#Cadaver fact: posts

[cholericcadaver]

Cadaver fact: does anybody have some movie recommendations?

[cholericcadaver]

» FERTIŁIZER???

» FERTIŁIZER FERTIŁIZER FERTIŁIZER FERTIŁIZER FERTIŁIZER FERTIŁIZER FERTIŁIZER FERTIŁIZER!!!

Cadaver fact: yea

Cadaver fact: I use fertilizer

Cadaver fact: have my own compost bin

[cadavertrolls]

Btw my TOS has been extremely clear from the get-go

Both here and on my commissions site. Be wary of misinformation!

[quill-of-thoth]

So Gregor Mendel (yes, the guy with the pea plants) wrote down that he wanted to be given a thorough autopsy after he died. The year he died was 1884. Autopsies were increasingly common at the time, but Mendel was an Augustinian friar and the arguments preventing donating your body to science for teaching autopsies, research, etc. were theological. The “ethical” source of teaching cadavers for doctors to autopsy was (in many places) the bodies of executed criminals, as a sort of post-mortem punishment.  Mendel became a monk specifically because he couldn’t afford to study otherwise, even after one of his sisters donated her dowry to the cause. He did too well as a monk to continue his work as long as he wanted: he got promoted to Abbott and the last sixteen years of his life were spent doing administrative work, and his experiments weren’t properly replicated, or examined as a viable alternative to then current theories on inheritance, until 1900. But he chose to donate his body to science (which he loved) and be of material benefit to the field of medicine, which he didn’t practice but two of his nephews did.  There’s just something beautiful about a guy who lived through the era where having your body dissected was the height of dishonor, in an institution that had advocated against the practice, deciding that anything that helps humanity as a whole was worth doing. There’s something just as beautiful about the fact that he was exhumed for genetic sequencing on his 200th birthday - usually we don’t just dig people up and grab their genes as a surprise party, because in addition to it being a lot of work we can’t assume they would have appreciated it, but Mendel? He would have been jazzed. 

[cholericcadaver]

Cadaver Fact: Are you alright?

owie

[cholericcadaver]

Cadaver fact: note to self

Cadaver fact: have bring lilacs in tomorrow

[cholericcadaver]

Cadaver fact: hi

Cadaver fact: why am I being eaten?

would grumblr eat @cholericcadaver

[just-a-sleepy-idiot]

Herbert West Imagine: Being your Roommate and slowly starting to care about you

Why is he so cute it’s so unfair. Shout out to @herbert-west-did-nothing-wrong for being an archive of cool Re-animator content and furthering my hyperfixation hoho hehe

Content/Warnings: Gender neutral Reader, Some fake dating, Violence against Zombie animals, Dr. Hill is obsessed with Reader the way he is with Meg in the movie, Swearing, Herbert being addicted to the Reagent like in the uncut version & Withdrawal, Autistic Herbert West

When his unsuspecting Roommate turned out to be a Insomniac night owl his initial plan of secrecy had to be turned around. Or to be more specific, it was rather the very unfortunate moment when you happened to catch him wrestle the Re-Animated Raccoon that tried to claw through his labcoat in the middle of the night when he realized that he couldn‘t get around some explaining. „Get it off me!! Get it off me!“ He yelled, trying to keep the beasts treacherous little zombie hands away from him. „Fuck! Fuck, Herbert what the hell!?“ You yelled back while hurriedly grabbing a towel and trying to pry it off him with that. The Racoon ended up Re-Dead eventually, after an excruciating fight that showed you the extent to how fucking Undead that thing turned out to be. You stared at Herbert in Horror, he was heaving and leaning back against the Operation table he had set up. He was quick to jump and talk to you, „Listen-„

You were this close to demanding he‘d move out as fast as he had turned up that evening a few days ago, when he knocked at your door with the sign you had posted to the Hospital staff‘s board about looking for a Roommate. You were vaguely aware of what he was studying, at least you witnessed how strongly he defended his opinions about Brain death against Dr. Hill, who was the head surgeon of the clinic but also his teacher. And as such the older man was more than inclined to fail Herbert in class over his upfront disrespect. You were somewhat uncomfortable with Dr. Hill as well for a long time, and maybe the fact that Herbert openly disputed against him was part of the reason why you didn‘t turn him off when he turned up on your doorstep.

But he showed you, he proved to you, that the insane claims he was using as his explanation were actually true. His research has led him to revive the dead, no matter the damage the body has taken before, because soon after the wretched beast you had just thought dead came back to life, if that absolutely murderous state it went into could be called life.

You were sat there, next to him and stared at the cadaver. Blood on Herberts shirt and loosened tie, and you in your silly Pyjamas. „Which is why I need your help Y/n.“ Your head turned quickly, „Help you?“ He scooted a bit closer, „Yes! You are the perfect assistant. You are hardworking, we work in the same Hospital and you have no functioning sleep schedule.“ You frowned at that, but well, he was right. „We could do something great, conquer Death!“ He put a hand on your shoulder and you looked him in the eyes for a very long moment. You let out a stressed out sigh, „for gods sake.. ok, alright. This is.. just insane, Herbert, but it‘s the kind of insane that I can‘t just leave be. I‘ve never seen anything like it.“ Herbert smiled, patting your shoulder enthusiastically.

That is how he got himself an Assistant by chance. As long as he could keep you motivated to keep going and pushing through the Horror his research would really benefit from the help you were providing.

You weren‘t as obsessed about working day and night as he was though, which is why you didn‘t react too pleased when he stormed into your room at nearly 4 in the morning to tell you about a new theory he had. He didn‘t really notice how you were snuggling a plushie, or how you had curled up in the moment as he ranted on and paced your room excitedly. You let out a long stretched moan and grimaced at him, “I was sleeping..!” You complained, but he didn’t really listen. Only when you threw a pillow at him he halted, looking at you in offense. “That was uncalled for.” “Apparently it is! I wanna sleep Herbert now gooo” you stood up and shoved him out of your room. “No bursting into my room while I’m sleeping!” He turned around, getting a last look at your sleepy, disgruntled face before you shut the door on him and went back to sleep. Only when he huffed and puffed, walking back down into the basement, he remembered how you have looked sleeping. Curled up like a Pillbug, he thought.

The next day he found that the lack of sleep had not really made you forgiving towards him when he tried to tell you about his findings. He clenched and unclenched his fists nervously, frowning as he tried to figure out his next step of action. Herbert never needed to prove himself to anyone or be particularly likeable to make it to where he was now, his work spoke for itself. So he genuinely didn’t know how the heck he was going to fix something that was well.. a person. He needed you to be cooperative, and pissing off his only assistant was not very beneficial to his work.

When you came home, Herbert was already sat there and stood up quickly. „Look,“ you already looked at him pretty much pissed, much like this night while you threw him out. He came forward and firmly held out a plastic bag, neatly wrapped inside was a piece of your favorite cake. „No more bursting into your room while you’re sleeping.“ He said, lowering his head without breaking his continuous eye contact. „Is that.. how did you know I liked that?“ He nodded, „See I‘m not always listening but my brain is always taking in information.“

You took the bag and raised your brows, a slight smile on your lips as you took out the cake. „Alright.. I accept.“ you said, putting down the cake to go into the kitchen to get a fork. „So what did you find out?“ He smiled as well, clapping into his hands and starting to explain it all. You came back with two forks. You made Herbert try some too, as it turns out he is more a dark chocolate kind of guy, and he makes a face when he finds things too sweet that makes you giggle.

Herbert was always eager to go back home and experiment after work, the days were Dr. Hill taught were especially agitating to him. „I feel like every minute I am forced listen to this man it’s diminishing my brain capacity.“ He complained every time. Those were days were he stayed in the lab until the sun rose, and listen, throwing stones in a glass house and all but this was too extreme. You noticed he was still up when you woke up to pee. Did he even eat dinner? You spied into the kitchen, no trace of dishes.

He was scribbling down a new variant to his substance he had thought of, it was brilliant! This would solve at least one of the major problems you had been encountering in your experiments, he couldn’t wait to put the chances into action and see how the reagents power changed. Herbert lifted his gaze without fully looking up when he heard the familiar creak of the wooden stairs. „You need to see this Y/n.“ He bickered you closer. He was surprised to find a plate with Pancakes in his field of vision. He looked up from them to you. You were in a different set of silly pyjamas now. „You didn’t eat. How are you gonna save me from Zombie Goldfish if you faint?” You joked and reached for his notebook to read his new results. He stared at you for a while, then said „Why do all of your pyjamas look like that.“ „Hey!“ “Also by now I deem you capable enough to bring down a Zombie fish yourself.” “That is the sweetest thing you ever said to me Herbert.” He shot you a look over his glasses.

Though, he ate the pancakes when you left and they were good. You didn’t make them too sweet. Judging from the way you giggled at his reaction to the cake you must have had remembered. Hm.

It was another night, another period of labwork he was up to with you. You were replicating the reagent for him into smaller, portable versions you could take into the Hospital to begin and document the reactions to human bodies with low dosages. You poured some of it too quickly and a cloud of poisonous gas errupted from the glass, you nearly fell back trying to evade it- your chair already tipped over and you closed your eyes, but the crash didn’t come.

You looked up, still holding onto the glass for dear life, and saw Herbert looming over you from behind the chair. He had swooped in and grabbed it from the back before you could fall. Why did this somehow feel.. close, the way you looked up at him that way. The way his knuckles turned white from gripping the chair, and the way he frowned down at you. You eyed his face. “You should avoid dying before I perfected my reagent.” He said, still holding you. Your feet dangled in the air, you put your head further back. “Don’t worry, I would come back as a ghost to haunt you.” “Why would you do that?” You raised your hands up to his face, cupping his cheeks, surprisingly gently. “I wanna spook you once, not see you as composed as you always appear to be.” Herbert swallowed, his eyes flickered over you for a moment. Your fingertips were warm against his skin. Why were you.. your lips parted in a smile. He cleared his throat and carefully set your chair down again.

“You really need safety googles, let me see if I have an extra.” He looked through his stuff, finding his thoughts trail off. He paused for a moment without noticing, briefly letting his eyes flicker around without really focusing on something. When he found them he turned around and gave them to you for you to try on. “Do I look good?” “You look safe. That is good.”

A week or so later you were both at the Hospital, working as usual. Herbert went to your station to discuss your next test subject, he happened to find an older man who was sure to die soon of his illness that he intended to try and Re-Animate. If the bodies weren‘t registerested in the Morgue in the first place it couldn‘t be traced back to the few with the authority of entering it, aka you. So if he just waited until the patient died and took his chance before anyone took the body he would make for a perfect test subject. When he arrived at your station he looked around for you, only eventually finding you cornered against a door by none other than the most dimwitted person in the Hospital; „Dr. Hill, I really need to be getting back to work..“ you said and tried to walk past him, but he blocked your way with his body.

„Now Y/n there‘s no need to be in a rush, I‘m sure someone will handle it. Surely you‘ll have some more time for me to discuss dinner.“ „Well.. um, like I said, I‘m sorry but I‘m already getting something with Mr. West tonight.“ The older man rolled his head back for a moment and laughed spiteful at the mention of his name. „Yes but you are rooming with.. Mr. West, so you will have plenty of occasions to eat with him. But you see, I am a very busy man and my company is high in demand. You should prioritize me making time for you.“

Herbert saw the way you smiled, and from what he had learned about body language over the years he would most likely interpret this as a sign that you were flattered and comfortable with his invitation- but there was something that went against that deduction; Your eyes. Either way he didn‘t look people in the eye or he did so to an extent that was considered staring. But he had seen you smile, at him, at the cake he got you, at the note he left on the fridge that said ‚Leftover Dinner left, Bag of Eyes right! Do not accidentally microwave‘ so he knew what you looked like when you smiled. And.. you weren‘t smiling with your eyes right now. You always smiled with your eyes, did that mean that your expression was simulated? Were you in distress?

He approached swiftly, clearing his throat to get Dr. Hill to turn around. „I shouldn‘t be surprised to find out that your ignorance isn‘t limited to your scientific research, Dr. Hill, but here we are. Y/n, I need to discuss something with you.“ You were more than happy to use the moment of Dr. Hill‘s bubbling irritation and slip past him and next to Herberts side. „Mister West.“ He said through gritted teeth, „It seems like you are compensating your inability to surpass me by taking something from me in reach, but let me assure you that a Roommate isn‘t as important as a Lover can be.“ When he said the last words he looked at you with a smug smile, not even hiding that he thought of himself as your suitor. You looked horrified.

„I agree. Now if you‘ll excuse us, it’s 3 PM and therefore Y/n‘s Lunchbreak.“ Herbert held eye contact with Dr. Hill as he put a hand on your back and led you away. The older mans eyes widened in disbelief at the implications of him agreeing, of the way he put a hand on your back when you left. „Are you saying you are-?“ Herbert didn‘t stop to listen and made you follow his pace as well. Did he just hugely imply that he and you were affiliated? Yes. Did he plan to do so? Certainly not, but it just happened to be the perfect split between pissing of Dr. Hill and helping you out of the situation and potentially even future attempts like these. How wonderfully efficient.

„Now, I wanna show you the perfect candidate for our-„ „Herbert“ he looked at you, eyes flickering over your features as he rapidly noticed a change in your expression. Your cheeks were reddened, your lips slightly pressed together. The redness even extended to your ears. „You are embarrassed. Or flustered. Which is it so I know for future reference.“ He observed and you blushed even more.

„Now the whole Hospital is going to think we are a Couple!“ He shrugged his brows and led you further through the Hospital, you whispered as a colleague walked past. „Potentially, since Dr. Hill is more concerned with spreading misinformation anyway than working.“ He paused, „Ah, I did not account for the possibility that you already have a crush on someone here. If they heard about that it wouldn‘t be to your advantage.“ „Yes, I mean, I don‘t but- now we gotta act like it in front of him too.“ He hummed in acknowledgement, well, surely that wouldn‘t be too hard.

He had you meet the man that he meant to Re-animate if everything went according as planned, you inspected him and gave Herbert a look. It was doable, his body was weak so in case of aggression he could easily be restrained for both your safety, and lastly the man had decided to donate his body to science anyway after his passing.

„I think I can ask to switch shifts to his station and make sure the beeper doesn’t go off once he passes.“ You said as Herbert walked you back to your station, „Then you distract the nurses while I get the body out in a Wheelchair.“ Herbert added and you nodded, slightly nervous about the whole thing already. Bringing a full human back to life.. was it even possible to conserve the refined parts of the human brain and personality or would it operate like the animals as well that he brought back?

You reached your station. Herbert surprisingly took your hand in his, your eyes widened yet you didn’t resist the gesture. Reaching out, he did that a lot, he does in when he fails to verbalize what he wants to communicate in an emotional extent. But people usually react with.. a leap of faith, and trust in him when he does this instead. Touch, hold onto their arm for a moment. And he reaches out for your hand now and you trust him, you let him.

„Listen, Dr. Hill is watching us.“ He said, and you blinked, eyes darting to your hands as you suddenly understood his gesture for what is meant- an attempt at portraying romance.

Your hands were warm, almost beaming with heat. It wasn’t uncomfortable.

„Would you consent to me pretending to kiss you for the sake of proving our lie. He isn’t close enough to actually see if our lips touch.“

You squeezed his hand and slightly stepped closer, breath hitching. „I consent.“ He studied you, sighing and wetting his lips. The way he looked at you, if he reciprocated eye contact at all, was always intense and yet this was.. as if he was actually taking in much more of you. Not just reciprocating a gesture to an intense amount, but actually looking at your face, all of it. Why did he feel his pulse raise? He took another step towards you and closed in- until there were centimeters left between your lips. Your noses slightly brushed against each other, your breath gently fanned over his skin. Both of you had closed your eyes, Herbert felt your hand on his chest clenching slightly onto his shirt. You radiated warmth, why did he want to have you even closer than that?

He stepped away again, opening his eyes. For a second he saw you, with closed eyes and a reddened face.

„I think that will suffice for a bit, depending if Dr. Hill has enough audacity to flirt with someone who is supposedly already committed.“ He concluded, straightening his glasses. He felt weird, somehow.. anxious? Anticipating? Frustrated? Disappointed? Hm. Hard to tell.

„Ah.. yup! Um, maybe it works!“ You said, swallowing and bidding him goodbye until work ended. And Dr. Hill actually walked past you that shift without saying anything else, purposefully not acknowledging you as it seems.

You felt anxious about going home that day, not really knowing what has changed exactly that made you feel that way. What did you expect to happen? Nothing actually.. happened! You did not kiss, this shouldn’t feel so Sitcom-ish. And yet-

you came home, the kitchen light was on but you didn’t see Herbert. He must be home, he was always tinkering with something as soon as he was free to do so after work. Sometimes he didn’t even wait until then, but right now there was no light coming from the basement. Only from his door, and that was unusual. You never even saw that man in a pyjama once! As far as you were concerned he had an identical set of clothes to sleep in. ‚I can get behind wanting to revive the dead but that is just weird Herbert‘ you once told him, to which he replied ‚at least I don’t sleep in something that is patterned with geese‘ which really only showcased your point.

„Hey, do you wanna eat something?“ You asked, not straightforwardly showing your concern. „Y/n..“ he muttered, and you frowned, now opening the door. What you saw was a very distraught looking Herbert, rummaging through his things with the small fridge he kept in there open as well. „Fuck- there are no probes in the right stage!“ he howled, hands shaky and room disheveled. „What are you talking about??“ he turned around but didn’t look at you, his eyes darted over the room panicking. „I can’t.. inject any of them at this stage this is..“ his breath hitched, you were putting the pieces together in your head. He was talking about using it on himself, and judging from the erratic state he was in he was physically addicted to it. He was pale too, the withdrawal must have kicked in a while ago. He behaved both impulsive and weakened. There is.. something you needed to do. He sat down on his bed, fidgeting and running his hands through his hair. „It keeps me awake, keeps my mind running.“ That didn’t even sound unlike him, it made sense for him to try and find a way to ditch any kind of the human experience he didn’t like. He did it with death so why not sleep too while he was at it.

„That means you‘ll go to sleep after a while, once your body gets exhausted enough from the withdrawal.“ He nodded, you sat down next to him on the bed. „The Hospital doesn’t have a the tools of dealing with the specific addiction you’re dealing with right now and we don’t have any reagents that are ready to fix either so.. I‘m gonna stay here ok? Monitor you so I know you‘re safe. I‘m gonna fetch that terrible Novel I‘m reading right now to distract you from the pain with a different kind of pain, hold on.“

And he let you do so- listening to you read the book to him while fidgeting nervously and running a hand through his hair or over his arm as he tried to let himself be distracted by what you were saying.

You kept reading to him until 5 AM, Herbert was still struggling but getting more weaker by the hour. He frowned and closed his eyes here and there to rest a bit, visually displeased to be requiring that sort of thing. He muttered that it was wasted time he could use better, but his physical agony seemed to find a bit of relief in this. ‚You were usually asleep now‘, he said when he noted how tired you were at this point, ‚you should just go to bed.‘ He didn’t understand how stubborn you were on staying with him to look out for his safety even though he assured you he was fine. You were nearly drifting off to sleep yourself, resting your eyes as well when he asked „Why do you even care so much?„ Your answer was murmured as your consciousness slipped, „Because I care about you“ your head sunk more against the bed frame behind you since you both resorted to sit at the end of his bed.

Herbert stared at you, frowning once more but slightly bewildered. He was important to you? Personally? Your lips parted as slumber caught you fully in mere moments after those spoken words. If it wasn’t for what you said.. he would have never even thought about wether he reciprocated what you felt, but somehow he found that- he did care about you too. He had cared about your distress earlier and went to resolve it without fully acknowledging why, despite being highly agitated just by the thought of exchanging a word with Dr. Hill. He cared about your opinions on his Experiments. And he even cared about how you felt about him, and it wasn’t even fully based on the necessity of having you as his Assistant. He pressed his lips together.

Herbert straightened his glasses and looked over to you again. With a sigh he grabbed the blanket and put it on top of you, covering you up to your shoulder which made you intuitively sink further into the mattress. He crossed his arms and closed his eyes for a bit as well, fully keeping his stern expression as he slowly fell asleep as well without noticing.

For the first time in a long time he fell asleep again, and for the first time in a very long time he wasn’t alone.

I was literally non stop writing this since I watched the movie a few days ago. I would love to write more for him or maybe even write a part 2 of this? If ppl like this and want me to I‘d love to hear what you have to say. Comments get me motivated and keep the hyperfixation running

[arliedraws]

Slytherin Sirius LIVES

Hey so I’m extremely stressed out and I’m avoiding election coverage, so I’m gonna post some WIPs that I’ve been writing for my own entertainment. This is an IDEA for a fic where Slytherin Sirius lives and body swaps with Canon Sirius. These will probably get deleted, FYI, because I have NO plans, NO plot, NOTHING. It also doesn’t make 100% sense. Anyway…

For a man who had completely lost his mind, Sirius Black was startled by his own coherency. Of course, it was married with a bizarre realization that his cheek was kissing the floor and his limbs refused to respond to his commands, but little by little, the fibers in his muscles began to twitch, pulsing with the electric understanding that he was not, in fact, dead.

Well, he reasoned, fighting with his eyelids to open, I can’t assume this isn’t Death.

Fingers groping at the stone floor, he traced the edge of a dais, wondering if he’d been left on some sort of altar—or perhaps resurrected onto it by a dark sorcerer in another universe. That was part of the risk of what Sirius had done. Releasing his soul from his body may have transported it through space and time into the corpse of someone’s dead lover or into the cadaver that a healing student had dug up from a Muggle graveyard as a foul little experiment in necromancy.

There murmurs and whispers behind him, carried on the whisper of a breeze.

Inhaling into sore lungs, Sirius pushed from the ground and surveyed the room on all fours. Torches on the walls cast a deceptively warm glow into the chamber, illuminating the stone steps and benches all the way up to the top of the room. He chuckled.

“Hello, old friend,” he said.

As if to greet him, the Veil breathed a rush of cool air. Or perhaps it was a farewell. It fell still again.

His body felt odd. It ached—his joints were stiff and his hips seemed to be in dire need of a stretch. Thin fingers were attached to pale hands; his gaze caught on a white scar the shape of a starburst on his left hand. Had he been dead for so long that his body had commenced decomposition? Even his wrists looked fragile.

There was a wand resting on the floor as if it had simply rolled out of his hand; he took it but nearly dropped it in surprise. It was his father’s, the spare he kept in a drawer. Rarely did that wand see the light of day, yet here it was.

No, Sirius knew that he was not dead, but this was not his world.

His heart leapt with excitement. This is his body, he thought wildly.

The other Sirius Black: the one who had died at precisely the moment required to kidnap his soul, to haul it through the fabric of the multiverse and stuff it into a new prison. Laughter bubbled from his chest. It worked, it must have worked.

Sirius got to his feet, wobbling slightly and catching himself on the archway. But I shouldn’t be alive.

He left the Ministry of Magic quickly under the disguise of a disillusionment charm, grateful to find that it was sometime before dawn, and the building was empty. It was familiar, the Atrium at night, but he did not linger. If the man to whom this body belonged was supposed to be dead, then it was unwise to reveal himself as irrefutably alive.

-

The man behind the desk handed Sirius a key and absently reminded him that breakfast would be served between 7:30 and 9:30. Following a murmured thank-you, he crossed the garish red carpet of the lobby to the stairs where they stretched up to a corridor lined with dark, nearly black doors that spanned to a small window at the end. Sirius found his room and quickly shuffled inside, locking the door behind him.

There was little to celebrate about the room that was only large enough to fit a double bed, a wardrobe, and dresser. One of those black Muggle boxes they were so fond of staring at for hours sat on the rickety set of drawers. He had to squeeze between the footboard of the bed and the dresser to cross to the window and pull the curtains closed.

Everything reeked of cigarette smoke. The ashtray was full, and he thought it smelled as if someone had recently fucked in here. Sirius couldn’t complain, however, foul though it was. He hadn’t paid for the room. The Confundus Charm had worked a bit too well on the hotel manager who had started eagerly offering upgrades before Sirius had cut him off and told him he just wanted to rest.

It wasn’t entirely a lie, of course. He was exhausted. He had spent the rest of the night under a Disillusionment Charm, wandering the streets as he waited for a more civilized London to wake up, stringing together a very flimsy plan as he explored his new world.

By morning, he had ended up in Godric’s Hollow. It was stupid, of course, because what hope had he that James Potter would like him any better in this world than the last? Yet of anyone he could think of, Potter was the only person who might receive him.

But Sirius’s stomach plummeted when he reached the cottage. The sun was emerging over the village, casting a fiery orange glow on the abandoned house and the violent ruin of the top floor. Beyond the gate, the grass and hedge were nearly waist-high, and several windows were shattered. Sirius caught himself against the gate. A sign rose from the ground and confirmed what Sirius feared about James Potter in this world.

Then, Sirius had gone to the hotel and checked in to a room and tried to think of anything other than James Potter and his murdered wife.

But the boy, he thought, pacing the tiny room. The boy’s alive.

A part of him insisted it wasn’t possible, yet Sirius could hardly judge who ought to be alive and who should be dead when he himself had no business walking around with a beating heart, pulling air in and out of his lungs.

He blasted the bed with several cleaning charms, still feeling wary as he lay upon the starchy comforter, certain that he could hear things crawling inside the pillows. He couldn’t get comfortable, and despite feeling as though he could slide into slumber, he remained wide awake. Something in his robes was poking him as well. Irritated, he pulled out a small mirror.

This time, he avoided his reflection. The first time he had seen it was in a shop window, and it arrested him to meet his own eyes. There was no denying it was his face, but it was also horrifically not. There was a hard line to his jaw and cheeks, the bones emerging prominently as if he’d been starving for some time. He might have guessed that he was underweight simply by the way this body moved, but to see so plainly the ruin of his face—

Admittedly, he wasn’t quite a ghoul or a monster, but it was not a face that would be winning Witch Weekly’s Most Charming Smile award. Sirius shuddered; something quite terrible had happened to the Sirius Black of this world.

It was late afternoon when he finally drifted to sleep, puzzling together his counterpart’s life as he let his awareness slip away. A few hours had gone when he heard, distantly, a voice.

Sirius groaned as it tugged him awake, threading his consciousness back to the body he wore. The sound came not from the corridor nor the closed window, but somewhere much closer as if someone were hiding under the bed.

“Sirius Black,” said the voice.

Alarmed, Sirius looked around the room, searching the shadows. All was still. Next to him lay the mirror. Sirius frowned and snatched it.

“Hello?” His voice was raspy from sleep.

The reflection of his ruined face vanished; in its place appeared a teenager. Wide, green eyes gaped at him, blinking several times as if ensuring what they saw was real. The boy’s mouth hung open in shock.

“Sirius?”

The sound of his name spoken with such reverence nearly made Sirius drop the mirror.

“Harry Potter? Is that you?”

There was no denying who the boy was—he was nearly identical to James Potter, right down to his spectacles, but Potter’s eyes filling and his face splitting into a broad grin was inexplicable. Was Potter…pleased to see him?

“Yeah, Sirius. It’s me. You’re—you’re alive,” Potter breathed.

“Yes, I am,” was all Sirius knew to say. He grimaced inwardly at his idiocy.

Then, Potter was spitting a barrage of questions at him—how did he survive? Where had he been? Where was he now? And Sirius thought exceptionally quickly. He was supposed to be dead. James Potter was dead too, but his son considered him fondly and expressed relief that he had apparently survived whatever had tried to kill him.

“Harry,” said Sirius, cutting the boy off. “I can’t talk now. It’s not safe,” he lied, casting his gaze beyond the mirror, pretending to be on alert for danger.

The boy frowned suddenly. “What’s wrong? Where are you?”

“I can’t reveal too much. Look,” he said, quieter. “I’m not supposed to be alive. Until I figure out what’s happened, we must keep this between us, all right? You can’t tell—” He nearly said your father. But James Potter was dead. “You can’t tell anyone.”

“But Sirius—”

The relief on the boy’s face dissolved into a rejection as if Sirius had said something that wounded him. My death mattered, he thought. My death mattered to Harry Potter.

“Harry,” he said, “Listen to me. I’ll explain everything. Can you meet me tomorrow night?”

“Where? Grimmauld Place?”

“No,” said Sirius slowly. How could the boy know where his mother lived? Especially if it were under the Fidelius Curse… “No. Er—where will you be?”

“Back in Little Whinging. It’s the last day of term,” explained Potter. “Sirius, wait, is this real? Is this—is it really you?”

Sirius bit the inside of his cheek. The earnest hopefulness on Potter’s face stifled his instinct to lie. Smiling sadly, he assured the boy, “I will tell you what I can when I see you. Tomorrow night, then. I’ll come to you.”

“But the Dursleys—Sirius, they won’t like it if you come.”

“I’ll be discreet.”

[sebastianswallows]

The English Client — One

— PAIRING: Tom Riddle x F!Reader

— SYNOPSIS: The year is 1952. Tom is working for Borgin and Burkes. He is sent to Rome to acquire three ancient books of magic by any means necessary. One in particular proves challenging to reach, and the only path forward is through a pretty, young bookseller. A foreigner like him, she lives alone, obsessed with her work... until Tom comes into her life.

— WARNINGS: none for this chapter, just Tom being grumpy and hating the world

— WORDCOUNT: 3k

— A/N: This is a fic that was commissioned by @localravenclaw as a gift for @esolean 💕 It's going to be a bit of a rollercoaster, with angst and fluff and smut galore. I plan to post twice a week, Mondays and Fridays. I had a lot of fun writing it, and I hope you will have fun reading it, my dears! 💚

I

Tom was twenty-five. It had been seven years since he graduated from Hogwarts, and just as many since he started working at Borgin and Burkes. Now, he found himself in a sweltering place with the world passing him by. Trapped, for his sins, in a moving metal coffin. If this was hell, it looked like rolling hills, houses nestled in the fog, narrow rows of poplars and puffs of grazing sheep, all set to the tune of clinking chains and carriage shuffles. He hated this assignment.

After taking the train from London to Dover, he caught the ferry that sailed to Calais, and from there took a series of coaches and trains meant to take him on to Italy. To Rome. They had just stopped in Lyon to pick up more passengers, and now they were on their way again.

He had fought with Burke regarding the logistics of the whole thing. Why couldn’t he just use Floo like a normal wizard? But the miserable old stoat said he’d sooner trust muggle transportation than Tom’s pronunciation of Italian or French — and besides, was Floo even networked all the way down there? It didn’t matter anymore.

Tom was convinced it was all done to save costs, and perhaps for Burke to not have to call in any favours. So off he went with one measly suitcase and two billfolds of franks and lira — all of which were merely enchanted oak leaves. They would inevitably transfigure back to their original form in a couple of weeks or so, but by then Tom should be long gone. Who said money didn’t grow on trees?

He tried to distract himself from all this misery by checking his notes again. His little book cracked open, snapping at the spine, and its insides were revealed to him like a cadaver cut through with a black spidery scrawl. It was a list of books and authors, with observations added vertically on the side to save space.

“The Secrets of Wisdom, N. Tamisso 1650 — high priority, any edition. The Lost Word, B. Trevisan 1661 — low priority, optional. Delomelanicon (or The Invocation of Darkness), A. Torchia 1666 — first edition, mandatory.” The latter word was underlined three times. His notes continued with the instructions Burke had given. “Check the rare book dealers, antiquaries, private collectors if necessary. If you can not find it, find out who can. If they will not sell it, take it anyway.”

Tom’s lip curled. Whatever joy there was in being away from the squalor of Knockturn Alley was soiled by what he had to do in Rome. It wasn’t the books he minded, and in fact, he quite admired Burke’s taste in this matter. But to be flung so far away from home on such short notice, and for such a length of time, was pitiful to him. The heir of Slytherin turned errand boy…

“Excuse-moi, est-ce que — Oh, bonjour.”

Tom turned his frown toward the sliding doors of the compartment, between which stood a young man in his twenties. Lanky brown locks fell into his eyes veiling the crinkles of a smile.

“Yes?” sighed Tom.

“I was wondering if this was free,” said the boy. And without waiting for an answer, he dragged his luggage inside — three suitcases, all leather with copper fittings looking ready to burst — and closed the doors behind him.

“I suppose it is,” mumbled Tom. He subtly closed his notebook and tucked it back into the messenger bag at his feet while he kept track of the stranger from the corner of his eyes.

The fine quality of the newcomer’s clothes was somewhat disguised by how carelessly they hung around him. His white and starched shirt was loosened at the top, revealing a hint of tanned skin sprinkled with sparse curls. A golden pin kept a red and blue striped tie affixed to it, and around his pinky finger was a silver ring thickly laid with marcasites and crowned with a malachite stone. His lips were full and purple-stained from wine. His eyes were a bright blue. Judging by his pressed trousers and clean leather shoes, he was a gentleman who had arrived at the station by car — or, at least, he was the spoilt brat of one.

“Clement,” the boy grinned, extending his hand.

“Tom,” he replied, giving him a firm, brief shake.

“I’m on my way to Rome!” Clement sighed, plopping down onto the seat opposite him. Almost immediately, he cracked open a cigarette case and started fishing for a lighter in his trouser pocket. His luggage lay strewn all around the floor, suitcases filled with junk, no doubt. “You?”

“The same,” Tom said and instantly regretted sharing anything at all. With people like these — the overly friendly types — it was best to not encourage conversation.

“Oh, magnificent. Vacation?”

“Work.”

“How sad,” tutted Clement as he popped a cigarette between his lips. He offered one to Tom as well.

“Don’t smoke.”

“Ah.”

He closed the case with a loud click and set it on the table between them. With a smooth, almost theatrical motion, he lit up his pocket lighter — silver, older than him, probably an heirloom, engraved with an elaborate floral motif featuring a fleur-de-lis — and let the flame dance on the tip of his cigarette until he was satisfied.

“Don’t talk much, either,” the boy chuckled. He kept his eyes on Tom as he took a drag, then started puffing away without a care. He attempted to blow rings of smoke but failed. “What do you use your mouth for, then?”

“Cursing, mostly.”

Clement laughed. “The same!”

Tom doubted it.

The compartment soon filled with smoke, and the narrow window open at the top only made it dance around inside. The muggy summer fumes were driving Tom to madness already, and he could only hope the train moved fast enough to clear the air. But as they went further into the rural parts of France, the scent of sheep took over. Maybe it’s not too late to try to Apparate directly at the station, he thought.

“So, what do you do?” asked the French boy, vowels gliding altogether in one breath between his lips. His arm extended elegantly to tap the ash into a cheap tray by the window.

It took Tom a moment to look at him and answer. “I’m in, er, publishing.”

“Truly?” he said, excited enough to lean over the table. “That’s magnificent. I intend to be published too.”

“Oh? What do you write?”

“Poesies.”

“Poetry? Ah, not my area, I’m afraid.”

“But you must know some people…”

Tom wanted to tell him that if he were any good he’d have found a publisher already, but intuition told him to temper himself.

“I might,” he said, “but I’m afraid I’m full up at the moment.”

The boy puffed away nervously as he tapped the round gemstone of his ring against the window, and kept his eyes on him. Tom turned to watch the view rolling past them, seeing without seeing. The sensation of being watched was as familiar as it was discomforting. It crawled down his thin cheeks, his narrow neck, and from there sank into his clothes like sweat. He gazed briefly at the tapping ring from the corner of his eyes in irritation, before focusing away again. For a few moments, he thought he’d successfully ended their conversation.

“Well, I’m in show business,” Clement said instead, grinning brilliantly. There was a gap between his first incisors that made him look boyish and pure. “Theatre.”

“Your parents must be very happy.”

“No,” he laughed. “Miserable. But,” he shrugged, “it is not their decision.”

Tom hummed and said nothing else.

“Your parents are happy with your job, no? You go on important business trips to France, to Rome, and… erm. Well, it is a good job, for sure. Makes them proud, yes?”

Whatever sunshine beamed through the window was chilled and clouded by the glare in Tom’s dark eyes. Why did this bothersome Frenchman have to talk to him? He wasn’t going to keep doing it the whole way to Rome, surely…

“I wouldn’t know,” he finally said. “They’re dead.”

“Oh… Oh, I am so sorry...”

“I’m not,” he mumbled. He didn’t think Clement had heard him, but he wouldn’t care even if he did.

The boy pulled the ashtray closer and put out his cigarette, then leaned his head against the glass. Fidgeting, he held the silver case in his hands and clicked it open and closed, open and closed… He did that for quite a while.

Tom could feel him staring. Could even sense to some extent the messy thoughts inside that head: curiosity, intrigue, and joy.

What could be joyful about that moment?

Well, if Tom was being honest, this wasn’t the first time he’d had such an effect on people. Memories of Burke’s clients came back to him accompanied by the customary shiver down his spine. Clement had the same flippant merriment about him that all the others did, those careless old witches and wizards. That unguarded look of innocence surrounded by the fog of greed. An airy absence of thought and feeling. Must’ve been the side effect of all that money.

Tom had once envied such people. Had even flattered himself with the knowledge that he, however distantly, was one of them. What greater destiny than to be born to glorious old blood? What greater tragedy than to be fallen from it…? He could even remember, with much clarity and shame, how he’d spent several months during his third year obsessing over the Gaunts and Riddles, chasing up on genealogies, and smattering the back pages of his diary with heraldic designs.

But the more he understood the upper classes — their uselessness, their inborn idiocy, their paradoxical sense of superiority which stood impervious to anything reality threw at them — the more he grew to hate them.

“I am sorry if I offended…” said Clement rather softly. “Sometimes, I talk too much.”

“Oh, really? I didn’t notice.”

“No, but I do, I do…”

Tom had overshot his subtleties, apparently.

“So you are not happy with your job? Forgive me for asking…”

“No, it’s quite alright.”

“A pity, you know…”

“Why?”

“To not like it.”

“Oh, it’s not too much trouble most of the time. Why? Do you like your job?”

“But of course!” he said, blue eyes twinkling.

Tom cast a scathing look his way. How strange… He couldn’t imagine enjoying any form of employment — other than the coveted post of DADA professor at Hogwarts.

“Why are you in Rome, then?” Tom asked.

“On vacation. I am, erm, meeting a friend,” he whispered with a grin.

“A girlfriend?” asked Tom with a smirk.

Clement shook his head and giggled. “A boy friend.”

Tom’s brows nearly reached his hairline. He’d never heard of such things being bandied about quite that openly before, at least not in England. Clement seemed not to care. Must’ve been a habit of his, as he seemed to not care about much at all other than enjoying life.

“You have a fun vacation ahead of you, then.”

“More than you know,” he winked.

Tom curled his nose at that and sat back, away from the whole conversation. But Clement leaned closer, arms braced over the table lazily, eyes flashing excitedly.

“We will rob this old fool, and run with his money.”

That captured Tom’s attention again. The boy was waiting eagerly for his reaction, and not a thought ran through his head that Tom might’ve been untrustworthy. Of course, far be it from him to ruin someone else’s fun, but the scenario Clement proposed was too absurd to be believed.

So what else could Tom do but laugh? The sound of it filled the cabin, and so out of use were those muscles that his cheeks began to ache. The sight of it seemed to delight young Clement. He leaned back and gave another one of his brilliant smiles.

“You can join us, if you like,” he offered smoothly.

“Sorry,” said Tom, his cheeks still flushed. “My schedule is full.”

“Oh, pity, pity… You would like my friend, I think. His name is Donatien. He is more serious, like you.”

“Is that so,” said Tom distractedly.

“By the way, what is your hotel?”

II

They entered Rome on a train that ran six hours late, and wobbled on its tracks, and stank of mouldy cheese and wine rust.

Clement talked most of the way there, and seemed to be satisfied with Tom mostly reacting with brief hums and tilted smiles. They even exchanged gifts. The French boy was enchanted by what was, in Tom’s estimation, a fairly average switchblade. He’d only taken it out to peel an orange. It was something he’d bought in London right before his seventh year, and although it was quite plain, it did have some delicate embellishments on its ivory handle of two writhing snakes. That seemed to appeal to Clement, who offered his own blade in exchange — a Swiss army knife that also had a screwdriver and bottle opener tucked in its red body. Considering it a more efficient deal, Tom shrugged and accepted the trade.

Faint details came up now and then about his plans with this Donatien, but most of it was lost in smoke and loud metallic rattles. As much as Tom hated flying on brooms, even he could agree it would’ve been preferable to this…

But at least he didn’t have to fear any Ministry or Aurors in these parts. Not any that were familiar with him, anyway. The Italians had their own Ministry of Magic, of course, but it was all the way down in Mirto, Sicily, and foreigners were a low priority for them. There were so many people from all over the world in Italy those days that it wasn’t worth keeping track of them all, or at least so Burke had told him.

The train slowed and pulled into the station, and pulled, and pulled… It groaned as if in pain. Clement took the jolt of inertia as it all came to a stop with cheerful clapping, and promptly got up to collect his bags.

“So, we are agreed?”

“Absolutely not agreed. Besides, I doubt my lodgings would be to your taste.”

“Ah Tom, you do not know my taste!”

“Very well, but best keep your complaints to a minimum once we get there.”

They struggled to get everything off the train with four suitcases between them. Tom was travelling light with just the one, about which Clement made some snide comment that he soon forgot, but he helped him anyway. His own belongings consisted of plain muggle clothes and some books that Burke wished him to barter with, if it came to that. Between the lines, and between Burke’s sparse and slimy brows, Tom understood he was expected to use his charms to get a bargain price — as per usual — but he did not intend to let some fat old antiquary put his grimy hands on him. Not this time. Besides, conversing with Clement had stained his dignity enough.

Being away on the continent had one advantage, at least: he was no longer under the vulturous watch of his employer.

Tom stepped out onto the platform, muscles sore from days of sitting down, and looked ahead as if he knew where he was going. People were chatting all around him, filling the cool hall with murmurs all the way up to its dome — some in German, some in French, others in variously accented English. Tom wiped the sweat off his brow with his sleeve and picked up his suitcase to follow Clement, who was hunting for a trolley to load his luggage onto.

As soon as they stepped out onto the street, the heat of Rome in August hit Tom in the face like an oven door and he, frail and pallid thing, was not prepared for it. He squinted in displeasure, to Clement’s great amusement.

“This way, Tom!” he said as he popped on a pair of sunglasses. “I see a taxi!”

Tom had spent most of the journey brushing up on his Italian with the help of a conversation guide he picked up at the Gare du Nord. His extensive knowledge of Latin came in pretty handy. But now that he saw Clement handle things, perhaps he needn’t have bothered. His companion could easily direct the driver to the dingy old hotel Tom was staying at, the Gallienus on Via Domenichino, and chatted a bit more besides.

“Vacation in Rome often, then?” he asked.

“I just know some phrases,” Clement smiled. “You don’t need much with these people.”

The driver pretended not to understand the slight.

“Where do you want to have lunch, then?” Clement asked.

“Lunch? I’m certainly not in the mood, not now.”

“Oh come ooon…”

“You can eat on your own.”

“We can leave our stuff and take the taxi to this place I know on Via della Mercede. They make the best seafood, the best!”

It had not been until now, with this journey to somewhere far away, that Tom realised how limited his world had been at Hogwarts. He’d once felt equal parts ashamed and at a strange advantage next to the other Slytherins, his peers, all purebloods, for knowing both the magical and muggle worlds. Now, exiled for this assignment among strangers, it seemed to Tom as if he were starting life all over again. He looked out the window and everything was new, everything was strange. The buildings, the street, the people, even the clothes were different. The city, like London, was massive, but the streets were broader, blazing white. Some disappeared into little alleyways that slithered like dark serpents. Tom could easily see himself getting lost in such a place.

It was… humbling. He didn’t like it.

[cholericcadaver]

Cadaver fact: you okay?

iihghg everytghigsucks

[unikron-kitten-kat]

after that i dont want. i need a part 2 >:) give us the goods!

Oh my Zalgo ITS DONE!! Ya'll wanted some part 2, and you shall receive!! One of my previous posts clears something up about [the reader] in this one, so you can find that if you end up getting confused about a certain something mentioned in here!

Slenderman x Male Reader, Smut this time!

Kinks may include: mpreg; tentacles; praise; nicknames: slender maybe calls you stuff like pet or little spiderling, or stuff like that; overstim;

No tws that I know of in here.. I dont think anyway... Now enjoy!!

His Dearest

Mine Nøw

It has been a while since you have become a Slenderbeing.

A long while.

You are now completely adapted to the warped time of the dimension your Boss keeps you all in, your internal clock warped when you transformed completely.

It was the next day, after your completion.

The others saw you.

And oh boy..

Were they jealous.

Envious..

Angry...

They despised you. They hated how you, a total outsider to them, ripped the spotlight off their stage, and held it over yourself.

But they knew how oblivious you were to it all. They knew. And they hated your.. Naivety. They hated the favoritism.

And don't get me started on the Big Boys, the.. The Proxies Slender favored before he brought you home. Before he introduced you to his other servants finally.

Toby, Masky, and Hoodie were slapped in the face the hardest. They no longer had the large favor they used to have with Slender, and Toby even got into serious trouble with Slender for messing with you.

But now that you were... Like that!?

God, being that close with Slender was only something any other Proxie could dream of now.

But, they don't know the full extent to your closeness. At least, the fondness Slender has for you, anyway.

You see, ever since you started... Blooming.. Really fitting into your new body.. He had slowly become infatuated with you. He slowly started to find you adorable.. Cute.. So naive... Fuckable... Breedable... His to have.. His.. To own.. His.. His...

And lo and behold, after being under his wing for the few decades you were, the universe finally let him have you..

In the form of the results of your receiving a piece of Slender's magic and powerful essence to grow more powerful with... In the form of a Slenderbeing Cadaver.

The perfect chance to finally make you his.

And he took it without hesitation.

If he didn't find you so cute as a tiny little human, he certainly found you cute and gorgeous now.

You are sitting on a log, fiddling with your magic, letting the sparking, ribbony lengths of sickly-green and gold wrap and twine between your fingers, even motioning for it to flow around the chest claws you had.

There was something about the colour that entranced you. Something was off about it. And, you very soon learned what it was. Your magic, green and gold as it was, had some semblance of His. There was a hint of a dark maroon that cracked and sliced through your magic.

You wonder if it had anything to do with the fact it was his magic that made you like this. That his magic gave you your own.

You inhaled sharply, startled, whipping your head to see it was only him who touched your tentacles.

Yours, unlike his, looked like long ropes of whispy cobweb, bundled up. They had your magic coursing through them as well, giving them a green and golden glow in some parts.

"Hello Little Spider.."

"H.. Hey.."

His hands were on your shoulder. Your face flushed, the dark green that was your blood now painted your face a different colour than a human.

He pressed his body against yours. His face rested in the crook of your neck.

Both sets of his arms wrapped around you, and he hummed in contentment. His tentacles wrapped around yours, some even trailing to your body, and wrapped around your thighs or chest.

His arms moved to lift you off the log, him then moving himself onto the log behind you, you now sitting in his lap.

His arms are back around you, holding you against him. He is warm. His arms and tentacles were trailing and rubbing their touch all over, not leaving an inch of you untouched. He wasn't applying any pressure either, just touching you. His touch still felt hot even through your clothes.

His hands, one pair, trailed down from your neck, to your abdomen, and they stopped. The rest didn't stop though. Just the one pair on your abdomen.

You let out an inquisitive whimper, looking down to his hands resting there.

"... Would be.." He paused, and moved his face to the back of your neck, "Would be endearing to see you..", his hands resting on your abdomen rubbed it in circles, "full.. Of my children..."

Your face lit up bright green, your eyes widening, your other eyes even opening in your shock at his statement.

"Wh.. What?"

"Wouldn't you like that, [Name]?"

"I-I-"

"You can't deny it, [Name]. I know.. What you dream about.. I know what makes you wake up wet in the pants.."

Your face might as well be a lamppost with how deeply coloured your face was now, the green glowing bright with the help of your magic, which seemed to.. Imitate your emotion with brightness and fluidity.

"I.. Could see what you dreamed of, you silly little thing. I saw what you thought of when you tried your hardest to keep those... Filthy thoughts to yourself."

You made a small noise, your body tensing with embarrassment at the realization his hands and tentacles were getting more.. Antsy.

The ones on your abdomen trailed down to rest on the inside of your thighs, rubbing the sensitive skin in circles very close to your crotch.

You hadn't realized that your hands, the four, had grabbed onto his arms, your embarrassment leading to quite a grip that human bones wouldn't be able to withstand.

"I mean.. Even if you weren't a Slenderbeing at this current time..", he trailed off, his upper hands slipping under your shirt and trailing up to rub and grope your pecs, his palms would rub over your nipples, "I would still be rewarding you for being such a good servant for me..."

His voice was right next to your ear, his mouth opening to nibble at your jaw.

You were trembling, and your crotch was throbbing, so was that spot on your neck that Slender licked with his tongue a while back. The feeling seemed to only ebb away when Slender got close to touching them.

This made you subconsciously move your throbbing areas against him, chasing his touch there.

His other hands and tentacles were getting more sensual with their touches, squeezing sensitive areas of your flesh, flitting over the ridges of your neck, ribs.. His fingers would ghost over your mouth, his tentacles wrapped around your limbs, opening your legs, and wrapping your arms behind you to pin them to your back.

One hand came up to grasp your chin, his fingers splaying slightly, and his palm gave enough force to push your head back, you now facing up.

The little whimper that scrimped past your trembling lips made Slender chuckle.

"You like this, [Name]? You like my hands on your body? My tentacles on your body?"

You let out a trembly affirming hum. He chuckled again, and he used to fingers to trail down your neck from your chin, and back up.

"Use your words, my pretty mate....." He whispered, his voice trailing off.

Your voice wavered as you spoke, "Y-yess... Mm.. I-I do like it..." Your voice trailed to a whisper.

His sensual touches continued. His hands would squeeze your arms, your chest, your thighs, and rub back up again, his fingers ghosting their touch along the lines your muscles made as his hands traveled. His tentacles resigned to holding you, their slimey cold touch moving as they pulsed and slithered against your skin in the places they held you.

Your pants were interrupted with trembly moans and gasps at his touch and the stimulation.

One of his hands groped your crotch, soon slipping into your pants, his palm rubbing against the wetting slits of the flaps covering your dick, your back arching and a gasp leaving your slightly drooling mouth at the touch.

His fingers rubbed at the slits to your flaps, another hand of his slipping your loose pants off your legs and down to your ankles easily.

Your hands, now held behind your back, tensed into fists with the new attention to your aching, pulsing wet.

Your dick was pressing against the flaps, making it easier for Slender to slid a finger in the middle of the four flaps, sliding them apart, trails of slick and pre covered his fingers and stretched between the flaps. Another hand came down to help his other seperate the flaps, all four now splayed, your throbbing dick out for him to see.

Slender pressed his palm to the base of all your tender flesh, a moan drawled out your mouth, his fingers wrapping around the base of your dick, gently squeezing the knot you now had, and another moan shook your throat.

He stroked you, up and down, your legs shaking, breath shuddering, body trembling. Your tentacles wavered, them finding his own arms and legs to weakly wrap around. Pre beaded at your tip, Slender's thumb rubbing over it to smear your dick with it.

Your back arched more, your shoulders pressing into Slenderman, his upper hands slid down to your hips, to rock you against his own excitement. You settled after he stroked you a few more times, trying to and failing to roll your hips against his touch to your dick.

He kissed your neck. Not where you needed him to though. He scraped his teeth against your skin, gently biting you. He nipped your jaw, trailing bigger bites down. He found sensitive areas you'd shiver at, and sucked them black and blue.

One of his lower hands traced the wet, tender flesh of your unhidden dick lower, to your begging tunnel. He kissed your neck hard, resting his face into your neck as your body arched in his lap again, a quick moan escaping your drooling mouth, his fingers dipping into your dripping hole. His fingers gently and slowly rubbed along your entrance, sliding in and out against your walls, a breathy chuckle came from him.

"You are doing so well [Name]. So good.. Keep being good and I'll give you a bigger reward~" He whispered into your ear.

He hummed at the following shudder that shook your body against him. Your cunt quivered around his fingers, you whimpering, squirming at his touch. Slender dragged the length of his fingers against your entrance, the tips dipping into you briefly. He brought his slick coated fingers to his mouth, where he tasted your essence.

"Mmm, you are tasty, [Name].."

You shuddered, exhaling.

Your clothes were feeling hot against your skin. You needed them off.

You were in quite the daze, so it took you a moment to register that Slender was pushing the both of you up into standing.

Once you both were though, he had to hold you against him. Your legs were wobbly. You weren't used to the increased stimulant of being touched places in this body.

It was the faint but sudden breeze that made you realized he had removed your coat. He was starting on your shirt then too.

He suddenly turned you around, and you were suddenly against a tree. He was removing his suit jacket now.

"Open."

It was your mouth he wanted open. And you opened it, exhaling slightly when you did.

The force of the kiss had you whimpering, his upper pair of hands roughly grabbed your wrists, a pair of tentacles grabbed your lower ones. His sudden roughness had you squirming in between him and the tree, your crotch was also unbelievably hot, and was leaking with slick and pre.

Your upper arms were held against the tree, level with your head, and your lower ones were "cuffed" with his tentacles behind your back, making it arch into him.

.

.

He was rough with you. He was grinding his leg in between yours, his pants getting wet with your excrement, he was hardly letting you breathe with the messy kisses with tongues.

Your squirming against him riled him up. Jeez, he can't restrain you enough can he?

He pulled away, finally letting you breath in short, moaning gasps.

You froze and shuddered, a low growl emanating from him. The sound only made you chitter weakly, a groan left your throat as he started trailing nibbles down your neck.

His tentacles were holding your thighs apart.

His mouth was resting on the spot that was oddly throbbing now. You were (trying) to push your neck up into his mouth.

Slender hummed.

He dragged the tip of his tongue along the achy spot, making you shudder and squirm. He pressed against you after hearing the whimpery moan you made.

His skin was smooth, and in your sex-numbed daze you saw prominent veins of magik pulsing with his magik colour along his arms and body.

You gasped as you felt him press against your weeping tunnel.

"You ready, [Name]?"

You whimpered an answer, shuddering at the huskiness of his voice.

You yelped as you were both suddenly down, on a floor, him on top of you, but you weren't able to process that much before his dick started sliding into you.

You were so wet he didn't need to stop until he was completely inside you.

His lower arms were holding your hips as your back arched, his upper ones each had both sets of yours in their grasp, still pinning you down.

He had finally bitten that spot of your neck that ached for it, it sent a pulse of something through you.

You gasped, and moaned sweetly as he started rocking slowly into you, pulling out till just his tip was hitched on your entrance and then pushing back in.

.

.

He had you pinned down to the carpet covered floor completely, still slowly thrusting into you, and kissing you roughly, his tongues playing with yours.

As his hips rocked against yours, his body rubbed against yours.

His kisses didn't waver in their passion, and he didn't neglect your 'mark', the specific spot of your neck he bit.

Your moans filled the room. His groans and quiet grunts were stiffled by them. Your cunt would squeeze him, blinding you with stars and filling you with pleasure, making your arch into him. His tentacles were stroking your dick in between your bodies.

The sounds of his dick slipping into you were wet.

"Fuck, [Name], your so tight... And wet... So warm too..."

You whined, his dick felt so large, even despite your new size compared to him. You thought it wouldn't feel as tight.

It was pulsing inside you, the ridges it had rubbed along your walls, making you shake and fat tears well up in your eyes.

He was thrusting very deep into you, you swear even being around his size and height he was filling you much more than you were supposed to handle. But you loved it. His dick was warm, and thick. And hard. Its ridges rubbed against your gummy walls whenever he moved inside you, making pleasure reverb through you.

Despite being pinned, you still squirmed, and pressing into him.

He had let go of your lower arms, the hands of which were tightly gripping his lower shoulders.

He was thrusting so deep. So so deep. You felt him squeeze his way further into you, you felt him in your tummy. It made that area of your body feel tight.

His teeth were marking any place he could bite down on; your shoulders, your collar, neck, nibbling on your jaw, your chest. Anywhere. The moans and sobs of pleasure eminating from you made him warm and riled. He was close to going feral on you.

The crotch tentacles you both had were wrapping around eachother and were trying to pulling your hips closer.

He thrust into a particular area that made moans get caught in your throat, and he didnt stop hitting it.

His rough but soft thrusts would drag his dick along that spot, making your legs turn to jelly, and the breath leave your lungs. The hot, pangy and painful pleasure the motion spazzed through your body made you go limp against him.

He hugged you to him as you arched into him again, his mouth next to your ear.

"You are doing.. So, so good [Name].."

He shuddered as your sopping cunt squeezed him. His tentacles squeezed your dick when it pulsed in their grasp.

Your moans wavered, his hand grabbed your head.

"That's it [Name], be a good little spider. Be a good little spider and spill. Come on, little spider.. Cum for me.."

His deep and gruff words sent you ober the edge, your moans loud, his tentacles pumping you even as you came all over the both of you. His tentacles slithered in spirals around your dick, moving as they climbed and sank, one rubbing over your slit as cum continued spilling from it.

You felt your cunt was quivering, and he laid you completely down to the ground again, hugging you still, as he sped up his thrusts, bringing quick and loud moans out of you.

Your cunt clamped around him as you spilled there too, your claws scratching at his back you came around his cock, and your loud, wanton moans echoed in the room a bit. The pressure from how tightly you were squeezing him made your vision darken and stars appear.

He didn't stop thrusting into you, however. In fact, he did quite the opposite, thrusting harder into you, his dick roughly rubbing along your sweet spot now, the ridges pulling small squeals of pleasure from you.

Two pairs of large tentacles messaged your chest muscles, and smaller tentacles slithered along your body and found ares to suction to to leave dark bruises on your now moon-pale skin.

The hands Slenderman didn't have occupied with keeping you pinned were used to slide and rub across your body, squeezing other sensitive areas.

Your moans quivered and wavered, and your lungs desperate for air, pulling even more desperate pants out of you, and yet he wasn't letting up. You tried to find words to plead for less, to beg him to go easier on you, it was too much, but your voice couldn't muster the words, nonetheless form them in your head.

Drool and tears were ebbing from your mouth and eyes, your eyes were heavy and lidded with the pleasure, your upper ones closed because you were beginning to grow tired and exhausted from how much at once your body was experiencing.

Slender could tell you were getting tired. Your grip on him was softening, your body was practically going limp beneath him, your voice was wavering and stuttering, your pretty song was fading.

The slick and sloppy sounds his dick made as it slid in and out of your soaking cunt were now loud with the added slick from your orgasm, making a mess.

Your dick was beginning to hurt, it was being overstimulated beyond belief. Your hadn't made yourself cum more than once at a time before.

You choked as you felt a second pair of orgasms building inside you, the feeling spreading warmth and making you exhale shakily.

You whimpered feeling him drill into you as hard as he could. He was looming over you, no longer needing to pin you down himself anymore.

He chuckled, the sound making you lazily look at him.

"You look so cute like this [Name].. Had I known you would look so good, I'd have done this to you at least once while you were still human..."

You couldn't react to his statement as the orgasms that were building finally released. Your back weakily arching as both your throbbing dick and swollen pussy released cum at once, your jelly legs weakily moved too, and your upper hands were grabbed by his as they closed from the immense wave of pleasure that shook your body.

When you body went limp again from the end of it, he was still going. Your hands weakily closed around his.

You sobbed as your dick was painfully brought back to life from Slender's tentacles, and your tired pussy was also pushed beyond its limits.

Your body was loosing its strength seemingly. The orgasms came much quicker, a third already sneaking up on you, and your loud wanton moans were reduced to whimpers and whines.

You whimpered loudly as you felt the third orgasm.

"Don't worry, [Name], we'll have.. a nice hot bath when we're done here.." His words were interrupted with his quiet grunts.

It didn't take long for a third set of orgasms to shake your body, tears spilled from your eyes, and drool from your mouth as you let out weak little moans.

It was now you were feeling his movements become sloppy. His lower hands softly grabbed your thighs and folded your legs, giving himself a much better angle to fill you.

But this new angle had him reaching deeper into you, somehow. You looked, a shuddery gasp escaping you as you saw the small but noticeable bulge that showed. Your dick was red, and painfully throbbing.

You let out a pained moan as a fourth pair of orgasms slienced you, your meak moans getting caught up in your throat.

Even more so when you felt the sudden hot spread up into you. You shuddered, whining with pleasure.

He was still inside you, his knot inside you as well.

He was beathing deeply, you were panting.

He thrust slow and gentle a few times, to lessen the mess.

You squirmed, gasping and whining at a bigger lump forcing its way into you.

"Shhhh, it's okay [Name]."

Slender held you cheek.

"It's just my eggs~"

You let out a meak whimpery moan as the lump slid all the way into you, down to where his tip was in you, right up against your.. Ah.. Uterus? Did you have one of those if you had a pussy? Yes. You do have one, and Slender was filling it.

"Fuck, you look so cute all fucked out like this... We should do this more often [Name]."

Your body felt numb, and limp. It felt so warm to, the hot from Slenderman's seed spread through you.

It took a moment before he was done. He had trouble pulling out though. You were very tight now, something all Slenderbeings did when they got their fill. It was a way to keep it all inside.

He pulled out, finally, your cunt actually closing up. He pulled you down, level with him.

He was gentle in pulling you up. And slow.

Your legs were completely jelly. You couldn't even stand with them.

He picked you up though. Bridal style.

"Looks like someone's too tired for a bath..."

You were pretty much asleep in his arms.

You inquisitively whimpered feeling warmth cover you.

You felt him cuddle up with you. Ah, you were in a bed, under some blankets.

"Sleep well, [Name]... I love you, my pretty mate.."

One of his hands stroked your cheek.

"L...love you too..."

You fell asleep in his arms, wrapped up in eachother.

[alwaysxlarrie]

10 fav quotes from fics part 7 !!

another week, another post leggggggooooo

“At least he considered the shag,” he hears Liam mutter to Niall, and Louis kicks his shin for it. -- @nobodymoves

Louis hastily sits down in the chair, knee accidentally brushing against Harry’s, and—fuck. He’s not cut out for this. -- @infinitelymint

Harry’s chocolate milk was gone, but he pretended that it wasn’t to avoid eye contact. -- @2tiedships2

All Harry can think about is the fact that he now owns a butt plug and cuffs. Fuck. -- @kingonafiftymetreroad

“You could actually meet someone normal, your age, have a boyfriend, date them… Maybe not a sugar daddy this time?” Harry ventured cautiously. Nick just scoffed and continued to complain about his counterpart Caroline and everything she had ever done wrong since the beginning of time. -- @becomeawendybird

He better come back soon; the second act is about to start. He better come back, period. Harry doesn’t even know his name, and he fully intends to by the time he leaves this theatre. -- @disgruntledkittenface

Apparently, ‘next time’ means next day and apparently, ‘Harry being able to talk to the others’ means Louis obliging everyone sitting at the table to play along with his version of 20 questions. (Which is actually not really 20 questions, but just means Louis shouting out questions to the rest of them.) -- @brightbluelou

No one has come looking for him the whole time he has been in here, but what can Harry really expect when they’re probably all crowded around each other, laughing, drinking, and eating. They’re probably eating his pretzels right now. Niall probably even suggested it, the bastard. -- @fallinglikethis + @all-these-larrythings

For all intents and purposes, Harry is a cadaver.  -- @londonfoginacup

Seeing as Louis’ perception of Harry was now a living smiley face with endearing dimples, he could actually picture the two of them on a friendlier basis. (Not that it had ever crossed his mind that Harry could eventually hollow those dimpled cheeks to give Louis head at the end of his bed—No, it hadn’t.) -- @broken-beaks

[kerakitty]

Adam’s Creation and Appearance

So there’s a lot of nitpicking surrounding how Victor made Adam and how Adam should be portrayed as a result of that (e.g. should he have stitches, varying skin color, etc). I find this kinda weird because we don’t actually know how Adam was made. Victor intentionally omits this information when telling his story to Robert Walton for fear of someone managing to reproduce his work.(1)

We do have a few, scant details, but they’re hardly enough to draw any solid conclusions from. Here’s a list of all the facts given about his creation (relevant quotes with page numbers at bottom of post):

Making Adam big allowed Victor to work faster.(2)

It took Victor months to gather the materials he needed.(3)

Some materials were gathered from dissecting rooms, charnal houses, and slaughter-houses.(4)

Victor was able to choose Adam’s features (e.g. hair color and texture, tooth alignment).(5)

The whole process, both gathering materials and actual construction, took a little under two years.(6)

That’s it. That’s all we know. We don’t know how these “materials” were used, we don’t know what caused them to go from inanimate to living, or even what exactly they were. Yes, Victor mentions collecting his materials from the places listed above, but aside from mentioning bones(4), he doesn’t say what exactly he was taking. Were they intact organs? Pieces of tissue? Entire limbs? We don’t know. Confusing things further, Victor mentions that he “dabbled” with graves and “tortured living animals”(7), but doesn’t clarify whether these were additional sources of materials or simply research into the mechanisms of life and death.

General consensus seems to be that Victor used organs and whole body parts from cadavers to create Adam, but there's plenty of evidence that that’s not the case. Aside from the fact that it would’ve been difficult to create an 8ft tall body with proportional limbs out of pieces of humans averaging under 6ft, there are a few lines in the novel that indicate that this wasn’t Victor’s method. Victor consistently refers to the materials he used as “lifeless” and “inanimate”, but never dead. He also consistently speaks of imbuing new life into the materials rather than renewing or restoring life. In fact he outright states that reanimating the dead was, as best as he could figure, impossible.(8) Whether this only refers to raising a dead individual as they’d been in life or to any organic tissue is, like so much of Victor’s research, extremely vague.

So where does that leave us in terms of Adam’s appearance? Well, with not a whole lot to go on. Does he have stitches? Maybe. Does his skin color vary? Also maybe, though probably not given that Victor describes his skin and makes no mention of any variation in tone.(9)

The closest thing we have to a canon appearance for him is probably the illustration included in the 1831 edition of the novel.

There’s no stitches or other scars visible here, but since we have no idea how much (if any) input Shelley herself had on this design, that’s not necessarily confirmation one way or the other.

Ultimately, aside from a handful of details, we don’t really know what Adam should look like. We know he has thick black hair, watery yellowish eyes, yellower skin, straight white teeth, thin black lips, and is 8ft tall with all features proportional to that size.(9) Outside of that, and the fact that he looked ugly but not horrifying right up until he started moving(10), it’s up to the reader’s imagination. And given that the novel was intended to be a horror story, I suspect that’s intentional. In horror it’s often our imaginations that supply the most frightening imagery and any good creator of horror is aware of this fact.

So portray Adam however you want, and maybe don’t nitpick other people’s portrayals of him. So long as neither of you are going against the few explicitly described details the novel provides, they’re probably not any more off the mark than you are.

Source quotes and page numbers below the cut.

All quotes and page numbers are taken from this upload of the 1818 text.

”I see by your eagerness, and the wonder and hope which your eyes express, my friend, that you expect to be informed of the secret with which I am acquainted; that cannot be. ...I will not lead you on... to your destruction and infallible misery” pg 23

”As the minuteness of the parts formed a great hindrance to my speed, I resolved... to make the being of a gigantic stature;” pg 24

“...having spent some months in successfully collecting and arranging my materials...” pg 24

“I collected bones from charnel houses... The dissecting room and the slaughter-house furnished many of my materials;” pg 24

“I had selected his features as beautiful.” pg 26

“I had worked hard for nearly two years...” pg 26

“...I dabbled among the unhallowed damps of the grave, or tortured the living animal to animate the lifeless clay[.]” pg 24

“...if I could bestow animation upon lifeless matter, I might in process of time (although I now found it impossible) renew life where death had apparently devoted the body to corruption.” pg 24

“His limbs were in proportion, and... [h]is yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath; his hair was of a lustrous black, and flowing; his teeth of a pearly whiteness; but these luxuriances only formed a more horrid contrast with his watery eyes, that seemed almost of the same colour as the dun white sockets in which they were set, his shrivelled complexion, and straight black lips.” pg 26

“I had gazed on him while unfinished; he was ugly then; but when those muscles and joints were rendered capable of motion, it became a thing such as even Dante could not have conceived.” pg 27

Side note on that last line: I always felt Victor was rather underselling the creativity of Dante here. Dante came up with some trippy shit. I doubt the Uncanny Valley was something of which he “could not have conceived”.

[cholericcadaver]

Cadaver fact: nope, don’t think so

Cadaver fact: I’m very real

Cadaver fact: maybe all the trolls around you are just dead

Cadaver fact: probably not? that would suck

-> im feel like m aybe all of fhe2e ofher troll2 on here m aybe arent re al

-> im h avent 2een any ofher troll2 with my eye2 b4

-> u are all a dre am ?

[whatstruthgottodowithit]

Love In Trouble [Part One]

Fandom: Elvis Presley, American Musician, RPF

Pairing: Elvis Presley x Original Female Character, Austin Butler x Original Female Character

Characters: Elvis Presley, Original Female Character, Austin Butler,

Rating: Explicit

Word Count: 2576

Summary: Lori Presley lives the high life. She has a lovely home, a elegant wardrobe and her parties are the most sought after ticket in town. Not to mention her husband is the King of Memphis. But what if she no longer wants to be the Queen?

Tags/Warnings: This is a mafia au with detective austin butler entering the chat, Memphis Mafia, Detective Austin Butler, Adultery, Infidelity, Love, Angst, Unhappy Marriage, Murder, Court Room Drama in the loosest possible way, AU, Set in the 70s

Notes: The first couple chapters are a bit slow going but we'll meet Lori and Elvis soon I promise. Looking to post every other week with this one :) Enjoy

LINK TO ALL PARTS // LINK TO AO3 // LINK TO PINTEREST

Ever since he was a little boy Austin Butler had loved the sun. There was just something about it; the way it shined basking everything it covered in a golden hue or how everyone seemed a little happier whenever it was out. He supposed it was because it made him feel like he was at home in California, a place he had been missing quite a bit recently, the clunky fit of her new job and his run down flat making him yearn for palm trees and ocean breeze. He’d even take his old partner at this rate, a curmudgeonly old man knocking on the door of retirement and not one to care about a young detective trying to find his feet in a new precinct. Though if there was one thing he desperately missed about home it was the fact that the Californian heat couldn’t wreak half as much havoc on a dead body like the balmy air of Memphis did.

After working in homicide for so long he’d figured he’d gotten used to all the smells that a ripe cadaver could hold but in this tiny apartment with no air conditioner and the contending June temperatures he was proved wrong. He held his breath as he ducked under the police tape cursing himself for having eaten not so long ago as his turkey sandwich did cartwheels inside him. Then again he supposed it could be worse he could be the guy splayed out on the floor in front of him lying in a pool of his own blood, his eyes still staring out glassy and cold.  Austin sighed.

Even though his entire job was murder it somehow never got any easier. The number of dead bodies he’d seen didn’t take that sickly feeling away whenever he was confronted by his latest victim. Though admittedly he wondered if that was less to do with a life being snuffed out too soon or the fact he knew that at some point he’d have to take this news to their friends and family and rip their world apart. It was a grief he’d known himself, one that never got easier no matter how much time or distance you shoved between yourself and it.

Given that the coroner had yet to arrive it meant that the crime scene was technically still closed and so he was careful to keep his distance when he bent down beside the body, wrinkling his nose at the fresh waft of decomposition. The guy was young, no more than early twenties if he’d had to guess, and attractive too in a boyish sort of way. Though they were lifeless now he could tell his pale blue eyes were striking and had no doubt once complimented the guy’s skin tone even if it was now waxy and pallid. In fact the only detracting feature was the bullet wound to his temple which he had no doubt looked better on this side than the one that had landed face down, spewing blood onto the beige carpet and turning it a deep shade of brown. 

‘There’s gunpowder on his face,’ his partner, Detective John Melling, said as he appeared from nowhere, his errand to find the manager of the place apparently done with.

‘Yeah I know, a close shot,’ Austin said, pulling up from where he was crouched and trying to ignore the way his slacks stuck to the back of his knees as if glued there by sweat, ‘which means that bullet is probably somewhere in that bookshelf.’

‘Good luck with that one,’ John snorted. Austin rolled his eyes. He liked John. He was a good detective, smart and good with families, but he, like most of the other detectives in Shelby County, had yet to make his mind up about the newcomer from California. And so he treated him as the rest did, with caution, until he proved his worth which in this instance meant finding a bullet amongst a backdrop of wood and wall. 

As John moved away to rifle through the man’s mail Austin moved around the room, stopping first at the bookshelves. He could see the path it had taken, ripping a novel in half as it hurried to its final destination only that looked to be out of reach and so he made a note to circle back to it. After that he moseyed on looking for his first impression, one that was building bit by bit until he spotted an older bald man standing by the uniformed officer at the police tape.

‘Can I help you?’ Austin asked the man who had been staring at the body as if in a trance. Austin moved to block his view, feeling a sudden urge to protect his victim as if he was now exposed as if he hadn’t already been ogling the guy himself. 

‘Uh, no, I er,’ the man mumbled. John barely looked up from the stack of envelopes as he said, ‘he’s the one who called it in. Landlord.’

‘Oh,’ Austin said, moving towards the man so that they were just separated by the doorframe and police tape. Again the landlord’s eyes flitted back to the body, his colour paling as he suppressed a dry heave. Austin cleared his throat, diverting his attention as he asked, ‘you see anything uh?’

‘Geoff, Geoff Halton,’ the landlord said, ‘and uh no. Like I told your friend I was just coming to collect the rent.’

‘When’s that due?’ Austin asked.

‘First of the month,’ Geoff replied. Austin raised an eyebrow.

‘And you waited,’ he paused, checking his watch for the date, ‘what five days to come and ask for it? That doesn’t sound like any landlord I’ve ever had.’

‘Well he’s never normally late so I gave him a few extra days,’ Geoff said as he pulled a crinkled-up handkerchief from the pocket of his slacks so that he could dab his sweaty brow, the perspiration nothing to do with the outside temperature. Austin knew he was being unfair that the likelihood of this weathered middle aged man having anything to do with this was low but he had always found putting the first responder under pressure to be a good technique. In their desperation to prove their innocence they offered up more evidence which looking around the bare bones of this guy’s apartment couldn’t be a bad thing.

‘Five’s a lot of days,’ Austin countered.

‘Like I said he’s never been any trouble and I’d rather have one good tenant a day or two behind once in a while than a nightmare one on time. But when he still didn’t swing by my office I thought something might be up,’ Geoff replied.

‘So when he didn’t pay up you came around?’ Austin asked, receiving a nod in return.

‘I knocked but there was no answer,’ Geoff replied.

‘Did you let yourself in?’ Austin asked, his eyes surveying the wood of the door for any scuffs or marks. If he had done it was likely that any prints on the door handle would be useless. 

‘I have the master key,’ Geoff said, adding in protest when he saw Austin deflate, ‘but I only ever use it for emergencies! And when I came in I could smell, well, that. I saw him lying there and I knew there ain’t no use checkin’ he was still alive so I called you guys.’

‘Do you know his name?’ Austin asked, suddenly realising he’d been poking around in this man’s life without even knowing his most basic detail.

‘Tony,’ Geoff replied.

‘Tony what?’ Austin pressed.

‘Bowen,’ John replied, holding up an envelope as Austin looked his way before turning his attention back to the landlord.

‘Did he live here alone?’ he asked.

‘Yeah,’ Geoff replied.

‘Any relatives?’ Austin pressed, the mugginess of the room making this feel harder than he’d anticipated it to be.

‘I’d have to check his file to see who he listed,’ Geoff said, ‘we’re not exactly close.’

‘Obviously the man’s been laying in your building dead as a doornail for five days,’ Austin countered, his sniping coming out before he had a chance to stop it. Geoff seemed bolstered by his tartness, straightening up from the nervous pathetic puddle he’d been and growing irritated as he said hotly, ‘what I meant was I don’t know much about him. He keeps to himself; he keeps his nose clean and that’s as much as I need to know.’

‘Not too clean evidently,’ John countered, finally moving away from the stack of unopened post. Austin could feel him looking around, surveying the scene, and feeling as though they’d probably pressed about as much out of Geoff that was useful he decided to cut him loose in favour of asking his partner his opinions.

‘Go with officer Bryant here and find those papers. We’re gonna need a next of kin to notify,’ Austin said, not waiting for a response before he turned his back on the man. John raised an eyebrow but waited until the pair of them were left alone with just Tony for company who admittedly didn’t make much of an effort to join in.

‘You were a little sharp with him don’t you think?’ John asked, perching on the edge of a sofa arm.

‘It gets them to the point,’ Austin said dismissively, ‘and considering he wasn’t much help that’s a good thing.’

‘Yeah? Let me guess the room’s telling you more than the eye witness is,’ John said, his scepticism poking through. That was another thing he was still getting used to, the reliance people of the south had on human nature. Over the dozen or so cases they’d worked together he’d been astounded to realise just how much word and character spoke when clear cut facts were staring people in the face. In fact ‘they’re good folks’ was a narrative he was sure he’d never get on board with. Still he didn’t bother to argue the point but rather present the facts themselves showing how even without speaking the room had said more than the landlord had.

‘Maybe. He’s a single guy right?’ Austin asked.

‘Looks like,’ John said, glancing around, ‘he could have a girl though.’ 

‘One that doesn’t get in contact or check up on him for more than five days?’ Austin asked, raising an eyebrow. As John shrugged and nodded in agreement he continued, ‘from the looks of this apartment I’d say he’s a single guy living alone and his landlord doesn’t know his next of kin which means he either doesn’t have one or they’re infrequently in touch or at the very least they don’t come here to see him.’

‘Right,’ John replied.

‘So why are there two glasses of half-drunken scotch on the coffee table?’ Austin asked, watching as John noted the two whiskey glasses in front of him.

‘So there was someone here,’ John replied.

‘But his mail is unopened and the pizza box on the counter is full, an uneaten pizza just sitting there,’ Austin continued making John’s eyes drift past him to the De Roma’s pizza box sitting on the kitchen worktop, the bottom of the cardboard darkened by the grease that had been soaking into it as the pizza lay uneaten.

‘So what?’ John asked.

‘I think he came home with the pizza and mail in hand but he was distracted by someone coming over. It mustn’t have been planned otherwise they’d just eat the pizza together. If it happened after he’d been home for a while the pizza would be gone and his mail opened,’ Austin said.

‘He opens the door for the guy who’s gonna put a bullet in his skull and asks him if he wants a night cap?’ John said sceptically.

‘Maybe the person came to talk and Tony felt like he had to,’ Austin replied.

‘But if it was about something worth killing the guy for I can’t imagine it was a polite chat. And apart from the dead guy the apartment looks in pretty good condition to me,’ John said, glancing around the room. He was right apart from the unsightly corpse in the centre of the room; the rest of it was relatively tidy. Granted it wasn’t very large with the room split into a living and kitchen area but there was no clutter, apart from the bookshelf there wasn’t much personality to any of it. It actually resembled Austin’s current apartment, devoid of personality though his was due to lack of time to make it his own given the fact he was new in town and always working. Though at this point that felt slightly better. He may have not had a chance to put a fresh lick of paint on his walls but he also hadn’t had a chance to make enemies like Tony apparently had. Austin was thinking about that, wondering what had made the guy sit down with the person who would end his life. 

Had he known what was coming or why they were there? Or had he been blindsided by it all? 

‘Is that his file?’ John asked, snapping his partner out of his trance as the landlord reappeared at the door along with their officer. Apparently Austin’s attitude had left no love lost as he nodded but didn’t say anything, offering the small manilla folder over the tape as if signalling both his compliance and reluctance at the same time. Austin rolled his eyes but watched as John took the folder from him before he quickly scurried out of view.

‘What have we got?’ Austin asked as John threw the folder down on the tiled counter with a splat before he started to sift through it. If he was being honest with himself he wanted to read through it himself but knew it was probably better to give him the lead here. John’s eyes flitted across the pages. From what Austin could see there were a few info pages, copies of receipts and rent stubs but nothing much else.

‘Says here Grandma’s next of kin but it looks like she lives in Florida,’ John murmured as he read through the sheet, ‘lease agreement was signed over a year ago and he works at, oh.’

‘What is it?’ Austin asked craning his neck to try and spy what he had spotted. Though as his partner looked up, a beaten expression falling across his face he started to worry.

‘He works at Kings,’ John said with a sigh.

‘So?’ Austin said. He’d heard of the place. A little club on Beale Street, a home of good music and the hotshots of Memphis though he had yet to scope out the joint for himself. What he had heard though did not warrant the reaction John was giving, one that signalled their job had just gotten a little harder. Then again as a native Memphian maybe there was something Austin didn’t know yet. After all there wasn’t a club or bar on his patch when he worked the beat he didn’t know inside out. He knew which places were known for trouble and those he could rely on for a tip here or there. And from the look John was giving him he was sure Kings wasn’t one of those he could hit up for some friendly police cooperation.

‘So if he works there then chances are this is something to do with them,’ John said.

‘Who?’ Austin asked.

‘The Memphis Mafia.’ 

ELVIS TAGS

@girlblogger2002 @sania562 @caitlin1996 @literally-just-elvis-fics @notstefaniepresley @18lkpeters @velvetelvis @jaqueline19997 @elvispresleyxoxo @amydarcimarie @everythingelvispresley @elvispresleywife @lillypink @richardslady121 @louisejoy86 @ccab @i-r-i-n-a-a @lettersfromvenus @artlesson8892 @presleyenterprise

AUSTIN TAGS

@purejasmine @caitlin1996