(TW: Bl00d/G0r3 for one of the main images & the bonus images)
Characters in this list (main):
Elar as the tbh creature (Well its El from Mortal's Curse BUT Y'KNOW-) (Mine ig, but originally created by Rayark & Archpray) (1st Image)
JJ but as those weird myorder furries from Made in Abyss (aka Hollows or smtn-) (Yes, he's eeting an arm don't ask who's it is man-) (My ver of Jeremiah Greenbel but actually belongs to Rayark & Archpray) (2nd Image)
Cursed Kedhur asking wy Gwin, his dad, doesn't love him. (OC belongs to @stridesthroughashes) (3rd Image)
My frend, Storm's OC, Kitten but.. as an actual cat- (he belongs to her) (4th Image)
TES!AU designs/doodles for Raven (Mamic Bird Thing) (eft) & Peter (Little Short Borb man scared of a certain man named Adder) (Right). But now Raven is an Argonian named "Quarrels-with-Ravens" who works within the Dark Brotherhood & Peter is now named Petrus (& he ain't a borb anymore) (Don't wrry their original/N-Verse counterparts still exist-) (Both are owned @stridesthroughashes but were created by me) (5th Image)
Synnial being imprisoned for the 101st time by Noir bcs this idiot kept on escaping for ABSOLUTELY NO REASON WHATSOEVER! LIKE DOOD JUST LIKES HARMING THE MAILMAN FOR SOME REASON- (I mean dood did kill like a lot of his lizerd slaves only to be myordered by one so-) (Btw this moron too belongs to my frend @stridesthroughashes) (6th Image)
Finally.. Here's some bonuses.
The characters here are cursed variant of my sona, Nep & a rando doodle of Sirius. (Sirius also belongs to Rayark & Archpray)
(Imma put too many tags in this if you can tell-)
Character Credits are in the desc.
Art: Mine
Program: Magma.
Bubs' TOS: Plz don't repost/steal, trace, or recolor my art WITHOUT MY PERMISSION! If you do, I'll take yur femur and pelvis.. SO, DON'T THINK ABOUT IT! (The PNS on my Blog's pinned project clearly means "Please No Steal" plz follow that rule.) If you do post my art on anything like yur blog or somewhere else (With my permission) PEASE CREDIT ME!
“No offence Moony, and far be it from me to question your judgement,” Sirius whispered as he moved the mop in Filch’s office slightly out of place, “but this isn’t one of your better plans.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Padfoot.” Remus retorted, using one finger to slightly readjust a sleeping portrait so it was just off centre. “This is one of my more brilliant plans.”
“I just don’t see what it achieves.” Sirius sighed again, and definitely did not sound like he was whining. “Where’s the pizzazz?”
“I’ll tell you if you promise to never use the word pizzazz again.”
“Fine.” The feet of Filch’s wooden chair (which was now on the wrong side of the small desk in his office) scraped across the floor as Sirius collapsed into it. “Tell me and I won’t say it.”
“Well,” Remus started as he fussed about rearranging the weirdly out of place flowers they’d found on Filch’s desk, “how do you feel when you come to the dorms and find your trunk has been rifled through?”
“I feel like I need to deck Prongs for stealing my chocolate again. You’d swear he’d never eaten a meal in his life.”
“And if there’s nothing missing?”
“Then...” Suddenly, Sirius flew out of the chair and launched himself at Remus and nearly knocked the vase over as he did. “Moony, you ruddy genius! I’d think it’s a prank!”
Flushing slightly at the praise (Remus never would get used to that), Remus nodded proudly as he readjusted the vase. “A prank without a prank will send him mad, you know.”
“He’ll be looking for whatever it is we didn’t do for years!”
“A little thank you gift to him, for seven years of delightful company.”
“It’ll serve him right for taking the map.”
“It’s a pity we couldn’t find it. I’d have liked to pass it down.” Or, Remus thought more honestly, kept it for himself as a memento the very best years of his young life. There’d have been no chance of that happening, what with how Sirius and James had already planned quite the over-the-top ceremony to pass it on to the next generation. “He must have known we’d come for it.”
“Yeah. It’s insulting.” Sirius’ hands were still fixed to Remus’ shoulder, a fact he only just realised. They stayed silent for a moment, both turning pink and simply staring at each other. Then, both at once, they flew apart.
Sirius cleared his throat as Remus inspected his shoes with a fascination he usually reserved for boring things (in Sirius’ opinion, at least).
“Well, best be off then.” Remus squeaked as he tripped on his foot. “Without the cloak, it’s a bit dangerous.”
“Very. Yes.” Sirius agreed as he followed Remus to the door.
They stayed silent as they walked back toward Gryffindor Tower, both blaming it on the need for stealth. It wasn’t until they passed the broom cupboard all four of them had been in earlier that they heard it.
A sound cruel enough to send a shiver down even Dumbledore’s spine, coming right from where they needed to go.
“Mrrrrrrrooowww.”
“RUN!” While Sirius had whispered the word, he’d whispered it so loudly he needn’t have bothered whispering at all. Remus was already thinking the same thing, and snatched at Sirius’ hand and pulled him down the hallway.
They couldn’t know it at the time (though Sirius would later say he’d felt a physical pull that escaped all logic and reason), but they were sprinting in exactly the same direction as James and Peter.
Read from the beginning here, read the previous chapter here.
Note: My MC is a Filipina trans woman and I am not. If you have any advice or feedback about that or anything else, hit me up.
***
In the week that followed, Leimomi helped me "move out" into her apartment. The last thing I did with the office was turn in my key - one of the replacements I had, to allow them to enter the apartment without noticing the lock had been changed. From her apartment, we kept a vigil over doings across the hall until the inspection and cleaners had finished with it, and longer - until the paint dried. Then Momi helped me move back in.
It felt delirious and foolish. At first we were quiet, expecting someone to randomly walk in with an unexpected way-past-last-minute task and catch us. But after an hour or two we started to laugh.
"Do we have to put up every poster?"
"I'm not going to sleep without my angels watching over me."
She was holding a blow-up of a Slits album cover. Maybe the mud-covered breasts and loincloths didn't seem angelic. She screwed up her face and I laughed some more.
"I'm, hehe, I'm serious! Ahem. Anyhow, I'll get the ones on the ceiling."
"Who goes on the ceiling?"
"Those Mias, those Kurts, Ian, Joe, and Jimi. To bring some life to the pantheon, the extra large Dave Navarro."
"Hahaha, oh, this guy is too scary. You think he's sexy?"
"I appreciate someone who puts a lot of effort into their appearance."
She went quiet.
"Hey, I like lots of kinds of people. Anyway, it's almost like he isn't real anymore. Don't feel like you have to compare yourself to rock stars."
"Hehe, you think I'd be jealous of pierced nipple guy?"
"You got me."
The bedroom's ceiling was lower than the living room, so I could reach it by standing on a milk crate. They aren't built for load-bearing, so you have to put your weight at the outside corners where they're strongest. It was a little tricky, but my angels and Navarro's nipples were soon soaring above my bed's space.
As I was putting the last staple in Dave, I started to lose balance, and braced myself against the ceiling. I stood there taut between the high and low, feeling a strong vibration from my toes to my fingers.
And then it passed. Momi was still putting Joan on the wall with thumb tacks.
"Did you feel that?"
She looked up to me. "What? No. Was it the rumble?"
"Yeah... Must be."
Sometimes she complained that the floor rumbled. I had never noticed it before, but surmised it could be the trash pickup or some other heavy mechanical action close by.
I shook it off, pulled out the last crooked staple, and drove a new one.
***
Meanwhile, we needed money bad. What we could use the most was an accomplice with a day job. I did my best to very carefully phrase communications on classified sites to avoid revealing much while looking for interest. Nothing quite worked out. Everyone turned out to be either creepy or too square to consider revealing the situation to.
We ate scrappy food from charities, but had to be careful to avoid running into Walter. We did manage to get more clothes for her from a clothing bank, but they still looked like a homeless person uniform. She was suspicious coming and going, so we kept using the back door.
One day after a foot-grinding trip to a free meal across town, we were sitting on the edge of the bathtub in my place. Our pant legs were pushed up and our were feet soaking in warm water.
She twisted her chubby feet in little circles and wriggled the toes. "Ugh."
"I know. I feel like my feet were hammered flat and are trying to blow up again."
"Yeah..." She folded her arms over her chest and looked at my legs and feet. "You're real pretty, Courtney."
"That's sweet." I said it absently, hearing the noises of a compliment without processing the meaning. "You are too." I didn't feel pretty. My feet were broad and bony. Never my favorite body part.
"I bet the guys are all over you."
"Heh, not quite. It happens sometimes, but most of it is too creepy. Maybe I just assume all the guys are creeps because I've met too many of them."
She unfolded her arms and looked my way. "What was creepy?"
"Oh, I don't want to get into that, but there were a couple of guys at work that just ... went out of their way to be friendly with me. And it felt wrong, like they were trying to telegraph something I didn't even want to know about them."
"That they like you? That's only creepy if you really don't like them, isn't it?"
"More like... Well, like they have a fetish for women like me, and that would be all about something I can't stand. I don't want to think about that, like, ever. Does that make sense?"
"I'm sorry I made you think about it."
I put my arm around her. "You're starting to understand what it's like for me. That's really cool."
She smiled bashfully.
Maybe because of what we'd been talking about, her smile reminded me of one of those guys from work. Then my brain started to tick.
I didn't want to live with a potential creeper, but one of them could be a nigh-perfect accomplice. "Grime" Wexell was a little too friendly to me but always respected my boundaries when I made them clear, he had radical class politics, he was a prolific pirate of other kinds of goods and services, and - most importantly - he whined about his rent on the regular.
"What's the matter?"
"Ah, just a moment of inspiration. If we're lucky, it will mean a new neighbor soon."
She frowned, but knew enough to not question that. It was an arrangement of need.
***
That's how I ended up going back to work as a ghost. I put on some heels and glamorous clothes, my shiny black raincoat, and a cool umbrella, left Momi at home, and walked the blocks back to the corporate campus.
A few months before I left, the company had laid off its entire security staff of hundreds of familiar people, and replaced them with an army of naive crew-cut kids working for a much more military-styled company. I knew that if I was recognized by the wrong person, they'd sic the dogs on me and I'd have an embarrassing "Person of Interest" portrait hanging in the security office until doomsday. But it was hard to do a real disguise. People I had worked with found me easy to recognize even from far away, no matter what I wore. I'd just have to hope Grime was still eating the same food at the same time.
I hung out in the deli of the grocery store, across the street from the cruddy-looking new building I'd worked in last. One hour. I kept the sunglasses on, but still got looks of recognition from other people coming over for lunch - a building engineer, a receptionist, three old co-workers that I didn't know well. No return expression. Pretend to read Venus in Furs.
On the table, I kept my old cell phone and repeatedly swiped at it to get the time. When his lunch break began, I put it away and started paying extra attention to the masses.
Grime was with Shelley, Braden, and Seetha. Though they represented the slightly-less-classist, non-libertarian wing of the office, those dudes could be trouble. I resolved to let Grime notice me, rather than approach.
It was weird seeing him again after these few weeks, unchanged. Like I expected the whole world to have shifted into some weird new territory since I had. He was a little taller than me,thickly built, with round glasses and curly black hair in a pony tail. The hair had some random white patches and he wore an unappealing Tony Stark moustache/goatee combination. His rain-dappled t-shirt read, "KEEP CALM and SUPPORT LABOR."
They were talking vigorously, no doubt taking a lot on board with the code changeover. He was engrossed, and my hope for his notice wore thin. He was purchasing a sandwich. I moved to a different table to be right by the path he'd take out.
Sandwich in hand and Seetha beside him, he walked right past.
"Wait. You go ahead, yeah. Yeah, that was Courtney."
He came back and sat across from me. "Is this seat taken?"
"It is now. Graeme. How's work?"
"Oh you know. Didn't feel like sticking around for it, huh?"
"I've been keeping myself busy." I glanced around to be sure the others were gone. "Listen, my phone is out of service and I want talk to you."
His eyebrows edged up. "Oh?"
"Yeah, you have time to go somewhere else now, or later?"
Oh, he was feeling pretty good about himself right then. "Hm, well, how about Dahlia at ten?"
"You're paying." I smiled. I was so getting a couple of twelve dollar mint juleps. Though my smile faded at the thought I couldn't bring Momi - she didn't have a stitch to wear.
***
I went to Momi's place when I was waiting for the meeting. Date? Meeting. We had slowly pulled some of her kind of music through weak purloined wifi, and she was playing it on the loud old headphones. The list was too short and I knew it would wear on me quickly, so I added some older stuff I could tolerate that was in the same genre. I came in on Janet's "Control."
The place still had the feel of a hotel room, albeit one with a kitchen. Momi was re-reading some paperback romance she found at a bus stop, but put it down to greet me.
"Courtney! Wassup?"
"Gonna meet Grime again tonight at ten, see what he thinks."
"Ten? Is that kinda like a date?"
"As far as he knows, maybe."
I stepped into the living room and she said, "Jeeeez, look at that. You are going on a date."
Ah yes, my glamour styles. My vinyl pants were fashionably crinkled,sliding into tall boots. On top I wore an oversized, thin black velvet blouse dotted with silver stars. Black nail polish and too much jewelry and makeup. My hair was lofted with crunchy product.
I fake smiled, felt the lipstick stretch. "Well, I want him in a good mood."
"Wow, where do you get all the cool clothes?"
"Just time and money. I want to get you some real clothes."
"Oh? Why?" She pulled her fingers off the back of the couch and slumped into hiding.
I planted my bottom on the back of the couch, swung my legs over, and struck a pose across from her. "So you can be the sexy criminal you were born to be, daaahling."
"Hee hee." Her face did its little dance and a goofy smile faded there. "We can't do it, can we?"
I got serious. "Not yet, but soon, girl. I'm gonna figure this out one way or another."
Janet said, "I'm in. Con. Trol. And I love it." In the shadow of those glass monoliths, it was hard to feel that.
***
Back in my big shiny raincoat. It was murder walking eighteen blocks in those boots and I knew it would be, so I set out early enough to get there ahead of ten and freshen up in the restroom and get off my feet for a little before he arrived.
The clientèle were mostly frosty white or fake tan, with light eyes and expensive, conservative clothing. But a few odd punk wanna-bes made me less of a sore thumb than possible, and the warm red and white lights cast us all in similar colors anyway. Star shaped red and gold paper scultures set the tone of the décor. At this hour, the booth tables were less attended than the bar and lounge, so the waitstaff had no problem seating me early for Grime's reservation.
He stuck out here as well, with a techno-utopian sense of individualism and male privilege making him confident to dress the same in any situation. He checked his dark olive corduroy jacket at the door, coming to the table in a KMFDM t-shirt and black felt Lenin hat. The warm unnatural light was flattering, washing out imperfections and leaving the dark shapes of the face to do the expressing. In this rare situation, his facial hair looked more like the comic book image he intended.
"Hey, Graeme. Ready to pay too much for crab cakes?"
He put a finger to his lips as a waitress came around. Yeah, that was rude of me, if true. Their crab cakes seemed like something you should be able to get out of a can.
He ordered the crab cakes and I was really happy to see the duck soup was available that night. That shit had a duck egg in it, just for perversity I imagine, and was rich enough to make me feel fed for a day. We had beers for dinner, but the liquor to come was already understood.
As she left, he started in. "Coooourtney. I can't imagine this is all about my considerable charms. Do you want to save the point for later, or do you think the truth might spoil our dinner?"
My rings clacked as I drummed my fingers with one hand, twirled a hair with the other, pursed my lips, anything but speak.
"That's fine. Do you mind if I ask why? About work."
Turn my head away. No thanks, I thought.
"That's fine too. Do you want to sit in silence until our food gets here? I don't know if I have the attention span for it, but I'm willing to try."
"Heh. No. Um, alright. I'm stupid. I've been living a lie. I can't program my way out of a wet paper bag and my skills get worse every year. I would have been better off in beauty school."
"No, no, don't say that, god--"
"Alright, I'm not stupid, I don't really believe that. But coding wasn't for me. I need a new line, but at this point in my life, I don't even know where to start."
"Would you like... I don't know. Some suggestions? Help?"
The beers arrived. I looked up at this waiter. "We're gonna need more sent with dinner. Thank you." Drinky time. He left.
"No, I don't want those things. Well, in a sense I want help. But I actually came with something to offer you." My hand came up like I needed to cast a counter-spell on the fly. "Not sexual."
He rolled his eyes and snorted. "I'll try to contain my heartbreak." He sipped his beer. "Let me know what I can do, or wait until we eat. I'm still up for anything, you know?"
I took his free hand in mine for a moment. "Thank you." Drink drink...
The food was fine and the beer was cold. No one was paying any attention to us. We were just two people in a city of millions, the way it should be. I felt more welcome in a crowd sometimes than I felt at home, but I still wanted to stay there. It's hard to explain. But we talked trash about co-workers and had a good laugh.
After the beers, he declined to drink and had some bread brought to the table, knowing he'd try to drive later. I received the frosty cool steel of the mint julep with pleasure. I don't know how you're supposed to drink them - clearly, there was a ritual to it - but I stirred it and took short intense swigs with a few minutes between.
I was one swig in when I got around to it. "I'm stealing my apartment. I faked moving out, but I'm still there. And I have keys to every apartment on my floor."
No reaction, then a big open-mouthed smile, then laughter. He did look like some kind of cool devil in that light. "I like it. I love it. If you get busted, you can probably make some money going on talk shows to tell about it when you get out of jail."
I wasn't too amused. "Sir, I believe you missed the point. I have..."
"The keys to every apartment on... So what, you're treating the whole floor like a cool super-apartment? Tell me it's on a top floor, so it can be like a penthouse. And that you have a cool smoking jacket and pipe. Or just a top hat and monocle."
"Why is this wealth male-coded?"
"Oh, I'm so sorry, a string of thick pearls, a mink stole, and a diamond tiara?"
"Not as iconic, I see. Anyway, I'm not using the whole floor. This is my point."
He cocked his head but it didn't come to him. Another swig.
"So there are apartments for rent. I'll go as low as $200 a month for something less than a ten minute walk from work. For the savings of over a thousand a month in rent, you only have the risk of eviction without notice and arrest."
He trembled a little and didn't say anything. He clutched one of the empty beer bottles and seemed to wish it had anything left.
I smiled wide. "Shocking?"
"Yes. Yes it is. I have to think about it."
"Would it help your thinking to pay it a visit?"
He used a share car to drive us back to my place, parking it on the street. I got us in the back way, and lingered in the lobby for a moment. He was clearly nervous, and I took him into my arms for a little waltz around the lobby. At night it had the atmosphere of a hangar for ghost planes. Our reflections in the glass twirled.
"There's no one here. Fucking place doesn't even have security for most of the night, and if they did, I'm a resident, right?"
He held my side easily with one thick hand, my left hand with the other. Hey, what was hand one doing inside my raincoat? As I pulled away he kissed my hand and let it fall. "Sorry, thought we were doing a thing."
I wagged a finger at him, but the truth is, I felt safe with him that night. He was familiar - more somehow than when we worked together. And he was gentle, and interested, and somehow that was working on me.
But I had to get my head in the game. I needed him for money, had to remind myself that how fucked up it would feel to be financially dependent on someone who felt like they had any kind of right to my body. I had to remind myself, but didn't.
On the floor, I thought there was a good chance Momi would hear us and didn't want her to get scared. So I told him to hang back for a moment, went to her apartment, and knocked.
She opened the door easily, but tensed up when she saw my expression. "What's going on-?" The last word caught in her throat.
"It's no big deal. I just didn't want you to be surprised by Graeme being here." I gestured down the hall with both hands, but she didn't come far enough past the door frame to even peek. "I'm gonna show him the other apartments, hang out for a while, send him away. Do you... Do you want to meet him tonight? I could-"
"No thanks, I'm going to sleep, good night Courtney."
"Er, OK."
She closed the door and as I turned back to Grime and stumbled a little on my heel. In. Con. Trol. He had a constant smile tonight that perked up more at my foolishness. "You OK?"
"Watch yourself, wolfy man. I'll get the keys."
I went into my apartment, leaving him in the hall, and came out swinging a shoestring loop with several key rings on it. "I'm the landlady, baby."
"Lead on."
***
THE ROOMS
The floor, from north to south:
R1205- Grime.
How do I describe a mint julep? It's like someone distilled a pine forest into poison, chilled it with liquid nitrogen, then tossed in a bunch of mint and sugar to make dying a little easier. Sometimes drinks don't do much to me, sometimes they crush my head. I want to think my head was crushed.
I wanted to use physical charm just to get him feeling more excited about breaking the law, but I seduced myself. Being flirty for the first time in years, being head crushed, I felt hot in a way that hadn't happened before or since.
I sashayed down the hall bouncing the keys, humming random tunes in quiet moments. "You probably want one of the biggest units, huh?"
"I am the big spender."
As I opened the door he stood close and I looked back over my shoulder. He had a restrained desire in his eyes that made me feel like Rita Hayworth. Then we went in.
All the curtains were wide open to the black of night, and a few tall, distant buildings peered into view from below the line of the window. Flicking on the lights turned the windows into a giant mirror peopled with two tense, small silhouettes.
I tried to make it light with a twirl and turned my attention back to the Grime. "All this can be yours, if the price is right. What do you say, big spender?"
"Wait." He walked past me to the corner of the room. This unit's living room was in the northeast corner of the building and had wrap-around windows there. He looked out over the city. "I can see work from here. Niiice."
I leaned my back on the window beside him and looked him in the eye. "So how do you li--"
The window rattled and we both hopped away from it. I wobbled on a heel and fell. For his part he tried to catch me, but it didn't end up in a romance movie pose. His hands had me at the waist but I was doubled over with my forehead and shins resting on the floor.
"Er, should I..?"
"Just let go." We sorted ourselves out. I wobbled again as I stood. "Sorry. I'm a bit off tonight."
"No, it's just that window. Must have been a very heavy truck going by."
The night lit apartment was extremely quiet. I pieced my smile back together again. "So. No more fooling around. You want in?"
His eyes rolled away slow then came back quick. "Yes. Let's get criminal."
"Wooo!" I did a little dance and we laughed. Then I thought of Olivia Newton John. I want to get criminal, criminal. Let's get into criminal. I tasted a ring as I stifled another giggle.
He looked through me again. "Courtney, I know you don't think much of me, I mean romantically, and I'll never say anything about it again if--"
I attacked. Kissing a guy with facial hair isn't great, but I worked my lips under his moustache and above the beard like a ninja. Our tongues tangled between the gates of teeth, felt out everything within reach. I tasted something like butter, yeast, manbreath, and a reminder of the cleaning product I'd imbibed before. Who cares? It was time for lust. I stopped kissing just long enough to let him know, "nothing serious, mm, just this and now."
He nodded once and then had to stop because kissing again. My hands held his cheeks, worked up his temples taking the glasses off and dropping them to the side. His thick hands started rubbing my back but quickly got around to gripping my ass, which was just what the Courtney ordered.
(Note from Author: I have edited out a sex scene here. It may be reinstated in the final draft, whenever that happens.)
We fucked. I don’t have a reasonable excuse. It was a bad idea, but well executed. At the height of things, we were both looking in our reflection in the window and I shot him with a finger gun. It was all over but the showers.
Resting on the couch after that, I looked him over. Some men sure have a lot of body hair. I liked the way it got thicker at his crotch, like the increasing darkness there was a symbol of the lust condensing, space dust into a star. I grinned at the sight. “You’re a sexy guy, Graeme.”
He looked abashed, like he just remembered he’s fat, and smiled in embarrassment. “I’m not the sexy one here, Courtney. But I guess… being a criminal is pretty fucking hot.” He got the nerve to look me in the eye again.
It occurred to me that he could come to his senses, back out of the deal. Maybe my face let him know as much, because he felt the need to assure me. “I’m here for it, even if… I don’t always get to fuck you. Give me the keys, baby.”
Hey everyone. Hope today is going well for you on this Wednesday morning. Subnautica had an update and is now on its Castles and Coffee Update. This will be the last video for the Precursor Update.
Episode 5 will be a new game file and will showcase anything new I discover in the new update while I attempt to quickly catch back up to where we are.
