What's the Opposite of a Thrill Ride? - (Original, M)

[Garnet]

Hello, friends. If you are in the market for modern day fair folk bullshit then do I have the gross, uncouth dullahan for you. 

With Jen also, because she’s always a fun POV to write. Here's Jen and here's Casey, in one form or another (the gif and nicer art is courtesy of Nova).

 

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Coin & Wit was unusually crowded for even a Thursday night. Although Jen was always one to thrive in a busy room, more and more she was beginning to find her clubbing and bar crawl days behind her. Even tonight, it had taken some coaxing from a few friends to draw her out into the city proper to hit a few local favorites before the weekend crowds and college students descended in full. She’d been planning on spending the night in with an honest to God cross-stitch.

Though she’d just barely cleared thirty, she couldn’t feel too sad that she was already turning into an old lady in her mannerisms. Everyone knew that good witches, like wine, ripened with age.

She was also still young enough that a few overpriced drinks had turned into… several. Coin & Wit’s dark, intimate speakeasy-esque vibe made it easy to cackle and gossip in a corner booth with a cadre of fairweather friends, all while racking up a neat little bill for the sake of Sazeracs and White Ladies.

Now the underground cocktail bar was testing its capacity, a fairly shitty live band had set up in one corner, and the air was growing raucous and warm. Her head was swimming with alcohol, and she didn’t feel too bad about ducking out a bit early.

“Girl, it’s barely midnight,” Gloria snorted, listing companionably into her. “Don’t be a wet blanket, you don’t even have to work tomorrow.” Technically true. Jen was off Fridays from the tattoo parlor, and her phone hadn’t lit up with any siren call from her side-hustle at East Central.

“Nah,” she agreed, a master at stretching truths. “But Heather texted that Tank puked a couple times, I’m gonna get home and check on him.”

Gloria groaned and bought the excuse of a concerned dog parent, but took her time in wedging out of the booth. Jen had been trapped in the middle, a fact that she hadn’t minded until it had become so hot and loud and sweaty in here. That band really was fucking awful. Also, Gloria was a hell of a lot drunker than she was. Tipsy enough that nothing fun would be happening between them tonight, or she might not have cut and run this early. Instead Jen rolled her eyes and gave her a light shove.

“Scoot! Jesus, okay. Have fun, you lushes. Bye Danny, Val.” She did dip down enough to grant Gloria a quick smooch on one dimpled copper cheek, then squeezed her way to the bar to settle her tab. All in all, the damage wasn’t too bad.

Even deep in the heart of the city, the air was blissfully brisk when Jen emerged from the hopping underground up onto the street. She vaguely recalled now that it was probably spring break for the local university, which might have explained the crowds. It didn’t feel like spring quite yet, and there was still a blissful snap in the air. It wouldn’t snow again, this year, but long sleeves and light jackets weren’t put away yet.

Now that the noisy haze had subsided into the usual hum of Queensport’s after-hours traffic and sidewalk populace, Jen was forced to reconsider just how inebriated she was. It was like the weird bubble effect when you found yourself alone in a bathroom at a party, and the constant stimulus had faded to a muffled roar. The effect would have been jarring, if not for the syrup of alcohol fuzzing her brain. Instead, it was just left her feeling a bit surreal and unmoored.

She plopped down near the curb, and halfway wished she hadn’t quit smoking. It would have been a good nightcap as she fished out her phone with her bag pinned safely between her knees. Instead, she occupied herself by clicking and spinning her rings as she contemplated the bus schedule. The trains in the city ran around the clock, but the transfer outbound to Glaston Heights was less frequent. Did she feel like bumming around the annexing station for an hour, or shelling out for a cab?

While she considered, a Snapchat notice from Casey popped up, and earned the immediate twist of a smile. Out of all the garage crew that she’d steadily tried to train onto the app, Casey had taken to it the most like a duck to water. Something about the ephemeral, weird, and self-centered nature of it must have unsurprisingly appealed to him. At least every other day she was treated to random snaps of trashy food, pets she didn’t recognize, pets she did, sexy cars, ugly thrift store gimcrack, and the occasional odd video of his narration. Some indecipherable laws of the fae prevented the dullahan himself from recording well on camera, but Jen would never not be amused by the overlay of Irish abuse hurled at a particularly brassy park squirrel.

Tonight’s prize was a stray cat arching herself up against one long, skinny denim-clad leg. There was a twinge of distortion there if you looked too closely, but not half so much as if he’d attempted to record his face. The effect was actually pretty funny, as the tabby-and-white cat phased in and out of the uncanny field. She cheeped once at the camera, just before the recorder snorted a soft, voiceless huff of laughter and the video cut out.

Jen smirked, rubbed her eyes, and tapped back a message.

She’s cutie. Chowder and Sushi would like a sib?

It only took a few seconds for Casey to respond. 

The hooker above the deli feeds her, she’s spoken for.

Jen’s smile lingered on, as she slumped muzzily over her knees and drummed fingertips at her own cheek. Said sex worker was probably a friend of his, then, and…hopefully he wasn’t being a client tonight. But what the hell. He was clearly out and about.

Too bad. Hey you near Stockmoor? And feel like drive?

She considered adding a playful drunk single female seeking ride, but ultimately decided that it was hedging on the side of cruel. There wasn’t going to be any delivery on that front tonight, if there ever was.

Maybe Casey knew that too, but his reply came through a few moments later anyway.

Can be. Where am I ferrying?

She sighed with quiet relief.

Home plz. Outside of Coin & Wit RN. I am sloppy, fair warning.

There, that… probably explained enough? Autocorrect was definitely her friend in these circumstances. Casey didn’t write back, but she settled into self-assured crumple of waiting. She didn’t feel very vulnerable, being just on the side of sober enough to have a few tricks up her sleeve. Also, there was a faint, cold wash of artificial illumination from a 24-hour convenience store down the block if she needed a quick bolt to safety.

No need, as it turned out. Stockmoor was a weird but fairly safe section of town, and she only had time to bang out a couple levels of her current puzzle game before a low, ethereal rumble crept into her awareness. Jen looked up with a listing smile, having felt not much sobered in the interim, to the sight of the Electra Glide coasting up to the curb.

“What’s cookin’, good lookin’?” She jibed, and earned a huff of amusement for her efforts as Casey sprawled his arms over the handlebars of his glamoured steed and leaned into them. It would be a stretch for most people to call her late night ride handsome. She was pretty sure he hadbeen once, back before he’d leapt off the mortal coil and into the questionably immortal one. There was good bone structure there, in a way that could be hauntingly and androgynously beautiful if one could look past the sallow complexion, the dessicated rot, the glaring liberation of skull from neck when it wasn’t stitched in place.

Jen had spent a good few years in the company of non-humans, even before moving to Queensport. Maybe it was the alcohol, but she didn’t think twice about rising woozily to her feet, then mincing over to smudge the same kiss she’d given Gloria to Casey’s cheekbone. Her lipstick left a neat, wine-dark smudge on his pale skin, even as he mimed shoving her playfully off.

“You are, from the look of it. Yer fuckin’ fermented,” he snorted, but there was no menace nor judgment in his tone.

“Like you can talk, ass,” Jen replied cheerfully, as she drew up her skirt to thread one nylon-shrouded thigh over the passenger seat. “What are you, sober for once? Lame. I should have called an Uber.”

All of it glanced off their respective backs, bullshit dialogue that tempered the comfortable settle of her against his thin frame. Riding the Electra Glide, Caiseal Larach when she chose to have four hooves instead of two wheels, was a harrowing event in her limited experience. Cash was actually pretty nice as far as glamoured fae livery went, in day to day contact. Jen won her over very early into their relationship by feeding the huge steed a Little Debbie cake, so she might have had an advantage. Nonetheless, the sheer unbridled joie de vivre that came over her with any stretch of road ahead was a bit terrifying.

Casey might have sensed this, as he rocked the whole chassis languidly back on the point of his boot heel planted to asphalt.

“Alright t'hang on, there? If you toss your cookies on me, the ride’s over.”

Jen stuttered through a laugh, but snaked her arms around his thin waist and pressed her face to the cool, comforting smoothness of his jacket’s leather. It was too old and well-worn to have much of the supple, earthy animal scent anymore, but there was a hint of it mixed in with the motor oil, cold air, and grave dirt smells she associated with Casey.

“M'good. I’m drunk, but not that drunk,” she slurred softly, into a stiff fold between his shoulder and arm. There was a hint of ozone in his scent tonight, which was a novelty. It hadn’t stormed. She wondered if he’d been reaping.

“Sure,” he chuckled, unfazed by her blurring thought processes. “It’s your skull smashed up, so don’t let go.”

Then he heeled the kickstand up, and Cash lurched off in a low roar that would always sound a bit squealing to her ears, like a mare in fury. Her arms latched tight around the stiff leather that obscured his narrow ribs and hips, filling him out to an almost practically shaped man. The idea of it almost made her laugh.

Both rider and steed were a bit kind to her, tonight, which was a rare adjective for Casey. Jen had been on the horse and the bike when they’d been in the mood for stunts, feats of physics and magic that were difficult even for a witch and a part-time adrenaline junkie to wrap her head around. Exhilarating, maybe, but not necessarily fun. By comparison, the dullahan took a brisk but neat pace through and out of the city, playing forgiveness on sharp turns and subduing himself from the urge to accelerate over flat miles.

Maybe it was because he truly didn’t want to be puked on, but Jen appreciated the effort whatever the motivation. The world was a blur even when she didn’t risk tipping right off the side of the bike. As they pulled up to a stoplight in Suttonborough that she was sure Casey wouldn’t have acknowledged without the presence of some other late-night straggling traffic, she smirked against his shoulder.

“Aren’t you being a good boy tonight,” she teased. “Obeying the traffic laws.”

Casey glanced back slightly, his pale eyes narrowed with what was probably amusement. “Sometimes,” he replied, enigmatic, then turned back front with a sudden, gusting inhale that pressed his ribs against Jen’s arms and surprised her into leaning back a bit. A second later, Casey crippled forward over the handlebars with a vigorous sneeze that rocked the whole bike beneath them.

“–eht’TSSSZSCHHH-ah!”

Jesus. That was definitely a new experience, someone sneezing while bracketed between her thighs, nevermind the motorcycle in the equation. In the mire of alcohol, she wasn’t quite sure what to make of it, but settled for a faint laugh and a pat of Casey’s shoulder. “Bless you?”

 

Casey recovered with a deep, snarling sniffle, gave his head a quick shake and blinked a few times like there was still a twinge of irritation there. Nevertheless, he huffed a quick thanks before the light changed to green and they were off again.

Most of the ride lapsed back into a blur, excepting a brief moment around the Fifth Street intersection when Jen felt his chest expand sharply beneath her latched wrists and forced her hold to tighten. For all of Casey’s breakneck driving tendencies, she above all else trusted Cash to take over if he became compromised. There was still something instinctive, deep down in her lizard brain, that panicked a little at the idea of plowing along at high speeds with a driver who was about to sneeze.

The moment ended up being for naught anyway, as she felt his tension relax with a short, shuddery exhale and a follow-up sniff that was lost beneath the wind and the engine’s thunder.

Five minutes later, Cash swung a low curve into the driveway of Jen’s shared townhouse, and teemed her roar down to a low, idling growl. Jen unstuck herself slowly from Casey’s back and worked some of the stiffness from her limbs. It wasn’t yet the right weather for practical travel via motorcycle, which wasn’t a thing that seemed to bother Casey even in the dead of winter, but had left her feeling thoroughly frigid.

“I’m like a freaking popsicle,” she grunted, as she half-stumbled her dismount, and tried to get used to the absence of both the wind whipping up her arms, and the constant vibration under her butt. It felt like a weird kind of sensory deprivation, as she tingled with nerve memory.

Casey arched a brow, so thin and pale that it was nearly invisible. He sniffed, as if in derision, though it held an edge of wetness to it. “That some complainin’, I’m hearin’?”

Guilty, Jen grinned and rubbed her hands together, coaxing life back into them. “Hah, no. Thanks, man. I um…” She flagged a little, as she got a good look at him. While usually less vexed by the cold and the heat than a living, breathing human, Casey drew another quick, liquid little sniff, then another, and another. The whole tip of his nose had gone a bit dark, flushed with chill. Her smile turned softer, fond.

“You want to come in for a minute? Pretty sure I owe you a cuppa, at least.”

If it were an entreaty for more intimate company, she’d have been more direct, and trusted Casey to know that. Nonetheless, he nodded with visible relief, and cut Cash’s engine. “Be great, thanks.”

Heather had gone to bed, but the kitchen and hallway lights were still on, and Jen was pleased to be rushed at the door by a tail-wagging grey and white pit bull who seemed much recovered from his upset belly.

“Hey buddy, you okay?” She doted on Tank, checking his eyes and his gum color while Casey shouldered out of his jacket behind her and hung it by the door. “Yeah, you probably ate something stupid, didn’t you?” She thumped the dog’s flanks affectionately, resolved to keep an eye on him throughout the night, and straightened up to lead the entourage into the kitchen.

Casey trailed behind, still sniveling softly and having taken to quick little swipes of his thumb under his nose. Just once, she caught him scrubbing the heel of his palm brief against one eye.

“Darjeeling okay?” She asked, itchy to pry but wanting to let the mood settle in before she turned the evidence on him.

“Like I give a fuck,” Casey exhaled with a good-natured smirk, despite whatever minor affliction seemed to be going on. Under the jacket he’d been wearing an old, faded blue t-shirt with the name of a barbecue place in Kentucky she didn’t recognize.

The kitchen and living room were open concept, so he sank down on the floor beside the couch to greet Tank in turn, while she puttered. The big clumsy dog proceeded step on his legs and groin while he tried to kiss all over Casey’s ugly face. Jen’s smile deepened.

“Hope I didn’t throw off your evening too much,” she said as she stuck the electric kettle under the faucet, and fetched down various fixings. Nothing would amend Casey’s skinniness at this point, but she’d baked some cheddar herb biscuits yesterday and stuck a few in the toaster oven now. She was reasonably certain that he wasn’t going going to refuse, but if he did, well. All the more carbohydrates and fat to soak up the toxins still swirling through her system. She felt less woozy now, unsure whether to chalk that up to her liver’s best efforts at counteracting her bad decisions, or just the self-assurance of being safe and warm by her own hearth.

“Nah,” Casey said, as he rumpled Tank’s ears and endured the slobber. “Business concluded, so t'speak. Here’s as good a rest stop as any.”

Ah. He had been to work, then. She’d never really asked about his primary calling, outside of the role of a friend in her case, a vigilant warden in Abe’s, a grimy car thief if he could have his id-driven way of it. She still wasn’t really even certain if a dullahan functioned as some kind of psychopomp or what, only that Casey’s relationship with death seemed to be driven beyond forces beyond himself.

“You can crash here if you want,” Jen shrugged, deciding that that wasn’t a conversation they needed to initiate tonight. She knew preemptively that he took his tea with honey, and drizzled it out of a plastic bear on the bottom of the mug, tracing the sticky golden line out in a sloppy but simple sigil that ensured the brew would remain hot far longer it would without magic’s influence. She touched the side of the vessel to infuse it with her will, then looked back. “I know it’s kind of a haul from Breckline.”

Rather than reply immediately, Casey had furled a hand lightly against Tank’s thick neck. He held the dog away from his face, which he’d also angled to the side for a moment of pause, followed by a familiar and shaking inhale.

That was… kind of sweet, and a little bit funny, Jen thought as Casey crumpled over into another sneeze that whipped against the hardwood.

“–TSSCHSSHOO!”

She really doubted that dogs cared about being sneezed on, and Tank was a particularly dumb specimen besides, but Casey seemed to extend the effort all the same. Pity for her floor, though.

“Bless you.”

Casey sniffled again, sounding in want of a tissue, but he didn’t ask for one. Instead, the cuff of his t-shirt got hooked on a thumb as he wiped quickly at both eyes, then again at his nose. Sniffed once more, and sighed as Tank smacked him with a clumsy but wanting paw. “I might do that. Crash. Not sure.”

“Alright,” Jen said, pivoting lazily on the ball of her foot as the kettle shut off and the toaster oven dinged almost simultaneously.

A couple of moments later, she’d herded Casey onto the actual sofa, plied with tea and pastry. He sniffled and rubbed his face indiscreetly into his arm, whilst Tank settled by the unlit fireplace with a huff and Jen took a contemplative bite of her biscuit.

Slowly, purposefully, she extended one leg from the opposite end of the couch to poke him with a socked toe.

“You getting sick, bud?” She and Casey maintained themselves at a careful but companionable distance, but she couldn’t deny that the thought of him being a vulnerable mess weakened her constitution just a little. God, stupid. She was still drunk.

Casey peered at her from over the edge of his forearm, suspicious. “Doubt it. Bit of a reaction, s'nothing.”

“Okaaay,” Jen drawled out without pressing, letting him know her dissatisfaction with the lack of any details. It wasn’t like either of them were going anywhere for a while, though, so she flipped on the TV and they watched a gimmick cooking show. While she nibbled at carbs and sobered up, Casey softly but insistently drew touches across his face, scrunched his features into  a few twitchy grimaces, and generally looked uncomfortable.

At some point, though, Heather’s cat emerged into the living room, strutting about with her tail in the air and inquisitive eyes. For all of his physical intimidation, Casey was as fond of cats as he was of dogs and horses, and encouraged her up into his lap with the flutter of fingertips. He couldn’t have been feeling too poorly, then.

Mozzarella looked at him with squinty affection even as she swirled around an arm chair and meowed. The fact that she acted like she had to think about it was a little bit funny, considering how quickly the cat tended to bumrush Abe the second he had a foot in the door. The eternal imbalance of people who actually liked cats versus the people that were catastrophically allergic to them, Jen guessed.

“Mizzoo, you stuck-up whore, quit playin’ hard to get.”

After a few polite dismissals where she rubbed her cheek against a table leg or swept her long tail just out of reach, Mozzarella finally leapt up onto his thighs and settled in. The cat was a little hellion, but Jen still had to admit that it was a cute, if incongruous sight – the shape of her curled up as a snug white crescent in the lap of Death.

“Did you ever have Cash as a cat, before?” Jen pondered, as she polished off one of the biscuits and took a sip of her tea.

“Oh, sure. Briefly. A dog and a rat, too,” Casey snuffled. He dug a thumb at the corner of one eye and cleared his throat. “Bit weird for her to pretend at bein’ other animals, though. Doesn’t have to think, with the machine.”

“Huh,” Jen said thoughtfully. The visual of a little white rodent popping out of a jacket pocket and jumping down to transform into a horse was… admittedly more absurd than she could even give Casey credit for, and snorted in acknowledgment. Yeah, the bike was probably for the best.

Casey stroked the cat for a while as they lapsed back into lazy quiet. Near-quiet. He was sniffling on a continuous loop now, while Jen zoned out to the soft, wet noises, the warmth of the tea, the low thrum of the cat’s purring. She was, in fact, panning slowly towards unconsciousness in front of easy company and a bad episode of Chopped. She’d planned on making it to her actual bed, but the couch was comfy, the mood was cozy…

The sudden, sharp curl of an inhale from a few feet away jerked her back into full awareness with a start. She blinked to glimpse that Casey had arched backwards with the knuckles of one hand pressed to his face, grimacing fiercely. It lasted for about half of a desperate, willful second before the dam broke and he folded nearly in half with another dramatic sneeze.

“–h’ATSSSZCHHH-euh!”

Mozzarella fled the scene immediately, vacating his lap and streaking from room with sheer indignation. Casey had meanwhile crumpled completely over his vacated lap, knees canted at an awkward angle and shoulders slumping. He unfurled himself by careful, annoyed measures afterwards, like he was a cut marionette untangling his strings, or a crushed bit of origami sorting out creases.

“Oh my God,” Jen chose to laugh softly, and aimed another dig at his hip. “You always look like you’re exorcising some fucking demons when you sneeze.”

Despite his apparent irritation with his own body, Casey choked into a reluctantly acknowledging laugh.

“I am,” he chuckled, once he’d recovered enough with a lengthy sniffle and a hard, mean rub to the blackened tip of his nose. It twitched with a follow-up sniff as he squinted at her. “Sneeze demons.”

“Snemons,” she decided, grave, and earned herself the flash of pointed teeth in a responsive grin. She jostled him again with her legs. “What’s going on with you?”

Casey scrubbed at an eye, sniffed, and grunted in a dismissive fashion. Maybe that worked on some people, but Jen gave him another kick.

“Fuck, leave it,” he snarled softly, then sat up and scraped over his whole face. “Told'ja it’s nothin’.”

“Tell me, you cryptic fuck.”

Perhaps yielding that despite her mortal lifespan compared to his own, Casey seemed to acknowledge that this was a subject she was sure to outlast him on. He sighed in a gusty heave of annoyance. “What were you drinkin’, anyway?”

The question threw Jen into a bewildered, owlish blink. “What?”

Casey sniffled and glared at her between the cracks of his hands still massaging his sunken eyes and long nose. “At the bar.”

She threaded an uncertain hand back through her hair, choppy locks of black and dyed aubergine. “Uhhhh… two Old Fashioneds? Something with egg whites, and then some kind of cinnamon… oh,” she broke with sudden guilty, confused horror. “Yeah, I… it probably definitely had Goldschlager in it.” She recalled now the black vodka concoction she’d gone in more than once for, its mirror-dark surface shimmering with metallic flakes.

Not that she even cared for schnapps, but she definitely hadn’t planned her evening around a fae entity who was catastrophically allergic to gold, either. She frowned at him, drunk and distraught. “Jesus, it was only a couple of them, and it was like an hour ago. Do you really…?”

Casey sniffed and cleared his throat, looking resigned now rather than just avoidant.

“Depends. S'alright usually, bottled and rationed. It’s in your blood, now, and we…” He hesitated, then made a loose clasping gesture between his palms that she took to mean her leaning against him for the past half-hour, en route to the house. Jen wilted.

“Case,” she lamented. “Why didn’t you say something? Fuck, I’m sorry,” she said, already easing up off the couch and putting a few more feet between them.

His frown curdled. “It’s…” he started, then drew a breath, scowling, and flinched into his lap. “–TSZSCHH!” An inhale, frizzling, and then he repeated the effort with allergic urgency. “TSZSCHHiSSH- uh!”

Jen slumped down beside Tank, who thumped his tail with clueless regard, just happy to have an unexpected floor buddy. “Bless you,” she murmured. She was quite sure, now, that Casey had probably prickled with awareness of that precious metal circulating through her from the first few minutes. The stupid bastard had pressed on regardless. That was… something.

“Guess it wouldn’t help if I showered,” Jen sighed, looking down at her tattooed arms as if she could see the threads of warm, shiny damnation pulsing through her veins. She couldn’t, of course.

“Hh’TDSSSCHH-ue!” Casey sneezed again, freely, as if undeniable now that he’d been exposed. He called in a curdling nasal inhale afterward and blinked hard.

“Christ. Yeah, I’d doubt it.”

“I… guess I should turn in, then,” she lamented, as television food critics doled out their reviews in the background. Her hands and rings twisted. “I’m sorry, Case.”

“Quit it,” Casey cut her off as he recovered, smudging a skeletal hand over his entire face. “S'why I didn’t say anythin’. It’s alright, acushla. I’d have picked you up anyway. I can stand a bit of sneezin’.”

“I still feel bad!” She protested, and earned another ugly, sharp choke of sound somewhere between a dismissive snort and a laugh.

“Jesus. Like it’s going to fuckin’ kill me?” He mimed a cutting gesture from the flat of his hand right across the line of his whipstitched beheading.

It was an old joke, and Casey had never once been shy about recycling some jibe about his own state of undeath. The sheer, unfunny cheesiness of it was what finally tipped Jen over into a laugh as well, rubbing her face in both hands.

“Okay, okay, just… here, sit tight.” She ranged into the hallway bathroom and returning with a box of tissues, holding it out in a lame peace offering. Casey took it with a smiling sigh. She wanted to give him a quick make-up hug, but doubted his system would appreciate her being in close vicinity right now, even if Casey himself might have enjoyed it. There was also a pretty high chance of sneezed on, and she wasn’t about that. “It’ll… probably be out of my bloodstream by morning. Stick around for breakfast?”

Proper apologies were best written with food, after all.

Casey stretched out on the furniture now that he had the couch to himself, kicking both of his absurdly long legs over the arm as he snuffled into a tissue. He didn’t seem much put out by the entire affair. “Sounds fine.”

“You want a Benadryl or anything?”

He waved her off, the tissue crumpled in one hand. “It’ll stop, when you’re not bloody hoverin’ over me all the time.”

“You’re on my couch, asshole!” She barked, as Casey just grinned at her.

Jen trusted that Mozzarella would make her way back into the dullahan’s lap tonight, and Tank was still snoozing obliviously away on the rug. He wouldn’t be lonely, anyway. She snuck back in just long enough to press another kiss to Casey’s temple. He squinted up at her, looking uncharacteristically soft despite his gaunt and evil features. Then his expression crumpled, and he went rigid with inhale.

“–HIHSZSHHHH-ah!”

She barely leaned out of the way in time, and gave the dullahan a blank look afterwards as he blinked and wiped his nose.

“Right, welp. Thanks for the ride, sorry you can’t handle my very fancy bloodstream right now,” she said, then reached for the faded knit blanket on the back of the couch and made a show of billowing it out over him. “Try not to douse my entire living room, okay?”

“Fuck off already,” Casey sniffed, but looked reasonably cozy under the cover. “Get t'bed, ya drunken reprobate.”

Jen grinned as she backed out of the living room, intent on at least six hours with her face buried in the pillow. And in the morning, yeah. Big greasy breakfast. She’d look forward to it.

“I’m going, I’m going. Night, Case.”

He shuffled under the afghan, turning towards the back of the couch with what sounded like a tired sigh. “G'night.”

Edited May 1, 2019 by Garblin

[queenie]

I love it!

[rockbell]

ahhhh I'm in LOVEEEE

[LimeyBlimey]

Love it!! Please keep going :D

[mutini]

oh my god i fucking love this. the dynamic between these two is so charming, and i love the world, i would read a whole book of it if given the chance.

[RipleyToo]

Interesting concept! I love it!

[March Hare]

RRRRRGH YOU ARE SO GLORIOUSLY NOIR I CAN'T EVEN

On 5/2/2019 at 12:09 AM, Garblin said:

the overlay of Irish abuse hurled at a particularly brassy park squirrel

Aaaand I'm in. Oh fuck yeah. Echoes of Farfarello? ALWAYS.

On 5/2/2019 at 12:09 AM, Garblin said:

Casey drew another quick, liquid little sniff, then another, and another. The whole tip of his nose had gone a bit dark, flushed with chill.

YES. We like.

On 5/2/2019 at 12:09 AM, Garblin said:

“Fuck, leave it,” he snarled softly, then sat up and scraped over his whole face. “Told'ja it’s nothin’.”

“Tell me, you cryptic fuck.”

HAH! This. This tone. This is how I want people to talk about it. GUHH.

On 5/2/2019 at 12:09 AM, Garblin said:

allergic urgency

Uuuuuuuu NYEMP

On 5/2/2019 at 12:09 AM, Garblin said:

“Right, welp. Thanks for the ride, sorry you can’t handle my very fancy bloodstream right now,” she said, then reached for the faded knit blanket on the back of the couch and made a show of billowing it out over him. “Try not to douse my entire living room, okay?”

“Fuck off already,” Casey sniffed, but looked reasonably cozy under the cover. “Get t'bed, ya drunken reprobate.”

I LOVE IT that he's allergic to GOLD. That is just... beautiful and outlandish and sexy and invertedly-sophisticated and EXCELLENT. Very fancy bloodstream? Drunken reprobate? GODS, I love these two.

What a lovely bit of noir for the early evening. And also you make up the best pet names. THANK YOU, my favourite.