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basilknell · 6 months ago

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Vasily's Literacy

I’ve been asked a couple times about Vasily’s literacy, so here’s a quick overview of stats and pertinent information laid out regarding that idea. I’ll make my statement on my own opinion towards his literacy at the end, but for now I’ll focus on exact numbers and stats without interjecting opinion.

While this post primarily pulls specific stats from When Russia Learned to Read by Jeffery Brooks, I’ve read a couple papers and other books regarding these subjects I pull general statements from as well. Please note, though, that there were no large scale official census in Russia until 1897 so some of these stats from previous years could potentially be skewed.

Source Material

First and foremost: do we ever see Vasily read or write in the series?

No. However, this can be explained quickly away. Until running into Tsukishima, Vasily was likely (incorrectly) assuming that not only did none of the Japanese characters speak Russian, but they did not use the same writing system either. It would have been a waste of resources (paper) to attempt a conversation where a drawing could suffice. Additionally, there is no other scene in the series involving him and Tsukishima that would have warranted him writing to Tsukishima either. At least, none that we see. So, him never being seen writing does not necessarily prove he is illiterate.

Vasily’s Age

With that out of the way, there’s another important piece of information we need to pin about Vasily before we continue: Vasily’s age. While Noda specified he’s the same age as Ogata, Ogata is unfortunately given no age range. But, unlike these two, Usami does have a canon age: 26. We can use Usami as a frame of reference because Noda stated Usami is, in fact, older than Ogata. Thus, this means Ogata is 25 and so Vasily is also 25.

Now, I personally tend to make these two older, but for a frame of reference we are going to pin Vasily at 25 years old. The reason this is significant is to pin down exactly when Vasily went to school. If in 1907 he was 25, then the age he was deemed ‘school age’ (8 - 11) would be around 1890 - 1893. Of course, he always could have attended school at an earlier or later age, but for conjecture’s sake, we will use the average age such as these.

As I said previously, an official census was not published in Russia until 1897, but any previous information before that typically begins around the 1870s. So it would benefit us to default to 1897 statistics, but keep in mind that the stats are skewed a tad higher than they would have been.

Rural Literacy

Literacy in the late 19th century was not nearly as bad as people make it out to be (at a rate of around 21% in 1897), but only because rural numbers brought it down. For example, in industrialized cities such as Moscow, 70% of men were regarded as being literate. There were also a plethora of schools dotting the country, from Zemstvo-funded schools, to church schools, to state schools. It was often not the lack of schooling availability that caused a decrease in rural literacy compared to urban children, but rather social aspects.

I am unable to find exact stats for rural literacy rates around the year 1890, but literacy rose from 6% in rural populations in the 1860s to 25% in 1910. It’s also best to keep in mind, however, men were far more likely to be literate than women, and the young more likely than older populations as well. So, if we were to take an increased decade raise (rounding up to about 4% every 10 years), and exclude the population numbers from including women which will be about half the population, we get around a 36%* base chance Vasily is literate when he is from a rural population (of which he is – he is from Yeleninka, a rural town in the Orenburg voisko), still not excluding elderly populations.

This is still not a very high chance, but there’s some other factors to discuss. Firstly, would have to be involving his background. The reason literacy was so low in rural areas was because, although parents did place value on literacy because it allowed for social movement and potentially higher wages, parents simply could not afford the lost labor of their children attending school. If a family had several children and could afford the loss of labor, then a child was much more likely to attend school. So, even if Vasily’s family had been described as being poor by Noda, this had no bearing on Vasily’s likeness to attend school. Given Vasily is almost entirely assured to be in the military through conscription, he very likely had brothers. And if he had brothers – he was very likely to attend school compared to single children families.

Another factor involves his family’s occupation. Families dependent on agricultural work were less likely to send their children to school because it was expected for them to work on that same farm when they were older, thus limiting their need for literacy. But, if Vasily’s family were artisans or practiced some kind of craft alongside agriculture, parents highly valued literacy in comparison, and were more willing to spare the labor loss for schooling.

Religion also played a role. Specifically, those of the Old Believer faith tended to be more literate and push to educate their children regardless of their occupational status compared to regular Russian Orthodox peasants. Aside from a general cultural insistence on preferring literacy, there is no other reason why this occurred, as the only major difference between Old Believers and Russian Orthodox peasants was a matter of ceremony (excluding some fringe Old Believer cults). If Vasily came from an Old Believer family, they'd push for him to be literate regardless of the labor loss they'd experience.

Finally, some parents preferred to send their sons to school to lower their military conscription length. While university students conscripted only had to serve 1.5 years of the required 5 year length, those who completed at least 3 years of any schooling had that length lowered to 4 years. If a family had several sons, which meant their sons were eligible to be drafted by the lotto, they would be more partial to educating said sons.

For some stats: unfortunately I could only find the rate of attendance of boys in school for 1911. Please examine these stats with a critical eye that they should be lower. 88% of boys in rural areas attended school for at least 1 year, but by year 3 this percentage dropped to about 38.5%.

*My math numbers will be off because there were a decent amount of women who were literate, just at a noticeably lower rate compared to men. For ease of math’s sake, I removed them from the population entirely, though the original percentage statistic did include them. They originally were likely less than 1% of the literate population in the 1860s statistic I used as a base.

Soldier Literacy

While it is useful to look at literacy stats of Vasily’s background (being a rural resident), what’s more useful is the literacy rates of the army for when Vasily was serving.

By the 19th century, Russia realized the value in literate soldiers – but unfortunately for Vasily, schooling for soldiers that the government had originally created in 1855 was abolished across the 1890s. But this did not mean literacy still did not rise in the military, as certain soldier ‘uncles’ brought it upon themselves to educate other soldiers. In fact, literacy in the army rose from about 21% in 1874 to about 68% in 1913 – rounded up to about a 6% increase in literacy every 5 years. Vasily would’ve been conscripted into the army by 1902, and applying the rate of increase, there was about a 51% literacy of the army in 1899, and 57% literacy in 1904. A higher than half chance for Vasily, who we see actively still in the army by 1907.

There are other factors to consider as well: Vasily’s rank and station. While the illiterate often went to the infantry units, specialized units had much higher rates of literacy. As I’ve discussed in the past, Vasily might have been in a specialized unit – an RIA unit continually supporting the Cossack border guards, or the Special Border Guard Corps. His literacy chance rises higher due to this factor, as literacy was especially preferred because of the ability to read topographic maps and telegrams.

It is not Vasily’s presence in a specialized unit that also increased his likelihood of being literate – it was his rank as well. While Noda removed most telling marks from Vasily of his rank, such as shoulder straps, there’s two glaring tells. Firstly, are his and Ilya’s binoculars. Ilya appears to be to be a Feldwebel (equivalent to an American First-Sergeant, British Sergeant-Major) given his position of ordering the other soldiers, and that he has binoculars which were only used by officers. He is, like Tsukishima, a Non-Commissioned Officer (NCO). Vasily himself also has binoculars, though one could argue this does not inherently make him an NCO because Ilya has at least two traits marking him as an NCO. After all, Vasily could have stolen his binoculars and his overcoat is one that a private would wear (Ilya does wear a private’s coat as well. Though, I have addressed before that the uniforms of the border guards gang are completely incorrect regardless of rank, so I am unsure of how much weight this should be given).

That second tell is actually Vasily’s cockade. The cockade worn on the hats of soldiers denoted generally their rank and status. So, while Vasily lacks any other visual clothing tells, his cockade can give a general idea if he is of a lower or higher rank, which does indeed change his literacy statistics.

[Pictured are 3 cockades. The far left is the cockade of a lower rank soldier, while the cockades in the middle and far right are cockades of officers. Thank you to @rdstrpv for this image!]

This information is important because NCOs were almost demanded to be literate. It was essential for their occupation, as being able to read maps was one of the most important skills for an NCO to have. If Vasily was an NCO, which his cockade would indicate, he almost assuredly would be literate, or at the very least incredibly good at faking it.

[Pictured are the 3 different ways Vasily’s cockade is drawn.]

While in the anime Vasily’s cockade is given the appearance of the average lower-rank soldier, and typically this is how people place him. However in the manga, Vasily’s cockade is more ambiguous. When referencing it to the cockades above, it could pass as both a lower-rank or an officer’s cockade. The final example is of Noda’s detailed Vasily illustration that was not outsourced by an animation studio, nor constrained by swift time spent on manga panels. In this, Vasily clearly has on the cockade of an officer.

Obviously, given the anime drawing Vasily with a lower-ranking cockade and the manga is ambiguous, you could still make the argument he’s a low ranking soldier. Nonetheless, one should also consider that the government likely would’ve preferred to send a group of officers to apprehend a Tsar’s killer over, perhaps, privates, giving more credence to him being an NCO. That, and because Vasily was an experienced sniper in the war, it'd be especially strange he'd not received some promotions at the end of the war. And thus, Vasily’s literacy likeness goes up to almost-guaranteed. There were occasional examples of NCOs not being literate, but there were few and far in-between, making it unusual that a young NCO was illiterate in 1907.

Cossack Literacy

Of course, Vasily was not necessarily in the RIA. He could have instead been a Cossack. While the idea of an NCO and cockade still apply to Cossacks, I will still discuss Cossack literacy in the case you find Vasily to be of a lower rank.

Unfortunately exact statistical information regarding Cossack literacy has almost never been tracked before the Soviet period. Still, by the 19th century the Imperial Russian government had a special vested interest in educating their Cossacks, more so than their peasantry. There were many Cossack schools that taught everything from literacy to combat that children were almost required to attend. In fact, once entering the military at 21, Cossacks were required by the military to be literate unlike other soldiers, and if they were not literate they were mandated to pursue education while they were deployed.

This is not to say there were not illiterate Cossacks – one could finish their entire service as a Cossack without properly pursuing their literacy if they were crafty about it, similar to illiterate NCOs. But, again, this was unlikely. In comparison, Cossacks were far more likely to be able to read than that of the ordinary peasant in the army.

Final Thoughts

I’m of the opinion Vasily actually is literate, regardless of him being in the RIA as an NCO or a Cossack. He’s a very prideful character, and it slowly became a limiting stigma that one was illiterate in Russia, even in 1907. This is not to say Vasily can’t be illiterate – many of the stats I gave showed that there was a decent chance for illiteracy, especially if he was a first-born son to a farming family and only low-ranked. But in my opinion of all the facts culminating, I find I prefer the idea of him being literate. Have fun with this information regardless, and may it help you in whatever you intend to write or draw in the future!

A big thank you to @rdstrpv for her help in answering a couple of my questions to make sure I wasn’t misrepresenting information, and for her images. She's always a big help.

#not art #vasily pavlichenko #golden kamuy #my yapping disease strikes again #i might move to post these blogs on ao3 cuz i was told tumblr read more requires and account to open #if my math was wrong please god correct me. ive never taken a stats class in my life

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venus-haze · 2 years ago

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Adam Raised a Cain (Bo Sinclair x Reader)

Summary: The Sinclair house is haunted. It always has been and always will be as long as it’s standing. It’s a house you can’t think straight in, always keeping you on edge. The inhabitants are haunted too, and the longer you stay there, the further into the mire you get dragged by a dead woman’s claws and a man who can’t seem to decide whether he hates you or not.

Note: This fic can be considered a companion piece to Howl, though you don’t have to read one to understand what’s going on in the other. The reader is a woman (who gets put through the wringer again) but no other descriptors are used. It should surprise no one that the title comes from a Springsteen song. I’m going with the draft script where Bo killed Trudy, but it’s only mentioned briefly. Also I headcanon the Sinclairs as being Catholic for the drama of it all, so there’s some of that sprinkled throughout, though I want to explore that more at some point. Do not interact if you are under 18 or post thinspo/ED content.

Word count: 8.8k

Warnings: Murder. Descriptions of violence involving weapons (guns and knives). Disturbing and sadistic behavior. Misogyny. Kidnapping and prolonged captivity which involves physical abuse, emotional and psychological manipulation, major Stockholm syndrome, distorted sense of self. Unrequited crush (reader on Vincent). Threats of harm to one’s self. Descriptions of body horror on a victim and also parental abuse. Mentions of sexual content but nothing explicit. Do not interact if you are under 18.

You didn’t have to meet Trudy Sinclair to know you hated her. Some place between nowhere and eternity, you hoped her incorporeal being ached every time her name was internally cursed upon by you. Her specter loomed throughout Ambrose, a shadow that somehow had a chokehold on your life, but more so on your—captor? boyfriend? fiance? Whatever Bo was to you, he made Trudy your problem too.

The day after Bo brought you up to the house, he made you go back down to Ambrose with him, giving you no indication of what he had planned except to wear black. When he brought you to the church, an odd building you hadn’t noticed before, you wondered if god could even be present in such a place. Regardless, he led you up the aisle, past the wax congregation and up to the coffin that lay before the altar where the wax priest was giving the funeral mass through a recording that played on loop. As if the scenario wasn’t morbid enough, Bo knelt in front of the open casket, and you followed his example, paying your respects to his wax-preserved, deceased mother.

You’d gone to funerals before, seen relatives and friends done up in open caskets, one last hurrah before becoming food for worms. Trudy had been dead for at least a decade, you knew as much, but for a 10-years-dead bitch, she didn’t look half bad, all things considered. Her manicured hands, long red acrylic fingernails filed into what you could only call claws, were gripping a glass-bead rosary—you doubted she was a pillar of piety. Though, you could see her blonde wig was somewhat ajar, revealing what looked like an entry or exit wound on her temple. You knew better than to ask who shot her.

Anything you did around the house was under Bo’s scrutiny, and you were constantly compared to Trudy. For a man who seemed to live on microwave dinners before you started cooking, he sure had a lot to say about every meal you prepared. His most common critique was “Ain’t how mama made it.” Especially for Trudy’s recipes, written in a feminine scrawl on discolored index cards that you painstakingly followed to the letter. Her recipes weren’t good, either. Unseasoned slosh despite living in proximity to the capital of Cajun cuisine in the States.

Bo had seemed glad when you offered to clean up around the house, how quickly it seemed like you’d learned your place within the Sinclair household dynamic. Of course, it couldn’t be that easy. It never was with Bo. When you greeted him as expected when he returned home, with a warm kiss and a cold beer, he flew into a rage upon finding you had, in fact, cleaned. He somehow didn’t consider that cleaning involved you organizing belongings and throwing out garbage, ranting about how you can’t touch his stuff and now he can’t find anything.

Mornings weren’t too bad. In fact, it was when things were most domestic with Bo, when you could best convince yourself that you were in a normal relationship with him. Morning sex with Bo was far tamer by his standards than any other time he’d have sex with you, and sometimes he’d actually kiss you during it.

Despite technically not being on a schedule, he liked to be out of the house by 9 to work on whatever he did to keep Ambrose up and running. It didn’t matter whether or not you were an early riser, because he inexplicably was, and expected you to cook breakfast for him each day, a hot plate of whatever was in the fridge and a freshly brewed cup of coffee waiting at his seat by the time he sauntered downstairs. He’d greet you with a grin and a smack on the ass, as if you two were playful newlyweds.

Though you lived in the house, he didn’t entirely trust you, as he’d wait for you to eat your portion of whatever meal you’d cooked first before digging in. Playing house with Bo was far more stressful than you could’ve expected, though you hoped over time you’d get the hang of it. With the glittering ring adorning your finger, it seemed like he expected you to.

This particular morning was a pan of half a dozen scrambled eggs and a few slices of toast. You liked working with the radio on, cooking and cleaning during the day felt far less lonely with another voice around. Only three radio stations got any reception in Ambrose and one of them wasn't even consistent, as you found to your disappointment. Bo’s metal music was a collection of mixtapes made by various victims, which sent a chill down your spine as you briefly considered the implications. With your radio choices being country and oldies, you chose oldies, finding Frank Sinatra and Billie Holiday the appropriate soundtrack to your Stepford Wives-esque existence. A lump always formed in your throat whenever Connie Francis came on, no matter the song. She was Trudy’s favorite singer, Bo had informed you one day.

You took your seat next to him, grabbing one of the nearby newspapers. Bo would bring you newspapers or magazines he got from victims. It was how you found out you’d been in Ambrose for nearly three months by the time he let you out from captivity beneath the gas station. At first, you scanned every one for some mention of your disappearance, but gave up hope after a few weeks. Instead, you resigned yourself to ripping recipes out of women’s magazines and preoccupying yourself with crossword puzzles and comic strips.

Still, you found the astrology sections interesting and read yours and Bo’s horoscopes over breakfast each morning. He hated when his was negative, even though he claimed “I don’t believe in that garbage,” so sometimes you’d have to improvise. The news of the world was increasingly foreign to you, and you found the trends and gossip in magazines vapid.

“Whatcha got today?” he asked through a mouthful of eggs.

Though the paper was from two days prior, your eyes drifted to your sign. “Luck in love.”

“Damn right, darlin’.”

“Yours says an unexpected stranger will help you.”

He made a noncommittal grunt, shrugging before downing the rest of his coffee. “I’ll try to make it back here for lunch, but I probably won’t be home till late tonight. You give Vincent a holler if you need somethin’.”

“Okay, I love you,” you said, as was expected.

He didn’t always say it back, but for some reason, he made you tell him you loved him before he left in the mornings. You wouldn’t fight it, not if it made his mood even remotely better than the mildly-pissed-off to furious states that he seemed to operate under. In that instance, he returned the sentiment with an unknown amount of sincerity, giving you a kiss before leaving his dirty plate and empty coffee mug behind for you to clean.

You liked taking your time with your chores for the day. It was easier to cope with everything if you kept yourself too busy to start thinking too much. You flipped to the next page of the newspaper, reading some of the letters to the editor.

Creaking stairs caught your attention, and you looked up from the paper, surprised to see Vincent making an appearance so early. He was more of a night owl and seemed to avoid Bo when he could. The first time you met him was awkward as hell, and you still found it difficult to make eye contact with him over it. Bo had been in the middle of fucking you on the kitchen counter when his twin emerged from his basement ‘studio.’ You were mortified, and Vincent seemed to be as well, since he began backtracking until Bo shot him a grin, “Good ‘a time as ever to make introductions.” At least Vincent had the decency to mostly leave you alone since then.

“Morning Vincent,” you said, petting Jonesy as she ran up to your side. “Breakfast’s scrambled eggs.”

He nodded in response, piling the cold eggs on a plate and sticking it in the microwave. You looked down at Jonesy. She was a sweet dog, but you saw her just about as often as you saw Vincent, since she seemed to be his shadow.

“Do you want coffee? I just brewed a fresh pot.”

He looked at the coffee pot, considering it for a few moments before shaking his head. Unlike Bo, who drank half a pot of coffee every morning, Vincent would switch between coffee and tea in the mornings, at least the mornings you actually saw him. It wasn’t uncommon for Vincent to disappear for days at a time, though you always cooked enough for him, leaving a plate for him in the fridge.

Bo was a creature of habit, as you’d observed his strange and sometimes disturbing rituals living in the house with him, from drinking a beer as soon as he got home each evening to spending at least an hour visiting Trudy’s casket in church every Sunday at noon. Vincent seemed to do things sporadically, getting so involved in his work that you weren’t sure if he consistently ate let alone showered like he should. You knew they were twins, but even when you first met Vincent, you were aware of how different he was from Bo.

Of course, meeting Lester was nothing short of a shock to the system. You had felt like you were going crazy when you saw the man from the highway who’d directed you and your friends to Ambrose in the first place walk into the house with a friendly smile on his face while you were preparing lunch. Then Bo introduced him as his “kid brother” and Lester congratulated you for “shacking up” with Bo. The experience was dizzying and confusing, especially since you ended up getting along with Lester surprisingly well, having the closest thing to a regular, mundane conversation in months. He didn’t come up to the house very often, though.

Compared to Bo and Vincent, Lester seemed normal enough, though he was still complicit in your suffering and that of everyone else who came through Ambrose. You could barely piece together how it all started, when had their mother’s career warped into the surreal hell you found yourself in? Was it inevitable or avoidable?

From the news clippings you’d seen throughout the house, Trudy was undoubtedly talented when it came to wax art, but you couldn’t tell whether the grainy, black and white photos of the wax figures she posed with were real, like how your friends ended up. Then again, Ambrose had been a small, bustling town with real people to notice if tourists went missing. Once the highway was built and the sugar mill shut down, everyone left but the Sinclairs. Not that there was anywhere else for them to go, since Dr. Sinclair was practicing medicine unlicensed in Ambrose and Trudy’s skills didn’t have much of a practical application outside of being an eccentric and volatile small town celebrity.

You noticed that Bo rarely mentioned his father, and when he did, it was only in the context of his mother. There were no stories about playing catch with his old man or going to car shows together. If the myriad of rusted surgical tools laying around the house were any indication, you had a good guess as to how Bo bonded with his father, since Vincent seemed to get most of his mother’s attention. You could practically see Bo–young, devious, and starving for some kind of positive parental attention–kissing up to his father with claims that he wanted to be a doctor just like him someday. He probably ended up with a front row seat to the illegal and risky procedures that Dr. Sinclair performed in the family home. The one time you had to go into the dusty room that was the late Dr. Sinclair’s office, you almost passed out at the sight of the surgical bed that looked far too much like the one you had been strapped to for months beneath the gas station.

By the time you looked up from the newspaper, not having read a word of the letters to the editor, Vincent was gone, and Jonsey along with him. You sighed, figuring it was about time to start cleaning up from breakfast and get to the laundry list of tasks for around the house. As a result of none of the Sinclair brothers keeping up very good care of the place, there was a lot that had to be done in the way of cleaning. You hated it when you had to point out yet another part of the house that needed repairs to Bo. It was necessary, but you sure as hell didn’t want to push your luck by seeming like you were nagging him. Some days you really thought he was going to call it and either bring you back to the basement or kill you. You weren’t sure which option scared you more.

After cleaning up from breakfast, you began the task of cleaning out Lester’s old bedroom. He’d assured you that he had taken everything he needed when he moved into his own place and gave you the okay to throw away whatever you found in there. It would be a long undertaking, as you discovered when you first looked in the room, full of junk and smelling rancid. You had a bucket of cleaning supplies that you kept under the kitchen sink, all of which Bo had bought for you under the pretense that if you tried something smart with the cocktail of chemicals, he’d pour bleach down your throat himself.

Equipped with yellow rubber gloves and a dozen trash bags, you began cleaning your way through the room. It seemed Lester had developed his knack for taxidermy in his childhood bedroom before moving out, as you found roadkill in various states of preservation in a cardboard box. You shoved it all in a garbage bag, resisting the urge to gag at the smell.

Despite the monumental cleaning job before you, you were confident in your ability to make the room habitable–for whom, you weren’t exactly sure, but it’d be better than the state it was in. It had gotten to be a little past noon when you decided to go through one more box before taking a break for lunch. You’d set aside some things you found that Bo might want, figuring it best to check with him after the fit he threw when you cleaned his room.

When you opened a small, dusty box in the closet, your eyes widened upon seeing a pistol laying amongst other junk. You weren’t sure if it was even real, let alone usable, but holding it in your hands sent a shockwave through you. Dropping everything, you sprinted into your and Bo’s room, finding a shoebox with a pair of heels you never wore shoved toward the back corner of the closet. Your breath caught in your throat when you heard the front door open, Bo calling for you. Fuck, he wasn’t supposed to be home. Haphazardly, you threw the gun in the box, pushing it back in place before rushing downstairs.

“What’s kept you so busy?” he asked, regarding you with suspicion.

“Lester’s old room. I lost track of time,” you explained, sweat beading at your forehead.

To your relief, he laughed. “Shit, I don’t even wanna think about what’s in there. If you still got an appetite, I picked up somethin’ to eat while I was in town.”

“That sounds great. Let me wash up,” you said, giving him a kiss before heading into the bathroom.

You turned on the sink, holding your hands under the running water until it was too hot to touch, pulling your stinging hands away and staring at them. Less than five minutes ago, you had a gun in your hands, a get out of jail free card, and now you were going to eat lunch with a man who made your life miserable.

Bo had already helped himself to one of the burgers he’d bought from McDonald’s the next town over. You sat down in your seat, munching on the cold french fries that had spilled onto the table. The food wasn’t necessarily good, but it gave you some comfort with its familiarity. He was in an unusually good mood, which you were sure wouldn’t last, so you relished in it, allowing yourself the luxury of pretending you were having a normal lunch with your normal boyfriend. He told you a funny story about a woman falling over in a hardware store he’d stopped in for supplies. Sure, it was mean-spirited, but the way Bo told the story had you nearly doubled over.

“You got a great laugh,” he said with a smile.

“Thank you,” you said, shocked and flattered by the compliment.

His eyes were bright as he looked at you, but it didn’t last. His expression became serious, and he picked up his hat from where he’d placed it on the table. “I better head back out. I’ll see ya later, darlin’.”

“Okay, I love you.”

“Love you too,” he said, kissing your cheek before leaving.

After cleaning up the mess from lunch, long enough to be sure you were in the clear, you raced back upstairs, closing the bedroom door behind you as you retrieved the shoe box from its hiding spot. Adrenaline rushed through you as you picked up the gun, staring at it in awe.

You bit your lip, silently praying to whatever deity may have been out there that if they could give you one thing, it’d be to not accidentally set off the gun while you tried to figure out whether or not it even had any bullets in it. Of course, as soon as it made some kind of clicking noise, you shoved it back in the box. Vincent was more than likely in his studio, but with how he’d spontaneously make appearances in the house, you didn’t want to take a chance.

As you went back to cleaning Lester’s old room, you tried not to let your discovery burn through your mind. It was so hard not to, though, not when for the first time in months you actually had a chance. You had to plan, knowing better than to be sloppy and impulsive when it came to Bo and Vincent.

While Bo liked to have his routine, his schedule could be unpredictable, especially if tourists came into town. You avoided Vincent’s studio, but knew it connected to other parts of town through a tunnel system. Both brothers were capable of ending you in an instant. They knew Ambrose’s layout by heart whereas you’d only actually seen the town on a handful of occasions, and very briefly at that.

Noticing the sky getting dark through the window, you set your racing thoughts aside to focus on cleaning. Easier said than done since you dreaded nighttime, the sunset marking the end of the day, when you’d have Bo’s undivided attention. The evening was routine, as he expected you to wait by the door for him with a cold beer and a warm kiss when you heard his truck pull up outside. The two of you would eat while he talked about his day, but from there, it was a crapshoot. It didn’t matter whether his mood was good or bad, you inevitably ended up manhandled into bed at some point in the night to scratch whatever itch he had.

Bo wouldn’t be back until late, but you weren’t sure what to make for dinner. Sometimes he’d request certain dishes, and others you’d just have to hope he liked whatever you cooked. Even if he complained, he still ate what you served him.

You headed downstairs, dragging the garbage bags filled with junk behind you. While you still had a ways to go before you’d consider Lester’s old room clean, it was nice seeing evidence of your hard work. Calling out to Vincent, you let him know that you were going to bring the trash out. He’d hear you go out there anyway, but you quickly learned it was a lot less trouble if you let him know beforehand.

The night air was cool as you threw bag after bag into the garbage cans outside the house. You weren’t sure where Bo took everything when he’d load up the back of his truck every week. Out of sight, out of mind, you supposed.

Rushing back into the house and out of the cold, you quickly decided to make some kind of soup, hoping there’d be adequate ingredients for it in the fridge. A major downfall of not being able to get your own groceries meant having to rely on Bo to grab the food you requested and not whatever he felt like throwing into the cart.

Just about everything you needed was in the kitchen, and oddly enough, you felt excited for Bo to come home for dinner, trying to ignore the sense of foreboding that loomed over you as you chopped and sautéed vegetables. Things always seemed to balance in Ambrose. Bo’s unusually good mood earlier in the afternoon would be matched with a horrific one when he got home.

You unfortunately experienced such in your stint in the basement dungeon below the gas station, the fresh scars on your body evidence of this. As much as you used to pray for predictability, you hated knowing something horrible was about to happen next.

The soup was almost to your taste when you heard Bo’s truck pull up outside. Grabbing a can of beer from the fridge, you tried to hold out hope, you’d go crazy if you didn’t.

As soon as you heard the way he stomped up the front steps, you could feel all of the butterflies in your stomach die one by one. The door swung open to reveal Bo, covered in blood and sweat. Whatever victims had come into Ambrose put up a fight he clearly wasn't expecting.

He grabbed the can of beer from you, throwing it across the room, leaving a fresh hole in the drywall. You ran into the bathroom to grab the first aid kit and rushed back into the living room, only to find him sitting at the kitchen table.

You pulled up a chair close to him, setting out the first aid kit on the table. At a glance, it seemed like his wounds were mostly superficial, so you assumed most of the blood wasn’t his. Still, there was a decent looking cut on his forehead above his left eye.

“I swear to god this shit’s more trouble than it’s worth sometimes,” he mumbled.

You didn’t respond, trying to carefully pour peroxide onto a cotton ball, only for some of it to spill onto the kitchen floor.

He grabbed the cotton ball from your hand, pressing it against his forehead as he hissed out, “You sure are too, when all you’re good for is gettin’ fucked. Mama would be rollin’ if she knew a slut like you was in her house.”

Your jaw clenched. You wouldn’t even be in the damn house if it weren’t for him. It wasn’t like you’d invited yourself. He was trying to get a rise out of you, make you feel as awful as he was feeling. That was his M.O. when he was feeling down, drag everyone down with him.

“What? You got somethin’ to say?”

The clock read 13:77 when you reached for the gun you hid in your pocket. Since when did this dress have pockets? Wordlessly, you stood up, firing three shots into Bo’s chest. His expression was almost cartoonish as the chair tilted back and crashed onto the floor, his head rolling away from his body like a bowling ball.

You awoke with a start. The dream seemed so real up until the end. You almost went upstairs to see if Bo was still alive. You had patched him up, and he had made his cruel comments toward you. In reality, the interaction ended with his demanding you sleep on the couch as he wasn’t in the mood to fuck you, and that was the only reason he let you in his bed in the first place. You were nothing short of humiliated and furious when you laid on the couch with a worn out blanket, crying yourself to sleep into one of the smelly throw pillows.

As you shifted, you noticed another blanket in much better condition was on top of you. It felt like some kind of quilt, not that you could tell in the dark. You hated that your broken ass brain made you love Bo regardless of everything he did to you, when clearly Vincent was considerate enough to cover you with a real blanket.

After about an hour or so of tossing and turning, you fell back asleep. With no alarm around, you could only hope to wake up in time to make breakfast for Bo. There were no dreams of gunshots or decapitated heads this time.

A little after six in the morning, you woke up to the sound of Vincent rifling through a drawer in the kitchen. You sighed in relief. Sure, it was earlier than you were used to getting up, but you could possibly sneak a nap in during the afternoon if Bo was out for the day. You hoped he would be.

You looked at the thick quilt that was covering you, noticing dried bloodstains on it. Other than that, it was in pretty good condition and appeared to be handmade. You wondered who made it, and when. Right away you knew it wasn’t Trudy’s work, all she seemed to have cared about when she was alive was wax sculptures and terrorizing her children. It probably came from a victim, a family heirloom they had brought along with them when their trip ended prematurely in Ambrose. The thought made you push the quilt off of your body.

Shuffling into the kitchen, you were surprised to see Vincent still there. He always made his trips upstairs short and scarce.

“Thanks for the blanket,” you said.

He hesitated before nodding.

“Is there anything special you want for breakfast?”

You watched as he opened one of the cabinets, grabbing a box of Lucky Charms.

“I figured you must be the one eating the cereal. Bo got so mad when I tried giving him Froot Loops one morning, I just gave up on it,” you said.

Vincent shrugged as he poured the cereal into a bowl with a worn out Snoopy design on it.

“Sorry if I’m bothering you.”

His head shot up in your direction, so quickly it nearly startled you. You recognized him signing ‘No.’

“Well, let me know if I am, okay?” you said. “I–um–I can go, if you want to eat in here.”

He motioned with his thumb toward the basement. Right. Two new victims needed his attention. Still, you found it odd he even ventured upstairs. Usually he’d have to be torn away from his work by Bo, insisting he needed to take a break. Even then, he’d do so quickly and reluctantly until his sculptures were finished.

You took your time making breakfast but weren’t sure what to expect when you heard Bo coming down the stairs. You’d been on the receiving end of his wrath plenty of times, from blunt knives to bloody fists, you’d taken it all from him–as if you had a choice. Still, he’d never cast you out like that before.

He stood in the doorway almost awkwardly, and you acknowledged his presence with a slight nod. With this, he closed the distance between the two of you, and you tensed up.

“Missed you last night,” Bo said, leaning against the counter as if he hadn’t banished you to the couch.

Those words were the closest to an apology you were going to get. You weren’t sure if you ever wanted to hear him say ‘I’m sorry’. If he ever uttered that phrase, something would have to be terribly wrong. Everything was your fault anyway. It always was.

You shook your head, giving him a forced smile. “I’m sorry. I should have been more careful.”

That was it. Your apology and admission of wrongdoing tied up neat in a bow for him. Unfortunately, his expression fell, and you wracked your brain for what you left out of your statement. Clean, crisp, and concise, there was nothing wrong with it. Why wasn’t he happy with you doing what was expected?

He didn’t respond after that, and breakfast was mostly silent. You sure as hell weren’t going to initiate conversation with the man who made what he thought about you more than clear the night before, ruining what had been such a good afternoon that you had been looking forward to him getting home. Trying to pretend with Bo was pointless. He always ran his mouth and ruined it.

You were relieved when he left for the day and didn’t return until late in the evening. Though you did what was expected, as always, there was a coldness to your actions. In your heart, you’d forgiven him for so much despite him not deserving any of it, but the way he treated you the night before stuck with you more than anything else he’d done.

Your cool attitude toward him thawed over the next few days, getting into the normal routine as he graciously allowed you to share a bed with him again after three nights of roughing it alone, him in his bed and you on the old couch that made your back hurt. Three nights wasn’t even that long, but somehow the separation had made him insatiable, as he practically devoured you as soon as you stepped foot in his room. Hours had passed by the time he finally stopped–your wrists were bruised, lip bleeding profusely, salty tear tracks drying out the delicate skin on your face. Absence makes the heart grow fonder.

Even though there weren’t as many tourists coming through Ambrose, and even during the “busy season” they were few and far between, Bo almost always had something to do in the wax town or errands to run in the next town over. Lester had come by to visit more often, which lifted your mood. Conversations with him tended to be on the lighter side.

“Are you sure you don’t wanna take a look at your old room? There’s still a lot of stuff in there,” you said.

“Most of it ain’t mine. I’ve lived on my own for a long time now,” he answered.

“How far is your place from here?”

“Few miles. Maybe you can visit soon.”

What you wouldn’t give to spend a few hours outside Ambrose, even if it was at Lester’s house. You were dying for a change of scenery. “Yeah, I’d like that a lot. I’ll have to ask Bo.”

“I can’t see him sayin’ no. He’s got a real soft spot for ya.”

You didn’t know how to respond, so you gave Lester a smile before letting him steer the conversation elsewhere. What the fuck about your split lip indicated anything soft was going on with Bo? You didn’t want to begin thinking about how he treated his other partners. You nearly laughed at yourself–as if Bo considered you remotely equal to him. Besides, your affection had shifted toward his twin not long after the blanket incident.

When you weren’t cleaning Lester’s old room or doing routine chores around the house, you’d hang out downstairs with Vincent. You asked him several times if you were bothering him, but as no victims had come through Ambrose in a few weeks, he wasn’t as busy. He worked on projects that had fallen to the wayside in the urgency of creating with his living subjects.

The studio was silent, save for the opera music, but sometimes you’d have long, rambling, mostly one-sided conversations. After months of giving short answers to Bo in fear of his temper, it was nice to vocalize what you were thinking, mundane observations and surface-level feelings.

You knew what Vincent had done, what he was capable of, but when you’d watch him work, shaping and molding the wax like it was second nature, you couldn’t help but admire his artistry. His hands were big and strong like Bo’s, but there was a softness to them. You wondered what they’d feel like on your skin, if he’d hold you, caress you with the gentleness that Bo was deeply lacking.

If Bo was aware you had been spending your free time with Vincent, he didn’t say anything about it. Sometimes you’d look at Bo, trying to imagine his face on Vincent’s body. You’d only ever seen Vincent with his mask on, and there were no photos of him maskless anywhere in the house. You wondered if his expressions would be like Bo’s, if he could channel the same meanness his twin did. In the part of your mind that was still a hopeless romantic, you pictured him looking at you fondly.

To your dismay, a victim had come to Ambrose, which meant you wouldn’t see Vincent for some time. As much as you allowed yourself the silly fantasies in your head and tried to romanticize him as an artist, you knew you’d never be able to stomach that overwhelming aspect of his craft. He was just as much of a killer as Bo, but you never had to witness such.

It was only a matter of time. You knew that, but you didn’t expect it to happen as soon as it did.

You decided to make shrimp fried rice for dinner, having a craving for Chinese food and finding a promising recipe in a magazine Bo had given you. The dish was almost done when you heard an unusual noise coming from the basement. Victims usually struggled before Vincent subdued them, but this sounded different.

As you considered whether or not to investigate, a frantic footfall that definitely wasn’t Vincent’s became louder as they ascended the stairs. Your heart felt like it was going to beat out of your chest.

The person before you hardly looked human, and you froze at the sight of him until he uttered a garbled “Help!”

Immobilized by fear, you couldn’t do anything but scream at the sight of the grotesque man before you. Nude and completely hairless, his body was littered with fresh wounds that had been inflicted and stitched up by Vincent.

You scrambled backward, falling on your ass as you heard Vincent storming up the stairs. He grabbed the pan that was on the stove and followed the man into the living room. You could hear their struggle from your spot on the floor until there was a clang and a disgusting gurgling noise. The sound of the pan crashing to the ground made you jump.

Vincent grunted, not sparing you so much as a glance while he dragged the man back downstairs. You tried not to throw up at the sight of the raw, burnt skin on the man’s head.

It took you a few minutes to pull yourself together enough to stand up. Cautiously, you walked over to the door frame, feeling your stomach churn at the mess on the floor. At a loss for how to begin cleaning it up, you grabbed your tub of cleaning supplies from under the kitchen sink and hoped they’d do the job.

Your hands shook as you put on the yellow rubber gloves. You tried to use the broom and dustpan to sweep up the fried rice on the floor, only finding it stuck to the bristles because of the blood it had been mixed with in the scuffle. Gagging, you pulled the clump off and threw it into the dust pan. A combination of cleaning sprays at least masked the rancid smell with bleach and lemon, and you coughed every few minutes as you used sponges and paper towels to clean the floor.

Besides yours and your friends’ victimization in Ambrose, you’d never been directly confronted with what the Sinclair brothers did. Bo rarely allowed you to leave the house, and Vincent’s subjects were brought to his studio through the various trap doors and tunnels beneath the town. You’d certainly heard things, but seeing the worst of it for yourself was harrowing.

You scrubbed the floor frantically as you heard Bo’s truck pull up, trying to think of how you were going to explain what had happened in his absence, the snafu in the dinner he expected when he’d come home. Your brain seemed to short circuit as you tried to decide whether to keep cleaning or make a run to the fridge and grab him a beer.

The front door swung open, and Bo’s rare good mood collapsed at the scene before him. You didn’t dare acknowledge his presence, too afraid to speak. You weren’t even sure if you could.

“What the fuck happened here?” Bo asked, observing you cleaning the mess of blood and fried rice on the floor.

“I—I don’t know,” you whispered, your hand shaking as you pointed toward the kitchen. “Vincent—“

“Darlin’, go upstairs,” Bo said.

You looked at the floor and then back up to him.

He grabbed your arm and helped you onto your feet. “Y/N, I want you to go upstairs. Now.”

His rare use of your name caught your attention, and something in you snapped. Calling you by your name as if he knew you, as if he hadn’t made sure Y/N was long dead by the time he let you out of that basement. You wrenched yourself from his grasp and ran upstairs, not bothering to shut the door behind you as you curled up on his bed and began sobbing.

Sure, the incident scared you, and you felt guilty for not doing more to help the man. The feeling that most overwhelmed you, however, was heartbreak. It was stupid to have conjured up a romanticized version of Vincent in your mind, yet it was alarmingly easy to do so when you never witnessed any of his brutality firsthand. He was as violent as Bo, cruel too, but it manifested differently. You wailed at the crushing weight of the realization that you wouldn’t have been better off if he found you first. You would have ended up just like the man in the kitchen, your former friends, everyone else in Ambrose. He wouldn’t have saved you. He wouldn’t have given you a second thought.

As much as Bo made your life hell, at least you were still alive. After years of feeling average and overlooked, he saw something worthwhile in you, worth keeping around—or maybe you were just desperate and weak enough for him to break you so easily. You wanted to claw your insides out for loving him anyway.

“Doll?” Bo asked tentatively by the doorframe, the first time he ever seemed remotely nervous around you.

You quickly gave up trying to respond coherently, rolling over and screaming into his pillow until your throat hurt and your head ached. It wasn’t fair. You tried so hard to show him you deserved to be in his house, in his bed, and it never seemed like enough.

When you looked at him through hazy, tear-filled eyes, you expected to see that all too familiar smug expression on his face whenever you cried. Instead, he was sending next to the bed, his eyebrows furrowed in the closest thing to concern you figured he could manage.

“You got spooked, huh?” he asked softly.

A pained noise came from your throat in response. No shit. You wished he would take the initiative to hold you, to comfort you. You knew better than to hope he cared about you, but at least he could pretend. Instead, to your further disappointment, you had to be the one to initiate any kind of tenderness.

Feeling pathetic as ever, you uttered, “Will you just hold me?”

He sighed, his heavy footfall punctuating his reluctant non-answer. The mattress dipped as he got onto it, wrapping his strong arms around you as he gave you an imitation of the comfort you craved. You buried your face in his chest. His emotional constipation wasn’t entirely his fault. The affection and care that most people grew up with in one way or another had almost no presence in Bo’s upbringing, his wrists and ankles were evidence of that.

Speculation and “what if’s” did you no good, though. No amount of empathizing with him could ever undo a fraction of what he’d done to you, not to mention the dozens of other people who met their end in Ambrose. Suddenly, you felt disgusted by his touch, regretting your request for it in the first place. It was insincere, disingenuous, a way to placate you until next time, and the time after that, and after that, too. Sobs wracked through your body again as you considered going through this song and dance again for the rest of your life, however short or long that would be. To your dismay, he held you closer.

You cried yourself to sleep in his arms. The room was pitch black when Bo shook you awake, claiming you started screaming. You had no reason to doubt him. Despite the darkness and false sense of calm, you had trouble falling back asleep.

The following morning, panic rushed through you when you awoke late in the day, Bo nowhere in sight. All you could think about was how pissed he’d be that you hadn’t started breakfast for him yet. You practically sprinted out the bedroom door and almost fell down the stairs in your rush to the kitchen.

He was already leaning against the messy counter, eating some concoction he’d made for breakfast directly from the frying pan. It was the first time you’d ever seen him attempt to cook. By the looks of it, you could understand why he left that to you.

“Bo, I’m so sorry. I overslept—“

“Don’t worry about it, darl’,” he said nonchalantly, as if he hadn’t made it clear in the past that this was one of the few tasks your survival hinged on. “Why don’t you take it easy today. I’ll even bring home somethin’ so you don’t have to cook dinner.”

“Thank you,” you uttered in disbelief.

He glanced at the kitchen clock, setting down the frying pan as if he had a boss who’d chew him out if he was late for work. “I gotta get goin’. I’ll check on ya later.”

You nodded, pressing your lips to his—chaste, routine, robotic. “I love you.”

“Love you too,” he said quickly.

Just like that, he left without incident. Reluctantly, you grabbed the frying pan—a different one from the night before, thankfully—he’d just set down, regarding the slop he’d cooked for himself with apprehension. You weren’t sure if it was edible enough for Jonesy to finish. Deciding to spare the dog from Bo’s attempt at cooking, you dumped what was left of the food in the garbage and while washing the pan, considered what to make yourself for breakfast. You ended up making plain toast before trudging your way back upstairs to yours and Bo’s shared bedroom.

Shutting the door behind you, you dug your shoebox out of the closet and opened it, staring at the pistol that was nestled between your heels. The damn thing had been burning a hole in your conscience for weeks. It kept you on edge, yet was a source of comfort. You knew it wouldn’t last. It’d only be a matter of time before Bo found it, and you tried not to think about what he’d do to you then.

After all, anyone else in your situation would have acted as soon as they found the gun. Instead you sat on it, telling yourself it wasn’t the right time, that you needed to plan more. It was all lies. Bo’s undivided attention was torture, but it was all yours.

Besides, going back to a “normal” life after your months in Ambrose would be a struggle in itself. After the pity wore off, people would regard you with frustration for not getting over it fast enough. You’d seen as much with acquaintances who’d gone through traumatic events. The rest of your life would be punctuated with regular therapy sessions and taking a cocktail of medications to curb the nightmares and PTSD from your experiences. It sounded exhausting, and you were already so tired. You’d rather be broken with Bo than broken on your own.

You spent the next few hours lying in bed, considering where to go from there. Having been confronted with the worst of the Sinclair family, brutal and cruel and ruthless, it was only a matter of time before it consumed you too.

As much as you wanted to sleep, you were afraid to, unsure of what nightmares await if you closed your eyes for too long. Instead, you stared at the wall and thought over everything that happened in the past 24 hours, replaying the incident over in your mind.

Rage filled your chest at the thought of Vincent, who hadn’t paid you any mind since the previous night, not even to check on you. He never did. At least Bo felt bad enough to give you the day off, even though he had no involvement in the incident. You couldn’t believe you had convinced yourself Vincent cared about you. It was always you initiating conversations, making yourself at home in his studio, thinking he might enjoy the company. He was only tolerating you for Bo’s sake.

Your lip trembled as you considered how lonely you felt. If one of them didn’t kill you, loneliness would do it eventually. After all, if you were going to be in such a fucked up situation, couldn’t you have the slightest bit of happiness to make your survival worth it.

Bo returned home not long after the sky became dark. While you went downstairs to meet him, you didn’t rush. You half expected him to be annoyed with you for not having a beer in hand for him, but instead, his expression lit up when he walked back into the living room from the kitchen.

“Ain’t you a sight for sore eyes,” Bo said with a smile as he put his arm around your waist.

“Thank you,” you said softly.

He looked at you with a gleam in his eye that you hesitated to identify as adoration. You assumed too much of Vincent and found out the hard way that you were wrong. In your hours of wallowing, you came to the conclusion that if Bo didn’t love you, you’d rather be dead.

“I wasn’t sure what ya wanted, so I went a little crazy,” he said, gesturing to the three Olive Garden takeout bags on the counter. “Figured you probably haven’t eaten today.”

“I need to get something from upstairs first,” you said. “Is that okay?”

He nodded. “‘Course, just be quick. Food’ll get cold before ya know it.”

You gave him a kiss on the cheek before making your ascent upstairs. As soon as you walked back into the bedroom, you exhaled, trying to ground yourself despite your thoughts doing laps around your brain. No more talking yourself out of it. If you were going to stay with Bo, you needed him to know you were serious, that you couldn’t take the hot and cold attitude anymore. Either he wanted you, or he didn’t.

Opening the shoe box, you stared at the gun for what must have been a few minutes too long, because you flinched in shock when you heard Bo calling for you from downstairs. Grabbing the gun, you felt adrenaline rush through you as you went back downstairs with it in your hand. You almost wanted to go ahead and fire it just to see what would happen.

His eyes widened, jaw clenched upon seeing you holding the gun. “Where’d you get that?”

“Found it while I was cleaning.”

You cocked the gun, and his chair scraped against the linoleum floor as he got up from the table, lip curled in a sneer. When you lifted the gun to your temple, however, determination seemed to leave his body as he froze in place.

“Do you love me?” you asked.

“Jesus,” he muttered under his breath. “Put the fuckin’ gun down, and we can talk.”

Your voice was loud and uneven as you demanded an answer. “Do you love me?”

“I—what is this about?”

“I can’t go back to a normal life now. I can’t fucking leave here, but I can’t keep saying ‘I love you’ to a man who doesn’t mean it when he says it back,” you said.

It was the most you’d spoken to him since he brought you down to that basement all those months ago. Used to brief answers from you, the severity of the situation finally seemed to dawn on him. His hands were half raised as he inched toward you, the handler shit out of luck without a taser or tranquilizer to subdue the lion that had escaped its cage.

“I don’t want you to blow your brains out in our kitchen, doll. I ain’t gonna do nothin’ to ya, just put the gun down,” he said, trying not to raise his voice despite the bulging veins in his neck indicating how bad he wanted to scream at you.

Our kitchen. You were holding a gun to your own head and that was the best he could do. Then again, if he really didn’t give a shit, he could have called Vincent up to help, though you’d be dead by the time his twin reached the kitchen. Perhaps he wanted to do it himself, already having your death elaborately planned out and unwilling for you to take that from him. You closed your eyes, letting out a shaky sigh. Our kitchen would do.

He jolted as you slammed the gun down on the table, rattling the silverware. His eyes widened as he looked from it to you. Holding his gaze, you lifted your hand from the weapon and took a step back.

He wasted no time grabbing it, nostrils flaring as he pushed you back into the counter. The cold barrel of the gun pressed beneath your chin so you held eye contact with him.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” he yelled, a scowl on his handsome face, chest heaving as he came down from the adrenaline rush. “Givin’ me half a fuckin’ heart attack while I’m tryin’ to eat my goddamn dinner. I wouldn’t go to none ‘a this trouble if I didn’t love you—“

His rant was muffled by your mouth on his, your hand on the side of his neck, thumb brushing his Adam’s apple. He growled into your mouth, setting the gun down on the counter to pull you closer in what was more teeth and tongue to be considered a kiss.

“You don’t got any other secrets you’re keepin’ from me, do ya?” he asked almost breathlessly as he pulled away from your lips far too soon for your liking.

You shook your head. “That was it.”

“Where’d you hide it?”

“Shoebox in the closet.”

His eyes widened at your response. He hadn’t expected you to have it in the first place, but especially not under his nose the whole time. You were either incredibly brave or incredibly stupid, probably a mix of both. Yet the fact that you had plenty of chances to use it and never so much as pointed it at him spoke to the desperate devotion you had for him. God, you might as well have just recited your wedding vows.

He licked his lips, “Maybe I can let ya help me out in town sometimes.”

“You mean it?”

“‘S long as you’re willin’ to do what it takes.”

You knew what he meant. Being in the house meant you wouldn’t have to deal with victims directly. He hadn’t brought any up to the house for as long as you’d been there. The last you knew of was your friend who had disappeared with him to pick up a part he claimed was delivered there instead of the gas station. This was always coming, your complicit involvement in the Sinclairs’ disturbing cruelty in the name of art or legacy or something.

“Don’t make me kill anyone, please,” you implored, eyes glassy as you teared up.

“It ain’t as bad as people say. The first time makes you feel like you’re on top of the world.”

“Like when you killed her?”

He grinned, giving you a kiss. “Remember what I said when I first brought you up here? I knew I got lucky with you.”

He knew what you were thinking. It wasn’t the act itself that scared you, but rather the possibility that you would like it, that just like him it would be something you did with no remorse.

“One day,” he whispered, voice husky as his blue eyes bore deep into yours, “one day you’re gonna do it too. You’re gonna wanna do it.”

Your voice was barely audible as you answered, “I know.”

“It’ll be the best feelin’ you’ve ever had in your life, doll. I promise.”

#bo sinclair x reader #bo sinclair #bo sinclair x female reader #slasher x reader #house of wax #slashers #slasher fandom #slasher community #house of wax 2005 #im incapable of writing anything short disease strikes again

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