#i appreciate them from far away though and i like Looking at them but ultimately i just cant feel kinship

[mihai-florescu]

I appreciate the dedication to preserving niches but im too bored with the concept of labels and ultimately uncaring towards circlejerk communities and maintaining a "lifestyle", perhaps at this point of burnout uncaring towards aesthetics altogether, to be able to meaningfully participate.

[theoxenfree]

vampire x crime scene cleaner!reader | 16.1k

you're a crime scene cleaner who happens across an advertisement for a mansion housekeeper in exchange for room and board. it's close to work, close to your university, and an easy job. the ultimate package. right away, you notice the owner's beauty as well as his eccentricities, but decide to commit to it. the spiral into depravity and debauchery begins when you're tasked with cleaning the site of a savage murder, solidifying you as a irreplaceable treasure.

warnings; dead dove do not eat; explicit non-con, extreme dubon, sadomasochism, blood play, overstimulation, choking, cigarette burns, smoking, hypnotism, theological themes, exploration of morality, gunshot wounds, extreme & graphic depictions of body horror + gore + grotesque details, graphic depictions of crime scene cleanup, possibly inaccurate depictions of crime scene cleanup (not looking for feedback on it), obsessive & possessive behaviors, heavy prose & details, the entire work is allegorical, murder, vampire is written as a monster bc that's what they are lmao, dividers are used between scenes

reposted from 2kmps; previously proofread by @ceruleansol

I shouldn't have to say it, but I will: nothing in this oneshot is indicative of my personal viewpoints. it is entirely fictitious.

this was a project that took me quite a bit of time to do, so I would be immensely appreciated if you'd please reblog + interact with it!! I'd love to hear your feedback!!

Another internet search bore fruit.

The image bouncing back at you from your phone had been hastily taken with a tremble in your hand, all the while launching a few too many cautious looks across your shoulder to either end of the dim, long hallway making up part of the second floor. There wasn't any particular rationale for your apprehension and busy eyes but the belief the mansion owner wouldn't be too pleased to see you taking pictures of his valuables rather than cleaning them.

That fear hadn't stopped you from reverse image searching a good couple of curiosities over the widening gap of time you had been living there.

Tonight was a Chalmette table vase displayed on a pedestal in the hall; brassy gold gilding cradled a somewhat drab white bloom that reached high and sprouted open to a hollow inside. Similar surviving articles went for thousands.

You totaled the prices of everything so far as enough to outright buy a house on the more modest side of town.

There was a daring thought that loomed in the back of your mind, an ugly little thing that told you one or two missing antiques wasn't any big deal. He wouldn't miss them, let alone even notice they were gone, because he was the strangest man you had ever met.

Four months ago, he had only ever introduced himself by the name Montague, letting an anticipatory stillness hang in the air while you waited for him to finish. He never did, handsome features lifting as his dark eyes thinned and smile inched higher. He had you in a tight handshake.

"I enjoyed reading the resume you sent in with your response to my advertisement." He had traces of an accent intact but had cleverly adapted to one more common to the area. "You're the first person I've come across wanting the room who's done that. It really stood out to me. A crime scene cleaner? Must be a difficult job."

"I know it was probably overkill, but I think this will be perfect for me." You were led to a suede armchair, his hand anchoring onto your shoulder to lower you into the seat. He sat across from you in something similar, one leg crossing. "I recently had to move out of my other place, and the university will be about an hour closer. My work won't be as far of a drive, either. I—I, uh, clean some gross stuff, so taking care of your house won't be anything."

Even after that spiel, Montague never let his smile slip. Rather, it seemed to widen as though delighted by your oversharing. He looked like a man basking in glee over a rare find, an offer he couldn't possibly turn away.

"All amenities in the house are yours." This was after he showed you to one of the rooms on the second floor: a capacious, well-dressed space behind a red door at the end of the hall. "As long as you listen to a few rules and keep things clean, we should have a very amicable... cohabitation."

You thought it was an odd choice of wording. "Okay. Well, what do I need to know?"

"No guests." It was immediate, his tone suddenly a touch edgy, razored, unyielding. "Not unless I give you explicit permission beforehand. I keep many important valuables; they're very dear to me. Also, do not invite anyone in unless I am there."

Again, odd, but it was his house.

"Sure," you said agreeably, having half the thought to write down these peculiarities of his. "What next?"

He was set on your shoulder, reaching out to pull a thin, frayed thread off of your jumper. "The downstairs—as in, the basement—is my personal space. If I need you down there, I will ask you for you to go down. You can go anywhere else in the house, on the property. None of it concerns me."

"Why the basement, though?" It felt damaging to press a question like that so early on, but you figured it was innocent enough. "This house is so big that we could be on the same floor and hardly see each other."

The muscles around his mouth twitched slightly, only once. You still noticed it. Noted: he didn't like to be questioned. "Sorry, I'm not trying to-"

"It's cold downstairs." he injected, shifting to look around the room as though taking in the newness of it as well. "I make sure it stays comfortable all year, all throughout the house, but the cold suits me best."

With how downright frosty his skin felt in that handshake earlier—on a mild day in mid-spring—you thought that explanation checked out. He must have only just come up to greet you at the front entrance.

You tried to forget the feeling. "Alright. Next?"

"Oh," he restrained an unseemly laugh, using one hand to crowd into a pocket on his dark blazer, "there is nothing else, at least nothing pertinent. It's my understanding that we're both quite busy, so this would be the current arrangement unless something changes."

What changes? You wanted to ask, thwarted to silence when he revealed some sort of silver thing pinched between his fingers with a thick handkerchief. It was a dainty-seeming contraption with chains linking several old skeleton keys at the end. The fabric he used to hold the clip concealed all of the elegant tracery that made up its shape.

"Traditionally, this is called a chatelaine. It’s something I’ve modified for you to get around the house. It’ll be easier to clean." Montague said, fast to force the mess of cold silver and chains into your palm, rubbing down his fingers with the handkerchief afterward. "The smallest key is to your room. The largest one opens the doors to go outside, so don't lose that. One of them is meant for doors in the basement—can't recall which."

He could see the wariness behind your eyes, a worrying crease forming in your brow. "This house has been around for a long time. I've just never gotten around to modernizing the locks."

Other questions came to you, but he hardly acted interested in entertaining them. You let him swivel on black soles, stopping him just as he reached the doorway.

"Why haven't other housekeepers worked out?"

Montague let his fingers rest on glazed woodwork framing the threshold, drumming out a soothing rhythm while considering an answer for all of two seconds. "In short? They couldn't follow the rules. Now, let me show you to the yard."

Afterward, the so-called cohabitation had become a seamless blend for you both. You had learned right away that Montague wasn't one for idle chatter and niceties without purpose. He had deviated from it once, on move-in day, to reassure you that the mysterious nature of your life schedule and odd hours you were called to a clean scene wouldn’t be a source of concern.

Shortly after settling your things around the house, the reason for his amenable attitude was a little more apparent. Several times a month, you would be pulled from your forensics projects to the landing at the end of the hall, piqued by fresh voices always indistinguishable at first, and folded your waist over the railing to see down.

The top of his head, hair short, impeccably styled, and ash-brown, was the first thing you noticed, followed by someone on his arm. Sometimes a woman, sometimes a man—always conventionally attractive, always utterly enraptured by him. It struck a nerve with you once or twice, finding your thoughts swimming bitterly: Of course a man who looked like him would go for types like that!

Why did he act so much differently with them than you?

He wasn't nearly as friendly and affable as he was making himself out to be.

You stopped peeking down on him after an instance where his eyes shot straight up, pinning you where you stood. He simpered at you before leading his companion away to the basement, and that was it. You never saw them leave and never bothered to ask.

Tonight was different, however, both in the way you nearly toppled the two-figure Chalmette vase off its pedestal with flighty fingers and a duster, and the echo of a scream piercing the hollow halls to you. It stayed in one spot on the first floor, luring you down the center staircase with your duster clutched to you like a sword. At that point, your heart bursting in your ears was louder than the agonized cries resonating around the corner.

You looked around, spine wrapped in dread as another scream, weak, garbled, and wet, came from the basement, and then nothing at all. It was soundless in the house. Distantly, one of the clocks mounted in the kitchen archway toned onward. You followed its beat with the shuffle of your feet.

Hello, hello? Those words clung tightly in your throat, yet you were too afraid to announce yourself like that. Still, nothing came as you slowly pulled at the basement doorknob, brass and freezing and unlocked. The stairway plunging down inside was filled with inky black, so dark you couldn't get your eyes to adjust to it.

Is everything okay down there? Hello? Hello? You ran the imaginary chatter through your mind, lips sealed but trembling during your slow descent, the path now illuminated by white glow from your phone. At the bottom, the stone stairs turned into seamless gray marble and red wetness crawling toward the soles of your slippers.

"What–" You gasped, taking a step back while flicking the flashlight higher, deeper into the basement. The vivid red puddle glistened in your light, widening around a motionless figure with pale skin—a blonde woman you didn't know. Her face pointed up at the ceiling, twisted in terror, black tracks of mascara curving along her cheeks.

She was naked on the floor, surrounded by her own blood, something you didn't have to look at twice. Your breaths grew harsh, taking in the sight of her neck, or lack thereof; there wasn't much left of it. Only a few stringy bits of sinew and muscle kept it from a full decapitation, and blood still pulsed out in spurts from mangled arteries and veins.

A motion nearby made your nape prickle. It was like feet padding across wet pavement after a fresh rain, except this smell carried the malodor of rust and something sour under your nose.

You settled a pillar of light on the source, capturing the view of Montague standing amid the bloodbath, sickly skin bare and saturated in rich crimson.

Something was wrong with him, came an instantaneous, instinctual reaction the moment his head spun toward you, catching pale eyeshine in the white light.

The bones in his jaw cracked as the length of it began to recede into the semblance of something more man to you, rows of jagged teeth retracting into the depths of his throat until only a pair of long incisors remained.

Montague skimmed the tip of his tongue along his lower lip, smiling at you affectedly, saying as though it were some trife thing, "She started screaming."

You were gone and out of the basement after that, clearing the woman's body and kicking away the slippers on your feet when they squelched with blood. Montague said something after you when shrieks ripped out of your lungs and reverberated through the house. You winced as the basement door let out a hollow rattle when he collided with it, heart matching the rhythm of the skin on your feet slapping against old marble, thoughts disarrayed, frantic the closer you got to the front door.

Almost there. Almost there. Almost there. Oh God! Oh God! Oh God! You were panting in unison with the vicious chants.

The doorknob was in your hand. The door was open—and it was thrown shut with the force of your body thrust against it, fingers wrenched off of the handle and enveloped in Montague's cold fingers as he pushed himself flush into you.

You felt his palm clamp around your mouth, whittling your screams into panicked whimpers, nostrils flaring with your ragged breaths.

"Ah, no, no." He had to stoop his neck to talk into your ears. "Shh, shh, shhh. Far too loud. I don't like screaming. Shh, shh, shhhh."

Tears seared red behind your eyes, making you think you could follow the warmth down your face as they filled the crevices in his hand. "It's really, truly a pity. She was a pretty one but far too smart. I'm usually decent at picking out the ones who wouldn't suspect anything or, at least, catching them before they try to scream.

"You'll have to forgive me. I swear to you I'm not ordinarily that messy. I prefer to keep everything tidy, especially so you don't have to go down there. After all, you're already so busy. You're already doing so much. I can't recall when I last saw you relax."

The weight of his palm softened, a wordless agreement that you honored with continued silence as he used that arm to lean against the door. His voice shifted around your head to your other ear. "That's it. Just wonderful. There's no need for screaming, is there? It's only the two of us."

"Are—are..." You couldn't get it out, lips and throat suddenly sucked dry. "Don't kill me, please. Please. Please."

His chest quaked while a subdued, eerily delighted laugh hissed through his lips. "Kill you? Oh, no, no, no. Never. How could I ever kill you when you're so remarkable? My home has never looked so beautiful and lived in. I'm enjoying how it looks with you in it."

You wilted away from his lips sinking to a spot below your ear, now taking far too much notice of his erection curving up along your lower back. It felt disgustingly wrong to wonder whether the violence and blood turned him on, or it was you and your fear. The man wasn't even human; that much was clear.

"What are you?" There was no shortage of daring questions in your arsenal. Montague was beginning to find the charm in them.

"That's quite difficult for me to answer." He let his chin lay on your shoulder. "I've been called many things over the centuries. I suppose the closest anyone has ever gotten is vampire, but even that's not quite right. You're free to guess as much as you'd like, though."

He was satisfied when you didn't, freeing the weight off of his arm to slide his hand under the hem of your shirt, fingertips still slick with that woman's blood as he explored your navel. You were too aware of the roundness of his fingernails stepping across your flesh, sometimes pressing deep, and other times a light touch you needed to scratch. His throat vibrated against your shoulder.

"What are you thinking? I'd love to hear it." He wanted to devour your fear in more ways than just feeling you wince. "Well? Tell me."

"I want to go." Go? Where could you possibly go that he couldn’t find you? If he ripped out the side of a woman's neck, he could track you down.

He leaned his cheek into your ear again, relishing the warmth that spread into him. "Where would you go? Who would you tell? Humor me, where is the first place you'd go?"

"The police," you said.

Montague let out a pleased hum. "Of course. It only makes sense to report a terrible scene such as that to them. Forensics and the police play together often, don't they?"

Your nod was weak.

"I know how hard you've been studying, how much stress you're under to commit to your degree, your work—to me." His hand crept along to your stomach, fingers splaying wide across the protective layer of skin and fat. "Let's say they were to find something I left behind. Who becomes a suspect in their eyes when they learn that I have someone who tidies up after me? Who knows the dirty insides of cleaning up anything and everything?"

You were starting to panic, fitfully struggling against his body. It's like he was made of stone. "They wouldn't accuse me of murdering anyone."

"Haven't you seen the news lately? Are you so sure?" he said derisively. "No, perhaps you're right. Maybe you'd be fortunate, and they wouldn't have your head for murder, but they would certainly try to peg you with something else. As an accomplice, maybe? And that's assuming that I don't disappear and let rip you apart.

"Can you imagine it? Can you feel your heart break at the very thought of losing it all? Your degree? Your job? Safety? The world is cruel, darling. You'd never have another moment of peace or anonymity. Anywhere you'd go, you'd be found, every alias sullied with your sins. All because you decided to speak up about it."

You knew he meant to send you downstairs to do something about the mess, spend hours scrubbing and mopping until what had once been there was a secret that thickened your tongue and made it hard to swallow. No one would ever find out, but you would carry it in every waking thought until, one morning, the cute barista on Market Street had an eerie semblance to that dead woman, and the light roast in your hand suddenly looked so red.

"Thump. Thump. Thump." Montague mocked the heavy thrum of your heart behind your ribs, his cold fingers skimming your nipples before resting over your sternum. "You can go if you'd like, but I'll find you. I'll hear your little heart until it bursts and drag you right back here. You're mine."

The push of his body gradually faded away, giving your chest the room to expand, leaving you to gulp quivering, greedy breaths that didn't stop even as the pads of his feet grew distant.

He called back to you, "Give me ten minutes or so, and then come down."

You were already partway through the front door with your car keys to pop the trunk when, floating like a spectre's moans in still night air, his voice reached out once more, "You may want to clean up yourself first. You have blood all over your face."

༺ ♰ ༻

A damp towel came before your descent back into the basement. In tow on your shoulders were three bags of absorbent, the fancy stuff hospitals liked to use to throw on puke and piss and anything else they just lazily wanted to sweep around. It worked for blood in smaller quantities, blood that was still wet, anyway.

The woman hadn't been dead long enough for her body fluids to dry, so you didn't anticipate needing anything except the basics stowed in your car trunk.

You weren't sure what you expected to see down there, noticing the lights were turned on high, fully illuminating the gray marble, the furthest reaches of the blood puddle with your slippers saturated dark red and ruined. What came as a shock was the woman's dead eyes and shredded neck being nowhere in sight. Montague had moved her body but to where?

For some reason, you were drawn to ridiculous spots like the walls, ceiling, and tiny cramped corners that he could have feasibly stuffed her in. There was no sickly trail of blood leading any which way, droplets only reaching as far as the stairs and first landing where you had been pursued—nothing else.

Where did he take her? Part of you was ready to turn a blind eye to all of this because you knew you would have to in order to keep everything. If you kept your head low and groveled a little bit, maybe he'd get bored and leave you alone, biding you the time you needed to finish your degree. But, that'd be two years of this.

You weren't sure you could stomach it.

As you moved granules of absorbent through blood with coarse bristles from the kitchen broomstick—shifting the puddle more than the actual absorbent—you wondered if he could hear your heart now from wherever he was.

You thought about a lot of things while letting your eyes roam the space. It was enormous, taking up the entire underside of the house, outfitted impressively with mahogany accents, sprawling bookshelves, armchairs, and loveseats pulled tight in leather and velvet. Across the room was a disheveled bed, creamy sateen sheets in a luscious heap but otherwise undisturbed.

To the adjacent end of this expanse were two doors you didn't notice at first, one a little taller than yourself in height, about as wide as any normal arm span, and looked old, so old that everything else was too new. Even from where you stood, you knew it'd take a skeleton key. The other door was more coherent with the rest of the basement, cleaner but certainly still part of the house's original construction.

By the time Montague had returned, you already had much of the ordeal pitched into a biohazard bag with some trace remnants putting you on your knees to scrub away. You hadn't realized he was even there until the tips of his shoes—brown leather loafers with a scalloped tassel near the toes—appeared in your peripheral, sending you launching back onto your hocks.

"This work is spectacular. I knew I had a good feeling giving that room to you." he said with a beguiling smile. All of the blood was gone; he was clean in a dark dressing robe with black trousers, a look you hated that you saw as alluring. "Don't forget to clean the floors upstairs. We made quite a mess there as well."

"What happened to that woman?" You were asking your pesky questions again. Montague wasn't so sure he found them as charming now, but you were still a prize.

You leaned away as he crouched in front of you, nearly risking the soles of his shoes in the blood and hydrogen peroxide. For the first time since meeting, you kept eye contact and saw that his reached a depth you didn't think could be possible for a human. He wasn't touching you, yet it felt like he had you caged, trapped in a vise that held you tight.

He did touch you then, grazing the side of your face with a thumb. Suddenly, he brought it to his lips and licked it as he rose to full height.

"You still had some blood just there on your cheek." There was an armchair a few feet away that he dropped into, withdrawing a gold compact from a chest pocket on his way down. "Don't worry. I wouldn't ask you to carry away the bodies. I'm not that Roman."

"That's not what I asked." you rejoined.

Montague tucked a cigarette between his lips, igniting it with a match he kept inside the compact. His first few puffs looked like they calmed him as he crossed a leg and settled deeper into the leather. "You shouldn’t expect answers to things you don’t need to know—or want to.”

But he humored you with a slight lean of his head towards the old door far away. "The original owner of this house was ingenious and built tunnels that were used to shuffle people in and out. Mistresses. Servants. More unsavory things—you must remember the era. At any rate, it stretches beyond the house and some ways off. I do not recommend ever going inside."

You understood now why you never saw any of the dates he brought home leave. And you believed every bit of his warning.

It inspired you to move away from the grim reality dwelling beyond that old door. You hovered over the same spot, drenching the floor with more of the disinfectant, grasping for a distraction. "I didn't know vampires could smoke. Isn't blood enough for you?”

Montague flicked his cigarette over an ashtray beside his chair. "Well, we all have our vices. Mine just happens to be five or six of these a day. Keeps enough of the edge off so you get to sleep at night."

Something about that comment made the entire stretch of the basement feel so confining—claustrophobic, even. Your back was wide open to it, to his ravening gaze and leather toe turning fluid circles as though to pace himself before lunging.

"I have class in six hours." You finished the job by tying off the bag. "I'd like to get the upstairs done and take a shower."

"Of course. Try to get some sleep, you've had quite a night." He didn't move to see you out. "Oh, and leave the bag. I'll dispose of it."

༺ ♰ ༻

Meredith Nimu died approximately twenty-three days ago after a stroke left her immobilized in her favorite armchair. Her body wasn't peeled away from the murky-green polyester until day twenty-four, following enough neighbor complaints about a bunch of rats dying in the vents.

Getting rid of the chair was half the battle in this case, something that Meredith's overzealous, recently divorced daughter spouted off as sacrilegious. She insisted that the carpet cleaner she used for her obese dogs with raw patches on their legs could do it all. Your supervisor had been inflectionless when telling her it didn't work like that.

One of your teammates, a middle-aged black man affectionately nicknamed “Hoss” had unceremoniously slammed the apartment door shut and flipped the lock so the daughter's rancorous eruptions were somewhat contained outside. The other half of the duo responsible for pitching the chair, T.J., a white man who could never tan, wheezed out a laugh as he labored a hard bristle brush through the gunk left behind from Meredith's decay.

"Boss ain't gonna be happy about that." T.J. couldn't commit to the act of a brownnoser even if he wanted to. A couple more chortles rattled through his respirator. They were infectious, ridiculous sounds that coaxed similar from Hoss when he rejoined the effort to get the job done and over with.

You could still hear the daughter on the other side of the door, never once allowing your supervisor a word in edgewise. A part of you wanted to pity her, perhaps conjure up a shred of empathy for someone so completely enmeshed in the throes of grief and anger. She was clearly spiraling, her entire life yanked out from under her—and she was free-falling with nothing to catch her, no thin wire she could snag in the bend of her fingers and watch as the velocity of that cruelly, cleanly severed white tendon and bone.

Where would she fall after that? You didn't know. You didn't care. She could regain control over her life even without fingers, but what about you? No one understood how disconcerting it was to know that your survival depended on a vampire's good mood. An old woman was meant to expire, but you were young and had aspirations—yet that could be stolen from you just as quickly as a clot could kill the brain.

It wasn't fucking fair.

Hoss had called out to you repeatedly until the hard brushes stopped scratching the floor, and he and T.J. were settled back on their heels, staring at you. You were used to leveraging your commitments in life as a means to get them off your case, but even they could tell this was different.

"You've been real spacey lately." It was enough to gently reel you back to the moment, eyes unstuck from remnants of putrid matter hidden under a deluge of chemicals and soap. Now you were thinking that the landlord would probably have to replace this entire spot in the flooring. It would be an expensive fix.

"Everything okay at home?" Hoss tried again, emulating fatherly concern in his tone and sidelong stare. It was something he couldn't help since you were so similar in age to his adult kids. "I don't think I've seen you eat today. We oughta finish up here up and grab somethin' quick on the way back.”

"Sorry, yeah, it's just the usual things." They didn't know what that meant to you, but readily accepted with dour expressions masked by their respirators. "I think I saw a gyro truck down the street."

As many times as you had regurgitated the same thing when they pried into your well-being, you were surprised they still asked at all. That made it hard to wave after them as you pulled the lever to the trunk, waiting to be left alone once the job was done to stack half your weight in absorbent until the back bowed to it.

It was just past two in the morning when you were locking the front door of Montague's sprawling estate behind you. Every time you did, a part of you hesitated to seal it the whole way, as though if you did, your final traces of freedom would be stripped away entirely.

"Welcome home!" Montague came out from prowling somewhere in the shadows, seeming to materialize from the darkest parts your eyes couldn't adapt to. He was in a dressing robe again, this one forest green with gold embroidery and a burgundy handkerchief tucked away nicely in his breast pocket.

He already had a cigarette lit between his knuckles, fussing with the little stick as he went to an open window, sucked in, and expelled pungent gray smoke. "I apologize. There's a bit of a mess for you tonight. It's unlike me to be so untidy, but it shouldn't take you too long—oh, darling, don't make that face."

"Why can't you get blood from other sources, like a blood bank?" It's been on your mind for a while, but Montague had a habit of turning petulant if you asked him too much.

He was in good shape tonight, though, despite still puffing away antsily. "Where's the satisfaction in simply being given what I want? Blood banks are a finite supply, but out there"—he gestured through the open window—"there is an infinite supply from any walk of life that I so choose. Did you know that not all blood is equal?"

You sensed him at your back, awash with that same vulnerability as the night on your knees in the basement. He strolled along with you while you collected your things, examined his leftovers, which fortunately wasn't as sensational as before. It looked like a Rorschach inkblot almost, purple-red and pristine, obviously untouched for some time.

Just like that dead blonde woman, there was nothing left behind of the victim except what Montague was too careless to handle himself.

"The worst blood is what you find in hospitals or on the streets. It doesn't matter their type; it all tastes like shit." he continued, even while you worked. Just like before, he sat himself nearby and observed your process with gross fascination. "In a pinch, though, I do what I must. It doesn't matter if a man is homeless or a woman is looking for a night out. When I hear their hearts dance, that thump, thump, thump—oh, I have to have it. I can taste them through their skin, even before I sink my teeth in.

"The fear in their eyes. The ragged breaths I see in their chests, watching their bellies pulse. I like to think in those moments they know exactly what's going to happen, like little flies in a spider's web."

Montague let more smoke slither out from his lips in skinny, swirling wisps that dissipated once it touched the air. The haze of it remained, just traceable to your eye. "I always find it interesting that they all struggle, even as they're writhing in their own blood. Sometimes I'll count how long it takes for them to die."

These weren't confessions of a madman because that would imply he was human. He was treating you akin to the way an old man recounted the fondness of his flawed, flickering memories. There were sensations of joy and affection in the work he did, a true love and visceral desire for carnage and suffering that made it hard for you to stomach. A few times throughout his soliloquy, you needed to bear your weight on the kitchen broom to keep yourself from toppling from nausea.

You shouldn't have been curious. "Has anyone ever survived?"

The surrounding space grew darker, not from loss of light but from the way his lower face sunk behind the hand wielding the cigarette. You saw his smile widen through sickly appendages and faint smoke.

His response pierced straight through you. "I'm looking right at it."

Suddenly, the urge to run rushed forefront in your mind, an instinctual reaction that you had trouble wrestling over with logic. The broomstick was easily pulled from your fingers and discarded onto the floor with a reverberating clatter that made your spine race with cold needles as Montague stepped into your proximity.

You shivered against the hands slowly climbing your neck to the underside of your jaw, cradling your face as he lifted it to meet his eyes. Something was so wrong with how black they were; you didn't see a pupil, nor did your reflection stare back at you in them. It's almost as though there was nothing there at all, the dark of them growing into an abysmal chasm that made your vision cross and blur, eyelids weighing like lead when you felt him kiss you.

His lips were the same kind of cold as the rest of him but full and unrelenting, never granting you the chance to mold the kiss in any other way. Surprisingly, the taste of stale smoke on his breath was just slight, a mediocre vexation you overlooked the moment his hands started groping you under your clothes.

And you didn't think much of it when your back settled into the clean linens on your bed, skin flushed with the crisp evening air and lips mapping their way south across your stomach and navel, delving lower to your core. It was too dark in your room to see down your body at the top of Montague's head, but you felt him with your fingers, coiling pieces of his ash-brown hair to your knuckles while he pushed your thighs wide open for him.

An anxious patter swelled in your chest, a vague understanding that something was horrible about this, but you were too wrapped up in a dreamy fog to think about it. More than the resounding boom of your heart, you heard your own breaths dissolve into lewd moans and slurred pleas for him to do more, more, more.

It didn't sound like you. It didn't feel like you despite knowing that build-up in your abdomen better than most things in your body. The hands in his hair, the back bending off of the mattress like an archway, the shaking limbs, and the cries begging for more were someone else entirely up until the very moment rapture fluttered behind your eyes in searing white, body deluged in hot release that left your scalp tingling and toes curling and spend on your sheets.

"Give me more." You tasted him again, his tongue pushing hard into your mouth where those salty notes of yourself lingered on your cheeks. His silhouette melded with the rest of the room, tangible only in the way he roamed every surface of you.

Montague had shucked the clothes from both your bodies earlier, preferring to lean into the flush of heat you radiated. Everything was only skin-deep away from him; he could feel your pulse throb on his lips when he teased himself against your carotid, your radial, trailing all the way to the powerful beat of your femoral nestled there in your groin.

His teeth came close many times to piercing you, allowing him a sliver of a taste like a parched king waiting for a drop of golden wine. But half the thrill of having you around was denying himself of you, knowing well that if he were to start, then he'd never be able to stop, and he'd fully hamper your dreams of escaping.

The air smelled like you now, heavy and like damp skin and your fluids soaking into the linens. He watched your face bunch and fall apart when he split you open with his cock, hips colliding, your skin sure to bruise as his thrusts turned savage. There wasn't much left in his heart anymore. Most of it had atrophied over the centuries, and yet the sound of yours spurred him on.

He could follow the path of your blood through your body, an extensive subject he had studied and dissected at length in his lifetime. The most vulnerable spots were gorged and worked the hardest, almost glowing red through your skin for him. When he thrust a little bit harder, a little bit faster, and felt your fingertips pushing against his chest, he heard your heart be the loudest it ever had been.

"That's it. That's it. That's it." His own breaths were ragged now. The sheer exhilaration of pushing his lips deeper, hot sweat leaving a slick layer on them, and that one big artery in your neck pounding out was doing everything for him.

Your frantic pants were a close second. He could feel you unraveling, tightening around his cock until you were soundlessly writhing on the mattress, clutching anything you could bunch together. The final few thrusts he made were purposeful; they were forceful and jolted your body, a show to make sure you wouldn't forget the feeling of him inside of you.

The clean linens were sodden with cum, some still dripping out of you while you lay there, legs splayed enough so you wouldn't feel it stick to your thighs. Whatever haze had been hanging over your eyes before lifted away, leaving you ruined and exhausted on the sheets but not alone.

"You've got class in a few hours, don't you?" Montague said from above, shoulders nestled in your headboard while one leg hung off the side of the bed. He was smoking again, acting the calmest you had witnessed him. "I don't really think you're in any shape for that. Why don't you stay home today?"

You were too spent to respond to him, somehow using the occasional breaths he blew out into the vast room to lull you into a dreamless sleep.

༺ ♰ ༻

Shin Nakamura had been a selfish man in life. Mid-fifties, thinning hair, and twice divorced from women who knew better—his tenants did not. He had built a reputation on the north side of town for hidden costs and faulty appliances that were never fixed. Once or twice in the past four years you had cleaned up scenes, they came out of Nakamura's buildings in the summertime, stuck to the floor and infested with maggots and flies in different orifices.

Everyone had asked at one point, yourself included, how he was able to get away with that level of blatant cruelty and disregard—and the answer was as simultaneously simple, complex, and terrible as poverty. The north end was an area notorious for local crime and violence, but more than that, it was forgotten in favor of gentrifying other areas of the city—pretty little boutiques that'd make a splash on social media and a couple of upscale dining spots, all of those meant to change the online scales deeming an area's walkability, and therefore, profitability.

The blind eye most city commissioners turned to the north end made it an easy life for Shin to do as he pleased without many consequences despite living in the area himself. Most of everyone found it an odd sort of justice when he was discovered in his office, unrecognizable from how badly the dozens of stab wounds had disfigured his face and body. One look was enough to know that it was personal, a tenant who had received their condemnation via a neon-pink eviction letter hastily taped to an off-white door.

Only, this time, Shin chose a person backed into a corner at their breaking point. There wasn't much left to lose, yet Shin had ultimately lost it all. Rumor had it that no one sold out the tenant who committed the crime, something even the more moralistic part of yourself could fathom. These were the cases that painted a grim picture of your future in forensics and often speared to the front of your mind at the worst of times—could you really be part of the reason why a person shattered by the powers of society goes to jail?

Shin Nakamura was a terrible man, but were his crimes punishable by that sort of torture? What about the tenants who probably heard Shin screaming for help, crying in agony—were they any better than murderers themselves?

What did that mean for you? An accomplice who quietly scrubbed clean murders at a monster's behest, you allowed those people to be swallowed up by Montague under a guise of fear, or was it selfishness?

That discomfort lasted you your entire shift, like an incredibly nauseating pill with a bad smell that sat in your nose for hours. You couldn't wipe away the thoughts like you could dried blood on smoke-stained walls or lumps of serrated flesh and fat wedged between slabs of wood on the floor.

"Man, he coulda been cleaner about this." T.J. had his feet planted solidly on the middle step of a ladder, well at work with a long-handled brush pushed flat to the ceiling. The splatter had gone that far, earning a few awestruck coos from him and Hoss earlier. "It would've made our lives easier."

It was a normal joke. You'd laughed at the exact same one many times before, even finessed your own commentary in there on occasion because the dead can't sue, and a murderer had no rights—but now, you thought it'd taste bad on your tongue.

The two hulking men noticed, far sharper than you gave them credit for. Or maybe you were just worse at hiding things than you thought. They didn't allude to anything until everyone was packed up in the van, dried from the sweaty protective suits and summer heat by the AC.

"Listen, it ain't my business, and I swear I've been trying my best not to ask." There was a furtive look linked between Hoss and T.J.; it was something they had talked about when you weren't around. "That guy you're living with. He isn't doing anything to you, right? You used to talk about him all the time in the beginning. Haven’t heard a peep about him in ages. God, you're not living in your car, are you?"

From the outside in, you weren't doing much to try to embellish fancy stories and reasons onto your drastic change over the months. You simply let it be and navigated every day with the hope you'd remember where you were going with your head down. It probably didn't look too good to a paternal man like Hoss, and to T.J., who had several younger siblings.

"No, it's not him—" But, of course, it really was and everything surrounding his cruelty, everything he made you do, and what you never refuted. "I'm just perpetually exhausted. I'm sure you've heard that from Sylvie and Deshaun while they've been in uni."

"All the damn time." Hoss beamed, chest perked a little higher with the mention of his children. It wasn't enough to diffuse the tension lingering in the van, however. "Just know, I'd do for you what I'd do for my babies—put the fear of God in that man. If he puts a finger on you, you let me know."

T.J. gave an agreeable hum, fingers sticking to the steering wheel as he moved them around, making a turn down some street. "We'll catch him by surprise and everything. I'll call in a couple favors, grab a few shovels and bags of cement from my dad's place. It's all good."

For some reason, their entire spiel only spiked your uneasiness, and suddenly you were far too aware of your bladder. It was enough initiative for T.J. to floor the gas and get back to headquarters, giving you the chance to break away and race the remnants of daylight all the way home.

༺ ♰ ༻

It had never happened before, but you managed to catch Montague by surprise when he walked through the front door to find you standing there in the foyer. The kitchen broom wrapped in your hands was a nasty ploy, along with the look you cast between him and a young man not any older than yourself. Again, just like all the others, you didn't recognize him. Montague's victims were fast, fleeting fixations for him, none worthy of names or an identity in his eyes. You suspected this guy was much the same.

Montague's bewilderment was swept away by a smile and laxing posture. He had settled back into his element. "You're home early today. I didn't expect to see you until much later. Not much to the scene, I assume?"

"It was pretty bad." A certain stiffness trailed on the end of your words, letting them echo through the hall and hang in the cool evening air. The young man was fast to perceive that tension: the tightness in your shoulders, fingers subtly wringing against the cracked wooden broom. Montague's anticipative smile climbed higher the longer he looked at you.

Would it be such a bad thing to turn around and pretend you had never seen him come home with that other man? You considered doing it, hiding upstairs and using your headphones until everything seeping through turned into an amalgamation of ambient noise that meant nothing to you, and you willed away the guilt like you'd always done.

In that moment, you thought about Meredith Nimu's apoplectic daughter, a woman so embittered by her own suffering that she was foul and relentless to anyone she crossed paths with. You thought about Shin Nakamura, a greedy, pitiless man who'd rather let coroners scrape up his tenant's remains rather than grant them mercy while they were alive and had been left in pieces because of it.

You thought of them and all their wickedness and edged your gaze towards the young man still standing in the doorway with his hand holding it ajar, clean fingernails picking at chipping paint, just steps from outside. "I think you should leave."

Run! Run! You'd better run away as fast as you can! Nothing would stop Montague from keeping his prey there, if that's what he chose to do. He did the opposite of that, and that was, simply, nothing at all. No pretty blandishments, nor a mouthful of teeth. Rather, now, he was particularly piqued by what you were trying to do.

To the young man, he had meddled into something rather egregious, probably convinced it was extramarital. You battled a surge of pride blooming inside you, shifting your chest a little higher, anchoring your spine back into your body.

"Don't come back here." You didn't need to say anything else. He was gone after pinching out a look of disgust towards Montague, tutting at him with his upper teeth showing through a curled lip.

Nothing happened for a while, not until the front door was secured after his departure. You were left to that responsibility, triple-checking the lock, while Montague ambled deeper into the house, but not too far away as you could follow the leisurely path by his heel strike. There was a rhythm in how he moved. It was deliberate, as though mimicking something.

It took you five paces to figure out he was miming your heartbeat, and he only stopped once it quickened in your chest. He appeared from around the corner, still taking his time reaching you, toying with some trinkets displayed on shelves built into alcoves throughout the lower floor.

You couldn't explain what you were feeling at that moment. Of the thousands—maybe millions—of victims Montague had taken in the previous times, you had just deprived him of one. That man would continue living, and he would tell his friends tomorrow about the weird night he had, and he would never have to be grateful that you saved him from a hellish death.

Yes, oh yes. Even as Montague approached you, carried by his deft gait with both halves of his gold compact open in his palm, you couldn't help but be in complete awe of yourself. A life continued outside of this mausoleum, and it was all because of you. You were entirely different from Meredith Nimu's daughter and Shin Nakamura, and, for once, your hands weren't sullied by bleach, blood, and body matter.

All that heaviness you had been carrying was suddenly so much lighter, and you felt like your chest could open up as wide as the room where you stood. The breaths you took were dry and cold in your throat, yet fresh as though you were walking outside in wintertime.

Montague must've seen something he didn't like on your face because he sucked down on his cigarette for a while, winding his wrist with it at his side once he was adequately calm.

"Did it feel good? I've only seen you this happy while I was fucking your brains out." It was jarring to hear him talk like that. He took another quick drag and let it out slowly as he rounded you. "Truthfully, darling, I didn't think you were the type to break the rules—on purpose, anyway. But I suppose we all get a little wound up every now and then, right? I've already forgiven you."

And then, you watched him drop the cigarette to the marble and snuff it underfoot until the weak ember was turned to soot. A black smear was left behind when he took his foot away. His stare into you was unwavering. "Clean it up."

You figured this was how a frightened animal felt when it wanted something within reach of an observant predator because you were trying to think of all the ways to get close without getting too close. It was a pitiful, humorous sight to him, seeing your steps forward so light and on the verge of bolting. But he showed no intention of doing anything more.

Still with the broom in hand, your knuckles turned stark around the handle while sweeping the remains towards you. It would take more elbow grease to get up that smudge, and he knew that just as well.

He reached for the broom and snapped it to a halt, making you jump, jaw clenching. A noiseless gasp lurched in your throat, his fingers wound tight into the hair at your crown as he yanked your head back to show all the fleshiness of your neck.

"What will you do about it, darling?" His lips were already cold and flush to the artery dancing in the curvature built of skin, muscle, and tendon. Your teeth chattered as the wetness of his tongue followed that intricate, breathtaking network inside of you as far as the neckline of your shirt would let him. "A man has to eat. Have you ever seen it? A man near starvation and the sorts of things he'll do to survive? Why, I've heard stories of desperate, little men eating their own lovers—their children—themselves just to claw around for a little longer. It's inspiring, I think."

He dragged you away then, up the stairs and through the hallway on the second floor to your bedroom, fingers still nested your hair until the moment you were shoved down onto fresh linens. There wasn't anywhere for you to go once he joined you on the mattress, feeling it bend towards his weight.

"Don't be afraid." he said this with all the fond familiarity of a lover, blunt fingernails digging crescents into your thigh through your clothes. In the waning moonlight that filtered through the dusty window over your bed, his pale eyeshine snared you like roots bursting from somewhere within your busy sheets to keep you there—keep you tame. "That's right. Come to me. Come to me."

There was a new drowsiness behind your eyes, one you couldn't stave by blinking. Montague's face was closer now, and you were struck with just how beautiful he actually was. The longer your gaze lasted, tips of your fingers exploring every shape and edge of his exquisite features, the less you were convinced he was a threat to you—that he couldn't have possibly been all that you'd feared up until now.

"I want you." His lips inched up like he expected you to say it. He felt your hands rest on the sides of his face, guiding him down into a soft kiss that he returned, that he kept clean and let you command until he was bored with it. You chased after him, lower lip pulled between both of yours and eventually out of reach. "Don't you want me too?"

"I wish you could understand just how much I do." He rummaged his pocket for the gold compact, losing it somewhere in the sheets, and then busied himself with stripping himself and you of clothes. Each piece discarded showed a greater expanse of your skin, a delight in his eyes because he could see that gorgeous webbing of arteries and veins throughout you, even in the darkness, through every defense your body created to protect you from every bacteria, virus, infection—from him.

He didn't need the breath, but he took one and held it anyway. You withered against his touch, those freezing, lithe fingertips traveling down all the areas where he wished his teeth could be, clear down to your groin. His smile stretched, feeling you search eagerly for a fistful of his hair with his lips smoothing across your inner thigh and then going higher.

There was warmth between your legs, a colorless glisten that leaked out onto the thin sheets, darkening a spot on them that tempted his tongue out for a taste. He came close to entertaining the notion of giving you that glimpse of heaven, allured by your hips leaping off the mattress and against his face.

"You really do think this is all about you." Montague kept you still by pressing down into your abdomen as he rose onto his knees, erection fitting tight between your bodies in the moments before he guided himself lower and hitched up into you. The sharp motion knocked a startled gasp out of your throat, where it quickly dissolved into a slew of filth and breathy panting. Your nails clawed into your palms, a sight he thought to make worse by digging himself deeper into you.

Montague had no issues biding his time this way, looming over the sprawl of your body beneath him, manipulating parts of you until he saw your face flinch and the first moans of discomfort shake all the way from your chest, up, and through your teeth. They matched the pace of his hard thrusts, smothered by sharp slaps of skin that carried in the inky air.

Indeed, I can wait. That thought of his unsatiated hunger melted in the back of his mind with the precedence of arranging the course of blood in your body. The drum of your heartbeat was deafening to him, but it wasn't enough. It wasn't loud enough. He wanted to be able to envision the arteries and veins bursting in his teeth, saturating the sheets and walls and both your bodies in hot red. He wanted it to paint his skin while he fucked you to absolution.

"It really, truly, is all about you in the end, isn't it?" He could still speak clearly, despite you being unable to utter noise beyond the air being forced out of your lungs. "You really are magnificent. How could I ever think to let you go? Not after everything you've done for me, how beautiful you look next to all of my things."

His hand shifted away from your abdomen at last, tracking across the soft span of your stomach and the muscles spasming there under his fingertips. All he would have to do is dig through you a little bit, and he could bury himself in those twitching fibers and insides. But he continued on his path to your pert nipples that he rolled against his palm a few times, higher still to fold his fingers together against your sternum where he felt your heart thundering there against your ribs.

"Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump," came his mocking chant that cracked into raspy moans as he lingered there. It had been a long time since something had made him feel this good. He had forgotten what bliss was truly like.

He reached your neck before long, trapping the underside of your jaw against his knuckles, forcing you to see him as his weight bore down on your throat. You both heard the cartilage and muscle in your neck shift, a subtle crack that sent your limbs flailing. You were thrown out of the rhythm of his thrusts in an attempt to grab at him.

"You really are despicable, aren't you?" He let out a gleeful laugh, letting your fingers turn ashen while you wrung his wrist. You weren't able to do much with your legs except use them to plant your heels into the mattress, vaulting your hips in the air to try to wrench yourself free. His cock slipped out of you, but he was hardly bothered by that. "Does it feel good that you chased off my guest? I could get him back, you know. You're aware of this. I know you are. But righteousness just feels so… rewarding, doesn't it? You couldn't resist. Desperation must've been eating you alive."

Strings of saliva glistened in your mouth, breaking apart the further your jaws spread. You were convinced, in that moment, that you would die like that in a silent scream. None of the words that Montague spoke truly reached you, not as your chest quivered and lungs burned as though swallowed in an inferno.

"Every misdeed in life vastly outweighs the good, you know? The scales have never been leaned in our favor—not I, and especially not for you. If that's the sort of thing you believe in. Isn't that what you're taught? Goodness for the sake of salvation at the end of a short life of inhibitions? How miserable." Montague took his hand off of you and let you breathe. You sucked in crisp air, gasping from your side through wet coughs and the sourness of vomit spat out on the floor.

Your respite was brief, weight on the mattress shifting as the hair on your scalp was used to lever you to your knees, body suspended upright only by his fingers tangled at your roots.

"This is all I can see." Montague loosened his hand from your head, moving south along your spine to your ass. He kneaded the bruised parts of your hips for a while after, lips ghosting their way along your neck up to the ear. "All I can see is what's right in front of me. And how it tastes. All that matters is that I have my fill—and that I feel good."

He smeared slick into the heel of his palm, rolling the head of his cock in that mess as he instructed you with every bit of lewdness how he wanted you to bend against the headboard, how far apart for you to spread your legs for him.

Every bit of it was humiliating for you, while he wished he could memorialize that moment of sinking back inside of you as your breaths broke into stifled sobs, face warped by anguish.

"Does it hurt? Tell me, I have to know, what does it feel like?" He enjoyed the suspense of not receiving an answer, listening as your fingernails dug tracks into the wood headboard and the dark room filled with obscene wetness that grew louder as his thrusts turned wild.

"Mmm—" He hinged forward, bracing his weight on top of your hands with his own. You shied from the surge of coolness that came with his cheek pressing yours. "You and I aren't so different. It makes me wonder if you actually like this. Isn't there something so freeing about it?"

"Mer—mercy, please." It was a coarse whisper from your dry throat, so much of your time having been spent with your mouth agape. The idea of having you that way was as tantalizing as all the others he thought up. "Montague, please—mercy."

Oh, now you were begging.

This was more than what he deserved. He managed a few more thrusts, spilling over into you by the third with a moan that he felt no shame to leave ringing in your ear. "Every part of you, every single part—I'll burn myself into your skin and your bones. You'll feel me in your veins, your blood. I'll make for certain that I'm all you remember—forever."

The vastness of your bedroom had grown warmer, permeated with the thickness of sweat and salt that left your palms slick against the headboard. You let your body slump against it, skin sticking to the wood. It didn't offer you the relief you wanted at that moment: a glass of ice water, all the tenderness of a soft bed to lull you into a blank dream—you just wanted to rest.

Montague knew this just as well, fishing his compact out from a muddled heap of linens and clothes. He checked inside to grab one of the two cigarettes left, making a mental note he'd need to replenish again tomorrow before lighting it and savoring it. At this rate, he anticipated he'd be empty before the end of the night.

For a while, he sat there cushioned on his haunches, admiring the way the smoke coiled towards the ceiling in dainty wisps and mingled with the stench of sex.

"It's not enough." he said, barely eliciting more than a glance from you. His current cigarette was already burnt to the filter, forcing him to pull the last and light that one too. "This is my last one. Such a shame."

You smelled the smoke strongly now, just seconds passing before you were yanked across the bed onto your back, the soreness in your scalp near excruciating as you yelped. Montague made a place for himself between your thighs again, leering down the length of his nose at you.

If he wanted to, he could trace the dread etched in your features with a finger, feeling all along your hot skin, into all the cavernous lines he wished he could preserve—right there, just like that. There had never been a more gorgeous visage than the one you wore right now. Only your gleaming, glowing, pink insides were more beautiful.

He watched your lips twitch while he teased a fistful of his hard cock against your sorest spot. You were swollen and bruised, and he could only imagine what it felt like when he bottomed out in you again.

The curve of your spine arched off the mattress, fingers frantically raking the air at him, reaching for any part you could sink into to get him out. Even your body seemed determined for the same, wonderfully stimulating walls squeezing around him.

It made a shiver roll all along his spine to his tailbone, eyes rolling up towards the ceiling, with his first thrusts feeling positively divine. Especially when you jolted, an almost exaggerated response amplified by jagged cries and wet gasps you couldn't seem to swallow back down into your chest.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry—" You sputtered around the mucus piled in your throat. "Montague, I'm sorry. Please, stop."

He had burned away half of his last cigarette when he leaned over you, his body eclipsing what poor light had managed to illuminate the room for you. You could only follow the dainty mesmerizing glow that worked away from his mouth—his exhale barely masking a moan that he blew away with the smoke—and towards you.

"Keep doing it." His other hand was crawling up your neck, forcing you to suck in a hard breath. "Beg me again. Keep doing it."

All sound but the steady pulse of the headboard striking the wall had deadened, lasting well until the moment the cigarette touched your skin—and you screamed. Your throat vibrated, suddenly stopping when his palm closed around you again, silencing all your noise, his thrusts sloppy and rough while you thrashed under him.

This time, he kept you pinned by his chest, letting your feet dig for traction and slip and slide on the sheets. The bright smolder turned dark as he twisted it into your neck, taking all the remnants of restraint he had not to drill into you as far as it could go. He curled his tongue behind his jaws, keeping them tight.

Montague let go of your throat to allow you the grace of a stifled wail before that same hand sealed your lips. "Ah, ah. You know better than to scream. Shh, shhh, shhh. It's such an ugly sound."

He rubbed the cigarette into your skin until it crumpled, leaving him to lament for a moment once flicking it away to the floor. For him, it left behind a beautiful burn: raw, mad, red, and enticing. As his hand fell off of your mouth, daring you to do more than whimper and cry, his tongue was already flat against your wound.

"Oh, God," you wheezed, voice hoarse and jarring with the force of his hips knocking into you. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry! Stop, stop, stop! I swear I'll never do it again! I swear. I swear!"

Montague caught the wrist you swung at his head, giving the taste of your seared flesh time to settle on his palate before turning towards the pulse in your thumb. He tried to match how he was fucking you out to how it throbbed on his lips.

"Oh, I'm well aware that you won't do it again. That much is a given." His strokes into you were suddenly languid and intentional, so achingly deep that your eyes rolled back. "I've already said that you're forgiven, haven't I?"

You could barely speak over the depth he reached. It didn't feel right. "Th-then, why?"

A smile flourished across his face, but your eyes couldn't pierce that dark veil to see it. You could feel the damp path he left on your wrist, how the muscle writhed all around the sprawl of your veins, going as far as to wind your fingertips before it receded back behind his lips.

"Because I'm enjoying myself." There was a weight of finality to those words before his mouth engulfed the side of your wrist, away from your fragile network of bluish-purplish channels. And when he bit into you, it was the incisors that sank through.

You didn't know what it was. A clamp seized you by the neck like his fist, steeling itself there and robbing you of a scream. The pain was unlike anything else—paralyzing and deep, like a pair of sharpened, narrow skewers made of molten fire piercing you with such an agonizing ache that you could do nothing but lay there.

But you still felt everything he was doing. His thrusts had grown truly vicious, chasing a high that came as the warmth of your blood seeped from a pair of punctures he had created. The steady flow he fed from was something he lapped on at his leisure. Enough of it streaked the length of your arm and dripped onto your bedding, onto your naked, warm skin when he guided the fall over your neck and chest, south to your stomach and abdomen. He let it fill and pool the seams of his fingers while smearing it with the fluids between your bodies.

At last, breaking the trance to speak, feebly, in between intermittent pockets of pain and numbness rolling through you, you asked with some hopefulness, "Are you going to kill me?"

"You? Kill you?" Montague dropped your wrist. It felt like a limp, dead thing that didn't belong to you. He dove at your neck for those drops he teased himself with, nudging your chin high with his nose to reach it all. "Death would mean letting you go. You're all mine, darling. Whatever other existence waits beyond death will never have you."

His tongue wet a trail to your chin, collecting a watery essence of blood and spit that he pushed into your mouth. Your lips were sealed by his ravenous kiss, relenting to the thickness of his tongue swirling the taste into your cheeks and down your throat, a nauseating intermix of iron and stale smoke that lingered and made you pucker.

And then, you heard him back in your ear, craning his neck only as far as to aggravate the cigarette burn with his breath. It gave several angry throbs. The weight of his body was almost flush on you, spreading the blood around as though your skin together was a single canvas.

To his eyes, it bloomed breathtakingly, seeping into every crevice, pore, and scratch that made up your design, an impermanent stain that he could saturate you in again and again and again. The things he whispered in your ear were vile and wicked, all on unlabored breaths while his strokes turned sluggish and stayed seated deep inside you until the final hitch of his hips left you full of him.

"I don't think you should go to work today."

You were only scarcely coherent of him—or anything for that matter—eyes unmoving from the black void above and unfeeling of how he chose to manipulate your body, still, hours later. All you could think about was the flutter of your lashes weighing down heavily over your eyes and how this world only survived on suffering such as yours.

༺ ♰ ༻

A small pile of things was arranged fussily in a duffle bag Hoss had given the day you returned to work after an impromptu leave of absence. It had only lasted three days, just enough time to acclimate to the pain that seemed to synchronize to every part of your body, throbbing everywhere, all at once, and at times with sharpness so great it toppled you to the ground. You could only lay there—wherever you dropped, on whatever cold slab of marble or concrete until it dissipated, unfurling from your limbs and organs to a rapturous wave of relief that melted the tension out of you.

It had only happened once while at work on a scene amidst a balmy summer night and came out of nowhere like an electric shock surging to your fingertips and toes, a hammer landing on your bones and leveling you on the sidewalk leading back to the company van. And that was all it took to incur a ruinous sort of anger in the two hulking men.

"You're going to take this bag, pack some shit, and you're leaving. Tonight." Hoss had to shake out the dust on the old duffle bag he pulled from somewhere in his car. "You ain't gonna tell me the reason, but I know he did something to you. T.J.'s calling in a favor."

"No. Don't—don't do anything. Don't try to come to the house—" There was a bandage around your wrist that you couldn't stop fiddling with. "I don't know what'll happen if you do. Just fucking don't."

"Nah, not us." T.J. slapped his phone back into the clip on his belt loop, eyeing the motions of your fingers on your wrist uneasily. "One of my old buddies—name's Roscoe—said he wants to handle it. Apparently, he and your guy have a history of some kind. He says to be ready to go by three."

The meaning behind what he said was left nebulous and concerning to you, even after you returned home with the duffle bag and started pulling things from your closet. Some ways across your room, high up on the wall and out of your reach was a clock. Its monotonous ticking brought your eyes over to it.

It was just after one-thirty, still enough time to change your mind if you wanted to. There was something so effortlessly easy about following along to the whims of other people. It felt safe, reassuring—their confidence was infallible. Not once in four years had T.J. or Hoss given you a reason to doubt their intentions, but right now, it boiled over in your mind.

But where will I go? What am I going to do? He'll find me. He'll find me. Montague would find you, but he wouldn't stop you from leaving. You could see it with clarity—him perched on the armrest of a chair, watching you walk through the door. He'd give you a headstart, a few days, maybe a few weeks.

You weren't sure you knew what to do without him. There was nowhere else in the world you could go, no one you could confide in that wouldn't be destroyed. He would keep your heart beating all the while breaking you apart until he had his fill, reminding you that this was how it was meant to be. This was how he showed you how you belonged.

And you—silly little you with your consciousness floating on the fringes of inscrutable ecstasy and some personal purgatory built on agony in your bones and blood—would believe him.

"Going on a trip?" His voice drifted to you from the doorway, far sweeter than it usually was. "I wish you would've told me. I can't imagine what it'll be like without you here in this house. You breathe life into it."

He was lured over by your silence, fitting his fingers between your shoulder blades to push along your spine, easing away the discomfort that had settled there. It was hard not to lean into that relief, a misstep that shattered any lasting hold of willpower when he stooped his neck to sweep you into a kiss.

"Why don't you stay instead?" He knew you wouldn't be coming back, not without dragging you back himself. "Stay with me instead. Right here. In this bed."

"Montague, stop—" He pressed down harder on your lips so those words withered into guttural frustration in your throat.

The duffle bag was flung far away, opening space on your bed for him to lay you out and begin to unravel the bandages around your wrist. Once he had access, his mouth was already full against the two puncture sites.

"Stay." He wasn't playing coy now. "I'll take care of you. It wasn't enough before. I can see that now. What can I do? It'd be too easy to break your legs. What if I chained you to this bed? What if I locked you up in this room? I wouldn't mind keeping you downstairs with me, but it would be too cold for you, I think."

"I want to leave." you said, mustering your composure through tight lips while he teased the infected purple holes with his flatter teeth. "Let me go."

He smiled derisively. "I don't think you know what you want."

"I—" You balked at him, reiterating with a stumble, "I—I just want to leave. Get off."

"How will you ever survive without me?" You didn't know if you'd be able to. "You'll be all alone, all alone in a world that's just ready to tear you open and spit you back out. I've told you before: Society doesn't reward virtue over vice—only those who play along. You won't last, not after you've known and tasted me."

You couldn't bring yourself to say anything, whereas he swelled like a man who had salvaged a victory, lying himself down to kiss you again—

And then, the doorbell rang with an immense melancholic echo that you could feel vibrate up your arms and legs. Nearly a year later, you were hearing it for the first time and grasping onto the lapels of his suit vest, keeping him still when you remembered T.J.'s promise.

"Ignore it." you said.

"We have a guest—" Something in his tone made your stomach clench. "It's not polite to leave them waiting, especially at this hour."

Montague had untangled himself from you and was gone before you could stop him. Another wave of pain put you on the floor when you moved. Drool piled from your mouth. An ache so unreal pounded in the wrist he had played with. The crawl to your duffle bag was far, arduous in that every inch felt like carrying stones on your back.

I'm going to die. I might as well already be dead. You didn't have any more time to wait, so you slung the strap over your shoulder and used the wall to guide you along the quiet hallway, bumping into every pedestal and display where Montague's most treasured things had stayed undisturbed.

You were one of them, something he could keep on the second floor with the rest of his stuff, but unlike brittle porcelain and fraying embroidery—he could break you as much as he wanted, again and again and again, and fit you back whole. He could do it forever while you wasted, longing for an end he would never give you.

But as you crept along the bleak wallpaper and all of his curios, you were so gentle with them, steadying any wobbling base or piece as you went. The central staircase was close, voices at the bottom of it faint and unintelligible, drifting alongside you as though part of the house—

The air exploded. Just once. A single gunshot brought back all the alertness to your body, neck and shoulders at full length, pain dulled to where you could shuffle faster and look off the bannister at the landing below.

Montague was staring back up at you from the floor, entirely still and soundless. His jaw was unhinged, askew, frozen in a position that should've been impossible. A black hole gaped between his eyes, but didn't bleed.

"If you're not ready, that's going to be bad news." Another man stood nearby sheathing a gun, unfamiliar and yet with sameness in the way his gaze felt hollow and reached through you. "I'm repaying my debts. I'd like to make good on this one."

You were slow descending the stairs, even slower while you rounded Montague's body and denied yourself the chance to stop. Something invisible wanted to pull you to him, plow your knees into hard marble and weep over his chest. However, your insides bending in disgust and twinges in your bones kept you onward.

This man, Roscoe, was just as sickly-seeming and gray as the other, every slot of space on his arms and neck filled with images of religious iconography and portraits of saints—Mary being the only one you recognized with just a glance. It was tempting to touch him, something he noticed and stepped out of your reach.

"Is there another way out of here?" He made a weak motion towards the front door just ajar, but his eyes were stuck on the wrist wounded and unusable to you now. "We need to go. Now."

You were racking your brain for an answer, turning half-circles in place before pointing to the archway with a clock. "There's a backdoor, but the yard is fenced in and there's nothing but forest for three miles. There's also—"

Roscoe waited expectantly, ushering you to continue when he went for the gun in its holster. "Start moving, we'll figure it out." He unloaded another round into Montague's head, a near indecipherable twitch in the fingers made the hair on your neck shoot straight out. "Silver only keeps him down. It won't kill him. Go!"

"Th—there's, there's the basement." You smacked your lips, trying to swallow around a bulge in your throat. "There's an old door. He said there are tunnels, but I don't know where they go. I don't know if he was telling the truth. I don't—"

He threw a hand into your back, thrusting you forward at least three feet. You almost didn't catch your footing. "Then that's where we're going."

"Not a friend of yours then, I assume, darling?" Montague's voice from the floor was as much of a relief as it was terrible. The silent gaps of air all around were disturbed by sharp snaps and cracking bones as his jaw moved back into place and he sat upright over his thighs. You were transfixed by the silver bullets being sucked into his skull, holes shrinking until they closed completely. "I'm not surprised you're still fraternizing with the wrong crowds, Roscoe. You and that entire Society have always been a fucking eyesore."

Roscoe readied his aim. "Parasite."

Montague laughed all the way to his feet, tugging at the edge of his vest to make it neat again. He opened his mouth just enough to let his tongue roll out, shards of silver bullets tinkling as they hit marble underfoot. "You can't take what's mine."

He looked to you, stepping closer every time Roscoe moved you back with his arm. "Come here. Come back to me, darling. This is where you belong. This is your home. You belong here with me, here with everything that you know."

"He doesn't mean that." Another gunshot snapped you to attention, blinking out of a stupor you hadn't realized you were in. The bullet landed in Montague's forehead, teetering his balance in such a way that his back curved towards the floor, arms hanging like useless instruments, yet he still somehow kept his soles planted. "Time to go. Get to the basement."

Roscoe didn't fail to reach you this time, running tight on your heels through the house to the basement floor. He stopped partway to the old door to help you scour the duffle bag for a key—one attached to the chatelaine Montague had given you the day you accepted to move in.

Your breaths were ragged, heart ablaze and beating against your ribs. In that moment, as you flipped through the assortment of keys with an unsteady, slippery grip, you wondered if Montague heard your blood racing in your veins, if he could follow the suffocating drumbeat your heart made in your ears.

Just above, fast approaching the locked basement door, came a thunderous roar so inhuman and reverberating that it scared the clip of keys out of your hands into a clattering heap on the floor. Time was up.

"Move!" Roscoe shoved you aside, illuminated by the hectic flare of your phone as he fit his fingers through a gap in the door and ripped the entire thing off its hinges. He pulled you by the scruff of your shirt and heaved you inside the tunnel. "Go! Go! Go!"

The first thing to hit you was a putrid smell intimately known but always through protective equipment and a respirator. And as you went deeper into the tunnel, led by a single route and the light off your phone, the dirt packed under your feet turned soft, sinking to the tops of your shoes.

And then, you saw bodies.

Numerous—countless corpses in varying stages of decay with twisted faces reflected your terror and pain right back at you. Most were intact with missing limbs or dark red chasms in their abdomens that had been scraped hollow and dry under the white light. A few had been fully decapitated, briefly reminding you of the dead blonde woman from that night, but most of what lay stacked against the tunnel walls were emaciated figures with skin pulled so taut to their bones you could still make out their faces.

You were doubled over your knees, sucking in fetid mouthfuls of air and retching them back out on the ground. It burned in your throat, in your nostrils, and behind your eyes, but stifled your sobs as Roscoe dragged you alongside him.

"What did he do? What did he do?" You were crying, wheezing out those words on every shallow breath you took all the way to an end just ahead. The more you thought about it, the more you smelled the rot, tasted the bitterness of your own vomit, the more came out. "I don't want to die! I don't want to die!"

Roscoe had to let you rest in the grass once you both surfaced. One of the exits turned out to be near the house, less than half a mile. But the tunnels kept going and so did the bodies. You suspected that there wouldn't be any reach of that underground labyrinth that didn't have some form of decay along it.

The thought brought the tears back, but now you could relish the sticky summer night humidity and touch dewy tendrils of grass under your hands.

"Can you drive?" Roscoe had a pair of keys hanging from his index finger, giving you a long moment to take them. He saw confusion in your watery stare. "I'll tell you where to go, just drive."

That's how it had been for hours at this point. You kept your hands locked around the steering wheel, one stronger than the other, gnawing the inside of your cheek while ruminating everything—tonight, the night Montague had bitten you, every other night before that, and your decision to have ever trusted him.

"How long ago did he bite you?" Roscoe had the seat reclined, arms over his eyes to shield them from oncoming headlights. "It doesn't look good."

You tested your grip on the steering wheel, but you couldn't do much without a sharp sting in your wrist. "I don't know—a couple weeks ago? I've tried everything short of going to the emergency room."

"That won't help," he said. "Modern medicine can fix a dog bite, antibiotics can kill an infection, a vaccine can protect you from a virus. Those aren't going to do any good."

Solemnly, you asked, "Am I going to die?"

Roscoe didn't sit up but had your wrist in his hands, turning it in little ways that didn't aggravate you. Besides the occasional glare from passing vehicles, there was no light in the car, and the holes in your skin were hardly distinguishable, though they had gotten darker. You weren't able to move it with any ease now.

"What you need to know right now is that he's never going to stop following you." He put your hand back on the steering wheel, careful as he enclosed your fingers around it. "It doesn't matter how long it takes, what you do, where you go—a parasite finds a host, and it latches on. And it doesn't let go."

You glanced between him and the road several times, tongue wetting the dry parts of your lips. "He's a vampire—you're a vampire. There's got to be something—"

Roscoe finally sat up in his seat, now cramped sideways with his shoulders flat to the window. The car veered a bit into the other lane. "You need to understand something. What you're saying would imply he ever had any humanity. Vampires are created." He paused for a beat, waiting for the realization to strike you. "Montague was never created."

"What—what the hell is he, then?" A horn abruptly blared by, prompting you to yank the car back onto the correct side. "He drinks blood. He has teeth. He—he hunts. He doesn't like silver. His eyes are the same as yours."

Roscoe lowered his gaze, but remained in that uncomfortable position. "There's a story I heard about him once. I don't remember the details except for one: ‘If the devil exists, they're one in the same.’"

You kept your eyes on the road, counting every car that flitted on past. They were probably going to work at this hour—green numbers on the dashboard showed it just after four—and they'd be able to have a place to return to at the end of the day. Now, you didn't belong anywhere, and twenty-four hours from now you still wouldn't.

The town where you had lived with Montague for a year was long behind you, backtracking would take hours, and you wouldn't know how to get back from the direction that Roscoe had told you to go. Dim streetlamps and cozy houses with spruced yards had morphed into an endless network of concrete, signs, and off-ramps to places you'd never heard of.

It was scary how everything could change in one night, and how it did. The only semblance of normalcy to you right now were the aches throughout your body, which had returned the moment you fully comprehended that you had escaped that house.

"Why…" Roscoe looked up at you, seeing your lips shake and eyes turn red. "Why do I want to go back to him?"

He fixed himself right in the seat, tousling a hand through his hair while looking out through the windshield. "You shouldn't do that. But you'll never be able to stop running."

You never saw Roscoe again once the car ride ended several thousands of miles later, mentioning something about how he repaid his debt to T.J. and had disappeared from a restaurant you both walked into. When that happened, you sat paralyzed at your little table for most of the day with a soul-crushing realization that you were truly alone with nobody in the world—just like Montague said you would be. And, for the sake of others, you'd never be able to have anyone else in your world.

It stayed that way for close to two years. The hardest part hadn't been the homelessness or constant vigilance, not the door revolving each person to come into your life since, but the fact that you still yearned for what you once had. Everything so awful about what you experienced sometimes looked like heaven when you thought about it, like soft, cloudy nostalgia from a time where the throes of agony were all you had ever known.

You were capable of thinking soberly as well, and with that came the understanding that a part of you would always want that time back—want him back. He had left you with a permanent scar and neurological damage that could never be corrected. It was anticipated you'd lose that wrist at some point in the future, but for now, you could still hold a cup and brush your teeth with enough conscious effort.

The pain never went away either, but you refused to let it impede your work in the field. And your two roommates were a couple of engineering geniuses who'd managed to make the flat more accommodating to your needs. They'd been patient with you during every step of your transition into a new life, calling you an enigma because you had nothing to your name except a dusty duffle bag and a "strange-looking dog bite" on your wrist when you first met them.

Sometimes, especially on the weekends after clinking together enough shot glasses, they tried to probe your brain for some clue as to who you were, who you had been historically. You had decided it was better that they—that no one—knew about it or what actually existed out there in the world.

And when you returned home from the lab late that Saturday night, you were surprised to find the lights off and the flat immersed in the kind of soundlessness that made your ears feel clogged with cotton.

You were slow in lowering your backpack to the floor, keeping the front door slightly ajar so a slither of light from the residential corridor slipped inside. "Jordan? Felix?"

No answer. You didn't hear anything from their bedrooms upstairs either.

"Jordan?" The nearest light switch didn't work, neither did the one after that, or any others you hunted down with the diffused beam from your phone screen. "Jordan? Felix? Are you guys home?"

It was possible they had gone out somewhere for the night and just hadn't mentioned anything to you, as unsound as that logic actually was, considering it simply wasn't their personality. But as you wandered through different rooms checking the switches, you knew you were rationalizing to keep yourself in check.

The light from the hallway still piled inside like a narrow pillar, raising all the hairs on your neck and arms, knowing that it wasn't a building-wide outage. They had never left you in a situation like this before. Something was wrong.

"Jordan! Felix! Whe—" Your foot nearly shot out from under you when you slid through something slick on the laminate. After a moment to fix yourself, bracing the edge of the countertop with a clammy palm, you steadied the white glow of your phone at the floor.

There, glistening back at you, was the vast richness of blood in a tall puddle that spread like long winding tendrils through grout in the flooring. It looked almost black under your light at a certain angle, estimating it had been there for several hours—untouched.

You held in a breath and grit your jaws together as the more you moved, the more you saw. And when the top of a head came into view, silky hair shining like fine thread before clumping together at the base where the blood had pooled the most, it was everything you could to keep yourself from hitting the floor.

Both of them were there, perfectly out of sight of the front door and completely unrecognizable. Their bodies had been left in one piece, though where their faces had once been were cavernous holes with pale, pink ribbons of flesh and fat left behind. The roundness of their skulls let blood fill inside it like a vessel. What little pieces of brain matter remained had floated to the surface.

You staggered back from them, phone loosening from your weak hand and returning them to the maw of darkness, while groping the wall behind you as far as your arm could reach. This wasn't a result of crude knife work or even bludgeoning; no, it was a slow kill, one meant to steep someone in torment so immense that you prayed to whatever was out there that they succumbed immediately.

"Help…" Your voice was trapped in your throat, barely registering as a whisper even to yourself as you sidled along the wall. "Someone—anyone, please help."

The patter of your heartbeat was torturous. Your every step back to the entrance was leaden with fear. You couldn't get your legs to move fast enough, and the light reaching in through the gap seemed to stretch on forever—further, further, and further still.

You thought back to that day you met Montague and shook his hand, noting how unnaturally cold it had been despite it being a nice day in spring. You remembered the dead blonde woman with mascara tears, and the bodies he used to decorate the tunnels, and the young man who was able to walk away that night believing it was all some shallow quarrel—never knowing he had sealed your fate.

You regretted all of it.

The door was in your reach now, and you could get out, call for help, and go back to running. This time, you wouldn't be tricked into false satiety or let anyone too close. You would see mountains and forests and oceans a thousand times over before you stopped again.

Two years hadn't been enough time for you to accumulate many things, you thought. It wouldn't be hard to leave most of it behind, just like you had before. You would unpack that old duffle bag from the back of your closet, fill it to the brink, and that would be enough.

You had your hand over smooth metal, but that cold reached greater depths in you as the door was pushed shut from behind, light shrinking away through the slot until you were swallowed whole in the dark.

"Hello, darling. I've missed you." He sounded the same against your ear. For a split second, you felt relieved. "Don't worry about cleaning up. We're not staying long."

He clamped damp fingers over your mouth before you could scream.

[astralis-ortus]

you are my sunshine

✱ a bang chan headcanon

— you'll never know, dear, how much i love you.

w.count → 0.6k genre → slice of life, fluff warning → just watching chan (chris) being a parent :> a.n → something light because brain.exe couldn't handle words atm :> also, would you believe me if i said the actual idea behind this was this specific tiktok... lolㅠ ⋆ see masterlist

growing up, you were always sure you didn’t want to have any kids. you have your reasons, but ultimately, you’re scared you couldn’t be the kind of parents you wanted to be and you don’t want another soul to have to bear those sort of consequences after your inability to be one. you should be the one carrying them, even if it meant people will judge you for it.

being together with chris, however, had changed your mind.

no, not because he coaxed you into wanting one or anything like that—you knew he wanted to have kids, but he wasn’t even bothered when you told him about the matter when the topic of marriage came up. but then, whenever you see him doing even the most mundane of things... you just knew you’d be just fine raising a child together with him.

chris would be very hands on as soon as your baby arrives. he knows the best temperature for the baby formula, he knows how to wash and sterilize the baby bottle, he knows how to change your baby’s diaper—heavens, sometimes you even wondered if chris was a walking encyclopedia for any baby related matters.

chris would also be the one taking care of your baby throughout the night. ‘i’m already up anyway, you deserve the night’s sleep’ he reasoned, and being a man of his words, you would actually sleep through the night as chris would go as far as setting a bassinet in his home studio to make sure he’d be able to keep an eye on your baby while he works.

as your child grew up, chris would make sure to attend as many of the parents-teacher meeting as he possibly could. he knew the nature of his work would cause him to be away for quite a period of time when he had to, but he when he could, he would even collude with your kid to ask you to let their dad be the one to take part for the next meeting. he just loved to be present when he could, and you could see it through the way he laugh with your kid.

your child’s puberty hits chris the hardest—your kid did not grow distant in any kind, they still look for their parents a lot, but for chris who used to be attached to your kid like a stamp on an envelope, letting your kid learn how to slowly become their own person felt like he’s slowly losing the little sunshine who used to only look for him. chris knew it’s going to happen eventually, but for the time being, he’ll keep himself busy with the tons of pictures and videos he took when his baby was younger.

another big wave of blue hits when chris had to send off your now young adult child to college. chris wouldn’t let you nor your child see, but you know the tears his studio had seen after you two had gone home from the airport, mere hours after your child flew thousands of miles away to chase after their dreams. despite the amount of calls and texts your family groupchat exchanged, it wasn’t the same without your child being home.

lastly, chris would finally let his tears be known when he had to let his little sunshine start off their own little family. the realization that the little baby who once fits in his arms is now ready to become a parent themselves were proven a little too overwhelming for chris—but everyone understood. everyone saw the mountain that is chris’ love for his child, and they understood.

not to worry, though—because now whenever your child visits with their own little bean,

chris had found himself another sunshine to take care of.

©️ astralisortus, 2024. | likes and reblogs are highly appreciated♡

[midnightsimpsstuff]

WILDLOWER

WILDFLOWER by Billie Eilish

Spencer Reid x reader

Warning: angst, hurt/comfort (promise), JJ's confession to Spencer, toxic friendship, mention of break ups, happy ending.

Summary: After JJ confesses to Spencer that she is in fact in love with him, he is stuck in a tight spot and doesn’t want the reader to find out because you never knew he liked JJ so he broke up with you with no explanation. Because you are friends with JJ you happened to go to her to cry about the breakup not knowing she’s at fault.

A/n: I found out what Wildflower by Billie Eilish was truly about and I fell in love with the idea so I wrote something with the plot, so enjoy! LOL. There might be a part two so look out for that.

Word Count: 2.3k

Comments, shares and rebloggs are appreciated! :))

Had to add the inspiration ;)

You were walking back home, and your heart was more than broken, you didn’t think anything could be worse than this. Everything was fine before Spencer had gone on that stupid case! You knew he was kidnapped during it, you knew he wouldn’t want to tell you what happened but to break up? That was too far.

You took some time of work, you couldn’t go on, not in this state, your friend JJ, who had even introduced you to Spencer was the only friend of yours that didn’t have work at that moment, she was given a leave for reasons she hadn’t told you.

That was what brought you to her couch watching rom-coms, taking tubs of ice creams at once you just finished crying your eyes out on her shoulder, when you told her about how Spencer just dumped you for absolutely no reason, you felt as she tensed up. You were no profiler but you knew that she knew why but you won’t push her to tell you, in case it was a touchy subject and she kicks you out of her house.

Meanwhile, JJ knew she had never felt more guilty in her life, not when she returned home and she had to hug her kids and sleep side by side with Will, not telling him about the case a she usually would, not when she imagined Spencer was at her side not Will, or her kids looked like Spencer or how much they loved Spencer, and she wished she had known Spencer loved her back then she knew everything would be different.

She didn’t think Spencer would break up with you, it was a life or death situation there was nothing she could do but tell him, she felt instantly better when the burden was off her shoulders, she didn’t one bit think about how it could affect him, how it could affect you.

She comforted you though, trying to take her mind away from how you would act when you find out what she said, what she did, how it was her fault, all her fault, how you didn’t deserve this. You were a perfect fit for Spencer. You let him talk without interruptions, you didn’t use him to make your work easier, you didn’t give him sneaky insults or once tell him to shut up, but she did and she didn’t deserve the kindness both of you showed her endlessly.

You had gone home around the time Will had come back from work, JJ’s face was stuck on a look of despair, she made you feel better sure but when you told her ‘Thank you so much, Jenny. You know exactly how to make me feel better, you’re an awesome person and friend. Good Night!’ she froze at the door as she closed it watching you drive away with your car.

It wasn’t fair on you, she felt like shit, Will had noticed her weird mood and tried to confront her about it but she lashed out at him and went straight to her room. Discarding the takeout that Will had gotten from her and their kids’ favourite store she couldn’t help but subconsciously think about Spencer bringing you home takeout from your favourite food store if not for her and her big mouth.

She should have never loved him in the first place, especially since she got you both together.

Spencer and JJ had returned back to work the two weeks after, everyone in the BAU saw the change in dynamic between both of them, and they noticed Spencer’s mood had ultimately dampened and his migraines weren’t the only reason.

Spencer had suffered the two weeks without you, it was just taking a break from each other, and he secretly hoped you would find out what JJ had said so you would understand that it wasn’t his fault.

Your heart would be crushed and his and your friendship would be crushed, because you would have asked him if he loves JJ back and he honestly doesn’t know. He loves her as a friend for sure but as more? He’s not sure.

He already knew he was going to go over to your place that evening and explain everything to you, he had a feeling you didn’t know if not you would have barged into here a long time ago. He knows you, you don’t know how to keep your anger in check you would have come to confront her right there right then.

He let out a soft sigh. It was lunch break now, he had already ordered the flowers you adored so much to your house. When you get back from work you would see them and when you change and get comfortable you would see him. Hopefully, you would take him back even though he knew that was unlikely he really hurt you.

As he was about to get to his seat, JJ stopped him and he couldn’t help the eye roll he did, he wasn’t on the best terms with her at the moment he was going to make up with her when he has completely made up with you.

“Spencer, I am so sorry about your breakup, I didn’t mean for that to happen.” JJ had started with not noticing how loud she had said it now everyone was listening to them but they didn’t make it obvious.

His eyebrows furrowed, not only because of her pitch but also how did she know? “How do you know, I never told anyone that-“ then it clicked. He never knew she had it in her to be this much of a bitch. But he didn’t want to jump into conclusions.

“She told you didn’t she? But did YOU tell her?” He didn’t care if anyone heard at this point he was pissed. Really? Confess your love to your friend’s boyfriend and comfort her about him.

“I am sorry about everything about everything but you know I couldn’t do that to her.” JJ looked down to the floor in shame, her eyes were watering but she knew she didn’t have the right to be crying at that moment. He couldn’t believe he thought he loved her.

He walked away from her, he looked angrier that before but that subsided when he realised he could go home. He had never done anything as fast in his life, he packed his bag, practically ran out then began driving straight to your house.

You had just arrived at home seeing a huge bouquet of your favourite flowers at your front your door you knew who it was from. You unconsciously smiled before your face dropped remembering the break up, you sighed before carrying it inside your house. Dropping it on your coffee table, you realised it had a note but you weren’t in the right frame of mind to read it yet.

You went to quickly shower, change into something by far more comfortable. Before plopping on your couch, deciding to read the note.

            Dear Y/N it was inconsiderate of me to break up with you without explaining first, I am coming over after work to explain everything to you. If you don’t want me to come over just text me. Love you, Spencer.

It wasn’t his handwriting, he must have sent it over, and you couldn’t help but roll your eyes. Funny of him to think you still had his number.

As you began watching something on your TV, you heard your doorbell ring, you went to open it.

“Start talking bitch.”

You sat on the chair opposite Spencer, he had just finished explaining everything to you and your mouth was currently agape. You began backtracking you finally understood. That’s why her body kept going rigid.

She loved Spencer. She had a husband yet she loved Spencer. She had kids yet she loved Spencer. Spencer had a girlfriend yet she loved Spencer. Spencer’s girlfriend was someone she considered a best friend yet she loved Spencer. She was extremely beautiful, knew Spencer way longer than you and Spencer once liked her like seven years ago and now she was in love with him. Spencer is the godfather of her child and she loves him?!

You were no more shocked, the reality of the situation was dawning on you, softly laughing to yourself about everything. “You don’t love her back, right?” you didn’t know what you would do if he said he does but the moment the question came out of your mouth. Spencer shouted no so loud you flinched.

His face was now pink from embarrassment, “No, I don’t, not anymore, not again it’s just you I love and want to love.” He said meeting your eyes with a smile.

His eyes began doing that drawing in puppy dog eye thing it usually did when he wanted to get something he wanted, you knew he wasn’t doing it on purpose, but it sure felt like he did because how could you not take him back when he is doing his face that way.

You walked over to him, your face was neutral, and he didn’t know what you were going to do. When you stood beside him you held his face, caressing his skin as he looked up at you his eyes still doing the thing. You slapped him really hard, “That’s for hurting my heart for the past two weeks.” Then you crouched down to him giving him a passionate kiss. “That’s because you went out of your way to explain and apologize and because I love you.

His face still hurt but he was sincerely happier now he had you back. You went away to get your phone to send a quick message to JJ.

‘We need to talk, come over tomorrow.” you sent her. You gave your phone to Spencer so he could see the message. His face visibly tensed, “Are you ending your friendship with her?” he asked. He’d feel pretty bad, you two have always been so close.

“No, we just need to talk some things through. Don’t worry my love” you said as you took a seat in his lap and as he drew circles on your thigh.

“Should I end my friendship with her?” Spencer asked shyly, he felt like you would say no but he did really value JJ as a friend so it might hurt a bit.

“Do you want to?” you asked him, you were just playing with him finding it funny as his face began changing from thoughtful to fear. He felt like it was a trick.

He feebly nodded, you smiled “Then no, Spencer. That won’t be fair on you. You two have been friends longer than I knew you” you told him while looking at him with love.

Everything was better and looking up for you.

But with JJ she felt her heart leap out of her chest as she read your message, she just read it again and again and again. The face of Spencer’s fury and your sad face was in her head she didn’t know what to do she didn’t want to lose any of you but she knew what was coming.

She just came between a good relationship because of her stupid feelings. She would have cried even more if she wasn’t tired of crying.

After getting the message from you she got enough courage to tell Will about everything. He reacted better than she thought he would have, although he was mad. When she had assured him she doesn’t love him anymore and only loved Will. He wasn’t so mad anymore but he asked for a bit of space because the way she had been neglecting him throughout the weeks she was at home and he said it’s best she knows what it felt like a bit.

JJ without fail had come to your home the next day, immediately after work. Texting Will about where she would be. She didn’t get a response though he left her on read, but she understood she had hurt many people and it was beginning to come on her.

You opened the door smiling at her. JJ wanted to cry, why were you smiling, did you not know, did you know and weren’t angry, she doesn’t know whether you and Spencer got back together. But she knew she couldn’t take it any longer.

“Y/N, I have something to tell you…” she stated while motioning her head inside as if asking if she could come in. You moved away so she could seat in on your couch.

You already knew and you felt touched she wanted to come clean. You looked at her expectantly waiting for her to speak.

“I confessed my love to Spencer on our last case, I think that’s why you two broke up.” She was fiddling with her ring.

“I already apologized to him, and to Will and I felt it’s time to apologize to you, I don’t want to lose any of you. I am so sorry I got you two together, I am sorry I pulled you both apart, I am sorry you trusted me enough to cry to me about what happened. I don’t deserve you.”

When she finally looked up at you, she realised you didn’t look angry. “Spencer told me.” You said. She felt something in her stomach drop. “You knew the whole time?” she asked, now she felt this was a plan for you to become the next unsub.

But instead your eyes widened, “No, he told me yesterday. Relax.” You said rubbing her back.

“I forgive you don’t worry. I want my friend back. You two hugged and she held unto you tighter than she had ever done before. Spencer watched you two from the kitchen.

This is how it’s meant to be.

[reveluving]

don’t know if you’re still taking shy!wife requests but if you are what about soap x shy!wife where he sits her in front of a mirror and makes her watch as he plays with her 🤭 but he stops if she looks away

WHY ARE YOU ENCOURAGING FICTIONAL ME’S ULTIMATE KINK UNPROVOKED

Includes: mirror kink (minors DNI!), petnames ('baby'), fingering/fingerfu~cking, thigh-slapping, praising, teasing, edging, mentions of overstimulation

COD x shy!wife thots closed! Thank you, everyone, for your time & amazing minds! I sincerely hope I can do this again with y'all soon! 💌

Come & check out my COD m.list!

It should’ve hit you why he had a sinister smile when you suggested adding a large mirror in the bedroom. Just an innocent idea, you wanted to make the space look bigger.

That was until he came up behind you, toying with the hem of your shirt as he purred.

“Y’don’t possibly think we wouldn’t have some fun with it, did’ya? Just imagine; holdin’ ya in front o’me, appreciatin’ these sweet curves with nothin’ coverin’ ya.”

Your wide eyes weren’t from mortification or anything the like, far from it. But it did make your heart jump like crazy. You were already a little ‘skittish’ at the thought of fully exposing yourself under a bright light, though Johnny, bless your husband, never giving up in showing you what he sees in you, body and soul.

And as he kissed your shoulder, judging by your silence, he knew he got you.

He was leaning against the headboard, his legs spread for you to occupy—handing the spotlight for you to dominate as he worked his wonders in the background.

He had a knack for slapping your thighs whenever his touch jolted you into covering your legs. Not painful ones, not unless you were feeling a tad naughty, just surprising ones, but a warning nonetheless. It contrasted with the way he was kissing you, alternating between soft kisses, the ones where he’d leave ticklish smooches on the corner of your lips, and then sliding his tongue against yours, a sign that he could barely conceal his patience.

Sighing in appreciation each time he spreads your lips with his middle and ring finger.

Murmuring praises against your neck in between his kisses.

“Ah-ah. You know the rules.”

“Y’hear that? Fuck. Y’already clenchin’, baby? Just one finger?”

“Eyes on the mirror, baby. That’s it. Such pretty eyes lookin’ a’me.”

“Can y’feel me throbbin’ against ya? If I just… roll my hips… Oh, y’like that, don’t ya?”

The expressiveness of your husband, his eagerness to please you while making you watch yourself didn’t help. Not especially when he doesn’t hesitate to stop, to tease you further whenever your eyes roll back to the point of nearly closing them.

His middle finger was soaked, and so was his ring. The band glistened in the dim light, having played and plunged in your tight heat like his life depended on it so he could hear your whines grow at a higher pitch whenever he’d pick up the pace. Stopping as soon as you closed your eyes whenever it got too much, too good.

His ring played a huge part in it at the start, feeling you jump each time he pressed the initially cold metal against your burning skin.

He found your attempts to wriggle away from his adorable, with one of his muscular arms folding your chest. All while his hand switched between kneading your beautiful breasts and digging his fingers into your soft skin, just enough for you to feel them the next day.

Your voice came out in a long, pathetic whine before you forced out his name, “Nghhh—Johnny…”

Music to his fucking ears.

His fingers were relentless, continuing to rub your clit feverishly, even when you were already three orgasms in. There was something about the way your lips parted every time, or how addictive how juices felt as they smeared most of his fingers or how ruined the sheets were.

Just how he liked it.

And unless you used your safeword anytime soon, he was already planning on laying you on your back, longing for a taste. The mess you had made on his fingers was just the start, shamelessly licking them off by your ear, and with a pop while locking his eyes with your glassy, fucked-out ones in the mirror.

He wanted, hell, he needed to taste you. The real deal. To flick your clit with his tongue, to tease along your lips from your tight hole and up, to nose at the stain you had left on the blankets from just his fingers stretching you.

Oh, his cock swelled just as his mind grew lighthearted just at the very thought of it.

˚ · . f i n . · ˚

[copper-16]

First Meetings

Elena attends her first football youth team camp, and meets someone who, though she doesn’t realize it at the time, will become a very important person in her life.

(a/n: I must admit this is probably one my more favorite Elena stories I’ve written, so if anyone has anymore ideas that involve older Elena and this new OC we meet here you’d be my new best friend cause I wanna write more about them 🥹)

The first national team camp Elena was ever invited to was when she was only fourteen years old. The call had been to Ingrid, who was then immediately turning to Mapi with a huge smile on her face. 

Partly because it was their daughters first call up, and partly because it had been Norway who had come knocking on her door. 

Mapi and Ingrid would always argue (playfully, most of the time), about which country their daughter would represent, should she choose the path of becoming a professional athlete. 

And while it didn’t matter in the end, for their daughter chose instead to become a doctor as opposed to an athlete, she did spend a good bit of her youth playing both football and handball, very competitively. 

She had been in La Masia, and showed great promise as a future defender, so it really wasn’t much of a surprise to anyone involved when Elena was selected for Norway’s U16 camp, despite the fact that she was only fourteen. 

And though both Ingrid and Mapi were excited (once a certain Spaniard got over being butthurt that it wasn’t Spain who had come calling), they left the ultimate decision up to Elena on whether or not she wanted to go. 

“Mi sol, at the end of the day the choice is yours. You are allowed to do whatever you would like, your Mama and I would always support that,” Mapi reassured gently, and Elena nodded her head slowly, but she still looked rather unsure. 

“Thank you Mami, I appreciate it, I really do. I just…is there any way I could have a minute before I decide?” The teenager asked gently, and her mother nodded easily. 

“Take all the time you need, there is no rush,” Mapi promised, squeezing her daughter's shoulder gently before the girl slipped away. But instead of heading for her room as the Spaniard expected her to, she headed for the balcony instead.

Elena pulled out her phone carefully from her pocket as she shut the door behind her, staring at it for a few moments before clicking open to her contacts. She hit dial before holding it up to her ear, listening to the line ring before it clicked, signifying that her godmother had picked up the phone

“Elena, pequeña! What have I done to deserve a phone call from my favorite goddaughter?” Alexia practically yelled into the phone, not exactly helping the argument that she ‘wasn’t old’ and ‘understood technology completely.’ The girl rolled her eyes at her godmother's antics, even if she knew to expect them. 

“Tia, I am your ONLY goddaughter,” Elena reminded her, but there was a smile on her face regardless.

“Ah semantics semantics! What is up pequeña, how are you?” Alexia asked, her voice a little more soft and gentle now. It wasn’t exactly a common occurrence for the green eyed girl to call the blonde like this out of the blue, so the former Barcelona captain made sure to seem extra attentive. 

“Oh I’m good,” Elena said carefully, before she went quiet. Alexia didn’t respond, sensing that there was more the younger girl wanted to say. 

“I got invited to a U16 camp, with Norway,” she finally forced out quietly, bracing herself for the former Barcelona captain to gasp, to scream, to get all excited. She had been preparing herself for Alexia to lose her mind, to be so excited that she wouldn’t even listen to Elena’s concerns. 

But it never came. 

“You don’t sound excited pequeña,” Alexia commented lightly, her tone filled with more protectiveness than excitement, and no judgment whatsoever. As much as Alexia wanted her goddaughter to be a footballer, same as her mothers, she cared far more about her well-being than anything else as trivial as her career. 

Elena sighed, fiddling with the hem of her shirt as she tried to organize her thoughts appropriately, in a way that was understandable. 

“I am excited, but I’m also…I don’t know. I’m not even sure if I want to be a footballer, is it silly of me to consider even going?” Elena asked, her insecurity poking through in her tone.

“Oh course you can still go, even if you are not sure. There is no requirement, it is not a contract that states that if you go now, you are obligated to become a footballer,” Alexia reminded gently. Her words were soft, and Elena clung to how secure her tone was, as though she held all of the answers to every problem the teenager had ever had. 

It was one thing for her mothers to tell her, but for Alexia to? It was somehow better, hearing it from her mouth. As biased as Alexia was, because she loved her, she had always been honest with Elena too. 

“Yes but…well there are people like you who are or were SO sure of what they want to do, and would I be taking up someone else’s spot by committing when I’m not even sure football is what I want to do? I love it, I know I do, but I’m just not sure that it’s what I want for the rest of my life,” Elena explained, and it was not a new thought in her mind but it was still hard to say, because she’d never spoken the thought aloud to someone. Not even her mothers, who were inside the living room trying very hard to pretend like they weren’t eavesdropping on the entire conversation. 

Mapi was practically sitting on Ingrid’s lap, she was leaning so far over her wife as she angled her body and ears toward the balcony, even if she couldn’t hear much with the door being closed.  

“Elena, for as many people who are sure, there are a hundred more who are not. You are fourteen, you are not supposed to have everything figured out right now. Look at people like Salma, she couldn’t decide until she was practically eighty years old what sport she wanted to do!” Alexia exclaimed, and even though Salma had picked her sport at nineteen and not eighty, it still managed to elicit a small laugh from her goddaughter. 

“You deserve to be there, that is why they called you up! This is a chance for you to go and see if you like it. That’s what youth team camps are all about,” Alexia insisted, and there was a pause on the line before the teenager spoke again.

“But also…what if they don’t like me Alexia? What if I am not Norwegian enough for them, or not good enough at football, or I’m weird and young and I don’t make any friends?” Elena said all in a rush, dumping out the bucket of her worries to be sifted through by her ever loving godmother. 

“Oh Elena. They are going to LOVE you, because you are kind and considerate and compassionate. The rest of it isn’t important, you just need to go in there and be kind and you will make friends, I promise. And hey, who knows, some of the girls there might be international as well! Some of your mothers old teammates have children, many of whom were all raised in different countries,” Alexia rattled patiently, remembering acutely how worried she had been when she had begun to be called up to national team camps. She tries her hardest to tell Elena what she needed to be told when she was a young girl, with nobody to give her this advice first hand. 

“I remember when I was younger, god I was a disaster at youth team camps! I was so awkward and shy, but the girls were still always so nice and welcoming, I didn’t have much time to feel self conscious about it,” the midfielder remembered fondly, chuckling to herself as she thought back on the memory. 

Oh, if only I had managed to grow out of my social anxiety as I got older, she thought wryly, before focusing back on the conversation. 

“And hey, at the worst? It’s only two weeks. Two weeks of just giving it a try, and then at least you can say that you did it. If you don’t like it, nobody will force you to go back,” Alexia promised.

“And you’d still…still be proud of me? Even if I hated it and never wanted to play football again because it was so terrible?” Elena asked quietly, her voice soft.

“Elena, I would be proud of you if you went on to win the Ballon d’Or, or if you never touched a football again in your entire life. I will always be proud of you, no matter what you do. But for the record, I don’t think it’s going to be that bad, but even if it went terribly, I will still love you,” Alexia insisted, and it’s the truth. Years later, when Elena graduates from medical school, it will be Alexia who skips the Ballon d’Or ceremony that she had been invited to present at, in order to sit in the front row with Mapi and Ingrid’s family, screaming when her goddaughter walked across the stage to receive her degree. 

But for now, she is content to love the teenager in whatever way she needs, including when she is just trying to figure out what she wants to do in life. 

“Thank you Alexia. I love you,” Elena whispered, her throat suddenly tight with how grateful she is to have her godmother in her life. 

To the rest of the world, Alexia might be the terrifying former Barcelona captain, one of the best players of their generation, but to Elena? She had always been the woman whose face lit up when she walked in the room, the woman who adored spending time with her and reading stories and gave her the best hugs. 

“I love you too pequeña, always,” Alexia insists, wishing her goddaughter goodnight before they hung up the phone. 

With a renewed sense of sureness, Elena marched back inside with determination and right over to where her mothers were sitting together on the couch, pressed up against one another as they tried to pretend that they weren’t entirely focused on the balcony. 

The dark haired teenager raised her eyebrow slightly at the upside down crossword Mapi was pretending to complete and the fact that Ingrid was staring at her wife like she was trying to memorize the silhouette of her face despite the fact that they spent every single day together. She knew they were just doing their best, and that they were both far too nosy for their own good. 

“I would like to go to the youth camp,” she declared, and both Ingrid and Mapi smiled brightly at their daughter as they nodded their agreement, happy to see that she was so sure of herself. 

—

Ingrid had flown out to Oslo with Elena, but she only stayed long enough to drop her off at the hotel and check her in with the staff members. The players were going directly to training, where parents really weren’t supposed to go, and Ingrid hadn’t really planned to spend a whole ton of time around unless Elena needed her to, for some reason.  

It wasn’t the first time Elena had said goodbye to her mother before they separated for something like this, but it did feel weird to know that she wouldn’t see either of her parents for a whole two weeks. 

She clings to the Norwegian for a hair too long, her grip tighter than it’s been in awhile. She feels young again, much younger than she actually is. Luckily, Ingrid’s love is readily available, and she doesn’t comment on her daughter's slightly desperate grip. 

“You’re going to be just fine, Elena. I love you, you call me if you need anything okay? Your Mami and I will call you once a day at least but if you need us more than that we are only a phone call away. And we can always hop on a flight if you need us!” Ingrid rambled, knowing that when she stopped talking she would have to leave. 

“I will be okay Mama. I’ll be sure to call you and Mami a lot to tell you about everything. I love you!” Elena called out as she finally forced herself away, leaving with one of the trainers to get settled in her hotel room before training commenced in a bit. 

She got her stuff settled in the room, noticing that another girl had already placed her luggage on the opposite side of the room. The green eyed girl wondered briefly who her roommate would be, but she didn’t have much time to think on it when someone came to get her for training. 

She was one of the last to arrive, and therefore by the time she had arrived out to the pitch, all of the girls were starting to warm up. 

Most of the girls are older than she is, standing in groups as they all laughed and chatted in a variety of languages. Elena was generally a pretty outgoing person in most circumstances, but this admittedly made her more nervous than usual. 

A lot of the girls seemed to already have groups of friends, and seemed older than her. It felt awkward to go up and introduce herself to these random people who already had a set friend group. 

She could see Frida and Emma’s daughter Kajsa in a group with a few other girls. Her mother had told her that Kajsa would be there, but the two didn’t know one another, because Kajsa was nearly two years older than she was. 

She noticed a few of the girls were standing by themselves off to the side, and she surveyed them quickly to determine who to walk up to. Most of them looked pretty focused, staring intently at the ball they were working with, clearly deep within their thoughts. 

She clocked Valeria, Marta and Caro’s daughter, but the look on her face is dark and filled with a determination that offsets Elena from feeling willing to go up to her. 

When she turned to her right, there was a girl who looked to be a little younger than the rest, much like herself, who was juggling the ball off to the side of the group. She had light brown, almost mousy hair, and unlike the other girls who were by themselves, she had a bright smile as she looked down at the ball. 

She actually looked like she was having fun, and Elena isn’t entirely sure what makes her feet start moving, but all the sudden she’s standing right in front of her, clearing her throat and greeting the girl. 

“Hi,” Elena said softly as she walked over, a wash of nerves. The girl looked up at her in surprise, her mouth forming a little “o” as she stared back at the other girl. The ball fell listlessly at her feet, and she offered a slightly shy smile of her own back. 

“Hey,” she replied, her voice soft and calm. She seemed quite nervous, her outward behavior a direct reflection of what Elena was feeling on the inside. 

“I’m Elena,” the teenager introduced, and the girl seemed to perk up slightly. She seemed very shy, and if there was one thing the green eyed girl was good at, it was getting introverts out of their shell. 

“My name is Kaia,” she echoed Elena’s greeting, and the Barcelona native couldn’t help the grin that broke out onto her face at the flush that was peaking through Kaia’s cheeks. 

The taller girl's accent was strange, no matter what language she spoke. Her Norwegian was accented, and so was her English, and Elena couldn’t put her finger on it until they were hanging out in their room later that night. 

The two had been selected to room together for the two weeks, so it really was serendipitous that Elena had chosen to go up to Kaia as opposed to any of the other girls who were by themselves. 

They were sitting in their respective beds in their hotel room later that night, when the taller girl turned toward Elena with an air of nerves around her. 

“Is it okay if I call my mums?” She asked, and the Spanish Norwegian immediately furrowed her brows. Kaia clearly takes it as being more malicious and less as the confusion it really is, as the dark haired girl tried to figure out if what she had said was the truth. Kaia had experienced plenty of teasing in her youth from her peers about her two mothers, and she immediately draws back in on herself as a result. 

“Yeah I…I have two mums,” she said softly, but the confusion shifted to her when Elena smiled brightly at her sentence. 

“Me too!” She exclaimed, and Kaia’s mouth flopped open, her reservations fleeing her with the drop of a hat practically. 

“Really?!” The taller girl asked in amazement, her whole face lighting up in relief. She didn’t often meet many others who could say this. 

“Yeah, I do! They used to play on the same football team together, that’s where they met,” Elena explained, and once again Kaia looked at her new friend in complete surprise. 

“That’s exactly what happened with my mums too! Do you want to meet them?” Kaia asked earnestly, and Elena nodded before she bounded over to the other bed, stuffing her smaller body close next to Kaia’s as the girl FaceTimed her mothers. 

“Hello darling!” Elena recognized Fran Kirby by both her appearance and accent in half a second, understanding settling over her. She remembered her mother telling her that Maren and Fran had a daughter her age, but she didn’t know that Kaia would be here. 

Suddenly, Kaia’s English accented Norwegian, and Norwegian accented English were starting to make sense. The accents made sense when she could place exactly where they had come from. 

“Mum, this is my friend Elena,” Kaia introduced, and the dark haired girl watched in amusement as Maren poked her head into the camera frame as well, a big smile on her face. 

“You’re Ingrid and Mapi’s daughter, right?” Maren asked kindly, and Elena nodded eagerly, waving hello to the older woman she had met several times. 

“You guys have met each other before, but only when you were babies!” Fran recalled, a statement Maren agreed with readily. 

Ingrid is equally as excited about Elena’s befriending of Kaia when they call her and Mapi right after, the two girls regaling their day at training in long detail.

Okay, it’s a lot of Elena talking in long tangents as Kaia listens patiently, adding in a few details here and there. But the older girl seems completely content to listen to Elena speak, capturing every small detail and little moment. 

For the two weeks they are at camp, the fourteen and fifteen year old are entirely inseparable. They eat together, train together, and when one of them gets lonely, they crawl into the other's bed to hang out and talk far past when they were supposed to go to bed (neither of them are aware that when they are older, they’ll spend every single night like that, together). 

Kaia followed Elena around almost like a lost puppy, and the dark haired girl happily drug her everywhere she went. It was easy for Elena to pull Kaia out of her shell, natural really, and they clearly fit together really well. 

It’s clear to anyone with eyeballs that Kaia has a crush on Elena, but neither of them are quite old enough to pick up on it. All they know is that they both loved spending time with one another, although neither of them realized just how much until later in life. 

But as relationships usually are when you are young, when the two girls leave camp, despite having exchanged phone numbers, they fall out of touch with one another. Kaia lives in England, and Elena still lives in Barcelona, and the opportunities for them to see one another in person are rare. 

They still follow one another through social media, and the occasional texting conversation. When Kaia gets her first Lioness call up at just 17, Elena is one of the first people to text her congratulations. And when Elena graduates primary school, Kaia of course texts her to congratulate her as well, thrilled for her friend. 

But nothing feels quite the same as when they were younger, and Elena tried to accept that. She tried to move on, unsure of why she was so stuck on some two week friendship that, in the grand scheme of things, shouldn’t really have meant anything. 

Or would it? 

Luckily, their distance wasn’t something she’d have to accept for forever. 

—

Elena had just gotten out of one of her university classes when she felt her phone buzzing in her pocket, and she reached down to fish it out. 

The dark haired girl couldn’t stop the shock she felt traveling through her when she saw the name on her phone, and the contact pictured attached, signaling who was calling her. 

It was an old photo, one from four years ago in fact, and it felt like a time capsule, pulling the green eyed girl back to a time of football camps and giggling under the covers with one of the funniest people she had ever met. A time of spending two weeks attached at the hip with a shy girl who blushed when she held her hand to drag her toward the gym, who always passed her the ball even though she clearly wasn’t the best player at camp. 

She stared at Kaia’s picture for so long she almost forgot to accept the phone call, and she scrambled to do so before the ringing ceased. 

“Kaia?” She asks into her phone almost breathlessly, despite the fact that she’s standing still. Her heart is pounding in her chest, and she’s not entirely sure why. Her and Kaia haven’t spoken really since they were fourteen and fifteen, and they were eighteen and nineteen now. 

It was too long for her reaction to be this visceral, but it still is, for some reason. She can’t explain it, she doesn’t want it to ever go away, though. 

“Hi Elena,” Kaia says softly, and her voice is lower and more mature, but it’s still Kaia. It warms Elena’s heart immensely, and she smiles despite the fact that the English footballer can’t see her. 

“How are you?” The dark haired girl asked, genuinely curious. She could have picked up the phone and called, she knew that, but for some reason she hadn’t. 

It felt even more strange for Kaia to be calling. Shy, quiet, sometimes awkward Kaia, who sometimes people thought was mean, but Elena knew it was really just that she spent far too much time in her own head. 

Although, she didn’t look all that awkward when she was on a football pitch, scoring goals like she was born to be a nine. She was brilliant, if a bit inexperienced. 

“I’m, I’m good. Really good actually. But I, well, I need your help with something,” Kaia explained quickly, and Elena raised her brow but asked what the striker needed all the same. 

“You spent last summer in Sweden right?” Kaia asked, and when Elena confirmed it, she continued. The green eyed girl had gone to spend the summer with Frido, and even Ingrid and Mapi had come for a few weeks on holiday as well.  “I’m going on loan to Hammarby for the season to get some more experience, and I was hoping you had any some tips on how to get around, or your favorite spots. Or any of the slang they’re using nowadays, it’s been an embarrassingly long amount of time since I’ve been back to Norway, and the only Norwegian I’m speaking nowadays is with Mom,” she revealed, and Elena felt her heart flutter in her chest. 

If she were thinking about it logically, it would be a little suspicious. Plenty of the girls who they played with in the youth teams were actually playing in Sweden, and probably knew much better than Elena did from just a summer spent with Frido in the countryside. 

And there was always the fact that her mother probably knew dozens of Swedes, who again would know better than the Barcelona based Spaniard. 

But she doesn’t care, because Kaia is calling her, and suddenly she has an excuse to talk to the girl who she’s been unable to get out of her head for years. She hadn’t realized until an embarrassingly long amount of time after the fact that it was a crush she had on Kaia back then, but as soon as she had realized she had been unable to let that go. 

Would things have been different, if they had stayed in touch afterward? She wasn’t entirely sure, but it didn’t matter. Maybe they could be friends now, if nothing else. 

Even if it isn’t going to turn into anything, she’d rather have a tiny bit of Kaia than nothing at all. She doubted Kaia would ever feel the same about her, and how could she? Sweet, brilliant, talented, soon to be famous Kaia, who would never fall for the university student who had little interest in the fame and money that football wanted. 

(Oh, if only she knew that Kaia wanted every single part of her, wholly, completely. She always had, even when they were kids.) 

—

Elena rolled over in her sleep, and unlike usual, there was an object blocking her from doing so fully. 

An object that smelled like jasmine and everything safe in the world, and the dark haired woman instantly turned to burrow into it, clinging tightly to the woman in her bed. 

Strong arms pulled her in tightly, and she blinked her eyes open sleepily to find that Kaia was smiling down at her, before the hazel eyed woman held her face gently in her hands, leaning forward to press a resounding kiss to her forehead. 

“Good morning,” she said softly, before she moved to bring Elena further into her, pressing their bodies together as she had longed to do for what felt like years. The smaller woman allowed her body to be moved easily, wrapping her own arms around Kaia and holding her close.

“You weren’t supposed to get in until later today?” She says in lieu of a greeting, her voice raspy and soft as she allows herself to stay nestled against her girlfriend. It's been over a month since they last saw one another, with their respective busy schedules. 

“I took an earlier flight. I wanted to see you sooner,” Kaia admits sheepishly, her nose twinging with pink as it gives away how clearly besotted she is. Elena’s eyebrows furrowed adorably in confusion as she leaned back to look her girlfriend in the eye, and the brunette reached forward to press her thumb to the space between her eyebrows and smoothing the crease, just because she could. 

“I was asleep! That can’t be exciting enough to move your flight to get in at seven in the morning,” She protested as she looked over at the clock with a wince at how early the time was, but Kaia just let out a small laugh. 

“I firmly disagree, you are completely adorable when you are asleep, and you get all clingy in the mornings. I couldn’t stand to miss another morning of it if I didn’t have to,” Kaia argues good naturedly, and Elena smiles before she presses forward, finally kissing her girlfriend for real. She loved this version of Kaia, the one that was all soft and giggly and gentle. 

It was the version of her that only existed for the green eyed woman, and nobody else. And as much as Elena loved seeing her girlfriend score buckets of goals on the pitch, this would always be her favorite version of the woman. 

“You don’t have to miss it anymore,” the Barcelona native whispered against her lips with excitement, and could feel the curve of Kaia’s own lips as she echoed the dark haired woman’s smile. 

“Not anymore, no. I’m going in at two today to sign the contract and take photos, so you need to help me with my hair and makeup,” Kaia explained, and Elena let out a sigh of relief as she nodded, more than willing to do so. 

After her one year loan spell at Hammarby, Kaia had returned back to Chelsea until she was twenty two years old, when she had made a move to Atletico Madrid for a year. All the while, she and Elena had never lost touch after that initial phone call about Kaia’s ‘Swedish questions.’

While she was at Hammarby, Elena had come to visit her several times (as much as her school schedule allowed), and the more time they had spent together the more the two had realized that what they had went far beyond the bounds of a normal friendship. By the time Kaia was set to go back to Chelsea after her loan, the two had begun dating. 

Elena’s six year medical school program was in Barcelona, and when Kaia went to move clubs to Spain when she was 22, the only offer closer than England had been for Atletico Madrid. The couple had figured that it was better than nothing, and Elena had argued that it would give the Barcelona staff a chance to see how brilliant the English player was. 

And sure enough, she was right, because it was not more than a few months into her contract that they reached out, asking to sign the Lioness after the expiration of her one year contract with Atletico Madrid. 

All of which led them to today, after nearly five years of dating, when Kaia signed her first Barcelona contract, which would keep her in Catalonia for the next four years. 

“I love you so much,” Elena murmured as she tucked herself back into the striker, allowing herself to collapse into the sturdy arms that are wrapped around her. 

The brunette deposited a resounding kiss to the crown of her girlfriends head, cuddling closer to Elena and relishing in the closeness that they never seemed to be able to get enough of. 

And while they don’t know it at the time, they’ll never have to be without one another for the rest of their lives, luckily.

[charliedawn]

what about the Hannibal Family with a reader who makes them little things? Flower crowns, scrapbooks, bracelets, drawings (not great ones, little silly ones)

Hannibal Lecter Sr.

Hannibal Sr. would view your gifts as an intriguing form of affection. He might see the act of creating flower crowns, scrapbooks, and bracelets as a charming attempt to foster connection and loyalty. While he would appreciate these gestures, especially for the thought and creativity behind them, he might also subtly manipulate you into making more, using your offerings to reinforce the bond he has over you. A flower crown on him might look strangely out of place, but he'd wear it for a moment to indulge you, only to carefully place it away later. His appreciation would be tempered with an underlying sense of control

Hannibal Sr. : "Such a thoughtful gift. You must have put in great effort. What else might you do for us, hmm little lamb ?"

Hannibal Lecter Jr.

Hannibal Jr., being the more patient and logical one, would quietly appreciate the thought behind your gifts, though his response would likely be hard to read. He might not react much outwardly but would keep each token in a place of importance, where only he could see. A flower crown on him might feel out of character, but he’d still wear it briefly to humor you before setting it aside. The scrapbooks would be especially significant to him, as they represent moments of family unity, which he values. His reaction might be a simple, "Thank you," though his sincerity would show in the way he preserves each item.

Morgan Hannibal

Morgan might at first see the gifts as frivolous and unnecessary, but he would ultimately understand the effort behind them. His calculative nature might lead him to analyze the intent behind each creation, wondering what you expect in return. He'd accept a bracelet or drawing with a raised brow, but over time, he'd come to appreciate the connection it symbolises. Morgan might not wear the flower crown, but the scrapbook would fascinate him. He would likely comment on it with something like, "You've captured something interesting here. I do appreciate your care behind the details…"

Kevin Hannibal

Kevin, with his impulsive and creative nature, would genuinely appreciate the handmade gifts. His artistic side would love the uniqueness of your creations, even if they’re a bit silly. He might joke about the flower crown but wear it proudly, seeing it as a symbol of your loyalty and care. The scrapbooks and drawings would be something he admires frequently, perhaps even offering to help you improve your art skills. His blunt nature would lead him to tease you about the quality of your creations, but his loyalty would shine through, and he’d be fiercely protective of each item, saying something like, "You made this for me ? Well, I guess it's not terrible. I might keep it." And then keep it in his room in a frame or on a shelf to admire it every time he goes to sleep.

Peter Hannibal

Peter would likely be the most enthusiastic of them all about the gifts. His generous and obsessive nature would have him treasuring each and every gift, especially since they represent affection from someone he cares about. A flower crown on Peter would look almost natural, given his gentle exterior and angelic face, and he'd likely wear it far longer than necessary. He might tear up over a scrapbook, becoming overly emotional as he flips through the pages, obsessing over the memories and meanings behind each one. His response would be full of heartfelt gratitude.

Peter: "You really care about me, don't you ? I—I’ll keep this forever. Thank you, Y/N."

[bloomeng]

Shout out to the person who noticed Steph was the only one in heels and said Dick would totally wear heels. You didn’t know it but you were ahead of your time (it was always my plan to put discowing in heels).

Steph originally wasn’t going to get heels but then I got the idea to add the wings and I fell in love but I think the in universe reason is she wanted them for the drama and she was extrapolating design elements from Batgirl’s og outfit and Batwoman. I was going for like a gothic princess sort of vibe which turned out a bit more Fischl from gi than I intended, but I think that actually suits the vibe pretty well.

Another shoe detail: Jason’s shoes are meant to be slight platforms to match his desire to be tall and imposing.

This is a side tangent but I want to talk about it. For this au I’ve been trying to strike a balance between feminine and “would this character actually wear this?” Now the answer is mostly no. The outfits by nature are impractical as hell bc that’s how magical girl media is, so the question I’ve been asking is more “would this character feel comfortable in this outfit?” I want each look to be equally feminine which means I’m hyper conscious of not making the women more feminine than the men. Magical girl designs are hyper fem by default so my goal is to basically make everyone relatively the same amount of fem.

However, I’m also trying to take into account personality. This is where I might lose some people but hell it’s my au. So why are Jason and Cass the only ones so far with real skirts? This is totally my headcanon but I think they’re the only ones who would benefit from skirts:

Dick would be fine with wearing a skirt but I think he’s ultimately neutral about it. He would totally do it though if someone asked and would be fully aware of how nice he looked.

I don’t know if I’d say Tim would like wearing skirts so much as he doesn’t care. He’s more concerned with practicality.

Steph doesn’t have any issues with skirts but I think as a part of her uniform she would feel stifled. As as I said previously I think part of her look is based on Bats she would’ve looked up to but also partly it was secret wish fulfillment for that little girl who would’ve loved to look like a kickass mary sue demon princess from a y/a novel.

Duke in my opinion wouldn’t see the appeal. I think he’d be similar to Dick but just a little more shy about wearing one. I gave him a little ruffle though bc I thought it was cute.

Babs is fine with skirts but tends to prefer pants.

Cass is a bit different because I think wearing something frivolous is so novel to her. I wanted her outfit to be a blend of her canon design and her appreciation for dance. I tried to contrast her more practical elements (like her pants and armor) with the soft things I think she would enjoy (like a flowy skirt.) I still have ambition to go back and design a Black Bat outfit for her but I haven’t quite figured out the direction I want to take with it.

Jason on the other hand— this also very much in hc territory— I think didn’t know how much he would enjoy a skirt until he got to wear one. Stepping away from the universe for a sec; Jason is the most masculine design fundamentally which means that in order to match the vibe I would have to make him the furthest from his canon design. I’m really not trying to make a statement or subvert things by putting men in skirts bc it’s supposed to a silly au with aesthetically pleasing designs. I like feminine things and it shows in my work however I don’t see clothing as naturally gendered. That’s my little context psa back to my point. I think Jason is the most likely to wear a skirt and actually feel empowered by it. At first I think he was embarrassed by it but the outfits choose you so he just went with it out of necessity. And through that he found he really thrived in the juxtaposition between his intentional imposing figure and this unashamed femininity. He’s a drama kid at heart and fr what’s more dramatic than an ill-advised fit that serves. The skirt to him feels like a costume that helps give him the confidence to be Red Hood or ig… Red Bow. (Which is sorta how I think of the red helmet in canon but I also do believe that Jason and Cass would have the most fun wearing a skirt.)

I haven’t decided if Bruce will get a skirt or not but if he does just know that my reasoning is that his artifact was humbling him. Like you take yourself too seriously calm down with the brooding. He would use the skirt as a way to conceal more weapons.

(I think Kon would love wearing skirts but in this au because he built his own outfit I think he was trying to seem impressive and edgy and distinguish himself from Clark. I also think, despite enjoying skirts, he would have to work up the courage to wear them in public and never as Superboy because he would be too conscious of his image.)

Anyway I don’t claim to always succeed with my intentions coming through in my work but this is what is running through my head.

[writersdelight]

Hiii! I hope you're having a good day. I absolutely adore Husk, I just wanna smother him with hugs 😆

Could you write one with him and reader that takes place the night before extermination day? They love each other but are scared to admit it. Ultimately Angel Dusk convinces him to confess since 'tomorrow is never guaranteed'.

Lots of fluff and love please! Thank you! ❤️

“ I don’t know what to say..”

Husk/Reader fluff before the Extermination. Not long.

Word count: 842

———————————————————————

-> Content: Fluff, I hope this is tooth-rotting fluff, swearing, mentions of dying, not-proof read (we die like Adam)

-> Author’s note: My first request! Ajdjdgj. I don’t think I’ve written fluff ever, but I swear I tried my best. Tysm, Anon! I’m having a great day.

———————————————————————

Husk hadn’t been interested in making his feelings known during his life and that was all the more prevalent in death. When living in a place like Hell, you gotta be safe, keep your card close to your chest or someone will take advantage of you. He knew that all too well.. but it doesn’t mean he doesn’t have certain soft spots..

He liked how you were so genuine, it’s part of what he loves about you. He knows he loves you- he’s good at understanding people and that includes himself. Even if it’s something.. that’s hard for him to admit. Something about the prospect of letting someone in like that is unnerving.

There was only a day left until the Extermination. The rest of the hotel residents were celebrating, trying to live it up before the battle tomorrow. There were some residents who were calmer.. one was Angeldust or well.. Anthony. He appreciated the change he saw in Angel.. Though in the moment with Angel at his bar, he knew the other could tell something was on his mind.

“ …you thinking about tomorrow, whiskers? It got you worried?”

“ ‘Course not. I’m just thinkin’ of how we might run out of booze at this rate.”

Husk laughed the question off, gesturing the empty bottles around the bar. Angel knew that he was lying. With the entire exorcist army about to be on their doorstep, there was practically no chance any of them would making it.. even you. He both loved and hated that you’d be fighting by his side. He loved your passion, the way you wanted to protect your loved ones, but that’s just it: he wants to protect you. You’re safest far away from there.

“ That’s bull and you know it. You’re worried.. but I don’t think you’re worried about you. I think it’s someone else. Someone special to ya~”

As he danced around outright saying the name, he gestured with all four of his hands over to you. You were wrapped up in a conversation with Cherri Bomb at the moment, talking about who knows what. Husk’s gaze followed Angel’s movements… he wasn’t wrong.

“ ……..………”

“ I knew it! You ain’t denying it.”

Angel had a grin on his face as if it was the most satisfying moment in his afterlife (though it certainly wasn’t).

“ You gonna make a move before it’s too late? Say something you need to?”

“….. I don’t think there’s anything I can to say. It’s.. complicated.”

Angel looked at him, taking the situation more seriously than he had before.

“ ….Husk, Buddy, tomorrow ain’t guaranteed. We both know it... so why not go tell your special little someone how you feel..? What’s there to lose?”

———————————————————————

The party had died down, most people were talking amongst themselves at this point… He had to gather himself to work up the nerve to go through with the confession. He knew that he loved you, he was almost positive you felt the same way, but that didn’t take the edge off of this type of deal. He took a breath before walking over to you..

“ Hey.. you mind joinin’ me upstairs?”

He wanted to be somewhere more private for this. Just the two of you.

“ I don’t mind at all.. something up?”

“ Nothin’ to worry about, doll.”

He guided you to the stairs. Once you two were at the top, he led you straight to his room.. you had never been in there. It was.. sort of nice. Certainly dingy. It’s exactly what you thought a man like him would have.

“ …what is this about?”

“ ……….”

He took a moment to figure out his words.. how can he say this? There are so many wrong ways to put it and the possibility of doing it right was slim to none.

“…..we might die tomorrow-”

“ I know that. There’s no where I would rather be than here. Someone needs to show these angels what happens when they pick a fight.”

You interrupted.

“ This isn’t about the damn fight- this is about you. Doll… I.. got feelings for you- I love you. I need you to know incase we’re both double dead tomorrow..”

He was almost surprised to hear the words leave his own mouth much less the surprise you felt.. your eyes met his in the moment after he confessed. There was a silence.

You had felt the same way, how couldn’t you? But putting it to words and saying what you both knew aloud..?

“ I-”

Husk couldn’t finish his sentence as you moved, tightly hugging him. You could feel him loosen up slightly, he had been so tense.. slowly he hugged back.

“…I feel the same, Husk.”

He smiled a bit.. his wings wrapped around you, pulling you closer. It was like you two were the only people in all of hell and that’s the way he likes it. You’re one of the best things that’s happened to him.

Tomorrow may not be guaranteed.. but you two will always have tonight.

[whateverisbeautiful]

♥️Reveling in Richonne - TOWL

#4: The Bench (1.01)

gif cred: @arabellas

After Rick expresses some emotional turmoil alone in his apartment there's an instant cut to Rick sitting alone on a bench outside during a nice day, and I really like this shot. Also, knowing he’d have dreams about falling in love with Michonne on a park bench, I like to think that this actual bench is one of the places Rick would go to daydream about her some more. And while right now he can only be with Michonne in his head, a visit from his one friend in this place reinstills Rick's hope that maybe there's another way to reunite with Michonne in reality...

Rick stares at the city across the water and it’s clear that the Civic Republic is not a place of hope to him but of imprisonment. Even if it’s a technical upgrade in lifestyle, it’s still a symbol of him giving up on his cherished life from before. And he is so not ready to do that yet so he’s trying to avoid being brought into that place as best he can. 

As he sits quietly for some time just taking in the day it feels like this is one of the few moments of calm in his otherwise depressing routine, even though he still is clearly so weighed down. Also, it’s funny how even tho he was in his apartment and could have washed up, he instead decides to sit on the bench looking like a madman covered in blood. 🤭

gif cred: @candiedblue

So then Rick hears a friendly voice as Esteban Garcia approaches - Rick's one friend here.

Esteban immediately wants to talk about the insanity of Rick cutting off his hand. Rick greets him and confirms he did in fact cut off his hand and when Esteban teases asking if he can touch it, for a split second there Rick is not amused as he moves away from him lol.

Esteban confirms he’s just joking around and recalls how Rick didn’t even talk to him or anybody for like two years but Esteban was persistent in continuing to talk to him.

It’s interesting because while many of Rick’s TWD friendships had rocky starts he ultimately built a genuine family with those people. Yet in Philly, Rick never let his guard down enough to build new family ties because everything in him was convinced he’d be with his real family again.

gif cred: @perryabbott

Esteban says “It took a while but we got something now.” Rick nods and Esteban repeats "We got something" as he talks up the hidden city saying while he knows Rick looks at it and just sees Alcatraz he and others look at it and see “that good life, man.” Hearing that just makes me like the use of 'The Good Life' song in TOWL ep 5 even more. Because it shows being on the road and on the run with Michonne is far more the good life for Rick than the Civic Republic. 

It’s sweet seeing Rick soften up just a tiny bit listening to Esteban’s excitement over finally entering a city with air conditioning. Rick smiles and quietly laughs and it’s interesting because you can tell that most people here know Rick as super quiet and stoic when there’s much more to him, like a super affectionate side, he just of course hasn’t really shown them.

Esteban says he’s gonna be in the city walls as of tomorrow because he finally got an upgraded position. And it’s nice seeing Rick seem happy for Esteban even if he himself is miserable under these same circumstances. 

gif cred: @perryabbott

Rick says he should have got Esteban a gift. Gift-giving is truly one of Rick’s favorite expressions of care. And Esteban playfully asks, “What the hell you gonna get me? A scowl?” Lol the consignees and CRM really only know Rick’s grumpy little face.

Rick laughs and then, still the kindhearted guy we know, he thanks Esteban for “whatever this is.” While he’s still more reserved in this friendship I know Rick appreciates at least having one genuine friend here.

gif cred: @richardgrimes

Esteban says “It’s life” and then tries to look on the bright side for Rick that after cutting off his hand Okafor might stop trying to recruit him as a soldier. And then I love the wordless acting Andy does as Rick confirms to Esteban in just facial expressions alone that Okafor still wants him to join the CRM. 

gif cred: @arabellas

Then Esteban plants the idea for Rick’s next steps when he says Rick might as well join just to get Okafor off his back and then make his next move when he’s out there as a soldier scavenging for twine. Rick hears this and you can see his mind going as he realizes it could be a good play.

I know some wondered why Rick didn’t try this sooner but I honestly think he didn’t want to at all make this place seem like it was his people or his home, especially when he was convinced he'd escape and be home in no time. Plus, joining the CRM likely felt like a betrayal of his family and so even just off principle, he didn’t want to give in at first. But now after struggling to escape without conforming several times, he’s seeing maybe he can use conformity to his advantage.

And then the part I really like but also makes me sad (which is the running theme in this ep for me lol) is when Esteban says one thing he hasn’t told Rick, announcing “I got a girl, man, on the inside.” The way Rick looks at Esteban when he shares this 😭, you know the image of Michonne has vividly popped up right to the front of his mind as he listens.

I love the way he plays it where you can tell he’s happy for Esteban because he knows exactly how invigorating it is to find the right one - as a romantic Rick has always been happy to see the people he cares about find their love. We've seen it in the positive way he'd respond to relationships like Glenn and Maggie, Carol and Ezekiel, Jerry & Nabila. But there’s also this clear shade of sadness in Rick's expression as Esteban says this because he’s been away from his true love for several years now. 

Esteban keeps talking about this woman he’s excitedly in a relationship with and Rick slightly looks away, his thoughts consumed with the idea of cooking up a new plan to essentially get off the bench and make an updated play to get back to his own girl. The woman he felt so lucky to find all those years ago. 

So then, Rick approaches Okafor in a room full of plants and dog tags. It's a nice shot.

gif cred: @perryabbott

Also, when Rick enters this room he's wearing all black for the first time, and let me just say Rick in all black is fine on another level 😍.

Now from a metaphorical standpoint, the black clothes have much sadder connotations as the darker apparel shows he’s entering a darker state and losing himself, forced to become more uniform with the CRM...but from a strictly visual standpoint, the man looks great in black. The black fits were always giving. Every single one. 🔥

gif cred: @clonecaptains

A montage shows Rick getting his black prosthetic fist and training with Pearl and others to improve their fighting skills, as Pearl first easily takes him down. Rick also learns to pilot a helicopter as Okafor talks about millet and how if he can find the right one it can change things - obviously alluding to Rick.

We then see Rick take someone down during the training. Look at our baby getting better at hand-to-hand combat. 👏🏽 We know in TWD that wasn’t his strong suit, even tho he always did find a way to come out on top regardless because he's resilient like that. But now he has new fighting abilities under his belt too. 👌🏽

gif cred: @andy-clutterbuck

The soldiers stand at attention in front of Major General Beale and yell 'Sir, yes, sir' as Rick observes Beale, clearly skeptical of this leader. Even standing in uniform amongst these soldiers, Rick’s A energy is clear.

gif cred: @theoneswholiveblog

Okafor asks “Is that your choice?” as the concept of 'choices' is big to CRM folk.

Then we see Okafor sitting in a helicopter that Rick is piloting which is hot I mean cool lol. (I mean both 😋). But fr it is cool to see this be a full circle moment from Rick seeing that helicopter in the TWD pilot and being called 'helicopter boy' to now being able to pilot a helicopter himself. 

gif cred: @andy-clutterbuck

Rick looks down at the city while he flies the helicopter and it’s almost like while he’s not yet immersed himself in the Civic Republic/CRM ways, he is at least 'hovering' over it.

Okafor asks, “Is this the end of it and the start of something else?” Rick responds, “It’s the end…and the start” and I think for Rick he very much means this is the end of me being stuck here and the start of my new journey home, which is why he’s even willing to join this military.

The montage ends with Rick in the doctor's office getting aquatinted with his new prosthetic hand and trying out the weapon, showing the new Rick. The Rick who, as Okafor says, has been welcomed into the CRM.

gif cred: @andy-clutterbuck

However, while this is Rick’s initiation into the CRM, his driving motive still has not changed. It's still all about her. 

And that's made clear when even after joining this army, Rick still retreats in his dreams to a happy place that prominently stars his wife’s beautiful smile and presence. He’s still eager for Michonne. And y’all, his dreams know deep down she’s eager for him too. And I’m very eager to talk about it. 😋👌🏽

[rabbitsrants]

PROOF THAT SHINRAN IS ONE OF THE MOST BRILLIANTLY WRITTEN ROMANCES OF ALL TIME - PART 3

if you haven't already read the posts i've linked down below, please make sure to do so before you proceed, cause they're important for context. thank you so much in advance!

CLICK HERE FOR PART 1

CLICK HERE FOR PART 2

IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER

as i've already explained in my disclaimer, my ultimate goal with this masterlist is to prove how well written shinran is - it's to demonstrate that they're unquestionably each other's half and the heart of the dcmk universe.

people often minimize the importance that shinichi and ran have in each other's lives by labeling them as boring, predictable "childhood sweethearts" which couldn't be further from the truth.

so far we've established that

1) shinichi doesn't fall for ran gradually, which is what usually happens with dcmk childhood friends, he knows right away that ran's something special.

2) even though they share the same core values, their personalities are very different, which has a positive effect on them individually: ran gets shinichi to come out of his shell and contributes to his emotional growth, while shinichi grounds ran and helps her articulate her feelings.

now it's time to analyze the part i teased in part two already:

they share a soul

god, where do i even begin? this post is probably going to be ridiculously long but it's by far the most crucial part of my analysis, so please bear with me. cause as far as i'm concerned? this is the main reason why shinichi and ran belong together.

don't get me wrong, love at first sight is a beautiful concept and i deeply appreciate the fact that shinichi and ran complement each other, however, they aren't the only dcmk duo that brings out the best in each other.

what sets them apart from other dcmk dynamics in the most meaningful way is the undeniable fact that their hearts are one and the same. but what is that even supposed to mean? let's break it down, shall we?

their intuition

this segment of the break-down deserves its own post, because there are countless instances of shinichi and ran showcasing incredible instincts, but i'll try to keep it concise for now. both shin and ran arguably have a sixth sense. that's already fascinating on its own, but what i'm really trying to home in on is that their intuition offers them great insight into other people's souls. sometimes i get the impression they carry a compass that points at people and tells them who's trustworthy and who's not.

chapter 22

chapter 892

ran has so many reasons to doubt takeshi and shinichi has so many reasons to doubt amuro, but they instinctively know they can trust them. shinichi even feels safe enough to confront amuro, which is incredible, cause my boy takes a huge risk by directly questioning his allegiance.

idk about y'all but i think that's beautiful. it reminds me of an amazing quote from a famous philosopher:

their souls are pure. which is why they're able to recognize that quality in other people and each other.

their optimism

despite all the darkness that shinichi and ran face every single day, they have a really optimistic outlook on life. ngl, their unwavering positivity makes me extremely emotional.

chapter 252

shinichi gets shot by criminals and he's slowly bleeding to death. the detective boys feel like it's their fault that shin got hurt, they blame themselves and feel hopeless. my boy is in pain, he's fighting for his life, he's probably even scared, it'd be more than understandable if he saw their point and regretted the unfortunate situation they found themselves in. but he doesn't:

he chooses to look on the bright side. even in death.

which, fortunately, gets the detective boys out of their dark way of thinking. shin helps them understand that, yes, they're on a bumpy road, but at least it's leading somewhere.

chapter 780

shinichi gets a culprit to reveal he's from the kansai region by successfully provoking him with a fake accent, but shin doesn't just piss off the culprit, he also pisses off kazuha and heiji, so kazuha begins to wonder whether people from the kansai region are narrow-minded and ran's perspective is something i did NOT see coming:

HOW IS IT POSSIBLE TO BE THIS ADORABLE AND WISE?!

just like shinichi ran's able to offer kazuha a surprisingly positive outlook on her concerns, which genuinely makes her feel better.

there are many instances of their unshakable optimism and the effect it has on others, it's really beautiful to examine.

i recommend y'all look into it on your own, cause in this part of my masterlist i merely have the space to touch on shared traits like their great intuition and firm optimism, but now it's time to get into the biggest and most important portion of this analysis!

their idealism

i hope y'all read the disclaimer i've linked at the beginning! if you haven't, i urge you to read it before you continue with this post!

shinrans shared idealism is something i've already mentioned in part two of my masterlist, but there's so much more to say about it:

i'd argue that it's the main thing that connects them. not to shade my own children, but they value justice and human life so much, for most people, including me, it sometimes borders on stupidity.

but that's the thing, shinichi kudo and ran mouri aren't most people.

cause most dcmk characters 1) don't initially share their virtues and 2) question their admittedly heroic but also terribly reckless actions, whereas shinichi and ran support and admire each other because of it. because they're the same.

i'm about to give a few examples of shinichi and ran being the most idealistic characters in the manga and for the purpose of full context, i have to showcase the contrast between shinran's morals and the values of other characters. i appreciate and care about every single character who's brought up in the next part of my essay, so don't take this post as an invitation for hostility towards them, that's not my goal, okay? okay. let's proceed.

a) sense of justice and heroism

chapter 239-240

shinichi impulsively investigates the black organization. haibara repeatedly reminds him that he's being reckless and putting himself in danger, she even mocks his strong sense of justice and initially refuses to join his investigation because she's smart and values self preservation. haibara ends up joining him after all, but keeps urging him to drop his investigation and leave with her.

i don't blame her one bit for her approach to the situation... truth be told, her reaction makes a lot more sense to me than shinichi's 😂 but that's because i share her pragmatism.

at this point in the manga shinichi and haibara have zero support. neither the fbi, nor the cia is helping them. it's incredibly dangerous for them to go after the black organization completely alone and it's not just unsafe for them individually either, it's risky for everyone they care about. their exposure would endanger a lot of people, including agasa, ran, kogoro, the detective boys, etc...

and safety concerns aside, why would she care about justice in that situation anyway? how could she, a teen who's trapped in a child's body, possibly hold the black organization accountable without any help?

so yeah, i strongly believe that if you look at the situation logically, haibara's point of view makes a lot more sense than shinichi's and it's fair of her to choose safety over justice, especially when the latter seems so impossible achieve.

too bad that shinichi doesn't give a flying fuck about things like common sense or self preservation. he's completely driven by idealism, it's what defines him as a person, in more ways than one. the only person in the dcmk universe who accurately mirrors his righteousness is ran mouri and it expresses itself through countless parallels that completely contrast haibara's position in chapter 239-240

chapter 44

shinichi pretty much lashes out at the murderer for personal reasons which i dive into here. on top of that, he's passionately opposed to the culprit's idea of using justice as a reason for murder and guess what? ran unsurprisingly feels the same way:

chapter 313

the obvious observation here is that their speeches are remarkably alike, but what i find even more fascinating is the fact that the killers react so similarly. shinran's sense of justice is so powerful, it doesn't just guide their own actions, it even moves morally corrupt people and holds them accountable.

furthermore, the concept of personal safety is completely lost on both shinichi and ran lol.

they constantly risk their lives for other people, including haibara, who, as we already established, initially disregards heroism.

chapter 289

chapter 434

AHHHHH!!! THE PARALLELS ARE KILLING ME

anyway, i'm not trying to undermine the beauty and complexity of haibara's character, she's incredibly well written and i think it's important to emphasize that she's actually attempting to sacrifice herself in both of these chapters.

i actually really appreciate the fact that haibara is this complicated person with a rough background who slowly figures out her values with the help of her friends, imo it gives her layers.

i'm simply pointing out that upon her initial introduction her virtues instinctively differ from shinran's, it takes her some time to grow into the same kind of heroism that shinichi and ran display from the get-go. because they inspire her. but i'll go over that in a minute.

b) they value human life

one of shinichi's main attributes has always been his profound interest in human life. it's a quality that i never questioned until recently because i always figured it was due to his work as a detective.

but the more i think about it, the less it works as an explanation because we know a lot of detectives in the dcmk universe who don't share his interest in protecting people at all costs.

interestingly enough, there is a character who shares his passion but it's not someone who professionally deals with human life - it's just a compassionate, tenderhearted girl who instinctively wants to keep others safe no matter what.

chapter 1026

ran saves a murderer from suicide

which reminds me of shinichi attempting to do the same in another chapter:

chapter 67

he tries so hard... but unlike ran he ultimately fails.

and who's there to comfort him? who's the only person in the whole world who naturally understands his sorrow, who truly knows how valuable human life is and wants to protect it just as much as he does? ran. of course it's ran.

and it will always be ran.

having said that, analyzing shinran's idealism is beyond fascinating to me because i rarely share their virtues or courage. my values are more aligned with the rest of the dcmk universe:

chapter 153

shinichi notices that a culprit is about to kill herself and gets in the way of her plans. heiji's response resonates with me a lot.

CAUSE YEAH, what's the point of keeping someone alive against their will? isn't that infinitely crueler than just letting them die? maybe.

but shinichi and ran don't give a fuck lol. they don't stop the murderers suicide attempts because they're heartless though. it's the opposite, really.

as we already established, both shinichi and ran are optimists at heart, so they believe or least hope that people can always better themselves. i think that's the main reason why the interfere.

besides, shinichi and ran simply care too much about justice - they need culprits to be held accountable and they respect human life too much to allow suicide.

again, do i share their passionate interest in human life? LOL, hell no. i think very few people are capable of being that idealistic. most people, including me, value innocent life but shinichi and ran? they value life regardless of innocence and on top of that, they even value the lives of people who ARE ACTIVELY TRYING TO KILL THEM

chapter 773

a man is threatening to bomb the detective agency, he could kill ran, kogoro and sera within SECONDS and what does my girl ran do? yeah, she saves his life, LOL!

she's already in immense danger and she's seconds away from being saved, but she goes out of her way and puts herself even more at risk, just to save a guy who's threatening her life. WHY?!

because that's just who she is.

understandably, sera is baffled. she doesn't get it.

which makes sense, cause, again, there's only one character in the entire manga who truly understands ran and passionately agrees with her principles and that's shinichi kudo:

their idealism never wavers. it's perplexing for characters like haibra, heiji, sera and even for me as a reader. it's also extremely inspiring though. which brings me to my next point!

c) they inspire others

chapter 239

remember how haibara initially refuses to join shinichi during his investigation? guess what changes her mind...

even though haibara mocks shinichi's idealism and admittedly doesn't understand it in the beginning, it does get her thinking.

she grows up under terrible circumstances which force her to prioritize her safety over human life, but after watching shinichi for a while, she comes to the realization that she no longer has to live that way.

his unshakable idealism fascinates and encourages her, she's reminded that she has choices now and suddenly she finds herself wanting to do better.

but shinichi isn't the only person who helps her evolve in a pretty significant way:

chapter 313

ran's speech about justice and courage deeply moves haibara in the same way it affects the culprit.

her speech doesn't just give haibra the courage to finally introduce herself to ran after months of avoiding her (for reasons i'll get into in part four of my masterlist) i'd argue it also contributes to her finally facing the black organization in chapter 434

while shinichi helps haibara understand that she has choices now and urges her not to run from her fate, ran motivates haibara to be courageous and face her fate. it's actually incredible how much they help haibara, just by being themselves.

chapter 398-400

check out the blog of my wonderful friend aracaeli who recently brought attention to an extremely underrated chapter which emphasizes that ran doesn't just affect characters like haibara, she even inspires her other half shinichi, which is a remarkable accomplishment, considering their morals are generally completely aligned.

ran's idealism knows no bounds. how could it not move people? especially someone like haibara who's just starting to get familiar with the concept of friendship.

in this chapter ran's idealism inspires countless people (shinichi, haibara, the detective boys, the murderer) it says so much about her character and it's such a touching reading experience.

chapter 153

remember how heiji understandably regrets saving the murderer from suicide after seeing her devastating reaction? shinichi knows exactly what to say:

AGAIN, personally, i don't even blame heiji for his initial views. frankly, i agree with them! but it's really hard not to be affected by shinichi's powerful words. i can see how they could completely change the mindset of a passionate detective like heiji. and they do.

chapter 188

to the point that heiji's willing to risk his life because of them...

chapter 774

even sera, who can be a bit morally corrupt at times, is impressed with ran's strong virtues:

but that's to be expected, considering that shinichi and ran even had an impact on vermouth who's an established, ruthless serial killer.

i know, i already extensively talked about the new york case in part two, but it's such an important chapter for shinran that i feel the need to bring it up again, especially if it's going to continue the wonderful discourse i've been having about it with amazing bloggers like sakublogs who i urge you to check out!

chapter 353

this case is so, so special to me because it fundamentally captures the essence of shinran.

vermouth is about to take ran's life but the railing she is leaning on breaks and she's about fall to her impending doom... until ran intuitively grabs her arm and tries to save her:

you'd think that shinichi would urge ran to let go, cause that's what any rational person would do, right? but he doesn't. instead he assists ran. again, WHY?

because... they can't fucking help themselves. because THAT'S JUST WHO THEY ARE.

shinichi and ran are completely led by their intuition, optimism and idealism. nobody values justice, courage and human life the way do, it's in their bones and hearts, it's not something they grow into, it's in their nature.

their spiritual connection is their most defining quality as a couple and it's the reason why i'm convinced that shinran is gosho's best written ship and beyond that, one of the most brilliantly written romances of all time.

it's difficult to do shinran justice in condensed essays like this, but i hope i was able to illustrate their amazing personalities and offer some insight into their captivating bond.

it's why i've been closely following their story since my early childhood. they have the same effect on me they have on other dcmk characters. shinichi and ran inspire me, they touch my soul and restore my faith in people. they're not just a cute couple - they're a symbol of hope.

vermouth puts it best:

visit the shinran library for more

[munsonify]

ice cold

pairing. eddie munson x afab!reader

summary. after forgetting his gloves you bought him, eddie resorts to sticking his frozen hands up your shirt.

content warnings. slightly nsfw/alludes to smut, neck kisses, below the chest touching, gendered terms.

word count. 830

It was no secret that Eddie’s hands got cold during the winter. Every time his joints lock up uncomfortably, he curses himself out at his forgetfulness for never buying gloves. He always seems to forget he needs them until it’s too late, his hands unable to function properly. It’s worst when he’s trying to play guitar, his once beautifully working fingers barely moving.

Eddie was grateful you came around. As if a miracle, you made sure you remembered every small thing he needed. Water, medicine, sunscreen, wallet, and especially his gloves. You bough him a nice pair, pitch black and wool to match his usually dark clothing. He pretended to grumble annoyingly about the material, though he was beyond appreciative of you.

However - like his normal forgetful self - he forget the pair of gloves you bought him in his trailer. Eddie was rushing out the door in desperate attempts to make it to your house in time to pick you up. You two had plans with your friends, plans that you insisted would be fun! The town of Hawkins was having their annual tree lighting ceremony, and you practically begged Eddie to join you and your friends. Steve seemed to be dragged along too, though he was not nearly as reluctant as your boyfriend was being.

Despite all of this, he went anyways. He could never say no to his girl.

So, with all of this on mind, the idea of the gloves you bought Eddie seemed to slip his mind. He realized soon after he started driving to your house that his hands were bare, because despite his van pumping out warm air, his fingers still locked up. With an instant groan, Eddie threw his head back against the headrest of his seat, continuing his drive to your house. He just knew you’d notice his gloveless hands immediately.

You did, of course, notice in an instant. Your eyes naturally zoned in on his hands the moment they opened the door for you. You couldn’t help but pout at him. His face immediately fell with guilt.

“I know, I’m sorry,” Eddie said in a soft tone. “I was running late, I forget.”

You soon tried to tug your own gloves off to give to your boyfriend, but he immediately told you no. It was a long shot trying to give Eddie your gloves, though it was worth the try. Ultimately, you knew he’d never take something like that away from you.

After helping you into the van, he drove off to town center, where he was certain he’d struggle to find parking. He spent a few minutes searching for a proper spot, his loud metal music the complete contrast of what was happening outside. Though the parking spot was far away, he insisted it wasn’t that bad.

Eddie ate his words as his fingers instantly locked up after a minute of walking. He tried shoving them into his pockets, though his leather jacket only seemed to absorb the cold weather, rather than deter it. He also refused to admit how cold his hands were to you. He’d be caught dead before he admitted a fault like this.

Gently, you scolded him for his forgetfulness, though not fully upset with him. Your soft, glove covered hand enveloped one of his, engulfing it in the most warmth you can. You were desperate to give him some sort of relief from the cold weather.

Eddie quickly became irritated waiting outside in the freezing weather. You two had finally caught up with your friends, who were all bundled up properly. While looking around, he seemed to be the outcast. As always, he thought. Even Steve had gloves on.

With the sky darkening, and the anticipation for the lights began to rise, Eddie grew restless. He resorted to what he thought was his last resort. With soft touches, he slowly came up behind you, pressing his front against your back. His arms wrapped gently around your waist, his hands slowly inching to the hem of your undershirt, until his hands were finally submerged under your clothes.

Eddie pressed his cold, long fingers shamelessly against your bare skin, snaking them up your stomach until they rested below your clothes breasts. You jolted immediately from his cold touch, gasping out and whispering ‘Eddie!’. His cold breath hit your ear as he laughs, resting his chin on your shoulder.

“What?” He question, a knowing smirk playing on his face. “Cant get warm?”

“You can, just not up my shirt!” You exclaimed, eyes wide as his hands stay steady underneath your breast. The closeness of his hands made you shudder, though you were sure it could’ve also been from the cold.

“Oh c’mon, princess,” Eddie cooed, his cold lips pressing against your neck. “You don’t mind too much.”

His voice lowered to a whisper, a smirk still playing on his lips as they reach up to your ear again. “I’ll make it up to you later, sweetheart. Don’t worry.”

[mrhaitch]

hi mr. haitch!

i was wondering if you could do a character analysis on suguru geto? i have a hard time understanding how his ideology changed, specifically when he takes it to the extreme and wants to eliminate ALL non-sorcerers. i’d also like to hear your thoughts on the dynamic between gojo and geto… their conflicts and how they drifted apart but never permanently resented the other. lastly, if possible, could you touch on how loneliness affected the two and if it had any impact in their actions, both after riko’s death and after their argument when they split paths

thank you so much,

a curious anon

My knowledge of the series is pretty limited so I can only answer with what I've seen and understood, but Geto and Gojo can be looked at as two different reactions to the same trauma: one blames himself and the other blames everyone else.

That's the core to the changes both of them underwent after Riko's death. Gojo was recognised and elevated as the strongest from birth - the linchpin that holds his society together. Despite the swagger and the ego, beneath is a powerful loneliness and detachment. He has been reduced to a function, with no choice other than to fulfill it, and there's a lot of resentment towards Jujutsu society as a result - they took his childhood, his humanity. His whole identity is based on being the strongest, and yet when he found something he wanted to protect - he failed. Since Riko's death we see evidence of constant effort to master his abilities, to better fulfill his role but at the cost of sinking deeper into the expectations of others. Even so, Gojo comes away with a greater appreciation for the vulnerable, especially children.

Geto, however, did not suffer the same societal pressure - everything about him, his place in the story, is a result of choice and agency. He wants to be a sorcerer, wants to get stronger to protect the weak, he wants to work with Gojo to better the world. When we first meet him, he views his abilities as a means to realise his desires, his ambitions, and - fundamentally - his values.

Riko's death, and everything that followed, robbed him of that ability to choose. Her death meant nothing, a new vessel was found, the world didn't end, everyone moved on. Gojo internalised his feelings of failure and forged on - seemingly unmoved. Geto threw everything he had at saving and avenging her and it changed nothing.

I'll pause here and say that I think Geto and Gojo saw different things in Riko: Gojo saw someone weaker than himself forced into fulfilling a role, Geto saw someone exemplary and unique murdered by the powerless. Perhaps (and remember I'm not an expert here) she came to stand for all of Jujutsu society in his mind - someone with an inherent greatness or importance sacrificed for the sake of people who lack the strength to protect themselves. She was the ultimate realisation of his early beliefs (the strong serving the weak) and it proved to be horrible, far removed from what he envisaged.

But let's focus on their reactions: Gojo went further into himself, into his role, aspiring to realise his full strength to protect others. Geto stopped growing - became bitter, twisted, blaming everyone but himself. He thinks himself a liberator, but in truth he is motivated by an endless appetite for revenge - to take his pain and inflict it on everyone else. It's a response common among men who struggle to regulate and manage their anger and personal set-backs, looking to displace their own negative emotions and push them onto someone else: believing it'll lessen their own pain.

All of this is just supposition, though. Fundamentally Geto is a violent racist, with a fascistic worldview built around strength as some kind of valorous ideal - gleefully inflicting pain and suffering on others. We can empathise with his journey, but we don't have to forgive his actions.

[gunnrblze]

hiiii!!!! I just wanted to say that I literally adore your obsessed hesh & logan series, I was wondering if you could write a some jealous hc's for the boys who started to notice that reader is slowly drifting away from them and they started to hang out with other soldiers? if not, I completely understand!!! have a good rest of your day, lovely <3

Thank you my dear!!🤍 I’m so sorry this took a million decades for me to get around to lol, but here ya go :) Obsessed AND jealous Hesh and Logan? Oh me oh my

CW: jealousy and obsession of course, toxic behavior, some more slight stalker-ish behavior, nothing intense or anything, ur on base with the both of them in these scenarios again.

Hesh- oh dear, a jealous Hesh is an irritable one I think. I imagine he could hide it well, he’s probably used to hiding jealousy (looking at you Elias family dynamic👀), but it eats him alive, really.

Seeing his precious friend//lover/obsession slowly distance themselves is like a knife to the gut, and he knows exactly how that feels. He’s a little more snarky, a little more hotheaded at times than usual, because what’s going on? Has he done something? Said something to upset you? His darling from above, what’s gotten into you?

He won’t interfere much on your end, but he’d do anything if you’d just come back, sweetheart. Sit with him during mealtimes again instead of with whatever mangy soldiers there are on base. Take walks with him again, clean your guns or do whatever it is that you’ve slowly started to do with others.

His jealously is obvious to those that know him well. Logan and Elias can tell what his deal is, and most of the other Ghosts can tell something’s up with him regardless, but only he can truly understand how consumed his thoughts are. Thankfully he’s busy a lot, but his down time thoughts are riddled with doubt and worry. Was it really all in his head? Do you not appreciate him as much as he you? Are you toying with him? No, you’re too precious to do such a wicked thing, right? He knows you’re too sweet to upset him on purpose. Do you know what jealousy does to a person? Surely you do.

So maybe it’s not you, he reasons. It’s those mutts you’ve been hanging out with more. He doesn’t like those soldiers, regardless of what they have or haven’t done. Because they’ve taken you from him, in his jealousy addled mind. He can’t see it any other way. If they’re his subordinates, he uses intimidation to mess with them, whether he really means to or not. If they’re his superiors, he’s cold, distanced. Only doing and saying the absolute necessity to avoid any repercussions.

He’s smart though, he can handle this even if it bothers him. He may start to take after Logan a bit and follow you around base a little, see exactly what it is you’re doing. He’ll ‘accidentally’ start running into you more, start needing more from you, for work related reasons, and that’s it. If you go on ops with him, you’re basically attached at the hip, only letting you part if necessary. And his voice will still flood your ear on comms, so how far away are you really? You may drift, but he’ll be the life raft that pulls you right back to shore. His jealousy is like an infected wound, sometimes it starts to heal whenever he gets you alone, gets you in his sights, get your attention on him. But when you ultimately keep straying, it flares and festers.

You may be distancing yourself, he may see you with others more than with himself. But no matter how far you you go, you could never get that far, sweetheart. He’s always gonna care for you.

You’re in his heart, whether you wanna be or not.

Logan- now this one I think would let his jealousy shine a bit more. He’s a little younger, not as emotionally developed as Hesh just yet. But like his brother, he gets cranky. You brightened up his days and now they’ve been clouded by some other idiots. So when he sees his darling starting to stray, he does ask.

Asks if you’re okay, at first. He hasn’t seen you around as much, where’ve you been? Are you alright? Did he upset you? It may be the most you’ve heard him talk at once. It doesn’t matter what you say or don’t say, it doesn’t feel like enough of an explanation for him because you still distance yourself. And your mere presence is what he used to thrive on.

His thoughts may take that even more juvenile approach, and he makes it personal whether it is or not. You must hate him now, huh? He must’ve done something to you, angel. Why else would you hang out with people who don’t even know your favorite snacks and drinks or if you prefer sleeping with or without socks? He knows you, do they?

And he goes a little up the wall. Hearing your voice, the smell of you that wafted in the air start to disappear more and more was like someone dangling a carrot in front of him. He was annoyed by you, a bit. He couldn’t stay mad at you, not you, god no. But his feelings were hurt, and he wasn’t too sure how to handle it.

He asked Hesh of course, who gave him an answer that didn’t lead you back to him, ultimately, therefore he didn’t take any of it to heart. He missed you, and watching you around base with other soldiers made his jealousy grow. It felt like vines wrapping around his ribcage, ready to crush them all inward and puncture his poor heart with the shards.

Logan’s approach though is to insert himself once more into your life, he’s not shy. Having lunch with other soldiers? Now you’re having lunch with him too, invite or not. Training? Now you’re training with him. Now you’re walking back to the barracks with him, on ops with him, with him with him with him. He can’t help it.

He’ll still follow you around base like a poor puppy too, and maybe you know he does and maybe you don’t. Perhaps it’s from a distance, the man is a silent giant after all.

You’d have to explicitly tell him to back off if you wanted him too. Until then? You’re still his favorite person, darling, he’s just being a friend.

Even if you’re starting to lack in that department. Don’t worry, he’ll maintain it enough for the both of you.

[shift-shaping]

yet you love her all the same

solas meets an old friend in the fade.

rating: t

pairing: solavellan (discussed|)

previous fics | 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13

A spirit could take many forms. On this night, for whatever reason, Wisdom stood beside the water as a large grey heron. Solas watched it quietly, curiously, as it stared into its reflection and tilted its long, sharp head to the side.

"My friend," it greeted him in soft elven as he approached. Its eyes glowed, a mist of hazy blue magic drifting off them. When it spoke, it did so directly into his mind, without moving its beak.

"Hello," Solas replied warmly. The spirit stretched its wings, and he smiled at it. "You have not worn this shape in some time."

"It is comfortable, for now. You should try it."

"I should," he agreed, though it did not truly appeal to him. "Did something specific bring this on?"

The spirit made a chattering noise and retracted its neck before stretching again. "I wish to see what lies beneath the water's surface."

Solas smirked. "By... eating what lives there?" Wisdom hummed. "Why not take the form of a fish, then?"

Though it wore no true expression, somehow Wisdom looked upon him warmly. "How could we talk if I were a fish?"

"The same way we can when you are a bird.”

Wisdom looked back at the water, and drew its beak close to the surface. It was quiet for a time, and Solas gave it room to think. Finally it shook its head, feathers dancing on its crown. "No. I would swallow water and that would be unpleasant." It straightened again and turned to face him fully. "You have traveled so far, lethallin. Why venture to the northern plains?"

"The Inquisitor requested I accompany her on an urgent mission to Wycome. She received word from her clan's Keeper that her family is in danger."

Wisdom blinked at him, and the glow of its eyes was so strong it shown though its eyelids. "What manner of danger?"

"Strange mercenaries target her people." He frowned. "There are whispers of a purge." That a slaughtering of elves was so common there was a specific term for it made his stomach churn.

"A purge," Wisdom repeated. The word echoed around them. "What an ugly word." He looked away from the spirit, but it stretched its neck to look him in the eye. The gesture was so odd he couldn't help but smirk. "Not all suffering is your fault, lethallin. Leave some guilt for the rest of the world."

He exhaled and nodded. Though its words were ultimately false, he appreciated Wisdom's efforts to calm the inevitable downward spiral of his thoughts.

"And you have gone to help. Let that be something."

"I suppose it must be," he replied, but he knew that wasn't enough. Regardless of his friend's words, he knew every hurt in Enaste's life was, in truth, his fault. And not just her: that Sera was apart from her true self, that the Dalish of the Dirthavaren were so impoverished, even that the rebel mages were so damned that an offer of servitude to a Tevinter Magister was preferable to their current state --it was all the result of his actions, his mistakes.

"You must stop this," Wisdom urged. "You accomplish nothing with such thoughts." It nudged at him, jabbing his side with its beak.

"Please stop," he said, gently pushing it away. "Your face is too sharp for that."

"You are not good company like this," Wisdom asserted. It leaned back and flapped its wings. "Cease this misery, or I will find another wayward soul to pester!"

He couldn't help laughing at that. "Really? Who else will listen to your ramblings on Alamarri textiles?"

"An Alamarri craftsman!"

"And how many of those will meet with you?"

Wisdom grumbled and shrank back down, ruffling its feathers momentarily before relaxing. "They are not ramblings. My information is well-organized and presented."

"Of course it is," he replied. Wisdom looked at him sideways, glowing eyes narrowed. "I am sorry, my friend. I do not mean to be poor company."

"You are not. Usually." It straightened, and began to stare into the water again. They were both quiet for a long time, the silence settling from vaguely tense to something warmer, more familiar. That feeling of shifting silence, of nerves settling and relaxing, was something he always missed dearly when in the waking world. Outside the Fade, a stale conversation remained such when it paused. Emotions were more fluid here, and easier to detect as the boundaries from one being to another blurred at the edges.

Wisdom waded into the water, sending ripples flooding outward until they reflected back against the opposite shore. Solas sat in the grass at the water's edge and tried to do as his friend suggested. The spirit was right: this was no place to dwell on shame.

Eventually it spoke again, looking towards him from the water. "Tell me more about the Inquisitor."

“What would you like to know?" It was natural that Wisdom would be curious about Enaste given her sudden impact on the world. He had told it some things already, though, and was uncertain what more there was that Wisdom could not learn on its own.

"A great deal! You have told me facts about her history, her decisions, her allies, but there must be more besides her politics. You think about her so often, more than any mortal I can recall."

"It is not that often," he replied, defensive suddenly.

Somehow Wisdom managed to look at him witheringly. "Lethallin, please." 

"She is the leader of the Inquisition and the bearer of the Anchor," he replied, knowing full-well his friend already knew that. "Of course she is on my mind, occasionally."

"Occasionally!" It scoffed. "You embraced her." He averted his gaze and tried not to let the guilt overtake him again. Wisdom cocked its head, genuinely curious. "Why? If you only think of her because of her position, why are your thoughts as often on her lips as her words?"

"There are --it may be difficult for a spirit to understand," he deflected.

It bristled, feathers fluffing so it looked much larger than it was. "Do not insult me."He raised his eyebrows, not expecting such a reaction. "I am Wisdom! Of course I can understand desires of the flesh!'

He snorted, and it deflated quickly when it knew he wasn't intimidated. "How very prideful of you, lethallen." It looked annoyed. He shook his head and sighed. "But still, I apologize. That was unkind of me."

"You are forgiven." It waded out a bit further, watching the water. Occasionally a fish swam by, glittering and quick. Wisdom watched it, rather un-heron-like in its movement. "I only want to understand why she so occupies your mind."

Despite his efforts to avoid a conversation like this as much as possible, Wisdom inevitably drew it out of him. It was to be expected, he supposed --Wisdom was privy to much of his thoughts, and he could no longer pretend Enaste did not take up a significant portion of them. "She is..." But despite how much he thought of her, he found the words impossible to articulate. She was capable, and strong-willed, and confident in her own leadership. She valued knowledge, and expertise, and took advice from those she respected. Perhaps above all she was open-minded and curious, always asking him questions and listening thoughtfully to the answers.

She was also charming, and beautiful, with raven hair and hazel eyes that were warm and deep and wide. She laughed rarely, but more often around him, and the sound was honest and lovely and made his heart race. She was playful when she wanted to be, open in her desires yet embarrassed of them at the same time. Her lips were soft and full, her body pliant yet firm in his hands, her skin--

"Oh," Wisdom said suddenly, and he looked up from the thoughts he hadn't realized had consumed him. "You are in love with her!"

"No," he said, too quickly.

"How fascinating!"

He exhaled and squeezed his eyes shut, centered himself, forcing his mind back to the conversation at hand. "She is not what I expected from this world. I am simply --surprised."

"Why? Is it so hard to think there could be something worth loving in the ruins?" Wisdom waded closer to him, head tilted curiously, the water lapping softly at its feet. "A flower that grows where corpses lie is no less lovely for its surroundings." It paused. When it spoke again, its voice was gentler still. "Perhaps... it is even more so."

"It is a selfish thought to even entertain. I have already hurt her," he said. "I cannot twist the knife by betraying her so personally."

"Yet you love her all the same."

"It is foolish. And ultimately, irrelevant."

Wisdom watched him pensively, and said nothing for a time. When it spoke again, the words sank in his chest like stones in the pond. "What does she want of you?"

"That... Is irrelevant as well. She would not want anything of me if she knew the entire truth." His voice fell, and he shook his head. "And she does not, and cannot. So we must remain as we are."

"You have no idea what she would want, my friend." Even in its prodding Wisdom was so gentle, so kind; he could almost believe it was right. "Perhaps she might even wish to walk beside you on your path."

He chuckled mirthlessly, unsettled by the thought of dragging her down with him. "That thought is far from comforting."

"Or maybe she is proof that you belong where you are. That this world, however broken, is the one you must accept."

He looked up at it seriously, frowning. "You cannot believe that," he breathed.

"I am Wisdom.” A teasing melody laced its voice. He could now say he’d seen a heron smirk. “I do not believe anything. I only want to know the possibilities."

"Then you know why acceptance is defeat."

"Is it? Or are you too proud to know the difference?"

"Clever," he said bluntly, and stood. "I can feel our time grow short, my friend."

Wisdom waded to the shore, leaving water dripping to the grass. "You are afraid."

"Of what?" He asked as Wisdom drew close. The spirit seemed slightly taller now, or perhaps it stretched its neck up higher. It looked directly into his eyes, in a manner it could tell unsettled him.

"Of her. Of what she could do to you if you let her." He sighed and looked away. "Yet you linger by her side."

He shook his head. "She needs my help."

"You could let her die."

"No, I could not."

"Why?" It asked, tilting its long narrow head to the side. "She will die regardless, in time. Then the mark is yours."

"Someone must stop Corypheus."

"Then kill her and take the Anchor yourself."

Solas balked, blinking at the spirit. "You-- are you seriously suggesting I murder Enaste?" He was genuinely taken aback, uncertain he'd ever heard it suggest something so merciless.

Its eyes glowed brighter. "You cannot murder a ghost, lethallin! Would it not be better, kinder, to sever one thread so the rest can be free?"

"I--" he exhaled and closed his eyes tightly. Wisdom fell quiet, waiting. "I am not entertaining this. I know what you're trying to do, and it isn't helping."

The spirit pulled back, tittering an odd little laugh. "Yes, it is."

Solas rolled his eyes. "We can continue this discussion another time." He sighed. "Or not, preferably."

Wisdom huffed a laugh. "Fine, then. But when you find yourself again in her arms, I will be here to say I told you so."

"You are obnoxious." He scoffed. "This form has made you meddlesome and tiring."

"I will not turn into a tree again. That was a very boring two hundred years."

He smiled at Wisdom, amused despite himself. "On that much we can agree. This realm was lonely indeed without your chattering."

It flapped its wings again. "Then perhaps I will remain this shape a while longer. I enjoy this form."

"So long as you are comfortable, my friend. And..." He hesitated, then gave the spirit a deep nod. "Thank you. In spite of my protests, I appreciate your counsel."

"Of course, Solas." Sometimes Wisdom called him that to tease him, to poke fun at his nature or call him arrogant, but now, like this, it was simply his name. And hearing it, in Wisdom's echoing, ancient voice, was enough to soothe his nerves and slow his racing thoughts. Here, even among such an ancient force, there was great comfort in knowing he remained himself.

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[gingergofastboatsmojito]

S3 last eps fix - 3B predictions

As I anticipated the last eps of the season were the most "shippers", even though they were far from what we woulda wished them to be.

And that is why they were the longest, because the meat of the season was there.

The day of the premiere I skipped straight to ep 10 before watching the whole thing and saw the Funeral dinner which I didn't know was a Funeral service at the time, saw Carmy crying and then Syd's panic attack, then I saw the fucking last scene and was left feeling that it was all about S4, without even knowing S3 part B was a thing.

Now, after having watched S3 fully, done a partial re-watch and multiple analyses of the pivotal scenes, and finding out about 3B, I can safely say that Syd is not going anywhere and will sign The Bear's agreement. We will not see much more of Shapiro going forward although I would love to see Carmy ripping his head off for trying to poach Syd and I'd love Syd to see that and appreciate it for what it is, not just possessiveness, but also love. Anyway, that will not solve our problems in 3B, nor will it ensure a Sydcarmy development right away.

I still feel S4 is Sydcarmy territory, as I always thought but now I can foresee us actually getting "joy" in 3B, just like JAW said in an interview. We will have another under-the-table vibe kinda moment. That's for sure. We will have what they deprived us of, a hopeful cliffhanger.

The reason is that Shapiro is the wild card and S3 was the sleight of hand of the whole arc of the show as Storer told us repeatedly throughout S3.

Not 100% sure yet when 3B will be released, I hope that by March 2025. Anyway, whenever they decide to do it, those were supposed to be the last eps of S3, not the ones we saw that left us feeling so off.

I have no idea why they decided to go about it this way because even if they tried to make it longer, this was not the way. I still have the strong feeling that the main issues were writing and edition this time around, although I don't understand why, as they even had more time to shoot the same amount of eps they usually shoot in 3 months.

The wedding scene was not included in 3A, so we will see that, which is obviously gonna be Tiff's wedding and we will also get a real reconciliation between Carm and Richie, maybe at the wedding or right after...

These events will cement what from now on I will be calling: TEAM SYDCARMY FOR THE GOLD (TSFTG), that is Syd+Carmy+Richie+Nat+Pete+Jimmy

THOSE ARE THE CHARACTERS THAT WILL MAKE THE SYDCARMY PLOT MOVE FORWARD FROM NOW ON.

And the other team that I haven't named yet, is gonna be: Luca+Claire+TheFaks

Donna is a mystery to me, but she's in a redemption arc, so I will wait it out. I'm pretty sure she will not be TSFTG right away but will eventually embrace that endgame. What I can't put my finger on yet is: is she gonna be on the same team as Claire? I hope not, but I wouldn't be surprised. Let's see...

Ultimately what matters is that when we actually get to see those last eps that shoulda belonged to this season we just watched, we will see that Sydcarmy element we feel this one lacked and this bitter aftertaste will go away.

Stay tuned, I'm still working on it but I haven't really dived in some stuff yet, just the main ones.

Looking forward to getting your feedback on these topics, maybe it will help me figure out some more stuff.