demonrubberduck

Nekocon

2009-11-10T04:26:29Z

Ok, so the cosplay adventure is over until Katsu. We survived (just barely), and despite my best efforts, we did some sewing in the hotel room. However, I had all of our boys done beforehand, so we only had one person's costume to finish, and she had a valid excuse (having to help everyone else make their costumes...)

Nonetheless, it was a good con, and we had a ton of fun. Our Advent Children group had a lot of pictures taken of us, and except for one awkward moment in the dealer's room a little bit of creepy fan interaction, it was pretty awesome. I stabbed a lot of people (but mostly my Cloud).

Here are some pictures of the group:

my group

Me with my Masamune

It was completely necessary. I'd had...like, an average of 5 hours of sleep over the past three days...

The other Sephiroth at Nekocon. We bonded over some Cloud-killing.

Destiny

2009-10-23T01:37:30Z

So, another meme, taken from Bii (*sC-facTion). Here's the description: Rewrite the above boring, "bare-bones" story, using poetic imagery to make it into an engaging romance, mystery, tragedy, comedy, horror story, or any other genre of your choice. Every aspect can be as you want it. It can be any length, as long as it addresses each part of the outline. Each element can have your own twist: the man can be anything from a munchkin to a troll to a collage professor; the dwelling can be a house of cards to a million dollar mansion; the trees can be made out of candy if you pleased; the cup can be anything from the holy grail to a paper cup; the thing in the cup can be ANYTHING; the body of water could be a puddle or an ocean; the other person doesn't even have to be a ' person '; the object on the table can be ANYTHING; ANYTHING can 'suddenly happen'. There are endless possibilities. Your aim is simply to use poetic descriptions to make the story more interesting.

And the passage:The man walks out of the dwelling and down a path. Along the path are trees. He looks down at the path and sees a cup. There is something inside. He takes the item with him as he crosses a body of water. In the distance, he sees another dwelling. Before he reaches it, someone appears and then leaves. Inside the dwelling, there is a table with something on it. Just then, the person from the path appears. Something happens.

And finally, this is what I came up with for it.

Petter, the newly knighted son of parents that couldn’t spell, left the ramshackled hermitage in the mystical forest feeling much less enlightened than he’d hoped. Forest-dwelling hermits were supposed to offer cryptically sage advice, were they not? They were meant to provide magical swords or enchanted armor to young knights whose destinies dictated greatness. Herman had offered him nothing but a brownie. A magic one, the old man had assured, but a brownie all the same. Petter was pretty sure he offered brownies to every knight that passed by. There was nothing here purely for him, no foreshadow of a destiny only he could achieve, nothing unique and crafted for his use.

He’d asked the man which direction held the most adventure and opportunity for valor. Herman had pointed down the forest path. “Go outta the forest, man. Get to th’ lake. It’s sweeeet, man. Lotsa adventure there,” he said, waggling his long, hoary eyebrows and leering without the slightest hint of subtlety. Quality hermits were a rare bunch in this day and age, Petter thought.

The tangled branches of the forest trees formed an impenetrable canopy of leaves. Despite being only around noon, the wooded area appeared dark and mysterious. Petter occasionally glanced to the sides and saw snatches of activity occurring off of the path. A little girl in a red cloak picked flowers, an only lady glued gumdrops the sides of a strange-looking house, a woodsman sharpened an axe on a whetstone. The knight himself felt no temptation to deviate from the path. Fortune and glory lay straight along the path; everything else was merely a distraction.

The young knight strode forward, determined. Nothing would hinder him from his goals.

At least, nothing except the stately-looking woman standing directly in front of him in the middle of the path. Her bare feet, golden curling locks, sculpted cheekbones and pointed ears clearly indicated ‘elf’. She held a little plastic cup clasped in both hands.

“Noble sir, wouldst thou undertake a quest in my aid?” she asked. Petter bowed.

“As long as you attempt no elfish trickery, my lady, my service is yours,” he replied. His mother, failed witch that couldn’t spell though she was, had warned him of the dangers of forest folk. Elves were forever trying to entrap young knights to either enchant into century-long sleeps, which seemed rather pointless, or to keep as eternally-young lovers, which had a clearer motive, but still seemed silly; elves were attractive enough to gain lovers without the subterfuge.

The elfish lady signed. “Not today, sir knight. I merely require your aid. Besides, thou art too young for my preferences.”

Petter frowned. He did not wish to be bewitched by the elf-maid, but an effort would not be unappreciated. A young, untested knight needed to be constantly reassured.

“Very well,” he agreed, his lip forming the knightly equivalent of a pout. “How might I serve thee, lady?”

She offered the plastic cup to him. It held a pungent pink liquid. “Mine son dwells across yon river. He hast of late been plagued by a cough. Kindly deliver this to him,” she implored.

Petter took the medicine from her. “Consider it done, my lady,” he pledged, and bowed again. When he looked up, the matron had vanished. The knight continued down the path.

The river itself proved no great obstacle. A sturdy bridge with decorative woodwork spanned from one bank to the other, and even the slow moving waters were not the type that would kill any oxen, should it be forded. No trolls appeared to challenge his crossing, nor any thieves demanding payment of a toll. The only reason Petter could garner for the elfish mother to not deliver her own medicine was the difficulty some enchanted creatures seemed to have with running water.

No matter. The bridge-crossing left him closer to his two goals, the ailing elfish son and the adventure-filled lake. Why, he could see the boy’s cottage from here: a simple little wooden home just alongside the path. He could just make out the shape of a man bent over a picnic table, whether arranging something or suffering a coughing fit, he did not know.

He hurried forth to meet the shadowy figure, but it ducked back into the house before Petter could reach it. The knight looked at the picnic table he’d seen. A vast array of foods displayed on shining silver dishes lined the tabletop, all unattended. Ripe fruit and fresh crisp vegetables sat beside loaves of bread and dipping sauces. Bowls of soup and yogurt dotted the tables between goblets of wine and juice.

Lunch hour was rapidly approaching, and Petter felt a pang of hunger in his gut. No matter. His ill-spelling parents had taught him better manners than that. He would not partake uninvited.

Bypassing the table, Petter ascended the porch stairs and knocked on the cabin door. When no one answered, he opened the door and went inside. The request of a fair lady for the sake of her sickly child outweighed the encroachment of privacy, he though.

Another table inside presented another feast. Petter patted his tunic pocket, which still held the hermit’s enchanted brownie. As long as he had that, he would not succumb to temptation.

The knight placed the tiny cup of pink liquid down on the table and drew back his empty hand.

“Ha ha, sir knight! Now I have you!” a voice declared triumphantly. Petter whirled around.

“I am at your service, gentle sir,” he replied.

“You are NOW,” the elfish boy cackled at him. “I command you to dance.” He had his mother’s golden hair and facial features, the same ageless quality to him, but beneath his eyes were dark circles.

“Your noble mother sends a potion for your aid,” Petter informed him. He turned and took up the plastic cup once more.

The boy’s face fell. “I need no medicine. Why aren’t you dancing?”

“I am on a quest,” Petter replied. Was it not obvious? A true knight did not cease his mission for amusements. Dancing occurred when adventures were completed and celebrations of victory were in effect.

“You didn’t eat the food? I went to all that trouble to make it, and you didn’t eat it?” the elf sulked.

Petter’s dignified face took on an affronted expression. “I would not dream of doing so without invitation,” he huffed.

“How am I supposed to ensnare you if you don’t steal food?” the elf snapped.

“Perhaps I do not wish to be ensnared.”

“That’s stupid. Aren’t you hungry, though? Don’t you want to have a bite to eat?” the elf hinted. He reached past Petter and picked up a pie to wave in his face.

“With your permission,” Petter began.

“NO! You can’t have permission. That’s the point,” the elf whined.

Petter frowned. What an infuriating creature. “No. I do not steal.”

The elf snorted. “Fine. How about you make a wish and I’ll grant it?” he offered.

“What would you want in return?” Petter’s mother had taught him better than to make a wish without knowing the price.

The elf threaded his fingers through his curls and pulled angrily. “You aren’t supposed to ask!”

Petter rolled his eyes. “I shall not forfeit my freedom for your whim, young sir,” he proclaimed. “I wish only to deliver yon medicine and proceed to find my fortune along the banks of yonder lake.”

The elf stared at him. “The nudist colony’s lake?” he asked.

Petter froze. And blushed. And stuttered.

“A-a-a WHAT?” he stammered.

The elf smirked at him and downed the medicine in a single swig. He made a face, brushed past Petter again in order to reach a wine glass, and drained down the fragrant red wine that filled it. “Ahh, much better. It’s a nudist colony. You know, fat, old, pasty people running around in the buck,” he said, emphasizing each description with great relish.

“Perhaps my fortune lies elsewhere, then,” Petter declared. “It matters not. I shall depart now, sir.”

The elf frowned again. “You sure you don’t want to take something for the road?” he asked innocently.

Petter glared at him. He withdrew the brownie from his pocket. “I am more than prepared, elf,” he said, waving his chocolate confection at him.

“Is that what I think it is?” the elf asked, eyes aglow.

………………………………..

Petter could not, for the life of him, figure out why Elenn had asked for half of his brownie when he had all that food lying around, but he could not in good conscience refuse a sickly elf nourishment after having broken into his house. It was a good thing they had all that food, though, because after eating the brownie, he and Elenn had both become ravenous. Everything the elf had prepared tasted AMAZING.

Shortly after a feeding frenzy, Petter found himself lying on the living room floor with the elf’s head resting on his now-sated stomach. Both were laughing too hard to breath.

“So tell me again why you wanted me to eat your food?” he said. Or, at least he tried. Words were tricky and slippery at the moment, and some combinations came out sounding so comical that they sent him into another bout of uncontrollable giggling.

“S-so you’ll be under my spells an’ I can make you be my love slave,” Elenn snorted. Oh, how droll, Petter thought. He shook with more laugher. He rocked from side to side, and where his tunic was beginning to ride up, he could feel Elenn’s warm pants of breath. A shiver ran up his spine.

“Why do I have to be your slave? You could at least take me out on a date first,” Petter protested. A real gentleman would buy a knight dinner first…no, wait, that was a maiden. And they’d already had dinner…lunch…brownies. Brownies were yummy.

“Silence, love slave!” Elenn commanded. Petter felt the familiar static-y feel of a failed spell circling the air. He snorted.

“Didn’t work?” the elf-boy muttered. He nuzzled his cheek into Petter’s belly. “Oh well. Date thing. We’ll try that.”

“Mmmmhh,” Petter agreed. This was a better destiny than nudists, his muddled mind agreed. He wondered if Elenn’s golden skin tasted as good as his cooking? He captured one of the elf’s hands and licked. Mmmhh, yeah, a much better destiny indeed.

Feel free to try it out and see what you end up with.

A meme thing

2009-10-20T02:46:41Z

Umm, yeah, no story updates yet. Still working on Advent Children cosplay. I have been working but by little bit on the next section of Brownies. I'm not abandoning things, I swear.

Anyways, since one who asks a question of this meme is morally obligated to post it, and since I suffer from curiosity and feel compelled to ask questions, I figured I should offer those who follow my stuff the same opportunity.

The problem with LJ: we all think we are so close, but really, we know nothing about each other. So I want you to ask me something you think you should know about me. Something that should be obvious, but you have no idea about. Ask away.

Then post this in your LJ and find out what people don't know about you.

Shuiyidan character: Nolar's story

2009-10-06T22:06:42Z

Wrote up a background story for Nolar Sipsclar to try to get a better feel for him. It didn't quite work. I don't know why I always end up making side characters more important than the main ones. I kind of want to rp Cory now. Oh well. It also turned out angstier than I had intended. That's what I get for writing during exam week.

It all started a week into the second semester of junior year. Nolar still wasn’t sure what ‘it all’ was, but he was pretty sure that was the start of it all.

Originally, the dark-haired, winged boy wasn’t involved. Cory Norris and his crowd were classmates, not friends. Nolar didn’t really have friends. Some of the other kids at school had strange powers, but not a lot, and none of them quite so physically marking. At least, that’s what Nolar’s foster-mom told him. In his own mind, Nolar knew it wasn’t about the way he looked as much as they way he acted. They called him ‘birdbrain’ a lot, and teased him for being so spacey and dumb.

It was his wings, not his brain that got him drawn into it in the first place. Cory, a rich rebellious troublemaker through and through, got himself caught out back of a nightclub, drunk and underage, in the middle of trying to buy some pot off of a dealer. At least, that was what Nolar heard fourth-hand as the story made its way around the gossip circuit. The details weren’t really that important. Cory had gotten himself arrested, his parents had brought in a lawyer, and now the teen was spending the second half of the school year under house arrest, getting tutored inside of his family’s three-story house.

Jeremy Bean, who had never been particularly nice to Nolar, stopped by his house a two weeks and three days into the semester and handed him a package.

“Yo, birdboy, get this to Cory. He’s the third floor room with the lantern strung out on the balcony,” Jeremy told him. Without any more explanation or any sort of request, he walked away.

Nolar grabbed the package and held it over the trashcan to toss in.

“Who was that, honey?” his mother called from the hallway. “A friend?” She came in, looking so proud of him. He’d never had anyone visit him at home before. “It’s ok for him to stay longer.”

Nolar drew the package to his chest. “He had to run,” he lied.

“Maybe next time, then. Your friends are welcome over any time. I’ll even make snacks for you all,” she promised, smiling.

When Nolar’s foster-father came back in from the fields, there were tears in her eyes as she told him about Nolar’s ‘friend’. After dinner, Nolar asked if he could go visit another friend. His parents practically shoved him out of the house in their enthusiasm.

He hadn’t really meant to get roped into being Cory Norris’ delivery boy. He had just wanted Jeremy Bean to keep stopping by his house to drop off messages and packages so his parents wouldn’t worry about him so much. The rest had just sort of happened on its own.

…………………………………………………………………….

Cory’s room was pretty luxurious for a cage. He certainly wasn’t suffering being cooped up inside for a semester. His parents had taken away his wireless internet and his cell phone, so his lines of communication were cut off, and the maid and the cook guarded the first two stories of the house to keep anyone from sneaking in or out. Still, he had video games, magazines, gym equipment, and plenty of other shiny, distracting things to keep him busy. Nolar wasn’t sure why he needed his gang sending him stuff.

Whatever. If it made his parents happy, Nolar could put up with it. He took the package, flew to Cory’s house, and landed on the balcony. A quick rap on the window pane tore Cory’s attention away from his play station.

The other boy jumped, startled, and turned. He looked surprised for a moment. Nolar held the package up to the window and shrugged. Really, he shouldn’t have even bothered knocking. He should have left the package on the balcony and headed home. He put the box down outside of the glass door and spread his wings.

“Hold up, birdbrain!” Cory ordered, throwing open the door. “The hell are you doing here?”

Nolar gestured to the package. It wasn’t hard to figure out. “Jeremy sent this,” he said at last, since Cory seemed to be waiting for a reply.

“Since when do you hang out with Jeremy?” the blond boy scoffed. “I’m gone for a week and they’re already letting in freaks,” he muttered to himself.

Nolar ignored the insult. Cory wasn’t one to talk. If the rumors were true, he’d been picked up by the police drunk and wearing leather bondage gear.

“He asked me to give you this,” the winged boy reiterated. He nudged the box toward Cory with his foot. Then, he spread his wings and flew home.

…………………………………………………………….

Two days later, Jeremy was back, this time with two more of Cory’s friends. Nolar’s mom served them lemonade and cookies on the front porch.

“Listen, loser, when you give him the letters, stick around this time,” Jeremy commanded.

“Yeah, how else are we gonna hear back from him?” Cindy added. She gobbled down another cookie.

Nolar nodded. That evening, after he’d finished his homework and washed up for dinner, he flew back over to Cory’s to give him his messages. The blond ordered him inside this time. The raven-haired boy plopped down on a couch and waited for Cory to read the letters and scribble some responses.

They didn’t speak. Cory wrote and Nolar explored the room with his eyes, endlessly fascinated by all of the amusing things that decorated the space. When he finished, Cory handed the teen the letters and sent him out the window.

He decided that was the last time he was going back…until he got home and his dad patted him on the back and told him how proud he was.

……………………………………………………………..

Another week after that, the isolation was starting to get to Cory. When Nolar stopped by with deliveries from his friends, the other boy gave him a murmured, ‘thanks’. He tossed the brunet a handheld game system to amuse himself with while he wrote his letters.

When he finished and Nolar stood up to gather them and leave, Cory stopped him.

“You in a hurry?” he asked, almost desperately. Nolar shook his head. “Stay for a little while. Tell me how school is going. Don’t you wanna know what the guys have been sendin’ me?”

Nolar had been curious. He stayed. Cory pulled out a box-cutter and opened the package. Contraband spilled out. There were cans of beer, a few magazines with nearly naked people on the cover, candy bars and little packets of powder.

Cory took two of the cans and handed one to Nolar. He popped the tab on the one he kept for himself and took a deep gulp.

The winged boy stared at the drink. “I’m underage,” he pointed out. He wasn’t supposed to drink. They’d said so at school and at home.

Cory rolled his eyes. “It’s ok if you don’t get caught,” he insisted. He reached over and opened it for Nolar. “At least pretend you’re a normal kid for once.”

Nolar stared down into the can. A wavy, fizzy reflection of his dark eye blinked back up at him from within the can. “I’m not allowed.”

Cory took another long sip and slung an arm around Nolar. “Come on, buddy. You’re not allowed to drink in public. If you’re in your house, there’s nothing wrong with it.”

Nolar studied Cory’s face. He had never heard that rule before…but Cory sounded pretty sure… “It’s not my house,” he argued.

Cory shrugged. “You can stay here tonight. That makes it ok.”

Nolar didn’t know how that worked, but Cory knew more about drinking than he did. He took a tentative sip. Cory smiled.

“I’ve been bored as hell cooped up in here,” he declared. “Play cards with me or something. I’m dying here,” the blond whined. Nolar took another sip and nodded. He didn’t really like the taste, but the fizziness was nice…and he enjoyed playing cards. Usually he only got to play with the farm-hands right after harvest.

He slept the alcohol off in Cory’s closet, in case the maid or anyone came in during the night. He flew home early the next morning, feeling sick, but not regretful.

………………………………………………………………

Nolar’s parents loved to ask questions about his new friends. Nolar had to think of excuses to explain why Cory’s gang never stayed longer than it took to deliver their packages and notes and eat the Sipsclars’ snacks. It was difficult because Nolar barely knew how to lie. Eventually, Cindy figured out his trouble and spun a story for Nolar’s mom. She might not have cared about Nolar or his family, but she and the others were loyal to Cory and didn’t want their only source of communication cut off.

She told Mrs. Sipsclar that the one Nolar kept visiting was a sick classmate that lived too far away for the rest of them to reach in a day. Nolar’s mom took to making Cory get-well presents after that. She scolded Nolar for bringing gifts from the others and never offering anything of his own.

Nolar tried to pass the box of snicker doodles off as a present from Jenna, another of Cory’s group. The blond wasn’t fooled.

“What the hell are these, birdbrain?” he asked when he saw the Tupperware box. Nolar shrugged.

“’s your mail.”

Cory stared at him. “We’ve been in the same class for ten years, retard. I think I recognize your goofy dishes. None of my friends would send something lame like that.”

Nolar frowned. “Not from me. ‘s from my mom,” he grumbled, embarrassed. He held out the snicker doodles for Cory to take. The blond eyed them with disdain. Nolar didn’t worry about defending his mother’s cooking. It spoke for itself.

Finally, the other boy reached forward and took one of the cookies. He tried a bite, then took the rest of the container without protest. Nolar smiled victoriously to himself.

Cory threw a controller at his head. “See if you can beat my high score,” he ordered, knowing that the other boy would not be able to. Nolar enjoyed messing around with Cory’s video games while the other boy was busy writing or flipping through his magazines. He didn’t have a game console at home. He whistled while he played.

Cory looked up from his letter. “Seriously, man, shut the hell up. It’s annoying.”

Nolar stopped whistling. “Your parents still haven’t noticed my visits?” he asked instead, falling into a conversation they’d started on last visit.

“Nope, still oblivious. How are yours? Still think you actually have friends?” Cory shot back. Nolar killed a zombie on the screen.

“That’s why you got snicker doodles,” the bird-boy replied.

“Oh, right…Want another beer?” Cory offered. Nolar shook his head.

“It made me sick last time. Mom thought I had a virus.”

Cory snorted with laughter. “Geez, could you be any lamer? I honestly don’t know how you survive high school. And will you please lose that lame-ass bandana?”

Nolar shrugged. “It keeps my hair back while I fly.”

“Hopeless,” Cory muttered. He settled onto the couch with Nolar and punched him in the arm, but it didn’t hurt, and Nolar didn’t mind the contact.

……………………………………………………………………

A nearly two months into Cory’s house arrest, the attention-starved boy started sitting next to Nolar whenever he came over and trying to convince him to stay longer and longer.

“Ever read one of these?” he asked one night, holding up one of his magazines from that evening’s package. Nolar shook his head.

“Am I allowed?” he asked, confused. He thought things like that were illegal or something.

“Course you are. As long as it’s not in public,” Cory stated.

Nolar nodded. Cory was pretty smart, especially about things like that. Nolar didn’t see anything wrong with just looking. He took the magazine and flipped through it.

“Hey, Nolar,” Cory said, saying his name for once. Nolar looked up from the page he’d been studying (why was that girl covered in beads of water if she was in the desert? And he was pretty sure she was going to get sunburns in bad places if she didn’t cover up find some shade…).

“Hmm?” he asked. Despite his confusion, he found the pictures exciting, and he wasn’t really in the mood to talk. He kind of wanted to be alone so he could relieve himself. He decided he didn’t like reading magazines like this if there were going to be other people around.

“We’re friends, right?” Cory asked. Nolar nodded. He liked Cory better than he had during the school year. They spent time together and talked with each other. Nolar actually looked forward to their visits, and he sometimes made the trip over to bring Cory cookies and pies from his mom even when Cory’s gang didn’t bring him anything to deliver. He supposed that made them friends.

“Friends help each other out, right?” the blond continued. Nolar nodded again. He felt like a bobble-head doll sometimes.

Cory closed the magazine he’d been reading and sat it on his bed. He crawled over to Nolar, invading his personal space until their noses were brushing and their breaths were heating each others’ faces.

“So if I said being trapped here by myself for so long was making me crazy, you’d help me, right?” he whispered. Without waiting for a response, he straddled Nolar’s lap and leaned his head to the side and shoved his tongue into Nolar’s mouth. Which was pretty pleasant, actually.

The raven haired boy tilted his head up and brushed his tongue against his friend’s. Cory rocked himself against Nolar, which felt even better than the tongue. Nolar gripped him by his hips and guided his thrusts. Each time the blond brushed up against his hardness, Nolar groaned into his friend’s mouth.

Cory slipped a hand between them and unzipped Nolar’s jeans. He did the same to his designer pants. He pulled away from Nolar’s mouth and bit down on his collarbone as he freed their cocks and wrapped his hand around them. The painful bite and the overwhelming pleasure of the dual sensation of burning hot flesh and pressure pushed Nolar over the edge. He bucked against Cory and came. Cory squeezed himself once, twice, and followed.

They sat on the couch for a moment, panting, before Cory finally slid off his lap. He hopped up happily and grabbed a towel from his bathroom. He cleaned himself up, then tossed the dirty towel to Nolar to use.

“Thanks, buddy,” he said to the winged boy. “I feel so much better now.”

Nolar smiled. He felt pretty good himself. He liked this friendship thing.

…………………………………………………………………

He visited the next evening as well, even though Jeremy and the others hadn’t stopped by and his mom hadn’t even made cookies to force him to bring over. The winged boy was so eager he barely ate his dinner beforehand.

If Cory wasn’t expecting him, he was definitely excited to see him. As soon as Nolar came in through the balcony door, the blond tackled him and kissed him. Nolar was glad he wasn’t the only one who had been thinking about that.

“You know what would really help me out?” Cory whispered into his ear as he licked it. Nolar shuddered. “If you’d use your mouth.”

Nolar caught Cory’s chin in his hand and tilted his head to kiss his lips. Cory pulled away.

“Not there,” he panted. He stood up and sat down on the foot of the bed. He gestured for Nolar to follow. He unzipped his pants and pulled out his hardened cock. Nolar waited, unsure of what to do.

“Geez, I gotta tell you everything? Come here,” Cory ordered. “Kneel down.” Nolar knelt down in front of the blond.

Cory stroked his head, inky dark hair and hated bandana included. He smiled down at his birdlike friend. “Lick it,” he commanded gently. Nolar hesitated. “I’ll do it to you,” he snapped. “I just…need you right now. I can’t think straight,” he panted. His cock throbbed, hot and red. Nolar gave it a lick.

“Yeah,” Cory hissed. He guided Nolar’s head forward again. Nolar dragged his tongue up and down the length, nose wrinkling as he tasted sweat. Above him, his friend moaned and gasped with each flick of his tongue.

Figuring out what he was supposed to do next by the way Cory was tugging at his hair (and working partially off of what he imaged would feel incredible when Cory returned the favor), Nolar took the tip into his mouth. He sucked. A stream of curses poured from Cory’s mouth. The delivery boy decided it was a good thing.

“More. Do it more,” the blond ordered. Nolar didn’t know if Cory meant to take more or suck harder. He tried both.

“Oh fuck,” Cory shouted. He bucked his hips up, and Nolar had to hold his hips to keep his friend from chocking him. Cory, always the one to lead, tangled his fingers in Nolar’s hair and moved his head up and down. The gasps and groans escaping him made Nolar impossibly hard. He got lost in the sensation, and only avoided gagging on come because Cory shoved him away at the last second.

“Oh god, that was good,” the blond exclaimed. He collapsed back on the bed for a moment. Nolar climbed in with him.

Without looking, Cory groped around and slipped his hand into Nolar’s pants. The feeling of fingers around his cock, squeezing, was amazing, but Nolar wanted more. Finally, Cory sat back up and pushed Nolar flat on his back. He pulled the brunet’s cargo pants and boxers all the way off and attacked his hard-on with an aggressive tongue. The slick, hot movement had the quiet boy writhing and keening in pleasure.

Cory’s technique was much more refined than Nolar’s awkward fumblings, and it only took a few minutes before Nolar reached a shuddering climax.

They curled up together in Cory’s sweat-soaked bed, tired and blissed-out. “You’re my best friend,” Nolar muttered. Cory nuzzled his head onto Nolar’s chest.

“’sat mean you’ll finally listen to me about that god-awful bandana?” he teased. Nolar flicked him in the forehead.

“No. It’s functional.”

“Your mom’s functional.”

“She is. You love her cooking,” Nolar pointed out.

Cory let out a long-suffering sigh. “Hopeless, birdbrain. You’re hopeless.”

……………………………………………………………………….

They met pretty regularly for another couple of weeks. Nolar improved his video game skills, Cory made himself sick on beer and cookies, and both of them vastly improved in ‘helping’ each other out.

“You’re such a weirdo,” Cory teased as Nolar toyed with a shiny marble as he recovered from an orgasm. “I don’t know how I’m gonna explain this when I get out of here.”

Nolar wasn’t sure if Cory meant explaining ‘them’ to his friends, or explaining Nolar away. Cory was his best friend, his only friend, but Nolar wasn’t sure if he was Cory’s. He didn’t know what would happen to their friendship when the delinquent’s house arrest finished. He was afraid to ask.

………………………………………………………………………

In the end, if things had progressed as planned, Nolar might have found out what ‘it all’ was that he had with Cory Norris. The fire changed everything.

Nolar nearly broke down the balcony door that evening. Cory heard him from inside shower and came out in a robe.

“Hey, Nolar, you ever tied anyone up before?” he asked, toweling dry his hair and not looking at the winged boy.

Nolar didn’t say anything. When Cory finally looked up, he took in his friend’s ash-covered clothes, bandaged hands, his tear-streaked cheeks and his irritated red eyes.

“Fuck, what happened?” he asked.

Nolar pulled the blond to him and collapsed onto the nearest couch. He couldn’t speak at first. He’d breathed in a lot of smoke in the smoldering ruins of the farmhouse, searching for his foster parents. He hadn’t found them.

“Faulty wiring,” he rasped at last. “House burned down.” He buried his head into Cory’s shoulder.

“Is…is everyone ok?” the blond asked hesitantly. Nolar’s sobs were the only answer.

…………………………………………………………………

He stayed the night at Cory’s house. If anyone else noticed, they didn’t say anything. In the morning, he left, still covered in ashes and smelling of smoke, to make arrangements for his family’s funerals.

Time passed in a blur. Nothing seemed real, and except for the pain in his scabbed hands, Nolar felt nothing. He kept expecting to wake up, except he didn’t.

“What are you gonna do?” Cory asked when he returned to his friend’s room.

Nolar shrugged. “Dunno. Find a job?” His family, unlike the Norris’, had never made much money, and most of what they had saved was going toward their funerals. “A guy on an island wants to hire me.”

Cory frowned. “…you’re leaving?” he asked.

Nolar nodded. “After the funeral.” He couldn’t stay. He had no home and only one friend here. Cory wouldn’t miss him. He only had a few weeks left of house arrest, and plenty of friends to entertain him once he was free. He wouldn’t miss Nolar.

The blond wrapped his arms around Nolar tightly, like he would never let go. But he did.

……………………………………………………………………………..

The move to Shuiyidan Island was physically tiring. The distraction helped. He concentrated on salvaging what he could, moving things little bit at a time, finding a cheap apartment and filling it with cheaper furniture. If he was exhausted enough, he slept at night, and if he made himself hungry enough, he ate. He avoided cookies and snicker doodles.

Nolar concentrated on learning street names and routes around the city for his job as a mail man. He delivered letters and packages, and missed his best friend more than he realized he would. For the first few weeks of his new life, he didn’t live; he just existed.

Eventually, the numbness faded. He delivered mail to another Norris family without a stab of loneliness. He ate a cookie without feeling sick. He smelled smoke from a chimney without panicking.

By the time summer passed and the school year began, Nolar’s grief had faded. He enrolled himself into a new school, and while no one taunted him and called him a birdbrain, no one teased him and affectionately told him he was hopeless, either.

He thought about writing to Cory, once or twice. In the end, he decided not to. Nolar had a new life now. He would have to find new friends to go along with it. It couldn’t be too hard.

………………………………………………………………………….

Gingerbread Chapter 1

2009-09-13T02:58:49Z

For some reason, continuing this seemed like a good idea at the time. I once again blame the stress and the sleep-deprivation. Why, college, why?

Title: Gingerbread
(http://www.fictionpress.com/s/2719802/1/Gingerbread)

Author: demonrubberducky

Rating: M

Genre: Fantasy, humor, romance,

Warnings:M/M, eventual porn, bad puns and fairytale references. It's pretty bad.

The first sensation Gin remembered was warmth and the smell of baking cookies. The second was light, starting off as a small dot that widened as he emerged into the world and saw the smiling face of his mother.

It was around this time that cognitive functioning kicked in, and Gin found himself drawing a few different conclusions. One: the warmth was heat. Two: the cookie smell was him. Three: His smiling mother was actually leering at him. And four: She was wearing a small lacy apron and nothing underneath. Wrinkles of loose, pasty flesh jiggled as she slung her hip, and Gin received his fifth observation of the world- his vomit tasted like gumdrops.

“Oh ~baby~, I got cold waiting so long for you to bake. Come warm me up,” his mother crooned. She held up a spatula and dragged her tongue along the flat end before she slid it under Gin’s foot and started freeing him from the giant cookie sheet.

Still struggling with a mouth full of gumdrop, Gin managed to chock out, “Mom, put on a coat!” OhgodohGOD, this was not the way to come into the world.

The old lady baker frowned. “I know you aren’t that cold, sugar. I haven’t even put you on the cooling rack yet. Come give me some lovin’” She pushed the spatula further up his leg, freeing the limb at the same time that she nuzzled her cheek up against his insole.

Gin shuddered. “Y-you mean you want me to be the child you never had, right?” he stuttered.

The baker’s wife ran the spatula up his other leg. “Nope,” she giggled. The spatula moved somewhere above his leg, and Gin yelped.

“Ah- y-you need me to h-help around the bakery?” he suggested hopefully, trying to keep from being sick all over his creator. He shifted away from her as much as he could with having his upper half stuck to a baking pan.

“Try again,” she whispered huskily. She pried up his butt cheeks and Gin didn’t care that he was sentient. He wanted to die and escape the inappropriate and entirely too flabby assault.

“Eat me! Please say you want to eat me!” Gin begged. He tried to push himself up using his legs, but he was still stuck firm.

“Didn’t want a repeat of your brother. I didn’t grease the cookie sheet this time,” she grinned. “Don’t worry, I’ll eat you eventually. But Mr. Baker is gone all weekend, and you can last that long without crumbling.”

The pushing became full fledged thrashing. Nonononono! “Hungry! You have to be hungry! After all that work baking me, and I smell soooo good, don’t I? Take a bite!” Hopefully she’d take a nibble on his jugular and he’d find blessed oblivion.

Mrs. Baker winked at him. “I need to do the crime before I destroy the evidence,” she noted. Reaching advanced age unable to bear children had apparently withered away any maternal instincts she might have possessed early in life. She climbed onto the cooling cookie sheet and straddled his legs. The spatula slid further up his back.

Once Gin’s shoulder blades were in the clear, he murmured a quick, “Sorry, mom,” and jerked himself up. He felt ginger-skin tear from his shoulders and the back of his icing hair was jagged and messed up, but he was free. Giving the baker woman a shove, Gin jumped to his feet and ran, ran, ran as fast as he could and prayed the little old lady wouldn’t catch him.

……………………………………………..

The occurrence at the bakery caused quite a stir, and understandably so. Despite Mrs. Baker’s spotty reputation, one did not see tan, naked cookie men running out of her house every weekend. (Many of the people passing by on the cobbled street sincerely wished they could have said it was the first time they had seen Mrs. Baker in her skimpy lace apron, but that would be a lie. But New Year parties were better forgotten anyways.) So when Gin dashed out onto the street with Mrs. Baker close on his heels, wailing, “Come baaaack!” the townspeople crowded around to see what was going on.

Gin ducked and dodged the mass of people as best they could. A few tried to grab his arm and stop him (didn’t they see he needed to get gone? Maybe they thought he was a thief…?), but released him in surprise when they realized his flesh was actually finely sculpted gingerbread. The rough ground scraped and crumbled his soles, but he would deal with stubby feet if he could get away from the sex-crazed old witch.

A gaggle of teenage milkmaids squealed when he dashed by, and he almost shouted an apology for his state of indecency, except they squealed again and started chasing him. A few farmhands eyed Gin, the girls following him, and decided they wanted a piece too.

Gin had been alive less than an hour, but he had already discovered one brute fact: Life sucks. He dared a glance back behind him as he ran desperately down the road. Behind him, screaming and pushing each other, was his mother, the milkmaids, the farmhands, a talking (squealing) cow, a cat in boots, and a headless man on a horse. What did all of these people want with him?

Damn it, he was tired, scared, disenchanted with life, and his feet hurt. If he stopped running and let his entourage catch him, at least he would only have to worry about being torn to shreds and eaten alive. As long as he didn’t have to serve as an old lady’s sex toy for his brief lifespan, he figured he didn’t care what happened to him anymore.

“Maybe I’ll have better luck in my next life,” he said bravely. He turned around a bend in the road, ready to let his momentum run out and embrace his dismal fate.

Instead, he ran headfirst into a tawny-haired man with yellow eyes.

………………………………….

Fox L. Bad had seen a lot of crazy things in his life. His brother was a pretty sordid character and Fox often ended up on the borderline of the law just by association. He’d cleaned up pigs butchered inside of their straw houses and delivered slightly threatening letters to old ladies trapped inside shoes. He’d been around collecting money from a fiddler right about the time of the tragic murder-suicide of Travis Dish and Janie Spoon. But nothing Wolf or anyone else had ever roped him into doing quite prepared him for this.

This was pretty pleasant on all the senses. Heated tan skin and white-silvery hair, a delicious smell of gingerbread wafting around, and that terrified ‘take me now’ expression along those cherry-licorice red lips and in the bright blue eyes. This was also naked against him, clinging to him and begging Fox to…eat him? That was pretty forward. Fox wasn’t the most reputable of men, but he at least liked to feed a potential date dinner before he got down to the dirty stuff.

Then the posse turned the corner and the kid in his arms went limp in surrender. Fox groaned. Damn it, he was gonna have to rescue the kid now. Add a few more clothes and give the crowd some pitchforks and he would have been in just about the same situation that Fox had grown up with. He felt for fellow mob-dodgers.

A well-projected growl that was hell on his throat had the chasers halting in their tracks. Even if he wasn’t the biggest Bad, his family had enough of a reputation that the rest of the world was wary on principle.

Holding them back with a glare, Fox scooped up the boy (who was lighter than expected, given he was kind of lanky and looked only a few years younger than Fox). He broke from the road and darted towards the forest. No one, not even the hormonal-driven feeding-frenzied mob would dare cross a Bad on his home turf.

Or if they did, they wouldn’t make the same mistake twice.

……………………………………………………

Gin trembled in his rescuer’s arms as he was carried deeper and deeper into the forest. He felt a weird, nervous churning in his stomach when he thought about what a big, strong guy like that could do to him now that they were all alone. It wasn’t a violently ill reaction like he’d had when his mom had tried to…to…do that, but it was unsettling nonetheless. When they finally stopped and saw that no one had followed, Gin looked up at him with eyes brimming full of sugar water.

“Please, make it fast,” he said, trying not to cry. It was as much as he could have hoped for, being eaten quickly and gently by an attractive man. At least he’d have a good view during his final moments.

The man put him down and studied him with those yellow eyes. “ ‘the hell, kid?” he grunted. Like he didn’t know.

“Eat me fast,” Gin begged. “Please.” He caught those yellow eyes and gave him his best teary-eyed, imploring stare.

A blush stained his rescuer’s rugged cheeks. “Wha-? Jesus, kid, what’s your problem?” he hissed. He took a step back from Gin and broke away from his gaze. His eyes dipped down and the blush spread across the rest of his face. He quickly dragged them back up to somewhere right above Gin’s left ear.

Gin crossed the space between them and wrapped his arms around the man. He bared his neck so he could get a clean bite. “If I have to die, I want it to be quick,” he moaned.

Disappointment flooded over Gin when his rescuer untangled Gin from his limbs and pushed him away. “No one is dying here,” he growled. Then, more quietly, he added, “You’re safe now.”

The gingerbread man burst into tears. His rescuer was so kind. Gruff, but kind. “Out of all the people that could’ve eaten me, I’m glad you’re the one,” he said. If he wrapped his arms around his yellow-eyed devourer, it might even feel like he was being held, like someone loved him.

The tawny-haired man shot him a quizzical look. “You born yesterday, kid?” he asked.

“No, today,” Gin interjected.

The man’s nose wrinkled as he frowned. “Huh? …look, kid, I’m not gonna hurt you, ok? I don’t know what kinda cannibal-fetish you’ve got goin’ on, but you’re safe with me.

Gin froze. “You aren’t going to eat me?” he asked. “Am I…unappealing? Did I get burnt? I tripped and fell that one time, but I swear I wasn’t on the ground for more than five seconds!” The tears streamed down harder, making his face feel all soggy and gross. No wonder this guy didn’t want him…he was a crummy catch.

The bigger man rolled his eyes and breathed a long-suffering breath. Guiding Gin over to a fallen log, he sat down beside him and turned Gin’s face toward him with a callous hand. “Why would I want to eat you?” he asked slowly, as if he thought Gin was crazy and liable to throw a fit.

Gin took the hand on his cheek and brushed the fingers against his soggy, tear-stained skin. A few moist crumbs stuck to his rescuer’s fingers.

“I wasn’t born yesterday,” he repeated. “I was baked this morning.

……………………………………………………….

Fox blinked. He blinked again. “So…you’re tryin’ to tell me you’re a giant walking cookie.” The tanned boy nodded.

“But you don’t look like a cookie because ole lady Baker made you human-shaped so she could sex you up.”

“She was rather invested in my being atomically correct,” Gin replied delicately. He pouted at the skepticism in Fox’s voice.

“An’ you ran away and all those people were following because they want to eat you. Or fuck you, you’re not sure which.”

Gin sighed. “Yeah, that’s kind of why I asked you to eat me. You know, put me out of my misery. I’ll crumble in a few days anyways, and I’d really rather skip the whole going stale phase, thanks.”

“Dude, just because you have issues doesn’t mean I’m gonna go all cannibal on you. Stop bein’ such a drama queen.” Fox rubbed his temples and tried to think of something to tell the kid before he slit his wrists and started oozing melted chocolate or something.

“You obviously need help,” he said to himself. He always reasoned through things better when he talked out loud; it ran in the family. The Bad family monologues had become vehicles of parody within the community at large, but neither he nor his family could quite break the habit, no matter how much the “I’ll huff and I’ll puff” came back to haunt them. “A lot of help.” He looked Gin up and down. Yep, still forlorn, still sugar-based, still naked. He shrugged out of his black leather jacket and tossed it at the cookie-man.

Gin stood up and pulled the jacket on. The cuffs went a little long on his wrists and the bottom hem just barely covered his ass. It was pretty obvious that he wasn’t wearing pants underneath it, but at least the poor kid wouldn’t get jumped by any crazed milkmaids.

“The gingerbread thing’s gotta go; can’t have you getting carried away by ants or hungry kids or nothin’.”

Gin’s blueberry rock-candy eyes went wide. “You can do that?”

Fox snorted. “I can’t…but I might know a guy who can. Blue Fairy owes me a favor. Transforming inanimate objects into real boys is kind of a specialty of his.”

“I could be human?” Gin asked quietly. Jesus, were his eyes quivering? Fox had to wonder what sort of crack old lady Baker had been on when she made him. Who the hell designed a sex toy with puppy-dog eyes? He guessed she had probably placed most of her concerns south of his eyes, but still, pedo much?

The tawny-haired man looked away from the kid. “Yeah, sure, why not? We just gotta find the right star to wish off of.”

…………………………………………………..

Gin didn’t realize the star thing wasn’t just a figure of speech until a few hours later. Before that particular epiphany came into being, Fox had led Gin out of the forest. It had been a slow trek, with Gin picking his way carefully due to lack of shoes and pants to protect him and Fox stopping and looking back at him impatiently. Gin had decided then that Fox was kind of a jerk.

Then, at the edge of the forest, Fox had pulled a camouflaged tarp off of a sleek black motorcycle. The man slid a leg over it, straddling the seat, and revved the engine. Gin revised his opinion: Fox was kind of a hot jerk. Fox pulled on his helmet and motioned for Gin to climb on behind him.

The gingerbread man may have kept a few inches of space between them, to keep the Bad boy from feeling the hardness that may or may not have been throbbing underneath the short leather jacket.

“You smell somethin’ burning?” Fox had asked.

“No,” Gin had yelped a little too quickly to be believable. Fox had let it drop and drove them to a seedy shack on the outskirts of town.

“’s not much, but I know a guy who builds ‘em real cheap.” Gin was beginning to form the impression that Fox knew a lot of guys. He eyed the flimsy wooden structure warily.

“It looks like a good wind would knock it over,” he said nervously. The light summer breeze was already blowing the seeds away from the tangled branches that formed the walls. A few leaves struggled valiantly against the onslaught, but soon broke off and fluttered away as well.

“It’s stronger than it looks,” Fox muttered, looking vaguely embarrassed. He grabbed Gin’s wrist and pulled him inside. “And if you mention huffing and puffing, there will be consequences.”

Gin blinked, confused. “Why would I do that?”

Fox turned and studied him. “You serious? God, you are. You actually don’t...? …you know what, don’t worry about it. Forget I said anythin’. Let’s get you somethin’ to wear.”

His rescuer left him sitting on a couch that had seen better days come and pass and never visit when they were in town and disappeared into a shadowy bedroom. Gin looked around the room, which was bare except for where vines crept through the wall, with rickety furniture and a table covered in beer cans and knives. The cookie-man bounced up and down on the couch nervously, hoping that if Fox was some sort of serial killer, he’d at least had enough practice with it to make it fast.

The couch groaned in protest, and somewhere beneath the dusty purple fabric and compressed stuffing, a spring snapped. Giving up completely, the decrepit seating collapsed with Gin still on top. He yelped as it crashed to the ground.

Fox peeked his head out of the bedroom. “What the hell’re you doin’ out there, kid?” he growled. He eyed the heap of ex-furniture. He rubbed his temples. “Christ. That shit survived five houses collapsin’ on it, three mob-related house fires, an’ my big-ass brother sittin’ on it. You break it in two minutes.” He looked flabbergasted.

Gin stood up and rubbed his butt where he had landed. “Sorry,” he sniffed. “I didn’t try to do it.”

Fox threw a t-shirt and a pair of boxers at his head. “I mean, how does that even work? You’re made outta dough. You’re not heavy enough to knock down a card-house.” He disappeared back into the room, and Gin could hear the sound of drawers sliding open and clothes being flung around.

“In my defense, it was practically dead when I got here,” Gin argued. It wasn’t his fault Fox had crappy furniture! Gin pulled the boxers on (they were rather big on him, but with the elastic waistband, they stayed on) and stripped off the leather jacket. The t-shirt was also baggy, but he was glad for it all the same. His first clothes…he was taking his first step to becoming human. He just wished his shirt could have been as warm as Fox’s jacket.

“Doesn’t mean it’s not your fault. I mean, here I am helpin’ you outta the kindness of my heart, and the first thing you do is criticize my house and break my shit. Someone might accuse you of bein’ ungrateful.” Fox popped out again, this time with a pair of faded jeans, a black leather belt with a silver buckle the size of Gin’s hand, and a shrunken gray wool sweater. He dropped them on the once-couch.

Gin frowned. He had already said he was sorry! What else did Fox want? “I am grateful, you…you asshole!” he yelled. He grabbed the pair of jeans and thrust his legs through them, trembling with anger. Stupid jerk. Who cared if he was hot?

Fox chuckled. The sound started as a low rumble, then grew into full-blown snorts. Gin looked up from hooking the giant buckle and glared.

“Y-y-you, you’re too much. You pout like a little girl when you’re pissed,” the Bad announced gleefully.

Gin ground his teeth (which, being made of peppermint, left his mouth feeling clean and refreshed) as he pulled the sweater on. The mismatched, odd sized clothes must have looked pretty awful, but he was grateful, no matter what that bastard said.

“Thanks,” he snarled. As soon as he found himself some shoes, he was marching out this horrible place and away from the infuriating man smirking at him.

Fox stopped his laughing and held out his hands in a gesture of surrender. “Calm down, I was kidding. Damn thing breaks all the time. I know a guy who can fix it.”

Gin rolled his eyes. Of course, Fox knew a guy. “That wasn’t nice,” he snapped.

The taller man curled an arm over Gin’s shoulder. “Just makin’ sure you are capable of modes other than depressed and submissive. You’re cute when you get mad.” Fox poked his cheek, then let go of him and strode over to the hall closet door. He opened the door and bent down to rifle around though the stuff on the floor, leaving Gin, who was already flustered, with an unobstructed view of his ass. Verified hot, jerk status pending.

At least he had baggy pants this time.

………………………………………………………………….

Ok, the pink Hawaiian-print flip-flops were just cruel. Fox was willing to admit it. The rest of the monstrosity that was Gin’s attire was all pretty straightforward- the smallest pair of pants Fox owned, the only belt he was willing to give away, and the sweater he had accidentally shrunk because he never read the tags (it had been itchy anyways, so he considered his carelessness a preemptive revenge; besides, his mother should have known better than to give him anything that took actual maintenance). Those were all logical choices. The flip-flops, though, they were just the cherry on top of the cake. He had had to dig through piles of respectable black sandals and reliable old tennis shoes to find those horrid pink ones his brother had given him as a gag gift.

In his defense, he didn’t need Gin looking any cuter than he normally did. Especially if he was going to keep staring up at him with those sad, desperate blue eyes. He was not falling for a baked good. His family was full of deviants and degenerates, but Fox was not one of them. He lived a halfway respectable life, and he was not about to ruin that with kinky food-sex. Although Gin would probably be pretty vanilla. Probably tasted like vanilla, too.

Ok, that should not have been as arousing of a thought as it was. Fox was just as sick as the rest of his family, he wasn’t gonna lie. But he wasn’t going to act like it. Besides, Gin would probably crumble if he tried anything. Fox needed to get his mind out of the gutter and keep his sweet tooth to himself. So, Gin looking as ridiculous as possible was a good thing. A step in the right direction. He was positively a gentleman.

He stowed a backpack filled with canned soup and water bottles under the seat of his bike and waited for Gin to come out of his house. He had told the kid to pack up a few clean clothes for them. How long did it take to shove some t-shirts and a few boxers into a bag?

When Gin finally stopped taking his sweet time and came out, he was wearing Fox’s jacket again. Oh hell no. That jacket was his. It made him look bad-ass. On Gin, it just looked like a circus tent.

It was not at all endearing. It did not remind Fox of how lost and vulnerable and fuckable Gin had looked when he had been wearing that jacket and nothing underneath.

The gingerbread man gave him a quick smile when he reached him. He handed him Fox’s spare jacket, which was brown leather and only slightly less bad-ass.

“Here. I don’t want you catching a cold,” he said. Fox took the coat and pulled it on. He felt himself smiling back at the kid as if nothing were the matter.

God damned coat thief and his sugar-coated concerns for Fox’s health. He wiped the goofy grin off of his face and snatched the bag from Gin. Christ, he must have spent all that time packing it full of lead. There was no other way a bag that size could be that heavy.

“Kid, we’re goin’ to find a star, not backpack our way to Neverland. What the hell did you put in here?”

Gin blinked at him. “Is it too heavy for you?” he asked, completely innocently.

Fox hefted the bag into his back. Oh, jesus, that hurt. “No,” he grunted. “Perfectly fine.” Like hell it was too heavy for him. If a damned cookie could carry it, he could too.

Ok, his spine was not supposed to make cracking noises like that. He staggered to his motorcycle and lashed the pack to the bar on the back. It didn’t leave a lot of room for in the bitch seat, but Gin and his skinny-butt could deal. It would be a pretty quick journey, anyways. Just needed to find one star and the kid would be off his hands, end of story, happy endings all around.

Meh, like that would ever happen.

……………………………………………

Gingerbread preview

2009-07-26T04:47:38Z

Ok, prepare yourself for some sleep-deprived crack-fic. After spending entirely too long lurking on aggybird's lj and convincing myself that writing fairytale porn is a good idea, I decided to try my hand at it. My mother had some surgery done the other day and I stayed with her in her hospital room today, and with the collaboration of my lack of sleep, the long hours of doing nothing while she napped, and the presence of my trusty laptop, this happened. It's nowhere near finished, has seen no editting, and is pretty crack-filled. If people read it and want more, let me know and I will try to fix it up, finish it, and make it semi-presentable. If not, I'll resume work on Milk and Brownies...eventually. August is going to be a busy month for me. Almost looking forward to school so I can get a break...

My mind is weird when I have no sleep.

((Warning: eventual M rating for sexual content, language, and disturbing images. Probably in the reverse order, actually...)

The first sensation Gin remembered was warmth and the smell of baking cookies. The second was light, starting off as a small dot that widened as he emerged into the world and saw the smiling face of his mother.

Still struggling with a mouth full of gumdrop, Gin managed to chock out, “Mom, put on a coat!” OhgodohGOD, this was not the way to come into the world.

Gin shuddered. “Y-you mean you want me to be the child you never had, right?” he stuttered.

The baker’s wife ran the spatula up his other leg. “Nope,” she giggled. The spatula moved somewhere above his leg, and Gin yelped.

“Try again,” she whispered huskily. She pried up his butt cheeks and Gin didn’t care that he was sentient. He wanted to die and escape the inappropriate and entirely too flabby assault.

“Eat me! Please say you want to eat me!” Gin begged. He tried to push himself up using his legs, but he was still stuck firm.

……………………………………………..

Gin ducked and dodged the mass of people as best they could. A few tried to grab his arm and stop him (didn’t they see he needed to get gone? Maybe they thought he was a thief…?), but released him in surprise when they realized his flesh was actually finely sculpted gingerbread. The rough ground scraped and crumbled his feet, but he would deal with stubby feet if he could get away from the sex-crazed old witch.

“Maybe I’ll have better luck in my next life,” he said bravely. He turned around a bend in the road, ready to let his momentum run out and embrace his dismal fate.

Instead, he ran headfirst into a tawny-haired man with yellow eyes.

………………………………….

Or if they did, they wouldn’t make the same mistake twice.

……………………………………………………

The man put him down and studied him with those yellow eyes. “ ‘the hell, kid?” he grunted. Like he didn’t know.

“Eat me fast,” Gin begged. “Please.” He caught those yellow eyes and gave him his best teary-eyed, imploring stare.

Gin crossed the space between them and wrapped his arms around the man. He bared his neck so he could get a clean bite. “If I have to die, I want it to be quick,” he moaned.

Disappointment flooded over Gin when his rescuer untangled Gin from his limbs and pushed him away. “No one is dying here,” he growled. “You’re safe now.”

The tawny-haired man shot him a quizzical look. “You born yesterday, kid?” he asked.

“No, today,” Gin interjected.

The man’s nose wrinkled as he frowned. “Huh? …look, kid, I’m not gonna hurt you, ok? I don’t know what kinda cannibal-fetish you’ve got goin’ on, but you’re safe with me.

Gin took the hand on his cheek and brushed the fingers against his soggy, tear-stained skin. A few moist crumbs stuck to his rescuer’s fingers.

“I wasn’t born yesterday,” he repeated. “I was baked this morning.

……………………………………………………….

Heartstrings Preview

2009-06-12T23:44:33Z

Since Brownie readers have been so curious about Elf King Gerald, and because I started off Hugo's story planning on writing the sequel, I went ahead and wrote down the very beginning of Gerald's story, 'Heartstrings". If you want to give it a read and leave some feedback, feel free. The rest of the story will be written after I finish Milk and Brownies (although I have both stories planned out already).

Warning: This little tidbit does contain some Brownie spoilers. Read at your own risk.

Heartstrings

Chapter 1

He could almost feel it. At least, he thought he could. After so many years, he wasn’t sure what feeling felt like. But he was close, something inside of him whispered. Here, within the howling winds of an icy mountain storm…

He looked around, searching desperately for any glimpse of his missing piece. All he saw was shadow and snow. All he felt was cold.

It had moved again, then. All that was left in this icy cave was the echo of the song that had long haunted him. His heart’s song. He closed his eyes and listened.

………………………………………………………………………..

Elf King Gerald opened his eyes and called out for a pen and parchment. His assistant, Larry, was ready with the needed supplies, which he handed over quickly. Gerald had been waking more and more often with lingering fragments of dreams he needed to record.

Gerald scribbled out the lyrics and blew on the ink to speed its drying.

“Any clues, sire?” Larry asked. His slanted green eyes scanned the parchment from over Gerald’s shoulder.

“It is the similar to the last time, assistant Larry,” Gerald informed him. “I can not make sense of the words.”

Larry sighed. He was probably...frustrated. Gerald thought that was what the emotion was called. It was so terribly hard to keep them all straight. He had explained the last three dream-stanzas to the king, but Gerald could still not understand them. They weren’t logical.

“It is a sad song, highness. These lines speak of unrequited love. See?” he pointed his finger to a most confusing passage. “‘Though you twine your arms around me, I never feel your embrace. I sing to you, but your ears hear not my words of love. The pain of being near yet far kills me slowly, slowly, slowly.’ The speaker loves, but the object of love does not return his affection, causing him pain.”

Gerald blinked at Larry. How could the speaker in his dreams feel pain, if all the object did was embrace him? That was no cause of physical discomfort. There was no logic in dreams.

Larry sighed. “Wherever your heart is, sire, I fear for it. Each time you hear it, the song is different, yet the same. Someone must be hurting it, often.”

Gerald put aside the pen. “I dreamt of the mountain again, assistant Larry. I searched that cave twelve times in the last ten years, and there is never a trace of it. Yet still I dream of it.” He reached for his comb and began to brush the tangles out of his long silver hair.

“Was it there, this time, my lord?” Larry asked, climbing onto the bed and settling behind Gerald to braid the long tresses.

“No. It has moved on.” He let Larry take over managing his hair.

“Perhaps you should search the village below the mountain again. Usually, after you dream of the mountain, you dream of the village.” Gerald didn’t have to turn his head to know that Larry’s mouth would have turned up into a forced smile as he spoke.

“I cannot leave the Forest so soon after my return. I have a duty,” Gerald told his assistant. His heart would have moved by the time he reached the village, anyways. Futility wasn’t a feeling so much as an acknowledgement of time poorly spent. Gerald could understand that, even if he couldn’t feel it.

………………………………………………………………………………….

Disappointment was one of the few emotions Gerald managed to keep straight in his head. He saw it often enough.

He sat in his throne at High Court, presiding over the cases of the fairy folk in his realm. Gerald knew he looked the part, with his deep green robes and the enchanted, ever-growing staff in his hands. A book of elfin law lay open on his lap.

“The Fifth Clause of Article 12 clearly states the consequences for failure to comply with fairy ring regulations,” he declared to the gnome that quivered at his feet. Larry tapped his shoulder and gave him a look filled with that one familiar emotion.

“Sire, the good Gnome Gherkin had a broken leg. He could not reach the ring in question to properly cultivate it,” Larry argued.

Gerald looked down at his book. The law made no stipulations for broken legs. “The rules are quite obvious in this instance,” he said. “Morgan’s Laws plainly dictate banishment to a human garden for four to six weeks.”

Gnome Gherkin wailed in agony. Gnomes loved working with the earth, and having to stay still and act decorative in the presence of human was supposedly a great punishment, or so Gerald had heard.

“Sire, remember what we discussed!” Larry hissed into his ear.

Gerald looked from Gherkin to Larry, not comprehending Larry’s point. “It is my sacred duty to uphold the laws of this land and to promote order,” Gerald proclaimed.

The disappointment on Larry’s face grew. “Elf King Gerald, your first and foremost duty is to protect your people. That means in cases like these, you must show mercy,” the assistant whispered.

It was not wise to allow citizens of the realm to witness discord between its rulers. “Very well,” Gerald whispered back. “You may preside over the rest of today’s cases.”

He stood. “I am called away on urgent business,” he lied. He was very good at lying when it was necessary, since he didn’t feel the guilt or remorse that allowed others to detect the falsehood. “Gnome Gherkin, Royal Assistant Larry will declare your sentence.”

The gnome stopped shaking and looked up at his king. “Oh, thank you, thank you sire!” he crooned. His subjects always acted more animated when he allowed Larry to oversee them rather than doing it himself. Another instance of disappointment.

He left the courtroom and headed for the Chamber of the Ancients. The wizen elves, dryads, fairies, and token pooka looked up from their bingo boards.

“Oh, look who’s come to visit!”

“It’s Gerry! Heya, Ger, you bring us souvenirs from Asia?”

The leader of the Ancient Counsel, a horribly shriveled hag named Janine, wrapped her twiggy arms around Gerald.

“Gerry, baby, you usually don’t come botherin’ us until at least a week after you get back from questin’. What’s wrong, hott stuff?”

Gerald shrugged out of her embrace and bowed to the counsel. “I humbly ask the Honorable Elders for permission to resign.”

The Ancients sighed. “Here he goes again…”

“It has once again come to my attention that in my current state, I cannot satisfactorily perform the duties required of an Elf King. It is irresponsible for me to continue to hold a position of power when I lack the necessary resources.”

Janine pinched his cheek. “Honey, honey, we told you last week, we told you last month, we’ve been telling you for the last fifty years, you’re the Elf King whether you like it or not.”

Gerald frowned. “If I asked for permission to leave on another quest, would you grant it?” he asked.

The Ancients looked at one another. They shrugged.

“Sure. We’re not your babysitter.”

“Royal Assistant Larry rules the Forest more than I do. If I left today, he would take over for me. It is only logical that you allow me to resign and declare him king in my stead.” Larry would perform the job with empathy and caring, which Gerald lacked. In addition, he was a green-haired forest elf, highly in tune with the life of the Forest itself. Gerald was a silver-haired High Elf, in tune with his own magic and very little else.

“In fact, it is unfair to require him to perform the job without granting him the corresponding title,” he continued. He had been attempting to convince the counsel to demote him for fifty years, since the Incident. Perhaps this new argument, tailored to appeal to their sense of ‘guilt’, would work.

The Ancients rolled their eyes. “B-7” the pooka announced, continuing their game. Only Janine stayed focused on the king.

“You know we can’t do that, darling. We’re speaking for the Forest, cutie, and the Forest wants you.” She winked at him.

“I only want what is best for my people,” Gerald noted. Janine reached up from her hunched-over crouch and patted his shoulder.

“I know, baby, I know. That’s why you’re still the King,” she crooned.

………………………………………………………………

“Your highness, you can’t leave yet! You’ve only been home for four days!” Larry shouted at him. He dumped the saddlebag Gerald was packing out onto his bed and began putting the supplies away.

“And in that time, I have almost killed a boy, banished a loyal brownie family from the Forest, and sentenced an injured gnome to a maximum sentence. If I stay in the Forest, I will carry out my duties to the best of my abilities, and my people will be hurt because of it. I am no longer an acceptable leader. Ergo, I will reassume my quest and find my heart so that I can be the king my kingdom requires of me.” Gerald took a deep breath. Convincing his people to follow logic was an exhausting battle. They were too often ruled by their baffling feelings.

“What will the people think if they see you running off again, my lord? They know about your…your condition, and they understand! They know you are trying your best. You don’t have to leave.”

“My best is not sufficient. You are more suited to rule than I. Until I regain my heart, I cannot be the Elf King, Larry.” Gerald repeated his worn-out protests.

Larry frowned at him, disappointment once again spreading across his face. “At least wait a week. At least pretend like you care about your subjects.”

“You know I can’t,” Gerald replied. Couldn’t care, and couldn’t waste time pretending.

“Then go to the fortune teller and get a prophecy if nothing else,” Larry demanded, brow furrowed. ‘Anger’?

“I have already sent for him,” Gerald answered. That was the first step of a quest, was it not? Of course he would do that before leaving. Feelings always seemed to make people ask repetitive questions. If not for their necessity in ruling his people, Gerald would have written them off as inefficient and continued life without them long ago.

…………………………………………………………………….

As always, the fortune teller, Edgar, focused more on Larry than on Gerald. It made sense that the elf would be more concerned with the future of the acting Elf King, rather than the figurehead who spent more time riding through Enchanted bogs than he did overseeing his people.

“Heya, Larry. Have I ever told you we’re astronomically compatible?” the fortune-teller told his assistant with a wink.

“You’ve mentioned it several times, Edgar. You know, if you really were a psychic, the king would have found his heart by now and you’d be able to see that you don’t have a mud pie’s chance in a Brownie’s home,” Larry growled back at him.

Gerald ignored their exchange. They always argued about the validity of Edgar’s predictions. His assistant felt that a fortune-teller should be more accurate, and inwardly Gerald agreed. It was a great inconvenience that fifty years’ worth of prophecies had not yet yielded his heart. But if Edgar’s words had a change of aiding him in his quest, it was statistically wise to request his help.

“Baby, maybe I have seen our future, and that’s why I know you’re gonna make it worth my while.” He flicked a red strand of hair out of his face and smirked at Larry. “Future-you is very flexible, you know.”

Larry turned a bright red color that usually indicated bouts of anger or embarrassment. “Pervert! There’s a difference between prophetic visions and your sick wet dreams!”

“Yeah there is. In one, you whimper like a puppy when I go down on you, and in the other, you scream. Not gonna tell you which, though.”

“Fortune-teller Edgar, sexual harassment is a punishable offense, I will remind you. I called you here for a prophecy, not another argument with my assistant,” Gerald hinted. He held Larry back to keep him from attacking Edgar with the knife he had drawn.

“Yeah, yeah, sure thing, highness. Dark and stormy night, tall dark stranger, get him to help and you’ll find it eventually,” Edgar rattled off nonchalantly. He blew a kiss at Larry.

“When you finally embrace your destiny, you know where to find me, baby,” he told the assistant. Larry jerked out of Gerald’s hold and threw the knife straight at Edgar’s spinal cord. It bounced off of its target with a clank.

Edgar turned and smiled. “Saw that one comin’ a long way off, sweetheart. Wore copper-plated armor just for you. Ta-ta!” he called over his shoulder before he sauntered away.

“I swear I will kill that man!” Larry growled through clenched teeth. Gerald eyed him.

“That violates at least three of our core laws, Assistant. I hope that you are ‘joking’,” he told the green-haired elf. Larry had explained ‘jokes’ numerous times, and he still did not understand the point of them, but he accept that sometimes, others said things they did not mean in order to create ‘humor’.

“Only two, my lord. He can’t be considered a real prophet. He did not even try that time.”

Gerald shook his head. “He supplied an adequate prophecy,” he said.

Larry rubbed his temples with his fingers. “Highness, a ‘tall, dark stranger on a dark and stormy night’ is the oldest cliché imaginable. It is not a real prediction.”

Gerald considered the news. By the time he could leave, the mountain clue would be useless. He had nowhere else to start. “Nonetheless, I will follow it,” he declared. “I will stay until I find the stranger in the storm.”

Larry’s eyes widened. “Do you promise, sire? Because the weather is supposed to be clear for the next month.”

“I will await the stranger,” Gerald repeated. Really, why did he have to repeat everything he said? Hearted people were filled with puzzles and contradictions.

Milk and Brownies 9

2009-06-09T18:40:07Z

Milk and Brownies

(previous chapter)

Chapter 9

Hugo had sipped half a glass of lemonade before he saw Brad storm out of the barn toward the farmhouse. Ben followed, walking stiffly and scowling. He came to the table.

Andy poured him a glass of lemonade and Hugo scooted over on the picnic table bench, giving the man much more room than he needed to sit down.

“Brad’s gonna sulk for the rest ‘a the day, you know,” Andy said as he sat the pitcher back down.

“He should’ve done what I told him to,” Ben snorted. He gulped his drink down and turned to Hugo. “Don’t you go back to work ‘til we get you some proper boots and gloves.” He glared as he spoke, and Hugo felt himself cringe.

“I-I won’t,” he squeaked. Why? Why had he thought that this would be a good idea? He should have just asked the brownies for directions to the nearest grocery store! These farmers were going to kill him.

Andy chuckled to himself from the other side of the table. Ben broke off the death glare he had trained on Hugo and focused it on the brunet instead. “Somethin’ funny?” he asked.

“Stop scarin’ the poor kid, Benny,” he said with a smirk.

“ ’m not scary,” Ben muttered.

Andy pushed the pitcher toward Ben. “Whatever you say. Harper, you know what you’re doin’ for lunch?” he asked.

Hugo shook his head. He hadn’t planned to stay so long. How expensive was this farm’s milk?

“He can eat with us,” Ben answered Andy for him. He poured himself a second glass of lemonade. “Your ma makes plenty. We’ll take it outta his pay for the day.”

“Hey, I’m working all day for a jug of milk. I think you guys can afford to feed me,” Hugo protested.

Ben gave him a funny look over his glass. He shook his head. “We’ll fetch you when it’s time, Harper,” he said. He drained his second glass and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. God, his hands were big. He stood up, and his shadow completely enveloped Hugo.

“Be right back,” he said, striding off into the house.

Hugo watched him go. “Is…is he always like that?” he asked Andy quietly. He knew he shouldn’t badmouth the one who was obviously in charge, especially to a guy who was probably related to him in some way, but his mouth blurted it out without any consideration for his higher reasoning.

Andy just laughed and smiled at him. “Just about. Maybe he’s a little stonier ‘n usual today. You musta made an impression on him.” The way he grinned made Hugo feel like they were sharing a secret, and Hugo smiled back in spite of his aching hands and his annoyance with Ben.

“’Stonier’. Ha ha,” Hugo deadpanned, realizing Andy was joking about Ben’s last name. But really, corny jokes could be hot when told by the right person.

Andy looked over Hugo’s shoulder. “Hey, I gotta go help Jeff. Stay here ‘til Ben gets back,” he said, standing up and jogging across the field, where Hugo could just make out Jeff trying to lift a fence post.

Hugo stayed at the table, drinking his lemonade. He watched people come in and out of the far entrance of the barn, go into the farmhouse, or hop into trucks and drive down the winding driveway that connected the farm to the outside world.

Eventually, Ben came out of the house, carrying a pair of boots with him. Brad followed, looking pretty pissed.

“Go help Jeff ‘n Andy,” Ben growled at his little brother. The younger man went without a word, glaring more at his brother than Hugo, but still getting in some quality hate for the boy. Maybe glaring ran in the Stone family?

Ben snorted at his brother. He sat the boots down on the bench beside Hugo. They had a thick pair of clean, white socks tucked inside.

“Put these on,” the farmer ordered. He looked down at Hugo’s feet. “Wait,” he amended. He motioned for Hugo to stand up, and when he did, he took his arm and dragged him to the side of the house. A green hose lay coiled in a circle by the side of the house. A ragged towel fluttered in the wind on a little clothesline beside it.

“Wash off, then put these on,” he ordered. Hugo kicked the filthy shoes off and stripped the soaked socks from his feet. He hosed off the clothes, then his feet, and dried his feet with the towel. He sat down on the ground a few feet away from the area sprayed by the hose, and pulled the boots on. They were a little big, but the socks helped.

“I could only find 8s. Andy’s little brother just outgrew those,” Ben remarked.

“These are fine.… Thanks,” Hugo replied, remembering that among humans, he still needed to say that. It was weird, doing something mundane like working on a farm after spending weeks in an enchanted forest with magical creatures caring for him.

He stood up and tested out the boots. They felt much heavier than his sneakers, but hopefully they would protect his feet better. He hung his dripping socks and the towel back on the clothesline and pinned them in place with a clothespin.

Ben motioned toward the barn. Hugo walked with him back into the mostly-clean building. The farmer showed him a little tin of muscle cream on one of the window-sills. “Put this on your upper lip if the smell bothers you,” he advised. He reached behind his back and pulled a pair of work gloves out of his belt. He handed them to Hugo.

“Anythin’ else?” he asked, even though Hugo hadn’t asked for any of the things Ben had given him.

Hugo eyed the cow-filled stalls. “How do I shovel around them?” he asked, pointing at the pregnant cow. It mooed at him.

Ben just looked at him blankly. “Move ‘em to a diff’rent stall.” He opened the gate and led the pregnant cow with a hand on her neck. She plodded along complacently. He guided her into the stall directly across, and when he poured a little grain into the feeding trough, she snorted happily and began munching. Ben slipped out of the pen and closed the gate. “All the ones in here are real docile. Jus’ stick ‘em in the next pen and give ‘em a little to eat an’ they’ll be happy.”

Hugo blushed. It looked so easy when Ben did it. The dark-haired farmer got this sly half-smirk across his usually emotionless face. “Think you can handle that, Harper?”

Hugo pulled the gloves onto his hands and grabbed his shovel. “Got it, boss,” he muttered sharply.

Ben grabbed his elbow and pulled him back. Hugo started stammering out an apology (something that probably would have sounded something like this: ‘Ohmygod, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it, pleasedon’tkillmewithashovel!’), but broke off quickly when Ben let him go and made no move to disembowel him.

Sighing and sounding like the answer was going to be pretty painful, Ben told him, “Show me whatcha been doin’.”

Hugo stepped back into the pen, nervously because Ben was watching him, and that was just weird. He bent over, hypersensitive to those green eyes watching him, and scooped up a pile of the muck in the stable. He straightened up and turned with his shovel to dump it in the wheelbarrow.

Ben winced. “Stop, Harper.” He let Hugo dispose of the shovel’s load, then seized the tool from him. Ok, now for the murder-with-shovel…

“You’re gonna kill yourself if ya keep liftin’ with your back,” Ben lectured. He moved into the pen and motioned Hugo out. “Watch,” he ordered.

The tall farmer bent his knees and shoveled a second scoop of cow shit into the wheelbarrow. Hugo didn’t notice any real difference between what he had done and what Ben was doing, except maybe that Ben’s butt was kind of nice.

Ben straightened back up and handed Hugo the shovel. “You get that, Harper?” he asked.

Hugo’s cheeks flushed. He nodded.

“I’ll fetch you when it’s lunchtime,” Ben said, and left him in the stable.

………………………………………………………………………….

Hugo finished up the first section of barn with only a little trouble. He still wasn’t sure what Ben had been trying to show him with the shoveling, but he tried to keep his knees bent while he worked. The gloves felt strange and bulky on his hands, and he could feel himself sweating inside of them, but he kept them on because he knew Ben would yell at him if he came back and found out Hugo hadn’t worn them. And he would know, Hugo was sure. He didn’t know how he would know, but Ben would.

There was an awkward moment when Hugo tried to move one of the cows from its stall. He was afraid to touch its neck, and when he opened the pen and tried to wave it out, it smacked him with its tail and started wandering toward the barrel of feed instead of its pen.

“No, get back here!” Hugo hissed at the animal. It didn’t listen. He put a hand on its neck and tried to guide it like Ben had. It didn’t follow.

“Food. You like food, right?” Hugo muttered at the beast. He took a handful of the grain it was trying to shove its nose into and held it in front of him.

“Come on, you hamburger-in-training, good boy…er, girl…cow…” The cow followed him into the clean stall and licked the grain out of his hands with a tongue that felt gritty like a cat’s tongue, except larger and covered in grassy-green slime. Hugo wiped his hand on the cow’s side and quickly ran out of the pen and locked the gate.

“Ha! Take that, cow!” he said, doing a little victory dance. Then, seeing the blank expressions of the other cows and feeling kind of stupid, he grabbed his shovel and finished cleaning the now-vacated pen.

…………………………………………………………………………

The door to the next section of the barn creaked ominously as Hugo opened it and peered inside.

This section was much more modern, and definitely more crowded. People scurried around, hooking cows up to automatic milking machines on a metal platform, unhooking them and leading them out, monitoring computer screens, jotting down notes onto clipboards…

From what he could tell, it looked like the older men and the women of the family worked in here with the machines, while the younger men worked out in the fields.

Hugo was supposed to ask someone where to start, but everyone seemed so busy and involved with their own job to interrupt. He stood at the door, watching.

After a minute of observing the process, a girl stopped in front of him. She smiled. “You must be Hugo. Ben asked me to take care ‘a you.” She held out a hand to shake. Hugo pulled off the glove before he took it. His hand smelled like leather, but the girl didn’t seem to mind. “I’m Mary Stone,” she said, beaming.

She led Hugo to one end of the barn. “Go grab your wheelbarrow and start here. Everyone’ll clear outta your way while you’re cleanin’ out the stalls. Ok?” Hugo nodded. Mary smiled, then bounced back to whatever it was she was doing in the barn.

Hugo wheeled the wheelbarrow in and started where Mary had shown him, in a large holding area. It had three pens in it, and the first one was empty and in need of cleaning.

He started shoveling.

………………………………………………………………..

Partway through pen number two, Hugo heard a low whistle and looked up. Ben and Andy were leaning on the gate.

“Still not liftin’ with your knees,” Ben told him with a frown. Andy turned to him.

“Maybe you should show him, Benny,” he smirked. He made it sound obscene when he said it like that. The picture in Hugo’s head was of a cheesy romantic comedy, when the big, strong guy has to mold his body around the strong-willed heroine and guide her movements as he demonstrates how to swing a bat or shoot a gun or lift with the knees, with sappy music in the background and lingering looks filled with romantic tension.

Hell no. Not with Ben. That guy looked like he would rather eat a box full of nails rather than deal with Hugo any more. He glared at the laughing man and jerked away from the fence.

“Come on, Harper. Lunch break,” he growled, leaving Andy snorting by the gate. Hugo flushed with embarrassment for having had a thought like that, and for having a thought like that about Ben and not Andy, who actually smiled at him, and for imagining himself in another stupid damsel role.

Hugo left his shovel leaning against the fence. Andy held the gate open for him and bowed to Hugo as he passed through. His handsome face was flushed from laughter.

Hugo walked past and waved to Mary on the way out. She was talking with Jeff, smiling even wider than she had before, but she waved back at him. He left the barn and headed to the house.

Ben sat at the picnic table, not looking amused. He stood up when he saw Hugo.

“Harper…Andy says stupid shit sometimes. Just ignore him,” Ben advised him. Hugo nodded.

“Sure.” ‘Anything you say, giant angry man,’ he thought to himself.

“Let’s get you washed up and fed,” Ben said. He led Hugo into the house.

…………………………………………………………………….

After lunch- a hearty meal with slices of turkey and mashed potatoes and biscuits- Hugo went back to the barn and kept working. Other than pointing out where they needed him to clean, the dairy workers stayed out of his way, and he did his best to work quickly and keep out of their way as well.

He was ready to collapse, cursing the existence of all brownies when Ben strode back into the barn and told him he was finished. Scary as he was, Hugo almost hugged him when the man gave him that beautiful piece of news.

A high-school kid who had the same nose and dark hair as Ben and Brad took over shoveling. Hugo followed Ben out of the barn and slumped over on the picnic table that he now associated as a break area.

“Stay here,” Ben ordered, as though Hugo was going to suddenly leap up and run away. Noooo, sitting down felt way too good. The dark-haired man disappeared and came back with a gallon bottle of milk and a plain white envelope.

“Two percent ok?” he asked as he handed Hugo the jug. Hugo had to hold it with both hands, because the muscles in his arms had never been used like they had today, and they were still crying underneath his arms and protesting how violated they felt.

“That’s fine,” Hugo murmured. Ben handed him the envelope as well.

“I took your milk and lunch outta your pay,” he said. The envelope jingled when Hugo took it, so he guessed there was cash in there.

“I said I would work for just this,” he said, nodding at his milk jug.

“An’ I said, ‘Here’s your pay.’ Take it. It’d be three kinds ‘a lawsuits if I let you work for nothin’,” Ben replied.

Hugo tucked the envelope into his pocket. He leaned down to untie the boots Ben had lent him.

“Leave ‘em on. Yours ‘re still wet,” Ben said. “I’ll put ‘em in a bag for ya.” The farmer ran off again to get them. Hugo should have protested Ben running all around for him, but the thought of moving hurt, and his brownie family had left him way too used to being served.

He sat back up, and when Ben came back with his socks and shoes in a plastic grocery bag, he thanked him with a grateful smile.

The side of Ben’s lips twitched a little. “You…uh…need a ride?” he asked.

Hugo stood up, trying not to wince as his feet joined his arms in feeling betrayed and going on strike. “I…have to walk. There isn’t really a road to drive on…” he tried to explain.

Ben frowned, but nodded. “…ok…”

“What should I do with the boots?” he asked.

“Bring ‘em back with you tomorrow,” Ben answered, sounding once again like he thought it was pretty obvious. “We start at 6. Don’t be late this time.”

“…oh,” Hugo said. “Ok.” He backed away. How the heck did he get adopted everywhere he went? “I’ll…see you later, then,” he said, grabbing up his milk and his shoe bag. He headed across the pasture, back towards Faydale Forest.

His family had better enjoy their offering, he told himself as he let his compass watch guide him home.

…………………………………………………………..

Milk and Brownies 8

2009-05-28T05:17:42Z

Chapter 8! I like this one; it's starting to get to the part of the story I've been wanting to tell.

Milk and Brownies

(previous chapter)

Chapter 8

Hugo woke up the next morning, terrified. His whole night had been filled with nightmares of everything that could go wrong with his plan.

Sunbeams shone in through the window. It looked like the very earliest beginnings of a beautiful day. Suspiciously beautiful. Hugo didn’t trust it. ‘I’ll go tomorrow,’ he thought to himself. Tomorrow, or maybe the next day, if the morning looked a little more reasonably gloomy.

Chair popped into his room. Her little eyelids were drooping and she yawned when she wished him a good morning and gave him his usual hug.

“We made it, Hugo!” she told him with her arms still wrapped around him as far as they could reach. “It took all night, but we made it.” From the sound of her voice, Hugo guessed the only thing keeping her awake was her excitement about their invention.

Hugo scooped up the tiny brownie girl and carried her down the stairs, still in his pajamas. Key and Grub, also looking half-asleep yet fueled by their enthusiasm, were in the kitchen, letting their mother serve them eggs and toast.

“My, were you up late?” their mother gently scolded. She set Hugo and Chair plates before the human could even say ‘Good morning’ to her.

Broom looked up from his Hobgoblin Herald. “I hope you are not too tired to serve Hugo today and catch up in your studies. You have been falling behind in your reading this past week.”

The children smiled sheepishly. “We’ll get caught up, da. We just had a project we needed to finish,” Key explained, speaking for the group.

“Just be sure to get it done,” their father commanded, before turning back to his paper to read about the rest of the magical community.

“I’ll make sure to give them time to do it,” Hugo chimed in. He felt guilty about keeping them up all night, and not using their invention would make it even worse. Maybe he could just use it to do a little more reconnaissance, to give them some quiet time to sleep and get caught up with their homework…

“That would be wonderful, dear. Now eat up. We have to go,” Quilt said. Broom folded his paper and stood.

“Do not fight over clean-up,” he reminded his children fondly before he disappeared.

“Da, we know. We’re not babies,” Grub hissed at his absent father. Quilt smiled at him. “Be good, dears,” she said teasingly, and followed her husband to work.

The children pounced on him. “Hugo, look. Look at it!” Key squealed. She strapped a watch onto his wrist.

“It looks…not like a compass,” Hugo ventured hesitantly.

“When you aren’t using it, it tells time,” Grub pointed out. “Humans always want to know what time it is.”

“At least, da says so,” Key revised. “…and when you need it to work, the hands will point you home.”

“You have to ask it to take you home,” Chair explained. “An’ it can point to that farm, too,” she added.

Grub nodded. “We didn’t want you to get lost going there.”

“Just make sure you don’t lose it,” Key warned. “It can counteract the human-confusing charms in the forest and the protection spells on the house. We’d get into sooo much trouble if some other human got his hands on it…”

Hugo nodded. “I’ll try not to get mugged, then,” he declared.

“Good. Now eat your breakfast and get dressed. You’ve got to go test it out!” Key ordered.

His little adopted siblings looked so tired and eager and proud…he hated to disappoint them. He swallowed his nervousness.

“I’ll leave in a few minutes,” he told them. “You guys make sure to get some rest and stay out of trouble while I’m gone.”

“Hugo, we survived by ourselves before you got here,” Key said, mock-offended.

“You’re the damsel in distress, not us,” Grub snorted.

“We’ll take care of us an’ you,” Chair said, giving him a kiss on the cheek.

Hugo nodded. “Of course.” He ruffled her hair, which hung in little pigtails today. “Just watch out. One day I’m going to take care of you guys,” he threatened. The children giggled.

“Sure, Hugo. Anything is possible,” Key said. Hugo hoped that was true.

…………………………………………………………

Hugo walked to the farm, planning on staying in the woods and watching the workers another day. On his own, with his longer stride, the walk only took an hour. The watch pointed the way, and he found himself there much sooner than he had planned.

The guys drove through the pasture in their truck again, stopping at intervals to drop off bales of hay for the cows’ breakfast. Hugo thought about the tired kids at home, and how they cared for him and made his meals. He wanted to do something for them as well, and he wanted to thank them without offending them.

His stomach churned as he stepped out of the woods and hopped over the wooden fence that bordered the field. He walked slowly toward the truck. The blond boy in the back tapped on the window and pointed him out to the two inside. Hugo gulped.

The truck turned and headed his way. Hugo kept walking toward it so the drivers wouldn’t have to go so far off of the worn tire-track path and ruin more grass to come to him.

The dark-haired driver rolled down the window and leaned out when they got close. “You lost?” he asked. His voice rumbled when he spoke. He stared at Hugo with cold green eyes, mentally ticking away time that was being wasted.

“Ah…no, I…I wanted to ask you something,” Hugo stuttered. The driver raised an eyebrow and waited. The teens in the back snickered, and the brunet with the movie-star smile gave him an encouraging grin.

Hugo gulped. “I…h-how long would work here to earn a gallon of milk?” he asked, suddenly feeling incredibly stupid for having come.

“What the hell?” the blond boy snorted.

The driver looked him over once. “…so you wanna work here?” he clarified. Hugo nodded nervously.

“Listen, kid, we’re a family farm. We don’t hire day workers,” the brunet in the back protested. Hugo was pretty sure he was at least two years older than the other guy, so the ‘kid’ was completely unwarranted…unless he was going by size. The boy was built like a tank, and Hugo guessed if there were standing side by side, he’d have at least four inches on Hugo.

The man in the passenger seat turned around to speak with the boy in the back. “Shut up, Brad. We hired Jeff, didn’t we?” he said, glancing at the blond boy.

“He’s practically family. Him and Mary are tighter’n newlyweds!” Brad argued back.

The driver turned back towards the others in the car, ignoring Hugo completely.

“We’ve been shorthanded since Jay broke his leg…” he told the others.

“Where the fuck did he even come from?” the blond boy, Jeff, wondered aloud. “Seriously?”

The handsome one, who was taking his side, Hugo’s heart beat a little faster when he noticed, ignored Jeff. “Come on, Brad. You wanna spend all day in the barn?” Whatever that meant, it seemed to work. Brad assented, and the driver motioned for him to hop up into the trunk bed.

He sat down on a hale bale as the driver took the truck out of park and rolled along the bumpy pasture.

Jeff and Brad stared at him. “Who the hell are you?” Jeff asked.

Hugo held out his hand to shake. “I’m Hugo Harper,” he introduced himself.

Neither boy took the offered hand. “Crazy is what you are,” Brad snorted. “But if you’re takin’ my shift of shit shovelin’, I ain’t gonna complain.”

Oh. Hugo’s smile faltered a little at that. At least…no, that sucked. At least the kids would have a lot to clean up when he got home…

………………………………………………………….

The guys circled around the pasture, threw out the last of the hay bales, and pulled up to a barn that had been hidden from Hugo’s spying by the slope of the landscape. From there, he could see an old wooden farmhouse on the other side of a vegetable garden.

The farmers hopped out of the truck. Hugo followed. They loaded some planks of wood and a toolbox into the truck bed.

The driver turned to Hugo and held out a hand. “Ben Stone,” he said. Hugo shook his hand.

“Hugo Harper,” he replied.

“Brad’ll get you started in the barn. We’ll check on you in a couple hours,” Ben said. He turned to the younger man. “Brad, get Harper settled and meet us at the fence,” he ordered. Brad had said the farm was a family one, and the two men certainly looked like they were related.

“You mean I gotta walk?” Brad groaned. Ben smacked the side of his head.

“Just do it.” The man climbed back into his truck and drove the other two guys away.

Brad grumbled to himself. “Come on, Harper,” he growled, waving him into the barn. They went in through a little side door. Brad picked up a shovel leaning against the wall in the corner.

“Here.” He pointed to a wheelbarrow that rested inside a stall. “Wheelbarrow, shovel. Shovel the shit into there. There’s a pile out back,” he pointed to a larger opening in the barn,” to dump it in. When you finish here, go through those doors. The people there will tell you which stalls to shovel.”

The farm boy gave him a dismissive wave. “Have fun!” he teased as he hustled out of the barn and headed the way the truck had gone.

Hugo looked around the barn. It suddenly looked bigger than it had. Straw covered the hard-packed dirt floor, and most of the stalls needed shoveling. A few had cows in them. One with a stitched-up gash on its leg looked up from the feeding trough and blinked lazily. It bent its head back down and continued eating. Another one, who looked much too pregnant for Hugo’s comfort, groaned. Lowed? Lowing was what cows did; it was in a Christmas song or something.

“Shit,” the boy whispered to himself. He wheeled the wheelbarrow over to the first stall on the row and started shoveling.

…………………………………………………………

Two hours later, Hugo’s head was spinning from the stench. His ratty sneakers, which the brownies had lovingly repaired, were soaked through with filth, his arms ached from shoveling, and blisters were forming on both hands. All of the stalls in the barn were done except the ones with cows inside. Hugo didn’t know what to do with the cows, and he was afraid to touch them. Didn’t they tip over if you pushed their sides, or something? The pregnant one looked like the baby would pop right out if that happened...

“Harper?” someone called from outside of the barn. Ben and the brunet walked in, looking around for him. The one he didn’t know yet whistled and smiled at Hugo. “Not bad for a first timer,” he told him. Hugo’s heart thumped in his chest.

Ben scowled at him. “What are you doin’?” he hissed.

Hugo paled. “I didn’t know what to do with the cows-” he started explaining. Geez, talk about a slave-driver! He’d just stopped for a second to figure out how to shovel around the hulking bovines…

Ben ignored his words and grabbed one of his hands. He ran a rough thumb down Hugo’s palm. “Andy, get Brad for me,” he told his companion.

Andy grinned. “Your brother in trouble?” he chuckled. The dark-haired man shot him a cold look, and the laughter trailed off. “Be right back,” he muttered, and left.

Hugo looked up at the man that was still examining his hand very closely. “I swear I’ve been working this whole time-” he continued.

“Without gloves,” Ben interrupted. “Don’t you know any better?” He looked down at Hugo. “No, pro’bly not,” he muttered to himself. He released Hugo’s hand and walked into the dairy section of the barn, where Hugo hadn’t ventured yet. When he returned a moment later, he carried a first aid kit with him.

He snatched Hugo’s hand again and examined the blisters. One had popped, and he slathered it with ointment without any warning. Hugo winced. “Ow!”

“Hold still,” Ben ordered. He wiped Hugo’s hand clean with a moist towelette from the kit and covered up the little wounds with band-aids. He motioned for Hugo to give him the other hand to doctor.

Brad and Andy appeared in the doorway behind Ben. Hugo looked at them pleadingly. They froze in place, leaving him at the mercy of the tall farmer and his first aid. When his hands were sufficiently cared for, Ben looked down at his feet.

“What’s your shoe size?” he demanded.

“Uh…” Hugo stammered. “S-seven and a half,” he said quietly.

“Brad!” Ben barked. Hugo, Andy, and Brad all jumped at the shout. Brad came in, eyes downcast.

“Yeah?”

“Find a work boot that will fit him,” Ben ordered. Hugo winced; Brad had seemed angry about him just being there. The glare he was getting from the boy now sent shivers down his spine, mostly because Brad could probably break his spine if he wanted to…with one hand.

“I’m on break,” Brad shot back defiantly. Ben whirled around toward his brother.

“I thought you already took it, seein’ as how I told you to take care of Harper and it didn’t get done.”

“I did take care a’ him! ‘s not my fault he’s too dumb to bring gloves or boots or nothin’!”

Andy snuck past the brothers and their quarrel and put a hand on Hugo’s shoulders.

“We were gonna give you a break and let you get some lemonade. Come on.” He pulled Hugo out of the barn and led him toward the farm-house.

Hugo smiled gratefully at Andy. “Thanks,” he said.

Andy shrugged off the gratitude. “It’s nothing’,” he said. He brought Hugo to a picnic table outside of the house. Beads of condensation ran down the pitcher of lemonade waiting there, and Hugo’s mouth watered.

Hugo poured himself a glass and took a long sip. Sitting down beside a really cute guy, washing away the fatigue with a cool drink, Hugo felt for the first time all day that his plan wasn’t a complete flop.

He couldn’t believe what the farm boys were putting him through for one lousy jug of milk, though…

………………………………………………………………………. (next chapter)

Notes: All of the names of characters are random combinations of first and last names. If there are real people that have these names, it is a coincidence. And also, if you couldn’t tell, I have no experience with dairy farms and their inner workings. I have a little experience with cows and farms. If there is something grossly inaccurate, I will do my best to fix it if you let me know, but please take everything I write with a grain of salt. It is fiction, after all.

And ta-da, you have some more characters! Cute ones! And ones that Hugo finds completely terrifying. Too bad the categories aren’t mutually exclusive… muahahaha! Hope everyone enjoyed the story so far. If you’ve reviewed, thank you. If you haven’t, thanks for reading anyways! coughPLEASEREVIEWcough.

Brownies 7

2009-05-19T02:37:11Z

Chapter 7...delayed by exams and general rl business. Sorry for the wait. It's short, but it's getting toward the introduction of the second batch of characters.

Milk and Brownies

(previous chapter)

Chapter 7:

Key’s map laid out the topography of Faydale Forest in perfect detail. The world outside of the forest, however, lay outside of her range of knowledge; except for slivers of land directly bordering it, the map might as well have read, ‘Here there be dragons’.

“This is perfect,” he told the girl. She beamed.

“Pa says I excel in geography,” she admitted shyly.

Hugo traced the borders of the map with his finger. Southwest of the house, if he walked far enough, he would reach Dean’s diner and the town of Faydale. He’d have to go by soon and let Dean know he was still alive.

To the north was a lake and a summer camp, east led back to Westmont and Hugo’s uncle’s family, and south ended up in a mini-subdivision that had blossomed from an interstate truck stop. None of those were Hugo’s destination.

“Grub, did you finish making what I asked?”

The boy popped up beside him and presented him with the pair of binoculars he had requested the night before, just after the Bottles headed back to their home. Grub had nearly tackle-hugged him when he asked for such a thing.

“Right here, Hugo!” he chimed. They looked more like two old-fashion telescopes from a pirate movie strapped together than any binoculars Hugo had ever seen, but when he tested them out, they worked just fine. The Broom family’s library of information wasn’t the most modern, but it was reliable.

Hugo ran his finger over the western border of the map.

“Chair, do you have lunches and water bottles packed? We’re going on a hike today,” he reminded the little girl.

The tiny brownie maid hopped into the room, happily dragging a satchel almost half her size. “It’s all ready, Hugo!” she sang.

Hugo eyed the overflowing bag. Looks like Chair had gone just a little overboard with her lunch preparations.

“Ah…why don’t you split that up into four bags so we can each carry one?” he suggested. Chair looked up at him with adoring brown eyes.

“Hugo, you’re so smart,” she cooed. She ran off, pulling the picnic bag after her.

Hugo glanced out of the window. The sun rose above the trees. He’d woken at dawn, ate breakfast with his adopted family, and as soon as Broom and Quilt left for work, he and the children had begun their preparations.

“Are we ready?” Hugo asked Key as she leaned her head into his room.

“Yep! We can leave as soon as you tell us where we’re going,” she pointed out. Hugo smiled.

…………………………………………………………………….

As far as planning exciting adventures went, Hugo failed pretty miserably. He stood on the edge of the forest with the brownies, staring out.

“Those are cows…” Grub pointed out, not impressed.

“Dirty cows,” Chair added.

“We’re not allowed to leave the forest, Hugo. We can’t clean them for you,” Key insisted. She twitched, but like a good brownie child, she didn’t set foot outside of the boundaries her parents had set.

“We’re not here to clean. We’re doing reconnaissance,” Hugo said, still in the spirit of the quest, despite his companions’ lack of enthusiasm.

His adopted siblings looked at him blankly.

“We’ll eat lunch first, then,” he revised.

“I can’t believe we hiked an hour and a half for cows,” Grub mumbled to himself. “They’re filthy.” He opened his bag and pulled out a blanket to spread on the ground. Key and Chair wrestled Hugo’s backpack away from him and set up their little picnic while Hugo watched the cows loaf plod around the pasture beyond the forest.

“Come on, Hugo. They aren’t that exciting,” Key chided. She patted the blanket next to where she sat.

“Come eat!” Chair ordered. Hugo sat down with the brownies and let them serve his plate.

The human looked up at the towering trees that surrounded them. Faydale had one of the only virgin forests in the area, and each tree was a monolith of its own right. “Think there’s a way to climb one of these trees? I can’t see any of the farmers for the hills.”

The brownies looked up from their food. “…is that why you wanted to come, Hugo?” Key asked quietly.

Grub frowned. “You…you’re not getting homesick, are you?” he asked nervously. Chair gasped and threw herself at Hugo. She wrapped her tiny arms around him and showered him with kisses.

“We’re better than humans, promise! Stay with us,” she pleaded.

Hugo sighed. “Guys, I’m not leaving. Trust me. I just need to check out the humans around here. I have a surprise planned for you all.”

The children looked at him skeptically. He smiled at them. They relaxed.

“We’ll make you a rope after we feed you,” Grub declared. Hugo grinned and ruffled his twiggy hair. The boy blushed and turned away, muttering about stupid humans not taking care of themselves.

Hugo just nodded and ate his food.

…………………………………………………………..

“There they are!”

“Lemme see, I wanna see!”

“Stop pushing!”

Hugo leaned against the huge tree-trunk and studied the farmers through his spy-glass, ignoring the brownies siblings squabbling beside him. They’d been marvelous up until this point. Right after lunch, they’d cleaned up and produced a grappling hook out of a twisted root and some vines. A vine-ladder later, and Hugo was seated in the bough of one of the giant trees at the edge of the forest, seated comfortably on a moss-seat to cushion him from the rough bark. He had split his ‘binoculars’ back into two pieces so the siblings could watch as well, because they were teeming with curiosity…which had caused the fighting.

“Come on, Key, I wanna see!” Chair whimpered. She made a grab for the telescope.

“Just let me get a look at their shoes first!” the eldest snapped back.

Hugo tuned the children out and studied the men working a pasture away. There were four that he could see, big, strong guys with muscles that flexed as they threw bales of hay into their flatbed truck. None of them looked older than his mid-twenties, and they were all pretty easy on the eyes.

The one driving the truck seemed serious and brooding; the others laughed and shoved each other, but he sat still. He had black hair cropped short and a slight frown fixed on his face. Hugo didn’t focus on him long.

The other one that rode in the front of the truck was much more pleasant. He had one of those smiles that could make a person melt, and he used it often. His long brown bangs flopped in front of his eyes, and he pushed them back with a confident flick that said he knew just how handsome it made him look.

The two riding in the back, sitting on the bales of hay, looked younger. They were probably in their final semester of high school or out for less than a year. With their builds, they were probably captains of the football team with cheerleader girlfriends. One had dark hair like the driver, though he wore it longer, and the other had sandy blond locks slicked down with sweat.

All four of them needed a shower, but the dirty, gritty look made them even more fascinating for Hugo. He had always hung around with the clean-cut, geeky crowd in school. These were the type of boys that could beat Hugo up in a heartbeat, and probably would if they found out what his preferences were.

‘I’ll go talk to them tomorrow,’ he promised himself.

Hugo watched as they drove across the field, stopping every once in a while to toss out a bale of hay to the hungry herd that followed behind them expectantly. The two younger ones hopped out of the truck, cutting the ropes that bound the bales together before climbing back in. They had cute butts.

Chair, Key, and Grub finally settled down into a system of sharing their spyglass. They passed to the next in line in two-minute intervals.

“They’re rugged,” Grub remarked during his turn.

“I know. And they must be huge,” Key added.

“Dirty.” Chair sniffed, unimpressed.

The humans would have seemed gigantic to the tiny brownie children, of course, but from what Hugo could guess (and he could only do so roughly, using his best estimation of how high cows were), they would probably tower over him as well. He kept watching.

The human continued his observation for well over an hour. Their jobs didn’t seem hard, just labor-intensive. Hugo’s arms would probably break if he tried to lift the things they lifted.

‘I’ll go tomorrow,’ he reasserted. If he died, at least he would die surrounded by really hot guys.

“Ok, guys, we can head back now,” he told the kids. They cheered. They had lost interest in the telescope twenty minutes earlier and had since devised a pulley system to lower Hugo to the ground without having to climb.

“Finally! We need a test subject,” Key said, a demonic light glowing in her eyes.

Hugo gulped. “Please don’t kill me. I have plans for tomorrow…”

……………………………………………………….

They took a few detours on the walk home. Chair showed him the hollow where she had tea-parties with a little dryad during the summer, and Grub pointed out a fairy garden where tiny white mushrooms grew in intricate geometric patterns.

When they finally reached the cabin, it was nearly four in the afternoon. Quilt and Broom would be home in an hour.

“Hey…can you three do me a favor?” Hugo asked. The tired little brownies perked up.

“What can we do?” they asked eagerly.

“I’m going back to the farm tomorrow, and I’m going to bring back a surprise. Can you make me something to help me find my way back?” Between the forest’s magic and Hugo’s lack of direction, the human doubted he would be able to get back home without assistance.

The siblings looked at each other.

“A compass.” Grub stated. His sisters nodded.

“Enchanted, to counteract the spells on the house,” Key elaborated.

“But no one else can use it,” Chair said gravely.

“Charmed just for him,” Key agreed.

“How about an illusion, so it looks like something else?” Grub suggested. They huddled together and whispered. Hugo stood back and let them plan. As long as it worked, he’d let them use him as a test-subject for all of their lessons. He’d made it off of their pulley with only a few bruises, and they’d magically healed those right up.

“I’m going to go read,” he told the scheming brownies. They waved him away. “Think it will be ready by tomorrow?” he asked as he walked around them towards the stairs.

They looked up and frowned. “Hugo, of course it will be ready,” Key told him. “Who do you think we are?”

“Just making sure,” Hugo said with a smile. They shooed him up the stairs.

The human curled up with a book, but he couldn’t get past the first paragraph. His stomach churned as he thought about the next day. He really, really hoped it would work.

………………………………………………………….. (Next chapter)
AN: Next chapter, we actually get to meet the new characters! Yay! It'll be slightly more exciting than this chapter...hopefully. This story isn't much for the action yet...

Brownies 6

2009-04-06T20:58:40Z

It's chapter 6! It's really short, and kind of late! Enjoy! The use of exclamation points makes these sentences more enjoyable!

Milk and Brownies

Chapter 6:

(previous chapter)

Hugo’s fifth week in Faydale Forest passed before he saw a magical creature than wasn’t a part of his adopted family. The Bottle household appeared early Tuesday evening, just a few minutes after Broom and Quilt transported themselves back from work.

The children were expecting the visit, Hugo noticed. They had been more antsy than usual all day, and by the time the mysterious guests arrived, they had filled the kitchen table with snacks and were wearing their best clothing. Chair bounced excitedly from foot to foot, Grub kept smoothing down his tangling hair, and Key adjusted her skirt at periodic intervals.

“Ok, guys, what’s going on?” Hugo asked them. The children smiled at him.

“They’ll be here soon,” Chair squealed.

“Our friends,” Key clarified. “Mrs. Bottle and Ma have tea together every third Tuesday of the month, and her boys come along and visit with us.” She blushed a little and tugged at an invisible wrinkle in her skirt.

“They’re going to be so jealous of you!” Grub declared. “They don’t have their very own human.”

Hugo frowned. “I’m not your pet,” he growled at them.

Key smirked. “Of course not. You’re a damsel in distress,” she pointed out.

“You’re looking like a damsel yourself, young lady. I thought knights didn’t come to Faydale…” Hugo joked, staring pointedly at her frilly skirt and the embroidered blouse she had donned for the visit.

The teen girl’s dirt-colored skin flushed a deep purple. “The Bottle boys are not knights,” she said disdainfully, visibly stopping her hands from toying with her clothes once more. “I’m only dressed up because Mother insists,” she explained.

Hugo smiled and nodded, not at all convinced.

A knock at the front door halted their conversations, and Hugo couldn’t help but notice how all three Brownie children perked their heads at the sound.

“Children, your friends are here,” Broom called to them. Before Hugo could even blink, three sets of hands had latched on to him and were dragging him down the hallway to meet the bottles.

…………………………………………………….

The Bottle family seemed alike and unlike the Broom family. Mr. Bottle, whose name was simply Bottle, was a short, jolly fellow who smiled more easily than Broom, and who joked with his boys, who found the situation horribly embarrassing.

Mrs. Button Bottle sat on the back picnic table with Quilt, gossiping about the latest Fairy Court rumors. Whether from her fay powers or due to some extraordinary force of will, Button seemed capable of producing more words per minute that Hugo had ever heard stream from someone’s mouth. Quilt nodded politely and interjected every once in a while, but for the most part let her friend have free reign over the conversation.

The four Bottle boys, Rope, Box, Trowel, and Net, chatted with the children in the yard. Net and Chair, who were only three months apart in age, (Chair gleefully told him that she was the elder) played together in a sandbox. They carefully shoveled sand into buckets, never letting a grain drop out of place, and made organized piles.

Net seemed to be the only young Bottle that didn’t hate Hugo with a passion.

Rope and Box sat on either side of Key on a swinging bench on the back porch, sneaking scathing glares at the human whenever the other brother caught Key’s attention. The girl, for her part, was too distracted by the presence of the two relatively handsome and slightly older boys to notice their reaction to her human. She sat back straighter than usual and whenever she turned to one boy or the other, she flicked her hair and batted her eyes.

Grub’s companion, Trowel, was helping Grub weed his garden and conversing with the boy in whispers. His eyes flashed whenever they met Hugo’s. Grub’s gardening, usually so precise and efficient, had become suddenly clumsy with Trowel’s arrival. Each time he reached for a tool, his hand bumped against the other Brownie, and once he even smeared a streak of dirt across his cheek that he let Trowel wipe away.

It was only a theory, but Hugo guessed to himself that the Bottle’s ire had a lot to do with the manner in which his family had introduced him. Chair had proclaimed him “the bestest human ever”, given him a big bear-hug, and bounced off to play with Net. Key and Grub, however, had each clung to one of his arms and guided him toward their friends.

They, of course, were eager to impress the boys with their new human, but from Bottles’ reaction, Hugo guessed that they had interpreted the gesture differently. Almost as soon as Key had released Hugo, Box and Rope draped their arms across her shoulders possessively and led her away, and Trowel had narrowed his eyes at him and growled out an introduction.

Hugo decided the safest course would be to sit with the adults on the table. At least if they served him anything, he could be confident it wouldn’t be poisoned. With the boys, he wasn’t so sure.

……………………………………………………

“And last I heard, King Gerald was in some magic forest all the way in Asia. I can’t believe he’s still questing after all these years; he’s been gone more than he’s been around ever since the Incident. Such a shame, such a shame. But at least it works out well for you, love; He won’t be back for another half a year at least,” Button chattered. The three other Brownies and Hugo sipped their tea and let her talk.

“Maybe he’ll find it this time,” Quilt said with a sigh.

“What’s he looking for?” Hugo asked. He hadn’t heard anything more about Elf King Gerald than that he wouldn’t approve of Hugo’s presence and that he wasn’t around to kick Hugo out of the forest.

“Oh, his heart. But they say he’s no closer to finding it than he was fifty years ago, and I don’t see why the council won’t appoint at least a temporary king in his absence…” Button explained, launching off into a rant about the state of the elfish council and the candidates she thought would make fine elfish rulers.

‘His heart?’ Hugo wondered to himself. ‘Must be off on some quest to find his true love or something like that,’ he decided. He was practically living in a fairy-tale; why wouldn’t the king be searching for a princess to marry?

“If he’s not going to be around and no one else is going to enforce the rules, maybe I should find myself a human for the children. Yours seem to adore him so, and you’ve told me what a good influence he’s been,” Button continued, ignoring the fact that Hugo was sitting right across from her.

“Hugo is very sweet to them,” Quilt agreed, smiling at the human. Hugo beamed. “You’re welcome to send your boys over any time. We love having them here, and I’m sure Hugo wouldn’t mind teaching them a thing or two as well.”

Hugo winced. Being the family pet was one thing; being the family pet that they lent out to others was another.

“How goes the job search?” Broom asked Bottle while their wives discussed the benefits of live-in human nannies.

“Same as ever, I fear. You know how it is. There are plenty of available houses, but no one respects the old traditions.”

Broom nodded solemnly. “An invitation is hard to come by,” he conceded.

“And rewards are even scarcer. Button and I may have to follow your lead and work for the Fairy Court for a little while, until we find homes for the boys.”

“How do you get invited?” Hugo asked. He had read a few simple stories about Brownies, but if he had read the finer details, he couldn’t remember them.

“Traditionally, a human leaves an offering on their porch, usually milk or porridge…or cream, or cheese, or honey…” Bottle’s eyes glazed over for a moment.

“Nowadays, simply a wish will suffice to let us in,” Broom took over the explanation from his friend. “But there are few households that properly appreciate Brownies, so working for one of them is unrewarding.”

“Households with offerings are rare, even in places like Faydale where the humans can still sense magic. People don’t believe, so it makes if hard to get in to their homes and even harder to get any sort of delicious offering to show gratitude.” Bottle sighed. “We all love our jobs for their own sake, but it is nice to know that the one you work for appreciates you.”

Hugo nodded. He didn’t understand the nuances between “payment” and “offerings” and what constituted “thanks” versus what was a “reward”, but the sentiment seemed solid enough.

“So a good house will leave you milk and honey and the rest?” he pressed.

Bottle nodded. “Yes, milk and cream and butter and honey. Anything rich or sweet. In the old days, when people had less to give, we’d take whatever they offered, but we love sweet things the most.” He nibbled on the scones the children had cooked and sighed. “Those were the days…”

Hugo nodded.

…………………………………………….

Ignoring the evil looks and not-so-subtle gestures of their companions, Hugo made his way over to the Broom children.

“Guys, I have a job for you,” he told them. He’d begun to plan an expedition in his head while the adults had continued their conversations over tea. He and the kids had been on short walks in the weeks before, but they’d never ventured close to the border. “Do you think one of you could make a map of the forest and the lands around it? We’re going exploring tomorrow.”

“Cartography? I’m on it!” Key exclaimed, abandoning her two admirers in her zeal. She disappeared into the house, whooping excitedly.

“Hey, I get to help!” Grub protested, following after his sister. The three Bottle brothers stared at the retreating Brownies, eyes wide with shock.

“I’ll pack our lunches tomorrow!” Chair proclaimed. Net poked her arm.

“Can I help plan tha menu?” the little boy asked. Chair nodded. They both went back to their sandbox and began drawing out plans on the perfectly smoothed over sand.

The three elder boys turned toward him and glared daggers at him. He grinned sheepishly back at them.

“I don’t suppose you’d believe me if I said they’re like siblings to me,” he ventured.

“You lay one hand on her, and we’ll break you, you tall freak,” Box snapped at him.

“We know what kind of filth you humans are capable of, but you have no idea of the things we could do to you,” Rope hissed.

“Grub’s my best friend. You stay away from him,” Trowel ordered.

They probably would have been more menacing if the three boys weren’t two feet shorter than him and spindly thin. As it was, Hugo was more annoyed than terrified.

“I don’t have any insidious plans. We’re going on a walk.”

Their large brown eyes narrowed in disbelief. Hugo snorted at them and deliberately dropped the tea cup he’d been holding.

All three boys jerked forward to catch it. Hugo lifted a mocking eyebrow and chuckled to himself as they snarled up at him from below.

Eventually they would get over their jealousy and realize he didn’t want to steal any of the Brownie children from them. Until then, if they were going to act like jerks, he didn’t mind tormenting them just a little.

Quilt was rubbing off on him, it seemed.

........................................................................................................................................(next chapter)

AN: Sorry it's late and short and not spellchecked. I can't wait to get past the next chapter and start introducing more of the characters! Then the slash can start! Yay!

WTF?

2009-03-26T05:57:50Z

Oh god why? Amazing-filled livejournal writer aggybird , whose lj I may or may not stalk, had this call-to-arms to write were-yorkie stories, and my impressionable young mind...turned to porn. Warned. Ye all be warned. Beneath the link lurks m/m strangeness.

((I don't know what to call this. I guess it can be 'Boardgames', otherwise known as 'An Adventure in Pet-Sitting'))

(Saturday night)

Jim’s mind recovered slowly after the orgasm. His first thoughts were more of warm, melty feelings with an, “Oh, fuck, that was good” mixed in. The second was, “Shitshitshit, Mrs. Lark better not get home early.”

Mrs. Lark was Jim’s elderly spinster next door neighbor. Her house was the one he was currently in, her guest bed was the one he was currently laying in, and her Yorkshire terrier, Macaroon, was the one licking up the come on his stomach.

His third thought was, “How the fuck did this happen?” He tried to tell the damned dog to get off (but not in the way that it had just gotten off, because that wouldn’t goddamn help), but the chew toy Mac had stuffed into his mouth the keep him from yelling was too large and cumbersome to spit out. It squeaked as he tried to talk around it. He tested the pink plastic leash that bound his arms to the bedpost; it still held firm. He was completely helpless as the six-pound dog plodded around on his stomach, his sharp, tiny claws digging into his flesh and leaving red crescent marks on Jim’s skin. The beady black eyes of the little beast mocked him. The bastard was just loving this, Jim could tell.

…………………..

(Thursday)

“Jim, you’ve meet my Macaroon darling before; you know what a sweetheart he is,” Mrs. Lark crooned as she walked Jim around her kitchen, showing him where she kept the dog chow and Mac’s food dish. “He barely takes any work to take care of.”

She scooped the dog up into her arms as he scampered by and poked the poor thing’s cheek with a long nail (painted neon yellow, Jim winced to himself). “He’ll need food three times a day and his water bowl refilled, and it would be wonderful if you could stop by between each meal and once before bed to let him outside to tinkle.”

Jim had to keep from rolling his eyes. His crazy neighbor actually said things like ‘tinkle’ and ‘piddle’ and painted her nails colors that should only be used to flag down airplanes and disappeared to weaving conventions on the weekend. Why did he put up with this?

Right, because the old biddy was loaded, and Jim needed cash before he went back to college in the fall. He smiled at her. “Of course, Mrs. Lark. I’m home for the summer, and I can swing by whenever Macaroon needs.” It seemed cruel to call the terrier by its given name, but Mrs. Lark adored it and he was willing to humor her.

“You’re such a dear, Jim. Now remember, you’ll need to brush him before he goes to sleep, and make sure you pet him and give him lots of affection. Macaroon is counting on you to take care of all his needs while I’m away. You have the key?”

Jim nodded. “And a spare. Don’t worry,” he assured her.

…………………………………………….

(Saturday Afternoon)

“What the FUCK?” Jim gasped as the tiny Macaroon jumped on the couch and suddenly there was a huge naked guy in its place. He flung himself off of the couch and crawled backwards, keeping as much distance as he could between himself and the guy (and damn, the guy was big, not that Jim was looking).

“Hey, Jim, aren’t you going to pet me?” the dude said in a low growl. He followed Jim on all fours, slinking like some sort of hungry predator.

The goddamn rat-dog hadn’t done anything like this the first day he’d been taking care of it!

“Y-y-you’re….what the fuck!” Jim exclaimed again. He backed himself into a corner. The naked guy crawled up slowly, easily, and pinned Jim to the wall without a bit of effort. His dark eyes bore into Jim’s, and his sandy, silky locks framed his handsome face.

“Macaroon?” he ventured nervously. Was that even possible? This guy’s cock had to be bigger than that damn dog (well, maybe not just the cock, but it had to be close and Jim couldn’t really venture a look down south to check at the moment, because the guy looked like he was going to eat him)…

The guy growled and his grip on Jim’s wrist tightened. “Don’t call me that,” he demanded.

“Mac?” Jim amended. Oh god, his neighbor’s dog was secretly a dude, and a big, hot, naked one, and why the fuck was this happening?

Mac smirked. “You can call me ‘sir’. Or how about ‘master’?” He kept one hand on Jim’s wrists and grabbed his chin with the other. He tilted Jim’s face up and ravaged his mouth with his tongue. Jim whimpered. Oh fuck. He let his tongue tangle with Mac’s, felt the unnaturally sharp teeth in the dog-man’s mouth, and quickly jerked his head away.

Mac let him go and backed away. “Wassamatter, Jim? Scared?”

Jim wiped the slobber off of his lips and tried to regain his thoughts. “D-does she know?” he asked.

“Lark? Yeah, she knows,” Mac replied smugly. “We’ve got an agreement. I keep her company in her old age, and when she bites it, I get all that money she’s got no one to leave to. She scratches my back, I scratch hers. Speaking of back scratches…” Mac turned around and gave Jim a delicious view of his tanned back and his fabulous ass. “I’ve got this itch, and you promised to take care of my needs…”

Jim stood and made a break for the door. Mac pounced and had him pinned to the ground before he even made it out of the living room.

“Leaving so soon, Jimmy?” the dog asked in a mocking falsetto. “Just remember, you’ve still got to let me out twice more tonight, and brush me, and give me lots of affection, Jim.”

“You can use the toilet, asshole,” Jim hissed. “You don’t need me to take care of you.” He tried to push Mac away before he did something he was going to regret. He couldn’t get hard for a dog. That would be the grossest thing ever.

“But you promised you would, Jim. Mrs. Lark would be so upset if she came back and I told her you left me alone for days,” Mac simpered. He cocked his head to the side and stuck out his lower lip in an exaggerated pout. It transformed into a leer. “You know, dogs can sense emotions. I can feel how excited you’re getting.”

The were-Yorkie (a fucking were-yorkie!) sniffed the air. “And I can smell you sweating.” He took another whiff. “Dare I say you’re aroused, Jim?” he added in a fake posh accent.

He pushed himself up and leaned back a little until he could rake Jim’s body with his eyes. “And I’d have to be blind not to see that tent in your pants,” Mac said, reaching out and giving it a quick squeeze to punctuate the thought.

Jim yelped and shoved Mac away. He scrambled up and fled the house, not even bothering to lock the door.

Fuck the money, he thought to himself. And fuck the promise he’d made to the crazy lady and her weird naked dog. There was no way, no way in HELL, that he was going back into that house and getting molested by an overgrown rat-dog.

………………………………………..

(Saturday evening)

Jim hated being a morally responsible citizen. It sucked. He kept hearing Mrs. Lark in his head, asking him to take care of her precious dog. He’d made a commitment to her, and he was going to feel pretty fucking horrible with himself until he kept it.

The fact that the image of Mac was still making him did not figure into the equation. No sir, that had nothing to do with it. He hadn’t taken a shower, changed his clothes, and styled his hair for that mutt. He might go out and see a movie after he fed the dog, that was all.

Jim opened the back door and slipped into Mrs. Lark’s house as quietly as he could. If he could just sneak into the kitchen and fill Mac’s bowl, his responsibility would be fulfilled until nightfall. Mac could take himself out and brush his own hair…fur…whatever. Not Jim’s problem.

“I still want that backscratch, Jim,” a voice barked behind him. A pink plastic lease looped over his head and pinned his arms to his sides. Hands with too-sharp nails spun him around, and Jim found himself face to face, chest to chest, with Mac, who hadn’t bothered to put on a stitch of clothing.

Jim stared. He’d spent hours thinking about that body, that face, that low rumbling voice and the things it promised to do to him. He really, really couldn’t be held accountable for his actions at the moment. Mac was standing close enough that even though Jim’s arms were held down by the leash, he could still reach his hands forward and pull Mac’s hips to his. He leaned forward and attacked Mac’s lips with his own.

Mac smirked. He pulled back and licked his lips. “That’s a start,” he growled, squeezing Jim’s ass. He grabbed the leash and dragged Jim into the guest bedroom.

………………………………………..

(Saturday night)

Jim finally managed to spit out the squeaking chew toy. “Mac, untie me, damn it!” he demanded.

The Yorkie on his belly yipped and dug his claws into his skin.

“I’ll call you whatever I want to, Macaroon. Get this leash off of me!”

Mac sat down on his stomach and gave him a toothy canine grin. He was obviously enjoying the power he held over Jim, even in his tiny furry form. Jim swore that whenever he got free, he was going to kick that puppy and watch him fly.

“Mac!” he growled at the dog. “C’mon…please?” Damn egotistical dog, making him beg to get off the leash…

Mac stood and plodded over to Jim’s face. He leaned down and licked Jim’s lips with his tiny dog tongue. He could taste the salt from his come along with the slobber. He turned his head and spat.

“You’re disgusting,” he hissed. Mac changed forms and shifted his legs so he was straddling the other man’s chest.

“You didn’t mind me licking you before,” he noted. He leaned down and dragged his tongue up Jim’s cheek to prove his point.

Jim snorted, embarrassed. “…just let me go,” he ordered.

“There’s no rush,” Mac grinned, but he untied Jim all the same. “Lark won’t be back until tomorrow night. Until then, you’re getting good money to take care of me,” he leered.

“God, you make the old lady sound like a pimp,” Jim shuddered. “Fuck…did she…? She knows…oh god…” he stuttered. Did Mrs. Lark know what they were doing? What had she hired him to do to her dog? Fuuuuck, he needed mind-soap right about now.

“Relax,” Mac chuckled, “I told her I was lonely and wanted a chess partner. She thinks we’re playing board games all weekend.” The were-Yorkie looked down at Jim, then at his own stirring cock, which was only inches from Jim’s face.

“You know what game I really wanna play, Jim?” he purred. Jim shook his head nervously, unable to look away from the organ in front of him. “There’s this great one called ‘Hungry, Hungry Hippos’. Ever heard of it?”

Jim flushed all the way to his ears. He nodded. “Good,” Mac sang. “Looks like you’ll be taking care of my needs after all.”

……………………………………………….

(Sunday night)

He was crazy. Certifiable.

He had taken care of Mac’s needs. Repeatedly. For most of Saturday night and the better part of Sunday. Mrs. Lark was home now, and Jim was limping back home with a pocket full of cash (he had to remind himself that she wasn’t a pimp, that she thought they’d been playing chess to keep himself from throwing up as he accepted the money). After she’d paid him, Mrs. Lark had looked him in the eye and smiled sweetly.

“Dear, my good friend is having a birthday party next weekend. Do you think you could take care of my Macaroon again?” she had asked, sounding so old and innocent.

Jim was hobbling away, with a pocket full of money and cheeks stained red as he thought about what next weekend held in store.

demonrubberduck @ 2009-03-17T19:53:00

2009-03-18T00:00:43Z

Note to self: Pirate fights were-shark. Witty one-liners and the killing of were shark. Rumors of treasure from a seedy leprechaun pimp (lucky charm bling, and the line, "Would ye be interested in a bonny lass? She can do the horizontal river dance like you wouldn't believe *leer*" or something of that effect). Onward sailing, *woah* ZOMBIE-were-shark! Controlled by mer-necromancer!!!! WTF???

This story must get written whenever I get some free time.

In more coherent and entirely more relevant news, I'm procrastinating on M&B. Midterms are technically over on Friday, though, so I'm not officially late yet.

Milk and Brownies 5

2009-02-28T06:04:27Z

another short chapter...more will be on its way after midterms.

Milk and Brownies

Chapter 5

(previous chapter)

Hugo woke up vomiting. He was pretty sure that was the order, too: lean over the bed, spew contents of stomach, gain consciousness, continue spewing contents of stomach, painful, ratting groan, and collapse. There might have been a little mental cursing of all brownies and their chocolate beverages mixed in there somewhere, but there was what sounded like an army of four-year-olds-with-drums in his brain wouldn’t shut up long enough for him to hear his own blasphemes.

Then the poor boy opened his eyes, and the pain of the light left him moaning brokenly and fumbling for blankets to cover his head.

“Shhh, stay still,” a soothing voice advised. A cool wet cloth blocked the evil light from assaulting Hugo’s tortured eyes, and the young man let himself sag against the bed in relief. He felt the mattress shift as someone sat down beside him.

The voice spoke again. “You poor darling,” it crooned, “I’ll take care of you.” Another wet cloth brushed against his lips, wiping away the traces of vomit. “This will help. Drink.” The cloth disappeared and the lip of a glass pressed against his lips in its place. Hugo opened his mouth and allowed his caretaker to feed him small sips. The water felt cool and heavenly, absorbing into his cottony mouth. There was a vaguely bitter aftertaste, but the liquid itself felt so good in his throat that he wouldn’t have spit it out even if it were poison.

“Thanks, Quilt,” Hugo gasped out after the brownie mother finally pulled the glass away.

Quilt gasped at his words. It took a few minutes for his addled brain to work out why. He had just thanked a brownie.

“…’m sorry,” he panted once he figured it out.

“Shh, it’s ok. I know you didn’t mean it like that,” she whispered to him. She brushed a finger on his temple where the wet cloth touched his skin. “Although I wouldn’t blame you if you did. Humans are not meant to drink fairy liquor. The medicine will help you some, but I still do not envy you right now.”

Quilt’s weight lifted from the mattress and he could hear get down on her knees and scrub the floor over the pounding in his head.

“…kids aren’t gonna clean that?” he asked her. He was rather surprised a mess had lasted that long in the house. Maybe the brownies had an aversion to bodily fluids?

A demonic chuckle rose from the floor. “They won’t be cleaning anything until you’re back to normal, dear. That is their punishment. As long as you are in this bed, they will be in theirs, and they’ve been forbidden to as much as wash their faces.” The woman seemed pleased with her judgment of the children. Hugo thought it sounded pretty weird, but from what he knew of the brownies, it would be what they’d consider a harsh punishment.

“…you’re missing work,” he pointed out, speaking slowly around his monstrous headache.

“I can afford to take the day off. You wouldn’t believe how many sick days you amass when your nature physically compels you to work. Besides, Broom can manage by himself while I’m taking care of you.” She sighed. “He’s such an industrious man. That’s the first thing I noticed about him.”

Quilt chattered about her husband as she scrubbed the floor. Her words faded in and out of Hugo’s hearing, and his head seemed too heavy to hold up. He let it rest against the pillow for a moment…and fell back into unconsciousness once more.

…………………………………..

When he woke for the second time, Hugo had to piss like a racehorse, and he wasn’t even sure how racehorses pissed. All he knew was that his bladder felt like it had swollen to three times its usual size and was about to burst within him.

Quilt was there once more, hovering over him as soon as he opened his eyes. His head still ached horribly, but the pain in his lower half dwarfed it.

“Need t’ get up,” he gasped out. Quilt nodded. She helped him sit up.

“You shouldn’t be walking yet,” she told him. Hugo just groaned.

“Don’t worry; we’re not in a magic forest for nothing,” the brownie proclaimed. She put a hand on each shoulder and sent an electric shock down Hugo’s spine. He felt a rush of wind, and instead of sitting in his bed, he was suddenly leaning against the inner wall of the brownie’s outhouse.

“Give me a shout when you’re done and I’ll bring you back inside,” Quilt ordered. She disappeared.

Hugo fumbled with his zipper and used the wall behind him to support the weight that his shaking knees were rejecting. The racehorse pissing commenced, and Hugo sighed in relief as the pressure in his bowels eased up. Once he was completely empty, he felt better for a moment; then, inevitably, the distracting pain in his lower stomach gone, his abused head clamored for attention. He shoved himself back into his boxers and got his zipper halfway up before his legs gave out completely.

“Quilt!” he cried, unable to get much volume behind his voice. She heard him, though, because she appeared almost instantly and tucked him back into bed with another jet of magic.

“Do you think you could eat something, Hugo?” She produced a bowl of soup out of midair and offered it to him.

The smell of it made his stomach somersault. He shook his head and screwed his eyes shut so he wouldn’t have to look at it.

“Then some more water, at least,” she suggested. He opened his eyes. The soup had been replaced with an innocent glass of water, which he slurped greedily. He reached for his glasses so he could see Quilt better, but she stopped his hand in midair.

“No, no, you need more rest. I promise when you wake up next time, you’ll feel better.” She released his hand and patted his head.

Hugo smiled up at her, eyelids drooping at the suggestion of more sleep. “You’re a good mom,” he whispered, too tired to concentrate on what he was saying. “I don’ ‘member mine. I hope she was like you.”

This time, as he drifted back to sleep, he could feel her fingers brushing through his hair and her presence watching over him.

…………………………………………….

Hugo’s stomach announced his third awakening with a loud rumble. A tray filled with food appeared on the bed before him, but this time, Quilt wasn’t the one delivering it. Hugo grabbed his glasses and put them on to confirm the blurry image he saw. Chair, Key, and Grub stood around his bed, fingers pressed to their lips telling him to keep quiet.

Key gestured to the tray as if it were an offering to appease his wrath. The human felt ravenous, so he turned his focus to the food before him and attacked it with vigor. Broth dripped onto the sheets and crumbs flew through the air, and the three brownie children caught them and cleaned them with ruthless efficiency.

Hugo paused between bites of an apple slice. “You’re all supposed to be in bed,” he told them. “You spiked my drink!”

Key looked down at her feet, blushing purple. “Ma stepped out to get more medicine for you, and we couldn’t let you wake up hungry. We’re really sorry for what we did, and we want to make it up to you.”

“We’re risking our lives to apologize to you!” Grub added. “Ma’s gonna kill us for getting out of bed.” The boy shuddered.

Chair climbed into his bed and looked up at him with watery eyes. “Da says you might not want to stay with us, ‘cause of what we did…” She sniffled, and tears that looked much too large for her tiny face streamed out from her tear ducts. “…please don’t leave!” she sobbed.

Grub and Key threw themselves on the bed as well, shifting the tray of food aside in a single graceful motion.

“We’ll never do it again!” Grub swore, looking a little teary as well.

“We’ll be the best servants you’ve ever had! You won’t regret it!” Key proclaimed.

“Hugo isn’t going to be the regretful one,” Quilt growled, popping back into the room. “Back in bed, NOW!” she screeched. The brownie children, terrified to the point of forgetting their craft, scrambled off of the bed and ran out of the room.

The mother chuckled demonically. “My punishment is working quite effectively,” she grinned. She turned to Hugo. “How are you feeling now?” she asked.

“My head is better,” the boy replied, “but I feel…weak.” Even with the food he’d just eaten, he felt utterly empty, like he could barely lift his limbs.

“That’s understandable,” Quilt told him. “Dwarfish brandy is made for creatures with the constitutions of rocks. It can knock even experienced drinkers on their backs.” She held up a little paper packet. “Luckily, those people don’t envy the hangover, either. They make amazing medicines.”

She brushed a brown-green curl behind her pointed ear and smirked at Hugo. “This should fix you right up,” she sang. She mixed the powder from the packet into a glass of water and held it to his lips. “Open wide.”

Hugo parted his lips before the smell of the concoction wafted up his nose. He started to close his mouth, but Quilt acted faster than him in his sluggish state. She pinched his nose closed, jerked his head backwards, and poured the medicine down his throat.

The brunet sputtered and coughed until the last of it drained down his esophagus. “You’re…evil…” he croaked. The bitterness of the mixture made his eyes water.

“So evil I made you a smoothie to wash it down with,” she agreed. She handed him a chilled glass filled with a sweet-smelling fruit mixture. The first sip tasted vile, but after it cleared away the aftertaste of the medicine, each gulp tasted like heaven.

“A fiend, madam. A fiend,” he joked, feeling strength returning to his body.

“I’m just wicked enough to suggest you stay in bed for a few hours longer,” she pointed out. Hugo nodded.

“I was going to stagger out and let those poor darling children know that I want to stay, but if you insist…” he though. Chair’s alligator tears and Key and Grub’s begging had broken his heart just a little, but he could still recall bits and pieces of a certain Freddy Mercury concert that they needed to atone for. And from what he’d seen of Quilt’s hidden wicked streak, he did not want to interfere with her brand of justice.

“I’ll see if I can’t find you something nice to read for the evening,” she told him in a honey-sweet voice.

“That would be lovely,” Hugo replied as posh as he could. He was nursing the worst hang-over of his life; he was allowed a little revenge, he thought.

“Carry on, carry on, nothing really matters~” he crooned to himself.

……………………………………….

Around dinnertime Hugo finally emerged from his room. He stretched languidly and commented loudly, “Man, I’d really love a bath right about now!”

Three bedroom doors flung open and their occupants rushed out.

“I’ll get the water heated!” Chair chimed. She disappeared with a ‘pop’.

“I’ve got his clothes!” Key called. She ran down the hall to gather them up from his room.

“Does this mean you forgive us?” Grub asked hesitantly after his sisters left.

Hugo pretended to pause and consider. “I…I guess I could,” he teased. “But shouldn’t you be helping out as well?”

Grub smiled at him with all of his mother’s deceptive sweetness. “I am helping. Who do you think is going to wash your back?”

“EH?” Hugo gasped, freezing. Fourteen year olds of different species weren’t really his type.

“Just kidding!” Grub sang out, winking at him. He’d definitely learned his evil ways from his mother, Hugo thought darkly. “I’ll find you some soap and shampoo and stuff,” the boy said, and he too disappeared.

From the hallway, Hugo saw the front door open and Broom walk through it. The brownie patriarch nodded at Hugo as he went past.

“Feeling better?” he asked.

“Yes sir,” Hugo replied. He studied the father’s face and saw a hint of a smile hiding beneath the grim lines of his mouth. He seemed a little less indifferent than he had yesterday, almost like he felt concern for the human.

It was almost fatherly, Hugo decided. It took him a while to recognize it because it had been so long since he’d been a part of a functioning family, but he’d teased the kids almost like one would a sibling, and Quilt had taken care of him like a mother caring for her child.

“Do you think you will stay?” Broom inquired, watching Hugo’s face closely.

Hugo was pretty sure the brownie knew the answer before he asked. They weren’t related by blood, or even by species, but there was a home here, a family for Hugo. He doubted he’d leave if they tried to chase him away with pitchforks.

“I think I might,” he responded. ‘For as long as you’ll let me.’

……………………………………………(next chapter)

Milk and Brownies 4

2009-01-27T06:28:39Z

(Finally, a post that isn't me complaining to myself and then deleting the post!)

Milk and Brownies

Chapter 4

(previous chapter)

They were watching him. Watching him eat. Eyes followed the motions of his fork, breaths caught when a drop of syrup clung to a slice of pancake, threatening to fall. Hugo ate more cautiously than he ever had before, because if he dropped anything, the brownie children were liable to pounce. Terrifying.

“Need more juice, Hugo?” Key offered eagerly. He shook his head and continued chewing.

“Another napkin?” Grub begged. “I monogrammed it for you.” Hugo swallowed.

“No,” he replied, carefully gathering the last piece of Chair’s unicorn pancake onto his fork. He swept it into his mouth and drained the last of his juice. Once he devoured the final mouthful, he sat his fork and cup down with a clatter. “There. Done,” he proclaimed.

Chair leapt onto his dirty dishes, gathering them up and cradling them in her arms like a doll before either of her siblings could get to them. “I can make more for you after I wash these!”

“No!” the boy snapped. “Please, no more. Those first ones filled me right up.” They had been delicious, but eating two huge sickeningly sweet pancakes under such strict scrutiny had made his stomach turn. If he had to eat another bite, he was afraid he might vomit.

“So, what would you like to do now, Hugo?” Grub prodded.

The young man shrugged. “I don’t know. What do you guys usually do when it rains?”

“Finger paint! You should finger paint!” Chair chanted.

Grub smiled. “We could always have a food fight,” he offered sweetly.

“No, even better,” Key interrupted with a smirk, “it’s perfect weather for mud wrestling!” The three siblings looked at each other and winked.

Hugo took off his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Ok, guys, listen. I highly doubt you do any of those activities.” He batted Key’s hand away as she tried to take his glasses to clean. “I know you’re excited that I’m here, and I promise I will make some messes for you. Just…let me sit for a few minutes so I can digest my breakfast.”

The children slumped over into their chairs. “Fine,” they groaned.

“We can talk,” Hugo reminded them. They perked up a little at that.

“Ok then,” Key said. “Where’s your harp? Did you have to trade it to a troll or something?”

Hugo blinked at the teen. Ok, maybe talking wasn’t such a good idea. “…What?” he asked, bewildered.

“Your harp,” Key sounded out slowly. “Your name is Hugo Harper. So, where is it? You didn’t bring it with you, so you must have lost it. We want to know how.” She placed a hand on her hip as she waited for him to respond.

Hugo bit his lip to keep from groaning. ‘Time to dispel some fairy tales,’ he told himself.

“Ok, I don’t have a harp. I’ve never owned one, and I don’t think anyone in my family ever has either. It’s just a name. Maybe my great great grandpa or someone was a bard back in the day and the name has gotten passed down to me.”

Key’s brow wrinkled. “Well, that’s stupid. What a weird name,” she huffed.

“It’s not weird, it’s just how human naming works. Maybe I think Key is a weird name,” Hugo shot back. He liked his dad’s side of the family, even if they were all gone now.

“How is it weird?” she protested. “Key is a perfectly respectable name and much more relevant than ‘Hugo Harper’.”

Hugo stared at her for a moment.

“Brownies are named after the first thing they clean,” Grub explained.

“Oh.” Hugo nodded. “Wait, a grub? Seriously?” he asked the boy.

Grub nodded. “When I was born, I crawled right outside and found the first dirty thing in the ground.”

Key sighed. “Ma and Da tried to get him to focus on a shovel or a rake or something normal, but he found that stupid grub and wouldn’t touch anything else until he had licked all the dirt off of it. It was disgusting.”

Chair tugged on his arm and pointed to a rocking chair in the next room. “That’s the one I’m named for,” she confided.

“Nice,” Hugo told her.

“So, tell us about your evil step-parents, then,” Key ordered.

Hugo threaded his fingers through his hair and leaned forward onto his elbows. “Ok, my aunt and uncle aren’t EVIL…they’re just…we don’t always see eye to eye, and I really wasn’t being very kind to them when I was talking to your parents last night. I’d had a rough day. It happens,” he tried to explain. The brunette wasn’t very fond of his family, but that didn’t mean he was going to let others badmouth them. “You see, they’re just…strict; I’m laidback. They’re conservative, I’m more liberal. We clashed, and none of us were really happy with the situation, so I figured I was old enough to be on my own now, and I left.”

Hugo watched the children as he spoke. They nodded when he finished, and he hoped he had gotten through to them.

“So there was no tower, then?” Key ventured. “Step parents usually lock up their step-children in towers.”

“No tower. Two story suburban house. Not even a moat to hinder my escape.” Hugo smiled at them to make sure his teasing was in good spirits.

“You know, Hugo, princes don’t really come questing in this forest. There’s kind of a shortage of them right now,” Key warned him in a quiet voice.

Hugo straightened up a little. “What do you mean?”

Key looked at her brother and shrugged. “No offense, but you’re kind of a damsel in distress, Hugo,” Grub pointed out.

“Hey, I am not!” the human protested.

“You were wandering through a magic forest on a dark and stormy night, fleeing from your step-parents. That’s damsel material,” Key argued.

Hugo snorted and stood up. “If I find something for you brats to do, the emasculation will stop, right?”

………………………………………………………………………….

Three hours of having three magical creatures cater to his every whim later, Hugo was ready to scream. They followed him around, watching him and waiting for him to mess something up. They tried to make him laugh every time they offered him a drink after they learned it make him spit it out. Whenever they passed him anything, they did it in such a way that it would always slip from his hands.

Hugo tried to ignore it. The young man did everything he could think of to distract the children. He walked through each brownie-child’s room, pulling their entire wardrobes out of their drawers and tossing each neatly folded piece around the room. He reorganized the dishes in the kitchen, moving everything one cupboard over so they could put them back into place. He pulled the sheets off of every bed and flipped the books on each bookshelf he found upside down. When he couldn’t think of anything else to do to generate work for the children, he went outside and explored Grub’s vegetable garden, tracking in mud and water as he returned to the house. He changed out of his rain-soaked clothes and asked his tiny hosts for some hot cocoa.

Three steaming cups appeared on the kitchen table in front of him. Hugo beckoned his hosts to the table and looked at them closely.

“Ok, guys, I need you to listen to me. This is hot, and it’ll really hurt if you make me spit it out of my nose, so please just let me drink it normally,” he implored.

Key nodded. “Of course, Hugo. We’d never hurt you,” the teen replied softly.

“But if you did get hurt, we do have medical training,” Grub added. He gave Hugo a toothy grin.

“Drink up, Hugo,” Chair urged. She pushed one of the mugs toward him, probably the one she’d put there. He took it by its handle, cursing himself silently for not specifying that he only wanted one cup. Now if he didn’t drain all three, the kids would get offended.

The children smiled as he raised the first mug to his lips and breathed in the steam. Hugo blew on the cocoa to cool it and took a sip. The chocolate tasted rich and warmed his body instantly, but there was a strange aftertaste that he couldn’t place. It burned his throat, not painfully, but enough to make his eyes water just a little.

“Well?” Chair asked. Her siblings crowded around her, waiting for his response.

“…good,” Hugo coughed. “ ‘s hot.” He took another swallow. It made his throat feel like it was glowing, which didn’t make sense, because glowing wasn’t a feeling, but it was starting to grow on him and he took another sip.

“It’s a special blend,” Key giggled. Hugo could hear the mischief in her voice, but he wasn’t sure why it was there. He drained the last of the cocoa from the first mug and moved on to the second. It was just cool enough to drink in long gulps, rather than shortened sips. The glowy feeling spread from his throat to his belly, stretching out in tendrils to the tips of his fingers as he drank more. He slumped down into his chair as he tilted the second glass into his mouth.

“Izzere a comfier chair somewhere?” he asked the children. Wooden kitchen chairs weren’t conducive to slouching.

“Of course, Hugo,” Key told him. “Grub, Chair, help me carry him to the den. Our guest wants comfort!”

Hugo protested that he could do it just fine on his own. He stood up and the floor lurched and the chair he’d been sitting in flipped and fell with a crash. Strong, tiny hands steadied him and guided him toward the door. Hugo made a grab for the final mug (the stuff was too good to waste, and it would make the brownies upset if he didn’t drink it!), but his arm wouldn’t cooperate. The scalding liquid splattered into his hand and the mug hit the table and shattered.

“Oops,” Hugo giggled. His hand felt hot, still in that pleasant, tingly way.

“Oh dear,” Chair cooed. She wiped up the mess Hugo had just made on the table. Grub led him to the sink and ran cold water over his hand. The boy produced bandages out of nowhere (Hugo decided it was magic, and oh-ed and ah-ed over them) and wrapped up his hand. Key sat him down on a big plush sofa in their den and propped him up with pillows.

“Can I have summore cocoa?” Hugo asked her. “I don’ wanna offend anybody,” he confided in the teen. She smiled.

“Oh course, Hugo,” she replied sweetly. She flitted in and out in the blink of an eye, offering Hugo a new steaming mug before Hugo had time to even reach out for it.

…………………………………………………………

Hugo was three verses into ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ by the time Broom and Quilt returned from work. The kids were convinced that as a scion of the house Harper, Hugo must have some musical talent, and Hugo was battling to prove he didn’t (and valiantly winning, he snorted to himself).

The children had even created a Freddy Mercury costume for him, working only off of his descriptions. Talented little brats, they were.

Quilt’s brown skin turned a funny shade of purple, and the sound she made sounded like the hiss of a boiling kettle (like a kettle of cocoa! Hugo loooooved the brownies’ cocoa. It was yummy and tingly and tasted like sunshine!).

“Too late, my tiiiime has come!” the human crooned.

“Key! Grub! Chair!” Broom growled. “Explain yourselves!”

“Goodbye everybody, it’s tiiime to go!”

“What did you do to the poor boy?” Quilt gasped. Hugo flung his arms out as he sang the long “oooo” note. He tumbled off of the couch and landed on the pile of pillows he’d tossed around earlier during his enthusiastic rendition of “We Will Rock You”.

“We just warmed him up with a little cocoa,” Key said innocently.

“Carry on, carry ON, nothing really matters,” Hugo sang, muffled by cushions.

“Don’t you take that tone of voice with me, Front Door Key! Tell me what you did to Hugo!” the brownie mother. Key looked at Grub and Chair. They gulped. Grub trudged into the kitchen, Broom marching after him. When he stomped back into the den, he carried a nearly empty bottle, which he showed to Quilt. She gasped. The purple changed to a full on red.

“You fed a human boy an entire bottle of Dwarfish brandy?” she rumbled. Hugo wondered if she would erupt like a volcano. Volcanoes were pretty and red and warm like cocoa.

“Go to your rooms, now,” Broom ordered in a low, menacing voice. The children disappeared with three little “pop” sounds.

“Quilt, we can deal with the kids later. We need to take care of Hugo right now.” Broom pulled Hugo out from his pillow mountain and propped him up against the couch.

Quilt flashed in front of him with a glass of cold water. She pressed it up against his lips. “Drink,” she commanded. Hugo gulped down the water.

The brownie mother brushed a lock of tangled brown hair from Hugo’s face. “I wouldn’t want to be you in the morning, darling,” she said gently.

“I wouldn’t want to be our children either,” Broom growled. Hugo shuddered.

…………………………………………………(next chapter)

AN: Umm…yeah. Spiked cocoa. I don’t know where it came from. I didn’t plan for that.

Thank you to everyone that has left feedback. I apologize in advance for the next installment; my anime club is working on a cosplay for a convention in February, so I will probably been working on that and won’t get a chance to write more for a while.

And since everyone seems to be wondering who Hugo will end up with, I won’t tell you who, but I will remind everyone that I haven’t finished introducing characters yet. It might be wise to keep an open mind until the cast has been assembled.

Milk and Brownies

2009-01-09T19:10:25Z

Super short chapter 3!

Milk and Brownies

(previous chapter)

Chapter 3

A finger poked Hugo’s cheek. He murmured in his sleep and rolled onto his side. It prodded him again, insistently, and Hugo’s hand took a blind swipe at it before flopping back down onto the mattress.

Sneaky hands tickled Hugo’s nose with the end of a blanket, and when he moved his head to find avoid the assault, they stole the pillow out from under his head. The young man groped for it for a moment before blearily opening his eyes.

Three pairs of unnaturally large eyes blinked back at him. Hugo yelped and tumbled off of the side of the bed, tangled in blankets.

“Good morning, Hugo!” Chair chirped. She waved the stolen pillow at him.

Key and Grub knelt down and unwound the sheets that trapped Hugo. “Did you sleep well? How was the bed?” Key asked eagerly.

“Do all humans sleep as deep as you?” Grub added. “We didn’t even need to sneak in here.”

Hugo ignored the three chattering Brownies and groped his hand along the headboard until he found his glasses. ‘Be nice. Be polite,’ he reminded himself. ‘They helped you. They just don’t understand personal space’ He slid the glasses onto his face, stretched a little, and stood.

“Good morning,” Hugo replied to Chair. She giggled and smoothed the pillowcase in her arms. “The bed was very comfortable. I sleep deeply, but when I wake up with people standing over me, I get… startled.” Hugo struggled to phrase it as delicately as he could. Key smirked and patted the bed lovingly when he praised it, but she and her brother grimaced as he finished talking.

“I hope you are taking note of what Hugo is teaching you, children.” Broom’s head leaned in through the open doorway. His brow furrowed as he lectured. “A firsthand perspective is a valuable resource.”

The children frowned. “Da, we wouldn’t have let him see us if he wasn’t a guest,” Key complained. “And he already knows about us, which gives him an unfair advantage.”

“It is not practice that makes perfect, sweetheart. It is perfect practice. I want all of you to treat every exercise as if it were real.” The brownie father turned slowly, meeting each of his children’s eyes in turn. When he reached Hugo, his serious expression lightened, and his lips twitched just a little at the sides in semblance of a smile.

“Now, what would our guest fancy for breakfast?” he asked.

Hugo looked down at him and shrugged sheepishly. “Anything would be fine, sir. Whatever you’re having,” he replied.

“No, make a request!” Chair squealed. She bounced up and down as she spoke; the pillow in her arms slipped to the floor with a muffled thump. “I can make unicorn pancakes and dragon bread and goblin hash browns,” the little girl proclaimed. She tugged on Hugo’s sleeve. “What do you want?”

Hugo raised an eyebrow. “Unicorn pancakes…?” he ventured with reluctance. Twiggy arms wrapped around his legs and a flushed brown cheek rubbed against his stomach as the little brownie hugged him.

“Those are my favorite!” she sighed. “And I get to make them for a human. I’ll make them even better than normal for you, Hugo, just wait!”

Chair released him and shot out of the tiny bedroom.

“Da, why does she get to make Hugo breakfast?” Grub grumbled. The young boy picked up the pillow Chair had dropped and added it to the pile of sheets bundled in his arms.

Broom shook his head a little and gave his son a patient glare. “Because she is a little girl and she is excited, Grub. I assure you that you will each get an opportunity to practice your cooking. But right now, you and Key need to take care of that laundry.”

Hugo winced as the children scurried around the room with his sheets and his pillow. “There’s no need…I can help, too,” he offered.

The three brownies jerked around to face him and spoke all at once.

“You can’t do that!”

“You are our guest.”

“This is our job!”

Their eyes flashed, and Hugo felt a tremor of static electricity travel the length of his spine. He hoped it wasn’t more of their magic. But as quickly as the anger came, it passed. Broom took a breath and laid a hand on his children’s shoulders.

“Hugo, it is our nature to serve humans. Breakfast will be ready soon. Please, just wait here and we will get you your clothing,” he requested. He steered Grub and Key towards the door and together they slipped out of the room.

The door clicked shut, and Hugo was sure he heard the sound of a lock, as if they feared he was going to sneak out and clean something before they could get back with his clothes.

He sat down on the bed and waited for his captors to return. One silent minute passed, then another. “What did I get myself into?” Hugo asked himself quietly. “…and what the hell is a unicorn pancake, anyways?”

“It’s not unicorn,” a voice whispered in his ear. Hugo whirled around; he would have fallen out of the bed a second time if Grub’s hand hadn’t shot out to steady him. The young boy, perched on the headboard, peered up at him through his disheveled green hair with an impish grin.

“Chair uses normal batter; they’re not made out of unicorn, if you were wondering,” the young brownie repeated.

Hugo nodded, not trusting himself to talk until his heart wrenched itself out of his throat and back into his chest. “…you…you startled me again…” he panted after a moment. “…didn’t hear you come in…”

“Perfect practice makes perfect,” Grub smirked. “Here. I brought you clothes,” he added. He passed Hugo one of the outfits that had been in his bag. Hugo hesitated. Grub waited for a moment, confused, then blushed a deep purplish-brown.

“I’ll…go wait outside,” he stuttered and disappeared.

Hugo looked around. He didn’t see any more brownies popping up, so he changed quickly before they could come back.

………………………………………………….

The door swung open when Hugo pushed it, so he figured he was allowed to leave his room now. Grub hadn’t brought his shoes along with his clothes, so he plodded down the hallway in sock feet. Noise and the scent of food drifted up the stairs from the kitchen. Hugo followed them and found Chair on a stool at the stove, with her mother watching and twitching with each drop of pancake batter that trickled onto the floor as the little girl poured.

“Good morning,” Hugo greeted Quilt. She looked up at him and smiled.

“Hugo dear, did you sleep well?” She gestured at one of the too-short chairs, so Hugo sat down and folded his legs underneath the table.

“I slept well, tha…I mean…yeah. You really don’t have to feed me, too. You’ve done enough already.” If it hadn’t offended them so much the first time, he would have offered them his money again; taking so much for free felt like he was taking advantage of the poor creatures.

Quilt smiled at him, and somehow the gleam in her eyes and the slight twitch of her green-brown eyebrows made the expression much more aggressive than it should have been. The tiny woman loomed over him.

“About that, Hugo…I know you heard us talking last night. You told us you don’t have a place to stay, so why not stay here with us and let us help each other?” she asked quietly

Chair flipped a pancake over in her skillet, and the batter hissed as it hit the hot surface. The young girl hummed happily and poked it with her spatula.

“What is it that you want from me?” Hugo asked. What did magical creatures usually ask for? Given his gender and personal preferences, his firstborn son was out of the question, and he didn’t think the brownie family was the type to steal his soul or carry him off to fairyland.

“We want to serve you, of course,” Quilt answered, as if Hugo were very stupid for not having guessed. “The children are a little…enthusiastic about their duties, as you’ve seen; they need to learn to act rationally and exhibit a little more restraint before we can let them find their own human households.”

Hugo looked at Chair, who was carefully arranging two unicorn shaped pancakes on a plate. “If all they need is chores to do, why do you need me?” he asked. The young man turned back to Quilt, but found the chair in front of him empty. He scanned the room and found her on her hands and knees, scrubbing up the batter Chair had spilt.

“Ma, I was going to get that!” Chair wailed. Quilt dropped her washcloth and clenched her apron tightly in her fists.

“Sorry, love. I couldn’t help it,” the mother apologized. Chair frowned, but nodded and turned back to her cooking.

Quilt shook her head and stood, walking back toward Hugo. “You see, it isn’t that simple. Cleaning is a…compulsion, I guess. We do what we can for the children, but we just aren’t able to create messes for them like a human can.”

Hugo raised an eyebrow. “So, let me get this straight. You want me to stay here for free so you can feed me, clean up after me, and cater to my whims?”

Quilt nodded solemnly. “I know it will be hard for you, dear, but think of the children,” she pressed on, without a trace of sarcasm. “It would mean so much to them.”

Chair slid a plate in front of him and caught the young man in her wide eyed stare. “Will you stay with us, please-please-please? I’ll make you breakfast every day and take good care of you!”

Hugo broke away from her liquid eyes and focused on the pancakes the little girl had set in front of him. She had iced the unicorns a frosty white, with chocolate chips for eyes and hooves and golden brown sugar for the horns.

“It’s almost too perfect to eat,” he remarked. Tears welled up and trickled down Chair’s tiny face.

“I’m sorry! I can m-m-make an ugly unicorn. I’ll do better!” she wailed.

‘What the hell?’ Hugo cursed to himself. The young man grabbed his fork, beheaded a unicorn, and stuffed the head in his mouth.

“Is delishush,” he told the sobbing girl before he even got the chance to swallow. Her tears immediately ceased and she ran to hug him.

“I did good, so you’ll stay, right?” Chair asked. She clung to Hugo’s shirt and it surprised him how much warmth could radiate from such a small body.

“I…” he began hesitantly. He didn’t want to take advantage of their compulsions after they’d been so kind to them, and he couldn’t ignore the distinct possibility that he was hallucinating the whole event.

Quilt closed in on him and placed a hand on his shoulder. “We can take things slowly, dear. It’s still dreadfully wet outside; it wouldn’t clear up until tomorrow at the earliest. Why don’t you stay just one more day and see how you feel about it then?”

The mother brownie smiled sweetly and her words sounded so reasonable that Hugo found himself nodding in agreement.

“Yay!” Chair cheered, giving him an extra-tight hug before releasing him. She began doing cartwheels and cleaning up the kitchen at lightning speed.

Hugo felt breath on both of his cheeks, and he jerked from left to right to find that Key and Grub had appeared, one on either side. Neither one seemed to consider personal space a valid concern.

“You’ll stay?” Key squealed. She danced a jig around his chair.

“I call Hugo’s lunch!” Grub claimed. He linked arms with his older sister and they danced together.

“Then I call dinner,” Key agreed.

Broom strode through the kitchen and wrapped an arm around his wife. “Did he agree?” he asked.

“Of course he did,” Quilt laughed back. “Now hurry up or we’ll be late.”

Hugo’s eyes hurt from trying to follow the rapid motions of his hosts as they zoomed around the room.

“We’re off to work, loves,” Quilt called. She gave each child a kiss on the forehead, although she moved too quickly for Hugo to see her in between.

“Take good care of your human, children,” Broom ordered.

“Of course!” the three brownies chimed together. Hugo wasn’t sure when he’d become ‘theirs’.

“We’ll see you this evening, Hugo,” Quilt sang out. The same static electricity from the night before shivered down his spine. The young man got the feeling that if he tried to leave before the parents returned, he wouldn’t make it very far out of the door.

“Have…fun…?” he replied, not really sure what to say to the brownies. With a ‘pop’ sound, Quilt and Broom disappeared. The children ceased their dancing and surrounded his chair, watching him with ravenous expressions.

Hugo gulped. If someone was manipulating someone else here, it certainly wasn’t him.

…………………………………………………………………….(next chapter)

AN: Apologies for the shortness of the chapter and for the wait. I swear it will get more exciting in the chapters to come.

And for everyone who is curious about elf king Gerald, he will probably get a story of his own once I get a little further into this story. I’m excited about him, though. I won’t give anything else away just yet.

Milk and Brownies chap 2

2009-01-03T17:25:43Z

Chapter 2
(it didn't get posted at the same time as the fictionpress chapter, but this one is the super-awesome edited chapter, in which I fix some and maybe all (here's hoping) of the spelling mistakes. Yay!)

Milk and Brownies

(previous chapter)

Chapter 2

Hugo sank chin-deep into the steaming water in the little bathhouse behind the cottage. ‘They’re not real. They’re not real,’ he reassured himself. The not-real Brownie smiled at him from outside the bath and placed a folded-up nightgown, a towel, and a pair of slippers on the little bench that lined the wall.

“Do not fall asleep in there,” Broom warned him. Hugo nodded absentmindedly, his head bobbing in and out of the bathwater. “I will be back when Quilt’s food is ready,” he promised, and slipped out of the little room.

“I hope the food is real,” Hugo mused. His stomach growled in agreement.

The warmth of the water soaked into his bones, and after a few moment of basking in it and breathing in steam, he felt alive enough to scrub himself clean with a rough block of soap. He had no shampoo for his hair, so he rinsed it and scrubbed some soap into it as well, combing it out as best he could with his fingers.

Once he’d washed away the last suds, he crawled out of the tub and dried himself with the towel Broom left him. He wondered vaguely, as he pulled the nightgown over his head and slipped his feet into the sandals, if he had taken a bath at all, or if he was still in the forest somewhere, lost. Maybe a branch had fallen from overhead and knocked him out, and this was the concussion-induced hallucination.

Broom appeared at the door of the bathhouse. He held an umbrella over the both of them as they walked back to the house through the steadily pouring rain. Though the umbrella offered only a tiny circle of shelter from the rain, Hugo did his best to avoid brushing up against the brownie.

Broom halted and turned his furrowed brow to Hugo. He looked tired and frustrated as he stared up at the boy.

“Sorry,” Hugo whispered before he could remind himself not to believe in the creature.

Broom blinked with his gold-brown eyes. The creases in his brow eased. “We are not going to hurt you,” he said slowly. His spindly fingers seized Hugo’s arm and jerked him closer, so that the human and the brownie stood side by side. “You will get rained on if you do not stay close,” he chided.

Hugo felt the warmth of the Brownie’s body through his thin gown. If this was a hallucination, it was a thorough one. There seemed to be no point in fighting it. Hugo stayed within the umbrella’s canopy. They reached the house. The boy Brownie, Grub, flung open the door and descended on the mud Hugo tracked in almost before the human’s feet finished making them.

Broom sighed. “Please excuse my son’s enthusiasm. We do not get visitors often,” he murmured to Hugo before releasing his arm. A thin arm gestured to the kitchen table. Hugo sat down in one of the chairs. His knees didn’t fit under the table, so he ended up settling down with his legs bent at odd angles to the side.

Food appeared before Hugo so quickly that the young man jumped when he looked down and saw it. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw an apron-clad Quilt grin.

“Go on, eat up!” she sang.

Scents wafted up from the table and enveloped Hugo’s senses. The hours since he’d last eaten seemed to stretch into days. He snatched up a fork in one hand, a knife in the other, and attacked the food. The only noise in the kitchen was the scrape of his utensils on his wooden plate, the grinding of his food, and the faint brushing of Grub’s scrubbing.

Hugo finished two plates of various pies and casseroles and a bowl of soup before he realized his stomach might pop if he ate another bite. He wiped his mouth with a cloth napkin Quilt must have place on the table while he was devouring her food. Quilt and Broom looked at each other and Hugo could detect the mirth in the female’s eyes. He blushed.

“Now that you are fed, why don’t you tell us what you were doing wandering around the woods in a rainstorm, Hugo dear?” the wife prompted.

Hugo leaned back in his chair and stretched his legs out. He closed his eyes. “I was camping.”

“In this weather? Whatever for?” Quilt asked.

Hugo shrugged, eyes still closed. “I don’t know. I suffer from delusions of adequacy, I guess,” he confessed.

Hugo’s story poured out before he could think to silence himself. If fairies could control you with a name, what would they be able to do with his entire life story? ‘It doesn’t matter because they don’t exist,’ he reminded himself, but his protests were sounding less vehement than before. He finished his tale and waited for the brownies to respond.

“You like boys? Weird!” Grub snorted. Hugo opened his eyes. The dishes had disappeared and the boy was beside him, wiping down the table with a rag.

“Grub, that poor boy has lost his father, he doesn’t have a place in the world to go, and you’re sneering about his preferences? You apologize this instant!” Quilt commanded.

Grub grimaced. “I didn’t mean anything by it, ma!” he stammered. The boy turned to Hugo. “Sorry,” he murmured quickly.

“It’s fine,” Hugo replied, blushing. “I shouldn’t have mentioned it.” He couldn’t quite meet Grub’s brown-and-gold eyes as he spoke.

The boy frowned. “No, that’s not what I meant! You shouldn’t have to hide it. It’s just…a little weird.” Grub looked down toward his bare feet. Rootlike tendrils of green hair cascaded in front of his face. He leaned forward a little and whispered. “How do you know…?” he trailed off. Hugo thought the boy’s cheeks colored a little as he grabbed his cleaning cloth and bucket and ran out of the room.

An awkward silence filled the kitchen for a moment. Broom cleared his throat. “I’m going to go check on the girls. They’ve been taking an awfully long time getting that bed ready.” The spindly man retreated.

Hugo looked at Quilt. She eyed him thoughtfully.

“You really don’t have anywhere to go?” she asked him after a moment. Hugo shook his head. Exhaustion flooded through him. He wanted, desperately, to just curl up somewhere and sleep. Maybe when he woke up, things would make sense.

Brook peeked his head into the room. “Quilt, you have to come see this,” he whispered. Quilt nodded at Hugo to follow them as she left the room. Hugo stood up slowly, ducked his head under the low door leading out of the kitchen, and trudged after the couple.

The Brownies wove their way through a cozy living room and up a winding staircase to the second floor of their cottage. The little house seemed much bigger than it did from the outside.

Broom pointed at the third door on the left. Light flooded out from behind the half-open doorway. Quilt and Hugo leaned in to see inside.

“Oh dear, they’re being literal again,” Quilt sighed at her children.

Hugo blinked. The Brownie children had been quite literal: they were mostly through the process of making a bed. Key sanded a newly constructed bed frame, Grub swept up sawdust and collected the spare nails lying on the floor, and little Chair sat in the corner, sewing two sheets together with minute stitches.

“This isn’t what I meant by ‘set up a room’, children,” Quilt said sternly.

Key looked up and flipped the hair from her face with a defiant shake. “The bed wasn’t long enough, ma. What sort of Brownies would we be if we let a human sleep with his feet hanging off a bed, in our own house?”

“We’ve learned advanced carpentry just for situations like this,” Grub added.

Outside in the hallway, Broom chuckled. “Hurry up with it, then. Our guest is about to fall asleep on his feet.”

Hugo shook his head wearily. “’m fine,” he murmured.

“Don’t worry. We’re almost finished,” Key reassured her mother. She ran the sandpaper up and down the footboard a few more times before blowing the sawdust away and running slim fingers along the wood.

“I made the mattress, mama!” Chair squealed. She pulled a lumpy pallet from a hidden panel in the wall and gave it an experimental bounce.

“Very good, dear,” Quilt praised, patting the little girl on the head. She helped lift the mattress and place it on to the frame. The two Brownies made the bed up with the newly lengthened sheets.

The strange little family backed away and watched expectantly as Hugo sat down on the bed. He sank down into the mattress. Whatever Chair had stuffed it with, it was soft and comfortable.

“Tha…I mean, it’s a nice bed,” Hugo said, barely catching his thanks in time. How could he word it without offending them? “I appreciate what you’ve done for me,” he said very carefully, forcing the weariness out of his voice. “You’re very kind.”

The five Brownies smiled at him. They snuffed the candles that illuminated the room and shut the door on their way out.

Hugo was dreaming before they reached the hallway.

………………………………………………………………

The world beyond the spare room’s tiny window was dark when Hugo woke. He heard the door creak open and after he slipped his glasses on, he could make out two vague silhouettes standing at the threshold.

“Quilt, he can not stay here,” Broom’s voice whispered in the darkness. “King Gerald would never allow a human to stay in Faydale forest. He is heartless.”

“That is not his fault, Broom. You know it isn’t. And besides, he is on another quest. He won’t return for another six months, maybe longer. No one else at the court would tell; Gerald would never have to know.”

“…I still think it is too dangerous, for us and for the boy. And how will keeping him here help him? He needs to learn to survive in his world, not in ours.”

“He needs someone to help him find his feet. You heard him at the table, didn’t you? He has no faith in himself. He won’t find it unless someone is there to encourage him.”

“What are we supposed to do with him, Quilt? You and I have work to do. We can not baby-sit him.”

Hugo flushed and buried himself in his sheets. Wherever he went, without trying, he always managed to cause other people trouble.

“We wouldn’t need to, dear. The children will be here. They can help each other.”

“You want to use him as a nanny, then? I thought you were being noble, Quilt!”

“Hush! You’ll wake him up,” Quilt scolded. “I never said I want him to be a nanny. I just think as long as he’s here, he can help out with the children’s training. They were so excited to have a real human to serve this evening.”

“…It would be a good practical experience for them,” Broom admitted begrudgingly. “But I think Hugo needs a family, not a live-in job with fairy folk. He will think he has gone crazy.”

“So you do want to help him, then,” Quilt whispered slyly.

Broom halted. “…well, yes. He is like a kicked puppy. A very tall kicked puppy. He is too sad to throw out.”

“So as long as we offer him a loving household, he can stay, can’t he?”

“He is not a pet, Quilt.”

“That’s a yes. In the morning, we ask him to stay,” Quilt declared. Her husband sighed. “Yes, dear,” he muttered.

The door shut slowly and Hugo stared up at the darkened ceiling. His sleep-muddled brain couldn’t decide what it thought of the Brownies’ offer. They spoke about him like he was a stray dog off of the streets, but they had taken him out of the rain and given him a warm bed to curl up in. They’d fed him for free, and although he had nothing of value to offer them, they seemed to think he’d earn his keep somehow.

“What do they want me to do?” he asked himself silently. It had something to do with the Brownie kids, but he still wasn’t sure what. He didn’t have any special talents, especially when compared to a fifteen-or-so year old girl who could fashion a bed frame in under an hour or an eight-year-old who could sew and stuff a mattress.

But…if there was something he could do for this family, he’d like to try. Hugo wanted to do something useful without messing it up.

The young man yawned and turned over on his side. He slipped his glasses back off of his face and placed them on the headboard. He wasn’t sure what he’d say to Quilt’s offer. Hugo decided to think it over in the morning. Sleep, especially sleep in a pillowy bed and not in a dilapidated tent, would clear his mind, and maybe even help to make sense of his whole situation.

Brownies, elf politics, magic, carpentry…at least he could be certain of one thing. No matter what he dreamed, it couldn’t possibly be any weirder than Hugo’s reality.

…………………………………………………………(next chapter)

Milk and Brownies

2008-08-29T21:03:05Z

Hark! An original story! Perhaps one that I will actually complete! Yayz!

Here's where you can read all about it!

Title: Milk and Brownies
(fictionpress link: http://www.fictionpress.com/s/2565496/1/Milk_and_Brownies)

Author: demonrubberducky

Rating: T, so far

Genre: Fantasy, romance, general

Warnings: Eventual m/m slash, probable fluff, spelling/grammar mistakes (as this is unbeta-d)
Summary:M/M Hugo Harper is down on his luck, living in a broken tent in a forest. Suddenly, one dark and stormy night later, he finds himself adopted by a family of Brownies, living out a backwards fairy tale.

Milk and Brownies

Chapter 1

The matches were a mistake, Hugo admitted to himself as another one snapped in half. If he had known how flimsy the little matchbook matches were, he wouldn’t have bothered stealing them from the Westmont Motel lobby. He would’ve just lifted a little food from the complementary continental breakfast buffet (only the wheat bagels that no one else wanted to eat anyways, because he wasn’t a bad person, just a poor one) and bought a lighter from the general store next door.

“Hugo, you’re an idiot,” he told himself. But it just hadn’t made sense to buy a lighter at the time, not when there were free matches just waiting to be taken. It hurt enough to watch his last few twenties dwindle into petty change to buy the second-hand tent he couldn’t quite get to stay up by itself and the packets of instant ramen he wouldn’t be able to cook if he couldn’t boil the damned water.

His father would’ve told him to view it as a learning experience.

“Lesson learned, dad,” the young man muttered to himself. “Camping sucks.”

Hugo tried to strike another match. It snapped. He threw it into the growing pile, which held the little corpses of three books lying in the dirt.

The young man groaned in frustration. “If you’d ever taken me camping, I would’ve known better, dad,” he hissed at the empty woods around him. Hugo paused. “No disrespect to the dead,” he added.

A drop of water fell from the sky and made a tiny pat on the leafy canopy above Hugo’s head. Hugo snorted. “Great,” he muttered, tossing his firewood sticks on the ground. A second drop fell through the tree cover and landed on his holey sneaker. A moment later, the bottom dropped out of the sky and the clouds began pouring water into the woods.

“Screw this. I’m going to Dean’s,” Hugo declared. His half-collapsed tent took a few fumbling minutes to pack up into a duffle bag. He pulled an old tarp he’d fished from a dumpster out of his book bag and draped it over himself and his two bags. Hugo hated having to carry everything he owned with him when he went to town, but he didn’t trust his non-sense of direction to get him back to where he left it, and he couldn’t afford to replace anything he lost.

Looking back on it, Hugo decided that he was a pretty spectacular idiot. He’d left the relative financial security of his aunt and uncle to rely on non-existent survival skills and the unrealized belief that he’d be able to find a job and support himself. Stupidly optimistic, Hugo had thought he could just camp out in the woods for a few weeks while he searched for a job and made enough money to rent out an apartment.

He had blame for his aunt and uncle, too, for living in such a podunk county like Westmont. A city would’ve had a youth hostel or a shelter he could’ve stayed at. But Westmont wasn’t a city, and it didn’t want vagrants and runaways staying and settling there. Westmont was comprised of tiny tight-knit communities, and an outsider had no chance of getting hired when everyone had a cousin or a friend of the family to fill the job.

Hugo might have used his Uncle Bryan’s connections to get a job at the local power plant, or gone to work with Aunt Kate at the Willow Park Day Care Center, but those bridges had been mutually burned.

Reflecting, Hugo decided he could have worked a little harder on his end to get along with his relatives.

He trudged along in the rain, huddled under his tarp. Damp leaves and mud stuck to his sneakers, oozing in through the holes in his soles.

If Uncle Bryan and Aunt Kate had only shown a little understanding, Hugo thought, they could have worked past their differences and he wouldn’t have had half of the Faydale forest floor seeping into his socks. But they looked down on every decision he made, tried to change him to be a mirror image of their own perfect children. Bryan wanted him to invest the little money Victor Harper had saved before his untimely death. Hugo had considered his uncle’s advice, but decided not to follow it. He used it to pay for his father’s funeral. It was his father’s money, after all, and Hugo wanted his dad to have a respectable resting place.

Aunt Kate scoffed when Hugo ignored acceptance letters from prestigious schools in favor of the local community college. He just wanted to stay nearby the library, the one place he liked in the whole of Westmont County; he volunteered there in his free time, and the head librarian had promised to use his connections to get Hugo an internship. Besides, if Kate and Bryan always had ‘secret’ whispered conversations about how having a third child in the house drained their budget, why would he accept admissions to a school that would cost double the amount of WCCC?

Hugo’s coming out wasn’t the reason he’d been told to leave. That was only the straw that broke the horse’s back. His relatives had never liked him, only tolerating him because his long-dead mother had once been Kate’s black-sheep sister. When his twenty-first birthday came and passed quietly, and Bryan had joked at the dinner table that Hugo spent too much time at the library, because he was twenty-one and had never dated a girl, Hugo didn’t lie or change the subject. His father had taught him that honesty was the best policy.

“I don’t like girls,” he had told his uncle quietly. He took a sip of lemonade and waited for his flabbergasted uncle to respond.

The thick canopy of trees and the heavy rain clouds blocked the sunlight out almost completely. Hugo stopped walking, sat his backpack down on a fallen rock, and fished out his flashlight. Its beam of light shot forward, creating a small tunnel of light. Hugo shouldered his pack and continued walking toward Dean’s roadside diner. At least, he was pretty sure he was walking the right way. Left led back to Westmont, right led to Faydale, the small town in Hauntswood County where Hugo bought supplies. Unless he’d gotten turned around in the dark…which was entirely possible.

Hugo headed right. In all the old legends he read at his library, the hero always took the right path, never the left. Once he found his way out of the woods, he could reorient himself and find Dean’s place. He was sure the little restaurant had a real name, but he couldn’t decipher the worn wooden sign that displayed it, and he didn’t want to ask and look stupid. Dean already thought he was a starving runaway teenager; Hugo wanted to avoid adding the impression that he couldn’t read.

The young man supposed he could just give up on worrying about Dean’s expectations of him. He’d already begged food off of Dean three times since he’d left his uncle’s house two weeks earlier. The grizzled old man had taken to checking the back entrance to see if Hugo was there before he threw away food around closing time. Even when he tried to work things out on his own, he ended up on the diner’s porch, usually sopping wet and hungry like he was tonight. Like he would be tonight, once he found his way out of the woods.

The fallen stump Hugo shone his light on looked an awful lot like the one he’d passed five minutes earlier. ‘It’s dark and rainy. They all look the same when it’s dark and rainy,’ he assured himself.

The muddy size 7 1/2 shoe prints beside the log didn’t look all the same, though. They were definitely Hugo’s, and definitely more full of rain and mud than his more recent footprints.

“Crap,” he muttered to himself. He shone his flashlight around the fallen tree, looking for anything familiar that might point the way out of the forest.

The beam of light shone defiantly against the darkness for a moment before faltering. It flickered a few times, fighting bravely to keep Hugo’s path lit. But whether due to battery failure or water damage, the light fizzled out, leaving Hugo in the pitch blackness of the forest with rain beating down on his tarp not quite loudly enough to cover his frustrated groan.

--------------------------------------------------------

Rain-slicked hands groped blindly ahead of him, feeling for trees and brambles to step around with his halting baby-steps. Hugo knew he’d never make it to Dean’s in the dark. The best he could hope for would be somewhere dry to set up his ramshackled tent to wait out the storm. Streams of water flowed down every tree trunk he felt, though, and he’d never seen any sort of rocky ledges or caves in the light, much less stumbling in the dark.

“I hate my life,” Hugo proclaimed to the dripping forest around him. “I hate it. It sucks.”

The forest’s response came in the form of an upturned root, which Hugo’s ragged pants cuff hooked on to. He fell straight down into the leafy-mud soup of the forest floor, duffle bag, book bag, and all.

His eye-glasses protected his eyes, but his nose and mouth filled with mud. He stumbled up on his hands and knees and spat out as much as he could. He tilted his face up and let the driving rain rinse away the rest of the filth.

Once the mud and leaves dripped off, Hugo opened his eyes and saw a shimmering light in the distance that distorted with every new water drop that ran across his lenses. Hugo stood up. Mud and muck dripped off of his hands and knees, and his clothes were soaked up to his thighs and his elbows. He shivered.

In his weeks of camping, Hugo had never seen another person in the woods. He didn’t know what sort of person he’d find at the light source, but he was just cold and wet and tired enough not to care. He pulled his tarp back in place and trudged slowly toward the light. He felt around stumps and roots and managed to keep his footing in the darkness. The going was slow, but eventually he found the supply of the light. A candle, flickering through a thick, old-fashioned glass window, illuminated the side of a small cabin.

Hugo could just make out the outline of a door on the front of the house. He knocked on it quickly, before he could talk himself out of it. He craned his head toward the door and listened as best he could through the wind and the rain. He thought he could hear feet shuffling over a floor and murmuring voices speaking indiscernibly.

After a few tense moments, the door inched open. Light flooded out of the tiny crack in the frame, silhouetting the face that peered out. Hugo couldn’t make out the expression on the face with the light streaming in the wrong direction, but he smiled back at it just the same.

“Excuse me. Would you happen to have a place for me to stay for the night?” he asked, trying not to look too sopping wet and miserable. Guilt trips weren’t really his thing.

The figure in the door didn’t respond. A second head appeared in the shadows under the first.

Hugo’s smile faltered a little, but he forced it back in place and offered, “I don’t have much money, but I will pay you for your troubles.”

The lower head turned up toward the higher in a silent conference. Neither spoke to Hugo.

“I swear I’m not a murderer or a convict or anything. I was just camping in the woods and I got caught in the storm. I’m-”

“Lost, completely harmless, and in need. We know,” the top head cut him off impatiently.

“You couldn’t be here if you weren’t, dear,” the lower figure added in a woman’s voice.

“But what is a human boy like you doing in Faydale Forest to begin with?” The gruff voice of the top figure added. “You are not supposed to come to us!” he snorted.

Hugo blinked, confused. “I’ll…I’ll just be on my way, then,” he whispered, and turned back towards the woods.

“Broom!” The female voice scolded. “We can’t just leave the poor boy out in the rain! It’s our duty to help him.”

“I want to help, but it is completely against protocol, love.”

The door opened wider and the female leaned out for a moment. “This’ll just take a minute, dear. Stay put,” she commanded. Hugo froze, unable to move. A shock reminiscent of static electricity ran up and down his spine.

“You know how the elf-king feels about humans in the forest, Quilt. It’s never smart to make him angry, and he has such a short temper,” the male pleaded.

The woman snorted. “King Gerald can shove his temper up his fairy-ring. It’s our nature to help, Broom. He can’t punish us for that.”

The taller figure sighed. “I suppose…one night would not hurt,” he ventured slowly. “We will have to spell him not to tell the other humans about us.”

The female, Quilt? , nodded. “Of course. The children have been asking about that spell. This will be wonderful practice for them.”

The door opened completely, and the two figures moved to the side to clear the way. “Come inside, then,” the male ordered.

Hugo’s feet moved of their own accord. The rest of him wasn’t sure he wanted to follow. He’d known anyone living in Faydale forest wouldn’t be completely normal, but spells and elf-kings? What sort of drugs were these people on?

The light inside the cottage blinded him for a moment as he passed over the threshold. He blinked as his eyes readjusted. He looked at his hosts and blinked again. He cleaned his glasses off on his shirt and took a second look at them.

‘Nope.’ They still were decidedly non-human.

--------------------------------------------

The main difference, he decided, was in the face. Their mottled brown skin looked dirty even though his hosts appeared otherwise facetiously clean. Liquid brown eyes with flashing gold flecks watched him study them. High cheekbones and low hairlines left their faces looking distorted, like sculptures that had been molded out of shape. Pointed ears peaked out of hopeless tangles of green-brown hair, which resembled roots more than human hair. The woman’s brown lips curved in a welcoming smile; the man’s pulled thin in a disapproving frown.

Their bodies were…small. The man couldn’t have been an inch more than five feet, and the woman shorter still. Both had thin frames and spindly limbs, as if they’d started out even shorter and been stretched out the rest of the way. Their arms and especially their fingers reached unnaturally long, and flexed with a strength Hugo didn’t want to test.

Hugo had read books about creatures like these. ‘They aren’t real,’ he hissed in his mind. Some sort of fairy folk…they’d mentioned it was their nature to help humans, so one of the benign types…

“My name is Hugo Harper,” he began to ramble nervously. “I didn’t mean to intrude. If you’d be so kind as to direct me out of the forest, I’ll gladly be on my-”

“Hugo Harper? What a strange name,” the female remarked. With a sinking feeling, Hugo recalled reading that one should never give a fairy creature one’s real name. At least he’d kept his middle name in reserve, whatever it was worth.

“You can call me Quilt,” she continued. “This is my husband, Broom,” she gestured to the sullen man beside her, who gave a half-hearted smile that quickly faded.

“And these,” she nodded to Hugo’s side, “are our lovely children.”

Hugo looked down and saw two unnaturally scrawny arms retying his ratty shoe laces. A second pair scrubbed the mud off of the floor behind him. A third was reaching into his pocket and pulling out the various objects he stored there. Each set of arms led back to a grubby child.

“Kids, it is rude to start cleaning while your mother is introducing you,” the father scolded. The arms retracted from around Hugo.

“But Father, he’s dirty!” protested the tallest, a skinny girl probably just into her teens.

“And holey!” the preteen boy added. Somehow, he’d managed to sneak Hugo’s tennis shoe off of his foot without the young man even feeling it, and was currently exploring the various rips and tears in the soles with one knobby finger.

“And wet!” the tiny little one screamed delightedly as she splashed in the puddle of water Hugo had tracked in.

Broom rubbed his temples with the ends of his spidery fingers. “Children,” he growled, “just because the human is filthy and obviously needs to be cleaned,” all of the creatures twitched a little as he spoke the word, “does not give you the excuse to be rude. You can wait until you have been introduced.”

The children looked away sheepishly, and the boy handed Hugo back his dripping sneaker.

“I’m Grub,” he mumbled without meeting Hugo’s eyes.

“I’m Key. I’m the eldest,” the girl teen declared proudly.

The littlest one stood up from the puddle, tugged on Hugo’s sleeve until he leaned down to her height (barely three feet tall), and whispered in his ear. “I’m Chair.”

Hugo nodded at her and stood back up to full height (five foot seven inches, which felt much taller than it usually did, given the present company). Introductions finished, the children descended upon his belongings, prying them away from him so nimbly he didn’t even feel them being taken. His bags disappeared, his pockets emptied, and soon he was standing in a puddle in the cottage’s kitchen in only his undershirt and pants. Broom followed the children out of the room. Quilt handed him a hand-woven towel to dry his head.

“You’ll have to excuse the children. Living out here, they haven’t had the opportunity to serve a human before. This will be excellent practice for them.” She smiled, as if she thought this explanation clarified all the questions in Hugo’s mind.

Hugo stood, puzzled, for a moment. He eyed his tarp, which lay folded on the table now. It had been cleaned, dried, mended, and a draw string sewn in to hold it in place as a poncho next time Hugo needed to use it.

“You’re…are you…brownies…?” He felt incredibly dumb as he stuttered out his question, but Quilt just nodded.

“Of course we are. What else would we be?” she laughed.

Hugo winced at the hysterical chuckle that forced its way out of his mouth. “Well, you’re certainly not a dragon.” If he ran for the door, would her magic (magic?) stop him again?

“Oh, no. Dragons would never live in a wooden house like this. Much too flammable,” Quilt pointed out.

Hugo took a sneaking step backwards. His bare feet slipped around on the wet floor, but he caught himself before he fell. “Shouldn’t you be living in someone’s house then?” he asked, mostly to distract the she-brownie from his retreat.

“We’re commuting at the moment. Once Chair gets a little older, we’ll look and see what’s available on the market. It’s so hard to find a good household in this day and age. No one respects the old traditions.” She sighed.

Broom and the kids returned to the little kitchen, carrying Hugo’s belongs. His book bag looked like it was in better condition than when he’d bought it, and his clothes appeared to have been washed, ironed, and possibly redyed.

“The shoes and tent are going to take some time to repair,” Broom announced gravely.

“Ma, his shoes are made with rubber!” Grub whispered enthusiastically from across the room. He bounced up and down as though it was pure gold he held in his hands, instead of a decrepit left shoe.

“Da says it’ll take all night to fix them. We can stay up and help, right, Ma?” Key pressed.

Chair jumped up and down. “Please, Mama, pleeeease?” she begged beside her sister.

Quilt sighed. “I suppose you can help for a few hours…after you clean this floor and set up the spare room for Hugo.”

The children cheered with the same exuberance that Hugo usually associated with football games and Christmas parades. Grub produced a sponge and a bucket of soapy water from some hidden nook and attacked the floor with sudsy vigor. The girls ran out; Hugo heard the sounds of feet on a staircase.

Broom smiled fondly after his children. He turned to Hugo.

“Alright, then…if you’re staying here, at least we can get you out of those wet clothes.”

“Have you eaten, yet, Hugo dear?” Quilt asked. Hugo shook his head.

“A bath, dinner, and bed, then,” Broom declared. He reached a hand up and seized Hugo’s shoulder. “This way,” he ordered, turning Hugo around and leading him out of the room.

Hugo allowed himself to be led, still too stunned at his circumstances to protest.

n -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- (chapter 2)

AN: Hello. Sorry the exposition fairy has taken over the majority of this chapter. I swear once we get everyone settled where they need to be, there will be more action-y things going on. This is a work-in-progress, and hopefully I’ll come back and edit this more once I figure out exactly where I want it to go. Don’t worry, I have a general idea. I’m just gonna say, though, that if there’s something you wanna see, review and let me know, and I might make it happen. Thanks for reading. I’ll try to update soon. –drd

Quick notes: Place names-

All the places in the story are fictional. And sort of crappy. And fictional. Here’s what they are:

Westmont- the little farming county where Hugo’s aunt and uncle live. Hugo runs away from here and goes one county over to…

Hauntswood- the other little farming county, where Hugo currently resides. Within it lies…

Faydale- a small-type town, with a nearby forest of the same name

Faydale forest- a forest that the inhabitants of Faydale seem to avoid. Strange things are reported to happen inside of its boundaries.

Otakon 2008

2008-08-12T01:41:05Z

Otakon was pretty awesome. I took a lot of pictures, bought a lot of stuff, saw a ton of amvs, and had a blast. I didn't get to any of the panels because they were too crowded, and I missed a few things because I had to wait on other people in the group or because they didn't want to go to certain things. However, overall, it was fun.

Some highlights:
cosplay- I did two costumes (three, if you count how Nekozawa can become Kyouya with the addition of glasses and the loss of a puppet and a cloak)- Miss Cloud and Nekozawa. Even if not a lot of people recognized Miss Cloud, the people that did and glomped me, and the Zack who I hit on a little, made it worth it. Let's see if I can make pictures work..
.

My friends cosplayed too, which was fun. We had a turk, Kakashi, Iruka, a bleach character, and Quail-man (who got asked to take more pictures and who generally got more recognition than the rest of us, even though his costume took only a fraction of the time to make. He was eating up all the attention, but the rest of us are kind of shy, so it's probably a good thing). I took some great pictures of cosplayers, too, because there were a ton of great costumes. There was one guy who may or may not have been Castlevania Alucard. I didn't ask in case he wasn't, but I choose to believe he was. Alucard is so yummy.

Also, while I was cosplaying Ms Cloud, an Aeris interviewed me for finalfantasyxiii.net, which was kind of strange. I didn't know there was going to be a video camera involved... Apparently there is going to be a podcast, which maybe I'll be in. I'm kind of afraid to look and see, because I'm afraid I'll be awful in it. I didn't know what they were going to ask or where to look or anything. Cameras freak me out. Anyways, the website it FinalFantasyXIII.net, if anyone wants to check it out and stay posted on the status of the next installment of the FF series.

Since I was in FF costume, I also took the opportunity to phoenix down a lot of fallen characters. Some people apparently didn't get that phoenix downs are feathers from a phoenix, but after I handed it to them and shouted, "Phoenix down!" most understood. I raised an L chained to a Light on Thursday evening at pre-reg. She was a little freaked out when I walked up to her and put something on her head, but once I told her what it was, she was happy. From what my friends tell me (I was too busy running away), she said, "Awesome!" and turned around to her Light and yelled, "Ha! Take that, you bastard!" I found the same pair later and gave them a 'Death Cat'- a Death Note version of the Beelzenef puppet from my nekozawa costume (I forgot to take a picture of it). Once again, they were confused, but happy when they realized what it was. (I was glad I found them again, because none of the other L and Lights were chained together, and I wanted to give Death Cat to a pair of them that was).

Other characters phoenixed downed:
-Maes Hughes from FMA
-Deidara
-Aerith/Aeris (two of them, the second one because she squealed and took my picture, so I wanted her to live)
-A Mello who also took one for her child Matt
I think I raised one of the other people twice, but I don't remember who. Then there was the cursed phoenix down, which the characters rejected. I used it on an Auron from FFX (I didn't think he'd like it , but my friends wanted me to try). He didn't seem very excited, and since he decided he could do more as a dead person, he gave it back to me. Zabuza from Naruto similarly enjoyed his deadness, and Axel from Kingdom Hearts 2 told me he was the phoenix, so he didn't really need one. After that, I stopped trying to give it to people. I eventually lost it in the dealers room, probably when I was searching for wall scrolls and didn't have an extra hand to hold it.

The Loot:
The list of things I bought-
-A Castlevania Alucard sticker, to adorn my external hard drive, which is named Alucard after him.
-A Matt (deathnote) bookmark. He's so cute, and a video game junkie at that!
-A xxxHolic wallscroll for my dorm room. I couldn't find one with Doumeki and Watanuki, so I settled for Catboy Watanuki, Yuuko, and Himawari-chan.
-4 volumes of the manga 'Godchild' and one volume of the prequel, 'Cain Saga'
-the box set version of Nerima Daikon Brothers
-A foam stand-up Tobi (from Naruto). His name tag says he's a good boy
-and a black plushie Mokona (xxxHolic) for my little sister.

All in all, I came back poorer, but having had a wonderful time. I hope to be back next year for more crazy otaku-ness.

part 2

2008-06-18T22:06:58Z

*~*~*~*~*~ (part 1)

Tobi gulped. "That...that wasn't very nice, sempai," he croaked when Deidara released his lips. "Zetsu-san is going to be so angry with me when he finds out."

The brunet's protests were silenced by a second kiss. Deidara smiled into Tobi's lips; the tables were turned now, and damn, it felt good! Now that he was in control of the situation again, they could get down to business.

The clay centipede wormed its way under Tobi's feet and followed Deidara back to the bed with its not-quite-unwilling prisoner.

The blond carefully eased his partner down onto the bed. More clay centipedes appeared. They encircled Tobi’s wrists and ankles, securing them firmly to the four posters of the bed.

“Sempai!” Tobi gasped, but Deidara shushed him with a kiss. The blond got off the bed and stood up. He brushed his fingers down the length of his chest and down past his stomach. His fingers slowly traced the outline of his bulge.

Deidara licked his lips and stared suggestively at his partner. He undid the knot on the towel and pulled it down a little. A tiny bead of sweat rolled down the side of Tobi’s face. The blond smirked as he let go of the towel, letting it fall to the floor.

Tobi gulped as Deidara climbed back onto the bed and straddled him. The rock ninja reached for his hitai-ate on the bedside table and carefully wrapped it around his partner’s eyes.

“Sempai! What are you doing?” Tobi gasped. Deidara gently lifted the back of his partner’s head and tied a firm knot. He carefully eased Tobi back onto the bed and descended down, closing the gap between their bodies.

“I’m taking revenge, un,” the blond whispered huskily into Tobi’s ears, slowly rubbing his lower half against Tobi’s.

………………………………………….

Tobi gasped. "Uh... what do you mean, sempai?"

Deidara softly touched Tobi’s ear with his lips. "Oh, it’s nothing new," he whispered. "You should already know that as the sempai, I’m supposed to have the upper hand.”

He brushed his lips down to Tobi's neck and licked the soft skin. He continued down to his partner’s shoulder and bit it softly. Tobi shivered and licked his lips nervously.

‘Revenge? Upper hand? What exactly does sempai mean?’ Tobi asked himself nervously, squirming a little under his sempai’s licks. Three tongues licking him simultaneously was too much to bear.

The blond ran his tongue over the reddened mark gently before continuing down to his partner’s chest.

Tobi gasped as he felt Deidara’s warm, moist tongue circling his hardened nipple. “Sempai…why…a-are you…do-oing this…t-to me?” he gasped as Deidara started nibbling on his tender flesh.

“You were a very naughty boy just now Tobi, thinking that you could tease and dominate me like that, un. You were such a naughty boy,” Deidara sighed as he rolled the hardened nub between his fingers. “Do you know what happens to naughty boys? They get punished, un,” Deidara smiled.

He gave Tobi’s nipple a final lick before moving further down.

"But you've been naughty too, sempai!" Tobi gasped as Deidara dragged his tongue down his stomach. He arched his back to press his skin closer to the artist's mouth.

Deidara caught Tobi's eye and raised an eyebrow in question. 'How?' His tongue traced Tobi's belly-button.

The scared expression on Tobi's face morphed into his evil grin once more. As Deidara met his gaze, he felt the world flip-flop, and suddenly it was him pinned down, arms and legs bound by clay creatures, and Tobi perched happily on top.

The smirking brunet leaned down and took a taste of Deidara's stomach, mimicking the artist's actions just a minute earlier.

"You forgot, sempai- I'm a ninja too."

……………………………………………………….

“What did you do Tobi, un?!” Deidara yelled as he struggled against the bonds. Suddenly, he felt Tobi’s warm breath against his erection.

“I am not telling you Sempai,” Tobi smirked, as he slowly ran his tongue up Deidara’s balls.

“Tobi!” Deidara gasped. The blond struggled against the bonds holding his wrists and ankles. “Damn it, you guys are supposed to listen to me, un!” Deidara yelled at the clay centipedes around his wrists. He turned and glared at Tobi. “Damn it Tobi, you did something to them didn’t you?!”

Tobi looked up innocently and said, “I don’t remember, sempai.” He lifted the base of Deidara’s balls with the tip of his tongue, before carefully taking the entire sack into his mouth.

“Tobi!!! Stop, un! Stop this instant you baka! How dare you tease me like that, un! I’m never going to arghhh!” Deidara gagged as his partner began to suckle him.

“Sempai, do you use your hand-mouths to play with yourself?” Tobi asked innocently, running his finger lightly over the blond’s length.

“You baka,” Deidara panted, trying to catch his breath. “HOW DARE YOU INSULT MY ART, UN! I only use them for my art, and nothing else!”

“Really?” Tobi asked. “What a waste…If I were you, I would use my hand-mouths to do this.” He took Deidara’s manhood into his mouth and swirled his tongue around the head repeatedly.

Deidara threw his head back and cried out, pulling against the bonds with greater urgency.

Tobi smirked. “If I had your hand-mouths, I would also use them to do this,” he said as he slowly ran his tongue up and down Deidara’s shaft several times. The blond thrashed violently against the bed, begging his partner to stop.

“So do you really not play with yourself, sempai?” Tobi asked, gently pushing the tip of his tongue into the blond’s slit.

“I do! I do! I do that all the time un!! Stop it, Tobi, you are driving me crazy!!” Deidara cried out. The pleasure was seriously too much for the blond artist to bear.

“Show me,” Tobi moaned. He touched a finger to one clay centipede and released Deidara’s arm. He shifted his body around and pressed the freed hand to his straining erection.

“Whatever you do to me, I’ll do to you,” the taller man promised. Deidara groaned and pulled against the remaining restraints. They didn’t budge. He wrapped his hand around the manhood and squeezed.

Tobi’s hand snaked around Deidara’s length and returned the favor. Deidara’s hand-mouth opened wide and the tongue licked up and down the heated flesh. Tobi shifted and returned each lick to Deidara.

Deidara moaned, and wondered if the mouth in his palm could deep-throat without a throat. There was only one way to find out.

……………………………………………………………

Soft lips gently enveloped Tobi’s pulsing member, slowly taking in more and more of him. The raven haired man moaned as he rested against his sempai’s warm flesh, unable to concentrate on what he was doing. Although Tobi’s smoothness was rubbing against the back of his hand-mouth, Deidara was determined to show his partner that he was capable of more. He continued his way down, despite the discomfort and pain.

Suddenly, the warm flesh slid past his lips as the taller man stood up from his position. He sat back down beside the blond.

“Sempai, you shouldn't strain yourself,” Tobi said. He stood up again and positioned his face between the blond’s legs. A shiver ran down Deidara’s spine as Tobi captured his erection in his mouth. The taller man pressed his lips firmly around the blond, and slowly went down his length. A strangled cry rose from the blond, as he felt the head of his manhood pressing against the back of his partner’s throat. A wave of sensations washed over Deidara as a warm tongue teased the base of his shaft.

Tobi then moved up and down his partner, gradually picking up speed. Deidara writhed and moan beneath Tobi’s skilful mouth. His fingers weaved themselves into raven hair and gently pulled him closer.

……………………………………………………..

Tobi let Deidara guide him for a moment before he drew back. Deidara let out a frustrated groan.

“You want to come,” Tobi stated.

“Yes,” Deidara hissed. He arched his hips up as far as he could towards Tobi’s mouth, but it wasn’t far enough to make contact. Tobi smiled.

“We’re still playing our little game, sempai. We’re still trading. If I let you come, what do I get in return?” He slid a hot palm up Deidara’s thigh and along the curve of his buttocks. A finger ghosted along Deidara’s crack. “This?” he asked

Deidara’s flushed face reached a new, deeper shade of red. His blue eyes refused to meet Tobi’s. “J-just get back to work, or else you don’t get anything, un,” he panted.

……………………………………………….

In all the months that they have been partnered together, Tobi has never seen his sempai blush before. The thought of the blond being shy around him made his heart melt.

“You don’t have to be so embarrassed around me, sempai,” Tobi teased as he nuzzled his partner’s cheek.

“Who are you calling embarrassed, un?! Me, feeling embarrassed around you? Hmph!! Don’t flatter yourself un!” Deidara yelled angrily, thrashing against his binds.

Tobi smiled and snapped his fingers. The clay centipedes unravelled themselves from the blond’s limbs and crawled under the bed.

“Huh?” Deidara asked, looking puzzled.

“I want you to enjoy it too, sempai. It really turns me on,” Tobi smirked as he searched the drawer of the bedside table for some lubricant. He climbed back onto the bed and grinned impishly at his sempai.

The taller man started to massage the lubricant into the blond, running it around him at first before slipping a finger in. He then slid a second finger into Deidara, gently stretching him. The blond bit his lip to stifle a moan.

The raven haired man positioned himself and very slowly, thrust in and out of Deidara with only the head of his penis. The feeling drove the blond crazy as he begged his partner to put it in more. Tobi grinned as he slowly slid all the way in with one long slow motion.

The feeling of his sempai’s hot, tight muscles clenching around his manhood was amazing. Tobi descended down and closed the gap between their bodies, letting his rest against the blond’s. He nuzzled Deidara gingerly and let his forehead rest in the hollow of the latter’s neck. The blond wrapped his arms around his partner and pulled him closer.

Tobi lifted his head and pressed his lips passionately against the blond’s. He opened his sempai’s mouth with his own and used his tongue to flirt with the tip of his partner’s tongue. They both broke the kiss gasping for air.

“Sempai, does it hurt?” Tobi asked, gazing deep into the blond’s beautiful blue eyes.

“No you dumbass, un. Stop being so sentimental and get on to the real thing already, un!” Deidara complained as he wrapped his legs around the taller man’s back.

……………………………………………………….

“Of course, sempai,” Tobi murmured. He drew back his hips and pressed in again a little faster.

Deidara snorted. “I’m not made of glass, idiot. Get moving, un,” he huffed.

Tobi nestled his head back into Deidara’s neck and smirked. If Deidara was going to say things like that, how could Tobi be expected to resist? He pulled out and thrust back in without a moment’s hesitation. He sheathed himself in the blond completely, pulled back, and repeated the motion.

“Yeessss,” Deidara panted. He tossed back his head and raked his fingernails up and down Tobi’s back.

“Like this, sempai?” the brunet gasped between thrusts. Deidara moaned in reply. Tobi licked his neck and tasted salt. It wasn’t nice of him to leave his sempai sweating…He reached a hand down between the artist’s legs and massaged his erection.

“Fu-uck!” the blond hissed. The sensation became overwhelming, and if it continued, Deidara knew he’d come too soon. He twisted his hips away from Tobi’s hand, but the taller man’s next thrust sent him over the edge despite his protests.

The clenching of his muscles finished Tobi as well. The brunet collapsed on top of his sempai with a satisfied sigh.

………………………………………………………

The two men stayed in that position for a while, trying to catch their breaths. Tobi rested on top of Deidara, slowly softening within his sempai’s warmth. He felt the blond’s heart beating rapidly against his chest, and was glad that he was able to pleasure his partner.

“That was awesome sempai,” Tobi whispered breathlessly as he rubbed his cheek against the blond’s.

“Tobi…,” Deidara muttered. He lay there with his eyes closed, still recovering from his orgasm. Several minutes passed before he opened his eyes slowly. It was then he realized the situation that he was in.

“Tobi…HOW DARE YOU! WHAT MAKES YOU THINK THAT YOU CAN BE ON TOP, UN?!” The blond yelled as he kicked Tobi’s butt cheeks with the back of his heels.

“Haha, stop that sempai, that tickles! You can try to top me next time… the keyword here is ‘try,’ though,” Tobi chuckled as he gave the blond a playful wink.

“Hmph!! Who says that there’s going to be a next time anyways, un!” Deidara scoffed. He pouted and looked away from Tobi’s gaze.

“Well…” Tobi thought aloud, rubbing his chin. “We have two weeks till our next assignment. That gives us plenty of free time. Also, you have given me permission to train in our room. That gives me plenty of opportunities to tempt you, sempai,” Tobi teased as he shifted to face Deidara.

The blond scrunched his nose at the closeness of their faces. “Hmph! What makes you think that you can temp…uunnn!!”

The brunet moved his tongue slowly and sensuously around the blond’s. With a slight suck, Tobi brought Deidara’s tongue inside his warm, wet mouth.

The kiss left them both breathless.

“You were saying?” Tobi asked, smiling cheekily.

“Bastard…” Deidara muttered.

They heard the toilet door opening. “Let’s go, Kisame,” Itachi said monotonously.

“Itachi san is finally done with his hour long shower sempai,” Tobi said incredulously. The sound of the main door closing followed soon after.

“Sempai, we have the whole lair to ourselves! Let’s take another shower to wash off all the sweat and, er, other fluids!” Tobi suggested.

“Then get off me you dumb-ass, un,” Deidara scolded as he wriggled under Tobi’s weight. ‘This time, I will show you who’s the real seme, un,’ Deidara thought, smiling devilishly to himself.

………………………………………………………………….

DeiTobi forum fic

2008-06-18T22:02:15Z

Why Deidara doesn’t do Mornings

A Naruto Fan Forum Deidara x Tobi Fan Club community fiction written by:

Demonrubberducky

Chocy

Tossino

Gaawa-chan

Come visit us at http://forums.narutofan.com/showthread.php?t=140439

--------

Disclaimer: Deidara x Tobi fanclub does not own Naruto or the characters associated with Naruto. We only own some very interesting fantasies involving aforementioned characters.

…………………………………………

Deidara stumbled out of his bedroom in the Akatsuki headquarters, still half asleep and in search of breakfast. He cracked open an eye when he stumbled over something in the hallway...and froze.

Lying in a dishevelled tangle at his feet was Tobi's shirt. A shirtless Tobi lay a few feet away, doing one-handed push-ups and counting aloud.

Deidara didn't know which was more surprising - the fact that Tobi was shirtless, or that he was training. Though the artist has been partners with him for months, he has never seen an inch of Tobi's skin, and has certainly never seen him do anything remotely ninja-like. He raised an eyebrow.

………………………………………………..

The blond soon acknowledged the source of his stupefaction - it was the fact that Tobi was shirtless. Deidara stood there admiring Tobi’s physique from a distance. Such a rare occurrence had to be capitalized upon. Furthermore, Tobi was still oblivious to his presence, so a short, secret admiration session would not hurt…right?

Tobi’s back was glistening with sweat. That came as no surprise, as he had already gone beyond two hundred one-handed push ups. A bead of sweat trickled down his back slowly, like a finger caressing his spine. It reached the small of his back before dripping off the side of his firm waist.

Deidara gulped. He shook his head to clear it of such unintended thoughts. ‘What was I thinking of prior to this? Ah right! I have never seen Tobi doing anything ninja-like before this, un. So what is he up to this time?’

“Oi, idiot! What the hell are you doing? Move off, you are blocking my way, un!” Deidara yelled, as he kicked Tobi's waist. The brunet lost his balance and landed on his back.

"Oww!" Tobi wailed as he hit the ground. "Sempai, why'd you do that? You made me lose count!" he whined.

Deidara glared at him, trying to ignore the fact that more droplets of sweat were taking a tantalizingly slow journey down Tobi's chest. The blond shook his head and rubbed his temple. ‘Tobi’s not built. He isn’t, un,’ Deidara thought to himself. ‘I must be suffering from food-and-caffeine deprived hallucinations, un…I need coffee…’

"I need food, un," he grunted, as he stepped over Tobi to get to the kitchen.

………………………………………………………..

“G’morning guys,” mumbled Deidara as he stumbled towards the kitchen counter. “Do any of you guys want some coffee, un?” he asked.

Kisame looked up from his newspaper and raised his brows. “Itachi-san and I would like a cup please. Thanks, Deidara-san,” he smiled.

Deidara placed the three mugs on the table, and took a seat. He picked up his mug and slowly brought it a little under his nose. The familiar aroma of coffee permeated his senses and stimulated his mind. The steam cleared his nasal passage and eased the built-up tension from just now.

His mind was not completely spared from Tobi, however. Tobi’s voice continued to resonate in the background. He seemed to have resumed his push ups, starting from one again

A bead of cold sweat rolled down Deidara’s temple as he started sipping his coffee. Emotionless, ruby coloured eyes were fixated on his face.

‘Why is that emotionless freak staring at me like that?’ Deidara thought. He shifted to his side to avoid the Uchiha’s stare and concentrated on his mug of coffee. It was then that the answer occurred to him. Deidara has never made coffee, or any food for that matter, for anyone before, not even himself! He always got Tobi to do that for him. Also, he has never met Itachi in the kitchen this early for a very long time, due to their vastly different sleeping patterns

To add to the uneasiness, the image of Tobi, shirtless, wouldn’t leave his mind either. Deidara wanted to erase that picture from his mind as soon as possible.

He finished up his last bit of coffee and instantly felt a lot more alert. He brushed his fringe away from his face, and shivered. Instead of the usual soft and smooth hair, what his fingers came into contact with was slick and oily. After being out on a mission for days, Deidara really needed a shower. It would be wise of him to take it before the Uchiha, as the latter usually spent at least an hour there.

Deidara stood up and walked back towards his room. ‘I will have to contend with Tobi again. Get a grip of yourself, Deidara, and try to look as stoic as possible, un. Just focus your eyes on his stupid looking mask and you will be fine, un.’

“Go do your push ups somewhere else, dumb-ass, you are in the way!” yelled Deidara as he stopped in front of Tobi. “And why are you training all of a sudden, un?”

Tobi rolled over to his side and sat upright. “I train everyday sempai, it’s just that my usual training spot is really muddy now as there was a thunderstorm earlier this morning,” he panted.

Deidara’s eyes deviated from Tobi’s mask towards his neck, as he watched more droplets of sweat trickle down. Guided by the angle of his collar bones, they congregated at the center and flowed down between Tobi’s pecs. Deidara closed his eyes to concentrate on his earlier thoughts. Judging from Tobi’s physique, he couldn’t be lying about his early morning trainings. Deidara wouldn’t have known about them anyways, as Tobi has always been an early riser.

Deidara let out an irritated sigh. “That may be the case…but you don’t really have to do it here, in the middle of the hallway. Why don’t you do it in our room or something un?”

Tobi remained silent for a while. It seemed like he had never thought about this before. "Well..." he began, "I didn't want to wake you up, sempai, and I didn't expect you to be up this early…"

Deidara reopened his eyes and forced himself to focus on Tobi’s mask. He was lucky that the masked shinobi was a bit of an idiot, for anyone else would've noticed where his eyes were slowly drifting to. If Tobi caught him, it would be such an embarrassment!

But he couldn't keep his eyes away from Tobi's body much longer. He concluded that he should leave the scene before anything else happened. Itachi usually used this hallway, and Deidara certainly didn't want to be caught admiring Tobi's... surprisingly attractive body.

“Next time, you can train in our room. Just count mentally or something, un,” Deidara grunted, in an attempt to mask the true intentions of that statement. ‘You sure are asking for trouble’, he thought to himself. Turning in at 2am and stealing secret peeks at Tobi early in the morning was a sure route to sleep deprivation.

’Why am I doing this?’ he thought to himself, mindlessly running a hand through the clothes in his wardrobe. He felt the familiar texture of mesh and took out the garment. It suddenly occurred that it was his “off day”. Tobi and he had just returned from a mission yesterday. They were free until their next mission, which was in two weeks time.

’Well then, I shall spend the entire day honing my art,’ he thought happily. He sieved through for a more comfortable cotton yukata and set off towards the bathroom.

…………………………………………………………

Tobi grabbed his shirt from the floor and stood up. There really wasn’t any need to continue the training session now that he had lost count. But he wasn't far from finishing it either, so it didn't really do any damage. He watched Deidara as the latter made his way to the bathroom.

Tobi usually used the bathroom before Itachi, but now it seemed like Deidara had taken his spot. It looked like he would have to wait, and that wasn’t a good thing, judging from how sweaty he was. Why did they only have one bathroom? He stood there in the hallway, thinking of a way to solve the problem.

Then an idea hit him...

……………………………………………….

Deidara let his yukata slip off his shoulders as he waited for the water in the shower to adjust to the perfect temperature. Steam filled the bathroom. Deidara breathed it in deeply, trying to clear his head. Breakfast hadn't solved his problem, but a nice shower would. He just needed to relax, to get rid of a little tension...

"So this is where all the hot water goes," a voice chuckled behind him. Deidara jumped and whirled around. Tobi smirked at him.

Wait…Tobi smirked at him?! Deidara's brain fizzled and refused to work properly. Tobi was smirking...Tobi wasn't wearing his mask...Tobi wasn't wearing anything, except for an obscenely small towel- did towels that small even count?

"You don't mind if I join you, right sempai?" Tobi purred.

……………………………………………………

Deidara realized that his mouth was wide open. He quickly closed it and looked up at Tobi. "Uh..." He stammered.

He couldn't find the right words to say; his mind just refused to work. He had a bad a feeling that if he didn't say something soon, Tobi would make a move. How did Tobi even know that he actually was a little attracted to him? Did the idiot notice how he eyed him when he was training? It seemed like the damage was already done.

Tobi seemed very pleased by the way this was going. He still wore that creepy smirk, and he had already begun to move closer.

"Tobi..." Deidara began, but he didn't manage to say anything more.

He stumbled over his yukata that was, thankfully, still belted to his waist. He might not be able to speak coherently at present...but he still had the sanity to act.

Making sure not to step, and yank off, his yukata, Deidara moved forward and grabbed Tobi by the arms. 'Nice biceps' he couldn't help but think.

"Get out!" he hissed, and gave the smirking man a shove out of the door. He slammed it shut and locked it before Tobi could get back in.

He pressed his back to the door, just in case the lock couldn't hold. Deidara breathed in the steam from his shower and waited for his pounding heart to slow back down.

…………………………………………………

Tobi snickered. ‘Just as expected,’ he smiled. ‘What should I do now, I really do need a shower?’ he thought as stared at the door knob.

‘Sempai is just in denial,’ Tobi thought as he chuckled to himself. He remembered the times when he caught his sempai staring at him. ‘His body language really gives him away.’ Tobi smiled.

Tobi really didn’t want to miss this opportunity. Deidara’s feelings for him had definitely reached a new high. Tobi had to strike the iron while it was hot.

But just how could he get in again?

Tobi pressed his ear to the door and listened for the rustling sound of the shower curtain. He waited until he heard Deidara's contented sigh. The artist thought that he was safe, didn’t he? Well, definitely not after Tobi had gotten such a nice look at Deidara’s chest, and definitely not after knowing that his sempai’s yukata was finally off.

The lock was easy enough to pick with the right tools, and the rushing water of Deidara's shower masked the scraping sounds the lock-pick made. Under the cover of steam, Tobi cracked open the door and snuck into the bathroom.

"Sem~pai!" he called in a sing-song voice as he pulled back the shower curtain. "You never answered my question. I can join you, right?"

He dropped the hand towel around his waist and climbed into the stall before Deidara could answer.

………………………………………………………

Deidara’s heart skipped a beat when he heard that dreaded voice. He wanted to turn around and strangle his partner when a pair of strong arms enveloped his waist and drew him close. His back moulded perfectly against the taller man’s body. Warm, soft lips brushed the blond’s neck lightly as his partner spoke.

“Don’t worry sempai, I just want to shower with you. You’ll like it, I promise. You don’t think that I would do anything to hurt you, right?” he whispered, lightly taking Deidara’s earlobe between tender teeth.

The taller ninja gently turned his partner around to face him. He pulled Deidara closer into his arms and stepped under the spray with him. All thoughts about strangling his partner dissipated, temporarily at least, as the warm water cascaded down over their bodies. The blond closed his eyes and relaxed onto Tobi.

…………………………………………………………

He had to agree with Tobi; he did like it. He didn't expect Tobi to go that far. He was impressed by the fact that Tobi actually broke his way back in to the bathroom. Did the recently unmasked nin really like him that much, or was he just desperate to get a shower? Knowing Tobi, it was probably the former.

Tobi got him, alright. It was like Deidara had just confessed to the raven haired man. ‘It seems like that dumb-ass is smarter than he looks,’ Deidara thought to himself. ‘Otherwise he would never have figured out how to break his way in,’ the blond grinned.

His eyes suddenly shot open as he thought of something. What if they were noticed when they walked out?

As if Tobi had read his mind, the taller man said, "Don't you worry about that, sempai. Things will turn out just fine."

Fingers lightly traced their way up to the blond’s hair tie and the taller man gently took it off. Soft, golden sheets flowed down, gently framing the sides of Deidara’s face. For a moment, the taller nin was lost in awe at such an enchanting sight.

“You’re beautiful, sempai,” he whispered under his breath. His lips lightly traced their way southwards before pressing down a little firmer on Deidara’s right eye.

Deidara squirmed a little under Tobi’s lips. ‘Damn it, why am I letting Tobi have his way with me? I am his sempai after all, un,’ he thought.

“Turn around, sempai,” Tobi said softly. “Let me wash your hair.”

The blond slowly turned around and took in a deep breath to calm his nerves. The taller man carefully kneaded the tension away from Deidara’s scalp. The Iwa nin moaned slightly as he felt his head muscles loosen and the tension melt away. The firm, circular motions proceeded down to the nape of his neck, stoking the fires of desire and sexual arousal.

……………………………………………………….

"Close your eyes, sempai," Tobi whispered. Deidara shivered, but complied as Tobi guided him under the stream of water and slowly worked the shampoo out of his hair. The blond stood stock still; if he moved, if he even breathed, he knew he would brush up against Tobi's body.

Tobi tilted Deidara's head to rinse his hair, and the artist felt something warm and wet drag up the length of his neck.

"What the hell, un!" he gasped. He opened his eyes, ignoring the stinging of the shampoo that dripped down his face, and turned to face Tobi.

The taller man blinked at him innocently.

……………………………………………………..

“I couldn’t help it, sempai,” he said sheepishly and looked away, a soft wash of red sweeping over his cheeks. Deidara initially wanted to strangle the masked nin, but upon seeing him blushing, he relented. He placed his hand under Tobi’s chin and gently tilted it back to face him. His heart melted when he saw those large, brown, puppy dog eyes staring back at him. His left eye was lighter brown in colour, and slightly out of focus. The blond gently brushed away the hair that was covering his partner’s left eye. He rested his palm on the taller man’s left temple.

Deidara moved a little closer towards his partner’s left eye, running his thumb over the ends of Tobi’s lashes. ‘I guess I should save that question for later, un,’ he thought to himself. He moved his thumb away and, very quickly, pressed his lips over Tobi’s left eye.

The blond’s eyes then drifted down to the soft curvature of Tobi’s lips. Just like his cheeks, his lips were also slightly reddened from the blood-rush of embarrassment.

‘Or desire,’ Deidara noted mentally, grinning to himself. He woke up from his thoughts when he felt smooth skin brushing against his right cheek, and warm breath against his ear.

“Can you help me to wash my hair sempai?” Tobi asked, encircling his arms around Deidara’s waist, closing the gap between them.

"... I'll get soap in my mouths..." the blond said dryly. "Oh all right! But you have to let go of me, un."

Tobi pouted a little, but his arms gradually slid away, and Deidara slipped behind him, clutching the slick bottle of shampoo as he did so. His mouth sputtered a little as soapy water slipped between the folds of skin on his palms, but he'd gotten used to it over the years. He clenched his right mouth tightly and squeezed some of the gel into his cupped hand, then set the bottle aside and distributed it around both of his palms, then curled his fingers and ran them through Tobi's messy mop of ebony hair, mindful that he did not slice his delicate flesh open upon the fine strands.

"Your hair is thick, un" he commented.

"Yours is thicker, sempai," Tobi murmured over his shoulder. "Softer, too. Fluffy."

"Fluffy?" Deidara echoed distastefully.

Tobi's lips curved, and he chuckled a little. "Like a skunk’s tail…” he added quickly.

“A SKUNK’S TAIL?! YOU SURE ARE ASKING FOR IT, UN!!” Deidara exclaimed as he strangled his partner as hard as he could. The shampoo suds made it very difficult for the blond to really hurt his partner. In fact, Tobi still had enough breath to laugh heartily while being ‘strangled’.

“Damn it!” Deidara hissed as he gave the masked nin a punch in the shoulder instead. “Oww, sempai! It was just a joke!” Tobi whined as he massaged the sore spot.

“Tch…” Deidara grumbled as he brought his hands up to Tobi’s hair again.

The taller men bent his knees a little more for Deidara to properly massage his head. The blond’s fingers worked through the shampoo suds in firm, circular motions. Tobi’s hair lightly brushed against the blond’ chest as the latter massaged his partner’s temples.

Deidara wrapped his arms around the taller man’s neck and gently brought it closer to his chest. The blond bent down and nuzzled his chin on the crown of Tobi head, slowly breathing in the musky scent of shampoo.

A moment of silence passes as both men enjoyed the warm closeness of their bodies…

…………………………………………………..

"... You know, Tobi..." Deidara began. "I don't know about you, but my hair needs conditioning..."

"Aww... I was hoping we could skip that and go straight to soap..."

The blond's breath hitched. "B-baka, un... I already finished soaping up."

But that didn't discourage Tobi in the slightest. "Well, then, sempai... I guess I'll finish up on your hair, and then you can work on me..."

Tobi lightly brushed some conditioner onto the blond’s hair. He gently ran his fingers through the strands, moving slowly from his partner’s crown, all the way to the ends. The spicy scent of musk wafted around the bathroom.

The taller man wrapped his arms around the blond’s waist and pulled him closer. “It’s time to soap me now, sempai,” he purred, teasingly nuzzling his cheek against his sempai’s.

Deidara looked up to face Tobi. ‘He has that annoying smirk on his face again! That baka! What makes him think that he can tease me like that, un?’ His gaze traced a path from Tobi’s face to his neck, and down further to his strong collar bones before finally resting on his defined chest. ‘Hmph! Tobi doesn’t have a nice body, soaping him shouldn’t be a problem, un,’ Deidara thought as he reached for the bottle of shower gel.

"It's too bad you're already clean, sempai. I really wanted to do it for you," Tobi teased while Deidara squeezed a dollop of shower gel onto the loofah. "I thought about offering to help you before, when you lost your arms," he continued.

"I would've killed you if you had, un," Deidara hissed. He scrubbed the loofah roughly down Tobi's arm. His gaze followed the trail of soap down Tobi's body.

Oh god, he shouldn't have looked down. His face flushed, and even the mouths in his palms went dry. The artist pried his eyes away and fixed them on Tobi's widening grin.

………………………………………………………..

‘Uuhnnnoooo... n-no! N-nani?!’ Deidara’s face went steadily redder. “Y-y-you are crazy, un! Hmph!! That was nothing!” Deidara forced a pout and quickly looked away.

"Oh, good. I'm glad that I don't disappoint." Tobi sniggered. Deidara shut his eyes, mortified. "Ne... look at me, sempai..." the taller man whispered huskily, leaning forwards so that his breath caressed the blond's ear.

‘Urgh, Tobi is teasing me AGAIN, un. I better do something…fast! The kohai is not supposed to tease his sempai like that. Hmph, I will show him who’s boss, un…’ Deidara thought as he turned the water off and pulled the shower curtain away. Still dripping wet, Deidara stepped out of the shower stall and wrapped a towel around himself.

"Where are you going?" Tobi asked surprisingly.

"Back to my room, un," the blond grunted.

"To get dressed?" Tobi asked, downcast.

Deidara winked. "Eventually," he said, and beckoned Tobi to follow.

………………………………………………….

Tobi smiled as Deidara exited the bathroom.

‘That’s probably a wise decision, since sempai was so worried about us getting caught exiting the bathroom together. Well, I still need to finish soaping up and brush my teeth. Sempai will wait for me, he definitely will.’ Tobi grinned as he ran the loofah over his chest.

Deidara closed the door and walked back to the room. He couldn't help but feel guilty for doing exactly what Tobi wanted him to do. ‘Urgh, and I keep reminding myself to not succumb to temptations,’ Deidara thought, shaking his head in disappointment. But unfortunately, what was done could not be undone.

He admitted to himself, grudgingly, that he had enjoyed Tobi’s company in the bathroom. He was actually glad that he woken up early today. Who would've thought Tobi was such a hunk? He was perfect. That attractive well-trained body, those cute puppy brown eyes, that crown of spiky, thick black hair. And that long and hard... ‘No, that's a forbidden thought un,’ he told himself as he entered the room.

Deidara eased himself onto the edge of his bed. ‘But it’s just Tobi, un! Stupid, irritating, orange lollipop-mask wearing Tobi. Why am I even thinking of him in this way?’ Deidara thought, bringing his palm to his face.

‘How did he find out about my feelings for him, un?’ Deidara asked himself as he played with the knot on his towel. ‘Wasn’t I careful enough, only admiring him when his back was turned to me? Haven’t I strangled, bombed, kicked, hit and yelled at him enough to send the wrong signals? What went wrong, un? How was he able to read me like a book?’

“Maybe he’s a clairvoyant,” the blond chuckled to himself.

‘This is all happening too fast for me to comprehend, un. I went from months of seeing him fully clothed from head to toe, to seeing him shirtless this morning, to seeing him naked just now. Maybe that’s why I am so tense.’

The events in the bathroom ran through his mind again. He thought about the shy kiss that he planted on Tobi’s left eye, and compared it Tobi’s playful teasing tactics. ‘That’s not right! How could he tease me like that, un? I am supposed to be the dominant one on this team! How could I let him have his way with me? I am supposed to be the one doing all the teasing.’

A new wave of confidence swept through his being. But all of that came crashing down when the door creaked open.

…………………………………………………………

Deidara looked up. The sound wasn’t from the bathroom door. It was from the door leading out of the chambers, and Zetsu was sticking his head through it.

"We are looking for Tobi..."

"Where the Hell is he?!"

"Um... that way..." Deidara pointed towards the bathroom.

Zetsu drifted into the room and stepped through the door, which was rather unnerving. Deidara hopped to his feet and pressed his ear against the crack between the door and the wall.

"Tobi is a bad boy!" he heard Zetsu scold. "You were supposed to help us water the plants yesterday. Where have you been?"

The water was still running, but Deidara thought he heard Tobi give a distressed squeak.

………………………………………..

Deidara reached for his pouch of clay before he remembered that he was wearing nothing but a towel. He stood up from the bed and retrieved his pouch. A small lump of clay went into his hand-mouth, and a tiny clay spider crawled out.

The spider jumped out of Deidara's hand and crept out of the room. A moment later, a deafening explosion rocked the headquarters, following by the sound of glass shattering.

"Our greenhouse!" Zetsu screeched. The plant-man abandoned his lecture to Tobi and ran to the smouldering ruin of his plant nursery.

Deidara grinned to himself; he wasn't exactly sure how he wanted the dynamic of his and Tobi's relationship to be, but he would be damned if he let anyone get in the way of getting laid.

………………………………………………

“Oh no! What happened to the greenhouse?” Tobi asked frenetically as he hastily rinsed the suds off his body and wrapped a towel around his waist. He didn’t even dry himself off before charging out of the bathroom.

“Zetsu-san, wait for me!” Tobi yelled as he tumbled after the plant-man.

Suddenly, a clay centipede wrapped itself around Tobi and pulled him into his room. Deidara grinned as he turned the key, securing their privacy from further intrusions.

“Sempai! Zetsu-san needs my help! I think an explosion just happened at his greenhouse!” Tobi said frantically as he struggled to break free from the clay centipede.

“Shut up you idiot! Zetsu doesn’t need you now, he can handle it himself, un. The only person who needs you now……is me, un,” the blond purred seductively, slowly making his way towards his tied-up partner. Deidara placed his hands on the taller man’s shoulders and leaned forward. He ran his tongue over his partner’s lips, slowly savouring his taste, before nipping on his lower lip and sucking it slowly into his mouth.

The clay centipede slowly slid off Tobi’s body, taking off his towel as it descended to the ground.

(part 2)

The Future

2008-05-21T16:37:35Z

I know I said I was going to be working on an original story after I finished Sculpting for Dummies...but then exams happened, and now I'm off for the summer, starting a new job and working through three video games, a book, a few anime series, and some assorted webcomics.
I'll get started on the story eventually. My problem is, I have too many fragmented ideas floating around in my head, but only a very few have a coherent storyline, and only one or two have a complete plot line in my head as of now. So basically, I'm dumping a bunch of ideas here so that I don't forget what they are, and hopefully I'll pick one to start with soon.

Ideas
Faecoren- an elven prince who's kingdom is taken over and destroyed by a psycho mage because Fae runs away from his destiny. He flees to a foreign land and must try to find a way to fix his mistake and save his people (and maybe learn to love as well).

Luc- a dyslexic mercenary, his new apprentice, and his sometimes friend/lover ex on a quest to find stereotypical magic stones that have been lost in time, in order to prevent a magical war that could devastate the world.

Gray- seven people's fates converge as Gray, a young girl with the unwitting power to control destiny, pulls them together in order to divert the pending apocalypse. has m/m, f/f, and maybe a little het.

Blight- In a demon version of the Spanish Inquisition, feuding demons must learn to work together to escape the dungeons of their human tormentors. Their only hope for survival rests on the cooperation of a naive blue water spirit with the power to heal using his own life force, a transporter, a human guard, and an assortment of powerful creatures, each with their own agenda.

untitled 1- a kind of wimpy vampire who takes classes at the local university and loves grape slushees catches the eye of one of his classmates. Their budding relationship is threatened when the government finds out about the existence of vampires and the serum that allows them to survive in sunlight and seeks to control it.

untitled 2- A twenty-something man who is, admittedly, 'too wholesome for his own good', moves into a quiet, conservative neighborhood in Virginia. He tries to adapt to a new home, a new job, neighborhood kids who want his video game systems, his sexuality, and the new guy on the block, who confuses him to no end.

untitled 3- short story- a werewolf who has been isolating himself for years to protect his village gets caught in a spell on his way to lock himself away for a transformation. The spell's caster is fascinated by the boy he finds in his grasps, but the rising moon complicates things.
untitled 4- zombie apocalypse. nerd task force. who will survive?

that's good enough for now. This is the reason I can't concentrate on real things- I have all these pieces of stories floating around in my head.

Training with Jounin in Russian?

2008-05-15T00:02:44Z

So...I think someone translated 'Training with Jounin' into Russian. I can't really read Russian, so I'm not sure, though. I was a little surprised when I found it. I mean, no one told me about it or anything. Guess it's cool that someone thought it was good enough to translate (and hopefully they fixed all of the spelling mistakes I was too lazy to edit out), and they made sure to credit me for it, so it's not like the devArt fiasco a couple months ago. Guess it never really occurred to me that the KakaIru fandom exists in languages other than Japanese or English (yay American small-mindedness! God Bless America!)
So, yeah. If someone understands Russian and wants to see if this is really a translation of my fic or whatnot, here's the link. (Not that I really expect people to frequent my lj. I mean, I barely even read it, and I write the damned thing)
http://www.diary.ru/~konohamaru/?comments&postid=41829848

The Fight, a Death Note fic

2008-03-21T03:11:22Z

Title: The Fight
Rating: T
Pairing: LxRaito

The Fight

AN: I don’t own Death Note. I don’t even really write much Death Note fiction. This is a one-shot gift for

And another note- this is unbeta-d, because it seems unfair to ask my beta to proof-read a story that is supposed to be written for her. So if there are any mistakes I didn’t catch, I offer my sincere apology.

……………………………………..

L and Raito’s fights were becoming more and more frequent. At first, whenever they heard the tell-tale crash, the pants and groans, and the strangled curses, the investigation team would cease their work to observe the situation.

Yagami Soichiro’s brow would wrinkle as he watched his son and the detective wrestling on the screen, and his concern for L’s methods would grow a little more.

Aizawa Shuichi would roll his eyes and wish he were home with his family…even if his wife would punch him the second he walked through the door for being away so often.

Matsuda Touta’s jaw would drop as he watched the genius son of the chief and the world famous detective punch and kick at each other like hooligans in a bar fight. He would grab the phone as quickly as he could and try to distract the two young men from their struggle with whatever thought rushed into his head first.

…………………..

The investigation team stopped reacting after the fifth or so fight. They had jobs to do, after all. Ignoring L and Raito became as easy as switching off the television screen, and both men seemed infinitely more sociable after they were allowed to duke it out in peace.

………………….

A pot shattered on the third video monitor; the policemen barely looked up. “Ryuzaki!” Raito growled over the audio. The thudding sound of exchanged blows mingled with the tapping of computer keyboards as the men kept working.

“Matsuda, turn that off,” Aizawa ordered. The younger detective frowned at the command, but stood up to switch the monitor off. The other two investigators continued scouring records of criminals and jotting down notes.

Matsuda glanced up at the screen for a moment, just to make sure the fighting men weren’t killing each other before he turned it off. He froze.

Shirts rode up revealing slender waists as the two figures grappled for dominance. Gaining a momentary advantage, Raito pulled back and thrust his fist into L’s cheek. The momentum of the hit left the slouching man sailing across the room and crashing onto the couch. The manacle around his wrist dragged Raito after him.

The couch flipped over under the weight of the two men hurtling onto it. Masuda heard scuffling, but the visual was obscured by the piece of furniture.

“Matsuda, are you gonna turn it off or what?” Aizawa snapped at him. Matsuda flushed. He lifted his fingers to the power button. A quiet moan stopped him from pressing it.

The detective tilted his head and frowned. What were they doing up there?

A stern look from Captain Yagami forced him to switch the monitor off.

Matsuda sat back down at his computer and stared at the screen. He would never be able to concentrate on the case with his curiosity plaguing him. He looked over at his superiors. They were both immersed in their work again.

Matsuda bit his lip. He only wanted to make sure Raito-kun and L hadn’t injured themselves too badly from their fall. Surely it wouldn’t hurt to take a quick peek…

He plugged his laptop into the main computer, slipped on a pair of headphones, and pulled up the security feed. He switched the camera angle in L and Raito’s room so he could see past the couch.

The gasping and grunting was much the same as it had been during the fight…but the positions L and Raito were in were much different. L’s body pinned Raito to the ground. Jean-clad legs straddled designer-pants waist. Raito’s free hand disappeared beneath a plain white shirt, and L slouched forward to claim a kiss instead of his normal sugary desert.

Matsuda’s wide eyes hung immobilized on his computer screen. He felt his face burning.

The chain rattled as L unbuttoned Raito’s collared shirt (manipulating each button with his thumb and forefinger, Masuda noticed, focusing on details in an attempt to not think about the picture as a whole). The detective rocked his hips, and the boy beneath him panted harder.

The shirt hung around Raito’s arms now, and L leaned down and captured a nipple with his teeth. How many times had Matsuda seen him nibble his thumb just like that? He’d never be able to look L in the face again.

“Ryuzaki!” Raito gasped, sounding very different than he had the first time. L pinched the other nipple between his fingers. The young Yagami writhed on the floor beneath him.

Were all their fights like this? No wonder they always came back from their scuffles looking so smug and satisfied, Matsuda realized. He tried to look away.

“Ryu…zaki!” the boy moaned again. Matsuda’s rebellious eyes trained on the screen once more. Raito was tugging L’s shirt over his head, revealing a thin, pale back with each vertebrae visible on his bony frame.

A wrinkled hand snaked around Matsuda and hit the power button on his laptop. The detective jumped up, startled, and turned around guiltily.

Watari smiled at him and gestured to a tray of tea-cups.

“Tea?” he offered innocently. Matsuda shook his head.

“You know, if you’re to pose as Misa-chan’s manager, you might wish to accompany her from now on,” the old man added. Masuda nodded. Despite what the others said about him being clueless, he could take a hint. He had no illusions that the polite suggestion was anything resembling a request.

“Of course. I was thinking about tagging along to her photo-shoot later today,” he lied. He faltered under Watari’s gaze. “In…in fact, I think I’ll go get ready for that right now!” He jumped up and tangled himself on the cord for his headphones. He yanked out the cord and fled, ignoring the questioning looks from Captain Yagami and Aizawa.

The normal route to his room would have taken him by Raito and L’s room, so he took the long way around. He had a feeling their ‘fight’ would continue a good deal longer, and Watari would be protecting their privacy. He really, really didn’t want to get on the English man’s bad side (he was scary enough when he was smiling and handing out treats…)

At least now he understood why they always sounded so mad when he called to stop them from attacking each other before…

…………………………………………….

An hour later, Matsuda showed up at Misa-Misa’s preliminary photo-shoot. Misa didn’t ask why he was blushing or why he had headphones hanging around his neck, and Matsuda didn’t offer the information.

……………………………………………

AN: And nine months later, Raito gave birth to L’s love-child, who grew up eating sweets and writing essays in the most amazingly epic and dramatic manner. The end. Or not. Hope everyone enjoyed.

4eversleeping, who beta_d my story Sculpting for Dummies. I apologize for the shortness. I tried several different ideas, but none of them seemed to work…so this was the result.

A sequel to ramblings

2008-03-05T05:40:35Z

So, just an update on the whole plagiarism thing. The offending chapters finally got taken down, but the user apparently hasn't been banned. She left this happy little comment on my wall.

"Great! I don't suppose your going to try to delete the other things on my account? Too bad!! Id you actually find any, that's really copies from mine, I'm the only one to try to mix Princess Tutu and Naruto together!"

Bitch, please. I honestly don't know if your wrote the rest of those 'stories' on your account, but the grammer and spelling are poor enough to suggest you did. But you know, if you're saying the same thing about those stories as you did for Sculpting for Dummies (and that hurts, by the way, very offensive), then that leads me to wonder.

If they are stolen as well, at least the deviantart people have her on record for previous violations and be keeping an eye on her.

I find this matter morbidly amusing. Did she actually thing people would believe she wrote Sculpting? The change in grammer, punctuation, tense, tone, and overall quality makes much too steep a jump, hun. I really believe this is just an cry for attention.

Meh, whatever. Once again, I apologize for my bitchiness. Unless she tries to copy and paste any more chapters from my stories (or any other people's fanfictions that I recognize), this issue is over.