↻ varldsormr ↺

"Perhaps not." Dahlia agrees with a quiet smile, her focus almost entirely on their hands now, too entranced to think of eating when his hand cradled hers with shattering tenderness. And when he speaks of servitude, is she not to recall the intensity of his, every waking hour they'd ever spent in privacy? Her thoughts once more stray and she flusters, lowering her voice to an almost imperceptible whisper, the edge of a blunt fingernail lightly scraping the skin of his inner wrist. "Then serve me as you are." That would be enough. Too much for her heart to hold. Could he hold her still? Would he want to? Little else mattered; she would be overjoyed and overgrateful for his return to life. Oh, nothing else could matter.

She finds it prudent to let go of his hand then, doing so with a parting squeeze, then picking up her cutlery. Cold steel to cool the furnace of her palms, fanning the heat of unfulfilled longing threatening to crush her out in the open eye of the city. "You two had been bickering for a while." Though not surprised by this revelation, she is nevertheless intrigued. She begins to season her eggs with salt and pepper before plucking at the poached white to watch the yolk ooze all over the width of a slice of buttery, toasted bread, slicing a small chunk off of it along with a wedge of roasted tomato, then bringing a delicate bite to her lips.

She isn't wrong. They'd been at each other's throats before they even left the house. Garnering awkward, knowing looks from the rest of their crew as they with only the thundering of hooves into the west. Javier had tried to make a light of things and barely survived the sharpness of the Devil's retaliation and his own, long, silent stare with half his wit intact. Sitting at breakfast, now, Jhin takes the handle of the mug which had been idly steaming on the table, and brings it grudging to his mouth.

"You." The coffee's still hot enough to gently scald his tongue upon contact, but aside from a brief twitch at the budding crow's feet at the corner of his eye, Jhin drinks it anyway, letting the burn hit. Grumbling. "He wants you."

Fork found in kitchen. He continues once his hand - and the cup - lowers back down from a darkened upper lip and the grimace which has taken hold of it, emerging not so merely from the stark black bitterness of the roast, which is less satisfying than he can remember. Eyes seeking outwards through the faint, smudged grease stains on the window, he watches the morning bustle of the road outside, men headed to work, a ferrier struggling with a draft's disinterest to comply in getting shoed. Big, stubborn thing, set in its ways.

He knows that what he says is a surprise to not a soul in Winnemucca (nor the province), least of all to Dahlia, herself, and it hadn't been the first time that his and the devil's arguments had been incensed on that account--

In the past the old ranger's simply weathered it. Bit back, ignored it, fucked it out, whatever settled these incindiary flares in El Demonio and left them both too sore and stupid to remember what they had been fighting about in the first place. But the last time had been different - and not just on account of the literal trainwreck which succeeded it. No. There'd been teeth biting with intent to render flesh and not the sweetness of a kiss to make it better, afterwards. Hurt lingering with an uncertain twitching in his brow, like a wound that kept reopening. Or maybe they'd always been bleeding.

Dramatic arse shite, comes an echo at the backing of his mind.

any of these /peek

& Valentine's libations – accepting !

@varldsormr // Jormun source (x)

There's something profoundly tragic about how they only seem to be getting words out when they're silly drunk and/or on the precipice of something – usually Thorne convalescing from injuries indirectly self-inflicted as a result of consistently poor life choices. It's a double-tragedy because Jormun so rarely opens up that, when he does, the devil is so thoroughly flattened that he can't respond with anything intelligent let alone mature. And by drunk he means... drunk drunk. So drunk he can hardly get it up so he's all hands and no game, but it's fine if the big man can still do it, because he can certainly take it. Jesus, no, head on straight, a shake and a hard blink. What had he been talking about?

"I'm hard to get rid of." He retorts, proudly, mouth all teeth and rum breath. Above them, an ocean of stars swirl slowly, blurring together in and out of focus. Waves lap at the shore a few feet in front of them as they recline against the dunes, Thorne's guitar long set aside, shoulder to shoulder. The night is peaceful and dark and cool, and he'd been thinking about his mother again. About Dahlia, and the ones who'd grown tired of him before death came. I'm just a toy, use me then lose me, the line comes back to him – the beginning of his downward spiral.

He mulls over his friend's gentle reassurance, a branch offered. Sheepishly, he looks at Jormun, so much sincerity in such a massive body. Between them, a tangled nest of feelings they continuously failed to make heads or tails of. They are precious though. This is. It doesn't need a name.

"I'm sorry to make you listen to Sad Hours FM. You're a good friend." He bites down on the inside of his cheek, swallows the discomfort that comes with the word. Friend is an anaemic term when you've loved someone for half a fucking millennium. Thorne's head drops for him to nuzzle his cheek against the serpent's shoulder, trying not to poke him in the face with one of his horns. He keeps it up for a while, groaning contentedly, inching up so his nose is pressed to Jormun's hair and the rubbing continues against his jaw and cheek like a starved cat. With a sigh he relents at last and takes another miserable swig.

She yelps helplessly at the sudden, violent tear of her stays, the motion catching her off guard and spiking her heart with something dangerously akin to fear, there one second and... there the next. Jhin holds briefly still while his eyes trace the lines of her sternum and belly, her chemise caught in the rip and baring an indecent amount of skin. The lady remains partly frozen until he moves again, until that felt drop of terror sizzles into her burning desire, though her heart still races from the shock. She offers to assist him with the chatelaine, setting it aside on the nightstand so they wouldn't accidentally step on it in the dark, then lifts her hips and bends at the knees for the stripping of her intimates, which warrants a short laugh after feeling him look for his North under all those layers.

At last, she is relieved to be reeled back into her lover's arms, settling quite comfortably into the width of his lap and the most generous promise it held. Dahlia shakily peels off her stays to remain only in the torn cotton slip, stockings and skirts, and all pointy accessories cast aside she devotes herself to hastily untucking his shirt from his breeches, her forehead pressed to his. She seeks his warmth and comfort amidst the brute strength of his drive, and still, still, the permission to kiss him, which she requests with a series of– "Yes. Yes, yes." and gentle brushes, softly pecking the corners of his mouth, saying yes to his wandering hand, to his tantalising question.

Yes, though they always discover that it is almost invariably a no whenever they try to rush after such a dry spell, which frustrated her to no end. So yes, yes would be the answer, determined, shifting her seat to encourage the route of his fingers to graze the source of her heat and sample at will. A little help, just a little help and she could get there. Greedily, Dahlia sweeps her fingers under his shirt and up along his belly, splaying them across the plushness of his chest with a contented sigh that closes her eyes as she burrows against him, waiting.

& Valentine's libations – accepting !

@varldsormr // Jhin source (x)

Dahlia does not take lovers.

Because she is a woman, especially in her line of work, responsible for feeding eight mouths including her own, to keep a roof over their heads – she does not take lovers. A man would want her to back down, to marry, to bear children, to make him feel like he has a purpose on God's earth. And it isn't that she is strongly against settling down, but that there is more to her life than living in someone else's shadow, or being someone's wife. There is a whole community that depends on how she plays her hand.

For these reasons, and then some, keeping a companion becomes a fantasy for the lonely, early hours and holds no place at the table of her affairs. Before Thorne there had only been another – a boy, a journalist, pining across the street and exchanging sweets but nothing else. Boarding the train headed West put a quick end to all that.

"Did you know I made the first move." She had confessed to Jhin as they sat on the porch steps, away from the revelry of the house, boys being boys drunk on New Year's celebrations. Her words carry shame, the very same she so often held close to her body, womanhood she tried to wash, cut off, and then stitch back again. She had boarded that train just a girl. 'That is your most precious gift', meant for a husband. Meant for someone to take. So there comes a time when your body will stop being yours, and they will fight over it, who gets to be there first. Such commotion. Such violence.

She picked him. Someone who would never be a husband. Someone who wouldn't care, and who'd follow her regardless, and adore her, blood or not. In hindsight, maybe there had been something in the blood, because now the trouble was getting the devil to stop pestering her for a hot minute. At least it was done.

THORNE ASTAIRE. car crash of a velvet-clad demon, will charm you out of what you have and don't have. revelation or your money back.

tiefling OC, lifted from d&d and set loose on dash. ind/sel/priv. carrd.

♤ mature themes + incorrigible behaviour ♤ side blog est. 11/2023 + main ♤ puppeteered by marmelo (25+, she/her, gmt+1)

MINORS DNI.

Just thinking about it was getting him riled even more.

"You're not satisfied. I'm not satisfied." Euan raises his arms either side of himself before dropping them loudly against his own flanks in a form of bewildered protest, continuing to stare daggers at Nis' broad back. Certainly wasn't about to head home until he looked him in the damn face. "Is that how it's gunna be then? Just us both bein' miserable until the days ebb and we both see oblivion?"

Festering is easy with the distance of an ocean and the isles between them, but come to face him, there is only so long he can play these bitter parts. He cares for games no more than Euan does; He wishes to speak? Then they shall speak.

"You travelled far." The giant starts, voice low and rumbling with a hint of accusation as he pushes himself upwards from the log, hands on the weathered fabric of his knees and relenting but quiet grunt of effort. Moving to stand he turn towards his old companion, each of them stood indignantly against the trampled silt and gritted ground, and Jormun stubbornly resists the urge to soften as he lays his eyes upon him. Something hard, and cold, within them.

Those fucking words.

Flint strikes, flame coming alive in his core. They're so close he could have just reached out and kissed him, because he's in the bad habit of doing things without asking, because maybe he wants the slap and the shove and to be put back in Hell where he belongs. But he doesn't. He lets the moment linger and savours again the promise of what can't be. A velvety note, melted right over his tongue. "Sólo me quieres cuando tienes frío." Then the lamentation, because this is no conversation, just him prying and Jormun... tolerating.

He sighs and drinks, fiddles with his jewellery, gazes restlessly at the eclectic, living crowd. His hand abandons its perch, still uncertain if it's a fury he can tempt. Should they find a room, a bath? He has half a mind to offer a massage, oils, fingers in toes, mouth around– no, heavens, the nectar unravels him and the clock continues to taunt him. He says nothing.

It isn't sentiment the devil seeks from him. It cannot be. Can it?

Jormun falls silent (furrowed, confounded), listening to the fidgeting which ensues next to him. Considering the meaning of the words whilst his sobriety rebels against him. He wants to offer something greater by a means of conversation, yet a part of him is weary of what else might tumble from his lips if liquor loosened them enough. Questions or embarassments or both. In opposition to the antsy spirits of the tiefling, he might've been content simply to stay there in their corner - with their comfortable tufted seats - and so when Thorne speaks up again, breaking him from his muddled train of thought to invite him out, Jormun's first instinct is to hrm and turn his gaze out to the gallivanting crowd with a look that's skeptical at best--

But to remain and to do nothing until the night whittles away (leaving them both where they began) would defeat the purpose of him being here. This much he must begrudgingly admit.

And, it is not what Thorne would want. If words will not abide him, let his actions do. It will either ease the tension or spill it over.

He dulls his unease with another intoxicating sip, letting the poison work through him, make him malleable. There maybe wasn't a point in discussing this further, certainly not with the clock ticking. She isn't oblivious about how her withdrawal kills the warmth between them, or how Jormun's eyes follow her like a trace of smoke. She means not to punish him, and needs only a moment to get to the root of what she is feeling.

When an unexpected compliment flies carelessly from bronze lips, the devil freezes. He swallows, then coughs, and grows flustered at an embarrassing rate, the bony fingers of his right hand steadying his throat. In all their years, he doesn't think he's heard that from the giant's mouth, certainly not aimed at him. If he has, it might have been drowned in a drunken haze, gone with the first rays of morning sun. Almost as soon as he comes to his senses he begins to tentatively melt back into his seat. The length of his thigh inches slightly left so it presses against Jormun's again, and he reacquaints himself with the hide lining of the serpent's jacket, some pleasantness returning to his face.

"Having a patron pays off then, if it makes you look." He purrs, morphing seamlessly between distraught devil and impish concubine. In the same breath, a particular thought registers that makes Thorne deliver a playful yet loud smack to his friend's leg, eyes narrowing in accusation.

Feeling a near threatening hotness in his own face, he tracks Thorne's movements when he shifts, idling uncertain where they're headed. Bittersweet yet entertained he dares allow himself a chuckle at her comment (taking it for an olive branch), a sound sunk to the bottle as the serpent wets his lips again, though this time slighter. There's something in the heavy frame of him which reacts against the purring lilting in Thorne's voice, something which feels faint, gentle relief when his friend sinks back into his nook, and wordlessly he meets the inching of her knee with a tilt of his own.

-- And then she claps his thigh hard enough to echo in their booth, and a twitch of Jormun's eye flinches comedically, the serpent snorting loud as though affronted by the accusation, aggrieved. Whiskey aside the serpent leans in closer, catching the haughty retreat of his companion's hand before it has a chance to fully withdraw, his pupils narrowed then grown dark mustering a rumble in his voice;

"If I were, we would not be having conversation."

A hard gaze laced with purposeful intent holds for a moment, and then he lets.