Pairing: Develle (Danny Devine x Belle) and some Ivelle for fun (Colonel Ives x Belle)
Summary: Belle works nights at the Parrot Club to pay off her estranged husband’s debts to Danny Devine, and days at a bookstore where she has struck up a friendship with a gentleman named Ives. Belle is just supposed to do Danny’s books and keep the office organized, but when Something Happens, she gets drawn into a world she never expected.
Read from the beginning
——————————
Danny had never been in a mood quite this foul. Of course, he had also never spent one glorious day with the love of his life only to be forced to break her heart so that her ex-boyfriend didn’t eat her, so he had to cut himself some slack.
He got back to his new flat, a one-bedroom with clean walls and new paint and new appliances that Belle would probably never see, stripped off all his clothes, poured himself a drink, and stood in the shower until he’d finished it. Then, he poured himself another and sat in bed watching old football games until his eyes glazed over and he slid onto his back to alternately doze off and stare at the ceiling until his alarm rang.
Today of all days, he could not wear a too-small suit, so he put on slacks and a polo. He did not care how well his outfit fit in at the club. He wanted to lay across train tracks.
All this time, he’d loved Belle quietly, by himself, without any issues, so he thought he’d cope just fine after dropping her off. But pining for her before she’d kissed him was nothing to pining for her after.
@shipperqueen93 prompted: “Ivelle: They eat from a addict and get high.”
This could take place in either the Insatiable or the Revenge is Sweet verses - both Belle and Ives are wendigos. Just a little bit of nonsense to lighten up everyone’s Thursday evening.
Warning: Cannibalism, and two tripping cannibals...
====
Tripping the Light Fantastic
“Belle?”
“Yes?”
“Who the hell did we just eat?”
To anyone else this question would have seemed completely out of place, but to Ives and Belle, it was a more common one than anyone might have guessed.
“I don’t know, I just got the meat out of the freezer. I don’t exactly label it for obvious reasons. Why?”
“Well, I think there was something wrong with whoever it was. I’m feeling mightily peculiar.”
Belle came over and sat down on the sofa beside Ives. Now that he had mentioned it, she wasn’t feeling entirely normal herself. She thought back over their recent victims, trying to work out if any of them looked like they had any kind of strange diseases. Most things like that got cooked out, but there were always risks to be run whenever they indulged in this element of their lifestyle. She preferred to cook with fresh meat, but sometimes needs must and in order to avoid attracting the attention of various authorities, occasionally a recourse to the deep freeze was necessary.
Luckily the increased metabolism of the wendigo meant that the effects would not be long lasting and hopefully they would be back to normal soon. Belle looked up at the ceiling as she tried to think, but thinking became harder and harder as the ceiling became more and more fascinating. There was a spider making its way across the white surface, and Belle wondered whether the world looked different to him, looking down on it as he was with his eight eyes.
“Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be a spider?” she asked Ives.
“No…” Ives looked up and became transfixed by the spider as well, watching its progress across the ceiling with intense concentration. “What would it be like to be so small, do you think?”
“I think it must make life very tiring. I mean, look how long it’s taken him to get across the ceiling. He’s probably going as fast as he can. I mean, you and I can walk across the room in a couple of seconds, but he’s going to be at that for a while.”
“We’re giants in his eyes,” Ives agreed.
“You know, spiders have eight eyes. I wonder if each one sees something different, like having eight TV screens in your head all showing different stations.”
“That would be confusing… But it would be useful if you want to watch two things that are on at the same time.”
“That’s what the DVR’s for, silly.”
There was a long pause as they continued to track the spider’s progress along the ceiling.
“Come on, little buddy,” Belle encouraged, waving him on with little flicks of her fingers as if she was pushing him across the ceiling herself. “You can do it! You’re nearly there!”
“I feel like we should be eating popcorn,” Ives mused.
“We’ve only just had dinner.”
“Yeah, but I’m still hungry.”
“So am I, now you mention it.” There was another long pause as the spider stopped about three inches from the wall. Belle got up, then sat back down again immediately, flopping over to the side and leaning on Ives. “My legs feel funny.”
Ives looked down at them. “They don’t look funny. They look like legs.” He paused. “I suppose legs do look a bit like sausages in a way. Especially on the beach. Little hotdog sausages roasting in the sun.”
Belle glared at him. “Don’t eat my legs.”
“I’d never eat you!” Ives would have sounded affronted if his speech wasn’t starting to slur. “Although, you do taste really good.”
“Yeah, so do you… Just not when you’ve been eating garlic… Then you just taste of garlic…”
“I thought you liked garlic.”
“I do.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
“Some things in life just should not taste of garlic.” She glared down at his lap, and Ives thought that he understood her. Almost. Then again, a herd of miniature pink unicorns had just started tap-dancing along the arm of the sofa, and he scrambled back from them as much as he could, which, given the lack of co-ordination in his limbs, was not very much before he ended up falling over the other arm of the sofa, and sprawling on the floor.
“Holy crap, are you all right?”
Belle’s face swam into view above him, but beyond her blurred features, he could see the spider finally reaching its destination.
“He did it!” he yelled, much to the consternation of the unicorns.
“Who did what?” Belle asked, perplexed, her face still swimming.
“The…”
Spider. He knew that the word was spider, but he couldn’t make his mouth form around the two syllables to create the word.
“The…” Belle prompted.
“The handsome chap with eight legs on the ceiling,” Ives concluded. He had no idea if the spider was handsome or not, but he thought that it was wearing a bow tie and top hat, so it was cutting a dashing figure even if it did have eight legs and eight eyes.
Belle looked up to the ceiling, staring at it inscrutably.
“Huh,” she said, and then promptly toppled down off the sofa onto Ives.
“Uff.”
“Sorry. Seemed like the quickest way to get onto the floor.”
“What was?”
“Falling.”
“Yeah… Quickest way to do anything, I think.”
“Apart from make an omelette.”
“I could really use an omelette right now.”
“Yeah… I can’t move my arms or legs though.”
“Me neither.”
“Are those unicorns dancing on the sofa?”
“I think the spider let them in…”
X
Belle woke three hours later, her head feeling as if it was trying to cleave itself in two, and she rolled off of Ives’ stomach with a groan.
“Ives?”
“Mm?” The mumbled reply came from under a pillow, although how he had managed to get a pillow off the sofa and onto his face was a mystery that Belle did not yet have the mental faculties to solve.
Pairing: Develle (Danny Devine x Belle) and some Ivelle for fun (Colonel Ives x Belle)
Summary: Belle works nights at the Parrot Club to pay off her estranged husband’s debts to Danny Devine, and days at a bookstore where she has struck up a friendship with a gentleman named Ives. Belle is just supposed to do Danny’s books and keep the office organized, but when Something Happens, she gets drawn into a world she never expected.
Read from the beginning
——————————
The grip Danny had on his sanity as it related to his feelings for Belle had always been tenuous at best, but now he’d lost it completely. What the fuck was he doing inviting her to Christmas? Did he really think that, just because she had half-dumped Colonel Mustache, he had a shot? That just because she’d come to him for comfort, she might want him?
He was, quite literally, the only person in her life. She had no one else to go to for comfort. It didn’t mean anything.
But inviting her to his ma’s for Christmas sure did. It meant that he had to call his sister-in-law, the only sensible person in the Devine-DeSouza household, and beg her to back him up when he told his mother that he was bringing his assistant but there was nothing romantic or weird about it. His brother would do whatever he thought would piss Danny off, but if he thought it would piss his fiancee off, he might think twice.
Of course, his sister-in-law didn’t like him much, so her acquiescence only had about a fifty-fifty shot of being truthful, but it was better than a zero percent chance.
He’d already held Belle in his arms and played with her hair and gazed adoringly at her while she cried on him. He did not need his family making kissy faces at her.
That problem sorted, Danny sank into his parrot chair. Last night, he’d walked Belle home in some gently falling snow. He couldn’t remember what he’d said that made her laugh, but he remembered the red tip of her nose, the way the snowflakes fell on her shoulders, the way her eyes crinkled at the corners, and he remembered the insane thought he’d had of kissing her goodnight like they were on some date.
He didn’t know what had happened. He’d been in love with her for months without any issues. Why was everything suddenly spilling out of him?
This was terrible timing, especially since he had just promoted her. Now that he was going to be paying her in actual money, he couldn’t be fantasizing about brushing fucking snowflakes out of her hair.
Pairing: Develle (Danny Devine x Belle) and some Ivelle for fun (Colonel Ives x Belle)
Summary: Belle works nights at the Parrot Club to pay off her estranged husband’s debts to Danny Devine, and days at a bookstore where she has struck up a friendship with a gentleman named Ives. Belle is just supposed to do Danny’s books and keep the office organized, but when Something Happens, she gets drawn into a world she never expected.
Read from the beginning
——————————
Danny did not know how to feel wearing pajamas that matched his assistant’s, with whom he had been in love for close to seven months. It did not help that he was warm-and-fuzzy drunk, happy-fucking-Christmas drunk, and Belle’s sleeves were too long so he’d helped her cuff them after the photos in front of the tree, his thumbs brushing all over her soft hands.
It definitely didn’t help that now there would be pictures of her forever in the family album, long after she left him for Colonel Cannibal or some other bloke who didn’t scream every other sentence.
Everyone agreed to Pictionary because anyone who cheated would be easy to spot, and it was going to be men versus women, but his ma rightly pointed out that he and Felix were likely to kill each other, so he ended up on Belle’s team instead. He couldn’t draw on a normal day, but maybe being drunk unlocked something within him, because he and Belle—usually on opposite ends of the battlefield in gaming scenarios—wiped the floor with the rest of his family.
Meanwhile, Uncle Charlie snored from the couch, not rousing even when the game devolved into shouting.
“All right,” Shirley said, finishing off her second mug of rum. “Off to bed for me.”
She kissed everyone goodnight, including Belle on the cheek, and Danny’s heart panged. He’d had girlfriends before, gone on dates, but he’d never expected one would like him enough to meet his family, and here was his fucking assistant, having fun with them and getting kissed goodnight. Even drunk, he knew Belle well enough to know that she was barely holding it together, but he thought it was happiness threatening to spill out of her eyes this time.
Shipperqueen93 prompted: “Belle accidentally clicks the 'okay' to dating cannibals on okcupid and ends up matching with Ives who is expecting lunch, or another cannibal, or both, but is surprised when Belle shows up all smiles and cheeriness.”
Sorry this is comparatively short, but it ended where I wanted it to end and I didn’t want to force it.
Pairing: Ivelle – my first published attempt!
========
It was all Ruby’s fault. Belle cursed as she stared in horror at the submitted questionnaire answers that she had given to Okcupid. It was Ruby’s idea to get her signed up on the dating website in the first place despite Belle’s insistence that she was fine, honestly, she didn’t need any dates. It was even more Ruby’s fault that Belle had been distracted whilst filling out the questions. Her best friend was in the middle of an IM conversation with a guy she’d met online and had asked for Belle’s input on suitable Dalmatian-related pick-up lines. As such, Belle did not realise until too late that she had clicked ‘yes’ in response to the question ‘would you date a cannibal?’
On hearing her friend’s stream of profanity directed at the laptop, Ruby came over and looked at Belle’s screen, trying and failing to stifle a laugh behind her hand.
“This is a serious matter, Ruby!” Belle snapped.
“Oh come on, it’s not like cannibals regularly advertise themselves as such,” Ruby said airily. “It’s just one of those personality questions. They aren’t going to match you up with any cannibals.”
“I know that, Ruby.” Belle sighed. “But what kind of personality do they think I have now? I’ve either got a death wish or I’m so desperate to meet someone that I’ll take literally all-comers.”
“Don’t be daft,” Ruby said. “I’m sure there are plenty of people on the site who’ve clicked yes just for a laugh. It makes for a great conversation starter though: by the way, are you a cannibal?”
Belle shook her head in despair and settled down to wait, with slightly baited and apprehensive breath, for her first contact.
It came three days later from a man named Ives.
X
One hundred years ago, Ives would never have dreamed that there could be such an easy way of securing prey. Dating websites were a godsend and he was signed up to several under several different pseudonyms. It was all so effortless. Make contact, make a date for lunch or dinner, the poor unsuspecting woman (or sometimes man, Ives was not fussy) not knowing that they were going to be lunch or dinner, and there it was, a ready-made opportunity.
Okcupid was an interesting site though, and its question on cannibalism had intrigued him. For the first time, he thought he might be able to use his usual hunting tool to find others who adopted his lifestyle. So when he had come across Belle French, with her details stating that yes, she would date a cannibal, he simply had to see what she was about.
She was either a wendigo like himself or she had a risk addiction that would only get her into hot water.
Or perhaps both.
Or perhaps, he thought, as he saw the young woman coming across the restaurant towards him, smiling and waving happily, neither. She did not appear to be victim or villain.
He blinked as she approached the table and only just remembered to stand up and extend his hand to her, which she shook with firm confidence. It would never do to lose one’s manners in one’s confusion.
Belle French was not at all what he had been expecting. She did not seem to fit with either of the profiles that he had created in his head for her. She was bright, and happy, and completely and utterly normal-seeming.
“Hi! Ives is it? Sorry I’m late.”
“Not at all, Miss French, you’re right on time.”
They sat down and Ives watched Belle through narrowed eyes as she perused the menu. Well, they did always say that it was the quiet ones you had to watch. Perhaps she was like him, after all? But she honestly did not seem to be the type. She was so… light. His lifestyle brought with it a darkness, one that was almost palpable. He had seen it in the faces of the rare fellows that he had found, and he had seen it in his own face. He could not see it in Belle’s. If she was not predator, then she must be prey. Extremely pretty prey, Ives would not deny that. He had never been a particularly picky eater but he was certainly not going to turn down such an aesthetically pleasing meal since it had presented itself to him.
The waiter came to take their order and Ives was pulled from his train of thought.
“Are you vegetarian?” Belle asked him after he had ordered the goat’s cheese and spinach tart.
“I don’t eat animals.”
She leaned back in her chair, looking at him thoughtfully. Ives knew that he was fixing her with a similar expression.
Perhaps he had been mistaken. Perhaps she was like him after all.
Then conversation began in earnest, the proper kind of conversation that one would expect from two people who were meeting for the first time. Somehow they managed to wend the discussion onto the topic of Native American myths, a topic in which Belle had a great degree of interest, and from there it was a natural progression until the wendigo was mentioned.
“That reminds me, I meant to ask before. Stupid question, I know, but are you a cannibal.”
Ives blinked at the suddenness of the question.
“I beg your pardon?”
“It’s stupid, I know. But when I was filling in the questionnaire for the dating site I managed to click ‘yes’ to ‘would you date a cannibal?’ I know it’s just one of those stupid personality tester questions but I wanted to ask anyway. You know. Out of curiosity.”
Ives smiled. So that was how come he had come across her profile. Ah, such a terrible misunderstanding. Still, he could not fault the food or the company. He had enjoyed his time with Miss French. It would be a shame to put an end to the evening and to her.
But she did look delicious.
“What would you say if I said I was a cannibal?” he said.
Belle just laughed. “You’re vegetarian,” she said, pointing to his plate.
“No, I said I don’t eat animals.”
She did not reply, regarding him with the same thoughtful expression that she had shown him earlier.
God, she looked delicious. His mouth was watering already.
Oh yes, he was definitely going to get a taste of Miss French.
