#The Mime Motel

[gontagokuhara]

rereading and typo editing pointy objects as always and the people who have told me ‘family matters’ is one of their fave chapters. yeah i get it actually i think ur right

[bettyfrommars]

v a c a n c y

Eddie x afab!Reader

This is a short snippet of a world I've been thinking about for a while, loosely inspired by the film Equilibrium where feeling is a crime punishable by death, but also by my fascination with abandoned places, wastelands, and the idea that, even though love sets us up for pain and grief, life is not worth living without it. I hope to expand on it eventually. Hint: this might also be interwoven with my nightmare Eddie.

wc: 1.3k

18+MDNI, dystopian au

This is rough, I just spit out this scene because I needed this Eddie to cheer me up.

The sting of the frosty air bit your cheeks when you stepped out of the motel room you shared with your aunt Ramona.  Wiggling the knob to make sure it was locked, you zipped up your coat, and then checked to make sure it was locked one more time for good measure. 

Nearby, someone whistled to get your attention.

You snapped a look across the way to find that the newest resident of the Grove Motel was out in the parking space in front of his room working on his van. He waved a wrench in the air at you.  “She needs tender loving care when it’s cold outside,” he shouted, possibly unaware of the noise ordinance for loud voices on the premises.  

You wondered if perhaps he had mistaken you for someone else, so you adjusted the bag on your shoulder, turned your back on him, and kept going.  

The steel of the wrench clinked to the cement, and then, at a jog, he caught up to you, and extended the spread out fingers of his hand for you to see.  “What do you think?”

He was referring to the new skull ring he wore, and was about to tell you a story about how a Hell’s Angel traded it for a six pack, but you were fixated on something else.  

“You’re not supposed to do that,” you gestured to the chipped, black polish on his short fingernails, not to mention the jewelry adornments he so proudly wore. “If they catch you, you’ll get a fine.” 

“Fuck ‘em,” he put a cigarette to his lips, lit the end with a metal zippo from his pocket, and then clapped the lighter shut, keeping the coffin nail in the corner of his mouth as he spoke.  “They can put me in jail, wouldn’t be the first time.”

You came to a full halt on the pavement then, unnerved by his unique and utterly idiotic nonchalance. His gaudy rings, the flash on his vest over his leather jacket, his long hair, everything.  Hell, you could very well get a fine for just associating with him.  “They banish people too, you know? To the Outer Limits, I bet you wouldn’t be so cocky then?”

He puffed a laugh out his nose and leaned in, his voice a murmur that melted into a purr. “Well, then, you don’t know shit about me, sweetheart.”

You dodged to the side to avoid him, marching ahead with brutal determination.

“Hey, hey, hey, please wait,” he jumped in front of  you, waving his arms. “I’m sorry okay? Just...wait,” and then his hands were up, palms out to mime the invisible wall between you.

Your gaze lingered on the dead tufts of grass around the sidewalk, but then cautiously rose to his brown orbs rimmed in gold.

“My name’s Eddie,” he bobbed forward before bouncing back on the balls of his feet.  “I’ve been seeing you around for a couple weeks and thought maybe I’d introduce myself.”

“I know who you are,” you swallowed.  “You moved into Curtis and Janey’s old place. They were friends of mine.”

“Oh shit, that’s right.  He was taken away, wasn’t he? By those rent-a-cops with the cowboy hats.”

You nodded, working your jaw.  “Curtis and his wife, they were always holding hands and kissing and…” a part of  you worried you’d get in trouble just for speaking the words. “...being really affectionate with each other.”

Eddie gave an exaggerated grimace.  “Yikes, that sound like some hardcore stuff.”

“Don’t make fun,” you inclined your head.  “This is serious.”

He broke into a chuckle, biting his lip.  “I can tell that you think it is.”

You kept walking, only to have him take backwards steps to keep pace with you, wallet chain bouncing with each jolly movement.  “So, what’s your name?”

“You’re not from around here, I can tell,” you let him know, mumbling your name so it was almost inaudible.

“What gave it away?” 

“Do they not have laws against feelings and self-expression where you’re from?”

“No, they do,” he spun on his heel to face the same direction as you.  “I guess I just don’t care about their rules.”

You came to another abrupt stop to gape at his casual smile.  You’d never met anyone like him before, and it made you curious almost as much as it infuriated you.  He appeared to welcome your assessment of him with matched intensity, rolling his bottom lip through his teeth a few times.  

“I have to get to work,” you stepped from the curb, gnashing your teeth.

“Are you taking the bus?” 

“No genius,” you spat over your shoulder.  “I’m waiting for my limousine to pick me up at the curb.”

At that, Eddie guffawed with laughter and sprang up next to you, shuffling in little hop-steps.  “You had me worried there for a second.  I thought maybe you were dead inside like the rest of them.”

“I’m plenty dead inside,” you muttered, thinking it was time to take your pills again, the medication that kept you from feeling anything and sucked any and all joy out of life.

“Do you want a ride?” He exhaled toward the sky, jerking a thumb over his shoulder.  “I know a guy with a van who has some time to kill.”

“No thank you,” was your quick and curt response.  

“Suit yourself,” he flicked the butt into the street just as an old, rusted Plymouth cruised by with a huge dent in the door.  “But if you ever need like, milk or sugar, you know where to find me.”

“I won’t.”

A few yards from the bus stop, he called your name, and you spun around to face him, brow creased with irritation.  

“Was that Led Zeppelin I heard coming from your place the other day or was I dreaming?”  

You froze, panic flushing arctic ice through your veins.  

The enjoyment of music was absolutely forbidden in your territory, and the only thing on the radio were news and religious stations.  You’d kept your dad’s old cassette player and a shoebox full of tapes hidden in the wall behind your dresser for years.  It was a secret you’d kept so long, you were always very careful about when you listened and how loud.

You were shaking your head, moving your jaw, but no words could come out.  He would tell on you, and then the Troopers would come and ransack your room and take the only thing of your father’s you had left.

“Please don’t,” you took cautious steps, searching his face.  “I can’t, I won’t listen anymore, but please don’t tell anyone. I’m begging  you.”

Eddie frowned and grinned at the same time, confused.  “I would never—” and then he realized you were actually freaking out, and his tone got very soft.  “Hey, listen, it’ll be our secret, alright? I like to listen to music too.”

You looked around, worried that the aluminum skeletons in the junkyard next door had ears. You believed him, you had to.  You’d been caught and you were at his mercy. 

“I was just going to say we need to get you some headphones.” He bucked his chin and gave a proud wink, “I know a guy.”

[glow-worms-are-believers]

All that Jazz (dp x dc)

All Jazz had wanted to do was get white girl wasted at a random bar on a Saturday night. Was that really too much to ask? 

She’s been taking double-shifts at the convenience store to try and store up on cash despite all the motel payments. Danny did his best to help but he was still underage and more importantly, he looked it. The last thing they wanted was to make waves. That was how the creeps in white had found them the last few times after all.

So yeah, maybe Jazz had accepted her coworker's invite to go out tonight as a reward to herself for the last week and a half of especially long hours. Danny had been more than encouraging, practically pushing her out the door on her way there. 

And she’s been having a good time! Saturdays were karaoke nights and Jazz loved nothing more than drunk singing in front of equally drunk people. So she’s put her name down and went back to the bar for some more alcohol. She was technically a few years away from being legal but her fake papers said otherwise and that was all that mattered.

Now here she was, standing with the mic in her hand, and two Bastards in White staring straight at her. Oh sure, they were in civilians clothes but she knew what they were.

Jazz forcefully pushed down the panic and focused on the screen showing the lyrics to the song she’d chosen instead. She could work with this. They couldn’t grab her when everyone’s eyes were on her, could they?

So she pasted a smirk on her face and narrowed in on a buff woman in the crowd who was seemingly alone. Raising the microphone she mustered her best drunk girl voice.

“This one’s for you, baby,” she yelled and pointed at the woman.

That got people’s attention and someone cat-called, with a few people joining in and cheering. The woman only raised an eyebrow at Jazz but didn’t deny it right away. And then it was too late and the song started with Jazz going in on the first verse. She put her all into it, really exaggerating the drunk and loud aspect of the performance.

As they got closer to the chorus she skipped a few words to yell “Come on! You guys know it!”

She went back in just in time to finish the verse and as the chorus started she was singing the first words alone before one or two loud voice came in with her. After that, they were joined by most of the bar as they got through the song. The energy was high as the song finished and Jazz was ready to take advantage.

“How about another one, sweetheart?” The redhead asked the woman she’d singled out. The latter smirked with her arms crossed and a beer bottle in her arm before raising her hand to the side of her mouth. 

“You know me, baby. I'll take whatever you give,” she hollered back. Jazz mimed fanning herself as the crowd exploded in whistles and laughter.

Someone started the song as Jazz smirked. She blew a kiss towards the woman before she started singing.

The stage wouldn’t work forever as a deterrent but if she could slow the creeps for long enough she could maybe slip out the back while they tried to squeeze past the crowd.

The new song was another classic for people to sing along to and sing along they did. It was another few minutes of high energy crowd managing for Jazz who was feeling stone-cold sober from the adrenaline by now but still playing at being intoxicated.

“Had enough yet?” Jazz taunted and someone hooted. 

“Why, you getting tired?” The woman shot back and the crowd oohed. Jazz let that sit for a moment, milking the tension for all it was worth.

“Please,” Jazz drawled before pausing dramatically. “I can go all night long.”

And that had the crowd exploding in whistles and raucous laughter.

That was probably a good time to dip. As another song started to play, Jazz took the opportunity to hand the mic to the next singer and step down into the excited crowd, planning to loose the guys in white in the excitement.

Jazz was making good headway for the back door when someone stepped up to her.

“Oh baby,” the woman from before purred at her. “Where have you been all my life?”

“If I knew you were looking, I'd have come sooner,” Jazz answered with a saucy wink of her own. The creeps in white wouldn’t stop her from having a little fun at least. 

The woman let out a quiet snort before looking down at Jazz. “How about we get out of here and make some sweet music of our own, hey honey?”

Jazz was about to deflect with a flirty quip and slip out when she caught the woman’s eyes. Belying the quirk in her lips, her gaze was completely serious.

Jazz got the feeling that the pretty woman had caught on there was something fishy here. She didn't seem like the type that would let Jazz leave alone if she thought she could help. The redhead mentally shrugged and figured why not. She didn’t really have time to argue anyway.

“Let’s get out of here,” Jazz answered cheekily before flipping her hair and twirling towards the door.

“Lead the way, gorgeous,”  the woman drawled with a smirk.

This was either going to be fantastic or absolutely awful.

[guess-my-next-obsession]

Breaking Up Slowly: Chapter Two

pairing: joel miller x f!reader

chapter rating: E (18+ only, TLOU spoilers sorta?, breakups, angst, cold!joel, arguments, accusations of infidelity, dom!joel, brief dirty talk, talk of unprotected piv, nightmares, anxiety, thigh riding, soft ending)

word count: 5.2k

series masterlist

It had been three weeks since the motel, or somewhere near it, at least—it was hard to tell when you were this exhausted. After a very hard fought win, Joel had scored the three of you a truck with the help of Bill, his…interesting acquaintance that lived in his own town outside of Boston. Three weeks of silence. Three weeks of nothing.

Until tonight.

Joel had been up driving for the better part of the day, his eyelids growing heavier with each blink. You watched him from the passenger seat, Ellie fast asleep in the backseat thanks to the old country playing on a cassette she’d found.

“Joel,” you started, secretly hoping that you wouldn’t have to say anything more to him than that.

God only knows what would come out if he got you on a roll.

“Yep?” he rasped, voice scratchy with exhaustion.

“Let me drive,” you pleaded. Joel glanced over at you with a scowl, and although you could tell he wanted to say no, he was beat. “C’mon.”

“Alright, just for a couple hours,” he sighed, pulling over onto the side of the road. The two of you took a quick scan around before exiting the truck, the dark night making it difficult to assess the danger. “Here, just—“ He waved you over, silently demanding you crawl over his lap and trade seats without having to get out. You bit your lip as you assessed the risk—climbing over his lap meant you’d have to touch him, perhaps even feel his hand on your hip guiding you. Could you really risk opening that can of worms after weeks of relative peace? “What are you—“

You opened your door and quickly made your way around in the light downpour to his, opening it up and patiently waiting for him to get over himself and climb out.

“You’re ridiculous,” he hissed as he stepped out of the car, his shoulder bumping into yours as he passed you. Insults you could take, but the look in his eyes? That look of sheer disdain could’ve killed you if you were a slightly weaker woman.

Climbing into the drivers seat, you tried to blink away the tears that had begun to blur your vision while Joel seemingly took a bathroom break by a bush. You didn’t mind the delay, it just made it easier for you to rid yourself of your tears in peace.

“You okay?” Ellie’s voice from the backseat startled you, making you jump as you wiped your eyes dry. Clearing your throat you nodded, looking in the rear view mirror at her with a weak smile.

“Yeah. I’m good.” She gave you a skeptical eyebrow raise as Joel finally climbed into the passenger seat, still wearing his scowl.

“Hurry up and get on the road,” he demanded.

“She was waiting on you,” Ellie chimed in with an irritated tone, surprising Joel. He turned to look back at her, and although you were oblivious to it, Ellie gestured to you and mimed crying, tipping Joel off to your sensitive state.

“Sorry,” he cleared his throat and softened his tone, reaching over to touch your arm but it only caused you to jerk the steering wheel. “Jesus! Are you sure you can drive?”

“Would you—“ you snapped but stopped yourself from saying anything else, the clench in your jaw a sign of the inner strength it took to stop yourself from laying into him. “Just get some rest.”

“I’ll be able to rest when you get us there in one piece,” he huffed, crossing his arms and shifting in the seat so that he was more comfortable.

“Maybe if you sleep you’ll wake up less of an ass,” Ellie mumbled to herself and pulled a soft chuckle from you.

Although the two of you tried to keep all this drama between yourselves, you knew Ellie wasn’t dumb. She could see the way you looked at him, the way he looked at you, the way you quieted in his presence, the way he grew mean in yours. You didn’t want her to pick sides, but in all honestly, Joel wasn’t making it easy for her to root for him with his quick temper and no-nonsense attitude.

It wasn’t long before the sounds of the road lulled Joel to sleep, his familiar soft snores shattering you in ways you’d never confess to out loud.

“So…how did you two meet?” Ellie asked after a couple hours of silence, leaning in between the gap between the two front seats to talk to you, her voice kept low as to not wake the grump beside you.

“El, I don’t really wanna—“

“Please? I’m going crazy thinking about everything…give me something less scary to think about,” she pled and you were sighing, caving to her.

“We met in Boston. I was one of the ‘lucky’ ones, I guess. Born there, raised there, was fifteen when the outbreak happened,” you started, eyes constantly flickering over to Joel to make sure he was still asleep. “For a while, the zone was…chaos. You were just a little kid, you probably don’t remember, but it was a war zone between the military, infected, and the hunters. That’s how I met Joel.”

“Yeah, he mentioned something about that.”

“Five years or so ago we were properly introduced—our groups sort of ran with the same crowd, I guess. Me being a smuggler and trader and him being…him.” You couldn’t help the smile that grew on your face as you thought back to simpler times, when his existence didn’t mean so much to you. “After a particularly bad incident that split him and his brother up, I managed to convince him to leave the hunting behind and do what I do.”

“And what was that?”

“Trading ration cards, supplies, meds…smuggling stuff in and out of the zone. Not exactly doing the Lord’s work, but…”

“Not hunting people.” You chuckled.

“Exactly.”

“So when did it…change?” Ellie asked with an awareness that shocked you, leaving you speechless for a moment.

“Eventually, you know, we grew from acquaintances to friends, then from friends into…something more. But there was a lot going on. I was head over heels for him since day one.” You kept your eyes forward, feeling your throat swell with hurt. “Tess was my friend, originally. But then she started to spend more time with Joel, and they eventually became closer than I was to either of them anymore. So, I gave him the choice to pursue her, and he did. That’s…that’s really all there is to it.”

“So…if he hurt you like that, why do you still want him?” Ellie’s questioning had finally become too much, your posture straightening as you breathed in a slow inhale. Your hand reached for the dial to turn up the cassette, desperate for a bit of silence.

“I think that’s enough talking for tonight.”

Ellie seemed to be emotionally intelligent enough to back off, sitting back in her seat and staring out of the window rather than pushing you for more answers to her endless list of questions. Answers you weren’t even sure you had.

You had all but five minutes of silence before Joel was breathing in deep through his nose, his eyes batting open and his posture adjusting.

“Shit, how long have I been out?” He turned to you but you couldn’t chance a glance at him, not after you and Ellie’s stroll down bittersweet-memory lane.

“Uh, a couple hours,” you replied in a weak voice, turning the music down. “We should find somewhere to pull over. I’m getting tired.”

“No, it’s…it’s fine. I’ll take over,” he offered, rubbing his palms over his face until all the leftover drowsiness had faded. “Just pull over and we can switch seats.”

“We need to sleep and eat and fucking pee, Joel. We can stop for a while.” You finally turned to look at him, expecting that narrowed look you’d become familiar with over the last few weeks, but he didn’t look angry. He looked…concerned?

“It’s too dark out…ain’t safe right now,” he whispered, his voice as gentle as his the look in his eyes. “Just let me take over.”

You hardly had time to manage a response before his hand was reaching over, his palm warm as it hesitantly rested on your knee. You let out a shaky breath and cursed yourself for being so weak for him, shaking your head at yourself.

“Ellie, tell the woman to pull over so she can get some damn sleep,” Joel spoke up, looking into the backseat.

“Pull over so you can get some damn sleep,” she repeated, earning a chuckle from you.

“C’mon, darlin’…pull over.” You sighed at his use of a pet name, wanting to scold him for using it so flippantly, but you found yourself pulling over anyways. This time, you and Ellie switched seats so that you could lay down in the back and actually try to get some decent rest.

You felt a pair of hands run up and down your bare sides, warm and strong and so large. Just one of them was the size of two of yours, and even through the haze of sleep you could tell who they belong to. With a sleepy grin and eyes still closed, you reached up to his neck as he hovered over you, pulling him down until his face was buried in your neck. Arching your back into him, he slipped his arms underneath you and hoisted you back onto his lap, his lips pliant and wet against your pulse.

“Missed you,” Joel husked as he started to guide your hips against his clothed cock, hands gripping the globes of your ass over the cotton of your underwear. “Mm, wake up, darlin’. I wanna see those eyes.”

Leaning back, you still carried a smile as you blinked your eyes open, Joel’s concentrated look earning a soft gasp from your lips as the bulk of his zipper rubbed against your throbbing clit. A smile grew on his own face as he reached up and ran the pad of his thumb over your lip.

“So damn beautiful,” he praised with a look of awe. “I hate havin’ to leave this bed. Especially to go out there.”

“Hard day?” You purred as you leaned in to pepper his neck with kisses, your fingers making quick work of the buttons of his flannel.

“Robert’s up to somethin’…Tess and I tried to snoop around but—“

“Tess?” You immediately felt your stomach flip with jealousy.

“Yeah,” he replied, lifting your head from his neck to inspect the sour look on your face. “Don’t do that.”

“Do what?” You snapped defensively, already having shut yourself away internally. Joel gestured at your face, now irritated.

“That! You get all…worked up over nothin’,” he scolded. You mumbled a sarcastic apology and climbed off his lap and off the bed, feeling his hot gaze on you as you searched for your t-shirt. “How many times do I gotta tell you, Tess and I are friends. That’s it.”

“Yeah, Joel. So are we,” you reminded, the ill-defined nature of your relationship leaving plenty of room for interpretation even after two years of being together.

“I’d just like to have one god damn day where you act like the woman I met,” he snapped, standing up and following you out into your apartment’s living room.

“I’m not the one who’s changed!” Joel watched you as you turned the sink on and poured yourself a glass of shitty tap water, one hand on his hip and a look of disbelief written on his face. “If you would just admit that there’s something going on between you two, we could figure something out! We could…share you or something.”

“Like it’s a damn custody battle?” He guffawed, shaking his head and turning to look out of the window. “You’re delusional.”

“And you’re fucking her!” You shouted, causing him to whip his head around. His eyes were pointed, the kind that you’d seen hundreds of times before but had luckily never been on the receiving end of. In just a few steps he was in front of you, backing you against the counter behind you. Your breath hitched as you stared up into his eyes, all the anger and insecurity leaving your body under the heat of his stare. With a weaker, broken voice, you asked, “Are you fucking her?”

“No.” He shook his head, his voice strong with sincerity. “And don’t you ever accuse me of it again unless you see it with your own damn eyes.” His hands gripped your hips again, his touch less revering but still just as needy and desperate. “You are the only person in this god damned world capable of making me this fuckin’ angry…and this fuckin’ hard.”

He ripped your panties at the side-seams, the cotton falling to the floor as he spun you around to face the counter and kicked your legs apart. Next came your shirt, quickly peeled off you and thrown across the room before his calloused hands ran up and down the expanse of your bare spine and around to your stomach until he was gripping your breasts with both hands.

“Maybe I just gotta fuck this jealousy outta ya,” he proposed as his lips traveled up your shoulder blade to the back of your neck, biting a soft mark into the skin there. You whimpered and nodded, sticking your ass out for him even more than he’d already arranged it, earning a smack to the plump flesh. “All you need is a little reassurin’, don’t ya? My jealous fuckin’ girl.”

The sound of his belt coming undone had you dripping with need, but right as he started to slip into you, you were bolting upright with a plea for air, a cracked gasp leaving your lips as you focused on reality. Joel and Ellie were startled by the sound as they sat in the front seats of the truck, both of their necks craning to glance at you.

It had just been a dream. A bad dream. A fucking good dream.

“Jesus, you okay?” Ellie asked, turning in her chair completely to face you as you sat in the backseat covered in sweat, your chest heaving as you tried to calm the aching arousal between your thighs. You felt completely embarrassed, especially given the racy nature of your dream. Had you said anything out loud in your sleep that gave your subconscious’s deepest desires away? Could Joel tell that you were dreaming about him? The way he avoided your eyes in the rear-view mirror did little to reassure you otherwise.

“Yeah,” you panted back to the teenager. “I’m fine.”

“Yeah, you keep saying that,” she chided, tone laced with disappointment? Frustration? You weren’t sure.

“Ellie, knock it off and turn around. Put your damn seatbelt on,” Joel scolded, much to both of your surprise. Feeling the need to clarify his defense, he spoke again, “We’re almost to Pittsburgh.”

“Pittsburgh?” You gathered yourself enough to object to the plan. “You didn’t say anything about us going through Pittsburgh.”

“Well I didn’t know until about a hundred miles ago,” he responded with a curious tone. “There a reason we shouldn’t?”

“I’ve heard it’s littered with hunters. We should find another way around,” you advised, meeting Joel’s eyes in the mirror.

“I don’t know that we got the gas for that.”

“Joel…you know what hunters do to people. I’d rather us run out of gas in the woods and have to walk than to run into them.”

He took a moment to think about his options, his jaw ticking and thumbs drumming on the steering wheel before he was turning the truck around.

“Alright. There was a small town a few miles back,” he rasped. “We can try to get a night’s rest there and hopefully even some gas.”

You offered him a small smile, silently thanking him for listening to you when he easily could have ignored your advice. Joel didn’t smile back, simply nodding at you once through the rearview mirror, but it was enough to have a frenzy of butterflies swarming in your stomach.

“Place is clear from what I can tell,” Joel pointed at an abandoned house he just cleared in a small, quiet town about an hour outside of Pittsburgh called Somerset. “Long as we stay quiet and keep our eyes open, I think we’ll be alright out here for the night.”

You stared up at the two-story colonial home, it’s red brick half-covered with kelly-green vines, the white of the doorframe and gazebo now a murky grey. Still, even in it’s withered state, it looked like a nice place to call home. Maybe in another life you’d be living in a home like this with a family you helped create, a cat or a dog to curl up in your lap, a husband that loved you and let you love him.

But that world is simply a fantasy.

The world you found yourself in was grimy, murky, overgrown with weeds and left uncared for. There was no place for a family, no time to sit curled up with a pet, no men left who could give or receive that type of love—that type of luxury.

You needed to learn to let go of these delusions and fantasies if you wanted to stay alive out here. Joel seemed to do it easy enough, after all.

“C’mon,” Joel urged you forward with a small voice, nudging his head towards the house while Ellie was already heading in. You cleared your throat, embarrassed that he’d caught you deep in your thoughts, but as you went to walk past him, his hand gently grabbed hold of your wrist. “Hey, you alright?”

No. No, I’m fucking not. Not with you holding my hand like this. Not with you looking at me like that. Not with you.

Your lips parted to speak but nothing came out. Instead, you gave him a quick nod, your response seemingly not adequate enough for him because he refused to let go of you.

“I’m fine,” you tried to reassure him again, this time mustering more sincerity.

“You can fool her all you want, but you can’t fool me,” he whispered earnestly, shaking his head at you, eyes looking into yours tenderly, almost longing. “What can I do?”

“Joel, you can’t fix this mess,” you gestured to your head. “I’ll be alright.”

“Will you? Because from what I can see, you can’t stay out of your damn head for five minutes,” he continued his whisper yelling, not wanting Ellie or any possible infected to hear. “Tell me what I need to do to help you.”

You stood there looking stunned or stupid, you couldn’t tell by the look of irritation on his face. What were you supposed to do? Beg him to love you again? Beg him to leave you again? No. You’d find a way to be okay on your own. You needed to find a way to be okay on your own.

“I’m not your problem anymore,” you finally decided on.

“The hell you aren’t,” he snapped at a normal volume as you started towards the house. He called your name, clearly not finished with the conversation, but you didn’t stop or turn around. “Baby, please—“

“Do. Not.” You turned your head around, eyes welling with tears instantly as you pointed your finger at him. “Do not call me that. You have no right to call me that.”

“I’m worried about you,” he almost whimpered, his voice cracking with raw emotion as he walked to meet you on the front step. “And you’re right. I have no right to care this much ‘bout someone I’m not with, but…I. Can’t. Help. It.”

“If I have to find a way to be okay without you, you can find a way to stop caring about me,” you argued, fighting the urge to lift your hand to his perfectly rugged face. “I’m tired. Can we go inside now?”

“One last thing,” he begged. “What were you dreaming about in the truck?”

“That’s private,” you snapped.

“You said my name.”

“Yeah, well…you’ve given me plenty to dream about in our time together,” you shrugged. “Good and bad.”

“You’re killin’ me,” he shuddered, shaking his head at you. You watched as his hand raised up, his palm ghosting over your cheek, wanting to cradle it but refraining from making contact. Holding your breath, you tried to will him closer, pleading to some unseen force for him to make a move, to make him try, but no one seemed to be listening. He dropped his hand to his side and sucked in a slow breath, his eyes bouncing between yours. “Just…be okay. Alright?”

“Yeah…I’m working on it.”

You grabbed the doorknob and walked inside, hearing Ellie’s gasps and stunned laughter as she checked out the home.

“Holy shit!” she exclaimed as she came walking down the stairs towards the two of you. “This place insane!”

“Keep your voice down,” Joel scolded dryly, dejected from your conversation. “It’s clear, but that don’t mean it’ll stay that way.”

“Sorry,” she sassed under her breath as she reached you, following the two of you into the living room. “How much was a place like this back then? Like a million dollars?”

“Nah,” Joel started as he inspected the cabinets for any sign of spores. “Round here it was probably only ‘bout two, maybe three hundred.”

“Dollars?”

“Thousand dollars.” He corrected.

“How much was your house?” She inquired as she hoisted herself up onto the kitchen island beside you, your eyes and hands busy unloading a can of beans to settle your rumbling stomach.

“Ya know, that woulda been a rude question to ask somebody back in the day?” Joel grumbled as he turned around, your eyes missing the way his scanned over your concentrated face.

“Well, we’re not back in the day anymore,” Ellie retorted. “How much?”

“Three fifty,” he caved and answered her, too busy watching you to continue this back and forth. When you finished peeling the lid open, your eyes met his on accident, and you watched as he quickly turned to look at Ellie. “Three-hundred-and-fifty thousand dollars down the drain, that is.”

Joel left the room abruptly, mumbling something about going upstairs to look around, leaving you and Ellie standing there with creased eyebrows.

“What’s his deal?” She whispered to you as you handed her a spoon, offering to share the can of room-temp black beans with her to which she accepted.

“I think that’s my fault,” you sighed, spooning some beans into your mouth.

“How’d you put up with him for so long? You two seem so different.”

You chuckled, shaking your head and shrugging. “It wasn’t like this back then. This is…new territory.”

“I can’t imagine him being any different,” she chuckled. “What’s he like when he’s not so…grumpy?”

“Well, he’s always a little grumpy, but that’s a part of his charm,” you smiled. “I don’t know, he was funny and sensitive and sweet…warm, gentle…soft.”

“Joel is soft?”

“Was,” you corrected with an exhale. “Joel was soft. Not…anymore, apparently.”

Joel laid awake downstairs on the sofa, trying and failing to will his eyes closed for the last hour. Through the window shined a midnight blue glow, casting dark shadows across the hardwood floor. It was silent, no outside force to be blamed for his restlessness, just his aching heart.

He couldn’t sleep knowing that you were right upstairs, clearly aching for him the same way he was for you. He could see how being around him was beginning to eat you alive and how you tried your best to fool him. But he knew you better than he knew himself, your eyes having been his safe place for two damn years. He could see that you were always lost inside your own head and he craved to be able to let you out, to help you come back.

Rolling onto his side, he stared ahead at the long-forgotten fireplace, it’s red brick now blackened with coal black soot. He had half a mind to believe that’s how his heart looked these days—it’s how it felt, at least.

His introspection was cut short by a blood-curdling scream from upstairs, the voice to adult to be Ellie. Joel grabbed his shotgun and raced up the stairs, bursting into your room ready to kill something, but instead being met with the sight of you, freshly awake and panting. You were sat upright on your blanket on the floor, your hand over your heart, eyes squeezed shut, shaking breaths filling the room.

“Just a nightmare,” you offered a bit of explanation in hopes of ridding him of his worry, his face still screwed in terror. “I’m okay.”

“Stop that.” The sternness in his voice woke you all the way up, your eyes widening as he stomped over to you. For just a split second, you feared him, the look in his eyes dark with rage and emotion.

But then he was kneeling down, dropping his gun to the floor beside your makeshift cot, his hands lifting to your cheeks to cradle your head in his hands. You hadn’t even realized you’d been crying until his thumbs were wiping away the stream of tears running down your cheeks. Your throat began to swell at the warmth in his touch, a sob threatening to break free as he stared at you like you were the only thing in this world he cared about.

“Let me be here for you,” he begged in a barely audible whisper. “Let me help.”

“It’ll just hurt more,” you cried, tears flowing again. Joel threw caution to the wind and pulled you into his arms, laying down with you on the floor, your face buried in his neck while he pet the back of your head.

“Is this helpin’ or hurtin’?” he asked in a whisper, his hand on your back rubbing soothing circles to calm you. When you didn’t respond, he tried to let go of you, not wanting to force his comfort upon you that if you weren’t comfortable with it.

As soon as his hands left you, though, you hugged him tighter, a silent demand for him to stay put. You’d almost forgotten how good it felt to be held by him, the way his strong arms wrapped around you like you were something precious, his warmth, the feeling of his body beneath his clothes, even the musk of his natural scent—it all soothed the ache that had been plaguing you since he left. Since the last time he held you like this.

“Talk to me,” he demanded softly, his fingers now lightly scratching your scalp. “What were you dreamin’ about?”

“It’s…embarrassing,” you confessed, your words muffled as you kept your face buried in his neck.

“Darlin’,” he cooed, his fingers lowering from your head to run up and down your bicep in featherlight strokes. Sitting up a bit so that you were looking into his eyes, you hesitated before speaking, not wanting to ruin this moment with the truth.

“Dreamt I was…” you sighed, exhaling all your anxiety and melting back into him, your cheek resting on his chest. “Dreamt I was dying…clickers feasting on me, and you were just…watching. You were just standing there, no emotion, no fear, no…grief in your eyes. Like it meant nothing—like I meant nothing.”

“Look at me,” he tilted your chin up, forcing your eyes to his gravely serious ones. “If anything were to ever happen to you…I promise you, it would shatter me. Would be the end for me, too.”

“Why can’t you just let me love you?” You asked, your voice breaking with emotion as you reached to hold his face, tracing your thumb over lines and freckles that you’d memorized by heart. “It’s all I want…just to love you.”

“Love me,” he rasped back, his eyes dropping to your lips. “Love me.”

You moaned softly, so hushed that Joel had to question whether or not he actually heard it, but your hands tugging him by the collar of his jacket to roll on top of you shooed all doubt in his mind. He let out a soft moan of his own as he slotted his thigh between yours, his hand stroking your hair out of your face as he laid half on top of you, eyes worshipping you in the pale blue of the midnight moon shining through the window.

“We can’t…not with Ellie in the next room,” he warned as he hovered his lips over yours, your lips chasing his. “Don’t let me get carried away with you.”

“Just kiss me,” you breathed out as you pulled him to your lips, a gasped moan spilling from his lips into yours as he gripped your hip so tight it might leave a few bruise marks. You swiped your tongue over his lips and he growled, rolling his hips into yours. You whimpered into his mouth, your fingers tangled in his slowly greying locks, your teeth biting down on his bottom lip.

“God,” he groaned, his hand slipping lower to squeeze your ass. “I missed you so much, my pretty girl…missed you so much.”

“I want you,” you begged breathlessly, grinding yourself against his thigh in hopes of finding some relief. Joel shook his head as his lips found your neck. “Please,” you begged again even more desperately. “I can be quiet.”

“We both know that ain’t true,” he smirked against your skin, seemingly lost in memories of the past when the two of you were free to go at it like wild animals. “But…you can get yourself off on my thigh. Long as you save all those pretty sounds just for me.”

“Fuck,” you moaned into his ear, continuing to roll your hips against his tree-trunk of a thigh. The seam of your jeans caught deliciously against your hyper-sensitive clit, your body buzzing from having the man you lived back in your arms after so long. “Gonna cum,” you warned, earning a squeeze of his hands on your ass and his teeth biting at your neck. “Joel…fuck…I’m…oh,” you spoke through pants until you broke, your hips stuttering against his thigh as your orgasm hit you hard enough to hurt, the violent aftershocks of your euphoria almost too blissful to take.

“There you go,” he praised, kissing your pulse and running his hand up and down the curve of your body. Completely spent, you felt yourself falling back to sleep underneath him, Joel’s warmth and weight your new favorite blanket.

Joel kissed your temple before moving to get up, needing to go back downstairs in order to watch the front door for any intruders. Feeling his warmth leaving you, you tried to reach out and grab him but quickly gave up, your exhaustion triumphing over your desire. He couldn’t help but smile as he looked down at you, sleeping peacefully with a glow still on your cheeks from your orgasm. You looked so beautiful and delicate, this world failing to get to you, failing to turn you cold and worn down like everybody else. Though he knew this was dangerous—you and him tiptoeing over the line he drew between you—he couldn’t bear to keep himself from you anymore, not now that he got the chance to hold you again.

Leaning down to press one last kiss to your cheek, he pulled your blanket over your body.

“Sleep well, honey,” he whispered, tucking your hair behind your ear as he debated speaking the words he’d long been withholding from you. But here, with you fast asleep, he couldn’t stop himself from confessing the truth. “I love you more than anything in the world. I’m sorry I never showed it.”

As Joel grabbed his gun and turned to leave, he heard your voice, soft and husky with sleep.

“I love you, too.”

taglist: @uselsshuman @joelmillerscoffee @wildemaven @axshadows @sherala007 @browneyes-issac @kimm4710 @stxrrylunatic @sara-alonso @paulalikestuff @chxpsi @auberosier @mashomasho @harriedandharassed @trickstersp8 @trinkets01 @jlmaddinson @laureliciousdefinition @oh-no-a-whovian @buoyfriend @chorraich @extraneous-trip @oliviajdjarin @wumpsquill @love-affair-with-fandoms @graciexmarvel @amb11 @t0fudaddy @reigndropss @wondeerfull @multifand0m-gal0re @bfences @hypnoash @chronic-aly @wheresarizona @pedropascalsx @xocalliexo @myswficlist @untitledarea @lexloon @bbyanarchist @alwayslurkinginthebackground @rocketrhap3000 @fishingforpike @o-sacra-virgo-laudes-tibi @echoshxdows @sunshytea @janedartist @supernaturalgirl20 @know-that-its-delicate @forresway @kanyeasap @inlovewfictionalmen826 @jaspaddjarin (sorry if your tag isn’t working! and let me know if you’d like to be added!)

[witchthewriter]

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐒𝐨𝐀 𝐁𝐨𝐲𝐬 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐎𝐧𝐞 𝐁𝐞𝐝 𝐓𝐫𝐨𝐩𝐞

⤷ gender neutral, ambiguous race, and any size reader. Requests are open, thank you for reading!  

a/n: thank you to the wonderful person who requested this! What a brilliant idea, thank you so much xx oh and ... I kind of write between past and future tense, I apologise... 

Warnings: some swears

ᴹᵃˢᵗᵉʳˡᶤˢᵗ          

𝑺𝑭𝑾🌿

𝐵𝑎𝑐𝑘𝑠𝑡𝑜𝑟𝑦: There’s built-up tension between you and the Sons. You’re a key player in a new business deal, putting you at risk. While travelling, you pair have to spend the night at a motel, which is fine, until you find out that the room only has one bed. 

𝐉𝐚𝐱

・He’s playful about the situation. A mischievous grin on his tanned, handsome face. 

・But inside, he’s yearning so badly for you

・And you’re yearning the same

・At first he says you can take the bed, and he’ll sleep on the couch or something. “Hey, even the tub works for me darlin’-”

・But you shook your head and smiled. “Jax, just sleep in the goddamn bed.”

・You know that cheeky grin he does? Yeah he did exactly that and butterflies erupted in your stomach

・While you’re lying in bed, with the lights out, and the room quiet, you know Jax isn’t asleep

・ “You awake?” You whisper, turning around to face him 

・He grinned at you, “Nah,” he replied

・Jax had taken his shirt off and you only wore a baggy shirt and pyjama shorts. Taking a chance, you reached out and started tracing the black ink on his bare skin. 

・There was a lingering heaviness in the air. Sexual tension. A desperate need. 

・He read something in your eyes, and you read the same in his. 

・It took everything in you two not to come together. To connect in the way that you wanted. So you both said nothing and rolled over, as in silent agreement. 

・But in the morning, you awoke before him. Your body was on top of his, your head resting against his chest, listening to his heartbeat 

𝐎𝐩𝐢𝐞

・Gave a stiff laugh and looked to see your reaction 

・After a few seconds he shrugged and said he liked sleeping on the floor (a complete lie, and it’s the floor because he’s too big for the couch)

・Took a lot of persuading for him to sleep in the same bed. He didn’t want you to feel uncomfortable or disrespected. 

・But you really wanted him to be next to you. You felt like this was your one chance, to ... get to the next level. Not that you would push him to do anything. You just knew this was your chance 

・When the moon was high in the sky, Opie kicked off his shoes and flicked through the tv channels. He came to a Disney movie, one that his kids adored

・“Don’t judge. Disney is pretty important in my household.” His beanie was off and with each word his gold tooth flashed

・”Hey, you’ll get no judgement from me,” you chuckled lightly, thinking of all the weirder shit you’ve encountered. 

・You were both sitting against the headboard, shoulders touching. Neither of you were underneath the blanket, the air was too warm, and Opie gave off a lot of heat

・You spoke here and there, commenting on the movie. When certain scenes came on, you watched as Opie mimed the words. “Op, how many times have your kids watched this damn movie?”

・ “I don’t think that number exists.”

・He opens up a lot when he’s around you. Opie is actually a very witty guy when he’s comfortable.  

・But you both fell asleep eventually. Your head on his shoulder and his head was against the wall. 

・Throughout the night you both had wormed your way around the bed. You lay with your head ontop of his chest, and his arms were wrapped firmly around you

𝐂𝐡𝐢𝐛𝐬

・“I’ll take the couch, sweetheart,” Chibs stated in his Scottish accent. You really didn’t want him to, but the tall Scot always had an air of authority around him

・He wouldn’t let you get your own bags, and carried all of them in from the car. 

・You watched as he checked the bullets in each gun and sorted out which route to take

・You loved listening to Chibs talk. He had a way of telling the most brilliant stories. 

・ “Tell me a tale, Telford.” He peered over at you, sitting on the bed. The night had grown late and you were too nervous to sit in silence. 

・ “Aye, well there was a time back in Scotland-” 

・You patted the space next to you and wriggled over so he had room to lay down. 

・ Chibs talked all night. Well, until you fell asleep against his arm. 

・When he noticed you were in dream land, he didn’t move for a while. He moved the hair from your face and smiled down at you

・Then he put you to bed. Taking off your shoes and tucking you in. 

・He didn’t sleep in the bed beside you. Chibs made sure everything was locked and shut, before he too made himself comfortable on the floor, facing the door. 

𝐓𝐢𝐠

・“Big spoon, or little spoon?”

・Playful, teasing and completely honest. He wanted to sleep next to you so badly 

・Tig often daydreamed of sleeping beside you. You wrapped in his arms, asleep while the sun filtered through the window. 

・He was joking but not really

・You just pushed his arm and scoffed (with a smile though)

・You knew you were safe with Tig, but he was a very mischievous man. He wouldn’t try anything to make you uncomfortable, but he was hard to resist. 

・It took everything in you not to feel ... needy. You read a book, turned on the tv, looked out the window and all the while, you could feel his eyes staring at you. 

・ “Tig-”

“Huh?” He quickly lifted up the newspaper and opened it in front of his face. “I’m reading, what do you want?” 

・You smiled at his ruse. He knew you knew he was staring at you

・ It was hard to keep a straight face whenever Tig Trager was in the room

・ “Your newspaper is upside down.” 

“Obviously ...I like it that way...” 

・He let you take the bed, and even though he stretched out on the couch, you beckoned him over

・The next morning, you awoke with Tig as the big spoon, nuzzling in your hair

𝐇𝐚𝐩𝐩𝐲

・“I’ll take the floor.” 

・His response was instant, without question. The couch barely sat two people, so he’d be too cramped laying on it.

・He had been a bit off with you for the past week. No joking around or deep conversations like you used to have

・You had no idea, but it was because of this situation. Clay had chosen him to protect you, and his feelings had grown so much. 

・ “You don’t have to,” you replied, turning to look at Happy, who was holding onto your bags. There was a hint of sadness in your voice, because you missed being so close to Happy

・ You thought he said something like “I do.”

・With the few hours that you spent in the room, he warmed to you again. Forgetting his emotional wall and opening up. 

・You were both watching tv on the bed, a crappy reality show, and you both couldn’t stop laughing

・ “I can’t believe people sometimes,” you said while laughing

      “Man, neither can I. Those types of people only want one thing: attention.” 

・This opened a deep conversation about people, life and humanity. 

・You looked over at the clock at it was nearly 2:30am. 

・Happy saw as well, and started to get ready to go to sleep. He kicked his shoes off, and took a few pillows from the couch and put them on the floor

・No matter how many times you offered a place on the bed, he wouldn’t take it

𝐉𝐮𝐢𝐜𝐞

・Is immediately flustered when looking at the limited space. He was holding every single piece of luggage (you wanted to help but he wouldn’t let you.) 

・You shrugged and started taking the bags out of his hands while his blush reddened 

・ “I prefer the side closest to the window,” you said simply

・He said you take the bed, and if you want, you can take the room. “It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve slept outside,” he said it in his usual cheery voice. But you could tell there was something underneath those words. 

・It became like a sleepover so quickly.

・Juice knew it would be boring, so he brought a board game (and hid it obviously because the guys would think it was unneeded weight)

・”Oh! you brought Monopoly?!” He let you choose the figurine you wanted (ever the gentleman)

・You played literally all night. And it wasn’t until the birds tweeted in the morning, with the sunlight glowing through the breaks in the curtain.

・ “Shit, its morning,” he stated, looking at you with wide eyes

・You just laughed, and so did he

[fandom-hoarder]

S7 pregnant Sam going into labor while at the mental hospital during The Born Again Identity 👀👀👀

😱😱😱😱😱😱 anon, you are after my own heart 😍

Hallucifer taunting Sam the whole pregnancy-- about whether he's even really pregnant; about whether the baby is really Dean's; about how fucked up and fucked over this kid will be; about how Sam's body is insufficient; about how Sam wants it to be Lucifer's anyway, doesn't he; about how Sam let Lucifer in---

And Sam can't take it anymore. He's trying so hard to make it long enough to have this baby---maybe she'll be real enough to fix him. But he needs sleep so bad and he hasn't been able to eat and he's so strung out nothing seems real anymore but Lucifer. He leaves the motel just to take a walk---curb walk, to promote labor, or at least wear him out---but it turns into yet another perpetual lurch for distance between him and Hallucifer. Sam still says yes to the drug dealer, because he's desperate; and whether or not the baby is real, he figures pills are the least of its problems---

And when even that doesn't work, and Sam ends up in the hospital after walking into traffic---with soft cuffs holding him to the bed as they tend his injuries and check the baby's vitals; CPS worker waiting in the wing with the cop that accompanied him in---Lucifer laughs hysterically about the awful thing Sam has done to "our baby." And Sam wants to gag, but doesn't even have the energy to vomit.

When Dean finally finds him, he's pissed about the security detail on Sam's room, but he's also pissed about the pills and his rant turns into Lucifer's matter of fact commentary on how much easier Dean's life would be without Sam and this baby. It doesn't stop until Dean presses hard into the bandage on Sam's palm, and Sam blinks at him, trying to see him clearer than Lucifer. When Dean sets off, promising to find Sam a healer, kissing Sam's forehead and his belly like it might be the last time, Lucifer congratulates Dean on the perfect excuse to leave. 'Don't worry, Dean, I've got it covered. Looks like I'm the man of the house, now,' Lucifer says with his cutesy little shrug.

Sam doesn't really notice his contractions at first. He's in so much pain and fatigue they don't register. But when he's helping Marin, she notices in the middle of his episode---how tight his belly is getting in regular intervals; how even the shape of it changes; the altered rhythm of his breathing. Sam lights her brother's bracelet on fire as Lucifer pulls a bloody umbilical cord from Sam's body like a mime with a rope, and the next thing Sam knows the orderlies are holding him down, his throat hurts from screaming, and they're telling him his water broke.

They make him keep the soft cuffs on--hands and feet--through the onset of labor, despite how much he begs to be able to walk around or even move his legs. The pain isn't even that bad, comparatively, so it doesn't really matter that they don't give him anything for it; but Sam is restless and scared, and the alarms on his vitals start shrieking when a black-eyed nurse grins up at him and tells him to push on the next contraction.

They turn off the machines, and it's just Sam's screams of NO down an empty corridor as he tries not to push but his body bears down anyway.

Sam swears the baby is born in a flash of unnatural light, and Lucifer holds up their horned, yellow-eyed child and says, in Dean's voice, "Sammy, look at our perfect baby girl."

"No! No, no, no," Sam panics, dread filling him, trying to scramble away as he swells with milk and Lucifer brings the sharp-toothed baby closer.

Then another Lucifer is holding him down, and Sam's pain burns a path through him, seeking its way out. And then it's not Lucifer touching him---it's Cas. And it's not Lucifer holding Sam's demon baby, it's Dean holding their blue-eyed, bald daughter.

"Dean?!" Sam exclaims, but before he can breathe in relief, Dean's handing him their baby and helping Meg restrain Cas as he tries to attack Sam and the baby.

"Don't kill him!" Sam begs---he still can't find it in himself to hate Cas for what's happened and he doesn't deserve to die for what he's hallucinating. "It's just Lucifer. It's not his fault!"

"Not his fault?! Sam---"

"Hey!" Meg interrupts. "It doesn't matter, we still might need him." She gives Dean a significant look, and Sam frowns, wondering what deal Dean made with her just to save him.

The thought scares him, but not as much as it floods him with love to realize Dean really had saved him---again; still.

They barely get Castiel restrained in a straitjacket with angel warding before Sam has to push out the afterbirth, and the bloody mess of it is nothing like the things Lucifer had been showing him. He realizes they still need to clamp the umbilical cord and cut it, and Meg suggests that she can take care of that for them. Sam all too easily imagines the ways a demon might want to 'take care' of it.

"We're good " Dean says, in sync with Sam, and grabs the clamps and scissors.

They leave the hospital without registering the live birth of babygirl "Smith," dodging CPS and the cops easily thanks to Castiel's earlier smiting, but stop at another hospital a couple states away to get Sam and the baby checked out. Despite the fact it's been nearly ten days without sleep, Sam still can't seem to let himself sleep until they've made it there and Dean's warded the place for demons.

The next three days, Sam barely wakes up for anything more than eating and nursing the baby. Dean tries to let him sleep through a couple feedings, but she cries instead of taking the bottle. So Sam wakes up to Dean helping their daughter latch onto his tit a few times. He's too exhausted to even make a show of complaining.

[krowblud]

About me!!

Hello pals

QUINN/PAPRIKA, 22, he/they/mouse (I am a fictive/the main host.)

This is my self ship blog.

I love clowns, mimes, art history, and horror!! My favorite genre of horror is splatter horror!

Next the fandoms I’m in!

- Puppet Combo

- Don’t Starve Together

- Carmen Sandiego

- Fnaf

- Fnac

- Marble Hornets

- Slashers (VERY SPECIFIC ONES BELOW)

- Psycho (1960), Halloween, Black Christmas, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Killer Klowns from Outer Space, Terrifier, and Friday the 13th

- Friday Night Funkin(not really in it I just love the game and Newgrounds shit)

- Most zombie media like TLOU TWD etc.

- Spider-man (mostly the spiderverse movies though.)

Quick DNI for my blog!!!

First off pr//o//shippers DNI. Don’t even like my posts please. Thank you.

To keep it short and sweet obviously no one homophobic or transphobic and also…If you didn’t notice yet, if you don’t like self ship you might not like it here. Also with my DNI here’s some quick bullet points to keep in mind.

- I’m aware some media I enjoy has topics that are disturbing like incest. This is not an excuse or a gotcha moment because I’m well aware the disturbing part is there to be disturbing?

- I will NOT draw the Easter Ripper from Murder House

- I will ABSOLUTELY NOT entertain anything to do with the Bates Motel show.

- I’m a system, so I switch between portraying Norman as a system and sometimes just schizophrenic.

- Please don’t try to interact if you’re a minor

(I heavily dislike the following ships)

Slime Bomb (CS) Red Crackle (CS) Billy Lenz x Brahms MaxWes (DST) Maxwil (DST) Wesfrid (DST) JAYLEX/JAM/BRAY I’m sure there’s more but I can’t think of them

List of my f/os!

Main self ship masterpost:

Quick warning for my posts!!!!

A lot of my self ships are for self soothing and trauma healing. They include very bad people like Billy from Feed me Billy and Norman Bates because of reasons I’d like to keep private. There’s themes of violence and other possibly triggering things in some of my writings, but you’ll NEVER find pedophil!a or any kind of pr*/oship. I want that kind of stuff far away from me. That being said, most of the time my self ships are extremely tender and loving as a cope ❤️

Anyways…Here’s a picture of my sona(me) to end this. Please stick around and interact!

[tranquilitybasehotelcasino]

saw IV third rewatch thoughts

- this movie is entertaining but nowhere near good enough to deserve how well it’s edited. the practical scene transitions alone are award worthy and for THIS

- art blank looks like sad owen wilson

- literally criminal that the guy who played rigg was only billed FIFTH. lyriq bent you carried this film

- scalper chair girl is crazy hot

- i think i said this somewhere before but i appreciate that perez and strahm are less good cop/bad cop and more like vaguely empathetic cop/rabid hunting dog

- betsy russell is also so absolutely comically attractive she literally makes scott patterson (who is on the good side of average) look worse by comparison. the interrogation bits are crazy like get away from her you beast. also i think his eyelashes are longer than hers

- hoffman’s new york accent is CRAZY in this movie i don’t think he ever sounds quite this brooklyn again

- not to be like “jigsaw was right” in any capacity but the rapist guy in the motel room trap deserved it

- i wish jill tuck was my auntie

- can we talk about apprentice perez please mac i’ve been dying to talk about apprentice perez with you all day

- literal seven out of ten chance costas mandylor has lip fillers

- i loooove all the weird silly obvious anatomical/surgical aspects there are to some of the traps. sewing up those guys’ eyes and mouth, the spikes through the vital points with that married couple. they had dr. gordon’s ass working overtime with these

- donnie wahlberg does possibly the best job any member of the new kids on the block could have done playing a pathetic wet rat

- oh so they can have a scene with the billy puppet being small on a chair looking like he would perfectly fit in your lap but when i say “i think billy is lap-sized” everybody loses their minds. i don’t care if it’s forced perspective perez gets right up next to him and he’s literally the size of like a toddler

- speaking of perez there is no way her ass is dying from that puppet explosion. like i get that she didn’t ACTUALLY die but she was clearly in danger of it and they had strahm believing it even though there is no fucking wayyyy a couple pieces of shrapnel in her forehead could have killed her unless that weird dust was some kind of poison or something and not just plaster

- the version i watched unfortunately did cut the bit where strahm pulls a gun in the interrogation room and mimes shooting himself in the head with it

- i never caught that john got in his car accident on the WAY HOME from being diagnosed with cancer…. i kinda get it now

- the implication that john designed the glass coffin for jill makes me genuinely crazy

- i don’t even care about the reveal of hoffman as the accomplice the twist at the end where it’s revealed that it was all happening concurrently with saw III is the most insane part of this movie i remember the first time i saw it i literally stood up out of my seat going WHAT THE FUCKKKKK

- in conclusion

[maria021015]

SPOILERS AHEAD FOR CHAPTER 42!

“Oh my God, she wasn’t lying!” Zaida exclaimed, clutching one hand over her mouth as she and Lydia hurried back to their hotel room. She tilted her lit-up phone screen and scrolled for the redhead to read article heading, after article heading, reporting the many suicides that had occurred at Motel Glen Capri.

“I knew I had a bad feeling about this place!” Lydia muttered and shook her head, her green eyes wide in surprise and horror.

“Yeah, me too…” Zaida trailed off. At least now she knew exactly why those ghostly hands had trailed a path up and down her spine since she’d arrived. Now she knew why that incessant knocking in her head only grew louder the more time she spent here. It had faded for a few moments when she was grounded by those around her, but when the quiet seeped back in it was there, as steady as a song beat drumming within the walls of her mind. She’d brushed it off as a throbbing headache, but now she couldn’t ignore it. Now that she was aware, it became all the more difficult to turn her back on it. So much harder not to look. Not to take a peek behind the forbidden curtain. Her curiosity was won out by her fear at what she’d find - or rather, what she’d feel. Her blood ran cold as the memory of how her parents had felt before they died escaped from the shut box she’d confined it to in the back, dark corners of her brain.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

“Well, I was right!” Lydia burst through the door to their motel room with a slam, dumping the fresh towels down on Allison’s bed in front of her. The girl immediately took one and began to dry her sopping wet hair. “This place is haunted.”

“Haunted?” The huntress repeated, raising a brow sceptically.

“Well, I don’t know about haunted in the regular sense, but in the Naiad sense, then yes .” Zaida nodded fervently. “I’ve been feeling it since we got here.”

“Somehow, so have I…” Lydia pursed her lips.

“Okay, I know it’s not the nicest place-” Allison began and Zaida interjected with a snort.

“Yeah, no shit.” The shorter brunette muttered under her breath.

“But going from thinking it’s gross and creepy, to suddenly thinking it’s haunted is quite a jump. What happened?” The huntress questioned, finishing her thought process.

“Suicides - that’s why. One hundred and ninety-eight of them.” Zaida blurted expressively, miming shooting a gun off into her head with a small sound effect.

“One hundred and ninety-eight?” Allison repeated, pausing her ministrations and putting the towel she was using back down.

“Yes, and we're talking for forty years. On average, that's...four-point-nine-five a year, which is...actually expected.” Lydia tilted her head as she worked out the math exasperatedly. “But who commemorates that with a framed number? Who does that? Who?”

“...All suicides?” Allison checked in once more, as if she thought she hadn’t heard them correctly.

“Yes - hanging, throat-cutting, pill-popping, both-barrels-of-a-shotgun-in-the-mouth suicides.” Lydia confirmed frantically, cutting herself off when she went silent. Zaida felt a chill run down her spine, those cold fingers dancing across her skin again. “Did you hear that?”

Knock, Knock, Knock.

“Hear what?” Allison asked, and Zaida held her breath as she listened, waiting to pick up on whatever the redhead had. Lydia didn’t respond. Deep lines creased into her forehead as she turned slowly towards the wall behind her. Zaida followed her line of sight to the vent above and watched as her green eyes flickered. The girl climbed slowly up onto her bed, moving closer towards the metal grate covering the lightly spinning fan.

Knock, Knock, Knock. Knock, Knock, Knock! KNOCK, KNOCK, KNOCK.

“Lyds?” Zaida whispered, not wanting to disturb whatever trance she was in. The redhead was something. What, they had not a clue, but perhaps she truly could hear something they couldn’t. Zaida, on the other hand, could feel a disturbance. The knocking in her head was almost deafening now, like knuckles banging on wood. The doors within her mind bent and warped under the weight of the attack, the borders opening just a crack before she managed to get them under better control, slamming against them with all of her resolve and strength. In that split second her heart clenched in anguish and she was filled with such an intense hopelessness that she felt as though she would collapse.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

“Lydia?” Allison checked once more before the redhead jumped backwards, stumbling off the bed and clutching her hand over her mouth to stifle the noise of the strangled sound that escaped her - somewhere halfway between a gasp and a sob. “Lydia? What happened?”

“Did you hear that?” Lydia’s chest heaved and her voice gave out with a squeak.

“Hear what?” Allison’s brows frowned at the girl in worry.

“The two people in the other room - they shot each other!” The redhead answered with a shake in both her tone and body, and without further warning, she was leaving.

“Lydia…” Allison called after the girl but Zaida followed without hesitation as she hurried to the door of the motel room next door and knocked repeatedly before bursting through. Zaida wasn’t sure what she expected to see. She knew that if there truly had been a double gunshot they would have heard it, but she also knew that Lydia had definitely heard something.

“Lydia, what are you doing?” Allison hissed as the two other girls ventured into the room only to find it was covered in plastic, caution tape and various equipment.

“Hello?” Lydia called out only to then sound defeated. “It had to be right here. It was a guy and a girl, and, I mean, they sounded younger, but...they were here.”

“I think I felt it - just for a moment. They were so hopeless…” Zaida murmured as her eyes scanned the room. It was easy to imagine why they were renovating. Something had indeed happened here, and somehow Lydia had heard the echoes of it.

“I believe you. After everything we've been through, I believe you.” Allison assured the girls and they filed out of the doorway and back into their own motel room.

“You know, there is something seriously wrong with this place.” Lydia immediately started packing her things, pulling her phone charger from the wall and wrapping the cord around itself into a neat knot. “Hey, guys? We need to leave.”

“But they were suicides, not murders, and it's not like this place is actually haunted, right?” Allison reasoned in an attempt to calm the duo.

“Maybe not for you! But for us…” Zaida shook her head, passing Lydia her bag so that she could pack away her phone and charger.

“You know, I bet that couple made their suicide pact in that very room! Maybe that's why they're renovating - maybe they've been scraping brain matter off the wood paneling.” Lydia exclaimed rapidly, her expression frantic.

“Maybe we should find out.” Determination hardened the huntress’s features and Zaida sighed heavily.

“Have you learned nothing from horror movies? Investigating is always the wrong move. Why doesn’t anyone ever just run?” The shorter brunette grumbled, but joined her friends anyway as they trekked the now familiar pathway down to the front office.

“Zaida, you’re always the one investigating,” Allison pointed out.

“Yeah, investigating the supernatural, not the paranormal!” She shot back on their way down the staircase.

“Well, there goes that…” Lydia rolled her eyes when they all spotted a ‘closed’ sign placed on the counter. The service desk was closed for the night, and when Zaida scanned the car park she noticed only their yellow school bus was left in the otherwise empty lot.

“Great, we’re here all alone in the suicide-hotel capitol of the state.” Zaida’s words were dripping with sarcasm, masking the lightning bolt of fear that struck through her. “Could Coach’s judgment be any worse?”

“Didn't you say the sign said one-ninety-eight?” The huntress’ keen eyes were focused on something entirely different, and surely enough, when Zaida checked the framed number had indeed changed. It now read ‘201’.

“...It was one-ninety-eight.” Lydia’s green eyes widened impossibly large as a shiver ran through her. “I swear to God it was one-ninety-eight. Zaida, please tell me I’m not crazy!”

“You’re not crazy - it was one-ninety-eight. I saw it too.” The shorter brunette confirmed with a grim nod.

“Okay, what does that mean? That there's been three more suicides?” Allison’s eyes narrowed inquisitively.

“Or three more are about to happen…” Lydia murmured.

Knock, Knock, Knock.

“Get Stiles on the phone.” Zaida instructed the redhead immediately and Lydia did so without question. Her own mobile’s battery had died hours ago.

“Lydia? Hey, what-” The boy’s confused and slightly nervous voice blurred through the speaker phone and Zaida rolled her eyes. She pushed aside her rising jealousy and agitation to focus on more pressing matters.

“Keep it in your pants, Stilinski, it’s Zaida.” She interjected swiftly. “Get your ass down to the parking lot. Now.”

“What’s wrong? What happened?” She could hear the shuffling of fabric and the creaking of a mattress while Stiles hurried to follow her demand.

”You’ll see when you get here. We’re by the management desk.” Zaida stated and then hung up. Zaida found herself counting to ease the storm of anxiety brewing within her chest. Five things. Four things. Three things. Two. Between each count she regulated her breathing, slowing her racing heart. Moments later the boy could be seen bounding down the metal stairs two at a time.

“Now are you gonna tell me what’s going on?” He questioned with concern etched into his features when he finally reached the trio.

“We were talking to the owner earlier, and apparently Finstock’s judgment of accommodation is about as good as his internal volume regulation.” Zaida began, falling back upon her humour in the hopes of dispelling her discomfort.

“Well I could have told you that a few hours ago.” Stiles rolled his eyes, shoving his hands into his jean pockets.

“The Glen Capri has the highest guest-suicide rate in all of California.” Lydia went on, spouting the facts and gesturing to the sign through the grimy window. “A number that the owners commemorate by hanging it on display in their office.”

“...Okay, that’s lovely,” The boy winced and his concerned amber eyes landed on Zaida. She instantly knew that Stiles was fully aware of her predicament. He’d been there with her when Deaton had explained how death can leave a mark on a place, and with deaths so violent and tragic, and so many concentrated in the one place? Yes, he knew she was feeling its effects.

“But wait, there’s more!” Zaida exclaimed dramatically, mimicking the telemarketers on those sale channels her grandmother used to watch.

“That number read one-ninety-eight just before. In the time it took us to go and get Allison, it’s changed.” Lydia’s lips drew into a thin line.

“It’s gone up by three?” Stiles peered through the slightly fogged up glass, checking to make sure they’d seen correctly.

“We think that means there are going to be three more deaths. Tonight.” Zaida added.

“Can we talk about this inside? This place is giving me the creeps.” Lydia’s green eyes darted warily across the empty parking lot. There was indeed something eerie about the empty car park at night, especially with the flickering neon lights reflecting off the slightly wet asphalt ground. Allison dipped her chin into a slight nod, indicating her agreement.

“Yeah, okay. Let’s go,” Stiles made the call, heading towards the staircase leading to the upstairs rooms.

“We need to let everyone know.” Zaida reasoned as she spoke to the others trailing up the stairs behind her. “Someone’s gotta call Scott.”

Both Zaida and Lydia glanced over their shoulders at Allison but the girl chewed her lip apprehensively. “Scott actually came past when I was in the shower. He was acting super weird, and I thought that maybe it was just because of everything going on, but now…” The huntress explained. “The last time I saw Scott act like that was during the full moon.”

“Yeah, I know...he was definitely a little off with me, too.” Stiles agreed, trailing along at the end of the group. “But actually, it was Boyd who was really off. Remember, Zaida? We watched him put his fist through the vending machine.”

“Both werewolves…” Zaida pointed out the possible pattern as Allison twisted her key into the lock of their room, allowing them to all file inside.

“See? It is the motel!” Now Lydia was really starting to freak out as she ran her fingers through her long red hair and pulled a bible out of a bedside table drawer, holding it up theatrically. “Either we need to get out of here right now, or...someone needs to learn how to do an exorcism ASAP! Before the Werewolves go crazy and kill us.”

“I know how to do an exorcism,” Stiles offered and all three girls tilted their heads at him. “What? I’m chronically online.”

“Three… ” Zaida whispered beneath her breath as her memory gravitated back towards that framed number. It was too strange for it to have been a coincidence. “Three virgins, three warriors…what if it’s happening again?”

“What if Zaida’s right? Maybe it’s not just a haunted motel. What if it is the Darach?” Stiles brushed off Lydia’s panic in an attempt to remain on track. “What if this time, it's three werewolves?”

“Scott, Isaac, and Boyd…” Allison chimed in, chewing slightly on her lips.

“Maybe we were meant to come here.” The boy suggested.

“We’re five hours away from Beacon Hills. I don’t know much about dark Druids, but shouldn’t that be out of range for any ritualistic sacrifices?” Lydia’s forehead creased in worry.

“Unless it’s not.” Allison shrugged, not wanting to rule out the possibility.

“Or maybe…” Zaida took in a deep and shaky breath, hesitating before bringing herself to say what none of them wanted to hear right now. “Maybe the Darach came with us.”

She locked eyes with Stiles, instantly knowing exactly what he was thinking. The only person on his suspect list who was with them on this trip was currently standing beside them in a short floral dress and cute boots.

“Don’t say that. Oh God, please don’t say that.” Lydia hugged her arms around herself for whatever little comfort it could bring. “What do we do? We can’t stay here!”

“Well we can’t exactly leave, unless we hot-wire the bus and hijack it.” Zaida snorted, but Lydia looked as though she was considering it.

“I know how to hot-wire a bus,” Allison offered.

“I can drive,” Stiles raised his hand into the air.

“Oh my God, we’re not going to steal the bus! We’d get expelled.” Zaida groaned and pinched the bridge of her nose.

“Better than being ritualistically sacrificed by a dark Celtic Druid!” Stiles spluttered dramatically.

“Exactly! So, can we get the hell out of here now? Please?” Lydia begged almost hysterically, flinging her arms around expressively to the point where scraps of paper between the pages came loose, the edges sticking out.

“Wait, hang on. Let me see this...” Stiles held out his hand for her to pass him the bible and she complied. Zaida peered over his shoulder and once he opened the book the hidden papers were revealed to be snippets of newspaper articles.

"Twenty-eight-year-old man hangs himself at the infamous Glen Capri." Stiles read one of the titles.

Knock, Knock, Knock.

“Oh, no...look at these two. They both mention room two-seventeen.” Lydia tapped her painted finger nail over two more headings - 'Modern-day Romeo and Juliet: Suicides Continue at the Glen Capri Motel’, and 'Local Karate Instructor Commits Hara-Kiri at the Glen Capri'. “These are probably all the suicides that happened in this room.”

“So, if every room has a Bible…” Allison began and Lydia’s eyes lit up in realisation.

“There could be articles in all the rooms.” She finished the huntress’s sentence.

Knock, Knock, Knock!

“That's a beautiful thing.” Stiles sighed sarcastically. “Most places leave a mint under the pillow - this one leaves a record of all the horrible deaths that occurred.”

“You know, some people are into that kinda thing - paranormal hunters and true crime enthusiasts love to stay at haunted places.” Zaida offered a possible explanation for the owners’ actions.

“What if the room next door has the one about the couple?” Lydia interrupted, her wide eyes flickering between Zaida and Allison.

“What couple?” Stiles’ brows furrowed in curiosity.

“Earlier, I heard a young man and woman. Their voices were coming through the vent,” Lydia tried to explain. “They had some kind of suicide pact and they shot each other, but when we went to check…”

“There was nothing there. The room was being renovated.” It was Allison’s turn to complete Lydia’ words this time.

“You think you heard something that might have happened in the past?” Stiles questioned, and Zaida could see the cogs churning behind his intelligent eyes.

“I don’t know how to justify it, but I know what I heard.” Lydia swallowed dryly and marched out of the door once more, headed for the neighbouring room. This time when she reached for the door handle, it wouldn’t twist. “No, that was not locked before…”

“Forget it.” Allison urged the redhead. “We need to get Scott, Isaac, and Boyd out of here.”

Zaida was about to agree when a loud yet slightly muffled buzzing filled the air. Lydia looked to them all as if checking for their reactions. “...I'm not the only one who heard that, am I?”

“No, you’re not,” Zaida assured her with a shake of her head.

“It sounds like someone turned the handsaw on.” Allison identified the noise and Stiles came lunging closer, staring at the door handle.

“Handsaw?” He repeated exasperatedly.

“Shit, we need to get inside!” Zaida cursed and tried the knob herself, only to confirm it was indeed locked. A large hand gripped her waist and tugged her away from the structure and she looked up to see Stiles kicking the door repeatedly until the flimsy lock gave way and the door burst open. He was the first to rush inside but Zaida swiftly followed, freezing in her tracks when saw Ethan standing in the middle of the room with the jagged blade of the handsaw hovering over his bare stomach.

“Hey, no! Ethan, don't!” Stiles yelled at the alpha and wasted no time in rushing forward and grasping the running machine, trying to wrestle it from their classmate’s grip.

On her way to help, the toe of Zaida’s shoe snagged on something that pulled tight and sent her sprawling across the floor. She managed to prop herself up enough to look back and see that what she had tripped over was the power cord leading from the very handsaw Ethan was now grappling for. Stiles - by some miracle - was able to tear the machine away from the alpha but the boy lost his balance in the tussle. Stiles fell to the floor after the abandoned mechanical saw. Zaida’s heart jolted in panic. Her arm raises on instinct to send some sort of blast to propel the device away from the boy, despite Ethan being right there to witness it. To all of their relief, Lydia spotted the electrical cord when Zaida had tripped over it. She ripped it from the wall just as Stiles pushed his arms out, stopping himself from impaling his face upon the now-still blade. The boy’s nose was a singular inch away.

They did not have any time to celebrate the small victory, nor recover from the shock. Ethan’s claws extended from his finger-tips moving towards his stomach once more with agonised determination. Both Zaida and Stiles quickly pushed themselves to their feet and the boy gripped Ethan’s left arm whilst Zaida and Allison clutched his right. It took the strength of all three of them to create a gap between Ethan’s claws and his body, but the boy jerked away from them, sending him tumbling backwards into a space heater with a loud howl of pain. The boy lay panting on the ground for a moment and he seemed to be entirely unaware of his surroundings when he finally scrambled up.

“What just happened?” He asked, but did not stick around long enough for them to answer, pushing past them and darting out the doorway.

“I hate this place,” Zaida complained as once again they were traveling towards the staircase bridging between the upper and ground levels.

“Ethan!” Stiles called out the alpha as they followed, but he was already halfway down the metal stairs, buttoning up his shirt as he went.

“Well, if the Darach is behind this, that kind of supports our Dark Druid versus Alpha Pack theory.” Zaida mumbled under her breath as she tried to keep up. “Whoever it was went for Ethan first.”

“Didn't you hear what I just said? I don't know how I got there, or what I was doing.” The boy dismissed them, knowing they were about to start questioning him as he reached the floor.

“Okay, you could be a little more helpful, you know? We did just save your life.” Stiles scoffed bitterly.

“And you probably shouldn't have.” The boy snapped, looking back to cast a pointed glance at Zaida. He then quickened his pace, leaving the rest of them behind in his wake, once again in that eerily empty parking lot.

What had Ethan meant? Was that a threat? Had they deduced the connection between her and Xander? Had they caught him? Was he already dead?

Knock, Knock, Knock!

“What now?” Lydia huffed.

Had they realised Xander had tricked them into thinking he was the Naiad, instead of her? Were they coming for her next? Zaida’s heart thundered in her chest, beating against the bars of her ribcage in an attempt to escape. She wanted to run - all the way back to Beacon Hills, if she had to - to find Xander.

Knock! Knock! Knock!

“I'll find Scott - you guys grab Isaac and Boyd. The best thing we can do is get them out of this place.” Allison shook her head and scurried off without so much as a confirming nod in her haste. That ravenous monster of guilt stirred from its partial slumber, razor sharp teeth gnawing once more at her stomach - raking across the soft flesh of her insides painfully.

KNOCK, KNOCK, KNOCK.

She couldn’t believe how stupid she had been. How powerless. How useless. She could have easily died last night. Deucalion could have accomplished it easily, she was sure. It would have taken less than a second and her life would have ended. Her entire existence - the sum of sixteen years worth of life - would have been erased without so much as a wisp of a breath. Would Xander last much longer? Or should she be wondering if he had lasted much longer?

KNOCK. KNOCK. KNOCK!

Xander could be dead - dead and gone and buried, just like their parents - and it would be all because of her. All Zaida’s fault. If she had died last night he wouldn’t be running, or fighting, or dead right now while she still got to breathe and live. He didn’t deserve it. It was meant to be her fate, not his. The asphalt beneath her shoes faded away. As did the flickering lights of the neon sign above them. In fact, everything tangible seemed to disintegrate. She didn’t care. It didn’t mean anything. Nothing meant anything, because what she had done meant everything.

“Zaida? Are you okay?” Lydia asked, but Zaida could barely hear her over the infernal sound echoing through the halls of her mind.

KNOCK. KNOCK! KNOCK!

“Oh, shit!” Stiles swore - his words lost to that deep thumping.

Zaida could almost envision Xander now - Deucalion’s claws ripping him open, just like their mother. Wet muscle ripping…dripping. She could almost hear him screaming. He could be dying or dead and she was here. She was here, unable to do anything to help him.

“It’s not as though you could do anything to help, even if you were here." He chuckled darkly from somewhere deep within her mind. It was a twisted sound, almost inhumane.

He was right, of course. She was powerless against Deucalion. Useless. Worthless. Her being there wouldn't really change anything. Even if she were to disappear right now, the future would be the same without her. There would be no cosmic difference - no butterfly effect. She’d simply be gone. Maybe that would be better for her. Better for everyone.

KNOCK! KNOCK! KNOCK!

She briefly registered a coldness brushing against her skin, seeping inwards, chilling her blood and freezing her bones, but the feeling was gone as quickly as it came. Come, and gone, and forgotten, just like she would be. Just like she should be.

A wave of anxiety rolled over her, thrusting her about in the undercurrent. She felt as though she was drowning. She was scared - no , she was terrified. Terrified of losing someone. Of watching them slip away in front of her eyes. But still, in those murky depths beneath the rough surface there was a light. It shouldn't make sense, but somehow it did. Somehow, she knew that the beams of light streaming from below - the becoming warmth that came with it - were calling her. Like a moth to a flame, she was drawn to it, until that light darkened and blurred and streamed with colours. Blue and red. Neon colours that glinted back up at her from the wet asphalt of a parking lot.

The parking lot of the Glen Capri, where she was standing with the handle of a knife gripped in her hands, a larger and stronger pair laid over them. Those hands fought against her with an unexpected force. The light reflected off the metal blade that was digging into her lower chest, angled towards her heart. The sharp tip had already disappeared into the skin, and a single drip of crimson trailed down to the waistband of her pants. With a gasp her numb hands finally awoke, tingling with pins and needles as she loosened her grip. The sound of metal clattering to the ground rang in her ears. She looked up and into softening amber eyes. Zaida didn’t completely know what had happened, but she knew what had saved her. She knew it had been hope - his hope - that had pulled her back from the consuming darkness. Once again, Stiles had managed to find his way in. It was his presence in her mind that had taken over, pushing everything else out.

“Oh, thank God,” The boy’s voice was shaky as he breathed a sigh of relief and pushed her loose tendrils of dark hair back from her face, then moving to cradle her cheeks with both hands. His analytical gaze scanned her eyes for a few moments before deciding she was back from wherever her consciousness had disappeared to.

He had turned his back on her for only a moment when he’d heard Lydia’s gasp and whirled to see the raven-haired girl with a far-away haze in her usually sharp hazel eyes, the dagger Xander had bought her digging into her chest just between her lower ribs. It was positioned perfectly to slip between the bones, on the exact angle that would surely enough penetrate her heart. He’d tried tugging the knife from her vice-like grip, but the girl was deceptively strong. Silent tears had flowed down her cheeks as Lydia had begged her to stop and he had called her name, desperately trying to break her out of her trance.

“Stiles, I-” Zaida fumbled over her words, not knowing quite what to say to him as he wiped the moisture from her face. He didn’t bother with words anymore, knowing that wasn’t what she needed. He simply drew her into a tight hug, and the warmth of his body against her ice-cold skin was a formidable comfort. She immediately missed the sensation when he let her go, but Lydia quickly replaced him, squeezing her tightly.

“Oh God, Zaida! I thought…” Lydia’s own tears wet Zaida’s shoulder, though the brunette didn’t mind. “Are you…?”

“I’m fine. Isaac and Boyd.” Zaida remembered what they had been doing before her mind had spirraled, and she cleared her throat to stave off the hoarse quality that greeted her. It was slightly hazy, but she could remember everything that had happened in-between then and now - all the things she had thought and everything she had felt. But she suddenly no longer felt like that - no longer saw the sense in the action that she was about to carry through with merely moments ago. Whatever had happened, she didn’t want to talk about it. Not right now - maybe not ever. She’d let them think she couldn’t remember, just like Ethan. “We need to split up and find them.”

“Oh no,” Stiles shook his head defiantly, those amber eyes not leaving her form. “We are not splitting up. There’s no way in hell that I’m letting you out of my sight. Either of you.”

“I’m fine,” Lydia promised, assuring them both of her mental state.

“Are you?” Stiles’ eyes narrowed in questioning, though there was an assessing quality to the way he stared at the girl.

“What? Why are you looking at me like that?” The redhead sighed.

“Oh, no, I w-” The boy began to backtrack, but Lydia shot him a stern look with the tilt of her head and he gave in. “All right, Lydia. I didn't want to say anything, but this? Everything we're going through? We've kind of been through something like this before.”

Zaida blinked slowly at his words, knowing exactly what he was about to accuse the girl of. For starters, if Lydia truly was being controlled - by Peter, or the Darach themself - letting her know that seemed counter-intuitive. What if the Darach had access to that information? Revealing their suspicions might only place them all in further danger and give up any leverage that they might have over the situation. She wanted to tell him that this was neither the place, nor time for this, but it was already too late. Lydia was aware something was up, and she would not stop until she got the answers she wanted.

“What do you mean?” Lines of confusion creased in Lydia’s forehead as she struggled to remember a time when anything even remotely similar had happened to them. Of course, she wouldn’t remember because at the time she’d been in a trance of her own. “When?”

“Your birthday party...the night you poisoned everyone with wolfsbane.” Stiles explained grimly, and Lydia’s face immediately fell. The girl turned on her heel and stalked away from the boy. Where she was headed, Zaida wasn’t sure, but she hurried after her friend anyway. “Lydia, I'm sorry, okay? Look, I didn't mean that you're trying to kill people, okay? I just...I just meant that, maybe...maybe you're somehow involved in getting people to kill themselves, you know?”

“Stiles!” Zaida slapped the boy on the back of his arm in admonishment, shooting a glare at him.

“...Which, now that I say that out loud, it just sounds really terrible, so I'm just going to stop talking…” The boy winced and Lydia held up her hand to silence him as her gait slowed to a stop, and she crouched over a metal grate.

“Guys...do you hear that?” The redhead asked, her ears perking up. Zaida listened but she couldn’t hear anything other than the chirping of crickets and the faint buzzing of that neon sign.

“What?” Stiles focused his laser-like attention on the girl. Zaida had seen her do this earlier, but for Stiles, it was the first time. “Lydia, what do you hear?”

Knock, Knock, Knock!

“A baby crying…” Lydia answered in a hushed tone, and Zaida locked herself off from her own mind as something sinister began knocking once more. She barricaded those mental doors until the sound became bearable. “I hear...I hear water running.”

“The grate must lead to the pipes - the water system.” Zaida deduced.

“She's drowning the baby!” Lydia sobbed in a panic and jumped to her feet with a newfound sense of urgency. “Someone's drowning!”

“Someone’s drowning? Like now? Now, someone’s drowning?” Stiles stumbled over his words frantically.

Zaida didn’t waste time questioning what Lydia had said, or how she had reached that conclusion. She simply closed her eyes, retreating into her mind to listen for a sign or a hint as to who was in trouble.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

She ignored the slow and steady knocking and listened further, venturing down that corridor before stopping in front of a heavy dark-wood door she’d never paid attention to before. This time though…this time she could hear water rushing behind it.

“It’s not Scott,” She reopened her eyes. “Or Isaac. It has to be Boyd.”

“Where’s Boyd’s room?” Stiles asked, eyes widening in alarm, but Zaida was already leading the way, having seen him and Isaac enter when they’d first arrived.

“It’s here.” She stated, throwing open the unlocked door. The room was dark and seemingly empty, the only light shining from the open bathroom doorway. They found Boyd’s large frame crammed into the small bathtub, the tap still running and his legs hanging outside of the rim at the knee. Lying on his chest was a large and heavy metal safe that he must have ripped out of the motel cupboards. Stiles closed the tap and reached inside for the plug, wetting his jacket sleeve up to his bicep.

“He blocked it. He blocked the drain with something, I can't get to it.” The boy withdrew his arm in defeat.

“What do we do?” Lydia’s voice was trembling. “Zaida, can’t you …do your thing?”

“I can try,” The brunette nodded and reached out her hand, feeling out with prodding fingers for that familiar buzz of energy, but the feeling was dulled by her fatigue. Fighting off those echoes of the dead that battled to enter her mind all night had drained her power. It was still draining her power. The water rippled and shook, but otherwise did not budge.

“Screw this,” She swore in frustration and abandoned the weak connection, pushing past both Stiles and Lydia to lean over the tub. Boyd seemed so peaceful inside, his eyes closed and his facial muscles relaxed as his arms were wrapped around that safe. Was that how she had looked when she’d-? No, she forced herself to stop thinking about it.

“Maybe I can…” Zaida mumbled and reached in to grip the safe, lifting with all of her strength. The heavy object barely budged despite her increased strength. She was no match to a werewolf of his size and stature, and after her efforts proved fruitless she fell back onto the floor where Lydia joined her. “I can’t. He’s still holding onto it.”

“It’s okay,” Stiles reassured her with a squeeze to her shoulder, trying to show his support for her efforts. It meant little when time was ticking almost tangibly inside Zaida’s head with that steady knock, knock, knock.

“Is he dead?” The redhead asked worriedly. “How long can a werewolf stay underwater?”

“You think I know that?” Stiles stepped back in frustration, hissing in pain as his shoulder bumped into the inbuilt wall-heater.

“Careful,” Zaida warned but Stiles was too deep in thought to listen.

“Wait a sec - the heater. Heater. Ethan came out of it when he touched the heater.” The boy snapped his fingers. “It's heat - heat, fire...Heat does it, all right? We need something...We need fire.”

“...He's underwater.” Lydia pointed out.

“Yeah, I'm aware of that.” Stiles shot back irritably.

“Wait, wait - the bus! On the bus, they'll have emergency road flares.” Lydia’s posture straightened as her green eyes lit up with the idea. “They have their own oxidisers. They can burn underwater.”

“Are you serious?” Stiles stared at her blankly for a moment.

“Yes! Go!” The redhead urged him impatiently and the boy hurried out of the room with heavy footfalls. Lydia got up and paced up and down whilst Zaida kept attempting to reach out with her abilities, sticking her hands below the surface. The water trembled once more, but did not move other than that, much to Zaida’s frustration and disappointment. The temperature remained cold as well, despite her efforts to boil it. It was no use - she couldn’t shut off her telempathy and use her hydrokinesis at the same time. Not in the state she was currently in.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

“Wait a minute,” Zaida climbed to her feet when she remembered who else was supposed to be in this room. “Where’s Isaac?”

She watched as the redhead shifted her pacing from the bathroom to the bedroom, clasping her hands together nervously as they awaited Stiles’ return. “Maybe he’s with Scott or Allison?” The redhead offered hopefully and Zaida pursed her lips to prevent herself from saying anything too grim. With their luck, she sincerely doubted that.

“What are you doing?” The brunette’s brows furrowed as Lydia stared at one of the beds, slowly kneeling and lifting the skirt to check beneath it, jerking backwards with a loud gasp. “What? Did you see something?”

“Issac!” The redhead nodded, stepping backwards until she crashed right into the figure entering the room with another small start.

“I got 'em. Stiles was standing there holding up two red flares that were far larger than Zaida had expected. “There was one more, but I thought I’d save it - just in case, you know?”

“What are you waiting for? Get in here!” She called out to the boy from beside the tub.

“What do I do? How do I do this?” His long fingers fumbled over one of the long red sticks, trying to figure out how it worked.

“The cap - it's like a match. The cap's a match.” Lydia explained but the boy continued to flounder for a few moments. “Stiles!”

“Yeah, I'm trying…” The boy muttered impatiently, and finally its cap sparked and the flare lit up a vibrant red. He shoved it into the water and as the room was illuminated in red, Boyd’s golden eyes shot open. With newfound strength, the beta launched the safe off of his body and rose from the water with his teeth bared in a loud growl.

“Boyd?” Zaida slowly approached the boy who was soaking wet and drenching the tiled floor in water as he stood. She reached out tentatively to place a hand on his shoulder. Somehow she knew that what she had been feeling earlier were his emotions translated into her own situation. “It wasn’t your fault.” That was all she said, and for the first time ever, Boyd did not look at her with a deadpan expression. His gaze softened in a silent appreciation.

When she pulled away, Stiles hand moved to rest on the small of her back in a comforting gesture, his intelligent eyes assessing her curiously, no doubt wondering how she’d known what to say. The last thing she wanted to do was explain herself right now, so instead she took a flare from his hand and struck the tip with the cap, sparking a light.

“Isaac,” She cooed gently and thrust the glowing flare beneath the bed, hearing the boy howl and seeing him scramble out from under the structure, cowering in the corner of the room with glowing yellow eyes. “Are you okay?”

“...Zaida?” The boy looked at her with a confused expression. “What happened?”

“It doesn’t matter now - you’re alright now,” She comforted, pulling him to his feet. “Aren’t you?”

“He’ll be fine,” Stiles assured her, pulling her away from the beta gently and leading her out of the motel room. “We need to find Scott.”

Isaac followed after them, and as did Lydia. For a moment, Zaida thought the steady beat was coming from her mind once more, but she was proven wrong when Allison came bounding down the metal staircase, her boots crunching over the shattered glass of the vending machine scattered over the floor. “I can't find Scott anywhere.” She answered their questioning expressions.

“It's happening to him, too, isn't it?” Stiles’ foot tapped nervously against the asphalt.

“What’s happening?” Isaac questioned, his eyes narrowing at Stiles.

“There’s something wrong with this place…” Zaida tried to explain in as simple terms as possible. “It gets to people, and it’s getting to all of you - all the werewolves.”

“Didn't you say there was another flare on the bus?” Lydia turned to Stiles.

“Yeah, I'll get it.” Stiles nodded, but as they turned towards the vehicle they noticed an eerie red glow was already playing across the yellow exterior of the bus, the shadow of a figure standing in the empty parking lot.

“Three guesses as to who that is,” Zaida mumbled sarcastically as dread weighed her heart down into her stomach.

“Scott...?” Allison spoke softly as they approached him warily, all noticing the way he was dripping wet and standing in a pool of fluid, a red jerrycan abandoned on the ground. Gasoline. “Scott…”

“There's no hope.” The boy spoke defeatedly, the flare clutched in his hand as smoke swirled around him.

“What do you mean, Scott? There's always hope.” Allison encouraged him gently, trying to hold back her own tears of fear.

“Not for me…” The boy shook his head. “Not for Derek…”

“Derek wasn't your fault.” The huntress continued, and they all thought it best to let her speak. Allison had a better chance than most of them when it came to getting through to Scott. “You know Derek wasn't your fault.”

“Every time I try to fight back, it just gets worse. People keep getting hurt. People keep getting killed.” The werewolf was not swayed by his ex-lover and this time Stiles stepped forward, slowly placing one sneaker-clad foot in front of the other.

“Scott, listen to me, okay? This isn't you, all right? This is someone inside your head, telling you to do this. Okay? Now-” The boy managed to get closer without Scott loosening his grip on that lit flare in his fist.

“What if it isn't?” Scott interjected, breathing heavily now and sniffing between quiet sobs. “What if it is just me? What if doing this is actually the best thing that I could do for everyone else?”

“Scott, what about the people who love you? Allison, Stiles, me, your Mom...” Zaida whispered, recognising exactly how he felt in this current moment. “We need you, Scott.”

“You don’t need me. You need the werewolf. It all started that night - the night I got bitten. You remember the way it was before that?” He looked at Stiles with teary brown eyes. “You and me, we were...we were...we were nothing. We weren't popular. We weren't good at lacrosse. We weren't important. We were no one. Maybe I should just be no one again - no one at all.”

That hand that gripped the flare moved, ever so slightly, but it was enough to send them all into a silent panic. “Scott, just listen to me, okay? You're not no one. Okay? You're someone.” Stiles’ tongue darted out to wet his dry lips as he took a few more slow and calculated steps forward as though trying not to startle a skittish animal, crossing the line over into the puddle of gasoline.

“You're- Scott, you're my best friend. Okay? And I need you. Scott, you're my brother, all right? So... So, if you're gonna do this, then…” Stiles inched closer, wrapping his long fingers around the base of the flare, over Scott’s own hands. Zaida held back a gasp, her hands shaking as her eyes were locked onto the boys in front of her, praying that they would be okay. “I think you're just gonna have to take me with you.”

Scott’s movements stilled at his best friend’s heartfelt speech, and he went motionless long enough for Stiles to pull the flare from his grasp and toss it a safe distance away. They all audibly sighed with relief. Zaida wiped the tears that had trailed down her cheeks and were dripping from her jaw. At this point almost all of them were crying. A sudden gust of wind blew her loose tendrils of hair into her eyes, and her fingers went to push them away only for her to see that flare - still alight - as it rolled over the asphalt, headed straight for the slowly expanding gasoline puddle that reflect the colours of the neon sign.

“NO!” Lydia shrieked - the first to be spurred into action. She sprinted straight for the two boys, tackling them to the ground as Allison lunged away.

Zaida was frozen in place, her mind repeating Stiles’ name like a chant. Would he be okay? Would he make it in time? What about the others - Lydia, Scott, Allison…? A wall of burning fire erupted in front of her, the wave of heat washing over her almost painfully until Isaac flung his arms around her and pulled her away. He shielded her with his body and she hid her face in his chest. When the flames crackled and popped into suffocation, Isaac released her and her stiff form sagged when she saw all of her friends were unharmed and climbing to their feet, all looking around to check if everyone was okay. Her eyes made contact with Stiles’ and in that moment it took all of her strength and willpower to not run into his arms. Isaac’s arm was still around her protectively as he still stared at where Scott and Stiles had just been standing, now just a scorched section of ground.

“Stiles…?” Scott’s face was lined with confusion as he looked at his best friend, and Stiles gripped him by his shoulders, pulling him into a bone crushing hug.

“You’re okay, buddy. You’re alright.” He repeated, unsure if it was meant to be assuring Scott or himself at this point. His nerves were shot and his body shook with anxiety. Five things.

“Here’s your bag,” Stiles passed Zaida her duffel which he and Scott had retrieved from their room. They had all gathered their things and retreated to the bus, breaking in to spend the remainder of the night - or rather, the morning - as far away from the Motel as they could get.

“Thanks,” She pursed her lips into a tight smile and hiked the crossbody strap over her shoulder but before she could turn from him he sent her an analytical look. “Spit it out, Stilinski. What are you thinking?”

“Nothing, just…” For a moment he seemed as though he would hide it from her, but at her stern glare he thought better of it. “Well, you’re not a werewolf, and after Ethan, Boyd, and Scott…you make four, not three.”

“What’s your point?” She arched a brow at him challengingly, already knowing exactly where he was going with this. The others had already clambered onto the bus, leaving just the two of them to speak freely outside.

“Either it was never the Darach and we were wrong, or…you just weren't supposed to be a sacrifice.” He stated. “Meaning…you remember exactly what happened. In the bathroom, you told Boyd that it wasn’t his fault, and I saw his face. You knew exactly what to say, because you felt it too.”

“Of course I felt it,” She brushed his concern off defensively with an exaggerated roll of her eyes. “That’s kind of what I do, Stiles. Telempath, remember?”

“You think what happened with Xander and Deucalion was your fault.” He continued to prod her, refusing to accept her deference as an answer.

“It was my fault,” Zaida snapped bitterly, venom in her words.

“Xander wouldn’t have taken the fall for you if it wasn’t what he wanted to do. He dedicated himself to protecting you. He chose that. You didn’t.” The boy justified in an attempt to alleviate her guilt.

“It doesn’t matter,” She shook her head defiantly. “He wouldn’t have needed to protect me if I hadn’t run head on into danger like a cocky idiot. He warned me that I wouldn’t be able to face the alphas, and he was right. If I had just listened to him, he’d still be home and Deucalion would still be in the dark.”

“If you hadn’t shown up, it might not have just been Derek who didn’t walk out of that mall. Scott and Isaac might be dead too. Or Boyd, or Cora.” Stiles tried to show her the positives but she simply snorted.

“If Allison hadn’t shown up, then maybe things would have gone worse. I didn’t do anything but mess up an assassination attempt that got my brother caught.” Zaida scoffed.

“So you made one mistake! We’re still human. I make mistakes all the time, yet you never hold that against me?” He switched to a different approach this time.

“Your mistakes consist of a bad wardrobe and poor breakfast choices. Mine might get my brother killed.” Zaida crossed her arms over her chest pointedly. She watched as his lips struggled for words and then sighed at him in pity. “Look, I appreciate you trying to make me feel better, but nothing that you can say is going to make this okay.”

“Then what will make it okay?” He asked, wordlessly offering his assistance once more. Time and time again this boy went to the mat for her, but this time there was nothing either of them could do but wait.

“It’ll be okay when Xander comes home.” She stated plainly and climbed onto the bus, leaving both him and the conversation behind. Her boots thudded heavily through the center aisle and when she spotted Issac a few rows in front of Allison and Lydia with his feet propped up on the empty seat beside him, she smirked.

“Payback’s a bitch,” Zaida knocked his legs to the floor and plonked herself down beside him, sending him a mischievous wink when he glared at her.

“Oh, is that what they call you now?” He shot right back, earning a small smile in return. “...So about what you saw-”

“It’s okay.” She cut him off instantly, knowing he was referring to the traumatised state they’d found him in under his motel bed. “You don’t need to explain. I get it.”

“You too, huh?” He tilted his head at her, eyes lowering to where her white top was stained with her own blood.

“Yeah, me too.” She nodded grimly, unwilling to expand upon anything beyond that.

Stiles tried to sleep - he really did - but he couldn't help it when his eyes kept gravitating towards Zaida with the pull of a black hole. The girl had drifted off with her head against Isaac’s arm, the werewolf’s mop of unruly hair leaning atop her own. Something about the sight twisted his stomach uncomfortably. He had never trusted Isaac - he still didn’t. But Zaida? He trusted Zaida with his life. So the fact that she hadn’t trusted him enough to open up about how she was feeling? It stung. Hard.

Watching her face contort with such anguish as she took the knife her brother had gifted her to her own flesh had scared him, far more than he ever would have expected it to. Just the thought that he might not be strong enough - that he might not be able to pull the dagger away in time - was enough to send his thoughts into a worried frenzy. Would she have healed from a knife to the heart? Would she have stopped before it got that deep? There were so many ‘what if’s’ that still haunted him. If things had gone even just the smallest bit differently, would the dark-haired girl still be sitting with them in this bus right now?

When he shifted in his seat for what might as well have been the hundredth time, Scott let out a heavy and impatient breath from beside him, his brown eyes opening to scold his best friend. “You know she isn’t going to spontaneously combust in her sleep, right?” The wolf whispered in a hoarse voice. “And you staring at her wouldn’t change anything even if was going to suddenly explode.”

“Sorry,” Stiles muttered an apology for waking his best friend and settled further into his seat. However, no matter how hard he fought to keep his own eyes shut, he found himself opening them again, finding her once more in the moon-lit darkness. He wondered what she was dreaming of - if it was a peaceful escape or if he was being tortured by her guilt. “You think she’s gonna be okay?”

Scott forced his tired eyes open to look at Stiles again. “Sorry I know,” He winced. “It’s just…you didn’t see her tonight. I just want her to be alright.”

“I know you do, Stiles. We all do.” Scott softened at the boy’s expression of vulnerability.

“I don’t get what she sees in him, you know?” Stiles shook his head bitterly, mind traveling once more to the werewolf Zaida was leaning against. “He even tried to kill her once.”

“Do you think that maybe the reason you hate Isaac so much is because you’re jealous?” Scott prompted the boy with a raised brow.

“Jealous?” Stiles scoffed. “Why would I be jealous of a lousy beta with daddy issues and an affinity for ugly sweaters and neck scarves?”

“Not jealous of him,” Scott rolled his eyes. “Jealous that he’s close with Zaida - that they dated.”

“Okay, now you’ve lost me, Scotty.” Stiles chuckled darkly.

“Think about it. Look at them right now. How do you feel when you see them together?” The werewolf nodded towards the sleeping duo and Stiles followed his gaze. That uncomfortable twisting began deep in his stomach once more.

“I don’t know, like I’m going to throw up?” He drawled sarcastically.

“Be serious, Stiles.” Scott sighed and sat up a bit straighter in his chair, staring at his friend with uncharacteristically analytical eyes. “How do you feel?”

“...Uncomfortable, I guess. Worried? Like I wanna protect her? Frustrated?” He tried to explain himself, somewhat unsure of his own emotions.

“Now think about Lydia and Aiden together. How do you feel now?” Scott continued, and though Stiles couldn’t see the sense in it, he did envision the redhead with the alpha twin.

“Like for a smart girl, she’s really stupid.” Stiles snorted. Scott waited for a moment to really let the scenario sink in, searching for any changes in his friend’s chemosignals. None came.

“Now ask yourself why you’d be jealous of Zaida and Isaac, but not jealous of Lydia and Aiden.” The werewolf instructed, watching the boy closely.

“Because Zaida’s better than that?” Stiles blurted the first thought that came to his mind. He was used to Lydia latching onto bad boys or jocks, or jerks, or all three. Sure, it used to bother him, but now he didn’t find himself caring as much - or at all. But Zaida was different. Zaida knew better, could do better, deserved better.

“Because you like her,” Scott corrected.

“Obviously I like her.” The boy rolled his eyes, the meaning going completely over his head. “She’s smart, and funny, and a total pain in the ass sometimes, but it’s nice to have a challenge. Who wouldn’t like her? She’s like my best friend - second to you of course.”

“No, Stiles,” Scott shook his head in disbelief. “You like her. Like, like-like her.”

“What?!” Stiles’ head snapped towards the beta so fast he thought he’d gotten whiplash for a moment. “No, but Lydia-”

“You like Zaida, Stiles!” The werewolf groaned, cutting his friend off before he could embarrass himself any further. “You know her better than any of us! You two get along like a house on fire, you’re jealous of her and Isaac, you freak out whenever she’s in danger and get all protective, you go ballistic when she’s being careless about her safety, you’re always staring at her, or finding some excuse to touch her, you won’t shut up about her…! Come on, dude, just admit it!”

“Plus, I can smell your chemosignals.” Scott added as an afterthought. Stiles followed along as his best friend listed all of the things he’d been overlooking for the past few months, and he couldn’t find a single fault in any of it. It was all true, yet he’d never considered that somewhere along the way his crush on Lydia had drifted into nonexistence and his feelings for Zaida had grown and changed into something far more than the friendship they’d begun with.

“Oh my God.” Stiles’ eyes widened comically large. “I like her.”

“I know.” Scott let out a long and deep breath, the corners of his mouth tilting upwards slightly in amusement.

“I like Zaida!” The boy’s mouth opened and closed like a koi fish in his state of utter shock. How he could be so intelligent and yet so completely unaware confounded Scott.

“I know,” The werewolf repeated. “And if you say it any louder, everyone in this bus is going to know as well.”

“Sorry,” Stiles winced in apology, his mind shifting into overdrive. The warmth in his chest whenever he looked at her, the ache that replaced it when she looked at Isaac…The way his breath caught in his throat when his fingertips brushed her skin or hair, or how seeing her in that sheer, soaking wet sundress had nigh-on stopped his heart…How even just the thought of her getting hurt drove him crazy, and how her voice soothed his very soul.

His feelings had been there all along, lying hidden in plain sight, just below the surface. What was worse was now that he knew, he could easily pin-point the exact moment it had happened - the point where everything had turned on its head. It was the night of the Lacrosse final when she had drawn him into a tight hug in the locker room that something had shifted. That night when he’d been kidnapped and he’d returned home to find her waiting for him. The night when the two of them had lied on his bed and talked until their eyelids grew heavy. He’d known he’d cared about her long before that, but that was the night he started to look at her in a different way without ever realising.

If he wasn’t getting any sleep before, he certainly wasn’t going to now. He liked Zaida. He, Stiles Stilinski, liked Zaida Callis. His face broke into a wide and beaming smile.

Come morning, Zaida’s neck was stiff from the sharp angle she’d had it bent in whilst sleeping. It was the sunlight streaming through the uncovered bus windows that woke her up, her lashes flickering as she attempted to bat away the glare. Her whole body was sore, muscles aching from the long night before. Even her mind hurt from the strain of the mental battle she had fought for hours. What she needed was a long, hot bath, and a greasy burger with equally-greasy loaded fries. What she got instead, was the sight of Coach Finstock’s unimpressed scowl as he pulled himself up the entry stairs and sauntered down the centre aisle of the bus, students already filing in and filling seats behind him.

“I don't want to know. I really don't want to know.” The man shook his head tiredly. “But, in case you missed the announcement, the meet's canceled, so we're heading home. Pack it in. Pack it in!”

“Thank God!” Zaida groaned in sweet relief. She so did not want to be moving at all today. Or maybe for the next few days. The brunette struggled to try and find a comfortable enough position for the first leg of their five-hour drive back into Beacon Hills when her attention was snagged by the alpha twin making a beeline straight for Scott and Stiles. She twisted in her seat, elbow digging sharply into Isaac’s side.

“Oww, is that the ‘thank you’ I get for being your human pillow all night?” He grumbled his complaints but her sharp stare instantly woke him up. “What is it?”

“Just listen and tell me what they’re saying,” She whispered to him, tilting her head in the direction of the strange meeting occurring a few rows behind them.

“Ethan’s saying Scott saved his life last night - Stiles begs to differ. He’s offering information in exchange,” Isaac reported, pausing to listen as the conversation went on, his jaw went slack and his eyes brightened in surprise and hope. “They think Derek’s still alive, but Ennis didn’t make it. It means Derek will have to replace him, or they’ll finish the job.”

“By ‘replace him’, they mean slaughter his own pack.” Zaida muttered bitterly. “How barbaric.”

“Stiles agrees with you,” Isaac snorted.

“Coach, can I see your whistle for a second?” Lydia’s voice chirped up and Zaida peered over the seats to see the girl stand up and pull the small metal object from where it was hanging on a lanyard around Finstock’s neck.

“What's that? Hey, Eth-” The man instantly got distracted. “I'm gonna need that back. Ethan…”

“What are they saying now?” Zaida elbowed Isaac once more as the redhead sat back down, disappearing from her view. The werewolf glared at her in annoyance but when his ears perked up she knew he was listening for her.

“Coach’s whistle was full of Wolfsbane.” Isaac explained grimly. “Every time he blew it, we all inhaled it. We were poisoned, that’s how the Darach got in our heads.”

“Hey, hey, hey, hey!” Coach yelled after Stiles angrily as the boy opened the window and launched the whistle outside just as the bus’ engine revved to life and they pulled out of the parking lot. “Stilinski! You owe me a whistle!”

[anamelessfool]

Fanfic writer emoji ask: 🎢 ⛔️ 👀

Hello!

🎢

So much of this answer is all one fic, I think. The "wildest rides" are all my ghoul fics, I think, since my ghouls go in and out of reality. The things I write for my ghouls are surreal dreamscapes which have been fun.

Violence and Gentleness is right now a wild ride, even though the characters currently are back home and apparently "safe." Just wait hehe

The more Terzo messes around with Omega and ghouls the weirder his stories are going to become.

⛔

My first fanfic I published on AO3 I scrapped. I realized I couldn't sustain a first person perspective and it just wasn't my favorite narrative voice. Also it was just me getting horny about Terzo without much plot. The basic plot and characters are going to stay the same when I rewrite it.

👀

Which leads me into yes, the next major part on this "Emeritus Family" saga after V&G is "Lead the Way Into The Void" which is set in Terzo's final months before being forcibly removed as Papa.

Lead The Way Into The Void

Terzo x Omega x OC

Reached out a hand to touch your face...You're slowly disappearing from my view….. Reached out a hand to try again... I'm floating in a beam of light with you… And I ran, I ran so far away… (I couldn't get away)

An artist known as Charity Case throws her whole rotten life away one night, wandering up to the doors of some out there church. Now she's found herself believing all the stories of magic and horror she was taught to forget. Commissioned to paint the portrait of Papa Emeritus III, Known as Terzo, she soon realizes she's not the only one in the Satanic Church of the Void attempting an escape.

It's only going to get more bizarre more Eldritch horror from here on out. Esp in the next chapter of Primo's story.

Like, remember this? Weiss in the motel cuck chair? (I mean, if you read this, it's ok if you haven't!.....)

“Too much power, in one. Link to Void will be unstable. Bad things happen. Bad…things…happen.” The way the ghoul emphasized things with a jerk of his head implied something more. Some sort of creature, an entity. “More than a ghoul…” “More?” It seemed obvious but Primo hadn't truly thought about it. A completely different world would have completely different inhabitants. Unknown things, creeping through the dark. “There is more in the Void. Not ghoul. Unable to leave. Mother Imperator holds the keys to the door. Helps Papa Emeritus. Jocasta…” He grabbed his throat and mimed pulling some unseen thing out. “Myself, part of her. I am Jocasta. I look human because Jocasta is human. Ghouls are on a leash. Some things are not on a leash.” “Things,” Primo breathed. “What sorts of things…” Weiss had not blinked as he stared into Primo across from his uncomfortable chair. “Limitless. Limitless limitless limitless. And they want to leave. They want to be here. On Earth.”

Emoji fanfic writer ask game link here!

[cybersp1d3r]

@rubbarband

Natalie had simply been playing with her powers in her motel room. She never seemed to stay in one place for long so that meant she never really had friends to hang out with or anything to do but play with her powers and see what she could actually create. Deciding to do the typical mime thing of being trapped in a box she did just that. Fortunately and unfortunately as she was in her box it seemed like the entire universe opened up and brought her and the entirety of the motel someplace else, as well as trapping her in the box for the current moment somehow.

Eventually as she heard people searching through the building, a man walked into hers. Getting up from her seated position in her box she looked at him curiously before pressing her hand against the invisible construct before seeing if she could create something to get her out. Finally she tried creating an icepick to break out which worked, creating a shattering glass sound minus the shards. Natalie waved at him before holding out her hand to shake. It would take a few minutes but she knew her voice would come back since she wasn't using her powers.

[somethingusefulfromflorida]

If I had a nickel for every time someone has backhandedly called me fat in the last half hour, I would have three nickels.

It's 55°F (~13°C), and I think it feels really nice out so I'm wearing shorts and a t-shirt, but my boss, a customer, and the motel's handyman have all told me that they're freezing and I must not be able to feel it because...

My boss had the decency to stop herself mid-sentence, but she didn't apologize. The customer said that I had plenty of insulation and chuckled (I wanted to punch her fucking teeth in). The handyman barely speaks any English, but he asked if I was cold (¿tienes frío?), I said not really, so he put both his hands in front of him to mime a big belly and laughed.

The next person to say it is gonna be the last, because I will quit on the spot and go home. I don't need this shit.

[supercantaloupe]

Okay my fiddler thoughts:

• beautiful production. i love the subtleties throughout -- the russians speaking russian amongst themselves instead of yiddish, the way all the jewish characters mimed kissing the mezuzah anytime they entered/exited a building, the costuming (jews in black + white, russians with red accents, the girls and their husbands each with a matching blue/yellow/red accent). mwah

• motel was adorable he had a very gentle and sweet voice. also he's a good few inches shorter than tzeitel which is adorable and hilarious. "when did he get to be so tall" he didn't 💖

• tzeitel, hodel, and tevye could SING

• i still can't believe how uncrowded the theater was. the first row of the mezz was entirely empty (my mom and i moved up to the front row during intermission)

• conductor was wearing a kippah :) i like being able to spy on the orchestra in the back also even if i could only really see the accordion and conductor

• i swear to gd no one in the musical theater industry knows how to run sound anymore. this is an off broadway house, <500 seats, with an acoustic pit to boot. they don't need mics at ALL let alone ones that loud!! turn them down!!! if i have to wear earplugs to enjoy fiddler then you've done something WRONG

other than the sound, the show was wonderful. (it's fiddler! of course it's wonderful!) but even so it was well worth the trip to come see and i'm very glad i got up to do so during its limited revival

[zaybxdxmi]

RIZ AHMED, CIS MALE, HE/HIM – There goes ZAYAN BADAMI checking into the GOLDEN MOTEL. The THIRTY-EIGHT year old is a PARANORMAL INVESTIGATOR (CAMERAMAN) from TAMPA, FL. I think they are CEREBRAL, but I heard that they can also be SARDONIC. Hope they enjoy their stay!

tw: overbearing parent

Zayan Badami is the youngest of three children, the only boy of the bunch. From the day that he was born, Zay held the weight of his father’s expectations. It was the misfortune of having a father set in his ways with some old school thinking; his sisters were always bright and overachieving and yet... he was the son. Every bit of his life was under a microscope, evaluated on whether it was enough or not enough, a worth his time or a waste.

Zay had made it all the way until his junior year at college before he broke. In the middle of a biochemistry exam, he snapped the pencil in his hand in half before he stood up and left, leaving the incomplete midterm and puzzled classmates in his wake. His bio pre-med degree never finished. He sat on that knowledge, his exit from college, for over a month before finally telling his parents over what had been meant to be spring break. Naturally, they did not take it well. Zay suffered his father’s silence for two weeks until he forgot when asking for the remote. Then he was mad at himself, then mad all over again. Things are better but strained for certain.

While he never went back to school, he did go back to his apartment. He clung to what he could of that “college life,” still going to parties and getting turned away from frats. But he had to balance work, starting first as a mailroom clerk. He bounced around from job to job after that: Uber driver, overnight security, the occasional dog walker, plenty of others.

Photography had been a passion he hadn’t fully unlocked until his thirties. It was something he remembered liking, having gone through plenty of disposable cameras as a kid, also insistent to be the one in charge of taking the pictures on family vacations. It was on a whim that he picked one up from the thrift store. It was hobby that slowly became a side gig; there were plenty of families looking for holiday photoshoots. Hell, he’d even shot a cousin’s engagement photos. It wasn’t a career, yet, but it was something to help pay for those impulse purchases and keep his debt from growing.

Somewhere in all of that, him and his two friends got into ghost-hunting. Though, let it be known, Zay doesn’t believe in any of that. He’s very much the skeptical one and when he’s behind the camera, there’s often shots of the camera moving side to side, miming the way his head would shake. For him, there’s always an explanation. How many of these sightings could be zeroed down to lead poisoning? Carbon monoxide poisoning? Just a creaky ass house? Still. It was fun.

Zay always jumped at the chance to pack up and go. After all those years under his parent’s thumb and being the good child he was supposed to have been, he’s embraced being the black sheep and just wants to experience whatever he can. Give him the chance and he’ll think too much about the would have could have should have. So yea, maybe some days he is the one dragging you to go see the World’s Largest Mailbox or check out the abandoned theme park, Jazzland.

While not hesitating to pack up and leave Tampa, Zay had not been willing to leave behind his cat, Lars. He’s tried to hide him from the motel staff but lasted all of a few days before suffering the pet fee. A small price to pay for having his furry son along for the ride.

WANTED CONNECTIONS:

new friends

exes

fwb

one-night stand

do not get along

do they live next door? on the same floor?

someone willing to go on dumb side quests with him

went to college together

know his sisters?

maybe went to the same summer camp as kids?

interviewed you about historical stuff / ghost things

watch their paranormal show

more....

[multipleoccupancy]

Violet was finally moving at his pace when she paused to blink at him a few times, Theo just sat in his chair watching her calmly, not bothering to repress a little yawn but he did shuffle in his chair so he was able to stretch out and ease the tension where his wound was still healing. "Neither I guess." Theo mused thoughtfully, like a professor pondering an interesting question. "All that I remember is that I was pushed into a corner inside a house and I fell out the other side of it. It happened just like that but when I finally made contact with others again, turns out I had been gone a week." He turned a little more pensive, it was not something that was as easy to shake off as he was trying to convince himself of.

"I'm working things out about them slowly, I'm trying to understand how they find me or see me when they do." But time was an unknown thing, maybe for his small trip through that strange week he distorted it around him somehow? He pulled a face and shrugged, "I have no idea." Why they were after him but they turned up after that and he just felt that they were hunting him because of that incident.

"One came at me once while I was away in Utah, I was in a little motel and it came from where the floor meets the wall..." he let his mind drift back there for a moment, not quite reliving it but he did go quiet for a while, thinking it over. "Once they're through they're bound by our physics, no passing through corners and the like again, I guess unless they're going back. Anyway. I trapped it in the shower." Another pause before a deep inhale and some level of surprise that he had survived that encounter. "It got a hold of me, they have like a probiscis," he mimed the appendage with his finger next to his mouth. "It stuck it in my leg before I got it off me."

There was more to his tale that Theo simply didn't think to explain, how he dealt with it once he trapped it, what happened to the 'bite' or indeed the body of the thing. He did brighten up at her suggestion though, "I'm pretty sure we can trap them, but they're not easy to handle once they are trapped, it turns out you need special weapons to do it." Theo frowned suddenly and looked around him, down at the table, to the floor, even shifting again to check under his chair carefully. "What did I do with the chicken?"

𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐎 & 𝐕𝐈𝐎𝐋𝐄𝐓 @multipleoccupancy

Violet stared at Theo, blinking silently for a long moment. Falling through time was a thing she had always believed impossible, but then again she also did not know monsters were real before seeing one with her own eyes. But time travel? Time was a complicated concept, but as an inventer, Violet had a taste for physics. And while she didn’t read as many books as Klaus, she knew enough about time to be absolutely baffled by Theo’s words. “How did you fall through time?” she finally managed to ask, “did you go in the past? Or in the future?”

“Why did falling through time attract the hounds?” Were they some sort of time guardians? Was time travelling forbidden, somehow? It was, after all, an anomaly. Violet could feel her head spinning, and she sat down at the table with Theo. The cogs in her brain were turning so fast, she almost expected to see smoke coming out of her ears.

So, Theo had not really lied, then. He had told the short version of the truth. Monsters would not come out of the shadows to attack Violet. But they would do it to attack him. She sunk deeper into her chair. “How did you outsmart them?” She wanted to hear the story, not only because she admired Theo very much, but also because she needed some reassurance that he could fight these mysterious and terrifying hounds.

“Could I make some sort of traps for them? If they come out of corners, we could put them in the corners of the house.” Inventing was the best way she knew how to deal with this bizarre new world, full of threats and secrets.

[viskarenvisla]

Thirst - Chapter 6: Her Tolerable Victory

In Chapter 6, we see our heroes finally coming to terms with what this dalliance could mean, since it's been persisting. For Monroe, little victories add up and her Syndicate receives relief from their elders; for Mizrah, an attempt to build closeness almost lands them both in the midst of disaster. Enjoy.

It wasn’t exactly what she’d asked for, but any victory was a victory…any means by which their individual unlives could become a little more tolerable was a service in the name of the grand, shared Requiem of the Dead. The Church of the Damned insisted that the Children of the Night were God’s excoriating lash, the first of them created to send the pious to the gates of eternity and to create a hell on Earth for the wicked.

That was pure bullshit of course; their existences were a result of something real and provable, even if it wasn’t scientific the way the mortals understood it. The Blood could be tasted…it could be harvested from the living and it could work wonders. It was water for their fields, sealant in the brickwork of their carefully constructed post-mortem lives, the very reason and drive behind their parasitic existences.

In the modern era, thanks to the miracles of refrigeration and plastic vacuum-sealing, The Blood could be neatly packaged and distributed like culture, religion, and sex in this late-capitalist world she’d once struggled fruitlessly against. Neat, perfect little IV bags of ruby-red lifeforce, sitting in stacked beer coolers, had been delivered to the dockyard at precisely the moment the Overseers had promised.

Things didn’t seem so bad. In fact, her mood had been quite elevated lately from her usual state of grim, ultra-focused determination - a corpse miming Lenin - to something approaching the enthusiasm she remembered when she could feel the sun on her flesh, before smartphones were a fad. As far as the analytical part of her mind could decipher, there were three reasons for this.

The first, the most visceral and obvious, was the Lupine blood running through her veins. She hadn’t felt truly warm in over a decade and ever since she’d started drinking from the werewolf, it felt like she had been thawed from a long winter. It was apparent in the smooth, vital speed of her movements and the ease with which the blush of life rose forth, even solely in the presence of her fellow Kindred.

The second, she knew, was because of the victory she’d secured in the name of the Syndicate. The crate had been marked specifically with their sigil, lowered by a crane-rope over the side of a speedboat onto the dock by the anonymous, enslaved humans that worked for the Ancient Dead. While their tithes hadn’t changed, and the “process of redistributing feeding grounds was underway” (how much process could there be? Paperwork was an extraneity and danger for their kind) this proved to be a creative solution to a convoluted problem. The blood may have been cold, but the cells were still alive and tasted just fine to the tongue. It meant less time needed to be spent in the face of danger scrounging the troughs, risking an unwanted opiate rush or Prey turning on the Predator. Hunting was dangerous.

The third was something she didn’t necessarily want to acknowledge, but realistically had no choice - the…four, five encounters she’d had with Mizrah in those motel rooms, once at his apartment, had been good. Really good. To her surprise every time, he fucked her amazingly, which was unusual because the sensation of a man thrusting into her was usually not one that she relished…but that was because she’d rarely liked the men thrusting into her. She wouldn’t admit to liking him - he was brash, confrontational, cocky and arrogant - but it would be a lie to say he wasn’t charming, surprisingly well-read, and warm-hearted. Even when she’d been sharp with him, trying to ward him away from the inevitable danger their union and dalliance represented, he was reeling her back in with his sweet smile and irrepressible humor. Most other vampires could be serious downers, and even though there’d been a girl she cared about that once made her laugh…well, that was a long time ago. It was different too, having these feelings for a man…but he wasn’t just a man.

He was a dangerous thing, a human mind spread like a thin layer of olive oil over a hot, cast-iron surface of animal instinct and danger. There was no doubt, she was partially drawn to that dangerous side of his, and loved the way his powerful body overwhelmed hers…how she enjoyed having to work to fit him inside of her, and those piercings! A rare, incredible find indeed. She involuntarily squeezed her thighs together as she offered a pair of blood-filled IV bags to Samara. The young, skinny little stripling took them with hunger that was all too familiar to her and one slipped from her grip toward the concrete dock - the sound of alarm that escaped her throat moved Monroe’s thoughts from the debauchery she’d been engaging in.

Carter’s hand shot out, snagging an IV sac from sliding to a watery fate and handing it back to the little kindred, who took it greedily and pulled it to her chest. In her wide brimmed hat, ankle-length moss-green woolen coat and with that drawn, round-eyed face, Samara reminded Monroe of a character from a Charles Dickens novel. “Thank you Carter…dunno what you said or gave, but you’re saving us from some bleak shit,” came her hissy little whisper of a voice.

There were three of them down here on the pier - William with his fishy, discomfiting demeanor and Melinda in her perfect suit coat and skirt worked at her side, under the garish floodlights that Harlowe had installed on the warehouse’s tin roof. It wasn’t like they couldn’t see in the dark, but the light made everyone here feel just a bit more normal, everything considered.

Samara lingered…Monroe suspected that she’d been taken by her Sire when she was little more than eighteen years old, caught in a body that was at the end of adolescence but hadn’t yet fully entered adulthood. She supposed she should feel fortunate that she’d been swallowed by the Dark in her late 20s. Will noticed; despite his fearsome exterior, cloaked in obscuring sweaters and oversized pants from judgmental, fearful eyes, the Nosferatu had somehow stayed the kindest and most sensitive among them, and gave her a spare nod. We’ll take care of things here. It wasn’t like there was a lot to be done…there were only thirty three other Kindred besides Monroe who were part of the Syndicate, and this victory had turned them from a rowdy crowd into something surprisingly organized, patient even.

How willing they were to fall-in for the thing they all craved.

Melinda’s clarion, southern belle voice rang out when she received the look from William. “Alright ya’ll, chairwoman’s got business, split yerselves between me and Will and keep it orderly-like.” There was a chorus of grumbling but the pale blonde beauty patiently herded the Dead with a resigned ease that Monroe had yet to develop…maybe never would; Melinda’s Ventrue lineage made it easy for her to command obedience, if not to inspire.

"Come on Sam." Monroe's tone was soft as she led the rail-thin little Gangrel back up the pier, away from prying ears and eyes - maybe Samara felt less self-conscious in front of the Syndicate’s leader because she jabbed her fangs through the plastic, sucking the cold blood from the bag and giving a shuddering sigh of relief. She watched as Samara’s big pupils dilated so wide they consumed the whites of her eyes, her veins showing through the flesh of her neck and wrists as they pumped new vitae through her body.

“What’s on your mind, kid?” she prompted the rail-thin vampire, whose unnatural gaze seemed to…come back, flickering Monroe’s way. Gulping down the last of the bag, leaving it clean and clear, she fingered the other IV sac like it was filled with hundred dollar bills.

“Ssso, you remember that problem I had?” Samara began - at some point the bag of blood disappeared either up a sleeve or into a coat pocket - “you know the one.” She made what the Brujah might describe as a ‘creepy-crawly’ motion with her hands. “Did you make any headway on it with the lords and ladies?” Monroe did, in fact, know what she was talking about, as Samara rarely complained about her lot in unlife and had been elusive from the very first when approached about asserting themselves with the Overseers. “Yeah…you talkin’ ‘bout that thing you said was haunting your troughs. They said they’d look into it, but you know what that means. It gettin’ bad?”

Samara’s answer came in the form of a long, quiet stare out along Cromwell Drive. Cromwell ran along the shoreline, past acres of industrial wasteland in which the weakest of them were forced to make do…like Little Samara, whose sliver of trough ran through the old, closed down weaving-houses and dye plants, where the neighborhoods were low-slung and violent. It was part of the greater swath of The City that Mayor Karve’s administration had given up upon, like the Calderon dynasty before him. Older, stronger Kindred might have been able to handle whatever nightmare creature had gibbered up from the dark, and if the Overseers gave a shit about them at all they’d send those fancy beghouled soldiers of theirs in to clean it out…that would have months ago.

Monroe knew how to handle herself in a scrap, and she could easily dislocate a man’s limbs or simply smash down a locked door to get at prey, but she wasn’t a natural born warrior and killer - few of her kind actually were; violence between Vampires was the last thing any of them wanted. Of course, there were things out there that responded to nothing but…and she had the feeling they were dealing with something of that nature. “Come on Sam. I’mma need details if you want me to act on it, much as you can remember, you feel me?”

The push in the young Brujah’s voice made Sam’s head swivel toward her, reminiscent of an owl, big eyes closing one after the other. “It comes out on clear nights. I can hear it…when it's coming out from somewhere, down there." Samara pointed a finger toward the pier, where the gulf was patiently lapping at it.

"Outta the water? Like some Black Lagoon thing?" Pressing the quiet vampire for details - Samara shook her head patiently, pointing again and hooking a finger like a claw.

"No. It's never wet…smells like salt, wind, ammonia. Not water. There's a section of the wharf where I stay. It's crumbling, down, down, splish-splash into the sea. From its belly." Samara demonstrated by bending forward and making a motion with her hands that seemed to mime entrails falling from her belly.

"Alright, so…what makes it something we can't just leave be and let live?" That was the best way for their kind to make it after all; there had to be a reason beyond simple disdain to take action against another creature of the night just trying to make it in the dark.

"It's…scary Monroe. It doesn't just crawl…" she checked her left and right before stepping closer. "It flies."

Tossing her rainbow braids over her shoulder she waited a moment. "...and?"

Sam squirmed…Monroe couldn't help but wonder how, exactly, she managed to feed - she was so used to drawing prey in with the force of her personality, while Little Samara barely registered to the senses. "And it also drinks from people, but it fucks them up too. Like…real big bites, not the Kiss. I don't think it's one of us, Carter."

"Sam, I know you don't like…creepy-crawlies, but if it's a threat to the masquerade we'll get Kippy on the papers and blogs and - "

"It went after me Monroe!" She blurted out. Samara cast her eyes downward, tapping her steepled fingers together, finding the will to make herself heard to the patient leader of the Syndicate. She fixed her owl's gaze on the other Vampire, tearing it from the water as desperation pushed the words forth. "It flew after me, screaming and shrieking…chased me down an alley, it's a canny pilot of its own body. Barely got away, I barely made it and it's still there." The smaller woman's voice quavered…it wasn't often that she heard fear - actual, true fear - from another of the Dead.

"Carter…maybe, you and Will," Sam began furtively, in a tone that reached the dead corners of her heart, "could you guys…maybe find a way to deal with it?"

She felt the weight of responsibility creak upon her shoulders, slabs of concrete need tinged with fear and hunger; there was little choice in the matter, as every member of  the Syndicate swore to safeguard  one another, from their myriad secrets to their unnatural flesh. This promise had, of course, been made under the assumption that this meant a united front against the Elders, but their sires weren’t the only danger to The City’s unquiet dead. “Yeah. I’ll talk to him.” She ticked names off on her fingers. “Corra…Vorath. They’re best for this. Can’t promise I’ll see it done in one night.”

Samara nodded, crestfallen and picking at the tips of her spidery fingers. Still afraid, clearly; her face was so young, even though the other vampire had been dead for a good seven years. She still relied so much on others, her coterie either ashed or in torpor somewhere after The Cull…like an orphaned kid.

Absent the Blush, the sympathy that crossed Monroe’s pale, leering face seemed out of place. She dug into her back pocket and withdrew a single key from the brass ring, dangling it before Sam’s bright eyes. “Here. You can stay on my turf, and if you want you can even Dayrest there. It’s fine, seriously.” Little Samara’s mouth opened, revealing the piranha sharpness of her teeth, involuntary exhalation of corpse-cold breath from her lips across the Brujah’s fingers. She took the key delicately, cradling it like a treasure…because that’s what it was. It was an incredibly rare thing to allow another Kindred into the place one rested, but the Bonds of Death were strong and went beyond mere territorialism. “Carter…that’s…you don’t gotta - ”

“Shh. Take it.” She closed Sam's fingers around the metal. “We watch one another, that’s what we swore.”

Monroe Carter, rhymes with martyr.

Just because they were dead didn’t mean they couldn’t have compassion for one another. Samara held the key close before it disappeared into her coat. She gazed up at the other vampire with those big, sad eyes of hers. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I’m not strong and decisive like you all are. I wish I was more like you or Nettletongue.” Oh Sammy…

Monroe was usually real good about not letting herself be moved beyond her duty, beyond her responsibilities - even when she was one of the Quick, she always worked at her wage, never beyond…she never did favors that weren’t unrequited…compassion always had a price, but for the Hungry Dead the only real thing of material value was the Blood, and there simply had to be more to an unlife than that. “You don’t gotta be like anyone but yourself. We come with what we got, and we support the Cause with what we have so we can all have more.” The two dead women smiled at each other, the twisted, arcane beating of their hearts remembering something of sisterly closeness.

The chairwoman, as she was known, returned to help Will and Melinda finish up but by then almost all of the crimson treasure had been distributed. To her surprise, they’d waited for Monroe to return - a sign of respect, gratitude? - before dispersing into the night, back to whatever mundane or disturbing existences they led.

“Good job Carter,” called Manny, grinning his bulldog grin and chomping down on that cigar of his between his dry, bloodless lips.

“Yeah…way better than what we was gettin’.” Vorath agreed, nodding in comity with his old rival-turned-ally. He held their allotments close to his belly, round green-lens glasses reflecting her visage back at her.

Melinda’s cornflower blue eyes regarded her with fond admiration; in Will’s inhuman, slitted gaze was the simple gratitude of someone who’d been desperate before, but was less so. It was in their adoration and their gratitude that Monroe found her motivation, and this was her greatest guilt because she knew that she was a simple, selfish creature…a parasite that fed on blood, desire and the needs of others. What if she grew bored of the needs and wants of the Syndicate’s members, fickle thing she was?

So instead she said some bullshit words about solidarity. She raised her fist in a bullshit show of strength that the other Dead mimicked because they had no other source of faith or hope, now that the Elders and their endless hungers had sucked those things dry. Later, when she wasn’t feeling truthful with herself, she’d insist in her own mind that The Cause was the most important thing in the world.

When the others had been dismissed, she called on scaled, powerful William; wily, perceptive Vorath; and quick, deadly Corra to stick around and discuss the…flying thing in Samara’s territory, what sort of interventions they could provide. The usual bickering, the banter and back-and-forth was easy for her to fall into - outside observers might mistake the intensity with which they debated for hostility, ideas both workable and absolutely ridiculous floated and shot down.

William, for all his fearsome appearance may imply, was the first and the last to suggest a diplomatic approach, or at least to try and capture whatever they were dealing with rather than simply killing it outright…but whatever it was, it was eating with messy lethality and even went after Samara. A tradition violated, and a line crossed - it had to die.

Vorath the Thricefold had little reservation for murder, and had stapled more than one Lupine head to the Overseers' walls when they'd asked it of him. Normally relying on the band of hooligans he exercised some loose command over, Vorath was more than enthusiastic to bring hot lead, sharp steel and his own personal inquisition into Sam's territory; two of those three were appropriate, given Little Samara's care for discretion.

Corra…she had few ideas of her own to contribute besides simply tracking it, isolating it, ambushing it. She had the aspect of a needle, coated with poison, pinched between two skeletal fingers. The Mekhet made little secret of her disdain for Vorath’s or William’s methods, and while the dusky Alabama-girl didn’t exactly endear herself to Kindred and Kine, her idea of luring the beast out with potential prey and springing an ambush was the most practical.

Monroe wore her mask well; the image of sharp-tongued, collected leadership, whipping these fanged, bickering parasites into some semblance of cooperation to stalk and eliminate a threat to one of their own, but…truthfully she had little idea what she was doing. Hunting down humans, other Kindred? That was something Monroe understood, and she knew how to get a crowd of angry people on her side. Like most Vampires, she was a creature meant for a niche existence, not to track down nameless, mostly unknown horrors and hope she could kill it before it killed her.

The other members of the Syndicate bid her farewell; William slid back into the river, paddling through the waters to the flooded Union Corners. Vorath, unsurprisingly, growled away on the back of his thundering Harley toward Koreatown while Corra simply walked to the River District to hunt.

Now that the business of the night had been resolved, she could finally turn her attention toward her own needs…well, desires. She was, as of yet, still flush with the blood she'd taken from her trysts with Mizrah - he insisted he could take it, and likely the pleasure-hungry wolf really thought that. She worried his love of the Kiss overrode his common sense the same way his blood, his voice and his sheer sexual potency smothered hers. Already, her phone was in her hand, and she was scrolling to his message thread, feeling simultaneously guilty and excited.

"God dammit," she cursed, already starting to tap out a message when she saw she had one from him, unread.

Mizrah: `what are you wearing?`

Oh come on she thought, but there, unbidden, the smile that pulled at the edges of her dark, pretty mouth whenever she talked to him. Silly teenage nonsense…

Monroe: `nothing worth showing you…yet,`

She walked toward where the #87 bus trawled back toward the River District where she made her home.

Mizrah: `that isn't true, you make anything look good ;)`

Her flats whispering silently across the concrete of the abandoned wharf, Monroe rolled her eyes at the cheesy, totally…horny-college student level of communication, and herself for participating in it. She plucked at the dark gray, long sleeve shirt hugging her torso…her maroon board shorts served the purpose of staying up on her hips if she had to run, climb a building, or stalk a mark. She didn't feel pretty…but he kept saying it anyway.

Mizrah: `so let's see!`

Okay…well, he must have really wanted to have a look, and no denying, it felt nice. He hadn’t stopped desiring her either…no sudden change in tenor, no ghosting - hell she could barely get rid of him, or rid him from her thoughts. Monroe considered as she jaywalked through a red light, looking up from her phone screen to stare down a honking Ford Explorer. The headlights illuminated her golden, death-bird’s stare and grave-blanched flesh, as the mockery of human life hadn’t been necessary in the presence of her fellow Kindred. Still, now that she was talking to him, it felt right to be presentable.

Livening her tissues, she scouted her surroundings and found a streetlight. Drifting beneath and activating her phone's camera…she…realized she hadn't taken a selfie in years.

She glared at the screen, pursing her lips with attitude and raising her middle finger…perfect. Monroe sent it off with a smirk and slid her camera up her sleeve as she quickened her pace for the bus stop, a miserable little spit of glass and steel that projected out of the sidewalk. A trio of ragged homeless people were sleeping within, folks she had no reason to disturb, so she waited with her arms crossed under the bullet hole ridden transit sign. A response came on her phone, which she glanced at.

Mizrah: `feeling spicy tonight, Carter? It’s cute when you act tough…and you look sexy like i said`

"You're damn right it is, and you’re damn right I do," she smirked when the old, shuddering heap of a bus came, climbing aboard and flashing her transit card as she took a seat amongst…she didn't care right now. She was enjoying this, enjoying herself instead of agonizing over the problems of others.

Monroe: `yeah yeah enough cutesy flirting Mizrah, where we gonna meet?`

Mizrah: `actually I was thinking, let's meet at river and forsythe, just come and hear me out`

River and Forsythe? That was about as public a place as existed in the District, essentially where all the other transit connected to the rest of The City. That wasn't exactly what she'd had in mind and she wasn't into exhibitionist-type shit - she existed by the grace of her discretion, which was already threatened by what she was doing with him. He wasn't stupid either - a daredevil, bold, but creatures like them didn't make it long without learning to be careful.

Monroe: `the hell you want out there?`

Mizrah: `oh my god monroe you'll see, you wanna hang tonight or not??? cmon itll be fun`

She did want to hang out with him…they’d done that once actually and it’d been the nicest time she’d had with another person since the last time she’d had something serious, way back when she’d woken up at that woman’s side, drank coffee and watched the sunrise. Monroe had let her go long ago…last she checked Sadie had her first grandchildren.

She hadn’t felt that old ache for some time, stuffing it down and watching The City go by for a few stops, back toward her Haven. She put her thoughts for Mizrah on pause for a moment as her eyes took in the sight of this night-stricken place. Here in Ashland, on the edges of the River District, few were willing to stay outside after darkness crawled across the sky, chasing the sun from Mississippi.

Those who did come out at night…well.

The bus’ headlights cut through the dreamlike mist, illuminating a man seated upon a milk crate on a street corner. Garbage bags were wrapped around his head and shoulders, the bloated, pale mass of his chest and belly exposed, covered with sores. A sign was clutched in his hands, missing fingers: ALL HAIL THE MURDER MESSIAH it read. Monroe could feel him watching her as she passed.

In an old basketball court, whose hoops had been broken and torn, a circle of ravens stood in silence around a small pile of birds’ skulls; her vision, attuned to the darkness, picked up their bony beaks clicking in unison.

Creepy fuckin’ place. She looked down at her phone again, tapping out a quick message as her stop drew near.

Monroe: `yeah alright, you just bring your bad self and make it good`

Monroe Carter, one of the last people on this bus, climbed off into her lonely district of tall-yet-squat residential buildings and abandoned workshops. Down in the white, clean concrete of her Haven, behind sealed steel doors that she’d once thought to be nearly impenetrable (until a certain Lupine had shown up and almost ashed her), Monroe picked through the collection of clothes she kept neatly folded on these blue plastic racks that held her meager possessions. Her style had always been flashy, prone toward a sort of Bohemian-punk chic that drew attention when she wanted it to, and also helped her blend in when she didn’t.

Why would tonight be any different? She didn’t need to dress up for him of all people, or anyone else for that matter. Monroe glanced at herself once more in the mirror, completely naked as she fiddled idly with the diamond in her navel.

He was a fan of that…she liked the way he sometimes bit it, tugging it lightly. “No…not right now,” she muttered. She pulled a bubble-gum pink bra on, matching pink bikini underwear gracing her nethers. Uninterested in spending too much time worrying about what to wear, she reached into the folded stacks, closed her eyes, and ran her finger up and down a few times until she pinched something and pulled it free…perfect.

A black and orange tiger-stripe tank top, low-rise blue denim that clung to all her best parts; the kids may have brought Mitt Romney-style mom jeans back into the fashion cycle, but they’d have to pry her skinnies from her cold, dead fingers. A red silk sash tied around her waist, an end trailing along her leg for effect…yeah.

Yeah...He’ll like this, she thought, despite herself.

She was making for the door when she stopped, catching her own scent…she smelled vaguely of paper and old leather, of wet earth and shifting air. Her heart fell, even as she remembered how he’d kissed her passionately when she’d looked like a walking corpse, and she turned back inside to sit down on her folding metal chair, crossing her arms under her chest and thinking this through.

She could easily be doing something productive…something that actually helped her kind. Hell that’s what she’d been doing for the past five years since she broke free of her own Sire’s will, leaving her staked in a cabin basement, far out in the bayeux. While she was condemned to this soulless existence, it was still, in some ways, a second chance…a way to do things right for people who were stuck in the same situation as she was. She’d been so selfish and short-sighted in life; the Church of the Damned - the Lance and Sanctum - they were right about one thing (and one thing only), that she’d been returned from beyond the Grave to fulfill a purpose. Where they ardently believed in the bloodsoaked covenant with a God that didn’t exist, Monroe understood clearly that her mission on this earth was to make their existence just a bit more tolerable.

Yusuf was a known quantity in The City…at least to the Undead, insofar as he’d refused to participate in the Cull, as she’d confirmed after some digging. Still, it didn’t change the fact that association with the Lupine was just dangerous for her, not to mention for him - she’d come to accept that she had some concern for his wellbeing, at the very least so he could prove entertaining when she took the risk of sharing a bed with him…no, it was more than that. Part of her wanted to believe that he really was sweet on her, and those were the leftover stirrings of her humanity. She’d heard that as the years dragged on, those echoes became quieter and quieter as loved ones died, the world changed dizzyingly, and the Beast became ever louder.

In ten years, would she even be able to feel this way at all?

Monroe turned her chair to regard the lava lamp Mizrah had brought her as a gift, apparently to ‘liven this place up’ (she didn’t think he was trying to make a bad joke that time). It was kinda ridiculous and over the top, just like he was, and he honestly didn't have to get her that…but she couldn't deny that she was touched in a way. Standing and traipsing toward it, she tinked her fingernail along its smooth, curvy surface. "Haven't tossed it yet Lommy," she remarked to the fat, stuffed fox on her pillow. He smiled back at her harmlessly, and she pulled a light faux-leather jacket and admired / loathed herself in the mirror before setting out.

Forsythe and River weren't far…a couple bus stops, and soon she was out of the industrial darkness of Ashland and into the candy-colored light of the River District. The crowds slithered down the sidewalks lining the Red Rock River, and she could pick out distinct clumps within it.

See the corporate suits in their ties and blazers, fresh from the office…even in their debauchery they couldn't shake the sigma suite look, their trickle-down darkness reaching the streets.

See the gaggle of college kids in their letter jackets and baseball caps, their miniskirts and dazzling jewelry…America's future, slowly spinning down the drain.

See the San-Jiao Gang Boys in their colorful, bright digs, with their spiked hair and neon sunglasses worn at night…she could score a quick coke high from sipping at them.

If she closed her eyes and opened her senses she could easily hear the tens of thousands of heartbeats around her, a dinner bell drumbeat to the Beast. This particular district was a rack that belonged to Isidoro, and he had agreed to open it on Saturday nights to the common bloods…another victory on her part.

The train station at the place where River Street met Forsythe Boulevard had grown truly monolithic from its early days as a little transit hub. Like any public building in The City, it was simultaneously blessed with a sort of baroque charm but its dumpy, looming shape had been thoroughly encrusted with neon signs that, in different ways, all screamed the same thing:

EAT. DRINK. CONSUME.

Here was where Monroe grew uneasy, since others of her kind might be here…watching. Members of the Syndicate, sure, but also Ancillae who were bound to the Overseers through ties of blood and patronage.

She scanned the crowd pouring in and out of the massive gates, watching for him - there…she heard a heartbeat among the manyfold hearts that was outlandishly strong, and it was coming up to her from behind. Monroe clenched her fist in anticipation, closing her eyes, knowing what was coming and unable to say no, even here.

"Hey baby," he whispered into her ear and kissed her cheek, his warm lips brushing against it. Monroe sighed unnecessarily, lips pulling into a grin as she turned around to regard him, hooking a finger gently in his sleeve, plucking it gently and…leaving it at that.

"Hey yourself Peter Steele," she purred and linked her wrists behind her back. Monroe's eyes ran over his body, taking him in. It looked like he'd…dressed nicely, or however close the lead guitarist for Instrument of - sorry…INSTRUMENT OF AGGRESSION dressed. "I didn't know you could wear white, thought it was anathema to you goth boys."

"I'm not goth, dork," he deadpanned but she could hear the smile in his voice. He looked good in the white, button up shirt gracing his carved torso; he knew what he was working with, but all the same she reached up and undid one of the buttons to show a bit more of that chest. Little steel studs had been pierced through the collar, since he just couldn't stay away from his metal. He'd exchanged that…ridiculous belt with the harmonica shaped buckle for something a bit more standard - wait nope, studs on the buckle. They held up a pair of light green cargo pants that fit his body impeccably, and as usual she found her eyes drawn to the shape of his masculinity. Damn.

"Eyes up here," he joked, drawing a wry glare before he suddenly took her fingers, tugging her lightly inside. That was the most shocking thing he'd done in a few days, and this was a man with little shame - but brazenly holding her hand like that, in public? She was actually stunned enough that she let it happen as he pulled her through the turnstile. She kept up with him and found her fingers interlacing with his, staring at the definition of his back through his shirt.

It was stupidly romantic in a way, being dragged by her mysterious, dark lover through a station like they were going to elope or something, and in her head that fantasy played out briefly -

…Awakening from Daysleep in a bed that was warm because he'd lain there, protecting her in her most vulnerable state…no judgment in his eyes at her dead state, only familiar welcoming humor…no struggle beyond their hunts, and even then maybe they could somehow hunt together.

Could it happen?