drabblesxforxdays

[drabblesxforxdays]

On the importance of skins pt 2

Fanfic, Sweet Pea x Original Character

When you made your way back into Sunnyside trailer park, your hair was still soaking wet and your lips were tinged blue from the cold. Sweet Pea was sitting on the porch of his trailer alone, his eyes snapping to you immediately as you walked up. Fuck.

“Lia, what the hell happened?” What was that look on his face? Concern? Any time you’d ever so much as glanced in Pea’s direction he looked as if someone had driven the stick up his ass even further -- like nothing in the world could phase him. This was... different, and it made you feel more uncomfortable than your hair being practically frozen to your head.

“It’s nothing, Green Bean, don’t worry about it...” You quipped, the nickname you’d given him years ago falling from your lips in a joking manner. He hated that nickname, or at least he pretended he did, but even that didn’t illicit a change back to the way he normally looked at you. He still looked concerned, and you knew that he wasn’t going to stop the inquisition at your dismissal.

“I fell in the river. I was fucking around with Em --” you started on your lie, but Sweet Pea cut you off almost immediately.

“The fuck were you at the river for?” His voice was demanding, startling to you when he’d never seemed to give much of a shit about your existence.

“We just went for a walk,” you replied softly, shrinking into your frozen jacket as much as you possibly could. “Why do you even care, Sweet Pea?”

He grunted quietly in response, scratching at the back of his head for a moment before giving a shrug. “You’re a South Sider. We stick together.” He answered succinctly, but you had a feeling that there was more to it than he was letting on. “Come inside.”

You hesitated, glancing down the row of trailers and considering shaking off his demand and walking all the way back to your house, but with how cold you felt the three minute walk seemed like it would take eons. Beyond your better judgment, you trudged up the path to his trailer and slipped into the door that he held open for you.

“I’m going to start a shower for you,” he said quietly, moving back into the room. “I don’t have anythin’ that would fit ya, but I’ll find something you can wear to walk home.”

You just nodded, quietly following him back to the room and hovering uncomfortably at the door. He looked up at you, his eyebrows raising expectantly. “C’mon, Cross. We’ve known each other forever, don’t be so fucking awkward.”

You opened your mouth to protest, to point out this is the longest conversation you had ever had, but instead you peeled the stiff leather from your shoulders and kicked off your boots. When you walked into the already steamy bathroom, he grabbed a towel from the cabinet and put it in arm’s length of the shower.

“Lemme know if you need anything, I’ll put clothes on the counter for you,” he disappeared out the door, and you stripped out of your frozen clothes and stepped behind the frosted door, the warm water bringing some color back to your skin but not so hot that you’d go into shock.

It didn’t even cross your mind that Pea could see your silhouette through the shower door, you let the water wash over you and melt the stuck-together bits of your hair so that it once again hung limp around your shoulders. You let out a contented sigh, hearing him come in and set the clothes down before immediately leaving.

After a shower long enough that you probably overstayed your welcome, you finally stepped out into the bathroom and wrapped the towel around your body, drying yourself as thoroughly as you could before you pulled on the drawstring sweats he’d left you.

You had to pull the strings as far as they would go, tying them securely at your waist before you yanked on the long john shirt he’d left and one of his signature flannels over it. Grabbing the socks he left, you padded out into the room and sat on the edge of his bed to pull them on.

It wasn’t until he cleared his throat that you noticed he’d been laying there, looking over your shoulder sheepishly to meet his eyes. “Thanks,” you let out quietly, eying your wet boots for a moment before opting not to wear them. “You didn’t have to help me.”

Pea gave you a pair of slippers to walk home in and a trash bag to carry your things, and when you walked in the door your father didn’t even bother to move from his spot on the couch or even acknowledge your presence. Letting out a sigh, you trudged back into the room and sprawled out over your bed, replaying the situation with Pea in your mind.

After all those years, all the times you’d tagged along with Fangs to hang outs and been the thorn in everyone’s side, Sweet Pea had not only noticed you but taken care of you... and you? You were going to repay his kindness by joining a rival gang.

[drabblesxforxdays]

Ascension

Drabble, Riverdale, Lia

TW: Strangulation, death, assault

She thought they’d skirted the system — that the harrowing moment at the docks was going to be the last they heard of a s c e n s i on. That the cards would stop coming. That they had tricked the game master into a corner.

When she got back to the loft, she didn’t notice the symbol of sacrifice carved into the top of the doorframe. She was on the phone with Pea, keeping it nestled in the crook between her shoulder and her ear. “I just got to the loft, I’ll be over in about an hour.”

She grinned at his words in her ear, blushing even though he wasn’t in front of her. “Mhm, of course,” she let out with a breath. “I’ll see you soon.”

Hanging up the phone and tossing it onto the counter, she glanced at Vicki’s prized leather couches and walked back to her room. Shoving clothes into an overnight bag and trying to decide what else she needed to bring, she didn’t notice the shadow creeping up behind her.

“The king wants you to ascend,” She turned on the spot, but before she could grab a weapon the blond’s hands were around her throat. She kicked against him, clawed, fought back, but he overpowered her and dropped her to the bed.

Hands grasping desperately at his, she struggled to breath under the weight of his grip, he shook her, slammed her down and didn’t relent until her vision went black, her arms limp, her eyes red, open and lifeless.

He took a cloth and wiped away his fingerprints from doorknobs and surfaces, meticulously cleaning any trace of his existence in the loft before walking out, leaving the loft door wide open in his wake.

[drabblesxforxdays]

The Riverdale Ripper

One shot, tiny drabble, Riverdale

(TW: murder, torture, dismemberment)

The newscasts were all the same — who is h e? He. Maybe the reason she’d been avoiding capture for so long was due to the fact that they were insistent that Riverdale’s long time serial killer was a man. She’d considered taking the anonymous letter approach and writing into a newspaper... but that was how some had gotten caught.

She didn’t need the taunting, she thrived on the invisibility. Slight, blonde, poor misled Lia could be a lot of things, but she wasn’t c a p a b l e of neatly dismembering bodies and leaving them strewn about Fox Forest to be found. The assessments of her kept her identity shrouded in secret, and that secret allowed her to continue her bloody machinations completely under the radar.

The other side of that was to keep them guessing. Her victims were varied, untraceable. The only thing that connected them was the way that they died — dismembered. They couldn’t even agree on a murder weapon. Scalpels? Thin bladed knives? Piano wire? The perks to using a long forgotten weapon were innumerable.

No one suspected a small girl and a garrote.

The girl who cowered beneath her now seemed squeaky clean from the outside looking in. She’d never been caught, never even suspected of the things she did in the dark. Lia was the truth — her reckoning — and her skin tingled at the idea of coming out of retirement.

She hadn’t killed in weeks, and now... now she pulled the garrote tighter around a slender wrist, cutting through flesh as muffled screams tried to escape the throat of the gagged girl beneath her. She smiled, pulling until the hand came clear off.

“Shhh, shhh...” she cooed lightly as the girl screamed, that smile of hers wicked and haunting. “You won’t be needing it anyway.”

[drabblesxforxdays]

Just a Drabble

Riverdale, Sweet Pea x Lia, Original Character

She rubbed the sleep from under her eyes, feet dangling off of the side of the bed she’d shared with Sweet Pea for the last few months as she struggled to find the will to start getting ready for her job at Pop’s. Sometimes she regretted taking on not one but t w o legitimate jobs, but when she looked over at her sleeping partner with the spot of drool spreading under his cheek she leaned over to kiss his forehead and finally made the effort to stand.

Her days were long, and b o r i n g, but the reminder that she was working for something — that there was a goal — made the monotony of a normie’s life feel worth it. Touching the newspaper clipping of the house that would be t h e i r s if they could meet the down payment that she’d taped to the mirror as a reminder, she scrubbed her face, curled her hair, and pulled on the tacky yellow dress she’d been wearing day in and day out for the last few weeks.

She hated it, and she hated working for a Lodge even more, but using money she e a r n e d to build her life instead of money given to her from a job Chai did for Hiram — of all fucking people — she left that money where it was, nearly untouched, and did what she needed to do to keep it that way. It wasn’t that it was dirty money, it’s that it was h i s money, and Lia had to resist the urge to make her life easier with it daily.

As she walked out into the room to see Pea slowly starting to stir, she smiled a little to herself. “‘Morning mi amor,” she said, his mumbled I love you not going unnoticed though his face was still buried in the pillow. “I love you, too, I’ll see you when I’m home from the bar.”

Shoving her clothes for the Hellhound into her backpack and yanking on her blank skin, she rushed out the door to her bike to find a note sitting neatly on the handlebars. She didn’t need to open it to know who it was from, the handwriting her name was scrawled in was instantly recognizable.

Shaking her head, she shoved the note into her pocket to be read or discarded when she made it to her destination. She knew what it would say, anyway... he was never going to let her forget where she came from, who she w a s, no matter how long she lived a life that wasn’t q u i t e as fucked up as it used to be. Monsters could have lives, too, and she was determined to live hers as s h e saw fit.

[drabblesxforxdays]

On the importance of skins...

[PART ONE] Fanfic, Riverdale, Sweet Pea x Lia, OC

In the Whyte Wyrm, just a few blocks away from the trailer you shared with your dad, a string bean of a fourteen-year-old was standing in the middle of the bar. Surrounded by men in leather jackets, his voice trembled in anticipation as he shouted answers to questions he’d been reciting for weeks.

“What’s rule number 1?” F.P. Jones was the first to speak, standing about a foot from Sweet Pea as he shouted over the raucous chattering of the other Serpents.

“No Serpent stands alone!” Sweet Pea shouted back, his chest puffed outward with pride and the desire to impress the people he’d soon be calling his family. F.P. grinned wide as the other Serpents erupted into cheers, causing the boy to swell with confidence.

“Rule number 2!” An anonymous voice shouted from the crowd. Pea couldn’t see him, but he answered none-the-less.

“If a Serpent is killed or imprisoned, his family will be taken care of!” He shouted back, the cheers of the Serpents around him erupting into a roar.

“RULE THREE!” Toni Topaz, one of his best friends in the entire world, yelled from beside him, blood crusted on her lip from her own trip through the Gauntlet just hours earlier.

“A Serpent never sheds his skin!” Pea answered, a grin on his face as he pulled his friend into the crook of his elbow and gave her a brief hug.

“Rule number four!” Fangs chimed in now, his grin taking up his whole face as it always did -- best friends since diapers, Pea had started the process of joining the Serpents just a week after his friend had been initiated.

“No Serpent is left for dead!” Pea shouted, the roar of the crowd only seeming to get louder with every right answer that he gave.

“Number five!” Another voice called out, barely audible over the chatter of the Serpents in the room. Sweet Pea tried to find who’d asked him but couldn’t figure out exactly where the voice had come from.

“A Serpent never betrays his own!” He answered, the hype from everyone around him giving him a kind of buzz he’d never experienced before. He felt euphoric -- unstoppable -- and the words of the Serpent creed, his creed, felt more a part of him than ever before.

“What’s rule number 6?” Tall Boy shouted, just inches from his face, but Sweet Pea didn’t flinch or step away, instead locking eyes with the older Serpent with complete seriousness on his face.

“In unity, there is strength!” He shouted his final response, the room erupting in cheers louder than they’d let out before, hands coming from all directions to clap him on the shoulder and urge him on to the next task.

With the kind of bravado only he could muster, Sweet Pea sauntered up to a box that was opened before him, a snake laying in wait, coiled and already agitated.

He was barely able to contain himself while Tall Boy explained the task, his hand diving into the box to grab the knife as soon as he was given the okay to start. The viper struck, but despite the pain in his hand he grabbed the knife by the handle and pulled it from the box, holding it up above his head with a triumphant whoop.

The last part — the gauntlet — would be the most challenging, but even as the Serpents around him lined up to create a corridor to walk through, the smile on his face refused to fade. One might hesitate if they knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that they’d be beat to hell if they took that step forward, but Pea practically jumped at the opportunity.

One punch landed on his side, another to his jaw. He powered through every lick they gave, never giving pause or faltering in his steps. He could feel the bruises forming under tanned skin, but he was propelled by determination to make it to the very end, determination to become a Serpent.

————————————————

Meanwhile, your best friend since middle school smoothed a blank leather jacket over your shoulders, giving them a quick squeeze before she let you go. “Are you ready for your trials?” Em’s eyes darted up to meet yours and you let a breath out through your nose before nodding.

In the South Side, there were two choices — find safety in a gang, or be killed. You, like every kid you knew, chose the former. The halls of South Side High were littered with kids in leather jackets and most chose before they even made it to Freshman year.

“Lia, are you sure you want to do this?” She pressed, looking you square in the eyes. “Your father...”

You brushed the question off, giving a tilted smile and shrugging your shoulders. “What about him? He only cares what I do when he needs me to make a run for him.”

It wasn’t wrong — your father had long since retired from gang life and had settled down to sell fizzle rocks and jingle jangle to any kid with a pulse, you doubted if he’d even notice what skin you wore.

“Besides, once I’m in it’s out of Sunnyside and into the Ghoul’s Den, right?” Your father hadn’t been a Serpent, but he’d lived among them for long enough to become a staple in the roughshod community they’d built. “His gang died out eons ago, it’s not like I’m a Serpent legacy.”

She nodded, tight-lipped, and you immediately felt bad for mentioning the “L” word. Em may have been a Ghoulie legacy on her mom’s side, but her father — as absent as he’d been — was a Serpent. You knew that making the choice had been hard for her, though she often tried to hide it with humor or jabs at her dad.

“I’m sorry, Em,” you started, but before you could open your mouth she was waving it off.

“I made my choice,” she started, eyeing you carefully before she spoke again. “As long as this is what *you* want, then everything is fine.”

You nodded again, straightening your jacket and glancing over yourself once more. The trials were the same for all Ghoulies, there was no safer alternative if you happened to be female... it was one of the reasons you chose the darker side of the gang life, aside from simply not wanting to strip as a *teenager* in front of dirty old men.

Your first trial was tonight, and you got only one hint as to what it would be — a notecard that only said ‘Survive’.

———————————————

Back at the Whyte Wyrm, Sweet Pea was bloodied but smiling as he shrugged the leather jacket over his shoulders, Serpent emblem stark and bright against the black leather. He’d been loyal to the Serpents long before he’d made the decision to join, having grown up in a trailer just down the gravel path from Jughead and a row over from you.

You’d known him — or at least of him — your entire life, but over the years the two of you had barely spoken a word in passing, much less gotten any semblance of closeness. Even so, you knew where he was tonight. Where Fangs, and Toni, and at least half of your Middle School class were tonight.

The difference was, he didn’t have the roiling of doubt bubbling just under the surface. He knew his place, and he was accepting it with open arms. The Serpents had been his family for a long time, since his parents left him to fend for himself just a year ago, and now he was official.

—————————————————

You stepped out of your trailer and started your walk through the broken down homes, ducking in between the Jones house and the McCann house to come out closer to the entrance of Sunnyside. Sweet Pea and Fangs were outside of his trailer with grins plastered over beaten faces, but you ducked your blonde head and tried to slip past without being noticed, cursing Em in your head for leaving early to meet the other Ghouls.

“Lia!” Fangs shouted, waving his arms over his head to get her attention almost cartoonishly. “Come celebrate with us!”

Fangs had always been friendly, the big dope always plastered with a smile through everything. He’d always treated you nicely and hearing him call your name made you want to crawl into a hole and never come out. Guilt, you guessed, because you knew that soon he’d find out that you’d chosen the other side though you’d grown up in Serpent territory.

“C’mon man,” Sweet Pea chided, looking at you with that burning stare that seemed permanently etched onto his face. “Y’know Cross never comes to shit.”

“I have plans, but I’ll catch you next time,” you said quietly, stung by Pea’s comment. He wasn’t wrong, when you weren’t making runs for your dad you were holed up in the trailer, but you never felt like you *fit in* at Sunnyside. If you were being honest, you never felt like you fit in *anywhere*.

Clearing your throat and giving a small wave when Fangs dropped his arms to his sides, you made your way out of the trailer park and curled your hands into the pockets of your blank leather, work Doc Martens that you’d stolen from the local shoe store scuffing the pavement as you took the sidewalk away from town and the Whyte Wyrm.

—————————————————

At the Ghoul’s Den, your skin itched with anticipation and worry. After your short run-in with Fangs and Sweet Pea the idea of pledging your loyalty just made your gut roil more. But, you were here, and there wasn’t any backing down now.

Malachai clapped a hand down onto your shoulder and you almost jumped out of your skin, trying to contain the nervous energy that bubbled under the surface as he spoke. “Welcome to the Ghoul’s Den, fresh meat,” he cooed in your ear. “Are you ready for your first task?”

Though the answer to that question was a resounding no, you nodded firmly and turned your head to look him in the eye. “Yeah, I’m ready,” you said with a tone that was more confident than how you felt by miles. “Lay it on me.”

The words had barely left your lips when a burlap sap was thrown over your head, the fabric scratching at your cheeks as you were yanked away from the spot you’d been standing in. You didn’t know what was happening or where you were being led, but soon you were lifted and unceremoniously dumped into what felt like the trunk of a car. 

You weren’t riding long. It was only a few minutes before you heard the trunk open and felt hands grabbing you and pulling you out of the smell of motor oil and rubber. Your hands and feet were bound, causing you to panic internally as you wondered what you’d be doing next.

Water.

You could hear rushing water.

It was the middle of December and the air was stinging cold, but Sweetwater River hadn’t completely frozen over yet. You knew, then, that whatever you had to survive was going to be much more dire than you’d previously imagined. You were swept off of your feet and carried, the sound of the water getting closer and closer.

You wanted to scream but you kept quiet, taking deep breaths in case you were suddenly plunged into the icy river. You felt it in slow motion as you were released, your feet hitting the the water first and every part of you slowly sinking into the freezing, churning depths.

You immediately held your breath, cold and already numb fingers working anxiously at the knots that held them. Focus, Lia.You thought to yourself, letting loose the ropes as the water seeped into the burlap sack and you felt yourself completely submerging.

When you got the ties loose, you immediately removed the sack from your head and frantically worked at the ties on your ankles, finding some difficulty because your hands were so cold it hurt to so much touch the rope. You were going to drown if you didn’t keep calm, your lungs were already burning and if you panicked you would breath in water.

Finally, the knot came loose. What had felt like hours was only just over a minute as you kicked upward and broke the surface of the cold water, gasping for air as the current took you down the river.

Taking a moment to gather the will to move your frozen limbs, you kicked hard toward the surface until you reached shallows that you could stand in, slogging through the cold water until you reached the bank -- and Em holding out a large, fluffy blanket to wrap you up in.

“I was about to dive in after you, you fuckin’ scared me...” She mumbled quietly, bundling you into the blanket with a sigh. “What took you so fucking long?”

You gave her a pointed look, one that said are you fucking kidding and trudged up the bank to a beaming Malachai.

“You handled that better than I expected, Fresh Meat.”