#anton chigurh so fine

[drpsps]

Just watched No Country for Old Men…feeling things…things…𝓕𝓻𝓮𝓪𝓴𝔂 things…👅👅👅❤️❤️❤️

[eleanorblythe]

Romantic Homicide - Anton Chigurh x Original Female Character - Chapter 3 - NSFW

We finally have smut people! It’s been an eternity since I’ve written, let alone written smut that didn’t make me want to gouge my own eyes out. I hope people like it, I put my whole bussy into this, this relationship has taken over my mind and given me brain rot.

Please enjoy and feedback/requests are always welcome and appreciated!!

Also on Ao3 with author notes and translations - here

Somehow, she slept.

She woke, still feeling the sting in her eyes, and turned over to see the empty expanse next to her. She let her fingertips ghost over the cool sheets. She got up, deciding to wrap up against the chill of the morning air. Her dressing gown was silk, like her chemise, with dramatic sleeves, but she needed the comfort of the material.

She slowly crept out of her room and down towards the back bedroom. She stood outside of the door for what felt like hours. Trying to listen for any noises coming from the other side. She quietly clicked open the door and peered around.

The bed was empty. There was no evidence anyone had ever been in the room. The boxes that had once been thrown onto the bed, now stacked neatly in the closet. He had- he had even fixed the closet rod she had been putting off. That bastard. That helpful, one armed bastard.

She wondered if that was it. To ignore the advice to rest and was already on his way again, but it was fine because he had done a small household chore before he left(!)

She suddenly felt very cold and tried to rub some warmth back into her arms. Everything felt so silent. No wind. No birds. No chatter of children riding through the neighbourhood.

Then, there was a faint clattering of plates. She released the breath she hadn’t realised she was holding and went towards the kitchen.

She saw Anton struggle to keep hold of the pan with his injured, braced arm and use a spatula with the other. He knew she was there, pausing briefly as she looked on from the doorway of the kitchen/dining room, before finishing and taking the pan off of the stovetop.

She saw that he had taken the time to set the table; one place at the head of the dining table and another to the left of it. The dull thud of plates hit the counter as he walked around and placed one plate of eggs at his seat and then came back and placed the other next to him. He then sat and looked over at her.

She seemed rooted to the spot, but she didn’t have the energy to slip on a mask of haughtiness or derision. She was just sad. True to form, Anton said nor did anything to help or hinder the situation, he just watched her. She knew he wouldn’t eat until she had started, it was just one of his many idiosyncrasies.

She slowly started to move towards the table, like any sudden movement would mean he would disappear, like a ghost. She came to her seat and stared down at her scrambled eggs. There were peppers and tomatoes mixed in. She didn’t have tomatoes in her fridge. She wondered if he was going out of his way in his husbandly duties to impress her.

Or maybe he just really wanted tomatoes with his eggs.

Without meeting his burning gaze, being so close to him, she took her plate and fork and moved to the opposite head of the table and finally sat down. She kept her eyes on her eggs as she took her first bite. They were good. She hated that. For a microsecond she allowed herself to think what it might be like to have all her meals cooked for her, whether they might be as good as these eggs. She took another bite and kept her eyes on the pattern of her plate. She didn’t hear any scraping of cutlery on the other end of the table. When she finally looked up she saw Anton hadn’t moved a muscle and was, still, watching her.

“These eggs are good,” she said stiltedly.

“Is that what you want to talk about, the eggs being good?”

“I don’t know…”

“You don’t know?”

“What do you want me to say?”

“What do you want to say?”

“Fuck you, Anton!” She finally whispered with choked fury. She dropped her fork, it clattered to the ground as she stared out of the window. She gave a wet gasp and dug her nails into her palm to stop herself from crying. Anton quietly placed his fork next to his plate and rose from his chair slowly. He started to stalk towards her at an almost glacial rate.

“Why are you angry?”

She shook her head fervently as she continued looking out of the window. The morning light illuminating her glistening eyes.

“Why are you angry?” He asked again, deeper.

“Fuck you…” she said a lot less vehemently.

He was finally at her chair, towering over her. His finger caught a tear as it ran down her cheek. He regarded it with a small hum before putting his finger in his mouth.

“Unclench your fists.”

She did so. He leaned down and turned her hand over palm up. There were deep crescents marks from her nails, but they were not bleeding. He lifted her hand up to his mouth and he pressed featherlight kisses to each crescent shape.

She allowed him to do so, wanting to lean into it, but she soon snatched her hand away and remained resolute in staring out of the window.

“I know why you’re angry.” He said quietly into her ear.

“Then why did you ask?”

“Because communication is important in a marriage,”

She gave a small scoff.

“I suppose you read that in some trashy magazine in a dentist’s office?”

“No.”

She sighed heavily, her whole body heaving. “This is not a marriage, Anton,” she said finally. “We’re just two people who wear a wedding band.”

“That’s not true,” Anton murmured.

She finally looked up at him. “This is the first time I’ve seen you in almost 4 months. You’ve been shot. You could have died and I wouldn’t have even known. I am stuck here, all the time, but you never call. The only reason I knew you were in Texas is because I had to grill one of my contacts at the agency until they told me.”

She broke off from his gaze and bit her lip.

“We both know I’m no longer the woman you married. I think we both thought after what happened that I would bounce back, but I never did. I can’t fit into your world anymore, Anton. I don’t belong in it anymore.”

There was a poignant silence. It was now Anton’s turn to look out of the window, seemingly in deep contemplation. It wasn’t long before he came to some kind of decision and, with surprising strength, used his right arm to pull her chair out and face him. She gave a sharp gasp, but quickly started to protest as she watched Anton kneel in front of her.

“Look at me and listen,” he huffed. Kneeling with a gunshot wound to the thigh was harder than he had anticipated. But this was important. She snapped her mouth shut and listened carefully.

“Getting hurt changed me, too. Change my perspective, I’ve moved on, in a way. Some things have fallen into place that were not there before. I thought they were, but they weren’t. The best way I can put it is that I’ve sort of caught up with myself. That’s not a bad thing. It was overdue.”

“It started before that. I didn’t realise it at the time. When I went down on the border, I stopped in a café in this town, and there were some men in there drinking beer, and one of them kept looking back at me. I didn’t pay any attention to him. I ordered my dinner and ate. When I walked up to the counter to pay the check I had to go past them and they were all grinning and he said something that was hard to ignore. Do you know what I did?”

She exhaled through her nose and gave a small nod.

“I ignored him. I paid my bill and I had started to push through the door when he said the same thing again. I turned and looked at him. I was just standing there, picking my teeth with a toothpick and I gave him a little gesture with my head. For him to come outside, if he would like to. And then I went out and I waited in the parking lot and he and his friends came out and I killed him in the parking lot and then I got into my car. They were all gathered around him. They didn’t know what happened. They didn’t know he was dead. One of them said that I had put a sleeper hold on him and then the others all said that. They were trying to get him to sit up. They were slapping him and trying to get him to sit up. An hour later I was pulled over by the sheriff’s deputy outside of Sonora Texas, and I let him take me into town in handcuffs. I’m not sure why I did this, but I think I wanted to see if I could extricate myself by an act of will. Because I believe that one can. That such a thing as possible. But it was a foolish thing to do. A vain thing to do. Do you understand?”

She sniffed and nodded.

“You think you don’t belong to the world you once knew - my world now - you called it. You see it as an error or failing on your part. It was fate that brought you here, the same way fate has also brought me here. Home. To you.”

“Fate destined for me to be a lonely housewife?” She finally asked after processing what his story meant.

“No. Because you are unhappy here.”

“I’ve settled well here.”

“That’s not what I said.”

He was right. Damn him.

“What would I do?”

“What you’ve always done.”

“What if I can’t?”

“You can. You are stronger than you think, or I would not have chosen you.”

“And you?”

“I will remain here until I am mended and then I will take you with me.”

“Take me where?”

“I have found somewhere new. Somewhere better, where there won’t be any more problems. Somewhere where the people do not exaggerate their own capabilities or pretend to themselves they are in control of events where perhaps they are not - Not everyone is suited to our line of work,” he added as an afterthought.

“Why did you stay away, for so long?” She asked quietly. She wasn’t sure why she asked. She wasn't sure she wanted the answer.

“I don’t know. I regret it.” It was not really an answer most people would find good enough. But from his lips, it sounded so honest. She remembered what it was like, jobs always ran longer than anticipated and had a tendency to snowball… “But absence makes the heat grow fonder, no?” He said with a faint smile.

She laughed despite herself. She lay her hand over his that was resting on her knee, softly stroking over his calluses.

“You should get up. It’s not doing any of your injuries any good.” She rose from her chair, but he refused to budge, making his nose less than an inch from her bellybutton.

He gave a very low sound in his throat and seemed very interested in the tie on her dressing gown. His hand that was resting on her knee, now slid further and further up her leg until he felt the edges of her chemise under her dressing gown.

“Anton…” she warned.

“Quiet. I’m busy.”

His fingers skimmed along the silk fabric before delving underneath, to find she wasn’t wearing any underwear. She stifled a gasp as his fingers traced the outer lips of the very essence of her.

He gave a sound of approval and withdrew his fingers moving up to untie the sash holding her dressing gown together. He parted the fabric and hiked her chemise up until her lower half was completely exposed to him.

“You did this on purpose, didn’t you,” he murmured.

“I don’t know what you-“ she found she couldn’t finish her sentence because he had moved his head forward until his nose was rubbing up against her slit, just brushing her clitoris.

She swore and her hand reached out to grab the back of his head. She had forgotten how soft his hair was. Anton, as a rule, never let people touch him, but he had practically melted the first time she stroked through his dark locks. Now she fed her fingers through his layers until she felt his tongue lay flat then flick against her bundle of nerves, then her fingers suddenly grabbed a fistful of hair and pulled his head back.

It was the most relaxed she had seen him in a very long time. His eyes were half closed and she felt his hand softly stroking the small of her back.

“I would suggest you get up, or I will fuck you on this hardwood floor,”

“By all means,” was his simple reply.

She finally bent down and kissed him pulling his hair back further making him gasp slightly, she slipped her tongue past his lips and drank him in. Her hand loosened it’s grip on his hair and slid down to his jaw, feeling the pleasant scratch of his stubble. As she pulled away she brought his lip with her, between her teeth, causing him to make a surprised grunt. She pressed her forehead against his and whispered against his lips something about getting on with it.

He did make an attempt to get off of the floor, but with his injured leg and being one arm down he had a hard time standing. At one point he thought he had it, but his socks betrayed him, sliding against the polished floor and sent him unceremoniously plummeting to the ground. His grip tightened on her waist and she fell with him, sprawled on top of him, but missing his left side.

He gave a small groan, but was drowned out by her musical laugh against his neck. She leaned up and nudged her nose against his own.

“Perhaps, we shouldn’t be doing this,” she practically giggled. She attempted to stand herself, but was held securely in place with Anton’s hands clamped around her hips.

“I thought you’d make good on your promise,” he punctuated what he said by thrusting his hips up and pushing her hips down simultaneously.

“But your leg-“

“Right now, I couldn’t care less about my leg,” he was already pushing the dressing gown off of her shoulders and impatiently pushing her chemise up past her chest. She lightly slapped his hands away and rolled her eyes, allowing the dressing gown to pool around them and finally pulling her chemise over her head and tossing it somewhere behind her.

For a moment he remind immobile, his eyes systematically scanning over her naked body, before suddenly coming alive, striking like a cobra, into sitting up, to take one of her nipples into his mouth. She let out a wanton moan and clutched him closer still to her and he suckled like it was his first drop of water after being lost in an endless desert. Perhaps it was.

He lost himself in the sensations, the sounds, the taste, the smell, the feel - everything that encompassed her. He almost felt drunk off of it. He felt her kiss the top of his head and heard her coo and whisper words of encouragement, it was almost too much. In that moment he couldn’t imagine himself doing anything other than this, being here, worshiping her skin. He swallowed these feelings, lest he be overwhelmed and with a satisfying pop, proceeded to lavish his attention on her other breast.

“Anton, ven aqui…” she said in a hitched breath. He released her other breast and scraped his teeth along her skin up to her neck, leaving marks and sucking hard enough to leave bruises.

Her fingers found their way into his shirt and pulled desperately.

“Take this off…” she had already frantically unbuttoned half of his shirt but calmed down enough to make sure the shirt wouldn’t catch on his arm brace. When the shirt was removed she quickly threw it out of sight.

She lightly raked her nails across his torso, then nuzzled her face into his neck, breathing deeply. Anton couldn’t help but hold her tightly and tuck her hair behind her ear.

The feel of feminine skin against masculine skin ignited a deep desire within them both and it became clear that the need for release outweighed the need to relearn every inch of each other. There was plenty of time for that later. She pulled away after licking a stripe from his neck to his ear, teeth briefly tugging at his ear lobe.

“You’re still wearing too many clothes,” she purred. She rotated her hips in a figure of eight and Anton bit back a moan. He squeezed her hip with his good hand then moved it to rub small circles on her clitoris. She keened and shifted so she could reach the button and fly of his jeans.

She looked down, her haziness and Anton’s continued attacks with his mouth and hand, made it difficult to concentrate, but she soon reached into his underwear and felt the hard warmth she was so desperate for.

She wrapped her hand around his thick, veiny shaft and pumped him a few times. He had difficulty sitting still and cursed his beloved fates that he couldn’t flip her onto her back and drive himself into her, fucking her so hard he forgot his own name. She must have sensed his impatience because she grabbed his chin and forced him to meet her eye.

“Quieres follarme?” This woman was going to kill him. He had half a mind to let her. He didn’t need to respond with words. He grasped himself, lightly smacked himself against her glistening coño before flicking his eyes back to her, a silent permission. Her hands fell to his shoulders as she sunk herself down onto him.

It was almost euphoric. The feeling of being as close as was possible to another person, to feel their heart hammering against their chests, the noises they both made…

Anton let out a string of curses, while her hands and nails now dug into his shoulder blades and her back arched and head hung back. He gripped a fistful of her hair at the base of her skull, partly so she wouldn’t fall backwards, but also as an anchor for him to know that this was real, she was here, he was home.

Then her hips moved. She slowly raised herself and sunk back down, going slightly deeper each time, her breasts were brushing up against his face, but his attention was being pulled in so many directions that he could do little more than bury himself in her cleavage and let the sensations wash over him. At one point he bottomed out within her and that caused both of them to let out a guttural groan. Anton snapped his head up and pulled her hair, releasing a delicious squeal from her.

He could no longer remain passive. He wanted to feel all of her. Touch all of her, without hinderance. He quickly ripped off the Velcro from his arm brace and tossed it aside. She started to protest but he took both of his hands, cradling her face and kissed her deeply. It was bruising. It was desperate. He then took one arm and wrapped it around her back before pulling them both down so she was once again laying on top of him.

Still connected to that most intimate of places his feet found purchase on the floor and he used that to propel himself deeper into her. He heard her stuttered gasp next to his ear, but soon the sound of hips snapping against skin overrode everything else, both just chasing their own release, gasping and panting until their breaths mingled together. He held her close to his chest, afraid if he let go, he would lose her.

It was an unrelenting pace, at first she met each one of his thrusts, but after a time it became too much and she allowed herself to be swept away by the waves, drowning in her own pleasure, happily. She whimpered in his ear as he continued his punishing rhythm; a mixture of curses, of filthy dirty talk, both in English and Spanish, and sometimes simply his name - repeating over and over like a mantra or prayer.

He cried out her name as he spilled himself inside her, letting out an unabashed moan as he felt her constrict around him, falling off the edge with him. He continued to pump weakly into her, well after they had both come down. She braced her arms shakily on either side of his head and drank him in before dipping down to savour the taste of his lips. She made a move to lift herself off of him but he held fast and murmured about a few more minutes. She smiled with a small shake of her head and settled back down against his chest.

His hand traced non specific patterns on her back as their breathing returned to normal. He marvelled at how smooth and soft her skin was. Her hand sifted through the light sprinkling of hair on his chest before trailing down his left arm.

“We should get your brace back on,”

“Fuck, the brace,” he said a little hoarse.

She exhaled through her nose then sat up, causing him to slip out of her. He groaned quietly at the loss of contact and she gave a small shiver. She saw his brace laying just past his head and she leaned over to pick it up. Anton seized the opportunity to grope and lean up to kiss her breasts, greedily taking as much as he could.

“Keep that up and we’ll be going for round two,” she warned.

“You’ll hear no complaints from me,”

In her mind she did briefly consider it, but she was tired and aching, so she knew Anton must be worse. She leaned down to kiss his forehead, nose then lips before standing up completely, picking up her dressing gown and loosely tying it around herself.

Anton tucked himself back into his jeans and slowly got off of the floor. He allowed her to fit the brace back on his arm, before he watched her go to the kitchen and pull a bag of frozen peas out of the freezer.

She walked past him on the way out of the kitchen/dining room and motioned her head, for him to follow. He limped silently behind her, fucking her senseless on the floor had maybe not been the wisest choice, but damn, if it wasn’t worth it.

When she came to their bedroom she pulled back the sheets and waited for him to sit down. It was a welcome return to be back in their marital bed, he always slept better when she was next to him, and vice versa. When he sat down on his preferred side of the bed, she immediately knelt in front of him. For a moment he allowed himself to get excited, but her look of exhaustion mixed with slight amusement made it clear this would not be one of those times, just yet. She helped him shuck off his heavy jeans so that he could lay in bed comfortably. Then brought the bag of peas against his arm.

She came around to her side of the bed and climbed in bringing the sheets up over both of them. She curled up against his right side, draping her legs over his. He kissed her forehead and started absently stroking her legs. She held the ice pack in place and they remained like that until sleep started to creep up on them both.

“You won’t leave, will you?” Her voice barely a whisper. She thought he was already asleep, when she heard a very low, but tender;

“Nunca más, mi vida.”

[that-irishman-fan]

Hey Internet! I hope everybody is doing fantastic this winter's season, and that you all are finding nothing but good things! I know this is a bit presumptuous to ask, but I was wondering if any of my fellow No Country For Old Men lovers could come to my aid.

I've got a planned fanfic in the works, but I want to make sure nobody else has written something similar or identical, and end up inadvertently stealing somebody's thunder. I've scoured Archive of Our Own and looked a fair bit on Tumblr too, where I'd be posting, but I haven't found anything. It's absolutely possible I missed something, though, no matter how fine toothed my comb was.

Does anybody know if there is an Anton Chigurh x empath reader x Carson Welles fanfic that follows the canon events of the film/book but also adds prequel and sequel headcanons? I'm looking to write mine in the ballpark of about 25-35k and it'll be done in chapters with multiple POV.

If anybody knows of something like this, PLEASE let me know—I'm stressing pretty badly and delaying the actual writing because I'm worried I'd accidentally take somebody's hard work and idea.

Again, I know this isn't your responsibility or job, it's mine and I've tried to do it as best as I can. However, I'm human, so I miss things.

Thanks so much in advance and have a VERY happy Holidays!

[lauralot89]

I saw the new Little Mermaid

Disney really saw Mera eat a flower and said, "That scene alone is what netted Aquaman a billion at the box office, we're putting that in our movie" and you know what, they were right

anyway The Little Mermaid (1989) is my favorite animated Disney film and I'm not going to pretend this is as good as it but it's far and away the best live action remake since Disney decided that the live action remakes were going to be functionally exactly the same as the originals

(It's been years since I've seen live action Cinderella and Jungle Book, I don't remember well enough to say how those compare to this)

Halle Bailey was amazing and sometimes her voice was so close to Jodi Benson's when she spoke that it threw me for a loop

I was really surprised by Melissa McCarthy's performance, she nailed Ursula's vibe and mannerisms. I still think the part should have gone to a drag queen but she rocked it

I guess there will be spoilers below the cut but also it's The Little Mermaid and y'all already know how it goes

was anyone going to tell me that Anton Chigurh from No Country for Old Men was Ariel's dad or was I just supposed to see this movie for myself

why can Scuttle breathe and speak underwater

I thought it was really cute that Jodi Benson had a cameo to give Ariel a dinglehopper

this went overlong, the original told the whole story perfectly at like an hour and twenty-two minutes and this added fifty-two minutes to that, how long do you think a child's attention span lasts

That being said while a lot of the added stuff wasn't needed, there wasn't any garbage put in that fundamentally changed what made the original story work (looking at you, Mulan remake) so that was nice

the girl who played Vanessa/Ursula in disguise looked so much like Melissa McCarthy, great job casting department

The new songs are fine, I don't see them becoming classics but they're all right and I feel bad for any song that has to go up against Howard Ashman's originals

The colors in this movie are gorgeous, I could watch Ariel's iridescent scales all day

I thought it was cute that in Eric's expanded back story, they gave him the same Special Interest in collecting that Ariel has

I have seen Eric's actor somewhere before and I have no clue where, I thought he was in Bridgerton but he wasn't and nothing on his imdb looks familiar, this will haunt me

Somehow we had to get rid of "Don't underestimate the importance of BODY LANGUAGE" because that's not a good message and we can't trust the audience to understand they're not supposed to take the villain at face value but the lyrics to Kiss the Girl remain unchanged as far as I could tell?

anyway it was fun, if you've got two hours and fifteen minutes to kill I recommend it

[autumnonapoea]

so like i know that i am some manner of cute but also that i am not to everyone’s taste and that is fine. I’m trying to pin down the kind of attractive i am so here are some examples—if you display any of the following behaviors i may just be your type

you find yourself unexpectedly aroused while listening to Slowdive

you feel Anton Chigurh would have been hot if he were like 72 to 93% more gay

when questioning whether someone is hot or if they just have an interesting haircut, you fantasize about just having sex with someone’s hair

you had your sexual awakening because of Rufio from Hook

you have found yourself starting to prefer Kim songs over Thurston songs

You prefer Squier over Fender

if you’ve ever expressed heartbreak through interpretive dance in a grocery store after midnight

you find clocky middle aged trans girls irresistibly alluring

“I never meant to have all this fucking ikea furniture but like now most of my shit is ikea shit and i’m not sure what that says about me” it says “I think June is fucking hot” my friend

the ratio of people you’ve dated who later came out is undeniably tilted towards gayyyy

you would support time travel if you got to use it to forcibly feminize Peter Lorre

your introduction to Motorhead was thru The Young Ones

Ramona Flowers is cool and all but uhh Kim Pine plskthx

the geico gecko could get it tbh

[sunonyoreface]

Anton Chigurh Imagine pt. 13

Tw: violence

This time while Chigurh drives, only one of his hands rests on the top of the steering wheel. I lie across the soft bench seat, my head resting on his lap. His other hand traces across my eyebrows, looping down my cheekbone, around my jaw, and then back up again. A finger trails down the bridge of my nose and pauses at my lips. I press a light kiss to it.

 He looks down for the first time in a long time. His features look different in the morning light: stronger, healthier. The sunlight turns his irises into whisky. I drink him in.

His eyes are back on the road without another word. He hasn’t spoken since he questioned me about the cops in the diner and decided we overstayed our visit. I’m honestly surprised we stayed that long to begin with.

The sun casts a shadow under his sharp jaw onto his thick neck. I want to feel his skin under my palms again. To feel his breath in my mouth. The bruises from his sharp teeth are scattered down my neck and across my breasts. I wore a lowcut tank top so I could admire how they look in the mirror.

His hand moves from my face to my hair. Chigurh massages my scalp in light circles. My eyes close and a light sigh escapes my lips.

I wonder how many people have seen him like this before? Gentle, that is. Every one of his soft gestures seem to go against the grain of his very nature. I would bet good money that he has killed more people than he has played with their hair. I try to avoid the thoughts that explore all the things his hands have done, the blood they’ve spilled.

The receiver lets out a small blip. The hand in my hair slips away, reaching for the tiny box on the dashboard. He twists the dial and for a while, it stays silent. But inevitably, the receiver goes off again.

I sit up and let the blood rush from my head. Whatever semblance of gentleness Chigurh contained is gone with the blip.

We’re close to Del Rio again. There is no way Moss is dumb enough to still be here. Yet the increasing blips say otherwise. My heart rate begins to increase with them.

The car passes a “Welcome to Del Rio” sign. Both of his hands rest on the top of the wheel. The radio is off, but the wind outside howls, occasionally pushing hard enough to sway the car across the yellow lines. Dread creeps up the back of my throat. The last five days of relative peace were just that. Five days. A small anomaly in Chigurh’s normally strict routine. What happens when he decides to return to it? A part of me wishes I still had that revolver.

I don’t know the streets well, but I already have a feeling about where he’s headed. The oxygen tank rolls on the floor as he takes a right turn. The hotel comes into view.  Some of the windows are boarded up. The shattered glass and stray bullets are swept up by now.

“Can I come in?”

He doesn’t answer, instead, shifting into park. Large hands grab the gun from his duffle bag and shove it into his waistband.

“Anton?”

“No.”

“I’m not staying in here.”

“I don’t remember giving you a choice,” he threatens. Our eyes meet. His narrow. I mimic him, defying his words by maintaining contact.

“Fine,” he grumbles.

My face remains stoic, not daring to let the triumph shine through.

Chigurh’s limp is nearly unnoticeable, but wounds like that don’t heal in under a week. If he were a normal person who’d gone to a hospital, he’d be bedbound. However, we’re not in a hospital, and Chigurh is far from a normal person. His will alone conceals his injury.

Our room is up the stairs on the second floor. Here he falters, putting significantly more pressure on his right leg. I don’t offer to help. Instead, I slow my pace ever so slightly as to not walk too far ahead of him.

Chigurh turns the knob of the door as he pushes it shut, preventing the sound of it clicking into place from echoing into the hall. He doesn’t sit down, although probably should. Rather, he walks around the room inspecting the corners, looking behind the shower curtain, checking the window locks, and even searching the side table drawers before finally taking a seat beside me on the bed. He sets the revolver on the side table closest to him.

“Are you going to look for the transponder?”

“In time,” his voice is quiet.

The bed dips as he moves to lie down. It's only mid-afternoon and Chigurh doesn’t come off as the type of man with a tendency of napping. Yet, he closes his eyes and attempts to rest. So, either his leg is causing him more strain than he’s letting on or it’s something else. But what could he be preparing for that requires a nap?

I don’t know but the voice in my head tells me I’d be smart to sleep too. Although, that’s the last thing on my mind. The window air conditioner quietly blows a chilled breeze through the room. Goosebumps rise across my arms.

Was he planning to leave me in the car while he had an afternoon nap?

Regardless, I turn to lie on my back beside him on top of the covers. I involuntarily slide closer from the dip in the bed. The warmth radiating from his skin is comforting and I turn my head to tuck my face into his shoulder. I take a deep breath, the scent of him is comforting in a strange way. It wasn’t just a few days ago and it probably shouldn’t be now, but it is. I’d rather stay tangled between his limbs all afternoon, but he’d never permit that.

When I wake up I’m alone on the bed and it’s dark. I squint my eyes searching for Chigurh in the room, but he’s not here. The bathroom door is open and no light comes from there either. Red numbers reading 11:50 glow from the clock on the nightstand. My mind is foggy and I don’t know how I slept this long.

When did he leave?

There isn’t an extra key for me to take and lock the door as I slip into the hallway. But as long as he doesn’t come back right away I’ll be okay. Maybe I should want him to come back from wherever he went. Or maybe I should never want to see him again. I can’t let my indecisive thoughts overtake me otherwise I’ll stand in the doorway all night.

There’s not a single soul in sight. I push myself forward, down the long corridor with dark hardwood floors. An equally long carpet lies on top of them to muffle the sound of heavy steps. Along the top of the cream walls, decorative halogen lights let off a yellow glow. Something about wandering the halls of an old hotel in an unfamiliar city is otherworldly. I almost feel transported back to the ‘40s.

As I pass one of the rooms closer to the staircase, several indecipherable voices pass quietly back and forth. I stupidly think nothing of it.

Two of the stairs creek as I try to quietly make my way down them. The lobby is also empty. The man who was standing behind the desk earlier has disappeared. Which by itself isn’t all that strange. Yet no one at all is there to replace him.

I creep towards the counter, not sure what to expect. When I am close enough to see over the edge, the sight at hand makes my stomach twist and knees almost give out.

The clerk lies unrecognizable on the ground with half their head blown to pieces. Blood spills out of the opening and coats the ground. The overwhelming metallic smell is too much to bear.

I stumble backward, gasping for breath. My vision starts to blur as I search for the staircase. I pause once I reach the rails. Panic races through my chest. I don’t bother being quiet as I race up the steps, desperately gripping the wooden rail. Just as I round the corner I hear it.

It's muffled, yet distinct enough that I could never misplace it. The sound whooshing sound of Chigurh’s silenced shotgun fills my ears exactly once. It comes from the same room the voices did. While it’s quiet, you can’t completely silence a shotgun. I freeze, waiting to hear it again. I don’t remember him bringing it with us into the room, only the revolver. My muscles tense, entirely expecting an array of bullets to shatter through the walls. Instead, a phone rings.

Moments pass and then Chigurh opens the door. He checks the bottom of his boots before stepping out. Dark eyes immediately meet mine. My mouth dries and swallowing feels impossible. The pit in my chest grows.

“I didn’t tell you you could leave the room,” his voice is hushed, threatening.

“Who was that?” I can barely whisper.

“It doesn’t matter,” he stalks towards me never breaking eye contact.

“Did you kill the night clerk?” his hand wraps around my upper arm, pulling me back down the stairs. He doesn’t answer and he doesn’t need to. “Why?”

“He saw me,” Chigurh answers plainly.

On the highway, we head east to San Antonio. I lie my head against the cool glass of the window and stare into the dark.

We wait parked on a city street, silently waiting for the sun to rise behind the looming, glass skyscrapers.

“Was Moss in that room?”

“No.”

“On the phone?” I look at him to confirm my suspicion. So, he’s not dead after all. “Where is he?”

“Doesn’t matter.”

“Why not?”

Chigurh almost appears smug, “because I know where he’s going to be.”

AN: Part 14 is up already :)

[just-a-sleepy-idiot]

Multifandom Preference: Them finding out that you self harm

Content/Warnings: Obviously self harm, probably out of character

Anton Chigurh

You might think that he doesn’t care, and while he is fairly apathetic to other peoples pain and misery that absolutely doesn’t apply on you. When he finds out that you self harm he will quietly ask you to see the wounds and eye them quietly. He will be so so careful with you, handling you like you like you could break as he wordlessly brings you in a more comfortable position and takes his time to patch you up properly. Won’t really say anything, but it’s a comforting silence that doesn’t need to be filled with explanations. If you want to tell him about it he will listen, if you don’t want to talk that’s also fine. But he’ll be there

Brahms Heelshire

It will make him sad to see that you would do something like this to yourself. He is bewildered and worried and will hastily sit you down, quickly getting tissues and plasters to help you the best he can. While he tries his best to clean the wound he will look up to you again and again, trying to read you and understand how you feel. To see you who he thinks so much of, who takes care of him, be so unkind to yourself.. for once Brahms will throw the selfishness overboard and put all his attention on you. Will make you a sandwich, hoping that it’ll cheer you up a bit.

Dennis

He freezes when he sees the wound, looking at it for a few moments in silence. You already think that he’d be mad, when suddenly the stern expression softens just the tiniest bit and he swallows hardly. He knows that you have already been broken and hurt, but seeing how much you haunt yourself as well makes him deeply worried for you. Will blink a few times before leading you to sit comfortably and cleaning up he wound. Especially when you are so hurt and vulnerable like this he feels like you are the purest, cleanest being there is. It’s like your inner pain has found a way outside, showing on your skin now. 

Billy & Stu

When they find out even Stu will be serious for once, they hurry to your side and eye the wounds in worry asking why you did this to yourself. Billie will sit you down and take your hand, gently rubbing your palm with his thumb while Stu get’s plasters. When he comes back he will smile brightly, showing you some plasters with a cute pattern. Billie will keep holding your hand, talking to you, comforting you while Stu carefully puts the plasters on your self harm wounds. 

“Here you go, look these plasters look cute on you don’t they?” 

“It’s going to be ok.. we’re here..” 

- - -

🖤 My Tip Jar 🖤

Please comment if you liked this

[threewickfic]

A Return to Self: Bucky Barnes Ficlets

hello hello, under the cut i have the start of what i hope to be a series of little one-shots of bucky becoming bucky again after being the winter soldier for so long. if y'all are interested, i'd love to keep writing these xoxo find me on threewick on ao3 where i'll post them from here on out!

The doctor tells him to start small.

“It’s good to talk, James. Just to get into the habit. Just a greeting - a ‘hello,’ and that can be it.”

She had said it like it was easy. She said everything like it was easy, like it was within his reach. Bucky liked that about her.

He liked a bunch of things about her. She was teaching him to like things again, starting with the way she spoke to him - not like he was wounded, or stupid, or dangerous. But with a warm curiosity that somehow matched the way she balanced her clipboard on her knee and cocked her head after she asked him a question.

He liked the way she wore her yellow hair up in a twist, and the way little strands of it loosened and corkscrewed around her temples. He liked how the soft skin at the corners of her eyes and mouth had deep lines even when her expression was neutral, like she’d spent so much time smiling that it had permanently etched itself onto her face.

He had lines like that, too, but they were across his forehead, gauged in by scowling. The Winter Soldier had scowled a lot, he’d been told. And had spoken very little.

Some of the Winter Soldier’s habits had seemingly, over the years, become Bucky’s habits. Sometimes he was scared to find out just how many.

But he could start small by talking.

“How does that sound, James? Just a ‘hello.’ Just to the people on your list.”

His list.

The doctor had made him make a list of all the people he could potentially feel comfortable around. She had wanted a list of everyone he already did feel comfortable around, but had ‘hmm’d in a tone of kind disapproval when he’d handed the paper back with a single name on it:

STEVE.

So she’d expanded it to everyone who could, maybe, one day see himself feeling comfortable around. And it had grown by four:

STEVE. RHODES. BANNER. SAM.

And, crossed out twice before being rewritten in a precise, clear hand:

ROMANOFF.

He had intentionally left off Stark and the Maximoff girl. They both made him uneasy. And it wasn’t that he disliked Thor and Vision; he just didn’t understand them yet. Gods and Visions hadn’t existed the last time Bucky had been Bucky, and he needed some time to adjust.

So he had his list.

“Can you do that?” she prompted, head cocked, warm and gentle as ever. For some reason he didn’t hate speaking with her. Maybe because he rarely spoke; it was mostly nods and shrugs, an occasional grunt. Monosyllabic answers.

“Yes,” he finally said.

His doctor beamed at him as if he’d just offered her the entirety of the world and a clean bill of his own mental health. It was almost enough to make him smile back - almost.

At least he wasn’t scowling.

***

Stark was letting him stay at the tower.

Bucky had resisted at first; everything about it screamed no, screamed claustrophobia and too many eyes and too high in the air and too much oversight and where was Steve. He had lived well enough on his own before all of this, lurking as he’d been in alleyways, squatting in luxe spare houses that sat empty for months at a time, breaking and entering as he saw fit and never leaving a trace.

“Thank you. No,” he’d said stiffly, repeating himself intermittently during gaps in Steve and Stark’s arguing match, the pair of them talking over one another at increasingly high volumes, neither of them seemingly aware that Bucky didn’t want either option - he didn’t want to live under Stark’s thumb but he didn’t want to live with Steve, either. He was tired of being at the behest of other people, though he could see Stark’s point, even as inelegantly as he’d put it:

“We can’t just have one of the world’s most sophisticated weapons curled up at the foot of your bed like a pet, Rogers, not when he’s about as mentally stable as Vision after a Nora Ephron movie.”

“He’s my friend, Stark - he needs to be with me -”

“Or do you need to be with him?”

“Just because you can’t understand what actual friendship feels like -”

“Thank you. No.”

“- Doesn’t mean that you can belittle what I’m trying to do here, what progress Bucky’s made -”

“Counterpoint, Capsicle, Benedict Arnold here gets triggered by some Russian and strangles you in your sleep -”

“Thank you. No.”

“He wouldn’t do that -”

“There need to be protective measures to look out for civilians -”

“There need to be protective measures to look out for Bucky -”

“Thank you. No.”

“- So that Anton Chigurh over here doesn’t go on a rampage -”

“No one’s going on a rampage, Tony, for goodness’ sake -”

“I’m just saying, he needs to be where we can see him, where we can intervene if anything goes wrong -”

“FINE! Fine, we’ll both stay here!”

“Thank you. N- what?” Bucky had stared at Steve, scowling again, trying to work out how he felt about this development. Neither Steve nor Tony seemed to have noticed; for someone they were both so concerned about keeping tabs on, it was worth noting that both seemed to go completely deaf and blind to his presence when heated. Steve only gave Stark a heated glare before adding a stipulation.

“But you’re covering the rent on my apartment, Tony.”

“Oh, golly gee, a squat in Brooklyn, however will I afford it?!”

Anyway.

That’s how Bucky had come to be living - temporarily - at Stark Tower, where he was in proximity to the people on his list. Granted, he did spend most daylight hours in his room; he had gotten accustomed to a nocturnal sleep schedule and still found the bustle of the tower during work hours off-putting, even on the domestic floors, so he’d taken to sleeping during the day and exploring at night.

‘Prowling,’ Stark called it. ‘Perimeter checks,’ Romanoff countered, kinder. ‘Bucky stuff,’ Steve said, always with a smile.

Whatever it was, it meant he didn’t always run into other people, which he preferred. Steve was the one he saw most frequently, and even that wasn’t every day, though he did ensure that Steve was present and every morning, midday, and evening.

But his doctor had told him to start small. He could do that. He could start small.

It was just after ten o’clock and Bucky knew that this was the time Steve usually returned from the tower’s gym, hair damp from the shower, face freshly shaved, always wearing gray sweatpants and a white shirt. It was routine - Bucky liked routine. Sometimes he wondered if Steve knew that and he made himself predictable on purpose.

Usually, at this time, Bucky was in the kitchen off of the common area, putting together something for ‘breakfast.’ Steve would always step out of the elevator and greet him with his toothpaste-commercial smile: “Hey, Buck.” Sometimes Bucky would smile back. Sometimes he wouldn’t. It depended on which nightmares he’d just woken up from.

Tonight, though. Tonight he was ready.

He had a pile of fluffy scrambled eggs untouched in front of him and he waited, watching the elevator. The numbers suddenly began to tick - 32. The gym floor. Climbing up, up, up, until they settled on 84, the doors sliding open to reveal Steve, damp and clean, gray and white. He saw Bucky and his expression lit up the way it always did when he saw Bucky, and he opened his mouth -

“Hey, Steve,” Bucky said, beating him to the punch.

Steve’s answering grin could’ve powered the tower for a week.

[rhetoricandlogic]

No Country for Old Men - Cormac McCarthy

snippets from this goodreads-review

...

In 1980 Llewellyn Moss is just a working Texan living in a trailer home with his young wife, Carla Jean. One day Llewellyn goes out hunting and comes home with a lot more than meat for the stew pot after he stumbles across the aftermath of a huge drug deal gone wrong in the desert. Over $2 million in a satchel would be hard for anyone to resist taking with no one around to know better, but giving into temptation unleashes hell in the form of Anton Chigurh, a relentless enforcer who removes any obstacles in his path with a cattle bolt gun and a silenced .12 gauge. Sheriff Ed Tom Bell is also on Llewellyn’s trail, and he has to bear witness to the incredible violence unleashed by Chigurh and others. When Chigurh’s actions grow too much for the men who sent him they hire the savvy Carson Wells to stop him and recover the money.

An unsuspecting reader unfamiliar with the story or McCarthy’s work might expect this to be simply a crime novel, and that’s how a good chunk of the story plays at first. Llewellyn may seem like your average good-ole-boy, but he’s also a Vietnam vet who shows a fair amount of caution and smarts even when he’s forced to go on the run. He’s clear eyed enough to know that once he’s taken the money that there’s no going back, and he’s actually got some good survival instincts for this kind of thing. However, for all the determination and capability he shows, and even knowing that he’s put himself in the crosshairs of very dangerous people by taking the money, Llewellyn doesn’t truly understand what he’s gotten himself into. The actions of those involved in the drug trade at that level have created an ocean of evil and chaos. The satchel full of money is just a bit of debris that washed up on shore that Llewellyn found like a piece of driftwood that he thinks he can scamper off with, and he’ll be fine as long as he stays off the beaches. However, something else lurks in those depths. Maybe it’s something new or maybe it’s something ancient that was awakened by all the noise around it, but this creature won’t stop at the water’s edge. Anton Chigurh strides out of that ocean on two legs but still fully capable of devouring anything in his path with no more thought than a shark gives any fish it chomps. He can swim or run, it makes no real difference to him as long as he gets to eat. Sheriff Bell has been aware of existence of men like Chigurh, and he’s not sure how to stop them or even if they can be fought. Take a boat out on the those waters and you’ll probably get dragged down into the depths with them. Battle them on the shores and you’re still likely to get pulled in and chewed up. What really worries Bell is that it seems like water is rising, and a lot of people seem willing to dive in so he's pretty well convinced that the entire world is sliding into hell. That’s why I consider this a next level book. The idea of a guy finding a bag of money and getting bad people on his trail has been done before. The characters also could be cliches. The regular guy with a tough streak, the bad ass pursuing him, the honest law man, the worried wife, the roguish hustler looking for an angle, etc etc. McCarthy is good and sneaky enough to let that play to the point where you think that you know how the story will end, and that’s when he pulls the rug out from under you. It’s also where the book really shifts from what seems like a straightforward thriller to a brooding contemplation about fate vs. free will as well as good vs. evil. I could make some complaints about that might ordinarily knock it down from 5 to 4 stars for me. McCarthy’s style of doing a minimum of punctuation so that quotation marks aren’t used and apostrophes are seldom seem can cause confusion and often seems like a distracting affectation, but on the other hand this is a book about the normal rules not applying so it does seem to work in a way. The story also seems to be littered with anachronisms for 1980. There’s a mobile phone capable of fitting in a shirt pocket at a time when a cell phone was essentially a bag, and while ATMs existed I don’t know if they would have been common in south Texas at the time. A Glock pistol is mentioned, but they wouldn’t exist for at least another year or two. Plus, I’m no gun expert, but I don’t think it’s actually possible to silence a shotgun. Despite that nitpicking this book hits an intersection of things I love. It’s a fusion of genres that draws on crime stories and westerns, but it ultimately becomes Very Serious Lit-A-Chur that’s done in a minimalist way that works very well for me. I’m also a deeply cynical person who agrees with McCarthy’s dim view of the world so I appreciate a story that isn’t blinding rainbows and unicorn farts. It also has the advantage of being turned into the fantastic flm by the Coen brothers which is one of my favorite book-to-screen adaptations. So I’ll stick with the 5 stars and consider it among the best of the best.

[wonderfulworldofmichaelford]

Michael in the Mainstream: The Last Jedi review

It has been a year since I first saw this, and it has given me plenty of time to sort out my thoughts on it. This film was very divisive in my mind, as it has been to filmgoers at large; no two people seem to have the same take on it. Alex of IHE liked it and thought it got better with each viewing; Schaffrillas Productions thinks the movie is really stupid and fails at what it set out to do; and Doug Walker, AKA the Nostalgia Critic, is somewhere in the middle, saying it has some of the best Star Wars has to offer as well as some of the worst. And that isn’t even getting into fan response, with the ever-hyperbolic Star Wars fandom screaming for ages about how this is an utter travesty of filmmaking, and how the whole movie should be retconned, and so on.

Frankly, such hyperbole should just be dismissed entirely out of hand. If you honestly think this film is the worst Star Wars film, or even an objectively bad film in general, you either have lived a very sheltered life or do not know a thing about films or filmmaking. Now, does that mean I think this is a GOOD film? Well… no. I think I most agree with Doug Walker on this; the film has a lot of great stuff, a lot of stuff done better than every other Star Wars movie; but for every great thing, there is an unbelievably awful thing too, balancing out the movie into being a literal divisive work, with half the film being a great Star Wars entry and the other half being a stream of idiocy, fluff, and filler. And the most baffling part is it isn’t even hard to tell which parts are good and which aren’t the awful parts stick out uncomfortably. Say what you will about something like Jar Jar, he at least seemed somewhat plausible within the universe of Star Wars. But the casino on Canto Bright, and the weird space horses? It just feels too weird, too whimsical, too Harry Potter-esque for Star Wars.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. As far as story goes, we have this: Rey is off trying to convince the cranky hermit Luke Skywalker to train her, though this is easier said than done, as Luke seems rather content with milking alien walruses and just in general being a hermit to want to help her out. Meanwhile, the rebels are being chased down by the First Order, with Poe desperately trying to take command of the situation and his commanding officer not having any of it, which leads Poe to send Finn on a mission to find a way to sabotage the ships. This leads to Canto Bright as they search for a skilled hacker. Meanwhile, Rey is finding out she has a very interesting connection to Kylo Ren. There’s a lot going on this time in the galaxy far, far away, and it becomes unclear if things will come out on top for the rebels this time around.

So, let’s talk about what works first. The movie’s greatest strength is certainly the cinematography; this is hands down, indisputably, the best-looking Star Wars film to day. There are so many gorgeous, beautiful shots, so many scenes made better by the fantastic camera work. The presentation in this film is just top notch, and so much in this film is just a treat for the eyes. And the beauty isn’t just the shots, the actual lightsaber duels we get are easily some of the finest in the history of the franchise, with Rey and Kylo’s fight against the Praetorian Guards, as well as the final duel between Kylo and Luke on the salt field, moments like this deserve to be held up among the best in all of Star Wars history.

Then we have basically everything involving Luke, Rey, and Kylo Ren in this movie. The scenes revolving around these characters are the most engaging and interesting in the entire film. Luke especially is a fascinating character, Mark Hamill giving his all to the performance and showcasing the natural progression from a well-meaning but hotheaded young hero to a jaded, cynical hermit who has, like his master before him, put himself into self-imposed exile due to his failures. Rey and Kylo have an intriguing dynamic, and they get so much focus and development. A lot of the film focuses on Kylo, giving much-needed development, though unfortunately it does jettison a lot of what made him interesting in the precious film. Gone are his tantrums, struggle with the light side of the Force, and emulation of his grandfather… but in comes a performance from Adam Driver that I felt at some points emulated Javier Bardem’s from No Country for Old Men. Yes, Kylo Ren managed to be as terrifying and ruthless as Anton Chigurh.

But of course, there are a great deal of problems, namely anything in he film that doesn’t focus around the three aforementioned characters. Outside of the opening space battle, just about everything with the rebels is a tedious slog of a chase scene, with the First Order apparently never once considering speeding up a little bit to catch up with the rebel ships slowly running out of gas. Despite what some very sad, strange people on the internet might convince you, there’s no overtly political messaging in the dynamic between Poe and Holdo; the only thing there is just really poor writing, where two characters who should be smarter act ridiculously stupid for poorly defined reasons. It’s pretty telling when Leia, probably the only person in the rebellion with a cool head on her shoulders, gets taken out of commission for a large chunk of the film early on.

The film also wastes a lot of characters that were built up to be more important than they ended up being. Phasma is unceremoniously killed (or maybe not) after an extremely brief battle, to the point where reading this sentence will probably take more time than her appearance onscreen in this film. The hacker that Finn and his new partner rose find on Canto Bright, portrayed by Benicio Del Toro, seems like he might end up an interesting morally ambiguous figure, and up until his final appearance he offers some interesting characterization, but then he stabs Finn and Rose in the back and vanishes from the film. Still, neither of the previous examples are anything compared to what happened to Snoke, the mysterious evil emperor figure who corrupted Ben Solo into becoming Kylo Ren. Some have said they didn’t find Snoke interesting to begin with, and that his death wasn’t too bad of a move, but on the same token there is so little revealed about him despite the fact that he is integral to a major character’s backstory that he ends up feeling like a missed opportunity. The fact that he is played by Andy Serkis only compounds my irritation; why get such a fantastic actor to play a wasted character like this? I have much the same feeling towards the disrespectful usage of Max Von Sydow in The Force Awakens; pointlessly tossing great actors into minor, throwaway roles is utterly depressing when you think of what their talents could have added to the story.

But of course, I have saved the worst for last: Rose Tico and Canto Bright. He two go hand in hand, as Canto Bright is where Rose gets much of her screentime and development with Finn. Canto Bright is a very odd locale, featuring a shiny casino and weird alien horses. The whole tone of the place is far too whimsical and jarring for the film it’s in, and it ends up badly clashing with the other scenes. It also ends up hogging a lot of screentime from the far more interesting and intriguing plot with Rey and Luke. The biggest issue, though, is how pointless the entire venture ends up being, as after all they go through, they end up failing miserably, which leads to a lot of the issues in the film’s final third. The whole thing ends up just being a pointless diversion from the more interesting plot and comes off as a way to pad out the runtime with hamfisted morals and glurge.

And then we have Rose, who, in this film anyway, is probably the least likable character in any Star Wars film. She is utterly bland and uninteresting as a character, which is a shame as her sister, a character with limited screentime who only appears in the opening before dying, was far more interesting in the few minutes she was onscreen than Rose is in her entirety. The biggest problem with Rose is that she almost feels like a fan insert character, with how she gushes over Finn at first and gets to kiss him at the end despite the two having rather mediocre chemistry. Said kiss also comes after a moment where she ruins a moment that could have been an excellent culmination of Finn’s character arc and been a hugely subversive and expectation-defying moment, and then utters the most vomit-inducingly bad line in Star Wars history: "That's how we're gonna win. Not fighting what we hate, but saving what we love." Nothing about this line works, makes sense, or does anything but make the viewer cringe hard. This is worse than Anakin’s comments about sand, worse than anything in the prequels really, and I don’t think this is hyperbolic in the slightest, since we have had over a decade and a lack of George Lucas involvement to fine-tune scripts and not deliver lines that sound like they belong in a Hallmark special.

Overall, the film absolutely fails to do what it sets out to do: deliver a subversive film that defies audience expectations. Nothing in the film really subverts or plays with audience expectations in a positive way; all of the big subversions come from characters acting as insanely stupid as possible, and they all come from a dull plotline that hogs the screentime from the far more intriguing plotline. The Rey/Luke/Kylo stuff in this movie is easily some of the best and most engaging Star Wars content to date, but it gets shoved aside far too often, and a lot of elements of it seem to be left hanging. Built up elements like Rey’s parents, Snoke, and Phasma are unceremoniously dropped in frankly insulting ways, and at the end of the movie everyone is basically at the spot they were at at the end of the first one.

And that, right there, is my true issue with the film: it all feels very pointless. The heroes accomplish next to nothing, and the overall effects on the franchise are utterly minor. This is a Star Wars film I could almost say you could skip when viewing them for how little it adds… but what little it does add is really good and essential. This is definitely a movie that home viewing will make better, since at home you can skip through the awful Canto Bright and rebel chase sequences to get to the good stuff. The lightspeed ram, the Praetorian duel, Luke and Kylo’s confrontation… all of that stuff is worth seeing.

Ultimately, the film is neither really good nor bad. It’s just a mixed bag that is not nearly as subversive or expectation-defying as a contemporary blockbuster film like Infinity War or even an older film like The Empire Strikes Back. What it does succeed at is delivering a visually stunning film with excellent character dynamics between the three big players. So, it is easy to see why the film is divisive, but it is impossible to see why people could possibly write the film off as the “Worst ever” or “a film so bad it should be retconned.” If you honestly believe this film is so utterly, irredeemably awful, I frankly don’t think your opinions on film are worth much. If you think the film isn’t so good but at least can find a few things to respect in it, well, I find that a far more respectable position than the blind, frothing-at-the-mouth hatred the film has gotten. It really doesn’t deserve it, though it also doesn’t deserve to be held up as the gold standard of Star Wars films either. It does contain some of the worst moments, if not exactly the absolute worst, in the history of the franchise, after all. But on the same token, it contains some of the absolute best, top ten or twenty best moments of the franchise as well. To write the film off or to praise it blindly as a masterpiece are equally foolhardy decisions.

The way this film wraps up leaves me wondering what could possibly be done for the next film; I have no idea where the series could possibly go, and it fills me with a sense of worry and of suspense. The future of Star Wars is uncertain, but if there’s one thing I’ve learned after being a lifelong fan of the franchise, it’s that Star Wars always finds a way to come out on top eventually.

[raccoon-sex-dungeon]

Pls rb this version with the r-slur censored!!

[text in image: Because it has smart characters written stupidly.

Anton Chigurh from No Country for Old Men is a smartly written smart character. When Chigurh kills a hotel room full of three people he books the room next door so he can examine it, finding which walls he can shoot through, where the light switch is, what sort of cover there is etc. This is a smart thing to do because Chigurh is a smart person who is written by another smart person who knows how smart people think.

Were Sherlock Holmes to kill a room full of three people, he’d enter through a secret door in the hotel that he read about in a book ten years ago. He’d throw peanuts at one guy causing him to go into anaphylactic shock, as he had deduced from a dartboard with a picture of George Washington Carver on it pinned to the wall that the man had a severe peanut allergy. The second man would then kill himself just according to plan as Sherlock had earlier deduced that him and the first man were homosexual lovers who couldn’t live without each other due to a faint scent of penis on each man’s breath and a slight dilation of their pupils whenever they looked at each other. As for the third man, why Sherlock doesn’t kill him at all. The third man removes his sunglasses and wig to reveal he actually WAS Sherlock the entire time. But Sherlock just entered through the secret door and killed two people, how can there be two of him? The first Sherlock removes his mask to reveal he’s actually Moriarty attempting to frame Sherlock for two murders. Sherlock however anticipated this, the two dead men stand up, they’re undercover police officers, it was all a ruse. “But Sherlock!” Moriarty cries “That police officer blew his own head off, look at it, there’s skill fragments in the wall, how is he fine now? How did you fake that?” Sherlock just winks at the screen, the end.

This is silly because Sherlock is a smart person written by a stupid person to whom smart people are indistinguishable from wizards.]

How to tell the difference between a smart character written by a dumb person vs a smart character written by a smart person

The dumb “Smart Character”: Gets conclusions almost entirely through revelation, lacks methodology, intelligence is hyped up constantly by others, lacks realistic problem solving, knowledge comes solely through a nebulous mental encyclopedia which always gives them the needed facts at the right time, seemingly disconnected from human thought process because they are guided into decision making through plot, not the merits of their work. The reasoning is inductive (the premise is used to prove evidence) but will be called deductive (evidence leads to a premise) by everyone in the show

The smart Smart Character: Conclusions made by working out problems and following a practical methodology. Knowledge is gained and learned from experience through said methodology, not plucked from a mental encyclopedia. Acts rationally and realistically to problems as if they were in the world and aware of nothing but the world and their immediate circumstances, not afraid to experiment and fail if it means eventually working out a solution. Displays real deductive skills 

[lindburgsreviews]

It (2017) -Movie Review

It was directed by Andy Muschietti and was based on the Stephen King novel of the same title. The movie takes place in a small town in Maine during the late 1980′s where missing child reports are several times higher than the national average. Reports of a terrifying clown called Pennywise attacking children begin circulating and a misfit group of middle school friends who call themselves the Loser Club decides to stand against Pennywise and stop him.  I’m actually not much of a horror fan, but the trailer that came out for this movie earlier this year really caught my attention. Like I also said in my review for The Dark Tower, Stephen King novels usually translate to film very well so I had reason to be excited. 

The conversation about this movie and the TV miniseries that came out before it always begins and ends with the role of Pennywise. Tim Curry made the character iconic in his portrayal of the clown and I think Bill Skarsgard was fantastic in his own right. The director and designers of the character also deserve credit, but he did a phenomenal job in making his own interpretation of the character; maintaining a balance between playful and horrifying while also bringing a physicality to the role making it even more intimidating.  As scary as he is, I found myself throughout the time watching it wanting to see more of him on screen. It’s an intense performance the lingers with you after walking out of the theater. I might need to watch the movie a few more times before I can definitively say it, but I think Skarsgard’s Pennywise will be regarded as one of the best film villains of the 21st century along with the likes of Heath Ledger’s Joker, Anton Chigurh in No Country for Old Men, and Hans Landa in Inglorious Basterds. If that doesn’t give you a sense of just how scary this performance is, I don’t think anything will.  

The Loser Club was also well-cast. Each of the seven members of the group has a very distinct personality that feels very real. Anybody who has been through middle school can identify each member of the rag tags as themselves or one of their own friends from their own time in middle school. In some ways it reminded me a lot of the boys from The Sandlot. They all face distinct problems; coping with them in different ways while also trying to adjust to growing up and trying to stop a homicidal clown. This makes the group of protagonists not only easy to root for but also realistic. 

In regards to problems with this movie, there were quite a few that bothered me. The biggest problem being with tone. There were scenes that were very intense and violent followed up by ones that felt light-hearted and almost happy or vice-versa. Having scenes like this follow back to back can be very jarring and took me out of the movie. This movie was also very reliant on jump scares. Sure you could say the point of a horror movie may be to scare the viewer, but there comes a point where something jumping out of nowhere or trying to use a fake scare to throw the viewer off becomes played out pretty quickly. It also shows a lack of creativity from a film-making standpoint. 

Another opportunity that this movie missed regards the plot. I just found out day after watching the movie that the evil force that takes its form in Pennywise is a metaphor for childhood trauma. This is especially prevalent in the novel with the kids dealing with bullying, puberty, and abusive parents among other things. I think this is extremely interesting and it could have added a ton of depth to the story. Unfortunately, it’s hard to even notice the connections between It and the problems the kids are facing.I understand and am usually completely fine with filmmakers making cuts when adapting a book to film. After the the original novel is well over one thousand pages.  But in this scenario, it really could have set it apart from other horror movies as well as leaving the viewer thinking about far more than just how scared they were. 

In conclusion, It is a chilling movie that is worth seeing in theaters. That being said, there were a few missed opportunities that could have taken it from good to great. Bill Skarsgard as Pennywise is easily the best thing the movie has going for it. It will be interesting to see where part two takes things in the future in regards to tying up loose ends and advancing the story. 

Final Rating on the Lindburg Scale: 8.0 out of 10

[eleanorblythe]

Romantic Homicide - Anton Chigurh x Original Female Character - One Shot

This is a supplemental to my first three chapters and explores Anton and Her before the events of Romantic Homicide

Three times they met. Three times she survived him.

Also on Ao3 with author notes and translations - here

Summer of 1977

He had seen her several times during the summer. It was unnerving. It was like he summoned her. Every time her face flitted into his mind, she appeared.

The first time it happened was about a month after that night in the motel. She hadn’t seen him. They both happened to be in the same gas station.

He mused that they both now had different cars.

He watched from his car, as she filled up her tank, made small talk with the cashier in store, all beaming smiles and easy laughs, before settling in her car, where a blank expression washed over her. She opened up a folder on the passenger seat and read and flipped through the documents and pictures.

Contract.

He watched her drive away. He briefly thought about following her.

Why? He shook the thought out of his head and drove away.

___________________

The next time it happened, it was only a few weeks later. This time she saw him first. He was settled in a booth in a diner and felt a shadow pass over him, expecting the waitress with his food. Until that voice…

“Hey handsome.”

He looked up, keeping his face as neutral as possible. She smiled down at him then slid into the seat opposite him.

“If I didn’t know any better I’d think you were following me,” she purred.

Confusion must have flashed across his face because she laughed and placed a warm hand on his fist, resting on the table.

“I was kidding, but you could have said hello at the gas station, I don’t bite…unless you like that,”

She had seen him. And why was she flirting with him? He absently wondered whether she did it because she knew it would make him uncomfortable. But with her hand on his - it was so warm. So reassuring.

So, right.

“If you’re on a job or just, don’t want company by all means tell me and I’ll go,” she was conscious he hadn’t said anything and was staring down at her hand on his.

“I’m not on a job.” He met her gaze. It was as good as an invitation she was likely to get out of him, so she removed her hand and flipped through the diner menu.

“What’s good?” She asked scanning over the lists.

“It’s a diner off the highway. None of it’s good.”

“You say that, but I once had an excellent sundae in a place like this, just after this huge shootout. It was like the perfect reward.”

Another shadow passed over him, and this time it was a waitress with his food.

“Here we go, sir - oh sorry, ma’am, would you like to order?”

She peered over her menu at the plate that had just been put down in front of Anton.

“I’m good, we’ll share, won’t we darling?”

Anton considered killing her right then.

“No, thank you.” He gritted out.

She smiled apologetically up at the waitress.

“Sorry, my husband gets very cranky on long car rides. We’ll be fine thank you,” instantly putting the young girl at ease as she moved to serve other patrons.

“Does look good,” she mumbled as she took a fry off his plate.

“I take it back, I do mind you sitting here,” he said lowly.

She merely rolled her eyes. She. Rolled her eyes. At him? His fists clenched until the knuckles turned white.

“Anton, dear, if you’re going to strangle me you should know, my safeword is peach,”

“Why should I know that?”

“You seem like the type.” She helped herself to another fry.

“Maybe I’ll just shoot you.”

She raised a perfectly arched eyebrow, then seemed to remember something.

“Oh your native tongue is Spanish, sí?”

“Yes.”

“I had a run in with a very angry Mexican recently and he said something to me that for the life of me I couldn’t figure out, my Spanish is a little rusty,”

She said a vague approximation of what she had obviously overheard. She was right. Her Spanish was appalling. The corner of his lips lifted slightly as he translated back to her:

“Blonde cunt bitch.”

“Well, it’s not blonde, but close enough, I suppose.” She took a further fry before Anton muttered.

“I’m inclined to agree with him.”

She paused mid bite then shuffled closer to the table, speaking conspiratorially.

“You seem tense,” Anton ignored her and took a sip of his coffee, then she added, unhelpfully, “Do you want to fuck it out in the restroom behind me?”

Anton hid his surprise well, but he did burn his tongue. He placed his cup down a little too hard and glared at her.

“Why are you doing this?”

“What? I was trying to be helpful,”

“No. You’re not. Why are you doing this?”

She smirked.

“Because it’s so fun to watch you squirm.”

“And you know who I am.”

“And you know who I am.”

“I’m not interested in your games.”

She leaned back in her seat with an, almost smug, grin.

“Yes you are.” She said quietly. “If you weren’t, you would have killed me that night.”

“There’s still time.” He was lethal. His whole body vibrating with silent rage.

She hummed pleasantly and took one final French fry off of his plate (leaving him with approximately, six left) and slid herself out of the booth.

“Yes there is, Anton.” She leaned over him, brushing against him, to take a sip from his coffee. “Come and find me, when it is.”

She then proceeded to lick around the entire rim of the cup before delicately placing it back in its saucer. She gave a final wink, her finger ghosted over his cheek and walked away.

Anton sat for several minutes, allowing his food to get cold. He simply couldn’t understand why he would allow this woman to get under his skin. Or was that, what this was at all?

Over the years he had met many different types of people. She didn’t fit cleanly into any one category. She could be sweet and sour. Friendly and savage. Between them they had racked up more dead bodies than all of their other “colleagues” combined. They were both ruthless. Heartless. Fearless.

He didn’t fear her.

But he was wary of her.

He wanted to write her off as crazed ninfómana, but he knew she wasn’t. She was too good at what she did to simply be crazy. He knew how that felt.

“Come and find me, when it is,”

He had a sinking feeling, that time was fast approaching. What concerned him, was he wasn’t sure what he would do. He dug around in his pocket and flipped the quarter he found in there. Staring down at the side that faced him, he was almost ready to abandon everything he once believed.

He reluctantly put the coin back in his pocket and tucked into his, now, cold burger and leftover fries.

He didn’t touch the coffee again. No matter how much he wanted it.

___________________

The time after that, Anton knew. Fate was absolutely fucking with him.

It was a couple of months after their last encounter. Anton did everything in his power to avoid her. He worked odd hours, he took jobs outside of his normal remit and always out of his usual state of operations.

A client had asked Anton to recover some files from a former associate, he owned a nightclub.

When he arrived. It was a bloodbath.

Apparently this former associate had a good many enemies and a rival gang had arrived, baying for blood. Most of the public managed to get out before the gunfire started, but some had been trampled and some simply got in the way of the flying bullets.

Anton didn’t have time to discriminate who would and would not attack him, so he resolved to kill them all. He systematically made his way room by room, floor by floor. The office was at the back of the third floor. He tried to stay close to the shadows but, like a moth to a flame, people were drawn to him, determined to come out on top. They never did.

The third floor was significantly quieter. There was only the dull thrum of music drifting from the main floor, and the distant sound of gunfire. He stood outside the double doors to the office, and could hear shouts and the sound of furniture being moved around - or more accurately, being crashed into.

Anton kicked open the door and shot at the nearest person. Sending him sprawling across the carpet. This alerted the others who took cover behind sofas and desks. There was another two behind a frosted glass screen, but they were already engaged in a close quarters fight.

He quickly disposed of the others scrambling to escape and was about to turn his attention to the two left behind the glass when a man came crashing through the glass landing on his back, covered in cuts and bruises.

“That bitch…” the dying man rasped.

There. Was. No. Fucking. Way.

Anton watched, almost in disbelief, as she stepped over the shattered glass holding a dangerous looking shard in her hand, Anton could see the glass was cutting into her palm and blood was starting to bead and spill down her hand. She almost didn’t look human. Her eyes were completely black and her lip was curled in such a way it reminded Anton of a snarling wolf. She was so completely focused on her prey she didn’t even notice Anton watching on.

She knelt down, towering over the man on the floor.

“Where is it?” She spoke so softly, but her tone was venom.

“I don’t know!” He choked out.

She took the shard of glass she was holding and stabbed it into his gut. He howled in pain and tried to turn away, but she slapped him back to face her.

“Not good enough.” She said over the screams. “Lie to me again, and I remove your balls,”

“Alright! Alright, the code is etched into the underside of a drawer in his desk, now let me go!”

“No.” And she slit his throat.

She seemed to come out of her haze and finally saw Anton watching from the corner of her eye. Her eyes immediately lost their hard edge and glinted a little with mischief. A small smile gracing her features.

“You have got to be kidding me,” she huffed out a laugh and stood up from her knelt position. “You just can’t keep away, can you?”

He remained silent and unmoving.

She walked over to the large desk dominating the office and began carelessly pulling out the drawers, allowing the contents to spill onto the floor as she checked under every one. When she found the safe code she ripped away the painting that hung in pride of place and started spinning the mechanical combination lock, listening carefully to the clicks.

Once opened, she ignored the stacks of money, duct taped bags of cocaine and pistols and fished out a stack of Manila files. She sifted through them until she found one with her name on it. She quickly found a nearby trash can and dumped her file in it, unscrewing a bottle of liquor and pouring that too into the trash can.

“Got a light?”

Anton wordlessly tossed her his lighter. She lit the file on fire, she turned to pick up the overturned desk chair and took a seat, lifting her legs onto the desk top and started to pick small bits of glass out of her clothes and skin. She finally relaxed and looked up at him.

“So what brings you here, Anton?”

His eyes flicked to the pile of documents.

“Hopefully not the ones I just burnt?”

He ever so slightly shook his head.

“Just as well, you never know, that creep may have your file mixed in there,” she gestured to the scattered pile of Manila folders.

Anton could see from his position the file he was after, but he refused to move. Couldn’t move. He was half convinced he was hallucinating. Why her?

She put her legs down and leaned forward on the desk, resting her cheek on her palm.

“You don’t say much do you? I like a good challenge. There’s a motel around the corner…”

Anton finally moved.

He levelled his shotgun at her head.

“Ah. Has that time finally come?” She didn’t seem very surprised. She slowly rose from her seat and walked around the desk as he slowly approached her. “And you’ve made your decision?”

Anton kept his grip on his gun with one hand and dug a coin out of this pocket with the other. He flipped it and slammed it down on the desk beside them, fingers covering the coin face.

“Call it.”

She looked down thoughtfully at his hand then back to him. An indecipherable look flashed over her face.

“This is what you do?”

“Call it.”

“What if I don’t want to?”

“Call. It.”

“If you want to kill me, just kill me. Use your hands, if you like,”

His eyes burned her. He didn’t understand how she was looking at him. Was it sadness? Pity? Eventually she breathed a deep sigh and gave him what he wanted. Anton slowly lifted his hand off the coin and they both glanced at what stared back at them.

That was three times.

Three times she had cheated what was coming to her. Every choice she made should have killed her long ago. He should have killed her the second he saw her. But he didn’t. He didn’t know why, then.

He didn’t know why, now.

He tossed his shotgun on the desk and grabbed her throat, slamming her into the wall so hard the painting next to them fell to the ground and shattered. She hissed in pain as her skull connected to concrete.

“You.” He snarled “Why do you, get to live?”

She gasped for air, as he tightened his grip, but she never rose her hands to try to pry his away. Which only infuriated him more. Was she so willing to throw her life away?

“I should have killed you when I saw you,”

“Then why didn’t you?” She breathed.

“Not for your games.” He admitted to her.

She gave a small, sad smile.

“Then why?” She whispered. She was losing oxygen, soon she would black out. Or he would finally succeed in killing her. He wondered if he had the strength in him to snap her neck.

He, almost imperceptibly, shook his head at her.

She closed her eyes and allowed a tear to escape the corner of her eye. When she opened them her eyes were misty and the life was draining from them. She took a shuddering breath.

“It’s okay, I won’t tell anyone.”

To this day, he doesn’t know how she did it.

How she knew.

How her words were the very thing he needed to hear in that moment.

How she seemed to know him better than he knew himself.

He knew then, why he was right to fear her. She could see into the deepest parts of him, locked away, long since forgotten and abandoned and bring them into such glaring and startling clarity that it left him feeling something he had never felt.

Vulnerable.

She was somehow, both his strength and undoing. That rarest of creatures.

Too precious to snuff out.

Just as she was about to breathe her last, he released her throat. She tried to gulp in some air but was cut off by his mouth descending on hers.

She tried to raise her arms up in an attempt to push him away, but he pinned them to the wall, holding her there as he now tried to suffocate her in a whole new way.

Eventually he broke away from her mouth and kissed the sore red marks on her neck that he knew would soon become bruises. She took greedy breaths, groaning and panting as the air and life returned to her body.

“I should fucking kill you,” she rasped.

Anton lifted his head from her neck and met her eyes, noses touching. Breath mingling together.

“But you won’t.” He said.

“No, I won’t.” She closed the small distance and kissed him desperately, she bit his lip hard enough to bleed then pulled back. “And neither will you.”

“No, I won’t.” He said echoing her words.

They didn’t make it to the motel, instead he had her there in that office, among the dead bodies they left behind.

She was pleasantly surprised to learn Anton, in fact, could be very vocal.

Afterwards, they left together - easily dispatching anyone who was left in the building - and made it to their cars. He once again watched her drive away into the night before picking up the file he came for, flipping through the contents when a scrap of paper fluttered onto his lap.

He picked it up and allowed himself to smile.

‘Come catch me…’ It read, and below - her address. She lived in his state. His city.

He promised to himself he would visit sometime soon.

She was his rara avis.

He would keep her.

[bankofmarquis]

Film Review:: EVERYBODY KNOWS

I have always liked, but not loved, the English language movies that Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem have been a part of.  Part of the issue, I think, is that even though they are dynamic, charismatica and GOOD LOOKING screen presences that embody the very definitioni of the term "MOVIE STAR", they are working in a language that is not their native language, so something, I think, gets lost in translation.  So, it was with some excitement that I checked out the Spanish language thriller EVERYBODY KNOWS (Spanish Title: TODOS LO SOBEN). And...I wasn't disappointed.  Both Bardem and (especially) Cruz shine in this familial thriller.  Cruz stars as Laura, a native of Spain now living in Argentina.  She (and her 2 children) come back to her small village outside of Madrid for the wedding of her younger sister.  When a bad thing happens on this trip, Laura must find a way out while dealing with lingering family matters and pressures that come to the fore due to the stress of the situation. Without putting too much of a fine point on this, Cruz is stunning.  Not only is she a beautiful woman who commands the screen whenever she is on, but as her character becomes more and more physically and emotionally torn with "the situation" her raw emotions come out and you see a very real portrayal of a mother who will do anything for her children.  This performance is (was?) Academy Award worthy - it is that good.  This is a strong actress at the top of her game.   She is more than matched on screen by the less showey, nuanced - yet fun, at times - performance of her real life husband, Javier Bardem, who plays a person from Lara's past that is drawn into the events.  Bardem won an Oscar for playing the mysterious, scary hitman, Anton Chigurh in NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MAN.  This was a a character who barely spoke.  In this film, he plays a lively, extroverted fun-loving person who's whole personae is called into question, quite the contrast to the English language characters I have, heretofore, known him for. Iranian Director Asghar Farhadi (best known for THE SEPARATION) does a good job driving the story - once it gets started - he is sure handed in handling both the suspense/action moments of this movie as well as the family drama during the "many people talking around a table" scenes.  This film led off the Cannes Film Festival last year and was greatly lauded. It's not a perfect film.  My friend who saw the movie with me stated (correctly) that he had never seen a movie that "started so poorly but corrected itself and finished as an excellent film" like this one did.  The first 1/2 hour to 45 minutes of this 2 hour and 15 minute film is filled with introducing the myriad of characters associated with this family (and the mystery that enfolds), but it is a scattershot approach to film making and character introduction and Farhadi misses the mark more than he hits the mark during this period. But once the mystery unfolds - and Cruz and Bardem's characters (and acting) kicks into high gear - things get quite good, quite tense and quite engrossing.  Well worth the time to check it out. Letter Grade B+:  (C for the first 45 minutes, A for the last hour and a half) 7 1/2 (out of 10) stars and you can take that to the Bank(ofMarquis)

[eleanorblythe]

Romantic Homicide - Anton Chigurh x Original Female Character - One Shot

This is a supplemental to my first three chapters and explores Anton and Her before the events of Romantic Homicide.

This is their first meeting.

Also on Ao3 with author notes and translations - here

Late Spring of 1977

This was getting tedious.

She had been tailing this imbecile for three days now, but he was never alone. She preferred, whenever possible, to limit the amount of collateral damage.

She was currently watching him in a bar making a fool of himself to a group of women, pulling out fat wads of cash and waving them around.

Idiot.

By the end of the night she would have those wads, she would consider it a tip, for a murder well done.

She shuddered at what she was about to do, but she rose from her quiet corner of the bar and sauntered over to Mr Moneybags. When she knew she was within earshot, she waved over the bartender and ordered a cocktail she had heard him order several times over the last few days. That grabbed his attention. He turned to her and she pretended she didn’t see him undressing her with his eyes. Creep.

“A lady with taste I see,” he leered and leaned towards her.

“I’m sorry?” She pretended she didn’t understand.

“Your drink, it’s my usual,”

“Oh? How strange,” she turned on an easy smile and fluttered her eyelashes.

“I haven’t seen you around before,” he was yelling, a little too drunk.

“I’m just passing through, shame I didn’t meet you sooner,”

“How long you here for?”

“Just one night sadly, I wish you could have shown me around…”

In the end, it was easy. So easy. She took him to a motel nearby, chewing the inside of her cheek as he wrapped his arms around her and tried to cop a feel. His tongue practically lapping at her as she unlocked the door to her room. Or his room, she supposed he paid. Desperate to get her on the stained mattress and no doubt thoroughly disappoint her.

At first she allowed him to kiss and grope her, but when he started to tug at her dress to attempt to take it off she stopped him.

“I don’t think so,”

“What do you mean? Come on baby,”

“I don’t want to, and I’m not your baby,”

She broke off and turned away from him, looking for something in her bag.

“Don’t be such a fucking bitch!” He suddenly erupted. He lunged forward to grab her but she saw his reflection in the cheap tv and quickly moved out of his way. He stumbled and she took the knife out of her bag and quickly cut both of his Achilles tendons.

He let out the most pathetic wail as he fell onto the bed and tried to scramble away.

“You fucking whore!” He screamed.

“See, your logic makes no sense,” she calmly walked around the bed and proceeded to straddle him. He wasn’t strong enough to throw her off him. “You call me a whore and yet, I have no intention of ever sleeping with you,”

He continued to thrash, but she held fast. He spat at her and she delivered a swift backhanded slap. She thought she heard something crack or pop.

“You’re not helping yourself here,” she spoke very quietly. “Treat me nicely and I may be merciful,”

“Fuck you, cunt,” his voice shook.

She raised a single eyebrow before plunging her knife into his chest. She may have gotten a bit carried away because when she finished there were several stab wounds, some even on his face.

“I don’t like that word,” she said to herself.

She had made a bit of a mess. As she dismounted him and went over to the mirror she saw that his blood was everywhere. That movie, Carrie came to mind. Luckily she had a change of clothes in her bag. She checked the time, not long after midnight, she had time to shower she supposed.

The water pressure was fine enough. The towels were far too small though, not to mention rough. She wondered absently why she could never have jobs that meant she could stay in nice hotels. One with a pool. Or a spa…

She came back into the main room carefully running the towel through her hair. She gave a cursory glance at the bloodied man in the second bed. Before leaning on the first bed to pull her bag closer to her.

There was a metallic clanking sound and something quickly whizzed across the room.

What the fuck?

She quickly held the towel over herself, pulled her gun out of her bag and trained it on the door.

It swung open and a tall, dark and oddly, handsome man stepped into the room holding a modified shotgun. He immediately saw her standing there. Dripping wet, covering her modesty with a, too small, towel and pointing a pistol directly at him. He had spotted the rather messy scene on the far bed and had realised very quickly it was his target.

“You wouldn’t happen to be room service, would you?” she quipped.

“No.”

“That’s a shame. I could do with a bigger towel.”

“Yes. You could.”

“What are you doing here?” She had a curious tone.

Anton looked over at his target still keeping his shotgun pointed in her direction.

“Him.”

“Ah. Friend of yours?”

“Target.”

“Oh, see now that’s where you’re mistaken, he is my target. Was my target. I’ve been following him for a few days now,”

“I have a contract to fulfil,”

She narrowed her eyes, then something clicked for her.

“Whose contract?”

He remained tight-lipped. He saw her sigh and suddenly look very irritated.

“Let me guess, Mitchels?”

He said nothing, but his face must have had a tell, because she shook her head and gave a dry chuckle.

“Should have known…sexist prick,”

“You were hired first.”

She hummed and leaned towards her bag. His attention became more alert and he adjusted his gun. Her eyes snapped to his.

“I would like to put clothes on, unless of course…you like me without?”

Anton reached over to her bag keeping steady eye contact, and pulled it towards him. He emptied the contents over the floral top cover, hearing her faint tsk of disapproval.

“What, are you worried there’s something worse in there than the gun I’m currently pointing at you?”

“You can never be too sure.”

“May I change now?”

He stood straight and watched her with a blank expression.

“You may.”

“And there’s no chance you’ll be turning around?”

“No.”

She wanted to be indignant, but she couldn’t help but smirk. She wondered if she would be able to contort herself underneath the towel while holding her gun, but instead she placed the pistol on the bedspread and dropped her towel.

To his credit, he didn’t flinch, he seemed totally unbothered. Then she glanced over at the bloodied corpse, she supposed they both saw things much more shocking than a naked woman.

His face was passive, but his mind was racing - he was only a man, after all. It was clear she worked out. Her skin was soft, unblemished. Perfect. Shower drops sliding tantalisingly over her arms. Her legs. Her chest all the way down to…

She looked over the bed for her underwear, but couldn’t see them. She knew she packed them.

“I don’t suppose my underwear is by your feet?”

Anton looked down and picked up her panties, hanging them off of his index finger. She delicately took them with a saccharine “thank you,” and quickly slipped them on. Of course she was embarrassed, but she was more weary of the shotgun pointed at her. She quickly slipped the clean dress over her head, like hell she was going to put on a bra in front of this man.

She glanced down at her pistol, knowing she wouldn’t be allowed to pick it back up. Her bottom lipped jutted out, then she met his gaze again.

“I’m sorry, you’ve been dragged out to this godforsaken place, rest assured I’ll be having words with Mitchels…well…maybe not words,”

Anton couldn’t help but look curiously at the strange woman. She allowed herself to be completely vulnerable in his presence, yet she was so headstrong.

“Obviously I will be collecting the bounty on this one, it is after all my…handiwork.” She continued. At this they both turned their head to the body that had, finally, stopped bleeding out. “But because you’ve been so gracious as to not shoot me and you did come all this way…” she then ducked under his shotgun and walked over to the dead man trying to reach something in his back pocket before giving up and kicking the man over until he hit the floor face down. She reached into his pockets and took out the stacks of bills he kept stored there. She held them out to him, but he simply stared at her before finally asking:

“You want to pay me?”

“You’re right, you should be paying me, for the reverse strip tease I just gave you,”

This woman was reckless. Sloppy and carefree and reckless. And yet, he liked her. He finally lowered his shotgun, he saw the subtle breath she let out. Good, at least she could still be rattled and on edge. She smiled and held out the money again, but he rejected it with a simple shake of his head.

“You keep it. Use it to buy yourself some more clothes.”

“Oh, so you’re funny?”

“No.”

She chuckled softly and gathered up the items he spilled out of her bag. Anton had nothing further to do there, so he made for the motel room door.

“I have a question, did you drive here?”

“Yes.”

“Then, if it’s not too much trouble, might I get a ride with you back to my car. I left it at the bar.”

He turned back around and stared at her. She pouted and fluttered her eyelashes. The back of his mind was screaming at him to get the coin, but he quieted those voices with a single beckoning of his head. She followed after him and turned off the lights as she shut the door. She noticed the door had no lock for her key. That must have been what flew across the room. She saw him lean down to pick up an air canister before marching on towards what she assumed to be his car, though she highly doubted he was the registered user.

They drove in silence. When he pulled up at the bar she got out of the car, without a word. Anton took a moment to take stock of what had happened this evening. He had travelled hours to get here after receiving intel from his contractors. He had been given someone else’s contract. The target was already dead. And her. Her, he didn’t want to dwell too much on. She couldn’t be explained away. He wasn’t sure why.

He was about to drive away when she suddenly appeared at his drivers side window. She tapped rhythmically on the glass and he rolled the window down, staring at her. She crouched down and leaned with both arms on the door frame.

“I never asked. You got a name handsome?” She was very close to him. He didn’t know how to feel about that.

“Anton Chigurh.”

“Ah. I know that name. You’re the famous Anton. You’re much better looking than I imagined.”

He didn’t want to think too much about that either.

“What’s your name?” He asked, masking the dryness in his throat.

She smiled and leaned forward even more.

“With eyes like yours, you can call me whatever you want,”

“And if I want to call you by your real name?”

That musical laugh filled the small space and she told him. He knew who she was as well. Their reputations proceeded them both, it seemed. He turned her name over and over in her head. Before he could fathom or even react, she closed the final distance and kissed his cheek before removing herself from the car entirely.

“Thanks for the ride, Anton. I’m sure we’ll be seeing each other again, our kind have to stick together. Maybe next time I’ll get to see all of you,”

“I wouldn’t count on it.”

“Never say never,” she hummed as if daydreaming. She gave him a quick wink before skipping off to her car.

He would never see her again.

He was fine with that.

He didn’t want to see her again.

He didn’t care.

He would move on. So would she.

He was, completely, fine with that.

He took out a bronze coin and flipped. When he saw the face that stared back at him, he was finally satisfied. He started his car and drove away, watching her also set off into the night in his rear view mirror.

Never say never.