#awkward family | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

thepenultimateword · 1 year

Text

Claws and Fangs

The werewolf stretched across the large bearskin rug, the half-moon's pale light draped ethereal across their shoulders. The last several hours had been spent in lazy quiet, the fire in the hearth filling the empty room with warmth and light crackling.

The werewolf hated it.

At the other end of the house, the front door creaked open, jolting them upright with twitching ears and crazed intent. The rug skidded out from their feet as they pushed off down the hall. Even in their human form, they were always dominated by the feral instinct of their condition.

"Fangs!" the werewolf cried, bowling their lover into the entryway table before the vampire could even finish removing their earrings.

"Hey! Hey!" the vampire cried, shoving them back while simultaneously chuckling at the nips and kisses the werewolf littered their face and head with. "Give me some space to breath."

The werewolf reluctantly undraped themselves from the vampires shoulders and stepped a few inches back. "You were gone for ages."

The vampire finished undoing their second earring--a ruby drop on a long gold chain that reached to a cuff on the rim of their ear--and dropped it into the overstuffed jewelry bowl on the tabletop. "Clan gatherings are rather hard to put together when we live so spread apart, so they tend to go long. No one wants to say goodbye first. It's sort of like you're pack."

The werewolf winced.

Sure. Sure, it was like a pack. The werewolf may have never met the vampire's family, but they didn't need to see how close-knit they were to know it was nothing alike. If it were, the vampire wouldn't be here. Or well...perhaps they would, considering, but...well, still. They all lived so separate.

"What?" The vampire's slender index finger traced the furrow in their brow.

"I left my pack. For you."

The vampire's face immediately twisted up in confusion and something akin to defensiveness, amber eyes flashing, teeth just poking out from their under lips. "And?"

"I'm just saying..."

What were they saying? Of course, the vampire should be allowed to visit their family. Did the werewolf want them not to because they were jealous? That was a horribly selfish thing to wish. It wasn't as if they'd been forced to leave their own family. They made a choice.

They just wished they'd known beforehand how it would feel when they left. Like having something amputated--or being something amputated, a mere limb of a bigger whole, useless without the rest of them attached.

It was worse that the vampire's house was so big and solitary and far away from everything. Whenever they left, the werewolf felt like they might go insane from the quiet. That is if the soul-crushing loneliness didn't get them first.

No. Stop it. Their lover was back now; they shouldn't be thinking about this. They should be happy to see them, not upset that they left them behind in the first place.

The vampire raised their brows as the werewolf trailed off. "You're saying...?"

"Maybe you should bring me."

The vampire's breath hitched in their throat. "What?"

The werewolf wasn't exactly sure what that tone meant. Surprise? Offense? Was there a rule against inviting werewolves to inner family gatherings? In any case, they found themselves blabbering a retort.

"I'm with you, so that makes me technically part of the clan. That's how it would work in the pack at least. So, I definitely should be going to clan reunions with you from now on. I mean, I think it would be better that way. I haven't even met your family yet. You sort of met mine; it's not fair if I don't meet yours."

"I don't think that's a good idea," [Vampire] grimaced.

"Because I'm a werewolf...?"

"Because of lots of reasons. Look, I love them, but they're not always great. Why do you even want to meet them? Haven't we been fine on our own?"

"I'm a werewolf without a pack," they said bluntly. "I'm not fine."

The vampire's intense gaze fixed on them, really fixed on them. Maybe it was a vampire thing, but whenever they did that, it made Werewolf's skin crawl, like needles prickling from the inside out instead of from the outside in. They must really be thinking about this. They quickly regretted their statement; the vampire had done a lot for them. It really would be selfish to ask for more.

Suddenly, the vampire scooped them into a bridal carry, evoking a sharp yelp from the werewolf's throat. Despite the werewolf being the bulkier one in the relationship, the vampire was never remiss to remind them who was stronger physically. Luckily the werewolf liked being babied.

"Alright," the vampire said. "If it means that much, you can come."

The werewolf yipped, craning their neck to snuggle beneath the Vampire's chin. They must have snuggled a little too hard though because the vampire groaned softly through their teeth as their mouth was forcefully snapped shut. Instead of letting them back down though, they simply grumbled the next piece of news through the spaces in their molars.

"Since a few of the clan are sticking around a while, the next reunion is in two weeks. I've been pressed to spend an entire weekend. I originally said no so as to not leave you alone, but if you're coming along..."

"Yes! Yes, yes, yes!" The werewolf couldn't control their excited squirming. If it was the time of the month for a tail, it would be wagging. "I'll be super polite and impressive! Thank you!"

"It's really not that exciting though." They had to readjust the werewolf in their arms to keep them from slipping, also taking the opportunity to tip them back and look directly into their eyes. “I don't want you to be disappointed when it turns out to be a bunch of stuffy old people hanging out."

The werewolf tried not to fall into a drooling daze as they stared into their lover’s hypnotic gaze. They weren’t sure if it was the vampire part or the being totally smitten part, but somehow they were always losing themselves in that molten amber stare.

“You’re only a little stuffy.”

“Oh, really?” The vampire grinned exposing the full glory of his elongated fangs. “Well, you’re only a little chaotic.”

“Only a little? I better step up my game.”

“Don’t push your luck, Claws.”

The vampire nuzzled their face, fangs skimming down their cheek before pressing their mouth with a gentle kiss.

***

The werewolf’s suitcase was nearly packed to overflowing. Mostly because the vampire had stuffed it with about a dozen different changes of clothes that they'd never even seen before, let alone worn.

"Dinner, tea, eveningwear, nightwear," they verbally labeled as they laid out each clothing set.

"What's this?" the werewolf said, picking at a silken charcoal suit complete with an emerald floral vest and tie. The thread making up the design was colored a glimmering gold--or was that real? The werewolf really wouldn’t put it past them.

"Dress clothes. In case we do something fancy."

"Is doing something fancy, likely?"

They already weren't liking the look of that tie. They bet that gold thread was scratchy.

"60/40."

Ok, too much of a chance to convince Vampire it was unnecessary, but perhaps there were other ways to make them ditch it.

“And it’d really matter what I wear? You really change clothes this much when you visit?”

The vampire blinked at them as if they’d just said they planned to walk around the whole visit in the nude.

“Yes.”

“Ok, ok.” The werewolf held their hands up defensively. “I’ll wear the suit.”

And so here they were, a little after 6 o’ clock, hefting their overly large bag into the back of the vampire’s sleek black car. The sun had gone down a little less than an hour ago, and though the windows in the car were all tinted dark to keep out the terrible, deadly blaze of the sun, the vampire still always preferred to drive at night.

"Claws!" the vampire called as they hesitated by the trunk of the car, deciding whether this was actually a terrible idea. They really only had experience with the one vampire. What if this wasn't a cure to their loneliness but a bigger assurance that they were making a mistake?

"Claws!"

The werewolf jolted, quickly slamming the trunk closed and sliding into the passenger seat. "Sorry."

"You ok?"

"Mm. Just nervous."

The vampire laughed lightly, something between amused and nervous. "I'd say don't be but..." They shifted the gear into drive and began the long winding descent from their villa. "Maybe it is best if your guard is a little up this weekend."

The werewolf tipped their head. "You think they're going to hurt me?"

"Physically? No. Emotionally? Well...that depends."

"On what?"

"On how they take it."

"Take what?"

The vampire briefly took their eyes off the leaf-blanketed drive to nod in their direction.

It struck the werewolf like a bag of rocks.

"Wait. You haven't told them about me?"

"I have. Just not...details."

"So my species...?"

"Never came up."

"Ugh!" A low growl vibrated in the werewolf's throat, and they slammed their fists on their knees. "I can't believe you!"

"It wasn't exactly easy to bring up."

"'I'm seeing a lycanthrope.' There. That easy."

The vampire's gloved hands creaked on the steering wheel, amber eyes pinned straight ahead. "You obviously don't understand what it's like for me."

"I told mine."

They weren't certain whether it was meant as an argument or a comfort. Certainly, they understood more than anyone else what it was like to confront one's family with such irregular news. There were reasons vampires and werewolves typically kept to their own kinds. The reaction to their sudden declaration of love hadn't exactly been smooth, but it had been a relief. Having everything in the open was easier than holding their feelings, heavy and secret, to their chest.

"That's different. They weren't actually your family."

The werewolf went rigid. Such a response didn't even merit a growl.

The vampire pressed their toe to the break, coming to a stop in the middle of the pitch black road. Their eyes glinted in the dark as they turned to face them.

"That came out wrong. What I meant was, you weren't born into your family, you were chosen. The expectations are different."

"They expect me to be happy," the werewolf challenged. "Don't yours?"

The vampire sighed deeply, slowly revving the car back up to the speed limit. "It's not that simple."

The werewolf thunked their forehead softly against the passenger window, squinting out at the shapes of trees and bushes. They hated the distinct implication in the air that the vampire had decided they just couldn't understand. And maybe they couldn't. Wasn't it that simple? If someone loved you, they wanted you to be happy. Right? Sure, nothing was perfect, but the foundation was there.

They huffed, their breath clouding up the glass, and closed their eyes, concentrating on the soft hum of the engine and the whir of passing road instead of whether they may have made a mistake.

They must have dozed off because the next time they opened their eyes, they were approaching an enormous black castle, crooked spires stretching toward the wide, haloed moon. Why were vampires so pretentious?

"This is your parent's house?" the werewolf mumbled with a large yawn.

The vampire jolted a little at the sound of their voice before putting out a hand to squeeze their arm, an acknowledgment and an apology wrapped in one. "Summer home. We came all the time as children, but now it's just for reunions."

"Are all vampire families obscenely rich, or is that just a you thing?"

"Shut up," the vampire chuckled, parking along the side of the drive behind three or four other ridiculously pretty vehicles. "You don't live this long without getting some perks."

They popped the door and the werewolf followed them around to the back of the car, stretching their long limbs with each step.

"So how are we doing this? Am I carrying you over the threshold? Go in side by side? A little behind me?"

"Definitely the first one," the werewolf said, accepting their bag. "I don't know, doesn't really matter I guess. They do know I'm coming, right?"

"Yeees."

"Only checking. I guess we could, like, link arms or something?"

"Or just hold hands?"

The werewolf blushed a little. "Yes, that would...be more natural."

"We can link arms if you want."

"No."

"Come on, it wasn't a bad idea."

"No, it's silly."

"It's not silly. Let's do it. "

"I don't want to--"

"It's ok, I just wasn't imagining it right, but if you want--"

"Fine!" The werewolf abruptly hugged the vampire's arm. "How's this?"

The vampire's breath hitched, and when their voice came out it was soft. "It's nice."

The werewolf nodded curtly, making their grip a little tighter as they turned toward the entrance steps. It was suddenly hitting them that they were walking straight into a vampire den. Their original prejudices and anxieties about vampires had been mostly eradicated, but even the most open-minded person would wonder at the wisdom of entering a house full of immortals with the power to crush your skull like an eggshell. Especially when those immortals habitually drank the blood of mortals like them to live.

The vampire placed their hand over the werewolf's knuckles as they approached the double door, cold thumb stroking lightly across the back of their hand. This was fine. They wanted this. They were getting another family. It was fine. Everything was fi--

One of the great wooden doors swung open.

...

I'm sorry to cut this off right at the good part, but this was getting super long and I have no idea when I'll reach another good stopping point. So stay tuned for the family meeting in part two. Also deciding whether to actively call them Claws and Fangs 😂 obviously not their real names but maybe they could acknowledge each other that way. I dunno.

Part Two

Master Taglist:

@moss-tombstone @crazytwentythrees @just-1-lonely-person @the-vagabond-nun @willow-trees-are-beautiful @cocoasprite @insanedreamer7905 @valiantlytransparentwhispers @whovian378 @watercolorfreckles @thebluepolarbear @yulanlavender @kitsunesakii @deflated-bouncingball @lem-hhn @office-plant-in-a-trenchcoat @ghostfacepepper @pigeonwhumps @demonictumble @inkbirdie @vuvulia @bouncyartist @lunatic-moss-studio @breilobrealdi i @freefallingup13 @i-am-a-story-goblin @ryunniez @rainy-knights-of-villany @distractedlydistracted @saspas-corner @echoednonny @perilous-dreamer @blood-enthusiast @randomfixation @alexkolax @pksnowie @blessupblessup @wolfeyedwitch @thedeepvoidinmyheart @cornflower-cowboy @bestblob @a-chaotic-gremlin @espresso-depresso-system @prompt-fills-and-writing-spills

#vampire x werewolf #vampire #supernatural #fantasy #werewolf #writblr #meet the family #awkward family #writing community #writing snippet #creative writing #fantasci tumblr #fantasci snippet

294 notes · View notes

spacedace · 8 months

Text

Reluctant War AU Part 4

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3

Everything I know about Flash and the FlashFam (& Flash enemies) comes from fandom and theflashmuseum on tiktok so fair warning on that lol

Sorry if Barry is out of character or things don't line up with canon. Canon is a stranger I think I passed in a crowded room once, I did not ask for its number lol

Anyway, time to touch a bit more on that whole Ancient of the Speedforce Elle thing yeah? Here be a sprinkle more of that and I promise there's more to come haha

Gonna start posting this on Ao3 soon, probably Monday or Tuesday, so heads up I may stop adding these parts here on tumblr once I do

---

It lived beneath his skin.

For a long time Barry had never believed in magic. His world was grounded, scientific, made of predictable rules and laws. Tools that could be used to explain everything strange or supernatural away as just another odd twist of the massive universe they all belonged to.

It took perhaps a little longer than it should have to admit that magic was as real as thermodynamics and gravity and atoms. That the world was a great deal stranger than even science - for all its own wildness at times - could account for. There were things that went bump in the night. Hells below and heavens above and things that crawled and clawed their way out from the places in between.

It was almost a little embarrassing how long it had taken him to admit to such things, when considering his relationship with the Speedforce.

A force of the universe. Like gravity or time, pushing and pulling everything along. Something that could be explained with all the familiar scientific concepts that had buoyed him along in life for so long.

Except.

Buzzing, burning, blistering. Not painful but felt. Making his hair stand on end, his fingers tingle and numb. Sliding against his veins, bouncing between scar tissue and freckles. Pressing out from the confines of his sternum, rattling against his rib cage as it shifted and moved. Twining around each and every vertebrae. Coiling over and under itself within his skull, darting along the paths of his neurons and nerves. It hummed in every cell in his body. Darted and danced in the space between the atoms that made up his very existence.

The Speedforce lived beneath his skin.

Lived.

Not existed. Not contained. Lived.

He couched it in terms of science, but science - despite his long time refusal to acknowledge it - wasn’t really able to explain the full scope of what he could feel. Not just the power of the Speedforce, but the…the identity of it. The living part that made it’s home in his body, existing in a way that was separate from him. Distant and indistinct most of the time, but…sentient.

He could feel it. Warm and excitable, delighting every time he tapped into it. Pushing him from behind urging him on and on, tugging him forward from ahead beckoning to go, faster, faster. Joyful in his victories, despairing in his loses.

It lived beneath his skin.

Until it didn’t.

He followed its joyful calls, pushed beyond what he should, what he knew was safe. Chasing that welcoming chant of faster, faster until he was there. In the Speedforce. More even, was the Speedforce.

He was everywhere. Beyond everywhere. In every possible everywhere it was possible to be. Every world, every universe, every multiverse.

To enter the Speedforce, to merge with it, was to become part of existence itself.

He couldn’t remember everything about it once he came back. He got flashes, sometimes, quick moments in dreams of places, of moments. What stuck with him most had been the feeling of it all. That had been the hardest part of returning. The sense of terrible loss, of having been surrounded by such a giddy, delighted, devoted love only to be pulled back from the heart of it. Returned to how he had been before, drifting at the edge of it all, it had been painful, agonizing even.

He…adapted, eventually. The sense of it all was still there, just distant. Something he’d come to feel he’d see again, someday.

It had been different, recently.

His powers were the same, he just as fast as ever, but…there was something…off. Changed. A sense that while his speed remained, the Speedforce had become, for lack of a better word, quiet. Distant.

He’d been having dreams, since it started. Not the quick glimpses of his time where he’d merged with the Speedforce. No, instead they were more nightmarish. Not nightmares exactly, though he felt like they should be with what they contained, but something else. Something that felt unnervingly real, left him confused and reeling when he woke with the certainty that when he opened his eyes he’d see the same as what his dreams held.

In the dream, he was in a room.

Cement and metal, hostile and brutalistic in design. He was bound in place, standing upright with feet and hands spread wide and locked in place within strange devices. Gleaming chrome and brilliant green, a painful thrum of energy surging through his body - not the Speedforce, something else, deeply unpleasant pulsing through every cell of his being and freezing him in place more firmly then the restraints did. Projectors hung from the ceiling, displaying images of landscapes, changing every ten second or so.

The sight of them made him nauseous, body shivering and spasming with the burning, agonizing need to go, but at the same time there was something distantly soothed by them too. Like a gnawing hunger abated with water and crumbs. The need for food not gone but the pangs diminished by the false feeling of being full.

In the dream he felt like he was dying.

In the dream he was afraid that maybe he couldn’t.

That he’d be trapped alive in that state forever, watching places he’d never see in person again as he was trapped in one place. His mind spiraling his Core splintering under the weight of it all, scared so scared. He wanted his brother, wanted to see the cement walls explode into dust and debris and see him there, ready to save the day like he had so many times before.

He just had to wait. His brother was looking for him, would have everyone in the Realms looking for him. He just had to hold on.

Barry didn’t have a brother. He only remembered when he woke, heart hammering in his chest fast even by his own standards, mouth tasting of bile and body aching with the need to go.

He hadn’t been sleeping much these days, even before the King of the Dead declared war.

It was having its effects, as sleep deprivation always did. His mind drifting, catching again and again on the dream, attention far away from the world around him. How many times had he been startled by someone calling his name, touching his arm? How many times had they given him a pinched, worried look that told him they’d been trying to reach him for longer than they should have before he noticed.

He was aware, distantly, of the glowering, stern faces around him. The flinty looks of his friends’ and partners’ eyes as they stared at the image of Waller’s scowling mug.

She’d declined an in-person meeting, hunkering down in some bunker somewhere trying to avoid the consequences of her latest atrocities. Or maybe just trying to avoid the very real possibility that one of the members of JL Dark might try to kill her for what she’s caused.

Or JL light, for that matter.

Bruce and Clark had their rules that they lived by, but Diana certainly wouldn’t hesitate to splatter Waller’s brains across the nearest available wall. In reviewing footage of one of the last battles - she’d been at the other one at the time, trying to contend with a ghost in the shape of an ethereal dragon - she’d recognized the spectral figures of Amazons long dead, fierce even in death as they fought with a warrior’s pride along side the rest of Phantom’s armies. They followed a figure that towered even above the Amazons, four arms and gleaming armor and a name that Barry associated with ruin and forgotten hope but who was so much more to Diana. Heroes long departed to the fields of Elysium, stepping out of their well earned rest to fight once more.

A few hadn’t survived the weapons the GIW shot them with. Barry didn’t know what that meant, for a ghost to die. If they simply returned to their afterlife or -

He tried not to think about the or.

They’d been going back and forth for awhile now. Voices faraway, muffled. The world felt as if it was underwater, blurred and cold. Clark had gotten to his feet at some point, Waller’s grip on a pen so tight on the screen he expected to see if burst at any moment. It was an important meeting, an important discussion. One he needed to be apart of, aware of, but it all escaped him. Sand held too tightly, slipping through his fingers. On the screen, Waller hit a button on the computer beside her and the image changed.

The world burned back to life in sharp relief.

The dream.

The room.

Cold cement. Projections of unreachable places on the walls. Chrome and green machinery in a configuration meant to contain.

It looked larger on the screen.

Maybe it was how small the figure held prisoner inside it was.

She was young. A child, no older than Superboy Jr. or Robin. She looked like Phantom - her father - but there were differences. Her hair was white, but it didn’t look like the spun starlight of her father’s. Instead it burned, the bright hot crackling of the plasma of a lighting bolt striking. Skin the blur of shapes caught just at the corner of the eye as you ran past, Eyes -

Looking at him.

The image had come up, a live feed - he knew it was live, knew he was looking at her where she was at that exact moment - and she’d been as he was every time he tried to sleep. Trembling and shuttering, eyes squinting against the pain, trying to stay open so as not to miss a single moment of the flat images imposed on blank cement walls. Desperate to fill the fathomless hunger burning deep down in the Core of her.

But then a shuttering breath and her eyes - the burning green of an afterimage - snapped up to the camera. Snapped up to look at him, recognition in her young face. And despite never having seen this girl before, he recognized her too.

The Speedforce lived beneath his skin.

She lived beneath his skin.

He could feel her there. Buzzing, burning, blistering. Not painful, but felt.

Not as felt as she used to be.

The image snapped back to Waller’s face, smug and self-satisfied. Talking - lying - about the how the girl was there, what the GIW’s intentions for her were. Barry was on his feet, but so was everyone else. He couldn’t hear what they were saying, could only hear static, the rush of wind, the crack of the lightning bolt. A call for help.

It was then that the alarms began to blare. On the screen someone rushed in to whisper into Waller’s ear. Bruce was running out of the room towards the Zeta tubes and Barry was right there with him and there was so much chaos around them, men in white and Gothamites and Ghosts banding together to rain terror down upon them and something massive and horrible and living towering above it all and Barry let go of that last bits of logic and thought.

Instinct, older than he was. The echo of a voice that had called him for years now, carrying him along, biding him forward:

Run.

Someone might have shouted after him as he left Gotham behind. He didn’t know.

All he knew was the pounding of his feet upon the ground, the wind in his face, the Speedforce lashing and frantic and hopeful burning and sizzling beneath his skin. Calling him further and further away until he stood in a vast, empty field staring at a single, rusted shack near ready to collapse before him.

He wasn’t alone.

Wally. Bart. Max. More still. Not just his family and friends. Eobard. Hunter. Thaddeus. Everyone touched by the Speedforce.

They didn’t speak. Bodies humming and thrumming, crackling with energy and intent.

Minds as one, they focused on the shed, the hidden hatch inside, the base hidden deep below.

The Speedforce lived beneath their skin, and no one was going to steal it away from them.

#dpxdc #dc x dp #dp x dc #barry allen #justice league #flashfam #dani phantom #danielle phantom #elle phantom #ancient of the speedforce elle #ever onward elle #amanda waller #eldritch speedforce #kinda #unsettling speedforce at the very least #cut to 20 minutes later to all of the speedsters & Elle at a waffle house having the world's most awkward family reunion #Dick gets a call from his bank about his card being used to buy several thousand dollars worth of breakfast food in another state #& immediate calls Wally like #Dick: YOU TOOK OFF IN THE MIDDLE OF A FULL ON WAR IN GOTHAM TO GO GET WAFFLES?#(because of course he gave Wally his card - he's bought Wally a god damn expensive ass apartment they're basically married)#Dick: I THOUGHT YOU WERE BEING MIND CONTROLLED #Wally: ....sorta? But like...in a good way?#Dick: How can there POSSIBLY be a good way of being mind controlled?!#Wally: you know what actually I'm gonna make our new mom explain this one #Dick: ...WHAT DOES THAT *MEAN*???

1K notes · View notes