@noahwrightx / noahwrightx.tumblr.com
(Elliot) Text: Hey, so you may have to talk to a professor about my slight behavior problem? I just wanted to give you a heads up.
[ ✉ → little one ] behavior problems, huh? is this the start of your rebellious phase? should i lock up the liquor cabinet? [ ✉ → little one ] thanks for the heads up, sugar. does the professor have a name? what'd you do to them, smile too much?
THE BIRDHOUSE → holiday decor 2023
In celebration of the holidays (and because Noah will take any opportunity to earn points without being despicable) the exterior of The Birdhouse has been decorated--a little bit chaotically--with multiple strings of rainbow lights. Inside, a very large Christmas tree has been decorated with garlands of popcorn and cranberries, twinkle lights, and over a hundred hand-carved and painted bird ornaments. A sign beside the tree identifies the species of every bird--and prices for the ornaments, because Noah won't miss a chance to sell you shit.
Atticus flinched at the hand wrapped around his arm, his face twisted into upset and fear - not to be afraid of Noah, never, but of what he would say. Telling people what happened invited pity and questions and Atticus was barely admitting to himself what was going on, let alone having to voice it to someone else.
Besides, being vulnerable? That wasn't on brand.
He realized he could have very easily yanked his arm away, but the thought left his mind as quickly as it came, at the gentler hand. That 'oh' didn't help at all, and his eyes welled up faster. Quickly the back of his hand found his face, harshly wiping any tears away - not that there were any, obviously. "Thanks," he mumbled, moving the chair right next to Noah, as close as he could get without being on his lap. Atticus opened his mouth to speak, but not much came out past a pitiful airy squeak. He looked down, feeling almost ashamed, despite completely knowing it wasn't his fault. His voice sat in the base of his throat. "I was really scared," he whispered, his eyes screwing shut. Atticus took a deep, shuddery breath, and concentrated - he was still hungry, so it wasn't a difficult feat, but pulling them back up would be the problem. Finally he looked up, his mouth slightly agape for Noah to see the fangs in his mouth.
Atticus scooting his chair in so close would have made Noah smile if he wasn't so damn sad. He wrapped both an arm and a wing around his friend, squeezed his arm lightly--trying to offer comfort without acknowledging that he'd seen the tears shining in Atticus' eyes.
"I was really scared."
Noah closed his eyes, heart breaking for Atticus all over again. He remembered that--remembered his own terror when The Father drove a knife into his heart, remembered the fear that made it beat faster, bleeding out his life with every frightened thump. "Oh, sugar," he said, and bent to press a kiss to the top of Atticus' head. "I know. I know."
When Atticus lifted his head, fangs visible in his mouth, confirming what Noah had already suspected about his friend's new species, Noah sighed. There were only so many species that would appear the way that Atticus did now--empty and soulless--and only so many species a human could become. Still, the confirmation made him ache for Atticus.
He didn't hesitate before pulling the younger man into his arms, the embrace nearly tight enough to lift him out of his chair. Hugging a newborn vampire was not a smart decision for most people, but Noah's blood had not been appetizing to vampires for years now. He'd mourned that fact at first--he liked being bitten, alright--but just now it was convenient. "I'm sorry," he said into Atticus' hair. "I'm so sorry, Atticus."
Lemme bury my face in that chest hair, Mr. Poldark.
Scarlett blinked at him in surprise and confusion. "What are you talking about?" Her brow furrowed and she looked down at his hand now holding her arm then back up at him. "What are you looking at? What's going on?" Now she was starting to wonder if all the wonky magic of the island had made something weird happen to her.
She watched as the scythe turned into a lighter and he kept waving it around. "Was it...supposed to do that?" Scarlett asked, then remembered what she had been saying before he freaked out. "Oh, yeah, I said we could try and hide from the birds if you want. And it might be a good idea with everything happening right now." she pointed out, gesturing around them at the chaos of the island. "What do you think is going on?"
"No. No, it was not," Noah said, giving the lighter another little shake, his expression unmistakably one of concern. This time it did as he willed, expanding back into the gleaming silver length of his scythe, and for a moment Noah looked relieved--and then the whole scythe sagged in his hands, normally strong metal going limp as a noodle, dangling over his hand. Noah let out a panicked noise and willed it back to a lighter, stuffed it into his pocket.
"We should do that. The hiding," he said, and started moving again, tugging Scarlett along by the grip on her arm. He shook his head at her question. "I don't know. But it's--you haven't, like... died, recently, have you? No encounters with vampires? Haven't dug your way out of any holes, or--you don't have a soul, is the thing. So either you're dead, or there's something very wrong with me." And, judging by his spaghetti-scythe, he was leaning towards the latter.
Freddie perked up a little, watching someone attempt a sign. It felt like being able to breathe again after living with a blocked nose for a couple of days. Slowly, his expression went from delighted, to squinting confusion. The sign was pretty close to thank you, but conducted the same way someone who was really, truly blasted would speak it. Fuck, ASL. There would be a handful of rudimentary signs he could mostly follow, but beyond that they were different languages, more like Spanish and German than American English and British English.
Freddie shook his head. Sorry. Brit. Need BSL. It was endlessly frustrating. No matter who he was with on this island, the basic act of communicating was monumentally more effort from Freddie than anyone else. He hugged his knees, thinking about how much he missed his mum. They had learnt BSL together, and she spoke just as fluently as he did, as if she wasn't bogged down by sound at all. His expression perked up as he took the business card between his fingers, examining it curiously, turning it over in his hand. Never done woodwork. Want to try. He looked again at Noah's face, contemplative. It would do Freddie some good to make a few friends before he inevitably made a few enemies. Can I visit?
Noah would not have survived the streets--or this island, for that matter--without being observant, and so he didn't miss the expressions that shifted across the young human's face. The moment of hope, the fall into disappointment. A frown tugged at the corners of Noah's lips. He found himself remembering his time with Naomi--a lifetime spent as her dog, his voice stolen, unable to speak for decades that had turned out to be a mere three days within the djinn's vision. Naomi had hurt him in more ways than he could count during that visit, but the theft of his voice had always been one of the worst parts. Was that how Freddie felt now? In his several years on this island, had Noah encountered anyone who knew BSL, would be able to communicate with him properly, without the human having to work so very hard?
"I'm sorry," Noah said, and meant it. Idly, he wondered if his perfect recall would make learning a new language easier. He'd never tried. He made a mental note to look into classes.
The frown on his face eased as Freddie looked over the business card, and when he leaned in to read the note about woodwork, Noah grinned, a bright, easy expression. Noah had always loved art, but his time on the island had furthered his appreciation--and this was why. More than once he'd found it bridged divides, offered comfort and common ground. He nodded at the written question, his smile warm. "Yes. Absolutely. Studio time is free if you bring your welcome packet. I'll give you a woodworking lesson, if you want."
Dylan listened intently, nodding slowly, the gears in his head turning. "I could probably do that," he mumbled. "I just need an heiress, and I'm good." Seducing people was in his wheelhouse, and he was just careless enough with his body to use it however he needed. "There's probably loads of them around here." He felt a twinge of guilt for anyone who had started off as a master - with powers, with status, only to tumble literally to the bottom. To the cells, to be specific.
He hadn't stopped moving, pacing around a bit. He needed to move, to be doing something while they waited like lambs for slaughter. It was cold and echoing in here. "God, I need a cigarette," he muttered. "How bad could this get?" Dylan was too new and his imagination was spinning out of control.
Noah very nearly laughed at the young man's quiet plotting. If someone had told him there was a route out of the cells back when he'd been dirt poor and stuck in them, he would have been just the same, the gears in his mind spinning away. It was only through luck and the grace of a handful of people with hearts much bigger than his own that Noah was no longer that man. "Probably," he agreed mildly, and then, "Careful you don't choose one who'll just keep you as a pet. Though--I mean, that's a route out of the cells, too, if you pick one that ain't too sadistic."
He watched Dylan pace, a soft, longing sound escaping him at the mention of cigarettes. What Noah would have given to have been snatched out of his home while wearing his jacket, with its pockets full of cigarettes and things to fidget with. His constantly fidgeting hands were reduced to picking at his finger nails, for lack of anything else to occupy them. An eyebrow arched at the question, and he looked Dylan over for a moment, thoughtful. Was he the sort of slave who needed a little white lie to make this more bearable, or the sort who needed the truth, needed to know what he was facing? Noah thought he was likely the latter.
"Bad," he said simply, because it was the truth. He shrugged a shoulder, picked at a hangnail on his thumb and then wrinkled his nose, wiped a dot of acidic blood he'd drawn on the wall, looked a little bit pleased when it stained the surface. Turning back to Dylan, he said, "I've been through mass punishments before. They aren't pretty. They're designed to break you." A beat, and then he added: "Don't let them."
continued from here | @noahwrightx
Jackson couldn't help the way his eyes continued to trail down over her body greedily and oh so hungril--he wanted to lick every goddamn inch of her skin. Later on he'd probably look back and realise just how desperate he'd been, almost embarrassingly so, but who could blame him with Noah looking like that? Every soften edge drew Jackson in and he felt all too much like a helpless teenager looking at some gorgeous woman in a forbidden magazine.
"Jesus fucking christ, Noah." His lips parted softly as he watched her slip out of her briefs, teasing him just so before her shirt was off and oh.
"Fuck--" the word was cut off as Noah shifted over him, his voice trailing into what only could have been described as a desperate whine when she didn't actually touch him, but rather hovered her beautiful body over him. His hand moved easily to her side, his fingers splaying and running up to immediately cup one of her breasts tenderly.
"Oh god, please, I'll be so good for you, promise."
It certainly wasn't the first time Noah had made Jackson whine like that, but it had never been quite so easy. She grinned at the human beneath her, a cat-that-got-the-canary smile that softened only when his hand slid up her side, eyes gone heavy lidded and hungry under his touch.
"Sweet baby," she crooned, one long-fingered hand cradling his cheek. She ran the pad of her thumb over his bottom lip, arched her back to press into the hand on her breast, the list of things she wanted all tangled up in her head as she tried to focus on just one. Her hips lowered just a little, until their bodies met, his cock hard where she was soft and wet, a breath of a moan escaping her lips as she rocked her hips slowly, lightly, letting him feel her, his cock slipping between wet folds to brush against her clit.
She stayed there a moment, careful not to give him too much friction--she wanted to tease him, but just now that meant teasing herself, too, which--well, normally Noah was quite good at being patient, but with Jackson beneath her, promising to be good, and who-knew-how-long left in this body...
"Fuck," she said suddenly, hips lifting away from him at the same time the hand on his face moved up to fist in his hair, tugging lightly. "Yeah, you're gonna be good for me," she agreed, and shifted to crawl up his body, braced her free hand against the wall as she knelt over his face. "Make me come, baby," was the only instruction she gave before the hand in his hair tugged, pulling his mouth up towards her pussy.
vampiric ray of sunshine BEING HUMAN 1.01
It made Freddie snort - power over life and death or whatever and Noah needed reading glasses. What a fucking thing. He held the flip pad a little closer. Having conflicting needs with another disabled person was a terrible problem. He'd been in a college class with a blind guy once. The teacher had looked like she wanted to cry.
He couldn't help himself. He touched one of Noah's feathers, stroking it between finger and thumb. It felt just the same as any magpie feather he'd find lying around on the street. Curious. Then he remembered and silently cursed himself. Curiosity would get him in trouble here, deep deep trouble. He hoped Noah hadn't noticed and tried to focus on his cigarette, the warmth in his lungs.
We'll see. Considering that, so far, there hadn't been any teaching and he was staying in a stranger's house while the dorm rooms remained "under construction" he felt about as impressed as one of those Portsmouth students that had been in the news a few years ago, left in the lurch and forced to stay in hotels. And that was with the magic adding some bonus points. You study?
Noah let out a faint hum of thanks when the pad was held closer, only to immediately realize the futility of such a gesture. He put a flat hand to his chin instead, tipped it down and towards Freddie, thank you, one of a handful of signs Noah knew. Thank you, and please, and asshole, though the first two he'd learned from a My First Signs book in the children's section of a library as a child, and the third from a woman whose floor he'd slept on for a week, and--he realized belatedly--all three were American Sign Language, and he had no evidence that Freddie was American.
He was distracted from this tangled line of thought by the sudden need to repress a shiver, the effort of holding his wings perfectly still under the familiar touch of fingers against feathers. He didn't begrudge the curious touch; he'd likely have done the same if roles were reversed. And anyway, once, when island-bullshit had stripped them both of their memories, Atticus had mistaken the wings for a costume and ripped a feather right out--this was better than that.
"I did," he confirmed with a nod, a hand fishing under the collar of his shirt to fish out several tangled necklaces--a pair of dog tags that did not bear his name, a black crystal, a tarnished silver crucifix, and a delicately carved wooden bird, taking flight from an intricate web of branches. The last was his own work, and he gave it a tap as he added, "Sculpture, mostly. I've graduated now. I own--" A pause, wherein he rummaged in endless pockets again, this time emerging with a business card embellished with his name and a swooping birdhouse logo, The Birdhouse: Custom Woodwork & Art Studio, which he offered with a smile.
The birds had shown up maybe an hour ago–two at the most. Noah had been at the height of whatever power rollercoaster the island had all the supers riding then. He’d felt so strong; the kind of strength that borders on out of control, dangerous, except that with it had come a surge of instinct so strong that he’d hardly recognized himself while it lasted. It had turned him towards his duty, his concern for his friends and those caught in the blast temporarily erased by a single-minded focus.
There had been plenty of damned things killed in the blast and the battles and chaos that had followed–and, Noah was a little ashamed to admit, there was a non-zero number of damned souls that had not been actively dying before they’d encountered him. Their souls swirled in his chest now. They ought to have made him strong, but instead he felt wrong, and the birds–a massive flock of magpies and vultures and even a few crows, who had begun to follow him earlier–seemed to agree.
Most of the birds seemed only mildly disgruntled by whatever change had come over Noah some fifteen minutes ago. They still followed, squawking their complaints at him. But a few of their number had turned downright hostile and begun to chase him–which was how Noah Wright came to be running full tilt down the street, shouting curses over his shoulder at a particularly stubborn vulture that attempted to tear at his flesh every time he let it catch up to him. He couldn’t even blame the bird completely–at some point during the night he’d cut his arm, just below the shoulder, and the wound had begun to smell just a little off, as if his body were heading towards a cycle without his permission. That was a problem, too, but one for later.
“Fuck off!” Noah yelled, waving his scythe at the vulture when it got too close. It earned him a few feet of space, but his unwillingness to kill the stupid creature made it only a temporary reprieve. Swearing again, loudly and with great feeling, he kept running.
@scarlettxmcknight
Scarlett didn’t entirely understand what was happening with the magic on the island. She was just a human so she didn’t feel any effects herself, but she saw strange things happening to those around her. While it was kind of satisfying to see some of the masters lose control or be weakened by all this, she knew it meant the same was happening to her friends.
She walked along the path near the trees and furrowed her brow when she saw a flock of birds swarming up ahead. When she looked closer she realized they weren’t even all the same kind of bird, and she was even more confused but figured it had to be magic related. Scarlett continued walking and saw a familiar face turn the corner, then realized the birds were following him. At first she was concerned, but after only a moment her face twisted as she held back a laugh.
“Are you good?” she called, the stifled laugh clear in her voice as she approached Noah. “That looks...like fun.” she offered, clearly trying not to smile at the sight. It was the first time she’d laughed, or almost laughed, in the last few days. “I bet someone could help you get rid of them if you want.” she offered. “I don’t think I can, but we could find somewhere to hide from them maybe.”
He ought to have kept running, grabbed her arm and dragged her along, got both of them out of the open--ought to, probably, but he was so caught off guard--not by her voice, or her words, no, frankly he hardly even processed those, but--
"Are you dead?!" This was the sort of question that called for tact, but Noah had none just now. His voice was panicked, one hand gripping Scarlett's arm as his gaze frantically roved over her, searching desperately for some hint of living human soul. There was none. Why was there none? "What happened? Where's your--ow, will you fuck off?!"
The last was directed over his shoulder at a crow that had caught up to him and yanked out a large chunk of his hair. Noah turned to wave his scythe at it and--his scythe flickered, the long silver staff shifting back into a lighter in his hand. He shook it, blinked at it, expression both horrified and confused, and then looked back at Scarlett. "Did you... say something about hiding?"
Atticus not having his phone was the second most stressful thing going on with him. The ultimate distraction advice for someone like him, lost in the sand somewhere. He'd have to start his progress over on so many games, and so many Merlin pictures were lost - it was devastating. He was still so shaken up from the events of the previous night, and even with reassurances and help from Scott, Atticus found himself wanting to be alone - a difficult task when a bunch of island folk were shoved into a shelter due to dragons flying around the skies. What was his life right now, seriously? This was a bad nightmare. He wandered the second floor stacks for a little bit, hood up, keeping everyone at a distance until there was an odd whooshing sound and a flurry of feathers from the ground floor. It pointed to one person he knew, one person who had some experience in this too. Someone he knew well. He raced to the stairs - literally raced, speeding there in less than a second, before taking the time to slow down and swallow down the rising anxiety - and headed to his direction, stopping when he saw the reaper sit down, approaching cautiously. With his hood up and oversized, baggy clothes, he looked like a depressed, exhausted Teletubby. "Hey," he began, voice a little scratchy, before clearing his throat. His eyes were alert and wide, and he couldn't stop fidgeting. "Can we talk?" @noahwrightx
Slumped low in a chair, Noah was a study in bad posture when Atticus approached--but he sat bolt upright when he caught sight of the younger man's face, and the distinct lack of a glowing human soul.
"What--" he started, one hand gripping Atticus' arm while the other stretched behind him to touch his own wings, as if checking they were still there, because the last time one of his human friends had looked like this--when he'd seen Scarlett and thought, for a moment, she was dead--it was because his powers were malfunctioning.
It only took a moment for Noah to realize that he could see the glow of several other souls in the distance. His face fell, the panicked grip on his friend's arm softening. "Oh," he said, and his heart ached, but he forced his lips into a sad smile, squeezed Atticus' arm once before releasing it and pushing the chair next to him out with his foot. "Yeah, sugar, we can talk. Shit. Have a seat."
@fire-starterdylan | continued from here
He kept his gaze carefully trained outward, posture and expression intentionally casual, as if he was watching the anxious crowd milling around the ballroom, and not watching the young man beside him out of the corner of his eye. Only when Dylan asked about the collar did Noah turn his gaze back to him properly, a hint of a sad smile at the corners of his lips.
"Sure," he said, but there was a hesitancy to the word that suggested a catch, and the catch was--"If you get really, really, stupid lucky. Like, say--you get a young heiress to fall in love with you, and then you leave, and she sends a lawyer to find you and offer to pay your tuition so you'll come back." And then you killed a man for that heiress, a decision which would fairly directly lead to an ugly break up, but that didn't seem relevant to the conversation. He shrugged a shoulder, turning his gaze back towards the crowd. "It happens, now and then. People get lucky, get out of the cells. It's not--it's not something you can count on, to survive this place. But now and then, and sometimes--sometimes people go the other way, end up in a collar when it ain't where they started."
@pretty-boyelliot | continued from here
He hummed his agreement at Elliot's wish for pancakes, his fingers absently tracing shapes on the incubus' arm. A love of eating even though it didn't exactly nourish them was something they had in common, and Noah added, "Big stack. With butter and syrup. Maybe some fruit," before Elliot spoke again and Noah pulled himself out of his breakfast-food-daydream.
"This? A sign?" He looked around the room as if considering it, and then, with a wrinkled nose and a shake of his head, declared: "Nah, don't think so. The only thing this is a sign of is that ol' Malvolio is trying to deflect attention from something. That stunt at the luncheon sure as shit wasn't rebellious slaves and their sympathetic master friends, but I reckon he's hoping we'll all be too worried about our own skin to ask more questions about what it really was." And, looking around the ballroom full of anxious slaves and masters, it would probably be effective. "You and me have survived worse than anything that old fartbag has up his sleeve, hey?"
God that cigarette tasted good. Freddie had been smoking on and off since he was thirteen, mostly roll-ups, and had spent far too much of his life with tobacco under his fingers. He waved a hand dismissively, letting the ash fall onto the sketchbook. If he singed a hole in his work it would only add to the vibe. He looked Noah up and down, a steely gaze now, rather than one of discomfort. People often ran their mouths at Freddie, mostly because he wouldn't interrupt them. Noah was doing his best impression of harmless, but then Freddie had met people who appeared that way several times before. They were waiting for the moment you let your guard down. He bobbed his head, as if the whole reaper thing wasn't going straight over his head, completely wasted on him. He was sure he'd get to know the particulars if they became relevant. Yesterday. It didn't quite make grammatical sense, but Freddie was very economical with his words, except when he was signing. No matter how skilled you were at it, writing was inevitably slower than the speed with which people spoke, particularly Noah. Eh, whatever.
He didn't miss the suspicion in Freddie's gaze, but he didn't react to it either. Noah knew what he looked like--the big black wings, the hooks at their ends, the leather and the boots and the sheer size of him, and all of it topped by his bare neck, the absence of a collar, the knowledge that he paid for status on this island. If he'd met himself years ago, when he'd been collared, he certainly wouldn't have been eager to trust.
Squinting, Noah started to lean in closer to read the newly written words, then caught himself and rummaged again in his pocket, this time coming out with a pair of reading glasses. Better not to make his bad vision look like an excuse to encroach on Freddie's space. A snort escaped him at the casual dismissal of the supernatural, but he shrugged a shoulder, happy to let it drop. Noah had never been great at walking people through that one--people didn't tend to find a literal reaper of souls comforting when they were melting down about their own mortality in the face of an island full of immortals. Weird, that.
"Good, we can skip the tears." He gestured at the piece he'd been working on when Noah arrived instead. "I like this. Art student? It's a hell of a shock, all this--" a hand waved at his own neck, the absence of a collar--"but the program's worth it."
Nope, Freddie decided; he was, in fact, not at all on board with the whole magical creatures thing. He stared long and hard at the wings, a ponderous frown on his face, distracted from his lip reading. When the cigarette presented itself, he did slip one out of the packet. He'd been trying to quit before he came here, but damn if he wasn't itching for a cigarette, one of life's few, small pleasures when you grew up as far from affluence as Freddie had. He put the cigarette between his lips and mimed for a lighter. He couldn't help but take notice of who wore a collar and who didn't, couldn't help but let it tarnish his opinion. As much as he wanted to say no, there were consequences he'd been made very aware of for pissing off the wrong person. Freddie shrugged his shoulders, shaking his head at the fruit stripes. He fished his flip pad out of his shirt pocket and scrawled his name. Noah seemed to be doing his very best to seem harmless, but those wings were still bothering Freddie. How would he know who was being honest and who was playing a cruel game? Better safe than sorry.
Only after the gum was rejected did Noah notice the cigarette Freddie had taken. His fingers clicked, nimble hands pocketing the gum and the oddities and just as quickly diving into another pocket in search of a lighter. He drew out two--an elaborate silver affair and a shitty, plastic thing of the sort that came in a pack of five. The former, being not so much an ordinary lighter as the manifestation of his scythe, was returned to his pocket; the latter he flicked and held out to light the human's cigarette.
"Don't say I didn't warn you about the dangers of these things--" a glance at the notepad to catch the scrawled name, before he concluded, "--Freddie. They'll fuckin' kill you, and I'd know." Pocketing the lighter again once the cigarette was lit, he leaned back on one arm, wing automatically shifting to a new angle to block the sun. Noah glanced up at it as if noticing it for the first time, clicked his tongue thoughtfully. "Ah. Right. Reaper." Not that he'd asked, but then Noah had been hesitant to go around asking people's species when he'd been human and collared, and newly arrived humans didn't generally look at a six-foot-five man with wings and not have questions. "Not The, not grim, and most importantly, not on duty. I just live here. Well, I don't 'live', exactly. I undead here. I reside. How long have you been on Malvolio Island, Freddie? Have you done the supernatural freak out already, or should we do that now?"
