Scott sighed, rubbing his eyes with his free hand. "...Maybe. What time even is it, anyway?"
"It's four in the morning, Scott," Joey huffed. The ravenhead could hear the padding of the man's socked feet before a weight settled on his shoulders and arms were slung around his neck. "Are you gonna come to bed willingly or will I have to drag you?"
Scott let out a small laugh, but quickly set himself straight. "Sorry, can't sleep tonight. 'M too far deep in this book, it'll be weird for me to stop right before finishing."
"Since when have you ever cared about being weird?" Joey's smug grin was all too audible in his words, tugging a groan from Scott's lips.
"You know what I mean."
The weight was suddenly lifted from his shoulders. "I do, and I'm not having it." Before Scott could protest, Joey had rounded his chair and plopped himself right on the desk.
"What are you doing?" Scott questioned, a brow raising at the man's antics.
"Making you go to sleep." Joey smirked, and Scott couldn't help rolling his eyes.
"If I agree to go take a ten minute nap, will you be happy?"
"Deal. As long as I get snuggles."
HAPPY BIRTH, @bloszzom! i hope you have a good one <3
It’s stressful work, preparing for the competitions. El tries to brush it off for the camera, usually, but it gets tiring, to put it simply. And she’s grateful to Cleo for teaching her, she really is, but their… shape… magic… thingy makes El’s brain hurt. She’s also not sure why a time witch has specced so heavily into explosions, but hey, to each her own.
Luckily, Cleo notices that she’s… a bit lost, and stops teaching for a second.
“Need to take a break?” They ask, stepping away from the diagrams she’s drawn up, and picking up the spell components lying on the ground.
“I… yeah. If you don’t mind.” She laughs awkwardly. Cleo sits down on the ground where they’d been practicing – the un-exploded part, and gestures for El to sit beside her. When El obliges, and sits beside Cleo, they wrap their arm around her, pulling her closer in to their chest. Her skin is soft, and almost warm enough to be alive after so long in the sun. A soft breeze flutters around them, making Cleo’s robes flutter slightly, exposing a bit more of her thigh, big and soft, stitched together from different pieces of skin that El doesn’t want to know the origins of. She leans against their chest, and lets out a breath she didn’t realize she had been holding. Cleo chuckles a little, and rubs her shoulder.
“That any better?” She asks, leaning back against the whiteboard she had been using to diagram. El blushes, just a little. Hopefully Cleo doesn’t notice. They’re too perceptive.
Suddenly, she’s behind a quiz show pedestal, one of those annoying show host guys, dressed in a velvet tuxedo welcoming the audience back from the break.
“Welcome back to the Gobber Games Quiz Extravaganza! We have a new question for our lovely contestant since the break, and she even gets multiple choices this time! Drumroll please…” The drumroll sound effect plays, and Eloise groans out loud as the question is read out to her.
“How much of a crush does SoupforEloise have on ZombieCleo? Is it…
A.) A lot!
B.) An embarrassing amount!
C.) More than she thinks!
or…
D.) All of the above!
What does our contestant think?”
The host shoves the microphone in her face. El puts her head in her hands.
“E! None of the above! Stop this, come on guys!” A loud incorrect buzzer sounds.
“I’m sorry, that is not correct! The correct answer was D.) All of the above!” The studio audience boos. El hates her life right now.
“Worry not, our contestant still gets a consolation prize! This beautiful mug that says “Tell her you like her!” El walks off stage, to the host still yelling game show jargon at her, and wakes up, still in Cleo’s arms. She hates these dreams.
“You okay? You looked like whatever was happening in that dream, you were annoyed by it.” Cleo asks, and El goes bright red.
“Uh… yeah, haha! Just weird dreams, you know how it is.” Cleo shrugs.
“Just wanted to make sure.” They seem so… sure of herself. El is amazed at how it seems like she can just… take up space, without worrying about it. She’s a trickster witch, sure, but… the attention is usually on her pranks, not her. Usually, if the attention is on her, if she takes up space, it means she’s done something wrong, but with Cleo, she seems so solidly herself, so present, even if she claims to be about a hundred versions of herself, scattered across tons of timelines. El admires it, admires her. Cleo removes her hand from around El’s shoulders, jerking her out of her thoughts, and back into the real world.
“Ready to get back to it? That competition isn’t going to win itself, you know.” El jumps to her feet.
“You really think I’m going to win?”
“Of course you are. You’re in the most powerful coven around. And I don’t leave people behind.” Cleo sounds so sure of it, even though she and Scott could have so easily have just paired up, still been the most powerful group on the server, and scorned everyone else. Instead, though, Cleo took her under their wing, and believed in her, believed she could be just as powerful as they were. And then she just… made it happen. Like it was that simple. Scott had said the same to her too.
“Once Cleo decides you’re with her, she never gives up on you.” Then he had frowned. “I’m not sure how I know that. But I can feel that it’s true, you know?” El didn’t know either. But the more time she spends with Cleo, the more sure she is that Scott had been right, and that she likes being one of Cleo’s people.
When she wins the competition a few days later, and sees Cleo cheering her on from the stands, El finally starts to feel like maybe she can do it. Maybe she can be Supreme Witch. Maybe she can make friends. Maybe she can even follow that annoying game show host’s prodding, and tell Cleo she likes her.
I am doing the weird cross-over oneshot and I decided to drop a preview before I wrap up for the night:
But back to the cute little witch he found. None of the stories he's heard about him mentioned he was a boney, pale little thing with fluffy dark hair. All the stories said was that he was a powerful necromancer and a monster. Not that monsters had to be ugly. fWhip has been called a monster on multiple occasions and would not call himself ugly. Quite contrary actually. But no amount of pretty could help him get the witch awake. fWhip knew precious little about medicine. Mostly just enough to take care of anyone he fed on and did not want to kill.
