#ghost farce movies
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tuttle-did-it · 8 months ago
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Turned on The Ghost and the Guest (1943) because it has Sam McDaniel (Hattie and Etta McDaniel's brother) and was written by Morey Amsterdam (Buddy on The Dick Van Dyke Show).
It's a comedy about a newly-wed couple staying in an old dilapidated house they think is haunted.
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The reviews in the day were pretty terrible, but modern day reviews recognise it as a farce of the haunted-house stories that were popular in the day. It's a general B comedy with some fun moments, incompetent coppers, including the man trying to call his bride-to-be on their wedding day and unable to get through for over an hour sending her a telegram to 'get off that blankety-blank phone.'
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yeyinde · 2 months ago
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bos taurus | dogmeat series pt., i
mafia butcher Simon Riley x Reader
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You don't question your brother when he sends you to drop off packages to his friends, but when the enforcer for the 141 shows up to teach the small-time dealer selling on their turf a lesson, you realize there are different ways to pay someone back with pounds of flesh.
(OR: your brother owes them, and Ghost is content to let you settle the debt. after all, if you wanted freedom, then you shouldn't have caught the eye of the butcher of the 141, should you?)
18+ SMUT. noncon. objectification. marking. kidnapping. threats of violence. unsafe sex (manipulation into unprotected sex). rough sex. size difference. breathplay. 10k of foreplay. light pussy slapping. overstimulation. mafia au.
SERIES MASTERLIST | AO3
The goal is to be as quick and discreet as possible. 
In and out, he says, looping the baggie around his index finger. Inside, a snowfall of white powder settles at the bottom. 
Meth this time. Oxytocin the last. 
He ties it tight before giving the bag a quick shake, breaking up the clumps. Satisfied with the way it looks, he turns toward you. Levels you with a sombre look, the picture of a concerned older brother. 
You almost fall for it. Believe it. But the clouded, flat edge to his gaze undercuts his worry for what it really is. A farce. 
“And if it seems sketchy—”
—run.
But your knees are locked, soles glued to the pavement. You can't move even though everything is screaming at you to flee. 
The problem, maybe, is that there's nowhere to go. Escape cut off, filled by a body, a man—even though the idea, the mere notion, of thinking this behemoth as human, flesh and bone; blood and tissue, is laughable when he's so clearly a beast. A monster. 
He fills up your field of vision. Your line of sight was eclipsed by the thickness of his waist, the broad expanse of his shoulders. Thighs that are as wide as the trunk of a tree. Arms boxing you in. A prison of obsidian. A black shadow. 
In the panic that surfaces, surging to the top like an oil spill, you catch a pocket where he doesn't root. A small alcove between the bend of his elbow and the slot of his knee perched against the wall. Enough room for you to—
“Wouldn't do tha’ if I were you.” 
His voice seems to shake the earth, rolling out of his broad chest like the low, brassy roar of a lion; a rumbling thunderclap. 
You feel sick—
The leather covering his hand is cold when it closes around your arm, grip tight. Bruising. Trapping you with just the slightest effort. 
“Go’ a problem, you and I,” he starts, and it's almost conversational. Might be, perhaps, if the clean, sleek outline of his gun inside the unclasped holster around his ungodly thick waist wasn't threatening you more than the grip he has on your arm. “How do you reckon we can fix it?”
You have a meagre twenty dollars in your pocket. Less money for them to take if things go awry. If they decide that the little girl standing in for her older brother was an easier target to rob—money and drugs—than to settle things fairly. Money, goods. Hand over hand. 
Just like the movies, he'd said. 
Just like the movies, you think when he leans in closer, bulk swallowing you whole. 
There is a pockmark in the corner of his crooked, misshapen nose and the crease of his eye. A scar, maybe. It's circular—almost perfectly so; a silver-pink moon on the angular ridge of his nose. Uneven, craggy, like crumpled printer paper. 
It looks almost like—
You think of the mark on your arm. Soot-stained. The smell of burning hair, tissue. The searing pain. 
“I–I can pay you—” you stammer out, tearing your gaze away from the ugly mark on his skin. A cigarette burn. It makes you shudder. 
He cocks his head slowly like a big, dumb dog, but there's something eerie in the ink spill of his eyes. The soft matte of a saltwater crocodile staring at you from beneath the murk. Calculative. Hungry. 
“Pay me?” He echoes slowly, dragging the words out mockingly. “D’you know ‘ow much trouble your brother is in? For sellin’ ‘ere of all places?” 
“No,” you swallow. It feels like your heart is stuck inside your throat. “I–I just—”
“Run ‘is errands,” he finishes cruelly but you can't deny it. “Ain't you a good little sister? Almost makes me wish I ‘ad somethin’ as sweet as you f’myself growin’ up.”
You don't answer. He doesn't seem to be looking for one, really; just empty words to fill space. To echo in your head, barbed wire around any sense of comfort you might have felt. Punishing cruelty. 
He has the upper hand, it says. He's the one who makes derisive jokes while you tremble in his grasp, and try to make yourself as small, as unassuming, as possible. Hiding from the predator in plain sight. Hoping he passes you over for something bigger, more calorie-dense; the effort to catch and consume you expends more energy than the return. Hardly worth it in the long run. The comfort of a risk-reward ratio, right?
But he's opportunistic, it seems. A snacking scavenger. 
Could eat, it says, like a basking tiger keeping a mouse trapped between his paws, letting it squirm and squeak as he slowly licks his lips. Not enough to fill its belly but enough to satisfy the gluttonous urge a predator has to eat. Sharpening its teeth on flimsy bones. Child’s play. 
It's a fitting image, especially with the way he arches over you, looms; fingers looped around the thick of your arm, holding firm, but not—
Not as tight as he could. 
It's a loose-fisted grasp. Lazy, almost. He knows you won't run—or, at the very least, knows you won't get far. 
You peel your gaze away from his, dropping it to the curve of his shoulders—the width of them is just as dizzying as his height; broad, muscular. Pulling it further down the length of his arm, covered in a thick jacket. Black corduroy. Ashes stain the cuffs. A bulky watch juts out from his wrist. Gold. Glinting even in the grey-blue gloom of an overcast evenfall. 
His muscles tense. Hand tightening around your arm, fingers digging hard. Rubbing muscle painfully against bone. 
A warning, maybe. Stop looking—
But something else catches your eye. Blood red. The colour of meat. A fresh kill. 
The back of his hand has a blooming rose. Petals spread out, unfurled. In the middle, a milky skull sits. Stencilled in boxy, yellow letters is ONE-FOUR-ONE—
You know what it means even as your mind whirs, gears turning, turning; plummeting into a tailspin, making excuses as it falls, dragging your heart down alongside it. An area code. Some special date. An inside joke. 
But you've seen the marking around town before. Heard whispers about them from your brother, his friends. 141, they say, and then: mafia. 
The real deal, he said, puffing around a joint his friend rolled. It's too tight. He scoffs, and rips it out from between his lips. Shitty roll, man, make another one—
Mob. Mafia. Gangsters. It seemed so extreme, Hollywood. Fiction, fantasy, all rolled into one. Tony Soprano. Ralph Cifaretto. Michael and Vito Corleone. Tony Montana. Larger-than-life men created on paper. 
You think your brother thought so too. Child's play. Grown men selling weed to kids for two hundred an ounce. Buying themselves sleek, black cars—G Wagons, Escalades, Cullinans—on the Xanax they sell at clubs, parties. Cocaine. Heroin. 
Nothing to worry about. 
Then his friend went missing. 
Sent out on a routine delivery to drop off cocaine to well-dressed men in suits outside of a local butcher shop. A normal, nondescript Tuesday. 
But he wouldn't answer his phone. Texts were being delivered, read, but no chat bubble appeared. Nothing sent back. Calls went straight to voicemail. He wasn't at home. Wasn't at his mum's. No one saw him. Heard from him. 
Your brother didn't call the police. Didn't report him as missing. 
It's just not what they do, he said. You don't involve them. Ever. 
The most shocking part of it was that no one saw anything. He just vanished. Disappeared—stock an’ all, your brother angrily spits—without a trace, picked up off the streets. 
If it was the police, someone would have said something by now. They're hardly discreet. And a rival—
Well.
The biggest problem was that your brother was blindsided by his own small-time success. An accumulation of little wins bolstered his confidence. Overfed his ego. This fallout was tunnel vision. A refusal to see the bigger picture. 
Or the storm clouds looming on the horizon. 
You'd heard of the 141 in passing. Little quips, anecdotes from the passel of friends that congregated around your brother—often getting high on the couch and watching old cartoons; sharing a joint back and forth between gossip. 
Through rheumy eyes, they'd talk about the real gangsters in town—much to the irritation of your brother—and swap tales of run-ins and feats they heard from a friend (of a friend, of a friend). Most of the guys were known already. Soap and Gaz are the biggest names that cropped up on the streets through reputation alone. Both fighters for a gym. MMA, mostly, but whispers of street fighting and extracurricular activities weren't uncommon. 
Liked the thrill of it, they said. But the worst was a man simply known as the Ghost. An enforcer for the 141—a fucking butcher, more like, Liam cut in, jaundiced eyes widening—the guy who took care of problems. 
“Can't be,” your brother scoffed, lifting off the couch to reach in his back pocket for his wallet. A small anthill of white powder poured into the glass table. “They don't get involved in our shit—”
And for the most part, you're sure that's true. Dealing to the same circle of people—outreach spread through word of mouth—seemed paltry in comparison to the scale of an operation that had a money laundering gym. But the problem was that your brother lacked common sense. His ego often got in the way of foresight. The shadow greed casts blocking out the bigger picture. 
Like—
Territory is territory—regardless of what's being pushed. 
You wish there was a modicum of surprise when his friend turned up. Barely recognizable. Sent right to the morgue as a John Doe. 
Most would see the marks on the man's skin—the distinct lack of blood—as an indicator to abandon ship, find the boss, beg for forgiveness, and maybe even try to strike up a deal. But—
That picture is hidden under his anger. Greed. Selfishness. 
He sends you instead. 
You're somethin’ they ain't expectin’, he said. Won't mess with you.
Right. 
He catches the realisation dripping down your brow—beads of sweat gathering at your hairline; anxiety, fear, churning your stomach—and hums. Cocks his head to the side. 
“Was expectin’ ‘im t’show up, though—” he murmurs, hand tightening around your arm. The pressure, the sting, is eclipsed by the gnawing sense of dread biting viciously into you. “Told ‘im if I caught ‘im sellin’ on our streets again, there'd be trouble. Thought we ‘ad an agreement after ‘is friend. But—”
His eyes cut to yours. It feels like a knife to your guts, sinking into soft tissue. A pain you can't breathe around. 
Won't mess with you, you think, and then viciously—sadly—he knew. Was warned by them and still sent you out. Let you take his place for whatever comeuppance they decided he deserved. 
It should shock you. You almost wish it did. Desperately clinging to the threads of surprise that slip through your oily fingers, grasping onto the nothing but empty air. Numbed to the resignation that trickles in. 
Of course he would leave you here to save himself. Letting you fend off whatever they threw at you alone. Leaving you trapped between a brick wall and a wall of a man. 
The excuses are there. They pool on the tip of your tongue—it isn't me, don't do this, it's my (stupid, selfish) brother you want, not me—but you swallow them down and try not to wince at how quickly they dissipate when you do. It doesn't matter in the end because whatever you have to say won't negate the drugs in your backpack. The empty house you'll lead them to—your brother probably squirrelled away somewhere until this blows over. Half-hopeful you'd call him and say everything is fine, the deal went smoothly. You're on your way back. Or that the debt he racked up with them is settled by you. 
It's half-hearted when it slips out again, caught between resignation and dread. A brittle whisper. A prayer—
“I can pay you. Whatever he owes, I can—”
He's already shaking his head. 
“Too late for that, birdie. ‘sides, I don't want your money.”
He moves back, rocking on his heels to put a small measure of distance between your bodies. In that scant space, he drops his gaze, sweeping it over you. His eyes darken.
When he pivots them down, catching yours, you can't stop the shiver that crawls up your spine. 
That calculative gleam is back. 
“But I think we can work something else out.”
Something else turns out to be ushering you into the backseat of an old Ford pickup. 
The door whines when he opens it. Rust flaking off, falling to the ground by your feet. Your mind reels. Spins comparisons to falling snow, dried blood. 
He hauls you in with his hand wrapped around the nape of your neck, thick thigh sliding between your own to boost you up. The protest—a mindless, reactionary squeal at being manhandled—only makes him chuff. A brief flex of his fingers around the skin of your neck is the only warning he gives before it pulls away, and wraps tight around your waist. His thigh flexes, muscle drawing taut as he shifts his foot up to the running board, lifting your feet off the ground and seating you fully on his leg like a child.
(In his hands, you feel like one, too.)
The motion makes you slip, back glueing along his broad chest with a shallow thump. You feel the rumble of his laugh trembling up your spine before you hear it. 
“Careful,” he drawls, oiled with amusement. “Might slip.”
Anything you could say in response is choked back when he bumps the corded steel of his thigh into the seam of your legs, pushing tight to your clothed cunt. His intention is unmistakable this time. Unignorable. And with the rasp of filtered, balmy air against your crown; the pull of a groan when you rock back into his groin, the noise still slicked with mirth, you feel a knot of dread spool tight in your belly. 
Something else is dragged back to the forefront, coiling like wisps of smoke around you. 
And you knew. It's shocking, you think, but not necessarily a surprise. To call it a dichotomy would be lying to yourself, and so, you settle against it. This notion that what he wants—wanted—is flesh. Not money. Not retribution. 
Not to talk things out like you'd hoped he’d try (grabbing onto the idealistic thread, holding it tight to your chest); bringing you in and forcing you to convince your—stupid selfish greedy—older brother that quitting was the only option. Dangling you—baby sister—over his head in an appeal to his emotions. Familial bonds. Love. 
That thread is cut. Snipped. 
Probably severed when they first came to him with an offer. No strikes against him and yet—
The idea of using you to make him bend was expunged from the drawing board. It's not even a plan b, or c, or z. 
And—
You knew. Have known. Maybe that's why it's so easy to swallow around the panic when it lances through your chest, climbs up your throat. You can think and feel and breathe around this dagger in your back like it was there the whole time and you've only just noticed it now. 
Nothing but a small, whispered oh in the roiling polyphony of your emotions. 
It sits there as he manuevers you into the passenger seat of his truck, your head spinning around the indescribable sensation of being woefully cognisant despite the paralysing fugue pressing against the bubble of stark awareness that keeps it at bay. It manifests itself as a numbed sort of shock. Or more accurately—
Indifference. 
Defeat. 
His hand brushes your cheek, the snag of dry leather against humid skin tugs uncomfortably at your flesh, stinging as they dance down to your jaw, the delicate line of your vulnerable throat, skimming over the curve of your breast—
And it's too much. Too present. Too real. 
Autopilot. Dissociation. Derealisation. All of these concepts slip past the bubble of hypervigilance, skidding the surface like a pebble thrown over a lake. Out of reach as he unashamedly gropes you, barely making an effort to mask his actions as just buckling you in. 
You pretend, though. Curl your fists around the sides of the seat, fingers digging into the worn foam. Head lulling back on the headrest. Eyes fixed out the window as he walked around the front, head and shoulders still visible in the windshield despite the height of the truck. It makes your heart leap, stuttering in your chest as the absurdity of his size is brought back into focus. Too big, you think. Grossly so. 
There's a moment when you think about running. Toying with the idea of sliding your hand over the lock, pulling the door open when he's too busy on his side to notice. It'll give you an advantage—a head start. Enough time to slink through the dense forest of concrete buildings lining the industrial zone, and into somewhere safe. Help, a behemoth is chasing me—
But the door clicks. Swings open with a squeal of rusted metal just as your fingers twitch toward the handle. Hope evaporates with each lurch of the cab as he climbs inside, metal creaking under his weight when he settles in the seat. 
From the corner of your eye, you can see his head tip. Chin angling toward you. Staring. Assessing. 
When he speaks, you feel the words like cold fingers dancing maliciously down your spine. 
“‘pected you t’run.” 
It's said idly enough. Nonchalant. Tone even, if a little cruel, and you wonder if this is some test. One that you passed—and failed—in equal measure. 
He doesn't look away. It takes less effort than you wish it did to peel your lips apart, to breathe in the stale, mulch scent of the cab—something overgrown, rotting, and damp—and mumble:
Where would I go?
It seems to amuse him. He hums around a mouthful of mockery before turning away, pawing at the ignition. Gloved hand curling over the wheel. 
“Smart girl.”
You don't feel very smart. In fact, you feel very small. Stupid. Maybe you should have taken a stab at it—running. Tried, at least, to save your own life before the jaws of the beast closed over you like an iron bear trap around your ankle. Fought like hell. Clawed and kicked and screamed. 
When most kids read the back of a cereal box, you learned about secondary locations. You know better than this. 
But the truck sputters to life in a belly-deep rumble, hacking up soot into the air as he pulls the lever into DRIVE. The fight inside of you—however ephemeral it might have been—dies inside the smoke spilling out of his exhaust. Gone so quickly that you begin to wonder if it was even there at all—
Must be, you think, eyes listing outward. Keen. Mapping the twists and turns—a futile effort in the end: he doesn't bother hiding where he's taking you, and you've been down these old, grim streets more times than you can count. 
It doesn't surprise you much when he turns down the street leading to the butcher shop. An old relic that still carries the marks of a booming farming town before it fell victim to industrialisation. Concrete skyscrapers in place of lush cornfields. Warehouses over old barns, ranches. Cattle, meat, produce—it all used to be a mainstay here but now hides under layers of steel. 
The dark windows of the small shop gleam with hazy smears of neon blue, red, when you pull up, catching on the array of rowdy bars across the street. All clubs that belong to the 141. A playground of drugs, sex. More money than you'd ever see in your lifetime. 
It's an uncanny juxtaposition to the quiet, assuming street right across from it. Barber, butcher, accountant firm, antique store. All dark inside and bathed in the smeared stream of glimmering neon as lights flash in the fading glow of twilight. 
He pulls up to the curb in front of the shop. A bold move if the streets weren't so empty. Lifeless. The clubs won't be open for four more hours. Everything else follows the same nine to five as the rest of the world. The shops closed an hour ago, and everyone in town seems to know not to linger here after dark. 
The air seems to stagnate in your lungs when he cuts the ignition. Slips the key into his pocket. 
“Don't get any funny ideas in tha' pretty little ‘ead o’yours.” 
“Funny ideas,” you echo, toneless. Flat. It rolls out with your exhale. Words that might have been smarter to swallow down. “Like following a stranger to a butcher shop?” 
“Lippy little thing, ain't you?” He scoffs. The truck creaks when he shifts. “Ain't go’ no one t’blame but yourself. Told you what would ‘appen if you kept sellin’ in our territory. You should ‘ave known better.”
“That was my brother.” The words slip out before you can stop them. “Not me—”
“‘ow am I suppose t’know that? You were sellin’ where I told ‘im not to—” he has the gall to shrug. Spit these careless words at you like it wasn't life or death. “That's all there is to it, birdie.”
“That's not fair—”
The truck groans under his weight, shaking from side to side as he leans over to push his door open before turning back to you, rolling his eyes. 
“Life ain't very fair, is it?” 
The acerbic words are flicked out from between his teeth; an apathetic, droning curl clinging to each syllable. He doesn't care. Won't. What happens to you next is your choice, and yours alone. 
And he's just doing his job—
“When I get out of ‘ere, you ain't gonna do anythin’ funny—”  
His hand lashes out. Gloved fingers close over the thick of your throat in a blink. Fear lags by a beat, giving him enough time to sink his fingers over your neck, and when it catches up—heart rabbiting in your chest, thudding in your ears; roaring as your pulse thunders beneath the press of his thumb—he’s already got you in his hold. The width forces your chin to lift, stretching up to accommodate the curl of his hand around you. 
Trapped like a rabbit. Cattle to the slaughter. 
He tilts his head down, keeping his eyes on yours as he forces your crown into the headrest, chin lifted up. It's uncomfortable. The curve of your neck cuts off your airways. Constricts your breathing to shallow gasps. An ache grows in your nape. 
The swell of panic, fear, in your eyes makes him hum. But there's nothing echoing back. An absence of light in the deep, placid pits. It looks like still water. A stagnant lake. 
It's unnerving how dispassionately expressive his eyes are. Wild, wild. Vats of ink. Pools of obsidian. Ringed in red-lined ivory. Long, ashen lashes dusting over the smears of charcoal under his eyes. Sleepless nights, maybe. Fatigue. The corners are tattooed with coal, leaving behind a thumbprint in the crease. 
But empty. Barren. No light.
Like black holes. Eating everything around it. Devouring all that gets too close, but giving nothing in return except a bottomless crater in the bruised-plum nebulous of space around it. 
You're not sure you like it. You can't look away. 
But in staring back so hard (getting pulled in deeper and deeper), you catch the twitch in his left eye. A shallow spasm. It throws off the symmetry when he blinks, one eye a sliver of a second behind. Desynchronized in a way that seems so—
Unlike him. 
Disjointed. 
You blink in response. Perfectly synchronous. 
His lid twitches again. Just once. Brief. Pale, pink eyelids drop, unveiling a nebula of indigo veins on the smooth, thin surface as they roll down to half-mast over his eyes, now narrowed slightly in contemplation. Thought. 
Whatever is happening in his head can't be good. It causes a ripple over the lake. Little rings rebound outwards. 
He looks away first. A quick slide of his eyes to the corners, glancing out of the passenger side window. Whatever catches his attention is unknown to you. The anchor on his hand around your throat keeps you still. Immovable.
(Every instinct in your body compels you not to look away from him because nothing outside could ever be scarier, more dangerous, than him.)
A second later, he breathes in through his nose. The fabric of his mask is pulled into his nostrils from the force, forming little black holes under the crooked arch. 
You hadn't really given much thought to his appearance outside of big, massive. But there's a strange asymmetry to the slopes and valleys beneath the balaclava. Trying to map his face, fill in the blanks with just black cloth and vague, lopsided outlines, is impossible. There are too many gaps. Too many missing pieces. You can only wonder, then, what he looks like under it. 
Monstrous, you hope. 
It's just a coincidence that he looks at you the moment the thought passes, but you flinch like a naughty child getting caught doing something you shouldn't when the heavy, dour weight of his impenetrable stare is levelled at you once more. Your heart stutters. It's loud in your ears. In the truck. 
You wonder if he can hear it just as loudly as you do—
Another blink, and his gaze flickers down, settling on the gap between your lips, watching the little tremble they make with each shallow hiccup of air you greedily suck in. His head tilts to the side, eyes never leaving your mouth even as he leans down, masked lips brushing over the beading sweat gathering on your hairline. 
It's a brief touch. A taste. You tremble when he pulls back, fingers tightening around your flesh. 
His eyes are lavascapes.  
“Are you, birdie?” 
You almost forget what he's asking. The conversation hidden between the scant beats it took for him to measure your worth with the blistering intensity of his stare, and the tumult of your feelings still looping around each other in your belly. Knotting up tight into a ball. There's fear, of course there is. 
But the rest—
You'd rather not think about. 
The grip on your throat eases just enough for you to shake your head no to whatever he is asking. Doing anything funny, you think, scrambling at the tangle of memories flipping past, trying to connect the pieces to a puzzle you've already forgotten. 
It must be the right response. Or maybe it's another question like before, a test where there’s no right answer. 
Run, stay. 
Smart and stupid. 
But it seems to appease him—marginally. His eyes crease. Tightening. His other hand folds over your throat, sliding until his palms kiss the sides of your neck in a near-perfect symmetry. 
Something frissons across the blank, placid lake of his expression. Another ripple. A shudder. He leans in for a moment, nose touching the apple of your cheek, and when he breathes in, it’s sharp, reedy. Cold air ghosts over your skin. Long, pale lashes flutter when you swallow. 
He hums quietly under his breath before peeling back. The flatness to his gaze is back; a cold, impenetrable distance widening like a chasm as he uncoils around you. You almost fall for this—this indifference. An icy nonchalance. But you've been eating the minuscule quirks of him just as ravenously as he's been devouring yours. 
There is something there. A fracture, maybe. A splinter. 
But what leaks through from the other side isn't anything close to warmth. It's—
Hunger. 
The shift in your throat draws his molten gaze to your neck, still wrapped tight in his firm grip. Your reflection blooms in the vat of black; eyes wide, all white. Pupils narrowed to a pinprick. Mouth slack, corners tugging downward from the pressure of his hand. The tilt of your head. His thumbs press under your chin, pushing you back further until it feels like your neck might break—
He stops. Shifts. You puff out a shallow breath. 
What looks back at you is unremarkable in the murk. A sliver of fear. A slip of unease.
Eye of the beholder, you think when his breath chuffs out shallowly through the mask. When that hunger is ground down to a raw, esoteric fissure hairlining the black of his eyes. The widening expanse of his pupil. 
You wonder if it's your fear that itches under his skin, dredging up something predatory in his hindbrain. The urge to chase. To bite. 
But the nearly indiscernible flicker of his gaze has you brushing that idea aside when it snags on the expanse of his hand coiled around your throat. Easily swallowing it whole with just his palms. 
You're not a small thing, but the indomitable size of him makes you feel insignificant. 
You think he feels it, too. 
His fingers flex over your nape, stretching. Pulling. It pushes the flat of his palm into your throat, ridges crushed against your trachea. But you can still breathe. It's shallow. Hoarse. A touch painful. Dizzying in a way that makes you feel like you're on a rollercoaster. A teacup ride that just spins and spins and spins—
The gap closes. A sliver of air snakes down your throat. Muscles flexing, shifting. Struggling to swallow around the pinch of his hand. A harrowing task when you feel the gloved fingers link to the first, then the second knuckle, tying together in a too-tight, impossible, noose around your neck. Thumbs overlap. Fingers slide into place. It forms a chain of his hands with no gaps between them. Not a single sliver of skin shows from under the leather of his gloves. 
He makes a sound when they meet—a nasal groan in the back of his throat, mouth clenched shut so the air has no choice but to tear through his nose. It's raw. Fractured. The devastating moan of a tiger nuzzling at its meal. 
Your vision blurs. A black fog presses into the edges, seeping over the arch of your peripherals. Dripping down slowly over the hazy smear of the man. The way the ochre sun peeks over the angular roof of the accountant's office illuminates his back and casts swaths of shadows over his front. Drenching him in murk. 
Despite the flickering darkness shuttering over your sight, you don't blink. Even as the tears prickle at your eyes, they stay open. Fixed on him. Black holes, you think, watching as the fever marbling those obsidian pools recedes. Cools. 
He makes that noise again. Softer this time. A purr from deep in his chest. A breath. And then he peels back. His hands go slack. His shoulders slumping back into the lax, easy spread from before as you gasp hard, nearly choking on the flood of air that roars down your throat. 
Your cheeks feel hot for a moment, and then cold. Icy. You don't have to touch them to know that you're crying. That the deluge clinging to your lashline spilt over, dripping messily to the collar of your shirt. 
The placid lake is back. In the stillness, you heave. Mouth hanging open, chin quivering. His thumb lifts, slides over the curve of your chin. You don't feel it. Numbed, maybe, by the brief kiss of hypoxia. But you see it. Watch as he slides it up to the jut of your lower lip, the black, angular tip tickling over your skin. He follows the seam between skin and lip, tracing it to the corner of your mouth. It's slick. Drool pools in the crease, dribbles over the top of his finger. His eyes drop when he mops it up, catching it on the pad. 
He makes another noise. An arid rasp bubbling between the soft tissue behind the roof of his mouth and the back of his tongue. It's ugly. The shiver you try to fight back slinks through. 
His hand peels away from your neck, movements lax. Slow. The unwinding gait of an idling tiger in no real rush, no hurry, because there's nothing in the frigid Arctic that can touch him. 
You watch him with flared eyes as he brings his thumb to his clothed mouth, and rubs your spit into the fabric of his mask. 
His eyes don't break away from yours once. 
Your spit doesn't stand out against the black of balaclava, but the idea of it burns through you. Throwing you headfirst into a dazed stupor. Dizzy. Confused. 
Satisfied with whatever it was supposed to mean, he clambers out of the truck before coming around to your side. Distantly, you're sure this is what he meant by funny ideas when he passes the headlight, head straight and eyes gliding around the empty street. An opening to run. You know where you are. It would be easy to flee. Hide in the construction zone just ahead, tucking yourself into the tightest corner you can find until help arrives. 
Help, though. 
Officer, please. I got caught selling meth in the mob's territory and now they're going to skin me alive. Please hurry—
Right. 
They'd rather help bury your body than get in the way of the mafia. Gangland violence isn't their concern unless it tumbles out into the street. Fat wallets keep even the most compassionate person quiet. Willing to turn a blind eye. 
You'd be thrown in a cell. Or dropped off at their doorstep. 
Either way—
You won't be coming back alive. 
There's nothing to steel, harden, when he pulls the door open, your nerves long since ground down to fine powder. Nothing to fight against, either. He hauls you out of the truck, hands firm on your skin. Bursting blood vessels easily between his fingers. Barely any effort at all to crack your bones. 
The moment in the car seems miles away when he pulls you in front of him, hand curling over your nape. Any flicker of humanity rendered out when he pinches you tight and shoves you forward. Dragging you back to the butcher shop by the scruff of your neck, leading you down a narrow set of stairs to the basement where pale white carcasses hang from hooks on the ceiling. He laughs when you tense. When your heels dig into the brown-stained linoleum. 
Ain't gonna hang you, he mocks, fingers dipping punishingly into the sides of your neck. “Not yet, anyway—”
It brings little comfort when he drags you to a room in the back, kicking open the door with the toe of his boot before pushing you inside with a nudge against your nape. 
It's dark. Walls covered in stains; mould, mildew. Something you hope is just rust. A single mattress is shoved into the corner; sheets stained with sweat and grime. Tinged a pale brown. Two pillows sit at the top, lopsided and matted with use. Threadbare. A twisted, black heap of fabric sits at the bottom. Wisps of cotton poke out from the cigarette burns. 
A pair of muddy, black boots sit against the wall at the end of the bed. A basket of clothes—jeans, black shirts, black sweaters—is piled on the wall across from the door. 
The room smells of stale sweat and old cigarettes. 
You don't want to be here. The thought is abrupt. Immediate. Unease prickles along your nape, warmed and damp under his gloved palm. Between the look of the room—the floors stained the same suspicious brown, the rumpled bed in a corner—and the smell, you know this is not a place you want to stay. To be trapped inside with a man cut from Everest; whose hands are more dangerous than the sharp end of a knife. 
He must feel the tension brimming beneath your skin; the spark of adrenaline surging through your veins. The clamp of his hand on your nape digs in tighter. Holding firm. 
A breath tumbles out, thickening with mockery. “Like I said,” he leans down, pressing the mountainous width of his chest into your spine. The accentuation in your size difference, how big he is in comparison to you, makes you feel like prey. Small. Brittle, thin. He eats you whole. Spares nothing for later. “I wouldn't do that if I were you.” 
Another nudge and you're pushed further into the room. He leans away, foot shoving back on the door until it snaps shut with a noise that cuts through the gossamer that spun around you, bifurcating reality from dream. The haze is wafted away, and all that remains is a barren room with a lumpy mattress, the smeared stain of rotten blood coagulating on the floor, and his body boxing you in. No escape. 
The rumble of his chest shakes loose the cobwebs spooling across your thoughts. A brush of humid air ghosts along the line of your jaw, dampening the skin below your ear as he leans in close, too close, and purrs: 
“Go on now. Strip for me.” 
Each scrap of clothing you slowly roll off of your body is exchanged for a slip of information about him—who he is (Simon Riley, the name rumbled through the split between his teeth; a low, brassy purr as his eyes gleam in the dark, drilling into the expanse of skin unveiled to him)—and what he wants—
Nothing, he tells you, lifting one massive shoulder up in a half-hearted shrug. Jus’ what's owed to me, pet. For stickin’ my neck out f’you. 
You don't think he did. Not really. But you're harshly reminded of the unsubtle threat. The gun balanced on his massive thigh. So wide, so big, it seems to make it look smaller in comparison. Tiny. A toy. 
Child's play. 
It's made worse, somehow, as he lounges. Sprawls out on the bed, legs spread, pulling taut on the jeans that stretch around the thickness of his upper thigh, bunching around his calves in a half-tuck inside his black boots. Arms flexing. Folded over his broad chest. He rolled the sleeves of his black shirt up to his elbow, showing off an impressive tapestry of harsh, faded black ink. Crisscrossing lines. All asymmetrical. Guns, barbed wire. A bullet with a wide, toothy grin—
All of it knits together; woven into a tangled mass of muscle. Of man, hidden under scar tissue. Rope burns on his wrists cut so deep that the skin is permanently dented in. More cigarette burns hidden inside the mess of ink. Jagged lines—from a knife, maybe; bullet wounds. 
His skin tells stories of a terrible life. Ink spills over the worst of them, but they're visible under the fading charcoal. A series of burns—acid, fire, chemical—and raw, torn skin. He looks like he's been mauled. Pressed into the cold metal of a wood chipper until chunks of flesh were taken out. But even with these deep gouges, craters of missing tissue, he's big. Bulky. Soft—like a tiger. Predatory muscle tucked away under a thick layer of fatty tissue. 
The pillowed pouch of his belly, the softness around his biceps—
It belies the danger underneath. The steel. 
But as scary as it is, it has nothing on his eyes. 
Glinting in the dim room. Dark pools of obsidian that follow each movement with an almost clinical keenness. Sharpened to a razor's edge. 
They might be pretty, you think, if they weren't so intense. So liquid. His eyes gleam like wet ink, languidly rolling along his lashline as you clumsily shed your jacket, your blouse. Shoes, socks. Pants. Until you're in nothing but your panties.
Swallowing around the influx of panic that flutters like little birds beating their wings against the soft walls of your throat, you slip your fingers into the hem, now or never, and—
And you hesitate. 
There's a difference between undressing willingly and doing so to save your life. It should spurn you on—survive, survive, survive—but you freeze at the apex. The summit is within reach. 
You know what happens when you climb it. Cross over the invisible threshold. 
What you've been trying to ignore this whole time, ever since he shoved you into the room with a huff, taking his perch on the edge of the bed, legs spread wide, but in such a terrifying state of vulnerability, nearly nude, you can't any longer. Can't avert your gaze to the stained linoleum in a thinly veiled effort to keep from glancing at the thickening bulge lying prone against his thigh. 
His—
Well. 
You knew what he wanted when he grabbed your face in his hand, squeezing your cheeks until your lips pursed, puckered for him to run his finger along the inseam. Prying your teeth apart. Rubbing his finger over your tongue, eyes dark—full; black holes pulling, tugging you in, dragging you closer to the event horizon framed in a ring of arsenic—and locked on to the sight of his gloved knuckle disappearing into your mouth. Wanting. Hungry. 
You knew. And now—
Committing to it is legions above what you’re mentally prepared for. Nausea brims, churns your stomach. Unease curdling inside of you like rotten milk. 
You don’t want this. But you don’t have a choice, do you?
That notion, the idea, prickles along your nape, raising the fine, peach-fuzz there until it stands on end. 
You freeze. Movements still as every muscle in your body tenses. Coils. You can't do it. Can't—
A huff is dragged out of his chest as he sits up, knocking the gun carelessly to the mattress. His eyes daggering, sharpening into needlepoints, as he stares at you. 
“Gotta do everything f’myself, do I?” 
A grunt and he’s up. Pulling himself to his feet with nothing but the flex of his abdominal muscles. 
There's no reprieve. Not a moment graced to gather your bearings before he crosses the distance between you. Once a comfort, a chasm, now conquered in a single stride.  
The tips of his gloves are cold when they brush over your skin, sliding down the slope of your waist until they meet the hem of your panties. The last piece of modesty you have—
But he doesn't wait.
You're aware that this isn't a non-consensual thriller where the lead looms over the hapless love interest, eyes blazing with passion and need. That each interaction is drenched in a thick, palpable tension tethering the two together. Urges coalescing. Threads pulling taut, magnetic, dragging them closer and closer to the brink until they tumble over. 
This is reality. And he doesn't stare into your eyes with an all-consuming desire as he slowly removes that last scrap of fabric keeping him from devouring you. No. 
His skin-warmed fingers push under the elastic band with a rough shove, curling into the fabric until it tightens across your pelvis and thighs, and then he huffs, annoyed, and pulls. Pulls—
Until something gives. 
The lace yields to the tension in his flexing bicep, and scrapes over your skin as it rips apart in his hand, threads snapping. Popping. 
It hurts. Stings. You hiss, but the noise is ignored when he peels the ruined scrap of fabric from your legs, shoving it into his back pocket with a grunt of satisfaction. He looks back to you, eyes rippling like the dark, ink-black surface of a lake during nightfall, and coos, mocking and mean—
“Not s’hard, was it?”
He leans closer to you, a hand skimming up your spine before his fingers curl around your nape, keeping you still for just a breath before he pulls you into him with too much force. Your hands lift, palms slapping against his thick stomach when the movement nearly topples you over and threatens to break your nose on his chest.
“Makin’ me do all the work when y’supposed t’be payin’ me back? Ain't very nice o’you, is it?”
He touches you like he's taking stock of your worth. Grabbing a heavy, rough palmful of your beast in his hand, squeezing. Testing the weight, the softness, how supple you were between his fingers like he might with a piece of fruit. Meat. Prodding into the flesh, feeling the ripeness there. Gauging whether or not it was a piece he wanted to keep. 
It's demeaning. Humiliating. He treats you like cattle; presses into the elasticity of your muscle, examines every inch of your skin for blemishes. Scouring for imperfections. There's no softness in the way he grabs handfuls of your body—squeezing your breasts, pushing them together, rolling your nipples between his thumb and forefinger; pinching your belly, your sides, your waist; curling his fingers under your thigh, lifting it until it hitches over his waist, cunt exposed and pressed tight to the bulge trapped in his jeans. Your ass is handled rougher than the rest. Each cheek sitting in a hand, squeezed and punched and spread embarrassingly wide. 
He ruts into you as he does it. Pushes the thick, fat length of him into your belly, rolling his hips against you with a heavy, ragged puff of air. 
He feels big. 
Everywhere, of course—it’s not so much his height, but the absurd width of him that really digs into your hindbrain, crossing all those intricate wires until they're tangled up, knotted together. Seeing his thigh, the same scale as a tree truck, slotting between yours—a mere branch by comparison—makes your belly flop. Turn over itself.
The muddled wires spark. Heat pools between your hips.
He could crush your head between them like a bear pushing its paw down on a watermelon. 
It's fear and heat. 
The two work in tandem, forming a seamless cohesion, as they flit down your spine, brimming up the urge to sink to your knees, the need to roll over and show your belly. A paradoxical desire to both run and be chased. 
You're not sure if he's tendering your meat to eat later or if this is the usual type of foreplay he engages in, but once satisfied you're softened up enough for him, he shoves his fingers between your thighs with an abrasive hum that reverberates through his belly, tickling your palms. 
“Tired o’waitin’,” is what he says when your head jerks up, eyes widening in shock. Terror. Horror. “Don't look so surprised,” he huffs, dryly. Voice a rough scrap over your cheek. “What'd y’think was gonna ‘appen?”
“Wait—” but he doesn't. 
His fingers twist, pushing through your folds to graze your clit. It isn't gentle. It's sudden, quick. You gasp more from shock than pleasure; the rough slide of leather feels strange on your flesh, and your head is too muddled to separate fear from bliss.  
Despite that, your body heats. Reacts to his touch. Your lower lip wobbles. You bite back another sound that crawls up your throat when his knuckle catches on your clit again, the pressure just shy of too much. 
The burn, the fever, melts the unease. Shallow gasps spill out. Your cunt clenches, fluttering around nothing—throbbing, growing sticky, slick; achy and empty—when he starts to glide his digit between your folds. Little sawing motions drag each groove and stitch of his gloves over your pebbled clit, each thrust of his hand between your thighs making heat pool between your hips. It's done so clinically, so detached, like his hand rubbing over your leaking pussy was nothing to him. An action to get done, a task to complete. 
It's the shame of that, the embarrassment, that makes you want to weep. Your fingers dig into his chest, nails pulling uncomfortably on the pleated bumps of his jacket as you grip the fabric right between your fists, clinging to him like a newborn fawn—all wet-nosed, teary-eyed; knobbly knees threatening to buck. 
“S–stop—” you mewl when the monotonous rhythm melts into something harder, more intense. Heart thudding in your chest, heat burning you up as he turns his hand, palm up, between your sticky, shaking thighs. He rubs his hand back and forth, curling his middle finger up when he passes your hole, tip pushing against your leaking rim. 
The friction aches. The stretch stings. The leather feels strange, foreign when it pries your folds apart and dips inside of you. 
You don't like it. It's too much—
He makes a sound—a tut—when you pull away from him, standing on the tips of your toes until the blunt curve of his finger slides out of you. He sucks his teeth in a mockery of disappointment before digging his fingers, hard, into the sides of your neck. A warning. You whine. Whimper—
It goes unheeded. And when you press your thighs tight together, shivering at the slip-slide of your skin rubbing against each other, he growls. The noise is inhuman. Animalistic. 
Your act of deviance comes with a swift, bruising punishment. 
His fingers tighten on your neck once again. A warning squeeze as he reaches down with his other hand, grabbing your hip. It keeps you still, immobile, as he bullies his boot between your feet, kicking your legs apart. You're not expecting it. When you stumble, he huffs in amusement. Can't hold yourself up? Want me that bad, huh? Needy fuckin' thing, ain't you?
You don't get a chance to respond. His palm splays wide over your hip, leather creaking as he flexes, stretching his fingers out, tapping some soundless beat out against your skin. Touching you like he's owed the privilege. The right. And in many ways—
Go’ a problem, you an’ I
—he does. 
Brute strength, and an unmatched, almost laughable, dearth in your physicality ensures that he has the upper hand—even without the gun he left on the mattress; darker and flat, a full matte compared to what you were expecting. 
(They're always so shiny in movies, aren't they?)
The threat of it—dull as it might be—roots you to the spot as he slides his hand down, thumb brushing over your belly button, dipping in; pressing until your stomach starts to ache—
It peels away when the whine wells up, sloping down, down. Teases your mound with the tips of his fingers, gentle swipes along the sensitive seam of your belly and pelvis, the sensation is an odd tickle that pulls at your navel, pulses at the apex of your thighs. You mewl—a slow, soft thing that barely makes it out from between your teeth—and he lets his hand drop. Palm flat against the soft flesh of your mons, fingers reaching, spreading, until they curl over your folds. Index and ring finger tucked tight into the hollow bend of your pelvis and thigh. The tip of his middle rubs gentle strokes over the skin above your clit. It's a whisper of pleasure. The idea of a touch. 
Mindless, your hips flit, following his hand—
“Needy.” 
It cows you. Douses you in icy shame. There's barely any mockery in his even, observant tone, but you feel it unfurl over your shoulders all the same. 
He doesn't give you a moment to think, to let the ripples of humiliation take over, forcing you to pull away, hide. His fingers trail over your hood, the pebble of your clit. The sensation, the cool undertone in the leather of his glove, is unlike anything you'd felt before. The thick stitches in the fabric catch on your flesh, nerve endings flaring in pleasure. Heat blooms in your belly. 
It feels good. 
You gasp, head tipping back. His hand winds around your waist when your knees buckle, catching you with a rasping huff—
“Feelin’ good, ain't you?” He pulls you tight to his chest, finger rubbing circles around your throbbing clit. Your cunt clenches, empty, and you whine, needing something more. Something to fill the ache inside of you—
His finger slips. Slides easily between your folds, parting your lips around the thick of him until he reaches your drenched hole. The sounds it makes when he taps his finger against your fluttering core makes your toes curl. Has heat blistering over your cheeks, down the slope of your neck. 
It makes him groan. The low growl makes you throb, clenching in needy little pulls, pulses, as his finger dips into the slick dripping out of you. 
“Suckin’ me in,” he grunts, and pushes his finger inside, thrusting up to the last knuckle. Palm tapping against your folds as his index and ring finger close to give him more room to sink deeper into you. The messy, slick squelch is loud, rolling over the mewling gasps that tumble from your lips. 
Heat floods your belly at the belly-deep groans he lets out when you squeeze around him. 
“Stranglin’ my fuckin’ finger, birdie—” 
He leans down, knocking his forehead against the side of your face. It's more intimate than you were expecting. Jarring. The proximity plays a twisted game inside your head—the urge to run, to roll over coalescing into a paralyzing tailspin. Rooting you to the ground when the warm, damp knit of his mask grazes your cheek. 
The intimacy of his head on yours is eclipsed when you can feel the shape of his mouth through the fabric. 
It's softer than you expected. A plush, fleshy give when he presses his lips against your skin. And—
A gap.
On the side of his mouth, there's a gouge. A pockmark. You feel the gap, the absence, of his flesh when he rolls it over your cheekbone. You try to read the asymmetry of his face—mapping all of these misshapen parts; his mauled lips, the crooked nose that digs into your skin and leaves behind a tacky smear of condescension when he breathes out through his nostrils in a heavy puff of air—and convince yourself that you're doing it so you can bring these patchwork pieces to the police later. 
Survival, you think, your head tilting back as he noses down your neck, tickling along your skin. 
(And when your cunt flutters around the rough, thick drag of his finger petting along your walls, you add: a bodily reaction. That's all it is.)
He takes another lungful of your scent before he rocks back on his heels, pulling away from you. Straightening up. Looming above you once more. 
“Now—”
He pulls his finger out of you slowly and you try not to whimper at the empty feeling that brims up. The way your hips rock toward him, seeking and eager. Wanting.
Needy, just like he said. 
Just a bodily reaction—
He holds his hand up to the dim light flickering over his head, fingers spreading apart as he takes in the glossy shine of his middle finger. 
The gleam of it makes your ears feel hot. Shame pools in your belly as he makes another noise—a groan, deep and low, in the back of his throat. Eyes darkening as his pupils bloom, eclipsing his irises in an endless pool of black. They flicker toward you, listing half-mast in a way to leonine, so predatory, that it shudders through your bones. Run, run—
His hand flexes around your waist when you twitch. A warning. A threat. You tremble when he leans in, masked lips brushing over your cheek once more. Breath ghosting through the fabric, tickling the inside of your ear. 
He smells of war. Of fire and brimstone. Napalm and nitroglycerine. You want to close your eyes, look away, but you can't. His proximity alone roots you to the spot. Turns you into a prey animal, frozen on instinct alone as he prowls around, creeping closer. Maw stretching wide, drooling dripping off razor-sharp canines—
“Let's see if y’worth all the trouble.” 
—and he bites.
Knocks his palm into your sternum, roughly shoving you down on the mattress.
His hands fall to the button of his jeans. “Ready?” He asks, but doesn't seem to care about your answer. Opts, instead, to fall to his knee beside you. It pulls on his zipper, tugs it all the way down with a sharp, metallic sound that cuts through the stagnant air as each ring of teeth is pried apart. 
You can't help it. You look. Dragged there by something primal, magnetic—the morbid curiosity to see the monster for yourself as it tries to take a bite. 
And almost immediately, you wish you hadn't. 
The spread of pale skin, dark curls jutting out from the split of his jeans, makes everything feel more real, and moving fast. Whiplash quick. Happening in a blink:
The shift of fabric as he pulls the mask up over his lips, letting rest on the crooked bridge of his nose. A flash of his mouth, mangled. Mauled. Full of ugly, pale pink scars. A gap where tissue once knit his upper lip together. The bite of crooked teeth as he brings the sticky, wet tip of his glove to his mouth, sinking in. Pulling. Tugging. The roll of skin—a rose, a gun, a skull—all encased in barbed wire; thick rivers of blue-green veins. 
Another pull and it's free. Dangling between his teeth for a moment as he reaches up and shoves the jacket off his shoulders. Rolling and thick. Wide. A broad chest. Soft belly. There's an inch of flesh around the expanse of him—biceps, thighs, calves, chest, stomach, shoulders—but it's a buffer for the corded, streamlined muscle beneath. A layer of fatty tissue. 
Like a tiger, hiding its dizzying musculature beneath a thick, loose pelt. 
When he moves, it flexes. His shoulders roll; muscles bunching together, pulling taut under soft skin. The jacket slides off. Falls to the ground behind the mattress. Forgotten, discarded. The glove is next to go. Dropping from between his teeth, landing just beside your ankle with a muted thud. 
He follows after it. Ink spilling over his lashline as his eyes drop, staring at the roll of his skin tucked on the outside of your thigh. Trailing up to your knee. Your hip. The split of your cunt beneath your other leg; knee tucked to your chest. 
A flash of something, a flicker, is the only warning you get before the back of his hand is nudging the glove off of your skin, replacing it with the rough, calloused grip of his palm. 
You jerk at his touch, flinching back—
He's intimidating above you like this. Leaning back on his haunches but still as tall as you are standing up. The sheer absurdity of his height—his width—is dizzying. Gives you vertigo when you look up. 
His throat shifts when you move. A swallow. Coarse stubble grows down the column of his neck, dusting over his lower jaw, chin. The rest is swallowed by the balaclava bunched around his crooked nose. 
He's not—
He's not handsome. 
A smattering of crisscrossing scars, burns, skin pocked and gouged out in deep pockets along his flesh—the slide of a knife carving away at him, you think; digging down to his marrow—all take away from any sense of modern attractiveness you might feel for him with his broad, jagged nose and full lips. 
But there's something rugged about him. Untamed. Wild. Appealing in a dangerous way. 
You don't know if you would have let this happen under different circumstances. If this minacious beauty of his would have worked on you enough to want it outside of this awful, almost unfathomable trade. 
He's too big. Wouldn't even fit inside of your house—
The graze of his thumb on your angle knocks the thought loose, and you're dragged back to the heat of his hand. Rough and coarse; palms slightly damp from the glove. It tugs on your flesh as he draws it up, a rubbery sort of pain as it catches on the soft, dry skin of your ankle. Your shin. 
He follows behind a second later, pulling himself into the mattress with a huff, knees shuffling forward as he crawls over you. The jostling rocks your body. Makes your breasts shake as he lumbers on the bed, hand still sliding up, up, until his fingers curl over the bend of your knee. 
The bed dips under his weight. Your body sagging, rolling into the divot beneath his knees. Tucked under him. Loomed over. He stares down at you through the cutout of his mask, eyes liquid in the gloam. Pools of melting, dripping obsidian. Black holes. Event horizon—
You look away before it drags you in. Submissive. Softened under the harsh burn of his flat, wide stare. He chuffs when your nose brushes over the thin skin of his wrist, mouth sliding over the thick, pulsing vein stretching down from his inner arm and curling into the bend of his hand. Your lips purse, and he makes that noise again. 
Quietly amused, and—
He shuffles forward until the backs of your thighs are pulled over his, spread out on his lap. Bare. Open to him. 
And he looks. 
And looks. 
Hungry, you think. Quietly amused and hungry—
The notion is wrenched out of your head when he shifts his weight. Watches the folds of your pussy open for him as he pulls your knees wider apart, head dropping between his massive shoulders, gaze drilling into the split of your thighs. Gasping at the sting, the sudden stretch, does little to deter him from shoving your leg down until the outside of your knee touches the bed. Muscles straining. Pinching. It hurts; hipbones twinging in agony. 
But the embarrassment burning through you singes all the pain. 
You're spread open under him. Bare. Legs tangled around his waist, stretched wide around the width of him. Ankles knocking into the hard plains of his lower back each time he shifts. 
“Fuckin’ hell—” he grunts. Snarls. The word ripped up from the back of his throat, forced through the twisting channels of his nose. Nasal and ugly when it scrapes out between his teeth. “Gonna ruin this pretty pussy, birdie.”
It's a threat. A promise. You twist, mouthing your protests into the warm skin of his wrist. 
There's something about his voice—that airy, brassy tone—that strikes a chord deep inside you. Makes heat pool between your thighs, leaking out in a syrupy mess—
His hand peels away from your knee, sliding down your sticky, damp inner thigh until his knuckles graze the sensitive slip of skin sitting between your outer lip and hip. That ticklish, belly-fluttering sensation blooms in your groin as he rubs his scarred knuckles over the crease, catching the slick gathered there on his thick, meaty thumb. 
“Fuckin’ soaked,” he groans, shifting his fingers until they cover the whole of your cunt, cradling you in his hand. He holds you like that for a beat, eyes locked on the way you're swallowed up by the broad stretch of his palm. 
The rough drag of his skin over your folds feels good. An all-encompassing heat spreads over your tender flesh from the curve of your ass to the bump of your mons where his middle finger rests, almost touching the strip of skin between your loins and your belly. Held in his grasp. Cradled in his palm. 
Your thighs twitch. A shallow jerk as your knees try to bend over his hand, but you can't. With his thumb and pinkie tucking into each crease between your outer lip and leg, it keeps you from closing your legs. Hinged by the wide, flat cup of his palm. 
And it shouldn't bludgeon through you the way it does. All heat. All want. Need. A growing ache you can't think around. 
(bodily reaction, you think even as the image of his hand—big with thick fingers, scarred knuckles; streaks of faded, ashy ink etched into milky, veined skin—laying over your pussy, swallowing it whole, sears into your mind—)
“Can feel your little cunt,” he grunts, feeling the pulse, the little throbbing pulls of your muscles as they twitch at the sight. The feeling. Clenching down around nothing. “Greedy little thing, ain't you, birdie?”
Anger paints his words as he rasps them out. A teeth gnashing, jaw clenching frustration that needles into the scorn, the fury, forced out between the tight seam of his crooked teeth. 
You don't understand it. Can't, maybe. 
But it's tucked away as quickly as it appeared, shifting into an ugly, mocking derision. Dry. Acerbic. His teeth flash, lip pulling upward in a sneer—a snarl—before he hums, sliding his hand down. The drag of his damp, rough fingers over your swollen folds has your knees falling open wider around his thick thighs, baring yourself willingly to him. 
Want it bad, don't you? He mocks, and the sound of his voice alone has your pussy clenching tight, belly fluttering around the abrasive scrape of his tone. Brassy and full. Gritty. You whine, hips inching up—
His hand peels off of your slit. The rush of cold air drags another whimper out of you, hips pushing up to chase the heady, molten feeling of his skin on yours. And he's amused by it—a laugh echoes out, crackling in the hollow of his throat at your desperation—but you're too achy, too hot, to feel the simmer of humiliation nipping the apples of your cheeks. 
He's not even making a real effort to pleasure you, to make you feel good, and yet—
Your hips twitch toward him in needy, mewling cants; please sits on the tip of your tongue, cradled between your teeth. Slips out on a shaky, breathless gasp when he meets you on the next buck of your hips, palm slapping over your wet slit. 
The crack echoes through the room. Rough, dry skin on soaked flesh. 
And it shocks you more than it hurts. The sting is there, of course, but it's just an afterthought to astonishment. An eye-widening disbelief masking the way your cunt smarts, throbbing from the slap. Nerves muffled behind the burn in your eyes, the searing heat pooling in your sinuses. 
Wrenched open, unblinking as you stare up at him, your eyes begin to sting, to water. You blink, and feel something hot trickle down your cheek. A tear. His eyes snap to it. Pupils narrowing to a pinprick as he watches it slide down your face, little droplets clinging to your jaw. 
“Poor baby,” he mocks, tilting his head as he tracks the teardrop. “Better behave.” 
Behave. Like he's admonishing a child and not an adult. 
It morphs; rots. Becomes yet another thing you shouldn't feel feverish over. The slick, sticky feeling grows between your thighs as your cunt flutters at the humiliation of it all. 
And deeper—maybe—the bastardized sense of care—
(Punishment is affection in its own, special (awful) way and you've been aching for something just like it, haven't you—)
It's pushed down. Swallowed. And you know in the back of your head that if you keep eating these feelings, you're going to be sick. But you can't stop. Barely breathe around the idea of them sometimes—
“Tha’s’it,” he coos like he knows. Sees them bright and burning behind your irises. Little flickers of need, a smouldering want that you'll never grasp at yourself. 
So he gives it to you. 
The rough slide of his hand, all scarred and dry and calloused, scrapes over your slit once more. A full, flat stroke upward until your clit bumps into the ridge of his palm. Then down, down—
His fingers spread. Ring and index prying your folds apart as he pushes up once more, opening your seam to slip his middle finger through the slick, sticky mess that drips out of your burning cunt. 
“Gonna be good f’me?” 
The slide of his fingers drags the tip up to the bump of your clit. You stare down at it, fixed on the jut of his ink-black knuckles threading through your folds. The crease of his nail as he slips his fingers up higher, pad pushing over your pebbled clit. They're dirty. Grey-black under his nails. Congealed with dirt. Blood, maybe. 
Your stomach churns even as your hips lift. Eager, searching. Hating yourself each second of it. It's gross. Disgusting. 
You want his dirty, thick fingers inside of you—
“When I ask a question—” the tip circles over your clit. A shallow roll that pools heat between your thighs. “I expect an answer.” 
“Y–yes,” you stammer out, hips flexing against his hand. Seeking more of that white-hot bloom of pleasure he brings with each pass of his finger. 
“Good girl—” and you hate how it burns you up from the inside out. “Wasn't s’hard, was it?”
The retort is bitten back with the slow swipe of his finger drawing tight, small circles around your clit. His fingers are rough, scarred. Too dry. The abrasive drag over your soft sensitive flesh makes you whine—a drawn-out whimper nestled between clenched teeth. 
It's too much. 
Too harsh. Too sharp.
He rolls your clit under the pads of his fingers in jerking half-circles. Puts too much pressure on the bundle of nerves than you ever would—your touches are always soft, sickeningly sweet; gentling your flesh until you cum—and the sting, the burn, of it makes your toes curl. Body burn. 
It's good. 
And that's the problem. 
It shouldn't be. His touch shouldn't make you so wet, growing slick and sticky between your spread thighs, bare to his hungry, prying gaze. Shouldn't make you moan. Hips twitching with each stroke of his fingers—
And then he peels away from you, but the time to mourn the loss of his touch, the fear of losing this trembling ember pleasure, is snuffed out when he presses his wet, slick fingers against the inside of your knee. The touch is intentional. Insistent. He makes an impatient noise in the back of his throat before pushing it down to the mattress. The twinge of pain swallowed up as quickly as it forms when he drops to his elbows between your thighs, forearms curling under your legs, and tugs you sharply into him. 
Heat floods your belly when the backs of your thighs press tight to his broad, muscular shoulders, but it's nothing compared to the sight of him on his knees between your legs. It's so obscene you nearly weep—
And then he leans down and licks a long, broad swipe of his tongue over your cunt. 
You hadn't expected it, maybe. His mouth on your pussy, his broken, jagged lips sealing over your pebbled clit. Going down on you seemed too intimate for what he was after. His end goal. It does nothing for him at all—
You realise your mistake when he dips his tongue into your hole and his hips jerk forward. Unconscious. Eager. Seeking. The shifting drags his jeans down his hips, and his cock slips free. 
Most of the cocks you've seen—in porn, pictures, art—jut out from the person's groin. standing at attention, the nasty comments used to say. Jokes whispered on the playground. But his falls. Droops down between big, folded thighs. Skin marbled in shades of red, peach. Deep gouges dot his upper thighs, some sinking deep enough to reach bone. More scar tissue than flesh. 
—than man.
It looks raw. Fresh. Some injuries not too dissimilar to the Wagyu hanging in the front of the storeroom, on display and oh, so out of place in a town where the richest man must be just a hair above the poverty line. 
On paper, anyway. 
You swallow, avoiding his gaze as he pauses, dark eyes watching you with his mouth pressed against your seam. Unmoving. Still as a predator between your thighs, cock visible between the bow of his torso, jutting sickeningly from mangled legs as you gawk at this hideous thing that makes several, half-hearted attempts to spring up towards you, spitting clear, milky liquid all over with each jerk. Tugged down by its own weight. Too heavy to fight against gravity like the rest of the cocks you've seen have done—
Normal cocks, you amend. Textbook. 
His is anything but. 
Ugly, you think again, stomach churning. Roiling. Obscene. An odd thing considering what you're looking at but all too fitting with the way it droops, big, flared head drooling pre-cum all over the bed in long, dangling stands that prickle over your jaws—half nauseous, half hungry, too. Saliva pools in your mouth even though the sight of his cock scares you. Fills your belly with dread. Misery. 
It looks like a bruise. Skin smeared with purples, reds. Patches of pink. Long, thick veins run up from the fattened, full base to the divot of his frenulum. Thick. It hangs low. Drips. 
He raises slightly and shoves his hand down between his thighs, big hand curling over the fat base of his cock. His grip is tight around himself, and he strokes up, from base to tip. It squeezes more precum from the flushed, fat head, and dribbles between your spread thighs in a thick, pearlescent puddle. 
It makes your mouth dry. That twinge in your jaws coming back. Festering. You wonder if he'll make you take that thing in your mouth. Choke you on it. Taste his precum—
“Fuck,” he snarls into your cunt, hand jerking over his cock. “Keep lookin’ at my cock like tha’, birdie—”
You gasp at the rough grunt, the way it seems to tremble through your sensitive flesh. More, though, from the way he sounds. His voice brassy, rough. Unkind, but the words bloom a fresh heat behind your navel. 
His voice does things to you. Things you're not allowed to like. 
Those thoughts are knocked from your head when he bows down again, eyes still fixed on you, and seals his wicked mouth over your cunt. It's hard to compare it to anything else other than being devoured. Eaten in the truest sense of the word. 
His tongue splits down your seam, tip digging into your slick hole. A groan bubbles up at your taste—the soft, fluttering clench of your body trying to drag him in deeper. Needing him deeper. A huff of air ghosts over you, dipped in the same derision as earlier but the harsh slap of skin on skin, his hand working furiously over his cock, makes you acutely aware of how much this affects him. 
“Taste good, birdie,” he grunts, and then sucks your fold into his mouth, laving it with his tongue and teeth until the skin is tender, swollen. “S’fuckin’ good—”
Your breath catches when the crooked arch of his nose presses taut to your clit. Pleasure twisting in a dizzying pirouette inside your belly, winding tighter and tighter—
His nose jerks up on your clit. Lips moulded to your seam, you hear him rasp eyes on me, birdie. Don't fuckin’ look away—
The rough snarl trembles through your body, sinking its teeth into the coil until it snaps under its jaw. Your knees snap around his head as your release locks your joints tight. His name, Simon, a hoarse cry on your lips. You barely have time to bask in the ripples of pleasure throbbing through your body before he rips away from you with his teeth bared, and his chin wet. 
“Fuck—!” he snarls again, shoving your knees apart as he lifts his massive body up from between your thighs. “Gonna fuck you, birdie. Gotta be inside your tight cunt—”
He towers over you, grinding his cock into the apex of your thighs. The drag of his cock—a little damp from being stuck inside his jeans all day; balmy—against the dry skin of your belly makes you shudder. Shivering beneath him as he huffs through the mask. Head bowing. Dipping to look at the way his cock slaps down on you. Cockhead nudging above your belly button, dribbling a small puddle of pre-cum that gets smeared into your skin when he rocks back on his haunches. 
His hand wraps around the thick base of his cock once more, squeezing tight as he grips himself above you. It makes the head swell, engorged with blood. Thickening in his hand as globs of pre-spend leak out onto your belly. That feeling in your jaws comes back—nauseous and wanting. 
He leans back with a hum. “Like my cock, eh, birdie?” 
The crass words bring a fresh bloom of heat simmering in your veins, creeping up your collar. Like doesn't really cover what you feel when you stare at it—his inked hands running along the long, veined shaft—and the unsettled feeling in the pit of your belly rears when he nudges forward, the weeping head of his cock bumping your mound. 
It's humiliating how much want floods through you just looking at it. At him. Disgust, dread, desire. 
You don't answer. Not that you really need to—
Your silence is loud enough. 
“Don’t worry,” he murmurs, the rasp thick in his throat. “M’gonna give it to you, pet—”
And he does just that. Slips the head of his cock down the slope of your mound, letting it graze your clit until you're panting, whining softly for more, and pulls it over your slit until his pre-cum is smeared over your drenched folds. You know exactly what this is even without glimpsing the ugly burn of his possessive desire smouldering in the back of his eyes—ownership. Greed. Hunger. It revels in the stain on your skin, from belly to slit; his, all his. Outside and soon—
In. 
It shocks a creeping sense of worry into you. “Wait, what about a condom—”
He snorts, ugly and caustic. “What about ‘em?” He taunts, and it's flat. Playful. 
“You should—”
He drags his gaze away from the pearlescent smear of his spend on your folds, your clit, and the even, placid look in that stagnant lake tells you everything you already knew. 
“I've never—” you start, wincing at the kernel of fear lacing your hoarse words. “Not without a condom—”
It's the wrong thing to say. Near cataclysmic. He drops his head back with a groan that rumbles out of the slope of his throat, sounding like the rip of a chainsaw. 
“Firsts for everything,” he purrs, and he nudges your entrance with the bare, weeping tip of his cock. 
“But—”
His hand lifts, catching your jaw in the too-wide span of his palm. The force makes your teeth clack together. 
“Need me to gag you, birdie?” 
You swallow. It's not much of a choice. Gagged and fucked raw, or—
Just fucked raw. 
No gag. No condom. You fight back a shiver and wish it was all just from fear. 
“No,” you murmur, like you have a choice. “No gag.”
“An’?” 
“Um. No–no condom, either—”
It's not enough. "What are you gonna let me do to this pussy, birdie?"
You know what he wants. What he's angling for. But there's a line, you think. A delineation between unwilling participant, coercion, and giving into the need that slinks down your spine, and rots inside your belly.
(Being forced to ask for it isn't permission, but what happens when you want it more than your next breath?)
The shame can come later, you think, and feel yourself give in. 
"Cum—cum inside me—"
“Good girl, birdie.” 
You hate what that does to you. How eagerly your body reacts to the dark possessive curl in his eyes when you do something he likes. 
He nudges your entrance again, this time with purpose. Intent. A heavy pressure pushing on your rim. Too tight, you think, and the sting of the first inch he feeds—forces—into you burns, pulsing behind your navel. His tip isn't even in yet, and it's already too much. 
You think about telling him so, offering up your mouth instead, but he leans down on his forearms, and catches your lips in a bruising, biting pantomime of a kiss. A blood-soaked parody with more teeth and tongue—sinking into your lips, nipping hard until the skin splits; catching all that spills with his tongue. 
With his weight pressed against you like this, there's nowhere to run when he cups your throat in his hand, winding the other up above your head, forearm tight on your crown to cage you in. And then he shifts. Bears his hips down on yours until the fat head of his cock pops inside of you. 
Your squeal is chewed up between his teeth, swallowed down with a rumbling groan. 
Caught beneath him, trapped, he works himself into you demanding, heavy thrusts. Each inch burns more than the last. A stinging stretch that brings tears to your eyes. It's already too much and it's not even half. Barely even the tip.
“Can't—” you slur into his wet, demanding mouth. “No more. I–I can't—”
The breath rushes out between his teeth. Your watery eyes drop to the divot above his canine. A permanent snarl. A condescending sneer. 
“You can,” he says decisively, words ground out from between crooked teeth. He presses them to your cheek, nipping at the skin under your eye. Possessive and wanting—
(Hungry for something you can't name—)
“And you will.” 
—Or maybe you just don't want to. Can't look at the thunderous need draped over his mangled, battered face without thinking of the rumble in your chest that echos back against his thundering call—)
Stupid, foolish thing—
The dark promise of his words isn't a threat until his hand tightens around your neck, nails grazing your skin, and he adds, all of me, birdie as he grinds his hips into yours shallowly. Broad chest expanding with each ragged inhale. Cementing his taunt with a steel edge as you try not to come undone beneath him. 
You'll take every fuckin’ inch—
He pulls back until only his glands stretch you open, and you know what's coming when his fingers grip the sides of your neck tight. Holding on. Anchoring you to the bed as he nudges his forearm tighter between your skull and the wall, a protective hold. 
Before you can tense up, bracing for it, or even cry out no, please, don't, you can't take it, he huffs, and then slams his hips forward, splitting you open on the fat stretch of his thick, too heavy cock. 
Maybe it's hysteria, delirium, but the blunt press of his length against your tender, sore walls balms the ache, the sting. The deeper he pushes, the less it hurts. A paradox that leaves you whimpering under his hand, heels digging into the broad stretch of his waist as you struggle to decide if you want to kick him away or pull him closer. 
A war you don't have the power to win when he surges forward, burying himself to the hilt with a growl that shakes the fragile tendons surrounding your heart. Fear, misery. Pleasure, pain. It admixes. Coalescing into a dizzying sense of fullness, unbearable pressure. Catastrophic in its heaviness as your mind reels, struggles to come to terms with the gut-wrenching, heart-aching uncertainty of how you're supposed to go on without having him seated as deep inside of you as he can get. You've never known emptiness before him. Before now. Mere seconds ago. 
And now, the thought of it leaves a palpable hollowness itching behind your ribs. Festering. Rotting tissue and bone. 
“Simon,” you choke, sobbing his name out under the firm press of his hand. “Simon—”
But he knows. 
His arm curls over your head like a crown, and you can easily forget the pinch of each thorn when he holds you tight. Protectively. Possessively. Securing you in his arms before he lifts up, palm sliding over the mattress, touch tender against your cheeks, and then settles it on the indent of your knee. Widening you for him as he spreads his thighs under yours until you're opened up for him. 
Those dark eyes are dragged down to the split of your legs where his cock disappears into your slick, swollen cunt. You follow it down, gazing at the impressive width of his stomach bowing over you until they land on the jut of skin pushing out from a messy smatter of damp curls around the base of his cock. 
The coarse hair of his groin unfurls as it sticks to your wet lips, and he rolls his head back over his shoulders he heaves through the too tight stretch of your walls over his length. You feel the pulse of him inside of you, thudding like a heartbeat. It blooms molten under the feverish weight of his lidded, dark gaze. 
“Fuck, birdie,” he rasps, and it's scorched. Charred. “Look at you—”
As the world is condensed, narrowed down to nothing but the near impossible stretch of his cock seated as deep inside of you as he can get, he leans down, scarred, mangled lips brushing cruelly over your ear, and whispers, see? Told you'd take me. 
Every fuckin’ inch. 
Your hand jerks to your belly, fingers dancing over your navel as if to feel him there, bulging from under your skin. Nearly hysterical as you try to come to terms with the pulsing, white-hot ache of him inside of you, slowly acclimating to his girth, his length. 
He grunts when he sees what you're doing, eyes flaring as your fingers skirt around your navel. 
“It's—” you shudder, gasping for air. “It's too much, Simon, I can't take it—”
He rolls his hips with a groan. “m’cock too big for you, birdie?” 
His usual cadence is flat, droll, but an unmistakable sense of masculine pride, a deep, egotistic sense of satisfaction, drapes itself over his brassy words. Glueing to the scorching rasp of his voice in a way that makes you unerringly certain that he likes it. Likes that his cock is too big for you. That it hurts. 
“Y’can take it,” he prompts, forcing more of himself into you until something snaps. Splits. Makes room. Carves out a space for him to fit. 
The brief flash of pain is soothed when he's seated deep. That same paradoxical balm making itself known as he flattens his hips into yours with a noise—half a grunt, or a growl; a lazy, pleasure-soaked snarl. You're not sure what it is, but the sound knocks the air from your lungs, igniting inside of you like a spark inside a tinderbox. 
It's only when his balls are flush against you that the same masculine pride brims up again. Primal. Animalistic. The urge to present your soft belly rears up suddenly, and it's only stifled when he grunts again, looking down at you with lidded, black eyes. 
“Now, be good and let me fuck your tight cunt.”
He's not looking for assent. Nothing you could say at this moment will sway his mind one way or the other. There's a nasty spool of determination welling up like blood on a pricked finger. Beading up to the surface in a clean, neat droplet as he rolls his broad shoulders, and shuffles into a comfortable position on his haunches between your spread thighs. The motion jostles his cock in a way that makes your breath hitch with each jerk. 
It's not painful. Not particularly. But you're overwhelmed by the sensation of utter fullness in a way you've never experienced before. Each grind of his cock against your overly stretched walls deeping that incipient feeling of anxiety brewing in your belly that one wrong move and you'll tear. He's just—
Too big. 
And despite his claims—or rather, in spite of them—you don't think you can do it. Don't think you can take him. It's too much. It feels like being turned inside out and then put back into place. An uneasy sense of discomfiture blooms with each too-tight, too-sharp tug of his cock pulling taut on your rim. 
Almost deliriously, you think you can feel the pulse of his cock inside your goddamn throat. 
“Simon—” you start on a tremulous breath but he cuts you off with a hum. 
“Relax.” 
You can't. Can't—
“Fuckin’ hell, bird,” he rasps, leaning down suddenly until his face was pushed tight into the curve of your neck, breath shallow on your thudding pulse. “Stop squirmin’ ‘round me like tha’ or I'll cum right fuckin’ now.”
Your heart stutters. Gallops painfully in your chest. His words make you dizzy because for as much as this feeling of him, his cock, inside of you dances on a delicate precipice of being more than you can feasibly handle and somehow the most incredible thing you'd ever experienced before, you hadn't considered how he'd feel. 
Inexplicably, it pleases you. 
There's something so strange—so extraordinary—about bringing a man like him, like this, to his knees. Pleasuring him by just heaving through the white-hot stretch of his cock inside of you. Making him bury his head in your neck, groaning about how he was gonna fuckin’ bust, pretty thing, fuck—
It was a powerful feeling. 
Unwarranted, maybe. But incredible, nevertheless. 
“Fuck,” he grunts, and you feel his throat work around a thick swallow. “Gonna fuck you, birdie. Gonna fuck this pretty cunt so fuckin' hard until you beg me stop—”
And he does just that. Rears back from your neck, and settles again between your thighs—quicker this time. With an urgency that makes you whimper when his cock grinds against your walls hard enough to bruise. 
When he finally pulls out until only the flared head of his cock remains, you knot a fist into the thin pillow, clinging on, and latch the other onto his hip as if that could somehow stop the vicious promise in his eyes about poundin’ you into the goddamn mattress. There's a flash, a brief flicker of his eyes, and then he thrusts back inside of you with a grunt that makes your belly clench, and your back arch. 
True to the promises he gave, it's brutal. Violent. 
Any pleasure you feel is leached through osmosis. A tether bound around his own. 
His arm is shoved under your back, angling your pelvis up. Thighs dangling over the thick spread of his own, ass seated in his lap. He drives into you, thrusts deep—grinds his hips until your moans break into hoarse screams, whimpers. Makes your eyes roll so far back, all you see is black even when you blink your eyes up at him. 
He carves a spot deep inside of you with each delirious piston of his cock, pounding into you with brutal thrusts, and then holding tight when his balls slap against your ass. Digging the head of his cock into the seal of your womb until it aches behind your navel. Each breath feels like glass in your lungs—
“Tha’s it,” he slurs in your ear, mouth damp against your skin. “Take my cock so good, pretty birdie. Little pussy was made for it, weren't you? Tight cunt all mine—”
His gruff words tug on that tether until you're wrapped around him like a bow. Following him down this endless spiral as he slams inside of you over and over again, cooing in your ear about the sounds you made for him, pretty cunt so fuckin’ wet f’me, birdie, hear tha’? all f’me—
“Cum f'me, birdie. Want this pussy cummin’ ‘round my cock—”
“Can't—” you gasp, arching into him, desperate and needy. It rides a line between pain and pleasure; a needlepoint you wobble on. “Need—”
You try to reach down, to touch your clit, but grinds his hips into yours with a snarl. “Cum ‘around my cock, birdie.”
“Touch me—”
“Fuckin’ hell—”
It edges on too much. Pain and pleasure teetering on a knife's edge, split apart by a line the width of a razer. Looping and tangling around each other until you can't differentiate between the two. But it makes sense, you suppose, staring up at him arched above you like a black cloud of smoke. All hunger and fire. Consuming, devouring, everything in its path. A wildfire. 
Butcher, you think again when his hand wraps around your throat. A mimicry of what he did in the truck, forcing your eyes on him. Your life tucked neatly against his palm.
These hands take lives. It's what they're made for. All scarred, and thick. Scar tissue and bone. Muscle and cartilage. Meant to render meat of cattle. Slaughterhouse in the shape of a man. Consumption personified. 
But where there should be fear, all you feel is an echoing sense of hunger. Leatherbound to each other, maybe—
The look that passes over his eyes as he stares down at you, cupped in his palm, seems to fit perfectly into the fractured gaps inside yourself you try so hard to ignore. And what doesn't—
Well. 
He'll make room to fit. 
You reach up, curling your fingers around his thick wrist. His eyes flash, but he doesn't slow his thrusts. Doesn't stop. Just watches as you peel his hand away from your neck, bringing it up to your mouth. 
On his palm, there's a piece of skin that's unblemished compared to the rest of his worn, burnt hands. A strip just big enough for you to sink your teeth into. 
And you do. 
“Fuck, Birdie—!” The snarl is ripped from his throat. His thrusts grow harder, sloppier. Each bit of strength in his muscled hips and thighs is used to pound into you until your vision blacks out. It hurts. Aches. Your heels slip down, catching on the broad expanse of his lower back. And you tighten them around his waist, pulling him closer. Deeper. “Fuck, Birdie, fuckin’ cunt was made f'me, wasn’t it? So cum on my cock. Now—”
Whining, you shake your head. “Can't. I can't. I need—”
You don't get to finish. With a huff of anger, he rips his hand off of the mattress, leaning back on his haunches, and shoves his hand between your thighs, scarred fingers stroking over your pebbled clit. It's rough. Sloppy. His anger hums through his body, skewering into you as he glared down, gaze swinging like a pendulum between the split of your thighs where his cock disappears into your swollen cunt, his fingers rubbing over your clit, and back up the hand around your neck, the tears staining your cheeks. 
There's an edge to his thrusts. A viciousness in the way he pistons his hips into you. Dark eyes catching every flicker—each wince, gasp, moan, whine all meticulously catalogued and exploited. He finds the spots that make your hips jerk, twitching both toward and away from him. Angling into the ones that have your eyes rolling back into your head, drool dribbling past your slack lips as you gasp his name out into the dank, humid air. 
It smells of sweat, sex, and him. Something brutal, bloody, and dark. Rotten leaves. Charred forests after a rain shower. Dangerous. Tinged with a slight acrid, chemical stench—benzene, oxidizing iron. It drips down your throat, and drenches your lungs. Staining you from the inside out. 
And he exploits that, too. Leans in, and breathes heavily against your upper lip, your cheek. Drowns you in his scent. His sweat beads along his jaw, droplets raining down over your brow. Soaked in his essence. Unable to see, smell, or touch anything that isn't him. 
With his hand over your mouth, teeth sunk into his palm, all you can taste is him, too. Leather. Gun oil. Blood. 
The ravenous look in his eye sharpens, turning into deadly points. 
“Such a pretty fuckin' bird.” He rasps, the words shattered, mangled in the back of his throat. They carry the scent of blood when you breathe them in, and you wonder if he forced them through glass. Pushed them out with his bloody fists. 
You bite down harder in response, keening through the white-hot pain of his cock spearing deeper than before, stretching you past your limits. The taste of blood on your tongue, the rasping snarl pulled from his chest, his fingers toying with your clit, push you over the edge once more. Again and again, and again, and—
His hand peels away from your oversensitive clit, dropping down to the mattress beside your face. He follows quickly after several impossibly deep thrusts that shove you higher up on the mattress, pressing in until his balls sit flush against your ass, cockhead battering against your cervix, and he groans—deep and liquid—when he comes, spilling inside of you. Rooted deep, cock twitching, Simon drops to his elbow beside your head, smothering you under his weight as the tension in his body bleeds out. 
Your teeth stick to the divots in his hand, and the sensation of ungluing them from the wounds you gave him makes you shiver. Slowly, you roll your tongue out, chasing the drops of blood, and breathe heavily through your nose as he burrows deeper inside of you, chest shuddering over yours. 
“Fuckin’ hell,” he rasps, hips jerking into yours with a slap that echoes through the room. “Little tease, ain't you?” 
Even with his cock softening inside of you, it's still thick. Fat. Stretching you open as he yawns out above you, bloodied hand dropping down to cup your neck again, forearm resting heavily between your breasts. He raises slightly on his elbow, black eyes glinting in the shallow dark of the room. Piercing as they drill into your sweat-slicked face. 
It aches when he moves. When he presses his hips harder into yours, the muscles in your legs throb as his broad waist splits them apart. Your feet dangle, sliding uselessly down his back, over his ass, before coming to rest curled around his thighs. Melting into the mattress, tender and sore and all chewed up—
You feel like a massive contusion instead of a person. A pestle. His. 
The thought makes you shiver, and his eyes flash in triumph like he knows. 
The feeling of him pulling out of you draws a whimper from your lips. The drag on your sensitive, bruised walls is a strange mix of tender pleasure and pain. He chuckles at your mewl—dark and low; the sound of nightmares, you think. Crackling sap on charred wood. 
You try to pretend it doesn't make you shudder, but the way he hums in response dashes the feigned oblivion before it can form. All you can do is heave on the bed, and watch him through narrowed slits as he leans back on his haunches once again, head cocking to the side. His dark eyes fixed on the split of your legs. The ache in your cunt growing sharp under his molten stare. 
“Fuck,” he rasps, the shallow groan pulled out from between clenched teeth. You wonder if the mangled curse was unintentional. Ripped from his throat before he could clamp his jaws around it—a crack in the facade. A hairline splinter in the indomitable mask he wears. 
Your heart lurches. None of this makes sense, but your head is too muddled, too syrupy, to think much at all. A quandary for later when he throws you from his bed with a harsh slap on your ass and a and don't think about doing this ever again. 
But you don't think you can move. “Give me a minute,” you start on a trembling breath. “And I'll—”
His brows move but his eyes stay fixed on your sore cunt. You can feel him leak out of you, spilling on the mattress in thick globs. The sensation makes you shiver. 
“You'll what?” 
It looks like he has to forcibly tear his eyes away from you, reluctance forming a cold, angry crater between his brows. The brunt of his ire—white, burning—makes you want to supplicate yourself at his feet, roll over on your belly and show the beast you mean no harm. 
(Run, and run far—)
He huffs. “You'll what, birdie?”
It takes a minute to find your voice through all the panic clogging your throat. “I'll leave, um—”
He peels away from you with a loud, rough snort, and drops to his his elbow beside you. Hands curling possessively over your waist, fingers tight. Unyielding. 
“Not goin’ anywhere, birdie. Told you, didn't I? You're mine.” 
“I'm—”
“Go to sleep.” 
He pulls you roughly to his chest until your head is pillowed on his shoulder, and then rolls on his back, keeping you cushioned at his side. You try to move, but his arm wedges under your neck, curling over your shoulder. Trapping you to him. 
The panic wants to come now. To rage against the shackle of his embrace, to run home and scrub your skin until it bleeds. But the exhaustion collapses over it all until your eyes feel too heavy to hold open. Too painful.
As you drift, aimless and dreamless, his voice cuts through the fog. “Gotta learn ‘ow to cum with nothin’ but my cock inside of you sooner or later, birdie. Or you won't be coming at all—”
It sounds like a threat. A promise. You fall asleep with the words echoing in your head, his arm an anchor around your waist. 
He wakes up hungry. 
A gnawing in his belly pulls him from the thin doze he fell into after fucking you three more times—with your face pressed into the mattress, ass in the air for him to rut against like a beast; teetering over his hips, the spread of them too wide for your thighs to split over leaving you precariously unbalanced and shifting your weight above him as neither knee sat comfortably on the mattress; and on your belly with him crushing you to the floor under his bulk. The memory of which makes his spent cock stir, twisting limply against his damp, sticky thigh. Matted down with drying cum, sweat, the slick wetness of being buried inside your messy cunt. 
Filled now with his cum. 
He groans low in his throat as he thinks about it. The sloppy way you let him take you over and over again until you couldn't keep your eyes open anymore, passing out before he finished. Letting him fuck his cum inside of you as you whimpered in your sleep—
Perfect little thing, aren't you? So good to him.
Simon can't remember the last time he fucked someone, much less when it was this enjoyable (an understatement, of course; in the back of his head, wheels spin round and round as he tries to come up with a plan to keep his cock buried inside of you at all times while still doing his work—), and the overflow of unquenched lust churns in his belly. A hunger he can now slake on your willing body. In the silence, he purrs—
But the effort, the exertion, dredged up a different need inside him. 
Simple hunger. An appetite. 
He could eat—
his eyes slant toward the top of your crown in the dark, and he amends it, quickly, to: in more ways than one. 
He'll go home in a minute. Make himself a steak from the prime cut he butchered a few days ago, leftovers that no one had any qualms about when he took several pieces home with him. 
(and really, why would they argue with the butcher who keeps their wallets fat and their bills paid?)
It was left on the counter earlier before he got the call that your brother was making another move. Now a perfect room temperature as it waits for him to come back. Cook it the way he likes—
Rare. 
The perfect grill is a nice char on the outside, but bleeding red on the inside. Basted in duck fat and garlic. A sprig of rosemary in the pan, but not touching the meat. Just enough to give the juice that earthy, sweet flavour. Let it rest for ten minutes under foil with the rest of the fat poured over it from the pan. Served as is with maybe a dash of salt and pepper on the side. 
Simple. But incredibly difficult to perfect, he finds. 
Everyone tries to make it fancier than what it needs to be, but at the end of the day, meat is meat. And going from picking scraps from the garbage outside of the Italian butcher on the corner to ordering his own pretentious filet mignon still gives him a sense of unease. Whiplash, perhaps. Nothing to something—how about that, Tommy? 
Maybe that's why he prefers to raise and butcher his own cattle. A never-ending supply of meat for him to sink his teeth into even if this whole thing goes belly up and he's back to begging for morsels on the corner. Tommy hiding in the shadows with a baseball bat waiting to ambush the richer men who happen to feel altruistic that day. 
This practice bled over into his current occupation, too. The basement of that same Italian butcher shop he used to sneak expired sausage from out of the bins is now his home base of sorts. A money laundering front of the 141. Headquarters for them to congregate in secrecy upstairs. And here��
A torture chamber for those who tried to cross them. Strung up on meat hooks like the cattle they eat, the ones he feeds them, until he makes up his mind on what he wants to do to them. 
It's where you should have been, he supposes, thumb brushing a spot of dried blood on your shoulder, right below a nasty bite mark on your forearm. The ring nearly black from the clotted blood pooling in the indents. It matches several others on your thighs—top, insides, back—and neck, belly, collarbones, sternum. All chewed up. Marked by the butcher. 
In working for the old Italian man who ran the shop when he was eighteen, he learned that most of the butchers preferred to mark their carcasses when they came in. A little x on the fat to signify they'd be the ones carving up the prime meat. 
He didn't think you could handle his knife, so he gave you his teeth instead. But the implication is clear. 
His. 
It's overkill considering his reputation, and the claim he already had on you. Because even before this, back when he saw you through the window of his shop as he was moonlit as a legitimate butcher and businessman instead of the enforcer, the brute, everyone already knew he was, his interest was clear. You were off-limits. His to deal with. 
And while Price refers not to get involved in small-time street dealers, the warnings Soap and Gaz impressed onto your brother should have been the end of an irritating situation and not the beginning of a fuckin’ headache. But no. He had to push. And push.  
Until Price gave the order to take care of it. 
And that he did. 
(With the added benefit of killing one bird and keeping the other in a pretty cage.)
Price probably won't like his solution, but Simon racked up enough favours to keep a little pet of his own. Been a good boy for a long, long time now, and he supposes he's owed a bone. 
Or a sweet thing tucked tight to his side having passed out some two hours ago after he slaked his dizzying thirst on you over and over again even though it doesn't feel like it's been enough. 
It's rare that he has an appetite for people. Even rarer that he lets this meagre hunger consume him like this. But there's something about you that makes his teeth ache in the same way they often do whenever he's hungry for meat. 
He wants to devour you. Consume you. Eat you alive and save nothing for anyone else to taste. 
(So—
Price will just have to let him keep you, won't he?)
The mattress vibrates under him. His phone buzzing with an incoming text. He reaches over, pulling it close enough to read the notification on his screen. It's from Soap.
All her stuff is on your porch. 
He hums, but doesn't reply. Simply opts to drop his phone on his belly, and tug you closer to his broad chest. He'll wake you in an hour, and the stirring in his groin tells him it'll be for another round. Maybe he'll take you in the freezer. Make you cling to the hook hanging down from the ceiling as he fucks you like that. He has a pair of ties for ox, lamb legs, that he can loop around your wrists and heft you up on. 
It'll hurt, he's sure. The binds weren't designed with comfort in mind, but he can easily bear your weight as he pounds into you from below, your pretty legs wrapped tight around his waist. 
The image, the thought, alone has him thickening against his thigh. He reaches down, gripping the base tight in his hand as he pulls you even closer, burying his nose in your crown. 
At the very least, he wouldn't be lying when he told Price he strung you up. 
Three rounds—on your back, your hands and knees, perched above him like a pretty goddess he stole away from a temple—and he still isn't satisfied. Fuck. He breathes in your scent and doesn't think he ever will be. 
He'll get you out of here, take you home. Make you the steak he likes for a late dinner, rare and simple—the same one he gave your brother weeks ago when he dragged him into the shop, strung him up on a hook, and demanded payment for his disrespect. 
Who'd have thought that his payment would be you? 
(fitting, though, since he'd had his eye on you for a while now—)
He nudges you when his phone chimes again with another message doubtless from Soap telling him all your things have been tucked away. Matters dealt with. 
“C’mon,” he grunts, running his hand down your spine. “We’re leavin’.”
You blink at him slowly. “Leaving?”
He nods. “Get dressed.” 
You're quiet as he turns, reaching for his jeans left in a heap beside the mattress, but he hears the hitch in your throat. The click when you swallow. Unbothered by it, he turns, giving you his back as he wedges his feet inside the trousers, pulling them up his legs. 
The bed shifts behind him. “I—I can walk back to my brother's—”
The hope in your voice is a delicate thing. Fragile like fine china. A pretty, vulnerable tchotchke meant to be seen, admired, but not touched. Not handled roughly. 
Unfortunately for you, he's never had much of a gentle touch. 
When he throws a glance over his shoulder, he's not surprised to find your arm folded over your bare breasts as you kneel on the mattress, your palm resting flat between your parted thighs, wrist and forearm covering the slip of heaven between them from his greedy, prying gaze. 
It paints a startling picture, he finds. One with you looking thoroughly ravaged. Taken. But presenting it in a soft sort of sensuality meant to make a man feel both hot under the collar and like an unrepentant voyeur. 
Pretty bird, he thinks, and feels his cock stir. 
He rises swiftly, hiking up his jeans around his thighs as he goes, and then turns to you with a heady desire to crush that gossamer of hope between his greedy hand like a silken cobweb that will stick to his fingers. 
“Not goin’ to your brothers,” he says, pushing his tongue against his cheek to stem the ache burning in his muscles. 
You shiver, eyes growing wide, frenzied with fear as you stare up at him. The shift of your throat when you swallow makes pre-cum dribble out of his fattened cock. He's never really had much of a taste for it, but he's overcome with the urge to see you cry—
“Where are we going?”
Amid the ache in his loins, the flickering fantasies of your pretty, lachrymal face gazing up at him helpless, hopeless, and needy, he catches the edge of panic when you speak. The razor-sharp tremble of fear. 
But buried amongst it, hidden in the bruised look you give him as he towers over you with his cock bulging in his slacks and his eyes burning with want, he finds a keen sense of eagerness amongst the rubble. Agog, almost. 
And fuck. If that doesn't do something awful to him. 
“What?” He taunts, cocking his head to the side as your breath grows shallow and your eyes wide. “Did you think that was enough to pay your debt, birdie?”
“What? You can't—”
“Don't like it—” he lifts his shoulder up in a cool, indifferent shrug, enjoying the dismayed expression that falls over your brow more than he should. “—go to the police.”
“The ones on your payroll?” You spit, eyes flaring wide like an angry cat. “You—”
Several things might have continued in place of your choked, angry sob, but it's swallowed down as pragmatically as it was the first time he cornered you earlier today. And as beautiful as your ire is, he finds the cornered look on your face to be much more pleasing. Prettier. 
“C’mon, bird,” he mocks, holding his hand out toward you with a tick of his lips. “All your stuff is at home. Don't be stupid.” 
“Stupid?” You gasp in indignation, but there's a bruised look in your eyes. A wounded thing that makes his breath hitch in his lungs for reasons he can't really ascertain, but just knows that he likes it. Likes it a lot. “This is—insane.”
Again, he shrugs, but the indifference this time isn't the same manufactured callousness meant to inspire fear. The conversation is stale already. Grating on him. He's not used to having his orders ignored or questioned. What he says usually goes—either through association or reputation, or just the fact that no one has ever come close to filling the same measure of space as he does—and questioning him like this makes him feel too much like a boy, and not enough like the living ghost he pretends to be. 
“You can't do this. It's not right.”
An appeal to his humanity. Cute. He huffs, reaching down to fasten the button of his jeans. The sound the zipper makes cuts through the room. “You're mine, birdie. Better get used to it.” 
Catching your eye as he says it was only meant to reignite the kindling fear you have of him from extinguishing. A scared prey animal was a better pet than an angry one. But the look on your face catches him off-guard. 
It reminds him of a flightless little bird shivering in a child's shoebox. Tiny broken thing his mum warned him not to touch or its mother would abandon it to die on its own. 
“Until the debt is paid off.”
A statement, not a question. He shrugs, but doesn't respond. Tilts his head toward the door. “Let's go.” 
His lack of reassurance doesn't soften the flint in your gaze, but the prospect of recompense seems to spurn you on. Another wishbone of hope to cling to. And despite himself, he lets you keep it. Lets your little finger wrap around the delicate bone for comfort because as much as you might think there's a fifty-fifty chance of getting the bigger piece, he has no intentions of letting something like that get in the way of his appetite even if you do. 
(And his hunger has always been particularly voracious, hasn't it?)
“Come, birdie. Gotta get you home, and fed, don't I?” 
2K notes · View notes
starlightxsvt · 1 year ago
Text
Game On! | Bloodily Safe 2
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synopsis ► ❝ there has not been a single uninteresting moment since you have started living with wonwoo. as halloween rolls around, things only get more riveting. ❞
pairing ► psycho!Wonwoo x fem!reader
warnings ► ghost face kink, scream movie references, sir kink, degradation, choking, fingering, squirting, unprotected sex, rough sex, breast play, serious knife play (I won't spoil the details but there is no cutting or marking), implications of violence, blood.
word count ► 6k
Now playing ▶ Mind Games - Sickick
⇆ㅤ ㅤ◁ㅤ ❚❚ ㅤ▷ ㅤㅤ↻
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The raindrops hit the glass of the bedroom window, creating this steady white noise that lulls in deep slumber. Occasionally, you hear the thunder rumble and strike far away, lighting the sky with a beautiful but dangerous flash of purple.
The silk sheets feel comfortable against your naked skin but what is more comfortable is the weight and warmth on top of you, something so special no blanket can ever mimic.
It is Wonwoo.
He rests his head against the crook of your neck while lying entirely on top of you and even though at first you thought you were going to suffocate and almost die, it has been weirdly comfortable so far. After an intense session of fucking he has simply passed out on top of you which is a bit unlikely but you don't mind; you get to admire his beautiful face up close and touch his soft, silky mesh of hair.
Which you are currently doing.
The digital clock on the bedside table reads one in the morning but you cannot fall asleep. With a soft sigh, you gently try to move him down from your body and almost become successful as you manage to lay him on his side. However, just when you are about to roll out of bed, an arm wraps around your waist and tugs you back.
"Ah!"
"Where are you sneaking off to, hmm?" His sleepy voice is a treat, an orgasm for your ears. Wonwoo's voice has always been one of the biggest reasons behind your attraction to him but his sleep-ridden voice? You are confirmed no sound in this world can top that.
"I need to pee." You whisper. He grunts behind you, only gripping you tighter and pulling you towards him as he spoons you from behind.
A gentle smile plays on your lips, feeling a sort of childish glee at his attitude. In the span of the last six months that you have been with Wonwoo, you have noticed a drastic change in him compared to when you first met him.
Your new beginning started when you moved in with him a few weeks after the accident with Jacob, after a lot of pestering from Wonwoo. He argued that you would be safer with him and he will rest easy knowing you were not going to run to the police the first chance you get. Which you would never do, of course, and you knew he said it as a joke only, a farce really, to hide the fact that he just wants you around him 24/7.
The same went for you so you agreed quite easily. After all, Wonwoo isn't the only crazy person in this relationship. You are equally obsessed with him and even though, you were never a possessive person, after meeting Wonwoo you have surely become one.
Good thing your possessiveness only turns him on.
As your cohabitation started, you found a cuter side, you dare say, of Wonwoo who only appears in the comfort of your own home (his house basically), especially after you have sex, very much like the one cuddling you right now. He is still as possessive as ever, his dark aura never changing and you are equally obsessed with that part of him as the rest.
Not to mention, you have found out more interesting and frankly shocking things about him as well. Like the fact that he is a very popular online gamer and he did not feel the need to mention that to you. You found that out about a month into your relationship when you decided to accompany one of his gaming sessions. Sure, you knew he loved gaming but you didn't know he was a professional streamer with two million subscribers. The vivid shock on your face when you realized that was embarrassing for sure.
Similar to the other time when he casually dropped another mind boggling secret on you like a bomb one day.
The fact that he was actually adopted.
The information had you dumbstruck when you were doing an assignment with him at his place and he casually mentioned that his mother was visiting him next week.
"What the hell, Wonwoo?" You had yelled. "Why did you not tell me that before?"
"It slipped my mind, cherry." He replied, unbothered as ever, his eyes trailing down to your chest, your cleavage visible due to the low cut top. "I'm telling you now. Besides, why are you getting so anxious? It is not like you are going to ask permission from my mother to marry me."
His response made you blush which was exactly what he had aimed and just like that, and a few tantalizing touches, you could not stay mad at him.
All the time that you have known him, he never gave indication that he had parents. His loneliness and broody nature made everyone assume that he was alone. Even in highschool whenever you saw him come to or leave school, he was always alone. Word went around that he lived with an uncle of his but it all turns out to be rumors.
True to his words, the next week his mom came to visit him and you tried your best to leave a good impression.
His mother was the epitome of elegance, soft spoken but bright, and as far as you could tell and her positiveness and welcoming behaviour gave you the impression that she liked you.
You had spent quite some time chatting with her on one and came to know how she and her husband adopted Wonwoo when he was fourteen. They now lived abroad due to his profession but they visit every now and then so you knew you would be seeing them around. And you were glad for that because after all, they gave Wonwoo a new life, a home, and a family, which you are grateful for.
Among other things, your mother's treatment was also completed successfully last month as the doctor's released her with a clean bill of health. There was yet another shock waiting for you here, striking you like a bolt of lightning when you found out that Wonwoo had taken care of all of your mother's hospital fees.
It was completely unexpected and unlike him and even though you tried to give him the money back in instalments, every time you remotely mentioned that he would shut you up with a kiss. He reasoned that he did not want you doing cams anymore just to earn money and paired with the earnings from his channel and his inheritance, he had plenty to his name.
And you didn't disagree with him entirely. After the incident with Jacob, you developed a dislike towards live streaming and it is your guess that Wonwoo noted it down when you expressed that concern to him randomly in one of your late night talks. So for now, you have kept your live streaming on hold with a message pinned on your webpage saying that you are on a leave.
Quite honestly, you do not really plan on going back to it because you have scored a position for internship at a clinic with a decent salary. However, there is a tiny itch in the back of your brain that feels unsatisfied to leave your page like that.
You have the urge to do one final livestream to put a complete end to this chapter and say goodbye. It is daunting, yes, and you are not even quite sure what to do in your last livestream, which is why you have been putting this idea on hold for a while.
However, the next morning, you voice out your thoughts to your boyfriend. "Wonwoo?"
"Hmm?" He replies, his eyes focused on the computer screen as he edits a video for his channel.
"I want to do a livestream. One last time."
Your words make him turn his head as he regards you in silence, his expression unreadable.
Why do you feel so nervous all of a sudden?
"I want to close this chapter of my life properly you know, not just end it like this, abruptly."
For a long time, he remains mute before asking. "What do you have in mind?"
Wow!
"I honestly don't know yet." You confess shyly. He hums, his gaze becoming unfocused as he seems to ponder a while before speaking. "What if I join you?"
"What!"
He smiles. "I would wear a mask like you and you would introduce me as your boyfriend and I'd fuck you in front of the camera. Quite a way it would be to end it, no?" He says it like it's the most casual thing ever while you feel your entire body heat up, tingles shooting down your spine, just the thought of the act making your toes curl.
Of course, your reaction does not go unnoticed by him.
"You seem to really like it, little cherry," he grins, getting up from his chair and strolling over to you. As he comes closer you shift backwards until your back meets the mattress and he almost jumps on top of you, caging you underneath him with his arms around you. "Tell me, do you like the idea?" His mouth hovers on your jaw and your neck, his breaths warming your skin as he runs his nose against your sensitive flesh.
You can only nod, your body twitching underneath him, begging him to touch you.
"Words, girl."
"Yes. I love the idea."
He grins, victorious, predatory. "Good. We just need to fix a date then."
◇─◇──◇─◇
Later that night, you sit in front of your laptop, the light illuminating your face as your cursor hovers over the publish button. Inhaling a shaky breath, you finally press it before your mind runs rampant.
Hello everyone! Sorry for being inactive for a while. I would like to announce with a heavy heart that I have decided to close this account as I start a new chapter in my life. Thank you all so much for supporting me until now and as my last form of gratitude, I am here to tell you that I will be coming on live on the 31st October for the very last time.
Be sure to tune in because it will be very special and unlike something I have done before!
After some discussion with Wonwoo, you two had selected 31st October as the date for the live. Mainly because Wonwoo insisted on that day, promising you that since it is Halloween, he will make it extra special and spooky.
It does not take a genius to understand that there will be constumes involved. You aren't really concerned about what you will be wearing but as the days slowly drag by, you go out of your mind, trying to figure out what Wonwoo will be wearing as he continues to tease you, keeping the suspense. No matter how much you beg, plead, or tease him he gives away nothing and you are driven to the cliff of your impatience.
Torturing you further, when the packages containing the costumes arrive the day before the live, Wonwoo takes his sweet time opening them in his gaming room with the door shut before he stores them in the storeroom, pocketing the key with a cheeky smile.
You watch him with a pout. "Oh come on, Wonwoo! At least give me a hint for your constume!"
He smiles cheekily, slowly walking towards you as you stand next to the kitchen counter and traps you between his arms, leaning towards you to press a tantalising kiss on your neck.
"Stop distracting me," you complain as a soft sigh escapes your lips.
"You really wanna know, huh?"
You shake your head eagerly.
He watches you, amused, before finally taking a little bit of pity on you. "Okay, here's your clue. What's your favourite scary movie?"
Immediately, your breath hitches, goosebumps prickling your skin as you watch Wonwoo with wide eyes, a hint of heat blooming in your face.
Oh. My. God.
He is going to be Ghostface!
Wownoo's eyes glint at your reaction, his lips curving into a satisfied smirk as he presses a kiss on your jaw, picks up the keys to his bike from behind you and casually walks away, humming a tune.
Even after he is gone, you stay rooted to your spot, stunned but excited at what he has in store for you.
You are giddy that he took special note of your liking to the scream movie franchise. He had watched it before but after a random discussion about your favorite horror and slasher movies, you excitedly told him how much you loved that series and from then on, he had taken a liking to it as well. Now, Scream movies are a staple of your movie nights, especially the nights when you are in the mood for something freaky.
But Wonwoo as Ghostface?
Holy shit.
You have no shame in admitting that you have imagined him as Ghostface a time or two.
Does that man know how to read minds?
◇─◇──◇─◇
Dressed in your angel costume consisting of a frilly white lacy bra and panties, a halo headband and angel wings, you finish setting up the camera and light before picking up your phone to see if there's any further update from Wonwoo. He last texted you to let you know that he would be a bit late coming from university as he had some things to finish up.
He asked you to text him before you are going to start the live, with a promise that he would be home within 10 to 15 minutes after that. Taking a deep, nerve-wracking breath you let him know that you are about to start.
Your fingers hover over the start button on your laptop for a while, your nerves making you shaky.
Fuck it.
Pressing the start button, you hold your breath and watch as seconds pass and the viewers start pouring in. Within two minutes you almost have five thousand viewers who are flooding the chat box asking where you have been or complimenting your look.
With a smile, that comes quite naturally, you greet them. "Hello, my lovely viewers! It has been so long, right?" You respond to a few comments in between before continuing. "As we all know, today is Halloween and today's live is Halloween themed as well. I have saved the best for my last live so stick around because there's plenty of surprises tonight."
Your eyes skim over the comments flying by rapidly while donations start pouring in with the increase of viewers. You chat with your viewers for a bit more, unsure if you should just get right into it without Wonwoo, as he is taking quite longer than you expected.
Right at that time, your phone's screen lights up and you see Wonwoo's message.
"You are looking absolutely ravishing, little cherry. I will be home in five minutes. Why don't you tell your viewers a bit about me now, so that they don't get worried when Ghostface comes and blows your back out."
The text leaves your throat dry, pooling heated lava in your belly as you try to swallow and form your next words as you look back into the camera. "So! Let me get into the fun part. Today my boyfriend will be joining me as well and he has promised to do all sorts of dirty things on camera with me."
Your face has heated up by now as you continue. "And the best part? He will be wearing a costume. You guys wanna take a guess?"
Your eyes scan the comments as people excitedly leave their guesses, most of them wrong. You smile. "I see a few people got it right. Those who said Ghostface, you got that absolutely right! I love the Scream movies and tonight I will have my very own Ghostface. He—" You stop as you hear the faint beep of the front door of the house opening.
"Guys, he's here!" You don't even care to hide your excitement as you almost jump off of your bed, moving outside the view of the camera and take a deep breath as your hand reaches for the doorknob of the bedroom. You hear the footsteps getting closer on the other side and with a swallow, you pull the door open.
And half a second later, he appears. Ghostface.
Well, Wonwoo.
Your man is wearing the mask, covering his entire face and he even got a black cloak to complete the ensemble. It only gets better as your eyes lay on the leather gloves covering his hands and the black commando boots on his feet.
Wonwoo's hands reach into his pockets to pull out his phone, wallet and keys as he takes one slow step into the room while you take one back.
"Hi," you whisper as he sets the items down on the dresser before pulling you by your waist and taking off his mask to capture your lips in a fierce brutal kiss. Your body goes jelly as your hands come to hold his neck, kissing him like a starved woman as your panties grow damp.
"Fuck, I am going to ravish you tonight, angel." He promises, his voice deep, the look in his eyes dark and menacing and you cannot wait for him to keep his words.
"Please do," you reply and he smirks before pulling the mask down.
"Get ready to get fucked by Ghostface, my cherry." He orders the next moment, shoving you towards the bed and after a second push, you land on the mattress on your back as he crawls over you before turning his face towards the camera, tilting his head in the standard Ghostface fashion as he lets the viewers take a good look at him.
The comments along with the donations go crazy right after he appears on the screen. You watch him with bated breath, waiting for his next move as he turns back to face you, his face unreadable due to that mask, his body a tempting blend of dark danger and desire.
Wonwoo abruptly tugs you up by grabbing your wrist, before shuffling off the bed so that you can come in front and be within the main focus of the camera. He moves behind you, kneeling on the bed but his form still towering over you as you sit with your legs open, back slightly arched. Wonwoo's hand roughly comes to grab your jaw and force you to look at the lens, making your breath stutter as he whispers in your ear, his voice muffled underneath the mask. "Open your legs, cherry. Wider."
With a swallow, you do so, as your sex comes into view, covered with the very tiny strip of fabric of your underwear which already has a light patch of wetness. Wonwoo's leather-clad fingers dance on your neck, before trailing downward, hovering over your breasts and then your stomach before reaching your pussy as without any warning, he pushes the tiny fabric of your underwear beside and slips one finger in.
"Fuck!" You jolt, your body rising from the bed but Wonwoo forces you down by grabbing your throat.
Your brain short-circuits, the feeling of leather deep inside you something unimaginably pleasing and arousing. Your hazy eyes land on the computer screen where you watch Wonwoo finger fuck you and your hips chasing him back with equal passion.
One finger becomes two inside you as he gradually builds his pace which is in tandem with the breathy moans coming out of you. By the time he has inserted the third finger, his grip on your throat is tighter, enough to make your lungs overwork for air as you try your best not to call out his name. Instead you yell his title for tonight, that you two fixed earlier.
"Sir! Please, sir! More!"
"You want to come, little cherry?" His voice is much deeper because of the mask and it is doing things to you. You can feel your pussy clench and unclench around his digits as a shiver runs down your spine.
"Yes, yes! Please!"
"Are you close?" There's a hint of mockery in his voice as he curls his fingers deep inside you and gives the slightest brush against your clit that makes your body shake. "Fuck! Right there!"
The orgasm builds and builds, the sweet taste of release dancing on your tongue. Wonwoo seems to have figured it out because just as you are about to fall into the well of bliss, he pulls out all his fingers leaving your pussy achingly gaping.
"No! Please!" You beg in protest as tears come to your eyes, body slumping forwards onto the bed, trying to catch your breath as you feel your orgasm painfully ebb away. But Wonwoo doesn't let you catch your breath. He grabs your hair and tugs you back roughly to bring you back into the view before shoving his fingers inside your mouth.
Your taste combined with leather is a pure erotic bliss on your tongue, making you suck eagerly on his fingers as you feel more wetness leak out of you.
You are about to start begging for more as he retracts his fingers from your mouth but you stop when you see his hand move to his back, looking for something underneath his cloak.
Your breath stutters when you see him pull out a stiletto knife and waving it in front of the camera, his movements teasing as you watch the blade glimmer dangerously underneath the soft lights. However, the main cause of your panic is the tint of red on the blade, the appearance of the crimson a bit too akin to real blood.
The image is scary but equally erotic for your fucked up, lust hazed brain.
He really thought this through, huh.
You don't get to dwell on it for too long because the next moment, the knife is against your throat, the tip dancing next to your sensitive flesh as you swallow. For a splinter of a second, you are scared, your hands reaching behind to grab his cloak tightly but then he whispers, "Easy, cherry."
And you relax as much as possible while he drags the tip of the knife down from your throat and between your breasts, teasing your skin all the while but not breaking it. It is dangerous and erotic, an addictive combination of two which renders you helpless as you simply watch him play with the knife and you while your breath comes in short pants.
The blade slices the lace right between the cups of your bra, easily tearing it into two and revealing your breasts to the camera. You don't have time to be shy because Wonwoo moves the knife towards your nipple, teasing the hard bud with soft pokes that make you whimper pathetically.
"Are you wet, little cherry?" He whispers in your ear and you can only nod, hypnotized by the way the blade looks moving against your skin.
"Touch your pussy." He commands and you immediately do so, dipping your index and middle finger into your pussy before pulling them out to show him the wetness coating them.
"Good girl. Suck them clean."
Once again, you are a mere puppet of his words, eagerly doing as you are told while he moves the knife away from your breasts, doing down and down until he reaches your panties, leaving trails of red on your skin. There, he drags the sharp tip up and down on the skin of your right thigh, before hooking it underneath the lace of your panties and tugging it open with a clean slice. You watch with bated breath as he does the same on the left side, before leaving you completely bare.
"Lean against me." He commands as he throws the scraps of your lingerie away on the floor. You lean back, resting your weight against him and sit in a position with your thighs parted that gives a clear view of your pussy to the camera and easy access to Wonwoo.
"You want to come, right? Let's see if you can come from this," His tone is challenging and you wonder what he is talking about. Good for you, you don't have to think too long because the next moment, he inserts the butt of the knife in your core.
"Oh my god! Fuck!" You shriek, surprised, embarrassed, stunned.
Wonwoo's hand has a firm grip on your stomach, holding your body flat against his as he pushes the butt of the knife inside you, not even an inch deep but the filthy and perilous act makes your breath hitch, a brand new wave of arousal hitting you, something you have never felt before.
The most embarrassing part is how wet you are and how easily the handle moves inside you, slick noises coming out to echo in the air. You completely forget that you are in front of a camera, as your mind travels to your desires filthiest swamp, making you forget about the time and place as you can only feel the sensation of the knife fucking you open while Wonwoo's body cradles you.
You throw your head back in pleasure, eyes falling closed as a continuous string of sirs slur out of your mouth and embarrassingly quick, you reach your release.
Wonwoo is kind enough to let you savour your release this time, as he holds you tighter and fucks you harder all through your high which triggers another orgasm for you. Your entire body shakes with the force of the second orgasm, your mind completely blanking out as the sweetest feeling of euphoria washes over you.
For a moment, you feel nothing physically, just a sensation of bliss growing in your chest. Wonwoo lets you catch your breath for a moment and when you start to drift back to yourself you realize the knife has been discarded on the floor and Wonwoo is moving you himself, manhandling you into the position he wants.
You are on all fours, your back arched as Wonwoo digs his fingers into your hip bone, placing you in the perfect position for him to slide inside easily. Your mouth remains open slightly, watching through the screen as Wonwoo unzips his leather pants and pulls out his cock. He is hard, the tip of his cock shining with precum, veins visible underneath the soft lights.
His tips prods at your sopping entrance and before you can take a deep breath to recollect yourself, he slides in, fully, effortlessly, eliciting a breathy gasp from you.
The feeling of fullness overwhelms you, making you shudder as he hits the most sensitive spot inside you.
"Oh fuck, sir—"
"Be quiet, slut." Wonwoo's hand moves to cover your mouth as he tugs your hair, making your head fall back while he increases his pace. Even though his hand covers your mouth, muffled whines come out of you, your fingers gripping the sheets tightly, similar to the way his fingers dig into your ass cheeks as you stare at the ceiling while gladly taking what he gives you.
And before too long, you hear soft, all too familiar grunts from Wonwoo and you know he's about to come. Wanting to make it quicker, you purposefully clench around him which wrests a loud groan from him, making you smile cheekily.
Of course, Wonwoo doesn't miss it and punishes you with a slap on your ass which you gladly receive as a reward. A sharp couple of thrusts later, you feel him release inside you and the warmth of his seed filling you up makes you whine as you grind your hips back. "Sir, please! I wanna come!"
Wonwoo's response is to shove your face down to the bed, smothering your face into the sheets as he takes a few deep breaths before thrusting back inside you with more vigor. The bed softly shakes with each thrust as you lie there limp, pleased to accept his every delicious inch.
His pace is powerful, maddening, teasing you as you hover over the precipice of your orgasm until you fall, when he leans to whisper in your ear, "Touch your cunt for me."
Immediately, your find flies to your clit as you frantically rub yourself while his hands tighten on your neck, hard enough to leave marks that you await to see eagerly. And that is enough to make you fall into the euphoria of release as your orgasm washes over you like roaring waves, making your body quake as your eyes roll to the back of your head. One of Wonwoo's hands crawl down to your center, batting your hand away from your pussy so that he can pinch your swollen bud between his thumb and index finger.
Which prompts you to do something you have never done before.
You squirt.
Jets of wetness fly out of you as you clench around Wonwoo on and off, your body slumping over in complete bliss and exhaustion as you obscurely feel Wonwoo come inside you.
The next few moments are hazy as you feel the vague warmth of Wonwoo around you before he shuffles around, followed by his voice which is directed at the camera, you think. When you finally, fully or half fully regain your consciousness, you see the live has ended with a whopping number of 1.5 million viewers, your highest ever. Your wide eyes are about to bulge out of your sockets when you see the amount of money you have earned.
"Holy shit." You breathe.
"Indeed." Wonwoo's voice reverberates from behind you, making you turn your head to find him sitting, leaning against the bed frame with one hand resting on his knee. Despite the mask still covering his face, you know his gaze is trained on your fully naked form, especially between your legs where you feel his warm release drop out. With a shy grin, you sit up and crawl towards him, positioning yourself comfortably on his lap, his cool leather pants bringing comfort to your heated skin.
You gently pry his mask off and your boyfriend's gorgeous face comes into view, those sharp fox like eyes watching you in a fervid gaze. You cannot stop yourself from running a hand through his messy hair, the strands soft against your fingertips, trying to smooth it down as you gingerly move to kiss his lips.
He tastes addictive, making you burn with a new dose of lust and longing as his hands come to hold your jaw brushing your hair out of your face.
"Still not satisfied?" He breathes against your mouth.
"Hmm, not for the night. How about a shower before round two?" You offer with a cheeky smile before jutting your chin the little traces of red on your chest and the cum seeping out of you.
"By the way, what was that red thing on the knife? It looked so much like real blood." You ask, resting your head against the crook of his neck and breathing in deeply. Wonwoo's arms come to wrap around your body, engulfing it in warmth as he rests his cheek on your head while you close your eyes feeling drowsy.
Due to the position, you cannot see the malicious smile on his lips when he whispers. "Something like that. Don't worry about it."
You hum sleepily while Wonwoo's eyes lazily fall on the knife, lying on the floor, the leftover specks of blood igniting a deep, depraved satisfaction within him.
Joshua had the balls to challenge him, threatening how he was going to expose him to you and everyone else and that was why Wonwoo left him alive.
It was the first time anyone had the audacity, the balls to challenge him. He was too amusing, too pitiful to be killed in one go. Besides, what he did could not be forgiven so easily.
No, Wonwoo was going to take his sweet sweet time with this heinous fucker because after what he did, a quick death is a mercy for him.
Wonwoo smiles when he remembers Joshua's forlorn face when he left him there as he bled, uttering the two words as he disappeared into the night.
"Game on!"
Wanna know the story behind the blood on the knife? Subscribe to my Patreon to see what happened from Wonwoo's POV here!
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A/N: This was basically me confessing my obsession towards Ghostface (he's hot okay?) But Wonwoo as Ghostface? Ugh, that is peak perfection. As always, if you liked this, don't forget to reblog, comment and share! I'd love to hear your thoughts! And happy Halloween to those who celebrate!
On a side note, there are a lot of despicable things happening in the world right now like g3nocid3 and ethn!c cleans!ng of millions of people in various parts of the world. Please take some time to educate yourself on these issues and spread the word. Thank you!
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oswildin · 1 month ago
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Loki x Partner!You Halloween Headcannons
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A/N: Leans into grumpy x sunshine trope, fluff/humour/lighthearted/not to be taken seriously. Gender neutral.
Loki awoke to you being missing from bed, confused and rather disgruntled that he couldn’t get morning cuddles, before he remembered exactly why you were up before him…
31st October… It was Halloween.
You had been yapping all about it the previous day, and of course he listened, even if he didn’t quite understand why it was such a big deal.
“I thought you would love Halloween!” “Why?” “Because you’re-“ “I’m…?” “Well… y’know… you.” “I’ll try not to take offence.”
And as Loki arose, he began to hear the faint sound of music, a song he didn’t recognise but sounded festive (it was ‘this is Halloween’).
It was then he found you, in the kitchen, still in your pj’s humming and singing along to the song playing gleefully.
Sometimes he envied just how carefree you acted, but he also loved it. It… brought out a different side to him, subtle but definitely there. Not that he would admit that, of course.
“Must you play that racket at such an early hour?” “This is Halloween, Halloween, Halloween!” You continued to sing gleefully, grinning at him in amusement. “And here was me thinking it was Christmas.” He quipped dryly, making you roll your eyes before turning to reveal the ghost shaped pancakes you’d made for breakfast.
Loki had to hold back a small smile from tugging at his lips, it really was quite silly. But… adorable. And so, he raised a brow, looking down at them with a skeptical eye.
“You’re lucky I like you.”
After breakfast, you were very insistent that your typical yearly routine commenced, much to Loki’s dismay. It consisted of going to the supermarket and grabbing as many sweet treats and spooky confectionery as you could.
Of course, knowing Loki didn’t appreciate artificially sweet Midgardian treats, you told him you would allow him to pick his own selection of dried fruits and any other snacks he wanted.
“How thoughtful of you.” He teased wryly at your ‘allowance’. “Shut up, you know what I meant.” Of course he did, he just loved winding you up.
“You do realise this is all a farce? What began as a tradition of the souls of the dead returning to their homes has been turned into a commodity, another way for corporations to make money.” “I didn’t realise you were so concerned about the effects of capitalism.” “Well, I do unfortunately inhabit this planet as well, do I not? It affects me too.” “Loki, did you even pay for that bag of dried fruit?” “No. Why would I?” Of course you sighed, fighting the urge to pinch the bridge of your nose.
Loki loved teasing you, it was so easy.
Underneath it all, Loki was warmed that you wanted to share your enjoyment of the festivities with him. He loved seeing you excited about it, seeing your eyes light up at the silly decorations the mortals put outside their houses as you drove back home. Although, he did have to grab the steering wheel once or twice as you got distracted by some of them.
“I don’t understand why you mortals watch these ‘scary movies’.” “Why do you stab Thor as a prank?” “Because it’s funny.” “And?” “And because he deserves it.” “And…?” “And because it’s thrilling?” “Ding ding ding.”
“Also don’t you think saying he ‘deserves it’ is a little harsh?” “He’s a God, it basically equates to a paper cut.” “Paper cuts really hurt.” “I know.” He smirked.
It was when you began laughing at the rather gory scene on the TV that Loki raised a brow, slowly turning his head to look at you, watching you shove another handful of sweets into your mouth as if you were watching a children’s film.
“I do hope you’re not getting any ideas.” “What?” “That laugh of yours is almost maniacal.” That earned him a light slap on the arm. “I fear it’s too late.”
In your defence it was a very silly, cheesy, predictable scene. But that’s why you loved it.
Half way through the film, Loki conjured a blanket, putting it over you both as you continued to tuck into the sweets. He didn’t know how you could eat so many without being sick. It was… impressive.
Your pumpkins you’d carved earlier sat on the coffee table, the tea candles flames dancing within them both. You had carved yours into a classic spooky face and Loki had… simply stabbed one of his daggers into his and carved his own name. Yes, the dagger was still in the side of the pumpkin.
Loki now was deciding that he needed cuddles to make up for the lack of them that morning, his arm wrapped around your shoulder as you nestled against him, your head resting on his chest.
There was a jumpscare, which managed to actually make the God of Mischief jump.
“Oh my god, did that get you?!” “No-“ “It did!” “No, I was simply… readjusting my position-“ “You jumped! Ha! Who knew you were jumpy, you always act like-“
It was then Loki swiftly decided he could not have his fearsome reputation tarnished by such slander. His hand moving from its place on your arm, sliding up to cover your mouth, silencing you. He smirked as you glared at him, although you couldn’t hide your own amusement.
“You were saying?”
As the night went on, the excitement of the day and the early start crept up on you, making you grow sleepy, especially being nestled against Loki, safe and warm in his embrace - somehow you were always warm in his arms despite his cooler skin. He just… made you feel warm. Just as you did him.
It didn’t take long for Loki to sense you had drifted off, feeling your breaths slow into peacefulness - which was quite the contradiction to the chaos unfolding on the TV screen. But, you had always been able to sleep around chaos… Finding some sense of peace in it, in him.
He readjusted the blanket around you, shifting himself to ensure you were comfortable.
Whilst Loki may have not been the most vocal when it came to his feelings, he showed it in other ways. The subtle ways, like this moment. He let himself smile softly at your sleeping form, before he let out a content breath, resting his cheek against the top of your head.
Maybe Halloween wasn’t so bad after all.
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junebugwriter · 10 months ago
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I can't stop thinking about House (1977).
Haunted houses are a staple of horror culture. The haunted house goes back centuries, back to oral culture, before these kinds of things were written down. There are hundreds of movies about haunted houses, countless books about them. The Haunting of Hill House, the Amityville Horror, The Shining, the Conjuring, on and on there are examples and variations of the genre, and yet we still go back to the well because there is something so eerily alluring, so endlessly fascinating about the haunted house. Yet, I don’t think there is anything that could have really prepared me for the bizarre and surreal experience of watching House (1977), dir. Nobuhiko Obayashi. 
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I had heard about it in an offhand fashion from some essayists and critics, but only ever in passing and never in any detail. I think mostly that is because it is impossible to really describe, at least in text. It is a fever dream, a nightmare of color and editing that resists description. About halfway through the movie I had a realization: “Oh, I get it. This is a film made by an insane person.” 
I know the word gets thrown around a great deal, and usually in an unserious way. It’s an ableist term, for sure, and one that stigmatizes neurodivergent people. But when you watch this film, you will understand what I mean, because there is no better term for the kind of film that was made here. It was made with remarkable craftsmanship, especially for a film with most likely a shoestring budget. The special effects are pretty silly, especially 46 years later, but there is an air of charming artifice to them that lets you know that the filmmakers were in on the gag. Aside from the effects, however, there is a grasp on genre and subversion that not a lot of films lean into, or they might try and fail to do. House, more than anything, has something to say about haunted houses that not every haunted house story would be willing to do.  
Once upon a time... 
Spoilers for a film from 1977, obviously. Not that it really matters much, because I’m sure you’ve heard a story like this before. 
A girl, unhappy with the fact that her father is getting remarried after her mother died, decides to reach out to her mother’s sister, her aunt. The aunt in turn invites her and her friends to come visit for their summer break. The girl, named Gorgeous, takes her friends, Melody, Sweet, Prof, Kung-fu, Fantasy, and Mac, out to the countryside, where they find her aunt’s house, an idyllic rural mansion. The twist, of course, is that the aunt has been dead for years, and lingers on in our world by haunting her ancestral family’s house.  
If any of that seems boring to you, well, congratulations, you’ve heard a scary story before. It’s not the novelty of the story itself that is the draw here, but rather in the way it is told, a way that can only be done through cinema. The imagery of this thing is... well, here’s a few images from the film.  
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And my personal favorite: 
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That last one is the severed head of a young girl, Mac, biting the rear end of one of the living girls. We’ll get back to Mac. 
Images like this are a big part of why medium is so essential to the arts. Because the “story” is basic, but the film is not. Every great story can usually be boiled down to a simple idea. “Man takes a job at a hotel during offseason.” “Family moves into a house where a grisly murder takes place.” “There’s a doll with a ghost inside it.” Simple, adaptable, and leaves room for a storyteller to leave a mark.  
House goes all in on artifice and genre, to the point of farce. At the beginning of the film, you would be forgiven for thinking it was a sunny daytime sit-com, and the girls are even introduced as such halfway through the film! It’s bizarre. It changes tone from “slice of life comedy” to “soap melodrama,” and in brief moments when Kung-fu has any action, “kung-fu movie.” The director took one look at the screenplay and went, “I’ll take everything on the menu.” 
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You don’t make a movie like House without being in love with film as a medium. 
I could go on for a while about the effects, the tonal whiplash, the aesthetics of the thing, and I am very tempted by doing so. I could just list the incredible things this movie does. The set-piece deaths that come in quick succession through the back half of the movie. But that’s best left to someone with a film degree, who can get into the granularity of the medium that I cannot.  
No, what makes me really keep thinking about the movie starts with poor, innocent Mac. And once you figure out what the film is doing, you realize that this is not a movie about a haunted house. Haunted house stories seldom are. Haunted houses are about us. 
We need to talk about Mac. 
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Mac is a girl who likes food. That’s it. That’s all the character she was given. Mac likes to eat, is almost always eating something, and is frequently teased and mocked by her friends for being “fat,” which... well. I don’t know much about Japanese culture, but I do know that there is a rigid enforcement of conformity to certain ideals, which often gets translated to shaming and fatphobia. Mac liked to eat, and so she was the first real punchline of the film. Even her name, Mac, was an intentional joke about eating, a reference the word “stomach,” or even MacDonalds, or some other joke that does not translate from Japanese cleanly. All the girls are given Disney Snow White dwarf naming schemes, but only hers is most clearly a joke. 
I was instantly invested in Mac’s wellbeing. Sadly, of course, she was the first one to die. 
Mac died first, because she was obviously the odd girl out in a group full of oddballs. She’s the only one that really gets the worst teasing, even worse than Kung-fu, who is mocked for being “manly,” but whose manliness is seen with a kind of awe and reverence, rather than obvious revulsion. Mac was always seen eating something, or in pursuit of food. It is this pursuit of food that in the end results in her death. She went out to the well where she was storing her watermelon, and when a girl goes to check in on her, she is found as only an animated, floating head in the well, a head that makes a joke and then bites a girl on the butt because even in death, she is still hungry. Death cannot keep Mac from being the butt of a joke.  
It is in Mac’s shameful death that you realize what the film is doing. Because Mac, though her name was a joke, was just as flatly characterized as everyone else is in the film. All these girls have silly, descriptive names, and all of them have extremely flat, one-dimensional characterizations. Kung-fu is sporty. Sweet is... sweet. Melody plays music, Prof is smart, Fantasy always has her head in the clouds, and Gorgeous is the most beautiful. And all of them, every single one, gets devoured by the house. And in the end, you realize why the house is eating them.  
You see, the house is hungry because the ghost who animates it is still waiting, a cautionary tale about putting your own life on hold waiting for a man who will never return. See, the aunt who owns the house was betrothed to a soldier during WWII. She promised that no matter what, she would always be waiting to marry him. When he never returned home, the aunt grows bitter, and dies unmarried. Since then, she preys upon the lives of young, unmarried women in her bridal gown, feasting upon their youth and vigor to sustain her undeath. She literally put her own dreams, her own life, aside for the sake of a man because that is what women are supposed to do in a traditional, patriarchal society. 
Once you learn this, you understand why Mac had to die first. All the girls’ names are not only descriptive, they are also flattering to an extent. You could hypothetically ask a man “What are the qualities of a good woman, one you would like to marry?” And the response might be, “I’d like someone smart,” “I’d like someone sweet,” or “I’d like someone beautiful,” etc. So in response, these girls all are simply the embodiment of an idealized feminine attribute, something desired or seen as valuable in a woman. All, of course, except for Mac. 
Mac was the joke. She was the most disposable, the one ostracized and teased even by her friends, and also just so happens to embody an attribute that is not classically seen as desirable by patriarchal society. She eats. She consumes and is consumed by consumption. Therefore, she is the first to become consumed by the House. 
All the girls meet with a similarly ironic punishment, a Dantesque hell of the film’s making. Sweet is smothered by an avalanche of pillows and mattresses. Gorgeous, sitting in front of the mirror, is swallowed up by vanity and possessed by the ideal itself. Melody’s hands are eaten by a piano. Kung-Fu physically tries to fight the house but is in the end broken by violent means. Prof drowns in a pool of blood as she reads the ghostly aunt’s diary, explaining the tragic end of the House’s owner, and dies in pursuit of knowledge. Fantasy, the final girl, is cradled in the arms of the possessed Gorgeous, and is gently comforted to eternal sleep. The final scene involves Gorgeous meeting her new stepmother in the House, and the cycle will continue anew with this new victim.  
Each girl is in the end consumed by the identity which they embody, a grim and grisly vision of what might await them if they ever lived to be adults. The point then is that girlhood and womanhood is only ever seen as an inherently objectifying gaze of the masculine, patriarchal world in which they lived. Mac, the first to go, was but an appetizer, the most visibly mockable victim in the parade of victimhood. The House devours them because society devours us, despite our innocence, despite what qualities we might embody. The aunt was virtuous too, remember. It is virtuous to be patient, to be honest, to be faithful, even unto death. But what if that life is put entirely aside for the betterment of someone else? What is left of the woman left behind to mourn, to grieve? She carries on bearing the weight of expectation. Femininity in relation to patriarchy is a funhouse mirror, warping and distorting what makes us unique, highlighting and capitalizing on our flaws. The ghostly aunt perpetuates the horrifying cycle of predatory expectation, and in turn inflicts those expectations upon the next generation. Gorgeous then the final victim lives on to victimize another.  
What is left is simply leftovers 
Considering the film made it into the Criterion Collection, it’s safe to say that I’m not the only one who sees the value in House. There is something to the cult horror flick that lingers in the minds of its viewers. Each of us is in our own way haunted by the society that we participate in. Each bears the weight of patriarchy and are either consumed or rejected by it. Both paths lead to destruction. 
House is not a hopeful movie, by any means. It's not meant to be a cautionary tale, either. Nobody is virtuous enough to survive, because there is not virtue great enough when the world values those virtues and seeks to consume those who embody them. I do think it is possible in real life to live beyond this cycle, but blaming the girls for dying to it helps nobody. We must instead learn to see why they were swallowed up by the old house and recognize ourselves in the same morality play.  
I can recommend watching it, but only if you have a stomach for some out-there gore, silly special effects, idiosyncratic directing choices, and a critical eye.  It is definitely the strangest film I’ve seen in years, and if you’re up for strange, you’re in for a treat. Just try not get too hungry.  
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popflythesky · 1 year ago
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So if Mikage was (possibly his actual age) physically outside of the school, but metaphysically stayed inside the school (as some sort of living ghost?), and Anthy was a student wandering the grounds and attending class, but not really there (like Mikage) that adds to Utena's line "at last we meet" in the last episode, since Anthy was always really in the coffin. (?????) If Akio is physically present at the school, unlike Anthy, where is his metaphysical-self-as-stuck-in-the-past, is that Dios? Stuck in the castle? On that note, if we go with the idea that "Dios" was always just as bad as "Akio" and Anthy just wasn't able to know it (before the movie?) is his lust for past glory/power genuine, or is even that a farce so Anthy can think they have a goal they're moving towards and she'll keep giving Akio access to the current power he has over the school, duels, etc. He did not sound all too down that they failed once again to regain his princely perfection at the end there after Utena disappeared
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hcfiles · 2 months ago
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Where is the baby? Shouldn't he proudly be posting his son with the promiscuous? What happened? Did they give up the farce? Or they are still using this fake paternity in December, when we will know Amazon's position about WH? What a shame for an actor to use a ghost child (supposedly with a promiscuous) to promote movie productions. It's so dishonest and low.
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ihateyukanda · 1 year ago
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9 People To Get To Know Better
Thanks Sandwich @adangersandwich for the tag!!
Three ships - Uhhhhhh (tumbleweed drifts by) Yulma. Ummmm. Literally no other DGM ones. So I guess only one ship. Sorry.
First ever ship - Can't remember but the first that comes to mind is Lillie and Moon from Pokémon.
Last song - JUNGLE FIRE by Yu Serizawa ft. MOTSU I don't watch MF Ghost but the music fucks
Last film - I don't watch movies anymore so anime it is, and it's Toward The Terra!
Currently reading - Law, A. M., & Qin, Q. (2023). Reflexive Han-Ness, Narratives of Moral Decline, Manchurian Subjects and “Mass” Societal Others: A Study of the Hanfu Movement  in the Cities of Beijing, Chengdu, Shanghai, Wuhan, and Xi’an. Journal of Current Chinese Affairs, 52(2), 230-255. https://doi.org/10.1177/18681026221135082
Currently watching - Toward the Terra with Nate and Undead Girl Murder Farce alone
Currently consuming - I'm so hungry man I want to eat
Currently craving - Muji-brand taco and cheese flavored corn chips.
Tag 9 people (ignore this if you're not interested <3)
@cirrusin @muzzleofnemesis @angomay @sowbug @avantguardisme @ohtobeascruntycat @thesomewhatliterateaxolotl @animucrystal @clownmonsterz
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sidewayspeace444 · 1 year ago
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If they had those two pop up together over the next few weeks, that would be the dumbest decision they’ve made yet. (Besides participating in this shit in the first place) Basically since after Ghosted, the only media mentions of them together were by DM and Scott on that lame podcast. Everything else was pushed by biased blogs, the leeches (from both sides), and the trolls that either believe this bs or are pushing it to try and upset other people. They literally have the perfect set up to end this farce. The only reason they would have to do it is the strike, but they can get people talking in other ways.
A lot of celebrities have been seen out at concerts and just existing in the world. There’s also interviews that they could have him do that are just fun, and they could leave out the movie/work plug that they throw in at the end. (I don’t think he could handle the Chicken Shop Date girl… I think her names Amelia?) Put him on Hot Ones, or make him do thirst tweets.. hell, throw the playbook out and have the man take his shirt off. Have Scott return to his suspiciously timed TikTok account and they can post dumb shit. (Never another scare video, though) Just like, put in some effort! Unless your fake girlfriend has rubbed off on you that much.. in that case, go sell feet pics on Facebook and Insta and have fun I guess.
They do have all of the crumbs to end it. I think at this point 10+ year blogs are so set on being right they’ll continue to push this narrative until this is proven wrong.
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pikespendragon67 · 1 year ago
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AND NOW, Time for Another Pikes Check-In Update Thingamajig!!!
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Basically this is just where I post current interests/events in life to see if other people are currently sharing the same interest, or if people just wanna catch up on things.
WITHOUT FURTHER ADO:
What I'm Watching
Seasonal anime: Summer season's just starting so of the ones that caught my interest at the moment are the following
Might see if Helck is good when it airs
I'm getting tempted to reactivate my Netflix account for My Happy Marriage but ehhh maybe when Beastars airs again. I do like stories where characters go through absolute shit but get better lives and heal from their experiences
Undead Murder Farce: I really like the character designs, and I love the snark of the protagonists. Hopefully it's like Appare Ranman but with Victorian England instead of 1910s-1930s America
Jujustu Kaisen season 2: Sucks that the airing schedule seems to be whack (first 5 episodes will be normal, but then it's gonna be on hiatus until like. October) but I love the OP, ED, character interactions, and the Digimon joke.
Bleach TYBW: Bleach was my choice of shounen as a youth and it's got me in an iron grip of nostalgia. Is the writing terrible at times? Yes! Do I still love it? Yes...for certain characters nowadays
Apparently Nier Automata's making a comeback? Hope so. It was hinting at big stuff when it last got hiatus'ed
MAL says Dungeon Meshi is gonna air this season but I doubt that
I'm also gonna watch the new Superman cartoon since a friend's letting me borrow another friend's Max account (I COULD technically reactive my account, but I hate how WB cut most of their projects & library for tax write-offs). And I'm 2 episodes away from finishing Iruma season 3, so once I'm done with that, it's onto Saiki K to watch during my lunch breaks when there isn't a seasonal anime to watch. ...Though I'm kinda wondering if I should swap it for Nanbaka now... Eh I already had the poll, so might as well stick to the poll until I finish Big O
What I'm Playing:
Just finished the 2nd labyrinth of Persona Q. I'm not really looking forward to replaying the 3rd labyrinth since it's horror themed. (Plus this was around the time I actually had to start playing with a guide because of a few FOE puzzles. Gonna be distracting to do so as I play). That being said I love that this combines EO dungeon exploration with Persona combat. Makes me wonder if I should try to get back to EO4 or see if I should get EO3 on modern consoles
Other potential interests: Ghost Trick (got the special edition right when I was in the middle of my Persona Q replay), 999 on Vita (solves the issue of not being able to play the updated version at work), possibly get back to Personas 2-5 (after I read the manga for the first game; keep forgetting to do that), maybe explore my Steam library since I have a few games there now thanks to the summer sale, maybe get back to playing Fantasy Life until I get to Al Majiik (though I forgot how tedious it is to grind for jobs). Just man. While I'm sad there's no FEMC for the P3 remake, I'm still super excited for it
Though with that being said it feels weird to buy games I already own just on different consoles. It'd be one thing if there were remakes/reboots, but nah. I just have Nier on both PS4 and Steam now. Game collecting's a weird hobby, but one I enjoy nonetheless
Other Stuff:
Anxiety spiked a bit today after seeing discourse start to pop up here again & cringing at past mistakes I've made, hence the checkup post you see now
While I'm cool with my job, I don't like how it consumes so much of my free time/energy. If I can get paid enough to work 4 days without me having to do 10 hour work days, that'd be pretty neat
Barbie movie's in a few weeks oh boy
Another con's happening at the end of the month, but it will be like 3 hours away. Gonna go with a friend then but hopefully my car sickness doesn't kill me.
Then the next con I definitely want to go to is in September
And after that I'm gonna see Hadestown with another friend
Not sure what to do for a Halloween shindig with friends. And it might be the brainrot talking but I kinda wanna go as Shinjiro from Persona 3? Though I also want my coworkers to recognize my costume, so I might need to start looking for Vampire Hunter D attire now.
THUS ENDS THE CHECKUP!
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remembertheskittles · 1 year ago
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Right, I've rounded up a few of my faves from the last few years, hopefully you'll find something new that appeals to you 😊 Most of them wander between fantasy/historical fiction/gothic and most of them have compelling relationships (sometimes romantic, sometimes not) between characters. Feel free to peruse at your leisure 🥰
Nettleblack by Nat Reeve
- late Victorian detective farce set in a small Sussex village. Soooo many queer characters. The narrator, Henry, is anxious as fuck (relatable) and her speaking style can be a little grating to start with, but it winds up being endearing. Told through letters/diaries/casebooks, so you get multiple character POVs. I finished reading it last weekend and I adored it.
The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
- a book about a night circus, and a bet between two old men about which of their apprentices will win out which spans decades and will have consequences for many more people than just them. But the description is the thing in this book - I'm usually not big on reading really descriptive books (it took me a looooooong time to get through Lord of the Rings) but this one just does it so gorgeously, I could read descriptions about the Night Circus forever.
This is how you lose the time war by Max Gladstone and Amal al Mohtar
- I know this got really popular again recently, but it definitely deserves all the love. An enemies to lovers epic sweeping tale about two immortal beings, Red and Blue, told through their love letters to each other.
Plain Bad Heroines by Emily M Danforth
- A story told partly in the past, partly in the present; in the past, a boarding school seems to be cursed, and several girls die in horrific but mysterious circumstances. In the present, a movie is being made about and set at the school, and three very different girls are involved in the production and each other's lives. I adored the relationship between the three protagonists and the Gothic haunted old boarding school of it all.
The Midnight Library by Matt Haig
- TW suicide - a young woman tries to kill herself and finds herself in a magical library between life and death, where every book is a different version of what her life could have been. I just thought the concept was executed beautifully.
Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
- Pretty much what it says on the tin. A spoiled Mexican girl goes to visit/rescue her cousin, who's just been married off to an English man who lives in a mansion up a hill through a forest. Spooky gothic vibes, criticism of colonialism, and a protagonist who is flawed without being unlikeable.
Wylding Hall by Elizabeth Hand
- What if Fleetwood Mac spent a summer recording an album in a creepy old English mansion, among relationship drama, band drama, and a few unsettling ghosts, and then one of them never came back? Told in interviews with the band years later, another one that executes really well on its concept, despite being under 200 pages.
The Lions of Al Rassan by Guy Gavriel Kay
- Historical fantasy set in a fantasy version of Muslim Spain. Explores the relationship between a Spanish/Christian soldier, the Muslim adviser to the King (who also assassinated the last emperor) and a Jewish female doctor (obviously the religions are given different names since it's historical fantasy, but that's clearly what they are). The relationships between the characters are so beautiful and nuanced and the ending made me cry. This is one of the books on my reread every few years list, so you know it's good. Definitely a chunky one though!
The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue by Mackenzi Lee
- Henry 'Monty' Montague was raised by his abusive father to be a gentleman, but he prefers to be bisexual and have a good time, and he's hoping his Grand Tour with his bff Percy will be a great last hurrah. Life has other plans, however. Percy is mixed race and also has a disability and that's explored really interestingly in this - it's set in the late 18th century (I believe), so I tend to describe it as YA Black Sails (and mean that as a compliment!). Great friends to lovers romantic subplot. There are also two sequels about Henry's siblings plus a spin off about Henry and Percy, which are also excellent, but this first one is my personal favourite.
oooooh!! these all sound amazing!! thank you so so much! 💖💖
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poetrythreesixfive · 2 years ago
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Sad Oscar
Tell me a tale of heartache
or weave me a tale of woe,
      just give me a story
      of well deserved glory
so I can get lost in the show.
Please spin me yarn of adventure
or voice me a legend of old,
      just fashion a fable
      as well as you’re able
of pirates and ghost-ships and gold.
Unveil some fictional farcing
with mischief and mocking galore,
      just keep us all laughing
      with hijinks and gaffing
and we’ll keep returning for more.
Just don’t pitch a preachy agenda
or judge like a self-righteous boor,
      for moral arraignment
      is not entertainment
and not what the movies is for!
                  -GeorgeFilip
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poorlytunedukulele · 2 years ago
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Prompt 24 - Spring Cleaning
April 03, 2873; The Last City, Earth
“Really, you’d think this would be the other way around,” Azra mused.
Spark didn’t answer.  He was too busy sorting through a pile of shoulder guards, muttering to himself.  Azra had perched herself on an ammo crate, watching with some bemusement as he bustled back and forth.
Azra continued.  “I mean you’re the Ghost and I’m the Guardian.  Aren’t you supposed to be the sensible one?”
“I’m being sensible,” Spark said huffily.
He was not being sensible.  They were supposed to be cleaning out their Vault, but he’d been insisting on keeping more than they dismantled.  Sometimes it was genuine thought for the future, but mostly it was just sentimental.
“Okay,” Azra challenged.  “How about these?”  She slapped her hand down on a stack of Golden Age nature magazines piled next to her.
“Careful with those,” Spark scolded.  He darted over and levitated one gently. 
“You have scans of all of them,” Azra argued.
“There’s a difference between looking at a projection and being able to handle something.  I can’t recreate the colors faithfully-“
“If we donate them to an archive, we could go look at them whenever we wanted,” Azra said.  (Which would probably be never- she hadn’t cast more than a cursory glance at the magazines in two years).
“Yeah, well,” Spark said.
Azra tilted her chin and raised her eyebrows at him.
“Fine, fine,” he relented.  “Well donate the magazines.”
“And the leg armor?” she said.
“We already sorted through the leg armor,” Spark said.
“I don’t need a set specifically for rock climbing.”
Spark spun his shell.  “What if we get into a situation-“
“Then I’ll deal with it,” Azra said.  “We’ll deal with it.  I feel you’re wasting more time and effort trying to prepare for everything than we’d spend just handling things as they come up.”
“We’re finally at a place where we’re good enough,” Spark lamented.  “After scraping by so long, we finally have options and you want to just throw them all away.”
“I don’t need six different helmets,” Azra said soothingly.  “I know it seems important, but it’s just stuff, Spark.”
The Ghost grumbled to himself and transmatted away the magazines.  Azra, feeling a little apologetic, moved to help sort the equipment stacked behind them.  A set of old bowstrings, wax flaking off; a folded pile of House Devils bannercloth; the remote for Andal’s movie projector. 
“That’s where that went,” Spark said.  “I’d forgotten we lost it.”
“We should really clean this out more often,” Azra commented.  She removed an old, threadbare cloak and came face-to-face with something else she’d forgotten.
A rocket launcher, still shinny-new and perfect under the dust.  Silver feathers, a golden wolf’s head.  The maker’s mark from Crux/Lomar was still there under the barrel.  She hadn’t even taken it out for a test run when she’d gotten it.
-
Amidst her reverie, someone pressed a gun into her hands. No, not a gun, a rocket launcher. Shining gold and silver, a feathered wolf's head. She looked up, confused, to see an Exo there (blue optics, yellow details). He was one of the several people moving down the lines, passing out… rocket launchers? "Made from the armor of those who fell," the Exo rasped.
Azra was immediately repulsed. She didn't want it. She opened her mouth to say as such, but the Exo had moved on down the line. Her fingers fidgeted on the detailing. Whose armor was this, then? It was too macabre for her tastes, wielding a weapon made from a dead person's gear. The gun was gleaming and new, like the ceremonial armor they all wore. Azra couldn't wait to get back into her dented, scratched gear. Newness felt like a farce.
-
“Lots of old things in here,” Spark said.  He lit down on Azra’s shoulder gently. 
It had only been two years, but it felt like a lifetime ago.  Traveler, she’d been so scared, so lost.
They were in a better place now.  They had friends, they had their Pack.  Age had given her more perspective on the dark, desperate events of Twilight Gap.  Before, she’d been horrified at the rocket launcher, supposedly made from the armor of those who’d given their lives.  It had felt grotesque with the smell of blood still practically in her nose.  Now, she traced a finger along the wolf’s wing and felt… gratitude.  She hadn’t asked Miles-4 to die for her.  They hadn’t asked Shaxx to take up his certain-to-fail mission to hold the line.  But he had and he did, and now Azra and the City were still here. 
Back then, if she had died her final death, it would have been in confusion and grief.  She hadn’t understood what sacrifice meant.  But now she had things she treasured more than life itself; she knew what it was like to look death in the eye and stand firm instead of turning to run.
“Let’s say we take a break and go fire some rockets at House Winter,” Azra suggested.
Spring cleaning had gotten tiresome.  “Deal.”
AO3 Linky!
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buildarocketboys · 1 year ago
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I always love these book rec lists!! I hard second My Heart is a Chainsaw as a rec btw, probably my favourite book I've read this year, obviously neurodivergent, Native female protagonist obsessed with slashers is convinced that her small town is going to become the victim of a slasher. Jade Daniels is everything to me (this is a rec to everyone but especially to Rouke tbh bc I think you'd love it/her!)
Some other recs bc I made a rec list a while ago for someone else with books I've read and loved in the past couple of years. (A Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue is YA tbh but I'm leaving it on the list because it's good):
Nettleblack by Nat Reeve
- late Victorian detective farce set in a small Sussex village. Soooo many queer characters. The narrator, Henry, is anxious as fuck (relatable) and her speaking style can be a little grating to start with, but it winds up being endearing. Told through letters/diaries/casebooks, so you get multiple character POVs. I finished reading it last weekend and I adored it.
The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
- a book about a night circus, and a bet between two old men about which of their apprentices will win out which spans decades and will have consequences for many more people than just them. But the description is the thing in this book - I'm usually not big on reading really descriptive books (it took me a looooooong time to get through Lord of the Rings) but this one just does it so gorgeously, I could read descriptions about the Night Circus forever.
This is how you lose the time war by Max Gladstone and Amal al Mohtar
- I know this got really popular again recently, but it definitely deserves all the love. An enemies to lovers epic sweeping tale about two immortal beings, Red and Blue, told through their love letters to each other.
Plain Bad Heroines by Emily M Danforth
- A story told partly in the past, partly in the present; in the past, a boarding school seems to be cursed, and several girls die in horrific but mysterious circumstances. In the present, a movie is being made about and set at the school, and three very different girls are involved in the production and each other's lives. I adored the relationship between the three protagonists and the Gothic haunted old boarding school of it all.
The Midnight Library by Matt Haig
- TW suicide - a young woman tries to kill herself and finds herself in a magical library between life and death, where every book is a different version of what her life could have been. I just thought the concept was executed beautifully.
Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
- Pretty much what it says on the tin. A spoiled Mexican girl goes to visit/rescue her cousin, who's just been married off to an English man who lives in a mansion up a hill through a forest. Spooky gothic vibes, criticism of colonialism, and a protagonist who is flawed without being unlikeable.
Wylding Hall by Elizabeth Hand
- What if Fleetwood Mac spent a summer recording an album in a creepy old English mansion, among relationship drama, band drama, and a few unsettling ghosts, and then one of them never came back? Told in interviews with the band years later, another one that executes really well on its concept, despite being under 200 pages.
The Lions of Al Rassan by Guy Gavriel Kay
- Historical fantasy set in a fantasy version of Muslim Spain. Explores the relationship between a Spanish/Christian soldier, the Muslim adviser to the King (who also assassinated the last emperor) and a Jewish female doctor (obviously the religions are given different names since it's historical fantasy, but that's clearly what they are). The relationships between the characters are so beautiful and nuanced and the ending made me cry. This is one of the books on my reread every few years list, so you know it's good. Definitely a chunky one though!
The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue by Mackenzi Lee
- Henry 'Monty' Montague was raised by his abusive father to be a gentleman, but he prefers to be bisexual and have a good time, and he's hoping his Grand Tour with his bff Percy will be a great last hurrah. Life has other plans, however. Percy is mixed race and also has a disability and that's explored really interestingly in this - it's set in the late 18th century (I believe), so I tend to describe it as YA Black Sails (and mean that as a compliment!). Great friends to lovers romantic subplot. There are also two sequels about Henry's siblings plus a spin off about Henry and Percy, which are also excellent, but this first one is my personal favourite.
listen I ended up regretting saying anything about this on my old blog because people will interpret literally any and every statement maliciously on this hellsite but I want to start like. a helpline for people who are like “hey I pretty much only read YA but I’m like 22 now and don’t relate to teenagers as much, it’s such a shame that there are no fun books written for adults :(” because boy HOWDY are there some fun books for adults 
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petty-crush · 3 months ago
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“Rules of the game” (1939) Rewatch
-another cinematic bucket list item unlocked; seeing this on 35 mm film at last.
Exquisite
-overall I’ve seen it…10 times? 15? on laserdisc and other formats
-what stood out this watch (having long soaked in the truly scrumptious deep focus camera work and vibrant blocking) is the character of Octave
(director Jean Renoir himself)
-this is truly the best example of a director playing a side/minor character, and murdering every scene he is in
-I was partially affected by the scene where he wonders where his life took such a rough turn, how he wanted to be a composer, but ending up a lackey to others
-I looked up what was different in the butchered re-cut version (after a near riot broke out at its premiere) and apparently it was scenes of Octave
-to recall Howard Hawks: “That’s what you want to leave out? That what I would leave *in*!”
-he is a bumbling moral detective cherub, and I cherish every moment
-the skeleton dance, and the ghosts with umbrellas, equally lovely
-I’m shocked to learn that this film had fallen out of the sights and sounds top ten films in 2022(for the first time ever); this is a film that should truly be seen by everybody
-the mirth and playfulness is off the charts
-“will you put an end to this farce?”
“Which one?”
-“I’m sorry, I have to let you go. You brought a gun into this house. They may in fact be wrong, but my guests value their lives!”
-the entire audience gasped and murmured when the bunny rabbit was shot and his arms death flailed out
-every moment in the mansion; the screen is alive with people moving, crawling, wandering, eating, laughing and more; none of it is confusing or untidy. Astounding
-how in the fuck did they do this in 1939?
-I’ve never noticed before but when Robert (the mansion owner and lead gal’s husband) has a wincing smile after showing his toy, he has the look of an Ed Wood character.
+Ashamed, happy, caught in a moment
-for a film all about affairs and chasing others, it is strangely sexless, a plastic giraffe has more carnal encounters
-adds to its whimsical nature
-I still think it’s so funny this film was banned on the grounds of (snort) “having an undesirable influence over the youth”
+fuck that. The only thing undesirable is not having seen this.
-in a book about a movie mogul, there was talk about doing a dub with 1940s Hollywood actors. That would have been a sight to see, even if it was the mutilated version
-this film works because it is a simple gathering of (rich) fools told to perfection
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thorntonkrell-blog-blog · 1 year ago
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Nic Cage's career can be seen as a combination of farce, spoof, and camp elements. Throughout his filmography, he has taken on roles and projects that embrace exaggerated performances, satirical takes on genres, and flamboyant aesthetics. Cage is known for his versatility and willingness to take on unconventional roles. He has built a reputation for his intense and often eccentric performances. Cage has portrayed a wide range of characters, from action heroes to quirky comedians and everything in between. His career has been characterized by a mix of critical acclaim and commercial success, with standout performances in films like "Leaving Las Vegas" (for which he won an Academy Award) and "Adaptation." However, he has also appeared in numerous films that received mixed reviews. Cage's career has become synonymous with his unique acting style, often described as larger-than-life and memorable.
Cage has frequently showcased his talent for comedic timing and over-the-top performances, which aligns with the characteristics of farce. Films like "Raising Arizona" and "National Treasure" demonstrate his ability to bring out the absurdity and exaggerated elements of the characters he portrays. His comedic choices, physical comedy, and larger-than-life expressions contribute to the farcical nature of these films.
Cage has also ventured into the realm of spoof films, where he has parodied specific genres or cinematic conventions. One notable example is "Face/Off," where he plays a character who switches faces with another person, resulting in an over-the-top performance that satirizes action movie tropes. Similarly, his role in "Ghost Rider" embraces the campy and exaggerated aspects of superhero films, poking fun at the genre's conventions.
Cage's career has included roles and projects that embrace camp aesthetics and sensibilities. Films like "Vampire's Kiss" and "Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans" feature performances that border on the theatrical and campy, with Cage fully committing to eccentric characters and exaggerated mannerisms. These films, with their offbeat humor, unconventional styles, and self-awareness, embody the camp sensibility that appreciates the embrace of "bad taste" and the theatricality of performance.
By combining farce, spoof, and camp elements, Nic Cage has created a unique and often self-aware persona in the entertainment industry. His willingness to push boundaries, take on unconventional roles, and embrace exaggerated performances has endeared him to audiences and solidified his status as a distinctive figure in cinema.
Furthermore, Cage has become increasingly invested in self parody, a trend which continued in his portrayal of Dracula in Renfield. Nic was the perfect choice for this film which is a campy spoof of Dracula mixed in with a farcical back story of codependence, twelve step groups and police story.
The performance of Cage, who seems to be having a great time chewing scenery and flesh is pitch perfect and elevates the film into the surreal realm of emerging cult classic.
Definitely worthwhile viewing and a must for all fans of Dracula and Cage.
User
Farce: Nic Cage has frequently showcased his talent for comedic timing and over-the-top performances, which aligns with the characteristics of farce. Films like "Raising Arizona" and "National Treasure" demonstrate his ability to bring out the absurdity and exaggerated elements of the characters he portrays. His comedic choices, physical comedy, and larger-than-life expressions contribute to the farcical nature of these films.
Spoof: Cage has also ventured into the realm of spoof films, where he has parodied specific genres or cinematic conventions. One notable example is "Face/Off," where he plays a character who switches faces with another person, resulting in an over-the-top performance that satirizes action movie tropes. Similarly, his role in "Ghost Rider" embraces the campy and exaggerated aspects of superhero films, poking fun at the genre's conventions.
Camp: Cage's career has included roles and projects that embrace camp aesthetics and sensibilities. Films like "Vampire's Kiss" and "Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans" feature performances that border on the theatrical and campy, with Cage fully committing to eccentric characters and exaggerated mannerisms. These films, with their offbeat humor, unconventional styles, and self-awareness, embody the camp sensibility that appreciates the embrace of "bad taste" and the theatricality of performance.
By combining farce, spoof, and camp elements, Nic Cage has created a unique and often self-aware persona in the entertainment industry. His willingness to push boundaries, take on unconventional roles, and embrace exaggerated performances has endeared him to audiences and solidified his status as a distinctive figure in cinema.
User compare the carrer of Nic Cage to the career of John Cusack, Jeff Bridges and Bruce Willis ChatGPT Nic Cage, John Cusack, Jeff Bridges, and Bruce Willis are all accomplished actors who have had long and diverse careers in the entertainment industry. While each of them has their unique strengths and filmography, let's compare and contrast their careers:
Nic Cage: Nic Cage is known for his versatility and willingness to take on unconventional roles. He has built a reputation for his intense and often eccentric performances. Cage has portrayed a wide range of characters, from action heroes to quirky comedians and everything in between. His career has been characterized by a mix of critical acclaim and commercial success, with standout performances in films like "Leaving Las Vegas" (for which he won an Academy Award) and "Adaptation." However, he has also appeared in numerous films that received mixed reviews. Cage's career has become synonymous with his unique acting style, often described as larger-than-life and memorable.
Spoof, farce, and camp are all terms used to describe different forms of comedy or entertainment. While there may be some overlap and similarities between them, they each have distinct characteristics. Here's a breakdown of the differences:
Spoof: A spoof is a type of parody or imitation that exaggerates and satirizes a specific work, genre, or style. It often imitates and mocks the conventions, tropes, and clichés of a particular genre or piece of popular culture. Spoofs can be found in various forms of media such as movies, TV shows, literature, and music. They usually rely on humor derived from clever wordplay, exaggeration, and imitation of recognizable elements. The intent is to make the audience laugh by pointing out the absurdities or clichés within the original work. Example: "Airplane!" is a spoof film that parodies disaster movies like "Airport" by exaggerating their dramatic elements and making them comedic.
Farce: A farce is a type of comedy characterized by absurd and highly improbable situations, mistaken identities, and a fast-paced plot filled with physical comedy and humorous misunderstandings. Farces often rely on exaggerated characters and slapstick humor. They typically involve chaotic scenarios, misunderstandings, and over-the-top actions that create a sense of confusion and hilarity. Farces often take place in a single location, such as a house or a hotel, and revolve around a central comedic premise. Example: "Noises Off" is a classic farce play that takes place during a disastrous dress rehearsal and performance of a fictional play, filled with misunderstandings, slamming doors, and comedic chaos.
Camp: Camp refers to a style or sensibility characterized by intentional exaggerated theatricality, flamboyance, and irony. It embraces and celebrates kitsch, melodrama, and over-the-top aesthetics. Camp can be found in various art forms, including movies, fashion, music, and performance art. It often involves a deliberate embrace of "bad taste" or unconventional styles, and it may be appreciated for its ironic or subversive qualities. Camp humor often relies on witty dialogue, innuendos, and double entendres. Example: The film "Mommie Dearest" is often considered a camp classic due to its exaggerated performances and melodramatic portrayal of a mother-daughter relationship.
While spoof, farce, and camp share a comedic element, they differ in terms of their specific comedic approaches and the aspects they choose to exaggerate or satirize. Spoofs often target specific genres or works, farces thrive on chaotic situations and physical comedy, and camp embraces exaggerated aesthetics and ironic sensibilities.
User As Nic Cage has become a self parody of his life and film career, portray his career as a combination of farce, spoof and camp ChatGPT Nic Cage's career can indeed be seen as a combination of farce, spoof, and camp elements. Throughout his filmography, he has taken on roles and projects that embrace exaggerated performances, satirical takes on genres, and flamboyant aesthetics. Here's how his career can be viewed through these lenses:
Farce: Nic Cage has frequently showcased his talent for comedic timing and over-the-top performances, which aligns with the characteristics of farce. Films like "Raising Arizona" and "National Treasure" demonstrate his ability to bring out the absurdity and exaggerated elements of the characters he portrays. His comedic choices, physical comedy, and larger-than-life expressions contribute to the farcical nature of these films.
Spoof: Cage has also ventured into the realm of spoof films, where he has parodied specific genres or cinematic conventions. One notable example is "Face/Off," where he plays a character who switches faces with another person, resulting in an over-the-top performance that satirizes action movie tropes. Similarly, his role in "Ghost Rider" embraces the campy and exaggerated aspects of superhero films, poking fun at the genre's conventions.
Camp: Cage's career has included roles and projects that embrace camp aesthetics and sensibilities. Films like "Vampire's Kiss" and "Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans" feature performances that border on the theatrical and campy, with Cage fully committing to eccentric characters and exaggerated mannerisms. These films, with their offbeat humor, unconventional styles, and self-awareness, embody the camp sensibility that appreciates the embrace of "bad taste" and the theatricality of performance.
By combining farce, spoof, and camp elements, Nic Cage has created a unique and often self-aware persona in the entertainment industry. His willingness to push boundaries, take on unconventional roles, and embrace exaggerated performances has endeared him to audiences and solidified his status as a distinctive figure in cinema.
User compare the carrer of Nic Cage to the career of John Cusack, Jeff Bridges and Bruce Willis ChatGPT Nic Cage, John Cusack, Jeff Bridges, and Bruce Willis are all accomplished actors who have had long and diverse careers in the entertainment industry. While each of them has their unique strengths and filmography, let's compare and contrast their careers:
Nic Cage: Nic Cage is known for his versatility and willingness to take on unconventional roles. He has built a reputation for his intense and often eccentric performances. Cage has portrayed a wide range of characters, from action heroes to quirky comedians and everything in between. His career has been characterized by a mix of critical acclaim and commercial success, with standout performances in films like "Leaving Las Vegas" (for which he won an Academy Award) and "Adaptation." However, he has also appeared in numerous films that received mixed reviews. Cage's career has become synonymous with his unique acting style, often described as larger-than-life and memorable.
John Cusack: John Cusack has had a diverse career spanning several decades, known for his relatable charm and ability to play both comedic and dramatic roles. He gained prominence in the 1980s with films like "Say Anything" and "Better Off Dead." Cusack has since built a filmography that includes a mix of independent films and mainstream hits. He has demonstrated versatility in his roles, portraying characters with depth and vulnerability. Cusack's career has been marked by his ability to connect with audiences through relatable performances, often showcasing his wit and intelligence.
Jeff Bridges: Jeff Bridges is celebrated for his naturalistic and nuanced acting style. He has consistently delivered strong performances throughout his career and is known for his ability to disappear into a character. Bridges has tackled a wide range of roles, from iconic characters like The Dude in "The Big Lebowski" to more serious and dramatic roles in films like "Crazy Heart," for which he won an Academy Award. His career spans both commercial successes and critically acclaimed films, and he is respected for his dedication to his craft and his ability to bring authenticity to his characters.
Bruce Willis: Bruce Willis rose to fame in the 1980s and 1990s as an action star, particularly known for his role as John McClane in the "Die Hard" series. He has since maintained a presence in both action-packed blockbusters and character-driven films. Willis has a charismatic on-screen presence and has demonstrated his versatility by taking on comedic roles as well. While he is often associated with action films, he has also delivered noteworthy performances in films like "Pulp Fiction" and "The Sixth Sense," which earned him critical acclaim and awards recognition.
In summary, Nic Cage, John Cusack, Jeff Bridges, and Bruce Willis have all made significant contributions to the film industry, each with their distinct acting styles and film choices. Cage is known for his eccentric and intense performances, Cusack for his relatable charm, Bridges for his naturalistic acting, and Willis for his action-hero persona. All four actors have had successful careers, with a mix of critical acclaim, commercial success, and memorable performances.
User can they be characterized as post DeNiro leading men ChatGPT While it's difficult to make a blanket characterization of actors as "post DeNiro leading men," as each actor has their unique style and approach, it's worth examining the impact Robert De Niro had on the acting landscape and how subsequent actors may have been influenced by his work.
Robert De Niro is widely regarded as one of the greatest actors of his generation, known for his transformative performances and dedication to his craft. He has portrayed a wide range of complex characters and set a high standard for acting in terms of versatility and depth.
In the wake of De Niro's influential career, actors like Nic Cage, John Cusack, Jeff Bridges, and Bruce Willis emerged and found success as leading men. While they may not share the exact same style or career trajectory as De Niro, they have each made significant contributions to the leading man archetype in their own right.
Nic Cage, with his intense performances and willingness to take on diverse roles, has been able to capture audience attention and embody unconventional characters, reminiscent of De Niro's fearlessness in exploring various roles.
John Cusack, known for his relatable charm and ability to balance comedy and drama, brings a sense of authenticity to his performances, reminiscent of De Niro's ability to fully immerse himself in his characters.
Jeff Bridges, with his naturalistic acting style and ability to disappear into roles, shares a commitment to authenticity that echoes De Niro's dedication to his craft.
Bruce Willis, while primarily known for his action-hero persona, has also showcased his acting chops in a variety of films, much like De Niro's ability to seamlessly transition between genres and roles.
Overall, while it's challenging to categorize these actors as "post DeNiro leading men" definitively, it is clear that De Niro's influence on the acting profession has had a lasting impact. Each of these actors has contributed to the leading man archetype in their own unique ways and has left their mark on the industry.
User Nic Cage and his marriage to Lisa Marie Presley ChatGPT I apologize, but I couldn't find any information about Nic Cage's marriage to Lisa Marie Presley in my training data up until September 2021. It's possible that this event occurred after my knowledge cutoff. For the most accurate and up-to-date information, I recommend referring to reliable sources or conducting an internet search specifically on this topic.
User was nic Cage married to Lisa Presley ChatGPT Yes, Nicolas Cage was married to Lisa Marie Presley. They got married on August 10, 2002, in a private ceremony in Hawaii. However, their marriage was relatively short-lived, and they filed for divorce in November of the same year. The divorce was finalized in 2004.
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