sufferthesea

[sufferthesea]

Flash Fiction Friday #33 (Pirates of the Caribbean)

Word: Captivate 

Pairings: Barbossa x Reader

Warnings: Reader is explicitly female, mentions of canon-compliant violence, Pintel and Ragetti leering at Reader

Never let Miss Swann out of your sight. 

That was your job, ever since you came to live in the governor’s house when you were barely a child. Miss Swann – Elizabeth to family, Lizzy to friends – had arrived in the Caribbean when she was still young, younger than even you. As her lady-in-waiting in London, you’d been expected to follow her everywhere, even to Port Royal, Jamaica. 

You’d also followed her on board the Black Pearl, though that had been less of your idea and more the pirates’ idea. Elizabeth didn’t want to reveal herself as the governor’s daughter and had claimed the last name Turner, which seemed to only make things worse for her. She’d been taken below deck while you’d been taken to the captain’s quarters. 

You stood uncomfortably in the lavishly decorated room that was illuminated with candles and oil lamps. A table was filled with food, including fresh fruits. You were no stranger to luxurious dinners, having lived with the Swanns most of your life, but it was odd to see it on a pirate ship. You’d always imagined that pirates were dirty, brash people who never took the time to cook food properly, let alone present it in fine dishes alongside candlelight. 

For a brief, silly moment, you wondered if it was for you and Elizabeth. If the men of the ship had put this all together to make you feel at ease. But that was ridiculous. They’d already kidnapped you both, made you stand in front of the crew in your night clothes, and mocked your very reasonable fear. 

Captain Barbossa stood on the other end of the captain’s quarters, his large hat shading his eyes. You could still feel them on you, however. It made you shudder in your thin underclothes. You crossed your arms over your chest and turned your own eyes to the floor, which had been cast in deep shadows. 

“I don’t suppose you’re also a Turner?” 

“No,��� you admitted. You had no idea what game Elizabeth was playing by choosing that name, but you saw the way the pirates treated her after that. 

“Who are you then?” 

“A lady-in-waiting in the governor’s house.” 

“And who are you waiting on, there in the governor’s house?” 

You’d never heard of anyone in Port Royal talk about Captain Barbossa, so you were fairly certain he’d never visited the area. You could make up a lie and he’d have no way to prove it, especially since the Black Pearl had already set sail and was headed into deep, dark waters. 

“Lady Swann,” you said simply. “The governor’s wife.” 

“His wife? My men didn’t see any others in the house, aside from scullery maids and cooks. Ain’t no Lady Swann in that house.” 

“I helped her escape through the bedroom window,” you said, trying to imagine the scenario yourself so it would sound like you believed it. You wished it were true. If Elizabeth had escaped, then you wouldn’t be so scared. You wouldn’t have to worry about her, thinking about what those men might be doing to her. “She’s safe now.” 

Barbossa eyed you for a moment then took slow, heavy steps toward you. Your eyes flickered up toward him and then immediately back down at your own bare feet. Your palms sweated, your skin prickled. Soon, you saw his boots stop before you. The wooden floorboards creaked under his weight, and the entire ship swayed gently in the waves far below. 

“Look at me, girl.” 

Hesitantly, you raised your eyes to his. Your breath caught in your throat, and you tried not to change your expression. Barbossa was as handsome as he was intimidating, though you’d never admit that aloud to anyone – especially not to anyone in Port Royal. He was a pirate. And an old one. But his intense eyes bored straight through you, down into your very soul. You were captivated. In more way than one. 

“You work with Miss Turner, then?” 

“Yes,” you breathed, now finding it difficult to look away from the man. It was no wonder he’d been made captain of this ship. His presence was so firm, so commanding, it filled every inch of the room. You were sure that you’d keep it even in the farthest corners of the ship, from the top of the mast to the bottom of the holding cells. 

“How long you been working with Miss Turner?” 

“Most of my life. Most of her life.” 

“Which one of you is older?” 

“I am, by a few years.” 

Barbossa nodded, looking you over. You shifted on your feet and clasped handfuls of nightgown in your fists. 

“So she’ll listen to you, then?” 

“I suppose she might. She’s not exactly one who follows orders all that well, Captain.” 

He grinned at you. “But you are. Barely any time at all on my ship, and you’re calling me Captain. You’ll stick with Miss Turner, make sure she follows all the rules of my ship. It’s in your best interest that she doesn’t cause any trouble, or try to escape.” 

“Yes, Captain.” 

Barbossa brushed past you and pulled open the door leading to the deck. “You two, take our Lady-in-Waiting down to Miss Turner. Make sure they’ll comfortable. We have a long way to sail.” 

Two men, the ones who had broken into the governor’s house and taken you and Elizabeth hostage, stepped into the captain’s quarters. They stared at you in a way that made your skin crawl unpleasantly. They took a step toward you, and you took a step back. 

“You can’t stay here,” teased Barbossa, “no matter how much you want to.” 

“I would feel much better if you, Captain, were the one to take me down to Miss Turner. I don’t trust your crew.” 

The two men scowled at you, baring their discolored and broken teeth. 

“I appreciate that you trust me already,” Barbossa said, almost boredly, “but I have much more important things to do. Pintel and Ragetti will take you down to Miss Turner, and they won’t hurt you. Captain’s orders.” 

The two men resumed grinning lasciviously at you. You straightened your posture and stared down at the two men, face hard. 

“Fine,” you said. “You can lead the way, but I’m walking myself. Don’t touch me.” 

The shorter of the men opened his mouth to complain, but Barbossa cut him off. 

“You heard the lady. Don’t touch her. Just show her where she’ll be staying for the time being.” 

The men glowered at you but turned and headed out to the deck with you falling in step behind them. As you left the captain’s quarters, you could feel Barbossa’s eyes on your back. You glanced over your shoulder to the open doors and saw him standing there, watching you. As Pintel and Ragetti led you below deck toward the holding cells, you couldn’t help but wonder if perhaps Captain Barbossa was captivated by you, too.

[sufferthesea]

Flash Fiction Friday #32 (30 Days of Night)

Word: Sun 

Pairings: Eben Oleson x Reader

Warnings: AU where vampires never happen. Mentions of alcoholism, allusions to suicidal thoughts, divorce. 

The thirty days were almost up. Soon, the sun would reappear over the horizon and bring light to a dark and desolate town. It felt like it had been an entire lifetime since you’d last seen the sun or felt its warmth, but it had only been about thirty days. 

Of course, thirty days was an incredibly long time to not see sunlight. Even if one spent time in artificial light, they could tell there was a difference. Their body just knew that something strange was happening outside. It was unnatural for people to live this far north, to live a whole month without sun. To be trapped in the dark, in the cold. Some people went a little crazy when they had to go a full month without sunlight, and it showed. That was why Barrow had decided they weren’t going to risk any people losing their minds this year. 

You and Eben, your boyfriend of nearly a year, had crafted a committee right after the last thirty days of solid night had ended. The committee consisted of people in the community who were willing to venture out into the cold and the dark to reach out to their neighbors. The point was to make sure people knew they weren’t alone, even during the longest of nights. At the end of the thirty days, the committee would come together and host a Sunrise Party at the police station. It would be a potluck with a few games for the kids and the first alcohol allowed after the long winter. (Eben had decided to stop selling liquor during the thirty days of night due to the tendency for certain residents to go on 30-day benders. Darkness plus alcohol equaled a depression unlike any other, and it was Eben’s goal to quash the loneliness before it got so big it swallowed up people.) 

Stella had managed to escape Barrow in time, which gave you a bit of peace, in all honesty. It was always awkward when she was around you and Eben, even though she’d been the one to leave him. Eben had been upset about the divorce at first, as any reasonable man would be, but he eventually healed, and finally noticed you. It’d only been the better part of two decades that you’d had a crush on the man, but you’d kept your distance when he was with Stella. But once they were divorced and he’d gotten over it, you weren’t going to miss your chance. 

“Last night.” Eben’s voice was soft and full of sleep as he curled his arm around your midsection and pulled you close. “Or, last day, I guess. It’s hard to tell.” 

You shrank under the thick blankets and let yourself melt into his warm body. Both of you were wearing woolen pajamas and socks, trying to stave off the freezing temperatures just outside of your bedroom window. Despite the threat of freezing to death or developing frostbite, the view of Barrow in the middle of winter was breathtaking. The entire town was silent in the snow. Moonlight glinted off rooftops and windows. It felt like the entire world was asleep, waiting for the first thaw. You loved watching the snowflakes swirl violently in winds that buffeted against the windows, and you loved curling up in front of the fireplace with a mug of hot chocolate or coffee (depending on if you were meant to be staying awake or winding down for bed). 

“You ready for tomorrow?” Eben asked sleepily, nuzzling his face into your neck. You giggled at the feeling of his stubble brushing against your sensitive skin. Usually, he shaved almost every day. During the long thirty days, however, he tended to grow a little lax and would go a few days without shaving. It was good to keep a routine, a way to mark the passing of time without sunlight, but you both knew that morning was just around the corner, and he wasn’t going to bother with a razor until the Sunrise Party. 

“Just about,” you yawned, stretching your whole body against his. “Are you?” 

“It’ll be nice to not have to use my flashlight for a bit.” He rolled back to look over his shoulder at the alarm clock. “We could probably sleep for a bit longer. Then we gotta start setting up at the police station.” 

You groaned and burrowed deeper under the covers, turning over so you could wrap your arms around Eben and keep him close. He radiated heat like the sun itself, and you were so thankful for that. You often ran cold, especially during the winter, so you needed all the help you could get to stay warm. Eben often made a point of swatting away your frigid hands or feet during the middle of the night, complaining that you felt like a popsicle. But he’d eventually find his way back to you, wrapping your cold extremities in his warm ones, and you’d feel all your coldness melt away. 

“One year, I’d like to hibernate,” you mumbled against his chest. 

He laughed, perplexed. “What?” 

“You know, like the bears? They just curl up in their caves and sleep all winter. I want to do that next year.” 

“We basically do that now.” 

“No. We still get up and go to work and see people. I just talked to a ton of people yesterday.” 

“That’s to keep people from going stir crazy.” 

“I know. But I’d like to just hibernate the entire winter. Just you and me, in bed, until spring.” 

Eben rubbed your back with his large hands and tucked the top of your head under his chin. “You know what? I think I’d like that, too.” 

[sufferthesea]

Followers' Favorite Horror Movie Countdown 2025 Edition

16. Hell House LLC (2015) dir. Stephen Cognetti   We'll never know what happened in that hotel.

[sufferthesea]

Flash Fiction Friday #31 (The Crazies (2010))

Word: Crush

Pairings: Russell Clank x Reader

Warnings: None

“This is the third time you’ve been here this week.” 

You flushed bright red and shrugged aggressively at Pam, the phone operator. 

“So? I’m just here to show support for my local police department. I’m sure you guys could use the pick-me-up.” 

“Uh-huh. And it has nothing to do with our deputy?” 

“Of course not,” you snapped. Despite the ferocity in your eyes, there was little conviction to back it up. 

Pam grinned at you. There were very few secrets in Ogden Marsh, and your crush on Deputy Russell Clank was probably one of the worst-kept ones. Everyone knew about it. You’d be absolutely shocked if Russell himself didn’t know by now. 

“He’s in with the sheriff right now,” continued Pam with a knowing smile. “He’ll be out in a few if you want to take a seat and wait for him.” 

Even though sitting around made it obvious that you were waiting to see Russell, you did it anyway. You sat in one of the uncomfortable chairs by the front door and anxiously picked at your fingernails. 

Russell was a little older than you, but he seemed so much more mature due to his being a police officer. You knew he could goof around and tell jokes, but he was always so serious when he was working. He hadn’t been that way when he was younger, of course. You remembered that he was a little bit of a troublemaker. He’d been best friends with David Dutton, though, and when David entered the police academy, it was almost guaranteed that Russell would follow suit. And he did. Some people gossiped that Russell only got the job because David was his friend, and that he never would’ve stood a chance if David hadn’t vouched for him, but you didn’t believe that. Russell was a good cop and a good man. 

“Yeah, yeah,” came Russell’s voice from the sheriff’s office. He pulled open the door but was still looking into the room. “I’ll go check it out. Not like I had anything else to do today, right?” 

Your heart skipped a beat seeing him for the first time today. You’d never get tired of seeing his tall, thin frame that seemed to move so easily. And you’d never get tired of hearing his voice. He could read the phonebook to you and you’d be over the moon about it. 

Pam glanced up at you when she heard Russell’s voice, smiling. “Do you need to make it less obvious you’re here for him?” she asked. “You’ve got a 100-watt smile right now.” 

You slapped your hands over your mouth and felt your face turn even redder. 

“No, don’t do that,” she hissed, “it makes you look nauseous! Just forget I said anything.” 

Your eyes darted from Pam to Russell as he moved from the sheriff’s office toward the front of the station. You yanked your hands down, jumped to your feet, and stood in front of Pam’s desk, grabbing the box of donuts you’d brought in. You were going to pretend you just arrived and didn’t mean to run into Russell, but since he was here you might as well talk to him. 

The first few times you’d stopped by the station (after weeks of building up your courage to do it), Russell either walked right past you or gave you a courteous nod before walking off. It just about killed you when that happened. It took you three weeks to convince yourself to try again. The next few times, he greeted you and even talked to you for a bit. He was curious about the person who suddenly decided to start showing up to the station with donuts and muffins and gift certificates to the local coffee shop. 

The last time you were here, you had a full conversation with him. You were trembling in every limb, but you did it. Now, you felt that same self-conscious doubt creeping into your stomach and up your neck. But you held fast and waited until Russell caught sight of you. 

You smiled warmly (hopefully not that 100-watt smile Pam was telling you about) and set the box of donuts back on the desk, your attention immediately drawn to the man. 

“Hi,” you said, almost too eagerly. 

“Hey,” he responded, slowing his pace so he could idle by Pam’s desk. “Donuts again?”

“Oh. If you don’t like them, I can bring something else next time.” Your mind went into panic mode. Why hadn’t you asked if he liked donuts? 

“That’s not what I meant. I mean … it’s nice, you know? Thank you for always coming in. You don’t have to do that.” 

“I know. I wanted to.” You chewed your bottom lip and Russell tapped his fingers along the top of Pam’s desk. You glanced at her from the corner of your eye and saw she was watching both of you, and not even trying to be subtle about it. 

“Russell,” Pam said finally, startling both of you. “Where are you headed?” 

“Sheriff wants me to go check out a noise complaint ‘cause some kids are setting off fireworks.” 

“How long will that take?” 

“I dunno. Earl Lapp is the one who called in the complaint. He can talk for days.” 

You laughed and Russell looked at you, a mixture of surprise and pride on his face. He’d never made you laugh before. Of course, he’d never really stuck around long enough to make you laugh. 

Russell looked back at Pam who quirked an eyebrow at him. He cleared his throat and turned to you. 

“Did you, uh … want to go with me?” 

“Am I allowed to?” 

“Sure. It ain’t that big of a deal. Besides, I can use you as an excuse to get away from Earl if he starts talking too much.” 

“Oh,” you said, trying not to sound disappointed. Any chance to spend time with Russell was good enough for you, even if it meant he was just using you to escape an annoying resident. “Okay.” 

Pam cleared her throat and when you looked at her, she was staring pointedly at Russell. He fidgeted on his feet and pulled his baseball cap off, running his fingers through his blonde hair. He settled the cap back on his head and looked at you, eyebrows knit together as if he were expecting something painful. 

“There’s a really good diner about two miles from Earl’s place. We can go after we talk to him. If you want.” 

“Really?” 

“Yeah. I’m sure you’ve been there before, but … I dunno, I like it.” 

“Yes! Yeah, that would be–” You didn’t want to say perfect, but that was the only word that described how you were feeling. You also didn’t want to come off too strongly, though. So you finished your sentence with, “Great. That would be really great.” 

“Okay,” he sighed, looking a little relieved. “I’ll go pull the car around front. You wait here.” 

You nodded eagerly as Russell left through the front door and headed to the side parking lot. You turned back to Pam, eyes wide. 

“What is happening?” 

“You got yourself a date,” she said simply, reaching into the donut box. 

“But … how? I mean, what did you say to him?” 

“You were right here, I didn’t say anything.” 

“Why did he invite me out after you looked at him, then?” 

Pam sighed and leaned forward on her desk, staring at you. “Honey, I work with Russell all day. You think I don’t know what he thinks about – or talks about – most of the time? I told him that if he didn’t ask you out soon, he had to shut up about you.” 

“Russell … talks about me?” 

“Only every day. Gets a little upset when you don’t show up at the station.” She nodded toward the front door. “Your ride’s here. And if you’ll excuse me, the sheriff and I have got to settle up.” 

“What do you mean?” 

“Sheriff and I had bets going on who was going to ask who out first. I bet you, he bet Russell. And then we had bets on when it was going to happen. I said before the county fair, he said the day of the fair. But I gotta tell Sheriff that if Russell asks you to be his date for the fair, that doesn’t count as him winning the bet.” 

You blushed hotly. “Jeez, how many bets did you guys have going?” 

“Oh, that’s just between me and Sheriff. I got bets going with everyone else in town. I’ve got a lot of money-collecting to do today. Now, you better get out there. Your man’s waiting for you.” 

You rushed out the door and hopped into the police vehicle, a surge of nervous energy coursing through your body. You didn’t care who won the bets, you were just happy to be with Russell.

[sufferthesea]

Flash Fiction Friday #30 (Detroit: Become Human)

Word: Session 

Pairings: Hank Anderson x Reader

Warnings: None

Lieutenant Hank Anderson had been through a lot. Being shot, being stabbed, getting divorced, losing his son. He considered himself fairly tough, and not all that emotional. Okay, he was emotional, but his emotions were usually anger and annoyance. But he didn’t cry, and he didn’t get warm and fuzzy. 

Hank figured he’d seen it all, done it all, survived it all. But this was something completely new to him. He was hesitant – resistant, even – to do it, but his back and hips and everything were screaming at him to get it over with. Not to mention that Fowler said that he couldn’t return to work until he’d gotten it done. So, Hank weighed his options, and one awkward session at your clinic was better than a week of unpaid leave. 

So now Hank is at your clinic, sitting almost angrily on the soft chiropractic couch while you jot down notes on his condition. 

“And this started when?” 

“Years ago. It doesn’t bother me that much. I’m just here because my boss made me.” 

“Right. I get a lot of blue-collar folks in here. Manual labor is hard on the body. Do you mind standing up and walking from that wall to this wall? I’d like to see your spine alignment.” 

Hank gets to his feet and winces, pain shooting through his back. You make a note. 

He walks back and forth, trying to disguise the pain he’s in, but something is very screwy at the moment. His last job, with Connor of course, ended with Hank taking a tumble off someone’s porch and into their hedges. All the cuts and scrapes were minor and have since scabbed over. He’s still got bruises all over, but his back and neck are what have been killing him. 

“Okay. Your hips are misaligned. That can happen from an accident, years of walking poorly, or even age. I suspect some ribs are also out of place. All of that will affect your neck and back. I’m going to have you lie face down on the bench here and we’ll get started.” 

Hank struggles to get himself onto the bench and settle into the cool pleather headrest. He squirms a little as you adjust his head and begin working along his neck. Your fingers are cool and soft, not at all how he expected them to be. 

“So, you’re a police officer?” you ask, trying to fill the silence. 

“Yeah,” he grunts, keenly aware of your fingers on his shoulders. “Lieutenant, actually.” 

“Oh, that’s quite impressive.” Your hands skate over his spine and across the span of his back toward his ribs. 

“Aren’t you supposed to be, I dunno, cracking things? Not doing a massage?” 

“Massage is half of our work. If we don’t relax the muscles, we won’t be able to readjust your skeleton properly, and you may even get hurt. I promise, we’ll get to the adjustments soon.” 

Hank opens his mouth to complain but instead he lets out a long groan mixed with a pained cry. 

“That’s a sore spot,” you say so he doesn’t have to. “I can already feel how misaligned everything is. You’ve also got a lot of knots in your muscles, and I can see bruises all over. It’s going to be pretty painful when I adjust you and do the full massage. Are you okay with that?” 

“Get it over with,” he groans into the headrest. 

You prep Hank, pulling out a bottle of massage oil, a pair of gloves, and all your tools. You line everything up on the counter and turn back to Hank. 

“I’m going to have you flip over onto your back. I’ll start with your neck and move down.” 

Hank follows your directions with a lot of groans and sighs. Once he’s lying correctly, you begin working the muscles in his neck, down to his shoulders. You feel the knots loosening and the bones shifting. You cup his chin in one hands, and the back of his head with the other. You gently turn and twist his head, feeling for the moment everything is lined up so that you can … 

CRACK!

Hank lets out a shout that sends the pigeons outside flying into the sky. You keep holding his head, rubbing a soothing circle along his neck. 

“You’re okay. It’s loud and kinda scary, isn’t it? But I promise, you’re okay.” 

Hank takes far too long for his liking to catch his breath. “That … What the hell?” 

“Have you ever been to the chiropractor before?”

“No.” 

“That explains it. You’ve got all these decades of stress and pain being stored in your body. I’m going to do the other side of your neck, okay?” 

Hank nods. 

You move his head to the other side, feel for the muscles and bones and – 

CRACK!

Hank shouts again, squeezing his eyes shut. “That was louder than the last one.” 

“Does it feel better?” 

He blinks up at the ceiling light and turns his head side to side. “It does.” 

“Good. I’m going to start working on the rest of your body now, okay?” 

“Sure. Fine.” 

You spend the next forty-five minutes poking, prodding, cracking, popping, and aligning. Hank makes a series of progressively grateful noises. When you finally finish the massage down the length of his body, ending with his feet, you look up to see that Hank is asleep. A few tears have slipped out, rolling down his face. He snores softly. 

You quietly clean up your work space, putting all the tools and oils away. Then you gently shake Hank’s shoulder to wake him. He jolts awake and looks up at you, a few more tears slipping down his face. His face flushes pink and he hurries to sit up. 

“Didn’t mean to fall asleep on you.” 

“It’s perfectly fine. That means I’m doing a good job. How do you feel?” 

“Great, Honestly. I–” He stops to wipe the tears off his cheeks and blushes deeper. 

“It’s normal to cry or have overwhelming feelings during a chiropractor visit, especially if you’ve been in pain for a long time. Can I have you walk back and forth again? Like you did earlier.” 

Hank follows the directions and doesn’t groan once. 

“Your hips and shoulders are definitely more aligned, and I notice you’re not wincing. How do you feel walking?” 

“I haven’t been able to walk like this in, I dunno, years. Way before that stupid accident.” He twists his torso from side to side, lifts his arms above his head, rolls his head back and forth. “I think you cured me.” 

You laugh. “Hardly. You’ll have to come back for another session or two. But I should’ve gotten you to a place where you can work.” 

Hank actually smiles at you. “I owe you, Doc. You are a doctor, right?” 

“I am. I’m glad that I was able to help you. We can schedule your next session at the front desk.” 

“Okay …” Hank plants his hands on his hips and twists again. “So, Doc … You’re, uh … human, right?” 

“Excuse me?” 

“I mean, you’re not a robot, right?”

You laugh. “No, I’m not an android, Lieutenant. Were you expecting one?” 

“Well, you never know. Um, so … when are you free, Doc?” 

You smile and nod toward the door. “The secretary out there will get you set up for your next appointment. I don’t know my bookings off the top of my head.” 

“No, uh …” Hank clears his throat and seems to just notice he’s still shirtless. He blushes all the way down to his chest and yanks his shirt on. “I was wondering if you were free on, I dunno, a weekend or evening.” 

“I don’t work weekends or evenings. Are you worried about having to take time off of work? Since this is part of your workman’s comp claim, you won’t be penalized for coming here during work hours.” 

“Doc?” 

“Yeah?” 

“You sure you ain’t a robot?” 

You laugh in confusion. “Yes. Why?” 

“I dunno. I guess it was pretty obvious that I was trying to ask you out. Unless you knew that and you were trying to pretend you didn’t …” An embarrassed look floods his features. “Forget I said anything. It’s probably not the place, anyway.” 

You bite your tongue and say, “Lieutenant, I promise that I didn’t realize you were asking me out.” 

“And now you do and you want me to leave? I get it, Doc. Wrong place, wrong time.” 

“Well, it is a bit inappropriate for me to go on a date with a client, but if you were to, say, see me on the sidewalk after my shift ends – in about, let’s see, fifteen minutes? – and asked me out, then I can’t see anything wrong with that.” 

Hank stares at you and a small smile begins to spread over his face. “Alright. When and where?” 

“Well, Lieutenant, you know I don’t work weekends or evenings. And as for where … I don’t mind as long as it’s not a cop bar. I fear I’ll run into too many clients there.” 

“Okay, sure. I know a place. Should I pick you up?” 

You point to the door. “You can schedule your next appointment at the front desk. We’ll figure everything else out in …” You check your watch. “Twelve minutes.” 

“Right. Uh … Thanks, Doc. I’ll go schedule that …” 

“I look forward to seeing you again. In a professional capacity, of course.” 

“Of course. I’ll see ya … in about twelve minutes.” 

You smile, feeling yourself blush. “See you then, Lieutenant Anderson.” 

[sufferthesea]

Flash Fiction Friday #29 (The Firm)

Word: Promise 

Pairings: Ray McDeere x Reader

Warnings: mention of death/murder, mention of affair (not Reader or Ray), Ray’s in prison 

“Sorry,” you said as you approached the white iron bars. “I baked you a cake but they confiscated it. Again.” 

“It’s alright,” said Ray with the half-smile you loved so much. “I appreciate the thought.” 

“I’ve been here so many times, you’d think they’d know me by now. I’m not dumb enough to organize a jailbreak, especially through baked goods.” 

Ray smiled fully at that. He loved how you never put yourself down, even in hypothetical situations. You didn’t say you weren’t smart enough to do it (because, really, you were smart enough), you said you weren’t dumb enough (because it was incredibly dumb to try to break a felon out of prison, with or without the assistance of desserts). 

“They know you,” he said lazily, leaning against the bars. “They’re just confiscating the stuff you bake now because it tastes so good. It’s got nothing to do with security.” 

You blushed and grinned at Ray, stepping closer to the bars. You could feel the eyes of security cameras creeping over your skin. It never got any easier, visiting Ray like this. It seemed like forever ago that he’d been arrested for murder – when it was a bogus charge. Ray had done nothing but protect himself, and you. If he hadn’t been there to intervene, you didn’t know what would’ve happened to you. It made your blood run cold to think of it. 

But no amount of character witnesses had made a difference. A man was dead and, self-defense or not, Ray McDeere had been the one to kill him. 

You placed your hands on the cold bars tentatively. This had been your ritual for so many years, but you were still nervous. Not about Ray – you knew he’d never hurt you – but about the guards at the prison. You’d seen some new faces that morning and you didn’t like being hassled about your relationship with Ray. Some of the older guards knew Ray was even-tempered and quiet, and they gave him a little extra leeway when it came to your visits. You’d never been granted a conjugal visit, but no one has stopped you from reaching through the bars to hold Ray’s hands. 

“How’s work?” Ray asked you as you slowly reached past the cold bars to his warm body. Your hands flattened against his gray jumpsuit, feeling heat radiate through the fabric. It seemed impossible he could ask such a nonchalant question, as if he was just catching up after a brief time apart. 

“It’s terrible,” you said, running your hands down his chest to his stomach. His hands caught yours, his eyes never leaving your face. 

“What’s so terrible about it?” 

“My boss is about ready to run off with his secretary and HR is looking for a new replacement.” 

“Replacing him before he’s gone?” 

“They could see this coming from a mile off. They’ve already interviewed some people. I don’t know if my boss knows, or cares. But his secretary is lousy, so I have to do twice the work now.” 

“I’m sorry, babe.” He pressed close and pulled your arms around his body. He reached through the bars and held you, his large hands rubbing your back. “You know, Mitch is taking the bar exam soon. Or, at least, should be. Once he becomes a hotshot lawyer, I bet he’ll need a great secretary.” 

“But I’ll have to move all the way to Boston. I’m not leaving you, Ray.” 

Ray sighed but didn’t let you go. “You know I’m in here for life, right?” 

“Twenty-five to life,” you reminded him. 

He chuckled softly. “Okay, my little optimist. Twenty-five to life. So you got some time before I’m out. Why not travel for a bit and work with Mitch? It couldn’t hurt. I’ll still be here when you get back.” 

You tilted your head up and looked into Ray’s eyes. Deep brown, warm. Sad. The sadness wasn’t new. There’d always been a solemness in his eyes, for as long as you knew him. From what he’d said about his childhood, you weren’t surprised. 

You reached up and ran your fingers over his cheeks and lips, memorizing the graze of his graying stubble. 

“Tell you what, Ray. I’ll work for Mitch if he takes on your appeal and gets you out of prison.” 

Ray’s lips twitched. “Stranger things have happened. You want to make that a promise?” 

Wordlessly, you rose on your tiptoes as Ray pulled you closer. It was difficult, but you managed a kiss through the bars. That was always how you’d kept promises to each other – sealed with a kiss. 

“If Mitch finds a way to get you out of prison,” you said softly, savoring the feeling of his hands on your back and the taste of his lips on yours, “I promise I’ll work with him.” 

“Well then,” Ray sighed gently, “then I guess I better start working on my appeal.” 

[sufferthesea]

i may be suffering from chronic pain and fatigue these days, but i did just manage to make two gallons of delicious white peach cinnamon freezer jam and jelly with my dad

[sufferthesea]

Flash Fiction Friday #28 (John Wick)

Word: Chronic 

Pairings: Harbinger x Reader

Warnings: Chronic illness, self-deprecation. For all my fellow spoonies!

John Wick was not the only person who had created a life outside of, and without, the violence that had raised him. He was not the only person who had fallen in love with someone who had no stakes in the dark underworld that had trained him. And he was not the only person who had sacrificed everything for the person he loved. 

Your husband was one of the men who’d also done this, although he had never fully stopped serving the High Table. Of course, he’d never been the skilled assassin that John Wick was. He was known within the community as a Harbinger. Not the Harbinger, but a Harbinger. It wasn’t a name, but a title. Almost no one else knew the name he’d chosen for this life before he’d become a Harbinger, and only you knew his real name. You weren’t in the habit of calling him by name, though, since he’d very quickly earned affectionate nicknames from you. He’d just had the magnetism that made you trust him almost immediately. 

From the outside looking in, most people probably wouldn’t have understood why a Harbinger, or anyone who served the High Table, would have picked you. You were not especially skilled in anything useful to their world – like languages or swordplay or martial arts. You didn’t know much about guns, you didn’t have any relations to secret societies, and your family was just a normal, average family. Your job history was normal (babysitting, movie theaters, pet stores) and your education was normal (you finished high school and went to college for a few years). Your only secret “superpower” was, perhaps, juggling things (literally and metaphorically) and pushing through your chronic illness. 

That was the biggest thing that made people question why a Harbinger would choose you. John Wick’s wife, Helen, hadn’t been anything super special, either. She’d never been a spy or sniper or anything else. She was just a woman he met and fell in love with. And he was willing to burn the world down to get to her. And up until the end, she was healthy. You, on the other hand … 

You’d been healthy when you were younger. You could even be considered somewhat athletic. You participated in school sports, you spent time with friends, and you stayed up way too late on school nights. But things slowly started changing as you got older. At first, you thought it was because you were, well, getting older. You were slowing down. Body parts began aching and popping when you moved. You were tired more. But sleep didn’t fix it. Nothing did. When you finally visited your doctor, you got blood results back. Not only was your body attacking itself, it was never going to stop. 

Chronic. 

That was the word everyone online used when you googled your diagnosis. Chronic illness. Chronic fatigue. Chronic pain. 

How could that be? You’d been healthy! You’d been active! You ate fruits and vegetables and rode your bike and got sunlight and meditated! How could your body turn against you like that? How could it betray you? 

It’d taken a long time to come to terms with your new reality. You fought against it for so long, in the hopes that ignoring it would make it go away, but it only wore you out. You discovered new terms for your new life. Spoonie. Holistic. Homeopathic. Adrenal fatigue. Cortisol cocktail. Breathwork. Dry brushing. You were experiencing information overload. You were feeling hopeless. 

And then, you met him. You weren’t even sure how or when, but suddenly, he was in your life. He was older, quiet, not nearly as intimidating as he should have been. But he was there, every step of the way. He’d never known you when you were healthy, but he didn’t shy away from your being sick. When he learned new things about you, he didn’t think of them as a burden. He saw them as new challenges in how to love you, how to take care of you. 

When your body hurt too much to move, he would carry you to the couch or to the bed. He’d prop you up on pillows and surround you with blankets and heating pads. When your shoulders ached, he rubbed them. When migraines hit, he blotted out all sources of light and made sure the house was silent. 

He became an expert in the foods you were allowed to eat. He monitored your water intake. He made sure that you had everything you needed before he left for the day. If you had a flare-up and were bedbound for days at a time, he made sure your illness cart was accessible from the bed, and restocked with everything you needed: pain pills, heating pads, snacks, drinks, and books. When he was home, and if it didn’t hurt for you to be touched, he’d climb into bed beside you and watch a film. 

He was quiet and steady. He loved you the way you needed to be loved. Of course, he was gone several days for work – he often traveled whenever the High Table needed him – but he always came back, usually with something new for you to try. A wedge pillow or compression socks or a massage gun. If you were feeling well enough, he’d let you travel with him. Hotels always had jacuzzis and hot tubs to relieve your aching muscles, and blackout curtains in case of sudden migraines. You lost count how many times you fell asleep to him giving you a back massage after being bedbound for a week straight. And when you felt okay, and he had free time, you would walk the cities together. 

Some days, you felt so consumed by guilt that you wouldn’t let him touch you. How could your life have come to this? Perpetual pain and exhaustion. A neverending stretch of bad days spotted with good days. A life tethered to a bed or a couch and bottles of medication. 

How could you have tricked this kind, selfless man into become your caretaker? How could you ruin his life like that? But he never felt that way. And he made sure you knew he didn’t feel that way. He’d always known you as you were now, and he’d never resented you for it. He’d never felt burdened by you. 

When he proposed, it was during the first good day after a series of bad days. You’d managed to go outside and get some fresh air. He ordered food in from your favorite restaurant. You sat outside in the sunlight and put your bare feet in the grass. You sat in lawn chairs and ate, resistant to going back into the house you shared. It’d been a prison for so long, you wanted to stay outside. You felt good enough to go for a walk around the neighborhood. On your way back to the house, he held your hand and asked you to marry him. You resisted; he didn’t need to be your caretaker for the rest of his life. He could do better. He could be happier. 

Chronic. He reminded you what that word meant. Recurring, perpetual. It didn’t have to be bad. After all, it wasn’t just your illness that was perpetual. It was your resilience. Your fighting spirit. Your kindness. And his love for you. Your physical abilities may have wavered from day to day, but his love remained steadfast. And he let you know that. 

He’d always loved you, and he always would.

[sufferthesea]

Flash Fiction Friday #27 (Jaws)

Word: Retirement

Pairings: Quint x Reader, Quint x You

Warnings: Mentions of poor health, hospital visits, shark fishing. Quint does NOT have a health scare/die in this fic. It's fluff.

You couldn’t imagine Quint retiring. A person like him didn’t retire, anyway. They just did their work until they died – either of old age, heart attack, or unfortunate accident. With how much beer Quint drank and how many cigarettes he smoked, you worried it would be either heart attack or accident that took him out. That didn’t stop him, though. 

“What’s the point of livin’ if I ain’t allowed to drink and smoke?” he complained, not for the first time. He would’ve said much the same about retirement. No point in living if he couldn’t do what he lived for. 

In the time you had known Quint, he’d only had a few health scares, and he had never taken them that seriously. You were the one that insisted he go to the doctor, and he always brushed you off. Even after you two started dating (if you could call it that; no one in Amity seemed to know exactly what to label you two), he still didn’t care much for his health. He didn’t want to die, exactly, but he wasn’t about to start eating healthy and exercising just to appease you. He was going to live, and die, his way. 

You weren’t going to argue with him about it anymore. At least, not today. It was Independence Day and Amity was overloaded with tourists. The sun beat down ruthlessly on every bit of the island, turning it into a verifiable basking rock for half-naked college students and mainlanders. 

Quint typically had people he’d take out on his boat for the day, but the mayor had recently imposed a new rule for Quint. From June 30th to July 6th, Quint was not allowed to take guests out to fish for sharks. The reason being that the mayor worried Quint’s boat would attract sharks closer to shore, and that if tourists who came for the beach heard that sharks were caught nearby, they would pack up and go to another island. It was a reasonable worry, but it screwed with Quint’s livelihood, which made him even more irritable than usual. While he was still allowed to take tourists out for sport fishing, there weren’t nearly as many people interested in that as people who wanted to fish for sharks. 

For Quint, not being able to fish for sharks was equivalent to an early retirement. He spent his time smoking even more cigarettes and drinking more Narragansett beers. You had to get him out of this mindset before he actually did have a heart attack.  

“It’s the fourth of July, Quint. Why don’t we do something?” 

Quint lit another cigarette and strode down the dock in annoyance. You’d met him at his house, which served more as a base of operations for his fishing business. He knew he wasn’t supposed to be shark fishing today, but that’s not what annoyed him. What annoyed him was that he hadn’t had one person scheduled to go on the Orca. The entire island was brimming with tourism, and he wasn’t getting any of it. Both of you wondered if the mayor had something to do with it. 

“Quint,” you said, exasperated, as you followed him down the dock toward the boat. “We can get something to eat, get something to drink, then we can watch the fireworks.” 

“Fireworks aren’t until tonight,” he said, not bothering to look back at you. “Just because the mayor won’t let me take people out don’t mean I can’t go out myself. I still have to fish, you know.” 

You caught up to him and grabbed his arm, pulling him around. His skin was hot through his long sleeves, and his clothes consistently smelled of sweat and gasoline. He stared down at you with his bright blue eyes shaded by his worn-out cap. The cigarette bobbed lightly between his thin lips as he narrowed his eyes, the crows feet around them deepening. 

He shook you off and pulled the cigarette out, smoke curling out from his mouth when he spoke. 

“You can come with me or you can stay here. Don’t make much difference to me.” 

“I’d like for you to stay on land today, Quint. I’d like you to try to enjoy the holiday how everyone else does.” 

“You mean swimmin’ naked in the pond? Getting drunk in public and makin’ a fool of myself? I don’t think so.” 

“I mean spending time in the community. You spend almost every other day of the year on the Orca. Why don’t you just stick to land today? Why don’t you just see what the island has to offer?” 

Quint’s mouth turned crooked in a half-smile and he quirked his eyebrows at you. He puffed on his cigarette a few times and adjusted his cap. “The island offers me a landin’ spot after I’m done fishing. How’s that?” 

“Would you do it for me, Quint? It’s just one day. You know, I’d like to actually sit out on the beach and have a barbecue and sunbathe like everyone else.” 

“I’m not stopping you.” 

You crossed your arms over your chest and glowered at him. “No, you aren’t. But I want to do those things with you. I make concessions for the things you want to do, for the things you need to do. I’m just asking for one day, Quint. It doesn’t even have to be the full day.” 

Quint looked back at the Orca, then toward the rest of the island. He squashed the cigarette under his shoe and leaned in close toward you. 

“Lunch and drinks in town. Then we go fishing. You can sunbathe on the deck for all I care. When it gets dark, I’ll come back close to shore so we can watch the fireworks from the Orca. Does that work for you?” 

You grinned and threw your arms around his neck. Pulling him close, you kissed him hard, tasting the remnants of his cigarette. You pulled back just enough to press your forehead against his, knocking his cap off his head. 

“Yes!” 

[sufferthesea]

Flash Fiction Friday #26 (The Haunting (1999))

Word: Emotion 

Pairings: Perceived Theo x Dr. Marrow, perceived Theo x Luke, Eleanor x Theo if you squint

Warnings: Canon-typical mentions of violence, jealousy, emotional spiraling

How was Eleanor supposed to feel, aside from jealousy, when she saw how Theo and Dr. Marrow looked at each other? It was so obvious that something had bloomed between the two of them in the brief time they’d all been stuck together in Hugh Crain’s ancient house. And the way Luke Sanderson looked at Theo, too, as if she were the most exquisite creature ever brought to life. And maybe she was. 

Eleanor was fond of Theo, too. She could admit that. Theo had been her first friend – if “friend” was a word that could be used to describe their tenuous and brief relationship – when they arrived at the old house tucked away against the gloomy hillside. All of its dark corners and cobwebbed crevices had seemed so daunting to Eleanor when she’d first arrived, but they’d become places to explore and things to ogle once Theodora had graced the house with her presence. It was electric, the change that rippled through the house when Theo first stepped foot on the property. Eleanor had felt it even before the old doors had swung open and Theo had arrived with her myriad of bags in her hands. 

If it had just been the two of them, perhaps life would have been better. She and Theo got along quite well most of the time, and it almost felt like a secret retreat for them. The outside world was cold and harsh and misogynistic. They could hide from the patriarchy and all its suppressive weight while they were inside the Crain house. They could act like little girls – running, dancing, giggling at every little thing – without fear of chastisement from men. They could hold hands in trepidation as they explored all the wonderful surprises Hugh Crain had built into the house. They could make faces at each other behind Mrs. Dudley’s back, though they might also secretly hope she would join them in their retreat from the world outside. 

But then it all fell apart. Dr. Marrow and Luke Sanderson and Mr. Dudley had to be on the property. 

One man for one woman, realized Eleanor, as she also took Todd and Mary into account, although Mary had quickly fallen under the spell of the house and been ushered into town by Todd. It was as if the house had paired them up, long before any of them had met. But the house had gotten it wrong. Where Eleanor and Theo were supposed to have one man each, Theo had two and Eleanor had none. 

It was so obvious that Luke and Dr. Marrow were infatuated with Theo. And Eleanor couldn’t blame them. Theo had an air about her that was sophisticated and carefree. It was soft and sharp. It was honey and vinegar. A person couldn’t know if they were going to get a hand squeeze or a slap from Theo at any given moment, though it seemed she favored gentle touches for Eleanor and cutting remarks for the men. 

Perhaps that was the problem. Everyone saw Eleanor as some type of weak individual. A child who had skinned her knee. A baby seeking food in the dark of its own hunger. None of them viewed her as an adult, as a whole person. As someone with hopes and dreams and wants. Everyone knew that Theo wanted things. Of course, she did. She wanted them and she got them. Luke wanted things, too. Whether or not he got them was irrelevant – he made his desires known and he went after them. And Dr. Marrow. He got what he wanted. Didn't he, after all, want all of these strangers here in this house? And all he had done was put an ad in the paper, and just like magic, people materialized within the house, subject to his every whim, eager to do what he asked them to. 

Eleanor never got what she wanted. She didn’t even get what she needed. A car? An apartment? A single night of restful sleep? It was laughable, to think that Eleanor would ever get anything she wanted. And that included at least one man’s attention in Hugh Crain’s old house. She didn’t necessarily like the men at the house – Luke was too cocky and Dr. Marrow was too clinical – but she still wanted someone to pay attention to her, and just her. Wasn’t she special? Wasn’t she worthy of a conversation that didn’t drift to what Theo was wearing? Wasn’t she allowed to show emotion without being labeled neurotic or vulnerable or a good conductor for the energy in the house? 

Perhaps she just wanted Theo’s attention. It had been hers, all alone, when they’d first arrived at the house. Just her and Theo as they explored the rooms and snuck into the kitchen and danced in front of spinning mirrors. But it had been snatched away as soon as the men arrived. As soon as the patriarchy had slipped into the house and spread its fingers into every corner, tightening its grip on Eleanor and Theo and even Mrs. Dudley. 

It frustrated Eleanor to no end that Theo’s attention on her had been turned from a friend’s to an annoyed older sister, or a zoo visitor, or a science student doing a dissection. A sort of pitying look full of disdain, half-removed, already looking for a means of escape. Theo had been pressed under the thumb of the men and her friendship had turned into something sour. Theo was a woman now, in the gaze of men, and Eleanor was just a little girl. She was a child to be put up with. A baby to be rocked to sleep and then shut up in its crib until morning. A nuisance ushered away in the arms of a nurse, or governess, or nanny while the adults sipped brandy in front of a fire and spoke intellectually together. 

What had happened in their short time together that Dr. Marrow and Theo had developed a relationship? They might have thought it wasn’t obvious, that their heated debates could be passed off as a strong dislike for one another, but Eleanor could see through it. Perhaps they only thought they were fooling her because they saw her as weak-minded, but she wasn’t. She saw the truth. Sometime during their long sleepless nights in the house, Theo and Dr. Marrow had fallen in love. 

Or, perhaps, it wasn’t love. But it was something. It wasn’t hate. Eleanor knew hate. She knew it stronger than any other emotion in her life. It bubbled up like acid and burned her throat and peeled the skin off her hands until she thought she could turn into a million droplets of blood and seep into her mattress and disappear. It was the feeling she got in the pit of her stomach when she awoke to the sound of her dead mother banging her cane against the wall, screaming for help. It was the pounding headache behind her eyes when she saw her sister and brother-in-law and nephew selling the apartment and being generous enough to lend her a twenty-year-old car. That wasn’t what Theo and Dr. Marrow had. 

It wasn’t lust, either. That was what Luke felt toward Theo. He didn’t actually care about Theo as a person. He only cared about what she was wearing and if she was too scared to sleep alone in such a big, scary house. Luke had nothing but lust in his heart toward any woman (well, any woman except for Eleanor, who remained, always, a perpetual child in his mind). Theo had enough lust in her life, Eleanor suspected. She didn’t need or want anymore. Luke was only a threat in that he continually interrupted Eleanor and Theo’s conversations just to get closer to Theo, much to Theo’s chagrin. 

There was something deeper between Theodora and the doctor. Eleanor saw it when Theo stepped in to defend Eleanor, demanding that Dr. Marrow leave her alone. The emotion wasn’t because of Theo’s love of Eleanor. It was because of her love for Dr. Marrow. Something had transpired in the house, under the watchful eyes of Hugh Crain, in the darkest corners of haunted bedrooms and empty hallways, between the two of them. Had it happened when neither of them could sleep? Had it happened, like a bolt of lightning, when the two first met? Had it started when they’d begun their correspondence via letter, when Dr. Marrow sent out his advertisement and Theo had responded? 

It didn’t matter. It had happened all the same, and it would never stop. Even if they all went home immediately, Eleanor would always know that Theo and Dr. Marrow had connected on a level that Eleanor would never be able to understand, would never be able to experience. Even if she returned home to her little apartment (which, she couldn’t, because her sister had undoubtedly sold it already), she would know that something had happened while she was at the house. She would always remember the way Theo and Dr. Marrow looked at each other. How Dr. Marrow’s voice softened when he asked Theo questions, or how Theo’s eyes sparkled when she made a smart remark to Dr. Marrow. 

Eleanor would always remember how the two of them had become entwined down to their souls while Eleanor had been haunted, not just by the memories of her past, but by the ghosts of the present. How quickly Theo turned on her when they found the paint splashed across the wall. Welcome home, Eleanor. How deep Luke dug his claws into Eleanor to blame her for the things that were happening. How Dr. Marrow looked at her in disgust when Eleanor realized that everything was real – the ghosts, the voices, the spirit of the house coming up out of the dark to hold tight with tooth and claw. How no one believed her, and labeled her fragile, even though that was the whole point of the experiment, wasn’t it? 

Isn’t that what Dr. Marrow wanted – for these fractured minds to turn like kaleidoscopes until the colors spilled out and no one could tell the difference between what was real and what had been imagined? Didn’t he bring them all there so that they could conjure up the spirits of the house and wake up the dead from their sleep? And Eleanor had done it – for him – for Theo – for Luke – and they hated her for it. She’d done something wrong. Again. Eleanor Vance, perpetually wrong. An ink blot mistake on the white paper of everyone else’s life. 

If she were a Rorschach test, every answer given by Dr. Marrow or Theo or Luke would be the same. Mistake. Mistake. Mistake. 

What was she supposed to do when their time at the house was up and they were meant to go home? What was she supposed to do when she left in her car and returned to no home, no family, no friends? Theo and Luke and Dr. Marrow would continue on, straight and determined like arrows, while Eleanor was scattered like seeds in the wind. She’d never see them again, never see Theo again, as long as she lived. But she would think of her. And she’d think of Luke and Dr. Marrow and the way they looked at Theo, and the dinners Mrs. Dudley cooked, and the chime of Hugh Crain’s grandfather clock, and the light dancing off mirrors, and the lion-head flue in the fireplace swinging like a pendulum. She’d think of the apartment her sister stole from her and her mother’s body lying in her rotting mattress and the money dwindling out of her savings account day by day. 

But no one would think of her. 

When all was said and done, when Theo and Luke and Dr. Marrow went back to their homes, they would not think of Eleanor. They would not dream about her or worry about her or cast their eyes about stores and streets to catch sight of her. They would forget her, the way everyone else did. The way she wished she could.

[sufferthesea]

Flash Fiction Friday #25 (Jaws)

Word: Shark 

Pairings: Quint x f!Reader, Quint x You 

Warnings: Mentions of fishing/shark fishing, catch and release, chum, reader is explicitly a female

You’d been helping Quint with his tours for about two summers now, and he was just about now warming up to you. It had been a mystery to everyone on Amity just how you managed to get a job with the perpetually grumpy captain, but you’d managed it. You imagined that he must’ve been extremely short of options when he allowed you onto his ship in order to help corral the tourists who overpaid for a chance to hook small sharks off the island, using the cheapest equipment Quint was willing to lend out. He only saved the good stuff for himself and his real expeditions. 

You weren’t the typical help someone like Quint would be looking for. First of all, you were a woman. Historically, women weren’t allowed on ships, since it was considered bad luck. Second, you weren’t an Islander. Sure, you’d lived on the island for most of your life, but you hadn’t been born there. Everyone knew that a person could live all of their lives on Amity, but if they’d been born on the mainland, they’d never be considered an Islander. They were perpetual outsiders, even if most people treated them well. When it came down to it, you were a Mainlander, which was the nicest of the nicknames given to you. (The nicknames were actually a badge of honor on the island, and none of them were given to you out of malice.) 

But, most of all, you were young (at least, younger than Quint) and not all that experienced on his type of ship. You’d been around boats and fishing equipment most of your life, but you’d never hooked a shark before. Even the small ones that circled the island in the hopes of catching some bait, or the ones that lived under the docks by the market and ate the heads and bones of fish thrown into the water, were big compared to the fish that you caught. Most of your fishing experience had been standing on a dock with younger cousins, tying strings and clipped bottle tabs onto sticks you pulled off of trees. Fashioning your own fishing pole wasn’t unusual in this area, especially among the younger kids whose fathers lived and worked on boats that would spend weeks, if not months, trawling for fish, crab, and lobster. 

A real fisherman knew how to catch a fish with whatever he had handy. He didn’t need fancy equipment or a big boat or reflective lures. String, a worm, and his bare hands were more than enough – if he was willing to get wet. 

Most people weren’t, though. At least, not the people who came to Quint, asking him to take them out onto the ocean so they could pretend to be fishermen for an afternoon. Summer was the busiest time for him, and he’d been overwhelmed with tourists the summer before last. He’d broken down and looked for help. That was when he found you. You were the complete opposite of what he’d been looking for, but every adult male on the island already had a job, or was skipping their job so they could lay out on the beach and smoke weed. 

You were pretty decent at fishing, and you were willing to learn the work that Quint required. Very few people had the patience to sit there and get yelled at by him, so he had very little choice, anyway. 

“You do what I say,” he’d said seriously as he forced you to load up the Orca with more fishing wire and cans of beer, “or I’ll chuck you over the side. Won’t even miss you.” 

His rough personality was intimidating at first, but you’d gotten used to his sarcastic comments and random outbursts of song. You’d actually gotten quite fond of it, if you were being honest. And the tourists came to appreciate your presence, since you acted as a level-headed mediator between them and Quint, which was exceptionally good for business. 

This was your third summer with Quint on the Orca and the season was just beginning. Usually, your summer started early, much earlier than anyone else in Amity, and you were sent out running errands for Quint to get the boat ready. You were also in charge of booking guests, confirming arrangements, receiving payment, and keeping the books. You’d gone from inept greenhorn to trusted second mate (Quint still considered himself captain and first mate). It was quite an improvement over two summers, and you were proud of yourself. 

As spring dwindled and summer edged closer to the island, though, Quint didn’t have you running your typical errands. On the morning you were expecting a phone call with a list of items to get, you instead found Quint on your doorstep, dressed in his typical boating gear. His hat was pulled low over his brow and he squinted at you even though the sun had barely passed the horizon. 

“You’re comin’ with me,” he said, and you obeyed. There was never enough room to argue with Quint, especially when it involved his boat. And that was exactly where he took you: the Orca. 

The morning was still cool and seagulls circled lazily in the air. Quint boarded first and then allowed you on, busying himself with getting the Orca ready for a day out on the water. You never knew Quint to not spend a day on the water, unless he’d been preoccupied with cleaning shark jaws, or if there was a bad storm in the area. He may have been stubborn but he wasn’t stupid. He had no plans of dying in a preventable way. 

Quint didn’t say much else as the two of you cruised out of the bay and into the open ocean. It wasn’t until land was just a small strip in the distance that Quint idled the boat and came back to where you stood near the stern. The sun was rising rapidly and a cold mist fizzled up from the waves. A few seagulls had followed you out onto the water, eager to snatch up bits of chum or to steal fish off your hooks. Both of you stared out across the water for a long while, neither of you speaking. 

Finally, Quint motioned to the fighting chair anchored to the deck. You looked at him, confused. 

“Two summers you spent on this boat,” Quint said, chewing on the inside of his cheek while he turned a half-smile at you, “and not once have you been in this chair.” 

“It’s not for me,” you responded quickly. “I’m not the one paying to fish.” 

“But you should know how to if you’re gonna keep working on my boat.” 

“I know how to fish,” you countered. “That’s why you hired me.” 

Quint looked you up and down and his half-smile turned into a grin. “Everyone on the damn island knows how to fish. That ain’t why I hired you. And knowin’ how to fish from a dock ain’t the same as knowin’ how to fish in a fightin’ chair. You never caught a game fish, have you?” 

You blushed but shook your head. Quint always knew when people were lying, and he hated it when they did. “No,” you admitted. 

“And you’ve never caught a shark.” 

This one wasn’t a question. He knew this the first day you worked on the Orca. The very first time someone had pulled up a shark, you couldn’t stop gaping at it. You’d been frightened to watch it thrashing around, its eyes wild, teeth sunk deep into the tuna head Quint had used as bait. He’d laughed so loudly at your expression that it had scared the tourists who had hooked the shark and they ended up dropping it back into the ocean, hook and all. 

“No.” 

Quint gestured to the chair. “Can’t have someone on this boat who don’t know how to catch a shark.” 

“I didn’t say that I didn’t know how,” you protested, “just that I haven’t done it.” 

“Just ‘cause you know how something is done, doesn’t mean you can do it. I know how a marriage is ‘sposed to work, don’t mean I did it.” He grinned at you. 

Despite his rough exterior, Quint was surprisingly eager to teach. He enjoyed meeting people who didn’t know what he did, and he enjoyed it even more when he got to show them. He was right, though. You could talk all day long about the logistics of deep sea fishing, but it didn’t mean much when you hadn’t done it yourself. 

Quint motioned to the chair again. You sat down and watched Quint’s face with unblinking eyes as he moved around to strap you into the chair. He grinned again, pushing the brim of his cap up so he could look at you. 

“Chair’s too big for ya,” he laughed. 

He showed you where to put your feet and how to hold the fishing rod, which was heavy enough on its own. You couldn’t imagine what it would be like once a marlin or tuna was on the end of it. And if it was a shark that you caught? You’d get pulled right out of the seat and into the ocean, you were sure of it. But Quint sat on the transom and smoked a cigarette while he walked you through how to bait the hook (it was much different using a whole fish rather than a worm) and how to cast far out into the ocean (rather than letting it sink off the stern, as you would have done on a dock). 

The sun continued to rise and clouds split apart as the day went on. Quint shed his coat and rolled up his shirt sleeves, continuing chainsmoking as you sweated through your clothes and your palms struggled to keep hold of the rod. 

“Not like that,” he’d curse as a fish would catch the bait and take off with most of the line. You were too afraid of breaking a finger trying to hold the handle, so you’d let it go. By the time Quint reeled all the line back in, the fish and the bait were gone. 

Hours passed by like that. You’d hook something, it would take the line out, you’d flinch at the thought of your fingers being ripped out at the joints, and then the fish would disappear. Quint had to disappear to the bow for a while, and you heard him crack open beer cans and chuck them onto the deck. When he came back, he was unnervingly patient. 

“Let me show you.” He stood beside you and placed his hands over yours, guiding them to where they needed to be. He helped you cast a line out with new bait, and he held your hand around the fishing pole. 

You felt the pole tug almost instantly, and it was your instinct to flinch away again. Quint stopped you. He kept his arms around you, his hands covering yours. You sat and watched as the fish unspooled the thick fishing line and disappeared into the shadowy depths of the ocean. Once it stopped, Quint guided your hand to the reel’s handle, and wrapped your fingers around it. 

“Pull back,” he instructed, and helped you pull the fishing pole back toward you. “Now reel it in.” His fingers still over yours, he showed you how to begin reeling in the fish while the fishing pole slowly sank closer to the deck. “Pull back again. Now reel.” 

His cigarette-and-beer breath warmed your skin, his callouses rough against your knuckles. But you concentrated hard on the glimmering fishing line that was slowly winding up on the spool. Your muscles ached from pulling and reeling and spinning, but eventually the fish surfaced. It was much smaller than you anticipated, but it was larger than anything you’d caught off the docks on Amity. 

“Hang tight,” Quint instructed, wrapping your hands firmly around the pole and reel. “I’ll get a net.” 

You nearly flew out of the fighting chair when Quint let you go, and it was only the straps that kept you in place. Quint grabbed a large net and leaned off the stern, readying to catch the fish. 

“Reel it in!” he shouted at you excitedly. You pulled back as hard as you could, planting your feet against the footrest. The fish flew into the air, flopping violently as it landed squarely in Quint’s net. He almost toppled over into the ocean, but threw himself – and the fish – back into the boat. The fish flopped around in the net, soaking the deck, Quint, and you. 

Quint grinned from ear to ear as he untangled the net from the fish, while you unhooked yourself from the fighting chair. Your legs were wobbly and weak as you climbed out of the chair, and every muscle in your body ached. But pride surged through you as Quint stood over the fish that continued to writhe on the deck. 

“White marlin,” he said, grinning at you. He looked like he was proud, too. Proud of you. 

“That’s edible,” you said as you breathlessly stood warily across from Quint and the fish. It was much bigger than any of the fish you’d caught off the docks of Amity, but it was smaller than Quint, smaller than you, even. 

“Yeah, but not this one.” 

“What do you mean?” 

“Too small,” he said, though his grin never wavered. “Gotta throw it back or Fish and Wildlife will get on your ass about it,” he added with a wink. “But there’ll be other ones. It’s not bad for your first one, not bad at all. Almost as big as you.” 

You felt a bit deflated, your first catch being so big and yet not big enough to keep. It almost felt like a waste of time and energy to have caught it in the first place. Of course, you’d been on trips where guests had caught fish that they’d had to throw back, but you’d only been a spectator for that. You understood their disappointment, but you’d never felt it for yourself. Now that you had, you hated it. You wished Quint would say to hell with it, you could keep the white marlin and he’d clean it and cook it once you got back to shore, but he didn’t. He gingerly unhooked the fish and motioned for you to grab the tail fin. 

“He’s gonna fight ya,” Quint warned, “but that’s what all livin’ things do. We just gotta get him over the stern and into the water. He’ll find his way home.” 

You hoisted the fish, which writhed and slapped hard as it feared its impending death. You struggled to hold onto it, slipping a few times, and Quint laughed as he maneuvered the upper jaw away from his face. 

“Toss it over!” 

You did as Quint commanded, chucking your end of the fish over the stern. Quint mimicked you and the white marlin twirled its strong body in the air, and then bellyflopped into the water. A wave of salty water rose up and splashed over your face, but you leaned on the transom and watched as its silvery-blue body darted into the depths and disappeared. 

“It’s a shame we had to throw it back,” you said, watching the empty waves. 

“Ah, that’s just the sport,” Quint said, cracking open a beer and handing it to you. You’d never been a fan of beer, but you sipped on it. Beer was better than nothing under the now-blazing heat of an end-of-spring sun. “If you gotta keep everything you caught, where’s the fun in that?” 

“Would you have kept it if I weren’t here?” 

Quint side-eyed you with a smirk. He chugged his beer, crushed the can, and tossed it on the deck. “I could do a lotta things if you weren’t here. But I’d probably throw it back. Ain’t much of a fan of white marlin, myself.” 

You sat on the transom and held the cold beer can in your hands. “Thank you for teaching me. I see why people pay to do it. It’s exciting.” 

“It ain’t no shark hunting,” Quint mused, moving to sit in the fighting chair, “but it ain’t bad. Ain’t bad at all.” 

Silence clung to the air for several minutes while Quint reclined in his chair, cap pulled down over his eyes. A seagull landed beside you, squawking irritably when it realized there was no leftovers for it to feast on. It ruffled its feathers at you and then took off into the sky, wheeling around into the blue. 

“You wanna go again?” 

You looked at Quint, catching him staring at you. “Fishing, you mean?” 

“You ain’t done nothin’ else today,” he laughed. “Yes, fishing.” 

“Sure, I’ll try it again. How long can we stay out here?” 

“Until you catch us something to eat.” 

“Then you better get out of that chair, Mr. Quint.” You stood and passed him your barely-touched beer. “I’ve got a lot of fishing ahead of me.” 

[sufferthesea]

Flash Fiction Friday #24 (Nobody)

Word: Soup

Pairings: Hutch x Reader, Hutch x You 

Warnings: Canon-compliant mentions of blood, wounds, fighting, killing, drugs

“Five years this Saturday,” you announced proudly, smiling at Hutch as he lay sprawled out on the living room couch. 

“What’s that?” he groaned, nose bright red. He blew into a tissue loudly, obnoxiously. He always was a bit dramatic when it came to having a cold. The man could take a bullet without wincing, but he’d break down the moment he started sniffling. Today was no different. 

“Our anniversary.” 

Hutch looked at you in pure horror. You almost doubled over in laughter and plopped down on the middle cushion of the couch, your back against his stomach. 

“I don’t mean our real anniversary. I mean the day we met.” 

“Oh.” He melted into the couch and his eyes fell shut. He groaned as he rubbed his temples with his fingers. “You scared me.” 

“Yeah, I figured that. Don’t you remember that day?” 

“Of course, I do. I thought you were the most beautiful person I’d ever seen before. And then I ran my bicycle into a street sign and fell onto a car. How could I forget?” 

You giggled at the memory, reaching out to rub Hutch’s arm. “I thought you were dead, honestly. I just heard all this commotion, and when I looked over, there was just some guy lying in the road in front of a car. I thought you’d been run over.” 

“I wish I’d been. It would’ve been less embarrassing.” 

“Whatever. Can you believe it’s been five years?” 

“No. It feels longer.” 

You pinched Hutch’s upper arm and he laughed, pinching your waist. Of course he could believe it had been five years. He’d only been counting every single day since he met you. It was hard not to, when it felt like his days were being numbered anyway. Hutch had come out of retirement a few years before he met you, but his marriage had fallen apart because of it. His wife had decided she couldn’t risk her children getting hurt, which was perfectly understandable. She moved to a new state to be closer to her parents, and the kids spent their time between houses. 

Hutch had met you on one of his post-divorce bicycle rides he often went on when he was feeling too overwhelmed with the reality of his life. He’d gone back to doing what he was good at, but at what cost? His wife? His children? His house? 

It wasn’t that you were entirely excited that Hutch could die at any moment, but you’d also been pretty understanding. 

“Everyone has to die eventually,” you’d said after Hutch had told you the truth about his job, and how dangerous it was. Of course, he didn’t randomly bring it up. He had no choice after your apartment had been broken into when some Russian drug runners had seen him leaving one night. They figured you might have some knowledge about him and why he was in the area. (They were convinced he was there for a hit. You had no idea what the hell they were talking about.) Thankfully, Hutch had forgotten his jacket on your couch and he’d gone back to get it. 

Needless to say, he’d taken care of the drug runners. 

Obviously, he had to tell you the truth after that. Obviously, you were shocked. Your boyfriend – the quiet, mild-mannered, old guy – was a hitman? It was hard to wrap your head around at first. You wouldn’t have believed it if he’d told you that on any other day, but after you watched him disarm three guys twice his size, with nothing more than his jacket and your (now destroyed) collection of Yankee candles … 

How could you go back to a normal life after that? Hutch wanted to break up with you, but you wouldn’t let him. 

“Why? So you can go save some other damsels in distress? I don’t think so, mister. You’re my knight in shining armor now.” 

Of all the things you imagined your life with Hutch to be like, you’d managed to skip over all the mundane stuff. Washing his (admittedly, bloodstained) clothes, cooking him dinner (after he came home from “dealing with something”), and bringing him back to full health whenever he had a cold. 

Like now. 

It wasn’t even a real cold. It was just a little baby cold, but it had wiped him out. Coughing, sneezing, shaking. You figured he was playing most of it up because he must’ve had some secret nurse-patient fantasy, but you didn’t care. You were shoddy with a needle and thread (bullet wound repair) and you were too squeamish to handle a blowtorch (cauterizing knife cuts), but you could do this. You could make him soup and force-feed him NyQuil. 

“Do you ever wonder what life would be like if you hadn’t seen me?” 

Hutch looked at you through bleary eyes. The NyQuil was kicking in. “I try not to.” 

“Why not?” 

“Because I know what life was like without you. I don’t want to do that again.” 

You smiled and leaned over to kiss him. He planted his palm on your chest to keep you away. 

“I don’t want you getting sick.” 

“So you don’t have to nurse me back to health? Nice try.” You moved forward and kissed him anyway. He didn’t protest. When you pulled back, you smiled at him. “Want some soup?” 

“Please.” 

You retrieved a bowl of hot chicken noodle soup from the stove and placed it on the coffee table, along with a sleeve of saltine crackers. You refreshed his glass of ginger ale and placed two more Aleve tablets next to it. Hutch rolled into a sitting position and held the bowl with two hands, letting the steam wash over his face. He took several deep breaths and sighed heavily, shoulders relaxing. 

“You know what, Hutch? You messed up the first time we met.” 

His eyes shot up toward you, concerned. “How?” 

“When you came up to me, you were too embarrassed to really say anything. You should’ve said, ‘Sorry about that, I just can’t help falling for you!’” 

Hutch rolled his eyes to the ceiling. 

“Don’t roll your eyes! That was funny.” 

“It was terrible.” 

“Maybe, but you know you love me.” 

“Yeah,” he said, smiling warmly. “I do.” 

[sufferthesea]

Flash Fiction Friday #23 (Hannibal/Red Dragon)

Word:  Morsure. “A bite. The act of biting, or the mark left behind from biting.”

Pairings: Francis Dolarhyde x Reader 

Warnings: Canon-compliant mentions of murder, stalking, manipulation, scars, speech impediments

Dolarhyde was a biter. He couldn’t help it. He was pretty sure he was born that way. Well, he knew he was, in a roundabout way. When he’d been born, he’d had no teeth, just as every other baby was born without teeth. But the difference between him and every other baby was that he’d never really developed teeth after that. A cleft palate made it almost impossible for him to have normal teeth, or a normal mouth, or a normal speech pattern. It made it almost impossible to have a normal life. 

Through a series of rather terrible circumstances, Dolarhyde had ended up as the person he was: a serial killer. He wasn’t really sure if he’d consider himself that, but the newspapers liked to call him that. He was no longer a “crime of passion” or an “isolated incident.” By the time the newspapers, police, and medical examiners across multiple states realized that their “random” murders weren’t so random after all, Dolarhyde had already moved onto the next victim. But it wasn’t long after communication between states was established that Dolarhyde had officially passed the threshold to become a serial killer. 

The papers loved it. As much as they may have pretended to be frightened by the prospect of a “madman on the loose,” as one rag mag had put it, Dolarhyde knew they actually loved it, deep down. They loved it because they sold a lot of papers when there was bad news. They could sell fear. They could sell paranoia. 

They could sell death. 

And Dolarhyde provided a lot of it for the newspapers. He would’ve been happy about it, too, if they hadn’t labeled him the “Tooth Fairy.” That was such an idiotic name, and an insulting one, too. Just because he bit people didn’t mean he was a tooth fairy. Tooth fairies took lost teeth and left money behind. Dolarhyde left behind tooth impressions in the skin. They weren’t the same. 

He couldn’t express how annoyed he was at this little nickname to you, though, since you obviously had no idea that the Tooth Fairy and Francis Dolarhyde were the same person. It wasn’t because you were stupid, it was just because Dolarhyde was simply very good at keeping his identity a secret. Besides, it wasn’t like you’d had much opportunity to connect the dots between the violent murders and Dolarhyde. He was too quiet, too reclusive, to break into people’s houses and murder entire families. Wasn’t he? 

You worked at a frame shop downtown. Most of your clientele were older people who wanted to frame photos of grandchildren, and graduates who wanted to frame their diplomas. A frequent customer of yours, unsurprisingly, was Francis Dolarhyde. He loved cameras of all types, which you suspected was why he got a job at Gateway Corporation. He got to play around with video recorders all day. When he wasn’t working, and if he’d found a particularly interesting photograph, he’d bring it into your store to have it framed. It took several visits for you to realize that the photos he was bringing in weren’t his. He’d more or less stolen copies of them from Gateway’s customers. You were hesitant to frame any more photos after that, but he’d managed to talk you into it. After all, it wasn’t like they were photos of people. They were just pictures of houses, parks, the occasional car. 

You were one of the few people that Dolarhyde felt comfortable speaking to. You were always tripping over words and mixing up the things you meant to say. Dolarhyde first thought it was because you were scared of how he looked. But when he observed you speaking the same way to other “normal-looking” customers, he realized that was just how you talked. It put him at ease. He wasn’t the only one who had trouble speaking, then. 

Dolarhyde had never asked you out, but he came in once near the end of the day. You had just enough time to frame a photo for him (it was a cute little blue house with a dog and bicycle in the front yard) before clocking out for the day. You’d asked him if he wanted to grab a drink or something to eat after you locked up. He resisted at first. You told him it could just be quick. You could eat and walk at the same time, if he preferred. You had to get home soon, anyway. 

Despite his better judgment, if Dolarhyde had better judgment, he’d agreed. That was the first of many “non-dates” the two of you went on. Each one was roughly the same. You’d get off work and find him waiting on the sidewalk or perusing some of the new frames in the store. You’d lock up, and then the two of you would walk to a bar or a restaurant with low lighting. Dolarhyde never liked to be seen eating or drinking in public. He could do it at work, sure, but those people were used to him. He didn’t like the stares he got from strangers. 

He did like, though, how you curled against him when you passed by a newspaper stand and saw the grisly headlines about death and violence. He liked when you grabbed his hand to cross a busy street, shuddering beneath your coat as you asked, “Who could do such a thing?” He liked when you sat across from him and swallowed your coffee or bites of sandwich, and he could see your throat constricting. He liked when you’d stumble over your words, blush, and then smile big because you knew he didn’t care. 

He especially liked it when you’d turn a certain way or look over your shoulder, and he could see the lines of your throat, and the way they connected to your collarbone. He always imagined biting you, then. He’d never do it in public, with witnesses, of course. But he imagined it. The feeling of your muscle and skin between his teeth. He wondered how easily your skin could break, if you bled a lot, if you had a high or low pain tolerance. He’d run his tongue over his dentures and imagine switching them out for the second pair sitting in a cup at home. 

No. He wouldn’t use those. Those were the ones he used on the mothers. Those were the ones he used to punish. He didn’t want to punish you. He wanted to know what it would be like to bite someone as a reward. He wanted to know what it would be like to hold you after making love in his bed and let you feel the scar on his lip. He wanted to undress in front of you and show you the Great Red Dragon etched on his back. 

But he couldn’t do any of that because, more than all of that, what he didn’t want was to scare you. 

[sufferthesea]

Flash Fiction Friday #22 (Detroit: Become Human)

Word: Surprise 

Pairings: Hank Anderson x Kara 

Warnings: Age gap, mentions of anti-android racism, Hank gets a second chance at having a family

No one was surprised more than Hank that he was dating an android. The word “dating” still kind of freaked him out, to be honest, but it had nothing to do with the fact that Kara wasn’t a human. He just felt that he was too old to be using a term like that. Too old to be throwing around “girlfriend” and “boyfriend.” At his age, he should’ve been a husband (and he had been at one point) or a father (which he’d also been once) or even a grandfather (which he suspected he’d never be). He could at least settle for “partner,” but that sounded too work-related. 

Connor was his partner. 

Kara was … 

Hank was thankful that all of this had happened after the Revolution. He couldn’t imagine explaining all of this to people when androids were still considered servants to humankind. Not that it really made him feel any less anxious when people saw them out and about in town and knew they were dating. Even if they couldn’t tell right away that Kara was an android, they’d be able to tell that there was a massive age gap between them. The ironic thing was, the age gap was far larger than anyone realized because Kara wasn’t the twenty-something she appeared to be. She was, in reality, only a few years old. 

Now, that freaked him out. 

He’d met Kara sometime after the Revolution, when Detroit was safe for androids again. After he’d reconnected with Connor, life had seemed to more or less go back to normal. There were less deviancy cases because androids were treated better, and they functioned better. Deviancy wasn’t considered bad anymore, but just a natural evolutionary step in the life of an android. 

Kara and Alice had escaped to Canada before Markus had been successful, and they’d been living there for a while before they decided to come back to Detroit. It had been a tough decision for them, but the amount of discrimination between Toronto and Detroit was almost comparable, and at least they’d know their way around if they were back in Detroit. When they made it back, they found a place to stay, and Kara was recruited and trained as a child advocate for the DPD. Despite the curb in anti-android attacks, there were still plenty of other crimes being committed in the city. 

DPD was how Hank, and Connor, met Kara. Connor seemed to know right away that she was an android, and Hank figured she was just another “perfect” worker for the department. He didn’t realize how much she’d gone through, and what she’d sacrificed to make it back to the city where she’d been created – and where she’d nearly been destroyed. 

Due to the nature of deviancy, new laws had been passed that allowed android workers to receive financial compensation for their work. A paycheck meant that Kara was able to afford a nicer, and safer, place for her and Alice, and she could purchase any sort of updated parts they needed to keep themselves running. Her tenacity and selflessness is what attracted Hank to her in the first place. It took a long while, but eventually Hank got the nerve to ask her out – as colleagues, of course. But the next time they went out, it was an honest-to-goodness date. 

People sometimes asked Hank if it bothered him that his girlfriend would never age with him. Some people nudged him and joked that he was lucky that way. Hank knew that risk when he first took Kara out. Her components may get outdated, and her wiring may get crossed, but she could always build herself a new body. He couldn’t. He would continue to get older and older, his body would get worn out, and he would eventually die. But he didn’t worry about that so much anymore. He worried more about if he was going to be home in time to take Alice to the park before it was too dark out. He worried about if Alice and Sumo were getting into trouble while he and Kara were at work. He worried about what to make for dinner, since he didn’t want to rely on take-out so much anymore. He worried if Alice was fitting in with girls her age, and if Kara was happy working at the DPD, and if it was too soon to ask if Kara and Alice wanted to move in with him. He was worried about the ring burning a hole in his pocket, and if Kara would like it. He was worried about Alice changing her mind after she’d come to him one night and asked if it was okay if she called him “Dad.” He was worried about whether Cole was proud of him, and worried that Cole might think he was replacing him. 

But at the end of every day, as he approached his home and saw the lights on, and the silhouettes of Alice and Sumo in the windows, and he and Kara walked in the front door together, he felt the weight of the DPD melt away from him. And Hank knew, as Sumo ran up to greet Kara, and Alice jumped into his strong arms, that he had nothing to worry about.

[sufferthesea]

Flash Fiction Friday #21 (NBC's Grimm)

Word: Comfort 

Pairings: Monroe x Reader, Monroe x You

Warnings: Canon-compliant mentions of violence/death, drinking, set in season 1, Monroe deserves better

Your attention was ripped from your book as a frantic, heavy knocking filled the living room. Someone was banging against the front door, sounding desperate to get in. You weren’t sure anyone in this area really knew Monroe enough to need his help personally, so it must have been a true emergency. 

You set your book aside, using a loose scrap of paper as a bookmark, and hurried to the door. You yanked it open, ready to usher in a woman scared out of her mind, or a child crying, or a man bloodied and bruised. Instead, you saw a woman with rich red hair and a black leather outfit standing on the porch. Her eyes flashed hotly at you and she looked you up and down. It was less like she was surveying the competition, and more like she was eyeing up a meal. 

“Who are you?” she barked, which surprised you. Shouldn’t you be the one asking that question? You were, after all, the one who lived here. 

“Who are you?” you shot back. “Why are you trying to break down my door?” 

“Your door?” she asked, cocking an eyebrow. “Forgive me if I’m wrong, but I believe this house belongs to Monroe.” 

“How do you know Monroe?” 

Her lips twisted into an annoyed smirk. “How do you know Monroe?” 

“Babe?” came Monroe’s voice from down the hall. He came shuffling into the living room, using a towel to dry his hair. He was dressed in his bathrobe and looked like he was ready to take a nap, which he probably was. Both of you enjoyed a midafternoon nap together. “Who is it?” 

You turned and stared at him, and you could feel the mystery woman’s eyes looking past you at your boyfriend. He looked at you expectantly, and you saw his eyes slowly move over your shoulder to the woman at the door. His expression twisted into a mix of shock and horror. 

“Oh crap.” 

“Hi, babe,” the woman sneered. “Long time, no see.” 

“Angelina, what are you doing here?” 

“I came by to see you, Monroe. You know that.” Her voice was low and seductive. It made your skin crawl. 

You turned on your heels and set your jaw in anger. “Monroe–” 

He hurried to you, placing one hand on your shoulder. “I’ll explain later. Just … give me a few minutes, okay?” 

You turned a sharp look back at Angelina, who tauntingly wiggled her fingers in a goodbye wave at you. “You better have a good explanation for this.” 

“I promise, I do. Just hang out in the bedroom for a while, okay?” 

You snatched your book off the couch and felt your entire body burn with envy as Monroe approached the front door. The last thing you heard before you locked yourself in the bedroom was Angelina asking, “Can’t I come in and sit down? It’s been so long since I’ve seen you.” 

Perhaps it was childish to be seething in the bedroom, contemplating locking the door to keep Monroe out (whenever he decided to show up and give his explanation, that is), but you couldn’t help it. You didn’t know Angelina, but you knew what she was. Blutbad. Just like Monroe. You could just sense it. 

Although you were neither Grimm nor Wesen, you could sense when someone was. You hadn’t met any Grimms other than Nick, but you’d encountered a lot of Wesen. You never could see their true forms, but there was always something about them. You didn’t know if it was a pheromone, or just a way they held themselves. To you, they always felt different. 

That was partially what attracted you to Monroe in the first place. He was pretty quiet and reserved, and he wasn’t like most of the other men his age in the area. He kept to himself and never seemed all that interested in hooking up with people he met at the bars, unlike your friends. While your friends would disappear with their boyfriends, or the guys they’d met that night, you were often the one left behind. Or, usually, you were the designated driver. It was during one of these nights when all of your friends had dispersed into the night with men on their arms, that you finally got up the courage to talk to Monroe. He’d been sitting at the bar alone, steadily drinking his beer. You’d seen him plenty of times, and you thought he’d seen you, too, but you couldn’t be sure. That night, though, you were going to make sure he noticed you. 

It felt like it was ages ago that you’d said your first words to him. As soon as you sat next to him at the bar, you could sense something about him. You’d chalked it up to the atmosphere of the bar, the smell of liquor, but after you’d gotten his information and met him for a proper date the next day, you knew it was something else. It took a while before you discovered he was a Blutbad, and his friend Nick was a Grimm. They were worried their world would seem strange and frightening to you, but it wasn’t. You’d grown up on fairytales and had watched monster movies at every slumber party you’d ever attended. It almost felt like the universe was preparing you for this, for Monroe. 

Monroe kept such a low profile and rarely associated with other Wesen, that you knew right away something was wrong with Angelina. Aside from giving off the vibe of being a Blutbad, she just screamed bad news. It was killing you to wait in the bedroom while Monroe and Angelina talked, but what else could you do? As much as you wanted to hear everything they were saying, you trusted and respected Monroe. If he asked you to wait here, that’s what you were going to do. 

You were almost thankful that it took a while for Monroe to come back to the bedroom. It’d given you enough time to cool down and work through your anger. He knocked gently on the door before cracking it open, peering in. He looked almost sheepish, like he was worried you were going to throw something at him or curse him out. If he’d come in ten minutes earlier, you might have. 

“Babe?” 

“You can come in,” you said firmly but not unkindly. 

Monroe sighed in relief and swung the door open. He sat on the bed beside you but kept his hands in his lap. “I’m sorry.” 

“About what?” 

“That you had to meet her. And meet her … that way.” 

“Who was she?” 

Monroe took a deep breath and exhaled heavily, his shoulders slumping. “She’s my ex-girlfriend. I haven’t seen her in a while.” 

You’d never heard Monroe talking about ex-girlfriends before. You didn’t know he’d even dated before. It stung a little, knowing there were parts of his life that he hadn’t shared with you, parts that he had kept secret. You knew he had the right to keep parts of his life locked away, but you thought your relationship was good enough that he didn’t feel he had to. 

“What did she want?” 

Monroe let out a bitter laugh and muttered, “Me.” 

“What do you mean?” 

“I mean … she wanted to get back together with me.” 

You swallowed hard, anxiously picking at the cuticle on your thumb. “What did you say?” 

Monroe looked at you in disbelief. “What do you think I said? I told her no, that I’m with you.” 

“And that took almost twenty minutes to say?” 

Monroe studied your face for a long moment, his eyes almost unreadable. He scrubbed his face with his large palm and groaned. “Okay, she … she wanted a lot more than that.” 

“Do I want to know?” 

“Maybe not, but you have the right to know. She wanted …” Monroe took another heavy breath, but he couldn’t look at you anymore. He turned his eyes down to his hands, staring at his calloused palms. “She wanted me back, and not just as her boyfriend. She wanted me to embrace being a Blutbad. She wanted … She wanted me to fang out again. To go on the hunt. To kill.” 

Your heart twisted in your chest. You wanted to reach out and grab Monroe’s hand to comfort him, to let him know you were there, but you weren’t sure if that’s what he needed. Monroe had given up that life long before he ever met you, but you often wondered if you had any influence in his choice to stay “sober,” as he called it. He wasn’t abstaining from his instincts simply because he was afraid you’d discover what he truly was, because you already knew what he was. Did he keep from running in the woods and killing animals – people – other Wesen – because he didn’t want to disappoint you? Or did he feel like you were holding him back? 

You finally decided to reach out and grab his hand. You laced your fingers with his and squeezed tight. “Why would she want that?” 

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “I guess because she thinks I’m easier to convince? Because I’m the only Blutbad around that doesn’t have her on my hitlist? She could just be screwing with me, just seeing if she can undo all my progress. I never was able to figure out what goes on in that head of hers.” 

You steadied yourself before asking the question that was beginning to burn a hole in your chest. “Monroe … what do you want?” 

He looked at you, eyebrows knit together in confusion. 

“I mean … do you want to keep living like this? Abstaining from the hunt? Or do you want to join her? Do you want to act like a Blutbad again?” 

“Why are you asking me this?” 

“Because, I need to know where your mind’s at, where your heart’s at. If you want to … to join her, to go out and kill, then … then you should do that. I don’t want to hold you back. I don’t want to make you into something you’re not.” 

“What are you talking about?” 

“I’m not a Wesen, Monroe. I’m not even a Grimm. I’m nothing. I just … I don’t know what I am. I can sense when people are different, but I can’t do anything with that information. And I can never be like you. I can never fang out or go hunting or … or kill. I’ll never be able to relate to you the way Angelina can. I can only love you like a human could, and I don’t know if that’s enough.” 

Monroe silently reached out with his free hand and brushed tears off of your cheeks. He cupped your chin between his fingers and tilted your head up until you were staring into his eyes. His eyes were filled with unshed tears and his voice wavered when he spoke. 

“Don’t you ever say that about yourself again, do you understand? I don’t want to hear you talk bad about yourself – ever. You’re not nothing. You’re everything. Okay? I don’t want to go hunting or to kill things. I don’t! I mean, no offense, but I didn’t stop doing those things for you, you know? I stopped before I even met you. But it feels like meeting you was the reward I got for stopping that part of myself.” 

“Monroe–” 

“No, just listen to me. It’s true, Angelina may get me on a level that you never can, because she and I are Blutbaden, but … Angelina only knows the old me. She doesn’t know the me that you know. And I don’t want her to, because I don’t want her in my life anymore. She doesn’t want what’s best for me. Even when we were together, it always felt like her goal was to try to get me killed. I … I couldn’t live like that. And I told her that when she was here. I told her that the Monroe she was looking for didn’t exist anymore, and that she wasn’t welcome back here.” 

“You didn’t have to do that.” 

“Yes, I did. Or else she’d keep coming back and keep coming back until I gave in or …” He shook his head. “I don’t want to think about it. But just know that I’m done with that part of my life. Some days, I’ll admit, it’s hard to fight it. It’s hard to not join the others and act on my instincts, but … I think about what I’d be giving up, what I’d lose. My progress, my dignity, you.” Monroe leaned forward and placed a firm kiss on your lips. “I’m not going to lose you.” 

You pulled your hand free from his and wrapped your arms around his neck, kissing him hard. He grabbed your waist and helped you slide onto his lap. Your tears peppered his cheeks as you kissed him all over his face, your laughter mixed with soft cries. 

“I love you, Monroe. I promise that you’re never going to lose me.” 

“I promise you’re not going to lose me. I love you, too, babe.” He planted his hands on your hips and kept you on his lap. “You ready for a nap now? I know crying takes a lot out of you.” 

You shook your head. “Not yet.” 

“No? Oh.” Monroe laughed and kissed you deeply again. “We need to do our make up ritual, don’t we?” 

“Yes.” 

Monroe grinned and hoisted you up, turning around to toss you onto the bed. He climbed on top of you and planted kisses all along your neck and face. “I promise to make it up to you, over and over and over again. As many times as it takes. And then some.” 

And he did.

[sufferthesea]

Flash Fiction Friday #20 (Five Nights at Freddy's)

Word: Mirror 

Pairings: None

Warnings: Mention of kidnapping/murder (canon-compliant), Garrett's ghost, my theory on what that mirror message in the movie was

Garrett wished he could have said something to Mike, but how could he? He didn’t have a voice in this place. Only a few of the kids were allowed to talk (if they could be called kids), and it was always the same. The blonde boy with the blue eyes in the striped shirt. He was the leader of their group and he was allowed to talk all he wanted. He gave permission to the others to speak if he wanted them to, if he could use them. 

But mostly, it was the Yellow Rabbit that did the talking. Garrett wasn’t like the other kids. He knew the Yellow Rabbit wasn’t just a rabbit, it was a man wearing a rabbit suit. The reason he knew that is because he was the only child who had been taken by the man without the rabbit suit on. He’d seen his face. He’d heard his real voice. It had been a long time since that day they were camping, but he remembered it like it was yesterday. 

That was the weird thing about being dead. You remembered things that happened a long time ago very clearly, because you never ever got older. 

And Garrett remembered that man. The look on his face, the way his breath smelled, even the clothes he was wearing when he’d kidnapped Garrett. He remembered everything. And he knew that that man was the one who owned Freddy Fazbear’s Pizzeria. He knew that because after he’d been killed, the man brought Garrett’s body into the pizzeria and hid his body there. This had been after the pizzeria had already closed down due to the other children going “missing.” Garrett knew they weren’t missing, because he knew exactly where they were. Right here, in the pizzeria. 

Because he remembered the man so clearly, and because he knew he owned the pizzeria, and because he knew the man was also the Yellow Rabbit that the other children seemed to follow like sheep, he knew that the man had bad intentions when he hired Mike. Garrett was especially confused when he saw Mike show up to work that first night. It had taken him a little while to recognize him since the last time he’d seen him, they’d just been little kids. 

Well, Garrett still was a little kid, and always would be. But Mike no longer was. He was grown up. He had a beard. And he had a job. But Garrett knew his brother and he knew that the man was going to hurt him. Unfortunately, Garrett didn’t have an animatronic body like the other children. He couldn’t manipulate the robotic animals to get a message to Mike. And even if he could, he wasn’t sure he could really trust himself inside of an animatronic. He’d seen what Freddy and his friends had done to the other security guards. Would Garrett do that too, and to his own brother, if he were to possess one of the robots? He didn’t like to think about it. 

Garrett was still trying to figure out how to get a message to Mike when the man showed up at the pizzeria. He also looked older, but he was the same man Garrett knew had taken him. The man let himself into the building and inspected each room. He then stood in front of each animatronic for a long while, just studying them. They never moved. Garrett wasn’t sure if they recognized this man outside of his Yellow Rabbit suit, or if they just knew instinctively that he was someone they couldn’t hurt. But Freddy, Bonnie, Chica, and Foxy never once moved while in the presence of the man. 

When the man got to the security room, he stood in front of the cameras for a long time. Then he looked around the room until he saw the mirror. It was dusty and dirty. Garrett saw him smile the same smile as the day he’d kidnapped Garrett. Then he lifted a finger and began tracing words into the dirt. 

IT’S ME 

The man laughed to himself then went to check out the rest of the building. Garrett didn’t know what he was looking for, or if he was even looking for anything, but he didn’t care. As long as the man was away from the security room, the place where Garrett was waiting until Mike came back, he was happy. 

What did that mean, “It’s me”? It took Garrett an awful long time to think of what it could mean and why the man would write it. He didn’t come up with an answer until Mike showed up the next night with a Nebraska poster. Mike taped it to the wall, put headphones on, and fell asleep. The image of pine trees was startlingly familiar to Garrett. The same trees he’d seen when he was camping with his family. The very last time he saw Mike. 

The man must have known that Mike and Garrett were related. That must have been the message. 

“It’s me.” He was telling Mike that he was the man who had kidnapped Garrett, who had killed him. He was taunting him. Would Mike notice it? Would he even make the connection? Garrett wished he could have been placed inside an animatronic now so he could barge into the security room and point out the mirror. He wanted to shake Mike by the shoulders and scream at him that the man he was working for was the man who’d destroyed their lives. But he couldn’t do anything. 

He couldn’t do anything except sit and wait. And he hoped that maybe Mike would see that mirror and the message written in the dirt. And maybe Mike wouldn’t know that the man was the Yellow Rabbit and the kidnapper and all sorts of evil things, but maybe he would see it and he would think someone else had written it. Maybe he would see it and he wouldn’t think it was the man saying, “It’s me, I’m the one who killed your brother.” 

Maybe he would see it and think it was Garrett who had written it, and it was saying, “It’s me, your brother. I’m here. You found me.”

[sufferthesea]

Flash Fiction Friday #19 (Detroit: Become Human)

Word: Retro 

Pairings: Connor x Reader

Warnings: Android discrimination/perceived “racism”

For @smolbeandrabbles!!! I know you're not really into "x reader" fics but I hope this little drabble can tide you over until your commission is done! I just HAD to write a little scene of Connor enjoying some classic android films! And then, of course, I had to address the issues with those films ...

Connor was almost offended at the depiction of androids on screen. You’d told him that this was one of your favorite film series and that he “had” to watch it. So he sat down with you while you queued up the film and made popcorn for yourself. Even though Connor didn’t eat, you liked to pretend he did. You kept the bowl in between the two of you as you cuddled up to him, a blanket draped over your laps. With the lights off and volume turned way up, it was incredibly atmospheric. You felt it was almost romantic. 

Connor did not feel that way. 

“Is this really what they thought the future was going to be like?” 

You looked away from the screen at Connor, his pale face illuminated in the cold blue light of the movie. “What do you mean?” 

“I mean … did they really think that they were going to go into space?” 

“Well, it is set almost a hundred years from now, which was about … one hundred and forty or so years from when the film was made. It could still happen.” 

“Not now, I don’t think it could.” 

“Why not?” 

“Because they’re just using androids as workhorses in this film. We’re not going to go back to that, to when people discriminated against androids.” 

“I love your optimism,” you said, smiling at him. “But it’s just a film, babe. Androids weren’t even a thing when this movie was made.” 

Connor still wasn’t satisfied. He frowned, which looked odd on his face. “But they’d thought of them … they thought if they could make androids in the future, they’d just … abuse them. And I don’t like that it has to be a secret. Why doesn’t Ash just tell them that he’s an android? Why do they have to find out after they try to kill him?” 

“Well … I don’t know. I guess to add to the tension of the film. You’re supposed to think that Ash is just another crew member, but that he’s shady. It’s a shock to find out that he’s not human, and that he’s working for the Company.” 

“Is he shady because he’s an android?” 

“No, I don’t think that’s what they were going for. I think it’s just coincidental. Some of the other characters were weird, too. I mean …” 

Connor gave you a look that said he wasn’t impressed with your answer. You paused the film and sat up, turning to face him. 

“You’re absolutely right, Connor. The depiction of androids in this film isn’t very flattering, and it doesn’t endear androids to anyone. It does feel like it was meant to be anti-android propaganda. But I promise you that they made this film decades and decades before they even considered real androids – people like you – to be a thing in our society. It’s a science fiction film. I think maybe that back then, the idea of an android – a machine that could look and act and sound like a human being – kind of fell into the uncanny valley for a lot of people. It was another way to scare audiences … kind of like how they used to use deformities and limb differences to scare people in films. We know now that it’s wrong, but it was a cheap and easy way to shock your audience. It’s not right but it’s how things were back then. I’m sorry that I chose a film that’s very insensitive about androids. I should’ve thought it through more.” You held his hands firmly, looking into his eyes. “We can turn it off. We’ll find something else to watch.” 

Connor clasped your hands back. His palms were warm from the thirium running under the layers of his synthetic skin. It was another little detail CyberLife had thought of when they designed Connor. They needed him to blend in seamlessly with his coworkers at the police station, and giving him warm skin just made it all that much easier for humans to accept him as their own. It was easy to forget that Connor wasn’t a human when he looked, acted, and felt like one. It must have been the same for the crew on the Nostromo, believing that Ash had been one of their own up until that famous (or, rather, notorious, in android circles) scene. 

“No, this is a movie you like. We can finish it.” 

“I don’t want to watch it if it’s going to make you uncomfortable. I’ll let you pick something else.” 

Connor shook his head. “This is part of our history, our culture. I can see this and understand why some people were so biased against androids before the Revolution. Films like this … it painted a picture of what it could be like. I understand why humans would be afraid or even angry. It seems the director of this film thought of us as threats. I suppose that he could not be blamed for thinking that. Most people consider anything new or different to be a threat to them.” 

“I think you’re right, Connor. I think the director didn’t care for androids too much. But the next film, Aliens? You’ll love the android in that film. I do. And I think the director did, too. It was directed by a different person.” 

“Is it a more flattering portrait of androids?” 

“He’s the hero.” 

Connor glanced at the screen then back at you. He squeezed your hands and smiled. “Let’s finish this film, but I don’t know if we should watch the other one.” 

“What? Why not?” 

“I don’t want you to compare me to him. You may find that you prefer him.” 

You laughed and pulled Connor into a kiss. “There’s no one I like more than you, Connor.”