#i was in hell that place was so fucking unsanitary

[anonymouscentral]

can i diy top surgery someone

[endataraxia]

hello hi wifi bet you won't do a scenerio where you're baking together with the pastas ‼️ I want messy ass kitchen shenanigans ‼️ who'd make a mess yet have delicious food? super clean but disgusting food?

if you don't wanna do this it's ok 🐧

hey penpen!! dw about it, since this scenario is a wholesome one i’ll try to write the wholesome fanon version of them so here goes

cw: wholesome. if you're looking for dark content, I'M SORRY word count: 482

toby would MESS THE FUCK UP like no joke the counter is full of flour there are chocolate chips everywhere. toby goes “CHOCOLATE CHIPS CHOCOLATE CHIPS—WOO!” it’s to the point you can’t tell if the whooping is real or if it’s a vocal tic.

the food you made comes out…decent. because all he did was just dump a full bag of chips into the cookie dough. no way in hell are you letting him touch the food. oh, but cleanup is going to be a pain.

ben can’t bake so he just watches you.

actually you don’t know if he can’t touch the stuff because he’s an apparition or if it’s because he just…doesn’t want to.

baking with ben is miserable. you cannot convince me otherwise. but he eats the food like a little bitch anyway.

bonus: he calls the whole mansion over to eat the cookies while you’re asleep so you have none left for breakfast/snacks tomorrow.

jeff… uh. i can see him absolutely torching the place. baking with him is barely baking, it’s more of trying to get him not to blowtorch the dough to bake it.

“y/n what if i blowtorch the whole thing” no. no, jeff. that’s not how it works.

but if you’re dating jeff, chances are you’re the type to let your intrusive thoughts win anyway.

there is no food when you’re done.

ej is actually decent!! he’s calm and collected and he knows what he’s doing. it’s more likely that you don’t know what you’re doing and he guides you.

oh, he stands behind you and gently holds your hands and guides you in kneading the dough, and you feel his breath on your neck and he says “yes, that’s it, darling. you’re doing so well.”

you’re too busy blushing by the end of it to actually savor the cookies. and all you can think of when eating the leftovers the next day is how he held you…

you’re saving baking with ej for a special occasion. your heart can’t handle this.

not sure if you want slenderman but i really cannot imagine him baking as the operator. but i did say it’ll be wholesome so here goes

slender’s tentacles basically do everything for you. “don’t worry,” he says, “I’ll do all the work. sit back and relax, my dear.” he reassures you that it’s not a burden and insists, but when you whine that it’s not fun when you don’t do it together, he lets up.

he still doesn’t let you do a lot of work though. but occasionally he’ll scoop up a bit of dough from the bowl and feed you, so you can’t complain.

if you decide to cheekily suck on his finger, he’ll chuckle.

“my dear, we can save that for later. it is unsanitary.” you pout as he washes his hands again.

the cookies come out delicious though. you can’t complain.

and he feeds you by hand. and you get to suck on his fingers playfully. you can’t complain.

[eldritch-spouse]

Going out for ice cream with Obie and having him feed you the ice cream knowing FULLY WELL this is going to end with you cleaning the mess off his fingers with your mouth (of course there is intense eye contact, that's a given). I need to bother this man so he's steaming in public but unable to do anything about it ‼️ raaaaugh!!!

[Reader is implied fem, but can be read as neutral.]

TW: Semi-public; Foodplay; Unsanitary.

You've always been a bit nervous about taking Obie out to eat anywhere.

Meals are important for gluttons, which means that, to many of them, which restaurant you choose to have your dates in and what you order can be the decisive blow to a newly blossoming romance. Even if the mid-ranker who has his eyes on you doesn't exactly seem to be the snobbish type, you can't help chewing your nails in dread that you somehow fuck up and take Obie to the worst lunch date of his entire life- Getting brutally dumped in the process.

He laughed when you brought these concerns up, straight up telling you he'd eat off the floor if you wanted him to -Something that honestly made you worry for his sanity back then- That the mere act of trying to feed him meant everything to the glutton.

And for as much as you want to believe him, you always hesitate to make a decision, constantly fearing the worst no matter how unlikely it is that your choices would be that disastrous.

Seeing this, Obie often decides to take pressure off your shoulders by suggesting your next meal-date locations himself. And it does kind of make sense that a demon of his type would know all the best places. You just wish he'd stop recommending establishments in the Gluttony ring.

You're very scared of visiting Hell in general, it's not a place for humans, you don't care how many of them like to gloat that they set foot there and came back unharmed- You don't buy it! There's always a price to pay for dwelling in the sins. And even with a mid-ranker who was born and lived in the Rings for a good portion of his life to protect you, you're just not ready.

Obie laments this, though the demon has admitted it's clever of you to want to stay away. You're too soft, whatever he meant with that. Still, since you can't visit his favorite ice cream establishment in the Hells -That so fabled Sorbet Sabbath he's mentioned more than a few times- He's finally taken you to a surface alternative he deems decent enough.

It's nothing special, he said, as he handed you the most massive ice cream cone you've ever seen in your entire life. Three fat scoops of absolute sugary goodness staring at you with different toppings and syrups, appetizing enough to have you swallowing your own drool back up. Obie spotted that hunger immediately, beaming with that bear trap of a mouth, proud of nailing your tastes once more.

" What do you mean, nothing special?! " You nearly shout as the two of you pick a more secluded table to enjoy your treats. " This is gigantic! "

The demon wheezes, brows raised at you as if waiting for the other shoe to drop. " Dude please, this is a robbery, in Gluttony I'd pay basically the same and the scoops are double this size. "

" Fuck off. " He's joking. He has to be.

" No, for real! "

When you're both seated, you finally glance at your boyfriend's choice of treat. Your eyeballs nearly fall off their sockets. He's got like five scoops poorly balanced on that thing, there's so much syrup and sprinkles on it, you have no idea how the cone he clutches isn't disintegrating. He's going to make a mess, for sure. There's no way any person can eat that without making a fool of themselves, that little plastic spoon sticking out of the mountain of sweetness is borderline hilarious.

The yellow monster notices the staring, broken tail wagging. " Want some of mine? "

" Ah- No, no thanks. " You're pretty sure you'd have a heart attack.

Perhaps because he knows letting the thing sit for too long will end in disaster, Obie is quick to forgo conversation and focus on his ice cream. And by that, you mean he unhinges his jaw to python-like proportions, glittering rows upon rows of teeth connected by strands of hungry drool right in front of you.

An equally wet tongue slips out from its cavern to wrap all too easily along the length of the frozen delicacy, clutching it with a dexterity you've both coveted and lusted for several times, before it reaches the cone and swiftly sucks it into Obie's maw. Like a vacuum cleaner on steroids. If you blinked, you would have missed it. When the two of you started hanging out, you'd see the glutton eat this fast and you wondered if he even tasted anything he put in his mouth- You know better now.

Because after his throat bulges obscenely with the size of his meal, he licks his lips and lets out that content rumble you've grown ever so fond of. He tasted it alright, licking his lips and choppers for any trace of goodness he didn't miss.

It's an embarrassing amount of time until you tear your gaze away from him, eyes busy scrolling his form from top to bottom with an intensity that might make the hellfire creature burn alive. You could watch him for days.

You could watch him eat for days.

Damn you and your stupid fucking oral fixation.

" Hey uh- Bonbon, that's melting. "

Snapping into attention, you follow the direction of that lazily pointing claw to find that, indeed, part of your ice cream is already losing shape, dripping onto itself and nearly coating your fingers.

In the panicked pause you take to decide how to prevent the inevitable, Obie has already taken action. Bigger fingers than yours reach out to collect the stray trails, collecting the more melted sections too so that they don't start dripping immediately afterwards. You relax slightly, a ghost of a smile on your features as you expect him to shove them into his mouth and be done with it.

And yet, the demon hesitates, gaze veering from his hand to you in the sliver of a second.

" Hey now, that's my ice cream. Not fair. " You jest softly, far from expecting him to crack a toothy grin in reply.

" Oh? Yeah sure, don't let me stop you then. "

And, much to your chagrin, the glutton presents his sweetened hand your way, resting his chin on the other as he silently dares you to follow through.

Fortunately for him, you're stubborn sometimes.

There isn't a single thought resembling common decency in your mind when you lean forward and steal a quick lick of his finger tips, darting back into your seat as soon as you realize what a gross act that was to do in public.

Obie's perpetually squinted gaze widens the smallest amount, he exhales in amusement at your five seconds of bravery and his grin quickly acquires a tone befitting of his nature as a spawn of Hell.

" That's it? " He tilts his head.

" Obie, we- "

" You barely even tasted it. " That hand edges forward more.

" We're not alone! " You whisper-shout.

The demon laughs openly, clean hand gesturing to the surroundings. " Yeah? You sure? "

Your own curiosity betrays you, hues flickering all across the place and spotting only vacant tables, save for two other people seated a considerable distance away, not even facing the two of you. For all intents and purposes, you could get away with a lot. But like Hell you're saying that to his smarmy face.

" Fine. "

If his grin got any wider, it would escape his face.

The next time those fingers wiggle in your direction, you catch two between your lips, smiling as you thoroughly begin cleaning them. At the first rush of your tongue working, Obie appears to visibly shiver hard, a hint of color to the glutton's cheeks causing his shit-eating smirk to grow crooked.

Very satisfied with yourself, you leisurely pop off his digits.

" Is it any good? " Obie teases.

" Mmm. But I think you might just taste better. "

Oh.

Oh that got him revved up alright.

You gloat inwardly at knowing how to properly bother your glutton.

" Why not test that theory? "

He has the nerve to reach for your cone again, collecting more recently melted stray trails and making more of a mess than before.

After some paranoid glancing around, you decide to start with his palm, a flat and honestly less impressive muscle flattening itself against the soft creases of his skin. The quiet gasp that erupts from him only serves to further stroke your ego while you isolate one digit and thoroughly suck it clean.

" Hhn fuck. "

Your muffled giggle is almost mean-spirited.

Perhaps against your better judgement, you don't release Obie's hand, moving to the pinkie and offering it the same hungry treatment, going as far as to lick between digits before swallowing his ring finger and moaning around it.

Obie has been increasingly quiet and still throughout all of this. And even if it's always been very hard to kind of guess how much attention he's paying to something or where he might be staring, you know for a fact his attention blazes on you, rapt and unfiltered. Something that might be sweat condenses on the left side of his forehead and a faint sheen of drool coats his bottom lip. You only wish you could look beneath the table and check if there's anything going on. The possibility of Obie having popped a boner from this alone thrills you immensely.

The moment you start pulling back, the glutton jolts into movement, suddenly shoving his pointer and index into your mouth, your eyes widening like dinner plates.

" You're not done. "

That wasn't a tease anymore.

It's your turn to shudder, an almost violently quick outbreak of goosebumps raising your hairs when the very tips of his claws sit placidly on your tongue. Your shocked stillness doesn't halt Obie, whose breathing comes out in hot, barely muffled pants.

Without an inkling of shame, his digits glide on the flat of your tongue, a slow back and forth, coating themselves in your drool as he casually plays with your mouth. Your cheeks are catching up with his in terms of heat.

" Suck. "

You nearly choke.

You can't really turn your head to check anymore, so you simply pray that no one is looking when you do just that, enjoying the way he gulps and straightens. Obie's legs part the slightest amount, and you know exactly what he's trying to accommodate, the flames of your aroused confidence stoked to brand new levels.

The mid-ranker is an iota of carelessness away from cutting into his own lip while he essentially finger-fucks your mouth, humming every time you have to swallow the excess saliva or try to use your tiny tongue to lap around his digits. You know there's a myriad of nasty things going on inside that head, because you yourself are getting a few less than innocent ones. Lords know he's the kind of guy that would coat his dick in syrup in try to get you to suck him off the same way you're treating his fingers.

And the worst part is that you'd probably agree.

Maybe on purpose, or perhaps because he's getting too into it, Obie slips his digits too far down your mouth and triggers a gag from you, the sound and look of it making him growl loud enough to have you sliding down in your seat a bit from sheer embarrassment.

You're released from that lewd torment however, searching for a napkin to wipe the spittle from your lips, wondering just how much of a show an onlooker could have gotten just now. Obie feels no such pressure, playing with the strands of drool connecting his fingers while his clean hand dips to squeeze at something out of view briefly.

" I can't wait to put that little throat to use. "

He leers, grin sloppy and heated, chuckling when you lightly kick his leg.

" I guess... W- We should go home then? " Because really, he's not the only one left surprisingly turned on by this.

The glutton raises a hand. " Finish yours. Can't leave yet... "

When the demon makes a vague gesture towards his lower body, you can only snicker, nodding.

It's a bit hard to eat properly when you're aware Obie is lazily studying every lap and bite. And, at this rate, you just hope he has enough restraint not to push you against the closest conveniently placed wall...

[sprite-writes]

failed romantics

Leonard "Bones" McCoy/Reader (original female character)

Summary: Secrets can’t be kept forever, and what better time to reveal them than the Enterprise night shift.

Word Count: 5,902

A/N: yay another chapter!! I have been so excited to write this one since I started this series, I hope you all like it. As always very special thanks to @lightning-writes without them these chapters would literally never get finished LOL immediately after finishing this plz go check out their bucky series; good heart (faulty machine of a man) it kills me in the best way. anyways, thank you for reading plz like + comment if you enjoyed :)

Leonard can only barely make out Kirk’s face under the dim bulb, but he is pissed enough that Jim’s mug is the last thing he wants to see. The music is loud, so goddamn loud , loud enough that the whiskey did nothing for his headache. 

“This is not what I had in mind when you said you knew a place,” he yells over the music, staring down the side of Kirk's face. 

“What?” the captain calls back, still oblivious to Leonard's scowl. Kirk is absent, completely distracted by the crowd, more specifically the women . His gaze filters from person to person as they pass by the table, a dumb smile on his face the entire time. If steam could come out of Leonard’s ears, it would. 

“I said this isn't what I had in mind for tonight.” He reaches across the table and firmly flicks his friend’s temple. 

“Hey! What's your problem?” Kirk whines. Leonard is satisfied to have gotten his attention—finally. 

“You said you knew a nice place– you said it was a bar!” 

“Yeah and? This is both of those things!” 

“This is a goddamned petri dish!” 

It is. Leonard has refused to even allow his bare skin to touch the tabletop, weary of the unknown sticky substances covering it. There are so many bodies— human and otherwise— packed into the space, it's suffocating, and certainly a fire hazard. It's gross, downright unsanitary, and fucking loud.  

“You’re dramatic, Bones, it's nice enough. Loosen up! Maybe try to meet somebody. We’re only in Yorktown for a day, y’know?” 

Tipsy Kirk is a fucking idiot. 

Leonard recoils at the idea. The captain has gained this…habit lately. This advice-giving habit where he tells Leonard to relax, to get out there, to get laid, and every time it passes through Kirk's lips, Leonard becomes nauseous. He abhors this subject, he really does. The only thing he hates talking about more than his dating life is why he doesn’t have one. Sure, he hasn't had much of one since the divorce anyway, but whatever he did have quickly reduced to nothing after meeting Sunshine. He feels so childish even mulling his thoughts over, and how it feels pointless to consider any other woman interesting since he has already met Sunshine, who is the most interesting. Interesting and pretty. Interesting and pretty and kind. He shakes his head before he starts down his mental list (again). Somedays, it feels like his feelings will swallow him whole. It has been so long since he felt it, the wanting . Wanting to talk to her all the time, or hold her hand, or just be around her. It all makes him feel so juvenile, like he’s a lovesick teenager. She makes him feel like a lovesick teenager. It is the single most frustrating thing he’d ever experienced.

“I don't wanna associate with anyone who willingly steps foot inside this shithole,” he snaps, “C’mon man, let's go.” Kirk protests, of course, even more so as Leonard grabs him by the ear and pulls him up from the chair. He tells himself he’s doing Kirk a favor, that the last thing he needs is a hookup— that he’s certainly not taking out his frustrations on his friend. 

The pair weave through the bodies, with Kirk stumbling after his friend and out the door. The cool breeze hits them like a breath of fresh air, and Leonard takes it in. Kirk, on the other hand, furiously rubs his reddened ear. 

“What the hell was that for? Are you out to get me tonight?” 

Leonard feels a quick pang of sympathy, regretting lashing out. 

“Look, I’m sorry, but that place had me sweating like a damn sinner in church, there’s other bars, and it's getting late anyways–”

Kirk would usually push it, and Leonard could tell he wants to, which makes him all the more thankful he doesn’t.  

“Fine, fine, whatever but we are drinking when we get back to the ship,” he settles, leading the way home. 

Yorktown is cold and downright industrial. Leonard hates it. He would usually be thankful for a pit stop if it means he can feel non-artificial gravity, but, between the dirty club and Kirk’s antagonizing, he’s ready to be spacebound again. Both the Enterprise and the USS Endeavor are in Yorktown for the night, in the process of a personnel transfer. The streets are crawling with Starfleet members.

They walk in silence for most of the way, observing the larger-than-life city and the star crafts buzzing overhead. Leonard would be lying if he said he doesn’t feel a bit empty.  Perhaps the low-lit, music-blaring monstrosity would have felt more tolerable if a certain lieutenant was with him and not stuck with the enterprise night crew. 

“You know, I wouldn’t have even known that place existed if it wasn’t for Sunny,” Kirk laughs. Leonard scrunches his nose. 

“She recommended that barnyard?” he scoffs. 

“Oh god no, she told me to stay away from it. Said it was the grimiest place on this side of the universe. I just thought it sounded like a good time, y’know?” 

Leonard stares, really stares, and wonders why he keeps expecting better of Kirk. 

“You’re an idiot, and an ass. The woman gives you stellar advice, and you ignore it, and stick her with the skeleton crew.” 

Kirk stops so abruptly, that Leonard stumbles over him. 

“ I didn’t put her on the skeleton crew, she requested to be. You think I would make her work more than she already does? I’m not a tyrant, Bones.” 

What?  

“What?” Leonard says out loud. “Why would she ask to be holed up on the enterprise all leave?” 

“I mean, I would too if the alternative was running into my ex and all his coworkers.” 

Kirk laughs, Leonard’s head spins. 

“Her ex?” 

“Yeah her— she didn’t tell you any of this?” 

“She said she wanted Jameson to oversee the transfer, give him more experience or something, so you put her on his night shift.” 

“No? She wanted Jameson to do it because she used to be engaged to the Endeavors head of security.” 

Leonard blinks. And blinks again. 

“Dude, I don’t even know how to change the schedule,” Kirk adds. 

 Suddenly, despite talking to her everyday for close to a year, she feels unfamiliar. Engaged? He can hardly imagine it, nor does he want to. Pictures of Sunshine flash through his mind, and he clenches his fist. 

“Didn’t know she had been engaged,” he feigns a casual tone.

Kirk furrows his brows. 

“ You didn’t know? You of all people?” Leonard shrugs, as his stomach forms a knot. “She tells you everything, and she’s never mentioned Ryder?”

“Christ, his name is Ryder ?”

“I know! Douchebag name, right?” 

He doesn’t respond for a beat, which turns into several beats. The gears in his head turn and turn. Engaged . He doesn’t understand why the idea eats at him. He himself had been married for years. So what if she was engaged? There is no reason for him to be upset that his friend—a coworker–had an ex. 

He feels nauseous. 

Kirk clears his throat, derailing Leonard's train of thought.

“You’re right, it’s late, we should head back,” he says, offering a reassuring smile. Leonard follows him, hands in his pockets.

“Do y’know what happened?” he asks finally. Kirk casts him a sideways glance.

“What, between them? Not a clue,” Kirk says with sincerity enough for Leonard to believe it. “She wasn’t really keen on discussing it.” He pauses and looks at the ground as they walk. “I wouldn’t worry too much about it though, Bones, I think everyone sees she’s only really got eyes for one person these days.” 

“Don't start, Jim,” Leonard warns hotly, clenching his jaw. 

“Start what? I’m not starting anything. I’m just laying out the facts.” Jim hiccups. “She adores you, man, like adores -”

“Sunshine ‘adores’ everyone she meets. We’re friends—good friends, but that's all.” His patience shrinks as his annoyance grows.

Jim laughs mirthlessly.

“No, Sunshine and I are good friends. Whatever you two are is something else entirely-” 

“Anyone ever tell you you don't know when to shut up?” His tone is as cold as the night air, and Jim shuts up.

Leonard wishes Kirk would drop the subject, trip over a rock, or whatever it took to never have this conversation again. Really—what he truly wants is for everyone to stop dangling this hope in front of his face like a carrot. He’s not an idiot, he knows he spends more time with the lieutenant than his colleagues, hears her laugh more often, and knows her habits better.

 He knows what it looks like. He also knows that he's a bitter emotionally closed-off divorcee— 

He tells Jim that Sunshine is his friend because she is—and he denies wanting anything more because It's stupid to want things out of his reach. 

Frustration heats his cheeks and begins to bloom into a headache. He knows Kirk means well, but that fact does little to comfort him. 

“Alright, I’ll drop it,” Kirk surrenders, his voice soft. “But there is one last thing you should know,” He pauses at the crosswalk and turns to Leonard. Eerily stoic, his mouth pressed into a thin line. Leonard's breath hitched. 

“Ryder’s got nothing on you in terms of looks, okay? Seriously he's like, 5’7, and his face isn't at all symmetrical-”

Leonard revs up and smacks Kirk in the back of the head harder than he ever had and feels no regret. Not even after Kirk's high-pitched “ Ouch!”

“Would you quit it! You gossip like a damn schoolgirl!”

The sign blinks at them to walk, and Leonard drags Kirk across the street, fingers digging into his arm. 

“Ow, ow, I was just saying-“

“Wait a minute,” Leonard lets his friend go and smooths down his sleeve. “How do you know what he looks like anyway?” 

Kirk puts himself at a safe distance from the Doctor, cradling his arm. “Well, the operations manager would usually talk to the department heads during a transfer, but Sunshine passed him off to me. I said no at first, obviously, because I hate managing, but then she finally told me she was almost Mrs. Ryder Denver. So yeah, I spoke with him a few times, just business. Have to say though, I couldn't imagine them together. He comes off as a bit of a douche.” 

Leonard breathes deeply, reigning in the emotions that he doesn’t need Kirk to pick up on. The idea of Sunshine being engaged does enough to unsettle him without knowing that the man in question “ came off as a douche” . He feels something boil under the surface. 

“Yeah?” is all he can strangle out. 

“Yeah—He’s like a classic douchey security buff,” Kirk continues, unaware of his friend's white knuckles. “You know the kind– uptight, condescending, has one earring and thinks it's edgy-”

“Wears their uniform a size too small? Yeah, I know the type.” 

“Exactly, and Sunshine is so…so-”

“Heart-of-gold?” 

“Yeah! Opposites attract I guess, but I don't know, something was off.” 

To Leonard, the entire thing is off. All of it. Everything . He doesn’t understand why Sunshine decided he doesn’t get to know, why it is a secret in the first place, why she almost married a douche, why he cares so damn much . 

The enterprise comes into view like the sun on the horizon, and Leonard is relieved . 

“Your arm’s all right?” Leonard asks, an apology without apologizing. Jim knows this and breathes a laugh. 

“Yup, the ear’s fine too.” 

The Doctor nods, but his eyes remain trained in front of him. Through the glass window panes, he eyes the ship, eager to hide away in the familiar place. He would have opened the door for Kirk, as a gesture, but of course, the Yorktown Federation Port has to have automatic doors. He huffs, and the artificial lights illuminate his red cheeks. They approach their home in silent tandem, their shoes clinking against the hard floors. 

“You should talk to her, Bones,” Kirk breaks the quiet, head down while he taps the access code to the enterprise hull. “Ask her why she didn't mention the ex. I’m sure she has a good reason, probably one you'll wanna hear.” 

Leonard wants to be mean. He wants to shake Kirk's words off with an insult and go to bed. But he swallows his pride, and it goes down like nails.

“Yeah. Maybe.”

Hope. It bubbles up within his chest, and he pushes it down. Finally, the stark white enterprise interior greets him. He breathes a little easier. 

Kirk stumbles over the first step— “ Woah ”-- and Leonard steadies him with a raised eyebrow. “Andorian ale finally catching up with you?” 

“Pfft,” Kirk scoffs. “Couldn’t catch me if it tried.” 

Leonard pauses, then laughs, the first genuine one all night, and it has Kirk grinning back. 

The enterprise is empty, its residents still on the streets they just returned from. So, without restraint, they laugh, and Kirk stumbles, and Leonard forgets for a moment about the unsaid feelings under his skin. 

Kirk is an idiot, and he’s a good friend.  

He’s happy to banter about whatever comes out of Kirk's drunk mouth and to correct him when he takes a wrong turn in his own ship. Leonard claps his hand on his shoulder and drawls, “It’s this way, captain .”

“Uhh, no , Chekov keeps the good whiskey in his locker, this way,” Kirk insists with a point down the hallway, and Leonard is amazed at his eagerness to get blacked out the night before embarking. 

“Are you out of your mind? No way. You can drink like a fish when you don't need to fly a starship in the morning.” 

“What are you, my mom ?” 

Christ.

“No, but I pity the poor woman,” he huffs and gestures down the hallway leading to his quarters. Kirk frowns and scrunches his nose.

“Raincheck, Kirk, c’mon.” 

He begrudgingly obliges, having given his friend a hard enough time tonight anyway. The yawn that crawls out of his mouth a moment later corroborates Leonard's decision. He is tired, and Kirk shouldn't drink anymore, but he’d be lying if he said those were his only motives to end the night early.

“You win this one, Bones, but next time I swear we'll be out till sunrise,” he says between another yawn and a hiccup. 

“Uh-huh. Try not to trip.” Leonard reminds himself of the virtue of patience and keeps walking. 

Kirk manages to type in his room's access code all by himself, with only a moment of squinting, and a break to roll up the black sleeves of his turtleneck. Leonard is impressed, and the bar is low. 

“Drink a bottle of water, and get some sleep, We’ll talk tomorrow.” he crosses his arms over his chest and waits for protest. 

Kirk only hums. “You headed to your room?”

 The doctor's fingers drum against the doorframe. “Was thinking I’d check in on Sunshine,” he says, blinks, and rushes out, “and the rest of the Skeleton crew, of course.  Maybe medbay too, then I’ll hit the hay.” He fleetingly wonders if that sounds believable, or at least casual. 

 Kirk smiles a genuine smile. “Sounds like a good plan, Bones. See ya in the morning, and tell her I said hi .” Before he can react, his friend waves, and the door slides shut. Then, he’s alone in the hallways, and he has to put his money where his mouth is. 

Shit . 

The way to the bridge feels daunting now, like climbing Everest. Like climbing Everest with the shittiest rope ever. Like climbing Everest with the shittiest rope ever, several pounds of emotional baggage, and a Starfleet captain breathing down his neck.  He considers just going to bed, pretending he never even mentioned the whole thing. Maybe even pretend he doesn't care to get answers. He can just leave it be. 

The desire to see her trumps all of it. 

The halls are deserted, which he’s thankful for. He doesn’t need anyone around to watch him squirm in the elevator. A deep breath, a punch of the open elevator button and—

“I told you I don't have any threes! Go fish, again .” 

He sees the back of the captain's chair first, then Starfleet-issued black boots hanging off of it. The whoosh of the door draws the attention of the room to him. Eyes sweep through the vaguely familiar faces of the night crew, all six staring at him like they are waiting for an explanation, which he doesn’t really have. The heeled black boots plant themselves on the ground, the captain's seat swivels around. His heart works double time. 

“ Leonard ? Hi! What are you doing here?” 

Sunshine’s got a hand of cards between her pointer and her thumb, and a sweatshirt pulled over her uniform dress, and it distracts Leonard for longer than it should. He clears his throat, and it shakes loose the feelings stuck there. 

“Just thought I'd check in on our hard working night crew, who is surely on task.” He descends the bridge steps. 

“Well, then, you'll be happy to hear that I am, in fact, glancing at my station every 20 minutes, and I’m the undefeated go-fish champion.” 

She waves the cards at herself like a fan, legs crossed and smile wide. 

“Undefeated, huh? Glad to see your talents going to good use.” Her smile gets a bit brighter, and she does a quick breathy laugh with her nose. For a moment there's quiet, and Leonard begins scrambling for a way to ask her the thing he wants to ask her. The bridge is crowded, for a skeleton crew, he thinks. The redshirt to Sunshine’s left breaks the silence before he can. 

“I’m not sure if I’d call it talent…I’m pretty sure she's cheating,” they grumble, and Sunshine doesn't spare a moment, whipping the chair around. He can almost see the panic fill her eyes, like she’s just been accused of a heinous crime. 

“I’m not! Are you still thinking about that last round? Because that was—”  

Even Leonard winces a bit at her shrill tone, and he’s pretty sure she just woke the navigator who had fallen asleep at his station, so he claps his hands on her shoulders. 

“Sounds to me like this card game has you wound like a spring,” he interrupts her before her voice jostles anyone else awake. 

She pouts, lip jutted out and everything. 

“Let's go for a walk,” he suggests. He doesn’t even let his nerves talk him out of it. She looks at him curiously, her eyebrows drawn. 

“I dunno, I probably shouldn’t leave…” 

“I’m sure someone else can deal cards while you’re gone,” he tells her, already offering his arm. 

The Ensign, Leonard still doesn’t know their name, waves her off. “Go, Lieutenant, It's fine. I’m sure we can handle a few minutes without you.” 

She bites her lip and cautiously loops her arm around his, leaving the captain's chair to her subordinate. 

“Alright, but don’t start a new game without me,” she warns lightly. 

Leonard doesn’t get nervous with her arm looped around his, really he doesn’t. He’s headfirst into this thing now, no room for nerves. 

She drinks her whiskey neat, he learns, and it surprises him. Surprises him even more when she downs it like a shot. 

The walk there had been quiet mostly, except for when Sunshine regaled the stories of her card game wins. 

“Did you have a nice time with Kirk?” she asks politely.

“I dunno if I’d say that, but maybe Jim would disagree.” 

She laughs lightly, and her finger traces the lip of the whiskey glass. He doesn’t know if it’s the best idea, but he refills her cup. 

There is a beat of silence, and the conversation with Kirk pushes to the front of his thoughts. There's a heaviness on the tip of his tongue, the desire to ask why . Without really knowing how to. 

“Wish I could’ve gone with you guys,” she says, her gaze downcast. There's a rare melancholy to her tone, something vulnerable woven into it. 

“You could’ve,” he tells her, and her eyes pull from the table.

“I had--”

“Yeah, I know what you– I just mean–I’m sure Kirk would have given you the night off if you asked… God knows he owes you enough favors.” 

“I guess,” she shrugs, “it wasn’t really the best night for it, though.” 

He could go along with her lame excuse, vaguely agreeing that, yeah, there will be other nights. But the ache to know what exactly goes on in her pretty head has words tumbling out of his mouth. 

“Yeah, Kirk mentioned somethin’ like that,” he mumbles, nerves permeating the sentence. 

“...what?” 

Shit.

“I mean, he may have-”

“What exactly did he mention?” Her tone holds a sharp undercurrent of something rare for Sunshine– anger.

Leonard runs a hand down his face, suddenly thinking of all the much more tactful ways he could have begun this. The gentle buzz of alcohol still in his bloodstream keeps him from panicking. 

“Nothing terrible, just that there was someone in town you wouldn’t wanna see.”

“As if ,” she scoffs. “Kirk’s never been that vague in his life.” 

“…fair enough.” 

She groans miserably, fitfully pulling the sleeves of her sweater over her hands and burying her face in the fabric. 

“You were not supposed to find out like this,” she says, muffled. 

“And how was I supposed to find out?” He asks quietly, like the question will frighten her away. 

A sniffle comes from behind her hands–the sound tugs at his heart. 

“ I don't know. Maybe someone could have told you when I’m dead and then we’d never have to have this conversation.” 

He reaches for her slowly, taking her wrists in a gentle hold and pulling them away from her face, revealing her reddened nose and watery eyes. Her hands are cold, and grow stiff under his touch. 

“Sunshine. It's an ex , not a damn intergalactic scandal. There are worse conversations to have,” he reasons. 

“You don't get it,” she tells him matter-of-factly, pulling her hands from his touch. Embarrassment quickly heats his body, and he wipes his palms on his pants. 

“I’d get it a lot more if you talked about it.” He flexes his jaw, frustration bleeding into his voice. 

She narrows her eyes, punctuating her glare with a sniffle. 

“If I wanted to talk about it, I would’ve.”

“With Kirk? Because he seems to get it.” 

“Why are you acting so—”

“Concerned? Oh, I dunno because you’re my friend?” Exasperation colors his tone.

“I was gonna say entitled,” she grits out. Her anger comes out half-heartedly, sounding more like watery sadness than anything. “I don't tell you everything, and I don't have to. You’re not my-” She sighs. “Why does it matter? I was engaged for like, a year, and now, I’m not.” 

You’re not my–

Her half sentence sticks in his mind and sends blood rushing to his head. He thinks of all the things that he is to her: a colleague, a doctor, a friend. All the things he isn’t feels like a gaping hole. 

He watches her clench her fists and force her tears back. 

“It matters because it upsets you enough to work the night shift,” he sighs, the anger he’s been holding seeps out of his hands like water. “I’m not pressing you for the latest gossip, Sunny. I’m asking because it would be lousy of me not to.” 

She says nothing, taking in his words. 

“I’m no stranger to this stuff, y’know,” he prods her gently. “My ex-wife sent me running all the way to space .” He says lightly, and the corners of her mouth twitch up briefly.

“He didn't send me running, I sent him,” she confesses, shaking her head. 

“ You ?” 

“Me. The thing is,” she shrugs, “it should have worked, y’know? Like on paper, it was perfect. Ryder and I were academy sweethearts, liked all the same shit, were top of our classes, blah, blah, blah.” She rolls her eyes. “Our friends used to tease us, say that it wasn't fair, and we were too in love.”

“Sounds nice.”

“It does, doesn’t it?” she says, sighing. Her eyes drift nowhere in particular. “It didn’t feel nice after a while though. It felt suffocating. I was half a person with him, we were Ryder and Sunshine–and that was one entity.” Her tears dry on her lashes, as she becomes entrenched in the memory. 

“But the person we were wasn’t me . Because he never thought my jokes were funny, or my hobbies were interesting or my friends were cool, so I was willing to throw them all out. Eventually all that was left was him. His ideas, his wants, his needs. I was backed into a corner. I should’ve left when I realized but I loved him… and I was really scared of being alone.” 

She pushes her hair behind her ears and lets out a shaky breath. 

“I was a coward, and I couldn’t leave. I wanted to try and fix it, figure out who I was, and then maybe Ryder could love that person,” She shakes her head. “I was naive. Ryder always wanted someone I couldn’t be. Someone quieter or someone better at being a person. I’m always so all over the place you know? Too much for him.”

“You’re not–”

“It's okay, Len, you don't have to say anything.” she says, meeting his eyes again, taming the budding fire in his heart. 

The idea of Sunshine being anything but completely herself unnerves him. Her jokes are funny, he can’t recall ever laughing as much before she boarded the enterprise. Her ramblings about xenobotany and classic earth songs never fail to catch his attention, even when he barely knows what she's talking about. Being around Sunshine is as easy as breathing, and he’s starting to need it as much too. 

“Anyways, he proposed our senior year, like we weren’t a sinking ship, and I said yes and pretended like the ring wasn’t a last-ditch attempt to bring us back to life.” 

Her teeth sink into her lip, her eyes dragging to her lap.

“I don't know what it was, but one night I just…broke. I couldn’t keep pretending to be someone I wasn’t, or beg to be loved.”

A few tears slide down her cheeks, she scrubs them away with her sleeve.

Leonard wants to tell her that she should never have to beg for anything in the first place, least of all love; he wants to tell her that she's worthy just the way she is. His fingers twitch with the desire to take her by the shoulders and tell her over and over that she’s perfect, that she couldn’t be too much if she tried. Sunshine has always had a magnetic pull to her, drawing in everyone she meets with her warmth. The idea of anyone taking that away from her pulls his heartstrings tight enough to snap. He holds back his anger, refraining from telling her that Ryder is an asshole who didn’t deserve a second of her time. 

The wiser part of him knows that's not what he needs.

“We had planned to be on the USS Endeavor together, but I rescinded my application. I signed up to do on-planet research instead. I wrote a long letter, left it on our bed, packed up my things, and left.” 

She coughs in a way that he knows is covering up a sob and takes a deep breath. The sound sends a pang of emotion through him.

“It’s the worst thing I’ve ever done. We were engaged, for Christ's sake, and I couldn’t even look him in the eye when I left him. And don’t even get me started on the fallout. We had all the same friends, and our families were so close… it was all so humiliating . Everyone expected us to live happily ever after, and then, there I was, giving him back his ring in a coffee shop.”  

She knocks back the rest of her drink, like a consolation prize for getting all the words out. 

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, Len. I never wanted you to think of me like that, as someone who would do that.” 

“ Sweetheart ,” he says like a plea, calling her attention. “No one in their right mind would think differently of you for leaving something that wasn’t good for you– or at least they shouldn’t.” 

She's shaking her head before he finishes his sentence. 

“But I–”

“I know. You didn’t go about it the way you maybe should’ve– or the way you wanted to. It doesn’t make you a bad person, it doesn’t make you any less… good.”

She hiccups, her chest rising and falling rapidly as another stream of tears drips down her cheeks. He can't help himself – and even if he could, he doesn’t want to – he brings both hands to her cheeks, wiping away the salty tears. 

“It's alright,” he says gently, swiping his thumb under her eye again. “You’re alright.”

She nods, breaths finally evening out, and his hands reluctantly fall back onto his lap. 

He remembers well the storm of feelings his divorce left him with. The gulit, the lonliness, feeling like the world was ending. 

“I get it, y’know. The shitty relationship, becoming somebody you don't wanna be,” the barstool squeaks as he leans on the counter. He hasn't talked about his marriage since he told the story to Kirk years ago. It feels odd to tell it again. 

“My ex and I met in college, fell head over heels, and I proposed a year later. I thought… well, we both thought we were soulmates. There was this connection between us that I’d never felt before, and I thought this must be it.” 

“After a year ?” she gawks. He casts her a sideways glance and chuckles. 

“A perfect year, mind you. Not a single disagreement, not a bad date– every day was straight out of a damn love story or something. Until we got hitched, that is. Then it was all disagreements.”

 He anxiously taps a rhythm on the bar top. The memory still burns him now, of the fiery conflict, of the sleepless nights. 

“We were the same in all the worst ways, stubborn, headstrong, prideful. We couldn't settle an argument to save our lives. It probably didn't help that I was in the middle of residency and pulling 100-hour weeks. It was miserable. I hardly recognized myself… I know I don’t have the best temper, but I never wanted to be an angry person.” 

He lets out a slow breath, “I was mad as hell when she called it quits, said a lot of stuff I regret. But she was right to do it. We brought out the worst in each other, I was just too narrow-minded to see it. All this to say, I’m sure I would have taken the night shift to avoid her too.” 

Sunshine rests a comforting hand on his shoulder, her thumb pressing circles into the muscle. 

“I’m sorry, Len.”

He leans into her touch without thinking about it. “These things happen,” he tells her decidedly. “When something’s not right, there's nothing you can do to change that. You do the best you can with where you’re at, that's all.” He pictures himself, young and full of fire, holding onto something that had already slipped away. “Which you did, Sunshine. I know it’s hard to see now, but I promise it gets easier.”

When he drags his gaze from the mahogany bar top back to Sunshine, she's watching him curiously. 

“What am I supposed to see?”

“That you were young, and scared, and you did what you needed to for yourself. Even if it's not shit you’re proud of, it makes you who you are. You learn, and it makes you better.” 

She says nothing, silently considering his words for several moments. “Well, it better get easier soon, because it sucks .” 

He chuckles, “That it does.” 

 She reaches right past him and grabs the half-empty bottle of whiskey.

“We should toast,” she says, the melancholy in her voice fading away, probably tucked back behind a wall. “To failed marriages.” 

She’s already refilling their glasses and lifting hers to bump with his. 

“Thought you ducked out on the whole wedding thing?” he teases. 

“Fine then, to failed romantics,” she impatiently shakes the ice in her glass, “Just do it.” 

He knocks his glass with hers and agrees, “To failed romantics, and night shifts, and all the other shitty stuff.”

Her face pinches as she finishes her drink. Gingerly, she takes both of their glasses and stacks them behind the bar. 

Like ripping a bandage off and letting the wound breathe, Leonard feels lighter. As Sunshine hops off the bar stool and straightens her uniform skirt, he can see on her face that she does too. 

“Thank you for the drink, and the talk, Len,” she says, and he waves her off. 

“Don't mention it.” 

“ Totally gonna mention it,” she grins, “and when the schedule suddenly gives you two days off in a row, you’ll know why.” 

He laughs, and shakes his head, “I don’t think that's allowed, Lieutenant.” 

“I have my ways,” she says innocently, as she saunters to the door. 

He watches her go, everything she’s told him still buzzing in his head. He can hardly make sense of everything he’s feeling at once, but there's one thought that sticks out among the rest, that sits on his chest, demanding to be heard. 

“Sunshine?” he calls before she’s gone, giving into his relentless mind.

“Yeah?”

When she turns around, he’s flooded with everything he’s ever wanted to tell her. How she has seeped into every part of his life since he met her, despite his once armored heart. How she doesn’t see it, but she's changed the entire atmosphere of the bridge, pouring life into it with her energy. How she's taught him how to be a better friend, a better man, even a better doctor. How she’s not too much, she's everything. 

 “You should know, you’re never too much, that's ridiculous. Anyone on this ship would agree in a heartbeat. Don’t know what I’d– what we’d do without you,” he rushes out. “I hope you never think you need to be anything other than who you are.”

She goes still in the door frame and observes him for a moment. He flounders in her silence, wondering if he should have just kept his mouth shut. She suddenly moves from the doorway, quickly striding towards him, the sound of her boots clacking on the floor. He has no time to react before she gently places her hand on his chest. She wastes no time, leaning down and pressing a warm kiss to his cheek. 

“Thank you,” she says meaningfully, searching his eyes for a brief moment before she turns heel again. She’s out the door without him even mustering up a word to say. 

His skin heats where her lips had touched him, a crackling feeling left in their place. He lifts his fingers to the skin, ghosting over the sticky remnants of her lipgloss. 

He sits, dumbfounded, knowing he’s gone somewhere there's no coming back from.     

[alicepao13]

Hudson and Rex S02E10 - The French Connection

The episode from which I found out that there are some islands close to Canada that belong to France somehow. And apparently now there's also a crime show set in those islands?

From Wikipedia: Saint-Pierre is a Canadian police procedural television series, slated to premiere in the 2024–25 season on CBC Television. The series stars Alan Hawco as Donny "Fitz" Fitzpatrick, a police officer with the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary; after one of his investigations gets uncomfortably close to the corruption of a powerful local politician, he is exiled to the French territory of Saint-Pierre and Miquelon, where he partners with local police officer Geneviève "Arch" Archambault (Joséphine Jobert) to to solve local crimes.

Now, wait a second. That's about half the plot of this Hudson and Rex episode!

Anyway, on to the episode.

A girl carrying baguettes on a bicycle???

"I hope he's not some pretentious Godard-quoting chain smoker." Just once, look around before you speak.

I got you now, mister Black Coffee. That's more milk than what I put in my latte.

We've already established some of the most popular stereotypes for French and Canadian people. Valerie is already snobbish and Charlie has already apologized once.

While on duty?

Oh my god his face when the dude spits out the gin in the spit bucket lmao

I like many kinds of drinks but I admit that gin leaves me uninterested. I don't know what it is about it.

Well, hello there, Aaron Ashmore, twin brother of Shawn Ashmore. For anyone who doesn't know, this not the guy who's on The Rookie, but he is the guy who was on Killjoys, with Mayko Nguyen.

People keep handing Valerie drinks and Charlie keeps saying "we're on duty". Just give up.

Why does he look so happy to be digging through trash???

Claire just said that there's no law against lying to the police. What?

Valerie, when you doubt Charlie, it's funny. When you doubt Sarah and Rex, you sound like a twat.

Well, don't sound so proud about it.

"You're more comfortable with dogs than people". Probably, but that's because people are often twats.

Charlie's face is pure comedy in this episode. So funny.

Sarah gets to go undercover AND drink gin. Well, if we call that drinking.

She says "you guys" but only looks at Charlie. You're not even subtle.

Charlie: Oh, hell to the no. This is a trap.

Valerie is not wrong here. That's gross, not to mention unsanitary. He'd put so much milk in it that it must have gone bad by now. And judging by his reaction when he takes a sip, it probably has. Never drink coffee with dairy that's been left out for more than two hours, folks.

I only wish I could capture the following scene with Sarah and Jesse competing on who's going to deliver the new evidence that they have found out. But I think Sarah's "I'll fucking murder that twink" face is very telling.

Now, cognac, I like. Although, according to google, the most expensive cognac is Henri IV, not V. I'm sure they've written that intentionally. The real cognac is worth up to 2 million dollars, by the way. People are crazy.

Charlie does not understand any of this and to be honest, neither am I. Any bottle of wine that costs more than 20 Euros is a scam. Any clear alcohol like whiskey, gin, rum, vodka, that costs more than 50 Euros is also a scam.

"No CCTV cameras anywhere. You might say that it's the perfect place for murder". I don't remember a lot of cases outdoors that were solved by watching CCTV cameras either way. Which makes sense. I mean, how many CCTV cameras does a city like St. John's need?

This is such a funny episode, really.

We must do this at least once in any Rex adaptation. I bet it's in the contracts lol

Joe: *counts* One [Valerie], two [Charlie], *skips Jesse* three of you [Rex] are going on a trip. lol poor Jesse.

*tries to speak French and gets guns pointed at him* Come on, it wasn't that bad, was it? (Yes, I'd have put that line in there if I could.)

That's why he'll move soon!

The chase scene was good too.

Ugh, Valerie has her finger on the trigger. No.

Joe: "Can anyone explain to me why I was asked to comp a 300 dollar cognac bill?" Justice isn't cheap, Superintendent. Although for that many bottles... I mean, I can't find cognac that cheap here.

We had whiskey glasses in S1, what the hell happened?

Well, I enjoyed that. I didn't remember it was such a funny episode. And I maxed out the image limit again.

[beechersnope]

For kink writing meme: boot licking. Any fandom

went crazy, went stupid with this. and surprise! i picked true detective. hopefully all of this is satisfactory as i have never written either this pairing or this kink & i wrote about half of this on the side of the road on my phone.

warnings for period-typical transphobia/misgendering, dubious consent, undernegotiated kink, and general unsanitary-ness.

***

The alley smells like piss. Marty doesn’t even know what they’re doing here, why they need to have some big discussion about what happened back in the club. It’s not important. It doesn’t matter. They should both just forget it. Marty was drunk anyways.

"I always thought you was a—" Marty stops, swallows hard, unsure of the current politically correct terminology. Not even really confident that Rust would find that acceptable, even if Marty did know.

"Spit it out, Marty." Rust’s gaze is blank, impassive, like it always is.

"Like, a lesbian, or something."

Marty doesn’t pretend to know anything Rust hadn’t told him firsthand, but the guys at the precinct talked. Even Rust knew they talked. It was something they both chose to ignore, and Marty tries to be accommodating, he does, even when Rust monologues about gender as a transcendent facet of the eternal universe or whatever the fuck— He even tries to be delicate about how he speaks about Rust with the others when Rust isn’t in the room, talking in circles so he doesn’t have to use anything but ‘Cohle’. It makes Marty sick somehow to hear the other guys referring to Rust as a woman, even if the reality of Rust is wholly at odds with the concept of the soft, pretty wives they go home to at the end of the night. But he’s obviously not a man, either, so.

"Or something,” Rust replies, oblivious to the acidic thoughts putting holes in Marty’s alcohol-soaked brain. “Are you a lesbian, Marty?" For some reason, the question doesn't feel like a joke.

"No." Marty can't help but feel as though his answer is being taken for some kind of binding contract, the terms to which he has not been made privy.

"Get on your knees."

Marty kneels. He's surprised how much it hurts, the gravel in the alley behind the strip club digging into his knees through the fabric of his slacks.

“You spilled your beer on my boots,” Rust says in an oddly calm tone. His expression still hasn’t changed, the strange taut planes of his face relaxed in way that has Marty feeling even more ill at ease. “I think you should clean them up.”

Marty stares down at Rust’s beer-splattered combat boots. He’d gotten dressed up before they met at the club, the nearly flat planes of his chest all-too visible under the ribbed tank-top and leather jacket. That had been what set Marty off in the first place. He hadn’t even noticed the boots. Now he can’t take his eyes off them.

When Marty lifts his hands to his collar to undo his tie, Rust tuts. “No, Marty,” he scolds. “Use your mouth.”

Marty hesitates this time. They’re outside between the dumpsters. It’s not exactly private. If someone walks out of the club and sees them like this—with Marty licking Rust’s boots—he doesn’t think they’re going to stop to ask questions.

Then he thinks, what the hell. They both have firearms.

Marty presses his palms into the gravel, savoring the bite of it against bare skin, and leans down to press his mouth against Rust’s boot.

Marty doesn’t just taste leather and stale beer as he licks over each boot in turn. His tongue feels hypersensitive, the feeling shooting straight to his dick as he drags it over the texture of the laces going up past Rust’s ankle, the cold metal rivets, the thick bands of tight stitching holding everything in place.

When Rust finally opens his mouth to utter another order, Marty feels dazed in a way that can’t be explained by the alcohol. He doesn’t know how long he was hunched over on his knees like a dog, licking beer and god-only-knows what else from Rust’s grimy combat boots.

"Now lean back,” Rust says, taking a step backwards, away from Marty. “Against the wall."

Again, Marty obeys. Without question. Marty isn't sure what to expect when Rust reaches down to unbuckle his own belt before unzipping his jeans as well, but he's pretty sure there's not going to be a cock in his face in the next five seconds. Marginally sure, anyway. Who fucking knows, with Rust.

When Rust places the thick rubber sole of his boot in the cradle of Marty's thighs without moving his hands from his belt, Marty lets out a pathetic little cry that is quickly drowned out by the gritty rock emanating from within the club. He can feel the bass through the wall, pulsing through him. It feels like it's inside him on an atomic level. That's some shit Rust would say, he immediately thinks to himself. Maybe Rust is rubbing off on him in more ways than one.

The pressure of Rust's spit-shiny boot increases steadily, pressing along the length of Marty's cock where it's straining against his slacks. The feeling produces a dull ache in his balls, even though Rust hasn't applied any force there. Yet.

"Do you think you could come like this?" Rust asks.

Marty shakes his head. He doesn't like pain. He doesn't like--whatever Rust is. Doesn't matter if he's hiding a cunt between his legs, he tells himself, like a reminder, a plea. Marty doesn't want this. Doesn't want him.

Rust presses the boot down a little harder, grinding the toe just beneath the head of Marty's cock. "Try," he says.

Marty watches open-mouthed and panting as Rust spreads his own legs a little wider, shoves a hand down the front of his jeans, and closes his eyes.

Rust comes first, the grunt that pours out of his throat surprisingly deep, a perfect foil for the reedy whimpers that stream from Marty’s lips as Rust continues to frot his boot against Marty’s cock. Then Marty comes, too, unexpectedly, warmth spilling out onto the inside of his briefs, soaking through them so quickly that for a brief moment he wonders if something’s wrong, if Rust broke his dick somehow. Then he doesn’t think much of anything, Rust’s hand tangled in what hair he has left, pulling his face in close to the apex of Rust’s thighs until Marty loses himself entirely in the acrid, salty-sweet smell of Rust’s cunt.

[ironheartedfae]

Timing: Directly after Everything is All Good! Location: A normal supermarket/The Allgood Death Pit Feat: Cass @magmahearts, Nora @honeysmokedham, Ren @ironheartedfae, Thea @notstinky, & Van @vanoincidence Warnings: parental death tw, sibling death tw, unsanitary tw, suicidal ideation tw Summary: Clean up on Aisle 5

The world narrowed to one harrowing tone. Ringing in the nymph’s ears the way it always did when iron was involved. This wasn’t the first time Ren had been stabbed with a blade, hell it wasn’t even the first time they’d been stabbed with their own blade. But the added nauseating sting from the warden’s blood… Fuck. Fuck fuck fUCK she was a warden. Debbie was a warden. Ren’s suspicion was confirmed and worse, the monster inside her had made it out, had a part in the girl’s death. Each of them had. And each in turn were marked by the righteous cause. 

Debbie had been right to attack them. A hero, a soldier, and now a martyr lay on the cheap linoleum floor. Still churning out blood. This wasn’t a warrior’s death. This wasn’t what it was supposed to be like. Why had she come after a group? Shouldn’t she have known better? Ren had never met wardens who were not part of the Adelskold family. She knew there were others, but surely they’d all been taught and trained just as vigorously, right? 

As breath hitched in the nymph’s throat, she realized how still things had become. How quiet. No one was acting, all of them were bleeding. If they didn’t do something soon, there would be more than one body on the floor that night. “Vinegar!” The word seemed to burst out of Ren’s mouth, in that same strange unplaceable accent. “Vinegar and Bleach, get it now. One of you дай пойдем!!” Getting things moving was the only way to keep the panic at bay. To keep her mind from reeling and her stomach from churning.

She turned, wide eyes falling on the other nymph. “Not you.” Ren trudged over to Cass with a frantic determination, grabbing something from one of the displays, yanking it until she had a metal bar of some kind. Steel not iron, thankfully. “You, heat this up. I know you can. Saw it.” The other girl was still stunned into silence, still on the verge of hyperventilating like everyone else here. Like none of them had ever seen violence like this. Anger flared up inside the entomid, though she couldn’t really say at what. Only that it was righteous and loud. 

“Давать, Heat this!!” Ren shoved the metal piece into Cass’ hands, and placed her own onto the oread’s shoulders. This close to another fae, that unfamiliar and uncomfortable sensation ripped through Ren’s chest. Maybe a bit amplified with the adrenaline coursing through as well. For most fae this was a welcomed and cherished thing, for Ren it was disgusting. Shameful. Pulled at feelings she wished she never had. 

Staring into the other’s eyes, trying to get Cass to move, to act, to help save the rest of the girls and herself… Ren realized something. She could do it. Finish the job Debbie started. Her mind choked on it. Sputtered and made the nymph actually wince with the effort of shaking it away. No, no, there was a bigger game here. That’s the only reason she steadied her blades. The only reason she hesitated. This was a good way in. This was something that made people trust each other, right? 

The friends who slay together, stay together. Right? 

—

People looked different when they were dead. It was something Cass had thought about in the past, a time or two. With Kuma, when she’d caught a glimpse of her body on its way to the morgue. With people she’d known throughout her years of living on the streets, where any night could be your last night thanks to the great multitude of things that wanted to kill you. With the bodies she found in her cave from time to time, overzealous explorers who didn’t know what they were getting themselves into until it was too late. People looked different when they were dead, but not like this. 

There was so much blood. That was one thing that Cass didn’t have much experience with, despite the things she’d been through. In the past, when people around her had died, it had been bloodless deaths. And this one, this girl with this knife in this supermarket, it was anything but.

Not all the blood belonged to the dead girl, of course; Cass’s whole body still felt like it was on fire from the knife she’d been stabbed with, and she wondered if the rest of the girls felt the same. Had there been poison on it? Some lasting effect that would kill them all, would make this terrible thing they’d done to survive ultimately a pointless and futile effort? Cass’s mind was whirring with the terrible possibilities, her throat tight with fear and with a newfound, intense self loathing. 

Someone was in front of her, their face swimming in her vision. It took her a moment to recognize Ren, the determined look in her eyes. She was saying something about — heat? A metal bar was being pressed into her hands, quietly insistent, but Cass didn’t understand what was being asked of her until Ren said it again. The frustration in her tone seemed to snap Cass out of her trance; the familiarity of someone being upset with her was an ironically welcome slap to the face. Swallowing, she allowed her hands to heat with magma, this time on purpose. The steel beam glowed a dull orange, and she at least had the frame of mind not to hand it back to Ren. She understood what it was for; she could use it to help. 

“I’m gonna… Nora,” she mumbled, ducking away from Ren to kneel next to Nora instead. The corpse was so close that she could feel the fading heat coming off it, the way it was growing colder and colder by the second. There was no quiet, dull vibration of a heartbeat in Debbie’s chest, but there was one in Nora’s. And that mattered. Nora had called them her friends. Cass had heard it. She wasn’t sure if she was included in the sweeping generalization or if Nora had only meant to say it about the other girls, the ones she hadn’t already left behind, but she thought if she worked hard enough, she could earn the moniker for herself. “Hi,” she said quietly. “I’m gonna — This is gonna hurt, but it’ll fix you.” It was the only warning she could give before pressing the hot metal against the stab wound. 

—

The smells were overwhelming. Wasn’t that funny? Nora had just killed someone. Stabbed a knife into the roof of her mouth, watched as life left her, and was stabbed in return but that wasn’t what was overstimulating her in that moment. It was the smell. Soda, sweat, blood, fear, the refuse of Debbie’s body as her organs let go of their hold. It was all too much. It swam around them. Nora felt the bile rising up in her again, but she swallowed it down. The acidic burn in Nora’s throat was just another pain being drowned out by the horrible stench. Nora wouldn’t vomit again. Just like her previous moment of inaction, she wasn’t weak. She would never be weak. 

Nora lay next to the dead girl, a small puddle of her own blood coating her. It didn’t feel warm. Nora’s eyes raked over the dead girl. Hadn’t her skin just been flushed with life? How quickly it abandoned her. Her hand stretched out, fingers making contact with her hand. They moved up to her wrist, checking for a sign of life. Nothing. Nora dropped the girl's arm, letting it fall across her body where she checked the stab in her side. Was it supposed to be bleeding this much? Nora wished Metzli were here. They would be able to tell her if she tasted good. Nora had to know. The question had been bugging her since finding out that vampires were real. 

The thought of one adult who wanted to protect her made her think of the other. A giggle burst out of Nora. Emilio would be fuckin’ pissed if he knew about this. He’d probably say something like ‘I told you not to go looking for trouble and you got stabbed. You deserve it.” Or something. Nora didn’t know. Jokes on him, the danger came from his kind, not the undead. Who cared anyway. Nora had done it. Nora had won. Too bad she couldn't tell her dads. 

A figure was standing over her, a soft comfortably familiar voice spoke. It reminded her of good times, of a hand brushing over her hair, of warmth. Why had she left that nice place again? All the pain doubled. It seared. She was a flame. “FUCK!” Nora shouted, her mind snapping out of its mental haze as her torso spasmed into a sitting position. Nora looked down to see Cass’s magma hands pressed against her stab wound, her normally warm and gentle hands full of pain. “What the fuck?!?” Nora asked. She wasn’t bright enough to realize this was a life saving action, she hadn’t been in focus enough to hear it was going to fix her. “Cass, why?” She panted, shoving Cass’s hand aside and gripping her side in agony. Oh fuck. She wished she had that fast healing Metzli had told her about. 

—

At some point, Van had fallen onto her ass. When had she fallen? She didn’t know what she expected to happen after she threw the gnome. It wasn’t Thea slapping Debbie. It wasn’t Nora shoving a knife through the roof of Debbie’s mouth, or getting stabbed. Maybe Van thought that Debbie would have stopped. Maybe she would have seen that they were girls her age, that this was not a slasher film. What had her purpose been to do all of this? Van didn’t understand. What made somebody go into a grocery store and decide to try and murder people? They had all fought back, in their own ways. The wound that reached from her side to her navel was slick with blood, and her shirt stuck to it in ways that made Van want to rip it off. But she couldn’t do that. She couldn’t do much of anything. 

Instead, she watched the rise and fall of Debbie’s chest come to an end. She couldn’t stop staring. Was this what Diana looked like, wherever she ended up? Van’s entire body felt numb. Her fingers tingled with an energy she hadn’t experienced since the last time she’d seen Diana. Since she fell through– VINEGAR. 

Van barely registered the word. Why did they need vinegar or bleach? Gradually, Van managed to look up at Ren as she spoke. The stab wound Ren had sustained needed medical attention. They all needed medical attention. Debbie needed medical attention, even if she’d tried to kill them all. What would her parents say? If she had parents– maybe a grandmother, a sibling– somebody who would surely miss her. Somebody who would put up posters, ask where she’d last been seen. Van moved mechanically, ignoring the way that her stomach protested the sudden way she bent to the side to give herself leverage to get up. 

“I can do it.” She could do it. She– Nora. Van looked at Nora who sat next to Debbie’s body. Everything felt detached. Like she wasn’t really here, like none of them were here. She moved stiffly towards the cleaning supplies, her skin ablaze with the reality of what they’d just done. They were murderers. All of them. It didn’t matter if she hadn’t shoved the knife into Debbie. She’d been there. She was a witness. Her fingers trembled as she made a grab for the vinegar. It fell through her grip and she reached down, the pain in her stomach screaming for her to relent on her journey. It was the only thing that made her feel alive, to let her know that she had made it out of this– out of whatever this was. Van grabbed the vinegar, and then the bleach, and winced at the sound of Nora’s scream. 

She returned with the items Ren had requested, not quite knowing what to do with them. Van’s hands were still shaking and sticky with the blood from her own wound. The smell of burning flesh curled around her nose again and she looked at the bar that was in Cass’s hands, cherry red from applied heat. “I got it.” She felt her throat constrict as she looked over the girls, her gaze landing on Thea. They were all fucked.

—

Thea remembered her first body, not the ones she had woken up beside or the ones she read about in the papers and had to guess at which part of her stomach they were filling up; her first, real, actual body. The first time she remembered her sharp teeth sinking into flesh and her hands contorted into claws ripping organs apart like they were useless, like she hadn’t just robbed someone of a life. It happened with ease and so quickly that Thea was already on to another hiker while the last one was still warm. Years of life reduced to minutes and seconds. At some point, Thea had to accept that she was a killer—not by choice. It never happened by choice. 

Debbie had been kind to her and now Debbie was dead. She didn’t choose that; Thea hardly chose anything these days. Her life had her tied around the waist, dragging her on the ground as it ran off. The grocery store smelt horrible, a mess of blood and burning flesh and sweat. It looked horrible too. Control was something Thea lacked, but there was an easy way to get it all back. 

Thea sprinted back into the aisles, grabbing a new mop and bucket, soap, jugs of water and garbage bags. She ran her arm down the medical supplies shelf to drop everything and anything inside of the bucket. “You don’t use bleach,” Thea heaved, coming up beside Debbie. “The blood is still fresh you can mop it up and if you use bleach then you mix it with whatever ammonia they used to clean the tiles and that’s a big…” Thea swallowed; they got the picture. She dumped out all the supplies she’d taken off to the side, where she hoped they might be of use somewhere. She pulled a garbage bag from the box and opened it up. She threw her shirt inside of it without a second thought. “Most of our clothes are garbage, I think.” What she really wanted to say was that it was evidence, but she felt it was too soon to introduce reality to the group. They’d get it eventually; they were murderers. It was okay, it took Thea some time to wrap her head around too. “I can clean up; I’m good at it and I do it all the time. I work as a janitor. And there’s blood, there’s always so much blood. But all you have to do is clean and then once it’s clean, it’s good and safe and it’ll be like nothing happened at all. And we won’t have to think about Debbie and–“ Thea’s voice cracked. A hot tear streamed down her face. She wiped at it with her bloody hands. 

“Let me do it,” she mumbled. “Let me clean.” Let her be useful and good. Thea’s hand snapped to her side, which was still bleeding and then her gaze shot to the burning rod. “Maybe…disinfect before you stick your rod in people?” Under any other circumstances, Thea would have laughed at her word choice. Right now, her mind was buzzing with all the things that needed to be done and all of the mess that she needed to take care of. Things could be clean and they could be good and Thea could always control that. The rest she’d just have to forget about. 

—

The next few minutes (Were they minutes, or was it hours?) were nothing but flashes. Glimpses of a girl on autopilot. Ren’s soldier mentality meant a quick and clinical efficiency to most things, but this? This was what she was made for. Well, sort of. It should have been on behalf of the warden. Not… not… No. No thinking. Not allowed. Only work. Only the mission. Only the next step in front of the last. Prompting Cass to burn away the wounds was the last thing that left Ren’s lips. Not another peep escaped. Not when the nymph walked to the soda aisle and grabbed some carbonated water to rinse the warden’s blood from the deep stab in her side, not when she used the heated metal to cauterize it. No wincing, no heavy breathing. Nothing. She was a stone, and given that the rest of the girls had the various stages of grief sticking to them like vaseline, she had to be the composed one. A strong steady face could be reassuring, if only during a storm. This sure as hell felt like a hurricane. 

—

She tried to distance herself from it. To take care of the other girls, to tend to their wounds first while her own was still bleeding, to keep herself from looking at Debbie — at the body each time she passed it. Her shoes stuck to the floor as she walked; she tried not to think about the reason why, about the substance that was making the soles cling to the tile just a half second longer than they ought to. With some reluctance, she removed the top layer of her clothing. It was all she really had, but it was covered in blood and sweat and a relief to strip away, even if the skin beneath it felt just as dirty. Cass wasn’t sure she’d ever really feel clean again, wasn’t sure how much she deserved to. With Kuma’s death, she’d at least been able to pretend that it wasn’t her fault, that Kuma had made a promise and broken it and that that put the blame, at least a little, on the older woman’s shoulders instead. But with this? Cass had fought this girl. She’d played as much a part in the death as everyone here had and, unlike the rest of them, Cass was already an unwanted thing. Maybe the others could come back from this, but who would ever look at Cass now? Who would ever think that she was something worth keeping around? 

Cleanup went faster than she’d thought it might. Thea wasn’t lying when she said she knew what she was doing, and the floor looked pretty good when all was said and done. But… The blood had never been the biggest problem with this picture, had it? Cass’s voice was small as she spoke, uncertain. “What do we do with the body?”

—

Was this the new normal? Nora had sat for a moment, watching the others get to work. Cleaning, repairing, helping . They all seemed so sure what to do. So positive. Nora was impressed by them, Nora wanted to be like that. Nora staggered to her feet, her hand clutching her side still sticky with her own blood. Everyone was throwing out their top layers of clothing. Nora joined, ripping off her overalls and shirt and tossing them into the trash bag. Nora knew then what she could do to help. First was a stop at the baby aisle. Nora delivered baby wipes for them to all wipe down with. Afterwards, she went to the clothing section and selected some clothes to take back. They couldn’t just walk home naked. People would ask where their clothes were. ‘Gone. We burned them because we murdered someone.’ No. Nora made sure to pick up her unharmed jacket on her trek back to them. “Clothing.” She mumbled, tossing their fresh choices on the ground. Cass was asking what they should do with the body. Nora didn’t know. What she knew was tying up the full trash bags from cleaning products used and placing them in a pile near the door. They would need to come with them. Maybe disposed of with the body. 

—

Van felt stupid for grabbing the vinegar and bleach. She felt stupid for losing track of time. She felt stupid for not trying to reason with the dead girl at her feet. Van set the unusable products to the side and watched as Cass rotated around them. After all was said and done with her own wound– now red and angry instead of gaping, she followed suit of the other girls as they discarded their clothes. Her headphones even went into the pile. She picked the outfit she thought the others would want the least, and she set to work helping clean up. Her stomach still hurt, but it was an easy reminder of what happened. That she was still alive, where the same could not be said for Debbie. Maybe this was the big bad thing that had followed her out of the darkness. Maybe this was the karma she deserved. She’d gotten away with Diana’s death, but could she get away with this? Even if the floor was spotless and everything had been put back into order, there was still so much to do. There was still Debbie– the body. Van stared at Debbie for a long time. They would need to clean underneath her, too, once they figured out a way to get her out. 

Cass’s question of where to take the body made Van queasy. She wanted so badly to cry, to scream– to do something other than suggest where to take her. Because despite not believing in the stories, the Allgood Death Pit was known by all. 

After they had settled on the decision and made sure everything had been put back into its proper place, sans body, blood, and broken gnome, the group of girls shuffled Debbie and the bags of trash out to Van’s car that’d luckily been parked towards the back lot. Before Van started the car, she sat in the driver’s seat for a moment, not quite believing what she was doing. Why hadn’t she cried? Or yelled at them. Something for the disbelief that was settling over her! Something to prove that she was not like them. But she was. She had already killed somebody before. Not on purpose, but it had happened. She had watched it– the bad luck drag Diana down. This was like that time, only she’d gotten a front view row to it all; she had watched life leave Debbie. 

Somebody cleared their throat and Van started the car. Carly Rae Jepsen’s Let’s Get Lost blared from the speakers and Van rushed to turn it down, leaving the group in a bout of silence for what seemed like entirely too long. 

The drive to Gatlin Fields was only long due to her cautious driving. The last thing they needed to do was get pulled over. The stench of the pit was strong enough that the girls smelled it while still miles out. With Nora in the passenger seat, Van found herself obsessively looking over, as well into her rearview mirror to look at Cass. Nothing that she could say would change their reality, so she kept her mouth shut. 

Once parked, Van popped the trunk open from underneath her steering wheel and got out. “It’s mostly rumors… about this place, but the smell…” She winced. “There’s no way to ignore that… people um.. well, you’ll see.” Luckily, they’d found a tarp to wrap Debbie in, which meant they didn’t need to see her face. “We need to go up there.” Van pointed towards the hill that’d open up to the pit. “Who wants to– um… the.. trash, too.”

—

Thea scrubbed and cleaned and ran around. She didn’t have to think as long as she was working and when it was all said and done, when Debbie was moved and the floors looked like they did before, Thea felt a swell of relief work through her aching bones. Cass had done a good job with their wounds, Thea wasn’t making a mess along the floors anymore. Once her clothes were off and she sorted through Nora’s pile to find things that fit her, she felt new. She felt okay. Well, as okay as she could be. Her hands still shook and her mind hadn’t stopped churning. She felt too accustomed with death, and her stomach twisted with guilt; an overwhelming sense of wrongness choked up her throat. She’d done this too often. She wanted to never do it again. Nothing could really make her clean anymore, not soap or bleach or vinegar. 

She didn’t argue about where she sat, Cass went in the middle and Thea squished in beside her. She didn’t make a comment about the Carly Rae Jepsen either--that was also her driving music of choice, back when she had a car. She didn’t ask to bring her window down, she just did it, inviting the cool night air to carry their minds to a better place. Once the air turned sour, she couldn’t close the window fast enough. Her hand snapped up to close her nostrils and she stared at the back of the passenger seat. Her hand reached out for Cass’s--a silent offer of comfort over the long ride. Her other hand stretched out over the seat, offering Nora a pat on her shoulder before she had to pinch her nose shut again. 

Her side still burned, her head throbbed, but nothing could prepare her for the stench of the Allgood Death Pit. Thea took two trash bags in her free hand, squeezing her nose with the other until it hurt so much it’d gone numb. Her grip slackened slightly, but her nose couldn’t tell the difference. Eventually the smell was too much and Thea handed her bags off to someone else, clasping both hands over her nose. She kept her mouth firmly shut, worried that she might be breathing in the scent somehow, only opening it to take long gasping inhales like an underwater diver readying to go below. The pit smelt worse than shit. “Do we say a prayer?” She asked as she slowly hobbled up, taking her time before she had to brace the odor head-on.

— 

No one wanted to touch the body. No one moved to do it. So Ren had to. Stone-faced and mechanical, the nymph lifted and carried away the evidence of their sins. Bringing Debbie to the boot of the car and laying the warden down. She looked so peaceful there, Ren remembered thinking it, as she stared down at the warrior, the hero, the dead girl in the trunk. Debbie’s face had relaxed, and her eyes had been closed, and she looked so calm. A backdrop of trash bags like bedding on a camping trip. Like she could wake up at any time. 

Whoever had walked out with Ren, probably Van, it was her car, had turned away. Gone back to the others as Ren stood there like a statue. Unblinking and unmoving. She didn’t know why her hand found its way to Debbie’s cheek. Why she let the iron skin sizzle wherever it brushed against her own. Ren didn’t know why she felt more akin to this dead girl than she had to any other living one she’d come across. Even if they met under different circumstances, Debbie would have hated her. And she would have been right to. 

The car ride was a blur. Ren’s gaze stayed firmly out the window. The gentle jostle of the road saw fit to brush her arm up against Cass. Maybe it was just the shock, but Ren let it stay there. Let the feeling of warmth rush over her. Comfort was far to foreign for her to identify what the sensation was, but it soothed the frayed nerves of the nymph all the same. The other girls began to complain about a smell, and for once the nymph silently thanked God for her lack of a good nose. Worse than human’s even. That being said, it wasn’t hard to tell what they were talking about. 

Park. Trunk. Hill. Pit. Corpse. Prayer. 

Everything whittled away to single words. No musings allowed. Nothing to stray the nymph’s mind from what had to be done. No matter how little the warden deserved it. 

—

The music was loud and sudden and jarring, quickening Cass’s breath and speeding up her heartbeat. It was an anchor she didn’t particularly want. Without the noise pulling her back to herself, she might have been able to pretend she was somewhere else, someone else. She often thought that something like that might be preferable, but especially now. If she were someone else, she wouldn’t be wearing a too-big shirt with an unfamiliar brand logo on it, the clothes she’d carefully stolen for herself too covered with blood to be salvageable. If she were someone else, there wouldn’t be a speck of that same blood under her fingernails, impossible to get out no matter how much she’d scrubbed or scratched at it. If she were someone else, there wouldn’t be a body in the trunk or four other traumatized girls squeezed into the car alongside her. This, she thought, must have been what the other nymphs in Hawaii had always seen, what everyone who’d ever left her had known from the start. Nora had figured it out already, and the rest of them would, too. Cass was a poison. She’d been stupid to ever believe otherwise.

It must have been selfishness, then, that prompted her to take Thea’s hand when it was offered to her, must have been selfishness that allowed her to rest her shoulders against Ren’s and Thea’s when she could have just as easily made herself small enough to avoid touching either of them at all. The physical contact offered a comfort, and that was selfish, too. After all, who would comfort Debbie, alone in the trunk? Who would hold her hand or brush up against her shoulder?

The scenery that passed by out the window was familiar, and Cass had to bite back a hysterical laugh at the realization that they weren’t far from her cave now. Wasn’t it funny, in a way? The cave had been littered with bodies since she’d found it, and she’d never minded at all. There were close to a dozen scattered throughout it, and she rarely ever even thought of them. There was only one body in the trunk, and she could think of nothing else.

The stench, as they drew closer to the place Van had known, grew overwhelming. Like the music before, it kept Cass grounded in a reality she so badly wanted to escape. Maybe it was a kind of penance, a well-deserved punishment. There was no escape for Debbie, and there shouldn’t be one for Cass, either. For any of them. She got out of the car as Van parked it, trying not to breathe in the smell. She took Thea’s bag as she held it out, wrapping the handle around her wrist and letting it hang off. As if on autopilot, she moved up to the edge of the pit, swallowing against the lump in her throat. “A eulogy,” she replied quietly. “We should say a eulogy.” That was what people did in movies, on TV; they said kind things about the deceased. But what could they say about Debbie? She was a girl, and she was our age. She probably had a family. She probably had friends. She didn’t want to die. We killed her anyway. Was that a eulogy worth saying?

—

Lifting the trash bags caused a pain to rupture through Nora’s side; but they all had burnt flesh wounds pressed in their sides. So she persevered. When Ren lifted Debbie easily, and placed her in the car, Nora was relieved. She didn’t think she could lift a body. It seemed like too much. The car was small and cramped and Nora couldn’t stomach the idea of being touched in that moment when the world seemed like a bit too much. She slid into shotgun, pressing herself against the side of the car, a hand reaching into a jacket pocket and stroking a snake on the inside. A hand reached out and touched her shoulder. Warmth radiated from the slight touch, and Nora found she did not hate it. It was a comfort she didn’t expect. Nora glanced back at Thea, offering her friend a small smile. At the same time, she reached out and gripped Van’s shoulder in the same action Thea had just shown her. Share the comfort. They all held the same glazed over look. They all deserved the same comfort. 

The Allgood Death pit, as Van had named it, reeked of death. The odor stung Nora’s nose and brought prickles of tears to her eyes. She didn’t try to hide from the stench. This was atonement for her sins. This was the punishment she deserved for ramming the knife into a girl's head. It may have been life or death, Debbie or Them, but it didn’t mean a life hadn’t been lost. Nora hefted a trash bag as they got out, dragging it after her on the climb up to the pit's edge. It was vast, dark and empty. Nora supposed it was just a window to the afterlife. Would Debbie be cold down there?

As they stood at the edge of the pit, staring down at the darkness, Nora heard Cass saying they should say a eulogy. Did they know her well enough to say one? Nora looked at the body Ren held. “Debbie tried to kill us. I think she thought it was right, her job, you know? She did her best. She made them proud, I’m sure.” They were lame words, Nora was aware. Words weren’t for her. Words were for other people, but for Debbie she tried. 

—

All things considered, Van was surprised she was keeping it together. She was surprised that Ren had been capable of hauling Debbie’s body up the hill, with their smaller stature. She wasn’t surprised that Thea recoiled at the smell. Death hung all around them. It was embedded beneath their fingernails, and it sat heavy in their hearts. There’d be no escaping it, so perhaps the smell was the least offensive thing they would face tonight. Van did her best to breathe out from her nose instead of her mouth; lest the scent of death caught her tongue by surprise. She took the bag from Thea without missing a beat, the pain in her abdomen present, but welcome. Another reminder. As long as she could remember, then maybe Debbie’s death wouldn’t have been in vain. But hadn’t it been? Cass’s comment about whether or not they should speak on her passing made Van wince inwardly. What right did they have? They didn’t know her. She remembered when strangers had shown up at her parents’ funeral, how they spoke as if they had known them, but Van couldn’t even recognize their faces. What right did they have to speak? The stench was worse at the top, and she’d heard rumors about looking down– you might see someone you know. If that were true, would she– No. Van looked at Nora as she spoke after dropping the bag into the pit. It hit whatever was inside with an echoing splat. “She stabbed us.” Van’s voice shook. Despite her earlier offense, Cass had a point. “A lot.” But she didn’t deserve to die. But Debbie had tried to kill them first. That was their current reality. 

—

Thea heaved, coming up at the edge of the pit with everyone else. Her nose was still firmly clamped shut, held by her tightly threaded fingers. A eulogy was a good idea; she hadn’t gotten to say one for her father or her friends. The ones spoken in private, to the stained walls of cheap motels, didn’t count. Someone ought to tell people that her friends loved terrible movies and that her father would come home from work with a bag of oranges and peel each one late into the night and Thea only knew because she found them separated into tupperware containers for her in the fridge. Who was going to explain how much Thea had loved them, missed them, needed them? Who else was going to apologize? Thea had done it, over and over again, into cheap liquor and cold coffee and mildew reeking sheets. She always thought it deserved to be said at least once, over their bodies. “I’m sorry, Debbie.” Thea pulled her hands away from her face, bracing for the smell. “You were weird and funny and you did this thing with your hands--like a…weird hair tuck. And I thought it was kinda cute, even if the first time you did it I thought you wanted to sneeze.” She turned to the rest. “Um, and she liked Denny’s. And her favorite emojis were the waffles and the turkey and the one with the face like…” Thea tried to imitate it, sticking her tongue out and closing her eyes. Her shoulders slumped as her face relaxed back into the frown that seemed to be permanently etched into it. “At least, those were the ones she used the most.”

Thea stared down into the pit, into its impossible darkness and foul shadows. How many dead bodies were down there? How many apologies were owed? “I didn’t know her very well,” she mumbled. “I wanted to get to know her better. She was nice to me.” Thea’s hands went back up to her nose, unable to withstand the scent any longer. “I’m really sorry, Debbie,” she sniffled. “I think you would have made a good friend. I think you would have really liked us, too. All of us. I think--I think she really would have liked to go to Denny’s with Nora, they could have ate the meats together. And I think she would have liked Cass’ fanfiction. And she knows like, all the words to Carly Rae Jepsen’s songs and maybe she would have loved to sing them with you, Van. And Ren…maybe you two could have painted rainbows together.” Debbie’s body flared into Thea’s imagination; battling Nora across the table with a fork, fighting over strips of bacon. Debbie with a tight-lipped smile as she added another hit to Cass’ fanfiction while the girl watched over her. Debbie leaned up against the console of Van’s car, as they belted out the lyrics to Boy Problems. Debbie covered in paints with Ren. 

“I’m so sorry.” Thea crumpled to her knees, letting her tears fall into the pit. Taking a life never got easier, no matter how many times she did it. “I’m so, so sorry, Debbie.” 

—       

At first Ren couldn’t think of anything to share. Anything that wouldn’t condemn her immediately in the eyes of the other girls. How could she express how much she wished they were the bodies falling in. How they all deserved this fate, and Debbie hadn’t. The stalwart girl had been silent through the whole ride. The whole climb, and through the eulogies presented by each individual. Nothing seemed to phase her outwardly, not until Thea began to speculate. Finally it was like a dam broke and all at once her breath hitched in her throat, her tears began to stream, and her chest began to heave. 

Ren clasped her hands over her mouth, stepping back away from the edge, and tried to compose herself. You are a soldier, you don’t get to cry. But Debbie had been a soldier too. She died doing what Ren was supposed to be doing. And Ren had helped the other monsters do it. 

She wasn’t the first warden that Ren ever saw fall. Funerals weren’t exactly the biggest thing amongst the Adelskold family. And even if they were, Ren would likely not have been allowed. But she did remember one thing. A warden’s prayer. A send off that Debbie’s life had earned. The words were in Russian, or maybe it was Swedish. Ren wasn’t sure, but it was an old passage. As old as the Adelskold family itself. 

“Rest now, your service is done. To welcome arms you may return, a rest that you have won. A shield, a sword, a noble breath. Find peace eternal, from your warrior’s death.” Quiet, tender, and spoken through the hoarse crackle of Ren’s unsteady voice. At some point she’d turned back, found herself at the edge of the pit again. Surrounded by the others. It didn’t feel right. The words of the prayer weren’t meant for killers to speak aloud. They were meant to honor fallen soldiers. Who’s holy blood would sprout lilies, or so the old tales would say. 

Ren swallowed hard. Her eyes, bloodshot from crying and stress, finally lifted. To the sky, the clouds, and the horizon where the first of the sun’s rays threatened to creep up and over. 

“This is it then, yes? We are done here?” 

—

The eulogies washed over her like waves, one after another. Nora’s even tones, Thea’s quiet speculation on a life that might have been but never would be now, Ren’s foreign prayer… they all swirled together into an unfamiliar hodge podge of a funeral. Nothing like what you’d see on TV, where everything was smooth and even and wrapped itself up in the allotted amount of time it took for an episode to end. Real life was so much messier. If they’d been a TV show, Cass thought, Debbie probably wouldn’t be dead. This kind of tragedy only ever happened in reality.

Swallowing, Cass looked down into the pit. She felt nauseous, and she worried her lip between her teeth to take her mind off it. What could she say here? She could apologize, the same way they all had, but it wouldn’t change anything. Debbie would still be dead. They would still be the ones who’d killed her. Her body would still be laying at the bottom of a pit, and the people who loved her would still spend the rest of their lives wondering what had happened to her.

(That thought stung in a new way. Debbie had people who’d loved her. People she’d wanted to make proud, people whose approval she’d died for. How was it fair that she should die and Cass should live when Debbie was the one who would be missed? If it were Cass at the bottom of that pit, no one would look for her. No one would care at all.)

Ren’s voice, in English now, pulled Cass from her thoughts. She started to agree, to say that they were all fine now, but… They weren’t, were they? They’d killed someone and, regardless of the circumstances, there were still laws in place here. Still police officers who probably wouldn’t hesitate to arrest any of the girls, would probably revel in it. How could they make sure this never got out?

In crime shows, criminals always confessed. They were pulled into interrogation rooms, were hammered with questions until they finally broke. But in crime shows, those criminals were the only ones effected by their mistakes. If any one of them found themselves in an interrogation room, being battered with questions…

“Not yet,” Cass’s voice was small, uncertain. “We need to — We need to make a pact. We need to agree that no one talks about this with anyone who isn’t here now, and that we’ll all look out for each other. Everyone has to promise.” She looked at them each in turn, expression serious. “Everyone.” Her binds were usually so much simpler than this. Promise you’ll be my friend, give me your teddy bear in exchange for your thanks, promise you’ll be nice about my stupid fanfic. Nothing like this. This felt achingly familiar, a little too close to promise you’ll never leave me. And that one had ended tragically, but this one didn’t have to. Cass could be better now.

With a determined look in her eye, she held her hand out. “Everyone promises,” she said. “Everyone has to say the words, okay? So we all know.”

—

So that was it. Those were the words that would mark the end of Debbie’s life. These were the people who would witness her final days. This was the place her body would rest. Debbie should come back as a ghost, Nora told herself in her bitter thoughts. She deserves to haunt us for the rest of her life. For what we did. For what we took away. Nora’s hand clenched, the feel of the knife’s handle pressed against her palm from the pressure was a phantom presence. Was this enough? Had they offered Debbie all they could? Did she deserve more? Who would answer these questions, a glance around at the girls told her it wouldn’t be any of them. 

They looked rough. Tear stained, tired and torn. Patched together with burns, baby wipes and clothes that didn’t fit. Nora stepped closer to the pit, eyes straining to see anything down below. Darkness was the only answer. Was this what it was supposed to feel like? Nora had never met a murderer before coming to Wicked’s Rest. Then it seemed like everyone she met was one. Now she was one. Everyone here was one. Five more murderers would enter Wicked’s Rest, the town that craved lifes and forced its citizens to feed, it seemed.

Cass was speaking about the promise they needed to make. A promise to each other, because they didn’t know each other that well. They were in the right place and the wrong time. Now they needed to promise. “I agree.” Nora’s hand reached to her side, wincing a bit at the wound still tender from the burn that cauterized it. “A blood oath on our sides.” It was funny, wasn’t it? They all walked away with Debbie’s knife wound branding them. “On our right sides. On the scar we’ll all get.”  Nora looked around at them, trying to judge how they felt about it. That was dumb. How could they feel anything about this? This was nothing but surreal mind numbing pain. 

“I promise to not talk about this with anyone who isn’t here now. I promise we’ll look after each other.” Nora let the moment of her promise pass, dropping her hands from her side. “We’ll be okay.” She added, not to her promise but as a reassurance to the group. “We’ll be okay because we need to be. Because we did what we had to do. Because she was going to kill one of us if we didn’t.” Did those words mean anything? Did they help? Nora hoped they did. 

—

Van was far too collected for the current situation. There was nothing happening, but everything was happening at the same time. It was like a loop. Look to the pit, avert her eyes, hear what the others had to say. The blood, the gargling sound that Debbie had made— it was all on re-run. She could still feel her own blood, sticky between her fingers from where she’d gripped the wound that Debbie had created with her knife. It felt unreal. Maybe that was why Van’s usual anxieties had stalled. Maybe that was why the only strange thing to happen had been the soda exploding. Because everything else was so fucked up. Maybe Debbie trying to kill them, and the group instead turning to kill Debbie had been the triumph of all the terrible luck that Van had faced over the years. Maybe this was the end point.

Thea’s words ping-ponged around inside of Van’s head, and it took her a moment to realize that the girl next to her had fallen to her knees. She wanted so badly to lean and comfort the other girl, but she couldn’t get herself to act. Her fingers ghosted through the air, reaching the space between where she stood and the top of Thea’s head, but they made no contact. Instead, her focus turned to Ren who spoke in a language that Van didn’t recognize. Did it really matter what she had said? Probably not. Nothing they had to say would fix this. They’d never do service to the life they took. 

Silence hung around the girls for longer than what was comfortable. The stench of the pit was unbearable to begin with, but in the silence, it was far worse. Cass’s words finally made Van move something other than just her eyes. She tilted her head to the side slightly, jaw slackening at the realization of what both Cass and Nora had meant. Of course, Van hadn’t expected anyone to go and turn themselves in, including herself, but the solidification of their crime in turn doubling as a promise to look out for one another, to hold the blood they spilt on their palms only, made her stomach churn with indecision. 

“I promise.” The words felt stale. Wrong. They felt too big for her mouth, like she should spit them out and try again, but she couldn’t get herself to speak. The topic of a blood oath made her head swarm. This truly was a horror film. For what had happened to Diana, Van knew she deserved this. Even if she didn’t believe herself to be the direct cause of her disappearance, she’d done nothing to help the situation. So this was deserved. The four other broken girls, their matching wounds— the heavy stench that filled her nostrils and coated her tongue. She deserved this more than any of them, even more than Nora who had plunged the knife through Debbie’s skull. After a moment, Van finally repeated, “I promise.”

—

Every heartbeat felt louder than the last. Every second passing amplified the ringing in Ren’s ears. She could feel her antennae twitching beneath the glamour that kept her human enough for any of this to even happen. If I had been raised by those monsters in the Aos si, she supposed, this wouldn’t be the first warden to die at my hands. There would have been so many more, would have been innocent humans too. The people who were supposed to live in benign ignorant bliss. The people she, and Debbie, were supposed to protect. 

The nymph realized too late that she had zoned out. Disconnected completely from her body, from the conversation that continued after the hunter’s prayer. Cass was– no. Oh– no no no no. Ren’s eyes widened, but she stifled the shock by biting down hard on her tongue. She couldn’t– There was no way she could make that promise. Of course the other fae was trying to do this. 

“Remember little bug–” Darya would say. “Each bind they make only strengthens them. Never ever make a deal with them. Never force someone into one, if their words leave them open, let them be. Forgive them for not knowing what you are.” Ren had no way of knowing this wasn’t exactly the truth, but it was the lie she’d been told ever since she’d been adopted. Fae were malicious monsters, who would turn any situation, even the death of a hero, into something for personal gain. 

“I am….” Ren began, sickened by the fact that she had to twist her words like this. So she could skirt around the lie that hung between her and everyone else there. “I am not so good in English.” She went on to repeat a phrase in Russian, something that sounded similar in length, cadence, and tone. A funny little thing Darya always used to say when she was dissatisfied with Ren’s performance. Something she would have said to her that night. She still felt queasy after, though not the magical sort. Just anxious nerves at whether or not this would be accepted. If she’d be called out immediately for her deception. 

“Are we… All good?” 

— 

Thea’s sobs softened across the stretching of time. Her body slumped with a sudden weight, fatigue drilling into her bones. She wanted to go home. No, not back to her shitty apartment with her three other stupid roommates but her home. Back to Toronto with the piss scented alleyways and the cheap cha siu bao that she grabbed from the bakery down the street from her home. She wanted someone to come pull the blankets up to her chest and kiss her forehead and linger by the door before they turned the lights out. What she got was the sting of cold night air and the acrid scent of the pit. Thea wobbled to her feet, pressing into her side just enough to draw blood again; it stained through the cheap yellow shirt that she stole. “I promise,” she said steadily. 

Thea’s attention turned to the pit; they’d all done something unspeakable. Even without the promise, she doubted any of them would dare talk about it. To speak of a horror was to breathe it into existence. The air was heavy with all the horrors they didn’t speak of, it was always weighed down by it. Things could be okay if no one ever mentioned what wrongness lingered by the doors, refusing to turn the lights on. Thea had lived most of her life never putting a name to any of her woes and she could continue it just the same. It was for that reason, that despite the circumstances, she smiled as warmly and as widely as she could muster. The remnants of tears glistened in her brown eyes. 

“Yeah, we’re all good.” 

[eldritchaccident]

Timing: Late last night/early this morning Location: On a boat motherfucker the ocean Feat: @mortemoppetere & @eldritchaccident Warnings: Gore, Unsanitary, brief mention of animal cruelty Summary: Teds and Emilio head out to the ocean to battle their emotions whoever trapped Pascal

He was already irritated. There was no reason for it, really. Sure, it’d been a weird couple weeks what with the mob kidnapping and the revelation that the well-dressed realtor was a little wolfier than he’d originally let on, but nothing that ought to make Emilio quite this annoyed. 

Well. Nothing except for what was coming. The fact that he was about to be stuck on a damn boat with Teddy fucking Jones, where the only hope of escape would be diving into the goddamn ocean, was probably more than enough justification for the irritability coursing through his veins. 

That and the fact that the asshole was late. Emilio glanced down at his watch, mouth set in a thin line. His ribs were still faintly aching from the less than hospitable treatment the now-dead mobsters had given him, but he’d managed to make it on time without issue. And he knew Teddy had a babysitter for their otter — he’d seen them throw out the call, and he knew Wicked��s Rest well enough to know someone would respond.

He was just about to pull out his phone and send an irritated message when the wind blew the familiar scent of sulfur his way. Great. Either Teddy was here, or the hellhound was back to finish the job.

Emilio kind of found himself hoping for the latter.

—

Well, it’d been a doozy of a day. The demon had places to be, people to track, and annoying detectives to meet up with but life had other plans. Funny how that goes, right? Teddy wasn’t one who liked being late. If they were going to piss someone off it was going to be intentional, and while Teds was there. There wasn’t any game to inconvenience someone like this. But no doubt Emilio was going to assume it was on purpose no matter what they said. Ugh. At that point it might be better to let the detective believe whatever the hell he wanted.  

Every time Teddy got to thinking about this case, about finding the trapper, about any of this shit it always ended with another obsessive spiral. One where they couldn’t get the image of that smug dumb face out of their mind. Or at least what they had imagined a smug look on Emilio’s pretty little face might look like. Certainly sounded like he was throwing himself a little party when Ted had gone and taken his advice. Why the hell had they gone and done it so publicly? Ughhhh. Fuck. His stupid voice played over and over in the demon’s head, every time they reread any of the dumb texts the detective had sent. 

Oh woe is me, I forgot how to enjoy things. I only know how to be angry all the time. Rah rah rah. Touch my dog and I’ll stab you. Aaaarrhgh. 

The version of the man that lived rent free in Ted’s head was… not exactly a pleasant representation. Maybe it had to be. Had to amplify the obvious because it still felt like something was missing. Like this version of the man was a hollow mask, that something deeper lay beneath it. And of course, there was that thing Leviathan said. ‘Maybe he said thank you in another way you didn't quite catch.’ The hell was that supposed to mean? Emilio kept insisting that he hadn’t needed a rescue. Despite the fact that he had been knocked out and was about to be dog chow. There was a decision to be made and Teddy made it. They couldn’t go back and fix it. Let the man just– no. 

No, that was never an option either. A harsh pit writhed and sank in the demon’s stomach just to think about it. Which was… confusing to say the least. Maybe it was just because Emilio was a (fucking infuriating, but still a) person, and Teddy hated seeing anyone suffer. Unless they really deserved it. In that case, didn’t he? Well, no– Being a prick didn’t mean you should have to go and die about it. He was trying to help the bear after all and that was… good? Maybe? He’d been trying to help Joy too. Didn’t know her at all. Which made things so much more complicated, made it so much harder to parse through. 

It was too much. Hopefully, the demon thought, this case would shine a light on more than just who was out here hunting otters illegally. With a sigh and a shake, Teddy tried their best to purge all those thoughts from their mind before finally striding up to the spot on the docks where Emilio had texted them to meet up. Of course the man was standing there, under the lamppost looking like someone just kicked him the shin. Of course he was waiting for them there, and was going to be pissed that Teddy was… five minutes late? Maybe six? 

It had been a long day, and it was going to be a longer night. Why the hell had they come up with this plan in the first place? 

—

If there was some sense of relief at seeing Teddy approach the dock in one piece, it was only because they hadn’t fully paid him for this job yet. A deposit hardly equaled the full amount of Axis’s fee, and Emilio had spent a fair amount of time on research already. The leg work of this case was already done — all he needed now was to get on board Teddy’s stupid boat long enough to actually track down their perpetrator. And, unfortunately, Teddy needed to be alive and uninjured for Emilio to accomplish that. If they wanted to go and die after they’d paid him, that was fine by him. He didn’t give a shit. The brief relief that rose up to temporarily replace that irritation was tied to his paycheck and nothing more.

In any case, the irritation quickly returned as Teddy got closer. Emilio wasn’t sure what they were wearing — was that the standard outfit for someone making a trip out on a boat? It was gaudy and bright and colorful, which certainly wasn’t ideal for any kind of stealth work, but Emilio didn’t think stealth was possible on a boat, anyway. There was no way their target wouldn’t see or hear them coming, but there wasn’t really anywhere they’d be able to run, either. There were, evidently, both pros and cons to working at sea. Emilio hoped he’d never have to do it again.

“You’re late,” Emilio said flatly, and there was the strangest urge to ask why, coupled with an odd desire to ask about the otter (had they found someone to watch it? Stuck it with Chuck after all, or gone in a different direction?), but Emilio pushed both to the side. Sometimes, with Teddy, it felt like he was participating in some unknowable performance, like every move he made was being analyzed in a way he didn’t understand. If he asked them where they’d been, they’d be smug about it. If he didn’t, they’d know he wanted to. Paranoia insisted that they could tell there was something under the surface here, that they were going to use it against him, somehow. He couldn’t figure out why he cared about it so much. Who gave a shit if they figured out he wanted to ask about their damn otter? Why did it matter if they knew he was curious as to where they’d been? It was stupid, and stupider still that he couldn’t shake it. 

Pushing himself forward, he exhaled steadily through his nose and bit back a wince. His ribs were still tender from the beating those damn gangsters had delivered, mostly healed but not entirely all right. They might have fixed themselves sooner if he’d allowed himself much rest between then and now, but after that harrowing nightmare that had seen him staring at his wall for hours after, he’d been sleeping less and less. So far, the nightmares he’d had in the brief bouts of sleep since had been the standard fare, but it was hard to accept the risk that something like that might happen again. It wasn’t quite worth it.

Besides, this would be an easy case. Find the fisherman, find out why he’d done what he’d done, and let Teddy decide what they wanted to do about it. There was little chance it would snowball into something as complex as what had happened with Alan’s case. That, Emilio thought, seemed like a ‘one time deal’ sort of shitshow. 

“Just lead the way to the damn boat. I’ve got a good idea who we’re looking for and where to start. I can catch you up when we’re on the water.” No need to stretch this out any more than he had to. The sooner he was finished with this case, the better.

—

“Barely.” The demon rolled their eyes, going with the typical attitude then? Teddy wasn’t sure why but they had expected at least a little more of a customer service face because they were paying him now, guess that didn’t change things. Money wasn’t what made Mr. Cortez tick. A fact Teds kind of knew already. This was more of a confirmation than the very start of a hypothesis. A heavy silence followed, dropping between them like an atom bomb. It might have been mere seconds, but to the demon it felt like forever. 

Until the man moved, and they caught the wince, however small and held back it was. The writhing knot in their stomach seemed to sink further. Seemed to grow and furrow Teddy’s brow, completely against their will. Nerves, they justified, after all if Emilio was hurt, he might not be able to do this job right. A simple strain on their nerves, all it could be. Right? Lord knows how good the man was at getting on Ted’s nerves. There wasn’t an explanation in the world that would make Teddy actually believe they held any amount of concern for the well being of the detective. Unless it was on behalf of the job.

“Are you–” It started to leak out. The way Teddy would empathize with anyone else. Feeling somehow extra wrong to extend the same kindness to Emilio. Like they were supposed to be detached here. Aloof. Sarcastic and sardonic instead of gentle and kind. Supposed to play a part that the detective had already cast him in. Play it until the end of the line. Whatever that might mean. “Sure you’re up for this one big guy?” A more casual tone took on the rest of the question. Feigning the concern away from the man, and making it about the job. Because that made more sense. 

Emilio was awful to be around. Well, he was fun to mess with, but otherwise awful. They kept telling themself it, rationalizing each newer stranger emotion as they surfaced. Maybe it was a bit of jealousy. Yeah? The great green snake rearing its ugly head. That something out there got to get some jabs in where Teddy hadn’t. If anyone was going to hurt Emilio, it should have been Ted. Payback or something, right? For the roof. For the alley. For the fact that the man was insufferable, except to make him suffer. Jealousy was understandable. The fact that it was something the demon so rarely felt made it all the more attractive as a scapegoat. They weren’t sure, because they didn’t have that much experience with it. Obviously. 

“Right, well. Let's get going.” Stealth might normally not be much of an option on the high seas, but the cover of night, the slight fog, and the healthy number of enchantments on the Leviathan’s boat certainly helped. Even so, the drive out of the docks and into open water was uncharacteristically quiet. Eerily so even. Teddy knew it was at least partially the effect of the sound dampening rituals they had done earlier. Circling the vessel in runes and glyphs, that would keep anything off the boat from hearing them coming. They could talk and remain unheard. A few more spells and it’d be hard to notice them at all until they were within boarding distance. Not that Teddy had to share that information unless Emilio asked. 

Teddy promised to be quiet. They were just keeping their word. 

—

Emilio returned Teddy’s eye roll with one of his own, choosing not to comment on how ‘barely’ late the other was. Late was late, wasn’t it? It didn’t matter how late you were. Even being seconds too late was more than enough to turn something entirely on its head. Emilio knew that better than anyone. Of course, the stakes here were low. Teddy arriving a few minutes later than the agreed upon time really only hurt them, considering it was their case and their money. Let them be late if they wanted to be late. Emilio would add it to the ever-growing list of extra charges he planned on slapping them with when all this was over. If he was going to have to put up with them, he was going to make sure he was fairly compensated for it. 

He felt them looking at him again, felt their eyes on him when he couldn’t quite hide the pain in the movement. And he knew they caught it. If there was one thing he’d picked up about Teddy, it was that they were observant. A little too observant for comfort, sometimes. It made it hard to hide anything, made him feel exposed and raw. Worse still, they never seemed to do anything with whatever information they gleaned from him. They must have been saving it for something, must have been gathering it with the intention of using it against him somehow, but he couldn’t figure out how. He couldn’t figure out why they hadn’t done it yet. 

They spoke, and his jaw tightened just a little at the question. “If I wasn’t, I wouldn’t be here.” It was untrue, and he hated the fact that Teddy knew that, hated that they’d seen him go after that damn baukbear when he could barely stand, hated that they already knew him as well as they did when he didn’t want them to know him at all. He hated the question, too, the idea that they hadn’t even made it out on the water yet and his capabilities were already being questioned. Like he was a damn kid again, the least impressive of his mother’s children and made to remember that fact every day. Maybe he wasn’t at a hundred percent, but he could do this. He could. 

For some unfathomable reason, he felt the need to insist upon it further. And that was stupid, because it wasn’t as if Teddy’s opinion meant anything. They were a fucking asshole. If they wanted to question him, they could question him. If they wanted to change their mind and take their case to some other detective, it would just mean Emilio had to deal with them less. He’d lose out on the paycheck and have some wasted time under his belt, of course; that was the only reason the option seemed like a bad one. If it weren’t for that, he’d tell Teddy to fuck off. It was only the resources he’d sunk into this stupid case that made the thought of doing so now make his palms itch and his chest ache.

“Sooner the better,” Emilio agreed, climbing onto the boat. He could count on one hand the number of times he’d been on a boat in his life, and he’d hated it on each and every occasion. This was no different. The way the ocean’s waves made the ground beneath his feet feel unsteady, the way the shore was getting farther and farther away and the knowledge that he could no longer make it there unassisted was sitting heavy in his mind, the way Teddy seemed so utterly comfortable on the water, as if they were born for it… It all swirled together in Emilio’s chest, making his heart beat faster than it should have. 

Somehow, the silence made it worse. He used to prefer the quiet, but being left alone with his thoughts seemed more a punishment than a reward these days. And still, he couldn’t bring himself to break it. It felt like a contest, like he was in some imaginary competition with Teddy that only he was aware of. They seemed content. Calm. And Emilio hated the fact that he was anything but. 

—

Every so often the boat would rock just so, or there would be an interesting sound, a neat thing to look at. And every single time Teddy’s instinct to chime in and give a fun little anecdote had to be physically squashed down with a shake of the head or a bite of the tongue. This wasn’t a field trip. Emilio didn’t want to know about the shipwreck they just passed over, or how a nest of Osprey appeared on that one buoy every year in summer, even if it wasn’t as high as a usual home for the species. This wasn’t a tour. They weren’t searching for cryptids (paid or otherwise). The detective had made it abundantly clear that he’d expect silence while they completed this task together. 

So why was the man so uncomfortable in it? Stewing and biting back grumbles over there on the deck. It should have made Teddy happy. Should have recharged the smile that had faded into an expression of intense focus. The whole damn reason the demon made sure they were doing this together was to mess with him. Okay, most of the reason. Pascal’s Revenge™ was still number one. Number one and climbing the ranks as the returns on the other game appeared to diminish. 

A stillness came about the demon, one rarely viewed outside of their small family. In their drive to be competitively petty had they verged too close to cruel? The demon was many things, but it didn’t like to believe that it was unnecessarily sadistic. As the minutes turned to an hour, and Emilio still hadn’t cracked any jokes at their expense, hadn’t pointed something out just to make them feel stupid, hadn’t done anything but stare out over the rail while gripping it like a lifeline… Teddy didn’t know what to do. 

Not that they ever really did around Emilio. 

That was the problem, wasn’t it? Wherever the demon expected the detective to bend right, he flipped left, up, or down. Infuriating. Exhilarating. And maybe just a bit misjudged. Not that they’d ever (ever, ever, ever, ever, not in their infinite lifespan) admit it out loud. Maybe Oscar the Grouch over there wasn’t… the worst. Teddy certainly had met with (and dispatched) worse. Joy was worse. Obviously. But Joy fit in her box. Emilio was something interesting wrapped up in a shell of something wretched. 

Speaking of wretched things, a metallic scent wafted along the winds. Teddy smelled the blood long before the radar ever picked up the other vessel. Too much blood. Not quite human either, mixed with the salt and seawater it was a little hard to pick out what, but that wasn’t the demon’s real area of expertise. Their boat came to a stall, and Ted began another small ritual, strengthening the runes that guarded the ship, guarding them from being noticed before they wanted to be. 

The ship itself seemed to almost fade away as the demon circled it, running their hands along the railing, only nodding to the man to get him to move aside once they were right up next to him. When the circle was complete, when the ritual was done, from those on board it appeared as if they had turned the opacity way down, from the outside, it might as well have been a shadow. 

“Don’t cross the barrier until you are sure it’s time. Not even a finger over it, okay? I have a feeling it’s about to get real bad. Probably worse than expected.” Their voice was low, but with a steady even keel that completely betrayed their usual flighty foolhardy style. No hint of sarcasm, no judgment. Nothing. This was the job. They were going to do it right. And then they could get back to figuring out if this puzzle was still worth unraveling. Maybe from a new angle. Who knew? 

Silently Teddy returned to the helm, the boat whirred back to life even quieter than before. They moved in and within ten minutes, a small shape bobbed on the horizon. 

— 

If Teddy’s chatter was irritating, their silence was unnerving. On dry land, it might have been a welcome thing. Most of the time Emilio had spent (typically unwillingly) in Teddy’s company had consisted of him praying for them to quiet down. But out here? It only served to put him more on edge. His knuckles were white as they gripped the railing, jaw clenched tightly shut to prevent himself from losing this unspoken contest of silence that existed only in his head as he glared out into the sea. Somehow, time passed both slower and more quickly than it ought to; if this much time on the water had him feeling like this, Emilio couldn’t imagine why anyone would choose to live at sea long-term.

Eventually, the air shifted in a way that meant they were getting close to something and, this far out at sea, it could only be another boat. It might not be their guy — Emilio had gotten word that the fisherman who set the traps that Teddy had found their otter in spent a lot of time out here, but it could just as easily be someone else, too. There were plenty of people in Wicked’s Rest who spent time out at sea for various reasons, both nefarious and innocent. It might be difficult to tell which they were happening upon now.

Except… As they got closer, he felt it. That familiar feeling of the hair standing up on the back of his neck, that almost sick twisting in his stomach as they approached the other boat. He might have assumed it was something at the bottom of the sea, because it wasn’t unheard of. But as they drew nearer to the faint shape of a boat out in the fog, the feeling grew stronger and coupled itself with the faint scent of blood in a way that made it impossible to deny. Whatever was on that boat, it was undead.

And it was up to something.

Teddy was doing… something. Emilio wasn’t entirely sure what until they spoke to him, breaking that long stretch of silence with an instruction that revealed that their trek around the boat hadn’t been for a leisurely stroll. They’d done some kind of a ritual, and Emilio was torn between frustration that they hadn’t clued him in on that plan or what the ritual was and relief that they weren’t going to be seen a mile out. Given what he now knew about the boat they were approaching, he found himself begrudgingly leaning towards the latter. Of course, there was no way in hell he’d ever admit to that. Teddy would never let him live such a thing down.

As they drew nearer to the other ship, Emilio weighed his options. Teddy going into this thing near-blind would be bad for both of them, as their lack of preparedness would only make things harder on Emilio if it came to blows. But revealing what he knew about the other boat would mean admitting that he had a way to know it, too, and given everything he knew about Teddy, he knew that they’d be able to make certain inferences about Emilio with that extra sliver of information. Inferences that could be remarkably dangerous, depending on what they decided to do with them. Inferences that could lead to other discoveries, too. After all, anyone who’d spent significant time in Mexico would be able to make certain leaps about a slayer with Emilio’s surname.

In the end, though, something made the option of honesty win out. Emilio might claim it was because he didn’t want Teddy slowing him down with questions if it came to blows, or that he wouldn’t know how to drive the boat back on his own if Teddy got themself killed by a vampire out at sea. The truth was something more complicated, something that tangled itself in his gut in a way he didn’t understand. He didn’t want Teddy going into this without all the information. He didn’t want them to get hurt because he’d held back. He didn’t want that kind of weight on his shoulders again.

“Jones,” he said gruffly, the first word he’d spoken since their departure from shore. He didn’t look at Teddy, kept his eyes locked on the boat ahead of them as if that might make what he was about to do any less dangerous than it had the potential to be. “They’re undead. Whoever’s on that ship. So… We’re probably not going to be able to do this with knives or bullets.” For certain species it might be possible — different kinds of undead had different rules, after all — but the best bet was to assume it was something more durable. Better to do a little overkill than to get killed. “I want to take the lead.”

—

“Cortez–” They replied. A bit too hastily, with a bit too much vitriol. Especially considering the detective hadn’t followed it up with an insult to Teddy’s driving or some question about why they had stopped so far out like they’d expected.  “I know.” That part was calmer. Flatter. Almost, almost a thank you. After all, Emilio’s statement? It was a warning. Something meant to protect the listener. A confirmation of something the demon had begun to suspect. While they couldn’t sense undead in the way that Emilio apparently could, few things in this world liked blood quite as much as a vampire. Fewer things that were smart enough to pilot a rig out to the middle of the bay just to make a literal bloodbath that could be scented from miles away. Whatever it was, it was gorging itself on something. Making a feast out of it. The closer their ship got to the scene, the worse the stench was. 

No knives or bullets. Okay. Teddy nodded, and nudged a decently sized chest with their foot. “Pick your poison then.” While the demon hadn’t been expecting the midnight trapper to be anything more than a dumb human, they were prepared for anything. Like Satan’s number one boy scout. Ready for any kind of murder that would bring someone some manner of justice. This was bigger than just an otter now. They could see that. 

The box was filled to the brim with just about any implement of death you could imagine. From a foldable scythe to several wooden stakes. The only thing it lacked was any real holy or blessed items. For a pretty obvious reason. There were some decoys, mostly empty bottles of regular-ass seawater that were dressed up to look like something to fight off the undead or damned with. Teddy couldn’t let themself ignore a possible giveaway if it meant protecting themself and their father. 

Though if Emilio was as good a detective as they had regrettably come to realize he was (the boat they were after was more or less exactly where the man had predicted, even without the rich scent of spilled blood they’d have found it all the same), he’d probably see right through that little ruse. Teddy wasn’t really ready to come to terms with what that might actually mean so they locked it away. Unconsciously filtering out what wasn’t necessary for the here and now. Anything that wouldn’t help dust whatever evil motherfucker was over on that other boat. 

“Lead on.” No argument. No more fire. At least not toward Emilio. Everything that burned within them was now directed at their target. The cause of the red tinted wake that rippled gently behind their vessel. Quietly, their boat caught up. Teddy pulled alongside right where Emilio had directed. Came to a rest, and the creature on board didn’t seem any wiser about it. Good. Seconds later, Teddy was right behind the hunter. Their own stakes in hand. Ready to go, ready to follow the leader. 

—

They knew already. Normally, that might have filled Emilio with frustration, annoyance that he’d given Teddy information that he hadn’t needed to give them, that he’d offered some vague part of an answer for nothing. But the annoyance didn’t come this time. Maybe it was because Teddy didn’t immediately jump on the words, or because their tone wasn’t harsh or taunting when they responded. It was easier not to let the irritation bubble over when they were being halfway decent, even if those moments were rare. What made less sense was the odd sense of faint relief that filled his chest in place of that irritation. Teddy already knew, and that was a good thing. That meant less possibility of complication, less chance that this would end poorly. They could take care of this bump in the road, and then they could go back to trading verbal bars on dry land. After Teddy paid him, of course. The getting paid was important, too.

Glancing down at the chest, Emilio furrowed his brow. He eyed Teddy suspiciously for a moment before relenting, leaning down to shift through the contents. Knives, swords, blades, a damn scythe. Emilio couldn’t help but take note of all of it. That knife looked silver. That sword was iron. There were stakes made of different types of wood. Salt bags. He picked up a vial, inspecting the contents. He’d expected holy water, of course, but… No, this wasn’t right. No rosaries, either. 

Emilio pushed his tongue up against the sharpness of his canines to keep himself from making the observation aloud, choosing instead to place the vial back in the chest and pick up a few things that might actually come in handy against something undead instead. Stakes, even though his pockets were heavy with his own — Teddy had probably gathered what he was, at this point, but there was no reason to confirm it for them. A knife, even though it would likely be useless. The handle was made out of something heavy and white, and maybe he just liked the weight of it in his hand. Almost as an afterthought, he took that scythe, too. It was bigger than what he might usually carry, clunkier, but it was hard to resist the urge to take it. He justified it silently to himself with the reminder that whatever was on that boat might be something they needed to behead, and that was always such a damn ordeal with a small blade. The scythe would make it simpler. 

Of course, the growing stench of blood in the air was making it look more and more likely that their trapper was something that could be easily dispatched with one of the stakes Emilio had grabbed, but he gripped the scythe all the same. Maybe he could enjoy something just to enjoy it, for a moment. Maybe not everything had to be functional. 

He’d expected Teddy to argue, to insist that they lead even though he was the one with the experience, the one with the know-how, the one who was being paid. Instead, they offered no resistance in a way that felt strange. Emilio was almost suspicious, narrowing his eyes briefly, but… If there was one thing he was sure of, it was that they cared about this job. The otter, the trapper, the chance to keep it from happening again, it mattered to them. Maybe it mattered enough that they wouldn’t compromise it for a petty vendetta. Clicking his tongue, Emilio nodded. Time to do the real work.

Whatever ritual Teddy had done to disguise their boat seemed to have worked well enough. The captain of the other ship didn’t seem to realize they were coming, didn’t meet them in the water. Emilio couldn’t hear them over the sounds of the ocean, but he was willing to bet they were still slurping away on whatever it was they’d caught out here. Emilio wasted no time in moving from their boat to the other, landing silently in spite of the vibrations of pain the small jump sent up his bad leg and still injured ribs. If there was one thing he knew how to do, it was work around pain. It was one of the first lessons his mother taught him, one of the most important things for a hunter to know. You had to keep fighting, even when you knew you weren’t going to win. Maybe even especially then.

Silently, he made his way through the ship. He could feel Teddy behind him, just as uncharacteristically quiet as they’d been for the entire trip. They were good at being sneaky when they wanted to be, evidently. Later, that knowledge would probably unsettle him. Right now, with this temporary alliance, it was probably a good thing. Emilio followed that feeling in his gut until the sounds of movement were louder than the sounds of the sea, a sickening slurp and a quiet drip making it clear that they were close. He held up a hand to stop Teddy behind him and ducked against a wall, peering through the darkened doorway.

It was an older vampire. He could tell just by looking at them. Not quite an elder, but they had a certain way about them. An arrogance to their posture that he’d only seen in immortals well into their hundreds, ones who’d been around long enough to feel invincible but know that they weren’t. Emilio looked them over carefully for a moment before letting his eyes slip down to what they held. A seal — no. No, not quite. A selkie, he realized. A young one. Already too far gone to save, if it wasn’t dead yet. Something twinged in his chest, but he pushed it aside. No use worrying over what they’d been too late to do. Better to focus on what they could still accomplish instead. If heroism was out of the question, at least there was vengeance. Vengeance had always suited Emilio just fine. 

He looked to Teddy, squinting at them in the darkness despite the fact that he could see perfectly fine. Stay here, he mouthed, hoping the teal eyes he’d caught sight of in their houseboat when their glasses had slipped down their nose were capable of seeing in the dark well enough to make out what he was saying. He couldn’t communicate the whole plan to them in silence; he just had to hope they’d catch on, somehow. Emilio would distract so Teddy could move in undetected. The vampire had just gorged itself. It was going to offer up a challenge, and attacking it head on was going to get one or both of them killed. 

Better to control the situation. With another brief glance to Teddy and a sharp look, Emilio ducked out from behind the wall and stepped into the room where the vampire was feasting. “I gotta know,” he said gruffly, “did you know the traps were getting more than just selkies? You leave the rest there on purpose?” He didn’t think it mattered, one way or another. But Teddy might. And Teddy was the one writing the paycheck here. 

—

It was pretty surprising how well they worked together when either of them shut up long enough for the pair to get something done. Less surprising that Emilio was that good at both of his jobs. One of the very few things that Teddy was absolutely sure of, was the fact that Mr. Emilio Cortez was dedicated to his work. Something that was great right now, but after… well that’d take a lot more parsing. As these things so often did every time they had one of these little interactions. 

The revelation of ‘slayer’ came with a heavier tone than most of the others though. 

Demons didn’t have their own hunters. Not exactly. Closest you could really get was an exorcist with a specialty in demonology. Even then, they were more of the cerebral type than the stabby stabby sort. Slayers came close though. They had all the tools, usually had quite a bit of the knowhow, and definitely carried the skills and blessed items that burned through demonic skin like acid covered blades through soft butter. It put Teddy on edge. More than the blood splattered boat, more than the actual monster they were about to kill. More than anything so far. Stare down a hellhound and call it Carolina? Fine. Know the man who hates you has more than enough reason and ability to take you down? Less so. 

But he hadn’t. Not yet. Had plenty of opportunities. Slayers healed faster than demons, and while that night after the alleyway was not particularly great for either of them, Emilio had managed to get up and get gone long before Teddy had ever stirred from the dingy. Hell, from the first time they met the detective had known where Teddy lived. If he’d figured it out, figured out what Teddy was, why hadn’t he killed them already? Why hadn’t he killed the creatures in the alleyway? Why did he let all of the others go from their cages? None of the ones Teddy had found and corralled to safety had been injured in any way. 

Hunters didn’t do that. Hunters didn’t show that kind of mercy. Hunters didn’t ask questions before going in for the kill. The demon’s mind flicked back to Venice. To the hunters dressed like nuns, to the table and the scar they left. That had been their first real run-in with any honest to goodness hunters. It certainly wasn’t their last. And yet, here was Mr. Cortez. Actually following through with the terms Teddy had set for the job. Because they had asked him to. The demon was ready to call the literal trail of blood evidence enough, but he went and asked anyway. Gave up a potential perfect ambush. Was it just to gloat? Maybe, or maybe not.

Something clicked then. A realization of how wrong first, second, and third impressions had been. Not that it really mattered. Teddy hadn’t exactly put their best face forward for the detective and surely the man’s opinion on them only tanked from there. It was the kind of thing that made them swallow hard, bite on the inside of their cheek, and sink into themself a little. Not so much that they couldn’t read ahead, figure out the slayer’s plan and act accordingly. 

The vampire began to monologue, because of course it did, something questioning how the slayer found them and how it didn’t really matter because he wasn’t going to be leaving this boat and blah blah self important blah. Crucially, it admitted it had seen the animal in the trap. And that it didn’t care. That was enough to bring a big old grin back to the demon’s face. A spark enough to drive them on with a sudden manic glee. This was the good part, after all.

As Emilio kept all eyes on him, Teddy slipped through a window unnoticed. Crept up behind the beast. Two arms shot out of the darkness. Worming in between and around the vampire’s torso. Quickly wrenching and snapping the creature’s limbs, leaving them dangling on either side of its chest. Sure, it could regenerate them fast, but Ted knew the hunter would be faster. They swept a leg to the side. In an almost dance-like maneuver they spun the surprised blood-vulture around and down until its back hit the table that had been laid out before it. Hitting it hard enough that the old wood split and drew a wheezy whine from the vampire’s throat. Stifled a split second later by Teddy’s forearm clamping down and holding the creature there.  

A big old open window for the slayer to do the fun part.

—

The monologue was entirely expected, but irritating all the same. Emilio had always hated the self-important type of vampires, the ones who talked just to enjoy the sound of their own voice and held their audience captive as a result. He preferred action to words, anyway. If a vampire was planning on killing him, he’d always prefer they just do it. Talking about it for ten minutes first sucked all the fun out of the equation.

If he was being honest, Emilio zoned out a little during the speech. It was all shit he’d heard before, anyway. Death threats might have been unsettling when he was a kid, but these days? They were so familiar that there was a strange sense of comfort to it. He could let it fall to the back like background noise, focus instead on what Teddy was doing. With the vampire’s full attention on the detective, his unofficial, one-time-only ‘partner’ was free to move around so long as they didn’t make any noise. And they were good at it. The not making noise. It was surprising, even if the boat trip had acted as a sort of prologue to the revelation.

More surprising, perhaps, was the fact that Teddy had seemingly picked up on Emilio’s plan. He couldn’t make out their pathing without giving away the fact that he wasn’t alone, but they seemed to be doing exactly what he’d intended for them to do, even if no words had been exchanged. Making their way behind the vampire to attack without being seen, letting Emilio distract while they leapt into action. 

Now that the confession Teddy had wanted was out in the open, there was no reason to draw things out; Teddy might want to take things slow, but Emilio figured it’d be better to do this one quickly. With a vampire this experienced, buzzing with the blood from the selkie it had just drained dry, it was best not to give it a chance to fight back. They were lucky it had decided to monologue instead of attacking outright; they weren’t going to get lucky twice. 

So the moment Teddy snapped those bones, Emilio darted in. As much as he wanted to use that scythe, a stake was more practical here. He slid it between the monster’s ribs, took a moment to relish in the wide-eyed stare, the look of shock. Little made it through the fog in his head these days, the TV static that fuzzed up most of his thoughts and made the world feel farther away than it ought to, but moments like this always came close. When he drove that stake home, when he saw the look of surprise etched into the face of something that died for thinking that Emilio would be easy to kill… It was enough to spark something. Not joy, not relief, not peace, but something. And something had to be enough.

Of course, the emptiness returned as the vampire crumbled into dust, settling back into his chest as if it had never left at all. Emilio flipped the stake absently in his hand, watching the beast crumble to reveal the shape of Teddy standing behind it. He offered them a curt nod. “Got your answer,” he told them. “And you can keep his boat.” Emilio certainly had no use for it. This whole experience had only served to show him just how little he enjoyed the open sea. 

—

For a moment, anyone looking on the scene might assume the pair had been trained together. Working in such succinct synchronicity that the gorged vampire was barely a threat, let alone something that could be considered a fight. Adrenaline pumped through Teddy’s veins, the brilliant thrum of action lifting their spirits high. The creature that had made Pascal an orphan was gone. Good riddance. The deed was done and for a second, the demon smiled at the detective. Flicked their eyebrows up and glanced between him and the pile of dust, as if to make a joke. As if to say ‘is that all?’ 

Thankfully, they hadn’t said it aloud. Or the next bit would have been really embarrassing. Would have had Emilio grouching and saying it was somehow Teddy’s fault. The second vampire had remained about as unnoticed as the hunting party had. Maybe more so. Teddy wasn’t even sure where it came from, just that the only warning it was there at all was the quick glance on Emilio’s part. His eyes darted behind Teddy, just before the demon heard the first foot fall. 

Teddy twisted and bent at the waist to avoid the first slash. Almost putting themself exactly where the captain of the creepy boat had just been. Secret vamp was going old school. Claws and fangs. That or it was caught just as unawares as Admiral Dusty and the natural weapons were the only at hand. 

Momentum carried the thing forward and Teddy used it to their advantage. The demon rolled, dodging another blow. One that made woodchips of the table, sent them tumbling to the floor, and knocked the stake clear out of Emilio’s hands. It shrieked and turned to lunge at the slayer, but Teddy was there to catch it. 

The vampire seemed to reel as its feet stayed firmly in place, two strong hands holding tight to its ankles as Teddy played the part of anchor. Hopefully long enough that the slayer could do something about the unwelcome party guest. 

—

The buzz of adrenaline that came with killing the vampire faded, but something else remained in its place. A familiar feeling, one that Emilio should have pegged before, one he should have made note of. The moment the realization hit him, he felt like a fucking idiot. He should have known, should have been paying more attention, should have recognized it sooner.

The vampire was dust on the floor of the boat, but the old twist in his gut that meant something undead was near hadn’t gone anywhere. 

A second after the thought hit, he spotted them. Right behind Teddy, sneaking in for a kill. The slight widening of Emilio’s eyes was the only warning Teddy got but, evidently, it was the only one they needed. They moved fast, dodging the attack quickly. The thing was fast, of course; they always were. It moved in for another, and Emilio darted forward just quick enough to have the stake knocked from his hand. The brief contact seemed to clue the vampire in to his presence, and it turned its attention to him, lunging towards him only to be stopped short.

Teddy wouldn’t be able to hold it for long. There were stakes in Emilio’s jacket pocket, but it would take a moment to retrieve one, a moment more to drive it home. There was a much more accessible weapon slung across his back… and he’d been itching for the chance to use it since the second he saw it in Teddy’s treasure chest of death.

Yanking the scythe off his back, he slung it forward, the blade making contact with the vampire’s throat with a satisfying thunk. Between Emilio’s enhanced strength and the sharpness of the blade, one swing was all it took. The head rolled to the floor, the whole world suspended for a heartbeat before the second vampire followed the first’s example and exploded into a cloud of dust. 

This time, Emilio took a moment to feel out the space. There was nothing undead buzzing his senses. Just the now-familiar scent of sulfur that always seemed to cling to Teddy and the fading adrenaline from the unexpected second fight. Tossing the scythe between his hands, he couldn’t keep the faint smile from slipping onto his face. Just as satisfying as he thought it’d be.

“All right,” he said, looking back to Teddy, “now we’re done.” He held the scythe handle-out towards Teddy for them to take. “Let’s get back to land. Fucking sick of the ocean.”

—

A bark of mirth escaped the demon’s mouth. At first just a short breathy thing, that built up and doubled back on itself until Teddy was laughing. Having a hard time lifting themself up from their spot on the ground with the way it shook them. Rumbling out their chest like it was something with its own life. They had pushed it back so much that their joy rebelled. Dark eyes looked up over an expression of pure elation. “You can smile, I fucking knew it.” And it was a good one too. Real. Made these little dimples come out of nowhere and almost made Emilio Cortez look like something with a soul.

Teddy took hold of the scythe, used it like a walking stick to right themselves. Then like a cane to keep their balance. That tumble had popped one of their joints, and they were so dizzy on adrenaline and endorphins that they weren’t even sure which one had gone. Only that a steady stream of signals were coming out of that region. “Yeah, yeah. Back to land. You feel like setting this boat on fire first though?” 

Something had shifted within them. Despite the fact that he was never anything but, that smile was all it took for Teddy to see him as human. Someone they’d mess with in a fun way rather than any kind of malice or actual ill will. Emilio could hate them all they want, didn’t mean Teddy had to return the sentiment. At least not all the time. 

— 

As quickly as it had appeared, that smile faded from Emilio’s face, erased by Teddy’s laughter and replaced with a roll of his eyes. But there wasn’t as much heat to the irritation as there had been before, wasn’t as much seriousness. The smile had been more genuine than the annoyance that replaced it. And that would change when they got back to shore, of course. When Teddy reminded him of just how annoying they really were, when the weight of the world rested itself upon Emilio’s shoulders again, when he wasn’t riding the high of decapitating a vampire with a scythe. In the real world, Emilio would hate himself for letting Teddy see something he wasn’t sure he wanted to share. 

But he wasn’t in the real world just yet. 

He took a step back as Teddy got to their feet, not reaching out to help them but keeping an eye on them in a way that implied he might step in if they fell. Luckily, it didn’t seem he’d have to decide whether or not that might would evolve into anything more. That was better for the both of them, he was sure. With his bad knee, Emilio could barely keep himself on his feet. He couldn’t be made responsible for doing the same for anyone else anymore. 

Their question almost brought that smile back to his face, but he smothered it at the last moment. “Yeah,” he said with a nod, “I really fucking do.” Burning the boat would do nothing for the selkie drained of blood in the floor, or for the mother of the otter that was safe back wherever Teddy had left it. It was just as empty a gesture as every vampire Emilio dusted with his daughter’s name beating in his heart.

But Christ, it’d feel good, anyway. 

“I’ve got a lighter. They’ve probably got gas on board someplace. Let’s get to fucking work.”

[geisternatur]

world war ruins in malchow.

i am talking about world war 2 and nazis in my most recent blog blogpost and how most of the population in germany kept quiet and stayed ignorant to what happened to marginalized people everywhere, most especially the jews. and that led me to a big essay on the war in gaza right now and how the world does the exact same thing, with the difference that now you have live footage and reports from within gaza from innocent people fighting for survival and even with that material people stay silent and even defend israel and support them. to me, this is so delusional and it is devastating.

here is the text that i wrote:

there are stories about locals trying to sneak in food into the camp, but they had to be very careful, because if they were caught, they would have ended up incarcerated, too. still, the overall population probably kept quiet, which reminds me so much of current genocides as well, namely the genocide that is taking place in gaza at the moment where palestinians are being murdered on a scale that is equally unbelievable as it was back during world war 2, only that this time, it is not hidden as much, because we have proof through uncountable witness reports from inside the gaza strip.

to me, it is absolutely mindboggling how all this proof exists inside the internet/online world and there seems to still be no conscience for these people in need especially by the powers that govern us! the people that are being sent on evacuation orders many times and that are bombed and preyed upon, they are civilians with dreams and goals and they had beautiful lives filled with love and hopes ( albeit always under difficult circumstances, thanks to the occupational forces from israel always disrupting them ). now they are living in tent camps near the seaside, there is nowhere to go for them, they are trapped basically and kettled from all sides, they live in terrible heat and in unsanitary conditions, fearful and unknowing when the next strike will hit them and if they will be alive still. there are countless of reports about bombs willfully dropped onto places where children are and of course there are also the scoundrels who demand lots of money to 'help' people flee to outside gaza. and even close to them, knowing that most people do not have any jobs, some still take overpriced money for what shouldn't cost a thing, like food and water and clothes, and other necessities like power.

we have probably all seen some of the terrible videos and photos ciculating around everywhere and yet, still, i barely see people speaking up or going out onto the streets in masses for the people of palestine. it's as if they are choosing to be blind and ignorant. you barely see any support coming in openly from people, even in my closer circle, i haven't seen much outspokenness even though i truly believe that many are very decent and loving humans that care for other issues the same way as i do. it makes me very sad and also angry to see this little support. even a shoutout is already illuminating people on what is going on, you don't even have to donate to any organizations or directly to victims of the war, if you don't have the money. though even as little as 1 dollar or euro helps, and hell, who is seriously left poor in the golden west when you even give 25 to a family, that will give them access to power for a few days? what counts already is the awareness of what is happening around you and calling people out on their ignorance or even taking up a stance against racism. speak up loudly so that governments are also held accountable for their condoning and incredibly appalling support for a regime that is acting genocidal and cruel and as if they don't have any fucking hearts left inside their bodies. maybe some of our elected officials will find the hearts in themselves finally to be taking this whole atrocity serious, the more people talk openly in discussions about and the more pressure we put upon them publicly.

because right now, i see a german government who is defending the actions of these war criminals as self protection and their right to war against a nation that is oppressing their freedom, and i can't BELIEVE that this is the society i live in at the very moment! what is this right to defend yourself against oppressors? who IS the oppressor here? israel, for years, has developed plans to oppress palestinians and they have STOLEN their lands and proclaimed it was their birthright. for decades this has been going on and always it had been supported by the powers that be, even though everyone knows that there are well-known fascists and criminals amongst these people of the zionist government. and everyone has always proclaimed with loud words that fascism and nazis are to be condemned forevermore after the holocaust and yet here we are and we support a radical jewish group that exhibits the same actions as hitler did 80 years ago! how fucked up is it, that germany has seen the horrors of genocide and is making everyone aware of the genocide that happened in europe and makes everyone feel guilty about it and tells them to always remember and never forget, that they now support a megalomaniac asshole in his endeavours to eradicate innocent human beings that only want to live in peace and harmony and without this terrifying turmoil that is happening? sure, the hamas may have a big fault in this, too, but can you blame them after being stripped of their rights and their lands and their freedom for years and years that reach back to colonialism? i would strike back if this was done to me, maybe even be radicalized, because let's face it, the more injustice you are projected to, the more anger you develop and the easier it is to be manipulated to join organizations that want to strike back, even if their intentions are less than humanitarian. human beings can only take so much until they grow up only with hate in their hearts for what has been taken from them all over again.

i am so mad and angry at people of my country and this government, for 1! ignoring what is happening in gaza. and 2! supporting a country that should not exist! yes, i say it with passion and a deep heartfelt conviction: israel should not exist. free palestine! these lands have always belonged to them, so give them back to the palestinian people! and prosecute the war criminals for what they did and never give them freedom again.

i am aware that there are many jewish people who are against this genocide as well, and who have not forgotten the history of their own people being slaughtered and massacred. there are reports that citizens of israel are being incarcerated for acting against their government as well, and i am proud of them of speaking up and telling about the horrendous unjustness of their government. i hope that more and more jews will do this and it would be great to see them topple their government one day and start the process of leaving what belongs to the palestinians or start even a process for living peacefully together right next to each other or WITH each other. unfortunately it looks like the amount of those people seems to be insufficient, and it breaks my heart to learn that a lot of the people in israel have not learned from history and have been manipulated into believing that they are a righteous nation. you are not! especially when you slaughter other nations and have built upon the lands of other nations! the people you murder are not the organization you are fighting. there are women and children and men amongst them who just want to live in peace. who don't want anything to do with either war party. you slaughter innocent people and then you stand there and laugh and are joyous about killing another enemy, are joyous about killing children, raping women and men and humiliating them? only monsters could do this to other human beings. and to me these people are exactly that. monsters. and everyone who condones it and continues to stay silent, is a monster as well.

that is for now all that i am going to say about this topic, but certainly not the last. i am very active on instagram about this topic and talk about it a lot in my stories. i have contact to several palestinian families that i am supporting with a little donation every week to see them out of gaza and to help them with daily expenses. i wish that more and more people will join in this fight against the injustice, against palestinian people and i would be so relieved if it turned out that people i know also make the efforts to help people in need. i would be devastated if i have to wake up one day and learn that some of the people i have been talking to and got to know and appreciate for their wonderful souls, turn out to be killed by bombs and shellings and guns. definitely i wouldn't be able to forget the inactions of people surrounding me, and the inactions of this german government. i want my palestinian friends to be free and live in peace and i want to meet them one day and get to hug them and celebrate that they are alive. i want children to get their childhood back, though i know that these kids are traumatized for life. can you really claim yourself to be a decent human being when you choose to ignore that innocent children are killed, mistreated, famished and left alone without their parents? what human being are you to see all of this and still not open your mouths or act upon it? these are children just like yours and it could in fact also BE your children that are subjected to these crimes. find decency in your heart and compassion for these children just like you would do for your own. how dare you to turn a blind eye to this? to steal their innocence and their dreams, hopes and homes?

● geisternatur blog

[finsterhund]

Betrayed by the hospital gift shop

So I had to go to the hospital today to see a cardiologist and get blood work done for my surgery. I am scared of hospitals. They are one of the most disgusting unsanitary places on Earth and I have residual trauma from when I was a toddler.

Anyways, the fucking gift shop closed at 3. THREE. What in the fuck.

I go to the hospital and I am so brave because afterwards I get to go to the gift shop and look around. This is the fucking rule. I was a brave boy so I get to go to the gift shop. And IT WAS CLOSED. I AM SO FUCKING MAD.

Not only that but roommate sent me in alone by myself and I also did not have a stuffed animal so I was even more brave. And those fuckers closed the gift shop at 3. Unbelievable.

If I'm going to be a brave boy at the hospital I should get to go to the gift shop. Absolutely disgusting.

So needless to say I am in a fuck shit bad mood and stressed to all hell.

[mcfuckenlovenit]

A: "Who said I wanted to live anyway??"

B: "... wat-?"

A: " If your not gonna kill me, can I go to bed??"

B: "...do- do you want to die?"

A: " Not Necessarily"

B: " I- are you ok?"

A: "No, it's 3 am and I have work at 6:30..... you know what nvm I please do kill me"

B: "What?!? no?"

A: "Coward"

B: " why now all of a sudden?"

A: "I work retail"

B: "Oh Good God!...Call in sick"

A: "wat? No, if your not gonna kill me, I still have rent to pay"

B: "Not if I pay it"

A: " You can't do that!"

B:"I think you forget, I have moneys"

A:"Oh fuck no, I'm not just some charity chase you can throw money at!"

B:"I'll give you a job then!"

A:"I do not want your pity"

B:"It's not pity, Retail is living hell!"

A:"It's still a no"

B:"Ughhhhh.....why are you like this?"

A:"Like what??"

B:"Oh idk stubborn? Argumentative maybe?"

A:"I'm not stubborn"

B:"Exactly what a stubborn person would say!"

A:"oh come on! I just need some sleep and about 6 20 oz red bulls"

B:"You're gonna have a heart attack, if you drink that many!"

A:"Nah, as long as I stretch them throughout a 12 hour shift, I should be good"

B:"Is this normal for you?!? How are you not already dead?!?"

A:"It's not that bad, you just gotta remember to eat first"

B:"Do you even remember when the last time you ate was???"

A:"Uhh.....yesterday..?"

B:" Omfg! Let me just ask Richard then"

A:"Um whom the fuck is Richard and why would he know when the last time I ate was?!??!"

B:"Ah, he's an assistant of mine, good man that Richard. Anyway, him and his team have been keeping tabs on you"

A:"Why do you say that so nonchalant??? Is this normal for you?? You just have people stalked at will????"

B:"Well after everything you've seen, I couldn't not put tabs on you"

A:" ...I get that's fair but still WTF???"

B's eyes widen suddenly after reading a text.

B:"Me WTF?? You WTF! You haven't eaten in 5 days?!?"

A:"I haven't...?"

B:"Unless your eating in the bathroom, there's no record!"

A:"Of course I don't eat in the bathroom! That's just unsanitary"

B *sigh*

B:"You know what? Fuck it! Your staying with me! Pack your bags!"

A:"wdym 'pack your bags' ? I'm not going anywhere!"

B:"Would you rather we stay in you one bed apartment??"

A:"Idk, there is a couch."

B:"I am not sleeping on the couch"

A:"why not?"

B:" Your couch is uncomfortable af!"

A:"then don't stay, I can take care of myself!"

B:"I'ma call my aunt then!'

A:"You wouldn't dare!"

B:"Oh, but I would, sweetheart~"

A:"You can't!!"

B:"Then it's settled! Now do you wanna pick food up on the way or do you wanna eat at my place??"

A *big sigh*

A:"Can we get McDonald's??"

A *uses puppy dog eyes*

*It's super effective!"

B *chuckles*

B:"Sure we can, dear"

Person A: “You don’t fool me you know…”

Person B: “That’s a shame, I might have let you live if I had successfully fooled you~”

[dishtothedeath]

Morgan | Chapter 3 Trial | Blasphemous Rumors; RE: Fergus, Yukari

People entertain his theory, and Morgan is relieved to feel like he might actually be onto something. Others are quick to put it on ice, but he’s still not convinced to drop the idea just yet. Instead, he silently reviews evidence on his tablet again, glancing up to each person that speaks, feeling that maybe his eyes are going to Bonbon more than usual purely because people are mentioning him so much.

He has no opinions. Yet.

Yukari mentioning him by name catches Morgan off guard, and for a moment, he just stares at her, surprised to have the accusation thrown at him. Weren’t they friends?

“First of all,” he starts, and drops any semblance of politeness entirely.

Visibly hurt, he glances away from Yukari and straightens up in his seat first. Of course they’re not friends. Stupid of him to assume that and that someone wouldn’t throw him under the bus. His tongue runs along the the backs and undersides of his teeth, focusing on the feeling of each ridge and groove to hold himself together.

“The fucking ghoulish thing we find Emil under is not something I have the brains to do. I tell you this when we are having drinks together! My brother is the engineer, not me. I dropped out of high school to work instead… I have told others the same thing. I tell you how upset this makes me, even, thinking I am nowhere near as smart as him!”

There’s more than just a first of all, though—Morgan’s got a lot to say, and he’s not shy at all about expressing just how much Yukari has provoked his ire. 

“The bonesaw in the deli? It is hanging incorrectly, somebody says this already. I have been butchering things since before some of you were born. The place is clean—incredibly clean, like I say before—but you know what I never do when I am preparing something? I do not leave any fucking blood anywhere. It is unsanitary, it is unsightly, and the place where you clean things needs to be clean as well.”

He removes his outer shirt so he’s just in a plain black t-shirt now, exposing his arms. “I do not have the physical strength for whatever the hell that was. Look at me.”

And then he turns incredibly smug in a nasty, hateful way he absolutely delights in, offering Yukari his perfect camera-focused smile, devoid of joy and brimming with hostility.

“Fergus, you know, he holds me sometimes. He has seen what he needs to see, knows that I am bony and that my elbows could put your eye out. You remember, Fergus, right?” His eyes close as he continues smiling, attention shifting to Fergus when they open again. “Right in the store, even.” A hand claps over his mouth, feigning scandal. “What if somebody saw that?”

Everyone who ever saw him at the beach has seen him partially unclothed, actually, but he’s looking to twist a very specific knife and arranges words in whatever way he feels will cause the most irritation, or even better, genuine upset. 

“Also. I do not speak like the message sent on the tablet. My words, the shortenings, the combinations—I do not use those, even when typing. But thank you so much, Miss Yukari, I am flattered you would think my mind is in such a pristine condition to where I could invent such a thing. Really makes you wonder what the hell I am doing in the restaurant industry since I am such a good fucking engineer, huh? If there is anything else you would like to know, please ask! I have so much to share since you are so curious.”

Now that he’s finished, the smile drops from his face and reverts to its usual glower, and Morgan exhales audibly. Moving away from the topic of himself, he circles back to a question proposed earlier that remains unanswered.

“Where did the cake come from? Maybe somebody can refresh my memory? I think I remember telling someone about someone else who was very fond of them. I wonder who that was? Does not seem too unusual to make a cake for someone. A coworker. A friend. A lover.”

He’ll throw the actual accusation out if needed, but he’s curious to see how baiting others into volunteering the information might work.

[tower-of-erinyes]

Disorder in the Court | Kesley | Trial 1.2 | RE: Yuuji, Beni | ATTN: Drew

This is exhausting. It's draining, even. Too many people here were really just fucking asking for a fist to the face. Like straight up begging at this point. Did no one get the kindergarten concept of fucking 'time, place, occasion?' 

Kesley didn't want some Backstreet Boys reject to 'lift his spirits,' he didn't want some assholes flirting from across the room like they're at the local hangout, he didn't want to hear anyone prattle on about what a spectacle this all was, actually, and you're all stupid for not seeing it. What he wanted, at this moment, was to kick some teeth in, because heaven knows some people deserved it at the moment with their 'Devil-may-care' attitude. 

Someone was dead. Ceased to be. Unfairly. Unjustly. Her life had been taken so Hell wouldn't freeze over. How laughable was that? Kesley wanted to kill whoever did that to her. The desire to break, to shatter, to destroy buzzed in his veins with the familiar hum of adrenaline that always came before a brawl. You can't get away with this. Not whoever did this. And not whoever in the crowd was treating this like a fucking game.

Kesley had to believe a life, every life, was worth more than that. Worth more than whatever fucking clickbait or show tune some asshole wanted to make of it. 

('Dodgy,' Dante had said. Har-har. Kesley had half a mind to hurl a shoe at their face. 'Dodgy' this, you fucking casual.)

As the conversation started drifting into more dangerous waters, Kesley's jaw clenched, teeth grinding. His eyes narrowed in on Beni with something bordering on hatered and loathing. Oh, this asshole. He really had to go there, huh? He really had to go there. 

You know what really pissed him off about what Beni just said? Like, really pissed him off? To the point he wanted to kick his shit in all over again?

The fact that he would have to agree with this fucking clown, of all people. The moment Beni started grilling Drew, Kesley grew even more agitated. He was mad enough to spit. He restrained himself; it was unsanitary, after all. But god if he didn't want to. 

He's so goddamn frustrated Beni beat him to the punch. 

(Kesley - 2. Beni - 2. Fucker.)

Kesley would have to take this loss in stride. Solving Tsukiko's murder took precedence. He had to practice what he preached. 

...At least he's also agreeing with Yuuji. Yuuji irritates him sometimes, sure, but nowhere near as badly as Beni.

"...I agree with Yuuji." Yuuji. Not Beni. He'd never agree with Beni out loud, not even to save his own life.

"Let me spell something out for you, Drew." Uh-oh. No stupid nicknames. That means you're in trouble, Mister. 

Leaning on his podium, bracing his weight on his elbows, Kesley tears his gaze away from Beni to glower over towards the ghost hunter. This squirrely fucking guy. Kesley doesn't want to believe anyone in goddamn suspenders could be the murderer, honestly. He reeked more like a hapless victim than a cold-blooded killer, but so far, there was no one else that the shoe fit.

"You seem to be blind to something real important here. You and a couple others. I get it, people love an underdog story. And yeah, I can also admit, it'd be way fucking obvious if you did this. But let me make something reeeeal fucking clear right now, okay? Everything you've done has made yourself the biggest fucking suspect in the room, and you have shown us nothing at all that clears your name." The razor-sharp edge in his voice can't be missed as he kicks at his podium to vent his frustrations. 

"Let's go over every single coincidence we've caught you in so far. First, you're the only one that happens to come across the body before it's announced. You tell no one about this, either, for who knows how long. You happen to go into the altar and catch the painting moving once you reach Tsukiko's body, but you somehow miss whoever might have gone in there. If the timing in your testimony is correct, the killer would have had to have been in the room with you, and you somehow tunnel-vision hard enough to miss them. There's a limit to just how much I'm willing to excuse you for just because you want to say you were more focused on Tsukiko's body. FUrthermore, you don't even think to investigate the picture until you tell everyone else about it. I hear you, I goddamn hear you, coming in and out of the barracks in a hurry because you're trying to give the body some final respects, but you still don't see anyone mysteriously showing up in the barracks at this time, or see anyone coming out of the secret passage. You take off Tsukiko's mask, for God knows whatever reason, and stash it in your fucking storage, and again, you cannot be bothered to tell anyone about this until we fucking catch you with it red-handed. 

Kesley shakes his head, his hair falling in his eyes. Impatiently, he blows it away. He doesn't have time for this. "A real jury would have convicted you five minutes ago, dude. The burden of proof is solidly on you at this point. Your alibi is shaky at best and your story isn't adding up. It's all starting to sound less and less like a series of coincidences and more like a goddamn pattern. I practically begged you, time and again, during the investigation, to give us something, anything that could clear your name. Another possible suspect. Another detail you might have missed. And you have given us. Nothing. Until you were caught with it. Just like that bloodied mask."

Kesley folds his arms, his lips curling in disgust and disdain. "So I'm telling you again. Now. You're out of time. If you have any idea who could have possibly done this, any more evidence you're conveniently forgetting to share, you better do it now. And for the record, just saying how you didn't do it at this point isn't a convincing alibi or excuse. I want to believe you didn't do this Drew, I do. I really do. I'm on your side here."

His voice lowers, and peril glints in his eyes.

"Because if I find out you've been fucking lying to me and everyone else all this time..."

The threat goes unfinished. Kesley doesn't think the room needs to hear exactly what he'd do to a lying murder.

Ah. There's that urge, itching under his skin again. 

[lonelyshrimp]

How come you’re moving out?

Ive been sitting on this question for a while bc like. Boy howdy, how the Fuck do i answer this. Like. Where to begin?? How much detail???

Basically both the landlord and her husband are extremely triggering to myself and one of my roommates, the landlord keeps acting like everythings fine and nothings wrong, when she does admit that theres something wrong she will either downplay it or try to blame us, shes attempted to bribe me into moving out on 10 days notice bc she thought i had been planning to move out by that date (note: i had been, but she never confirmed that with me. She got that info from my roommate and never confirmed it) and thats just the tip of the iceberg.

Now we get to the house itself. Simply put? Its a deathtrap. Its a rooming house, very common in this region, and theyre great money makers. The rents cheap so its about all low income folk can afford, and usually theyre not well maintained. This is no exception. Currently im down to only a half bath bc the full bath is Not Safe to be in bc of ongoing sewage issues we've been having since?? March??? April???? Theres the rat problem that the landlord just wants to ignore completely (weve seen them inside in broad fucking daylight.) Oh!! How about the fact that the landlord replaced the washer and dryer w sub-par machines (the washer has rust in the drum, the dryer doesnt heat properly and will nearly burn the house down w/o actually drying ur clothes, neither machine was washed before being installed. During a pandemic.) that we Cant Even Use bc a rat died in the walls and now the room reeks of death (and so I cant do laundry bc im broke and disabled and cant get to a laundromat :)) fun)

This is a long post and like. Ive barely scratched the surface. The insecurity of the house. Multiple break and enters. The biohazard in an abandoned room. The number of sharps containers in the house and garage. The mould. The abandoned fridge. The list goes on and on and on and on and luckily we have a good property manager now and hes working on getting us out of here bc its Not Safe. At All.

[beginningofwonderland]

One on One - Wooyoung

Your training partner Wooyoung is an insufferable brat who has made it his personal goal to turn your life into hell. But in a heated fight between you two you discover more than hatred for him.

Pairing: WooyoungxfemReader

Gerne: Smut and only smut (MINORS DNI!)

Word count: 4.2k

warnings: fighting sports au, fight between the two, name calling (babe, darling, slut...), unprotected sex (don't do this folks), public sex, pretty unsanitary place to have sex, sassy Woo, marking, degradation, spitting, pretty rough, mirror sex

(Not gonna lie I'm kinda proud of this one. It's filthy as fuck)

@underworldnet 👍🏻

"You're still too fucking slow," Wooyoung taunted you as another hit landed on your arm. You were sure that you were littered in dark spots by now as he didn't hold back whenever he landed a blow.

"I know, idiot. I'm fucking exhausted," you spat back dodging another one of his attacks, barely avoiding his fist.

"Well you'll be exhausted in a fight as well and your opponent will care about you even less than I do. So get yourself together."

At this point the only thing keeping you going was your pure hatred for Wooyoung and your pride stopping you from giving up to him.

When your trainer had told you that you would get extra lessons by Wooyoung to prepare for the nationals, it was the first time you had ever spoken up against your teacher.

"Please let me train with anyone but Jung Wooyoung," you had pleaded and your trainer had perked up in surprise.

"I don't see a reason why not. He's the best fighter on the entire team and everyone I put under his care has improved significantly. I really don't know what's your problem with him. I will schedule a time for you to train together."

And from that moment on you had to endure the most annoying, nerve-wracking brat of a partner twice a week for training. Jung Wooyoung had been a menace to you ever since you hadn't responded to his flirtations back when he joined your club.

To everyone else he was the charming 4-times national champion, bringing fame to your sports club. He flirted left and right with everyone at the studio, having them all wrapped around his pinky finger with his sweet words.

But when you hadn't gone along with his attitude, he quickly changed up on you. Wooyoung then made it his goal to make your time at training as miserable as possible, humiliating you in front of the others or dropping sassy remarks about you at every opportunity he got.

By far the worst were these personal lessons your trainer had so generously arranged for you. Wooyoung made you go on and on without breaks to your absolute breaking point. You were able to take a heavy training session but his constant condescending remarks took a toll on your concentration and your mood. You found yourself lashing out at him out of pure anger and he only thrived off of the way you reacted to him.

He aimed another kick at your side and you stepped out of it's way in time, countering with a weak blow to his stomach which he blocked easily.

"You're getting even weaker and I didn't know that was physically possible," he chuckled at your attempt to hit him.

He was right, you had absolutely no strength left in you after doing cardio in the morning and now this two hour session with Wooyoung. Your lungs were burning and your entire body moved on instinct only. And the worst thing about it was, how much energy he still had left. His steps were light and a shit-eating grin covered his handsome face as he circled you.

Oh, how you hated how attractive he looked with that grin and the sweat running down his defined jawline. Wooyoung was your very personal definition of the devil, menacing personality and temptation all in one. It was even worse, now that the lighting in the studio was dim due to the late time of your training and you two were the only ones left in the studio.

Wooyoung had no mercy on you. He followed you up with a series of punches and as you struggled to dodge them, he was able to back you up against the wall of the studio. He landed his fist on the wall behind you only centimeters from your face to show you how you messed up. His hot breath hit your face as he grinned down at you with triumph in his eyes. His body was way too close for your liking and you couldn't keep a clear head anymore as you stared up at him blankly.

"Are you that afraid of me, babe?" he asked tauntingly and the teasing tone of his voice made you finally snap.

"Get the fuck off of me, Wooyoung," you spat at him swatting his arm to the side.

To your own surprise, he let you go and watched you walk to the side of the fighting area.

"Where do you think you're going?" he asked in a warning tone.

"Let me drink some fucking water before I'll pass out, will you asshole?" You felt like you hadn't had a sip of water in a week when you slumped onto the bench and chugged down half your bottle. When you looked at the ground for a couple of seconds to avoid Wooyoung's stare, small black spots started appearing in your vision.

Fuck.

"Get your ass back up here, we're not finished yet."

Anger was rising inside you, once again sending adrenaline through your burning body. You really fought with yourself. You knew you were at your limits and that you should ask him to stop, but your pride couldn't handle the thought of saying that to his face. You dragged your own body up from the bench ignoring the dizziness that hit you immediately.

"Then fucking finish," you said to him as you fell into a fighting stance once more, approaching him slowly. "I bet you don't last two minutes outside of the ring." You cocked your head in challenge and a smirk sneaked its way onto your face.

Wooyoung's eyebrows shot up in surprise at your remark. He wasn't used to you making such low blows but he was definitely up for the challenge.

"Oh you wanna find out that bad?" he cooed at you as he came closer, fists raised just like you.

He attacked you again immediately. The hit went to your head but you dodged in time, countering him with a blow to his ribs. You were to exhausted to realize that was exactly his intention. Wooyoung knew you would counter like that, your fighting scheme obvious to him after hours of training. He blocked your arm and grabbed onto it right after.

You noticed it too late to retract in time and before you could blink, he had your arm twisted behind your back, his other arm around your neck, keeping you in a tight chokehold in front of him.

This wasn't normal training anymore: chokeholds weren't even permitted in the fights. This was a personal matter. You struggled in his arms a little but soon noticed he was holding on too tightly. His body was hot on your back as you were pressed up against him and you could feel the chuckle that erupted from his chest.

"Don't provoke me, darling," he warned you, his mouth directly next to your ear. The low tone of his voice sent shivers down your skin and you hated him for it. But what you hated even more was how you reacted to him.

He let you go to restart the fight, but if Jung Wooyoung could play unfair, so could you. You pretended to rearrange your shirt with your back still towards him before spinning around and hooking your leg behind his knee. With your arms pushing at his shoulders, he fell to the ground, surprise breaking his smug expression.

You followed his fall, straddling his waist and pressing your forearm into his neck until you could feel him swallow.

"I won't provoke you if you stop getting on my fucking nerves," you retorted. His eyes mirrored the same fire in yours as he stared back at you. The air between you two was  uncomfortably tense.

When you removed your arm to get up, Wooyoung suddenly lifted one side of his hip, effectively tipping you over before he reversed your position. He grabbed both your wrists, pinning them above your head before getting close to your face once again.

"Don't act like you don't like it when I treat you like shit. Getting all worked up over how I talk down to you. I bet you think about me before you go to sleep."

The complacent grin on his face channelled all energy left within you and you would have punched him right in the face if he wasn't holding you down. Your insides stirred in what you believed to be anger.

"Get your dirty hands off of me," you hissed through clenched teeth.

Wooyoung only laughed at you, his dark strands falling into his eyes as he shook his head. You never realized how handsome he looked from this angle.

"Look at you all helpless. You're all bark and no bite. Admit you like the way I talk to you and I might let you go."

You didn't want to give him the satisfaction but your arms buckled up once against his tight grip; to no avail. You were quite literally trapped.

"I can't believe you are big-headed enough to think I want to hear even one more word from you."

"Then why do you keep looking at my lips like that?" he asked you back with a chuckle and you found yourself startled.

Fuck. Did I really look at his lips?

You hadn't even noticed. But now upon his words, your eyes flitted to his plump lips like they were on autopilot. Of course he noticed and his grin only widened.

"If you wanted to make out instead of train you could have just said so. Would've spared us some trouble."

"Fuck you, Wooyoung." You couldn't think of anything else to say. Anger and some other indistinct feeling mixed in your stomach as you glared at him from beneath.

"Say it or I won't let you go."

He shifted his hands around so that one arm was free and the other one holding down both your wrists. With his free hand he grabbed onto your chin harshly, fingers digging into your cheeks as he spoke.

Now what neither you or Wooyoung had expected was the small moan that escaped your throat as his fingers grabbed onto your face. Immediately, your eyes widened in shock and you could feel hotness rush over you in what was sure to be a dark red blush.

Wooyoung's eyebrows rose in surprise at the noise you made but as realization hit him you could practically watch his entire stare go dark. He hovered even closer to you, his face only inches from yours as he watched you in amusement.

"You know what?" he asked in a husky voice. "I'll take that as an answer."

And before you even knew what was happening he squeezed your chin once again, lifting your face up a little before crushing his lips onto yours.

The kiss was harsh and messy. Your lips crashed against one another as if they were fighting and soon his tongue entered your mouth. The feeling made your eyes flutter and as if taking revenge you bit his lip in return.

This time it was Wooyoung who couldn't hold back a small groan and the sound drove heat through your whole body down to your core. Why was he making you feel like this?

It was like you were taking all that build-up frustration out on his lips and it somehow worked a lot better than fighting him with your fists.

Wooyoung released your wrists to attach his hand to your waist. Because your shirt had ridden up in the fight, he was touching your bare skin, sending shivers along your spine. You had touched Wooyoung thousands of times during practice, but this was different. His hand on your skin and his soft lips on yours made you dizzy in a different way than your fatigue ever could.

Now that your hands were freed you wound one into his messy locks, making him groan as you pulled on it slightly. The other hand couldn't help but wander over his tight muscles. You knew exactly how fit he was, having experienced the strength of his attacks first-hand. But you never had an opportunity to just marvel at the sheer beauty of his stature before.

Wooyoung also noticed your wandering fingers and smirked into the kiss:

"Said you wanted me off of you and now you're hands are all over me. You're such a slut."

You whined shamelessly at his words. It felt like all rationality and sense had left your body. I hate Jung Wooyoung. That was the mantra you repeated in your head over and over as your lips pressed onto his with more fervour. As your hands frantically grabbed onto his sweaty skin to draw him closer.

His body gave in to your desire pressing his upper body onto yours, hips still straddling yours. God damn his flexibility. You could feel the heat of his skin burning you through your shirts and wanted nothing more than to get rid of it.

As your hands started wandering to the hem of his shirt he understood and broke the kiss shortly to pull the piece of fabric over his head. His tight muscles glistened in the dim lighting of the studio and you let your eyes wander around his honey skin.

"I knew you were down bad for me as soon as I saw you, babe. But you don't have to be that obvious," he chuckled.

"Shut up, before I regret this."

"Oh, I'll make sure you won't regret a second of this, darling," he replied smugly before devouring your lips once again.

When he pressed his body up against you this time, you could feel his hard on press against your core through both your pants. The feeling made your hips roll into him in response as you released a small moan into the kiss.

The sound had Wooyoung going crazy, grabbing frantically for the hem of your shirt and quickly pulling it off you as well. His hands laced into your already messy hair as your teeth clashed in the intense kiss that followed. You wanted to kill and fuck him all at once. It infuriated you that he had this effect on you but he was just so damn attractive.

As he started rolling his hips into yours repeatedly, you lost all self control.

"Please, just fuck me," you breathed out in between two kisses.

"Begging already, I see."

Wooyoung grinned widely as he pulled your sweatpants down in an instant. Your bare skin hit the coldness of the training mat beneath you and made you realize you weren't exactly at a private location.

Your mind was drawn back to Wooyoung as he pulled on the hem of your panties and let them snap back onto your skin. The slight sting only turned you on more and your hands worked fast to pull at the strings of his own pants. The both of you were only left in your underwear soon.

"Do I need to finger you first or are you already dripping through your panties?" Wooyoung asked cockily.

"Just fuck me already, I'm sure I can take it," you replied impatiently.

"Oh baby, you keep overestimating yourself," Wooyoung chuckled as he ripped down your panties harshly.

When he took his hardened length out of his boxers, you had to keep yourself from swallowing hard. Maybe he was right. Maybe you did overestimate yourself. He was bigger than you had expected and you hadn't taken anyone his size before.

He let the tip of his cock run through your folds, collecting your liquids with a devilish grin on his face.

"Were you this wet the whole training session or only since I choked you?"

"I think it started when I had you pressed down on the floor," you tried to save yourself but Wooyoung saw right through your attitude.

"Oh baby, don't try pretending that you're dominant. I can see your eyes begging for me to destroy you."

You bit your cheek, knowing quite well that he was right. You wanted that idiot to fuck your brains out. To finally have him shut up and rail you into the floor until you forgot how insufferable he was.

As he slowly pushed himself into you, your eyes rolled into the back of your head and you moaned as he filled you up. He was stretching you out quite a bit, but you were worked up enough for it not to hurt too much. The pain wouldn't compare to all the bruises on your skin anyway.

Arms propped up beside your head, Wooyoung started thrusting into you harshly. You found yourself spreading your legs for him on instinct, so that he could have better access to you. But that wasn't enough for Wooyoung who grabbed onto your thighs, pressing them into your upper body to thrust into you at the deepest angle possible.

When he sped up his tempo you were moaning at every thrust he gave you, losing your mind at the way the tip of his cock hit your sweet spot every time.

"You're so pathetic. Saying I won't last two minutes yet here you are almost crying over how good I fuck you already."

You whined at his harsh words. He was right. You felt pathetic yourself. But fuck being pathetic if it meant getting railed this good. You started kissing messily once again, your hands latching onto his flexed biceps for some support. When he pounded into you particularly deep, you unconsciously scratched the skin on his arms.

In response Wooyoung quickly grabbed your hands, pinning them back over your hand.

"I'm the only one marking you up here, darling." As if to prove his point he latched onto your neck sucking harshly to create a dark purple mark on your skin.

You hated him for it. Hated that the sign of him fucking you would be with you for days now. And you hated how fucking good it felt.

"Fuck, Wooyoung..." you moaned as the pleasure in your core started building up.

"You love having me use you like this don't you, slut? All covered in bruises and hickeys by me. What will you tell the others at training tomorrow, huh?" He relished in the way you turned a whimpering, needy mess under his words.

He knew exactly how much he was turning you on by the fact that you were clenching around his dick desperately. As you got closer to your orgasm, your eyes fluttered shut and you just gave in to the feeling of him fucking you into the ground. You had never had anyone fuck you that harshly but it was undoubtedly the best sex you'd ever had and you hadn't even come yet.

"Open your mouth for me, darling."

You opened your eyes first while processing his request. The way he looked down at you with raised brows, breath heavy as he kept thrusting into you almost made you come. When you didn't obey quick enough his hand suddenly wandered to your clit, drawing firm circles into it.

Your mouth fell open in a loud moan, which was all Wooyoung wanted.

"There you go," he said before spitting into your opened mouth. That was it for you. As the warm liquid trailed down your tongue your legs started shaking with your hitting orgasm. The black dots spotted your vision again as your high completely shut off your body. It was the most intense orgasm you had ever had and Wooyoung knew with the way he watched your features contort with a smug grin.

He fucked you through it before pulling out of you.

"I'm not done with you yet."

He flipped your half limb body onto your stomach before pulling you up on your knees.

By this time you felt just how exhausted you were. Every single muscle in your body was tired and sore and you were even weaker after your orgasm. Wooyoung noticed how much you struggled to hold yourself up so he rested your body against his, your back supported on his chest.

Only then did you notice that he had placed you in front of the big mirror that spread over one wall of the studio. You watched yourself in it every single day at training, correcting your posture or fighting stance. But now you could see yourself falling apart as Wooyoung entered you again.

Your head fell back onto his shoulder as he started thrusting into you once again, his arm tightly latched around your waist to keep you upright.

"Come on, look at the mirror for me again, pretty. Want you to see how beautiful you look for me."

You didn't know why you listened to him at this point and lifted your head again to watch the mirrored image in front of you. You had to admit that there was a certain kind of beauty in the way he held you in front of him. It looked like you were melting into his body. The two of you gave a prettier pair than you thought you would.

"So pretty all covered in my marks," Wooyoung whined, voice strained as he slowly neared his own high.

And indeed your body was littered with bruises and hickeys. His eyes wandered over them in a hazed expression. He looked almost drunk on the sight in front of him.

When his hand wandered back to your clit you couldn't do anything but whimper under his touch, your mind too dizzy to form words.

"Can you come one more time?" Wooyoung asked you through heavy breaths.

You hummed and nodded in answer. Your core was burning but the way his fingers pressed into your sensitive bud already made you near a second orgasm.

"I'm close too, baby. Where should I come?"

You noticed how he spoke softer to you now. Maybe it was because he was beginning to fall apart as well. Or maybe he actually noticed just how exhausted you were and was trying to be more gentle. But you couldn't quite believe that.

"Please come inside me," you whined with all the strength left in you. You hated to admit it but you wanted his cum in you so badly. Wanted him to mark you up.

Your confession drew a deep moan from Wooyoung and you felt him shudder beneath you.

"Fuck darling, you'll be the death of me."

And with that he sped up his fingers on your clit, desperate to make you come one last time before he reached his own high.

Every single one of his thrust dragged so deliciously at your walls and he applied just the right amount of pressure to your sensitive spot. You moaned shamelessly in Wooyoung's grip and he couldn't hold back his own groans as well.

"I wished somebody would come in right now to see me fill you up, baby," he whined and the thought drove like electricity through your body.

"Wooyoung," you cried out desperately before coming undone for him one more time. This time you truly felt like passing out, losing all sense of your body. A ringing sound filled your ears and without his arm around your waist you would've surely broken down immediately.

As you clenched around Wooyoung he finally came deep inside of you. You could feel every twitch of his cock as he pumped his hot liquid inside you. When you slowly gained consciousness again, you could already feel some dripping down your thigh.

Both of you stayed like that for a while. Heavy breaths being the only sound in the hall as your sweaty bodies supported one another.

When he had somewhat recovered, Wooyoung carefully pulled out of you, his arm still holding you tight. His cum dripped out of you in an instant, covering your thighs and the training mat.

"Fuck you did so well for me, baby." Wooyoung said gently as his thumb started drawing soft circles into your waist. "Let me help you get cleaned up."

You looked at him in surprise through the mirror. You had expected him to drop you and leave you for yourself to recover. But instead he picked you up bridal style carrying you to the changing room showers.

He must've noticed your expression as he chuckled gently.

"Don't look so scandalized. I'm not that much of an asshole."

"Then why is this the first time you're being nice to me?" you weakly replied.

"I'm an asshole at training and I know that. But that makes you improve the most."

"That doesn't justify your bitchy attitude towards me," you complained as he slowly put you down, leaning your body against the cold shower tiles.

He started to run the shower waiting for the water to get hot.

"No.  That's just because you look so freaking hot when you get mad at me," he grinned and you looked at him in disbelief.

"You're telling me making me despise you was your way of flirting with me?"

"It worked, didn't it?" You wanted to punch that smug grin off of his face more than anything but there was no energy left in you.

Also there was this warm feeling bubbling up inside of you that made you want to hug him more than continuing the fight.

"You're insufferable."

"I know, baby," he said as he pulled you under the hot stream of water.

His arms around your body and the warmth of the shower soothed your aching body as he pulled you into a kiss.

You couldn't keep yourself from smiling a little.

[headspace-hotel]

Some of the Best Horror SCPs

So, I was going to make a post where I rate popular/commonly recommended horror SCPs based on how scary I think they are, but I forgot about all the ones that didn’t have much of an effect on me and I don’t feel like rereading them. So. Here’s what you get. A short selection of best horror SCPs.

Or, my best ones that I have been able to find again. I will probably add to the list as I track down others.

Its been a while since I’ve fully read some of these so I don’t remember everything, but, SCPs are generally pretty heavy on gross/unsanitary stuff, gore, body horror, and unreality stuff, so be warned.

SCP-2951: 10,000 Years This is one of my favorite SCPs ever, both in terms of the story and the way it subtly screws with formatting. The narrative revolves around exploring a mine full of spatial and temporal anomalies after a collapse that left potential survivors still trapped down in the mine.

I am a HUGE fan of the “exploring creepy anomalous area that’s bigger inside than outside” type of SCP and this one is a good example. The sense of dread that it builds and the ambiguity is haunting. If you know the podcast “Old Gods of Appalachia,” there’s a really similar energy here.

SCP-3005: A Light That Died A great article that messes with your head. I still have no idea what specifically is actually happening here but it’s somehow compelling as hell, how warped everything feels through the subtle screwing with the formatting and the writing.

SCP-4157: WANT DOG Not strictly a horror SCP? It’s kinda horrific but like equal parts funny and horrific. It made me scream with laughter at a couple points. A nice short one if you’re not interested in a long ass narrative.

SCP-783: There Was a Crooked Man: The body horror part of this one is pretty great and chilling, but the twist is even more so.

SCP-1165: Minus Level: You know how in Minecraft everything is infinite and you’re alone and buildings sometimes generate wrongly? If that makes you feel a little weird you’ll be into this.

It’s basically about an alley in a city that opens into an warped alternate version of the city that goes on forever. It is one of the first SCPs I can remember reading, and it took me FOREVER to find it again.

SCP-2194: Filth Pretty much exactly what it says on the tin! I would like to unread this thanks. Not among the scariest on the site per se but one of the earlier SCPs I read and it…left an Impression. So here ya go.

SCP-1730: “What Happened to Site-13?” So, FYI, this is the longest SCP on the site, if memory holds. It’s novella-length. Which makes it impressive that it held my attention the whole time.

There are a lot of good SCPs that build a connection with their characters, but this one is an extraordinary example, because you really start to get invested in the main characters’ survival. It’s another expedition-into-creepy-anomalous-place style SCP. It’s not specifically horror-focused but it is like, suspenseful with SCP typical horror elements.

I would actually say that it probably makes a good introduction to the SCP world.??? since it hits a lot of the major worldbuilding things and gives you a good sense of what this world is like.

SCP-455: The Cargo Ship- An absolute favorite. This one has a narrative that is super engaging and it’s scary af. The interview logs, audio transcripts and dialogue really hit the spot with the mixture of ambiguity and horrible specificity. There is a big jumble of horror tropes here but the main compelling thing about this is just the journey into an abandoned cargo ship that has waaaay more floors from the inside than outside.

And the ending is a gut punch I will never forget.

SCP-1981: “Ronald Reagan Cut Up While Talking” Fucked up. I think this one is pretty well known? This is one of the few SCPs where a creepy image enhances the SCP for me, and it’s also just fucked up.

SCP-835: Expunged Data Released HORRIBLE. NO. HATE. Do not click if you’re not prepared for body horror and to be generally grossed the fuck out.

You know the [redacted] meme? Yeah, so, SCP’s often build horror around putting redactions in their articles, because sometimes leaving ambiguity is more horrifying than specifying exactly what is going on—and THIS IS NOT ONE OF THOSE INSTANCES HOLY SHIT.

SCP-2614: Sometimes I Go Out in Pity For Myself This one isn’t scary per se. But it’s extremely eerie and it HAUNTS ME. I just have SO many questions. I want to be the researcher to perform experiments with this thing holy fuck.