#filthystill: jim.

[guttersniper]

@filthystill as jim said: i don’t care. i killed him, but i don’t care.

winesburg, ohio.

"i can see that."

mutt's answer comes out in a strange evenness, sandpaper-rasp voice oddly calm in its tone. he circles further around, the better to eye the corpse's face. jim'd pretty well fucked it up beyond recognition. his own does not flinch, but a silent coldness still washes over his insides at the brutal sight.

he steps back, feels his shoulder blades press up against the concrete building behind him. he's not afraid of him, but a man's a man. jim wouldn't be the first to get the bright idea of grabbing him into his head the moment he does something he dislikes.

he looks at him halfway through his oath. "fuck you want me to do about it?"

[dxsole]

"Others, perhaps. Not me. Or you I suspect." Truth rings hollow in the quiet, for once it is not comforting or revealing. It just sits there, heavy on their chests.

It is not silent for long though, the crunch of leaves under his heels follows along with a sudden crackling from the fire. Again, she is on the ground, not disturbed by the hardness of cold soil nor scratching of twigs and dead leaves— he lays his head down and she chances a touch, gently petting at his head.

While he curls inward, she stretches out her legs, long white limbs a stark contrast against the dark earth. They're nearly the same height although in their current positions, she looks larger. Amazon woman from an ancient time— ah, he speaks.

Of him. She does not know him. Or maybe she does; Iona would not gloat and say she was the most interesting of creatures to walk this Earth. Perhaps her ways are too simple for exploitation; what could one promise her? Could she even be bargained with? What threat would work on one so old no one remembers how to kill one of her kind? The old ways are lost, their sting no longer potent.

"The world is stranger than you know." And it would only continue to warp and test his limits. "You cannot always trust your senses; what you see, what you feel. Senses are delicate, easily influenced by outside sources." Love blinds as well as anger. Sorrow and grief distort.

"I am sorry to disappoint," And she genuinely means that, "but I did not. I understand the concept but I have had no confirmation of its existence." Perhaps he's the confirmation.

Fingers run along his skull until they reach the base. It's all short fuzz. Like petting a vole. "I assumed Hell would be more severe. Sweat and filth is rather natural."

Humans are attracted to horror. They may be repulsed or frightened, but they dare not look away. Bile may rise in his throat at the thought of her, of what she does to the dead things he leaves behind, but that won't stop his actions. Nor would it stop her from reappearing, century after century, her reflection in his armor, in the pools of water and oil and blood that follow in his footsteps.

And as she is always the loyal hound, she nods. She knows nothing else.

He knows nothing else. They were always meant to be here. There's a clash of fate and self-determination, but whether it had been Jimmy as he stands before her now, or the one's before him, this being would be before her regardless— The ancient Greeks held fate in such high regard, nearly as high as the gods themselves. Strings of fate. The eye of the ghastly matrons, passed from face to face to see the truth. Theirs were knotted together, her sisters severed from the main strand one by one until the final thread remained, thin and nearly bare, threatening to break.

He could put her down for good. She stares at him from the opposite side of the fire. It almost looks threatening, how the fire illuminates her features, copper eyes catching every glint. "Very good Jimmy." It's such a vague response; the words themselves sound like something you might tell a child who says they're a space cadet, running around with a fishbowl on their head.

The tone is as warm as her near mechanic voice would allow.

She was not made to kill gods. She was not made to kill anything. It's almost hard to believe, that not one being had been maliciously harmed by her hand. The dead things simply fall around her but never once has she made the kill.

Maybe the gods he kill are meant to be her reward. Her form of heaven. The massive hulking things laying at her feet, decomposing in the sun. A last meal. "I do not believe I have a choice."

A beat. "I do not have anything better to do, either way." There's a flash in her eyes that indicate that she would be wryly smiling if she could. "You do not have to ask that. You should know." She has eaten dead lovers before; why would she let you waste away so callously when she could give you one final kiss?

[am4zon]

@filthystill said: "you and me, we're in this together now." from the jim jam man xoxox

She can't get the color red off her hands. Warranted or not, the death of Maxwell Lord follows her like a stench that makes others turn their noses at Diana. She has been branded by her decision to snap the man's neck. To take his throat between her fingers and claim the life from within. There is no one to turn to. There is no trick up her sleeve. As your television screens show from the live footage of the event, Diana is a murderess. It is not the first life she's taken, yet it is the one that has cost her the world.

Her world.

Bruce and Clark treat her as a plague they must eradicate. Like they weren't the very ones she was trying so desperately to save. Her decision is her own. She'd rather the hot strikes of being hated than the cold emptiness of burying her friends. Even if both stories end with her mourning them.

Who does she have in this world except for Jim? The only one, perhaps, who can still look her in the eye and mean what he says.

❛ Together? ❜ She tries the word on for size. Clark and Bruce once told her a similar sentiment, and it ended with them both leaving her cold. She tilts her face. She has nowhere left to go but here; she has no room to stand on. But conviction? She is never in short supply of that. ❛ But we do things my way. ❜

[consultingsister]

“did anyone see you?” - from slim Jim

a meme, probably! @filthystill

"People can't help but see me, I look like this," she gestures to herself and grins. The look on his face makes her eyes roll. "No, no one saw me. You're safe."

Cee empties the shopping bag onto the table, pulling out the essentials like milk, bread and cigarettes. "Kinda thought you being in hiding was going to be sexier than this, not gonna lie. Can we at least find you a nicer place? Without rats..."

[dxsole]

@filthystill

Latex glove slapped against cheap fold-out table, pile of powder on either side shunted, whir of money-counter ceased, Jimmy swivelled and tipped another batch of notes into the device. The sort of shit Jimmy was on would blow your mind, the level he was operating at was mind boggling. He was on a computer chair, one of those ones that has wheels, he was pushing himself from table to table, in a warehouse, factory line of naked women, in unison, weighing and bagging. This was the golden age. This was the most powerful one man could ever be. He got out of his chair, it spun off, "you do these things because you know I love you," pointing, pulled his googles off, nose stained with blood and wild bloodshot eye. "I look after you," credit card, and a pile of something white, held it to Angus's nose, "come on, let Uncle Jim look after you."

Angus was always around when things were going good. When— not if, when— Jimmy falls from grace, suddenly the demon is no longer around. It's not his job to pick up the pieces. He's only here for...let's call it moral support. And Angus supports nearly everything illegal and sinful, just as he did when he was human. "Oh, ye love me now?" He asks, feigning surprise. "I don' like ye like t'at, boyo. Appreciate t'e sentiment though."

Plus, Jimmy continues feed the dog, as made clear by the coke shoved in Angus' face. "Uncle Jim...ye know yer my favorite uncle, yeah?" He questions with a wicked grin before snorting the line, licking his plate clean— "Any o' t'ese birds foreign? I like it when I cannae understand w'at t'ey're sayin'."

[guttersniper]

there is a blankness in mutt's lifted, prickling stare. it is plain he has no intentions of thanking jimmy.

"in the dumpster," he parrots in that specific way that is meant to make someone feel deeply stupid. a pulse throbs at his temple, teeth clenched.

he pushes himself off the wall, but doesn't do as he is told. like scolding him for rashly purchasing a nonnecessity, "did you think before you did this."

"Life," he says, "if I'm gonna do life for a guy, I usually make sure he's worth it," usually, he didn't this time. "A thank you'd go a long way," he says as he crouches down, inspects his handiwork. He wonders, quietly, at what point a person stops being a person. He figures at the point they can't have an open casket, the point a mother can't look at their child one last time. Fucking yikes.

"Help me with this," fuck it, he scoops him up by the shoulders, blood in the fabrics immediately, boots scrape against the concrete, "just into that dumpster. I'll make it worth your while."