MULTI MUSE

      Ichigo liked that Grimmjow wanted to do a scene now. Most subs had to go through those thicker contracts with a ton of useless stipulations in them. Most wound up being treated more like sex slaves than actual subs. To each their own, he supposed. Some were even classified as 'fuck dolls' where they were locked into the public stocks in the main area of the club and were used by multiple doms and sometimes their masters.

      He fishes his own phone out and logs into his email before showing Grimmjow his results. Ichigo was clean and that was because he was always careful. Plus, he'd not had any sort of regular partner since he joined the lifestyle. It wasn't that he couldn't have one he chose not to. Now that he has a sub he didn't have the need for one. Which was a good thing.

      "I already know which of the paddles I'm gonna use. Same for the vibrator." Since Grimmjow chose to have a cock ring used, Ichigo would grab a normal one, rather than the vibrating alternative. He could use one of those later. Maybe a reward, maybe a punishment, it would depend on how Grimmjow acted. He was already looking forward to getting to know him more through a scene.

      The reason he'd asked Grimmjow for his input on what to use for their first scene was because he wanted to see how comfortable his sub was with being given options. Most Masters didn't do such a thing. They laid out toys and then used them unless the sub said their safeword or red if they used the light system rather than something stupid. Like cherry or lipstick. Ichigo could read a bit of Grimmjow's expression, the mischievous expression.

      Ichigo quickly went and gathered the toys, the paddle he picked was studded on one side, and smooth leather on the other. The dildo he'd grabbed was decent length and fairly thick, but nothing absurd. Then there was the ring which he'd retrieved from a small box on a table near where he hung the paddles up. "First, I'm gonna bend you over my lap and paddle you until your cheeks are fairly red." As he finished speaking, he'd give Grimmjow a look. It likely meant 'strip'.

      He wasn't going to say what he planned on doing once the spanking was done. Ichigo would keep the cock ring on hand, that way once he felt or figured out that Grimmjow was hard enough he'd slip it in place. At the question about whether or not he preferred a live in sub or not, he paused briefly. "I think I'd like for you to live with me. That way there's no commute between my house and your place." It was practical and would also allow them to do more things in the privacy of his home, and home dungeon.

Lucky for Grimmjow, Ichigo cleaned his place himself. The most he might ask would be for help every now and then. There wouldn't be chores or anything for him to do on any day. If he chose to do something that was different but it wasn't going to be any sort of mandatory requirement.

      "I think I'll tie you up later. Maybe." It was Ichigo's turn to flash a somewhat devious smirk toward Grimmjow. He was clearly getting ready to get into the proper space so they could do their scene together. "Now," His voice had an edge to it one that masters would use to get things going, usually. "I need you to strip down and come to me." He expected Grimmjow to fight him in some way. The way he'd presented himself was how he came to that conclusion. He'd be surprised if he was listened to but he didn't expect it at all.

      Ichigo would even go as far as to shed his shirt. The toys were next to him on top of the clean table as he sat down on the wide overstuffed chair. It was large enough for him to sit and Grimmjow to do so as well but that wasn't what the leather chair was being used for at the moment. He'd focus on Grimmjow waiting to see what he'd do in response to the order he'd been given. The paddle would be picked up and he'd admire it for a short moment before his eyes were once more focused on his sub. "If I have to come get you and undress you myself I'm not sure you'll like it."

What’s the point of beating around the bush? Pretending to be shy? Pretending like he doesn’t want to get straight into a scene? There’s no point to that, and Grimmjow has always been blunt and straight to the point. It is just who he is. Besides, he thinks the man will enjoy this far more than Grimmjow pretending to be coy about the entire thing. 

He peers at Ichigo’s phone, taking in the information. The full STD panel tells him everything he needs to know, there’s no risk of catching anything, and there will be no risk as long as the two of them together in this contract, seeing as they’ve already established they aren’t okay with the other being with anyone else. 

Good. 

His blue eyes follow Ichigo’s every move, watching him pick out a paddle that looks like it could leave some good imprints in his ass. The studs would leave certain impact marks and apply more pain than the other side. He’s looking forward to the studded side more than the strictly leather side. 

Grimmjow understands the meaning of the look but he doesn’t obey. If Ichigo thinks he’ll obey this easily, he’s clearly misread Grimmjow entirely. He asked for the scene, sure, but he’s not going to just roll over just yet. He’s already established that Ichigo is going to have to work for it. 

“Yeah, okay.” That one he won’t fight Ichigo on, because he would prefer that too. He has no lease holding him hostage, so it would be easy enough to move into Ichigo’s home. He’s not the type of sub that’s clingy, but he does want to be near Ichigo, and the commute would just be plan annoying. 

“Gonna have to grab my stuff but yeah – that's fine.” There’s a few things he’ll need to grab, unless Ichigo plans on providing him with new everything, then he supposes there’s no harm in directly moving in with Ichigo as soon as they leave this place. 

Ichigo sheds his shirt and Grimmjow doesn’t hide the way his gaze hungrily rakes over Ichigo’s body like he’s undressing him with his eyes. Oh, he can’t wait to see him completely undressed before him, but he’s patient and he’s not ready to give in just yet. 

Grimmjow’s head cocks to the side as he arches an eyebrow as if to silently ask ‘are you sure about that?’ 

Does he really think he won’t have fun by forcing Ichigo to come undress him himself? Lips twitch, as if fighting back the urge to laugh. It might be seen as mocking and disrespectful but that’s not why he bites back the laughter. Instead, he’s so focused Ichigo and what he’s about to do that the laughter doesn’t matter. 

okay so she wasn't trying to snoop. she was trying to help clean since she's pretty sure that they're going to be babyproofing robby's house pretty soon for avigail, and she found some envelopes that had names on them. she doesn't really think anything of it, but somehow the letter that has her name on it ends up in the back pocket of her jeans under her sweater. crazy how that happens.

she ducks into the bathroom and locks the door behind her, pulling the letter out of her pocket. opening the envelope, she pulls the folded paper out, beginning to read as she leans against the counter.

dear daughter,

i'm sorry i'm hurting you like this.

evvie reads the letter once, twice, three times. the page shakes in her hands as the words go in and out of being blurry, tears slipping down her cheeks as she tries to blink them back. "oh my god..." she tries to get herself under control, splashing cold water on her face and trying to get her breathing even. all she can think about is how robby must have felt writing her letter, writing all those letters. how he would've felt saying goodbye to the people he cared about.

she heads back to where she was sure robby was, the letter and envelope in her hand. "hey dad?" her voice sounds wrong when it hits her ears, thick and uneven. nothing could have prepared her for the letter and she was even less prepared to confront him about it. "you... you wrote..." she doesn't know where she's going with this. "you..." fuck. she can't get it together. "you said i was strong and that i would move on... like it's that easy? like i could just... forget? and then you asked me to be the one people count on like there was any chance i would be able to do that?"

"i saw the others... when did you write these?" if she's going as far as to read the letter she may as well get the whole picture. her eyes fill with tears again as she looks up at him. "was this going to be what you left behind? who... who was going to find these?"

so many questions fill her head that she feels like she's dizzy. on cue, goose comes over and paws at her leg which makes her realize she's hyperventilating. she puts her hand on goose's head, eyes wide and teary as she looks at robby.

"why didn't you tell me it got this bad?"

She was never supposed to find these letters. Truthfully, he’d been so busy with Avigail that he’d forgotten about them. If he had remembered them, he would have burned them all, left it in the recent past where it belongs. 

But, he’d forgotten. 

How could he have forgotten? 

He left a letter for each and every person he cared about. Langdon’s had been the shortest of all, with a ‘I forgive you. You’re going to bounce back and be a great doctor.’ Evvie’s, Jack’s, Whitaker’s, and Dana’s were some of the longest letters. 

Samira even has one, with Robby apologizing for the way he treated her. 

Every single person he cares about, everyone he mentors or loves, they all have a letter. He remembers writing them as if he’d just written them hours ago. Robby remembers trying not to get the letters wet with tears as he says his goodbyes. 

It was unfair what he wrote to her. He should have never put that weight on her when he knows her parents have been for. He did the one thing he promised he never would, and suddenly that self-hatred comes back tenfold.  

He wishes she hadn’t found those letters. Fuck. How does he explain this? She has every right to be angry at him, he suspects she is, he wants her to yell at him, tell him how unfair it is. He deserves it. 

All he can do now is be honest with her. 

“I wrote them the night before my trip.” How many hours had he stayed up writing those letters? Was it any wonder he came to work tired from the moment he walked into those sliding doors? 

“I don’t know who was going to find the letters. Dana, I suppose.” God, he’s glad she didn’t find them, but he never wanted Evvie to find them either. He blinks a couple of times to fight back tears and turns his gaze away from her, towards the wall. Anything is better than looking at her right now. Shame. He feels so much fucking shame he swears that he’s going to drown in it. 

" And? Whoever tried to kill you poisoned the blade with demonic ichor. You know what that means, do you not? "

Nightjar stands with her arms folded, regarding the elf before her with sort of a bored indifference to his protests. Her hand lifts to adjust the coverings on her face, but her eyes never leave him.

One of her earlier patients, a smuggler sprawled on a narrow pallet by the brazier, heaves a wet cough. She does not turn, but her arm reaches back to pull a curtain closed. The illusion of privacy in these miasmic quarters. Nightjar does not wait for an answer.

" It means the corruption is magical in nature, and therefore magic is required to draw it out. "

She gestures vaguely to Fenris' wound, slightly impatient now.

Fenris wants to fight her on the mere fact that she’s a mage. He doesn’t trust her one bit and it shows in the way he glares at the woman who is trying to heal him. He wants to argue, tell her he’ll find another healer, but if this is demonic ichor? Fenris knows only magic will save him.

And he is not yet ready to die.

How is he to know that the woman isn’t going to do something to make him worse? Though, logically, Fenris knows that it’s either accept her help or die anyway. She has a point, he should not take his chances with the Chantry.

Not that he wants to go to them, at all. They won’t do shit for him. Besides, with the lyrium marking his body? He’s not entirely sure he’ll be welcome. Best not to find out.

“She’d kick your ass. She’d outright murder me in broad daylight if she had to miss another wedding.” An understandable, but funny course of events that’d definitely be worth it. “Don’t even think she’s forgiven me for not having a redo after we had to cancel ‘cause of that triple car pileup.”  

He at least still found it pretty funny. 

Jack finished up his coffee with a hum. This was shaping into a nice time, a nice change that didn’t even feel like much of a change to begin with. He could definitely get used to this again, enjoying a nice breakfast with another person that he actually liked and talking about absolutely nothing. 

“I might be able to plead for your case.” Dana can hold a grudge at times, but in reality – all she’d care about is Robby being happy. Both of them being happy. Robby thinks that he is, even if it’s not enough to drown out everything else that’s going on, he is happy with Jack. 

This is new and exciting and everything that Robby has wanted for a while now. It's kind of funny, he’s always had these feelings for Jack, has he been oblivious to the fact Jack has had them too? Or is this a recent development?  

All their ‘harmless flirting’, this can’t be recent. Were they both just too fucking scared to do anything until the tension and the flirting got too much and they fell into bed together? He can still feel fingers on his skin. 

No, don’t think about that. 

Robby gives a shake of his head, as if physically shaking his head would toss the thoughts out of his mind, and then his eyes return to Jack’s. Sometimes, it’s easy to make eye contact, and other times he avoids it like it is the plague. 

Right now? Eye contact just feels right. 

Robby laughs, a rare yet genuine sound. Okay, so maybe he’s a little curious about how bad these pick-up lines can be. Surely they can’t be that bad, right? Time will tell, he supposes, because they will have this. Over and over again, if he has anything to say about it. 

“Not unless you know something I don’t.” Phee teases before taking another drink. The burn is far more tolerable tonight than most and she almost welcomes it, but the last thing she really wants to do is get wasted with her coworker.

“Okay, he’s… he’s a bit mental, right? I mean, Lucifer. Thinks he’s the devil. I get there’s like method acting and all out here, this is California, but seriously? I feel like he’s got to be more of a magician or something. Maybe hypnotist, even. I dunno, but how do people go along with it so casually?”

This is a difficult subject to broach. If she agrees with Lucifer, she risks looking every bit as insane as he does, but if she denies it – it won’t really matter. Lucifer doesn’t like lying and certainly not about him so Chloe isn’t so sure about denying it. 

She takes a moment, glancing down at her now empty glass. She’s going to need another drink for this conversation so she lifts two fingers to let the bartender know she’d like another one and he slides it in front of her in record time, taking the empty glass from her as he hands her the new one so that it’s out of the way. 

She pauses, lips opening but no sound coming out as she hesitates, trying to come up with a way to explain this without seeming insane herself. 

“Lucifer is just.....he’s Lucifer.” Chloe shrugs her shoulders before she’s throwing back the next glass in one smooth go and pushing it away. As much as she’d like another, any more than that and it’ll be unsafe for her to drive herself back home. 

Her voice is quiet, the music playing in the bar isn't loud, and it's not Lucifer's nightclub so she doesn't have to yell to talk. Besides, talking about this kind of thing? She would rather be as quiet as possible.

“I don’t know how to explain it. Lucifer is....he’s strange, yeah, but that’s part of his charm, you know? I know he sounds insane, claiming he’s the devil, but he’s a good guy. That’s all that matters to me. That’s all that should matter to anyone.” There is no explanation she can give without sounding like a lunatic so this’ll have to do, right?  

She understands, though. She’s been exactly where Ophelia has been until she was given proof without a doubt that Lucifer is indeed who he says he is. No one believes that kind of thing without proof and It’s not exactly her secret to tell. 

▪ ♪ ♩ ♫ ♬ billy ( @taleswritten ) sent: "You’re pushing my limits."

“It's not an accomplishment.” Boredom was conveyed both through the words and the way they were delivered, in an emotionless, even tone. Any agitating behavior he's displayed thus far has been at relatively low levels; he could ramp it up from here and still not be close to the pinnacle of what he can offer. Yet, already, he was reaching Billy's limits? Short fuse.

A rolled-up comic smacks against Billy's chest as a sign to move aside while Mateo walks past him. “I have a couple suggestions on how to help with that if you're in a listening mood. Starts with a pint of ice cream and gets progressively more exciting from there, spoiler alert, the last step if all else fails is a xanax.”

Really? 

Did he just swat him with a goddamn comic like he’s some sort of dog that needs to be punished? Billy’s eyes narrow at him, there’s something about that, that really pisses him off.  

Fingers curl into his palms, fists clenching and unclenching at his sides as he tells himself to calm down. That it’s fine. That he doesn’t always have to react to things like this like some kind of trapped animal, something that bites if you get a little too close. 

Billy’s blue eyes follow the man as he moves past him, silently watching him while he actually lets the man speak and then there’s a scoff. “Ice cream? Really?” The Xanax sounds like fun, though. 

Billy huffs his annoyance, fists finally unclenching in favor of running his fingers through his hair in an attempt to do literally anything else besides ball his hands up like he’s going to start swinging at any minute.