#1 year already
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- We were here. With you. Until the end. -
One year has passed and oh- I still love this game so, so much.
I wish I could forget this wonderfull masterpiece to do it all over again. And again. To discover the story, meet the characters again. To hear this marvelous OST for the first time again. I beg you, if you have never played this game, DO IT NOW. Stop everything youâre doing right now and buy those games, and play it, play it all night, until morning comes if you have to, until you cried so much your heart is nothing but a dry potato but you still feel weirdly happy about it and the chance you had to finish what is possibly one of the best video game of this decade.
Yes, I love this game. :)
Happy birthday. And thank you so much Asobo for this wonderful gift and the hours of sweat and tears you put into it. Thank you so much <3
#A Plague Tale Requiem#asobo studio#Plague Tale anniversary#1 year already#Can you guess which hands is which ?#Hugo de Rune#Everytime I over analysize the story I found myself thinking about mortal diseases#And a beautiful metaphor about death acceptance#happy birthday <3#Plaguetober#Taletober
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and then they did
#hc that Ankarna was revived on June 1 bc yk school year ends around then#and pride month#has anyone done this already lmao#I put too much effort into this bc I love themâŠ#fantasy high#fantasy high junior year#bug taffyâs art#sheâs pirouetting away btw#figueroth faeth#kristen applebees
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Now that you're gone
#*guy who just spent a full month selling 60 pages worth of comics voice* i should write another comic#this is part 1 of 2 btw. i have another one scripted from aryll's pov LOL#anyway. the concept for this has been in my head for like. years. finally decided to actually write it tho lol#the thought of his family after the initial calamity strike makes me crazy. they lost him. but he was already gone.#he was gone the moment he picked up that sword. could they have stopped it? should they have?#would things have ended any differently if they'd tried? or would it only have been worse for him?#ANYWAY. hi everyone new black and white zelda comic from the black and white zelda comic guy#skribbles#botw#loz#legend of zelda#breath of the wild#totk#tears of the kingdom#OH SHIT. TRIGGER WARNINGS#tw gore#tw suicide#tw suicidal ideation#<sorry 4 forgetting at first LMAO
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Belphie is such an interesting kitten, compared to the other two.
baby Grim presented some challenges, because she loved to destroy property (mostly climbing various shelves and mantles and knocking everything she could to the floor), she was mildly aggressive toward Marmaduke the family cat (she felt that at the ripe age of 4 months, she deserved to be king), and she was fairly aloof for a kitten, more into running about than cuddling. in most ways, she was like a tiny mafia boss.
Pangur I instantly soul-bonded with, because she was so sickly and pathetic. and neurotic, too - everything was scary to her, people, places and animals. sheâd explore the house and play, but there was always an âexpecting an eagle to swoop down and grab herâ energy.
now Belphie! heâs a healthy active boy with zero fear, and zero aggression, but (fortunately or unfortunately) someone cranked his Play button to maximum and then broke off the handle. he is either fast asleep, and the cutest kitten on earth, or racing about and flailing and climbing and pouncing. which means that he canât be let outside the kitten room unsupervised yet, because his baby willpower is only so strong, and he will eventually break and start jumping on Pangur and Grim. so in a way, heâs the healthiest happiest cat Iâve ever had, but heâs also the most complicated, because he still has to spend most of his time jailed in the kitten room.
#I think heâll be better with time#I already trained him out of jumping on my legs and back and making me bleed#and 6/10 times you can see heâs visibly restraining himself from fucking with the other cats#that used to be 1/10 times so weâre making progress!#but I wish he could be out free all the time đ#usually when heâs jailed Iâll be in the kitten room with him doing work#but then I get pangur crying at the door bc she is a 12 year old infant
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How To Balance Your Daytime and Nighttime Activities So That You Don't Burn Yourself Out More Than You Already Have
It had been a long few minutes since he'd opened the door and there were a lot of questions running through Dick's head. Most pressing of which was how this kid seems to have information he should not have.
"How did you..?" he asked, but the words wouldn't leave completely. There's so much he wants to know, so much he wants to ask.
"How do I what?" Danny tilted his head like the child he seems to be is.
"How do you know?" Dick knows he sounds weak. There's no hiding that, but there are a lot of implications in what the kid has said so far and none of it is painting a very happy picture for him.
"Oh!" Danny had the audacity to smile, "You want to know how I know you moonlight as a vigilante!" And of course he knows. Dick knows he knows, but he'd held a little bit of hope that the child Danny was mistaken. Danny's smile softened a bit as he explained, "Your hair and voice match up in both jobs almost perfectly. Not to mention your build and how you hold yourself. There's also the matter of your overall vibes, but that's not something living beings can normally pick up on." Excuse him? "Well, not living humans, at least, so no worries on that end!"
"Excuse me?" Dick was fairly sure his heart just stopped beating for a moment there.
"Anyway, I was a hero back home for a while, too. I know what it's like to have to walk the tightrope between maintaining a civilian cover and a hero persona. I know how it feels to have to keep secrets from everyone because anyone who knows will be in danger." he rambled, Though, admittedly, our circumstances are quite different. I was working as a hero all hours of the day as well as going to school. You only have to worry about properly balancing between day and night jobs. Either way, me having more to bounce between just makes me al the more qualified to help you!"
Oh. Oh he did not like that. He didn't like a single thing that just came out of the kid's mouth. Because that's what he is, a kid. "Are you...Are you alright?"
"Not in the slightest," Danny admitted with an even smaller smile. Then, it brightened, not quite to a grin, but to something similar, "But I'm here to make sure you are."
He gets points for being honest, but Dick felt his heart shatter. He knew for a fact that he'd never worked with this kid before. He also knew that the Justice League didn't know about him. If they did, he would've been picked up and dropped with either the Young Justice team or the Titans.
Dick wasn't going to ask why he became a hero because that's not his place. It's more of a 'third mission with the team' kind of questions, anyway. Most of the heroes didn't have many options when they took up the mantle. Asking what Danny can do is a more appropriate question, but he wasn't going to ask that, either.
"Now that that's out of the way," Danny turned a few pages from the table of contents to another one that was topped with 'Why Sleep Scheduling Is Important' in the blue glitter pen that Dick was starting to suspect he favored. "You're not getting enough sleep. Following you around - no one's been able to find me for a while, so don't worry about that - for the last two weeks has given me some really worrisome information on you."
Dick was worrying. He was worrying a lot and even more questions were coming to the forefront of his mind.
"Your dayjob is as an officer on the Bludhaven Police Force, or BPD for short." He was looking over the page he'd turned to very aptly and Dick realized that the kid had notes written on him. "The average hours per week for police across the country is forty hours. Gotham and Bludhaven are the exceptions. As a member of the BPD, you work a solid two days and two hours. Six nights a week, you work as Nightwing from eight in the evening to three in the morning. The last day, you take off, which is good. No deserable pattern, so good on you for that. Regardless, that's seven hour nights and ten hour days, with one day off and one day on call as an officer. Seven hours are now left in your day for personal time, eating, and sleeping. That's not a healthy way to live."
Oh, god, the kid had honest to god notes on him! What the hell!
Danny didn't even skip a beat as he pulled Dick's attention back to him and his binder. "I've drawn up a schedule for you to follow." The back of the page had a meticulously drawn schedule, complete with blocks of time to eat, sleep, work both jobs, travel, personal time, and still have a bit extra left over. It was titled 'Ideal End Result' in green marker. "Drastic changes right away will only affect you negatively, so we're starting off smaller." The next page over had another schedule titled 'Where To Begin'. "I've only pulled one hour from your Nightwing hours because I know important that time is to you and the city. I am, however, going to be having you submit an appeal to your boss to cut back your hours from fifty a week to forty a week. That way, you'll only be working eight hours a day and not ten. You'll still be on call for one day, and you'll have that last day off. Altogether, you'll be going be going from working seventeen hours a day to fourteen hours a day. Nine in the morning to five in the afternoon, and eight in the evening to two in the morning. Not including breaks at work or travel time. It opens up a few more hours for you to sleep!"
"You really think the chief is going to pull back my hours?" Dick raised an eyebrow in question.
"He will if he knows what's good for him."
"You know I can arrest you for that threat, right?"
"Yeah, but you won't." And, damn it, he's right.
Although, there was now another thing he had to know. "How to you plan on enforcing this schedule of yours?"
Danny seemed to have been waiting for this. He got a gleam in his eye as he pulled a black folder from his bag, not breaking eye contact with Dick. He placed it on the table and pushed it across. "Congratulations, it's a boy."
Part 1 Part 3
#part 2#please read part 1#I had to redo a detail there to make something here make sense#dc x dp#dp x dc#dp dc crossover#dcxdp#danny phantom#dick grayson#dick needs a hug#dick needs sleep#danny's a hypocrite#work life balance#excelt it's being explained by a hypocrite 7 years younger than him#reverse adoption#is it really adoption if the kid shows up one day and just doesn't leave?#danny is going to make sure dick takes care if himself#good thing danny's sister and friends drilled this into his head#'this' being the importance of a proper work life balance#I maintain that Danny is a hypocrite#It's not adoption papers btw#It's a backstory#How To Balance Your Daytime and Nighttime Activities So That You Don't Burn Yourself Out More Than You Already Have
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WOLFCLAN: MOON 8
Rapidpaw's broken bone has healed, but he'll always carry evidence of the incident on his pelt.
he's finally back on his feet! someone reset the "days since rapidpaw's last major injury" tracker
<< read from the beginning
#warriors#warrior cats#clangen#wolfclan#update#its been a minute huh#this was already 95% finished i just never got around to finishing up the rapidpaw animation#dont expect regular updates though lol#year 1
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tma gerry and michael meeting tmagp gerry and michael because i think theyâre neat + iâm very tired
#one (1) day until the beginning of the school year and iâm already feeling sick#this took me way longer than expected#tma#tmagp#the magnus archives#the magnus protocol#gerrymichael#doorkeay#gerry keay#michael shelley#michael the distortion#tma fanart#tmagp fanart#gerrymichael fanart#doorkeay fanart#digital art#no id#not described
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HAPPY 1 YEAR ANNIVERSARY RUIN!!!!
#canât believe itâs already been a year man#also i speedran this and didnât want to draw the entire way through so#sorry if itâs messy and stuff#fnaf ruin#ruin 1 year anniversary#fnaf#fnaf security breach#cassie fnaf#gregory fnaf#drawing tag#superstar duo#gregory#cassie#ruin#also gregory tried to eat cassies carrot cake thats why shes mad at him#she moved her plate out of his reach
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i drew a fake cover (and a fake crappy backcover) for my kinda real comic
#art#artists on tumblr#digital art#comic#webcomic#for those who give af:#ch 1 coming soon after mini comic 3#by soon i mean lowkey 2-3 months#fun fact i did some calculations its takes me about half a year to draw almost 100 completed pages#which means this is entirely possible#because i already did thst#fake cover cus i can probably do better#i havent slept for 26 hours#reasons unrelated#ocs#rejoice#rejoicecomic
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#chikorita#bald#and WELCOME TO GEN 2!! feels like we only just started with the new blog theme and yet here we are in gen 2 already#i remember back when it was still front-facing pokĂ©monâ it felt like it took FOREVER to get through a generation. but here we are#blitzing through gen 1. maybe it's just because i find a majority of gen 1 pokĂ©mon designs to be boring and uninteresting#so it flew by like that. but now we're starting to get into the guys i like#and this thing. well. this pokĂ©mon is divisiveâ to say the least#i feel like it's a love-it-or-hate-it type design#folks either hate the bean-shaped head and how it has No snout and its face is all flat#or they love it and think it's adorable#i think it's cute. tbh. i used to not like it#but it's kind of a silly creature and i like that about it#i've come around to it in recent years. especially since i think bayleef and meganium have much nicer designs
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If you need this year to end, if you crave a slow beginning, if you need to be confronted with (re)birth, may I interest you in a liturgical new year? What if, on the first day of Advent, you forgot about the resolutions and the diets and the parties and you lit a candle? What if your new year was a season (not just a day), and you had time to prepare, and January 1st was just another day of Christmas?
Construct your calendar how you wish of course, but I want to invite you to join the Christian new year, even halfheartedly. You have a week to decide (and you can of course have two new years, or none at all).
Advent is for small lights in big darkness, dim mirrors, veils and unveiling, cleaning house, waiting. Christianity beckons you to a new year devoid of self-improvement. We will be changed, of course. But ultimately there's nothing we can do about it. We create what we can and know God will shatter our plans.
It's almost the new year, is what I'm trying to say. If you choose it. Christmas is our second-highest feast day, one worth preparing for. Let secular Christmas happen, participate in it as you wish, but know that the Church will be holding its breath still. There is a dark womb before the birth. Be patient in the growing.
(And if you need a liturgical end of the year, one that is a surrender and a calling amidst the politics and nationalism of this world, may I interest you in the feast of Christ the King?)
#TOMORROW IS CHRIST THE KING I"M SO EXCITED BTW#i have slowly moved toward the liturgical year and january 1 has lost its significance which has been kinda fun#i use advent to set out my year so it does have resolutions sometimes but i don't have to think about them during christmas#i arrive at christmas already knowing how i want to be born while also knowing god will surprise me
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Dismissed on a Technicality
Ok so Danny accidentally killed the joker. He was working part time as a taxi driver. Funny thing is that he got hired in the city next to Amity Park. The problem is some moron decided to have him drive aaaalllll the way from Amity to Gotham city. And Danny might have run over the Joker while there.
LookâŠhe didnât feel like a human. Danny (as someone half dead) can feel souls and he could only barley feel anything from the guy so it just looked like a blob in front of the road. He thought it was an animal or something! Danny was short on time so he was going pretty fast. And drivers Ed was very clear that one is NOT to swerve the car to avoid animals as it causes the car to go into other lanes and can cause a crash, especially in a big city. Itâs sad, but itâs true, better to run over the poor animal.
So Danny hit the gas.
Only to be greeted with the face of a clown smashed into his windshield.
Danny stopped the car.
He got out.
Looked around at all the people of the city staring at him (no longer cowering as Joker went on a monologue, holding them at gunpoint while waiting for a bat.)
Danny looks down as the mangled corpse sprawled over the front of his taxi.
And he pulled out his phone and called 911 to report a car crash. In front of everybody.
When Batman arrived, Danny held out his hands and willingly let them be cuffed. Time to be taken to court!
Now one might think Danny would be panicking in this situation. After all, he just killed someone, even if it was on accident. But Danny had a different point of view and made it known in court.
It was a whole thing. Full courthouse, practically the entire city attending or watching on a live news feed. And who did Danny call to defend him as his lawyer?
Himself.
And this begins the most confusing and controversial court in the history of Gotham.
Now, what defines a human? Because according to the law itâs âanyone capable of speech or higher reasoning.â But that cannot be. There are aliens and Atlanteans who fit those categories and they do not classify as human. And what about that demon the Justice League killed last week. The one with 2 snake heads and a hippo body? That thing could talk. What about being a Homo sapien capable of speech? But there is an entire city of talking gorillas. Therefore, the definition of human should be revised.
As for the Joker, he had many differences to the typical human. When he fell into a vat of chemicals it changed his very atomic structure physically and altered his mind mentally. Those gassed with Joker venom can be turned back but Jokerâs transformation was permanent. Meaning the change occurred at the level of his very DNA.
Which begs the question. Is the Joker really human? And if not, is what Danny did really murder?
Let it be known that Daniel James Fenton is not trying to get out of his crime.
Despite his appearance, the joker was alive. He was breathing, had a heartbeat, and blood flowed through his veins (despite that blood being green).
So yesâŠDanny committed a crime. And he confesses in front of the entire court.
He confessesâŠto animal cruelty.
#Dpxdc#dcxdp#Kizzer55555 ideas#Danny killed the joker and confessed to animal cruelty.#This causes an uproar in the court because Danny makes some good points.#It makes them question everything.#Gotham is like New York right? The punishment for animal cruelty in New York is a fine of $1000 and 1 year in prison.#The crime for murder is either life in prison or 20-25 years.#The bat family is cheering for Danny.#If someone were to sue Danny for animal cruelty would that help his case? Can you even sue someone already on trial?#Controversy: Is Joker and animal or human?
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Today marks 1 year since I started shipping Noa and Mae after the first Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes teaser came out. Yes, I shipped them all the way back then. Yes, it was as lonely as it sounds.
All I had was this fangirlish article from November 3rd, 2023 after the teaser came out that knew what was up. So true, fangirlish!
Seeing all the love, edits, art, and fanfics they're getting now is absolutely amazing to see. And after months of having no one to talk about nomae with, I'm now in discord servers where I get to fangirl about them. It's like a rainfall after a year long drought.
#planet of the apes#kingdom of the planet of the apes#pota#kotpota#nomae#noa#mae#noa x mae#do you know what this means though?#that IF they do become canon after YEARS of waiting through the slowburn#I will be an early original shipper since day 1#like I've already waited one year#what's three to six more?#is it too early to say this ship might beat reylo for me?
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My heart is a bloodhound!
PART 1 â
PART 2
Quick summary: It happens again, when the year festers into August again and leaves the two of you raw and vulnerable like open wounds.
Word count: 15K⊠đ€
Warnings: canon-typical mentions of death, violence and injury (there is mention of like eating people but idk); grief; misogyny; Rust's personality; semi-public SMUTT T-T (MINORS DNI); same level of pretentiousness, maybe a little more, as the first part.
A/N: Holy fuck this sucked the soul out of me (wish Rust Cohle would suck the soul out of I MEAN WHAT), i am super proud of this though!! Went through many iterations and this was the least shit! đđđ This is technically part two to The idler wheel but can be read by itself too. May or may not write other things for this guy but for the time being, I need a cleanse đ BUT please please enjoy and please please interact, i love reading comments and so many lovely people commented on the first part, im gonna do my best to respond to any/all this time đ€MWAH MWAH
***
Itâs difficult to differentiate between the thrill of being left alone here with him and the slow-sinking dread of the implications of that.
With the return of the musk of the summer, those three ruthless, windless, unrelenting months that would seem to drag on for several lifetimes when I was a kid, the memory of where I was last yearâand the year before that, and the one before thatâhangs brightly in my mind. Stale, not quite dead â so bright. Crawling with mildew.
Stepping into the bar had felt like entering another dimension. Maybe it was the suits that gave it away â every single God-haunted patronâthe truckers, the farmers, even the old dog lying at a manâs feetâhad turned, sensing foreigners as acutely as the immune system registers a bodily threat. I knew Johansson felt it: that dark pull over the back of the neck. But under Martyâs overconfident, swaggering lead, that winning smile, we soon assimilated. Skin swallowing a bullet.
God forbid you ever leave the town you grew up in. Shame on you if you donât, though. How sanctimonious of me to change my mind and return after earning a spot amongst the lucky few escapees.
Something in this place still irks me.
At least, in Brooklyn, there was always noise: cries of a baby in the apartment over, the discord of traffic bursting through the streets below, the rush of a crowd, the overlap and slur of private conversations. At least the badness would stare you right in the face; at least people were evil to be evil. At least there were corners where things could hide, where it made sense for shadows to exist: all to explain the paranoia that stalked me.
But here?âit seems so open. Like, if a rare, hot wind would blow through a Louisiana town, it could do so in one straight path, through walls, through people, without ever getting disrupted. Everything is so light in the blazing sun, you can practically hear it: the hum of rays passing over every surface. Nothing should be able to hide. And, at night, with no sun, no rays, there is no noise. Maybe a dog. And ghosts. But perhaps itâs just the area in which I live.Â
When Marty started drinking, flirting with the twenty-one-year-old barkeep, Johanssonâs face had stiffened. He himself had never even touched a bottle of beer â devil stuff. We shared a look once the blond detective started gabbinâ like an idiot.
âKnow what Maggie thinks?â he had laughed, slumping over the sticky table of the booth, big, sweaty palm choking out his drink. âShe thinks you might be pissed at me.â
Johansson blinked hard to keep his nose from wrinkling, but, even then, he couldnât keep from physically cringing away. âWho?â he asked, confused by those hazy, unfocused eyes.
Marty cracked a toothy grin â there was that slight gap between those front two, which had been charming at first and only managed to thoroughly disgust me now in moments like these â and pointed his finger right at me, accusing. âYou.â
My stomach churned dangerously at the sight of him.
âMarty,â his partner had drawled, a low warning.
Waved away like a fly.
âNaw, itâs likeâyouâre on your high fuckinâ horse or somethinâ.â
The words were spoken through a laugh, but I knew there was meat behind that so-called good mood. He was one of those people that tended to overcompensate. A mistake, an ill feeling. He liked to point out how I was alone, and often, too, poorly disguised as a passing joke, complete with one of those shit-eating grins that seemed to come so easy to him.
Shouldnât he have been happy? Not only had he gotten our case, by then, but weâd handed it over with smiles on our damn faces. Nice enough to walk them through the original crime scene, introduce them to the key witnesses. Complicated. We didnât have to do shit for âem, but we did. Hell, even that beer he was clutching to his chest was paid for out of the goodness of my own fuckinâ heart. Who was he to moan about the situation? He was the one who insisted on staying in the middle of butt-fuck nowhere, brushing off any and all pointed questions on whether his family would be missing him at dinner.
âYou know, Iâd rather you were pissed,â he continued, where, really, I should have just smothered him into silence.
Rust was staring into the side of his flushed face, iron-grey eyes like a drill, like he was thinking the same thing.
âLook, youâre smilinâ at me now, but I sure as hell donât trust it, buck. You wanna bite my head off, donât ye?â
Like I ever could have done that.
Though the familiar weight of rage curdled in my chest, I would never admit it to the likes of Martin Hart. When he got like thisâjealous, insecure, whinyâI wondered whether it was just a temporary lapse, or if this him, this true him, just lay under the surface all the time.
It wasnât that fucking hard to plaster on a smile and take what you fucking got â I did it all the time. He could dream of a different life, but this was the one we were dealt. Fact that his grown ass hadnât accepted that by now twisted violently in my gut. Between the two of us, I was the one that knew this â so why did he get myfucking case?
In my head, Iâd let Salter have it, too. How could I ever admit I had an ego? How could I ever admit I had a mind to wrench the teeth out of the sheriffâs fucking gums?Â
But I have plenty of practice acting like things donât bother me, which is why it was so easy to plaster on my amiable smile and laugh, âCâmon, man, you know itâs only âcause oâ the workload.â Not that you could comprehend that, lazy fuck. To Marty, my kindâs natural state was amiableâanything otherwise would be a defectâso Iâd expected to convince him. âYouâll do right by it, âm sure.âÂ
If he were sober, I know he wouldâve bought it â he could convince himself that the way of the world was right and I was only being sweet to be sweet, because he deserved it.Â
But Marty was drunk. Piss-drunk, loud drunk. His mind was clumsier than usual, unable to muster the energy to jump points, ignore the evidence, like he did daily. I hoped I had the powerâif I had to let the case go, I wanted to at least retain an into its goings-onâbut there was only one way to really have power over men like Marty when they were drunk, and I had had no interest in being one of his girls.Â
My partner twitched beside me, picking at some spongy, yellow fluff protruding from a thin split in the chocolate-brown fake leather of the booth. He was just as furious as I was beneath his fort of calm.
Marty took a swig of his beer. âShe wants you over soon. Maggie. Barbecue or some shit.â
âMaybe you should go home,â Johansson interjected, sharper than intended. If I were him, with his body, with his life, Iâd have hit the fuckerâlong time ago, too. I couldnât, but Johansson wouldnât. He didnât lack the temperament for brutalityâIâm not sure anybody doesâbut, rather, couldnât justify it to a necessary degree in his head. âIâm going home,â heâd reasoned kindly â he made it sound so easy. âJust let me take you. Itâs on my way.â
Itching to leave, to return to the comfort of his wife and his little daughter. Marty had always found Johanssonâs fondness of them disingenuous, had disliked my partner as long as theyâd worked in the same office. He complained to me once that none of his stories seemed complete. When I asked him what he meant by that, he couldnât answerâbut I knew.
Breath short in my chest, I had half-expected Marty to lunge over the table, scratch Johanssonâs eyes out. Only, Rust leaned over, dipping his head down to mutter something quietly into his partnerâs ear, which was all flushed red.Â
And then he went willingly into Johanssonâs car, stumbling through the still, open night into the backseat.
My partner had squeezed my shoulder goodbye â Iâm not sure why I didnât leave with him. Now, I was doomed to leave with Rust.Â
There, he sits across from me, smearing the ashy tar of his half-smoked, flaking cigarette over the mottled glass ashtray dragged over to his side of the table, little circles, waves, absent-minded art. Has me transfixed, some hypnotist.
If I look down like this, if I sacrifice the opportunity to look at him, I earn his careful attention: this sits in the back of my idle mind. Iâve been taking advantage of it more and more since summer broke through the sweetness of spring, which has since curdled like milk, sour. His stare drags over my face like fingers â I can almost feel his touch pressing into the softness of my cheek, dragging over the ridge of the orbital bone.Â
âYouâre okay?â he asks after a couple slowed heartbeats, pulling me out of the honey-pit of my thoughts.
I dart my eyes up, breaking the spell â his observation retreats, clouds, and drifts away to fix on the broken clock on the wall, the one that reads one forty-five at eleven oâ clock.
Primarily, his question irritates me. Nobody asks âare you alright?â imploringly, not unless it concerns themselves and their own wants. Salter had asked me that, right after telling me he was pulling me from my case, and, then, I had thought about crying, just to unsettle him. But what good would that have done? Heâd only asked âare you alright?â to test the waters, to see if there was a future possibility of letting him pull the rug out from under me with zero consequences. Again. I couldnât win.Â
But Rust doesnât want much from me. He doesnât even want the case, really, which just twists the knife even further.Â
âYouâyou know Iâm good in there, right? In the box.â I carve a jagged thumbnail into this message in the table, twisting the characters wider, or taller, risking splinters.
Why should I have to give it up? And to a fucking idiot? Marty wasnât the one who stayed all those late nights alone at the office, wasnât the one scoured over heaps of files under low light, wasnât the one who took the fucking beating when the suspect fought against arrest. Marty was not the one who conducted an interview like that.
My mouth thins into a hard line, but I know the words will come out whether I let them voluntarily or not. Around Rust, itâs that way. I shouldâve left when I could.Â
âItâs just thatâit was so weird,â I continue, my head pulsing with the unwanted memory of that cabin. Marty didnât have to experience it, Rust didnât have to experience itâbut I did. âNot jusâ wrong, or sad. Makes me feel strange, thinking about it.âÂ
Often, the suspects underestimate me. Johanssonâs broad shoulders and tough-set jaw come off as offensiveânothing like my voice, low and gentle, and my eyes, sympathetic and warm. Iâm the mother who will never judge, who is spilling over with unconditional love.
Beneath this, though, I am good at the maths of the job, the connections. Though all detectives technically develop the same constituent skillsâclose attention to body language tells and other biological betrayalsâI ainât sure most understand the sensitivity and strength required to confront shit like this head-on. To not avert your eyes at the mutilated woman on the bed. To inspect her eunuched boyfriendâs severed appendage, to have steady hands when photographing the sceneâwith flash, of course, to highlight every detail with sufficient clarityâfor evidence, which must be returned to and examined again and again, each time with greater fervour still.Â
I could name a few whoâd joke about a thing like that, to ease the burn of that image in their heads, to sleep better at night, to leave behind the uninvited, vicarious sensation of a knife teasing over the meat of their dick.Â
But the boyfriendâs corpse, we eventually located separately in a cabin in the woods, laid into the basement freezer, so peaceful, such a brutal image. Pretty parts of him preserved for mauling.
And Salter has the fucking audacity to take it away. He wasnât the one to see something like that, to feel sick to his very stomach, to gag and have to turn away, to cringe and writhe like his skin suddenly wasnât his, like he ought to pick himself out. Iâve been reeling with that image for weeks, living with motion sickness, and have been denied the relief of vomiting.Â
âSo, you need me to get that confession.â
Rust comes back into focus, perfectly still.
I nod, the back of my neck prickling with mean goosebumps. âCampbell, his DNA was all over the bodies. He was proud of it, even.â My ribs still glow with the phantom-sensation of his brutal kick there when we located him. Stomach clenching, I struggle to remain level. âBut there ainât no way in hell she wasnât involved. He denies it, but the house is registered under her name. Maiden name, Phelps.â
âI read,â he confirms.Â
I tremble in frustration â I almost wish he hadnât.Â
âItâs justâthis ladyâs tough.â
Eyes darting over to the dim-lit bar, scouring the scuffed hardwood floor, I can feel my face growing hot with indignation. Christ, it sounds pathetic, like a whiny kid insisting on continuing a task all wrong in order to protect their damaged pride.Â
âYou know Johansson: once she starts with the tears, he canât see past âem. Southern manners ânâ all: a crying woman is a delicate thing not for a man to understand but to comfort. But, with me, it ainât the same. She doesnât respect me.â
âWhat dâyou mean ârespect â? Donât need respect in this game.â
I scoff, which wouldâve been a dire mistake with anyone else. âYâwouldnât know what Iâm on about,â I tease through an easy smile, though Iâm not feeling so funny at the moment.
He inclines his head down to me, an invitation to elaborate.
My boot feverishly taps against the floor, thrumming light like a jackrabbit on the run.Â
I sigh, mouth twisting. âShe keeps asking me if Iâve slept,â I confess. âSays I look like her daughter.â
For all my mothering, here comes a perp whoâs desperate to play me at my own game.
I can see how intelligent she is: some hollow glint in her eyes with nothing behind; past that gleaming screen of kindness, something black, like a cherry pit.
Sitting across from her, it felt like looking into a mirror. Not just physicallyâthough her skin is a similar shade to mine, her nails bitten and splitting like mine, and she looks close to what I imagine my own mother couldâve grown into. It was in the way that, when I smiled, she smiled. When I took a sip of my coffee, she would drink some tea. At times, it would even seem like she would speak in my voice: the pitch, the intonations, the phrasing all far too similar. I was reluctant to tell her my name. It reminded me of this folk tale, of these tall, dark creatures who only required your name to speak like you, to look like you, to replace you in your own life. Its victim would dieâin some way or another. Wander the woods, eaten alive.
A harrowing feeling had crept over me, winter pressing against the two-way mirror â I was sure Johansson, on the other side, would pick up on it. Only, when I confessed my worries to him, heâd given me this doubtful look, and I really wasalone then.
âSheâs playinâ you,â Rust states simply, tracing his fingers over his mouth like some pseudo-cigarette.Â
âYeah.â I grind my teeth together. Under the table, where he cannot see, my fingers curl into a tight fist, trembling with my secret violence. âAnd now Salter wants Marty to have it? Bull.âÂ
I shouldâve socked him right in his dumb, slack fuckinâ jaw. One day, I will.Â
âHe donât want Marty to have it,â Rust retorts smartly, a half-smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. His eyes are warm in the dark â I shouldâve taken my chances, raced to meet âem, but Iâm too late. âHe wants me to have it.âÂ
Yeah, well, I wish what was mine would stay mine.
Even if Iâm inclined to be pissed off at Rust by proxy, I just canât be. The difference between him and Marty is that he actually pays attention, real attention, not the selfish kind. Just by watching, I can tell he knows exactly what he could say, how he could act, in order to appeal to somebodyâwhich is why I find it so odd that he chooses not to. I sacrifice my damn dignity to keep myself palatable. He does not. As a result, he is not well-liked at the office â people tend to feel caught out by him; they donât like to feel observed, known.
When did being seen become a threat? I thought it was intimate. Though, I suppose, a piece of shit never wants to believe theyâre a piece of shit.
Everyoneâs the hero of their own story.Â
Rust slides Martyâs half-empty beer across the table to me, which I receive with a crooked smile and a quick hand.
âSure I wonât catch whatever he had?âÂ
He shrugs. âYâainât as deadbeat as the rest of âem. Oughta drag you down to their level.âÂ
I snort. âWhat, you donât think youâre deadbeat?â
He huffs. âIâm worse.âÂ
Bitter, the beer washes over my tongue, leaves that funny aftertaste I never really liked, not the first time, not the last. I donât suppose Iâll ever turn one down though, not if it was offered to me: Iâd accept it if only to win points with whoever it was, points I could spend at a later date.Â
âMaybe,â I start, âif you were a little more deadbeat, youâd be popular. Go out with the boys.â
When he meets my eyes momentarily, smirking, I have to grip my hand over my knee, fingertips digging into bone, and consciously remind myself via mantra not to let my face freeze. He hums, voice smooth and low like liquor, âWhat, like youdo?â
I should be pissed off, really. Maybe I will be. Instead, though, I choke on the smart retort I had meticulously configured in my head, some quip that wouldâve maybe interested him based on what caught him before.Â
I donât know whether it would have been worse pretending like it never happened. Thatâs my strong point: pretending. Itâs his, too, when he wants it to be. Maybe we couldâve outlasted it â all we needed was stamina.
But, instead, itâs this. Looking across at each other and knowing exactly whatâs going on in the otherâs head. I can see exactly how he thinks of me, what he wants to do. When he tilts his head ever so slightly, my neck glows with a promise, like the movement was mine in the first place. When I would bite at the pendant of my necklace, he used to narrow his eyes, like he ought to yank the chain off my neck. But now, he looks on softly, so unlike him, his own fingers at his own lips. I know what it feels like â Iâve kissed him there, too.Â
âDonât give me that. At least Geraci would stop shit-talkinâ ye,â I manage, tearing myself away. âSwear heâs stuck at sixteen or somethinâ. Butâyou donât mind it, do you?â
He shakes his head. ââf he was smarter, maybe I would. Jusâ likes the sound of his own voice.âÂ
The clock has replaced me as his focal point â I canât help but feel jealous.Â
âSâwhy I like you,â I mumble from behind my beer. âFirst time I met you, I thought youâd make me feel stupid.
That seems to get him.Â
He blinks, a barely noticeable twitch. âDo I? I donât mean to.â
Can I spin this? Iâm sure, if I were a little more awake, Iâd be able to spin this.Â
Some evil part of me hopes to make him feel guilty, to trick him into feeling tenderness for me, though I know the pursuit of that would be in vain. The type of men I know how to workâcreatures of habit that take the exact path you want them to, to believe that theyâre the real seducersâRust seems entirely separate from that. He can sniff out rehearsal and practice, that robotism, like a dog â he sees it enough in criminals, doesnât he? Thatâs why heâs called in for favours across state police departments.
When I met him the first time, I shook his hand, smiled, friendly-like, only to be met with rigidity and stoicism. No trouble, of course: some people just are that way. Wild horses on the highway. But his quietness?ânow, that had set alarm bells off in my head. Boys at the precinct were loud â you couldnât pay âem to shut up about their weekends, their football, their college years, their fuckinâ yards. When I was first exposed to it, I thought Iâd gain a lot of friends. But then I realised they werenât so much talking with me as they were talking at me. Itâs why theyâre so easy to read: they just tell you everything you want to know right off the bat. Even their secrets are bursting at the seams of their fat mouths, begging to be released.Â
But Rust?âdoesnât talk until he finds it necessary. Itâs impressive. Before that, though, the trait was enviable. I hadâhaveâno comparable method. Even though, at first, it can seem blunt, even cold, his eloquence is refreshing. Never running in circles â only determinedly forward. So intimidating, almost like a freight train â I have to consciously keep myself from jerking back and out of the way.Â
How low he must really think of me then, to see me like this. And I know he does: he sees. Everything I might have done to prevent it perhaps even had the opposite effect. I hate, I burn, I curse: itâs ugly. I cry over cases I wouldâve left behind in two months tops, anyways, onto the next. I obsess over just another woman in the box. I think about him almost constantly.Â
âYou donât,â I mumble, wondering if I ought to be wishing myself far away. âMake me feel dumb, that is. Not me. Others, I canât speak for.â
Weâll have to leave soon â no doubt, this local bar is used to slow days and early nights, a blissful routine rudely disrupted by two outsiders who havenât even really shown them good business. I glance over at the barkeep, slumped over the scuffed wooden counter and flatly watching the football up on the boxy TV set, and I recall my first job. Then, too, Iâd let men twice my age buy me drinks, flirted with them. Was worth the tip money.Â
Rust hums, though I really wish he wouldnât speak at all. âDonât pay mind to what Marty said.â
My neck prickles.Â
Heâs not trying to console me, is he? No, thatâs not like him. Besides, itâs not like any amount of coddling could reverse the merciless truths Iâm constantly reminded of in this line of work â if Iâve learned anything about sympathy, itâs that it doesnât fix shit. If anything, itâs just another complication. It can seem beautiful, but, really, it isnât. I can miss it, miss its warmth, miss the kind, sweet nothings my husband would whisper into my hair on the hardest nights, but it never changed the fact that I would have to get up in the morning and do it again. Rust knows this, has maybe lived this, so heâs not trying to console me.Â
Maybe heâs trying to defend Marty.
Sharp and sure, that anger comes lurching up in my throat, slashing and snarling.Â
The sensible part of meâwhat I hope is the larger part of meâknows this is not possible. Rust understands Martyâs faults better than anyone, even himself, even his wife.Â
âThing is,â I mumble bitterly, âhe really means it, donât he? He just donât show it.â I trace the warm, smooth rim of the bottle with a light finger, though my mind is currently toying with the idea of jamming it violently down the opening. âMaybe it means more that he does keep it hidden â at least some part of him knows itâs wrong.â
Placid in the periphery of my vision, Rust shrugs. ââs what separates us from our killers. Feelinâ it ainât the problem. Resistance is where strength is tested.âÂ
âEgo,â I chuckle darkly.Â
He hums. âFragile ego.â
Underneath my smile lies an uneasiness stirred by his criticism.
Rust is not gentle with his opinions â I donât suppose thatâll ever change. Resistance is a losing game â not even he is immune to the impermanence of these things. Iâm sure he said that to me once, on a night like this.Â
Iâve never been very good at refraining from things. Even from an early age, I just couldnât say no. Teenage years: alcohol, drugs, sex. If it was tossed my way, Iâd take it, anything I could get, hungry to experience something.Â
Ha!âmaybe I actually am more like Marty Hart than Iâd like to admit. Heâs trying to be an adult, albeit really, really poorly. As long as he believes heâs a good, family man, then his reality is protected. But I know Iâm rotten, really. One of the boys at the precinct will call me prettyâin that sick way somewhere between the unchecked lust of a man and his paternal right to claimâbut, below, I know Iâve got sickness swimming through my veins. Not blood. Something accumulated over the years, maybe from pretending all the time.Â
I feel like I want to cut things, break them. Told myself to hang on until I retire, but I donât see that happening any time soon. Iâll break. What will Rust think of me then?Â
Maybe I was his low point: that fault in resistance.Â
Some awful, gnawing feeling collects at the pit of my stomach, like black tar. Must be all those cigarettes.Â
âWhaâs in that head?â he probes suddenly, stealing razor-sharp, fleeting glances.
I shrug, swallowing down a bout of nausea. âI dunno.â And I really donât. Behind the surface tension, I donât know what I feel, only that I do, and itâs so, so much. âIt kindaâmakes me happy to see him like that: jealous. âCause he knows Iâm good, and heâs wondering why heâs finishing what I started. He knows he donât deserve it. Not like I do.âÂ
My confession lingers in the air like smoke â I have mind to reach a hand up and wave it all away, or suck it down, deep, erasing reality. Fuck. Iâve always been a little off when reading into Rustâs quiet â with that tightrope he seems to have mastered, I know I should avoid any step at allâit could just as easily miss its markâbut I can never seem to help myself.Â
I stare at himâand I think it makes him uncomfortable, though thereâs nothing there, not any normal human reaction, in his face for me to draw from. Thatâs fine. In my gut, Iâm pretty sure Iâve got it down.
âYou want to be seen as competent,â he finally says, a simple-enough statement.Â
I scrunch my nose up distastefully. ïżœïżœïżœNo, I want to be competent.â
âWell, what good is beinâ somethinâ if thereâs no-one there to witness it?âÂ
Unable to press down an exasperated sigh, I close my eyes, roll them with all the subtlety I can manage.
Foul words push under my tongue, like vomit.Â
I donât know if Iâm in the mood for this tonight: smart conversation. What feels like debate. Maybe if he hadnât been given my case, Iâd take him up on the challenge, but Iâve already lost.Â
I eye him, try to figure out his game.Â
âI dunno, Rust,â I tell him flatly. âI think thatâs called having an identity issue.â
He cocks an eyebrow. âMost people do.â
My chest burns. âThis isnât a go at me, is it?â
Slow, he draws the ashtray towards him from across the table, as if the grind of the glass against the wood is a noise that ought to be savoured.Â
I could be deaf, but reading his lips would be easy: âAnd howâd this be about you exactly?âÂ
Iâm able to fight off the initial instinct to wince, the way in which he delivers the words, calm and deliberate, stinging like a slap to the face. Whatâs worse is the growing impression that heâs as bored of me as I am.Â
With a furrowed brow, I watch him, heartbeat thrumming in my ears.Â
âI ainât out to get you, sâyou can quit lookinâ at me like I kicked you or somethinâ.â
Frowning shallowly and trying to pretend like Iâm not, I glance away and commit to rearranging my faceâbut at the glimpse of that twitch at the corner of his mouth in my periphery, I know Iâm only digging a deeper grave for myself. The noticeable heat of my embarrassment must please him.
Playing with the food.Â
And Iâve got nothing to say to himânot a single word or phrase up to par, nothing to measure up to Rustâs clinical detachment, let alone destabilise him. He mightâve been reciting the coronerâs report. Thereâs nothing I can say to scathe himâandïżœïżœfuck, I want to leave a mark, prove to him that I can. I scan him for weakness, but either Iâm still too stunned to see it or there is none. I have no plan of attack and no line of defence.Â
Rust seems to soften in the knowledge of this.Â
âI mean,â he begins, knowing now that Iâm really listening, âidentity ainât fixed â itâs not permanent. I donât scrutinise my appearance. I donât mind my body, and my body donât mind me. My personality hardly feels under my control â âs just somethinâ that is and will beâânâ, I guess, will change, but only against my will, never because of it. Feels pointless to feel insecure about that.â
Is this supposed to be some fucked-up attempt at advice?
My priorities changed, but this place never has, never does, never will. So, itâs all dumb and the people are dumb and this bar is dumb and the boys at the precinct are dumb and, fuck, I wish Rust were dumb, too. I feel pathetic, and he does not alleviate that feeling at all. If he were dumb, I could laugh at him and make myself feel better. I could laugh at myself for sleeping with a dumb man. Instead, I think of him religiously and crave his approval. Afflicted with the knowledge that he needs to be corrupted to want me, that Iâm awful enough to want it enough to corrupt him again. Tainted waters. It would be so much more comfortable if I could look down on him.
My skin writhes and ripples, and I know the only thing that would soothe it is if he touched me. Jesus and the sick manâor some polluted version of that.
My world swings under a bout of nausea as it begins to spiral â the beer does not help.Â
Maybe heâs waiting it out, like Iâm trying to. Forgetting is the wisest decision anyone could make, the most fortunate outcome. Though, my efforts are paradoxical: I think so, so much about not thinking about it all.Â
âSure seems like yâthink about yourself a good deal, too, sâdonât you criticise me,â I mumble, clumsy. Itâs a mistake to even open my mouth again â heâll use it all against me eventually.Â
Rust hums again, low, some muscle twitching in his jaw, like his body has no clue what to do when not blindly occupied with a cigarette. âNever said I donât think about myself,â he rectifies, staring at the sweaty palms Iâm wringing together tightly against the lip of the table.Â
I allow my mouth to pool with saliva, trying to combat the increasing dryness of my mouth.Â
âGuess the thinkinâ part is where insecurity comes from in the first place,â I add after swallowing.
When my eyes dart up to look at him, his are on my throat.
Immediately, I look away.
Maybe this is the bad kind of intimacy.
The intensity of his attention is looming, sifting through my thoughts like sand.
Sometimes, I think he has me figured out but just couldnât care less about what heâs found. Heâs feeling the power of my burning desire for him â maybe it amuses him. Maybe heâs waiting to mechanise it, letting me sit idle while a use for me finds him (if ever). Maybe I know things. Maybe I can break things open. Maybe he can take my cases from me. Maybe I can tire him out, put him to sleep.Â
Itâs almost worse that he hasnât put me to work yet.Â
Maybe it really was just something in the water. Maybe all I need is to visit somebody close to me.Â
âEver heard oâ that theory? âbout internal monologue?â Rust asks softly, leaning in and tipping his head down like only Iâm worthy of hearing this here.Â
My leg jerks and I canât place why. I nod, face hot.Â
âI think âs bullshitââbout some not having one. Think everybodyâs got that voice in their heads.â He pauses, squints. âMm, maybe thatâs a little generous.âÂ
I laugh â I hope it makes him feel good. In truth, I know he couldnât care less.Â
âWhat dâyou think itâd be like? No voice.â
The world seems so close right now, wrapping its fuzzy arms tight around us, buzzing in my ears, shadows fur-soft over my face. What does he want me to say? I wish heâd tell me, offer me respite.Â
I shrug, and itâs honest, my resignation. âNo voice donât mean no thought.â
âAlrighâ. Then, what about no thought?â
I shrug again. âI like thinking.â
He huffs, angling himself back away from me. Have I disappointed him? Somewhere deep in the pit of my tummy, thereâs that fleck of worry, something that tastes an awful lot like vomit.Â
I expect him to finally stop talking.Â
But âI get tired of it,â is what he says instead. âIn between cases, or theseâmoments where I feel like I could burn a hole through myself âf I spent ânough thought on it. âs heavy, like they weigh me down.â He pushes the ashtray away, his fingers the only part of him moving.Â
Swept up in the rising tide of your own life, hurting around you in some never-ending circle or spiral of which you happen to be the centre. Swimming with black-eyed angels. I know how he feels â I used to feel that way. Maybe I still do, sometimes. Clinging on to the tenderness my husband used to have for me like it could save me from the guilt I would feel when I moved on. No-one would pull me out: that much was true enough. That memory of stability, of the good times, only depressed me, moving from Brooklyn back to Louisiana. Feeling small in my own life, like a piece on a chessboard, with no semblance of control, only duty, chasing this idea of who I used to be. Hunting down the bad men, wondering what upper hand is driving them across the squares, contemplating the carpenter that fashioned the pieces. Too big of a big picture can be detrimental. The fact that I know this to be true doesnât make me an exception.Â
âI think youâre tired of the things you think about,â I muse, a headache beginning to expand between my temples â perhaps the heat has finally gotten to my head. âSpace better occupied by other shit.âÂ
Iâm careful not to pay attention to Rustâs reaction, if there even is one, since the weight of his interest is pressing over my face where I really wish his lips would.
âLike what?â he challenges.Â
His eyes glint with curiosity, a bladeâs sharp edge.Â
I bite my tongue.Â
âYou think you know me?â Itâs more a statement than a question.
I shrug. âYou think you know me, donât ye?â
Though, he kinda does. I think heâs proud that he can read me, but maybe thatâs me overcomplicating things. Maybe Iâm just another person to him. I wonder if he thinks Iâm predictable. Boring, negligible, painfully average. Good for one thing, and that one thing was a mistake, anyway.Â
Look at him, now: his eyes have dropped to elsewhere, but thereâs a soft smirk that curls up on his face, the hint of a pink tongue that traces lightly over his teeth.Â
Geraci always talks shit about that look whenever Rust closes yet another case, securing a tough confession. âSo fuckinâ up âimself, ainât he? Jesus.â Sure, he pisses me offâfor different reasons. Iâve long since come to the conclusion that heâs worthy of admiration.Â
He smiles to himself â I donât trust it. âYouâre calling me arrogant.â
âAre you?â I press, gnawing at the inside of my cheek. Iâm surprised at the tepidity of my voice, considering how Iâm covered in boils and burns in my head.Â
He doesnât have anything to say to that, only hums in response, seemingly amused.Â
âDoesnât have to be a bad thing,â I murmur. âPeople are scared of beinâ known, so nobody really tries no more.â
âI donât observe people for intimacy purposes.â
Then why does he fucking look at me like that?Â
A year ago, Iâd have put it down to my own desires warping my perception of reality. Really, he wasnât interested; he was only paying me my due amount of scrutiny in order to keep his mental file of me up to date. Really, he didnât want to touch me;Â really, he was just someone who fiddled with his own hands, maybe to remind himself that he could be his own from time to time. Lust is such a dangerous thing â any deeper than surface level, and it has the very strong potential to kill you. If you want something against your better judgement, do you really even want it? The haze of having Rust come so close to me is dampened by such doubts.
But at this point, he either wants me, or Iâm crazy. Shit, maybe Iâd rather be just that. Iâve seen his eyes like thisâdark and bottomlessâwhen hands were unzipping my skirt, or dragging over my skin. To deny intimacy? Now thatâs arrogance. Anddelusion. Shit, and I thought he was so above all that stuff. Does he think I canât figure him out?
Surely his opinion of me canât be that poor.Â
My hand cramps up as I punch down the instinct to pinch the bridge of my nose.Â
âSure you do,â I press. And Iâm right. I hope Iâm right.Â
His stare thickens into something different, what I think might be a black, molten form of gratification. Then, it hardens, cools in a split second into these tough, jaw-breaker pellets. Iâd say it was confrontational, but then his eyes flutter just as he happens to swallow thickly. Is that his pulse in his throat?Â
I rub at my puffy eyes with a stiff set of fingers.
Rust drops his eyes, brushes his hand over the side of his blazer where his cigarettes are sitting warm and ready beneath.Â
âWhat, youâlonely again or some shit?â he asks.Â
I almost recoil at the sudden bitterness of his tone.Â
I snort good-heartedly, but, really, the comment stings just rightâhe knows where to pressâall the breath knocked out of my chest. âO-kay, Rust. That an accusation?â
âNo. âS an observation. Thought you jusâ loved those,â he combats flatly.
Chest burning, I have to save myself, jump ship, and look away. My mouth tastes like grainy bile.Â
âYou were lonely last summer. Thatâs why you came to me.â
The dim light above us flickers, his face phasing in and out of shadow before me like a candle in the wind.Â
I roll my jaw.Â
Does he look back on it with disdain?Â
âNo,â I snap instinctively, instantly burned by the satisfaction that crosses his eyes.Â
My breath hitches plaintively. Every fibre of my body trembles and burns to defend myself. Thereâs not a single word that could repair his opinion of me.
âOrâyeah.â Shut up.Â
I rub at my temple, desperate for relief â do they have pills for this shit? â which does not come. If he feels any pity for me, it certainly doesnât show.Â
The harsh line of my mouth trembles. âI just thought you understood me. Or made an attempt to, at least, but maybe that part was self-projection. âCause nobody âround hereâs like you. I know you think thatâs stupid and I was being naĂŻve orââ I swallow though my throat is dry as ever, ââor dumb, or somethinâ, but thatâs what I felt. At the time.â
His gaze is fixed on my neck.
âAt the time,â he echoes. Itâs a question, I realise after a couple moments.
âYeah. Fuck y'want me to say, asshole? 'm notâIâm not gonna embarrass myself with you, Rust. That what you want me to do? Show you just how dumb I can getâ?â
âSure like to speak for me, hm?â he bites back quietly, making it so damn easy to run right over him, to feverishly stamp out that insufferable fucking softness to his voice. Shit, I wish heâd just raise it and yell at me already.
ââYeah, whatever. You like this shit, donât you? Yâthink you deserve a fight?âwell, Iâll give you one. That what you want? âCause what?âwhat, you get to ignore me, pretend I donât exist, act like youâre above fuckinâ meââ his eyes flit away, bringing my roiling frustration to a crest, ââNo, donât you fuckinâ look away,â I scold, a bite, jutting a crooked finger into his space.Â
He obeys, but that look in his pale eyes is so hollow, it almost makes me feel bad for saying anything at all. Almost.Â
I try to press down my anger, but itâs spilling over, now, far beyond things so trivial as control. I clasp my hands together in a prayer that they will finally listen to me and not move again.Â
âFact that you feel anything at all makes you feel like shit, huh?â
His expression has glazed over, cool and smooth.
Half-expecting him to walk out and rightfully abandon me here, I stare hard at him, like I might chip into that exterior. If I managed it, Iâd slip it in my pockets as proof. Silently, I beg him to prove me right.Â
âSorry,â I snap. No, Iâm not. I hope it cuts at him. âYou do what you want, I donât fuckinâ care. But, please, do not patronise me like that again, Rust.âÂ
God offers no help with the silent plea I send Him. He does not care, so I shouldnât care, and thatâs the end of things. Iâve survived worse natural disasters than him. Heâs just a man, and this is just what happens with them. Still, the disappointment floods like poison under my skin. Iâm a stupid girl, really.Â
âI understand if you regret things, but you donât have to say it out loud. Itâs mean. But, fuck, I dunno, maybe you mean to be.âÂ
I take a moment to untangle the knot in my throat. He watches it all, quiet again, his eyeline sitting heavy over where the skin shifts and stretches over my neck.Â
I adjust the collar of my shirt, fiddle with the gold necklace that sits hot over the contour of bone. Rust stares as I wedge the small pendant tightly in the vice of my thumb and forefinger.Â
âFeels like you donât even fuckinâ like me half the time. All the time.â
Christ, I shouldâve left with Johansson.Â
My heart is racing like a wild mustang â itâs a surprise, really, that that old hunting dog lying over by the bar hasnât noticed, singled me out as something to chase, to kill. My bellyâs exposed, soft and ripe and asking for it. I forget, sometimes, that there are things out there that kill things that kill, too.Â
He doesnât plan on giving me a break; I wouldnât deserve it, anyway. âWha's it matter to you if I like you or not?â
My cheeks burn furiously.Â
I stare at that bone-bird tattoo that fledges from the nest of his sleeve. With the way my headâs spinning, it almost looks like its skeleton wings are actually moving, unfurling and ready for pilgrimage.Â
âIt donât.â Itâs a disgrace to myself to answer that god-awful question, but whatâs more pathetic is the way I shrink into myself when Rustâs attention crowds in over my face. âI jusâ thought you knew me almost as well as I did.âÂ
âAnd currently?â he asks.
The moment hangs.Â
âJust answer. I already know â just wanna see if youâll lie again.âÂ
I close my eyes a secondâmistakeâand breathe, breathe in and then breathe out, shaky but slow. Itâs no use.Â
âSame.â
He nods. âNot better?â
I shake my head. âNo, never better.â
Furrowing his brow, Rust tilts his head down slightly, a soft curl falling gentle over his tense forehead. âBut you wanted intimacy.â
So it is intimacy to him?Â
Maybe this should count as a win for me, but it certainly donât feel like it. This isnât the slow slip and slide of last summerâs end â though the heat had swallowed whole everything from here to the other side of the Mississippi, there was something so clipped about the words that left me, left him. Iâm sure I was more drunk then than now, but, even so, my mind had been so level, like Iâd done it all in my sleep. Now, here, I have done it in my sleep. Iâve revisited him a hundred times in my daydreams, but all that practice has left me for dead. I wouldâve killed for an opportunity like this a month ago â itâs like heâs taunting me. It should be easy.Â
Rust is smart enough to make me wonder if he wants me to feel this way.Â
Intimacy is planned and eventual, whether thatâs due to his power or some cosmic fate. Everyone knows the decision theyâre going to make, somewhere in their brains, deep inside. People only ask for advice to condone their decisions, to spread out the responsibility, which, at the end of the day, still remains solely with them. Shit, heâs rubbing off on me: I sound like a fuckinâ asshole.Â
No, all this thinking wonât save him from the sensation of human feeling, emotions. No amount of planning prepares you for skin-to-skin touch. No time spent evaluating can undo it either, and Iâve tried so hard. His way doesnât work.Â
âEveryone wants intimacy,â I end up rambling, voice thin and dry and brittle. âEven folks that donât want intimacy want intimacy. âs not love or sex, really, I donât think, though those are good, too. Itâs not a way to find yourself. Itâs jusâ trust. Or companionshipââ
âAnd thatâs what you want?â
Carefully, I rake my eyes over his face. Does he ever flush from the heat?Â
Hopeless and too muddled to bother with concealing it, I try to assess whether heâs displeased with me. I try to memorise this moment, so Iâll be able to turn it over in my head later, just another one of my crime scene photographs.Â
âDunno yet,â I confess quietly. âIâve had partners. And partners. When I was younger, I thought Iâd have this life packed chock full of amazing relationships, and theseâconnections.â
The soft, disappointed eyes of my husband come to mind, which haunt all my relationships. Iâm so hungry for another body, for connection. Why does it seem so easy for other people?Â
âTruth is, it donât happen all that much. To me, at least. You?â
Surly and bone-tired, Rust shakes his head. âDidnât have much hope for it growinâ up,â he admits.Â
âBut you wanted it,â I press, clumsy and clinging to the sag of his voice. Of course, heâll pick up on the trace of hopeful, aimless, false victory that undercuts my words; heâs the only one who ever could.Â
For a moment, though, I second-guess myself.Â
Itâs pathetic, really: Iâd give almost anything to walk as him for a day, though, even then, Iâm not sure Iâd understand him any better.
Sometimes, my imagination runs away from me: in my dreams, IÂ do. I wake under the impression that weâre one and the same, that, just maybe, he, similarly, is dreaming as me. Itâs a pulsing obsession, difficult to conceal. Whenever a moment becomes still, I think about it: at night, he is transported; in his dreams, he touches with my hands, sighs with my voice, tastes with my mouth. Then, at least, that would explain these funny sensations I get in the morning: so weathered and worn, a strange ache in my muscles, like Iâve been sleepwalking.
How else could he know me so well?Â
Or maybe Iâve really fucking lost it. Somewhere along the way â maybe after seeing that half-eaten body swaddled in thin cotton in its freezer cradle â I think something else took the wheel. Why that thing is racing towards him, I have no idea. Itâs laughable, really.
Rust blinks calmly down at his hands. âReckon the deniers are dumb?â he murmurs.Â
Squeezing the bridge of my nose, I do my best to press back against the foul memory of dismembered limbs. Whoever had eaten the manâwho was now beyond recognitionâdid they feel satisfied? Comforted with how forever close he was to them now? When I was small, I used to think sex was crawling into another person's body, like a cave, and letting all of their insides warm you, love you, wrap you tight.Â
I swallow thickly.Â
âYour words, not mine,â I reply through a tight smile. âReckon itâs easy to find a distraction.â
"Have you given up?" he asks. âFinding a distraction?â
I donât entertain him with a proper answer to that â I merely shrug and scratch at my scalp, tucking loose strands of sweaty hair back into the loops of my braid. Rust must be frustrated with me. To want a companion, to want the good life. Rivalling Marty in my delusion.Â
He slides his hands into his lap, continuing: âDistraction is the way to peace?â
I shrug again â I think itâs starting to piss him off. âFor a time, I guess.âÂ
âSo, âs that how youâre takinâ quittinâ? Think about other stuff whenever you want a smoke? Occupy yourself?â
Once I realise my leg is going dead, fuzzy from sitting still so long in this dark booth, I flex my thigh, flex my hands under the table, wide-open and then tight-shut, processing the blank slate of his gaunt face. I press my fingers into the sticky vinyl, delight in the interrupted drag of them up, up, up as they curl to fists, my shoulders up to my ears.Â
When he says things like that, it makes it so hard to dislike him. I almost wish heâd ignore me, like he did the first couple weeks before it became clear to the both of us that it couldnât be undone: his back constantly to me, sending messages only through Marty, refusing to look in my direction, like I might tempt him again into being a version of him he hated. At least, before, his coldness hadnât been directed at me specifically. Then, it was a retaliation, a wall meant to keep me out. Where were his books on philosophy then?âto tell him that attachment leads to desire leads to suffering? That kind of suffering would be better than this kind.Â
This is worse. This is so much worse. Iâd rather not have something at all than have it toy with me like this.Â
It takes a considerable amount of co-ordination to fabricate the apathy in my posture, my eyes, my expression, to compensate for the unease that pulses like a new artery in my throat â though, at the silvery glint that flickers in his eyes, I know itâs all for nothing. Heâs already seen the hurt that, really, I canât pin on anyone but myself. Heâs raking his eyes slowly over my face. Itâs fucking mean. Do me the favour of a mercy-killing, God.
I never even told him I was trying to quit.
âWhat,â I begin, concentrating very hard on keeping myself from stammering and from slurring, from crying and from grasping at his hand, âlike that association thing?âÂ
Iâve heard of it, obviously. I know every trick at this point: old wivesâ tales to the latest research papers at the state university library. Itâs psychological: whenever you want something, instead, think of awful, gross, repulsive things, and make yourself hate it. Iâve tried it before, but it doesnât always work. How can you convince yourself that one thing is disgusting when itâs undeniable how good it really was?
Rust nods.
âI mean, I tried it,â I tell him lowly.Â
Overstatement: I tried it for approximately three days and two nights before I caved, unlocking the drawer in my study with shaky, desperate hands, hungry.
âBut Iâm always thinkinâ about it.â
Shit. He seems to have regained a nerve: Rust stares calmly ahead at meânot through me or just past me; at me. This is what I wanted, isnât it?
He leans his weight over his forearms upon the table, on offence. Is this how he works his suspects? Well, shit, Iâve studied his methods from the privacy of the other side of the false mirror enough times to be able to answer that, actually: this is how he works his suspects. Initially, at least, to gauge their personality, their wants, their fears, what they need him to be.Â
Thing is, I canât pin down his intention with me. Is it just the satisfaction of the kill? Or maybe revenge for what I did to him last August. I broke down his walls: an unforgivable sin. I condemned him to the effort of building them back up, of shoving me outâif I ever managed to intrude in the first place. Maybe I deserve this.Â
With his sleeves folded back, the dark lines of Rustâs tattoo jut out, growing along his tawny, leather-tan skin like lichen. I try not to stare.
His eyes complete a pre-emptive scan of my face, and, really, I know I should not let him see any change there in my expression, though my mouth twitches to frown. I try to gather my forces. I try to prepare myself for it, for that inevitable intrusion.
ââf youâre so desperate for it, whyâre you fightinâ back?â he asks, unblinking and cruel.Â
My mouth twists, and I let it fall into the frown it wants. ââCause I wanted to feel better.â
It sounds dumb because it is dumb, even though itâs true.Â
Low, he hums. He straightens, softens, and finally leans away. Itâs like the vacuum around me leaves with him, and, there, now, itâs easier to breathe.Â
He must note the way my chest rises and falls so stiffly, like thereâs a weight resting over my heart.Â
âWithdrawalâs a breeze, ainât it?â
âYouâre not fuckinâ funny,â I scoff, digging my nails punishingly into my palm. He smokes and drinks like he welcomes cancer, or hopes for it, so I donât think weâre on a level playing field.
He quirks his head. âWell, do you?â
âDo I what, Rusty?âÂ
Amused, he rolls his jaw. Good â I hope Iâve provoked him.Â
âDo you feel better?âÂ
I run my tongue over my teeth. âSometimes,â I reply truthfully. âNot right now.â
He searches my face.Â
âI can give you a ride home,â he offers.Â
Fuck, and what will that be like? Ten times worse than this. Iâll come away the husk of a woman, worn down by his disapproval. My own fault for wanting anything from him in the first place, really.Â
Teeth gritted together, I shake my head, ready to pull a muscle in my damn neck. âDidnât mean anythinâ by it. Sorry.âÂ
No, Iâm not. I ought to slap him, and then run away, back home, or back to my house, or to a brand new city. Or he could finally cuss me out, save me the wondering. Then, I could lick my wounds and they would finally stop reopening.Â
I scratch at my scalp.Â
Rust eyes my hand like heâd like to rip the bad habit away from my body. For a moment, I think he willâthe tendons in his hand flex and writhe under the skinâbut, no, he only brushes a thumb against the valley between his nose and cheek, and he holds his tongue for once.Â
âWasnât offended,â he corrects firmly. âIâll take you home.â Â
Flashing with annoyance, my eyes dart up viciously to penalise him. âAnd what?â I hiss.Â
He sits back, doesnât answer the question. Â
Jaw clenched, I wait to see if heâll look away, but he doesnât.Â
My irritation soon fizzles through, condenses to a low, simmering understanding, steadily tended to by the intensity of his steadfast gaze.Â
Oh.Â
My eyes soften.Â
Oh â I have him, donât I?
He shows no signs of the tentativeness he had displayed last timeâif Rust could ever be tentative. His eyes do not shift and scuttle around me; they meet mine, challenging my comfort. He does not tuck himself into a corner; he remains leaned over the table, just like that. How could I have known?Â
I stare back, brow pinched in confusion.Â
In the heat of last August, Iâd peeled away from him knowing exactly how Iâd convinced him he wanted me. Maybe I was evil for it â a good person wouldnât use somebodyâs faults against them, would they? And maybe thatâs what it was: selfish. If he hates me, heâd be right to.Â
Which is why Iâm so puzzled that he doesnât. Or rather, indifference was the baseline. Hell. And this? I donât know.Â
Swelling dangerously with the well-loved memory of his delirious mouthings over my skin, I grow rigid.
My temples throb and ache, the threat of tears still very real.
âMind?â he asks â I watch, wide-eyed, as he pulls a pack of Camels from his pocket.Â
Trembling slightly, I shake my head, though saliva is already pooling over the pit of my tongue, warm and soft, just like my desire. Luckily, heâs too preoccupied with his lighter to see it: how my body ripples at the scrape of his voice.Â
The promise of nicotine dances like a phantom in the mouth, just from watching him place a cigarette between his lips. When he flicks open his Zippo, the sharp, shuddering candle of it taunts me, and I finally understand what they say about moths and flames.
I watch him take a long drag.
That all-consuming hunger lurches up in me again, and I swallow the warm spit thatâs steadily been filling my mouth.Â
Oh, Christ. This canât be real. Desire shouldnât be this bloody. Desire shouldnât be the thing with teeth and claws, the ugly thing that tips into violence. Or obsession. With how often my thoughts return to us in the summer, Iâve wondered obsession as a possibility. The difference between myself and those who commit crimes of passion is control. Rust is dangerous for me. What is he thinking? Whatâs in his head? I ache to pry it open and explore, to swim close to him, for my skin to melt into his, to consume and be consumed. Not a momentâs peace, and thatâs what Iâm chasing, isnât it? Peace and quiet?
I donât have to say anything â he can read it all, mulling over the fine changes in my expression, the softening of my body, some pre-emptive instinct. Will he touch me tonight?Â
With a cautious hand, ready to jolt back if met with teeth, I reach out to him and remove the cigarette from his pinched fingersâwhich he allowsâthen bringing it to my mouth, taking a drag myself, nice and slow, good and deep, a sigh, like home.
He watches me. Â
âDonât say anything.â Â
And he doesnât. He just watches, watches, watches as I take another drag. He shivers, and I feel it reverberate through my bones.
âWhat are you thinkinâ about?â I ask him softly, pressing down a quivering breath, smoking his cigarette. Iâve never mustered the courage to ask before. Â
For once, though, I really donât have to: I know exactly where his head is. Where else? Heâs back in that room, infected by the drowse and drunken fever of August, with me, living it again. Where Iâd coaxed him into the temptation, wicked as the snake in the garden. He shouldâve pushed me to leave with Johansson and Marty â of course, I wouldâve stayed. Iâm a rotten thing, and my heart is a bloodhound. Heâs the better of the two of us. Iâll take whatever of him I can get â anything.Â
He meets my eyes directly, so hopeless, so raw. Is he asking? He shouldnât be.Â
But what will he have me do? Iâm at his disposal, really.
âAnd?â I ask, throat dry.Â
When he moves to speak, the words that leave him are low and slow: âYou did something to me,â he manages.Â
I scoff.Â
âSâthat a good or bad thing?â I ask.
Rust huffs like what I said was funny. More likely, though, itâs the way my eyes are so wide, the way my hand is pressed between my thighs, that amuses him. âCanât decide.â
My mouth trembles as my eyes scrape over his neck, which I know, IÂ remember, to be hot and alive, thick with it over the pulse. I was so high off of it: his warmth, his weight, his press.Â
I indulge in one last drag, using the last scraps of my energy to conjure the pungent stench of rotting flesh in the cruel sunshine, the pick of eager flies and their cacophonous buzzing, the churn of vomit in the stomach. I look at Rust and try to do the same: the months of silence, his back decidedly turned to me, him accepting my case, and his arrogance and his apathy and his severity. He is a harrowing connection that I should rather not have made.
The technique doesnât work. I donât know why I thought, even for a minute, that this time would be different from the last.Â
With him staring calmly at me, like I deserve itâthe trap, the squirming sensation over my spine, the hopeless, unavoidable heat that claims my faceâitâs just another arrow pointing to the same conclusion. Maybe we should just let August have its way with us again. Twin plagues.
Trembling ever so slightly, blood so warm, so thick, I flick ashes out into the tray between us.Â
âI should put this out,â I mumble, though my hand yearns to return it to my mouth.Â
ââs my cigarette,â Rust mutters.
âSorry.â I offer my hand to him. âWant it back?â
I know what I must look like to him, pupils dark, the size of the moon, like a plate. Here, in the darkest part of the dark bar, I open myself to him, warm, molten, inviting. And God, this must be a dreamâbecause I know what he wants, and I know that heâll accept me. How we got here doesnât matter anymore. Maybe heâs thought about it for some time, and only now, in a moment of stillness with him, have I even noticed. Too caught up in the fine details of a painting to think of the artistâs intention, which is always more important.
Silent, stare inexorable, he accepts the cigarette, only touching my fingers quick, like Iâd burn him. Maybe I will. Serves him right: he was always going to haunt me either way. I ought to get mine while I still can.
The hunger laps at me.
I want to coax him open-wide. I want to peel away his demeanour and wrap myself close to him. Body heat is the best way to keep warm, isnât it? Iâm sure I read about that somewhere. Itâs still fresh in my mind, like a cut. I canât manage a day without playing it over at least once. I want it again: I want to breathe him in and let him sit in my chest and seep into every cell and let him be part of me that way, at least until the next breath.
He can see it in my eyes: the freneticism of my thoughts, racing like a storm, desires like bullets like rain.
âYou ever think about what you want?â I try asking him, voice strained tight over my heart in my throat.Â
âPeople only ever think about what they want,â he parries, batting away any trace of diffidence. He secures his cigarette between his lips, shifting. âLetâs leave.â
At his first movement, I slide out of the booth.Â
Sometime during our conversation, the place emptied out. It must have been around when I finished Martyâs leftover beer that the weight of the localsâ beady staresâwhich had already faded to the back of my mind, in the same way that a dark alleyway can still make you uneasy though you know nothing would ever happen to you thereâfinally left me. There are no witnesses left to see me following after Rust like a dog, my body thrumming like the lone bug zapper out on the porch, which cracks! just as we exit.Â
The broken clock reads three oâclock when we leave, but I know that, really, itâs only midnight.
Fortunately, the heat has cracked for once, like old, beat-up, splitting leather. Stepping out onto that night path, the breeze is warm and fragrant, dancing over my cheeks, playing gently with the loose threads of my hair. Itâs a clear, blue, never-ending night â the dirt road which accompanies us is a long, winding, indigo river that spills unseen over the far, far horizon. The neighbouring fieldsâone a rolling stretch of grass; the other of wheatâare alive in the wind, flung one way on exhale, drawn the other upon inhale.Â
Thank God for the noise of it: their rustling whispers, in a language we canât understand; the soft whistle of a passing gust of air; the firm, crisp crunch of dry mud and dust under my boots. Thank God for the sway of things: the cradle of humidity; the press of my arm to Rustâs, which he permits only for a second, with his face angled away. Then, he slows, coming to walk just behind me, still parallel.
Flickering strands of long-grass brush my knuckles â I grab onto one, pull the seeds off it in an easy swipe, and scatter them as we go, one by one.Â
Briefly, I glance over my shoulder. Sure enough, his eyes are fixed on me, on my every movement, like heâs making sure Iâm actually real. The corner of my mouth twitches up into a smile.Â
Rustâs cigarette flares between his lips.Â
I scratch gently at my wrist, reminded of the flowing of my blood just beneath the skin, hot and thick.
You get nowhere in life just hoping things will fall into your lap like thisâand, anyway, what good is getting something that you didnât work for? Whereâs the gratification? Itâs artificial, feeble as plastic. Christ, it was even a struggle to get my head around Johansson and his propensity to dole out favours. I understood a write-up â wonât pretend Iâm above ass-kissing â but tidying up the office kitchen and keeping quiet about it? I thought it was stupid: letting people reap the rewards of your own effort, and for what?
So, the buzz of earning Rustâs touch that first time?âshit, nothing compared. No drug, no high; nothing. I really thought I did something. Satisfied some secret ambition I didnât know I held. To have him like that. To be able to replay that night, swallow it like a pill. To look at him and know what was underneath his clothes and his skin, and perhaps further inside, too. Shit, I took so much from him, but the mental gymnastics of the effort justified it, right? And, now, heâs going to give it all up again. Wants it, even.
Havenât I played this out a thousand times in my head? Iâve seen the futureâa number of futuresâwhere Iâm able to argue for his affection. Fight for your love â thatâs what my daddy used to tell me whenever he was feeling sentimental after yelling.
Iâve had endless conversations with him in my head, edited accordingly as time passed, as he changed, as I changed, as the air between us changed. Possible flirtation seemed silly, futile, after a week. Sex appeal would go unnoticed by him â wasnât like he looked, anyway. Not the type to chase tail. I found myself longing for him to please linger uncomfortably in doorways to rooms I was in, to leave things near me and come and collect them just after I was gone so that, maybe, heâd still feel the warmth of my presence and understand it was only ever warm that way for him. The idea of genuine confession always sprung up during the quiet nights alone together in the bullpen, but I was always able to talk myself out of it when he wouldnât so much as glance at me after two, three hours.
It must be a million threads of conversation up in my head, which is why I guess itâs so hard to untangle the great knot and retrieve just one, because, now, there are no words that come to mind when it matters. Or maybe it doesnât matter: I donât think he needs convincing at all.
âWhat you so quiet for?â he asks faintly.Â
When I look back, heâs stark against the brooding sky like some shadow-man. His outline hums like heâs pulling away into his own silhouette.Â
I canât seem to smile. âNothinâ.âÂ
He wonât pushâat least, not on thisâand Iâm glad for it.Â
Rustâs beat-up semi is all lonely sat in a dip up in the road, waiting for us. Same semi heâd driven me home in from work this one week I was getting my car fixed up, in which a series of slow, mutual interrogations would take place along the light-streaked highway. In the office, you were lucky to drag a full sentence out of Rust, but, alone, it wasnât so hard to get him to talk at all.
Maybe I had just wanted to be better than him, to learn how he worked, how he was such a good interrogator, and bleed him dry. That was why I couldnât look away: every choice in his demeanour could help me surpass him.
Even then, I learned to be careful with my looks. I had the feeling heâd morph into something else if I stared long enough, the way the shadow in the corner of your bedroom changes shape when youâre bone-tired. Sometimes, he would. And on the Thursday night of that week, when he had pulled over and thrown up, shaking, into the dark thrush, I hadnât uttered a word as he climbed back into the driverâs seat. But, as he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, Iâd stared at him with the filmy eyes of a hungry nocturnal animal.
Then, at least, the curiosity wasnât a burden. Not like it became when I drove myself home come that morning after.
I could tell it was different the moment I shifted awake, feigning a sleep for just a couple more minutes.
Dressed again and putting on a pot of coffee, his back was to me. I had shuffled up, pulled on my clothes, and I knew the stupor of the night had faded. So, really, when I stepped past him and he closed the door behind me without a word, I shouldnât have been upset.Â
When I reach the pick-up first, I twist to look at him.Â
Rust has slowed to finish his cigarette at a safe distance, eyeing me warily.
He crushes the stub into the dirt, then glancing out into the long night.Â
âStraight home?â he asks.Â
I shake my head, and the rigid line of him gives just a little. Itâs so dangerous to be seduced by your own influence, but the realisation that Iâve had any at all is fuel enough to the plea in my wide eyes.
Rust advances haltingly. If I move, Iâm sure heâll flinch and bolt. So, I test the theory: better to weed out whatâs already decayed.
I angle myself towards him, open like a door. He tosses his jacket into the bed of his pickup, stepping through.
The heat seeps back between us, slow and thick like a flood of molasses, and it becomes very clear, suddenly, that we never shouldâve tried to barricade ourselves. Pretty sure Rustâs known this a while, anyways: heâs the one who leans in for me, kisses me slow.
This time, his hands are quick to curl around my body, where the tension in that tight cord all down his spine has snapped. Or just eased up on himâbut thatâs unlikely. And unimportant. With his firm touch petting up my spine, climbing each rung, itâs all unimportant.
A pulse of arousal strikes me like an electric current as Rust pulls the blouse out of my skirt, his face close to me.
His tongue pushes into my mouth again, and I hum over the husk of nicotine. Itâs a haze in the brain, one Iâve missed. My skin tingles and my thoughts warp in this leer, like a nic rush, only I havenât had one of those in years and years.
I canât exactly call what Iâm feeling satisfaction. Thereâs no win to this. My teeth sunk into him so sweet last time, and the thrill of getting him, of tripping him up with his own desire, was almost as good as the actual feeling of him inside me. But itâs different now: so obvious, itâs funny. Though my first instinct is to doubt and pry apart, maybe want is the most trustworthy thing a person can feel. Itâs animal and instinctive, and itâs inevitable, so itâs always true. Ugly, sometimes, but always there. Thereâs no room to question his want, because I can taste it on his tongue, I can feel it pressing over my stomach, I can hear it in the way he hums at the sear of my skin.Â
It must be a favour to me: the blatancy of it all. For however direct he may be, Iâve always felt that Rust has these plans within plans. Nothing is as it is on the surface: you have to dig to get to the good stuff. Itâs disorienting, having it all laid out for me. And Iâll take anything he gives me.
I donât want to leave any room for doubt in his mind either.Â
So, I clutch at him hungrily, so drunk on his warmth, and thump my back against the door he opens for me to close it again.
I donât ask, and Iâm glad that he doesnât make me, only presses my body flush against the cool surface of his side-door, until the only part of me free to move are the fingers that curl over his arms, as if they could sink through the fabric and then the flesh underneath. Thereâs only dogs and ghosts out at this hour, anyway; eyes in the long-grass. No-one but them and him to see my hips jerk against the precise hand under my skirt.Â
He hadnât looked at me this much before. Even when my eyes go glassy and I have to blink hard to try and regain my smarts, to not finish too quickly, I know heâs staring at me like a scientist.
When the next needy noise is drawn from me, I bury my face into his neck to save myself the embarrassment of being seen like this, even though itâs pointless. His fingers are dragging aside the damp fabric of my underwear anyway, sliding through my silky desire. When his knee shoves between my legs to keep apart, he changes the pressure of his hand, circles tightly over where shame does not apply. Restraint is a man-made practice that never prevails over biology. I should know this. Still, though, my face is hot as I whine into his shoulder.Â
Rust doesnât ask me to look at him, not yet, and Iâm so grateful for it. I bite into the meat of him at the push of one finger, then keen all the way to my toes at the hook of two, rocking against his palm thoughtlessly as he fucks the both of them in deep.
The clink of his belt buckle barely processes through the smoke of sticky eyes and open mouths and the press of his body. But the absence of his hand from my hip, of it working between us?âthatâs what ushers normal sensation back into me. I recover from the limp slump against him, but not quickly enough to understand or resist him guiding my hand to wrap around his swollen cock, coated with spit.Â
He grunts as he tightens my grip around him, coaxes my hand how he wants it. In the back of my mind, though, of course I remember. Only, his fingers are so far inside that my head is spinning, teetering on the precipice of another thought I know Iâll lose, one that dissolves at the slight scrape of nail, one that would never matter as much as the soft then firm press of him against my cervix. My eyes water, and there licking at me is only a faint, abstract impression of embarrassment when Rust grips over my jaw, calloused heel of his palm heavy on my neck, and hauls me away from the hiding spaces of his bodyâs crevices.
âWhat, you fuckinâ shy now? You wanted it, so look,â he mumbles, digging his fingers into the soft parts of my face a little more, like thereâs some hidden button beneath the surface that can make my droopy eyes fly back open. There must be because, somehow, it works. He angles my face by the scruff of my neck.
I can only stand to look between us for a few jumpy heartbeats before my eyes settle on the comfort of his even face, which he seems to accept readily, breath hitching. He does not blink. The intensity of his observations hounds me, lights me up like points on a star, even when my vision smears and melts at the dizzying curl of his fingers. Lucky for my weak knees heâs got his hand over the nape of my neck, his thighs pinning my own. I shake against him, some pathetic thing, and tremble when he keeps massaging there deep inside.
âDonât go dumb on me, girl,â Rust scolds quietly when my hand loosens around him, his own having to leave the heat of my neck and come down to correct the pressure, the pull. My head lolls without the support of his hand. âAinât gonâ say nothinâ?âÂ
Words spill uselessly into a pool before me, slipping through my fingers. My pulse slams in my throat, lower, too, against his touch, each beat meeting him as he works me over again.Â
What I manage is a choked noise, all clogged up inside. I have little to do with it: just a body, a heartbeat and a compulsion to be near, nearer, nearest to him. Half a mind thatâs lagging worse than the computers at work, that realises far too late that the body is curling into itself again, so tight, so wet, and fuck, fuck.Â
He removes his fingers, that slow drag, and tells me to turn. When I donâtâcompletely without, dull and achingâRust twists and shoves me against the window, which goes cloudy at the breathy moan pushed up from my slack stomach.Â
Slow-like, a cold hand snakes under my shirt, smooths up my burning spine, all the way up, all the way down, hooking in the waistband of my skirt, knuckles burrowing into the soft dimples in my back. My whole body shivers as he slides his palm over the back of my neckâa comfort for which Iâm desperate to become familiarâand squeezes gently. If I keep my eyes open, all I can see of him is that black silhouette in the window, a reflection. A homogenous mass, humming at the edges, devoid of the detail of things: canât see the way he drags his thumb up along the line of my spine, traces where it meets the skull; nor the way he steps forward, teases the air out of my lungs, enjoys it, tugs my hips closer to him by the gusset of the underwear webbed between my thighs; nor the way the cool metal buckle presses red lines into flesh.Â
The sight of Rust doesnât matter so much as the understanding that itâs him behind me, that itâs his truck my cheek is being pressed into, that itâs hisâfuckâthat itâs him sliding through the heat of me, so close. The tip notches and makes it all the easier for my eyes to flutter shut. It helps with the vertigo that follows the rough push of him inside.Â
My fingers grasp for the little ridges in the door. Best place for them ends up to be under my mouth, though, to keep my head on my shoulders, to muffle the noises I was sure only animals made. My knee jerks sharply against the truck at the first white-hot pulse of pleasure â I hiss, smearing the drool at the edge of my mouth with the back of my hand, so glad he isnât in clear enough line of sight to chastise me with his tendency to notice and never forget.Â
But he knowsâhe must fucking know by nowâbecause the heavy hand clasped over my scruff curls around my face, and Rust forces two fingers into my parted mouth, presses over my soft tongue.Â
He pulls himself out just to feel the total length of me taking him again, so painfully slow. Feel the initial resistance, the spongy give, the sweet slip, the drag, all of it. So full, I feel sick with it. Overindulgence. Knocks me weak, doesnât mind it when I bite down on his fingers to take most of the weight out of my sob. What I take from him, he takes from meâweâre even that wayâso Rust, already with his nose flirting with the crook of my sweaty neck, nips over my erratic pulse, pushes his tongue over where Iâm sure he can see the skin throbbing with the violence of it. Vampire. He could draw blood and I wouldnât mind: he knows I need bloodletting.Â
So fucking dumb to think for a second it could be sated by just one time. I needed it again before it even ended â I knew it in the split second he touched me. The grief of closure was as adamant as a shadow. Stupid. He must think it, too, because, shit, the snap of his hips is mean. Punishment: you shouldâve known.Â
âWe oughtâa be in your bed. I should be fuckinâ you through your bed,â he complains gruffly, his mouth dragging over hinge of my jaw.
I moan around the fingers in my mouth, which hook together with his thumb to pinch the fleshy inside of my cheek, challenging my lost focus. No matter. Thereâs nothing we can do now.Â
The seize of my body doesnât take him by surprise at all, not that I expected it to, and the words that follow are easy, like heâs been thinkinâ of them as loud and clear as day as it would be to speak âem: âShit, that feels good, sweet girl, huh? Thaâs it, just take it. Thatâs good.â And he lets the warmth gush out before stuffing it back in. âYouâll take one more.â
I stare at the endless field to the side of us, melted over the curve of his door, shivering despite the humidity that always finds you around here. I choke more on my own tongue than his fingers as Rust fucks me slow, like I deserve it.
âNeed it sâbad, huh?â he drawls into the shell of my ear. âWhy you gone all quiet on me, baby?âthought yâwanted it.âÂ
He drags his fingers out of my mouth, daring me to speak. He slides his hand between my stomach and the side-door, gliding down between the thighs, smearing my dripping arousal over the skin.Â
My toes curl tight again as he pushes deeper than before, sits there like he knows my mind will do the rest of the work. The grate of his zipper as he shifts draws a mangled sound from the pit of me, not hidden by the brace of my trembling arm.Â
He zeros in on my clit, all sticky, and circles tight. I shudder.Â
âGive in,â he says to me in a voice so low and soft that it barely reaches me above the high frequency splitting through my skull. He rolls that bright pearl between his finger and thumb. âYou feel it?âÂ
Mindless and eyes all milky, I still manage a nod, grateful for the mean pin of his knees against my shaking thighs.Â
He hums. âSo give in.âÂ
Fuck, this is absurd. The mind can just about string two and two together when Rust lends a forearm beside my head for me to rest on, to grip over: so heâs pictured this, wanted this, for how long? I knew the stagnancy was a front, swallowed something else, butâmy mouth goes wet and slack over his forearm at the languid roll of his hipsâbut it wasnât realistic to imagine it was this. Rust struck me as someone incapable of reconciling himself with his wants. Shame over acceptance because he thinks itâs atonement. Shouldâve known better than to think Rust believed in redemption.Â
The silhouette in the window is looking over the empty road, scanning for cars that wonât ever comeâbut his hand is warm under the tent of my shirt, easing over my waist, slow, as everything clamps up, trembling, again. Body and a heartbeat, he tugs my hips back to him, again and again, until heâs a hot, shuddering line all through me, face in my neck, crushing the fight out of my lungs.Â
His nose presses over my cheek, and his breath is coarse there, too, panting, when he lifts his heavy head. My throat goes so loose and open, greedily drinking in the sweet-sticky scent of him.Â
âCâmon, now,â he says to me once heâs pulled my underwear back up, dragging the cool, damp gusset against the mess of me for good measure. He pinches my hip, then over my thigh, like that might get me to quit shuddering. âTime to go.âÂ
When I donât move, he smooths a hand gently over my hair. Tucks a loose chunk of it back into the mess of my braid before deciding itâs best if he lets it loose completely.Â
Rust winds down the window as he holds open the door for me to clamber onto the bench.
âYâcan sleep âf you want,â he mumbles once heâs got me curled up on the seat, leaning through the frame. He tilts his head â the shadows have always hidden his eyes, but I like how the pinch in his brow has melted away at least.
If I had half a mind, Iâd use it to shove his face out my goddamn way. Instead, I settle for the narrowing of my eyes and a decided huff. âWonât.â
Lie. I fall asleep like anything, mellowed by the sweet rush of wind over marshland, the spirit of it weaving inside, and the weight of Rustâs hand tucked in the tight bend of my knee.
#rust cohle#rust cohle x reader#true detective season 1#rust cohle x reader smut#the idler wheel td#marty hart#true detective#i want to [redacted] his [redacted] until he [redacted] all over-#who said that#female manipulator doesnât need to manipulate in this one??? crayzay#fic is basically them talking but im hoping ive been accidentally super introspective and deep#her vibe is like mannnn i have to make this guy love me#and his is like girl you donât have to try I literally already do#i know itâs 15K but i swear it feels shorter if you get into it#got#whatever#only took me a year đ#fucking finally
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#windscream#starblade#humanformers#maccadam#i designed them the way i would want to get with both so dont @ me#dude i cant find my old transformers sketchbook#im so mad because i already had human windscream designs#let me be lazy pleaaaaaaaaaaase#whatever its ok its ok i have 3 designs for human starscream and 1 for human windblade.#hes high maintenance#starscream#windblade#wait so now that ive drawn this can i get another fellow shipper to hold my hand when i reread TAAO for this year? its time for annual read#i cry about it for days. i need emotional support. or at least someone else to cry with me#i like to specifically read until TAAO and then stop#and then i rot in bed daydreaming about post-canon fix-its. where i dont fix shit. theyre both in extreme pain#but right now yknow what i want? i want ss locked up in wbs house. bro has good mental health. gains a little happy weight#and i want wb re-elected again and again and cybertron in the golden again. arts and culture thriving. many institutes for higher education#the titans are chilling and not ruining wbs life. much luck and prosperity to them both#hitting my head against a wall. why cant i have this#ok brb time to read hurt/comfort fanfic of wbss
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How To Balance Your Daytime and Nighttime Activities So That You Don't Burn Yourself Out More Than You Already Have
Preparations, Danny soon realized, were very much useless. He'd spend a while just watching the vigilante, recording his habits and schedule, following him around and taking note of the little details. Call him a stalker, but he was just trying to make sure Nightwing didn't end up in an early grave.
Not like him.
Any and all preparations Danny had made could not ever fully gear him up for actually talking to the only vigilante he'd ever met. Sure, he knew the guy from afar, but actually speaking to him? Looking him in the eye? Having the other look back at him and actually respond? The closest he'd ever gotten to letting the guy know he was there was when he left food out for him and made sure he had water, sometimes coffee, within reach at all times.
Now that Danny was here, standing in front of the door to Nightwing's - Richard Grayson, he'd learned on day three - apartment, he was frozen. Was he actually about to do this? Could he really risk it? What if Nightwing flipped out?
No. He couldn't think like that. Nightwing's a vigilante, a detective, and an officer of the law. He won't attack willy nilly. Besides, it was too late to turn back now. Danny knew way too much about Nightwing's life to back off now.
Not allowing himself to hesitate any longer, he reached up and pressed the doorbell. He didn't hear the sound, but shuffling from inside alerted him that the man he'd come to see was now moving towards him.
'I hope this goes well,' Danny thought. Then, the door opened. "Good, at least you're taking care of yourself and actually eating proper foods. Now, I'm here to discuss your extracurriculars and how to time manage them properly without running yourself into the ground." He didn't mean to enter the apartment uninvited, but he didn't want to risk Nightwing closing the door on him or something. "I've brought my own board with an ideal itinerary that I expect you to follow." He turned to look at the man. "Any questions?"
Nightwing rook a second to process the words. Then, he said, "Yeah, just one: Who the fuck are you, kid?"
Well, he was in this deep, might as well dig himself a deeper grave. "I would say I'm your new legal guardian, but you're older than me and I can't exactly adopt a fully grown adult." Right? Yeah. Danny sat down stiffly, his bag on the floor and leaning against his leg. He pulled out the binder he'd cleared out and dedicated to helping the older vigilante and put it on the table. "I could say that you're my new legal guardian, but we run into a similar problem." Kind of. Being dead is a legal barrier, so adoption's off the table. Transferred custody on the other hand? Well, he's got that taken care of. Though, he had to wonder, "Could you adopt me?" No, he couldn't think of a way that would work. "No matter."
Nightwing, still standing by the open door, shook his head a bit as if to clear his mind. "I'm sorry, who are you?"
Introductions? Yikes. "I'm Danny! Nice to meet you!" He had no idea how he's not completely bombed this yet, but he wasn't going to complain.
Nightwing didn't move from the door, let alone shake his hand. Danny put it back on his lap. "Likewise, I guess."
"What, no name?" Was that pushing it?
"I'm optimistic, not an idiot." Yeah, he'd towed the line a bit.
Shrugging to try and rid himself of the nervous butterflies in his stomach, Danny opened the binder to the front page. It was mostly so he'd have something to do with his hands, but it proved to be a decent distraction for Nightwing, too. Though, he pushed down a blush when he saw the glittery blue writing. It was the only other pen he had on him and he'd stolen it from Jazz.
The distraction didn't last. "How did you find this place?" Nightwing asked, the door still wide open.
"Doesn't matter." He didn't think the vigilante would take kindly to being stalked followed around the subject of a kid's curiosity.
Nightwing very much did not seem to believe him. "Why do you think I have a day job and a night job?"
Did he- Oh. The man was probably holding out some kind of hope that Danny wasn't saying what he was saying. Oops. Should he apologise? "I'm a realist, not an idiot."
Throwing the words back at him was probably not the best decision. Then, again, Danny hadn't made a whole lot of good decisions since he'd stepped foot in Bludhaven. At least here, there was a chance he could get away with it, relatively scot free. Imagine if he were in Gotham? With how violent Batman got recently? No thank you. He'd rather take his chances with his parents.
Danny did his best to not clear his throat as he flipped to the next page. "First thing's first. Why do you do what you do? Why go out at night to fight crime when, I assume, that's what your day job is for? Why hurt yourself to help other people?"
Those were all questions he'd had to ask himself before the portal destabilized. Why did he do what he does? Why risk himself to help the people who'd never thank him for his help? Why put his life on hold to do the job of adults?
He'd thought he'd had solid answers for them back then, but he wasn't so sure anymore. Regardless, this was a good place as any to start helping Nightwing.
If he could help just this one person, he'd be satisfied.
Part 3 Part 5
Tag List: @flame-343
#part 4#danny phantom#dick grayson#dc#dp x dc#dp dc crossover#dcxdp#dcu#danny needs help#dick needs help#danny needs a hug#dick needs a hug#being a vigilante is hard#danny's a hypocrite#reverse adoption#work life balance#but it's being explained by a hypocrite 7 years younger than him#danny is going to make sure dick takes care of himself#is it really adoption if the kid shows up one day and just doesn't leave?#death is a legal barrier#danny's pov from part 1#How To Balance Your Daytime and Nighttime Activities So That You Don't Burn Yourself Out More Than You Already Have
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