, in its way, though completely unnecessary. Viago is nearly four centuries old, why he’d need to be kept safe from one nosy woman is beyond—

The moment Anton is out of earshot, Holly’s sharp eyes are back on Viago, a perfect mirror of the smile that fully reaches them this time.

“So how long have you two been together?” she asks.

Viago blinks, puzzled. What a strange question. “Since seven p.m.”

Dave gives a grunt of a laugh at that. “Ha! Good one, mate. Come on, Hols, leave him alone, yeah?”

When Viago recounts the interaction with Anton upon his return, Anton’s laugh is a funny, strangled thing, and Viago feels even more confused than before.

So the night wends and wends, and eventually, the class ends. Viago ends up with a shallow, lumpy bowl that he scratches his initials into the bottom of with the pride of Michelangelo signing the Sistine Chapel (assuming Michelangelo did that, of course; Viago had never gone to the Sistine Chapel in life, and it’s very doubtful that he’ll ever manage it now). For his part, Anton had ambitiously tried for a mug, though the instructor’s “Oh, what an interesting vase!” seems to cement his disappointment with the result. It’s a bit longer and pointier than most mugs Viago has seen, to be fair, but it has an undeniable character. He adores it.

“I think it is charming,” he tells Anton. “If you don’t want it I will gladly take it.”

“Really?” Anton looks like he can’t quite tell if Viago is messing with him. “If you’re serious, it’s yours.”

The employees collect their finished masterpieces to be fired, giving them the shop’s card so they can call to pick them up in a couple days. Anton accepts a damp paper towel from one of them as well; there’s clay smeared up his forearms nearly to the elbows, and a particularly impressive splotch where he’d caught Holly’s increasingly elaborate project and stopped it toppling over.

“It is a good thing you had your sleeves rolled up,” notes Viago.

“Good to be prepared,” says Anton. “But it’s fun to get a bit messy sometimes, too, eh?”

Viago makes a sound that hopefully sounds mostly like a laugh, his throat closing around it like his body is trying to contain the sudden, embarrassingly butterfly-esque sensation exploding up from his stomach.

“It can be,” he agrees. “Under the right circumstances.”

Anton clears his throat and spares the cameras a quick, self-conscious glance.

Holly insists on giving them her Facebook, teary-eyed at their parting. Anton gives her a tissue and promises to look her up. Dave gives them both an appropriately masculine handshake, and then the pair totter off towards home.

“Would it be weird if I said I’ll sort of miss them?” asks Anton, watching them go.

Viago bites his lip against laughter. “I suppose we’ll have to come back again.”

Anton smiles, a bit sadly for some reason, and shuffles his feet. "Yeah, I reckon we will. Went by so quickly this time, I almost don’t want to turn in, yet.”

“Oh.” This was all they had planned to do together, after all, wasn’t it? With the class over, what reason did they have not to part ways here? It makes sense. It makes sense, and yet.

There’s a story Deacon likes to tell about a time he’d taken a cross-country trip by rail—most of it is probably not true, Viago has come to learn, but it ends with him misjudging the departure time for his final train and having to chase it down and cling for several miles by his fingernails to the side of the car that held his coffin. He tells it with a fair bit of rather gruesome detail, which Viago doesn’t always appreciate, but he does think about it now, about the feeling of standing on a train platform and watching something important start to slowly pull away. About what he’d be willing to cling to by his fingernails through miles of unimaginable pain.

“We don’t have to,” he blurts, not even realizing what he’s about to offer before it comes out of his mouth. “We could go somewhere else! The Big—no, they probably would not let you in The Big Kumara, but there are a lot of places we could try.”

“Yeah? You’d want to?” asks Anton eagerly. He stuffs his hands into the pockets of his jacket, starts to say something else. Cuts himself off with a little sound of surprise. “Oh, I’ve still got your rings.”

“I had totally forgotten!” Viago starts to reach for them, then changes his mind. “Thank you for keeping them safe.”

He holds out both hands, palms down, and Anton huffs out a breathy laugh. One at a time, he takes Viago’s hands and returns each ring to its rightful place while Viago watches, heat rising in his chest.

---

As it turns out, a couple members of the pack do some bouncing on the side—”I wasn’t so keen on the idea at first,” Anton admits. “It seemed pretty dicey, and it sort of feels like a stereotype, you know? But they’ve really done me proud.”—so through a sort of friendship osmosis, Anton knows the bouncers at a few bars down the strip. They find a place with a familiar face fairly quickly. Stationed at the door is a big guy with a warm smile and arms thick with tattoos who pulls Anton into a half-hug and pats him on the back when he sees them.

“Hey, Anton, it’s been ages!”

“Good to see you, Maurice, you keeping up?”

“Getting by, mate, getting by.”

Anton crosses the threshold of the bar, and Viago feels it drop between them like a sheet of glass.

“You’re a friend of Anton’s?” asks the bouncer.

“Ah, yes,” says Viago uncertainly.

“Forgetting my manners,” says Anton with a tsk . “Forget my head next, eh? Viago, this is Maurice. He got Nathan the job here. Maurice, this is Viago, he’s one of Stu’s mates from Europe.”

“No joke? I’ve heard heaps about you, man, cool to finally meet one of you.” Maurice thrusts out a hand and Viago shakes it, his smile half nerves.

“You as well,” he replies. “Any friend of Stu and Anton is a friend of mine.”

“That’s mutual, mate.”

Viago’s eyes flick to Anton, who steps aside in the doorway. “Come on in.”

The threshold lifts, a physical weight freed from Viago’s shoulders. Delighted, he bids Maurice farewell and follows Anton inside.

It’s not as cool a place as Boogie Wonderland—the floor doesn’t light up, and there are no mirrored disco balls, but it’s still one of the better bars Viago has been to in Wellington (admittedly, it isn't an overwhelming pool of competition). While Anton grabs himself a drink, Viago waits by an empty table between a group of girls comforting a sobbing friend and a cluster of rowdy young men shouting and taking shots. The energy is invigorating. Viago loves spending time with his friends at home, but he forgets, sometimes, how much he also loves this, being in the midst of thronging, pulsing life, surrounded by strangers laughing and dancing and sobbing and taking shots. The heady smell of sweat and accompanying thrum of dozens of heartbeats at maximum capacity.

It’s a good thing he’d eaten before coming here, Viago thinks, or a few of these party animals might be in real danger.

Of course, that doesn't mean he'll be above a snack later on.

Viago gets bored of waiting for Anton to return fairly quickly. Antsy, he wanders towards the bar and finds Anton chatting with the bartender, one glass already empty by his elbow, another in his hand.

“Another one?” the bartender is asking. “Did you wanna open a tab?”

“Nah, this’ll be the last,” replies Anton. He shoots the remaining liquid in his glass in one go; Viago watches the lines of his throat as he swallows, mouth suddenly dry. Anton sees him and startles, then softens into an apologetic wince.

“Was I taking too long? Sorry about that, it’s the werewolf metabolism. Takes me three drinks to feel the one these days.”

Viago shrugs. “I just wanted to come find you. I hope I did not lose us our table, though.”

“Eh, we’ll find another one.”

The bartender returns with the next drink, sets it on the bartop. “Alright, let me get your total.”

Viago gets an idea. He nudges Anton with his elbow and leans in.

“This might not work,” he warns Anton in a low voice. But it will be very cool and impressive if it does.

“What might not work?” asks Anton, looking worried.

Viago raises a hand, draws a slow arc across the bartender’s eyeline. Tries to remember the way Vladislav used to describe it, not so much willing the thing as letting himself have it.

“We have already paid for this.”

There’s a beat, and then the bartender goes wide-eyed. “That’s way too much, mate. I don't—you might as well just take the bottle, you want the bottle?"

“Yes, please,” says Viago, giddy with his success, and the bartender pulls the pour cap from a bottle of whiskey and hands the whole thing over the bar. Viago takes it with polite thanks and heads back through the crowd while Anton grabs his drink and follows.

"What was that?" whispers Anton, taking Viago by the elbow. "You just full-on Jedi mind-tricked him!"

"I don’t know what that means, but it was not a trick. It was vampire hypnosis.” Viago stops at an empty table and sets down the bottle of whiskey, spreading his hands along the tabletop. “To be honest that is maybe the best it has ever worked. Well, the second best. But it usually goes a bit funny somehow, as you saw.”

"What I saw deserves a lot more credit than 'a bit funny'," Anton insists. He nudges the bottle with the tip of his finger. “You don’t reckon the bartender will get in trouble, do you?”

Viago shrugs. “Somewhere like this, with all of these raucous young people? This can’t be the first bottle they’ve lost.” He tugs at Anton’s sleeve. “You are welcome, by the way.”

Anton laughs, breaking the contemplative funk he’d fallen into. “Thanks for using your grand otherworldly powers to steal me booze.”

“What are mates for?” grins Viago.

“RIght. Mates.” Anton makes a hollow, gutted sound and finishes his drink. Then he sets his glass aside, eyeing the bottle. “You know, I don’t really love partaking on my own. A beer or two, sure, but this is more than a beer or two. I’m not looking to get munted while you sit there sober and watch, that doesn’t sound fun for either of us.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Viago notices one of the shouting men from earlier detach from his friends and weave his way towards the toilets. He grins, waggling his eyebrows at Anton mischievously.

“Then we won’t do that. Wait here!"

He hears Anton hiss a frantic “Where are you going? Viago?” as he turns to follow, but there’s no time for an explanation. He’ll see soon enough, and besides time is of the essence right now.

Fortunately, Viago catches his inebriated target alone at his destination, struggling with his flies with one hand while he props himself up on the wall with the other. Perfect, Viago thinks. He gestures the cameraman aside and locks the door, just to be safe, which catches the young man’s attention. He looks up, frowning blearily.

“Hi!” Viago greets him cheerfully.

“What’re you—”

“I am really quite ashamed to say it, but I'm afraid I have no time for pleasantries right now. Would you mind please just—?” He gets a good grip on the man’s shoulder, pinning him against the wall when he tries to push back. “There’s no need to struggle, I’m not going to kill you. Well, I’m going to try very hard not to kill you, okay? I just need to—”

The man’s skin has a potent, cloying patina of cheap cologne. Viago does his best not to gag. His fangs punch through with a satisfying snik, and then all the fight goes out of the man at once. Viago takes two, three, four long pulls, and his sinuses light up with the burn of alcohol. A moment later, it hits him everywhere else. Lazy, drowsy heat cups his face in its hands, seeping down into his limbs like dripping candlewax. He allows himself another indulgent mouthful, then releases the now-limp young man to sag against the nearest urinal with a vacant grin. Viago gives him a grateful little pat on the head.

“Thank you very much,” he manages around his uncooperative tongue. “You have been very helpful.”

The young man makes a garbled noise of acknowledgment and collapses to the floor.

Smoothing both hands aimlessly up and down his shirt, Viago makes his way back towards where he left Anton, who has clearly been keeping an eye out for him. He seems to recognize what’s happened almost immediately, which makes perfect sense, since he’s probably the smartest person Viago knows.

“Ah, I’m catching up to you now, then, am I?”

Viago dissolves into helpless giggles, pressing his forehead against Anton’s shoulder.

“If you would like to.”

A tug at his lapel, Anton and his thorough hands running a thumb along the seam.

“Got a bit of blood on yourself here, mate, did you notice?"

"Oh no," pouts Viago, frowning down at the fleck of red against the embroidered purple. "I like this jacket."

"It’s a good jacket," replies Anton agreeably. "Hang on, I'll get something for it." He gently disentangles himself from Viago's grasp and goes back in the direction of the bar. Viago has half a mind to pull him back.

Humming contentedly to himself, Viago leans against the table and closes his eyes, letting the buzz wash over him like static. The air thrums with music, heavy bass beats and the melody of voices, and Viago feels like he could spool out into it like unwinding thread, buoyed along by soundwaves and his borrowed blood alcohol content.

“There we are. You feeling alright?”

Viago opens his eyes and grins. “You're back! I missed you.”

It’s almost impossible to see in the dim lighting, but Viago swears he can smell Anton blush. He reaches to brush clumsy fingertips along the line of his cheekbone, savoring the heat of it.

“I missed you too, mate,” laughs Anton. “Now let me at that blood so I can stop it staining and start getting properly pissed.”

Viago manages to keep his hands to himself while Anton blots the blood with club soda—”What you’d really want is here hydrogen peroxide and some cold water, but this’ll do in a pinch.”—but it’s more of a struggle than he might have expected. He’s right there, and he’s kind and he’s smart and he’s cool, and his bare forearms are constellationed with freckles and solid with obvious strength. They’re both stronger than any random human, Viago knows, that comes with the territory of what they are, but Anton wears it differently, evident in the very lines of him. Viago wants to curl his hands around both of Anton’s shoulders and—he’s not sure. He wants to something . Mostly he just knows he really wants to touch .

“Look at that, like it never happened.” Anton gives the jacket a final swipe.

“Mein Held,” croons Viago, pressing his hand.

“What’s that?”

“My hero,” Viago clarifies, and Anton lets out a soft, breathy sound, fingers lingering along a line of jasmine.

“Becoming a bit of a habit, isn’t this? A guy might start to think you’re doing it on purpose just to keep him around.”

Doing what on purpose? Getting blood on things? Anton has to know Viago wouldn’t make such a mess intentionally. Of course it is nice to have Anton’s help, but, well. It’s just nice to have him around in general. Something occurs to Viago.

“You are the guy in this scenario?”

“That would be me, yeah.”

“Would it work?”

“To keep me around?” Anton gives him a look he can’t quite parse, sort of taken-aback and fond. “There’d be easier ways to do it.”

Viago spreads his hands and shrugs. “I would like to know all of my options.”

Anton snorts into his glass, startled laughter that has him thumping his own chest against half-aspirated whiskey. Viago pats him helpfully on the back, thinking, this too, then . He can make Anton feel helpful, and he can make Anton laugh, and Anton will stick around. He’ll let Viago stick around.

Much to his delight, the night goes on, and Viago does keep making Anton laugh. He isn’t even trying, really, ignoring the part where he’s actually trying really, really hard. Still, Anton’s laughing, and it makes Viago feel invincible, like he could snap the world off at the edges until it’s just the two of them, the circle of Anton’s fingers around Viago’s wrist and the little lines that form around his eyes when he smiles. The wayward fringe that falls across his forehead, greasy with thwarted product. The pale hollow of his throat behind his undone collar.

Viago stares and worries at his lower lip. He doesn’t want to bite Anton, obviously, he wouldn’t ever do that, but he recognizes the place hunger takes up in him. Strange that he’d be peckish again so soon after how much he’s had tonight but there’s no mistaking it. He excuses himself for a brief jaunt in a dark corner, and when he returns Anton leans in to wipe a smear of blood from his chin.

“Missed your jacket this time,” he notes, eyes flicking to Viago’s mouth—to make sure he’s gotten everything, Viago assumes.

“That's a good thing, though, yes?” Viago doesn’t know whether to be proud or disappointed.

“It’s a good thing,” confirms Anton. Turning, he pours himself another two fingers of whiskey and downs them like a shot.

They lull into silence. It gives Viago’s mind time to wander, chin in hand, watching the unmoving line of Anton’s profile. It’s really something, how far they’ve come from two near-strangers exchanging cellular telephone numbers in the wake of an almost-bloodbath. And even before then, proper stranger-strangers posturing at one another in the park at night, and Viago wants to say something like, “Isn’t it funny, that we might have been enemies forever if Stu hadn’t become a werewolf?” but it doesn’t actually feel that funny at all, now that he thinks about it.

He does think more about that first night, though—both of those first nights, the two sort of drunkenly mingling in his memory into a single image of Anton with the other wolves at his back, steady and sure and full of unspoken authority.

Then Viago’s train of thought does several quick tipsy topples forward, and before he can properly catch up the question has tumbled up and out of him, and Anton freezes in place like a caught hare.

“Do I what ?”

Panic hits Viago like cold water. “We were not sure what it means, being the Alpha? I did not—Vladislav thought perhaps that was how things work, in a pack. Is that not—?”

“It’s not,” says Anton flatly. His voice sits at the sharp edge of anger, but it’s difficult for Viago to tell if he’s actually angry. He scrubs a hand across his face and takes a deep breath and adds, “I mean, I can’t speak for every pack. Maybe some are like that. Everyone does things a little differently, yeah? It seems like an unhealthy dynamic if you ask me, but that's. It's none of my business what other werewolves get up to. It’s whatever works for them. But that’s definitely, definitely not what works for us.”

“I never thought that it was,” Viago hastens to assure him, feeling scolded. “I told the other guys that, basically. I have just been thinking about it.”

“You’ve been thinking about me fu—doing that sort of thing with my packmates?” Now Viago really can’t read what Anton is feeling. He's holding himself perfectly still, but his fingers are slowly pressing divots into the tabletop.

“Ah, no, well. In a theoretical sense."

“Theoretical how ?”

It occurs to Viago, as he is opening his mouth to answer, that there is no cool casual way to explain to your best mate that it isn’t that you’ve been thinking about him having sex with anyone in particular, but you have been thinking about him having sex, but not like that, just that you're realizing that the potentials of who and how and when and how often have been taking up a lot of room in your thoughts lately. But it doesn’t have to make anything weird, you promise. You’ve just been curious because of the whole Alpha thing, it isn’t. It doesn’t have to be a thing .

"Um," Viago stalls.

" Fuck .” The word sits like gravel in the back of Anton’s throat. He swipes the bottle of whiskey and downs near half of the remaining contents in one long gulp, then pushes himself away from the table. "I need some air."

Viago watches him stride out, feeling lost. He looks at the cameras dumbly, then down at the table, at the deep curved dents that end in ten shallow scratches.

"Is it very close to a full moon?" he asks the producer. He thought he'd checked, but maybe he'd made a mistake. It's an easier thought to hold than the idea that he's fucked up so badly, made Anton so angry that he'd be the sole reason Anton was in danger of losing himself.

"Still a few days away," replies the producer apologetically.

Viago stares towards the door, gnawing at his lip.

He finds Anton just outside, leaning in the alleyway between the bar and an all-night dairy. He's a bit hunched over on himself, head in his hands, sucking in deep, slow breaths. He drops his arms when he hears Viago approaching, staring dead-eyed at the brick of the alley opposite.

“Can we walk?” he asks before Viago can say anything. “Reckon a change of scenery might do me some good.”

“Of course,” allows Viago, gesturing Anton ahead. Something sharp twists in his chest.

Anton glances at the cameras, mouth thinning, and starts to walk. Unsure where he’s leading, Viago hies to keep up, hovering nervously by his elbow. Anton slows enough to press their shoulders together, and the brief contact goes through Viago like an arc of electricity; he's struck with the lightning-crack realization that he would follow Anton anywhere, right now.

Fortunately, right now, anywhere just turns out to be the park. It’s still as a cemetery this time of night, for all that someone like Viago knows that cemeteries never really get all that still. Anton slouches up one of the footpaths, still sort of hunched up and holding himself with the tense stillness of someone cradling an injured bird against his chest—or a live grenade.

Viago stumbles along beside him, catching at his arm every now and then for balance, pointedly aware that he’s drunker than he ought to be for whatever is happening here, but also drunk enough to be distracted from that by the shadows Anton’s eyelashes cast against his cheeks in the moonlight. His fingers itch with the urge to touch.

“What a lovely night,” he murmurs thoughtfully.

Anton stops short and sucks in a sharp breath through his teeth. Shakes his head like he's shaking off water.

“Can I—when vampires bite people,” he says, clearly trying for casual, “is it a sex thing?”

Viago needs a moment to catch up to the question. “I am begging your pardon?”

Anton turns to him, jaw tight. “Just trying to figure out where I stand, here.”

Viago isn’t entirely sure what he means by that, but turnabout is fair play, he supposes, after his question in the bar.

“Um, for some vampires it can be, sometimes.”

“Not for you, though.”

“Not for me, no. I mean, it can be quite an erotic act, what with the, uh, the penetration and all that, and it typically feels very euphoric for the victim if done neatly. It can hurt quite badly if you mess it up, though, as I have gathered over the, um, the years. Usually I concern myself more with making sure that anyone I am planning to drain completely has a nice time beforehand, not so much during the whole—” he waves a hand vaguely. “—process itself.”

“A nice time?” asks Anton, brows raised.

“Not like that,” replies VIago, flustered. Anton must be feeling at least a little more like himself, going by the teasing in his tone. “I just think it’s—it makes sense, doesn’t it? To want someone to have a good day if you know it will be their last one?”

Anton nods, then frowns. “Does that make it easier to live with?”

“Make what easier to live with?”

“Killing people.”

Viago considers that for a moment. “I would say it is more courtesy than a way to cope. Maybe it started the other way around, but I have been a vampire for so long now, there are a lot of things you just accept after a while, I think. Does that sound harsh?”

Anton shakes his head. “Nah, I’m not here to judge. You’ve got to do what you need to survive, yeah? I envy that a little, if I’m being honest.”

Viago edges closer, tangling his fingers in Anton's sleeve. “Because you have also killed people?”

Anton flinches under his hand. “Not recently,” he stresses, voice rough.

Confusion creases a line between Viago’s brows. “But you would like to?”

“What? No, of course not! I can control myself now, that’s the whole point. Why do you think I bother with, with the deep breaths and werewolves not swearwolves and all that daft shit? It’s because —” he lowers his voice and leans in, the smell of whiskey leaning in with him. “—because when I don't control myself I kill people, Viago.”

"You love all that daft shit," scoffs Viago.

Anton's expression is a rictus of indecision, anger and laughter and terrible fondness, and then he drops his face into his hand and sighs heavily. "That doesn't change anything."

“So you have killed some people," shrugs Viago. "And you, what, you have felt bad about it every time? Every time ?” Viago finds that difficult to believe. “That sounds exhausting. Even I have killed some arseholes for fun. You have never killed anyone you thought deserved it even a little bit?”

“Getting torn apart by a wild animal? Who deserves that?”

Over the crest of the next hill, two familiar figures approach the playground from out of the trees and take up stations on the swingset. Even without knowing their vampiric nature they're an eerie sight, lone little girls in the dark, their faces familial in their similarity despite the true disparity of decades between them. Viago and Anton are still some distance away when the girls' ears pick up their approach, heads swiveling to face them. After a beat, they raise their hands in perfect tandem greeting.

Viago waves back excitedly at them.

"It's Lily and Rose, you guys!" he turns to the camera crew and gestures. "Some of you have already met them, yes?"

The girl on the left—Lily, Viago thinks, though it's difficult to tell from this distance—leans forward on her swing to sniff the air. Her mouth twists into a canted line, and her gaze hones in on Anton.

Anton goes stiff. “Viago, are those little girls vampires?”

“They are both at least as old as you are, I think,” Viago tells him, nudging him with an elbow. “Or older, actually, unless you are in your seventies?”

“Not as far as I know,” replies Anton. Both eyes are still on Lily and Rose, who look back with unveiled curiosity. "But what sort of dickhead bites a little kid?”

“A bored one, most likely,” sighs Viago, knowing how some vampires can get. “Or a far nastier sort, it has never seemed polite to ask.”

As they stand there, a nervous-looking man shuffles out of the treeline, glancing shiftily about himself. His collar is turned up like he fancies himself some sort of spy in disguise, hands clawed nervously around one another. When he spots Lily and Rose his posture eases, and he approaches them grinning openly.

A low, roiling growl rolls up from Anton’s chest. “That’s the nastier sort, then, is it?”

“It’s their speciality,” confirms Viago. “I imagine they do not feel so very bad about it,” he adds meaningfully.

Anton looks at him, expression caught halfway between shock and—oh good, that’s interest, isn’t it. Viago grins, feeling that deep vampiric thrill of a promised hunt start to pump through him. He isn’t actually all that into hunting, to be honest, but a hunt with Anton, to see what he’s like in his full werewolfy glory, has suddenly become the most exciting thing he can think of.

Of course it would be better if they had time to ask Lily and Rose about it; joining in on another vampire’s meal without permission is definitely what Nick would call a ‘party foul’.

“Is there—do we have to have the cameras on for this?” Anton turns to the producer. “It's only, I've got a day job. I—bugger all, I can’t believe I'm even considering this.”

The producer gestures at the camera operator, who lowers the camera, though the little red light keeps blinking. “Are you nervous about transforming without taking proper safety measures first?”

Anton sighs. “You could say that. And I’ll lose these trousers in an instant.”

It’s inevitable for the amount of noise that they’re making; the man talking to Lily and Rose glances in their direction, freezes. At this distance he likely can’t make out many details but the film crew and all their equipment are a difficult detail to miss.

There’s a moment of perfect, suspended stillness. Then he bolts.

Viago has always liked Rose and Lily; they’re remarkably level-headed for how young they were turned, and though they both have a streak for savagery unmatched in any other vampire Viago has ever met, they save it exclusively for hunting. They lean their heads together briefly, then stand from the swingset, turning to offer Viago and Anton a sort of come on, then gesture before disappearing after their quarry.

From beside Viago comes a deep rumbling that has no home in any human vocal chords. He feels it like the aftershock of an earthquake, the air prickling around him like storm-static. Against his shoulder: solid pressure, radiating heat, eager enough to nearly knock him over despite Anton’s obvious efforts to rein it in.

“Ready?” asks Viago, receiving the business end of a cold, wet nose to his cheek in response. He bats Anton away, dissolving gleefully into giggles when it’s followed by the slick pad of a tongue. “Yuck! You are supposed to be eating that pedophile, not me!”

He gets one final snuffle at the crook of his jaw for the reminder—"Hey, that tickles !"—before Anton lets out a rending howl, and then he's bounding away, a lithe dark shape in the night, Viago at his heels as they join the chase.

When he thinks back on this night, Viago will remember this part of it in pockets of sensation: the whip of cool air against his face, the burn in his overfed muscles, the crack of bone as Anton's jaws snap shut on a leg and shake . The bright taste of laughter on his tongue, and that one bug he accidentally swallows.

Lily and Rose don't stick around long afterwards; they take the lion's share and then their gracious leave, which bothers Viago on neither count. He and Anton are their guests, technically, sort of, and Viago’s already done quite well for himself tonight as far as feeding goes. It’s only fair, and if it means that he and Anton are on their own again, just the two of them, well. All the better that, too.

“—even managed to lose the cameras, eh?” notes Anton as he ties his windbreaker around his waist to assist what little is left of his pants. “How long do you reckon it’ll take them to find us?”

He bounces on the balls of his feet, punchdrunk with adrenaline, lit from behind and grinning at Viago with teeth that are still a little sharper than usual. Viago feels oddly like he's standing on the edge of a cliff, somehow, fighting against the urge to keep his balance.

"You have a bit of blood right here," he tells Anton, touching the same spot on his own face.

"What, here?"

"No, more to your left—"

"Here?"

"Ah, no, that was my left—"

"Here then?"

"No, no, may I—?" Viago steps in to thumb at the corner of Anton’s mouth, painting a huge smear of blood up onto Anton's cheek. Startled, he looks down at his hands, which, as he might've assumed, if he'd considered it at all, are solid red from fingertip to wrist.

Anton looks between Viago's stricken expression and the blood all over his hands. Unrolling his tattered sleeve, he scrubs the back of his wrist against his face; it comes away streaked with blood, and as the dots start to connect in his head a nasal snrk of laughter escapes him. His eyes go to Viago, ringed with yellow and bright with joy, and the second Viago meets them something snaps like a shattered femur.

Viago won’t remember later who laughs first, but it’s not long before they’re both, for lack of a better word, howling with laughter, clutching at one another to stay upright, leaving behind a bloody roadmap of where their hands have been. Viago laughs until tears prick at the corners of his eyes, and something swells in his chest like a breath until his whole body aches from it.

Anton butts his forehead against Viago’s temple, his breath against Viago’s skin coming in short, erratic bursts. One hand curves against the side of Viago’s neck, the underside of his jaw. Viago hmms happily at the contact, curling his fingers in the remnants of Anton’s sleeve.

“You smell fucking amazing ,” Anton informs him thickly, voice low and rough in his throat. The sound of it strikes and sizzles down Viago's spine like scattering sparks.

“It’s, ah, probably all of the blood,” he replies feebly. He is heat from heel to hairline, suddenly, achingly aware of every superfluous follicle on his body, half-terrified and—oh no —half-hard, which is not an appropriate response to be having towards his best mate at all right now.

Is it? No, no, definitely not.

Anton’s mouth opens against Viago’s neck as he responds, and Viago swallows a whimper.

“Right, yeah, all the—oh shoot! Viago, your good jacket!”

He seems to sober in an instant, pulling back to survey the damage. The night is suddenly very cold without him plastered up against Viago’s side. He tuts and pouts and fists his hands in his hair to keep from touching any more, devastated in a way that Viago currently can’t even begin to comprehend.

“Aw, mate, I’m sorry, I should’ve been more careful.”

"As if it is your fault."

"I feel responsible," insists Anton.

Viago grins, plucking playfully at Anton's ruined collar. "Does this mean I get to keep you around?"

Anton’s breath hitches, both hands clutching helplessly at empty air. He looks at Viago with a fraught, searching expression, not quite sad and not quite sick, and for a moment Viago thinks he might start crying. Then he laughs, a small, wonderful sound, and takes Viago’s face in both his hands.

If Viago had a pulse, it would quicken. “Anton—?”

“Could I kiss you?”

It hits Viago in the way they describe being staked, in those salacious paperbacks Nick brought into the house and everyone but Vladislav pretends not to read—a clean, solid blow to the chest that radiates out to every inch of him, resonating like a struck bell. He feels cracked open, shaken clean. Blissful. Ecstatic. Appallingly turned-on.

He clutches at the front of Anton’s shirt, “Yes, yes, please—” and then they’re grabbing inelegantly at each other, colliding in a messy, desperate crash of teeth. Anton makes a sound that rumbles through Viago like thunder, rattles his bones and all but liquifies him. He manages to get both arms around Anton’s neck and cling, distantly convinced that if he isn’t touching as much of Anton as possible right now his immortality will simply give out and he’ll die gracelessly on the spot.

Anton kisses and kisses and kisses him, with a hungry eagerness that all too quickly has Viago squirming against him with restless, desperate lust. His hands bracket Viago’s hips, thumbs pressing just under the waistband of his pants, and Viago moans against his mouth, hips bucking.

Could they have been doing this the whole time? How long has Anton wanted to kiss him? Maybe it’s just the heat of the moment and that very clever thing Anton is doing with his mouth along Viago’s jaw but he’d swear on his own grave that he’d have been up for this way before tonight.

Anton backs Viago into a tree, and Viago reels him closer, hitching both legs around his waist. The angle has Anton immediately grinding against him, dropping his face to pant into the crook of Viago’s neck. Viago threads his fingers into Anton’s hair, presses a kiss to his fever-hot temple.

Why haven’t they been doing this all along? What’s been stopping—

It hits Viago like a blow, the foggy arousal in his mind clearing just long enough for reality to cut through like the beam of a lighthouse. Katherine. Oh fuck, what has he done?

Panicked, Viago bats up and out of reach, tumbling sideways to land hard on the dirt, knocked back into his normal form. Anton is there in an instant, concern twisting his features as guilt does the same to Viago’s gut.

“Everything good? You alright?” He’s flushed and breathless and beautiful, and Viago wants nothing more than to yank him down to Viago’s level and get back to what they were doing. He wants, he wants —

Oh. He wants Anton.

Stupid, stupid—how long has he felt like this? How has he been so unforgivably obtuse? He’s the one who fancies Anton—or he and Katherine both do? And here he’s been leading everyone along like some sort of heartless strumpet. He can’t, he has to—

“I have to go,” he says, hearing himself as if from a distance.

“What?” Anton’s voice breaks, ever so slightly. “Can I ask why?”

Viago scrambles to his feet. “There is, I must make an amend, it isn’t—oh hell.”

He kisses Anton hard, once, murmuring apologies against his lips before changing again and fleeing into the night.

The camera crew breaks treeline just in time to catch Anton standing alone at the edge of the footpath, staring up at the sky, his face an unreadable mask. Then he drops his face into his hands, his voice muffled as he yells into them.

“Fuck!”

#vianton #wwdits #anton x viago #wwdits anton #wwdits viago #vanton #my fic

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mustangs-flames · 1 year

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[wall_crash.sfx] HI HI HELLO I SEE YOU HAVE A TUMBLR NOW the devil works fast but the TMC fandom works faster evidently

formal welcome to the hellsite, enjoy your stay! also AUHGHG I. YOUR AU IS SO >>>>>

like someone else said, Adam's my favorite character because we love the eldritch existential identity crises here also smth I was too rabid to think to say in a comment but has been stewing in my brain: I love love love loveeee your use of repetition across chapters in INWCT !! like the "true" voices often repeating things, even just more subtle stuff in descriptions of places and feelings and things like that I love repeated phrases but each time they're a little more warped it's just HGUAHGh /pos

I also think it's really funny that I have almost the exact same fashion sense as Cesar (I swear I have that SAME jacket somewhere minus the nirvana pin-)

just want you to know I am feral over your AU it's so good and uhhmmm hmm. split between wanting to know what you have planned for Adam and wanting to be pleasantly horrifically surprised

Ahaha, thanks, I'd been thinking about joining this hellsite for a while so I had some social media that wasn't to do with work, and then my TMC AU did better than I ever expected and that was the final push I needed apparently haha :)

Thank you so much! I loved writing the callbacks across the chapters, it felt like it really brought the themes together whilst I was planning the fic out! I've also always enjoyed books and shows where repetition is a thing that makes you do the Leo DiCaprio point when you realise lmao

Oh man, choosing the fashion/clothing choices for each character has been a lot of fun! I haven't finished the Thatcher redesign yet, but I will say that his casual out-of-work clothes are very Kurt Cobain inspired - he's such a grunge lad, all about messy clothes and fingerless gloves! I'll also be updating the designs to match new decades as the AU progresses - such as Mark's new style when he's an adult! :) Tbh, I based some of my personal clothing choices on Cesar, but I also fluctuate wildly between goth, emo, punk, and then alternative, haha. I also have the same black jacket as Cesar, but mine is very covered in pins, badges, and patches, oops.

I have many things planned for Adam.

...many things. :)

#hail true body au #I honestly love that 90s fashion has made a comeback bc it made my research so much easier lol

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histrionic-dragon · 2 years

Text

Project Snowfall, continued

Tumblr won’t let me reblog my own posts from my blog now, apparently? Vexing. Anyway, this is more casual playing with the AU where Tony is Bucky’s biological son--Hydra tried making a child with supersoldier serum but Howard found and adopted the apparently-abandoned baby--as outlined here: https://histrionic-dragon.tumblr.com/post/653462779595014144/a-little-unusual-an-mcu-au-ideapartial-fic

ONE POSSIBLE VERSION OF THE BUNKER SCENE:

[Zemo plays the video....]

The Winter Soldier looked up then, it seemed directly at them. Blank, efficient, he shot the security camera, and the screen went dark. Silence fell in the bunker.

And Tony started laughing, a black, desperate laugh but not entirely mirthless.

The microphone caught Zemo saying “What?” distantly.

“Oh, you don’t know,” Tony said. “Of course you don’t. You don’t know.” Another helpless chuckle. “‘Obi-Wan never told you about your father, did he?’“

“Um,” Bucky said, quietly.

“You killed him,” Tony said, pointing at him, still shaking with something, face twisted in pained amusement. “And no, Darth, you are my father. Oh, you know, I thought this couldn’t get weirder but boy, was I wrong.”

The helpless, resigned look on Bucky’s face was rapidly giving way to confusion. “What?”

“Tony,” Steve began.

“Nope,” Tony said. “Nope. I’m gonna-- You--” He made a shoving gesture from Steve to Bucky. “You explain, and I’m gonna--” He raised his right hand and blasted out the window in the little booth where Zemo had been hiding. “I’m gonna deal with this, okay, and we’ll talk later, before this turns into some Shakespeare, no, Greek tragedy, everyone-is-related-and-everyone-dies bullshit thing.”

SOME CONVERSATION MUCH AFTER THE BUNKER, WHEN ZEMO’S BEEN CAPTURED AND BUCKY’S BEEN FILLED IN:

“I don’t know what to say,” Bucky said finally. “It’s hard to believe I have a kid, let alone one older than me.”

“Yeah,” Tony said. He hadn’t thought of it that way before. “I mean. This doesn’t have to be a thing. More of a thing. You’re not my dad. I mean”--Bucky’s face crumpled in pain and guilt--“Yeah, complicated, moving on. You didn’t raise me; I am disturbingly sure I exist, was made, whatever, without your knowledge or consent, which is its own basket of horrifying and maybe makes you hate me--”

“I don’t,” he interrupted quietly. When Tony raised his eyebrows, he shrugged and said, “Looks like you turned out alright.”

“Yeah, I had a few horrifying what-if moments thinking about Hydra-me too,” Tony said. “Good thing Dad was in the labs. And arrogant enough to just adopt random lab-babies, I guess. Anyway, so, cool, my existence per se isn’t offensive, or disgusting, that’s a good foundation. But we just met, and you’re right, I probably am older than you, and I just do not see this dynami going very parental. So.” He took a breath.

“Hi. I’m Tony Stark, Iron Man, inventor, genius, billionaire, philanthropist, constantly arguing with Steve Rogers, totally incidentally carrying some of your DNA.” He stuck out a hand.

After a moment, Bucky shook it.

“Bucky Barnes. Recently un-brainwashed, still probably officially dead, and a friend of Steve’s. I completely understand arguing with him.”

ANOTHER VERSION OF THAT CONVERSATION, OR BEFORE IT:

“Okay, someone say something.”

“I’m sorry,” Bucky said softly, and now he was looking right at Tony, and no, nope, nuh-uh.

“Not that,” he said. “Anything but that, can’t do that conversation right now, kind of doubt you’re up for it either.”

#my writing #fanfic #Bucky is Tony's biological father #Project Snowfall AU

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nostalgia-tblr · 2 years

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garashir spy angst shite

This one is also not a thing where I have many sentences in a row, but here is A Snippet:

“...and that, of course, brings us back to the universal theme of loyalty to the state. Which is deeply romantic, wouldn’t you agree?”

Julian knows that he’s expected to protest such an outrageous statement, that he’s expected to argue his case against an onslaught of innuendo and flirtation, and to be – inevitably – seduced by Garak and his way with words. But he’s not in the mood for all that, not this time. He clasps his hands in front of him and leans his chin on the makeshift platform. “What did you do during the Occupation?” he asks, keeping his tone casual and his gaze innocent.

This is BREAKUP fic oh noes! It's me putting into fic my tumblr idea that Sloan/S31 is what broke up garashir, because it made Julian think about Garak a bit more... critically? Less blinded by love? S31 ruined the entire spy genre for him, and that includes Garak :( But it's not a good breakup where they talk a bit and split up, it's messy and awful and I feel bad about it but Julian is a fuckup in many ways. *handwaves vaguely* Actually I have forgotten the reason he didn't just do a normal breakup, and I apparently neglected to write it down, so I'll have to see if I can justify his actions after the fact. Maybe he's trying to get dumped so it's not his fault? Something like that. And they have angtsy sex in it because of course.

I am not sure if I will ever finish this one partly because I have forgotten some of what I was going for but also I feel like I don't write enough garashir for people to let me break them up? It's the fandom OTP its not like with jezri where I can just fuck them up massively and no one will complain, u kno? But I am probably just worrying too much about that, I'm sure I must have fucked them up before somehow and I'm just not remembering it offhand.

#wips meme #replies #fic related

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snowflakeanimelover · 1 month

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May I request about the Yugioh boys with an female reader who is really sweet and Optimistic and has a twin sister who is the complete opposite of her, (her twin is like more rude and rough.)

Note: Author here! Super duper apologies for the super long wait. Ugh, my motivation with tumblr has been very low, and i'm really trying to be on here more…

Anyways, I hope this is what you were asking for :) and I hope you enjoy it. Happy readings!

– – --------⚬----➖༒︎➖----⚬------- – –

Fadom: Yu-Gi-OH

Characters: Yugi Muto, Yami Yugi/Atem, Ryou Bakura, Yami Bakura

Warnings: Cussing

Summary: Yu-Gi-Oh boys reacting to their girlfriend having a twin sister with an opposite personality.

I imagined the twin sister being blunt, rowdy, rough, and sometimes rude.

– – --------⚬----➖༒︎➖----⚬------- – –

‎‧₊˚✧[Yugi Muto]✧˚₊‧

As sweet as he is, Yugi finds your twin sister to be rather…different, to say the least.

Of course, that doesn't change the way he thinks about you. You’re his girlfriend, the love of his life, and he admires the way you treat your sister. You treat your twin like most sisters would to each other, and you defend your friends or family if your twin is ever rude to them.

At this point, Yuji finds himself getting used to the rude and rough personality. And he thinks she’s getting a little soft on him. Well, you did say you think your sister is starting to like him and accept him.

Despite her personality, Yugi is quite happy she is your sister. He can count on your twin to protect you when he isn’t around.

You welcomed Yugi with open arms when he arrived at your house. With your usual hug and greeting kiss, Yugi looked rather happy to be there. For the first few times of visiting your home, he had to get used to your twin. Just her personality in general.

When he walked into your home and heard your sister's loud voice greeting him from the other side of the house, he prepared himself for the usual hello from her. As soon as she saw him, she slams her fist into his arm a bit roughly and holds a wide smile. “Hey there, punk!” She greets him. “Ready to show me how to dual?”

Yugi rubbed his aching arm, but he gave your twin a smile. “Sure am!” No matter how many times you scold your sister to be gentle with him, she doesn’t seem to know how. Yugi has gotten pretty used to it, and doesn’t mind it too much.

‎‧₊˚✧[Yami Yugi/Atem]✧˚₊‧

Atem finds your sister….interesting. She’s loud, rough, and seems to glare at him a lot. But even so, he can’t seem to dislike her. All because it’s you who’s her sister, and he loves you with all of his heart. If he wants to love you, he’ll have to accept everything about you, including family.

Atem can usually have some good conversations with her, and he knows that makes you happy. They mostly talk about games, whether it’s video games or card games.

Atem always worries about you when you’re not together. Especially with all of his enemies around. But now that he knows no one can get past your sister, he doesn’t worry that much.

“Enemies?” Your twin scoffs, smiling wide at the thought of it. “Who doesn’t?” She chides like it's nothing. You gave her a scolding look, and she simply shrugged.

Atem stared at your twin for a moment, surprised she was so casual with the thought of it. He is certain your parents would get angry if he told them he has enemies that will do anything to get back at him. But apparently not your sister.

”Don’t worry about it,” she smirks, pulling her sister into a side hug a bit roughly. “No one can get to my sis over my dead body.”

Atem smiled, thankful for her words. Although a bit worried. “Uh…I approached it. And I don’t doubt it. But…maybe don’t die…” He says a bit awkwardly to her.

Your sister chuckled loudly at his words and you smiled. It made you happy seeing your boyfriend and your twin getting along.

‎

‎‧₊˚✧[Ryou Bakura]✧˚₊‧

The first time he met your sister, he was worried. Not only that, but he was genuinely surprised that you two were sisters. Twins, to be exact.

He was relieved he met you first, not that your twin was really his type.

Ryou is too sweet. He always got nervous around your twin, practically hiding behind you when she was around. It made you giggle at his antics, but still loved him nonetheless.

You have mentioned before that your twin is a bit much. He agreed quickly, but that doesn’t mean he dislikes your sister. He enjoys the way you act around her, like usual sisters. Knowing that you had a good relationship with your sister was admirable and made him happy.

But because of your sister, he’d prefer to never be alone with her, which you agreed was the best thing for him.

“Look at that hair! Did you bleach it?” Your sister asks bluntly, pulling at a lock of his hair. You quickly shooed her off of him, but she didn’t move away from his personal space. “Well?” She persists.

Ryou shuffled back a little for some space, and he avoided any eye contact from her. “U-Um…well…I was born with it, so…”

Your twin laughed aloud at his words, but patted his shoulder in a friendly manner. Although he was jerked forward by the rough pat. “Ha! Interesting. Wonder if your kids would have the same hair color,” she teased, glancing back and forth between you and him. She chuckled as she left, satisfied to have gotten you two to blush a deep red from her words.

‎‧₊˚✧[Yami Bakura]✧˚₊‧

Bakura can’t seem to stand your sister sometimes. It’s definitely a huge difference between you and your twin, but he loves you more no matter what.

He can’t say he enjoys anyone bossing him around, like your sister. He likes it when his girl is obedient and sweet. He kinda likes the idea of always protecting you and being treated as if he wasn’t a villain.

That’s not to say, though, that he doesn’t completely hate your sister. He finds her bluntness to be endearing. Sometimes he can’t help but to use her to gather info if needed, or get someone off of his back.

Although, he always finds it annoying with your twin when she’s on him about leaving you be. She doesn’t think he’s right for you. And, of course, he always smiles in victory when you tell your sister he has a good side….sometimes. Just no one really sees it. Either way, he loves you even more each time you stay by his side, no matter what.

”Come on, sis! He’s a complete asshole!” Your sister scolds you angrily, pointing at your boyfriend since he was standing right there.

”Wow. I wonder where you got that potty mouth from,” Bakura smirks at her, wrapping his arm around your shoulders. He’s quite amazed you don't talk like her. “Shh, don’t say those words around her,” he shushes your twin, covering your ears with his hands. “You’ll taint her beautiful and innocent mind.”

Your sister grits her teeth, scowling at him. You gently shove his hands off of her head and smile at your sister, telling her that he has a nice side she never sees.

“Come on, Sweetheart. Don’t ruin my reputation,” he continues to smirk, now looking at you. You just can’t seem to stop loving those deep dark eyes of his.

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dameronology · 2 years

Text

anyone but him (matt murdock)

summary: you and matt are different people. you and frank are similar people. how's that working out for you? not well.

warnings: language/swearing, alludes to sex/hook-ups but rly nothing detailed it's just mentioned, this is literally just angst

once again, i am writing for my favourite matt murdock x reader x frank castle love triangle. no regrets.

- jazz xx

edit: about 2 days after posting this i realised the first…four?? paragraphs of this bitch was missing. i don’t know where they went or how tumblr deleted it but apparently it still makes sense so. happy days i guess?

Despite everything - your arguments, your fights, your differences - Matt Murdock was still home for you. His large, calloused hands and gravelly voice was everything you wanted in the world. Everything you needed.

It had worked for a while - until it hadn't. There was a lot wrong in your relationship; you were both vigilantes, and it made it hard. You had polar opposite moral standings on major, major issues. Matt didn't like to kill, for example. You never had, but you also refused to rule it out. That was only the tip of your morally-polarised iceberg.

Frank Castle had practically melted the fucking thing. Matt saw an enemy in him. You saw a hero. A man who did things no one else dared; someone who cleaned up the streets and did twice the job that you and Matt had ever managed. Moreover, you saw a man with a heart. Matt couldn't.

The Punisher was very much the elephant in the room. Even with Matt's arms around you - familiar and strange at the same time - and his hands holding your hips, Frank was still at the forefront of everything. Partially because he was in the news again, but mostly because you'd been in his arms just twelve hours prior.

In your heart-broken state, it had been easy to trip and fall into Frank's arms. You had more in common than either of you had initially realised and even better, there was no commitment. He was there when you needed him, and vice versa. There was no obligation to give him the time of day; no attachment or duty.

And it was because you didn't owe Frank anything that you'd answered Matt's 2AM text. You didn't know what he needed, or what he wanted for that matter. It was only now that you were laying in his arms that it occurred it you that this, whatever the fuck it was, might have been the start of his futile attempts to rekindle the dying spark between you. In your mind, the fire was completely out.

But still, Matt gave you something that The Punisher couldn't - emotion. Feeling. The things that made most people humans. You didn't miss Matt, and you didn't crave anything from Frank, but damn. It felt good to be with someone who could feel.

Matt's large hands moved down your body, stopping at your back. He stopped at your back and grazed his fingers over your shoulder blades.

"What are the marks on your back?"

"Hm?" you raised an eyebrow.

"There are...are they dents?" he asked, voice laced with concern. "Your skin's broken. Did you go out fighting tonight?"

You tried not to tense beneath him, knowing full well that he would sense a change in mood.

Frank enjoyed leaving marks, you see. That was something you'd completely forgotten when you'd stumbled onto the subway in pursuit of Murdock. You weren't an idiot (okay, that was debatable) - you knew that Matt would be able to tell they were fresh. Just hours old.

"I..." you trailed off. "I was scratching my back earlier. Must have gotten a little too-"

"- don't lie to me," Matt cut you off. "Your hands aren't big enough to leave those nail marks."

You sniffed, sitting up. "Fine. You got me. I fucked someone else earlier."

"Oh," his face fell. "You're seeing somebody?"

"No, it was a..." you paused, biting your lip. "It's a casual thing."

"And you see him regularly?"

"You don't get to do this, Matt," you snorted. "You don't get to interrogate me."

Swinging your legs off of the mattress, you elbowed Matt off of you and reached for your clothes. You could feel the bed dip beside you as he moved. He shuffled forward to sit beside you, blank green eyes still managing to find yours.

"You could have told me."

You let out a laugh of disbelief. "We haven't spoken in two months! This was just a fuck, Matthew."

He was silent. Your face fell.

"It was just a fuck, right?"

"Yeah. It is now."

"Oh, come on!" you let out a groan, awkwardly shuffling into your jeans. "Why do you care so much if I'm sleeping with someone else?"

"Because of our lives," he reminded you. "Your vigilante is heavily tied to mine. If they work out who you are, they work out who I am-"

"- oh please. Frank already knows who you are."

Oh, fuck. That wasn't supposed to slip out.

You slapped a hand over your mouth, eyes widening. At least you knew who the elephant was now.

"Frank?" Matt could barely hide the disgust in his voice. "Are you kidding me?!"

"No," you regained your confidence, reaching for your shirt. "I can sleep with who I want. I don't owe you-"

"- it's Frank!" he spat. "It could be literally anyone, but him?"

"It just happened, okay?" you said. "We started working together a few weeks ago and...it just happened."

"You fucked Frank Castle and then you came here-"

"- you invited me over!" you cut him off. "I'm sorry if you can't handle it but you're the one who broke up with me. You initiated this booty call. You have no place to me hurt - and if you are, you have no place to blame it on me."

"You're right," Matt murmured. "I'm sorry."

"It's okay," you replied.

"To be honest, I invited you over in hopes of this being the start of something new," he admitted. "If anything, it just goes to show that nothing has changed."

"I know," you gave him a soft smile. "I should go. It's late."

"Yeah, okay," Matt nodded.

You slowly picked up your bag, heading for the front door.

You missed him - your whole body ached for him, in fact. But it was tiring. He was tiring. No matter how much you loved him and how much you wanted it to work out, it wasn't enough. You were fundamentally different people and nothing would change that.

As you headed out his apartment building, you fished out your phone and dialled Frank's number.

#matt murdock x reader #matt murdock x you #matt murdock imagines #matt murdock imagine #matt murdock reader insert #matt murdock smut #matt murdock angst #daredevil x reader #daredevil x you #daredevil imagines #marvel imagines

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insertdisc5 · 3 years

Note

Hi!! I wanted to ask, in celebration of Deltarune CH. 2, do you have any updated thoughts and head canons about the game?? Like, y'know, similar to a previous ask about Kris in your Deltarune tag? Thanks!

thoughts on kris part 2 i guess???? (part 1 from ch1 here lol)

spoilers for deltarune like woah. this wont be kris focused just random thoughts on everything. thank you for giving me the opportunity to talk

not that many thoughts for this chapter tbh! EDIT LOL: this was a lie i have a lot of thoughts

-just in general i feel like the player isn't the only one controlling kris... like yes the player forced kris to do what happened in the snowgrave route but AT THE SAME TIME idk it feels like there's someone else too. just because of the terrifying voice i suppose. and also the jerky movement kris does every time they get their soul out? unless there's another reason for it... maybe getting your soul out means you walk weird lol

-BUT ALSO i feel like kris is 100% in control when they create fountains. idk it just makes sense kris would create them. to create another world, a better world, A WORLD WHERE THEIR BROTHER IS HERE PERHAPS? i do wonder why they get their soul out then though. i'm all for it sweetie! do whatever! i support you!

-(i am and will be playing deltarune with only kris' best interests in mind. i will not hurt anyone unless kris wants me to. dont worry my little meow meow im on your side! talk to me! no? okay ill stay under the sink its fine)

-speaking of asriel. SUMMER VACATION COLLEGE WHEN? SUMMER VACATION COLLEGE WHEN? SUMMER (starts crying) V-VACATION COLLEGE WHEN

-kris misses their brother so much it's so sad. if you make kris steal 5$ from asriel they take it "reluctantly"? talking to asriel online so often even alphys knows?? the google search?? GOING INTO ASRIEL'S GOOGLE SEARCH ROOM WITH THEIR EYES CLOSED BECAUSE THEY'RE CONVINCED THEY ALREADY KNOW WHATS IN THERE? THAT ONE IS LESS OF A MISSING THING BUT IM LIKE OH MY GOD

-the city walk with susie at the end makes it clear to me that kris really values susie's friendship... kris even sits with her if you spend long enough near the lake like aaaaah ;_;

-and even in snowgrave you spend your last acts with the final boss calling for your friends like YES there's a way bigger creepy aspect to this (kris as more of a Leader who Commands and commands their subjects to come) but still :'0 (and then noelle answers oh my god noelle im so sorry for the trauma)

-berdly. listen. listen. listen. liste

-berdly sucks but [berdly hurts his arm in the battle against queen if you don't save him because he doesnt want to hurt you] [berdly realizing smg's wrong in snowgrave and immediately taking steps to save noelle] berdly is my little crumb nugget. i will protect him.

-noelle. noelle. girlboss!

-like ooooh listen. hearing about the genocide path for undertale. made me go "that is SO COOL. i HAVE to experience it myself this is great. hehehe killing time" and like no regrets. i was fully enjoying the experience knowing i was an awful person. SNOWGRAVE THOUGH. i will never try this myself its too fucked up. casually grooming your childhood friend to murder people <3 and also acting like a weird stalker towards her <3 stockholm syndrome speedrun i will get all the info i can about this but i will never do this myself

-people remarking the kris/player>noelle relationship is similar to the relationship between player>chara in genocide path is like yes. chefs kiss. don't worry we just are making you stronger and everything will be fine "you made me kill my friend? and for what?" this is fine sweetie don't worry about it!!!!!!

-like the amount of details added to snowgrave, like if you equip noelle's watch she notices later? and her battle animations change as time goes on, she gets an ice shield and stops sighing in relief after battle? oh my god? oh my god.

-(berdly is not awake.) JUST KILL ME RIGHT HERE I HAVEN'T STOPPED THINKING ABOUT BERDLY NOT BEING AWAKE!!!!!

-also why didnt he turn into dust. so many possible reasons. is magic a thing in the normal world and perhaps no magic means no dust (theres graves). maybe he isnt dead. maybe hes braindead. maybe he'll come back. either way that boy is now in the closet big enough to put someone in

-also dess' name probably being december AND THATS WHY NOELLE LOST THE SPELLING BEE?!?!??! FUCK ME UP!!!!! JUST FUCK ME UP!!!!!!! OH MY GOD!!!!!!

-also so many good pixel art this chapter. too many? i didnt need pixel art of cardboard noelle falling on the statue. like thank you but please. please it hurts my game artist brain.

-the expressions in this chapter were also top notch. all the unsettling noelle expressions like (i fall over face first)

-i threw away the ball of junk (which i already tried in ch1) and this time the game was like "ARE YOU SURE BC THIS IS A BAD IDEA" and kris felt bitter :'( (it deletes all your items in the dark world)

-i uh fucked up and skipped the susie+noelle scene bc listen last time ralsei mentionned seeing what susie is doing we missed some PRIMO LORE. turns out it just makes you skip the scene and you dont get anything new. welp

-speaking of ralsei well you know. he exists. but im stuck on him going "i just wonder what being ralsei-like even is...?" ralsei my dude there's so much i could say about this. do you feel like you can't be ralsei-like because you feel like you have to be asriel-like

-but also that makes no sense bc susie hasnt even mentioned ralsei looks like asriel. and i cant imagine asriel being so meek. so WHAT GIVES

-ralsei as kris’ “i wish i was a monster just like my bro and family and i’d look like asriel but with red horns [THE HALLOWEEN COSTUME] and my name would be something cool like ralsei instead of a boring human name like kris and im sweet and cute because thats how i act with asriel because ASRIEL MADE ME” theory because that would be cute.

-ASRIEL GOING TO THE CHURCH TO CONFESS HIS "SINS" WHEN "SINS" AREN'T A THING IN THE ANGEL BELIEF LIKE I KNOW THIS INTERACTION WAS TREATED AS A JOKE BUT WHAT THE FUCK ASRIEL?

-kris definitely has a connection with the big red door in the city, judging by what the kids say they probably went there... i feel like this place's dark world will be the Final Dungeon you KNOW some shit happened there. also the sounds you hear when you go there is the phone dark world call's sound slowed down? AND AFTER SNOWGRAVE APPARENTLY YOU CANT HEAR IT ANYMORE? HUWAH?

-speaking of songs the songs were all so good, My Castle Town rules, the berdly snowgrave music is stuck in my head, flashback is uwah wuahah, Until Next Time is so good, AND ALSO A FRIEND NOTICED THE DARK WORLD CITY THEME IS JUST tHE SONG 74 (MOST NOTICEABLE WITH THE SNOWGRAVE VERSION)?????? WHAT DOES IT MEAN????? it might be just "hey its just reuse" BUT MR FOX YOU KNOW WE'RE GONNA READ INTO THIS IS NOELLE THE ONE SINGING IDK BRO!!!!!!!!!!

-asgore dreemurr fired from the force what happun!!!!! game theory is that asgore is related to dess' death/disappearance but eh who knows

-you start the chapter at lvl2 and get to lvl3 after the final boss, a friend mentioned this is probably because we destroyed a world and im :0

-to go back to kris it's still so interesting to figure out who they are based on how they act/people mention them. like kris shaking the ferris wheel car? yeah makes sense i can imagine a pranking kid do this. kris' dance? yeah thats a little silly but i can buy it. doing cool anime poses? well i dunno this doesnt line up PERFECTLY but sure. BUT EVERYTHING THAT HAPPENS IN SNOWGRAVE... especially >proceed like that is such a weird thing that i can't imagine them doing, but i can't completely see the "player" doing either (compare with going to sans -which kris doesnt know- and going "SANS!" because of course the player would know sans), like THATS one of the reasons i feel like there's someone else in there. the weird robotic merciless actions. if im going super meta it feels like there'd be someone else like writing the choices into existence for us to pick you know? gaster probably? god i need to read more gaster theories i completely sidestepped the gaster shit bc i wasnt interested. anyway just spitballing

-(looks at big shot guy) please dont make him the next tumblr guy i beg you

-obligatory "queen was great" mention if only because this part made me laugh a little bit too hard

that was a lot. thank you for letting me talk

#ask tag #deltarune #deltarune spoilers #snowgrave spoilers

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rosiehunterwolf · 3 years

Text

stuck with you (through bright and blue)

Prompts: Protective

Word Count: 4,400

Characters: The squad

Timeline: Pre-movie movie!verse

Trigger Warnings: Manipulation, Toxic Friendship

Summary: Kai only wants two things: to protect Lloyd, and to give him the best birthday ever. Unfortunately, Lloyd seems hell-bent on making that as difficult as possible. Kai’s always prided himself on achieving the impossible, but dealing with human emotions is much more complicated than beating up Garmadon’s generals or shooting enemies with fire, as he quickly learns. Movie!verse

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Tumblr work under the cut

“Woah, it looks like a massacre in here.”

At the sound of Cole’s voice, Kai, Jay, Lloyd, and Zane looked up from the map they had sprawled out across the table. Red pen was everywhere, circling different buildings and connecting them with lines.

“We’re having trouble finding a venue for Lloyd’s party,” Zane explained.

Nya rolled her eyes. “It’s not that hard! Just pick somewhere!” She held a hand out, shaking her phone. “We have five days until his birthday. Most places require at least that many to book a reservation. If we don’t decide today, we’ll have nowhere to go.”

“We can’t just pick anywhere,” Kai insisted. “It has to be perfect!”

“Why don’t we just go to the arcade?”

“It’s always so busy there.”

“It’s a Wednesday night! How many people are going to be there?”

“Trust me,” Jay said, “It’s still busy. It always is.”

Cole peered at the map. “Why’d you cross off the movie theater? Isn’t there a new Starfarer movie Lloyd’s been wanting to see?”

Kai shook his head. “Tickets sold out in like five hours. By the time school was over and we got over there, they were all gone.”

Jay frowned, running his fingers along one of the major streets. “What’s your favorite restaurant, Lloyd?”

“A restaurant? Are you serious?” Cole laughed. “We’d get kicked out in ten minutes.”

“Why can’t we just do it at my place?” Lloyd murmured. “I don’t need anything big deal.”

Kai frowned. “Your apartment isn’t that big, Lloyd. And I don’t want to bother your mom with all the decorations and stuff.”

Lloyd shrugged, looking down. “It doesn’t need to be big.”

“If you really want something simple,” Nya said, “why don’t we just do it at the warehouse? It’ll just be us, but there’s lots of space.”

Zane nodded. “That space would suffice. We would just have to ask Master Wu.”

“That is, if you’re certain that’s what you want.” Nya looked at Lloyd closely. “You sure you don’t want to do anything else?”

Lloyd nodded.

“Positive, bud?” Kai pushed. “Because it’s your birthday. We don’t mind at all.”

“I’m fine,” Lloyd insisted, getting to his feet. “It’s just another day on the calendar. Don’t make such a big fuss.”

The ninja fell silent.

“Lloyd,” Nya murmured, “it is a big deal to us.”

“Sorry. I’m just tired. And I’ve got homework. I should go.”

“Lloyd, wait-”

The green ninja pulled away from Kai’s outstretched hand. “I’m fine, Kai. I just have to go. Call me if you need anything.”

---

When they went back to school on Monday, their teachers loaded them with assignments, and Kai didn’t have a spare minute to talk to Lloyd in their shared classes. He couldn’t even talk at lunch because Lloyd had to make up a test. He kept his eyes peeled for his friend every time he was in the hallways, but if there was one thing Lloyd was good at, it was not being seen.

At the end of the school day, Nya texted him to meet up near their lockers. He got there and found her huddled around her locker with Cole, Jay, and Zane.

Kai walked over to them. “What’s going on? Where’s Lloyd?”

“He said he’d catch up with us later, which is why now is the perfect time for party preparation,” Jay said, gesturing towards Nya, who had a fiercely determined look on her face and was tightly clutching a clipboard. “Apparently she’s been waiting her whole life for this.”

“Alright.” Nya looked up from her clipboard. “I’ve already got streamers and gift wrap at home. What about you guys?”

“I’ve got a banner ordered with his name on it,” Cole said. “And of course, the shark tablecloths-”

Jay blinked. “Sharks?”

“Yeah. He loves sharks.”

“No, no, no, you’ve got it all wrong! We’re getting the dragon ones! He loves dragons!”

“Well, yeah, duh, but he’d obviously like the shark one better.”

“Are you kidding? Sharks would remind him of his dad’s mechs!” “Yeah, well, dragons remind him of his mech, which also reminds him of fighting his dad.”

“Totally not the same, plus dragons are way cooler-”

“Okay, we’re going with the Starfarer ones, then,” Nya grumbled. “What about balloons? Who’s covering-”

“I have balloons,” Zane interrupted. “Two hundred and seventy-five of them.”

They gawked at him.

“Zane… why do you have so many balloons just lying around?” Jay asked.

“They are new! In the package! I can blow them up for Lloyd’s birthday party-”

“Shhhhh!” Four pairs of hands immediately pushed over his mouth, silencing him, even though they were the only ones in the very empty hallway.

“No one can find out,” Cole insisted. “This is Lloyd’s special day. We’re not about to let anyone ruin it.”

“Okay, so Zane’s got the balloons.” Nya ticked another item off the list. “What about the cake? I have most of the ingredients to make one at home, but I’m completely lacking the baking skills.”

Cole nodded. “I can bake a cake. What’s his favorite kind?”

“Lloyd likes that Funfetti one,” Kai murmured.

Cole’s nose wrinkled. “I’m not baking a box mix. I can get him the rainbow sprinkles, though, and make a homemade one.”

“Okay, sounds good. Jay, could you pick up some confetti before his birthday? And Zane, we need some fun paper plates.”

“Zane, you should get shark ones.”

“No, dragons!” “Zane will pick out whichever plates he likes,” Nya snapped.

“What about gifts?” Jay asked. “What are you guys getting?”

“I’m not telling you,” Nya yelped. “I have the best gift ever and I don’t want you stealing any ideas.”

“I’ve been setting aside pieces of my allowance for a month,” Cole grinned. “It’s gonna be sweet.”

Jay blinked at him expectantly, and Cole smirked. “I’m not telling you, either, blabbermouth.”

“Blabbermouth?” he yelped. “I can keep secrets perfectly fine, thank you.”

“Oh yeah? What about that time you nearly gave away all of our ninja identities?”

“Or-” Zane added, “when he and Lloyd were working on those surprise mech upgrades and he accidentally said something in front of Kai and Nya?”

“Oh, remember when he spoiled the finale of Cole’s favorite show?” Nya grinned. “Cole was pissed.”

“Okay, okay, so there were a few times,” Jay spluttered. “But those were a while ago! I have many more secrets that I have kept than I haven’t.”

Cole crossed his arms, smirking. “Name one.”

“Well, there was that one time, where I- hey!” He stopped, glaring at Cole. “You’re trying to trick me into telling you a secret!”

“And it very nearly worked. So no. You can’t know.”

Nya shrugged. “Sorry, Jay. He’s right. When you have a secret, you get nervous. And when you’re nervous, you talk. A lot. It would only be a matter of time before you spilled everything to Lloyd.”

“Fine,” Jay muttered. “Keep your secrets.”

Kai jumped slightly as Nya elbowed him, and she frowned. “You okay? You’ve been really quiet.”

Kai shrugged, stuffing his hands in his pockets. “Is it just me, or… did Lloyd seem like he doesn’t really want a birthday party?”

The others went quiet.

“We’re not going to not give him a party,” Nya insisted. “You know how he gets. He never wants anyone to make a fuss.” Her brow furrowed. “It’s like he still can’t get it into his skull that we care about him.”

“I mean, of course I want to, it’s just… we can’t force him to do anything he doesn’t want.” Kai bit his lip. “It’s been a rough past few months for him. I just want him to be happy.”

“We all do,” Cole agreed. “Lloyd deserves a night just about him, for once.”

Zane frowned. “But how are we supposed to give him the party that he wants if he won’t tell us what he wants?”

“Let me try to talk to him,” Kai said. “He might open up more if it’s just one of us there.”

---

Lloyd, in fact, did not want to talk.

He was more open during their classes the next day, and held casual conversation with him, but forcefully avoided the topic of his birthday whenever Kai brought it up.

He huffed with frustration. What kind of kid didn’t want to celebrate their birthday? He wished Lloyd would just tell him what was going on.

He wasn’t going to, though, so naturally, the next best thing was to follow him.

He wouldn’t call it spying- just finding another way of obtaining information when Lloyd refused to give it himself. Besides, he was doing this to help Lloyd, not to hurt him.

Kai jerked himself out of his thoughts as Lloyd nearly slipped from his view. He gritted his teeth, refocusing on him. Lloyd wasn’t an easy person to follow, either.

When he finally caught up to him, keeping a reasonable distance, of course, Lloyd was hovering near his locker. An unfamiliar, dark-haired kid was leaning against it, laughing at something as Lloyd smiled uneasily. Kai edged closer, his frown deepening.

“Where’s the spike head? And the rest of your gang?”

“Kai?” Lloyd shifted. “I dunno. He probably had homework and stuff to do.”

The guy shrugged. “I kind of found him annoying, anyway. You realize no one could ever get to you when your friends were around, right?”

“I guess that’s… kind of the point.”

“You can’t spend your whole life letting them protect you. If you block out any person who hurts you, you block out anyone who could potentially be a friend, too.” The guy smiled in a way that made Kai wanted to chuck himself between Lloyd and the guy.

“That’s… that’s the thing. No one wants to be nice to me.”

“Spare me the sob story,” the guy rolled his eyes. “I know your dad sucks, but at least you have one.”

Lloyd flinched. “Sorry.”

The guy laughed, putting a hand on his shoulder and shoving him. “Stop being so jumpy, will ya? No wonder kids pick on you, you’re as harmless as a flea.”

“What am I supposed to do?” Lloyd blinked. “I can’t hit them back, or I’ll be in more trouble than I already am.”

“You don’t need to hit them, just show them you’re not a total coward! Maybe if you actually listen to them instead of cringing away, things might change.”

“Listen to them? Are you saying they’re right?”

“What does it matter if they’re right? Look, Lloyd, you’ve already got it hard enough as it is, and you’re making everything more difficult. You’d be so much cooler if you actually hung out with important people and not the outcast-losers you’ve stationed yourself with.”

For the first time since the conversation had started, Lloyd appeared indignant. “They’re not- I mean, you’re not-”

The guy laughed. “See? You can’t even get a word out. You’re so pathetic. You don’t even need the fact that you’re Garmadon’s son to get picked on, you already got it all set up for the torment-”

Kai wasn’t aware of himself pushing forward, he just was, and suddenly he was gripping the guy by the collar of his shirt, a pair of wide, brown eyes staring fearfully up into his.

“Who do you think you are and what the hell are you doing?”

“I… um, I…” the guy swallowed, his throat running dry.

“You treating my best friend like a piece of shit?” Kai shook him. “Are you?”

“I’m sorry!” The guy squirmed. “I didn’t really mean it, we were just joking around, he says that kind of stuff to me all the time!”

“Really? Lloyd. Says that. You sure we’re talking about the same person? Because I do not take nicely to liars.”

The guy squirmed harder. “Okay, okay, I’m sorry! Just please let me go, I’ll never bother you again!” Kai shot him the fiercest glare he could muster. “You better not.” He stepped back, dropping the kid, and he took off like a bullet.

Turning back to Lloyd, he saw his friend was staring at the fleeing boy with wide, disbelieving eyes, but it quickly dissipated to anger as he turned to Kai. “What the heck did you do that for?”

Kai’s eyes widened. “I was protecting you? From a bully?” Lloyd’s eyes flashed, and Kai actually took a step back. “I don’t need you to protect me! I can fight my own battles!”

Before Kai could even say anything, Lloyd was storming down the hallway and disappearing around the corner.

Kai just stood there for a moment, in shock. What was that all about? Hadn’t he done the same thing for Lloyd a dozen times? Why would defending him ever be bad?

A buzz in his pocket interrupted his thoughts. Kai pulled out his phone to see a new message in the chat from his sister.

irondragonfangirl: how r things going with lloyd

MasterofFiyaaaaa: honestly? i think i made it worse

irondragonfangirl: well u better find a way to fix it soon because his bday’s TOMORROW

MasterofFiyaaaaa: yeah i’ll find a way through to him

MasterofFiyaaaaa: i just hope he listens

irondragonfangirl: don’t worry

irondragonfangirl: he will

irondragonfangirl: just make sure u remember to listen to him too

irondragonfangirl: i have a feeling we haven’t been doing that enough

irondragonfangirl: i feel terrible

MasterofFiyaaaaa: yeah me too

MasterofFiyaaaaa: we’ll make it up to him though

MasterofFiyaaaaa: right?

irondragonfangirl: sure as long as cole doesn’t burn this cake

irondragonfangirl: seriously y did we let him bake it

irondragonfangirl: if i dont respond in the next hour just assume his house burnt down and im dead

MasterofFiyaaaaa: can i have your motorcycle if you die

irondragonfangirl: shut up

---

Kai spent an hour looking for Lloyd after their confrontation, but he couldn’t find him anywhere, and Lloyd, unsurprisingly, hadn’t answered any of the twenty-some texts Kai had sent him, either. Eventually, he had to give up looking for him and resigned to speaking to him at school tomorrow.

His birthday.

In the first class they had together, Lloyd avoided looking at him, and Kai felt an ache in his chest. Today was his birthday. He knew things weren’t going to turn out like he had imagined, but he wanted them to at least be better than this.

Swallowing back his nerves, Kai walked over to him, where he was doodling something in his notebook.

Kai cleared his throat. “Um. Lloyd?”

Lloyd looked up, an expression flashing across his face that Kai couldn’t read, but he didn’t immediately leave or turn away from him, which Kai took as a good sign.

“Happy birthday, dude.”

Lloyd smiled tentatively back. “Thanks.”

Things didn’t go immediately back to normal after that- there was still a tension between them, and Lloyd wasn’t saying much more than a couple sentences at a time, firmly avoiding the topic of the previous day- but at least it was back to a level where Kai didn’t feel absolutely horrible for ruining his day. Lunch, at least, got a smile out of him- as well as a bunch of embarrassed blushing as Nya stabbed a candle into his brownie (they couldn’t actually light it, lighters weren’t allowed on campus) and they insisted on singing to him so off-key that Cole looked like he wanted to punch them.

When the last bell finally rang, Kai headed over to Lloyd’s locker, hoping they could talk now that there weren’t other kids around, but he wasn’t there.

Kai relented, pulling out his phone.

MasterofFiyaaaaa: Lloyd? i know youre upset but can we plz talk?

He held his breath, staring at the screen intensely, as if that would make Lloyd respond.

While he was waiting, a message from a group chat popped up.

irondragonfangirl: what’s taking so long jay, we need those decorations

jaybird123: eta 5 mins

jaybird123: i literally just left class how’d you get there so fast

jaybird123: wait you didn’t use the tunnels did you

irondragonfangirl: no me and cole are bringing the CAKE remember?

irondragonfangirl: im not taking that through the tunnel

irondragonfangirl: we didnt spend 3 hrs on that for it to get squished

irondragonfangirl: i told the nurse i wasn’t feeling well so i could go home early

irondragonfangirl: why didnt YOU take them

jaybird123: i couldn’t exactly discreetly smuggle all these decorations into my locker

jaybird123: mmm cake. is it good?

irondragonfangirl: don’t even THINK about it, that’s not until Lloyd gets here

jaybird123: but im hungryyyy

jaybird123: do i need to pick up anything for dinner?

rock’n’cole: nah it’s cool, we just found out lloyd’s favorite chinese restaurant, the Bamboo Dragon, delivers so we’re gonna order from there

jaybird123: my mouth is watering already

ZaneJulien:0xD;): Jay, you shouldn’t text while driving.

jaybird123: tell nya to get off my case then!

irondragonfangirl: exCUSE me zane you are supposed to be putting up those balloons right now why are YOU on your phone

ZaneJulien:0xD;): Why are you texting me? We are in the same room.

irondragonfangirl: why are YOU texting ME

rock’n’cole: would you guys just stop being dumb and come help me

irondragonfangirl: great now you got cole in on it too

rock’n’cole: would you two just GET OFF YOUR PHONES

Kai was interrupted from whatever turn the conversation was going to take next when he finally got another notification.

thegreendragon: ok. you know where i’ll be

Kai blinked, turning towards the doors and pushing through them, walking out onto the school lawn. The main feature was the football stadium, although there were other things as well- large trees, garden patches for the science classes, picnic tables for eating lunch outside, if the weather permitted. And- although the students were too old for recess, now- there was still a small swing set- a simple, rusty thing, with only two swings, but it served its purpose. Sitting on one of them, gently rocking, was Lloyd.

Kai made his way over, sitting down beside him in the other swing.

“So, uh… can we talk? About yesterday?”

Lloyd nodded, and Kai titled his head at him, trying to gauge his thoughts. “Who was that kid?”

Lloyd breathed out slowly. “His name is Brad. He was my best- and only- friend in elementary school, but we were separated when I moved away. Brad’s family just recently moved to Ninjago City, and I… I was hoping to reconnect with him.”

Kai ignored the twinge of jealousy at the words “best friends.” Lloyd was allowed to have other people than him in his life, and things had obviously changed since then, anyway.

“I’m sorry, Lloyd. I didn’t mean to interrupt anything, but from what I saw… Brad was being a jerk to you.”

Lloyd shifted uncomfortably. “Yeah, I… he’s changed since we were kids. The efforts at rekindling our friendship honestly aren’t going so well. That’s… that’s why I was in a bad mood. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have taken it out on you. You were only trying to do something nice for me.” “Don’t worry about me. But this Brad kid… anyone who treats you like that doesn’t deserve to be your friend.”

“I know, I just…” Lloyd sighed, running his fingers through his hair. “I was so eager to make a friend other than you guys…” His eyes widened as he processed his own words. “Not there’s anything wrong with you guys, it’s just- I just wanted to actually earn someone who wasn’t friends with me because of a shared occupation.”

Kai elbowed him. “Hey. This whole ninja thing may be what got us introduced to each other, but we’re not friends with you because you’re one of the ninja. We’re your friends because we love you as a person. As Lloyd, not the green ninja.”

Lloyd sniffed, giving him a soft smile. “Thanks, Kai. I’m glad I have you to protect me.”

“You don’t need protection, but you’re stuck with me as a best friend, so you’re going to get it, anyway.”

Lloyd laughed. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

His phone buzzed, and he quickly checked it.

irondragonfangirl: the party’s all set up, now the only thing missing is lloyd. did you get to talk to him?

MasterofFiyaaaaa: yeah, we’re cool now. on our way

Kai turned back to Lloyd. “C’mon, green machine. Let’s go enjoy your birthday.”

Lloyd blinked at him. “Huh?”

“Your party, remember? The one Nya and the guys have spent the whole week planning? Or is there some other celebration I don’t know about?”

Lloyd shook his head. “No, no, it’s just- I thought I messed it all up.”

“Don’t worry, we got it under control.”

“Really?”

“This is our teammates you’re talking about! Stubborn as mules. They’re not giving up on you that easily.”

“I… thank you. Thank you guys.”

“You can tell them yourself. We’re going to this party, and we’re going to have fun!”

---

Kai had to admit, he was impressed with what the others had been able to pull off in such a short amount of time.

It was nothing huge or extravagant, but it was a nice little party, and Lloyd seemed to like it better like that, anyway.

They were barely through the doors of the warehouse when Jay was launching himself into Lloyd’s arms, pulling him into a tight hug, the others close behind.

“Happy birthday!” they cheered.

Lloyd hugged them back, laughing. “Thanks, guys, I didn’t- I didn’t expect all this!”

“Are you kidding?” Nya put her hands on her hips, grinning. “We’re pulling out all the stops for our baby bro.”

Lloyd’s smile briefly flickered to a scowl. “I’m not a baby.”

“To us, you always will be,” Kai said, slinging an arm around his shoulders and ruffling his hair. Lloyd squirmed away, although he was unable to hide the grin on his face.

“Wow, this place really looks different.” Lloyd gazed around at the warehouse with wide eyes. They had pushed aside training equipment to make room for tables and chairs, and green and gold streamers decorated the walls, adorned by multicolored balloons. Someone had plugged a gaming console into the TV, as well as a DVD player next to a box of DVDs- which must’ve been Jay’s, he was the only person Kai knew, apart from Master Wu, who even had DVDs anymore- because Kai still hadn’t been able to convince Master Wu to buy them Netflix on the warehouse’s TV, getting the TV there in the first place had been hard enough as it was. On the far end was a buffet table, filled with rice, chicken, dumplings, and other Chinese staples from the Bamboo Dragon- as well as a beautiful, heavily frosted cake in the center of it all. It was decorated with rainbow sprinkles, making it completely and uniquely Lloyd.

Lloyd’s eyes were on the cake too, his eyes wide. “Cole! It looks amazing! I never knew you were so good at making cakes!”

Cole shrugged, trying to hide his smile. “I’ve had some experience.”

“Hey! What makes you think Cole made it?” Nya sniffed.

Cole blinked. “I did.”

“Well, I helped.”

Cole snorted. “Don’t know if you could call it that. From my point of view, it seems like I was doing most of the work while you were busy texting your boo.”

Both Nya and Jay turned scarlet.

“I was not,” Nya spluttered. “I was making preparations for Lloyd’s party!” “Yeah, yeah, whatever you have to tell yourself.”

“Let’s not jump to conclusions too hastily,” Jay said, turning to walk over to the cake. “The true judge of quality will be how good it tastes.”

Nya stuck an arm in front of him. “Not so fast, mister! Dinner first.”

After laughing, playing games, and eating, they insisted on opening presents. Lloyd was all smiles and gratitude with each one, which ended up sparking a debate between the others about whose gift he liked best.

“He totally loved my gift!” “Nuh-uh! Did you see the way he smiled a little differently on mine?”

“Jay, you literally gave him a book. Why would he be excited about that?”

“Not just any book! A first edition Starfarer collector’s comic from when my parents were kids, and in mint condition, too!”

“Why would you want some dusty old comic when you could have the newest Starfarer video game?” Kai argued. “It took forever for me to find one of these, they were sold out everywhere.”

“Starfarer this, Starfarer that,” Cole sighed. “I don’t understand how he could possibly need any more Starfarer things. The record I engraved for him is way more personable and unique.”

“You guys are thinking about this all wrong! You should’ve gotten him a katana like me, something that he actually needs and uses.”

“Statistically, Lloyd spends more time drawing than any other hobby,” Zane said. “Which means my gift of an art book and new set of pencils is logically the best fit.”

“Clearly you guys all have it wrong in the head-”

“Guys, relax,” Lloyd laughed. “I loved all your gifts equally.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“Jay… it means exactly what you think it means.”

“You can’t even pick one gift?”

Lloyd shook his head. “No way. These are all amazing. Thank you, guys. Really.” His gaze met Kai’s for a long beat. “For everything.”

“Of course. But, just to make things clear, you did like mine the most, right? You’re just saying you liked them equally, so that you didn’t make the others feel bad?”

Lloyd smacked his forehead as the others burst into protest again, and Kai shot him a sharp-edged grin. “I can do this all night.”

Eventually, Lloyd got them to stop bickering- the mention of cake got them all quiet pretty quickly- and after divvying it up, they went over to the couch and played the video game Kai had gotten him. He quickly lost track of time, but time didn’t matter. Even if it meant they would be tired for school the next day, seeing Lloyd like this- half sprawled over his teammates, brow scrunched in concentration as he mashed buttons on his controller, hints of frosting on his lips as he tried and failed miserably to bite back his laughter- it was worth it. He looked happier than Kai had seen him in weeks.

For that, he could even contain himself from bragging about how Lloyd obviously liked his gift best.

#ninjago #ninbingo #my fic #rosie writes #ninjago kai #lloyd garmadon #ninjago nya #jay walker #ninjago cole #ninjago zane #HAPPY BIRTHDAY GREEN BEAN #I LOVE YOU SO MUCH #XD guys i got so excited about lloyd's big day #maybe i have a bit of a problem but shhhhhhhh #hope this did him tribute #tlnm #thanks for reading!#reblogs and comments greatly appreciated!

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