#remmy rich
Text
You can call me Daddy
Rockstar! Remus Lupin x Reader
Words: about 1.8k words
Warnings: smutty remmy, sexy rockstar, dirty talk and remus fucking lupin that is alreadya a warning himself.
Author's note: I'm writing something like five fanfiction at the same time, but I had this idea and I couldn't not write this down. I love the idea if the Maraurders as a band (like I think they are preatty much the copy of the Maneskin that I LOVE so...) and I LOVE BASSIST REMUS, so here for you our sexy Moony
Requests are open I Ask
My masterlist
Join the Taglist
You still don't know how the with your friend managed to get into this party, but you know for sure that this is a night to remember.
Through some friends of hers, she managed to find out that there was going to be a birthday party of some super-rich celebrity at a mansion in Los Angeles, and after some research and figuring out where it was, we managed to get in, making believe that we were up-and-coming Versace models and that we had been invited to the party at the last minute and had not been put on the list. The guard looked at us carefully and then let us through, and you couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief. As soon as you walked in you looked around and couldn't hold back your astonishment.
The mansion is beautiful, huge and full of lights and smoke machines that create a magical and surreal atmosphere. Music and people fill the room until you almost burst, but you can't help but move in time to the music as the alcohol flows through your veins. You down drink after drink, without realizing it, the important thing is to have a good time.You find yourself dancing back to back with actors or singing songs at the top of your lungs with important TV hosts, before you realize that all this crowd and the air heavy with smoke, sweat and alcohol is suffocating you, so you nod to your friend that you would go outside for a moment to get some air.
You walk over to the nearest French door, which overlooks a hidden part of the garden. As soon as you are outside, you lean against the wall and can't help but breathe a sigh of relief. You stay a few seconds in the silence of the night, taking advantage of the cold that seems to surround you after the incredible heat that the bodies inside that room were causing. You smile, thinking that at least here you can find a moment of peace, until you hear a voice.
"Did you run away too?" A boy asks, and you suddenly turn around and see him there, a little further away from you, also leaning against the wall, a cigarette between his lips. You can't really see his face, but you can tell he's a good-looking guy, tall and muscular as thin as he may look. He's wearing skinny jean pants, a Pink Floyd T-shirt, and a black leather jacket, with stupidly overdressed shoes.
"Yeah, the situation was becoming too suffocating." I shyly confess to the faceless boy.
"I understand you. I hate these stupid parties full of people, the situation always gets out of hand, and before long someone will get hurt, if it hasn't happened already." He complains.
"How come so if here?" You ask curiously, aided by the courage that alcohol brings.
"My friends dragged me along. If it were up to me, I would have spent this evening in a completely different way." He confesses, throwing his cigarette to the ground after taking one last drag. The smoke comes sensually out of his mouth, and you can't help but tighten your legs at that gesture, praying that he hasn't noticed.
"And how would you have spent the evening?" You whisper in a sensual tone, not knowing where all that brazenness really came from. You're not usually such a straightforward girl, especially when it comes to flirting with strangers.
"Well sweetheart, I would for example have a couple of ideas on how to spend a night with you, but they are too vulgar for an angel like you." He says moving closer, but still remaining in the half-light. I feel his breath close to my face and can't help but hold back a groan at the impure things those fingers could do on me.
"Do you really think I am an angel?" You ask as you move closer in turn, so close that your lips are almost touching. For a moment you think about how impossibly beautiful this situation is, a few hours earlier you were lying on the couch at your house eating chips and watching your favorite show and now you're at a party full of celebrities and now you're flirting with a guy definitely out of your range, and he's playing along with you. Life is truly full of surprises.
"Oh no you darling look like the purest of all angels, and I love girls who look innocent but are real demons in bed." He continues, moving closer , kissing your neck gently, leaving you the time and space to say no, but you don't want to say no, you want him and you want nothing more than to drag him to the nearest surface to fuck until you are voiceless with all the moans you will emit.
"Well I could always give you a demonstration." You answer as he continues his attack on your neck, and you run your hands through his disheveled hair.
"How can I say no to such a beautiful girl." He says pulling away from you. "But not here honey, there are too many people who would hear you shout my name, and that is a pleasure that is granted only to me." He continues, leading you toward the exit. In a sobering moment you manage to remember your friend and tell him you were going inside to warn her. He nods and tells you he would be waiting for you by the gate. Quickly you go inside and immediately find your friend intent on making out with a fairly tall blond girl. You quickly approach her and tell her that you would not be going home with her this evening. She looks at you and smiles before yelling at you to be careful and use a condom, but you are already far away and in response you raise your middle finger at her.
You see him at the gate on a blazing black motorcycle with a helmet for you in his hand. You put it on and cling to him as you get on the bike, as your excitement about what is about to happen rises and you can't help but get wet.
A few minutes pass before we find ourselves in front of the doors of a huge building. Quickly he gets out of the vehicle, having parked there in front, and we run to the entrance. The boy, still wearing his helmet, waves to the doorman, who waves back, and quickly we get on the first elevator we see. He crushes the twenty-first floor as you take off your helmet and realize something.
"My name is Y/N." You say confidently, looking at his face still covered by the black helmet. "I never told you my name." You go on laughing.
"You don't know mine either." He counter laughs as well, patting my arm, and you can't help but laugh at the situation.
"Of course fate is strange I went from lying on my couch in my pajamas to getting drunk with my friend to fucking a stranger." You say as you move closer to him, kissing him on the neck, gripped by a jolt of courage.
"And do you regret it?" He asks with a half groan.
"Not by a single second." You whisper, continuing to leave marks on his neck, as he had done to you at the party.
As soon as the elevator stops you realize you are already in his apartment. You quickly get out and he drags you toward the bedroom, taking off his helmet and throwing yours on the couch in the hall you pass as well. As soon as you reach the room his lips glue themselves to yours and a power struggle begins between the two of you. Clothes fall off like autumn leaves and suddenly you both find yourselves naked lying on the soft sheets of the bed.
"Remus, my name is Remus." He says panting as he kisses your breasts, reaching down. "But you can call me Daddy, angel." At those words you can't help but let out another moan, which you would be ashamed of if you were sober enough, but your mind is too clouded with pleasure.
His lips find the most delicate spot on your body and attack it like a child sucking on a lollipop, and the moans that seemed too loud before seem like whispers compared to those coming from your lips now. His fingers enter your vagina not too gently, and instinctively you cling to his hair, pushing his face between your legs.
"I knew that behind that angel look was the most beautiful demon." He says, returning to kiss your lips after making you orgasm, with still your taste on his lips. "What do you want honey, you have to tell me or I don't know how to help you."
"I want you, all of you." You say panting, while still recovering from the pleasure you just received. " I want you to fuck me so hard I can't walk straight tomorrow."
"Your every wish is an order princess." He says in a whisper before entering me with his huge cock. The pleasure you feel right now, you thought did not exist.
You continue fucking until dawn, rolling up on yourself and in the blankets, orgasm after orgasm. You fall asleep at sunrise in the arms of the unknown boy.
You wake up after a few hours, alone in bed, hearing the sound of a shower running in the next room, realizing that your lover has gone to take a shower. Still sleepy and sore from all that sex you reach for your phone in your jacket pocket and see thirty missed calls from your friend and at least fifty texts always from her.
Immediately you call her, thinking something serious has happened, but as soon as the phone stops ringing you hear her screaming in your ear.
"Do you realize what happened last night?!?!" She shouts like a squawking hen.
"I thought you didn't mind, you said you were okay with it." Confused reply.
"I didn't resent it, but do you realize who you slept with?"
"With...Remus?" You say, unconvinced by your answer.
"Yeah with Remus freaking Lupin! The fucking bassist of the Maraurders!" Your friend says excitedly, but you're already no longer listening as she goes on to tell how she found out, all your mind can process are just two words: oh fuck.
#remus lupin smut#remus lupin au#remus lupin x reader fluff#remus lupin x reader#bassist!remus#rockstar!au#band!marauders#remus lupin imagine#remus x reader
680 notes
·
View notes
Text
THIS IS WHO I LOVE | R.L.
Pairing: dilf!remus x insecure!fem!reader (requested)
Word count: 1.5k words
Warning: age gap, body negativity (no specific body type mentioned), remus is a rich man- I don't make the rules
Summary: a shopping trip on remus' day off ends with you crying in the dressing room when nothing you like fits
Library Blog | Navigation | Taglist
You had not noticed how long you had been hiding in the little dressing room, so caught up in the way the material hugged your body in all the wrong ways that the sound of footsteps approaching the door completely escaped you, it was the gentle knock against the dark wood that startled you from your thoughts.
"Y/n?" Remus hummed softly, the door clicking lightly as he leaned against it and you felt awful noticing the lightness of his voice, the happiness that dripped from it. "You still doing alright in there, love?"
You felt silly, you had planned for this day to be a little escape for Remus, his first off day in quite a while and he insisted that he wanted to spend the day with you, spoiling you with something pretty for the big night. Yet here you were, crying in the dressing room, fingers prodding desperately at the stuck zipper of a dress that should be your size, yet is the furthest thing from it. You did not want to ruin the day for Remus, did not want to bother him with insecurities the poor man had no business worrying about. So, you sucked in a soft sigh, attempting to shake away your thoughts as you lifted your hands to quickly wipe away any remaining evidence of you being upset before letting your fingers fall back to the task at hand, barely stifling a groan as you struggled to free yourself of the beautiful, yet hideous by spite dress.
“I’ll be out in a moment, Rem,” you breathed, though there was no way the quiver in your voice didn’t instantly gain his concern, he knew you, after all, knew exactly when you were upset or when something was bothering you and he knew more than anything when you were trying to hide it from him. “I’m alright,” you added hopefully but it was no use.
“Love,” he began and the floor creaked when he stepped back, actions already mapped out as he paused at the closed door. “Can I come in, please?” he asked, and you finally allowed a sigh to escape your lips as you offered him a barely audible groan of consent.
His eyes raced to meet yours as soon as he stepped in behind you, closing the door when he noticed you were half-dressed, confusion tilting into his brows at the sight of you. You might have rid your cheeks of the tear stains, but there was no hiding the red shadow in your eyes or the irritation on your skin, not to mention the dress that was currently sitting halfway up your chest, stuck below your bra as you shook your head in protest.
“Oh, I look awful, Remmy,” you cringed, attempting to hide yourself from his caring gaze as your arms surrounded your body, your man not sparing a second before he shook his head in objection, not needing to put much thought into your behaviour to know what was going on. “I don’t know how but none of these dresses seem to fit and the ones that do, don’t look quite right and some-” you groaned, puffing lightly to blow a strand of hair from your face, not that it improved the picture you had created for him to see. “Some of them fit perfectly yet still look awful,” you explained, and a small pout tugged at your lips as you looked at him through the mirror.
“I see,” he noted, and his fingers were gentle as they settled on your shoulders, thoughtlessly guiding you to lean back into his chest, brows furrowed as he kissed the back of your head, allowing you a moment to settle in his presence before thinking of saying anything else.
Remus had an almost sixth sense when it came to you, knowing without much prompt when you needed to be talked down or when you needed to be comforted and he realized quite quickly that you were longing for the latter. The two of you never truly talked about your insecurities but it was impossible to deny that they were there, and they always seemed to peak their head out on days like these. You were already extremely nervous to meet Remus’ friends and you wanted more than anything to look beautiful at his side, so he understood why something as simple as the dresses not fitting, could lead you to believe that all was ruined and send your nerves into overdrive.
“I just wanted to look pretty for you,” you noted after a moment, your eyes closed now as Remus’ arms took the place of your own, swallowing you in his embrace as you melted into his hold.
“You always look pretty for me, Y/n,” he protested almost instantly, taking advantage of your closed eyes to inspect what he was working with, noting the way the unkind seam was beginning to irritate your skin where it sat tightly around you, he hated that, hated the way it must’ve felt not only uncomfortable but probably only assisting in making you upset. “You are my pretty baby, hmm,” he voiced, and you mumbled in objection when he wanted to pull away from you.
“Remus- “
“You’re not the problem here, love,” he informed you with fingers brushing over your waist to show you what he was talking about. “Why don’t we get this off, then I can show you what I mean,” he left little time for objection before attempting to unzip the dress, a small gasp fled from your mouth when he proceeded to rip the sides from each other, not a single strand of patience with the silly object that dared to sadden his girl. “We’ll add it to my bill,” he shrugged when his eyes found yours again, earning a giggle from you as he tapped your legs to have you step out of it, one foot at a time before he kicked it to the other side of the little room. “There she is,” he sighed with a silly smirk, eyes almost twinkling as you laced your fingers with his, letting him take you in completely.
“I look exactly the same, Rem, no different at all,” you noted with curious eyes to which he pinched your waist lightly, softly reprimanding you for talking down at the person whom he loved more than either of you could fathom.
“That’s not true,” he moved his hands to your stomach, smiling with gentle encouragement as the motion made you tense in his hold, “This is who I love. With every curve, with every dent, every line that traces your skin- this is who I love, this body and the lovely soul inside of it- this is my girl, my pretty, heavenly girl, and no piece of clothing would ever change that for me,” his tone was so soft, so careful, like honey dripping from a spoon, it bled into every fibre of your being as your cheeks flushed with warmth.
“I love you,” you whispered, taking hold of his hand to turn yourself around, burying yourself in his chest as he chuckled lightly, squeezing you tightly as you placed a kiss in between his pecks. “You’re too good to me,” you insisted as he rubbed your back to soothe you, pulling back a bit to force you to meet his gaze.
“You’re too hard on yourself, angel,” he hummed and met your pouted lips with a quick peck, smiling as you leaned into him in search for more, one of his large hands lifted to cup your cheek. “Why don’t you get dressed and we go find a new store, hmm?”
“I don’t know,” you shrugged, fiddling with his shirt as it laid beneath your fingers on his stomach. “Can we go home instead? I would rather spend the day in your arms than in and out of stores,” you admitted, and his heart all but leaped from its place at the sound of you referring to his house as home, not to mention the absolutely adorable dip in your voice while asking to spend time with him alone.
“Sounds perfect. How about I go and pay while you change and then we can go?” he suggested and gave you one quick kiss before picking your own clothes from the floor and handing them to you, hovering at the door to catch one last glance at the excited smile that now tilted into your lips. “Hey, Y/n?” he mused, and you looked up to him with a curious hum. “I love you, too.”
all fandoms taglist: @oliverwoodmarrymepls @scandalous-chaos @the-blue-forest
harry potter taglist: @wrongilbert @mirclealignr @saintlike78 @scarlet-prey @fandom-life-12 @queen-asteria04 @natashxromanovf @cupids-crystals @justreadingficsdontmindme @thehalfbloodedwitch @chimichimchim15 @myalupinblack @moonbcrry @venomsvl @alexxavicry @lilytoyourjames @murdockcastleslut @onyourgoddamnleft @dumpsterfirecee @esposamultifandom @sheraayasher @eichenhouseproperty @wrathspoet
other: @peppers-analytics @sarahisslytherin @a-lil-bit-nuts
#dilf!remus#remus lupin#remus lupin x reader#remus lupin x you#remus lupin x yn#remus lupin x y/n#remus lupin fluff#remus lupin fic#remus lupin fanfic#remus lupin fanfiction#remus lupin imagine#remus lupin one shot#remus lupin blurb#remus lupin drabble#remus lupin oneshot#remus x reader#remus x you#remus x yn#remus x y/n#harry potter fluff#harry potter fanfiction#harry potter fanfic#harry potter fic
470 notes
·
View notes
Note
i love the dom!sirius/remmy and sub!james/reader dynamic but i'd think jamsie would be the brat and y/n would be the good one😩 feel like siri and remus would give y/n a little more attention in the beginning so james would be a brat to get attention (rich kids smh) and the habit just stuck
hmm yeah i can see that! i think i just prefer bratty reader bc im a brat lmao. like i truly can see james being the good one, its not JUST bc i like bratty reader, but that’s why i prefer it, since i can see james being both.
31 notes
·
View notes
Note
What, Yes there are more. We are a group of 5, we are all bestie that hate @themarauders-and-lucienswhore. Why, because we found he page and she gets abuse, but yet she still has people that like her. Like @reggiearctblack @randomoutsiders @draco-and-tom @daisyyy2516 @remmy-rambles @marlene-asks @mary-asks
They shouldn't like abused kids, They should like rich girls like us.
...i had to read this twice lmAOOO
sweetheart i think there's a group chat for rich kids of Tumblr, how bout you go join that and be a brat there?
or d'you wanna be a brat f'me? this rich spoilt brat thing is hot tbh, id love to tame you🥵
33 notes
·
View notes
Text
》Dekusquad with a s/o that has a pet snail《
🐌
Word count: 926
Warning(s): None
Category: Fluff
A/n;; Okay, this is pretty much the first thing I've EVER posted on any of my writing stuff, and it's super embarrassing and all… but I'm really proud of it! And if you have anything like tips or things I could do to improve my writing I encourage you to tell me pretty please ╰(*´︶`*)╯(And YES I do have a pet snail called Remmy, if that's not your snails name then I'm sorry😔) Thankies for even bothering to read this and please enjoy^^
Izuku
-Yall are probably at your place to study and hang out on like,, a tuesday afternoon
-Hell see their glass home and will get all curious
-"Hey y/n what's that glass case for?"
-"Oh it's for Remmy, my snail"
-WHAT
-He'd be so surprised… pet snails were a thing??
-Because of the things inside, it would be a bit difficult to see inside the glass so you TAKE HIM OUT!??
-Lets face it,, hell probably try to pet it… he has no idea what you would do with a pet snail…?
-They seem so b o r i n g
-But his little eyes pop out🥺 and Izu's immediately in love
-let him hold it please… he just wants to hold the bby
-HES SO GENTLE
-Other people would poke it and terrorize the poor thing(trust me they do) but he just… sits there and holds him🥺🤧
-He now comes over every Tuesday just to sit with Remmy
-he's Remmy's dad now^^
Momo
-She'll be sO SWEET AND SUPPORTIVE
-Okayokayokay
-but you two WILL be going shopping for things like new rocks and sticks for him
-you dont have a choice
-SNAIL MOM
-Therell be days where she'll come over and you two will cuddle and have Remmy in his glass case next to you guys while watching a movie
-she loves him.
-she will protect Remmy with her everything
-Hunny tried to give him water but almost DROWNS HIM
-it's okay though bc he didnt die😪
Todoroki
-Mans was so confused
-"Why do you have a snail in this glass container?"
-HIS NAME IS REMMY😤
-idk why but I feel like he would be kind of… scared? intimidated? Upset?
-because… your over there giving affection to this wierd slimy blob in a shell
-and NOT him
-????
-As stuff goes he would warm up to the bby🥰
-Hell vent to Remmy when you're not there for him to talk to
-He still wont touch him because… ew slimey stuff
-but he will watch as you carefully hold him and show him
-He never really gets a GOOD look because they cant be on your hand for too long
-BUT!!!!1!1111!!!
-The day where he DOES hold Remmy… hes wearing gloves (latex free)
-it's so wierd to have this thingy crawling around him!??
-Todoroki says snail rights
-they eventually become besties🥺
-and they dont have h a n d s
-he wont let the curse effect his little buddy
Iida
-YOURE NOT SUPPOSED TO NAVE PETS!!!11!111!1
-"Iida please… hes just a snail (ーー;)"
-He wouldnt like the idea of it… AT FIRST
-mostly because hes really heavy on his rules,, and except for Koda, they arent supposed to have pets
-just bc your his s/o doesnt mean hell be soft on you
-sis I belive in you;; convince this mans Remmy is harmless
-once he gets to know Remmy tho…
-you know he'd be fascinated
-Rich boy WILL buy you anything you need for Remmy🥺
-Again… most people find having a pet snail wierd… but their so calming!!
-they dont make noise, and as long as you do it carefully you can hold them^^
- Iida wants to hold him… let him hold him please,,
-Homeboy does his RESEARch
-Remmys chill… and becomes a new friend of Iidas and yall will just hang
-Put on some plantasia and study with Remmy on the desk with you two on the floor
-YES P L E A S E
Uraraka
-Ooh?
-Theyre doing the dorm competition, and you open your door, its decorated how you have your room at home
HOME
-W A I T
-Whats that glass container???
-"Its R E M M Y"
-Theyre all so like… confused?
-who is Remmy
-"a snail…"
-uH-
-why does someone have a pet snail??
-Later that night Ura comes back around and asks to see Remmy
-ACK
-You carefully take him out of his case and hold him out looking proud asf
-she just… s t a r e s
-hes so tiny… and adorable
-alt-right away shell ask to hold him🥺🥺
-shes so gentle… it makes my heart just UGH
-After a few seconds shell give him back ai you can let him chill on his rock
-oh yeah… she likes snails now
- every once and a while she'll come over and you guys will just talk and you'll take Remmy out,, shell hold him
-Its just routine at this point
-knock on the door?? TIME TO GET MUSIC ON AND REMMY OUT
-it's so wholesome… I love her ＼(≧▽≦)
So… posting this is nerve wracking^^ but I feel really sad coming on here to read other people's stuff, then doing nothing?? It just makes me feel not right inside! But please,, dont be too harsh on me I dont have much writing experience with fanfiction and headcanons, but I really hope to get better��🥰
#my hero academia#mha x reader#mha fanfiction#mha todoroki#mha deku#mha headcanons#todoroki x reader#izuku imagine#izuku x reader#bnha uraraka#uraraka x reader#iida x reader#bnha x reader#bnha todoroki#bnha imagines#bnha
197 notes
·
View notes
Note
I love you, bat. what’s your favorite Disney movie? Favorite tree? Where is your favorite place in the world? Where do you want to go? What song feels like a hug? (-)
Remmy I love you so very much!!
Ohhh favorite Disney movie! That’s hard. I think it’s Mulan, or Hercules (hades is the best villain period)
My favorite tree is those big oak trees that shed their leaves during the fall. I love the way they look at the turn of the season!
My favorite place in the world!? Oh boy! Emmy bed excluded, I have studied and lived in Paris several times throughout my life. The language and the culture is unlike anything else. I miss my Paris family so very much (my chosen family that is)
I am dying to visit Cambodia and Vietnam. And Thailand, for that matter! I think there is such a rich and tumultuous culture there. I am so intrigued to learn more of it.
Omg. So many songs, Emmy. SO MANY. To name a few:
Midnight, the Stars, and You by Ray Noble and his Orchestra
Sister Golden Hair by America
Baby by Tyler James
and just since we were talking about France: Partons Vite by Kaolin
(-) :-o ❤️
30 notes
·
View notes
Text
Picnic Ask
Ask and ye shall recieve @theaxolotleastofthesun it’s long af tho, so it’s under the cut.
1. Where and When is the picnic happening? (Gonna take this as ideal location and season basically)
a. Milo: Prefers someplace a bit south—warmer than the northern parts of the Eye. Summer in Sun Elf territory would be nice. Not south enough to get jungle-y and humid (Glim can take heat, but draws the line at humidity), but someplace he could retreat to the blessed relief offered by the shade of a scrubby tree and have a good excuse to eat his favorite spicy foods and sweat to cool down.
b. Glim: as stated above, he doesn’t do well in high humidity. Also not the biggest fan of excessive heat, but will put up with it for Milo’s sake. Were it up to him though, he would prefer an autumn picnic in a cozy shady glen under a still-full canopy of rich reds and violets and sunny yellows. A sigh of crisp wind carrying with it the first hint of winter.
c. Remmi: Love’s spring, especially when it’s still early. They love the way the fruit trees look while still flowering and the cool, but warming, breeze. They would most enjoy something near water, but with plush green grass still under foot. The Northern Reservoir is well tended, with bright, blossoming bushes hedging cobbled pathways. The surrounding park stretches most of the way ‘round. Remmi would most like a quiet day at the eastern edge—farthest away from the great roaring falls that lead into the canyon. Bonus if there are frogs.
d. Hani: Loves the dead heat of summer; the feel of warm sun on his skin. A midsummer, late afternoon picnic after a day of splashing around the Southern Sea would be heaven. Sure, the food might get a little sandy, but it wouldn’t stop him from eating and enjoying every second.
2. What food and drinks do your OCs bring? (you fool! You’re enabling me to indulge my fascination with food culture!)
a. Milo: Goes all out on the spice—picnic with him at your own peril. He packs extra-hot kimchi, seasoned roasted garlic cloves, Zevi’s falafel recipe, and a few other side dishes that reflect his upbringing by a Southern Dwarf familiar with Halfling food culture. He also gets pretty excited with drinks, bringing three; an iced ginger tea made with turmeric and black pepper, buttercup and honey hwachae (most non-halflings just call it wine even though it’s usually not alcoholic) because he’s (not so) secretly pretty sappy and sentimental, and Baekse-ju to finish off with a good pair for spicy food and just a touch of alcohol.
b. Glim: Settles for light, seasonal snack foods. He brings a bunch of fresh cut in-season fruit like apples (that yes, he does cut the skins to look like bunnies like his mother used to), a couple loaves of bara brith made with ground dried fruits and nuts served with butter, and a whole basket of pic ar y maen (cookies with raisins and currants mixed in). He brings spiced virgin cider and a fine local white wine to wash it down.
c. Remmi: As a professional baker, they refused to bring anything but their best to their picnic. They pick finger-food pastries—the best from their eclectic cooking experience and travels. Beignets topped with honey and powdered sugar—in a basket enchanted to keep them fresh and hot and crisp because they take pride in their work. An impressive assortment of petit fors lined up and packed tightly in another container. Muffuletta finger sandwiches with toothpicks holding them together for the more savory inclined guests. And finally some cranberry pastila which they hadn’t made in years and was their way of flexing their baker’s muscles. They pack a thermos of milk tea and an iced chocolate drink.
d. Hani: not a big cook. He was hoping Senya would do most of the cooking. It’s not like he’s particularly picky about what he ingests. To be polite though, he brings a crock of bamia—a stew with lamb, okra, tomatoes, and onion—that his mother would make on special occasions. He also brings an impressive array of drinks; sugar cane juice, carob juice, tamarind juice, and iced coffee.
3. What are your OC’s wearing to the picnic?
a. Milo: Largely his usual sort of outfit. A sleeveless turtleneck, cargo capris, and combat boots. He does add a lightweight cotton shawl embroidered with geese in shades of red that he got as a wedding gift from Lian. He wears it to avoid sunburn, but once in the shade and eating, he carefully folds it and sets it aside so it doesn’t get dirty.
b. Glim: A cream colored tunic and brown tasseled cardigan over dark blue leggings, simple but sleek black ankle boots, and finished off with a simple sapphire teardrop pendant on a gold chain.
c. Remmi: they opt for something simple and comfortable, but fitting for the season. They wear a yellow wide-band tank top under an oversized baby pink cable knit sweater. The sweater is so big it slouches off one shoulder, reaches their knees, and the sleeves hide their hands if they aren’t scrunched up at the elbow. They pair that with slim, washed out jeans, and a pair of tan slouchy boots. As one final touch, they don cherry blossom studs in their ears.
d. Hani: he goes for something sporty and comfy. A loose and flowy off-white sleeveless crop top over a pair of baggy gray-blue shorts held round his hips by a broad and colorful sash and a pair of greek sandals that he discards almost immediately. To add a touch of class—after all this is a fun outing so why not—he wears golden arm bands just above each bicep. Those stay on longer, but they, too, eventually get unceremoniously dumped into the picnic basket in favor of total comfort.
4. Which OC brings a musical instrument to idly play?
a. Surprisingly enough, Hani. Remmi knows a little piano and harp, but those aren’t exactly available at a picnic. Milo has never learned an instrument (though he finds guitar interesting). And Glim tried playing, but sucked at just about everything; and anything he could play he couldn’t play in front of others. Hani, on the other hand, randomly knows how to play—and is good at—the oud (which is like an Arab lute). And yes, he does attempt to play Wonderwall on it.
5. How quickly does your OC realize there are ants trying to sneak into their food? What do they do about it?
a. Milo: He’s very perceptive, so it doesn’t take long for him to notice. He proceeds to squish them then mix them into his food for “extra protein” without hesitation. Despite knowing that Milo was raised eating bugs and still does fairly regularly, everyone still looks at him like he’s gone insane.
b. Glim: He picks up on it when someone else points it out. It’s only then that he realizes that he forgot to activate the insect repellent rune. He curses under his breath and apologizes before quickly moving the picnic supplies a few meters away and activating it then.
c. Remmi: They spend the whole picnic low-key looking out for this. Whenever bugs start walking toward or flying around their precious gourmet picnic, they nonchalantly close all the containers up tight then swat them all away without breaking the conversation.
d. Hani: he doesn’t notice until one of the ants bites his tongue as he’s eating. He spits that one out because it was mean, but all subsequent ones he eats. And unlike Milo, Hani doesn’t mix them into anything, he just pops them into his mouth.
6. Which OC hides under the shade at first before being convinced to come out into the sun? How do they react?
a. Glim hates the heat. If you can manage to convince him to leave the tranquility of shade, he will be a drama queen about it. Really laying it on thick and moaning about how “the sun is a white hot laser” against his “poor fragile flesh” and that if he continues on he will surely “burn up, dry out, and die!” and other such dramatic nonsense. He gets weirdly poetic when he’s frustrated or cranky. Needless to say, Milo has ceased pushing the issue.
7. Imagine your OCs spending their time picking nearby wildflowers and watching the butterflies and bees at work.
a. Milo foregoes this particular activity, choosing this time instead to just take in the scenery. He’s scared he might upset a hive or get stung or bitten by something so he’d rather just sit back and soak up the atmosphere.
b. Glim is carefully rooting around for four leaf clovers under a subdued parasol.
c. Remmi carefully plucks and cuts an armful of flowers and stems so they can make colorful flower crowns for everyone.
d. Hani chases the bugs and small animals, not unlike a dog would. But he’s having fun so it’s fine.
8. Which OC foregoes a picnic blanket and sits directly on the ground? Are they concerned by the grass stains on their clothes afterwards?
a. Hani doesn’t care where he plants his butt and cares almost as little about stains.
9. Which OC brings a chair because they can’t stand the thought of sitting on the ground?
a. Remmi, but a lot of it is because they don’t want to risk getting their clothes too dirty and also because the ground is never as soft and even as you think or hope. So sitting on the ground, even on a blanket, hurts their butt.
10. Imagine your OCs falling asleep after eating their food, content and happy.
a. Milo is one of the first to nod off and lays down in the shade. He kicks his shoes off and lets the sun warm his feet while the shade keeps his face cool. He wakes up to groggily help pack everything back up.
b. Glim doesn’t actually fall asleep. He just sort of zones out while playing with Milo’s hair and enjoying the breeze.
c. After loading up on carbs, Remmi dozes off in their chair and wake up with a tender sunburn spread across their nose and cheeks. They vow to never fall asleep in the sun like that again, but they make the same mistake next time.
d. Hanni has seemingly boundless energy throughout the day, which is a bit unusual for him as he often naps a lot when the sun is out, but is wired by the time the moon replaces it. As soon as they’ve packed everything up and are headed home, though, the excitement wears off and he crashes hard. He’s asleep the whole way back.
2 notes
·
View notes
Note
7 - Wolfstar
Winter/Holiday #7: Visiting family who doesn’t know they’re dating.
Pairing: Wolfstar
Warning: Mentions of abuse (not detailed)
Background Info: It’s the summer of before sixth year, Sirius had run away from home having taken enough treatment from his family. He’s officially living with the Potters who’ve accepted him as a second son and we all know James was his brother in all but blood. Sirius and Remus have been together since the middle of fifth year but they told no one they were dating.
I’m so happy to be writing wolfstar again! It’s been so long 🥺 thank you for your submission!
—
When Remus showed up at the Potter Family house, he was in a frantic state. James had written to the Marauders that Sirius had run away from home and he was in a rough state. Deep down Remus knew that James and his parents would have taken good care of Sirius but he needed to see him for himself to know he was truly safe. After all, Sirius was his and he was supposed to protect him.
Knocking on the door, shifting anxiously from one foot to another, he waited for someone to answer the door. “Moony!” James opened it with that easy going grin on his face. Remus felt himself relax slightly, James wouldn’t be smiling if Sirius was hurt too bad, “Hey Prongs? Is Padfoot okay?” He tried to keep the desperation out of his voice as James led him into his home, “He’s much better than how he was. His bitch of a mother did a number on him.” James’s voice was bitter and Remus saw his fist clench on the word ‘mother’.
“Jamie?” A rich voice called making Remus smile unconsciously, “Is Moony here?” James snorted as he shot a look over his shoulder at the werewolf, “He’s been asking for you. Frequently. Every day.” Remus felt his smile grow as his cheeks flushed. James studied him with an unreadable expression before he smiled softly as he turned away, “Yeah Pads. He’s finally here.” Remus heard a quiet “Finally” from Sirius thanks to his heightened senses and couldn’t help but chuckle as he stepped into the room, “Hey Pads.”
Amber eyes met grey and it took all of Remus’s self-control to not throw himself at the teen. “You alright there?” He murmured as he scanned the cuts and bruises on his face. “I’m alright. Mother dearest isn’t enough to take me out,” The arrogant tone didn’t match the pain in his eyes and Remus forced a smile. “You’re far too tough for that harpy to handle.” Sirius snickered as his eyes flickered past Remus’s shoulder to James.
Remus cleared his throat as he sat on the edge of the bed and fought the urge to hold his boyfriend’s hand. No one knew they were together and, at the moment, Remus hated their secrecy more than anything. “I hear Peter knocking,” James said suddenly, that strange expression on his face again. “I’ll go get the door.” He left the room leaving his two friends puzzled.
“You think he knows?” Sirius breathed out as he gently intertwined their fingers and tugged Remus closer. “Pads,” He said warningly even as he moved closer. “Someone could come in.” “Oh come on Remmy,” Sirius pouted. “I’m hurt here and I want a kiss from my sexy boyfriend to make me feel better.” Remus snorted before glancing at the door worriedly. “Just one kiss?” Sirius murmured in a slightly pleading tone that Remus couldn’t resist.
Remus, instead of responding, slowly leaned down, keeping his weight off the injured teen and kissed Sirius gently pushing as much love into it as possible. He pulled away slightly to study his expression, “You don’t know how scared I was when I got Prongs’s owl. Siri, it killed me to know you were hurt and I wasn’t there.” His voice trembled as his fingers gently tangled into Sirius’s shirt. “I wanted to...to kill your mother for touching you.” Sirius held him tightly, ignoring his own pain, “It’s okay baby. I’m here. I’m safe. I’m healing.” He whispered into Remus’s neck as his boyfriend sniffled.
“You’re never going back there,” Remus said firmly. Sirius smiled, “You sound like MaMa Potter. She said the same.” Remus nodded before pressing another small kiss to Sirius’s lips. Once. Twice. As he leaned in for the third there was a flash at the door. The two teens jumped apart, Sirius letting out a small hiss in pain. “I knew it!” James’s voice echoed in the room as he lowered the camera. Peter was snickering beside him as the two in question blushed.
“James!” Remus threw a pillow at him before lunging for the camera as Sirius started laughing at the situation. “Give me that!” “Nope! This is going in the Marauder’s photo album!” James held the camera out of way before yelping as Remus tackled him. “Peter! Help!” Peter shook his head at their antics before greeting Sirius, “You doing okay Padfoot?” Sirius nodded as he shot a smile at Peter, “Fine Wormtail.” His eyes drifted back to his brother in all but blood and his boyfriend as they fought, “You guys knew?”
“Since the end of last year,” Peter nodded as he chuckled. “You two were so obvious.” “You guys are alright with it?” Grey eyes turned to his with worry, “Yes. We are all okay with it.” Peter said gently as Remus finally pinned James and held the camera before snapping a picture of James’s defeat.
“Good,” Sirius settled as his makeshift family all joined him on the bed and shared stories of the summer. Remus smiled shyly before intertwining their fingers, no longer having to hide their relationship.
#hp#marauderes era#remus lupin#the marauderes#harry potter#lily evans#wolfstar#writers on tumblr#incorrect harry potter quotes#incorrect quotes#wolfstar au#sirius and remus#remus john lupin#remus and sirius#soulmate au#harry potter au#au#modern au#incorrect hp#sirius black
18 notes
·
View notes
Text
Giving Thanks || Nora and Remmy
TIMING: Thanksgiving Day
PARTIES: @fearfordinner and @whatsin-yourhead
SUMMARY: Remmy cooks a full meal on Thanksgiving and Nora finally wanders down from the attic to partake. They decide the mansion should be a place of belonging.
The attic was dusty. Dusty from months of neglect. Nora had been content to allow her body to be covered by that dust by not getting out of bed. However Morgan had asked if she was doing anything with Remmy. Guilt had washed over Nora. She couldn’t ignore her friend family because she thought she had found a bio family. It was dumb to be upset about something that was never real anyway. So Nora slunk down the stairs into the kitchen. The kitchen smelled delightful. Food was splayed everywhere in a mouth watering set. “Wow.” Nora said slowly. “Someone’s been busy.”
Cooking was calming, and today was a day made for cooking. Stuffing and mashed potatoes and yams. And green beans and bread and a whole fucking turkey. Remmy had it all. They even cut up cheese and pulled out some crackers and set them on the counter as if preparing for a whole foray of guests. But there was no one. It was just them, and Nora laying sadly in the attic and the ghosts wandering around aimlessly for another lost holiday. The oven was just beeping when they heard someone behind them. “Oh, hey…” they said, rubbing the back of their head, “yeah, I...I just wanted to do something, I guess. Um...are you hungry?”
“Are we having guests?” Nora had never asked her housemates to tell her when someone was coming over. It was a big house, and everyone was welcome. She scooted into one of the stools in front of the kitchen. “It smells great, Remmy.” Nora, never the person for manners, ripped a leg off the turkey and took a bite. A person with more manners and self awareness might have stopped to ask if that was an appropriate way to behave in front of someone's food. Nora was not that person. “Did… you make yourself something?”
Remmy watched Nora sit and start eating and gave a small sigh of relief. They set down the last of the yams and pulled off the oven mits, taking a seat across from her. “No,” they answered quietly, poking at the yams. “I just...didn’t feel right not making something.” Not being with family. They wondered what Morgan was doing, who Blanche might be hanging out with, if Luce, Nell and Bea were having a big dinner. They loved Nora, but looking around at the big, empty, kitchen, they felt a longing that couldn’t be filled. “No, but it’s-- fine. I ate yesterday.” Or maybe the day before. Either way, their stomach did not grumble. Moose sat at their feet and whined and they carved a chunk of turkey off and fed it to him. “Did your family have big dinners for Thanksgiving?” they asked after a moment.
“My dads were the feasting kind.” Nora answered, her mouth full of turkey as she answered. “Their families, they didn’t like it when they came out. You know. Hetero shit.” Nora swallowed taking another bite before continuing. “So they held a feast for all their rich and successful friends. I never went. I kept getting in trouble for scaring them.” Nora was invited to go. She was a big hit at the halloween feast, but her dads were very proud of their feast and everything they did there. Nora hadn’t wanted to ruin that for them when she was old enough to understand it. “No this year. They’re in europe. No thanksgiving there. Did your family have thanksgiving?” Nora came to the realization that she knew absolutely nothing about their family.
“Oh,” Remmy said, listening to Nora explain her family’s celebrations. “Hetero shit, yeah…” they could relate to that. They hadn’t known it really, back then, but they could relate. They peeled off another strip of turkey for Moose and fed it to him. He ate happily and licked his lips, ready for more. “Sounds lonely. I think having a fun scare should be a part of every holiday celebration, “ they teased lightly, giving her a little smile. They looked back away when she asked about them. “Well, it was just me and my dad, and he...didn’t care enough to do anything. Sometimes I went over to friends’ houses, but not until I was older. And then Thanksgiving in the military was either freeze-dried individual meals or mess hall slop.” They poked a potato and took a bite anyway. “So much foAWr taking care of the people who signed up to die for their country, huh?”
“I was never alone.” Nora’s answer came a little too quick. It was important though. She was always surrounded by friends. Right now a friend was crawling its way up her back, eight legs leaving a tickling trail behind on her as her friend relocated. “So much.” Nora agreed. Nora often forgot Remmy had been part of the military. They seemed too nice for the life. Then again, couldn’t say she actually knew other people from the military or its lifestyle. She’d never bothered to learn about it. “Do you think Blanche is eating and taking care of herself?”
“You know...you can be not alone and still be lonely,” Remmy pointed out quietly. Because hadn’t that been how they’d felt their entire life? Surrounded by people, by friends, but always lonely. Always distant. They’d rarely been able to connect with people, only ever able to keep their friendship with loyalty and self-sacrifice. And now...everything was the opposite. They grabbed the bowl of stuffing and scooped a heap onto Nora’s plate and then their own. “There’s bacon bits in the stuffing, you’ll like it,” they said, stirring their own around. “I think so,” they answered, then, quieter, “I hope so.”
Nora ignored what Remmy said. Who was she to speak on loneliness. Nora felt absolutely spoiled as Remmy put stuffing on her plate. All this food for just her. She really wished that Remmy could enjoy it with her. “Thanks.” She answered, instantly inhaling the offering. “I hope so.” And she did. “I look forward to this place becoming a sanctuary. The ghosts are nice, but.. More people will be nice.” Nora crossed her legs in the seat. “Is there anything you want me to get for it? I think I’ll start buying up clothes for a communal closet. In case they need things. You know.”
“I think we should make one of the extra rooms into like...a game room. Maybe get a nice TV, some video game systems, board games...like a recreation room,” Remmy answered. They liked talking about this stuff more, anyway. It felt nicer. It felt easier. They took a bite of the flavorless stuffing and almost asked Nora if it tasted alright, but stopped short. She wouldn’t say anything bad about it if it did. She probably didn’t even care. “Clothes are a good idea, too. Stuff everyone can use. Maybe some extra linens and blankets.”
“I like that.” It wasn’t a lie. The idea of a room dedicated to laughter and community time filled Nora with joy. She took another bite of food. “A closet for things. Like toothbrushes.” It’d be safe. People wouldn’t need to leave if they didn’t want to. People didn’t need to stay if they didn’t want to. Complete freedom should be found here. “Maybe an office room? For quiet time? Where the ghosts aren’t allowed to malfunction the electronics.” Ghosts would always be welcome in her home, but she knew that sometimes they could be a hindrance for everyday machinery.
“Yeah,” Remmy agreed, nodding, “and soap.” Everyone needed soap, right? They looked across the table at Nora, smiling a little more now. A genuine warmth was filling their chest-- it’d been a while since they’d been happy to talk about something, since they’d looked forward to something good and nice. They stabbed the stuffing some more. “Oh, a quiet room would be great for sure! Maybe we even have enough rooms for a quiet room and an office room?” There were almost twenty rooms in the entire house, including the living room and dining room. They could make it work, right? They looked back over at Nora. “Hey, Nora?” they asked quietly, setting their fork down. It clinked quietly. “Thank you for being here with me. I-- know this kinda stuff is weird for you, but I just-- want you to know. I’m grateful to have you in my life.”
“Everyone needs soap.” Nora agreed. In another room Nora could hear Munch laughing over that comment. It was probably how often he told her that she looked a mess and needed soap that set him off. It wasn’t her fault that she spent most of her time walking around the forest. It got dirty out there. Babadook had slunk in at some point, and was waiting at Nora’s feet. She started sneaking him some turkey. Her hands stopped in the motion as Remmy spoke. Oh to have someone grateful that she existed and was in their life, in her life. That was… nice. “I’m grateful too.” Nora avoided eye contact, not one for heart to hearts. “I’m glad I had someone here to come home to.” She ripped a leg off the turkey in as violent of a motion as she could, and dropped it down to Babadook. Just so the moment wouldn’t be awkward.
Remmy was sure their comment had probably made Nora a little uncomfortable, but they felt it was something they needed to say, especially lately. The ripping noise of the turkey made them wince a little, but it was food and it was made to be eaten, and it really didn’t matter in what manner that happened. They smiled over at Nora and reached to rip the other turkey leg off, just as violently as Nora had, before handing it down to Moose. “We’ll make this a good home for whoever wants to have it,” they said idly, glancing back across the table at Nora, “including you and me.”
#chatzy#chatzy: nora#giving thanks#nora#wickedswriting#//rly short but actually soft???#and sweet???
11 notes
·
View notes
Text
Not Like That || Morgan & Deirdre
TIMING: After the events of The Red Room
PARTIES: @deathduty & @mor-beck-more-problems
SUMMARY: Morgan struggles with what she learned in the basement from Lydia and herself.
"To stay here forever
is not like that, nor even
simply to lie quite still,
the warm trickle of dream
staining the thick quiet.
The drawers of this trunk are empty.
They are all out of sleep up here."
-Adrienne Rich
CONTAINS: discussions of physical and emotional abuse from the past, lenan sidhe control, and fae customs. Brief mentions of vomit.
Morgan stayed in the doorway long after Remmy had taken their bag and staggered up the stairs to their room. She couldn’t feel her fingers, or hear the door close behind her. She looked at the lock and the car in the driveway, the blood on her hands from where Chloe had fought her, and the rips in her clothes and the shine on the hardwood floor. She looked until her eyes were too flooded with tears and she could only press herself against the door to keep from sagging and called for the only person she wanted right now. “Deirdre—? Deirdre!” She dragged herself along the wall, still calling for her hoarsely. “Please—Deirdre?”
Pruning flowers turned out to be surprisingly therapeutic, with everything on Deirdre’s mind, she welcomed the bit of gardening she’d taken up. It was so great of a distraction that she paid no mind to the lights turning on in her house behind her, or even Moira mewling at her feet. And only when she had a respectable bundle of flowers, pruned and ready to be stuck in a vase to wilt inside, did she finally turn to look into her home. “Morgan?” The flowers slipped between her fingers, their glass patio door slid open seconds later. “Morgan!” Deirdre ran to her, scooping her girlfriend into her arms. She noticed tears first, blood second, torn clothes third. “What’s wrong, my love? Come, lean on me.” The task of lifting Morgan up and getting her to some place comfortable for them to sit and hold each other was an instinctual one. She soothed and cooed all the way there, whispering unintelligibly about how it was okay—even if she didn’t really know what she was saying was okay.
Morgan clung to Deirdre with all she had. She couldn’t tell if she was lifted off her feet or if she was merely dragged along by Deirdre’s brute strength. She gasped for words, for any of the questions she had burning in her throat. “Please—” She croaked, digging her fingers into her skin, coughing with sobs. Deirdre was the only real thing left on the landscape of their home, the only anchor to cling to. “I—we—Remmy asked me over and we—saw—I don’t know what to do. We couldn’t help her and I don’t—” She wasn’t making sense. Despairing, Morgan sobbed in her girlfriend’s arms, curling up tighter against her body. “We found Lydia...in her basement...feeding...on her prisoner. We heard the way she...spoke to her.” Morgan fastened herself to Deirdre’s body, head buried in her neck. “Did she show you? Have you known how she...keeps them…?”
Deirdre waited and listened. Suddenly, her reassurances stopped. The circles she had been working across Morgan’s back with practiced pressure fell away, and she pulled back, just enough to look at Morgan. Some manner of confusion settled into her, she didn’t know which part Morgan took offense to, or if Lydia’s feeding was simply upsetting to look at. But she knew, without doubt, that it had hurt Morgan. Just how, she could figure out later. “Where’s Remmy?” She reached out to hold Morgan’s face in her hands. “I need you to tell me where they are right now. Are they there? Did they go to a friend’s? And the human...where’s the human?” She leaned in and kissed Morgan’s forehead, pressed her head against hers as they parted. “Can you tell me that first?”
Morgan gulped for breath, trembling in Deirdre’s grip. She couldn’t make her lungs remember how to breathe and whimpered, choking on her own cries as she tried to remember. The look she gave Deirdre as she held her away was panicked: no, please no, please don’t push me away, please. When she was finally able to draw in a full breath, it tore raggedly through her throat. “Remmy’s upstairs. In their room. Chloe is with Lydia. We didn’t...we couldn’t free her. Remmy wanted to trade themself, but we’re dead and useless and we can’t do anything for anyone and…” Her body shuddered. She wanted to be folded up again, she wanted to understand, she wanted to be forgiven, she wanted so many awful, impossible things.
“Remmy’s here?” Deirdre blinked, she hadn’t even noticed. But it was better, perhaps, that she was hearing this from Morgan and not Remmy. Morgan would hold far more understanding for the things she was about to say. “You shouldn’t have freed her,” she started, voice gentle and forgiving, “doing so would endanger Lydia, and Chloe. She’s not herself anymore. She is Lydia’s. And there’s nothing you, or anyone, can do about that.” Not that anyone should do anything about it, but she held her tongue on that point and simply shifted and pulled Morgan closer again. “She is already dead, Morgan. Do not feel bad for leaving her there.” But more than that—more than that—Chloe was a simple, putrid, inferior human. Morgan would not weep in guilt for a cow-turned-steak, and the humans were no different. Not in any capacity. Deirdre pressed her lips to the side of Morgan’s head, lingering there. “I knew,” she said, “I knew and I found nothing wrong with it—I find nothing wrong with it.”
“Dead?” Morgan sobbed. “What do you mean? I don’t understand. She...she wasn’t dead, she was just...she was hurt. Lydia was hurting her and I don’t understand!” She pressed back into Deirdre’s grasp, giving up the fight against her body for stillness. “It’s not...I don’t mean what she has feed on. No one should have to...that’s not it.” She tried counting her surroundings, but her mind was weighted somewhere down the road in Lydia’s home, in that basement… “They were underground, in the basement. I didn’t think it was her. The way she was talking to her… it was like how my mother talked to me, when she was pretending to comfort me after I was punished. Like it was my fault she locked me up. And I thought, Lydia would never talk to someone like that, saying they made her do things she chose. But it was her. It was Lydia and I saw her make that woman… what do you mean she’s not herself? It’s just magic brainwashing, right? It wears off. She could recover and choose for herself and she could...she could be okay if the magic was allowed to wear off, right?”
Deirdre continued to hold Morgan close, with no more understanding than she had before, but growing more desperate to soothe her pain away. “She will be dead, eventually, I mean.” Deirdre tried, but she found herself struggling to form the right words. She didn’t know how far along Chloe was, but she also knew that she didn’t care. As far as she was concerned, the moment Lydia had chosen her, she was dead. Her fate was sealed, as it ought to be for a human. “It’s how leanan-sidhe eat, Morgan. Their kisses inspire love and devotion, and to keep them happy, you have to be clever about it. But it’s not--it’s not terrible. Lydia isn’t terrible with them. It’s just food; they’re just food. It’s no different than cattle raised on a farm.” She tried to search for what was wrong, the comparison to Morgan’s mother was a good starting point, but she knew Lydia was only feeding. And Chloe was only human. The pain Morgan felt wasn’t shared, and Deirdre needed Morgan to explain it better; but it seemed neither of them could reach any piece of understanding. “I-I suppose it could wear off…” Deirdre grimaced at the idea of freeing Chloe. “But why would you do that? Chloe is Lydia’s. To break them apart would be painful.” For Lydia, she’d meant. She didn’t much care how Chloe would fare after. And though Lydia would also recover, Deirdre couldn’t get the point in separating her from her rightly deserved food. Deirdre gulped, a quivering voice given to her desperation, “w-why does this bother you?”
“I-I’m...sorry…” Morgan stammered through her cries. She was being so useless right now. She couldn’t hold still, she could barely speak, barely remember breathing, she was just barely more than useless. She heard her mother’s voice in her mind, snapping at her to stop. To be better. She wasn’t raised to be pathetic and lazy and was she trying to be sent back to her room and cause her mother more grief? Did she not understand what this behavior was putting her mother through? Morgan stiffened at the recollection. Deirdre didn’t ask her any such questions, but Morgan could hear the distress in her voice. She apologized again and again, waiting impatiently for the panic to subside from her body.
When her body finally stilled, a stone-like numbness was left behind, leaving her feeling heavy and tired. “Chloe looked as old as me,” she said faintly. “I actually slung her over my shoulder and tried to drag her out of there. I thought if I was fast enough, we’d all have a chance. But the magic, the way it makes her...Lydia made her cry so bad but she still fought me to drag herself back. She wasn’t happy. She was being hurt, to keep her under control.” She grimaced and tried to press in further. She didn’t have the focus or control to mind her grip, but she wanted so badly to feel the comforting weight of Deirdre anchoring her. She whined and tried to fasten their bodies together tighter still. “You would never have hurt the animals on your farm like that by choice,” she said. “And she’s a person. I was looking right at her. And she’s a person; like I was a person. I didn’t think I was being complicit in someone else’s abuse every time I went to see her there. I didn’t think she was the kind of person who...used people like that, who could be cruel. Is this...is this really her whole species’ legacy? Do they all keep people hostage in their houses and hurt them so they stay ‘good’? Is that really supposed to be the ‘best’ way for them to live?”
“Don’t be sorry. Don’t be.” Deirdre breathed her assurances out with the gentleness she reserved for Morgan. There was some point she was still missing, but comforting Morgan took greater importance. She pressed kisses where she could, held her tighter, moved her hands around to soothe—everything she knew Morgan liked, everything she could feel Morgan was asking for. But while her body knew the language that needed to be said, her brain didn’t. Morgan’s mother was bad, and anything that might have reminded her of that would also be bad, but that wasn’t exactly what Morgan was saying. “It’s okay,” she mumbled, continuing her affection even as Morgan’s panic seemed to settle. “But we never fed from those creatures, and they are—” She gulped. They were, admittedly, different from humans. Not so much in value, though perhaps in their complaints and understanding of the world. “She is a…” Deirdre struggled to find her rebuttal; confusion grew on her features, and she stared at the wall beyond them with furrowed brow. She wouldn’t deny that Morgan had been human, once, and in some way, she still was, but in her mind the two were separate. She slumped and waited until Morgan was finished, gathering her thoughts between the pauses and questions. “How are you made complicit if you’re not participating?” She asked quietly, she still couldn’t understand what was wrong, but she knew Morgan thought something was. It occurred to her that she might have had more luck if she pretended like she did, but she’d always been honest with Morgan, and she didn’t want to stop just because she thought Morgan would disagree. She trusted that Morgan would try to understand her, just as she was trying to do. She trusted it. She trusted her. “I haven’t known a leanan-sidhe who didn’t,” she said, “and the ones I did know treated their humans far worse. But more than that, there are fae without their powers who will still keep humans as pets. Sometimes to serve no real purpose. We had a few, for a while.” She trusted her. With a trembling sigh, Deirdre brought voice to the thought she’d let loom in the air: “what does it matter if it’s the ‘best’ way? They’re just human. This is what they’re meant for.” Her words were not of the convincing sort, they were plain, and steady, and confused.
“She’s a person,” Morgan emphasized. “Like me. Like I’m a person. And Remmy and Blanche and my students and Ariana and Nell and...and even if it’s too awful to think of her life as worth the same as yours or Lydia’s, the way she’s kept there, the way she was being punished…it’s cruel.” Morgan shook her head, body tensing again. “I didn’t do anything for her. Sometimes ambivalence can be harmful. When you could do something, anything, and you just don’t because you can’t be bothered--haven’t you been hurt like that too? People just standing by and watching, like you’re just part of the background when you’re small and hurt and you just want to be left alone? Didn’t you ever wish so hard someone would at least try? Or care enough to at least look upset?” She lifted her head to look at Deirdre, her expression wide and bewildered. She couldn’t help but sink with disappointment when Deirdre looked the same way. She and Lydia were so close, it didn’t seem like much of a surprise that she knew. Even if she hadn’t, Morgan hadn’t imagined anything like Remmy’s outrage. But seeing the absolute lack of understanding on her features, as if Morgan had started speaking in a different language, sunk another one of her hopes and dulled the light in her eyes. “She was in the same house as me, and I didn’t do anything. I didn’t even wonder. And I still can’t do anything. The worst part is I know I...I can’t do anything for her. I don’t want Lydia to get hurt. No one else can find out about this, because they’ll be horrified and want to do something too, and Chloe is going to suffer and die hating herself and feeling so small and I’m going to let her because I can’t…I don’t want to hurt my friend.” Morgan shivered, her skin crawling with disgust at herself. “I don’t understand why it’s like this,” she said, her eyes welling with tears again. Morgan’s voice pitched high, pleading, though she wasn’t sure for what. “Help me understand why it’s…is it fun? Does it make your people feel stronger against the Wardens and the people who hurt you by taking one of their own and making them a thing? Is this a cultural recompense for how imbalanced things are? Is it just too dangerous to get back at the people who actually hurt fae? Or do people just do it out of habit at this point? I just...I don’t understand. If she had wanted me when I was alive, would you have given me over? You said you couldn’t bear to even pretend I was your toy girl, but I’m not any different from Chloe, Deirdre. Is that what I was really meant for? A magic leash and someone to make me work until I bleed?”
“T-that’s not the same,” Deirdre offered meekly, shrinking into herself. “And that’s not--I don’t---” She swallowed thickly, uncomfortable with the comparison Morgan drew, and worse with knowing how angry she could feel at the people who’d watched her pain. But this was different, she told herself this was different. She waited, and she listened, and she spent a moment composing her thoughts away from the jumble that bubbled in her stomach. She continued to hold Morgan, now in some part for her own sake. Would lying be so bad? Deirdre could see Morgan deflate with her confusion; something wither behind her eyes and her own heart sank at the sight. The last thing she wanted was to hurt Morgan, and the part of her that knew how to perform to people’s ideals considered doing what she’d done all her life--play a part. But this was Morgan, and she’d always been honest with Morgan, and even as her blood ran cold with fear, she wouldn’t give Morgan anything less than the truth. “But Chloe’s not thinking about that. She can’t think about that. Magically, she can’t.” Deirdre whimpered, desperate for the two of them to reach the understanding that always came so easily. “And why would you consider that there might be humans in Lydia’s basement? That’s not something anyone thinks of. You don’t...hold any blame for thinking of Lydia as your friend, for not knowing. But--” But did she hold any now? Was freeing Chloe the right thing for her to do now? Deirdre grimaced again; she had no answers to offer, and more questions herself. “No it’s just--it’s convenient. To feed like that, off one consistent human. It’s more sustainable. And Lydia’s abilities...they do think that they love her. They are devoted to her, that is by no trickery of her words. That is, at its base, magic.” And they were human, what did it matter? What did it matter? Deirdre grew increasingly stiff, and though she didn’t intend for it to happen, her grip on Morgan slackened and her body began to throb under the tightness of Morgan’s clinging--against her weekend’s injuries. “No…” she let out a tearless sob, a pathetic hiccup of sadness. “I would never let anyone do that to you. I don’t--Not all humans are---” But the topic was too complex for Deirdre’s mind, too heavy against the things she knew, and the strange things she was learning. “S-some humans are just food. Some rabbits get caught, some go on. It’s just how it works. I don’t--” She swallowed again, whimpering. She didn’t like these questions, she didn’t like this conversation, she didn’t -- “H-how did you find out about her basement anyway?”
“It is the same,” Morgan’s voice was barely above a whisper, but her tone was insistent. “What I am doing to that woman right now is the same thing as what the people who watched you get hurt did, the same thing the people who ignored me get hurt did too. And maybe they have reasons, maybe they can be forgiven, but they did it and it hurt and it was awful. I am doing something awful.” They both were, but Deirdre’s look was turning to fear, and Morgan couldn’t bear to levy that kind of guilt on her. “Having magic re-working her brain doesn’t make it real. It’s not the same as real love. It is nothing like what we have. And we would never, never treat each other so horribly. We are never going to make each other suffer that way.” She fixed Deirdre’s gaze with her own, both of them trembling with fright at the weight of what hung over them. “I’m not a rabbit; I never was. I was just a human who was trying to find a better life. I wasn’t any more special than Chloe. We’re the same. She could have been me. She didn’t do anything to deserve this, that I know of. She was just there, and someone decided she had to suffer. And—maybe it is better that one person suffers like that instead of a dozen or a hundred, but I don’t understand why Lydia has to put her into that awful place, like her whole life isn’t already being sacrificed. And I don’t mean the house, I mean the place you and I were put in when people we loved hurt us. The place where I would’ve pitched myself off a building if it would’ve made my mother say she loved me back. That desperate, lonely, self-loathing place we both know. Except there’s no ‘after’ for her. Because the big all-powerful fae magic said so and I care too much about my friend to even try again. Because I love Lydia.” She lowered her head, hating herself for the truth. “Please don’t go,” she whispered, draping her arms around Deirdre again. She stayed there for several moments, still trembling at the realization at what she was capable of.
“Remmy messaged me because they…” Her voice halted as she realized what the truth must have been. “They heard gunshots coming from the basement a little while ago. They were worried that someone might be hurting Lydia. So I said we should look for clues, make sure everything’s okay. And so we went. And there they were.” She let out a shaky breath. “Remmy’s destroyed about it. They didn’t even look at Lydia when we left. They’ve been hurt all their life, they were kept in a cage by another fae, they can’t bear to be in a place where something like what’s happening to Chloe is going on. I don’t think they’ll stay here long either, I have to go over and get the rest of their stuff tomorrow, though.”
“No it’s not, Morgan. It’s not the same…” But if there were any words to explain it, Deirdre couldn’t find them. She didn’t try very long to, either. The topic made her sick in a very particular way, a way that she couldn’t name. The feeling it drummed up was too terrible to even attempt to voice. She quivered and whimpered wordlessly at it, until Morgan moved along to something she could stomach verbalizing. “I don’t mean it’s real love...just that Chloe doesn’t know better. When you tried to take her, it won’t--I mean, you can’t take her away like that. She’s oblivious to whatever Lydia does.” She had meant to make it sound like her ignorance was some blessing, but having been a child under her mother’s thumb, she knew all too well that it wasn’t. It was, instead, a different kind of evil. The terrible, nameless feeling bubbled again. “You are a--” No, Morgan wasn’t a rabbit. Deirdre swallowed. The feeling grew, hitting the back of her throat. Her mother’s voice barked between the pounding of Deirdre’s heart in her ears. “Some people just---it just happens to them. That’s just---” And if there were words to justify it, Deirdre couldn’t find them either. Humans are worth nothing. But what of Morgan then? What of the woman she loved, who was worth everything? “W-what else is she going to do? Chloe thinks that she loves her, and she’ll be desperate for Lydia’s attention as long as she’s being fed from. Wh-what else is---wouldn’t it be worse if she was mean to--she’s not--” The feeling was in her mouth now, and despite Morgan’s plea, she pushed her girlfriend aside and rose with a start; bolting to their kitchen, draping her head over the sink. She hadn’t thrown up in quite some time, it wasn’t usually how her sickness or anxiety would manifest itself. But it was as if she was given too much, too soon, and her body had rejected it. Deirdre gripped their counter tightly, heaving. “G-gunshots…” She breathed, running the tap to wash her mouth out. Gunshots didn’t make sense. Why would Lydia hurt them like that, if it hurt her just the same? And shouldn’t Sammy have been there too? Or--- The feeling rose up and emptied out of her again. She groaned and shoveled more water into her mouth.
“How do you feel?” She called out, working vigorously on getting the taste out of her mouth. If anything, it gave her something else to focus on. “Do you want to see her still? Go back there? I could go if you’d like to avoid it.” Deirdre groaned, pulling a glass from the cabinet and filling it with water. Maybe that would help. Maybe all she needed was to drink something. The taste had turned from acid to blood to acid again. The wound in her stomach, which hadn’t gotten much of a chance to heal, sent pain shooting through her body. It seemed like everything was rejecting itself. “It’s just what happens,” she mumbled, “that’s what the humans are for. And that’s just how she feeds it’s---” Deirdre took a long, suffocating sip of her water, spitting it all out into the sink as she found her throat burned, and her body wouldn’t accept anything more.
Morgan was too unbalanced from her panic and her sadness to catch Deirdre before she doubled over at the kitchen sink. Instead she stumbled behind her, knocking into the walls and furniture on numb feet until she was in the entryway, supporting herself against the counter. “Gunshots, yeah,” Morgan said in a whisper. “I didn’t ask about that, I didn’t think to. I don’t know why she...what would make her do that to someone she was keeping, if she needs them alive.” Morgan fidgeted where she stood, not knowing if she should give Deirdre her space as she processed this, or if she should be holding her hair and making tea. Morgan split the difference and shambled over to where they kept the kettle, and filled it up from the other side of the sink before setting it to heat.
“I don’t know how I feel,” she said, reaching over to tie back Deirdre’s hair. “I want to know she’s okay. I left things with her as best I could, and I know she doesn’t understand why either of us feel the way we do, especially Remmy. I want her to stop being cruel, and I want her to not feel so…” Morgan shook her head. “She was really hurt by how things went, and I don’t want her to hurt. And I can’t have both, or either, I guess. I feel like I should never want to see her again, but I...I don’t know.” She combed her fingers through Deirdre’s new ponytail, imagining how it ought to feel so she wouldn’t have to think about her willingness to see Lydia again. “Just because it’s what happens, doesn’t mean it’s what me and Blanche and Erin and Nell were made for. I don’t believe you really think I was made to spend my life being broken by someone. And I’m not upset about how she was made, about what she needs. That wouldn’t be fair. It’s the part where she’s keeping a woman hostage and crushing her inside while she does it. And with the magic, the desperation it makes people feel, it’s probably worse than anything I ever suffered under my mother.” She eyed Deirdre, wondering how it compared to the way Deirdre ached for approval. “I’m good to pick up Remmy’s stuff tomorrow. But you should probably go see her too. Tonight, or I can drop you off or...I don’t know. But I don’t want what happened today to stop you from being her friend. You need each other.”
Deirdre stared into their sink, watching her distorted reflection in the shiny stainless steel. Her grip on the counter slackened as the world spun, and she was remembering why sudden movements and exerting pressures were bad for her now. She’d have to ask Lydia what that was about, when she got the chance...which then begged the question of why Morgan and Remmy hadn’t just asked either, but what did that mean then? That they’d never find out Lydia’s secret and keep their conditional opinions? Only fae can understand each other. Deirdre heaved and ran the tap again, forcing her twisted reflection out, and the chilling voice of her mother to find a different host. “I don’t understand it either,” she shut the tap off, letting the plopping of water droplets play against the sound of the kettle. Why was the kettle being used? Deirdre looked up, noticing for the first time that her hair had been tied, and Morgan was beside her. Some job she was doing of comforting her, how laughable was it that the roles had to be switched? She didn’t even care that Lydia held humans in her basement, she gave no concern to how she spoke to them or the punishments she dolled out. “I think you underestimate my apathy, Morgan.” Deirdre breathed, only just coming back to herself. The thought of Blanche and Nell being hurt was upsetting, but if it was what must happen, then she didn’t care. If it was what a fae thought was apt, it wasn’t her business. But as she thought of it, her insides lurched again—though she had no way of telling if it was from residual iron pain or some manner of panic. Everyone has their roles… Deirdre’s jaw tensed. “There are things humans are made for.” She felt sick again, but she wouldn’t budge. Her mother was adamant in her head, and her thirty-two years of life meant something. “How else is she supposed to speak to them? They’re nothing. They’re meant to be nothing.” They weren’t people anymore, and she couldn’t grasp what was so hard to understand, or why Morgan’s denial made her feel like she was being gutted. Deirdre turned her attention back to the sink as the kettle whistled. “Do you...want me to go?” Was that it? Did Morgan think she was some monster too, for failing to find any issues? “You said you still love Lydia is that….is that true? Are you—“ Deirdre tensed, she refused to empty any more bile into their sink, and forced herself—just as her mother taught her—to remain steady.
“If you really don’t understand, I’d rather you just own that than parrot back everything your mother told you,” Morgan said, her voice suddenly sharp and heavy with sorrow. “I know it’s easy not to care about people you don’t know, and even easier not to care about ones you don’t see, and no one gives a shit about everyone, that would just be absurd. I would never ask for that. But if you could not talk about me like I’m a thing just because this is a challenging moment for you, I would appreciate it. Because that is what you are doing.” The kettle began to seam and Morgan took it off the burner and began to prepare a brew for settling Deirdre’s stomach. She shaved a fresh piece of ginger into the steeper and passed the mug to Deirdre. She did not answer Deirdre’s question for what felt like a long time, wrestling with her anger and her own selfishness. “I’m scared, and I feel sick, and I’m sad, and I hate everything and I want you to go back to holding me, because you’re my person and I need you.” she mumbled at last. “But I want you to do what you want too. And I know Lydia needs someone right now. If you want to go be there for her, you should. But before any of that, I need you to tell me that whatever happened in the past, whatever our friends or other fae homes choose to do, we are not going to be the kind of people who keep and hurt others like they’re our personal things. Whatever else happens, we are not going to be cruel in that way.” Morgan finally met Deirdre’s eyes. She didn’t have the strength to steel herself against anything. The edge in her voice had already dulled. She was weary, lightheaded, and aching to feel again, and there was no strength inside her to hide any of it. She envied her girlfriend’s resolve and feared what she was about to use it for. But she couldn’t be anything less than honest with Deirdre’s last question, however much it cut her to say it simply. “I still love Lydia, yes. I don’t feel like it says anything good about me, but I do. And I still love you. Even right now, like this. I love you always.”
Deirdre stared back at the sink, though she’d cast it away, she was now desperate to find her reflection. Her eyes that looked like her mother, her nose, her lips. If she could find the face, she could easily summon back its words—as Morgan put it, the parroting back she knew to be truth. She took the cup as it was offered to her, and tried in its murky depths. “I never liked keeping humans like that. They were wrong; hollowed out. We had this one that wouldn’t stop smiling because he’d been bound to, and when my mother finally grew tired of the sight she—“ Deirdre took a slow sip of the tea brewed for her, she welcomed the bitterness and spice, anything above the everything else she was feeling. “We had so many that were missing pieces of themselves, because someone didn’t enjoy how they acted. We can’t bind humans like a leanan-sidhe and so it was always a little clumsy. And the distaste for a smile or sad eyes always grew. They were....” She began to search the tea frantically, she wanted an escape from the story she dug herself into. She’d only been a child then, and a child when all of them had gone, but the image of them was burned into her mind. But all she could find were eyes that weren’t quite as sharp as her mother’s, a mouth that frowned, and a face that was softer. “I can tell you,” she heaved, “that I never want a human kept like that here.” But she told herself again that there was nothing wrong with what her family had done, and less wrong with Lydia’s actions. This is what humans are for. This is what humans are for. This is what— “Please don’t make me decide.” She set the cup down and turned to her love. “I’m tired of choosing things, picking sides.” She moved and wrapped her arms around Morgan, as she wanted to. “I know you’re in pain, and I want to stay. And I can’t—“ She couldn’t make that choice over going to Lydia. She loved her, she cared for her, and she knew exactly how devastated she must have been in the present moment. To think of Lydia alone, in her house, in the wake of this pain, was far worse a horror than the dissected humans. “Just...tell me you want me here, and I’ll stay.” But to leave Morgan alone was its own agony. She paused, “ and I’m sorry, you’re not a thing to me. That wasn’t what I wanted to say.” It was clear to her that when she said humans were useless, Morgan was the obvious exception. “I think—“ Deirdre swallowed. She thought loving Lydia meant everything good about Morgan, but she felt her opinions too wrong to voice anymore, and she held them. “Do you—Are you going to go back for Chloe? Do you want to? Is that...something you want to think about now? I can—I can take the question back if—” She shifted trying to hold Morgan tighter. “Do you think loving me says nothing good about you either?”
Morgan should have known that Deirdre’s mother would have formulated something even worse than what Lydia had devised for Chloe. She began to feel queasy herself, but it affirmed her belief in Deirdre to know that she would never think of doing the same. She was complicit, like they all were now, and probably had been for longer because she loved Lydia and her humanity was bundled away under so many layers of hurt and conditioning, seeing something so normalized in its horror couldn’t reach. But she wasn’t the kind of person who could perpetrate that with her own hands, her own words. She wouldn’t be spilling her guts in the sink at the thought of it if she was. Deirdre would never. That meant something.
She welcomed Deirdre’s arms around her and sagged into her grasp. A dry sob of relief cut through her lips. She didn’t want to be the one who decided how lonely Lydia was going to be tonight either, but she understood that Deirdre was tired, and the past few days had been difficult, and that she couldn’t stomach any more guilt for the day. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I don’t want Lydia to be alone. And I don’t want her to hurt Chloe worse because of what we did. But I don’t want to be alone either. Please stay with me…” She buried her face deep in her shoulder, too ashamed to look as she made her plea. “I want to help Chloe, but I don’t want Lydia to starve, and I can’t just pick someone off the street at random to take her place either. That would be just as bad. And I don’t know anyone horrible enough to be given to her, not with the way I know they’re going to be treated. It’s hopeless.” She sighed, nodding encouragement to Deirdre as she held her tighter. Yes, I need this, please. “Right now I don’t know if I’m a good person at all. But I know I’m better than I was before because of you, what you’ve given me and what you’ve let me give back. That has to count for something.” Whether it was enough in the grand scheme of things, Morgan wasn’t sure.
“Do we have to be good people?” Deirdre asked, “do you have to be a good person? Do you want to? Does that matter to you?” Morgan’s ideology was still one that perplexed Deirdre, but she understood then that there was a line Morgan drew here---she would never hurt someone like that. And to do that would make her-- Nausea choked up Deirdre again, she gulped and squeezed Morgan against her despite the weakness of her body. “I think you’re good. I don’t know if my opinion matters anymore, but I think so.” Deirdre leaned them up against the counter, her body growing heavy and tired. She wanted to sleep, and wake up in a time where she didn’t feel so sick and terrible. One of the medicines she’d ingested earlier must have left a bad reaction, she figured. That must have been it. “Lydia won’t hurt Chloe, I don’t think. And it can’t be just anyone, you can’t just replace her with anyone. The people that are fed from have to be...special.” It wasn’t so simple, and it was wholly too complicated, and she didn’t know how much Morgan knew already and how much she could stomach explaining now. “Can we go to bed, my love? Is that okay? I want to---I think it’d be better.”
“I don’t know. I’ve never really asked myself before,” Morgan admitted. “I don’t know…” She shuddered in Deirdre’s arms and forced herself onto her toes so more of their bodies could connect. “Your opinion always matters,” Morgan said. Deirdre wasn’t going to win any morality highground contests, but she tried and she cared, and when she was brave enough, she could be astoundingly kind and understanding. She had tuned so much of her horrors into wisdom and she loved Morgan with such intense purity, it astounded her sometimes. And she could never be like Lydia, no matter how brutally she’d been conditioned to do it. Morgan reminded herself of all this as she lifted her head to kiss her love’s jawline. “It’s hopeless for her,” Morgan rasped. “I understand that. Please…” Don’t remind me.
Bed sounded like a much better option than staying propped against each other in the kitchen. Deirdre’s weight was shifting downwards, and if they were going to have their energy give out early for the day, they may as well be somewhere soft, where they could hide their faces in their pillows and each other. Morgan agreed by way of leading Deirdre up the stairs, arms still partially entwined. She lingered at the door as she closed it behind them, letting out a sigh that took the rest of her strength with it. “I’m ready to rest for awhile if you are, but I need to get this out first because it's important: you need to be careful with Remmy. I know I have serious gaps in my understanding, but with them...they aren’t going to be okay. I don’t know what the right way to handle this is besides waiting a couple days for Remmy to pull themself together, so just be careful.” She untangled herself as she spoke and shambled over to the hamper in the corner of the room to dump her dirtied clothes before crawling into bed. She looked over at Deirdre, inviting her in by peeling back the sheets on her side and offering a look of the saddest longing.
“Does it?” Deirdre breathed, wincing at the misery in her own voice. It didn’t seem like Morgan much valued her mother’s thoughts, and Deirdre and her mother were of the same mind. Or so she had wanted to argue, but instead let anguish claim her expression and bitterness tinge the ends of her words. “I don’t mean like that...I just mean...I’d have to kill her if she was freed.” Her eyes were stuck on the wall beyond them, watching the texture, remembering what the walls in her family home were like---was there more tooth? Were the shadows darker? “If you’d like something to blame, you could make it me.” But she listened, and when she shook her head and came back to herself, she could hear what Morgan was asking her. “Sorry,” she frowned, “I don’t mean---don’t listen to me.”
She was glad to be pulled along to their bedroom then, where everything was theirs, and she wouldn’t dare look for her mother in any reflections. It was far easier to be herself there, whoever that was. She imagined Morgan would be as relieved as she was, but was met with a deep, wilting sigh. “Remmy?” She blinked. Would she not normally be careful with them? As Morgan moved to the bed, Deirdre stood there in confusion and considered it. She knew she could be crude at times, and while Morgan understood her better than most, she assumed what Morgan was saying was to not tell Remmy she thought Chloe’s life was meaningless. But… “You want me to lie to them?” She said, trying to piece it together. Deirdre frowned, pulling off her own dirt-stained clothes before crawling in beside Morgan, holding her just as they always did. “I--should I not tell them that I knew all along? It seems in poor taste to lie now.” But if Morgan thought it the wisest thing to do, she could follow her advice. “I can wait to tell them, if that’s better.” But what would be the barometer of Remmy’s emotional integrity? When did she know it was okay to share her truth? “I thought I was always careful.” Well, that Deirdre knew wasn’t true. She’d tossed Remmy in front of a car, after all.
“No, don’t lie,” Morgan said faintly, latching onto her girlfriend and burrowing in. “That’ll only make it worse whenever the truth comes out later. And I know you know Remmy and I are different in the way we think about things, so you’ll be tactful, so...maybe what I’m trying to say is...be careful with yourself. I’ve never seen them as angry as they were today. They might say something hurtful, and I want you to be okay.” She pressed a soft kiss to Deirdre’s neck and pulled the covers higher so she was practically buried out of sight. “Just give it a day or two. Or maybe whenever they reach out to you. I don’t know anything right now, I just feel like they’ve hurt enough for today, and you need a break too.” She was quiet for a moment, breathing slowly to match Deirdre’s. “And about what you said before… I do care very much about what you think. The things you say wouldn’t excite me or bother me or fascinate me or whatever else if they didn’t matter. And I wish you wouldn’t be in such a hurry to be blamed for things you didn’t do. I don’t understand that. You aren’t Lydia, you didn’t do these things, I don’t want to blame you. You don’t have to be blamed for the things that upset me…”
“With myself?” Deirdre blinked, shifting to pull Morgan closer to her. Her hair was a fluff above the sheets she pulled up, and the sight itself brought a smile to Deirdre, even if the topic wouldn’t. “I think I’d be okay, no matter what Remmy said. And I owe it to them, to share the truth. They may not want to stay here, knowing I knew about Lydia. And that choice should be up to them.” She couldn’t imagine leaving the topic to sit for a day or two, when she knew what needed to be said and what Remmy deserved. If they didn’t like her after it, she had no problem staying somewhere else while Remmy regained themself here. “Lydia and I....aren’t too different. I mean, she’s my friend, and I care for her. And I won’t let her take this on alone. I may not have done anything, but I knew, and I wouldn’t feel right being blameless where she’s sitting at home, torn up.” There wasn’t much she could give Lydia now, and certainly nothing to bring Remmy back, but fairness seemed like an apt start. “Lydia and I have done a lot of wrong together, I wouldn’t let her take that on alone, I won’t let her take this. If something upsets you, I feel like I’m due some blame.” But she was spent from the topic, and only marginally better being able to lie down and speak. She wanted rest, and she wanted to believe Morgan that she was allowed a break. “I love you,” she mumbled, “...thank you for...well, everything.”
“Well I’m not going to be upset at you just because you want me to,” Morgan mumbled. “And maybe it’s awful and biased and I’m sure someone else would say an accessory or an accomplice or a bystander or whatever else is just as bad, but I’ve hidden or run from awful things I could’ve helped too. Nothing even close to this, but…” Morgan sighed, unsure how to finish the thought. “You’ve always told me the truth, in everything but this, which wasn’t yours to tell. I wasn’t surprised when you said you knew. How could I be? So I’m not upset either. I’m...disappointed. A little sad. But none of that requires blaming you. Or if it does, I’m going to forgive you.” Eventually, when her insides didn’t feel like a pulpy wound. “I don’t know what I’ve done that’s worth thanking, but I love you too.”
“Lydia’s secrets aren’t mine to tell, no, but I--I see a lot. A lot of people in worse places than Chloe. It’s not my place to do anything about--” Deirdre swallowed thickly; Morgan might not have appreciated a regurgitation of her mother’s words, of being an observer first and foremost. Her truth was that she did do something about it, where she could. Justice was never so cleanly delivered among the humans, but it could be by her hand. She frowned. “Nevermind.” There was nothing she could say now that wasn’t simply her mother’s words, and she hadn’t yet decided if they were hers too. Death and Fate were not hers to meddle in, but there was nothing said for working just beyond its reach. The affairs of fae were...different. “I’m sorry,” she said, “it never struck me as anything terrible, anything to share in the first place.” It still wasn’t exactly striking her as bad, except for the inexhaustible sickness that coiled around her stomach when she thought about it, and held it against what Morgan had said. She sighed, heavy from the topic. She felt as if her tongue was swollen, and her throat three sizes smaller. “Let’s just...rest now. I think we’ve both deserved it.”
Morgan didn’t have any more words to give. She peeked up from the covers just enough to look at Deirdre’s face in all of her heavy, awful sorrow. There was something comforting in even her frown lines and the droop of her slanted eyes. Morgan touched her cheek tenderly with just the tips of her fingers and reminded herself of how soft it felt for something so cold. She wondered how long it would be until the rest of her melted from the ice and came free. And what if it never happened? Morgan found that she couldn’t entertain that thought with much seriousness, not in the span of five hundred years. If was time enough for Regan to control and accept herself and learn to be whole again. Time enough for more kind humans to pass through their lives, for trees to grow to their fullest and oldest selves and the home that had been a torture chamber and a prison to be changed brick by brick. People who wouldn’t change didn’t get sick with empathy, and their capacities for kindness weren’t half so deep. There was a difference, however pitiful and fine, but it made a difference to Morgan. She only had to help things along and wait. And however badly it spoke of her, Morgan knew as she closed her eyes and prayed to the darkness for quiet that she would.
#wr deirdre#wr chatzy#wr deirdre chatzy#not like that#vomit tw#physical abuse tw#emotional abuse tw#abuse tw#parental abuse tw#psychological abuse tw#wickedswriting
14 notes
·
View notes
Text
Under the Needle’s Point || Morgan & Luce
Location: Ink Inc.
Timing: August 13th
Tagging: @mor-beck-more-problems & @divineluce
Notes: As a result of a scheduling mix up, Morgan winds up getting a tattoo done by Luce instead of Ulfric. The two have a nice little chat.
Warnings: Needles tw
Morgan couldn’t stop thinking about the dead supernaturals she’d brought out of that witch’s lab. Not even bodies, just pieces jarred and labeled according to parts, their usefulness. She’d sourced some weird shit from shops back when she was alive, but something about these just waiting, knowing what it was for, seeing the way Jo had looked her over as if she was prime stuffing material for her magic turducken. There were no names, no conveniently left behind ledger to tell Morgan the story of who these remains had been. They were just pieces, next to nothing. And what was left of her? Of the person she’d been? No one at work even knew she’d died, except for Anita. There was no family to notify. If she hadn’t dropped off the radar for two weeks, no one would have realized. And sometimes it seemed like people thought the person she’d been before was still in her, whole and bright and unchanged. How could she tell them any different. She didn’t know how to explain what “I” and “Me” signified now. She didn’t have any alternate words to pick from without drawing too much attention to her deadness, which was usually not the best idea. But even if some of her pieces had come back, Morgan felt different and rearranged all over, and she could only talk Bea’s ear off about it so long.
Walking into Ink Inc, Morgan tried to let the stupid, angsty knots inside her unwravel themselves. Ulfric usually had something good to say, and her idea of a solution would at least provide a few hours’ distraction. “Hey, Ulf?” She called. The shop was quiet, though she wasn’t sure how busy it usually was. “I’m early, but maybe we can get started--Oh.” When she saw Luce Vural approach the front desk, Morgan found her stomach knots switched out for a whole new platter of them. “You’re...not...Ulf.”
Flipping through the ancient book that lay on her workstation, Luce frowned as she looked at a few strange sigils drawn in the margins. What did these have to do with ghosts? She wasn’t familiar with anything surrounding ghosts and it was times like this when she wished she knew a decent exorcist. But, even in a town as magical as White Crest, there weren’t many of those running around. Luce mimicked the circular wards drawn in the book with the tip of her finger, tracing the shapes into the wood of the table. They didn’t feel like anything she’d ever drawn before, but she’d never been good at wards to begin with. What exactly did these things mean?
The sound of the bell ringing over the front door caught her attention and Luce shut the book and tucked it away into her backpack. She didn’t need people asking her what she was reading. As she emerged from her room, Luce launched into the typical speil, “Hey there, what can I do--” Her words trailed off for a moment when she saw Morgan standing in the middle of the shop. Leaning against the receptionist desk, Luce’s lips pressed together in a thin line. Shit. The last time she’d seen Morgan was… fuck, when they’d rescued Remmy? Christ. “What gave it away? The height? The distinct lack of a red hair and a beard?” She asked, the sarcasm coming out on reflex.
“Wow, you really are this friendly all the time, even to people you haven’t lashed out at.” Morgan deadpanned. The irony of lashing out was not lost on her, but it was too late to take the words back now. And as far as Morgan knew, Luce hadn’t exactly tried to smooth things over with Remmy since stomping on their heart. “A-ny-way...I have an appointment. A rib piece. Ulf and I talked it over already. I think there’s already a stencil and stuff, but I don’t know if you need anything fancy for working with um, zombie skin. Are you gonna be able to help a dead girl out?”
“What can I say, I’m a ray of goddamn sunshine.” Luce said, tone matching Morgan’s. If this was how this was gonna go down, she could play the game. She wasn’t sure why the woman was coming out swinging like this, but she could hazard a guess. Morgan was someone who cared about Remmy and… it wouldn’t surprise her if Remmy had told her about what went down at the carnival. “An appointment. Huh.” Blinking, Luce looked over at the computer and scrolled through the schedule. Well shit. Ulf had definitely booked her, but it looked like their evening receptionist has fucked up and double booked him. “Looks like there was some kind of scheduling fuck up, but… Yeah. I can do that.” She said. If the stencil was already drawn up and Morgan had already put down her deposit, she wasn’t going to argue. Work was work. “C’mon back. And, no, no fancy tools needed.” Luce thought back to the day Remmy had entered the shop, when they’d met the first time. Oh, for fucks sake. “So, what are we doing today?”
“Of course there is…” Morgan sighed. Not for the first time, Morgan wondered if Constance had made some backdoor bargain with the universe to keep the suffering going as long as there was some miserable creature named Morgan Beck on the planet. She had come here for herself, for the promise of having a sustained goddamn feeling that didn’t strain Deirdre’s muscles, for the talk about the universe and their personal stresses they always shared, and...not Luce and her crabby emotional bullshit. But this was what Morgan had. She’d sectioned off this day carefully and timmed the distance from the start of fall semester so she could have it done, follow ups and all, before classes. No one at work would see, but she liked the idea of having something complete and beautiful that was a part of her. Maybe she just wished marking herself with sigils still did any good.
Morgan followed Luce to the back, explaining, “A rib piece, with color. It’s sort of sizable. I was talking about breaking the whole thing up into sessions, maybe.” She cleared her throat. “Does that, uh, sound good…?”
“Does Ulf know that you’re… a zombie?” Luce asked as she scrolled through the shared files on her laptop. Thank christ they had a good internal filing system for shit like this. She was able to locate the design that Ulf had already drawn up without too much difficulty. It wasn’t her personal cup of tea, but their styles weren’t that far off and she could do color nearly as well as she did black and white. “I ask because I’ve-- I did Remmy’s tattoo a while back.” She said, unable to hide the stutter-step in her voice, the slight hitch in her words. “They healed almost instantly. It’s how I knew they weren’t exactly human. So, you might not actually need a couple of sessions. Could save you money.” She said with an offhand gesture before pushing away from her desk. “This look like the one?” She asked, gesturing for Morgan to look over at the stencil that was on her computer screen.
“Yes,” Morgan said. “He said he’d never done one on, you know, someone like me before. But that’s good to know. Maybe this isn’t gonna be the worst idea after all.” She kept her eyes on Luce, watching as she choked on Remmy’s name and stiffened with awkwardness. “If you’d rather we get this done in one go and it won’t mess with your schedule that sounds fine.” She stepped closer to Luce awkwardly and took a look at the design she’d worked out with Ulf.
There was a deer skull, positioned at an angle so you could see the two wide holes where its eyes once were without feeling them looking straight at you. Bluebonnets and Evening Primrose and rich red Winecups, flowers she hadn’t seen since she left Texas, sprouted from one of the sockets. The blues, pinks, and reds on their petals were dappled with color as if from the tip of a watercolor brush. More flowers, goldenrod, blackberry, and meadow-rue, hung from the antlers, garlanded loosely in a way their real stems would never allow. A fine chain studded with small pentagram stars and crystals settled between the horns like bunting and dangled down beneath the skull by several inches. It was elaborate, but Morgan felt better about herself looking at it already. “Yeah, that’s the one. If you can do it, I guess we better get started.” She pulled off her shirt, bunched it around her chest, and waited for Luce to take on the challenge and show her the way.
“It’s your call. We can do whatever works for you.” Luce said, her voice measured and careful to avoid the halting tone it had taken on with the mention of Remmy. “Why don’t I get the outline of it done first and then we can see how it goes? It’ll be a long one session, but I don’t have anything up on the schedule. I was just hanging around in case we got a walk in. And… low and behold. A walk in.” Besides, she needed the money. Hospital bills were still rolling in from her stay after Bea’s resurrection and at the rate that Nell was going, she’d probably need to help her younger sister out too.
Staring at the design, Luce found herself marveling at Ulf’s work. He was, after all, the one who had inspired her to take up their chosen profession. His linework was impressive, the color pallet beautiful, the composition well balanced and perfectly in line with the mystical elements of the tattoo itself. She’d studied his work long enough to be able to emulate it-- the shading might not be quite how he wanted it, some of the lines might go thin in places where he preferred something a bit more bold. But, they could duke it out over beers at Dell’s if it came to it. “Alright, let’s get rolling.” She laid out her tools, fixing a new needle in her machine, laying out her pallet of inks on the rolling tray she kept by her chair as the stencil printed. The placement came easily enough and Luce snapped on a pair of gloves before settling back on her stool. “Just let me know if it feels like it’s too much and we can take a break.” She said before turning the machine on and putting the needle to Morgan’s cool skin.
“Well that’s nice and completely non-committal,” Morgan said. Probably because Luce was giving her an out. And, if she really wanted, she could take it. She could throw her money and her tip at Ulfric instead. She could forego, what, at least eight hours alone in a tattoo parlor with Luce Vural? It made a certain kind of sense and Luce would know how Morgan felt about the way she handled her bullshit with Remmy to boot. But Morgan had come here with the intention of getting her tattoo and she was not going to let her anger and bewilderment at Luce get in the way of that. They could handle a transactional meeting. “But if you’re really free all day, let’s get started.” She settled down on the seat, glancing over her shoulder at Luce to see how she was muscling up to the prospect.
“Oh, please,” she snorted, dryly. “I had a pole go in one end and out the other. I don’t think anything is going to be too--oh!” Her sentence died in a squeak as the needle made contact. There was...something alright. Like a deep scratch on her insides, one that reverberated throughout her whole body. She couldn’t remember any sensation this immediately potent except for the punches Mina threw in their practice sessions. Morgan dug her hands into her shirt and squeezed tight. “Jeez. That’s one hell of a rush.”
A part of Luce had almost hoped that Morgan would decline the offer for a full length session. It was a huge tattoo and the lengthy sessions always left her drained, her back sore from leaning over someone, her hands cramped and tired. But, the other woman seemed set on getting this done, and who was she to argue with it. “Yeah. Like I said, we can play it by ear.” She said, her tone calm and neutral.
As Morgan reacted to the sting of the needle, Luce raised an eyebrow as she continued to work. “You good?” She asked. When she’d done this on Remmy, they’d hardly reacted at all. It’d been a big part in how she’d known they weren’t human. It wasn’t that they were being macho about it, like most of Luce’s clients, they just hadn’t seemed to feel any of it. There hadn’t been any involuntary twitches to the muscle when she’d been working, nothing. “I’m guessing it must be weird, going from not feeling hardly anything to being able to feel this?” She asked, the echoes of a memory that belonged to Morgan returning in a swift wave. “Like I said, if it’s too much, we can break this up into different sessions.”
Morgan had to keep her laugh somewhere tight in her chest. “Oh, it’s definitely weird, like the world’s tiniest jackhammer is dancing on my bones. But the other thing is I have to do a whole round of mental gymnastics to trick myself into feeling things or almost feeling things, or I just get in a really great tension workout trying to make myself press into things hard enough to feel like I’m really here. But I guess you kinda know how that is, huh?” She turned over her shoulder, eyeing Luce’s reaction. For someone who pretended to have the emotional capacity of a toothpick, she’d taken Morgan’s memories mostly in stride with the brain biter and her own valuable memories had been full of feeling too. “You’re good, Luce. Although, we should probably pass the time with more than just complete awkward silence, right?”
“The tiniest jackhammer? Never heard that one before, but sure.” Luce commented blithely as she kept her hand nice and steady, following the smooth curves of the stencil, tracing over the skull design. She was already planning out how she’d do the shading of the eye sockets, the way the flowers lay against bone, but Morgan’s words took her out of it for a moment. Blinking, her hand faltered before she focused back on her work, the needle continuing to move. “Yeah. I guess I do.” She muttered, reminded of the fact that their memory swap had been just that. A swap. Morgan had seen her memories, had experienced them. The moment from her childhood when her sisters had sat on the living room floor, braiding each other’s hair. One of the many midnight margs celebrations, usually done after coven meetings or some other ritual. Morgan had seen good memories, happy memories. Memories Luce didn’t share with anyone. “Depends on how you want to fill it.” She said as she dipped the tip of the needle back into the small container of ink and resumed her work, “Are you going to try and talk to me about Remmy? I know you two are close.”
“You brought them up, not me,” Morgan said. “But yeah. We’re pretty darn close. I don’t know how much you’ve been keeping up with them or how much you actually care, but they really have been through the wringer lately. And that’s on top of all the other stuff they had to deal with before, including me.” She sighed as Luce’s needle brushed against her bone again. Who knew that something so sharp could feel so much like relief. Was this why people got hooked on getting them? “What I’m trying to say is, handle with care. Remmy can take a lot of hits, but that doesn’t mean they should have to. And maybe figure your shit out before they get their hopes up again.” She drew in a shallow breath and tried to extend her attention around her body, feel the novel tingles of air and the buzzing prick of the needle as it traveled away from her bone again and grew faint. It was all she could do not to pout. Everything about existing was work, was an act of management in concentration and willpower. At least when her bones were catching onto a feeling for her she could let go. But that would’ve been easy, and universe forbid Morgan have anything like that for long.
Luce let out a sigh as she continued to draw, machine buzzing in her grasp. Well, shit. She had been the one to bring them up. Fuck. But, it was better to rip the bandaid off now, right? Better now than to sit in awkward silence or let it hang over their heads while she worked. “Yeah. I know they have.” She said off handedly. She knew that Remmy had been through it. How could she not know? She’d held them that night when they’d re-lived their experiences at the Ring, she’d seen the collar around their neck drop them to the ground, she’d seen just how fucked up they’d been after the rescue mission. And now, the latest pile of bullshit-- she’d seen Nadia drag them out of Pat’s Place, seen them brought to their knees by poison. She knew. “Including you.” Luce echoed, remembering what those words meant. Remmy had been the one to turn Morgan, to save her. “You think I don’t know that they shouldn’t have to deal with all the bullshit life’s thrown at them? I’m real aware of that fact.” She said, though her words lacked bite. “They don’t deserve any of the fucking stuff that happens to them.”
It was hard for Morgan to get a read on Luce while she was halfway down her torso, inking out the curves of deer horns. She sounded tense, bitter, but those might’ve been part of Luce’s factory settings for all Morgan knew. “Well, I couldn’t tell from here,” Morgan said, more accusatory than she’d meant to sound. She frowned, waited a moment, and tried again. “I’m glad we can agree on Remmy needing a break. I’d guess we could also agree on Remmy deserving some basic kindness. We can’t control their circumstances much, but we can be good to them, right?” She didn’t think this was a controversial point and so didn’t wait to press on to her real question. “So I guess I’m just..really curious about why you handled your side the way you did. I know you tend to come out swinging, which I don’t follow either a lot of the time, but this...wasn’t that.”
Lips pressing together into a thin line at Morgan’s tone, Luce said nothing and instead focused on her work. She wasn’t going to fuck up Morgan’s tattoo just because the other woman was being a bitch about things to her. Even if she really wanted to. All it would take is a few little lines-- nope. She valued her work too much to fuck up someone’s tattoo on purpose. Drawing the machine back, she wiped the stray flecks of ink off with a paper towel, not bothering to ease up on the pressure. Morgan wouldn’t be able to feel it the same way people did. She dipped the needle into more ink and set back to work. “What do you mean, how I handled things?” She asked flatly, her tone emotionless. “They wanted more, which wasn’t part of the deal. From day one, I made my intentions very clear.” Luce said as she started on the curves of the deer’s eye sockets, staring blankly back at her. Almost accusingly. Oh, fuck off.
Morgan waited for Luce’s words to settle before speaking again, just in case she started snapping all over again. This was, technically, not her business. But she was upset with Luce for how her words had affected Remmy and how it had surprised her as well. She didn’t even know what, specifically, had happened. But even the vague strokes were so unlike the person she’d thought Luce was. “You were cruel,” she said at last. “What you want or don’t want to intentionally invite into your life is your business, and if you want to put boundaries around how much you really care about Remmy, go for it, whatever, I guess. But you can still be kind when you’re telling someone ‘no’ or ‘not right now.’ You can try to make the hurt as small and possible. I didn’t think you were the kind of person to do that, especially to someone kind of close to you. Which, okay, we don’t even know each other that well, really, so maybe it was my mistake. But it was still...really weird to hear about, after all you did for them.”
“What can I say, I’m a bitch.” Luce said callously. A nosy bitch, getting into other people’s business, doing things that pissed people off just because she could. And she was more than happy to live with that reputation. It was fine, it was normal. As Morgan continued to talk, Luce began to start on the outlines of the flowers, their delicate petals requiring a lighter hand. She rolled her eyes at that-- a lighter hand. People would like it if she handled things that way, wouldn’t they? If she was kinder, if she wasn’t as rude, as rough, as angry. “They weren’t close to me.” She insisted. “We just fucked.” Luce said, though the words didn’t hold quite as much weight as they once had. They hadn’t just fucked. They’d held her that night when she’d broken and told them about Bea, she’d done the same for them after they’d been torn to pieces. She’d broken them free from the Ring, destroyed the building, taken lives… for Nell, yes. But, for Remmy too. Looking at her gloved hands, Luce’s jaw clenched. “I did shit because I wanted to. Not because of them.”
“Okay, I know you didn’t just fuck,” Morgan said, rolling her eyes. “I know you made yourself emotionally present for them in some really rough, vulnerable moments. They told me how safe you made them feel, and how it seemed like you were opening up. And you were ready to kill everyone at the ring before you knew they had Nell too.” She gasped as the needle circled over her rib bones again, making her insides almost come alive. “And maybe we’re not close, but I know enough about you to know you’re not just a bitch. What I don’t get is why it’s so important to you that other people see it that way. No one is vulnerable about everything all the time, and for some people...yeah, kindness and softness has to be earned. But...you still haven’t answered my question. Did their question make you feel...betrayed or upset somehow? Were you scared?”
Luce sucked in a breath at Morgan’s words. Of course, Remmy told her about shit. Of course they did. “Maybe I got a taste for it. Who knows.” She said in an offhand tone, brushing past her quick leap to destruction. She continued to do her work, keeping her hand nice and steady as Morgan continued to talk at her. So they’d swapped memories once, that didn’t make Morgan an expert on her, or her feelings. She didn’t fucking do feelings, not like that. But, at the last question, her eyes widened in surprise. If she didn’t have literally years of experience, of people saying stupid shit that caught her off guard, she might have fucked up her lines. Instead, her hand remained steady. Even so, there was no way to hide how her breath hitched slightly. “You don’t need to know why I did what I did. You’re not Remmy’s keeper and you’re sure as hell not mine.” Still the word echoed in her mind. Scared. She wasn’t scared. She wasn’t. Wasn’t she?
Morgan caught the way Luce doubled down on her tension. So, getting warmer, maybe creeping up on a nerve. It probably shouldn’t have felt so surprising; fear made fools of everyone. Hadn’t she learned that one a dozen or so times over? “You’re too interesting to be selling yourself short like that. But…” She gasped again. Why couldn’t she just shut up and enjoy this again? Luce was right, she wasn’t Remmy’s keeper, and even if she was still mostly playing by their request to ‘not yell at’ Luce, she was...definitely skirting around things. But it itched at her worse than this needle, knowing Remmy had been hurt out of, what, recklessness? And Luce was cutting herself off from a relationship she had seemed to care about right until it was brought to the surface and made real. “You’re right,” she said at last. “We don’t have to get into this. We can go though the next eight hours talking about something else. Like...this is the first feeling-almost-feeling I’ve had that didn’t give someone at least an arm workout...well, actually, I guess you will have one by the time we’re done, but, it’s the concept for the thing. Or uh…” Stars, they really didn't have that much in common, did they? “You know, if this thing that doesn’t matter to you at all is also for some reason too much to talk about, maybe you should pick.”
“Damn right we don’t.” Luce said firmly. She’d dealt with longer sessions with worse people before. Then again, they weren’t usually people she had to deal with outside of the shop. But, someone who knew her the way Morgan did? Someone who knew her family? It made things trickier. She knew she could keep her cool about this, that she should just keep her mouth shut and deal with it. So Morgan wanted to bitch at her about how she’d hurt Remmy. So fucking what. She could handle it. Then why did she feel anger creeping in the pit of her stomach? Pulling the machine back from Morgan’s skin, Luce tossed the machine down onto the tray next to her with a loud clatter. “You don’t know a goddamn thing about me, Morgan, which is exactly how I like to keep things. You don’t get to tell me what I should do, that I need to pick and choose. I already made my decision, I already chose. And you don’t need to know why I did.” She said, staring at the woman with fire in her eyes.
Morgan groaned deep in her throat. Now she wasn’t even feeling anything. But now without having the precision of the device to worry about, she could turn and look at Luce fully. She was angry alright, but nothing she was saying was making sense. “I am very certain I already conceded that first point, she said. And as for the rest, I didn’t say literally any of those things. Which makes me wonder who exactly is? Who is telling you what you need to do or that you have to pick and choose between...whatever it is you think your binary options are? Or that you can’t change your mind about your decision later? Because I just wanted to know why you went out of your way to be mean to someone we both care about, and then I offered you an out. So what are you really upset about here, Luce?”
Startled, Luce stared at Morgan for a moment. She had said those things, hadn’t she? Or had Luce been reading too deeply into things, looking into things that didn’t exist? Either way, her outburst had dug herself an even deeper hole than she’d started in. Fuck’s sake. Luce rolled her eyes, though the action was more for show than anything. It was a way to get people to leave her alone. But, she couldn’t unhear the other woman’s words. What was she upset about? Really? “What am I upset about? The fact that Remmy went off and fucked everything up. Things were fine, just the way they were. It was all just for fun. And then they wanted more. I fucking told them that I’m not interested in more, because I’m not go-- I don’t do more.” She said before rolling back from the chair, her hands up in the air. “Look. Ulf’s appointment ends in ten. Get him to finish your tattoo. I’m done.” Luce said with a shake of her head.
“Luce…” Morgan said softly. “Hey, you...are a good person, Luce. You’re good. I mean, I kind of hate that word, it’s so arbitrary, but as far as I’m concerned, you are. And I’m not the only one, okay? Whatever it is you need out of your relationships, whatever you choose, as long as it’s really what you want and need, that doesn’t change the fact that you’re good. And if your needs change, you’re still good. You’re good and you deserve to be happy, whether that includes ‘more’ or not, or Remmy or not. You deserve to be more than just okay. You know that, right?” She cleared her throat, looking down at her wrinkled shirt and the only mostly done outline of her tattoo. “But uh, if you need a break or you’d just rather not anymore, that’s...fine.”
You deserve to be more than just okay. Luce had said similar things to Remmy before and now they were being turned onto her. She wondered if they felt just as false to them as they did to her. She didn’t deserve someone like Remmy, didn’t need someone like them in her life. Because what would happen if she did let them in? If she said sure, let’s try, let’s be something? She’d open up to them and that scared her. But, Luce was startled to realize, what scared her more than the vulnerability of it all was the wanting. She wanted to open up to them. To be honest with them. But, what would happen then? Nothing good. Staring at the outline on Morgan’s side, she sighed. “I’ll finish it. But,” She grabbed the remote to the stereo system from her desk, loud music filling the room. “No more talking.”
13 notes
·
View notes
Text
Paella and Pukwudgies || Remmy and Kaden
TIMING: Before Kaden got shot
PARTIES: @whatsin-yourhead and @chasseurdeloup
SUMMARY: A very normal White Crest cooking class where Kaden pulls a Kaden and Remmy pulls a Jane
The world was a terrifying place. As Remmy stood outside the small building wedged between the bakery and what looked like a second hand office supply store, they couldn’t help but feel the anxious tension wafting around them. They’d hardly left Morgan’s place since the incident at Pat’s and they could tell she was getting a little annoyed with them. Because life, as per usual, kept moving along, even if Remmy didn’t want it to. It was with a strained hand and clenched jaw that Remmy had clicked ‘Sign-Up’ on the evening cooking class and now here they were, standing awkwardly outside the building as Morgan pulled away in the car and they had no choice, now, but to go inside. Or stay out here, but that really wasn’t an option. Remmy squeaked inside behind someone and made sure the door shut behind them before looking around the room, doddling in. The door opened again and the bell rang and Remmy spun on their foot to make sure whoever it was wasn’t-- well, they weren’t sure. But when they turned back around, they almost ran head first into someone else. A tall-ish man, with scruff and an annoyed look on his face. He almost looked familiar but Remmy couldn’t quite place him. “Oh, sorry,” they muttered. “Is, um-- is this one taken?” they asked, pointing to the station next to him.
It felt more and more like Kaden had to fight and claw for something normal. He used to be able to find pockets with Regan but they seemed fewer and farther between recently. When he saw the flyer for the cooking class at the shelter, it just struck him as something to do, something simple and easy and normal. And he figured it might be nice to sharpen his skills a bit. Cooking wasn’t something Kaden had ever really considered himself particularly skilled in, not before coming to White Crest. Really it was just because the rest of the town was seemingly woefully inept at feeding themselves. He didn’t understand. He spent so much time growing up eating shitty MREs or dehydrated fruit, anything that could easily be brought on long hunting trips. Whenever there was a moment to get a home cooked meal, warm and rich and fresh, well, there was nothing like it. He couldn’t imagine opting for anything else besides a good meal at a restaurant worth going to, maybe. Kaden picked a spot near the back of the class. He’d never been much of an eager student. And it looked like he might even get a station to himself. Even better. Unitil a straggler came in and ran smack into him. “Putain,” he grumbled, mostly to himself. His brow raised at their question. Part of him wanted to lie. There really didn’t seem to be a point to, though. “No, it’s not,” he said with a sigh, gesturing for them to take a spot there next to him. “So, uh, what brings you here?” Well that was a dumb question. “I mean, cooking. I figured. But, uh, why? All that.” Small talk was the worst.
“Oh, cool, nice,” Remmy said, too nervous now to turn and look for another station. Anxiety crawled through them and they shuffled over to it, setting the flyer down on the counter and glancing around. They used to come to the shelter often to help out in the kitchen, but it’d been months since they’d been back and the little bits of guilt still inside of them tried to resurface. They swallowed them back down and thanked the universe for the small distraction as the guy next to them asked a question. “Oh, um-- yeah! Cooking. But also, like...I used to come here all the time to help out during lunches, and uh, you know,” they picked at a corner on the counter. “I like cooking, so I thought I’d try a class and see if I could get any better. Not that I’m like, good at it or anything, just that like, you can always get better at things, you know! Especially cooking. There’s so much to learn and so many different flavors that go together, it’s like, you’re never really done,” they rambled, thinking about how they couldn’t technically taste anymore, so why did it matter? It mattered because they could still do this for themself. That’s why it mattered. “So, um...what about you?”
Kaden nodded along with their explanation. Whoever they were, they were incredibly nervous. He was never sure what to make of people who were like that, not at first at least. He had a pretty decent feeling that it wasn’t him making them nervous, though. It seemed to him like a personality type thing. Not as fun to mess with but less concerning, he supposed. Hell, it had been a while since he’d tried to really intimidate someone and here he was, not even trying and succeeding. Still had the scary hunter vibes. Nice. “Good to hear it,” he said as he straightened up the small bowls and plates of ingredients in front of him. They sure did talk a lot, but he nodded along all the same. At least they weren’t too weird. And certainly not a mime with that much rambling. Two points in their favor. “Yeah, I like cooking. I’m pretty good but like you said, always room to learn more. Plus, there’s not a whole lot of point to me in doing something without ever trying to get better. Especially if you like it at all.” He doodled some circles with his pen on the edge of the printed out recipe in front of him. He hated the part of lessons that involved sitting still and listening. The doing was the best part. “I’m Kaden, by the way,” he offered while they waited.
Kaden. Hadn’t Remmy heard that name before? They racked their brain for a moment, felt like they’d almost gotten it-- but couldn’t place it. So they just held their hand out and said, “That’s a cool name! I’m Remmy!” with a grin. “Have you been cooking long?” they asked, the mention of him being good meaning he probably had been. “I mean, that’s probably an obvious answer, I just meant like…” they paused, “No, never mind. I don’t know what I meant. Uh-- did you always like to cook? Yeah, there, that-- that’s what I meant!” They beamed a little, looking over at him. The instructor was heading to the front now, ready to begin the basic instructions that was in the packet in front of them before the actual cooking started. “Oh, it’s starting!” Focused their attention up front, picking up the pen they’d been providing with and scratching it a few times to make sure it worked. “I wonder what we’re gonna make today. I’ve always wanted to try and make a flan. Have you ever made flan?”
“Thanks, I guess. Yours is, too.” Kaden’s brow furrowed. The name sounded familiar. “Do you know Blanche?” he asked. Really it wouldn't mean a whole lot either way if they did. Half the town knew pipsqueak. Still, worth asking, right? Hopefully the question wouldn’t fluster them as much as their own question had. “Breathe,” he assured them. They look like they had forgotten for a moment. “Anyway, my mom taught me. Way back. Not that I did a lot when I was younger but, uh, guess I like it.” Small talk was the worst, he always felt like it was a dance he hadn’t learned all the steps to. He brushed his fingers along the edge of the table, just to give himself something to do. “What about you?” A sigh of relief came as the lesson started. “Flan?” He thought a moment, trying to remember any equivalent. “Not really. I’ve made a crème caramel. Not very good, mind you. My crème brûlée is much better. I’ve gotten really good at pies lately, though.” The instructor informed them they’d be making paella. Nice. Not something he was too familiar with. He started getting ingredients together, picking the knife he wanted to chop vegetables with. “You ever made this before?” he asked them. There was a strange rumbling in the front of the class. Weird. Someone must just be rummaging for pots or pans. Didn’t mean anything.
“Blanche?” Remmy said, “Yeah! I know Blanche, do you know her? How do you know her? We met cause we both worked at Mooseventures for a bit. Well, I think she still works there even though I’ve told her several times that she doesn’t need to. She has enough to worry about, between school and-- uh,” they stopped short, “other things.” Turned awkwardly to face the front again, rubbing their arm absentmindedly. “Sorry, I tend to ramble a lot when I’m nervous. Not that you make me nervous! I’m just nervous in general. And about being here. As in outside, here-- um, anyway…” they cleared their throat. “That’s so cool! That your mom used to cook with you, that she taught you. I feel like most moms are good at cooking, you know? It seems like a nice way to bond. I learned mostly on my own when I got tired of microwave dinners. Um-- Bobby Flay was a big inspiration. I used to watch his cooking show on TV and try and replicate his stuff with whatever I had in the kitchen. I tried to make spaghetti sauce with ketchup once. That...did not go well. But you! That sounds impressive. I’ve never made crème brûlée before, o-or even tried. I’m much better at baking. Cakes, pies, brownies...cinnamon rolls are fun, too. Am I talking too much? I feel like I’m talking too much.” They turned away. They were probably bothering this poor guy, but the talking seemed to really help relax them. Swallowing, they started setting out all the pots the instructor told them, too. “Nope,” they said shortly, “never made paella. You?” The banging up front caught their attention, even if no one else really seemed to notice. They squinted for a moment, trying to focus in on it.
“Yeah I know Blanche. She’s--” Kaden paused a moment. He never knew how to describe her. Sure, he gave a shit but friends always seemed like the wrong way to phrase it. “She’s a pain in the ass most of the time but I care about her.” His brow shot up at the mention of other things. Did they mean supernatural things? How much did they know? “I know about the other things. By the way,” he said, figuring he’d test the waters. With how much they rambled, he wasn’t sure they’d hear him much either way. Still. Didn’t bother him much. If he minded awkward rambling, he wouldn’t be dating who he was. Still all he could manage to most of it was a nod as he messed with the knife in his hand, twirling and twisting it like it was a weapon and not a cooking instrument. When he looked back over, he noticed that Remmy was waiting. Probably for an answer. Putain. He played back what they had just said in his mind. “Huh? Oh no. I’ve never made pa--” There was another crash from the front. His grip on the knife tightened, his muscles tensed and then there was screaming and people dodging and jumping out of the way. Kaden made sure his knife was in hand and ran over towards whatever the commotion was. So far all he saw was quills. Putain de merde.
“Yeah,” Remmy answered, “sounds about right.” Blanche could definitely be a bit stubborn, always getting into trouble, but she had such a big heart, it was hard to not care about her. “Oh, you do? Good. Good! That makes it uh-- easier…” They awkwardly shuffled back to their station and started sorting out stuff, watching Kaden twist and twirl his knife. They wondered where he’d learned to do something like that. “I’ve heard it’s really--” but then suddenly there was a loud crash and Kaden was darting away from his station. Remmy’s instincts were to run, their body tingling, but they found themself dropping their shit and running for the commotion. “What is it? What’s going--” they started, but some deep instinct in them let their eye catch the creature and ducked just in time to watch quills soar over their head. “Woah!” they said, lurching forward. “Watch it!” they reached for the instructor, tugging them away. They looked across to Kaden, wielding his chef’s knife. “Watch the quills!”
Kaden went to lunge and tackle the pukwudgie running through the place, but it dodged and climbed onto a table before he could even hope to brush it let alone grab it. It crashed through plates and bowls, a set of kitchen knives went flying off the table and Kaden ducked to avoid the blades, cursing under his breath. “We have to trap it!” he shouted out, unsure of who the fuck “we” was. He was pretty sure he meant himself. What a time not to have any of his animal control gear. He glanced around for anything useful, a net or even a blanket. Yeah, funny enough none of those to be found in a cooking classroom. The beast hopped off the table and started weaving in and out between people’s legs at the various stations. He could follow its path by the screams and squeals as well as the occasional body falling to the ground after tripping over the monster. “Try and corner it! Can someone--” As he tried to run over to the monster, he had to push past the frightened attendees, really not sure anyone else here was equipped to help. He threw a hopeful glance over to his cooking partner. They knew about the supernatural, right? And they knew Banche so they couldn’t be completely immune to trouble. And they couldn’t be less helpful than Blanche with a pukwudgie, that was certain enough.
Right, corner it. The porcupine looking animal was dodging in and out of people’s legs, hissing and growling as Kaden chased it. Remmy shoved the teacher away, behind a cabinet to keep him safe, and leapt over and around some of the stations quickly. They grabbed a pot that someone had left on their station and dove off the table, trying to cut it off. It screeched, sliding to a halt, before turning and running straight at someone else. “No, no!” they shouted, as the person shrieked, ramming into one of the shelves. Plates and cups and cutlery dumped onto the floor, as everyone else in the room scrambled out of the way and towards the exit. Someone shouted about calling the police, or animal control, but Remmy couldn’t stop to think about that right now. “There!” they shouted to Kaden, pointing as it skittered straight for him. They positioned themself behind them, hoping the creature would take the bait and run itself straight into the corner. Its tiny body slammed into a cabinet and Remmy watched it wobble. “The shelf!” they shouted, abandoning the pot, leaping over the station, and onto the table, just in time to catch the large, heavy shelf that was about to topple. “Q-quick!” they said to Kaden, “it’s cornered! Grab it!”
“I am animal control! Now get out of my way!” Kaden shouted as he heard the cries and callouts from some of the other students, shoving aside anyone who was blocking his path. The beast came right towards him and he lunged, but it skirted away. Putain de merde. Him and Remmy almost had it. His eyes darted up to the cabinet and was about to brace his arms out to try and stop it, only, he didn’t have to. They had it covered. Well, shit. For a moment, he stood there, blinking, and stunned. Were they a hunter after all? Strange. “Right,” their words jostled him out of his stupor and he locked onto the pukwudgie again, darting over to it. He had no net, no plans, no nothing other than his hands. Against a quilled creature. Fuck. Kaden quickly kicked out at it, trying to topple it, and reached down for one of its legs, yanking it upside down by its feet. He did his best to hold it in place, pushing his knee into the beast’s belly and grabbing its flailing limbs together in his hands. “Is there a cabinet or closet we can throw this in?” he asked Remmy, seemingly the only helpful person in the room.
Remmy was trying to shove the cabinet back into place when they looked over and watched Kaden nab the creature by the leg, flipping it over. Wow, he was pretty fast with his reflexes. And he ate weird food. Was he…? No. Remmy needed to concentrate. They put the cabinet back and scrambled around, throwing a door open. “Here!” they yanked a tablecloth out and came back over, tossing it over the creature. “We can wrap it up in this!” they grabbed a cord from the closet as well, readying to tie off the top after he scooped it up. The creature was hissing and snorting under the tablecloth, quills poking through, but it’s struggle was getting more and more useless. “Flip it on three, okay?” They looked at him, hoping he’d trust them. “One, two-- three!”
With that resourceful thinking and the super strength that they clearly demonstrated, there was no doubt in Kaden’s mind by now that he wasn’t the only hunter in the room. “Quickly,” he grumbled through grit teeth as he tried to keep the monster grappled under his grasp. It was wriggling and fighting him and sure to break free in a matter of seconds if he had to hold on too much longer. The pain in his side was throbbing by now, but he pushed it aside, ignored it, focused on the task at hand; containing the monster He nodded and did as Remmy asked as soon as the tablecloth was in place. The pukwudgie squealed as he turned it around and watched his fellow hunter make quick work of the tie around the cloth. Kaden hopped away to open a cabinet door under one of the stations, pulling out all the items and artifacts he saw in it. No shelves, clear enough, didn’t see any pipes, best he had for now in lieu of a cage. “Help me swing it in here,” he shouted as he grabbed one of the ends of the beast in the sack, avoiding the quills where he could. “Three again! One, two, three!”
Kaden was strong, and he seemed to know what he was doing. It wasn’t far fetched for Remmy to believe he knew about the supernatural. And by the way he handled himself, he knew a lot. Definitely more than them. They couldn’t help but wonder what he was, even if it was rude to outright ask someone their species. But he wasn’t attacking them, so he wasn’t a hunter. He wasn’t looking at them the way Alain always did. His voice snapped them back to attention. “Right! Got it!” when he signaled, they grabbed the other end and shoved as hard as they could, watching the poor beastie slam into the cabinet, before shutting the doors on it quickly. They grabbed on of the heartier looking spatulas and jammed it into the handles of the cabinet as a little extra lock, before stepping back. They didn’t even notice the quill that had stuck into their leg. Looking back over at Kaden, they waited for another direction, before realizing the danger had pretty much passed. The room was mostly empty, except a few brave souls who had stayed behind to watch or had been too afraid to leave and hid instead-- including the teacher. Remmy backed away and leaned over to Kaden, murmuring, “Now what?” so only he could hear.
With the creature tied up and contained in the cabinet, Kaden collapsed and sat on the floor, back against the door of the cabinet just in case. “Now we clear people out and I come back later with my cage and snare pole to get it out of here for real.” So that he could kill it once it was out of sight of the general public. It was never fun trying to explain why animal control was killing a “harmless animal.” He’d found methods to work around it. “Thanks for the help. Wouldn’t have guessed you were that strong. Guess I shouldn’t make assumptions.” He looked around the room and took in all the evidence of the chaos. Cutlery strewn across the floor, puffs and patches of flour lining the counters and walls, tables overturned. He sincerely hoped the janitorial staff in White Crest had a union. “You think we’ll get our money back?”
“Oh,” was all Remmy said. Animal Control. That was a dangerous job in White Crest. He had to be someone super strong and not afraid of dying, then, if that was the case. Right? No sane human would take that job. Remmy looked around the area, following his gaze to take in the mess the small, quilled critter had caused, wincing a bit. They bent over and picked up a pan, setting it back on the table in front of them. “Yeah, uh-- a lot of people say that. Guess it’s cause I look small and weak,” they said nonchalantly, looking back over at him. “Are you okay? You didn’t get stuck with a quill, right? I’ve heard that shit hurts-- or um, should hurt.” They glanced down at their own legs, “Uh…” looked back up quickly, ignoring the quill. “You know...I kinda hope so. I wanna sign up for another class since this one got ruined…”
Kaden waved off their concern. “Nah, any injuries I have right now I think are just leftovers.” His brow furrowed as he noticed something. “You might want to look at that, though,” he said pointing to the quill in their leg. They didn’t even flinch. They must be really tough, pretty seasoned hunter for their age. His mother probably would have pointed out that he should be more like them. “I get the impression you know some first aid but if you need any help, offer stands.” He pulled himself up to stand and brushed off the flour from his pants that he could manage. “Maybe next time we get here early and do a critter check first.”
9 notes
·
View notes
Text
You Can’t Sit With Us || Lydia and Cece
Timing: Current
Parties: @inspirationdivine & @thebickedwitchoftherest
Summary: Cece provides Lydia with some much needed security.
Warnings: Head trauma tw, stalking reference
Lydia's heart has taken up permanent residence in her throat. It pounded fast as she sat in her kitchen. Thank God the summer sun hung in the sky so long, keeping her safe with every minute of its presence. The doorbell rang, and Lydia used her smartphone to see through the camera who it was. Showtime. Lydia picked up her crutches and slowly, achingly shuffled to the door. She wore a long dressing gown, heavy make up and as much glamour as she could manage. She wouldn't look well, she wouldn't look herself, but the blackened bruises on her face would be hidden, not would she look anything but human. At least, for as long as she could hold it. "Ms Bishop, thank you ever so much for coming as such short notice." Lydia smiled, but no amount of magic could hide the croak in her voice. She hopped aside, careful not to say any invitation.
Cece felt like a call girl, without any of the implied action. She waved at the camera after knocking and readjusted the bag on her shoulder. The thing kept getting heavier and heavier as she added more things to it she deemed necessary. God forbid anyone decided to check her bag. They would probably think she was insane. The woman, who Cece assumed was Lydia, opened the door and Cece sucked in a low whistle. She didn’t look good. She answered on crutches, and despite the makeup and expensive looking robe, it was pretty evident that she was in a rough place. “Anything for a friend.” Cece answered, wondering how it was that Lydia and Remmy had become acquainted in the first place. “You can call me Cece, it’s preferred actually. What should I call you?” The two stood for a long moment before Cece realized that she wasn’t about to get an invitation into the home. “I’m just gonna let myself in then.” Cece leaned forward, talking softly and then pushing past Lydia and into the home. Smart choice though, avoiding words like that. Clearly, Lydia had learned the wrong way. “So a little birdy told me you’ve got some vamp troubles. What’s the story? Ex-lover? Pizza boy? If so, I hope you gave a shitty tip.”
She smiled thinly, nodding at the name. "Lydia will do nicely," she replied, and lead CeCe into her home, slowly, with the loud click of crutches on hardwood. She couldn't, however. Hide the disgust as Cece tried to guess at the causes of the dispute. "Nothing worth sharing. I just need to know that he won't ever walk back in again." Lydia squeezed her eyes shut from the sun. Bright light was a terrible thing. She grabbed for the sunglasses she kept on a nearby counter, and hoped Cece wouldn't question it. At least the place was clean, Lydia thought. Nothing on display. There was a couch sized gap in the living room, but beyond that, not much to be concerned about. "I don't know how it works. Your spell, I mean. Where do you need to set up? Does it work for the entire house or do you need to do it at each door? Because I have a lot of houses." Lydia frowned, pinching her nose. "I mean I have a lot of doors. Just the one house to spell. Do you- do you want a drink, uh- a coffee or something?"
Cece got the message. Lydia wasn’t much of a conversationalist it seemed. At least not regarding the vampire she wanted to be permanently evicted from her house. “Point taken. Well, no vampires will be coming back through this door unless they’re paying rent.” Cece began unpacking things from her bag. Multiple bottles of water, a tuft of sage, and the ever spell important candles. She eyed the sunglasses, wondering if Lydia had spent the night coping with her problems. Cece had her own pair of hangover sunglasses she dusted off and fashioned from time to time. “The spell? Piece of cake. I can set up right here. I’ll just have to circle your house a couple of times, but I’ll do the actual spell near the front door. It’ll work for the whole house, and all vampires. Unless you just have one you want to keep out.” Cece grabbed two bottles of water from her bag and carried them over with her to Lydia. “That depends. Do you have wine? Whiskey? Anything alcohol actually.” Cece questioned, never one to turn down a free drink if offered, “Holy water” Cece held the bottle up and shook it for clarification, “I’m gonna go and sprinkle this around the house. Be right back.”
"Right, right of course." Lydia nodded weakly. Wine was doable. While she couldn't drink it right now, she had plenty in stock, and might even enjoy briefly discussing it. Until she imagined bending down or crouching to reach into the wine cooler, and she felt electricity shoot down her spine. But the whiskey was in the cupboard, just below eye level. "Whiskey I can do," she agreed. "See you in a little." Considering that Lydia's home contained her entire restoration studio, her luscious living space, work studios for Sammy and Chloe, and multiple spare bedrooms, it was a large mansion, so she might not be back immediately. Lydia hobbled to the kitchen, moving on automatic as she got out the glass, grabbed the whiskey. It wasn't until she'd finished pouring the whiskey that she realised she has gotten Cece a wine glass rather than a whiskey one, and had poured her a wine portion size of whiskey. She could repour it, but that simple effort was suddenly overwhelming, as Lydia staggered into a kitchen chair, cradling her head between her hands. She stayed there until she heard footsteps back in the hallway, her heart plunging into a panic as she sat upright a little too fast. "Cece?"
“Whiskey it is!” Cece answered before jogging out the door with her bottles of water. The house was massive, far larger than Cece’s own house. This town managed to have an impressive amount of large homes and rich people for its size. Clearly, she should have worn more comfortable shoes today. Curse her for matching the shoes with the outfit. She used her keys to poke a hole in the top of the first bottle of water, squeezing it to spray a stream of holy water into the grass. She began her long trek circling the house, switching bottles once she ran out of the first. Once she had finally circled the yard, she used the small leftover amount of water to spray around the front door. When she went back into the house, Lydia practically jumped. Fuck. Whoever this vampire was, it did a real number on her. “Just me. Don’t freak out.” Cece held up the empty bottles and abandoned them on the counter, noticing the wine glass full of whiskey, “Now that’s what I’m talking about. I like you.” She grinned making a beeline for the glass and taking a long drink from it. “Part one done. Ready for part two? We get to burn some sage, light some candles. Really sets a nice ambience.”
If Lydia had looked pale before, she might have been mistaken for a Banshee now, all the blood drained from her face. She dropped back into her seat, shoulders low, back hunched. She eyed the empty holy water bottles, and swallowed as she realised that it might have just been water, and she wouldn’t know until she tried. It occurred to her, quickly, that she didn’t have any vampiric friends that she’d invited in her home, no one to test with until he tried again. Lydia swallowed, looking back up at Cece with a small smile. “Let’s pretend that was entirely deliberate, shall we?” The smile immediately faltered as Cece told her the next step. “Does that… require my involvement? I’m not feeling too well, I’d rather just sit here.”
“I’m great at pretending,” Cece swirled the glass as if it was wine in it instead and took another sip. Lydia didn’t seem up to the task of helping out with the spell, which wasn’t that big of a deal. The spell was simple enough, it just involved a certain amount of Christian iconography that Cece didn’t typically work with. “You sit there and look pretty, I got this.” Cece grabbed the sage and moved towards the door. She lit a candle and began the incantation, using the candle’s flame to light the sage in a dish. As she spoke, the smoke from the sage began thickening, turning a dark red color as the spell began working it’s literal magic. Cece didn’t stop the chanting until the the smoke began to lighten, turning its regular color and eventually burning down completely. Then, Cece dipped her index and middle fingers into the bowl, gathering a bit of ash on her finger tips and using it to draw a crude outline of a cross on the front door. After that, she made her way back to her bag and dropped off the bowl of sage and candle and wiped her hands clean. “Leave that cross up for a few hours and you should be vampire free.”
“That’s what I’m best at,” Lydia said drily, feeling anything but pretty as some beat drums inside her brain. She listened carefully as Cece moved around the downstairs, if only because keeping her eyes open was harder and harder by the minute. The sage smelled thick and heavy, lingering in her nose and irritated throat. When Cece came back, Lydia shuddered, her head ringing like thunder, hard as the hit which had caused the concussion. “Wonderful. What is the best way to pay-” Lydia inhaled sharply, then groaned. Her glamour began to falter - her ears grew longer and pointier, her bathrobe filled with the bulk of her wings, and her face slowly gave way to the deep bruising and heavy swelling that she’d been hiding. Her glamour came in and out in patchwork, flickering unevenly on her skin, shrinking her ears and then revealing their full length again.
Lydia brought up the discussion of payment and Cece began waving her comment away until something flickered. It had been so quick that Cece wasn’t sure she had actually seen anything at first. Until it began happening again. It was like a glitch in a computer program, flickering in different areas of Lydia’s body. They were just flashes, too hard to be able to make anything out clearly. But it was enough for Cece to figure some things out. This was a glamour. Which meant that Lydia was hiding something nonhuman. From the few features that she could see, incredibly pale skin, long nonhuman ears. Something that could pass for human from far away, but the closer one got features would start seeming irregular. “Well that’s different.” Cece tilted her head, studying the woman and questioning her next move. Clearly, the woman didn’t want her true form revealed or she wouldn’t have been glamored. What did that mean for their conversation? Cece was here to do Remmy a favor. She was hardly in the mood to brawl it out with a mutual friend. Best to proceed with caution. “Your glamor seems fucked up. You do that yourself, or is it some kind of bewitched jewelry?”
“What’s different? Oh- Oh shit.” Lydia didn’t even realise that her glamour was falling out of place until Cece said something, but then she wasn’t much in the mood for noticing much of anything at all. The headache roared inside her like one of Jared’s beasts. Ringing in her eyes, burning under her eyelids. Inescapable. Lydia scrabbled in her purse for the decoction of liverwort and stray sod, cringing at the mulchy texture. It helped, just enough for her to yank her glamour back on, although if anyone had looked at her skin too closely they would notice the lack of veins and imperfections. “My own. My mistake, you should never have seen that.”
That had been a panicked response. Cece couldn’t exactly blame her. Being a witch came with it’s perks, and the main perk was that in all other aspects she was a normal human. To avoid detection the only thing she had to do was not do spells in front of others. If she had been something else, something that looked less like the status quo, she would probably be a little panicked if her disguise had failed in front of a total stranger too. Luckily for Lydia, Cece was pretty chill about that sort of stuff. Hopefully for Cece, Lydia took notice to that and didn’t get defensive. Or aggressive. “Seen what?” Cece questioned, rifling around in her purse, “Even if I did see something, my lips are sealed.” Cece found her notepad and pulled it free, scribbling down her cell number and holding it out towards her, “I know you have my online information, but here’s my cell. Call me if you need anything else or if you have any more troubles with that vampire. I could pencil in a count Chocula ass whopping pretty quickly.” Cece hopped back and forth on her feet, throwing a fake punch and acting as though she were in the middle of a boxing ring.
Lydia squeezed her eyes shut, rubbing her forehead, and didn’t even think to try to promise bind Cece to her words. “I appreciate that. Like I said, I’ll… pay you back in kind.” She peeked open her eyes as paper was rustled near her face. She nodded, eyes flicking over the numbers as she took none of it in. “Thank you,”she said again, words she so rarely spoke ever now coming out of her lips quite quickly. “He’s- Well, I don’t know that he’d appreciate being called count Chocula.” Her lips quirked. At the very least, Remmy had sent her a fun human. Maybe she could ea- hmmm maybe not. “You’re very sweet. Thank you.”
Cece got the feeling that it was time to let the woman rest. She seemed even less focused than she had been when Cece first got here. Keeping up the glamor in her current state probably took a lot of energy. “This was a favor for a friend. You don’t owe me anything.” Cece waves the offer of payment away and flung her bag over her shoulder. “Well I don’t appreciate a vampire roughing up a mutual friend. Frankly, I don’t give a damn what he thinks.” All packed up, Cece was ready to split and let the woman get some rest. Luckily for her, she didn’t need to worry about any blood sucking visitors making an unwelcome entrance. “Since you’re all set, I’m gonna head out, okay? Looks like you could use some sleep.”
11 notes
·
View notes
Text
A Silent Voice || Solo Para
Timing: May 3rd, 2020
Location: Nic & Skylar’s house
Notes: After the stress of party planning, Skylar decides it’s time to take a dip in the pool, seal style.
The party yesterday had been so much fun. The set up was well worth seeing how surprised and pleased with everything Nic was-- and how much everyone else enjoyed the party too. Nell had outdone herself on the decorations and all of the festivities. Even though the baby gators and other animals were a little scary to her, Skylar had found the entire thing a lot of fun. But, it had been exhausting. And, after spending hours in bed this morning, her bones aching and the tell tale signs of her need to turn coming to the surface, she was well aware that the party had taxed her. Skylar had never considered herself an extrovert and the party was a good example of it. There had been too much noise, too many people talking at once, too many things going on for her to keep track of it without feeling somewhat stressed.
Which is why she was at the pool now. The last of the groggy and hung over party guests had pulled themselves from the various pool floaties and she’d just cleaned up the party supplies. All that left was for her to... go forward with this. Skylar slipped her hearing aids off and setting them in their case. With a hesitant glance towards the door, she took out her veneers, her sharp curved teeth feeling wonderfully free for once. She put them in their case as well before slipping into the pool.
She waded out as deep as she dared in her bathing suit, seal skin draped around her shoulders. And once she was almost up to her shoulders, she slipped into the skin. The effort was uncomfortable. Pulling the skin on in the chlorine rich water, it felt chaffing and rough. It was different from how she’d felt when she was in the bathtub. But, as she changed and she felt her body change to a form that was smooth and sleek and powerful in the water, it felt surprisingly... right. Tentatively, she took deep gulps of air before submerging herself under water. But, movement came easy and her breath felt limitless as she made lazy circles under the water. The fur of her belly rubbed against the bottom of the pool when she swam to the lowest point, a tickling sensation so different from anything she’d felt before. Diving, tight rolls, turns, they all came easy to her in this form of hers.
The sting of the chlorine in her dark eyes was painful, but all Skylar could think about was how much better it felt than being in the bathtub. It was so much better than having her arms-- her flippers-- trapped at her sides. It was better than feeling hot water against her warm fur and burning hot skin. All of it was so much better.
Which made her wonder... how much better would it feel in the ocean? To be out there, where the bottom was so far away, where there were fish and other seals and other selkies. Letting out a snort, a stream of bubbles escaped her nose before Skylar surfaced. She wasn’t going to think about that. Just the act of getting to the ocean scared her. The only reason she was okay with this was because her hearing aids were tucked safely away on a table, alongside her towel, and the case with her veneers. She was safe here. And that was okay.
If getting into her seal skin felt uncomfortable, getting out of it hurt. Her skin, both the pelt and her own human skin, felt dried out and her eyes still burned from the chlorine. Maybe she could get goggles..? If they even made goggles for seals. Draping the towel around her shoulders, Skylar grabbed her things and padded back to her bathroom. Starting the water, she set her things down before looking at herself in the mirror. The girl who starred back at her had damp hair and blue eyes, a mottled pattern of bruises around her shoulders and ribs from where Remmy had held her just a little too tightly. Maybe the girl in the mirror could be brave enough to go to the ocean. Maybe she’d be strong enough to confront this side of her. And actually... like what she was.
Maybe.
Stepping into the shower, Skylar rinsed off the chlorine from her skin. But, as she reached for the shampoo, the pipes faltered, the water stopping for a moment. Confused, she stared up at the shower head. What was going-- a spurt of ooze came through, covering her face in a thick tarry substance. Startled, she screamed, her hands automatically coming to wipe the stuff away from her face but-- she froze. The scream. She hadn’t... she hadn’t heard it. The shower head stuttered for a moment and the water resumed, rinsing her face clean as she tried to say something. Anything.
Hello?
“...”
What’s happening?
“...”
What’s going on, why can’t I say anything?
“...”
She tried speaking. She tried singing. She tried shouting. She tried screaming at the top of her lungs. Not a single word escaped her lips. Skylar felt her legs give out underneath her as she clutched her throat, horror growing as the realization dawned on her.
Her voice was gone.
15 notes
·
View notes
Photo
A playlist for my current party: 4 idiots + their honorary cult grandma, four with new names and one with someone else’s--god I love them. they requested a playlist breakdown so i’ve placed it under a cut for brevity. I’m always soft for making fan content for the campaigns I’m in tbh.
Alice: an elf-turned half-orc after a reincarnate spell went awry, her wild magic caused her marriage to fall apart when she accidentally burned down her home. She’s looking for control over the magic that is ruining her life.
Remmy: a man of many names, Remmy is an aasimar cleric with more secrets than even the other party members are aware of. He’s untrusting and full of fear, but the party gets him to open up--against his better judgment.
Gadao: an earth genasi from an isolated monastery, he’s looking for an identity of his own after realizing he may not be an incarnation of an ancestral spirit after all. Looking for his place in the world, the party’s fast-paced life contrasts with his steady nature.
Leap: an elderly tiefling ranger, she grew up in a cult of pain and left it only by good fortune. Her taste for adventure--and a need for closure--keep her on the road, though she looks forward to seeing her family again.
Blue: an aarakocra bard, Blue awoke with no memory and promptly joined a shady merchant vessel as a good-luck musician. They’re always down to fight, curious, and ready to hoard as many items as they can get their hands on.
Anger | Sleeping at Last
I love the way this song opens, the energy it has. Favorite lyrics are “it all spills out/reckless but honest words leave my mouth,” which maybe speaks to my love of intra-party conflict… but I also have a soft spot for “and suddenly I’m someone that prays/last-minute man of faith” given the campaign’s attention to the divine. I’ve really loved leaning into that. It feels like this song has threads that connect to every character.
Hellfire | Barns Courtney
God, I love the chorus to this song. I feel that in this party, Leap and Remmy have the strongest links in these lyrics, between Leap’s simmering fury at her cult and Remmy’s...everything. There’s a period of the song that isn’t quite an instrumental, but has sort of mangled lyrics/rap, and though I can’t quite make it out, one bit sounds like “roll the dice” -- a fun nod to D&D as a whole and the risk-takers among the party.
Blood I Bled | The Staves
My favorite lyric here is “raise your banners and ride to war/throwing ‘round your name.” This song feels like a challenge to the world, suitable for a group of adventurers just forming a party. The singers and songwriters mention the song as one of “no, I won’t take this bullshit,” and that strong message really speaks to the PCs.
Hustler | Zayde Wølf
Hustler is all about coming out on top, and y’all are “turning up the heat” all the time. “Looking at the city like I already own it” feels like a foreshadowing moment to me; one day, when you all are level 10, 15, 20, you might reach an unmatchable power, if you live long enough to see it.
Homemade Dynamite | Lorde
I chose this song for the absolute clusterfuck D&D parties can be. “Don’t know you super well/but I think that you might be the same as me/Behave abnormally” encapsulates something really funny about party members getting to know each other and start to trust each other, even when the rule might still be “I’ll give you my best side, tell you all my best lies,” and your secrets and private problems haven’t yet come to light.
Nervous | X Ambassadors
The chorus of foreboding in “cause what comes up must come down” is, how do I put this? Iconique. I think this song especially fits Leap and Alice, both of whom are aware of how quickly things can go awry but put a cheerful face on their own worries. Even when nothing’s wrong (“and I can’t complain, it’s amazing”) they know things could go south quickly.
An Act of Kindness | Bastille
This song best fits Leap and Gadao’s relationship, especially when they met. “Oh I got a feeling this will shake me down/Oh I’m kind of hoping this will turn me round” seems to speak directly to Gadao pulling Leap away from the cult and giving her the opportunity to be better than she was. On another level, the party’s bonds are born from acts of kindness and friendship--Remmy buying lorebooks for Alice, Leap making tea, Gadao stepping in to defend the party from the mimic.
Everybody Wants to Rule the World | Lorde
Despite the name, this has something for everyone, I think. “Turn your back on Mother Nature” suits Alice’s vendetta against the Forest Father, “Help me make the most of freedom/and of pleasure” fits Blue’s brand of hedonism, “It’s my own remorse” echoes Leap’s regrets. Gadao alone doesn’t quite fit in here...unless… >:)
Kicks | Barns Courtney
This is a Blue song! “I’ll show you how to live for free” the artist sings, and Blue’s freewheeling lifestyle seeking “kicks” matches this energy really well. If Blue is “a wild one” “singing in the midnight street,” they’re getting their kicks with this party for sure. Blue lives without being tied down, theoretically limitless.
Hail to the Victor | Thirty Seconds to Mars
This song is about Leap, no question. “Another life, another love/another kill, another drug” fits into Leap’s two lives, one in the cult and one out of it. And in this new mission against Babylon Lionel, she’s seeking a revenge of her own, though it’s one against her childhood more than her actual enemy.
I’m a Wanted Man | Royal Deluxe
Remmy “would kill again to keep from doing time,” without a doubt, so this one’s for him. Constantly warning he’s trouble for his friends, saying that “you should never ever trust my kind” isn’t too far off. Like Remmy, this song is edgy, but with a hesitant moment of emo-ness that makes the performance of darkness something a little more genuine.
Big God | Florence and the Machine
Alice is not a faithful woman, but she’s unfortunately entangled in some religious nonsense she hates. At the same time, I feel lyrics like “you’ll always be my favorite ghost” refer best to Alice’s fraught relationship with her wife. My favorite line here is “Sometimes I think it’s getting better/and then it gets much worse,” which is essentially Alice’s experience of her wild magic. Deep down, she might even be drawn to the magic’s chaos, but she can’t help but resent what it’s taking away from her.
Wisdom, Justice, and Love | Linkin Park
This one’s for Gadao. It starts off so peaceful and hopeful, the instrumentals overlaid with a speech by Martin Luther King, Jr. But as he starts to list the evils of the world, King’s voice, so steady and confident, is warped. Gadao’s own faith experience becomes warped by the power games of the people around him, and even as he’s seeking “wisdom, justice, and love,” he can’t escape the effects of materialism and violence around him.
Icarus | Bastille
Some folks live steady lives, but not these people. Adventurer’s lives tend to burn bright, hot, and short. From Leap’s perspective, most of the party is made of kids who don’t know the world yet. Are they “digging their own grave,” “too close to the sun?” Despite their ride-or-die commitments, Leap can see all of you risking yourselves--and for what? Who do you want to be, at the end of it all? A wife and mason? A sage and monk? Or do you want greater things than that?
Losing My Religion | Dia Frampton
I can hear so much of Remmy’s opinions in this song, saying “I’m choosing my confessions, trying to keep an eye on you” but realizing, over and over again: “Oh no, I’ve said too much.” As he tries to keep up his own facades, Gadao and Leap’s own faith collides with the beliefs of a cult leader and Alice struggles with a religion she doesn’t care for at all.
Start a War | Klergy and Valerie Broussard
Like Hail to the Victor, this song is all about Leap’s conflict with the cult of Loviatar and the Mother of Martyrs. Even though the Loviatar cult might be gone, the spirit lives on. My favorite line for Leap here is “bang, shots fired/pain is what you desire,” for the decision to challenge Babs to a one-on-one fight. But is it Babs who is starting this war, or Leap?
Friction | Imagine Dragons
This one kind of gives me Gadao vibes with the lyrics “when you’ve made it/won’t you tell me what to do?” After all that pressure to fulfill the expectations of other people, he has to get out of the middle and move on, maybe even become someone new. Key line is “why can’t you let go/like a bird in the snow/this is no place to build your home,” reminding Gadao that he doesn’t have a place in this world. Not yet.
Transcendental Youth | the mountain goats
“Sing, sing for ourselves alone,” sings John Darnielle, and maybe that’s what makes this feel so much like Blue. Maybe it’s the lyric, “cedar smudge our headbands/and take to the skies/soar ever upwards,” calling to Blue’s dislocation from time and place, flying away from their problems. Blue doesn’t remember their childhood, and has no idea how old they are. Even if they did know, their lifespan is short. They live every day like the halcyon days of youth, footloose and fancy-free indeed.
Champion | Barns Courtney
I swear this is the last Barns Courtney song. But this song is the resilience of coming through fights and perils and dangers. My favorite lyric is “Oh, Lord, save my soul/take my pain and turn it into gold” which, incidentally, is exactly what happens when you level up. The party’s struggles translate to strength, to influence, to skill, and even riches.
In the Woods Somewhere | Hozier
On the one hand, this could be about any combat in the dark woods at night (*cough*, Remmy killing that dragonborn, *cough*). But more importantly, this song is about Alice. She struggles with a power she doesn’t understand, with something’s eyes on her that she can’t fight. The best she can do is run from the danger and try to survive it. Whatever eyes are watching her now, Alice better take care. Favorite line? “I clutched my life/and wished it kept/my dearest love/I’m not done yet.”
Natural | Imagine Dragons
Natural tells the party one way of surviving. The line “you gotta be so cold/to make it in this world” suits Remmy’s outlook so well, the one he pushes at the rest of the party. The line “rather be the hunter than the prey” speaks well to Blue’s tactics--preferring to act from above. Alice and Leap know better than anyone that “nothing ever comes without a consequence or cost,” and Gadao may be the only one ‘holding the line’ against a harder heart. Another song with bits and pieces associated with everyone.
Dead Hearts | Stars
There isn’t a specific lyric here that jumps out at me, no line that tells me who this song is for. This is the song for the ones who die--those who have, and who will. We might not be there yet, but this is a song for acknowledging the sacrifice of your friends and allies. The knowledge that you knew them once, and in some ways, their ghost stays with you. Or maybe they’re revived, or reincarnated, but there’s always something a little different.
The Projectionist | Sleeping at Last
Eventually the session ends, and the story closes, and the lights come up. “We’re leaving our shadows behind us now/we’re leaving, we’re leaving it all behind for now,” Ryan O’Neill sings. We’re putting on costumes, telling a story for each other, and maybe the game ends every time, but maybe it makes us brave. I’d like to think so.
The lyrics to all these songs can be found at Genius.com. Thanks xx
12 notes
·
View notes
Text
requested imagine: I can see you’re tied up. (remington leith)
Request: Can I request an imagine where Remington catches his significant other reading 50 Shades of Grey? Or maybe he finds the novels on their shelf or something?
A/N: WOW. I’m so sorry this took so long. I hope you enjoy! Sorry, it’s short. Also would be willing to do a part 2... it would def be rated M though. (; Still working through my requests but as always feel free to leave some. I’m gonna try to get another one out tonight. xx.
You had been staying at your boyfriend’s posh apartment while he was away on tour with his band, Palaye Royale. The two of you had been dating for about a year and you enjoyed every moment with him even if the two of you wished it was for longer periods of time and had fewer stretches of loneliness. The one thing you enjoyed was your nightly facetime calls and having the chance to see Remington pour his heart out on stage alongside his brothers. The boys truly lived for their music in the rawest form as they truly embodied the phrase “eat, sleep, breathe... rock & roll.”
Your heart filled up with joy whenever you witnessed the mass of fans screaming out the words to their music. The music they poured endless hours into, you were so happy that so many people found refuge in their sound.
Currently, you were curled up in the lounge with a cup of tea and a new book in your lap. Soft rain pitter-pattered against the window making for a relaxing environment. Your friend from college had recommended this book to you and at first, you couldn’t help but burst out laughing as you had only heard negative reviews. Yet, curiosity had gotten the best of you and you gave in subjecting yourself to the world of Christian Grey.
A few chapters in and you had to admit the book wasn’t as bad as you thought, sure the sex scenes were a bit much but you were interested in seeing where the author took the relationship.
A couple of hours had passed in which you made good progress getting through the book, you were drawn into the crazy world of Christian’s riches and didn’t even hear the scrape of a key in the lock. Suddenly, a voice ripped you from your imaginary world and plucked you back into reality. A reality where a smug Remington stood in front of you, backpack on his shoulders and sunglasses in his hand.
“Hey, babe” a smirk played on his lips as he eyed the book cover in your hand, reading the title.
“I see you’re tied up” he joked, setting his backpack on the ground before leaning down to tug off his cherry red combat boots.
A blush quickly took over your features, you had been caught red-handed. Remington probably thought you were getting off, he’d never believe you were genuinely interested in the characters’ blossoming relationship.
“I-uh-” you stammered, eyes falling to the suggestive cover.
“In my defense, there is actually a riveting storyline here.”
Remington only smiled, his chocolate eyes hinting at something much darker.
“Sure, babe. I came home to surprise you. We had to move a couple shows around so we’re back for the night.”
He ran his hand through his blonde hair, perfecting a couple of the spikes in the front.
You grinned wide at your boyfriend, who literally appeared out of thin air, a pleasant surprise to end off your night.
“I’m so happy to see you, Remmy. I was just startled” you laughed, getting up from your cozy nest to throw your arms around his tall frame.
He returned the hug, swaying you both slightly as you two enjoyed seeing each other after such a long time apart.
“Although…” he murmured, pressing his lips to your forehead, leaving a quick kiss behind.
“From the looks of it, didn’t seem like you were missing me too much.”
You let out a laugh, looking up at him while raising an eyebrow, a challenging look on your face.
“Maybe I was, maybe I wasn’t.”
“In that case…” He pulled away from you, going to rummage through his suitcase which he left by the door.
He tugged out a plaid tie which you recognize as one belonging to a stage outfit he frequently wore. He eyed you mischievously before heading to the bedroom.
“Let me be your Christian Grey.”
xx
#palaye royale#palaye royale imagine#palaye royale fic#remington leith#remington leith fic#remington leith imagine#requested
43 notes
·
View notes
Last Seen Blogs
gh0stshrimp
Untitled
artist-rossetti
Dante Gabriel Rossetti
gukkcci
jigguking
polaryti
art
exhibicionpropia2014
exhibiciones de muestra