shimmer and rot at the same time

thursdayverse: frank and pete

2009-11-05T10:27:44Z

Okay, so people asked and people asked and I flaked and flaked because no fucker (erm, character-wise) would talk to me then Derek told me to do it so:

Q. Why do Thursdayverse Frank and Pete hate each other?

A. (Before Thursday Kids, before there's even a Patrick on Pete's scene):

Pete finds a dog eating out of his garbage. It wags its tail at him when he comes near with half an old, crusty hamburger in hand. It's the first time he's seen the sunlight in a week, he's messy haired and bruise-eyed and he's got cuts on the knuckles and knees from where he broke a mirror in his bathroom, then knelt down in it and couldn't be bothered getting up. The dog sits with its head on his lap when he parks himself on the couch thinking about keeping the brute, watches its warm drool stain his dirty jeans. Thing is, Pete had dogs when he was a kid. Some of his best memories of home (maybe his only good ones) are playing with his two big brown shaggy dogs, so when he sees the collar on the dog, reads his name (Hemmingway) and the number engraved under it, he can't bring himself to keep the dog. All he can see is some kid, sad and lonely (like him, just like him) crying about his lost doggy. So he calls the number. The guy on the other end says there's a reward for the dog and Pete decides that, yeah, he's going to get up and leave the house. He's scatterbrained and so low he hadn't thought he'd ever bother to again, so the name Iero doesn't ring a ding ding a single bell in his head. He hands Hemmingway over to a guy called Frank, who is as short as he is, hot, bouncy, with scabbed knuckles Pete doesn't ask about. He pats Hemmingway on the head and feels the sun on his back, he feels lighter than he has in days, weeks. Frank hands Pete a fifty, lets the dog hop up into the back of his van (marked with the name of a restaurant Pete's sure he knows for some reason), and then leans out the driver's side window and tells Pete he should come on down to the parking lot behind Charlie's, tell the guy at the gate Frank sent him.

Pete goes.

Pete sees Hemmingway ripped top to tail by another dog, a big black Mastiff, spilling guts and yelps.

Pete stumbles out into the slap of cold air night sweating sickly and feeling the black close in on his head. Frank leans against the brick wall next to the metal door that leads into the walled off lot, smoking. There's another guy standing with him, glasses reflecting the cherry of his smoke, the yellow light above the door, opaque.

Pete smiles.

"Your family owns the Tuscany, right?" Pete asks, thinking of the van. He doesn't tackle Frank, smash his face into the bricks. He smiles, empty as he feels, but big, big and white in the low light.

Frank says yes.

Pete smiles, waves.

Frank hates when people break into the Tuscany. Mostly because of Pete. Pete only does it once, though, but he makes sure to piss in every single place he can think of that'll fuck them up worst.

He finds Frank at Charlie's again, doesn't go in the gate (can't), just waits outside winking at the bouncer and watching him tense up for kicks until Franks walks out, smoking.

"Hear your restaurant didn't pass its last health inspection," Pete says, bouncing on his toes, ready to move.

"The fuck you talking about?" Frank asks, distractedly taking a draw on his smoke.

"Too much piss in the bisque."

(For the record, Frank likes dogs and doesn't like running the fights, that's why he goes out and smokes while the fights actually happen-- he doesn't like to watch. He's got the job as a punishment for bad behavior and a lesson from his family about money).

MOAR THURSDAYVERSE COSPLAY!

2009-10-04T07:27:32Z

The last bits.

Fuck.

I can't even how can I even what can I evennnnn.

&MYFANDOM;.

&HEARTS;.

Thursdayverse: remix.

2009-09-25T12:30:21Z

The Thursdayverse Remix. It's a WIP and it won't be finished, which is basically my fault. This is both proof I'm a jerk and moar Thursdayverse! Only it's the Remix. Which basically means "we broke everything and people seem to universally agree it is even darker than the original".

It's stuffed with bits from plotchatting with Derekles, which amuses me, in amongst her attempts to actually get it written, which are very shiny. Go read it for her freakishly creepy Gabe POV, at least. Or her note perfect TV!Bert.

100 icons (marvel, dcu, hellblazer, inglourious basterds, bandom, hcl and misc).

2009-09-22T11:12:09Z

Marvel:
1. 2. 3.
4. 5. 6.
7. 8. 9.
10. 11. 12.
13.

Inglourious Basterds:
14. 15.
16. 17. 18.
19. 20. 21.
22. 23. 24.
25. 26. 27.
28. 29. 30.
31.

Bandom (TU, MCR, FOB):
32. 33.
34. 35. 36.
37. 38. 39.
40. 41. 42.
43. 44. 45.
46. 47. 48.
49. 50. 51.
52. 53. 54.
55. 56. 57.
58.

DCU & Hellblazer:
59. 60.
61. 62. 63.
64. 65. 66.
67. 68. 69.
70. 71. 72.
73. 74. 75.
76.

Hard Core Logo:
77. 78.
79. 80. 81.

Misc:
82. 83. 84.
85. 86. 87.
88. 89. 90.
91. 92. 93.
94. 95. 96.
97. 98. 99.
100.

Take whatever you like, credit is nice, comments are nicer!

I can't believe that just fuckin' happened!

2009-09-03T08:49:25Z

OMMFG.

I CAME.

Er. UNEXPECTEDLY VERY EXCITED ABOUT THIS NOW.

WILL THIS LIVE UP TO THE TRAILER?

PROBABLY NOT.

WILL IT LIVE UP TO THE BRILLIANCE THAT IS THE FIRST FILM?

HELL NO.

BUT RIGHT NOW: I'M SO EXCITED I COULD WEE.

content has been replaced by links and everyone knows it goes cow-horse-zebra-unicorn-pegasus-god*

2009-09-01T12:54:08Z

I have no idea I was looking at back posts, but this was posted directly after Dan chatting on Kyte and ahahaha, omg: because dan and jepha are dating and quinn's beard gives dan pash rash.

I STILL need the Frenzal Rhomb song "World's Fuckedest Cunt". ANYBODY?

Re-read valerie_z's oldie but goodie Bert/Quinn primer: (BERT): The first day we met was special; he's just one of those people that you meet in your life that's special. You know you're going to be with this person forever and you know you're going to be close to that person.

AND AND: QUINN: He was in some stuff with his parents, he just needed some space away from his parents, 'cause he was trying to go clean but he was at his parents' house and it was kind of dragging him down. So I was like, "Why don't you come stay in my bedroom?" And we had great times just staying up every single night, like just underneath the stars, going to get quarter sodas, walking around town, talking, just getting to know one another--we just hit it off like that. Jamming on the piano and the guitar...you know, he's like one of the best friends that I've ever had.

Yeah, just. Yep. THEEEEM.

I've no idea why Hal Sparks tweeting at Jepha pleases me so much, but it does.

BERT AND GERARD! MCR AND THE USED! Don't go breaking my heeeeeeeart, oh god. A picspam from morebliss in reply to Frank's twitter about Artwork (sadface).

Joespam!

Bobspam!

There were other meme related picspams that I either missed accidentally or would have linked to if they were unlocked, too &picturememe;.

Writers resource I've barely had a chance to look at, but seems very shiny!

This music video gave me glee today: "Sinnerman" by Extra Fancy. Lead singer is a skinheadesque punk who apparently, according to this video, doubles as a male prostitute in his spare time. BOYKISSING. Queerpunk! Queercore? I know not the name for this genre. I know only that it reminds me of HCL, except far more overtly gay.

This gave me the D:< today: Harley Quinn character design. It's awful, and as someone pointed out in the comments of ix_tab's post, the "naughty nurse" thing is spectacularly stupid. Harley Quinn was an actual doctor, it's part of her character, not her costume. FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF--

And then I just about WEE'D MYSELF LAUGHING AT BRIAN BLESSED'S TVTROPES PAGE A A:SJD:ALjAY;ashdh ahahahahaha.

Cue me being stuck on TVTropes for a... long... long time. You know what I love? A good Heroic Sociopath! Rorschach! Deadpool! Midnighter! (Or... all of The Authority), :DDDDDD <333. Anyway. Lost a lot of time just there. (... Batman)!

This XKCD COMIC SHOULD BE REAL LIFE. YOUTUBE COMMENTS: MY ARCH NEMESISESESISIES.

*BEN IS A GENIUS

[ETA]: I, too, find this extremely comforting, T-Rex!

shiny shiny writing resource pimpin'

2009-08-31T10:05:26Z

BANDOM HEIGHT CHART! This is a MOST EXCELLENT resource and also kind of hilarious, if you look directly between Bert and Josh Homme. Or like, Bert and anyone there. Oh, Bert, you are a tiny tiny man <3.

It also clears up some common mistakes people may make *coughIwon'ttalkaboutDan'sheightagaincough*.

AND IT'S REALLY ATTRACTIVE. Because that's how apiphile rolls.

picture meme!

2009-08-30T12:33:23Z

Picture meme, stolen from intothenightx. I GOTS JEPHAREE.

For the record, I could fill this out another TEN TIMES for Jepha, so none of these answers are totally perfect! And serious. SERIOUSLY. I had more than one option for every single one.

1. Choose a picture of the funniest face on your person.

2. Choose a picture of your person eating.

3. Choose a picture of your person with an animal.

4. Choose a picture of your person with a member of the opposite sex.

5. Choose a picture where you would have sex with this person.

6. Choose a picture of your favorite outfit on this person.

7. Choose a picture of your person smiling.

8. Choose a picture of your person half/naked.

9. Choose a picture of your person doing an outdoor activity.

~~10. Choose your favorite picture of this person.~~
NO.

That last one is impossible. Ask me for one if you want to play!

ducks! ducks! quackquack quackquack

2009-08-20T12:33:51Z

In which my camera's fail actually makes some very pretty light textures and also I gave myself a half sleeve with pen the other day that is mostly made up of references to fic:

My arm says to tell me stories.

Things it says that you can read or partially read: JALAPENO, COME ON RICK, GUTS, KET TO LOCK, DITCH DRUG USE (haha, get it? Drug use. Ditch.), YOUR MOM, don't be a fuckass FUCKASS, this could turn horror movie, joke epiphany sex (I realised the structure of all my fics, heh), TEETH, I have told you a BILLION TIMES not to exaggerate, Thursday Kid, like the blood in you. There was a lot of other stuff too. You can fit a lot on arms. Also, the idea of a full sleeve of words appeals to my a disturbing amount, maybe moreso after seeing my own shitty scribbles.

By the time I walked home tonight it was dark. Middle of the highway.

More highway? My camera sucks, but that is pretty for icon textures etc.

Walking beside highway.

More texture.

And I walked through the park (not QUITE a bad as it sounds, the park is basically across the road from my house and it was barely 7 p.m.) on the way back, so had to sit on a swing in the dark like a weirdo, obviously.

Oh yeah, and here's the question: MYSTERIES OF LIFE FIRST: What are they doing at night in the park?
DUCKS, DUCKS

And here's the answer.

They were pretty creepy, actually, hunkered down in the middle of the lawn, watching me and quacking quietly.

I am a neverending fuckwit

2009-08-19T11:19:10Z

AH! I just realised, I swear to go I am so stupidly forgetful sometimes, that I forgot to thank 7iris in my fic header's notes (have fixed that now).

FFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUU--

Consider this post entirely dedicated to expressing my gratitude to 7iris for being extremely helpful in looking over my fic for me AND for running the whole damn Usedfic Exchange, which made my week.

Which, by the way, there are too many things I loved there to link to individually, but please to be checking out llamapi's, ihavecake's, apiphile's, sinsense's and friggin' everything else there. OH AND graceoftheworld's. And everything. That's just from memory, which we have established is faulty and should be deleted and re-installed.

I DON'T BELIEVE IT!

2009-08-18T08:23:24Z

Is Quinn from Daria supposed to have red hair? I bet Ret a dollar she was blonde and she came back at me with this:

The one on the left is my hair, which uh, obviously is red.

SERIOUSLY?

DO I ACTUALLY OWE HER A DOLLAR NOW?

Aw, maaaaaaaaaaaaan.

okay, this is not aimed at anyone in particular

2009-08-17T13:09:07Z

But for the re-hee-heckcord, Dan Whitesides isn't actually very tall. Large handed, buff drummerly arms, actually taller than everyone else in the band/possibly equal with Quinn (man, The Used need to do a photoshoot where they all stand in a straight line and no one slouches) and did I mention his arms and apparently the strongest dude Quinn knows, yes'm, but he doesn't tower over his band and I don't think that "big" is really an accurate description of the dude (and he has manly chicken legs <3). EXAMPLE:

Not the best example in the world, because he's actually slumping slightly there, but srsly. And I also understand someone feeling like they're bigger than they are etc. etc. and obviously that could be used as good characterization in fic, but just. He's not huge. He's not a huge big big huge dude.

Except, of course, in his pants.

This has been a PSA by Jess for annoying pedantic fangirls inc.

In other news: OH HAY STEVEN, I'MMA STHAB YOUUU ahahahaha moving on.

Beats, Wings (usedfic exchange).

2009-08-16T04:17:56Z

Title: Beats, Wings.
Author: swear_jar (Jess).
Rating: NC-17.
Fandom: The Used.
Pairing(s)/character(s): Dan/Jepha.
Warnings/Notes: Wingfic (clearly both a note and a warning), crack, D/s. For of_evangeline in the usedfic exchange, for the request Dan/Jepha + wingfic (+ the puppies one, sort of, because I could). Just about 14, 000 words. VERY big thanks to 7iris for beta reading and running the exchange!
Summary: Dan talks to his dogs and Jepha Howard makes him lose his goddamn rhythm.

---

Dan is at home, kicking back and steadily putting beers away to the sneaker squeaks and commentary of the basketball game he's not really watching. He's got Frankie's head in his lap, one hand petting her soft cheek, and his other hand on the mousepad of his laptop. His left foot is steadily rubbing Clementine's stomach, pushing her around like a smelly mop as she wheezes happily. He’s technically doing four things at once, but he still hasn't succeeded in distracting his brain from thinking about how soon they'll be back on tour. Thinking about it doesn’t help, it’s a watched pot that won’t give up its beer and fun.

He's pretty sure that's Jepha's fault. Which brings him neatly back to the other thing he's trying to distract himself from: thinking about Jepharee Howard. Preferably, and frustratingly, naked. His brain spirals off in eight different directions at once and he loses his pet-pet-scritch rhythm abruptly. Clem snorts indignantly and rolls over, graceful as a tortoise that's been hit by a car.

Jepha Howard makes him lose his goddamn rhythm.

Not even Jepha Howard, though, just thinking about him. Ree-hee-dick-ulous. "Sorry, girl," he says to Clem in a stupid dog-talk voice. "Not my fault. Next time you see Jepha, you bite him in the ass." He's talked to them about Jepha and his utterly ridiculous crush (tee-hee, teenage word, because that’s how it makes him feel. Stupid, stupid, stupid)-- he talks to them about everything-- silly voiced and smushing their faces up so their teeth show and their tongues loll like they're laughing at his stupid human problems. "Whine whine whiiiine," he sing-songs the last word, off key and as high pitched as he can. Frankie lifts her head from his lap and jumps off the couch shaking her head. "I know," he calls after her, "I know, 'don't do it, Dan, think of the band, Dan, think of the awkwardness, Dan, think of the annnngst when he inevitably rejects you, Dan'," he says in Frankie-voice. What he assumes Frankie would sound like, anyway, which is something like a femme version of Grover from Sesame Street.

Clem sits at his feet and cocks her head, her boggle eyes wide and her smushed up face like a perpetually angry baby.

"You are a Hottie McBody, little miss Clem." She cocks her head at him and Dan opens a tab on his browser. "How bad would it be on a scale of woof to woof if I searched 'gay tattooed flexible sub porn'?"

"That's it."

Dan jumps violently enough his laptop slides to the floor with a bang and slams shut.

"Hello?" He says, then feels completely stupid. It was probably just a banner ad or something and he's left his speakers up too high again. His heart beats triple time in his chest anyway. He leans down to pick the computer back up, not particularly worried for its safety, it’s been through worse--

"Dan. It's me. Clem. Hi, hello? Look down.”

Dan looks down.

“Yes, I'm a talking pug,” Clementine says from where she's sitting on the floor at his feet, looking up at him calmly. “Get your shit in a sock and could you please blink."

"Whatthefuck," Dan manages to breathe out but finds his throat is closing around any further attempts at breathing or talking or thinking, why is there a talking pug and rapidly after that too much weed, too much weed, I hate my band.

Clementine rolls her googly eyes at him.

A mysterious wind blows through the room and her little voice rises, echoing ominously: "Let me reveal my true self to you, let me show you... what I truly am..." and she rises in the air, slowly, before there's a sound like a hokey home made windchime and a blinding flash.

When Dan can finally see again, there's a rain of pink glitter and Clementine is still hovering in the air. He coughs and scrunches up his nose, which he's pretty sure he's going to be picking sparkling snot out of for days. When his throat and chest finally feel less like they're trapped under a ten ton weight, he manages: "You're... still a pug."

"But notice my wings!" She spins around in the air with a snorting wet grunt and he notices her translucent wings, like a. Like a pug. With wings. "I am a fairy." She snorts and her jowls wobble, he thinks she raises her chinless head in the air a little, trying to look dignified, but mostly looking like a Chihuahua that's run face first into its doggie door. With glitter.

"I don't--" and he has no idea how to finish that sentence in the face of her big eyed, sparkly winged, wheezing... fairy. Pug. Ness.

"DAN!" She talks over him, flying a little loop in the air that looks and sounds like a lot of effort: she's bumblebee-like, fat-bodied with her sparkly clear wings and looks just as aerodynamically impossible. "Shut up. The other fairy-dogs and I have been talking and we've decided we're all sick of hearing you whine about Jepha, so I'm going to do you a favour."

“Are… my other dogs fairies?” Dan asks, because that would be. Intense.

“What are you, stupid? No. Now let me get on with this!” She hovers closer to him, unsteady in the air. Closer. Close enough her pushed in nose is almost touching his, her ears brushing the brim of his cap.

And then she sneezes in his face.

A snotrocket of pink glitter explodes over Dan.

Dan flinches away and makes a sound something like he does when Bert's snotted all over him, the indignant squawk of the snottee. The difference here is he can't actually throw Clem over his shoulder and spin her around until she hiccoughs and screams she's going to puke. He’s not actually sure that she wouldn’t just disappear like a mirage if he touched her.

"What. What did you do?" Dan wipes a handful of gooey pink glitter flecked snot from his face and makes his way to the bathroom to clean the rest off in case fairy snot can turn you blind or something. Clem follows him down the hallway on her feet, wings wobbling along with her rolls of back-fat, seeming to prefer to waddle than fly. He pushes open the door and pauses, abrupt and swaying as he catches sight of himself in the bathroom mirror.

He has.

Wings.

Huge, white wings.

---

"Ahem," Clementine clears her throat.

When Dan finally tears his eyes away from his reflection, from where his shirt has been torn by his wings, he realises Clem is hovering next to his ear, panting anxiously like she does when it thunders and she gets scared.

He pets her head absently for a second and she drips drool onto his shoulder. Then he realises what he's going and pulls his hand away like it's been burned.

"What did you do?" Visions of not being able to tour are dancing through his head, and even putting the awkward tempting torturous fun that’s flirting with Jepha aside, he would rather cut off a finger than miss touring the new album. He misses his band, he misses the road, he misses playing.

"Don't worry," she says, darting away and almost banging into the shower stall, "I just gave you wings.”

“What. Yeah. Why worry? Why?” Dan attempts to put forward all the things he wants to ask in one sentence and is aware of his failure, but utterly unable to make more words.

“To help you. Don’t worry, they won’t get in the way," she says, almost as if she’s reading his mind, “no one will even know they’re there. Except, of course, true love.” And she flutters out of the room rising and falling in the air with the effort.

He wants to say, true love? I just want to fuck him, but she’s already gone, dripping pink glitter and drool as she rises and falls flying out of the door.

---

He gets used to the wings. Clementine was right when she said only "true love" could see them-- at least, no one has seen them yet (he's still not sold on the concept of True Sparkly Warkly Lovey Wovey. Bert, he thinks, would be sold, but Bert has a Quinn, and a Sparkly Warkly Snotty Wotty Spoogey Woogey— Dan’s pretty sure Bert believes in it, is the point).

People just... don't notice him cramming himself into cars, walking down the street, stretching and yawning and realising he’s touching the goddamn roof, whereas he watches as huge white fluffy wings overflow onto laps and brush hair and fit places they never really should. It's strange feeling and seeing something that no one else can apparently see or feel, but. He just gets on with it.

And by "gets on with it", he means "runs to his kit the first chance he gets and makes sure they aren't going to affect how he plays", which they don't. The second thing he does is use the feathers on the snare: he's unsteady with the wings, but they could, potentially, do some freaky-amazing shit for his drumming. They end up working something like a really soft brush.

So by the time the tour rolls around, he's had a week to get used to being treated exactly the same as before. Re-get used to. Readjust to not having to readjust.

He flies from home to L.A.

A white feather floats down through the air and into the airplane food that's really not as bad as people always complain it is. Dan waits for the person next to him to eat around it or through it, or however this magic shit works, but the woman next to him pauses. Blinks. Picks the long feather out of her food, dripping thick brown sauce.

Dan blinks at her when she looks at him, glances at the way half his wing is on top of her curly haired head and she apparently doesn't notice it at all.

"Huh." He says. Wiggles his wings so they ruffle her hair violently. She doesn't notice.

She laughs a little heh, shrugs, not interested enough to put any thought into the mystery feather, just places it down on her tray table.

---

Dan's kind of thankful to have left the dogs at home for once. Mostly Clem. It's hard to get used to the idea that his cute little dog, the one who’d scratched to get up on his bed while he was jerking off that one time was actually… a fairy.

One thing's for sure: he is also never taking a shit with the door open while the dogs are around again. Despite Clem telling him his other dogs were just dogs.

He drags his suitcase pok pok pok over the driveway that leads to the expensive, ugly L.A. house Quinn's been renting while they recorded. He waves to one of their tech's who's hanging around out the front smoking and gets a salute back. Tour starts today. He kind of wants to sing a stupid song about it, so when he rap-rappity-raps on the door and Quinn answers he brushes past him singing the beginnings of a song he’s pretty sure he’s going to call I Like Touring Bitches (lyrics so far "touring on a bus, just you and me and us, don't want to make a fuss," and somehow he's going to get the word "gas" in there even if it has to rhyme with "gus"). When he turns around, letting his bag fall thump on the tiles, strangely loud, to give Quinn a hug, Quinn is-- standing frozen in the doorway, staring at him.

QUINN?, his mind supplies at roughly the same time his mouth supplies "Quinn?"

Your true love can't be someone you've seen throw up down their own shorts (unhelpfully, his next thought is I've never seen Jepha throw up. I have seen him drink Bert's piss because Quinn dared him to and do nothing more than lie down and quietly groan before passing out. It’s just that that’s still impressive, is all).

"Hey," Quinn says, and points at a point over Dan's shoulder where he should absolutely not be able to see wings, where he is definitely not seeing wings, because he is not Dan’s true love. "Nice wings."

"What?" Dan says, stupidly.

"These are so cool," Quinn's pushed himself off the doorframe and Dan's wondering, mostly, why Quinn isn't freaking out-- until Quinn walks around behind him and puts a hand on his back, warm and rough, right where his wings push through the tears he's made in his shirt, and abruptly yells "FUCK," right in Dan's ear.

They both jump and Dan's spins around quick enough Quinn ends up crouching with a hand over his head and before Dan's even finished trying to regain his balance there's an awkward augh and a thud and he finds himself looking down at Bert, who has a handful of feathers (the stinging registers with the thought that oh, those are his).

"Bert?" Dan says.

"You have wings," Bert says, propping himself up on his elbows and looking between where Dan's standing, wings and arms spread out like he's walking on a tightrope, and the fistful of feathers that dwarf his small fingers. Bert inspects the sharp ends that were recently buried in Dan's borrowed (gifted?) flesh, red-tipped. "Hey, can you play with them?"

"Yeah, they work something like soft brushes—wait, no, why can you see them?”

“Because I have eyes, you dumbass?” Bert asks, still reclining on the floor as if he’d lay down deliberately.

"They're real?" Quinn asks. He shuffles over to Bert on his knees, steals a feather from him, then stands up and pulls Bert up. "How did you get on the plane? What the fuck?"

"No one can see them," Dan says. Except. Abruptly, he wants to know what's gone wrong and wishes he'd made some kind of excuse to bring Clem with him-- if he'd said she was really sick, there's no doubt the guys would have let him bring her. But it was all working the way she’d said, before. If this is who can see-- who else can-- and what the hell else is wrong? "Weirder shit has happened." Dan says, defensive and trying to convince himself.

"Yeah, on acid," Quinn says. He circles Dan like he's inspecting a horse, brushing his fingers lightly over Dan's feathers, which is a pleasant sensation, something like having his head scratched, but more removed. "Also, hate to tell you," Quinn says, and reaches out tentatively to touch first with his fingertips, the wrap his hand over the top of his left wing more firmly, like he's holding a guitar at the neck, pushing his fingers into the feathers.

"No one's supposed to see them. No one but my... true love," Dan feels his face go redder than Bert's eyes after a dozen bowls. Because he's already digging and he's pretty sure he's got to hit bottom soon, he figures he might as well finish his sentence "A fairy... told me."

“Hate CRIME,” Bert gasps, clutching his hand to his chest.

Quinn snorts, waiting for Dan to jump in and confirm he’s joking. Waiting. Waiting.

"Knock knock," Dan says, taking mercy on them all.

"Who's there?" Bert ventures.

"I have to go lock myself in the bathroom now."

"YOUR JOKE SUCKS," Quinn shouts after him. "WORSE THAN YOUR MOM."

“WHAT THE FUCK?” Bert adds, echoing after Dan though the hall.

Dan locks himself in the bathroom.

---

The bathroom here, despite having only been occupied by Bert, Jepha, Quinn and a handful of others for less than a week this time, smells like the combined piss scent of the band and their crew, the smell of a whole lot of guys who drink more tea, energy drinks and beer than water.

It's actually a soothing kind of miasma for Dan, who's been on work sites and touring with bunches of guys for his whole living memory, it's familiar, it's homey, it's... burning his nostrils a little, but that's okay. Dan spins around as fast as he can and attempts slamming the door hopefully not on any part of himself. He spits "fuck," at his shoes as he feels the bend in his wing get caught behind the shower curtain rail, and hears a splash as the long feathers at the tips his wing go plunging into the toilet bowl. He isn’t exactly stuck, but he can’t be bothered attempting to move yet, other than to crane his neck and see how wet his feathers were getting. Which is very and unluckily kind of yellow-tinged.

He sighs and his wings sag, pushing the left further into the toilet.

"Clementine. Witchdog."

He looks at himself in the mirror, takes in his old Utah Jazz shirt, faded black to grey, jeans, his hat that's low enough over his eyes to cover them, then the white monstrosity of the wings behind him, exploding out larger than life and twice as ridiculous.

They're actually, growing piss stain notwithstanding, pretty cool looking. Otherworldly. Maybe beautiful, Dan thinks. They're a week old and already not as white as they were, but still. He feels like they'd suit Jepha more, not so shocking because they’re (pretty) weird like Jepha is, or Bert, who you'd accept the strangest things from without question, or even Quinn, fractionally taller than Dan and certainly more angelic. Or whatever.

"Clem, goddamn it." He rubs his face vigorously until it almost hurts. "You wrinkly little fuckup." Quinn is NOT his true love, he loves Quinn, but-- and Bert. Just--

There's an explosion of pink glitter than makes Dan cough violently and wave his arms, and his wings jostle the shower curtain rail hard enough it jerks half out of the wall on one side, which only sends more glitter up swirling through the air and up his nose.

Clementine appears on the bathroom cabinet, vigorously humping a cushion.

"Clem!" He's seen her do this a thousand times, but now that she can talk, it's somehow really, really not on. "No!"

She humps a final time and there's another explosion of glitter.

"Did you just--"

"Cram it, Daniel. You've jerked off while I was on the bed before," she says, tongue lolling out in a post-coital pant. "It's your own fault for calling me."

"That doesn't help." ("Daniel", he thinks. She sounds like. His. Mother).

If a pug can shrug, then shrug this pug did (Dan wonders if he could say that ten times fast). Okay. This isn't the point. Now she's here, however that works, he's got to ask her.

"Quinn is NOT my true love. Bert is not my true love. Either you fucked up or you're evil or something, and if you are, so help me, I will have you put down."

"You would not," she rolls her eyes, which makes her look like a googly-eyed toy muppet a three year old is shaking. "And I'm not evil, thank you ever so much, it's just sometimes magic, well. Magic is as magic does."

"What does that mean?"

"'True' and 'sexual' love aren't mutually exclusive, are they? As good as I am, and I am good, I just give you the wings." She puts her paw to her mouth, the single least dog like gesture she's displayed yet, and Dan stares as she taps her jowls with her claw.

"So what you're saying is you have no idea who's going to see these?"

"Are you hurt, Dan?” She asks, dropping her paw and her thoughtful expression. “Are you dying?"

"What?" He is so completely confused. "No?"

"Then figure it out yourself." And she disappears in an orgy of pink glitter, leaving a slightly soiled couch cushion behind. Dan lets his head falls heavily onto it, then jerks away and wipes his face vigorously with his hand. Urgh, lady dog fairy spooge.

---

So Bert and Quinn can see his wings. Clem’s theories are both interesting and utterly unhelpful. If he had to pick, though, and he feels like he should for his own sanity decide what he fuck is going on, he’d say that maybe the wings don’t separate true love of the “I love you, man” variety from true love of the “I want in your ass, man” variety. He… kind of hopes Bert and Quinn don’t actually want his ass. Even thinking it, though, makes him cough out a laugh. So the wings are confused. Okay. So is he. It’s all going to be okay.

Dan stomach still does a triple half pike goddamn backflip then plays a super fast roll on the inside of his ribs when he opens the bathroom door and finds Jepha standing there, hand raised to knock.

"Hey, Jeph-a-ree," Dan says. Maybe the little ruffle of his feathers is on purpose, but he's not really aware he's shaking his wings out and resettling them until it's done. Like fixing his hair. Like an idiot.

Jepha’s eyes go wide, and he ends up sitting cross legged on the floor with a bump.

"How's the floor doing?" Dan adds.

"Hey, Danaree," Jepha says, autopilot, eyes on Dan's wings, not Dan's face. "It's pretty. Awesome. What the fuck, Quinn said. How the-- they're fucking. Awesome." Jepha blinks, then laughs like he knows just how badly he failed at whole sentences. He's looking at Dan's face again, when Dan drags his eyes away from the rest of Jepha, timing perfect, so Jepha misses Dan's eyes taking in the dirty collar of Jepha's shirt, down to his unbuttoned buttons.

The bathroom door slams shuts with a bang behind him and they both jolt. Jepha's shakes his head and smiles back and Dan. Dan holds out a hand and Jepha lets himself be tugged up, bouncing lightly on his feet. They're what should be awkwardly close together-- but it's Jepha, and despite the fact that Dan feels the urge to put his palm over the back of Jepha's neck and pull until Jepha's face turns up and-- he doesn't. They stay close, though.

He expects a hug, now, but Jepha just mirrors Quinn and thrusts a hand into Dan's feathers, reaching over his shoulder, presser close up against him to reach. Dan ignores that, and focuses on the feeling of fingers he knows are rough-padded petting smoothly through his feathers. He glances at Jepha's other hand, some and a dissected dagger, and Dan’s fingers still curled, cuffed around his wrist.

Dan lowers his eyes to the wide v of Jepha's open shirt again, tattoos, tattoos, chest hair that’s been grown out for a surprisingly long time. Dan wonders when Jepha will re-discover his love affair with waxing. He screws his eyes shut and tells himself he has to move now. Jepha can pet him later. Without his breath on Dan's neck, his wrist between Dan's fingers. Dan readjusts his grip and tugs at Jepha's hand.

"You're naked, Mr. Howard."

"Huh?" Jepha says, just a nothing noise, not really listening.

"I can see your nee-pples," Dan sing songs and tugs Jepha's wrist again.

Jepha laughs and lets Dan spin him, twirling easily like they're dancing, under his arm.

"I can see your wings," Jepha says, at arms length, his wrist still (conspicuously, very conspicuously, Jepha's eyes don't go to the connection, and Dan wonders if that's just Jepha being Jepha or if he's avoiding looking, like Dan is—over-thinking, over-thinking--) between Dan's fingers, so Dan says the first thing that comes to mind:

"Are you calling me a chicken? Because that's not on, man. That's just not on," faux-solemn outrage dripping from his words. He lets go of Jepha’s wrist while they’re laughing.

---

Touring, touring, is never boring-- the Ramo-knees (and he needs to stop referring to them as that inside his own head before he says it out loud one day) were right, it's just that occasionally it's. Slow.

Slow is okay, though. Slow means Bert lying around reading, somehow still unexpected and weirdly relaxing to see, and Quinn noodling around on his guitar, and Jepha playing video games until all of them end up knowing the storyline, character names and always how well or shitty Jepha is doing. It means time to practice pointless, awesome shit like his stick-tricks, or film stupid shit to put up on Kyte for the fans. It means time to establish if Dan can fly or not (not. His ankle barely hurts).

They’ve all settled into the wings, but the bus presents a slight learning curve; it’s okay when your leg twitches in your sleep or while you’re jerking off, but it’s not okay when your wings twitch so hard you give Quinn a bloody nose from across the bunks. Quinn’s blood is still smeared dry and flaky in his feathers, just out of his reach.

Bert is reading a book, for some obscure reason, he's crammed himself into Quinn's bunk, where Quinn is (was, Dan assumes) attempting to nap. The bunk curtain is only half shut, and when Dan glances over, all he can see is a shadowy tangle of feet. They're being suspiciously quiet-- which either means they're sleeping or doing their mind-meld thing. Or, possibly, making out.

BertandQuinn are a thing outside of definitions. Dan wouldn't call them boyfriends, they wouldn't call themselves that-- they're just. Bert and Quinn. A part of his brain that he's fairly sure hates him supplies: and that's never hurt this band, and they're cool, they're awesome with this.

Being back in the routine, the grind, back into the motherfucking best job in the whole world, means also being back a well established routine of unwise flirting. Dan resists the urge to cover his head with his wings.

The problem is (he thinks loudly, shouting himself down inside his own head, as if that ever works) slow means time to think, and thinking only leads to knotting himself up in useless speculation and endless arguments between his libido (he wants to see the pleas on Jepha's hands pressed together for him) and his logic (bad, bad, band wrecking idea), so instead of getting trapped in his head, he opens his laptop, and his mouth:

"I'm filming you, Jeeeeph."

Jepha fumbles his controller and gives Dan, and the laptop, the finger. "If you make me-- if you make me--" he abandons his sentence for button mashing and the kind of wild flailing that he apparently assumes will help him win. "Yes! Take that you motherfuckassing bitchcunt!" Jepha throws his controller to the couch and stands up to do a stupid little shimmy of victory.

"Jepha demonstrates the finer points of the Macarena," Dan commentates from the couch. Jepha kicks Dan's feet out of the way, and as he rebalances himself, he ends up shoving his laptop off the tiny table with his wing. He grabs it as it hits the floor and then leaves it down there, in case he shoves it off the table again.

"Jepha demonstrates the finer points of being a badass video game master," Jepha crows. "I win at gaming!"

Dan can't, actually, help himself-- he slumps further down on the couch, feathers bending up the wrong way against the cushions, and trips Jepha.

"I win at life," Dan says and mimics Jepha's stupid winner's Macarena dance, over the top of Jepha's sprawled out legs. Which turns out the be the fatal flaw in his plan, as Jepha raises his knee, laughing, at just the right moment that Dan falls, and they end up in a scuffling pile of elbows and wings. Dan is determined to win the title of winner of… stuff. Or whatever.

"I win at fucking you up," Jepha says, his grin the complete opposite of his words, soft and easy and Dan smiles back, just as easy, because Jepha makes it easy. Even when he’s attempting to shove Dan’s own feathers up his nose.

"I win at fucking your mom," Dan says and wins the tussle, rolling them off their sides with himself on top. He pins Jepha, his arms on Jepha's wrists, sitting heavily on Jepha's legs, leaning all the way over him. It's easy, half because Dan is stronger and heavier, half because Jepha has stopped fighting back, abruptly, limp and still smiling under Dan. He tests Dan's grip on his wrists, though, pushing upwards slowly. Dan just hangs on, pushes down, feels Jepha's skin shift and the bones in his wrist click and thinks about maybe loosening his grip if he wants to keep this friendly (he doesn’t, he should).

"I win," Dan says, staying as still as he can. Jepha's stopped pushing.

"Are you going to let me up?" Jepha asks. The question is at odds with his boneless sprawl, calm under Dan, under Dan’s hands.

"Say ‘Dan is an amazing badass motherfucker who fucks my mother’ and I'll think about it," Dan replies. He stays still, tells himself not to shift too much, because he's getting off Jepha soon (but depressingly, not getting Jepha off) and there is no need for Jepha to see, or feel, his semi-on, and their hips are dangerously close to being pushed flush together. Dan would only have to lean a little further over, a little harder into his grip on Jepha's hands. Jepha fits under his hands, lock to key (Dan wants to see him undone). He shifts his grip.

"Dan is an amazing badass motherfucker who fucks my mother," Jepha says.

Dan leans closer down, harder into Jepha's wrists, ignores the closeness of their bodies and what he should do.

"Now say it backwards," he says.

"Mother…uh, my…” Jepha starts, then laughs, "you win?" he tries. “Are you letting me up?”

"I’ll think about it," Dan says, and puts on a thinking face. Doesn't move.

Jepha closes his eyes, then opens them. Too slow for a normal blink. Dan is almost sure he’s imagining the hitch in Jepha’s breathing.

"Dan," Jepha's says, and he bites his smile away, teeth sinking into one side of his bottom lip, one labret post protruding long and crooked. They shift their hips at the same time, Dan pushing and Jepha arching into him--

"WHAT THE FUCK," Bert yells, half a foot away, and Dan's eyes snap up to him as Jepha rolls slightly under him, so he can look up at Bert (they avoid each other's eyes). Bert’s face is sleep-puffy and his hand is shoved down the back of his shorts to the elbow. "Is in my ass?"

Dan snorts out a garbled laugh-groan, and he's fairly sure he just shot snot onto Jepha's neck, which makes him look about as suave as he feels right now. He scrambles to his feet, pulling Jepha's up after him.

"Is it your hand?" Jepha asks, ever the voice of reason even to the unreasonable.

Bert finally removes his hand and triumphantly holds up-- a feather. Of course. Dan's been moulting, ridiculous amounts, since they've been on tour. He's not sure why, the lack of showering? Maybe the wings disappear feather by feather once they’ve failed at finding his twu wuv? There's no particular visible effect on them yet, except the one bald patch right near his back, but that was where Bert had stuck chewing gum the day before.

"Stay out of Bert's ass, Dan," Quinn says, yawning and stumbling into the lounge.

Bert giggles and attempts to waves the feather under Quinn’s nose.

Feathers have been turning up in some pretty strange places, recently: hair, food, Quinn's acoustic guitar's belly, in drinks and beds and now in Bert's ass.

The crew have commented, but luckily the logical solution to feather's suddenly appearing all over the bus is "what did Bert and/or Quinn do now?" and not "wow, I bet Dan has invisible, intangible wings!"

The bus stops and they all sway in place, then clamber to the door. Dan slips out first and follows Bert off to smoke, while Jepha heads the other direction. He's already (totally not) forgetting their little moment.

---

The video is five minutes and thirty-five seconds long and Dan is really, really thankful the video goes straight from Jepha flipping him the bird and winning to a long shot of the table legs before it catches them all walking off the bus, one by one. It’s up on Kyte for 24 hours before he remembers he’d left the laptop on the floor of the bus with the camera on, distracted. His phone buzzes in his pocket as he debates deleting it—there is nothing in it that shouldn’t be, though. It doesn’t matter. He shouldn’t feel weird about it.

He glances at the screen, presses the talk button and burps “Bro,” into the phone.

"Daniel, what's going on with the wings?" his Dad's voice comes back at him, because for some reason his Dad has stolen his brother's phone. Again. It’s his Dad’s hardass Midwest voice, deadly serious, which means he’s completely not.

"Well, Dad, I thought this would be an easier way of telling you I'm a fairy." He hears his brother's voice in the background, yelling "because he's a fucking fairy, Dad, I told you" while he's still talking and Dan just laughs and thinks I love you too.

Other things that Dan has learnt about magic wings: showering is hard, ten times so in a tiny hotel stall, ten thousand times so if you attempt it in the bus (which he doesn’t, but he did get in there for the amusement of Bert and Jepha, just to see if he’d fit, and Bert did switch the cold tap on, so that pretty much counts).

Dan perfects playing with his wings on stage-- not just actually using them, but shaking them hard enough feathers shower down over everyone. Even when he doesn't deliberately shake them out, during half of the songs, anything heavy like the beginning of Blood, he's playing hard enough it just happens. No one actually gets the benefit of seeing where the feathers are coming from but his band, but he likes that. He shakes a wing at Jepha when he turns his back on the audience to play at Dan, when they get to jam a little randomly as an intro to Paralyzed. Jepha smiles at him. It's a little bit one sided, favours his little glint of dark silver.

Dan's feeling particularly on, and for a few perfect seconds he attempts to fan Jepha's sweaty, ecstatic face, while they communicate through the beat, breathing hard.

He comes a whisper away from slicing his finger on the floor tom for his trouble, and he makes a mental note to watch his hands more than his wings, next show. It’s worth it, though. So maybe not, despite how badly he knows that might go.

---

The guts of the venue are cold and mostly concrete, as is the dressing room cum shower room (the building is a strange, multi-purpose kind of deal, not solely used for music. It all looks hastily pulled together, like a locker room someone’s dumped a living room in the middle of, couches and coathooks).

Mike, the curly haired Ron Jeremy look alike lighting guy, leans around the doorway and compliments them on the feathers. “You motherfuckers motherfucking tell me when you motherfucking add a motherfucking effect, those motherfucking feathers could have looked motherfucking amazing if I'd known they were coming. Mother of fuck!" This is the height of cheerful for Mike. Dan counts six motherfuckers, which might actually be a record.

"Yeah, motherfucker," Bert replies happily, throwing horns. He smiles at Dan knowingly, as he plucks a feather out of his hair own sweaty ratsnest hair. He tucks a damp strand behind his ear, a gesture Dan has seen a thousand times that still reminds him of a girl flirting (and it is, he thinks, the kind of autopilot flirting Bert does if he's fond of you). Bert tucks the feather behind Jepha's ear as he passes, and aims a good natured kiss at Jepha’s cheek. Jepha screws up his eyes and takes it like a man.

Somewhere behind the weird false wall that divides the room, another throwback to whatever this building is normally used as, Dan hears Quinn rambling about clowns. "What the hell do those huge shoes mean? Why tiny cars?"

Jepha's hands are creeping towards the feather that's sitting behind his ear, frowning slightly, (the feathers are prickly and itchy, they've all learned that pretty fast), but his hand slows and stills as he catches Dan's eye. Dan likes the look of the white (whiteish, really) feather behind Jepha's ear-- and it's irritatingly obvious to himself why: marked. Jepha's marked with his (his his his, and he wants to trade his lizard brain in for a normal one, not for the first time) feather. He can ignore that, is sure he's swallowed whatever expression was on his face, and attempts a smile. Jepha gets there first, though, and the smile on his lips is devastating as Dan watches and instead of plucking the feather free, he just keeps Dan's eyes on his and brushes blunt-nailed (some) fingers over the feather's soft knife's edge.

Leaves it where it is.

Dan bites his tongue and does not give in to any of the urges that clash to reach the front of his brain, like a panicked crowd through a single door.

Instead, he picks the most ridiculous thing he's thinking right now: "QUINN. You ever think about clown dick? Must be equivalent to a fly with a donkey's dick. Make sense of those shoes otherwise! Why do we expose children to them?"

There's a pause, and Quinn comes tripping around the wall to hang on Dan's arm and enthusiastically continue his diatribe.

"See! See, this is what I'm saying."

"Won't somebody think of the children?" Jepha adds. His fingers have dropped from the feather, and are wrapped around a damp beer bottle, picking at the corner of the peeling label.

"AND THE NOSES," Quinn adds. He prods at his own.

"Honk honk," Dan replies, squeezing his crotch. Jepha spits a mouthful of beer over his own chin and slaps a hand up to contain the rest. Dan's feeling more thankful than normal for Quinn's drunken rants and completely and totally forgetting the (his) feather behind Jepha's ear. "Hoooooooooonk." He tells himself to shut the hell up and keeps talking.

---

Part two.

Beats, Wings (usedfic exchange).

2009-08-16T04:11:45Z

Part one.

---

Town to town to town, tour rolls on.

Bert bounces down the hallway as if the walls and his skin are the same end of a magnet.

The post show adrenaline is a slower beat in Dan's veins than the rhythm Bert's marching to. His finger's throbbing where he'd smacked it on one of his mortal enemies: the edge of the floor tom. It’s possible he’d just been paying too much attention to his own feathers again, or to the sweaty hot grins Jepha’d been tossing his way all night, but he likes the idea of having a mortal enemy (dun dun duuun). He can feel the tacky thick blood between his fingers slowing and drying up, he'd wiped most of it on his towel anyway. He could probably use a stitch, but other than his momentary fuck up, he's happy with the set they'd played, fresh, loud, brutal, bad motherfucking ass.

Quinn stumbles past him (Dan knows it’s Quinn, he can hear him coming, the two bottles he's been swinging in one hand clink-clink-clinking where they dangle between his fingers), and smacks the back of Dan's throbbing hand, fucking hard, with his free one.

"How's the hand?" Quinn shoots back over his shoulder, flashing his familiar, drunken smart ass-grin, squinting eyes and crooked teeth.

Dan just smiles back and bites the inside of his lip, let's Quinn take a few drunk-dancing skips ahead, hissing at the sting in his fingers.

Dan flicks out a wing and catches Quinn in the back of the knees. Quinn goes down hard, with a hilariously satisfying flail of his drunk-loose limbs, but twists like a cat at the last moment and lands hard on his back. Hard enough Dan's growing grin falters for a second, before coming back with a vengeance when Quinn unscrews one of his eyes and peers at Dan angrily.

Bert spins on the spot, several yards ahead in the seemingly endless corridor, takes one look at Quinn and laughs until he folds up like a marionette with its strings cut, a tiny ball of screeching mirth on the ugly hotel carpet.

There's a thud behind him, and when Dan turns around, he sees Jepha's forehead and the wall making friends, Jepha choking on laughter. "You!" Jepha coughs into the wall, then thuds his forehead down again and rolls his head to the side so he's facing Dan, one cheek pressed against the wall, the other flushed red, "you just winged him."

Quinn gasps out a breath and Dan's already forgotten his witty, witty comeback, but the alcoholic happy-buzz tells him it would have been hilarious. "Beer!" Quinn coos. He holds his bottles aloft like precious children. "It's okay, babies, I saved you," he says to them, then turns his head to look at Dan without moving so much as a limb, which makes Dan hope he didn't actually break him. "You," he glares, "you owe me a beer."

"You didn't even break one," Dan protests.

"No! Beer, motherfucker." Quinn points at him with the cap of a bottle. "Fear tax." He groans. "And you owe me for my spine."

Dan twists a little so Quinn can't see the obvious outline of the beer wedged tightly in his pocket. Quinn is a notorious beer thief, worse when he's drunk, everyone's beer is his, including random half-empties he finds and drinks on other people's tables. The upside to which was that it was hilarious to watch him drink a bottle of piss, casually set down within his reach. Dan snickers to himself and offers Quinn a hand, which is waved away with a clink of his precious bottles.

There's another thump and when Dan turns, Jepha's head is against the wall again, eyes squeezed shut. Dan can't tell if he's laughing silently or just falling asleep at this point. He shoves a wing mercifully between Jepha's head and the wall, leaning back against the wall himself. Jepha's head thumps into his feathers and he feels it through his bones.

"It smells like sweaty drummer in here," Jepha mumbles, muffled by feathers. "Sweaty drummer and... barbeque sauce." Instead of moving away, though, he rubs his face into the bend of Dan's wing, pushing it harder into the wall. BBQ sauce courtesy of mayhem and McCracken.

Dan can't feel the rasp of his stubble, or the alcoholic warmth of his breath like he could, say, if Jepha's face were buried in his neck, his hands (now fisted gently in feathers) wrapped in Dan's shirt. Arousal, warm and slow with beer, shoots through Dan. Jepha rolls his head and looks at Dan: four feet away and still touching him. It's strange, it's intimate, but removed. Jepha's open mouth is slack, but there's a smile lurking in the twitch of his top lip that ends up buried in Dan's feather's again, and Dan can't help himself: he thinks about Jepha, relaxed and easy under him, willing and ready and wanting and needing, his mouth lax like that, just like that. He twitches his wing so Jepha either has to get up and move away or go with the movement of Dan’s wing folding up and shuffle closer to Dan’s side, under his wing like a fucking duckling.

Jepha shuffles closer and his next breath is warm, alcoholic, and exhaled over Dan's neck.

A tingling warmth plays through him to the beat of Jepha's breathing, chest (thud), stomach (thud), balls (thud).

Jepha's hand nudges against his, fingers pushing at Dan’s palm. Not twisting into his fingers, not to hold his hand, just pushing at his palm. Dan takes a chance and slips his fingers around Jepha's wrist.

A fucking duckling he wants to hold down and. Well, fucking was the important word, there.

Dan honks gently (a stunningly accurate impression of a duck. Or a giraffe. Or. He’s not actually sure what that noise was), because he doesn't actually have words. He should let go of Jepha's wrist. Just like he should have gotten off of Jepha before they'd both been nursing awkward semi-ons in the bus. Shoulda woulda fucking quack.

His fingers get tighter, and Jepha, instead of pulling away, only presses face harder into Dan’s neck, Dan is sure he can feel lips moving softly on his skin, at the same time pulling his hands away so Dan has to hold tighter, tight enough he can feel his fingertips leaving bruises in soft skin of Jepha's wrist.

"I could have died," Quinn moans, and pops the cap off a beer, the words and the fizz of beer jizz over the top of the bottle surprisingly loud. Dan's fingers slip off Jepha's wrists and Jepha's face turns back into his feathers, leaving his neck cold. He's fairly sure Jepha's biting his feathers now-- he glances left, and yeah, Jepha's biting down on feathers looking almost as frustrated as Dan feels. Or just biting feathers, Dan doesn't actually know, he supposes, and he's really quite drunk. But the quietly muffled scream that reverberates through his possibly-hollow bones seems to indicate some level of frustrated and he puts a hand over the back of Jepha’s head, a gentle petting he’s doing before he really thinks about it.

Quinn is still lying on his back in the middle of the hall when he shoves the foamy end of the beer bottle in his mouth. Dan's reminded of a large, alcohol-fuelled baby.

Quinn lets the empty bottle roll away from him and rest against the hallway, then burps.

Bert chuckles and plonks himself cross-legged at Quinn's head. Quinn pops the cap on his next drink.

"Quinn, you have drank all the beer in the fucking universe," Bert says and brushes nothing at all off of Quinn's cheek with intense concentration.

Dan once again angles his body away from them so they can't see the body-warm beer in his pocket.

"I have told you a BILLION TIMES not to exaggerate!" Quinn half-yells, and shakes his drink at the ceiling for emphasis, splashing it over Bert's legs.

Dan snorts and Jepha turns his face to share a that joke was awful look with Dan, his mouth forming his lopsided, joking grin, that's reserved for only the best old man jokes.

Bert takes the beer out of Quinn's hand, waving dangerously like a jellyfish tentacle. He drinks half of it in one swig, then lets it roll foaming across the hallway to lay next to its brother. He jumps up and offers Quinn a hand, which Quinn takes.

"No more beer, let's go," Bert says.

"Quick! To the Bert cave!" Quinn announces and Dan chokes on a laugh.

"Zap! Pow! Spliff!" he manages to get out before he almost chokes on his own tongue.

"SPLIFF!" Bert crows and proceeds to jog down the hallway to the door to the room he’s sharing with Quinn.

Quinn waves unsteadily at Dan and Jepha and weaves down the hallway after Bert, avoiding tripping over his own feet quite impressively.

"Come on. Drunkman and Robin have the right idea,” Dan suggests, not actually making a move to… move, yet. He is still tingling from his toes to his balls with alcohol and frustrated, low pulsing arousal.

“I’M DRUNKMAN,” Bert shouts from the end of the hall, hand on his door, “I DO THE FUCKING AROUND HERE.”

"Your mom's Drunkman," Jepha replies to Dan's feathers, too quiet for Bert to hear.

Dan just pulls his wing out from under Jepha head, not quite Jepha smacks his head on the wall. They make their way to their own room. Dan's not entirely sure, but as he swipes the card and watches Jepha's ass on his way into the room, the beep-a-beep of the door locks sounds something like “you’re fucked.” Right right now, full of beer and the feeling of Jepha bruising slowly under his fingertips still lingering, he cares dangerously little.

---

The wings haven’t made anything clear at all, except that feathers make a shitload of mess, and gum sticks to them worse than hair. Dan’s thinking fuck true love and fluffy white wings, he’s going to do what he wants, right now. Consequences. Who cares.

Jepha’s humming as he walks into the room, apparently obvious to Dan’s gaze on the ass of his jeans. Dan’s still marvelling at Jepha’s almost-non-existent ass in his skin tight jeans, when Jepha does a little spin and Dan finds his beer slow gaze on Jepha’s crotch, he moves his eyes to Jepha’s fingers, face. He’s humming-- Faith No More, Dan’s fairly sure he recognizes Jepha's broken fridge style humming as part of Epic. Bert went on a tangent about the state of popular music and Jepha had gone off on a rant about Faith No More, Utah’s mountains, a bass and a literal truckload of pot. It would have sounded wistful, if Dan wasn’t all too aware how glad they still were to have gotten out of there. “What is it?” Jepha breaks into whispering song and plunks himself on the end of the bed, flicks on the TV, then immediately ignores it. His fingers are twitching out like he’s playing the bassline, imaginary strings in the air.

“That’s a bed,” Dan replies, helpfully, emptying his beer laden pockets onto the bed. “That’s a cushion. That’s a table. You can get this magical thing called room-service with that talky stick. It’s called a tel-a-phone. These are the numbers—“ Dan pokes at the phone gently and smiles encouragingly at Jepha, the way he would to get the dogs to do something new.

“I was singing Epic,” Jepha says, glancing up from untying his shoes. Looking up at Dan from under his eyelashes and Dan all too easily mentally places Jepha on his knees, looking up just like that.

“I was explaining the telephone?” Dan answers, raising his eyebrows at Jepha, like he’s the idiot and Dan’s not actually being a deliberately ignorant just to wind him up, because winding Jepha up when he’s drunk is funny, and because it saves him from batting Jepha’s hands away from his shoes and--

“You are an obtuse motherfucker,” Jepha says and kicks a shoe off across the room, raising his arms in victory when it hits the news anchor on the TV square in the overly white teeth.

“Has Bert been teaching you the big words again?” Dan asks.

“He’s writing. I teach him how to swear in Japanese, he teaches me how to confuse the rest of you with his dictionary,” Jepha says.

“Wakarimasen,” Dan replies, because that is the only scrap of Japanese Jepha’s taught him he can remember and the most useful, anyway.

“No shit,” Jepha laughs, replies in English, because he knows Dan.

The room is mostly white and very sparse, homely enough, but only because they’re both used to living out of suitcases half the time, and half way through tour, almost anywhere that’s not the bus becomes a nice place to be. Everywhere is homely when your home is everywhere.

“So that was pretty good,” Jepha says, sitting down on the edge of Dan’s bed, beer bottles rolling towards him. He reaches around and opens one.

Dan hums noncommittally.

“What?” Jepha asks, rubbing his fingers through the condensation on the neck of the bottle. Dan pulls his eyes away, and finds Jepha looking at him, waiting. Waiting.

“I fucked up in Pretty Handsome, nearly sliced my fucking finger off on the floor tom.”

“It bleeding?” Jepha winces.

“Nah,” Dan holds his hand up, wriggling his fingers, everything bends normally except his index finger, stiff and red and blood clotted around the knuckle. “Well, not anymore.”

“Show me,” Jepha says, reaching out and giving Dan childish gimme-gimme fingers.

“I don’t know if I should,” Dan says, holding out his hand and contradicting himself, fingers landing lightly in Jepha’s palm. He lowers his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “I heard you get off on bruises and stuff.” He gives ridiculous shifty-eyes and Jepha laughs, curls his fingers over Dan’s injured one briefly, the barest skim of skin. Dan’s knuckle is red and puffy, dried blood flaking around the cut. Dan can’t feel it at all, now, but he’s hyper aware of Jepha’s fingertips against his.

“Maybe if that was somewhere on me,” Jepha says, turning Dan’s hand over, then letting him go. Subtle, Dan thinks. They are both as subtle as rocks.

"Okay, it's sharing time." Dan says.

"You want to talk?” Jepha asks, and there's a note of something in there that might actually be annoyance, which Dan is willing to take, because talking seriously isn't something that's featured in their friendship. About other things, but not about this, the down and dirty, the kinky sex thing, the we-flirt-constantly-what-the-fuck-are-we-doing thing.

“Yep,” Dan sucks in a breath, and tells himself just because it's got feathers, doesn't make it a chicken: "You, like, want to like, get spanked, and stuff, right?" Valley Girl voice, it's not funny, it's nervous, it's stupid and they're past that already, but Dan is still hearing those little voices in the back of his head questioning if he’s reading this right, telling him he could still save this. Joke it off, play it as another harmless flirt. He’s suddenly remembering the reason they haven’t talked about this is because the fact he has feathers does, in fact, indicate he’s a chicken.

“Like, duh,” Jepha replies, a head tilt and twirling his fingers around a lock of non-existent hair.

Jepha kicks his other shoe off and instead of nailing the overly made-up weather girl in the face, it comes back over his shoulder and hits Dan in the side of the head. This. This Dan knows how to deal with, and Jepha meets his eyes, lets a smirk spill slowly over the sides of his mouth, Dan throws the shoe at his chest and tackles him off the bed as he fumbles trying to catch it.

It deviates from payback pretty quickly, and Dan is being honestly with himself, and admits that that was half the idea: to end up back here, mirror of the bus, holding Jepha down. Except there's no one sleeping three feet away, no one to interrupt. The thought is both terrifying and fan-fucking-tastic.

Jepha's flushed, his face red with alcohol, a little sweat on his forehead, this close Dan can almost feel it, feel the effect of his hand on Jepha's wrists, his other hand brushing the base of Jepha's throat (he won’t go there, but every time his finger slips upwards, slips and brushes over Jepha's Adam's apple, Jepha makes a hitching little breath and noise, like he's already choking, choking and coming, sounding like sex).

"I could," he says in Jepha's ear, and doesn't specify because he's not sure what he wants to do most, and it doesn't matter right now, except to tell Jepha that Dan is right here and in control of this (even if he's barely in control of himself, it's funny how that works, Jepha steals his self-control, but not the desire for it), "I could just." Jepha pushes his hips up into Dan's, hard, harder when Dan can't help but groan, stupidly loud right next to Jepha ear, and he feels his face flush. Con-fucking-trol, Jepha takes it and he’s so fucking torn about that. He bites Jepha's earlobe. Hard. Harder, as Jepha's hips seem to permanently fuse to Dan's, back curved hip pressing up up up. He lets go when Jepha stutteringly forces himself to relax. He doesn't choke it back this time: "Good boy."

“You could just do what?" Jepha huffs a laugh into Dan's mouth. Dan grins down at him.

"Anything," Dan decides. "But you have ask."

Dan pushes his thumb into the veins of Jepha's wrist, pushes where he was bruising before, over his invisible fingerprints from the hallway, re-tracing where he’s been before in bruises he won’t see over the ink. Jepha chokes out a pained, hot noise. His hips jump, and they grind into each other, hard-ons through show-sweaty denim, to the pace of Dan's fingers pushing into bruised skin (hips up) and his grip loosening (relax, breath, pant). Dan revels in the reaction-- it's simple, his fingertips and Jepha's soft skin, and he drags one hand down Jepha's arm a little, then back up. He looks down Jepha’s chest, at his open shirt, the skin of his stomach, bare bits around the colour, and wants to slap, mark Jepha's skin larger, make the pain sharper and quicker. But he wants Jepha to ask.

"Do it," Jepha says.

"Do what?" Dan asks and pressing his finger into Jepha's wrists again, anticipating the grind of his hips, he pushes his hips down and holds Jepha still, grinding them together almost to the point where it's hurting himself, dick against the inside of his jeans, and Jepha's mouth opens (fucking that mouth, fuck fuck) and the sound that comes out makes it all worth it. "Do what?" Dan asks, ignoring the way the last word is more groaned than said.

"Anything," Jepha says. Dan bites his ear again, soft, licks the hole in his lobe, once, jewellery-free.

"Okay." Dan says, "I'm going to bed."

It cuts through them both like lightning. Jepha groans, probably realising he walked right into that one. Dan smiles against Jepha's throat and leaves him with a kiss against the underside of his chin, on stubble and "choke". He lets go of Jepha's wrists, and starts to get up, peeling their bodies apart from the neck down, sweat and arousal screaming at him not to, and stands up beside the bed. And this isn't a cop out, this is making it far more serious than if he just fucked Jepha now, let them rub off against each other sweaty and dirty on the floor, getting them both off with little hurts. This, this is making this a thing, and Dan's balls and brain are in agreement: fucking do it, make him wait, make him ache and watch him squirm and love it.

Jepha's mouth closes slowly, licks his lips.

Dan flicks off the lights before he crawls into his own bed, lying on his side, wings tenting the blanket out, but the feathers warm enough on his back it doesn’t matter.

"Jepha," he says into the dark. The sheets rustle and he hears the clink of a belt buckle hitting the floor. "Don't jerk off."

Dan listens, the sound of both their breathing still deep and heavy in the dark. Jepha does as he’s told.

---

Dan's having an absolutely beertastic time fucking with Jepha and absolutely not talking about fucking Jepha; they're at a bar, it smells like yeast and smoke (something like an old hooker's crotch, Dan thinks, which is the smell of all good band friendly bars. For real authenticity: add that hint of urine). He’s just on the edge of tipsy and drunk, and his hand's around Jepha wrist loosely, under the table, his fingers slotted over the top edges of bruising blue-yellow marks, Dan-was-here, right above where Jepha’s sleeve ends and his palm begins. It's a good thing, he thinks, that they're sitting next to each other, Bert across from Jepha and Quinn across from him, because he's not sure he could catch Jepha's eye right now without giving into the urge to catch more (with teeth and fingers and a handful of contextually obscene words, like 'down boy').

The other thing is, the other thing is that Dan's... drunkish. But that's not the actual other thing, which is: I'm not touching you is a hilarious fun time game to play when you've suddenly gained several feet of reach (of wingspan, which makes Dan want to caw like a crow) and when you can combine it with another familiar game. Quinn-is-stupid-drunk-let's-poke-him. Could have a catchier title, probably. But the fact remains, prodding at drunken Quinn is an amusing past time. Quinn's turns to face Bert and Dan takes the opportunity, turning a little sideways towards Jepha to free his no-longer-white-but-sort-of-yellow-grey wings up a little and brushes his pinion feathers lightly over the back of Quinn's neck.

"What the... fuck," Quinn's snappish, but kind of mush-mouthed. "There is a breeze in here and I'm going to die of, of consequences, or what the fuck ever." He slaps at the back of his neck and glances at the solid wall behind him. Dan resettles himself as innocently as he can.

"Consumption?" Bert suggests, and steals his beer back from under Quinn's grabby hands.

"Contraception?" Jepha asks, snickering.

Dan tightens his fingers of Jepha's wrist, and Jepha's breath cuts out like a car engine in the cold, then sputters back to life.

"Your mom can't afford it!" Quinn declares and shakes the table with a bang of his fist. Bert hoots obnoxiously, right up close to Quinn's ear.

Dan takes the opportunity to slap Bert in the back of the head with a feathery appendage.

"You sneaky motherfucker," Quinn says. He's squinting drunkenly, but Dan's pretty sure there's a little hit of respect in his tone.

There's a few minutes of Bert cussing him out and Quinn declaring himself "a bit drunk," at least seven times, before Dan casually yawns and pull the winged version of the yawn-and-stretch move, except instead of hunkering down for teenager style make outs in a '50s drive in, he just smacks Jepha in the back of the head with his wing, at the same time as pressing his fingers hard enough into Jepha's wrist he feels the pulse jump (and feels Jepha jump and feels his dick jump and hears the groan).

"Puuuuuuuu-ssy," Quinn says, when Jepha groans.

"Giant hairless pussy," Bert adds.

"Fuck you," Jepha says. It comes out the verbal equivalent of a tube of toothpaste squeezed in the middle, Dan's hand on Jepha's wrist playing him and breaking the "ck" off fuck. Jepha puts his teeth into his bottom lip and actually closes his eyes.

Dan is roughly thirty seconds from shoving Jepha's hand into either his lap or Jepha's own (he hasn't decided yet) and leaning over and whispering "fucking do it," in Jepha ear, "do it with this hand," specifically, because he's pretty sure he can work the twinge of Jepha's bruised wrist for at least a few more ball-aching moments, until Jepha's had enough (to see how long it takes until Jepha's had enough, and Dan grins, two rows of teeth monkey grimace that makes Bert laugh, to cover his actual reaction to that thought).

"I have to pee," Jepha says, enunciating the pee like a prim lady, every word too perfect not to have a lot of thought behind it. Dan pushes his luck and his fingers into bruises one more time but Jepha holds his reaction back almost, almost perfectly.

"Piss on him! He fucking hates that," Bert chimes in, shaking his drink messily at Quinn’s face.

"Hmmm," Jepha narrows his eyes, hums, thoughtfully.

"You wouldn't," Quinn says, and glares.

“I’ll hold him down,” Dan suggests.

“Nobody’s fucking pissing on me,” Quinn snaps. He waves his beer at each of them in turn, like a man with a gun on the edge of sanity.

"That's not what you said last night," Bert yells. His face is still inches from Quinn’s ear, but Quinn doesn’t actually jump.

“You know I can’t resist those puppy dog eyes of yours, Quinn, ‘please, Dan, please, pee right on my face, Dan.’” Dan laughs.

Jepha slips his wrist out of Dan’s grip while Dan’s distracted and makes his way to the toilet.

There’s a beat of silence, before Dan casually (subtly, subtly) adjusts his dick under the table, then stands up.

“Bee are bee,” he says.

(He’s going to deal with the fact that Bert and Quinn are very deliberately cat-calling after him later. Or never. One of those).

---

"Didn't think you were into this," Jepha says. Dan assumes he means piss, which is true, but a second of hazy staring at Jepha’s dick, they both break into laughter. Jepha’s essentially shaking his semi-on at Dan to make his point.

"Nah," Dan says, "Not a golden showers kind of guy." He takes a step forward, lets the door slowly slip shut. "But hey. You remember what I do like?"

Jepha shifts from foot to foot in the need-to-pee dance.

"Watching me squirm?" Jepha says. Dan registers that he hasn’t actually pissed yet.

"Close enough," Dan smiles at him. Jepha’s face is a little shiny with sweat, it’s warm even in this cold tiled room, and they’re both full of beer.

"Because I'm busting," Jepha adds, a little too late.

Dan smiles. "You're fucking up my smooth-ass seduction, Jephareeee, you motherfucker," Dan says, and the stupid voice just creeps on, he can’t help it, the foreign accent creeping in with the tremble in his jaw—nervous because they haven’t actually talked about this, and it’s going to be so awkward if last night wasn’t even a thing—but it had to have been. He imagines leaving Jepha here, dick swinging in the wind, and how awkward it’s going to be if this isn’t really happening (Dan wants to strangle the part of his brain that’s still cautious).

"My deepest apologies," Jepha says, "do continue."

"Well," Dan says, clamps his teeth together (this shouldn’t make him more nervous than stepping on stage) and takes a half step forward into Jepha's space. "I was thinking maybe I'd give you a handjob. Possibly slap you around a little? I hadn't really thought that far ahead." (This is a lie, he’s thought that far ahead with both heads more times that he’d admit.)

Jepha's breath catches a bit on the exhale, hitching, interested. Reassuring. Dan lets his shoulders slump a little.

"I have to piss, first."

"Nah," Dan says. He puts on hand on Jepha’s shoulder, one on his belly, above where his dick is still hanging out, glinting metal at the end, his palm flat over warn skin and tattoos, his fingers slide under Jepha’s shirt hem. He pushes as he takes a step forward, walks them a few smooth steps and one near-tripping one into the nearest stall.

Dan keeps his hand low on Jepha’s belly and kicks the door shut, then circles his fingers back around Jepha’s wrist (he’s starting, damningly, to think of that as his, his little handhold, where he’s marked Jepha) and squeezes and shoves until Jepha’s back hits the wall (more graffiti then paint) with a thud. “Is this okay?” Dan asks, because he’s drunk enough he knows he should make sure he’s not thinking with his dick (well, he is thinking with his dick, so more that his dick’s thinking is right and correct).

“Are we talking about this now?” Jepha asks, echoing his hotel room question, top lip curled in the kind of pissy angry smirk that makes Dan want to kiss him until he bleeds. He sounds a little genuinely irritated, too, and Dan files that away under “to ignore further later.”

“Do we have to?” Dan asks, like he didn’t start it. He’s pretty sure, from the insistent (impatient) push of Jepha’s hips against the pressure of his palm (he holds Jepha there, pushes back with his palm on his abdomen, feels his arm strain), they are on the same page.

He glances at his other hand, circling Jepha's must-be aching wrist, and squeezes. Jepha licks his lips and keeps his arm perfectly, perfectly still (it must hurt, it's the kind of still it takes effort to keep, like someone being tattooed, like, Dan thinks actually, Jepha being tattooed somewhere tender). He's going to take a chance--

“Stay still,” he says, steady as he can. Jepha’s hips push towards him again, impatient, pushing, asking. “Hips still.” He needs to move his hand, and he wants to test the water.

Jepha pushes.

“Still,” Dan says, again.

Jepha pushes.

“I asked nicely.” Dan ducks his head to bury his words and his smile against Jepha’s neck. He leans back and Jepha’s smirking at him, which is perfectly perfect. He lets go of Jepha’s hips, steps back a little so they’re not touching and makes sure he telegraphs the slap, keeping Jepha's eyes. Jepha watches him raise his arm then lets his head drop forward a little, turns his cheek and leans into him (leans into it, Dan isn’t actually sure he can handle this) looking at Dan from under his lashes.

Dan's hand connects slightly harder than he'd wanted, too close to Jepha's ear (thinking with his balls, too much, and he reminds himself to rein it in rein it in hopelessly), and the sound reverberates though the tiled room, the slap and the huff of air that Dan isn’t sure is from Jepha at all. When Jepha looks at Dan again, a sideways look under his lashes, his pupils expand like he's just taken a hit of heroin straight in the vein.

Dan restrains his victory dance to stepping close enough he's practically on Jepha's toes, except Jepha's legs are already apart just a little further than comfort, just far enough to be inviting (enticing, inciting). Dan steps closer because he can't resist, but also to free up some room for his feather dusters, the muscles in his shoulders cramping. His wings are sweeping the floor and he hears the occasional splash, so they’re cleaning the toilet. Neither of those facts is enough for him to want to stop now.

Jepha's cheek glows like a beacon (hit me again, hit me again), his breathing as heavy as Dan's balls feel. Dan sways forward, tilts his head to match the position his slap had left Jepha in (where he's stayed, because he apparently knows how to make Dan insane in tiny little ways Dan hadn't even thought of himself). They both pause and the beat goes on elsewhere, breath & pulse.

He nudges Jepha's face up with his own, forehead to forehead. He wants to kiss Jepha now-- and twitches his fingers against Jepha's wrists-- the shaky inhale of breath thisclose to his lips-- he has to kiss Jepha now, and he leans in as soft as the slap wasn't, slow again, telegraphing his movement again.

There's a flip in his stomach that's utterly different to when he'd slapped Jepha, he realises it’s nerves, again, he wasn't sure if Jepha would let him, wasn't sure where the boundary was and is pathetically thankful for the warm, wet press of lips against his, the double bump of metal against his lower lip. He quashes the thought ruthlessly as they break apart, and lets go of Jepha's wrists to plant a hand on his shoulder, shoving until he spins around, landing with a quiet oof and groan open mouthed against the wall.

Jepha’s pants are still open and loose and slip down his thin hips with the help of Dan's finger hooked in a belt loop. He kicks Jepha's feet apart with his own, leaving his ankles shackled in a puddle of denim and no underwear (it's strange, he thinks, how he'd known Jepha's aversion to underwear and how different it is to be confronted with the fact when he's staring at Jepha's bare ass).

"Hands on the wall," he says. Dan feels high, at the top of a mountain, it's a dizzy sensation, watching Jepha do what he says, the slow rise of his hands (not slow disobedient, he thinks, slow like he's already a little too lost in his own head, and and Dan's jeans feel really fucking uncomfortable) the dull slap of his palms over the scungy marker scribbles of "for a good time" and "... has herpes". "Don't worry," Dan says, "I'm preee-eetty sure you can't catch it from that," runs a hand over Jepha's ass, feather light. Jepha laughs and Dan slaps his bare thigh, just below his ass, and watches Jepha's hands instead of his own as he does it: Jepha's fingers tense and bend at the top knuckles, like he's trying to climb the smooth, stained tiles in slow motion.

Jepha turns his head and Dan half expects this to be a boundary, here, and he cocks his head to be obvious about the fact he's listening.

"You're not fucking me without lube," Jepha tosses over his shoulder. Grinning, though. Dan smiles back, ducking his head and belatedly realising he'd lost his hat to Quinn in the bar, earlier.

"Are you loco, mofo? Remind me to talk to whoever tried that on you or whatever."

"She'd kick your ass," Jepha says, eyeing Dan.

"Mm," Dan says, "not a doubt," and takes the opportunity to reach around Jepha's bare hip and curl his hand around his dick. Jepha's eyes are on his until he squeezes, gropes blind for the little bit of metal at the end of Jepha's dick and flicks, and then they slide shut. He runs his other hand through Jepha's hair, but it's still too short to get a proper grip and Dan hears himself make a stupid, frustrated noise, but it's mostly covered by the noise Jepha makes when he slides his hand down his neck and instead of going with his first plan, he puts a hand under Jepha's chin and pushes up until Jepha’s head falls back. Not hard enough to choke, just hard enough to put forward the possibility, and he sinks his teeth into Jepha's earlobe, soft, stretched, empty hole. He huffs an amused breath against Jepha's ear. "Your ears are pornographic," and he occasionally wishes his mouth to brain filter… existed. Whatever, whatever, he licks Jepha’s earlobe and twists his hand on Jepha’s dick.

"Ffff-- reak," Jepha breathes out, barely audible, and pushes his hips back into Dan's crotch. His hands shift on the wall, as he pushes backwards.

Dan tugs the ring at the head of his dick, hard, Jepha’s mouth opens and his breathing hitches and he make a noise that makes Dan want to, fucking, put a string through Jepha’s dick ring so he can tug it and get that noise on demand. “Takes one to know one.” He grinds his hips into Jepha’s ass. “Don’t move your hands.”

Jepha inches his hand down the wall.

"Jepha."

He pushes his palm off the wall, slowly, lifting his hand finger by finger, deliberately goading.

Dan takes hold of his hand tugs him back around to face him.

Jepha looks at him, up through his lashes. Dan takes both his hands and smacks them, palms out, against the wall.

"Jepha,” he asks, their faces close, “do you want something?"

Jepha pushes with his wrists, and shoves his hips out, dick hard and obscene.

As tempting as that is, Dan thinks. "No no no no. You have to SAY. Say, 'Please, Dan, get me off.'"

He watches Jepha's back bow away from the wall, hips pushes out begging as more obviously than the words-- but Dan wants the words. "Say it," he says, leaning forward to speak into Jepha's ear, but keeping well away from Jepha's hard, upraised dick.

"Please," Jepha says, and Dan utterly fails at composure and pushes his hips forward, and loses the rest of the words to the hard press of Jepha's naked dick against his jeans. Fuck this, Dan thinks, and loses his grip on Jepha's hands to unbutton his pants and pull his aching dick out, pushes their hips back together. They shove against each other, skin on damp skin, and Dan's hand creeps of its own accord, back up to Jepha's throat.

His fingers flex on hot, colourful skin, with the hitch of Jepha's hips into his, their dicks sliding together. (He wants to-- and that, that they're gonna have to talk about, they should—really should--). He traces his fingers over the looping letters under Jepha's chin, jerkily, C-H-O-K-E. Like he's re-writing it, tracing out a promise. Instructional ink, if he'd ever had any doubt, it's erased now. Jepha's leaning into his fingers hard enough to do far more than Dan's light grip, his fingers only tighten a little, a little bit as their hips shove together. A little too much, maybe, more than he should, but Jepha's pressing into him and he's suddenly on the edge of coming all over Jepha's dick, himself, their stomachs. “Say it,” he chokes out.

"Please, Dan, get me off… ffff… uck," Jepha breathes out, and that's it. Dan lets his head drop and curses, maybe out loud, fucking fuck, that he can't keep his eyes open to see them shoving against each other, as he pushes pushes pushes, pins Jepha against the wall with his hips. The second he can open his eyes, he looks down, still jerking against Jepha and takes in the way white streaks so obvious against Jepha's tattoo. The thought rings another shuddering, too sensitive jolt through him. Marked.

His hands go weak, post-coital uncoordinated, for long enough (how long Dan isn't sure he feels like he’s fucking fucked his brains out) that Jepha whines, and fists his own dick, hunching in on himself like he's close, almost dislodging Dan’s limp hand from his neck. Dan takes a deep (shuddering) breath and pushes up under Jepha's chin until he stands up straight, until his back bumps hard into the tiles again. Pushing up under his chin until he shifts on his feet, bouncing up on his toes a little, the leaning in, down, hard. Dan wipes his hand over Jepha's stomach, through the damp mess of his come and Jepha's sweat and knocks Jepha's hand out of the way, wrapping his slick sticky palm around his dick.

Jepha leans into Dan's hand on his throat, harder now, red-faced and panting, hips fucking into Dan's hand with a quick, uneven rhythm. He's close, teeth buried in his lip, the red flush on his face spilling down his neck and disappearing underneath Dan's fingers, veins standing up to be pushed down. Dan is glad he came first, watching Jepha chew his bottom lip bloody (and he does, a little tiny bead of blood is licked quickly away right above his left labret) as he shoves his hips into Dan's hand and Dan jerks him through his orgasm, spilling over Dan's fingers and onto the dirty floor, spattering the long feathers at the tip of Dan's wings, which are bent almost to breaking against the ground. He feels the awkward pressure of it now he's taking it in and… yep. Now he's got come on his wings.

They both stare down at the wet stains.

"At least it's white," Dan says. Which would help, if his wings still were. Close enough.

Jepha just laughs, roughly, and puts his hand over Dan's, which Dan realises now is still stroking Jepha’s throat, light-fingered now Jepha’s not leaning in, desperate. Dan goes to pull his hand away, but Jepha it there, pinned, until they're both breathing steadily again. Dan feels his pulse slow down against Jepha’s, almost in synch, and realises his fingers are stroking Jepha’s neck, rough fingerpads stuttering the lightest bit when he hits stubble.

When he moves his wing, finally, come flicks against the wall and that unparalyses whatever the orgasm had knocked out of whack, and he laughs stupidly long and loud.

“Fuck,” Jepha says, as he pulls his pants up, his zip closed.

“What?” Dan asks, distractedly. He gives up on cleaning the tips of his wing, which is fucking impossible to reach because people weren’t designed for this, and instead swipes at the last drying sticky streak across Jepha’s stomach with the wad of toilet paper. Jepha snorts and his stomach muscles crunch up.

“Bert and Quinn are going to have a field day with this,” Jepha says, then steals the toilet paper out of Dan’s hand and chucks it into the toilet, pulling his shirt down.

“Oh yeah,” Dan says, neutrally. Something uncomfortable flips in his stomach at the thought Jepha might regret this. Dan’s well prepared to take hours, days and probably weeks of mocking I-told-you-sos and lectures about The Band Comes First and whatever else they’ve got, but it’s all dependant on if Jepha’s willing.

“Oh yeah,” Jepha repeats.

They’re as far away from each other as they can get in the dirty little stall.

“Worth it,” Jepha says, biting his lip on a smile and glancing from Dan’s hands to his face.

Dan smiles, leans forward and bites down on Jepha’s lip too.

---

Back on the bus, Dan slums tiredly against the tiny bathroom’s counter, his face blurry close to the mirror. He calls and Clem appears with her usual fairy fanfare, this time popping onto closed lid of the toilet with her tongue firmly planted on her crotch.

“What?” She asks, still pretzeled up, her little tongue hanging out.

The thing is, Dan has been thinking, and there’s one question he needs answered. “When do the wings go away?” he asks, spreading his patchy, dirty, sauce spattered, sticky wings.

There’s a pregnant pause. Clementine stares boggle eyed, he would say she’s going for “mystical” and if her default expression didn’t run towards “mildly mentally impaired”, she’d almost be there.

In the distance, a dog barks, and Dan blinks, ending their staring contest with a sinking feeling.

“I have to go,” Clem says. “I think I hear Hemmingway calling me. Mystical fairy business.” And she gallops panting and wheezing into the air, her wings beating furiously and drool dripping down before she disappears in an explosion of pink glitter.

---

The End.

I LOVE THE USED

2009-08-13T01:34:14Z

I have uploaded a MP4 of that video: Here!

[ETA]: Stuff I sing to my cat, take 3748390: "Never gonna give Lu up, never gonna let Lu dooown never run around and desert Luuuu~~~~~".

(Her name is Luthor. CLEARLY).

eating worms in advance saves time

2009-08-12T07:19:07Z

the i-envy-this-about-you meme

music for ben

2009-08-11T13:15:07Z

Okay, so Ben, chorn_man, buddy ol' pal ol' COME BACK HOME GODDAMN IT of mine was like "I lost all my musssiiic, I'm in Geeerrrmannnyyy" and I was like "well, I'll upload you some, requests?"

And this is what he wanted, so since I have uploaded it all for him, I may as well share with everyone else.

Canned Heat - Jamiroquai.
Kate - Ben Folds Five.
One Angry Dwarf and 200 Solemn Faces - Ben Folds Five.
That's Your Horoscope For Today - Weird Al.
Alberquirke - Weird Al.
Hey! Johnny Park - Foo Fighters.
Monkey Wrench - Foo Fighters.
I'm Not Okay - My Chemical Romance.
Blood On My Hands - The Used.
Paralyzed - The Used.

CAN YOU TELL WHICH BANDS ARE MY/RET'S FAULT? I THINK YOU GUYS MAY BE ABLE TO GUESS.

musics: we can all has

2009-08-08T02:18:33Z

Here are some things I have gotten recently and can't stop listening to:

Arming Eritrea - Future of the Left (this is them at about their most melodic and... sensical, even. Also, it's new! From new album).

Mary Jane - Major Lazer (... IT'S REALLY FUCKING CATCHY, OKAY).

Who Is It? - Bjork (half my love for this is her amazing bell dress in the film clip, but it's a beautiful song anyway).

Sold My Soul - The Used.
On The Cross - The Used (this and "Sold My Soul" are for those on my flist who haven't just downloaded the whole album, so watch as I attempt to convert you all with two of my favourites from it).

ALSO. The beginning of "Blood On My Hands" scares me every single time it comes on. FFS!

P.S.

<3.

So I was trawling for picciatures today and here are some things that made me :D for one reason or another:

OMFG, be CREEPIER QUINN. (My mind went so many directions at once when I saw that picture I'm not going to bother writing them all down). But mostly I was like with ahahahahahahaha QUINN.

Someone please write Dan/Quinn for me. Please. Pleasepkeaseplease. DO IT FOR SATAN. I'm not the only one who wants Dan/Quinn right? RIGHT? ANSWER ME. IN... FIC FORM.

... yay.

YAAAAAAAAAAY. Tattoos.

YAAAAAAAAAAYAWWWWW.

Also: I have just realised that there aren't that many non-official photos where Dan doesn't have a beer and/or a cigarette or cigarette pack in hand.

In related news: smoking is sexy.

No, shut up, it is.

123456789

2009-08-07T13:25:14Z

OMG!

It was 12:34:56 7-8-9 today!

That's awesome.

oooh!

2009-08-06T01:07:50Z

If you read this, if your eyes are passing over this right now, (even if we don't speak often or ever) please post a comment with a COMPLETELY MADE UP AND FICTIONAL memory of you and me.

It can be anything you want - good or bad - BUT IT HAS TO BE FAKE.

When you're finished, post this little paragraph in your LJ and see what your friends come up with.

I AM DAN. FROM SALT LAKE CITY. UTAH.

2009-08-02T12:34:42Z

WHY THE FUCK

HAD I NEVER

SEEN THIS VIDEO

UNTIL NOW

DAN AND JEPHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA. "THIS IS OUR NEW DRUMMER DAN, HE IS CUTE."

ALSO: PROOF THAT YOU SHOULD NEVER, EVER, EVER ASK JEPHA "THREE THINGS" HYPOTHETICAL QUESTIONS.

ALSO, ADORABLE INTERVIEWER!

And then Juliette and the Licks interview at the end whatevs.

it was the best of times, it was the blurst of times

2009-08-02T12:14:34Z

ANON MEME

HAVE AT IT!

swear_jar @ 2009-07-31T21:26:00

2009-07-31T11:30:03Z

THURSDAYVERSE HAS THE BEST FANDOM.

I don't even have words anymore.

icoooons! 20 something bandom, one random and 10some thursdayverse

2009-07-30T12:41:16Z

Yesterday I completely lost my ability to write (which was shitty timing on a number of levels), but spontaneously re-gained my ability to make icons I don't loath. Okay. Then. Icons (bandom, mostly TU):

1. 2. 3.

4. 5. 6.
7. 8. 9.
10. 11. 12.
13. 14. 15.
16. 17. 18.
19. 20. 21.
22. 23.

24.

ANYWAY. Take, want, have credit please.

BRB constantly refreshing foxinmyhands's LJ like a labrat with a joy switch until I STARVE AND DIE. Because the TV cosplay is. Epic. It's... so epic. OR I could just refresh the Thursdayverse index because apiphile is amazingly organized and HAVE YOU GUYS SEEN IT? You have to scroll down SEVERAL TIMES to get to the comments. :DDDDDDDDDD WHAAAAAAAAAAAT THE FUCK.

Anyway, and also, just then I made some more Thursdayverse cosplay icons, because fuck my sore shoulder, I needed an excuse to stare at the pictures some more:

1. 2. 3.
4. 5. 6.
7. 8. 9 - 12.

(And there's these in case anyone missed the ones from yesterday). Please credit by linking to the index (http://apiphile.livejournal.com/1926153.html), that'd be awesome kthnx.

swear_jar @ 2009-07-29T18:36:00

2009-07-29T08:44:38Z

Making icons and stumbled across the CUTEST PICTURE EVER. WHICH, actually, represents how I currently feel right at this moment.

ANYWAY: MOAR COSPLAY.

OH DEAR GOD!

IT'S A PICTURE-STORY IN COSPLAY OF THE NEAR TO LAST SCENE IN BLACK MONDAY. God, they're good (though big big massive spoilers if you haven't read all of TV). And can I once more ask people to look upon the absolute glory that is the Thursdayverse Index? It's fucking epic at this point.

[ETA]: AND AND AND! VICKY-T VS. QUINN FIGHTSCENE FROM SBS & BITS FOR TUESDAY IN THE WOODS.

... Guh.

[ETA2]: ON A ROOOOLLLLLL:

1. 2. 3.
4. 5. 6.
7. 8. 9.
10. 11.

Those pictures were so easy to make icons out of on so many levels <3. (Take, want, have, credit, uh. Shit. Thursdayverse? Link to the index)?