Tbh I mainly made this blog because *someone's* BFU AU inspired me way too much and I wanted to keep my writing at a different place (so that it's easier to find). Enjoy your stay! (PFP and Header by @q-unsolved)
Hello, after not sharing a single thing for years, you get a little (~100 words) extract from a fic I’m currently working on. I’m finally back in the Ghoulboys fandom, and hopefully I can maybe finish all those fics I’ve started. (Also I’m thinking about uploading my stories to ao3 as well, but I’m a little too nervous to do so. Yet. Maybe someday…)
Anyways, hopefully sharing this will give me that little extra motivation to finish this fic asap, but no promises. (Btw, it is part of the Cryptid / Mothman!Ryan & Demon!Shane AU.)
Just wanted to let you know that I presented the first ~2.500 words of this fic in a writing seminar I'm in, and the feedback was overwhelmingly positive! Now, I did change some things, most notably the language since I'm not living in a country where English is the native language, but I'm hoping that the fic will be just as good when I can finally upload it. And oh boy, it's gonna be a long one - like I said before, this thing is already over 2.500 words long, and it's all just build-up. So proud to see that writing longer things just comes naturally to me now, I remember a time when I barely reached 1,000 words.
Unfortunately, I'm currently in the critical phase of uni where deadline comes after deadline, so this fic will still take a while, but I'm excited to eventually write the rest of it and share it. :]
Hello, after not sharing a single thing for years, you get a little (~100 words) extract from a fic I’m currently working on. I’m finally back in the Ghoulboys fandom, and hopefully I can maybe finish all those fics I’ve started. (Also I’m thinking about uploading my stories to ao3 as well, but I’m a little too nervous to do so. Yet. Maybe someday...)
Anyways, hopefully sharing this will give me that little extra motivation to finish this fic asap, but no promises. (Btw, it is part of the Cryptid / Mothman!Ryan & Demon!Shane AU.)
Have a good timezone!
Shane peeked around the corner and spotted Obi, standing in the bedroom door, staring back at Ryan, visibly uneasy. He looked between the two a few times and then stepped into the living room, both heads turning to him at the same time.
“Well, I guess I never told you that I have a cat. This is Obi.” Shane made his way through the living room, picked up Obi and turned around to Ryan. “He’s a really sweet boy.”
Ryan seemed to snap out of his rigidity, and carefully walked towards Shane, his wings folding together and his hand slightly raised.
Since I’m leaving for a few days (and I’m also very inpatient), here is the story! Tada.
(I hope the basics of this AU are somewhat understandable throughout the story, because I have planned more stories for this AU and giving you some extra information may give away what’s about to come.)
Have fun reading!
- - - - - -
It’s rare to see an angel’s wings.
This has been common knowledge since people knew about the existence of angels. They would always hide their wings and their halos. Their halos were simply too bright to look at; people would go blind. And their wings were too fragile to be even seen by a person. The wings of an angel tell you a lot about them. The more black feathers they have, the more they have sinned. The more feathers they have lost, the more they got hurt. A bigger and more noble pair of wings meant that the angel was higher ranked. This of course did not mean that an eminent angel’s wings could not have black, broken or lost feathers. Some with the brightest, shiniest, almost golden feathers have the deep-darkest black feathers. The more elevated the angel is, the more frivolous they are as a demon. A good angel makes a bad demon.
While people know that angels exist and walk among them, it is difficult to spot one. Unless they decide that someone is worthy, they will hide their identity.
It seemed like Shane was finally selected to see an angel’s wings, although he wished the circumstances were different. He really wished that Ryan wasn’t risking his life right now, and therefore had to get rid of his cover. And he really wished he wouldn’t have to do this next.
They have been discussing new haunted locations for BuzzFeed Unsolved. It turned out that constantly finding new locations that were somewhat easy to reach was getting harder the longer you’ve done this and the more sets you have already visited. So, they needed more money to be able to travel further away and visit more places. The problem was, in a capitalist state, big companies don’t like giving away their money.
Shane leaned back in his chair, yawning, listening to what the others had to say. He never understood the concept of capitalism. Why would someone assign a certain amount of value to something? Or just the whole concept of money. Who the fuck looked at a piece of paper and thought to themselves “I shall now exchange this for food! And everyone will follow my example!” But, then again, it wasn’t his problem. All he had to do was to adapt to those rules and act like they were normal, and he would be fine. Dare he said, he was quite good at acting human. Sure, sometimes he did not quite fit in, but he tried his best, and apparently, it worked. Most people just thought he was weird, which was good enough for him. No one really questioned him and his actions in a serious matter and that’s all he wanted.
However, there was one thing bothering him. It was the people accusing him of being a demon. When he first read one of these theories, he thought he was in serious trouble and that people really did find out that, well, he was a demon. He ignored those comments at first, but at the same time, Ryan started acting differently around him as well. It wasn’t anything grave, it was just like he was more observant and careful around him. Shane was pretty sure he just imagined this because he was more observant and careful and projected this onto his friend as well, but it didn’t really matter now. He eventually found out that those people were just joking and making fun of his strange behaviour, and everything was fine again. After all, anyone finding out that he was not as human as he pretended to be, could lead up to some serious problems. But Shane didn’t like to think about this. Or anything regarding his spiritual friends and foes in general. He liked being left alone in the human world. Things were easier here, and more fun. A lot of demons ridiculed him for this point of view, but he didn’t listen to them. Different beings like different things, and Shane definitely enjoyed a calm and peaceful life on Earth.
… Okay, he couldn’t deny that he also missed being surrounded by demons. Not enough to actually go back to hell, but enough to have spent some nights thinking about the what if’s. Luckily his good old friend Ryan Bergara offered him a chance to connect those things without knowing about it. They could be paranormal investigators. Perfect. And the people loved it! Really, he could not have wished for more.
It was dangerous at times, yes. Sometimes he had annoyed a ghoul too much in the past and now he had to be careful to not give this spirit the opportunity to show the world who, or what he really was. Sometimes a demon simply could not stand him. And some just thought it would be funny to mess with him. Thinking about it again, most investigations went like this. Actually, he couldn’t recall a single session which did not go like this. He really didn’t have any friends in hell, did he? Ah well, it did not matter anyway.
Back to the topic. Finding new locations. Yeah. Sometimes it was annoying that he couldn’t use his abilities which would make things so much easier. In the blink of an eye this room could be filled with money. Or they could be right in front of a different building before they noticed that they have left the room. And with a bit more effort, Shane could bring the ghouls to them. But all of this would blow his cover, so they were stuck with the true devil’s work: bureaucracy. Unfortunately he wasn’t even in a position where he could let others do the work for him. And what was almost worse was the fact he had to be careful when he did use his powers to make things a bit… simpler. At least Ryan was there, too, and he wouldn’t have to do all the talking himself.
After a lot of arguing, convincing and evaluating, they were granted more money for trips. And with this bonus, they could start planning the next season.
That was a few weeks ago. Today, they were filming the season finale. Despite this, it was not like today was an unusual day. It was, in fact, quite usual. A very ordinary day. Apart from the demon hunting part. But that was nothing special as well. Hell, if only the people would know how many demons they have already walked past during their lives…
Shane had a tough time focusing. He honestly was somewhat uneasy. He… wasn’t on good terms with this demon. Messed a bit too much with the wrong guy. He hasn’t seen them in… a few hundred years, so maybe they have forgotten about him already. But Shane was afraid that this would not be the case, and that he maybe had to defend himself, which would not exactly help keep his cover up. Maybe, just maybe, everything would turn out okay nevertheless.
Surprisingly, for a demon they were well-behaved. They definitely had fun with Ryan and Shane, being one of the most active demons they’ve ever encountered, but they never went too far. Shane should be relieved. After all, they didn’t blow his cover. But this doubtless meant that they would let Shane suffer once they were alone. This was not exactly something worth looking forward to.
Which is why Shane decided to use this break for something useful and tried to find the demon. Maybe apologizing or making up for what happened in the past or something similar would make the solo investigations easier, and he would not have to delete half the footage before anyone could see it. Problem was, his time was limited. After all, this was just a short break to replace the batteries or check how much storage was left. This wasn’t enough time to hold a long conversation, talking about how everyone does stupid things when they’re younger and that others should be forgiving and not blow their covers. Shane really hoped no one would come looking for him, and if they did, not find him at an unfittingly time. He was confident that he could deal with this demon, but it would be very difficult to find a good explanation.
Much to his surprise, this plan did not seem to be one-sided. As soon as Shane left the room, he could feel a strong gust of wind which was clearly leading him somewhere. He had a bad feeling, but he didn’t have the time to reconsider his decisions. He did the one thing no one should ever do, and trusted the demon to lead him somewhere isolated, as it probably was not in their interest to get caught either.
As he was standing in front of a room, the wind suddenly stopped and instead, he could hear a voice whispering inaudible things to him. Nope, he really did not want to do this. But there really was no going back. So he entered the room.
“Hey there, old, uh… friend. Long time no see.”
He looked around the room, only being able to assume where his opponent was. A really annoying thing about demons was that they were able to merge with the shadows. In a dark room, just like the one Shane was standing it, this could mean they could be anywhere.
/What are you doing here, traitor?/
The voice seemed to be directly in his head, which made finding the source even more difficult. But it was an age-old trick and wouldn’t intimidate Shane one bit. It actually made him braver, knowing that the other demon was a coward who played with deceitful tricks.
“You’re here as well. Now show yourself. Or do ya want me to say mean things about you again?”
Shane made sure to put a lot of sarcasm in that last sentence, but the sudden pressure on his throat showed him that this may have been too much. Gee, demons sure didn’t know how to take a joke.
“Okay, okay, you can let me go again”, Shane quickly added, his voice a mere whisper. Talking was certainly not easy when you suddenly could not breathe anymore, but they had obviously understood Shane, as the pressure disappeared as fast as it had appeared.
“There was no need for that, really… Anyway, my buddy… can I ask you for a favour?”
He could basically hear the laughter echoing from the walls around him. Not to be a pessimist, but this would not end well.
/You? Why should I do anything for you?/
“Because we’re both demons, duh. And it’s about this whole” - Shane gestured around wildly - “ghost investigations thing. In short, please pretend you don’t know me.”
/That’s not hard, everytime someone mentions you I wish I didn’t know you./
“Yeah, haha, very funny, but this is serious. We’re filming this, and I can’t let anyone know that… I’m… a demon. A demon who knows you. But that’s not even really the problem, it’s more that it’s… my thing to mock all demons and ghosts and what-nots we encounter. The people think it’s entertaining. So if maybe you could keep your temper and not slam me against a wall, that’d be great.”
Then he saw how deep in the shadows, something started to shape. Firstly there were vague contours, it looked like the darkness was playing tricks on you, but then everything got more refined until you could make out the details. They definitely looked diferent than from what Shane remembered, which was not a good sign. And the way they moved towards him made it even worse. Oh, Madej, you’ve done it, you’re in trouble now.
Before he could do anything, he got slammed against one of the walls. “Ouch, ah, fuck dude… Okay, suggestion: We don’t fight, you leave me and my friends alone and we’ll act like this never happened! Sounds good to me.”
The demon scoffed at him, grabbed the collar of his shirt and lifted him up. “And let this opportunity go to waste? You will pay for betraying us. What did you just call those pesky humans? ‘Your friends’? You seem to be forgetting whose side you’re on, traitor. You’re a hopeless case. Maybe ending you would be the right thing to do…”
Shane grabbed the demon’s hands. “Wouldn’t that be paradoxic? You keep calling me traitor, even though I never betrayed any of you guys, and now you’re the one wanting to do the right thing by killing me, which, by hell’s rules, is considered a crime.”
For a second his opponent stared at him slightly confused, then angrily, and just as Shane wanted to escape, he flew through the room, again. Did this dude have any other tricks, preferably less painful ones?! He needed this body, after all. Although Shane had to admit that he deserved it for provoking them. Force of habit.
“You’re going to hell with me.”
“Stop right there!”
Shane was sure that neither of them turned around because of what has been said - hell, even he did it out of a reflex, and not because he recognized this voice - but rather because a third person, who was standing in the doorway, said it, slightly out of breath. Shit.
“Ryan?”
“Shane, you need to leave, now.”
As if this situation wasn’t bad enough already. Why the fuck did Ryan have to be here now too? This only made things more complicated, fucking hell!
“Aw, look who’s here to save you, it’s your little human friend.”
The demon stepped towards Ryan, and Shane immediately stood up and grabbed the demon by their arms to hold them back. “Ryan, you should be the one to leave…”
Instead of looking intimidated or something else fitting his character, he was smirking. Wait a second. Ryan was clearly standing in front of a demon, - okay, technically two demons, but who cared about the details - and he was not freaking out? Who was this person and what did they do to the original Boogara?
“Trust me, I’ve got this.”
And next he pulled out a little water gun which Shane knew too well. It was his little holy water protection gun. Oh yeah, that could be very painful and therefore very effective. But even if he was weaponed, this wasn’t the right place for Ryan to be. It was too dangerous.
“Yeah, no, give it to me, I’ll do the rest”, Shane said while quickly walking past his demonic foe in order to grab the gun, but he ended up being the one held back this time.
“Don’t you dare think I’ll let you off the hook this easily”, they said, and then almost whispered to him: “If this is what I think it is, you will be the one in trouble.”
At least Ryan seemed confidient. Understandably, after all he was not the one who had to be afraid of holy water. “Nothing can hurt you, you need to trust me.”
“I would, Ryan, but, uh… I hate being wet. And I’m sorry to say this, but I don’t trust you with this gun. It’s too risqué if you’d ask me.”
Then the demon spoke again. “Oh, you should trust your friend. After all, nothing can happen to you.”
Shane could not see their grin, but he could clearly hear it. What an asshole. And what a god-awful, shitty situation in general. Ryan was pointing a watergun filled with holy water at him, not knowing that he was a demon and even one drop of this stuff would be incomprehensibly painful. And right behind him was a demon who apparently wanted to see him dead. Great. Fucking fantastic. How on fucking earth should he escape this?!
And then he had an idea.
Oh, please, god, if you haven’t already completely given up… let this work.
Shane mouthed a ‘I will count to three. One, two, three’, and to hopefully make his message more clear, he mimicked his words via facial expressions as well.
Ryan seemed to have understood at least something, because he slightly nodded while re-positioning himself.
Alright. Cool.
This could go wrong. Terribly wrong. So fucking wrong, holy shit…
But he trusted Ryan. He trusted him to not take any risks with this shot. After all, he did not have an endless supply of holy water and therefore had to be careful not to spend too much.
One last, deep breath, and here goes nothing.
Shane counted silently to three, blinking along, and then ducked.
The next thing he heard was the screams of the demon, who had let go of him and must have stumbled back. This was his opportunity.
Shane turned around to fight this demon, but Ryan was faster than him. He pushed him aside, quickly telling him to run, and jumped on the demon.
But Shane stared at him instead, paralyzed, because he just noticed something he’s never seen before.
Ryan completely focused on defeating that demon. So much, that his cover gave up and slowly, a pair of white wings and a halo appeared.
What the fuck.
So… Ryan was an angel. Okay. Cool. Fine. Whatever.
…
Holy fucking shit.
This was bullshit. What the fucking hell? How the fuck did he not notice that? How the fuck was that possible? That couldn’t- How the fuck- What the fuck- Fucking hell.
“You’re an angel”, Shane whispered subconciously, more to himself to make this situation a bit less bizarre. Which, of course, did not fucking work.
Ryan turned his head around. “What? Me? An ang-? I’m not-” Then Ryan realized that his… angelic features were visible.
“Okay, I-I’ll explain this afterwards.” And with that, Ryan focused on the demon again. Shane gulped, then waited a few seconds.
“You know what, Ryan? Leave him to me. I’m the one who’s in trouble with him.”
“No way, you can’t even defend yourself!”
“Trust me.”
Shane put his hand on Ryan’s shoulder, who glanced at him shortly, and then longer.
“Black wings…”, Ryan whispered. Shane nodded.
“Leave, I will take over from now on.”
Ryan kept looking at him completely flabbergasted, but did leave the room. And Shane quickly took his demonic foe to hell and dropped them off there.
When he left the room, he wasn’t surprised to see Ryan waiting for him. It did caught him a bit off guard to see him still without his cover, though.
“We have a lot to talk about, don’t we.”
“You’re a demon! Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Well, why didn’t you tell me that you’re an angel?”
“Okay, well played. I, I just can’t believe this. How could we be friends for years without knowing this?”
Shane shrugged. “Guess we’re good at keeping secrets.”
While saying this, he took a closer look at Ryan’s wings. They did look fairly average, but the white of his wings was a quite beautiful shade. His feathers did not look damaged, but there were a few black feathers in between the rest.
Ryan put on a slight smile. “Yeah, you’re probably right… Well, we should go back to the others, I bet they’re really angry at us.”
Shane laughed. “Oh yeah, definitely.”
And as they were walking back, Shane saw how another feather turned black before Ryan could hide his wings again.
They were in trouble. But not only with their team.
In case any of you are wondering (thank you so much for following me by the way, it really means the world to me!!!), I currently have 9 (or maybe 10) WiPs (7 cryptid universe storys, 1 merpeople universe and 1… somewhat supernatural universe story. And 1 beginning I wrote a while ago but ended up not using, so I’m just keeping it to eventually use it.)
I can’t tell when I’m going to write or upload them (especially since life is really stressful atm), but, y’know… I guess you have something to look forward to. Eventually.
Of course, I will try to finish them asap, but I won’t guarantee for anything.
Anyway, thanks again for following this blog!! I really hope I’ll soon have more content for you.
Bad news: I need to find someone to proofread it because I feel like they are too out of character, but I can’t exactly tell why. Which means that you may have to wait a few more days until it gets published. Sorry.
In case any of you are wondering (thank you so much for following me by the way, it really means the world to me!!!), I currently have 9 (or maybe 10) WiPs (7 cryptid universe storys, 1 merpeople universe and 1… somewhat supernatural universe story. And 1 beginning I wrote a while ago but ended up not using, so I’m just keeping it to eventually use it.)
I can’t tell when I’m going to write or upload them (especially since life is really stressful atm), but, y’know… I guess you have something to look forward to. Eventually.
Of course, I will try to finish them asap, but I won’t guarantee for anything.
Anyway, thanks again for following this blog!! I really hope I’ll soon have more content for you.
In case any of you are wondering (thank you so much for following me by the way, it really means the world to me!!!), I currently have 9 (or maybe 10) WiPs (7 cryptid universe storys, 1 merpeople universe and 1... somewhat supernatural universe story. And 1 beginning I wrote a while ago but ended up not using, so I’m just keeping it to eventually use it.)
I can’t tell when I’m going to write or upload them (especially since life is really stressful atm), but, y’know... I guess you have something to look forward to. Eventually.
Of course, I will try to finish them asap, but I won’t guarantee for anything.
Anyway, thanks again for following this blog!! I really hope I’ll soon have more content for you.
IT’S (still) MERMAY AND I SUDDENLY GOT INSPIRED ANd now we’re here.
As always, this writing is inspired by @q-unsolved because Q pretty much inspires everything I write regarding the ghoulboys and just look at their art, okay. I would sell my soul for everything they draw. (I hope I do your art justice Q <3)
(This time I got inspired by this artwork because oh my it’s just so good, I had to turn it into a story.)
Ryan and Shane have been excited for this shoot since they knew about it. For the first time in Unsolved history, they would go out to sea for their ghoul hunting adventures. However, not only was this the first time they would travel to the open water, but apparently also… vlog this whole thing. Shane tried not to laugh, but based on Ryan’s angered face, he failed. “I’m sorry, but why are you doing this again?”
“Well, the people said they would be interested in the making of an Unsolved episode, and it’s almost been 5 years since the first episode aired, so I thought it would be a good time to do so.”
Shane nodded. Then, after a short time: “This is stupid.”
Ryan punched him in the arm, but the slight smile on his face gave away that he agreed with Shane.
They travelled there a few days earlier, mainly because they wanted to shoot at another location too. Unfortunately, something went wrong which meant they couldn’t go ghost hunting anymore. Which was a bummer, because they had to find a spare location now, which meant that the next season was going to come out later that they planned, or worst case would have fewer episodes, but that most likely won’t be the case. Since they could not really search for a new hunted place just now, they cleared things out and decided to use this newly earned free time to look around the city. It felt like a short vacation, or having an extra day off, except they still had to do some work. Nevertheless, they had fun, and putting the lost location aside, it was a nice trip.
On the evening before they would start filming, Ryan and Shane decided to take a first look on what’s about to come. “Just warning those ghosts so they won’t mess with us”, Ryan joked when they stood on the piers, looking at the supposedly hunted ship. Of course, Shane being himself, had to take this a bit further. He kneed down at one end (“Who knows, maybe it’s the water that’s haunted by funny sea demons”), stuck his hand in the water and waved it wildly around while making weird requests or insulting whatever was supposed to be there. Nothing happened, as usual, until Shane was about to put his hand back. With no warning whatsoever, he fell over and was gone. “Shane!”, Ryan gasped while kneeing at the exact same spot his friend has been a second ago, searching for him, without success. The moment Ryan turned around to get help, it was like a force pulled him back, dragging him right into the water, leaving him no chance to react. And this wasn’t even the most shocking thing, as Ryan found out when he turned around and saw Shane.
He stared at Ryan with a startled expression, and it took Ryan everything to not start screaming.
Shane was… What?! What the fuck?! No, no, no, no, no. This couldn’t be true. That wasn’t happening. That… no! Whatever this was, it freaked him out.
Shane? A… Merman? Hell fucking no.
Since he ran out of air, and this mysterious force seemed to let go of him again, Ryan quickly swam to the surface and took a deep breath. He didn’t have much time to breathe in more, because this time it was Shane who pulled him underwater, hold him tight, his hand pressed on his mouth while his thumb and index finger held his nose, and he swam away. Ryan tried to fight, but couldn’t really do anything, and his mind was racing. This… was real. This was real. This was real and happening. This was- if he could, he would have chuckled out of disbelief, because there was no way to describe what was going on inside of him.
Eventually, Ryan could feel that he was running out of air and started wiggling to make Shane aware of this. At least Shane seemed to understand him, because he escorted him to the surface and then let go of him.
While he was catching his breath, Ryan looked around and saw… not much. The open water, yes, and the shore and that was it. Before he could get pulled underwater one more time, Ryan swam towards the bank and sat on the stony ground once he was completely out of the water. Then he stared at the point where he assumed Shane to be and waited until he got out of the water. It didn’t take long until Shane appeared at the shore and pulled himself out of the water. Ryan would have helped him, but he was so paralyzed by Shane’s appearance that he couldn’t move, even if he wanted. He followed all of Shane’s moves, until he leaned at a conveniently placed rock and tried to regain energy. Since Shane sat right in front of Ryan, with his side facing him, he had a perfect look at him, although the slowly setting sun made it a bit more difficult to make out all the details. But it was enough to see the fins, the gills, the scales and the tail. Evidently, Shane was a mermaid. Man. Merman. Mer…-
Now Ryan started laughing while shaking his head, which got Shane’s attention, who just looked at him with an abashed expression.
“You’re… you’re a merman!”
Ryan could read in his face that Shane wanted to say something, but the words didn’t want to come out.
“I-I-I can’t believe… you’re… this… What the fuck, Shane?! How can you keep such a big secret? Did you ever plan on telling me that apparently fucking Merpeople exist? And that you’re one of them? You can’t just…”, Ryan took a brief pause, trying to think about what to say, but there was too much going on inside his head to find a clear thought. “What the hell?”
“Hey, Ryan, calm down, ok-“
“How do you expect me to calm down when you’re-“
“A merman, yes, that’s right. Which is also the reason I didn’t tell anyone. You don’t just run around telling people this. And if it wasn’t for… whatever pulled me down, you would have never found out.”
Ryan didn’t respond to this, but instead inspected Shane’s body again. “You’re… this is real.”
Shane nodded. Then, after Ryan wouldn’t stop looking over him: “You can stop staring now, I won’t turn human again until I’m completely dry.”
“How... How does that work?”
Shane shrugged. “I dunno. It's not like there is actually someone who can explain this.”
“But... Why? I've seen you swim before, and you didn’t turn into a Merman back then! Did this just happen… a-a few months ago or what?”
“No, no, it's.. Complicated, I guess. Like I said. I don't know how this works. I just know that I turn into... this, when I'm in freshwater. The higher the concentration or whatever you want to call it, the faster I transform. It has been like this since I could remember.”
“And... how exactly does it work?”
“What do you mean?”
“When you're in freshwater, do you feel that you're about to change? Or does it suddenly happen? And what exactly happens?”
Shane did not really want to talk about all of this, mainly because he couldn’t answer most questions, but it was a good thing to do while waiting until he turned back normal again.
“I.. Kinda? It feels weird. My whole body just... aches, and I can feel everything growing. The weirdest thing is the fin, though.” To underline this, he lifted his fin a bit. “It's like it starts growing at my hip and travels down my legs. Like some sort of second skin lies on top of my legs.”
“That sounds disgusting.”
“Oh, it is.”
They laughed, which was a welcome shift of the mood.
“Can I...?” Ryan started asking, and instead of finishing the sentence, he lifted his hand and moved it towards Shane.
“Sure. Be careful on my fins though, they're really sensitive.”
“Didn’t plan on touching those anyway.”
At first, Ryan poked at the fin to get a first feeling. Then he laid his whole hand down and after a second, started stroking downwards. “Dude, you're really part fish...”
“I would have told you if I could. But I really don’t want anyone to find out about this.”
While Shane was talking, Ryan stood up and sat down in front of him again, to closely inspect the fluke at the end of his fin. “It’s okay, after all this is a big thing. I guess I wouldn’t have told you either.”
Then he looked at Shane with one eyebrow raised. “Wait, how come you don’t believe in ghosts when you’re a freaking Merman?”
He chuckled. “Because I can obviously proof that I’m real while you can’t proof shit.”
Ryan clearly wanted to look angry, but he also couldn’t stop smiling, so instead of making a witty remark, he gently pinched the bottom of Shane’s fin, who winced in return but laughed afterwards. They sat there for a while, talking about this and that, when suddenly Shane interrupted their fun. “Uh oh, there it goes.”
Before Ryan could ask what Shane meant by that, he could see him contorting his face with pain as his body started changing a few moments later. It happened all at once, the fins started growing back, it looked like his gills just… closed, his scales disappeared into his skin and the fin grew back too. It did look painful, but only lasted a few seconds, and after he detransformed (if you could call it that) Shane looked comfortable again. “Wow, always feels good to have legs again.”
“I think that explains why your legs are so long, after all they need to turn into a whole fin!”
They both laughed more about the joke that it deserved, but part of it was just relief. Relief that this was weird but wouldn’t change their relationship gravely.
“Alright, let’s walk back home, I’m sure the others are already waiting. And no word to no one!”
“You know me, I wouldn’t tell a soul!”
Shane winked at him. “Not sure if I can trust you with that.”
As a response, Ryan gently punched him in his arm.
(This time there won’t be a foreword, I just want to quickly credit @q-unsolved because as always their au inspired me to write this.)
Ryan and Shane laughed so hard, it was barely a wheeze anymore. Frightening the brave paranormal investigators was always fun. It gave them a little adrenaline kick, they had something to talk about and it helped keeping the myths alive. And it wasn’t like Shane and Ryan actually did something dangerous, they were just messing around. Ryan was the first one who stopped laughing and started talking again. “Just imagine if we were ghost hunters. I’d hope everyone would have a little fun with us too. That would give tons of evidence to prove that ghosts are real!”
Shane chuckled. “I don’t think I would even believe in spirits and all that if I wasn’t a demon myself.”
Soooo… I’ve written an OneShot based on @q-unsolved’s Mothman!Ryan / Demon!Shane AU bc I have no self-control. And uh… I hope you like it! Yeah.
(Also, a doodle from @madejsbian has some sort of cameo appearance, so uh, there’s that. And I reference my first drabble, which is just a side note, you don’t need to read it to understand the story.)
I went to several dead ends while writing this, tried out new techniques and hope it worked. I mean, at least the story’s finished, so there’s already that.
Shane didn’t know what exactly had happened. He was just minding his own business, when he suddenly heard a bunch of people laugh. So far so good; nothing unusual. However, he should have started to pay attention when he heard wings flapping. Sure, he did look around to make out where the noises came from, but he didn’t see anything, so he just pushed this into the back of his mind, preparing to forget it soon.
No, it wasn’t until he returned back to his bridge when he noticed that something was off. That something being a huge black… creature, sitting on Shane’s bridge as if it belonged to him. Fantastic. He really didn’t want to deal with this right now. But he couldn’t just turn around and leave again, so really, all he could do was to just confront who- or whatever occupied his bridge.
Hey! I love your art, especially your Buzzfeed Unsolved cryptid AU. Consider this for the AU, Shane: *makes Mothman noises* Ryan: "Dude, you can't say that about my mom."
Shane was boasting about how many languages he knew, considering the amount of time he spent on earth:
So uhhhh my hand slipped (this is the first time i’m doing this i’m uhhhhh nervous)
Shane was kind of surprised by how daring Ryan was. Most of the younger cryptids were afraid of him, or at least respected him quite a lot and tried their best to avoid him. Over the time, more and more cryptids and humans heard about him and with age and experience, Shane got even more powerful than he was to begin with. Which is why he did not expect to suddenly see Ryan curiously gazing at his bridge and carefully flying over the path, just high enough so his feet wouldn’t touch the ground. As if something bad would happen if he would step on one of the old wooden boards. This, however, was just a rumour among both cryptids and humans which eventually evolved into a test of courage. Shane got bored of this pretty quickly, although he is still flattered to be feared like that.
Usually Shane didn’t interact with whoever was on his bridge, it simply got dull. But today he was in a good mood. He slowly walked up to Ryan, making sure he could not see him coming, and calmly whispered: “Hey, you. What are you doing on my bridge?”
Ryan got startled and immediately flew away from Shane, making sure to bring a lot of distance between them before he stopped. Of course Shane didn’t follow him, but laughed instead. Which caused Ryan to slowly get back, angrily pouting. They chatted a little, about how Ryan wasn’t really afraid of him but just didn’t expect to see him there, and that Shane was just like any other cryptid. It was the start of a quite interesting friendship.
Ryan, young and inexperienced as he was, asked Shane a ton of questions about everything. He became some sort of mentor to him, answered all of Ryan’s questions as far as he could, and told him what he needed to hear when it was Ryan’s time to tell a story.
Shane would have lied if he had said that he didn’t like Ryan’s attention. He almost admired him and Shane felt weirdly… valued. So of course he bragged about his talents and knowledge whenever he could, and secretly enjoyed Ryan’s amazed expressions. At some point they talked about languages, and about how Shane had to have already heard a bunch of them. Shane, of course, used this opportunity to boast about how many languages he actually learned throughout his lifetime, and that he could speak any language.
Ryan’s eyes got bigger and bigger. “Any language?”, he asked in amazement.
Shane nodded. “Yup. Any language. Us old demons have some pretty cool tricks up our sleeves. You name one, I speak it.”
Ryan got even more excited. “Cool! Does that mean you speak Mothman too?!”
And this was what threw Shane off. “Uh, what?” he said, more to himself than to Ryan, but he didn’t seem to notice that Shane said anything in the first place. Now he had to think fast. Great. He was bragging all about how he knew all languages and now Ryan asked him about one of the languages he didn’t know. Part of Shane wanted to be honest, maybe make up a reason why he wasn’t able to speak it, but keep himself from embarrassing himself in front of this kid. However, he couldn’t keep his mouth shut. Without realizing it, he stuttered with a semi-confident voice: “Uh, sure, of-of course. It was kinda like… uhh…” Think, think, think, think, think! Madej, you fool!
Trying to remember what Mothman sounded like, and if he could recreate it, he mumbled something to practice. He suddenly stopped when he saw Ryan’s face, and how he angrily moved his wings. Fuck. Now you’ve done it, Madej.
“Dude. You can’t say that about my mom.”
Shane blinked, slowly processing what has just happened. He… Made it? Somehow. But he also fucked up because apparently, he just insulted Ryan’s mom.
“Oh shit, I’m sorry Ryan, I just… haven’t talked Mothman for a while. Got a little rusty. I didn’t mean to say this.”
Ryan sighed, but then smiled again. “It’s okay. I guess that happens when you speak so many languages. I’m just happy that you can speak Mothman at all!”
