Less than a month after his arrival in 1989, Edwin landed a job as a sales assistant at French & Dillard, folding shirts and reading washing instructions to old farts with dodgy eyes. It pays well, so Charles hasn't mentioned how the store manager wouldn't even interview him, told him to try the tandoori place down on Church Lane. Edwin would definitely quit in protest, might even return the nice, beige cable-knit cardigan he bought on staff discount – the one he looks well mint in – and Charles can't have that on his conscience now, can he?
Edwin's often on closing, so he gets off a little later than Charles, but at twenty-past-five, the shop's dependably dead. Over at the register, Edwin's poring through the manilla folder from the council office – a copy, magically duplicated, because they weren't supposed to remove the original from the record room. He looks up when the door bell chimes, hand reflexively migrating to the grimoire.
From forget England, think of me – a sequel to saving weena and part of my alive AU: the no hearse 'verse, where Edwin returns from Hell alive.
Just a reminder that I'm available for commission work!
If you desire some art, or have any general questions feel free to hit me up at @ [email protected]
Oh hey, just look at the date! It's self-plug time!! I don't have a lot to offer but the more moni I get through patreon the fewer commissions I have to do=>more time for personal pictures with skeletons, rats and so on :3
https://patreon.com/inkary
Includes discord access, higher res pics and commissions priority+discount.
Orochimaru’s hands have always been the blurred lines between comfort and fear . . .
In a hollowed-out Konoha, Anko achieves stage two of the cursed seal.
Anko’s world is dim-dark, and Orochimaru’s face is all she sees. He is a moon-man, glowing-light, like he absorbed it from the sun and took it all for himself, robbed everyone of everything that they ever loved and ran into the tunnels below, chortling all the way down.
His hands are cadaver-cold on her fever-hot skin, tracing after the patterns burning across her face and throat. Orochimaru’s hands have always been the blurred lines between comfort and fear, but all she can think about here is the way her chakra burns in her gorged channels and how dirty the bastard’s mouth must’ve been all those years ago when he bit her in the dark, and-
If the snake’s venom doesn’t kill you, the infection will.
She hasn’t forgotten, even now, a decade away from her seaside grave. She remembers everything he tells her.
Don’t try to suck the venom out.
”Good. We’re making progress.”
A bone-white hand grasps her necklace, smile stretching wider and wider across the craters of his aging moon-face.
And. . .Anko wonders. . .just how old does a soul need to be before it rots and crumbles to pieces?
She hates him, wants to cut another smile across his throat. The fever hits its pitch. The venom wants to ooze through her dilating pours, bleed out on the stones, but she smiles back, grinning teeth renting her face in-two.
“I will kill you.”
The cord around her neck snaps with a tug of his fist.
His smile lights his pus-yellow eyes as he dangles the necklace in the shrinking distance between their faces. He breathes the rot of death in her face.
“You may try.”
Time bleeds-out until there isn’t any left.
*************
Alone in the dark without a soul to keep her company, Anko thinks of Konoha. Memories of the village of her youth fade as silently as a dying star, with all its fanfare muted by the agony of distance. Its leaves are burning in the flames of Orochimaru’s ire. She’ll burn too eventually. They all will, because a man like that has to outlast everyone.
*************
The heavy door moans open.
He’s never been so happy to see her before.
“It’s time for you to die for me, Anko.”
She hears herself scoff, doesn’t bother catching her tongue before it retorts.
“Again?”
*************
Her casket is round, her pall-bearers young and smooth-faced as they escort her. The bitter taste of Orochimaru’s ambition clings to the back of her throat where that pill he’d forced into her had clung. She is dressed to die. The venom in her veins bubbles. She won’t have to worry about infection at least.
The pungent smell of dying flesh wafts in the air, mingles with Orochimaru’s chakra. The young shinobi lower her into the casket.
Her eyes meet his, asking:
Are you dying?
He answers with a smile.
No, never. . .
Then the lid closes and the venom finishes its course.
I was tagged by @illegalcerebral. Thank you, love! <3
Rules: Recommend us 3 of YOUR fics: 1 that is “most popular” and 2 that are “hidden gems!” Then tag some folks.
My TVD fic From the Sidelines is my most popular, given the stats and comments. [FFN] [AO3]
I’d like to say that one hidden gem is my canonical LotR fic Edged in Silver, which is being rewritten and currently only has two posted chapters, although another eighteen are waiting to be properly overhauled. [FFN] [AO3]
I don’t have any other long-fics, but one one-shot I am particularly fond of is The Wings of Blue Butterflies, which is a LotR gapfiller. [FFN] [AO3]
Tagging: @thecharmedburrowspn-files @darknightfrombeyond @residentdormouse @bi-ologistofthehills @bisexualterror @waterloou @bluebell-winter @bobfloydsbabe @connietheecunning @heirsoflilith @starryeyes2000 @come-along-pond, and anyone else who wants to do this! <3
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13888850/1/Two-Scoops-of-French-Vanilla
So, I started revising and tweaking the short dribbles here on Tumblr and cross-posting them onto FFN, if anyone cares to see some tweaked reposts and new uploads in the future
