#find people who enjoy weird and dark shit just don’t hang out with people with think minor/adult ships are cute and hot. thats not good

[danidoesathing]

Hey anon uh. Take a breath man you can enjoy dark and weird fiction all you want but drawing child porn and shipping minors and adults is uh. not great

[sil-te-plait-tue-moi]

The idler wheel is wiser than the driver of the screw.

Quick summary: After one too many drinks, you find yourself unable to think of anything but a certain smart-mouth detective who is in desperate need of a release.

Word count: 11K (I'm sorry)

Warnings: This is basically just SMUTT with a lil feelings (if you squint) sprinkled in there; kind of angsty at points (mentions of canon-typical death and violence (hellooo they're homicide detectives); gets a bit existential at points, watch out; pretentious.

A/N: YAY! I had this obsession with True Detective S1 all throughout October (watched it at my nan's house lmao), so enjoy the lovechild of that. This is just for fun, so, please, nobody be angry at me if they don't agree with Rust's characterisation, or any of the weird philosophical chat, lalallalal, OKAY ENJOY!!

***

The night air is sluggish and humid with the remnants of a warm summer’s rain, pressing down thickly, close, clogging, simmering just below the surface.

A few times, I’ve interviewed people who live in these sorts of places: motel-types, the “in-between”, where folks stay when they’ve either got no money, no choice or nobody. Other residents include passers-by who’re looking to save money on accommodation, skipping on the fancier places. Not that Louisiana really has any “fancier places”. Places without the paint peeling off walls like dead skin, I guess. A bed and breakfast in the nicer suburbia, with a view overlooking a subpar daydream of a ghost town centre. 

I’ve leaned up against the crooked, metal railing, felt the influence of my weight almost sending it and myself crashing down onto the faded parking lot beneath. I’ve leaned up there—after knocking—and waited, waited for a grey face to peer through a crack in the cracked door. I’ve smiled and remarked about how the beat-up, brass numbers up there are hanging by a thread. Sometimes, people are real stingy – they slink out and close the door behind them, or they remain in that little slit, just an eye visible, or they plain shut it in my face. Most let me in right away, maybe a little intimidated by the shiny badge clipped up in my jacket – I’ve sat across from ‘em, felt that mud in the room’s air seep into my pores, inviting me under its still swamp. 

Seems like the sort of place for him.

Too many a fuckin’ time, Marty’s come grumbling and muttering into the office kitchen, rolling his eyes, scoffing, huffing, the whole lot. And when I ask him why the strop?—“Ancient fuckin’ philosopher fuckin’ Rust Cohle on it again. Birthday’s comin’ up: get me earplugs and a generous bit o’ duct tape for my dear partner over there, would you?” 

Or somethin’ along those lines. 

For all his apparent talk about us silly, little “biological puppets”, this seems like Rust’s sort of place. Temporary existence, temporary living. Purgatory?

Whatever.

If you ask me, Rust Cohle’s head is so far up his own ass that it’s no wonder his outlook on life is so dark. 

If I was more sober, maybe I’d be thinking about it—about him—less—but this night out has had me so drunk I was maybe even hallucinating at some point. Rust?—sure, he’s been in the back of my mind for some part of the last few months – I have to see him most days I go to work, don’t I? – but, sometime in the space between my third and fourth shot of straight vodka, he was suddenly at the very front of it. I’d seen a guy who smoked like him: cigarette pinched between his thumb and forefinger, a simple, deep drag. I’d thought it was him, but then I realised his face was shrouded in the smoke that he’d exhaled, and I recalled that Rust never seems to do that. Never seems to exhale. All the tar and shit stays in. 

With a twist of my keys, the engine rumbles off into more-or-less silence. Fuck, it’s a bad idea, yes, just being here. If he likes to keep his distance, well—he’s entitled to that choice. 

I glance over my shoulder, out the window, out at the complex which is all yellow and shining, illuminated by buzzing halogen light bars and, of course, the occasional bug zapper. It’s clean enough. The lines of this parking space were white enough. Apartment 11A, said Marty. Second floor. 

“Are you drunk?” he’d asked – Marty, not Rust.

I’d replied, “No,” pressing closer to the phone box in attempts to remove myself from the swarm and bustle of the ladies’ bathroom. And it was an honest reply. Sort of. Despite his scepticism, by that time, I’d long stopped drinking, and all that remained from it was a sort of numb tingle in my fingertips—as far as I was concerned. 

I don’t think I’d be in this parking lot, stepping out of my car, if I wasn’t still a little bit gone. 

Marty’s sigh had crackled through the receiver. “Don’t bring any o’ tha’ party-this-party-that attitude to ‘im, alright? He’ll hate it.” I’d told him okay, my stomach spiking up with excitement. “Fact is, I don’t think you should go at all. ‘f you do, should be a work matter. This a work matter, detective?”

I’d lied, said yes, perhaps with a slur to my voice. 

He clicked his tongue. “Okay, buck, whatever you say.” Then, he’d hung up. 

There was something disapproving in the manner of the conversation. I got the feeling that he was talking to me in the same voice he used to lecture his daughters. The only reason I’d called him was to get something from him, sure, so that I could basically get something from Rust, his partner. I could see how that sort of thing might’ve upset someone. Not that Marty Hart should have any right to judge, not when he’s coming into work in the same clothes as the day before, stinking of sweat and God knows what. The unsaid agreement of everyone in the office is to turn a blind eye. I’ve met his wife. Someone should cut off his damn dick. 

Quiet, now. Hell, who am I to talk? Marty’s fun to chat with, makes a slow day at the office a little brighter. ‘Course, there’s rarely a slow day at the office.

And I’m at the top of the stairs, now. And I knock—one, two, three—on the pilling, forest-green door. Dulled down 11A. Blinds are determinedly shut, slats flat. For a second, I think maybe I’ll be waking him.

Then I remember Rust doesn’t sleep. 

A grey face appears as the door swings just a little ways open, grave and sunken-tired. His expression isn’t so pissed-off as it is just his usual expression. 

“Rusty,” I say to him with a small nod, words scraping out dryly. 

He doesn’t respond right away – ‘stead, he leans his body out partway, eyes absent like he’s searching for some hooligan criminal in the night.

“Marty told you my address?” he asks lowly. It’s more a statement than anything, but I amuse him with a nod anyways. There’s a cigarette flaring up between his fingers. His hand twitches a little like he’s wanting to take a drag, but his eyes are fixed on my shoes, now, like he’s still coming to terms with the fact I’m a foreign body in his domain. 

My toes curl up tight in my shoes – there’s that prick of anticipation again. Ice-cold, you could easily mistake it as dread. 

Rust doesn’t exactly subject me to an imploring look—not really his style—but he bows his head down just slightly – that’s sign enough for me. He wants to know why I’m here, and he no doubt wants to know the quickest way to be rid of me. 

I sigh. I ask him.

My body trembles, and he notices it, records it, stores it away for later reference, for some other time he’ll find that it and me will contribute to his purpose. 

Rust has a face of stone. I get to know it well as I search for a sign there that might let me know what lies beneath. But, of course, a statue is solid through and through. Sharp angles and smooth planes carved hollow. If he’s cold to the touch, I’d like to reach out and be sure. Is he cold where a man ought to be warm? Christ, it makes my pulse jump just to think about it. 

There is no greater purpose or cruel intention underlying my words, as far as I’m concerned. Rust, however, lingers there, with his arm up on the door, barricading the entrance, while he peels back and flits over every layer of possible meaning, his attention fixed absently on my left ear.

He then looks at me—briefly—in the eyes, with a sort of paralysing intensity. Even the tingling in my fingers ceases to be. 

It takes a moment, pregnant with the chorus of cicadas, crickets and other night-creatures, before he steps back neatly to allow me in.

The door clicks softly behind me as I enter into a room that’s bare as bare can be.  

Rust grunts, coming up around me and into the kitchen area. “Want anything?” he mumbles around his cigarette, other hand shoved in his pocket. He’s still half-dressed in his work clothes, his tie strewn on the counter, his blazer slumped over a rickety picnic chair perched up in front of a wall of crime scenes and dead bodies. My eyes linger there—how can they not?

“A beer,” I tell him, still looking at those photographs, then at the stacks upon stacks of books. Philosophy, ethics, religion. Names I’d expect only those with PhDs to know.  

“Don’t think you’ve had ‘nuff to drink already?”  

I shoot him a look. “I think I can handle it, Rust.” He straightens up, raises his brow. I snort, reasoning, “I’ll only have one.”

“One,” he agrees, opening up the fridge and having a rummage around.  

White walls and all of them empty, like some sort of psych ward. Half-sure Rust actually did do some time in that type of care, though, so—shouldn’t make any quips about that. I don’t want him thinking I think he’s crazy – he gets enough of that, I’m sure.   

Back at my place, though, I’ve got posters or drawings or paintings up around every corner. My niece’s drawing of a mermaid sits on my dresser, and photographs of my family are displayed in the hallway. One up by the TV, I painted myself when I was in high school. About two years after I graduated, they asked if I wanted my portfolio back, and I’d obviously said yes. And I love my stuff! Some ‘cause it’s pretty, others because of memories and whatnot. Guess some people don’t have that creative trait, or they lose it. Or maybe they detest the sentiments, those strings that have been, are and will be attached to things. When my cousin broke up with her boyfriend, she cut her hair and burned his clothes. “I just want to forget him,” she’d snarled. I’d sputtered a laugh into my tea.

Rust plants a Corona down on the counter, already cracked open.

There’s no mirror in here either – I can’t check whether I look as desperate as I feel. When I focus back on him, Rust is taking a swig from his own beer, turning to glance at the crucifix pinned above the messy mattress on the floor. Huh. Didn’t peg him as a Christian.

His honey-blond hair doesn’t look cold to the touch, that’s for sure ‘n’ certain. Wonder if he just wakes up like that or what. Once, Marty had been teasing him at work, even cracking a smile out of the old guy. “Ain’t them just the prettiest curls y’ever seen, buck?” he’d remarked, nudging into me, cooing at him. Silently, in my head, even then, I’d agreed: prettiest curls I’d ever seen. Rust hadn’t looked up to chart my reaction, but, if he had, he’d maybe have seen my fidgeting fingers or hitch of breath. Or maybe he felt it, heard it. 

“Sorry to barge in on you like this,” I offer pathetically through a nervous smile. 

He blinks, takes another swig, leaning over the counter that separates us. “No, y’aint.”

Jesus, I have to turn my head and shut my eyes for a second. I don’t particularly believe in God, but I ask Him to please give me the strength to resist my urges and act like a normal damn person for at least a few more minutes. And then I apologise for only praying out of convenience. In the face of temptation. This is why people shouldn’t drink – still, doesn’t stop me from downing a good part of my beer.

I turn to the wall and try to turn myself off a little bit. It’s not hard – Rust still has Dora Lange (rest her soul) pinned up on his wall, naked, blue, stiff. I don’t want to know why, so I don’t ask him. 

His eyes are adamant on the side of my head. Funny how he never seems to look at me at the same time I’m looking at him. Pisses me off a lot of the time – not just him, but in general. A lot of people share this same fear of not being heard, not being listened to and not being cared about. Men in particular, I’ve noticed, have a tendency to raise their voice over others’, to yell or shout or hit things or push ‘n’ shove. Marty’s that way – a lot of men at the precinct are, too. Women who are raised to be the listeners sometimes act out in the same way, frustrated at all the things they have to care about that men don’t, burdened with manners and politeness. I used to hate having to listen, to wait for the man who interrupted me to finish speaking. Rust always lets people finish their point, for better and for worse. Pisses me off in a different type of way. I can feel his judgement seeping out of him, so potent that’s it’s tangible, lapping at my feet.

He doesn’t push and shove – he’s a listener, too. Of course, he has that male privilege where his silence has a gravity, a magnetic pull, where mine is simply as is. At least he pays attention. Sure, on the surface, it might look like he doesn’t care at all, hunched over a case file at his desk, back turned to me and the rest of the lot, but proximity has its power – assigned workspaces put with his personality, and he knows what’s like and unlike me better than my sister. He’s reading into my refusal to talk, to face him – unlike me.

“So, you’ve given this some thought, then,” Rust says matter-of-factly, and my tummy bubbles up.

I snicker nervously, heart racing. God, I’d expected surprise, disbelief, outright refusal, maybe even a little disgust, but, when I manage to turn around and look at his face again, it just seems to me like a calmness. Stoicism found in the affirmation, maybe, of his expectations. It’s like I’m walking right into one of those little theories of his: a proved hypothesis.

I take another sip from my beer, feeling too shy for my liking. “Well, yeah,” I drawl, slumping over the kitchen counter and propping my chin up to look right back at him in a surge of liquid confidence. “I always think ‘fore I do anything that’s anything, Rust.”

Almost immediately, he retreats, standing up straight and resting the small of his back against the lip of the sink behind him. He hums, glances away. “We both know that’s a lie,” he combats, hands tucked into his pockets, chin tilted up, eyes down. A mouthful of beer numbs the sting of rejection. “What you mean is you think you can justify all your decisions. You think you can justify why you knocked on my door and said what you said—” he elaborates quietly, eliciting a snort from me, “—but, at the end o’ the day, all your decisions boil down to what you feel is right, not what is right.”

“‘n' you think you ‘n’ you alone know what’s right?”

Slate-grey eyes flit up and down my face, like I’m a specimen on a slide.

“I think that the girl who’s stumbled up on a fella’s door asking him to fuck her is less inclined to know, without bias, what’s right, yes.”

I swallow thickly, sucking the remaining flavour of beer off of my tongue before going in for another swig.

Christ.

Not a single bat of his eyes. Not a quiver of his mouth, not a twitch to his nose, not a morsel of natural, human hesitation. Does he have to be so crass? I did the courtesy of making it palatable, at least to my own ears, with a euphemism. But when have I ever known Rust Cohle to water anything down? No drink I’ve ever consumed will match his body’s preference of alcohol content. He’s nursing his beer close to his chest, but who knows what poisons lay dormant in these cabinets?

“Rusty,” I say lowly, maybe asking for a break – I close my eyes for just a second, part because I couldn’t bear it if I caught some sort of disapproval on his face, and part because it’s just past two o’clock in the morning.

Late nights have consumed my life recently, what with that sicko rapist connected to a Christian fertility cult. Children of God – “go forth and multiply”. His confession had turned my blood cold. Johansson had offered to sit in the box instead, but I did it anyway. I went home and cried over it, then came into work the next day to talk to some press and then receive my new assignment.

He hums, taking a drag from his cigarette, swallowing the smoke down. Rust knows how it is. To be honest, I’m probably the one who doesn’t know the half of it. One night at the office, he’d casually confessed to his insomnia, like he was just commenting on the state of the weather ‘n’ nothin’ else. So, I guess I won’t pretend to get it.

I gnaw on the inside of my cheek. “Are you into that whole abstinence thing?”

The weak light above flickers gently as he pauses, turns the question over in his mind. Anyone else would’ve surely laughed.

“I believe that man is susceptible to desire, yes—but he can resist it and its consequences should his willpower be stronger than the false promises posed by that temptation.

I snort again, because, now, I really am tipsy, and I can’t hold in my attitude any longer. It’s not that I think he’s lost it or whatever. It’s just—he’s so—objectively—absurd. Well—“objectively”. He’s got points, but those points lose all meaning in the spiralling darkness of overthought and deep contemplation wherein he’ll explain that everything really means nothing—and he’ll be right about that, sure, but also unintentionally prove a point about himself. I’d ask him what it means when, in a world where everything means nothing, a child will give their friend a flower found on the way to school, but I feel like his answer would be too morbid for my liking. Does that make me an unreliable source? The fact that I want to live?

He's absurd. He’s also a little bit awry in the head. Don’t know what he’s lost or what he’s lookin’ for, but it’s not a good look on him. He’s honest, yes – that’s a good trait. But honesty without kindness is cruelty. And he is kind – underneath, he’s kind, and I know that because of how hard he works to weed out evil people in this world, most times at his own risk. That’s kindness, albeit unconventional, whether he realises it or not.

The kindness almost cancels out his arrogance.

“So, what?” I challenge under the guise of a teasing grin. “You can go mouthin’ off for hours on end about how up themselves religious people and all’at are, but you can’t draw the similarities between their philosophy and your philosophy? How does that work, Rust?”

While I was working that Children of God nightmare of a case, he just couldn’t seem to restrain himself – every bullshit word that left him revealed to me his hubris. Now, I’m not angry, and he’s not stupid – we’re not arguing. In fact, he seems intrigued, lean body shifted toward me. He sets his beer down on the counter, crosses his arms over his chest after securing his cigarette between his lips, and lowers his head as if to listen to me better.

I sigh, continue. “D’you know what I think? I think you oversimplify humanity. You’re a great detective—‘nd I guess you know it—and, within the confines of your job, it serves you well, makes you good in the box. But your assumptions are too general. People are who they are, sure, but they also decide to be those people. By their environment and those who surround ‘em, people make the decisions that define ‘em. A lot of the time, their circumstances ain’t fair. People born into badness are trapped by the badness—either physically, or up in their heads—and they have a tough time escapin’ it.”

Rust inhales the smoke again, the only evidence of it happening being the soft whisp that curls away from his nose. I wonder to myself how his lungs are still standing.

“‘s that how you explain that—homicide case you’re workin’ on?” Three-year-old boy died of neglect, his siblings found locked in cabinets, one in a dog cage, by their mother and stepfather. Rust’s eyes flash silver. “Killer had a tough time?”

Asshole.

I narrow my eyes dangerously. “Don’t be mean, Rusty,” I scold, and he blinks in concession. “I think evil exists. I think it’s complicated. I think you summarise things that ought not to be summarised.”

He’s silent for a heartbeat. Then, his hand comes up to pinch away his cigarette, and he waves it in a small flourish, explaining, “When I say “people”, I mean society. Human culture.”

“Last I checked, Rust, you don’t know everybody on the planet. You don’t know their “culture”, or experiences.” That seems to shut him up. My eyes wander to his broad shoulders, trail along the meat of his arms beneath the cheap, polyester shirt that hugs close to the muscle, and they linger there like the quiet that settles between us.

He nods slowly, once. “Our decisions define us?”

I bob my head, unabashedly staring at the elegant column of his throat, his neck, and the stretch of tan skin that is settled beneath the white undershirt revealed by the first one, two, three buttons which have recently been undone.

He’s quieter when he asks me, “Well, how does this decision define you, then?” There’s nothing malicious about the way he says it, or even lustful – just a calm curiosity.

“Ain’t it obvious?” I grin again, laugh a little, blush hotly. “I’m horny!” I hide my face in my shoulder, trying to compose the hiccups of laughter in my stomach. “I’m sorry,” I snicker, wiping my palm over my brow, my eyes. “This probably isn’t very attractive to you.”

“You’re a very pretty girl,” he replies. He mutters my name solemnly, like we’re in a formal meeting or something.

I glance up, check whether he’ll offer me eye contact again, but he doesn’t – he’s staring at the wall, lost.

I scoff. “You’re a very pretty guy, Rust.”

God willing, none of the boys at the precinct will ever find out about this. If Marty lets it slip that I even asked for Rust’s address, then I’ll never hear the end of it. Worse, everyone’ll think I’m dead-gone over him. Guess I don’t really fit the standards expected of women around here: “wife”, or “whore”. Or “dead”. It’s hard enough to be taken seriously going about pretending I’m not interested in sex at all. Once sex comes into the equation, I’ll be reduced to that and nothing else. 

Anxious, I start flicking up under my fingernails. Is Rust already starting to think those things, too? I’m a great detective, but that’s the only capacity in which he’s really known me. 

I wring the neck of my bottle. “I should explain—”

He holds his hand up, stating, “I don’t need you to. Do you feel the need to?” 

Curious, wary, I watch his face, a blank slate. Still waters run deep. My eyes drift down, to where his hands are together in front of him, one relaxed beside him the other curled around his wrist with two fingers resting on the pulse.

“No,” I reply. 

“You thought it over,” he says, eyes tilting up at the ceiling, aloof, bored, maybe. His words are sort of monotone, like he’s reciting a passage from a book that he’s just recently read: “You chose me because you know me. You haven’t been sleeping well. You’re stressed, you’re scared, you’re frustrated.” He blinks. “You’re attracted to me due to some—unfortunate trigger beyond your control in the reptilian part of your brain.” Brief as the flicker of a candle in a still room, he looks over me, brow raised slightly as if daring me to tell him that he’s wrong. He pauses again, takes a short puff. “It makes you think I can take care o’ your needs.”

Look at the state of him: sallow and wilting on the inside. Reducing me down to a sentence or two, and being right about it.

“Well, can you?” I ask weakly, feeling small. He looks over me, blinks blankly. “How do you take care of your needs?” No reply. “You do have needs, don’t you?” I remark, tapping the rim of my bottle to my warm temple. “Programming ‘n’ whatnot.” 

He tilts his head away in dismissal. 

I smile, more to myself than to him. “Beat off in the shower, is it?”

For a second, Rust is still. My eyes grow heavy, admiring the strong profile of his nose. He then nods helplessly, like there’s no point in trying to lie.

I hum, a soft, self-satisfied smirk edging its way onto my face. “Must feel like a sin,” I snicker.  

He squints slightly, like he disagrees with my logic, but does not interrupt to protest. 

“I remember takin’ baths as a teenager and double-checkin’, triple-checkin’ I locked the door,” I confess. “Couldn’t take my time. ‘S that how it is for you, Rust?” I probe, tilting my head to the side, losing his eyes as quickly as I catch them. “You ever let yourself enjoy it? Let yourself want it—?”

“I don’t want it,” he snaps quietly.

“But your programmin’ says you do, right?” I point out, scrambling to hold onto the flaw in his argument. I search his face, my own bright, eager.

He quirks up a miraculous smile, and I myself burst into a wide grin. Still smiling—though, you’d have to admit, it’s such a strange sight, sort of gratifying, almost patronising—he shifts his weight between his feet, scratches at his nose with his pinkie, sniffs, takes a long drag of his dying cigarette. I know he must feel disjointed, though he doesn’t show it: he’s misstepped, and I’ve caught him. And how often does Rust Cohle misstep? I should’ve checked the news for a blue moon tonight. 

Interested, now, is he? Breathing quietly, rolling his jaw – he’s entertaining the competition I have goin’ up in my head. From the looks of the gentle smirk on his face, he’s enjoying it, too. 

“No,” he corrects with a dry husk to his voice. “No, I know what I want, and, when I think those things are necessary or useful, I know how to get them.”

In this type of context, I’d like to see him try. Though, he is an undeniably attractive man. Thick, solid all the way through, like a rich wood. But he’s got these brittle eyes: fraying.

He continues: “Most of the time, though, what we want is born out of dangerous feelings, like rage or lust. Ruminating on the consequences of those potential actions seems to me the more sensible thing to do than to just leave it and find out.” I sniff. “Desire is inescapable for most, including the sexual kind. I feel it—“ he eyes how I wriggle beneath my skin, “—you feel it. But it can be resisted. You’re lettin’ it dictate what you do ‘n’ say. If I do to you what you want me to, have you thought about how it might affect things down the line? Tomorrow, next week, next month—?”

“Yes,” I hiss, a little too emotionally, such that a gleam of satisfaction crosses his grey eyes at the strain and stretch of my voice. Christ. Desperate much?

I take several seconds to think before allowing myself to speak again, all while staring at him straight on and refusing to look away: I’d just die if I let him catch me out. “Well, how can you be sure of the fallout? How do you know the good won’t outweigh the bad? Not “you” specifically, but, also, yeah, “you” specifically. I can think about something morally ambiguous, and I can evaluate the potential consequences, and, just as you are satisfied to observe, I will decide to follow through with this somethin’ and deal with what I gotta deal.”

He sighs. “Because decisions define a person?” 

I tuck my hair tight behind my ears. “Yes.”

And he hums – that beautiful noise resonates in my stomach before sinking down there, low, its weight a comfort. “I agree with you in that respect,” he admits. 

A laugh erupts out of me like the sputter of an engine. Luckily, I’m easy to laughter – it’s like me, as is my genuine grin. “Rust Cohle’s agreein’ with me on somethin’?—Call the police!” 

“We are the police,” he replies smartly, watching me snort and smile and grow flushed in the face. I feel very grateful to that beer – at least my giddiness can be blamed on the effects of alcohol and save me from embarrassment.  

As I simmer down, he looks away, adds, “I agree to an extent. People all think that they’re one-of-a-kind. That they make these—amazing decisions. They speak and do and walk and play and work and fuck and eventually die – all of ‘em.”

“You’re part of the people,” I argue.  

He hums, nodding in acceptance. “Yes.”

“If a person acts due to their instinct, whether it’s succumbing to it or fighting against it, then isn’t man simply his programming?” He lowers his head. “You can be aware of it, and you can be a part of it, too. Who are you to deny yourself the good parts?”  

He fiddles with his cigarette, svelte fingers nimble and acute. I cross my legs, flex my hips; he notices. 

“Because of the consequences,” he replies, a soft whisper.  

I thought that everything meant fuck-all?

For someone who sees no meaning in life, he sure seems to spend a lot of time contemplating it. Here, I thought I’d have hot hands sliding all over me, gripping, spreading, pushing, but instead find myself defence in an unprecedented debate. 

Rust is breathing slower, deeper, almost unable, now, to look me in the eyes, even look at me in general, whereas, before, it had been a choice, whether that choice be conscious or unconscious. His cigarette burns weakly in his fingers, forgotten. The muscle in his jaw flexes, his expression hollow. 

My body buzzes with want, leaves me scrambling for breath like I’ve just run a race. I want. I want, I want, I want. The rough pads of his fingertips, the surest and most confident I’ll have ever known. Sharp tongue, quick and precise. Something about how he smells. All my compliments to pheromones – even in the heavy musk of the bar, I’d smelled him, ashy, warm, alive, and now it’s wreathing all around. Or maybe that’s just me – it’s like when you try to take someone’s pulse with your thumb, and all you’re feeling is your own heartbeat.

I want – my breath trembles with it.

“Rust,” I say softly. He shakes his head a little, looking away still, vulnerable like a wild animal. I sigh, gnawing at my lip. “I really want it. I—I’ve—it’s not just a rash decision,” I explain. “I’ve wanted it for a while, now.”

He shudders – I notice. “Since when?”

I huff out a sheepish laugh, fix my eyes on my restless hands. “You won’t remember it—”

“I will.”

His voice sounds clogged. It sobers me right up. 

“A year back,” I tell him. “You were working at the office—late, in the dark. You called me, and I asked you why, and you said—it was because you were tired and thinkin’.” I glance up to check if he’s maybe looking, but he’s not – he’s turned his head even further away. The soft, gentle curls of his hair tempt me. 

Blindly reaching for the bottle, securing it almost immediately, he finishes the rest of his beer, then sets it back down. 

“I—” he begins, scratching his nose, “—I was—tired.” He pauses to re-thicken his voice. “And—thinking—”

He doesn’t finish his sentence, but the both of us know what he said that night: Of you. Thinking of you—of me .  

My stomach flips, leaving me almost nauseous, just like it did when I first heard those words. At first, I thought I’d misheard, that I was so tired my mind was playing tricks on me. Then, I thought he was being cruel, or maybe he was drunk. Those two instances weren’t—aren’t—unlike him, but he never, ever calls to be mean or to be stupid. He’d been quiet and warm through the phone after that, a presence so thick I could’ve sworn he had his arms around me right then. I hadn’t slept well for a time, then, of course, and that made it all the more vivid. His voice had made me shiver all the way through as he told me he had to get back to work. 

When I saw him the next morning, I couldn’t look at him. It was the first time I couldn’t, not wouldn’t. It was also the first time I felt him paying attention to me.  

I shift, ask the question I’d wondered since that call: “Why?”

A pause. 

Then: “You brought me coffee that morning,” he explains softly, speaking to the wall opposite. “I was—looking at the mug on my desk – it was yours. Green one you like to use.” He sniffs. “And…” He teeters on the precipice of that word but does not finish the thought. 

Hmm. That’s something to think about. Rust Cohle thinking about me and not picking apart why and why he shouldn’t be. It had been a mindless enough gesture – it’s not unheard of me to be makin’ coffee for other people in the office, not because I have to but because I like to. For the people I can stand, that is: Johansson always, and him for me; Cathleen;   Marty, when I’m not pissed off at him; and Rust, from time to time. Everybody knows that green mug is mine, though – nobody touches it, not even the boss. Rust reads far too much into things. Most of the time, he’s dead-on. I should’ve known from the moment I placed that coffee on his desk, from the sharpening of his eyes (that did not spare me a glance) that lingered on my lingering hand on his table, that he knew. Figured out something I hadn’t even quite figured out myself. Not until later that night. 

I wonder if he’s ever thought of me when fucking his own hand. I wonder if he thinks about me sometimes, when he can’t sleep, in between horror stories and brutal blows and uncovering the secret truths of the universe. I do, sometimes. 

When I push myself back to my feet, stand up, Rust’s attention springs back, and he watches me, looks at me.

Quietly, I relish in the satisfaction of his stare, crossing on light feet to toss my empty beer bottle in the bin. He steps aside to let me open the cupboard under the sink, his hand curled in a loose fist by his side. I’m not trying to tease him – I grant him the space he so clearly needs, retreating about five paces back, leaning slightly myself against the counter. 

I could say anything right now, no matter how insane, and he’d treat it with total and utter respect. I could reveal to him the reaction my body has to seeing his fingers fiddle like that with his cigarette, and he’d manage to identify the cogs and wheels in what, when you step back, actually turns out to be a hidden machine. Christ, I could probably remove all of my clothes, stand naked in front of him, and he’d look on as one would look on at a piece of evidence at work. Going over the details, once, twice, scribbling it all down in that big, leather ledger. 

Here’s what I think: he needs it. For all his talk about how unoriginal, how predictable mammals are at the end of things, he probably knows that himself. The tension in his jaw, the perpetual tightness of breath. That clipped way of talking he has, wound so tight around himself, like a compressed spring fighting its natural urge to let go.  

I could make him let go. Maybe. I wish he’d let me try. It’s nothing possessive, really: wanting to be the one to unravel his tightly coiled body. Just—the release of seeing him be. No thinking in particular – just being.

He is still, however, uncommonly mute, avoiding my eyes.

I sigh. I ask him tentatively, “You think I ought’a be ashamed o’ myself?” biting down on the fleshy inside of my cheek.  

“No,” he contradicts.

“But—you think I should be findin’ my fun elsewhere, with—some other guy?”  

He sort of pins his hands behind his back, pressing his weight against them there at the edge of the sink. He looks a lot taller from this angle. “I think there’s a lotta fellas stumblin’ over themselves to be with a girl like you.”

“Maybe,” I scoff, “but my reptilian brain don’t want none of ‘em.“ I blush warmly when I glance up and he’s there watching me, though there’s no bashfulness at all on his side of it. 

I expect him to maybe dart his eyes away again, like he does, and then walk me to the door, maybe even to the car if I haven’t offended him too badly, and then call it a night. I could stuff it in; I can compartmentalise. Monday would carry on as it always does, except now without the wondering and the yearning and the delusion. Did he have to be so good-looking? His cheap, wrinkled shirt sleeves rolled up to his elbows—like they are now—and those lean forearms braced up on the table, caging in the neatly set-out notes scrawled up in his ledger, like they have mind to escape. And he’s—beautiful. He’s tall. Out-of-place sort of tall, where he has this bend to his neck, sometimes, as to not draw attention to himself. Other times, though, he stands to full height, regal, elegant, authoritative, like when he comes out o’ the box.

He sees into people. He feels it all so deeply.  

And he’s looking at me, seeing into me, deeply. His eyes are brittle like china pieced back together with store-bought glue. The low light casts long shadows down his neck and harsh face. 

“Come here to me, Rust,” I say to him, beckoning him over with a tilt of my head. To my surprise, he does. He does immediately, peeling himself off the counter, eyes drifting somewhere just behind me as if disinterested.

He stubs his cigarette out on an old plate, abandons it there officially, before stepping slowly towards me, feet never dragging, dodging my searching eyes like the plague.

Hmm. Maybe I made a good argument “for” to his “against”. Or maybe he was never “against” to begin with. I’ll watch him carefully tomorrow and see if there was anything I missed.

I reach up and touch his face gently. I used to do this with my husband before he passed, and he’d close his eyes and whisper my name and lean into the touch, tender, loving – my fingers shake slightly with the memory. Rust Cohle does none of that, because he is nothing like my husband. He’s perfectly rigid against my fingertips; his stare flits briefly up right into my soul, his mouth pressed in a hard line. Everything about him is so sharp. The ridge of his cheekbones, the defiant slant of his nose. The lean muscle of his arms and shoulders, slightly sinewy just beneath the skin. 

But when I brush my thumbs up along his eyebrows, easing the sharp line between them, he sighs and closes his eyes, neck bowing down, still as stiff as before, just—different. A small gap, an opening, to that locked room of his upstairs.  

“Rust,” I whisper, nose brushing his. He hums again, lowly, eyes shut. “What do you think of us havin’ sex?”

“Sex,“ he replies softly, “is the illusion of connection constituted by the release of a mess of happy hormones, simply by touching all the right places—and nothin’ more.”

I hum and watch the look on his face grow brittle as our breaths mingle closely. God, he’s so near to me that my head swings in a bout of lightheadedness, heady, vision centring in on him and only him, such that I wouldn’t know if this place was burning down all around, even if the flames started eating us alive.  

“I think you’re full o’ shit, Rusty. Know how I know that?”

He sighs shakily. “How?” It’s like the word is dragged right from the pit of his chest, barely a breath to show for the effort of it.

“I can feel you against my leg.” 

He swallows thickly, but he does not blush, and he does not open his eyes. And, contrary to what he might seem, Rust is not cold like stone. When my fingers grow more confident, when they trace and drag lightly along the line of his cheeks, he is warm there. His pulse, when I find it, exists and is hot and slightly erratic, a fact that leaves my mouth dry and open. I can feel the inflexion of his throat as he swallows again, the shift of the skin and the rhythm of his heartbeat, the gentle influence of his breathing. 

I wait for him to say something, but he doesn’t. So, I ask him, “Can I kiss you?” ever so gently. 

Softer still, he replies, “Yes,” with that slight Southern whistle of his, barely moving. 

Give me strength. Give me strength. 

That look on his face is filling me with a delicious, vibrating power. As I stretch my neck up to brush a kiss against the corner of his mouth, my eyes are open and watching him, charting him: Rust breathes strongly out of his nose, eyes still determinedly shut, like he’s absent and meditating. He is not tough as stone – parts of him are soft. He barely returns the kiss, but, as far as my brain processes, his lips are soft. Hesitant, maybe. 

Then, these soft lips part, and he is sucking in a hot, shuddering breath, capturing me in a deep kiss, as if to breathe all of me in, a strong hand threading through my hair. It hurts a little at first – a small noise escapes my throat at the slight shoots of pain tugging at the roots – but Rust doesn’t seem to notice. Not at first. No, he’s still breathing me in. His lips are dry, rough, a push and tug, a twist, and he’s kissing like a punch, knocking the breath right out of my lungs. Whatever oxygen I manage to hold onto is sucked out of me promptly. 

I whine, my body going all slack and tired as he smooths the hair out of my face, palms dragging clean back across my cheeks. Those hands cradle the back of my head, making it impossible to keep my eyes open.

Content, I sigh, eyes succumbing to the sensation and falling shut. The last thing I see is his own eyes slipping open to look at my face.

Boy, he’s a good kisser. Must be that lizard brain he has such a distaste for.

My fingers blindly reach and fumble at his belt, hooking into the waist, pulling him flush against me. Rust must forget what he’s doing for a moment, and he pauses where he is, in limbo, eyes far away. When I begin to unthread his belt from its quietly clinking buckle, he goes stiff again, blinks rapidly before perceiving me. 

Holy shit, he’s gorgeous.

His hands hover over my shoulders, not quite committed to the contact. 

He’s seeing me—really seeing me—as I unzip his trousers and spit crudely into my palm and curl around the length of him, warm, tight. I begin to understand the gentle throb and strain he feels, a delightful thrill running rapid all through my insides. He feels deliciously alive. 

But then he turns his head away, neck straining up, breath choked back in his throat. His hands come away, raised, it looks like, as if trying to seem non-confrontational, trying to come away unscathed from a bad situation. 

My stomach burns with desire. “Let yourself like it, Rust,” I mumble against his cheek. “Are you here with me?” 

I can feel him swallow.

“Yes,” he responds. I guide his face to me, stroking his cock confidently once, twice, as encouragement, maybe. Temptation. Whatever you want to call it. My mouth waters, my head goes airy, when I feel his sex twitch in my embrace. 

“Kiss me again, then.” 

And he does. Brows furrowed as if in pain, he does, with the tip of his nose dragging and pressing into my cheek. He kisses me sweetly once, then again, and then pants down hotly into my mouth, hovering there before sliding his tongue deep inside, close, smooth. 

I let myself love it. I let myself let go with every kiss he blesses me with, growing looser and easier and lighter each second. 

The weight of him in my hand inspires a beautiful urge to have him lay down and let me feel every part of his body. Even though his hips stutter, he doesn’t buck up into my fist, doesn’t whine, doesn’t moan, doesn’t curse. Not yet. He just breathes and breathes, and kisses me and kisses me, like it’s all he was set on Earth to do. All he’s allowing himself to do.

Desperate, perhaps, my thighs are pressed against his, feeling unnaturally weak and warm. The throb between my legs coincides with my heart rushing in my ears, a steady ache, impatient. Part of me wants to drag this out as long as possible, because what if this never happens again?—and another part wants to push him inside me already, have him fill me up, fuck me stupid. 

This thought stuffs me up to the brim, like cotton punched down into a pillowcase. I whine shallowly and try to slot his thigh between my own. 

A switch in his brain must flick on. 

It’s like he’s inside my head, like he’s in on my desperation, like he can see and feel every sinful image and thought circulating my alighted brain. He knows it all so well, such that he uses his hips to press us firmly against the counter, spreads my legs with the nudge of his foot between mine, and immediately pushes the rough pads of his fingers right where I need it, through the fabric of my skirt, letting me grind myself against him, hips and all. He circles there generously. I can feel my need dripping from me. He can too, no doubt. 

I sigh, he breathes. I gasp, he breathes. My eyes flutter open and shut, but he looks on, eyes half-lidded but stare immovable. 

He then lifts his knee to place against my cunt. 

“That feels good, don’t it?” he says gently, rocking me over his knee up and down, back and forth, fingers digging into the soft skin of my hips.

My legs widen. When I gasp out weakly, he raises his brow and scans my face, like he had predicted the shaky, wordless nod that I offer to him too late in return. 

“Did you want it like this, girl?” His voice is low, intimate, a hit of something just shy of addictive. “Or did you want somethin’ else, too?” 

He kisses the hollow of my neck. 

His other hand grips at my ass, up my skirt, kneading the flesh there, manipulating it, and his fingers ghost my slit, spreading me around his knee. He fucks up into my hand. I slide my fingers through his hair, which is soft and warm like butter. 

Fuck him. Fuck him and his stupid, pretty curls. I’ve proved my point: regardless of whatever act he may try to put on afterwards, we’ll both know that Rust isn’t as numb as he wants to be, that I made him feel good, that I made him want me, and that he’s hot-blooded and thrumming with life. I can feel how alive he is . I hope he thinks of this again some time, whether by himself or surrounded by people. I hope it drives him a bit mad, remembering this. 

A hot, sharp breath fans out across my cheek, his mouth slotting back over mine, open, daring me. 

I rut against his knee, my fingers teasing the wet head of his cock. I look down between us, at my hand on him, with half a mind to drop onto my knees and make him cum down my throat.

Rust lets out a grunt and swallows hard again.  

Then, he gently grabs my wrist and pulls my hand out of his pants, leaving me dazed and confused. With nimble fingers, he unzips my skirt, pushing it over my hips and dragging his hands over my bare skin. He asks me, “You want the bed?”

I step out of the pool of fabric around my feet, slide my shoes off. “‘s not a bed.” 

I slide my fingers beneath his sweaty, white undershirt, feeling the taut muscle there, feeling the steady breaths that contradict his racing pulse. He holds my eyes, dipping slightly when I dip, tilting when I tilt. “Seems like one to me.”

How unlike him. 

A smile spreads over my face, and his pupils blow wide, dark, imploring. “You wait ‘n’ see what happens when the dust-mites turn up.” 

His eyes on me alone are enough to leave me breathless, chest caving in on itself. Of course, when he kisses me softly, it only makes things worse – his long fingers curl around the base of my throat, watching me watching him, and his other hand slides up under the hem of my blouse, palm spread over my bellybutton. 

I sigh, try not to squirm. 

“You want the bed?” he repeats, heavy, rough. I bite back a needy whine that sits at the back of my mouth. His fingertips press down slightly into my pulse, tightening my breathing. 

I nod. “Yeah.” 

Think of all the times I’ve sulked over his lack of eye contact with me. Was I annoying? Uninteresting? That, obviously, was an immature way of looking at things, definitely not improved by my distinct femininity undergoing some kind of unspoken disapproval by most I met on the job. This is the most present he has ever been in a moment with me around.

As he pulls himself away, steps back, his eyes are darting over my face, less like he’s judging me and more like he’s trying to find and memorise every detail. I do that, sometimes: if I pay well enough attention, it feels like I’m re-living the moment when remembering. 

His hands slot sensibly into his pockets as if his cock isn’t blushing and poking out of his fly right now, belt undone, hanging low about his narrow hips. 

Legs don’t fail me now. I slink out of the glowing kitchen and carry on to where the mattress lies in a dim, blue corner, the strange crucifix watching over, a long shadow cast over the empty wall upon which it hangs. He follows shortly behind me, his warmth radiating out onto my back. 

I pause and look out onto the darkness revealed behind the half-open slats of the floor-to-ceiling blinds that shield the room from the window to the outside world. 

Rust’s presence is intoxicating behind me. He smells like cigarette smoke, still, enticing. I’m trying to quit, but he makes it damn hard. His nose is just shy of my hair, his body so close to enveloping me into him – the prospect of it makes me shiver in delight. I must hallucinate his fingertips along my spine. 

I unbutton my blouse with slow fingers, then slide it off and undo my bra. 

His breathing is level and grounding by my ear as he comes close, sliding his strong, wide hand up my stomach, along my ribs, and cups under my soft breast. He rubs over my nipple in gentle circles before squeezing over me warmly. He then comes around to pinch the creamy tissue gentle between his fingers and thumb, closing his hot mouth over, drawing along his feverish tongue. I sigh, stroke his hair, let him press soft pecks and kisses to the curve of the soft flesh and to my sternum.

My fingers, cupped around the nape of his neck, dip under the collar, cool. This touch, for some reason, causes him to make some sort of breathless, pathetic noise against me. His eyes are half-shut. 

“Anything else philosophical y’wanna get out before we fuck?” I quip smartly (though, not feeling so smart altogether), hand placed innocently on his hip. 

He lifts his head, removes his hands from my body – he looks so tragically beautiful in this light. “You want me inside you?” he asks genuinely, seemingly aloof to the fact I’m naked in front of him, open and wanton and pressing my thighs together, his eyes never drifting from mine.

“What do you want, Rust?” I whisper. 

He seems to really think about it – he’s always thinking. Briefly, his eyes flit down to my mouth. Then, he looks away, scratches at his forehead. 

After a moment longer, he swallows thickly and tips his head down over to the bed, tells me, “Lie down on the mattress,” in a gentle, decisive tone. He’s so soft-spoken – it makes my toes curl. 

I do as told, transfixed by the dark shadow in his eyes, and sink down to sit and then recline back on his coarse mattress, coarse bedsheets, with my weight on my forearms and chin tilted up towards him. He watches me, tucking his thick cock back into his underwear.

Still fully dressed in his work attire, he takes a step forward, looming over me, powerful, assertive. Saliva pools in my mouth—again—as I play with the thought of him sitting heavy on my tongue with his stomach tight, shaking, hands in my hair, fucking down my throat. I would let him. Hell, I’d probably let him do anything he wanted to me at this point. 

Does he know that? Maybe. I don’t know.

As he reaches his hand out too smooth the hair out of my face, I try to figure it out, but I can’t – he seems too wrapped up in his own desire to be thinking anything at the moment. I feel a flicker of satisfaction jump up in the pit of my stomach. Or maybe that’s something else. 

“Lie back, girl,” he tells me. 

My cunt flexes. 

I thump onto my back, breathless. “Take off your shirt, Rust.” 

Without replying, he sinks down to his knees in front of me, my thighs. Instinctively, I prop myself up and watch him unbutton that wrinkled shirt all the way down, shrug it over his broad shoulders. I could fuck myself silly just over the thought of those shoulders, I remark inwardly. He tugs the wifebeater over his head, lean muscles catching the low light, strong, study, solid, and tosses the thing to the side thoughtlessly. My hands reach out to touch him, to feel him and know him. When my fingers press into his skin, glide up his neck and down over his chest, he sighs deeply. He then carefully removes my hands, urging me to sprawl down under him.

“Said lie back, didn’t I?” 

Rust doesn’t say another word before placing his large hands on my knees and easing them apart, lowering himself to press pecks and slow, open-mouthed kisses to my thighs, closer, closer, stroking my sensitive skin gently. I almost flinch at his every touch, like it burns. His face is awful serious, like he’s concentrating. I wriggle in anticipation, eager. 

“Rust,” I whisper purposelessly. He looks up, hums, searches my face for anything the matter. 

I watch on desperately, on the brink of feral distress. A sob clogs my throat as he kisses my fluttering stomach, ducking his head down and curling his forearms, his hands, around my thighs. The dark stamp of his bone-bird tattoo curls over his arm. I realise he is waiting for my attention to return to him, his eyes patient but glazed over with something cardinal. Hungry.

“Can—?”

“Yes.” 

He hums. And then he breathes hotly over my underwear before pressing his nose right there into the damp fabric, inhaling my scent there. I whimper at the pressure he applies with the strong bridge of his nose, at the wetness of his open mouth against me. He breathes heavily into me, groaning slightly beneath it all – I can’t tell past the thrumming of my heart in my ears.  

“Rust,” I whisper again, my shoulder straining with the task of keeping me up and looking down at the sight of his sweet head buried between my glistening thighs.   

“Lie back.”  

He kisses me through my underwear, dutifully kneading the flesh of my hips, my inner thighs.

I thump back against the mattress, helpless, keening into his touch as this grey man roughly tugs my underwear down, down, all the way down, until they’re clean off my body, long gone, and then returns his nose to the cleft of my pussy, unseaming me with his tongue, opening me up, breathing me in. It’s enough to draw a shallow, hoarse cry from me. He doesn’t say anything, and I can’t say anything, biting down on my white knuckles.

Rust licks warm over my clit, sucking gently on the bud of nerves (then not so gently), before sliding down, down through my very centre.

Whining breathily, the twist in my stomach tightens and spasms as he presses my hips and thighs right down against the mattress, slow, strong, giving me time to notice it, realise it, give into it, deny the natural instinct to curl my limbs tight all over his face, his neck, his mouth. 

Holy fuck. Rust Cohle has his face buried between my legs right now. I have Rust Cohle’s tongue pushing deep into my cunt – he sighs softly, a sound with its own powerful gravity a black hole to envelop me in, and grinds his hips against the edge of the mattress for a split second, just once. My mind pulses with the thought of making him cum. I wonder if he feels the same hunger. 

Then, he’s sinking his long, elegant fingers into me, one, then two, and just the knowledge that those fingers belong to him makes my thighs quiver and shake, makes me sigh again. Thick, confident, they curl inside, slow like an experiment, right up to the knuckle. When he taps up against me, when I squeal and crimp up into his hold, he returns himself to mouth dutifully over my clit.  My hand threads itself into his hair, holding him steady – I offer a breathless moan when his grip across my hips loosen, an invitation to begin rolling myself up over his pretty face. He pulls his fingers out of me, wet and hot, and encourages my thighs upon his beautiful shoulders, clinging onto them urgently. He shudders a little, I think, when I lock them firmly around his head and grind myself shamelessly against his mouth, his nose. He moves his jaw, his face, in tandem.

I cum after a while like that, because how can I not? The searing buzz reaches a roiling static.

I go loose, moaning softly, melted down flat, and stroke fuzzy fingers through Rust’s pretty hair as he sucks my clit still, as he inhales again and sighs again, reduced to something primitive and needy.

Thick, my heartbeat throbs and echoes like a drum in my skull, threatening. I feel so full that I could mistake the beat of pleasure for nausea pressing in my throat. It was silly to think that this could all be satisfied just from one time. My eyes closed, Rust’s light touch over my abdomen, up to my throat, is acute and heightened, like a million tiny, individual sparks. His fingers fumble over my jaw, then press lightly over my pulse. 

He retreats just as I’m playing with the hairs at the nape of his neck, coming to stand to full height above me, unthreading his belt from his trousers with quiet, precise hands. I press my shaking thighs together, watching him breathe strongly through his nose, trying to remain somewhat respectable in the presence of the darkening look in his eyes that is locked down on my body.

He pauses, wipes some shine from his nose. Before he can continue with whatever, I find myself sitting up on my knees, grabbing his hips hard enough to bruise all pretty and purple, shoving the trousers down to his knees, and palming him through his boxers. 

We don’t have to say anything. He just watches me passively, pushing my hair back again, behind my ears, my shoulders, rolling my earlobe softly between his fingertips.

I remove his underwear, take him into my mouth, thick and long and wanting; he sighs, holds my head with two steady hands.

When was the last time someone helped him like this? I honestly couldn’t have told you, even given a loose theory, prior to this moment: Rust is simultaneously the hottest and most non-sexual being I’ve ever come across in my life. He just happens to be beautiful; he just happens to inspire these sort of feelings choking up inside me. No overarching intention that he’ll ever admit to, no vanity, no preening. So strict to himself, so tight, like a piston, something that fights and pushes and hurts.

So, as I hold him firmly and suck at the head of his blushing cock, kissing him, I watch his face, savour the tart taste of him, and press my thighs together: he’s becoming warmer, looser.

Still, as much as I want him, I know he’s wanted me. However vague he tells it, he’s wanted me. Good Lord, he looks even more stressed now, somehow, than when we had just been talkin’. Hands gently cradling my skull, he tilts his head away, watches the cross on the wall, as he succumbs to it, maybe, and begins to gently, languidly fuck my face. I tuck a hand between my thighs, and I love him, my other with the fingers digging into his hip, his ass. If I’m lucky, maybe it’ll leave some sort of mark, just to remind him I was here, so that, when he’s being all indifferent again, with his eyes lowered to the floor as he shares a report with me at my prim, little desk, we’ll both know that we were once in this room together, here like this.

Rust breathes and breathes, almost mechanically, and slides his cock further into my mouth. The weight of him in there drives me half-insane. If I could consume him, envelop him, and we could be one and the same, I’d readily allow it. When he sinks deeper still down my throat, I sigh around him, rub myself the way I like.

His eyes are determinedly shut, like some part of him refuses to be here. 

Before I can make him cum, he shakes his head and tugs my hair back a little bit, mumbling for me to stop and sit away. 

For all his mouthiness just a half hour ago, would you look at him now?—Rust Cohle, plundered by the human sensation of speechlessness. I’ve never seen him out of his element before. When he comes down and cages me with his body, hot skin flush against hot skin, I don’t mean that in a bad sense. Shit, he’s far from it. But there’s nothing to say. Nothing of note, nothing to pick apart, no deeper meaning, no theory. Just an itch that has to be scratched. He wants, he is, and it’s heaven to see. 

In the dark, he sinks in to me as he is, eliciting from me a soft moan that curls over the shell of his ear. I have to bite down on his shoulder when comes the push, the stretch, the sink, the comfort of him inside. I curl my legs around his waist and grab at his ass, willing him deeper still. He shudders silently over me, thick ripples of pleasure rolling through his lean body.

I curse, but I’m sure it barely registers with him. 

His head lifts and his eyes clamp shut as he braces an arm against the wall, lifting one of my legs up over his hip and fucking into me deeper, slipping out and in, and again, and again. I know what I’d see if I took a look down, saw his cock pumping into me, but I can hardly do anything but buck my hips up to meet his effort, my stomach stuttering with that building pressure, hands gripping desperately around his neck and shoulders. 

Though, I’m not even sure it is effort that’s driving him. 

I mumble into his shoulder, dumb, focussing on the feel and press of him in my belly. I doubt he’s really aware of anything more than the sensation of it, evident from the small grunt that passes his lips as he fucks deep in me. His stomach presses heavier down onto mine, crushing a delicious pressure there, teasing out a long, breathy whimper. He snakes an arm around my hips, pushes his free hand to the back of my knee, tilting my legs back a little more, and then pulls me wider. Tight, he moves me how he wants me, my flesh dipping and carving, fucking himself raw with me, with my hot cunt. His mouth moves over mine, not kissing me, not speaking, just there, present, hot, panting. He doesn’t open his eyes, so I close mine, and I breathe.

Rust stutters and cums and spills over into me with a grunt. He pants sharply, harshly, rhythmically into my mouth, tense again, and then he collapses over my body, and he lays there. I lay there too, burning on the far inside. 

I think he only really remembers I’m there when I shift under him.

His eyelashes brush against my cheek. “Sorry,” he murmurs, but the sound of his voice scrapes directly against my brain with the shock of a flesh-wound. 

I assume he’s referring to the thick cum that I can feel leaking out of me now. He shifts his hips, adjusting himself in the grip of my cunt. My fingers wrap around his arms, squeeze as I feel him easing out. 

“It’s okay,” I reply. 

He glances down between us and guides himself out with a lewd noise, swallowing hard. I shiver. 

Quiet, sedated, he shrugs his trousers, his underwear, off of his ankles, slipping the bedsheet over both our naked selves. His hand spreads and flattens warm over my abdomen, feeling the gentle swell and sink of the breaths I take and release.

[simp4wom3n]

Requited Love

Pairing: Jenna Ortega x Reader

Requested: Yes/No ~ request

Summary: Y/N is cast to play Mia Reed in ‘The Fallout’ and her feelings for her costar, Jenna Ortega, start to resemble those of her characters. Love. ~ Word Count: 1887 ~ Warnings: tiny bit of angst if u squintttttt

A/N: Hello everyone!! Firstly I want to say thank you for all the support shown on my first few posts, and I also wanted to give you guys an update. I’m currently travelling overseas with very busy days so my time for writing is limited but I am writing I PROMISE. This one took a little longer than expected but I hope you enjoy it <3

It's your first day working on the set of ‘The Fallout’, your newest film in which you play Mia Reed. You are a little nervous despite having an impressive collection of films under your belt. When it comes to new sets, new environments, and more importantly new people, you were always anxious about how you would fit in. Your nerves certainly weren’t helped when you learned that Jenna Ortega had joined the cast. You are a huge admirer of hers. Since you've seen pretty much everything she's been in and respect her as an actress, the idea of sharing the screen with her was undeniably daunting.

You pull up to the ‘base camp’ of the film, where all the trailers are located, in an attempt to find yours and get a head start settling in. As you get out of the car your Y/E/C eyes scan the area in search of your trailer, your eyes instead landing on a girl. She appears to be about a foot shorter than you and has long, dark hair. She is dressed in baggy pants and a black singlet with headphones around her neck. Your breath hitches in your throat as you realise, “Holy shit… it’s her oh my god ok” you breathe as you hesitantly start walking in her direction, attempting to calm yourself down. ‘Relax Y/N it’s fine you got this just don’t be weird’.

The sound of your approaching footsteps catch her attention as she turns her head in your direction. Her brown eyes meet yours causing your breath to catch in your throat once again. To your surprise, a genuine smile crosses her face as she too starts walking towards you. “Hey, I’m Y/N. I’m your costar it’s really nice to finally meet you.” you start, giving her a little wave, thrilled you somehow managed to not stumble over your words. “It’s amazing to finally meet you too! I’m Jenna, and I have to say I’m a really big fan of your work” she smiles at you as you feel your cheeks start to burn. Your brain can’t even fathom the idea of THE Jenna Ortega knowing who you are, let alone being a big fan.

“Really?!?” “Of course I am I’ve seen almost everything your in.” she giggles at the disbelief painted all over your face. “And here I thought I was going to be the one fangirling. I’ve also seen pretty much all your stuff and you are incredible. Im still in disbelief that I get to work with you.” you rant, the words flying out of your mouth faster than you ever thought possible. “You are so adorable” she giggles, your cheeks at this point on fire. “Trust me the honour is all mine” she concludes.

You spent the remainder of the day talking to Jenna whilst walking around set, meeting all the important people who you will be working with over the next few weeks. To your delight, whilst exploring the set, you discover that Jenna’s trailer is right next to yours. If there was one thing you were sure of in this moment it was that you couldn’t wait to get to know her better.

*time skip*

You jump as you are awoken suddenly by a loud banging on your trailer door. “Sh*t what the hell” you mumble, rubbing at your tired eyes as you sit up. Your eyes glance towards the clock hanging on your wall, the hands reading 9:17. That’s odd your supposed to be at hair and makeup by 9. “Oh sh*t. I’m coming!” you launch off your trailer couch realising you must have fallen asleep whilst memorising your lines, meaning you didn’t set an alarm. You quickly attempt to fix your disheveled hair as you swing your door open, met with the disappointed glance of your makeup artist. “Sorry! I’m so sorry give me five minutes I’ll be right there I swear” you apologise rapidly, chucking on a random hoodie and running into the bathroom to check you don’t look too much like a corpse.

*small time skip*

Jenna jumps slightly as the door to the makeup trailer swings open, revealing a very cute and disheveled Y/N wearing… wait is that her hoodie? “Morning sleepyhead. I like your hoodie I’m surprised it fits you” Jenna chuckles as you look down and realise that you are actually wearing one of her hoodies. “Huh. I didn’t even notice.” “It looks cute on you” she flirts, your cheeks gaining their familiar warmth, one you often feel when you are around her. You drop into your makeup chair letting out a sigh as you allow your slightly irritated artist to get you ready for your scenes.

“You ready for today?” Jenna asks, smirking as she makes eye contact with you in the mirror. “As always. Why wouldn’t I be?” “We are filming the kiss scene today remember”. As soon as the words left her mouth you felt your stomach drop. “Oh. Right. Yeah I totally forgot about that haha” you chuckle nervously. Being completely honest with yourself, you had been harbouring a crush on Jenna for quite a while now, and whilst the idea of kissing her should fill you with excitement, you can’t help but be terrified. “You okay?” she asks sincerely, noticing the slight change in your demeanour. “Yeah! yeah no I’m fine I just had a rough sleep last night. I feel asleep on my couch memorising my lines so it wasn’t the most pleasant.” you ramble, trying to cover up your nerves, your attempt appearing to work.

“I think the way Megan has set the scene up is really smart.” she says whilst glancing towards you. Noticing the slight confusion on your face she elaborates, “I mean the way she has us kiss whilst we are both lying down. It gets rid of the whole height difference issue. Not that I have anything against it, I love it.” “Good to know” you reply, attempting to diffuse the tension by jokingly winking at her causing her to laugh and quickly hide her face with her hands. ‘Is she flustered?’ ‘Is there a chance she likes me back?’ you thought. However, just as quick as the thoughts came to your mind, you shut them down, ‘No Y/N stop. Don’t get your hopes up’. 

*time skip*

“Action!”. You are lying on the floor of Mia’s bedroom as Jenna, or Vada, rolls towards you. You stare deep into her eyes as she can’t stop giggling. Once she finally settles down, her face is only a few inches away from yours. She starts, “What?… ok I know your a woman of very little words… but I know you got some deep shit happening in this nice little head of yours.” she recites her lines perfectly as you giggle on cue. “God… ugh” you sigh. “Anything? Ok. Lets say this. Lets say you die tomorrow, ok, and what if you die sad because you regret not saying what you wanted to say… then what?”.

Those words, although scripted, make your heart sink, because as true as it is, you can’t tell her. You can’t ruin what you have with Jenna over some stupid crush. They say you should always pick roles you relate to, and you hate to agree that you relate to the fear that Mia is feeling right now, absolutely terrified of losing her best friend. You lie there in silence for a few seconds whilst your mind races. “I can’t say it” you whisper, drawing your eyes off of her. “Why?” she immediately responds. You can feel her eyes burning into the side of your face which both comforts and unsettles you.

When you finally pluck up the courage to face her, she looks almost ethereal in the ambient lighting of the room and you regret ever taking your eyes off of her. You aren’t able to seperate your own feelings from your characters, all you feel is love. You notice Jenna glance at your lips, as she is directed to, and the next thing you know she is leaning in. Your heart is racing faster than it ever has before, so much so you are worried she can hear it. When her lips touch yours, you feel warmth blossom in your chest. She pulls away slightly asking “Is this okay?” to which you nod softly. As she connects her lips to mine once more, her lips part slightly allowing my tongue to slip inside. Before I know it she is climbing on top of me, our bodies pressed together as our lips moved passionately against one another’s. Her hands begin exploring your body as your fingers travel through her hair as you breathed her in. It was utter bliss. Until it wasn’t.

“Cut! That was perfect girls well done. The chemistry was amazing, very believable.” “Thanks” you murmur as you seperate yourself from Jenna and get to your feet, avoiding all eye contact with her. “I think we got it guys you can head back to your trailers”. With that you made your way swiftly out of the room, attempting to avoid Jenna’s concerned stare and get to your trailer as quickly as possible. “Y/N! Y/N wait!” Jenna calls from behind you as you hear her rapidly approaching footsteps. She eventually catches up to you, stopping you when she grabs hold of your hand, swinging you around.

“Hey what’s wrong?” she asks, her hand still holding yours with concern written all over her face. You couldn’t help but think about how pretty she looked which didn’t help with your current predicament. “Nothing. I just… I need to be alone right now” you say, turning on your heels attempting to avoid having the conversation you have been dreading. She grabs ahold of your other hand in order to pull you back, not allowing you to avoid her and suffer in silence. “Hey.” she comforts softly “You can talk to me you know. Just tell me what’s wrong we can figure it out together.” “I can’t say it” you quote Mia as a tear rolls down your cheek, the weight of the conversation finally taking its toll on you as the fear of losing your best friend overcomes you.

You witness the moment it clicks in Jenna’s eyes, her gaze immediately softening as she wipes away your stray tear with her thumb. You see her lips twitch into a smile as her hands land on your cheeks, the two of you having a silent conversation with your eyes. Her eyes flicker down to your lips which doesn’t go unnoticed, but before you can comment on it she is guiding your face down to meet hers as her lips brush against yours tentatively. You were taken over by pure desire as you close the remaining distance, leaning into the kiss as you place your hands around her neck. The familiar feeling of her warm lips against yours makes your heart flutter as you begin to comprehend what is happening, she likes you back. Your lips slowly parted as your foreheads remained against each others. “I love you too Y/N” Jenna intimately whispered, placing a chaste kiss on your lips before pulling back completely. “So you really do love the height difference?” you joke, unable to take your eyes off of her. “Of course I do. I love everything about you”.

[panda-writes-kpop]

thnks fr th mmrs, vn thgh thy wrn’t s grt

a/n: 0_0 ..me when I remember that I haven't updated the hypnosis series in months... whoops! anyways, here's another chapter to feed the people who enjoy this series! special thanks to @kingmaker-a for reading over this one - I'm glad you enjoy the series, my guy <3

tw: lots of blood 'n gore, weird spirit physics, double the people turning into vampires for none of the extra cost, sad memories and morally ambiguous characters

word count: 4.6k

( <- Previous Part | Next Part -> | Series Masterlist)

summary: everything's wrong. two of your friends are missing, two of your friends are in serious shit with the university, and the other three are barely hanging on to what they hold dear. and then there's you - the one who's seeing the ghost of your dead friend. the cherry on top? you may be turning into the monster that destroyed everything you loved.

but it can't get worse than this, right?

♡ Masterlist ♡

light - the absence of darkness.

From the bright sunshine that would blind you when you walked to your 10:30 a.m. lecture to the electrical lighting that allowed you to see what SuA had done to Siyeon, it was there to help illuminate your way and give you the answers that you seeked.

Without the light, you felt like you were stumbling into darkness, just as you were doing now. Your intuition had guided you forwards, past the unrecognizable mush of blood, guts, and bones that was a body in front of you. Your phone flashlight was the only sort of light you had, but it felt like a cheap replica compared to the warm sunlight that you and your friends used to bask in together.

Will things ever be the same?

That wasn’t the question to ask, especially now that you were in an abandoned part of a hospital ward. 

Looking back, the hospital room with your friends seems so far away, and you could go back and give up.

But you don’t quit, not when two of your friends are locked up in some cold, abysmal basement on campus while Ryujin and Handong are nowhere to be seen. You could do something for once, have some agency in the middle of the world’s shittiest situation. 

So you continue on until you encounter a disastrous scene. What intrigues you lies past the bloodshed, but you’re forced to look at what’s in front of you first.

There are eight closed doors past the messy nurse’s station - an evacuation or a massacre took place here, due to the scatter of paperwork, files, and file cabinets all over the floor. A few papers were stuck to the ceiling with pins and needles, and blood covers every possible surface. You’d normally gag at the sight of so much blood, but you weirdly find… comfort in all of it.

And when did your mouth start filling with saliva?

You force yourself to swallow the uncomfortable feeling rising in your chest. Handong and Ryujin are fine, if anything were to happen to them, they’d be the most likely to take care of themselves and each other.

Yet again, betrayal seemed to be a common theme in your life, so you’d best keep moving.

Alright, there’s eight doors. Find something familiar, someone familiar that will make you want to go through.

Your hand grabs the first door knob as you realize how ill-prepared you are for this venture. With just your phone flashlight and the will of pure fucking spite for SuA and her shitty life decisions, you pull through the tangled threads of your fractured mind to find someone to help you through this.

Unfortunately for you and your increasingly temporary good mood, your mind finds its way to settle on Chou Tzuyu, the girl who died before she ever had a chance to live.

What if I hadn’t blocked SuA immediately? What if I had talked things through with Siyeon sooner? What if JiU and I had seen eye-to-eye?

Would anything have changed?

You take a soft breath before turning the door handle.

Chou Tzuyu - the girl who never hesitated to help you out, the girl who gave you homework answers every time you came to class with glassy eyes, and the girl who helped you realize that you should give dating another chance.

You let go of the door handle to place both hands on the door. Rage builds inside of you as vengeance seeps into your bones. Chou Tzuyu was dead, and you were pissed about it.

You pull your hands back, only to slam them against the steel door. To your surprise, the door flies off of its hinges and slams into the parallel wall inside of the hospital room. With your hands extended, you stare at them in morbid curiosity (I did that?) before you realize that you can step through the room (I did that!).

With your phone flashlight, you scan the wall to your left to find a light switch, and once you find it, you flick it on. The light blinks for a minute before turning on. Although you weren’t a fan of the sterile lighting, it was better than the darkness that you were surrounded in before.

“What would you ever do without me?” A voice rings out, one that causes your hair to rise on your neck and arms.

You shriek and throw your phone - one of the least intelligent decisions you’ve made thus far - and you cringe when you hear it shatter against the wall.

Fuck.

“Tzuyu?” You spin around, only to lock eyes with someone you never thought you would see again. “Fuck, I’m sorry-“

“-Don’t worry about it, you can’t do me any harm.” Tzuyu offers you a warm smile before sticking her arm through a wall and then letting it sit at her side afterwards. “SuA already killed me once, you can’t kill me again.”

Bewildered, you stare at her.

“How? Why? What the fuck?”

“Well, I heard Siyeon and SuA fighting-“

“-yeah, I heard that story, I know.” You wildly gesture to the girl in front of you. “How are you here?”

“Being a ghost works differently than being a human or any other type of mortal creature.” She explains as you notice a soft lilac hue that surrounds her figure. “I’m free to roam between the planes of the living and the dead, and I can visit who I want whenever I want.”

“Okay…” You shake your head before nervously playing with your hair. “Why did you choose me to talk to?”

“You have a lot of questions, like usual, and I have plenty of answers. It’ll be just like old times.” Tzuyu sits on the edge of the hospital bed before patting the spot next to her. 

You reluctantly sit next to Tzuyu as you study her for a moment. She doesn’t look as ghastly as your last meeting with her; instead, she looks just as well as she did at the party.

“The party, Tzuyu, you were there… or, at least, it looked like you were there.” You try to explain the events of the party, but it all blurs together in your mind.

Drinks. Dahyun dancing? Tzuyu left to see her. Video games. JiU crashes the party. 2 a.m. wake-up. SuA bites me. Fox bites her. I died?

“It was a mirage, someone was working with SuA to create an exact duplicate of me. It has to be someone with powerful sorcery skills who would study under Professor Wang, since he specialized in mirages and illusions.” Tzuyu’s words cause you to sigh in relief.

“So it couldn’t have been Dami?” You softly ask as your heart tenses in your chest.

She’s the brightest witch you know, one with a soft heart and a kind soul. Did that make her more innocent or more guilty, you wonder.

“No, Dami wouldn’t be taking a class related to that subject until next semester.” Tzuyu places one of her hands over yours, but you can’t feel her warmth, even though you know it’s there. “She’s the last person I’d expect to betray you.”

“Really?” The disbelief in your voice causes you to physically recoil.

“Don’t you remember? When you left that party and went home, who was the first person that found you?”

You had to have been crying for hours when you got home from the party. What else were you supposed to do besides face the reality that your relationship with the girl you loved was over?

You expected one of your friends to come knocking on the door, Minji perhaps? She was too in-tune with your feelings for your liking, and it was something that bothered you about her. She knew that your relationship was over before you did, and she told you to break things off with Bora before you got hurt.

What a fool you are - maybe she’s here to rub it in your face after everything.

The knocking continues, but it’s less forceful than you thought it was. Gahyeon would try to tear the door off its hinges - she actually did so to your dorm room door when you locked yourself in there in order to prepare for exams. Safe to say, your RA, Irene, wasn’t a big fan of Gahyeon afterwards.

Handong would’ve only knocked once and called out to you. You got into a small fight with SuA, your first fight as a couple, and it absolutely broke you. You stormed into your room and didn’t come out for breakfast, which was unusual for you since you and Handong would get breakfast together before heading to your early morning classes. She was gentle with her approach, and her words eventually drew you out of your hiding spot to go grab a bite to eat before class started.

Yoohyeon would’ve just yelled instead of knocking - knocking was never really her style, anyways. She was your best friend, after all, so the door was always unlocked for her. She’d just yell before storming in, something along the lines of “you better have clothes on, otherwise you’re paying for our joint therapy session!”

Siyeon wouldn’t have knocked - you always went over to her place. Most of the time it was to pick up SuA, or to just hang out with all of the girls since their dorm was much larger than everyone else’s.

When you realized who it was, you pulled yourself off of the floor before wobbling to the door. Of course, the girl knocking on your door would be gentle yet persistent, quiet yet certain. Your first true college friend, your closest confidant - Lee Yubin.

It’s not like you didn’t trust Yoohyeon with all of your secrets - you both know too much about each other to not be friends anymore. Sometimes, you just want to talk to that friend who just listens to what you have to say. They don’t always offer advice or help, but a comforting shoulder and reassuring words are always found with them.

When you open the door, Dami’s not prepared with a humorous quip or a warm hug.

“Can I come in?” Is the only request she makes, with a gentle kindness twinkling in her eyes.

You mumble your answer before opening up the door wide enough for her to enter, and you shut it behind her before turning on a light in your dorm room.

“What did you hear?” You ask, knowing how… creative SuA’s storytelling can be when it comes to people she doesn’t like.

“It doesn’t matter. I want to hear what happened from you.” She reaches over to you and holds out her hand. “Your word matters more to me than SuA’s, or anyone else’s, for that matter. I believe you, I trust you, and I know you.”

So you tell her all of it. Some of the relationship issues you’ve been having to Minji’s break-up comments to the events at the party to how you got back home.

When you’re done, all you can do is scan her face to see how she reacts. Dami, ever the calming wave crashing against the shoreline, reflects empathy and kindness towards you as you finally take her hand.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you. I could’ve walked you home. You shouldn’t have been alone after all of that.” She says as you bite your lip.

Through tears, you can’t help but choke out a laugh.

“Are you alright?” She instinctively cups your face and brings it closer to hers, but you shake your head and smile.

“Only a true martyr blames herself for other people’s actions. Dami,” You lightly squeeze her hand, “I’m just glad you’re here. I’d much rather talk with you than anyone else.”

“Not Yoohyeon?” In disbelief, she lets go of your face.

You find yourself missing her warmth before you answer.

“Not even Yoohyeon. You’re irreplaceable to me, Dami. I hope we’re close for the rest of our lives because I can’t imagine what I would do without you.”

“…Right.” Heat flocks to your face as you nervously bite your lip. “How could I ever doubt her? Dami put her freedom, her ability to practice magic, and her scholarships on the line to save me. Who does that for a friend?”

“A good person,” Tzuyu quickly answers, “and you know it’s not Gahyeon either. She killed someone for you - a former friend of hers, no less.”

“I need to get them out of there, save them-“

“I assure you, those two are not damsels in distress.” Tzuyu laughs to herself for a moment. “The catacombs under the school aren’t that difficult to navigate.”

“Why lock them up there instead of a prison?” You ask.

“The university didn’t want news getting out about two dead students - bad for enrollment rates. They wanted to sort this mess out in private, but it’s all going to come out in one way or another.��

“You think so?”

“I know so.” Tzuyu confidently says.

“What do I do now? What about Ryujin and Handong?” Confused, you look to Tzuyu for answers.

“Try more doors. If you found me, then you can find the other answers you seek.” She wistfully responds.

“What about you?”

“I’ll be here when you need me. What else am I going to do for the rest of eternity?”

~

With a broken phone and a ghastly thumbs up from Tzuyu, you leave Tzuyu behind as you approach the room across from hers.

Wandering around in the darkness, you find yourself carefully maneuvering to the other side of the hallway as your stomach growls.

How long has it been since I’ve eaten something?

Your hunger doesn’t seem to be settled by the thoughts of food - rather, all thoughts of human food seem to be repulsive to you. You find yourself gagging as you crash through the second door without a second thought.

I’ve really got to get this superhuman strength under control.

After checking yourself for injuries, you stand up and flick on the light switch. The light comes on with ease, and a soft sigh leaves your lips.

A child’s room outside of the pediatric ward? How odd.

You see a small teddy bear resting next to your feet, and you don’t hesitate to pick it up.

You throw the dart against the board, and Ryujin chuckles as it falls to the ground after touching the board.

“Alright, fur-for-brains, you try it.” You gruffly say before stepping aside.

“I’d prefer you call me Jinnie over that.” She calmly says before picking up the dart and casually throwing it.

And, of course, it’s a bullseye.

She gives you a sweet smile as you give her a sweet two-finger salute, one on each hand. Mature as ever, she sticks her tongue out at you as the carnival worker grabs her an oversized pink unicorn.

“Good luck fitting that abomination in your dorm.” You laugh as Ryujin proudly holds the plushie in her arms.

“Lucky for you, it’s going on the top of my car as a hood decoration!”

You loudly groan as Ryujin laughs. Neither of you notice the pair of friends approaching you until a yellow snow cone lands on the giant unicorn’s belly.

“Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry!” The taller girl, with long, black hair, quickly apologizes before grabbing some napkins and helping Ryujin clean it up.

“It looks like my unicorn pissed itself!” She whines as you softly laugh.

Your eyes peel away from the sight as you realize who the other girl is.

“Dami, right? We met at orientation.” You give Dami a warm smile that she reciprocates. 

“Yeah. Sorry I haven’t been responding to your texts, I was busy moving in-“

“-Nah, it’s alright,” You reassure her, “I’ve been busy trying to adapt to college life as well. How about we meet for lunch tomorrow and we can catch up?”

“That sounds great.” She gracefully accepts your offer before turning towards JiU and Ryujin. “That’s JiU - most of us call her Minji, though. She’s one of my close friends and we went to high school together.”

“Minji, huh?” Your eyes focus on Ryujin. “Ryujin’s been my best friend since I started walking. People thought we were weird, since she was a werewolf and I was a human, but we made it work.”

“Our friend group has a vampire and a vampire hunter, so it can’t get any weirder than that.”

“Your friends sound like fun. I’d love to meet them sometime.” You say as Ryujin dejectedly walks back to you. “Did you clean up your unicorn’s little accident?”

“It mostly came out, I’ll just put some bleach on it when I get home.” She shrugs as JiU nervously plays with a strand of hair.

“Please, let me make it up to you. I still have two food vouchers from the university that I haven’t used yet,” Minji hands them to you before turning back to Ryujin, "and I got this teddy bear at another game earlier, but I’ve got plenty of stuffed animals at home, so you should take it.”

“I’ll take the food vouchers,” Ryujin snatches them from your hand before handing you the teddy bear, “you can have the bear.”

Ryujin walks away, leaving you to say your goodbyes. 

“It’s been great to catch up, Dami, and I look forward to lunch tomorrow!” You wave at her with a smile before backpedaling towards Ryujin. “Thank you, Minji, for the bear. I promise to treasure it.”

You set the teddy bear down on the bed before grabbing the bedsheet and pulling it up to the pillow.

“I can’t believe we got a whole house to ourselves for a sleepover!” Gahyeon cheers before crashing against the bed.

“Don’t get too excited, Gahyeon,” Handong warns, “we’ll have to have the place spotless; otherwise, SuA will have our asses.”

You set your stuff down on a bed in the next room over as Handong and Gahyeon converse in the distance. Yoohyeon leans against the doorway as you start to unpack your overnight bag. 

“Getting comfortable?” She teases before sliding into the room.

“I’m trying to.” You sigh before tossing the bag aside and flopping on the bed. “Yooh, can I tell you something?”

“If you’re going to tell me something weird, I have to start charging you for therapy sessions-“

“How do you deal with liking one of your friends?” You honestly ask Yoohyeon as she loudly gasps.

“YOU LIKE SOMEONE-“ She shouts, loud enough for the whole house to hear, before you have a chance to close the door. “And you didn’t tell me first?”

“To be fair, I haven’t told anyone else yet, so you will be the first.” You offer her some semblance of comfort as your heart races in your chest - you were really going to say what you were feeling out loud, huh?

“So… who is it?” She asks before you sigh deeply.

“It’s someone I’d never thought I’d fall for, in all honesty. Someone who understands me in a way that no one else has.” You confess as Yoohyeon squeals.

“Oh, I know who you’re talking about! It has to be-“

“-SuA.” You quickly breathe out as Yoohyeon blinks at you once, twice, and then thrice.

“Oh shit, well, good for you!” Yoohyeon scrambles for the right words as you fold your arms.

“No words of comfort or reassurance?” You ask as she shrugs.

“SuA’s not out of your league, but she wasn’t who I was expecting, in all honesty. I didn’t know you two were close.” Yoohyeon says.

“So you’re okay with SuA and I being together if she says yes to a first date?” 

Yoohyeon takes your hand and gently squeezes it.

“I’m your best friend. I’d tell you if you were doing something stupid, trust me.”

You choke out a laugh before grabbing the pillow and putting it back into place.

“Minji, I’m so sorry to bother you.” You softly say before she hands you a glass of tea.

“No, it’s alright, it’s what friends are for. What did you need to talk to me about?” 

“SuA and I- we’re not doing alright.” Your words lift a weight off your chest, as if saying what you’ve been feeling will fix all of your problems. “We’ve gotten into more fights, and every time I want to talk about it, she blows me off to go partying. I don’t know what to do anymore.”

“Can I-“ Minji pauses for a moment before grabbing your arm. “Can I be honest with you?”

“Of course.” You nod as she continues on.

“SuA, she’s a great person and all, but she has her flaws. You know this, just as the rest of us do. I love her, dearly and truly, but she’s an unnameable spirit. You won’t get her to settle down with sugar coated words or sweet promises.”

“What should I do, then?”

“You should break up with her.” Minji bluntly says it, and her words carve a mark in your heart that a thousand swords could not replicate.

“What?” You softly respond, hoping your brain had cherry-picked her words and made some sort of sick mash-up of them.

“You can’t- you can’t be with someone who makes you miserable. I see the two of you at parties. She has a great time with her friends, and you look like you want to be anywhere in the world besides at her side-“

“-yeah, but she compromises for me and I do it for her as well-“ You try to defend SuA, but JiU’s having none of it.

“-you’re new to dating, especially when it comes to someone like SuA, and I don’t want to see someone I care about get hurt.”

Your eyes involuntarily roll as you know the lecture is coming. Despite Minji being the most agreeable person on the planet, the two of you don’t always see eye-to-eye. She’s too involved in your life, at times, and you just need some space away from other people to clear your thoughts. To her, you don’t care enough about yourself and she will point that out, every single time, without fail. You’ve always treated her like an overcautious, caring mother, but something about her words irks you. Maybe it’s the fact that there is truth mingled in with her opinion, or you’ve finally grown tired of her meddling in your life, but you’ve had enough.

“I’m not a child, Minji.” You set the tea cup aside before standing up. “I can decide who I want to date, and when or if I should break up with them. I just wanted to see if you knew anything about why SuA has been so distant lately.”

“I don’t want to see you get hurt.” She repeats, firmly standing her ground.

“Do you know something I don’t, Minji?” You exasperatedly say before running your fingers through your hair. “I don’t see why you could care so much about me - SuA was your friend first, after all.”

“Her actions are not my responsibility.”

You can’t take this delicate dance of instigating and investigating any more, so you quickly move towards the exit of Siyeon, SuA, and Minji’s dorm.

“Wait, please-“ She calls out to you as you reach for the door. “I’m doing this because I-“

You slam the door in her face, an act you would grow to regret. When you come back a few hours later to return her pillow from your dorm, it’s like you’ve encountered a new person. She offers you a simple greeting before taking the pillow from her arms.

Minji’s smile doesn’t spread as wide as usual, and it’s all your fault.

Asshole.

A gentle tear runs down your cheek - you were awful to her, weren’t you? - as you gently fix the chapstick on the bedside table.

“You cheated on her!” Siyeon screams at you from the door as tears fall down your face.

“No, she cheated on me.” You offer a simple explanation, but she isn’t buying it.

“I found your chapstick in that girl’s bedroom, so try another excuse.” She haphazardly tosses the chapstick, and you’re able to catch it, even with tears partially blocking your sight.

“I let SuA use it-“

“I can’t even look at you. Come find me when you’re ready to make things right, and I may be kind enough to let you do so.” Siyeon slams the door as you fall to the ground in a puddle of misery and wallowing.

Two friends, one girlfriend. All gone within a few days of each other. Who else would leave you next? Handong? Yoohyeon? Gahyeon? Dami?

For some reason, the thought of Dami leaving you behind pushes you over the edge as the floodgates break open. You sob on the floor for what seems to be hours until your roommate finds you and brings you to bed, where you cry yourself to sleep for another night.

It’s saddening how quickly things can be over. Siyeon seemed open for a reunion - did SuA finally confess, or did Siyeon figure out the truth? You knew your friendship with Minji would never be the same, and that was okay with you. 

Although you were miserable with the loss of a few friends a few months ago, you’d be beyond consolable if one of your close friends of today were to betray you or-

Don’t think about that. Don’t think about that. Don’t think about that.

You lightly brush the tears away before looking in the vanity. The sight in front of you causes you to scream as the puzzle pieces connect in your head.

Hunger for blood, insane strength, and invisible in mirrors.

Despite the fact that your reflection is missing, two pointy objects reflect back to you as you open your mouth.

Sharp fangs.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck!” You rub your temples, hoping that’ll miraculously fix you. “This day cannot get any worse.”

As if the hell opened up and Satan heard your words, Ryujin crashes against the doorless door frame with a heavy sigh.

“You’re bleeding!” You yell as Ryujin winces and holds her side.

“I’ll be fine.” She reassures you as you rush over to her. “Nice fangs, you freak.”

“You’re not helping.” You gently help Ryujin to the bed. “Who did this to you?”

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.” She breathes a little lighter when she’s resting on your bed. “So is the vampire thing permanent, or-“

“Let me deal with that shit, you’re going to bleed out at this rate.” You grab a bundle of cloth that Ryujin can hold at her side. “I can’t do stitches, but I think Minji might be able to-“

Ryujin grabs your arm as you turn away from her.

“You shouldn’t go out there.”

“Why not?”

“She’s out there.” Ryujin coughs up a bit of blood as you grab a few tissues for her.

“Who is she?”

“Handong, but it’s not the girl that you know. They, the vampires,” She corrects herself before coughing into a tissue, “got to her before I could fight them all off. She’s a vampire spawn, hungry and lost to her instincts. We can’t help her until we get her some human blood.”

“We’re in hospital, there has to be blood somewhere-“ You reason as Ryujin shakes her head.

“Fresh blood, from a living human.”

“Yoohyeon.” You breathe out as Ryujin coughs again. “Are you going to be alright?”

“I’m a werewolf, this will blow over in a day or two. Supernatural healing is the shit, huh.” She laughs before going into another coughing fit.

“I can stay with you-“ “-You have to find Yoohyeon before Handong does; otherwise, we’ll have another murder on our hands.”

[ohforficsakelibrary]

The Margay: Chapter 1

There Was Bogotá That One Time

series masterlist / main masterlist

Summary: Santi ropes Frankie into a trial-run mission that doesn't go to plan but comes with one hell of a consolation prize.

Pairing: Frankie Morales x OFC x Santiago Garcia in this part but only in this part because Bogotá was just the once. No age gap.

Word Count: 3.8K

Rating: Explicit 18+/ the beginnings of a threesome, Santi has a filthy mouth, oral over underwear bc Frankie’s a tease (f receiving) / Minors DNI

A/N: Hoooly cowww, thank you all so much for the love on Dominica as my first little foray into this world. And a special thank you to everyone who has liked and shared. Your comments (and tags!) have truly given me life.

OFC here is the reader from Dominica, although I may play with future side chapters where I flip to that pov again. No taglist, but I'll mark everything with #ohforficsake. I do hope you enjoy. Edited 11/3 - I've been asked so I will be doing a taglist, drop me a line if you're interested!

“Who the fuck else is out here, Pope?”

“No one,” Santiago sweeps the clearing in a quick circle, butt of his gun still dug into his shoulder, “no one else is supposed to be out here.”

Things hadn’t gone sideways and he hadn’t called anyone in.

And yet the mark stares back at him through lifeless eyes the same color as the leaflitter he threatens to stain red.

“Well,” Frankie gestures vaguely where he’s knelt down next to the still-warm body. “This ain’t local.”

The high-caliber bullet that blew out the back of the man’s skull is most assuredly not Nicaraguan-made.

“We have to move, Fish,” Santi says before letting out a sharp whistle. A signal to the men holding the perimeter to circle up.

“Nah, if whoever did this wanted us dead…” He lets the words hang in humid jungle air, propping the brim of his cap up just far enough to swipe damp hair from his forehead. “The angle of it’s weird though,” Frankie cants big dark eyes up into the trees even though that makes no goddamn sense.

The men have moved in by now and one of them lets out a low hiss.

“El Caucel.”

“Crees eso?” Santiago's gaze cuts towards him and then over at two other men nodding in agreement.

Two more from their team had departed towards the trucks the moment they saw the carnage.

Frankie stands upright with knitted brows before finding Santiago’s gaze.

He’s met with an imperceptible shake of the head.

And so he doesn’t open his mouth again until they’re back in their hotel room.

_____

“You got an explanation for that, Pope?”

“Not a good one.” Santi sits on the edge of a twin bed and unlaces his boots before toeing them off and flopping backwards.

Frankie stays standing, hands on his hips.

“Someone’s out there with high-caliber shit we didn’t even have as Deltas and that’s all you have to say.”

“That’s all I fuckin’ know, Fish. Look, at least we’re on the same side, ok? For now we’re on the same side. Fuck, I need a shower.”

He’s on his feet now. Clearly rattled.

“What’s El Caucel? A group? Where’d they get that kind of heat?”

“I don’t know, Fish. I don’t know if El Caucel is one guy or five…”

Santi doesn’t realize it but he’s pacing the room.

He’s useless like this.

“Go take a fuckin’ shower, Pope.”

“I need a fucking beer.”

_____

Frankie doesn’t speak again until they’re both perched on plastic chairs at the back of an open-air bar, cumbia blaring through tired but persistent speakers, waves lapping at the shore nearly on beat.

“I don’t like it, Pope," he mutters after a sip of beer. "I don’t like that people we don’t know, using shit that we don’t have, know the same things we do," each point punctuated by a finger stabbed into the table.

“They’re after the same people that we are, Fish. We were fifteen minutes late, more than likely that was our backup. I have a call out to my guy, but he’s out of pocket until tomorrow. Can we at least just leave it at that for the night?”

Somehow Santiago’s nerves aren’t as frayed as they were an hour ago.

“This isn’t what I signed up for, Pope.”

“You signed up to kill bad men and get paid, Fish. A bad man is dead today and I don’t know if you took a look at your bank account, but it’s $25K heavier than it was this morning.”

“We didn’t pull that trigger.”

“Take the fuckin’ win, Catfish.”

It's low out of Santiago's mouth. Like an order.

Frankie doesn’t run like this. Not with unknown eyes on them. And he doesn’t take money for jobs he didn’t finish. He agreed not to ask who was bankrolling this little excursion, he trusted Santi’s judgment enough for that, but things were starting to fall out of alignment.

The last time that happened they lost someone.

He doesn’t like how fucking cool Santi is right now either.

And Santiago pipes up as though he can hear the gears in Fish's head gnashing against one another. “Look, Fish. You’ve got a cold beer, the Caribbean fuckin’ Ocean right there, you’re in a beautiful tropical country instead of freezing your balls off in the middle of bum-fuck nowhere in February..."

"...There are hot girls in this bar.”

“Pope.”

“Do you trust me, Fish?”

Dark eyes lock over the table, Frankie searching for something Santi won’t give away. It takes at least a minute for the tight line of Fish’s mouth to soften into his usual pout.

“It’s a sea.”

“What?” Santi swallows a mouthful of beer.

“The Caribbean Sea.”

“Right, fuckin’, okay.” Santi grins. “The goddamn Caribbean Sea. Just enjoy it, Catfish.”

It’s not a good enough explanation, not by a fucking long shot, but he hates admitting that Santi is right. For the next few hours, there’s nothing they can do.

And for a moment, Corona and lime on his tongue and the thought of $25K in his bank account makes him ignore the insistent scratching in the back of his brain.

Dark eyes sail over Santi’s shoulder and happen to land on a woman reading in the corner, all brown skin and black curls that skim the tops of her shoulders. He can't help but notice the way she's left a few buttons on her linen shirt open.

Can't help but notice the way it allows the curve of one breast to peek out when she reaches for her drink.

“I saw her first.” Santi knows exactly where he’s looking.

“I wouldn’t, actually,” Frankie attempts to clarify, but his half-hard cock says otherwise.

“I would.”

“We’re sharing a room, Pope.”

“I’ll put a sock on the doorknob. Plus there was Bogotá that one time,” Santi arches a brow and grins before draining the rest of his beer.

Bogotá that one time and a blonde between the two of them.

There’s more space than you'd think on a twin bed.

“With $25K you can get your own goddamn room.” Fish quips.

Bogotá was before his girl. Before his kid.

“So could you. Honestly. I think you need it, Francisco. Come on, what happens in Nicaragua…”

“Nah, I’m…”

“Yeah, you need it. I’m doin’ it.”

Pope is out of his chair before Fish can bite back.

"Fuckin’ idiot," Frankie mutters under his breath and directs his gaze out to sea.

“Excuse me, miss?” Santiago purrs in Spanish, leaning over the woman’s table, his most disarming smile playing on his lips.

She angles huge green eyes up from her book and waits for Santi to continue.

“My friend over there,” Santi nods his head in Frankie’s direction. “Thinks you look like you could use a refill.”

“Your friend, or you?” She answers in the same tongue.

Santi’s teeth catch on his bottom lip.

“Myee, my uh, my friend.” Santi slips in English. “Mi amigo.”

Freud would have loved that one.

The woman sets her book aside and reaches for a packet of cigarettes, eyes cutting over to Frankie as she taps the top of the box on the table. He's lit up by red and yellow light and staring out across sand.

Plush lips wrapped around the mouth of his beer bottle, wishing the ocean would come crashing through this fuckin’ bar.

“What’s your friend’s name?”

“Freddie.”

“Tell Freddie I’ll take a gin and soda with lime, but only if he does his dirty work himself and sits down here with me.” She lights up a cigarette. “I suppose you can stay too.”

Santi lets out a sharp whistle that has Frankie on higher alert than he’d care to admit.

“Gin and soda,” Santi calls over his shoulder. “What’s your name, sweetheart?”

“Arabela,” she tosses the packet on top of her book.

“Sam,” Santi offers his hand and she takes it, surprised when Santi presses his lips to her knuckles.

Surprised in a turned-off way.

"What are you reading?"

She lifts the packet of Parliaments so he can glance at the title.

The Living Daylights.

"You like spy novels?"

"I think they're funny."

Frankie appears at last, two fresh beers, one gin, and three shots of tequila balanced easily between two massive hands.

The tequila was an impulse but he needs something stronger than Corona if this is Bogotá Round Two.

Which apparently it became the moment Frankie stood up from his seat.

“Freddie, this is Arabela.”

“Mucho gusto.” Frankie’s hand is shy.

All of Frankie is shy.

“I do speak English, if that’s more comfortable.”

“An American.” Santi perks up. “Where are you from, sweetheart?”

“Florida.”

“Ahh, Texas,” he jabs a thumb towards Frankie and then his own chest “and Miami. What part of Florida?”

“Orlando.”

Jesus this is boring.

_____

She actually just showed up here for dinner and a buzz because it was five minutes down the beach from her hotel. A function of convenience, nothing more.

And now with dinner over, she finds herself in need of another gin.

She’s up at the bar when two more men wander in. Not locals but not uncomfortable here either. Military, past or present, from the sound of their boots on the wood planks. 

She quickly steals a glance over her shoulder. Military boys aren’t uncommon down here, and frankly not particularly interesting, but these two aren’t standard issue.

One of them looks like a good time and the other looks like trouble. 

Trouble slips into a plastic chair at a table in the corner, choosing the seat that allows him to face the door. Good Time on the other hand is skating dark eyes over her bare legs.

She runs the top of one foot over her calf just for kicks as the bartender hands over fresh gin, and turns to leave the very moment that Good Time sidles up.

God it’s too easy. 

She’s not here for this tonight. 

But it’s been three, or was it four, months and she’s not opposed to it either.

Trouble is heated about something when his friend returns with beers.

He’s cute. 

Not in a classically handsome way, his friend has that in spades.

Cocksure, chiseled jaw, perfectly coiffed hair. 

No, Trouble is cute in a wound spring kind of way.

The kind of way that looks absolutely beautiful coming wildly undone.

What the fuck is in this gin tonight. 

Ten minutes later when Good Time struts over, she decides she definitely isn't opposed. 

_____

“What are you doing down here, baby girl?”

“Vacation. Just needed a break from work, I guess.”

Her phone buzzes face-down on the table and Santi Sam laughs.

“I like your phone case,” he grins as he pulls an identical one from his pocket.

Jesus Christ its a regular fucking Amazon phone case, how do we move this along.

“So what are you boys up to?”

He’s probably going to say something stupid like…

“Just appreciating the scenery.”

Yeah.

She checks her watch. It’s barely gone 19:30, she could still have a perfectly enjoyable night on her own. 

Nope.

“Look,” she leans over the table as Good Time leans in and Trouble leans back, “I’m sure that works on someone else, but today’s not your day.”

Santi braces for the crash. 

“You didn’t come over here just to chat and I’m more than happy to save all of us the grief. What’s on the table?”

“Both of us.” 

No one at the table was expecting Frankie to be the one to speak up.

Pope shoots Frankie a look that swims with ‘hadn’t expected but not opposed...’

“If that’s what you want.” Frankie rumbles, arm draped over the back of his chair. 

Trouble.

Something searing and unspoken in a language that Pope doesn’t understand passes between them.

“What’s your word, sweetheart?” He continues with the barest nod of his head in her direction, eyes dark. And starved. 

 “Bogotá.”

She hadn’t overheard them. There’s no way she could have with the music in this place.

And Frankie throws back his tequila because Frankie's not a man to question the Universe when it hands him something.

“Close the tabs,” a firm hand squeezes Santi’s shoulder as Fish stands. “Hers and ours. You. With me.”

Her with him finds them both outside, her back against the wall of the bar, cigarette nestled between her fingers, Frankie close enough that the heat coming off of him sets her nerves tingling.

He hasn’t laid a hand on her yet. One’s braced on the wall near her head, the other on his hip.

He’s angled such that she has room to slip away.

“Are you sure you want this? You can leave right now and I’ll get him out of here and we’ll pretend we never met.”

Dark eyes track the fingers that bring the cigarette to her lips.

“Is that what you want?”

“I didn’t ask about me,” he rumbles, shifting slightly closer and answering her question with his form.

“Right now,” she tilts her head to blow smoke away from him, “there’s nothing I want more.”

Frankie reaches for her cigarette, freely offered, taking a puff before he dashes it out. His fingers move to trail feather-light across her collarbone and over the buttons of her shirt nudging it open a hair.

He glances back up at her eyes and then her lips, plush and parted and waiting, and Frankie decides he can't wait any longer.

He slides the brim of his cap around backwards as his hand slides up her neck, thumb brushing her bottom lip before he replaces it with his mouth.

When Pope breezes through the door, Frankie nabs him by the back of the shirt, tongue never leaving her mouth. He pulls, slamming Santi against the wall before tearing himself away and taking a step back. His thumb comes up to brush the corner of his mouth, surveying them both.

Her dark hair is wild from his greedy fists, lips and chin reddened from his attention.

Santiago’s eyelids are heavy as he stares back.

“You started without me.” It’s restrained, darkly matter-of-fact. She reaches her hand over to wrap around the back of Pope’s neck and guides him to her, tasting his bottom lip and then his tongue. She slants half-closed eyes over to hold Frankie’s stare as she moans into Pope’s mouth.

Frankie nearly reaches out to rip her away.

“We gotta go,” is what he opts for instead.

_____

Not five minutes later, Santi’s back is pressed against the door to their hotel room. Her back is pressed to his chest. And Frankie is on his knees in front of her, nose pressed into the crotch of her cargo shorts.

Santi’s lips skate up the side of her neck as his hands splay across her stomach under her shirt, hips already searching for friction. She reaches back intending to slip her phone and card holder out of the back pockets of her shorts out of the need to feel Pope there unimpeded, pressed flush against her. He catches on, taking them both from her hands and placing them on the side table, fingertips bypassing two layers of cotton to slip just under the waistband of her underwear. He pulls her back against him by her hipbones, grinding the hardness in his jeans against the curve of her ass and she whimpers at the way it puts her just out of reach of Frankie's mouth.

Frankie pulls his shirt off up over his head, taking his backwards cap with it, and tossing them both over his shoulder into the room. He stands to occupy her mouth with his own while Pope unbuttons his shirt and lands it over the luggage rack. Santi meets Frankie’s eyes over her shoulder and nods. Fish breaks the kiss as Pope’s hands pull her against his chest once more. 

She leaves one hand on Frankie’s cheek and reaches the other up to tangle in Santiago’s hair. 

“We’re gonna take such good care of you, baby,” Santiago purrs into her ear. “So fucking beautiful,” he continues, mouth hot on her neck.

Frankie watches for a moment, taking in the way her plush lips are parted before he’s on his knees again. 

He needs to be here. Needs to feel the heat of her on his face. Needs to get rid of this fucking fabric.

“I’m gonna hold you right here,” Santiago purrs, skating his nose over the shell of her ear, “and he’s gonna eat that pretty pussy of yours,” one hand rides further up her stomach under her shirt, “because that’s his favorite thing in the world.”

Frankie can feel goosebumps appear where he’s stroking his palms over her calves, lips tracing the chill up her thighs.

“Would you like that, pretty girl?” Santi voice is a heady whisper now, and her head falls back into the crook of his shoulder as she hums in approval.

“Need to hear you say it, baby,” Frankie murmurs against her skin.

“God, yes,” she moans and immediately Santi’s mouth finds hers, fingers making quick work of the button on her shorts. Frankie helps her out of her sandals and Pope unzips her, thumbs sliding the fabric down over her hips, passing the task off to Frankie’s fingers to take the rest of the way before moving to do the same with her underwear.

“Leave it,” Frankie bats Pope’s hands away, settling one of his own against the curve of her hip, running the other up over the back of one thigh before breathing heat against her mound. She reflexively cants her hips back against Pope’s and he hears the phone in his back pocket knock against the door before it’s tossed carelessly along with his wallet to join hers on the side table. She runs one hand over Frankie’s forearm, fingers of the other still wound in Santi’s hair.

Plush lips trace the seams of her underwear, falling everywhere but where she wants them.

And so she reaches both hands down, tangling fingers in his soft curls, short nails impatiently scraping at his scalp and she feels him smirk against her inner thigh.

Frankie hooks a hand around the back of her knee, guiding her leg over his shoulder.

“Hold her, Pope.”

Santi’s arm hooks firmly around her ribcage.

She spares a thought for the use of a call sign before suddenly there’s pressure and damp, open-mouthed heat breathed against the sodden cotton covering her core. The leg that’s still on the ground buckles, but Santiago holds her firm, grinning against her mouth.

They work well together, these two.

Frankie’s tongue traces the contours of her folds through the fabric, humming with pleasure at what little taste of her he’s able to get at. He can already tell from the feel of this alone that she’s bare below the cotton and his cock jumps at the thought.

And his cock jumps again at the thought of sharing the thought.

“Pretty girl?” Frankie rumbles, teeth catching gently against her mound as he angles his eyes up at her. “If I were to take these off…” he hooks a finger through the waistband of her panties and lets it snap against her flushed skin.

“I wouldn’t find anything under there, would I?”

He pauses and Santiago feels her grin against his mouth.

“I don’t think you would, Fish.”

“No, I think,” the bridge of his nose bumps against her clit just so and she groans against Santi’s lips. “I think you’re completely bare under here.” He inhales deep and her fingers tighten in his curls. “All of that smooth…soft…skin.” Each word punctuated by a kiss before he sucks, open mouthed against the core of her.

Pope has to hold her again.

Santi’s free hand skates up to palm her right shoulder where cream linen has fallen open before slipping his fingers under the strap of her bra, guiding it down her arm.

And Santiago’s not so much in control so much as he’s just the one they let speak.

“Is he good, princesa?” Santi asks against her lips in the lowest register of his voice. “Does his mouth feel good on you?” Santiago reaches down over her collarbone, under her shirt and bra to palm her breast, one arm still firmly locked around her ribcage.

“Fuck,” she gasps, “so good.”

Frankie hums his thanks and moves a little higher to flick his tongue over her clit. He dwells here a while, alternating light and fast with the tip of his tongue with slower, firmer strokes with the flat of it. The cotton of her thong is soaked from her slick and his mouth, and it’s not long before she turns her lips away from Santiago, panting and moaning in time with Frankie’s flicks.

“She’s close, Fish,” Pope breathes against her pulse.

“Mmm hmm,” he hums, the rumble of it causing her to buck her hips against him. Frankie lets go from where strong fingers have been digging into the thigh over his shoulder and brings his hand to her hip, both palms now holding her firm against Santi.

She can feel how hard he is through the denim that scratches against the curve of her ass. How it's taking all of Santiago's control not to grind against her there. Not to send her knocking against Fish's teeth.

Neither of these men have actually put skin against anything that matters, and yet she’s falling apart between them. 

No sooner does the thought cross her mind than Frankie hooks a thumb into the crotch of her thong, pulling the gusset to the side.

He hums deep and low because he was right.

He’s just about to lick a stripe through her glistening folds when a clattering buzz rings out into the room.

All three of them startle.

Santi spares a glance down at the side table where the offending phone is casting blue light into the room.

His contact’s number.

“Fuuck,” he growls, “I gotta get this. Take her to bed, Fish.” Frankie lets her leg down from his shoulder, “and don’t you fucking dare make her come without me.”

“No promises,” he mumbles between kisses, allowing her to move him until the backs of his knees hit the edge of the bed. He sits and she straddles his hips and he bucks up against her, telegraphing what's on offer.

She presses her forehead against his as he fights to nip at her jaw, cursing softy at the feel of him before her fingers scramble to unzip his jeans.

Frankie grins, arm wrapping tight around her waist, and grinds his crotch against her heat as Santi picks up the phone.

“Hey honey, I uh...I can’t really talk right now,” Santi’s voice rings out from the hallway as if he wasn’t half naked and panting.

She props herself up briefly without breaking Frankie’s kisses in an effort to quiet the moans that he can’t seem to keep in his throat. He runs his palms down her sides to fit on her hips and pull but she’s strong. 

“Santiago? Well, now that’s interesting.”

“How...how's that, babe, you called me?”

“Santiago, this isn’t your phone.”

And Santiago's blood runs cold.

next

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[hairstevington]

flowers and ink (part 5)

Eddie Munson x Steve Harrington

Summary: Eddie and Steve go on their first date, kind of. Robin is there, but they still manage to find time alone. Especially after Eddie surprises Steve with an ace up his tattooed sleeve.

(part one, part two, part three, part four, link to Ao3)

Word Count: 2.8K

Warnings: Florist/Tattoo Artist trope, modern day AU, fluff af, FIRST KISS WOO, not to spoil lmao, first date, Platonic Stobin, Gareth is the moment

A/N: Lmao remember when this was gonna be 2 parts? HA! This one is kind of unhinged but I hope you like it. PS - There is a reference to a Djo song in here. Can you find it? Also, I cannot take credit for the line “clenched fist with hair.” I just rewatched The Haunting of Hill House and that description sends me. Enjoy!

Eddie wasn’t nervous. Why would he be nervous? He went to these kinds of shows at bars all the time. He was in his element, surrounded by people he knew. He had the power. 

It was just a date. He’d been on a million of those. Well, he’d been on a few. He was less of a date kind of guy and more of a “let’s hang out and eventually we’ll just be in a relationship” kind of guy. Even still, it wasn’t like he had that much experience - especially as an adult. 

“Dude, relax,” Gareth said with a light laugh.

Okay, he was nervous. He didn’t want to be, but it’s not like anybody can control their feelings. It had been a very long time since Eddie had felt so stupidly giddy about someone. And for it to be pretty-boy Steve of all people?? 

Eddie didn’t date people like Steve, generally. He dated, like, red flags in leather jackets. Shockingly, they never seemed to work out. 

“It just feels different,” Eddie muttered, fully embarrassed by this whole thing. 

“Munson,” Gareth deadpanned. “Have you ever considered maybe that’s a good thing?” Eddie chuckled. 

“Yeah, probably,” he agreed. And then, a man and a woman who were absolutely not dating walked through the front door, and Eddie froze. “Oh shit. They’re here.” 

Gareth practically tumbled over his drum set, knocking on a cymbal as he did so. He peered over Eddie’s shoulder so he could see better. They both stared, slack-jawed, at the pair across the room. 

“Holy shit,” Gareth mumbled. “That’s - you - him?” 

“Him,” Eddie confirmed. 

How the fuck did this man make black jeans and a t-shirt look so good? There was a vibrancy and confidence to him that he didn’t usually have at work. Eddie was used to seeing Steve around all sorts of pretty flowers. Now he was surrounded by dark walls, sticky counters, and metalheads, and he somehow looked cool as shit despite being a little different from everyone else. 

“Goddamn, Flower Boy’s a heartbreaker for sure,” Gareth said. He smacked Eddie on the back. “Go get him, tiger.” 

-

“Are you nervous?” Robin asked as they walked into the bar.

“Actually, no,” Steve answered. “You?”

“Yeah, I’m really nervous to go on your first date with Eddie,” Robin replied sarcastically. “I’m fine, just figuring out my game plan, here.”

“Your game plan?”

“Yeah,” she said. “Like, I’m not going to just be right next to you the whole time, that would be weird. So I’ll have to find someone else to talk to, or pretend I have a UTI and go to the bathroom every five minutes or something.”

“Or you could just get a drink, enjoy the music…” Steve suggested playfully. 

“Whatever,” Robin replied with a laugh. “Here he comes, don’t be an idiot!”

“Being an idiot is part of my charm,” Steve responded. He watched as Eddie weaved through the people at the bar, looking just as he always did. Which was, ya know, insanely hot. 

“Steve, hi!” Eddie greeted him. There was a moment where neither of them knew if this was a handshake or a hug moment, but they recovered quickly (and evidently decided neither was appropriate). “Robin, nice to see you. The show starts in like fifteen minutes. Do you want a drink?” Robin and Steve nodded, and then the three of them were off to the bar. 

Steve paid for all three of them, even though Eddie tried to pick up the tab at first. Steve just thought it was weird to have his date pay for him AND his emotional support lesbian. Once they were served, Robin gasped.

“Oh my god,” she said. “I just forgot I have to call my - my Aunt Shirley. She missed her flight and ended up having to drive in a rental car across the country with a total stranger, and I promised I’d check in.”

“Oooookay…” Eddie said. Robin flitted off, and Steve burst out laughing. “How much of that was a lie?”

“Well, she does have an Aunt Shirley,” Steve replied. “The rest was from a movie we watched last week.”

“Very nice,” Eddie grinned. “And subtle.”

“She’s good like that,” Steve replied, returning the smile. 

They continued chatting about their days, then ended up on a tangent about video games. Talking to Eddie was easy. Fourteen minutes later, Robin came back.

“How’s our gal Shirley?” Eddie asked with a smirk. Robin chuckled. 

“She’s good. The car got set on fire, so that’s a bummer, but she’ll figure it out,” she joked. The three of them laughed, and then the radio cut out, and the lights dimmed. Four men walked onto stage, and people in the crowd clapped. Eddie was cheering, so Steve did too. 

“Hello everyone, we are Corroded Coffin,” the lead singer began. “- and we hope you get good and drunk tonight so that we sound even better.”

Laughter, then more cheering. Steve wasn’t really sure what he was in for, but then the music began, and he figured it out pretty quickly. 

So, it was like, metal. Not Steve’s favorite, but that’s okay. He could practically feel Robin shrinking beside him though. She was really not a fan of the loud, angry stuff. 

But truthfully, Steve didn’t care that much about the music. He cared more about Eddie next to him, and the way he was absolutely beaming. 

“Are you a big fan of these guys or something?” Steve asked between songs.

“Something like that!” Eddie replied. 

“I need to walk my dog!” Robin chimed in, disappearing again. 

Steve finished his drink and felt a need to do something with his hands now that he no longer had a cup to carry. It wasn’t the kind of scene where he could just hold Eddie’s hand or anything, but Steve was all about physical touch. He refrained, just because he didn’t know how to navigate this space. It was all kind of foreign to him. 

The band was good. The crowd loved them. Eddie loved them. Hell, Steve even loved them. They put on a decent show with a nice mix of covers and originals. Some of the covers were even songs that Steve knew well. 

“Hey, I’ll be right back,” Eddie said, ducking away from Steve and disappearing into the bar. Robin swooped in almost immediately.

“Where’s he going?” Robin asked. 

“I dunno, maybe he has a dog too,” Steve teased. “You don’t have to keep making up reasons to leave us alone, you know.”

“Yeah, but it’s fun,” Robin replied, as if it were obvious. “And considering this show is my actual hell, I’ll take fun where I can get it.” Steve chuckled.

“If you wanna head out, that’s okay. I think I can take it from here,” he permitted. 

“Steve,” Robin replied, acting like she was on the verge of tears. “If you weren’t on a date right now I’d propose.”

“I already proposed to you last month, remember?”

Robin had come home with a surprise pizza after Steve had a particularly hard day. He nearly cried with happiness.

“Oh, right. Shit, does Eddie know?” Robin joked. The two of them laughed, and then they were interrupted by the band.

“Alright, you guys,” the lead singer said. “Thank you for being such a great crowd, and for giving us a few minutes to set up here. We have a special treat for you tonight.” 

“Imagine they just start playing Barbie Girl or something,” Steve said.

“God, I wish,” Robin replied with a smirk. The lead singer continued.

“Back when the band first started, we had a different guitarist,” he announced. “And tonight, the original legend himself is here, so we thought we’d save him some spotlight. Everyone, give it up for Eddie Munson!” 

“Um, okay,” Robin said. “Never mind. I’m not going anywhere.”

Steve was so shocked, there was a moment where his brain convinced him that the guitarist in question just so happened to have the same name as his date. But then Eddie walked out on stage, grinning from ear to ear, and taking the place of the guy who’d been playing guitar up to that point. Eddie slung it over his shoulder, looking completely comfortable and at home, and then waved to the audience. 

After a minute of adjustment, they started playing Master of Puppets.

Steve’s eyes bugged out of his head. He’d never been more attracted to anyone in his life.

-

When Gareth offered to have Eddie join the stage for a song, there was no way he could pass it up. Not only was he excited to play with his friends again, but he never felt more confident than he did when he was performing. It was a rush he’d come to miss these last few years. 

Back then, they usually just played for a couple of drunks in dive bars. This time, the bar was packed. It still wasn’t the Garden or anything, but it felt just as good. 

Master of Puppets was a song he’d learned in high school, and they used to close every show with it. Eddie didn’t play guitar as often anymore, but muscle memory is a crazy thing. He also tattooed people for a living, so he was generally pretty precise with his hands. 

He’d ran through it a few times before the show, and was surprised at how quickly it came back to him. He didn’t miss a note. 

After his song, the band took a little break. Eddie still felt high as he stepped off the stage and made his way back to where Steve and Robin had been standing. Gareth trailed behind him, desperate to meet the man who had managed to soften the clenched fist with hair that was Eddie Munson. 

“Dude, what the fuck?” Steve said as they approached him. The blush on his face combined with the playful tone of his voice let Eddie know he’d done what he’d set out to do. 

“What?” Eddie replied, smirking. 

“That was -” Steve stuttered. “- I mean - and you - and you didn’t -”

“Hi, I’m Gareth!” Eddie’s friend extended a hand out to shake with both Robin and Steve. “Eddie and I are old friends, and I had the amazing idea to bring him on stage tonight so that I could be the world’s best wingman. It’s nice to meet you!”

“Come on, dude,” Eddie said to Gareth. “Let me look cool for at least ten seconds before you give me away.”

“That’s okay,” Robin said, glancing at Steve beside her. “I think his brain short-circuited.” 

“Eddie, can we -?” Steve asked. “Uh, go somewhere private?”

Eddie wasn’t sure whether or not that was a good thing. He hoped it was a good thing, obviously, but Steve’s face was completely blank. Maybe Steve hated metal music. He hadn’t asked or prepared the guy when they planned this whole thing. 

“Yeah, sure,” Eddie said, pretending he wasn’t thinking a million things at once. He led Steve back through the crowd and to a backstage area, where he’d been with Gareth and the rest of the band earlier in the night. Once they were alone, the silence around them felt suffocating. “Uh, is everything o-”

And then Steve was kissing him. Eddie was stunned, but only for a brief moment. Steve pulled away.

“This is okay, right?” he asked. 

“Yeahyeahyeah,” Eddie responded, pulling him right back in.

Dating might not have been Eddie’s specialty, but making out sure was. Of course, Steve seemed to be excellent at both. 

“Damn,” Steve muttered, his lips brushing Eddie’s. “Felt like if I didn’t do that I’d explode or something.”

Steve was hot, sensitive, funny, and a great kisser.

Eddie was in deep shit. Welcome back, Heart-Eyes Munson.

-

“So,” Gareth said, now that he was alone with Robin. “What was that about?”

“Well,” Robin responded. “I know Steve pretty well, and it’s very likely they’re sucking face back there.”

“You think?” Gareth asked, amused. “Wow. Look at our boys go.”

“Took them long enough,” Robin said. 

“Did you enjoy the show?” Gareth asked. Robin froze, unsure how to respond. “I’m kidding. I can tell you hated it, and that’s okay.”

“I didn’t hate it,” Robin clarified. “Like, if it was this or the one-woman show, I’d choose this.”

“One-woman show?” Gareth asked.

“Oh, right. You don’t know me. Ha,” Robin replied. Talking to new people made her kind of nervous. That’s why she loved being around Steve, because he always just kinda knew what she was thinking and had all the context of her madness. “It’s a - Steve and I were talking about it earlier.”

“Okay, well we’ve still got time before I go back on.” Gareth said, urging Robin to continue. 

“Uh, okay,” she began. “So, you’re not from here, right?” Gareth shook his head. “Okay, so basically all over town there’s this flier advertising this mysterious one-woman show. It says nothing about the show or the woman performing it, just that it’s ‘a solid 6 out of 10 experience,’ said by some random reviewer, and apparently the show is called Pot of Gold.”

“Damn,” Gareth replied. “And you’d rather be here than go to that?” Robin chuckled. 

“Yeah, because I don’t trust it. Like, what if it’s secretly a multi-level marketing thing or I get kidnapped or it’s really just a prank show and then my dumb ass is on camera? What if I hate it but I’m too awkward to leave, so then I just have to sit there while a single person talks at me? Oh God, what if I’m the only one in the audience?”

“You have thought about this a lot,” Gareth teased. Robin shrugged. “I get it, but honestly it sounds kinda fun. I’m here for a couple days. I’d go with you, if you want. It would get rid of the possibility of you being alone at least!”

“Oh,” Robin said, blushing. She hated doing this next part. “That’s really nice of you, but uh - I mean, I’m gay.” Gareth laughed, completely unfazed.

“Yeah, Eddie already briefed me,” he joked. “I’m not hitting on you, I swear. I’m just mad curious now, and I live for the chaos.”

“I see why you and Eddie are friends,” Robin said. “Yeah, maybe. I’ve been dying to know what it’s about, honestly.”

“Yeah, I bet,” Gareth agreed. “I could probably get the other guys to join if that helps. Eddie and Steve too, unless they’re gonna be gross.” Robin laughed. 

“Okay,” she said. “Then, I mean - if you want to? It could be fun as a group.”

“And if it’s not, we can make fun of it afterwards over some beers or something.”

Robin realized at that moment that it had been a while since she had made new friends. The band wouldn’t be in town for very long, but the idea of hanging out with them did actually seem fun. 

“Deal,” she confirmed.

The two certified idiots Eddie and Steve came bumbling back moments later, showing all telltale signs that Robin had been correct - flushed faces, mussed hair, and a far more relaxed dynamic between the two of them. 

“Hey guys,” Eddie greeted them casually. “Sorry, Steve just had to kiss me real quick.” Steve somehow became even redder than he had just been. He laughed nervously and ran his fingers through his hair.

“You’re really not discreet, are you?” Steve asked. Eddie leaned over and spoke low enough that only Steve could hear. 

“No, but now you know a good way to get me to shut up.”

Steve’s heart stopped. Lord almighty. Eddie stood straight again, acting as if he hadn’t just said what he’d said. Apparently, he could be discreet when he wanted to be. Eddie nonchalantly reached over and interlocked his fingers with Steve’s, giving his hand a quick squeeze. 

“Well, I guess I better get back up there,” Gareth said, excusing himself. 

“And it looks like my work here is done, too,” Robin said, curtsying before exiting as well. 

Steve felt much better now that they’d crossed that physical barrier. He kept himself attached to Eddie the rest of the night, enjoying the music while barely registering it, feeling like he was on cloud 9. 

“So,” Eddie said once the show was over. “How’d I do?”

They were walking hand in hand down the street, swinging their arms between them like they were silly teenagers. 

“I’d say you crushed it,” Steve replied. “You know what this means, right?”

“What?” Eddie wondered. 

“Well, you planned this one,” Steve pointed out. “So, I get the next one.”

“Sounds reasonable to me.”

They made it to Steve’s apartment. Eddie walked him to the door like a gentleman.

“Just you wait,” Steve teased. “Now that I know we’re pulling all the stops, get ready to have the best date of your life.”

Eddie gave Steve a quick peck on the lips and smiled.

“I don’t doubt it,” he responded. 

He really didn’t.

(next part)

--------------------------------------

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[shutupheathersorryheatherr]

“What hair product I think each svt member is”

Summery: a holiday fic that has absolutely nothing to do with the holidays! Wanted to try my hand at writing something a bit different and thought this was a good idea to start. Not really comedy but amusing none the less! (idk if what I wrote makes sense hopefully yall are picking up what I’m putting down) approximately: ten minute read

A/n: THIS IS NOT MY ORIGINAL IDEA! (In a way it is buuuutttt still) I can’t find the author who wrote the “what piece of furniture svt are” or something to that effect so they’re the ones who gave me the idea so if yall find them please tag them unless I do first!

warningz/info: mentions of pain, mentions of chocolate, I think what, three curse words? y'all let me know if I should start keeping them to a minimum or remove them entirely because I know some people are uncomfortable with them! I feel like the spacing between paragraphs is weird in this fic but oh well. no idea how this is gonna go over and im scared that I tagged it with "x reader". plus I dont know if anyone would read/enjoy it but I had loads of fun writing it! as always, if you did like it, please leave some love like comments and or reblogs!

~this is simply a piece of fiction. My imagination onto “paper. This is in no way is mean to be taken as an actual and real representation of anyone.~

•••••••••••••••••••

>Seungcheol<

gel. Sticks to you like glue once you find each other (romantic music starts playing in the hair care isle when you pick up your favorite gel) everyone has their preferred brand/ look they worship. Thicc. Either smells putrid and chemical like or good enough to transport you to a magical land of chocolate, pink grass and purple clouds

>Jeonghan<

he is a Bobby pin. And I will provide no further explanation on this except that he holds you together but will stab you lmao

>Shua<

an Afro pick/ hair pick. Its what everyone’s looking for: that little somen’ somen’. That little poof we all desire. Also scalp massages :)

>Jun<

wide tooth comb. My fellow thick haired/ curly haired people will know about this one 😭 this shit can be mean to your scalp tugging on your hair and UGH helps you greatly and is a necessity but damn… that’s all I gotta say

>Hoshi<

Refresher product/ moisture product. wakes you up in the morning. Gives you a reason to NOT look like you just rolled outta bed even though you did. For most this is one ofthe holy grails in life. What would I do without it? Makes us all smile even at 4:00 am because oh my god I look better after I slapped this in. Just all around a day-brightener

>Wonwoo<

curl cream. Grounding. Has many different looks n stuff

>Woozi<

a rat tail comb. Everyone should have one. Versatile, used for many different things. Good for every sort of job and is a natural to be honest and is small but mighty lol

>DK<

a satin/ silk bonnet. And no, not one of those that most  moms wear with the lace trim. Those end up at the foot of your bed by the morning. The ones with the thick elastic. I choose this cause it goes by many different names, just like him lol just has that comfy homey feel to it

>Mingyu<

hair mask. Made at home with some questionable ingredients. Seriously sometimes I don’t think he’s real lol 

>Hao<

a denman brush. It sounds to helpful and great. And it is great!…. When you figure out how to use it. Hard to figure out but once you get the hang of it you’ll never go back (another thing my fellow curly haired babes will understand)

>Seungkwan<

co wash. A little something extra, a boost of energy, if you will. a well kept secret but also a well known fact 

>Vernon<

hair tie. Easy to loose but also easy to find. especially in places where youd think: “why the fuck would it end up here?” Like idk man, but you should definitely check the dark corner collecting lint— that’s where they always are

>Dino<

leave in conditioner because with use over time it makes your hair (you) healthier

~End~

a/n: annnnnnnnddddd thats it! hope y'all enjoyed this disaster of a fic lmao if you liked it, please leave some love like comments or reblogging!

stay safe, y'all!

2023 ©️copyright for shutupheathersorryheatherr do NOT repost, steal, or translate my work even if you give me credit

taglist: @itz-yerin

[healer-pop]

its so much fun to ramble to someone who is just as feral as i am over someone,, /pos anyways i AM thinking, and you can call me weird, but MAN am i just thinking so hard ab venture holding you down,, kinda like that scene with the door,, just them pressed up against your back, keeping you pinned down while they just go absolutely wild. no amount of wailing or begging will get them to let up,, just a silly little word you'd yet to say hehe im ALSO thinking of them, as you mentioned,, "giving you a black pearl necklace" PLEASE do that oh my RAGHSH!! i love the thought that, at times they feel very,, possessive,, (maybe someone in OW was giving you some eyes,,) they deliberately give you hickeys that are VERY much visible and VERY hard to hide lmao next day you suddenly see those eyes being adverted and Sloan's shit eating grin LMAO -feral

… feral, do you want to find out what a regular pearl necklace is?

SORRY NOT SORRY LOL

I am obsessed with Venture trying to mark you with as theirs in anyway they can. I can’t say they’re possessive, but they do enjoy letting people know that you are theirs. Not because they feel any threat but just because they love you so much. It’s less possessiveness and more bragging???

hickies are a new part of your wardrobe, if you enjoy them. Sloane would absolutely love it if you wore them shamelessly, or even timidly, with a loose scarf wrapped around your neck, just enough to catch a glimpse of it every so often. the Wayfinders have spent enough time around Sloane to simply roll their eyes at their show, they don’t even mention. Honestly, they probably prefer the hickies. Because do you think venture shut up about you at all ever? because the answer is they don’t unless you’re wearing hickies. then they’re just staring at you, lovingly, but quietly. they have a goofy smile on their face, as they watch your clothes shift and a dark bruise appear. Absolutely whipped creature.

If you don’t, that’s OK too because Sloane finds a way! between giving you their clothes to wear, buying new, cute little keychains, and things you can hang on your work outfit, matching bracelets, rings or necklaces, Sloane is determined to let everyone know about your relationship.

And as for the bedroom… Sloane loves seeing you covered in their cum. In a gross disgusting way it kind of makes you smell like them. And they love that. They really enjoy when you swallow too, for a similar reason. ;D

[organchordsandlightning]

shit okay so i've finished the lighthouse series finally and i love your characterisation of faroe in it so deeply. wanted to ask - thoughts on what a teenaged faroe would be like? having to interact with normal people and realising how fucking weird her family is, and whatever she remembers of her childhood. she's such a delight and she's such a menace. i wanna know what she'd be like when she's a little older

ohhh, i’m glad you enjoyed and you have absolutely activated my ‘can’t shut up’ trap card! teenage faroe HCs under cut

so I think my big HC for teenage faroe is that she gets really into painting as her preferred mode of art. I like to think arthur did teach her piano, and she likes it well enough, but it didn’t have the same emotional attachment arthur had for it. 

nobody can say exactly why this comes about, but john almost reverently describing every piece of art she made as a toddler/child to arthur probably had something to do with it. i also like to think that faroe’s brief time in the Dark World, and especially under the influence of Arthur-Wearing-John’s-Old-Yellow-Robe, has affected her, just a bit - just in that her dreams are a little more vivid, a little more memorable, and little more Out There (leading to John having a small breakdown one day when teenage faroe draws a stunningly good representation of Carcosa, right down to the throne room). she prefers landscapes in general, but the family portrait hanging in arthur and john’s house was definitely painted by Faroe for Arthur’s birthday.

as for personality! I think Faroe is definitely a ‘see an injured baby bird, bring it home’ type of person - and she definitely keeps the curiosity that she inherited from her father. while it was less worrying when she rarely went anywhere without holding onto someone hand, it definitely became more worrying when the adults stopped walking her to school every day. I really love the idea of Faroe’s investigative spirit starting with ‘I’m going to crack the case of The Missing Cookie so I can be a detective just like Daddy’ to ‘ope Faroe’s coming home close to midnight because she was helping a classmate look for a lost cat’. with three detectives in her immediate family, it’s never that hard to find her in Arkham, but doesn’t stop Arthur and John especially from being scared to death. they taught Faroe occult symbols at a pretty young age and Faroe always understood that that was the one thing they would not let her fuck around with. 

(I was also so close to including the idea that Arthur gets a seeing eye dog when Faroe is still a child, who Faroe names Goldie. Faroe takes to Goldie so much that they get a second dog just for her [’sweetie, I know you’re having fun playing with Goldie but Goldie has to work now’] - a little white Westie named Bones. this is 100% the adorable animal mascot Faroe investigates with.)

relatedly, I think everyone struggled a lot with Faroe’s growing independence, especially with how close her family is. like, I don’t think Faroe ever had a rebellious phase per se (that is, she was never like ‘fuck you dad I don’t play by your rules’), but she definitely leaned more into ... ‘I Know This Is The Right Thing To Do Why Are You Telling Me I Can’t Do This Because I’m A Child’, which is a lot more frustrating all around.

(still, parker remembers the last time he was called ‘Uncle Bark’ and shifted to only ‘Uncle Parker’ [except when she’s scared or upset].)

i think Faroe might have had a brief period where she became acutely aware (in the way that teenagers are) that her home life is Not The Norm (i used to joke that Faroe, as a child, would say ‘sometimes I stay with Daddy and Mr. John, who kiss, and sometimes I stay with Mama and Uncle Bark, who don’t’). while I don’t think that she ever got badly teased about it [everyone likes Bella, the lady who makes all the costumes for school plays, and everyone likes Mr. Yang, the guy who cheers all the kids on at the baseball game, and everyone is moderately lukewarm on Mr.s Lester and Doe who look kind of pissy but generally mean well], I think the first time Faroe tried to underplay her home situation (maybe she implied Bella and Arthur were married, maybe she pretended like Mr. John wasn’t her dad, per se), John -- unable to hide the emotions on his face  -- looked so fucking sad that even Faroe, at 14 years old, was like awwwwwww shit I can’t do that again. Overall though, I do think Faroe borders on being pretty popular among her class. She’s involved in a lot of stuff, Bella handmakes her clothes, and more than a few students in the school have had their family’s cases solved by the Lester/Doe/Yang partnership.

 as for what Faroe remembers, I would think (other than her dreams)  she doesn’t remember much of her time in the Dark World, or being dead. She doesn’t like swimming much, but that’s more along the lines of Arthur being too anxious to teach her as a child, and thus Faroe learning a little later in life. She remembers a happy home - though the duos lived separately, she remembers them being together so often that it seemed like they all lived together.  If she had an emotional problem, she’s more inclined to go to her mother (who sometimes talks to her as if she’s a fellow classmate, and not her daughter) or Mr. John (who seems to get things in ways that Parker and Arthur can’t). If she needs something done, it’s Parker (who seems to know every person in Arkham) or her father (who would move heaven and earth for her, in a way that makes Faroe a liiiiiiiitttle scared to ever have kids. Arthur, god bless, is a little intense).

however, I do think the truth comes out around the time when Faroe is a teenager. Faroe was aware for a while of things not seeming right: her father’s acutely visible scars and bright amber eyes, for one thing. Still, I think they didn’t want to tell her as a child, and she was easily enough distracted from any questions whenever she asked.

It’s only when she becomes a teenager that it starts to become unavoidable. For one thing, she finds Parker Yang’s obituary in a newspaper at the library. She reads the term ‘John Doe’ in a book and, uh-oh, that seems a little weird. And, um. What are all these ‘Police Searching For Arthur Lester, supposed murderer of Parker Yang’ news clippings in the library? And, hang on, if her mother is fifteen years younger than Arthur, then why do they have so many stories of growing up together?

and I think, at some point, they sit her down and tell her all of it. Not the nitty gritty details, not how Arthur got all his scars, but enough for Faroe to realize that most of her family - including herself - was dead, at one point. Enough for Faroe to realize that, oops, one of her dads used to be a god, and maybe her dreams aren’t just dreams.

and of course it’s a lot to take in, and there’s a couple of weeks where Faroe’s basically sleepwalking through life, but her family helps her through it. I think at the end of the day, the thing that helps her most is the thing that her Uncle Parker told her (and the same thing Parker told Arthur, way back when Arthur lost his memory): that no matter how the story went, she was safe and loved, and she had a lot of people making sure she always would be.

thanks for asking!

[alparlaboratories]

My OCs Masterlist

I got tired of having to look through my mess of a computer to find drawings and other stuff about old OCs and characters I might wanna use in the future, and I’m bored right now so I figured I’d make a list with all of my important OCs, or at least the ones that mean the most to me.

These are not ALL of my OCs, just the main ones for their respective stories/campaigns. But there’s still a lot, lol. Also I’m not counting Niss for this list, even if she’s an OC in my heart. You can learn more about her in my pinned post anyway.

(Note: Art is either made by me, my partner @pastlight or has been commissioned by various artists)

1)

Metchi

You know how parents say they don’t have a favorite child? Well I do and it’s Metchi. ‘What if someone decided they wanted to do good purely out of spite and had pretty much everything stacked against them?’ I asked myself. ‘What if she was also a grungy trans girl who has no fucking clue what she’s doing and is constantly bickering with the deity inside her head?’ was the next question. And from that, Metchi was born. The willpower to burn a hole through Mt. Coronet yet the resources and energy of someone who considers cigarettes the most effective breakfast.

2)

Nico

He’s my PC from our current (in hiatus) Pokemon tabletop campaign. A Lumiosian street artist and Sky Trainer who enjoys throwing himself off of high places and being completely fucking incomprehensible to all who meet him. The only neurons in his brains are dedicated to serving looks, calling the wind to his command and delivering the most unhinged takes on the nature of human happiness he can think of.

3)

Tulip

‘I would like to make a tragic character whose obsession with the truth will inevitably lead her to ruin’ I thought. ‘Oh, fuck’ Tulip replied. Out of all my stories, hers is currently my favorite from a writing perspective, and I owe a lot of that to Tulip herself, always willing to push and push until something pushes back, because it’s what she thinks she owes to the people who were just as unfortunate as her. And I love her for it.

4)

Hope and Hunter

These two come in a package deal. ‘Small town life-long friendship’ is something I’ve been meaning to try my hand at writing for a while, and though their story is at the very beginning, I like them quite a lot already. A lot of my personal history with friendships and growing up into your twenties is imbued into them, though they are cooler and dumber and more than willing to take those things to their natural extremes.

5)

Ska

Protagonist of my yet in-progress, unnamed visual novel I’m working on. She’s a sheltered Fae changeling with a death sentence hanging over her head, and a desperate desire to do as much stupid shit as possible before something ends up killing her. She has a bat and absolutely sucks at using it, and she’s hopelessly in love with both of her best friends. I love her deeply, and I hope I can share her with everyone soon.

6)

Shadi

Absolute trash human being, possibly the worst woman in Sinnoh, lover of drama and shadow magic and also Dark Souls. What if an older sister was allowed to be as evil as her little heart desired? Well, that’s Shadi. Obviously there’s more to her, but I like making fun of her. I think she’s a funny character on her own right, except when she’s doing horrible shit to my other OCs, which is often. In any case, she’s one of my favorites to write for a reason.

7)

Eatos

Eatos is... weird. They don’t have a set story, they kinda bounce around a few of my works being mysterious and off-putting and tricking people with smoke/illusion magic. They exist in the same universe as Ska, and in that world at least they’re a human with the power of a Fae artifact. I’ll get more of a chance to develop them someday.

8) (Really old drawing, I didn’t even have a tablet back then lol)

Shadi... 2!

Yeah I have a few characters named Shadi, I just really like the name. Anyway this particular Shadi may be my first actual OC, back when I was... fuck, I dunno, fourteen? I don’t know how relatable this is, but she’s the OC that made me think ‘I’m gonna write her story and become a famous fantasy author and write a bunch of books and-’ and you know the drill. That didn’t quite end up happening, but I don’t regret it much. I did write a book, but my creative goals right now are very different from back then, and I’m happy with that. One step at a time. Still, I care a lot about Shadi for basically getting me into writing fiction, and someday I hope I can write a story that’ll serve as thanks for her.

9

Cole

PC for another Pokemon tabletop campaign that unfortunately never progressed much. Which is a shame, because I like this guy, even if he’s so hard to relate to sometimes that I have trouble writing him. He’s nn ex League/army man who now lives peacefully in Pacifidlog alongside his Electrode called Maradona. He loves dogs to a comical degree (the only part about him I understand) and spends most of his time drinking beer, wishing he could drive fast vehicles and helping out Darya, his neighbor and aspiring contest star.

10)

Machi

Uh... yeah, we’re getting into the really old ones. I don’t remember much about Machi other than she was a hired killer and lived with a guy who did all her murder planning for her because the pay was good and he hated his job that much. It was from her story that Eatos came forth, so it’s a shame that they ended up being so much more interesting to me than Machi. I still like her, though.

11)

Tala

Listen, we all gotta have an edgy OC with a sword, and Tala was mine. Another PC for an even older Pokemon tabletop, maybe even THE oldest. I went around from loving him when I created him, to despising him a few years after and now kinda liking him again, just because he’s so ridiculous in his drama queen ways. He almost rivals Niss in that regard. But yeah, cool sword, tragic backstory, crabby personality, the works. What do you want from me? I loved that shit when I was a dumb kid.

Anyway... there are more of them, but these are the main ones I remember. Of course there’s also Reiko and Percy and characters like that, but they’re different kinds of OCs, and I already posted about them before.

No point to this post other than to have them on here for future reference.

[peace-coast-island]

Diary of a Junebug

Light a bonfire to guide a lost soul home to the wind and stars

The tranquil waters of Tangwei are mesmerizing to gaze at. And funny enough, once again we’ve been hanging around a bonfire at the beach. I mean, it’s the ideal weather for this kind of thing, so why not? It won’t be long before it starts to get dark earlier, which is hard to believe. There’s a bit of a chill in the air now and some of the leaves are starting to turn.

Raiden and Kayo invited me, Daisy Jane, and Almie to spend a short vacation up here since it’s the perfect season for going on boat rides at the river. So we rented a cabin like they suggested and managed to find a place that’s somewhat quiet with a lovely view of the water.

Along with enjoying the sights and waters of Tangwei, we had another reason to visit. This weekend also happened to be Maki’s official induction into the Skylight Dusk Detective Agency. Unexpected, though Raiden said not entirely because of Kayo.

The detective agency, as Raiden and Kayo have said, are a lively bunch. There’s Kiyowara, who’s all serious and no nonsense. And there’s everyone else, who’s on all different levels of chaotic and unhinged. Then again, they’re all geniuses with unusual powers who have been through shit, so they get a free pass for being weird and eccentric and hard to understand.

Now that Maki’s in the group, she and Kayo are trying to get Kamo and maybe even Ayame to join too. Even though the main purpose of the detective agency was for people with unusual abilities to work together, those kinds of people are few and far between, which was why they accepted Kayo and Maki even though they don’t fall into that category. However, Kayo’s a specialized shinobi who’s a part of Galen, and Maki’s a skilled sorcerer from a once prominent clan.

There’s no verdict on whether Kamo’s joining, mainly because he’s not as well acquainted with the agency. However, being a sorcerer hailing from the same clan as Maki, his experience and expertise would make him a vital asset to the team. And although Ayame doesn’t possess any special abilities despite being born in the same clan, she’s said to be good at working with people, especially since she basically raised Kamo and his peers - meaning, she can deal with the craziness that goes on and do damage control when needed.

And what fitting way to celebrate than hanging out at the river? Nothing too extravagant, just a nice, chill get-together with friends. Things have been a little slow for the agency, so now’s the perfect time to plan something like this. And besides, I don’t think you need to plan out something elaborate just to hang out. Sometimes it’s the low key and quiet moments that really stick with you.

Get togethers shouldn’t be a competition to show off how much you can impress others by being a good host or planning to do as many things as possible. Just do what makes everyone happy, even if it means not doing much at all.

Although I say that it’s been pretty chill, that’s not to say that stuff didn’t happen. By that, I mean that tonight’s bonfire was special for because it had something to do with the agency, something that had been hanging over their heads for a couple years that they can finally put to rest now.

Sometimes it’s fun being a spectator, to see things that you won’t normally get to see because to most, it’s mundane, everyday stuff. It may not be quite the same as a typical case, but it was still interesting to see the agency in action. Plus, part of this trip was to learn a little more about the agency, so I’d say I got quite a lot out of it - and so did Kayo and Maki.

Kayo was playing tour guide while we were boating along the river when Sayo received a text from Akinori about an emergency meeting. What I didn’t expect was that Akinori wanted me, Raiden, Daisy Jane, and Almie to join the meeting too. His explanation was that it’s not a private matter and that they needed some outside help too. That explains why Kaiji, Akara, and Elle were there too.

Basically, it had something to do with someone who went missing years ago. That person, Maia, had powers similar to Amane where she could transform into a creature, which was a dragon in her case. According to Sayo, she sought the agency for protection and would’ve become a member if she hadn’t fled. This happened not too long before Amane and Ari joined the group as they were affected by what happened to Maia that they did not want to make the same mistakes later on.

Like Amane, Maia was the target of a secret organization due to her unique abilities. Kiyowara and Akara said they made the grave mistake of underestimating exactly how much danger Maia was in. Going by how the agency - and Tangwei as a whole - operates, they’re used to this kind of thing.

However, the same can’t be said for someone like Maia who’s not used to dealing with that kind of thing. And they don’t blame her - Amane, they said, almost fled too because he also thought that was the safer option as he didn’t want to put the city in unnecessary danger because of him.

After a few run-ins too many with the organization hunting her down, Maia thought it would be better if she left the city and deal with the situation herself. Akara, Sakura, and the agency tried to get her to stay, but they couldn’t convince her, nor there were any better options.

Using whatever money she saved up, the furthest Maia was able to travel to was Chilopoda, which, according to Akinori, is in the middle of nowhere. Kun planned her escape so no one could trace her whereabouts or catch her off guard. Even though the escape route was convoluted - that was how they described it - she managed to leave the city without running into any trouble.

Looking back, the agency felt that things went too smoothly, though I don’t think that really had to do with anything. However, the problems that Maia would face later on had nothing to do with the organization that was harassing her. In fact, they apparently lost interest a couple months later - or, most likely, they didn’t want to admit that they couldn’t find her. So that’s where the story should’ve ended, right?

From here, things get cloudy and unclear. Although we’ve been able to piece a general idea of what happened, there’s still a lot that we don’t know - and we probably never will. All we know for certain was that Chilopoda was descending into chaos. Kiyowara had been sporadically keeping tabs on Maia and knew something was wrong when she didn’t respond right away.

Later, Akara found out that the conflict in Chilopoda was growing from bad to worse. She and Kiyowara had planned to get her, only to find out that the city was on lockdown. War later broke out and communication was cut off entirely. Months later, they received a vague message from Maia warning them not to come anywhere near Chilopoda. And that was the last time they ever heard from her.

For years, Maia’s disappearance has haunted the agency. As time went on, it looked more and more likely that she was dead, especially as Chilopoda was basically decimated by the war. There had been hope that Maia evacuated with most of the city to Apolline, where it was supposed to be safe. But all hopes were dashed when the conflict inevitably reached there too.

Then a couple days ago, Akinori found the missing piece that allowed him to put together what happened to Maia. Someone sent him an envelope full of messages and classified documents between her and an esper she befriended in Chilopoda. The sender was the esper’s brother, who was going through his sister’s belongings when he found a hard drive hidden away.

From their messages, we were able to begin to piece together what happened during that time, as well as the fates of Maia and Winn. Just as the others speculated, Maia did evacuate to Apolline. Based on the messages between her and Winn, they managed to avoid the worst of the destruction in Chilopoda. However, it seemed like their luck ran out in Apolline.

After contacting Winn’s brother, Akinori was able to figure out what happened after Apolline. At least, a general idea. Maia and Winn joined an anti-war group and had several run-ins with the law. Going through the red tape isn’t easy, but Akinori, Kiyowara, and Akara have their ways. The way Apolline dealt with the protests is still a sensitive subject since the authorities covered up a lot of things.

That explains a lot, like why Maia’s message was delayed and no one could get a straight answer. Akinori figured that Maia and Winn tried to take matters into their own hands. And since they were outsiders, that made the authorities see them as a threat.

Raiden felt that the timing of Winn’s brother finding her laptop and the former Apolline officer who still holds a grudge against those who opposed him showing up was no coincidence. The final piece for Akinori was the ribbon he used for the tag on his duffel bag, which happened to be the same exact one that Maia wore in her hair. Just as she suspected, the officer tried to intercept Winn’s brother and Akinori after hearing about the hard drive.

Just as Akinori predicted, the officer was all talk and no spine. As soon as Kiyowara pressed him, he folded. He confessed to harassing Maia and Winn, and when they refused to back down, he got more aggressive. Finally, he got his subordinates to gang up and imprison the so-called rebels. For weeks, they interrogated and tortured them until they were too weak to fight back and threw them out.

Because of the chaos of the war, people were dying left and right, most of them without any form of identification. After digging through the records, Akinori was able to identify Maia and Winn as the two unidentified young women found dead in an alley after a deadly frost that killed a lot of people who were forced to live on the streets.

And that’s the whole story. Kind of a lot to take in. And going by what Akara says, it’s only just the beginning. Though the war in Chilopoda ended in a stalemate, there’s still a lot of political unrest over there, especially with Apolline trying to take advantage of the chaos for their own benefit. Now with evidence from Maia and Winn, Apolline’s Brigade has a lot to answer to.

As for what happens next, Akara says that it’s unfortunately out of the agency’s hands. Sayo and Akinori weren’t happy to hear that, but it can’t be helped. After all, it’s not in their jurisdiction, and they view outsiders as a threat. There’s no point in stirring up even more trouble. But they managed to open something up, and that’s what counts. If it weren’t for Maia and Winn, who knows how long the Brigade plans to keep up with their act of playing ignorant?

Although I wish things could’ve turned out better for Maia and Winn, I’m glad that we finally have some closure for them, and that their deaths won’t be in vain. The agency, especially Kiyowara, Akinori, and Sayo have a lot of regrets for not being able to help Maia. Sayo said she and Amane would’ve been good friends since they had similar personalities and endured similar circumstances. She also said that Kun was haunted by Maia’s disappearance and that later influenced how he approached Amane, Ari, and Lucy when they were thrown into conflict and sought the agency’s protection.

Elle kinda took it hard at first since she, aside from the agency, was closest to Maia and took it pretty hard when she left. What gets to her the most was that Maia kept putting herself down as a coward, someone who flees when there’s conflict. I mean, it’s understandable - if I were in her position, not only I’d want to avoid it whenever possible, but also not end up unintentionally dragging other people into it as well. Overall, it sounds like it was a complicated situation where even if you do the “right” thing, another problem will pop up, and it just keeps piling on. There’s just no winning with these kinds of situations as even a good outcome won’t mean everything worked out.

However, for someone who claimed to be a coward, the kind of person who’s not worth protecting, Maia really stuck her neck out to confront those Apolline guards. There were a lot of protestors, but she and Winn were, by far, the most vocal. Maybe it’s because they both have special powers that they were seen as even more of a threat than just their status as outsiders. According to Tai, Maia was not as passive as she made herself out to be and won’t hesitate to step into harm’s way at the cost of her own safety. She was also incredibly stubborn, the kind to stick to her principles. In other words, she sounded like the sacrificial type.

Like Akara said, there’s still a lot to uncover about the Chilopoda and Apolline conflict as well as Maia and Winn’s final months. Getting closure is more than finding out what happened in the end, it’s also about filling in the gaps in between and using that information to pick up where the story abruptly cut off. They obviously have regrets for how things turned out, and maybe that’ll never go away. But at least they can do something about it, and who knows what comes out of it?

Raiden was right about the agency’s tenacity and their strong sense of justice. There’s a reason why Tangwei looks up to them. They, along with Galen, are what holds this city together. A lot of their members come from different backgrounds, with the one common thread bringing them together being their reason for living.

A lot of these people - at least the agency as a whole - were at their lowest before coming together. They had been exploited for their powers, leading them to hate themselves and feeling like the world was better off without them. It was people like Akara, Sakura, and Kiyowara who gave back their will to live, to live life on their own terms, and to be themselves. To use their powers the way they want to instead of being controlled by someone for their own personal gains. To learn how to accept themselves as they are and that they are allowed to exist, to be alive, because they’re living in this world.

And I wish more people in this world could be more like that. Maybe then, a lot of us wouldn’t be struggling a lot just to get through the day.

That night, we paid our respects to the fallen with a bonfire by the river. It was a bit chilly, so we had the area to ourselves. Elle took Maia’s ribbon that Akinori confiscated from the officer and tied it to a box that contained a couple mementos she had left behind. Winn’s brother had a small box with some of his sister’s stuff as well. Seeing that they were closest to the deceased, they had the honor of lighting the fires and scattering the ashes to the wind.

It was a quiet night, which was fitting for the occasion. Akara’s lived here her whole life and says the river and sea always marks the beginning or end of something. Seems kinda fitting since it’s the main entrance and exit to the city, as well as the place where many have fought various calamities over the centuries. In the end, when we die, we all go back to the same place, wherever that is.

I can’t say what will happen in the future, but knowing the Skyline Dusk Detective Agency, they won’t rest until justice is served and the fallen won’t be buried and forgotten.

May the waters of Tangwei and the flame from our fire guide Maia and Winn back home.

Read on AO3

[meetmyothersouls]

💀 surprise me 🎃

Fuck yes! Now, this is based off of an urban legend I heard when I was like 9. I added smut and changed details (as most people do with urban legends) Hope you enjoy!

Tap-tap-tap

Warnings: smut, scary, fear, death/finding someone dead Halloween themes, not proof read,

The closet at your best friend's Halloween party was dark, cramped and smelled like old clothes that hadn't been worn in years. And to be honest, you couldn't sit on Timothee's dick comfortably in there.

"Fuck, baby," he whispered into your ear as you rode him. His dick slipped out each time you traveled up.

"Ugh, could you have picked a worse closet to do this in?" You asked, not bothering to hide your annoyance.

"I'm sorry," Timothee whined. "I needed you. Immediately. It's your fault for wearing that slutty scarecrow costume. God damn your tits look nice in it."

"Well, I don't see how you can see my tits in this fucking closet. It's dark as shit." You guided his cock back inside you, impaling yourself on him yet again. Timothee groaned as he filled you. "Can we go home? I'll suck your dick while you drive," you bribed, attaching your lips to his neck for added effect.

"Fuck, okay fine."

You sucked in the skin of his neck, humming happily before popping off. You heard the zip of Timothee's pants as you pulled the dress of your costume back over your hips. It was part of the reason you liked the costume, easy access.

"Wait, let me say bye to Ashely," you called to Timothee, who was already making his way to the front door.

"I'll warm up the car."

You checked the kitchen for Ashely, not seeing any trace of her through the bodies packed around the punch bowl and snacks, nor was she in the living room. You jumped at the sound of screams from the overly loud horror movie playing for the guests as you made your way upstairs.

You found it odd that she wasn't anywhere to be found at her own party, but as you turned the corner to her room to knock on her door, you stopped at the sound of whines and moans. You rolled your eyes knowing exactly what was going on.

"Ashely," you called out. The moans stopped, but no one responded. "Don't worry, I'm leaving. Have fun fucking."

"You know," you started as you hopped into the passenger side of Timothee's car. "I love Halloween, but I fucking hate Halloween parties."

"You're weird," Timothee laughed, shaking his head as he put the car in reverse. "But I like weird." He winked and turned on the radio as he drove off into the night.

The drive back home was long and filled with back roads since you moved in with Timothee over the summer. You had just begun to doze off before Timothee turned up the radio. The sound of a radio news reporter interrupting a classic rock station, was heard just as Timothee stopped the car at a red light.

"What is-”

“Shhh, listen.”

“Attention listeners, we interrupt this broadcast to bring you breaking news. A resident of a New York State Psychiatric Institute has escaped and is considered dangerous. Please remain inside your homes until further notice. Lock all doors and windows and do not answer them for anyone.”

Timothee rolled his eyes and turned off the radio. You looked at him wide eyed and locked the car doors. 

“My god, Timothee we’re like 45 minutes from home!”

“Calm down, y/n. We are fine. They’re probably exaggerating the truth anyways.” 

“How can you be so calm?! Clearly, he’s a threat to society if they broadcasted it over the radio!” 

“Hey,” Timothee said, reaching over to place a soothing had on your knee. “It’ll be okay.” 

The light turned green. 

Timothee stepped on the gas, but the car only rolled a few feet forward before sputtering. He slammed the gas again, turning the wheel sharply until he was able to pull the car off to the side.

“You’re fucking kidding,” you said in a voice that contained nothing but fear. “Tell me you’re fucking kidding, Timothee.”

“Uh, hang on. Don’t panic.” 

He turned the car off then quickly attempted turning it back on. A grinding sound that seemed to echo through the night filled the air. 

“We need gas...I think,” Timothee said, calmly.

“Oh, we just need gas?” You slapped his shoulder. “WE JUST NEED FUCKING GAS?!” 

Timothee rolled his eyes. “Come on, y/n. Don’t be like that. Look, we passed a gas station a few miles back. I’ve got a gas can in the trunk and-”

“No. You are NOT leaving me in this car alone and you are not walking to that gas station in the middle of the night with a fucking killer on the loose.” 

Timothee laughed and earned a crazed look from you, which only made him laugh harder. “We don’t even know if he’s a killer. Maybe he’s just some crazy dude who is walking around god knows where. It’s kind of sad really.” 

“What’s sad is that we could be home by now, having sex and instead were stuck in the middle of nowhere, with a god damn killer on the loose. What are we gonna do?” 

Timothee grabbed his phone.

“Shit. No service here.” 

He looked over to you. 

“My phone’s dead,” you said, answering the question you knew he was about to ask. 

A car zoomed by, causing you to jump and yelp quietly. 

“Come on, let’s get in the back, okay? We’ll hide out in the back and when the sun comes up, we’ll walk to that gas station together, okay?” 

Timothee climbed in the back, his long, lanky body laying awkwardly in the too short, too small back seat. He waved toward himself, motioning for you to join him. You sighed, not believing you were in the situation that had unfolded. He pushed his back against the seat, leaving room for you to lay and press against him. You felt yourself relax, until the sound of another speeding car rushed past. You tensed against him, pressing yourself harder against his body. Timothee held you tightly, his hand firmly against your stomach. You felt him harden against your ass. 

“Seriously Timothee?” 

“I can’t help it,” he whispered. “You’re just so fucking hot and your body is just right here all pressed up on me. You also promised me a blow job which I haven’t forgotten about so...” 

You rolled your eyes, turning to face him. His face was incredibly close to yours when you laid in his back seat, you could see the light freckles that peppered his face with what little moonlight the windows let in. 

“I’m scared,” you whispered, pressing your lips against his. 

“I know.” He kissed you back. “So, let’s take your mind off of it.” 

“I’m not sure I can, you know, get myself ready enough for sex right now.”

“I can get you ready,” Timothee answered while a hand traveled up your dress. He pulled your panties down to your knees. “Pull that dress up and sit on my face.” 

“Timothee no. What if someone sees?!” 

“Everyone’s probably locked up in their houses, y/n,” he said, licking a finger and pressing it to your clit. “Plus, these windows are so tinted, no one can see inside. Trust me. Sit on my face.” 

You needed something to take your mind off of being scared and Timothee had already worked your clit enough with his finger that you wouldn’t be able to quit thinking about cumming until he made you. Maybe after you came, you’d be able to sleep through the rest of this shitty night. 

“Okay,” you gave in. 

Timothee smiled wide, moving to lay on his back, the leather seats creaking quietly as he moved. “I can’t wait to taste you.” 

“You’ve tasted me many times,” you said straddling his face. 

“I know and I can’t get enough of-” he hummed the rest into your pussy as he began lapping at your soft flesh.

Instantly, your fears and thoughts all together vanished. This man knew how to eat you. He knew how to move his tongue in ways that made your body shake and toes curl. His hands grabbed handfuls of your ass, pressing you harder onto his face. You closed your eyes as soft moans and hums fell from your mouth and your body relaxed. You dripped into his mouth while his tongue made figure eights around your clit. 

You opened your eyes as you neared your orgasm, only to be brought face to face with a man staring into the window of the back seat of Timothee’s car. His hands were cupped against the glass and beady, black eyes were tightly squinted as if he was trying his hardest to see inside of the car. 

You covered your mouth, trapping the scream that you so desperately wanted to release and slid off of Timothee’s face.

“What? What’s wrong? Did you not like it?” Timothee sat up, wiping his mouth. 

You lifted a shaky hand and pointed to the window behind him.

“Th-there was someone staring inside your car, Tim.” 

Timothee turned around, quickly a hand grabbing the door handle. You pulled him to you before he had the chance to open it. “Don’t you fucking dare open that door.” 

“There’s no one there, y/n.” 

“There was someone there! I saw him. You have to believe me. You have to.” 

Timothee was quiet for what felt like hours. His eyes scanned the car, and he occasionally looked behind him, outside the window. 

“Well, he didn’t see us, if that’s what you’re worried about. These windows are tinted,” he reminded you. 

“Do you think it was the crazy man from the institute?” You whispered. 

“No. The state facility is like...two hours away, maybe more, he would have had to travel pretty far to-” 

The handle of the driver’s side door shook vigorously. Timothee pulled you into him, covering your mouth to keep you from screaming. He was holding his breath and did so until the rattling of the door handle stopped. You looked into his eyes, noticing fear for the first time ever. 

“Now I’m scared,” he admitted. 

He scooted the two of you down back into a laying position. 

“He can’t see us,” he said again. You weren’t sure if he was saying it to you or reassuring himself. “He can’t get in...he’ll go away soon.” 

The man on the outside moved to each door, attempting to open each one. You cried into Timothee’s hand as the car shook and eventually the only sound remaining was a faint tap-tap-tap on the roof of the car. 

You counted seventy-three taps before your eyes grew heavy. 

Fifty more until you sleep overpowered your ability to count completely. 

You awoke to the sound of heavy knocks on the driver’s side door. Timothee shook your shoulder, waking you up the rest of the way.

“I think it’s the police,” he said. 

It was daytime. Sunlight poured into Tim’s tinted windows. 

“Do you think it’s safe to come out?” You asked him, your voice painful against your dry throat. 

“Anyone in there?” A voice called from outside. 

“Y-yes! We’re in here! We were trapped last night. Someone was trying to break in our car. Is it safe to come out?” You called, praying it was. 

There was silence before a different voice chimed in. “Unlock your doors and make your way out. Are you hurt?” 

They didn’t answer your question, which gave you a thick, uneasy feeling deep within your stomach. 

“No, we’re okay.” Timothee answered. 

“We’re with the NYPD, we can give you a ride back into town.” 

Timothee shook his head and opened the door. 

It had to be late afternoon with how brightly the sun beyond the tinted windows of Timothee’s car. As Timothee climbed out, he was greeted by a sheriff who immediately whispered something into Timothee’s ear. Timothee nodded and stood with his back to, waiting for you to join him. You climbed out after him, standing next to your boyfriend. The sheriff leaned over to you and whispered. 

“Walk straight to the sheriff’s car. Do not look behind you.” 

Your heart fell to your stomach at his words.

Why couldn’t you look behind you? 

What happened? 

Timothee grabbed your hand, pulling you to the sheriff’s car. 

“Y/n, let’s go. Let’s do what the man said.” 

“What happened back there? Why can’t we see?” 

“Let’s just go.” 

“I left my purse and my purse and my phone I have to go back.” 

“Y/n come on!” 

Timothee pulled you but you jerked your hand away already turned halfway around when you began to speak, “I have to get my-” 

Your words were cut off by your own scream. 

The sheriff, who was in the middle of cutting the rope that was wrapped around Ashely’s neck and tied around a tree branch of a large oak tree that Timothee parked under the night before, cursed. 

He climbed down and said words to you that made no sense. 

You couldn’t hear them over the tap-tap-tap of Ashely’s shoes as her body swung above the car. 

Tags: @imnotoverlyobsessive @dayafied @soulofendlessbook @fashphotolife @chicchanelcigs @scentedkittenperfection @weasleytwinscumslut @timotheel0ver @mxciscastleintheair @marvelmaniac2000 @lovelyrocker @divine-1 @louievr @love-poems-only @starberry-cake @inlovewithphantasy @alexagirlie @misswestfall @softhecreator @livresjaunes @timmymyluv @inannamoon @harrys-thick-thighs @s-we-e-t-t-ea @timolaurence @its-schmackin-dude @justagirlwhoneedshelp

[gh0stchoir]

Bakugo going out on a date with his FtM!boyfriend and defending him against both homophobes and transphobes. Afterwards, cuddle session with home-backed cookies, hot cocoa and silly movies, possibly with the whole Baku-Squad or just the two of them. Drown me in Fluff!

“My boy.”

Masterlist

Anime: My hero Academia/ MHA

Character(s): Katsuki Bakugou

Pronouns used: he/him (Trans ftm)

Time set point: normal

Warnings?: mineta, mineta being a perv, F AND T SLUR, anxiety attacks, homophobes, transphobes, slurs, threats, not proofread

A/n: I am so soft for this man. I just want to stroke his hair as he calls me his pretty boy MMMH!!

“Mmm Katsuki I don’t know. What if someone says something I don’t know..homophobic?” Y/n fiddled with his hands, glancing at his boyfriend. The blonde squinted at him and scoffed.

“Hah?! They say something like that and I’ll blow their pathetic ass’ up!” Bakugou threatened, scenarios of him blowing people up rang flashed in y/n’s mind. He sighed and gave a smile. He should enjoy their date, afterall with school and everything they don’t get dates that often. Still the thought of Bakugou actually killing somebody for saying something stayed in y/n’s mind.

Y/n smiled softly, leaning his head against Katsuki. It was time like this that y/n got to see his boyfriends soft side. The blonde would let y/n rest against him, let him play with his hair. Y/n was the only one able to do it. And that made him so incredibly happy.

“Remember, I’ll kill absolutely anybody who says anything bad about you. I’d even kill that stupid Kiri if he did that.” Bakugou spat out, his eyes narrowed. He began thinking about the possibilities of his friends deciding to be utter assholes. It was most likely not to happen, but there was still a possibility it could.

“Oh Katsuki you know Kirishima-kun wouldn’t do that. He isn’t like that..plus you know I can defend for myself and-“ Katsuki grunted, interrupting him. His narrowed crimson eyes pierced y/n’s.

“I never said you can’t defend yourself idiot. We both know you you get in situations like that. Remember that time that fuckin’ pervert did what he did?”

“Y/n I didn’t know they allowed girls in here!! I thought you were a guy! Sucks your boobs aren’t that big..maybe it’s that weird tight bra thing you’re wearing..” The short male trailed off, not noticing y/n began to shake. Tears began to brim in his eyes. Mineta just yelled that out, right infront of all the guys. This was the one situation y/n couldn’t seem to handle. What if they thought different of him? What if they thought he was just perving on them?

“B-Bakugou?? Hey hey what are you-“

All of a sudden Mineta was lifted from the ground and was hanging from none other than Bakugou’s death grip. The blonde was visibly angered, his eyes narrowed and his palms heating up by the second. He was so tempted to kill the pathetic grape right then and there. And he would’ve if he didn’t go to prison for quite literally murdering someone.

“You call him any of that shit again, and I’ll make sure to fuckin’ kill you.” Katsuki warned, his aura dark and threatening. Everyone in the room stared at the scene. No one dared to try and comfort y/n, or come close to Bakugou and Mineta. Even Kirishima knew he would get hurt from doing so. They all had to let the scene play out.

Katsuki threw Mineta to the side of the room, Sero immediately restraining him with his tape. Iida ran off to find Aizawa, knowing the pervert would get in major trouble. Everyone else watched Bakugou sat down, pulling y/n into his lap and hugging him. He whispered seemingly comforting things to him, beginning to get y/n to calm down and not continue his panic attack.

Y/n sighed at the memory, snuggling closer to Katsuki. He knew he was defenseless when someone referred to him as a girl. Every time it happened, y/n would freeze up and would not be able to snap back with a snarky remark. He wanted to so badly every time, but his body wouldn’t let him. Thank goodness Bakugou was always seemingly there to help and stand up for him.

“I was sure you were gonna kill him yknow.” Y/n smiled, seeing his boyfriend smirk.

“I was real tempted to. Glad he was taken care of. Just is so stupid how these idiots are so fuckin’ closed minded.” The blonde narrowed his eyes, hoping that for their date, no one would mess with them. They’d have a nice relaxing date and just soak in the time with the other. It sounded like paradise.

“These matching onesies we got are so comfy looking Katsuki!!” Y/n giggled happily as he set down the bags in his hands, taking a seat at the booth. The couple had just finished shopping and were currently in one of the food courts at the mall.

Bakugou smirked as he watched y/n ramble on about the clothes and things they got, his eyes sparkling. He hadn’t seen his boyfriend so relaxed and happy in a couple months. So this definitely was something that made the blondes day.

“Mm Katsuki? Why’re you looking at me like that?” Y/n suddenly stopped and spoke up, tilting his head, resting it on one of his hands. Bakugou only smirked more and crossed his arms, taking a sip of his water.

“Because you’re cute when ya’ talk on about stuff that makes you excited. ‘Specially since lately you’ve been extremely stressed and shit..by the way, it’s been awhile since you got your binder. Need to size down or up?” Katsuki glanced up, shoving a bunch of rice into his mouth. Y/n visibly perked up and thought for a few seconds before breathing in and out, testing out his binder,

“Yeah, now that you say…it feels a bit loose. When do you think I could get one?” Y/n began eating, swinging his legs. He seemingly didn’t notice the few people walking by, not hearing the snickers and them stopping next to Y/n and Katsuki’s booth.

Not getting an answer, Y/n looked up to see a few guys standing next to their booth. They were laughing and pointing to y/n, immediately making him sweat drop. Who were these people? Why were they laughing at him? Y/n didn’t realize, but Katsuki did almost instantly.

“The fuck you four lookin’ at? Got a problem?” Bakugou growled out. If y/n wasn’t there, he would have already have them on their knees and begging for their lives. The group shifted their attention to the blonde, the ‘leader’ of the group stepping up. He held a prideful disgusting smirk, looking Katsuki up and down.

“Oh? What’s this, student from 1a gonna hurt someone who didn’t do anything? How pathetic. You two are both disgusting fucking fa-“

“Refrain from that fuckin’ word, now.” Bakugou interrupted. His hands began heating up, as he stood to meet the groups level. He glanced back at y/n who held his phone in his hand, Katsuki noticing that he had began recording the conversation for evidence. It was a tactic their class learned so it could provide evidence if there ever was cause for arrest.

“Or what? Gonna cause a scene in this mall? Come on Dynamight. Someone with such a badass quirk and going to be a great hero, shouldn’t tarnish their reputation because of a pathetic little tr^nny.” The guy spat out, grinning as he watched y/n shift uncomfortably in his seat.

Bakugou gritted his teeth, grabbing ahold of the mans shirt collar and slamming him down on the ground. He held up a hand, it beginning to let out small sparks. The man shrunk back underneath him, struggling in the blondes grip. “You better scram, or else I will get your ass in fuckin’ trouble. I don’t ever want to see you talkin’ shit again if you’re able to go down so easily.”

Katsuki let go of the man, standing up and watching as the group scrambled off. The pure fear on their faces was almost amusing to the blonde, if only he was in a mood to laugh or watch someone get scared of him.

He quickly knelt down next to y/n, taking one of his hands in his own and using the other to cup y/n’s cheek. His eyes saddened once seeing y/n began to cry. He hated seeing him like that, seeing how other people were so easy to get to him with only a few words. He didn’t get why some people were so quick to act out. He didn’t get why some people could just shuttup and keep things to themselves.

“Baby, baby hey look at me..” Katsuki waited until y/n timidly looked at him, eyes blurry from the nonstop tears. “Don’t you ever listen to them. Or ever think that I’d think about you like they do. You’re absolutely my perfect boy, better than everyone else.”

Y/n cried more, leaning forward and hugging Katsuki desperately. The way he clinged on him was almost like he was going to vanish, leave him alone in the dark like the world did. Like the world continued to do.

“If they ever come back when I’m not there, either find me or get far away as possible. I’m not letting them hurt you again.” Katsuki almost cried himself, his grip slightly growing tighter as the sheer thought of y/n being hurt flashing in his mind made him livid.

The two continued to hold the other, each slowly calming down. Y/n’s eyes were red and his nose was sniffly, and he was visibly shaken up and tired. Katsuki’s eyes were red also, due to a small bit of crying and of his frustration. He didn’t hold his usual resting bitch face, instead a soft expression only meant for y/n.

The couple left the mall, heading back to the dorms. Y/n just wanted to cuddle for hours with Bakugou, be held in his arms and told he wasn’t what people saw him as.

“Mm Katsuki, where are we goin’..?” Y/n rubbed his eyes, glancing at the blonde. He looked back at y/n, leaning to place a kiss to his head and squeezing his hand.

“I wanted to eat some of the cookies we made yesterday, and make some hot chocolate. We can have a cuddle-and-movie session in my room. Sound alright?”

Y/n smiled instinctively, nodding as he watched Katsuki get the hidden container of cookies, being hid from most of class 1a, and getting the ingredients for hot chocolate.

“So, wanna watch (favorite movie)?” Katsuki asked as he prepared the drinks, moving around the small kitchen. Y/n thought for a few seconds, not wanting to seem selfish.

He rolled on his heels and tried to avoid the question. Of course Bakugou caught onto the unanswered question, looking at y/n. “Oi come on, answer me.”

Y/n sighed and lifted himself up on the counter. He swung his legs and crossed his arms. “I’ll watch whatever movie you want.” He looked back at the blonde, flinching when he narrowed his eyes.

“Oh come on, don’t give me that. It’s just a movie, and I don’t dislike the movie so.” Katsuki stood next to y/n, grabbing his hand and intertwining their fingers. “And plus, the others wanted to come and watch aswell, and they all like the movie.”

Y/n perked up at the mention of their friends, also known as the Baku-squad. He looked up to see the group entering the room all in their night clothes and all joking around. Mina was the first to see the couple in the kitchen, quickly running over and pulling y/n off the counter into an almost strangling hug.

“Y/N!! Holy shit you scared me so much!” She ranted on, telling him how if she was there at the incident, she would have put them in their place. Y/n only could smile, watching as his friends surrounded him and telling him how they would of so easily beat the shit out of the men, legally though of course.

“Alright alright, don’t overwhelm him ya’ idiots.” Katsuki pushed them aside, holding a platter full of cookies. He motioned over to everyone where the cups of hot chocolate sat. Everyone quickly grabbed a cup, happily taking sips of the warm drink. “Come on, goin’ to my room.”

Katsuki wrapped his arm around y/n, listening to Denki begin to tell a story of what rather weird and silly incident that happened earlier with him and Sero as they all made their way into the blondes dorm.

“Hm? You asleep?” Katsuki glanced at y/n, seeing him lift up his head and mumbled something. Y/n curled closer to him, shoving his face in his chest. Bakugou let out a chuckle, wrapping his arms around him. The room was filled with the snores and breathing of the sleeping teens, aswell as the occasional small talk between y/n and Katsuki.

“I love you yknow…thank you for today it- meant a lot..” Y/n whispered, snuggling closer. He could hear Kastuki’s heartbeat quicken, as he looked up at him to see a faint blush on his cheeks.

Y/n giggled and leaned up and placed a kiss to his cheek. “You’re cute when you blush Katsuki.”

“Oi shuttup.you’re cuter.” The blonde argued back, huffing. “And I-I love you too, idiot.” He mumbled out, his face feeling hot. Y/n quickly looked up with a smile, as he hugged Katsuki tightly.

He was loved. Something he wished to always have and feel. And Bakugou would always and forever remind him he’s there, that he loves him so much. And that we wouldn’t ever think of him as anything else than his boy.

[rotshop]

help girl i just woke up and im already thinking abt mag s/o again. anyway please consider ;

[ tw body horror, some brief light gore and violence ]

[ note ; reader is SLIGHTLY described. the only thing mentioned is that they have a noticeable, identifying scar on their face

hank + mag s/o

-he knew you even before the boombox incident. he doesn't even really remember how you two first met, he just remembers that you started talking to him and then just kinda kept coming back. at first he wasn't the biggest fan of you since he was 'doing just fine on his own,' but...he admittedly was already really attached to you. they've never been much of a talker and that's especially noticeable to you at that point in time but ,,, they respond enough with signing, nodding / shaking their head, or the occasional speaking that you're able to carry some conversations pretty well.

-he doesn't really. have. a lot of people in his life. you're really his only real close friend, it's kinda hard for him to fully wrap his head around it so !! they chose not to, instead focusing more-so on whatever it was you were rambling to them about that day.

-not super sure of where to put this lmao but ummm ehe . he's actually surprisingly touchy with you????? like. you've hung out at his house a few times and he just like. you'll start out sitting next to each other and you'll end up either laying with your head on their chest or vice versa . its . a little funny . you tease him about it a little and he just flicks your shoulder. also traces your scar a lot if you'll let them, they're not entirely sure why they do it, they just . like asking you about it occasionally.

-also you have scary dog privileges. they might look like any other grunt at that point but they're still tall as fuck and idk man !! something abt getting a blank stare from someone who towers over u would probably make u shut up and mind ur own damn business.

-again, he's not super good at fully recognizing / acknowledging certain thoughts and feelings of his but . yknow. he can definitely tell he at least worries about you a lot more than he would some other grunt he just met. he can definitely tell there's a reason he doesn't mind you touching him, whether by grabbing his hand to go show him something or just placing a hand on his shoulder or arm (most likely arm, again. hes tall. ). they can definitely tell there's a reason that they find themself genuinely enjoying your interactions.

-after the park thing you don't see them for a long time. everytime you try and call him the lines dead, everytime you try and ask others about him you just get choice words, all in all you're pretty much lost on the entire thing. sure, you know what happened but . it just never sits right with you. it doesn't help whenever people ask questions about them or give you wary looks because of your association, half steps back when you take one forward.

-anyway. yeah nevada goes to shit and you get magnified for the aahw. by now you just. don't really talk about hank. surprisingly, you have a little more of your old memories than the average mag !! congrats. problem is they're all foggy enough that you only really distantly decipher them. lmao. you aren't super high on the ladder but you're a pretty tough mag to beat. you're well known enough that other mags tend to hang around you when there's not much else going on. v2 mags especially think it's fun to mess around with you by jumping on your back or otherwise clinging onto you . idk man u've got like . a little family here .

-at one point or another there's an outing youre on that ends up going wrong. you get split up from the rest of your unit and are forced to hide out in some old abandoned building while you wait for backup. you're a little too injured to try and walk all the way back, a heavy gash on your side preventing you from doing too much in the moment. when you hear heavy steps on concrete you're able to give some sort of noise of relief, turning your head to look over your shoulder at whichever agent in your group had finally found you-

-you're instead met with red goggles and the end of a gun.

-any kind of relief is snatched away, you know damn well who it is by just the bit you can see in the dark alone. even standing in the shade between two windows (one of which you were sitting by, probably how they seen you in the first place- if that's the case though, it's a little weird they hadn't just shot at you through it.) you knew it was him. you're already stumblingly forcing yourself up to as much of your full height as you can manage, taking some kind of defensive position even as one of your hands ghosts over your gash. the throbbing pain of it and the feeling of blood sticking and running down your skin is enough that you can't seem to focus on the fact that he won't stop staring at your face.

-it doesn't take long before your legs seem to fail you, forcing you forward a bit as you kneel in some sort of attempt to keep upright. you're too busy hissing under your breath and screwing your eyes shut in pain as your hand covers your side to notice your company stepping forwards. you're snapped back to attention when there's a hand on your face, fingertips digging into your skin as they yank your head down a little further. you know you should be grabbing him, that you should be digging your claws into his torso and ripping him clean in half, throwing whatevers left aside and leaving. you know thats what you were told to do, what you were told they deserved anyway. yet, you aren't. instead, you're just giving some warning growl as you stare at them. you notice how the end of the gun is pointed away from you, how their touch seems to outline the mark on your face.

-"If you try and hurt me, I'll kill you." That's the only real heads up you get before he's crouching down and shoving your hand out of the way, grabbing something from his pocket to get to work on you. you don't fail to notice how little attention they're paying to you (aside from the focus on your wound, of course), that you could just rush forward and slam them into the ground if you really wanted.

-ok im skippin g ahead bc this is already way too goddamn long for hcs DEJWJCS

-anyway. it's a complicated relationship for a while. the others tend to avoid you a little but he just keeps showing up around you. they keep staring at you and just hanging around in your general area. it's not that much of an irritant if you ignore all the weird emotions and thoughts it keeps bringing to the forefront of your mind, forcing you to once again try and meddle with your memories.

-eventually he just starts walking over to you and sitting down next to you. sometimes he doesn't say anything at all, just sitting there and seeming to wait for one thing another- he never seems to find whatever that is, as he always gets up and leaves without a word at some point or another. then they start talking, its just little things at first, point-blank statements you can't say much on. sometimes they're just saying they and the other three will be gone for a bit othertimes it's some half-demand to let them look at the stitches they did on you (semi-related, he's not good at them. the stitches are pretty rough. at one point or another sanford has to redo them properly lmao)

-but then there's one particular night. they do the normal thing, come over, sit down next to you, not say a word. this time though you note how they're facing you. instead of some reminder or a demand for anything, he's pulling his ask down and asking a simple question. 'What do you remember?'

-it's a long conversation. he's talking more than he normally would by a long shot, occasionally stopping whenever his words seem to especially fail him and get stuck in his throat. you don't even really remember moving around, or even him pulling you in any way, you just know you somehow end up laying next to him with your head on his chest.

-whenever the memories do seem to click into place, it's hard. you have a lot of choice words for them yourself, months of being left alone without a word bubbling up with a vengeance, they listen to them. while some mags (such as yourself) do have the ability to speak, the san and dei don't think they've ever heard one with that much emotion in their voice. they've especially never seen a mag just break down like you do, they're both tensing up a little from their far away spot when hank's walking closer to you. instead of you lashing out or swiping at him though, you just sit there while he wraps his arms around you (as best as he can at least, it's a little difficult but he's able to get them around your neck and reach his other hand behind you well enough). you're eventually doing the same to him, though it's more so just your hands resting on their back.

-it takes a good while for proper trust to be rebuilt along with an honest, proper explanation from hank that only you're privy to. eventually though, there's enough trust that you're able to hang around him again without narrowly avoiding an argument or anything. they don't like being super affectionate or 'vulnerable' in front of the other two, so most times they prefer being in your or their room. also they're still touchy lmao, doesn't help that you're mag sized now and so they just want to hold you . its hard to explain, he's never been super affected by others heights and even when he is it's usually a negative thing for him but . for some reason . he just likes being shorter / smaller than you lol ,,,,,,,, hope you like holding them a lot bc that's what you're gonna be doing

-holy shit these are long so . i think .i am going to stop here.

[dongofthewolf]

Hiii! Can I request no.9 from the cliché prompts and fake dating au?

Making Amends

Abby Anderson x Reader

Prompts: 9. “There’s only one bed and we sleep as far away as possible from each other but wake up cuddling” 18. Fake dating au

Warnings: swearing, fluff, hint of angst, Owen and Mel slander (sry I had to)

No pronouns are mentioned for the reader

Link to the prompt list here

A/N: Both tropes are literally my favourite things ever and it was so fun to write so ty for requesting it. It ended up way longer than I intended so uhhh yeah hope you enjoy LOL (esp if you requested it)!!

“What the hell Abby?! Have you been telling people that we’re dating?” You had cornered Abby into a secluded hallway, trapping her against the wall with your finger on her chest accusingly.

There was a flicker of fear in Abby’s eyes as she chewed on her lip nervously. Abby was considerably stronger than you and you probably looked like a mouse trying to intimidate a lion, but you didn’t care.

Abby couldn’t meet your burning gaze, all she replied with was a prolonged “Uhhhhhh”.

“Abigail Anderson, answer me right now or I swear to God-” It was rare for you to whip out her full name. And maybe it was kind of a cheap move, but it was a cheap move that almost always worked.

“Fine!” Abby interrupted, letting out a short sigh and preparing herself for the worst. “I kind of told Owen we were dating and I'm pretty sure he’s been telling other people.”

She said the words as quickly as possible, closing her eyes like a bomb was about to go off. Your reaction wasn't far off to say the least.

“You what? Why the fuck would you tell him we’re dating?” There was venom in your words and Abby flinched just slightly.

You were angry, incredibly so. You and Abby have always been close friends, or more so you had been until she started dating Owen. At first it was small things; cancelling plans or leaving early because she was busy and you completely understood. It’s not like you didn’t want her to hang out with him, and obviously you wanted her to be happy, but eventually it got to a point where she hardly ever spoke to you. Aside from the occasional greetings in the busy stadium, it was like you guys had never even been friends.

Now, after completely ignoring you for the past months, she decided it was a good idea to tell people that you guys were dating? It only seemed right for you to be pissed off.

“I just... Everyone kept looking at me like some sad puppy dog because I broke up with Owen, which normally I can handle. But every single day I kept getting the same sad fucking looks and I couldn’t take it anymore, so I told them I was seeing someone. I never mentioned your name but they kept prying, and prying and you were the first person that popped into my mind. I’m really sorry Y/N.”

You didn’t say anything at first, instead you looked at Abby without a hint of emotion on your face, and even less in your tone when you did finally speak. “Why didn’t you tell me you guys broke up?”

Abby paused, she didn’t know what response she was expecting but it definitely wasn’t that. “I um, I figured you knew. Pretty much everyone in the stadium knows.”

“Yeah well… I didn’t.” You were quiet. A part of you was angry and annoyed, but another part of you pitied Abby. She had never been one to lie, especially about something as petty as this.

Before you could think of something to say, Abby broke the silence. “Listen, I know you probably hate me right now, but I need to ask you a small favour.”

“Seriously?” You nudged Abby’s chest, pushing her into the wall again. The pity quickly dissipated to nothing, leaving you once again with a seething rage.

“Look, I know things between us haven’t been ideal but-“

“Haven’t been ideal?!” You interrupted, the absolute ignorance in her words tipping you off the edge. “Abby, you threw me away like I was trash! We were friends and you left me to hang out with Owen. I didn’t even know you guys broke up because you don’t tell me shit anymore!”

“I’ll do anything Y/N, okay? I’ll do your laundry, clean your room, I’ll even take your shifts for patrols.” Abby’s hands were on your forearms as she spoke. “Please just do this one thing for me and I’ll spend the rest of my life paying you back.” There was sincerity in Abby’s face, a hint of desperation too.

You paused. What could Abby possibly want so badly that she’d be willing to do all this for you? Even though you were angry at her, you’d be lying if you said you weren’t just a little bit intrigued.

“I’ll do anything Y/N, please. There must be something that you want.” Abby pleaded, absolute seriousness in her eyes.

“What I want is to never see you again.” Your finger was pointed at her chest again, poking her lightly.

Immediately you could see the hurt on Abby’s face. Okay, maybe that was a little bit harsh (and kind of petty) but you weren’t just gonna let Abby off that easily. Not after everything she’s done.

“Fine…” Abby paused to contemplate her next words, wiping the sadness from her face. “Fine, after tonight if you do this thing for me, we’ll never have to see each other again, I promise. I just need you to come to this party with me. We don’t have to talk or hold hands or anything and you can spend the whole night hating me, but I just need you there.”

“I-“ You couldn't do that. You couldn’t just pretend and lie to all of Abby’s friends for a whole night… Could you?

“Please Y/N. It’s embarrassing, okay? When we broke up, Mel immediately jumped in to fill my space. Everyone knew it and I had to pretend like I didn’t care so people would stop treating me like a wounded animal. If they find out I lied about you? I don’t think they’ll ever stop seeing me that way.”

You looked at Abby and felt a tinge of sympathy, she looked so sad and desperate, and for a second you even considered it. One night couldn’t hurt, right? Wait, no.

You mentally slapped yourself, trying to snap yourself out of it. You were not going to give in that easily. Nope. This was Abby, the same girl who threw away your friendship like it was nothing, and you were not going to let her use you like this. Not even while she’s looking at you with those sad, blue eyes. Nope, you’re mad, you’re angry, you’re-

“Fine.” Fuck.

“Yes! Thank you, thank you, thank you.” Abby’s eyes lit up as she wrapped her arms around you, lifting you into the air while she let out a breath of relief.

What did you just get yourself into?

—

“I can sleep on the floor, it's really no problem.” Abby offered, there was a slight nervousness in her tone as she stood in front of you shifting her weight on the balls of her feet.

“Abby, that’s stupid. It’s not like I’m infected or something.” You huffed, reaching for the box of matches to light the candle next to you.

Sometime after the party there had been a power outage and the entire WLF base went lights out. Meaning there was no heat and most annoyingly, no lights.

After a night of uncomfortable looks and even more uncomfortable conversations in which you spent most of the party trying to avoid Abby’s friends, she was walking you back to your room when everything suddenly went dark.

The both of you practically crawled to your room before you could locate a light source of some kind. It had been an hour since the power went out and you insisted that Abby sleep in your room, for… safety purposes.

You shook the match till it was out, suddenly you were thankful for impulse buying those candles last week.

“It’s fine, I’ll just crawl halfway across the stadium until I find my room. No biggie.” You couldn’t tell if she was joking, but something in you felt like she would actually do it if you didn’t insist she stay here.

You sighed. “Just sleep here Abs, it’s easier and I’m offering. Plus, I don’t need you army crawling across the entire WLF base. It’s hard on the arms, even for someone as strong as you.”

“You think I’m strong?” Abby smiled teasingly and you couldn’t help but roll your eyes, looking away as you tried to hide the small grin on your face. God, it was hard to stay mad at Abby.

“Shut up and take the bed.” You could tell Abby was reluctant but she still plopped herself onto your bed. She sat awkwardly on the edge, unsure of how this was going to work.

You tried to ignore Abby’s weird energy as you buried yourself beneath the covers. It took a minute for her to actually lay down in the bed but when she did, she was careful to keep her distance. It was pretty funny (and pretty cute) how unsure she was.

After a few minutes of silence you heard Abby whisper your name softly, almost like she wasn’t sure if you could hear her.

Nuzzling your nose into your pillow you whispered back a small “Yeah?”.

“Thank you.” You could hear the genuity in Abby’s voice, how grateful she was for such a simple act and suddenly it hit you, you didn’t want her to leave you alone. You missed this—missed Abby.

Instead of responding you nudged her foot lightly with yours. It was something you guys had done as kids, like a silent way of saying “I’m here.”. Under the dinner table with the Fireflies or during training when you first joined the WLF; it was an unspoken thing between the both of you. An action that spoke much louder than words possibly could.

The both of you laid on opposite ends of the bed, your backs turned to each other. You shifted under the sheets before finally finding a comfortable position, you fell asleep that night to the steady sound of Abby’s breathing.

—

You were first to wake up, confusion washing over you when you felt your head rising and falling. Why the hell was your pillow moving? Then it hit you; it wasn’t the bed moving, it was Abby. Your head lay resting on Abby’s chest, her arm over your back while your limbs were wrapped around her like a giant stuffed animal. The sound of her beating heart was soft in your ears and you could feel her breath coming out in steady increments, blowing lightly against your head.

You weren’t sure what to do about your compromising position. It was already too late for you to leap out of her arms and a large part of you didn’t want to move anyways. So you decided to pretend to sleep until she woke up. That way you wouldn’t have to decide what to do, she would.

Abby woke up shortly after you, you could tell she was awake by the way her breath hitched in her throat upon noticing how you guys were situated. However, instead of jumping out of the bed in a panic, Abby didn’t move either, and it took everything in you to not open your eyes.

After a few moments of stillness, you almost thought she had fallen back asleep. It wasn’t until you felt a light touch on your temple that you realized she was awake. The touch so light you nearly missed it when Abby brushed a small strand of hair away from your face.

Then slowly, Abby pried you off of her and you nearly let a small groan slip from your lips when you felt the absence of her warmth. She gently rolled you over, covering you with the blanket before walking into the bathroom.

That’s when it happened: the ache. A sharp, jarring ache in your heart that you only felt with her— that you haven’t felt since the two of you were best friends. It had left you when you and Abby stopped talking, but it returned just the same when you witnessed the tenderness of her actions. You never thought to put a name to this feeling (and maybe a part of you didn’t want to), but it was near impossible to ignore it.

You couldn’t possibly be harbouring secret feelings for Abby, right? You tried to distract yourself from these thoughts, it was way too early to be worrying about these things.

Feigning tiredness you rolled off the bed and headed towards the bathroom. You knocked on the door and when Abby opened it you noticed she was in the process of redoing her braid.

You leaned against the doorway as you watched her skilled fingers work. “Abs?”

“Hm?” She replied as she tied off the end of her braid.

“I didn’t really mean what I said to you last night… about never wanting to see you again. I’m sorry.” You picked at your thumb anxiously, eyes wandering around the room, looking anywhere but at Abby.

Abby turned to face you, letting the braid fall to her side. “You don’t have to apologize Y/N, I deserve it. I didn’t even hesitate to leave you when Owen and I started dating, and I was-“

“Stupid?” You finished for her, looking up from the floor to meet Abby’s gaze.

“Stupid. And for what it's worth, I’ve really missed hanging out with you Y/N, even if it is under these circumstances.”

“You know… I think I know a way you can make it up to me, if you’re still up for it?” Abby looked at you with a raised eyebrow and you noticed the corner of her mouth curling into a small smile.

“Oh yeah? What would that be?”

“You see, there’s this guy that’s been trying to ask me out for weeks even though I keep rejecting him.” You gave Abby a tiny grin as you continued. “Well, maybe if he found out I was dating a certain soldier who could pound his ass into the ground, then he’d leave me alone.”

Abby nodded her head nonchalantly as she took a small step towards you, crossing her arms across her chest. “You know what’s crazy? I think I have just the person for you.”

[ashintheairlikesnow]

I really wanna know what happened during the painful bath that Nanda promised Jameson a while back. Baths in whump have the potential to be so soothing and excruciating at the same time, which kinda fits Jameson’s whole character don’t you think?

CW: Pet whump, dehumanizing language, intimate whumper, dubcon touch NSFW (not explicit), implied dubcon (fade to black), referenced blood and whipping, sadistic whumper, creepy whumper, creepy comfort, drowning, talk of sui (to escape torture), implied death by drowning (unnamed oc)

r/LetsTalkTrueCrime

NEW VIDEOS of the Box Boy Killer! Never Before Seen!

•Posted by u/oshaycanyousee 14h ago

So I got a really good response to my short series on the mysterious Box Boy Serial Killer (you can find my previous write-ups here, here, and here).

Well, recently I discovered something entirely new that I think you'd enjoy getting a look at! Found among personal items belonging to Nathaniel "Nanda" Matthew Benson: a medium-sized external hard drive containing nearly 750GB of photo and video content.

The hard drive was labeled 'Personal'. Police stated there was a second hard drive labeled 'Professional', but what content was on there, if anything, has never been released.

Technically, neither has this. Someone from within the police department leaked a bunch of videos and photos at some point, and I was able to get ahold of them thanks to a friend of a friend (who shall go unnamed, don't want to tip off whatever FBI agent is watching his internet activity, haha... or is it her or their internet activity... FBI Agent will never know.)

In my writeup on Nanda Benson's life with his Boxie, I didn't have a ton of details on how they interacted with each other. Finding this trove of info definitely changed a few things on how I view their relationship.

Take a look and let me know if it makes you maybe reconsider a few details, too. FYI: This does have nudity and some spicy times! Nothing worse than you've seen on HBO or whatever, but like, fair warning.

[Embedded Video Player With Title: Bathtime With Boxie: NSFW and Yet Somehow Still Oddly Wholesome Kind Of]

The video begins with the tub already filled with water, hot enough to gently steam. It's a gigantic soaker tub, large enough for four people to easily sit without crowding, nestled alongside a window in a truly enormous, incredibly well-lit bathroom. Everything is in shades of white, which makes the person in the frame even more immediately the enter of attention.

A young man with short, shaggy brown hair and dark eyes sits in the tub. He looks up, wrinkling his nose and glancing away. Only then does a bright red mark, darkening already to a bruise become obvious on one side of his neck.

"Don't fucking tape this," He says. His voice is slightly rough-edged, as if he's been screaming, and he sounds exhausted. "That's weird. Not taping the fucking but taping the after bit."

Red welts are visible above the line of water, marking his shoulders and arms. The welts are a deep red that is nearly purple - they are surrounded by bright red irritated flesh.

"Oh, but I like you like this." The voice holding the camera is deep and amused. The camera wobbles slightly and then settles, and soon enough a second man enters the screen. It's clearly Nanda Benson himself, stark naked.

Where the Boxie is heavily bruised and beaten, Nanda himself would be spotless if he weren’t flecked with drying red spots that are clearly the pet's blood.

"Yeah, well." The pet shifts to the side as Nanda steps in, hissing softly in contentment at the sudden burst of heat when he enters the water. He settles down against a bench set in to the side of the tub, and opens his arms.

The pet moves immediately into them, without hesitating. His eyes flicker nervously back to the camera and then away again.

"Yeah, well-... yeah well what, pet?" Nanda laughs as he pulls the Boxie into his lap, toying one hand already damp from the tub over the ring at the front of his collar. "Cat got your tongue after that fun we had together?"

"Tongue's the only thing you didn't take," The pet responds, almost playfully flirtatious. "I guess you'd miss it too fucking much."

"If I took your voice, who would call me a fucking idiot before I fuck him into the ground, hm?"

The pet flushes, looking down at the water, at the slightest pink of his blood still running into it. "Sir-"

"Ssssshhhh. I like you insulting me. I like punishing you for it more." Nanda mouths at the unmarked side of the pet's neck, pulling him back-to-chest where he sits, so he's facing the camera directly again. The pet's back arches when Nanda's teeth dig in, making a soft, high-pitched whine as his head drops back onto the man's shoulder.

The camera picks up the quiet splash of water as the pet tries to move away and is pulled roughly right back, catches the refracted sight of Nanda's hands on the pet's thighs forcing them apart, each of his calves on the outside of Nanda's thighs.

"Please-... H-hurts-"

"You love it," Nanda whispers, and bites down again, right into the crook of the pet's neck where it meets his shoulder. The cry this time is wild with a mix of pain and something darker, the pet's hands moving helplessly up and back to clasp just behind Nanda's head. His back is nearly a bow, every muscle trembling with a need to escape and to hold perfectly still, both at once.

When Nanda pulls back this time, the camera picks up the blood smeared on his teeth before he runs his tongue over them. It finds the light glinting off the fresh blood welling from the new bite along the pet's shoulder.

"It's too much," The pet says, struggling to sit back up straight, turning to look at Nanda. For a moment, his shaggy damp hair and angle hides his expression from the camera's gaze.

The twist of his spine, though, shows the bloodied whiplashes making their way up his back nearly to the nape of his neck.

"It's too much," The pet repeats, in a whisper. "Please. Please, it's too fucking much, if you fuck me again I'll fucking die. Please."

"Now, pet," Nanda teases, flirts shamelessly, running his wet hands through the pet's hair. He grips on tight and forces his head back again. The profile of the pet's face shows the slight bump of a broken nose healed almost perfectly, but not quite. The gasp he makes when Nanda's free hand presses over the welts on his chest is loud enough for the camera to catch. "You know you don't get to say when it's too much."

"You'll f-fucking kill me," The pet protests, voice tight from the angle forcing his collar to dig painfully into his throat. "Please, I... everything hurts so much..."

"You love the pain." Nanda's eyes look up to meet the camera before a more sinister smile finds its way across his face. "I know what you can take better than you do, pet, and I think you can handle one more. Sssshhh, here we go. There..." Nanda exhales softly as the two of them shift in the tub, the pet making a soft pained sound, his hips rolling as he is worked slowly down into position.

Then Nanda chuckles and slides his entire arm over the welts marking the pet's torso, holding him tightly in place. "Now take a deep breath."

"Wh-what?" The pet's eyes widen, comprehension coming a half-second too late. "Wait, don't-"

Nanda's hand gripped into the pet's hair plunges him forwards, bent at the waist, forcing the Box Boy's head suddenly under the water. The pet struggles desperate trying to get his head back up to breathe. Nanda grunts in a rhythm as his hips snap up and down again. He groans, "So fucking tight, goddamn I love you, you fucking slut for me-"

[/END VIDEO]

The video cuts off there, but my friend tells me the rest of it is basically the kind of stuff you have to pay a monthly fee for everywhere else on the internet.

But there's another video, from way later, that I find a really interesting contrast and comparison. Same friend got me this one. It involves Robert, whose write-up you can see right here.

[EMBEDDED VIDEO: Titled Holy Shit, No Wonder He Killed Him]

The screen is black for a few seconds, with the sound of someone taking the cap off a camera before things come into blurry view and then slowly into focus.

The bathroom in this video is tiny. It's barely large enough for everything in it, and a person sitting on the toilet will damn near bash their knees into the side of the bathtub. The grout in the tile floor is dark with old stains, and the tile itself needs either serious scrubbing or an exorcism.

Sitting naked in the bathtub is a young man with long blond hair that hangs in filthy, dirty clumps down to his shoulders. His face is streaked with mud and worse, and he has a black eye that has nearly swelled his left eye shut entirely. His hands are bound with rope stained brown with dried blood, held up in front of him.

His one good eye, maybe blue, follows with a kind of resigned terror the person behind the camera.

He sits in water up to his waist, but by the way he is shivering, it's clear that the water is not even warm, let alone hot. Further bruises mark his ribcage and his legs. One leg juts out in front, and something about it seems like it might be broken.

The camera is handheld, panning slowly from the young man's torn and lacerated heels and feet through his bruised leg - one swollen - and then back up to his face.

"Tell me your name." The voice is Robert Weber's.

The young man's mouth twists in a snarl that fades as quickly as it came and he looks away, to the side of the tub marked with deep soap scum. When Robert's house is searched, there are scratches in the tub as though someone had clawed that deeply into the sides in an attempt to escape. "It's..." The young man inhales, winces at the pain. "It's twe-... Twenty-One. M-My name is... Twenty-One."

"Good. And-... what did we practice saying next?"

The man's jaw trembles visibly onscreen. Then he says, flat and numb, "My name is Twenty-One and I have... two weeks to l-live."

"Perfect. Now I promised you a good scrubbing if you played along downstairs-" The young man flinches, closing his good eye and curling up in the tub as best he can. "-and I will keep that promise." There's a pause, jostling as the camera is slotted into a tripod to continue filming. Then, Robert's voice is suddenly deafening. "Dog! Get the fuck in here!"

The door opens with the creak of hinges deeply in need of oiling, and then the Boxie moves into view. He's skinny, malnourished and underfed, and his hair is roughly cut short in uneven hunks. He has bald spots worn in by the muzzle that is buckled over his mouth, making his breathing an audible rasp. He glares with unhidden hatred.

"Give Twenty-One a bath," Robert says, and his hand moves into view as he pats the Boxie on the head. The Boxie flinches but then forces himself to hold still, closing his eyes as the pat turns into prolonged petting. His muzzle is unbuckled and then removed. Robert's fingers drift over his bald spots, play along the red marks pressed into his skin by the muzzle, move over a scar cut into one side of his mouth that wasn't there in the video with Nanda.

The Boxie is naked but for an old dog collar around his neck.

Robert hums, disappears entirely from view. The door opens and closes again. The sound of a lock clicks.

The Boxie looks at the young man in the bathtub, who doesn't look up. "Fuck this shit," The Boxie mumbles, but he moves - dragging one of his legs a little, and there are ropes tied around his ankles that ensure he can do little more than shuffle - and finally kneels next to the tub. "Are you going to be a shit?"

The young man looks at him with surprise. "You... I've never heard you talk before," He whispers, looking fearfully to the side towards the door.

"You've never seen me without the fucking muzzle before, either," The pet replies. His voice is far rougher than the first video, suggesting long-term damage to his vocal chords. "I asked you something. Are you going to fight me and be a shit about this or no?"

The young man hesitates, then shakes his head. "I couldn't fight if I wanted to anymore," He says, like a man confessing a sin. "It all hurts too much. You know? I had a girlfriend-"

"Stop it." The pet cuts him off and leans over, picking up a stiff washcloth and soaking it in the water until it's soft enough to use again, running it over the young man's shoulders. For all the edge of meanness in his voice, the pet's touch is clearly gentle. "You're going to fucking die here, better if you don't talk about stuff that gets you fucked up first. Forget her."

The young man leans over to give easier access to his back. The soft whimpers he makes show that there must be some grievous injuries back there that the camera can't see. "I-I know I will. Die, I mean. Do I really have-... is it really two weeks?"

"Yeah." The pet takes a bar of soap and runs it over his own hands, rubbing them together to work up a lather. The soap found in Robert Weber's house after his death is Irish Spring and Dove - it is believed he used different soap for different captives according to his own odd whims. "He's put little heart shapes on a calendar he marks off. He'll hurt you a little worse every fucking day and then make you beg for him to end it."

The young man slowly nods, looking at his bound wrists. There's a soft sniff, but he seems too tired for tears. "There's no chance of getting away, is there."

It's not really a question.

The pet answers anyway.

"You're the twenty-first, and none of the others have. What do you think?"

"I-I can't do this."

"You have to." The pet gets a red Solo cup sitting on the side of the tub, fills it with water, and pours it down the young man's back. He hisses and cries out softly in pain. "He doesn't exactly ask your goddamn preferences."

"Help me escape," The young man pleads. "Help me get out of here."

"I'm fucking hobbled," the pet snaps. "He'll be on us both before we even made it out of the hallway. You think I'm fucking stupid? I'm the only one who might not die if I stay good. Come on, lean forward so I can wash your hair."

The young man moves to obey, hands disappearing beneath the filthy bathwater, and then he turns, looking over his shoulder. He and the pet share a long, silent moment. Then he leans over far enough to put his mouth nearly to the pet's ear and whispers something so low that the camera doesn't pick up the words.

The pet inhales sharply.

He looks at the door, and then back to the young man.

"Are you sure?" He asks, and the edge is totally gone from his voice, now.

The young man nods, slowly. "Please," he says, a little louder. "If I have to-... please. Not him. I-I know you'll get punished, but... please. God, please, just this one thing." His hands come back up to grip onto the pet's hand where it lays along the side of the tub.

The young man leans forwards, and his forehead gently rests against the pet's. They are silent for a long moment.

"Please, don't let him be the one to kill me," The young man says. "I know I'm g-going to die, but... let me take that a-... away from him. Please. God, I don't even know your name, but-... please."

The pet swallows, then nods, tipping his head back to press a kiss to the young man's forehead. "I don't have a name. What's your name? I'll remember it. Your real name."

The young man's throat bobs and he whispers into the pet's ear again.

He sits back up, leaning over until some of his long hair falls into the water. "I'm-... I'm ready."

The pet takes a deep, deep breath, moves up to kneeling with his thighs vertical, lays both hands on the back of the young man's head, and says, "I hope it's better, wherever you go."

Then he pushes the young man's head underneath the water.

[/END VIDEO]

According to my friend, there's more to that video as well, but obviously it's been cut to take out the end of the poor guy. Now, my friend swears up and down the pet is crying at the end of the video, that he can see tears, but I'm not sure.

That doesn't really line up with the pet killing people before this, you know?

But one thing it does prove is that the Boxie knows the name of one of the unidentified victims. If he could be found, we could give that man back his name and get his family the closure they deserve.

I know some of you argued with me last time that the Boxie is clearly a VICTIM and not a PERPETRATOR, and I definitely admit this second video maybe suggests you're on to something there.

But I still think we have a Boxie killer on our hands here - I just think maybe I was wrong about why he's killing them at all.

I guess we'll find out if he kills again.

-

@astrobly @finder-of-rings @whump-tr0pes @raigash @eatyourdamnpears @orchidscript @doveotions @pretty-face-breaker @boxboysandotherwhump @outofangband @whumptywhumpdump @thehopelessopus @downriver914 @justabitofwhump @butwhatifyouwrite @newandfiguringitout @yet-another-heathen @nonsensical-whump @oops-its-whump @endless-whump @cubeswhump @gonna-feel-that-tomorrow @whumpiary @burtlederp

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