#i'm on a s1 roll apparently :/

[sil-te-plait-tue-moi]

The idler wheel is wiser than the driver of the screw.

PART 1 ★ PART 2

Quick summary: After one too many drinks, you find yourself unable to think of anything but a certain smart-mouth detective who is in desperate need of a release.

Word count: 11K (I'm sorry)

Warnings: This is basically just SMUTT with a lil feelings (if you squint) sprinkled in there; kind of angsty at points (mentions of canon-typical death and violence (hellooo they're homicide detectives); gets a bit existential at points, watch out; pretentious.

A/N: YAY! I had this obsession with True Detective S1 all throughout October (watched it at my nan's house lmao), so enjoy the lovechild of that. This is just for fun, so, please, nobody be angry at me if they don't agree with Rust's characterisation, or any of the weird philosophical chat, lalallalal, OKAY ENJOY!!

***

The night air is sluggish and humid with the remnants of a warm summer’s rain, pressing down thickly, close, clogging, simmering just below the surface.

A few times, I’ve interviewed people who live in these sorts of places: motel-types, the “in-between”, where folks stay when they’ve either got no money, no choice or nobody. Other residents include passers-by who’re looking to save money on accommodation, skipping on the fancier places. Not that Louisiana really has any “fancier places”. Places without the paint peeling off walls like dead skin, I guess. A bed and breakfast in the nicer suburbia, with a view overlooking a subpar daydream of a ghost town centre. 

I’ve leaned up against the crooked, metal railing, felt the influence of my weight almost sending it and myself crashing down onto the faded parking lot beneath. I’ve leaned up there—after knocking—and waited, waited for a grey face to peer through a crack in the cracked door. I’ve smiled and remarked about how the beat-up, brass numbers up there are hanging by a thread. Sometimes, people are real stingy – they slink out and close the door behind them, or they remain in that little slit, just an eye visible, or they plain shut it in my face. Most let me in right away, maybe a little intimidated by the shiny badge clipped up in my jacket – I’ve sat across from ‘em, felt that mud in the room’s air seep into my pores, inviting me under its still swamp. 

Seems like the sort of place for him.

Too many a fuckin’ time, Marty’s come grumbling and muttering into the office kitchen, rolling his eyes, scoffing, huffing, the whole lot. And when I ask him why the strop?—“Ancient fuckin’ philosopher fuckin’ Rust Cohle on it again. Birthday’s comin’ up: get me earplugs and a generous bit o’ duct tape for my dear partner over there, would you?” 

Or somethin’ along those lines. 

For all his apparent talk about us silly, little “biological puppets”, this seems like Rust’s sort of place. Temporary existence, temporary living. Purgatory?

Whatever.

If you ask me, Rust Cohle’s head is so far up his own ass that it’s no wonder his outlook on life is so dark. 

If I was more sober, maybe I’d be thinking about it—about him—less—but this night out has had me so drunk I was maybe even hallucinating at some point. Rust?—sure, he’s been in the back of my mind for some part of the last few months – I have to see him most days I go to work, don’t I? – but, sometime in the space between my third and fourth shot of straight vodka, he was suddenly at the very front of it. I’d seen a guy who smoked like him: cigarette pinched between his thumb and forefinger, a simple, deep drag. I’d thought it was him, but then I realised his face was shrouded in the smoke that he’d exhaled, and I recalled that Rust never seems to do that. Never seems to exhale. All the tar and shit stays in. 

With a twist of my keys, the engine rumbles off into more-or-less silence. Fuck, it’s a bad idea, yes, just being here. If he likes to keep his distance, well—he’s entitled to that choice. 

I glance over my shoulder, out the window, out at the complex which is all yellow and shining, illuminated by buzzing halogen light bars and, of course, the occasional bug zapper. It’s clean enough. The lines of this parking space were white enough. Apartment 11A, said Marty. Second floor. 

“Are you drunk?” he’d asked – Marty, not Rust.

I’d replied, “No,” pressing closer to the phone box in attempts to remove myself from the swarm and bustle of the ladies’ bathroom. And it was an honest reply. Sort of. Despite his scepticism, by that time, I’d long stopped drinking, and all that remained from it was a sort of numb tingle in my fingertips—as far as I was concerned. 

I don’t think I’d be in this parking lot, stepping out of my car, if I wasn’t still a little bit gone. 

Marty’s sigh had crackled through the receiver. “Don’t bring any o’ tha’ party-this-party-that attitude to ‘im, alright? He’ll hate it.” I’d told him okay, my stomach spiking up with excitement. “Fact is, I don’t think you should go at all. ‘f you do, should be a work matter. This a work matter, detective?”

I’d lied, said yes, perhaps with a slur to my voice. 

He clicked his tongue. “Okay, buck, whatever you say.” Then, he’d hung up. 

There was something disapproving in the manner of the conversation. I got the feeling that he was talking to me in the same voice he used to lecture his daughters. The only reason I’d called him was to get something from him, sure, so that I could basically get something from Rust, his partner. I could see how that sort of thing might’ve upset someone. Not that Marty Hart should have any right to judge, not when he’s coming into work in the same clothes as the day before, stinking of sweat and God knows what. The unsaid agreement of everyone in the office is to turn a blind eye. I’ve met his wife. Someone should cut off his damn dick. 

Quiet, now. Hell, who am I to talk? Marty’s fun to chat with, makes a slow day at the office a little brighter. ‘Course, there’s rarely a slow day at the office.

And I’m at the top of the stairs, now. And I knock—one, two, three—on the pilling, forest-green door. Dulled down 11A. Blinds are determinedly shut, slats flat. For a second, I think maybe I’ll be waking him.

Then I remember Rust doesn’t sleep. 

A grey face appears as the door swings just a little ways open, grave and sunken-tired. His expression isn’t so pissed-off as it is just his usual expression. 

“Rusty,” I say to him with a small nod, words scraping out dryly. 

He doesn’t respond right away – ‘stead, he leans his body out partway, eyes absent like he’s searching for some hooligan criminal in the night.

“Marty told you my address?” he asks lowly. It’s more a statement than anything, but I amuse him with a nod anyways. There’s a cigarette flaring up between his fingers. His hand twitches a little like he’s wanting to take a drag, but his eyes are fixed on my shoes, now, like he’s still coming to terms with the fact I’m a foreign body in his domain. 

My toes curl up tight in my shoes – there’s that prick of anticipation again. Ice-cold, you could easily mistake it as dread. 

Rust doesn’t exactly subject me to an imploring look—not really his style—but he bows his head down just slightly – that’s sign enough for me. He wants to know why I’m here, and he no doubt wants to know the quickest way to be rid of me. 

I sigh. I ask him.

My body trembles, and he notices it, records it, stores it away for later reference, for some other time he’ll find that it and me will contribute to his purpose. 

Rust has a face of stone. I get to know it well as I search for a sign there that might let me know what lies beneath. But, of course, a statue is solid through and through. Sharp angles and smooth planes carved hollow. If he’s cold to the touch, I’d like to reach out and be sure. Is he cold where a man ought to be warm? Christ, it makes my pulse jump just to think about it. 

There is no greater purpose or cruel intention underlying my words, as far as I’m concerned. Rust, however, lingers there, with his arm up on the door, barricading the entrance, while he peels back and flits over every layer of possible meaning, his attention fixed absently on my left ear.

He then looks at me—briefly—in the eyes, with a sort of paralysing intensity. Even the tingling in my fingers ceases to be. 

It takes a moment, pregnant with the chorus of cicadas, crickets and other night-creatures, before he steps back neatly to allow me in.

The door clicks softly behind me as I enter into a room that’s bare as bare can be.  

Rust grunts, coming up around me and into the kitchen area. “Want anything?” he mumbles around his cigarette, other hand shoved in his pocket. He’s still half-dressed in his work clothes, his tie strewn on the counter, his blazer slumped over a rickety picnic chair perched up in front of a wall of crime scenes and dead bodies. My eyes linger there—how can they not?

“A beer,” I tell him, still looking at those photographs, then at the stacks upon stacks of books. Philosophy, ethics, religion. Names I’d expect only those with PhDs to know.  

“Don’t think you’ve had ‘nuff to drink already?”  

I shoot him a look. “I think I can handle it, Rust.” He straightens up, raises his brow. I snort, reasoning, “I’ll only have one.”

“One,” he agrees, opening up the fridge and having a rummage around.  

White walls and all of them empty, like some sort of psych ward. Half-sure Rust actually did do some time in that type of care, though, so—shouldn’t make any quips about that. I don’t want him thinking I think he’s crazy – he gets enough of that, I’m sure.   

Back at my place, though, I’ve got posters or drawings or paintings up around every corner. My niece’s drawing of a mermaid sits on my dresser, and photographs of my family are displayed in the hallway. One up by the TV, I painted myself when I was in high school. About two years after I graduated, they asked if I wanted my portfolio back, and I’d obviously said yes. And I love my stuff! Some ‘cause it’s pretty, others because of memories and whatnot. Guess some people don’t have that creative trait, or they lose it. Or maybe they detest the sentiments, those strings that have been, are and will be attached to things. When my cousin broke up with her boyfriend, she cut her hair and burned his clothes. “I just want to forget him,” she’d snarled. I’d sputtered a laugh into my tea.

Rust plants a Corona down on the counter, already cracked open.

There’s no mirror in here either – I can’t check whether I look as desperate as I feel. When I focus back on him, Rust is taking a swig from his own beer, turning to glance at the crucifix pinned above the messy mattress on the floor. Huh. Didn’t peg him as a Christian.

His honey-blond hair doesn’t look cold to the touch, that’s for sure ‘n’ certain. Wonder if he just wakes up like that or what. Once, Marty had been teasing him at work, even cracking a smile out of the old guy. “Ain’t them just the prettiest curls y’ever seen, buck?” he’d remarked, nudging into me, cooing at him. Silently, in my head, even then, I’d agreed: prettiest curls I’d ever seen. Rust hadn’t looked up to chart my reaction, but, if he had, he’d maybe have seen my fidgeting fingers or hitch of breath. Or maybe he felt it, heard it. 

“Sorry to barge in on you like this,” I offer pathetically through a nervous smile. 

He blinks, takes another swig, leaning over the counter that separates us. “No, y’aint.”

Jesus, I have to turn my head and shut my eyes for a second. I don’t particularly believe in God, but I ask Him to please give me the strength to resist my urges and act like a normal damn person for at least a few more minutes. And then I apologise for only praying out of convenience. In the face of temptation. This is why people shouldn’t drink – still, doesn’t stop me from downing a good part of my beer.

I turn to the wall and try to turn myself off a little bit. It’s not hard – Rust still has Dora Lange (rest her soul) pinned up on his wall, naked, blue, stiff. I don’t want to know why, so I don’t ask him. 

His eyes are adamant on the side of my head. Funny how he never seems to look at me at the same time I’m looking at him. Pisses me off a lot of the time – not just him, but in general. A lot of people share this same fear of not being heard, not being listened to and not being cared about. Men in particular, I’ve noticed, have a tendency to raise their voice over others’, to yell or shout or hit things or push ‘n’ shove. Marty’s that way – a lot of men at the precinct are, too. Women who are raised to be the listeners sometimes act out in the same way, frustrated at all the things they have to care about that men don’t, burdened with manners and politeness. I used to hate having to listen, to wait for the man who interrupted me to finish speaking. Rust always lets people finish their point, for better and for worse. Pisses me off in a different type of way. I can feel his judgement seeping out of him, so potent that’s it’s tangible, lapping at my feet.

He doesn’t push and shove – he’s a listener, too. Of course, he has that male privilege where his silence has a gravity, a magnetic pull, where mine is simply as is. At least he pays attention. Sure, on the surface, it might look like he doesn’t care at all, hunched over a case file at his desk, back turned to me and the rest of the lot, but proximity has its power – assigned workspaces put with his personality, and he knows what’s like and unlike me better than my sister. He’s reading into my refusal to talk, to face him – unlike me.

“So, you’ve given this some thought, then,” Rust says matter-of-factly, and my tummy bubbles up.

I snicker nervously, heart racing. God, I’d expected surprise, disbelief, outright refusal, maybe even a little disgust, but, when I manage to turn around and look at his face again, it just seems to me like a calmness. Stoicism found in the affirmation, maybe, of his expectations. It’s like I’m walking right into one of those little theories of his: a proved hypothesis.

I take another sip from my beer, feeling too shy for my liking. “Well, yeah,” I drawl, slumping over the kitchen counter and propping my chin up to look right back at him in a surge of liquid confidence. “I always think ‘fore I do anything that’s anything, Rust.”

Almost immediately, he retreats, standing up straight and resting the small of his back against the lip of the sink behind him. He hums, glances away. “We both know that’s a lie,” he combats, hands tucked into his pockets, chin tilted up, eyes down. A mouthful of beer numbs the sting of rejection. “What you mean is you think you can justify all your decisions. You think you can justify why you knocked on my door and said what you said—” he elaborates quietly, eliciting a snort from me, “—but, at the end o’ the day, all your decisions boil down to what you feel is right, not what is right.”

“‘n' you think you ‘n’ you alone know what’s right?”

Slate-grey eyes flit up and down my face, like I’m a specimen on a slide.

“I think that the girl who’s stumbled up on a fella’s door asking him to fuck her is less inclined to know, without bias, what’s right, yes.”

I swallow thickly, sucking the remaining flavour of beer off of my tongue before going in for another swig.

Christ.

Not a single bat of his eyes. Not a quiver of his mouth, not a twitch to his nose, not a morsel of natural, human hesitation. Does he have to be so crass? I did the courtesy of making it palatable, at least to my own ears, with a euphemism. But when have I ever known Rust Cohle to water anything down? No drink I’ve ever consumed will match his body’s preference of alcohol content. He’s nursing his beer close to his chest, but who knows what poisons lay dormant in these cabinets?

“Rusty,” I say lowly, maybe asking for a break – I close my eyes for just a second, part because I couldn’t bear it if I caught some sort of disapproval on his face, and part because it’s just past two o’clock in the morning.

Late nights have consumed my life recently, what with that sicko rapist connected to a Christian fertility cult. Children of God – “go forth and multiply”. His confession had turned my blood cold. Johansson had offered to sit in the box instead, but I did it anyway. I went home and cried over it, then came into work the next day to talk to some press and then receive my new assignment.

He hums, taking a drag from his cigarette, swallowing the smoke down. Rust knows how it is. To be honest, I’m probably the one who doesn’t know the half of it. One night at the office, he’d casually confessed to his insomnia, like he was just commenting on the state of the weather ‘n’ nothin’ else. So, I guess I won’t pretend to get it.

I gnaw on the inside of my cheek. “Are you into that whole abstinence thing?”

The weak light above flickers gently as he pauses, turns the question over in his mind. Anyone else would’ve surely laughed.

“I believe that man is susceptible to desire, yes—but he can resist it and its consequences should his willpower be stronger than the false promises posed by that temptation.

I snort again, because, now, I really am tipsy, and I can’t hold in my attitude any longer. It’s not that I think he’s lost it or whatever. It’s just—he’s so—objectively—absurd. Well—“objectively”. He’s got points, but those points lose all meaning in the spiralling darkness of overthought and deep contemplation wherein he’ll explain that everything really means nothing—and he’ll be right about that, sure, but also unintentionally prove a point about himself. I’d ask him what it means when, in a world where everything means nothing, a child will give their friend a flower found on the way to school, but I feel like his answer would be too morbid for my liking. Does that make me an unreliable source? The fact that I want to live?

He's absurd. He’s also a little bit awry in the head. Don’t know what he’s lost or what he’s lookin’ for, but it’s not a good look on him. He’s honest, yes – that’s a good trait. But honesty without kindness is cruelty. And he is kind – underneath, he’s kind, and I know that because of how hard he works to weed out evil people in this world, most times at his own risk. That’s kindness, albeit unconventional, whether he realises it or not.

The kindness almost cancels out his arrogance.

“So, what?” I challenge under the guise of a teasing grin. “You can go mouthin’ off for hours on end about how up themselves religious people and all’at are, but you can’t draw the similarities between their philosophy and your philosophy? How does that work, Rust?”

While I was working that Children of God nightmare of a case, he just couldn’t seem to restrain himself – every bullshit word that left him revealed to me his hubris. Now, I’m not angry, and he’s not stupid – we’re not arguing. In fact, he seems intrigued, lean body shifted toward me. He sets his beer down on the counter, crosses his arms over his chest after securing his cigarette between his lips, and lowers his head as if to listen to me better.

I sigh, continue. “D’you know what I think? I think you oversimplify humanity. You’re a great detective—‘nd I guess you know it—and, within the confines of your job, it serves you well, makes you good in the box. But your assumptions are too general. People are who they are, sure, but they also decide to be those people. By their environment and those who surround ‘em, people make the decisions that define ‘em. A lot of the time, their circumstances ain’t fair. People born into badness are trapped by the badness—either physically, or up in their heads—and they have a tough time escapin’ it.”

Rust inhales the smoke again, the only evidence of it happening being the soft whisp that curls away from his nose. I wonder to myself how his lungs are still standing.

“‘s that how you explain that—homicide case you’re workin’ on?” Three-year-old boy died of neglect, his siblings found locked in cabinets, one in a dog cage, by their mother and stepfather. Rust’s eyes flash silver. “Killer had a tough time?”

Asshole.

I narrow my eyes dangerously. “Don’t be mean, Rusty,” I scold, and he blinks in concession. “I think evil exists. I think it’s complicated. I think you summarise things that ought not to be summarised.”

He’s silent for a heartbeat. Then, his hand comes up to pinch away his cigarette, and he waves it in a small flourish, explaining, “When I say “people”, I mean society. Human culture.”

“Last I checked, Rust, you don’t know everybody on the planet. You don’t know their “culture”, or experiences.” That seems to shut him up. My eyes wander to his broad shoulders, trail along the meat of his arms beneath the cheap, polyester shirt that hugs close to the muscle, and they linger there like the quiet that settles between us.

He nods slowly, once. “Our decisions define us?”

I bob my head, unabashedly staring at the elegant column of his throat, his neck, and the stretch of tan skin that is settled beneath the white undershirt revealed by the first one, two, three buttons which have recently been undone.

He’s quieter when he asks me, “Well, how does this decision define you, then?” There’s nothing malicious about the way he says it, or even lustful – just a calm curiosity.

“Ain’t it obvious?” I grin again, laugh a little, blush hotly. “I’m horny!” I hide my face in my shoulder, trying to compose the hiccups of laughter in my stomach. “I’m sorry,” I snicker, wiping my palm over my brow, my eyes. “This probably isn’t very attractive to you.”

“You’re a very pretty girl,” he replies. He mutters my name solemnly, like we’re in a formal meeting or something.

I glance up, check whether he’ll offer me eye contact again, but he doesn’t – he’s staring at the wall, lost.

I scoff. “You’re a very pretty guy, Rust.”

God willing, none of the boys at the precinct will ever find out about this. If Marty lets it slip that I even asked for Rust’s address, then I’ll never hear the end of it. Worse, everyone’ll think I’m dead-gone over him. Guess I don’t really fit the standards expected of women around here: “wife”, or “whore”. Or “dead”. It’s hard enough to be taken seriously going about pretending I’m not interested in sex at all. Once sex comes into the equation, I’ll be reduced to that and nothing else. 

Anxious, I start flicking up under my fingernails. Is Rust already starting to think those things, too? I’m a great detective, but that’s the only capacity in which he’s really known me. 

I wring the neck of my bottle. “I should explain—”

He holds his hand up, stating, “I don’t need you to. Do you feel the need to?” 

Curious, wary, I watch his face, a blank slate. Still waters run deep. My eyes drift down, to where his hands are together in front of him, one relaxed beside him the other curled around his wrist with two fingers resting on the pulse.

“No,” I reply. 

“You thought it over,” he says, eyes tilting up at the ceiling, aloof, bored, maybe. His words are sort of monotone, like he’s reciting a passage from a book that he’s just recently read: “You chose me because you know me. You haven’t been sleeping well. You’re stressed, you’re scared, you’re frustrated.” He blinks. “You’re attracted to me due to some—unfortunate trigger beyond your control in the reptilian part of your brain.” Brief as the flicker of a candle in a still room, he looks over me, brow raised slightly as if daring me to tell him that he’s wrong. He pauses again, takes a short puff. “It makes you think I can take care o’ your needs.”

Look at the state of him: sallow and wilting on the inside. Reducing me down to a sentence or two, and being right about it.

“Well, can you?” I ask weakly, feeling small. He looks over me, blinks blankly. “How do you take care of your needs?” No reply. “You do have needs, don’t you?” I remark, tapping the rim of my bottle to my warm temple. “Programming ‘n’ whatnot.” 

He tilts his head away in dismissal. 

I smile, more to myself than to him. “Beat off in the shower, is it?”

For a second, Rust is still. My eyes grow heavy, admiring the strong profile of his nose. He then nods helplessly, like there’s no point in trying to lie.

I hum, a soft, self-satisfied smirk edging its way onto my face. “Must feel like a sin,” I snicker.  

He squints slightly, like he disagrees with my logic, but does not interrupt to protest. 

“I remember takin’ baths as a teenager and double-checkin’, triple-checkin’ I locked the door,” I confess. “Couldn’t take my time. ‘S that how it is for you, Rust?” I probe, tilting my head to the side, losing his eyes as quickly as I catch them. “You ever let yourself enjoy it? Let yourself want it—?”

“I don’t want it,” he snaps quietly.

“But your programmin’ says you do, right?” I point out, scrambling to hold onto the flaw in his argument. I search his face, my own bright, eager.

He quirks up a miraculous smile, and I myself burst into a wide grin. Still smiling—though, you’d have to admit, it’s such a strange sight, sort of gratifying, almost patronising—he shifts his weight between his feet, scratches at his nose with his pinkie, sniffs, takes a long drag of his dying cigarette. I know he must feel disjointed, though he doesn’t show it: he’s misstepped, and I’ve caught him. And how often does Rust Cohle misstep? I should’ve checked the news for a blue moon tonight. 

Interested, now, is he? Breathing quietly, rolling his jaw – he’s entertaining the competition I have goin’ up in my head. From the looks of the gentle smirk on his face, he’s enjoying it, too. 

“No,” he corrects with a dry husk to his voice. “No, I know what I want, and, when I think those things are necessary or useful, I know how to get them.”

In this type of context, I’d like to see him try. Though, he is an undeniably attractive man. Thick, solid all the way through, like a rich wood. But he’s got these brittle eyes: fraying.

He continues: “Most of the time, though, what we want is born out of dangerous feelings, like rage or lust. Ruminating on the consequences of those potential actions seems to me the more sensible thing to do than to just leave it and find out.” I sniff. “Desire is inescapable for most, including the sexual kind. I feel it—“ he eyes how I wriggle beneath my skin, “—you feel it. But it can be resisted. You’re lettin’ it dictate what you do ‘n’ say. If I do to you what you want me to, have you thought about how it might affect things down the line? Tomorrow, next week, next month—?”

“Yes,” I hiss, a little too emotionally, such that a gleam of satisfaction crosses his grey eyes at the strain and stretch of my voice. Christ. Desperate much?

I take several seconds to think before allowing myself to speak again, all while staring at him straight on and refusing to look away: I’d just die if I let him catch me out. “Well, how can you be sure of the fallout? How do you know the good won’t outweigh the bad? Not “you” specifically, but, also, yeah, “you” specifically. I can think about something morally ambiguous, and I can evaluate the potential consequences, and, just as you are satisfied to observe, I will decide to follow through with this somethin’ and deal with what I gotta deal.”

He sighs. “Because decisions define a person?” 

I tuck my hair tight behind my ears. “Yes.”

And he hums – that beautiful noise resonates in my stomach before sinking down there, low, its weight a comfort. “I agree with you in that respect,” he admits. 

A laugh erupts out of me like the sputter of an engine. Luckily, I’m easy to laughter – it’s like me, as is my genuine grin. “Rust Cohle’s agreein’ with me on somethin’?—Call the police!” 

“We are the police,” he replies smartly, watching me snort and smile and grow flushed in the face. I feel very grateful to that beer – at least my giddiness can be blamed on the effects of alcohol and save me from embarrassment.  

As I simmer down, he looks away, adds, “I agree to an extent. People all think that they’re one-of-a-kind. That they make these—amazing decisions. They speak and do and walk and play and work and fuck and eventually die – all of ‘em.”

“You’re part of the people,” I argue.  

He hums, nodding in acceptance. “Yes.”

“If a person acts due to their instinct, whether it’s succumbing to it or fighting against it, then isn’t man simply his programming?” He lowers his head. “You can be aware of it, and you can be a part of it, too. Who are you to deny yourself the good parts?”  

He fiddles with his cigarette, svelte fingers nimble and acute. I cross my legs, flex my hips; he notices. 

“Because of the consequences,” he replies, a soft whisper.  

I thought that everything meant fuck-all?

For someone who sees no meaning in life, he sure seems to spend a lot of time contemplating it. Here, I thought I’d have hot hands sliding all over me, gripping, spreading, pushing, but instead find myself defence in an unprecedented debate. 

Rust is breathing slower, deeper, almost unable, now, to look me in the eyes, even look at me in general, whereas, before, it had been a choice, whether that choice be conscious or unconscious. His cigarette burns weakly in his fingers, forgotten. The muscle in his jaw flexes, his expression hollow. 

My body buzzes with want, leaves me scrambling for breath like I’ve just run a race. I want. I want, I want, I want. The rough pads of his fingertips, the surest and most confident I’ll have ever known. Sharp tongue, quick and precise. Something about how he smells. All my compliments to pheromones – even in the heavy musk of the bar, I’d smelled him, ashy, warm, alive, and now it’s wreathing all around. Or maybe that’s just me – it’s like when you try to take someone’s pulse with your thumb, and all you’re feeling is your own heartbeat.

I want – my breath trembles with it.

“Rust,” I say softly. He shakes his head a little, looking away still, vulnerable like a wild animal. I sigh, gnawing at my lip. “I really want it. I—I’ve—it’s not just a rash decision,” I explain. “I’ve wanted it for a while, now.”

He shudders – I notice. “Since when?”

I huff out a sheepish laugh, fix my eyes on my restless hands. “You won’t remember it—”

“I will.”

His voice sounds clogged. It sobers me right up. 

“A year back,” I tell him. “You were working at the office—late, in the dark. You called me, and I asked you why, and you said—it was because you were tired and thinkin’.” I glance up to check if he’s maybe looking, but he’s not – he’s turned his head even further away. The soft, gentle curls of his hair tempt me. 

Blindly reaching for the bottle, securing it almost immediately, he finishes the rest of his beer, then sets it back down. 

“I—” he begins, scratching his nose, “—I was—tired.” He pauses to re-thicken his voice. “And—thinking—”

He doesn’t finish his sentence, but the both of us know what he said that night: Of you. Thinking of you—of me .  

My stomach flips, leaving me almost nauseous, just like it did when I first heard those words. At first, I thought I’d misheard, that I was so tired my mind was playing tricks on me. Then, I thought he was being cruel, or maybe he was drunk. Those two instances weren’t—aren’t—unlike him, but he never, ever calls to be mean or to be stupid. He’d been quiet and warm through the phone after that, a presence so thick I could’ve sworn he had his arms around me right then. I hadn’t slept well for a time, then, of course, and that made it all the more vivid. His voice had made me shiver all the way through as he told me he had to get back to work. 

When I saw him the next morning, I couldn’t look at him. It was the first time I couldn’t, not wouldn’t. It was also the first time I felt him paying attention to me.  

I shift, ask the question I’d wondered since that call: “Why?”

A pause. 

Then: “You brought me coffee that morning,” he explains softly, speaking to the wall opposite. “I was—looking at the mug on my desk – it was yours. Green one you like to use.” He sniffs. “And…” He teeters on the precipice of that word but does not finish the thought. 

Hmm. That’s something to think about. Rust Cohle thinking about me and not picking apart why and why he shouldn’t be. It had been a mindless enough gesture – it’s not unheard of me to be makin’ coffee for other people in the office, not because I have to but because I like to. For the people I can stand, that is: Johansson always, and him for me; Cathleen;   Marty, when I’m not pissed off at him; and Rust, from time to time. Everybody knows that green mug is mine, though – nobody touches it, not even the boss. Rust reads far too much into things. Most of the time, he’s dead-on. I should’ve known from the moment I placed that coffee on his desk, from the sharpening of his eyes (that did not spare me a glance) that lingered on my lingering hand on his table, that he knew. Figured out something I hadn’t even quite figured out myself. Not until later that night. 

I wonder if he’s ever thought of me when fucking his own hand. I wonder if he thinks about me sometimes, when he can’t sleep, in between horror stories and brutal blows and uncovering the secret truths of the universe. I do, sometimes. 

When I push myself back to my feet, stand up, Rust’s attention springs back, and he watches me, looks at me.

Quietly, I relish in the satisfaction of his stare, crossing on light feet to toss my empty beer bottle in the bin. He steps aside to let me open the cupboard under the sink, his hand curled in a loose fist by his side. I’m not trying to tease him – I grant him the space he so clearly needs, retreating about five paces back, leaning slightly myself against the counter. 

I could say anything right now, no matter how insane, and he’d treat it with total and utter respect. I could reveal to him the reaction my body has to seeing his fingers fiddle like that with his cigarette, and he’d manage to identify the cogs and wheels in what, when you step back, actually turns out to be a hidden machine. Christ, I could probably remove all of my clothes, stand naked in front of him, and he’d look on as one would look on at a piece of evidence at work. Going over the details, once, twice, scribbling it all down in that big, leather ledger. 

Here’s what I think: he needs it. For all his talk about how unoriginal, how predictable mammals are at the end of things, he probably knows that himself. The tension in his jaw, the perpetual tightness of breath. That clipped way of talking he has, wound so tight around himself, like a compressed spring fighting its natural urge to let go.  

I could make him let go. Maybe. I wish he’d let me try. It’s nothing possessive, really: wanting to be the one to unravel his tightly coiled body. Just—the release of seeing him be. No thinking in particular – just being.

He is still, however, uncommonly mute, avoiding my eyes.

I sigh. I ask him tentatively, “You think I ought’a be ashamed o’ myself?” biting down on the fleshy inside of my cheek.  

“No,” he contradicts.

“But—you think I should be findin’ my fun elsewhere, with—some other guy?”  

He sort of pins his hands behind his back, pressing his weight against them there at the edge of the sink. He looks a lot taller from this angle. “I think there’s a lotta fellas stumblin’ over themselves to be with a girl like you.”

“Maybe,” I scoff, “but my reptilian brain don’t want none of ‘em.“ I blush warmly when I glance up and he’s there watching me, though there’s no bashfulness at all on his side of it. 

I expect him to maybe dart his eyes away again, like he does, and then walk me to the door, maybe even to the car if I haven’t offended him too badly, and then call it a night. I could stuff it in; I can compartmentalise. Monday would carry on as it always does, except now without the wondering and the yearning and the delusion. Did he have to be so good-looking? His cheap, wrinkled shirt sleeves rolled up to his elbows—like they are now—and those lean forearms braced up on the table, caging in the neatly set-out notes scrawled up in his ledger, like they have mind to escape. And he’s—beautiful. He’s tall. Out-of-place sort of tall, where he has this bend to his neck, sometimes, as to not draw attention to himself. Other times, though, he stands to full height, regal, elegant, authoritative, like when he comes out o’ the box.

He sees into people. He feels it all so deeply.  

And he’s looking at me, seeing into me, deeply. His eyes are brittle like china pieced back together with store-bought glue. The low light casts long shadows down his neck and harsh face. 

“Come here to me, Rust,” I say to him, beckoning him over with a tilt of my head. To my surprise, he does. He does immediately, peeling himself off the counter, eyes drifting somewhere just behind me as if disinterested.

He stubs his cigarette out on an old plate, abandons it there officially, before stepping slowly towards me, feet never dragging, dodging my searching eyes like the plague.

Hmm. Maybe I made a good argument “for” to his “against”. Or maybe he was never “against” to begin with. I’ll watch him carefully tomorrow and see if there was anything I missed.

I reach up and touch his face gently. I used to do this with my husband before he passed, and he’d close his eyes and whisper my name and lean into the touch, tender, loving – my fingers shake slightly with the memory. Rust Cohle does none of that, because he is nothing like my husband. He’s perfectly rigid against my fingertips; his stare flits briefly up right into my soul, his mouth pressed in a hard line. Everything about him is so sharp. The ridge of his cheekbones, the defiant slant of his nose. The lean muscle of his arms and shoulders, slightly sinewy just beneath the skin. 

But when I brush my thumbs up along his eyebrows, easing the sharp line between them, he sighs and closes his eyes, neck bowing down, still as stiff as before, just—different. A small gap, an opening, to that locked room of his upstairs.  

“Rust,” I whisper, nose brushing his. He hums again, lowly, eyes shut. “What do you think of us havin’ sex?”

“Sex,“ he replies softly, “is the illusion of connection constituted by the release of a mess of happy hormones, simply by touching all the right places—and nothin’ more.”

I hum and watch the look on his face grow brittle as our breaths mingle closely. God, he’s so near to me that my head swings in a bout of lightheadedness, heady, vision centring in on him and only him, such that I wouldn’t know if this place was burning down all around, even if the flames started eating us alive.  

“I think you’re full o’ shit, Rusty. Know how I know that?”

He sighs shakily. “How?” It’s like the word is dragged right from the pit of his chest, barely a breath to show for the effort of it.

“I can feel you against my leg.” 

He swallows thickly, but he does not blush, and he does not open his eyes. And, contrary to what he might seem, Rust is not cold like stone. When my fingers grow more confident, when they trace and drag lightly along the line of his cheeks, he is warm there. His pulse, when I find it, exists and is hot and slightly erratic, a fact that leaves my mouth dry and open. I can feel the inflexion of his throat as he swallows again, the shift of the skin and the rhythm of his heartbeat, the gentle influence of his breathing. 

I wait for him to say something, but he doesn’t. So, I ask him, “Can I kiss you?” ever so gently. 

Softer still, he replies, “Yes,” with that slight Southern whistle of his, barely moving. 

Give me strength. Give me strength. 

That look on his face is filling me with a delicious, vibrating power. As I stretch my neck up to brush a kiss against the corner of his mouth, my eyes are open and watching him, charting him: Rust breathes strongly out of his nose, eyes still determinedly shut, like he’s absent and meditating. He is not tough as stone – parts of him are soft. He barely returns the kiss, but, as far as my brain processes, his lips are soft. Hesitant, maybe. 

Then, these soft lips part, and he is sucking in a hot, shuddering breath, capturing me in a deep kiss, as if to breathe all of me in, a strong hand threading through my hair. It hurts a little at first – a small noise escapes my throat at the slight shoots of pain tugging at the roots – but Rust doesn’t seem to notice. Not at first. No, he’s still breathing me in. His lips are dry, rough, a push and tug, a twist, and he’s kissing like a punch, knocking the breath right out of my lungs. Whatever oxygen I manage to hold onto is sucked out of me promptly. 

I whine, my body going all slack and tired as he smooths the hair out of my face, palms dragging clean back across my cheeks. Those hands cradle the back of my head, making it impossible to keep my eyes open.

Content, I sigh, eyes succumbing to the sensation and falling shut. The last thing I see is his own eyes slipping open to look at my face.

Boy, he’s a good kisser. Must be that lizard brain he has such a distaste for.

My fingers blindly reach and fumble at his belt, hooking into the waist, pulling him flush against me. Rust must forget what he’s doing for a moment, and he pauses where he is, in limbo, eyes far away. When I begin to unthread his belt from its quietly clinking buckle, he goes stiff again, blinks rapidly before perceiving me. 

Holy shit, he’s gorgeous.

His hands hover over my shoulders, not quite committed to the contact. 

He’s seeing me—really seeing me—as I unzip his trousers and spit crudely into my palm and curl around the length of him, warm, tight. I begin to understand the gentle throb and strain he feels, a delightful thrill running rapid all through my insides. He feels deliciously alive. 

But then he turns his head away, neck straining up, breath choked back in his throat. His hands come away, raised, it looks like, as if trying to seem non-confrontational, trying to come away unscathed from a bad situation. 

My stomach burns with desire. “Let yourself like it, Rust,” I mumble against his cheek. “Are you here with me?” 

I can feel him swallow.

“Yes,” he responds. I guide his face to me, stroking his cock confidently once, twice, as encouragement, maybe. Temptation. Whatever you want to call it. My mouth waters, my head goes airy, when I feel his sex twitch in my embrace. 

“Kiss me again, then.” 

And he does. Brows furrowed as if in pain, he does, with the tip of his nose dragging and pressing into my cheek. He kisses me sweetly once, then again, and then pants down hotly into my mouth, hovering there before sliding his tongue deep inside, close, smooth. 

I let myself love it. I let myself let go with every kiss he blesses me with, growing looser and easier and lighter each second. 

The weight of him in my hand inspires a beautiful urge to have him lay down and let me feel every part of his body. Even though his hips stutter, he doesn’t buck up into my fist, doesn’t whine, doesn’t moan, doesn’t curse. Not yet. He just breathes and breathes, and kisses me and kisses me, like it’s all he was set on Earth to do. All he’s allowing himself to do.

Desperate, perhaps, my thighs are pressed against his, feeling unnaturally weak and warm. The throb between my legs coincides with my heart rushing in my ears, a steady ache, impatient. Part of me wants to drag this out as long as possible, because what if this never happens again?—and another part wants to push him inside me already, have him fill me up, fuck me stupid. 

This thought stuffs me up to the brim, like cotton punched down into a pillowcase. I whine shallowly and try to slot his thigh between my own. 

A switch in his brain must flick on. 

It’s like he’s inside my head, like he’s in on my desperation, like he can see and feel every sinful image and thought circulating my alighted brain. He knows it all so well, such that he uses his hips to press us firmly against the counter, spreads my legs with the nudge of his foot between mine, and immediately pushes the rough pads of his fingers right where I need it, through the fabric of my skirt, letting me grind myself against him, hips and all. He circles there generously. I can feel my need dripping from me. He can too, no doubt. 

I sigh, he breathes. I gasp, he breathes. My eyes flutter open and shut, but he looks on, eyes half-lidded but stare immovable. 

He then lifts his knee to place against my cunt. 

“That feels good, don’t it?” he says gently, rocking me over his knee up and down, back and forth, fingers digging into the soft skin of my hips.

My legs widen. When I gasp out weakly, he raises his brow and scans my face, like he had predicted the shaky, wordless nod that I offer to him too late in return. 

“Did you want it like this, girl?” His voice is low, intimate, a hit of something just shy of addictive. “Or did you want somethin’ else, too?” 

He kisses the hollow of my neck. 

His other hand grips at my ass, up my skirt, kneading the flesh there, manipulating it, and his fingers ghost my slit, spreading me around his knee. He fucks up into my hand. I slide my fingers through his hair, which is soft and warm like butter. 

Fuck him. Fuck him and his stupid, pretty curls. I’ve proved my point: regardless of whatever act he may try to put on afterwards, we’ll both know that Rust isn’t as numb as he wants to be, that I made him feel good, that I made him want me, and that he’s hot-blooded and thrumming with life. I can feel how alive he is . I hope he thinks of this again some time, whether by himself or surrounded by people. I hope it drives him a bit mad, remembering this. 

A hot, sharp breath fans out across my cheek, his mouth slotting back over mine, open, daring me. 

I rut against his knee, my fingers teasing the wet head of his cock. I look down between us, at my hand on him, with half a mind to drop onto my knees and make him cum down my throat.

Rust lets out a grunt and swallows hard again.  

Then, he gently grabs my wrist and pulls my hand out of his pants, leaving me dazed and confused. With nimble fingers, he unzips my skirt, pushing it over my hips and dragging his hands over my bare skin. He asks me, “You want the bed?”

I step out of the pool of fabric around my feet, slide my shoes off. “‘s not a bed.” 

I slide my fingers beneath his sweaty, white undershirt, feeling the taut muscle there, feeling the steady breaths that contradict his racing pulse. He holds my eyes, dipping slightly when I dip, tilting when I tilt. “Seems like one to me.”

How unlike him. 

A smile spreads over my face, and his pupils blow wide, dark, imploring. “You wait ‘n’ see what happens when the dust-mites turn up.” 

His eyes on me alone are enough to leave me breathless, chest caving in on itself. Of course, when he kisses me softly, it only makes things worse – his long fingers curl around the base of my throat, watching me watching him, and his other hand slides up under the hem of my blouse, palm spread over my bellybutton. 

I sigh, try not to squirm. 

“You want the bed?” he repeats, heavy, rough. I bite back a needy whine that sits at the back of my mouth. His fingertips press down slightly into my pulse, tightening my breathing. 

I nod. “Yeah.” 

Think of all the times I’ve sulked over his lack of eye contact with me. Was I annoying? Uninteresting? That, obviously, was an immature way of looking at things, definitely not improved by my distinct femininity undergoing some kind of unspoken disapproval by most I met on the job. This is the most present he has ever been in a moment with me around.

As he pulls himself away, steps back, his eyes are darting over my face, less like he’s judging me and more like he’s trying to find and memorise every detail. I do that, sometimes: if I pay well enough attention, it feels like I’m re-living the moment when remembering. 

His hands slot sensibly into his pockets as if his cock isn’t blushing and poking out of his fly right now, belt undone, hanging low about his narrow hips. 

Legs don’t fail me now. I slink out of the glowing kitchen and carry on to where the mattress lies in a dim, blue corner, the strange crucifix watching over, a long shadow cast over the empty wall upon which it hangs. He follows shortly behind me, his warmth radiating out onto my back. 

I pause and look out onto the darkness revealed behind the half-open slats of the floor-to-ceiling blinds that shield the room from the window to the outside world. 

Rust’s presence is intoxicating behind me. He smells like cigarette smoke, still, enticing. I’m trying to quit, but he makes it damn hard. His nose is just shy of my hair, his body so close to enveloping me into him – the prospect of it makes me shiver in delight. I must hallucinate his fingertips along my spine. 

I unbutton my blouse with slow fingers, then slide it off and undo my bra. 

His breathing is level and grounding by my ear as he comes close, sliding his strong, wide hand up my stomach, along my ribs, and cups under my soft breast. He rubs over my nipple in gentle circles before squeezing over me warmly. He then comes around to pinch the creamy tissue gentle between his fingers and thumb, closing his hot mouth over, drawing along his feverish tongue. I sigh, stroke his hair, let him press soft pecks and kisses to the curve of the soft flesh and to my sternum.

My fingers, cupped around the nape of his neck, dip under the collar, cool. This touch, for some reason, causes him to make some sort of breathless, pathetic noise against me. His eyes are half-shut. 

“Anything else philosophical y’wanna get out before we fuck?” I quip smartly (though, not feeling so smart altogether), hand placed innocently on his hip. 

He lifts his head, removes his hands from my body – he looks so tragically beautiful in this light. “You want me inside you?” he asks genuinely, seemingly aloof to the fact I’m naked in front of him, open and wanton and pressing my thighs together, his eyes never drifting from mine.

“What do you want, Rust?” I whisper. 

He seems to really think about it – he’s always thinking. Briefly, his eyes flit down to my mouth. Then, he looks away, scratches at his forehead. 

After a moment longer, he swallows thickly and tips his head down over to the bed, tells me, “Lie down on the mattress,” in a gentle, decisive tone. He’s so soft-spoken – it makes my toes curl. 

I do as told, transfixed by the dark shadow in his eyes, and sink down to sit and then recline back on his coarse mattress, coarse bedsheets, with my weight on my forearms and chin tilted up towards him. He watches me, tucking his thick cock back into his underwear.

Still fully dressed in his work attire, he takes a step forward, looming over me, powerful, assertive. Saliva pools in my mouth—again—as I play with the thought of him sitting heavy on my tongue with his stomach tight, shaking, hands in my hair, fucking down my throat. I would let him. Hell, I’d probably let him do anything he wanted to me at this point. 

Does he know that? Maybe. I don’t know.

As he reaches his hand out too smooth the hair out of my face, I try to figure it out, but I can’t – he seems too wrapped up in his own desire to be thinking anything at the moment. I feel a flicker of satisfaction jump up in the pit of my stomach. Or maybe that’s something else. 

“Lie back, girl,” he tells me. 

My cunt flexes. 

I thump onto my back, breathless. “Take off your shirt, Rust.” 

Without replying, he sinks down to his knees in front of me, my thighs. Instinctively, I prop myself up and watch him unbutton that wrinkled shirt all the way down, shrug it over his broad shoulders. I could fuck myself silly just over the thought of those shoulders, I remark inwardly. He tugs the wifebeater over his head, lean muscles catching the low light, strong, study, solid, and tosses the thing to the side thoughtlessly. My hands reach out to touch him, to feel him and know him. When my fingers press into his skin, glide up his neck and down over his chest, he sighs deeply. He then carefully removes my hands, urging me to sprawl down under him.

“Said lie back, didn’t I?” 

Rust doesn’t say another word before placing his large hands on my knees and easing them apart, lowering himself to press pecks and slow, open-mouthed kisses to my thighs, closer, closer, stroking my sensitive skin gently. I almost flinch at his every touch, like it burns. His face is awful serious, like he’s concentrating. I wriggle in anticipation, eager. 

“Rust,” I whisper purposelessly. He looks up, hums, searches my face for anything the matter. 

I watch on desperately, on the brink of feral distress. A sob clogs my throat as he kisses my fluttering stomach, ducking his head down and curling his forearms, his hands, around my thighs. The dark stamp of his bone-bird tattoo curls over his arm. I realise he is waiting for my attention to return to him, his eyes patient but glazed over with something cardinal. Hungry.

“Can—?”

“Yes.” 

He hums. And then he breathes hotly over my underwear before pressing his nose right there into the damp fabric, inhaling my scent there. I whimper at the pressure he applies with the strong bridge of his nose, at the wetness of his open mouth against me. He breathes heavily into me, groaning slightly beneath it all – I can’t tell past the thrumming of my heart in my ears.  

“Rust,” I whisper again, my shoulder straining with the task of keeping me up and looking down at the sight of his sweet head buried between my glistening thighs.   

“Lie back.”  

He kisses me through my underwear, dutifully kneading the flesh of my hips, my inner thighs.

I thump back against the mattress, helpless, keening into his touch as this grey man roughly tugs my underwear down, down, all the way down, until they’re clean off my body, long gone, and then returns his nose to the cleft of my pussy, unseaming me with his tongue, opening me up, breathing me in. It’s enough to draw a shallow, hoarse cry from me. He doesn’t say anything, and I can’t say anything, biting down on my white knuckles.

Rust licks warm over my clit, sucking gently on the bud of nerves (then not so gently), before sliding down, down through my very centre.

Whining breathily, the twist in my stomach tightens and spasms as he presses my hips and thighs right down against the mattress, slow, strong, giving me time to notice it, realise it, give into it, deny the natural instinct to curl my limbs tight all over his face, his neck, his mouth. 

Holy fuck. Rust Cohle has his face buried between my legs right now. I have Rust Cohle’s tongue pushing deep into my cunt – he sighs softly, a sound with its own powerful gravity a black hole to envelop me in, and grinds his hips against the edge of the mattress for a split second, just once. My mind pulses with the thought of making him cum. I wonder if he feels the same hunger. 

Then, he’s sinking his long, elegant fingers into me, one, then two, and just the knowledge that those fingers belong to him makes my thighs quiver and shake, makes me sigh again. Thick, confident, they curl inside, slow like an experiment, right up to the knuckle. When he taps up against me, when I squeal and crimp up into his hold, he returns himself to mouth dutifully over my clit.  My hand threads itself into his hair, holding him steady – I offer a breathless moan when his grip across my hips loosen, an invitation to begin rolling myself up over his pretty face. He pulls his fingers out of me, wet and hot, and encourages my thighs upon his beautiful shoulders, clinging onto them urgently. He shudders a little, I think, when I lock them firmly around his head and grind myself shamelessly against his mouth, his nose. He moves his jaw, his face, in tandem.

I cum after a while like that, because how can I not? The searing buzz reaches a roiling static.

I go loose, moaning softly, melted down flat, and stroke fuzzy fingers through Rust’s pretty hair as he sucks my clit still, as he inhales again and sighs again, reduced to something primitive and needy.

Thick, my heartbeat throbs and echoes like a drum in my skull, threatening. I feel so full that I could mistake the beat of pleasure for nausea pressing in my throat. It was silly to think that this could all be satisfied just from one time. My eyes closed, Rust’s light touch over my abdomen, up to my throat, is acute and heightened, like a million tiny, individual sparks. His fingers fumble over my jaw, then press lightly over my pulse. 

He retreats just as I’m playing with the hairs at the nape of his neck, coming to stand to full height above me, unthreading his belt from his trousers with quiet, precise hands. I press my shaking thighs together, watching him breathe strongly through his nose, trying to remain somewhat respectable in the presence of the darkening look in his eyes that is locked down on my body.

He pauses, wipes some shine from his nose. Before he can continue with whatever, I find myself sitting up on my knees, grabbing his hips hard enough to bruise all pretty and purple, shoving the trousers down to his knees, and palming him through his boxers. 

We don’t have to say anything. He just watches me passively, pushing my hair back again, behind my ears, my shoulders, rolling my earlobe softly between his fingertips.

I remove his underwear, take him into my mouth, thick and long and wanting; he sighs, holds my head with two steady hands.

When was the last time someone helped him like this? I honestly couldn’t have told you, even given a loose theory, prior to this moment: Rust is simultaneously the hottest and most non-sexual being I’ve ever come across in my life. He just happens to be beautiful; he just happens to inspire these sort of feelings choking up inside me. No overarching intention that he’ll ever admit to, no vanity, no preening. So strict to himself, so tight, like a piston, something that fights and pushes and hurts.

So, as I hold him firmly and suck at the head of his blushing cock, kissing him, I watch his face, savour the tart taste of him, and press my thighs together: he’s becoming warmer, looser.

Still, as much as I want him, I know he’s wanted me. However vague he tells it, he’s wanted me. Good Lord, he looks even more stressed now, somehow, than when we had just been talkin’. Hands gently cradling my skull, he tilts his head away, watches the cross on the wall, as he succumbs to it, maybe, and begins to gently, languidly fuck my face. I tuck a hand between my thighs, and I love him, my other with the fingers digging into his hip, his ass. If I’m lucky, maybe it’ll leave some sort of mark, just to remind him I was here, so that, when he’s being all indifferent again, with his eyes lowered to the floor as he shares a report with me at my prim, little desk, we’ll both know that we were once in this room together, here like this.

Rust breathes and breathes, almost mechanically, and slides his cock further into my mouth. The weight of him in there drives me half-insane. If I could consume him, envelop him, and we could be one and the same, I’d readily allow it. When he sinks deeper still down my throat, I sigh around him, rub myself the way I like.

His eyes are determinedly shut, like some part of him refuses to be here. 

Before I can make him cum, he shakes his head and tugs my hair back a little bit, mumbling for me to stop and sit away. 

For all his mouthiness just a half hour ago, would you look at him now?—Rust Cohle, plundered by the human sensation of speechlessness. I’ve never seen him out of his element before. When he comes down and cages me with his body, hot skin flush against hot skin, I don’t mean that in a bad sense. Shit, he’s far from it. But there’s nothing to say. Nothing of note, nothing to pick apart, no deeper meaning, no theory. Just an itch that has to be scratched. He wants, he is, and it’s heaven to see. 

In the dark, he sinks in to me as he is, eliciting from me a soft moan that curls over the shell of his ear. I have to bite down on his shoulder when comes the push, the stretch, the sink, the comfort of him inside. I curl my legs around his waist and grab at his ass, willing him deeper still. He shudders silently over me, thick ripples of pleasure rolling through his lean body.

I curse, but I’m sure it barely registers with him. 

His head lifts and his eyes clamp shut as he braces an arm against the wall, lifting one of my legs up over his hip and fucking into me deeper, slipping out and in, and again, and again. I know what I’d see if I took a look down, saw his cock pumping into me, but I can hardly do anything but buck my hips up to meet his effort, my stomach stuttering with that building pressure, hands gripping desperately around his neck and shoulders. 

Though, I’m not even sure it is effort that’s driving him. 

I mumble into his shoulder, dumb, focussing on the feel and press of him in my belly. I doubt he’s really aware of anything more than the sensation of it, evident from the small grunt that passes his lips as he fucks deep in me. His stomach presses heavier down onto mine, crushing a delicious pressure there, teasing out a long, breathy whimper. He snakes an arm around my hips, pushes his free hand to the back of my knee, tilting my legs back a little more, and then pulls me wider. Tight, he moves me how he wants me, my flesh dipping and carving, fucking himself raw with me, with my hot cunt. His mouth moves over mine, not kissing me, not speaking, just there, present, hot, panting. He doesn’t open his eyes, so I close mine, and I breathe.

Rust stutters and cums and spills over into me with a grunt. He pants sharply, harshly, rhythmically into my mouth, tense again, and then he collapses over my body, and he lays there. I lay there too, burning on the far inside. 

I think he only really remembers I’m there when I shift under him.

His eyelashes brush against my cheek. “Sorry,” he murmurs, but the sound of his voice scrapes directly against my brain with the shock of a flesh-wound. 

I assume he’s referring to the thick cum that I can feel leaking out of me now. He shifts his hips, adjusting himself in the grip of my cunt. My fingers wrap around his arms, squeeze as I feel him easing out. 

“It’s okay,” I reply. 

He glances down between us and guides himself out with a lewd noise, swallowing hard. I shiver. 

Quiet, sedated, he shrugs his trousers, his underwear, off of his ankles, slipping the bedsheet over both our naked selves. His hand spreads and flattens warm over my abdomen, feeling the gentle swell and sink of the breaths I take and release.

[sensei-venus]

(Unedited) (Bullying, Kyler being Kyler, Happens before Miguel shows up, Bully!Reader is lovely-dovey down bad for a nerd, Hates herself for it but she can't help it, Reader doing illegal shit to Kylers car because she's a menace to society.) ( @gemini-sensei )

Recently thinking about this because of Bully!Reader.

What if Bully!Chubby!Reader, who is just a straight-up asshole to just about everyone, is kind of a loner, is new to school.

The minute she steps into school everyone just knows something's up. She's kinda punk like (maybe slimy like S1 Robby) and she walks around like she knows what the fuck she wants.

The first time she lays eyes on little Eli she just knows, she wants that dude.

She stares at him from across the room, maybe during lunch. Her eyes just dig into him, but he doesn't see her because he's too busy with talking to Demetri. They're too caught up in some nerd conversation about a new comic or something. She's just staring right at him while picking at her food. A sick little twisted smile on her lips.

But as the day goes on she happens across one of the many “Kyler” events where he's bullying Eli and Demetri. She takes more notice of the fact he likes going after Eli more than Demetri.

She doesn't like that one bit.

She wants to claim him.

For the next week, she basically stalks Kyler around the school maybe even outside of it. This leads to her finding his car, and let's just say that one day some very nasty stuff happens to his lovely car. Said thing involves major property damage.

While she's doing all of this, at the same time she racking up her own little “hits” of kids she messes with. Unlike Kyler she doesn't have a list of specific kids she goes after. Their random and just kids that piss her off in one way or another. Everyone gets the fact that she's doing her picking and bullying at random. No one wants to get in her way or on her bad side.

One day she finds Kyler and his goons once again messing with Eli. This time she catches him physically messing with the boy. Picking him up and getting in his face. Eli is scared shitless, halfway off the ground. They laugh at him and making nasty comments. From not only his body but about his lip. This sends Reader over the edge making her snap. She rushes over to them and physically pulls Eli away from Kyler’s grasp. He falls to the floor with a thud, rolling away, and pushes himself up against a wall. Too scared to even try and run off. He just sits on the floor with wide eyes.

Reader gets in Kyler's face spewing threat after threat. Each new sentence has his goons stepping back. Finally she gets to the point.

“Moskowitz is mine from now on. I'm call dibs on the little shit. Your going to stop fucking with him, unless you want another “accident” to happen with your car again? Maybe next time it will be something worse.” she grins at the way his posture changes. His eyes go wide just a little and he takes a small step backwards.

“What the fuck that was you-”

“I don't think you want to find out.”

He huffs before pushing his goons to leave. They slowly walk off, leaving him behind for just a moment.

“You can have the freak for now! But just for no— your fucking lucky bitch!” and he takes off to follow his friends.

She rolls her eyes and scoffs before turning back around to find her prize. She smirks as she looks down to find her prize. Still on the floor shivering in fright, he stares at her and loudly gulps. He knows her reputation. He has to be her newest victim. Whatever she said to Kyler was able to scare him off which wasn't at all easy.

She bends down, her cleavage right smack down in his face. He's too scared to pop a boner but he's happy about that. Clearly, she just called dibs on him, and Kyler’s bullying privileges have been revoked. She smirks down at him saying “Your mine now dude.” she laughs which sends a chill up his spine. He gulps down a huge spitball.

Apparently, he was trading in bullies for this semester.

(Part two to this is going to be ✨freaky✨😈.)

[holywild]

Unpopular opinion (apparently) but I absolutely hate what they've done with Aemond in S2 of HOTD and I have no desire to continue watching it. I didn't even finish ep 3, and yeah, I skipped the brothel scene. Because I'm over the gratuitous sex with him and Alicent. Fuck this character assassination.

The brothel scenes weren't necessary at all. They added nothing to his character but to set up this laughable "falling out" with Aegon as justification for Aemond's betrayal in the next episode.

He was compelling/mysterious without all the sex and we knew he had mommy issues. As an audience, we're not dumb. But the show's writers think we are. Sometimes, less is more and he was a prime example of that. He stole the show in S1. In the 15 minutes he had, he fucking dominated the scenes he was in. Now he's been overexplained, and the mystique is gone.

I had such high hopes going into this season. For two years I looked forward to the aftermath of Storm's End. I thought for sure we'd see how the Greens reacted to what Aemond had done. I wanted to watch him interact with his siblings, to Blood & Cheese, I wanted the dynamic with his mother front and center. Nope, couldn't have that. We just got brothel scenes.

The thing is, if they had done it better, I don't think they would've bothered me as much. If there had been build up to them, if they had shown us how he was driven there due to his family, THAT would have been easier to swallow. Did we get that!? No!

You mean to tell me this man hasn't set foot in a brothel since he was 13 (based on what was shown to us in S1) the same man who rolled his eyes at and looked utterly disgusted with the "madame" and a week after Storm's End he's just there... with her with no build up?? I got fucking whiplash! "Show don't tell" is what makes good writing. Well, the writers this season aren't SHOWING us anything, they're TELLING us and we're just supposed to accept it while they're speedrunning through the season.

The train is going off the rails, and this is where I get off.

(Side note): I know people are saying that the brothel madame didn't sexually assault him at 13. And yeah, I see your point. But then she made that comment: "my how you've grown" while looking him up and down. Why is nobody talking about that? How do you justify that remark? Because if she was just doing her job THEN on pain of death, what was the reason for that gross, disgusting comment NOW? It came off predatory and reads that she enjoyed taking a 13 year old's virginity.

[alea-says]

H50 season 10, episode 1 thoughts...

Danny. Did you let Steve at your hair with his clippers? Why you guys gotta do this to me? Steve's hair is on point this season. But now you've lost half of yours?

Did you realise the combo of you both with good hair from the early seasons was just too hot to handle? Huh?

Also Steve's silver stubble is doing things for me I did not expect.

Steve, babe. You're gonna tell your date that you love Danny and your relationship is like a marriage? Considering he gets another date and apparently this Brooke is newly divorced why do I think she now thinks Steve and Danny are divorced?

Oh, to be at those PTA meetings...

Also, Danny, you are far too invested in Steve's date. While also making sure Steve's attention stays firmly on you. Get a clue please.

I'm sorry, Steve just told them to split into groups of two... who does Adam get? Poor Adam all alone.

Parkour! This guy is all rolling and falling along while Steve is more elegant with his running. Oh no. Why do I think Steve's not gonna make that jump as easily? Steve you just lost your elegance. Also, you know Danny's gonna yell at you about this, right?

I love Danny just popping up - Steve's always gotta chase after the perp no matter what while Danny is like, okay, so if I calmly walk this way I'll be able to cut them off.

Yes, Danny, hide your concern for Steve by calling him old.

Kinda disappointed there wasn't more plot around the snipers being coerced or something... especially with the way the first one shot himself then the second refuses to surrender, it gave me vibes of they're doing this cos loved ones are being threatened or they're being blackmailed etc.

Okay, so not only does Steve love Danny, and calls their relationship like a marriage. Now Steve and Brooke are breaking up with Danny - because obviously Steve can't have another relationship until he breaks up with Danny.

And it was Brooke's idea. At least she recognises the threat Danny is.

Love Tani calling mcdanno mum and dad.

(Also Danny's wearing a white t-shirt. Is that deliberate? I normally don't pay attention to wardrobe the way some ppp do, but isn't that what Danny wore on their first date back in s1?)

[tua-five]

Season 2 Episode 4 (Spoilers!⚠️)

[Viktor] finds out that he caused the last apocalypse and asks Five if he was ever going to tell him. He said no because in his defense, when he gets mad shit DOES blow up.

First of all, probably not a great thing to say. Probably gonna make him blow more stuff up. Second of all, he probably shouldn't tell him that there are plenty of other family secrets he's keeping from him.

However, I love how Five's reaction to [Viktor] getting in the car and shutting the door is to politely knock as if asking to roll the window down. Which he does. Peak subtle comedy right there.

Also, I feel Five when he says: "Wonder if it's too late to be unadopted." Not that I'm adopted, just siblings can be a lot sometimes.

(Planned on finding the gif, but apparently, I can't find any these days).

Here's some gifs I could find, though!

Anyhoozles.

Let's talk about Klaus. I don't blame him for throwing his sobriety out the window. I mean, his future boyfriend just punched him in the face. I am proud of him however, for throwing the extra alcohol he had gotten when he started running away from his cult. S1 Klaus would never. He'd find a way to keep it. But no, he threw it away. I mean, he still kept the bottle he was holding, but he needs something to help the grief he's feeling.

Another thing that needs to be addressed. First of all, what exactly was going through Five's mind when he shouted Greek at Reginald? Why did he say it? What was his goal?

And Reginald saying "Nobody important" when Grace asks who that was??? Obviously, at this point, he knows they're important. Them finding his place of work, following him around, listening in on the Magestic 12 meeting... he knows they're important.

Yes, I know he's not going to tell Grace any of that, so he'd say that regardless, but still. He could've answered I don't know or something. Which also means he does, in fact, know they're important.

[impulsemuppet]

WIP Wednesday

Thanks to @kcscribbler for the tag ♥

Here's a bit from a oneshot I've been working on set in s1.

Loki sat on his chair, which was now always too close to Mobius’. “Planet Stroria 6B5, a honeymoon hotspot receiving an unexpected asteroid, unlucky bastards.”

“At least they died happy.” 

“Who makes a whole planet for honeymooners anyways?” 

“Apparently it was very romantic. Had a waitlist of years to get a room and it was all customized to each couple. Must have been nice to go there with the person you loved,” Mobius told him, as he kept skimming through the files.

“I would rather go somewhere more private than be around a bunch of other ‘just married’ couples. Make my partner feel truly special,” Loki added.

“An expert at romance, are you now?” Mobius teased.

Loki leaned back in his chair, a mischievous glint in his eyes. "Well, Mobius, you know me. I've always been quite a connoisseur when it comes to love," he replied with a playful smirk. Mobius chuckled, shaking his head in amusement. "Oh, I'm well aware of your charms, Loki.”

Loki smirked. “I think he might be there.”

“Who?”

“The variant, Mobius, who else.” Loki rolled his eyes, but there was a smile on his lip. “I think he might be in this apocalypse.”

Open tag cause I forget everyone's usernames when I have to tag

[darkstarofchaos]

Yet more EarthSpark S2 spoilers.

And now for some general thoughts about the season itself.

Where was Nightshade during all this? They are a main character, why did they not have so much as a subplot in another character's focus episode? People talk about Thrash getting sidelined, but he had a whole episode plus a paired episode with Twitch. Nightshade is barely there, and when they are, it's either a battle scene or sharing the scientific spotlight with Wheeljack.

Speaking of Thrash, I liked his episode. I would like to think finding a random Quintesson on earth and then shooting it into space will have repercussions later in the season, especially with the Quint lore in the final episode. But now that the Decepticons are just flat and evil, I might not even watch that far.

Why are the Decepticons interchangeable now? Starscream and Shockwave are the only ones allowed a personality beyond "smash stuff". And yes, I'm counting Breakdown in that, because he's a shadow of his former self, and the whole thing with him being a parent to Aftermath got dropped after five minutes. And you know, I might be giving Shockwave too much credit, because disagreeing with your leader on one course of action isn't a personality trait. And Starscream's ultimate goal is apparently just smash stuff. So you know what, I'll amend that, why do none of the Decepticons have a personality beyond smash stuff?

Like. Twitch ends up in the Decepticon base in the guise of Spitfire, and we don't get a single characterization moment. I guess the Cons all just stand and snarl at each other when they aren't on missions.

On the other hand, I don't understand why so many people were confused that the Decepticons were following Starscream, because why wouldn't they? He seems to have been doing a fine job, judging by the number of Emberstone shards the Cons had. I get that most Starscreams can't get support to save their lives (often through no fault of their own), but the Decepticons here seem to have no reason not to follow him.

Moving on from the Decepticons, I'd have to call the trailer episode and the carnival episode the worst of the lot. The whole subplot with Robbie having a crush was the most uncomfortable thing I've had to sit through in a while, and I would not voluntarily watch it again. And the trailer episode was just tedious. I get having something more relaxed in between the Spitfire two-parter and the finale, but couldn't they have found any other plot for it? People rag on the bear episode, but at least that had a nice little lesson about not messing with people's prostheses rolled in. This episode was just. Nothing. But it did come with a distinct lack of squicky "feeling your brother's crush through your psychic bond" stuff, so I'll give it that it's rewatchable.

Okay, this was a problem with S1 too, but that psychic bond has to go. It's creepy and invasive, and it's only going to get more so as the humans get older and start exploring adult relationships. At least give them some way to close it or otherwise shield themselves from it (it's also a constant plot hole, because characters often end up in danger that the others somehow don't notice. Like, is there a range on this psychic thing? How far apart do they have to be before they can't feel each other anymore? This thing is not explained well enough, and I don't see why it even needs to exist).

Assorted episode nitpicks:

That is not how you dispose of hard drives. Why did you not wipe them before recycling.

No food ever touches the plates on the dinner table in the Quintesson episode. I am unreasonably bothered by this.

How did none of the adults think to address Spitfire's insistence on being part of the mission by pointing out that Twitch is older and more experienced than her? Like, yeah, Spitfire probably wouldn't have cared, but someone should still have put their foot down and said she can't go on a mission until she's had some training.

Megatron, you are the only non-participant who can fly and the final stretch of that obstacle course was over a ravine. Why were you not in a position where you could quickly help out if someone fell? Twitch wouldn't have had to go back to save Alex herself and the whole thing with Spitfire being mad because she crossed the finish line first wouldn't have happened if you had positioned yourself more strategically.

Actually, Megatron proposed the race, Megatron wasn't close enough to be helpful during the race, and Megatron said they needed to let Twitch and Spitfire sort things out themselves, which resulted in Twitch getting bodyswapped. Every problem in this episode was Megatron's fault. Optimus, why are you not vetoing any of this? Why are you just standing there and letting Megatron pit kids against each other? You're a leader, do some leading!

On the other hand, Megatron wanting to resolve everything by letting the arguing parties fight it out is on brand for him, so like. Kudos for characterization, now get an adult in here.

[ceterisparibus116]

Hey. Why do you think Karen Page is a character people seem to hate so much? I’m fairly new to the fandom and I’ve seen people even badmouthing the actress as well, which is awful. I am curious to know what you think about it.

Welcome to the fandom! 💖 I'm so excited for you and I'm super happy that, despite being newish, you're interacting like this. (It took me an embarrassing amount of time to be brave enough to send asks to people lol.)

Also, this is such an interesting question.

I want to address the attacks against Deborah Ann Woll first. No matter how anyone feels about a character, it's absolutely despicable to attack the actor over it. Most of the attacks I've seen have been about her looks, or about her acting abilities. It's fine to critique acting abilities, but looks should be off the table. But even the critiques of her acting abilities aren't actually critiques - they're just, like you said, badmouthing, with little to no analysis. To me, that indicates that they're hating on the actress just because they're emotional (angry or annoyed) over the character.

So why do people get so emotional over Karen?

I think the easiest explanation is: ship wars. Some people struggle to enjoy their favorite ship without tearing down competitor ships. And since Karedevil is one of the few ships that was actually canon (albeit temporarily, but S3 ended with them being pretty flirty again), Karen becomes a huge target.

Another explanation is that Karen appears to be written inconsistently. Personally, I don't think she actually is (except perhaps in The Punisher; I'm not sure because I've only seen S1 of The Punisher). The argument goes: "She loves Daredevil until she finds out Daredevil is Matt, and then she treats it like an addiction, despite being supportive of Frank."

The counter-argument, to me, is clear: she still loves Daredevil, but she hates being lied to and put on a pedestal. Matt did both of those things. Frank (for the most part) did neither of those things. Her issue is with Matt, not Daredevil (which she makes explicitly clear in S3E1, but people still apparently confused on this point). With that in mind, I think she's written consistently in an incredibly nuanced way.

Another explanation is that Karen is a character who doesn't learn from her mistakes. She's rash and reckless and she lies just as much as Matt, and more often than not, people end up dead because of it. Ben is the most obvious and chilling example. Yet even after her actions get Ben killed, and she expresses serious guilt and remorse, she continues to do the same thing. That makes people wonder: is she stupid? Or, worse: was her guilt and remorse only an expression of her personal grief, and not actually the result of evaluating her actions affected Ben?

This, to me, is the most fair critique of Karen, and I sympathize with people who dislike her because of it. I will point out, however, that Matt and Foggy also repeat the same mistakes. It's obvious with Matt; it's talked about less often with Foggy, but I roll my eyes every time he acts like Matt and Karen are being reckless for wanting to operate outside the law - despite the fact that every time they limit their plans to operating inside the law, people end up dead. This makes me wonder: is Foggy stupid? Or does he simply care more about keeping Matt and Karen alive (and out of jail) than he cares about other people dying?

The actual explanation, I think, is that Daredevil is a show about very flawed and surprisingly realistic characters. People rarely shake off old habits and bad ways of thinking quickly. No matter how many times you tell a person that their friends are there for them, they (like Matt) may continue to push people away if that's their coping mechanism. No matter how many times you tell a person to ask for help before doing something alone, they (like Karen) may continue to go rogue if that gives them some feeling of control over their lives. No matter how many times you tell a person that the systems they want to trust are broken, they (like Foggy) may continue insisting that everyone should trust the system if they continue seeing the world through a lens of privilege.

Can it be frustrating to watch? Absolutely. Is it a good reason to hate a character? I'd say no, but I guess that's more subjective. Is it a reminder to all of us to be gentle and patient both with ourselves and with other people when we find ourselves making the same mistakes over and over? I hope so!

I've said before that I sometimes feel self-conscious over the fact that, in my longer stories, a character's growth is rarely linear. It's usually what I think of as a spiral. They make a mistake, they learn from it...and then the stakes rise, and so they fall back on that old mistake again, since it's comfortable and familiar, rather than trying a new approach. Or the character tries to blend the old mistake with the new approach, to varying degrees of success. Sometimes I worry that this feels repetitive, or like the character isn't learning.

But from the comments I've received, people seem to appreciate it more often than not. They resonate with it and relate to it.

So now that I think of it...maybe the root problem is simply that Daredevil doesn't have author's notes telling us why Karen (and Foggy and Matt) are making the same mistake again. 😅

Or maybe people are more compassionate towards characters in fanfiction than on TV? Or maybe people are more compassionate towards the main character than the side character? Or maybe it's misogyny? Or maybe people are just less compassionate towards Karen in particular because she threatens their favorite ship.

Aaaaand this post has come full circle.

[laurel-finch]

'I Don't Bite' S1.Ch17: Monster

Summary: Suspicions come to a head... Referenced Episodes: S1 E20 "Dead Man's Blood" CW: Gore. John Winchester (again). Word Count: 6810 Recommended Song: Animal -- Def Leppard Previous Chapter -- Masterlist -- Next Chapter

"Are you sure about this?" I questioned Dean as I wrapped my weapons bag around my waist. "I mean, surely there's a better way to do this than use you as bait?"

Dean laughed and smirked as he rummaged in the trunk of the Impala for his weapons. "What, you don't think I can handle it?"

"Of course, I think you can!" I retorted, ceasing my fumbling to glare at him. "I'm just worried."

Dean stopped his movements and paused. His eyes flitted up to meet mine, full of subdued surprise. "Why would you be worried?"

I frowned at him and leaned against the Impala. "I've just... got a weird feeling," I mused, twirling a strand of hair between my fingertips. "Like something bad is going to happen."

Dean chuckled and closed the trunk of the Impala, leaning against it next to me. "That's normal for a hunt like this," he teased. I rolled my eyes – of course being nervous was normal, but this… I had a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach like something was approaching and fast. Something dark, on the edge of the reason. I pulled my coat tighter to me and shivered, snuggling into it. Dean placed a comforting hand on my shoulder, gazing at me with evident worry.

"Everything's going to be fine," he assured with an affectionate squeeze to my shoulder. "You don't need to worry about a thing- I've got it covered," he continued with a confident smirk. I huffed in disagreement.

"I'm always going to worry about you, Dean," I chided. He quirked an eyebrow. "Both you and Sam. And John too," I added hurriedly, despite the man’s growing distrust for me – I felt the way his gaze lingered coldly when he thought I wasn’t paying attention. "The three of you... you're family. Even if John doesn't trust me much."

"He trusts you," he spoke, removing his hand from my shoulder. "More than he trusts most hunters at least. Maybe it's because he knew your uncle." Dean sighed and ran his hand through his short hair, staring off into the tree line. "I was going through my dad's journal recently. Apparently, he went on a few hunts with your uncle."

I nodded slowly and drew the heavy coat tighter around me. "Yeah, he told me about that," I mumbled. "It was years ago though. He didn't even know he was dead," I whispered out, eyes falling to the gravel beneath my feet.

"It was a wraith, right?" Dean asked softly. I nodded and shoved my hands deep into the pockets of my jeans. "Have you ever thought about...?"

"Getting revenge?" I asked. Dean remained silent, his silence confirming my question. I shrugged. "Yeah, I guess. If I had the opportunity I'd tear that wraith to shreds. But... I don't know if I could do what John does. I don’t think I would be as… mentally clear as him." I chose my words carefully, not wanting to rudely pick at the bond Dean and his father shared. I turned my head to face Dean, his eyes gazing distantly down the road.

We sat in silence for what felt like hours when in reality it was maybe two, or three minutes. Finally, Dean pushed away from the Impala and stood to his full height, stretching a bit. "Guess you should go meet up with Sam and dad, huh?" he asked and turned his rather tired green eyes on mine. "You remember the plan right?"

I nodded and cast my eyes to the ground. Dean swallowed dryly and nodded. He opened his mouth to speak, likely to send me on my way, but I cut him off. I spun and tugged him by the collar of his leather jacket. He stumbled forward, not expecting the motion, and stopped within a few inches of my face, a surprised and dazed look in his eyes.

"Promise me you won't get hurt," I pled, drawing him ever so slightly closer. "Promise," I demanded softly, glaring intently at him. He blinked once, twice, then nodded slowly, swallowing nervously.

I held him there for a few more moments, my eyes washing over his face, taking in his features. His spectacularly green eyes, his abundant freckles, that confident smirk that could make could make any woman swoon, his lips-

 I shoved him away, a bit rougher than intended, and cast my eyes once more to the ground. I tucked a rogue strand of hair behind my ear and glared up at him. "Stay safe," I ordered quietly and spun on my heel, marching away from him and up the hill to where I knew Sam and John were waiting for me.

Once I was out of view I stopped and placed my head in my hands and listened to my hammering heart, beating so wildly that I was worried it would beat out of my chest. I dragged my hands down my face and scowled down at my feet, kicking aside a stray rock.

What was I doing?

I huffed and pulled my coat tighter, shielding me from the chilly night air, and stalked up the hill.

As suspected, Sam and John were waiting for me at the crest of the hill, a crossbow across each of their laps. From this elevation, we could easily see the road and the Impala, but they were not within earshot. At that moment, I was thankful for my enhanced hearing.

I sat beside Sam and stared down the hill, my chin resting in my palm. Sam elbowed me in the arm gently, drawing my attention. I turned to face his hazel eyes. "What took you so long?" he asked.

I shook my head and turned back to the road. "Nothing," I mumbled out and watched the rainy highway, waiting for any signs of vampires. I hoped to God that my scent wouldn't draw them away from Dean and up the hill. I had no doubt that my scent could easily overpower the Winchesters. However, there was a chance it would be drowned out – it was three humans against one skinwalker, after all.

The minutes ticked by and I picked at my nails aimlessly as we waited.

I perked up as I heard footsteps at the base of the hill, a much lighter pair than Dean's. "Look alive boys," I whispered to the father and son duo. "We've got company."

A female vampire rounded that car, probably meant to be a distraction. She sidled up to Dean ominously and spoke to him. I couldn’t hear her words from such a distance. My skin crawled as I glowered at her, tightening my grip on my machete. I was no good with a crossbow, but at least I could bust some heads with a knife.

Dean turned his head towards her and gave her a once over, his expression stalwart. She grinned at him and Dean chuckled, pulling his hands from his pockets. He replied to something she said with a cocky smirk-

The vampire chuckled breathily and backhanded him across the face, sending Dean stumbling to the side. I snarled and Sam held out an arm, stopping me from tumbling down the hill.

The vampire woman reached down and gripped Dean's face in her hand. Somehow, she managed to lift him off his feet, holding him suspended in the air as he thrashed in her grip. He grabbed her wrist and attempted to push her away. I glared as he pulled him closer and spoke softly to him.

And then she kissed him.

I felt like my blood was boiling, and I couldn't hold back the feral snarl that escaped from my lips. A jolt of electricity went down my spine, stemming from the base of my neck. Caeden was worried. I breathed deeply and shut my eyes, willing my heart rate to settle. The crackling feeling of electricity continued, mixing with the feeling of my boiling blood.

I felt like I was burning alive.

Dean spat as the woman pulled away from him, still keeping him suspended high in the air. He licked his lips in disgust and glared at her with revulsion. His leg flailed out in a harsh kick to her stomach. Her grip on his throat slipped.

"Now," John whispered, pulling back his bow string and knocking an arrow. Sam followed suit. The youngest Winchester let his arrow fly, and it hit its mark, burying itself in the chest of the second vampire.

That was good enough for me. I charged down the hill, a machete held at the ready. I heard the twang of John's bow as the arrow flew and embedded itself in the chest of the female. She gasped and glanced down at her chest.

"Dammit," she whispered and raised a shaky hand to touch the arrow tip.

I cascaded down the hill and tumbled into Dead, pushing him away from the downed vamp. "Are there any more of them?" I hissed at him. He shook his head and eyed the hillside where his brother and father were following my tracks.

John stumbled to a halt beside the female vampire, who still looked stricken at the arrow through her chest. I glared ferociously at her, putting myself between her and Dean. Her nostrils flared and she grimaced before glancing between the four of us. "Barely even stings," she said, hunched over slightly.

"Give it time sweetheart," John said with a confident grin. "That arrow's soaked in dead man's blood. It's like poison to you isn't it?" The vamp's eyes went wide and she swayed slightly. Her eyes traced back to mine with a heated glare. She inhaled deeply, wrinkled her nose in disgust, and then collapsed sideways into John's waiting arms.

"Load her up," he ordered, passing her off to Sam.

Dean pushed past me to grab the legs of the female and followed Sam down the road to where John's pickup was hidden. The brother’s worked to carry the vampire up the hill and into the woods. Dean dropped her legs unceremoniously to the ground while Sam carefully lowered her torso to the dirt.

I turned slowly at the sound of John's heavy boots snapping twigs beneath his feet. "Toss this on the fire," he called, tossing a small bag to the boys. Dean caught it one-handed and dropped it into the flame without question. "Saffron, skunk's cabbage, and trillium. It'll block our scent and hers until we're ready."

Dean coughed and sputtered, taking a step back from the fair and waving a hand in front of his face. "Stuff stinks!" he exclaimed as he moved to stand beside Sam.

"That's the idea," John said with a hearty chuckle. "Dust your clothes with the ashes, and you stand a chance of not being detected." I glanced towards the fire to see that it hadn't produced enough ashes yet to mask all of us. I motioned for Sam and Dean to go first – I was more concerned for their safety than I was for mine.

"You're sure they'll come after her?" Sam asked, patting ashes onto his clothes. He seemed to actually have confidence in his father now. I wondered what changed.

"Yeah. Vampires mate for life. She means more to the leader than the gun." John nudged the woman, and thankfully she didn't stir. "But the blood sickness is going to wear off soon, so you don't have a lot of time."

"A half-hour outta do it," Sam grumbled. John nodded and padded over to his sons, standing beside the fire.

"And then I want you two out of here as fast as you can," he ordered. You two, I thought. Not three. I clutched the edges of my coat, digging my nails into the plush fabric. 

"Dad, you can't take care of all of them by yourself," Dean protested, placing a hand on his father's shoulder.

John shook his head. "I'll have her, and the Colt."

"But after. We're gonna meet up, right? Use the gun together. Right?" Sam asked. John fell silent, his eyes taking in the flames. The orange glow washed over his features, turning his silver hair golden.

"You're leaving again, aren't you?" Sam continued, balling his hands into tight fists. "You still wanna go after the demon alone. You know, I don't get you," he spat, taking a few angered steps towards his father. "You can't treat us like this."

"Like what?" John spoke furiously, taking a step closer to Sam, practically nose to nose.

"Like children," Sam spat. "You're treating us like children."

"You are my children. I'm trying to keep you safe," John hissed, glaring up at his taller son.

Dean cleared his throat, drawing everyone's attention to him. He took a step forward and spoke. "With all due respect, dad," he said slowly, "that's a bunch of crap."

My eyes went wide and I dropped the edge of my coat, eyes flitting between Dean and his father. I was getting used to Sam talking back to his father, but Dean? That was something else. I turned away from the conflict and lingered at the edge of the clearing beside my pick-up truck, parked neatly beside John’s, not wanting to get caught up in family drama more than necessary.

"You know what Sammy and I have been hunting. Hell, you sent us on a few hunting trips yourself. You can't be that worried about keeping us safe," he continued. I crossed my arms tightly over my chest, watching the display. Truthfully, I sided with the boys. John had no right to be ordering them around like this.

"It's not the same thing, Dean," John retorted, stepping away from Sam.

"Then what is it? Why do you want us out of the big fight?" Dean challenged, placing his hands on his hips in defiance.

"This demon? It's a bad son of a bitch. I can't make the same moves if I'm worried about keeping you alive-"

"You mean you can't be as reckless," Dean countered coldly. John fell silent and stared down at his oldest son before finally averting his eyes.

"Look... I don't expect to make it out of this fight in one piece. Your mother's death ... almost killed me. I can't watch my children die too. I won't," John muttered out, just barely loud enough for his sons to hear.

I couldn't help but flush. I felt like I shouldn't be here like this was something private and sacred to the Winchester family.

Dean took a few slow steps towards his father, looking worried. "What happens if you die? Dad, what happens if you die, and we coulda done something about it? You know I've been thinking. I... think maybe Sammy's right about this one. We should do this together." Sam nodded along with his words. "We're stronger as a family, Dad. We just are. You know it."

John fell silent again, his brown eyes flashing between his two sons, deep in thought. Finally, he turned away from them and spoke gruffly, "We're running out of time. You do your job and you get out of the area. That's an order."

Sam's fists curled once more and he stormed towards the fire, turning his back on his father. Dean stared in shock and then turned and moved to stand beside Sam.

I folded my arms tighter and leaned against the hood of my pickup, parked beside John's. I wrapped myself tighter in my coat, thinking. John had just enough stupidity and carelessness to sacrifice himself when there were other options, that was for sure. I was beginning to see where the boys got their recklessness from.

I flinched at the sound of my name rolling off of John’s tongue. I looked up to meet his brown eyes with furrowed brows. He nodded towards the trees, gesturing for me to follow, and then turned and began walking. My heart sank.

I glanced once towards the boys whose backs were to me and then pushed off my truck and followed, jogging to catch up with John.

We walked until the abandoned campsite was out of sight, a lingering trail of smoke above the treetops being the only indication it was there. After several minutes of walking, John stopped, his back still to me and his hands buried in his jacket pockets.

"You know," he began slowly. "I did some digging on you." He turned slowly to face me, a deep-set scowl masking the tired wrinkles on his face. He took a slow, threatening step forward and stopped. "There's no record of your uncle’s sister ever being pregnant. No hospital visits, no letters or phone calls. Nothing."

I shrugged and blinked slowly at him. "Guess she was good at covering her tracks," I offered and pursed my lips. "Hunters are pretty good at that. You would know that, John."

He held my gaze for a long moment before pulling his hands out of his pockets and reaching one towards his belt. His hand rested on his hip just in front of the glint of metal that signaled some weapon. "It's not just that," he continued. "I found something else pretty interesting. He never confirmed her death, either. There's no death certificate, no obituary, no record of a burial. Nothing other than his word. Now, I know some hunter’s try to leave things ambiguous – legal records and all, but-"

"Your point?" I interrupted, earning a harsh glare. I crossed my arms defiantly over my chest. Don't say it... don't say it...

"I don't think she died on that hunt."

Fuck.

He fell silent for a moment with his back to me. I picked at the sleeve of my coat and watched him intently. He cocked his head to the side as if waiting for a response. When none came, he finally spoke again. “Where did you say the boys picked you up? Alabama, a few months back?”

I nodded cautiously.

He sighed dramatically. “You know, I’m the one that sent them on that hunt – gave them the coordinates and everything. I went after what I thought was a skinwalker in New Mexico a few years back, never did find it. That case I sent them on was eerily similar.”

“I wouldn’t know anything about that,” I defended. “Never seen a skinwalker in my life. Hell, I hardly hunted at all until I met your boys. Besides, skinwalkers are extinct. Everyone knows that.”

“Thought the same thing about vampires too until a few days ago.”

I tensed.

John took several slow steps forward until he was within inches of my face. I wrinkled my nose at the stench of cigarettes on his breath. "Your story doesn't add up," he growled lowly. He leaned forward, his mouth beside my ear. "I don't think you are who you say you are," he hissed.

I swallowed dryly.

John leaned back and glared heatedly, nearly black eyes raking angrily over my face. "So here's what's going to happen," he snapped. "When this case is over, you're going to leave. You're going to delete my sons' numbers. You're never going to contact them again. You're going to forget they ever existed, and they're going to do the same," he spoke softly, his tone icy and threatening.

I glowered at him and leaned forward defiantly. "Or what?" I spat.

"Or I put a bullet between your eyes," he growled firmly. "You're lucky that's not my first action. Whether I like it or not, my boys are fond of you. I'd rather not have to explain to them why their friend has a bullet in her skull."

I glared, holding his gaze for several agonizing moments before dropping my gaze. Getting shot would only make this worse – a normal bullet wouldn't kill me. My secret would be out, and everything would be so much worse.

"When this case is over, you're going to disappear into whatever hole you crawled out of," he ordered. And with that he pushed past me, shoving my shoulder harshly and sending me stumbling to the side.

I shuddered, my shoulders shaking uncontrollably as the pattering sound of his footsteps faded into the distance. I clenched my fists tightly, my muscles shaking from keeping them tense for so long.

"Asshole..." I whispered, running a hand across my cheek and finding it to be wet. I looked at my hand in surprise. Tears?

I choked back a sob.

Definitely tears.

I couldn't just leave the Winchesters, they were my family by now and some of my closest friends. I cared for them just as much as I cared for my pack. I cared for them more than I cared for myself.

On the other hand, I couldn't stay. That would generate more problems, for myself and the boys. I had no fear for any normal bullet, but if this trade-off went well and John really did manage to get the Colt from these vampires... then he really could kill me, and I had no doubt he would try.

It was all just a huge mess.

I sobbed as tears rolled down my cheeks, my nose becoming stuffy. I hiccuped and wiped the tears from my face, tears rolling from my fingertips and down my wrists. There was no way this day could possibly get worse.

And yet that sinking, foreboding feeling remained in the pit of my stomach.

I heard Dean's voice call my name from the woods, his voice full of concern. "You ready to go!?" he called out. I gasped a few times and wiped my tears on the sleeve of my coat – Dean's old coat, the Daeva claw marks exposing my back to the chilly air. I nodded as my breathing steadied, forgetting that he couldn't see me.

Ready as I can be ...

—

I followed the roaring Impala in my old beater, speeding down the highway and around sharp turns as my life depended on it. Truthfully, the lives of others depended on it. It was raining now, the water pounding against the windshield and my squeaky wiper blades struggling to clear the water enough for me to see clearly.

The Impala's tail lights flared, signaling that they were turning. I recognized it – we were close to the nest. I gripped the wheel and spun the truck hard, the rusted metal frame groaning in protest as it lurched down the dirt road.

The barn rose into view and I slammed on the breaks, grabbing my machete from the passenger's seat before I had even parked the truck. By now I was angry. I hated the way John spoke to me, made me feel replaceable. I knew it was just his flimsy attempt at control, but it made my skin itch.

I growled in rage and spun the blade in my hand, tightening my grip on the handle. There was one vampire blocking the entrance to the barn, his back to me.

He didn't even have time to fully turn towards me before I swung my blade, his head lolling to the side and hitting the ground with a dull thud. A spray of blood splashed across the cheeks as his body fell.

I reached for the barn doors and shoved them open, a flash of lightning illuminating the dull quarters.

I heard Dean shout from behind me, two pairs of feet thundering towards me. I spun to face them, a ferocious glare imprinted on my features that I knew wouldn't be leaving anytime soon.

"Get the humans out," I snapped. "Quickly, before more of them come back." I gestured towards the inside of the barn as if to say 'get going'. Dean cast me one last befuddled look before chasing Sam down the long hallway that led to the hostages.

The rain was pouring by this point, matting thin strands of hair to my face and obscuring my vision. It nearly washed away the scent of vampires, masking it with the smell of dew and wet earth.

A roaring noise came from the highway and I squinted in the darkness. Two bright white lights came tearing around the corner at an astounding speed, showing no sign of stopping. My eyes widened at the massive truck sped up, the driver flooring the accelerator and colliding with...

My truck.

"Son of a bitch!" I screamed and raced forward as three vampires exited the now crumbled truck. My shabby, rust-covered mess of a vehicle was thrown haphazardly on its side, caked in mud. The frame was crumpled, as though it had caved in on itself.

A vampire lunged for me, sharp-nailed fingertips groping at my jacket sleeve. I screamed and rage and tossed the blade into my opposite hand slamming the hilt down onto the monster's elbow joint. The vampire released its grip automatically. I snapped my arm upward, the butt of the blade connecting with the vampire's jaw and sending it sprawling backward.

Dean charged toward me with a shout of my name. I could practically feel his feet pounding into the wet earth behind me. I held up a hand to him, my blade held high before me in my other hand to ward off the bloodsuckers.

"Get the humans out of here, Dean!" I screamed my voice hardly a whisper over the raging storm. It almost seemed a miracle that he had heard me. "Get in the car and drive! Go help John!"

Dean faltered and screamed something into the pouring rain, something that not even my hyper-sensitive ears could pick up.

" Go!" I screamed and swiped at a vampire that had charged forward, cutting through its cheek, a spray of blood hitting my hand.

Moments later, the Impala roared to life, barely audible over the pouring rain. From the corners of my blurred vision, I saw the taillights disappearing into the distance, leaving me alone with the bloodsuckers.

I snarled at the vampires, my own teeth sharpening. My instincts were buzzing with the sense of danger, burning tingles crawling down my spine with each slogging step I took in the mud.

The thought of fleeing was scrapped the moment a vampire pounced, colliding with my chest and throwing me onto my back, sending my machete tumbling. Its second set of teeth descended in a flash and just as quickly it lunged for my throat. I threw an arm up, my forearm pressing into its neck and pushing it away as firmly as I could.

The vampire rolled to the side and hooked its claws into my arm, dragging it away from my body. I screamed and rolled to the side, kicking out. My foot connected with its ribs, the air escaping its lungs. My injured ankle protested at the impact.

Another gripped my leg, wrenching it away from its companion and yanking it from my body to the point where I thought they would drag it from the socket. I screamed in pain and fumbled for the machete only inches from my fingertips. The third stepped on my hand, crushing my wrist beneath its foot. I screamed and fought to free myself.

A shiver ran up my spine and my skull pounded, a foreign sensation rippling up my spine. I thrashed against my aggressors, my back arching off the ground in anger. Electricity ran from the base of my neck and to seemingly every point of my body. The tips of my fingers and toes twinged from the electrical shock.

Caeden.

He felt absolutely terrified, and at that moment I could almost see him, doubled over and clutching the edge of the dining table in pain, blue eyes blazing.

I roared and arched from the dirt, thrashing in their grip. A stinging sensation met my ankle, just above where Caeden had shredded the skin. The vampire lurched back, my blood running down its lips and leaving burning red trails. It dropped my leg and scrambled at its mouth, the skin blistering.

I reached over to the vampire who held my other arm and grabbed it by the jaw, smashing its face down into the harsh dirt, satisfied with the crunch I heard beneath my palm. I rolled and dashed to my feet, arms held high in defense.

The blistered vamp lunged, its teeth glistening red with my blood. The blood seemed to sizzle on its teeth, burning its lips and tongue. Monster blood. Not as appetizing as human blood, clearly. I punched, my tightly curled fist connecting with its jaw and sending it sprawling.

My blood was burning, hotter than it had ever felt before. It felt as though there were white-hot tendrils of energy coursing through my veins, burning my skin from the inside out, burning anything it touched. I lunged towards another vamp, tackling it to the ground. It landed with a loud thump beside my machete. My fingers curled around the wet handle and pressed into the vampire's throat. My blade sunk in, blood spilling from the wound. I snarled and pushed down with all my weight, cutting through the monster's throat.

A force tugged me off before I could finish the job. I snarled and spun, my blade colliding with the collar bone of another. I gripped its shoulder and yanked my blade out before bringing it down again, cutting clean through tendons and bones.

"What the hell are you!?" it screamed over the pouring rain, thunder blasting in the background. I grinned. What a sight it must have been, with molten eyes and blood-stained features.

"I'm a skinwalker," I snarled, fangs growing into my grin.

And suddenly, I had paws.

Black fur tore out of my skin, the clothes I had previously been wearing sinking into my flesh like a second skin. My bones cracked, snapping and breaking, rearranging into new shapes and immediately healing. I laughed, my laughter fading into howls of delight.

I was shifting.

I stood on my hind paws, towering over the vampire, and lunged, my paws connecting with its shoulder and knocking it over backward. My teeth latched onto its throat and I shook my great, furred head, shredding the tendons and then going back for more. After mere seconds, its neck was nothing more than a ragged stump, its head bloodied and laying nearby.

I wheeled on the final vamp, its neck bleeding and blood flowing down its throat. It gurgled and turned from me, sprinting in the opposite direction. I howled with joy and gave chase, tackling it to the ground in only a few steps, its neck between my jaws. In only a few seconds, its head was gone, joining the pile of others.

I sprung to my paws and trotted in a wide circle. It had been months since I had shifted, and even before I hadn't felt this much control and comfort. My skin burned with uncontrollable heat, and my blood pounded and thrummed in my veins, a mixture of intense heat and electricity.

I was whole again.

I tore off down the road, leaving the wreckage of my pickup behind. It was one of my last ties to my uncle, but now was not the time to mourn. I pounded down the road and yipped at the feeling of my paws barely hitting the asphalt road, the wind tearing through my fur. I stretched out my limbs, extending them to their full length, the muscles stressing and straining under the force of my sprinting.

It was an incredible feeling. And better yet, the rain was letting up, the moon's light becoming visible through the dense clouds.

My jaunt was ended all too quickly by the stench of vampires flooding my senses. I howled, the sound shaking the trees as the pads of my paws beat down on the road, drawing me ever closer to the monsters, to my boys.

The lights of the cars came into view, my golden eyes slipping over the scene before me as I sprinted ever closer. My eyes latched on a figure clutching another tightly to its body. Sam, I realized. The leader of the vamps was holding him tightly, an arm around his neck and heatedly glaring at Dean with a vicious look in his dark eyes.

I lowered my head and stretched my limbs further than I ever thought was possible, covering the distance in a few short leaps. I snarled and barrelled into the vampire before he could even blink, sending him and Sam sprawling across the wet pavement.

Sam tumbled to the side and the vampire reached for him, his fingers slipping against Sam's coat. I snarled and snapped at the vampire's hand, grinding my teeth into the freezing flesh and crushing the bones. The vampire howled in pain as blood filled my mouth. I spat it out onto the road, grimacing at the abhorrent flavor.

I lept back and grabbed Sam's shirt collar tightly in my mouth, dragging him towards Dean. Dean clutched his brother tightly, helping his brother to his feet as I spun on the vampire, fangs bared and covered in blood.

"You need to get out of here!" Dean shouted, shoving my shoulder. He hardly had to bend down to do so. I snarled and snapped at his hand, which he quickly withdrew. "Dad's got the gun!"

I don't care.

John could shoot me if he wanted, but I wasn't going to let anything touch the brothers. I took one step forward, planting my feet and snarling at the vampire as he stood on shaky feet.

"A skinwalker, huh?" the vampire confirmed, rubbing his bruised jaw with his good hand. "Thought you bastards were extinct."

"Luther!" the female from earlier called out. "Luther, baby, let's go!" Luther's eyes flickered between his mate and me, a scowl set on his face. His eyes flickered up to Dean and he rolled his shoulders, looking ready to charge.

"You people," he hissed. "Why can't you just leave us alone!? We have just as much a right to live as you do!"

A shuffling from behind Luther drew my attention and my ears flattened to my skull, lips drawn back.

"I don't think so," John uttered, Colt held high.

And then he fired.

It was like fireworks. The skin around the entry wound seemed to bubble and then disintegrate, a blue glow emanating from the hole. Luther's mate screamed from behind me, but I was too transfixed to care.

I had seen this before.

Luther slumped to his knees, his skeleton flickering like fire under his skin. He dropped to one hand, struggling to stay upright. Then, his face hit the ground, and with a resounding snap, his body exploded with light. I was still blinking away spots when the light fully disappeared.

My jaw slackened in shock, golden eyes wide. That glow... that was familiar. Where had I seen it? An engine roared to life somewhere in the distance, screams of protest and wails of despair fading into the background of the now gentle pitter-pattering of rain.

I wracked my brain for any memory that could indicate why I recognized that glow. Suddenly, one was thrust into the forefront of my mind. A skinwalker, with a hunter standing above him and a revolver aimed at his skull. A memory that wasn't mine.

The sound of a gun cocking drew my attention and I looked up to find the end of the Colt aimed between my eyes. I followed the length of the gun, up the arm of the wielder, to the wild eyes of John Winchester.

"Dad, stop!" Dean shouted and rushed in front of his father, shoving the Colt to the side. "Dad put the gun down!"

"Move, Dean!" John screamed back, fighting with his son to release his grip on the gun. "Get out of the fucking way!" he screamed and brought his free hand up to strike Dean, throwing him to the ground. Dean hit the dirt with a heavy thump and scrambled to his feet, clutching his cheek.

I snarled, my ears flattening against my skull. John swung the gun back towards me, his eyes raged filled and almost inhuman. "She's a monster, Dean! She lied to us!"

"No!" Sam shouted, moving to stand in front of his father, blocking his line of sight. "No, she lied to you!"

John's eyes flashed between his youngest and me, stalwart features morphing into absolute rage, a detestable grimace rising on his lips. "You knew!?" John screamed. "You knew, and you didn't tell me!?"

"We've known since day one!" Sam shouted, shoving his father backward slightly. John shouted in anger and shoved Sam away, pushing him to the side and aiming once more at my head. His finger rested on the trigger, and I heard the first half click, signaling he was ready to fire.

I shut my eyes.

I heard another click and expected to feel pain, to see light escaping from my body, to collapse into the expectant and waiting arms of death. Instead, I felt nothing other than the cool breeze raking through my fur and the pounding of my heart, beating wildly in my chest.

I opened my eyes.

John still held the gun to my head, though his eyes were elsewhere, turned to a familiar figure to his side. Dean.

"Put the gun down, dad," Dean ordered, his finger resting on the trigger of his own silver pistol, the gun aimed for his father's temple. My eyes went wide. John didn't move, simply staring at Dean in shock. "I said put the gun down!" he shouted, his hand visibly shaking. Silence hung in the air, thick enough to suffocate.

"You won't shoot me," John whispered, his brown eyes boring into Dean's green ones.

"You wanna test that theory?" Dean questioned, gripping the gun tighter. Tears welled up in his eyes and he took a deep breath, the air rattling in his lungs. "Put the gun down, dad. Now." The two glared silently at one another, gauging the other's resolve.

To my shock... John complied.

He lowered the gun to his side, his eyes never leaving Dean's. Hurt swam in his dark eyes, hurt and unfulfilled wrath. Slowly, he bent down to place the Colt on the ground. I blinked once, twice, and gazed up at Dean with wide eyes.

"She saved Sam, dad," Dean spoke. "More than once. And me. And you." Dean paused and blinked slowly. "She's not a monster."

Not a monster.

I inhaled deeply and felt my fur recede, the bones snapping and rearranging into their normal shape. I stood shakily on two legs, the boiling sensation quelling until I felt almost normal again.

John was silent, his eyes never leaving Dean's. Sam padded softly around his father and picked the Colt up from where it rested at John's feet. Dean lowered his gun.

Dean swallowed dryly and placed his gun back into his holster. John's eyes panned to mine as they faded back to their usual color, dull in comparison to the brilliant gold they once held. His eyes scanned my figure before settling once more on my eyes.

"Not a monster, huh?" he asked. "We'll see." And with that, he stormed past me and headed for his truck without another word.

I sighed in relief and placed my hands on my knees. I gagged, my stomach threatening to spill its contents. Never had I been so close to death.

"You alright?" Sam whispered, placing a gentle hand on my back. I nodded and wiped my mouth, waiting for my stomach to settle.

"Yeah," I mumbled. "Yeah, I'm fine." I placed a hand on Sam's shoulder as he helped to pull me up to my full height. My hands shook with increasing intensity, but I couldn't help but laugh. I threw my head back and laughed until I felt my ribs were going to break. The brothers looked appalled, their eyes wide with shock.

"Why the hell are you laughing?" Dean demanded, placing a hand on my back to steady me. "You could have died!"

"But I didn't!" I cheered, throwing my arms high in the air in excitement. "I didn't die!" I laughed again and collapsed into Dean, wrapping my arms around his neck in a tight hug and giggling softly. He gently placed his hands on my waist, glancing quizzically at Sam. "Thank you," I whispered. "For defending me."

Dean chuckled and wrapped his arms around my waist, finally hugging back. "Anytime, sweetheart." I hummed in delight and buried my face in his neck, exhaustion barreling into me like a racehorse. After what felt like days, I pulled away from him and stood shakily on my own two feet, unaided.

I sighed and grinned up at the night sky, the moon apparent and the clouds had nearly entirely dissipated. The sky was dappled with brightly glowing stars that seemed to smile down on me, rejoicing in the fact that I was alive.

Not a monster.

[endless-ineffabilities]

tongue in cheek - three

Tom Bennett x f!reader

word count: 1.3k ▪︎ masterlist ▪︎ part one ▪︎ part two ▪︎ part four

The reader finds herself properly settling in the Bennett household, much to Tom's pleasure.

a/n: I've set the story post-WW2. So if in S1 of the show, Tom was around 23-24(?), here he is 26-28. The reader and Lois are just a bit younger than him. Also, I've only watched Tom's scenes so I'm probably not going to write 100% in line with the world of World on Fire! But the focus here is - Tom and the reader 🖤

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

Time seems to pass quickly under the Bennett household.

With everyone keeping busy – you with your job at the local paper, Lois as a secretary for the newly-created NHS, Douglas getting his veteran support group up and running, and Tom… well, Tom just does what he does, let’s put it that way.

Just two weeks prior, a few days after the window incident, an issue arose with your former accommodation. More so with your former landlord, that is, and how he has all but kicked you out of the flat due to “safety concerns”.

It all boiled down one morning, with that telegram sent to you by your landlord, telling you to retrieve the remains of your possessions from the flat. Apparently, he was enraged about the damage done to the wall, even though you had already explained that it was your neighbour’s doing. Additionally, you had been asked to pay a hefty fine for “reparations”.

And it wasn’t that bad. “Clearly the ol’ bloke is just trying to rinse a bit more money out of ya,” Tom exclaimed, after he fished the telegram from your hand.

“Impossible,” you scoffed, “how is he coming up with this shit now? We agreed that he would have that damned wall repaired. We even spoke to the man living on the other side of that bloody wall and he explained everything - ”

Tom put a hand on your arm, making you cease your rant.

“Want me to beat him up for ya, doll?” His thumb gently caressed your upper arm. For a second, you forgot all about the problem at hand.

“I… well…”

Douglas intervened, “There will be no beatin’ up anybody, son. Surely this man can be reasoned with, and if not, then there’s going to be a solution, y/n. We’re here to help.”

You breathed out, already relieved. “Thank you, Douglas.”

“Right, maybe it’s all for the best, doll. After all, I’ve gotten way too used to having you sleep in the same room as me.” Tom said with his signature shit-eating smirk. You attempted to appear unaffected, and rolled your eyes in return.

“Sure.” You shrugged your shoulders, looking around the living room. What to do now? “I suppose I should head over there, find out if anything can be done, but if the flat is lost…” Your voice broke slightly at the end.

“Then you can stay with us. I’m sure Lois will be happier for it.” Douglas smiled comfortingly.

“And me.” Tom mumbled under his breath, but you heard it clearly.

“I’ll pay rent,” you said determinedly, “I’ll help out with everything around the house.”

“There’s no need for that, kid. We’re happy to have you.” Douglas patted you on the back.

You turned to face Tom, who had been lounging in a chair, cigarette carelessly dangling from his lips. He breathed out a puff of smoke, and the motion catches your eye. His lips began to curve in mischief when he caught you looking, “So, dollface? Shall we?” He stood up, and held a hand out for you to take.

“Pardon?” You asked, startled out of your haze.

“There's no way you’re going to go meet this arse all by yourself. I’m coming with ya, and there’s nothing you can do about it.”

And that was that. You found yourself saddled with your new living arrangement. Weeks on, you can admit that you have gotten used to being the “honorary Bennett”, as Lois kindly puts it.

You can also admit, albeit reluctantly, that Tom Bennett is starting to get under your skin.

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

“It’s just a small shindig, a few blocks from here. Should be fun.” Tom says. The partition between his and yours and Lois’ beds is pushed aside, and you can see him completely. Clad in nothing but boxers and a tattered wife beater, Tom sure has gotten comfortable around you.

Not that he ever wasn’t.

The three of you remain awake late into the night, conversing. You sit by the foot of your bed, sipping from a cup of tea, while Lois leans against the headboard, newspaper in hand.

“A bit too soon for that, isn’t it?” Lois remarks, referring to the end of the war, which officially happened just one year prior. Everyone still feels the effects of the devastation suffered, but life goes on. Britain is currently in rehabilitation mode, tending to the infrastructure and the various industries. Majority of the soldiers and officers have since been repatriated, including Tom.

“Don’t think so,” Tom puffs his smoke, “if anythin’, we should bloody celebrate.”

“Could be a good idea.” You shrug. “We haven’t had a chance to just… be… you know? Not for a really long time.”

“That’s right, sweetheart.” Tom smiles at you, and you mirror the gesture.

Lois narrows her eyes at the exchange. She hasn’t been blind as to how Tom is around you. Not that Tom doesn’t have his way around dames – he normally draws them in like moth to a flame, with his charm and devil-may-care ways. But with you…

It’s like her brother is the moth and you’re the sacred ball of light.

Lois thinks it may be only a matter of time before things get going, as it tends to be in these situations. But she also thinks that you might be too guarded, and Tom too roguish.

With the two of you, it could possibly take a while.

“Alright,” Lois relents, “tomorrow night, was it?”

“Yeah,” Tom confirms, “you can take Harry if you want.”

“I’m sure he’d love that.” Lois thumbs through her paper, her attention caught on the page.

Standing, you place your teacup on the dresser against the wall opposite the two beds. You stand in front of the mirror, and roll out the tension in your shoulders. The ease it brings causes you to momentarily shut your eyes, but after some movement, one strap of your nightgown falls.

Before you can pull it up in a haste, Tom stands behind you, his fingers taking hold of the fallen strap. Slowly, he takes it back up your shoulders, grazing your skin along the way.

The entire time, his blue eyes are locked on yours in the mirror. Tom is arrested by the way your lips are slightly parted, by your startled expression. By the feel of your skin, the sight of your exposed décolletage.

The reflection betrays the fact – that of the moth and his flame.

Then the sound of shuffling newspaper crunches in the room, and you turn to see Lois getting up to leave. “I could use some tea,” she mutters quickly, and she flashes you a knowing smile before shutting the door behind her.

What on earth? The moment persists for a few more seconds, before you found the nerve to speak.

“Hmm,” you place your hand above his and pry it from your shoulder, “good job, Tom. I think we’ve made your sister uncomfortable.”

When you turn around, he stands close. Very close. He towers over you, making you lean back against the dresser, almost sitting atop it.

One think you notice is that Tom doesn’t have his usual smug smirk. Rather, his brows are slightly furrowed, as if he is pondering something.

His teeth clamp on his bottom lip, and he just… stares at you.

You look to the side, searching for something. Anything. A distraction. But that doesn’t last long, because Tom finally makes a move, cupping your face with one hand, and prying it towards him.

He leans in, eyes heavy-lidded.

“Tom?”

He pauses halfway, “I’d like to try something, doll.”

“Try someth - ”

You don’t get to finish the words.

end of part three.

- - - - -

series taglist: @greenowlfactif @schniiipsel @tssf-imagines @aemond-secondson @ahdushenka @bat-revival @mefools @mischiefmanaged71 @svtansdaddyx @chainsawangel

[ineffablydelighted]

[How exploring the Ineffable Husbands' dynamic in Good Omens can help us figure out what the show/book is all about, Part 2/?]

Also called: This human has, apparently, too much time on her hands and will be trying to Effable the Ineffable for [...] hours.

'Ello, 'Ello, 'Ello! 👋

Hope you are doing well since Part 1 😇 If you have not read it, you're losing a significant part of this analysis and I encourage you to please read it first 🥰 [because, well, it has been called Part 1 for a reason, hum-hum]

Now that we are in the sole company of Part 1's survivors, let's dive into Part 2 [THIS PART MIGHT BE LONGER, YOU'VE BEEN WARNED, ANGELS!] 😎

[This gif is here to entice you to grab a snack and a drink you might fancy because, TRUST ME, I do not know how to shut up when I'm analyzing things and you're here for a long a** time. I know it is super hot outside for some of us but we can totally PRETEND it rains and cosy up in our favorite blanket. Remember: Autumn/Fall is a mindset, not a season.]

As I previously announced, the next bit of my analysis [and the next idk how many parts tbh, I'm a mess, but I believe I'll treat two encounters by part - told you this was gonna be LONG, don't hate me, homie 😣] will treat Aziraphale and Crowley's every S1 & S2 encounter, explaining why Aziraphale slowly falls in love with Crowley and using their dynamic to try my best to explain what Good Omens must be about as a whole.

Ready?

Let's go!

Before the Beginning

In S2, Aziraphale meets Then-Angel "Crowley" (as we do not know his angelic name, we'll have to stick to that) and that is also the first and only time we, the audience, see him.

What does Aziraphale see in Angel Crowley?

First, he is super dynamic and cheerful: he really seems to ADORE creating stars [ask me to show you a nerdy dork before nerdy dorks even existed and Angel Crowley will always be my #1 from now on] but, also, he is already very frank, straightforward, and innovative (he invented the suggestion box sole concept, I believe 🤔)

[By the way, my take on this is that Angels, having been an active part in Creation, have the ability to create Concepts out of nothing but their own minds, and since they also have a "beehive system" [As S2 Crowley states when he is "arrested" by Cinnamon-Roll-In-Chief Muriel and is "brought" to Heaven], the Concept created becomes instantly real for every other Angel in the universe.]

That worries Aziraphale instantly: he watches everywhere around him, afraid someone higher-ranked is listening.

This scene is very important because that shows us what differentiates Crowley and Aziraphale the most throughout the entire book/show: 

Aziraphale has somewhat of a Fear of God (which is encouraged by most religions: God is Right, always, you are nobody to state the opposite) that Crowley does not have because he has Trust (which is still having Faith, just a more optimistic one - most times.)

Crowley is, first and foremost, a creator at heart.

He loves creating things, he develops a bond with his creations, and cannot fathom how the Creator with a capital "C" wouldn't either.

That is why he does not mind stating out loud that creating a star factory for it to serve nothing is "idiocy"; even worse, to not even let it follow its natural course? It feels utterly wrong to him! 

Then-Angel Crowley already has his own understanding of what Creation is all about, while Aziraphale, being a "people" pleaser through and through, follows the mass, no questions asked, definitely no suggestions.

That first conversation holds their first debate as well:

Are they, as Angels, simple executors or are they collaborators? And, to go further: what is the point of THEM altogether?

Although, Aziraphale does not engage in the said debate for long.

Especially when Angel Crowley says:

"Well, you know, if I was the one running it all, I'd like it if someone asked questions! Fresh point of view!"

That is the precise moment Aziraphale starts PANICKING out of the Fear of God I mentioned earlier:

In his eyes, Crowley commits the utmost BLASPHEMY the minute he tries to PUT HIMSELF AT GOD'S PLACE.

That is precisely how Angels FALL: In the Bible, God expresses their wrath whenever Humans and Angels alike defy/deny their authority/their Almightyness.

Out of terror, Aziraphale tries to distract Angel Crowley by bringing his attention back to his creation. He ends up genuinely worrying for him and expresses it:

"Look, word to the wise; I'd hate to see you getting into any trouble."

Angel Crowley thanks him for his concern and says this sentence so full of dramatic irony because we, the audience, already know what will happen to him:

"I wouldn't worry, though; How much trouble can I get into just for asking a few questions?"

Then, Angel Crowley will show an act of kindness and concern of his own by protecting Aziraphale from the explosions (Fire).

It will also create Alpha Centauri in the process.

[I'm not sure why he does it but I do have a theory:

Since he never created a Nebula before and Aziraphale had not been a part of this project at any point, he might have been afraid that God and/or the Nebula's creators had somewhat forgotten to include all the other Angels in the "do not harm" category.]

But would it be what Aziraphale remembers the most about this encounter? I do not believe so.

As he will constantly do over the ages, he will miss the POINT:

I believe Aziraphale mostly associates this encounter with the moment he saw Crowley as his HAPPIEST.

And joy, both as a concept and a state of mind is something really, really important to Aziraphale.

[PURE JOY right there. Also, I need my doors to creek like that.]

4004 BC, Garden of Eden

In S1, During this encounter, the Cherubim/Guardian of The Eastern Gate Aziraphale meets the Demon Crawley for the first time since the latter has fallen.

What makes me think that is that Aziraphale asks for his name.

But there are indications they have met prior (both as angels, I mean, and not just at the Beginning): Crawley asks Aziraphale about the flaming sword that has been given to him in the past.

More so, it is most likely that Aziraphale showed him the sword.

"You did, it was flaming like anything, what happened to it?"

I'll even go further by stating they must have been somewhat friends during that elapse, for two reasons:

One, because of this sentence Crawley says:

"Lost it already, I mean?"

Meaning: you have a tendency to lose things and I would not know that if we hadn't met plenty of times.

 Two, because Aziraphale answers HONESTLY to Crawley's question.

That becomes even more baffling when we discover that, being asked the same question later on, Aziraphale proceeds to LIE TO GOD'S FACE.

What really interests me about this encounter, in particular, is how at ease (even if he is experiencing stress because of the flaming sword's situation) Aziraphale feels by Crawley's side, even though he is now a Demon.

Sure, he does insist on Crawley's new nature and that is most certainly because he is thinking in dichotomy, but

He feels safe enough around him to be honest and, more importantly, vulnerable. Deep down, he already knows Crawley will never use that information against him.

[And that, Angels, is the cutest thing ever, amr?]

Also, as they always will over the years, they will

Have a debate on what is Right and what is Wrong.

Aziraphale is worried he might have done the wrong/bad thing by giving Adam his flaming sword.

However, he acted out of kindness and empathy, which Crawley is very receptive to. Aziraphale can see that and also that Crawley tries to reassure him by saying:

"Oh, you're an angel, I don't think you can do the wrong thing"

But then, being his honest self, he contemplates whether or not HE might have done the right thing, crushing Aziraphale's brief moment of rest.

But, contrary to Aziraphale, it does not worry him that much: he had fallen already, so he learned a thing or two about Heaven and Hell and has started not to care about their opinions at all since they did not care about his when he was actually invested in the Ineffable Plan.

[Also, I just love how Crawley, by being the one who gives Eve the apple, is the official Earthy Creator of Free Will™ (even if God and Satan must have been its sponsors) - it does align with his sense of self since the suggestion box falls into the same thinking pattern.]

During their debate, Aziraphale totally misses Crawley's whole POINT (again): 

Crawly states that God WANTED Free Will to be introduced.

Otherwise, they would not have made it remotely possible for humans to gain access to it. By that, he also implies (at least) three things:

One: God created the Tree that holds the Forbidden Apple, even if they called it Forbidden. They'd put it on sight, in the middle of Eden, not outside of it. They let Satan send Crawley to tempt Eve who later temps Adam.

Meaning: God and Satan are, on occasion if not all the time, working TOGETHER and playing their own game, so why wouldn't THEY?

Two: If there is such thing as Fallen Angels/Demons, it is because God WANTS it in the first place. 

Meaning: Therefore, how can their actions be BAD as in "wrong" or as in "shouldn't happen"?

Three: If a Demon can, in fact, do Good/Right and an Angel can do Bad/Wrong actions, are they, really, that different? How much do their actions matter anyway? How is that even possible for them to do the opposite of their apparent purpose? Unless, of course, God WANTS it that way.

Meaning: Good and Bad are much more INTERTWINED and CODEPENDENT than what Heaven and Hell appear to make them believe.

In fact, Crawly is already starting to believe Good and Bad MUST. ALWAYS. COEXIST. no matter WHO does it.

UNLESS, of course, they... do not exist at all?

Is there, really, Good or Bad anyway?

[I've tried to warn you through the tags: philosophy haters, the floor is now LAVA.]

Aziraphale does not think like that at all. That kind of belief shakes him, but being his Angels = Good = Right self, he refuses to believe it.

Also, he considers it as Blasphemy and Temptation.

But, guess what, that is normal. During this debate,

Aziraphale does not interpret why God put the Forbidden Fruit in the middle of Eden the way Crawley does.

Aziraphale does not think of the Ineffable plan like that: to him, he is supposed to do what he is TOLD.

In other words, Aziraphale's theory is that

God is TESTING its creations, and the creations/subordinates in question must prove they are stronger because they respect/fear God MORE than they are inclined to follow their own wishes.

It is a very common religious belief if not THE most common.

Crawley is more... let's say "Oscar Wilde-ish" in his thinking. [The -ish is important here, the man was very paradoxical but that was the first that came to my mind]

[I would like to drop in here some glimpse of cinematographic analysis as well [because this is MY essay and I can do whatever the Hell that I want.] :

During the debate per se, they never share the screen, even though they are willing to talk peacefully and respectfully - hence the fact both actually turn to each other, look at each other, etc.

Basically, their debate is a true one, but none will change their minds anytime soon.] 

They find common grounds to "Agree to Disagree" when Aziraphale protects Crawley from Earth's very first Rain (Water)

Why does Aziraphale do it? In my opinion, probably for the same reason Then-Angel Crowley did it: The rain could have been God's way to destroy the Demon who was there, since Fire is, at that point, already related to Satan.

[Well, even if it was God who gave Aziraphale a flaming sword... Good and Bad are ALWAYS totally mixed up in Good Omens. See?]

It was a gesture of protection, courtesy, and empathy. A "just in case this is a danger for you" act.

[I might go back to this part to add some things as I will soon rewatch very carefully both seasons in case I miss something - and I will, because I'm chaotic AF. Although, this girl likes to think of herself as being thorough when she puts in an effort.]

So, yeah, this book/show is very interesting to me because, as I've stated in the tags and as I'm trying to prove to you (and to myself) in this very lengthy analysis,

Good Omens is a philosophical essay disguised as comedic/satyric/romantic fiction.

It does not mean it is NOT a comedic/satyric/romantic fiction, though. Of course not! It is both. And many other things in between.

[Now, I'll let that sink in and give both of us a well-deserved break.]

[Friendly Space Ninja, I know you'll never see this but I'm manifesting all the admiration and respect I can to wish you a good day.]

During Part 3, we'll treat the next two of our favorite pair's encounters:

S1 3004 BC (Noa's Arch, The Flood) and S2 2500 BC (Job's case).

Can't wait, I'm a big fan of the Job's episode.

Toodles, Angels! See you soo-oooooooon!

[Do you hate me by now? Nah? It will come.]

Need help to find the rest of this analysis? I've got you covered! Follow me, Angel 😇

Previous - Beginning - Next

[imthepunchlord]

Which girls are the holder of the "miraculous" in The Buggettes AU?

Currently undecided. I know there's the concept art that inspired this, which does set up 4/7 leads already (Alix, Chloe, Marinette, and Sabrina), but man, doing Marinette with Ladybug is just so... uninteresting to me.

A big part of it is that they just didn't do a good job in making her and Tikki a good pair, and the other part is that you see it all the time in canon and you see it all the time in fan content.

So if I could, I'd rather go kwami swap.

Sabrina is another issue. I can acknowledge she has potential, the ideas are there, and there's something to her having Dragonfly (which represents a coming change in life); but Sabrina herself is a character I just don't care about. Most of the time, she's just Chloe's eager lackey, and is more an extension of Chloe than a character herself. And the bits you get of her character is just conflicting from being an eager bully in her own right to to set up as just naive but apparently stands for integrity.

I just really don't care for her. I'm not sold on her potential as a lead.

I will say, Chloe getting Bee I don't mind, as Bee really was set up through it's symbolism to be Chloe's absolute foil, covering everything that she lacks or even is. Unfortunately, canon went a route of stinging bees (which feels like it's working off Chloe than challenging her), and Pollen is an eager servant/yes kwami. A very Sabrina inspired personality. Which from my research, Bee should've been more about community and fellowship, which is what Chloe needed covered as she fully prioritized herself.

So Chloe with the Bee and possibly being a lead, I don't mind as much. I'm not invested as I used to be, but I can still roll with it, as that potential in her as a lead and with her redemption is still there. And between the attention she does get and Lila as the potential antagonist for the civilian side, yeah, might as well do Chloe better. Especially as Marinette didn't need two antagonistic girls to face who do function similarly. The better way to do it is change who they clash against, be it Lila v Alya and Chloe v Marinette, or have one of them clash against Adrien, and there's something to be done on Alya v Chloe as those two can be very similar, especially how they treat their friends.

I will say though, Chloe is not a must have as a lead for me, nor does she have to have the Bee.

As for Alix with Grasshopper, I'll have to think on it. Given her ties to serpents in her design, I would've thought Dragonfly initially, but really not opposed to Grasshopper. It may come down to what I do power wise, as that I'm still pondering. Especially as some can have similar power ideas (like Grasshopper it can make sense to have teleportation, leap of faith and all that; but Firefly could also have teleportation, just blink teleportation; Dragonfly I thought of super speed, but that could also go to Firefly to play off lightspeed).

But Alix I wouldn't mind as a potential lead, I do remember back in s1 she was the classmate that stood out to me the most. I know she gets more aggravating later, but that's more adult Alix and she can be nonexistent.

As for anyone else, I'll have to see as there's a lot to think about and consider.

I've done edits on all 7 bugs using Tikki's base concept art, and currently working on writing out their personalities and preferences and views. Powers I also still need to figure out and decide on; also, should Gabriel really have the Spider or should he still have the Butterfly? Should this au really start with all 7 leads or should they come gradually? Should the Bugettes be all girls? Should I include a guy or two?

I'm also planning on having these bugs (and arachnids) known as fairies to work off the older concept, which can give me some flexibility if I want to bring in kwamis, who can stay as China's magical beings (though could have Prodigious instead), and these fairies could be Europe's.

So quite a bit to think about, but yeah this au I wouldn't mind doing sometime. I think it could be a fun set up.

[fullscoreshenanigans]

Is CloverWorks entirely at fault for TPN S2's mangled production?

I see so many people default to blaming CloverWorks for being the sole arbiter of S2's horribly disappointing production (sometimes Shirai is added into the mix too, especially by anime-onlys), but every time I do I'm genuinely asking the question of whether that's true and where they're pulling their information from.

I'm not involved in the animation industry at all so I'm interested in receiving input from people who are more familiar with it, but my understanding is the people in charge of the decision to truncate S2 would be The Promised Neverland Committee listed at the end of the opening credits.

(I could not find a single video of the English dub that aired on [adult swim] for the English credits of S1, so a screencap from the Japanese credits)

TPN Committee is comprised of the following entities: Aniplex (Distributor), Fuji TV (TV Station), Shueisha (Manga Publisher), Cygames Anime Fund, Dentsu (ads)

(Sources 1 | 2 | 3)

kViN from Sakugabooru details what a production company is in this post:

"I personally find it enjoyable to see who is involved in a show, and as you’ve seen there is plenty of information to draw from that. Animation production studios are listed in the credits for each show, so it’s understandable why audiences would imagine they have a ton of influence over a production. It’s even natural to think that the company that is actually manufacturing something would have great input! If you start paying attention to these committees though, you get a clearer picture of the finances of production and how each show is actually made rather than assume that studios that often don’t have much of a say are in charge of everything."

And CloverWorks is the more prominent name, especially for English speakers watching the subbed version of the series.

This is also something that Geoff Thew brings up in the last seven minutes of this video around the 18:50 mark:

"I'd bet good money that the last credits were supposed to roll right after that big stone door slammed shut, and I'd further wager that a combination of fan reactions to and dipping ratings for early episodes is what caused the production committee—who are the ones who actually have final say in this, not Cloverworks or even Shirai—to cut their losses and turn that cliffhanger into a skeleton of a conclusion."

I disagree with him on them making the call to retool the series during the clipshow episode between S2e05 and S2e06 though. It doesn’t seem like they had enough time to do that when a single episode of animation takes on average nine months to complete, even with the ridiculous crunch they seemed to be in. My guess is it was made back in early 2020 after Shirai made everyone involved in production aware the manga was ending that year, with the pandemic potentially factoring in to a degree.

He also mentions this a bit earlier:

"It's just such a slap in face to anyone who ever gave a shit about any version of this story. Including the people telling it, apparently, since neither of the anime's screenwriters nor mangaka/series composer Shirai wanted to take credit for the last two episodes. They probably didn't have much say in how it all went down. That's important to keep in mind before you start yelling at animators or even studios on twitter. I guarantee that every adaption that hurts you personally was ten times harder on the people who actually had to make it. As hackishily slapdash as this finale is, a lot of people probably slept under their desks to get it out the door, if they slept at all."

I always come back to this tiny addition toward the end of S2 episode 2 as an indication that on the creative side of things, in storyboarding and animation at CloverWorks, the care was still there at some level.

It was just squashed down in order to cut and condense 146 chapters into 11 episodes for a production that, as ZersEditor puts here, was "bleeding money."

But CloverWorks is less to type out, so they get the majority of the ire over a tragically butchered production in casual conversation.

[fake-married-my-dead-fiance]

An Incomplete List of all the Kdrama Trucks of Doom and their various varieties:

SPOILERS (obviously). I'm only using shows I've watched for this list. Tell me if I missed one!

No Gain No Love: Truck of Doom nearly hits the Second Male Lead, it swerves at the last second and then stops. The driver and SML exchange a very awkward thumbs up. The SFL faints. All survived.

A Shop for Killers: Truck of Doom hits the male lead's car after he stopped for an apparent accident. The truck was full of gunmen and the accident victim also had a gun. Male lead survived.

Revenant: Female lead wanders into the street in a daze, Truck of Doom honks at her, she hears the evil spirit possessing her speak, then the truck goes around her. She survives. Truck of Doom almost hits a senior woman who was pushed by a ghost, female lead saves her and both survive, the truck driver actually stops to apologize

Doctor Slump: Three trucks total, first almost hits the female lead when she falls on the street. Second Truck of Doom was dodged, third hit the villain and female lead while they were in a car. Trucks were specifically hired to kill the villain and he died of his injuries. Female lead survived.

Lovely Runner: Truck of Doom dispatched the villain.

Goblin (Guardian The Great and Lonely God): Driverless Truck of Doom's brakes stopped working and it was rolling down a hill towards kindergartners. The female lead stopped it with her car, resulting in her (temporary) death.

Perfect Marriage Revenge: Truck of Doom killed the male and female leads in their cars, who then woke up one year prior. It attempted to kill them again but failed.

Marry My Husband: Truck of Doom driven by the female lead's own mother and affair partner attempted to squish the female lead, the male lead's car was hit instead. He survived.

W: Two Worlds: Truck of Doom appears out of nowhere to run down the male lead. He survives and further confirms that his world is illogical.

Moon in the Day: Truck of Doom almost hits the female lead who is pushed by a villain, but her friend takes the hit for her. Friend survives.

Doom at Your Service: Male lead offers the female lead a deal in front of a Truck of Doom: she can either die by truck or take his offer to end the world. She accepts twice (he lets her remake the choice). Both survive.

Daily Dose of Sunshine: Female lead runs into traffic on purpose, Truck of Doom stops, female lead is saved by male lead.

Death's Game: Truck of Doom almost hits the male lead in his teenage life, it stops and the driver yells at the kid.

Uncanny Counters (S1): Truck of Doom driven by a later revealed villain hits the male lead's family, killing his parents. He survives with a permanent leg injury.

The Judge from Hell: Male lead is in a bus, a cement truck almost hits the bus but misses, then a transport Truck of Doom hits the bus from the side and knocks it over. Drivers exit the truck and kidnap a criminal, beating up the male lead in the process. Everyone lives.

Penthouse S1: Bae Ro-na stands in front of a truck wishing to die, she is saved by Shim Su-Ryeon. The truck is black, not white.

Family by Choice: white Truck of Doom almost hit Kim San-ah when he was having trauma flashbacks and walked out during a red light. Saved by the female lead.

Vincenzo - white Truck of Doom took hit a minor character. Survives but is hospitalized. Second Truck of Doom crashes into a restaurant, killing one character and putting the male lead into a coma. Male lead later sets up another Truck of Doom in the same manner to threaten someone, it pretends it will hit and then near misses. Truck of Doom takes out a union leader, arranged by the villain.

[bugsbenefit]

Who’s going to die in s5 and does anyone even need to die?

putting my thoughts on this out there now because i'm curious how they will hold up with s5 canon or if the characters that i think are narratively untouchable will bite it in the opening

because objectively, no, no one needs to die. not every story needs to kill off major characters to be "dramatic". strangers things has even gone out of it's way to avoid doing that since it’s first season. the characters that Do die are always ones that were introduced in the same season with the specific purpose of dying. Barb, Alexei, Eddie, all the vecna victims

they even skirt killing main characters, like how Eddie in s4 seems to be the placeholder for Steve since they didn’t want to kill him yet. there’s also interviews saying they wanted to kill him in s1 or 2 but then didn’t because they liked his character and wanted to keep him in the story. (also a fan favourite character too yk). similarly El was also supposed to die in s1, but even before st becomes a multi season show it's implied she’s alive right in the last minutes of s1

so while St sure loves killing people (see just how many people died in lab massacre 1 in 1979, lab massacre 2 in 1984, and the flesh flayer human meat incident) you’re pretty save as long as you’re a main character and survived your first season on the show

so s5 continuing with that and not killing any main characters is definitely an option, they don't need to kill. no matter how much the audience is waiting for "stakes" to be set, not every story needs to kill it's characters

on the other hand, there’s also a lot that suggests they might kill someone for real this time. challenging the perceived safety of main characters in the last season with a world ending stakes set up in s4 seems reasonable. there’s also the more theoretical perspective that we're in the final season now and there’s no coming back for any of these characters anyway, no matter if they live or die. the logic of making it to the next season that saved some of their asses before no longer applies

it would also make sense and not be uncommon for a story to kill someone important during the final installment to make it apparent how BadTM it is. most of the audience is also aware by now that the show isn't killing long running mains so changing that rule would serve the final season well (especially if it happened before the last 2 episodes and put people more on edge for the finale, now that mains apparently aren't completely invincible anymore)

so leading up to s5, I really think the chance of them killing at least one major character for real this time is the highest it’s ever been. the question would just be, who? and I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone agree on this ever so I just want to go it over myself, get my thoughts on this out pre s5 spoilers rolling in. trying to evaluate how solid a build up for a death would be

going over various characters under the cut

there’s obviously some side characters that could reasonable die but I think would be the weakest choices, if not an outright joke at an attempt of “emotional impact” on the story

for example, they could kill Murray, there’s really nothing stopping them, but it wouldn’t be a very impactful death. the only one who has a real connection with him is Joyce. if they wanted to kill more than one character I can see them going for it, especially if they killed Murray earlier and had a bigger character die towards the end of the season. but otherwise, if he’s the only one dying it’d be funnily underwhelming. this also goes for Dimitri (depending on if he will be back for s5). easy to kill but would suck phenomenally as the only death

same for characters like Vicky and Argyle, who are both incredibly new characters so killing them would be very underwhelming. here with the added aspect of them both being minorities, and while you can obviously kill minority characters just fine, if they were the only characters dying it would look pretty bad compared to the 90% white and het cast that’d be alive. killing Vicky with her ongoing romance plot where they need to establish an entire relationship first would also be obviously stupid

moving to main and secondary characters of the show that have more significance. secondaries like:

Robin, who like Vicky and Argyle, would also be a weak choice. killing her at the end of her romance arc set up for s5 would be extremely unsatisfying in a way that doesn’t fit any of the shows themes. also again, killing just her would look horrible, and even if two people died, she’s been the public queer rep of the show before they officially had Will too post s4, would be kind of an insane choice to kill her

Steve on the other hand has much more merit to him. he’s the character we know the Duffers wanted to kill years ago and only held back due to the actors charisma and potential they saw for his story. and both of these points would be moot in a final season of the show. there’s also been enough foreshadowing of a death that would stand out on a rewatch and make it feel more planned. like the funnily long handshake he and Dustin have in s3 including Dustin stabbing Steve and him “dying”. killing him would also work to impact a significant number of characters as well as the audience since he IS a fan favourite. on the other hand, it would be a bit questionable to kill the other "guy that's close with Dustin" right after he had Eddie die on him. Eddie was a pretty clear place holder for Steve in s4, so killing Steve the season after wouldn’t be very different from a storytelling pov. but I could see them go for it, easy death, enough set up, potential to be upsetting, not whole show-vibe ruining

because compared to that, Hopper is someone I honestly don’t see dying at all. he not only had a full fake out death, the whole of s4 russia arc was about getting him back alive. if they just kill him anyways most of s4 will feel pretty pointless, especially after he’s Just at the point where he might see that he isn’t a curse on all the people around him. killing him would negatively impact his character growth AND fall flat with him already having died and come back right after. killing him fr right after he came back would honestly just be really funny, like, i don't know how serious people would even take it, i'd just expect him to come back again tbh

Joyce… is just kind of out there. killing her off would be brutal with how central of a character she is. her and Mike really were the two plot leading characters all the way back in s1 and her character seems to be a bit of a face of ST alongside with characters like El. it would also be rough on Will and Jonathan, like, character altered forever rough, so if she died these characters would have to change drastically. which would need her death to happen before the last two episodes if they wanted to do it justice. and killing her that early on would also feel odd with how much she’s a part of the core story. and of course there’s the whole deal with her just having gotten together with Hopper which should at least give her a few episodes of protection to explore that. overall, I think they could do it, but they would have to be insanely careful to pull it off well and I’m not sure it’s something they’d go for or something that's even possible to do well with only 8-9 episodes

Jonathan is someone a lot of people seem to think could die, but I also feel like a that idea comes from general lack of interest in his character. he Could die, yeah, it would also be interesting how characters dealt with it, but just like with Joyce, killing him off in the last episode would very much feel like a cheap kill for shock value since the strongest aspect of killing a character like him would be seeing the ripples it has over the story. and killing him would also put an extremely tragic end to his character arc which he hasn’t finished yet. he’s constantly parentified, steps back in favour of other people, he still couldn’t tell Nancy he wants something different than her for college, and so on. his s5 arc would have to focus more on his own growth over the series and accepting himself and his worth, so dying would be insanely tragic for him. again I feel like they Could do it, but it’s questionable if they’d be able to do it justice and not make it feel like his character is from a Shakespearean tragedy while everyone else is from a different genre

Just on reflex, Nancy is someone I don’t see dying. killing her would be really bold. all with her being one of the few women, and a character that's always been near the center of the story, and with her being the deciding party in the middle of a love triangle. but on the other hand, I could see some merit in killing her. she was the main leader in s4 and arguably already had her moment to shine when she shot Vecna (even if they still lost, it was arguably the most epically framed “win” moment of the season). she also finally got some closure on Barb’s death, ie. knowing Vecna killed her. you could also definitely argue that it would be interesting if Nancy was the one to ultimately die instead of the vision where she saw her mom, Holly, and Mike, dead (or implied to be dead, she doesn't say the word). so the longer I think about it, the more I could see a positive impact on the story. but it'd still be rough, and it would mean upsetting both Jancy and Stancy shippers by having neither have a happy ending, which, actually, would be kind of interesting, but I’m not sure the Duffers would go for

and then there’s of course the kids where it gets really hard imo. both based on the tone of ST and how it would be insanely dark

Erica is just someone I genuinely don’t think they can kill, ever. she’s the absolute youngest, also one of their 3 poc characters. don’t see any reality where she dies. they already didn't handle her character particularly well since her introduction so, no way they're insane enough to kill her

similar to my point about Hopper earlier, I also don’t see Max dying at all. she almost died in s4 during her initial encounter with Vecna, barely survived, and then got got for real and was dead pre El reviving her. her dying for real in s5 wouldn’t hit particularly hard anymore after she starts the season lost in some variation of a coma. her s5 arc already has to be about finding her, and presumably her dealing with the trauma of waking up. also whatever role she plays in the season, since we don’t know how many episodes it'll take before we can get her thoughts and actions again. killing her at the end would be kind of repetitive and absolutely fuck her character arc over since she just realized how badly she wanted to live regardless of her depression

El's character would also not have any benefit from dying, it would actively cut her character arc short, which has been a central point of every season up to now. her whole deal is learning that she’s not a monster that’s responsible for everything and figuring out who she actually wants to be as a person that can make her own decisions. her ending the series dying or sacrificing herself like so many people seem to think she will would be very weak writing imo. having her finally reach a point in s5 where she's free of Brenner, and guilt over what happened, and her het relationship with her boyfriend who doesn’t love her, and finally starts to realize who she wants to be, only to have her make the decision to die for the people she loves would just suck. it’d be compelling... if ST was a drama story and trying to tell a story of hopelessness. which is not at all what ST has been up until now and is also not what anyone involved has said s5 to be

Will is also unkillable without completely breaking the genre of the show. people are right that him dying in s5 would be full circle to s1. and showing the inevitability of the UD killing him after all and how he couldn’t get away would be fun sure, but it’s not stranger things. aside from actors already having said Will gets some form of happy ending, killing him just wouldn’t work. everyone was trying to get him back alive all the way back in s1. him eventually dying after all is a cool concept in theory, but it doesn’t work with the show at all

Mike is also hard to kill. with Byler happening, it would be insane to kill either of the two parties right after having them get together or confirm each other’s feelings. Mike is one of the characters with the most consistent allusions to something bad happening, especially in s4, with the whole set up of “hasn’t unpacked yet”, jaws poster, “death count is going to rise”, and Nancy’s whole vision about him presumably dying, but it’s much more likely he just won’t have a good time in s5, not die. he already had a fake out death as far back as s1 with the cliff, so if they want the show to go “full circle” they could just have him almost die again, or have someone Think he died for a bit. perma killing him just doesn't work with the mleven to byler arc they set up for s5

Lucas doesn’t have any death flags and there would be no benefit in killing him. killing Will for example would at least be interesting on a meta writing level if you disregard the genre of the show, but killing Lucas would just… feel insanely unjust, he's just a kid who already went through writing fuckery in s4. he also almost lost Max, and his s5 arc seems to be very focused on her and helping her. killing him off right after Max survived would just be plain bad. do not see Lucas dying in any reality

And Dustin is my "if they had to kill a kid". there Are some lines you could definitely catch on a rewatch post death that would make it feel less out of nowhere, be it the “if you die I die” said to Steve, or Suzie talking about Dustin feeling like it could foreshadow a death. Dustin also doesn’t have the protection someone like Mike has, where he’s in the central gay childhood best friends to lovers plotline

overall, I think Vicky and Argyle are essentially guaranteed to be fine. there’d be not much emotional payoff for the audience and only the killing of the few diverse characters of the cast. Robin would also be hard to kill without making it look weird with her just introduced romantic interest. Hopper and Max are too much “been there done that” to die for real. and the kids dying would at best seriously derail the expectations the show set until now and negatively fuck some of their character arcs over at worst

so. tldr, my thoughts on this: killing Joyce is possible imo, but extremely hard to do justice. similar sentiment about Jonathan, even more so bc it directly conflicts with his character's core struggle. killing Nancy would probably be the most interesting choice to go for, to me, if done well, but it’s something I don’t really see happen in the show. Steve seems like the most likely choice to die since he’d be a pretty easy kill, the audience and a significant amount of characters like him so it would have impact, there’s enough death flags to make it seem foreshadowed… would just work really well. and if any of the kids died it would have to be Dustin imo, even though I’m still of the belief that they won’t touch the kids when it comes to killing characters

also, Murray's just a free kill to me, not impactful enough on the characters to fully derail character arcs but still with the show long enough to be a bit sad to see go. if they’d kill only him it would be a bit wasted because it would feel like a copout of killing an impactful character, but if they want to kill a primary character and make stakes higher by killing someone else, Murray is the easiest to turn to for that, especially if they want someone to die in the earlier episodes

and this is just about the "main" characters (as a broad term here). characters that could also ofc die are other kids parents, police officers we know like Callahan, other side characters like Mr Clarke or the mayor. but most of these would not really have much impact on the story and would pass more as casualties along the way

the Wheelers are a bit of an in-between here, because while none of them get regular main character focus and don’t even know about the UD, they still come back every season on a personal level and have the most solid characterization out of side characters. Karen even has a noteworthy character arc, which none of the other side characters have. Holly will be fine honestly, Ted is really just there, not much screen time, i don't really see much benefit in having him die, if he did it would most likely have to be in passing or in mass casualties. so Karen would be the one I could realistically see be compelling to kill. as a side character I’d put her on a Murray level, where she’s consistently on screen and everyone knows her but she’s not really someone people would be upset for days about

the Murray treatment also goes for someone like Owens btw, where I could easily see him die as a side note (not as the main death). he's been with the show for a while but doesn't have enough impact on the story to really force you to keep him alive. there's for sure info we can still get from him in s5, but after we have a full picture of what happened with El and Henry at the lab and how Owens was involved there's really nothing keeping him alive as a character

and everyone's done, wall of thoughts over!

that’s where I’m at with all the characters as of now, especially from looking at their past arcs up to s4. I’m just really curious how this will hold up with the actual s5. Maybe they’ll just go in bold and kill someone I would have said has a 0 chance of dying right away, who knows who knows

[notthestarwar]

Cody and Boba spn au? 👀👀

Oh my god so I started writing this in November and then totally forgot about it till earlier this week when I saw a spn post 😂 I've just had to hunt down my notes which are spread between docs, the back of a cardboard box, a discord conversation, my friends memory (because I told her about it on a voice call apparently) and a notepad before I could figure out where the hell I was going with this one 😂😂

@thesunlikehoney i know you asked about this one too

OK so it all started with this

Which just felt so Jango to me???

So there are no monsters and Jango had raised his 4 kids to be bounty hunters. Alpha leaves when he's old enough, Rex dies, and eventually Cody gets out too leaving Boba and Jango (imagine boba as Dean here). Fast forward a few years and Cody is living a normal life, living with Alpha, and is very dedicated to his normal person job, all until Boba turns up in the middle of the night, dean style.

He explains that Jango has gone missing on a hunt and it turns out that he and Boba had started hunting force users since Cody left and Cody is like. you what??? thats a big no no. very dangerous. Cody agrees to go with him but only for the weekend, he has to be back on monday for his job interview. they investigate the case and find jango's journal but no jango. cody is like. right. i'm going home now.

but he arrives home to find the place burning with alpha (dead) inside and a calling card from ventress, the force user jango had been tracking. boba tells cody that now ventress is on his tail, he cant stay, or she'll burn down his work and everything else, so cody goes with him to stop ventress so he can return to his normal life.

things pretty much go as per spn s1, with jango leading them on and them following after him thinking they are going to find him anytime. theres lots of arguing between the two of them over jango and rex and their upbringing ect.

obi wan makes an apperance as boba and jango's ex jedi hunting consultant and helps them in the hunt for ventress. obi wan is also cody's ex, and they broke up because of jango who refused to tolerate him (but clearly changed his mind at some point after cody leaving) and then cody doesnt contact him after he leaves jango and boba because he wants to get out of the hunting life.

the whole thing is largely about jango being a shit dad but its also about the knockon effect that had on all of them. cycles of trauma. in some ways ending up like the parent that wronged you and having to confront that. rex is pretty much haunting the narrative as nobody has really dealt with his death and theres a lot of anger and grief and not wanting to speak about him. its also about running from your life after something bad happens that you dont want to face (cody with jango and boba, obi wan with the jedi) and how that act of running stops you from letting go of anything, and how there was an alternative, of cody staying in boba's life, of obi wan staying in contact with his family (the jedi), so in some ways its also about balance

tbh its very fun and i'm minorly obsessed with it again now i've revisited

Here's a very unedited snippet from the start:

[...]He’s more than able to defend himself without resorting to weapons.

It’s as he’s thinking this, that something heavy and solid barrels in to him from the direction of the kitchen.

Caught unaware, maybe he is getting rusty, he tumbles to the floor.

The intruder is armoured, beskar if Cody isn’t mistaken. Cody is naked but for boxers. It shouldn’t be a fair fight: Cody hasn’t always been a fair man.

He targets the joins in the mans armour, rolls them over, and its then, that a cloud shifts. A beam of moonlight falls on them and Cody realises, with a drop in his stomach, that he knows this armour.

“Boba?” he asks.

There is a snort from the vocoder. “So you do recognise me?”

“Of course I do! Boba. What the hell?”

“I could ask the same of you. Did you have to tackle me like that.”

Cody is taken aback for a second. “Did I have to…You attacked me! In my home! What is wrong with you?”

Boba sighs, the vocoder clicking off, his brothers true voice filtering though. “I was disarming you.” He says, like it’s obvious. “Didn’t want you to shoot first ask questions after.”

“I wouldn’t…” Cody shakes his head. “I’m not like that anymore.”

He’s still hovering over Boba, holding him to the floor. He comes back to himself, climbing to his feet and holding out a hand to pull Boba up.

“Boba. What the hell are you doing here?”

Boba shrugs, releasing his helmet with a hiss and hooking it to his belt.  He raises an eyebrow. “I could ask the same of you.” He looks around unimpressed.

“No. You could not.” Cody tells him blankly. “This is my home. I live here Boba. Not with you, I got out, remember?” He scoffs. “Haven’t seen you in ten years. So what the hell are you doing here now?”

Boba gives him a long look. “Looking for you.”

thank you for asking!