#Organic Fresh Tomatoes

[sangeetaexim]

[rmm-1f]

[tilbageidanmark]

Pumpkin self-carve at the greengrocer down the street.

[biohazard-inevitable]

It may be silly and quaint but I like to daydream about my future fridge that is organized by just me…

Eggs would be in a clear, reusable container so i can see how many are left

A well kept drawer just for cheese

Perishables like potatoes and fruits would be front and center, easy to grab and see if they’ve gone bad

Clear nozzled bottles that are labeled for different cooking oils wether it be cooking wine, olive oil, etc all labeled with the name and last restock date

A drawer for herbs like garlic cloves and other vegetables in that sort of vein

Little clear organiser baskets of snacks places in a line like they would be at the grocery store

Sodas also in a similar clear container so i can see when to restock

2 % milk and Heavy cream aplenty as well as whipped cream

A butter section seperate from everything so i dont have to go digging for it every time….

Everything neat and tidy and easily accessible for any recepie I may try

OH! And a basket organizer purely reserved for leftovers in tupperware so they dont get forgotten about

[chourzahi]

Tomate cerise

[aigeneratedpictures]

A table topped with lots of different types of food

[esleep]

i actually do kinda like delivering groceries on the side because it gives me such a unique cross-section of the community. i never know whose groceries im shopping for until i finish the delivery and see them/their home and it's like it adds more detail to the picture of who they are. the baby supplies going to the apartment that i know for a fact is one bedroom (they'll be moving soon - i bet they're apartment hunting, i hope they find a place). the new cat litter box, bowl, and kitten food going to the house covered in "i <3 my dog" paraphernalia (a kitten definitely showed up on the porch recently and made itself at home). the fairly healthy boring grocery order that includes an incongruous tub of candy-filled ice cream going to the home of an elderly woman with toddler toys in the yard (it's clearly for her grandkids, whom she sees often).

shopping for someone else's groceries is a fairly intimate thing. i've bought condoms and pregnancy tests, allergy medicine and nyquil, baby benadryl and teething gel, a huge pile of veggies paired with an equally huge pile of junk food, tampons and shampoo and closet organizers and ant traps and deodorizing shoe inserts and a million other little things that tell a million different stories in their endless combinations. one time someone had me buy one single green bean. i messaged them to confirm that's actually what they wanted, and they said yes - neither of them liked green beans very much, but they had a baby they were introducing to solid foods, and they wanted to let him try one to see if he liked them. another time i had someone request 50 fresh roma tomatoes - not for a restaurant, but for a person in an apartment. the kitchen behind them smelled like basil and garlic when they opened the door. another time i brought groceries to three elderly blind women who share a house. that was one of the few times i have ever broken my rule and gone inside a place i've delivered to, because they asked if i could place the grocery bags in a specific location in the kitchen for them to work on unloading and there was no way i was going to refuse helping.

i gripe about the poor tippers, but people can also be incredibly kind. one time i took shelter from a sudden vicious hailstorm inside an older lady's home in a trailer park, while i was in the middle of delivering her groceries. we both huddled just inside the door, watching in shock as golf-ball-sized hail swept through for about five minutes and then disappeared. she handed me an extra $10 bill on my way out the door.

when covid was at its deadliest, people would leave extra (often lysol-scented) cash tips and thank-you notes for me taped to the door or partially under the mat. i especially loved the clearly kid-drawn thank you notes with marker renderings of blobby people in masks, or trees, or rainbows. in summer of 2020 i delivered to a nice older couple who lived outside of town in the hills, and they insisted i take a huge double handful of extra disposable gloves and masks to wear while shopping - those were hard to find in stores at the time, but they wanted me to have some of their supply and wouldn't take no for an answer.

anyway. all this to say people are mostly good, or at least trying to be, despite my complaints.

[sevenseas12]

Fresh Red Tomato Exporters in India | Organic Tomato Suppliers in Madhya Pradesh, India

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[cultureoflosing]

Fresh Organic Catsup Recipe Make this homemade, sodium-free ketchup with organic ingredients. Ideally suited to a paleolithic diet.

[asunflowerana]

06:50 PM — Nanami Kento

"Fried or grilled chicken for dinner?"

"Uhm—" a grunt can be heard from the other line, followed by the sounds of slashing and inhuman shrieks. He must still be busy. "Uhm, grilled is good, love. What you're thinking for side dish?"

"Cheesy mashed potatoes and tomato sauce, just the way you like it." You close the fridge door, holding the phone with your free hand while the other arm carries the pot of fresh seasoned chicken you prepared a few hours ago. You organize the counter with all the ingredients, pan pre-heating with butter.

"Perfect." There are a few more distant grunts, but you can still understand your husband's approval, making you proceed with your dinner plans. "Don't forget to lower the heat, in case you want to practice your dance moves again."

"It was just once, Kento!" You sulk, not like being called out for grooving in the kitchen. Did you burn a few things back then? Yes, but who didn't? It was your favorite pop playlist, your body went on its own!

Making sure your phone stays still well between your ear and shoulder blade, you land the first filet of chicken breast on the hot pan, a not-so-usual sizzling sound taking place in the room. Yep, let's definitely lower the heat, you move your fingers around the knob. "I won't burn our food again, smarty pants. Stop bullying your wife."

But you can't stay mad at him for too long. Not when you feel his deep, breathless chuckles flowing right inside your ear, into your mind and heart, making your stomach flutter like a scholar girl just like every single time. "I'm sorry love, you're right. Your food 's heaven, burned or not."

Letting out a last huff, you roll your eyes, feeling your lips curve in a lopsided smile. You bet Nanami has a similar one on his face right now. "How long 'til you come home?"

There's a small pause, filled with lowly breaths and the far sound of crickets. Maybe he finished what he was dealing with. "45 minutes from now. Think you can hold tight?"

"You're not deserving, but I'll make an effort." Now you hear the perfect form of a snicker, making you wish you could kiss it away and fill that pretty cheeky face with even more kisses. You miss your husband. "Come safe, 'kay? I'll see you soon."

"See you soon, love. Stay safe."

And the red finish button is pressed. Nanami carefully returns the device inside his pocket, now investing his whole attention on the last, persistent curse gaping at him behind a pillar, thinking it could catch him out of guard.

Rubbing of the remains of blood coming from a small cut on his jaw, he roughly loosen the tight knot of his tie that you so lovingly did this morning. He needs to move without restraints if he wants to get the next subway, though.

"Let's finish for today, shall we?"

And like every weekday, Kento makes it on time.

© asunflowerana 2024

[elucubrare]

What are your biggest turn-offs when reading/watching historical fiction or retellings of myths?

this is really complicated - i can put it in two boxes, both of which are packed very full.

disconnection from the material reality of the past

when characters display a very specifically modern mindset (about social issues especially, but other stuff too)

(I also get bothered by some kinds of modern language - I don't mind it when, idk, an author uses "sensible" with the modern connotation of "practical" and not the 18th century "emotional" or "empathetic", but "yeah" or "okay," or even, as i found out when someone used it in medieval fantasy, "holy shit" will get on my nerves.)

there are modern things where (made up example!) a character who's supposed to be a cook will talk about making caprese salad for a fancy restaurant in December, and someone snarking on the book will say "yeah, right, they should know better than to make something that depends on a fresh summer vegetable!" and even with greenhouses, that's pretty fair. and that's even more extreme in the past. it's 1650 in Verona, it's December, you cannot obtain fresh tomatoes. i don't think this means that people in the past were, necessarily, more emotionally or spiritually in tune with the cycle of the year, or the labor it took to get clothes, or furniture, or any other material item, and of course wealth can insulate people from some of that difficulty, but it does mean that the seasons had more direct impact on people's lives. It's possible to, for example, buy clothes ready-made, but for anything fancy, it's more likely that it'll be made to fit if it's new, or altered extensively and painstakingly if it's not. that means that tearing or staining a fancy dress isn't just an issue of looking bad - you can't just replace it, and you probably won't throw it out - you figure out how to reuse it. those concerns of access to material goods are just a lot closer to the surface of the world than they often are now.

my objections to modern attitudes about the world are not that people in the past 100% accepted the views of their contemporaries - there were always people who didn't, and it makes sense that a protagonist would be one of them. but people wouldn't phrase those objections in the same way that modern people would - say your main character doesn't want a woman accused of being a witch burned. "God's power is such that the Devil cannot give this woman the ability to sour milk" is most likely going to be more persuasive to the crowd than "witches aren't real." and sometimes that's rough - it's not super fun to read about a Roman with Roman attitudes about provincial wars, or slavery in the city, but I put something down because a Roman character said (in internal dialogue) that he was disgusted to see that a man had been tortured because "Romans simply didn't do that." Historical Romans did do that, routinely - a slave could not testify in a law court unless they had been tortured. Even with distasteful things like that, I'd much rather it just be glossed over than to have them say the "correct" modern thing. It just makes it feel too much like the theme park version of the culture.

Both of these are because of specific things I come to historical fiction for - I want that sense of alienation, the gulf of experience. I hate that most historical fiction (and fantasy set in semi-recognizable periods) characters don't really care about Honor, except as a joke, because I love when characters organize their lives around arcane rules and systems that cause tiny things to escalate into blood feud. I just think they're neat! I like it when people's worldviews are shaped by their lack of scientific certainty about what causes crops to fail! If I wanted to read about people who thought and acted like me, and had lives that were mostly similar to mine, only cooler, I'd just read contemporary fiction.

[inthedayswhenlandswerefew]

In The Gloomy Depths [Chapter 6: Bloodstone]

Series summary: Five years ago, jewel mining tycoon Daemon Targaryen made a promise in order to win your hand in marriage. Now he has broken it and forced you into a voyage across the Atlantic, betraying you in increasingly horrifying ways and using your son as leverage to ensure your cooperation. You have no friends and no allies, except a destitute viola player you can’t seem to get away from…

Series warnings: Language, sexual content (18+ readers only), parenthood, dolphins, death and peril, violence (including domestic violence), drinking, smoking, freezing temperatures, murder, if you don’t like Titanic you won’t like this fic!!! 😉

Word count: 6.1k

💜 All my writing can be found HERE! 💜

Tagging: @nightvyre @mrs-starkgaryen @gemini-mama @ecstaticactus @chattylurker, more in comments 🥰

💎 Only 1 chapter left!!! 💎

You must not have heard him correctly. Down by the bow, third-class passengers are still laughing as they kick pieces of ice back and forth. Children who have been shaken awake are giggling as they dash around in their worn, patched coats. On the Promenade Deck, tycoons and aristocrats are flagging down stewards to fetch them fresh drinks. There is no more humming of the ship’s engines, although no one else seems to have noticed; they have quit and will never work again. In a few hours, they will be resting on the bottom of the North Atlantic Ocean. It’s just barely April 15th, and half the passengers aboard won’t live to see the sunrise.

Kill Daemon??

You’ve never even hit anybody, not unless they struck you first. “I can’t kill someone.”

“Yes you can,” Aegon insists. His tone is urgent; there isn’t much time left. “And you won’t have to do it alone. Like I said, I’ll help you.”

A drop in your stomach, a chill down your spine, wide-eyed primal fear like a prey animal’s. “Even if I wanted to, Daemon can’t be killed.”

“He’s not a monster. He’s just a man. He has blood and organs just like we do. I promise you, if we cut him he’ll bleed.”

“He’ll hurt me,” you whimper. “He’ll know what I’m trying to do and he’ll break my neck or push me overboard. You don’t know him, he’s…he’s…he’s relentless, he’s cunning—”

“We can have what we want,” Aegon says, grabbing your face with his hands, fingertips callused from years of playing viola on streets, in pubs, in small rented rooms, on the decks of ships. “We can leave Titanic together. We can stay with my family for a while in New York, and then we’ll go back to Ireland so you can be with yours, and when my father dies we’ll spend half the year in England and the other half with your parents, and you’ll get to keep Draco, and Daemon will never touch you again. You’ll be free, Petra. And you deserve that. But no one is going to give it to you. You have to fight for it.”

Is it possible? Is it really? You imagine having breakfast with your parents in Lough Cutra Castle, the table full: you, Aegon, Draco, Fern, everyone smiling over plates of fried eggs, bacon, beans, mushrooms, tomatoes, and white pudding, cups of tea breathing steam into the cool morning air. Are you willing to fight for that? Are you willing to murder? At last you say: “Daemon isn’t the only problem.”

“Who else?” Aegon asks, demanding, impatient, though his hands are gentle. “Rhaenyra? And the old woman, right? Draco’s governess. Dagmar.”

“And Daemon’s bodyguard Edward Rushton, we call him Rush. He carries a pistol.”

“Okay.” Aegon nods, his eyes distant, his thoughts whirling like Titanic’s colossal propellers once did and never will again. You know he’s devising a plan. We only have an hour or two.

“Aegon…I have to get Draco into a lifeboat first.”

“Right.” He kisses you, a quick brush across your cheek like a dusting of snow, and you think: I can’t lose him. “Over a thousand passengers are going to die tonight. Let’s make sure four of them are people who deserve it.” Then he takes your hand and together you descend the steps to B-Deck.

~~~~~~~~~~

Scarlet fever is named for the distinctive rash that marks its victims, tiny red dots like blood blisters, so itchy they are soon scratched raw, raised bumps of braille in the shape of ominous omens, corporal constellations of bad stars. Dagmar was reminded of them the first time she ever saw bloodstone, a dark green crystal freckled with red, a pendant that Dameon sent her from across the world where he was opening a new mine in Australia.

Valentin was the first one to get sick. He was the youngest, the only boy, and while perhaps mothers are not supposed to have favorites Dagmar knew in her bones that she did. She held him—three years old, white-blonde hair, loud and wild—as he grew quiet and weak and hot with fever, and then he was gone. After Valentin was Juni, and then Karin, and then Mikele, and finally Gunnar, a lumberman who worked hard and never complained, not even when he was dying of kidney failure. Dagmar was once a woman with four children and a husband, but then she was no one, untethered to the earth, unmoored from everything that had been, and people left adrift in the ocean are likely to drown and spend eternity in the crushing, sunless abyss.

She wandered for a while, too old to fathom a new life, too young to simply wait to die herself, and of course suicide is a sin. To keep from starving she took jobs as a governess; the only thing Dagmar knew how to do was raise children, and she was good at it. With each new household she found herself searching for Valentin’s eyes and hair and spirit, for a child that could make her believe he was alive again. But none of the temperate, blue-blooded little boys or girls of England—where Dagmar had fled to escape the memories of her homeland—came close to filling his footsteps, his handprints, the hemorrhaging puncture wound he left in her chest.

Then one brutally cold winter, Dagmar was referred to the 8th Duke of Beaufort Baelon Targaryen, deep in mourning for his wife Alyssa who had recently perished in childbirth and at a loss to handle his two sons. Viserys, the heir, was already eight years old and too set in his ways to ever see Dagmar as a mother. But Daemon, only four—so much like Val, Dagmar had thought as she lifted him from the floor—was sad and needy and vicious, furious at the world for stealing his mother from him, and this was something Dagmar could understand. She became his new mother. He became her reason for living.

Daemon grew up, as all children do if they are not preserved forever in youth by untimely deaths, and Dagmar drifted away to other castles and mansions, other families, other attempts to silence the ghosts that rattled doors and windows as she slept. But no one could replace Daemon, and each time she received a letter or a gift from him—photographs from his mining expeditions, bracelets and hair combs, taxidermied foreign beasts—Dagmar would write him a thank you note and always include the same postscript: Daemon my dear, my brave rogue prince, it would be the greatest joy of my life to one day help look after your own child. And at last, when Draco was born he summoned her, and little Valentin was alive once again.

Now unlike Daemon, Draco did have a mother, but she was young and easily managed, inexperienced with babies, eager to please her husband. Daemon was so sage and charismatic and renowned, and she faded into his shadow until all her colors were gone and she was black and white like a photograph, never knowing what to do or say, staring inanely from doorways. This was just fine as far as Dagmar was concerned. She could pretend that Daemon’s wife was dead like poor Alyssa Targaryen.

Here on Titanic, the baffling shockwave yanked Draco out of his dreams. He’s crying, soft disoriented whines, and Dagmar soothes him and reads him The Little Mermaid and tells Fern—also awakened by the shudder and now pacing restlessly around the staterooms—to make some tea. Just as Draco is finally dozing off again, there is a loud knock at the front door. Dagmar brings Draco out into the sitting room, leading him by one of his tiny pawlike hands, to find Fern speaking to a steward who will not come inside any farther than the doorway, as if he is in a hurry. Fern, puzzled, is clutching the white lifebelts he has given her.

The steward is explaining: “I’m sure it’s just a precaution, ma’am—”

“It’s not a precaution,” Daemon’s wife says as she sweeps into the room, and for some reason there is a man with her, a blonde man in a black wool coat. Immediately, Dagmar’s blood turns to dark viscid poison. What is she doing? Why can’t she disappear? “Thank you,” Daemon’s wife tells the steward briskly. “I’m sure you have other rooms to visit. You should be on your way.”

The steward is evidently too busy to be offended. He retreats into the hallway and vanishes, and the strange blonde man shuts the door behind him. Dagmar scrutinizes the intruder, and he glares back at her with eyes like deep water, a murky melancholy blue. He’s the same man she saw on the Boat Deck, the one who reminded her so much of Viserys when he was young, that solemn, grieving boy she could not coax into loving her.

Why can’t Daemon’s wife just die? Why should she live when so many have been lost? Why would God judge her more worthy than Valentin, Juni, Karin, Mikele, Gunnar?

“What’s going on?” Fern asks Daemon’s wife, her voice reedy and timid.

Instead of an answer, there is a question in return: “Is anyone else here?”

“No,” Fern says, perplexed. “Why? What’s happened?”

Daemon’s wife holds out an empty hand, not to Fern but to Draco, who Dagmar is still grasping with bony fingers gnarled by arthritis. She says: “Draco, please come with me.”

“Why?” he asks, but he has already taken a step towards her, tiny bare feet. Dagmar does not surrender him. She will not, she cannot. He stops when his arm is fully extended and then looks back to his governess, his surrogate mother, his pale eyes full of doubt.

“We have to go somewhere,” Daemon’s wife says. She is still reaching for him. “Draco, please. I need you to listen to me, we don’t have much time.”

“No,” Dagmar sneers. “You don’t know how to take care of him. You never have.”

“Can I go?” Draco asks softly, and Dagmar pretends she has not heard him.

“Draco,” Daemon’s brainless young wife pleads. Her eyes flick up to Dagmar’s, and there is a moment of terrible understanding between them, as if they are mirror images: neither can try to force him without driving him into the embrace of the other. He is not a child who is easily tamed; he is a wolf, he is a dragon.

“Dagmar?” Draco says, peering up at her, and he’s asking for permission but in another minute he might be stomping his feet and screeching loud enough for the entire hallway to hear.

Dagmar glances at the lifebelts Fern is gripping tightly. What’s wrong with the ship? Is it sinking? But no, Dagmar cannot believe this. Titanic is unsinkable; everybody in the world knows that. She tells the boy: “She’ll take you away from me. She’ll steal you. But she won’t keep you safe and warm and happy like I would.”

“I’m your mother,” Daemon’s wife tells Draco, and now her voice is choked and there are tears glittering in her desperate eyes. The blonde man looks at her like he would carry the weight of her anguish if he could, every last pound. Who is he? Why is he here? “I know it might not feel that way sometimes, but I am. And I love you more than anything. I would never hurt you. I’m trying to protect you. Draco, I need you to come with me right now.”

And horribly, unthinkably, he yanks his little hand out of Dagmar’s. She claws for him and he spins around to face her. “No!” Draco shouts. “I decide! Me! Not you!” She is stunned into silence. She watches him careen across the sitting room, and Daemon’s wife scoops him up as if he belongs to her. She holds him for a while, a minute or more, before she sets him down on the floor and quickly helps Draco get his socks and shoes on. The boy does not complain. Then she lifts him again and—with what appears to be great effort—passes him to Fern, who while bewildered accepts this task, now carrying both the boy and the lifebelts. Daemon’s wife grabs all the coats hanging from the coat rack and piles them into Fern’s already full arms.

“Fern, take him upstairs to the Boat Deck. Get to a lifeboat, do not wait. They will be launching them soon if they haven’t started already.”

“Lifeboats?” Fern repeats, blinking, stymied.

“Yes,” Daemon’s wife says, and she and the maid share a long, silent, meaningful look. Draco gazes worriedly around the room, gnawing on his fingernails. The blonde man watches Dagmar, his expression severe, hateful.

Fern asks: “How much time until Titanic…?”

“An hour or two. You won’t be in the lifeboat for long, a ship called Carpathia is en route. But she’s not close enough.”

“Oh,” the maid exhales numbly. “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph…”

“Stay with Draco. Don’t leave him for a second. Get into a lifeboat, keep him warm, wait for Carpathia. I’ll follow you as soon as I can, but…there are some things I have to do first.”

“Like what, ma’am? What could be so important? You shouldn’t wait either.”

Instead of answering, she says, low like a dire warning: “If you happen to see them, do not speak to Daemon, Rhaenyra, or Rush. Don’t tell them what’s going on.”

“Yes ma’am,” Fern replies quietly, and nods like she suddenly understands. She takes Draco and hurries out of the room. Now Dagmar is alone with them: Daemon’s idiotic little girl of a wife, her inexplicable companion.

“This ship can’t sink,” Dagmar says; but is the floor tilting? She has only just noticed it.

“Of course it can,” Daemon’s wife counters. “Any ship can. I kept telling everyone how terrified I was of the voyage and you all treated me like I was insane. But I was right. I wasn’t a coward and I wasn’t stupid. And you can’t make me believe that I am anymore.”

Dagmar is about to reply—something cutting, something cruel—but then her steely Scandinavian eyes snag on the stranger and all at once it hits her like a man’s knuckles. She gasps, shocked, ferocious. Aegon. Viserys’ son. A villain, a traitor, an unworthy beneficiary of a grand inheritance. “I know who you are. How the hell did you get here?”

The man grins menacingly. “Fortune brought me a ticket. Best luck I’ve ever had.”

Dagmar screams, hoping he will hear her: “Daemon?!”

Aegon lunges, catches her around her long thin waist, wrestles her towards the door to the private promenade deck. Dagmar isn’t strong, but she is fierce; she scratches at his eyes and bites his hands when they try to smother her howls. They stumble together through the doorway and out onto the pine planks, knocking over lightweight wicker furniture. When her teeth close around Aegon’s fingers, Dagmar tastes blood like warm copper.

“A window!” Aegon is telling Daemon’s wife, but she’s already there after slamming the door to the sitting room shut, franticly turning the hand crank under the nearest window. The glass opens, and freezing night air pours in.

They’re trying to kill me, Dagmar realizes. They’re going to throw me overboard.

She jabs a bony elbow into Aegon’s throat, and he collapses to the deck, wheezing and helpless.

“Daemon!” Dagmar shrieks again. If he hears me, he’ll save me. My savior, my son. “Help!”

But it’s his wife who arrives instead. She collides with Dagmar, strikes her with two open palms, shoves her through the window. Dagmar’s hipbone cracks against the windowsill, a dry brittle snap, and then she tumbles out into the darkness.

Her last thought as she sees the stars—before she hits the frigid water and is knocked unconscious, then dragged under by the merciless weight of gravity—is that if they were red they would look like the dots on the skin of a child with scarlet fever, like the crimson flecks in a bloodstone.

~~~~~~~~~~

“Oh my God, I…we…” You stare down into the black waves that swallowed her so effortlessly, a flash of her long silver hair as it came undone and then nothing. “She’s gone. She’s really gone. We killed her. We’re murderers.”

In reply, Aegon coughs and gasps for air, still crawling around on the deck. You run to him and help him stand up.

“Thanks,” he croaks.

“Are you alright? What can I do?”

“I’ll be fine,” he rasps. “Just need a minute.”

You look down to see blood dripping from his fingers, thick beads of crimson like teardrop-shaped rubies, like oil paint. You ache for him, you feel his pain as if it is your own. “Your hands, Aegon, your hands…”

“I’m okay,” Aegon assures you, smiling. “The bitch chewed me up, but I’ll live.”

“I want to save your paintings,” you say. “We can’t let them go down with the ship. We’ll take them to the Boat Deck and give Fern your portfolio, make sure she and Draco get safely into a lifeboat, and then…then we’ll…” We’ll finish what must be done. We’ll free you and me and Draco.

Aegon is nodding as he rubs his throat, already bruising. “Any idea where Rush might be? The guy with the gun?”

Before you can answer, you both hear it: the sound of a door swinging open and heavy footsteps inside.

~~~~~~~~~~

He likes that Daemon calls him Rush. It’s better than Eddie, which is who he was when he was a boy being kicked and backhanded by his stepfather, and laughed at by the other kids at school for not having shoes to wear. Now he is someone brand new, and that boy Eddie could be a character in a book or a song, vaguely familiar but not real.

Daemon has never hit Rush, never even threatened him. He has never stolen his laborers’ promised wages or cornered maids to violate them, impregnate them, ruin their lives. He goes into the mines he opens and periodically travels the world to inspect, descending into clouds of dust and chipping gemstones from the walls with his own tools. He is kind to his son Draco. He is brave, he is brilliant, he knows how to have a drink with working men and captivate them with his stories. Rush would do anything for Daemon, who saved him from a life of obscure, powerless poverty. He would overlook any number of sins.

Rush gusts into the bedroom and sets about gathering up valuables and stuffing them into a suitcase: business correspondence, jewelry, sketches of designs, bundles of cash from the safe. Daemon will regret having to leave the taxidermied tiger head, but it’s simply too large and heavy to bring with them. Rush hasn’t located Daemon and Rhaenyra yet, but this isn’t so unusual; they are always sneaking around, evading being found purely for the sake of it, the deception, the thrill, ravaging each other in ever more inventive places. God knows where they were when Titanic struck the iceberg, or if they are aware of the impending sinking. Rush is not panicking yet; there’s still time, though perhaps not too much of it. With each passing minute, the ship lists further towards the starboard side. He is just about to get Daemon’s dagger from the writing desk when he hears the door open to the private promenade deck. Rush turns to see Lady Targaryen peeking in from the threshold, pale blue dress, white coat.

He has never felt any loyalty to her. She is a thoughtless, mollycoddled girl, raised in a castle with parents who loved her, and what would she know of what the world was like for everyone else? Daemon only roughed her up when she deserved it, when there was no other way to make her listen, and never too badly: no split bones, no scars. In Rush’s opinion, it was just enough to give her a taste of adversity.

He sighs. “Well, unless you plan on drowning or freezing to death tonight, you might as well follow me up to the Boat Deck. I’m just here to collect some things. They’re only putting women and children in the lifeboats now, but I’m sure first-class men won’t be far behind.”

She says nothing, only watches him from the doorway. The old witch Dagmar isn’t here; she must have already taken the boy to the highest level of the ship, where affluent passengers are waiting impatiently and still in denial that Titanic will soon disappear beneath the waves, asking stewards to fetch them drinks and cigars, calling out song requests to the string quartet.

“You wouldn’t happen to have seen Daemon or Rhaenyra, I assume?”

“I thought they were with you.”

“No,” Rush says, smirking. “I seem to have lost track of them. They’re not in either of their staterooms. But don’t fear. Daemon is more than capable of looking after himself. He’ll turn up soon enough.” Perhaps I missed them up on the Boat Deck; it was crowded, it was chaos. Perhaps Daemon is already helping Rhaenyra into a lifeboat, his large rough hands steadying hers as she steps inside. He would save her first.

“I’ll help you pack the valuables,” Lady Targaryen says suddenly, and starts towards Daemon’s writing desk.

“Just keep out of the way,” Rush snaps; and then he sees something and stops dead.

A painter’s easel has slid halfway out from beneath the bed as the floor tilts. This is a peculiar enough item, but the paper clipped to it is stranger. The image is of Lady Targaryen, that is certain, but she isn’t alone; there is a man with her, and while nothing is shown below the collarbones, the activity in which they are partaking is unmistakable.

If she’s found a lover, Daemon really will kill her this time.

Rush gapes at the painting for several long seconds and then looks up at Lady Targaryen. “What the fuck is that?”

~~~~~~~~~~

Your hand hovers on the handle of the desk drawer. You can’t open it and take the dagger while Rush is watching. You know that beneath his coat he wears a shoulder holster containing a Colt 1911. Even with a blade, you are outmatched.

Aegon appears in the doorway to the private deck with a wicker chair. He hurls it at Rush as hard as he can, and as Rush curses and fumbles for his pistol, you seize Daemon’s dagger from the drawer and plunge it into Rush’s back, once, twice, three times, many more. You can’t help but scream as you stab him, because it’s horrible beyond description: the resistance of gristle, the muffled popping of organs, kidneys or a liver or a spleen, and Rush is groaning and contorting, dark blood spilling across the slanting floor. Aegon struggles with him for the gun, ultimately wrenching it out of Rush’s weakening, shaking hands. He’s dying, and while you harbor no affection for him and never have, you remember the children your parents lost. Life is not something to take carelessly. It is already so fragile, and each death creates mourners like heads springing from a hydra.

Over a thousand people will die tonight. Is that really possible?

Rush has stopped moving. You are kneeling with the gold hilt of the dagger in your fist. The gemstones are splattered with blood: amethyst, tiger’s eye, black opal, emerald, ruby, bloodstone, sapphire.

“Here,” Aegon says, trying to give you the pistol.

You recoil. “I don’t know how to use that.”

He laughs, a half-hysterical little cackle. There is a smudge of Rush’s blood across his cheek like a stain of lipstick. “I don’t either!”

“Keep the gun. I trust you.” You turn to the easel that has slid out from beneath the ruffled bed skirt—once white, now speckled with red—and realize that stray blooddrops have been flung across the painting, dots of red turning tacky on the thin layer of oil paint. “I ruined it,” you say, soft and mournful.

“No,” Aegon disagrees, smiling. “You just added some more color.”

You use the bedsheets to wipe the worst of the blood off your hands and the dagger. Then you pull Aegon’s leather portfolio out from underneath the bed, open it, and store the new painting safely inside. In the meantime, Aegon rolls Rush’s body into the closet and entombs him in a heap of gowns you’ll never wear again. You stand, pick up the dagger, and catch a glimpse of yourself in the oval-shaped mirror…and instead of looking away, you stay there for a while. The woman in the glass—like silver, like moonlight—has frightened eyes but a glinting blade as well. There are massive maroon splotches on the belly of your ice-blue dress; you button your coat to conceal them. Through the open door to the private deck, frigid night air floods in like the seawater slowly filling Titanic.

What does water that cold feel like? Like knives, like fangs? A thousand people will soon find out.

“Ready?” Aegon asks. He puts the pistol in the pocket of his stolen black coat.

“Almost.” You find your handbag from yesterday, green to match the emerald-colored dress you wore before Aegon painted you, before he uncovered you like a rare gemstone. Within is Aegon’s small aluminum lighter; you tuck the dagger inside as well. You yank out a handkerchief and clean the blood from Aegon’s cheek with it, then peer down at his swollen, bloodied fingers and knuckles, ravaged by Dagmar’s bitemarks. They are trembling. “Are your hands—?”

“I’m fine, I’m fine,” he whispers, pulling you in and kissing you, touching your face and your hair, his lips warm and soft in a haze of copper-scented glacial air. Would you do this again for him? For Draco, for yourself? Yes. I’d do it a hundred times. “We’re halfway done.”

Up on the Boat Deck, people are finally realizing that the ship is in mortal peril. First-class women, shimmering in their gowns and their jewels, are being hastily loaded into lifeboats along with their maids and their children. You spot Fern in one vessel; she is wearing two coats herself, and has bundled Draco in at least four from what you can tell. She holds him on her lap, and Draco is uncharacteristically hushed, compliant, fearful, gawping with startled blue eyes beneath disorderly white-blonde hair. They are seated beside Benjamin Guggenheim’s elegant French mistress, Léontine Aubart. Ben himself is striding back and forth on the deck with a number of companions, all in pristine black suits and puffing on pipes or cigars, assisting the weeping women as they flee to the lifeboats.

“We are prepared to go down as gentlemen!” Ben is trumpeting. Nearby, a string quartet is playing not an Irish song that you have known since childhood but the mellow, merry, please-don’t-panic melody of Samson and Delilah by Camille Saint-Saëns.

“I guess my viola is long gone, huh?” Aegon tells you. “Oh well. I hope the fish enjoy it.”

Ben Guggenheim continues: “Let it be known for all time that we stayed until the end to save the lives of the innocent, our beloved women and children, and that they survived because of us. Our bodies may fail, but our Christian good deeds will last eternally.”

“Hear hear!” other men are shouting drunkenly, raising glasses of brandy. Stewards and officers cast them brief, rather impatient glances. You wonder if any of the aforementioned gentlemen have considered the women and children of the third class, many of whom must have already predeceased them as they were drowned below deck, ignoble, invisible.

You think for the first time: Are they going to let Aegon into a lifeboat?

“Mam!” Draco shouts when he sees you, reaching out with both arms. You sprint to where he is still secured in Fern’s lap and lean over the side of the lifeboat, clasping his cold little hands and kissing the top of his head. Then you give Aegon’s portfolio to Fern.

“Take this with you. Try to make sure it doesn’t get wet.”

“Are you climbing in now, ma’am?” Fern asks hopefully. “There’s room for one more if we squeeze together.” Her eyes dart to Aegon. “Perhaps two.”

“I can’t,” you reply. “Not quite yet. But I’ll be back soon.”

“No, you have to come with us,” Draco says. The ship’s officers are signaling for the vessel to be lowered into the water. You spy other familiar faces aboard: young pregnant Madeleine Astor, the glamorous Countess of Rothes, the newly-wealthy Margaret Brown. Being a first-class passenger will save her life tonight.

“I’ll get in another boat. I promise.”

“No,” Draco says, and now he’s sobbing. He can’t understand the scale of it, but he knows something is terribly wrong. “Mam, we can’t leave without you. There’s room in the boat. Please get in. Please.” And you think: Maybe he does need me after all. Maybe he always did.

“You can go with them,” Aegon murmurs through your hair. “I’ll finish this. I’ll take care of Daemon and Rhaenyra.”

But he might need your help…and you cannot leave him here alone to freeze or drown or be murdered when Daemon discovers his lethal intentions. “You’re safe,” you tell Draco, one last touch of your palm to his hair, one last reassuring smile you hope isn’t a lie. “Stay with Fern. I’ll be in another lifeboat and I’ll see you again when this is over.”

“No, no, no!” Draco cries, still grasping futilely for you; but the lifeboat is lurching down towards the water and he is soon beyond your reach. High above, a flare explodes in the inky night sky, gleaming silver rain to tell any passing ships that Titanic is doomed. The North Atlantic is like black glass, smooth and reflective. Distant constellations are mirrored there, and you remember a passage from a book you gifted Daemon for your second anniversary when you still believed he might one day love you, an ancient tale from India about the beauty of the ocean: Its huge white waves looked like clouds; its gems looked like stars; its crystals looked like the moon; and its long bright serpents bearing gems in their hoods looked like comets, and thus the whole sea looked like the sky.

“Lady Targaryen,” Ben Guggenheim says as he marches over. He is swaying like he might be drunk. If he is, you can’t blame him. The truth is cold, and poison is warm: alcohol, smoke, a lover’s hands, a gush of blood. “Do you require any assistance, my darling?”

“No, thank you,” you reply swiftly before he can inquire further, and Aegon’s arm circles your waist as you hurry towards the entrance of the Grand Staircase together. You clutch your green handbag close to your chest. Where are Daemon and Rhaenyra? When will this be over?

From back by the lifeboats you can hear Ben Guggenheim shouting: “Tell my wife and daughters in New York that I love them! Tell them that I died a hero, and that I shall see them again when one day we are reunited in heaven…pray for my soul…tell the newspapers of our courage tonight…”

You and Aegon escape into the very top level of the Grand Staircase, the dome of glass and wrought iron above, the English oak wood steps winding below. As you enter, a frenzied crowd passes you on their way out to the Boat Deck: shipbuilder Thomas Andrews, J. Bruce Ismay, a number of others. And then, just as you and Aegon are beginning your descent, you see her on the landing below, frozen in place where she gapes up at you from beside the clock. Soon its ticking will fall silent forever. It will live on only in the memories of the survivors.

Rhaenyra is alone on the staircase. She is wearing a red and black gown and a white lifebelt; she is on her way to evacuate the sinking ship. You have intercepted her not a moment too soon. But she is not looking at you. Her Targaryen-blue eyes are fixed on Aegon, incredulous. It is the first time she has truly noticed him since she came aboard, and she remembers his face from photographs, from portraits, from awkward, frosty visits when they were both children.

“Aegon?” she says. “What are you doing here?”

In response, he removes the pistol from his coat pocket. Rhaenyra screams and bolts down the staircase, Aegon right behind her, flying like a phantom, like a shadow in his stolen black wool coat.

You try to follow, but they are faster. You slip on the steps, one of your blue shoes clattering away as you grip the banister to keep from falling. You reclaim your shoe where the staircase meets A-Deck; outside the illustrious Promenade Deck encircles the perimeter of the ship. You steady yourself against the bronze cherub statue as you slide your shoe back on, then resume the chase…but you don’t know where Aegon and Rhaenyra have gone.

Farther down the Grand Staircase? Out onto the Promenade Deck? Into the maze of hallways?

You try to listen for them, but the turmoil outside is growing louder. You hear a gunshot, but you cannot tell from which direction; the sound reverberates through the steel of the ship and melds with the chorus of failing machinery: groaning joints, snapping beams, steam vented from the massive funnels. You pause in the doorway that leads out to the Promenade Deck, black freezing air drawn into your heaving lungs.

Which way?

Now there are footsteps on the Grand Staircase coming up from B-Deck. You race back to the bronze cherub, but it is not Aegon or Rhaenyra who meets you there. It is Daemon, appearing on the landing like a fogbank or a thunderstorm, black suit, glinting deep-set eyes, towering over you; and once again you are a seventeen-year-old girl climbing into the marriage bed with him and hoping he’ll like you, once again you feel yourself to be entirely at his mercy, in terror of him, in awe of him.

Daemon grabs you by your coat and pushes you against the bronze cherub statue, its edges prodding at your spine. You yelp and he chuckles, and he asks, so casually he must know nothing about Aegon or his pursuit of Rhaenyra like a hound after a fox: “And what are your plans for this evening, dear? Dinner and dancing? Or perhaps a nice brisk swim? Good for one’s health, I hear.”

You can’t find your words. Your fingers that grasp your handbag are numb and useless. Daemon is inside you again, not your body this time but your mind, snipping threads and dissolving mirages. How did I ever believe I could kill him?

Slowly, Daemon’s grin dies. He releases you, and then for some reason—a trick?? a trap??—offers you his empty hand. “Come on,” he says, as if relenting. “I’ll help you get to a lifeboat.”

You stare up at him, and the shock must show on your face, the disbelief, the cautious wonder.

“I can’t take you away from Draco,” Daemon says, answering a question you don’t need to ask. He owns all of you; you have no secrets. “He’s so young. And I know what it’s like to lose a mother.”

Draco, you think with abrupt glass-sharp clarity. I’m doing this for him, and Aegon, and me.

You don’t take Daemon’s hand. Instead, you open your handbag and rip out the dagger. You slash at Daemon’s throat, and you almost cut him deep enough, a fraction of an inch from the carotid or the jugular or the windpipe. But Daemon pulls away at the last second and you only wound him, scarlet rivulets spilling down his neck and staining the white shirt beneath his suit jacket, melting rubies, hard soulless gemstones in the sockets of his eyes.

Daemon throws you down the staircase and you hit the oak steps hard, bruising, twisting, rolling, the thoughts jolted out of your skull. The dagger is knocked from your hand and is lost. You fumble blindly for it where you are sprawled on the next landing, halfway to B-Deck. Your vision is blurred by stars like those in the mirror image on the North Atlantic Ocean.

But I need the dagger, I need it, I need it, I can’t kill him without it.

And as you lift your head you see Daemon coming down to meet you, a gemcutter here to break you over and over again, until there is nothing left but glimmering dust, until you have never existed at all.

[bullet-prooflove]

The Farm: Carmen "Carmy" Berzatto x Reader

Tagging: @kmc1989 @wabi-sabi1090 @lostinwonderland314 @turtle-cant-communicate @fallout-girl219

Companion Piece to:

Pears - It starts when Carmy makes an order he doesn't remember.

Mornings - Carmy sleeps better with you around.

Bubble - You have no idea that you saved Carmy's life.

Crazy, Stupid, Fucked Up World (NSFW) - Carmy tells you he lvoes you for the first time.

Carmy loves spending days at the farm, he loves walking through the fields, his fingertips skating over the fresh produce that you’ve been cultivating. He loves the vibrance in the colours. The depths of the green, the brilliance of the red, the pops of yellow. He loves all of it, each and every fucking thing.

More than anything he adores the flavours. The rich burst of texture on his tongue as he bites into a blueberry he’s picked fresh from the bushel, the crispness of a ripe tomato he’s plucked from the vine, the crunch of lettuce between his teeth as the taste floods his senses.

Being here inspires him, it has from the moment he’d stumbled onto the eight acre property in search of somewhere to get fresh produce at a decent rate. You’d found him, sitting cross legged in the middle of one of your fields, sketching out a new idea when you sat down next to him, thinking he was a member of the homeless community.

“I can make you a bag up if you want.” You’d said softly. “I know how hard it can be to get fresh stuff when you’re sleeping rough.”

He turned his head towards you then, his brows furrowing into a frown.

“I’m not homeless…” He’d said looking down at himself  in a ratty white t-shirt and sneakers that have seen much better days. “Fuck, do I look homeless?”

“You kinda do.” You agree before you take his hand in yours and drop a couple of blueberries onto his palm. He pops one into his mouth and he swears he’s never tasted anything as good as that single piece of fruit. “It’s all organic, free from GMOs…”

“You can taste it.” He says, eating other blueberry and then another.

You give him some of the overstock to take home with him that night. Some strawberries and raspberries, along with the leafy greens you’ve been growing. He stares at the colours, using the small artist’s set Luca gave him before he left New York to capture their essence as he designs dishes around their flavour palette.

The next time you see him, he’s tossed out the white t-shirt and the sneakers. He’s wearing a soft grey sweater and a pair of jeans Mikey left him instead. His hair is freshly washed and he’s used a little of that moisturiser that Sugar’s been trying to shove down his throat for the past couple of months. He feels better than he has in years and he thinks it’s because of the fruit. He’s been stagnant since coming to Chicago, focusing on keeping his head above water. There hasn’t been time to relax, to take joy in the things around him.

“That’s really sad.” You tell him as you sit beside him once again in what becomes his favourite field. “That you lost your joy.”

“I don’t think that I ever had any to begin with.” He tells you as he stares out across the plush greenery. “I don’t think I feel things the way that other people do, everything feels muted, it has for a long time.”

“I’m sorry.” You say quietly.

And he shrugs his shoulders because at this point he doesn’t know any different. It started back in New York under the tuition of David Fields. The constant barrage of abuse he suffered, it fractured something deep inside of him. His self-esteem had  withered away with under every comment until there was nothing left but this trembling mess.

“Do you worry you’ll never get it back?” You ask him, studying the profile of his face.

“I did.” He tells you before he tilts his head to look at you. His vibrant blue eyes capture yours and you don’t think you’ve ever seen a colour as beautiful as that. “But then I came here and it’s like something inside me just woke up. I’m starting to feel things again, so yea that’s what’s happening right now.”

“I’m glad the farm could help you like that.” You say sincerely.

“I’m guessing the farm helps a lot of people like that.” He says, gesturing to some of the folks out harvesting in the field. “I looked you up, read about some of the mental health programs you run. You’ve got a good rep.”

“Do what you can, for who you can, where you can, am I right?” You say and he thinks that’s one hell of a philosophy to live by in your day to day.

He considers that now as he watches you in the field. You’re wearing yellow wellies over black leggings because it’s potato season and you always get a little muddy. You have his baseball cap turned backwards on your head, your hair spilling out underneath.

It’s in that moment he realises just how truly happy he is, how happy he’s been over the past year and he knows that’s because of this place, because of you.

You’re surprised a couple of minutes later when his arms wrap around your waist. He buries his face into the crook of your neck inhaling the scent of earth that clings to your skin as he draws you back into the shelter of his firm chest.

“What’s up Bear?” You ask as he snuggles in close, his lips ghosting over skin.

“Nothing.” He whispers. “I just fucking love you.”

“That’s good baby…” You smile as you tilt your head towards him. “Because I fucking love you too.”

Love Carmy? Don’t miss any of his stories by joining the taglist here.

Like My Work? - Why Not Buy Me A Coffee

[berriblossom]

->Modern AU, like organized crime Fatui Buisness AU, reader is considered amab, power dynamics, you are his "dog", sugar daddy pantalone, warning for gore, blood, violence, and slight mention of collars, Fatui is a crime syndicate and the Northland bank will always collect what is in fair exchange of debt. DNI: (this is written by masc NB, so don't fetishize this pls, minors pls dni)<-

The empty restaurant with dimmed lights set a "mood" for its guests. Most glamor at the amount of detail on the pantings that hang on the wall. The guests even ignorantly claimed the false portraits to be original. Like these fools have never seen a well organized dinner set either.

"Oh, is that a Doyung Orginal?"

"My look at the engraving on the plates!"

"My goodness the wine is to die for, has to be a Mondstat staple!"

Yes, the quality and attention to detail were incredible, even in the late hours for special guests to come by and have "chats" with the staff. With the owner, head chef, and hostess standing still for him.

For a specifically special guest, he was on his way for a special meeting with the staff. The court of Fontaine never failed to disappoint with the glamor, the fusion of fontainian and Liyuen food, who could have thought? No wonder such elite laywers, officers, prosecutors, senators, and opera house performers eat here to fill their hearts and stomachs till content.

Like filthy pigs.

It sickened him to his stomach.

Pantalone hated the stiffness in the dining hall. The tables were too close together, hence no privacy in the place for actual buisness to be held. No wonder some customers complain of the noise, but then again when cheap dandelion wine is served for all service cycles, you'd get noisy too.

The carpet was tacky, it was crisp crimson with intricate detail, even the most disgusting hardwood floors would've captured the feeling within the place better. His eyes moved around, the small perfectly sculpted gray hairs swept into the neat style of his hair.

His fingers collected in his lap as the pitifully looking waitress took his order. No one was here, all customers were gone. Vacant of even the tacky suites, outdated dresses, and excessive displays of nonexistent money. But when sitting in front of the real deal, who wouldn't get nervous.

The man who owns the Norhtland Bank, the wealthiest and most accredited bank in Teyvat. The man who was a well-decorated politician, salesman, diplomat, and sponsor to some of the biggest brands and stock names in the world. The richest person to have lived in Teyvat sits before the teenager and smiles at her with a carefully crafted smile. A fake one, no less.

But even before the slaughter, the wolf can be kind to any of the sheep for the sake of better taste of their meat.

He sighs as he sips the cool glass of what feels like stale water. The chef stares frantically outside the kitchen window into the dining area. The dusty chandelier looks way more dusty and apparent than usual. The chairs at table 5 look more crooked than normal. All the smallest imperfections seem to be shown right before the finale. Pantalone crosses his leg as he flickes an nonexistent speck of dirt off his perfectly pressed dress pant leg. His black and gray suite complimenting his features, the rounds of his glasses and his gloves.

"What a shame, isn't it?" He says with a small pitiful chuckle to the waitress, as she places the plate of ragu onto the table. The dish looking the cleanest it will ever be. But even from the looks of it, well polished to a uncultured eye. It looks old, the tomatoes aren't fresh, the salt is old snd possible too dry. The onions aren't soft enough and the chew of them could make anyone vomit. The goll to charge over a hundred mora for this is honestly more of a scam than a loan with 14% interest on it in a first year.

Pantalone watches the girl shake her head, then nod. In an almost confused way. "Ah, um..no-no, it is..sir..?" Almost like a test, she feels like its a multiple choice when its actually true or false in his mind.

Sigh, what a shame. This place is a dump, better a landfill than even another department to waste money on. The taxes in this neighborhood are ridiculous anyway. Too close to the Palais Mermonia.

Out of curiosity and just to get it over with, he was always playing the patient role within his organization, but in reality, he wanted to be over with this and now. Pantalone takes a bite of the ragu, and as he thought, too salty, not fresh, and the lettuce is welted. The saliva in his mouth pools, his teeth stick, the assault on his tongue makes him gag silently. He chews slowly and swallows. His mind was made. Screw with polite conversation and then the slaughter. Their best and finale dish said enough, and his mind was made up.

"Excuse me while I make a quick phone call. While I'm outside could you call your manager and the owner of this fine establishment? I'd love to have a conversation with them."

-

Your phone rang while you slept in the hotel Pantalone set up on the outskirts of the court, a decent way to lay low for any job he wanted done during his political tour of the place. Even with the House of the Heart here, sone jobs required more...brutal ways to ease the tensions within the nation of solem waters.

The Fatui despite the reputation they've built for years, as a banking, diplomatic, independent governing body to help local governments and offices to aquire the stystems and supplies needed. Money, political dirt, information, a means to kill, or just power. You want it, someone had it. So even if the harbingers held such, it was too much of a "risk" for they themselves to do all the work. Why not have someone else do it?

Even the most deranged harbingers follow this rule placed by their leaders. Even that popstar Tartaglia, despite him speaking about wanted to lick the blood off a knife after cutting his finger. So it wasn't crazy for you, someone who gets whats done for a notcible price, done to be favored by someone like Pantalone.

So when that call rang through the hotel, you picked it up lazily, tiredness from the stiff and insufferable plane ride beating on your body. Scarred with what many would hope to be the ghosts that haunt your dreams rather than the ghosts of anyones beloveds. But anytime that phone rings, its always the latter.

"Yes?" No need for anything conversation or formalities, despite Pantalone scowling at it. You could hear the night air of the busy street he was on. The sound of the wind, sea air flickering through the reciver. But the sound that makes you highly alert is that wicked chuckle. A small, kind-sounding chuckle. But it's actually a sign of how pissed he is. Doing this job for 7 years teaches you a lot, without a word you stand and get ready to head wherever he wants you to be with a tired sigh.

"So good for a vacation.." you mumble as Pantalone's exhuasted and crafted smile drops. "You're incredibly lucky your the most competent one I've had. So keep the tone in check. Dogs don't bark unless needed remember?"

The warning was in plain sight, even with rose-colored glasses it was a stark sight. Your roll your eyes as he complains about the stupid little dump of a restaurant and how piss poor the quality is. And something about a shitty ragu? You sigh and put on your boots as you finsh getting dressed, half the time you barely catch what hes upset about. But for now its better to pretend.

"Since i can tell you're not listening fully. Get over to this dump within the next 10 minutes. Wear your uniform and don't be late. Be a good dog."

Like always, you always are. So without a word you let him hang up and huff as you tighten the straps to the simple leather harness he had you wear. Gloves, check. Boots, check. And finally a token from Pantalone for his favorite dog...a beautiful reminder that your freedom is imminent.

-

When you arrive(3 minutes early), you stick to the shadows and watch from the corner of the restaurant front house as Pantalone grills the staff on the quality of food. When in reality he could not give a shit for it, but hey? What good is it for a show?

"But gentlemen it truly amazes me how incompetent you are. It's such a shame, that for what...11 years we have donated various amounts to see this place prosper when in reality, the Northland Bank has been wasting millions of mora on a shack like this? Such a deaperate shame."

As soon as his tone became pointed, the change in tone. It was time to move, so you waisted, arms crosses and head turned down as you waited.

"For the Tsarista's sake. You'd think I'd note the amount of money missing from...." it all drowned out for you, you knew how impatient he really was, and his body language hid it, but never the voice. You kick off the wall and walk into the dining area of the restaurant as the owner and manager argue with Pantalone in desperation about how its not a watse.

"No gentlemen, I really think it is. Not to add the amount of money you've embezzled with the small business loans we've given. 5.6 million mora missing from the original 12 million in 11 years? Over 100k a month in sales but yet so little profit made? You must think of my gratitude as useless?"

The owner, sweating like a pig on its way to the slaughter house, held his hands up in disagreement and a final wave to uphole peace. His stuttering pleas, even pitiful and frankly stomach- curling snotty tears all come to a halt when you stand behind him. The manager kneeling on the floor begging for forgiveness of his greed, looks up and sees the thing many who take money up with the Northland Bank fears most.

"Gentlemen, I see you've noticed my dear friend here. You see...-" Pantalone sits on the edge of the table, the staff of thr restaurant stand in the entryway of the kithcen and serving station in fear. Escape is useless, you liked hunting as a sport anways.

"You see, I despise, liars. I really do, and something that makes me just so...displeased is when my hard earned kindess is treated with lies and disrespect. I gave you the money, happy to support a in-need business. Like a basket case chairty...but to see the money, my money. My mora, used like....this?"

Your hand comes to the shoulder of the owner as Pantalones monolog comes to a fateful end. "So...well...theres no need for a second chance...not after your greedy showcase...but i will say....-" He stands and downs the rest of the water in a long and slow sip. "The Northland Bank will send some beautifully picked flowers for your services."

With a snap of his fingers, as he turned his back to the pleading staff and owners, he speaks lowly.

"Sick 'em."

As he leaves, the owner, an elder balding man scrambles to cling onto Pantalones leg, but as he reaches out, the hand on his shoulder, your hand grabs him by the chin, and with a small movement...

crack!

The mans head is shot upward, eyes glazed over and gray as his body is lifeless and limp, jaw clenched permanently as his spine is stilted. A pen kept on your person, stuck in the back of his head to keep it in place as blood drips like honey onto the crimson carpet. The the spray started, like the fountain of Lucine, except instead of a prayer for new life, it was one to cling onto. The pen was shoved until the clicker was sticking out. You let go of his head as his body lumped onto the ground. By the time Pantalone is out of the door, screams of terror, fear, and pure agony ring out as well as the stupid tacky chime of the entrance bell of this dump of a restaurant. With your nonchalant espression as he knows, his dog will handle it.

-

By the next hour when the noise died down, he returns with a expensive cigar, lightening it with a silver lighter. Pantalone enters and sees just the beautiful spread of color. As you packed up and chopped bodies like they were hog meat with the same dull knives used to make any shitty dish within this dump. Blood decorated even the onion colored wallpaper, soaking and staining. He looks down and sees the bodies all in bags, no bullets, meaning your must've used your hands.

When he entered the kitchen to see you chopping the arm of one of the waiters, he notes how uncaring your eyes were. Like this was just another Wednesday to you, your eyes glazed in concentration as you bang the butchers knife into the cutting board to hack the arm away. Veins and coagulted blood splays all around, but in his eyes, it was so beautiful....

And alluring.

He walked closer and tilted your chin to meet his gaze, bringing his nose to your cheek, he inhales the iron sting and copper twang painted on your skin, even if you scrubbed every micro-inch off he could still smell it. With the deep inhale, he smiles against your cheeck as you hold still, almost numb to the exchange. "Yes...good....such....goood...my good boy..." he waits for you to finish, like you were programed to.

"You're only good, boy, sir." You repeat like always back, even if its for money, his obsessed mind games, power, ego stroking, you will always repeat it back. Like a good dog.

He grins as he pressed his lips onto your cheek, almost tryung to dabb it away with a lick, he pulls away and notes. "The mess will be cleaned tomorrow, this place is going to be burned anways, now come, i need my dog for a walk."

-> teehe...can you tell i wrote this at 3 A.M?