#i can see the bloodbath from here

[ceaselessims]

this may be an unpopular opinion but i hope tma never gets a visual adaptation

[kiss-me-muchoo]

𝐭𝐫𝐢𝐮𝐦𝐯𝐢𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐞 || 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐚𝐥𝐞𝐬𝐦𝐚𝐧 𝐱 𝐟𝐞𝐦!𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫 𝐱 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐦𝐚𝐧

summary_ A triumvirate is a group of three people who share power, you hated the island your father brought you to. Your summer vacations turned you witness of some bloody games, what surprised you was how you ended up being the rag doll of the salesman and frontman of the organization that held the games.

warnings_age gap (reader is in her early 20s), reader is implied to be American (not specified again), sexual tension, very mild sex, oral (f!receiving), PLOT HOLES AND NO PROOFREADING YET, ooc salesman and frontman, violence, manipulation, marriage, questionable morals, do not romanticize this irl pls

notes_ i wanted to do something more interesting but I’m busy and about to start spring semester YET, MORE FICS COMING!!!!!!!!

♫ ♪ the worst playlist 4 gong yoo

✰ Index (+ fics here)

ˋˏ✄┈┈┈┈

The would’ve could’ve should’ve constantly popped up in your head. Wonder how different your life could have been if you had grown up with a normal family.

As a child you experienced fear whenever your parents held parties, usually there was the dead body of a man drowning in blood. Enemies of your father were brought to said parties and faced a violent ending.

With the odds against your favor, it was your mother who suffered the same destiny because of your progenitor’s bullshit.

He gave you too much independence, but what he had done to you over the years, made you a lonely, selfish, disobedient woman.

You could’ve stolen some money and lived a life away from everything you knew. But the least he could do was to pay for everything your heart desired. One day you would be better off without him but for now, you endured.

The mysterious island he brought you to seemed nice. A luxurious private complex was all for you. The weird thing was that it had no windows, no balconies, and no way to communicate with the exterior.

Midday, you were supposed to watch some entertainment the island offered; a game they said.

“Why do we have to wear this crap?” You ask as your father hands you a golden mask. “We’ve talked about this. Don’t be a bitch and comply”

It seemed like a bird, maybe a hummingbird. But it was disturbing for some reason. He wore a robe and you thought it was just a normal game. Hence why your dress seemed like a little bit too much for the occasion.

You peeked your head through the door and you saw how many people sat and watched a big screen while a crowd of people in green tracksuits ran in opposite directions, soon many died and it was a bloodbath.

You nearly vomited.

“I won’t go in there”

“You’re expected to, now put that mask on be a good daughter,” he said grabbing your forearm you tried to move away but he placed more pressure.

“Disturbs among VIPs are not allowed” a pink guard came into vision.

He had to be a man, tall and imposing.

“My apologies, I was just telling my father I won’t watch the games tonight” you firmly say.

“Don’t be stupid, y/n. Not when I’ve spent millions on this” You shrug and he was about to slap you when the pink guard pulled you backward to avoid the slap and another figure stepped in.

“What is going on in here?” A much deeper voice spoke, the man wore a dark suit and black mask. He must’ve been the frontman.

“This stupid child won’t go inside and watch the games” You can feel both the guard and frontman eyeing you. Suddenly you felt naked in the strapless black dress.

The frontman pats your father’s back and calls him by his name, making you realize he knows him, perhaps they’re friends.

“Let your child be. If she doesn’t want to watch, she doesn’t have to. 004, escort her back to her complex” The guard nods and indicates you to follow him.

With one last look, you see and hear your father cursing, entering the room. And that imposing frontman, standing there, watching you behind his mask.

…

For the rest of the day, you are left alone. At night, you decide to make good use of the pool your complex included. Overall the place was dark, it had a lot of yellow and orange bulbs that illuminated enough, giving a futuristic but slightly contemporary dark space.

The pool was perfectly warm and it was the only place with blue lights.

The memory of your asshole father hadn’t come into the picture ever since the morning. On the other hand, the masks of that pink guard and the frontman haunted you.

And then you heard something. Someone opening the principal door.

You stayed there, trying to remain completely quiet, hoping that the sound of the water would disguise the way you nervously breathed.

You closed your eyes for a second, and when you opened them again. You had him there; the frontman.

“You didn’t want to watch my games. Why is that?” He asks through the dark mask as if he hadn’t intruded. You remain silent, unsure of what to do. “Answer me”

“I didn’t sign up for that kind of entertainment when my fucking asshole father brought me here” you reveal, trying to sound cool. But the truth was that you wanted to run.

“He truly hates you,” he says, making you smir, nodding. “Yes, and I hate him as well”

“I can tell it had to do with the death of your mother…” his words make you react fast.

“Take that ridiculous mask off if you are going to put the name of my mother in your mouth”

In the mere silence, the only sound disturbing it, was his mask dropping to the floor, revealing an intimidating man.

Slick hair, deep eyes, sharp jawline. Handsome overall…

Still, you remain.

“I would like to describe what makes you so intriguing…”

“You’re just an old man with an old dick and set your naughty eyes on a young ass like me” you swear you see a tiny smirk on his face, which quickly evaporates.

“Smart girl…” you roll your eyes, your hands floating around the warm pool. And you shouldn’t be turned on by that nasty old man staring there, intruding and invading your privacy like nothing. But there was something dark and twisted that was making you feel naughty.

So you pushed yourself up by your shoulders and offered a full view of your naked body to the frontman.

What was happening? Certainly unsure…

He watched deliberately, almost as if he was testing the waters and proving you were unhinged like him.

“I won’t be the one pleasing you tonight” Your confusion only grows after the door opens up again and you see a pink guard entering. By the height and greeting he offered to his boss, you knew it was the one who saved you from your father’s slap.

“What the actual fuck?…” the frontman only gives him a nod and you lay there, waiting until the guard is beside you.

You look up, confused, still holding yourself back with your elbows. His black boots push your feet to the side, inviting you to move around, aside from the pool.

“What? You’re gonna eat me up?” The guard remains silent.

“He will teach you manners” the frontman speaks, making you turn to look at him once again.

“I like being a brat, darling. It has always been this way…” Your cocky smile soon disappears after the guard takes his mask off and you encounter a younger handsome man.

He kneels and your eyes almost pop open because at that moment you realize what was actually happening.

The gloved hands of the guard lay on your open legs, making sure you lifted them, the heels of your feet almost touching your ass.

The guard eyes you and you almost shiver. He was almost asking permission to touch you. His touch was nice, even his gaze seemed welcoming.

You watch his head disappear between your legs and it’s over.

“F-fuck” you moan, arching your back while the man between your legs works his tongue in and out of your weeping hole.

“Ah- ah, I’ve never been this wet before” you admit shamelessly, groping your breasts while you end up making eye contact with the guard.

He is slightly older than you, but he’s disturbingly handsome.

“Make her cum, 004” the frontman speaks, seated straight in one of the couches across the pool, where he watches with ease.

You want to know the name of the source of your pleasure so bad.

His tongue flicked around your clit and it made you roll your eyes, throwing your head back and losing yourself in the pleasure and the water reflection on the black ceiling.

The moment his nose nudged your clit and his tongue lapped at your cunt harder than before, you came so hard your legs opened impossibly wider than ever.

You wanted to stay there forever.

…

Your heels clacked with each step through the city. A lot of people turned to look at you. In a tight tube skirt, a top with a squared neck and the most classy coat the city could see. At the subway station, you eyed a man looking at you. He was hot and you smiled at him, turning to leave the station.

He was following you. You could feel his steps behind you. You should’ve been afraid, but it only fueled your stomach with anticipation.

Making a turn in a filthy alley, you felt his big hand on your nape and pushed you against the wall.

You didn’t even object, you only pulled him closer to make a wet mess on his lips.

“You look too damn hot tonight,” he said in your lips.

“Take me to dinner and I might believe you” both of you chuckled.

You didn’t leave the island, neither did your father.

The first time you returned to Seoul was to get married. That pink guard who ate your cunt three years ago was now the recruiter of those deadly games, or how you preferred to call him; your salesman. And he was your husband.

“That time of the year is coming…” you say as he grabs your hand guiding you to a sandwich place. “I don’t want to go…”

“You don’t have to, I’ll go and say you are sick” Your husband ever the loyal, tried to soothe your worries, but it was in vain.

“I don’t want him to take it out on you, baby” Your salesman nods at your words, the uncomfortable tilt of his face making you aware of how uneasy the subject made him.

Whenever the Squid Game was about to begin, it was your task and your husband’s to recruit people.

Both in classy attires and with attractive features made it harder for the victims to deny the offer. Young people constantly whispered how much of a hot couple you two were while riding the subway or walking random streets.

“There’s three weeks left, darling. Let’s not let it get in our way yet” he says, opening the door of the sandwich place.

The smell of vinegar, freshly baked bread, and spices make your stomach growl and your husband notices it.

“As it seems you are very hungry…The usual?” You nod at him, urging him to lean and make it easy for you to leave a kiss on his cheek.

His cute smile makes you get hearty eyes.

You eye your husband as he orders the food and you wait by an empty table.

He’s loyal, devoted, hot as fuck, insane, sadistic and a sociopath. But in your eyes he’s perfect.

Nothing compared to him.

In the beginning, it was all pure carnal lust. He liked to watch how your husband, at that time 004 ravished you. Then he opted to make said guard look while he took you.

In-ho was cold and rough but gentle and a good listener.

He understood you, got rid of your father so that you could acquire all of his money and leave.

But you didn’t want to because you had him and 004. For months it all fell into a toxic routine. Your delusions of having two men infatuated by you grew to the point you felt love towards both.

But at the same time, it wasn’t the same love.

In-ho ascended 004 as a recruiter and you weren’t ready to see him go away. He would only visit the island whenever the games were about to begin.

Call it a fluke or bad news, but during those days you learned you actually meant nothing for the frontman. And before you could’ve experienced heartbreak, 004 asked you to leave with him as a recruiter.

It was at that exact moment when you comprehended nobody would care for you like him.

You were his since he pulled you away from your father’s slap.

Heavens smiled at you as the old man who was the remaining superior of In-ho at the time approved your petition of becoming a recruiter as well.

You felt no remorse as you left the island, without saying goodbye to In-ho. But over the years you would learn you would never escape completely from him.

It would always go back to being your salesman, your frontman, and you.

…

You stare at the album in your hands. A picture of you and your salesman on your wedding day. Nobody attended, Who would’ve? None of you had friends, family, or people who mattered.

A stranger took the picture. A stranger was witness to two insane humans celebrating their marriage.

And ever since, you believe it was the best decision of your life.

Your husband and you were… intense. From 52 weeks of the year, three were for recruiting people and one to notify the island. The rest, it was you and your man playing cat and mouse games with dauntless people who dared to try to uncover the roots of the Squid Game and everything behind.

48 weeks to cherish your husband, let him fuck you with his favorite gun, and then shove it in your mouth until you were sobbing from pleasure and committing crimes under the excuse of protecting your people.

Any morals you carried were washed away as soon as you married.

But you wouldn’t change it. With your father gone and in the arms of the man you loved, nothing could possibly hurt you.

Not even that man leading the island you hated so much.

…

At some point, you thought your daily life was actually the bubble you lived in, while the short annual visit to that island was actually your reality. Walking on the same grounds where your father’s corpse was rotting wasn’t a pleasant reminder. Even less when you were forced to separate from your husband.

Both of you exchanged looks when a familiar pink guard stepped between you and him.

“Our frontman has requested to only receive you” the modulated voice was directed towards you.

“It’s gonna be okay, dear,” you say to your salesman, whose discontent was more than evident.

Normally, he had the right to feel superior because he was able to taste power over ordinary people. But when it came to being just a messenger for his boss, having to allow his wife to go where of course he didn’t want, was torture.

“You’re smart, don’t let him get under your skin,” your husband said in your ear, before standing straight, hands behind his back while he offered one of his signature feigned smiles towards the guard.

Under that confident stance, you could see a worried man.

But he was right, you were smart.

The smell of the whole place was indescribable, but intoxicating, in the best possible way. You remember that as the only good thing, as stupid as it sounded.

The dark halls are long, slightly illuminated by the warm yellow lights you remember very well. Time seems to pass slower than it appeared because the walk towards an office you knew so well felt eternal.

But finally, the guard stopped and opened the door for you.

Let the games begin…

It was just the same as the last time you were in there.

In-ho was seated, drinking of course.

“How’s marriage life?” His voice seemed to sound even deeper, he sounded more evil.

“Long time no see, darling. My marriage life has been perfect as usual”

“Good, it would be a shame if you had told me our recruiter can’t make you happy or fuck you properly” You roll your eyes, pacing towards him with ease. You offered a brief massage on his tense shoulders, feeling how he relaxed after your touch. It was then that you decided to lean and whisper in his ear.

“Relax, In-ho. You were the one who wanted me gone. You set the spark between my husband and me, remember?” He closed his eyes, sipping the remaining of his drink.

“Stop talking and use that pretty mouth for something useful instead” he grabbed one of your hands and pushed you to the floor, making you sink into your knees.

His big hand trailed your jawline and harshly made you look at him in the eye.

He looked tired, but he still got something.

“I won’t complain, In-ho. You can use me…” of course you would not say no, the first time he pointed a gun to your forehead and promised to torture your husband, so you wouldn’t commit the same error twice.

“Atta girl…”

And with that, you tried to focus on the sounds instead of the view, because you wished it was your husband seating on that chair with his leaking cock fucking your mouth. But it was the frontman and you weren’t totally displeased by him.

…

The salesman opened the door, encountering his boss standing up and you on the floor with glossy eyes and a mess on your face.

“Ah, good you’re here. Hand me the statics…” he walks away, leaving you on your knees and tits out, feeling completely used. Your husband only eyes you briefly and you can tell he’s not pleased with the sight. Your cheeks burn in embarrassment and you rush to grab a cloth and clean any trace of cum. “Oh, and clean your wife, we got a little messy…”

The frontman puts his mask on and leaves the room after grabbing the folder your salesman handed him, making the room feel heavy.

You stand up, pulling up the straps of your dress.

“Are you alright?” Your salesman asks quickly. You sigh, nodding. “Yes, it’s the same every year”

“I fucking hate this. Next time, I’ll be witnessing…”

“What?” you question him shocked, dropping the cloth with cum stains.

“If I can’t do anything to stop this from happening, then I’ll be present” he thought it was a low blow, but he couldn’t bear leaving his wife and letting his boss manhandle her like a little rag doll.

Although that was what you’ve always been.

“He knows you hate this. He’ll try to take advantage and I don’t want you to get in trouble” You could handle In-ho and his little whim, but if you lost your husband, it all be over.

All because that old man didn’t want you anymore but couldn’t let you go.

“Believe me, I’ll control myself just because I want to prove to him that I’m your husband” You hated to see the facade of confidence fall from your salesman. He was always so cocky, arrogant and in control.

“He can fuck you once a year, but I am the one who has carved into your skin and will always claim you as mine”

And there he was. That was your man. You literally jump into his arms and he greets you with a desperate kiss.

“Once we collect all the money we need, we’re leaving, baby. Wherever you want, and you will always have the chance to show me off as your wife” you say placing his tie in place and after that, you kiss him dearly.

…

Hand in hand, you and your husband walk through the cloudy streets of Seoul. You have a brown skirt with wine-red flowers, a black top, and a coat along with some elegant heels. Your man wearing a dark grey suit and a strong hand holding yours.

“Do you like burgers?” You ask him as you wait for a cab. He only shrugs and smiles at you.

“I like anything that has meat and vegetables”

“True. It’s just that I really liked having burgers back at home. That’s what I want to have as my first meal with you” you admit shyly, feeling like a little girl giving immature declarations.

“Anything will be fine, sweetheart” you pout, accommodating his tie.

“I’m gonna miss watching you in suits every day” your husband smirks.

“Your loss is my luck. I’ll get to see you in sundresses and leggings whenever” you laugh.

“You’re so naughty, dear” For some seconds, you forget you are in the middle of the street, with two hours left in Seoul and billions of money traveling in a clandestine plane.

“One more task keeping up appearances, doll. Just one more…” he says returning to his serious self, opening the door of the cab for you.

“Just one more…” you mumble.

Soon you two are waiting a couple of blocks away from the airport. Where an ex-cop parks his car and hops off.

“Nice to meet you in person…” you say taking his hand and then your husband doing the same.

His name is Hwang Jun-ho and he is the brother of the frontman.

One thing led to another and after one call, you and your salesman offered to give details of where the island you so much hated was.

“We’re gonna need a little favor, though…” the young man eyes you and your husband. He finds the two of you odd, deserving of each other but there was something behind the aura you two held that made him thoughtful. “What kind of favor?…”

“We need you to erase any documents that could identify me and my husband.” your salesman speaks as you softly take his hand and caress his long fingers.

“I can erase any license, passport, identification card, and bank cards. However… your birth certificate will always be available in the system” Jun-ho says, meaning the last part to be meant for your husband. He only tilts his head.

“That won’t be an issue”

“Then we have a deal,” the ex-cop says, extending his hand.

You gladly shake it, feeling an immense wave of serenity flowing through your entire being.

“You’ll have our call as soon as we get out of Korea” With that, destiny is sealed.

You and your husband burn your business attires and enter the airport under the names of a diseased couple who lived in the 1960s in Seoul. You catch his smile as you two wait to board the plane that will lead you to a new life.

Away from the games, the island, and that man. You never much of him, In-ho was the cause of your aches every year. But as you leave with your husband you realize that frontman was also your savior. Who handed you your freedom, the love of your life, good sex and was whom you had just sentenced to death.

_______________________________________________

Taglist: @stargirl-mayaa @hannawigdahl @angela075905 @dynaloy @crispybaguettes @dorayakissu @greensunflowerjuna @mackythoughts @nightdark-dreamdark @ilovethe141 @rafecamsgirlll @space-girl-16 @laurenbenoit70

[sloaneispunk]

“friend or foe” pt.2

soft!frontman (hwang in-ho) x you

when frontman joined the games, he thought it was solely to see gihun fail, but his intentions shifted when a certain player number 455 caught his attention…

⟢ ──── ●▲■ ──── ⟢

the next day, you ate breakfast with in-ho and the team. they discussed different strategies and games in which they might have to play.

naturally, in-ho had given his milk to you even after much protests. he explained how it would help you get stronger and ready for the games.

“where’s my milk?” jung-bae sulked as everyone laughed.

you stayed beside in-ho the entire time. since after the second game, you had grown very fond of him. and luckily for you, so did he.

he felt protective of you, he wouldn’t let you out of his sight. even more so in a place like this. when you were caught up with thanos’ team, trying to save yourself after bumping into nam-gyu

in-ho made sure to step up, teaching thanos and his friends a lesson for laying a hand on you, or even threatening you.

he would have went feral if you hadn’t stopped him by pulling him away into a corner, helping him cool off.

“it’s okay, i’m okay.” you told him as you tried to get him to tear his eyes away from glaring at thanos.

“did they hurt you?” he simply asked, ignoring everything else you had just said.

‘no’. you shook your head.

after that, he made sure he always had you within feet from him.

⟢ ──── ●▲■ ──── ⟢

when it was time for the third game, in-ho held your hand as everyone walked towards the game room.

“i hope it’s something we can play in teams.” he said to you, making you smile.

“why? so you can team up with me?” you teased.

“of course.”

when you reached the game room, a large carousel sat in the center of the room. around it were different colored doors with numbers on them, 1-50.

“what is this?” in-ho wondered out loud as a voice came through the speakers.

‘the game is mingle. the carousel will move when the music plays…once it stops, a number will be called out. the number is the number of people you will need to have in your group before you enter a room of your choice.’

“shit.” you cursed under your breath.

it was going to be a bloodbath.

of course, in-ho already knew this. he might have been acting scared, but deep down, he was. how was he to garuntee your safety in a game like this.

if he didn’t come up with anything quickly, he could mess up the game, or worse, lose you.

⟢ ──── ●▲■ ──── ⟢

‘start’

ring-a ring-a ring-a ring-a ring-a ring-a ring-a

as the giant carousel began to rotate, in-ho’s grip on your hand became tighter.

‘10’

“we need 5!” gi-hun yelled over the chaos that insued.

“we’re 5! let’s go! green door!” player 120 said as both teams ran for the door.

inside, in-ho made sure you were okay first before he checked on the rest.

“you should be thanking me!” a woman suddenly declared, throwing her hand up in the air. “without me, you all would have died!”

“geez! the ego on this woman.” jung-bae scoffed.

then, she whipped her head around, finger flying to your face as she stopped inches away, almost hitting you.

“can i help you?” you asked.

“you… you’re here for a purpose.” she said.

in-ho pulled you aside, stepping in front as he glared at the woman.

“you talk to her again and i’ll make sure you’re locked outside.”

the woman could only gulp.

just in time, the door unlocked, saving the lady’s ass as well as yours.

⟢ ──── ●▲■ ──── ⟢

“fuckin’ crazy sharman lady.” in-ho muttered to himself as he got back up onto the platform.

you giggled. it was funny how he was affected by everything else but the deadly game he was in the midst of.

‘4’

shit. someone was going to be left behind.

“gi-hun! take her, i’ll find others!” in-ho instructed as gi-hun nodded, grabbing your arm and dashing into a room.

“young-il!” you screamed as you were being dragged away from him.

he was so selfless, he only cared about saving you and his ‘friends’.

“he’ll be okay.” dae-ho told you as he stood beside you, peeping through the hole in the door.

the next few minutes were excruciating. you couldn’t find in-ho in the running, desperate crowd.

little did you know, in-ho was in a room on his own, locking it before anyone could enter.

he catched his breath as a guard came up to the doorhole, aiming his gun at him.

“stand down.” in-ho ordered, making the guard turn away, walking off.

when the doors unlocked, you sprinted out.

“there!” gi-hun called out, pointing to in-ho who was running towards you.

you practically flung yourself onto him, taking him aback as he laughed.

“oh my god, i was so worried.” you told him as you pulled away.

“you can’t rid of me that easy.”

“ah! we thought you couldn’t find enough people in time!” jung-bae chipped in.

“i’m a very likeable man, i do well in these games.” he joked.

⟢ ──── ●▲■ ──── ⟢

when it came down to the final round, a thick air of tension filled the atmosphere.

the last number was announced, ‘2’. you knew exactly what they were doing. around 150 people left, 50 rooms, you were going to have to fight for the rooms.

the team had split up, in-ho naturally sticking eith you as you both ran for the nearest room.

just as you were about to enter, you felt a strong push, knocking you to the ground onto your back as the man took your place, shutting the door as the timer hit 0.

“y/n!” in-ho shouted as tears started to fill your eyes.

“young-il… don’t let me die.” you cried.

oh, he was angry. angry wasn’t even actually able to cover it. he was fuming.

he picked up the man by the collar, punching and kicking him as he yelled in frustration.

as the guards approached you, you heard his voice.

“standdown! now!” he said, “that is an order.”

just like that, the gun held up towards your temple was gone. the guard walked over to the room, using a set of keys to open it before standing behind you.

in-ho however did not step out. he simply grabbed the man who was already fighting for his dear life, locking him in a headlock.

“w-what?” you asked, backing away from in-ho as his eyes pooled with anger.

“take her upstairs.” he said to the guard as he nodded, lifting you up and dragging you away.

the last thing you heard was the loud crack of the man’s neck echoing through your ears.

(i am going insane)

[sinning-23]

Backseat Pillow Princess

Hey y'all! I like to call this game, "Guess what I saw and cant stop fucking thinking about?" Take this because I need them both carnally and I'm sure you do too!

Enjoy :D

Warnings: violence, blood, swearing, the reader is annoying and Logan pretends to hate it in a way that seems like he actually does, they should have fucked but uhhh they didn't, lots of tension, pt.2 coming soon hopefully?

PT.2 UP NOW

"Bae i love youuu, you my everythinggg~"

"Can she shut the fuck up"

"I'm your main bitchhhh, fuck a wedding ringggg~"

"Only if you ask her nicely,"

"Nah, I like when he's mean."

"You've gotta be fucking kidding me"

The nonstop back-and-forth bickering had been going on for about 2 and a half hours now and the man the myth the legend, Wolverine was getting dangerously tired of it, unfortunately. Your shitty renditions of Sexyy Red matched with Deadpools incessant yapping was becoming too much to bear.

But little did he know, that was exactly your plan.

"Are we there yetttt" You whine from the backseat, sprawled out with your arm over your face.

It had been what felt like days (despite it only being a couple hours as previously mentioned) you'd been driving and the fact that you were in a small space filled with touch-starved testosterone(Wade and Logan) wasn't helping your case.

"If you shut up it'll go faster," Logan grumbles, Wade's chatting only worsening.

"No, it won't, you're just being mean! What's a sexy, super talented, immortal.. sorta, girl like myself supposed to do?" You whine again, an idea soon popping into your head.

If there was anything you loved more than seeing how far you could push this crotchety son of a bitch, it was stirring the pot.

Knowing the idiot riding passenger, a slip-up was inevitable and all it would take was the right pressure applied from yours truly.

"Hey Wade, wanna ask Wolvie what he's gonna do when he gets back? To his own timeline that is." You hum, resting your elbows on the middle console and your chin in your palms.

Ah yes, the fantasy your sick little brain conjured up was almost to fruition. All they needed were a few nudges and you'd all be at each other's throats with as much violent, sexual tension you could dream of.

"Yeah, what will you do if the TVA can fix your timeline?"

Bingo

You lean back, preparing for the absolute bloodbath that's bound to take place as the tension skyrockets.

Now up until this point, you'd be trying your damndest to get into Wolverine's pants, call it 'something you needed to scratch off your bucket list'. Anyway, from the "Mad Max"(as Wade put it) esque part of the void all the way here, you made your fair share of passes.

Unfortunately, all were shot down with a snark comment, the unsheathing of those gorgeous adamantium claws, or a growl...all of which only further fueled your desire. What could you say you liked a challenge?

"What did you say?"

You lean forward, making eye contact with Wade, his head shaking as if to say "No don't don't don't" but you were never good with social cues.

"He said 'IF' sweetheart." You retort, practically kicking your feet as the look in Logan's eyes grows wild, that growl barely bubbling in his throat as he and Wade converse back and forth.

"You shut the fuck up." He seethes, though directed at you his eyes stay focused on Wade.

You fight the urge to say 'make me" but you soon become quiet when Logan really starts to read your buddy in red. Oh, this fucker was definitely projecting...

"And you," He's got an accusatory, gloved finger pointing at the center of your face.

"You got some unresolved daddy issues or something? I don't know what hole or holes you're trying to fill but I can sure as shit tell you the harder you try to get under my skin the more it makes me wanna rip yours off that pretty-looking face." He growls, your heart practically beating out of your chest.

"Now I suggest each of you shut your goddamn mouths until we are where we need to be."

It's silent for a second again and you can feel the bridge about to break...anyyy second now.

"I'm gonna fight you now."

Three...

Logan chuckles, amused at the fact that Wade would even suggest he could getaway with something like that

Two..

And mid-sentence, Wade's fists make contact with Logan's nose.

One.

You scoot back, the car shaking as Wades head makes contact with hr car door and then the radio, each smack of his skull changing the station.

“Omg nooo don’t kill each other you’re both so hot and sexy and cool, nooo.” You yelp, your false concerned pleas falling on deaf ears.

And once the blood from each blow splatters against your face, you feel a bit opted to join in. Besides, he hurt your feelings, he deserved a little ass-kicking.

Question, when three seemingly frustrated and regenerative assholes get into a car fight with tensions, sexual or otherwise, that have been building for about 2 days now, what happens?

You slip past the pair of claws that just barely nick your side as you shove the driver's seat forward, effectively trapping Logan for a moment.

"You did this on purpose! You honry fuck!" Wade shouts, using his elbow to crack your skull and shoved you right back into your spot behind them before you can respond. Logan pushed the seat back again, now trapping you as his claws stabbed through the cushion, impalling you through the back of the seat.

"FUCK! This isn't how this was supposed to pan out in my head!" You yelp, gasping when the claws leave you feeling the worst kind of empty.

"I didn't even do anything he's the one that lied!" You seethe, using the heel of your boot to kick Wade's side in, the crack of bones bringing you much satisfaction.

"IT WAS AN EDUCATED WISH!" He defends, unloading about 3 bullets into your sternum before kicking Logan out the winsheild, glass falling inside and out.

You take a gulp of air, digging the bullet out before locking your arm around Wade's neck and the passenger seat headrest.

"You red-clad cunt! I was supposed to rizz him up, fuck him, and ride off into the sunset with my rugged fucking mountain of a man and you RUINED IT!" You shout, releasing Wade when six separate knives dig right back into you.

Taking the chance, you throw the back of your head at his face before pulling his claws from out your sides and kicking Wade's chest in. Looks like legs were your strong suit today!

"You said you didn't wanna fill any holes, yet here we are!" You growl in frustration, turning back around to shove your boot heel into this man's rock-hard chest.

He only grabs your ankle, pulling you forward, once again skewered by his claws. Your position is less than ideal, any other angle would for sure look l like you were on the receiving end of some damn good strokes.

And there it is, that stupid bloodied grin he gives while he watches your eyes squeeze shut and your head tilt back. A light, yet pained swear left your bloodied lips and the gasp that leaves your lungs when his claws retracted was just as erotic as you'd imagine.

"Would've been better off fucking at this point huh?" You joke, seeing Wade creep up behind the backseat door.

"Maybe." He responds a bit coy, the tension only dying down for a fraction of a second before you're at each other's throats again.

With your help, Wade is right back in the car, and the three of you are now waiting for the next move. Logan's up against the dash, Wade is heaving against the backseat by your side, the two of you manspreading with a dangerously hungry look directed at the man in yellow.

"This is pointless. We're gonna be here for hours regenerating and fucking each other up, but damn if it isn't fun." you chuckle, letting your head lull back against the completely destroyed headrest.

"So what do you suggest, 'sweetheart'," Logan growls, using your little pet name from earlier.

"Oh I think you know very well what I suggest, but I'm starting to believe you just can get it up can you peepaw?" You insult, Logan's face contorting in a sneer.

There's another silence, your gaze locked with Logan's as you both teeter on the edge of regular frustration and the urge to rip each other's clothes off. This fuckers love language was definitely acts of playful violence...if playful meant an absolute bloodbath in this stupid-ass honda odyssey.

"I feel like there's some underlying tension here that I definitely wanna be a part of.

"You shut the fuck up" You speak simultaneously, Wade doing just that.

"So what'll it be, bub. Fuck me or fight me?" You mock, seeing that smile right back on his face.

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

You would like to say that the remainder of the day, into the night, all the way into the wee hours of the morning were spent furiously love-making in the bloody and battered Honda, but that would only be half the truth.

The moonlight had shone so brightly down on the three of you, each movement calculated, as you continued to punch, stab, pick and damn near fuck each other in the enclosed space.

At one point your hands were pinned to the dented dashboard, Logan slotted between your legs, Wade right behind your oddly bent body....accept Wade's gun was at the small of your back and Logan had his hand wrapped tightly around your throat as your legs squeezed as tight as possible.

And at another, you'd been hovering above Logan, hands at his chest while Wade had a fistful of your hair, his grip lethal... a-although your hands were only at his chest cause you were double-fisting two knives that you had wedged to the hilt into each to his pectorals...and Wade was also pulling your hair to get a better angle at your chest since he deemed it was "only fair" considering you were going the same to the man beneath you.

It had only gotten worse, your comments ranging from rude to just plain nasty, and the farther along you went in the night....strangely enough, the better everything felt. The slight accidental/intentional grind of your hips against Logans, or the way you just so happened to fall back into Wade's chest, your bodies pressed so close together you could feel each breath you both took.

"Oh you just don't know when to quit, do you honey?" Logan grumbles, throwing you off him, your positions quickly switch.

"Not in my vocabulary sweetheart." You shoot back, gasping when Wade grips your hair again.

"Yeah, thought you were seeing the pattern ready peanut, she's hard to break." He chuckles, a filthy smile making its way over your bloodied face.

You were practically sandwiched, Wade behind you, his chest to your back, and your legs just barely make room for Logan who was kneeling one leg on the backseat, the other slightly off the edge.

"This is a little unfair don't you think? Feels like I'm about to get tag-teamed." You joke, the moonlight illuminating the current position just enough.

"You'd like that, wouldn't you? You're sick." Logan scoffs, only feeding into your slight delusions.

"Yeah, I might be sick but you're a hypocrite, You want it too, don't you? I know for sure Wade does, 'cause that's definitely not his gun on my ass." You shoot back, body and brain stirring from the hours of activities.

He doesn't say anything, just tightens he grip he has on your hips.

“Cmonnn, we had our nice,” you glance over at the destroyed radio, your hopes of trying to get the time seemingly crushed.

“We’ll say 9 hours give or take, we’ve already been fighting and none of us are really satisfied.”

You can feel Wade adjust, his hands now secure at your shoulders, massaging the small of your neck with his thumbs.

“We all know what’s gonna solve that and we can put this whole debacle behind us.” You coax, your hips rolling a bit to meet his and he turn his head, jaw working as if he was seriously considering the offer.

And with a finally huff what really sounded more like a growl of last restrained, he’s on you.

——————————————————————-

YES IM MAKING A PART TWO YES THERE WILL BE SMUT BECAUSE WTF YALL. UHHH HOPE YOU ENJOY LMK IF YOU WANNA BE TAGGED I. THE NEXT PART!

[demonic0angel]

Ooooh, Athena as Jazz's guardian goddess was kinda cool. I was like to see a prompt like that.

Red Hood clicked his guns and cursed. He had run out of bullets and the gang members were now about to find him and his henchmen in a few minutes. He glanced to the side, where the rest of his henchmen also shook their heads, waving their empty guns. He turned to Wolf next, who looked largely unconcerned despite her having empty guns as well. In fact, she was holding her hands together in some sort of prayer.

He had never taken her as the religious type, but whatever.

“Alright,” Red Hood hissed. “I’ll stay as a distraction, but you all will scatter and then come back to the base, okay? Stay there. If you don’t see me in the next few hours, wait until the next morning. Wolf is in charge.”

“No need.”

They all turned to Wolf, who finally straightened from her devout posture. “I can handle this, Hood.”

“… there’s twenty-five gang members with guns and only eight of us. You should run. I have armor and I know my way around here so—”

There was a soft cooing noise.

They all glanced up, where an owl had flown in and was now resting on a utility pole. It cooed, and Red Hood tensed, but quickly ignored it as the other gang members finally rushed in.

“There they are!”

Fuck! They were too late to run away!

Red Hood moved to block Wolf from the oncoming bullets, but before anything could happen, a gold spear flew over him and then struck straight through the head of a opposing gang member.

Silence reigned as everyone stared in shock. Before Red Hood could react, Wolf ran past him and took a running leap, jumping into the fray as she pulled the spear out of the corpse and then swung. She was holding a large, shimmering shield with a Medusa head on it to block the bullets as the opposing gang members screamed, and she moved expertly, swinging the spear like she was straight out of Rome.

Like a hurricane, she completely bulldozed the opposition.

Red Hood and his henchmen all stood there in silence, completely and utterly stunned.

When she was done, she stood in the middle of the bloodbath with her shield and spear in hand like some warrior goddess out of the legends. In fact, she was so beautiful that Red Hood almost wanted to drop to his knees and worship.

“… are you a goddess?” Red Hood blurted out.

Wolf paused in flicking away the blood from her spear and then burst into laughter. She was still giggling as she came over and the owl that they had all forgotten about flew down to sit on her shoulders. It fluffed its feathers and watched them all with sharp, golden eyes.

“No,” Wolf said, her voice sounding amused. “But I follow an excellent goddess.”

The owl hooted proudly.

Red Hood’s eyes widened as he then asked, “Holy shit, can I join?”

[intoxicated-chan]

𝐃𝐨𝐰𝐧 𝐭𝐨 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐅𝐞𝐥𝐭

Summary ➳ Gambit lends an ear and his comfort to you. 

(A/n) ➳ I feel like I spent too much time writing this because I wanted to get his accent right. But I thank all those who gave me advice, especially @a-roguish-gambit. I also started playing RDR2 so you guys can expect content for the game soon too!

Word Count ➳ 1.1k 

Content Warnings ➳ Female Reader, swearing, violence, blood, pet names (cher), mentions/fear of abandonment, light sexual content, cock blocking??  

It wasn’t your choice to be pushed into the Void after Wade and Logan. When you watched their bodies disappear, you too were taken to the Void without putting much of a fight. And from the moment you arrived, you knew you were over your head. 

From the moment you arrived, Wade and Logan’s bickering and banter was constant, and their fights weren’t often but deadly. You stood on the sidelines whenever they fought because you knew they could easily take you out. 

Especially now.  

What was supposed to be a ride to find the Resistance members became a bloodbath, the first sign of a fight starting was your cue to leave the car and wait for them to calm down. 

You sat against the tree, watching the two grown ass men throw kicks and punches that could kill a person with ease. Logan's claws pierce Wade’s body and how Wade’s katanas and knife slice through Logan’s outfit and skin.  

“Guys, seriously?” You muttered, this fight would’ve been much entertaining if she had food with her. You were tired of it, physically and emotionally, and you weren’t surprised when you fell asleep to the sound of them battling.  

But when you awoke, you were in a different place. Some kind of hideout.  

But with three others who you learned to be Blade, Elektra and Gambit. All of them talked about getting back into Cassandra’s lair, but Wade did most of the talking as Logan did all the drinking.  

“You?!” Wade suddenly shouting in some kind of encouragement, pointing directly at you.  

They all stared at you, waiting for a response but you had no idea what they were agreeing on, going back in her lair or getting a way out.  

“It’s the same thing, kid.” Logan interrupted your thinking, as if he read your thoughts. But it seems he was tired of the fighting and wanted to a seat to drink in peace.  

“Sure, I guess.” You said, mainly to get the stares off you. 

Everyone agreed that they would set off early in the morning, giving you the chance to look around the hideout. You peeked your heads in the room as you already felt like you were trespassing, so you promised yourself that this would be the last room before you ate something. 

“Bonjour, cher.” Gambit’s voice made you jump, quickly pulling your head out to turn and look at him. “Ain’t polite to be peekin’ in on folks, now is it?” 

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to-” 

Gambit reached out to push the door open further. “Ain’t no harm done.” With a wave of his hand, he welcomed you in. “Don’t be shy, cher.” 

You walked in once you got his approval, he followed right behind you, closing the door with a click. The room was not what you expected, with mismatched furniture and some playing cards lying around, it spoke of him.  

It was Gambit’s space, and it felt like an extension of him. 

“So, how long you been stuck in dis here Void?” Gambit asked, sitting on his couch and patting the cushion beside him.  

But you shook your head, choosing to lean against the wall. “Not long. I got caught up in Wade’s mess.” 

Gambit raised an eyebrow, his expression changing to surprised. “You’ new to all dis chaos, eh? Coulda fooled me.” He grinned.  

You shrugged, trying to laugh. “More like I got dragged into it. Wade... He stopped getting in trouble for some time but this time, I wasn’t quick enough to dodge it.” 

“If dere’s somethin’ on your mind, cher, you can talk. Sometimes it’s easier t’spill your guts to a stranger.” Gambit noted. 

You looked at him, seeing sincerity in his eyes. For a moment, you hesitated, but you broke. “I’m worried. Scared.” You admitted, whispering. “That this plan won’t work. If it doesn’t, everyone in my universe... They’ll forget me. It’ll be like I never existed.” 

You didn’t mean to say much, but once you started, you couldn’t stop. “I’ve been abandoned once before, left to fend for myself. I worked so hard to make a name but now it’ll be for nothing. Everything I’ve done, everyone I’ve known... Gone. Just like that.” 

You felt embarrassed after you finished ranting. Your eyes widened as you raised your hands, stumbling over your words, a poor attempt at explaining yourself. “Shit! I-I know you said-” 

But before you could finish, Gambit was there in front of you, pulling you into a tight embrace. His arms wrapped around you like a shield, protecting you from your worries.  

“It’s alrig’t cher. You’re alrig’t.” He whispered, his voice soothing as he held you close. “You ain’t gotta apologize for feelin’ like dis. Everyone gets scared, even Remy.”  

You felt yourself slowly relax in his embrace, the steady rhythm of his heartbeat calmed you a little. In that moment, you didn’t care about the fear that’s been eating you away.  

You hesitated at first, but then you wrapped your arms around him. You both stayed like that for a while, neither of you saying a word, just taking comfort in each other’s company. 

Eventually, Gambit pulled back slightly, just enough so he could look down at you. You met his faze, your breath hitching as you realized how close you were. 

And then, he leaned in, his lips meeting yours in a gentle kiss. It was slow soft at first, a mere brush of lips, but it deepened as the seconds passed, both of you losing yourselves in the moment.  

You felt his fingers running through your hair as you reached to cup his face. You shut your eyes, your hands moving to his coat and attempt to take it off him.  

The door flew open with a loud slam. You jumped, darting away from Gambit. 

“Hey, what’s going on in here?!” Wade shouted as he strutted into Gambit’s room. His tone was annoyingly cheerful. “We don’t have the budget for intimacy coordinators! Johnny must’ve taken it all.” 

You cleared your throat, crossing your arms as you felt your face become warm. “Wade! I... Uh... Nothing, nothing’s going on.” 

You could tell by how the whites of his suit widened that he was smirking under that dammed mask. “Oh really? ‘Cause it looks like I interrupted something juicy!” 

“Jus’ havin’ a lil’ chat, mon ami. Nothin’ to get excited ‘bout.” Gambit fixed his coat, seemingly normal. 

Wade then shrugged, turning around. “Alright, but if I hear any smoochin’ sounds, I’m comin’ right back!” 

As soon as the door closed behind Wade, you let out a breath you hadn’t realized you were holding, your heat still racing from the near discovery. You glanced at Gambit, who was watching you with a smile, and couldn’t help but laugh. 

Gambit stepped closer to you, hooking his finger under your chin to have you look at him. “As we were, cher?”  

© Intoxicated-Chan 2024, I do not allow my work to be copied, translated, modified, adapted, or put on any other platform without my permission. 

[kathaynesart]

He was going to give him a big hug, but poor Casey looks like he might break at any moment so need to check first.

I had planned on more, but will leave this open for @somerandomdudelmao to react instead! <3 So happy to finally get to draw this interaction! Thank you everyone for your votes to get me here and good luck to Cass' Apocalypse as well as Life Mission and Bloodbath in the final round for the @tmntaucompetition!

For those of you who are confused or new, this is sort of a continuation from the Peepaw Showdown that happened a few months back. You can see the related comics here: Peepaw Showdown 1 Peepaw Showdown 2 Peepaw Showdown 3

Also, have to say that I really love that Casey Jr. has problems with crowded, big open spaces, so wanted to bring that feeling back into this. I'm sure it doesn't help when you're surrounded by a crowd of mutants who look kind of like your dead family, but not quite.

[irisintheafterglow]

um blah blah blah something about knight!katsuki tearing through panicked crowds to find you slumped behind a knocked-over table, paling when he sees the growing red patch under the hand on your side.

"shit," is all he manages to force out, and it's all he can say for the next thirty seconds while he tries to figure out how to get you out of here. "no, no, no. you're not fine, dumbass," he snaps when you insist that you're fine. he registers a figure sprinting towards him with an axe and throws a dagger from his belt without even thinking, the assailant falling onto the dirt. "this is all your fault," he mutters as he pulls you from under the table and into a nearby alley.

"i can't believe you're blaming me for my own assassination attempt," you exhale shakily, your breathing too uneven for his liking. "all i wanted was to pick some flowers."

"we could have had the flowers brought to the palace," he argues, raking a nervous hand through his hair. "but you wanted to see them straight from the farmer's market."

"there's not much we can do now that i am bleeding out," you groan, fighting down the bile in your throat when you see how red your hand has become. katsuki's hand gently but firmly grips your wrist, forcing it out of your field of vision.

"don't look at it. just look at me," he commands, scarlet eyes revealing his panic. for the first time in your history together, katsuki looked scared. "just keep looking at me, okay? i'm gonna move you to a safehouse a few blocks away."

"no, please," you plead with him, grabbing his wrist before he can loop his arms under your legs. "it hurts when i move."

"the other option is for you to die, princess, and i'm not letting that happen," he swears. "i shouldn't have ever let this happen to you in the first place."

"it's not your fault," you whisper, your thumb smearing red across his cheekbone.

"isn't it, though?" the expression of pure grief on your knight's face disappears in an instant and, before you can protest, katsuki lifts you from the ground like you weighed nothing at all. you muffle a broken cry into your hand and squeeze your eyes tight against his chest, shaking from the white-hot arc of pain cutting your side. "just stay with me, princess. you're gonna be okay."

"it hurts, kats," you sob quietly and a part of him dies. "it hurts so much."

"i know it does, baby. just stay with me and the pain will go away soon."

katsuki isn't there when you wake up in the palace infirmary, but the news of the pub bloodbath where several members of the criminal underworld were being investigated reached you eventually. your knight was supposed to be leading the investigation, but dragon keeper kirishima revealed that, after the attack in the market, he had taken matters into his own hands.

he had a single thought as he inserted his dripping sword back into its sheath. long live the princess as long as he lived.

[strangestcase]

🧛🏽‍♂️count-ingsheep Follow

It breaks my unbeating heart to see young newly turned vamps be stood up by their sires so here’s some advice from your friendly neighborhood vampire:

-no, you won’t explode into flames if you step into sunlight, but you probably shouldn’t stand under direct sunlight for too long either.

-if you’re going outside by day, make sure you’re protected. put on high SPF sunscreen if you can, use hats, and wear sunglasses no matter the time of year.

-avoid garlic and other natural antiseptics as much as you can. It’s not like it can kill you but you’ll find soon enough that it’s very unpleasant. Silver, on the other hand, can very much kill you. don’t touch it unless you have a thick enough gloves on.

-religious symbols are fine so long as they’re not being actively worshipped, think religious artwork in a museum or those tacky coexist stickers

-if you miss human food you can have meat-based dishes and liquids in small quantities. don’t try to overdo it, your stomach will thank you for it.

-vampire weaknesses are a case by case basis! what might hurt other vampires might not hurt you.

I know being left sireless can be disheartening (pun intended) and confusing but dw; I know you’ve got this!

🪰 bloodbaths Follow

Oh my goth where was this when I needed it…

[sparklingblu]

Limerence (ft. ILLIT Minju)

I don't even know what to call this. Somewhat of a fluff but not really a fluff either. Something that just pops into my mind.

"So he asked 'Is it better to speak or die?' "

"That's the stupidest story I have ever heard"

Minju leaves no chance for you to savour that feeling that comes after quoting something particularly clever. Or she's just being a jerk as usual.

"You are just anti-romantic"

You protest though you know she will have thought of a retort before you finish.

"There's nothing romantic about this story"

"It's a love story for christ's sake"

"Where's the 'love' ?"

You slump back in your chair, defeated. Either she's too dumb to understand your point or you are just bad at telling stories. The latter's probably more likely.

The story's not an ordinary one in the first place. It involves a knight and a princess but it ends neither with a 'happily ever after' nor a bloodbath where they both rip their hearts out. There isn't even an ending.

'Is it better to speak or die?'

The last sentence on this paper of the dusty hard covered book which has turned yellow from the years it have endured. It's a mircale how it's still intact.

You mummur the question under your breath, trying to make sense of the words. But they are still nothing more than a jumbled mess in your mind.

The funny thing is, this is not your first time reading this story. You are actually too familiar with it. The setting, the characters, the way it almost seems to tell the secret you have carefully hidden; it doesn't make sense that you are still confused what this single question everything has lead up to mean. Still, you are here, no wiser than the first time you have read this tale.

In some time immemorial in an unknown kingdom lived a princess and a knight, each a good friend to another. Perhaps because of this closeness, the knight started to feel something more than companionship to the princess. Feelings that shouldn't exist given their scoial status. The princess knew it too though she ptetends to be oblivious. Nonetheless, the knight found himself unable to express his desires - torn between the fear of losing what he currently has and the turmoil of hiding himself. So one day, when he took his usual walk with the princess through the garden, he mustered up the courage to ask one single question.

"Is it better to speak or die?"

The End.

Anyone can guess at this point that the knight meant if it's better to put his feelings into words and sacrifice their friendship or die knowing that he will never have what he wants. You wish it's that simple.

You and Minju have been stuck in the same page for an hour now, still having no idea how to progress your assignment. The task was a paper on an in depth analysis on a tale of your choice. Now you regret not choosing 'The Tortoise & The Hare".

"Why do you choose this one anyway? There are like a million other better choices"

Minju says, gesturing at the endless shelves of books that surround you on all sides. Not millions but perhaps a thousand other choices you could have made in this rectangular bank of knowledge; the local library.

Somewhere distinct, you hear a bell chimes, signaling the arrival to the later hour of the night. You glance at your watch. It's already 9 pm. A cough reasonates from the counter near the entrance, emitted by none other than the librarian. The ghastly old woman seems to be signalling that we don't have much time left.

I don't have much time left.

Minju's translucent pupils are fixed on you, still waiting for your answer. You break out of the haze.

"Because it's.."

'Relatable'. The word is 'Relatable'. But she doesn't need to know that. Never.

"Interesting I guess"

You finish, not quite daring to meet her eyes. She might see the guilt of your dishonest words in them.

"Seriously? This is interesting? Next time you think something is interesting, feel free to ask my opinion"

"Not everyone have great taste"

You mean it to be a playful jab but her face distorts to something along the line of fury and hurt. And her lips part.

No. Please don't be mad.

Please.

"Jerk"

Her words put out the flames of fear threatening to rise in your chest. There. All good. She's not mad.

You let out a sigh of relief but quickly mask it as a half formed scoff. She can't know. So you waver her attention.

"Tell me then. What's your opinion on this story apart from it being hopelessly stupid"

Her lips stretch to a soft smile. You have put her back into her comfort zone.

"It's not about love like you think. It's about cowardice"

"Enlighten me"

She crosses her arms, the pose she always takes before her rosy lips spill out a waterfall of the most beautiful syllables. It also makes her look superior. The table, which is the only thing between you two seems like a brick wall now.

"The knight doesn't say 'I love you' or anything of that sort, does he? He's scared out of his wits so he decided to go for a safer alternative. That question. It literally says 'I'm a coward who can't even properly confess' "

Is she mocking you?

Probably not. She doesn't know. She will never know.

Still....

'Is it better to spek or die?'

A coward's attempt at love; complicated and imperfect. At least he has the courage to mutter those cowardly words.

"You are not wrong but can't it be that he's just scared of losing her?"

Yes. You are referring to yourself.

But she won't know.

"He already loses her after saying these words"

"You don't know that. You don't know what the pericess's answer was. She could have accepted him"

"You don't know that either"

Now she's fighting you with your own words.

"What would you have answered if you were the princess then?"

Is that an indirect confession? An attempt to ask her opinion without facing the shame that comes after rejection? You hope not.

"I don't know...I would probably ask him to speak in English"

"Not funny at all"

Your answer makes her raise her brows in disbelief as if saying - "I know I will never not be funny to you. You are too obsessed with me not to."

But that's impossible. She doesn't know.

Has she spoken these words aloud, you would happily agree with her. But that's just momentary courage. Your tongue would be tied to knots in a hearbeat if that ever happens.

That begs the question again.

'Is it better to speak or die?'

"Whatever" she says in exasperation. "I'm not lovey dovey enough for this"

"Seriously. Just tell me what you would have said"

There. You are pushing again, desperate for that answer even if it's not directed at you. You would cling to a tiny hope if it's ever a positive one.

"I don't know. Probably tell him to speak because I don't want anyone going suicidal mode because of me"

"He will still go suicidal if you reject him after he confess"

"Why are you asking me those? Were you in such a situation before?"

You surpress a chuckle that nearly slips your tongue.

What a fool you are Minju. You can't even spot the truth that's hidden in plain sight. The truth that has gone rusty and rotten because it has been locked up for so long. Still, it's not her fault.

You have hidden it so well.

She doesn't need to know.

"Yes"

You can't believe you say the word. It's as if someone has possessed you and put those words on your tongue.

"Poor you"

And just like that, it ends.

You have expected her to push you, given her curious nature. You want her to lend you the courage to say those words you have mummur countless times in your dreams. But she just leaves you hanging there like that. Cruel.

Can't blame her though.

She doesn't know.

Another cough pierces through the invisible viel that has seperated you two from the world outside.

9:25 pm.

5 minutes away until this tedious session of back and forth ends.

Why is it that you don't want it to end?

The papers in front of you are bare as they were an hour ago. The book still turned at the same page. The question that haunts you still lies there, imprinted in black.

'Is it better to speak or die?'

Neither. Because that's a stupid question just like Minju said. It's constructed to mess with your mind. You gotta stop dwelling on it.

"Anyway-"

Chimes

That sound. It can only mean one thing.

Minju pulls her phone out of her pocket, the glow of it illuminating her angelic feature as she turns it on. Not a moment sooner, her lips hold the prettiest of smiles.

And in all the wrong ways.

"Gotta go"

Her dismissal cuts through the tense air as she hurriedly put the papers back into her bag. Is she that desperate to get away from you?

"My boyfriend's waiting for me. We have a date tonight"

You are not angry. It would be wrong. Though it's only natural to envy the one who's living your fantasy. But the faults are not in our stars.

"Alright. Goodnight"

Minju's footsteps echo on the mahogany floor as she finally escapes the torturous session you have put her though, flying away to an embrace better than yours in every way.

But it's ok.

Because she doesn't know.

She gives a quick wave to the old librarian who does nothing to reciprocate the action. That hag doesn't know how lucky she is.

"Minju"

You call before the rest of her form disppears through these creaking doors. She turns on her heels, a stray strand of hair clinging like an unifinished piece of art to her forehead. The shadows cast by the moonlight does nothing to hide her.

"Yes?"

You breath.

And utter.

"Is it better to speak or die?"

___________________________________________

Took the famous question from the movie "Call me by your name". Though I alter the story. Thanks for reading this madness.

[unbidden-yidden-deactivated20240]

I'm gonna be honest here: one of the more exhausting parts of the online discourse is how much of a tightrope I am always on, that those of us who care about human rights for all human beings are always on, because any statement made in favor of the "other" side is ripe for tokenism.

I, as a Jew, care about the safety and human rights of Palestinians and Arab Israelis. You will never convince me that there is an ethical way to kill civilians, especially children. You will never convince me that police brutality against citizens marching for their civil rights is necessary. You just can't. And yet I have to be so careful when/where I say that and how I say that, because too often this simple acknowledgement that all people are created in the image of Hashem and should be treated accordingly is ripped out of context and placed between a deluge of other posts denying my people that very same acknowledgement. The number of times I have said these things, only to go into the reblogs and see my words surrounded on all sides with violent antisemitism? I've lost count.

And guess what? It's made me less effective as an advocate, it has actively silenced me from speaking up sometimes, because I refuse to be your "good Jew," your token, somebody whose words can be misconstrued to kasher your vile hatred of my people. And to be very clear: Jewish Israelis are my people just as much as fellow diaspora yidden are, and they deserve better from both goyim and diaspora Jews alike.

And I've seen this go the other way, too: I've seen Palestinian activists and journalists who are trying very hard to balance the values of respecting other people (including Israelis and/or Jews writ large) as fellow human beings with the pain that their people are currently suffering. And I've seen their words ripped out of context and used to excuse more violence against them and their people.

And then there are lots of other people - genuinely well-intentioned people who are trying to learn from me - who keep treating me like I'm some paragon of nuance. I'm trying, truly, but I'm Just Some Guy. You know what I do? It's extremely simple and I promise you can do it too, any of you, if you slow down long enough to think before putting anything out there: "Would I say this about my brother? My mom? My daughter? My people? Would I be happy if the person I loved most on this earth was living under these circumstances and being talked about in whatever way I'm about to speak? Would it feel victim-blaming? Would it feel disrespectful of their struggle or dishonest? Does it ignore their history or trauma? Is it actually helping?" These are the types of questions I try very hard to ask myself every time I post about the conflict, about both sides. I try to talk about this as if the people on both sides were my family. Because truthfully? They are. Am Yisrael is a family, before anything else. Palestinians are our closest cousins. This war is a bloodbath and a tragedy, and everyone is suffering. For those of us who are not living there, please remember this and have some respect.

[kelppsstuff]

Something makes me wonder how would lute and Adam react if they saw exorcist reader use her thighs to crush a demon because someone managed to take away her spear from her

People who use their legs as weapons have me entranced and hopefully these two are the same

Wow… just wow

Masterlist

Warnings: violence, thoughts of nswf

Taglist: @fandomsbookclub @adamsfavoritesinner @leathesimp @mmichelleszn @sashaphantomhive @ladyninggs @sirenetheblogger @jawline-of-steel

You were a new recruit. Safe to say Adam and Lite heavily underestimated you, Honestly they didn’t even know you existed besides from when they first recruited you.

You tried hard to prove yourself. You wanted to climb the ranks. In life you were a nobody, a push over. You refused to allow your after life to be the same.

So every extermination you’d try your hardest to turn the two angels heads. This extermination was going to be no different.

—

You knocked on Adam’s office door, you had offered to do his paperwork — you can guess the reason — and had just finished.

“Yeah?!”

You cleared your voice and took a breath. “I finished the paperwork sir.” The door opened and for a moment Adam looked you up and down confused “who are you?”

What an asshole.

“Y/N. We spoke like 5 hours ago.”

Recognition crossed his face, “Oh! I remember you, ya you can just hand them over to me and see yourself out.”

Adam had ended up taking complete credit for how well written each document was, he didn’t even ask you how you managed to make an exact replica of his signature on every page.

—

“Best time for flying is Y/N. Y/N? Do we have a Y/N” Lute asked looking around the crowd. Ironically she seemed to know everyone else besides you.

You raised your hand and hid the annoyance on your face. “Here.” Lute gestured for you to walk up and take the medal.

It was honestly the first time you’ve ever had proof of your hard work. It was also the first time Lute remembered your face, not your name.

—

Everyone was lined up. Lute and Adam were giving their usual pep talk while the rest of you were eagerly listening.

“We are going to go down there and fuck them up!” Adam screamed out followed by lute “fuck them up yeah!”

“I don’t want anyone coming back without blood on their hands! Now ladies, strike!!!!”

Your wings spread as did the others around you. You took flight and the bloodbath began. Angels were killing sinners left and right.

A sinner jumped onto your back as you killed one. You hurried to sling them off before absolutely destroy his body with your glowing white spear.

You were pissed off now.

You heard Lute groan and looked over to her. You rushed over to her and pushed the weird looking sinner off.

You pushed the sinner one more time before kicking his knees out and getting behind them, slitting there throat.

Lute eyes widened, your hair was darker and looked wet, while your skin and wings were stained red.

You gave her a glance and walked away. It was like you didn’t even knew her ranked, it made her feel a rush.

—

As the fight dragged on everyone started to leave, but you had one more you decided to kill. One more you refused to let get away. If you killed this last one you’d effectively would have most kills. Adam and Lute would have to recognize you.

Adam and Lute did once last sweep together to make sure all angels had started to return through the portal. It was the they saw you on the ground.

You tackled a sinner and while rolling on the ground they had bit you while also grabbing her spear, thankfully you didn’t bleed. As the started to run your eyes darkened.

You didn’t let them get far, you hurried to use your wings, landing in front of the you wrapped your legs around there head and use your hips to twisted their neck. Snapping it.

You rolled up to your feet and made eye contact with the two angels watching you from above, your gaze filled with red. Blood red.

Adam smirked, his face showed exactly what he was thinking, ‘me next.’ While Lute unexpectedly winked to you, also having the same ‘me next’ look.

However that’s not what they were thinking at least that wasn’t there first thought. Their first thought was “wow… just wow.” Two idiots didn’t realize they said it out loud.

Your blood soaked wings spread out and you took flight. Going back to heaven to clean up.

—

“Most kills belongs to Y/N.” You had expected their confused gaze but instead Adam smirked while Lute pointed to you.

You finally had their attention, and you would never leave their gaze or minds again for your soul weather you knew it or not would belong to them, no matter what.”

Ahhh I hope I satisfy your vision!

[flightyalrighty]

Not trying to be rude, but, despite his rude speech.

the scrappered person, unfortunately, has a point.

tails has many escape routes, he is smart, he can fly, and You didn’t exactly include a “child death” content warning.

plus, sonic could think tails is dead(many ways how, such as a bloodbath when he returns, but doesn’t investigate past an orange fox dead), but he isn’t, which resolves the issue, and I can rewrite anything if you want me to, so you don’t have to worry about improving the plot!

plus, you could suggest to the audience he died without showing it explicitly(or even faking it)

yeah, and tails’ grief on discovering sonic is this beast now, and maybe even having extreme thoughts, now THAT’S something I’d want to see, rather than killing him off the bat!

feel free to say no, it is your story, but I’m supporting the “tails is alive and has grief” movement, and can rewrite easily if you want me to.

(yes, I’m that bored I’d rewrite this willingly, and quickly, )

ps, pretend to disagree or actually disagree, don’t give anything away if you do decide on the plot twist, but my Discord is here if you want me to rewrite. Trust me though; I won’t let you down:

https://discord.gg/v7Bu6f2B

Don’t worry, I won’t press too hard for this and will shut up if requested, but I do prefer that we still chat on discord, even if you disagree anyways(I like talking, and you definitely have a lot to chat about), and we both(that means I will also)respectfully argue.

this is not sent out of spite, I just believe that your comic would greatly benefit from survivors of the parasite attacks, such as sonic’s closest friend. And it would also make a good plot twist.

To everyone reading this: do NOT message this person on discord to harass them.

Now to answer: What the fuck? Lmao?

Anyway since "Child Endangerment" + "Major Character Death" isn't too much of a red flag, fine, I've added "Child Death" to the warnings page.

You have absolutely no idea what my intent is with the story, so how can you possibly offer to rewrite it? You're so hellbent on making sure that Tails lives that you fail to understand the many times I have made clear that this death is the single most important event in the story. It is THE event, which is extremely important not just to Infested, but it's SEQUEL as well.

And you want to change that? You wanna change that so so so bad that you're offering to "quickly" rewrite it? I am not messaging you on Discord. I am not going to waste my time sitting you down and spoiling the entirety of Infested (and it's sequel) to you just so that you, personally, can have a clear understanding of my exact intent, and the importance of Tails's death. Get a fucking grip.

[butterbabyflapjack]

✧˖° Brian Moser x serial killer fem!reader

✧˖° summary:

The Ice Truck Killer’s back in town, and somehow he's stuck babysitting you; Miami's newest would-be killer.

Helping you out wasn't at all his original intention–he'd rather see you dead, you know far too much–but he supposes he could spare an evening to undomesticate that hungry beast inside you. Show you how to really live your life.

In which Brian helps you kill someone who utterly deserves it, and the kill room turns into a horny sex-fueled bloodbath.

✧˖° wordcount (chapter 2): 17k

✧˖° chapters: one, two, three

✧˖° ao3

✧˖° taglist: @Impala1967 @fan-goddess @ireallydontknowohcrabs

✧˖° warnings: serial killer fem!reader, reader insert, explicit sexual content, rough sex, passionate sex, fucking in a kill room, dark romance, dark comedy, canon typical depictions of blood and gore, enthusiastic consent, mutual pining, impact play, playing with your food, serial killers in love, banter, dirty talk, voice kink, trauma bonding, babysitting a serial killer, implied sexual abuse of a child (you're killing this mf don’t worry), torture (you’re torturing this mf don’t worry), Brian is his own warning, enemies to lovers, biting, daddy issues?, blood play, a bit of angst a dash of bloodlust & a heavy splash of spice, Brian loves to fluster you and he won't shut the hell up going about it, Brian survives season 1 in this house

✧˖° author's note:

im having too much fun with this, but also editing chapters this long inflicts psychic damage so please forgive the inevitable rough spots. i’m sure there are some but i’m so over editing. i tried making it shorter but every time i tried it just got longer its 17k 😭😭

anyway hope you’re ready for your date with a wanted serial killer💕

(there’s a few nods to the books throughout, including Brian’s little red car)

✧˖° chapter 2

You still can’t believe you’re actually doing this.

Accepting Dexter’s brother’s help–the Ice Truck fucking Killer, which you can still hardly believe. Begging for it, even; for him to help you kill someone.

The Ice Truck fucking Killer…

Even now, you have a hard time wrapping your head around it.

You’d dedicated so much time and energy into catching that serial fiend, and now he was practically your mentor. So unlike his brother, yet so strikingly the same. Dexter was hungry to know everything about a person before killing them; performing weeks, even months of diligent research on every facet of their beings. 

But Brian…

He hadn’t asked a single question about who he’d help you kill. It could be your own mother, for all he seemed to care. A wolf with a scent for blood. He gets a whiff, he doesn’t hesitate, he comes running.

He’d agreed to help you so much more willingly than Dexter had, and for that, at least, you’re grateful. It remains to be seen if you’ll be grateful for anything else.

It doesn’t matter that this man that you’ll kill’s not a killer. He still has this coming. Has it coming from you, and doubtlessly deserves so much more, so much worse, and–

The whirlwind of thoughts inside your addled head will not settle, will not calm; battering the walls of your mind into harsh, jagged edges of unease and doubts and questions upon questions and–

Struggling to swallow, you once more do your best to ignore that storm inside you. Sucking down a deep breath. Forcing yourself to.

You can do this.

The cards of it are already falling out of place, all around you, and you can’t pick them up again, can’t shove them back into their previous shape.

You don’t want to.

This is happening.

You’re killing this prick tonight.

It’s too late now, not to, and you don’t want to turn back–

You can do this.

You can do this.

You…

You’re at the precinct…

On a Saturday…

Today is already going so wrong.

You just needed to submit a slew of paperwork for a court case early on Monday. Just in and out; it wasn’t supposed to take long. Yet now it’s nearly noon, and your partner–a thick man with a thicker mustache named Pérez–well he’s here, too. The pair of you without lives, always working. And he’s droning on and on about something–probably where the two of you should stop for lunch, as if you’ll be here that long (you already are), but you can’t hear him. Anxious eyes flitting from him and Masuka, who’s joined in on whatever this conversation, in checking the time on your phone.

Your anxious eyes grow wider.

Shit–!

You were supposed to meet Brian at the hardware store twenty minutes ago…!

Ignoring Masuka’s lame attempt at a joke, you focus fully on your computer. Sending off a few last emails, finger nearly breaking through your mouse with every click, before you’re grabbing whatever papers you were working on and even some you weren’t, scraping the mess of them off your desk, shoving them into your bag and you’re sure they’re all crumpled but fuck it, this can’t wait, Brian can’t wait, you should have left already–

“Hey!” Pérez calls as you abruptly stand, his deep voice following after how you speed-walk through the glass-enclosed walls of the precinct. “I was talkin’ to you!”

“Gotta go,” you shoot back bluntly. “Talk to Masuka.” 

“Bullshit,” he calls as you continue speeding off. “You don’t got nowhere to be!”

And you don’t know why you say it. You’re panicked, maybe–haven’t thought out a decent alibi like you really already should have. But either way, you blurt back on harried instinct, “I’m going on a date–you know, trying my hand at a social life? You should try it sometime.”

The surprise of that must shut him up–as it should, you don’t date–because he doesn’t yammer after you any longer as you push out of the room’s heavy glass doors. Impatiently stabbing the silver elevator button before you so you can fully escape, all while inwardly smacking yourself because now Pérez is definitely going to grill you about a date that never happened first thing on Monday–about a date with a serial murderer both he and you chased after personally, along with everyone else on your team–about a date where you’re going to fucking kill someone and fuck–fuck–!

You’re bad at this. You’re so bad at this. You’re a homicide detective, you should know better, know what you’re doing, know what to look out for to not get caught, but instead you’re leaving threads that anyone could stop in and pull at–

You need to calm down.

Why are you so nervous– you weren’t this tense before last night.

This is Brian’s fault, somehow, you just can’t place exactly why. Doesn’t stop you from blaming him, though.

Breathe.

In.

Out.

Slipping into your cheap, little car.

Driving out of the precinct’s lot.

In.

Out.

You’re meeting the Ice Truck Killer for a date where you’re picking out murder weapons. 

It’s not that big a deal.

Breathe.

In…

Honestly, you don’t even know why you’re doing this. The shopping part, at least; not the murder part. You have all the reason in the world to murder that vile excuse for a human being, but a shopping spree? 

Dexter’d left you a few of his knives. Not all of them, mind; just a select few, which was hard enough for him to do, you could tell as he left them. Those knives, what they do, what they have done… They’re an extension of himself. And you were grateful to him for having lent them. But when you’d received a call from an unknown number after leaving his apartment last night, you’d heard Brian’s deep, smoothly serrated voice on the other end.

“I’m surprised you pick up calls from unknown numbers,” he’d immediately teased, and just as suddenly you’d wanted to hang up on his smarmy, cocky ass. Only resisting because you do really need his help.

He’d said to pick a hardware store of your choice. To meet him there tomorrow, at twelve PM sharp.

“Why?” you’d asked, helplessly suspicious of him. Maybe because you knew what he was. Maybe because of something else you couldn’t quite name, just out of reach, its murky outline barely untouched.

“You want my help, don’t you?” he’d returned instead of answering, and you hated what his voice did to you. What it still does to you. Its silken roughness instilling fear and something else so very warm, unraveled and cloying and copper-sweet in the back of your turbulent mind. 

Luckily, your stifled lack of response must’ve been enough of an answer for him.

“You only get to kill a man once,” he’d purred in your ear, and you were glad he couldn’t see you worrying your lower lip. “You may as well do it right. Twelve PM. Don’t forget, my lovely protégé.”

But you did forget. Till twenty minutes past. And now you’re here, at Miami Lumber and Hardware, at 12:37 PM on the dot.

He’s going to kill you.

You’re halted a stuttered step whilst rushing through the parking lot as you think it, since it was only a figure of speech–but this is Brian Moser. He might actually kill you. It’s certainly not an improbability.

Once again reminding yourself to breathe, it still takes concerted effort to actually drag the air into your lungs.

You can’t help it.

Brian makes you nervous. This is just an unfortunate fact.

The man, is…

Cold. Calculated. Ineffable.

And yet, the way he’d held his brother last night, when Dexter had greeted him home…

Once you’d learned that Brian was Dexter’s brother, you couldn’t fully blame Dex for letting him escape Miami, not even after everything with Deb. It was fucked, but they were brothers; they were blood. But their closeness in that moment last night made you see, very clearly, that even monsters can have something resembling a heart.

And yet that heart is nowhere present when Brian looks at you. You can see that, too. The darkness of that viscid void which crafts him, reflecting light as a mirage, as a distraction; a light which from his dark cannot exist.

It certainly doesn’t make you any less wary around him. Not to mention how he might have some unpleasant feelings toward you for being part of the task force that ran him out of town, that even now would apprehend him. But it’s not like Dexter wasn’t part of that task force, too, so… 

Maybe he’d forgiven you.

You weren’t about to ask.

In any case. He’d agreed to help you. So maybe you should just be grateful for that and stop questioning everything ; just focus on the arduous task at hand instead of spiraling once again into doubt.

As you quickly approach the hardware store, you catch sight of a looming shadow standing just outside its wide, automatic front doors. A shadow you soon realize is Brian. Black buttoned shirt with the sleeves rolled up his lithely muscled forearms. Hands in the pockets of dark slacks. Onyx, browline sunglasses shielding his likewise onyx gaze, like he’s just too cool to give a damn, though really you suppose it’s just part of his disguise.

He looks good, just standing there. Effortless, modelesque. And the longish mess of curls that tease his jawline, along with the dark scruff of beard definitely suit him.

It somehow makes all of this so much worse that he’s attractive, and for a second you wish you were blind, just sightlessly bumbling into him.

His dark eyes must flit toward your slowing, cautious approach from behind his shades, because a cheeky half-smirk takes hold of one corner of his lips. Especially as his focus feels to drape over you.  Dropping languidly to the motion of your hands, unthinkingly clenching at your sides, which you immediately force to stop upon his notice.

“Look what the cat dragged in,” he observes as you finally reach him, low and smooth as ambrosia on an unpolished blade, its edges always rough. “Thought you might’ve stood me up. And on our first date, too.” His brows are tugged in a light crease of woe above his handsome shades. “I was this close to having my heart broken.”

It’s ironic that his ‘cover story’ for whatever the hell this is the two of you are doing is that it’s some sort of ‘date’, too. 

Does that make it official?

God, you hope not. You can’t break your dating dry spell with someone you’ve tried apprehending.

“Pretty sure that’d require something inside your ribs to actually break,” you return; his smirk rubbing you the wrong way. Like he’s endlessly amused by the tragically Shakespearean comedy that is you. “Unlike whatever cobwebs are probably hanging there.” And, brushing past how he idles there watchfully, you’re already halfway through the automatic doors beside him when calling, “You coming or what?”

You barely hear his little chuff; half amused, half something darker, as the tower of him turns to swim within your wake. So much like a shark stalking after you that you’re tempted to drop the ‘too cool to turn around’ act and instead keep your vigilant eyes on him.

You’re still debating whether to turn or not when instead you’re physically jolted by him suddenly appearing right beside you; his smooth and lengthy steps easily outpacing the rigidity of your own. 

“So, little killer…” he slowly muses down at you, with a glint to his side-long smirk. Slipping his shades from off the bridge of his nose, before folding and tucking them in his breast pocket. All while you do your best not to look at him since every time you do you seem to lose your train of thought like some kind of idiot. “Where shall we start?”

Steps slowing to a halt, you peer about the overwhelming vastness of the giant store around you.

You have no idea where to start–wasn’t this whole thing his idea?

“You’re the one who wanted us to come here,” you mutter. Biting the inside of your cheek to somehow steady yourself before meeting the intensity of his gaze. “I don’t know what we’re looking for.”

He seems to assess you a moment, before he’s sliding one hand gently around your waist, which straightens board-stiff at his brazen touch. 

His smile grows as he eyes you, though by all appearance he’s just cordially guiding you by the small of your hesitant back toward the slew of bright red shopping carts bunched up near the front of the store. And though you’d like to think you’d smack his unwanted hand off of you, seeing as how you don’t need his help to grab a goddamn cart, you don’t really know what to think anymore. Somewhere, just… secretly glad? That he’s taking your reins of uncertainty? Leading them through whatever daytime fever-dream this ‘date’ is turning out to be.

Whatever makes this nightmare end more swiftly.

“Your teacher to the rescue, then,” he says, oh-so-helpful. Ushering you toward a cart, which you’re too mired by worry and doubt not to grab hold of obediently. Following where he steers you further into the massive store, and he’s won you over that easily, you guess. He’s your shepherd; you’re his sheep. But what are you supposed to do? Deny the help he’s giving? At this point there’s nowhere to go but down whatever darkened hole he leads you. 

Still. You won’t follow him down undefended. Stealing a glance, as innocuously as you can, at the Glock openly holstered at your right hip as he leads you deeper into the store, past the rows of registers. Its weight resting on your jeans a boon against that ongoing storm howling within you.

Brian seems to like the whole ‘obedient sheep to his shepherd’ thing, much to your chagrin. He smiles, anyway–a dusky crudeness to its soft shape–as his hand at last leaves your back, and instead he strolls alongside your cart casually.

You imagine the two of you probably look quite cute to someone who doesn’t know what the fuck is happening behind the scenes.

“Dexter told me he lent you some knives,” Brian says, conversationally. And he does make it sound so normal–like you’d borrowed them to fillet a fish, not a person.

This is the most fucked up small talk on a ‘date’ you’ve ever heard or hoped to be a part of.

He tsks his tongue in your silence, leading your way past a few aisles after glancing at their header’s above. And you don’t know what he’s looking for, but he’s your shepherd–you’re forced to trust him in wherever he’d guide you.

“Not exactly inspiring,” he muses. “He does get more creative, from time to time.” A shade of amusement hints his lips. “Very creative, really.” Though at length, he hums as if the state of Dexter’s a shame. “But he doesn’t play nearly enough with his food.”

“Is that why we’re here?” you finally find your voice. “Because you want me playing with my food tonight?”

He spares you a glance from how he otherwise scans all the inventory you pass. 

“It matters, how you kill a person,” he says. “At least, as I surmise, it does tonight.”

“What do you mean?”

He looks away, like he doesn’t actually care about this conversation.

“This person,” he says at last, as he leads where you’ll follow. “That you’re taking care of. He deserves this. Right?”

“Yes,” you respond without hesitation.

At that, he smiles his low, warm smile down at you. Allows its shallow warmth to burn through that storm you feel.

“Well… I don’t know the details–don’t need the details–but I’d venture further this is punishment…” The idea seems somehow amusing. “Am I wrong?”

No. He’s definitely right. Though you refuse to think about exactly why you’ll punish that bastard tonight. It always makes you see red, steals away everything else, and you’re already hopelessly distracted in Brian’s presence. So perhaps it’s lucky he doesn’t care, doesn’t ask, so that at least you’re left undistracted by that.

You’ll worry about making that fucker pay for what he’s done when you face him tonight.

How you strive to steady yourself is disjointed as Brian takes a loose hold of the front of the cart; escorting you down an aisle of hammers and other blunt-edged tools. 

“So shouldn’t however you kill this person be a punishment,” he offers mildly, “in and of itself?”

You don’t realize you aren’t responding; haven’t spoken in a while. Have stopped your cart from rolling for who knows how long while your knuckles begin to go numb with how tightly they cling to its bright, shiny handle–not until Brian’s shadow is suddenly so close to your side. And, blinking rapidly, you twist up just in time to see him lean down to your ear. Murmuring hushed words, just for you.

“Fuck Dexter’s knives,” he breathes, the heat of it sparking each hair on your nape to attention. “Whoever this bastard is, he surely deserves the worst end you can give him. A quick death is far too nice. Don’t you agree?”

He’s the devil on your shoulder, but you’re in no position to disagree.

A flash of that man you’ll kill, Gary, flashes through your mind before you can stop it. Shoved away with such nauseating hatred that you push forth your cart with enough newfound purpose you’ve left Brian behind. Vindictively eyeing each item as you pass, before settling on a box on one row. Judging its label with a tense jaw before tossing it into your cart.

Brian’s caught up in no time, though he strolls in no decided hurry. A low chuckle rumbled in his chest as he seemingly eyes the box of the belt sander you threw in.

“Well, that’s certainly creative…” he approves with a side-long grin.

“I’m not sure I’ll use it,” you admit, keeping your momentum forward. Focusing as best you can before his mere presence distracts you again. “I’m keeping my options open.”

And though you try desperately not to look at him, hindrance that he unwittingly is, you hear his smooth smile as he says, “A woman after my own heart. Maybe you’re not such a horrible student after all.”

Your cart wheels stop just long enough to glower up at him; annoyed by how his height always towers over you. “Since when was I horrible? I’m doing everything you ask.”

“After showing up here late,” he says, maintaining the affable bedside manner of the prosthetist he used to parade as. “And asking far too many questions.” 

Reaching for the small of your back again, his fingers steal away your objections as they curl so slightly into the curve of your waist, speeding your heart with their gentle pressure.

He leads you toward a row of rubber-ended sledge hammers. Leaving your side to take one off the rack. Testing its massive weight between his surgeon’s hands. Speculative, before breezily tossing it into the cart, which rattles beneath the bulk of it.

“So…” he drawls, too politely; changing the topic to something else. “Were you on the task force to bring me in…?”

The answer lodges somewhere in your throat. Caught there more and more the longer he passively watches you. And okay. Maybe he didn’t forgive and forget the whole ‘you trying to apprehend him’ thing after all.

“So was your brother,” you point out in lieu of answering, which in truth is answer enough, just the version with you too chicken-shit to answer directly.

You focus on moving forward; gripping your cart like a shield that doesn’t help at all against how you feel his little smile crawling over you. Focusing on your feet–on his feet, striding alongside yours. Staring at those burnished leather Elkans he wears, nearly black, clipping mute vinyl floors, and though you have no idea how a man on the run from the feds has the means to pay for shoes that nice you make a point of not asking.

“True enough,” he says. “Doesn’t make either one of you less of a hypocrite.”

Disgruntled, your gaze turns sharply up to him. “Would you rather I just cuff your ass right now and take you into the station?”

He seems to find the idea of that funny; suppressing a hum that’s not quite a laugh. 

“If you think you can drag me in.”

Idly, he unhooks from its post in the rows and rows of tools a pair of small, yet sharp needle-nose pliers. Eyes alight with something as he regards you; thumb roaming the instrument’s blunt, metallic edge.

“What do you think, detective?” he asks. “Could I have these jammed in your trachea before you pulled your gun on me?” 

The weight of your Glock feels to burn against your hip, itching for you to grab it, though you stiffly don’t move. 

“Maybe,” you admit. Not daring to pull your gun right now to even the odds of a hypothetical–or at least you hope it’s hypothetical. “But it wouldn’t kill me right away.” Your voice is hard. “I’d still shoot you in the back as you ran away in those fancy shoes.”

He does laugh at that. Strong and warm, as he steals a glance at his leather Elkans.

“Don’t you like them?” he wonders with a sly little smirk.

And of course you do, they’re handsomely crafted, but he doesn’t need to know that. So instead of answering, you just push off down the aisle with the cart.

“Can we just focus on the task at hand?” you ask as you hear his footsteps closing through the distance after you. Turning out of one aisle and into the next, with no destination in mind other than creating more distance between you. “I don’t exactly want to be caught in public with you.”

“Yes, that might ruin your reputation down at the station, wouldn't it?”

“Just a bit.” You toss a few items into the cart whilst assuring yourself that you’re making this rich bastard pay for everything. Tossing in a few more pricey-looking tools you probably won’t even use at the thought. “Especially when I told my partner that I was on a date right now.”

No sooner have the words left your mouth that you vehemently regret their utterance, cause why did you just admit that? And just like you worried, like you expected from Brian at this point, he smells the chum of possibly humiliating you on the water and slips forward for a bite.

“You’re already telling your friends about us?” he asks, a cunning fox, and maybe you will go for your gun. “How cute… It’s a little soon for me to be telling people about our relationship, personally, but… I’m glad you’re so enthused.”

Your ears burn for reasons unrelated to severe embarrassment, you’re sure. “He asked where I was rushing off to and I panicked, okay?”

You hear his little sigh. “Why doesn’t that surprise me?”

The cart rattles as you toss in a few more tools at random. “I’m new at this.”

“Yes,” comes Brian’s musing. “You’ve made that painfully clear.”

Desperate to ignore the awkward heat crawling up your face, you slow past a row of different saws. The wheels of your cart dragged to a sudden halt before a vast array of chainsaws, which admittedly seem a little heavy for you to wield, seem a little much and are surely overkill, but...

Still. You’re oddly drawn to them. One hand already reaching to test the sharpness of a bright, hornet-yellow one’s row of exposed teeth.

Time feels to slow as you study it. With you so distracted that you don’t even notice how Brian’s stopped his ever-incessant, clever commentary behind you; merely enjoying the merciful silence.

“What do you think?” you ask at last, unturning, as you mull the idea of you with a chainsaw inside your head. And it’s not a terrible image… “Too messy? Or…”

Silence, from your ever-yapping, homicidal mentor. And at last you glance back at where he stands, just behind you. His dark eyes, shadowed by dark lashes, trained to the blade-teeth you touch, yet as though he’s staring right through them.

As your expression grows inquisitive, he blinks, dragged from the seeming depths that leave him lost inside his own head.

“Hm?” he absently hums, like he hasn’t heard you.

Your interest curiously traces what little his expression ever betrays to you. “What?” you ask of his uncharacteristic silence, though he just impassively eyes you.

“What?” he returns; innocuous, mirroring you.

Your brows furrow up at that leaden mask he wears.

“Don’t what me,” you counter. “I saw you thinking about something. And if you don’t tell me what that is, you’ll swiftly learn how annoyingly persistent I can be when my bloodhound brain grabs scent of something.”

He regards you down the length of his strong nose. Seeming taller than he actually is, which is already imposing. Eventually carding back his hair; dark curls tangled in his fingers with his incensed glance away. “You really are a headache, aren’t you?”

“Absolutely I am. Now tell me.”

With mild exasperation, his dusky eyes return to you. Their grievance soon to fade in place of muted speculation. “I was just lost in memories. Private ones, I might add. Ones I’m guessing Dexter never told you.”

You’ve never seen him so… tentative. Not even in this miniscule amount. And your confusion, just like your interest, slowly rises. “What are you talking about?”

He eyes you a moment more. Unreadable. “I’m talking about our mother, Detective Nosey,” he says. Gaze assessing yours, as if searching for something there, weighing if he should tell you. And you’re not sure what he looks for, if he finds it, though eventually he continues.

“She was butchered with a chainsaw,” he says at last, far too casually. Reaching past you to drag one lengthy finger along that chainsaw’s serrated edge in the absence of your touch. His eyes gaining that faraway look again. “Right in front of us, when Dex was three and I was four. Dismembered limb by limb, as that engine echoed off the walls, along with her begging us not to look, to close our little eyes, and we were left in the mess of it. The blood of three addicts and our mother–two inches thick by the time that engine finally stopped.” 

His finger slowly drags down the jagged length of the blade, while you listen on in growing horror. 

“They didn’t find us huddled in that blood-damp, hellish dark for two days, and by then the only reason I cared was in protecting my brother.” He exhales a little laugh with zero humor to it. “Apparently that’s all anyone cared about. ‘Cause he was adopted by the first cop on scene, and I–decidedly–was not.”

His dark gaze turns to you, and you cannot comprehend what lie beyond its blackish surface.

“So, to answer your question,” he says, so nonchalant in your speechless shock from responding, “It’s not a bad choice. Though certainly messy.”

You can’t seem to think. The story he’s spun sinking a weight in you, dragging your stomach right through the floor. Left with not knowing what to say, blown away as you are by the cruelty held within such an offhand confession.

“Brian, I'm…”

Your tone is raw. Quiet. And he smiles at you unhappily; hand falling loosely to his side, away from the blade that dismembered his mother.

“Don’t,” he cuts you off bluntly. “What’s done is done. Pitied apologies never help.”

“I know they don't,” you counter, voice stricken, and you swallow with the effort to make it more firm. “But that's… That's fucked, Brian. And… I'm sorry. I'm so sorry that happened to you.”

For a moment, he merely eyes you. Every line of his handsome face meticulously sculpted in place, held perfectly still.

“Are you expecting me to thank you for that?” he wonders at last.

You hate how vulnerable you feel, when he’s the one confessing something so traumatic that it surely formed him. His and Dex’s extracurricular pastimes sure make a lot more sense now.

“No,” you say, feeling stupid, feeling childish, that you’re so unwound by such a ruthless tale while he clearly is not. And maybe you should just let it go, should just stop talking, but you can’t. “I just had to say it.” You meet his watchful gaze, your jawline hardening. “And if I could kill the fucks who did that to your mother, I would. I’d hunt each one of them down. And I know I’m not the one who should make them pay whatever price for what was done, but I’d still make them pay it.”

Some part of you’s already planning how you might, how you could–if they’re even still alive, or if indeed there was more than one person involved–it doesn’t matter, you’d kill them all, assuming Brian hasn’t already. Almost tempted to ask if he has, all while Brian just observes you in a silence which draws on. Something beyond the indecipherable veil of him fixed on you, keen at your edges, as if gauging your scent; toying the curious touch of his attention across your unseen depths.

Eventually, he subtly smiles, and you cannot comprehend that smallest stir half-buried within his gaze.

“C’mon,” he says, taking your waist again; hand warm and smooth across your lower back and he steers you further down the aisle. “We’ll save the chainsaw for next time. I’ve something more easily controlled in mind for a first-timer like yourself. And if you don’t like that, you’ll at least appreciate what we’re grabbing at our next stop.”

And surely you’d halt if he wasn’t more-or-less forcibly guiding you forward.

Next stop…? 

This nightmare date isn’t over yet?

Your arguments that there won’t be a ‘next time’ where you’ll be swinging around a chainsaw are effectively snuffed by the way his knuckles idly trace up the length of your spine as you walk together. The contact light, yet utterly fatal in regards to your ability to think in anything more than jumbled sounds that resemble language. And as he gauges a few items as you pass, he lightly ‘ ah ’s’ whilst nabbing a box one-handed; tossing it carelessly into the cart atop your already mountainous treasure trove of murderous hardware.

You glance from that box to him, already questioning, “A reciprocating saw?”

“A Moser favorite,” he says, roguish. “Electric. No outlet required. Perfect for when working remotely.” And yeah, it’s pretty obvious he’s done just that before.

He guides you toward the checkout counter up front before releasing you from the seeming hypnotism of his touch. Smiling at the college-aged girl ringing up your vast array of items, and let me tell you, your stomach shrinks upon seeing all that gear laid out in front of you, like a line-up of your potential crimes laid bare. Your insides cinching tighter with every item slowly rolling down that sluggish conveyer belt as he lays them all blasély upon it, like it moves that slow just to mock you, to shame you.

Pliers, hammers, a hacksaw. The sledge hammer you saw him throw in. Some sort of hose, a nail gun, a hatchet, a multitude of various saws and drills. Tarps, of course, and some kind of large metal clamp (what is that for?), a dremel, bolt cutters, the belt sander (you regret picking that out now), a motherfucking chain? A chain? What, are you beating this guy to death with a chain now?

It’s like a loony toon assortment of bullshit, only missing an anvil, that you’re sure will get flagged if the body is ever found hacked into a million pieces by every piece of hardware known to man. ‘Cause, oh, how convenient–someone purchased a million kill tools the night before the mysterious thousand-tool killer took someone out, and that person’s definitely been recorded on the store’s many security cameras.

You should’ve worn a disguise. You’re such an idiot.

By maybe the tenth item, the cashier seems to think this purchase is becoming somewhat odd. Go figure. And she eyes each item that she scans whilst stealing more and more weirded out glances at Brian and you. Which probably isn't a good thing.

You try to squeeze yourself out of existence behind Brian’s towering form. Let him take the fall for this.

Meanwhile, Brian flashes her his most charming grin. 

“We’re taking up woodworking,” he says, without a care in the world. “Gotta make sure we have all the right tools of the trade.” His dark gaze lowly glimmers. “What do you think? Did we get them all?”

It’s the lamest excuse, and yet the girl’s cheeks visibly warm and she giggles at whatever look he must be giving her.

The following conversation is perhaps the most shameless and painful thing you’ve ever had to stand there and witness; a form of torture in itself, when it’s supposedly you who was to do the torturing.

“Y-yeah,” says the girl, scanning a bit more absently. It takes her five swipes to get a claw hammer with a giant and completely obvious barcode to register, what with how her eyes are glued on the ‘date’ you’re hiding behind. “What kind of woodworking do you do?”

“Mostly construction, but I dabble in the arts. Walnut and pine sculptures, that sort of thing.”

“Oh really?”

“Really.”

“That sounds hard…”

“You just have to know what you’re doing~”

“You must be good with your hands, then.”

“Oh, I’m good with lots of things.”

“O-oh, like… like what? For, um, example?”

“I could offer a demonstration… You’d have to come out from behind that counter, first, though...”

She titters again and you think a vein on your brow might be close to bursting, though admittedly you’re not exactly sure why–her laugh must be annoying. Luckily that’s when he swipes his card for the outrageous bill–the front of which you note bears a name that’s not his, so as far as covering your tracks goes there’s at least that.

You lug what feels a million heavy bags into the cart whilst patiently smiling (grimacing) at your flirtatious construction partner.

“C’mon, David ,” you read the name on his card, already pushing the filled-up cart to go. But not before seeing him toss the flustered cashier a little wink before following after you.

Ugh. 

Gross. 

You’re storming out of the store, out into the parking lot as the cart wheels rattle before your way. Barreling forth in no particular direction and for no particular reason other than what you just witnessed inexplicably making you sick, when Brian’s hand suddenly latches around your wrist, arresting you solidly in place, jerking you gruffly to a halt right before the speeding blur of a giant, blue truck flies past the front of your cart by maybe an inch; the speed of it whipping wind against your startled face.

Frazzled, you merely stand there while your racing heart tries to escape your chest. Blinking far too quickly, before twisting your gaze back to Brian. Undoubtedly relieved by how he just saved you from slamming into a car–seriously, he just saved you? Yet even then, you force annoyance to your tone; perhaps to hide your embarrassment at just how irredeemably unfocused you really are right now.

“What?” you ask him sharply.

His eyes trace your face. Seem to note how your molars are grinding. And as you glower, he slowly starts to smirk.

Gods, you hate him.

“You’re walking in the wrong direction,” he says.

Which maybe you were, though you find you’re not fond of him correcting you right now. “Where am I supposed to be walking?”

He nods toward a little red car parked off in the distance through the lot. Pristinely polished. Expensive looking. “That one’s mine.”

“Of course it is,” you nearly roll your eyes at him. Twisting your wrist from his grasp in heaving the heavy cart forward again–after glancing both ways in ensuring you aren’t about to be flattened by a truck, this time. 

“You know,” you grouse as he walks right beside you, “you didn’t have to make sure that cashier’s still daydreaming about you tonight, considering the actual boat-load of homicidal gear we’re carrying.” And seriously, he didn’t have to lay it on so thick. “There’s no way she won’t remember you after that performance.” 

He keeps up with you so easily despite how desperate you are to outpace him, until eventually you just give up and push the cart at a normal pace. 

“As distracting as you awkwardly standing there was, I thought I’d better step in,” he says. “I was worried you might blurt out some sort of confession for a crime you haven’t yet committed under the scrutiny of her tiny-minded gaze.”

You feel yourself scowling. “I’m not an idiot.”

His soft lips purse like he somehow doubts that. Though all he says is, “Would you rather I have just let her keep forming ideas about everything she was ringing up amidst your incriminating, nerve-bitten silence?”

You bite your lip. Finally reaching his expensive car. “I guess not,” you admit.

He smiles down at you as you do your best to ignore him. “Good. Then stop being jealous.”

Your brows cinch hard at that, with you tearing your gaze directly toward him. Scoffing immediately, “Jealous of what? ”

With the way he scarcely seems to register your overt revulsion at the prospect, you wouldn't be surprised if nothing in life ever bothered him.

“Of me flirting with our cashier,” he says. Fetching from his pants pocket the keys to his flashy car, which chirps before you as its doors are unlocked, its small trunk automatically popped open.  

You take the opportunity to distract yourself by cramming bags into the trunk as though doing so were a timed olympic sport.

“You’re so full of yourself,” you say over the sound of shifting plastic bags, the thud of metal on car-trunk floor. “I barely even know you. If anything I was trying not to cringe out of existence hearing how shameless you are.”

You’re unprepared entirely for how he takes your waist from behind in both his hands; spins you around without warning. Nudging the backs of your wavering knees against the bumper of the car while he smoothly steps in, cornering you there, with little room left between your body and his.

He smirks at whatever your floored expression, trapped beneath the looming of his. Leaning down to your ear, pouring wicked words inside it.

“So what if I’m shameless?” he asks, amusement curled through his inflection.

When his lips just barely graze your ear, purely accidental, it's like a basilisk's spiked you with venom. Turning all of you to stone, your lungs helplessly forgetting to function.

“Don't be jealous,” he murmurs. “As delightful as that is, I’ll spare you the torment. You need to be focused, my woefully inept student. And besides…” he sounds to smile, “she’s not my type.”

He leaves you there just as suddenly as he’d pinned you. So effortlessly snatching away your ability to speak, as he turns instead to filling up the trunk you’re still teetering weak-kneed against. Left with the realization that his dark, graveled voice is as much a weapon as any in his arsenal of toys.

You’re still reeling as he pauses loading to instead open the passenger-side door for you; the sound of it drawing your flustered attention. Looking at you expectantly as you just stand there, trying to dislodge your heart from where it’s leapt into your throat.

“I’ll load the rest,” he says, careless as ever. “Get in.”

But you still won’t move. By choice, this time, not due to his unwanted effect on you. Warily glancing from opened door, to him; the leashless animal offering it for you. 

“I have my own car.”

“I told you, we’re not done shopping,” he lightly puts forth. “And it’s easier if we drive together.”

But you can’t shake how that seems like a really bad idea. Being alone with him. But what are you supposed to do? If he finds you too difficult to deal with, he might rescind his help from off the table, and you are partners in crime for the foreseeable future… 

Perhaps most convincing of all, in the end–what has you finally ungluing your apprehensive feet from off the asphalt–is the comforting weight of your gun, still strapped at one hip.

He can pry that from your cold dead fingers should he ever mean to take it from you.

Masking your hesitance, you drag yourself from where he’d pinned you against his fancy red car toward the seat he now offers. Cautiously watching that little smirk of his that spells trouble in half a million ways as he graciously closes the door after you, with you running one hand across the cool steel of your firearm the second the car door blocks it from his vision.

Gods, what are you doing? Getting in a car with the Ice Truck Killer?

You shake yourself–no– no –you can’t keep questioning everything. He’s Dexter’s brother–you’re fine. You’re doing what needs to be done–what you have to.

You tell yourself this, yet still nearly jump out of your skin as the driver’s side door is eventually opened, with Brian sliding right in.

“Hope you don’t mind a little breaking and entering,” he says whilst revving the car, shifting it into gear. 

Perhaps you’re too distracted to outright ask what that fucking means. “I think as far as potential crimes go, I’m a bit past a misdemeanor.”

“Wonderful,” he returns, with all the charm of a murderous Disney prince. And it’s clear Brian Moser’s a bad influence on anyone and everything trapped within the incessant pull of his orbit. 

No wonder Dexter drove him away. He’s too much of a risk.

And now he’s back, helping you –Christ, maybe this whole thing really is a terrible idea. And again, a war’s waged within you; one that results like it always does, in you reminding yourself for the hundredth time not to bite the dangerous hand that offers to help you. 

The song Brian flips on the radio is about as cheerfully opposite a song can be from someone who bleeds their victims like cattle. And as he pulls out of the hardware store’s lot, you glance back toward the trunk of the car; envisioning the cartoonish haul of bloodshed tucked away inside it.

“Are you sure we need to grab anything else?” you ask, with a glance at him. Which you immediately regret, because his rugged profile is…

Goddammit, why does he have to be hot? 

You tuck your traitorous gaze toward the window, staring at the world rushing by outside it. Spared for a moment from whatever this offensively attractive man does to you by merely existing.

“I could likely make due with what we have,” he says to the road; thankfully otherwise ignorant of you. “But I’m not going to. Our current haul’s for you, my impromptu protégé. This next trip’s for me, though you’re welcome to play with what we’ll grab there. I need tools to dispose of the body, à la Dexter’s requested style.” He tosses you a look, one brow quirked as if to dare you. “Unless you’d like to fetch me my old ones out of wherever you stashed them away in evidence for me…?”

Which– no– you would not. There’s too much risk involved in digging through the many boxes of the Ice Truck Killer’s things, even when you don’t know what else he has planned instead, where he’ll otherwise take you. 

“Would the barbies we confiscated be part of the required hardware you’d need me to steal?” you taunt instead of answering.

He simply exhales a small hum of amusement at that. Eyes on the road as a faint smile toys his lips. And in the end you suppose that playing with dolls isn’t really the strangest thing about him.

“Can’t we just see what Dexter has at his apartment?” you ask, assuming that’s not where he’s already headed. “I’m sure he has the right tools laying around somewhere.”

And it seems, in the maze of his mind, something’s chewed before being left unsaid.

“This’ll be a whole lot simpler if you just learn to stop questioning me right now, instead of making me steamroll your objections over and over again like you have been,” he says. Glancing away from the road; challenging you with a look. “I know what I’m doing. Unlike all others present.”

And though you fold your arms against him, you don’t otherwise protest. He’s not wrong, after all.

It isn’t until the pair of you near a mountainous scatter of buildings, erected high with white stone and sea-hued windows, that you realize the next destination of your homicidal ‘date’ is Miami’s Jackson Memorial Hospital–how romantic. Which you don’t really have an opinion on, until shortly remembering, like a kick to the gut, that he intends to steal god only knows from its highly secured, extensively monitored halls.

Your limbs are all stiffened with nerves as you turn to him while he breezes in through the hospital’s lot, one hand on the wheel whilst carelessly searching for a vacant place to park.

“We’re breaking into a hospital?!”

“We’re walking into a hospital,” he returns, smooth as sin. Though his merriment’s short-lived as he looks at you; dark eyebrows squinching up at whatever your expression. “Stop looking so paranoid.”

“I am paranoid,” you shoot right back at him; like it’s impossible that he doesn’t feel the same. “There’s a lot of security here, way more than some random hardware store. And although your little–” somewhat erratically, you gesture at his entire person, sitting there with one brow raised in watching you, “– disguise –is okay, it’s not that okay when there’s an ongoing manhunt for you by the fucking FBI–! ”

After weaving his car effortlessly into a spot, he watches you for a moment. Though when he should be slowly nodding in agreement, instead his lax expression falls unenthusiastically dull.

“You’re overthinking this.”

“You’re under thinking it!”

“Just follow my lead,” he more or less commands his ‘protégé’. Already stepping out of the car. Standing just outside it, for dragging moments; door remaining ajar, with only his long legs and dexterous hands in view. Before eventually he dips his height in glancing in at you as you stare across the middle console staunchly, refusing to get out.

“The longer you sit there pouting, the longer this will take,” he patiently says.

“I’m not pouting,” you argue, though you’re already riled enough into stepping gruffly out of the car. Unbuckling your belt as you do; stripping your holster off its length, before hiding your gun on your person; tucked away at the small of your back. All before making your way to the front of the car alongside where Brian waits for you. “I’m trying to make sure we don’t get caught.”

“Let me worry about that part,” he says; smiling as you unwillingly fall in step with him as he leads you toward that high-reaching tower in the distance, its glass shimmering like azure gems in the afternoon light. “Just focus on playing your part. We’re headed to an appointment. You, my timid, bumbling girlfriend, and I your dauntless, dashing prince.”

“I think you’re closer to a homicidal imp on my shoulder.”

“The two aren’t mutually exclusive.” 

The closer the two of you draw to the hospital’s broad and bustling entrance, the more cameras you begin to spot at the corners of your vision. Hidden lenses high on light beams, tucked near the corners of what seems like every wall. This place doesn’t take its security as a joke, and more and more it feels your panic forms a fist within your stomach, its fingers slowly tightening.

“Look…” you hear yourself saying, as offhanded as you can muster in that moment. Trying not to sound like you’re panicking, which you are, more and more with each step ventured forward. “I appreciate you helping me in whatever morally questionable way this is, but…”

Uncomfortably distracted, your words cut short as you spot through the crowd an overweight security guard, meandering just outside the hospital’s doors. A guard who glances at you and Brian, pausing just a moment, before idling slowly on.

You don’t know when you stopped walking, but by the time you tear your eyes away from the potential threat of him, Brian’s no longer beside you. It’s like you’ve only blinked, and he’s gone.

For some reason that’s even worse than having him near you.

“Brian…?”

Shit– should you even say his name out loud…? It’s a common enough name, and you two didn’t discuss using aliases, but–

What if someone puts two and two together upon spotting you and him? Hearing you say his name? Internally prying the longer hair and dark scruff off him, leaving only Brian fucking Moser behind?

Airway feeling tight, you scan the loose crowd of people before you until catching sight of Brian’s dark, wavy curls looming over everyone else's heads, and for once you’re glad he’s so freakishly tall. But as you spring forth to catch him, your steps start to drag once more, as the closer you draw toward those impending hospital doors the more it feels the world shifts out beneath you, and…

You can’t really think… You can’t breathe, you…

Are you having a panic attack…?

Are you seriously having a panic attack right now…?!

“...Bri… David…?!” 

You say it like you may otherwise drown, like he’s your lifeline, but there’s no way he hears you from his place so far ahead, even in such a thin crowd. And you need to just breathe, you’re overreacting–need to rein in your tenuous gaze from how it darts from lens to lens of every security camera, as if they’re all watching you, piecing together the company you keep.

“This isn’t… This isn’t a good…”

You’ve started backing up, now. Still staring at those hospital doors that loom before you, all while your heart slams into your ribs.

“–Brian–?!”

All at once, a large hand wraps around yours, leaving you no time to react as you’re brusquely swept aside before you can call after him a second time. And you choke out a little noise of surprise upon seeing Brian there, expressionless, dragging you toward a less crowded side of the hospital’s entrance.

He hauls you toward a small, manicured cluster of flowers and small palms, before steadying you within what seems a disapproving gaze, which certainly doesn’t make you feel any less like a panicking idiot.

“You’re entirely hopeless at this.”

You bite your lip to keep from biting something out more spiteful at him; still struggling to breathe. “You think I don’t know that?!”

At your heightened tone, he steals a glance at the foot traffic beside you before ushering you a little further away, further into the quiet. His hand grasping yours sliding slowly up the length of your arm, finding purchase near the crook of your neck.

It’s an oddly comforting motion, and you find yourself helpless but to peer up into the stillness of his eyes.

“Calm down,” he says, slowly, like he doesn’t fully comprehend why you’re so anxious. Like he’s never felt the dragging claws of nerves in his life. And though you’d normally expect him to mock you for falling apart like a moron, as you undeniably are right now, he at least seems genuine in talking you down. That, or you really are just that desperate to believe it. 

“Take a breath.” His thumb draws a single line just below your clavicle, whilst you struggle to do as he says. 

And, oh, lovely; here comes that mocking part you were so worried about, accompanied by him hiking a none-too-subtle brow at you:

“Not to make a tense situation worse, but if you’re this much of a mess just strolling into a hospital, exactly how are you expecting to follow through with your plans tonight?” But that’s not all. “And how do you work in homicide, for that matter? Aren't detectives used to working under pressure? Or did you blackmail your way into getting what you want there, too…?”

You’re not sure if you're wincing, bracing for the impact of his words.

…Is that it…?

…

That’s it.

For now, at least.

And you find yourself scowling. Hurt, which is of course ridiculous; you don't care what this bastard thinks. Though as you try to upsetly twist away, he only tightens his grip in response, keeping you captive before him.

Your scowl deepens before you’ve given up. He’s a lot stronger than you, and the last thing you need right now is to cause any more of a scene by punching him in the throat.

“I… Look, this… This is just… A lot,” you weakly defend. Warbling. You hate yourself. Feeling even more small than you already do with the way he’s always towering over you, and so you look away, pretending he isn’t currently holding you hostage. “Everything. Tonight. You, especially, I…” Struggling, you shake yourself. Frowning at the ground. At the sturdiness of his lithely muscled chest. “All of it. All Dexter’s and my week’s of planning. It’s all coming to a head so much quicker than I realized it would, and there’s already so many loose ends, nothing is as foolproof as I wanted it to be, and…” 

Breathe.

Again, you struggle to shake yourself. To keep your voice lowered and calm.

“I can’t… I can’t fuck this up,” you allege at last. Willing yourself to sound firm in this. “I feel like I fuck up so much, but I can’t mess up right now–not with this. There’s too much on the line, and not just for me. I can’t… My sister, I can’t…”

You don’t even know what you’re saying, not any longer. Fail even to realize you’ve stopped talking at all, until Brian’s thumb smooths along the skin exposed just above your neckline.

Your eyes, as if with minds of their own, are suddenly trapped in the hanging darkness of his. And you cannot for the life of you read his watchful expression.

“Are you sure you’re ready for this?” he asks you quietly. 

After moments more of wavering beneath him, you slowly grit your jaw.

“I told you we had a deal, didn’t I?”

His hushed gaze passes across yours. “You did…”

“And what was your end of it?” you ask him–quiet enough to escape other’s attention, yet honed with accusation. “That if I changed my mind, you’d sit there and laugh at whatever that rotten bastard twice my size wants to do to me?”

He doesn’t respond. Merely watches, without denying, and doesn’t stop you as you finally succeed in shoving his hand away from you.

“I’m fine,” you allege; willing it with all your mustered strength to be true. “Sorry to disappoint you.” And with that, you’re already walking out from under the looming shadow of him. “Let’s just get this over with.”

The hospital’s lobby is a bright, massive dome poured through with natural light, filled by the bustle of so many people. Patients, doctors, nurses, social workers… Security guards…

You catch sight of the portly guard you spotted outside, now lazily surveying the trailing crowd of people who surround you in the lobby. Your footsteps halting upon once again spotting him, hands wringing helplessly at your sides, until you nearly chirp out some sort of half-choked shriek to have Brian abruptly swoop in, scooping your hand in his. Entwining his long fingers with yours like a lover in leading you forth before you can nervously dawdle there a second longer, deeper into the sunlit bowels of this place.

“Relax,” he says; guiding you toward a little gift shop. To a small, vacant table just outside the sandwich café that’s attached at its side. And as he pulls from it one of its metal chairs, ushering for you to sit, you obey only out of confusion whilst your mouth peters open to object.

“What are we doing?”

“Stay here,” he says, as gradually you bristle against how he watches you.

“You dragged me in here just to ditch me?”

He looks away. Barely paying you any mind as instead his interest travels across your surroundings. Seeming to take note of everyone and everything that passes through his vision.

“Would you believe me if I said I’m trying to protect you?” he asks at last, with barely a glance.

You stare up at him as he continues to ignore you. Not knowing what to say to that. Not sure if you believe him.

In the end, it doesn’t matter whether he’s genuine or not.

“I don’t need protecting,” you mutter at length. 

He’s studious as his gaze returns to yours beneath him. Weighing something unsaid behind the veil that leaves him such a mystery, before eventually offering you his graceful hand.

One corner of his lips hints up at how surprised you apparently look to have so easily convinced him.

“As the lady insists,” he says, quite simply. His hand remaining offered. “Off to our appointment, then, my love.” 

Even then, when he’s agreeing with you, you find you hesitate before actually accepting his help. Something just feels off about him, always – in some way hidden, with almost everything he does or says. But you have a part to play in whatever his plan in this hospital. The part of his girlfriend, so you take his hand like a girlfriend would and allow him to whisk you to your feet, his pianist’s fingers intertwining again with yours as he leads you through the lobby. Toward a broad, offshooting sunlit hall.

Down one hall, and then another, with your grip squeezing more and more tightly with every step he leads you toward some unknown end; one that might see you both arrested.

“Are you trying to make my fingers go numb?” he finally asks you, and you belatedly realize just how dry your mouth is, how tight you’re squeezing. Struggling to swallow just so you can speak.

“Where are we going?”

He slows a step in glancing at a directory on the wall, before ushering you down another hallway, and at this point if you were asked to escape this maze on your own you’d be too lost to succeed. 

“You’ll see.”

“Or you could just tell me.”

“That’d spoil the surprise. Besides, what did I tell you about constantly questioning me?”

Something changes in his gait, just a hitch, but it’s enough for you to follow his pensive eyes toward a man at the end of the hall; a man who is swiftly approaching. Wearing teal scrubs and surgical booties, and it’s clear he’s in some sort of hurry.

“Speaking of not questioning me…” Brian muses, eyes on the man and his brisk approach. “I promise I’ll make this up to you–”

“Make what up to me?” you already question beneath how he hasn’t stopped talking–

“–but in the meantime just try and trust me with this next part, won’t you darling?–”

And you definitely don’t trust him, that’s maybe the last thing that comes to mind when you think of him, but you don’t have a chance to say that before Brian abruptly pivots the both of you toward the bend of an offshooting hall; effectively slamming the two of you into the man rushing toward you.

The man grunts out in startlement as you choke back a cry of surprise–the brunt of impact tearing your hand from Brian’s, sending you careening to the floor. But before the tile floor can harshly catch you, Brian’s snaked his lengthy arm around your waist; scooping you up against his side again, like a small, baby bird beneath his wing. Coddling you there as though you’re hurt, as though you’re fragile; turning your harried face up to his with a gentle hand steering your cheek while he asks, with such a visage of worry, “Babe, are you alright?”

You blink up at him stupidly. So surprised to see such a convincing show of emotion you still somehow find hard to believe.

Brian searches your expression as though for wounds he might mend, before tossing a vindictive gaze at the frazzled man before you. “What the fuck was that?!”

He’s pissed. You’ve never seen him so irate. And the man in scrubs blinks just as stupidly as you do. His confusion transformed to concern, then shortly shifting till he’s tight and defensive. 

He doesn’t say a thing. Biting back, you soon guess, on arguing with a supposed patient.

“You need to watch where you’re going,” Brian again berates him, and the man at last succeeds in swallowing what seems his objections. 

“‘m… Sorry,” he puts forth gruffly. Like he’s too impatient to mean it; raring to hurry off again. 

Brian’s harsh expression eases just a touch whilst his hand around your waist gives your side a little squeeze, and you can’t deny you don’t exactly mind being this close to him…

“You know what,” he extends at length, exhaling a tautened breath. “...This place is pure chaos. I think we might’ve turned right into you–I’m sorry, man. It’s been a hell of a day.”

The man’s expression loosens somewhat in relief as Brian turns in gently assessing you. “You’re not hurt, are you babe?”

Gods, you hate whatever ingratiating, carebear-tone he’s using. But you roughly swallow down distaste before forcing out flatly, “I’m fine.” Very much hating whatever this supposed plan of his is.

There’s a glisten in his gaze, just for you; lost before he looks to the scrubbed-up man before you again. “You good man?”

The man nods, “Yeah,” clearly in a hurry to see this awkward situation end. And Brian, ever courteous, sweetly sends him on his way.

“Well…” he says, with a smile a touch too clever, his tone a touch too cloy. “Off you go, then~” 

The man’s jaw stiffens, though he doesn’t argue what sarcasm bleeds through Brian’s otherwise kind dismissal. Just biting it all back before bustling off again, weaving his way past the both of you, hurrying once again down the hall.

You glance back over your shoulder, watching and waiting for him to turn out of sight, before raising a glare up at your supposed prince charming. “What the hell, Brian? That hurt. ”

The curve on his lips is devilish. As, with the theatrical flair of a seedy magician, he presents to you a keycard with the scrubbed man’s picture on it.

“Borrowed this from our friend,” he says mischievously.

You kind of want to laugh at how proud he seems about that, but you stuff that down along with how you might be somewhat impressed with how quickly he was able to nab that while also catching you before you hit the ground.

“After throwing me into him,” you grouse instead of applauding him. “Like a human smoke grenade.”

He smiles at your pouting, not even denying it. Cooing in that fake boyfriend voice, “Baby, I said I’d make it up to you.” Regarding you with all the playful craft of the devil himself as you wriggle and twist out from how his arm’s snaked warmly around your middle, creating some much needed distance between yourself and him. 

“You’re the worst boyfriend I’ve ever had,” you sourly comment, to which he charmingly grins. Taking your hand again before you can stop him, steering you closer once more; your naval beneath his own, such is the height of him.

“Oh… Baby…” he croons, like he feels so bad for you. Smiling so dark and sticky and sweet down at whatever your flustered face is doing beneath his. “You haven’t seen anything yet. Our date’s barely begun, and I’m only going to get so much worse.”

Releasing you from the near-fatal enchantment of his grip, he wanders further down the hall without you. Tossing back a little look across one broad shoulder as you just stupidly stand there, too frazzled to move. Hiking a brow expectantly.

“Better hurry up,” he spurs you. “Wouldn’t want our scrubbed-up friend to find you here after realizing his keycard’s walked off all by itself, now would you?”

It’s enough to prompt your reluctance into moving. As, no, you certainly don’t want a stolen keycard being found in either of your possessions.

The further Brian leads you through the hospital’s inner catacombs, the less natural light there is, until there’s no light at all beyond the buzz of fluorescence overhead, washing out everything until your world is stale and lifeless. And as more and more employees brush by, all wearing surgical scrubs, the more querying glances you receive as you’re passing by. Yet still, no one stops you. No one questions beyond a glance. Something about Brian’s confidence stopping them. So it would seem you’re still allowed here.

That is, until you reach a set of heavy, double doors hewn of metal, slotted with miniscule square windows. A dead end, at which Brian flashes his stolen keycard without a moment’s hesitance; completely second nature to breaking in. Holding it flat against the little black box of the doorway’s electronic lock, which beeps and flashes green before those heavy doors drag silently, automatically open.

Stepping through them after Brian, who steals carelessly in, your nerves are met with a wave of cold air as you wrap your arms around yourself to keep from shivering. Trying not to look as apprehensive as you feel, to be inconspicuous. All while Brian skates down these sterile halls like a lizard on ice. Like to pretend is a familiar second skin, perhaps even more familiar than donning the suit of himself. 

He nods you toward a drinking fountain near a pair of wooden doors; one on either side of it. Pausing in ushering you near.

“Now, listen, my lovely pupil,” he says; a flute-playing charmer to his spiteful, sharp-fanged snake. “I doubt our friend has access to the women’s dressing room.” His voice falls to a low, gentle murmur as some type of surgeon walks by, though it doesn’t stop him from continuing. “And loathe as I am to leave you fidgeting in the hallway by yourself, potential mishap that you are, I need to fetch us our costumes.”

Your gaze darts nervously about. “Is all this really necessary?”

There’s no way this is necessary.

His eyes are on the passing surgeon’s back as he gently takes your upper arm, guiding you into that little crook within the wall which houses the doors and fountain, before he steals a glance about yourselves ensuring you’re alone.

“All these questions,” he lours, his deliberation back on you. “Sit. Stay. I’ll be right back–try not to miss me too much.”

You’re left to insipidly grumble, “Wouldn’t dream of it,” as he leaves to scan his keycard at the door for the men’s dressing room. Though he twists a clever grin across one shoulder before he departs.

“Oh, I think you might.”

You don’t have time to bite back with something witty before he’s gone, and he’s gone for much longer than you expected or are at all comfortable with, preferring to’ve never been dragged in and ditched here at all. Left with pretending to get a drink every time someone busily passes so they can’t see how out of place you probably look. Unable to come up with any clever reason for why you should be here, in what you guess is the OR. If anyone asked what you’re doing, if you work here, you’d have no way to prove whatever lie you’d spin that you do.

You’re about halfway convinced to just ditch this handsome fuck to whatever devilry he’s up to while you instead hide in the car, when the door he passed through is suddenly opened, and with a sharp glance at the sound of it beside you, you almost don’t recognize him.

He’s wearing cerulean surgical scrubs, which billow yet somehow accentuate his tall, leanly muscled frame. Sky-hued booties are tugged over his overly expensive shoes. A laptop-sized black bag beneath one arm, which you assume was thefted from some poor someone in the dressing room, the bulk of it stowed with something. And you can’t help but stare as he ties on the blue surgical cap around his messy web of curls, the jawline-lengths of which stick out at mussied angles. Because it's kinda dorky, but also kinda…

Cute. 

Okay? 

He’s fucking adorable right now. 

And you stuff away your thoughts on this disastrous fact as you can’t help but gobble down an unhealthy eyeful of him, before staring at the wall as though its blank canvas is the most fascinating thing you’ve ever seen.

He seems to take a moment to remember you’re even there. Though eventually he’s raised a brow at whatever your face is doing. 

Luckily, he doesn't further question whatever your discomfited expression.

“C’mon,” he says, leading your way down the hall. “Need to find you a place to get dressed.”

A small frown tightens your lips before you’re hurrying after him. “Why can’t I get dressed in the bathroom?”

“They’re attached to the dressing rooms,” he explains as you bustle to reach him. “I’m afraid we’ll have to get a bit more creative than that.”

Great.

Wandering through those chilled, barren halls, you try not to steal too many glances through the tiny windows of each operating room you pass, not wanting to look any more like a tourist. Morbid curiosity having you catch a few glimpse of surgical teams surrounding unconscious patients; short tapestries of teal and white and red.

Brian tries his keycard at a door opposite the rows of operating rooms, which flashes red, before he’s fluidly moved on to the next, which lightly beeps as he’s allowed entrance.

He sidles in just a step; gazing up, glancing down. And as you shift forth alongside him, you see a poorly lit stairway that seems a constructional afterthought. Quiet, empty, cavernous.

With a satisfied hum, Brian gives a small nod in motioning you follow him in. Leading your way down the stairs to a small, center platform. Both your footsteps echoing for many flights up and down this towering room, and the door feels to slam behind you with how hushed it is in here. And though you’re not exactly enthused at the idea of getting undressed in here, you suppose it's better than nothing, and does seem relatively unused.

Brian’s already shuffling through his leather bag as you meet him on the center platform, and he’s shortly offering you a pile of pilfered clothes the same color as his.

“Scrub up, doctor,” he says, with a playful lilt. “We’re expected in surgery.”

Though as you take the costume he presents, waiting for him to look away so you can do just that, you find he doesn’t move. Doesn’t turn from how you slowly, cynically eye him by even an inch. Appearing more expectant with every second, perhaps just as expectant as you, though clearly you’re expecting different things.

“Are you going to turn around?” you finally ask him.

His smirk’s so slight you barely notice it teased upon the softness of his lips. 

“What,” he says, like he’s harmless. “I’m surveying the scene. Making sure no one stumbles across you with your pants down. You’d probably tangle them ‘round your ankles and fall right on your face if that happened.” His handsome face dons a mockery of concern. “I’m protecting you.”

Heat rises up your cheeks. “Go survey the scene somewhere else!”

You’re both at once distracted by the sound of a door opening high above you, both your gazes jerking up as it sounds to creak open, then heavily shut. Echoing about these vacant halls without anyone actually sounding to step in. And after moments of you both still and silent, tautly listening in ensuring you’re still alone, Brian finally looks back down at you.

“Relax, will you?” he states. Grabbing the loopholes of your jeans; tugging you just a step closer as your eyes grow all wavery and big. 

Words are honey on his tongue as he asks, “If I turn around will you stop being such a baby about this?”

You bite your lip, hard, before grousing up at him, “Let go of me before I pull my gun.”

It might’ve been a joke, if you didn’t sound so serious. And though you’re not sure how a gunshot going off at Jackson Memorial is the best way to continue laying low, you could scrounge together some story of how you followed someone you suspected might be the Ice Truck Killer into this very stairwell, if you had to. Of how you had to kill that certain someone in defending yourself.

His expression doesn’t change as he seems to weigh your words, the possibility within them. The merest glint, like sun on black ice, reflected from the recesses of his ebony gaze.

“So touchy,” he slowly remarks, before eventually releasing you. Finally turning away; broad shoulders and slender waist facing the wall opposite you. “Hurry up.” And you take full advantage of the absence of his dangerous gaze to change your clothes as quickly as you can–shedding your pants down hasty legs, wriggling into the lower half of your scrubs and tying them round your waist. 

It isn’t ‘till you have your top pulled up over your head, bra fully in view, that Brian speaks again.

“You need to learn to loosen up, detective,” he says to the empty space before him. “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.”

“Don’t quote James Howell at me,” you say, tossing your discarded shirt on the dirty floor before slipping the teal one over your head. 

He sighs. “Can I do anything without you being a bitch about it?”

When he glances back at you, it’s lucky for him you’re fully dressed, seeing as otherwise you would have slapped him. And you despise how your cheeks start to burn as his dark eyes trace over you, slowly down your form, stirring unwanted heat in their wake. As slowly, slowly, they fall to the bulk of your gun, tucked awkwardly beneath the waistband of your pants.

Eventually, his eyes return to yours. Somewhat playful as he asks, “Is that a gun in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?”

“The gun one,” you return without pause. “I’m not happy. Not to see you. Any more questions?”

He merely raises his brows like one might to an ill-behaved child. “You can’t bring that; it’s completely obvious you’re carrying. Someone will notice.” He offers his hand, nodding toward the clothes on the floor. “Give me your clothes,” he says softly. “And the gun.” He says it like an afterthought, but his eyes are intently on yours. “I’ll hold onto them for the time being.”

Yeah fucking right.

There’s no way you’re letting this wolf in sheep’s clothing disarm you.

“Not happening.”

His handsome smile transforms to something else. Something with less warmth reflected on it, though still genteel enough. “You're going to get us thrown into hospital prison,” he mildly jests, before adding more carefully, “Don’t make me take it from you…”

You're not even sure it’s a threat. It could just as easily be him joking. It’s impossible to tell with him, or with any beast who doesn’t bare its teeth before lunging.

You thumb up the hem of your shirt in snaking your fingers round your Glock’s grip. 

“How about I hold onto the gun,” you plainly suggest, “and you lead us the fuck on so we can get what we need and get out of here, hm?”

His gaze is a shadow. Something lurking in ice-carved trees, a prowling aura you cannot see through darkness. But eventually, that snow settles with the seeming warmth of his smile. The corners of his eyes gently creased.

“Can’t wait to see you on stage tonight,” he says. Giving you a courteous amount of distance as he’s smooth to brush right past how you warily watch him. Heading back up those steps toward the door you came in, taking them easily two at a time. “At this rate, you’re bound to give quite the performance.”

He lazily scans the keycard at the electronic lock pad near the door, which gains you access once more to the OR.

“After you, little killer,” he says; hands slipped nonchalantly in the pockets of his surgical pants as he leans back on the opened door in holding it open, carefully regarding you as you remain for a moment down the steps. 

His eyes never leave yours as you dip down to grab your clothes off the floor in stiff, wary hands. As you make your way slowly up after him, impatiently tucking away your hair within the sheer, blue hairnet he’d previously bequeathed you.

One lithesome hand is offered at your approach, to which you hand over your clothes, and you assume he stuffs them away inside his bag before following after you as you hurry out into the hall, anxious to have him too close at heel.

His prowling, lengthy steps easily catch up to you, and it’s clear you could never outrun him.

“This way,” he says, before leading you further down the hall. Mildly checking what lie past the windows of a few doors, while a surgeon and anesthesiologist pass making small talk. He pays them no mind, while you avert your gaze nervously, until at last he’s humming out a little, “Ah… Here we are.” Flashing his stolen card at a door which obediently chirps and pops open at his request, and he holds its way open for you.

“Ladies first,” he says, with the watchfulness of a wolf.

You wish you could grab your gun as you pass him, but you’ve made it this far without being caught, so you just swallow your never-ending nerves and hurry past him. Hearing his low, throated chuckle right behind you as he follows you in.

Even that drags its claws down your nape, leaving trickling trails of gooseflesh down your skin that tingle and tease until you haphazardly paw them off you.

You wander into some sort of sterile supply room; one with several operating rooms attached to it, divided off by heavy doors. Rows and rows of metal, rolling carts with shelving are laid out before you, along with white cabinets lining each wall.

Brian wanders in past how you stand there uncertainly like he owns the place. Like he’s been here before, though he hasn’t. Or, at least you don’t think he has. It’s impossible to tell with him; he's a night-drenched enigma.

He tugs open one metal drawer, which rolls fluidly forth, before he’s swiftly closing and opening another.

“Tell me if you see any hardware,” he says as his eyes take quick inventory of everything he sees. “Saws, drills–that sort of thing.” Pausing just a blip to regard how you’re just standing there instead of obeying your murderous shepherd, instead wavering in place, not knowing what to do. “Go on,” he spurs, the patient teacher. “Get looking.”

You glance around the cold, fluorescent quiet, before questioning in a whisper, “What if someone comes in here?”

“What if someone comes in here?” he returns, rather dull. Already focused once more on the hunt. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed this, but you look like a surgical tech. That was kind of the whole point. Just tell them you’re looking for saline flushes or a bag of dextrose or something.”

Saline flushes or dextrose?

…How many times has he done this before?

Cautiously, you get to searching, seeing no quicker way of seeing this perilous mission through. Unable to stop how you furtively glance around the too-bright silence at every little noise that isn’t Brian searching through drawers several shelves before you.

“Are you so familiar with this because you’ve worked in a hospital before?” you ask to distract from your nerves. “Or because you’ve made a habit of breaking into surgical units?”

You hear him slide closed a drawer and stride toward another. Completely heedless to the fully scrubbed male nurse who suddenly pushes into the room from one of the attached operating rooms.

The nurse glances at you both, before fetching a vial with a red lid from a cabinet right beside Brian. Walking back out again while you watch after him in anxious paranoia, and Brian seems not to notice him at all.

“Do I have to choose?” he muses, nonchalant, before exhaling a low and exclamative, “Ah- hah~ ”

You suppose he’s hit the jackpot, thank god–and, closing the cabinet you were sifting edgily through, you make your way over to see what he’s so happy about. Spotting him spare a short glance about before stuffing some sort of… is that a saw? –inside his opened bag.

He smiles at your questioning look.

“Oscillating orthopedic bone saw,” he explains, as though answering what you’ve failed to ask. As if that will suddenly make sense to you, when you still have no idea what an oscillating orthopedic bone saw is other than it’ll obviously make quick work of dicing marrow.

Why he couldn’t just use a regular saw for that, you fail to grasp. Then again, there’s apparently far more types of saws in this world than you’d ever realized before your adventures today. 

You see him grab a few scalpels. Some forceps of various size, along with some different metallic contraptions. One of which especially appears like some kind of torture device, and you expressely don’t question what it’s all for.

But he’s not done yet; by all accounts not having stealthed all this way just for nothing. He bags another sort of saw, like a thick wand with a small, circular blade at its fore, and something else you barely see beyond the tail of its electrical plug, before buckling closed his bag at last.

“I think we’re all done here,” he says. Motioning with his dark-scruffed, angular jaw back toward the door you came in. As if this endeavor was all so damn casual and not potentially life altering. “C’mon.” 

Your heart’s a skipping drum; your path from the hospital a restless dream. Neither one of you really talking as you follow him making his way so apathetically out of the hospital’s surgical unit. 

It isn’t until you’re out of the OR that he makes what you assume is the allusion of small talk whilst the both of you retrace your steps through this sprawling maze, which you do your best to keep up with as though not anxious at all about the slew of stolen medical gear you’ve got currently stashed away. And about halfway back to the gift shop (you think, such is your lack of direction), he nods you off to a patient bathroom to change, while he saunters off to do likewise.

You throw your scrubs in the trash, not knowing what else to do with them. Adopting once more your role of twitterpated girlfriend as he holds your hand and guides you, while you ignore how much comfort you draw from his touch. And by the time you’ve both finally breached the hospital’s doors, are tucked safely within the confines of his candy-red car once more, you’re so relieved you’re nearly giddy.

“Fuck I never want to do that again,” you exhale, while he gives you that little look you suspect is once more questioning why you’re such a headache about everything, which you promptly ignore. “Alright, drop me back off at my car.”

“Not yet,” he returns. Smirking at your incredulous glance. “We've still got some time to kill, amongst other things…” Gods, he thinks he’s so clever, doesn’t he? “And this isn’t a proper date if I don’t take you out to dinner before our show.”

Your stomach clenches at the mere mention of food, whilst he starts up the car beside you. “I’m not hungry, and this isn’t a date.”

“Oh, c’mon,” he says, lighthearted. “You can’t work on an empty stomach.”

“That’s precisely how I’d like to work tonight, thanks.”

“Why?” he asks, far too coy. “Afraid you might lose your dinner?”

Yes.

“No.”

A smile slowly spreads across his face as he shifts the car out of park; eyes on the road. “I know just the place. Reclusive. Romantic. ”

You feel yourself sinking lower in your seat as you stare desperately out the window.

Just what you need….

More time alone with this annoyingly good-looking freak.

“Fine,” you say flatly, but he lowers his lashes like that’s the most romantic thing.

“Are you always this in love with me?”

“I told you I’m not hungry.”

“Then you can watch me eat,” he returns, promptly ignoring your complaints. “I’m starving .”

The sun’s just beginning to set, molten hues burned against palm tree skyline, as Brian pulls into an alley lot beside some warmly lit restaurant and bar you’ve never heard of. The car wheels rumbling across old, cracking asphalt, before he weaves into a spot. Shifting his expensive car into park before getting out, and you sit there–tensely, silently debating in that war within yourself–deciding if you should just refuse to follow him on inside, only to jump as your door is abruptly opened for you.

How does he keep sneaking up on you like that?!

Lofting from on high, Brian offers you his hand, and he’s really going in hard on the date angle, isn’t he?

“Madam?”

Yeah. He really is. And he looks so cheeky about it, too.

But you just unbuckle your seatbelt and take his offered hand; adopting his beguiled tone as he helps you to your feet. “Thank you, darling.”

There’s the smallest blip before his smile spreads wider, showing teeth. 

It’s so disarming when he smiles like that. Like he actually means it.

“C’mon,” he says, good-natured. Ushering you on his arm through the dim-lit alley, out to where the front of the small establishment is radiating warmth and low, Cuban music. Its walkway strung rafters-to-lamp posts with strands of fairy lights that dazzle against the oncoming night. Muted laughs and clinking glasses gliding out into the night from inside.

It’s homey, this place. Like a hole in the wall where everyone’s a regular, and you just know the food is worthy of licking your plate. But it’s hard to enjoy the comfortable, intimate ambiance when it’s the Ice Truck Killer leading you toward the elderly hostess who pleasantly greets you both; who leads you toward a secluded corner of the room, to a booth procured for you at Brian’s request.

He doesn’t glance at the menu as he slides in opposite you, one arm spread along the ruby-pillow backrest of the seat you share, curved as it is around the darkwood table. “Ready to order when you are.”

You pick up the menu as if it might contaminate you, the idea of food so presently revolting. “I take it you eat here a lot?”

“You’d be hard pressed to find better Cuban food,” he says. “The pollo sofrito’s good if you’re in the mood for chicken.”

You never thought a wanted serial killer would be so casually recommending you meals like it were the daily special. And you don’t want to order a thing. But when the waiter arrives and Brian orders two pork cubano’s (guess he really is starving), you just read the first thing off the menu you see, not really registering what it even is.

It takes a long moment to notice the way Brian’s cleverly smiling at you across the table.

“What?” you ask, but he only shrugs. Arm still comfortably outstretched along the curving seat’s backrest.

“Nothing.”

Yeah fucking right he’s thinking nothing. You’re starting to suspect this man is always scheming. But instead of calling him out on it, you find you’d rather pick his labyrinthine brain about something else. Something you’re surprised you’re so curious about, the more it presses upon your mind, though you don’t know fully why. It shouldn’t matter, but somehow…

You’re just curious.

“Can I ask you something?” you wonder across the table, and he quirks a raven brow in your direction.

“Seems to me you already are.”

It’s enough of an invitation.

Still, you uncomfortably rub your arm. Tuck away a strand of hair to steady yourself, before pressing onward. All while he watches you with what seems a gentle, mounting interest.

“I barely knew who you were,” you say, “before… Well…” 

Before you were branded as the ‘Ice Truck Killer’.

You glance around, as if someone might be listening, might be privy to even your thoughts. Brian, meanwhile, doesn’t shift an inch from how his focus lies on you. And when at last your eyes return to his, it feels his own have never left you.

“I was at the hospital when Tony Tucci was fitted with the prosthetic you made him,” you say, in a slightly more hushed tone. Just in case someone might hear you, though you must admit Brian chose this table advantageously for a pair of would-be executioners like yourselves. “The grand reveal party, or whatever that was.”

His interest is visibly piqued; the curve of his rounded lips twitched in thought. “You were…? Huh… I don’t often forget a face.”

“I was only there for a few minutes,” you say, “and we never spoke.” Watching him closely as you add, “I saw you flirting up Deb, though.”

You pause, not sure if you’re waiting for him to respond to this, but he doesn't say a thing. And for a while, neither do you. The two of you merely observing one another from across the silent table. Attempting to peer inside one another, it would seem; to glean what secrets one’s words would keep out of reach.

“You guys seemed so cute together,” you murmur at length. 

His expression doesn’t change. He doesn’t comment, doesn’t deny, doesn’t agree with you. 

So you continue; left with no other recourse than to do so. 

“Was any of that real?”

Far-off dinnerware clatters lightly outside your mutual intensity. The soft chatter of restaurant patrons mingled with the low hum of Cuban music, drifting slowly past your ears. And it’s all you can hear for a while, as the man before you remains in watchful silence.

Eventually, he scarcely inclines his head.

“Not even remotely,” he says, with such bare conviction you find it hard to doubt his words are true. “She was a means to an end. Nothing more.”

Still, some part of you doesn’t believe that. Doesn’t want to believe that. You saw how much Deb loved him. What his betrayal put her through. Hell, she was engaged to the murderous bastard–was never the same after meeting him. 

He didn’t care at all for her? Not even in the slightest, most incomprehensible way?

“Why?” you ask, instead of denying what he’s told you. 

He barely moves. Scarcely appears to even breathe in how he watches you. “Why what?” 

Worrying the inside of your lower lip, you try again. Aren’t sure why this is even hard for you to word. “Why… How… How could you not care about her…? With how much she cared about you? She was completely in love with you.”

As you wait for him to respond, his expression slowly tilts into a frown. 

“She didn’t care about me,” he lowly says. “She cared about Rudy. A man who doesn’t exist. She cared for a ghost, whilst despising the animal hidden inside myself. The only thing she loved was my leash; the bars of my cage, and I don’t like hiding inside it.” His umber eyes trace across your expression. Calm. Unreadable. “I don’t want Dexter to hide, either. Nor you. Why lie to ourselves about what we are? It goes against the laws of nature.”

Some shade of discomfort, something sinister and tight, creeps up along your nape upon him placing you in the same league as he and Dexter.

“I’m not like you,” you faintly protest, and he smiles; a cruel, bare curve.

“Sure you’re not.”

You don’t know why that ties so many strings inside you, wrenching them all into knots. And as the food arrives, with you and Brian accepting your plates in polar opposite displays of enthusiasm, you’re still hopelessly unsettled. Toying with the pasta you apparently ordered, far from anything resembling hungry, while Brian picks up one pork cubano and eats in giant, animalistic bites like a man half starved, and if there was ever any reason to doubt he was a relative of Dexter, seeing him eat was all the proof you needed–better than a DNA test.

“You know,” he muses between wolfish bites, undisturbed by your previous conversation. “You keep saying you have to kill this guy.”

“I do,” you mull at the table, stirring your directionless fork across your plate, before glancing up at him. Seeing his dark brows lightly pinch for a moment.

“Why?”

For a moment, you can’t even register the question; confused, and surprised as you are that he’s asking. He’s always professed he didn’t care.

But now that he is asking, you’re hesitant to explain. Not wanting to relive what makes you see that vicious, unforgiving red; that makes you hollow and hateful and nothing else. 

You don’t want to talk about it. But words are already falling from your lips.

“My nephew is the cutest kid,” you say, sounding very far away to yourself. Still stirring noodles you no longer seem to see. “She’s six. Ava. Quirky in this dorky, fun-loving way.” Your little smile at the thought of her fades. “Honest. Trusting.”

Too trusting; you push the thought away. Try to focus past that red which already bleeds along the edges of your vision, poisons your every heartbeat until you can hardly think.

“Her mom, my sister,she… She’s a single mom. Always working. And I can’t babysit as much as I’d like.”

Your fork stops stirring; words ashen in your mouth. And you can’t seem to go on. Lost in a void of yourself.

In your silence, Brian’s nothing if not perceptive.

“What’d the babysitter do?” he quietly asks.

Your eyes flit up to him. Hand numb around your fork. 

You don’t want to think about it. Not until tonight.

“Does it matter?”

“Seems to matter to you,” he calmly returns; dark eyes never leaving you.

There’s a stone in your chest where your heart once lived. A foreign, ugly thing that doesn’t belong there.

“I found out he was… redefining the meaning of ‘story time’,” you hear yourself say, unwilling to go into detail. Such vile disgust raising its hands round your throat, smothering you, that feels like they could at any moment consume you. “Turned it into a game she didn’t like. One where he took all her clothes off...”

You’ve already said too much you don’t want to think about; you won’t continue. And Brian, ever watchful, doesn’t press for more. Though, after moments of dragging silence…

“You’re a cop,” he says. Hushed, yet quite bluntly. “And you and Dexter have been planning tonight for... what? Two weeks?” His expression is carefully unmoved. “Why didn’t you just arrest him?”

It’s like he already knows the answer. Just wants to hear you say it out loud. And though you’re loath to give him what he wants…

“Because I broke into his house, instead,” you find yourself admitting. 

Brian’s eyes are hawk-like. Perceptive to your every shift in expression. “Were you armed?”

You don't immediately answer. Or really answer him at all.

“It doesn’t matter,” you say. “He wasn’t home. But I found a bunch of hard drives under one of his floorboards while I waited for him.” You’re surprised your lip doesn’t bleed with how harshly you bite the inside of it. “One had my nephew’s name on it.”

You don’t know when you dropped your fork, only that you’re no longer holding it, and as you glare at the table it feels your jaw might snap.

“Turning him in is too good for him,” you murmur, so lowly you almost can’t hear how every word’s afflicted by hate. “I want that bastard dead. I want to feel the life stripped from his pathetic body, piece by excruciating piece. Want to hear as he chokes and sobs and gags and begs for mercy he never gave, and make him feel all those terrible things he made all of those little girls feel, and then I want to personally ship what’s left of him to hell.”

You stare at the table for a long time. So long you forget where you are, who you’re here with. And when again you look at Brian, it feels his study never left. Remaining ever-watchful as he takes another giant bite of sandwich.

It’s almost funny how he can eat at a time like this. There’s no way, in this moment, you could register what hunger even is.

“The belt sander’s starting to make a lot more sense now,” he remarks between hungry bites. 

He’s so calm…

You should stay calm, too. Like he is. You’ll have to be in order to get through what you’re going to do tonight. But even knowing this, it still takes substantial effort to somehow shake yourself from this ugly beast that’s crawled inside you. To shed its cruelly comforting skin and continue being human, instead of whatever vicious creature it would see you transformed to.

He seems to notice you struggling, or perhaps he’s just bored of your strangled silence. Either way, he swallows his next famished bite before you feel him reach beneath the table. His fingers just barely brushed across one of your knees, soft across the fabric of your jeans.

It makes you jump, not expecting his sudden touch; your eyes darting sharply up to his.

He smiles slightly to receive such rapt attention.

“Don’t worry,” he says. And you find the stillness of him, the firmness, oddly soothing. Infecting your nerves and rewiring them into something more at ease. “He may not know it yet, but his road to hell is coming.” Slowly, he smiles as he watches you. “So long as you don’t chicken out on me, that is.”

For a moment, you can only stare. But gradually, his taunting scratches through that stifling weight which feels to press on your every surface, until you don’t know whether to cry or laugh, to scream or scoff or slap him, it’s all so overwhelming. But in the end, you’re somehow smiling, just like him. Its barest curve a mirror of his own.

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” you venture softly. “Seeing me fail. Watching what happens.”

You’re surprised when he doesn’t immediately agree. And you can’t deny in him a sort of avid curiosity. A sort of hunger. A primal thirst, as he eyes you quietly from across the table.

“Not as much as I’d enjoy watching you work,” he says at last.

There’s only you and him. This room, it’s noise, it’s chaos–all of it sinks away, far and deep into a void, until there’s nothing left. And all you see is Brian, watching you like that from across the table. And all he seems to see–right now, and since first sitting–is you.

[kometqh]

𝐄𝐦𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐥𝐝 𝐂𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧

𝐅𝐢𝐧𝐧𝐢𝐜𝐤 𝐎𝐝𝐚𝐢𝐫 𝐗 𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫 (fem reader) 𝟓𝐤 𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐝𝐬 𝐖𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬: 𝐍𝐨𝐧𝐞, 𝐩𝐭.𝟐 𝐈𝐭'𝐬 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐥𝐚𝐬𝐭 𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐩𝐢𝐧𝐠. 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐥𝐚𝐬𝐭 𝐲𝐞𝐚𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐲𝐨𝐮'𝐥𝐥 𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐠𝐨 𝐭𝐡𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐝-𝐧𝐮𝐦𝐛𝐢𝐧𝐠, 𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐭-𝐰𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠 ,𝐟𝐞𝐚𝐫-𝐢𝐧𝐜𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐝𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐡 𝐥𝐨𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐲. 𝐘𝐨𝐮'𝐫𝐞 𝐡𝐨𝐩𝐞𝐟𝐮𝐥, 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐬𝐨 𝐢𝐬 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐛𝐞𝐬𝐭 𝐟𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐝, 𝐀𝐧𝐧𝐢𝐞 𝐂𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐚. 𝐘𝐨𝐮'𝐯𝐞 𝐬𝐮𝐫𝐯𝐢𝐯𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐥𝐚𝐬𝐭 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐩𝐥𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐩𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬, 𝐬𝐨 𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝 𝐠𝐨 𝐰𝐫𝐨𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐲𝐞𝐚𝐫?

Tugging at my hair, the wind brushed past me in a hurry. It came from far away, seemingly always looking for something, never being able to find it. Paired with the wind, a steady but small wave washed up against the shoreline, the thinnest part of the wave just barely scraping my feet.

I looked up at the sky. It was partly clouded, but beautiful nethertheless. The sun was just barely breaking through the horizon, casting gentle light across the beach. It mixed with the blue sky and formed a rose-pink colour across the clouds, the shore and the sea. Was it always so beautiful here? 

I shook my head, casting my gaze to the side, my eyes landing on a lone boulder which sat in the water. The exterior was decorated by lavish long seaweed and a cluster of barnacles. It sat proudly in the water, the waves crashing against it every so often, sprays of water flying into the air. It was a pretty sight. Almost pretty enough to distract me from the anxiety tugging at my heart.

A sliver of water touched my feet, before being dragged back to the sea.

Today is my last year of reaping. Today is the day that decides whether I'll be free for the rest of my life, or whether I will die fighting for my life in a gruesome bloodbath.

Though in this context, freedom isn't exactly what one might think it is. Nobody is ever truly free in Panem.

Someone like me would not survive in any of the arenas we've seen so far. I can barely handle killing a fish, let alone an entire human being, a child. I can feel a shiver travel down my spine, and I shake my head, casting those thoughts aside. Nothing will happen, I think to myself, and continue to look at the splashing waves, hypnotised by the rhythmic back-and-forth movement, accompanied by occasional licks of water against the tips of my feet, which have found respite in the sand.

With a sigh, I lean back on my elbows. Squinting slightly, I observe the clouds. None have any particular shape to them, but it feels comforting to stare at them as they move. Would I get to see them in an arena? I don't think so.

Time passed by rather quickly. When you lay on a beach with no form of watch or clock, a minute can quickly become an hour. And before I knew it, I began to notice some small boats setting out into the sea, as the sun slowly climbed up higher into the sky. It must be what...7am? Maybe 8. That's usually when people wake up to go fishing, since the waters are calmer in the morning.

With a sigh, I begin to think of the day ahead. It is mandatory to attend the reaping. If one doesn't, they'll be dragged out of their homes, whipped in the town square, and then forced to watch. I sigh heavily, fingers digging into the sand beneath me, and with a light shake of my head, I reluctantly heave myself up and off the sand, heading towards the treeline.

Nobody really ventures into the wooden forest, in fear of the peacekeepers that guard the borders of District 4. Although I learned very quickly that they're further out than one might think, many citizens of District 4 have no interest in venturing out, believing that there isn't much out there to be seen in the first place.

But not me.

When I was much younger, I'd often run into the forest to go exploring. There aren't many dangerous animals in there, so nobody would worry unless I haven't returned by the evening.

On one of those adventures, I had discovered a bunch of rock pools. Now that may not sound fantastic, but it was. I saw big animals, at the time I wasn't sure what they were, but now I do - they were seals. All bearing different kinds of fluffy coats of fur, ranging from pure white, to a spotty grey, brown and black. 

After that day, I'd always return at least once a week to observe them from afar. I don't know much about them, and I'd prefer to minimise the risk of being mauled by an animal. But each year, I'd see small seal pups, sunbathing around the rock pools, chasing each other over the expanse of the beach, or cuddling up to their mothers.

Other times, when the seals weren't there, I'd venture further out, playing around the rock pools, observing the little creatures stuck in them. Sometimes there'd be small crabs hiding in crevices, other times there'd be small fish swimming endlessly in circles. 

I'd sit there each day, staring at and observing the different animals, until I'd look up and realise I've overstayed my welcome. On one particular day, I walked around the beach for so long, mesmerised by the waves, gazing at the stars in the sky, that I hadn't noticed it was dark. Upon realising it I had hurried back home, still in a daze, but it was already pitch black by the time I returned, and I had gotten the biggest scolding from my mother, asking where I've been. She was quick to ground me, and I wasn't allowed out of other people's sight for almost two weeks.

Annie Cresta, my best friend, had repetitively asked where I went that day, but I never uttered a word of it to her, only insisting that I had been diving too far from the shore. I've been friends with her for years now, practically since we were in diapers.

A long time ago, we'd go out swimming together in the kelp forests near our homes, they were far away from the main area of fishing, but close enough for adults to not worry. We'd often see sea otters swimming around the kelp, but they stayed far from us. Me and Annie would often follow the otters, as they knew where to get Abalone from. But after each return home, we'd be scolded by our mothers, who insisted we had to stop if we didn't want to get into trouble.

I guess finding abalone and bringing it home without the permission of the authorities counts as poaching.

We'd sometimes share some with other families of trusted friends, but mostly Finnick Odair's family, who were just as close to us.

Anyway, I'm not willing to disclose information about the beach, or the animals, to anybody. Not even my long-time crush, Finnick, the boy with sea-green eyes. I've had a crush on him for years now, but his eyes were always on Annie. I can see why, their personalities match so well, Finnick's confidence and caring nature complements Annie's shy and anxious one. I'm just the third wheel whenever all three of us are together, but I guess I don't mind.

I'll find the right one eventually, I hope.

Too deep in my thoughts, I had failed to realise that there was a low lying tree branch ahead of me. And looking up too late, I walked face first into it. The pain struck me all at once, and I swear I heard a tiny 'crunch'.

"Ah! Fuck! Fuck fuck fuck!" I shouted, hissing in pain. "Stupid branch! Why is it even there?!" I shouted at no one in particular, holding onto my nose tightly. I slowly let go, feeling the burning pain flare up on my skin like a smouldering flame, and then I felt it. The steady flow of blood. It was everywhere. My face, lips, my hands, even my clothes. Who knew a human nose could bleed so much? I looked over myself, crying out at the state of my shirt.

I have to get home, I thought. With quick, long strides, I soon found myself walking through the front door of my house, being greeted by my mother standing in the kitchen, preparing our clothes for the reaping. "I'm home." I said loudly, my tone laced with annoyance, I stepped in and shut the door behind me, walking into the kitchen, still holding tightly onto my nose.

My mother turned her head to greet me with a smile, but that smile quickly disappeared at the sight of me.

Her face paled and her eyes widened in shock, mouth falling agape as a worried yelp left her lips. "What happened to you dear?!" She screamed, dropping everything mid sentence as she made her way over to me.

I rolled my eyes, sighing loudly. "I walked into a tree branch." I muttered under my breath, my shoulders slumping in defeat.

My mother laughed at me, all of the initial worry dissipating from her body. "Really?" She asked in disbelief, howling in laughter, holding her stomach. After two minutes of her laughing, she finally calmed down enough to take a look at my injury, deciding that some cold, wet rag will be enough to soothe both the swelling and the pain. "Annie will be laughing just as much as you, I bet," I said as I walked over to the tap, turning it on, "'Y/n you're so clumsy!'" I mocked her voice, groaning in anticipation of that knock on the front door, awaiting my closest friend to come and retrieve me. I began to wipe the blood off my face and hands with some water, using a towel to dry off after.

Early this year me and Annie had decided to go to our last reaping together. We had both turned 18, and so it would be the last year that our names would be put into that glass bowl. We were ecstatic over it, but at the same time terrified. This was the last year, but what if one of our names gets pulled out? We're both anticipating it, and praying at the same time that it won't happen. It would be devastating, and I don't believe that either of us are prepared to face 23 other tributes in the arena, let alone kill any of them.

But putting those thoughts aside, I decided to focus on the present. I had managed to drown out my mother's voice, but when I tuned in, I realised she was talking about the dress I'll be wearing. It was a sundress, in the faintest colour of royal blue possible, with a frilled, off-white hem. "I wore it years ago, at my very last reaping too," My mother spoke, her hands lovingly gliding over the faded fabric, "I was told that all the boys looked at me that day." She laughed at the memory, now gently holding the dress by the straps, pressing it against my body. "Hold it, dear."

My hands gently held the dress, and I looked down at myself, my eyes widening in shock as I looked over the intricate designs scattered across the expanse of the dress - sunflowers graced the fabric, painted in the faded blue, overlapping each other.

"Go, try it on dear." My mother said, ushering me to my room, "I'll do your hair after, okay?" She said, and shut the door on me before any words could form at the tip of my tongue.

I shook my head with a small smile, setting the fabric down onto my bed. I turned away, beginning to strip out of my blood-tattered t-shirt, discarding it to a dark corner of my room, my shorts and socks following in tow. I walked a few steps over to a large cracked mirror. It leaned proudly against the wall, reflecting the bright sunrays that made their way into my room.

How many hours has it been?

I looked myself over, turning from one side to another, observing. If my name was to be called out...Would I even have a chance in the arena? Most of the kids that are chosen are frail and skinny, others are fit and healthy, and others are strong and tall. Which category did I belong to? With a loud sigh, I moved away from the mirror and back to my bed, where the beautiful dress laid. I looked over it, staring intensely. The sound of birds chirping in the distance, the gentle breeze coming in through my window, and the smell of the sea all invaded my senses at once. I love this place - no matter how difficult life may be. I'll always have some form of a safe place in District 4. If only the circumstances were different, maybe I'd be able to-

"What are you doing?" A voice asked, ripping me out of my thoughts. I slowly looked over to the person, my eyes going first as my head followed suit. It wasn't Annie, nor was it my mother or sister.

"Finnick?! Look away!" I shouted, grabbing the dress, covering myself up. Maybe I did have a crush on him, but that didn't mean I would happily expose myself. "It's not like you've got something I haven't seen already!" Finnick laughed, a wide amused grin gracing his lips, exposing his pearly white teeth. Though in my embarrassment, I failed to hear the dark undertone in his voice. "I don't care! You don't just invade in on my privacy like this!" I said, chucking one of my pillows at him. "Alright, alright! I'll cover my eyes! Is that good enough?" He asked, a tint of amusement still lacing his voice, but the genuineness was unmistakeable.

"Fine. What did you want anyway?" I asked, slipping the dress on as my eyes focused on him like a hawk, making sure his eyes were covered.

"Just came to say good luck, since y'know, it's your last year of reaping." He said, smiling at me as his hands covered his eyes. I smiled with a huff, and smoothened the dress out over myself. The end of it just about reached my knees, but the material was stretchy enough if I needed it to be. I walked over to my mirror, stunned at how it complimented my skin tone, and looked over myself, turning from side to side, completely forgetting that Finnick was even there for a moment. 

"Can I look now?" He asked, his voice so smooth and gentle it made my heart flutter. "Yes, go for it." I said, walking over to him. 

"How do I look?" I asked, giving him a small twirl. The end of the dress seemed to flow in the air like a jellyfish, the beautiful blue turning almost into a gentle wave, rising slightly before it dropped as I came to a stop.

I looked up to Finnick, searching for a reply, but there wasn't any. He simply stood there, silently watching, but his eyes were slightly widened. I cleared my throat, snapping my fingers near his face. "You look great, I'm sure any guy you want will chase after you after seeing this." He said, almost breathless but still confident, a smirk gracing his lips as he looked me up and down through hooded eyes.

I laughed, shaking my head in denial. "No, I don't think so," I said, leaning against the window frame, staring into those pretty eyes of his. I looked him over, noticing that he was wearing a dark blue tank top, along with some form of tight-fit joggers. His hair glistened in the sun, his skin tan from the rays. His hand slowly reached out to me, and his rough fingers gently latched onto the straps of my sundress, toying with the material. 

His touch against my skin seemed to set it on fire. My heart began thudding aggressively against my chest, and I had to focus on breathing normally, fighting the rising heat in my cheeks.

Does he always have to be so touchy? If he comes any closer he'll be able to hear how fast my heart is beating. 

 "Anyway, have you seen Annie?" I asked, quickly diverting his attention, and his gaze. At that he shook his head, looking up from my shoulders to my eyes. "I was gonna see her after you." He said, biting his bottom lip in thought. 

"I'm sure she'll appreciate it, you know how she gets." I finished quietly as a pang of hurt tugged at my heart. Was I jealous?

"Yeah, but it can't be that bad. What are the odds?" He asked, his fingers lightly tugging at the material of my dress, observing how the fabric bounced back to my skin. His eyes concentrated on the material again, his eyebrows furrowing in worry as he remained silent, still chewing on that lip. I observed him, looking over his hair, it looked so fluffy. His forehead glistened, some sweat having built up, his green eyes stuck in a trance. His fingers felt soft against my skin, and his breath lightly fanned over my neck.

I took a deep breath, focusing on how my chest rose up as air filled it, giving myself a spare moment to realise my thoughts. My hands came to hold his own, gently rubbing the sun-kissed skin.

"It'll be okay, if anything happens...I'll be there." I said, giving his hands a soft squeeze, reassuring him softly, "You better get going. She'll think you won't show up." I stroked his cheek affectionately, smiling down at him. I could tell that Annie was at the forefront of his mind, after all, he did have feelings for her, even if he hadn't admitted it. To anyone. But, as a person who believes herself to be in love, I can recognise another person that's in love. Or so I think. "Go Finnick." I said, pushing him away with the tip of my finger against his forehead.

He sent me a quick but charming smile, nodding softly, saying his goodbye's before jogging off in the opposite direction of my house. I began to feel a sadness tug at my chest, and even though I knew I shouldn't feel like this, I couldn't help it. 

That sadness stayed with me for a while, it stayed as my mother tied small strands of hair together so that it resembled a net, it remained as she talked about the dress my sister would wear, it remained whilst my sister gaped at how pretty I looked, picking at her nails in nervousness, it remained until the moment that Annie's gentle fist knocked at my front door.

My mother quickly opened it, greeting her sweetly. A small 'Where's Y/n?' could be heard, and I peeked my head out, ready to go and face our last reaping.

"Y/n? You look...Amazing!" Annie exclaimed, a bright smile on her face as she trotted up to me, extending her arms for a hug. "So do you Annie, so do you." I said happily, careful not to ruin her hair. It was tied up into a thick ponytail, with a couple of braids running through it, and two strands of hair framing her face prettily. My own hair was let down, however the top pieces were tied together into an intricate net pattern. My mother had outdone herself, genuinely.

Annie's hugs were a different kind of love - warm and gentle, but they conveyed everything that her words failed to. I could tell by the way her hands trembled around me that she was anxious. Annie wasn't a fighter or a hunter, and anyone that had been around her could tell.

Someone began running to the front door, stepping loudly onto the floor. I looked behind me and saw Hali making her way towards me, her arms outstretched. "Are you going now?" She asked, her voice quiet. I wrapped my arms around her in a hug, placing a small peck on the top of her head. "Yes, we want to be there early to avoid the crowds." I said, patting her head with one hand. Hali looked up at me with her big doe eyes, her bottom lip quivering.

"I'll see you there, right?" She asked, and I could hear the fear in her voice. I nodded softly, smiling at her. "Yes, you'll see me and Annie standing with the other oldest girls, alright? I'll wave at you too." I reassured her, not letting go until she was ready. She nodded her head quickly, shaking like a leaf.

"It'll be okay. They won't choose me." As I said it, Hali unlatched her arms, stepping a bit away. "Alright, I really hope not. But what if they do?" She asked, twiddling with her hair. 

"If they choose me, then I'll need you to support me from home okay?" I asked, kneeling down in front of her. "I'll need you to take care of mum, and take care of yourself until I return. Is that okay?" I asked, looking at her with a small smile. She nodded her head, wrapping her arms around my neck in a hug. She didn't want to let go, and Annie had to step in and ask 'Are you ready to go' before Hali unwillingly detached herself from me. With a quiet 'yes', I gave Hali one last hug and a reassuring squeeze of her hand, making my way backwards to the door.

"You'll see me for dinner, okay?" I asked, and she nodded her head, wiping away a few tears. "I love you." She said through her tears.

"I love you too, now go get ready." I said, giving her one last hug before walking out of the house, bidding my goodbyes to both my mum and Hali. "Take care of yourself dear. We'll see you there." My mother said, waving to me as she placed one hand on Hali's shoulder, giving it a reassuring squeeze.

"You'll see me there, mum. I love you." I said, my mother whispered an 'I love you' back, shutting the door gently. With a heavy sigh, I turned to Annie, linking my arm with hers.

 Annie looked at me worriedly, chewing on her bottom lip - a nervous habit she had picked up over the years. "Do you think we'll be okay?" She asked quietly, looking at me, concerned. I nodded my head, forcing a smile onto my lips, even though I could feel the sick tumbling around in my stomach. 

Suddenly, the air began to feel a bit too warm, and I could feel sweat beginning to cling uncomfortably to my skin. "We'll be okay Annie," I reassured her, giving her a side hug, "You've got me." I said quietly, nudging her to keep moving forward.

The town square wasn't so far away that we had to hurry, yet we made it there in record time. The queues weren't massive, and so we got through to the courtyard rather quickly, holding onto our throbbing fingers. It wasn't long until everyone else had slowly started filing into the courtyard, every person of every age group was there. I looked around, noticing how quickly the yard had filled with people. My eyes then looked at the entrance, trying to see my sister and mother. Soon enough they entered the courtyard, hand by hand heading to the side-lines, where other adults and young children would file and stand. 

Hali's big, wide eyes scanned the area, and she looked like a lost rabbit, all alert and ready to run. She was looking for me, and soon our eyes connected and I sent her a reassuring smile and a thumbs-up.

I then looked forward, staring ahead at the temporary golden podium. There were four chairs situated just behind the single podium and two glass balls on each side of it. One chair is for our Mayor, one for the announcer, and two for the two Victors from District 4; Finnick, and an elderly woman named Mags. Everyone is seated in the appropriate seats. 

Once the crowd begins to come to a stall, the Mayor takes it as his sign to walk up to the microphone, looking up at the big clock above him, clearing his throat.

It struck 12. 

He begins by greeting the citizens, and then proceeds to tell the history of Panem, as he does every year. He talks about the natural disasters, the uprisings, the destruction of District 13 - all of this is old news. After overcoming the Dark Days, laws were created, and alongside them so were the Hunger Games. I manage to tune out his voice, and instead focus on those behind him.

The announcer, who every year comes from the Capitol, gets the opportunity to personally pick out which children will be sent to their deaths in a bloodbath. 

Her hair was styled into some sort of glamorous, 3 story high bun, with a few loose strands framing her oddly sharp face. It was dyed an unnatural golden colour, and had sparkling silver beads embedded into it, two particularly large ones placed just at the tip of her hair strands, sitting comfortably on the frilly material of her sparkling, turquoise two piece - a skirt and a corset, her feather-like, white skin covered by the material of a matching jacket. She really outdid herself.

Seated on her left were Finnick and Mags, both looking over the crowds, both wearing unreadable expressions as the Mayor continues to talk. 

For a second, I believe that Finnick has noticed me, it looked as though he was looking directly into my eyes. His sea-green eyes peeking into my very soul. My heart fluttered, and the butterflies started circling around in my stomach. I felt the heat rush to my cheeks. I took a deep breath, but then I'm harshly hit with reality, and remember that Annie was right next to me, probably looking at him too.

He looks away as the Mayor begins to name the winners of District 4, and stands up along with Mags to wave at the crowds, being greeted with the appropriate level of applause. Curt and short, but it didn't matter. Next, the Mayor announces the Capitol representative, Sylvia Borgnino, and she stands up, waving excitedly at us, making tiny steps towards the microphone, her cheery voice echoing around us in seconds. 

"Happy Hunger Games everyone! And may the odds be ever in your favour!" She shouts excitedly, almost hopping on her toes. 

I guess there is at least one person here that's happy about the games. 

She thanks the Mayor for his kindness and welcoming, and then quickly turns back to us, the audience, her voice changing to a more serious tone.

"And now," She pauses, leaning over the podium and looking over at everyone, "We shall draw the names of the Tributes." She states, slowly walking over to the glass bowl full of girls' names, the sound of her heels clacking, beating at my eardrums.

"Ladies first."

I look over to Finnick, and then Annie, and then Hali. Hali is already looking at me, and so is my mum. I reach my hand out to hold Annie's, squeezing tightly as I feel how clammy her hand is, my chest tightening as I breathed. I swallow an imaginary lump, feeling how my throat constricts uncomfortably.

The sun was beating down on us, its' rays glazing over my skin, bubbling up sticky sweat. Were did the clouds go?

Wearily, I glance up at the large clock towering over us, its' heavy ticking weighing down on my shoulders.

Sylvia Borgnino's gloved hand shoots up into the air dramatically, and the crowd collectively goes silent. No one dares to even breathe as she animatedly rummages through the name cards for a solid 10 seconds.

It better not be me. I swear if it's me I will riot, I think to myself. The nerves tickle at the inner lining of my stomach, and for a moment I believe that I might throw up.

A bead of sweat trickles down the side of my forehead

Tick, tock.

Was the sun always so hot?

Tick, tock.

I swallow heavily.

Her hand grasps onto something, and she dramatically withdraws it, menacingly crossing over to the podium.

"And the female tribute from District 4 is.."

Please not me. Not me. My breathing quickens as she draws on her silence, smiling devilishly down at the crowd. My hair was sticking to my neck, creating an unpleasant sensation. 

I swallow dryly, my mouth feeling as though I had been deprived of water.

As the words leave her mouth, I can feel my heart drop.

"Annie Cresta."

Time seems to stop. I can no longer feel Annie's hand in my grasp, her fingers having slowly slipped out. I turn my head, feeling my chest heaving up and down, tears pricking at my eyes. My hands fly up to my mouth in shock, intense tremors travelling from my shoulders up to my fingertips.

Annie falls to her knees with a thud, hiding her face in her hands as she cries out hysterically, her mane-like hair looking like a flame. I follow suit, embracing her in my arms, whispering quiet 'It's okay's', holding her head on my shoulder. The other girls slowly step away, creating a circle around us.

What do I do? Do I let her go? That girl won't last a minute in there!

Two peacekeepers rip through the crowds aggressively, roughly pushing anyone out of their way, before coming to a stop in front of us, heaving Annie up by her arms, ushering her towards the stage. Her face is covered in sweat and tears, her fiery hair sticking uncomfortably to her face, her mouth wide open as she wails.

"Please! No! I can't go in there!" She screams, digging her heels into the ground, protesting, thrashing her arms around. She looks as though she suddenly became haunted, a sort of violent air surrounding her. 

With small footsteps, I attempt to follow after her, but more peacekeepers arrive to stop me, creating a blockade of bodies. I look towards my mother and sister, eyes wide, and see their shocked faces. My mother is shaking her head in a 'no', but it's too late. Hali looks at me wide-eyed, tears starting to fall from her eyes as she senses what I'm about to do. 

I look to Finnick, noticing that he had stood up from his chair, his fists clamped shut, once tan skin now having turned a strained white colour. His eyes are stuck to Annie, and never dare to leave her once.

Before Sylvia Borgnino can utter a single word, I raise my hand, pushing through the peacekeepers. All heads turn to me. The guards stop pushing Annie, and she looks to me, her thrashing easing a bit.

The words leave my lips before I can even process them myself. 

With a dry mouth, clammy hands and a wildly beating heart, I shout, "I volunteer!"

[two-bit-too-high]

lost boys with a hyper mate/pack member, then when they get back to the cave they just burn out and pass tf out. Fluff 100%

A/N hello y'all thx for the suggestions I'm gonna work on them over the next few days or whenever hope y'all are having a good Christmas or holidays and I hope you enjoy. Feel free to send in anymore ideas and as always nothing too spicy.

The Lost boys x Hyper reader

☁️ Pure fluffy

⚠️Warnings: drugs (mentioned in passing) also for just incase Cotten Cady = Fairy Floss

(I am dyslexic so I do apologise if anything is miss spelt or if the gramma is awful)

Anyway enjoy

Summer time in Santa Carla the best time school was out and the boardwalk was busy. Busy boardwalk ment easy picking for the local vampires. Speaking of the local vampires, two of them were currently parked at the beach watching over a group of surfnazis scouting out their meal for the night.

“Ew no he is not sunburnt ” said Paul as he leant up against Marko’s bike “oh come on that doesn’t change anything about the blood, about the good bit” Marko replied. “It’s the sunblock that makes it taste different” Paul adds The two continued to talk and make their choices for food. After a few moments they heard the other three motorcycles pull out a little bit away then a few seconds after Paul had been tackled to the ground.

“Ah! What was that for, boo” he yelled as he started to rough house with them in the sand “DAVID GAVE ME COTTON CADY” you yelled in reply “ the big cotton candy” adds Dwyane in a less than impressed.you keep tussling and rolling around on the sandbank with Paul. “Just cotton candy?” Paul says “ AND A SNOW CONE” you reply. After a few More moments of laughter and roughhousing you two are pulled apart by Dwayne “that’s enough little one” he said with a smile. You The smaller vampire was still buzzing as you sat down on the sand looking around like a Meerkat “ I can taste colour” you say looking up at David who was standing behind you looking down “oh really now” he replied “yeah” you say as lean back on his legs “you done being a little critter yet” he asked before he could get an answer you were gone. you had scaled up a tree and started to swing back and forth on a branch “wooooow I can see the whole of Santa Carla from up here” you say like a child at an amusement park for the first time. “Come on Meerkat get down we all need to feed” calls out David from under the tree “right right Proper food” you let go of the branch and land on your feet in the sand “come on then ya lazy bums” you say as you run past the boys into the camp of surfnazis the boys following suit.

After your delicious bloodbath the five of you washed off in the ocean. The boys ended up floating around for a while in the meantime you had decided to go and climb some cliffs. Still running on your sugar high you quickly found a clif you were willing to challenge and started climbing. Grabbing rock after rock as you scale the rocky wall. “Woah look at them go” yelled out Marko and pointed you out to the others. By the time they had turned around to look at you where at the top waving down at them the biggest smile plastered across your face.

After your little climbing expedition was over you all made your way back to the bikes.Unbeknown to the boys you had found a few sticks of sherbet in Marko's bike bag and downed them all at once. “Marko Marko Marko Marko” you yapped as you jumped around him in a small circle “what what what what” he yaps back his eyes following you around. “ Was that sugar or cocaine in those sticks” you ask “sugar” he Answered “ok” you say before jumping into your bike. “We are gonna be in for a long night” says Dwyane to David “yeah,but they are having fun so who cares” David replies

The drive home was faster than usual due to your sugar boost. Now usually the boys don't care about speed limits. That was more of a you thing as you were human more recently than them and knew what a nasty high speed crash could do someone.but on this particular night you had completely thrown those fears out the window. Where you gonna go at 150 over that old rusty bridge absolutely and did you love absolutely.

Once back at the cave the boys expect you to keep going. Too jump about the cave from rock ledge to rock ledge but alas they were wrong. Once you all got home they watched as you slowly and lethargically walked up to the small bedroom that they had made for you when you turned six years ago. Once inside you tuned to your records and record player picking out a vinyl that Paul had given you for your new birthday day that being the day that made your First kill and completed the process to becoming a vampire.

“What are you doing boo” asked paul as he joined you laying down in the nest bed that had been made a few months ago. “Energy low” you say as you cuddle up to his chest fiddling with the fishnet shirt he was wearing .As the sound of Bon Jovi started to softly fill the room the boys started to file in joining you in the nest eventually you fell asleep. You are in the middle David and Dwyane to your right and the two blonde bombshells to your left.

“And they crashed” said Marko as he cuddles up beside you “sugar crash” added Paul “I bet you their teeth are gonna hurt tomorrow night” said David who was laying half on the bed half on Dwyane.”Good thing I brought more toothpaste today then” slurred Dwyane as he was half asleep. One by one they all started to slip into sleep.As the soft sound of Bon Jovi’s “living on a prayer” filled the room.

Thx for reading I hope you have a great day :)