#fucking time like ill sit there after for a few minutes just ruminating on it again bc it's so good imo

[the-martyr-of-love]

Jeff The Killer: Come Over

“Excerpt from local news paper, ominous unknown killer still at large. The spree of gruesome murders continues as authorities…”  

Piper scrolled past the Facebook article after reading the first few sentences and continued aimlessly scrolling her feed to find something to peak her curiosity. She often did this, sat alone in her basement bed room, procrastinating doing meaningless tasks she deemed more important then the ones at hand, such as work or school.

Her bedroom was a regular sized room with a double bed pressed against the wall in the middle, with her computer desk to one side and her make-up desk to the other. The walls and ceiling of the room were painted in a distasteful bright red which gave the room a heavy unnerving feeling when basking in it for too long. There was only 1 window in the room, above the make-up desk covered with an old dirty curtain which hasn’t seen the washing machine in years. You can only see the ground level of the driveway from the window where occasionally one of the dozen people who live in the house would walk by. The window was old and cracking, common for windows for basements in the foundation of a home.

Her clothes were sprawled out all over the room, which mainly consisted of underwear and leggings. The room held the scent of a cheap no name brand Febreze like product and the stench of body odor occasionally mixed into the smell.  

She opened a new tab and went to Tumblr to see if there was anything worth surfing there. After a few seconds of being on her newsfeed, a notification sound sliced the silence in the room and her eyes filled with light as she finally had something else to do, rather than mindlessly surfing. She received a Facebook message from her ex boyfriend Peter. He asked if he can come over again tonight with a winky face.

Peter had repeatedly lied and deceived her countless times, but this did not bother her. As much as she enjoyed putting others through pain, she enjoyed being in pain just as much. They still slept together plenty after “breaking up” but Piper dare not tell a soul. She was being abused and she knew it. On one occasion he came over and made her do an entire college level essay of over 8000 words and as a reward he throat fucked her and dumped all his semen down her throat into her stomach. Afterwards she was crying in her bed and asked him to stay the night, he simply walked out with his newly finished essay and empty balls and said “Nah I want to wake up in my own bed” and walked upstairs without even a thank you.

Piper pondered before answering the message. Piper told her friends that she was going to start living life for herself after the break up and didn’t want a man to be the main focus in her world. This was just one of the many lies she told the people around her to make herself seem like a dependant strong willed person. She often showed the world this strong side of herself only to indulge in the exact opposite of what she told her close friends and loved ones, to keep life interesting and fun. To Piper people’s feelings were nothing more than a poorly made sauce that clouded the flavor of what she can truly get out of a person. Manipulation was like breathing for her and she did it with such grace and finesse even the most strong-willed person would succumb to it eventually.

She messaged him back saying “Yeah in a bit, I’m going to clean my room and do my dishes and shower first.”

A classic message she sent to everyone before they come over. As she sent the message another notification popped up and her eyes focused on the new person who graced her with attention.

“Hey! we are still hanging out later right?”

Piper let out a deep sigh and closed the chat box without alerting that she read the message.

Blake was told by Piper, that he was Piper’s best friend and did anything for her. It was extremely evident that Blake had feelings for Piper, but she would never admit it. Blake after all was the man she was seeing while still with Peter and she used him as a scapegoat to break off the relationship. To achieve this sense of freedom in which she never felt before. Blake and Piper shared many intimate and deep experiences and told each other their deep and dark secrets. Blake never understood why she would hangout more often with a person who abused her than with someone who was eternally on her side. Piper hated those deep conversations when hanging out with Blake. She had to fake empathy and understanding when in reality she could not have cared less about how he felt.

She enjoyed surrounding herself with people who struggled with addictions and mental illnesses as a sick fetish. It was attractive to her. It was easy to groom these people into a false sense of security and have access to their heads as if strings were attached to her fingers and she made them dance.

Piper had many guys like Blake in her life, and it never dawned on her the severe impact messing with people’s feelings have on a victim. As a woman she lived and played the roll of the victim easily countless times to justify her cruel and manipulative habits.

She opened the chat box once again and wrote “Sorry I have plans tonight :/” Promises to her had less value than the penny and she did not mind creating and severing them at will. Blake responded instantly with a sad face and said,

“Oh I really needed to see you tonight, you promised….”

Piper rolled her eyes to his response and said, “Well I changed my mind.” And that was the end of that, promises can be severed as long as you say you changed your mind.

Piper was about to get up and start organizing her room for Peters arrival when a loud bang was heard outside her window. Instantly she jumped and swung her head around to look at the window. She could see nothing outside at the ungodly hour of 3 am and instantly felt a tinge of fear. She quickly dove towards the window and pulled her curtain shut, as she often did when she got scared. She shook the feeling of fear off and proceeded to pick up her underwear from the floor.

20 minutes went by and she found herself back on her computer and her room still was a pigsty. She was scrolling through her Tumblr feed for the millionth time when the noise came again, but this time louder and with more impact.

Her heart instantly sunk to her chest as the realization that the noise was not the wind started to creep in. It was 3:20 am, there was no reason for anyone to be near her window, let alone in her driveway. She spun in her chair to face the dark creaky window and stared at it for a few seconds. She thought about running upstairs to tell her father but didn’t want to wake him from his deep slumber. She ruminated over the possibilities of what made the noise and just as she was about to push the fear out of her mind the window shattered inwards into hundreds of pieces and a cold winter wind gushed into the room, sucking all the heat out in a heartbeat.

Piper’s brain didn’t register what happened until all the shattered pieces lay still and quiet on the floor. Her heart rate increased and her eyes dilated so large that it seemed she was on some sort of drug. She dug her hands into the armrests on her chair, about to leap up and run out of this now nightmare of a room but before she had time to lift herself from her seat she heard a voice.

“Don’t move a muscle!”

The voice was low and raspy but with enough power to tell that whoever was behind it meant what they said. In that instant a figure flew into the room legs first almost impressively swift and landed in front of the make-up desk.

Piper gazed up at the person, or what she thought was a person now standing in her cold glass filled red room. It was wearing black dress pants and dress shoes and a white hooded sweatshirt with deep dark brown stains which she realized was dried blood. The outfit of this thing was the least of her worries as soon as she caught a glimpse of its face.

Its skin was impossibly white with a wrinkled leather like texture and its eyes were so yellowed that they appeared to be rotting inside its skull. The most terrifying part of this thing’s appearance was its mouth. It had a large permanent smiled etched into its face which spread impossibly from ear to ear as it focused its’ eyes upon her.  

She knew that word-craft wouldn't work here. Just as people's feelings meant next to nothing to her, she knew her words would have no effect on the beast that stood before her. Her lips twitched as if to try to manipulate her way out of the situation, like she had done countless times through out her life but stopped herself. She knew it was futile, even though lies and manipulation flowed so smoothly through her mouth, they were meaningless in the eyes of true evil

After what felt like an eternity of staring at this creature, Piper found that now would be a good time to scream as loud as she could. Just as her mouth was about to open to let out a blood curdling and desperate scream, the thing moved at blinding speed and covered her mouth with its long white fingers.

“Shhhhhhhhh, don’t want to wake up daddy now do we?”  

Its hand was grasped unnaturally tight around her mouth and she could now feel that the skin had the exact same texture as cheap leather. It kept its hand over her mouth staring into her eyes with an inhumane animalistic stare. If the putrid eyes 3 inches from her face wasn’t enough for her to pass out, the stench that emanated from its hands could do the trick. The smell of metallic blood and rotted flesh made her start to cry as the creature slowly released its grip from her face.  

Piper stayed sitting, shivering from the intense fear she just endured and the cold merciless winter air that kept pouring into the room. It started moving its hands towards the pockets of its dress pants and slowly pulled out a large blood-soaked kitchen knife.

The sight of the knife allowed Piper to find her voice again and was about to scream only to be silenced by the other hand crushing her throat in one squeeze. She lay in her chair twitching as this thing climbed on top of her holding the knife high into the air.

“Its late, you should be in bed”

Piper just laid their twitching and closed her eyes, for she couldn’t accept that this was reality and tried to escape into the comfort of her mind.

“Here let me help you, now, Go To Sleep!”

With its hand still crushing her windpipe, Jeff slowly traced the knife on the side of her face until it found its mark in the middle of her forehead. He started twisting the knife back and forth playfully to savor every moment in pure ecstasy. Once he realized he couldn’t help himself anymore, he slowly started to press the knife in between her eyelids and then with one powerful swift thrust, he drove the knife straight into her skull. All that was heard was a satisfying crack as the blade disappeared into the cranium of the cadaver once know as Piper. With her throat crushed she wasn’t even granted to opportunity of a last breath before she died.    

Jeff ripped his trusty knife from out of the dead girls’ skull and licked the knife pridefully with purpose. He glanced around the room with a look of disgust on his face until his eyes fell upon the computer screen. A chat box was flashing, and the message came from a Peter.

“So, can I come or what?”

Jeff rolled the chair with Pipers body to the side and leaned over to the computer screen.

“Come over” Piper replied

As Peter saw this message, he glanced at his clock that read 3:30 am and didn’t bother to answer. He leaped up to drive over to her house in the icy winds of the night.

[ponticle]

Day 1: Wednesday, 2/1, Living Together (Alistair x Anders, Modern AU)

[Read it on Ao3]

[Challenge Masterpost]

Chapter Summary:  Six months after Anders and Alistair almost broke up, they're trying to make their relationship work. Rated M: implied sex, language. Under a cut for length.

[14 days of sequential chapters. Anders' POV, first person, present tense.] (Timeline note: this takes place six months after the second chapter of the main story: Coffee Shop, which was six months after the first multi-day challenge: 12 Days of Anderstair.)

Wednesday, February 1st

The next six months don’t pass as smoothly. I give up my apartment right after that first fight and everything seems okay at first, but we can’t sustain it. Every time his phone rings, I am consumed by jealousy and terror. He’s sweet about it for a while. He reassures me every chance he gets. But eventually, he feels attacked and withdraws from me. We keep up the act in public—we don't want our friends to know—but at home we’re having problems.

“You just have to give me time, Al,” I growl.

He sighs and rolls away from me. We're sweaty and breathless and I want him more than anything, but I just can't.

“Al…” I curl in behind his back and pull on his shoulder, “I'm sorry…”

“You don't have to be sorry…” he mumbles. What I can see of his face is miserable looking.

“I just… can't…”

Since we moved in together, nothing has been normal. We made arrangements that very afternoon after he told me...after I thought my life was ending. With imminent destruction seemingly averted, we kissed and made love and breathed into each other. It seemed like we were going to emerge from this hazy nightmare unscathed. I was completely moved in by the following week.

That's when the trouble started. The minute I didn't have an apartment to escape back to, it occurred to me that I was sleeping in a crime scene. I disposed of all the bedding immediately. Next, I rearranged the furniture. When that didn't help, I spent a week sleeping at Isabela's. I claimed she was ill and Fen was away on a business trip. Eventually, though, I had to come back—since then, every night has been a varying degree of stange.

Sometimes, we pretend we’re fine. Sometimes we fuck fervently enough that we forget… That’s what we’re trying to do tonight, only I can’t do it. Sometimes, my body just refuses to let me live this lie.

“What can I do for you, Andy?” he asks.

I shake my head against the skin of his shoulder. I have no idea. “Nothing… I'm going to be fine… I just need some time to sort out how—how to be here with you… now…”

He turns over to face me. When he reaches around my waist and pulls me close, I feel myself recoil.

“I’ll do whatever you need me to…” he says.

“I just… need some time…”

We drift off to sleep without another word. There really isn’t anything to say. I’m already beating myself up for sending mixed signals—whatever that means. And the reality is, we’re getting worse with time—not better.

In the morning, I wake up before him and sneak through my morning routine. I’m out on the subway platform before I even really register that I’m a human in the world.

“Hey, Isabela,” I say. She’s, uncharacteristically, right next to me.

“Oh, hey,” she smiles. “What are you up to?”

“Just heading to work, you?”

“Same,” she shivers and rubs her shoulders. “I think I’m going to die of exposure…”

I smile. “Maybe if you’d wear a coat…” It’s one of the coldest, snowiest winters on record.

“Want to meet me at the hanged man later?” she asks.

I nod as we step onto the train. The ride passes uneventfully. She tells me all about a plan she has to market her new hat shop. After the hats I gave her last Christmas she was inspired and started an etsy, which took off and led to a brick and mortar storefront. It’s all very hipstery.

“I’ll see you tonight, Andy!” she calls.

Anders: We’re at the Hanged Man—want to meet me?

Alistair: I actually made plans with a few friends in the department…

Anders: okay…

Alistair: I’ll see you later, though?

Anders: sure… I’ll be home in a couple hours.

Isabela and I find a quiet little spot at the end of the bar. When we aren’t here with the whole group, this is our favorite place to sit.

“Is he coming?” asks Isabela.

“Not tonight—he's hanging out with some friends from work…” I explain. I'm trying to make it sound like I don’t care. I haven’t expressed my nervousness about the fact that I don’t know who his friends from work are. I also haven’t admitted that I'm terrified every time he’s out of my sight. I'm letting it fester below the surface until I can't stand it anymore—I'm really good at internalizing.

“What friends?” Isabela perks up on her stool at the bar. “Anyone cute?”

“What do you care?” I roll my eyes. “Isn't Fen enough for you?”

“Yeah… but I have eyes…” she laughs. “Any hot lady-doctors?”

I laugh, “You know, I think they’re just called ‘doctors’ when they’re women too…”

She giggles devilishly.

“I don't actually know, though—if any of them are hot… I know they’re called doctors,” I laugh.

“What do you mean? You've lost the ability to see anyone but Alistair?” she laughs haughtily.

“No… I haven't met most of them…”

“Really?” she looks incredulous.

Her reaction makes me feel a little nervous. I’m trying to stay cool, but in the aftermath of this Cullen debacle, everything is a possible fight in the making.

“Well… we’re always so busy hanging out with you guys,” I laugh meagerly.

“I don’t know, Andy,” she’s squinting into her drink. “It sounds like it might be time to make a plan…”

“Why?”

“Because he could be leading a double life,” she says dramatically. “What if he has a wife and two kids?”

“Isabela…” I want to laugh because, clearly, she’s joking, but I’m not any more ready to laugh at jokes like that than I am to have sex with Alistair, apparently.

“Okay, maybe not… but he is a hot piece of ass, Andy…” she teases, “I’d stake my claim if I were you…”

We laugh and drink and eventually head our separate ways, but I’m thinking about what she said all the way home.

Before I know it, I’m walking up to my apartment building. A bright red sports car is idling in the fire lane. I watch disinterestedly as the passenger door opens and a man’s leg protrudes.

“Yeah, I’ll see you tomorrow,” says a voice I know.

I’m still 50 feet away, in a dark spot against the brick of my building, but I whirl and realize it’s Alistair.

He’s laughing. “I know… that’s insane… we’ll talk more soon!” he hesitates—leaning back into the car for a minute—before emerging, “Thanks again…” He turns toward the front door and ducks inside.

I know I shouldn’t be worried—he told me he would be out—but I watch the car pull out of the parking lot and try to get a good look at its driver. It’s some sort of wildly attractive man with a mustache, who I feel like I’ve seen before. I jog to catch Alistair in the lobby.

When I get inside, he’s leaning into our mailbox. “Hey, Sweetie…” he smiles.

“Hi,” I wrap him in a desperate-feeling hug. “How are you?”

Also, who was that really hot guy who just dropped you off?

“Good… you?” he asks, flipping through junk mail.

“Fine… Isabela and I missed you…” I mumble, hitting the elevator call button.

“Oh yeah?” he hasn’t looked up at me, but he’s smiling.

The elevator doors open and we step in. He hits 5 immediately. “I need to take a quick shower… I’m wicked gross…” he laughs and makes a sour face at his clothing.

How did you get so dirty?

“So what were you doing tonight?” I ask. I’m trying to sound nonchalant, but I doubt that it’s working—we’re both on edge all the time now.

“Just hanging out… we actually started in the faculty lounge… it was a hell of a week…” he wipes his hand across his forehead.

Of course, I have no idea what he means—other than a department Christmas party two months ago, I’ve never seen where he works.

He puts a hand on my shoulder and looks at me skeptically. “Are you okay?”

“Oh…” I must have had my ruminating face on. Shit. “I’m fine—just tired… what time is it?”

He glances at his watch, “Almost 11.”

“I might just go to bed…”

“I just changed the sheets… I’ll meet you,” he kisses me just as the doors open.

“Okay…”

He turns on some soft music. It’s jazz—not terribly experimental, but on the line of what I can tolerate. He loves this kind of stuff, but it’s making me have a flashback to that other day.

“See you in a minute,” he pulls his shirt off over his head and wanders toward the bathroom.

I’m horrendously tired and I have clients starting at 7am tomorrow morning, so I undress quickly and curl into the blankets.

What feels like a second later, Alistair is wrapping his arms around me and resting his head on my chest.

“I must have fallen asleep,” I mumble.

He nods—his beard is scratchy. “You looked so peaceful.”

“So you decided to wake me up?” I laugh.

He looks up at me; the point of his chin is sharp against my sternum. “Well, I had to—you’re so sexy.”

I roll toward him and scoot down so we’re nose to nose. “So who was that guy who dropped you off earlier?” I ask. My voice sounds a little strange—like I’m swallowing a frog.

His brow furrows. “What guy?”

“That guy—with the red camaro…” I reiterate.

“Oh… that’s my friend, Dorian… you met him at the Christmas party, don’t you remember? He’s a radiologist...” he says dismissively. He’s already refocused his attention on the skin of my hip. His fingers are circling dangerously close to my dick, which—predictably—is half-hard.

“Maybe I could meet him again…” I suggest.

“Yeah, if you want,” he sounds a bit annoyed now, but grabs my dick and tugs it inattentively.

“Well, I would like to meet your friends, you know…” I back up slightly, slipping out of his grasp.

“What’s the problem?” he props his head up on his arm and looks at me.

“Nothing…” I lie.

He raises an eyebrow. “Really? Because normally you’d be halfway down my throat by now…” he laughs, but it’s humorless. There doesn’t seem to be a ‘normally’ for us anymore.

“Well,” I decide it’s safe to crawl back toward him. “I’ve just been thinking that we spend tons of time with my friends, and maybe you’d like it if we spent more time with yours.”

“Okay…” he nods and kisses me half-heartedly when I lean in. His lips barely open. I fill in a projection of his thoughts in the silence that follows: ‘keeping tabs on me, Andy?’ or ‘Are you planning to put a tracking bracelet on me too?’

“I need to get some sleep, actually…” he says, turning away from me. “We can talk about this more when I’m awake.” He smiles and reaches around to pull me in close behind him, but he’s different. I can feel it.