a bit of a throwback to an old wip of mine, monster house, ft. kali and lani being as cute as ever

“The government is willing to pay off 80% of wages to stingy business men and losers flipping burgers at Mcdonalds, but I get nothing. Just left out cold in the mud. Fucking Tories.”

Lani stared at her. “You’re a criminal, Kali.”

“So? I still got bills to pay.”

Lani grinned in that exasperated way of hers and crawled over to Kali’s side of the sofa. It was late, and the apartment was warm, and Lani was still dressed in her pajamas from the night before because hey, there was hardly any point in getting dressed, was there?

Kali hadn’t quite grasped the concept of quarantine yet. She still woke up at the crack of dawn, disturbing Lani’s much desired sleep, and spent dawn till dusk working away at the zillion different projects she was balancing at any given time. Lani had no idea how many were legal and how many were not. She didn’t ask anymore.

“I’m busy,” Kali muttered in response to the kisses being pressed to her neck. Lani unbuttoned the top of Kali’s shirt and dragged her lips down to her collarbone until the sound of typing finally ceased. “You’re a little shit.”

“That’s not a nice thing to say to the love of your life,” Lani murmured, squealing as she felt herself being picked up and placed on Kali’s lap. She would never quite get used to how strong her girlfriend actually was.

“Love of my life, huh?”

“Yep,” Lani nodded, grasping little handfuls of Kali’s shirt and shuffling closer, “love of your life and constant companion for the next couple of months.”

Kali scrunched her nose up. “Dear Lord, we are not making it out of here alive.”

Lani buried her face in Kali’s neck to hide her grin, “what do you mean? It’s gonna be great. We can sleep in, bake together, play Mario Karts-”

“Get on each others nerves, accidentally kill one another, have to destroy your body with acid-”

“Where is your lock down spirit, huh?” Lani kissed Kali’s chapped, red lips and smiled. “Think about all the sex we could have.”

“Now you’re talking,” Kali pushed Lani back so she was laying on the sofa, hovering over her with a wolfish grin. “Keep going.”

“We could do that thing you like with the handcuffs,” Lani wiggled her eyebrows, “the thing you like with the chocolate sauce, the thing you like with the blindfold-”

Kali shut her up with a kiss and pinned her wrists up above her head. “We can play all the Mario Karts you want if we do the thing with the chocolate sauce.”

Lani wiggled in a little victory dance. “I’m gonna kick your ass so hard.”

“Shut up,” Kali leaned down and kissed her. “In your fucking dreams.”

sunshine baby and grumpy demon child

kali crossed her arms.

“you’re the kind of girl who drinks hot chocolate and smells of roses and never stops blushing. you stare at your feet when you walk and give names to spiders and make daisy chains when you’re bored. you work at a bakery. your favourite book is the secret garden.

what on earth makes you think that you and I could ever be friends?”

lani quirked a smile. she jumped down from the brick wall and took four steps closer to kali.

“you’re the kind of girl who lives off coffee and smells of leather and never stops swearing. you deal drugs and punch assholes and i’m genuinely not sure that people are kidding when they say you killed someone, but that’s alright, ‘cause you also love pumpkin spice and horror movies and i’m pretty certain you have a soft side in there somewhere, demon or not.”

lani poked kali’s arm and smiled when she squirmed.

“i see no reason why we couldn’t be friends.”

kali narrowed her eyes.

“so we’re in agreement then? you’re an idiot, and we’re not friends.”

lani’s smile stretched into a grin. she slung her arm over kali’s shoulders and shrugged.

“nah. we’re friends. you just don’t realise it yet.”

400 words of kali NOT being an asshole

kali stirred in her bed, reaching out her hand to aimlessly pat at the empty sheets beside her. she let out a deep groan when she found nobody there. “angel?”

a soft pattering sound filled the apartment. the bed dipped, and a warm body leaned over hers and pressed a kiss to her forehead. kali puckered her lips sleepily and hummed when another kiss was pressed to them. she reached her arms up and wrapped them around the girl above her, pulling her down onto the bed again. “what did i tell you about getting up before me?”

“nothing, ever,” lani whispered. she shuffled onto her side and rested her head on kali’s shoulder. a few muted beams of light shone through the window, but the room was still dim, silent bar the sound of falling rain.

“well i’m telling you now,” kali mumbled, pulling the girl closer against her. she wrapped one arm around lani’s waist and the other one around her head, moving her fingers to glide through the girl’s blonde locks. “no getting up before me. unless you’re making me breakfast, i guess.”

lani wiggled against the embrace. “but i am making you breakfast,” she pointed out. kali sniffed and realised she could smell maple syrup wafting through the apartment. it was a strong contrast to the usual smells of alcohol and sulfur and  she wasn’t sure how she hadn’t noticed it sooner. kali pressed a kiss into lani’s hair and whined.

“if i let you go finish breakfast, will you come back after?”

soft giggles filled the apartment and kali frowned at her. lani just smiled, leaning down to cover kali’s face in kisses. “what happened to the grumpy ass demon i was promised, hm? she seems to have been replaced with the sweetest, clingiest angel i’ve ever met.”

kali glared at her. “you take that back! i’m not an angel, and i’m definitely not clingy.” she crossed her arms over her chest. “i’m just trying to trick you into thinking i like you so you’ll keep making me pancakes.”

lani just beamed at her and kissed her cheek.

“you’re real cute when you wanna be.” she hopped out of bed and went off to finish the pancakes.

kali was silent for a minute. but then- “you’re coming back, right?”

lani looked over her shoulder and grinned.

“course i am, angel.”

kali groaned.

“i’m not a fucking angel!”

you look like you could use some sunshine

This is ridiculous, Kali thought as she sulked down the road.

So what if I robbed them last week? They can’t prove that. A girl still needs coffee.

What a bitch.

She pushed the door to the bakery open; the door slammed against the wall and made the counter vibrate. Every eye in the place looked up, but she was already at the front of the queue.

Nobody ever seemed to question how she did that.

“Coffee. Black,” Kali said, like the mere act of ordering coffee was beneath her. She tapped her fingers against the counter and waited. The man behind her in the queue took a tiny step back. The guy taking her order wouldn’t quite make eye contact.

Kali terrified everybody, and she was very okay with that.

But then the weirdest thing happened.

A girl with a smile like the summer sun stepped forward with her coffee. Kali would spend the rest of her life denying this thought, but that girl’s smile radiated sunshine and, for a split second, it made her forget what was going on.

When Kali finally took her coffee, she frowned.

“I didn’t order cake.”

The girl pushed the cupcake forward. It had yellow icing swirled on top and a small chunk of lemon poking out. Kali imagined that if the girl was ever turned into a cupcake, she would look exactly like this one.

“I don’t want it,” Kalie repeated.

The girl smiled some more.

“You look like you could use some sunshine.”

Her voice was sweet like sugar and Kali found herself staring once more.

The girl didn’t back down.

Before she knew what was happening, Kali found herself sighing and taking the cupcake.

“You’re paying for my coffee then,” Kali shrugged. She took the cupcake and her coffee and before the girl could blink, she was gone.

2) “Easy, easy. I’ve got you.”

“Are you drunk?” Kali asked, leaning against the door frame and staring the girl up and down.

Lani giggled and shook her head.

This was, of course, a lie. Lani had never been this drunk in her life.

Actually, she’d never been drunk in her life, end of story.

“Jesus,” Kali muttered. She pushed the door open and stepped back inside. “Get in here.”

Lani stumbled through the door and walked after Kali. Words were falling out of her mouth like a waterfall but Kali had no idea what any of them meant.

She had every intention of giving the girl some water and packing her off to bed when she felt two short arms wrap around her waist and a soft cheek press against her back. Kali stopped walking and pushed the girl away. “Don’t even thi- woah, woah-”

Lani stumbled back and tripped over, falling until Kali’s strong arms caught her. “Easy, easy. I’ve got you.”

Kali tried to stand her up again, but Lani toppled back over. Kali shook her head in annoyance.

“You are the worst drunk ever.”

Lani giggled and clung to Kali’s shirt.

“S’okay though yea- ‘cause you care ‘bout me, so’s’it okay?”

Kali rolled her eyes and hoisted the girl up over her shoulder. “Shut up.” She carried her through to the living room, where she was promptly dumped onto the couch.

“Make no mistake, Angel. You’re only here because I don’t need you throwing up outside and pissing off my landlord.”

Lani rolled onto her back and smiled up at Kali.

“No. You care ‘bout me.”

Kali rolled her eyes.

And if there was a smile on her lips as she walked away, well- Lani wasn’t going to remember it anyway.

Kali had nothing against rain. Which was rare for her, because Kali had something against almost everything. Rain just didn’t happen to be one of them.

It was, however, extremely fucking late, even for her. The sun would be rising soon, and she had a practical the following morning that she not only needed to be present for, but also not soaked to the bone to complete. Her professor let many things pass (including a decapitated finger falling out of her pocket) but Kali wasn’t sure she’d get away with that one.

Too many health risks, or something.

And that didn’t leave her with very many options. She was too drained to shadow travel, too far from home to walk it, and too covered in blood to call a cab.

What she wasn’t, however, was too far away from Lani’s house.

Whether she wanted to encourage this ‘friendship’ with Lani was a whole other thing, but a thing for another day, she reckoned.

And that was how Kali found herself knocking on Lani’s door at 5:34 in the morning.

Lani had never appreciated sleeping next to the front door until that moment. In fact, she’d utterly despised it, because it meant she was the one who had to answer the door, no matter how early the hour or how busy she happened to be.

This too, she appreciated from that moment onward.

With eyes half open and her mouth stretched in a yawn, Lani padded out of her room and pulled the front door open. She jumped in surprise when she saw a blood-covered, soaked through Kali standing there.

“You gonna let me in or what?”

“Uh..” Lani looked back over her shoulder. Her foster parents had made one thing very clear to her. No friends allowed. And that had not been a problem until now, because Lani didn’t really have friends, but she supposed there wasn’t much of a choice. “Alright, just- just be quiet.”

As if Kali needed to be told.

Lani wrapped her fingers around Kali’s wrist and pulled her into the bedroom. She looked both ways before closing the door and then turned back to the demon sitting on her bed.

“Paranoid, much?”

Lani shrugged.

“Just… sit there, okay? I’ll make you something hot to drink.”

Kali raised a brow. Lani’s belief that a hot drink would fix anything never failed to amuse her. She could use a coffee, though, so she kept any comments on the matter to herself.

“You got a shower ‘round here I could use?”

Lani nodded.

“Through there, just- just b-”

“Be quiet. Yes, I know. Wouldn’t want mummy and daddy to know that you’re consorting with a demon, now would we?” Kali rolled her eyes.

Lani thought about correcting her. But then she thought better.

“It’s more the blood stained hands I’m worried about. Just- go shower, I’ll be back in a minute.”

Kali reached over and drew a smiley face on Lani’s cheek with the blood on her fingers. Then, she sauntered off.

Lani thought it odd that that was the closest she had ever seen the girl to a smile.

8) “Things have been rough for a while, but I think they’re easing off.”

“Foster parents, huh? Bet that ain’t the most fun of times,” the guy said - Lani hadn’t quite caught his name. He was buff and blonde and tall and Lani would’ve been quite intimidated by him, if it wasn’t for the demon sitting opposite. “I hear life’s pretty rough in the foster system. Had a friend once- his mum used to work in social care, told us all sorts of horror stories about it.”

He looked over at Kali. Lani hoped, for his own sake, that she was mistaken about the look of desperation on his face. Desperate for her attention or something else, she wasn’t sure - but none of it would end well for him.

Kali just hummed. The guy seemed to mistake it for interest, because a massive smile spread on his face. Lani didn’t feel the need to correct him. That was Kali’s ‘you’re an idiot’ hum, one Lani was subject to multiple times an hour, but what he didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him.

“Things have been rough for a while,” Lani nodded, when he finally stopped talking, “but I think they’re easing off.”

Kali looked up when she said that, and Lani caught her eye.

The guy started blabbering on again about how hard the poor folk must have it, but neither of them were listening.

Lani gave a small smile. A smile of acknowledgement. One that made Kali’s heart flip in her chest; not that she would ever admit to having a heart, never mind one that reacted in any sort of way to the girl sitting opposite her.

And then she smiled. Ever so slightly. Because the mere idea that she was the reason things were getting better for Lani made her happy (even though she hated the girl and despised having her around and they definitely weren’t friends.)

It made her happy.

And Lani wouldn’t be done teasing her about that smile for a long time.