#I guess I will be though at some point to burn black

[whereisthedamndaddymanual]

Well with Rice Krispies

You had snap crackle and pop

Mom's favorite was crackles.

[strawbeerossi]

Trapped In A SUV

Pairing: Fem!Reader x Unit Chief!Spencer Reid

Description: Whenever you and Spencer are on the way to investigate the house of a suspected unsub, the SUV breaks down in the middle of nowhere. It’s a shame that you are both practically cooking in the Texas heat.

Content/Warnings: Case matter but nothing specific, extreme heat, undressing, Spencer is a bit of a pervert, car sex, penetrative sex, unprotected sex.

Word Count: 1.6K

Kinktober Day Thirteen: Car Sex

Navigation || Kinktober Masterlist || AO3

The sound of the engine completely blowing out had you groaning softly as the smoke was coming from the hood of the car. In hindsight, you two probably shouldn’t have left in such a hurry in the first car you could get your hands on. However with a search warrant to search the house of a suspected unsub who you’ve been hunting for days, there was no time to waste.

Until you were stuck on the side of the road, your hand shielding your eyes from the harsh sun as Spencer tugged open the SUV’s hood to be met with a black cloud of smoke. “Jesus,” He muttered, using his hand to waft away the evidence of a vehicle that needed urgent repair. “We are stuck here until someone can pick us up.” You filled in the unit chief as you frowned softly. “Emily said that they had a lead when I was texting her. They will be here whenever they can get here..”

“Of course. That’s just our luck isn’t it.” The male pursed his lips as he pushed the hood shut. “We should get back in the car before we melt out here.” You commented, already feeling beads of sweat forming from the blistering heat. 

“We won’t melt but it’s a good idea. The engine isn’t too far gone to the point we won’t have AC. I’m trying to avoid a heat stroke.” Spencer spoke while heading to the drivers side while you had returned to the passenger seat. The blow of the air wasn’t as strong as you preferred it to be but you counted your blessings, you could’ve been stranded and left to cook in the heat.

“Well. I guess you and I are on our own.” He murmured, his gaze on you while his eyes were widening as he watched you work to unbutton your shirt. “What? I’m sweating my ass off. It’s not like I’m getting completely naked.” You stated, now moving to shrug the button up off of your shoulders and tossing it to the side. “You’ve seen a woman in a bra, I’m sure.” You muttered while leaning back against the seat. 

His golden eyes were focused on your chest once your eyes were closing, the swell of your breasts being eye-catching in the black bra. It was like they were threatening to spill over the lace. His cheeks were bright red as he noticed a bead of sweat trail down your chest as it rose and fell steadily from your breathing.

He could feel his pants tighten, constricting his hardening cock as he gazed at your body. As he was so focused though, he hadn’t noticed your eyes opening or the fact that he caught you. The hungry look on his face had you intrigued. You didn’t expect for him to be watching you so intently, to have to look as if he was holding himself back from touching your bare skin. “Would you mind if I took my pants off too? I’m burning up here.” 

“W-what? I mean, if it’ll be comfortable go ahead..” His voice was at a higher pitch, feeling caught as he was bringing his hands up to loosen his tie. 

“You know that you can shed some clothes too, right? I highly doubt the team will judge us.” You suggested, biting back a smirk of amusement while Spencer was letting out a squeak in response. “I don’t know.” He began, his own body going against him as his hands were moving to undo the buttons on his shirt. Waiting for the rest of the team was gonna be fun, at least. 

After both of you were stripped down, it was like Spencer was desperately avoiding your gaze, his face cherry red. This was a lot. He wasn’t actually thinking that anything but embarrassment would come out of even attempting to look at your body again. You obviously caught him staring.

You’d turned up the air the best you could, leaning forward. With a moan of satisfaction at the coolness hitting your skin, you turned your head to face Spencer for a reaction. His body was frozen in place as he kept his gaze out the windshield, the smoke coming out of the hood less than it was earlier. The moan was enough to make him shift uncomfortably from his throbbing cock in his pants. 

“Hey,” You began while leaning over the console separating you both, offering a smile. “What are you thinking about?” You mused, knowing all too well what you were doing as you were squeezing your arms together slightly, making your tits push up in the bra you had on. 

“I-I was just thinking of how, uh, hot it is outside.” And here. Jesus. 

“You’re so red, oh, Spence..” You gave a faux pout while bringing a hand up to pat his cheek, thumb running over his skin. Spencer felt like he was going to have a heart attack. This was a lot to handle and you seemed to be eating up every reaction. “I’m fine..” He spoke softly while leaning into your touch.

What happened next happened in a flash, you pushed yourself over the small barrier between you both before you were settled in his lap. The man’s face was red, eyes widened and mouth agape in shock as your clothed cunt was brushing over the very obvious bulge in his underwear. 

“I knew it! You were looking at me!” You laughed in victory, hands moving to rest against his shoulders once his long arm was scrambling to push the car seat back to make sure that you were comfortable without having to be shoved against the steering wheel.

“Can you blame me? You practically got naked without needing any prompting.” Spencer found his voice again as he was bringing his hands to rest against your hips, thumbs running over your soft skin. “Plus.. You look so gorgeous, I can’t help it.” 

“Spencer.” You gush, nudging his shoulder while you offer a smile. It was your turn to feel your cheeks heat up from the compliment. “”Well.. I can assist you with getting rid of your… Issue.” You wiggled your eyebrows while moving to test the waters of rolling your hips against his, his breath hitching as he let his head tilt against the leather seat. “God, yeah, okay. I’ll bite. Help me out here.” He chuckled, his hands squeezing your hips while you leaned down to press your lips against his in a soft kiss. 

As your lips were slotting against one another, Spencer was in a frenzy to get your panties pulled to the side before letting his finger swipe through your folds and brush against your clit, grinning at the gasp muffled into his mouth. You were pulling from the kiss to lift your hips, using your hands to squeeze the tent in his boxers to elicit a groan before getting his cock out of his boxers. “I hate to rush this but I don’t think I can wait any longer.” The both of you were in agreement as Spencer’s hands were grabbing a handful of your ass before you were aligning his swollen tip with your leaking cunt and sinking yourself down.

Both of your groans mixed in the SUV, your ass hitting the front of his thighs as you gave yourself a moment to get adjusted. You could feel every curve, every vein as your cunt was welcoming the intrusion. Letting your hips roll at a slow pace, you were bringing your hands to grip his shoulders. 

“Does it feel good? Bet you’ve wanted to do this for years. You like fucking your boss while on the job?” Spencer’s words caused a moan to rip from your throat. “What about you? Fucking your subordinate because you couldn’t keep your eyes to yourself?” You spoke back while Spencer chuckled. “You had your tits out, I’m a man. We are pretty notorious to have an attraction to the female physique.” He chuckled.

“Fair enough,” you spoke softly while continuing with your movements, getting into a good rhythm that was eventually disturbed by the male thrusting upwards, your pussy swallowing his thick cock with no issue. 

“Fuck, don’t stop.” You cursed, the windows fogging over from the actions inside as a thin layer of sweat was spreading over both of your bodies, the smell of sex starting to fill the SUV, the vehicle rocking at a steady pace as you both were wrapped up in your rendezvous.

As you fucked like rabbits, you were leaning down to press your lips against his once more. You never thought of having sex with him in a car before, mainly because you always believed it would’ve been different. Maybe after being put together in the same hotel room or the both of you letting out pent up stress in Spencer’s office.

“I’m gonna cum.” Spencer warned, voice husky as he let out a deep groan at the way your velvety walls were clenching around him, his cock twitching inside of you. “Ah!” He panted, a bruising grip on your hips as he roughly thrusted upwards, damn near making your head hit the roof of the car. 

The sheer force behind each thrust was enough to have your body trembling, your head falling onto his shoulder as you let out a soft cry of his name, teeth biting down onto his shoulder as your creamy cum was rolling down his cock. He wasn’t deterred, instead now groaning as he couldn’t help but follow right behind. You could feel his cum gush inside of your cunt, eyes fluttering shut as you clutched his shoulders as your partially clothed bodies were pressed against one another’s while coming down from the high of your mixed orgasms. 

“I guess I should probably get off of you, huh?” Your words were slurred while Spencer let your hand gently rub your back. “Not yet..” He chuckled, pointing the air vents towards the both of you.

“We have a little bit. Let’s just enjoy the air.”

[blasphemousclaw]

WHO IS THIS SAULTRY LITTLE BINCH

ok this is my extremely unpolished breakdown of MESSMER THE IMPALER from the shadow of the erdtree trailer

The first thing that stands out about this dude is that he’s wearing EVERY possible symbol of treason against the Erdtree: SNAKES and FLAME

Messmer has snakes on his sigil, helm, and 2 snake friends who have dragon wings. Volcano Manor is known for its statues of winged serpents, but the wings are feathered, not dragonlike. these snakes are bright red-orange and are very unlike the Great Serpent we all know and love, who has a heavier build and is blue-grey in color. 

Regarding snakes as symbolism, the Duelist Helm description reads,

“Bronze helm decorated with innumerable snakes. Worn by gladiators who were driven from the colosseum. The wearer becomes a slightly easier target for foes. The snake is viewed as a traitor to the Erdtree, and the audience delighted in seeing these bronze effigies beaten and battered.”

We can bet that whoever is associating themselves with snakes is a confirmed Erdtree hater (Rykard, hello!!!) or perhaps, this dude could even be part of the reason why snakes are considered traitorous in the first place?

In addition to us seeing Messmer wield fire, this line from the trailer (which I think is spoken about Messmer but not by Messmer) implies that he’s known for his fire: “Those stripped of the Grace of Gold shall all meet death. In the embrace of Messmer’s flame.” 

It’s well known that flame is in many ways a taboo power; particularly the flame of the Fell God, which has the power to burn the Erdtree (the cardinal sin). Messmer’s fire is weird, in some ways it reminds me of the Rune of Death since it starts out black and turns red, but it’s also far too orange to simply be the Rune of Death’s power. 

There’s also this description of the DLC: “The Land of Shadow. A place obscured by the Erdtree. Where the goddess Marika first set foot. A land purged in an unsung battle. Set ablaze by Messmer’s flame.”

I’d guess that the Land of Shadow was the place of Marika’s first conquest, and perhaps Messmer either aided her in razing it or that’s just something he did later? 

so WHO is this dude????

for starters, his name is Messmer the Impaler — M like Marika! Melina, Malenia, Miquella, Mogh, and Morgott. seems to be a pattern...

He says in the trailer, “Mother, wouldst thou truly Lordship sanction, in one so bereft of light?” 

Whoever Messmer’s mother is, she is in a position to “sanction lordship” meaning to give official permission for a lordship to take place. that screams Marika — she is THE goddess, and is responsible for guiding Tarnished to becoming Elden Lord. I can’t think of anyone else who might be called Mother who is in such a position as to allow someone to ascend to the position of Lord. He's also sitting in the same type of throne that the demigods sat in that we see in Morgott's cutscene.

theres 2 ways to interpret this line: 

Messmer could referring to himself when he says this; as if he’s saying, would my mother truly allow me to become Lord even though I’m so dark and edgy?? in a kind of sarcastic way. the flames he produces start out black, and he’s covered himself symbols treasonous to the Erdtree. OR, he’s referring to us, the Tarnished, when he says this; as if he’s saying, would you really let a person with such little light inside them become lord, mother?? (rude!) I’d say we need more context to determine exactly what he means

ALSO, interestingly, his left eye is sealed shut… you know who else has their left eye sealed shut? THAT’S RIGHT… OUR FRIENDS MELINA AND RANNI

The scarseal and soreseal items of Marika and Radagon are also carved into eyeballs… could eye trauma be an empyrean trait?? could Messmer also be an empyrean, one who the current demigods didn’t know the existence of??? 

with all that being said, I really doubt that this guy is Rykard or Rykard’s child as I’ve seen some people speculate… these other clues in the trailer point towards him being another, separate demigod. so what do we make of all the similar imagery?? I think that Messmer might be working against the Erdtree toward his own ends, and he’s embracing similar powers that Rykard did when he turned traitor. 

who is he then? I think he’s a demigod child of Marika, and possibly of Radagon because of the hair (unless his hair color comes elsewhere? a curse?). I think he got banished to the shadow realm for treason reasons, given the heretical symbols. perhaps he was an empyrean with his own agenda who was disposed of by Marika, like the Gloam Eyed Queen? perhaps he has ambitions to return to the real world and become Lord, destroying the Tarnished who might take his throne?

I did this instead of sleeping I hope you’re all happy

[plasticferal]

can u plsss write a Matt smut where the reader is like obsessed with his teeth and then she kind of jokes ab licking his teeth but shes not actually joking and then u know the rest

take it or leave it | matt sturniolo.

authors note: this was so fun to write. here’s some kind of soft, lust filled bff!matt turned lovers.

warnings: fem reader, not obscene or 18+ but read at your own discretion. a lot of dialogue, light biting, mark leaving, explicit language.

you just can't stop staring at your best friend. all he's doing is chewing on a paper straw, swirling it around his soft drink. his eyes are glued to his screen, scrolling through his phone, both of his elbows planted on the dining table.

"i can feel you staring," matt talks with the straw still in his mouth, flashing his perfect teeth with a conceited smirk. you scoff, digging your fork back into the dessert that sits in front of you, to avoid the interrogation you feel coming your way.

"i didn't say stop," you feel his eyes burn holes into you, tone earnest and deep, just waiting for you to glance up at him again.

"wasn't even staring," you speak through a muffled mouthful of cake, not caring if he sees the food in your mouth. he's the closest person in your life, he's probably seen worse.

"real sexy, kid" he teases, staring at your mouth and chuckling as you cover it to swallow your food, flipping him off from across the table.

"no for real, what were you looking at? like be specific," he asks, placing his phone screen down on the table, shuffling in his chair and adjusting his posture. you raise an eyebrow at him, wondering what the hell he's on about.

"i can't just admire my best friend?" you sarcastically smile and bat your eyelashes at him, resting your chin into the palm of your hands.

"specifics, go." matt isn't having it, and you drop the act fast.

you ponder on your answer for a moment, or at least pretend to. you know exactly what you want to say but you don't need him getting a big head. well, bigger. he's a walking, talking, humble brag. especially around you.

"ah, okaaaay," you pout your lips with contemplation.

"your eyes i guess. they're pretty. you know that, though" you shrug, prodding at your dessert again, not having any intention on finishing it at this point. matt has you cornered with his new train of thought.

"boring, next." he deadpans, throwing his head back with an eye roll before looking at you again. he folds his arms over his chest, leaning back leisurely.

"fine. ah, your teeth. i'm like obsessed with them. is that a better answer?" you quip, grabbing your plate and pushing away from the table to make your way to the sink.

you hear matt behind you let out an audible "huh?" and can picture the confusion on his face. you don't know what it is about his teeth, or his smile in general. you just get stunned at how perfect they are, the way they just suit his face so much.

they just look like they could form the perfect bite in your skin. he's always chewing a new flavoured gum, flashing them subtly past his perfectly pink lips, and his breath always smells nice. it's weirdly inviting. all thoughts you absolutely shouldn't be having about matthew.

"hang on, rewind. my teeth?" there's an amused underlining to his response, and you just wish you could take back what you said, joke or not.

you rinse the plate off and immediately ignore him, drying your hands with paper towel before bee-lining for the bin in the small dark corner of the room.

"you got your answer, matthew. get over it," you exhale, tossing it into the black rubbish bag.

"no no, i'm not done with you yet," you hear his chair make a disturbing scratchy squeak against the vinyl floors with how fast he pushes his chair back, following where your body is moving.

you walk around the dining table in the opposite direction of him, but he changes directions to match yours. you collapse onto the couch, sitting cross legged and he falls into the spot right next to you, despite having the entire couch. your shoulders are touching and his knee his touching yours.

"you were staring at my teeth and now i need to know why," matt requests, leaning one elbow up on the back of the couch, facing you completely.

"i can't answer tha-"

"y/n" he cuts you off seriously.

"i don't know, okay? drop it, matthew." you push back with frustration, not understanding why he can't. it's either he's pushing your buttons on purpose or he can sense the subject easily taking a turn in a different direction.

"i'm not trying to piss you off. i just wanted know. sorry" his voice softens, and he shifts so he's facing the t.v.

you almost feel bad snapping at him, considering you instigated his reaction in the first place by not justifying it straight away.

you bite your nails, trying to avoid talking. it's so hard with matt. he just always brings it out of you. looking at him while he watches the screen ahead of you just makes you yearn to hear his voice again. he's so quiet for the most part that when you get him out of his shell you don't ever want him to stop.

"i've always liked your teeth. i don't know what it is. i wish i could explain it but i can't," you speak shyly, a very rare feeling around him.

you have literally shared every waking thought with this man. it just feels so different when it involves him personally. on a physical descriptive level. matt leans his head back on the massive couch cushion, giving you a lazy half grin, looking up at you through hooded eyes.

"do you just like staring at them or do you wanna like, touch them?" he flashes his teeth like a vampire, and you push his face away with a laugh, knowing he's teasing with good intention. he chuckles, pushing your own hand back into your body.

"you're never gonna let me live this down, are you?"

"not until i can wrap my head around it, no" he folds his arms over his chest, tucking his hands into his armpits and they disappear under his oversized hoodie, snickering at his own defence.

he looks you in the eyes, the same fiery stare he gives you when he's about to say something out of pocket, you can read him like a book.

"you wanna touch 'em?"

"matt," you scold, knowing whatever he has planned is just to keep this joke lingering. or what you think is a joke to him.

"i'm serious, let's see if we can get to the bottom of this little fetish of yours" he's so pleased with his words, grinning like an idiot as he nestles his face closer to yours.

"i'd get more pleasure out of it with my tongue," you chortle, then pause suddenly, not believing what you just said out loud.

you force your face to plaster a look on it that says 'i'm joking' but there's no part of what you just said that matt is taking comically.

"go on." matt replies.

"what's gotten into you, tonight?" you have a half simper half befuddled look as you lean back to make sure you're seeing him right.

making sure you're speaking to matt, not someone posing as him with how bold and absurd he's been acting for the past few minutes. he's always being flirtatious, in a bantering and unalloyed manner. this felt different, he's being a lot more direct. a lot less blithe.

"i am literally giving you one chance to do this and then i'm never bringing it up again. take it or leave it, y/n"

"open your mouth, then.” you say in a ‘i bet you won’t’ tone, not believing he actually will. you’re taken aback when he tilts his head up lightly, an innocent look on his face when he parts his mouth, creating a perfect oval.

“you’re seriously okay with this?” you ask, beginning to lean forward, tempting and just waiting for the moment he pulls away, or snaps his mouth closed. he nods, mouth still open.

you know him well enough by now to understand that when matt says he’ll never mention it again, he means it. he’s petty like that.

“fuck it, m’god” you mumble, cupping the side of his jaw, fingertips resting under his ear and being tickled by his hair, pulling him to you.

your breaths intertwine as you hover over his mouth, your lips don’t touch when you poke your tongue out and let it slide behind his top teeth and trail across the sharp edge, slowly, left to right. when you pull away, you observe him.

matt closes his mouth, sucking his teeth and plastering a thoughtful look on his face. you wait for his response.

“well?” you can only wait for so long before you’re trying to entice him to say something, anything.

he adjusts himself on the lounge, full body facing you at this point, if he was pushed up any closer he’d be on top of you.

“just like, out of curiosity. can you do it again?” he asks bashfully. he did say take it or leave it. so you take it, while he’s dangling it in front of you.

this time, you curve your hand gently around the back of his neck to guide his face. tilting your head slightly before pulling him in. you lick the back of the teeth again, even slower than the first time. you can feel matt holding his breath, and the taste of the root beer he just had still lingering.

matt takes a deep breath when you part from him again, flaring his nostrils slightly and sucking on the inside of his cheek. he looks confused, in a content way. but confused nonetheless.

you stare at him, memorising this look on his face. without breaking his stare with you, matt reaches for a pillow and throws it over his lower body, holding it in place. before he has a chance to set it onto his lap, you glance down to see the bulge forming under his black shorts.

“did you like my tongue in your mouth, matthew?” your words are jovial, but he turns away from you after you question him, looking quite literally anywhere else.

“no-i,i mean. fuck, i don't know. no." he rambles, response being faster than his brain can even register, not pulling out the best choice of words from his vocabulary.

“no? is that why you let me do it twice?” you tease, turning the table on him.

"you're right," he pauses.

"maybe we should make it three. for good luck." he looks back at you with a red hue on his cheeks, simpering smile pulling at the corner of his mouth as he hugs the pillow on his lap.

"only if you ask nicely," you squint your eyes, and he rolls his.

"i'm not beggin' for it. no way." he shakes his head, boston accent coming through a lot thicker when he's defensive. it happens a lot, and that's how you know you have him cornered.

"your call, matty. take it or leave it." the front you're putting on for him is a fraud, having a gut feeling that it's the only cue he needs to surrender. he's silent for a solid minute.

"fuck, jesus, okay." he finishes, grabbing your face this time. he caresses your jaw, and his touch is so firm and so warm.

the pillow between your bodies is like a barrier, but he pushes up against it hard to bring you as close to his face as you can. you brace yourself for him to open his mouth again, but instead, your lips collide.

your eyes close instinctively and his soft, wet lips move with yours, taking your bottom lip between the kiss, and letting his tongue slide in and dance across your own. slowly he pulls away, fluttering inches over your mouth instead of distancing himself.

"i don't know, i don't know why i just-" matt is still touching your face through his panic-stricken words.

you don't even counter his sentence before grabbing the collar of his hoodie and pulling him back to your mouth. you shove the pillow off the lounge in-between your bodies with your knee while shifting your body weight onto his lap, an easy transition considering how close you've been the whole time.

matt grabs your waist immediately, securing you on top of him and deepening the kiss. you feel your throat shake with his small, desirous moan into your mouth. you sink all of your body weight onto him and can feel his dick underneath you growing harder, heat radiating from between his legs.

the kiss becomes heavier, more desperate and messy, missing each others mouths and clashing your teeth, taking breaths for a split second before attacking each other's lips again. your nails dig into his shoulders and matt's hands lower, stationing on your upper thigh.

you're in such a state of disbelief but ignore every doubt or worry you're forcing yourself to have. you've mentally convinced yourself this is a dream. you're not actually grinding into your bestfriend's groin, making out with him and having his thumbs get closer and closer to your heat, feeling wet already at the friction.

matt kisses the corner of your mouth, your cheek bone, the tip of your nose, then your jaw. he trails the kisses on your jaw lower and lower, grazing his teeth along your delicate skin until he reaches he crease of your neck just under your ear, and you lean into him as much as you possibly can.

"you like my teeth so much, wait until you see what they can do to your neck," he forces deeply against your skin, biting at your earlobe.

"god, matt," you exhale.

you feel a sharp, stinging suck to your neck, making you gasp. he pulls your skin into his mouth, tongue rubbing the area that he's suffocating in his bite. he pulls away, making a sharp sound when he lets go. he repeats the same thing just underneath his first bite, and your body is twisting and distorting in his arms. you tug at his hair with a warning.

"you’re gonna have to explain those marks." you tremble, yet not stopping him. he taunts a stifled laugh.

"don't care," he starts, pulling your shirt off your shoulder and sucking another deep purple mark on your collar bone.

"i'll spell my name out on your skin if i have to." it’s like he’s a trance, trailing his middle finger along the bites he just left before looking up at you with a dazed smile.

his chest is rising and falling prominently, both of you catching your breath after the intense session. matt gently presses his lips to yours again, and you lean your forehead against his. he grips at the bottom hem of your shirt, toying with the fabric.

"if i knew my teeth would get you on top of me, i would have let you lick em' sooner," he has a crooked, dopey grin on his face. you blush, flustered at his words.

"is this is insane? you don't think you're gonna regret it?" you're cautious with your words, voice gentle, head still leaning against his and your fingers playing with the hair creeping on the nape of his neck.

"i could never regret you." he shakes his head softly, making you smile and peck another gentle kiss on his lips. you know he means his words, and they make you want to melt into a puddle.

"smile for me quickly," you banter, holding onto his shoulders but pulling back to look at his face properly.

he covers his face with his big hands and you let out a hearty laugh, attempting to pry them off and begging him to stop hiding.

"matt! you'll let me shove my tongue down your throat but can't smile for me?" your stomach hurts with the laughter caused by the sheer fight he's putting up covering his face.

when you finally get him to drop his hands he has the biggest, cheesiest grin on his face. smiling ear to ear, and eyes closed shut, putting on a show for you. he drops his face quickly once you've had your time to look, and has those signature tired and heavy eyes make an appearance once again.

you lean in, slowly, so slow. your face is drawing him in like a magnet, him following your moves to meet in the middle. he flashes his teeth once again, and you run the tip of your tongue across his bottom lip, feeling his teeth too, budging his mouth open.

"now you're just taking advantage of it," his raspy voice speaks, pulling you back to his mouth by your neck and leading with his tongue, letting it slide in and moaning into your parted lips. they finally sink into each others after teasing each other, seeing who falls into the kiss first.

your tongues fight for dominance and matt grabs the back of your neck hard, forcing you to stay where you are. you're tilting left and he's tilting right as you focus on breathing through your nose to stay attached to each other as long as you can.

you can literally feel matt take his time to explore your mouth, circling every inch he possibly can. he takes your bottom lip between his teeth and bites hard, making you gasp before pulling back and letting go, both of your mouths wet and glistening with each others saliva.

matt wipes your mouth with his thumb, applying enough pressure but still being gentle. he's staring at your skin before his eyes fixate on those marks he left earlier.

"oh fuck, they're pretty bad" he giggles, and you roll off his lap with a groan, slapping your hand over your neck as if to hide them from him. your legs drape over his thighs and you can feel him looking at you.

you hide from him by sinking into the lounge for no good reason other than you think somehow it'll make the marks disappear, or manifest that it does.

"i didn't even bring makeup to cover it," you fake cry, seeing how bad it could make him feel, but he doesn't budge. matt slaps your thigh as if to say 'i'm not buying it' then rubs your legs soothingly.

"you're not covering them up. i won't let you leave the house if you do, no other option." matt is demanding but lighthearted in his words.

"oh no, i can't leave, what a shame," you dramatically flail your hand to your temple like an old school movie scene, and matt pokes your rib to get you to snap out of it.

"if you ever want to see my teeth again i'd watch the dramatics, honey" and those words coming from him alone make you cut the act, flushing red and sitting up properly.

you don't know how he's managed to whip you into line, usually being the other way around, but you're not risking it.

you've somehow taken more than you could ever ask for from him, and you're still anxious that you've bitten off more than you can chew. no pun intended.

regardless, you're in ignorant bliss. you'll take everything you can get from matt, and more, if he's willing to give it to you. which at this point, you're sure he is.

[turcott3]

listen here my concept on matt was being a good friend of his and you've never experimented or did really anything much with guys before so you nervously but boldly approach him and ask if you could practice giving him head and he guides you through it step by step .......... bye i had to.

21st

matt rempe x fem! reader

warnings?: cursing, wine, oral sex male receiving, kissing

masterlist and part two

-

you and matt sat distant on the long sectional long after everyone had left your 21st birthday celebration. you’d been best friends with the boy as long as you could remember so you asked if he would stay the night with you like old times.

“this wine is actually really good.” matt says breaking the silence.

“yeah it is, that’s why i bought it.” you smirk.

“now y/n, how did you buy this wine last week? just a question.

“well let’s just say the ‘how’ is cut up in my garbage right now.” you giggle, cracking a smile.

“you sneaky sneaky girl.” you points at you.

“as always.” you giggle, downing the rest of your glass. the thing about wine that differed from the other things you drank is that it makes you honest. you were barely even buzzed, but wine brought out the honesty in you.

“wow it’s so crazy, i’m 21 and i still haven’t even actually hooked up with a guy.” you scoff.

“you’re not a virgin though? i’m confused.” he adds.

“well i guess the better word would be properly. he stuck it in, nut, and then left.”

“wow.”

“did i really never tell you that?” you ask, sitting up on the couch and setting your glass on the coffee table.

“no?” he replies giggling, doing the same.

“it’s kind of embarrassing.” you reply as he gets up and sits closer to you on the couch.

“why’s it embarrassing?”

“it just is. i don’t wanna be 21 and completely unexperienced.” you say as silence rung out in your living room.

“hey matt?” you ask, breaking the silence.

“yeah.”

“can you….. teach me some….. stuff?” you asked practically in a whisper, a blush burning on your cheeks as you stared at the floor.

“teach you what?” he replies, using his fingers to guide your gaze back to his.

“i don’t know, i just-“

“yes i can y/n, i was messing with you.” he giggles.

“oh okay.” you reply, the blush burning darker.

“don’t be shy now y/n, you can trust me.” he says brushing your hair behind your shoulders.

“i know i can trust you matt, i’m just nervous.” you reply picking at the skin of your nails.

“would you feel more comfortable if we went to your room?” he asks softly, running a soft hand up your thigh. you only nod in response as the tall boy stands up in front of you.

“come here.” he mutters as you reach for him. he picks you up, your legs latching around his waist as he carries you to your bedroom. carefully, he shuts your door behind you and stops in his tracks.

“look at me pretty girl.” he says, doing as you’re told you pick your head up off his shoulder and lock eyes with him, a smile spreading across his face before locking his lips with yours gently and respectfully. you moved your hands to grab onto his face, begging to deepen the kiss. you had never imagined you’d be in this position with your lifelong best friend but at the same time it felt so familiar to you. you felt safe in his embrace and absorbed the love from his affection deeply. regretfully, he breaks apart the kiss, setting you down carefully on the bed. you sat up on your knees and looked up at the brunette who looked down on you with a soft gaze in his eyes.

“now what is it you want me to teach you exactly?” he asks, squatting down to your level, his hand placed gently on top of your hand that rested on your thigh.

“oh um, anything. i really don’t mind.” you reply shyly.

“do you feel comfortable getting undressed for me or is that not okay?” he asks.

“i think im comfortable.”

“okay just take off some layers until you want to stop, is that okay?” he asks gently and you nod, removing your shirt revealing the black lace bra you’d bought yourself for your last birthday. you notice matt also removing his shirt.

“matt you don’t have t-“

“yes i do. it’s only fair. if you’re gonna be vulnerable, so am i.”

“okay.” you reply, blushing as you shimmied out of your jean shorts, him removing his jeans and tossing them to the side.

“i think this is good.” you say, very aware of your bareness.

“okay.” he says as you look back up at him.

“do i look okay?” you ask with a gleam in your eye.

“gorgeous.” he smiles, bending over and reconnecting your lips softly for a few moments.

“okay, i’m gonna teach you how to give head, that alright?” he asks and you nod eagerly. now that you’d seen him in this light, you didn’t think you’d ever be able to see him another way, and that didn’t bother you.

slowly, he pushed the waistband of his boxers down, revealing his soft cock. at first glance he was already big and that made you nervous as to what was to come.

“give me your hand.” he asks quietly and you do so. gently, he wraps your hand around his length.

“okay, now carefully but not too carefully, jerk me off.” he says and you do so, pumping your hand slowly up and down his cock. his hand wrapped back around yours moving you a little bit faster before letting go. you keep the speed and feel the blood begin to rush to his length. he thickened in your hand quickly as he muttered and mumbled words you couldn’t make out above you.

“you’re doing so good y/n.” he says.

“you’re so big matt.” you say before looking up at him with a smirk on his face.

“give me your hand.” he requests and you do so, removing your hand from his dick and holding it up to him. slightly, he bends over and spits a puddle of saliva into your hand.

“now do that again.” he continues and you do so, working the liquid into the skin of his swollen cock.

“good girl.” he mutters, a blush creeping into your cheeks once again.

“okay, are you ready babygirl?” he asks, using two fingers to tilt your chin upward to him.

“yes.” you reply lowly.

“i’ll start easy on you, open your mouth a little bit and stick out your tongue a bit as well.” he says and you do so, earning a nod of approval from the brunette.

“now take me into your hand, and put the tip onto your tongue.” he says and you do as your told, placing his wet, pink tip onto your tongue.

“now if you want you can brush your tongue along the underside of my tip,” he says and you begin to do so, “yeah just like th- fuck, it’s so-“

“sensitive.” you smirk, taking him away from your mouth for a moment.

“yeah, that.” he replies as your put it right back wear it was.

“now you can kind of take your tongue where ever you like, you can move all the way down to the base or you can circle the tip, whatever feels comfortable to you.” he says and you act upon his words, dragging your wet, warm tongue down his shaft to the base of his cock. you moved your way back up, circling the tip just like you’d been told.

“is this okay?” he asks, holding your hair in a ponytail.

“mhm.” is all you reply as you work your tongue magic on his thick cock.

“now, if you’re ready, you’re gonna protect your teeth with your lips and start to take some of the shaft into your mouth.” he says and you do so, making an ‘o’ shape with your mouth you take some of him into your mouth, continuing to pay close attention to detail with your tongue.

“yes just like that.” he grunts as you make it just less than half way down his shaft before you begin to feel your gag reflex. quickly, you take him out of your mouth and look up at him.

“am i doing okay?”

“you are doing perfectly, is something wrong?”

“no, just don’t know how much i can take.” you sigh, avoiding a giggle,

“try to take a little more for me baby.” he asks and you nod, carefully taking him back into your mouth, pushing more of his cock in. you make it a moment further before gagging and pulling him out, spit webbing from your lips.

“god, i’m so close im sorry.” you sigh out.

“don’t apologize, here, hold onto your thumb like this, it’s shuts off your gag reflex.” he says and you copy his hand. using your free hand, you take his cock back into your mouth, your other hand gripping mercilessly onto your thumb, praying that maybe you could impress him. much to your surprise, you took him with ease, his happy trail tickling your nose as he bottomed out in your throat. you pulled him out with a pop, breathing heavily to get air back, not realizing you’d been holding your breath.

“that was so good baby, do you wanna try bobbing your head?” he asks and you do so, trying to mimic the same rhythm you used with your hand, your tongue tracing the bottom of his thick shaft.

“god you’re amazing.” he groans as his grip on your hair grows tighter, not pressuring you to move any other way. you continued this seemingly perfect routine, his moans and grunts growing closer together, his cock swelling even more. you could tell he was about to bust, as much as he didn’t want this night to end.

“oh fuck i’m gonna cum y/n.” he says lowly as you take him all the way, his warm, milky climax spurting down your throat, you pulled him out slightly, allowing him to finish on your tongue before you impressively, swallow his nut.

“you’re a fucking natural.” he scoffs, a smile spreading across his face as you wiped your lips from the mixture of saliva and cum.

“really?”

“god yes.” he says, tackling you to your bed pressing sweet kisses all over your face.

“so, can we do this again sometime?” you ask, face inches away from him.

“oh yeah? what’s our next lesson?” he replies.

“what about that, but on me?” you smirk.

“so the next one is you grading me?” he giggles.

“duh.” you reply, “or maybe we can call it the final, and we can go all the way?” you continue and he hugs you to his chest tightly.

“are you sure?”

“yes matt, i trust you. god you’re amazing.”

“i just can’t wait to show you the good sex you actually deserve. i in fact will not, stick it in, nut and then leave.” he laughs.

“well id hope not, better live up to the hype.”

“i won’t let you down.” he smirks reconnecting your lips.

“we never specified when this next ‘lesson’ was.” he sighs.

“soon. very soon.” you reply.

it was moments later that the two of you got cozy, deciding that maybe you should sleep together in the bed instead of a few feet apart on a sectional in your living room. and maybe you shouldve done this way sooner than your 21st birthday party.

[hgfictionwriter]

Maybe This Time

Jessie Fleming x Reader

Summary: UCLA was a long time ago. Jessie couldn't bring herself to make a move back then and missed her chance. But now that you're back in her life, maybe things can be different.

Warning: None

A/N: A bit more fluff for y'all! And sorry for flooding the Jessie tags. I’ve got a bunch of fics just sitting around!

"Jessie?"

Jessie turned and couldn't believe her eyes. Y/N. Y/N L/N. The girl she'd pined over at UCLA; who her friends had relentlessly made fun of her for liking and never pursuing; the girl who still showed up in idle daydreams from time to time, even all these years later.

"I heard you were playing in town now. Oh my gosh - it's been so long. I was hoping I'd run into you at some point."

Here you were standing in front of her. Smiling at her. Instead of being the...relatively...confident person Jessie now was - she was national team captain, a gold medal athlete, for goodness sake - she wasn't a young girl anymore hiding behind textbooks and her friends, instead though, she felt her cheeks burn hot and her words got caught in her throat. She stood there staring speechless at you.

"Don't tell me you don't recognize me," you said, a hint of apprehension beginning to cast over you.

Finally, Jessie began to react. She closed her eyes briefly in hopes of resetting, shaking her head and allowing herself to smile.

"Of course I do," she finally managed, only stammering slightly. "I mean, I recognize you. Of course."

"Okay." You let out a small laugh of relief. "For a second I thought worldwide athletic stardom made you forget your favourite lab partner."

"Of course not," Jessie readily assured you. "I'd never forget you."

The words were out of her mouth before she could stop them. She clenched her jaw as she reprimanded herself internally for imploding so quickly and after so much time. She cut herself some slack when you smiled again at her.

"That's comforting to hear. Well, I mean, I know you're just leaving," you gestured to the door of the coffee shop, "but, um, I don't know." You laughed nervously before settling on what to say. You offered her a resolute nod. "It was nice to see you again."

Jessie's mind whirled with ideas and options. Anything coming out of her mouth now was mere instinct.

"Nice to see you too. Um, I don't know, maybe we could chat sometime? Are you in Portland too?"

"Yeah, I work at a logistics firm in town." You cracked a smirk. "Not nearly as glamorous as being a national icon, but you know, I do my part."

Jessie chuckled and ran her fingers through her hair.

"If you call 4 am wake-up calls, jet lag, and bruises to high heaven glamourous, then sure, I guess it is."

"Sounds not too unfamiliar from your UCLA days," you teased. "I still remember when you showed up to class with a black eye. And I see you've healed fine from your recent one."

Jessie blushed. So you watched her games? And you remembered moments from uni.

You'd been friends in university, but that's all it ever was. Her friends had goaded her again and again to ask you out, but Jessie could never work up the courage. She'd doubted herself too much. And then before she knew it she'd lost her chance. You dated other girls and that was the end of it. She stepped back and time ticked on.

You remained close friends throughout uni, sharing deep conversations, hopes and fears, silly moments, too. There were moments where Jessie felt hope starting to blossom in her chest - that maybe you had feelings for her, but she'd stamp it out. She’d just be setting herself up for disappointment.

After you both graduated, that was it. She'd gone off to London and you fell out of touch. It was for the best really. Well, maybe.

"Anyway," you started again, drawing Jessie back from her thoughts. "Sure, I'd love to catch up. I'd say I'll message you on Instagram, but I know your social media is a black hole. I can give you my number if you like."

Jessie gave you a tight-lipped smile as she scratched the back of her head and let her gaze fall to the bulletin of flyers instead.

"Yeah, I'm not much for social media."

"I know," you chuckled. "You never were."

Jessie cleared her throat and looked back to you. "And sure, what's your number?"

She almost missed you telling her because her mind drifted back to class when you reached over and scribbled your number on the top corner of her paper and told her to text you about the reading. Jessie’s words had died in her throat and she had to settle for merely offering you a delayed nod as you gathered up your books and left. She’d felt light on her feet, nearly dizzy even, all day. Her hands had shaken when she texted you and her palms were clammy as she awaited your response.

That was a lifetime ago. But now here you were, and number newly confirmed. Jessie tucked her phone away in her pocket.

"Okay, I'll let you go," you told her. "And truly, if you aren't up to a chat of any kind - no pressure. You probably have so many people vying for your time. I won't be offended." You said with true earnest. "In case I don't see you again, I just want to say I'm really proud of you for everything you've achieved. And I'd say I'm impressed, but A) that goes without saying, and B) I always knew you were going to do great things. I told you time and time again. Anyway, it was so good to see you. Take care."

Before Jessie could respond, you'd turned and disappeared to the other side of the shop and into the line. She forced herself to turn and leave.

The door had barely closed behind her when she opened her phone and pulled up her messages with Teagan.

"You will NEVER guess who I just ran into."

-----

"Hi Y/N. It's Jessie. UCLA."

"Lol the one and only. How are you?"

"Well forgive me for not assuming that you would know who a random 'Jessie' is lol. I'm doing well, thanks. How are you?"

"You were always very humble. It was always very endearing, so I'm glad to see you haven't lost that. I'm doing well. Working late. Some of my vendors are shitting the bed, so I'm scrambling to find alternatives."

"Seriously? That sounds brutal. I'm sorry to hear that. Well, if it makes you feel better, the team had to run extra drills today because of how bad our last game was."

"It's the start of the season - lots of new players. Chemistry takes time. You guys will find your groove soon. I'm positive. How is Portland treating you, by the way? I'd love to hear more about your time in London too at some point."

"Well, if you still want to grab coffee, I can tell you all about it. And I want to hear about you too. Did you ever make it to the Ghibli museum?"

"Oh my gosh lolol. You remember that. And yes! I did. And it was amazing. And coffee would be amazing, too :)"

Jessie belatedly realized that she was smiling as you texted back and forth. It was an odd feeling - it was strange to be talking with you again, yet entirely natural.

To her surprise, you ended up texting every day until you met up Sunday afternoon. She'd mentioned to Teagan that you two had this scheduled and soon Jessie was hit with an onslaught of messages from all her Bruins mates stepping right back into form and teasing her.

On a scale from 1-10, how red did you blush? And why was it 20.

Can I finally tell her you mumbled her name in your sleep? Several times?

Please tell me you immediately pulled out a vision board with her face all over it.

LOL the universe said, “Think you’ve suffered enough pining for this girl? Think you’re over her? Guess again!”

She still hot? Send pics.

Jessie sat in her car down the street from the coffee shop and essentially gave herself a stern, mental talking to about your get together. She was not who she was 5 years ago, and neither were you. She didn't need to be so nervous. There were no stakes at all, she could just relax, be in the moment, and reconnect with an old friend.

When she stepped into the coffee shop, her pulse picked up just so when she saw you seated at a table, but thankfully by the time she sat she'd composed herself again.

"The good news is, the rain is nothing new to me after being in London," she joked as she swept some rain off her baseball cap.

You looked up from your phone and a large smile crossed your face.

"Yeah, I hear you. And what's going on - how did we both go from sunny LA to rain central?"

Not entirely surprising, conversation flowed easily between you two. And it wasn't all reminiscing and nostalgia, it was easy to talk about current things as well. Pretty soon, you were both at the ends of your second cups of coffee and yet neither of you made a move to leave.

"So, um, you've been in Portland for a while now," the ease Jessie had felt faltered some as she broached a topic she'd been highly curious about, "did [y/gf] come with you?"

You screwed up your face and laughed.

"No," you answered easily. "We broke up like a couple of months after convocation. Let's be real - that was never going to last."

"Oh," Jessie replied, surprise showing on her face at how readily you dismissed the notion. "I had no idea. I thought you two were solid."

"Well," you drained the last bit of your drink, "I guess I wasn't entirely forthcoming then. Sure, things were okay. But, I was lying to myself if I thought that was going to be a 'forever' kind of relationship." Jessie's look of surprise lingered and you rolled your eyes, leaning in. "Jessie. She'd get distracted every time she walked by a mirror. I wish I was exaggerating, but I'm not. Come on, don't tell me you didn't notice. Her full on checking herself out anytime she caught her reflection?"

Jessie sat back and gave you a brief look of disbelief, shaking her head. "I tried not to notice."

"Smart," you retorted good naturedly. "She was nice, and we had fun, but beyond our values not exactly aligning, an equal partnership it was not."

"Well, okay, she's out of the picture. You must be with someone new, then," Jessie went on. She ignored the twinge in her chest when you shook your head 'no'. Just as quickly, she scolded herself. Why would it matter? She was getting way ahead of herself here. She supposed that old habits - and evidently dormant feelings - died hard.

"No. I mean, I dated a couple of girls since I've been here, but nothing's really stuck." You looked up from your drink to Jessie. "Now, superstar, you have to tell me your update."

Jessie mouth contracted into a tight smile and she felt her cheeks begin to burn under the scrutiny.

"That's confidential," she quipped.

You rolled your eyes dramatically and leaned forward. "That is so not fair." Jessie remained smugly silent and merely shrugged. You let out an exasperated sigh and slouched back in your chair. "Fine," you relented not wanting to push too much. "You were always tight-lipped in university, too. You could've had anyone and you - as far as I know," you said pointedly, "didn't date anyone."

"Oh come on." Jessie now rolled her eyes. "I was so shy and quiet. Even if I'd liked someone I would've never gotten up the courage to ask them out." She felt a buzzing in her head as she watched your reaction. You smiled sweetly.

"You were shy and quiet, yes. But you opened up once you were comfortable. I mean, look at us, look at you with your teammates. And you were so smart, incredibly sweet, and pretty, and you had that dry sense of humour. And, hello, captain of the football team!"

"Co-captain," Jessie interjected pointedly. You hung your head briefly with a laugh.

"I repeat - you could've had anyone."

Jessie subconsciously fidgeted with her hat and planted her feet further apart as she shifted down in her chair. "Well, didn't seem that way at the time."

"Wait - so who did you like?" You probed.

"No one," Jessie retorted, her features scrunching up as she played off the question dismissively. "I barely had time to breathe. There was no way I could date someone."

"You are so cagey sometimes," you said lightly, not being able to resist ribbing her once more. "Fine, so, what about now? Are you seeing someone?"

Jessie's composure was long gone and her face burned hot as your interrogation got her flustered. She took a subtle breath and worked to calm herself.

"No, no one's caught my eye just yet," she relayed.

You studied Jessie, discerning whether to drop the topic or not. You eventually relented as you crossed your arms and reclined in your chair.

"Well, I imagine that's not easy. There's a lot to live up to. And you're surrounded by impressive people every day, so the bar's gotta be high. Again, you can have your pick."

You grabbed your phone and looked it over quickly.

"I need to get going. I have a few errands to run still before the weekend's over," you said, a hint of regret in your voice before you offered a smile. "I had a great time though. It was so good to catch up with you."

Jessie removed her hat, running her fingers through her hair briefly before pulling the cap back down on her head.

"Yeah, I had a great time, too."

For the first time this conversation, a small lull formed and neither of you jumped to bridge it. Eventually, Jessie cleared her throat.

"Maybe we could get together again. Coffee. A drink. Whatever, really."

A mild look of surprise crossed your face, puzzling Jessie.

"Sure, I'd like that," you told her warmly as you shrugged on your jacket.

"Okay." Jessie gave you a small smile as she, too, rose from the table. "Will you be at the game next weekend?"

"I hadn't planned on it, but I could be." You smirked.

"No pressure," Jessie said as she felt that old nervousness begin to bubble up. "I could get you tickets if you ever want to go. That's all."

You smiled, looking at her in appreciation. "I'll have to take you up on that."

Jessie chuckled, but gave you a pointed look. "Honestly, you don't have to. I know you weren't a big soccer fan even in university."

"But," you started, drawing the word out and returning her pointed look, "I started going to games after becoming friends with a certain someone. I just haven't had a reason to go to a Thorns games yet."

Jessie resisted her impending blush and instead crossed her arms loosely in front of her, shifting her weight to one leg. "Okay, just let me know," Jessie said. She gave you a small nod. "And I promise these games are even better than Bruins ones."

You cocked your head, a hint of a smile on your face as you lifted a finger to your lips and narrowed your eyes in mock contemplation.

"What are they calling you these days? Midfield Maestro?"

Somehow, Jessie didn't even feel the urge to blush. Instead, she gave you a cocky smirk.

"So you really have been following my career."

She nearly grinned at how your cheeks flushed pink and you broke eye contact. You only took a moment to compose yourself and look back to Jessie with a half smirk.

"Hard not to," you simply said.

Jessie relented, feeling like she'd teased you enough. For now. She smiled and spoke earnestly.

"Offer stands - if you wants tickets, just let me know. Regardless, let's get together soon."

"Deal," you told her, your blush slowly fading.

There was a brief moment of stillness and uncertainty before you stepped forward and pulled Jessie into a hug. It only took her a moment to relax into it, her arms wrapping around you. Even though your body felt different now - so was hers - it felt natural to hold you close again.

You stayed like that for several moments, surprise and tampered excitement filling Jessie when you tightened your embrace before letting go. She noted the renewed colour on your cheeks when you stepped back.

"Text me?" You asked.

Jessie nodded. "Of course."

A\N: Part Two is available here.

[inkskinned]

one of the things that's so frustrating is how often the arguments against us are actually happening to us. we said - you need to watch out, this will evolve into allowing fascism into legal statute. and we were told: you're a sensitive snowflake. you're annoying and stupid and have no concept of reality. nobody really believes that stuff.

but it's indoctrination for kids to even see queer people. it's grooming for kids to even be around queer people. it's disgusting to even put rainbows on kids clothes. it's inappropriate, shameful, still-an-argument. like any of this is new - we know already. for you, even seeing someone unashamed is the same thing as "forcing" it onto you. because god-forbid you confront any internal thought you have. because god-forbid you practice empathy. rage is better, i guess. it keeps you pretty.

this has always been the way of some people - a while ago, it would have been "sinful" for my white mom to marry my hispanic dad. once, in the year of our lord 2015, someone told me that "mutts" deserve a woodchipper. that one particular insult stayed with me - not because it was the first or last, but because there was something so unbelievably violent about it that i couldn't figure out how to hold it. the idea that someone is so assured of their bigotry and rage that they would paint this kind of a picture. even jokingly, even with the anonymity of the internet, it kind of centered things for me. a sense that, for some people, their rage burned so unimaginably large that it blocked even the basic fact of my humanity.

at one point, while i still had enough fire in me to get into long arguments, one of the bigots i was "debating" (being harassed by) said: to be honest, it's about the sex, not the love. between you, me, and the four walls of this blue hellsite, i actually didn't really care for "love is love" as the slogan of our community. it seemed so placid, so gentle, so ally-focused. where was the vitriol? where was the hours i spent agonizing over myself? where was the quiet moments of my life, filled with the sound of other people's hatred? this static that settles over everything; even for the action of holding her hand.

the world is unfair. i am an adult, and without the veneer and small-pond syndrome of my teenage years, the slogan has started sounding more desperate. the more places i went, the more people i met. love is love. love is defending him on a rooftop bar. the drink she throws at me goes down into my shoes while i stand there, wishing i had a better retort than what the fuck. love is both of us, keeping our heads down, the black SUV full of frat boys (?) pulled up next to us, howling, for five whole blocks, until we both gave up and had to stick our bare legs into the thicket by the side of the road, giving over into tick country rather than let it go on any longer. love is a lazy spring afternoon, my hand on her belly, the fan spinning overhead. did you hear the whole thing about target?

did you hear about being the target? that's a fun little parallel, isn't it. it almost feels like the game that-is-about-me is being played without-my-participation. someone wants to set fire to my life, and i have to wait for a response from a capitalist institution. i am watching a tiktok where a white woman under white lights complains about adult swimsuits, even though i think a lot of people would benefit from having swimming options that are not "instagram-inspired bikini" or "impossible to move in but otherwise pretty".

sometimes it just seems so fucking stupid. like, just to check, the rage you feel and the hatred - you could really just avoid all of that by minding your fucking business. sometimes (and this is true): it's not about you, and people don't need your permission. like, i don't understand any obsession with sports, but it seems to make other people happy. american football literally results in grievous bodily injury - and yet there are onesies for babies that say future quarterback. i personally don't love it, so i just don't buy that stuff. i walk by it, and don't let it bother me. there have been so, so, so many times that i was told - "so what if he's a little bit homophobic, if you don't like him, don't watch his movies." "so what if they fired her. don't buy their product." "so what if they wouldn't make a rainbow cake. just don't support them."

sometimes i feel the meaning of it scud against my body, an orca whale inside of me, threatening the boat. it is too large to see from my place; this shadow of a thing that dwarfs my petty other-concerns. i need to find a dress for an event, and florida is passing more anti-gay legislation. i need to text my friend back and confirm our plans, and someone is throwing beer bottles to the floor in a walmart because a different case had rainbows on them. it is a long fall, if i look down into it; this sense like the bottom doesn't exist. like i have only ever dipped my toes in.

sometimes i am unbelievably tired of talking about it. it feels like it has become too trite in my own poetry - queer writer complains about the state of the world! how original! - and then something else happens, and i am here again. i remember that it isn't a moment. i remember it isn't a scattered population of cartoon evil-doers, intent on world domination from behind handlebar mustaches. it is a concerted effort of real people with real power who really-do want to see my end. it is a lifetime of dodging the beercan as it sails out of the back of the van. it is a lifetime of not-kissing once we leave the apartment. it is a lifetime of watching someone protest our existence and then, very slowly, giving them the finger. it is a lifetime of holding my friends' hands and hearing the same agony in their life that i lived through. it is us, together, our faces turned upwards, the night sky so vast, milky way overhead like a lacework zipper.

it is a lifetime of staring down woodchippers.

[babybatss-blog]

DOMESTICS

Sirius black x reader, 1100  words

summary: all you wanted to do was cook Sirius some chicken for dinner, but perhaps things don’t always go your way.

c/w: established relationship, alcohol consumption, swearing and crying, argument between Sirus and Reader. Practically just tame, basic relationship angst that turns into fluff :)

The classic casual Friday night is always a big step in any intimate relationship. Stepping out of uncomfortable outfits and delicate table foods into comfy hoodies and junky snacks creates a whole new level of intimacy with a partner, and can be quite nerve wracking for at least the first few instances. 

But you and Sirius are way past that.

On the first date, you stayed the night at his for two whole days. You met his best friends on that second day, and he met yours just four days later. James said you were funny, and Lily said Sirus was smitten. He admired your comfortableness with him while you appreciated his lack of care towards your groggy state every morning, and a week in you both shared your deepest traumas with each other. On some random Wednesday your parents turned up unannounced in your apartment, which is when he met them both shirtless and slightly hungover (though he concealed the latter expertly).

So, two months later it is entirely expected to have Sirius lounging on your couch, watching some Netflix overproduced action show and as you cook dinner. Usually he prefers taking control of the kitchen because he “likes to spoil his girls”, but he did not impose when you insisted it was your turn to give him some love. The kitchen smells like a variety of spices and mouth-watering flavours, and despite the simple dish you are preparing the kitchen looks like a professional chef is making a world-famous meal. Plates, pots and pans are spread around, ingredients spilled on any and all surfaces and your state decreased to completely dishevelled, huffing and puffing at every slight inconvenience to come your way. “This needs to be perfect for him.” You think, anxiously managing every element with not a moment to spare. Unbeknownst to you Sirus has now snuck over, and softly places his chiselled chin on your shoulder as you peer over the cooking meat.

“Looks raw.” He states nonchalantly, arms creeping around your waist. “I know. It’s not done yet.” You explain bluntly, words leaving your mouth slightly more harsh than you intended. But you don’t take them back, as your focus is entirely taken up by the meal in front of you.

Wait, I thought it was done? What’s it meant to look like if it is done? What does it taste like? What more does it need?

He soon releases you, walking away to the bathroom as he calls out. “Sorry for not wanting to be poisoned I guess!” You huff, opting to not fight back in fear of putting too much energy into something that doesn’t really matter in the scheme of things. You and Sirius are both painfully stubborn when you want to be, and are often laughed at by your friends for getting in ridiculous arguments. Once, you needed to go on a walk and clear your head after the two of you debated which Barbie movie is the best.

As he returns from the bathroom he subtly side eyes the chicken, seeing you have now placed it on a plate ready for serving. Against his better judgment, he calls out, in a half cough half word amalgamation which complains “still raw”. Would it be smart for you to reply? No, of course not! But do you do it anyway? Obviously!

“WELL WHY DON’T YOU COOK THEN MR PERFECT?!” You snap, eyes erratic and wide as you face him. He scoffs, hands placed on the kitchen counter opposite you.

“I’d be happy to, but you didn’t fucking let me!”

”Didn’t let you? I’m not your mother, I’m sorry I wanted to do something nice for you!”

“Well it isn’t nice if I’m too sick to go to work tomorrow!”

“Relax hard ass, you start work at three!” The argument quickly escalates past the point of reasonable, as Sirius’ arms flail widely about and the vegetables are left to burn in the oven.

In a closing statement you call Sirius a “spoilt brat” and he storms off, slamming the bedroom door behind him so he can no longer hear you if you try to apologise. Tears well in your eyes as you look around, realising what just happened truly as your brain finally processes. How can your worst argument be about some stupid chicken? You rush to repair the damage of your distractions to the meal, pulling the vegetables out of the oven as your salty tears fall within. You can barely see through your exaggerated sobs, mad at yourself for all manner of things.

Why did you let his simple comments go to your head? What if he’s right, and the meals a disaster? Will he despise you now for going so off the handle? Is this the last night of your fleeting romance?

You quietly serve up the food as these thoughts run through your head, wiping away gushing tears and snot as you go. Once it’s done, you tentatively go over to the closed door of the bedroom and knock a few times. You hear some shuffles, and the door is opened to reveal an unimpressed Sirus. “Sorry…” You mumble, eyes glued to the wooden floor between you. He pushes past you in silence, grabbing his plate and sitting down on the plush couch. As much as you would like to beg for forgiveness and list all the reasons you should stay together, you don’t deem that important when he pats the space next to him to sit down, handing you a sympathetic yet weak smile. “I know you didn’t mean it.” He finally gets out, eyes drilling into your still shy figure. “I just was trying to help.” “I know. But I didn’t want you to have to worry. I wanted to spoil you; you know?” His hand falls onto your thigh, the other placing the chicken in his hungry mouth. You join him in eating the meal, and reluctantly admit what you wished wasn’t true.

“It’s not fully cooked.” You pout, tears still glossing your eyes. He chuckles, placing his plate down and enveloping you in a hug. “That’s fine gorgeous. UberEats it is.” You pull back and quickly peck his lips, a smile forming on both your faces as you respond.

“Only if it’s Mexican.”

“Deal.”

[cobaltperun]

Woe out the Storm (18 - 1.5 finale) - I Would Just Give Up My Life

Wednesday Addams x female Reader

Summary: It took some time, but eventually you came to realize only Wednesday Addams could look at the raging storm of chaos and destruction and make a home out of it. Only she could listen to the cacophony of the roaring thunder and hear a melody.

Story warnings: Wednesday Addams, violence, slow burn

Story masterlist / First Part / Previous Part

Word count: 2.3k (Short, but I don't want to drag it out.)

-I walk alone to find my way, give me something to carry on-

You were still, torturously still and Wednesday thought she’d enjoy almost any kind of torture. She never wanted to be tortured like this again. Watching you just barely breathing, bandaged up and your heartbeat frighteningly slow, just barely a third of what was normal, as if it was no longer an unconscious thing a body did, like breathing, but a conscious effort, even while sleeping.

Enid came in with Thing and her mother. Lurch picked her up after she insisted on coming here. “Wednesday? How is she?” she asked, though Wednesday didn’t look away from you.

“Stable,” she replied, moving her hand back so they wouldn’t see she’s been holding your hand for a long time now.

“She is strong, she’ll recover,” her mother told her, prompting a nod from Wednesday.

Thing jumped onto her shoulder and tapped, pointing out how often she’s been by your side lately, and then, the teasing, traitorous limb that he is, he jumped off and scurried to her mother before she could grab him.

So, Wednesday just glared at him, it wasn’t worth chasing him.

At least he didn’t spill that she slept in your bed, and he didn’t know the two of you slept in the same bed the night he was stabbed.

“She’ll recover but,” Enid paused, sniffling and Wednesday knew what she wanted to say before she even continued. “She lost her dad, and like this,” she finished and Wednesday agreed.

And then there was your mother. No one contacted her yet, Enid was terrified to do so, and they plain and simple didn’t know the woman. And as stable as you were they still wanted to wait until you were awake.

~X~

You woke up in a dark room, lit only by a couple of candles. The pain, at least the physical part of it, was mostly gone. Probably due to the medicine. You vaguely remembered what happened while you were in your beast form, shifting, roaring at the skies. Then digging up that hole for your dad and just lying down next to his body.

You weren’t sure how long you spent like that, but Wednesday came, and then she hugged you, and her family came as well. It all felt like a dream, but you remembered it. Maybe not everything, but you remembered most of it. You remembered the trust, feeling of safety and faith that they wouldn’t harm you, or do something to your dad’s body.

Being Wednesday’s family gave them a right to do a lot more than nearly anyone could.

You looked to the side, at Wednesday lying next to you, firmly holding your left hand and wrist on her pillow. You sighed softly, turning onto your side and brushing a few strands of her hair from her face.

She didn’t wake up, she barely even reacted, by actually leaning closer to you. Just how tired was she? If you had to guess you’d say she hasn’t slept in days, since ride alone would take almost ten hours in one direction. And she fell asleep next to you, clutching at your hand and wrist, exactly where she could feel your pulse.

Your eyes softened and for a moment you felt at ease, right there, in what you assumed was her room, in her childhood bed, a room filled with books, predictably black and gothic, and her sleeping peacefully as you caressed her cheek. You looked to her nightstand drawer and saw the knife she gave you there. You still had it. You didn’t have anything else, but you still had that.

You remembered everything, the almost kiss, the look in her eyes. She loved you back, but right now… You just weren’t ready. Not even to talk about how you hurt her by forgetting about your almost kiss. “I’m sorry I forgot something so important,” you still whispered, pulling your left hand closer and kissing the back of her hand. “I promise I’ll make up for it, for the rest of my life if you’ll let me, I just need a bit of time,” you told her, even though she still slept, and then, slowly and carefully, to avoid waking Wednesday up and aggravating your wounds, you managed to get up and step outside her room.

~X~

Wednesday opened her eyes and looked at the back of her hand, her heart slamming against her chest like a wrecking ball. You remembered? The night you almost kissed? That had to be what you were talking about. And you’d make up for forgetting it for the rest of your life? It was almost too much for her right now. Too many emotions, too many things she wasn’t used to. The sensation of your lips against her skin. She would give you all the time you need, she’d wait.

No matter how long it takes, and as much as she wished to get up and follow you, to make sure you were fine, she couldn’t do it now. You needed space, and she’d give it to you.

~X~

Wednesday’s house was huge, absurdly so, but you managed to find the stairs and go down, hoping to get some air. Halfway down the stairs you leaned sideway against the wall, clutching at your chest. Your heart wasn’t beating fast enough.

Of course, you died for a bit, likely revived by your dad’s lightning. You focused on your heart, focused on the heartbeat, on speeding it up, at least for a while you’d have to make a conscious effort to keep it beating, because your dad didn’t restart your heart, he just made your brain do it manually. A few days of paying attention to your heartbeat felt like a small price to pay for still being alive.

“Y/N, you’re awake,” you heard a soft, graceful voice and looked back to see Morticia standing at the top of the stairs.

You nodded. “Mrs. Addams, I’m sorry about causing trouble,” you were grateful, but you still felt the need to apologize.

The woman just gently shook her head. You knew she wasn’t a lot like Wednesday, that sure, they shared some traits, but Morticia was absolutely more in tune with her emotions. Much gentler, without losing her fierceness. Yet not once did you think Wednesday should be more like Morticia, Wednesday was Wednesday. “Nonsense, darling, you are welcome here, and please just call me Morticia. Come, join me. Gomez is finishing preparations for Elijah’s funeral, if you agree to bury him here,” that took you by surprise.

You vaguely remembered Gomez speaking to you, but you failed to completely understand him. If your dad could be buried here you would be grateful. “I’m not sure if I can ask for something like that,” you said as you followed her down the stairs and outside the huge mansion. It was easy to spot the graveyard near the mansion.

“You most certainly can. Elijah and Gomez were best friends, and while we weren’t as close, he was always a friend to me as well. And now you hold a special place in our Wednesday’s cold black heart,” she led you through the graveyard and you considered it. There was nowhere else you could bury him and properly mark the grave.

Before you could respond though, you were left speechless. You saw the grave, the tombstone with a majestic bear carved into it, and your dad’s name on it. You felt tears welling up in your eyes as you looked at the casket, at the black wood and white golden details, shaped like lightning on the edges.

“Ah, Tish, Y/N, come, come, I’ve made sure Elijah can have the funeral fitting of the man he was in life,” Gomez ushered you closer, showing you all the intricate details he put effort in. “We weren’t sure if you’d be the one calling your mother or if you’d want us to inform her instead. Everything else is ready,” he told you, patting you on the back in a comforting way.

“I’ll call her, Mr. Addams,” you said, still unable to come up with a response for this gesture. “I can’t put into words how thankful I am,” you bowed your head low to the two of them. “For this,” you motioned toward everything Gomez did. “For letting me stay here and treating my wounds, I-“ you choked up.

“It’s okay, let it all out,” Morticia’s words broke you, and you sobbed your heart out, releasing all the emotions within you, not for a moment worrying that they might judge you for it.

You weren’t sure how long you stayed like that before your tears dried up and Morticia placed a hand on your back. “Y/N, I know this is abrupt, but, if you ever wish to do so I can let you talk to Elijah, at least for a bit. The wounds on your heart are still fresh, I suggest you wait until they have enough time to decay, but whenever you wish to, now, or later, I’m here to help you with that.”

You could talk to him? You could have that conversation? Tell him you were sorry for everything? You nearly said you wanted to do it now. But Morticia was right, everything was still too fresh, so you nodded. “Thank you, Mrs. Addams,” you failed to correct yourself, and she didn’t correct you, probably knowing much better than you that there would be better times to adjust the way you addressed her and Gomez. “I’ll wait for a bit.”

“Of course,” she nodded, smiling gently at you.

You slowly got up, realizing you were much more exhausted than you thought you’d be. And though you did it slowly you made your way back into the mansion with Morticia and Gomez.

And the moment you stepped inside you were startled by a colorful blur that didn’t fit with the lack of colors in the mansion and a hand colliding with your face.

“Enid, Thing,” you groaned, though it came out muffled because of Thing, just barely staying on your feet.

“You’re awake! OMG! You’re awake!” Enid exclaimed, sobbing into your shirt as you patted her on the back and Thing moved to the top of your head where you gave him a fist bump.

“Yeah, I, I’m awake,” you managed a smile, you were genuinely happy to see the two of them again. You missed them, you thought of them, as well as your mom and Wednesday when you were sure you’d likely die, so seeing them again felt amazing.

Enid separated from you and looked you over, she nodded, satisfied that you were alive and well on your way to recovery. “Thing and I will get Wednesday, right Thing?” Enid smiled at you, though her eyes were still filled with tears.

“Thanks,” you nodded, eager to see her properly, with both of you now awake and fully aware.

~X~

Enid and Thing came to get her, interrupting a rather unproductive writing time. And she followed them down one set of stairs toward the living room.

She watched from the top of the stairs, silent. You were standing there with her parents, with your back turned to the stairs as her mother placed a comforting hand on your shoulder. Now that you were awake you looked normal, though the image she received on her phone overlapped with what she was seeing at the moment. Your body, apparently lifeless, covered in blood, sent to her as a taunt made her clench her fists, her body trembling slightly. Even after knowing you were fine she couldn’t get rid of that image that easily.

“Come on, you’re the one she wants to see the most,” Enid nudged her, and she felt Thing pulling at her pants, but she remained rooted to the top of the stairs. Her cold, dead heart shattering as she thought of what could have happened.

Perhaps you didn’t die for her, but you could have died because of her, because you got involved in this, whatever this even was, for her. She thought Crackstone was the danger she needed to watch out for, that with him gone and you growing much stronger after that night, you managed to avoid the curse.

She was hasty, and she nearly lost you. She inhaled sharply and you abruptly turned your attention toward her, your eyes widening as you saw her.

“Wednesday,” you said her name and it was as if someone broke a curse that kept her rooted to the top of the stairs.

She went down, barely aware that Thing nearly tumbled down the stairs with how suddenly she moved, and she wasn’t sure if she walked down the stairs or ran, but the next thing she knew she was standing in front of you, the bandages peeking out just above your collar making her stop and stare just for a moment.

And then all her defenses came down and she grabbed onto you, tightly, possessively, clutching onto the back of your neck and pulling you down until she felt your breath against the skin of her neck, her other arm keeping you pressed against her body. “Mi Rayo,” she whispered, her hand pressing against your back, right where your heart was hoping to feel it beating against her palm. And it was faint, but she felt it.

“I’m alive, Wednesday, I’m alive,” you assured her, your lips brushing against her neck as you hugged her back. And Wednesday thought that you should never move your hands, that she should feel your fingers digging into her flesh as you held her so desperately at all times. “I’m with you,” and you should never leave her side, she hated to admit it, but she didn’t want to spend a day away from you ever again.

A/N: Well, that’s it until the season 2, I swear it can’t come out quickly enough.

Taglist: @brocoliisscared @alexkolax

[moonstruckme]

Hi lovely!! How are you? I completely understand if you aren’t comfy writing this but I was wondering if you could write something with Sirius x reader where she enjoys sex but bc of how she was raised she feels guilty for enjoying it/wanting it if that makes sense? Just him reassuring her that it’s okay to want it and it doesn’t make her dirty or wrong.

Again, I completely get if you aren’t okay writing it, I love your stories so much. Thank you!!

Thanks for requesting my love!

cw: smut, mdni, reader has negative associations with sex and "impurity"

Sirius Black x fem!reader ♡ 1k words

Sirius’ breath is hot on your ear, moving the baby hairs there slightly. You think dizzily that it’s almost like having a hair dryer pointed at you. Except a hair dryer would never say the things he’s telling you.

“There y’go.” He kisses the skin just shy of your ear, a tiny reward. “Just like—fuck, just like that. Good fucking girl.” 

The high you get from the praise comes with a bite of shame. You try to ignore the latter, fisting your hands in the covers as Sirius quickens his pace and the feeling in your core builds and builds, your cunt gripping his cock for dear life. Sirius’s hands are at your chest, still confined in the corset top you’d worn out tonight. He squeezes your boob through the fabric, and you have to bite your lip to suppress the moan that rises from the back of your throat. 

“Fuck, baby,” he groans when you tighten on him again. “You like that?”

You nod, too self-conscious and delirious with pleasure to attempt speech. 

Sirius kisses you, working your bottom lip free of your teeth as he grips your boob more intentionally. It comes readily out of your top and into his palm, where Sirius kneads at it diligently. You’re making sounds into his mouth now, but so is he, and when his thumb pushes over your nipple at the same time as he drives into you, you finish only a few seconds before he does. 

“Damn,” Sirius says when he can speak again. He’s panting, pulling out of you slowly to lie on the bed beside you. “That top is something else. I didn’t know you even had clothes like that, you sneak.” 

When you blush, it’s from more than just his teasing tone. “Only this one,” you say, as though that’s some kind of excuse. You usually would never wear a top like the one Sirius has half torn off you tonight, but you’ve admired the way he and his friends dress ever since you met them. You want to be that bold, that unafraid. And when you’d seen the corset top in a thrift store a couple months back, it had struck you instantly as something the person you wanted to be might wear. Someone more daring than you truly were. It had taken you until tonight to work up the gall to actually wear it outside of your bedroom, but Sirius had not let its debut go by unappreciated. 

“Well, if you feel like buying more,” Sirius says against your shoulder, kissing at your hot skin with casual reverence, “you won’t catch me complaining. You look hot in it.” He nibbles at your clavicle. “Although I guess that’s true of everything you wear.” 

Your face burns. “Thanks.” 

Sirius must hear something of your hesitation in your voice, because he picks his head up, gray eyes narrowing at you. “You don’t agree?” he asks, and he’s still trying to play, one eyebrow arching dramatically. 

You laugh. It’s so obviously forced that Sirius drops the act instantly, pushing up on his elbows to see you more clearly. He unsticks a strand of hair from your sweaty cheek, running it between his fingers. “Something the matter, pretty girl?” 

Something is the matter. You feel like you always do after sex, but worse because of the showy top that had provoked Sirius’ advances in the first place. You feel guilty, dirty, the stickiness between your thighs more like grime now than pleasure. You feel like you might be a “good girl” the way Sirius means, but you’re miles off from the sort of good you were raised to be. 

“Sweetheart,” Sirius croons, and he’s wheedling, “I think I know what you’re thinking, and if I’m right, you know it’ll make you feel better to talk about it.” 

You sigh. “I’m sorry,” you say. It’s as good as an admittance. “I don’t mean to take all the fun out of it.” 

“Hey.” He sweeps the piece of hair behind your ear, giving you a look nearly as stern as it is fond. “I’m not having any fun if you’re not, got it? And I wouldn’t want to.” Your gaze drops, and Sirius moves his hand to your face, angling it gently to face him. “We should both be able to enjoy ourselves,” he says. 

“I know.” You sigh again. You can’t seem to stop; it’s as if all the air wants to flee your body as badly as you do. “It’s not that I don’t enjoy it…it’s that I don’t enjoy enjoying it.” You try to crack a joke, and Sirius gives you a small smile, pecking you on the cheek for your efforts. “It’s hard to reprogram myself to think of sex as something that I’m allowed to like, you know?” 

Sirius’ grin fades as he nods, eyebrows drawn together pensively. “I think so,” he says. “When I first figured out I liked boys too, it took me a long time to feel like I wasn’t doing something wrong, even though I knew everyone I actually cared about would be fine with it. It’s…like, you have to convince yourself every time that you’re not going to get in trouble, and that even if you do, anyone who could be upset with you is on the wrong side of things.” 

You’re nodding before he’s even finished. “Exactly,” you say, fighting the urge to draw your knees to your chest, to make yourself small. “It’s hard to put out the voices saying otherwise, though.” 

Sirius hums. “Well,” he says softly, lowering himself over you to press a kiss to your jaw, “suppose you just listen to my voice instead.” He moves downward, to your neck, your chest. The warmth in your core flares up anew. “Whaddya think, my sweet girl?” When he gets to your navel, he slides off the end of the bed. “Wanna try convincing yourself it’s alright while I convince you too?”

You draw breath to answer, but it turns to a gasp when Sirius hooks his hands under your knees without warning, yanking you to the end of the bed. He waits there patiently, breath warming your inner thighs. You can’t find your voice, but you nod. Sirius grins.

“Alright. That’ll do for now, baby, but soon I wanna hear you enjoying yourself. Gonna show those voices who’s really in charge.”

[strongheartneteyam]

Late night fun.

pairing: human!neteyam x female!reader

cw: fluff, established relationship, oral sex (female & male receiving), dirty talk, netflix and chill (lol), grinding, snuggling for warmth "trope", use of "babygirl" and "princess", hair pulling, dominant neteyam/sub reader, use of "daddy", use of "slut", possessive neteyam, slight degradation, praising kink, slut-for-neteyam-reader

Synopsis: It was supposed to be just a cozy winter night where you would chill in bed with your boyfriend while watching TV... but when it came to you and Neteyam alone in a room for too long, it was never just cuddles. The magnetic force that was the attraction that burned between the both of you was far too strong.

I've been wanting to write something for human neteyam for ages and I guess this is my first attempt lol hope my dear readers like it <3

Not proofread. The heat is cooking my brain 🧠 🔥 sorry babies, mama promises to do it soon lol

⋆

The night was cold and there was a sitcom playing on the big TV on Neteyam's bedroom. You snuggled closer to your boyfriend's chest, trying to get some warmth out of his soft black hoodie and his own body heat.

Neteyam chuckled at your smaller body holding onto his - he was 6'1, so, it was not hard for a girl to look short compared to his tall, broad body - and said "You cold, babygirl?" His voice was a bit hoarse and you had always found it to be the sexiest thing ever, even before you two started dating. Neteyam wrapped his strong, long arm around you, pulling you even closer.

"Mmhmm... You're so warm and comfy. I love it." your words were tender and needy. You let out a relaxed sigh.

"You're cute, baby." He pressed his lips softly on your forehead, making you feel protected.

After cuddling with Neteyam for a while, you started feeling a big bulge under his jeans.

"Teyam, you're hard?" A mischievous chuckle left your lips

"Don't blame me. It's impossible not to get turned on with these delicious fleshy thighs wrapped around my hips." He tried to defend himself and you could only keep laughing, though you tried to keep your voice down not to wake his family up. God knows Jake was a strict ex marine dad and Neytiri was short tempered. They were the best parents in law to you, despite that.

"Want me to help you out with that?" Your dirty suggestion comes with a pair of lustful eyes directed at Neteyam's gorgeous face. His sharp jaw looked sexier than ever that night. Or maybe you were just turned on by the feeling of his hard cock against your soft thigh.

Neteyam answered you by swiftly placing you on top of him. You were now straddling his large lap and you couldn't help but grind against his erection.

"Keep doing that and I'll use your little mouth to make me cum before I fuck your tight pussy." Neteyam warned, his voice husky. Your teasing ways always drove him crazy with desire.

You smiled at him.

"You know I don't mind if you do that." Your lips kissed his warm neck and you were drowning in the natural, cozy scent of Neteyam's skin.

Before you could notice, Neteyam grabbed a handful of your hair and pulled your head back, forcing you to look at him.

"Adress me right, then." Your breath was slightly labored and at this point your panties were utterly soaked.

"Daddy?" You tried

"That's right" Neteyam grinned, cocky. He loved it when you were good for him. "My obedient little slut."

"All yours, Daddy. Just yours." You mewled, eager to suck his cock. It was just like you could taste him already.

"Only mine." He reinforced your previous statement "Get off me for a while, princess." You immediately obeyed. You loved being his fucktoy.

Neteyam got on his knees and took his hoodie off, followed by his white shirt and then his light blue jeans. His clothes were now on the floor and your mouth almost watered at the sight of his large, girthy cock, all out to see. God, why was his cock so big and so pretty? Is that weird to think a guy's cock is pretty? Not that you actually cared about that at that moment. The only thing you truly cared about was tasting that little bead of pre cum on the slit of his swollen tip.

"Come." Neteyam ordered and you did as he said.

You got closer to him and he rapidly took your black buttoned up shirt off, revealing part of your body to him.

"You're so fucking hot. So fucking perfect for me." Neteyam praised you, winning a shy but joyful smile from your rosy lips."Now, wrap these pretty lips around Daddy's cock."

You lowered yourself, face right next to his hard member, your ass up in the air. Neteyam roughly grabbed one of your butt cheeks, squeezing the soft flesh hard, getting a somehow sadistic delight from that action.

Your mouth was now filled with his cock, his girth making it hard to fit it all in but you did your best to please him. Neteyam breathed in with pleasure while he looked down at you with half lidded eyes.

"Feels good" he murmured, captivated by the way your soft, warm tongue felt on his length. Your head made up and down movements swiftly and you looked up at him, eyes full of submission and devotion.

Neteyam grabbed the back of your head and gently pushed you away from his cock. You licked your lips, his strong taste lingering in your tastebuds. You kissed his toned but soft torso, licking his skin too. You wanted all of him, you needed all of him.

"Put your tongue out for Daddy." Not a second later, your tongue was already out as you waited for what was to come.

Neteyam grabbed his cock and put his girthy, swollen tip on your wet tongue, making tapping motions over and over again at a rapid pace, making you feel like a dirty slut but you loved to feel like that for him and only for him. Tasting his salty, musky pre cum on your mouth made you feel something so unique and you were just utterly addicted to it.

He watched you, full of himself, seeing how much you loved tasting his juices.

"Now it's my turn to taste you." Neteyam stated

"But I'm not done yet..." You protested with a whiny face

"I love how greedy you are for my cock, princess, but I wanna make you feel good too, hmm?" Neteyam buried his long fingers on your soft hair, holding your head in a slight move of soft but effective dominance

"'Kay..." You looked a bit defeated

Your response was followed by a chuckle coming from Neteyam.

"Don't act like you don't like it. Don't be a little brat."

"That's not it. You know I love it when you eat me out, Daddy." You gave him a lewd smile

"Then open these legs for me." Neteyam's large hand touched your inner thigh, caressing the sensitive skin slowly.

Now you wanted to feel his tongue on your core more than anything in the world. You laid back at the comfortable mattress, in the sheets that smelled just like Neteyam and watched as he slid your white panties down your legs.

Neteyam hiked up your skirt, leaving your pussy out to see. He opened your legs and stared at your glistening folds, coated with your juices. Your boyfriend was now licking your pussy from the bottom until your clit. When his warm tongue reached your sensitive nub, you let out a cry of pleasure.

"Just don't be too loud so we don't wake my family up, okay, babygirl?" He smiled at you, lips shining with your juices all over them. That was so dirty and so fucking sexy.

You moved your head back and fourth, telling him you understood, desperate for him to continue what he was doing before.

Neteyam started suckling on your clit and your mouth fell open with the wave of pleasure that came over you. Your hips started moving while you pushed your wet cunt against his mouth. You could feel his nose rubbing against your clitoris now, as he was licking you deep, gathering your juices with his tongue and swallowing them, savoring his babygirl's taste. You tasted like Heaven to Neteyam.

You held onto his thin, silky braids while Neteyam feasted on your sticky cunt, eating you out so eagerly you felt like the hottest girl alive. He looked up to you, his hazel eyes so enticing, almost like he was trying to tell you through his piercing gaze how much he loved eating your pussy. Neteyam sneaked one of his hands under your bra, cupping one of your boobs while he kept licking you. All the things he was doing to you were so good that you had to put both your hands over your mouth to try and muffle the way you were moaning intensely. Your legs were starting to tremble now.

⋆

Taglist:

@yeosxxx

@criticallybella

[streamafterlaughter]

Soundtrack to Disaster

Chapter IV: Break Your Pretty Face

masterlist | playlist | pinboard | prev.

song(s) for this chapter: no remorse by metallica, hate you by boston manor, choke by idkhow, let’s talk about your hair by have mercy

chapter tags: swearing, drinking, meanish!eddie, angst | fic tags: Angst, hurt/(eventual) comfort, (eventual) smut, slow burn, enemies to friends to lovers, Eddie Munson x Fem!OC!Reader, Modern AU | This fic is rated 18+ MDNI

summary: everyone seems to be lobbying against you, in favor of the kid that put your brother in jail.

a/n: inspo returning rapidly, don’t let me burn out now.

taglist @children-of-the-grave @five-bi-five @kellsck @faggotinie @xplrnowornever @taccobelle @micheledawn1975 @mewchiili @dreamerjj comment/message to be added!

DISCLAIMER: I do not consent to having my work fed to AI engines, or reposted in any way, shape, or form on other websites. Unless otherwise stated, this is the only account that features and contains this work, and any replication was done without my consent. Please let me know if you see my work elsewhere. Reblog to support the author!

—

“Chris.” You give him your best death glare, arms crossed tightly against your chest. “Talk.”

“In my defense,” he stands from his spot on the floor. “I thought he’d told you years ago. I didn’t think to follow up, I thought it was just, y’know, common sense.”

You scoff. “And you think Eddie has that?”

“Y’know what, kid? Yeah, I do. Eddie’s a good fuckin’ dude. Granted, I guess I can see why you wouldn’t think so under these circumstances, but I have to let him explain that to you. I couldn’t begin to understand that choice.”

It’s like he’s speaking in riddles. What could there possibly be to explain? Eddie testified against Chris to save himself. Case closed, he’s a selfish bastard. “You gotta go see him, Bee.”

“Why do I care?”

“Come on, you care a little. You two used to-“

“Shut up.” You grit your teeth. “You haven’t been here. You have no fucking clue what happened to us.”

“I know, I know. I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, whatever. You’re dropping me off though, I’m not wasting gas on this bullshit.”

He nods, unhooking his keys from his belt loop. “Well,” he gestures to the door, “After you.”

-

You get to Eddie’s trailer in what feels like record time, causing you to frantically rehearse what you want to say to him. You have no idea what Chris has said, why he’s so adamant that the two of you speak.

“Call me if you need a ride home, ‘kay?” Chris unlocks the passenger door. “And please, don’t kill him. I know he looks tough, but that kid’s the biggest softy I know.”

You groan, rolling your eyes so hard you’re sure they’ll get stuck. “I can’t guarantee I won’t at least try to kill him.” You mock his tone from earlier. He shoves you playfully, and you swing the car door open.

Eddie’s underneath his van, an old piece of scrap metal on wheels at this point, and you can hear him grunting as you approach him.

“Careful now, don’t want her wound too tight.” You gently kick his foot, and he slides out from under the vehicle.

“Back for revenge?” Eddie slaps his hands together to wipe off the excess grease he’s accumulated, then stands to better greet you. He turns the music on his stereo down, some obnoxious metal song you’re sure he thinks is super artistic. “Look, I know you probably didn’t want me taking care of you, but I wasn’t gonna just leave you there to pass out on the floor.”

“I just want some answers.”

“Yeah, alright.” Eddie wipes the sweat from his forehead. You can’t help but take him in, white t-shirt covered in black soot, coveralls pulled down low on his waist. His hair is tied back, revealing his soft cheeks and metal clad ears. He catches you staring and waves a dirty hand in front of your face. “Hello, earth to Tweety?”

“Stop calling me that.” You huff, fists clenching at your sides. “No one calls me that anymore.”

“That’s why I like it. But fine, what d’you want me to call you?”

You glare at him. You know he’ll come up with a multitude of nicknames that will make your stomach flip with rage if you give him that freedom. “Bee’s fine.”

“Aw, c’mon, everyone else calls you Bee.”

You shrug. “Shoulda thought about that when you betrayed my trust forever.” He’s too invested in your banter, and you catch him off guard.

“Wow, right to it, huh? No ‘How’re you, Eddie,’ no ‘Sorry I puked all over your shoes, Eddie.”

You flush. “I puked on your shoes?”

His facade breaks, and he grins wickedly. “No, you didn’t. But I had ya for a second.”

“Ugh, can you be serious for like, five minutes? Then I’ll leave you alone forever.”

“Forever, huh? Sounds way too good to be true.” You can’t explain why his words sting. You feel them in your throat. Eddie plucks a joint from his ashtray and pats his many pockets. “You gotta light?” He asks, filter between his teeth.

You pluck your bright yellow lighter from your sweatshirt pocket, offering it to him. “Thanks, Bee.” He winks at you, and you fight the urge to start walking home. He puffs on the poorly rolled joint and offers it to you.

“No, thanks. I only smoke with friends.” It’s a low blow, you recognize that, but the frustration in your chest is building to an unbearable level.

Eddie clutches his chest in mock offense. “You wound me.” He pouts, batting his obnoxiously button-like eyes. You have to look away.

“Well, you said you wanted answers. Let’s see what I can provide.” He hops up onto the hood of his car, feet dangling above his license plate. You stay planted in front of him, posture tense as you debate how to approach the topic. “Why doesn’t Chris hate you?”

Your question throws him off. “What do you mean?”

“Don’t play dumb, Munson. You testified against him. I’d be counting down the days til I got out so I could get your ass if it were me. How- why are you guys still friends?”

Eddie shakes his head, inhaling yet another hit. “Chris is just not that guy, I guess. Maybe he had time to think in the hole.” His response is completely unconvincing, and you roll your eyes for the millionth time today.

“That’s bullshit.”

“Okay, you know what? He told me to do it. Said it would keep me out.”

A pregnant pause. Then, shrieking, “And you just listened to him?!” Your voice is octaves above natural, growing more piercing by the second. “Friends don’t do that! They don’t betray each other.”

“Look, Bee, I don’t know what you want from me. An apology? Fine, I’m sorry. I’m sorry I listened to Chris and got him locked up, I’m sorry I’ve made you fucking despise me. I was eighteen, barely fuckin’ legal. I had no priors, no guidance. I had no one to ask for some goddamn help— besides Chris— so I trusted him. If I could go back and change it, I would. I’d rather have him hate me one hundred times over if it would mean a good relationship with you.” He stops abruptly, lips pressed together tightly like he hadn’t meant to say that.

“Well, you can’t.” A weak response, mumbled to the floor.

“Yeah, no shit.” Eddie cranks the music back up, slamming the door on your conversation. It’s another loud, angry song. “You can go now.” He turns his back to you, and you can’t even bring yourself to ask for your lighter back.

-

“I can’t fucking stand him!” You’re pacing Robin’s room back and forth while she watches with wide, deer in headlight eyes. “He has the fucking audacity to tell me my brother asked him to snitch? He really thought I’d believe that?” You turn to Robin, and she gapes at you. “Hello?”

“What? Oh, sorry. I don’t know, Bee! Think about it. Chris took Ed under his wing. They did everything together.”

“Yeah, you think I don’t know that?”

She shrugs. “I’m just saying, it’s a valid reason to hate him. He was treated more like Chris’s blood than you were sometimes. But, I dunno, I don’t think Eddie would lie. Not to you.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

Robin sighs, pinching the bridge of her nose. “God, it’s kinda crazy that you can’t see it. The way that kid used to follow you around like a lost puppy, the way he still looks at you now.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” You’re in no headspace to consider what she’s saying, not after what you learned today.

“Please, Bee! He had no fucking reason to take care of you. He wanted to.”

You groan, flopping back onto her bed. “I don’t trust him. I can’t.”

“Yeah, it’s him you can’t trust.”

You sit with it, let it eat you alive, but you don’t respond.

-

Steve arrives at his and Robin’s shared apartment with pizza an hour later, and offers both of you a fancy IPA that’s supposed to “enhance the flavors of the sauce.” You snort at his pretentious delivery, but accept the drink anyway.

“What did I miss?” He flops down on the couch between you and Robin, remote aimed at the television.

“Nothing much, Bee just learned some very earth shattering news.”

“What?” Steve whips his head in your direction, eyes frantic. “What god awful thing did she tell you about me.”

Robin snorts. “Dingus, relax. Not everything is about you!”

You snicker, and pry a piece of pizza from the box, cheese stretching across the table. “But now I wanna know what would make you this nervous if she did tell me!” You fold the pie before cramming a bite into your mouth.

“No, we’re not changing the subject. What happened?”

You glare at Robin for bringing it up. Steve has a tendency to worry when things aren’t all sunshine and rainbows with his friends. He knows you and Eddie aren’t close, but he appreciates your mutual ability to remain civil. “Robin thinks Eddie has a thing for me.”

“Eddie definitely has a thing for you.” Steve says without missing a beat, unfazed by the bomb he’s dropping on your head.

“What?”

“What? Is this not common knowledge? I’ve known for, like, months. I dunno if it’s a crush, per se, but there’s… something. You can’t tell me you had no idea.”

You definitely did not have any idea. “You’re fucking with me. You have to be, that doesn’t make any goddamn sense! He treats me like shit, like I’m the most annoying person on the planet. He never invites me to hang out with you guys, we haven’t hung out alone in, like, six years. You're making shit up.” You cross your arms, waiting for the argument that doesn’t come.

Steve shrugs. “He knows you don’t like him. Or, he thinks you don’t. I know better.” Steve winks at you, and you stick your tongue at him. “He’ll probably never admit it, but if you just pay the smallest bit of attention to the way he acts around you, you’ll get it.” Robin nods in agreement, like she’s known this all along.

“You guys are traitors!” You groan, taking another messy bite of pizza. “Can’t believe my best friends are telling me the most dreadful news possible right now.”

“Oh relax, drama queen. It could be worse, I could tell you all the things he’s told me about you in middle school.”

Your eyes feel like they pop out of your head. “What the fuck did he tell you?!”

Robin giggles. “Don’t worry about it!”

You flip her off, and she throws her head back, cackling.

—

The Hideout is dead. It’s a weeknight, and the only people at the joint are the same five drunks you’ve grown quite fond of over the last few years. There’s Samuel, a construction worker that’s been on the same job for the last two years with almost nothing to show for it; Jack, the executive supervisor of some uppity tech business in Indianapolis that’s yelling on the phone outside most of the time; Suzette, who comes in on Sundays to watch the game, and Mike and Mark, the old gay couple that tip you really well and call you Dolly.

“More Jack, Jack?” Your perky disposition makes the suit smile ever so slightly.

“Make it a double, darlin’.” He jabs the END button on his cell grumpily, and you pour his whiskey neat into a fresh glass.

You’re about to ask him what’s got him upset, he usually isn’t here during this late, when the door swings open with a creak, barely drowned out by the song blaring over the speakers, one you’d chosen to let off some steam that is very quickly finding its way back.

It’s as if the universe is out to get you. Eddie holds the door open for his date, a date that is certainly not Chrissy Cunningham. This girl looks more like Morticia Addams and a tattoo machine had a baby, and you wonder if this was who Robin had been referring to. She’s stunning, covered neck to toe in intricate ink you could play iSpy with. Her hair is long, dark, and silky, swaying down to her butt. Did this woman lose a bet? Why is she here with him?

He catches you staring and has the audacity to wink at you, pulling a chair out for Morticia. You quickly avert your eyes, suddenly fascinated with the stains on the bar. It’s not two minutes later that you feel his presence in front of you.

“Hey, Tw- Bee. Funny seeing you here.”

You don’t respond to his attempt at conversation. “What do you want?” You deadpan, trying to keep your expression blank. Uninterested. Cold.

“I’ll have a beer, Red Stripe if you got it. The lady wants a martini, extra dry.”

“‘Course she does.” You think you say it quiet enough, but the tilt of his head tells you otherwise.

“What’s got your panties in a bunch, Princess?”

“What? Nothing! She just looks like the type, y’know? Fancy.” You cringe. Luckily, Eddie doesn’t seem to notice.

“She’s so cool, right? Name’s Macy. Met her at a gig.”

“Uh huh. Here,” You hand him his drinks. “Would you like to open a tab?”

“Nah, this is only our first stop.” He wiggles his eyebrows suggestively. “And, no offense, this isn’t really an ideal date spot.”

His words knock your brain around. “Date, huh?” The words catch in your throat. “I didn’t think Eddie Munson went on dates.”

Eddie falters, but recovers quickly. “I’m full of surprises, Sweets.” He slides the drinks off the bar, slapping a 20 on the table. “Keep the change. See ya ‘round.” He kisses the air in your direction, and your fist clenched tightly around the soda gun. You spray yourself in the face with club soda, and grit your teeth to keep from screaming.

—

Your shift is crawling by, your only company until eleven being the cook and the seven patrons, two of which you’ve been staring daggers at for the last hour. Someone has queued a slew of slow, sad songs and you have a suspicion Suzette is still sulking about the Colts’ loss.

Eddie and Macy are lost in conversation. He’s staring at her with a stupid, lovesick expression you wish you could slap off his face. She seems enamored, sipping her second martini without ever breaking eye contact with him. It drives you up the wall. As if hearing your silent prayers, Eddie pushes from the table, and holds out Macy’s coat for her to slip her slender arms into. He slips his own leather clad arm around her waist and make their way to the door. You’re almost at ease, finally, but he stops abruptly and pivots on his heel, coming right at you.

“Hey,” He calls, leaning over the bar as you whip around, busying yourself organizing the fridge. “Can I ask you something?”

“You just did.” You don’t turn around, stacking used glasses on the dish rack.

“Can I ask the front of you something?” His voice is teasing. You turn back to face him, finding his face far too close to yours. Behind him, Macy’s tapping her foot in annoyance by the door.

“Make it quick, you're keeping her waiting.” You nod in her direction, but he brushes it off.

“You ever… think about what could have happened? Y’know, with us? If things were different, I mean.” You can smell the beer on his breath, he’s so close.

You shrug. “Not really, no.”

His face falls for a fraction of a second before he recovers, stoic.

“Right, yeah. ‘Course not. See ya, Bee.” He waves weakly, then steps forward to hold the door for Macy, disappearing into the Autumn night and leaving your brain feeling like TV static.

—

You get home around 3am, dragging your sore feet over the threshold with a heavy groan. The apartment is quiet, save for the gym of the TV coming from Chris’s makeshift bedroom in the den. He’s out like a light, snoring obnoxiously as reruns of The Simpsons flash multicolored across his face. You tiptoe past him, into your room where you all but collapse on top of your bed, still fully clothed. Eddie’s question plays on repeat in your head, much to your frustration. Why does he even care if you think about him? Why would he ask you that?

You’re pondering whether to tell Steve when your phone starts ringing.

You can’t hide the exhaustion, wishing you could just curl up and pass out. Steve knows you’re awake, knows you just got home. “Hey, Stevie.”

“Hey, Bee. You okay?” Worry laces your friend’s voice.

“Yeah, I’m fine. Why wouldn’t I be?”

He hesitates, you can hear his breath stutter into the receiver. “Well, I got a cryptic text from Eddie. He told me he did something stupid, was wondering if you had a clue what he was talking about?”

You roll onto your back, groaning into the phone. “Is this really that important right now? Eddie’s dramatic, we know this. He didn’t do anything worth panicking over.”

“But he did do something?”

“Ugh, no! He was drunk. Asked me if I ever thought about him, if we could be friends I guess.”

“And what’d you say?”

“I was honest. I said no.”

“Shit, Bee. That’s cold.”

“What, should I have lied? Told him we could’ve been best friends if he hadn’t snitched on my brother?”

There’s a lilt in Steve’s voice. “Is that a lie?”

You bite your lip, thinking. Maybe you and Eddie could’ve been friends, but there’s no use dwelling on it. “No, it’s not. I don’t like to live my life through what ifs.”

“Okay. I get it. I mean, I get what you’re saying. I get his worry too, though.”

You roll your eyes despite his inability to see you. “Okay, Steve. It’s late. I’m gonna go to bed.”

“Yeah, alright. Sweet dreams, Bee.”

“‘Night, Stevie.” You click the END button and place your phone on the nightstand. After a struggle to get up, you quickly change into your pajamas, swearing you’ll shower in the morning, before flopping back into bed.

—

[naivegh0ul]

some ghost headcanons bc I cannot stop thinking about him

can't handle spices for the life of him. thinks salt is spicy

HATES horror movies. they make him paranoid :(

super clingy. he loves physical touch, just snuggling up to someone and resting his head on top of theirs <3

he has this stupid little nokia phone that looks tiny in his hands. he says it's practical bc it's hard to break but really he just can't be bothered to upgrade to a new phone

really tech savvy tho. loves to code

he likes to share his things (i.e the ghost team cutscene)

has fallen asleep standing up many times. he's like a horse and it terrifies the recruits

snores so goddamn loud it literally vibrates through the floors

he sneezes loud too. it's like a bomb going off. he scares himself with how his sneeze is sometimes

keeps a picture of him and his team in shoe

the best sense of direction ever. it's actually kind of scary. you could be lost in the middle of nowhere and ghost will point in a random direction, totally guessing and you'll end up out of the forest and back in civilisation

he says the worst jokes. they're so bad that they're kinda good

he's a cat person through and through. he likes dogs, sure, but he loves cats. especially black cats

only takes boiling hot showers. if the water isn't burning his skin, he doesn't want it. he doesn't like baths, it's too quiet and most of them are too small for him to fit into anyways

nsfw headcanons below the cut

when i said he was clingy, i meant it. this man will keep you in bed for hours, cock buried inside you as he lazily rocks back and forth.

sometimes he falls asleep while still inside you and gets really grumpy when you try to get up

loves pubic hair. he goes crazy when his partner has hair down there. he just thinks it's so damn hot

he likes shoving his fingers in your mouth. not to shut you up (though he does that a lot) but he just likes watching you gag a little on his fingers and then suckle on them softly

100% a brat tamer. he loves when his partners are fiery and playfully

he likes pliable, soft people as well. likes to see how obedient they are and how far they'll go to please him

he gives the best head it's actually insane

he's a hairy boy. absolutely covered in hair, especially on his chest and thighs

he can be so mean but so sweet in bed. cooing praises while he bends you over his knee, or stroking your hair as he makes you gag on his cock

LOVES to pull you onto his lap and grope you. he will grab you by the hips and try to yank you into his laps whenever you're near. just loves having you near/on him at all times

[retrievablememories]

marrow | dpr ian

summary: you're not the only eater. many of your kind exist, but you have always tried to avoid them, continuing to play the charade of the normal, boring life that you can never truly have. until one day, someone shows up at your door.

pairing: dpr ian x black fem reader

genre: horror, angst, hurt/comfort, slow burn romance, bones & all au, 1980s au

word count: 22.9k

warnings & tags: lots of talk about cannibalism, plus the actual act of it | gore | lots of blood | side and minor character deaths | morally gray characters? | depictions of mental illness, including anxiety, depression, self-loathing/low self-worth | mentions of religious trauma | stab wound injury | mentions of self-harm, suicide | bisexual reader | sex happens but only off-screen; there is some kissing | time period is the mid 1980s | setting is the southern U.S. without the period-accurate racism | some body horror; someone gets burned alive but it isn't real | vivid nightmares | ...there’s a lot going on here, just tell me if i missed something

marrow (noun):

a soft, highly vascular modified connective tissue that occupies the cavities of most bones

the choicest of food

a/n: this is a “bones & all” au, so if you didn’t like the movie/book you probably won’t like this. based off both the book and movie but with some changes.

please heed the warnings; there are strong HORROR elements in this fic. (i mean, people are eating other people…) if you’re not interested in reading about these particular concepts, please just scroll on by, make use of your filter settings, or block me.

as we all know, this is just fiction...it doesn't claim to be an accurate/real representation of anyone.

dividers: here | here

1985

You smell him before you can see him.

It comes as somewhat of a surprise: You don’t realize you’re smelling something different, something other than Alicia’s perfume, the cigarette tray, or the stale, woody air of the motel’s office, until it’s right up on you. It makes your body stiffen with fear. Not that you have any right to be afraid.

After a few long minutes, though, no one walks in. You don’t see the familiar blinding sight of headlights flashing in the windows as a car pulls up. And yet the smell remains. Despite your apprehension, you get up from your chair behind the desk to see if anybody is outside, walking to the windows facing the expanse of the parking lot. That is when you see a figure lying on the ground, somewhat obscured by the shadows where the office’s lights don’t reach. It looks to be a man, though you aren’t 100% sure.

From what you can see, he’s covered in blood. Large stains of it ruin the white of his shirt and the blue of his jeans. You could guess that it’s probably not his own. Your mind jumps ahead of you, trying to create the image of him feasting on the body of some unknown victim, of him carrying a bloody bag filled with someone’s clothes and trying to find somewhere to hide it…

It’s a terrible thing to think. Maybe he’s an innocent person, severely hurt. He probably used what little strength he had left to drag himself here for help. 

But the smell never lies.

You quickly grab a flashlight sitting in one of the cubbies on the wall. Then you open the door, the jingling of the bell loud in your ears, and give the parking lot a quick sweep before stepping outside, seeing nothing but the same cars that’d been parked at the same motel rooms earlier. With it being a one-story motel, there wasn’t much area you needed to scan.

Standing out here now and pointing the flashlight into the shadows, you can see he’s still breathing, at least. But now you can also see the dried blood around his mouth and down his neck, which makes you want to promptly walk back into the office and lock the door behind you. Turn out all the lights and pretend no one was ever here.

There’s a big blood stain in one area near his abdomen like he was stabbed; you can see that the fabric is torn. Whoever he ate clearly didn’t go willingly. But when do they ever?

Again you think about going back inside—maybe telling Alicia to call for an ambulance. You think of calling the police, and shame immediately follows. How could you call the authorities on him knowing you and him share the same crimes? You’re unsure of which action to take, but it’s a little late to make the decision now. You see him begin blinking from the light you’re shining directly in his face; you hadn’t paid attention to where you were pointing the flashlight as your mind raced with options. He raises a bloodied hand to shield his eyes, the movement causing him pain.

You shift the light away, pointing it in the vicinity of his torso again. Only now do you pay attention to the numerous tattoos covering his skin. Unsure what to ask or say, you can only come up with a broken “...Hey.” You haven’t used your voice in the last hour.

He doesn’t reply. Instead he pushes himself to sit up, his hand hovering over the presumed stab wound.

“What…uh, what are you doing here?”

He looks at you like he’s deciding whether he ought to be suspicious of you or not. The irony. “I need water,” he finally says.

“Water? I think you need a lot more than water.”

With effort, he starts getting to his feet, and you can’t help flinching away. It feels stupid to act this way, to still be so afraid. As if being afraid could allow you to pretend that you are more human than you really are.

And what timing—Alicia appears at that moment after being locked up in her room sorting paperwork all night. The door bell sounding off behind you makes you jump hard, the wooden beads on your braids all rattling against each other. You spin around to look at Alicia, who’s too busy staring at the man in front of you with concerned eyes.

“What the hell? Are you okay?” she asks, her voice loud in the relative quiet of the parking lot. The motel being located on a less-frequented stretch of highway means things are often quiet like this, with only the sounds of cicadas and frogs and occasional passing vehicles to fill the late hours.

“I’m fine,” he says, disinterested in her concern.

Her eyebrows rise at his accent. “You ain’t from around here,” Alicia says, as if that intrigues her. 

“But you’re not fine. Haven’t you been attacked?” you argue, gesturing toward the wound he can’t keep his hand away from. He lets it drop to his side then.

“I’m fine. I bandaged it. I just need water.” His tone and the dark quality of his expression don’t leave much room for you to object.

You and Alicia look at each other for a long moment; when she sees the tension in your face, you both come to a silent agreement. Strange people and motels go together like thunder and rain, but that fact often keeps you in something of a hypervigilant state. Unbeknownst to Alicia, you are certain you know why this man has shown up here bloody and wounded, insisting he only needs water and not even asking for medical help—which would entail needing to be admitted to a hospital—and you conclude it’s best to get him off your hands as soon as possible.

Once you do, you can start trying to forget about him and the smell of blood clinging to him. After not encountering it for so long, its return makes that familiar taste of iron rise up on your tongue like it’s encoded in your DNA, activating your salivary glands from just the memory of eating, and you feel like an animal for it.

Alicia relaxes her shoulders and puts on a gentle smile. “Well, okay. There’s a bathroom in the office. You can get cleaned up in there. And we got plenty of bottled water too, though it ain’t the fancy stuff like Evian.”

So you let him in.

You listen to the water running in the bathroom while you sit with your back rigid in your desk chair, like you’ll need to spring into action at any moment. Alicia doesn’t bother to speak, knowing the walls are too thin to get away with it, and leans next to you to write on a page of your notepad instead. You watch her small lettering fill the white space:

He looks fucked. We’re probably more dangerous to him right now than the other way around. You think he walked all the way here from town bleeding like that? Maybe someone dropped him here.

You realize with a jolt that Alicia thinks it’s all his blood. You shake your head but give no explanation. After a pause, she shrugs.

Still, you know where the gun is.

“Please…” you choke out, not wanting to think about having to use it tonight—or any other night, for that matter. 

You don’t know if he’ll be a danger, considering he clearly ate not too long ago. But you can never say that for certain. Every cannibal’s appetite and impulses are different.

When he comes back out cleaned of blood, Alicia casually slides the notepad out of sight and stands up straight again. The shirt he was wearing is balled up in his fist, leaving him standing there with nothing but his jeans and shoes on. Seeing people in various states of undress, especially in the South during the warmer months, is nothing new. Still, his nakedness feels oddly misplaced in this macabre situation, and you don’t know where to put your eyes. You end up fixating on the bandaging around his middle, which is all stained through with old blood. It needs to be changed, but that’s not your problem.

Alicia blinks for a moment, the side of her mouth quirking up slightly.

“Of course—silly me. You’re probably wanting some new clothes, ain’t you? We might have something in storage. I’ll just be a few minutes.” Alicia takes a pair of keys from one of the desk drawers. You want to grasp her arm and tell her not to go, but she just directs her eyes to the notepad; you nod reluctantly and watch as she heads to the back door of the office and out to the storage building a couple yards away. It’s a spacious outbuilding that holds everything needed in the running of a motel, including the commercial laundry machines.

Now that the man is somewhat calmer, he looks at you like he recognizes you. You turn away from him when you see the change in his gaze. It’s strange to be seen and known by another eater. Though it’s happened several times, it always unsettles you. You don’t know anything about him, but you’re suddenly, maybe irrationally, worried that he’ll reveal your secret to Alicia.

“I’ve never met another one like me,” he says.

There are several things you want to say. Why didn’t you say it sooner? Have you really never smelled another eater until now? Who did you eat? Will you just leave already? None of these questions are what comes out. “Never?”

“Never. But I suppose I don’t stay anywhere long enough to find them.”

Then please leave soon. 

“When was the last time you ate?”

You bolt up from the chair. There’s nowhere for you to go, though, so you stand there wiping your sweaty palms on your pants and glancing at the back door, hoping Alicia returns soon. “Don’t ask me that.”

You still won’t look at him, but he tries and fails to meet your darting eyes. You find a different part of his body to focus on. This time it’s his hand resting on the desk counter and the intricately designed tattoo that covers it.

“You must get hungry sometimes.” He leans closer, but the tall counter overlooking the desk keeps you separated. “Are you gonna tell me you’ve never had the urge to have a bite of her?” He gestures his head toward the back door. “It’s so fucking lonely out here, maybe no one would notice if you did.”

“Shut the fuck up.” You surprise yourself with the force of your reply, though your voice shakes. “I-I have self-control.”

And then he laughs. Like you two are old friends catching up—like you didn’t just curse him out. It makes him wince immediately, and his hand goes to his wound again. He sighs. “Sorry, darling, but I don’t think it’s about self-control.”

You ignore the name, though it irritates you and reminds you of the sleazy men that often make their way to the motel looking for midday entertainment in harassing young women. “We’ve both been born infected with it,” you say, your voice tight. “It can’t go away, but it’s something that should at least be minimized—not just given into whenever.”

“Is that how you think of it?”

“How could you not feel bad about it?” Despite yourself, you feel tears stinging your eyes. “Each one of them was a person with a life and dreams. We’re the ones stealing that every time we give in.”

“Feel bad about it?” He seems to consider that for a moment, his dark brown eyes far away. “The only thing you can do is get used to it. I would think that at some point, after you’ve eaten enough, it wouldn’t be shocking if it didn’t feel wrong to you anymore. Or if you started enjoying it. You’ve never felt that?”

You don’t answer his question, too disturbed and mentally exhausted to continue arguing and unable to agree with him. You wish he’d never crossed into this part of town, that you’d never met him. His presence makes your head and your chest hurt. He is everything you are and everything you don’t want to be, facing you head-on so that you cannot ignore it.

He’ll go away like the rest have, you try to reassure yourself. You’ve never befriended any of the other eaters you’ve met; at most, you ran into them a couple more times but never saw them again after. But even as you think it, it feels like a lie.

You sit back in the chair with a stilted movement just as Alicia returns, feeling like the precarious little life you’ve built is suddenly on the verge of collapsing. All the effort you’ve put toward modeling the spectacularly average life of the everyday human being—gone.

“Sorry that took a while. I figure you can’t put new clothes on with all that—” she gestures to the bloody bandage “—going on, so here you are.” Alicia hands him a small stack of clothes and a first-aid kit. “I hope that’ll do you some good, mister….?” She looks at him expectantly, and you realize that you haven’t known his name this entire time.

You feel his eyes on you when he answers, but your mind is elsewhere.

“It’s Ian.”

—

The next time you’re struck by the familiar smell of another eater, it happens in the early morning hours when you’re helping an older couple check out of their room.

It causes you to stumble and break in the middle of your sentence as your mind blanks, and you have to take a moment to remember what you were saying. The two elderly folks look at you strangely, their previous neutral-at-best demeanor now giving an air of annoyance. But at least they’re on their way out. You tune out their unsubtle mumbling about young people and their drug use as they finish up and step out the door.

You watch the front windows with a rising panic in your guts, wanting to run and hide but unable to move your feet. What horrific luck do you have to encounter two within the short span of three weeks? It seems that whenever they smell you, they come to you—whether it’s to size you up or attempt to make an acquaintance. 

And a few minutes later, there’s a beat-up sedan, a gray Renault Alliance, pulling up in one of the parking spaces.

What you don’t expect is for the person to be Ian.

The ground has been kicked out from under you. You think maybe you’re suffering from acute vertigo. Your breaths and heartbeats are simultaneously too slow and too fast as he gets out of the car, wearing a button-up shirt that he only bothered to button halfway and black pants. He’s pristine this time—no blood, no torn shirt with an open wound, though his movements hint that he’s still healing. His eyes are shaded by sunglasses, but he takes them off as he walks to the door, making eye contact with you from the other side of the glass. That look sends cold water down your spine.

In another life, if he wasn’t like you and you weren’t like him—if you both didn’t share this bodily pestilence, this cursed impulse—maybe you would’ve felt some spark of interest. Maybe you would’ve thought of him as handsome, giggled with Alicia about it later, a brief respite from your mountains of paperwork. But in this life, you don’t feel anything but repulsion and fear.

You’re momentarily blasted with the unbearable summer heat when the door opens. It’s quickly chased away again by the air conditioning, causing your skin to prickle. Ian gives a close-lipped smile as he stops in front of you.

“Why are you back here?” you whisper.

“Checking into a room. That’s allowed here, right?”

If he’s a paying guest, you can’t really turn him away. He hasn’t done anything yet to warrant that. Even if he does eat other people on a regular basis.

You look past him to the car sitting outside. “Why didn’t you drive last time?”

“I just got it.”

“From which dealership?”

He taps his fingers against the sunglasses and glances down before answering, his voice low. “I think you know.”

Some part of you wants to know who it was in a futile attempt to keep their memory alive if only in your own mind, but you don’t ask. You don’t even know what type of person they were, after all; maybe he’d rid the world of some domestic abuser. It could be…understandable, in that case. People die everyday, you try to remind yourself—a useless platitude you have always told yourself after the act is over. It never absolves the guilt. They would’ve died someday anyway only goes so far when their blood is underneath your fingernails.

“And why come back here, of all motels? There are others in this area that don’t have mold in the bathrooms and roaches in the walls.”

He pauses after hearing that information, like he’s trying to figure out whether you’re pulling his leg. “I thought I’d be in pretty good company here, you know.”

“I don’t want your company,” you say wearily, watching him as he starts taking cash out of his wallet. “Do you think I’ll let you stay here just because—?”

“Because we’re the same? Because you’d cover for me?” he says, voice even lower like he only wants you to hear. That doesn’t matter anyway. Alicia is busy cleaning and preparing one of the newly vacated rooms, and it’s just you two in the office. There would’ve been one more person present if anyone had answered your For Hire ad in the paper, but it still remains only you and Alicia running this joint. “My God, darling. Forgive me for thinking you’d have a little mercy on a fellow cannibal. Anyway, I wouldn’t be so obvious as to do it here.”

You give him a look of disdain. In all sensibility, you should turn him away. You have no obligation to help him or break the law in doing so. The circumstances of his last appearance were already outrageous, and now he shows up with a stolen car. Who knows if someone might come here searching for him and making you and Alicia complicit in his mess? And ultimately, you want nothing more than for him to stop bringing up the whole cannibalism bit. Deep down, you are afraid that these mentions of it—maybe even the simple proximity to him—will reawaken the urge you haven’t felt in over a year now.

You’ve stayed silent for a beat too long. In a mess of movements, he shoves his wallet back in his pocket, slips his sunglasses back on, and brushes a hand through his hair, disappointment visible in his expression. “Okay, then. I’ll go elsewhere.” Something about his reaction makes your stomach twist. Maybe the sheer resignation in it. You shouldn’t care where he goes after this, if he has anywhere to go. He’ll be miles away from you again, just like you want. But…

It comes rushing out of your mouth as his hand reaches for the door handle, and you have no idea why you say it. “How many nights?” 

—

It’s been a few days since Ian checked into the motel and you haven’t heard anything from him since then, but sometimes you spot “his” car in its parking space when you go to see about one of the other rooms. Whenever it’s not there, you can’t help but wonder where he’s gone and what he’s doing.

Without seeing him, you would almost be able to forget that he’s there, if not for the smell. It constantly keeps you on edge, more than you already tend to be. Alicia picks up on your restlessness but of course doesn’t know the origin of it—meaning she’s left to come up with a new guess everyday.

“Well yeah, he was surely strange…but maybe he appreciated us helping him out and just wanted to return the favor?” she’d suggested on that first day when he returned and you’d let her know with a less-than-thrilled attitude. “It ain’t like he’s the first weirdo to come around.”

“Maybe you just ain’t getting enough sleep. That’s enough to turn anybody’s mind out. Hope somebody replies to that ad soon so we can have some more help…” she’d said the day after that.

“You missed him earlier, but he came by the office this morning. Had an extra one of those breakfast muffin thingies and left it here. Ain’t that nice? He’s pretty cute, actually. You sure you ain’t just crushing and feel weird about it ‘cause he’s a paying customer?” Alicia laughed one afternoon, the third day of his stay. “Worse things have been done at this motel, Y/N.”

“No, Alicia,” was all you could muster up, and your stiff reply was just as good as an actual confirmation in her mind.

Sometimes, even though you are deeply ashamed of it and try never to acknowledge these rare moments after they happen, you stare at Alicia with her long curly brown hair and her sinewy limbs and her shining brown eyes, taking in the full breadth of her humanness, and you wish she were like you. Even though it would take away her normalcy and happiness…if she could smell that blood-curdling aroma that only you can—if she could understand the weight of this secret—if she knew what it was like to feel the rough grind of bone fragments between her teeth—

—maybe everything could be easier. You wouldn’t have to live with an imagined cowl of judgment, which she had yet to even bestow upon you, always blanketing your mind. And though you’ve always thought it better to have fewer eaters in the world than more, maybe navigating this existence wouldn’t be so isolating.

—

One muggy evening, the motel office phone rings, and you see on the caller ID that it’s from Ian’s room. You have to take a pause to steel yourself, letting it ring for several moments before you pick up the receiver.

“Hi, how can I help you?”

“Hey, yeah, um, the sink faucet has started leaking quite badly…not sure how that happened. It wasn’t like that last night.”

You sigh quietly, knowing you’d suggested changing all the faucets to Alicia a while ago, but the budget wasn’t quite there to do so. The summer festivals will be starting up soon, though, and festivals mean a higher number of travelers, so maybe there will be more money for it by the end of the season.

“...I’m sorry about that. I’ll be right there.”

“Right. Thanks, dear.” Your mouth twitches, but you don’t reply; you just nod as if he could see you. Neither of you hangs up. For an awkward stretch of quiet, punctuated only by the shuffling sound of movement, it seems like he wants to say something else. There’s an intake of breath like he will. You slam the phone down before he can.

You find the toolbox in its usual spot and take your umbrella from the stand before heading out the door. It’s raining lightly outside, the force of the droplets picking up and then dying back again every so often, but the humidity is so high that you feel uncomfortably soggy by the time you get to his room.

When Ian opens the door, there’s a cigarette burning between his fingers.

“Um, hello.”

You don’t like the way he smiles at you—like you’re co-conspirators on some big scheme. “Hi. You know where it’s at, yeah?”

You resist rolling your eyes. “Of course.”

He lets you in and then leaves the door propped open so he can stand outside and smoke. At least he won’t be breathing down your neck while you work like some other guests do.

Some game show program is playing on the small box TV; it looks like Press Your Luck. The sound of the TV and the rain falling outside accompany you as you set the toolbox down on the sink counter and start making the necessary fixes to the faucet. Situations like this one, though annoying, do give you a tiny bit of reprieve; you become too engrossed in the work to think about all your life’s problems.

That is, until you realize the problem with the faucet is too convenient to be caused by any natural malfunction or wear and tear. No he didn’t…you think, though part of you is still trying to convince yourself that your eyes and brain are deceiving you.

When you’ve successfully repaired the faucet, you straighten up and are startled to find Ian already leaning against the bathroom door frame, the cigarette now gone.

“Uh—well…works like a charm now.”

He acknowledges your work with a small nod. Before you can say anything else, he immediately says, “How do you experience it? The hunger.”

You could swear that your heart ceases beating. Your words come out in a shaky rush of breath. “Please stop.”

“You’re the only other one I’ve met, and I have to know what it’s like for someone else.” His voice and expression are genuinely pleading, and this takes you aback. “Please try to understand where I’m coming from.”

You put the tools back in the toolbox with trembling hands, your mind racing with things you should and shouldn’t say. “It doesn’t happen often,” you finally admit, your voice so small that he has to step fully into the bathroom to hear you. “There are usually months or years between occurrences. But when it comes…it’s oppressive. It’s like I’m being gnawed on the inside, like I have to do it or I’ll die. The last time was before I met Alicia.” The blurred memory of it causes you physical pain; it’s impossible to escape the self-hatred and disgust you feel, enclosed in this small room with him.

“Who was it?”

You shake your head. The thought of recounting what happened—no, what you did—makes you shudder. You refuse to let the barbed words leave your mouth for fear of being cut by them and bleeding out, but you find yourself mentally back in the scene anyway; you can almost hear the lapping of the lake and the distant sound of her voice if you concentrate. “Her name was Marygold. That’s it.”

He nods, left to accept that you don’t want to talk about her. “Years…hmm. The urge comes every few weeks for me.” He smiles sarcastically. “Lucky one, aren’t I?”

“...I thought you said you enjoyed it,” you murmur.

“Look, dear: What’s not enjoyable is always having to cover your tracks—or making too big of a mess and having to leave the area because of it.” He crosses his arms. “The guy whose car I have? He was just some lonely grocery store worker. You probably want me to say something noble, like I ate a fucking axe-murderer or something. No—I just needed a car again, and he was convenient. That’s how it is.

Maybe I could try to ignore the urge, put it off, but I don’t. When I feel it, I just go and find someone to satisfy it. Does the average person debate about whether they should eat a meal when they feel hunger? No, they just eat.”

You groan, your stomach lurching as you clutch the edge of the counter. “I-I can’t believe you messed up the faucet to get me in here to talk about this. What if Alicia had come instead?” For a second, you allow yourself to consider the danger in that implication—if Alicia had been in here with him alone…

He gives an airy laugh at your mention of the sink. “So I wasn’t very clever, then.”

Trying to gather yourself, you pick up the toolbox and glare at him. “I’ve told you plenty. Don’t ask me about this anymore.” In reality, you haven’t said even half of what he wants to know about, but getting anything else from you is impossible at this point. 

Ian steps aside to allow you to leave the bathroom. You grab your umbrella from where it’s resting against the dresser and hurriedly open it.

“Please don’t call again unless it’s a serious problem. One that you haven’t purposely fucking caused.”

He raises his eyebrows. “That’s unfair. Staying here means I’m also paying for your services, you know.” Then he adds, “Not that I believe in superstitions, but I thought it was considered bad luck to open umbrellas indoors.”

You roll your eyes, already halfway out the door. “That’s ridiculous. And it’s not like I was born with any luck to begin with.” You let the lock click behind you, not bothering with a goodbye or goodnight.

—

Guests continue to come and go as the season rolls into the beginning of July; they mostly consist of travelers from outside of the area, contract workers, and truckers. You and Alicia work yourselves to near exhaustion with upholding the motel’s operations. You have often thought it lucky that you found her when you did, as she’d just fired her previous two employees for stealing funds when you answered her ad. You don’t know how she would’ve done all this alone, owning and upkeeping this motel after her divorce from her husband; but she always carried herself as if she were just happy to be doing something entirely of her own volition, without him ordering her every move.

Amidst this rush, Ian’s been at the motel for several weeks now. You wonder if he plans on living here, as it seems he has nowhere else to stay. But he’ll need to eat soon, won’t he? Guilt begins gnawing at you as the days pass. You’re putting the other motel guests’ lives in danger just by having him here.

But he’s been doing this just as long as you have—and with greater frequency. He should know by now to avoid eating too close to home. In those quiet moments when you have more time to ruminate, you find yourself hoping that he’ll go somewhere farther out, maybe to one of the bars or a nightclub. As long as it isn’t here.

But you don’t know why you debate with yourself over this or wish such a morbid thing. Someone will have to die either way.

—

The last person you checked in had been hours ago, and the cut-off was at 10:00 p.m. No one else would be coming through here tonight. With that, you’d mentally prepared yourself for another night of getting things in order for the next morning. A half-empty cup of coffee sits on your desk as you go through the budgeting again, the computer’s light illuminating your face and straining your weary eyes. New bathroom faucets, I’m coming for you…you think.

Alicia’s floral perfume swirls around the room as she goes about tidying up the lobby area, switching out the magazines for more recent copies and sanitizing every hard surface with cleaning spray and a cloth. A couple with kids had been through earlier in the day to check out, and their kids had great fun making a mess of things, to the chagrin of their tired parents. Neither one of you had gotten around to cleaning it up until now.

You’re closing out of the budgeting spreadsheet window and about to move onto something else when your stomach twists and aches. It’s been so long that for a few precious seconds you don’t recognize the sensation, but then dread smashes into you when your brain registers it.

The smell of Alicia’s perfume is suddenly too loud. The smell of her body, soft and muscled and warm, is too loud. Your eyes drift to her tanned legs revealed by her shorts, and you’re overwhelmed with the need to sink your teeth into the fat of her thighs, the muscles of her calves. You swear you can already taste the blood running through her veins; you imagine how it’d feel on your lips. You want to sob from how badly you want it and how badly you don’t. 

Your eyes sting with gathering tears as you breathe hard, your panic increasing. You should get up and go to the door, run outside and get the hell away from her. Even if you have to run into the highway and surrender yourself to death by speeding car, you should leave and spare her of this nightmare, but you’re incapable of making yourself move anywhere but toward her. Your body acts without your volition.

That’s how you find yourself rising from your seat, pressing your body against the desk counter as you take a couple of strained steps in her direction. Her body is angled away from you as she finishes wiping down an end table, and you see her cheeks rise as she grins in satisfaction at her own work. You understand innately that this smile will be the last, and a terrible ache swells in your heart. You know you’ll regret not seeing it fully so that you could imprint it in your mind.

“Alicia…” you moan, anguished.

She turns to you in alarm, and you want to scream when she walks over to you. “Y/N! What’s wrong? You look like you’re in a world of hurt.” Her breath is warm, and beneath the scent of spearmint, you can still smell a hint of what she’d had earlier. Some frozen TV dinner of mashed potatoes, meatloaf, and peas. You yearn to share her meal—suck her tongue into your mouth, chew it into pulp.

The sights and scents are all too much, and you are so, so hungry.

“Are you ill?” Alicia asks, brows furrowed as her hand clutches your arm. In your hypersensitive state, you feel each individual finger, the lines on her palms, and the swirls of her fingerprints. Though they are hands you have thought about many times before, it’s as if you know them intimately now—like you formed them and carved all the lines yourself. “I knew it. I’ve been putting too much stress on you, ain’t I? You coulda told me, Y/N.”

Tears drip down your cheeks as you shake your head in denial of her words. “I...I’m sorry.”

Alicia’s expression is soft and remorseful, her mouth downturned. “I should be telling you that.”

Her selfless words only worsen your guilt, even as you lean forward—your body controlled by a force you can’t deny—and press your lips to her neck.

When it’s over an hour later, the only things that remain are her bloody clothes. Physically, you feel frighteningly satisfied with your hunger now alleviated. Your reward for it? A shower of blood. The vinyl floor surrounding you is covered in red. Drops of blood streak down the front and side of the wooden desk, with more on the wooden wall behind you. There are probably more microscopic drops of blood all around the office that you’ll never be able to find. The air is filled with a mingle of odors; the cleaning fluid she used earlier, your unfinished coffee, iron and flesh, the ever-persistent woody, rustic smell of the office itself—and much farther in the background, Ian.

From your place on the floor, you drag yourself up onto your desk chair and fumble the phone receiver with slick hands. It’s difficult to see the buttons with the tears blurring your vision, and you futilely wipe them away, which just smears more of Alicia’s blood across your face. You have to think for a moment to remember which room number is his, and you desperately hope it’s correct as you punch it in.

You think you could faint when you hear his familiar accent. “Hello? That you, Y/N?”

“Help me,” you cry, your voice strangled from the tears and hyperventilating. “God, fucking help me!”

He hangs up a second later. You don’t know what you expected, but that wasn’t it. You begin resigning yourself to your fate as you slump into your seat, the receiver clattering on the desk. Some guest will find you here tomorrow and call the police, and you won’t be able to prove either innocence or guilt. What could you say—I ate her, all of her? You could open my stomach for the evidence; I don’t want to live anymore anyway? Despite what you tell them, the police will think you insane and continue searching for a body that no longer exists. That’s how it often is; another eater had told you this many years ago.

A fresh wave of tears bursts forth, and it causes you to miss the figure rushing past the windows and flinging the door open.

When Ian comes up to you with concern in his eyes, his hands reaching out to steady your shoulders and hold your bloody, tear-drenched cheeks, you don’t know whether he’s your demon or your savior. You feel a perverse relief at his presence, knowing that only he can understand your situation; and you resent him enormously for the casual way he can do the same thing and hardly think of it. It’s this curse you share, borne differently.

“We can clean this up,” he insists as he kneels before you, eyeing all the blood around him like he’s done this a hundred times before. You shake your head and begin to mumble a rebuttal, and he grasps your cheeks more firmly to regain your focus. “Darling, listen to me. It can be like it didn’t happen.”

“It did happen,” you retort, voice strained with anger. “Even if no one else knows it, I will. I can’t stay here and work here everyday knowing I—” your words break, “—that I killed Alicia.”

“You can do it, Y/N. You can get used to it. You have to get used to it, learn how to clean it up and move on. You don’t want to live a life constantly on the run—believe me.”

You practically snarl at him through the tears. “I can’t run a fucking motel by myself.”

He pauses, and then says, “I could do it with you. It’s not like I have shit else to do.”

You scoff. “And what when you need to eat? What then?”

“I could—”

“Start eating the guests, and this will become known as the motel where people go to disappear. How long do you think you’ll get away with that before the authorities come?”

“I’ve already told you I wouldn’t do that,” Ian insists. You think he might continue trying to argue with you, but then he says, “Okay. Okay. If you want to be done with all this, then we have to get the fuck out of here.”

“And leave it like this?” you groan, glancing at the bloody floor.

Ian finally lets you go so he can stand up. “Of course not. We have to clean everything. How many hours do we have until this office is supposed to open?”

You two spend the next several hours meticulously scrubbing every surface in the office. You try to turn yourself into an automaton—focus on the motions your body needs to perform and empty your mind. You aren’t successful. Too many times, you find yourself sniffling and averting your gaze from Ian’s direction so he doesn’t see your teary eyes, which is ridiculous in hindsight; he’s already seen you sobbing and covered in someone else’s blood. Held your face while you did so, like you were a small child. It doesn’t get much worse than that.

When the cleaning work is done, you stuff Alicia’s clothes, your bloody outfit, and the stained rags and brushes into several plastic bags you dig out of storage. Ian promises to stop somewhere so you can burn them all later. Everything else you take is more clothes to wear, some essentials, and your birth certificate folded small and stuffed in one of the pockets of your traveling bag—your only form of ID, and the only memento you have left of your birth parents.

Before abandoning the motel, you remove Ian’s name from the guest ledger to make it seem as if he never stayed there; his motel room looks untouched by the time you’re both done getting his things out of it and fixing it back up. You return his room key to its designated place on the wall of keys and then hurry out of the office, unable to spare another look at the place you’re leaving behind. You and Alicia lived and worked here for so long, spent so many exhausting nights and early mornings keeping the motel going even when it seemed like it might not survive, but there’s nothing left for you now. In just one hour, you destroyed it all.

So in the early morning hours when the motel guests are still asleep and there’s no one to witness but the gradually lightening sky and the cicadas, you and Ian hit the highway in his stolen Renault Alliance.

Once you’re a few miles away from the motel, you roll the window down to get some fresh air, and the warm breeze is one of the few things that helps hold you together. You almost want to stick your head out the window. Maybe if you fill yourself with enough oxygen, it’ll replace all the remnants of Alicia inside you. But you don’t want that to happen, either; you have nothing else left to remember her by but some bloody clothes that will be destroyed anyway. Only the memories of her smile, her sunny demeanor, her melodious Southern accent, and her perfume will remain in your mind, vulnerable to the passing of time. And eventually, those too will begin to fade and lose their clarity, gone to the same murky place within you that the other victims reside in, revived occasionally by your unpredictable nightmares.

“Where are we going?” you ask, and it’s the first thing either of you have said since you left.

“I’ve already been through most of the North…and I’m not really eager to go back soon. So unless you want to hang around the South a bit longer, it should probably be out West.”

“...I’d prefer the South. What kind of trouble did you cause up North?” you ask, your voice devoid of any meaningful emotion.

Ian glances at you and taps his fingers against the steering wheel. “Some…people saw me eating someone. I took someone to this broken-down house, looked like it had been abandoned for years and I knew people rarely came through that area, so I thought it was safe. But some fucking teenagers came there to do their graffiti and shit, and…”

“What did you do?”

“I ran. I hid out in the woods until night, and then I got the fuck out of the state.”

“Which state?”

“Pennsylvania.”

You nod slowly. “And then you come down here and get yourself stabbed. By the person you were eating, wasn’t it?”

Ian chews on his bottom lip before saying, “Yeah.”

In another context, you would make some comment about him being sloppy with it even after his years of experience, but you’re too drained to engage in the back-and-forth that would cause. You sigh and sink deeper into the seat.

“I’m not from this town either, you know. I’ve already done my fair share of running. But with the urge being so infrequent, it’s easier to stay in one place for a while. And even if I do give in to it, sometimes…I can pretend as if I didn’t. Buy myself some more time. Not much evidence but clothes, after all. And clothes are easy to get rid of.” You’re silent for a few moments. “But Alicia…” You close your eyes. “I can’t pretend.”

—

The beginning of your new life is exhausting. You’d forgotten how stressful it is to live like this; you’d gotten used to having one place to live in, the promise of running water everyday, and consistent meals that didn’t come out of a convenience store or vending machine.

You gladly watch Ian flirt with waitresses or waiters at the restaurants you stop in so you can get discounted meals. It doesn’t take much negotiation for him to get cheaper stuff at the occasional farm stand, either; the vendors are quickly enamored by his smile and his charming manner and those pet names he likes to lavish on every living creature. You don’t know where he got all of his cash from—probably that poor grocery worker’s house—but you do remain cognizant of how much of it is left every time you both have to buy something. You haven’t even touched the money you took from the motel safe yet, but that won’t last forever either. Your mind always remains ten miles ahead of where you are in the present, making it harder to focus on anything.

Sometimes you find an abandoned or empty house to sleep in for a few nights, left standing alone by the homeowners who are on vacation—whether permanently or temporarily. Entry is easier thanks to your lock-picking abilities. But most often, you two sleep in the car. Ian lets you have the entire backseat, which made you feel awkward at first. “Are you sure?” you’d asked.

“Quite. Why not?”

“...You don’t have to be so courteous considering we still barely know each other. I mean, you…” you faltered.

He’d given you this sarcastic smile and said, “How sweet of you to think of me, darling. I could sleep back there with you so neither of us has to deal with the front seats—”

“Nevermind. I’ll take it.”

And other times, he chooses someone at random—a bearded man at a gas station, an older woman at a grocery store, some sluggish-looking twenty-something eating lukewarm scrambled eggs at a down-home eatery—and spends a few days watching their movements. He’ll follow them at an inconspicuous distance in the sedan and find out where they live; subsequently, there will be hours of mind-numbing car-camping nearby as you both wait to see their vehicle turn down the road at the break of dawn or the onset of afternoon. Another day means more opportunities for observation.

But not everyone owns a car. Sometimes he’ll become interested in someone who’s traveling on foot, and he’ll leave the car to you while he trails after them for hours. You hate it the most when he does this.

He has enough decency to tell you a specific place where you can both meet at again in a few hours—maybe a park, or a drugstore—or he’ll say something about meeting you back here later. 

“Later” is an unknown to you. Not knowing exactly when he’ll be back and not wanting to sit in the same place all day drives you mad. You might go to a local trinket shop or an outlet store or some boutique downtown to try to ease your anxiety. But sooner rather than later, you end up in your agreed-upon meeting spot, watching for his reappearance in the side mirrors.

Whether he walks or drives, you’re always left waiting on him once he decides to eat them.

The very first time he played this game, he’d told you to “come back later,” front door open and one leg already outside the car. You’d both been tailing a man for a couple of days already, and he had been none the wiser. He’d just returned home from work not too long ago; the sedan had rolled in after, and you both watched his house from your distant spot among the trees—waiting for something to happen? You didn’t know. The sun was setting, making way for the dark of twilight to paint the world; through the trees, you could see the glow of the house’s lights in the distance.

“What? Wait, what are you doing?” you hissed. You impulsively reached for his arm to pull him back in the car and then thought against it, retracting your hand. But you didn’t need to bother with pulling him back, because he leaned into you like he was telling you something confidential.

“Trying to give you a break. I would ask you to join, but I know you hate this and all, so just come back in like, two hours.”

You were unsure how to respond. You stared at him, knowing what he was about to do and wanting to stop him but understanding that your efforts would be futile. “Ian, what if I can’t find my way back here? It’s going to be pitch fucking black.”

He took your hand in his and squeezed it. If this was meant to comfort you, it did nothing of the sort. “You will. Just remember the street names.”

Then he’d left. You didn’t stay to watch him approach the house; you climbed into the front seat and carefully navigated the car along the path that wasn’t really a path and back onto the road. You waited the two hours, your eyes twitching to the car’s dashboard clock too many times as you drove aimlessly around the town with your palms sweating, hoping not to seem suspicious. All the while, you repeated the street names in your mind so that you could get back easily.

When the time came, you did find your way back—just as he said. The door was already open as you walked up the grassy path to the porch, your legs trembling from what you might find. Ian stood there with the yellow glow of the interior outlining his form, and as you looked past him, you saw that there was nothing amiss inside. There were no signs that any death had ever happened here, carefully scrubbed and cleaned away.

And that is how you ended up with a new home to stay in for a little while.

You’ve never seen him consume anyone, and you don’t ask. But sometimes you wonder…after he makes himself known to them—what does he do? Force his way into their house? Play whatever innocent persona that would give him a good reason to be suddenly on their doorstep, in their driveway? Does he press his lips to their neck the same way you do, the last gentle touch before the ravaging, or go for another body part—or does he kill them through some other method before ever sinking his teeth in?

Deeper down, you always wonder if maybe this will be the time he fails. That maybe he’ll change from hunter to hunted, or that he’ll be caught again.

He seems to have a preternatural skill for picking the types of people who no one would really miss, though. People who live alone and often in homes or trailers that sit off on a densely wooded and scraggly piece of land, separate from any houses nearby. Too far away for anyone to hear screams for help. Sometimes they’re the type of people who’ve burned all their bridges with their loved ones and whose calls for a savior would probably go unanswered anyway. This ability of his deeply unsettles you, but you never admit this aloud.

Once, you ask Ian why he even puts in so much effort—why he goes this far just to find someplace for you two to lay your heads at night that isn’t the worn material of the car seats. You aren’t expecting some virtuous or sappy answer, but you don’t quite anticipate his actual response either.

He hesitates for a moment, as if wary of how you’ll respond. “I like it—that’s all. That slow pursuit and the inevitable ending…somehow, they taste better that way.”

—

Initially, you weren’t sure if it mattered to have some sort of disguise. You’d crossed paths with hundreds of people at the motel and wondered if you might someday be recognized, that they would somehow know what you’d done, why you left the motel, and expose you to the national papers. (Some regional papers had reported on the motel’s sudden and unexplained abandonment, you find out later, but they proffered no clear answers for it or your and Alicia’s whereabouts.) But you didn’t know if those largely brief encounters would be memorable enough for anyone to recall you months later.

Either way, you end up taking your braids out not too long after you’ve been on the road. They were beginning to frizz to an unmanageable level anyway, and your chances of having them continually refreshed is virtually zero now. In a way, it’s a relief to not have them anymore, as if you have somehow transformed into a different person—a stranger you could look in the mirror at and not recognize as an eater—by letting your hair free. You burn the hair and all of the wooden beads inside a fire pit at a camping site, watching them die nestled in the flames.

But there are always occurrences that refuse to let you forget. Because on that same campground, you catch wind of another eater a few days after your arrival.

Their scent makes your stomach drop, as it always does in the presence of another eater. You wonder if they have purposely decided to stay at this site because they smelled you and Ian, or if they’re merely passing through. How will the encounter unfold this time, with three of you present? 

When you go to talk to Ian about it, you find him by the river, where he has managed to catch a few fish. They sit nearby in a cooler. The midday sun beams down on the both of you with no relief, and you have to shield your eyes from the water’s reflection. 

“I hope you know how to gut those, because I’m not doing it,” you say, frowning.

“It’s fine, babe. I’ve got it.” You scoff and roll your eyes, unimpressed.

“Can you smell that?” you ask him abruptly, quieting your voice. 

He looks at you thoughtfully, but you continue shading your eyes from the sun and trying to appear casual and not at all disturbed. The continuous tapping of your foot gives you away, though. Ian glances around to see that none of the others near the river’s edge are close enough to hear, and eventually murmurs, “Yeah, I can.” 

“Okay. Okay, maybe—”

“You’re nervous?”

You return his gaze then. “You’ve never met other eaters. I have. Let’s just boil it down to this: It’s often better for us to stay out of each other’s way. Us being dangerous to everyone else doesn’t mean we aren’t a risk to each other, too. Not because we feel actual hunger for each other—I’ve heard that isn’t possible. More strange genetic shit no one can explain. But some will feed on other eaters just because they can.” You shift uncomfortably. “Some see it as like…a conquest, I guess.”

“Is that why you were so eager to see me gone back then?” You don’t expect him to say that, and it takes you aback for a moment. He smirks, but the expression doesn’t have a genuine quality to it—like he’s only showing levity because he assumes you will be repelled by him without it.

“No, it’s…not why.” The real reason feels too vulnerable to disclose, so you don’t. Again, you find yourself unable to meet his eyes, and you return your attention to the blinding waters. “Look, I just wanted to tell you so that you’re—aware. I’m not saying we have to up and run away, but…”

Ian’s face becomes hard to read; you don’t know whether he’s feeling apprehension or whether he’s neutral about the possibility of meeting another eater. Or maybe even fascinated by it. “I get it. Let’s just see if they make the first move or something. And if they show themselves as dangerous to us, then we can leave.” 

You don’t love the idea of sitting and waiting for something to happen, but you aren’t fond of the thought of packing up and hitting the road again either. You are beginning to enjoy this campsite; it’s not so remote that you feel isolated, but all the campers are spread out enough so that you can avoid feeling crowded in or watched. Or like you’re exposing others to danger. “Fine. Let’s see.”

—

You and Ian sit outside at the fire pit after eating, listening to the cacophony of frogs at the river and other night sounds as your after-dinner entertainment. You hear a train in the distance and wonder where it’s going. You imagine hitching a ride on it and traveling someplace where you can settle down without the prying questions of new neighbors and the requirements of real estate agents—buy a house and live in one place for the rest of your life like normal people get to do.

You scrub your face with your hands and sigh. Ian perks up at your heavy exhale, a question in his eyes.

“When I mentioned genetics earlier…” you try to order your words correctly, “...I think I got this thing from my mother. I was told that I was given up for adoption as soon as I was born, as her parents didn’t think she would be fit to raise me, and they didn’t want me either. They didn’t specify why she couldn’t raise me, but I always assumed it was because of that.” This is more personal than anything you could’ve told him earlier, and you aren’t sure why it comes spilling out now. “I don’t think either of her parents were eaters. I think it can skip generations, but I’m not really sure…I don’t exactly sit and have tea and reminisce about family trees with other eaters.”

You’d been passed between many foster homes as an adolescent, never truly feeling like you belonged in anyone’s home or that any of your new “family members” loved or cared about you. At best, you were tolerated or left to your own devices. At worst…you’d once lived with a strictly religious older woman who was half the cause of your constant feelings of guilt. She never found out that you are an eater, but there was plenty more than that for her to convict you about. The lectures about hell and brimstone still come back to mock you if you let your mental guard down for too long. 

During the time when you’d been traveling through the world on your own, you only took shelter in churches—abandoned or not—if there was truly no other suitable place to camp for miles. The large windows always reminded you of eyes peering down on you, seeing inside of your soul and cursing you for the blood you’d spilled.

Ian leans back on his hands. The flames of the fire pit illuminate his face, and somehow, he looks different. Like the act of reaching so far back into the past is making him into someone younger, softer, and newer to the world.

“...I guess it would be my dad, then. I never knew him, and mum would never talk about him. I don’t know anyone else in my family who would be. Family secrets always stay so well hidden.” He begins chucking little sticks and other debris into the fire pit, and you watch them spark as they hit the flames. “Mum tried to hide mine once I started, but I felt like such a burden to her…I just went out on my own as soon as I could.”

“So when did you start, then?”

“When I was starting high school. What about you?”

“I was still in the single digits…eight or nine, I think…” I’d snuck out to my friend’s treehouse at night even though I wasn’t allowed to, and the hunger came without a warning. Despite the blood inside the treehouse, no one could ever figure out what happened. The missing posters all over town haunted me. The finer details are gone now, but you still remember the basics of it. These things arise in your mind but you don’t say them, wanting to avoid the sting of voicing what you did.

“So it’s not the same timing for all of us? I’d thought it was some fucked-up symptom of puberty that none of the other kids at school had gotten or something…” Ian says, his voice trailing off. After a moment of silence, you laugh and keep on laughing, though it’s more an expression of your incredulity at this situation—at your lives—rather than true amusement. Ian laughs alongside you, though he sounds more light-hearted about it than you do. “I’m serious.”

“Ah…yeah. I guess it kind of is, in a way,” you whisper, just enough to be heard over the fire popping and the forest’s sounds. “A coming-of-age type of thing. You can never be the same after it happens.”

“That first time was scary for me, but mostly because of mum’s reaction when I told her.”

“What about before you told her?” you ask, wondering if you’ll regret this question.

Ian tilts his head back and stares up at the stars for a moment. “Physically, I felt…complete. Like…I don’t know, sort of like something in me had been starved and empty my whole life and I didn’t realize it until I finally ate.”

To your surprise, you feel some measure of envy at this, wishing it could be that straightforward for you. If you could eat only to satisfy the need, to achieve wholeness, and not feel any particular emotion about it—least of all the normal combination of negative emotions that crash down on you afterward—things could be so different.

This and all your previous conversations together might be the most time you’ve spent talking about the urge with any one person. That realization cools your blood and makes you want to draw back again. You’ve told him about your relatives and nearly spoke of your first time, and now you find dangerous words itching in your throat: I think I envy you. Maybe it’s all too much to lay in his hands and trust him with—even though you had no choice but to trust him with your life at the motel.

Trying to restore the emotional distance between you, you get up from your spot on the log and promptly announce, “I’m, uh, gonna go piss.”

Ian’s eyebrows crease in the middle, and a short laugh bursts from his mouth. “Uh, sure, be my guest.”

You walk off into the trees, trying to tell yourself that the physical distance is enough for now—even though you feel like you’ve splayed your chest cavity open before him and let him scrutinize your every cell.

—

You wake up in the tent alone the next morning, pulled out of sleep from the sound of voices nearby. It’s not unusual for Ian to wake up before you; with you not needing to get up at dawn hours anymore to run the motel’s affairs, you take every opportunity to sleep as long as you can.

Within seconds of waking, you realize the smell of the other eater is much stronger, which raises alarm within you. You peek your head outside the tent’s opening to see what’s going on, adjusting your scarf on your head. Outside, you see Ian talking to someone else at the picnic table—someone who you can only assume is the other eater. She has strawberry-blonde hair that reaches the middle of her back and skin that’s been tanned from weeks in the sun; there are freckles across her face and chest, and her eyes are a clear blue. She seems engrossed in the conversation, and though you can’t see Ian’s face, he must be the same way; this is the second eater he’s met after knowing none at all his entire life. You’re reminded of the almost desperate way he’d appealed to you in that motel bathroom, and all your internal organs wince at the remembrance.

And then she glances over his shoulder and sees you sitting there yards away. A small smile shifts her expression, but it doesn’t have the same energy of the friendly smile you get from a passing stranger in public. It says I know what you are, and we both know you cannot hide it from me. It creates that familiar unease in you.

Ian notices the change in her face and turns to look at you as she gets up from the table to walk over to the tent. “Hello there. We were just having a nice little talk; it’s not often I meet other eaters who’ve never encountered their own before. You caught yourself a rare one.” She smiles with her teeth now. “I’m Sherry. What’s your name?”

You tell her a fake name, still cautious about your identity. You wish you’d been awake earlier to catch the beginning of their conversation, but it’s too late to ruminate on that. “What did you talk about?” you ask, shuffling out of the tent now. You’re only wearing a tank top and sleep shorts because of how hot the tent can get when you’re both in it; you don’t know how the hell Ian puts out so much body heat.

“You know, the things every person talks about…the weather, things to do ‘round here, favorite foods.” Sherry cocks her head at the last phrase, as if amused by her own words. You’re unable to muster up a smile to match hers. “Personally, I like to feed every month…I think Ian would agree. It’s too bad you don’t indulge as often, I hear? You could eat plenty more—not just when the hunger tells you to.”

It’s clear that he’s said more than he needed to. You shoot him an annoyed look, and Ian smiles weakly before biting his lip.

“I’m fine,” you say curtly. “Really. A few times a year is more than I could ever have asked for.”

Sherry nods, her smile never becoming less amused. “You’re one of those eaters who’s not fond of the whole deal. That’s charming. Maybe you were gifted with more compassion than the rest of us. Or maybe you’re just…repressed.”

A blurred montage of all the people you’ve previously consumed flashes in your mind, along with the lives they lived, and you don’t know whether to feel angry or defeated. “Better some compassion than none, I would say.” Even with the annoyance behind your words, it seems useless to say this; there’s nothing you could say to make her see things your way.

“To each their own.” Sherry shrugs, nonchalant despite your irritation. “But I suppose I should be going now to get my day started, so—nice meeting you two.” You both watch her depart, Ian giving her a wave before she disappears into the trees. You sigh deeply, trying to tamp down the boiling in your chest as you begin picking out something to wear for the day from the small pile of clothes you own.

“Alright, look—she came up and said hello, said she had smelled us, and I…I was curious about her experience,” Ian says.

“I don’t know why you’re explaining anything to me; you’re grown and can talk to who you want. No one was chewed to pieces, right?” you say sarcastically. “That’s pretty much a win.”

“Because you’re obviously annoyed.”

You stand up straight now, gesturing angrily with your clothes as you speak. “Maybe because you should’ve left me out of your conversation. I didn’t even want to talk to you about this shit at first, do you remember? But you kept fucking begging me. Now some stranger knows about my situation without me ever sharing it with them?”

Ian smooths his hair back with both hands and sighs. “Okay, I can see how maybe that was fucked up. I shouldn’t have said anything about you to Sherry, but do you realize she would’ve known you’re an eater anyway?” You glare in response. “I’m sorry, alright? But it’s hard for me to get used to you being so closed-off about it when all I’ve ever wanted was to know I’m not alone in this shit. It doesn’t make any bloody sense to me!”

“Because I never cared about being alone in it,” you say, and a tiny flare of guilt pricks you from the dishonesty. “I didn’t think about who else might experience it. I was too busy trying to hide what I was. Even if I did consider it, I didn’t want to be around anyone else who could’ve been—like me.”

Deep down, you realize that despite what you’d sometimes fantasized about Alicia—that if she were an eater too, she’d understand you without judgment and you wouldn’t have to live under such stressful circumstances—the reality is nothing of what you thought it would be. Living your life with another eater hasn’t relieved you of the condemnation and shame you always feel, and you wonder if maybe the emotions have been ground too deeply into your soul to escape them.

The darkness in Ian’s gaze reminds you of the way he’d looked at you and Alicia when you confronted him in front of the motel office. “Stop bullshitting, I don’t believe you. People get lonely about smaller shit everyday, but you didn’t care whether you were the only cannibal in the world or not?”

Before you can respond, you hear the sounds of foliage rustling and feet shuffling; there’s a small group of people walking one of the trails yards away and laughing about something. You can make out flashes of their clothes through the tree branches and bushes. Sweat springs up on your body.

You lower your voice, hoping they haven’t heard any of your conversation. “I don’t give a fuck if you don’t believe me. Your experience isn’t the only one there is. Just stop telling others my business. You don’t have that right. For all I know, you could’ve slipped something about the motel.”

Ian’s eyes widen. “I didn’t say a damn word about the motel! All I mentioned was that sometimes the urge takes years for you, and that you hate it when it happens. You think I’m that unreliable, after all I’ve done to help you since then?”

You know he’s right about the motel, at least. You’re still somewhat incredulous that he dropped everything to help you clean up and escape unseen when he could’ve stayed in his room, acted like nothing happened, and left you to be hauled off by the law. But you’re angry, and though it may be petty, you don’t want him to be right about this. “What am I supposed to think of you? I don’t fucking know you like that. In case you forgot, we were perfect strangers not too long ago.” 

“And I try to know more about you so that we aren’t strangers, but you never want to talk about anything. Last night was something rare, but does that even matter to you?”

Your conversation from last night is like a distant memory, the personal details you shared with each other now dust in the wind. You wish you could take all of those words back, embarrassed from the vulnerability you allowed yourself. You wish you’d never known about him being a kid in high school, not knowing what to make of the new life that was waiting in his DNA, and that you hadn’t felt some measure of sympathy for him after hearing that story. You wish you’d done a better job of keeping him at arm’s length.

You gather your clothes close to your chest and shove your feet into your shoes so you can head for the river. “I’m starting to think it was a mistake. That’s all I know.” You walk past him without waiting to see if he’ll reply, trying to ignore the hurt in his expression.

—

The next morning is similar in that you are awakened by the sounds of voices again, but this time they are alarmed. Shouting, searching. Farther away, but approaching your area.

Ian’s next to you sleeping this time, his back to you as you sit up; at the start of this camping excursion you both had agreed to sleep facing away from each other, mostly for your own comfort. But it’s also convenient in this current situation when you’re still pissed at him.

You climb out of the tent to get a better listen, standing in the early morning air that’s already becoming too hot. You realize now that the shouts are someone’s name—Michael. The distress and pain are palpable in the voices of the people calling for the presumably missing person, and your stomach begins hurting with dread as your mind fills in the blanks about what might’ve happened. Not in such a public space…

Ian pokes his head out of the tent a few moments later, his long hair covering his eyes. “My God, what the hell is going on?”

“How would I know?” you scoff, squinting through the trees. You see a middle-age man and woman heading your way; there are other individuals spread farther out in the forest, still calling that person’s name. You catch glimpses of them through the foliage, their hands cupped around their mouths and heads swiveling like owls. When the couple reaches your camping spot, you notice the tear streaks on both their faces.

“H-have either of you seen this boy between last night and this morning?” the woman blurts out, holding up a picture with shaky fingers. The person depicted is a gangly blonde boy with a bowl cut who looks to be fifteen at the most. His wide smile shows his metal braces, and he’s holding up a large catfish. “We can’t find our son, p-please. He l-likes to go out exploring by himself even when we warn him not to, even at night—and he didn’t come back this time—he must’ve went out last night and got hurt or something, b-because some other campers found a patch of bloody grass…” The mother collapses into incoherent sobs.

The father tries to pick up where she left off, though his brown eyes are also wet and red and troubled beyond measure. “S-some other campers found this area of bloody grass in the deep woods away from the marked trails, so we—we thought maybe he got hurt and wasn’t able to find his way back—this is our first time camping here—b-but…”

“There…there was so much blood,” the mother gasps, shaking her head and clutching the picture so tightly you think it might rip.

“I-I’m…sorry,” you say, your throat feeling choked with a guilt that’s not yours to bear. “We haven’t seen him, or anyone else. We went to bed pretty early and only just woke up, so…” You ate dinner in silence with Ian last night before heading to bed earlier than usual. He’d stayed out by the fire pit smoking a cigarette for a while longer before coming in beside you.

The father nods, though your words seem to be another weight on his shoulders dampening his hopes of finding his son. “Thank you,” he mumbles, gently tugging the mother along to the next camping area.

“Jesus…” Ian mutters. It’s hard for you not to get lost in a rabbit hole of thinking about that boy and his apparent love for fishing and what he might’ve become if given the chance and the time. If only someone had had some kind of mercy on him. If only some otherworldly force had saved him. If only someone had simply not chosen him as their meal.

You walk away from the tent, trying to settle your nerves and corral your thoughts. You don’t know where you’re going, and you don’t respond to Ian’s call of your name, but you let your feet carry you away until you’re standing at the shore, looking out over the river. You listen to the tiny waves splash against the shore and feel the cool water run over your feet and try to let it ground you.

Maybe you shouldn’t care. Not when you’re capable of the same; it’s too hypocritical. Still, you can’t stop thinking about it as you dig your toes into the mud, trying to block out the sounds of the search party in the far distance. You’re almost ready to crouch down and put your hands over your ears when a hand touches your shoulder. You whip around to see Ian behind you.

“What?” you ask, voice coming out louder than you intend.

“Relax,” he murmurs. “It’s not like anyone thinks it’s us.”

“Why would they? And who cares about that?” you snap. “A boy is dead, and you’re sitting up here—of course it wasn’t us. But we do know—”

“We don’t know that he’s dead, and we don’t know that either.”

“You don’t think she did it?”

Ian sighs. “Should we assume that? If she did—it was always gonna be someone, Y/N. If not him, someone else. No one gets spared when you have to live like we do, you know that.”

“You two seem quite similar, honestly,” you say, exasperated. “Maybe it’d make more sense for you two to be together like this instead of us. I just can’t understand how you think.”

Maybe you’ve made a huge error. Not by accepting his help, or even by renting him the motel room—you’d have to go further back than that. You shouldn’t have even gone out to check on him that night. You could’ve avoided this all if only…

One decision. The difference between you being in this campground-turned-crime-scene and you standing at the motel desk taking yet another stranger’s information was just one decision.

…But you still would’ve eaten Alicia, wouldn’t you have? The hunger is always beneath the surface, just waiting to reemerge. If not then, it would’ve been later.

You’re spinning out of control. The thought comes to you suddenly: There’s no way you can sustain this strange relationship with him, in which you travel endlessly with no destination and you try to pretend like he doesn’t eat other people and like you don’t have the same craving. Your talk at the fire pit should’ve shown you that; how can you ever be on equal ground with him in the way that another eater like Sherry could? And why should you want to? You’ve been trying to outrun this desire to consume for as long as you’ve had it; you won’t let him make you think this is normal.

Even if your thoughts are anchored more in your current emotional frenzy than in reality, you’re unable to regulate yourself to see things differently. A vise of panic grips your body and crushes you between.

There has to be a way out of this.

“Y/N. I don’t think you’re in the right state of mind right now,” he says more gently, noticing the frantic vibe emanating from you. “If you’re that concerned, we can leave, okay? Remember, we said we’d leave if things didn’t feel right?”

“Right…” you murmur, though your mind is elsewhere, planning. “Tomorrow. We can leave tomorrow.”

When night falls, Sherry returns to your campsite. To your knowledge, the search party is still out there somewhere, pushing out to the very edges of the campground’s boundaries to cover all the bases. All of the other campers who didn’t get involved in the search have either decided to stay to themselves or leave.

“Hey, friends. I come with gifts.” Her smile is big and white in the dark of night as she holds up some beer cans and a pack of cigarettes. 

That’s how the three of you end up sitting around the fire pit, smoke from both the flames and the tobacco curling through the air. Your beer can sits nearly empty in your lap; you’d taken a few apprehensive sips at first, and then more, in an attempt to numb yourself out. Sherry leads the conversation, talking about her travels and the exciting things she’s done and never once bringing up anyone she’s preyed on. You don’t know if she avoids the topic for your comfort. You highly doubt she cares. You say little to either of them, too lost in your own mind to engage.

But eventually, amid a lull in the talking, she sighs as if burdened and then smiles. It’s an odd contrast.

“I’ve always preferred to feed on males,” she announces. “I like to pretend each one of them is my father. I guess you could call it daddy issues, but I don’t give a fuck.”

Your heart quickens. “Your father?”

“‘Course. He’s the one who gave me this little gift. Then tried to kill me for it. Ain’t that something? Didn’t even do me the dignity of eating me; he tried to strangle me with his bare hands like some kind of brute.”

“That’s so fucked up,” Ian mutters.

“If I didn’t fight him like a bat outta hell, I’d be dead. I didn’t eat him after. I just ran away from home and never came back. But shit, sometimes I wish I had eaten him.” She chuckles, taking a drag from her cigarette.

“So, the boy…” you start, but don’t know how to finish.

Sherry leans her head against her palm and studies you before saying, “Take a guess.” Ian raises his eyebrows.

“But why him?” you ask, voice cracking. “Why in a place like this, with so many others around? Don’t you think it’s dangerous?”

“It’s not if you know what you’re doing.” Sherry shrugs. “Besides, he was curious, easy to lure, and outside at night when he shouldn’t have been. They never expect danger to come from a sweet little thing like me. You should take advantage of that.” Sherry gestures to you, grinning again. “Use your feminine wiles and all that shit.”

You pour the last bit of your beer into the grass and stand up from the log you’d been sitting on. “It doesn’t work like that for me.” You walk back to the tent feeling chilled despite the humidity of late August. You try to ignore the sensation of two pairs of eyes following you.

—

That morning, you wake up much earlier than Ian does. You check to make sure he’s asleep, his chest rising and falling evenly, as you crawl from under the covers. You’re as careful and quiet as can be as you gather your things in the tent and strewn around the campsite—though they are thankfully few—and shove them into your traveling bag.

Once you have all your belongings together, you slip back into the tent. Ian’s jeans are folded in the corner with his other clothes; you know the car keys are in one of the pockets. As you slowly search through them, you hope that he won’t awaken. You watch his face for signs of consciousness, and as you do, the sight of him lying there scratches at something deep inside of you. It arouses a sentiment you don’t want to think of as sympathy. Are you betraying him in some way by doing this?

The feel of metal against your fingers causes your heart to race. You slide the keys out with as much control as you can muster. Then you back out of the tent, telling yourself this is the last time you will see him, before letting the flaps close and obscure your view of him.

You don’t breathe properly again until you’re in the parking lot, clutching the strap of your bag and the car keys like you’re being hunted. You falter in your steps, however, when you see Sherry in the parking lot too, messing with something in her car—a boxy, dark red Chevy. She isn’t the only person out here—there’s a man and his small child at their own car, the man tiredly searching for some beloved toy in the backseat while the child whines—but somehow you feel cornered.

You try to ignore her as you shove the key into the lock and throw your bag into the passenger seat, scanning the trees as if Ian might be there, shouldering his way out of the foliage. There is no one.

“Leaving so soon?” You turn at the sound of Sherry’s voice, unsure when she got over here and how she moved so soundlessly. “It’s probably for the best; there’s rumors the park rangers are gonna be temporarily closing this site.”

You shrug, your body stiff. “And?”

Her eyes search the car as if looking for something in particular. “Doesn’t look like enough stuff for both of you. You’re leaving Ian behind?” She laughs, her face simultaneously surprised and amused. 

You don’t owe her an explanation, you tell yourself. “Don’t worry about it.”

“I won’t. When I think about it…you two probably wouldn’t have made it very far together, anyway.” She throws her hands up in a casual what can you do? motion and makes for the treeline, calling over her shoulder. “Maybe you’ll change your mind about eating one day.”

“Maybe not,” you mutter, sliding into the front seat and starting the engine.

—

Summer fades into fall, though the weather doesn’t yet reflect this change.

You drive for miles and try not to think about many things—most prominently, Alicia or Ian. Yet, your version of not thinking about Ian involves a lot of ruminating on whether you should’ve left, what happened to him after, where he might be now, whether he decided to tag along with Sherry or just ended up alone again. You feel sick whenever the last possibility crosses your mind.

It doesn’t matter, you tell yourself. He was alone before me, and he’ll be fine after me. We were never really going to work anyway.

During your worst times, you wonder if you were purposely setting him up for disaster; you’d told him yourself how dangerous other eaters could be. You know you would never try to feed on him, but what about Sherry? The guilt threatens to make you implode; sometimes you want to fly back down the highway and find him again somehow, and say…what? What could you say to make it less horrible? Whenever your mind turns down that road, you attempt to convince yourself that it doesn’t concern you anymore. Whatever happens to him, good or bad, is no longer your business.

Not thinking about Alicia involves a lot more open wallowing and feeling sorry for yourself while simultaneously hating that you feel any pity for yourself. You deserve no one’s sympathies. But that doesn’t stop you from curling into the backseat and recalling past memories through sobs, dragging your fingernails down your arms until you bleed and scar. Even when you’re asleep, your dreaming brain conjures terrible scenarios in which everything is normal again, you’re working at the motel again and you’re laughing at some silly comment she’s made, shying away from her as she tickles your arm or pinches your side, and it feels so real that it’s physically painful when you awaken.

So you spend your days like this, hoping to somehow purge the trauma from your system by ignoring it—and doing a terrible job of both. You go entire days without speaking to anyone, walking through parks or down busy sidewalks without regard for the people around you who buzz with life and excitement. You count the money you have left every night and begin shoplifting to try to slow down your spending. You even consider finding a job again, though you still don’t trust yourself to be in such close proximity to other people for hours at a time; you just have to find a city you like enough to live in first. Somewhere populous enough for you to be insignificant, and fast-paced enough for you to have plenty of distractions from your oppressive thoughts.

You ponder this idea one early morning in a small diner; there are a few people here for their breakfast, but not an uncomfortable amount. The other diners are too sluggish or disinterested to regard your presence—or each other’s presences.

The atlases for several different states lie on the table in front of you; you flip through one on Georgia. You and Ian had collected many of them while traveling. Maybe you could work somewhere that doesn’t require you to be around too many other people. A call center, perhaps. But you’d still have coworkers. Maybe a typist job; you’d spend all day behind a computer filling in spreadsheets and taking tedious phone calls. It wouldn’t be much different from what you used to do. You could sew clothes in the backroom of a tailor’s shop, or take some mind-numbing factory job…

You just need something to occupy your mind. Being left alone with nothing but your thoughts and the road ahead of you is wearing you thinner each day. Was it even this bad during the time you spent alone after Marygold? You can’t remember. Maybe your brain is blocking the memories for your own sanity.

As you place your tip on the table for the waitress, she stops in the middle of gathering your dishes and observes your face. You catch her gaze and stare back, wondering if she knows you from the motel. You’re beginning to mentally spiral when she says,

“You look like a girl who’s lost to love.”

“Love?”

She puts a hand on her hip, looking at you like you’re the saddest thing she’s seen all year. It makes you uncomfortable. “You have that lovelorn look I’ve seen a thousand times before. Poor thing. Who would think of breaking your heart?”

Myself. “I don’t love anyone,” you mumble, chest aching as you say the lie.

“Everyone loves someone,” the waitress says. “I believe you’ll find someone new, if that’s what you’re yearning for. Don’t be so down.”

You shake your head, wanting to escape this diner and this conversation. “I’m a little too fucked up for that.” Your voice fractures on the last words, and you hold your body still in an effort to stop yourself from crying. If you hold your breath long enough, maybe your body will shut itself down and forget that it was about to break.

“Everyone’s a little fucked up, too, girlie. But that’s why you find that special someone who can put up with your crazy—or someone who has the same wild hair up their ass.”

You swallow hard and let out an exhale; there’s still a sheen of tears on your eyes, but the drops haven’t fallen. Your lips form a miniscule smile at her turn of phrase, amusement briefly flitting through you.

“Anyway, I don’t mean to be nosy. I just didn’t want you to leave here looking so depressed.” You probably look more disturbed than you did when you first entered the establishment, so you’re pretty sure that mission has failed. But some part of you appreciates that this stranger took the time to even speak to you, to care that you looked upset and want to do something about it.

She smiles and places her hand over yours. You allow yourself to take comfort in the touch for a moment; warmth spreads upward from where your hands meet, sparking something in your chest. But in an instant, the vault door in your heart slams back closed from where it’d cracked open, and the fears rush back in, spiking all your senses into anxiety. You’re soon pulling away, slipping out the front door and into the morning sun.

—

You’re not sure how to feel when you smell him again. 

The scent comes to you while you’re in a grocery store, debating whether to pay like all the other customers or just steal the few essentials you need and leave. The end of October is days away, and the vibrant Halloween decor and packaging are in full force throughout the store.

Many emotions race through you at once. You become hyperaware of your increased heart rate and the sweat that prickles your body, and you can’t figure out whether you’re afraid of or angry at his presence. Or relieved. You wonder how he managed to find you again—probably the same reason why you know he’s here without laying eyes on him, though that seems unlikely. You don’t think any eater can pick up smells from that kind of distance. Then you consider that maybe this is just a coincidence, the two of you arriving in the same place. Or some sick variant of fate. Could the universe be that cruel?

You think about dashing out of the store before he can see you, though there’s not much point. Why should you run? You were here first. If so-called fate has decided that this reunion was always going to happen at some point, then you don’t want to spend the rest of your life running from him. So you wait for him to come to you, trapped in a tornado of emotions.

You’re in the vegetable aisle trying not to get sprayed by the misters suddenly cutting on when you see him. You shake droplets of water off your hand and then you glance up and he’s there, approaching you like he only intends to leave this store with one thing: you. For a split second, you wonder if it’s really him; his hair is unkempt under a baseball cap, and he’s wearing a pair of yellow-tinted glasses you’ve never seen on him. His bag is slung over one shoulder.

You can feel the anxiety pouring off of him when he stops in front of you; his fingers tremble as he fidgets with his rings. He has the air of an older brother—or what you’d imagine one to be like—annoyed and afraid after you’ve run off without him in the store and gotten lost, and you don’t know whether to laugh or cry or curse.

“Didn’t expect to ever see me again, huh, darling?” Ian keeps his voice mostly even, but it sounds like that requires significant effort. “Not the way you drove off with my fucking car, I bet.” It was never your car, you think.

“How did you even find me?” you ask, voice small. 

“Think about it. The atlas.”

You do think about it. And then you remember; you’d talked about the next place you’d travel to after staying at the campground. You both agreed on a random town named Hendersonville, which is where you are now—but only after months of directionless hopping around from city to city. How would he think to come here now, months after the fact, when it’s possible that you could’ve already been through the town and long gone, or decided to never visit Hendersonville at all? Terrible fate…

Something else catches your attention before you can reply to this. Despite the agitated state you’re both in, you realize that you’re picking up on his scent and no others.

“Did you and Sherry…?”

“She’s dead,” he says.

That’s the last thing you expected to hear. “What?”

He pulls down the collar of his T-shirt. There are many scars along the junction of his neck and shoulder that weren’t there before, and it takes you a moment to notice that some of them resemble teeth marks. 

“So…” Your throat seizes up, and you have to clear it a couple times to speak again, though you avoid speaking too loudly. “...she tried to eat you?”

He lets his collar go and nods with a jerky movement. “After only a month. I had to kill her or she would’ve done me in. It was close.”

Your words haunt you yet again. Us being dangerous to everyone else doesn’t mean we aren’t a risk to each other, too. And for that reason, you don’t understand why he’s returned to you, a fellow cannibal.

You are shocked again when you register that there’s a small part of you that feels sorry for Sherry. You think of how she tried to regain control after her father’s attempted murder of her by preying on so many other men, doing to them what she wished she had done to him, only to end up dead by another man in the end. There’s something terribly unfair about it all.

“I…see.” You realize you’ve been holding a bell pepper for an awkwardly long time, and you waffle between getting a plastic bag for it or setting it back down. Frustrated, you toss it back with the others.

“Then I ate her,” he continues. You resist the urge to recoil.

“And you’re back here in front of me because…why? You’re not worried I might turn on you the same? I did take ‘your’ car.”

His laugh is colorless and dry. “You’re fucking joking, right? I know how you are. You can barely stand to talk about it, and I’m supposed to believe you’d eat me?”

“Shut up.” You’re more offended by him saying I know how you are as if he understands you so intimately after only a few months. It angers you to think maybe he could know you—know all these unpleasant things about you and still want to return for you. You begin walking away from him then, though there’s no real urgency in your movements to get away from him.

“You shut up. You may have tried to throw me aside, but we both know we’re not finished with each other.” He follows you into another aisle; there’s an old woman pushing a cart coming from the opposite direction, and he waits to speak again until after she’s gone. “We’re some of the few who know what it’s like.”

You suck your teeth, feeling foolish. “But…that’s why I left you. Thought you’d gravitate to Sherry, fit better together.”

“You see how well that turned out. What does it really matter that we feel differently about it as long as we’re not trying to fucking kill each other?”

You don’t know how to respond to that, because responding would mean admitting you’ve put yourself through months of emotional torment on the basis of a false and impulsive assumption. You want to bury the guilt chewing at your organs but it only worsens when he says,

“I just—fuck’s sake. I don’t want to be alone again.”

You stare at each other as those words settle in the air, though you struggle to maintain eye contact and soon look away with a wince. The most unbearable part of it is the pain in his eyes.

“I’m sorry,” you whisper. “I fucked things up when I shouldn’t have. I…misjudged.” Your words fade at the end, as you are left with nothing else to say to remedy the situation. Ian rubs a hand across his face, shifting his glasses up as he does so, and you pretend like you don’t notice the redness around his eyes. The both of you continue walking down the aisle, slower this time, the silence between you thick. Neither of you feels any better than you did before this meeting, but at least there aren’t thousands of miles between you anymore.

Finally, he says, “So. Are you gonna get anything, or will we just walk around until closing?” 

“Well…I don’t know. Do you have a car? How did you get here?”

“I’ve been hitch-hiking. And walking. But mostly hitch-hiking.” As if to prove it, he slides a wad of cash halfway out of his jacket pocket. 

“Oh. I—was thinking of finding a job,” you blurt out. It has nothing to do with your current conversation, but you feel like you’ve lost your ability to talk to him in his absence. You reach for anything to stop from thinking about the reason why he was gone, why he had to hitch-hike with total strangers. “To get more money.”

“And staying here?”

“No…there isn’t anything in this town for me. But maybe somewhere else.”

“Gotta find somewhere to live, then. I’m guessing you aren’t counting on having a roommate.” His voice is cynical, and you know he probably expects you to abandon him again.

“It was just an idea,” you mutter. “I haven’t even tried to look for anything.” You find that you’ve walked back around toward the entrance of the grocery store. A life-size skeleton grins at you open-mouthed from where it’s been propped against a display bin, all 32 teeth showing. You shake your head and sigh. “Let’s just get out of here. I’ve been in here long enough.”

The sky is turning dark blue with the onset of night as you walk outside; the streetlights have already come on. You go to the driver’s side of the sedan and gesture for Ian to get inside. He hesitates for a moment like he might reject—your heart nearly ceases—then throws his bag into the backseat. Exhaling, you get behind the wheel. For a moment, you just sit there with your hands slack on the wheel as he gets in beside you and lights a cigarette with shaking fingers.

You almost miss his quiet words when he speaks at the same time you start the engine up: “Did you even miss me?”

You don’t know if you can admit that you did—or that “missing” him felt more like something had been scooped out of you, your insides painfully scraped clean afterward. You chalk it up to your inherent loneliness, the reason why you’re drawn to him despite not wanting to be. You wish your heart hadn’t reacted so painfully at the possibility of him deciding to leave you after all, and yet you have no one else. Not your grandparents who abandoned you, your cannibal mother lost somewhere in the world, or your father who died before you were even born.

“I…regretted it.” You don’t look at him, occupied with pulling out of the parking spot. “Yes, if it makes a difference for you to know…I regretted it all the time.”

He says nothing for a while. You wonder if your reply was enough, if he expected more. It feels like there’s a third thing in the car with you, sitting in the space between your bodies and preventing you from fully accessing each other—everything that remains unsaid.

“Where are you staying now?” he finally asks.

“An abandoned barn near here. Seems like the owners just up and left all their things. Still smells kinda like horse, but…the loft isn’t so bad.”

“...Nothing I haven’t dealt with before.”

—

“You never did tell me exactly how you showed up at the motel that first night,” you tell Ian. “I deserve to know that much, at least. What brought you into my life.”

It’s the second week of November, and you’re still in Hendersonville. 

You gaze at the large pond before you, your view broken every so often by Ian walking through the overgrown grass around the pond—treading an aimless path but never venturing very far from the car. The engine is still warm underneath your butt where you’re half-leaning, half-sitting on the hood, and you try to enjoy the warmth while it lasts. 

The pond is about 10 minutes from the barn where you’re staying, and you’d driven here several times when it was just you. But you’ve only been here during the light hours; seeing everything at night is much different. Something about it feels overly familiar in a way that unsettles you. The scene threatens to dredge up old memories of your nighttime swims with Marygold—right down to the nearly full moon, huge and clear in the sky. You have to fill the quiet with your voice if you have any hope of outrunning the dark thoughts.

Ian crosses his arms and sort of side-eyes you, like maybe he’s skeptical about you initiating a conversation like this after the fallout of the camping excursion, and you mimic him until he breaks with a small, barely-amused laugh. Better to focus on his past issues than your own, you figure—as fucked up as that may be. You don’t move your gaze from him as he tells the story, watching him continuously flick around a few loose strands of his hair on his forehead.

“Right. Well…I tried to eat this young farmer guy—saw him at this country bar, or he saw me, and I guess he liked what he saw…I ended up going home with him, because I was hungry. That’s why I’d gone to the bar that night. Told him I was living on the streets and had barely eaten in days. Made him feel sorry for me. And then I tried to eat him…but when he started fighting it, I didn’t realize he had a pocketknife, and he got me pretty good before I ended up killing him. Too much commotion alerted the neighbors. I only had enough time to try to bandage it before I had to get the fuck out. Walked through a fucking corn field…then eventually I reached the highway, and you know the rest.”

“So you killed someone and didn’t…finish them.” The thought of that almost bothers you even more than the eating itself. It just seems senseless. The man could still be alive now, but his life was ended and went to complete waste; his body didn’t even serve its purpose as sustenance. You realize that this isn’t even the first time this has happened, thinking back to that time he was caught while up North.

He doesn’t seem offended by your shift in mood—maybe just weary. He rubs his eyes. “It happens. But I aim to make sure it happens as rarely as possible.”

You turn away and look across the pond again, your mind getting lost in the dark copse of trees on the other side. Being outside at this time of night is not the most comforting thing in the world, but in truth, is your nature really that different from whatever dangers lurk in the woods? “I wonder, then…how are we any better than the average serial killer?”

“We kill because we have to.”

“Being chained to our physiology doesn’t get rid of our blame.”

“I never said it did,” Ian replied. “And that’s your problem. Eating doesn’t need to be innocent or pure or blameless in order for you to accept that it’s a part of yourself…it just is.”

You can’t muster the will to counter him, and he doesn’t press the matter, likely not in the mood for yet another round of verbal sparring. He resumes walking his circles, wearing trails into the grass. You continue sitting on the hood long after the engine has cooled, watching the moon’s reflection tremble on the water’s surface and imagining what you’d tell Alicia and Marygold and all the others if they could hear you, somewhere in the universe.

I’m sorry. It’s just who I am.

—

With Hendersonville behind you, you’re back to sleeping in the car many nights. Among the various things you see as you travel through urban cities and rural areas, fall festivals are common occurrences everywhere.

There’s one coming up in the distance now; you’ve been idling in evening traffic for minutes, and it becomes clear that this congestion must be because everyone’s heading to the festivities. You press your face closer to the car’s window glass to see. The bright lights of the numerous booths, rides, and decorations illuminate the late evening. Countless people walk or run around, some wearing elaborate outfits.

You’re just coming from a mom-and-pop restaurant where the wife of the owner had called you darling even more than Ian does. She’d assumed you both to be lovers and gave you a free slice of pumpkin pie to share, and neither of you bothered to correct her if it meant treats you didn’t have to pay for.

As you observe the festivities, you see that there are two booths set up on either side of the festival’s main entrance; one claims to offer some type of spiritual readings, denoted by a large sign of a purple crystal ball. But your eyes catch on the bone-white trailer sitting on the other side of the entrance. It has been converted into a mobile booth with a large sign with red and blue lettering that asks one question: Are You Going to Heaven? An older man with graying hair sits in the booth, hands clasped together as he watches groups of people entering the festival grounds. It’s too far away and too dark to be entirely certain, but you don’t think you’re imagining the cross hanging up behind the man on the trailer’s wall or the thick book resting near his hands.

“Looks like they’re having fun,” Ian says, face illuminated in red by the taillights of another car, one hand on the wheel.

“Mmhm…” you answer, your mind still hung up on that booth and sign as the car finally drives past. Memories of your former life knock at the door of your consciousness, but you don’t let them in.

You’re unable to ignore your discomfort later that night, though, when you and Ian return to the safe parking spot you’d found days earlier and settle in to go to sleep. The cold has finally become a permanent fixture as the months venture deeper into late autumn, and you clutch your blanket tightly to your body as you drift off in the backseat.

In your dreamscape, you wake up in Alicia’s bed in the living quarters of the motel office, blood dripping from every part of you—hands, arms, face, chest. The sight of your bloody hands splayed out in front of you makes terror spike through your body, your breaths coming short. As you turn to look at your surroundings, you see the remains of Alicia lying on the bed next to you, her torso almost completely hollowed out. Her brown hair is streaked with new and drying blood—same as the red-dyed ivory of her broken rib cage. Her dead eyes look at you with a frozen expression, pained and imploring. Begging, even. Why did you do this to me?

You have the sensation of screaming, feeling it emanating from your body and hearing the sound pierce your ears, but your mouth isn’t open. You try to scramble off the bed and away from the mess you’ve made of the woman you love, but no matter how hard you fight, you have no leeway; it’s like the sheets are holding your limbs hostage, sucking you in like quicksand. Sweat pours from your body and stings your eyes.

In the next moment, you’re no longer struggling, and Alicia is no longer next to you. You’re not in her bedroom at all anymore; you’re sitting at a kitchen table you don’t recognize. The kitchen has a rustic and homey appearance, as if it belongs in a country homestead. Lacy floral curtains frame each side of the window above the farmhouse sink, allowing the dark orange evening sunlight to stream in, and the black wood stove a few feet away from your chair has a steady fire burning inside of it. Someone’s cooking, then, or preparing to cook. Who?

Ian turns to face you from where he is standing at the counter—when’d he get there? You didn’t notice him before—with two porcelain plates in his hands and a delighted grin on his face. Have you ever seen him look so happy before? You smile back at him as your eyes shift from his face to the plates; balanced on top of each is a perfectly bloody heart, the muscle thick and hardy and still beating although it’s attached to nothing. The kitchen floor around you both is stained with large swathes of blood, which have sunk deep into the wood’s fibers, though you hardly notice this.

Ian sets the table and sits in front of you, and neither of you bother with utensils as you pick up each heart with your hands. You hold the heart against your lips, feeling the slickness of it and letting the blood smear across your mouth, marveling at the constant pumping motion of its ventricles. It’s endearing, you think. How it tries so hard to maintain life when it’s fruitless anyway.

Then you bite into it.

You both eat ravenously, blood staining your mouths and hands the deep shade of carmine. The taste of the raw flesh is better than any food you have ever consumed, and innately, you know this is what you were made for. You laugh at how good it feels, glancing up at Ian with pure mirth. The indulgence is so sweet that you don’t notice the wood stove growing hotter and hotter in the corner of the room until the wallpaper behind it catches fire.

By the time you finish eating and regain enough wherewithal to realize what’s going on, the entire room is ablaze, and you are alone. The fire crawls up your chair and then engulfs the table. There’s nowhere safe for you to run, but you try anyway as the flames catch hold of your feet and then your legs, eating their way up your body. You stumble through the house screaming, the heat raging around you at an incomprehensible level.

Your skin begins to slough off and you scream endlessly for it to stop, but it never does. There is always more skin to replace what’s being scorched off of you; it grows back with an unbearable itching sensation as it knits together, only to burn right up again. You collapse to the ground on your hands and knees, though it’s excruciating to put weight on any part of your body.

Through the brightness of the fire and the heat haze, you make out a strange white and blue pattern on the floor in front of you, and you realize that it’s shards from the porcelain plates. Together, the broken pieces spell out:

Are You Going to Heaven?

You wake up in a flurry of limbs and blanket, hitting Ian who’s sleeping in the reclined front seat. The accidental violence combined with the sudden rocking of the car is enough to startle him awake. His voice floats out somewhere in the chaos, but you don’t really register it as you fling the car door open and stumble out of the sedan. You walk a couple yards away from the car—just enough to let the cold night air spear through your skin and convince you that you’re no longer trapped in a much hotter place. You hear the front car door open behind you and footsteps on the grass as Ian steps out. He calls your name, and you pretend not to hear as you stare at the ground and then toss your head to the skies, hands on your hips for some sort of stability. Your stomach aches badly, but you can’t get sick now.

“What’s wrong? Did you have a nightmare?” he asks when he gets closer. 

It takes you more than a minute to work up a response without the possibility of a scream or vomit tumbling from your mouth, and he waits patiently as you do. “Y-yeah. It’s…probably not that big of a deal…I was…” The next words spill out before you can think to keep them inside. “Just a bit…freaked out by a…sign.”

“A sign?”

“The sign at the…festival. The white booth…” You wave your arm, unable to say much more. A steady throb is starting to take over your skull, and it’s too much effort to keep talking.

Ian thinks for a long moment before he seems to realize. He takes another step towards you. “Babe, look at me; it’s okay. Nothing bad is gonna happen to you. You’re fine. I know it feels bad in the moment, believe me, but you’re here now, and you’re safe.”

“You can’t guarantee that,” you murmur. You can’t imagine the look on your face right now, but your eyes feel dry and painful, like you’ve actually been in a fire pit for hours. Maybe he can safeguard you against the physical dangers this world presents, but he can’t hold your hand into the afterlife. If there even is one.

He grasps your upper arm, but only lightly so as not to make you more distressed, and draws you into his side—his head leaning into yours, his hair tickling you when the wind blows through it. You find yourself sagging into him even though you hate yourself for doing so. You don’t deserve this show of affection, not after how you left him behind and not even before then; you desperately want to preserve the distance between you, and yet you want this touch, too. You’re unable and unwilling to tease apart those feelings, though, as the only things that register in your mind are that he is warm against you, he is doing his best to comfort you, and his smell—the smell of him, not of being an eater—has become familiar to you in a way that disarms some frantic part of your brain. Because of all those things, you allow him to put his other arm around you and silently hold you in that grassy lot.

And for the first time since you met in that grocery store again, you feel like whatever’s between the two of you isn’t broken beyond repair.

—

1986

The next time you eat someone, it happens at a nightclub in January. 

Going to this club is Ian’s idea, although you agree to it when he brings it up. In hindsight, you can’t say what possessed you to do it. You’ve never been a fan of crowds of people because they could readily create a catastrophic situation if your hunger comes. Maybe it’s how fresh everything still feels after the New Year passes—the sensation of anticipation it brings. Maybe it’s the blanket of stars that appear extra luminous tonight, rivaling the shine of the city buildings around you. Maybe Ian has just gotten better at using his powers of persuasion on you, or his recklessness has rubbed off on you, similar to how you feared his desire for flesh would increase your own when you first met him.

No matter the true reason, you find yourself amidst a scene of sweaty strangers boxed in by the small club’s four walls. The other people’s proximity to you quickly spikes your anxiety, driving you away from Ian and back to the outer edges of the room, though he tries at first to persuade you to dance with him. You give him a slight smile and an eye-roll and let your arm slip through his tattooed fingers.

“Go dance,” you mouth to him before heading toward one of the many booths lined up against the far wall.

You sit there watching everyone dance for a little while, working up the nerve to rejoin the crowd. There are so many bodies, all moving to the sound of In My House playing over the speakers at what must be max volume.

“Did you come here alone?” a feminine voice shouts from your left, startling you. You turn to find a woman with softly-waved hair that touches her shoulders; she wears a dress with big swirls of color, the flared skirt stopping just past her thighs. Your gaze goes all the way down her pantyhose-clad legs to her high heels and back up again. The pink and purple lights framing her from behind make her seem like she’s glowing.

“Uh—” Awkward pause as you try to figure out how to respond. “I…didn’t, but the person I came with is just my friend, so…” You shrug. It feels somewhat odd to refer to Ian as a friend, even after all this time. You are two people traveling in the same direction, lashed together by your fatal flaw, but you suppose “friend” is as accurate as it gets.

She smiles amusedly, undeterred by your awkwardness. “So that means you’re free to dance with me, then?”

You think about how you rejected Ian’s offer and chuckle to yourself. Ironic. But you find yourself not wanting to say no to this woman with her sweet brown skin and dimpled smile, despite your inner sense of judgment trying its best to pull you back. So you accept, still feeling embarrassed as she slides her lace-gloved hand into yours and guides you onto the dancefloor again.

Her perfume contains different notes, but as you dance together to another uptempo pop song and the aroma encircles you, it reminds you of Alicia’s signature scent all the same. You try to put that reminder out of your mind, though it’s difficult. Instead, you make an effort to focus on her shining face under the lights, the long gold earrings dangling from her ears, the sway of her black hair and dress as she moves.

You Give Good Love comes on afterward, and before you know it her body is pressed to the length of yours, virtually no space left between you as she tucks her face into your neck. You put your arms around her and sigh at how she fits against you, thinking you might like to do something like this more often. All the time, really. It feels good in a way you don’t quite have words for, even though you’re still surrounded on all sides by a bunch of sweaty and excited people. Just by the movements of your bodies, you could close your eyes and be spirited away to some other realm where everything is right—where you are not the monster you’ve come to believe you are.

You are finally beginning to relax a bit when your stomach twists painfully.

All your organs freeze from the shock of this unexpected sensation. You have paused indefinitely, and you watch your body from above as you and the woman continue moving together, two dark figures flashing in and out of the strobing lights. And yet, you simultaneously feel yourself still in her arms. Her breath is on your neck, warm and smelling of alcohol and some fruit—lemons. The muscles of her back are beneath your hands; you want to peel her skin away and see what they look like underneath, run your fingers across the striations. Her soft cheek is pressed to yours, so soft that it makes you want to tear into it like the flesh of a plum and swallow it. Your mouth twitches with the desire to consume.

“No!” you shout, pushing her away from you so fiercely that she falls back into someone behind her. You turn and begin shoving a ragged path through the club-goers. The sights and smells of pure humanness are overwhelming, begging you to tuck your face into the nearest neck or arm joint and just bite. There are too many hearts beating in one space, too many lungs expanding with wet and bloody life. You begin to cry, but you force your body to continue moving until you’re stumbling through the club’s back exit.

In the dank alleyway behind the club, you splash through a puddle and collapse behind a dumpster, pressing yourself into the corner and hoping that the smell of garbage will disappear your appetite, though you know it doesn’t work like that. You tuck your head between your knees and try to breathe evenly. The music is only slightly less loud out here; whereas it was simply an overzealous volume before, you feel like you’re being crushed by the sound itself in your overly sensitive state.

You don’t know how long you sit there shaking, the hunger ripping your stomach apart and forcing a long whimper out of your mouth, but your whole body jumps when you hear the exit door slam open. When you look up, Ian’s stepping out of the doorway and fumbling with the limp body of a man, his hands clasped around the man’s arm and waist.

You watch with terrified eyes as Ian lowers the man to the ground in front of you, leaning him against the wall so that he won’t slump over. “No—what are you doing—”

The man in front of you is too drunk to put a sentence together and barely seems to know where he is. His sweaty brown hair flops in his eyes, and his bearded mouth moves with nonsensical speech.

“No,” you cry again. “I can’t do this. Don’t make me do this!” Ian crouches beside you.

“Darling, you have to eat.” His hand is on the back of your neck, not forcing you toward the man but trying to ground you in your body. He’s so close that his words reverberate within your nervous system. Eat. You shake your head, but you’re becoming lightheaded from the sheer hunger. The smell of alcohol from the man is overpowering, but underneath it you can still detect his vulnerable fleshiness, and you need to know how it tastes. As if once again disembodied, you watch your hands reach for the man’s shoulders, Ian’s own hand slipping away from your neck, and bring him closer so that his throat is bare to you.

You mouth at the sweat on his neck, the saltiness intensifying the taste of his skin; you lick his Adam’s apple and savor how the ridge of it slides against your tongue. Then you bite down.

The tears continue to roll down your cheeks as you devour the man. Ian doesn’t leave you to dine alone, however.

He reaches into the mess of the open chest, digs between the deflated flaps that are the lungs, and tugs out the man’s heart. Takes a bite of it. You watch as he does, horrified but unable to look away even as you crush part of a rib between your molars. He offers it to you—tears the muscle in half and gives you the unbitten part. You accept it with eager hands and eager mouth, chewing through muscle fibers like it’s a delicacy. Ian licks the blood from his fingers, a smile playing at his lips, and goes back for more.

It’s too much like the dream, and it frightens you. You half-expect a portal to hell to open beneath you both and send you free-falling into a lake of fire. But you are unable to make yourself stop. Neither of you stop until an hour has passed and the blood and a pile of crimson-stained clothes are all that remains.

You find a still-intact plastic bag in the dumpster and place the clothes into it before tying it thrice and shoving it as deep into the trash as you can. 

Using an old rag from the dumpster and another puddle of water at the back of the alley, you both do your best to remove the blood on your hands and faces. It makes you feel disgusting, but it’s the best you can do for the time being, and you can’t go inside the club or onto the streets like this. Then you shove the rag back underneath the pile of trash, too. 

As you and Ian emerge from behind the dumpster and walk down the sidewalk to find the sedan, despair envelops you. You accept it inside of you—let it spread throughout your bones and blood without much of a fight. You are defeated, understanding fundamentally that you can never be like the people in the club, the people walking these city streets, no matter how many of their human peculiarities and normalities you try to adopt. The knowledge hollows you out.

On the way back to the house you’ve been squatting in, you steal a cigarette from Ian’s pack and turn the radio to several different stations before choosing some talk show discussing nothing you care about. Emotionally, you’re floating somewhere in the space between numb and wounded.

But people die everyday, right?

Like with Alicia, Ian tries to prevent you from becoming lost in your grief about it. There isn’t anything said between you during the car ride. But once you get to the house, he wipes the fresh tears that spring forth, runs the shower for you, and makes sure you have clean clothes for afterward.

“Are you good?” he asks before you get in the shower, standing in the bathroom doorway with you. He brushes your cheek with the same hand that plucked the heart out. There’s still blood underneath a few of his fingernails and staining the cross on his ring. For a few seconds, you feel an unfamiliar comfort in knowing that he has seen you destroy another person and feels no animosity or repulsion toward you because of it.

“I’m fine,” you murmur, shifting your face into his palm. But the moment passes, and the chill overtakes you again. You step away from him and shut the door, letting the bathroom fill with steam.

—

Your feelings toward Ian have always hovered in an odd limbo, going from distrust to tolerance to something that can be called companionship. But just like the seasons transition into each other, something inside you starts to shift after that night at the club.

Your eyes begin lingering on him when he lifts his shirt to wipe away sweat or strips it off entirely when the heat becomes too much. Your gaze can’t help but be drawn to the way his long hair sticks to his damp, darkly-inked neck, or how his cigarettes fit between his full lips like they were made specifically for his mouth. When it’s the last few weeks of winter and you have no choice but to sleep together in the backseat for extra warmth—the car’s HVAC system on its last leg—being smushed into that small space with him isn’t unpleasant like you once assumed it would be. Far from it.

When you and Ian go to a theater one day—one of those matinees in the middle of the week that only elderly people attend—and end up watching a random film that you didn’t know was a romance, you are startled when you have the sudden thought that you want him in the same way. That you wouldn’t mind him holding your face in his hands again but kissing you this time, or walking down a street hand-in-hand, or lying next to him in some stranger’s bed and listening to him talk until you fall asleep. You try to send those thoughts somewhere far away, but days pass and they keep coming back, and that wanting in your chest only grows.

You’re reluctant to think of your feelings as love—at least not yet, with your heart still grieving the woman perished by your own hand—and you know he can’t save you from this reality that you must live in until your time ends. But as imperfect as everything is, you feel like he knows you in some inutterable way. You begin to believe that this could be enough. Maybe you’ve always subconsciously understood that the world of love is no home for monsters, proven by the multiple times it has expelled you from its viscera, leaving you shaking and bereaved. But maybe whatever this is now could be enough to escape its view and its judgment—two monsters together to leave the humans to their softer affections.

And though he doesn’t say anything outright, Ian notices your newfound attention, smiling knowingly whenever he catches you looking. His hand stays on yours for longer than it needs to whenever he passes you items, his fingers trailing away from your skin like they regret having to leave. When he shoplifts supplies when the money is low, he swipes silly little trinkets that he says he “thought you would like.” You catch the way he always presses his body closer to yours when you’re sitting together on a pier, on the hood of the car, on a random bench—anywhere. The tension builds between you for what seems like forever, drawing so tight that you’re almost afraid you both may get hurt when it snaps.

When it finally does, it feels natural to do, this dance that unfolds in the backseat of this sedan he stole over a year ago. You both know the hunger for flesh intimately even though you experience it in such different ways; instead of it being a grotesquerie that would repel a normal lover, it’s a bond that has inextricably tied you together, for better and worse. In that sense, the joining of your bodies is just another type of desire for you two to tease out the intricacies of.

The catalyst is one question posed to you on a humid summer night. “...Darling, answer me honestly.”

Ian’s eyes are heavy with some mix of want and curiosity when you turn to look at him. You’re both sitting in the backseat as you study a map from one of the atlases; you’ve spent a half-hour trying to figure out the best route for your next destination in Georgia, tracing the lines illuminated by the car’s dome light. Maybe you’ll both try settling down this time; find that new job like you said, and live in one singular place for a few months. Someone else’s house you can pretend is your own, someone else’s car you can drive around the city. Years are too heavy to think about, but months…you can do months.

But it’s clear your decision-making is over. Your attention had broken every time you sensed his eyes shift to your face and stay there for a little while, searching for something, before moving back to the map. Now, you let the map lie forgotten in your lap.

“What is it?”

“Would you hate it if I asked to kiss you?”

Your body temperature rises, but you reply to his question with a question. “Have you thought about that before?”

“Many times.”

You swallow hard. You want to ask him about the first time that thought crossed his mind—did he realize it around the same time you did?—but you say, “And why do you think I would hate it?”

“Things will change between us.”

“Things have already changed between us, several times.”

“This is different,” he insists, and you notice that the space between you has decreased, bodies subconsciously drifting even closer together. “If we go down that road, I don’t want us to go back. I don’t want you to have to wonder about whether I care for you. I want you to trust me.”

You lean your forehead against his, a small smile forming on your lips. “I already trust you, Ian.” You have never vocalized it before, but you find that you really do mean it.

Then you move forward, doing yet another thing that would’ve been utterly absurd to you this time last year—pressing your lips to his. Your insides feel like they’re melting, but not in the uncomfortable way that comes from the summer heat. It happens in a way that makes you think that, maybe if you both melt down into your very basic parts and become nothing but atoms, you might blur together completely. Ian’s reply is immediate in how his hand comes up to your nape, his mouth separating from yours for one painful second only for him to kiss you deeper. The map slips between you and to the car floor. It’s strange to indulge in this close proximity with another person without the threat of death, without the underlying worry that you’ll become hungry in the worst way, but it’s also freeing to a degree you didn’t know was possible.

That’s why you allow yourself to become submerged in his body heat, his mouth, his hands—everything.

Afterwards, you both climb back into your clothes only halfway; your shorts are left somewhere underneath one of the front seats, and Ian doesn’t bother putting his shirt back on—though it stays off most of the time anyway. Your bodies are sluggish but satisfied as you rest your head against his bicep, tracing your fingers along the tattoo under his sternum. They come away damp from the sweat that shines on his body. You still feel all the places on your own body where his lips and fingers touched, as if your skin has been imprinted, and you wonder if it’s the same for him.

The window is rolled down to let the smoke curl out as Ian takes a drag from a cigarette. A soft rock station plays on the radio, and he taps the beat of the song on your knee with his free hand. For the first time in many years, your mind isn’t crammed full with constant thoughts of guilt and contempt about being alive and being what you are. Even if it only lasts for tonight, for now, you can just exist.

[luverine]

Caged Animal

Yandere (M) Hybrid x (F) Reader

0.8k words Part 2 Part 3

TW: bad writing, abuse, old men, drugs?, hunger, blood

(This was some nonsense I came up with bored at work nothing serious!!)

MDNI!!!!

ID: 187904 (Zaki)

Age: 23-27

Gender: Male

Species: Lupinian

Height: unturned 5’9 / turned 6’8

Weight: unturned 175 lbs / turned 260 lbs

Description: Medium tan skin, dark brown overgrown buzz cut hair, dark brown/ black eyes, scar from cheek to chin on right side of face, scar from mid waist around to mid back, missing left pinky finger, lean build.

Triggers: Men, loud noises (beeping), black lab coats.

Note: Violent against men, especially older men. Wears muzzle for appointed checkups and while being fed.

Removed from the environment when cleaning the room.

Always have a shocker on you while handling patient.

Doesn’t talk.

Never give eye contact.

…

“You get all at’? The son of a bitch’s a handful.” An overweight man puffing a cigarette says. “Annoying too, We’ve gone through every caretaker in rotation and nothing he nearly killed all of em”

Looking down at the paper skimming over its contents. You nod “I never worked with any of the projects here though, I prep medicine and surgical equipment. What made you think I could take this on?” You asked unsure.

“We're runnin’ outa options it’s either you or the custodians. At least you have some experience.” The man puffed out.

“Well, does my pay increase? Concerned for your life you ask.

“Nah, we don’t have enough funds sorry girl.” He replies

You huff a little annoyed you're probably going to die for minimum wage. “What’s his room number I’ll go there at dinner time”

“First level of quadrant C, 316. Can’t be missed.” The man says. “Make sure he gets extra for dinner; he's been a good boy.” The man chuckles, placing the cigarette back in his mouth.

…

“Ugg gross!”

The raw meat is slimy, smells fishy, and a deep brown color.

“This has to be rotten” You make a disgusted face at what you're about to feed this poor experiment.

Room 316.

You walk towards it with your cart of meat, water, and a small fluffy blue blanket.

You give the door operator a nod. The door unlocks and you wheel inside to another door. You wait a moment and tap the door three times and card swipe the door open.

Inside is a man curled up in the corner. His arms and legs, at least what you can see, are covered in bandages. The bottom of his feet are caked in blood. You step in the room and he growls.

Sighing you grab his tray of food and a water canister. You set the items on the metal table that extends from the wall. You slide back over towards the door, it opens and you step out back into the little hallway. You grab the small fluffy blanket and card back into the room.

His back is to you it’s obvious he doesn’t want you in here. “187904” He lets out a deep growl.

“Here, take the blanket. You’re going to have to get used to me at some point I’m going to be your caregiver, I guess” you mutter.

“Don’t call me that…” the wolf man replies, his voice deep it unsettles you.

“Call you what? 187904? ” You ask.

“…” He sat up with his hand held out expecting you to drop the fluff into his hand.

Extending your arm out to hand him the small blanket. You back away immediately when he snatches it and pulls it toward his face. His nails are sharp with a black tip that you can’t make out to be dried blood or not.

“Uh…here you go guy..?”

“Zaki.” He grunted out.

“That’s um… nice name Zaki.” You say to the wall. His eyes were burning holes into the side of your face, but you knew better. He’d tear you to sheds if you looked into them.

He grunts, turning away from you once more you take it as your queue to leave.

The door slides closed and you shuffle the cart out of the room and into the actual hallway.

…

I sniff the air. “Hmm”.

Getting up off the floor, I walk to the table.

WHAT THE FUCK!

Everything is rotten, the meat has turned to brown jelly . The smell is taking over the whole room and suffocating me.

Growling I pick up the rotting slime and slam it into the camera covering it from being visible. Wiping my hand on the wall. I huff and lay back into the corner curling around the blanked. “She smelled good” I murmur, trying to ignore the growing hunger and just sleep it off.

…

“Good to see ya alive. Report to me, how was the big bad wolf?” The man asked, puffing out smoke.

“It was fine, I admit scary, but he didn’t do or say much.” You say

The man chuckles “It’s either that or ya become his lunch, be glad he ignored ya it means he likes you.” Huffing out more smoke and shooing me off with his hand.

You walk out of his office “what a dick” I murmur. Heading to the main building to go to your locker and pick up your bag.

You head home knowing the same bullshit will welcome you tomorrow.

A/N: Bullshit mentioned!!! I have really bad writers block so I’m posting this old work. Let me know if you want more of this dope. The monster fic is taking wayyyy longer that I thought (sorry and cya)

Remake coming soon! Between dec/2024 and Jan/2025!!

[jinjeriffic]

DCxDP Prophecy Universe Part 8

Part 7

Damian was torn between investigating the disturbance and continuing his surveillance of Daniel and his companions. On the one hand, civilians might be in danger. On the other hand, he was here on a mission. The decision was made for him when Foley and Manson came running out of Pineapple Republic and headed towards the sounds of commotion. No sign of Daniel though.

A musical chime sounded as the mall’s PA system turned on.

“Attention customers!” came a cheerful female voice, “We regret to inform you that a ghost attack is currently in progress! Please head to the nearest emergency exit. Thank you for shopping at Amity Park Mall! Please come again!”

Another musical chime marked the end of the announcement and an alarm started wailing.

And everyone thinks Gotham is bad. Amity Parkers are demented.

Damian dropped what he was holding and ducked out of the store into the crowd of people hurrying towards the exits. A few people gave him odd looks as he headed in the opposite direction of the evacuation but nobody tried to stop him. They probably wanted to be as far away from the carnage as possible. At least they were somewhat sensible in that regard.

The crowd around him thinned out fast and it didn’t take him long to spot Foley and Manson crouched behind the counter of a now abandoned juice bar. Foley was fiddling with something in his backpack while Manson was keeping lookout. Luckily their attention was focused in the other direction so Damian snuck as close as he dared and ducked behind some decorative plants to avoid being seen. He surreptitiously pulled out his phone to record whatever was going to happen.

The screaming had stopped but the repeated sound of glass shattering came from inside what appeared to be a high-end jewelry store. He could see movement behind the cracked safety glass and heard muffled voices though he couldn’t discern the words. Suddenly, the glass pane buckled outwards before being torn from its moorings entirely, crashing to the ground. What appeared to be a large reinforced safe skidded along the tile floor, leaving cracks in its wake before coming to a stop. A red energy blast came roaring out the now empty window frame, burning a melted hole in the glass of a store on the opposite side.

“The hard way it is then!” shouted a voice Damian recognized.

Green flashes lit up the inside of the jewelry store and moments later a black and white form came hurtling out.

Phantom.

He wasn’t wearing a cloak or messenger bag this time and the strange staff he had used to open the portal was also missing. His body was haloed by a faint glow, giving him an ethereal appearance. The black parts of his armored jumpsuit seemed to suck in the light to an unnatural degree, while the white accents as well as his hair seemed to shine like moonlight. He came to a halt in midair, and his outstretched hands glowed green as a barrier appeared in front of him, just in time to block another red blast.

“Look, if I wanted a tan I’d go to the spa!”

A second figure came flying out of the store at high speed, aiming straight for Phantom. He dodged and weaved as his opponent struck at him with… a battleaxe?

“And I don’t need a haircut either, geez!”

Phantom retaliated with a glowing fist to the face of his opponent, who crashed to the ground leaving a small crater in the floor. With the creature momentarily disoriented, Damian could finally get a good look at it. It had the same glowing aura as Phantom, but its skin was dark green. It was smaller than the average human but much bulkier. If Damian had to guess he’d estimate its height to be about four feet. It had large pointed ears, beady red eyes and a long, pencil-like nose. Its hands and feet were bare, but tipped with vicious looking claws. It was wearing a mish mash of leather and metal armor pieces and what appeared to be several pounds of stolen jewelry.

Two more creatures of similar appearance emerged from the wreckage of the store, one carrying a wooden staff with a large red jewel set in the top, and the other a crossbow and a large sack. The red jewel glowed ominously and fired another blast towards Phantom, who stretched and twisted his body in an unnatural way to avoid it.

“Are those goblins? Seriously?!”

“Curse you universe!”

Foley and Manson’s outburst drew the attention of the third creature and they had to duck down as a crossbow bolt embedded itself in the juice bar inches from them.

“Man, we’ll never hear the end of this!”

“Just shut up and get the thermos ready. I’ll cover you,” Manson snapped as she attached something metal to her wrist.

Meanwhile, Phantom had launched himself at the second creature - goblin? - and was trying to wrestle the staff away from it. The creature snarled and Phantom head butted it in the nose, and followed up with a kick to the inside of its knee. The goblin fell back, dazed as Phantom wrenched the staff out of its grasp. He turned sharply, just in time to block the axe blow aimed at his back as the first creature lunged at him. The axe bit deeply into the wood of the staff.

“Have you considered a career in lumberjacking? Then maybe you wouldn’t have to steal your bling!” Phantom taunted as he shoved his opponent back. When he blocked the next blow, the staff broke in two under the force. He cast the now useless pieces aside.

“Maybe you could find a nice lady who appreciates your firewood chopping skills?”

The next swing came horizontally, and Phantom bent backwards to avoid it.

“Or maybe a nice dude, I ain’t judging!”

Just then, Manson popped up from behind cover and used some kind of wrist mounted laser to shoot the axe goblin in the side. The creature howled in pain and dropped its weapon to clutch at the smoldering wound. Seizing the opportunity Phantom dashed forward and delivered a devastating uppercut. He grabbed his enemy as it began to slump, and hurled it through the air towards the juice bar.

“Heads up, Tuck!”

Foley popped up and aimed a strange cylinder towards the fight. A bright light erupted from the device as the creature was sucked inside. One down two to go.

The crossbow wielder took advantage of now having a clear shot at Phantom, and the teen just barely managed to duck as a bolt whizzed past his ear and embedded itself in the wall.

“I’ll pass on the acupuncture, thanks!”

Not giving his foe time to reload, Phantom blasted it with a green energy bolt as he flew towards it. With seemingly no better options, the goblin grunted as it swung the heavy sack as an improvised weapon. The blow connected, sending Phantom tumbling back with a cry. At the same time the sack split open, spilling a cascade of rings, necklaces and other precious items across the floor. Phantom hit the ground on his back, but rolled to his feet quickly, picking up the discarded battleaxe as he went.

“I have an axe to grind with you!” he cried with a feral grin, as he hurled the weapon at his opponent with all his might. The goblin squawked and dodged, still fumbling to reload. Phantom was faster though and slammed into it with glowing fists, sending the creature tumbling through the air. In another flash of bright light, Foley sucked up the second goblin too.

Unfortunately, the third creature had not been idle. While everyone was distracted, it had picked up the discarded head of the broken staff and had started an ominous chant in a strange language. Apparently breaking the shaft hadn’t rendered it useless after all and the gemstone was pulsing with an angry red light.

“Oh no, you don’t!” Phantom snarled and sent out a wave of ice spears in front of himself as he flew at the goblin. One of the icicles hit the gem and it felt as if time slowed for a moment as the latter splintered with an audible crack. Suddenly, an explosion of red energy erupted from the gem, sending both combatants hurtling in opposite directions. The goblin hit the wall with a thud, and the unconscious creature was quickly sucked into Foley’s device.

Phantom landed on the thoroughly ruined floor, sprawled amid the various trinkets the ghostly thieves had pilfered.

“I hate it when they insist on going out with a bang,” he groaned, clutching at his head and sitting up.

“Police, freeze!”

“It’s Phantom, get him!”

Oh joy, law enforcement has arrived. Too late, as usual.

“Aw come on, really?!” Phantom yelped, then scrambled away as the newly arrived policemen started shooting at him with some kind of laser blaster, the bolts of light reminiscent of what Manson had dished out earlier.

“Screw you guys, I’m going home!” Phantom shouted as he turned see-through and dove through the floor.

“Suspect is headed for the basement, we’re in pursuit!” one of the officers yelled into his walkie-talkie as they all ran off, presumably in the direction of the nearest staircase. Why they thought chasing someone who could apparently density shift was going to accomplish anything was beyond Damian. It looked like small town America didn’t recruit the best and brightest as law enforcement officers either.

Damian pocketed his phone and hurried away from the scene of the crime. The last thing he wanted was to be interrogated about what he had seen. Besides, he was eager to see where his wayward brother would resurface.