#but this game of cat and mouse is delightful nonetheless

[for-tymora]

Wouldst Thou Like to Live Deliciously?

Something something the devil corrupting the divine. There will be more stuff concerning Raphael and Maeve (half-elf cleric Tav) in the future, but I wanted to get this out first!

[yourlocaldisneyvillain]

As requested, here is the beginning of the Snowy Saga set of askbox fics for my darling Local Disney Villain ❤️ No ships, just Lucifer, Mazikeen, and a wild, vicious killer. (Rated G, lol) ₍⸍⸌̣ ʷ̣̫⸍̣⸌₎₍⸍⸌̣ ʷ̣̫⸍̣⸌₎₍⸍⸌̣ ʷ̣̫⸍̣⸌₎ Ruling over hell gets dull after a few millennia. There’s only so many ways to damn a soul or instigate a fight between demons. 

And Lucifer is bored. 

They often venture to the overworld to assuage the never ending void that is their soul, the inky blackness that threatens to swallow them whole. 

(They will never give God the satisfaction of succumbing to it.) 

Sometimes they interfere with mortal affairs or watch their petty little problems play out. Sometimes they simply wander about and enjoy a change of scenery. Today, Lucifer decides to stroll through a cemetery to read a few epitaphs and bask in the silence. Idly inspecting the names on a grave, the only sounds around them are the rustling of leaves, the occasional birdsong, and… a scream. A tiny one, but a cry for help nonetheless. Following the sound, Lucifer comes across a miniature battleground - a mouse cornered against the roots of an old oak tree, a snow white cat looming over it. There is blood on the ground and the poor mouse is panting heavily. There is blood on the cat’s paws and it shows no sign of exertion. In fact, it glances towards Lucifer suspiciously before deciding to continue torturing the smaller creature. The cat bops the mouse around as it squeaks and squeals, pausing each time the mouse stops moving. It is not yet time for the final blow. 

Captivated, Lucifer kneels down beside the scene, one hand propping up their head while they watch the tiny display of brutality. It doesn’t take long before the cat grows weary of the game, instead biting into the mouse’s side. The anguish. The violence. The cat looks at Lucifer with its prey still squirming. Such striking eyes - a deep, rusty orange that pairs nicely with the blood around its mouth. Lucifer smiles as the cat shakes its head, tossing the mouse back and forth until all the squeaks stop. The corpse drops to the grass and the cat munches away, purring and swishing its tail contentedly. 

“Good show, little killer,” Lucifer says, clapping their hands together in a soft applause. “I too like to play with my food.”

The cat glances at Lucifer and disregards its meal, deciding the devil to be a far more interesting sight. It winds its way around Lucifer’s legs, still purring, headbutting their legs on each turn. The creature is rewarded by Lucifer running their nails along its spine. It flops over in delight, revealing its stomach to the world. 

“A bold choice,” Lucifer says, stroking the cat’s soft belly while it kneads the air. “I could disembowel you here and now, you realize?”

The cat, of course, does not respond to Lucifer’s words. It is nothing mythical, not a familiar or a messenger. It’s just a small, fluffy animal with an empty skull and a fondness for scratches. It is nothing.

Lucifer scoops up the cat with one hand and stands. It belongs in hell, just the same as any other sinner. 

Perhaps it can ward off the never ending boredom. 

₍⸍⸌̣ ʷ̣̫⸍̣⸌₎₍⸍⸌̣ ʷ̣̫⸍̣⸌₎₍⸍⸌̣ ʷ̣̫⸍̣⸌₎

in these trying times, i have been given the best gift i could possibly imagine. in-between my exams and work and crying and being Stressed(TM) my darling zephyr sent me this. i am not exaggerating when i say it literally gave me strength to metaphorically get up from the floor and continue asdkjlfghl. my exams are still Raging(TM) and every time i need a pick-me-up i read this. i just....... it fills me with so much joy. not to be mushy on main, i will continue to be mushy in @zephyr-is-tired's dms, but zephyr, you must know your friendship has literally made me less Insane(TM). AND then you ALSO give me a lovely fic?????? i am crying, dying, screaming, yelling, kicking my feet BC LUCIFER HAS A CAT. dsafhgjfjashgfsffdhsuiifhdushfduasfahdhdfafdsfhdis <3

[shiny-jr]

Congratulations on 1000 followers!💐 May I request Hydrangea for Rook and Silver?

Warning: Yes, another yandere thing. You have been warned.

Characters: Rook Hunt, Silver.

Note: Rook is one of my favorites and Silver… well, it’s hard to write for him even though apparently according to the personality test, he’s one of the most similar to me in the personality type aspect.

Prompt: H - Hydrangea (heartfeltness, gratitude): “I thank every divine being that exists for having guided me to you.”

Rook was eccentric, that was probably the best way to describe him. Eccentric, still kind but sometimes unnerving either by his words or actions. Nonetheless, he adored you wholeheartedly.

It seemed wherever you went to escape his company, he would find you within minutes. Happily appearing at your side. It felt like a game of hide-and-seek, of cat and mouse, and you were pretty sure he knew, judging by the knowing glint in his eyes as he walked beside you in contentment. No matter where you run for a moment of peace, Rook will find you.

If you want a moment of solitude alone, all you need to do is ask, don’t you know that~? Rook is dedicated to carrying out your commands, and he’ll give you space… but he’s actually watching from afar. Don’t be so upset. As much as your various expressions are captivating to watch, he much prefers your happiness and lovely smile that sends his heart into a frenzy. Can you blame him? How could he, le chasseur d’amour, look away from you?

When you appeared to have calmed down and were satisfied with the time alone (but not really alone), he appears by your side and inquired if you would like more time in privacy. When you shook your head no and allowed him to stay by your side once again, Rook was delighted! Taking your hand in his as he sang your praises, “I thank nature for guiding me to you, for your divine grace illuminated my path back to you like the full moon lighting one’s way home!”

Silver was one of the calmest and most reasonable out of the entire cast. He had his moments too, always checking in on you and tailing behind you, but it was almost endearing. He wasn’t overbearing at all! In fact, he was rather considerate, always inquiring if you wanted him there or not, he knew how bothersome it could be to be followed by multiple characters throughout the day. Which is perhaps why you actually didn’t mind his company.

It wasn’t odd to see the young man with you, silently remaining by your side or engaging in quiet small talk. When Silver wasn’t concerned with Malleus’ safety, he was concerned with yours. He, along with Sebek, were the two knights-in-training that would serve not only the fae prince but you. Although it was the reliable Silver that got the ever loyal Sebek off your back whenever you wanted to be alone.

Silver understood wanting a moment of peace, it’s why he never wished to bother you when you wanted to be alone or why he always obliged when you asked for a few minutes of quiet in privacy. Which is also why whenever you did request his company, he couldn’t help but feel happy. You were asking for him, not the other way around!

When he responded to another request to have him by your side, he swiftly responded. In truth, he felt honored as he stood beside you in content, fondly gazing down at you with the gentlest smile. “I thank the great seven for guiding me to you.”

[laymedowntorest]

Decided to do both a quick art and story :D

"Come out." The voice commanded through the silence, the words bouncing between the walls and echoing further and deeper into the belly of the Plex the owner was made to protect. His red eyes scanned the open area, each gentle step jingling the small balls on his shoes, the noise no doubt like a shotgun in the empty air to his intended prey. His focus laid on the hiding places the space offered, his cooing chuckle raspy and excited as he grabbed a table he had spotted upon arrival and lifted it. To his disappointment he found nothing, so he turned to the next hiding spot. For his target there were a limited few they could even go for. Adults could not hide as well as children. So he walked on, listening for the most gentle of noises so he could pinpoint where the little mouse has gone to.

He had, admittedly, been startled by the young adult who had come around the corner during one of his rounds, seemingly just as confused by him as he was by them. Nonetheless he had a job and acted upon the stranger, lunging for them and contorting himself to follow when they took off. Moon may have had a task to do, but it didn't mean he couldn't have fun, holding back and almost lazily following after them.

He enjoyed the chase, keeping them on their toes as they sprinted from area to area, him hot on their heels as they dove down corners and hallways in an attempt to lose his neverending shadow on their back. Much to his surprise, when he finally decided it was time to catch them, it was no easier. He was running with intent, and still his fingers barely brushed their hoodie as they slipped through doors. Sleek prey, he thought to himself. He had turned the corner to find them missing. A game of hide and seek, it seemed, and he was just as eager to play. He continued on his quest, taunting the air. “Are we playing hide and seek?” He asked in a playful tone as he looked around, almost turning the place upside down in his search. “Are you not tired?” he purred, pausing to listen for soft noises of fear, “Don’t you want to sleep after all that running?” He suggested as he stood in the middle of the floor, finger to his chin in thought. 

The person offered no answer. It didn’t matter to him. Catching them would be delightful

--

Teu watched him as he moved from spot to spot, lifting and moving objects in an attempt to find them. Their breaths were hushed, their body tense and ready, their mind settling from the panicked rush just moments ago. They still didn't know why they were here. They couldn’t think of any reason. But it didn’t matter, for at the end of the day, they were stuck in a the Pizzaplex, with neon lights so bright and body full of confusing corridors that felt like they were in a freak house, their head thumping with a headache brought on from them trying to collect new details during the little cat and mouse chase. They had just recovered from their arrival when the animatronic came around the corner and began the lengthy chase around the place. They had spotted more robots (small and on wheels with flashlights, they noted) but they seemed to avoid helping or hindering as the pair ran right past them, merely observed the chaos. This tall one kept up with them, and they were not eager to find out what happened if the skeletal hands managed to grasp at something on their person. 

Their hiding spot was one, they believed, he was not going to expect. After all, how many people have hidden in the rafters? They had managed to climb up and out of sight in time, thanking whatever invisible entity laid beyond that they managed to continue the ascent without making noise when the bot arrived. Positioned now in the ceiling they watched him from the shadows, making no noise, moving not even the slightest.

It was a fight of wills, who would give in first. They had a feeling they would last the battle. After all they knew this particular animatronic had to return every hour or so to the Daycare. Least, he should. Teu silently hoped the two were not their own separate bodies here or they were going to be in for a long night. For now, all the fox could do was watch the dog, waiting for the hour to end and hoping their first thought was the correct one.

[foilfreak]

4 Lords Raise Rose AU Ideas

Not a single person asked for this, but that other post where I talk about the 4 lords adopting Rose but still technically being terrible people got way more popular than I expected it to, so, with about 6 shots of tequila in my system and a terrible urge to spit my thoughts out for all the internet to see and judge, I’ve decided to make a follow up post. Here’s how I think the 4 lords would take care of Rose in the event they rebelled against Mother Miranda and decided to raise Rose as their own instead, but like under the cut after a little bit cuz i accidentally went way too fucking hard with this and I don’t want ppl to get mad at me for making them scroll for an hour to get past this post:

First and foremost, I think they’d do it in stages, and what I mean by this is that Rose would essentially be given to a specific Lord for some period of her life, like a couple years, and then when she was deemed old or strong or annoying enough, she’d be moved to a different lord for some period of time and so on and so forth. They would do this because a) they all live in different areas and have shit to do so it’s easier to have Rose live with one lord at a time and then the other lords can just go visit her there from time to time, rather than try to work out a weekly custody schedule which we all know Alcina and Karl would NEVER be able to agree on so let’s not even bother, and b) because each lord would have either some skill or set of knowledge that would make them the best for caring for Rose at that specific point in her life. This way, all the lords have a (somewhat) equal chance to be a part of Rose’s life and teach her something while she’s with them. So with all that in mind now, let’s get down to who would have Rose and at what point in her life.

1. Starting off with infant Rose, I think she’d end up with the Dimitrescu’s for the first few years of her life, and the reason why I think this is because... well, Alcina IS already a mother to 3 girls, and while we don’t know a terrible amount about Bela, Cassandra, and Daniela’s “upbringing” under Alcina, we can gleam and theorize from her notes that, despite their fully grown bodies, the girls could very well have started out with the mental and physical capabilities of infants, and thus needed to be cared for and brought up in a similar manner as infants or children until they reached a certain point where they could officially be considered adults in mentality and ability, not just in physical appearance. So with this in mind, it’s entirely possible that Alcina could have at least some vague idea of how to care for an infant child through her experiences with the bug sisters; perhaps there’s some gaps in her knowledge, but if nothing else I imagine Alcina would be an infant Rose’s best shot at surviving infancy if only because the other 3 are so incompetent on how to care for a baby that Alcina looks like an expert in comparison. Not to mention that, of the possible locations for an infant to be raised, I do genuinely think that castle Dimitrescu would be the safest place for Rose to be kept during this vulnerable part of her life. Not only that but if Alcina has actually come to care for Rose as though she were one of her own daughters, then she would absolutely spoil Rose rotten with all the nicest clothes and fanciest toys, things that a small infant wouldnt be able to appreciate but would show that she’s loved and cared for nonetheless, and don’t even get me started on the bug sisters, I could see them fawning over Rose for hours on end, playing with her, singing to her, telling her stories of all the man-things they’ve gotten to play with today, and so much more. Overall, Rose would just be the most spoiled and pampered little baby with the Dimitrescus and there’s no changing my mind about this. The only thing I’m struggling to wrap my head around is how they’d feed her, since I doubt a small infant would take very well to blood wine and human flesh. I suppose it wouldn’t be terribly outrageous for them to hire a wet nurse/nanny to care for Rose during the day while the other Dimitrescus go about their daily duties, and when Rose is finally old enough to be introduced to solid food (I.e. fried human flesh cubes) they could do what they always do and turn the nurse into wine too, I guess. It’s not a solid idea but it’s more plausible than anything else I thought of so it’ll work!

2. After spending about 3 years with the Dimitrescus, Rose would then be moved to the Beneviento house. Now, If u don’t know anything about 3 year olds, then you’re probably ignorant to the fact that they are some of the craftiest, sneakiest, and most coniving groups of people to exist on this planet. 3 year olds are masters at getting into and touching just about anything and everything u don’t want them to touch, and worst of all, u won’t realize what they’re doing until they’ve already done it and left a huge mess behind, so while the Dimitrescus love and adore Rose dearly, they know it’s sadly time to hand her over when they find her sitting on top of a pile of dead bodies playing with a metal scythe in the dungeons. Once Rose is dropped off at the Beneviento house, I imagine Donna is her usual stoic self the first few weeks Rose is with her. She’s not cold or distant necessarily, in fact she’s quite happy that it’s finally her turn with precious baby Rose, but Donna isn’t exactly known for being outwardly expressive herself (and even Angie isn’t being quite as forward as she normally is), so things are quiet and peaceful for the first little while that Rose is under her care. It’s not until Rose takes an interest in her doll Angie, and more importantly the things that Donna can do with Angie, that things really start getting fun. By the end of Rose’s first month in the Beneviento house she and Donna are the best of friends and often spend their days either playing dress up and make pretend with Donna’s extensive doll collection, or playing elaborate games of cat and mouse, where Donna will set up lots of puzzles throughout the house for Rose to find and solve (I.e. rose has to match her dress to the doll with the same one as her to find a map telling her which kitchen cabinet Donna hid the chocolate in, or something like that), but be careful little Rose, Angie has been trying to get her hands on that chocolate all day, and if u take too long, she’ll find the map first and eat all the chocolate without saving you a single piece. Just silly little puzzles with enough at stake to engage the mind of a curious 3 year old, but never enough to put rose in any actual danger. Donna is nothing if not a watchful caretaker, so she makes sure she has sight of Rose at all times, occasionally giving her a hint if she’s struggling, and perhaps occasionally making things harder if that day’s puzzle is proving too easy for her. Overall, Rose’s time with Donna, while not as grand and luxurious as the Dimitrescus, was still a fun and enriching experience for the young girl, and there’s nobody in this world who thinks that Donna’s scar is cool more than Rose.

3. After another 3 years with Donna, Rose is now 6 years old and officially far too good at puzzle solving for Donna to keep up with. No matter what she tries or how hard she makes it, Rose just keeps blazing through the puzzles at an almost alarming rate, making it clear that Rose is desperately in need of not only a change in scenery, but also a change in education, and this is where Salvatore finally comes in. After leaving the Beneviento house, I think the next logical place for Rose to stay would be with Salvatore, who, with lore hinting at him perhaps being a scholarly man of some kind, would basically act as her elementary school teacher throughout the duration of her stay. Now, to be fair, Rose could have gone to Heisenburg’s factory, but Heisenberg outright refused to take her and the other 3 lords decide that the factory is simply too dangerous for Rose rn, who thus far hasn’t shown any signs of being anything other than a normal human girl with no noticeable abilities (save for a smart mouth and a terrifying habit of popping up when least expected, a habit she mostly uses to mess with Heisenberg, much to his disdain and Lady Dimitrescu’s delight), so it is to the mutant fish man’s unimaginable delight that he is unanimously voted Roses next caretaker, and the one responsible for her basic education. Despite his initial excitement however, when Rose is finally dropped off at the windmills by Donna, Salvatore realizes that he’s not 100% sure what to do with Rose now that he has her. He’d like to get started on her education right away but at the same time he’s so fearful of Rose hating him because of his disgusting appearance that he kind of just... avoids her entirely at first. He’s never far away from the little girl and is always ready to jump to her rescue should she need it, but other than that Salvatore seldom allows himself to be seen for the first month that Rose is with him, the only sign of him still being around being the platefuls of food that mysteriously appear in Rose’s room 3 times a day, as well as the occasional shiny trinket Salvatore found and thought Rose would like. At first, rose doesn’t seem to mind being left entirely to her own devices, but after every stone, log, and rotting fish corpse within 5 miles of the lake has been turned over and thoroughly examined, Rose decides she’s had quite enough of her Uncle Sal ignoring her, prompting the headstrong little girl to go looking for him herself. She finds Salvatore hiding underneath a patch of floating algae not far away from where she was playing and all but demands that the mutant man come out of the water and give her something to do or she’d tell Mother on him. Salvatore, shocked by the small child’s fearlessly blunt request, hesitates, not wanting to frighten Rose, but ultimately relents, crawling out of the water and timidly suggesting that he teach her how to read and write. Rose quickly agrees, seeming totally unbothered by Salvatore’s grotesque appearance, and the two quickly move to the schoolroom that had been set up specifically for Rose, where Salvatore spends hours upon hours a day teaching Rose everything he knows, filling the little girl’s head up first with the basics, letters and words, then numbers and simple equations, followed later by historical dates and time periods, algebraic formulas, and classic literature analysis, then biology, chemistry, physics, astrology, calculus, ecology, and so much more. Basically, anything there is to know, Salvatore knows at least something about it and he’ll make sure that Rose knows about it too. In the 3 years Rose spends with Salvatore she goes from already sharp as a whip, to being smarter than most adults even, and Salvatore takes immense pride in how intelligent and knowledgable Rose becomes thanks to his surprisingly effective teaching style. Overall, as a caretaker, Salvatore is pretty weird and doubts himself a lot, but Rose thinks he’s funny and loves learning from him so they get along very well and she loves him very dearly! He probs teaches her to swim and fish too.

4. So another 3 years come and go with incredible speed, and its with great sadness on Salvatore’s part that Heisenberg finally comes banging on the fish man’s door, all but demanding that he now be given his turn with Rose. Now, personally, I can see several different arguments being raised by the other 3 lords over why its a terrible idea to let a 9 year old anywhere near Heisenberg, much less be given into his care fully. After about 9 years of seeing his siblings paling around with the constantly growing child, and looking like theyre having the time of their lives all the while, however, Karl decides that perhaps there’s more to this little girl than he originally thought, and, with his interest now piqued (or at the very least looking forward to pissing the other 3 off for entertainment purposes), that its only fair that he be given a turn with her now too, seeing as how he’s the only one who hasn’t been given the chance to be her caretaker yet. This naturally does NOT go over well with the other 3 lords. Alcina all but threatens to kill Karl should he step so much as within 10 ft of Rose, while Donna pipes up and demands to know what his sudden interest in Rose is. Even Salvatore, who is quick to flinch away from direct conflict, goes as far as to harshly point out the plethora of times Karl had outright denied their previous attempts to get him to engage with Rose, so why on earth would they hand her over to him now when he’s previously shown to have absolutely no interest in her? After a long spout of yelling between the 4 siblings, an agreement is reached, wherein Rose herself will be given the chance to decide whether she wants to go with Heisenberg, or whether she’ll return to one of the other 3 lords for the time being. It is to Alcina, Donna, and Salvatore’s absolute horror however, that Rose enthusiastically agrees to go with her Uncle Karl to live in his factory, and with the deal already set, the other lords can do nothing to stop her from going. The trip to drop off Rose at heisenberg’s factory is a long and arduous one, especially for Salvatore, who sobs the whole way there about Rose forgetting about him despite the young girl’s insistence that she’d visit. The first thing Karl does after officially having Rose handed over to him, is give her an extensive list of all the places in the factory in which she is under no circumstances permitted to enter without his permission (which basically only leaves the control room and the old storage closet that acts as her bedroom as viable places for Rose to go and explore). The second thing Karl does is dump her in her new storage closet bedroom and then hightail it for his workshop to work on whatever sick and twisted amalgamation he’s got cooked up this time around. At first, Rose isn’t terribly bothered by this, since she’s used to having something of an “adjustment period” when she’s with a new caretaker, but unfortunately for her, this adjustment period lasts a hell of a lot longer than the others did, and by the time 3 months of almost no meaningful contact with Karl, Rose decides to take matters into her own hands and ascends into the depths of the factory despite the express orders not to do so. Now, going back to the idea that the 4 lords are still pretty terrible people, I doubt Rose has been kept ignorant to the less savory aspects of her caretaker’s lives, and tbh she probably doesn’t think anything of the fact that the Dimitrescus makes wine out of the blood of virgin women or that Salvatore still does cadou experiments (and had her help on occasion), but I imagine even Rose would find the projects Karl works on to be at least a little

4, cont. gruesome and horrifying in nature, especially since Heisenberg is the one she knows the least about. However, instead of turning Rose away from Heisenberg, these terrifying metal creatures she sees locked up only spark her already insatiable curiosity, and by the time she finally tracks Karl down, Rose is all but trembling to learn more about this horrifyingly fascinating metal world. Unfortunately, Karl is not nearly as happy to see Rose as Rose is to see him, and the engineer all but grabs Rose by the scruff of her neck and drags her back up to the control room, yelling and screaming at her all the while about how she was explicitly instructed not to enter these parts of the factory without his permission. Needless to say that Rose does not enjoy this treatment and immediately lashes out, half out of anger and half out of confusion as to why Karl was treating her like this. He was the one who wanted her here in the first place, so why the hell was he just ignoring her now? It didn’t make any sense and it was starting to piss Rose off, so naturally the only thing left for her to do in order to solve this complicated situation would be to continue to disobey Karl until he either gave up and sent her back to one of the other lords, or finally payed some damn attention to her for once. So that’s exactly what she did. Every single day Rose left her room (which Karl kept telling himself he needed to put a lock on, but never did cuz he’s an idiot) and descended down into the depths of the factory looking for something ogle at or tinker with, and every single day Karl would track her down wherever she’d managed to get to and throw her back upstairs threatening to feed her to the lycans if she did it again. This incredibly frustrating cycle continued on for the better part of the next month or so, finally coming to a head when Rose managed to wander into the part of the factory where the... less than successful experiments got put whenever Karl doesn’t have any further use for them but is feeling too lazy to kill them off himself. Long story short, Rose runs into a Sturm that chases her around the factory, causing all manner of mayhem and destruction, and would have torn her to ribbons had it not been for Karl, who jumped in at the last second and was able to fend the damn thing off long enough for Rose to get the ever living fuck out and back up to the control room where it’s safe. There’s a lot of loud noises and explosions coming from deep within the factory that last for what feels like an eternity, but Rose doesn’t dare venture out again until everything has gone eerily quiet and a deep sense of worry has settled in the pit of her stomach over what had become of her latest caretaker. Turns out the Sturm had recognized its creator and, after watching its initial prey escape because of said creator, quickly decided that it fucking hated Karl with every fiber of its being and wanted him dead if it was the last thing it’s propellers did. Now, we all know that Karl is a big strong boy who’s more than capable of handling his own creations and taking down strong enemies, but the Sturm is a creation that even he struggles to control on good days and today is decidedly not a good day so not only does Karl not have the slightest bit of control over the death machine trying to kill him, but its also a lot stronger than Karl initially thought and apparently not picky about the method which causes Karl’s death, which is evidenced by the nearly dead Sturm ramming itself into a power generator as a final act of defiance and nearly blowing up the whole factory and everybody inside. Heisenberg is able to contain the explosion somehow but not without considerable damage to himself first. Rose is, naturally, quite horrified to find Karl passed out in the elevator that had taken him up from the lower levels of the factory where the explosion was, skin burnt nearly to a crisp in certain areas and blood pooling from just about every part of him, and immediately heads over to try and help her injured caretaker.

4, cont. again cuz I physically can’t stop myself. Now, I imagine that any normal 9 year old probably wouldnt be able to handle this sort of situation in any meaningful way, but i think we can all agree that Rose is the furthest thing from normal (especially considering who raised her) and has probably seen enough blood and gore to not be terribly freaked out by it, but this is where things get a little speculative because we don’t know what Rose’s powers are exactly but we do know from the final cutscene that she does have them, perhaps even a plethora of abilities, and I like to think that some of those powers are related to Ethan’s superhuman healing capabilities, but unlike Ethan however, who from what we’ve seen could only heal himself, Rose can actually heal other people (tho this isn’t something she’s aware of at this point in time). The second the elevator door opens to reveal, what looks to be, a half-dead Karl slumped over in the corner, Rose panics and runs to him, doing everything she can think of save for maybe grabbing him by the collar or slapping him across the face, to try and get Karl to wake up, except nothing works, he wont wake up no matter how hard Rose tries and i imagine this must be incredibly distressing for Rose who never intended for something like this to happen or for her caretaker to die because he had to protect her even tho he told her not to go down there because its dangerous and anything down there WOULD kill her if given the opportunity. Anyways Rose is now full on sobbing on top of Karl like only a 9 year old who just discovered that her actions have consequences can, but unbeknownst to her (and technically Karl cuz he’s a little busy bleeding out all over the floor) Karl’s wounds are slowly beginning to close, the burns on his face and hands shift from a bright red to a dark brown before crusting over and flaking off, and even his breathing, which had been labored and inconsistent at first, began to level out slightly. Karl woke up not long after that and was surprised to find that a) he was still alive, which was cool, b) he was injured but not in indescribable pain, also cool, and c) there was a literal sobbing child all but sitting on top of him, which is definitely not something Karl was expecting but he supposed he’s been met with worse things upon waking up after almost dying so why question it. After taking a moment to gather their bearings, the two return to the safer parts of the factory to rest and recover and for the most part this little incident of their’s goes largely unspoken, with Rose not exactly in the mood to talk about how her disobedience nearly got herself and Karl killed, and Karl being too fucking tired to go after her about it, especially since she seems to have learned her lesson. The only downside to this whole thing is that now Karl has a busted up fuckin leg thats gonna take an eternity to heal even for him, and with so much work to still do he’s more or less forced to drag Rose around the factory and use her like the annoying assistant he never wanted (except he did want her, thats how this whole fucking mess started, you lug), except that Rose, who is more than used to playing lab assistant from her time with Salvatore, quickly proves to be a rather capable and handy person to have around, if only because she knows the difference between a philips and a flathead screwdriver even better than he does. An amicable, if still slightly awkward peace settles over Heisenberg’s factory once Karl starts actively engaging with Rose and giving her something to do on a daily basis, even if its just standing around watching him work and occasionally having her questions about what he’s doing answered. It doesn’t take very long after that for Karl to begin realizing that perhaps throwing a huge tantrum to get Rose to come here only to ditch her upstairs by herself for 3 months might not have been the smartest (or most considerate) thing he’s ever done, and even goes as far as to (kinda) apologize to Rose for being such a dick to her since she arrived.

4, last one i swear. Rose forgives him, though not before adding that she already knew he was an asshole from Alcina, which earns her a halfhearted swipe from Karl that Rose easily dodges with a childish giggle. From that point on their relationship improves astronomically as Karl finally gives in and teaches Rose about about engineering and everything else that goes into making the metal horrors that he’s known for. Karl is shocked at how quickly Rose picks up on the trade, getting to the point where Karl wonders if he should start giving Rose her own projects to work on, but quickly rolls his eyes and groans when he remember that Salvatore was the one responsible for her education up until this point, the mere thought of having to give compliments to that “moronic freak” for giving Rose such a good educational foundation makes him want to vomit despite how secretly impressed he is. Overall, Rose’s time with Heisenberg starts out shaky, very shaky even, but after a bit of disaster and some swallowing of the pride on Karl’s part, they end up growing quite close and have a nice fun Uncle and martass Neice dynamic. They make a good team and Karl does genuinely enjoy having a little assistant around to help him with his projects, even if Rose can sound a bit too much like Alcina on some days for his liking.

5. 3 more years come and go and now Rose is a strong and healthy 12 years old, perhaps riddled with a few more scars and smearings of ash and motor oil across her skin than when she first arrived but still strong and capable nonetheless. Going back to that first statement however, this of course means that it’s time for the other 3 lords to come banging on Karl’s door for a change, all but demanding that Rose be handed back over to them. Karl of course refuses, telling them all to fuck off and that Rose didn’t want a leave the factory, so upon realization that all 4 lords were gathered here with the intention of taking Rose back to live with them indefinitely, a fight immediately breaks out between the 4 siblings, as each one makes their case as to why Rose should be returned to them and not the other 3, which of course none of the 4 lords can come to an agreement about because they ALL want Rose to stay with them. So after another long and pointlessly arduous argument, Alcina finally breaks, proclaiming that they’d be here for all eternity of they didn’t make a decision now, and that, like the first time the 4 siblings argued over whether Rose should go with Heisenberg or return to one of the previous lords, Rose would be the one to decide which of her four caretakers she would return to. The agreement is made reluctantly, mostly on the part of Salvatore, Donna, and Heisenberg, but there was seemingly no other way for them to come to a decision, so it would unfortunately have to be up to Rose to decide which of her 4 caretakers she wants to stay with permanently. Rose is quickly brought before the 4 lords and explained the situation, before being given some time to herself to think and make her final decision. A tense and uneasy silence falls over the 4 lords as they wait for the little girl, who they had shown an uncharacteristic amount of mercy and time and devotion and love in the 12 years since Mother Miranda had brought her to the village with the intention of using her to revive an already lost and long-gone baby that she never would have gotten back no matter how hard she tried. Although they refused to admit it to one another, the lords all secretly knew that Rose had wormed her way into each of their cold, dead hearts, reviving an aspect of their humanity that they’d all thought had been lost ages ago. Rose came to the village bringing with her a wave of death and destruction, and yet throughout her childhood she has brought them nothing but light and life, illuminating their previously dark and desolate existences. The 4 lords loved their Rose very dearly and desperately wanted her to be happy, yet each of them possesses a dark and selfish desire to have Rose pick them over the other 3, to come and live with them forever and fill the hole deep inside them that they never knew needed filling. After a short while, Rose comes back out and stands before her 4 beloved caretakers, looking around nervously as she picks at her fingernails. The silence is thick and heavy as the 4 lords stare at the young girl, waiting with bated breaths for her to give her final verdict. Rose continues to say nothing as tears begin to flow from her eyes, sliding down her cheeks in thick streams as the girl begins to sob, dropping her head and clenching her dress. The 4 lords look between one another in confusion, unsure of what to do with this sudden burst of tears. Rose tearfully admits that she can’t and doesn’t want to choose which of the 4 lords she wants to live with permanently because she loves them all very much and wants to be able to see and live with all of them, like they’ve done thus far. Although the lords detest the idea of having to share Rose with anyone, they reluctantly come to an agreement for the girl’s sake, deciding that they would continue with the arrangement they’ve had thus far, only that Rose would switch between caretakers every 3 months instead of every 3 years, giving rose plenty of opportunities to see each of her caretakers just like she wanted. From then on, Rose continues to live her life

5, cont. growing up and learning more and more from each of her beloved caretakers. Although Rose would likely never know what a normal life looks like, living with 4 criminally insane monsters in the remote mountain village in Romania, it would be impossible to say that she wouldn’t have a happy life despite that. Perhaps its because the girl simply doesn’t know any better, so she doesn’t have the ability to see just how messed up her life and her 4 caretakers really are, but i imagine that Rose probably wouldn’t care very much to learn even if she had the opportunity. She’s a happy little girl living a strange but enjoyable life with the only family she’ll ever need. What more could she possibly ask for?

6. As for how Mother Miranda would play into this whole scenario I’ve just drunkenly spat out, im honestly not 100% sure. Ive seen some people suggesting that MM just kinda chills and lets the lords do what they want with Rose, but tbh I honestly don’t see that happening in this universe. MM would still have been just as crazy and driven to get Eva back as she was in canon, so i doubt she’d willingly standby and let her “false children” take away her one shot of getting her real child back simply because they didn’t want to hurt her, i just don’t personally see that happening. The two most likely scenarios i can come up with is that the Lords either banded together and look Miranda on together, their combined forces being enough to take her down and kill her, OR, Ethan is the one to take down MM like he did in canon but he passes out before he can get to rose, giving the lords (who he hadn’t ended up killing but just escaping from i guess) the opportunity to slide in, grab rose, and hightail it out of there, leaving Ethan’s body to be retrieved by Chris, who, due to not seeing or hearing Rose anywhere, believes that Rose must have been accidentally killed along with MM, which he later tells to Ethan and Mia. Regardless of how MM gets taken out of the picture (or if she’s given room to potentially come back later), the 4 lords retreat with Rose and begin the whole cycle I explained up above, but i did want to briefly address how I saw MM fitting into all of this since she is a vital part of the original story and the biggest obstacle to the lords having anything to do with Rose.

Anyways, that was so much longer than I intended it to be but I had so much fun with it just because it gave me the opportunity to spit some fun ideas and potential plot points out about this cool AU that I like and hope someone does SOMETHING with, please god someone do it, I’d do it myself but i have enough projects at the moment unfortunately. If you managed to make it all the way to the bottom, thank you for reading all of that, I appreciate it, and I hope you enjoyed at least some parts of this, and maybe even agree with some of the things I said. Feel free to leave your own ideas in the comments, I’d love to read them and hopefully if enough people like this maybe i will actually do something with it. Who knows? I certainly dont. Anyways thank you for reading all this, i hope you have a great day, and maybe ill see you around in another post. Bye!!! <3

[theodora3022]

Playing tricks with the trickster

Summary: Failed escape attempt from yandere Childe. He lets you play your cards, even playing along, just for his own amusement.

Notes: My first genshin piece yay... I had a sweet and terrible dream of me running from Childe in the woods. Also some inspiration was drawn from @cinnamonest‘s this post, one big virtual hug to her! I hope I did Childe justice, what can I say I love manipulative smiling boys. It has become a pattern as I dash from one fandom to another. This is had turned out to be longer then I expected...Ginger boy demands my time and energy too much omg. Mind the warnings, although there is nothing extreme in this.

Fun fact, I was looping to Nintendo game by Alessia Cara when writing this down. I believe it fits the theme of this fic quite well.

Tagging: @akutaguagua a great friend who patiently beta-read this mess of a horror dream and gave me lots of kind praises! 

(Offical art belongs to miHoYo! This is a cover page of this video, if there is any issues, contact me and I will remove it at once)

Warnings: Implied past abduction,dub-con touching, mild degradation, drugging(not on reader), implied non-con/dub-con at the end, this is not healthy love and I do not condone this irl.

It has been nearly a month since the youngest Fatui Harbinger had “taken you in”. After a few tries, you were too horrified by the punishments to continuously fight him. You learned on the first day that Childe’s smiling, the friendly mask would come off towards you. Your behaviour would decide if that is a curse or a “blessing”.

So you had quieted down, struggling to restrain yourself from yelling or screaming, carefully not to provoke his anger. Despite being compliant to his orders, you never truly showed him any affection either. Sure, you would sit on his lap if he asked, but you never initiated anything intimate with him. No matter how much Tartaglia spoiled you with clothes, books, jewelry or other luxuries, he is still the one who holds the commanding end of your shackles. It’s the best not to get used to all of that when your sight is set on the door.

Although he has taken your freedom away, you are not kept in a windowless room. On the contrary, you have too many outings now. Wherever he goes, you have to be present in a 2m radius, including meetings. Being a Harbinger is no easy job, so he prefers not having to worry about your safetly during buisness hours. The best way to do that is never let you out of his sight.

“Love, no one should witness our little problems. Well, no one alive that is.” Of course you wouldn’t want to put innocent people's lives at stake. You never dared to act out when you two are in public, and no one would bat an eye if a Fatui had taken a lover. 

You had taken an emotionless approach towards him. If Childe wants a kiss on the cheek, you’ll give him a quick light peck. If he wants breakfast, you’ll go make some pancakes with the topping he likes. Luckily, Childe had not done anything too extreme yet. If cuddling to sleep does not count as extreme that is. The only time you slipped up is when he suddenly hugs you from behind when you’re cooking.  

You thought maybe, just maybe, by being as boring and dull as you could, this bastard might just get tired of you and let you go. Childe only loves the fun of it right? Or maybe it could lower his guard.

Oh, how naive you are. You should have known better than to underestimate a Fatui harbinger. See, this is exactly why he needs to keep you around. Yes, unfortunately for you, Childe loves you, so very much. Speaking to him with a monotone voice isn’t going to alter that fact.

You have been devoid of emotions as of late. While Childe does appreciate fewer screams for the sake of his eardrums, this schemer can sense you are up to something. Perhaps this is the peace before your “storm”(he thought of it more like a drizzle)

You want to play a game? Okay, why not? Childe cannot wait to see what tricks you got on those sleeves. Are you ever getting away? Does an amateur ever win when they play a game with a professional trickster? Never.

Still, nothing bites like a cornered rat. You are no airhead, and he is fully aware of that. Just not as cunning and observent as him, that’s all.

The way you just kept your emotions sealed up is impressive, even to someone like him. Even when he got hansy, you did not flinch and just stared at the corner. Childe can only catch faint glimpses of anger when you thought he wasn’t looking.

Hm, when are you pulling your trigger? Tonight, or tomorrow night? Not that Childe is impatient, anything from you is worth waiting. But he would need to dismiss his patrolling underlings in the nearby woods beforehand. No extras would be allowed to disturb this game.

There is no chance during the day, a somewhat mutual understanding for you two. Night time in comparison, is a different story. 

Anyone’s sleeping hours is their most vulnerable time of the day, Childe is no exception. You do not plan to harm him, not that you don’t want to. But you are willing to swallow the pent up frustration towards him if you would never see his face again after this. Maybe beating up some slimes would help with the release?

You somehow managed to slip a mixture of herbs into his tea. Since he would buy cooking ingredients for you from time to time, you had requested a bunch of herbs along with the ingredients of a sleep inducing medicine you remembered. Although Childe does all he can to keep you near him, there are inevitable hours that he needs to be somewhere without you. He cannot jeopardize your safety with troublesome monsters. On a side note, he loves showing you off to anyone, his colleagues, acquaintances, business partners, anyone he does not deem a threat.

Enough time for you to make those herbs into powder and cover it up with a few spoons of milk. Tea with milk has become quite popular in Liyue as of late. Childe has grown to love them, so you have learned how to mix it up. He always let you handle his food and drinks, saying that he “trusts you”. What you do not know is this is one of the openings he exposed on purpose. It’s not like you can aquire anything deadly under his suffocating supervision.

Your plan will work, or so you think. Childe will not wake up when you wiggle out of his grasp, because dreamland will keep him occupied. All you need is a glider and a usable sword from Liyue and you’ll get your life back. Bottling up extreme emotions has certainly taken a toll on your mind, but it will be worth it if that is the prerequisite of being free.

Something about this being so easy sits ill with you. Have you really been with the youngest Fatui Harbinger this whole time? But that was brushed off your shoulders by the sheer excitement of regaining your long lost freedom. You know Liyue is in walking distance, all you need to do is cross these woods and-

The moment you dive into the forest, you think you heard an amused chuckle. 

That smooth voice terrifies you to no end, the same voice you took orders from for the past month.

Oh, how Childe loves seeing you happy. It’s priceless, both literally and figuratively. No matter how many things he buys you, you had not shown him even one small smile. Enjoy your sweet freedom, because it ain’t going to last. You certainly will know your place after this right? If not you are just dumber then he give you credit for.

That glow of relief in your eyes is worth every last bit of this intense dizzying feeling to Childe. To make sure your plan go through, he had drunk the tea without hesitation, quick enough to catch the momentarily excitement you expressed. He knows the game is on, therefore he had given the night patrol guards the entire evening off. Forcing himself to stay concious by digging his nails into his palms, Childe followed you into the woods.

Your potion is quite strong. Excellent, you’ll have to give him the recipe for informational purposes later. Especially how you managed to achieve such effects with a few herbs you had. He never took you to be anything less than a smart girl, but this has exceeded his expectations. Where’s the fun in a game without challenges?

How you storm through the forest wearing that cute terrified expression looks so endearing, it’s surely not his fault if he wants to enjoy this sight to be longer right.

So, each time you feel the slightest at ease due to whatever reason, expect Childe to make some sound to send you running like your life depends on it again. The sadistic man is hunting you down playfully, like a cat chasing a stray mouse to the inevitable corner.

You know he is toying with you. There is nothing you can do to make him shut up though.

“Love, you had scratched your leg. Must hurts by the looks of it.”

“Liyue is that way, you know.”

“Are you tired? If you want to jog in the middle of the night, you should have called me to come along!”

How can he say those things nonchalantly while you are trying to escape from him?  Here he is, daunting you with that signature smile he wears so very often. That is when reality slaps you right in the face. No matter how hard you plan, no matter how fast you run, there is no getting rid of him.

When your stamina runs out, a simple pull and push on your left wrist is enough to let you fall onto the ground panting. Even now, you still refuse to beg for mercy. You would take the cold grounds to the warmth of Childe’s embrace anyday. 

“Aw, burnt out already? Pathetic. Looks like we need to work on your stamina more. But this is not the place for exercise.”

“Look at me.” His slender but forceful fingers tilt your head up, making you look into those ocean blue orbs. There is anger present in his eyes, but those emotions are more a mixture of delight and that. His smile had also been replaced by a mocking smirk. “You, trying to leave me? Your sense of humor is...well, let’s just call it unique. Lucky for you, you amused me nonetheless.”

“I know what you’re thinking. How I’m a selfish jerk and you hate me. Why be so ungrateful? You get to live in luxury thanks to me, you know. I am selfish, yes, but look how stupid you are. I know you added something extra in my evening tea, my beloved.”

“Come now, we are going to do some exercises suited for a night like this once we’re back home. It is our one month milestone, after all. You had already given me your gift, it is only fair for you that I do the same.”

Childe is not making a sarcastic remark. The thrill of that chase was the best fun he had in months. And you are going to love his gift too, maybe not right away, but surely sometimes after. 

You have to mentally prepare yourself for the worst as he dragged you back to the prison, hopefully you’ll still be able to walk properly after whatever Childe got in store.

[shini--chan]

Hi and welcome on Tumblr! Can I ask for Yandere!America with a Soviet Spy!Crush?

Finally, the first Hetalai ask! I already posted a story to that on my other accounts: Masquerade

Doen’t matter I want to expand on that.

Yandere America x Spy! Reader

Your eyes narrowed at him, your target, all gay in that excessively youthful manner. He was overwhelming with this exuberant presence and it made you want to gag. Nevertheless, before he could sense that something is off, you put on a pleasant smile as you went about your business. Naturally, he caught he noticed you, somebody new and fresh that had been promoted to the point that you’re allowed to be around with him enough to be noteworthy.

“Hey there, fella. I’m Alfred Fucking Jones, the best man there is to be. And you’d be?”, he introduced himself with a grin that stretched from ear to ear.

It was your mission to infiltrate the upper levels of the US government and dutifully report to your boss. Working hard, you’d finally managed to rise to the level your target was. Beforehand, you had heard a lot about him, how he was an infuriating little weasel that didn’t take anybody seriously. However, upon arriving at where you need to be to observe him, you feel even cheated – you have a self-absorbed man-child in front of you. Seriously, how could the Americans be so stupid to hold such a person in high regard? 

The naïve glint in his eyes vanished the moment you turned your back to pick up the phone. Hopeful sky-blue transformed to the cool sharpness of ice. Alfred traced your figure with his eyes, traveling from curve of your shoulders and down the slope of your spine. The jackal was standing right behind you and you didn’t even notice it. Maybe you’d be able to save yourself before he pounced to tear your throat out. 

…Although he wouldn’t let you have the chance. Honestly, it would be your own fault that you underestimate him, and he’d abuse the fact. Whether you know he if his nation or not, it doesn’t matter – evidently, you’re not wise enough to consider him a force to reckon with. Sweet child, the persona of the gregarious boy-next-door is only the tip of the iceberg. Alfred is an superpower that bathes in the blood of his enemies.

Quickly you rifled through the papers stored in the surprisingly orderly desk. Having nicked the key, you’d taken the chance to snoop. So far, however, you’ve been unsuccessful, just finding manuals for outdated machinery and pages filled with doodles.

You head footsteps approaching and swiftly shut the drawer, looked it, and shoved the key in your jacket. Jones bursted into his office with his usual enthusiasm only to then stared at you perplexed.

“What are you doing here?”, he asked unusually seriously.

“I lost my keys somewhere. It has to be somewhere here”, you lied guiltlessly.

Make no mistake, somewhere down the line this dude is going to find about your true intensions. America won’t be happy, in the beginning at least. Not that he ever really trusted you to begin with, you were just a new curiosity to him, one that he’d gotten more invested in than he tended to but a curiosity, nonetheless. Very well, if this was you wanted to play rough then he would make you pay.

Lying on your couch, he idly tilted his head back as he sipped on ice-chilled whiskey. Eyes, glued on your back, he watched as you fixed yourself your own drink while desperately trying to pretend that he wasn’t being a complete brat – which he was.

Alfred smiled wickedly to himself. Watching you get so worked up was some much fun.

As you sauntered towards the armchair that was placed opposite the couch, you asked in that viciously beautiful voice of yours: “Aren’t you too young to drink alcohol?”

“Ain’t ya too much of a loser to boss me around?”, he questioned without hesitation. At the sight of your lips thinning, he grinned and lifted his chinned in that irritating cocksure manner of his.

While, he doesn’t take betrayal well, he excepted it. So, he drew fun out of playing this twisted cat-and-mouse game with you. He’d flip the tables, finding out everything anybody could ever discover about you. When Alfred plays, he plays to win big. Being the object of his obsession, he’d set out of studying you, manipulating you, and eventually claiming you. 

Shocked you stared at him, at a child that had abruptly shed his skin to reveal a ruthless man.

“Wipe that stupid look of your face, sweety. You knew it would eventually have to come to this. Now, do I have to do something else drastic or will you cooperate for once”, he murmured smoothly, voice soft as velvet, soft in the dangerous fashion that screamed carnivore.

Your mind was still reeling from the sudden revel. Still you nodded numbly.

“Good”, he said pleased. A large hand placed found itself on the curve of your waist and he tenderly stroked your cheek. “It makes everything way easier. The other option would have been so messy.”

No matter what you try, he’d eventually unveil his true nature. That also meant compromising you and capturing you. Alfred would take his precious time to convert you to his way of thinking, using any means necessary. Indeed, he’d see it as doing you a tremendous service to free his lover of a poisonous ideology.

He pressed a longing kiss against your lips, which you gently returned. Alfred then stared you deeply in the eye and whispered excitedly:

“I’m so happy that you’ve finally excepted your place by my side.”

Of course, he’d be delighted if you fully switch sides and make yourself useful to America as a country, Alfred would also settle with you being arm-candy. Anything as long as he’d have a semblance of bliss with you, anything as long as you solely belong to him.

[wastelandcrown]

logan lark’s adventures in trying to appease his parents

CHAPTER 2: meet the plastics (but more stressful emotionally)

Summary: Logan Lark is a fairly average high school student. By all means, he should be impressing his parents on all grounds. Except...he doesn’t exactly have a social life. So after his parents give him puppy dog eyes, he decides to join the local theatre's youth production. Good grief...His life is about to get weird isn’t it?

Warning: Potential ooc behavior, Roman is a theatre brat to the highest degree (Sorry Roman stans), Remus being Remus

Notes: This fic is based off an idea from @under-the-blue-moonlight. Logan makes a Friend, Roman is a Brat, and the experiment finally begins

Pairings: Eventual Intrulogical, Eventual Rociet, Eventual One-Sided Logicality, Platonic Analogical, Platonic DRLAMP

Word Count: 2057

As soon as he arrives he realizes he probably should have mentally prepared himself more. Janus opens the door to the men’s dressing room, and he gets a small glimpse of the chaos. 

Roman is loudly and dramatically singing along to some musical theatre song playing over the room’s speakers, Remus is playing a game of cat-and-mouse game with a kid Logan didn’t notice before for a cup of coffee, and Virgil is perched on one of the makeup benches with his knees pulled up to his chest and a Nintendo switch in his lap.

“Boys,” Janus begins, and only Virgil looks up, “I invited Logan-” 

At that, Roman halts in his tracks and wildly gestures at Janus, “You deceitful little harlot! You told me you were going to intimidate him!”

“I did, I’m very scary.” Said harlot replies, then looks at Logan to back him up. 

So Logan nods because there’s no use in lying to them. He had intimidated him for a short time, though he never thought it was bad-natured. 

With a huff, Roman turns on Logan, “If you even think of auditioning for the lead-”

“That won’t be a problem. I intend to get the smallest part possible.” 

Janus smiles at him with that, “See, Roman? Not a bad guy, just a newbie.”

Roman is about to speak again when Remus crashes into him and they both end up on the floor. 

“Remus get off!” The shorter brother screams with a push, “I’m getting dust all over me!” 

Remus cackles and springs up to stand, he doesn’t bother brushing himself off but offers Roman a hand, “Just for that, I’m gonna sweep and pour all the dust into your pants!”

“Don’t you dare!” He shouts again but takes Remus’ hand nonetheless, and then begins to brush himself off. 

Confused, Logan speaks up, “Why did you crash into him in the first place? He was fairly easy to avoid?”

“I’m just unpredictable like that!” Remus says to him, then with the same vigor as before continues to chase down the boy with the coffee cup. 

After another five or so minutes of Remus running around, he managed to tire himself out and laid on the floor underneath Virgil. The boy with the coffee, who introduced himself as Remy, sat down with Roman and Janus to discuss the show. Things were fairly quiet, and Logan was still standing by the door. Janus, Roman, and Remy were much too busy to call him over, but Remus gave him a smile and beckoned him to join him and Virgil. With another deep breath, he walks over and takes a seat. It would be important to gather information for his chart. 

“Hey, nerdy wolverine! You looked like a lost puppy over there!” Still on the floor, he looks up to Logan in his chair.

He blinks slowly, then nods, “I...suppose that’s one way of putting it.”

“Can you blame him?” Virgil mutters, “It’s his first day and he has to deal with all of you.” 

“I am a fucking delight to be around, Virgil!” Shouts Remus, sitting up straight and pouting at him. Then he gets up all the way and sits on the counter with Virgil, kicking his long legs like a child. 

“I don’t believe we have been formally introduced,” Logan begins, looking up at Remus, “My name is Logan Lark.”

The taller boy tilts his head to the side, and grins, “Do you have a stick up your ass or is that just how you talk?” 

“I-Why would having a stick up my behind affect how I talk?” Logan asks and adjusts his glasses. 

Both Virgil and Remus laugh at that. While Virgil’s is soft and he hides it behind his switch, Remus throws his head back and cackles. Logan watches, and he notices the exceedingly sharp canines in Remus’ mouth. He doesn’t know why he’s watching in the first place. Perhaps his strangeness is particularly captivating up close. 

“He’s asking if you’re uptight.” Virgil offers him, and then Logan gets it. 

He shakes his head, “I don’t think so. Just boring.” 

“Awe, Logie!” Remus coos at him, “I bet you’re super fucking interesting! And if not I can always corrupt you and make you interesting!” 

Logan wonders if he could. Despite his boundless energy, extreme bluntness, and extravagant ideas of fun, Remus seemed nice. In a weird way. 

“Logie?” Virgil asks with a scrunched up nose.

“It’s a nickname, dumbass!” Remus shouts with a scowl.

“I don’t mind.” 

This seems to set off a debate about the merit of Remus’ nickname choices between the pair on the bench. While they debate, Logan eats his granola bar. He hadn’t been thinking when he said he didn’t mind. He did mind, or he usually would. Nicknames were usually given to him maliciously, but he hadn’t minded them from Remus. It seemed in character, despite the little he knew about his character.

 Unknowingly, he had drifted into his thoughts, only realizing when Virgil waved a hand in front of his face. 

“Think it’s time for actors to get to work.”

Logan smiles as he snaps back to reality, “Oh-Thank you.” 

He pauses when he gets up and gives Virgil a nod, “I wish I had known tech was an option.”

“It usually isn’t, but you’re quiet enough for Joan to let you hang out in the booth when you want.” Virgil gives him a small smile like he knows Logan is not having a particularly great day, then turns back to his game. 

He reminded himself to breathe again, as his chest tightened when he approached the others and sat down. 

They spent the next few hours listening to the soundtrack and discussing who they would cast, what roles they wanted, and their skill sets. To Logan’s surprise, the music was actually very interesting to listen to. Hip-hop and rap were not what he was expecting. Though, it wasn’t unpleasant. He actually found himself enjoying a lot of music from the genre and hearing a musical in the style was refreshing. His father, bless his soul, mostly played things akin to The Sound Of Music. 

“So, Logan,” Janus asked pointedly, “What can you do? Theatre speaking.”

“Does it matter? He wants ensemble!” Roman sighed, rolling his eyes. Logan made note of that, Roman-types are certainly going on the bottom of his chart. 

“Our ensemble has to be good, Roman. Not just you.” Hisses Janus, rolling his eyes as well. Roman and Janus seemed very similar, though he much preferred Janus. He seemed like a team-player. 

He cleared his throat to speak, then his voice choked anyway as he began, “I am able to sing, though I feel for this show it is important to share that I can rap.”

“No fucking way!” Exclaimed Remus, who now looked like a kid in a candy shop. He couldn’t be angry at his surprise, it is shocking. He wears a necktie. 

“What Remus said!” Chimes in Remy.

With a strange look in his eyes, Roman sputters out, “You can rap!?” 

“Is it that surprising?” Of course, it was. He spent nearly the rest of the afternoon proving to the others that he could rap. At some point, Janus had sarcastically asked if he would consider auditioning for Hamilton, and this made Roman nearly explode. Figuratively. 

By the time the afternoon was over and the others were going home, he had been worn out by the social interaction and overall exuberant energy. Sitting in the lobby now, waiting for his father, he saw Virgil and Patton coming out of the theatre together. 

“Logan!” Patton exclaimed and ran over dragging Virgil by the sleeve, “How was your first day!”

“I think it was probably tiring, he spent the afternoon with the idiots.” Scoffs Virgil, and Logan nods in agreement.

“Yes, Virgil is right. I’m exhausted and we barely did a thing.” Logan mutters, undoing his tie slightly. Had he been this tired all day? 

“Oh goodness, that sounds awful! Do you need a ride home?”

“No, I’m waiting for my father. He works in the building.”

“Okay! Make sure to get a good sleep tonight, tomorrow I’m sure Janus will put you through the wringer!” Patton smiles brightly at him and walks off.

Before following, Virgil gives him a look and then hands him a slip of paper, “That’s my number. Text me when you need a break tomorrow.”

Logan is stunned silent and all he can do is nod while Virgil catches up to Patton. 

He’s too tired to think, so he simply rests his head against the back of the seat until his father arrives. His father probably realized how tired he was, so he didn’t talk to him much. They got in the car, got food, and went home. Their apartment smelled amazing when they got home. His mother had been baking again. When he all but collapsed onto the couch, his mother handed him two cookies with jelly on them and he smiled. As he sat and ate, his mother and father sat next to him watching TV. He was about to get up and drag himself through his nighttime routine when his mother began to run a hand through his hair and pressed a kiss to his forehead. 

When he woke up the next morning in his bed, he knew he had fallen asleep on the couch. He hadn’t realized how exhausted and stress-ridden he had been yesterday, but a full night's rest had helped significantly. Now that he was much less tired, he took out the paper with Virgil’s number and put it into his phone. Showering, dressing, making coffee and toast, his routine was simple but it made him feel a lot better. Then he remembered the chart, and he finally felt like himself again. With his focus renewed, he had an hour now before he had to leave with his father. He managed to make himself lunch and pack a small bag in fifteen minutes, before getting out his pens and a fresh notebook from his desk. 

On the front of the notebook, he quickly wrote “Hamilton Performance Experiment”, and then got to work. The first six pages were reserved for a later time when he could further write in them. He assumed his time would be spent most with Patton, Roman, Remus, Janus, and Virgil. So, each got their own page, then an extra page for others he would meet. If they became important, he could give them their own page and write the page number next to their name. On page eight he began his chart. It had everything a good chart should. Clean black lines, an x and y-axis, a title. Perfectly organized. He decided to organize by week, so on the x-axis, he wrote down each day of the week. The y-axis was numbered one through ten on a scale of how easy each person was to be around. Using different colours of pen, he made a small key and put a small coloured dot to assign each person to a certain number ranking. 

Roman was firmly placed on zero, he had nearly made Logan want to throw himself out of a window. Literally. His ego was so enormous that it overshadowed every other thought Logan may have had about him. Patton was a seven. Though Logan did not particularly relate to his bubbly personality, he was very helpful. He did not seem the type to slack off either, though he would need further research to confirm that. Virgil was a ten, without any doubt. Calm, quiet, and helpful to him. If he could work with people exclusively like Virgil he may never have an issue again in his life. Janus was a five, as he had been helpful but he seemed much less altruistic in his help. Logan admired his ambition, it seemed like he had the show's best interests in mind. Then there’s Remus...He had Logan stumped. He was certainly wild, but he wasn’t horrid to be around. Logan puts him as a five, for now, because he feels like he needs much more time to figure out Remus. 

When he got into the car today he felt much more prepared. He had food, an ally in Virgil, and his notebook. Maybe today would be better. 

[the-wlw-cafe]

Supercorptober 2020 - Day 3: Dancing

Read it on ao3 here!

“May I have this dance?” For several moments, Lena was sure she must have misheard. The voice clearly belonged to a woman, a woman asking her to dance, in front of the entire assembled bourgeoisie of National City. A madwoman, clearly – such things were unheard of, and if the involved parties wanted to be able to show their face again among the nobility, they were to be kept that way.

OR

Lena gets whisked away by a dashing stranger who asks too many questions. But it takes two to tango, and Lena is determined to show this stranger that she knows the steps just as well as her.

The masks truly afforded nothing but the barest pretence of anonymity. Lena could easily make out her brother, donning the mask of a snarling golden dragon in his incomparable ego, surrounding himself with the easily impressed and delighting in their awe and gawking as he presented them with tales of his daring conquest of Krypton, and all the treasure and wondrous inventions found in the ransacked cities. Even more apparent was Morgan Edge, whom she identified in a matter of minutes by the way he couldn’t wrench his eyes away from her cleavage for three consecutive seconds. Still, the invited to the annual masquerade ball conducted themselves with the self-assured gracelessness of men and women absolutely convinced none of their behaviour could ever be traced back to them.

Lex, their gracious host for the evening, had often told her she would learn to enjoy these balls soon enough, but while it was entertaining to watch the National City nobility make fools of themselves as wine flowed in biblical quantities, Lena quickly found herself bored of trading empty platitudes and trying to dodge the wandering hands of rich old men emboldened by alcohol or her brother’s sycophants tripping over themselves to praise his warmongering and genocidal exploits beyond the border in hopes of ingratiating themselves with the Luthors. With the years she’d developed a strategy in avoiding such situations, and it consisted mostly of always making herself seem as inapproachable as humanly possible, adding an aggressive snap to her steps as if she was continuously running late for something, venom to her words and disdain to her voice. It was not a mask she enjoyed wearing, but one necessary nonetheless.

Unfortunately Edge was not so easy to deter. She could see him stalking towards her, palms open in what he must have believed was an appeasing gesture. She began scanning the room for a quick route of egress, but found every way blocked by chattering groups of drunks, when suddenly -

“May I have this dance?”

For several moments, Lena was sure she must have misheard. The voice clearly belonged to a woman, a woman asking her to dance, in front of the entire assembled bourgeoisie of National City. A madwoman, clearly – such things were unheard of, and if the involved parties wanted to be able to show their face again among the nobility, they were to be kept that way. Still, she had to admire the woman’s bravery. It’s not like she hadn’t dreamt about it when she was younger and more naive, in the contrary, she’d spent many nights wishing herself away from a family, imagining a dashing girl to whisk her away into an adventure. But those idle dreams were for children, and Lena had long since accepted that the closest thing to love she could attain were quick fumblings in backrooms and dark hallways. It was a reality of life – a reality that the stranger apparently couldn’t yet accept.

Though she doubted he’d heard a word of what she said, the madwoman’s arrival had given Edge pause, but out of the corner of her eye she could see him pick up the pace towards her again, and in this moment, Lena was ready for any excuse to be out of his reach.

“Absolutely, I insist”, she answered, and let herself be lead to the dance floor. The music was barely audible over the laughter and conversations, most couples long since having abandoned dancing for a walk in the gardens, and the almost inevitably following roll in the hay. The woman started softly swaying them to the rhythm of the music, not especially gracefully, but Lena had seen far worse from her peers.

Now that the immediate danger of Edge accosting her had been staved off, Lena allowed herself her first look at her saviour. She immediately knew she’d never seen her before – masked or not, she was sure she would never forget a personality such as hers. Fittingly for someone as foolishly courageous, she had chosen the mask of a lion, long blond hair framing it perfectly like a mane. Even more perplexing (and, if Lena was honest with herself, alluring) was the fact that she had forgone a dress in favour of a simple, yet elegant frock coat with red and golden accents. Lena bit back a smile as she felt the lioness preen under Lena’s slow appraisal.

“My, my, aren’t you quite the scandal?”, she purred.

“I thought embracing scandal under the guise of anonymity was the whole point of a masquerade ball.”

Lena couldn’t hold back an airy laugh. “That much is true. Though I do greatly prefer your interpretation of scandal over the interpretations of the rest of the guests. So far, you haven’t even tried to touch my arse.”

The calm and collected veneer of her partner was immediately ruined as she reflexively dragged her hand a few inches higher from the perfectly tame spot on her back where it had been resting, leading Lena through the dance with nothing but the gentlest of pressure.

“I would never!” the lioness sputtered, honest affront at the mere notion tinting every syllable.

Lena cocked her head to the side, lost in thought.

“You truly wouldn’t”, she murmured, more to herself than to the blonde. Watching over her shoulder, she could see Lex, staring at her from across the room with barely concealed rage. Lena knew he could recognize her just as well as she could recognize him, and she hoped he could also sense her smirk under her black raven mask as she pulled her partner closer and quickened their steps, her lioness matching her tempo after just a moment of stumbling. After all the times her family had made sure she knew what a disgrace she was to the Luthor name, it was high time she, as the blonde had so precisely put it, embraced a little scandal.

The lioness spun them around once, and too late Lena noticed her partner surreptitiously following the direction of her gaze to where Lex was still watching them, the wine glass in his hand now shaking with fury.

“It seems that Lord Luthor has taken quite an interest in you”, she stated.

Lena could feel herself tense at these words, suspicion worming its way through the sense of safety she’d felt with the stranger.

“How did you know it was him?”

“Who else would move with such self-importance and display his wealth so publicly than our gracious host? And”, she added, a smug smile evident in her voice, “if it wasn’t him, why would you have reacted so strongly?”

Lena could kick herself for giving herself away so easily. She didn’t give the stranger the satisfaction of an answer, partly out of pride, and partly to choose her next words carefully as to not repeat her mistake.

“All of which makes me wonder”, the blonde concluded, “who you are to have vexed him so?”

She punctuated her statement by dropping Lena into a dip that had her heart stutter and breath hitch, held up only by one single, strong, secure hand between her shoulder blades. She swallowed, as her throat had suddenly gone very dry.

“Only moments ago it was you who was lecturing me on the advantages of anonymity”, she replied, clasping the other woman’s upper arm to regain some sense of stability. As her fingers brushed the fabric of her frock coat, she came upon something strange: She noticed a seam at the shoulder coming apart. No true noblewoman would wear clothes old or shoddily crafted enough to rip during a social gathering. Now that she was paying attention to it, there were more and more irregularities that caught her eye. The coat was slightly ill-fitting, the buttons straining just the tiniest bit against the lioness’ broad chest, and the rim of her mask was chipped just below the jaw.

“It seems we both have something to gain from it”, Lena teased, wrapping the loose thread around her finger and ripping it off with one abrupt motion, making sure her partner knew she knew.

“It seems we both have something to hide”, the woman acquiesced. Lena snorted.

“I’m a woman who enjoys dancing with other women, what don’t I have to hide?”

“You enjoy dancing with me?”

That much was obvious. It was no use beating around the bush, and while she wasn’t certain whether the racing of her pulse was owed more to the company she found herself in or the fact that her partner seemed entirely to perceptive for comfort, or, as was most likely the case, a mixture of the two, she liked it. She liked their little cat and mouse game, she wanted to see how far it could go, where it could lead them.

“If I didn’t, I wouldn’t have given you the time of the day”, she whispered, making sure to brush her hand over the slight swell of the lioness’ biceps and delighting in the way she audibly swallowed and missed a step in their dance.

“I’m honoured”, her partner murmured, unmistakable arousal adding a deep timbre to her voice.

“As you should be”, Lena smirked, wrapping a leg around her waist and trusting that the lioness’ strong arms would keep her balanced. In their next breakneck spin she caught another quick glance at Lex, but this time he wasn’t alone. He was bent over to none other than Edge, who was very obviously pointing at them while ranting about something. As soon as they noticed her watching them they got up, moving quickly toward her. Shit. She needed to get out of here, fast. She leaned in close to her partner.

“Would you like me to show you the gardens?”

It was an obvious code phrase. Being shown the gardens might have been the express goal in attending the ball for a lot of the attendees, but Lena was willing to bet none of them were botanical enthusiasts. She had no intention of following through with her bold promise, while she enjoyed the chase, she didn’t like the thought of baring herself to this total stranger with a knack for asking too many questions, in every sense of the word. She didn’t fear the lioness wouldn’t take no for an answer, despite her obvious interest. But to her surprise, her partner took a step back, a few hand widths of distance between their chests that previously had almost been touching.

“I...I don’t think that would be a good idea”, she said, adamantly refusing to meet her gaze.

Objectively, Lena knew that her refusal didn’t really matter, not when the offer she made wasn’t even genuine, but the obvious rejection still felt like someone had doused her with a bucket of icy water.

“Thank you for the dance”, the lioness added, her voice strangely hoarse, bowed stiffly and turned to leave.

“Wait!”

Lena hadn’t meant to exclaim so loudly, several people turning their heads towards her made her insides churn with embarrassment. She took the lioness by the hand and pulling her close, making a show of caressing her cheek for the onlookers before leaning in once more and whispering in her ear: “Our gracious host after me.” She swallowed her pride like a bitter pill and added: “Please.”

The lioness stood there for a second, frozen, before a steady hand found the small of Lena’s back.

“Lead the way.”

She took the lioness by the hand and together they dodged and weaved through the masses, most of them readily making space after the scene they’d made. It was dark outside, here and there the muffled noises of amorous couples were audible through the song of the cicadas. She tugged her onwards, into the bushes that framed the pebble paths where they ducked down into the shadows, waiting. They saw Lex emerge, stalking along the paths like a featherless vulture, but Lena was sure he would not venture too deep into the gardens. Sure, there was no telling what retribution awaited Lena tomorrow, for potentially bringing dishonour on the entire Luthor family for her public dalliance with this stranger that defied all notions of etiquette and morality, but in this moment, huddled together with her lioness, painfully aware of the fact that she had not yet let go of her hand, she found that she only regret she had was not being able to see her brother’s face.

“Well”, she giggled (giggled! She couldn’t remember the last time she’d done that), once she was sure Lex was gone, “Look at you, a perfect stranger whisking me away to an adventure. I must say, I’ve never had this much excitement at one of these odious balls.”

Her lioness was quiet for a while, and anxiety began to rear its ugly head in Lena’s mind as she began fretting over whether she’d been too familiar. Then, the other woman heaved a sigh so great Lena could see her deflate.

“Lena…”

It didn’t come as a shock to her, not really. She knew the lioness was perceptive and intelligent, on some level she’d suspected she knew of her identity. The thought of a stranger knowing her name while she knew nothing, nothing at all about her in return still made her queasy with unease.

“You know my name.” It wasn’t a question.

“You know I don’t belong here.”

“So I suppose we are at an impassé?”

The lioness was silent for a few more seconds, then she spoke again:

“Lena, my intentions with you haven’t been...honest. My sister will have my head for telling you this, but, the truth is that I infiltrated the ball with one goal in mind: I wanted to confront your brother, and…”

Her fingers slipped out of Lena’s, and instead she took hold of her shoulders, as if she was imploring her, begging for something – mercy, forgiveness, anything that had never been Lena’s to give.

“Lena, I wanted to kill him.”

So she was a madwoman after all.

“Have you lost your mind?” she hissed, still mindful of whoever might be out there overhearing this conversation they’d both be executed for. Lena doubted Lex would shed a tear, after tonight, he might in fact be glad for the excuse.

The reaction of the lioness was instantaneous, recoiling as if Lena’s skin had burned her, hands that had been clawing at her gown dropping limply at her sides.

“In front of National City’s entire upper class? You’d be dragged off to jail before you’d even cleaned the blade of his blood! Don’t think you’d be seeing any mercy from them, they all profiteer off of his warmongering! You’d be lucky if you’d even get as much as a mock trial, instead of being murdered before you’d get the chance to see the light of day again -”

“I don’t care!”

Stunned silence was her answer. She’d shouted the words with such conviction, with such disregard to her own fate. Even in her darkest moments there’d always been a voice inside Lena that had forced her to carry on, if not for her own sake or for the dwindling hope of better days, then just out of pure spite.

“I don’t care”, the lioness said again, all the fire having left her voice, looking so incredibly small now. “He took everything from me. I don’t care what it takes, I need to make sure he can’t hurt anyone else. When I asked you to dance tonight, it was for the sole purpose of getting closer to him, closer to my goal, but when you accepted...I forgot everything else for just a few minutes.”

Muffled sniffles were audible under the blonde’s mask now, and Lena felt the sudden urge to reach out to her, to comfort her.

“And a part of me resents you for it because this, us, is something I desperately want but I know I can never truly have. As long as he is still alive I know I can never be at peace.”

“It sounds like we have a common enemy then”, Lena said, with as secure a voice as she could muster.

“Lena, you can’t possibly -”

“Mean that? The Luthors have tormented me since my father forced them to take me in. But that hardly matters. Don’t you see this is bigger than just Lex? Every single person you’ve seen donning a mask today have a vested interest in continuing his conquest, even if he isn’t their figurehead anymore. You could – we could change everything, together, if you don’t throw away your shot with one rash decision tonight.”

“You’d be hunted. Your life would never return back to normal.”

“Good. I hope so. This entire time I’ve waited for some opportunity, for someone to take my hand and lead me, when in reality all I needed to do was take the plunge.”

Another silence stretched on, and Lena’s competitive side couldn’t help but feel a little pride at the fact that this time it was her who had stunned the other woman. Then, quietly at first, she started to laugh, until her entire frame was shaking.

“My sister is definitely going to kill me”, she managed between sobs of laughter. Then, in one fluid movement, she pulled the mask from her face, a cascade of blonde hair framing a face more beautiful than any other Lena had seen, blue eyes glimmering with tears of both sorrow and laughter holding her stare.

“My name is Kara Zor-El, and I am the last daughter of Krypton.”

[slasherscream]

"You will at some point, have to put your hand over his mouth. He may lick that hand. You will have to keep your hand there anyway. He moans without shame. He babbles on endlessly without shame. Will be moaning at the top of his fucking lungs how good you feel?? No matter how hard or good you fuck him he will never be quiet he will just get louder/more vocal. He’s not even hamming it up for you he’s just that needy and loud" PLEASE WRITE A WHOLE SCENE

(A/N): okay here we go! first full on smut scene i’ve written for mister stu macher (or in general tbh) 

The tenth sigh in the last five minutes is what makes you break and finally grace your boyfriend with as nasty a look as you can muster. Stu, uncaring whether the attention he receives is positive or negative, perks up at the eye contact nonetheless. 

“Baby,” Despite the fact that you’re at the edge of patience you try to begin as sweetly as possible. The tone only makes his grin widen, delighted at being directly addressed. “You know I have a big test coming up and I have to get a good mark on it.”

“Constant studying isn’t good the day before a test. You look like you could use some stress relief.” At this his fingers toy with the end of your shirt, pulling it up till he can see skin.

You snatch the shirt out of his grip and scoff, “The reason I’m stressed is because you won’t let me study.”

“I miss you.” He switches tactics, going for an exaggerated pout. 

“Miss me quieter. If I study now you’ve got me for the rest of the night. God- I didn’t tell you I was gonna be in the library for a reason. Who tipped you off? Did Billy tip you off?”

He taps his fingers against his lips, smug and playful and you know in your heart of hearts that Loomis betrayed you. He’d seen you enter the library that morning and you’d hoped against hope that he would keep his mouth shut. You knew you wouldn’t get any studying done at your shared apartment and had assumed safety and peace might be found in the library. Wrong. 

“Whatever. Sit still and be quiet.” You press a brief kiss to his cheek before you reopen your books, ignoring his answering whine, “Hush.”

The peace, to be fair, lasted almost twenty minutes before he moved to wrap his arms around you, chin digging into your shoulders just enough to be distracting and annoying. You keep up the charade of focus for another five minutes before you throw down your study guide. 

“Alright! What will it take to get you to leave me alone for the next couple of hours?“ 

“Well      ” He drags out the word but you really don’t have time to waste with a game of cat and mouse, or coy flirtation. You know what attention he wants or at least what will make him leave you alone to study for the longest period of time possible. You climb into his lap and he stops talking. 

“Does my baby need some attention?” You coo, already running a gentle hand against his cheek. “Hmm?”

“I- yeah.” Stu laughs, tongue darting out his mouth to lick at his lips and with your thumb you trace the same pattern he just did but softer, slower. 

You’re aware that you’re in a study room and the long-term plan in your head is much riskier than a quickie (already a risk) but Stu hasn’t spent much time with you this week, admittedly. A quickie wouldn’t get you what you want. He’d just convince you to come back to the apartment where you would never get anything at all done except orgasms. Here you’re already in control with the upper hand and if you keep it that way you can still get what you need to done. And have a few orgasms along the way. 

“Want me to take care of you, Stu? Pay attention to you?” The questions don’t need answering but when you lean forward and kiss just beneath his jaw, right over his pulse he moans in the affirmative. 

For all that he’d aggravated you today you still smile against his skin at his reactions to you. Endearing and flattering. He’s already started to rock his hips slightly, pushing up towards nothing as you haven’t straddled him that far up for friction yet. You palm against the bulge you already know is straining his jeans and he rocks more insistently, wanting the pressure and to feel skin on skin. 

“Baby-” He whines.

“Sssh, Stu. Not too loud. This is the library.” you pull down his zipper, even that noise sounding too much in the small, enclosed space, “Be quiet.”

With a few tugs you get his jeans down but don’t pull down his briefs. Instead you settle yourself over his erection and ignore the way he throws his head back to begin slowly rocking against him. The moan he fills the room with is porn worthy. Your hand snaps from where it had settled on his shoulder to his mouth. 

“Stu!” You scold to which he tries to respond but can't because of your hand. There's a light to his eyes that's only ever there when you take charge. A certain type of desperation. 

You rock your hips against his faster, free hand tangling in his hair and giving it a sharp tug when he continues to get louder. His hands find your hips and he tries to force you to go at his speed but you take the hand away from his mouth to smack at them.

"Hey!"

"You're not being very good right now. I'm thinking I should stop." Teasing and lies on your part considering now you're just as turned on but he apparently can't tell because he immediately begins to beg. The tight grip in his hair becomes a soothing one, "Alright - fine I'll keep going. But you need to just sit back and let me be in charge. And be quiet." 

You bring your palm to your mouth and lick it a few times, trying not to smirk at the way Stu can't tear his eyes away. He bites his lip when you finally touch his cock just the way he likes. "Fuck! Baby god-"

"Hush." You remind him, leaning forward to nip at the underside of his jaw. He relaxes underneath you, doesn't try to change the pace or beg but he certainly hasn't shut up. Part of you has to wonder if he's got a thing for being in public you didn't know about. The chances of that being the case are sky high. 

You twist your hand in a particularly clever way, gaining speed and Stu reaches for you, just to drag you closer. You can tell by the way his hands flex around your waist that he wants badly to be feeling skin on skin. He gets clingy mid-way through heavy make-outs, let alone when you're jerking him off. When Stu arched his neck into the warmth of your mouth you laughed before dragging your teeth up the line of it. 

You slot your mouths together and his tongue pushes into your mouth before you can blink. It's wet and desperate and when he moans your lips tingle with the vibration of it and volume. You push closer, chests pressed together and gently drag your nail over the head of his cock. He pulls back to moan but you're faster and push two fingers into his mouth. You sigh at the way he immediately begins to suck and lick at them. He's always loved putting his mouth to work. 

"I'm gonna make you cum now, yeah? Get my fingers nice and wet please babe." You coo at him and he does just as asked. He pouts when you pull your fingers away a few moments later. He stops pouting when you wrap your now wet fingers around his dick. 

Knowing he has no self control you push your own tongue back into his mouth before you tighten your grip and move your hand in the reckless way Stu uses whenever he gets himself off without your instruction. He's not one for self-teasing. The way he's fucking into your hand let's you know how close he is but you know just what to do to push him over the edge. Putting your free hand on his throat you push the slightest amount of pressure on his Adam's apple and bite down on his lip. He cums bending over you, arms wrapping around you to keep you steady in his lap. 

A few seconds pass and you pull your lips apart sighing, "Alright big guy let me up so I can clean my hand."

Never one to miss an opportunity he unburies his face from where he'd pressed it into your neck to give soft kisses, "I could just-" at this he wiggles his tongue and you hit him. 

"I've already got enough Stu drool on my hands thank you." He whines when you climb off him and go to your backpack for a wipe. He's expecting you to rejoin him but his jaw drops open when you pull back out your own chair and reopen your books. 

He sits still for a minute still breathing heavy from his orgasm and then climbs under the table. 

"What are you doing?" You ask, even though he's already tugging at your belt and pulling your thighs apart.

"Nothing. Why don't you keep on trying to study, babe?" And you do keep trying. Until his mouth meets skin and you finally accept the fact that you're just going to flunk your test tomorrow. 

[absolutelynoct]

Can I request “You play so hard to get. Will I ever catch you?” with Gladnis?

[Hello! I really liked writing this one and it was tons of fun, so I hope you enjoy it!

Gladio and Ignis were having fun in the training room, as they always did. It wasn’t exactly frivolous, but it was certainly playful, and Gladio delighted in the way Ignis used his daggers against his shield, as lithe and as graceful as a coeurl. Ignis was beautiful and fire, danger and sin, wrapped in a perfect body of sensuality and poise. Gladio knew that if he could fight Ignis and not be distracted by him, then he would be able to face anyone. 

Right now, Gladio and Ignis were playing a game of cat and mouse. He couldn’t exactly tell which was the cat, which was the mouse, but he was enjoying it nonetheless. Everytime Ignis struck, Gladio would block, and every time Gladio went to make a hit, Ignis would dodge it easily. It was a game of seeing who could keep dodging until someone wore out and got tired. Or it was a matter of seeing exactly who wanted to be the victor more. 

Gladio moved to strike, and Ignis jumped away, dodging his attack easily once more. “You play so hard to get,” Gladio said flirtatiously with a wink. “Will I ever catch you?”

In response, Ignis moved in quickly, his blades coming towards Gladio with a swiftness that rivaled the wild daemons in the night. He anticipated Ignis would go left, so he prepared his block thusly. Instead, Ignis feinted and took him by surprise, going right instead. It was too late for Gladio to block it. Ignis grabbed his wrist, twirled around him, and tripped his opponent. Gladio fell to the mat, flat on his back, and Ignis brought his dagger down to his throat. They were both panting and breathless as Ignis hovered over him. Ignis had one knee on the mat while his other foot was planted firmly on Gladio’s other side, half straddling him. 

“I guess I caught you first,” Ignis said with a smile. Gladio’s shield fell off his arm and he reached his hands up, putting them both on Ignis’s waist. Ignis stared at him with wide eyes, his leg faltering, and he ended up straddling Gladio completely. Gladio hoped that he could feel him, feel his excitement, the same way he could feel Ignis’s.

“I wouldn’t say that,” Gladio grinned as he felt Ignis’s fire beneath his fingers. The dagger was still at his throat and Ignis was panting heavily, but Gladio couldn’t tell if that was from their match or from his surprise. He hoped it was desire. “I think I’ve caught you, and now I’ve got you where I want you.”

Ignis moved to get up, but Gladio was faster. He flipped them over, turning the tides to that Ignis was now lying on his back on the mat. Gladio was straddling him, and as Ignis reached up to fight him off, Gladio grabbed his wrists and pinned them to the mat above his head. Desire coursed through Gladio’s body as Ignis looked at him through his disheveled hair falling into his eyes. As much as he just wanted to kiss Ignis then and there, he couldn’t just take advantage of their flirtations.

He released his wrists, and Ignis stared at him for a moment before reaching up and putting his arms around Gladio’s shoulders, his hands twining together behind his neck. At first Gladio thought he was imagining it, but then Ignis applied pressure on the back of his neck, pulling his face down towards his lips. Gladio’s smile fell as his eyes danced with a different sort of desire, and he hesitated just over Ignis’s supple lips. Then, ever so gently as if to savor the moment, he pressed his lips against Ignis’s, allowing the electricity and passion to flow through them both where they connected.

Their sparring turned into something else entirely, and Gladio found himself getting lost in the taste of Ignis’s lips and tongue, unaware of the world around them. Ignis hungrily deepened the kiss, and Gladio knew that all those subtle glances and flirtations weren’t just his imagination. He kissed Ignis as long as he dared, until he heard the door to the gym bang close, signaling that they were no longer alone.

“So who wins that one?” Gladio asked as he pulled away and sat next to Ignis. Ignis sat up and looked at Gladio, his forearms resting on his knees. 

“I think it’s a tie,” Ignis considered with a rueful smile. “Better luck next time.”

“Glad to know there will be a next time,” Gladio smiled. He hoped there were many, many more moments like these to come.

[popwasabi]

“Toy Story 4″ Review: A Great (and Unnecessary) Sequel

Directed by Josh Cooley

Starring: Tom Hanks, Annie Potts, Tony Hale, Tim Allen, Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele

 I think I can speak for most of us when I say there was a collective groan and eyebrow raise when it was announced Pixar was working on a fourth “Toy Story” film. After all, how do you follow-up what is a perfect film trilogy with a perfect ending in “Toy Story 3” which brought the story full circle in such a way that 90s kids were bawling their eyes out in the theaters back in 2010?

(Me trying to look tough walking out of the theater back in 2010)

It felt like a cash-grab to squeeze one last box office score for the power hungry Mouse out of a franchise that I felt really didn’t have much left to say. Well, “Toy Story 4” is still at the end of the day a cash-grab BUT it’s a movie that won’t insult its viewers, teaching another great life lesson to kids and is still nonetheless as heartwarming as any of the previous three films.

“Toy Story 4” picks up where “Toy Story 3” left off continuing the adventures of Woody, Buzz and all his friends who are now in the care of their new kid, Bonnie, who is beginning her first year of Kindergarten. When Bonnie makes a new “toy” friend out of garbage named Forky Woody struggles to get the new kid in town acclimated. Just as Woody begins to get Forky into the fold however he is taken hostage by antique toys during Bonnie’s family’s road trip. Now Woody must get him back before Bonnie’s family leaves but not without the help of a long lost friend; Bo Peep.

I watched this film literally hours after putting my cat down. Yeah, I know that’s a lot to start this review off with but I needed heavy dosage of feel goodness after what happened and “Toy Story,” no matter how much there didn’t need to be another one, is consistently great at warming the cold dead strings of my heart and this film helped me cope tremendously.

(I mean, I definitely wasn’t going to feel better watching this disaster again…)

The story isn’t too much different from previous film’s themes regarding love, loss and bittersweet melancholy but it still manages to feel mostly fresh here as we deal with a new set of circumstances for Woody who grows perhaps the most here than any previous film. 

It becomes clear early on he still misses Andy to a certain extent and feels he’s losing Bonnie now too. He wants to continue to be loved even though he knows it won’t last forever. As he states (paraphrasing here) toys are there to guide kids through the best parts of their lives, even though they can’t be there for the later years its better to have been a formative part of their development than not at all (But he wants this process to still go on forever).

Toys are representative of nostalgia, of childhood here; though we all wish we could go back to those simpler times and stay there forever we all have to move on eventually. But the message isn’t that we should be sad here but that we should all be glad we experienced that joy no matter how long or short it was.

(I mean, I too miss blowing air into my game cartridges to make them work, rewinding multiple VHS tapes to get them Blockbuster before midnight, my digi pet sitting in it’s own shit, drinking Crystal Pepsi all while the US slowly began molding even more into the capitalistic hell-scape that it is today. Hey, wait a minute...)

Woody’s arc at the end of this story represents an acceptance of change and a bittersweet happiness that comes with it. It made me think deeply of my beloved cat I had to let go of not even six hours prior to seeing this. I had believed all the way up until that morning that I still had years left with him, that I could still hang on to what I had but with his diagnosis it was clear it was time and through tears I let him go. I definitely felt Woody’s sadness there but not of the tragic kind but of happy acceptance. Like Woody’s time as a beloved toy, my cat’s time was up and it was time to accept that and in that way this fourth film is poignant and unique in its message.

As for the rest of the story “Toy Story 4” is just about what we all love about the series; toys getting into wacky adventures. Though the main part of the gang doesn’t get too involved in this one, instead relying on mostly the new characters of the film, they are all nonetheless charming in each bit they are a part of and will bring plenty of laughs when appearing on screen.

The newcomers especially here shine between Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele’s always hilarious banter that fans of their show enjoyed. Tony Hale is great as Forky and delivers some great humor throughout and Christina Hendricks who joins in as Gabby Gabby delivers a truly enjoyable performance and arc for the film.

Of course, there’s Keanu Reeves, the internet’s favorite wholesome, meme husband who as Evel Knievel toy Duke Kaboom knocks it out of the park here with his comedic timing and wit as this character. Some of the funniest lines of the movie are delivered by Keanu here and it makes me wonder all the more (especially after watching “Always be my Maybe” too recently) where comedic Keanu has been all these years? Keanu clearly still hasn’t lost a step in the comedy department since “Bill and Ted” so Hollywood, put this man in an Edgar Wright movie soon please!

(KeanUwU Weeves, everyone)

Bo Peep was a welcome return to the story, however. Whether it was intentional or not, I got some light “Mad Max” Furiosa vibes from Bo Peep who’s character evolved tremendously in this film. It always felt strange to leave her out of the third film and to have her character’s story completed in this film was a major delight. Seeing Bo and Woody play off each other brought back some happy memories from the first two films and I’m glad we got to see the two interact again.

The worst thing you can really say about this film though is that despite its quality it still feels unnecessary. As endings go it’s a pretty good one but you know what was better?

The third film.

Though it has some new and often poignant things to say it still goes through most of the usual beats you expect out of this series and feels only like a very interesting side story to the more robust trilogy.

This all said am I mad that I saw it? Do I wish Disney hadn’t made it? No, cause kind of like Woody’s arc it’s not really my time anymore. This movie is for kids and in that way it’s perfect. The people who worked on it, even if it is a cash grab for Disney, clearly cared about telling this story one more time and made sure it wouldn’t be a cynical exercise for 90s kids like myself who are still seeing it as adults.

I love “Toy Story,” always will, and whether this series continues on from here or not I’m glad I got to enjoy it through my childhood and at the close of my teenage years just as I was in college much like Andy. If future movies help kids learn about love, loss and other complex themes then maybe it’s not as bad as it seems.

So to my childhood, so long, partner but to the kids who will surely love this film, enjoy these years while they last because nothing lasts forever and that’s ok.

 VERDICT:

5 out of 5

*Ugly tears intensify*

[paperclipninja]

Younger post-ep ramble 6x05

If I wasn’t already excited about this episode, discovering that ‘Stiff Competition’ was written by Joe Murphy certainly would have got me there. Maybe it’s because he is a fellow Australian or maybe it’s because in every interview I’ve heard I find him utterly delightful and intelligent or maybe it’s because he is a damn great writer, but one thing is certain after this week’s episode of Younger: J. Murphy, I Stan (there was a time I might have been embarrassed about gushing so unabashedly but now I write weekly essays about fake people so I figure the shame level is zero at this point). This ep had the combination of playfulness, funny, flirty and drama that hooked me into this show in the first place and I feel like we got further insight into a number of characters, broadening our understanding of them and where they’re at. Plus kudos must be given for managing to use the title “Stiff Competition” and make the feature book “The Third Leg” in the same ep (one might even call it a riDICKulous feat…and no I’m not even a bit sorry).

A couple of weeks back I wrote about the Liza and Charles dynamic and how it really thrives on the build and resolution of tension. Up until last season it was the sexual tension and now that’s resolved there needed to be something to keep the fuel on the fire, so to speak. Cue the opening scene of this ep, with the competitive fuel well and truly lit and honestly, this whole scene just rocks my world.  We had the drama building the past few eps with Charles being secretive and while that would’ve resulted in the destruction of the relationship had it been left unresolved, it has been used to transition into this next type of competitive cat-and-mouse style tension that the characters are embracing (at the start anyway) and using to their benefit and, let’s be honest, we all benefit because it. is. HOT.

Walking into the National Arts Club party very quickly establishes Charles as well versed at such an event and I am so into the immediate retort from Liza that feisty isn’t the ‘f’ word she would choose to describe Charles setting up Mercury. That does of course come after Charles introduces her to Michael Cunningham as his girlfriend which is just so bizarre to hear but also YES. Their banter, the competiveness in the art of the schmooze, bringing her A game; the whole thing set them on such equal footing and seeing them as ass-slapping sparring partners was something I never knew I needed and could have watched an entire episode of with its feature film feel (Kickstarter for a spin-off series of nerdy espionage-style escapades but about books and authors and literary events…and maybe the odd murder to keep it interesting). 

While Liza was certainly showing that she can work a room, Charles’ reputation and professionalism was on fine display as authors greeted him warmly and Liza’s introduction of him to Meg Wolitzer as her boyfriend (seriously I’m living for these gf/bf drops) just got more and more awks as Meg and Charles clearly knew each other, Liza snatched his business card from his hand and then asked the photographer to identify him as her ‘guest’ in the pic (loved Sutton’s delivery of this and extra loved Meg’s ‘just pretend you’re talking to me’ to the rando so she could get away from the slightly unhinged antics of the editor she just met). Yet Charles is loving every minute of it and I so appreciate that now the whole Mercury situation is no longer a secret Charles is talking openly about it with Liza, evidenced by his telling her he received a message from Zane (about Mercury being highbrow/brilliant nonetheless).

Where there is highbrow there must be lowbrow (old tv proverb) and unfortunately for Kelsey, the head without a neck aka ‘a floating tragedy’, she has taken prime position in that quadrant of New York Mag’s approval matrix (can we take a moment to appreciate Liza’s ‘well it is a good picture of him’ remark re: Charles? Way to make your friend feel better but also lol and accurate). While I sympathise with how stressful it must be to lose authors, this ep once again highlights that our pal Kels is in quite the spiral. Luckily Liza has managed to pull in Chip and Joanna Gaines, I mean Hayley and Cameron Butler, who are promoting their cringe-worthy new book, ‘The Third Leg’, off the back of their New York Flip success. I heart the way this show parodies real people so hard.

I have said it week after week, but Diana has been such a scene stealer this season (Diana Trout proudly pointing out Shiplap, I don’t know why but this just made me grin). The writers keep bringing it with the lines and Miriam Shor’s delivery somehow magically seems to get funnier and funnier and her heart eyed gaze as she recounts her and Enzo’s third leg(s) (like a centipede…but also nothing like a centipede, speaking of A+ lines and delivery) was no exception. The whole pitch meeting was a bit of a train wreck, with Kelsey’s bitterness about the hot or not list spilling in, Liza’s attempt at diverting resulting in Diana railroading the entire thing and Liza wondering if she and Charles are in fact lacking the third leg (Empiriconda notwithstanding) that two home reno celebs have deemed a necessary factor in a successful r/ship (though theirs hardly seems the picture of happiness unless #relationshipgoals is taking jabs at each other through strained grins).

One relationship I am digging on every level is Josh and Lauren’s and this week’s ep gave us a mighty fine dose. Of course Lauren set up a GemmaLoves Insta and I’m 100% willing to overlook the slight ickiness of her pushing a SM account for the baby without asking Josh because it’s Lauren and she is sublime and also without it we would not have had THE film-worthy (minus the butt plugs) montage. I freaking adore that Lauren is so unapologetic about promoting stuff and getting freebies and Josh’s stance on not letting his daughter be a pusher for consumerism lasts approx. 25 seconds as Lauren points out all of Gemma’s favourite things that she will happily take back (Josh’s ‘but she loves it’ was just too good). Lauren’s declaration that both Josh and Gemma are gonna get free swag ‘and ya both gonna love it’ (the Eleanor Shellstrop vibe is strong and I approve) leads us into the shopping montage that made me want to dance around my lounge room and could sit comfortably in any rom-com from the late 90’s/early 2000’s. From ‘Baby Love’ to Josh and Lauren feeding each other cupcakes to that glorious moment of Josh parading back and forth on the pavement like a chorus boy, I bow down to Younger pulling rabbits like this out of the creative hat six seasons in, it was just such damn fun.

You know what else I adore? That throughout the series we have seen so many different aspects of Diana’s character and we just keep seeing more and more layers peeled back through her relationship with Enzo. I am so enjoying the side of her we see being open about her feelings for him when she’s around others, then the way she is with him; proud of their relationship then honest about her disappointment that they have to cancel dinner, rather than shutting down and pretending she doesn’t care. Enzo offering to buy Diana any necklace she chooses made my cold dead heart swell with the sincerity and sweetness of it all, but Diana revealing that she does not choose her necklaces, they choose her = the revelation I didn’t know I’ve been waiting six seasons to hear. Not to be dramatic but it felt like coming home.

 Side note: I’m finding the parallels between the Diana/Enzo and Liza/Charles relationships really interesting. I don’t know whether it’s deliberate or not but these two couples navigating relationships in their 40’s, trying to strike a balance between career ambition and their personal relationships, I am beyond desperate for Diana to know about Liza’s age and for these two to talk about it all tbh.

Speaking of balancing career and relationship, can we please talk about the dinner date because sweet lawd, my heart was already full from the Diana/Enzo goodness, but then along came Liza and Charles with this whole out together with the authors situation and quite frankly, I’m surprised I survived.  Bringing together the book and the earlier meeting was just so well done and the moment Hayley dropped the ‘and you’ and we discover that Charles had indeed gushed about Liza and their shared love of books as their third leg (still sounds weird and gross but totally worth it for the sentiment and post-dinner tie in), I too was staring at my screen the way Liza looked at Charles, but I was also a little bit deceased because I am romantic trash and him casually rubbing her back almost did me in.

I feel like each ep is adding another dimension to Charles this season and seeing him relaxed and candid outside the restaurant was certainly another insight into this character. The entire interaction between him and Liza was effortless and I love that it went from Liza ribbing him about using their relationship to secure the book to Charles being so frank about where it’s all at and how he’s feeling (and does anyone else hope a little bit that Charles does end up needing that room in Liza’s bed coz I am very on board with the idea of C. Brooks living in that loft for a while for many reasons). Bring on lusty Charles and I kid you not I let out a little scream of delight at Liza noting his excitement and then heading straight for the cab (yes Charles, she is just going to leave you like this). Thank you Joe Murphy for the ep and the book title combo so Liza could remind Charles competition is stiff out there while glancing at his crotch and telling him to take care of the third leg himself, you truly are doing God’s work. And I’m just all ‘round loving seeing these two adults in a relationship being flirty and lustful and open with one another.

I have to put it out there that Liza’s hustle game is so damn strong this whole ep and as she is questioned by Kelsey and Diana about how Charles is getting all these authors, I a) am very glad she does not blab, b) find it interesting that Kelsey assumes that Liza mustn’t know if she hasn’t told her and c) wonder why Liza is the only one who seems to understand that other publishing houses will be vying for books and that Millennial will lose some fair and square. But Liza once again has another potential author lined up in the musical prodigy turned conductor Gloria Rivera, but this is Younger, we’ve had lots of fun, flirty and funny, so it must be time for the drah-mah.

The moment Liza ran into Charles at the concert I think we all knew the competition might have just about run its course, and I had legit second-hand embarrassment as Liza so confidently gloated she had been in touch with Gloria ‘for months’ in response to Charles’ knowing her ‘quite well’, though Charles clearly wanted to explain further as he said he wanted to talk after the show before the lights go down and Liza needs to get to her seat. Insert appropriate amount of unimpressed for both Kelsey and Diana and it all goes south pretty quickly once Diana discovers that Gloria was the recipient of the Brooks family Arts Scholarship so knowing Charles ‘pretty well’ is a bit of an understatement.

Now I get that it must feel like a series of blows and I also get that we need a way for Kelsey and Diana to be at the axe throwing bar so that whole scene can play out, but for them to both bail on Liza and not even try to convince Gloria to sign with Millennial, I mean, you’re not going to get any authors with that attitude ladies. At this point Liza should just bail and start her own damn company, give it a great name starting with ‘M’, maybe Majesty? Mendacity? Or Mitosis and she can just expand quickly and open identical offices all over the place? Either way, Liza had no time for Charles’ girlfriend game post-show (and it is clear here that to Charles it is still just a game and he hasn’t quite clocked that to Liza this is her career being compromised).

While I think Diana and Kelsey leaving Liza to make a last ditch pitch to Gloria solo was a low blow, seeing them together, rage throwing axes while drunk (I both love and am terrified of the idea of people drinking and axe throwing in one place FYI) was pretty damn great. These two are always so messy together and Diana taking off her earrings and prepping only to have such a terrible axe throw was only surpassed by her saying that she tells people Enzo is a surgeon which is why he’s on call and Kelsey offering up that they both wear gloves. LOL. And Diana Trout peeing beside a dumpster is one thing I never thought I’d see on this show, yet here we are and her ‘I don’t know her’ and running away from the cop when Kelsey produces the axe was ridiculous and excellent and a great excuse for some chin-skin holding mugshots.

My one gripe at the mo is the ongoing distrust Kelsey has of Liza, first at the axe bar asking Diana if she thinks Liza is helping Charles land these authors and then when Liza turns up after Enzo has bailed them (can we just pause a moment to appreciate the ongoing mafia jokes since their first date and also Enzo calling Diana a jailbird and her smitten reaction. I heart it all). Seriously, this is just yawn at this point and while I get that Kelsey is scared (and thank you Liza for pointing out that she’s not the only one) surely Liza is over having to prove time and time again how loyal she is only to have Kelsey continue to question it? I know I am. Again, Liza – ‘Mitosis’. Think about it.

Our Maggie moment this ep is of course just prior to the déjà vu of Liza and Josh chilling on the couch with Gemma, a little throw-back to the cacao-induced dream from last season’s finale. But I gotta say, my heart hurt for Charles when he walked into that awkward af loft situation, because while I have no doubt that Liza is solid in her feelings for Charles, seeing your girlfriend in a super domestic looking moment with her ex has to feel like a kick in the guts. I want to bottle the look Liza gave Josh when he said ‘you two seem good’ because if I could whip that out on demand, it would be mighty useful.

The final moments of this week’s ep certainly heightened the drama all round. I feel like this episode really highlighted the insecurity of both Kelsey and Charles, which puts Liza in the interesting position of having to navigate this with two people she loves but also put her foot down for her own sake at some stage. Liza immediately quashes any concerns Charles may have about being in competition with Josh and uses the baby’s inability to talk ergo. steal authors as a way to broach the ongoing company rivalry. As Charles reveals that Gloria will be signing with Millennial, it is evident it is all still a bit of a game to him (though him saying that all he cares about is that he doesn’t lose her, ugh *heart emoji*) until his true take on it all is revealed, that he sees it all as shared victories rather than rivalry. Eeek, I tell you, I get and appreciate the dick theme of this episode but I struggle with the dick line ‘when you get to the bottom line, it’s still all me’ so much. I had an actual physical reaction to how awful this was and it certainly was not something I imagined this character saying. Yet I do think it also gives credence to the type of man Pauline said she was married to.

It felt insecure, like he was trying to talk himself up in some kind of misguided attempt to sound impressive, but it also was a glimpse of the man whose ambition contributed to the demise of his marriage. Pauline herself said that when they got married she thought they would be a team but right away it was all about Charles and she was there just to be his rock (S5E3). The difference now of course is that unlike Pauline, Liza has called him out on it and in the final second, the expression on Charles’ face (it’s gutted for those playing at home) is hopefully one of realisation that he is repeating behaviours of the past and that moving forward, we see that realisation play out and this character develop.

I have no idea how the rest of this season is going to play out but you know what all this drama and intrigue pave the way for? Growth. Liza’s growth as she becomes more sure of herself and her right to decide and demand what she wants and deserves, who she wants, what she will and won’t stand for, Charles to learn from past mistakes and work to redeem those and think about the kind of man and partner he wants to be, no character’s growth has been as glorious to see unfold up until now as Diana’s and I’m sure this will continue and Kelsey...well I’m sure hers will come. We’re almost halfway people and season six is proving to be quite the ride.

[halogensleep]

pour your gasoline on me (let's torch the whole world down) [ch. 1]

Prompt: Assassin!Charlynch AU - After Charlotte wakes up ziptied to a chair at the mercy of a knife wielding Irishwoman who doesn't take no for an answer, her black and white life becomes colourful in every sense of the word as they begin a game of cat and mouse that won't end well for either of the hitwomen.

Charlotte awoke to a sore head and her good white shirt ruined. For a moment. For the briefest of instants. For the second before her wrists realised they were zip tied behind the chair, numb from the pressure, she was both nervous and impressed, simultaneously.

There was a reason clients handed her the cheque book and told her to write whatever number came to mind… she was supposed to be untouchable, invisible, the queen of shadows, the go to woman when problems needed to disappear. Apparently, somebody hadn’t just been looking in her direction, they had been watching her, learning her, picking apart her cloak of invisibility thread by thread.

Whoever he was, Charlotte became instantly certain that she would kill him the long way around. A bullet or knife would be too fast. A steam iron set to eco-mode on the other hand? Well, it would certainly be an interesting way to show him the scenic route of his own mortality once she got these zip ties off.

“Ah, the bruiser is awake!” A chirpily Irish—and definitely female—voice greeted from the warehouse door.

Charlotte said nothing despite her surprise, her unmoving stare fixed on the damp brick wall on the other side of the warehouse. She exhaled as the sound of footsteps crept around her immobilised position and suddenly became a tangible person to look at with big brown eyes and long gingery copper hair. If it wasn’t for current situation, the zipties, the abduction, the knife glinting in the Irishwoman’s hand, Charlotte would have been looser with compliments. The woman was beautiful, a present threat, but beautiful nonetheless.

There was no mask or disguise which was either fantastic news or terrible news. Charlotte was leaning more towards the latter. An old hitman with eager lips who had found himself the star witness of a federal prosecution had gone to the trouble of warning her once that this wasn’t a career that came with much longevity. In fact, it was the last thing he ever said before the slash wounds on his arms finally bled out—it was important the job looked like a suicide, Charlotte loved the jobs that required a feminine eye for detail the most—but now, immobilised, staring into the eyes of the woman who was no doubt getting ready to deliver a swift coup de grâce with the small knife in her hand, Charlotte couldn’t help but wish she had listened a bit harder to that old snitch.

“Well… not much of a talker, are you?” The Irishwoman pouted and twiddled the tip of her knife. “I won’t pretend I’m not offended.”

Charlotte smiled politely and said nothing.

“You realise I’m holding a knife?” The Irishwoman glanced down at her weapon, eyebrow craned by the oddness of the silence.

“You couldn’t spread butter with that thing.”

“Catty of you,” The Irishwoman didn’t skip a beat.

Charlotte smirked and busied herself with all the creative ways this pretty red haired woman was going to die at her hands as soon as she got loose. And by her own estimations, the Irishwoman with her long slender jaw and bright white teeth was more than just pretty… apparently she was quite the comedian too. It left her at odds with her experience and training. A successful career up until this moment had been based on the ability of reading people, facial expressions, speech patterns, involuntary movements, that sort of thing. Charlotte found herself slightly at a loss trying to pick apart the woman staring at her. There was no nervousness, no anger, no cynicism or bitterness, just overwhelming and abundant chirpiness as if they were two friends meeting after a long time apart.

She felt her disadvantage grow weightier.

“Ah,” The Irishwoman smiled suddenly, nodding her head a bit. “Thinking of ways to kill me?”

“It’s one way to pass the time,” Charlotte said coolly.

“I just want to chat, silly billy!” The Irishwoman rolled her eyes and straddled Charlotte’s restrained hips, plonking herself down on the jerking lap. “It would seem you know a friend of mine, Hadiq Sharma ring any bells?” Her lips curled into a smirk.

Her fingers danced over the white lapels of Charlotte’s shirt during the interim of silence that followed. Charlotte scowled at the cockiness and looked away.

The steam iron was going to be set to linen-mode for this troublemaker as soon as she figured a way out of this place.

“Can’t say I know him,” Charlotte lied.

“We can get to that in a moment.” The Irishwoman waved her hand. “I thought we could get a little better acquainted first…”

“Is that so?” Charlotte’s breaths became tight and measured as the troublemaker sitting over her lap pushed herself forward slightly.

“It is so nice to meet you, Charlotte. Well… officially meet you, I mean.” The Irishwoman jollily waved her knife at the miswording. “You’re considerably more dressed than the last time we were alone together. Speaking of which, you really shouldn’t use shampoos that contain parabens… absolutely terrible for the environment.” She gravely shook her head. “Also, you should make a habit of checking behind the shower curtain for intruders but I suppose that’s by the by now.” The knife was waved again like a plaything to punctuate her point. “After all, if horror films have taught us one thing it’s that you never know what sort of monster could be lurking behind the shower curtain, do you?” The Irishwoman breathed it out as a confession.

“You were in my bathroom?” Charlotte lifted an impressed brow.

“Oh, and the one in Connecticut too. Nice family pad by the way, was difficult tracking down the money orders and wire transfers with all of the fake names you used but I really do love a challenge.” The Irishwoman prodded, and Charlotte felt her blood run cool. “I didn’t put you down as the bleeding heart type but it was very sweet seeing how cosy you keep your sister and baby niece. They love you a lot, you know.”

“If you hurt them…” Charlotte didn’t need to finish the threat.

“Don’t be silly, Charlotte. Honestly, you make me sound like a sociopath! When your old battle buddy came knocking on the door looking for you, Molly insisted that I came in for a coffee and a sit down. Oh how we laughed as the baby photos came out of the cupboard!” The Irishwoman beamed with delight. “I didn’t have to so much as bend one of her fingers back… she told me everything I needed to know and then some.” The knife was traced gently along her straining neck.

The rage became visceral and embarrassing, humiliating even. Six years of doing this and nobody had so much as known the area code of her cell phone number. Charlotte realised this was an intricate torture in and of itself. The Irishwoman wasn’t gloating for the sake of gloating, she was inflicting a sense of claustrophobia, forcing a state of overwhelming stress, preparing her for an interrogation. Charlotte swallowed as the knife was traced along her jawline.

That was it, Charlotte realised. This was an interrogation, methodical and deliberate.

“I get it now…” Charlotte started to pick at the thread, the cogs turning as she closed her eyes. “You were part of the IRA,” she lengthily exhaled.

“Excuse me?” The Irishwoman laughed. “Suddenly a detective, are we? Sort of xenophobic that you assume I’m a terrorist just because of the accent but I suppose you’re not wrong...”

“That’s what you tell clients when they ask questions,” Charlotte opened her eyes and rolled them slightly. “That you were in the Republican Army. I’m sure you ham it up a little more than that, maybe talk about big jobs and political hits you and your cousins never actually did. It’s part of your cover story so nobody finds out you were a police officer, once upon a time at least.” Charlotte lifted her brows. “I’m getting warm, right?”

The Irishwoman’s smirk barely faltered, but barely was enough for Charlotte to know she was bang on the money.

“You are as formidable as they warned me you would be,” The Irishwoman pushed forward with a whisper and pressed her lips to Charlotte’s ear. “Do you know what a police officer never does, Charlotte?” She asked it so quietly, so hushed, almost flirtatiously.

“Retire with a pension?” Charlotte smirked.

“Funny,” The Irishwoman nodded and smiled too.

There was a flash, a small glint of steel in the air and then white-hot pain in Charlotte’s thigh where the knife was buried. She cried out. The pain reverberated through her extremities, only growing more substantial the more she twisted and twitched the limb. The Irishwoman just hushed and petted her cheek, making silly crooning noises that only made Charlotte want to horribly kill her all the more.

The Irishwoman continued her point, “A police officer knows to never leave witnesses, Charlotte.” It was said with a serious nod. “Now I’m willing to bet you know how this is going to end for you, so how about you give me what I want and I make this mercifully quick?” The Irishwoman talked over the sound of her pained grunts.

“If you really did your research...” Charlotte exhaled and caught her breath, wincing and lifting her chin. “You would know I’m really into this sort of shit.”

“Your sister mentioned you were captured behind enemy lines, there’s no need to harp on about it any more than she did.” The Irishwoman rolled her eyes in boredom, shuffling a bit on Charlotte’s sore and bloody lap.

“Nothing like being tied to a chair with time to kill.” Charlotte did the smug thing with her eyebrows and ignored the pain. “I really enjoy being a pain in the ass in these type of situations, I’d clear your schedule if I were you.”

“I am so glad you said that because I feel exactly the same way.” The Irishwoman leaned back on Charlotte’s lap, twisting the knife in her leg slightly to punctuate her point. “But this is just the warm up… my methods are far more brutal and psychological, love. Please don’t make me show you the hard way.” Her tone became severe and stern.

“If you’re about to threaten to kill my baby sister, go ahead.” Charlotte was prepared to roll the dice. “Honestly? She’s kind of a nag.” She nodded in exasperation.

“Funny.” The Irishwoman jabbed the knife again.

Charlotte hissed, glaring and irritated. “You know, I’m beginning to really not like it when you do that,” she said.

“Do you have a preference as to where I scatter your niece after I’ve chopped her up?” The Irishwoman pouted slightly and narrowed her eyes, as if she were deep in thought. “Anywhere of sentimental value? There’s something about tiny coffins that makes me feel a bit queasy. Unless you play ball with me, Charley-poo, that’s going to be the state of things.”

Charlotte snapped her head up.

“Ah, there we go, got your attention now.” The Irishwoman patted her cheek. “So here’s what I’m thinking, you can tell me what I want to know and I’ll make this as quick or slow as you like… or you can piss me about and I’ll visit that lovely house in Connecticut and put some colour on the walls. Lady’s choice?” She tilted her head, eyes glimmering with playfulness.

Charlotte thought of her niece’s smile and her little chubby fingers, the way she never shares with other children, the glimmer of rage in her babyish stare when things don’t go her way, all of the things that imbued her with a sense of pride, and she felt herself give up instantaneously. There were few things she cared selflessly about in this world—maybe half a thing on a particularly good day—but her niece and her cat were always up there on the list.

It was becoming more certain by the second that her card was finally up and it was equally as exciting as it was terrifying. Many sleepless night had been spent thinking about her perfect death; other people dreamed of passing away in their sleep, old and feeble, but she wanted to leave this world white-knuckled and spitting blood in the eyes of adversaries, taking world-altering secrets to her grave with nothing more than a final ‘fuck you.’

But, the Irishwoman knew about her stupid little perfect baby niece.

All things considered, today was racking up to be a bad day at the office.

“What is it exactly you want to know about Sharma?” Charlotte sighed and craned her neck, willing to play ball.

“You accepted a job to kill my client, a very bad move all things considered.” The Irishwoman wagged her finger disapprovingly. “Who paid for the job?”

“I have no idea.”

“I don’t like that answer.” The knife was yanked free and buried again instantaneously in the same spot. Charlotte gagged with the pain and threw her head back. “Shh, you big baby!” the psychopath crooned. “We can stop as soon as you give me something a bit more substantial, love. Shall we try again?” She offered, softly.

“How am I supposed to know who wanted Sharma dead!?”

“Please don’t make me press this knife in any deeper. I hate it when people spurt blood, it would be very selfish of you.”

“There’s who pays for the job and who orders it along with all the middle management in between! Even if I wanted to I wouldn’t be able to make an educated guess.” Charlotte grew frustrated with the line of questioning. “There’s a lot of people who want Sharma dead, he controls half the counterfeit trade and he’s a terrible driver!” Charlotte shrugged indignantly.

The Irishwoman tutted in disapproval, the knife was buried into the femur bone instantaneously. Charlotte threw her head back and clenched her eyes. Whoever this woman was, she deeply loved her work, and Charlotte was beginning to admire just how much she admired it, a professional approval almost.

“I’m beginning to think you’re just dragging this out because you like me.” The Irishwoman leaned in so close the warmth of her breath was felt on Charlotte’s lips. “It’s one of the more interesting come-ons I’ve had, I’ll give you that.” Her brown eyes twinkled mischievously.

“How many times did you rehearse that line in your head?” Charlotte rolled her eyes.

“Brave, you’re a tough girl.” The knife was pulled out and jammed in again. “It’s a little show-offy.”

“Jesus Christ!” Her tiny world became nothing but pain and the threat of more pain, and it left her more than slightly exhilarated. “What can I say?” Charlotte hissed sarcastically and gathered herself. “Maybe I just want to take you to a bar when all of this is over with?”

“You know the way to my heart. And unfortunately for you, I know the way to yours too.” The small glinting knife was pulled out of her leg and pressed into her breastbone. “I’m getting bored, Charlotte, and I’m starting to wonder what you look like without skin. Don’t make me find out…”

“Mr. Rabbit.”

“Is that your safeword?” A slender eyebrow piqued.

“It’s the name of the man who delivers jobs for the Collective, that’s what he called himself. Mr Rabbit. Codeword for the Hadiq Sharma job is, ‘the carriage clock has been fixed.’ I have a phone number for him and that codeword for when the job is completed but I don’t know how far up this goes and I certainly don’t ask questions. You think I give a shit who orders the jobs or balances the cheque books? I pick up the name, I name my price, I do the job, I take my money, that’s it!” Charlotte reared forward with adrenalin. “I’m telling you the truth.”

The Irishwoman pouted and huffed a long, disappointed sigh. “So you are,” she frowned and put the knife away. “You want to give me the number? It’ll go some way towards me not murdering your family...”

“It’s in the burner phone.” Charlotte nodded to the tray beside them where her things had been laid out. “If you think he’s just going to tell you who his master is just because you asked nicely… well.” Charlotte shook her head gravely and wanted to laugh at the thought, almost.

“You’ve been very helpful, this is the most fun I’ve had on a first date in years.” The Irishwoman smiled and patted Charlotte’s cheek. “Now, do you mind waiting here for a second while I make a phone call?”

“Please, take your time.”

“Gracious of you.” The Irishwoman shuffled and stood up from Charlotte’s lap.

Charlotte felt her body sink with relief as the Irishwoman grabbed the phone and scrolled through the contact list. The chance of her miraculously escaping were slim to none, but she would gladly take a moment’s respite from her current predicament. The phone dialed out and was promptly lifted to the Irishwoman’s ear, she blew out her cheeks and nodded her head side to side, impatient and playful.

“Hello is that Mr. Rabbit?” The Irishwoman chirped, and the noise of a deep voice speaking on the line was just about audible. “Well, that’s because I’m not the Queen. My name is Becky Lynch. Yes, I know it’s not what you were expecting but the Queen can’t come to the phone right now. She’s a little tied up.” The grin was gleaming and pleased. “Now as I understand it, Mr. Rabbit, you had some business with the Queen concerning a man named Hadiq Sharma...” There was a pause. “Yes, that’s the one! Nice fella! Smashing beard! Terrible driver!”

Charlotte closed her eyes and shook her head at the silliness of it.

“Now, Mr. Rabbit, sir, I understand you represent a co-operative of buyers who require the kind of services that I just so happen to offer. I have to tell you, it’s been impossible to get a contact number for you to submit my resume.” The Irishwoman played with her wet knife. “Anyway, I killed Hadiq Sharma last night. I made it look like a mundane accident, needless to say the carriage clock has been well and truly fixed. I was hoping I could collect payment for the job and that you will consider my services next time you go to market?”

Charlotte snapped her eyes open and felt them bulge out of her skull.

The Irishwoman just smiled coyly at her, fingers waving, phone tucked between her chin and shoulder.

Charlotte realised she had just been played like a fiddle.

“Wonderful to hear, I look forward to speaking to you soon.” The Irishwoman hung up the phone and strolled back over to Charlotte. “He was lovely, what a nice man!” She gushed chirpily.

“So let me get this straight...” Charlotte blinked and grinded her jaw. “You just screwed me out of a paycheck and went to all of this trouble…” She looked around at the warehouse, looked at her stabbed thigh, then looked back to her smiling captor. “All to introduce yourself to the Collective?” The fury became palpable.

“I like to think of it as female entrepreneurs helping one another up the corporate ladder.” The Irishwoman plonked herself back down on Charlotte’s lap, her weight awakening the pain in her pin-cushioned thigh. “Think of this as a chamber of commerce meeting.”

“You could have just went with that in the beginning!”

“You would have thought of a way to fuck everything up if you thought I was about to take over your patch. It was easier when you thought this was just a simple job gone wrong, especially with sweet little Emily on the line… as if I would ever kill a child.” The Irishwoman rolled her eyes, and the knife came to a menacing rest on Charlotte’s shoulder. “You know I have to kill you though, right?”

“I had a feeling you were going to say that.”

“It’s a shame, really. I felt like we had a connection, you know?” The Irishwoman whispered with mocking, saddened eyes. “Any last requests?”

“What time is it?” Charlotte narrowed one of her eyes, suddenly remembering.

The Irishwoman stared at her in disbelief, but she humoured Charlotte nonetheless and peered at the screen of the burner phone. “One fifty-eight, to be precise,” she answered. “Why? Are you running late for something?”

“Do you mind if we hold off for two minutes? I have a thing about odd numbers…” Charlotte sighed and was entirely serious. “A round two o'clock feels like a good time, right?”

“If movies have taught me anything it’s that you’re stalling for time before your old platoon buddies burst through the windows with guns—”

“Most of them are dead or married to codependent wives who never let them go anywhere fun, but you already know that.” Charlotte interrupted with a serious look. “Honestly, I just really don’t like odd numbers.”

“Well alright.” The Irishwoman blinked, slightly offset.

“So why did you give up being a police officer?” Charlotte blurted, determined to pass the seconds towards her death with small talk, curiosity getting the better of her a bit as the human conundrum remained precisely that. “You start killing for a living for any particular reason?”

“No. Just money, mainly,” The Irishwoman lied. “What makes a soldier with a gleaming service record and a bronze star to boot turn to this sort of thing?” Her nose wrinkled.

“Money,” Charlotte lied too.

The truth was far simpler; she just really enjoyed killing people. The squelch. The gasp. The last bit of life slipping from someone’s eyes. The way windpipes felt when they were crushed beneath her fingers. The creativity. The sacredness of it. They were such simple pleasures, really. The irony was that she didn’t stumble on her favourite pass-time until after leaving the Army. Her MOS was 35M, human intelligence collection. It was a vocation that made her an expert in picking people apart and getting to the source of secrets. It was interesting, but it wasn’t using an orbital sander at four in the morning to grind off tattoos and other identification markers before dumping a body downstream interesting.

“Do you miss it, being a soldier I mean?” The Irishwoman prodded.

“Do you miss being a police officer?”

“Not really.”

“Me neither.” Charlotte sighed. “What made you do it in the first place?”

The Irishwoman sighed too. “I quite liked the thought of having a gun. I suppose I could have joined the IRA, but I’m not much political. Also, I liked the sirens. Sirens are always fun.”

“Hm,” Charlotte hmph’d at the unravelled mystery. “Well, I think our two minutes are up.”

“Are you rushing me to kill you?” The Irishwoman became befuddled. “Aren’t you going to beg or try… something?”

“Death doesn’t scare me.”

“I would ask what does scare you but some mysteries are worth keeping.” She patted Charlotte’s shoulder and got up from her lap. “For what it’s worth I was a big fan of you work. Johnny the War Dog? Two Teeth Billy? You made artwork out of those jobs. I mean, strychnine in the air vents? Poetic. If there was a Hall of Fame, you would be up there.”

Charlotte nodded and couldn’t help but agree, she was a damn fine soldier and an even better hitwoman. All things said and done, she had certainly lived life with a vengeful sort of passion for her work. It wasn’t a husband and children in the suburbs, but she stood by her life choices which was more than what most people could say.

“Let’s get this over with.” Charlotte lifted her chin and offered her throat. “Nothing too gory or creative.” A serious brow was raised. “Take my wallet, make it look like a mugging gone wrong. It’ll take a while but my sister will eventually put out a missing person’s report and someone will identify my body, you’ll be long gone by then but at least they’ll have something to bury.”

“Are you serious orchestrating your own murder?” The Irishwoman smiled slightly, impressed, her eyes gleaming with what appeared to be an instantaneous sort of fondness.

“You’ll understand, one day.”

“Goodness,” The Irishwoman shook her head and looked away for a moment, she stepped forward and looked at Charlotte again, far more sobered this time. “You really are growing on me.” The knife jabbed shallowly into the side of Charlotte’s throat, the blood spurting a bit.

Funny really, she had watched the process of death up close, an admirer of sorts. But now it was happening to her and it was nothing as she expected. Charlotte imagined the process of dying would feel like she was being forced out of her body, but this wasn’t that. Charlotte closed her eyes and tried to remain calm and dignified, the blood dribbling and pumping and leaving her quickly. She felt heavier. She felt as if she was slipping inwards. The process was… interesting.

“Saint Mary’s is three blocks north,” The Irishwoman whispered close to her ear. “Your Carotid is nicked, I’d give you ten minutes at best. Twelve if you apply hard enough pressure.” The surprise became dumbfounding as her wrists were snipped free from the restraints. “Consider this a one time gift. And if you die? Well... it was a mugging gone wrong.”

Charlotte collapsed forward and pinched the wound with numbed fingers, hissing as she dug inside the cut and forced the source of it closed as best she could. The Irishwoman was long gone by the time she got up and started dragging herself to the door.

She slung herself down the stairs, slung herself across the cement floor, threw herself out onto the street, each movement a gigantic push as her fingers squeezed and pinched the source of the bleed. Charlotte had never felt so alive before, not even a little bit, and it was growing more and more exhilarating by the second.

She got less than twelve steps down the street before passers-by were stopping and hollering and fetching help. Apparently, today, luck was on Charlotte’s side after all; one of the do-gooders was an off-duty EMT. Charlotte sighed in relief as the wounds on her leg and throat were tended to, a car whizzing up and parking along the side of the pavement ready to rush her to the hospital.

Twelve minutes wasn’t even a competitive amount of time at all. Charlotte thought the Irishwoman had definitely tipped the odds in her favour, either that or she was offended by the implication of the alternative.

Charlotte slightly smiled to herself as strangers bundled her into the car. A single name, Becky Lynch, was all she had. But she knew come hell or high-water she would find the Irishwoman again. Charlotte wasn’t sure what this now was. Maybe war. Maybe cat and mouse. Maybe nothing or everything. It was, however, unfinished business, and Charlotte had just the steam iron to make it neat and tidy once her cardiovascular system had been put back together.

…

Seven hours of surgery, two weeks in the hospital, and three new pink scars later, Charlotte had finally made it back home to her apartment. The police report read that she had been the victim of a mugging gone wrong and Charlotte kept the details as vague as possible. This was her mouse to chase, her woman to burn the world down in search of. Now that her sister and most importantly, her niece, were out of Connecticut and somewhere safe, Charlotte felt the urge to stretch out and immediately set to work.

The apartment was exactly how she left it as she opened the door and limped inside, which struck immediate alarm bells. There was no sour, pungent smell from the chicken breasts that had been left to thaw in the sink a fortnight prior. There was no two week accumulation of leaflets that had been shoved underneath the door. The litter tray by the bathroom door had been used which meant Fuzz Aldrin had been coming and going, somehow. The latter was as relieving as it was nerve wracking, she had worried the cat might have gotten himself into trouble over the last fortnight while she was away. His inquisitive happy purrs as he prowled around her ankles indicated he was more than okay.

Charlotte grabbed the loaded 9mm kept inside the hollowed bible on her bookcase before she limped any further inside.

The kitchen and living room were checked barrel first with the breakfast bar used as cover, then the bathroom, the bedroom, the balcony, and the bedroom once again just to be sure. Someone had certainly been in the apartment, Charlotte couldn’t shake the feeling. Things were left so perfectly that it felt out of place. Charlotte lowered her gun with a sigh and trod back to the kitchen, well aware of who exactly had been here.

If she needed a more concrete symptom that her suspicions were correct, the Irishwoman was feeling particularly generous. Charlotte found the post-it note stuck to the refrigerator door. She pulled it off and began to read.

Used your place as a base while you were in the hospital, hope you don’t mind. I replaced your groceries. Your cat is fat and disgusting but I’ve kept him alive and named him Big Bastard, he seems to like it.

P.S: Glad you survived.

P.P.S: Your vibrator needs new batteries.

Love, Becky.

Charlotte screwed the post-it note in her fist and threw it across the room. To add fuel to the fire of her bad mood, she now had to move out of her apartment, ideally today. The workshop out of the city where difficult problems were dealt with still remained a secret. It was an old mechanic shop out in the sticks with no heating, no hot water, and no listening ears for miles around... the perfect location for making bodies more manageable or getting information out of a person before a job could be finished. The owner was long since deceased which Charlotte knew because she was the one who killed him — rule number one of the smart business rule book, never accept a loan from the Hungarian mafia and then object to chopping stolen cars, a lesson the owner learned the hard way. The Hungarians took no issue with her using the abandoned building from time to time after he was dealt with, and in exchange she gave them a more favourable price when work needed to be done.

Charlotte sighed and came to terms with her frustration. For the foreseeable future, until the troublemaker was neutralised, the chop shop would now be her home away from home.

…

When Charlotte had asked on that fateful day what it was that made her join the police force, Becky told the truth and lied simultaneously. It was a little bit for the gun, for the permitted naughtiness of it. Mostly, she joined the Garda because above all things, she liked to hunt.

It had started as a wain when her grandfather would drive out to the Wicklow mountains with her sat on his lap the entire way there in the rickety excuse of a van to hunt the elusive Sika stags. Beautiful creatures. She wanted to weep for every single one them when the bullets rang out and they fell down in a heaped, huffing piles of horn and fur. It was without a doubt the only period of her life that she had ever felt a faint sense of empathy, the desire to weep for the beasts and yet never the gratification of following through with it.

To begin with, uncles and old men that she had to call uncle because they were friends of her grandfather had all disapproved of her presence. Mainly because of her sex, mainly because of her disposition. But with age she grew to understand the addictiveness of wielding power like that, hunting predators, outsmarting wild things, crouching in the warm wet night while the strumming and crooning insects sung the beasts to an unsuspicious state.

By the tender age of eleven, the men would walk quickly and crowd around the van as it returned from Wicklow, eager to see what the wee girl, the little hunter had managed to do. It was an unofficial test that bore more weight than her grandfather ever let her know. Her father had died in the troubles and she was without brothers, the only grandchild of the big man, and with that came expectation.

When he died, she didn’t feel much at all, she had loved him but that was that, she missed him because she was told to miss him, she missed him because the person who snuck her sweets and cleaned her gun when she was feeling too lazy to do it herself was no longer around. If her path had ever been clearly defined it was that she was expected to become a small vestibule of him and take up arms for the cause, one day. The stag hunter would grow up big and strong, take her smarts and put them to use as a leader for their people. Becky didn’t quite grow up big and strong, but she was the best hunter, the keenest strategist, insurmountable in smarts, hungry to hunt things other than stags and deer. There was a darkness in her, an unburdened urge to hunt and kill that was felt and noticed by the others, whispered about.

It was her fifteenth birthday when she watched from a blockade while a Garda shot down a man with a knife in his hands who had been causing trouble… it was love at first sight. By eighteen, her turbulent, passionate streak for strategy and blood had been placed in a uniform. The people called her a traitor, bricked her mother’s windows, did worse than that, but Becky didn’t care. For all intents and purposes, she had a license to hunt. When she entrapped some of the very men who had raised her, who had ate at her table, who had drank and raised arms with her grandfather, convincing them she was only part of the Garda as reconnaissance, the force went so far as to hand her a medal and promote her to the special detective unit after the trial came to a close.

Entrapping her people wasn’t a particularly difficult task to do, her cheerful and chirpy disposition were qualities that enamoured people and convinced them she wasn’t a threat but rather an ally, a constant and faithful friend. They were the beasts, and she was both the crooning insects that kept them unsuspicious and the speeding bullet that would put them down before they knew it was too late.

The job was enough until it wasn’t anymore. Then, she just disappeared into the night and found herself here — hunting for the sake of hunting, hunting at the behest of whoever paid the best money. She had eventually come to learn of the one called the Queen of Shadows, the woman without a name, the woman who made problems disappear, and it niggled her in places that she didn’t know could be niggled; it left her curious and infuriated by the intensity of her curiosity; until eventually she decided that she would have to hunt her too just for the sake of putting an end to it.

The trouble was that every bit of the hunt only left her with more questions. Every tiny piece of information only left her hungry for more. Every step closer towards capturing the woman she had come to learn was Charlotte Flair, decorated war veteran, keeper of secrets, lurker of shadows, mother of one repulsive cat, only made her wish she could take two steps backwards and draw it out a little more… it was infuriating, and it was delicious, and it was too much fun to let come to such an anti-climactic end as a fatal stabbing in a disused warehouse over little more than a paycheck.

After the cheeky post-it note in the kitchen, Becky imagined that the game would be reciprocated, chasing one another would be a fun way to pass the time between jobs but there was no take up on Charlotte’s part. It was offensive. It was maddening. It was above all things clearly a trap… but Becky couldn’t leave it alone.

God, she wished she had left it alone.

The Queen had been gone for some months, those who knew of her said that she must have got spooked and quit while she was ahead. They were wrong. For beasts like her and Charlotte, there was no such thing as quitting while ahead. There was only hunting, climbing, racing, jaunting and galavanting towards the next big thrill.

When the newspapers read that a newly-elected house representative had turned up dead, tragically stabbed in the throat during a mugging gone wrong in one of the only camera dark spots of the parking garage beneath his building, Becky knew the game was back on. Only the Queen would be ballsy enough to take on a job with heat and visibility like that. Only the Queen would be brazen enough to stick a message inside of the hit. And only the Queen would be smart enough to get away with it too.

After a few months of covert nosing, Becky found out through a low-level contact who ran with the Hungarians about the chop shop, conveniently named, where people went when someone wanted them to disappear. It was a lead, one that Becky enthusiastically felt put her at least four steps ahead of Charlotte Flair.

Like an unsuspecting stag beneath the crooning hum of insects singing the warm night to sleep, Becky didn’t realise it was too late until it was too late. She had trekked two miles on foot beneath the cover of early darkness toward the lone building down the road with unmistakable red gas pumps outside just like her contact had described. She was convinced she had the element of surprise… right up until a single barbed dart hit her in the chest from more than a hundred feet out.

The paralysis was almost instantaneous, the warmth and wooziness was coming more than it was going as footsteps from down the road grew closer. She tried to reach for her gun to no use, and so she huffed and kicked and moved like a wounded stag, dragging herself only a tiny distance before the tranquiliser took hold and rendered her completely immobile.

“Thank you for doing the hard part for me,” Charlotte whispered and crouched over her, grinning a bit as she slung the dart gun over her shoulder. “I was getting worried that I might have to come and look for you.” The words were chuckled out victoriously.

Fuck, she wished she had just left this alone.

“Cat got your tongue?” Charlotte prodded her slumped figure with her foot. “It’s alright, I put you down with enough Telazol to stop a lion in its tracks. Stop fighting and go to sleep… there will be plenty of time to catch up once you’re awake.”

Becky was reluctant, fighting the slumber with laboured breaths and everything she had until she couldn’t fight anymore. She faintly felt herself be picked up and thrown over a broad shoulder in a fireman’s lift, carried up the road with her slack head bouncing awkwardly against the dart rifle. Then, there was nothing but darkness.

Hours had passed by the time she came around, groggily, wincing into the bright light of flood lamp pointed directly at her eyes. The pain within her body was unreal, was impressive, was the start of something worth taking notes over. The most palpable points of dull throbbing agony were located on her shoulder blades and the backs of her arms where meat hooks punctured the skin and suspended her off the ground like a car that needed work underneath. Becky closed her eyes, unable to look at the uncontained joyful grin of her captor — which was by far the most agonising part of this whole ordeal.

“So,” Charlotte spoke first after a moment, pleased with herself. “What’s new in your life?”

Becky opened her eyes and watched Charlotte sit down on the chair opposite, folding her long muscular leg over the other with a content look on her face as the accoutrements of her work were lined up on an old, metal roller chest where tools had once been kept.

Whatever this was, the Queen wasn’t in any rush to move things along. It wasn’t surprising. Capital murder was an artform to the Queen. A lengthy creative process if her previous work was anything to go by. Becky just inhaled and tried to ignore her blistering headache.

“You’re awfully quiet today.” Charlotte posed it as a thoughtful acknowledgement.

“Just deep in thought,” Becky whispered through gritted teeth with narrowed eyes, her body swinging slightly from the suspension which only compounded the pain. “Wait.” The coolness of the breeze was felt in deeply private crevices, on stiff cold nipples that she was only now realising were exposed. “Did you…” Her eyebrows craned with absolute shock and the pain was briefly forgotten. “Well that is just completely unchivalrous and shameful!” Becky swung slightly from the ceiling with the outburst.

“You don’t need clothes where you’re going, babe.” Charlotte didn’t even bat an eyelid as she reached over to switch on one of her tools.

“You better be switching that iron on to press my delicates!” Becky hissed, a sudden apprehensive panic rushing through her.

Charlotte smiled and peered at her naked body with fluttering eyes, “I’ll iron your delicates, sure.” She craned a cheeky, unburdened eyebrow and glanced between her legs.

“That is not what I meant and you know that!” Becky flailed a bit more, the agony pulling and tugging at her sore, immobilised limbs. “This is me safewording, Charlotte! I safeword!”

“Well I really did not enjoy being stabbed multiple times, Becky.” Charlotte wagged her manicured finger. “Consequences, consequences.”

Becky became beyond exasperated. “You don’t get to whip out a fucking iron like Marie Kondo when I only used a vegetable knife on you! If I had known this would be the craic I would have at least took a steaming hot piss on you and cut a few fingers off for good measure!”

“Coulda, woulda, shoulda. I could make a joke right now about you not sparking joy, but I’m above that.”

“Get ta fuck.”

Charlotte grinned, her pearly white veneers beaming and on show like a snarling predator from the sheer enthusiasm of her smile. Becky suddenly noticed how strangely overdressed she was for the occasion. Her long blonde hair was coiffed and salon finished, her lipstick carefully applied and touched up, her manicure recent and well kept. It made no sense given that she was staying off the grid. It was as if she had prepared herself for a date, for a deeply important encounter with someone special, and had gone to some lengths to do so too.

Charlotte lowered her voice to a threatening tone, “I am going to hurt you in ways you didn’t know—”

“Why do you look like that?” Becky interrupted, which possibly was not one of her brightest ideas given her current predicament swinging from the rafters by the gristle of her arms and shoulder blades.

“Like what?” Charlotte blinked.

“Pretty, like you’ve done yourself up.”

“What?” Charlotte became defensive and screwed up her brow.

“Do you always get your hair and nails done to torture someone or is it special, just for me?”

“Excuse me—”

“Ah ah,” Becky interrupted again. “It’s polite to return a compliment with a compliment. Shame of my life, anyone would think you were born in a barn.” She rolled her eyes.

The Queen paused and blinked, as if deliberating on whether to hit her with a red-hot burst of steam iron or play along a little bit. Becky hoped it would be the latter.

“Well.” Charlotte cleared her throat, building herself up for it. “I guess you look nice too. I like that little tattoo on your thigh, it’s cute...” Her voice trailed and her eyebrows wiggled as if she hadn’t spent much time thinking about it.

“Thanks,” Becky blushed slightly, surprised by the playfulness. “It’s the coordinates of my first murder, do you have any keepsakes—” Becky stopped mid-sentence as she heard Charlotte grab something heavy. She glanced down as the Queen lunged at her, just as the scalding heat singed the sparse blonde hairs on her thigh. “What the fucking fuck!” The scream was a long bloodcurdling noise as the iron sizzled and bubbled her thrashing leg.

Charlotte pulled it away and sat herself back down, unbothered.

The troublemaker let out the tiniest little whimper, her body slipping into shock to protect her from the horrendous pain. She craned her head forward with a long sob, aware that this was no longer as fun as she had hoped it would be. The skin was seared off completely when she opened her eyes and looked at it, the flesh red and burned in a neat triangular shape where a tattoo used to be.

She had it coming, she knew that, but it didn’t make it any easier to process. For some unknown reason she thought Charlotte wouldn’t follow through, that she had managed to endear herself too much to the Queen for any sort of real damage to be done. It was hopeful. It was silly. It was beyond naive. And Becky suddenly realised just how fucked she actually was. This woman was more like her in all the worst ways possible than she previously accounted for. This wasn’t just a playful battle of equals… it was a war of sociopaths, it was untred territory, it was dealing with a creature that couldn’t be emotionally manipulated with any sort of ease and somehow that only made it all the more tempting to try.

It was, above all things, dangerously exhilarating, and it only added more layers to her profound curiosity.

“I really didn’t like being stabbed, Becky.” Charlotte reiterated her point. “And as for threatening my niece? Well, that’s a curling iron in one orifice of your choosing.” She lifted her brows, unimpressed.

“What is it you want exactly?” Becky asked.

Charlotte shrugged. “What are you offering?”

“To listen very carefully?”

Charlotte inhaled deeply and picked up the steam iron again.

“Wait!” Becky yelped and swung. “Mary Mother of God! Wait, wait, wait!”

Charlotte paused with an expectant look, the iron steaming in her hand.

“I’m just… trying to understand you.” Becky blinked and stared into her cold, unfeeling blue eyes. “I’m not asking what I can do for you. I’m asking what is it that drives you? What is it that you want?”

Charlotte paused, her cold blue eyes twitching ever so slightly. She huffed and put the iron back down for a moment, folding her arms like an exasperated teacher with an unruly, promising pupil.

“The Interlevin AF10, with all the bells and whistles,” Charlotte answered after a moment, entirely serious.

“Ah, of course.” Becky nodded. “And what exactly is an Interlevin AF10?”

“An act of God. Wireless digital temperature control, self cleaning, twelve adjustable shelves, a four compressor walk in industrial refrigerator unit that could survive a nuclear fallout.” Charlotte’s expression became fierce and impressed, as if she were describing an instrument of war. “There’s a two year waiting list.”

“That’s what you want?” Becky blinked. “A walk in fridge?”

“That’s what I want.”

“Seems achievable.”

“And you?”

“And me what?”

“What is it that you want? What brought you up here?” Charlotte inhaled and stared intently, her icy blue eyes carrying a weight of expectation for the truth. She slowly sat herself down in the chair, her fingers locking together over the ball of her knee.

When the dust settled, when the realisation sunk in that they were doing this for the time being instead of the steam iron, tight, taut, her sore and broken body still tensing, Becky licked her lips and sighed, at a complete loss for an answer.

“Well.” The beads of sweat ran the contour of her brow. “You never called me back.”

Charlotte laughed and picked up the steam iron.

“I’m being serious!” Becky hissed and made her stop. “I mean, don’t get me wrong I probably would have stabbed you a bit more once I got here…” She rolled her eyes and Charlotte seemed to appreciate the honesty, her hand lowering the iron ever so slightly. “But I just came for the sake of coming… because I wanted to see you, mostly.”

“Huh,” Charlotte raised her eyebrows.

“Sorry if breaking into your apartment was a bit much.”

“About that, you didn’t replace my eggs.”

“Sorry about that too.”

“I’ll live.” Charlotte smiled, and Becky got the hint that she might not.

“So you’re going to kill me?”

“Probably sooner rather than later,” Charlotte said.

“How boring,” Becky whispered and rolled her eyes.

The Queen got up out of her seat and fetched something off of the metal roller drawer. It was small, was concealed in her hand, was nothing but a green cap poking out of her fist. She stepped closer and Becky realised it was a syringe.

“Oh for fucksake,” she closed her eyes, exhaled sharply, utterly indignant that this was all that would become of the little hunter of Wicklow mountain. “How anti-climatic.”

“You expected more?” Charlotte lifted a brow as she bit the syringe cap off.

“I expected your best work.” Becky chewed furiously. “The hooks? The iron? All horrendous but second to none… this on the other hand?” She nodded at the syringe. “Pathetic.”

“What can I say? You’re annoying to be around.”

“Well I didn’t want to say anything but you don’t have the bone structure to pull off platinum blonde highlights,” Becky lied just to be acidic.

“My bleeding heart…” Charlotte frowned. “Any last requests?”

“Feel free to fuck my corpse before you bury me if you’re into that sort of thing.”

“What?” Charlotte blinked.

“What?” Becky realised it might have been a bit much.

“Did you just—”

“No.”

“Well alright,” Charlotte looked away, embarrassed, unable to move past it. She shook her head and stared at Becky again, “Did you seriously just ask me to—”

“No, you filthy pervert!” Becky lifted her chin.

“Oh, I’m the pervert?” Charlotte nodded mockingly, sticking a hand on her hip. “You need to relax.”

“Well hanging naked girls on meat hooks to torture them doesn’t scream well-adjusted childhood, does it!” Becky stated the obvious.

“Not girls!” Charlotte pinched her brow. “Girl. One. Singular. There is no plural! Stop making this weirder than it is!”

“Oh of course, pardon me, just a couple of girls catching up are we now?” Becky nodded mockingly.

“I can get the steam iron?” Charlotte nodded to the roller cart. “I’m not above burning your face off.”

“But it’s such a pretty face,” Becky whispered, frowning at the thought of being maimed like that. “Alright, sorry, I may have overreacted a little bit. Please, go ahead and murder me with your little syringe of cowardice.”

She watched the Queen look to the ceiling, then look to the floor, exhaling, shaking her head, utterly exasperated and livid by the imposition of the most unruly captive she had ever taken. It was a small thing to be proud of, Becky thought. Death was terrifying, was perhaps the only thing that truly frightened her, but this was a small platitude to take to the grave that made it a bit more bearable.

“Get on with it then, you big lump.” Becky tilted her chin.

The long hypodermic needle was slammed into her chest, the contents pushing inside her pulmonary system, her lungs shuddered, pushed and pulled, hyperventilated slightly and only made the few moments before her death incrementally shorter as a result. Becky held her breath and blinked hard, staring into those icy blue eyes for a symptom of… anything.

Charlotte just pushed a small smile and waited.

“What was it?” Becky felt her swallowing grow harder.

“Something fun.” Charlotte turned around and grabbed her coat off the back of the chair. “It was nice seeing you again, Becky.” She put the coat on and walked out of sight towards the door.

There was no kiss goodbye, no long victorious speech, just footsteps leading further away and then a door being unlocked.

“Wait, you’re not going to stick around?” Becky shouted, panicked slightly as the door opened.

“I want to remember you alive,” it was said almost gently, almost lovingly, lingering slightly before the door finally closed.

She felt drowsy, felt her head become heavier, felt furious that she was being overdosed on opioids and shit ones at that if her lack of high was anything to go by. Becky blinked and tried to stay awake, tried to think of something other than her furious infatuation because Charlotte did not deserve that kind of permanency.

Her grandfather, she remembered him, remembered his cumbersome hands, the smell of rolling tobacco, the flat peaked cap, the chunky knit cardigan. There was no love, no longing, no emotions of any sort really, but she remembered the little girl she once was when he was alive and that was something. She remembered the beasts and how she used to want to cry for them when they fell down. She remembered the way her uncles faces fell and crashed like buildings when the jury returned their guilty verdict. The former brought her more happiness than the later.

And then, slumping forward, she fell asleep.

…

The sound of birds chirping and cars whizzing up and down the street greeted her ears as she stirred like a lazy half-slumbering animal. Once again, she was sore, was bruised, was wincing into the tenderness of her burned leg, but she was alive and that was more than she had anticipated. Her throat was dry with inactivity and the room was too bright for her wincing eyes. She sighed and ouched as her arms and shoulders attempted movement, forgetting and remembering simultaneously the torture they had been subjected to.

“Ah, you’re awake,” a thick European accent greeted jollily.

Becky snapped her eyes open and looked to the man at the door. He was fat, middle-aged, hairy, badly dressed and wearing enough gold jewellery to put a drag queen to shame. He wasn’t just any Hungarian. He was the Hungarian. He was the crime boss, Laszlo Varga. And if the ancient seventies decor of the bedroom she was currently being kept in was anything to go by, she was in his family home.

Becky swallowed and stared at him, unsure of how or why she was here.

“Relax, little bird.” He smiled and came in, dusting the wooden desk with his hand to perch on the edge of it. “You’ve been asleep for more than a few days, take your time.” He smiled a bit.

“I was dead,” Becky blinked and ordered the events in her mind.

“No, little bird.” Laszlo shook his head. “You were sedated.”

“Sedated?” Becky widened her eyes.

“Well, not before you were punished a little bit.” He nodded at the bandaged thigh and the carefully tended shoulders that had been sewn up and seen to. “If you don’t mind me asking, what exactly did you do to piss the Queen off so bad that she… how do you say… ironed you?” He chuckled with gleaming, impressed eyes.

“I think she was just feeling frisky.” Becky craned a brow and winced as she sat up on the bed.

“Hm,” Laszlo nodded slightly. “She doesn’t usually play so well with others, little bird, you got off easy.”

“Stop calling me that.”

“Then tell me your name?”

“Becky.”

“Ah.” His lips fidgeted. “No nickname, then?”

“I don’t need one.”

“Me neither,” he agreed and looked to the sunshine beyond the window. “You’re probably wondering why you’re here…”

“The thought did occur, yes.”

“I need a job doing, a difficult one, a hit the Queen herself won’t take. She brought you here three days ago and said you were the woman for the job. At first I wanted to put you out of your misery like a broken little bird, less problems that way.” Laszlo chuckled. “But it would seem your work is impressive. My nephew, Andras, recommended you highly.” His tone became slightly displeased.

“Your nephew is Andras Wojcik?” Becky winced, and it felt like a detail that she should have known about before killing him as violently as she did.

“Yes, my sister’s boy.” He explained, nodding slightly. “Well, he was my sister’s boy. I believe you murdered him and put his balls in his mouth? Please, I don’t need to know which one happened first.” Laszlo raised his hands as Becky’s mouth opened to correct the order of things.

“And you’re not angry about that?”

“I hate my sister.” Laszlo shrugged.

“How lucky for me.” Becky breathed a sigh of relief. “So who is the mark Old Queeny is too scared to whack?” She lifted a curious brow.

“Andre The Cannibal.”

“He died years ago,” Becky chuckled to herself.

She was far from an expert in the field of European gangsters but when it came to Andre The Cannibal she didn’t need to be, he was a myth, an urban legend, a hitman who supposedly ate his victims, a big earner for the downtown morbid tourism scene that the Hungarians had their hands in, and he had died at least thirty years ago if she could just about remember the finer details of his Wikipedia page. Her laughter began to peter slightly as Laszlo’s expression remained fixed and serious.

“You’re not kidding,” Becky blinked in shock.

“Andre… he did a lot of work for us in the early days but he caused a lot of problems, made too much of a stir.” Laszlo shrugged and twiddled his thumbs in thought. “We paid him to disappear and he did just that, the whole thing was very civil.”

“So why now?”

“We made a lot of money with the tourists coming to see the old haunts, the restaurant where he cooked people, the street his burned body was found, these sort of things.” Laszlo mused and clasped his hands. “But… the last few years we’ve been lucky if we’ve filled two buses a week.”

“Wait,” Becky began to laugh in absolute delight. “Not only do you want me to track down a dead man but you want me to make the hit messy and loud so people know he was alive in the first place?” It was as if all her luck had come at once.

“Bingo.” Laszlo grinned and pointed his finger like it was a gun. “Andre lives, Andre dies again, someone writes a book, Netflix makes a documentary, everybody is happy, I get my tourists back. The Queen doesn’t like tracking people down and he’s been gone for a long time so it won’t be easy work. She brought you to me with high recommendation, said you would be the woman to get it done.”

“Well colour me flattered!” Becky singsonged. “How soon can I get to work?”

“Heal first, work later.” Laszlo stood up from the desk. “How much will your work cost?”

“Do what you love and you never work a day in your life, my mother used to say that.” Becky sighed happily and pushed a slackened smile. “Half a million, all of my expenses covered, and your loveliest smile.” She turned back to the Hungarian jokingly, anticipating that negotiations would start and he would work her down to the number she actually wanted.

“Done.” Laszlo smiled so wide his fuzzy red cheeks bunched and bulged. “Rest for now, I’ll call the Queen and tell her you’re off limits for a while.”

“What?”

“You didn’t think it would really be so easy, did you?” He nodded at the bandaged wounds. “She is a cat and you are her little mouse. Just because she let you live this time doesn’t mean she isn’t planning bigger things.”

“Well now that does sound exciting…” Becky felt herself fall in love with that bastard woman a little bit more.

…

Charlotte began to wonder if the little troublemaker was alive or dead, she had anticipated retaliation or maybe even a postcard at the very minimum. Laszlo kept tight lipped on the matter, said he was equally in the dark but that the pre-paid cards were being used and things seemed to be progressing as expected. It should have been easy to let go of, their last meeting had made them more than square by anyone’s standards. But Charlotte just couldn’t put the bitch down, still, now, months after the fact.

It was more than infuriating, and it had began to affect her work too, the preoccupation, the wondering, the slight infatuation of it all. She had barely enjoyed the last three kills and one of them was a Saudi Prince. A real life prince. The son of a king—albeit one of the middle ones with a penchant for bad business deals who weren’t too important in the grand scheme of things—but the son of a king nonetheless. It should have been one for the scrapbook but instead it felt like a chore, like a small way to pass the time until the troublemaker could crop up on her radar again.

Charlotte’s phone buzzed on the table of the airport bar that was now setting up to be home until her delayed flight was ready for departure.

Laszlo Varga, 1 message. ‘Turn on the news,’ it simply read. She exhaled and already knew what was coming. The phone was slung back down and her laptop was opened. She typed in the address of different news outlets in different tabs, all of them loading with similar headlines and gruesome, censored pictures.

Cannibal Hitman Thought To Be Dead FOR THIRTY YEARS Discovered Mutilated In Downtown Street Where His Infamous Slayings Took Place.

Pictured: The City Street Where Andre The Cannibal, Thought To Be Dead For Thirty Years, Was Discovered Dismembered By A GIRL SCOUT.

Reign Of Terror Comes To Final Close As Hungarian Mobster Famed For Eating His Victims Meets A Fitting Fate.

Buzzfeed’s Buzz Of The Day: Ten Reasons Why Trump May Give The Man Responsible For Murdering Andre The Cannibal The Presidential Medal Of Freedom.

Andre The Cannibal: The Failings Of A Police Investigation, And The City Commissioner Who Is Expected To Resign In A Statement This Afternoon.

The Irishwoman had certainly been busy. Charlotte scanned the headlines and chewed the inside of her mouth, infuriated by how impressive it all was. She closed the tabs one by one until a different headline all together caught her attention.

Police Search For Witnesses After Local Restauranter Discovers His Walk In Refrigerator Stolen After Closing The Business For A Period Of Mourning.

It made Charlotte smile and look away, she brought herself back and read the headline again, then once more just to make sure she wasn’t seeing things. She scrolled down the page and looked at the blurry images picked up by the security cameras.

Bingo.

She would recognise that ass anywhere.

…

“Tell me you’re not a little bit impressed!” Becky said chirpily to the shocked, disbelieving face at the door.

“Is that the Interlevin AF10?” Charlotte couldn’t take her eyes off of the bomb shelter in her workshop. “All the bells and whistles?”

“All the bells and whistles.” Becky nodded and clambered down from the workshop table.

Charlotte stood there and blinked, her expression mute, her brow furrowed slightly, her eyes registering reality but her brain disbelieving it, still. It was cute to watch. It was everything Becky had hoped it would be, which was a low bar of expectation to meet considering the only thing Becky had hoped for was the absence of steam irons and other mean things of that nature.

“How did you even...”

“I killed the owner’s mum,” Becky whispered softly, smile slackening, nibbling her bottom lip as if it was the sweetest gesture she could muster. “He closed up shop for a few days so I snuck in when no one was around.”

“You just snuck in and stole a walk in refrigerator?” Charlotte rubbed her chin, nodding as if it was comprehensible, nodded even though she still didn’t understand, completely gliding over the part where someone’s mother had been suffocated with a pillow.

“Well, Laszlo lended me a crane and a flatbed truck.”

“Of course he did.” It compounded Charlotte’s frustration. “You kill Andre The Cannibal, paint the whole of Ninth Street with his body parts, and then you steal a fucking walk in refrigerator all in the same weekend.” She thrusted her hand in the direction of her new fridge. “Of course you did that,” Charlotte quietly rubbed her temples.

“You’re right it is a bit impressive, isn’t it?”

“You’re not armed.” Charlotte suddenly noticed, looking her up and down, weighing up her chances. “Awfully presumptuous of you.”

“I didn’t say I wasn’t,” Becky opened her leather jacket and her gun glinted the light.

“Is this you bringing me a gift or you looking for a mexican standoff?” Charlotte opened her own jacket and lifted an eyebrow, the handle of her pistol sticking out slightly.

“Maybe both?” Becky smirked and closed her jacket.

“I will shoot you.” It wasn’t said with any sort of meaningful conviction.

“I missed you,” Becky said it as though it were the easiest thing in the world to say. “Besides… you could have killed me but you gave me the Andre Sopa job instead, this is just me returning a gift with a gift.”

Charlotte hmph’d and seemed to become stuck. “It’s starting to become unsettling how you just show up like this.” The confession was exhaled earnestly.

“You could hide from me if you wanted to, my guess is that you don’t.”

“You’re easy to become interested with.”

“Ooft,” Becky became pleased. “I’ll take that as a compliment, Charlotte Flair.”

“What is it you want, Becky?”

“I honestly don’t know…” Becky exhaled and swallowed. “At first I wanted to kill you, and I think I still might. Right now I just want to understand you, I suppose?”

Charlotte became quiet and thought about it for a moment.

“Do you want to stay for dinner?”

“I’d like that.”

[ofwrcth-blog]

THE URGE TO LAUGH is insane. it’s fucking SURREAL, it’s awfully hypothetical but it is always there nonetheless — right under her voice. all she needs is the right push — the right touch — the perfect timing — && she breaks beyond the point of salvation now. driven on edge: WRATHFUL. wrongly defeated while the VICTOR of their little game of cat && mouse triumphs in a disgusting DELIGHT. he has taken her into captivity to his own device then: the fucker just has to drug her out of her mind, knock the light out of her, && transferred her to his bunker like a goddamn prized possession. slowly, as time forsakes her poor memory, she can barely remember any of it — if not, all of them: her family, the Seeds, the outburst of the cult, the incident, the encounters, the bliss, the ranch, her failed mission, John Seed himself, how it begins falling apart:

Nick Rye is — was a good friend at heart. when she first repositioned herself to Holland Valley under Sheriff Whitehorse’s command, he was the first to welcome her with open arms. lying be pointless: the locals there were warm && generous, they were UNBELIEVABLY kind to her despite her bloodied history — but Nick was different. Nick && Kim && their unborn little one were Mercy’s mercy. countless of times: they HELPED her, ADORED her, SUPPORTED her in their own special ways, without any conditions — as if KINDNESS itself runs in their blood from birth. at this foreign land, where she was a STRANGER to all, they were the very PEACE she finally found. she loved them, as they kindly did so in return, && she couldn’t let herself watch them torn in misery at John Seed’s havoc. the Carmina was Nick’s pride. it was his inheritance from his father, a prized treasure passing from generation to generation — a jewel he could never afford to lose. && when he did, he was absolutely furious. she was there in time just as the Peggies were at his doorsteps. John’s order, she presumed. no matter. she didn’t think much of it when she dislodged her M249 && shot the horde down one by one. she didn’t think much of his request either, when he asked her to retrieve dear Carmina.       

that was where she found herself. Seed Ranch. she'd crept in from the back, emerged from the forest, past the peggies on their dutiful patrols. first, she peered through the wicked lens of her scope to locate the airstrip, once she did, she quickly climbed a ladder to the roof of the plane hangar, used a zipline across to the roof of the main house and dropped silently onto the balcony below. the Seeds never locked their door, jesus. she slipped inside easily. too easy. this is Seed Ranch. John Seed's home probably, if he even lived here. she should have gotten herself out of the fucking residence the moment she found Carmina, Mercy reflects bitterly, but her WRATH got the best of her. she'd liberated countless of outposts, one more wouldn’t mean anything. && if anything at all: it only strengthened the Resistance furthermore. she'd done it before, she could well do it again. 

no one was in the house. she could use this as an opportunity to get the best angle: disabling the alarms, all the while taking out as many peggies as silently as she could — not the best at the moment, but it was all that she’d got. her plan set up perfectly so, everything was ready to execute. the QUICKER, the BETTER. && Nick’s dorky smile once she delivered his plane back to him made her smile. standing on the internal balcony however, as she surveyed the large room beneath her, her curiosity bested her.  cult paraphernalia, classical novels, short pieces of writing, books, so many of them per se. below her stood a large table with a telephone. there was a flashing light to it, indicated a voicemail message. for him? then Mercy did something she deeply regretted: she slipped downstairs && pressed play.

“After all the atonements, all the confessions, and all that you have done for me and Eden's Gate, it's not enough, is it John?” Joseph Seed, she remembered, The Father. his voice alone always sent a chill down her spine every time. she tended to listen as the message went on, but — Gods do hate her, don’t they. before she could collect herself, she heard heavy boots behind her. then one hand grabbed her around her waist, while another held a musky smelling cloth over her mouth && nose. warm breath against her ear, && a single, silky word. 

❝Gotcha.❞

to where she is now. bruised, tired, beaten, wounded like a caged beast: the unforgiving pain throbs in her guts like fire. so deep && warm, so MENTALLY arduous, so fucking AGONIZING too — she’s lost. but he is, too. defeated. because John can’t kill her. he isn’t allowed to under the influence of Joseph Seed. watching him going crazy, fuming, yelling at people from down the hall, knocking things over as he passes is absolutely ENTERTAINING. all because she won’t CONFESS. he is furious from times to times, even going as far as storming into her cell, with four guards, instructing them to hold her down while he yanks her shirt halfway upward her back && carves the word PRIDE into her burning flesh, ranting senselessly about her pride and how it is stopping her from confessing. he’s done that. still, she won’t yield to him. she won’t confess. && here he is, ANGER conspicuous in his eyes as he glares down at her, she stares at him in response. MOCKING him wordlessly. ❝How hopeless of you, John. Joseph will be fucking disappointed, don’t you think?❞

@revealedsins. /  sc. 

[tide-teeth]

Finding Latest Drone

The Do's and Don'ts of Latest Drone

Drones are now popular in the previous number of years and thus, they are. Drones because lifesavers On the reverse side, they may also provide lifesaving added advantages. So long as the drones for adults drone has been in sight you're prepared to really go. In reality, drones may be the perfect option for recording video from the jungle. Apparently, not every tiny drone has been still a flyer. The most effective 2018 drones combine prices, specialist craftmanship, longevity and remarkable features to extend a drone that you will delight in flying for an minute. Or you are merely exhausted from your standard remote traveling drone that isn't recording high superior pictures that are excellent.

Drones have firmware that can be upgraded to correct bugs and add new capacities. They have become easily accessible to consumers at lower expenses. They've also demonstrated their suitability for various urban actions. People don't understand that should a drone flies, they also are going Dennison says into the aviation business. Camera drones are comparatively simple to hurt while costly to fix. The majority of the instant, it really is awkward and hard to carry a sizable, digital camera drone that is heavy approximately.

In case you find it possible to perform game, you can learn to work with a drone camera easily. " It's will be quite a more continuing cat-and-mouse video game. Superior Service Team My clientele and that I take pleasure in this team in real estate in the Atlanta region's aid. For a long couple, it can be tough to see where to begin or how you should get started collecting actionable insights with your own drone. The analysis forecasts flights would likely be safer whilst the possibility of pilot malfunction will be taken off. Some individuals say that people've entered the age that is drone.

The group of drones that could handle water is tiny. Customer drones have been held back by the higher cost tag connected to the models. When there can be a drone employed in locations that were restricted, and also you also wish to have the ability to earth it without sacrificing potentially incriminating evidence. Yes, it is just a toy drone, but nonetheless, it really the way that it is possible to adjust between water, land and atmosphere could allow it to be unique. Drones appeared as the big development. Even the 3DR So Lo Drone can also permit one to stream live video to your cellular apparatus.

Drones are extremely enjoyable to fly should they're flown. The truth is that they are becoming more and a lot additional business and more recreational. There is the Airdog Drone which may be managed by means of what resembles a wrist watch.

Makers are offering crash avoidance, and flight that is flexible pathing choices as a means. The next firm to show the most recent drone technologies has been Indymo. The drone organization is projected to double in the course of the upcoming decade regardless of stagnant funds. The building firm is the major one. It utilizes loads of advanced technology that's present in the latest drones, while slightly obsolete today. Gyro stabilization technologies is among the parts which gives you the drone it has flight capabilities that are smooth. Therefore, in the event you think about this, you are able to repaint agps system.

Sophisticated detectors like nighttime vision, methane sensors and xray capacities could be put on drones. Acquiring your own camera from an firm that delivers detailed lessons training, workshops and so forth can be a wise option. Many of the drones that were prior utilised cameras that were not acceptable for airborne. Even the GoPro digital camera isn't included in the cost.

During the building period footage may be used even to assess advancement including roofs or to talk about advancements together with potential clients. The video clips really are lots sharper. See the movie clip to look at it will work out.

Latest Drone

A few characteristics of this patent comprise applying shuttles. In accordance with some decades back a sizable of those technology out of drones made their method to the user and company drones. Let us look at some of the greatest technological innovation that is drone reveals of CES 20-19. Looking through its camera in FPV might make you feel just like you are just only traveling, and maybe not merely the drone. Let us go through the absolute most often encountered sorts of detectors utilized for drone mapping. Hence, usage of Smartphone and cellular programs isn't likely to receive paid off in 2017 anyhow. Armed forces Drone technological innovation Military usage of drones has really begun to function as the utilization in the planet.