my spread for the tribute to 10k charity zine! this was such an incredible project to help organize, and thank you a million times to everyone who made it possible.
If you'd like to read the whole the zine for yourself, you can click here --> https://tilt.fyi/ghwwjC0qop
We're raising money for the SVPA, so if you donate $5+ you can download ALL the zine art in full-resolution!!
it's been such an honor to work on this project with everybody, and especially @fishlungs-plant and @coppersunflower who did so much work with organizing this and making sure that it all came together. This would not have been possible without the hard work of every artist and writer over the past month. we're so cool. this community is so cool.
the following poem was never published by Lord Percy Cunningsworth, and was found amongst piles of letters in his country estate after it became a historical site in 2022. like his published works, Cunningsworth refers to "F" in a romantic tone, however this poem, referred to by academics as "a simple story", seems to represent Cunningsworth and "F" as two men. because of this, and the romantic tone Cunningsworth uses to portray "our lord" and "our hero", this poem is one of the key pieces of evidence used to claim that Cunningsworth was a queer man. scholars cannot be sure of the date it was written, but it is largely agreed to be part of his later work.
F,
it is the simplest stories that I find
do the most to upset the mind
so, dear lover, strong and fair
keep that thought as one to bare
first, centre stage. a lord who thinks himself a fraud
he is respectable, he has wit, he is a child of god
he has the highest castle in all the land
and a sword held by a shaky hand
all his life he has stood tall
tall and towering above them all
all of them he'd rather be
rather be focused, and loved, kind and steady
now enter from the wings; stage left
stands a man with nimble fingers and a deft
of talent he has never used
our hero turns and watches the lord, amused
all his life he has stood proud
proud and kind, quietly loud
loudly speaking of his love
love for others, that he holds so far above
our lord still has his shaky hand
his sword unsteady, route unplanned
no matter how much love he dreams
his hopes are falling at the seams
so, feeling lost for more than words
he turns to slowly falling on his sword
lost for hope. lost his mind.
and that is when it is our hero finds
our lord, sword tip to heart
but our hero forces blade apart
from skin, draws close and closer
our lord, feels bold and bolder
our lord and hero become great friends
though that is not where their tale ends
that ending, you know, I am sure
the one of love, and feelings pure
-P.
though it's relevance is contested, certain historians point out that the page under it, a written message from Cunningsworth's long time butler who's only known name was Franklin, also makes reference to falling on swords, and goes on to mention a public poetry reading Cunningworth had seemingly read at.
“I need him dead,” Izuku says, pacing intently. His bright red shoes squeak with every step he takes, and his eyes are wide with mania. “I genuinely need him dead.”
La Brava takes a long slurp of her soda fountain abomination - two pumps of every flavor of every soda, in one supersize cup - and gives him a knowing, pitying look. “Dynamight causing trouble again?”
He buries his face into his hands and makes a noise like a wounded animal.
“Did he finally explode his laptop beyond repair or something?” La Brava asks. “Talk to me.”
“He asked me out on a date,” Izuku grits out, and La Brava’s eyes go wide. “A date. Lunch at a crepe shop? There’s no other way to take that.”
It wasn’t ever supposed to go this far. At first, loading Pro Hero Dynamight’s laptop with viruses was just a way to get back at him for being an asshole. But then he just- kept clicking them. And then he kept coming by, and revealing that he wasn’t so bad to talk to and then-
Izuku’s been played like a damn fiddle. All this time, he thought he was the one pulling the strings- only for Dynamight to sweep the rug out from under him in the most sudden possible way.
“Huh,” she says. “Huh.”
And then, after a long pause:
“...Well. IT guys are in really high demand nowadays,” she says, stirring her drink with her straw. “With the economy, and all.”
“This can’t happen. He’s a Pro-Hero,” Izuku stresses, grinding his teeth to stubs. “A Pro Hero who can’t go a week without getting scammed, but a Pro Hero nonetheless. This can’t happen. It can’t.”
“He’s a public servant, Deku, not a nun.”
Izuku points at her. “Exactly! He’s a public servant. He has a duty to the people first and foremost, and I can’t get in the way of that.” Izuku says, placing a hand on his chest with feeling. A beat passes, and then, “Also, he is so fucking weird.”
“And there it is.”
“Who gets scammed that much? It just makes no logical sense. You’d think after clicking an obvious pop-up the first time and getting your whole laptop overrun with malware you’d just- stop doing it at some point! But no! It’s like he’s a- a little kid with a big red button in front of him. He’s ridiculous. And-and an asshole, too!”
La Brava sighs, setting down her comically large drink. “Okay, Deku-kun-”
“Yeah! He’s a huge jerk. He’s mean to everyone and he acts like- like he’s doing me a favor by making me fix his laptop all the time! You know what, he deserves all that malware, especially if he’s so obsessed with clicking pop-ups!”
“Deku-kun.”
“He’s insane. A total freak show!”
“Deku-kun.”
“A-A self-absorbed, arrogant-”
“So you don’t want to go on a date with him?” La Brava interrupts, cutting him off.
Izuku pauses, ceasing his pacing.
He thinks about Dynamight’s evil looking smiles and fiery red eyes and sharp features; his insane stances and posture and the way his voice sounds like gravel; the way he’s always yelling and acting like a stereotypical macho-man Pro in his office, and yet whenever he steps into Izuku’s he’s always looking away and speaking quieter and holding out his virus-infected laptop like it’s the bento lunch Kiyoko-chan (from the new slice-of-life romance anime Izuku’s been binge-watching recently) made for her love interest in last week’s episode. That one time Izuku had said he was thirsty in Dynamight’s presence and found a water bottle on his desk the next day (and the day after that, and the day after that, and the day after that-). It's the way that no matter what happens- whether it’s a villain attack or a patrol or rescuing a kitten from a tree, Dynamite comes out on top.
(Quite literally, in the case of the kitten. The fire department had to come down to Tatooin Station and rescue Pro-Hero Dynamight and a three-pound kitten from a 40-foot tall oak.)
God, there’s so much wrong with him, Izuku thinks. I need to hold his hand or I’ll die.
Izuku’s cheeks heat up and he scratches the back of his neck, very pointedly not looking at La Brava. “...Well. I never said that.”
“Oh my God,” La Brava says. “Oh my God.”
“Sue me, okay!” Izuku throws up his hands. “Apparently I like deranged goblin men who are a little pathetic and rough around the edges and incapable of not getting scammed! Is that so wrong!”
La Brava stares. And stares. And then she sighs.
“It- You know what, this is above my paygrade,” she says, taking another long, obnoxious sip of her drink. “I’m not here to critique your frankly abysmal taste in men. So you do want to go on this date?”
He thinks about it more, and starts getting light-headed at the thought of- of Dynamight, buying him a crepe. Sharing a crepe with him. At the crepe shop. Tomorrow, when they’re both free. Maybe they’d even- hold hands, and- ride the ferris wheel in the amusement park across the street- together-
“Hnnnrrrgh,” says Izuku.
“Well, good luck,” says La Brava, tossing her empty cup. It soars through the air in a perfect arch and lands into the trash with little fanfare. She pumps her fists, and Izuku absentmindedly claps a little.
It’s pretty simple removing the malware- he was the one who put it there, after all. Soon enough, Dynamight’s laptop is good as new. And then, after another couple of moments of hesitation, he sneaks in another pop-up. A poor recolor of Naruto, this time, in suggestive kitsune-themed lingerie.
“You’re literally going on a date with him,” La Brava says, suddenly popping up behind him. ‘You don’t have to keep doing this.”
“Consider it, uh,” Izuku racks his brain, “leverage! Yeah. If he’s. If he’s an asshole.”
She throws her hands up in exasperation and turns back to setting up a pastel pink Project Sekai theme for Phantom Thief's computer (upon his request).
He’s not being weird, Izuku reassures himself. He’s not. Dynamight doesn’t have to click the pop-up. He’s not, like, obligated, or anything. But if he does, like he has been doing, well. That’s one way to secure a second date.
Well. Not that he’s hoping for a second date with Dynamight, or anything. He’s not anxiously counting down the seconds or whatever. That’d be insane. Right? Right. Totally insane. And Izuku is not insane, so therefore he is not incredibly and unhealthily invested in this-
“Stop muttering about this or I swear to God-”
-
So now he’s here. Standing in front of the crepe shop in his nicest clothes (a white ‘Dress Shirt’ shirt, a half-buttoned striped orange button up, and brown corduroy pants with a black belt), blasting music to distract himself from the fact that he may have been stood up.
Okay, fine, that’s a bit of an exaggeration. He probably hasn’t been stood up. Sure, it’s been three minutes and fifty four seconds since their agreed upon time, and there’s still no sign of Dynamight anywhere, but that probably doesn’t mean anything. He’s probably just running late.
He has to be running late. What is he going to do if he actually is being stood up right now?
Kill him?
Kill Pro Hero Dynamight?
No, Izuku realizes, deflating a little. No, he’d never be able to go through with it. Maybe more malware? Maybe every piece of malware at once?
For once, the Go Get Your Man, Kiyoko-chan! theme song isn’t taking his mind off things- a clear sign of his deteriorating mental state. There’s a part right before the final chorus in which they let a cat just meow into the mic for a solid thirty seconds and it always reminds Izuku that good exists in the world- except for today, apparently.
After a few moments of hesitation, he goes to his messages. They have each other’s numbers, strictly for business, but occasionally Dynamight will text him hey in the middle of the night and then take three hours to respond to Izuku.
Where are you?, he types up. But before he can press send, his phone beeps.
Izuku frowns.
“A villain attack nearby?” His hair blows slightly in a sudden breeze. “Huh. I hope it’s not too close.”
He has about two seconds of peace between uttering this final, ironic sentence, and then turning his head-
-because one minute he’s pausing the theme song on his phone, and the next he’s face to face with a giant, menacing pincer that's seconds away from peeling off his entire face.
His life really is just one prolonged punchline, huh.
So there he stands, tears in his eyes, fear in his heart, and the thirty second meowing solo ringing in his ears; dressed his nicest 'Dress Shirt' shirt, holding an expensive laptop that he can never again infect with malware because he’s been stood up and he’s going to die.
Brava was right, Izuku thinks belatedly. Maybe I should re-evaluate my taste in men.
Della rolled her eyes, like Donald was being the unreasonable one. “I mean, use your imagination! Has becoming a real adventurer taught you nothing?”
“It’s taught me that you two are bigger dorks than I thought possible.”
Donald shot Gladstone a sullen glare as he sauntered over. He was wearing one of his dumb fancy shirts and a bowtie even though they were just hanging around Grandpa Dabney’s pond, family reunion or not. If Donald tried wearing something like that, it’d probably catch fire or get shredded when he rolled into a ditch or something.
Predictably hot on his trail was Fethry, stumbling over the hem of his oversized sweater and too-long sleeves both. When Gladstone stopped a couple feet away from the ‘twin splash zone’ as he called it, Fethry kept barreling forward, on a beeline for Donald. He had a split-second to brace himself before they collided bodily, nearly knocking them both to the ground (or with Donald’s luck, into the hole).
“Whatcha lookin’ at?” Fethry asked eagerly, wrapping his twig arms tight around Donald’s midsection and looking up at him with big, gleaming eyes.
“Wak! Fethry, let go!” Donald griped, scrabbling at Fethry’s clinging arms without getting any purchase. “It’s just a big, dumb hole that Dell found.”
Next to him, Della was scrutinizing the hole way too seriously. “Y’know, I think it’s more of a pit.”
“Whatever!”
“What’s in it?” Gladstone asked, moving a couple steps closer once he seemed assured that nothing was going to spontaneously combust or get his dumb suit dirty.
“We dunno,” Della replied brightly. “It’s too dark to tell. Maybe it’s a bottomless pit!”
Still wriggling against Fethry’s slippery eel grip, Donald took a swipe at Della but she danced out of the way. “I think we’d ‘a heard if Grandma had a bottomless pit on her farm. It’s probably just some animal’s burrow and it’s gonna jump out and bite me ‘cause we woke it up from its nap.”
Della shook her head sadly. “My poor, dear brother. As a disgraced former Junior Woodchuck, you likely neglected to notice the distinct lack of animal tracks or droppings of any kind nearby.” She gave a stupid little know-it-all sniff, raising one finger as she lectured him. She lowered it to pat him on the shoulder. “It’s okay. It’s not your fault. You couldn’t have known.”
Donald snarled, snapping at her hand, but she snatched it back too fast for him to bite her, and with Fethry still holding him in place he couldn’t go after her. Della burst out laughing with Gladstone’s own laughter soon to follow. “Shove it, Dumbella! The Junior Woodchucks just couldn’t handle me.”
“Neither could that circus.”
Fethry finally let up on his stranglehold and knelt at the edge of the pit. Donald resisted the urge to tug him back onto solid ground.
“Maybe it’s a tunnel to China!” he wondered aloud.
Della walked up next to him, her survival instincts seemingly comparable to the six-year-old’s. With her hands planted on her hips and her furrowed thinking face on, she looked like Uncle Scrooge.
“No dice, Fethry. Got that pesky lava at the Earth’s core in the way.”
Fethry drooped. “Oh, yeah.”
“What if it’s a way to get to the center of the earth?” Gladstone suggested, shooting Donald a side-eyed grin as he sidled up to the other two.
Donald fumed. “That’s–you got that from a book!” He finally stomped over to them, if only to get a chance to shove Della in.
“What are books if not windows to reality?” Gladstone replied sagely, making Donald second-guess who was getting pushed into the hole.
“We should really investigate to make sure,” Della added, smiling at Donald like the traitor that she was. “Like proper adventurers.”
Fethry, predictably, perked up. “I’ll do it!”
“No, you’re not.” Donald yanked him back by the collar of his sweater as he started to straighten up. Fethry all but crashed into him again, flailing limbs and everything.
“Be careful, Donnie” Fethry chided, reaching up to adjust his collar. “You could’ve hurt my new friend!”
Donald scoffed. “What friend? Another imaginary walrus?”
Fethry pulled down on his collar. “Eustace isn’t imaginary!”
When Donald glanced down he saw a long, thin dark shape uncoil from around Fethry’s neck, peering up at Donald with a diamond-shaped head and round black eyes. Its forked tongue flicked.
Donald shrieked, and when he leapt back, his foot met open air. Gravity did the rest, and he did all the work of throwing himself into the pit.
Donald looked forward to Duck family reunions as much as he dreaded them.
Don’t get him wrong, he loved his family. Even insufferable cousin Gladstone, who acted like being thirteen made him so much more grown up.
Besides, they had reunions basically all the time. It seemed like every birthday, holiday, and random weekend was devoted to the drive out of Duckburg, past the Tulebug River and onto the rolling hills of farmland where Grandma Elvira and Grandpa Dabney lived. And disgraced former-Junior Woodchuck or not (they just couldn’t handle his spirit), Donald did appreciate getting out in nature, away from their boring brownstone in the too-loud, sometimes claustrophobic city.
The open air and endless blue skies were great songwriting inspiration, and besides, Grandma Duck had been the one to teach him how to play the guitar in the first place. Da, Aunt Daphne, and Uncle Eider all grew up on the farm, and as far as Donald knew they all still loved it.
Well, maybe except for Uncle Eider.
Mum seemed to like it too. She always said she was making up for not getting enough fresh air as a kid.
They’d been coming out to the farm since he and Della were still in their eggs, often for the long weekends that their parents wanted for themselves. It was basically a second home, and he was able to relax there more than he ever could in Uncle Scrooge’s huge mansion. There, the walls hung heavy with portraits depicting greater deeds than he’d ever accomplish, and shadowed corners held secrets and dangers the likes of which he never could’ve imagined before that first adventure on Phantom Island.
While adventuring with Uncle Scrooge was awesome, heart-pounding fun, he never liked their sleepovers at the mansion afterwards. He couldn’t imagine living there full time. But increasingly at Della’s insistence, their visits to that old miser’s house nearly started to outnumber those to Grandma’s.
Grandma Duck’s farm was great, even if sometimes he got struck by lightning. Or thrown off a horse. Or got chased by the chickens. Or, hey, this was a new one: rolling straight into a sandspur patch and getting himself impaled head to foot by thorn-covered burrs that were impossible to remove by himself.
“Ow.
“Ow.
“Ow,” Donald complained, each louder and more garbled than the last.
Hortense flicked him lightly on the back of the head. “Och, quit yer haverin,’ dove. The less you squirm, the sooner yer Mummy’ll be done.”
His mother was right, as per usual, but Donald found it increasingly impossible to sit still and patient with the brilliant blue sky beyond the covering back porch and the hollering of the adults fishing at the pond tempting him back outside. Oh, and all the dozens of painful, prickly sandspurs piercing through his feathers and to his skin were another measure of added difficulty.
“Remind me again how my son got turned into a living pincushion?” Hortense asked dryly.
“He got scared by Fethry’s snake and fell into a big hole full of sandspurs,” Della helpfully supplied.
Donald bristled indignantly. “I wasn’t scared! Fethry just—surprised me.”
“You screamed!”
“He shoved a snake in my face!”
Fethry popped up from where he was playing just on the other side of the porch railing, his garter snake sticking out from under his beanie. “Eustace didn’t mean to scare you!”
Donald scoffed, opening his beak to yell at him some more, when without warning his Mum yanked out a sandspur that had been digging into the back of his neck. It took a few feathers with it, and the breath escaped him in a yelp instead. “Wak!”
With an air of practiced nonchalance, Hortense dropped the newly extracted sandspur into the plastic mixing bowl containing the rest she’d removed from Donald’s person. “Why were you even standing over a hole filled with these blasted burrs?” she demanded, getting the conversation back on track.
“Well, we couldn’t exactly see them,” Della hedged. “We thought we might’ve found a bottomless pit.”
Hortense huffed a laugh. “Well at least ye had Donnie around to disprove your theory.” She planted a noisy kiss on his sandspur-free cheek, holding him tight to keep him from wriggling away like a fish on a hook. “My wee adventurer!”
Donald scowled, starting to cross his arms but he let out a squawk and dropped them again when he smushed a line of burrs down against his stomach.
“I’m gonna be a sailor,” he protested as Hortense applied herself to removing the newly offending sandspurs.
She chuckled. “I thought you were going ta be a rockstar?”
“I can do both. Can’t I?”
“Oh, aye!” Hortense tweaked his beak, grinning warmly. “The first McDuck rockstar sailor with a college degree.”
Della wiggled from her seat atop the lunch table. “Oh, you should’ve seen him, Mum! Uncle Scrooge took us to the Dead Sea to look for the Sea Salt Caves of the Sorceress Circe, and Donnie tripped and knocked the captain out but then he took the wheel and it was so cool! He only crashed the boat a little bit!”
“I’ve never heard ‘Dondon’ and ‘cool’ used in the same sentence before,” Gladstone snarked as he climbed the porch steps behind his mother. Donald glared at him and his stupid serene smile with the fiery force of a thousand suns, until the sunlight bouncing off the pond somehow redirected to blind him.
Aunt Daphne was in one of her fancy party dresses, golden hair pinned up and pearl earrings dangling by her ears, but her usual contented air was dampened by a small but troubled frown and a tightness around her eyes. She was holding Uncle Goostave’s Nokea in one hand, a slim and modern contrast to the brick Uncle Scrooge still insisted counted as a cell phone.
Hortense yanked another sandspur free, making Donald yelp and interrupting his observation.
“Gladdy, don’t tease,” Aunt Daphne chided in that gentle way of hers, almost lyrical. After dinner, she would sing, Donald would pull out his guitar and Da his banjo, and they would play long into the night, when the moon was high and the air was redolent of the lavender that Grandma planted around the porch to keep the bugs away, and fireflies skittered through the field and over the surface of the pond like shooting stars come to earth.
“Ma,” Aunt Daphne called through the closed screen door. Alongside her voice came the mouthwatering scents of Grandma Duck’s cobbler, fried chicken, pot roast, cornbread, greens, and gosh knew what else that Donald had been trying to put out of his mind until dinner. “D’you need any more help in there?”
“Depends! Was that my sous chef I heard?”
Grandma bustled out through the screen door, wiping her hands on a dishrag. She had a dusting of flour across her apron and a few gray hairs escaping from her carefully maintained bun, curling around her pinked cheeks.
“I was just about to put the pies in the oven before plating everything up,” she said wryly, already looking expectantly at Gladstone.
He perked up at once, dropping the veneer of cool he lived to torment Donald with. “I’ll help!”
Aunt Daphne kissed Gladstone on the cheek before nudging him forward. “I knew you would.”
Once the screen door had closed behind Gladstone and Grandma Duck, Daphne crossed the porch and all slumped into one of the cushioned rockers with none of her usual grace.
Donald watched her curiously, wincing as his Mum pried a sandspur out from under his collar. How many more of the stupid things could there be?
Without looking, he felt her attention lock on Della, who’d been uncharacteristically quiet the last few minutes. She was swinging her legs over the side of the table.
“Della dear, go see how your father’s fairin’,” Hortense instructed.
Della made a face. “Whyyyyyyy?”
“Because the adults need to have an adult conversation, my wee yin.”
“But Donald's here!”
“Aye, but Donald’s not goin’ anywhere until I track down every blistering burr from his feathers. Unless you’re keen on joining him for a dip in that bottomless pit of yours?”
Della groaned, slumping over like the weight of Atlas’ burden had been transferred to her tiny shoulders. “Fine,” she spat out, long-suffering.
“Hey, Fethry!” she yelled, jumping down from the table. “Let’s go try an’ push Aunt Matilda in the water.”
“Okay!” Fethry shouted back readily. “Can I bring Eustace?”
“Can he swim?”
“I dunno! I’ll see if he wants to.”
As Della and Fethry and their shouting match faded away in the direction of the pond, Hortense ran her hands over the top of Donald’s head, down to the back of his neck. When she didn’t encounter another sandspur, she drew him back against her lap in a proper hug. Donald moved willingly, silent but curious. A glance up at what he could see of his Mum’s face provided little insight. Her attention was all on Aunt Daphne, who by now was sitting in the rocker with her eyes closed.
“You’re looking a bit peely-wally there, hen. No word from Eider?” she asked carefully.
Daphne sighed wearily. “Or Abner. I swear, I wonder why I even bothered to send them a phone if they don’t even have the decency to let me know they’re alive out there in the boonies. And I don’t even want to think about Lulubelle, out there on that commune of all things…” The bite to her words, slight as it was, faded into further disappointment. “I know Fethry was hoping to see them. Just like last time. And the time before that.”
Hortense nodded slowly. “The laddie certainly is something else. Dinnae know when ta quit. But he’s young still, and got your Mum raising him up right; not to mention the rest of us. He’ll learn to forget about the ones who aren’t here.”
An uncomfortable look passed over Aunt Daphne’s face.
Donald could feel his Mum rolling her eyes. “Spit it out.”
“Did Scrooge say why he couldn’t come?”
Hortense scoffed so harshly it was nearly a growl, rumbling against Donald’s ear. “‘Too busy,’” she bit out scornfully. “With the business or some dafty scheme, he wouldnae say. Hung up the phone before I could pry any further. Too busy for family! Can ye imagine?”
They lapsed into silence, but not completely. The trees rustled in the dry summer breeze, and inside the clatter of plates nearly drowned out Gladstone and Grandma’s voices. On the water, Donald could hear Aunt Matilda and his Da yelling something, and a great deal of splashing as Della and Fethry shrieked with laughter. Uncle Goostave and Grandpa were quieter, but soon they were shouting too, pulled into whatever craziness Della had wrought upon them.
Aunt Daphne must’ve heard it too because her far more familiar smile climbed back onto her face, and she stood back up. “Well, that’s enough moping about people who don’t want to be here. I’m gonna see if I can’t sneak up on Goostave and get him in the water too. Care to join me?”
Pressed against Hortense’s chest, Donald felt his Mum take a deep, silent breath, releasing it with a heave like the swell of the tide. “Nah,” she replied, every trace of rage vanished as though it had never been. She tightened her grip around Donald, rocking him back and forth and pressing an obnoxiously loud kiss against his cheek in spite of his garbled protests. “I've caught this wee barra in my net and I’m not keen on letting him escape again!”
Donald groaned. “Muuuuuum.”
Daphne giggled. “Good luck! Tell Gladstone to give us a holler when dinner’s ready.”
It was only a few minutes later that they heard Uncle Goostave’s cultured voice rising sharply, breaking over a shriek of, “Daph! Daph, don’t you da—” before it ended with a tremendous splash.
Alone together on the porch, Donald didn’t shy away from curling under his mother’s chin, tucking himself against her like he was still a duckling, and not the eleven-year-old he actually was. They hadn’t even had dinner yet and he was already exhausted, aching all over from his tumble into the pit, the lingering prickling pain from all the sandspurs stabbing into his skin and tangling in his feathers.
He’d gotten mad too, when he landed face first in the patch of burrs. Mad enough that he saw red, and sense left him, and in his scrabbling fury just landed himself in more sandspurs, which only hurt more which only made him angrier…
Hortense brushed the bangs out of his eyes. “What is it, dearheart?”
Donald shrugged against her, not looking up. “I think I’m bad luck,” he whispered.
She clicked her tongue reproachfully, giving him a squeeze. “Och, my lad. You are not bad luck. Ye’re just clumsy, like your Daddy. And ye have my temper. The McDuck temper.”
Hortense leaned back and Donald finally looked up at her, wild, curly red hair threaded through with gray and the warmth of her brown eyes behind her glasses. “You and your sister are my life. My heart. And a million sandspurs wouldnae change that.”
Donald laughed without meaning to, the sound just as garbled as his father’s.
Hortense grinned back at him, tweaking his beak. “There’s a lad.”
Behind him, the screen door slammed open to reveal Gladstone carrying a covered food tray, flour and fruit juice staining his stupid fancy clothes. He was smiling as Donald had never seen.
“Soup’s on!” he hollered.
-
2019
Just a little ways from the water, shaded by a massive umbrella, Daisy was in the middle of a heated conversation with Beakley. She was saying something about the stealth benefits of synthetic versus cotton wool when Donald ambled over. As she paused to take a breath, he swooped in and kissed her cheek.
“Need anything from the house? Another aperol spritz?”
Daisy giggled, rosy-cheeked and beautiful. She’d done a complicated sort of braid with her hair that still let her wear her sunhat (Huey helped) and her sundress was a floral yellow number that she’d designed and stitched together just for the occasion.
She wrapped an arm around Donald’s middle, leaning into him with a squeeze that made his heart flutter. “Thanks, hun, but I’ve had enough for now. I’m gonna need my wits about me for our dance later.”
“Alrighty.” He looked to Beakley, who’d been applying herself to a plateful of the meats, fruit, and cheeses Gladstone had laid out to tide everyone over until dinner. “What about you, Mrs. B?”
“No thank you, Donald. I’m still working on my lager.”
Daisy prodded him. “What about you? Why don’t you find some shade, take a load off? You’ve been on your feet practically since we got here.”
Donald opened his beak to dissuade her, hesitated too long. There was a porch swing that had been calling his name.
“What about the kids?” he tried to protest.
Daisy rolled her eyes with a fondness he cherished. “I think they’ve been doing a fine job keeping themselves entertained.”
As if on cue, a chorus of elated screams arose from the pond, and he instinctively craned his head over to take stock of everyone. The pond was so wide it was practically a small lake, allowing for everyone to split up and spread out across and around the water.
Huey, Boyd, and Fethry were fishing off the side of the dock, though they’d yet to catch anything for tomorrow’s lunch because Fethry insisted on naming every fish they caught. The behavior forced an aggrieved Huey and increasingly giggly Boyd to throw them back.
At some point over the last few years, Gladstone had a little deck built over the water. It held a mini bar and a wooden slat roof woven through with solar powered string lights, the former currently not in use. Drake and Louie were using it to nap on deck chairs, Drake barely visible under his sunhat and Louie half-hidden behind the ridiculous sunglasses Daisy had bought for Dewey in Milan, which he subsequently lost to Louie in a bet.
Della was in the shallows trying to teach Penumbra how to swim, while Launchpad tossed the rest of the kids around in the water and let Gosalyn use him as her personal jungle gym. The two groups were getting dangerously close, splashing and ribbing one another, and Donald knew his sister. At some point, Drake was getting dragged out of his comfy respite and into a chicken fight with Launchpad against Della and Penumbra.
Lena was using her magic to float the more adventurous kids over the water (i.e., all of them), letting them go at random and dropping them in the pond. They would scurry back out in record time if Launchpad didn’t get ahold of them first and, appropriately enough, launch them further away into deeper water.
“Alright,” Donald muttered begrudgingly as he surveyed the controlled chaos with a trained eye. “The kids’ll probably be okay if I take a little siesta, right?”
Daisy laughed, giving him a shove. “Definitely okay. Take a load off, handsome.”
“We’re all here to help if need be,” Beakley reminded him.
Donald nodded distractedly. The kids were all fed and watered, he reminded himself, and they weren’t helpless little ducklings anymore. They didn’t need him hovering for no good reason.
He made himself step away, and then forced himself to keep walking, one webbed foot in front of the other as he turned his back on the pond. His garbled stream of consciousness trailed after him. “Right. Yeah. Just take it easy for a spell. What’s the worst that could happen? Wait, no, don’t answer that.”
His foot had only just touched the first porch step when a gut wrenchingly familiar sound pierced the air—one of his kids letting out a sharp cry of pain.
He knew it was Dewey before he even turned around, before he even started running. He zeroed in on the source immediately, and there was his kid, sitting in the dirt with his hands wrapped around his ankle.
Della started clambering out of the water by the time Donald was dropping to his knees beside Dewey, there between one blink and the next. It wasn’t due to any lack of care; Donald just had the advantage of twelve years of bandaging scraped knees, kissing bruises, anticipating the next dangerous stunt and thwarting it in its infancy.
“You’re okay,” Donald soothed, sounding calmer than he felt. His heart was pounding so hard he felt his chest trembling, that short burst of adrenaline still singing through his veins, but just being with his kid made the immediate surge of terror fade. Dewey was conscious, he was talking, and Donald was here. He’d dealt with far worse.
“Let me see.” With the barest nudge, Dewey released his death grip on his ankle, letting Donald survey the damage.
While the ankle already looked a little red, on the brink of swelling up fairly spectacularly, there wasn’t any blood or visibly broken or dislocated bones. Carefully palpating the area confirmed that.
“What happened, Dew?” Donald asked gently, half trying to distract Dewey as he winced through his ministrations.
Dewey leaned forward, slumping into Donald’s chest and effectively hiding his face against Donald’s new Hawaiian shirt. Della called it an eyesore but Daisy thought it was sweet of him to find a shirt that matched her dress.
“Twisted my dumb ankle in a dumb hole,” Dewey grumbled, but his voice was thick, on the verge of tears if Donald had any guess. “Why did Great-Grandma put a bunch of booby traps around the farm? Is she trying to attack us from beyond the grave?”
Donald very carefully didn’t laugh. “It sounds like you just stepped in a gopher hole. And if you wanna blame anyone, blame Uncle Gladstone. Upkeep of the farm was his job.”
He leaned back to actually get a look at Dewey’s face, crumpled in pain but without any further trace of tears. Donald brushed Dewey’s wet hair out of his eyes, longer than usual since he decided to start growing it out. He insisted he wanted it long enough to braid like Daisy’s.
He kissed Dewey’s forehead. “C’mon, kiddo. You gotta be off your feet for a while and there’s a porch swing with both our names on it.”
Dewey made a big show of sighing, long-suffering as anything, but he didn’t protest when Donald picked him up, holding him close against his chest. He and his siblings were on the brink of getting too big for Donald to cart around comfortably, not that it would stop him anytime soon.
As he made his way back to the porch at a more leisurely pace than his previous sprint away from it, he caught Huey’s eyes from across the pond. He’d been on his feet, still and watchful since Dewey cried out, on high alert in his own hyper-protective fashion that Donald felt only a little bit bad about instilling in his oldest. It had certainly helped keep all three of them in one piece even before they moved in with Scrooge.
Donald gave Huey a nod in lieu of a reassuring wave, and called out for the benefit of him and every other concerned pair of eyes. “All good! It’s just a sprained ankle.”
Relief broke across Huey’s face and he leapt to attention as Boyd and Fethry cried out beside him, his fishing pole lashing at the water with their latest catch.
Daisy looked up at Donald with a chagrined smile as he walked past for the second time. He just shook his head with a resigned smile. “Bad luck, buddy,” she murmured to Dewey, giving a quick squeeze to the hand he held out to her.
“Tell my storyyy,” he moaned pitifully as Donald kept walking, cruelly dragging him away. Daisy’s laughter followed them across the grass.
By now the sun was inching toward the horizon and the dense, rolling hills framing the valley where Grandma Duck’s farm had sat for the last hundred and fifty years. It had been an unseasonably hot day in June, but the sun was finally relenting and it was calm on the porch, far enough from the pond for the renewed shrieks of delight to turn distant rather than piercing.
Donald got Dewey settled on the porch swing, a pillow tucked under his ankle to elevate it. He’d left a handful of towels by the patio table for everyone to dry off with so they didn’t end up tracking water, mud, and various flora and fauna across Grandma Duck’s hardwood floors. He tossed one over to Dewey.
“Ack!” He let the towel land on his head, not even bothering to catch it, and Donald snorted.
“Start drying your feathers, Dew. I don’t want you catching a cold on top of a sprained ankle.”
As Dewey grumbled but set himself to his task, Donald opened the cooler sitting beside the porch railing in search of ice to tend Dewey's ankle with. The half melted slush he found half a dozen beer cans swimming in was disappointing. Clearly, whoever brought the cooler hadn’t thought about insulation.
Well, a chilly beer can wasn’t going to cut it. Donald yelled through the screen door instead, where the smells of Gladstone’s cooking were already wafting out, rich and heady and impossible to ignore. “Hey, Gladdy, do we have any more ice? Dewey hurt his ankle.”
Almost immediately, he heard a familiar irritated squawk from the direction of the kitchen, and Gladstone’s affable retort drowning it out. “I’ll do you one better, chief!”
With much scrambling and Scottish protests, Gladstone emerged from the house pushing a harried Scrooge out ahead of him.
“Now see here, lad—”
“Donaldo!” Gladstone crowed. “Just the man I wanted to see. You mind taking our dear, beloved Unc here off my hands? He’s distracting a master chef at work.”
In what was becoming an increasingly familiar sight, Gladstone had forfeited one of his ostentatious ten-grand-but-you-inexplicably-don’t-owe-a-cent suits for a plain button-up. It probably still cost more than Donald’s entire scant wardrobe put together, but with the sleeves rolled up and a smudge of flour across his beak, his hair falling into its more natural curls, Gladstone actually looked like he belonged at the farmhouse.
“Ye need a second pair of hands!” Scrooge protested fervently. “How do ye expect to get all that cooking done by yourself?”
Donald knew the exact moment that Gladstone’s gaze alighted on Dewey, who’d been watching the shouting match Scrooge was losing with gleeful attention.
“Well, I might be able to take on a sous chef,” Gladstone said, grinning. “If they don’t mind taking on extra duties as taste tester.”
Dewey whipped his head around to pin Donald with his best, most piteous begging look. “Please, Uncle Donald! Uncle Donald, he made pie! And-and probably some other healthy stuff! Please?”
Donald groaned within the privacy of his own head. “What about your ankle?”
It had started to swell by now, fortunately not too bad, but red and painful looking. Dewey scowled down at it like it had willfully betrayed him.
“Hey, no sweat!” Gladstone quickly interjected. “I can get you set up nice and comfy, put some ice on that ankle. No rule saying you can’t sous chef while taking a load off.”
Dewey clasped his hands together. “Please, Uncle Donald, let me be sous chef!”
Donald pinched his brow between thumb and forefinger. You’re not being a pushover, he told himself. To Gladstone, all he said was, “Just don’t spoil his dinner.”
Dewey let out a whoop, while Scrooge crossed his arms with a defeated huff.
“Let’s get a move on, Blueberry! I think I left the stove on.” Gladstone crouched beside Dewey with this back to him, letting Dewey climb onto him for a piggy back ride. He stood with an exaggerated groan. “Man, what’s Mrs. B been feeding you? Grilled gold bricks?”
“Sautéed, thank you very much,” Dewey shot back as Gladstone carried him through the farmhouse doorway.
Once they were gone, Donald collapsed on the porch swing with a sigh so protracted he felt himself melt into the cushions a little. After a beat, he felt the swing jostle as another body settled beside him, more restrained than him.
“Bah,” Scrooge grunted. “Kids.”
Donald snorted, not bothering to open his eyes. “What were you even doing in there? You can’t cook to save your life.”
Scrooge scoffed. “Tell that to Benzino Gasolini, the taste-testing tyrant of Tripoli who forced us to earn our freedom through a pizza pie baking competition!”
“You tried to tell Gladstone what to do in his own kitchen, didn’t you?”
Scrooge sputtered, extra-Scottish when he was put-upon. Donald just chuckled under his breath, reveling in the breeze coming off the water ruffling the feathers on his face.
Beside him, Scrooge eventually wore himself out complaining and settled into the silence as well. Donald let himself enjoy the peace. Above them, the hinges of the porch swing squeaked gently and in the distance water was splashing and Daisy was laughing, doing that little snort that she hated but Donald adored to death.
He could hear Uncle Scrooge’s breathing next to him, steady and deep. Once, Donald had known it as well as his own. It was a familiar reassurance in the dark when he and Della were painfully small, newly orphaned, and snuck into Scrooge’s bed just to remind themselves that they weren’t alone.
The swing creaked beneath Scrooge as he moved, incrementally closer to Donald.
“Thank you,” he said lowly, making Donald’s eyes snap open. “For inviting me, Donald, lad.”
Donald looked over at his uncle, fiddling with his cane in a show of weakness he wouldn’t have allowed even a decade ago. Even the old coot had dressed down for the reunion, and in concession to the heat, in a linen guayabera he’d purchased on one of a hundred trips to South America.
“Thanks for accepting the invitation,” Donald replied.
“Look alive!”
A part of him still gave a jolt at hearing his twin’s voice, a meager year incapable of overwriting a decade of grief. But instinct still won out, and Donald held out his hand, snatching the beer that Della lobbed at his head out of the air.
Scrooge let out an outraged squawk. “Della, ya pure dafty! You could’ve bludgeoned your brother, and then what would Daisy do to us?”
Della collapsed into the scant amount of space between Donald and Scrooge, effectively sitting on them both and forcing them to scoot aside for her. “I dunno, but she’d probably have to get in line. The kids have first dibs.”
She was still damp with lake water, and smelled like it too, little bits of duckweed and other plants sticking out of her hair and feathers. Donald dropped his head onto her shoulder anyway. A glance over at Della’s other side saw her wrapping her arm around Scrooge’s, who let her cuddle close with minimal protest.
Della breathed in deep, waiting a long moment before exhaling, like the air itself was something precious. “I never thought I’d see this place again,” she murmured, almost to herself.
“Yeah,” Donald said. He thought of years of forced insolation on the houseboat, the neglected calls, the silence that threatened to swallow him whole some nights. “Yeah, me neither.”
Continuing the 8k war between Angst and Fluff on the side of… um. You know I’m not really sure, to be honest.
“I haven’t had anything in 6 months, leave me alone!”
The scarcity mindset is so hard to let go of. Especially when before it all, you were so used to having your inventory full with every item under the sun, tucked neatly in color-coded boxes. People might think that you would feel unencumbered, but you didn’t. You just felt vulnerable, defenseless, helpless. And you were. You had no armor, you had no food, you had no blocks, you had no gold to distract your captors while you ran. If you wanted food, you had to wait for them to remember to feed you. God damn you didn’t even have blocks to build with.
It’s only natural then, that in the aftermath, you’re clinging to every last point of durability. That when you’re handed plenty, you use it all immediately and make it into armor — more armor than you have needed in years — just to calm that voice in your head that is warning you that you’re two taps away from death. The golden helmet feels too much like… like that thing they made you wear when they were transporting you between bastions, but logically you know it’s necessary if you want to make it through this Crimson forest alive.
Ahead of you, Couri is funneling pigs into a small hole. It’s less convenient and less efficient than finding another bastion to loot, but he’s done it without complaining. Because you asked him to. It helps that you found a warped too, but you have the feeling that he would have done anything you asked him to. It feels awful and comforting at once. How much would he do? How far would he push himself for your sake?
Then again, maybe you would have pushed yourself for his sake. If it were good pace — somehow — and there was a second bastion closer, wouldn’t you have forced down the panic in your chest and followed him through the route? You can’t really be mad at him for doing the same thing you know you would do. You don’t really have the energy to be mad at him at all, because every time you look at your rescuer’s face, cut up and soot-smeared, you feel safer and calmer than you can ever remember feeling.
Moon Waltz - Berial x F!Reader, Chapter Two (of all the strangers, you're the strangest that I've seen)
Fandom: AFK Journey
Pairing: Berial/F!Reader
Status: Incomplete (2/?)
Content Warnings for this chapter: mentions of the prior chapter's attempted SA, Berial being spooky, minor flirtation under false pretenses
Summary:
"Your hopes that your encounter with Berial was just a one-off experience are quickly dashed as he decides to interfere with your daily life."
There is a mirror on AO3 which has the same author name as my tumblr. Tumblr hates links in posts, so this is my indirect way of saying it.
After accepting your tea (and drinking all of it straight from the still-whistling kettle, much to your horror), Berial declared he had ‘important business’ to take care of and promptly slunk into the shadows with much fanfare after promising he’d be back ‘soon’.
You didn’t believe him for a second. He’d probably found somewhere to hide in your house to then pop up and scare you. So as you went about your daily routine, you did it with your guard fully raised, yanking open every cupboard and drawer with purpose as if to startle Berial before he could startle you.
And yet, every single one came up empty. Had he truly left, or was he waiting for you to relax before he struck? You were (fairly) sure he wasn’t in it to kill you (yet) but you were still at the mercy of a demented elder Hypogean. His senses of morality were on a whole different plane of existence than yours. To him, scaring someone to death was all fun and games.
Every corner you turned, every door you opened, you expected the jester to spring out at you with a haughty “BOO!”. When it almost became time to leave for work and he hadn’t shown his terrifying face, you were tense.
What if he’d left you alone for now? Hypogeans were long-lived, after all; perhaps ‘soon’ for him could be years for you. Maybe you’d be lucky enough to be dead and gone by the time you crossed his mind once more.
As you made for the door, you reached for the coat and scarf you always wore outside only for your hands to come up empty. Your heart sunk as you recalled what had happened to them. With how much snow had fallen between last night and now, they were probably buried forever. They had been very nice, a touch above what you could usually afford as they’d been a gift from someone important to you. Replacing them would take a while of you saving up.
With a resigned sigh, you left your house, wrapping your arms tightly around yourself and shivering. Today, the sun was out and the skies were clear. Some of the worst snow had even begun to melt, though you were certain it would be back before long. At least today you could see down the road, so there was no way you’d get lost.
You inhaled deeply, taking in the cool, crisp air. It truly felt wonderful to be alive, you thought. After two scares in less than a day, you were almost happy to go to work and face a mundane day and ordinary customers. After coming to terms with the reality that you would be playing host to Berial for the near future, you felt like you could tackle any sort of problem patron.
(But you were in this whole mess because of a problem patron, weren’t you?)
The walk to your work felt twice as long thanks to your lack of coat and scarf, but you made it, fumbling with the door with numb fingers.
You weren’t due to open for another half-hour or so, so you had time to warm up and putter about before dealing with customers.
The jingle of the bell caused your boss, a taciturn man in his forties who didn’t say much, to look up from wiping down the counter. “Somethin’ here for you,” he grunted, looking back down just as quick as he’d looked up..
“Huh?”
Your boss put down the rag and reached under the bar to pull out… your coat! And your scarf! “Some guy left them here not long before you got here, said they were yours and you dropped ‘em.”
Bewildered, you crossed the room and took the aforementioned garments from your boss with hands that had started to tingle with the discomfort of returning warmth. Taking them to a table, you looked them over and sure enough, they were yours. The coat was a bit scuffed but fine otherwise and the scarf had been clumsily mended down the middle with black thread. It was a bit of a sight but it worked.
Where could these have come from? You’d already resigned yourself to them being lost forever, and the only person who would know where they were was…
“Did, uh, did ‘some guy’ give you his name?” you asked, poking your head out through the doorway at your boss as you put your things in the back and started with your opening duties.
Your boss shook his head. “Nope. I figured you’d know him or something.”
“Well… what did he look like?” The chances of a Hypogean just being able to waltz up to a tavern and not cause panic were zero, after all.
“I dunno, wasn’t really payin’ attention. Short? Dark hair? Just some guy. Friend of yours?”
You really didn’t know what to say to that. “... yeah, something like that.” If your boss didn’t believe you, he either respected your privacy or didn’t care enough to ask. Knowing him, it was probably the latter.
With more questions than answers, you started work. All in all, everyone was overwhelmingly normal. You relished in it after your sojourn with the supernatural the night prior. But you were still on edge. Every corner you turned, every time you went to take the trash out back, you were expecting a certain someone to come popping out at you.
But then again, there were too many people around for that, right? As much as Berial said he loved an audience, he also probably knew that popping up in front of a group of people was likely to be dangerous for a Hypogean like him. He could take out a decent amount of people by himself… but if an entire crowd rushed him he was likely done for.
(Or whatever passed for ‘done for’ for him.)
As usual, your boss went home an hour before closing, leaving you to lock up for the night. The last of the customers shuffled out about two minutes prior to the official closing time, and you leaned against the bar, sighing heavily as you wiped sweat off your brow. As good a workout as it was, being one of the only waitresses in a popular tavern was tiring.
You turned around to start bringing dishes to the sink when the bell jingled behind you.
“We’re closed!” you called without looking. Well, you weren’t technically for another minute, but…
“I’ll only be a moment, I promise,” a soft voice answered. You turned to see a man about your age with a shy smile and mop of dark wavy hair that contrasted his pale face. He sported a dark coat and overall seemed harmless.
You felt your heart thrum a little because he was the most handsome man you’d seen in quite a while. Maybe you could bend the rules, just a little. After all, a paying customer was a paying customer, right?
“Alright, but be quick,” you said, coming behind the bar. “To-go only, please.”
“As you wish,” the man said politely as he sat down and opened up a menu.
You decided to strike up a conversation with this stranger to see where it went. “I’ve never seen you before,” you said. “Are you new in Cedartown?” You leaned on the counter, trying to look engaged but casual. It had been a while since you’d made a true connection, and if he was open to it…
The stranger considered his words. “You could say that. I’ve heard this place was delightful, and I just had to come see what it was all about. And I see they were right, everything here is lovely.”
He gave you a soft smile, and your cheeks heated up. “Y-yes, the decor is nice here.” Flustered, you turned around to grab a glass for the stranger. “What’ll it be, sir?”
You turned around to find that somehow, the stranger had silently come behind the bar and was right up in your face, grinning wildly. He’d not made a sound; one moment he was sitting and the next he was right in your face as if he’d just teleported there. You screamed and dropped the glass you had in hand, barely registering the noise it made as it shattered on the ground. The stranger’s grin grew impossibly wider. “Do you have Magister Merlin in a can? If so, you’d better let them out!” he exclaimed, doubling over in laughter at his own joke. His voice had gone from soft to raspy, and-
Wait, you definitely recognized that maniacal laughter. “B-Berial?” You squeaked as you leaned against the counter and tried your hardest to get your heart to calm down after that scare.
The stranger vanished in a puff of smoke and in his place stood the nuisance himself as he alighted himself backwards with an ostentatious backflip and stood proudly on top of the table you’d just wiped down. “The one and only!” He bowed, tipping both his hat and his head to uproarious applause from nowhere. “Ahaha, you should have seen the look on your face . Oh, that was priceless!”
“Get out!” you yelled, no longer caring if you were sassing a man who could rip you into shreds if he wanted. Now that you were no longer scared, you were angry. Frightening you was one thing, but the fake flirtation was just mean, you thought.
The one time someone seems interested and it’s all a big joke…
“Make me,” he said, sticking out that damnable tongue at you. “You can’t.”
You scowled at him and went to get a broom and dustpan to clean up the mess. “You’re right, I can’t. I’m not dumb enough to try.” He just watched as you swept up the shards of the glass he’d caused you to break. Lazy bastard…
“So dedicated to your work…” he quipped mockingly as you went about trying to clean and close as fast as you could so you could go home and not have to deal with this menace staring you down. “So adorable, how you mortals commit to such mundane things…” He floated down into a chair and leaned back languidly, hands behind his head like he owned the place.
“What do you want, Berial?” you huffed, throwing down the rag you were using to wipe up the table he’d gotten dirt all over with with frustration.
Berial smirked. “That’s a dangerous question to ask a Hypogean, my dear. It implies you have a willingness to give. And you saw how well that ended for our friend last night…” He stood and hovered in the air, lights dimming as he grew closer to you. You took steps back until your back hit the bar. Was this the end? Had he gotten bored of you already? “What do I want? I want…” He leaned in close, like he was about to pounce. “... coffee.” He pulled back, the lights returning. “One of those really fancy ones!”
As your brain processed the fact that you weren’t actually in mortal danger and he was just, once again, messing with you, you couldn’t help but laugh. This was your life now, babysitting this creepy clown until he decided to snap your neck on a whim. You’d lost your mind. Maybe you were already dead and this was eternal punishment for you. You ran a hand through your hair as you continued to laugh with sheer relief.
Berial pouted. “I hardly see what’s funny.” He crossed his arms with a huff. “What, you don’t serve Hypogeans? That’s discrimination! I’ll report you to your boss!”
When he did that, he looked sort of… cute, you thought.
Wait, what? You shook the strange thought away. “No, what I mean is… you definitely don’t need any coffee. You’ll be bouncing off the walls all night.”
Berial shrugged. “I’m nocturnal anyhow. What does it matter? Look, I’m a paying customer.” He took some gold coins out of a pocket on his outfit and tossed them casually on the table. Some of them were spattered with a substance that looked suspiciously like blood.
You blinked. “Where did you get those?”
“Don’t ask questions you don’t want the answers to. Now shut up and take my money!”
Rolling your eyes, you scooped up the money and placed it in the till. He was right, a customer was a customer.
(And your boss hardly cared where money came from as long as it wasn’t fake.)
So you made him his damned coffee, loading it up with every sugar and syrup you could think of until it was a sickly-sweet mess.
“Here you go,” you said with a similar sickly-sweet tone as you placed what could barely be called coffee anymore in front of him. Just looking at it made you a bit queasy. You couldn’t wait to see the look on his face when he tried the horrid concoction; it was time for payback.
But of course, he knew just how to surprise and irritate you. As he took a sip, a pleased smile spread across his face. “Ah, just how I like it! However did you know?” With a few sickening slurps, he downed the so-called drink in record time, messily licking the dregs from around his face. Ugh, tongues should not be able to reach that far. “Ah, now that’s customer service! I think I’ll come back soon!”
You rubbed your temples, fighting off a headache that threatened to plague you. Well, a different headache than the one currently sitting in front of you with a contented smirk, that was. That one, you’d just have to endure. “If you come in looking like that, you’ll scare everyone off and then I’ll be out of a job. And you won’t get coffee.”
Berial rolled his eyes. “Yes, I know you fragile little humans scare easily. My word, they can’t even stand the sight of one single Hypogean…” He stood and snapped his fingers. With a poof, the handsome young man from before stood in front of you. You averted your eyes.
I can’t believe I was flirting with him. This is so embarrassing.
“Well, yes, you can come in like that. But I’ll always know who you are.”
He smirked. “Will you?” he asked, normal voice remaining this time even with his changed appearance. “I can be anyone, you know. I could be your boss!” He changed into the aforementioned man. “I could be the shopkeep down the way!” And then he was. “I could even be… you!”
Suddenly it was like you were standing in front of a living mirror. Somehow, Berial had indeed turned into a perfect replica of you, down to every imperfection on your skin.
You shivered, stepping away. “Don’t do that, it’s creepy.” This was too uncanny.
“What, can’t stand the sight of yourself?” he quipped, adopting a smirk that definitely did not match your face. “In case you forgot, creepy is what I do.” With a poof, he was the handsome man again. “Ah, but I remember you much preferred this form, yes?”
You cleared the table with a glare. “You chose a form that led someone to let their guard down. Don’t read into it.” Angrily, you washed the cup and placed it where it needed to go. Stupid Berial and his stupid shapeshifting…
“And you fell for it flawlessly. I figured you’d at least be a little suspicious. After all, you’ve been jumping at shadows all day.”
Of course he’d been watching you. Ignoring his quip, you went to the back and returned with your things, donning your coat.
Berial, still in disguise, smiled. “I see you received my gift.”
“So it was you. I had a hunch, but I wasn’t sure how you could have dropped these off with my boss without raising suspicion. Now that I know you can do… that,” you waved in the vague direction of his form, “it makes a lot more sense.”
“Well, of course it was me. Who else could it have been?”
He had a point. For a moment, you just looked at him, studying his features for any hint of subterfuge.
(It didn’t hurt that this particular disguise was still nice to look at even with his identity revealed.)
“Why?” you asked finally.
“I can’t very well have you freezing to death out there before I’m done with you!” he said with a mocking giggle.
Rolling your eyes, you walked past him and reached for the door. When your hand was on the handle, you looked back at him. He was still there, watching you. “... thank you,” you said, opening the door to step out into the night.
“But of course!” he replied, somehow on the other side of the door as you opened it.
You swore loudly and looked behind you to see he was indeed gone from where he’d been. “Dammit, Berial!”
He laughed as you flashed him quite the rude gesture. “That was a good one and you know it.” He manifested his top hat and tipped it at you before putting it back on his head.
You studied him. “Hmm… I’m pretty sure I’d have recognized you if you’d come in with the hat,” you mused as you locked the door behind you.
“That’s why I didn’t. Too on the nose, don’t you think?” he asked, tapping yours in time with the word. You tamped down the urge to bite his hand. That, you figured, would be the quickest way to die.
You frowned, pulling your coat closer as you stepped into the road. “Just don’t… do that again,” you said. Of course it had been a joke when he’d said I was lovely, you thought. Everything was a joke to him. It wasn’t the fact that he was the one who’d said it that bothered you. No, it was the principle of the matter as a whole.
“What, scare you? I’m afraid I’ll have to decline your request.” He fell into step beside you, and to any onlookers it would appear as if you were two normal humans out on a night walk. Only you knew the truth about the dangerous man who stood beside you.
“No, don’t… do whatever it was you were doing when you came in. That weird pretense. If you want to scare me, just scare me, okay?”
He raised an eyebrow. “You humans and your human baggage. Very well, no made-up identities for me… at least when we’re alone. I can’t very well be myself when we’re out and about, hmm?”
“Who said anything about me going anywhere with you?”
Berial smirked, and it was so like his normal appearance for a moment that you truly had no idea how you hadn’t seen through his disguise at the beginning. “Do you really have a choice?”
“... no,” you relented. At least he’d had the good sense to leave you alone for a few hours at work. “I’ve realized there’s no getting rid of you.”
“You wound me,” he said, pressing a hand to his chest in mock hurt. “Aren’t I wonderful company?”
You didn’t dignify that with an answer, instead shoving your hands in your pockets and looking up at the sky. It was a clear night, and the stars twinkled above you. All in all, it was a far cry from the whiteout conditions you’d first met Berial in.
“Did you know you walked past that post three times last night?” Berial said, pointing at a nearby lamppost and snickering. “You were scrambling around, all panicked!”
“I wonder why,” you deadpanned at him.
He took it in stride. “That was one of my better scares. A shame it had to end so abruptly.”
“I’m so sorry you didn’t get to kill and eat me like you wanted,” you said sarcastically as you trudged right past him. Maybe if he stayed there gloating long enough you’d get a head start on him.
Berial scoffed, matching pace with you in a mere second with grace unbefitting his human guise. “Who said anything about killing you? I don’t always kill my victims, you know. That little bit of ‘will he or won’t he’ heightens the suspense, you see. It makes the fear all the sweeter. If someone knows they’re walking into certain death, it blunts their terror with despondency." He leaned back with a dramatic hand on his forehead, as if the mere thought of such was a tragedy he couldn’t bear.
You considered his words, stopping dead in your tracks and turning back to face him. Thankfully, this time looking at him came with no apparent consequences. “What would you have done, then?” In a way, it made sense; if he killed everyone he caught, who would be left to tell the story of why you should never look behind you at night?
“Hm, depends on my mood. Sometimes I take them into a shadow dimension and let monsters chase after them. Sometimes I do magic tricks. And yes, sometimes I do kill them. But usually only the really rude ones. Honestly, some people…” He pouted again, and you looked away because oh no it was even cuter in this form. “‘Oh no, please don’t kill me!’” he said in a mock voice. “‘How dare you kidnap me, filthy Hypogean!’ Hmph… Hypogeans have feelings too, you know.”
This was something you were now all too aware of, having been the unwitting companion of this vexatious man for almost a day now. “... I suppose I never thought about it like that before,” you said quietly. “You’re…” Different than other Hypogeans? No, that just sounded insulting. A menace? Yes, but he already knew that. Annoying? You were pretty sure that’s what he was trying for. “... interesting too.”
“Am I?” he asked, intrigued. “I mean, of course I am! I’m powerful beyond how any mortal could dream. Why, I was so feared, they sealed me away for thousands of years!”
Well, that explained why the rumors of sightings had only started a few years ago, you realized. When you were a child, there were no such tall tales about this particular Hypogean snatching people in the night, so you figured it had been something that people had made up recently with all the strange happenstances going on everywhere.
“What happened?” you inquired, genuinely curious.
He frowned, truly frowned , and it was a look that was foreign on the normally jovial man’s face. “It’s a long story,” was all he said, and you had a feeling he didn’t really want to talk about it.
“Alright.” So you kept going, silence between you now devoid of the heart clenching fear it had been filled with when you first met. Now… it was almost comfortable.
Berial gestured around him, this time thankfully without any phantom fanfare. “The world is a lot different now,” he said. “Lots of new things. Back then, they could never have come up with something like that coffee you served me.”
“Do you miss it? Back then, I mean.”
He appeared to really think about that for a moment. “Not really. People today are far more interesting. And there’s far more of them, too! Plenty of potential people for an audience.”
“How old are you, anyhow?”
He chuckled. “Older than the hills, my dear. I rival the Celestials, even.”
“You must have seen a lot of things, met a lot of people.”
“I have! And it’s allowed me to learn a lot of things. Like how best to scare mortals! You all are afraid of such strange things. Bugs, rats, even the dark! Now, why would people be afraid of such a silly little thing like the dark? The dark is wonderful!”
You hummed in thought. “It’s… it’s not really the dark that people fear, though. It’s what’s in it.”
“Like me,” he said, grinning with too many teeth. “I’m in the dark.” It looked creepier in his human disguise than it did in his default form, probably due to the fact that humans did not smile like that.
“Yeah, but so was…” You looked away from him pointedly and realized you were passing by the alley where all of this had begun. “... so was he.”
Berial nodded. “That he was. And lest you worry, I came back and took care of all the ‘evidence’ when I retrieved your things. As far as anyone is concerned, he’s a missing person no one seems to miss at all.”
Somewhere deep down you realized you were far less perturbed about that man’s brutal murder than a prudent person should have been.
“He was horrid, always making trouble for everyone. Can’t remember a night where he didn’t if he was there. I can’t say I’m sad he’s gone.”
“Hmm, guess I’ll consider that my good deed for the century. See, even Hypogeans can be noble.”
You chuckled softly. “I guess so,” you said as you reached your house.
As you fished your keys out of your pocket, you felt something cold thump against your back.
Confused, you turned around just in time to get nailed in the face with a snowball. Berial stood there with another one in his hand. “Gotcha!” he said, laughing.
And standing there in the dark with a monster, you laughed too. Dropping your things next to the door, you quickly scooped up some snow and fired back at him, knocking his hat clean off his head.
“Oh, you shouldn’t have done that…” he said ominously, sinking into the shadows.
For a moment, you were worried you’d crossed some line, that you’d offended him to the point where he considered your death a viable outcome. Your heart pounded in your chest as you looked all around you to try and find some hint of where he’d gone.
“Guess where I am!” he bellowed jovially, popping out of the wall behind you and getting you with a snowball that went down the back of your coat, dripping cold all the way down your back. You whirled around as an incredibly undignified squeal left your mouth of the discomfort. You swiped at where he'd just been only to find empty air and a dissipating cloud of shadow. Already his laughter sounded from behind him.
And so for the next few moments, you had one of the strangest experiences of your life: a snowball fight with a Hypogean.
Well, it wasn’t so much a snowball fight as it was a snowball pummeling. Berial fought dirty, using all his dark magic to his advantage. Your clean shot on his hat had merely been the product of the element of surprise, and he made sure you knew that.
When you’d finally had enough, you ducked inside the next time he took to the shadows to get the jump on you. As you locked the door behind you, you heard the now-familiar whoosh of Berial’s shadow magic.
“Hey, that’s cheating!” Berial protested, having bypassed your locked door entirely to scowl at you. He’d shed his disguise once more, hovering about a foot off the ground with his tail lashing behind him in irritation.
“So was just about everything you were doing!” you shot back, taking off your coat and finally getting the cold remnants of the snowball he’d gotten down your back off of you.
Berial snorted. “Shadow magic is part of playing a game with a Hypogean. If you don’t like it, don’t play.” He turned away from you, crossing his arms with an exaggerated pout.
“Gladly,” you quipped, but you couldn’t help but admit that that had actually been… sort of fun? You finished shucking your snow gear and went for the tea kettle to warm yourself up. Berial took to perching in your rafters like some sort of bat; it must have been some magic keeping his hat on his head while he looked at you upside down.
“No fun,” he grumbled.
You chuckled as you went to light a lantern to see in the dark. Berial giggled to himself all the while and you wondered what he was plotting.
Well, you didn’t have to wonder long as when you were finally able to see further, you realized that while you were at work, he’d somehow painted all of your walls a garish purple.
“Berial!”
He disappeared with a cackle, leaving you to sort out your new decor all by your lonesome.
It’s not the first time you found yourself between that particular sandwich of werewolf and vampire Ferrari drivers. How they manage to turn you into this blushing mess every time is a mystery to you. Well. Not that much of a mystery actually. They are really good. Really really good. And no matter how many orgasms they squeeze out of you, you can never get used to it.
OR: Vampire!Charles and werewolf!Carlos have their way with you. You are not complaining.
charlos x you ~ explicit ~ 4,5k ~ threesome ~ vampire and werewolf
Read on AO3
Body still trembling from your most recent orgasm (not the first of the night and not the last either, you hope), you let Carlos wrap his big hairy arms around you and pull you toward his chest. You fall into his embrace with a satisfied sigh, your back to his torso. He burrows his face into the crook of your neck, lips wet with the remnant of your own orgasm over your sensitive skin, as you settle between his parted thighs. His arms tighten around your middle.
“You always taste so good, cariño,” he whispers in your ear, all smooth and hot.
You blush.
“Oh, stop it,” you protest feebly.
He rumbles a laugh into your neck, leaving ticklish kisses on your skin.
“Well, it’s true. Isn’t it, Charles?”
Charles crawls on the mattress right between your legs, opens them wider and lays down his head on your thigh. He smiles, revealing his glistening sharp fangs. His cool skin on your overheated leg feels like heaven (Carlos is so so warm behind you).
“Oh, she definitely tastes the best.”
You blush deeper. Your face must be so red right now (from your previous orgasm on Carlos’ tongue, from the piercing stare Charles is giving you right now), so so red you could be part of the Ferrari team. Gosh!
It’s not the first time you found yourself between that particular sandwich of werewolf and vampire Ferrari drivers. How they manage to turn you into this blushing mess every time is a mystery to you. Well. Not that much of a mystery actually. They are really good. Really really good. And no matter how many orgasms they squeeze out of you, you can never get used to it.
Anyway.
Charles drops a soft kiss on your thigh.
“Can I taste you too, now, amour?”
You nod fervently and feel, more than you hear, Carlos groan. Or maybe he is purring, who knows?
“Yes, please,” you say.
“Good. You’re so good to me, to us, baby. Let me make you feel good, okay?”
“Okay.”
Charles smiles again, all sharp fangs and cold lips for you. You shiver in anticipation.
If you want to read Aura and Elo with no spoilers or teasers at all, maybe don’t read this :33
The body begs for rest that the mind will not provide.
Pinkish goggles collect dew in the tiaga grass, leaving the eyes unprotected from the dawn.
Blinding pain is a good reason to cry.
The sun rises as it always does: warm and golden, brilliant and relentless and
obstinate and shortsighted and stubborn and arrogant and going to end up with nothing when it was all said and done
As it always does. Every morning. Day after day. Run after run. Seed after seed.
Apathetic to the activities of society.
Apathetic when the council demanded the return of his diamond badge.
Apathetic when his title was stripped away.
Apathetic in the face of exile.
Apathetic when the archduke tried for weeks to make him see reason, to get it through his thick head that
goddamnmit Couri why can't you just say that you didn't mean any of it and say you're sorry and say it's okay and get in the queue again so that maybe it doesn't have to be this way and we can just go back to normal—
