This is a year long collaboration with @elkonigin, @clearwillow, @mamabearcat, @dawnrider, @inuyashamybeloved and myself about Inuyasha's human nights, all spent in Kagome's era, and how things evolve over time.
Summary: This is a series that spans across Inuyasha's Human nights spent in the modern era.
I am sooooo excited to announce an exciting upcoming event! I'm collaborating with @deepspacedukat to create A Dark!Tales Halloween Series of some of your favorite OC's! Each week, we will post a new fic, featuring a different OC.
Keep an eye out starting the first week of October as we celebrate this fabulous month together! 🎃
A/N: The moment has finally arrived! The first official collab/crossover between myself and @miss-kittys-magical-library!
I’m really excited for how this came out, and how much fun we had writing it together. 😊
Word Count: 3127
Rating: T - mild language, brief mention of blood, discussion of violence
~The Papermill bookstore, Sway Lake~
Selina burst through the door of the bookstore. She almost doesn't wait for Jess to say hello or ask questions. Selina is overcome with adrenaline, the exhilaration of what she did. A giant smile spread across her lips. There's almost a dreamy look in her eyes.
She's covered in blood: her hands, her jeans, the bottom of her shirt. Selina held her hands like a surgeon so she didn't touch anything.
Jess’s mouth hung open while she pointed nervously towards the upstairs. Her friend knew where to find what she needed.
Selina comes out of the hot shower knowing Jess will be in the room waiting. She found clean clothes but stopped to study herself in the mirror. Somehow she felt like her body had changed somehow.
Selina caught a picture of her and Jess and held it up. How far they've come from the girls in the photo on her best friend’s dresser.
She glimpsed Jess in the mirror, a strange smirk on her face. Selina knew something was up. She handed the picture to her friend and spoke,
“Can you believe this was us?”
------
There had been a time in life where Selina and Jess had told each other everything, no matter what. And yet somehow this summer, one of the most eventful in recent history, Jess hadn’t told her best friend anything. Anyone who had spent any time on the lake knew about tensions between the Sways and...basically everyone, but especially Selina’s mother and her relatives. And more than that, it had been kind of nice to have a good secret all to herself for a little while. But she missed her friend, and would have loved her advice on what to do about the boy who was quickly becoming someone important, and a problem for her heart.
She was just thinking about the other girl, wondering if she should call her after work, maybe suggest a bonfire or late night rowboat race like they used to have, when Selina burst through the door. Jess’s eyes fell to the blood first, and then rose quickly to Selina’s face and the expression that didn’t match the apparent situation at all.
A thousand questions raced through her mind as she pointed her best friend toward her bathroom (not that Selina didn’t know where it was by now) and made quick work of closing the shop. She didn’t seem hurt, so everything else could wait. While Selina washed herself clean, Jess dug for any clothes left behind the last time she had come for a visit, and failing that, any old shorts and t-shirt. She left them on top of the dresser and poked her head into the bathroom to gather the discarded bloody garments and throw them into the wash.
Selina was standing in the bedroom, studying herself in the mirror when Jess returned, and for a moment she wondered, again, if her friend was injured.
“Can you believe this was us, what?”
Selina laughed, “These girls. We’re just girls here trying to be grown women. I sort of treated you like I did Sunny.”
She waited for Jess to maybe bristle or tense up at his name. “I marched on to the beach, saw the first girl my age who had SOMETHING in common with me, and declared you mine. We aren't little girls anymore.”
There was a bittersweetness in her voice. Selina didn't even care that she was naked.
Jess laughed. She remembered that day, meeting Selina after escaping her siblings in search of a moment of peace and quiet, far from what actually found her instead. But they had got on so quickly she'd forgotten to be angry about it.
"No, we really aren't," she agreed with a tinge of nostalgic sadness in her own voice.
She leaned back on her hands on the bed, watching her friend study the picture. "I never minded, you know. It was kind of nice to be claimed by somebody. You'll always be my first for that," she bit her lip, hoping the joke didn't come off as uncomfortable given the situation.
Selina finally dressed and sat beside her friend on the bed. Her knuckles caressed the other woman’s cheek before she swept the hair from her face. Without a thought, she leaned in and gently pressed her lips to Jess’s, tongue lingered a bit before she broke away.
“That's from Sunny too.” Selina laid on her side tucked under Jess’s arm. “How is it that I was here for a few weeks, and youuuu have been tramping around Sway Lake with some chick?! Have you gone FULL lesbian?” she dropped her voice low.
Jess turned onto her side, propping a head on her arm to face Selina.
"You two are so weird," she rolled her eyes. "I don't think I'll ever get used to that."
Her stomach flipped at the thought of Sunny, eyes cast to the ceiling as her thoughts wandered. She loved Ollie, but there was something raw about the idea of losing the other boy, even though he wasn't really hers anymore and hadn't been in quite some time.
She quirked a teasing eyebrow as she returned to the present moment and the woman beside her.
"If I was going to do that, do you think it would be with anyone else than you? Whoever gave you your gossip needs glasses."
Selina’s mouth dropped open, “There's a guy around here with hair that long?!”
She linked her arm through Jess’s and pulled her in for a hug. The other woman now wrapped up in her embrace. Selina let her chin rest on her friend’s head as she stroked her hair. “You feel happier. Content. Like you're just drifting along. I know you loved Sunny in your own way, but this is different. It's the,” she ran a hand up and down Jess’s body without touching it, “this. Papa would call it your aura.”
Jess grinned. "I am. I'm really, really happy," she answered dreamily. "Ollie's a really sweet guy. But only here for the summer…"
She swallowed down the lingering bitter taste her argument with Ollie the previous morning had left in her mouth, not wanting to burden the conversation with her fears. Especially not when she still had so many questions of her own.
"But don't think asking about my love life is going to get you out of explaining yourself, missy." She teased.
Selina sat up, “Oliver Sway?! Jessica! Come on. Any other Tom, Dick or asshole at this stupid lake. Sunny. Sunny’s RIGHT THERE. Just grab him by the ankle and bring him back to Earth. He needs you.”
She took a breath, “That.. harpie will tear you apart because you aren't good breeding. It's Sway Lake because that's what those upper crust cunts hold over this entire town. Sway. Lakes dont belong to one family, they should belong to EVERY person. Are Sunny and I the only ones NOT under this family’s curse? First Tom, then Nikolai and now you.”
Selina’s voice was full of disappointment more than anger. She looked at her hands. Her palms, white and clean, were just caked brownish red not even an hour ago. “It can't be the both of us.”
"Nikolai?!" Jess asked, staring for a moment before doubling over in laughter. "Oh god it all makes sense now."
She struggled to contain her laughter, gasping for air and wiping away the tears in her eyes from it.
"Fuck Charlotte Sway, I couldn't care less what she thinks," she said, sobering and then sighing. "It's not like I planned on falling in love with Ollie. But I did, and it kinda scares me. I really really don't want to lose him. And he hates her and the whole legacy bullshit as much as anyone. Let it all rot or burn or whatever."
Jess was silent for a moment. It was hard to say Selina was her only or even oldest friend. But they were best friends, for certain, and they knew everything about each other. There were even times when they were younger that Selina and Sunny had talked about soulmates and Jess had wondered if she were hers. Which is why her stomach twisted with guilt as she realized just how unsettled Selina was, and pretending not to be.
"But enough about me, it doesn't matter. Are you okay?"
Selina took Jess’s hand in hers. She laced their fingers together and laid down again. This time she and her friend were side by side. She was certain no one in any spoken language had invented a word for what the two of them were.
Selina knew it was why Leon and Johnny always ended phone calls and visits with long hugs and I love yous. Why Honey and Klaus showered each other with intimacy and affection Honey showed Leon. Friendships that made people question your sexual intentions. It was probably something in the Kostas skin, like a pheromone.
The 23 year old pushed the thought out of her mind that everyone around them was their friend because they didn't have a choice. Instead she squeezed Jess’s hand.
“You know Honey, she holds grudges with a tight grip. There's only two people she hates: Charlotte Sway and Reginald Hargreeves, and he's the one she really wants dead. Charlie is lonely and miserable. That's punishment enough for Mama. Papa always says she would make a great Mafia don. She DID like Tim Sway;
cried when he killed himself. He wasn't even Charlot-” Selina cut herself off. “Either way Ollie must take after him then. I hope he does. I think we played together when we were little?”
She realized she was avoiding the question and wanted to deflect solely on Jess. Sunny wasn't the only one who slept around up here, or had a weird effect. Selina again panicked if maybe, somehow, what was in him was in her. That the Russian on a canoe in the middle of the night would show up in the Village, screaming at her in the dead of night. Some of the guys she fucked flopped around on top of Selina for a few minutes, got off while she stared at the ceiling. Then they laid claim to her like any White guy who thought he owned someone else’s land.
“And don't laugh like that either! I was doing my duty as a future nurse and helping someone who got hurt.”
She watched Jess cross her arms, even on her back. She was giving Selina THAT stare. Selina threw her hands up. “Ohhh,” she whined, ”I was swimming, floating really. Probably out further than I should be in the middle of the night, but that fucking moon. And there he was on his way to get rid of those horrendous jet skis of Jimmy’s. And he was flirtatious and made me groan, but also laugh?”
Selina had pulled her knees up to her chest so she could hug them. A far off look on her face. “And he's very.. I didn't really pay attention to what he looked like. WHO, right? It was just this fire that went through me. Like I knew him?
“Mama always talks about the day I was born and speaking into existence this notion. That every version of her will be loved by and love Papa. She thought it was blood loss creating insanity, but Sunny and I had designs on a love like theirs.”
“And the way Nikolai made me feel, and the way he knew my body? We didn't even fuck; not like that. I haven't cum that hard or much ever. Even by myself.”
“Then he got hurt, and I made Sunny take me to him. Ollie had saved him, right? As we're stitching him back together, I see his face. That face I grew up with three times over. He's fashioned for me, Jess. Maybe like Ollie is for you. But Nikolai is Leon and Nicklaus and Klaus and he's made to be mine.”
"No, no I'm not laughing at that, or you," Jess promised. "Just...the first decent conversation Nikolai and I had, he mentioned meeting someone. Matching his description to you is what's funny. And the fact that you two are such opposites." Jess paused, smiling in fondness for both parties in question. "But it's safe to say he likes you, a lot."
She felt silly now, not putting it together sooner. After all, there was no one else in the world she could think more aptly described as a siren made of the moon. And as funny as it was on paper, something about Selina and Nikolai made sense.
And, it made her heart beat giddily. Her faith in fate was complicated, but when it came to the Kostases, the concept was shockingly simple. And it seemed impossible that this was just coincidence, the four of them tied together like this.
'Or maybe,' she silently scolded, 'it's wishful thinking so you can tell yourself you're not being completely crazy.'
The rest of what Selina said registered belatedly and she blanched. "Wait. That was a lot of blood. Are you saying that it was all Nikolai's?"
“It was,” Selina replied softly.
"Jesus. What did he do, get in a knife fight?" Her voice was a mixture of concern and annoyance.
She could see Nikolai doing something like that, to defend his own pride which he deflected onto Ollie, or for some other stubborn, idiotic thing. And now that there were two people she loved who would get hurt if something happened to him, she made a note to have a little chat with him about being so reckless. And to find Ollie later to check on both boys.
"I know if he had you helping take care of him, I don't have to ask if he'll be alright." She nudged Selina teasingly with a shoulder, hoping to break up some of the heavy, contemplative air settling over them both.
“Knives don't cause QUITE as much damage as you think. Unless you hit a vein. Diego showed me how to do it effectively once. Plus if he's like the others, Nikolai probably prefers fists to weapons. Or the spider monkey sleeper-hold thing Klaus and Sunny do. Although Papa stabbed Uncle Jonny once, it was just an artificial wound.”
Selina suddenly scooped Jess up in her arms so they could go back to a cuddle. She tangled her legs and arms around Jess to sort of dominate her personal space. Her forehead pressed into her friend’s neck.
“He and Jimmy got into it, and they were on the boat dock. Nik slipped and hit his head. Ollie swam for like, the first time ever to get him up into a boat. Had pressure on it. I just stitched him with fishing wire. They'll do better at the ER.”
Selina sighed, “If he's like them he wouldn't die anyways. Klaus died like twice in a few days, also head injuries? Either way, Nikolai would’ve been fine without me.”
Then almost like an afterthought, “Did you say he talked to you about me? Probably something about conquests and the Russian army. But you! YOU FELL IN LOVE this summer! I got my pussy licked and think he's this mythical soulmate. You're in actual, real love.”
Selina propped up on her elbow, “Have you slept together? No I'm sorry, YOU get to call it MAKING LOVE!!” she burst into a fit of giggles around cheeks fired by jealousy. “I am happy for you. I promise. I'm glad Sunny.. I'm just happy.”
"No, actually," Jess said, shifting around Selina so they tucked together more cleanly, like two matched puzzle pieces. This kind of closeness wasn't Jess's favorite thing, but Selina knew that, and Jess trusted that if she didn't need it, she wouldn't be initiating it. "It was surprisingly non-militant. And only one nautical reference."
Jess hesitated, remembering some of the incidents Selina had to deal with and one or two more from the summers that Sunny, or Jess herself, had headed off before they got far enough to be a concern (or for Selina to even know). She wanted her friend to know just what Nikolai had said, and that he very much did not just see her as just some conquest. But the line between sweet and creepy was a hazy one at best. She brought one hand away from the tangle to fret the corner of her thumb between her teeth while she thought it over.
"I'm not saying I'm jealous...but I thought it was romantic. And dramatic of course, look who we're talking about. But dramatic isn't always bad. I wish you'd stop dismissing yourself like that. Soulmate or no, you have some sort of feelings for him which seem serious; one might call it a crush at least. And he made you feel good. He made you happy. You're allowed that. You deserve it. And now, for the moment if not more, you have it, savor it."
"As for Ollie and me..."
She froze, frowning as she struggled to figure out just what to say. There was a part of her that feared a reputation of some kind (even though it was just Ollie that she'd been a first time for, and Sunny, but he didn't count). And another part that wanted to keep it to herself, even though most of her wanted to share. She bit again at her thumb, searching for words.
"It's not that big of a deal?"
Selina bit her lip before a yawn escaped her. “One: a crush is a crush because you can get hurt. Otherwise, it would be called a cushion. I think that's what Papa said once. Or was it Klaus?”
Selina closed her eyes now. “Either way, it's a very big deal! I can feel the difference in you. I want you to be in love. To maybe leave Sway Lake. Come back to the city with me? Close up this place for a few months. You can live with me. Or Oliver for a little while. Oh lovely little Oliver making my sweet Jessica come ‘round again. All your sadness and little pieces everywhere. I couldn't stitch you back together with fishing wire, could I? I shouldn't have let Sunny break your heart. I just didn't want being around me to remind you of him. I'm sorry. But Ollie.. he’ll.. Sorry, I think I'm a bit delirious from adrenaline? Mind if I nap a bit?”
But Selina was fast asleep before Jess could give permission.
Jess shook her head with a smile, carefully extricating herself and tucking her friend into the bed. Selina had given her a lot to think about.
This is what happens when you wake up at 04:00 and lie in bed thinking of a collaboration with @kaykat-loves-luci that you’re not even supposed to be writing yet.
Prologue type thing under the cut.
The elevator doors opened and Chloe swept into the penthouse like a storm, fury crackling all around her. “I need a drink.”
Lucifer trailed in behind, looking down mournfully at his ruined jacket. He swept his hand over it, as if he could somehow brush away the blood there. “My bar is always open, Detective,” he said distractedly, not really paying much attention to her obvious displeasure.
Grabbing two glasses, she poured them both a heavy measure, sliding one down the bar towards him without so much as checking he was there to catch it. He’d be there in an instant she knew; the Devil had reflexes that would put a cat to shame, especially when it came to potentially wasting whisky.
She could feel his stare burning into the back of her head. “Detect-” he started, but she didn’t let him finish, downing her drink in one go and slamming the glass back on the bar, before whirling around to face him.
“What were you thinking?”
He sighed wearily. “I was thinking, Detective, that it was far better I took the blade than you.”
Mindful of the already almost healed wound, he slowly he removed his tuxedo jacket, folding it neatly and placing it upon the piano. “At least I didn’t pull it out this time,” he pointed out, muttering under his breath.
Chloe strode towards him, anger lacing her words. “Yeah. Because if you did, you’d be dead right now.” She grabbed the white jacket and shook it out, spreading it purposefully over the black gloss, the red stain that soaked the left side providing a stark contrast against it.
“And you wouldn’t have let our murderer get away,” he snapped, his eyes turning to flames for the briefest of moments.
Since that day in the loft he’d had less control over his other face, and it wasn’t getting better with time, much to his dismay. The flashes of his Devil form were something she’d quickly had to accept once they started working together again. It was either that, or let the instinctive terror it inspired overwhelm her every time it happened, which was often.
They argued a lot more than they used to these days.
“Seriously? That’s what you’re worried about?” she stepped closer to him, her eyes almost as blazing as his had been. “You were bleeding out, Lucifer. Do you know what it was like for me, having to leave you there like that?”
The instant he’d crumpled to the ground in front of her she’d started running, kicking off her heels and hitching the black ball gown she was wearing as high as she could as she raced towards her car. Abandoning him had gone against every instinct she had, but she knew, she knew if he died it would be her fault.
Not his.
Not the man who had stabbed him.
Hers.
And she couldn’t bear it the thought of it.
Raising her hand, she traced her fingers over the hole in his shirt. “You could have died.” Her breath hitched and she desperately tried to contain the sob that was threatening to escape. “I don’t know what I’d do without-”
He flinched away, walking back to the bar and filling up his glass again. Throwing it back, he remained there, gripping the counter tightly, refusing to look at her. “Whatever you did before, I suppose,” he said bitterly.
She’d started to follow him, but his words made her halt. “Do you really think you mean that little to me?” she said quietly.
“Let’s face it, Detective. We both know your life would be better off without the Devil in it.” He stared steadfastly at the bottles that lined the wall in front of him, but the way his voice trembled betrayed the anguish he felt.
She took hold of his shoulder, tugging him around towards her hard and pushing him back against the bar. “Then why do I stay, huh?” she demanded. “Why am I here, with you, if that’s what I think?”
He dropped his gaze to the floor. “You need the eggs.”
Placing her hands on either side of his face, she gently encouraged him to look at her. “Lucifer… I need you, not the eggs.”
She slid her hand down his neck to his chest, feeling his heart beat firm and heavy against her palm.“I could have lost you…” Blinking away tears, she tilted her face up towards him. “I can’t lose you.”
“Chloe?” he said softly, confusion on his face, and hope in his eyes.
But I’m the Devil.
The words remained unspoken, but she heard them anyway.
Reaching up, she lightly brushed her lips against his. “I don’t care,” she whispered over his skin. Moving her other hand to the back of his neck, she drew him closer to her as she kissed him again. “Lucifer, I don’t care.”
His lips moved hesitantly against hers, nervous and unbelieving. She wanted more. She needed more. She had to feel him warm and alive under her, hear his breath catch as she moved, watch his eyes darken as he gasped out her name.
He staggered slightly when she moved abruptly away, but he soon recovered as she fisted her hands in his shirt, pulling him towards the bedroom. Finally, finally, his body kicked into gear and he crushed her to him, kissing her deeply. She moaned into his mouth as he lifted her, wrapping herself around him.
“You’re sure?” he asked as he lay her down upon black silk sheets, not bothering to hide the desire that consumed him, but failing to hide what lay behind it. Something she now so easily recognised from that night on the balcony all those months ago.
Love.
“I’m sure,” she said.
And she was.
Tonight, she didn’t care that he was the Devil.
Tonight he was here, with her, and that was all that mattered.
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