break my jaw and kiss it better

El Hambre y El Aburrimiento || Open

Her voice was still honeyed as she rapidly tried to remember any of the places her boys had mentioned after staking the town out. It had mostly been to tell her where a good place for her to open her lounge would be. “I suppose I’m incredibly useless,” she answered. “I think it began with an m.” There was a restaurant somewhere that began with an M. Surely. Her long eyelashes batted slightly.

“Gracias for the help, by the way. I have no sense of direction, really.” She ran a hand over her skirt, smoothing it as she studied the woman for any sign of a reaction that Isidora could use to manipulate her into becoming breakfast. Of course, she could simply compel her, but that was never as fun.

#el hambre y el aburrimiento #para: isidoravasallo

“Ya aren’ useless,” Ryder replied, smiling softly. She cleared her throat and began playing with the ends of the ponytail that had fallen over her right shoulder as she tried to recall the layout of the town. “There’s an area called Mellankoli, is tha’ wha’ ya mean?” Her head tilted slightly to the right, like an inquisitive animal. “Other than tha’, I have really no idea. Maybe Mal Ojo, bu’ tha’s no’ a restaurant.”

The criminal knew the layout of the streets, sure. She could get from one corner of town to the other using only back alleys and unused streets, but as soon as someone asked her for the location of a specific place, she was useless. Her smile spread and she chuckled. “I should probably ge’ out more an’ explore, aye?”

jack’s vented spleen | ryder & ephram

“I’m not saying the book din’t have its charms,” Ephram said breezily, “but Chuckie does get a lil bit self-indulgent. The movie was tighter. Cut it all right down to the metaphor without wastin’ time strokin’ himself off.” Growing up where he did, Ephram had been a voracious consumer of books and movies, whatever he could get his hands on, with no distinction between what was considered low or high art. As long as it offered him a glimpse outside of eastern Kentucky, life in the coal mines, he’d take it. Pop culture debates about the quality of book vs movie had mostly passed him by.

He listened closely to her answers, nodding. “Scotland,” he repeated. “There’s plenty of leftover Scottish back where I’m from in the Appalachians.” He grinned suddenly, saying, “My Memaw used to be a champion clogger in her youth. Reckon that might be somethin’ close to what youn’s do nowadays too.” Rolling his shoulders back briskly, Ephram drawled, “Meant it mostly in terms of how old, darlin’, nothin’ to do with how good you swing on your opponents. Nineteen’s a tender age for organized scrappin’.”

Ephram’s eyebrows went up, though, when Ryder started talking about being a human combatant among the mess of supernaturals. “Oh,” he said, “you’re a human too! No, I din’t guess that, I meant just her over yonder.” He lifted his chin to point at the woman he’d interacted briefly with, the shadow boxer. “Anyhow. Ain’t no nevermind, considerin’ we don’t use powers in the fights. You up against say, witchkind would be a fair enough fight.” Ephram laughed, hopping on his toes again. “I had you pegged for a mermaid or somethin’, tell you the truth.”

#jack’s vented spleen #para: ephrampettaline

“Well, aye, bu’ I have t’ admi’ tha’ I kinda like tha’ shite,” she replied, shrugging. “Gives more insight in t’ the author’s stream o’ consciousness.” Masturbatory. That was the word he was looking for. He was right, though. The movie was tighter than the book.

“Are there? Interestin’.” That was news to her. She knew plenty about her homeland, thanks to her grandmother’s intensive lessons. She didn’t actually know anything about Scottish-Americans. Is that where her dad had ended up? No, probably not. He was dead at this point, and she really just needed to accept that. There was no finding that man. “Age isn’t a factor in these things. No one out there gives a shite if you’re nineteen an’ female, or…” She gave him a critical look. “A forty year old man. Life – an’ the people in it – ‘ll fuck ya all the same.”

She let out a short laugh, looking over to where he was pointing. “Ya can tell tha’ from across the room?” He must have been something with a keen sense of smell. Harry had told her that he smelled human on her the moment she entered that party. Maybe he was something along the same lines as her weirdo. “Jus’ because ya aren’t supposed t’ use powers doesn’t mean creatures won’t. People suck like tha’.” Not everyone sucked. She knew that. Some people were good, kind people. She’d just met too many cruel people masquerading as kind people to trust humanity. Or anything, really. She just didn’t trust. Valentine was fully expecting to leave this place with some nasty, magical scars and bruises and shit.

“Mermaid?” she questioned sarcastically. “Is i’ the kind disposition and melodic voice? Or jus’ the hair? ‘Cause le’ me tell ya, Ephram, I’m no Li’le Mermaid.”

El Hambre y El Aburrimiento || Open

Isidora blinked at the accent which came tumbling out of the girl’s lips, but she found that it was more entertaining than agitating. She had come up to her mostly because she was sweet faced and Isidora liked to frighten such people. Call her sadistic, but she would argue that she was instilling a healthy fear in them to wipe the sweetness of their faces. She was showing them the real world.

Studying the red of the girl’s hair, Isidora hummed, her own accent so much less guttural than what she thought she could identify as Scottish. She wasn’t entirely sure, though, as many of the accent from the Isles sound similar to her.

Adjusting the ring she wore which kept her from burning to death–something she had acquired as soon as she’d learned it existed, she gave a soft smile. “Well, there is supposed to be a restaurant by the water, but I am not even sure which direction the water is.”

#el hambre y el aburrimiento #para: isidoravasallo

The voice in the back of her head – probably her conscious – was telling her to be careful of the stranger. She was used to being around predators, but these creatures were predators of a far different variety. These fuckers could torture her and plan a party at the same time. Not anything she should be any sort of relaxed about, but at this point in her miserable life, she was pretty done with worrying.

“Erm...” Ryder had to take a moment to situate herself in the city. She pulled her hair out of the ponytail and redid it, then pointed to their left. “I think i’s tha’ way. Bu’ I could be wrong. Wh’s the name o’ the restaurant? I could look it up for ya, if ya’d like.” She pulled her phone out of her pocket and unlocked it, ready to type in the name of the place for this stranger.

maraleblanc-blog

Girls Will Be Girls|| Ryder & Mara

Having friends was not a concept Mara had ever fully grasped. Growing up in a drug addict infested apartment left the girl to fend for herself. This forced to acquire a random assortment of survival skills. One of which being to learn to make herself invisible. Not in the magical sense but to blend into a crowd, to hide in plane sight, to melt into her surroundings. Mara learned the hard way that it was better to go unseen. People couldn’t bruise you if they couldn’t see you. This skill had been useful when she was a child. It kept her out of the clutches of the people her mother was supposed to protect her from, but instead left Mara to be her own savior. That skill helped her survive in Lafayette, but not with her grandmother’s coven. There, a spotlight seemed to follow her around everywhere. The traitor’s daughter. That’s all she ever was to them. No amount of hiding could protect Mara from that.

When she moved to Sumner that skill became useful once more. The witch kept her head down, completed her studies with top marks and began teaching. She’d stayed relatively invisible until Ryder Black slid into the booth next to her at the diner and chatted the girl up. To say Mara didn’t know how to react was an understatement. Her normal blunt answers did little to deter the girl and somehow they managed to strike up an odd friendship. They weren’t joined at the hip like other girls. They didn’t trade secrets. (Mara didn’t even bother disclosing she was a witch to Black.) Instead they met up every once in a while, traded harmless insults and ate.

Tonight the girls planned to meet on Main Street and see where the night took them. Impatiently, Mara waited under one of the street lights the lined the sidewalk. When she spotted Ryder she called out, “Late again, Black. I swear I spend most of my time waiting for you.” Despite her rudeness, Mara smiled slightly at the girl. “Honestly, you know I hate lateness.”

#para: maraleblanc #girls will be girls

Long day did not even begin to explain it. A phone call she had received from a client in the middle of the night had taken up far too much of her time, and her body had decided that shutting down was a good way to deal with that stress. Cut to two hours ago, Ryder was at the hospital for the third time this week, getting poked and prodded by a stranger. Her absolute favourite thing to do, really. She would’ve been on time for her standing date with Mara, but apparently checking out of a hospital took longer the third time around.

She liked Mara. A lot, actually. The first girl she had enjoyed the company of since Lilith, really. With how wonderfully that relationship had turned out, Ryder was really hoping it wasn’t the beginning of a trend for her. Beautiful girls with twisted senses of humor who ended up breaking her heart... That shit sucked.

“Bite me, LeBlanc,” Ryder retorted, her friend’s smile mirrored on her own lips. Bad choice of words, considering the town, but whatever. It fit in with her twisted fucking sense of humor. “I’m...” She lifted her left wrist and check her watch. “Three minutes late. I’s no’ like ya died o’ starvation. I know you’re obsessed with me, bu’ there’s no need t’ get your panties in a knot.”

El Hambre y El Aburrimiento || Open

Isidora hadn’t managed to shake the pressing ennui which had come to overwhelm her since she had had her things moved into her new home– if it could even be called that. Peligra, her beautiful white Siberian tiger, had had the same listless disdain as her mama, prowling about the house with the same irritable short temper as Isidora. She had bitten one of Isidora’s boys, actually, nearly taking his hand off. Fortunately, he’d heal, and if he didn’t, Isidora would have either paid him off or staked him to keep him from whining.

Now, after hours of this same agitated discontent, the vampiress had elected to prowl, getting into the sleek black car she’d purchased in spite of the protests from her boys insisting that she was supposed to lie low. Isidora didn’t believe in sequestering herself in a tiny ciudad de sentido with nothing going on and living the sparse and uncomfortable life of a hidden-away fugitive. She would have her nice things; she had worked hard enough to earn them, after all.

Now, having stepped out of her car and smoothed her black dress fitted tight to a form thick with curves and the evidence of her preference for luxury, Isidora began to wander. It wasn’t too late in the evening, and she wanted to explore. However… She paused, black stilettos ceasing their clicking on the pavement. She’d realised as she’d walked that it had been a while since she’d fed. Oh dear. What was worse, there was likely no one worthy of being her meal around. She supposed, what with being so new, she couldn’t afford to be as selective as she usually was. Likely, she couldn’t even kill whatever she decided to eat. Pathetic. What a pitiful existence for a vampire to live.

Still, she’d have to make do. Scanning the area with eyes well-honed, she paused on a person who could be of vague interest before taking a breath she wanted more out of habit than any need of it–corpses didn’t need to breathe, even if they walked around. Slipping into a far less predatory persona–for now–she wandered up to the person. “Lo siento,” she said in a soft voice, her accent rolling over her words as she spoke, “I seem to have gotten a bit lost. I’m new in town, you see. Por favor, could you help me figure out how I got turned around?”

#para: isidoravasallo #el hambre y el aburrimiento

That little room Ryder was living in was slowly driving her mad. She never wanted to leave anymore and socialize, but staying within those dirty walls would drive her to murder soon enough. Maybe. Probably. What-fucking-ever. That morning, fed up with her location, Ryder threw on sweats and a pair of running shoes and headed out the door to some yet unknown location.

The redhead had been out for nearly half an hour when she decided to stop in the center of town for a fiver before heading back “home”. It was then that she was approached. Ryder frowned and pulled her headphones out as she was approached by a pretty woman. She hated being bothered by strangers on the street. She should be the one bothering, not the other way around. As she looked at the woman, disdain shifted to a mix of interest, which shifted to attraction, which shifted to entertainment. Poor lost, pretty woman. The Scot was so the wrong person to ask help from. She wasn’t evil, by any means, but she sure loved fucking people over as often as she could.

“I’m no’ all tha’ well versed in this town ye’,” she replied, still slightly out of breath. “Bu’ I can try. Wha’ are ya tryin’ t’ find?”

markvrth-deactivated20250203

#halcyon boy #actual ryder black #vanity

robbiefidler-deactivated2016012

Midnight Swim | Open

Robbie naturally enjoyed the beach, but he enjoyed it even more at night, when it was normally quiet and empty and the moon reflected off the choppy water. The temperature turning colder due to the season change didn’t bother him much, not when he had his skin especially. And he had to go for a swim, because his human skin was starting to itch and strain, and become uncomfortable all over. And that was the clue.

He built a small sand castle close to the water’s reach. It wasn’t spectacular, Robbie didn’t fancy himself much of an architect, but wet sand was easily manipulated in his hands and he dusted the sand off on his swim trunks as he stood to study his new creation. “A good marker.” He chuckled to himself, pulling over the small back pack he had brought with him and dragging out the seal skin. He stepped into the water so that it was up to his ankles, his backpack stashed away behind a small gathering of rocks at the corner of a wade pool. But suddenly, Robbie’s eyes made contact with someone else’s and he let out a surprised holler, bunching his seal skin in front of himself but also crunching it in his hands wanting to hide the other part of himself, “What the hell are you doin?!”

#midnight swim #para: robbiefidler #[I know you posted this a week ago but for some reason this is what she wanted to reply to]

At the sound of a shout, Ryder spun in the water where she had been treading and looked back to the shore. There stood a man, clearly aggravated, who apparently had the same idea as she. The night was clear, which often left Ryder anxious. Needing something to do. The stars never held much power for the girl, but on nights like tonight, where they were all out for the world to see, she felt anxious. This anxiety was best translated into calming experiences. Like skinny dipping alone.

She had been looking at the moon and contemplating her miserable existence, but apparently that pissed this stranger off. Half her face still tucked below the surface of the water, Ryder glanced over to her pile of clothes sitting on the shore and smirked. She pulled up slightly and said, “I was swimmin’, bu’ I seem t’ have stumbled upon some intimate moment. I can go if ya need me t’.”

the-mcintosh:

The accent blew him out of the water but he still tried his hardest to understand what the girl was saying. “I gueth.. I gueth tho,” he said in a disheartened tone. There was a slight slump to his shoulders as he looked down at the cape he had been fidgeting with. With a soft sigh he reached up to take the fangs out. “Um.. Thanks.. Thanks though for the honest opinion.”

“No need t’ pout, handsome,” she replied, smile spreading further. “Ya make a cute vampire, if it’s any help. I’m jus’ no’ a fan o’ the whole fad.” She shuffled some things around on the rack in front of her and pulled out a lab coat. “Ya’d make a cute doctor, though.” She giggled as an idea came to mind. “Ya could go ‘round an’ offer people free exams, if ya wanted an excuse t’ get handsy.”

#chat: themcintosh #[yay! thank you!]#[parker is a cutie pie btw]

jack’s vented spleen | ryder & ephram

“Ain’t that basically Chuck Palahniuk novels anyhow? The movie was better. I went to see it when it was openin’ and they gave us all them pink bars of soap that said Fight Club on em.” Ephram snorted with amusement at the memory and scratched his chin, tilting his nose up as he regarded the redhaired girl. “Where’s that accent from?” he asked. “You was in a teenage fight club over there? How old are you anyhow? Din’t know there was a peewee league for this shit.”

He prodded her arm with his taped-up hand and grinned, taking any sting out of the comment. “Name’s Ephram, by the way. I been here before, yeah, got recruited for the fights by the fella was organizin’ all this stuff before he had to skip town. Of course, when I got in–” Ephram swung his arms back and forth loosening up his joints, “–rules were supernaturals only, but I hear they been lettin’ humans in too.” One of the other fighters looked up from where she was shadow boxing, and Ephram gave her a quick upwards jerk of his chin before she subsided again, after just glaring at him. “Mighty touchy about it, the humans are.”

#jack’s vented spleen #para: ephrampettaline

“You’re full o’ shite,” she retorted. “Tha’ movie was no’ better than the book. Today is the sort of day where the sun only comes up to humiliate you. Ya cannae bea’ tha’.” The Scot would defend books until her dying day. They had been her escape for so many years, and the idea that a two hour movie would be a better experience than a two hundred page book was insane to her.

"Ya ask a lo’ o’ questions,” she replied. Ryder took a moment to size up the man, then lifted a hand to count off her answers. “Scotland, the club was in DC, nineteen, an’ it definitely wasn’t peewee shite. Those fuckers could throw a mean punch when they wanted t’.” She dropped her hand and crossed her arms over her chest, an almost challenging look in the quirk of her eyebrow and lift of her chin. She decided that she didn’t mind his teasing. Mainly because it likely meant that he underestimated her, which was kind of what she was banking on. People who underestimated opponents in fights often lost quickly. He wasn’t her opponent, but it did bode well for her future.

“Am I tha’ obvious?” she questioned with a mock incredulousness in her voice. “I’m Ryder. Anyway, throwin’ a human in the mix makes everythin’ all the more interestin’ for the spectator. How many punches does it take t’ ge’ the ginger human lass t’ hit the ground? Will she even leave here alive? Makes everyone pay more attention. An’ I work well with an audience.” She winked and began stretching her limber form.

surgein-sergio-deactivated20160

Halloween was coming fast and he wanted to be prepared for it. So he went to the nearest costume shop, which was actually a thrift store, and peruse the aisles for possible things to wear. His empty arms were soon piled with clothes and before long he scurried off to the changing room. After putting on the first costume he looked in the mirror and poked his head out to see a person nearby. “Um, excuve- excuve me?” Parker said nervously yet in a polite manner. “My.. My name’z Parker an’, um, how’z vis look?” As he spoke he opened the door fully to expose what he was wearing.