alonimi
Storytime [Read Only] - Printable Version

+- alonimi (https://alonimi.net)
+-- Forum: Out of Character (https://alonimi.net/forumdisplay.php?fid=68)
+--- Forum: The Repository (https://alonimi.net/forumdisplay.php?fid=76)
+--- Thread: Storytime [Read Only] (/showthread.php?tid=713)

Pages: 1 2 3


Storytime [Read Only] - SolitareLee - 03-27-2017

[Image: TRepvic.png]
[Image: Xcgshzo.png]
Bridget Corey: Grad Student, Werechorkie, Cursed
Profile, Additional Reading

Canon - Valesport
Sorted Chronologically
Teenage Runaway
SFW -- 7 years prior to present day
Additional Characters: Angela, Bree's great-grandparents (in passing)

The Menace of College Campuses Everywhere
SFW -- 3 years prior to present day
Additional Characters: Chad the Werewolf

Wet Dreams
NSFW-ish -- 1 year prior to present day
Additional Characters: Jean (dream only)

Nighttime Hobbies
SFW -- Present day-ish
Additional Characters: Eric

Training Pavlov's Dog
SFW -- Between Warm Reunions and Any Shelter
Additional Characters: Jean

Questionably Canon - Future Valesport, AUs, etc
A Certain Kind of Pain
NSFW -- Future, Pets AU
Additional Characters: Jean, Axel

Stay/Go
NSFW -- Future
Additional Characters: Jean

Gal Pals
NSFW -- IDK Fam
Additional Characters: Ren

Non-Canon
Challenge Accepted
NSFW -- Galway Girl AU (Discontinued)
Additional Characters: Evan




[Image: pj7OItg.png]
Ren: Professionally Homeless, Ostensibly Human
Profile, Additional Reading

Valesport
Sorted Chronologically
How to Spend $100 on a Gargoyle
NSFW -- Canon, Mid-Sanctuary
Additional Characters: Gareth

Aftercare
NSFW -- Questionably Canon, Future
Additional Characters: Gareth

Gal Pals
NSFW -- IDK Fam
Additional Characters: Bree

Au Jour Le Jour
SFW -- Questionably Canon, Future (STORYLINE SPOILERS)
Additional Characters: Gareth, Jean, Bree, Ruka, Ricky

Human AU -- Mr. Cupcake and the Rat
A Sense of Danger
SFW -- Canon (CH2)
Additional Characters: Gareth

A Letter
SFW -- Canon (CH3)
Additional Characters: Gareth

A Park
SFW -- Canon (CH5)
Additional Characters: Gareth

Fantasy Steampunk AU
Using Our Words
NSFW -- Canon, Between Beg Pardon and Beg Mercy
Additional Characters: Gareth

What I Think
SFW -- Canon, Between Beg Pardon and Beg Mercy

Downtime
SFW -- Canon, After Beg Mercy
Additional Characters: Gareth, Jeremy the Guard




[Image: j0P7xZH.png]
Emma: Elven Mage, Liar, Sneak
Profile, Additional Reading

CAF Universe
Lighthearted
NSFW -- Questionably Canon
Additional Characters: Darcy Weatherfare

Unprofessional
NSFW -- Questionably Canon
Additional Characters: Darcy Weatherfare




[Image: U1iFsUu.png]
Valesport Misc
The Regular
SFW -- Silly
Characters: Kelsey, Mrs. Taylors



RE: Storytime [Read Only] - SolitareLee - 03-27-2017

The Menace of College Campuses Everywhere
Bridget Corey - Valesport - 3 years before present

Bree was not a werewolf.

She was often mistaken for a werewolf, because she spent her evenings as a canine.

But she wasn’t a were-anything. And sometimes that was one of the most inconvenient parts of being a magically cursed shifter.

You know. Besides all the other inconvenient parts, like being five pounds and your mother having panic attacks at the sight of you.

She wasn’t sure what she smelled like to werewolves. They always smelled like sweat and brown and wolf to her. Translation was difficult. English didn't really have the words to convey it. French fell sadly short too, though she'd tried. She knew she smelled like something to them, though, because they recognized her, every time, without fail. Sometimes other supernaturals recognized her, too, although most mistook her for a werewolf when they did.

Sometimes, though it was less common, werewolves mistook her for a werewolf as well. This was why she suspected her smell must be similar. Either that, or they took her as a shifter of some kind and were open to experimentation. That was also very possible, given the sorts of people she seemed to run into.

“Hey, babe, got a whiff of you from downstairs and I like what I smell.”

Bree went rigid, mostly out of shock. That was not the sort of thing one heard regularly. Bree didn’t tend to get leered at. She dressed poorly, on purpose. She was trim and muscular with broad shoulders and a strong back. She wore shitty hats. All the time. Her default expression was barely-concealed disdain.

She wasn’t very surprised when she turned around and got a nose full of brown and sweat and wolf. She wrinkled her nose, once again displeased at the suggestion that she probably smelled something like that herself. If only she could stand the stench of perfumes, she might try to do something about it.

The boy in question was probably another college student. He didn’t look old enough to be a professor. He was white with brown hair in that sort of boring way that a lot of college boys were. It made them, quite frankly, sort of indistinguishable from each other. And they so often reeked of Axe body spray, so she couldn’t even smell them apart. It was one of the many reasons Bree did all her rare socialization with women. They smelled better, and had enough of a tendency to wear makeup and different styles of hair that she could at least tell them apart without relying on her nose.

“Awww, don’t be like that,” he leered, mistaking her disgust for... disgust, but still managing not to be discouraged by it. “You're in your cycle, right? Bet you could use a helping hand to scratch that itch.”

Bree closed her eyes and took a deep, slow breath through her nose to control her anger. Werewolves were tricky, she reminded herself. Strong by default. Fast, though often still not as fast as her and never as good at navigating the urban environment. This sort of thing took finesse. She couldn't just go punching all of her problems in the nose.

“C’mon, pretty puppy--”

She punched him in the nose.

Knowing what he was let her put her full force behind it, something she never did when punching someone in the face under normal circumstances. His nose crumpled satisfactorily.

Never one to take unnecessary risks, she proceeded to push him down the stairs.

He'll be fine, she informed herself as she listened to his yelps of pain as he crashed head over ass down the stairs. Werewolves are very hardy.

“Oh you fucking CUNT,” she heard, a few moments after the crashing stopped.

Way too hardy, really.

And then she was bolting up the stairs in long strides, three at a time. She could have headed for the roof, gone down over the side full and comfortable with the knowledge he'd be too much of a bitch to follow her. A light smirk played across her lips at the thought of taunting him from a ledge he didn't have the balls to access, but instead, she kicked open the door onto the fourth floor and peeled through. Down the hallway, dodging expertly around people as if they were simply stationary obstacles. She could hear heavy feet pounding behind her. What a determined little boy. Ah, well, you knew how dogs got with a scent. And men chewed their own bone more voraciously than any real dog could manage.

She burst through the doors at the end of the hallway, knowing full well where they led. A flight of external stairs; she'd never known why they bothered. It would be easy to throw her ass onto the rail and slide down. Instead, she gripped the rail directly in front of her with both hands, vaulting over it. She heard at least one shout of alarm and smiled.

She didn't release her grip on the rail. Instead, she hung on, twisting her body as it fell to launch herself onto the third story landing. Where she yanked open the door and proceeded to tear back through the building.

She lost him somewhere on that floor, she was pretty sure. She couldn't be one hundred percent certain, because she kept running for the hell of it, back to the stairwell, sliding down the rails and admiring his bloodstains as she did.

She ran all the way to the bus stop, vaulting unnecessarily over fences and spinning around posts just for the joy of feeling her body move. She wanted to keep running even then, but it was getting late in the afternoon. She needed to get home, faster than she could run.

She let out a long sigh, plopping down on the bench to let her body rest. She checked and then readjusted her hat. It hadn't come loose, because she wore hats with the full knowledge she might be backflipping in them. It was one of her shopping criteria.

She replayed the satisfying crunch of his nose against her fist, slow motioned his expression as he'd toppled backwards down the stairs.

Fuckin’ frat boy werewolves.


RE: Storytime [Read Only] - SolitareLee - 03-27-2017

Mr. Cupcake and the Rat: A Sense of Danger
Ren - Real World AU.

Ren had a poorly developed sense of danger. It didn’t understand things like scale. Or equivalent exchange. For most people, for example, there was nothing under the sun that could get them to tolerate being around someone who was, frankly, one the scariest looking people to ever live. What that meant for Ren, however, was that she’d do it for a single tossed biscuit, because you could live with mortal terror but you could not live without food.

This was probably why she’d taken to coming around the bakery every day like a stray cat. All the homeless hit up bakeries and restaurants around closing time. It was an easy way to get free scraps before they hit the dumpster. But staking out a place like that was damn hard and involved a lot of physical strength that Ren lacked. She was barely over five feet tall. She had essentially never not been homeless, so she took 'malnourished’ to a lifelong extreme. She didn’t have a canine or feline ally, because the only creatures that seemed to like her were rats.

In homeless terms, she was the bottom of the barrel.

So when she’d stumbled across a bakery that others left alone, it didn’t matter that they did so because the owner was almost certainly a serial killer and/or serial rapist. Food was food.

She’d started off in the dumpster, not willing to risk making herself evident, because the other homeless avoiding him meant he was likely the kind to take violent exception to that sort of thing.

Then, one day, he’d caught her at it.

He’d dragged her out of his dumpster by her collar, and she’d felt her life flash before her eyes. He’d towered over her as she’d cowered on the pavement…

And he’d given her some day-old cupcakes.

There had been more, after that. Baked goods left out in the alley, normally because some sort of mistake had been made. She began to check back multiple times per day, because sometimes she could get things remarkably fresh. She made the ten or twenty blocks around his shop her new haunt. When she’d found the little window into the attic above his shop, left unlocked because no one could possibly climb up to it or fit inside or even find it–she was frightfully skinny and frightfully good at climbing and frightfully curious–it was a done deal. She was sleeping in his attic when it rained and eating his food and the shop was officially Hers.

He was leaving her lunches now. In little brown paper bags

She’d been drawing on the bags, with a sharpie she’d found somewhere. The drawings decorated her little corner of the attic.

He was still a very scary man, and she still suspected some kind of inevitable trick. To find out he was luring her closer to do something terrible to her. That was always the case; men had many uses for women who wouldn’t be missed. But Ren had a poorly developed sense of danger. And she could no longer live without cupcakes and bread that hadn’t risen right and sandwiches made with good meat and real vegetables.

If it killed her tomorrow, at least she would have gone out full and dry, surrounded by little drawings of rats and flowers and cupcakes on brown paper bags.


RE: Storytime [Read Only] - SolitareLee - 03-27-2017

Mr. Cupcake and the Rat: A Letter
Ren - Real World AU.

Ren had settled into something akin to a comfortable routine, as much as anyone on the streets could possibly hope to. Every day brought new chaos. The bakery she had staked out as the center of her territory was on the rougher, poorer side of town, and she never knew when violence or cops would spill into her attempt at a peaceful existence.

She’d been heckled while digging through a trash can. When she hadn’t reacted, they’d thrown a bottle at her head. Her hat, an oversized beanie the same dark color as the dirty, matted hair it covered, had kept any glass from digging into her skull, but she had a hell of a headache and was dizzy. That was the sort of thing that made every day different from the next.

But there were some comforting constants.

She swung by the back alley by her bakery. She was quite late, and it was Sunday, so he would already be closed. But no one else came by, which meant... yes.

A little brown bag sitting on the step by the door into the bakery. She snatched it up quickly, stuffing part of it into her mouth so she could use all her limbs. Teeth clenched around the top of the bag, she clambered up onto the dumpster. In a practiced movement, she backed up to the corner, ran forward, and leapt. She caught the bottom rung of the fire escape on the next building, then hauled herself up. She climbed up another two stories on the fire escape, then, bag still dangling from her mouth, leapt onto the bakery roof. She landed on all fours, scrambled across the tile to the end of the house where the roof was at its highest. She slid off of it automatically, arms, then head, then chest and body, feet catching briefly around the edge as she swung herself down. The window was unlocked, because she never locked it. A metal ruler she left sticking out of the bottom made it easy to pry open, and then she slithered in.

The whole effort took less than thirty seconds.

She was getting very good at it.

The attic above the bakery was dark, but that didn’t bother her at all. She’d found a flashlight in an old box, and she had very good night vision. She clambered over bare plywood to her little corner, by the window, hidden behind a whole host of old, dusty boxes. There was a thick pile of blankets on it. She prodded at it a few times to figure out where all the rats were, moving some of them aside, before settling in.

She flicked the flashlight on and opened the bag. Inside was a saran wrapped sandwich, something wrapped in tin foil, two children’s juice boxes, and... ooooh, eclairs. She pulled it all out excitedly, using one of the boxes as a makeshift table. She started with the sandwich, unwrapping it and then carefully sticking the saran wrap around the existent ball of the stuff she was collecting. She didn’t know what for yet. Inside the foil were some sort of puffy baked things, folded and fluffy and filled with white poofyness that might have been cream cheese or something, and flecks of green. She poked at them. Lettuce? She didn’t know. It was too dark to be lettuce, she was pretty sure.

Curiously, she took a bite.

It tasted good, savory and creamy at the same time. She shrugged. It didn’t matter what was in it if it tasted good.

The juice boxes contained soy milk. One was chocolate. She drank that one first.

She fed the dozen or so rats in her blankets little pieces of bread and meat from the sandwich, which was full of some sort of chipped meat, and a vinegary sort of... cabbage maybe? Or a weird pale pickle. And cheese. And some kind of sauce. She didn't rightly know, but it was good and the bread had a pretty, swirly design on it. The rats didn’t like the weird vinegar cabbage so she got to eat all of that herself. She really liked it. She wondered if she’d ever get to eat it again.

After she and the rats had devoured every last crumb, and the foil had been safely balled up around her Ball of Foil, which sat next to her Ball of Saran Wrap on her makeshift shelf, she flicked on her flashlight and grabbed the empty bag. It was a little greasy at the bottom from sitting for so long, but she could still use the sides. Eagerly, she went to tear it, then paused.

Something was... already written on the side?

She squinted at it, shaking the flashlight to get it to light up better.

“There is an Oktoberfest party today a few blocks away. Please watch out for drunks. Did you know otters have a special pouch where they keep their favorite rock?”

She tilted her head to the side, running a thin finger over the words, written in an unfamiliar scrawl.

Had Mr. Cupcake written this, then? He had never written her anything on a bag before. Except the first time, when he had written LUNCH in large letters.

A party... drunks. That explained the belligerence and the bottle.

She stared at the words for a while longer then flipped over onto her stomach, grabbing the sharpie she used to draw little pictures on the bags after she had eaten.

In careful letters underneath, she wrote, “One of them hit me.” She paused. “With a bottle.” That seemed like it might be an important clarification. Then, below that... “I did not know that. Did you know that rats laugh when they are happy?”

She stared at the words on the paper for a while. She doodled a little rat, laughing, the words HA HA HA over its head. She stared for a while longer. She had never written anyone a letter before. She was pretty sure this wasn’t how you did it. She wrestled with indecision for a while longer, before she tore the bag, carefully, so that the words didn’t rip. Then she taped it onto the slanted roof above her make-shift bed, with her other paper-bag doodles. This was paper bag lunch number fourteen.

She hoped tomorrow would be fifteen.

She hoped tomorrow would have more words on it, too.

She yawned, stomach gurgling and full, and curled up, pulling one of the many blankets over her head. The rats settled in around her, and she drifted into sleep, very full and very warm.


RE: Storytime [Read Only] - SolitareLee - 03-27-2017

How to Spend $100 on a Gargoyle
Ren - Valesport - NSFW (but I mean not like a lot)

Ren looked down at the remaining money in her hand, grimly. $100 had felt like so much when she got it. You could last a while on $100, if you were careful. And used to surviving on spare change or nothing. But medicine had knocked her out $35, frosting another $3. (The best $3 she ever spent, arguably.) Food had set her back another $5 and change.

She had a little more than $50 left, after just one day. She’d been intending to make it last.

Resigned, she went into the pharmacy first, a different one than she’d gone in yesterday. The pharmacist there had given her a look. She knew she would have been recognized.

The alarm on the face of the clerk when he saw the blood was palpable. She assured him she’d just fallen down some stairs. He wanted to call the hospital, kept talking about stitches, but she refused over and over, instead buying proper bandages to replace the strips of cloth she’d bound her leg with the night before.

She also bought three towels and rubbing alcohol.

Twenty bucks lighter, she wrapped one of the towels around her waist and headed to a dollar store. She managed to avoid alarming the clerk there, thanks to the towel covering her shredded, blood-soaked pants. She could change into something ‘clean’ later, but she would need to get all the blood off first.

Cloth gardening gloves, a cheap but solid wooden brush... then, after a pause, a second one. A bundle of five pairs of men’s boxers in extra-small, because she was going through underwear at an alarming rate and they could double as pants. Several forms of all-purpose cleaner. A huge pack of a dozen cheap towels. Four gallons of water. An additional tub of frosting, this time cream cheese because she felt like ‘pink’ was a shitty flavor and demons needed to expand their horizons. And, after a bit of math in her head, a box of granola bars and a jar of peanut butter.

She had two dollars and fifty-four cents left when she left the dollar store, all in change. She glared at it for a while.

Well.

Easy come, easy go.

She headed back to the church, climbed in the window on the first floor where it had been broken.

The creature was, hopefully, where she’d left it, though she expected it to come swooping down at any second.

No one had been by, by some pleasant miracle. It was a side of town people seemed to give a wide berth, nothing here but transients like her and abandoned or collapsed buildings. Still... lucky.

She looked down at the mess.

Her stomach lurched.

An esophagus, completely torn out.

Coaxing his hand against her neck, trying to get him to squeeze harder, trying to get him to use it as leverage to fuck her.

A man’s head completely backwards, neck snapped.

His hand buried into her hair, firm, demanding, leading her where he wanted her to be.

Entrails ripped out, spilling onto the floor.

His palm against her stomach as he fucked her from behind, feeling the way he spread her, the way her body ached to contain him.

Half a human spine, exposed to the cold morning air.

Claws running down her spine, not even breaking the surface of her skin, making her shiver and moan.

Half a skull turned to liquid and slime, smashed so hard against the stone floor.

The way he cradled her face, running thumbs along her cheeks. His lips on hers, hard and soft and gentle and rough.

...

It didn’t bear thinking about. She could not stop.

She took a few steps into the church, setting her backpack down on the remains of a pew. She rummaged through for the bandages, paused to re-dress her wound, properly this time. Or at least... with real bandages. She didn’t really know what she was doing. It hurt. A lot. Especially after limping around town on it. Fortunately, her threshold for pain was pretty damn high, or else she wouldn’t even be walking, and the bullet wound would be the least of the reasons why.

Then she pulled on the cloth gloves, eyed the chunks of bodies... and sighed.
[Image: THpglYa.png]
She’d noticed the Highly Suspicious Brazier in the basement earlier, while looking for possible places to bury bodies once it had become clear that her ‘demon’ did not, in fact, eat people. Well. Not dead people anyway. He’d been pretty enthusiastic about eating in general last night.

Fortunately, the church had no shortage of old wood. Dragging the bodies was... well, unpleasant was a laughable understatement. She’d never handled bodies like this before. She’d lived a hell of a life, but nothing had prepared her for this level of sheer mutilation and gore. Hard to believe it was the same creature who--no, actually, scratch that, it really wasn’t. He was pretty fucking scary even when he was doing things she arguably really enjoyed.

She tried to pretend they were dead animals. Rats watched curiously from the corners as she worked. At one point or another, a squirrel stopped in as well. She didn’t pay them much mind, which was probably how they knew it was serious. She knew they’d stick around anyway; no building she made herself present in remained rat-free for long.

She piled up the bodies with some wood, then headed back to the temple area, where she proceeded to learn which cleaning products best worked on blood. She used the water as sparingly as possible, since she had no idea where to get more. There was a fire hydrant a few blocks over she could probably bust open if she really needed it, but that would attract authorities, which was never good. Least of all when you were in the process of destroying the evidence of three extremely gruesome murders.

Slowly but surely, the stench of blood was replaced by the acrid smell of bleach and soap. She was exhausted and filthy, her cardigan absolutely soaked in blood, her face and body smeared. She’d been sticky before she even started, but mostly with obnoxious, glittery semen. Blood was somehow even less pleasant, though less sticky in general.

Before bothering with herself, however, she climbed the stairs at the back of the church to get up to the balcony. The creature was where she’d left it, solid stone. The blood left on him had long since dried. Her shredded, blood-drenched hoodie was still strewn to the side, in a dried puddle of glitter that would probably also need to be cleaned at some point.

It’d probably be easier to clean him now, but she was skittish. His horn had broken at some point, right? What if she broke off a finger, or even just a claw? She’d feel horrible. So she stuck to large areas, using one of the brushes to scrub dried blood off his back, wings, legs, and loincloth. The glittery cum didn’t appear to have stuck to him. A useful trait she wished she shared. She stopped when she figured he was as clean as he could get safely; she could finish washing him tonight.

She caught herself mid-thought, horrified. Why was she just assuming she’d be here tonight?! Three people were dead, surely there was no one left who’d keep chasing her? She’d already spent all her money covering up his murders. She'd let him fuck her stupid, multiple times. Well. Let was a strong word. It had happened, anyway. She’d done enough to repay him for saving her life, certainly. Of course, there was the window... she should probably try to board it up, if for no other reason than to protect other people wandering through. But she had no supplies with which to do that, and no money with which to obtain them.

She sighed as she collected her hoodie and headed down into the basement. She washed herself off last, with one of the towels and rubbing alcohol and some all purpose cleaner, which hopefully included humans as one of its purposes because she’d neglected to buy actual soap. Blood drenched shoes, cardigan, pants, towels, and gloves went into the pyre. Clean of blood and relatively clean of semen--she could never seem to get the glitter off--she pulled on one of the pairs of boxers. T-shirt and boxers... Hey, it was something. She could put on some pants, later, if she was very sure they wouldn’t be ruined.

Then she pulled out the lighter the strange man--or possibly woman--from the other day had left her with. She doubted they would approve of using it for this, but that was hardly going to stop her.

She had one of their cigarettes while she watched it burn. The room smelled like roasting pork, making her once again bitter about spending all her money. She’d have to go dumpster-diving later, or beg outside of restaurants. Granola bars and peanut butter wouldn’t last, so it was time to start scrounging. Still, the cigarette tasted satisfying as she watched the strange brazier blaze.

It wasn’t a hydrochloric acid and bleach, but all told, she was a bit proud of herself.


RE: Storytime [Read Only] - SolitareLee - 03-29-2017

Wet Dreams
Bridget Corey, Valesport, 1 year before present

She sat on a bed with silk sheets in a dark room. She was dressed comfortably, like she was going out for a run, loose tank and shorts. She could feel the silk--or maybe satin? What was the difference?--against her bare legs and rubbed them along it and each other.

She felt hands along her shoulders, but didn't start. Didn't scream, or yell, or hit. It was comfortable. She was safe. They rubbed in little circles, an attempt at a massage, but she couldn't really feel it. It just felt like a warm, weak sort of glow.

The hands shifted, moving forward so arms could embrace her from behind.

“You are so beautiful,” a voice murmured in her ear, and she believed it and smiled. “I love you. Beautiful girl. Wonderful girl.” She basked in it, warmth like the sunlight sinking into her skin.

She felt a hand in her hair, stroking the top of her head, between her ears. This, she could feel vividly. It felt so good, so warm. She knew it had to be what love felt like, the warmest acceptance. Someone willing to touch her, wanting to touch her. Unlike the sensations before, it felt absolute and real, like the sharpest memory.

And that was when she realized it was a memory. Her great-grandfather, when she was so young that she barely qualified as a child and not a toddler. She'd brought him something, a drawing she'd done... macaroni glued to paper. He'd smiled and run a fond hand into her hair, petting her affectionately. And then her great-grandmother had come in, all in a fury, yelling at him for being condescending, treating her like a dog. She hadn't understood what she meant, but felt terrible for doing something that got her Pops into trouble. Worse still for enjoying something bad.

Yes, a memory... The only time in her memory someone had touched her like that, pet her. That was why, why she could feel it so well. Because this...

“It is a dream, jeune fille stupide,” came the voice from behind her. Loving hands turned into a cruel grip on one of her furry ears. It twisted, and she howled in pain. “Who could love a wretched thing like this? Who could stand to touch it?” The hand yanked her forward by the ear, bending her onto the bed, then released her ear to push on the back of her head, pushing her face into the sheets.

“An idle fantasy, the dreams of a beast. The only place you will ever be touched like this.” She twisted her head as he ground her into the sheets, peering back over her shoulder to see white-blue eyes and teeth like a shark.

“Why give me that look, you pathetic little thing?” he laughed. “Of course it was me.” She felt nails, sharp as claws, against her skin. “Who else do you know who could stomach that kind of lie?” She could feel his breath in her ear. “Adorable,” he mocked. “Have you not been spoiled, and told always what a joy you are to behold?”

“Please,” she sobbed, voice choked against the sheets.

“Ah, now that is what I like to see from a dog. Beg.

She awoke with a start. Not bolt upright like in stories, but eyes suddenly wide open. She could still feel the ghost of a hand in her hair.

Her cheeks were wet with tears.

Cheeks... crying. She was human. It was morning. She must have fallen asleep on her bed.

She rarely slept. Rarely needed to... or rather, rarely suffered any ill effects from refusing to.

The dreams she had made her glad for that smallest of benefits to her curse.

She shifted to be lying more like a human and not like a dog who'd grown into one overnight. She found a pillow and dragged it under her head. She let herself cry into it for a little bit, pretending it didn't count.

She hated crying, because it felt so weak.

She hated crying when Lestrange was involved even more, because she knew he'd love it.

She wished she could stop dreaming.

Later, she'd wish she hadn't fallen back asleep.

“Sit.” The voice was firm, uncompromising. She brought herself to the ground, because she knew it was her only option. “Speak.”

“Please--”

A tsk of derision. “Useless thing cannot even do something so simple. Listen, you inbred little cur. Parler.

Weakly, stammering, she let out a scared little bark. It felt bizarre out of human lips. Her cheeks were burning red with humiliation.

“Better. Now roll over.” She got halfway, onto her back. “Stop,” the voice said sharply. “Play dead.” She froze.

A cane hit her side. She winced, but didn't flinch, didn't move. It withdrew, then came down right next to her face. She didn't know what force compelled her to be so still, but she was, completely unmoving.

“Much better. Perhaps you deserve a treat after all.” She felt a hand along her stomach--her BARE stomach! How had she not noticed how little she was wearing? The hand traced down across her abs, to the waistline of her pants, then in. A warm, large hand cupped between her legs.

“Beg,” he whispered, shark teeth glinting in the shadows.

“Please--”

“Ah-ah-ah,” he chided. “Like the bitch you are. Mendier pour moi.”

So humiliated she was tearing up, cheeks aflame, she let out a weak little whimper, then a whine.

“Good girl,” he said, mockingly, and then his hand moved in and up and--

She awoke for a second time, and sincerely wished it was still just the cheeks of her face that were wet.


RE: Storytime [Read Only] - SolitareLee - 03-30-2017

Nighttime Hobbies
Bridget Corey. Valesport.

There were a lot of things that sucked about being five pounds and six inches.

All of them, actually. Bree hadn’t found a single upside. It was called a curse for a reason.

But right now, the one she was feeling most keenly was the general helplessness.

“Ah! Ah! Ah! Oh, Eric!”

And inability to wear headphones.

“Ohhh gooood yes!”

Bree dug her head under a pillow, frustrated. Her mother was breaking their agreement right now, but that wasn’t really unusual. It would serve her right if Bree started scratching at the bedroom door. Because that would be breaking their agreement too. Bree stayed in her room at night; period. Mom didn’t have anyone over at night. That was how it worked.

This wasn’t actually so that Bree wouldn’t have to listen to her mother have loud, headboard-banging sex in the next room, though that would definitely have been a plus. It was to keep Bree safe and her “condition” a secret. It would be very hard to explain to a nighttime guest why there was suddenly a small dog in the apartment. Technically, they weren’t even supposed to have pets.

Mom wasn’t supposed to have anyone over at night, and Bree wasn’t supposed to leave her room except to use the bathroom. Her mom mostly slept at night, so it rarely became a huge issue, but Bree was careful anyway. Her mother coming out for a glass of water and seeing her leaving the toilet was enough to give the older woman a small heart attack. Sometimes she actually screamed, especially when she was still half asleep.

You would think seven years would have been enough to get used to the concept... But it wasn’t. And Bree tried not to push the subject. ...Anymore. The first three years had been extremely tense, what with her mom’s drug use and the uncomfortable places where fear felt like it overlapped with hate.

But she made it work. They. They made it work. Bree stayed in her room, and tried very hard only to pee when the house had been quiet for a while. During the day, she never removed her hat outside of her bedroom, when she had her curtains drawn.

And her mom... didn’t bring people over at midnight and fuck them. Generally. It was a common enough occurrence, depending on how things were going with her boyfriend-at-the-time, of which there was always at least one. Things must have been going great with Eric, because this was the third time in a month.

Bree had met Eric. As a human, of course. She had mixed feelings. He was nice enough, and a carpenter and pretty handy with plumbing, which made him useful to her. That was a good quality in her mother’s boyfriends. He didn’t do drugs, which was even better. He was a bit old for her mom, at forty-six, but she understood that age gaps became less significant the older one got. He’d never made a pass at her, which was a necessity. He hadn’t even stared that one time when she hadn’t realized he was over and left her room in nothing but underwear and a tank top. He’d just politely focused on fixing the sink.

Overall, he was one of her mother’s best. She probably would have even liked him, if not for the fact she had to listen to them having sex so goddamn often.

Frustrated and getting no help from the pillow, Bree jumped down from her bed, which was mostly there for decoration. She had stairs to make this task less dramatic. She was profoundly less sturdy in this form, and a two foot drop would at least jar her. Not that she hadn’t done it. But she’d also injured herself practicing backflips off of it. Good decisions weren’t really a consistent part of her MO.

She slipped through the skirt under her bed, into her little doggy kingdom. Obviously, she was normally far too large to fit under her bed, but it was quite cozy as a six inch dog. She spent a goodly amount of her night down here, because it was very easy to hide dog-related things under her bed. There was a reading light glued to the underside of her bed, and a nice flat dog bed to make the floor more comfortable.

With some difficulty, she pulled her headphones--half as heavy as she was, easily--onto the pillow, and nestled herself between them. They were already hooked up to her tablet, and she had a lot of practice operating it with paws.

The tablet had been a huge splurge for her, coming directly out of the money she’d gotten from... selling her book. It was so much easier to use than her phone, and she’d told herself it was justified because she used it as a laptop at school.

She turned on music, as loud as she dared. It didn’t entirely drown out the noises from the next room, but at least it helped a little. Then she opened up her e-reader app and settled in to The Oldest Dead White European Males & Other Reflections on the Classics. Which had proved thus far to be at least passingly interesting. The author was almost self-aware. Almost.

Enough for her to finish the book, in any case. But that wasn’t really high praise; a book had to be pretty bad for her not to finish it.

After the sounds of sex and banging died off, she briefly paused in her readings to dart out from under the bed, over to her mini-fridge. She pawed it open with little difficulty, then pulled a covered plate off of the bottom shelf with her mouth. It had on it small piles of cracker sandwiches with meat and cheese. She kicked the fridge shut and dragged it back under the bed.

A little daytime preparation went a long way at night.

She just needed to be careful not to fall asleep under here, or lose track of time. It had happened before.

She finished The Oldest Dead White European Males and moved on to Gone Tomorrow: The Hidden Life of Garbage, which was actually much more interesting. A fact she found both ironic and pleasant.

Fifteen minutes before sunrise, her alarm went off. She yawned, then stood and stretched. She glanced over the various things under her bed, then licked some cracker crumbs off of the ground while it was still appropriate for her to do so. No sense attracting ants. She dragged the plate out with her; the rest was close enough to the side of the bed that she could grab them just fine in human form. Then she climbed up onto her bed to watch the sunrise, waiting.

--

“Oh!” Eric said with surprise, starting as Bridget, his girlfriend’s daughter, came out of the shared bathroom. She was already up and fully dressed--mercifully--despite the fact it was eight AM. “I, uh, didn’t realize you were here,” he said, trying not to seem weird or awkward or like he’d been boning her mom. He was all of those things, so it was difficult. But he really liked Angela, and appealing to the daughter was pretty key in these situations.

Normally, kids liked him alright. But Bridget was already an adult, and already more educated than he was. She had a way of looking at him that made him feel like she knew more than he did, possibly about everything. They were also tied in arm wrestling matches. And it wasn’t because he let her win to earn brownie points.

It was possible he was somewhat intimidated by his girlfriend’s 20-something daughter.

“I am, in fact, here,” she said, in that way of hers that always made him confused as to whether she was being rude or not. Angela insisted she was just socially awkward, so he always wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt, even when it sounded like she was being a sarcastic little shit.

He moved out of her way so that she could get into the kitchen. When he came out of the bathroom, she had settled in at the kitchen table with a cup of tea, which she had once informed him was not actually tea, since only some large, long word was actually tea. What she drank was “Tisanes” because she disliked caffeine.

It had been a very pretentious way to inform him she preferred chamomile.

She was reading a book, which she always seemed to be doing. He stole a glance at the cover as he walked past--the awkward had already happened. He might as well finish making breakfast. Just for, uh, three, instead of two. The book was entitled Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World.

He would take the book’s word for it.

Eric ran through what he knew of Bridget’s food allergies in his head--she was a very persnickety eater. No grapes, no chocolate, didn’t drink caffeine or alcohol. She was picky about citrus, which he’d learned upon offering her a glass of orange juice. She was always checking the ingredients lists of things, so he assumed there were other allergies he didn’t know about. But if he cooked using things in their house, he should be fine.

No one was allergic to pancakes, he was pretty sure.

She ignored him entirely as he mixed the batter, sipping her not-tea, but she perked right up when she heard the sizzle of bacon hitting a hot pan, glancing over as if just now noticing he was there.

“You got work today?” he asked, in a desperate bid for conversation. It was an obvious question--she was dressed in a black skirt and vest over a button up blouse, a fashionable sort of houndstooth hat on her head. Most of the time when he saw her, she was dressed in a style that probably had a name like “street grunge.” To him it just looked like torn jeans and tank tops designed for someone three sizes larger than her, but whatever. It wasn’t his job to judge what kids wore these days. He’d been a teenager in the 80s. He was not capable of throwing stones where young-person fashion was concerned.

“Mmhmm,” she replied, glancing back at her book. “Then class in the afternoon.”

“Oh? What class?” asked Eric, relieved for the obvious conversation topic.

She looked up at him. Her eyes were always sort of narrow and glaring. He was pretty sure it was just her face, and she didn’t mean much by it. After a moment of trying to detect something from his tone or posture or whatever it was she did when she stared like that, she looked back to her book and replied.

“Pedagogies of Reading and Writing,” she replied simply.

“Ah. Sounds... interesting.” Was she the type who would make up a word to poke fun at an old man?

Silence stretched. She was not holding up her end of this conversation.

“Will you be here this evening?” she asked after the silence had just passed out of the uncomfortable zone and into normal.

“Oh, uh... No, probably not,” he replied, focusing on putting bacon on a plate before it burned and not on the obvious implications of the question. He had a good stack going. Almost a full package’s worth. He was going to think about the bacon and not about whether or not she’d been woken up by his and Angela’s nocturnal activities. He’d been told she was at a friend’s house--clearly a conversation about her daughter’s boundaries needed to be had with Angela.

“Alright,” she said, folding her book shut and standing. She set her empty mug in the sink, and then walked over to the oven, where she picked up the entire plate of bacon. “If you are, however, please have sex more quietly.”

And then, while he was still stunned, she walked out the door with the entire plate of bacon in hand, a piece of it already disappearing into her mouth.

He glanced down at the skillet, which was sadly devoid of bacon.

Er... hopefully Angela liked awkward conversations about her daughter over just pancakes, then.


RE: Storytime [Read Only] - SolitareLee - 03-31-2017

Mr. Cupcake and the Rat: Park
Ren - Real World AU

Ren was still pretty sure that Mr. Cupcake was a serial killer.

He kind of had to be, didn’t he? Otherwise, why would anyone avoid him? Oh, sure, he was tall and absolutely terrifying to behold... but he also wrote facts about otters on paper bags, paper bags which contained a different meal every single day. And he wore all that pastel and aprons with hearts on them and one time Ren had been on the roof when he came out to put her lunch down and she’d noticed he had a flower in his hair.

Who put flowers in their hair?

Probably just people trying too hard to convince other people they weren’t serial killers.

She had decided she wouldn’t mind, though. He probably could have killed her the first time he found her in his dumpster and hadn’t. Instead, he’d given her food. So either he wasn’t going to kill her or he liked to feed people for a really long time first. In which case, hey! She wouldn’t starve to death! Whatever he did probably wouldn’t be worse than starving to death, unless he was like, a really mean serial killer.

The park he had given her directions to, drawn on the side of a paper bag, did nothing to dissuade her from the inevitable conclusion, because Ren had never seen such a wholesome park in all her life. What was it doing on this side of town? There was a place for people to run their dogs, and children playing in a sand pit and a group of mothers chatting and idly watching their children run and play. What did he even do here? Climb trees, really? Why did someone as big as him need to be taller? If she climbed him, it would be the same effect as climbing a tree.

Ren was aware of eyes on her. She wasn’t sure why. It could be because she looked weird. She tried to look normal, but she always had on too many layers of clothing that was too old. And she was dirty. She was never not dirty, pale skin with yellow undertones stained mottled brown in too many places.

Did it count as loitering if it was in a park? Parks were for loitering, yes?

Although from what she had been able to decipher, the crime of “loitering” was defined as “being homeless in public” so she might still get in trouble. It was a nice looking park, but they were on the poor side of town still. The poorer the area, the darker the populace, the less likely anyone was to call the cops. The more likely cops were to show up anyway.

It was a coin toss, as were all things in life, like living in serial killer’s attics eating their sandwiches. And, as with the serial killer attic, she’d already come this far. Might as well keep going. She meandered through the park, searching for the oak that Mr. Cupcake had written of. It wasn’t hard to recognize it once she saw it. An old tree, clearly, probably had been when someone as big as Mr. Cupcake was still small enough to go climbing trees in parks. There were a lot of assorted benches nearby, most of which didn’t even have people on them. There was someone with a dog at one of them, and she paused to gaze at it longingly. Dogs. The domain of people much higher up on the food chain than her.

Rather than go to the benches, or towards the dog--she knew she wouldn’t be allowed to pet it, so why bother calling attention to herself?--she beelined for the tree, scrambling up the rough bark effortlessly. Even with her overly-worn sneakers, she was able to get traction, mostly because she seemed to move too quickly for gravity to catch up with the fact it should be pushing her.

She climbed about halfway up the tree, finding a branch still thick enough to support her weight and be comfortable for her bony ass to sit on for a while. She settled in, back against the trunk.

Mr. Cupcake had been right. The oak was on a hill of sorts, and she could see very far from up here. She wasn’t even as high as she could have been, settling for a mere fifteen feet or so. High enough that people probably wouldn’t notice her up there right away, but low enough that the branches were thick and comfortable.

She pulled the sack lunch out from between her teeth, where it had comfortably hung while she climbed. What was she getting today? She was eager to see; waiting to open it had been sort of like a fun little game. Building up anticipation. She had a box of somewhat-improperly-baked goods in her backpack, as well, but she was always thrilled to see what sort of food he’d packed for her. There were overarching themes, like the little boxes of “soy” milk, but overall, it varied. She often wondered if they were his leftovers, or what.

A saran wrapped sandwich, as always, but also a little plastic container. She wiggled excitedly, pulling the plastic container out first and spinning it in her hands. He was not getting this back. He probably had no idea how useful one of these things was. You could put anything in it! Even liquid!

The contents were a mystery to her. They were sort of green and sort of brown and the steam on the sides of the clear plastic implied heat. She glanced back into the bag, then pulled out the sandwich. She was immediately as enamored with it as she had been with the plastic container. Just looking at it made her start salivating heavily. She could see the meat, so much of it, practically falling out of the sides. Little flecks of red and green and white, too, and smothered in what she took to be melted white cheese.

It looked like it was going to be one of the best things she'd ever put in her mouth, and given how many nice things were going in her mouth lately, that was saying something. She was practically tearing up at the prospect, sheer excitement.

She was just starting to unwrap it, too eager to save it for later and discover what the green things were, when she heard something from below. Floating in on the breeze. She paused, perking her ear.

Music. Some kind of music. Just one instrument, an airy sort of sound. Curiously, she glanced down and around the branch to see if she could see where it was coming from. The music was a strange sort of airy wailing, that made her almost immediately start wiggling her foot to the rhythm. She found the source, a man sitting on a bench very close to being underneath the tree, just maybe ten, twenty feet away from the base. He appeared to be blowing on something in his hands--whatever it was, it was making a pleasing, reedy sort of sound.

It was considered a bit rude to hang out near street performers--they wouldn’t take kindly to you possibly absorbing some of the cash in the crowd. But she wasn’t here begging--she was sitting politely in a tree. No one could possibly give her money. They would have to throw it. So that meant she could just stay up here and listen.

He thumped on the ground with his foot to keep time, and played a slow, sorrowful sort of tune, and she leaned back against the tree and unwrapped her sandwich. She took a whiff. Heavenly. Then a bite. She let out a low, pleased noise in the back of her throat.

If he was going to feed her like this, she didn’t even really mind if he was fattening her up to kill her and put in his cupcakes, or something.

The plastic container’s mysterious green contents turned out to be some sort of... vegetable. Green beans, she wanted to say, but they weren’t like the ones she’d seen, which generally came out of a can and were fatter and shorter. They’d been... she didn’t know, made crunchy somehow. Salty and crunchy and snappy and good. She munched on them and the sandwich and enjoyed the music from below, which had picked up into a more jaunty sort of tune that had her whole leg bouncing.

The sun was warm on her skin. The tree was beautiful, the sky was so blue between its leaves. The music made her brain hum and her body hop like an excited rat. The food was delicious, a constant pleasure on her tongue and then in her stomach.

When she died--whether from Mr. Cupcake or other circumstances--she thought she’d like to come here. To this sort of place, warm and full with good smells and tastes and sounds.

She stayed in the tree for a while after she’d finished eating, half-laying on the branch, enjoying the sun and the music and the sensation of being full. This was why street musicians worked so well. They could make the brain happy. She got it now.

It was generally considered polite to give money to a busker, she knew that. But she didn’t have money. Still, she’d been sitting here enjoying his sounds for what felt like an eternity. Taking without giving was what you did to those who could afford to throw things away. So she climbed back down the tree, slowly, leisurely, swinging from branch to branch, enjoying the slower, melodic tune the player had switched to. She hit the ground feeling like a hundred dollars, and she meandered over towards the man as she pulled her backpack off. She didn’t have money, not even spare coins, but she had something she figured was just as good.

She sat down on the bench next to the man, who she could now see was dark and old with silver-grey hair stark against his earth-colored skin. Just for a moment, so she could pull out the box Mr. Cupcake had given to her and rummage through it. It all looked good, but she spotted a single cupcake. That seemed appropriate. Cupcake from Mr. Cupcake. She would have liked to eat it herself, but it was definitely the best thing in the box, and she liked his music. So she pulled it out and set it on his leg.

The man paused briefly in his playing to look down, then over at her. She gave him a hopeful sort of smile. He looked sort of amused, then shrugged, and set down his harmonica briefly to pick up the cupcake and unwrap it. She grabbed a somewhat misshapen muffin for herself, and sat next to him while he ate Mr. Cupcake’s cupcake, feet still swinging back and forth with the memory of the music that had stopped. When he finished eating, she handed him the box of soy milk she was drinking. Wordlessly, he took a sip, then handed it back.

He started playing again, and she sat there on the bench for a while, eating muffins.

She couldn’t just hang out here all day, unfortunately. She had things to do. But she stayed for another long twenty minutes or so, and she left a scone on the man’s knee when she finally got up to leave, a cheerful bounce in her step.


RE: Storytime [Read Only] - SolitareLee - 04-07-2017

Au Jour Le Jour
Ren - Valesport - Storyline Spoilers
Useful Images: 1, 2, 3, 4

Things never quite settled into a routine for Ren, simply due to the chaos of life on the streets. But she had developed patterns, and found comfort in them.

She and her “roommate” saw the dawn together, so long as he didn’t carried away, which... had been known to happen. But his internal clock was better than hers, and normally they had long since given up on his dick out of sheer exhaustion on her part. Sometimes she fell asleep, but she tried to stay up and make as much progress as she could on her never-ending project to teach him words. He couldn’t make them, but it was clear he could learn what she meant by them.

He always settled into a position before dawn. She liked to be within his sights, at the very least. She felt like it gave him a sense of continuity. She had no reason for feeling this way, she just did. She often watched as he turned to stone with the first rays of the sun.

Then her day began. She tried not to nap immediately, because these few scant hours before most of the world rose were precious. First she would dress, because her roommate never really let her stay dressed for long. How she dressed depended on her plans for the day. Today, she needed to dress up--to a limited definition of “up”--and so when she opened her trunk of clothes, she selected something nicer. Something she’d gotten from Ruka, because god, people just... really liked dressing her up for some reason, she was basically making her living as a professional doll at this point.

Ruka’s sense of fashion was closer to Ren’s, or perhaps it would be more apt to say Ruka actually cared what Ren’s sense of fashion was. In either case, there was often clothing in the little boxes labeled “REN” Ruka had taken to leaving out in her kitchen. So that Ren would stop stealing from her kitchen. She acquiesced, because she loved being able to snag a box and leave quickly before something could find her. Things frequented Ruka’s bar, and so despite its place nestled in the safety of Old Town, she shied away from it, especially at night.

She picked out a shirt she liked that she suspected would satisfy, a black knit that covered her neck and chest but left her shoulders bare. It would show off her newest coat of glitter. Her skin never didn't shimmer, not anymore, and she took extreme pleasure in showing it off when she could.

She paired it with dark denim skinny jeans. They had been skinny jeans in name only when she first got them, but they fit a bit more snugly around the hips these days. She wasn't concerned. When they got too tight, she could give them to someone else. They had whole shops for that, and she did it quite often with clothing Ruka had given her that she knew she'd never use, or Jean had gotten her for his pleasure that his fickle nature decided he never wanted to see again.

She went back and forth on shoes several times before settling on a black boot, the kind with the red sole she'd become so fond of. It had military-style buttons all up the front, and it was a good height for these jeans. A wedge instead of a needle heel made it easier and more practical for walking around town.

She also shoved real clothing into her backpack for the day, a tank, an oversized black shirt, a hoodie, some leggings, and sensible sneakers Ruka had gotten for her because Ruka knew Ren's feet were primarily used for walking.

She resisted the urge to shove a granola bar in her mouth, but tossed a few in her bag along with two oranges. She never knew what the day would bring. She paused, and no more had to think before a swarming of rats came from every corner of the building to meet her in the large, central chamber of the cathedral. She set her bag down but only let Phoebe and Timothy in. The rest, she requested gently to take shifts watching over her roommate. She got nervous. There were over a hundred rats in the church now, though, so there was always someone to keep an eye on him.

Finally satisfied, she set out to face the day. She headed straight to Jean’s, which was the only reason she’d bothered dolling up like this. He’d probably put her in something else; he preferred pretty dresses and heels you could put a man’s eye out with. But he was notoriously fickle and there was no point in trying to predict his tastes for the day. It varied so widely, what he wanted with her, that she gave up on even trying to predict it. She just wore clothing that would offend him less than her average wear, and went to his house two or three times a week with a vague list of things she might ask for.

Today, it was food, because she was feeling those uncomfortable cramps she got when she hadn’t eaten enough meat.

She arrived at his house sometime past sunrise, climbed the fence around his backyard garden, and dropped in. It was nicer than waiting on his front steps. She settled in on his patio and napped.

The sun got higher in the sky as she drowsed on and off for an hour or two. As it got closer to time for his shop to open, she stretched and yawned. He wouldn’t be letting her in today. He wasn’t in the mood, or already had company. She took no offense; theirs was an arrangement of convenience--his convenience, mostly, but still. She knew if the situation was truly desperate, he would be able to taste it on her, and let her in.

She changed in the bushes, tucking her nice clothing back into her backpack and putting on things much more suited for the remainder of her day. Even if Jean wouldn’t be buying her a steak, it wasn’t as though she was out of other options.

She swung by the cathedral Ruka owned, but a few nearby rats informed her there was a shifter in the kitchen. A cat, to their distaste and hers both. No robbing Ruka today, either. Well, it was still early, and there were a lot of very nice houses in Old Town. She spent the next few hours digging through trash with a collection of her friends. She found a few things of value; her rats were very good at finding shiny when she asked, and a few things that were mostly edible, though very little in the way of meat. It was hard to find a combination of cooked, edible, and relatively fresh that kept meat safe to eat, but still something thrown into the trash. Her rats got plenty fed, at least.

She decided to head downtown. A walk, to be sure, and one she took cautiously. She was outside Jean’s jurisdiction when she crossed the river into downtown. There were things there, a lot of things, but she took care to be out long before sunset and kept to streets she knew. It used to be, her rats gave her a marked advantage over other homeless. Now? Most everyone else in her situation had advantages much better than hers. The others had all died, especially those who dared to call downtown their nighttime home.

She ducked into the library, glanced around for a familiar face. She found it behind the counter, the tan woman easy to spot thanks to her ever-present hat. She looked like she’d been up all night crying, eyes hidden behind thick frames and dressed in long sleeves. Either she hadn’t been the one with Jean, then, or she had been and it had been a less fun night.

Ren would never understand how those two got into it so much. Jean was so straightforward.

The sad little half-wave the librarian gave her implied that it might have had nothing to do with Jean at all, or if it did, she blamed herself more than him. Bree got very rough around the edges when mad at Jean. In any case, Ren waved right back and headed into the bathroom, where she changed. Again. She did a lot of that in the course of a day.

“Did you go to Jean’s this morning?” Bree asked, catching Ren directly outside of the bathroom.

“I did. He didn’t invite me in,” she replied.

Bree sighed, long, heavy, and dark. “Me neither. I was stuck outside all night.” She ran an exhausted hand across her face. “That motherfucker. He’d better just be in a mood.” She sighed again. “Thanks, Ren. Did you need anything today? I’ve got those print-outs you asked for.”

Ren brightened considerably at this. “Thank you! We’re making great progress on anatomy; I think it’s a niche he understands.”

Bree snorted, too loud for a library. “Yeah, I bet. Anything else?”

“I’ll probably be in and out,” she replied. “I’ve got errands.” Which was a nice way to say she’d be homeless-ing up downtown all day and needed a place to change and get clean water. “Would you like an orange?” she offered.

“I’m having a hard time imagining something shittier than accepting food from you,” Bree scoffed. She was rough around the edges even when she wasn’t mad at Jean. “I have class this afternoon, but if you’re still around here at noon, we can grab lunch at Moody’s.” Her cheeks flushed a bit with obvious pleasure. “Jean opened a tab.” Her moods were damn near as fickle as Jean’s. Mostly because of him.

“Alright, thank you,” Ren said cheerfully. A deli would be perfect to get her meat-needs satisfied, and she knew Jean wouldn’t object to feeding her under any circumstances. “I’ll be sure to stop by.”

“Don’t lose track of time,” Bree said sarcastically, which normally meant she was trying to tell a joke. “Any of your watches actually work right now?”

“Yes.” She paused. “Probably.”

“Alright, be careful out there. Don’t piss off anyone toothy. If you need a rescue, kite ‘em in here, you know I’ll give ‘em hell.” She would, probably. Also, Ren was fairly certain the head librarian was something terrifying. Possibly a vampire.

With lunch settled, she was free to spend her day a bit more leisurely. She still stopped by the pawn shop a few blocks down, the reason she’d come downtown in the first place. She had some nice things Jean and Ruka had given her, which she’d long since figured she could turn into cash. Coming in looking nice helped, because it looked less like she was a thief. Also, she kind of figured the proprietor didn’t actually care.

The object for sale today was a choker Jean had given her. He’d gotten it purely because there had been a salesman working with a very strong interest in her, and her neck in specific, who was driven halfway to madness by the antics Jean put her up to. He’d taken great pleasure in making the man tie half the chokers in the store around her neck before settling on one. He’d ask her how each one felt, in detail, and run his own leather clad hands over her neck, and even she’d been able to tell the poor salesman was desperate to run into the back room and jerk one off.

Jean was made happy by weird things, but that one had actually been genuinely kind of funny.

In any case, he'd purchased one of the necklaces, probably the one that most aroused the salesman, a choker with a link of thick squares covered in chips of diamonds. She couldn't remember how much it cost, because after a certain point the numbers stopped being quantifiable for her.

She placed it onto the counter with a smile. Ricky looked at it, ran a thumb over the diamonds.

"$100."

"Try again."

"Diamonds seem fake."

"Ricky," she said with a little smile, putting her elbows onto the counter. "Have I ever come in here with fake diamonds?" She had not. She had come in here with jewelry and old watches that ticked like new. Most of the time, she traded them for power tools. Ricky didn't ask questions, because he lived downtown.

He sighed. "$500, and only because I like you and your weird Twilight skin. You're the shittiest vampire I ever get in here."

"And I never even bite," she replied cheerfully. "Cash today, thanks."

That would last her for a while. She could get something nice from that bakery near the river, Maria’s. Eclairs, maybe, because she wanted to see her roommate eat eclairs, the cream bursting out and surprising him and getting everywhere. Yes, that would be wonderful. And she wouldn’t even need the money for lunch, thanks to Bree.

It was nice to have friends, in a town like this, because she so often attracted trouble.

She sat at the corner near the library and ate her oranges, feeding the peels to Phoebe. Timothy sulked, because he couldn’t have oranges, but she gave him a kiss on the head and promised him leftovers from lunch for being such a sweetheart. She piddled away the rest of the morning, reading in the library and picking up a few things she needed that she didn’t want to pester Ruka or Jean with.

Lunch with Bree was... well, fun was never quite the right word for hanging out with Bree. But Ren could tell she was trying. It’s just that she wasn’t very good at it. She suspected this to be why the woman had so much trouble with Jean. She was rude, but you could tell she wasn't cruel. She ordered the entire left half of the menu, then proceeded to eat one sandwich and declare she wasn't as hungry as she thought she was and oops, she was running late, bye.

Leaving Ren with six extra sandwiches.

She wasn't as subtle as she tried to be.

Ren ate a second sandwich there, and then wrapped up the others in tin foil that she carried with her because you'd be surprised how often you needed tin foil. She gave the meatball sub to Timothy, for being such a wonderful little angel.

She headed back into Old Town early after making sure she'd done everything she might need to in downtown, stopping by Maria's on the way and picking up a box of eclairs. She ran about Old Town for the rest of the afternoon, picking up cigarettes and medicine and 2x4s. She couldn’t have wood delivered to the church, for obvious reasons, so she bought one or two planks of wood from a nearby hardware store essentially every single day. What they thought of her, she had no idea. Not many people had a “regular order” at a hardware store. They had suggested she buy in bulk multiple times before giving up and letting her walk cheerfully out the door every single day with a giant fuck-off piece of wood over her head.

She was settled back into the church by mid-afternoon, just in time for her exhaustion crash. She took a long nap by her roommate’s feet, in case she slept in and missed sunset--which she did. She awoke in a fluffpile of rats. She’d fallen asleep in her good clothes, sigh. She shifted, and realized her friend was awake, but hadn’t really moved. He was just watching her. He did that, a lot.

She shooed off the rats and sat up, yanking off her shoes. She fed her friend eclairs, which was exactly as funny as she expected it to be. They both got shockingly covered in cream, and then she barely managed to get her clothes off in time to get covered in another sort of cream. There was a break for dinner; she ate two more sandwiches, then pulled a third apart to tell him the names of all the ingredients. She fed him the bits he’d eat, nibbled on some herself, and tossed the rest to some of her rats. She didn’t need to feed them all; they could take care of themselves. But she liked giving back.

Then they got distracted again. Then she tried to show him the new cards she’d had printed, which worked for a while, but then he got distracted, again, and by then she got pretty damn distracted herself, and remained that way for the rest of the night.

She woke up half an hour before dawn, like clockwork, to see him to “bed,” and start her day anew.


RE: Storytime [Read Only] - SolitareLee - 04-12-2017

Training Pavlov's Dog
Bridget Corey - Valesport - Between Warm Reunion and Any Shelter

This got ridiculously long so I put it behind a spoiler cut for the sake of those scrolling through.
Spoiler:



RE: Storytime [Read Only] - SolitareLee - 04-18-2017

Using Our Words
Ren - That Steampunk AU - Possibly Non-Canon but who even knows at this point? Are you looking for stability out of this wonky AU? Don't.

This is also kinda long so SPOILER TAGS WOO.

Spoiler:



RE: Storytime [Read Only] - SolitareLee - 05-23-2017

The Regular
Valesport

Bing!

“Welcome to Starbucks, what can I get started for you today?”

The words came out of Kelsey’s mouth automatically. She had only been working here for a week, but she was already getting into the swing of things. She was a little proud of herself for that, actually, although she still had to desperately mouth to the other, more experienced baristas when some people rattled off increasingly complicated drink names.

Her headphones remained silent. She waited, thinking whoever was in the drive-thru just needed a moment to think of their order. A few minutes passed. “...Welcome to Starbucks, what can I get started for you today?” she repeated dutifully, assuming they had not heard her. Nothing. It was a slow evening, so she moved to check the outdoor camera feed. There was no car at the drive-thru. Huh. Weird. Why had the chime gone off? Ah, well... Probably... wind, or something. Even though it was weight-sensitive. She shrugged it off and went back to wiping down the counters, piddling away the last hours of her shift.

Bing!

“Welcome to Starbucks, what can I get started for you today?” she asked automatically. No response. With a frown, she checked the screen again. No one.

“Hey, Michael?”

“Yeah?”

“I think something’s wrong with the system, it keeps–”

Bing! Bing! Bing! Bing!

“Jesus!” she swore, pulling the headphones away from her ear. “Loud!”

“What’s going on?”

“The alarm keeps going off like there’s a car in the drive-thru, but there’s no one there,” she complained.

“Ohhh,” Michael said. “Must be Mrs. Taylors.”

“...Excuse me?”

“Hold on, I’ll finish this and show you how to make her drink. It practically requires its own recipe card,” her manager added, rolling his eyes.

“Uh...”

“It's a grande ristretto single shot 4 pumps sugar free peppermint nonfat extra hot no foam light whip stirred soy white mocha,” Michael said, moving to grab a cup. “She’s really particular about it.”
“Um...”

“Alright, first start with the soy, and–”

Kelsey’s protests went ignored as the complex drink order started. It was a hell of a process. She was pretty sure she’d need to practice a few dozen times before she got it down.

“And for the love of god, make sure it’s hot. She wants it practically boiling. Which is a huge pain, because when she doesn’t like it, sometimes she throws it at the barista. So once she takes it, close the window really fast.”

“UH.”

“Don’t worry, she loves me,” Michael said with a grin. “Watch.” He walked up to the still empty drive-thru window, opened it, and set the drink down. “Here’s your drink, Mrs. Taylors! Just the way you like it.”

Right before Kelsey’s eyes, the drink lifted itself from the counter and hovered out the window, and then away. She shoved past Michael, cramming her head out the window to watch it float idly away.

“What... the fuck,” she managed.

Michael shrugged. “Eh. It’s Valesport. You get used to it.”


RE: Storytime [Read Only] - SolitareLee - 06-16-2017

Challenge Accepted
Bridget Corey - Valesport - Evan Timeline, Sex Pollen AU

“Hey, Evan, I wanted to talk to you about yester–”

Bree stopped abruptly after entering Evan’s office, flinging the door open without knocking as she had since the very first time she showed up. Only this time, she was reminded that the office was, in fact, Evan’s place of residence. And as such, he would sometimes be... occupied, in a manner which required a visitor to knock first. Such as leaning back in his desk chair, feet up on the desk, fly unzipped, cock in hand.

He looked surprised for maybe two seconds, which was significantly shorter than Bree, who was quickly beginning the process of turning red from head to toe. Evan regained himself quickly, pulling his feet back off the desk and sitting down in a more normal behind-the-desk position, scooting forward so his legs would be underneath it. It was solid wood, so she couldn’t see, but the zipping of a fly betrayed that he’d tucked his dick back away. He then leaned his arms onto the desk and looked over at Bree, every inch the professor he pretended to be.

“Yes, what can I help you with, Bree?”

The way he addressed her did nothing for her embarrassment; she’d instructed him to “call her Bree” the day before, because his normal “Miss Bridget” had felt far too stuffy for their activities. She glanced away towards one of his many shelves, bright red, rubbing her nose in an attempt to stall for time and look less completely caught off-guard. She’d walked in on him masturbating. He should be off guard. But that was just how fae worked. Really, you’d think after all they’d been up to the entire day before, she would be less embarrassed by the sight of his dick. A lab accident had left both of them, uh, compromised, in the libido department. What followed had been quite literally inevitable. Despite that, however, she’d never thought about him masturbating, of all things. She was kind of astounded he even had to; she’d been under the impressions that fae only got erections when they wanted to.

...

Wait.

Her mortification faded quickly as her face lit up, a wicked little grin forming on her face. She looked back at Evan quickly. His expression hadn’t changed, but he probably could tell just by looking at her that she’d figured it out.

“You’re still under the effects, aren’t you?” she asked, way too gleefully for someone who was implying their friend was still under the effects of an accidental drugging. “You can’t control it!”

“You said you wanted to talk?” Evan prompted, fingers laced on his desk. Her grin broadened.

“It burned hotter for me,” she practically gloated, despite all the things that hotter burn had made her do the day before. “But it’s burning slower for you. You can’t make it go away!”

“Is this really what you wanted to talk about?”

“It is now!” she exclaimed, walking around his desk. He stayed where he was seated, legs–and crotch–under the desk, so she kicked at his chair a bit. “C’mooon, scoot back.”

“I don’t see why I should,” Evan replied, almost petulantly.

“You don’t want me to help?” Bree teased, bordering on mocking. “I probably ‘owe’ you, right?”

“I’m not interested in that as return payment,” Evan said firmly. Bree rolled her eyes.

“Fine then. I’ll just sit right here, on the floor, and we can have a perfectly normal conversation.” She plopped right down, as if sitting on his floor, hidden from the door by his desk, was something absolutely normal to do. Evan looked down at her, then away.

“What did you actually come to talk about?” he asked.

“So, what was your favorite part of yesterday?” Bree interrupted, kicking her legs out to stretch over the wheels of his desk chair, one on either side.

“Miss Bridget,” he sighed, but she continued as if he’d said nothing at all.

“To an objective eye, I think the obvious guess would be when you had me bent over the desk...” She gave it a fond pat, her own enjoyment of Evan’s barely-visible discomfort overwhelming how humiliated she’d normally be to talk about this sort of thing. “Since you seemed soooo enthusiastic about that. But actually, my money’s on when you had me in the armchair, legs pinned down, begging...” Evan was looking anywhere but her. “Because you like me begging, right, Mr. Jackson? You love it when I say please.” She walked light fingers up his thigh. It was rude, by fae standards–they were both supposed to ask before touching. But unlike him, she didn’t have any real consequences for rules she chose to break. “Can you say please, Mr. Jackson?”

“As you well know, the intricacies of favors and the asking and thanking for thereof is a complex and multifaceted–”

“Don’t try to distract me with lectures,” she said, a lazy grin on her face. It normally worked, but this time she knew what he was doing. He wasn’t on top of his game right now, which pleased her immensely. Fae were almost never off-balance, or at the very least never showed it. “You told me it worked different for sex. Not to worry about all the pleading, that I could say please as much as I wanted to. And you wouldn’t have told me that if you didn’t want me to beg.” Her wandering fingers had turned into a hand on his leg, running along his thigh. He hadn’t told her to stop. “You only tell me the things you need me to know, right? But then you regret it, because I can extrapolate.”

“That’s not true at all,” Evan said, voice tense. He still wasn’t looking at her.

“Which part?” Bree asked, shifting her legs back underneath her, hand still on his thigh. “That you regret it? Maybe you can’t regret it, because you like seeing me extrapolate? Sometimes I wonder,” her voice gained a curious sort of lilt as she paused briefly in her torment to voice something she’d been thinking about a lot lately. “What it is you like about me. Maybe you like seeing me think? You certainly come to the library to watch me work enough.” She put her other hand on his other leg, leaning forward to do it. Evan let out a half-formed noise of protest. “Well, here’s what I’ve extrapolated, Mr. Jackson. If I can beg you to fuck me, and it doesn’t count...” She pushed him back away from the desk, enough that she could spin his chair so that he was facing her. There was a very telling bulge, extremely visible even in his stupid baggy cargo shorts. “That means you can beg me, and it doesn’t count.”

She leaned forward, sliding herself between his legs, running her hands along his hips. “Well?” she asked cheerfully. “Do you want to play a game, Mr. ‘Good Neighbor’?”

“I think you’re overlooking something,” Evan said, his eyes finally dropping to hers. She felt a little flush of heat despite the fact she was ostensibly the one who was seducing HIM this time. He could look attractive when he wanted to; she had yet to figure out how he did it. Fae shenanigans, probably.

“Oh?” she said, keeping her voice cocky despite the flush rising in her cheeks again.

He reached down and ran a finger under her chin, from her throat to the very tip, then tilted her head up a little more before running a thumb over her bottom lip. Her slight flush turned crimson. “You begged because you needed to feel me. Needed release, needed relief. I’m not convinced you have the capability to make me beg for the same.”

Arousal mixed with embarrassment mixed with indignation, all of which made Bree turn ever redder. She pulled his thumb into her mouth, briefly sucking on the tip, running her tongue against it. He tasted of strange herbs, bitter and green. Then she reached up to push his hand away from her face. “Challenge accepted,” she said, a little smirk returning to her lips.


RE: Storytime [Read Only] - SolitareLee - 06-16-2017

Lighthearted
Emma - CAF Universe - NSFW, non-canon (proly)

Emma, as it turned out, was not a great person.

Well, she didn’t think anyone who’d actually known her–a slim few–had ever suspected her of such a thing, but still. Here she was, trying something different, something new. Another tactic, maybe one a little gentler. And instead of managing that, she’d wound up fucking the Commander General of the CAF.

Literally, she was pretty sure, it was impossible for her to sleep with the enemy any more literally than this.

But oh, the way he kissed her against the wall, and ah, the way he lifted her up, like she was a featherweight. The way his stubble tickled her neck. The way it made her laugh, a genuine sort of sound she didn’t hear out of herself often.

She’d already investigated him. It was in the course of that this whole mess had started, in fact. She knew he wasn’t corrupt, wasn’t what she was here for. So he didn’t have to be the enemy, right? He wasn’t human. He’d been responsible for the sudden onset diversification of the CAF. He was probably indirectly responsible for her even being hired in the first place–ah, no, she didn’t like to think about that. Didn’t like to think about all the little lies, direct and indirect, the knife she held behind his back and tried not to need to stab him with. Not now, not when he was filling her, hands on her ass bouncing her hips against his. Later, later, she could keep putting off considering ethical ramifications later, when he wasn’t running teeth along the length of her ear.

Veridian men, as it turned out, knew how to handle ears. She liked the little reminders that he wasn’t the white human male her mind wanted to classify him as the first time she saw him. Different, different, he could be different, and maybe she could be different, and she was thinking too much again. He could tell, something about the way her face moved. He stilled, pulling back slightly to look at her better.

“Are you alright?”

She was trying to be alright. It would be easier if he didn’t have to look at her with that nervous frown, gold eyes glinting in the darkness.

“I’m fine,” she gasped out. “I’m good.” Two lies for the price of one: she’d never been fine and she’d never be good.

“Are you sure–”

Frustrated, more with herself than him, she gripped his shoulders and used them as leverage to grind herself against him, at the same time leaning forward to mute his protests with a kiss, hot and heavy and maybe more aggressive than she should. She was supposed to be meeker, here. “It’s fine,” she lied. “Keep going. Please.”

Concern warred with hunger in his eyes. She pressed kisses up his jawline, a huff of breath into his ear when she was rewarded with a thrust. Hunger was winning; good. He shouldn’t be concerned about her. No more than she should be concerned about him. She wrapped her arms around him, tucking her neck over his shoulder so that she didn’t have to keep looking at his eyes while he fucked her. Not until she got her head back on straight.

They were just having a good time.

It was just sex.

It didn’t have to be serious.

It didn’t need to be a thing.


RE: Storytime [Read Only] - SolitareLee - 06-16-2017

Unprofessional
Emma - CAF Universe - NSFW, non-canon (proly)

“This is intensely unprofessional,” hissed Commander General Darcy Weatherfare of the Covenant of Allied Forces. He was speaking to the woman under his desk. She was his employee. She was his employee’s employee. It was ludicrous, really, how far down the chain she was in comparison. That was one reason why she shouldn’t have her mouth wrapped around his dick, one of dozens. None of them seemed to be stopping either of them.

She pulled back briefly, blue-green eyes glinting mischievously up from between his legs. “Are you telling me to stop?”

“You should,” he pointed out.

“You could just give me the order,” she teased, then ran her tongue along the underside of his cock, from base to tip. His hands spasmed, clenching against the armrests of his desk chair.

“I shouldn’t have to,” he pouted, and Emma smirked. He just didn’t want to. He liked to keep the lines between “Commander General Weatherfare and Agent Gagnon” and “Darcy and Emma” nice and thick. It was impossible, particularly when she used her lunch break for this.

“What can I say,” she murmured, giving his rigid length a few strokes, watching the way his jaw tensed. “I’ve got a shit personality for military work.” She lowered her mouth back onto him, and he let out a long breath through his nose, but said nothing in response.

She really shouldn’t be pushing him this much. She suspected latent guilt was the only reason he let her get away with it. Perhaps it was a relief to him when she took control, because that meant he wasn’t abusing his. Of course, she had her own list of things she was abusing, such as his trust, but that was neither here nor there. This was a harmless sort of fun, one that she couldn’t seem to resist. Give Emma a collected, professional, military man, and her instinct was always to find his breaking point. She’d just done it a way they could both enjoy, this time.

“Commander General?” a voice sounded at the same time the door swung open. Emma froze, her mouth halfway down Darcy’s cock. She knew that voice.

“Agent Bell,” Commander General Weatherfare said. He didn’t glance down at Emma as she glanced up at him. Of course not. That would be a disaster. “It’s your lunch hour; what are you doing here?”

“Well, as much as I’d love to be enjoying lunch right now, you did say to report to you the second I had anything on the Sorenson case, sir,” Renton Bell replied, more sass than Emma ever tried to get away with even off the clock.

Hmm.

...It was just Renton.

Emma resumed movement, quietly, bobbing her head up and down over Darcy’s shaft, eyes up to watch his expression for any change. She could see the way his jaw tensed, but little else to betray what she was up to.

“Ah. Yes. Of course. Thank you.”

“So, it turns out the Sorenson name was actually just being used as a cover,” Renton began, and Emma heard the shuffling of papers as he set something down on Darcy’s desk. “And actually–”

“It’s all in the report, yes?” Darcy said, voice a little tense, but only just. “I’ll read it over.”

There was a pause. “Are you, uh... busy, sir?”

“I’m always busy, Agent Bell.”

Emma pushed her lips down to the base of his cock, testing herself for how long she could hold it as her throat spasmed desperately around the head of his cock. The Commander General made an aborted little noise that he covered by clearing his throat. Were his cheeks a little red? It was hard for Emma to tell from where she was. But she could feel him twitching in her mouth.

“...Well, if you’re very busy, sir, I wouldn’t want to bother you,” Renton drawled, and she suspected that he suspected. Suspected something, probably not her, specifically. He was a clever man, but she wasn’t the sort of person to do this. Until now, apparently.

“And yet here you are,” Darcy said, a little hoarse, as Emma pulled off lest she risk him coming right then and there. She ran her tongue lightly along his length, teasing. Seeing how much she could get away with tormenting when he really couldn’t stop her.

“Alright, alright, I can take a hint,” Renton said, voice full of fake hurt. “And after I burned my lunch break for you! Goodness!” With a fake little huff, he walked out of the room. Emma listened to his footsteps, and then to the door closing. The very second it snapped shut, Darcy’s hand darted under the desk, tangled in her hair. Shoved her back down on his cock, thrust into her mouth. She let out a surprised little “merf” sound, but he just gripped harder, thrust faster, and she was too busy enjoying it to be surprised or indignant.

He came down her throat with a quiet, barely audible groan. Her face was flushed as she watched him, his head leaning back against his desk chair, teeth clenched. He held her down onto him until he was finished, then released her hair with a sigh. She pulled off him, face hot, coughing quietly.

“I cannot believe you,” he said finally, sounding more tired than angry, to her relief.

“Get to know me,” she said with a bit of a smile, giving the tip of his no doubt over-sensitive cock a little lick, which made him jump a bit. “I’m full of surprises.”