#like this is a joke metal but also its sick as fuck

[smallpwbbles]

SONIC MOVIE 3 THOUGHTS

There are spoilers here but it’s going under the read more but also don’t read if your avoiding spoilers of course

God the way the movie opened, where Shadows beginning to wake up and he’s seeing memories of Maria already

GOD THEY COULDNT HAVE WRITTEN MARIA AND SHADOW MORE PERFECT

This is my favourite version of Maria by far, she’s got a little more attitude and is so much more funny oh my GOD, every scene of her and Shadow is perfect

ITS THE FACT I MADE A COMIC OF HER DANCING WITH SHADOW ARE YOU KIDDING ME

They’ve changed up Shadows backstory a little, not having him be man-made but instead coming from a meteorite, they’ve also written out Maria’s sickness which I’m not really all for but everything else with Shadows backstory is great

SONIC CRASHING OUT BECAUSE SHADOW HURTS TOM THANK YOU GOD

Sonic locks the fuck IN are you kidding me it would have been the perfect opportunity to make him be dark sonic but I’m sure there’s reasons why they didn’t

Keanu isn’t my favourite shadow but he does a GREAT job for the lines he has

Revenge guac shouldn’t have made me laugh as much as it did

Knuckles and Tails are wonderful here omg this movie they really feel like friends/brothers

Tom and Maddie are PERFECT, the fact they were WAITING for sonic and co to come back with a world disaster to deal with because they were bored

They were not joking about the DBZ levels of fighting in this film oh my god

When live and learn started everyone in the theatre started clapping and screaming (THATS UNCOMMON IN THE UK)

I almost threw up when metal showed up, I screamed until my throat was hoarse when Amy showed up

Stobotnik was perfect in this film omg, that heart felt goodbye to stone was wonderful, if this is Jim’s last film then that’s okay he went out with a BANG (literally)

IF STONE ISNT THE VILLAIN OF THE NEXT FILM WHATS THE POINT

GERLAD ROBOTNIK WHEN I CATCHU WHEN I CATCHU GERALD

[gravegoer]

I hear your call [P3] ⋅˚₊‧ ଳ

i actually got A LOT of asks saying i should do something with siren reader having legs ?!?! did u guys band together to make me do this... summary: sevika takes you out places you've never been and shows her gentleness also a bit of a song at the end (its so fun pls)

masterlist , 2.3k , kind of suggestive? , part 2

Eventually, you did fall asleep in Sevikas tub (really the inn's). I mean, how could you not? She somehow managed to fill it with the perfect temperature and dimmed the lights just for you, making sure you settled in perfectly.

You awoke to her flicking on the big light in the early morning, hissing at the intrusion. But your motions were halted when you looked up to see her form clad in tight shorts and an almost-all-the-way unbuttoned white shirt, the sleeves rolled up past her forearms.

It was rare to see her without her intricate straps, hat, and weapons strapped to her waist, so you definitely took in this sight while you still could.

"I need to get you back to the water. Can't stay in this tub forever," She spoke, settling her hands on her hips.

"Mmm, says who?" You closed your eyes and sank deeper into the water.

"Says my dabloons, can't afford to be stayin' another night."

You suddenly remember your previous kidnapping and Sevika's heroic work (that resulted in a lot of money being spent). You shot her an apologetic look before she laughed a hearty laugh and leaned on the sink.

"I'm joking. Just dont want you out of the sea longer than you need be. Heard it makes mer-people sick," She mumbled the last part.

"Where'd you hear that?" You cocked an eyebrow at her, who was now fixing her dark hair in the mirror.

"I read it—"

"Read it? Pirates can read?" Now it was your turn to laugh.

She got flustered and blubbered out a, "Supposing you even know what a book is."

You laughed at her statement and said, "Well, did you read I need not be in water at all?"

She shook her head, still groggy from her sleep, "Hell are you talking about?"

You tilted your head to your tail— or where it should have been.

What. The. Fuck.

Her eyes widened, and she stepped over to the tub, eyeing your knees sticking out of the water. "Where— where did it go."

You laughed before explaining how, after a while of being in regular water without salt, you were able to develop human legs. This only lasted until you made long‐term contact with salt water again.

To Sevika's shock, you stood up confidently and stumbled at the slipperiness of the tub, water making it hard to maneuver. She reached out to grab you as you yelped, grunting as she held you up, helping you out of the tub. Water dripped onto the floor, and she looked down to realize that it wasn't just legs that you had.

She grunted and looked away over your head, attempting to clear her thoughts. Her thick hand rested on your now non-scaled hip, and her metal one was placed carefully on her arm, trying to keep you as far as she could without dropping you.

"I haven't stood on legs in a while, sorry."

She nodded, "Yeah. I noticed," She commented sarcastically, "Need to get you clothed."

You felt little to no embarrassment about your unclothed state and hummed at her words, starting to walk to the door of the bathroom.

She sighed at your eagerness and kept a hand on your back as you walked, tightening her grip whenever you stumbled. Sitting you down on the bed, she pointed a finger at you as if ordering you to stay.

You obeyed and watched her shuffle through her previously worn clothes, assuming she had no other clothes. (What she is wearing right now is definitely her under clothes..) She grimaced and held up quite a large white poet shirt in your direction.

You shrugged, "That works."

She tossed it to you, and the scent of cigars and salt wafted from the shirt. You threw it on haphazardly, and it covered enough to look like a short dress. "I don't have any pants or shoes—"

She stopped mid sentence when she turned to look at you and cleared her throat, "We'll go to the markets."

You nodded, assuming the market was somewhere you could get clothes. She stepped over to you, multiple straps and belts in hand, "I'll make it look as put together as possible," she mumbled.

Her hands skillfully strapped belts around your torso, making the shirt appear as though it fit properly. She made sure it still hung low on your hips, covering the fact you lacked undergarments.

You weren't so open to the idea of going out into public when you were previously almost sold off. You feared the peoples faces and evil eyes, staring you down. The memories of the cold cage were resurfacing in your mind, but you were quickly pulled out of your thoughts by Sevika.

She now stood at the door to the hall, tilting her head questioningly. She had already gotten dressed and motioned for you to follow her, "C'mon, you can take ten steps."

You rolled your eyes and walked over to her, although like a newborn deer, you still managed. She had a hand on your lower back, supporting you down the hall and just about carrying you as you walked down the stairs.

She sensed your discomfort at the fact that you had no shoes, and the hard wood of the floor wasn't helping your inability to walk. She bent over and snatched up a pair of boots from beside a random man and tossed them into your arms.

"Hey, what the fuck?"

She turned back to glare at him, "Maybe put them on your fucking feet next time."

Her voice was horse and intimidating in the face of any man, lacking the gentleness she previously had with you.

He gritted his teeth and got up to spew his complaints to the keeper. You watched in disbelief before Sevika elbowed you gently in your back, "Lets go."

Before you could say anything else, she was pushing you out the door, boots still in your arms. "Put them on before we go further."

You eyed the rough concrete stairs that were your only option to sit on. Looking up at her, you smiled crookedly. She ran her hand down her face, realizing you didn't want your legs to make contact with the roughness. But without another word, she got on one knee, other thigh level with your knees so you could sit.

Her sword sheathe scraped the ground as she kneeled, leather boot thudding on the ground behind her. Not letting you protest she pulled you by the shirt down onto her leg, taking the boots out of your hands.

Your hands stayed in your lap as she pulled your legs out to cover your feet with the boots. Although she struggled a bit to put shoes on another person she still did so as soft as possible, feeling as if your legs were frail.

You kept your eyes on her face as she did so, eyeing the scar on her face and lip before she spoke, "It has to do for now. I'll get you out of them soon."

..

Although it was a struggle, you both made it to the market. Even though you had gotten more used to legs heavy boots, weighing down your feet and tiredness made your legs sore. But upon seeing the bright colors of the market, smelling the scent of fresh pastries and fruit, and hearing pleasing music you almost immediately perked up.

Sevika noticed your change in demeanor and smirked, "Never been here, huh?"

You nodded rapidly and almost ran to a stand that had bright and scarves with intricate patterns. The shop owner immediately started to talk you up. "This color would be so beautiful with your hair, miss." She wrapped a blue scarf around your shoulders.

Sevika walked up behind you as you looked at your reflection in the small mirror, turning this way and that. You hummed in satisfaction before starting to waltz away. Sevika grabbed you by the back of the scarf, "Nope, you gotta pay."

"Ummm.." You looked up at her with confusion.

"No money, no scarf," She took it from your shoulders and set it back on the stand, grinning.

You huffed and crossed your arms, looking around at other stalls. She grabbed your shoulder with one hand and moved your face with the other, pointing it into the direction of a far away stand. "Only the necessities."

She started in the direction, and you quickly grabbed onto her arm to trail after her. Approaching the stand with shelves that held shoes, Sevika held up a pair, as if asking if they were to your liking.

You grimaced at the style and started to look for yourself. Grabbing delicacy styled shoes, you showed them to Sevika. She smiled softly and shook her head at your choice but put down a few coins for the owner anyway.

She reluctantly would let you drag her to every stall you wanted to look at, putting up with your curiosity. She knew she wouldn't have patience like this for anyone else.

When you put on something pretty and looked to her for approval, she would give you a satisfied look. But still refused to buy you anything unnecessary.

Sevika eventually got you a long skirt that was flowy and hung almost to the ground. It almost mimicked your tail in its motions as you walked, she smiles at the reminder.

When you asked questions about the odd trinkets, she would pick them up and show you how it worked. A music box looked small and delicate in her hold, and the soft melody coming from within made you smile brightly.

You swayed a bit to the music, holding her hands up to your ear so you could hear it better. She couldn't do much but stare wide-eyed at the sight of you blissfully giggling at the music.

As you started off to another stall, she quickly dropped a few coins in front of the seller and shoved the music box in her pocket.

When it neared noon, she took you to eat at a food stand, handing you a few kabobs of different meats and veggies. You munched on them happily, sharp teeth tearing into the meat easily. (Noted.)

She definitely took you to try her favorites because all you eat is probably fish. She takes in the sight of you sighing at the flavors and shoving more into your mouth.

You guys bond over food..

It was now nearing night, the sun set far in to the west. The small amount of darkness was illuminated by candles and lanterns scattered around the area. You could see women gossiping together over some tea and bread, men slinging one another around in joke, kids chasing each other with small creatures. This was one of which a sight you'd never seen.

You gawked, never having viewed humanity in this way, only seeing people that inhabited the seas you could have never guessed how average civilians behaved. The night now no longer seemed so fierce, holding no malice like the previous night.

Sevika approached you to put a hand on your shoulder. She was proud to show you things you had never experienced. She would show you as much of the land as you wanted if you just asked.

Pulling you away from the crowd, she led you to a cliff that overlooked the ocean. Your position closely mimicking the day you met her, Sevika sat on a rock with you beside her. Her metal hand rested on your hip comfortably. You talked about your adventures of the day, the things you liked, and the people you met.

"Thank you for this, I never thought I'd be happy to reside on land."

She grunted in response and pulled a small box from her pocket, a music box. You gasped and took it from between her fingers, shocked she had really gotten it for you.

You winded the small handle before releasing it to hear the familiar melody, bringing back your memories of the day. Looking up to see Sevika, her expression was so loving and gentle, a face you've never seen on her before. Her eyes were illuminated by the dim sunset, emphasizing her contentment.

You smiled before you parted your lips, and betwixt came a song,

link to it (i highly reccomend, it sets the mood)

"Upon one summer's morning, I carefully did stray

Down by the Walls of Wapping, where I met a sailor gay

Conversing with a young lass who seem'd to be in pain

Saying, "William, when you go, I fear you'll ne'er return again"

My heart is pierced by Cupid

I disdain all glittering gold

There is nothing can console me

But my jolly sailor bold"

She listened blissfully, taking in the fact that your songs had no effect on her. Your beautiful voice hummed in her ears, and she looked into the sea, engraving this memory into her mind.

She could see her ship from where you sat, the wind blowing into the sail softly, yanking on the rope that tied it to the dock. Yes, she was going to take you anywhere you wanted to go. This much was set in stone.

After this, she dragged you to the ship with her crew and invited you to join her, obviously you said yes.

She's very happy to have someone to accompany her on her journeys. She isnt so bitter and lonely now thats for sure

And yes, you still get to swim in the water. A lot of the crew doesn't know your siren side, so Sevika tosses you into the water at night, letting the glimmer of your scales lead her ship.

During the day, you will follow alongside the ship, making sure none of the crew can see you, but Sevika does.

Sometimes, she gets distracted by you and goes off route a bit.

I like to think she can't really swim, so you try to teach her whenever you get a chance, and she always ends up clinging to you as you tease her.

She shows you mountains, forests, architecture, (bars), etc. And you love every moment of it.

Also, she replaced the mermaid on the front of her ship with a mermaid carved to look like you. And no, she didn't pay for it to be done. She did it herself.

Whilst she stood on a ladder she watched you frolic in the waves, making sure to carve every curve and detail she found beautiful.

Although, there wasn't one part of you she didn't find beautiful.

the end felt a bit rushed but im bad at endings, i might do some other side fics for this but thank you for the support on this fic! also i thought it was funny how @lovinglywriting sent me an ask about something sooo similar to what i was writing while i was mid fic lol and @slut4sevika send in a sweet ask tysm <33

taglist: @thequeenreaders @hangezoes-wife @thesecondhandwoman @lez-zuha @haboinga

[e1dritchjackal0pe]

𝓛𝓲𝓴𝓮 𝓪 𝓢𝓽𝓻𝓪𝔂

ꜱᴜᴍᴍᴀʀʏ: You always knew deep down that getting involved with the Kook prince himself would result in nothing but heartache. Unsurprisingly, like an absolute sucker you had allowed yourself to get pulled into his orbit, hook, line and sinker.

The two of you were always unlabeled, two people just trying to take the edge off; so it shouldn't have stung when you caught him with another girl on his arm. But it's completely unfair when he comes crawling back as soon as you attempt to move on.

ᴡᴀʀɴɪɴɢꜱ: Rafe, 18+ content (so minors go somewhere else), AFAB, fem aligning pronouns, toxic relationships, lack of communication, infidelity if you really squint, stalking, hints of dark!Rafe, Soft!Rafe (because I'm a sucker), Rafe refers to himself as Daddy once (I'm sorry, it's so in character), Oral (F! Receiving), Unprotected sex (reader is on the pill), public sex (they do it in a bathroom at a party), dubious consent (both Rafe and reader are intoxicated).

ɴᴏᴛᴇꜱ: 25K words (the Lana Del Ray and Chase Atlantic continuously playing in my headphones wouldn't let me stop). Not proofread (as per usual, I'm sorry), Pogue!reader.

You love your life. The simultaneous merge of monotony and spontaneity. Sure, it is boring in certain aspects. The schedule of your job demanding that you wake up nearly every day of the week, pulling yourself out of the warmth and comfort of your bed before the sun has even bled across the horizon in hues of pale gold and soft lavender to begin opening up the restaurant; passing through the door that always squeals sharply on its hinges. No amount of WD-40 has managed to correct the offending, metallic shriek, but Deborah, ever the penny-pincher always brushes off the notion of simply replacing the hinges. Huffing and shrugging it off whenever you suggest it. One of these days you plan to go down to the hardware store yourself and buy a fresh set of replacements. 

The ritual of your mornings is often tedious. The one before it the same as the one that comes after; setting the chairs down from their places tucked upside down on the tabletops to be seated on their designated positions on the floor, turning the coffee machines on to begin brewing a fresh pot for the early risers and regulars that stop in for a quick uplift before they head off to their jobs, checking to make sure that you had properly stocked up the night before you left; that the sliced lemons and creamers and ketchup bottles have all been filled. You sometimes have a habit of accidentally skipping out those tasks when you've been on a double. Sometimes on purpose if you know that you're going to be the opener the very next day. 

Though more often than not it ends up with you cursing yourself out for leaving more unnecessary work for yourself. 

You're at your job more than you're at your own home. But with how high Deborah's turn rates are, and how little people do actually come in to retrieve an application, it's practically been up to you to try and hold down the fort as best as possible. Apart from Charlotte, who does her best to cover as many shifts as she can (though that isn't always possible if one of her kids falls sick or the babysitter calls off), and Rusty. But as the main cook, he practically lives in the restaurant to begin with. So much so, that it has become a joke among the staff that he should just call it quits and put up a cot in the back so that he could takes naps in between shifts. He's always at the restaurant long before you are. Piddling around in the back of the house to get a head start on the day ahead and prepping for what he'll need. 

It's dull work, sure, and the breaks that you get are few and far between, but the threat of oncoming bills always looming overhead like a fucking hydra. As soon as you manage to cut off one head, another immediately seems to grow in its place. Plus, you also have a difficult time in saying no to Deborah. You think everyone does honestly. She could be hard to navigate at times, seeming to seesaw between being almost sickeningly sweet and intimidatingly disgruntled. Skulking around the restaurant with a sharp anger glinting in her eyes, a harsh scowl pulling at the wrinkled corners of her lips as she barks orders and huffs over crumbs and stains that aren't there. 

But you try, like the others, not to hold it against her. You know that she's just stressed. Struggling to pick up the pieces that her son had left behind; to keep his dream alive as best as she can. 

Still, you can't help but to revel in any chance you get to have a day to yourself. Even though the reprieve that you do get is typically spent at your own home. Basking outside underneath the warmth while you soak in the small layer of water contained in the old sun faded kiddie pool, reading one of your unfinished books, or reclining against the lip of the hard plastic while the music from your old Bluetooth speaker drifts down from the steps of the small, worn porch attached to the front of your trailer. 

Every once in a while, if your budget is willing, you might head down to the quaint thrift store that lies just on the outskirts of town. Though calling it a "store" is being quite generous. It's pretty much just a shed that had been repurposed as a business in Metilda Clark's backyard; the walls boarded with shelves for books and DVD's and VHS tapes, and racks filled with garments donated from families whose children have grown out of their clothes or family members that have passed on and they can't bear to look at their personal belongings anymore. 

So you suppose that in a sense, it's a graveyard of sorts. A place for people to bury or move on from their pasts without entirely discarding the items that they need to be free from. Given that that a large chunk of the island's population is in part of the working class, a vast amount of the wares and goods found at the store are a little lackluster. Every once in a while, you manage to find something good. A piece of clothing or shoes that have managed to trickle down from the Eight, like a pair of vintage heels that you were able to snag for twenty-five bucks. But for the most part it's just plain knickknacks, fishing lines and old bodice rippers - many of which are wildly amusing to flip through. 

If only you had a nickel for every time you had seen a man's dick referred to as a "pulsing hot member" or "engorged manhood." It never fails to remind you of Ms. Perky from Ten Things I Hate About You trying to write smut in her office. 

Still, it does sometimes prove to yield some interesting finds. Like the magenta lava lamp that now sits on the shelf posted along the far side of your room or the rooster shaped tea pot that you always use on stormy nights. That purchase might have been a little dumb, just maybe, but you had thought it was cute when you saw it. 

But if you're being honest, you mostly go to the thrift store for the small ceramic bowl full of candy that Metilda keeps along the front counter; always full of strawberry bon bons, Tootsie Rolls, and hard caramels. You always make sure to pluck one up as she tallies up your purchase on her archaic cash register, squinting through her glasses as her bony fingers skitter across the buttons while she shares the latest bit of gossip to you. She's always in the know it seems, like some sort of P.I . . . or maybe Batman. It's almost a talent. But you suppose that being a member of the church, the local book club, and attending bingo every weekend would get you in on a lot of the gossip that circles around town. 

It's how you found out the Janice Morty was cheating on her husband of twenty-three years with his own brother, or that Sammy Kennedy has been breeding and selling exotic reptiles in his basement illegally. Sometimes you'd find yourself standing in front of that little desk long after your purchase had been bagged and paid for, just listening intently as she gives you the scoop on everything. Watching the earrings dangling from her lobes quiver and shake animatedly as she passionately recounts all of the drama she's heard - she's always got a new, fun pair on every time you see her. Many of them are retro, 80's style, but a large majority are shaped after everyday objects. One of your favorites so far would have to be the odd pair of small rotating fans, colored in that vintage mint green shade with pink blades. But the fuchsia gumball machines have to be a close second. 

You love to come in and see what pair she's going to be wearing, to hear all of the local drama. But the sound of a single name had made you regret the trip entirely. 

"- all of a sudden the screen had lit up! Just set alight without any warning." She recounted, tucking a book alongside the others inside of the recycled bag, the wrinkles in the plastic causing the smiley face to become disfigured. "Well, one of my customers saw the culprits - or at least who they suspect to be. They saw a big group of them scatter once the chaos erupted; that Thorton boy, and old Heyward's kid was there. And even Rafe Cameron, that spoiled little nuisance -" 

Your brain had blanked then. Falling flat and somehow chaotic like static filming over a TV screen. It had made it difficult to tell what you were truly feeling in that moment as it all seemed to crash over you into a still hush. But the elements of it all was certainly there: irritation, resentment, and that pathetic sense of longing that never seems to truly go away. It sticks to you like a nasty parasite. Burrowed deep and latched onto your flesh, the disease in it seeping into your bloodstream. 

No matter how much you try, it seems that you can't get away from him. The woes of living in a small community. It feels like a sort of damnation. A limbo that you can crawl yourself out of. You've gotten so close to it too. All but throwing yourself into your work - even more so than usual, if that was possible. It was to the point that your coworkers have begun to notice. You can see the way they all watch you curiously as you talk to your tables and flit about the dining room floor. Charlotte had even thrown away any attempts at subtly and had directly confronted you about your "situation." Claiming that you've seemed distracted as of late. Tense. And shit, maybe you have been a little uptight lately. Forcing plastic smiles and pretending that there isn't a hurt that's aching deep in the pit of your chest. You had promised her that you were alright, while the words felt fake, almost acidic on your tongue. She hadn't looked convinced. 

You had been doing good at pretending that you're alright. For the most part at least. With the distraction of your job and lounging around at home, diverting your attentions with old comedies and comfort watching the same old TV shows, you had nearly convinced yourself that you were alright. Though you mostly owed that to your recent proclivity for eating your feelings with Ben and Jerry's and sunbathing. Cliche, maybe. But effective. Indulging and pampering yourself has become your new means of deflecting the heartbreak that you so desperately want to pretend isn't there. And it had been working so well too. 

Until Matilda had to go and ruin it. The sound of his name leaving her red lips might as well as been nails on a chalk board. You know it was well meaning. There is no way that she would know, not even with all of the tabs and connections she's got running through the island. And that had been the point of it all. There was no label for whatever the two of you had been. The only agreement there was that your "relationship" - friends with benefits or whatever you were - was to remain on the down-low. A quiet, airtight secret lest the population of Kildare become privy to the fact that the Kook prince himself had been fucking a Pogue. 

It had been fine in the beginning. Well, not exactly fine. If someone were to ask you how you had begun seeing Rafe Cameron of all people, you wouldn't have a good answer. You yourself aren't entirely sure. It had sort of just happened. Like a wildfire that had grown out of control. The both of you have always been at each other's throats. The bullshit roles thrusted upon you by the divide of the classes on the island seeming to demand that you be enemies. Though he was more interested in maintaining those characters than you. 

You had never cared much for the Kook vs Pogue ideal. It seems archaic, tired and outdated. An unnecessary dissection that often gets grossly out of hand by the other locals.  Sometimes violently so, with the clashes ending in busted lips and bloodied knuckles. Not too long ago a fight had broken out during an after-storm party, where it was claimed that a gun had been drawn and fired. Just another reason why you found the blatant classism in the town to be entirely too much and downright threatening at times. 

But no one else believed in it more than Rafe Cameron. Topper Thronton might give him a run for his money, but you'd still have to give the victory to the prince himself. That's why it came to a complete shock to your own system when your relationship with had gone from scathing, sardonic quips and passive aggressive remarks to something balancing on almost playful. You had seemed to dangle precariously between that fine line, rocking back and forth between a genuine disdain and a delicate sort of camaraderie. 

It was an explosive mix that was just waiting for the trigger. And the anticipation of it had suspended over you like the humidity that taints the air outside, like the heavy quiet before a great storm before the lashing and booming of lightning and thunder rattles across the sky. Still, the both of you had blindly ignored the signs - the fleeting glances, the jealously that would fester in your gut whenever you saw him with someone else, the way that he would seek you out while you worked to hover over you as you poured sugar into shakers or bussed tables after your customers left. Hiding his interest in the guise of immature taunts and corny insults. And you'd do your best to deny the temptation suspended over you, writing it off as hatred and irritation whenever you crossed paths. 

You would see Rafe sparingly in your day-to-day life. Though he would fleetingly come into the restaurant every now and again. Typically to bring his newest fling in for the slices of lava cake or malted milkshakes. The Backyard Grill - or more simply, the Backyard, is a seafood restaurant first and foremost, but one thing that cannot be denied, even by the likes of the upper class, is that it has the best desserts in the entirety of Kildare Island. People of all walks of life come in to get a warm slice of apple pie, or a rich piece of red velvet. 

But it's the floats and milkshakes that are the most popular. Usually among couples that are trying to have a romantic evening. Or as romantic as it can be while in the ambiance of a ramshackle dining room, with scratched, defaced tabletops that have the initials of lovers etched into the (once) polished wood, and an old A/C unit that hisses as it spits out air. 

It's hardly a place that you'd imagine someone like Rafe Cameron frequenting, but he would still pop in every now and again. Usually with a new girl on his arm, trading them out as just easily as he'd change clothes.

It had made you tempted to speak up about it. To dare to make a subtle warning in the guise of a joke to clue the girls in, but he would always look up at you with a knowing gleam in his eyes. As though he was challenging you to spill and make a scene; to give him a reason to lash out with that scornful tongue of his and somehow pin the blame back on you. It always left resentment bubbling just underneath your skin, hot and angry while you forced yourself to hold your words back, all while a sharp, mocking smile threatened to show on your face. 

You had loathed when he would walk through the door. The infrequent nature of his visits making it feel like a sort of roulette as to whenever you'd hear the squeal of the hinges, and the dainty chime of the bell posted above the threshold - if it would be him passing through the door or not. Each time it was him, irritation would flare throughout you, but some traitorous feeling that you couldn't name would quickly follow; light and almost warm. Horrendously close to what could only be considered affection. You'd always shove it down as soon as you would register it. 

Rafe was unpredictable. A notorious hothead with a proclivity towards handling any offence he deemed against him with violence and hostility. The echoes his past rampages are still frequently on the town's lips despite being old news. Much like the time that he had reportedly attacked Matthew Bailey in the hallway of the private school for accidentally brushing against him. In Rafe's words, Matthew had rudely shoulder checked him and tried to walk away without apologizing. Regardless, the beat down that had proceeded had been a complete overkill, with Matt ending up on the flat of his back on the floor while Rafe pinned him down and repeatedly struck his face with a closed fist. He only managed to deliver two blows from what you had heard before he was pulled back, but the force behind it had been enough that Matthew's nose is now permanently bent. 

Everything about him should have repulse you. From his insistent belief that the less financially fortunate aren't as important or deserving as the wealthy, from the downright volatile way that he behaved. Like a rabid dog on a fraying lead. Morality should have been enough to repel you from him. To get you to steer clear of Rafe Cameron and pretend that he didn't exist. 

But that night on the beach, with bonfires burning high along the shore like blazes and the rowdy scattering of people cheering and laughing around you, everything that had been restrained between you both seemed to finally tear free from the grip you had on it. Maybe it had been the influence of the alcohol in your system, buzzing about your veins in a rush of warmth, or a side effect of the excitement thrumming throughout the air, but when you had saw him enter through the mass of bodies, something - some kind of resistance seemed to break.  

It was pitiful how your eyes had found him through the masses, fastening onto him as though he was the only thing that had mattered. But the way that the firelight had casted onto his skin had been gorgeous, panting him in hues of amber and vermillion and dramatic shadow. The traces of it glimmering clearly in his eyes, still visible from the distance that had separated you. A few strands of his hair dangling above his eyes in a way that you found a little too appealing, the glow of the flames highlighted the traces of brown and red in the strands.

It was almost offensive; how attractive he looked. Even while wearing one of those stupid polo shirts that he's so fond of. The color of it was a soft sort of blue. A shade that you knew would bring out the color of his eyes, gunmetal and baby blue. 

It felt like all of the oxygen had been siphoned from your lungs when the pair of them had flickered over to you and the shadows that you had found comfort in while you watched over Becca as she danced with some random guy, her laughter twinkling over the exuberant chaos letting you know that as of now, he was being respectful and minding his manners. But being under the sudden observations of Rafe had caused the dancing and socializing around you to melt into a dull background until it was nothing but the soft sand beneath your shoes and the balmy glide of the breeze shifting over your skin, slightly damp with humidity and tinged with the salt of the waves crashing along the surf. 

You had expected him then to simply alter his path and seek out some of the other Kook's that were mixed in along the crowd, but he hadn't. He kept on his trajectory, walking straight towards you, unworried as the rest of the people around you were too caught up in their own affairs or too intoxicated to notice. 

There was a determination and intensity in his eyes that had made you feel uncertain. Almost awkward in your own body, leaving you to pluck at the neon glowstick bracelet around your wrist and absentmindedly swirling the mixed drink in your red solo cup, that had long since gone warm. Once he had been standing directly in front of you, the conversation that had taken place was almost delicate as it was playful. Something new was stretching out in front of you both, strange and tricky to navigate. 

"Hey, Pogue," had been his greeting. As though he was trying to remind himself of who - of what you were to him. But it had been said so oddly, not laced with the usual contempt, that it nearly sounded endearing to you. It had been enough to warrant a smile, and the sight of your apparent amusement had been enough to have the tension melting from his posture. The rigid set of his shoulders sagging into something more relaxed and familiar, allowing him to settle into that arrogant stance of his. 

"Hey, yourself," you responded and raised the edge of your cup to take a sip of your drink. You had to fight off the urge to wince as the alcohol went down, sharp and stinging on your tongue from the cutting edge of hot vodka and the sickly-sweet syrup of cranberry and orange juice. "What the hell are you doing here, consorting with the enemy. Try not to get to close, yeah? You might catch our diseases." 

He had seemed then, to take your words as a sort of challenge. Like a raise to a sort of bet. He had stepped closer, crowding himself into your space in a way that should have felt invading, but you had only delighted in it. Free of a shirt, with only a bikini top to conceal your chest, your skin was unprotected from the subtle warmth that radiated from his body. His sudden proximity washing over you with the scent of his cologne and the gel in his hair, that seemed to have come unruffled from its usual slick back style. 

You had felt hypnotized as he pulled himself closer into your presence; engulfed by the ardor in his stare. A like of which you had never seen aimed at you - not so unabashedly, at least. You had only gotten glimmers of it. Small doses given behind the cover of hard glares and snide remarks. But then, the want on his face was bare. Shown freely underneath the cover of the dark while he leaned close enough for you to feel the gentle trace of his breath on your neck. His eyes bore into your own, demanding that you meet his stare and bear the weight of it. 

"Maybe I wanna get close." 

It had all been a flurry after that. A rush of playfully passed words and hushed, almost covetous whispers. You had allowed him to tug you into the night, far away from the illumination of the bonfires and the possibility of seeing eyes to carve a space just for the two of you. Guiding you into the thicket of trees surrounding the festivities, far off until the laughter darting over the air and the calming rise and fall of the waves had dimmed; softening so that your focus was fixed entirely on him. 

He'd taken you against a tree, fucking up into you harshly as though he'd been waiting a lifetime to do it. Splitting you open on his cock and driving his hips forward like he hated you, leaving you to claw at his back through the fabric of his shirt, nails catching and slipping up towards the nape of his neck where they left marks deep enough to have him hissing in pain. You could have felt guilty for it, but the subtle agony seemed to spur him on more. Somehow causing him to pump himself into you with a new vigor, leaving you to hang on and take it while he punched the air from your lungs. Pinned in place uselessly while the bark of the tree he had you pressed against scraped and nicked at your back. It left marks on you for nearly two weeks. 

You had thought that would have been the end of it. A night of regret fueled by alcohol and hatred, but the both of you hadn't stopped afterwards. He had begun to seek you out afterwards. Not too brazenly. He couldn't have the locals of the island finding out about your little trysts. But he would often sneak up to your house, around the late hours, always long after your neighbors had tucked in to sleep and the sun was well past the horizon. 

At first, it was fully apparent what he wanted from you. He'd stay long enough for the both of you to get what you wanted. A simple transaction of the flesh. The boundaries had been clear then. Just two people working out their frustrations and using each other to take the edge off. Put then he had started spending the night. You aren't sure when he had stopped leaving and begun staying over, tucking himself next to you in bed, burrowing under the covers while you watched the shitty action movies that he always requested you put on. 

And pretty soon he began leaving pieces of his clothes. Small things. A shirt or two. Because he liked to see you wearing them; that's what he had told you. But then there had been pants, and the odd sock, and a few pairs of his boxers, all of which you washed with your own clothes and then kept folded in a corner of your closet. 

His toothbrush was placed next yours on the bathroom counter, colored white and blue. And there was a bottle of his cologne tucked in the shelf underneath the sink, right next to some of your hygiene products and rolls of toilet paper. He kept spare shampoo in the built in shower cubby, so that he wouldn't have to use yours. He'd smell too feminine, that's what he told you. 

He'd spend the night whenever things would grow to be too much with his dad. Their relationship was always so strained. So full of resentment and insecurity. He had shared that with you one night, while you were held to his chest, your head tucked just underneath his chin while you stared up at the fairy lights strung up around your room. The scent of sex was still heavy in the air, the sweat from it clinging to your skin while you counted the thrum of his heart racing under your ear, gradually mellowing out to a steady beat as your breaths calmed. 

You had tried to nudge him to stop, promising that you didn't expect for him to share any of it with you. Warning him that it was just the influence of sex and the rush of dopamine and oxytocin thrumming steadily in his veins urging him to open up. You didn't want him to regret it. To regret what you had between you. But he had promised then that he wanted to. That he needed to tell someone. There had been a vulnerability in his voice that you had never heard from him before. A mild tremor as though he was trying to hold onto himself. To keep himself from potentially falling apart while he confessed about his home. How his stepmother was always present and yet entirely absent, how his father saw him as nothing but a failure, how Sarah paid him little mind. A psycho, she had called him once. But he was always sweet to you in those simple moments, when he would scatter kisses up your neck, tender and light while he drew you to him with the wide grip of his hands. 

There were so many lines that had been crossed. Lines that just "fuck buddies" don't cross. Not without a clear conversation at the very least. Perhaps it had been your fault, for reading into things that weren't there. For applying meaning to all the little moments you had spent together. All of the times you had ate leftovers together in your small kitchenette, laughing and playfully insulting each other while you ate away at Chinese food or reheated burgers in between jokes. Childishly nudging at him with your foot underneath the table while he complained or made remarks about his day. 

It's just fuck buddies who ask for you to pick a box of Lucky Charms during grocery runs because it's a quick meal to eat after fucking, when the weed gives him an appetite; it was just being a fuck buddy when he would lay in your arms for hours, molding himself against the shape of you to try and burrow himself along your skin, breathing tiredly into your neck; and it was perfectly casual when he bought you a necklace with a pendant of his first initial - 14 karat gold he told you. He wanted to go for 24k, but it would have been too weak and malleable, and 18k wouldn't be as scratch resistant. He wanted it to last. That's what he had said as he sucked and nipped at the skin on your neck, around the thin, golden chain; turning the flesh tender and marked. 

Maybe it truly was all your fault. So you shouldn't have been at all surprised when he had ghosted you for four days straight and then you had seen him strolling around town with Casey Ellis; her head tucked into his neck while she laughed, her hand placed to his chest. She was a gorgeous girl with highlights in her hair and a body that didn't have so much as a hint of a single stretchmark or a dimple of cellulite, wearing Luis Vuitton sunglasses and an outfit that must have cost a fortune. She was perfect, and she wasn't you. 

You were smart enough to connect the dots. To put two and two together. You had been replaced. Just all the girls before you had, and it made you feel like a complete idiot. How you had let yourself be so blinded by affection, to let the wool be pulled over your eyes and tricked into believing that you wouldn't fall to the same fate. Letting something that feels dangerously close to love delude you into thinking you'd be different. It dug deep. Slicing through you and reaching to grip a hold of a vulnerability that you hadn't even known was there. Still, you hardly even thought it over when you had skimmed through your contacts and blocked his number; doing it as though you had been put under a sort of spell, detached and numb while anger seared underneath it all in a burning undercurrent. You sent him a single message before cutting him off and out of your life. Affording him at least that little curtesy, unlike what he had done to you. It was curt. Cut and dry, if not just a little personal. 

it's clear that you've found another person to cry to and fuck. that means we're done. Dont come back 

Was it a little juvenile? Perhaps. But it had felt good, even if you hadn't done it face to face. But he didn't deserve that much. And it was nice to be so detached about it. To do something as shitty as cutting things off over a text message. It was disrespectful, a slap to the face, and you hoped that it had hurt and confused him. That his brows had pinched in the way that they do when he's bewildered, that he had paced around his room and combed his fingers through his hair while he read those letters over and over again as though it would help him make sense of it. 

You had ignored the curious, perplexed stares of your neighbors when you threw his clothes and toothbrush into the containment of the firepit behind your trailer, dousing them with lighter fluid and setting them alight. It had felt therapeutic to watch it all burn. Charring around the edges and turning black as it melted from the unforgiving heat to turn into an indiscernible pile. You'd like wish that the memories with him would do the very same, but you've had no such luck yet. 

But it's difficult to forget someone when they're determined to be remembered. Skulking about like a wild dog in the shadows, wandering up to your door in the night, pawing to be let in. The first week after you had cut ties, he had shown up at your trailer, forgoing all attempts at being quiet to bang his fist on your front door. Loud enough to all but tear you from your sleep, causing you to jerk up with a gasp, your heart thumping wildly in your ears as his muffled voice bled past the walls. 

"C'mon, baby! Listen - I - I know I fucked up, but we can work past this, alright?" A dull bang had punctuated it, and it left you to wonder if he had dropped his forehead against the door, defeated and desperate. Good. "It's not that - can't we just back to the way things were?" 

You had ignored his please to be heard and turned over in your bed. Drowning out the sound of his voice by turning on the TV and waiting him out until he left, deterred only by one of your neighbors' dogs, agitated by the sound of his shouting. After that he only tried to approach you one more time. Turning up at you job and all but ambushing you once you stepped out into the parking lot. You had done your best to ignore him. To keep the venom and contempt that longed to rise up past your lips as he trailed after you like a shadow, demanding that you stopped and just listened to him while you beelined for your car at the far end of the dirt lot. 

He had only touched you once you clutched your keys and turned them into the lock and reached for the door handle, grabbing ahold of your shoulders to shove your back to the driver side door, caging you in with his body while he clutched at you like a drowning man reaching for a buoy in a storm. You swear that there were tears in his eyes then, glinting in the dim cast of the nearby streetlamps. The emotion in his voice had been so raw. Broken, as though he was hanging on by a thread and just barely holding himself together. It made you feel like you were being dragged under. 

"Just look at me - just let me speak, okay?" His words nearly melded together in a quick rush, as though he couldn't spit them up fast enough. But your heart was in your throat, adrenalin running rampant in your veins while you stared into his eyes. Lost in the desperation in them. The dark of his pupils like hollows, threatening to swallow you whole. All the while your hand remained latched onto the door handle, frozen as he sucked you into the raw emotion that could only be described as a sort of anguish. "I fucked up, I know that, but we can get through this. "

His hands had slipped up to your face then. Cradling you as though it might keep you with him, secure in his palms, a fine porcelain that might shatter if handled too harshly. But you couldn't stand to listen to him. To feel him on your skin, to smell the scent of him after trying to wash the fragrance of his cologne out of your sheets. It had you jerking in his grip like a wild animal, even while a pathetic part of you longed to draw him closer. Before he could fully register it, you had tugged the driver's side door open, slipping out of his grasp and into your car. You had yanked the door shut and slammed your hand down on the main button to lock the entirety of the car down. Keeping him out. 

You didn't spare him a glance as he banged on the window, asking that you step back outside in a tone that was so soft. So broken. But you swallowed down the urge to comply. You fueled yourself with the anger buried beneath it all instead as you twisted the key into the ignition and sped off and out of the parking lot, gravel and dust spewing behind while you left him behind. Standing alone in an empty parking lot with only the dim sound of his voice trailing after you like a wounded, violent howl. 

"Fine! Go on then! I don't fucking need you!" 

It's only been a few weeks since then, but you've done well to move on from it all. It was a simple, few month-long fling. Nothing more, nothing less. And that's all it would ever be. Thankfully, eventually, after a few weeks, he had given up. He stopped coming by your house, he quit stalking around the outside of your job. It was as though he had never even existed. All traces of him were gone from your life. For the most part. Until Matilda had gone and opened up her mouth, accidentally drawing up old memories and picking at a wound that had just begun to heal.  

It had been enough to put a blight on the remainder of your day, looming above like the thick of storm clouds. You're suffocating. Being pulled beneath crashing, tossing waves that threaten to fill your lungs with the sting of water and leave you lifeless and adrift. All of the vibrancy and enthusiasm for life that had been there just this afternoon seems to have fizzled out like a sparkler that's been dropped in a puddle. 

It makes you frustrated and tired with yourself. Exhausted by how much you've paled in comparison to the person you were only weeks ago, and here you are groveling in self-pity and loathing all because of an egocentric, insecure man who runs around town with all of the self-restraint of a rabid dog. He doesn't deserve your heartache or your tears. He never cared about you or your feelings. You had just been a hole to fuck, a pair of arms to run into when his life at home fell into shambles. 

For the first time in a while, you found yourself calling Becca in the hopes of wrangling her into going out. There was a party going on tonight, and an invitation had been extended to you, passed on by Allen Thatcher when he had come into the Backyard yesterday for his usual. You declined then. In any other circumstance, you would have accepted, schedule willing. Then the idea of attending a party, as relaxed as the environment might be, had seemed daunting. Far too much, too overstimulating while you still struggle to grapple with the torrent running rampant within you. But now, with anger and betrayal breaking through it all, bursting between the hurt like a fire spreading through a dead forest, the prospect of blaring music and the sting of alcohol sounds like a relief. 

It had been enough to have you dialing Becca and asking if she was free. She had seemed surprised on the phone, and she has a right to be. She's spent close to two weeks now trying to draw you out of the fog that you had fallen under. Doing her best to be supportive and keep you grounded while you try and weather the onslaught of your emotions, often swinging by your place if your work schedules allow to spend hours talking and exchanging some of the local drama with each other and catching up on the little things. She had also goaded you into bleaching and dying her hair late at 3 a.m., a task that you weren't fully confident in, but now the final result isn't too bad. 

She knows what happened between you and Rafe. She's the only one on this entire island that's aware of the precarious fling that had taken place between you and him and the sudden "break up" that had followed. She was the only person that you had trusted to share your secret with, and once your mood had taken a steady decline after cutting him off, you were unable to deny that the shift in your demeanor was entirely obvious, and she of all people, deserved to know the reason why. 

You received about what you had anticipated. A confused, somewhat disappointed stare in turn, as she no doubt processed why you hadn't told her sooner. The shock clearly written on her face as she wondered just how and why you had chosen to have a fling with Rafe Cameron of all people. But thankfully she had kept (most of) her thoughts and feelings to herself. For now, at least. Once the wound in you heals, you know that she'll be poking and prodding for you to give her all the details. 

For now, you can just bask in the sense of freedom that falls over you. It's like breathing after holding your breath for too long and it invites you to be shameless as you allow yourself to sway and move under the guide of the music's rhythm, taking sips of your drink until you can feel it humming in your limbs, making you light and pleasantly warm. People scattered among the space had greeted the two of you as you entered, nodding in greeting and lifting their solo cups to acknowledge you. It was nice to be seen so unabashedly, to be invited into a space without any strings attached or expectations. It just feels like another reminder that you don't need him in the slightest. With all of his insecurities and expectations for how he's perceived in the world. In his version of society. A place that you didn't fit. 

Here you're liked. You're wanted without having to give hardly anything in return. You're only expected to be present. 

It should be suffocating in Thatcher's living room, crowded by the scattered throng of people as laughter rises and falls across the air, bubbling over the 2000's pop song that blasts through the speakers loudly enough to have the walls vibrating. But the atmosphere is purely electrical, thrumming with an excitement that almost seems tangible, gliding along your fingertips and down your spine. It's lively, but comforting in a space that's decently familiar, having spent many a night in these same walls during parties just like this one, surrounded by many a familiar face. You know the people here. You've grown up with them. Many of which you had played with as a child, exploring creeks for bottles made of green and blue glass, skinning your knees from climbing trees, and breaking into abandoned buildings to explore and decorate with spray paint. 

Even if time has grown you apart somewhat, your lives forking from each other to divert you on your own paths, you can easily scan the throng and find at least ten people who you know. It brings you a sort of solace. You community is small, and your luxuries are often just as limited but there's a genuine connection between the lot of you that the Kook's will never have. 

Their relationships come with a check list. Requirements and demands that rests entirely on the number of digits in their bank accounts or how they're recognized by their accomplishments. It's all purely material. It's not a give or take, but a constant influx of give, give, give. You suppose in that aspect, you can pity Rafe. And all the other Kook's on this island. 

But you don't need to worry about all of that here. You're entirely free to do whatever you want. It could have been hours, or maybe only seconds, time seems to have poured into a blur in the middle of Thatcher's living room. Drawing down into a sluggish glide, like a thin flow of water cascading over the bend of rocks. It had taken you by surprise when a girl had run in from the adjoining kitchen, whooping loudly over the music, and she had nearly sent you and Becca tipping over when she brushed past you, tossing a handfuls of confetti as she went. 

Your irritation is only able to flourish for a breath or two before it's snuffed out when the shifting star-shaped silver begins to fall down around you like a soft scatter of rainfall. You have to cover your drink with your hand to keep it from getting contaminated from the confetti as you shift with the music, listening to the elated sound of Becca's laughter from somewhere beside you. Her attentions fixed on a guy that she's been eyeing all night. He's cute in a way, not exactly you type personally, but what you and Becca find attractive has always coexisted on a different spectrum. 

He seems to be watching her too. Sneaking glances from his place on the worn couch, but he hasn't worked up the courage to part from his friends, remaining fixed in his place as he clutches his beer. Either playing hard to get or too shy to make a move. 

"You gonna go for it?" You ask, leaning in towards her ear to be heard over the energetic tempo. 

Her face pinches like she's considering her option, nose wrinkling slightly. She has a tendency on waiting for guys to make the first move. A strategy that typically pays off in a party setting, with everyone boosted by liquid confidence, but this one in particular doesn't seem to be budging from his spot. If she was going to even attempt to approach him then she wouldn't do it without a little, gentle push. But once she works past whatever is giving her hesitation, she's pretty quick to gun for what she wants. Now you just have to nudge. 

"I don't know." She answers, shifting on her heels to get closer to you. You can hear the uncertainty in her voice, even underneath the cover of the swelling music. It has an amused smile tugging at your lips, and you fight off the urge to playfully roll your eyes at her as you dare to look back over to the guy who's been undressing her with his eyes the entire night. 

"Oh, come on," you urge, meeting her doubtful expression with your own confident one. "You've been watching each other for at least twenty minutes now. "

"Then why hasn't he made a move?" She taps her nails absentmindedly along the side of her cup. 

"Maybe he just likes the chase," you shrug. "But I've seen a couple other people here checking him out. Most notably, the tall blonde in the corner. It's only a matter of time before she swoops him up herself." 

She seems to take a pause, falling silently for a moment as though she's weighing her alternatives, but when you catch the hint of a smirk on her face you know that she's finally made her choice. She silently taps her cup to yours in a salute, and a quick, "Alright, I'm going in," as she heads off in the direction of the couch with an inviting smile on her face and an extra sway in her hips. 

As soon as she leaves, her absence is unignorable. Despite the living room being packed with people, it suddenly seems terribly hollow. There are faces scattered among the throng that you easily recognize. People who you went to high school with. A few only live down the street from you, and you see them nearly every day on your drive to work piddling around in their yards; you talk to some of them while you stand in line at the corner store to ring up the gas for your car a fountain drink. It would be easy, in theory, to walk up to just about any of them and strike up a conversation, but that suddenly seems impossible. 

It's like being in the middle of an ocean, clinging onto a scrap of wood left from the remnants of a wreck to keep you afloat in the tossing waves. The colorful array of confetti casted along the carpet, the music humming along the air like a current, the dispersed chimes of laughter floating up around you, it doesn't seem as lively as it did before. The sight of couples mingling in the corners of the room like they're the only people left alive is a nasty reminder of what you've lost. Of what you've never had to begin with. 

It has you glancing down at the inside of your cup, and it's a little frustrating to see the bottom of it, dark with only a thin sliver of what isn't even half a sip left. It has you making off towards the kitchen. Weaving through the sprinkling of bodies, carefully avoiding in accidentally nudging shoulders or running into someone as they mindlessly dance and wave their arms in the air. Lost in their own worlds. 

It's mostly empty when you pass the threshold, with only two three other people present, two of which are little more than strangers and the other is Thatcher; the small group huddled together near the cabinets. The aforementioned man responsible for the little get together perches on the counter, his head leaned against the cabinets while he talks with the pair between swigs of his sweating beer, laughing loudly with his companions. 

You don't let it stop you from approaching the kitchen table posted in the middle of the room, surveying the multiple two liters of soda and bottles of liquor that are scattered along the top, almost lost among the various chips and junk food. There's a lot to choose from, from Tito's to tequila and Fire Ball - the latter of which you can't help but to grimace at. You liked it for all of one night, and now the scent of cinnamon and overwhelming flavor of syrup threatens to make you gag every time. When you first got here, you had let Becca make your drink. A rum and Coke, you think, but it looks like someone might have finished off the bottle of liquor. 

"There's beers and stuff in the fridge," a voice sounds out, drawing your attention up from the table and across the room. It's Thatcher, watching you from underneath the scattered dark strands of his hair. He points in the direction of said fridge with the hand holding his drink. "Some of those seltzers and uh, fruity beers too - Mike's or whatever." 

"Oh, thanks," you say, crinkling the plastic cup in your hands and turning to toss in the trash can that's been blatantly placed near the table's legs. Probably so that it can't be missed. You see him nod towards his friends in your peripheral vision before slipping off the counter, the three of them exchanging words before he shuffles past them, and they leave the room, passing him knowing smiles as they slip out of the space. 

You can guess what they might be insinuating, and suddenly it leaves you feeling just a bit awkward as you move over to the fridge and tug the door open to scan its contents. True to his words there's a pack of Bud Light, the majority of the cans already gone, leaving the box nearly hollow. But the seltzers and alcoholic lemonade is still fairly plentiful. 

You've always known about the small crush that Thatcher has on you. Granted he's always been more than a little obvious with it, always following you with his eyes and popping into the Backyard on his lunch breaks from the docks, always requesting your section without fail, if more than one server happens to be scheduled. He's never been untoward or suffocating in his pursuit of you - if you could even call it that. It's always been more of a quiet admiration. He's sweet. Kind. A hard worker and boy-next-door type. The sort of guy that you should be able to see spending your life with. Except you can't. No matter how much you've tried to convince yourself, or others have tried to talk you into seeing his potential, the feelings never come. 

You can easily acknowledge that he's attractive. With a light dusting of freckles over his warm skin and defined muscles in his arms from his work on the boats. You can almost be mad at yourself for not having so much as a flicker of attraction for him. It isn't a fault of his own. There isn't some awful thing he had done to you as children, or a comment that he had made in the past that rubs you the wrong way, there's just nothing. Not an ember of want buried down deep or a flicker of consideration that maybe you really should give him a try and maybe you'll discover that he's truly the guy for you. He's patient and sweet, and it somehow does nothing for you. 

Being in his presence has never made you feel nervous before, but with the recent gash that Rafe has left in your life, the prospect of Thatcher suddenly coming to you with the insinuation of his feelings seems alarming. Like a wave that you don't have the courage to try and surf and navigate. It makes you almost regret coming here. Of letting your anger and exhaustion get the better of you to cling to an attempt to try and have a sense of freedom. 

"Have you been doin' alright lately?" He asks, and your suddenly hyperaware of his body beside your own. The inquiry has something unsteady prickling along your flesh. To prolong the silent gap between you, you unseeingly sweep your vision along the fridge and grab at one of the first cans you see before closing the door softly. You try to focus on the atmosphere around you for a few more moments, listening to the hum of the music, the ceaseless chatter echoing around you. The scent of vape fumes and weed smoke piercing the air and making it thick. 

"Uh, yeah, why?" You ask, keeping your voice light and leveled. You only pass him a look when you dig your finger underneath the tab and push it down to pop the can open with a sharp, metallic crack. 

He shrugs then, tilting his head as he considers you from his place leaned along the kitchen counter. "I don't know. You seem . . . Different. Distracted, I guess?" 

You've heard that one before. From Charlotte and the other girls at work. Even Becca herself has said that you've been quiet. Withdrawn. It makes you feel as though you're being put underneath a microscope. It forces you to be conscious of yourself. Of how you hold your shoulders, the way your arms hang at your sides, the posture of your spine. If you're smiling too much or too little, and the line between the two sometimes seem like they're merging. 

"Just personal stuff," you reply, occupying yourself by taking a sip of your drink. "It's nothing serious, honestly." 

Another small stretch of silence extends between you two, and you can see him nodding out of the corner of your eye as you shift to properly face him. 

"Okay. For what it's worth I'm here if you ever need someone to speak to. I know it can seem a little lonely when you're dealing with shit. Especially, personal, family stuff. " He clears his throat then, his eyebrows drawing close. "Sorry, I didn't invite you here to interrogate you. You're probably trying to forget it all, and I'm just reminding you-" 

"No! It's fine," you assure him in a quick rush. And it's the truth. You can't deny that the sentiment of it is nice. To know that he does care. You wouldn't consider yourself particularly close to him. You get on well enough. You've been to several of his parties, and he comes in to see you semi frequently at work, but beyond those cordial meetings, your time with him has never really extended beyond that. He was sort of part of an old friend group of yours when you were young. A friend of a friend. But age had seemed to draw you apart. You outgrew each other, it seems. But from what you remember, he was always one of the most doting. A natural part of his personality brought on from being the eldest brother to three siblings, most likely. 

Despite it all, it's a comfort. You can feel the tension that had pulled your muscle taut beginning to fade, allowing you to relax again. There's the impression of a soft smile on your mouth. A product of the relief that melts through you at the small offering of his support. It's probably not one that you'll actually seek out or indulge in, but the thought behind it is a welcome one. 

"I appreciate it." You offer a smile. 

Something shifts in his expression then. It's tender and subtle, but the implications of it suddenly terrifies you. The sight of it gives you a good idea of what is going on in his head. Of what he thinks might be happening, that an opening has just presented itself to him. It's more than enough to have that delicate sense of unease welling up inside of you again, trembling up your spine like a bolt of electricity. It urges you to make up an excuse, no matter how flimsy or paper thin it might be, but the words in your throat never rise. You feel trapped as you watch him shift awkwardly on his feet, the bottom of his shoes squeaking lowly on the fake, linoleum tiles as he prepares to speak, clearly thinking over how to make his approach. 

"Who the hell is this?" 

At first you consider that one of your earlier drinks had been spiked, and that you're suffering from a hallucination before you tip over and pass out on the kitchen floor. That could be the only possible explanation for the familiar voice that has just cut across the energetic atmosphere and uncomfortable tension. The sound of it seems to sever through you like a hot blade. The tone of it and the subtle, almost tired croak that always seems to be present in the edge its inflections searing through you like a lick of fire. 

It has your head jerking in its direction in a sharp snap and so many different things happen in you at once. Your mouth goes dry, you're certain that your heart stops and plummets down to the pit of your belly; time grinds down to a halt. The air is like static, thrumming over your skin in a way that tingles and hums. It forces you to stare like a deer caught in the headlights. 

Something about him looks rough. You can't tell if it's just the oily hue of the overhead kitchen light that's making the bags underneath his eyes more pronounced, but his face looks ragged. As though he hasn't slept properly in days; body pulled up tight with a nervous energy. His hair tousled and unkempt, as though he's been restlessly running his hands through it, knocking the strands loose to hang above his eyes, which look wild. A little blood shot as they dart between you and Thatcher, sweeping down the length of the other man's body as though he's sizing him up. It makes you worried that he's come here coked up. Fueled by chaotic emotions and drugs. 

It immediately puts you on edge, the way that he's openly evaluating him. No doubt, considering what might happen if he crosses the floor and swings on Thatcher. It's enough to rip you from your daze, the very prospect of it snapping over you like the crack of a gunshot. 

"Rafe," you gasp. "What are you doing here?" 

"I had to see you," he answers, as though it's normal. As though it was the most obvious thing in the world. He creeps forward a little bit then, as though he's attempting to approach a wild animal that might startle and dart at any second. And honestly, you feel as though you might. Your mind is scrambling, whipping around like a storm as a barrage of questions rise and swell. 

"How did you know I was here?" The question tumbles out of your mouth like something molten. Even with the unease seeping at you, you're unable to fight of the irritation burrowing beneath the surface of it all. "Are you stalking me? Do you have someone keeping tabs? What-"

"It was a lucky guess." 

Bullshit. Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit, a voice in your mind seethes. He's such a liar. It's like he's allergic to telling the truth. There's no way he had a "lucky guess" for this. There's no explanation as to how he managed to track you down to a house in the middle of nowhere. A place that you know he's never been to before. 

Thatcher stands up straighter beside you, removing himself from the support of the counter to evaluate Rafe. "Ah, do you want me to kick him out? -" 

"Why don't you keep out of this." But it isn't a question or a suggestion. It slips from Rafe's mouth sharp and venomous, a clear command. Nearly a hiss with how much disdain is etched in his words. His vision flickering from you just long enough to pin Thatcher in place. It makes you wonder how he could possibly be so cross with a person that he doesn't even know. But then again, you've seen him snap people for as something as little as looking at him for too long. 

You can practically feel the possibility of a fight in the air. Heavy and charged like the presence of electricity running through the thick of a storm with the promise of a lightning strike. You can see the hypothetical rope that's restraining Rafe fraying and straining by the second. Growing weaker and weaker. Everything about the way that he's holding himself is practically screaming that he's preparing for the possibility of a physical confrontation; shoulders set, and eyes wide and glinting in the glow of the lights in a way that looks feral. 

You hardly think when you step out in front of him, moving yourself away from Thatcher to place your body between the both of theirs until there's little more than a few feet separating you and Rafe. You hardly have time to process how close you are to him. That night in the parking lot feels like a lifetime ago. A murky, faded memory now that he's here in front of you again. You try to shove it all down as you crowd closer, drawing his focus onto you. He watches at you like you're a ghost. Like you might not be real at all. A figment of his imagination. There's a type of wonder in his expression, wide eyed and doused in disbelief. 

"You want to talk, right? That's why you're here?" You ask sharply, in a rapid fire, ignoring Thatcher as he shuffles just close enough to enter your peripheral vision. You have half the mind to warn him to back off, but you don't. 

"Yeah, I just wanna talk," Rafe answers. It sounds like another lie. His eyes are still attentive on you, the joined shades of faint gray and blue boring into you with an intensity that you long to both shy away from and bask under. You can see it now that you have to confront whatever this is. He's made it more than apparent that he won't leave you alone. That he won't back off until he's said his piece. He's a dog with a bone, and he isn't going to relent until he finally gets his way. 

"Fine." You relent, and all but slam the can of drink that you're holding on the edge of the kitchen table, nearly knocking a bag of chips down onto the floor. You swear you can see relief wash over Rafe then, slipping over from his body as though he had been held down by a physical weight. The alleviation burns bright in his stare, and a deep, silent sigh expels from his chest. It's as though you had just saved him. Tugged him out of deep, dark waters and onto solid land. 

It's Thatcher who speaks up next, standing straighter like he might dare to move closer. "Hey, are you sure that that's a good idea?" 

That's all it takes for Rafe to start forward, lunging like a guard dog. "Why don't you stay the fuck out of it, huh? She's not your girl, so do yourself a favor and keep your mouth shut." 

You have to throw yourself in front of him again, smacking your hands onto his chest to try and nudge him back. It's probably by the grace of God that he relents, yielding to the press of your hand and allowing you to push him back a few paces. You're quick to look over your shoulder to pass a glare at Thatcher. A silent signal to get him to keep silent, lest this get out of control. It's a plea and an order all once, and thankfully he complies, even while he looks like he wants to do nothing more than to meet Rafe's challenge. 

"It'll only be for a few minutes," you decide and promise; to Thatcher, to Rafe, but mostly, it just seems like you're saying it to yourself. You can see that Thatcher is uncertain. He has every right to be. You should be as well, but you can't find yourself to be swallowed by your doubt and caution. Instead, you move around him, not even bothering to check and make sure that he's following. 

You know that he is. Like a buried instinct, you can practically feel his presence running down your spine as he trails closely like a shadow. Allowing you to guide him through the living room where some people pause and turn with confused expressions as they see Rafe pass. But you do your best not to pay them any mind. Not even when you can hear hushed murmurs manage to trickle past the wild thrum of music; gossip already taking root. 

You were able to get a glimpse of Becca making out on the couch with the stranger from earlier. You wish you had it in you to be happy for her, but you're currently too busy being attacked by a chaotic swirl of emotions as you lead him down the narrow hall until you come to a door on the right. The knock that you harshly tap against the flimsy wooden panel is loud but rushed, and you hardly give anyone time to answer before you're twisting the knob and all but throwing the door open on its hinges. 

Fortunately, it's empty and you're quick to slip into the compact space, slamming it shut behind you once Rafe steps past the threshold and twisting the lock. It's all done with the sharp pronunciation of anger, quick and heavy as you try to control the absolute flood of insults and questions that threaten to spill past your lips, but you settle for leaning back against the sink, watching him with your arms crossed. 

"Well? Go on then," you encourage tersely. 

His eyebrows crease just the slightest. He shifts back, tilting on his heels while his lip's part. Like he's perplexed. "So that's how it's gonna be, then?" 

"Yep." 

He stares at you for a few beats as though he's trying to process your remark, wiping a hand along his mouth in an annoyed gesture. "Y-you just left. Without hardly so much as a word. One minute we were fine, and the next -" his hands raise up in the air in some sort of a flourish like it'll help him articulate better, " - Gone. Like nothing. Do you have any idea what that did to me?" 

For a long moment you can only stare at him. In disbelief. In complete shock honestly. You can feel your face twisting up in a snarl, but probably does nothing to show the true extent of your anger. "What it did to you? What about me, Rafe?" It comes out scathing. Dripping with contempt and it has you leaning just slightly from the support of the sink - just enough to tilt into his space. "Do you even realize how shitty it made me feel, seeing her clinging to you like a tick? No warning from you or anything. You used to sleep in my fucking bed, Rafe. I would wash your boxers with my laundry. And then what? I'm just thrown away? That easily?" 

A laugh bubbles up from you, full of scorn and mocking. You hate the lost look in his eyes. How he shuffles back a few paces, as much as the small space of the bathroom with allow, just until his back nudges with the wall and shakes the small picture frame hung there. Suddenly, he seems like the trapped animal. A nervous, wild thing that's been cornered and threatened, but you can stop yourself once you've started, and it pours out of you in a rush, talking over him as he tries to speak. Tries to defend himself with more lies. 

"I guess it's my fault though, isn't it? I shouldn't have expected anything different. How could the prince of Kildare Island be seen with someone like me, huh? I'm not rich and perfect. How could a Pogue honestly expect to be with someone like you? " Your mouth shapes into a grimace as you observe as he stands to the wall, shoulders hunching like he doesn't know what to do with himself. "What was I to you, honestly? Just a distraction? A little inside joke with yourself? A quick fuck to take the edge off when life with daddy and mommy got too rough?" 

"That's not it, okay!?" He shouts suddenly, moving forward abruptly enough to send you reeling back into the sink. Enough for the press of the porcelain to sting. "Will you just let me speak? Just - " His face pinches again, lips twisting while he draws in a deep breath as a means to steady himself. "Just let me talk." 

It makes you swallow. Burying down the nerves that prickle along your gut and beneath your skin as you watch him. You move your hands to grip the edge of the of sink tightly enough for your knuckles to ache, but you do keep your mouth shut and he seems to take your silence as the go ahead. 

t

"I didn't sleep with her, alright? I tried. But I didn't - I couldn't. " 

"Like that's any better." You scoff. It's childish, but in your defense, he's entitled. So out of touch with reality and the impact that he truly leaves on things. Unaware of the hurt that he's carved into you. You have to distract yourself by looking off; anywhere but him, and you end up scanning over a half-used bottle of body wash and a bar of soap that sits in the bathtub caddy like they're the most interesting objects in the world. 

"When I'm with you, you make me feel . . . things. Things I've never felt before. Not really." The clunky confession draws your attention to him much easier than you'd like to admit. The way that he describes his feelings is always odd. Detached. Sort of messy, like he's trying to come to terms with being a human being and doesn't know how to fully understand the gravity of his own emotions. "It was a lot to deal with. I didn't know how to. And there was all of this shit with my family and that damned Pogue sticking his nose where he shouldn't - I just needed a distraction. But it couldn't have been you. I wouldn't have been able to keep myself - " 

He seems to catch himself short. Biting his tongue to keep it at bay. And whatever it is you aren't sure. But you have to know now. He's not allowed to backtrack as soon as it gets uncomfortable for him. Not after what he had done. How he had left you and tried to pin the blame back on you. 

"You wouldn't have been able to keep yourself from what?" It surprises even you when your voice comes out soft. Far too light for the conversation you're having and all of the pain that it's digging up. But it must have some sort of effect on him. He seems to lean closer to you then, like he longs to dip into your space and is just barely resisting in holding himself back. 

When he looks at you again there's such bare vulnerability reflecting in his gaze. It nearly breaks something in you, but you hold onto your resolve. Gripping tight onto the heat of your resentment while something pathetically tender yearns to surface. It's dim and weak, but even the traces of it are enough to frighten you. To make you angry at yourself. 

Rafe himself seems to hesitate. Like he's reached a physical barrier and doesn't know how to move past it. Something about his aversion annoys you. The implications that his words have left hang heavy in the atmosphere. Thick and prickling just like the humidity outside, and it seems to cling to your skin just as it would. Uncomfortable and sticky. He looks as though he might back away again. His body curling in on itself, clearly agitated, like he means to hide from your stare. 

"Rafe," you murmur. It sounds like a plea to you; just as desperate as he looks. it almost pains you to be so delicate around him, but you can't seem to force the anger back into your voice. 

He swears lowly under his breath, muttering lowly to himself in a tone that's too quiet to make out. He nearly looks as though he's lost his mind, mumbling to himself with some sort of distress clearly visible in his posture. And then in a blur he's on you. He's crowding you into the sink, his hands cupping your face lightly as though he wants to touch but isn't sure if he can. There's something frantic about it all. Like someone trying to catch water and keep it from slipping between their fingers. And there's a glimmer in his eyes that fervent, full of need and want; pupils blown so wide that they almost seem like chasms. Like they could swallow you whole. 

"I think I love you." He says it slowly and yet it still comes out like a mess. Like he's articulating softly to try and sound out a foreign language. A tongue that he's never heard before. There's a confused edge to it. Almost as though he's in disbelief himself. 

It leaves you more stunned that anything that has left him this night. Or in the entire span that you two have known each other. There's laughter welling up inside of you, but it feels like it might be out of hysterics rather than joy, but all you can do is sit and stare at him in total silence. You think you've lost the ability to speak. Your voice is absent. A dead thing in your throat. 

"Baby, talk to me. Say something." His thumbs sweep along the swells of your cheeks, stroking you tenderly like you're something breakable. 

"That's not true." You will it out of you, forcing your voice from your chest and it rises up a pale comparison of its usual tone. Light and weak around the edges. You hate the hurt look that flickers across his face. As though you had struck him or thrusted a knife into his chest. "You wouldn't have hurt me if you did. You wouldn't have done what you did." 

"I know, but I was scared, baby." He nods in agreement. But there's still an excuse. Because there always is with him. He just can't seem to help himself and cuts you deep, prodding the wound that's already there and bleeding. It has you gripping at one of his arms, to pull him away or keep him close you aren't sure. "I was scared of us." 

"There is no us." 

"But there could be." 

He's clinging onto you with the desperate zeal of a starving man groveling at the feet of a savior. Spewing out praises and pleas to satisfy the unforgiving hunger ravaging his body. In any other circumstance, you would have delighted in seeing him so anguished. You would have gloated over it. But it's difficult to find that delight while he's making promises of you've always longed for. A promise that you know he can't really keep. Not when you're worlds apart. It makes it cruel, the way he dangles it in front of your face with so much conviction. As though he believes in his own lies. 

And you want to trust in them. So badly that it aches. It's almost like a physical agony, and it has you resisting the urge to lean into him for a comfort that only he can provide while he causes your pain. 

"Don't do this, Rafe. Please." You know that you must sound pitiful. A far cry from the rage that had possessed you only moments before, and you hate how powerless he's able to make you. How easily he can disarm you with just his presence, the sound of his voice. You're weak against him. You think that you always have been, long before the two of you had begun to hook up; always sneaking quick glances at him when he wasn't looking. Admiring him when you knew that you shouldn't have been. 

"We can do it; just you and me." He insists, curling his body closer to yours as though he's trying to cage you in; his lips nearly brushing along yours. It has his scent wafting over you, filling up the air and tainting every drag of oxygen you take until he's trapped in your lungs; all dark rum, musk, and a blend of something woody and embellished with a hint of spice. It always blends with the salt of his skin and his natural scent. The same one that had stubbornly clung to your sheets and lingered about your trailer like an unwelcome ghost for days. 

"And what happens then? When the friends you're always so worried about see you with me? How do you think they'll look at you then?" You try to manipulate some strength into your voice, but it still sounds too light, even to you. Nearly wavering. 

"They don't matter anymore. Not really. " He promises. The cradle of his hands becomes firmer in its press, sinking the warmth of his palms into your skin. "It's just you; it's always been you." 

You think that it shatters you and snaps your ire back into place all at once. Striking fire around the molten heat that had just begun to dim. But it doesn't manifest in the nature of more scathing words or a slap to his cheek. You just want him to shut up. To stop talking. Suddenly, your lips are on his, your fingers are threading through his hair as you guide him into a kiss that's all teeth and tongue; fueled by the fire and the suffering in your veins. 

A small, startled sound puffs from his chest. The only indication of his surprise before he's matching your passion with an ardor and need that leaves you just as bewildered and breathless; swept under as though a raging surf has crashed over your body. He nips at your mouth, biting at the tender flesh of your bottom lip like he means to draw blood. His nails scratch at your scalp, his fingers tensing like you might slip away otherwise and he's determined to keep you held against him while he nudges his body flush to yours. 

It quickly becomes a tangle of limbs as you both scramble to get closer, guided by the overwhelming sense of relief that smooths over you like a balm on a burn scar. The taste of him in your mouth seeming to soothe you and tear you apart all at once, but you can't find the strength to stop now that you've started. The mere idea of it seems like a damnation. Like hell incarnate. And now that he's here you can't help but to wonder how you've made it so long without him. You feel drunk on him. Intoxicated by the alcohol on your veins and the scent of him; the desire coiling in your belly like something molten and starved. 

You moan into him when he removes his hands from your face sweep them down the length of your body. Trailing them along your ribs and down to cup your ass, squeezing the shape of it as he hauls you up onto the counter and the edge of the sink so that he can wedge a place for himself between your thighs. It urges your legs to part, and you willingly let him settle between them, rucking your skirt up high on your hips as he presses against you. 

Fitting himself so close that there isn't any space left to separate your bodies. 

He already seems restless, his hips working on yours in slow, almost broken grinds. Like he's not even aware that he's doing it. Mindlessly seeking out friction while he breathes into you. It's like he's been starved, and now that he has something to feed that hunger, he's frantic and wanton. His fingers claw at you. Gripping so tightly that you know the skin beneath them is going to smart and sting later, but you almost welcome the pain. The reminder that it'll leave. 

You've been kissing for so long that it feels as though you're beginning to suffocate. The small gulps of air you've been snatching in between the nips of his teeth and the sweeps of his tongue aren't enough. There's a slight pinch in your lungs, screaming at you to pull away, but you wait only till the last second to do so. Only removing your mouth from his once you fear you could go lightheaded and faint. Still, you can't help but to mourn the loss when you break the kiss to come up for air, gasping softly to soothe the mild ache in your chest. 

Rafe's nose brushes against yours, nudging as though he's tempted to seek out your mouth again. But he grants you the mercy of occupying his own by scattering fervent kisses up the stretch of your neck, removing a hand from your hip to grip your hair instead. Using it as leverage to tug your head to the side to offer himself more of your flesh. 

It all feels so overwhelming. As though all of the nerves in your body have come alight and are burning, flaring like embers at the press of his body and the wet glide of his mouth. His tongue traces over you, lashing out to taste the salt on your skin. His lips close around the point on your neck that turns you soft, and just as easily as if he had pressed a button, your muscles seem to go taut and malleable all at once when he begins to suck. Slightly dragging his teeth over that spot, making your hips jerk against his. He's already hard. The weight of him pressing against your cunt. The motion tugs at the fabric of your underwear, and it could be embarrassing when you notice the arousal soaking the material, making it cling to your skin, but you're too deep in the want the licks up your flesh to truly care.  

He groans lowly in your ear, the noise drawing up deep and heavy from the depths of his chest. Spurred on from the restless drag of your hips as you begin to greedily chase after the bright heat that zips up your spine when you do. 

"Rafe." You moan, clinging to his shoulders like it might keep you from floating away. 

"I know, I know. I got you." He mumbles it on your skin, saying it between sharp bites of his teeth. His fingers flex again, like a physical period on the sentence. Then he's moving again. Shifting his focus down your chest to map out a string of kisses across your chest. Nipping at your collar bone and tracing his tongue over the hint of your breasts that peek from the low cut of your shirt.  Your head thumps back on the mirror as you arche towards him, seeking out the wet heat of his mouth when suddenly he pauses. His lips detach from your skin, just near enough that you can feel the light brush of them, but it's not firm enough to bring you any pleasure. 

Your eyebrows furrow close when he still doesn't move. You can't keep yourself from tilting your head down to glare at him with a frustrated scowl, lightly panting as you as you speak. "Wh - why did you stop?" 

He pulls back then, posture straightening just a bit to meet your eyes, and you can't keep the confusion off of your face when you feel something slip from between your breasts. But then a glint of gold passes into your vision, twinkling lowly in the warm light projecting over the bathroom. Dangling from his index finger and still hooked around your neck is a familiar chain. Thin and delicate, but it's the pendant that hangs from it that really captures your attention. 

Humiliation stings at your cheeks at the sight of his expression. All smug and too satisfied as he suspends the charm in front of your face, faintly swinging it back and forth like a taunt. Forcing you to confront the R and its significance; still safe and secure on your body despite everything. You can see his delight and pride glinting clearly in his eyes, and there's a comment on his tongue. 

"Don't," you warn. But despite your best efforts to sound firm, something soft bleeds around the fringes. It's playful but also sensitive. Reluctantly spirited despite all of the hurt. It dips over the heat that clouds over the atmosphere like the light fall of a delicate, scattered rain. It's frustrating how natural it feels. Like slipping into the comfort of your bed after a long day or falling back into the soothing relief that comes with giving into a bad habit. It's like a second nature. That should concern you. It should make worry and maybe even hate yourself a bit too, but the wave of self-loathing doesn't come. You can't seem to find a place for hatred when being so close to him is like coming home. 

"Don't what?" He asks cheekily. Finally, he drops the necklace. But he doesn't break eye contact as he leans forward to plant a kiss between your breasts over the obnoxious barrier of your shirt. You've never wanted to rip off a piece of fabric any more than you do now. It's almost as though he can read you mind once his hands slip beath your shirt, bunching the short, tight cut of it further up your ribs and past your breasts until its little more than a strip of gathered fabric. And then he's slipping it up around your torso and impatiently tugging it free from your arms, which you lift to aid him. Allowing him to toss it somewhere on the floor. You hear it land with a light thump, discarded and forgotten.

There's only the cover of your bra now keeping your chest from being on display, but his eyes zero in on it regardless. Eyeing the shape of your breasts as they heave against the lace clinging to them and the gold jewelry draped over your skin. That starved look is back again, melting with the smug glint in his eyes; gone dark from lust. 

"I've missed you so much." He speaks against you, speaking the words to your skin like it's a prayer. A declaration and plea for all at once. He drops to his knees then. The bottoms of his shoes lightly squeaking on the tiles as he shifts to trail the plush of his mouth down your stomach, pausing in his trail to swipe his tongue along the divot of your belly button. It makes your stomach twitch when he does it. Lurching at the liquid fire that it leaves in his wake. He playfully nips at the hem of your skirt, nosing at the button keeping it secure around your waist. "What about you, baby? Did you miss me?" 

He already knows the answer to that. You can tell by the way that his eyes fix on the pendant glinting just above the joining strip of your bra, between the cups of delicate fabric. But even with the traces of his ego still present, the desperation that was there before is still clear in the dark of his stare. He looks so vulnerable then, with his head cradled between your thighs, staring up at you like a sinner seeking absolution. You know that he's always craved to be wanted. To be needed and seen. 

You could easily tear him down right now, in the exposed state he's in. To exact the revenge that you had wanted so badly. To finally get ahold of the retribution that has haunted you for many sleepless nights. But the desire to truly do so doesn't come. The sting of anger that ravaged you before has dimmed into a weak ember, set to go dark and cold. 

Instead of lashing out, as though it has a mind of its own one your hands reach down to smooth over the side of his face. Your fingers glide over his skin and cup around the shape of his ear. His eye lashes nearly flutter when he leans into the warmth of your palm, seeking out the press of it like he needs it to survive. 

"Yeah, I missed you," you admit. You swear that he shifts closer to you at the confession. Such a minute movement that you might not have noticed it had your attentions not been so heavily fixed on him. There are the traces of a smile on his lips. But it isn't smug like before. It seems like one of relief this time. Happy and at peace. Like a sentence so small as brought him a kind of solace. 

"Yeah?" He presses a soft kiss onto your upper thigh then, holding his mouth there while a puff of what could be a breath of laughter, or a sigh of elation leaves him. "Let me show you. Can I show you?" 

The fervent pitch of his voice is loud in your ears, your dazed mind sluggishly making sense of his rushed beg. But once it connects, you don't take long to respond. Your head nods quickly in agreement, a jumbled string of yeses pouring from you in a steady stream. Anticipation thrums thick in throughout your body, smoldering and intoxicating as it winds through your veins. You've hardly done anything with him, and you already feel drunk. Like your head has been packed full of stuffing and fumes. You feel like a live wire. Running hot and searing; waiting to light up in a barrage of sparks. 

You swear you could already tip over the edge when he shoves his face between the apex of your thighs, laving his tongue over the clothed heat of your cunt without any warning. Licking you through your underwear. It all but crushes a strangled gasp from you and your hands fly to the edge of the counter to support yourself as your body curls in on itself. Doubling over from the zip of pleasure that skirts through you like the wild crack of a lightning rod. 

"You're already soaked," he groans. The vibrations of his voice doubling with the drag of his tongue and making your hips mindlessly grind into the warmth of his mouth. It feels so good, and yet it somehow isn't enough. The barrier of your underwear makes the swipe of his lips and tongue too dull. A faint comparison of what it could be. Of how good you know it really feels. 

"Ray, take 'em off." You beg, arching as he grinds the point of his nose against your clit. 

The look in his eyes is impish as he watches you from his place between your legs. The look of it is always a sign of trouble from him. Especially in situations like this, where he can easily exercise control over you by keeping you malleable and desperate on the caress of his fingers or the glide of his tongue. He'll keep you dangling on that edge for hours if you let him. Pushing and pulling you like the sway of the tide. Working you up to the precipice of something debilitating only to drop you back from it, until your pleasure ebbs away into a dull, frustrating ache. And he'll do it over and over again until your moans meld into the beginnings of a sob. But you can't do that. Not now, at least, with a hunger and want that feels like it could tear you apart by twisting inside of you. 

"Please, don't tease tonight." You pant, still mindlessly chasing after what little pleasure he gives with the roll of your hips. "Not now, Rafe. I can't-" 

"I won't. I promise," he says, placating you with kisses along your underwear, sucking at the delicate skin at the joining of your hip and thigh. "I'll play nice, hm?" 

It's only then that he's tugging your underwear off. Ripping it from you so suddenly that it would have uprooted you from your place if you hadn't already been clinging to the edge of the counter. You can hear the sharp cry of fabric giving a little as he slips it free from your legs. But you don't have time to mourn or admonish him for the loss because you're pretty sure that he pockets it, taking if for himself like the pervert he is. It wouldn't be the first pair that he's snagged from you. His probably has more of your panties than you do at this point. 

He uses his shoulders to shove your thighs far apart, using his hands to lift and drape your legs over his back as he lurches forward, smothering himself in your bare cunt. He groans into you, dropping his mouth open to swipe his tongue, lapping at you like a man starved. 

A loud, startled moan rips free from your lungs and you only have half the mind to swallow it down, making it trail off in a strangled noise. You can still hear the party living on just outside the thin barrier of the door. The music and chatter from beyond it trickling past in a muffled hush. From deep in the living room there would be no possible way for them to know what's happening, but if someone was to walk past the bathroom it would be more than apparent as to what the both of you are doing inside. 

 Rafe isn't having it. He lands a soft smack on the outside of your leg, mostly just to catch your attention, but the subtle sting of it makes you gasp regardless. It forces you to return you focus to him, looking down at him as he watches you with eyes that seemed glazed and almost drunk. He just barely pulls back, his lips still sweeping over you while his tongue brushes over your clit in soft licks as he talks in a slurred sort of tone: "Don't hold yourself back like that. Let them hear you. I want them to." His voice dies down then, falling into an almost crazed murmur in between the drag of his mouth. But you are certain that you can make out scraps of what he's saying in between the messy, wet sounds coming from your pussy and the pants of breath rising from his lungs. Something along the lines of "especially him - I'll kill him." 

Regardless of who he's referring to (even though your addled brain slowly gathers that it's more than likely Thatcher), it should concern you. The threat that easily slips from him as though he's proposing something as simple as taking a joy ride around the island or making a remark about an annoying coworker. It's supposed to be disturbing, especially when you know that violence comes easily to him. Sometimes as simple as breathing. As though it's engraved in his DNA, part of his genetic coding. 

You know deep down, in the pit of your soul that the remark isn't one to simply pass off. It isn't just a product of his mood or a fleeting result jealousy; it could very well be a promise. He's always been protective over what he deems as his. If anything poses a threat to his happiness or comfort, he's quick to lash out. He doesn't shy away from the possibility of violence, bloodied knuckles or busted noses and broken wrists. 

You had seen the way that he had looked at Thatcher earlier. Like a guard dog staring down a potential intruder through the bars of a fence, eyes wild and locked on. You hate to admit that you liked it a little then too. The glimmer of satisfaction that had zipped through you then had been so easy to ignore underneath all of your confusion and frustration, but here and now, with his head buried between your thighs and his fingers tensing around your skin, it's impossible to disregard. 

His jealousy had been clear as day underneath the warm hue of the kitchen light. Naked for the world to see. Thatcher had to have noticed it then. He would have to be an idiot not to. Rafe came here to find you, trailing after you through the crowd of Pogue's and locals just so that he could speak to you. His reasons for showing up to this party in the middle of nowhere was obvious to everyone, and it pleases some twisted little part of you to know that gossip must already be circulating around the rooms just outside. Whispers about you and the prince of Kildare Island himself that would quickly spread beyond these very walls and make their way to town to be scattered amongst the population. To the two-faced old women of the church on Driftwood Parkway and all the way down to the rich men in khaki's as they cruise across the green in their golf carts. 

Just about everyone on this island would know about you and him by the time that the sun sets tomorrow over the waves and douses Kildare in the dark. Just the prospect of it nearly pleases you as much as the glide of his tongue splitting you open does. Dipping inside the entrance of your cunt like he means to drink your soul from you. The combination of it all threatens to make you double over again, and to keep yourself from writhing off the counter you thread your fingers into his hair. Using the grip of it to grind your hips against his nose and the heat of his mouth. Your head knocks back on the mirror with a dull thump as a cry shakes itself free from your ribs, pitching and ragged. 

"Rafe - oh fuck. God." 

"Mmm, nah, not God - it's just me." Comes his response. It's so cliché and corny that you would have rolled your eyes and scoffed at him were you not too busy trying to gulp down oxygen in between your labored breaths. All you can do is manage an exasperated, playful frown in response, but you can see amusement flicker in his own gaze at the sight of it. 

His apparent delight is enough for you to scramble enough air together to form a sentence, but it comes out winded; slow and choppy around the edges while you force it out. "You're so lame, Ray." 

"Well, you're stuck with me. Now don't interrupt me." Then he's taking your clit into the cradle of his tongue and sucking. Laving it with small licks that turn your thoughts slow and syrupy. You hardly notice that he's pressing a finger against you, gathering the slick of your cum before slipping it inside, stretching your walls around the thickness of it; so much longer and wider than your own. It has your jaw dropping at the added pleasure and your hips twist up when he trusts it in deep. Finding that depilating spot that leaves you a mess with a practiced precision, reaching it so easily, just as he's done countless times before. 

He chases after the jerk of your hips. Keeping his mouth fixed to you while he hurtles you closer to drowning in bliss. The influence of your approaching orgasm starts to crest with a speed that's dizzying, and you feel as though you hardly have any time to brace for it. It has your free hand scrambling across the stretch of the counter, blindly seeking for something else to hold on to, but all you succeed in doing is knocking down a bottle of mouthwash, sending it toppling over the edge to clatter on the floor below. 

You can feel it fizzling at your fingertips and toes. Skirting down your spine like a zip of electricity, like a drizzle of scorching honey. Your body is drawing up tight. The muscles in your abdomen already seizing to mangle the pleasure from your body. 

"Ray-Rafe, I'm gonna cum. You're gonna make me cum." 

He doesn't bother coming up for air. Instead, his free hand slips up your thigh and reaches for your own. For the same one that had been mindlessly clawing for something to reach onto, and it makes your heart ache a little bit when he takes it in his own. Threading his fingers with yours for you to squeeze. It's a gesture that's far too sweet for a person who's currently eating you out in someone else's bathroom, but the pressure of his palm on you, the chill of his ring on your warm skin, the intimacy behind it, is enough to throw you headfirst into the throes of an orgasm. 

You moan his name when you cum. Repeating it over and over again like a mantra that might save you as your bliss rips through you. But it's the support of his hair threaded through your fingers and the weight of his hand held in your own that serves to keep you grounded while you coast through the flood of warm and pleasure. It ebbs away slowly. Slipping from your body like melted sugar being poured down the drain and stubbornly catching in place. But it doesn't stop. It stretches out in front of you and begins to shift into something tainted by licks of fire and shocks of electricity. 

It's too much. Blending between the lines of pleasure and pain. You need to catch your breath. To properly orient yourself but Rafe hasn't removed his mouth or his fingers from you. It's like your nerves have been lit on fire and it only heightens when he slips a finger in along the next, curling them together to stretch you out around them. 

"Rafe, I can't." You nearly sob, your back impulsively bows and twists to try and shuffle your hips out from underneath the constant swipe his tongue but he stubbornly keeps himself in place. 

He parts his lips from you only long enough to speak out a harsh reply, his voice firm and rigid while he pins you with a stare that's equally unwavering. "You can and you will. You've done it before; just ride it out and take it, baby." 

And then he's on you again. Smearing your pussy open with his mouth, which suddenly feels too hot. It's a sweet sort of torture. One that you've never fully gotten used to, as much as you like it. It's like grasping onto a pop of lightning; searing underneath your flesh and ravaging you from the inside out. He's gone down on you for hours before, spurred on by the stresses brought on by his family and the weight of the world on his shoulders. It's a sort of stress relief for him, in some way. He gets a kind of peace out of it. From keeping you underneath his mouth and working orgasm after orgasm out of you until you're a wet, incoherent mess. Even while you benefit from it, it's more than apparent that it's mostly for his pleasure. 

A set of your favorite silk sheets had been ruined because of it. Nothing that a cycle in the one of the trailer park's community wash machines hadn't taken care of, but the point still stands. He had kept you there for hours, pinned down on your bed while he used your body, wringing it of its pleasure and getting drunk on the taste. You had lost count of how many orgasms he had pulled from you after the third one. You can only hope that he isn't that starved for it tonight. You don't think that you'll survive it. Not here at least, while you're held up in Thatcher's bathroom. 

But it seems that a small mercy has been bestowed upon you with how another coil of bliss begins to wind up tight, closely trailing after the influence of your previous orgasm. It's running up on you so much quicker than the first. Zipping through your body at a breakneck pace, spurred on by the curl of his fingers, and strengthened by the traces of ecstasy that still flood your system. 

The movement of his fingers flexing and stroking inside of your send little shocks of static zipping inside of you. Still bordering on something almost painful, but it only serves to tip you that much closer to the precipice. Promising to toss you over the edge as he lightly shakes his head while he drinks down your arousal. 

You gasp as you look down, taking in the sight of him through the rapture turning your mind into mush. He looks blissed out, eyes slipped closed and the worried pinch between his eyebrows has smoothed out. The traces of your cum has smeared across his nose and the corners of his cheeks, glinting softly in the light. He seems just as intoxicated it as you. Soothed by the taste of your cunt and the scent of sex in the air. It's filthy. 

You hardly register being swept under by your pleasure, but it tugs you down ruthlessly. Seeming to snatch you by the throat and leave you breathless as you twitch and jerk beneath his mouth, and you're hardly able to hear his words of encouragement as he thrusts his fingers deeper to help ease you through the thick of it. "There you go. Just ride it out and give it to me." 

Your body bends the command like its gospel; hips twitching to the rhythm that his fingers have set to further chase after the dull flickers of heat biting at you at you and sinking in the base of your spine. It turns your blood into something molten, and your muscles go pliant like melted wax, leaving you to sag against the mirror like dead weight; the sink presses almost painfully into your back but you're too spent to shuffle from it. He lets up only once a sharp hiss escapes you, slipping past your teeth in a thin sigh. He's careful when he removes his fingers free from you, shuffling up from his kneeled position on the floor to stand on his feet. His drags his tongue over his fingers as he does so, cleaning the taste of you off of them as he watches you with an intense stare, releasing them from his mouth with a pop that seems to ring out across the close walls of the bathroom. 

He crowds into your space suddenly, his body now flush with yours. His chest heaving as though he had just run a marathon. "You did so good, always such a good girl for me." He murmurs as he places a kiss to your forehead, undeterred by the perspiration that dampens your skin. It's another soft moment between you both. Like an echo of all the ones just like it from the past, hidden under the guise of an odd camaraderie, always dancing around the emotions that truly lied beneath. This feels so much more natural than that. No longer self-conscious or restrained. 

It makes everything seem light and airy. Probably a side effect of the dopamine now rushing through your veins and the remaining traces of alcohol, but there's no mistaking the soft look in his eyes. The peaceful expression on his face, now free of the clear agitation that had drawn his body tight just earlier. It has you reaching out for him. Smoothing your hands up his arms, feeling the texture of his shirt as they trail up his shoulders - a dark black shade. One of your favorite colors on him. Something that you had casually shared with him once, and it makes you smile to think that he had purposely worn it to come and see you. 

Your fingers thread through the hair at the nape of his neck, carefully scratching your nails along the sensitive skin there. It feels like a reward when a pleased sigh puffs from his chest, and he props his forehead against yours to stare into your eyes. His own hands come up to trail over your bare thighs, messaging the flesh there as he runs them up and down their length, prompting you to lift them to wrap around his waist. Tugging him closer despite the slight tremor running through your relaxed muscles. 

You feel almost impossibly close to him now. As though a pocket has been carved in time and made for the both of you; intimate and private. Even with the dim chatter of the party and the dull hum of music drifting through the flimsy door, and the possibility of people standing just outside, listening in to gawk and recount what they've heard and seen. The Kook prince himself is fucking a Pogue. You'll no doubt get looks once you finally leave this little space. Some will be curious and shocked; others will probably be out of disgust and maybe even horror. But that seems so trivial right now. None of it has a place in this moment. It's secondary. And you can't be bothered to give it any attention while he watches you as though you've created the heavens themselves, the same ones that glimmer and wink above this very island. The striking blue of his eyes seeming to burn with something that seems a lot like admiration. 

"Hi," you breathe. It sounds a little corny. Kind of dumb, even to you, once you fully register what you've said, but it's all that seems fitting. It's like you're meeting him all over again, as dramatic as that may be. Like you're seeing him for the first time. You can only hope that it isn't just from the high of sex - that it won't all wear off and vanish as soon as you both leave this room and face reality. 

"Hey, pretty girl." He returns with a smile of his own. It urges you to lean that much closer to him, drawing your legs up tighter around him to seek out his natural warmth. He complies easily, allowing you to press him flush to you, almost molding your bodies together. It soothes the wounded ache in you that still lies beneath the surface of it all, stinging lowly under the haze of bliss and pleasure. The warmth of him and the pressure of his body smoothing over the hurt like a compress. 

But the press of him against your inner thigh draws everything to a hush, hot and heavy under the material of his pants. It shouldn't be possible, but the subtle weight of it against you has another flicker of lust lashing between your hips. Smoldering and heating up like a handful of embers. And suddenly the scent of him filling the air is tempting, all dark musk and cardamom. It's mouthwatering, settling deep in your lungs with every drag of your breath. 

It's almost instinctual when you slip one of your hands free from the back of his neck to glide it between the press of your bodies, playful trailing your fingers down and past the stretch of his abdomen until you're able to cup him through the material of his pants. A groan rumbles out from his chest, deep and drawn out before bleeding into a low, almost strained "fuck." 

"Still need you, Rafe." You brush your lips over his, gathering the traces of your arousal that's smeared on his mouth onto your own like a vulgar sort of gloss.

"Yeah, shit, okay," he agrees. He nods frantically in agreement, pulling himself back from you just enough to give you the space to start undoing his pants, but your fingers slip on the button, slightly slick from the sweat on your skin and uncoordinated from the zeal of your excitement. Rafe isn't patient enough for you to make a second attempt it seems, restlessly batting your hands away with a somewhat snappy, "Jesus, just let me do it," huffing from him as he reaches to slip the button through the puncture in the material. 

The urge to snap at him rises up, but it's snuffed out just as quickly when the sharp metallic sound of the zipper being tugged down its teeth cuts across the heavy air. It all happens in quick succession after that. He tugs his pants down just enough to free the length of his cock. He doesn't give you the ability to admire him, because he's tugging you forward by your thighs, parting the sliver of space between your bodies to drag the head against the slick entrance of your cunt, still wet and messy from the mixture of your cum and his spit. 

He tilts his face to be able to speak against your lips, gazing into your eyes with a determination and fervency that seems to cut through you, holding your attention hostage even as one of his hands comes up to grip the nape of your neck. All but pinning you in place.

"I want you to scream for me. Don't you dare fucking hold back." 

That's all the warning you get before he's shoving himself inside of you with a single thrust. Burying himself all the way to the hilt, forcing your walls to give and stretch around his girth. Even with the aid of your previous orgasms making you pliant and soaked, there's still a dull ache that zips through you as your cunt clenches around the shape of him. The force of him inside of you all but strikes the air from your lungs, and it leaves your hands to scramble across his shoulders, your fingers gripping and clawing at the fabric of his shirt to ground yourself. 

He doesn't waste any time by starting in a slow pace to gradually work up to something greater. He's moving fast and hard from the very start. Thrusting himself in and out of you like he's desperate. All but punching himself into you with enough force to rattle your head back on the glass of the mirror, and with how many times you've knocked against it tonight, you have to send a fleeting prayer up to the universe that it won't shatter and break. 

It's like he's trying to make up for lost time. Like he's trying to drill all of his frustrations into you; all of his pent-up anger, humiliation and regret; to make you feel what he's feeling. Or maybe he's just trying to prove a point. To himself, to you, and all of the people outside. That you're his. It leaves you clinging onto him. Holding on while he drives himself into you with a passion that's almost brutal. You can practically feel yourself going stupid. Going pliant and dumb on his cock at it drags through you, gliding against your walls in a way that makes you feel all of him, every little detail. Every single inch is heightened by the veins that run down his length, starting from the base to trail down near the head. He used to go crazy whenever you would glide your tongue over them, throwing his head back and moaning with the sound of your name or a curse under his breath. 

You almost wish that you could have him in your mouth right now. To see him break underneath something as simple as your tongue and the heat of your mouth, but you think that you could die if he pulled out of you. It would be a horrendous sort of torture. Worse than death. 

"God, you're such a fucking slut, hm?" He almost croons it. Mean and condescending as he grips your cheeks to get you to look at him. Making you get lost in the flecks of cerulean and hints of gray that's nearly become swallowed by the width of his pupils. "Letting me fuck you like this, in some Pogue's bathroom while everyone stands outside. They're probably listening right now; you know that, right? Standing outside while they listen to you moan like a whore." 

It's downright degrading how he's speaking to you. It should hurt you to some degree, or make you irritated at the very least, but all it does is make you clench around him harder. Your pussy seizing up around his length like it's trying to suck him inside to keep him there. And he feels it too. You know he does based on the nasty smile that breaks across his face; teeth baring in what almost looks like a snarl. All arrogant and mean. 

"Yeah, that's right. Not even gonna deny it, are you?" He uses the hand still secure around you jaw to shake your head for you as though you're a doll. Using how malleable you've been reduced to for his own benefit. "That's right. Cause you're mine. " 

You find yourself nodding out of your own volition then, drawing up enough focus to will yourself in moving your head around the grip of his hand to agree. You can tell that it pleases him. His expression is one of pure, arrogant delight, and you know that he'll be riding the high of having you dumb, and cock drunk like this for days. His ego always manages to find a way to inflate whenever he succeeds in turning your brain into liquid and mush; until you're practically mindless and stupid. It used to have him striding around you trailer with a satisfied glint in his eyes. The traces of a smug smirk on the edge of his lips as he'd rummage through your fridge for leftovers or dig through your cabinets for a snack before he'd leave (unsurprisingly, Kildare's most spoiled rich boy can't cook worth a shit - he's burnt eggs black before and left your trailer tinged with smoke that took a good two days to get aired out). 

But you can't find it in yourself to be exasperated or annoyed with him while you're too occupied surviving the white-hot heat shooting throughout your body, drizzling down your spine like a vat of liquid sugar to settle between the cradle of your hips. It's too much. It's like being torn to pieces but in the most delicious way possible; you don't want it to stop. You want to stay here, suspended in this moment with the scent of sex and the musk of his cologne staining the air. With the warmth of his body seeping deep into your bones while he uses you for his pleasure while throwing you headfirst into your own; the sound of his name repetitively falling from your lips. 

So it's completely cruel that he suddenly pulls out of you, leaving you torturously empty and on the edge of something cataclysmic. A confused, annoyed look crosses your face, and a complaint rises to the tip of your tongue as you openly scowl at him. Though you don't get the opportunity to voice it. 

"Turn around. " He commands impatiently, but he doesn't even give you the chance to try and shuffle free from your perch on the counter. It's all an abrupt rushing blur when he tugs you from your spot and forces you onto your feet. His hands settle on your waist, fingers greedily gripping the shape of them as he spins around you on your heels and bends you over with the firm press of his hand. A gasp rattles from your ribs as he pins you on the sink, leaving you exposed to the gluttonous sweep of his eyes. 

Then he's kicking your legs apart, spreading you open to bare you to him and without any warning he's slipping himself back inside in a single, long thrust. It has your jaw dropping open, your lashes fluttering at the sensation of it ripping through you, all liquid and smoke. Now that he has you facing the mirror, it gives you no other option but to watch you both as he begins fucking you again. It's like a magnet to metal, the way that your vision flickers up to him. Seeking out the sight of him as he works you closer to that debilitating end.

Not even the way that the harsh edge of the counter digs into the bend in your hips is enough to distract you from it. The pinch of it fading into a dull ache. He looks beautiful like this. Even as he does something as vulgar as watching the sight of his cock ceaselessly plunging into you. It's as though he's hypnotized by it, his own focus fastened to where the two of your bodies join. Where the smack of your skin meeting his sounds out from; the wet slap of him thrusting in and out of your pussy. 

There's a blush on his cheeks, and a sheen of sweat glinting softly on his skin like a dusting of pale gold. It almost makes him look angelic. That should be impossible for someone as frantic and violent as Rafe, but there's no denying that there's something gorgeous about him, as volatile and unpredictable as he can be. The sounds falling from past the parted shape of his lips are beautiful. His moans and the almost drunken cursing and rambling douse your nerves with heat and rapture every time he speaks; slurred and low like he's falling apart in the best way possible. 

It took you forever to convince him that it's okay to vocal in bed. That the sound of him groaning is a turn on. For the longest time he thought it was a joke, like you were trying to trick him into embarrassing himself. Some odd form of toxic masculinity, you think. But you had finally succeeded in getting him to be comfortable with it, after what must add up to days of convincing him and getting him to moan in bed, he finally gave in. And now it's almost impossible to get him to shut up - not that you would ever dare such a thing. You wouldn't dream of depraving yourself of it now that you have it. 

He finally looks up from between your bodies, and you don't miss the way that his eyes nearly roll in the back of his skull, lashes fluttering. He meets your stare in the reflection of the mirror, and that mean smile makes its way on his face again. But it's gone nearly just as quickly as it had appeared. His mouth drops open in a deep groan when your cunt clenches tight around his girth, a crease pinching between his eyebrows to make an expression that almost looks pained. 

He leans over you then, hooking his chin over your shoulder to nuzzle his nose against your head to speak into your ear, not breaking eye contact with you even for a split second. "You're not allowed to leave me again. You can't this away from me. You're not gonna take yourself away - not again." 

It's structured like a command. Or manic ravings. Regardless, it would enough to send anyone else running the other way and ducking for cover. Someone with common sense, maybe. But the tone of his voice is so desperate. Fragile and a little distraught. Like the very thought of you slipping from him could send him into a spiral. It has so many different things rising up inside of you: a sick type of satisfaction. The hurt in you pleased to see him in just as much pain. To know that you're not the only one who's been scarred. But there's the urge to soothe him as well. To cradle the parts of him that have been broken and kicked - by the world, his family. To nurse the wounds that have been left on him. They all gave up on him, but you don't think that you can. 

It has you tilting your head back to give him access to your neck, and like a moth to a flame he immediately dips his face to tuck it into the junction of your shoulder. Nipping at the skin with his teeth and breathing in your scent like it's a drug. One of your hands lets go of the iron clad grip it has on the edge of the counter to clutch at his hair, threading through the thick of it and grazing your nails close to the nape of his neck. 

It draws his attention back on you, making him tilt his head just enough to meet your eyes again in the reflection, pinning you with a stare that seems to communicate so much. It's a silent plea and a devout order all at once. A beg that you won't slip away from him. 

"Just as long as you don't leave me first," you answer. Your voice is full of conviction, even as it wavers just the slightest. The sound of it weakened by the breathlessness in your lungs and the brutal pace that he's managed to maintain; still thrusting himself into you as though he needs it to survive.

He speaks into your skin then, answering you in a low mutter. Nearly a whisper: "I won't. I won't, I promise." 

One of his hands shoves your hips down flat on the counter. It slips your hand from his hair and forces your spine to curve into a more pronounced arch that somehow makes him feel deeper than before. Hitting that spot inside of you with every single stroke. Forcing a gasp of air from your chest every time his hips meet yours, making your toes curl in your shoes. The position that he's tiled your spine into almost stings. The ache of it licking up your back but can't find it in yourself to complain. Or even really care. Not with the way that it's rendering you completely mindless. Seeming to knock a thought from your head with each grind and thrust. 

One of your hands flies up to the sink. Your fingers claw and grasp around the shape of it, clenching around the cool steel like it's a lifeline, but it does little to offer any semblance of support to guide you through the high that's beginning to overwhelm you. It bleeds along your toes and sears up your fingertips and up your spine like a current. It has your body going slack, muscles falling weak. It's almost as though you've been tazed when your head drops against the counter. The weight of it suddenly too much for your neck to hold up. 

It's like everything's been plucked free from your skull. Leaving it an empty pocket, a vacant space that only Rafe occupies. You can't focus on much more than that now. You're lost in the pleasure lighting you up from the inside out and eating you alive. It's only the vague details that you're still able to register. Like the smear of your arousal slipping down your thighs, pushed out of you each time he pulls out to fill you up again; the sting of the counter's lip digging into your hips; the smack of his balls hitting your clit with every stroke, sending sparks around your cunt, making it clench and pulse around his length. You think that you might be drooling, but you aren't entirely sure; saliva slipping past your lips as your mouth hangs open.

You can hear yourself moaning over the rush of blood roaring in your ears. Breathless, pitchy moans rising in the humid air each time he pumps into you, rolling his hips in a way that's almost mean. The zeal behind every movement would have the crown of your head knocking into the sliver of wall beneath the mirror if it wasn't the secure grip he has on your waist, keeping you held in his grip so that he can control your movements. Practically using your own weight and pliancy to fuck you back onto his cock. 

You try meeting his thrusts on your own, but his hold on you is rigid, and the rhythm he moves in is punishing. At this point he's just using you, and simultaneously using himself to get you off like it's his job. 

"You're so tight," he groans. You can't see his face, not with the side of your own pressed to the counter and your eyes squeezed shut, but you can hear the smug edge in his tone. He's absolutely thrilled with the state he's reduced you to for the second - third time this night. "You're squeezing me, baby. Gonna kill me if you keep doin' that." 

But he quickly contradicts his statement, gripping onto your hair to pull up and off of the counter. Just enough so that he's able to slip his other one past your hips and the fabric of your skirt to glide his fingers around your soaked cunt, just above where he thrusts into you. Gathering your cum on his fingers, and then his slipping them up to circle around your clit. 

You would have doubled over if it wasn't for the hold he has on your hair, keeping you held in place. A flare of pain bites across your scalp, but it's a shadow in comparison to the ecstasy flooding your system. It might be dramatic, but a small part of your brain wonders if you'll survive the onslaught of it all once it finally slams over you. It's hurtling towards you again. A rising tide that's set to drown you and hold you down. It flares underneath your skin, skirting across your nerves and leaving traces of heat behind. 

It has your body winding up tight again. The muscle connecting you and holding you together seizing up in preparation to wring you dry of every ounce of pleasure, and Rafe is determined to get you there. Working himself inside of you in a way that has your eyes threatening to roll back, his fingers sweeping tight figure eights over your clit, making your abdomen draw up harshly. 

"Shit, Rafe - my God." 

"I feel you about to cum again. I know you're close. " He says it in your ear, slipping his hand from around your ear to grip your throat, using the leverage to tip you back towards his chest. His nose nudges along your cheek and you can feel the brush of his lips glide over the edge of your jaw. "Just let go. You know you want to. I want you to cum on it. Give it to Daddy, baby; let me feel you, pretty girl." 

It's like your body was waiting for his permission, and now that it has it, it's caving in and sweeping you under. Time seems to blank out as a field of stars bursts across your vision. All of it flattening and smearing into a distorted blur with your sense of sound dimming into something dull and muffled. The only distinguishable noise is the roar of your heart thundering in your ears like a warped drum. It makes you lost, muscles lax and completely reliant on him to keep you upright. 

It probably only takes seconds for you to come back to yourself, but deep in the throes of it, it feels like years have passed. As though you've been frozen in place and dipped in hot wax and electricity. It bursts in your bones and the pit of your stomach, making your body tremble with aftershocks as it struggles to ride out the waves of bliss ravaging through you. 

It takes a minute for your brain to orient itself. For you to become aware of your limbs and the support underneath you, the drag of Rafe's cock still splitting you open. It's beginning to border on too much again. The pleasure is leaning on too sharp and bright, making you hiss under your breath. But Rafe is close. You can hear it in the groans spilling from him. You can feel it in the glide of his hips. The once hard, smooth rhythm faltering into something broken. 

"Where do you want it?" He gasps in between raged pants. A glimpse in the mirror lets you see his face and the grimace taking up his expression. Like he can hardly stand the pleasure overtaking him - like it's tugging him apart at the seams and might not leave anything of him left behind. His grip is harsh on the length of your neck. His other fingers squeezing tight on your hip. Hard enough that it's going to smart the skin underneath, and it's with a shaky sense of strength that you manage to lift a hand up to slip over his hold on your hip. Your fingers threading alongside his. 

You feel as though you can hardly breath, forcing your lungs to expand and pull in oxygen. Trying to give yourself enough air to form a sentence, and you just barely manage to do that. You practically have to force it out of your throat. "Inside. I'm still on the pill-" 

That's all you get to say before he's doubling over you with a long groan. Driving himself into you a few more final, sloppy thrusts. They're sharp and heavy from the force behind them as he tries to work out every possible scrap of pleasure, a rush of heat spreading throughout you as he cums inside - thrusting his hips into yours one last time and holding himself there. Making you take every possible drop. 

That's how the two of you stay. Pressed against each other and floating in your own euphoria as the high in your vein's flows and ebbs through your limbs and fills your head with an empty kind of euphoria. You can feel the rise and fall of his chest against your back, syncing with your own as you try to level out your breathing. You aren't sure how long you stay that way, with Rafe draped along your back just barely holding himself up with your joined hands now splayed out on the counter. The thumb around your throat idly sweeps along your pulse point, tracing over your skin like he means to count the racing of your heart. 

It all feels thick and syrupy. As though your limbs have been left to soak in a pool of warm water. As pleasant as it is and as hesitant as you are to move, the weight of him simultaneously sagging against you and keeping you held up is straining on your spine and shoulders. The desire to shift from your position is dull, but the ache in your body demands otherwise. You lightly nudge him in the ribs with your elbow, reluctantly mumbling for him to move. To which he complies with a quick, alright, alright, I got it, huffed out, but it lacks any real bite as he detaches himself from you. 

It makes you uncomfortably aware of the sheen of sweat that clings to your skin, and when he finally pulls out of you it's even worse. You both groan from overstimulation when he removes himself from you to tuck his cock back into his pants, the metallic cry of the zipper ringing off of the bathroom walls. You can feel his cum trickling down your thighs, smearing across your skin and beginning to cool. 

Now that the high of it is wearing off, you just feel gross. It has you turning on your heels to face him, the bottoms of your shoes squeaking on the floor as you pivot to lean your back against the counter with an exhausted sigh. You let your head thud back against the mirror again, but you can't find it in yourself to care this time. Not while you can barely hold yourself upright; the buzz of sex still pleasant and clinging in your body. 

You hadn't even realized that you've closed your eyes until a sharp clatter has them opening. Your head also turns on its own, leaning to glance over to your right where Rafe stands alongside you, rummaging through a narrow set of cabinets fixed between the sink and the bathroom door, carelessly glancing around the folded piles of towels and wash cloths. 

Your eyebrows furrow as you watch him while your sluggish brain connects the dots. As soon as you come to the realization, you can feel the opposition on the tip of your tongue - ready to say no. To tell him that you can just wad up a pile of toilet paper instead, but he's already plucking a towel up from one of the shelves and gently nudging past you to run the tap, the knob quietly squeaking as he twists it on. 

You don't hide your exasperated look when he shuffles away from your side to stand in front of you, reaching to spread your thighs open. You hiss when he runs the damp cloth over you, cleaning up the mess you both made with the aid of the warm water he's soaked the fuzzy material in. You appreciate the gesture, but you still don't think that he had to ruin someone else's towel to do it. 

"Really?" You ask, tilting your head as you watch him. 

His eyebrows perk up just the slightest when he meets your unamused stare, but he doesn't seem to be troubled by it in the slightest. Once he's finished, he tosses the soiled cloth across the room and into the bathtub without so's much as a glance.

"What? We already fucked in the bathroom; I don't think a towel is going to do that much more damage." He just shrugs, unbothered and nonchalant as he answers. Then that amused, smug smile is on his face again as he casts a look towards the door. "Unless you wanna walk out of here with my cum pouring out of you. I won't complain." 

You can't help but to roll your eyes at him while you reach down to tug your skirt from where it had rucked up, smoothing it back down to cling over your thighs, but the expression seems much more playful and relaxed than it should probably be. His usual brand of douchie, cocky sarcasm is already making a comeback now that the tension has left him. It should annoy you, probably, but it soothes you more than anything. It's a comfort, as odd as it may be, to see him gradually resorting back to himself. Arrogant, and a little obnoxious, but in a way that you find entirely endearing. 

He notices the traces of the smile on your face. You can tell by the way that his own goes from gloating to a little soft. The tenderness of it reflecting in his eyes as he closes the space between you to settle himself close. His lips are on yours then, drawing you into a kiss that's so much slower than the first. The desperation and the anger between you both having settled and died out like a fire. Now there's nothing left but ease and a relaxing calm. It makes it unhurried and languid as he leads your lips to move against his. 

It doesn't last for long though, eventually breaking off for you to come up for air. His eyes are still a little glazed over when you meet them. Dopey from the high of sex, and knowing him, a line or two. He seems so far off from the nervous wreck that he usually is. Free from the aggression and arrogance that usually taints everything he does. 

But he's soft with you. Gentle when he wants to be - gentle with you. Only you. And it's going to stay that way if you have anything to say about it. 

"Don't ever pull that shit again, Ray." You warn, dipping your voice into something stern despite the affection blossoming in the pit of your chest. " I swear I'll castrate you if you do." 

Something like a snicker puffs past his lips, like he finds the prospect entertaining. Or maybe he just likes you being possessive over him. It's probably that. Regardless, he leans closer to you, pulling you closer by your waist and stroking his hands down your hips. "Yes, ma'am, I'll keep that in mind." 

You don't get to respond to him. A knock rattles against the door, slow and light enough that it nearly sounds hesitant. Still it causes you to flinch a little, nearly jerking you out from underneath Rafe's hands but he maintains his grip on you, assisted by the way that the counter keeps you blocked in place. 

"Hey, uh, I'm not trying to . . . interrupt anything, but you've been in there for a minute, so I just wanted to check and make sure that you're alright." The voice that bleeds past the barrier of the old wood is muffled from the thick of it, but just loud enough that you're able to recognize it as Thatcher's. Embarrassment floods you at the realization. Especially when you briefly think back on your old statement you had promised to him just before leading Rafe out of the kitchen. It'll only be a few minutes. That's what you had told him then. It's definitely been longer than that. Probably closer to thirty - if not longer. 

You let your forehead thump against Rafe's chest, a low, defeated sigh leaving you as you consider what to say next. An apology would probably be in your best interest. Just to be polite, for what little it's worth, considering that you and Rafe have all but defiled his bathroom. It makes you wonder how you're even going to be able to walk out of here without cringing underneath the weight of everyone's intrigued - if not disgusted - stares. 

"I just made her cum three times in a row, man, but yeah, she's 'alright.' " Rafe replies, irritation and contempt lacing his words like a venom. You truly wish that the floor would split open to swallow you whole as soon as you register what he said. All you can manage is pulling yourself back enough to shoot him a withering glare, but he doesn't appear to be affected by your look in the slightest, far too busy scowling at the door. 

"Rafe," you snap. You try to collect yourself, mentally shaking off your humiliation as best as you can and dipping your voice into something pleasant and even to be heard through the door to answer Thatcher. "Yeah, I'm fine. We'll be out in a minute. For real this time." You almost wince when it leaves your mouth. The awkwardness of the situation stretches on when Thatcher doesn't answer immediately. There's a pause and silence before an unsure, stiff "alright" rises up from outside before he presumably leaves. 

A relieved sigh leaves you, the breath you were holding leaving you like a deflating balloon as you allow yourself to lean into Rafe once again, finding solace in his warmth to try and detach yourself from the embarrassment of the encounter. His arms slip around you easily. Shifting to take you around the waist in a loose hold that has all of your thoughts settling down into useless background chatter. 

"Want to go to yours?" he asks suddenly. It makes you look to him again, shifting back on your feet to observe him from the containment of his embrace. There's the hint of something vulnerable peeking through the blue of his eyes as though he's partially expecting you to deny him. To pull the rug out from under his feet - turning him away. Like it was all just a cruel joke to get back at him. 

As wrong as it might be, it feels somewhat vindicating to see him still so unsure. Visibly insecure about where he now stands with you. Mostly because you're in the same boat. This is a new territory for you both, and regardless of the previous words shared, there's still the fear that it was all induced on his part by the high of the moment. 

"Then maybe in the morning we can go get breakfast at Merrick's? Just not dinner there though - if we're going out for dinner, then I'm taking you somewhere nice." 

That grabs ahold of your focus in easily. Rafe's been to your trailer a hundred times. Sneaking in in the dark and making himself welcome in your home. Using your shower, eating your food, sleeping in your bed. All of these intimate things done as easily as second nature. But something as simple as walking alongside you, as touching you openly in the stark daylight, was a boundary that had never been crossed past casual conversation. Whenever you had associated it was under the guise of eating at your work, or because you had naturally happened upon each other in your day to day lives. There was never any intent behind it. Especially not while in a part of the Eight. 

Merrick's is right on the docks, settled in the center coast of the Northside of the island, among the wealthy houses and businesses of the OBX. It's a fairly popular spot among the wealthy locals. Being seen with you there would be a public declaration of sorts. Something that the customers, and employees would take notice of. 

"And you're good with that? Being seen with me?" The question leaves you in a pale version of your usual tone. It's hesitant, revealing the fear that begins to pool in your gut. Settling there like a nausea. Now it's you waiting for him to reject you - to backtrack on his promises and leave you standing here in the middle of this bathroom hurting, confused and heartbroken. You could nearly imagine the scornful smile that would tug at his lips, the glimmer of his teeth, the contempt that would burn in his eyes as he pinned you down with an unforgiving stare. You wouldn't survive it. 

But it never comes. 

"I meant what I said earlier. I don't give a shit what anyone has to say; you're my girl now." Some of his usual hostility seeps through his tone then, biting through the sweetness of it. None of it aimed at you. But it's like he's asserting a challenge for himself and others. Stating a threat to anyone else who may try to oppose him - or you. But it sounds like so much more than just the promise of a possibly verbal conflict. That wild glint is back in his eyes, passionate and determined, and you know now that he's prepared to draw blood for your sake. That he'll break bone and start fires to defend your name if he has to.

It's another one of those things that should repel you - a red flag waving vigorously in the air, but you can't find so much as the hint of an urge to turn and run. To escape and from his explosive nature, but you find warmth and comfort in it. He's like a wildfire. Erratic and starved, lashing out and reaching for anything that might burn and feed it, and like a glutton for punishment, you'll always open yourself to be consumed. Willingly allowing yourself to be licked at by the destructive edge of his nature; picked apart and feasted on. But he'll be there to put you back together again. Always eager to hold you up in his greedy palms, to have you safe in the shelter of them. 

Because he's sweet too. Caring when he wants to be. When he's allowed to be - safe from criticism or disapproval. He's been taught to be harsh. A product of his father's love, most likely. But you'll show him a different kind of love if he lets you. Something gentle and nonjudgemental. The sort of affection that he's been deprived of his entire life. 

You're his now, and he's yours; rough, violent edges and all. 

"Okay," you agree. "Breakfast it is then. And dinner." You nudge his nose up with your own, guiding him to angle his head so that you can place a lingering kiss on the plush of his mouth, feeling the shape of his smile against your lips. 

"Alright, and dinner." He nods, raising his hands to cradle your face. Watching you with a gleam in his eyes that looks like he wants to devour you entirely and hold you close. "Just you and me." 

[eph3merall]

hateful words and harsh jabs replay in your head, tears burning behind your eyelids as you stare at chris. his back is to you, shuffling things around on a cluttered desk of crinkled bills, jewelry, papers, and drug products. you don't really understand what went wrong, why he'd suddenly want to break the little thing you two have off. chris knows you don't really have anyone else right now, falling off with all of your friends after they found out your drug addiction was slowly creeping in again.

it was tough on you specifically, chris probably couldn't give a fuck. it's not like his daily life changed much, as grunted quietly when he was unable to retrieve the lighter he always keeps on his desk. furrowing in his jeans pockets, his eyes stray towards you standing there, dumbfounded, like some stone statue. he can't help but think you're pathetic, and he was unsure why he even startes this whole thing with you in the first place.

the click of the lighter chris obtains in his pocket is something he finds comfort in, the sound being one he's heard multiple times before that he could continue click, click, clicking and it wouldn't ever annoy him. he's tried telling himself that you don't mean to be annoying, that you don't mean to be overbearing and that shit's happened to you as much as himself.

but maybe his brain was all fucked up as he takes a drag of the lit blunt in his hand, stalking towards the window of his room to place two hands on a part of it and lift up—a gust of cold air hitting him directly and making the smell of weed just that little lighter. you've finally picked the pieces of your heart up from the floor, pressing at your eyes tightly to ward off the tears. chris never really did enjoy when you cried.

he wants you to leave. get out of his room, out of the frat house where the other guys will most definitely eye you weirdly as you walk out. turning to his desk, he makes himself busy. he doesn't care, why would he? his friends have been buzzing at him for the longest time for hooking up with someone like you, making stupid jokes and jabs about marriage and stupid shit like that. so he finally did something about it.

—

“you're so annoying, y'know? fuckin', talkin' my ear off one second n'then whining when i dont respond. not like you're givin' me the chance to, anyways.”

“and dont get me started on when 'i hurt your feelings'. jeesus, actin' like you crying like some baby wont piss me off. dont be fuckin' stupid, kid, use that brain of yours.”

“gullible as shit too, y'know? what, you didnt think i actually liked you. oh, thats funny, baby. make more of those jokes n'maybe ill laugh next time. god, you didnt ever think i was just usin' you? takin' advantage of havin' some pretty pussy practically under my arm and extra money for my products. fuck, you're stupid.”

“oh, alright, cry jus' like y'did last time, see if i give a shit this time.”

you try to forget everything chris said to you and more, sitting in your room in some old zip up chris left over at your place. it reeks of weed and something thats just so him, it makes you feel sick. your cheeks itch and lips go dry the longer you sob, hating the silence whenever you go slightly quiet. its like a taunt, youre alone now, for good. you wont ever get those friends back unless you fix yourself the fuck up.

you're a mess, blubbering sobs filling the silence and wracking your body. shuddering breaths in and out, constantly repeating to yourself to breathe and to focus on anything you can currently feel or hear. your vision is far too blurry from tears to see anything clearly, nose also clogged and preventing a good sense of smell. the fur of your blanket, running steps outside your room at one point accimpanied by laughter and voices. the cold metal of the zipper and interlocking teeth of chris' zip up sends a shock to your skin in some way, the smell of weed clinging to the fabric and breaking through the barrier your nose had. you wish you didn't smell it, only ending in thoughts of chris and making you cry some more.

the next few weeks are uneventful. nothing particular happens to you or chris, besides one of your friends' birthdays—kira. you took it upon yourself to text her a little message even after she dropped you, harshly telling you to 'get yourself together' if you wanted to be friends again. the text sent, it got read, and stayed that way. you don't exactly blame her, but your heart only dropped more in despair. because a little, innocent part of you truly thought she'd say thank you, or hope you're doing well, or at least text back.

a lot of the hours of the past few weeks consisted of naps and school work, finally deciding to try and raise some of your current failing grades since there wasn't anything better to do. it was hard to focus on anything with music playing, but it was even harder to write or register a single word when it was silent.

somehow, you end up at the frat house again. shivers overtake your body as you step inside, loud music and shoving bodies hitting you like tons of bricks. your eyes scope the familiar area, searching for a certain someone with brown tufts of hair peeking out from under a cap. when you dont see him, you start working through the throng of people to tread upstairs.

your feet gradually step lighter each step up, the floor eventually thinning out as you turn to the room you've knocked on so many times before. you probably look a mess, shifting your weight from one foot to the other as you impatiently wait. a frat brother you recognize is romping up the stairs to shove into the bathroom, giving you a surprised, weirded look when he spots you.

soon, the door in front of you cracks open. chris blinks at you mumble a little 'hi' under your breath. when you get no reply, panic creeps in and you take a few steps forward and throw your arms around his shoulders, tugging yourself towards him. chris stumbles and grunts, hands bracing your shoulders and already trying to shove your body away from his own. the familiar smell of your shampoo isn't helping at all, hating how persistent you are today.

"alright, kid, y'can let go now," after chris is shuffling inside his room and shutting the door behind you. your arms loosen and slip from his body, casting a glance to the floor. you knew you'd be back, deep down, you know you don't have it in you to stay away. even as a child, you'd always ask that popular kid to be friends even after she'd humiliated you too many times to count on both hands.

"i know its my fault. sorry. for bein' annoying. tried workin' on it, and i think im better. and, and i stopped smoking, kinda. its no longer everyday, and i got classwork done, for once. are you proud of me? i worked on controlling my emotions too, so, so i don't think ill cry that easy anymore—" that was a lie. you'd started panicking the second you stepped foot inside chris' room, your mouth speaking on its own and vomiting out words that sound weird to your ears .your voice picks up speed when chris doesn't respond, only stopping when you realize he isn't listening.

and chris says nothing. his mind reeling and heart thumping in his chest, because you blame yourself. why? he doesn't know, apparently he just doesn't know anything when it comes to you. guilt blooms inside him, the feeling a little foreign as he resists the urge to wrap you up in his arms and just to tell you to pipe down. to stop being so stupid. to not blame yourself, when he's so obviously the one in the wrong. when he's so obviously the stupid one, stamping down all those feelings of guilt.

—

@conspiracy-ash @sturniolosfavkayleigh @lvrsturniolo @st7rnioioss @meatballlover10 @ashlishes @ferdzom @55sturn @chriseatingmeoutin4k @unknvhx @mattslolita @chaossturns @slut4brunettes @starclinexo @slvtf0rchr1s

©eph3merall 2024

[janeeyrewannabe]

Drabble about simon’s sick sick mind

wc: <500

I think Simon is such a freak about getting a boner, the absolute most mundane things would get him hard. Like watching patty put on her colorful tights, and the way her brow furrows when she's in the zone writing a song, or watching her paint her nails. Patty is actually discombobulated at the last one, how the fuck is her black nail polish with chunky glitter turning him on? He says some stupid shit like he can imagine the way that color would look wrapped around his cock. The contrast of the two makes him go insane, her dark and sparkly nails compared to his pink and wet tip. Patty's tight grip around him, fingertips barely touching, squeezing a little harder as she moves closer to his flushed tip. Thumb covered in little metallic stars swiping at his most sensitive spot. He’s watching her hand move in a smooth rhythm like he's in a trance.

Also watching her chew on a pen. It reminds him of when she's on her knees and her teeth keep grazing his length a little because (in her words) its gets really tiring having your jaw open wide like your at the world’s most demanding dentist. Or when she's flailing around listens to her records because she reacts the same way when he's got his head in between her legs. Pulling at his hair like she wants to rip it out. When his nose hits the right spot on her clit he's got to hold down on her hips because she's writhing around like a maniac.

Some other things i think he likes: watching patty tie her shoes, smelling her strawberry banana shampoo when she walks by, chipped nail polish, her bad jokes, and the way her shirt rides up a little when she gets up to pull the string on the bus.

Tell me if u guys like this because I kind of hate it a lot

[robthegoodfellow]

whenever I see a post about corvid intelligence or crows befriending people I wanna write this scenario where Eddie accidentally earns the loyalty of Hawkins' crows. Like it starts with him tossing his leftover sandwich crusts at a few hanging around the trailer park, and then...

A squawking fracas woke him one morning, so obnoxious that he dragged himself outside to investigate—to chase away the mob of birds fighting over dibs at the dumpster, he assumed. Instead, he followed the noise to the rusted fence behind his uncle's place that'd been holding on by a corroded thread for years—until approximately ten minutes ago, when the racket started up. Beneath the fallen section of flaking chain links was a tangled lump of black feathers, beaked head poking through to bay at the air. Its comrades ducked and bobbed around it, pecking at the metal bars, but every tug only ensnared the trapped bird worse.

On reflection, rushing in with an oh, shit wasn't the best move—the crowd of hecklers launched to hover in the air, feinting at him in screeching chorus.

"I come in peace!" he cried, hunched under pleading hands. Kept one arm raised like he sported an invisible shield, one eye on the dive-bombers, and crouching low, groped at the snarl of metal on the ground.

One bomber dove for his face, veering to avoid a defensive swipe.

"I'm trying to help. Quit murdering me!"

The hecklers heckled. Tough crowd. Eddie grimaced, trying to get a grip that wouldn't also give him tetanus, and managed to lift the shorn links. Soon as it raised off the dirt, the squished feathers wriggled and twisted, yanking free with a rattle.

"See?" Eddie shouted, as the bolt of black shook itself and took to the air. "You're welcome. Now shut the fuck up!"

They didn't, but allowed him to escape back to his trailer unmolested.

He hadn't thought anything of it, until a few days later, when he found a small pile of shiny trash on his doorstep. Broken teeny-bopper bracelet, a crusty nickel, a bottle cap... and a guitar pick.

A squawk drew his attention to the pair of crows perched on the roof. Bending, Eddie grabbed the pick.

"This?" he said, waving it. "This is legal tender! Not the rest of this junk. Although..." He crouched to get a better look at the bracelet. "This does have its charms," he admitted.

The crows heckled. Eddie ignored them, fiddling to detach the dolphin, repurpose the clip to latch the plastic chain round his wrist. Liked the contrast—garish neons against his leather cuff, dark bands of brown and black.

"Fuck it, right?" He raised his fist, newly bedazzled, to salute the supplicants with some devil horns. "Rock and roll."

And from then on, he and the crows had an understanding. If they were making a racket within earshot, he'd go check if they needed help, and if they found something he might like, they'd leave an offering on the stoop. Highlights included a BIC lighter and a tattered twenty dollar bill. Once, he'd accidentally left his keys at the picnic table where he did business and barely had time to notice, patting his pockets with sinking realization, when they clattered to the pavement—just dropped from the sky.

"Ah, killer!" Relieved, he scooped them up, then put fist to palm and bowed his thanks to the crow alighting atop the van.

As a sign of respect, he'd started incorporating crows as part of his aesthetic: got some sick tattoos on his chest and forearm, had a growing collection of feathers he kept in a jar like a goth bouquet, added a couple silhouettes to perch inside the Os of the Corroded Coffin banner. Even designed a druid character with a crow familiar, which he kindly gifted to Gareth when his player got roasted beyond revival by a wyvern.

"You're like Snow White," Jeff joked, as Eddie pocketed a quarter, binning the rest of the stoop offerings. Jeff was crashing there for the weekend to escape divorce drama at home.

"Quid pro crow, man," said Eddie, shrugging. "Do them a solid and they'll get you back."

A pair of hecklers cawed from the roof. Ed flipped them the bird. They were his regulars, the ones he’d dubbed Statler and Waldorf.

Jeff paused, squinting at them, speculative. Then dug out a packet of half-eaten peanut butter crackers and tossed them up, one at a time. Cue the jubilant, cackling duet.

“Yeah, that’ll do it,” Eddie predicted, motioning him inside.

Didn’t know at the time how right he was—or how closely his crownies were following his movements around town, monitoring from on high. And not just his movements, but the people considered part of his “flock,” so to speak.

One day, Gareth and Jeff showed up for practice a little worse for wear, victims of the knuckle-draggers that populated the football team. Ripped shirt, bloody lip. The usual.

Unusual was the crowd gathered in the parking lot the next day, a baffled circle around the quarterback’s hot rod, which that morning gleamed red but at some point during school had been treated to a fresh coat of bird shit. White gooey splatters from hood to trunk.

It was a convertible. He’d left the top down.

And stuck to the windshield, like a calling card: a black feather.

Eddie was quick to corral the guys away, hushing all vengeful laughter until they were safely in the van, then they let loose. Jeff was wiping tears of mirth, wheezing: “You weren’t kidding, man.”

“Look,” Frankie cried, pointing out the windshield, and lo—Statler and Waldorf were perched on the wipers, joined by Damsel, so named because Ed was pretty sure it’d been the one he found in such distress, way back when.

As one, the band saluted their benefactors, and Eddie swore the birds puffed their chests, bobbing their heads in satisfaction.

From then on, it was swooping season for anyone who bothered him or the boys under the keen surveillance of those eyes in the skies.

But Eddie knew he’d gone beyond Disney princess status that summer. He was fooling around on the Warlock outside the trailer, unplugged, lounging in a lawn chair, humming under his breath—just some Ozzy, flying high again—when a sudden flapping weight dipped the neck of the guitar.

“You scratch this thing, I will murder you,” he warned, eying the pinchy talons gripping between the pegs. Damsel cocked its head, like oh, really? Eddie gently jerked the Warlock, a shooing motion, and the bird hopped with a huffy flutter onto his knee.

They stared each other down for a sec—a measuring stare. Almost daring. Some of the feathers around its neck stuck out all scruffy where the fence had bit into it, left a scar. Halting, hesitant, Eddie extended a finger, then his hand, nice and slow, intending to… give a scritch or something?

An inch away, the beak snapped at him, barely missed, and he jumped so hard the damn bird launched skyward, flapping to hover.

Behind them, he could hear the hecklers in hysterics.

“Bitch!” he shouted, clutching the Warlock close to calm his racing heart. “See if I ever save your scrawny necks again.”

Heedless, Damsel swooped to land on his knee—again. Like it knew full well he would. Save them. Again. If it came down to it.

“Calling my bluff,” he muttered, aggrieved. “Gonna make me eat crow?”

Statler and Waldorf voiced their displeasure.

“Fuck off! You love it.”

They did, was the thing. Eddie knew it. They’d thrown their lots in with him, and he with them. So in the end, he wasn’t so much a princess.

More an accessory to murder.

Also on AO3

[martyfive]

i didn’t know what the legend of zelda was when breath of the wild came out. i was probably in a middle of something very important at the moment, alright? something like sitting on a subway train on my way home. or like being in a middle of another family scandal. or failing another attempt of becoming someone i never wanted to be. busy stuff. i never even heard of the name zelda unless we were talking about zelda fitzgerald. i was nineteen and i wasn’t fucking around.

moreover, i didn’t know what zelda was about even when i bought breath of the wild itself.

what i always knew for sure is that i had never been and never would be a princess. every time i was told during our family dinners that those like me were never meant to be married to a handsome rich prince to live happily ever after, i was trying to find comfort in the vocally unannounced title of a friendly local knight in the shining armour bestowed upon me. the one who was there to shine and save and protect those in need. the one who wasn’t supposed to care about their appearances, being securely hidden behind a chain mail and metal shell that still never saved from bruises. a knight with a bear trap instead of a helmet. born to be the best and somehow failing every day. almost like a dream come true. not my own dream, but a dream nonetheless.

the life in our kingdom was a total disaster and i was a wreck of a knight.

by the time i escaped i had been depressed for approximately twelve years. i left everything i knew behind and moved to another country. i actually married my prince to make the paperwork easier for both of us. i found myself roaming in the wilderness i knew nothing about. i tried to take the bear trap off but every time i attempted to free myself from it it was hard to breathe through the neck that was losing its familiar balance. i didn’t know how to be an adult. i didn’t even know how to be a child. i wanted to learn, but i didn’t know where to start.

“what do you want for your birthday?” my prince asked me.

i didn’t feel like i deserved gifts. i did not achieve anything to receive them. the knight was technically laid off duty and the salary once paid in clothes and food was still haunting me. and i needed something else. we also needed something else to bond over except for our childhood bruises.

so i received nintendo switch for my birthday in a year i almost broke my neck trying to forcefully remove my fancy helmet as soon as i realised i couldn’t walk around like this anymore.

“games could be a part of a therapy,” the lady that was helping me with my breathing exercises said while i was pouring my blood trauma on the carpet in her office, “but they’re not gonna remove this bear trap of yours, you know?”

i knew that. i also knew i didn’t really want to live, trapped or not. so it made sense to me to start living my new life from the very beginning — to start from trying to be a child i barely ever was — and to try and learn how to be an adult like most healthy children did. meaning, to give myself time. to make choices i was robbed of. mistakes too, if necessary. to take a breath before heading off to run a marathon i never foresaw.

so yeah, i didn’t really know what the legend of zelda was when i bought breath of the wild. i only knew zelda was a princess i had never been and never would be. what i knew for sure is that the main character named link was supposed to save her.

and that he was her knight.

the whole thing sounded like a sick joke, but i was determined to know what the fuss was all about. looking back a couple years later, i’ve been wondering how it was even possible for me to stumble upon this exact game when i needed it that much.

while on my journey across the kingdom i wasn’t familiar with, with my own land shaded by the war and destruction, with no recollection of who i was and who i was to become, with a trapped in a castle tired princess named zelda, with the only light shining on the horizon gloomed by the darkness, i felt bad for link. what did he ever do to deserve all of this? i thought. why is this his burden to carry? is this normal for a character to stay silent before the impossible challenge he was supposedly destined to face and just… move forward no matter what?

i didn’t even know at the time how the zelda universe worked. that the event of link saving the world was something that threaded through the kingdom’s history like a football cup everyone was expecting to inconsistently happen once in a while. there was only this link and his own crazy challenges for me, and his destiny felt like a weight on the neck i, personally, being a broken knight i was at the time, wouldn’t be able to drag to the end.

but i had to.

i ran through the green fields from one destroyed town to the other and thought of link’s footsteps echoing in me as if every abandoned ruin was a part of my own depression i was supposed to face. every location had a name and each felt like it was important for someone who lived here a hundred years ago before the war took everything from them. the names meant nothing neither for me, nor for link and his amnesia, but for someone who wasn’t there anymore it was everything. and i had to accept it. there still was something to save. i had to look the destruction and what was left of the kingdom in the eyes and find a way to save what i can so the future would have a solid foundation they could build upon.

zelda couldn’t have saved the kingdom by herself. she had been trapped in that castle for a hundred years and she needed help of her knight. the task no single person deserved to condemn their soul with. i had no particular feelings about zelda herself, but it was a kingdom worth saving and there was only one knight that could do that. somehow, it had to be me.

so i visited every corner of the land and found everything there was to uncover, talked to everyone i could, solved everything there was to think of and turned up all the stones to find all the koroks. i just had to.

a couple months later i defeated the calamity and finally saved zelda. i took a breath and i let it out. and after that i felt better and empty once again. but it was something else this time.

it was the foundation. it was bare, but at least it was there.

i came a long way since finishing breath of the wild. i learned a new language. i grew up. i gave up my antidepressants to try and live without them. we moved from one city to the other. i got a dog that made me go outside and laugh every day. i started to make money. i started eating healthier. i started talking to people more. i took the responsibility. one by one, i pried the screws of the bear trap on my neck. it was still there, but it became easier for me to breathe. i realised that the kingdom i was raised in was never meant to be the only thing to define me. i was building my own on the ruins of what withstood. there was no other way to survive. and i just had to.

waking up as link once again years later and looking out to see the skies of tears of the kingdom, i cried. i felt like i met an old friend that was once everything to me and who i lost contact with for years, and then finally hugged them again. it was like finding myself a couple years later from where i was left dealing with my own shit and realising that my journey was worth it.

the ruins were still there, you see? but now we had so much else! there was another civilisation hidden in the clouds in the sky! and the whole another biome underground! giant temples to get confused about while looking at the map! there were new people to meet! new cataclysms to endure! new puzzles to solve! new koroks to find! damn, what a mess. i couldn’t wait to be a part of it!

and, of course, there was zelda to be saved.

zelda, who spent thousands of years in a form of a dragon waiting for her knight to take the previously shattered master sword she healed and to kill ganondorf. zelda, who was supposed to forget everything that made her human, but still was fighting for the light in the end. zelda, who was robbed of her life by the choice she made to protect those she loved, and who was blessed with another chance in the end. even a thousand years curse was finite. somehow, i found myself in love a princess i was never meant to become.

and it felt right.

and when link caught zelda falling from the sky over hyrule, i realised that the kingdom i was building with my own hands would always be there. and it was only my destiny to get to the rotten roots hidden underground in the darkness where no life was meant to exist but was flourishing in it’s own way instead, and to remove the sickness from it. to heal and to be healed.

and then i took my bear trap helmet off and smouldered it into a crown.

maybe i was never meant to be a princess. but in the kingdom that i built on my own, with all of its countless layers and clouds in the sky, with its ruins and old stones, with its depths and lurking horrors, with its riddles and joy, traps and secrets, songs and laughter, disasters and questions, dragons and princesses, with all the troubles and their resolutions…

there, i was only meant to be the king.

20/6/2024

[brucebocchi]

Ranking 2024 anime, Pt. 2: #40-31

hey, this post is also available on my ko-fi, so please check it out and consider tipping/donating as i do this for free and am currently between jobs. you can find part 1 of the list here. thanks!

Alright, on we go to the list proper. The first post was probably whiplash-inducing, going from a bunch of shorter stuff I loved to whole seasons I hated, but we can only go up from here. I watched a lot of anime this year, as the numbers indicate, so there's a little positivity to be found even in the lower rankings.

As always, OPs are linked in the series titles. Watch them, they're almost all great.

40. Metallic Rouge

One of the biggest disappointments of the year, one which I didn’t think could be outdone (and I’ll get to that one shortly). Metallic Rouge had so much going for it as a Studio Bones original for its anniversary, and managed to fumble all of its promise and goodwill in slow, agonizing fashion. 

It’s a shame, too. Metallic Rouge still looks awesome; the character and mech designs are excellent, the space-cyberpunk aesthetic is undeniable, and the animation can be terrific when it counts. The story, on the other hand, is so completely asinine that I was sick of this show before it ended. I’ve mostly forgotten what even happens, partly because it was that infuriating to keep up with, and partly because I feel like the writers forgot too; the bulk of any actual story felt backloaded into the last two or three episodes because they focused too hard on vibes for a while. I think they were trying to go for some “G-Witch by way of Detroit: Become Human” something or other, but all of it rang hollow. I’m still not sure whether it needed more runtime or better writers. Probably both.

Not worth your time. Just watch the OP and imagine a better show than what we got.

39. Mysterious Disappearances

I’ve thought so little about this show since it went off the air that I don’t really have anything new to say. Looks pretty lousy most of the time, not that interesting, oddly horny, and the plot structure gets kind of cloying after a while.

I know I harped on that last point when I reviewed it at the end of the spring season, but something funny happened after I did. Back in July, I mentioned that I took issue with the formula of “we encounter a paranormal anomaly, it’s identified as a yokai or urban legend, we learn its tragic backstory, our protagonists give it closure, and we move on” because it felt manipulative after I realized that it happened with every arc, and then I went ahead and read DanDaDan, which basically does exactly the same thing but a hell of a lot better. Comparing a middling work like this to DanDaDan of all things feels unfair, but they cover pretty similar ground. Maybe it’s sharper writing, or maybe it’s just a more engaging work. Who’s to say?

I’d also said in my review that Mysterious Disappearances unintentionally gives off the vibe of a poorly-archived mid-2000s series, but I hadn’t realized just how right I was: It turns out that studio Zero-G just went ahead and made up its own ending even though the source material is still ongoing. Better shows did the same this year, but the studio and I seem to have the same level of faith that this anime’s ever coming back.

38. My Deer Friend Nokotan

Honestly? Fuck this show.

I’ve already gone into what I did and didn’t like about Nokotan after it went off air a few months ago and I don’t care to revisit that while it’s still relatively fresh. Not nearly as funny as it pretended to be, yet still not even confident in its own sense of humor. The OP's still a bop (calling it "Shikairo Days" was a genuinely great joke), and a small handful of gags do land, but not enough to prevent this from being a massive disappointment.  At the same time, Nokotan was still somehow not the biggest letdown of the year.

37. Uzumaki

This was the biggest letdown of the year.

When an anime adaptation of the legendary Junji Ito horror manga was first announced in 2019, it was hard not to get excited. Even when I’d mostly fallen out of anime fandom, I knew damn well who Junji Ito was and I knew Uzumaki. Adult Swim was funding the project, a prestige studio in Production I.G. was handling the animation, and they even nabbed Hereditary composer Colin Stetson for the score. Ito’s manga is famously very difficult to adapt well, and it looked like we finally had a project being taken seriously. Delays and radio silence in the ensuing years were disappointing, but I was willing to be patient if it meant everything was being handled right. When the trailer dropped this summer, it looked like it would be worth the wait.

And for one glorious episode, it seemed like everyone’s patience paid off. Uzumaki’s debut episode was one of the most visually arresting pieces of animation I’ve ever seen: The entire look and feel was faithful to Ito’s inimitable style, from the meticulously detailed linework to the stark black-and-white color grading of his manga’s pages. On top of that, the animation itself was absurdly good; the process of rotoscoping 3D motion capture seemed arduous, but the end result was beautifully lifelike for a story where that quality could only serve to instill further terror. Several of the most iconic images from the early chapters looked incredible in hi-def motion. Sure, the pacing was a little fast, but this was a four-episode miniseries. We could deal. This was just too good.

And then came the second episode.

I’m not going to over-elaborate or relitigate every single thing that went wrong here, because it’s a lot. Uzumaki was in development for a long time, and that five year gap between announcement and release included several detriments to the production process, not the least of which being COVID, animation production changing hands between several studios, and new leadership for Adult Swim’s parent company that now favors profit over product, especially when it comes to animation that doesn’t involve DC characters. Plenty of us figured that all of these delays and a run of only four episodes meant that they had the time to hammer out all the issues and give us the best possible product. That, unfortunately, was not the case.

Responding to complaints about the decline in animation in the second episode, executive producer Jason DeMarco (who, to be blunt, has overseen several mediocre-to-awful anime products released under the Adult Swim brand, including my bottom-ranked anime of 2023) claimed in a quickly-deleted Bluesky thread that there is indeed a higher-up to blame and that they were left with an ultimatum to either drop Uzumaki after just one episode, let it go the way of so many other Warner Bros non-releases under David Zaslav’s disastrous leadership, or release the whole miniseries in its half-baked state. They went with the third.

So, what we got was an uneven, often sloppy work; another mediocrity to throw on the pile of failed Junji Ito adaptations. All goodwill established in the first episode is soon undone by wonky character models, uncanny walk cycles, and movement that looks like PNGs being dragged across a background at the most inopportune times. Plenty of viewers, myself included, were willing to overlook the accelerated pacing after the first episode, but that issue was thrown into stark relief by the second when entire chapters of the manga began playing out simultaneously, and one was even reduced to an afterthought for a cheap “scare” at the end of episode three. 

Not that I thought Uzumaki necessarily needed a full 12-episode season for a proper adaptation or anything; Ito’s output can often be light on story, and dragging it out too far risks losing interest. What makes Ito’s stories actually work, though, is a proper sense of setting and space to let tensions rise. That didn’t entirely happen here; while the atmosphere of Kurozu-cho does plenty resemble what we’ve seen from Ito’s pages, and Stetson’s atonal saxophone does a lot of work to raise the level of unease, things just kind of happen. Few things really get the chance to land as intended, in part due to the production quality cheaping out at climactic moments.

This was the last anime I finished this year even though I’d watched the first two episodes after they aired and it went off the air in October. I was looking forward to the last two episodes that little. There are still bits and pieces of great animation and faithful adaptation here and there, but not enough to regain any goodwill from the second episode’s wheels visibly falling off. Maybe it’s finally time to declare Junji Ito’s works unadaptable once and for all. 

Definitely watch that first episode, though. At this point I kind of wish that’s all we’d gotten.

36. Hokkaido Gals Are Super Adorable!

Straitlaced Nice Guy moves to a new town, laid-back gyaru from his class immediately takes a liking to him, a couple other girls enter the picture, shenanigans ensue, and a slow-burn romance begins in parallel. Nothing special on paper and nothing much more special than that in execution. The setting is lovely, though, and it really made me want to visit Hokkaido one day. Nicely done, tourism board.

If you watched this and were put off by it, I don’t blame you; I probably would’ve been too if I hadn’t decided to read ahead in the manga. I will say this, though: If you liked Hokkaido Gals even a little, read the manga. It’s a minor investment, but if you can get over the halfway mark, it gets surprisingly good and has a really lovely ending. 

The anime, on the other hand? Meh. Doesn’t look super great and didn’t have enough time in 12 episodes to overcome most of the issues the source material had to move past to get to what made it worthwhile. It would take another season or two to get there, and that probably isn’t gonna happen. Great OP, though (I'm starting to repeat myself, I know). Just read the manga.

35. No Longer Allowed in Another World

Boasting one of the most audacious premises for an isekai I’ve ever seen, No Longer Allowed in Another World doesn’t shy away from the implications of an Osamu Dazai isekai, has the dark humor to match, and provides some fascinating commentary on the type of person who tends to consume wish-fulfillment isekai. Unfortunately, the presentation was a little lacking and threatened to lose my attention several times. I think the idea is much better on paper, to the point where I might test that theory and go read the manga.

34. The Wrong Way to Use Healing Magic

The next dozen or so anime in the rankings fall into a category of either “well-made anime that I found kind of frustrating” or “middling anime that I kind of enjoyed.” The Wrong Way to Use Healing Magic is very much the latter. It’s a standard isekai on paper; demon king, special powers, what have you, but it has a likable cast and laid-back vibe for much of its runtime that made it pleasant enough to watch.

As I said after the winter season, I really liked that Wrong Way spends a lot of its early story ensuring that the protagonist expends the time and effort necessary for him to become the hero he’s meant to be instead of the narrative just handing it to him from the start, which instantly sets it apart from most other wish-fulfillment isekai. It’s far from the best-looking anime I watched this year, but it has a mid-00s throwback look and feel to it that works more to its benefit than in Mysterious Disappearances. Nothing groundbreaking and a little too backloaded, but an enjoyable enough experience and one I’m looking forward to seeing come back. 

The only really upsetting thing about this show is that Atsuko Tanaka (Major Kusanagi, Bayonetta, Kainé), who was tremendous as the intimidating Captain Rose, is no longer with us. She was an exceptional talent with an iconic voice who will be sorely missed, and future seasons of this show won’t be the same without her.

33. Go! Go! Loser Ranger

Though not a bad anime by most metrics, I still consider Loser Ranger a minor disappointment. It mostly looks great, and “what if The Boys was a sentai series” is a killer premise, but the story so far is extremely frontloaded. Almost too much happens in the first four episodes, and then the bulk of the last arc of the season takes place in a goddamn parking garage. I’m still annoyed by that. Still looking forward to season 2, but I wish the debut season had been 24 episodes to avoid the sour taste in my mouth.

Did you hear that echo? Yep, that's me telling you to watch yet another OP. Easily the best part of the show and one of the best of the year. Tatsuya Kitani can't keep getting away with it.

32. Astro Note

2024 turned out to be a banner year for Rumiko Takahashi’s older works making their way back to modern screens, and one of those entries wasn’t even hers.

Astro Note is an overt homage to Takahashi’s less-famous romcom Maison Ikkoku, which ran parallel to Urusei Yatsura for most of the latter’s run. Like Ikkoku, Astro Note follows a down-on-his-luck young man living in a boarding house full of bizarre miscreants who only stays because the manager is super pretty. Unlike Ikkoku, and unbeknownst to our protagonist, said manager is actually an alien who is practically turning the house over to find a secret alien MacGuffin.

This show looks lovely and has a delightful cast and some surprisingly moving subplots, but it’s nothing too special otherwise. There are some fun creative flourishes here and there, like the alien stuff shown in flashback being made to look like an older space opera anime, but aside from a very fun turn near the end of the season, Astro Note rarely rises above the level of simply “pleasant.” And that’s fine, but it doesn’t quite live up to the material it’s aping, and what we’ve ended up with is just a nice distraction. 

I’m so glad I finally decided to read Maison Ikkoku though.

31. Shangri-La Frontier, second cour

It’s been a running joke for me that the more I watch Shangri-La Frontier, the less I’m sure whether I like it or not, and now with 25 episodes in the tank, I’m less sure than ever. The back half of the debut season improved on a few of the things that annoyed me about its first cour by focusing more on the high-quality action and introducing minor stakes to the proceedings, and then everything else surrounding it made it feel no less like I’m just watching a guy playing a goddamn video game, and the stakes still mostly seem to amount to "he wants to be good at it."

You may notice that I didn’t include the second season in this review, and that’s because I flat-out didn’t care to pick it back up. I’d been busy during the fall season and continuing a show I didn’t enjoy that much just wasn’t a high priority. It’s continuing into January, so there’s time to catch it while it airs, but I’m still not in any hurry.

[thatwriterchick222]

sweet release (james sunderland/bubble head nurse)

summary: then he saw it. one of the bubble head nurses, another name he coined himself.

it was draped over the grungy operating table, its body writhing in what seemed to be agony. its hands, which would have normally been brandishing a rusty metal pipe or blade ready to go in for the kill, were empty, gripping onto the edges of the metal surface. it was in pain.

its legs were spread in a way that james could only describe as tempting. white thighs apart and exposing white underwear below its skirt, long legs laying as if they were just asking to be grabbed and wrenched apart. helpless.

james felt his cock harden in his pants.

sick fuck. 

a/n: this one is a bit different than the stuff i normally write and definitely a lot more DUBIOUS so if you're not into that sort of thing please do not read lol.

i also have been obsessed with silent hill 2 recently (obviously) and i wanted to explore some dubious morals as well as unreliable narration, so i figured why not?

ANOTHER TW: references to r@pe, non-con, and extremely dubious consent

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

james was tired. he didn’t know if it had been hours, days, weeks, or even months since he got to silent hill. his limbs were heavy like they were filled with lead. his clothes were caked with blood and god only knew what else, and he was slowly losing hope.

every step he took blurred together, every twisting dark hallway and locked door after locked door, an endless purgatory for him to wander aimlessly.

he killed because he deemed it necessary. these things came at him with force, with an unprovoked violence that called for nothing but violence in return. his finger ached from pulling the trigger, his arms weak from swinging that fucking metal pipe. the squelch of guts and porcelain and the putrid stench of vomit permeated his senses until he was unable to do anything but kill. put them out of their misery. 

and he still found no sign of mary.

well, the real mary.

the few lives in this hellish place were the only things that kept him grounded, angela and eddie and laura and…

maria.

fuck… maria.

was she placed there to tempt him? brought to him to remind him of who he lost, who he was searching for, who he missed the most? or was it some sick fucking joke that this town wanted to play on him? 

she was beautiful. she was– well, she was mary– but different. she had her face, pleading eyes and shy smile, but her voice was seductive and uncanny in a way that he couldn’t quite describe.

he settled on the theory that she was there to tempt him. to draw him off course. 

that way it was easy. straightforward. don’t let her get to you. don't let her make you weak. she isn’t mary.

but why did she smell like her? why did she give off a sweet, deep, musky scent that reminded james of some old memory, a first date, maybe even a first fuck? 

why— when the chilling breeze caught her smell and brought it to him like it was teasing him with her pheromones— did it make him ache like he did all those years ago?

it had to be a sick joke.

as hard as it was, james resisted her. he acted like he didn’t feel some otherworldly magnetic pull to just give in and pretend she was mary because she was close enough , maybe even better in ways he didn’t want to admit. even when she got tired and weak, a sudden sickness hit her that made james’s stomach twist with familiarity, she lay down on the dirty mattress and the first thing james wanted to do was touch her. as he turned to leave he saw her knees, covered in the sheer nylon of her tights, propped up and suspiciously, teasingly open, as if waiting for him to pull them apart.

he was a sick fuck.

this place must have been getting to him.

but, like all things in this forsaken place, maria was killed. not by his hand, but by the mysterious creature james coined as pyramid head, an unrelenting beast that sought him out. this executioner plunged his spear through maria’s stomach, and james watched the life drain from her body. in that moment, she looked more like his mary than she ever had.

james was tired . exhausted to the point of delirium, alone again to roam in the dark, decomposing halls of the hospital. as he walked, he thought back to what he could have done. if he was a different man, he would have taken advantage of the opportunity; a beautiful woman attempting to seduce him, a woman who looked exactly like his late wife… deep down james felt that it was a dream come true. 

a dream that he passed up. and now he regretted it.

he could feel himself aching as he recalled her pink lips, her top teeth digging into the plump bottom one for a brief moment, the way she slowly blinked and looked up at him. the way she touched him, ever so casually, and left his skin burning for minutes after she had recoiled.

he imagined her knees propped on the bed again, except this time he imagined turning around and spreading them, pulling off her boots and running his hands up her calves, her thighs… 

james inhaled sharply and tried to push the thoughts from his mind.

but these halls were so quiet, so empty, and he was so fucking lonely . 

he imagined maria gasping in surprise as he touched her, and in her sick and fatigued state, not bothering to push him away. she had wanted this after all. maybe he would rip her tights, push up her skirt, put his mouth on her. maybe she would have tasted just like his mary too.

james was startled out of his thoughts when the radio in his pocket sprung to life, the jarring sound of muffled breaths and static making his stomach drop. 

he realized he was growing hard from thinking about maria. he continued on, turning the corner into one of the open hospital rooms as the feedback from the radio grew louder, making him wince with its high-pitched frequencies. 

and then he saw it. one of the bubble head nurses, another name he coined himself. 

but this one was… different. 

the nurses were normally hostile. they would twitch and stumble towards him, swing at him with malicious intent, but this one was… weak.

it was draped over the grungy operating table, its body writhing in what seemed to be agony. its hands, which would have normally been brandishing a rusty metal pipe or blade ready to go in for the kill, were empty, gripping onto the edges of the metal surface. it was in pain.

its legs were spread in a way that james could only describe as tempting . white thighs apart and exposing white underwear below its skirt, long legs laying as if they were just asking to be grabbed and wrenched apart. it had thigh-high white tights on that were held up by a garter belt, the straps disappearing under its skirt, and against his better judgment, he wanted to rip them off.

if james didn’t have the context of the world around him, he would have assumed this faceless nurse was caught in the grip of pleasure, its body open and ready for the taking. 

docile, weak, helpless.

james felt his cock harden in his pants.

sick fuck. 

mary was gone, maria was gone… he didn’t know if this place was just getting in his head or if he really was just that desperate. 

james kept his gun up, shakily on it as if all his attention wasn’t occupied with the throbbing below his belt, the intoxicating thud of his heart in his chest and his ears.

but the nurse just lay there, squirming, its back arching and its legs dangling from the table, white high heels not even touching the ground.

though it didn’t have a mouth, struggled inhuman gasps came from its throat, a wail that almost resembled the rattle of death. it sent chills down james’s spine, but he reached forward, placing his hand on its cold knee.

it didn’t even look up. its head was thrown back, faceless and wrapped with rotting cloth, its breasts bulging from its dress and rising heavily with each gasp it took. james licked his lips, his breath catching in his throat.

i’ll help you. he thought. just let me do this. it’ll feel good, i promise.

when he placed his gun down on the table beside it, he knew there was no going back. he was already imagining if it even had a pussy, and if it did, what it would feel like to plunge his dick into it as deep as humanely possible.

he ran his fingers up its thighs, his brows pinched together and his lips parted in pure desire as he felt its flesh. it was flesh . soft and plump, like a real woman. if he closed his eyes, he could pretend. maybe he could pretend it was mary, or maria, or some strange amalgamation of them both.

this thought only made him harder. 

james attempted to pull its legs further apart, but it seemed stiff, as if its body was old and worn out. 

the nurse choked out a pained rasp as james pried its legs apart, pushing them up as he yanked it closer to him. as he bent its knees, he was reminded of the pyramid head man, the way he wrenched the mannequin legs apart sadistically, toying with them. was he any different at that moment?

the only difference was that james wasn’t toying. he had one thing in mind, and it still wasn’t putting up a fight.

continue on ao3!!!

[velvetvexations]

TERFs are so bad at making bottom surgery sound bad. Saw one say "--- (read: trans woman "vaginas" and trans man "penises") is something only erotic to a necrophile". Which was obviously intended to be off putting but i dunno I think it sounds kinda metal???. N there's one i just ran into calling neovaginas "axe wounds" which I KNOW is meant as an insult but oh my god it makes them sound so badass to me

lmao it was bad enough I felt compelled to censor it but yeah we're all about reappropriating TERF conceptions of trans people here

I'm white myself but I've been noticing more and more that white trans people have such a victim complex and believe themselves (ourselves) to be the most oppressed group ever. An acquaintance of mine (a famous trans activist) recently said that "trans people are the only people that face hate for how we dress". Like??? what about ethnic and religious minorities??? what about All Women including cis ones??? She also loves using antisemitism as an example of what "could" or "is going to" happen to trans people while treating it as something that was resolved after ww2 and is not very much still rampant

People are drawing swastikas on Synagogues and calling it praxis!

Idk if you ever saw this comic, but about a month ago, a trans man made a jokey joke comic about making an appointment at the gyno where the receptionist was confused. The ultimate punchline was that he's trans, and thus is the one who needs the appointment. It's v clear that the main point of confusion is that the receptionist thought she was talking to a cis man, who would have no real need for gynecological care. In the "I'm upset when not about me" crowd of TRFs, they decided it was transmisogynistic bc no *actually* the receptionist thought the trans man on the line with a deep voice was really a trans woman. Because sometimes trans women are mistaken as men over the phone. Idk if they just missed that it wasn't a primary care provider or what, but it was v clear to me that the idea was confusing a trans man over the phone for a cis man. Cis men generally don't need gynecologists. Trans men can need gynecologists. It had fuck all to do with trans women on a subtextual level. I can't fathom how they thought that.

TRFs CANNOT fucking read holy shit I hope they fucking apologized to the author

sorry to bring up PT AGAIN ik you are probably tired of hearing about it, but one of the last posts.i read before unfollowing was a comparison of transandrophobia believers with James Fucking Somerton. and its ironic as fuck to me because alot of critiques of Somerton can absolutely apply to them. equating any critique as harassment based on their identity is a big one and its been driving me nuts to see trfs envoke a James Somerton comparison when they are doing similar shit to him

James Somerton is a convenient lightning rod to compare every bad queer person for the rest of time

As a trans male I hate the weird, white knight shit that i see so many other men doing rn, like shut up will you?? Trans boys are not "cowards" or "incels" for not putting themselves in harm's way for (ESPECIALLY) CIS WOMEN Or trans women/girls. I'm so sick of seeing that stupid shit. Those guys are on the same level as military recruiters in my opinion. Just as predatory and fucking dangerous. Like not to be a dick but why do they seem SO convinced that trans boy must be naturally so much stronger then the average trans girl? Hello???????? Hello???

Man is the Strong Gender.

honestly of it wasn't for the lesbian separatism shit i would think that some transfem TRFs want some kind of tradwife-style "macho manly man protects his wife who is a delicate flower incapable of both violence and self-defense who will die if you look at her too hard" thing with a transmasc partner or something, given the way they actively applaud transmascs who talk like that. which would be totally fine if it was a weird fetish thing but this seems to be an actual expression of their politics (also am i just old or does anyone remember when the dominant feminist rhetoric was "women are just as strong as any men and can protect themselves")

it sure feels like that doesn't it lmao

IN WHAT UNIVERSE ARE WHITE PEOPLE INVISIBLE lmaoooo that post was too much

seriously lmao

I really dislike "trans women are the women of women" cuz once again we're using woman to mean the lowest position in a hierarchy

as always

Just something I wanted to share bc it made me really happy: when the forcefem blog made that post about how forcemasc isn't revolutionary and makes no sense or whatever the fuck, one of my transfem mutuals talked about how stupid the aforementioned post was and expressed her support for forcemasc and transmascs in general. I had no doubts that she was supportive of transmascs but that made me super happy!

Hell yeah, I'm really happy for that anon!

Happy Christmas eve if u celebrate ^^ hope ur havin' a good evening [or whatever time it is over where u live]

you as well <3

Logging into Tumblr after a chill movie night with the family only to see you've murdered a guy, holy shit

my tits were too heavy once more

saw another transandrophobia denier, this time on my dash specifically

terrible

Hell yeah it's always nice to find a casual history enjoyer online who's not racist

I do my best.

[eternalchiyo]

Everlasting Spark ~MANIAC: Epilogue~

“Let! Me! Go!”

The words echoed through the halls in an angry and desperate echo. Ruki had restrained and hauled her over his shoulder with ease. Cursed be this weak body! Maybe if she hadn’t been sick, she would have been able to put up more of a fight. She hit him on the back with her fists and kicked her legs around in an attempt to make him let her go.

Where in hell was he taking her?!

After their argument in his room, Ruki had grabbed her violently, pushing her outside into the corridor and down the stairs. Once they reached the basement and the pool, she had started to put up a bigger fight, refusing to properly walk or follow him, which must have really frustrated him – at least she hoped. A small victory, but a victory, nonetheless. That also had been the moment Ruki decided to forcibly pull her over his shoulder and carry her this way.

There was a secret door in the basement with the pool, leading to a very old tunnel. It reminded her of the old castle tunnels in the demon world. She sometimes used to play hide and seek with Shuu in them. Murky water stained most of the ground and the stench was unbearable. Chiyo was sure she was about to throw up.

Then, suddenly Ruki came to a halt. She tried to wiggle out of his grasp and attempted to at least see what was going on. It sounded like a key was being used on a lock, then something creaked – a door? He hauled her onto the floor, and she landed on her backside.

“Ow!” she cried out.

Confused, she looked around. This place was mostly dark, except for some light coming from burning torches, the floor felt dirty and cold.

The door with the iron bars fell shut again, with Ruki standing on the other side of it, locking it again. Chiyo tried to run up to him before it was too late, but she was too slow. When she got up, she flinched. A sharp pain shot through her body, its origin in her ankle. She must have hurt it when he threw her onto the floor.

Her hands grabbed the rusty metal bars once she limped over, and she glared at him.

“What is the meaning of this? Let me out!”

Ruki slid the old rusty key into the pocket of his pants and looked at her with a cold expression on his face.

“Normally I would say beg for it, but not even that will save you now.”

She growled and gave the bars another shake.

“You fucking– I said let me out!”

The last syllables of her cry echoed around them for some time, and she felt the burn in the back of her throat from shouting so loudly. Ruki didn’t flinch.

“Perhaps some time alone in this dungeon will help you clear your head, guineapig,” Ruki said, “Think about your actions and come up with a way of apologizing to your master. I will see you tomorrow.”

Chiyo’s hands tightened around the bars as she watched him go back the way they came here.

“Aaaaaargh!” she screamed like a frustrated caged animal until her throat was sore. But it didn’t change anything. Ruki was gone and she was all alone, trapped here. Your master, what a joke! So, he had finally shown his true colors, huh? Chiyo felt stupid that she still tried to believe he had been genuinely interested in her.

She sighed in frustration and looked around. This cell was huge. There were no windows, but there was another opening with bars on the other end of the wall with the door. She limped over to that place. Unfortunately, she wasn’t thin or small enough to slide through those bars; she clicked her tongue in frustration.

Vision was limited in this space and that one torch that was lit probably wouldn’t last forever either. She looked around the cell once again. Dirt, some puddle that she hoped was water, some more dirt; she sighed again. Hopefully there weren’t any mice living here, although that probably was unlikely. She hated mice. The pain in her foot made her flinch again; it was starting to hurt more now that the adrenaline was slowly ebbing away.

With a disgruntled face she slid down the wall and sat down on the dirty and moist floor, removing her left shoe to inspect her aching foot. Her fingertips traced the ankle through her pantyhose. Even like this she could tell it was starting to swell.

“Shit…”

How much bad luck could a person have? Chiyo was sure she had broken the record some time ago already. She was so exhausted. All she had wanted was to go back home and now look at her! She was trapped in a musty cell like a wounded animal with no way out.

What even were her options? Ruki had said he would come back tomorrow, maybe she could overpower him and escape? Unlikely, with her weak constitution lately and now also her sprained ankle... this would never work.

She could pretend to be docile or maybe even try to seduce him in the hopes he wouldn’t see through her ruse and fall for it. Although, with what has transpired, she wasn’t confident in being able to pretend to like his touches. If she thought about this now, her whole body reacted to it so negatively it made her shiver. He could keep his demon hands far away from her, that much was clear!

There had to be some way for her to escape…

She leaned her head against the cold wall. Really… she was so exhausted. Her eyes were tired and stung from all the dirt in the cell as well as from the tears of rage that had formed in them earlier. The exhaustion was so strong it prowled at her the moment she allowed herself to calm down a little. She didn’t even notice when sleep enveloped her, and she drifted away.

Chiyo gasped when she heard the approaching footsteps.

When did she fall asleep? How long has she been asleep for? There wasn’t much time to gather her thoughts before the footsteps came closer and closer, revealing none other than Ruki carrying a tray of food. Damn it, she didn’t even come up with a proper plan of action yet!

She glared at him from across the cell. Unfortunately, she was too exhausted to lunge at him, but she really, really wanted to slap him hard across the face.

“Have you calmed down today?” he asked after he locked the cell door behind himself. So a whole day has passed.

“What do you think?!”

Chiyo’s usual resolution to keep her composure and never showing anybody her emotions had long been forgotten. Though, who could fault her really? Surely everyone would lose their composure after being thrown into a dirty cell and held there against their will.

He sighed and looked her up and down before setting the food tray down. He was probably analyzing the situation, the mood she was in, how to get her under his control more easily, bend her to his will.

“You should still eat something,” he just said. The way he kept the habit of making her eat enough was laughable under these circumstances.

It felt as if ages passed without any of them saying anything. Chiyo had crossed her arms in front of her chest and looked away pointedly. After a while Ruki bent down in a squat in front of her, grabbing her chin and turning it towards him with force.

“Eat.”

She glared at him and took the porridge bowl from the tray, starting to eat it slowly but unwillingly. It was uncomfortable how he kept on looking at her as she ate. He could at least try to behave like a normal person by looking somewhere else, but no! He just had to keep looking at her as she chewed and swallowed, as if waiting for some sort of reaction from her.

Her brows knit together in confusion; why was she suddenly feeling so hot. Breathing was becoming increasingly harder, and her heart started to race painfully in her chest. Her blood pulsated through her body with need. She stared in shock at the food in her hands, then at the man in front of her. What was most scary was not the loss of control from her body, it was the way he watched her with such an indifference, like he was just watching something completely natural.

“You… what–”

Ruki moved closer, swiftly removing the dish from her hands. It made a sharp clanking sound when he placed it onto the stone floor. Her skin felt hot where his fingers had grazed her shaky hands, and her throat contracted in dryness. What in the world was happening to her?!

“I was wondering whether it would work on you… this medicine was made for vampires, but it has quite a different effect on humans. It was a bit of a gamble, admittedly, since you are a mix of both.”

His hands moved towards the collar of her uniform and removed the red ribbon, allowing him to unbutton the white shirt. Chiyo inhaled sharply, her chest heaving. With panicked eyes she looked at Ruki, who seemed quite unfazed by her reactions. She had already assumed he could be quite ruthless, but she never thought he’d go as far as putting a drug into her food.

“I figured it would be easier to suck your blood if you were a little bit more compliant,” he said as he continued to undo the buttons of her shirt until her chest and bra were revealed. The actions were completely disgusting to her; in her head she hated it, but wherever Ruki’s fingers came in contact with her skin it felt like the spots caught on fire, traveling through her body down, right into her core.

“Haah!”

She already felt like she couldn’t take it anymore, squeezing her thighs together in an attempt to keep the growing need between her legs under control. How unbelievable that he would resort to something like this, he truly had never cared about her! The realization hit her so hard, hot tears started to form in her eyes.

Ruki dragged his palm down her neck, travelling over her collarbone and settling in the valley between her breasts, making her nipples strain painfully against the lace, the touch drawing another whine out of her. Her mind and body were in constant battle.

Make it stop.

But it feels so good.

“Shhh… let me help you. I will make you feel good, alright?”

His voice in her ear felt like thick and dripping hot honey. Too sticky but so sweet. She was like an insect trapped in his sugary nectar, unable to move and get out, forever destined to wait for her demise.

She nodded weakly.

“Yes…”

No!

Her own voice was not recognizable to her anymore, the way it breathily begged for him to give her some sort of release. Which one were her own genuine thoughts and what was caused by the drug? It was too hard to tell. The only thing she knew was that she felt way too hot.

“Your face is flushed... I wish you would always be this docile,” Ruki's voice caressed her ear, his warm breath driving her wild. She shut her eyes tightly.

His mouth traveled down her neck, tongue gliding over the sensitive flesh, making her shiver. The tears streamed down her face when she felt him bare his fangs against that spot. And when he finally sunk them into it, she moaned as if it was the best thing she had ever felt in her entire life.

On the inside she was screaming.

Chiyo wasn’t sure how many days had passed exactly, but Ruki came to suck her blood a few more times since then. Her body was slowly going back to normal, not feeling as if she was going to come undone just from him touching her, she’d rather not think about how heavily her body had reacted to some of it. Her mind was still a haze. She couldn’t quite tell where exactly he had put his hands and fangs, except for the obvious parts. She could feel her neck area pulsate with fresh bitemarks all over, the flesh tender and hurting when she grazed her fingers along it.

Still, finally she got some sense of relief. Groaning, she stood up, using the wall for support. Her ankle still hurt a little, the throbbing sensation never quite leaving her in that area.

This couldn’t go on like this any longer, she needed to get out of here. Once again, she looked around the cell. Not much had changed since the first time she had done that. There still was lots of dirt on the ground, the weird wet spot that she hoped was water and an old brick lying around.

She frowned and approached the brick, picking it up and eyeing it intently. Maybe she could use this? She walked towards the locked door with the bars and examined it. The lock was old and rusty. With some luck she might be able to break it apart.

Chiyo sighed.

She had to try; giving up was not an option. Ruki scared her and she really didn’t want to die from blood loss in this kind of place. Or any place really, but this one definitely was at the bottom of the list. Nodding to herself as if to reassure herself she lifted her hands and rammed down the brick onto the old lock with full force.

Nothing happened.

Chiyo exhaled in frustration. Of course, that would have been too easy.

But she couldn’t give up now. Even if Ruki had already come to suck her blood today, she still didn’t have much time on her hands. There was no way of telling what he would do once he noticed she had come to her senses again, and she really wanted to avoid being drugged a second time. Being forced to relinquish control of her mind and body was scary. It was something she had never paid much thought to, but now that she had experienced it, she dreaded it. She had no idea what time it was, but she couldn’t waste a single minute!

Once again, she rammed the brick against the rusty metal. Then again, and again, almost desperately, biting back the tears that were starting to form in her eyes. Was it fear? Desperation? Exhaustion? She didn’t know. Just when she was starting to get out of breath and close to giving up, she heard a tiny crumbling sound. She gasped and hit the lock with the brick one more time and the hinge fell onto the floor with a loud clank. Dropping the brick to the floor she stood there for a few more seconds, unable to believe that she did what she thought was impossible.

“Oh my God…” she whispered.

She could hardly believe it! Her stupid little plan had worked! The door was open, and she was able to leave… only… where to?

Stepping outside of the cell she looked around. There was still that one torch hanging on the wall. Ruki had re-lit it every time he came visiting. She took it from the wall and moved around a little. Azusa had mentioned there was a hidden passage to the demon world somewhere in the Mukami waterways, she remembered. Seeing as going back was not an option, the only way to go was forward.

With shaking legs and breath, she took one step forward, then another. She could do this; she could find the entrance to the other world.

The only thing she hoped for was that Ruki wouldn’t find her first.

[strangerthingsstuff4]

A Story of Another Us- Chapter Seven

Warnings- Swearing, mentions of sick animals, masturbation and perving (kinda), LOOOOTTTTSSS of sexual tension

It was like be a child all over again, falling asleep somewhere and waking up in her own bed, although it was usually the security guard of the club her mother worked at that was carrying her up to the little fold out bed that was set up for her in the dressing rooms. Unless Dwayne now worked on Dragon Stone Ranch then Dahlia woke up with no idea how she had gotten into bed. It wasn’t until midday that she managed to find out.

Alicent had whisked Aegon off with her to some meeting with a media company to get the farm some more recognition and funding, leaving Dahlia and Aemond to tend to all of the animals on the farm. The mud was sloppy beneath her wellies as she trudged over the open field towards the metal ring feeder that Aemond was fighting to close as the cows herded around him eating greedily.

‘Just wait a second you fat prick’ she heard Aemond grumble as he was nudged and nipped.

‘Looks like you’re having fun’ Dahlia teased as she pushed her way through the large heifers and helped him close the metal frame around the bale of hay.

Aemond only offered her a stare of discontent before pushing his way through to continue with his jobs.

‘Do you know how I got to bed last night? I can’t remember if I woke up to go up or not’ Dahlia blushed lightly at the idea of having fallen asleep in front of everyone.

‘Yeah, I er… I took you up… you were out cold’ Aemond chuckled gently while scrubbing the cattle’s grooming brushed against each other.

Dahlia’s face now burnt hot! He had carried her up to bed! She could have been snoring! What if he thought she was heavy?! What if she had drooled on him?! Never having wanted the floor to swallow her up more, she offered him a nervous smile.

‘Oh thank you! You should have just woken me up!’

‘I tried but you couldn’t hear me over your snoring, you might wanna get that checked out’ Aemond teased, forcing himself to keep his face straight while he looked at her.

‘Oh god’ Dahlia cringed.

‘I’m joking! You were fast asleep and I didn’t wanna disturb you’ Aemond grinned, proud at the annoyed look that was painted across her face.

‘You’re such a dick’ she grumbled back at him with a growing grin on her face.

The light breeze that washed over them carried a few birds songs from the shrubbery that surrounded the farm, and the gently hum of traffic from the nearby carriageway. It also held the raw scent of Aemond, the rich leather aroma weaving it’s way through Dahlia’s senses and almost making her head swirl. Gods he smelt good, even standing in a field of cattle and their droppings all she could smell was him.

‘Is there anything I can do to help?’ she asked eagerly, before she started salivating.

‘You could brush that annoying fuck for me, she wouldn’t stop walking away from me’ Aemond grumbled pointing to one of the brown heifer twins that tenanted their farm and passing her the brushing paddle that he had shoved in one of the pockets of his cargo pants.

‘You’re ridiculous!’ she laughed as she began gently grooming the animal as it feasted.

Aemond stopped attempting to put an antiseptic cream of the piercing wound of the cow Dahlia had treated a few weeks back, to give her an expectant look.

‘These are some of the gentlest , most beautiful caring animals you will find in this kind of job! You act as though they were hideous evil beasts!’

‘They’re lazy, they do nothing but eat and shit and they stink!’ he states back to her in a very matter of fact tone.

‘They do not! they are amazing animals you’re just a grumpus’ Dahlia grumbled, ignoring the raised eyebrow he offered her at her curious choice of insult. 

‘I’ll agree that they taste great but that’s as far as it goes’

‘Aemond!’ Dahlia gasped, quickly grabbing the ears of the cow she was grooming.

‘Oh don’t cover its ears!’ he laughed at her.

‘They just don’t have the same personality that horses do, there’s no intellect in them they’re… blank’ he explains.

‘There’s actually been studies done proving them to be quite intelligent, there was an experiment done where a cow followed sound through a maze to find a food source showing they have the ability to make decisions and they can hold a grudge so I’d mind your tongue around these lovely ladies’ Dahlia grinned at him as he shook his head at her.

The pair finished their duties with the cattle and allowed Vhagar to herd them back into their open field where they pastured. Aemond and Dahlia tidied the barn back to an acceptable standard before heading back towards the road to head home.

‘How can they hold a grudge? What to they have to be… grudgy about?!’ Aemond asked Dahlia curiously as both of their wellies squelched through the wet soggy mud.

‘Lots of things, if another cow threatens them or their calf. If a bull were to take a liking to another cow over them. If a human was threatening or abusive to them they have extremely advanced social skills’ she grins up at him as she notices their steps fall into stride with each other.

It happened so quickly to quick for her to do anything about it. As Aemond opened his mouth to make yet another comment, the ground beneath his feet turned into a slip and slide. The wet mud did little to soften his fall as his long legs flew up almost as high as his stomach and he crumbled to the floor. Landing on his back with a discomforting wet slap he groaned from the sheer contact of his body meeting the floor. Dahlia couldn’t help the gasp that left her mouth as she looked at him wincing on the floor. It only took a second of his looking up at her from the floor, mud flecked over his face and in his platinum hair, before she burst out laughing.

Dahlia held her stomach as her eyes watered and she continued to howl out laughter. The look on his face as he hit the floor would be imprinted in her brain forever. Her laughter died off the second she felt the warmth of his big hand wrapping around her ankle through her wellie, she could barely let out a small plea before she followed his tracks through the air and landed almost right on top of him. The left side of her chest pressed flush against his while the other lay absorbing the moisture from the damp floor. They both groaned in pain as her body collided with his on the floor, her ginger hair now having been dunked on the mud looking similar to his own.

‘Oh you’re such a prick’ she grumbled at him as her body wracked with a dull ache.

‘That’s what you get for laughing at me you bitch’ Aemond chuckled gruffly, placing his hands against her hips to try and deter her from moving her knee any higher into his crotch.

Dahlia released a breathy laugh as she leant up enough to look down at him lay underneath her. His purple eyes glimmered as he looked up at her with shaded eyes, having given in to the strain in his neck and letting his head sit in the wet mud beneath him. Even with the dirt spattered across his face he was still by far the most beautiful man she had ever seen, His pale skin seemed to sparkle even on the dullest day, almost like he was a marble statue standing on a pedestal in the famous museum that contained precious artifacts of old Valyria.

The flick of his amethyst iris’ shooting down to her parted lips pulled Dahlia from her admiration of him. She watches his eyes scan over her lips, looking at them unphased by the shift in her breathing or the way her body had tense against him. Her hands curling into themselves gripping at his chest, Dahlia took a deep breath in feeling Aemond’s hands tighten their hold on her hips ever so slightly, his fingertips burns holes into her being that would be perfectly fit for him. Her mind hazed over and she didn’t allow herself to think about what she was doing, didn’t let herself think about how it was her best friends brother that lay beneath her, whose nose she brushed with her own, whose breath fanned over her face.

The popping of heavy tires rolling over the gravel drive tore the two of them out of their bubble and back into the world around them, their attention being driven to the vehicle approaching the turn in to the farm. Dahlia, having looked over her shoulder, turned back to look at Aemond, him having lifted his head off the mud to inspect the interruption. Not sure whether the air between them was now heavy with tension, Dahlia scanned over his features looking for any give. Relieved to see the gentle amused smile he offered her she chuckled back gently before climbing to her feet, offering him a hand to aid him in his ascent.

‘You have a bit of mud in your hair’ Dahlia teased as they continued their walk.

‘Dickhead’ Aemond grinned shaking his head as he watched his feet carefully move through the slippery earth.

Once reaching the stables Aemond offered a small wave and the promise of ‘seeing her later’ before he joined a tall figure of a man waiting for him at the entrance of the building. With a messy attempt of platting her hair to get the mud out of the way, Dahlia continued on with her chores. The sheep were fed and watered before she moved on to filling the chickens grandpa feeders, she stood pouring the grain from her bucket into the metal stand when she caught movement on the other side of the farm. Aemond appeared from the Stables with the exotic figure that had ripped them from their almost intimate moment. A distressed look graced Aemond’s face as he rubbed his hand over her filthy head of hair. Catching his attention as she walked to the mesh fence of the chickens enclosure Aemond trudged his way over, meeting her at the fence.

‘You okay?’ Dahlia asked concerned.

‘Erm Balerions… Cole found a lump on his stomach, could just be a cyst but… could be something worse’

‘Oh my god’

‘He’s gonna take him for a scan and take some bloods…mum’s gonna be crushed’ Aemond grumbled, leaning his elbows on the fence and burying his face into his hands.

‘Is he your mum’s horse?’ Dahlia questioned softly, watching Criston Cole drive his trailer down towards the stables.

‘No he was my dads, last thing she has of him not that she ever really bothers with him. There was a whole bunch of drama when dad passed over who was going to keep him us or my sister, mum fought tooth and nail to keep him here’ Aemond sighed, looking up at her where she stood straight in front of his hunched over form.

‘Well hopefully it won’t be anything too serious’ Dahlia offered him a comforting smile, squeezing his arm gently.

‘Do you need me to do anything?’

‘No I’m just gonna help get him in the trailer’

‘Well I’m gonna go take a shower and stuff but if you need me for anything just give me a shout okay?’ she smiled at him, exiting the chicken coop and beginning up the hill to the house.

Aemond agreed with a small nod and watched her stroll up the grass, her hips swinging gracefully, mesmerizing him even if she was covered in mud.

Dahlia had managed to dodge questions hurled at her by Haelena over why her fathers horse was being taken off the farm, feeling it best to leave that topic for Aemond to explain. Her hot shower worked wonders getting the dirt out of her hair and off her hands and face but it did little to wash away the memory of being lay on top of his hard toned body, his breath fanning over her face from being so close, still sweet from the candied oranges Haelena had offered everyone for breakfast.

Opting for her gym leggings and an oversized jumper Dahlia returned downstairs to assist in the making of dinner, Baela had suggested making a pasta bake as something easy to get the family through the heavy news that Aemond had just delivered to his mother. She watched through the kitchen door as Aemond sat comforting a weeping Alicent.

‘So what’s going on with you two?’ Baela questioned, pulling her gaze from the sorrowful family.

‘What?’ Dahlia asked confused with expecting looks she was receiving from Jace, Luke and Rhaena, who had been instructed to set the table.

‘You and Aemond?’ Baela pressed

‘What about us?’ she continued playing innocent.

‘Come on! It’s so obvious that there’s… heat between you guys, I saw the look last night!’ Baela grinned while continuing to dish up the pasta bake evenly onto plates.

Dahlia scoffed in disbelief, like the very idea of her having sexual tension with what she believed to be one of the most attractive men she had ever met was unthinkable.

‘Oh look she’s blushing’ Luke teased

‘There is nothing between me and Aemond! We’re just friends!’ Dahlia attempted to defend herself.

‘Oh right friends… didn’t you guys hate each other like two days ago?!’ Rhaena joined in.

‘Who hated who two days ago?’ Aegon questioned joining them in the kitchen, along with a teary Alicent and Haelena and an exhausted Aemond.

‘Dahlia and Aem-‘ Rhaena started blurting out before Jace clamped his hand over her mouth and Baela yelled over her.

‘DINNERS READY!’

Everyone seated themselves and tucked into their dinner, eating mainly in silence other than the short conversations that Aegon attempted to break the heavy silence. Alicent didn’t stay for post dinner conversation, vacating the kitchen as soon as she had eaten her fill. Aegon retreated to his room not long after to avoid having to help clean up.

Aemond retreated out to the bench that sat just outside of the sliding kitchen doors, slumping down onto the wooden seat and letting out the breath he felt he had been holding in all night. His head was pounding and his back was hurting from the tumble and he just wanted to sleep but the grey clouds looming over head made him aware that his jobs for the day were likely not finished.  

His eye focused on the stables just down the hill, the building that should be housing the big stallion, he sat just staring out over the land, feeling his chest get tight at the unpredictability of the test results. How was he supposed to wait two days to find out?! The rain began to patter against the ground lightly, granting him a soothing white noise while he sat out on his own.

The doors slid open after a half hour and interrupted his serenity with the chatter and radio music pouring out of the kitchen.

‘Hey, you okay?’ Dahlia asked gently, sliding the doors shut behind her.

‘Yeah, just getting a bit loud in there and my heads booming’ He smiled, trying to playoff the severity of the pain resonating behind his eye.

Dahlia didn’t say a thing before disappearing back inside, leaving the doors open behind her. Aemond sat watching the space that she had just vacated before she returned with a glass of water and a box on pain killers. She nudged his leg with her knee prompting to slide over and allow to sit next to him.

‘Here’ she mumbled handing him the glass and tablets.

‘Thank you’ Aemond grimaced after throwing them in his mouth and gulping the water down.

He leant back in his seat and huffed, nibbling on the dry skin on his lip and watching the rain that continued at a relenting pace.

‘Is there anything I can do?’ Dahlia asked, hoping to be able to relieve some of the pressure he was so obviously feeling.

‘Not really, just got to wait for the test results and go from there… I just have no idea what’s gonna happen if it comes back as something worse than a cyst’ he grumbled rolling his head back onto his shoulder, his long silver hair now clean and tied loosely in a messy bun at the base of his neck.

‘This isn’t your fault you know’ she said abruptly, meeting his eye when it shot to her.

‘You’re obviously blaming yourself but you couldn’t have known’

‘Bullshit, I was the one that was supposed to be looking after him, I was the one that mum trusted to take care of him and I’ve missed a lump the size of a golf ball!’

‘Anyone could have missed it! Besides if he was in pain or feeling off he would have let you know and you know he would have, there isn’t anything you could have done differently’

‘Cole found it!’ he argued, standing up and leaning forward against the small wooden fence opposite the bench.

‘I should have been checking him properly instead of just running over him with a brush, I should’ve paid more attention, I should’ve-‘

‘Aemond there is nothing you could have done, even if you had been the one to find it! He would still have to have the tests’ she retorted, sitting up straighter and examining all the curves of his back.

‘I just don’t think mum is gonna be able to deal with it if it’s bad news, she’s gonna be a wreck’ he mumbled.

‘Well then you’ve got Hel and Aegon to help you get her through it and you guys are stuck with me for another few weeks so’ Dahlia offered him a comforting smile as she stood to stand next to him.

‘That doesn’t make me feel better’ he chuckled lightly.

‘And here I was feeling bad for laughing at you falling before… look just don’t assume it’s going to be bad news, it could be nothing’.

Aemond inhaled deeply and straightened his back, making him tower over her small form. He dodged her eye contact for a moment, trying to let himself untense.

‘You’re right… it could be nothing I’m just… it’s been a shitty day’ he sighed.

‘Oh I don’t know, seeing you lying in the mud brightened my day up’ Dahlia smirked.

‘It’s a good thing you’re cute you know otherwise you’d be on your ass right now’ Aemond grinned, chuckling at her until he realised what had slipped out of his mouth.

Dahlia locked eyes with him and couldn’t help the blush that crept up her neck, her face growing hotter by the second, she didn’t miss the same colour peaking through his porcelain skin. The eye contact between them became too heavy for her to uphold and she averted her gaze to her right, watching the rain fall grow alarmingly heavy as black clouds loomed overhead, promising a stormy night.

‘We should probably make sure all of the bales are covered’ Dahlia muttered, her heart pounding in her ears as her blood rushed through her body, he thought she as cute!

‘Yeah, I should probably check in on the horses’ Aemond stuttered back, not waiting for her to grab her coat or even grab his own before wandering out into the heavy downpour, shirt becoming saturated and clinging to his form almost instantly.

Dahlia couldn’t help the grin that slipped onto her face as his obvious discomfort, she liked that she had that effect on him. Adorning her raincoat and wellies, she padded her way down and off the farm with Aegon, assisting him in ensuring all of the animals in his care were okay and sheltered, making sure that their stock of Hay was wrapped or in a dry place away from the downpour.  

‘Malary!’ Haelena yelled at the duck waddling away from her, after having just nipped at her finger causing the woman to drop the bird allowing it to wander back to the puddle in which she had just collected it from.

‘I’ll usher her from this way you just get ready to open the door!’ Aegon yelled over the clashing of rain as he joined his sister in the small, fenced pen.

Watching her best friend chasing small birds through the pouring rain with her brother filled Dahlia’s chest with something she couldn’t quite pinpoint. It could have been envy, seeing Haelena have the family dynamic that she had dreamed of having since she was a child. It could have been joy from seeing her best friend so happy, loved the way she deserved or it could have been that she was feeling accepted as one of the family, that she was part of something that wasn’t toxic and set to destroy her.

Her attention was pulled away from the siblings by a loud clatter and an indistinct yell from inside the barn. Upon entering she found Aemond struggling to lead SunFyre into the same pen as Meleys. She let out a small chuckle at the sight of him soaked to the core, arguing with a horse and fighting with a wooden gate, all while trying not to get trampled by the panicking horse already in the enclosure.

‘Once you’re done laughing, would you mind helping me out?’ Aemond grumbled, seeing her in the doorway just watching him.

The rain hammering on the roof of the stables only made Meleys all the more nervous, Aemond allowed Dahlia to take control of SunFyre while he entered the pen first and did his best to calm the animal down. Once they had both horses inside, they began fitting their reins and tying them off onto the hitching post.

‘SunFyre is his calming buddy right?’ Dahlia asked while threading the leather rein through the loop she had created.

‘Well, it’s usually Balerion but Meleys seems to get on with SunFyre so he should be good’ Aemond answered from behind her.

The pair of them were wedged between the two horses, backs almost flush against each other while they secured the Palfreys. The more the horses stomped and wiggled about the more the pair were pressed into each other. She couldn’t feel his warmth or toned back through her raincoat but she could smell him, the intense scent of his aftershave mixed with the dampness of the down pour that had soaked through his shirt. Dahlia could barely concentrate on her hands while her brain was swimming in him.

‘Shit’ she whispered when her knot came undone almost instantly, SunFyre managed to stomp away from the rear wall slightly.

‘Here’ His voice rumbled down her ear as he turned his body in the small space to face SunFyre, his body pressing against hers, his arms coming around her and guiding her hands to tie a secure knot.

Dahlia’s mind was drowning, his breath fanning over her ear and neck, her ass cheeks fitting into the curve of his crotch perfectly, she felt like she was going to scream. Her entire body was on fire, delicious shivers running through her body leaving her with goosebumps. Once his long fingers were done guiding hers through the process of securing the horse, he retracted his left arm while the right patted down the smooth coat. Dahlia closed her eyes and took a deep breath, preparing to move herself out of the heated situation. She only got as far as turning slightly to walk away but was blocked by his arm that was still petting SunFyre, she could feel his eyes burning into her. Dahlia caved almost instantly and turned to face him. Her back now brushing against the soothing horse, her chest grazed over his with each breath they took, reluctantly her eyes lifted and found his looking right back at her, searching her eyes for any sign of reluctance or regret. She wasn’t sure if she wanted him to be able to see how much she was burning for him, how badly she wanted him to just grab her and take her right there, or if she should just act as though he had no effect on her, like he was just another guy, the same guy that she almost loathed a few days ago.

Dahlia didn’t have much time to decide before she felt Aemond’s left hand on her side, his big fingers splaying out across hip, pressing into her flesh through her clothing. The heat from his breath spread a tingling warmth across her cheeks as his head moved closer to her, Aemond didn’t break eye contact with her, not when her breath hitched or when her hand moved and pressed against his chest softly, gripping his shirt tightly. It wasn’t until he felt his nose brush against hers and smelt her hot sweet breath floating over him, did he move his eyes to look down at her lips. Dahlia’s eye lashes fluttered as she closed her eyes, the faintest brush of their lips setting her on fire. She waited, waited to feel his mouth envelope hers, to see what he tasted like and to feel that rush of finally getting to kiss him. She waited… and waited but it never came. What came instead what the sound of boots slapping through the rain and wet mud outside and then a voice, that pulled them straight from the steamy situation they had happily found themselves in.

‘Hello?! Can someone come and help me cover the plant beds? They’re flooding!’ Jace’s voice boomed off the walls of the stables over the rain.

Aemond closed his eyes and released gentle sigh, his fingers digging into hips a little as Dahlia pulled her head back and inhaled deeply.

‘Yeah I’ll be out now!’ she managed to choke out, her heart still pounding in her ears but still able to hear Jace walk away.

Aemond’s iridescent purple eyes scanned through hers, both of them still a little breathless. Dahlia broke the eye contact and looked down at her boots, swallowing heavily before ducking under his arm that was blocking her exit, leaving him stood there. She followed Jace out of the barn back into rain, she almost slipped in the wet mud as she jogged over to where Jace was struggling to get the dustsheet evenly over the plant beds.

She could still smell his breathe, his aftershave in her. Hells she could practically taste him! Dahlia’s head was swimming with pictures of kissing him, touching him and being consumed by him! She imagined his tongue would taste like chamomile tea and spiced apples. His bare chest would be hard but his pale skin would be warm under her hands, his hair would float through her fingers like silk and it would smell like the guava shampoo she assumed he used.

Aemond watched her walk away from the stables from his position leaning against the door, he loathed his nephew for pulling her out of his arms, almost as much as he loathed her raincoat from covering her behind. Pulling all of his strength together Aemond pulled himself back to securing his horses and padding out their stalls with extra straw.

She hadn’t said anything she had just walked out like they weren’t seconds away from kissing! This was the second time today they had been on the brink of falling of the edge of that cliff, where there was no coming back from that heat. Was she just trying to get into his head? Using her body to make him vulnerable before crushing his ego and humiliating him?! Aemond knew that was farfetched, she wasn’t the type of girl to demean herself like that just to embarrass him. Maybe it was the fact that he was her best friend’s younger brother, that she didn’t want to jeopardize her friendship with Haelena over what could potentially turn out to be just a fling. Or perhaps she was feeling just as frustrated and confused as he was, with all the fleeting touches and heavy breathing.

Whatever the reason was, he had made his way from the stables, through the rain and up the stairs towards her room. Either he could talk to her about what was happening and settle the air between them… or he could fuck her senseless. As Aemond padded his way up the last few of the stairs onto the third-floor landing, he took a deep breath, he needed to prepare himself no matter what the outcome was. The closer he got to her door the more his palms seemed to sweat, Aemond wasn’t used to getting shot down, granted he didn’t tend to ask people out but when he did the answer was very rarely a no.

Aemond lifted his hand to knock on her bedroom door, knuckles gliding through the air but coming to a dead stop before that rapped against the heavy oak of her door. The faint whimpers were muffled by the blocking door between them, the soft hum of Dahlia’s voice floating through his ears like music, it was almost pained. He would have burst into the room to ensure she was not hurt but after taking a step closer and holding his ear to the door he knew; she was not in any form of pain.

The hairs on his arm stood on end with the delicious shiver that ran through his body listening to her, she was pleasuring herself, at least he hoped she was by herself and didn’t have Aegon or someone in there with her. She moaned and gasped, clearly enjoying whatever depraved action she was inflicting on herself. Aemond knew he should walk away, stop listening in on her personal moment and give her some privacy but his feet remained planted to the carpet outside of her room. He was glued to the sound of her, the image her moans were painting in his mind made his heart race and his pants grow tighter. He had no intention of grabbing himself through his jeans but he couldn’t help himself, they had grown incredibly uncomfortable.

Her moans were like sweet music to his ears, sweet taboo music. He knew he could just twist that handle, walk into her room and take over for her but he just stood there and listened. He was not the type of person that did this kind of thing, he couldn’t even watch porn without feeling disgusting and foolish. He knew he needed to leave and he tried. Turning on his heel with a heavy sigh he took one step away from Dahlia’s door, hand still rubbing his hard cock through his pants. That one step was all he managed to take however before the irritating sound of Aegon’s awful singing voice sounded from the bottom of the staircase to the third-floor landing. Aemond was screwed, his brother now being halfway up the stairs he knew he wasn’t going to make it to the other end of the hallway without him or his raging erection being seen. His only escape was to slide into the airing cupboard adjacent to Dahlia’s room, shutting the door softly behind him.

His plan was to just wait until Aegon had gone into his room and then he was going to slip out of the cupboard and head straight back to his room, whether he copied Dahia’s idea and dealt with himself was a decision he would make in the safety of his own abode. However once again his plan was thwarted as soon as he noticed the small beam of light coming into the otherwise pitch-black cupboard, Aemond had an inkling what sight was waiting for him on the other side of the wall that held the puncture, Dahlias moans had begun to pierce his ears a lot clearer. Despite all of his self-respect and honour screaming at him not too, he moved his face closer to the gap and peered through, and just as he had suspected there she was. He could see no more that her head and chest but he didn’t need to, her face alone sent his mind swirling into the dirtiest thoughts. Her eyes closed and mouth open with her lips pouted, eyebrows scrunched as she concentrated on whatever it was that he hands were doing.

‘Fuck’ Aemond mumbled to himself pulling his gaze away from the luxurious sight in front of him.

He shouldn’t be doing this, Aegon would surely be in his room by now, he could just slip out and go back to his room and forget that any of this happened. No matter how much he rubbed himself through his pant it would never feel as good as it would if he just went back and got himself comfy, he could just memorise what he had seen. But no one knew he was there or what was going on and he wasn’t going to say anything so who was he hurting really? Despite his best efforts to control himself Aemond still unbuttoned his jeans and released his hardness. Breathing deeply as the sudden contact of his cold hand he placed his face back against the wall, looking in on the girl he so desperately wanted.

Aemond palmed the head of his sensitive cock gently and slowly worked his hand down his shaft, all the while watching Dahlia’s face contort with pleasure, her chest rises and falling as she gasped and whimpered. He let out a soft groan, sliding his hand up and down his cock, listening to the sounds coming out of her. He bit his lip, working himself faster to relieve the pressure that growing in him the closer Dahlia evidently got to her climax. He could just envision what was going on behind the wall that was blocking his view from the rest of her perfect body, her legs spread, her hand moving over her wet pussy, rubbing over her tender clit or fucking herself with her own fingers, maybe even both. Gods he wanted to bury his face between her legs, he would never leave. He worked his hard on faster and faster, jerking his hips lightly into his hand.

It was the soft groan on his name that flowed from Dahlia’s lips that sent him over the edge, his available hand jolting up to grab hold of the door frame to steady himself as his eyes rolled back and hot strings of cum coated his hand and trousers. His heart pounded heavily in his ears that it almost blocked out the continuing noises that seeped from her mouth. It only took a few seconds for it to sink in what he had just done, that sickening feeling of guilt and disgust seeped into his bones.

He was stood in an airing cupboard, cock going soft in his cum covered hand after he had spied on his sister’s friend playing with herself, this was something his brother would do not him! He was a pervert! The fact that she had been playing with herself to the thought of him had made him cum and he would have loved to watch her finish herself and hope that he was the one that had gotten her there but he couldn’t stay to watch. He needed to leave and act like it had never happened, he felt like scum.

Calming his breathing down enough, he grabbed a hand towel off the shelf above him and cleaned his hand, shoving his cock back into his pants. Once he was sure the coast was clear he slipped out of the cupboard and padded back to his bedroom, shutting the door gently behind him. Aemond headed straight for the shower, to scrub himself clean.

[villruu]

Really nice guy who hates only you Alex x Brian?

Anon, anon... Listen, um. Well, this originally had more of a comedic vibe with timetravel splashed in, but then "the red means I love you" snuck up on me and suddenly this happend. I, um. Well.

Enjoy timetravel doomed brilex??

On AO3

This contains canon-typical violence :)

⸻

Alex woke up slowly, woozy and trembling.

His whole body felt off-putting, numb and cold and not entirely his own. It was dark and humid, damp in the way cement only knew how to be, the slight scent of mold typical of abandoned buildings that Alex had come to learn intimately as he searched locations for his film.

Where… where was he?

Last he remembered he had gone to sleep. And, it had been a good dream. There hadn’t been any weird creature in the distance, he hadn’t felt angry, everyone was working together and, and it was just him and his friends having a good time. Brian had been there too, joking, close to him in a way he hasn’t been since he had fallen sick a few weeks ago.

Alex tried to move, but his body felt too slow, muscles barely twitching even as Alex forced himself as much as he could.

It was cold. Too cold.

Was it still night? Where was he? 

He had his pajamas on, though no socks. He didn’t have his glasses on either. When Alex tried again to move, he found something digging painfully into his wrists. Plastic and hard, almost threatening to cut into his skin with each slight movement.

Where the fuck was he?

Steps. The crushing of glass beneath shoes. The swish of clothes moving.

“Hello?” Alex called, voice thin and fearful, “Who’s there?”

Silence.

“Hello?” He repeated, “I… I need help.”

Silence again.

The darkness was absolute. Was even someone there, or was Alex imagining it? 

Alex trembled.

Steps again, closer and closer until Alex could swear he could feel the warm emanating from another living being. Fear sprang to life inside him as a sudden light turned on, the flash blinding him momentarily, leaving him reeling with a pained yelp.

With watering eyes, Alex slowly adjusted to the harsh white light shining on his face. A figure stood in front of him, obscured in the shadows produced by the strong light. It was a flashlight, Alex noticed distantly somewhere in his panic, a big and clunky one, the kind that hikers like to get.

All Alex could see were the dirty black gloves of the figure, covered in dust and some liquid that looked almost black in the light that reflected on the flashlight.

“Who… Who are you?” Alex rasps, voice gaining confidence the longer he goes on, “Did… Did you take me? Where am I? What is this place? What did you do to me—”

Alex’s is abruptly cut off as something whacks him across the face. He groans, wishing he had his hands free to rub at his face. Something wet dripped from his nose, probably blood since Alex doubted it hadn’t been broken, a deep ache coming from his cheek where he had been struck first.

The flashlight looked scuffed on the edges, now.

He has a million questions to ask, a thousand words to say, but he keeps quiet, now weary, like a dog who suddenly learned its owner is also capable of kicking it and not only petting it.

Why is he here? Why him, why out of anyone, him?

The figure doesn’t move. Alex doubts they are even breathing, so still and silent as they are now. Alex watches in silence as they take something from their pocket, probably, the sound of an object dragging across, the shift of clothes. 

A glint of silver. A metal barrel.

A gun, in front of his face.

Alex stays still, frozen, watching the weapon with wide eyes.

“Are….You…” Alex whispers as the gun gets closer to his face, the hand holding it as steady as a mountain.

His dad taught him how to fire a gun, before coming to college. They had spent an entire day practicing with cans and glass bottles near his grandpa’s, in an empty lot close to the forest. His dad had proclaimed that in a state like Alabama, it was best he knew how to defend himself, and had even given him a gun, which Alex kept locked up and hidden deep beneath mountains of trash in the small shed of the house. 

Alex had never gotten over the shakiness of holding onto a real gun.

He wondered how this figure managed to do so.

He can see the edges of the sleeve now, a faded orange, dirty and scuffed. 

The silence stretches between them, like an eternal graveyard.

“This is for the best,” The figure tells him. The voice is familiar, extremely so, but Alex first processes the movement of the gun.

In a fit of desperation, Alex throws his head forward, the metal of the gun colliding painfully with his temples. There’s the sound of metal falling onto the floor, but any relief is short-lived, as the flashlight is brought down on his face again. He struggles, as the flashlight falls to the ground and rolls a few feet away.

He can see the figure more clearly, a dirty faded hoodie, some dirty jeans, scuffed shoes. They lean down, grabbing their gun, and all the fighting abruptly leaves Alex’s body as the figure stands up and the light is finally shining on their face.

Hazel eyes, deep bags, pale face, brown hair. It’s a familiar face. It’s a face that Alex has seen for almost 5 years, it’s a face Alex trusts, it’s the face of his friend.

It 's Brian.

(It’s Brian, Brian his best friend, Brian who he knows from highschool, Brian who he spent countless nights studying with for midterms, Brian who was with him when he adopted Rocky, Brian who joined his film when nobody else would, Brian who found other actors for him.

Brian who everyone loves. Brian who’s the social butterfly of their college. Brian, who Alex trusts with his life. Brian, who has a million friends and yet always makes time for him. Brian, who makes Alex feel like he is seeing the world again. Brian, who Alex can't never stop admiring. Brian, who he loves.

Brian, who is pointing a gun at him. 

Brian, who is probably the one who dragged him here. 

Brian, who he thought was his friend.)

“...Brian?” Alex yet still dares to say, as if hoping saying the name of the other would stop this nightmare, would make the scowling person in front of him transform back into his friend.

Brian stares at him and looks briefly at the flashlight, before simply moving until they’re staring at each other. Alex stares into the sunken gaze of his friend, and wonders what happened. 

“Brian…?” He repeats.

All he gets is a kick to the side, leaving him dropped on his side, curled up like a dying larvae, wheezing.

Brian steps closer. He is standing right above him, gun steady as it points directly at Alex’s head. His eyes are hard and dark.

“Brian,” Alex breathes out, breathing noisily in and out to try and ignore the pain radiating from their side, “Brian, I don’t understand…”

“You know,” Brian says absently, voice light, “It’s a good thing I got dropped back now rather than later.”

Brian smiles. It is not a nice smile.

“After all, who would believe that sweet, naive Brian would ever do anything to hurt his friend? Everyone knows he would die for them,” He gives a bitter laugh, and Alex swears that in the dim lightning his eyes shine almost red, “No, people will just assume whatever else. And after I take care of a few more things, that thing will never hurt another, and neither will you.”

“...You see it too?” Alex said, confused and hurt and unsure, “That, that guy, the one in the—”

“Shut up,” Brian spits, after he kicks him again, “I don’t need it coming to look into what’s happening now.”

Brian gives a brief look around, and Alex shudders, staring at the tall figure in the back, but Brian doesn’t see it, or if he sees it, he doesn’t react.

“I don’t understand…” Alex repeats, voice thin and unsure, “Brian you, you know how to stop this? how to, how do I stop seeing it—?”

Another kick.

“I said, Shut. Up.” Brian snarls, voice dripping hatred in a way Alex had never thought possible, “You don’t deserve help, Kralie. You, you fucked everything up before… If it weren’t for you…”

Brian shakes his head.

“It doesn’t matter,” He says, “With you gone, the group will not stay together. Tim will clearly not keep contact except with me, maybe, and will not spread it anymore. I’ll have to make sure Jay keeps his distance, permanently if necessary, but, right now, the only thing I need to do is get rid of you.”

The gun clicks, safety finally off.

Alex whimpers, static building up in the back of his head as he stares up at the barrel of the gun.

“Goodbye, Kralie.”

The static builds up into a screech, a high pitched screaming that builds up and up and up, and Alex Kralie knows no more.

[notoverjoyed]

Final Chapter! All that's left is a brief epilogue. Here's where I warn for depictions of blood and gore and implied cannibalism. Also, check out the great art that @chaseacer-ghostedition and @auroboroch made for this story. (this is from chapter 4, go look at it!)

As before, Chapter 5 is below the cut.

Chapter 5: Satisfaction

Teenage voices echo through dark halls as the four walk through the eerily empty manor.

“Ancients, I almost hope the fruitloop is up to something. Whatever is wrong with the place is making me feel sick,” Danny says.

“Are we sure he’s isn’t up to something? He could be faking sick.”

“He looked… really bad when I saw him before though,” Dani says. Her brow was furrowed with worry.

Valerie wrinkles her nose. “He sure looked sick when I saw him last,” she says. “Staring at me all sweaty and gross, then screaming at me to leave.”

“Did he have gross green looking pimples all over?” Tucker asks.

“What, ew, gross, no!” Valerie gags.“Why the fuck would have that?!”

“Ecto-acne.” Sam says, “He had it in college, thought maybe he had a relapse.”

“Okay one, no gross pimples, just sweaty and weird. Two, how the hell do you know that.”

He did have a relapse like, a few months ago, then gave it to me and Sam to force Danny to help find a cure.” Tucker answers.

“Of fucking course he did,” Dani mutters.

“And he trusted Mr. lucky-to-get-a-D-minus-in-Chemistry over here to do that?” Valerie adds.

“Hey! I figured it out in the end!”

And he was super sick then! Even when he’s sick he’s still a slimy bastard. Why should we trust him now?” Sam adds.

“We don’t, but..” Valerie starts to say, but trails off. She really can’t say much to that.

“Anyway… wait.” Danny stops, having noticed a door hanging nearly off its hinges farther up the hallway. The rug in front of it was bunched up like someone had slipped on it running through the hall.

The group comes to a halt by the door. Sam and Tucker weren’t really expecting to find anything that unusual, but the suddenly sober expressions of the other three make them grow quiet. The five of them stand in front of the broken door

Valerie is the first one to break. “Did Vlad do this?”

“Dunno, probably,” Danny says.

“Clumsy as hell though, he must really be sick,” Tucker says.

“Where was he trying to go, d’you think?” Sam asks.

“I guess we’ll find out,” Danny replies, and starts toward the door. The others follow behind him.

“Sure, follow the ominous path of destruction. If we find Vlad having some sort of seizure one of you guys is gonna call the ambulance,” Tucker jokes weakly as the rest of the group files past him, but he steps after them. No one laughs as they each step through the broken door and continue into this new, darker passage.

The path of destruction is clear even in the dim light, and they follow it down and down until they reach the door to Vlad’s lab. This door, at least, is intact, but it’s not closed. Instead, it’s opened just a crack to let an eerie emerald light peek through. Nobody speaks as Danny pushes it fully open. It creaks sharply as it reveals a horrifying scene.

Vlad’s lab is bathed in the green light of the portal with its doors wide open. No. not just open, but broken. The left hand door is crooked in its frame, while the right rests wholly on the metal floor. Had something clawed the portal open?

Damage extends beyond the portal. The walls and floor, normally pristine, look… dirty. In the green glow of the portal, it’s hard to tell with sight alone just what the mess is made. Sam is the first to react, her face contorting in revulsion at the pungent iron and citrus and something else scent. Danny, however, is the first to recognize the odor that can only be ectoplasm tainted blood. The disgust on each of their faces turns to horror as they share his recognition.

Tucker recoils, stumbling back against the doorway, but the others don’t notice him.

“Is that…” Valerie starts, then chokes out, “Is that Masters?”

“It’s gotta be,” Sam replies shakily.

“No,” Dani whispers.

“Oh god,” Tucker says, now leaning weakly against the wall and looking up, away from the mess.

“No,” Danny says, looking nauseous, “It’s not.”

Dani’s head whips toward him and asks with a shriek, “How do you know?”

“I know what my own blood smells like!” Danny shouts. His face, already drawn in horror, contorts with the terrible realization.

“What the hell are you talking about?” Valerie yells, verging on hysterical.

“Oh no,” Dani says. “Oh no oh no.” She shakes her had and look closes her eyes against the sight.

“What-” Sam begins to ask, but stops to catch Dani as she slowly crumples.

The cloning tubes are wide open, and empty of all but smears of greenish blood. Danny’s right; none of it belongs to Vlad.

[spamtoon]

DCRC Book Club TWO !

for last week. oops. i'm so sorry puffy school and driving have been kicking my metaphorical ahh BUT. i need to read more of the funny uno comic. you have uno it came free with your ducklair tower (has said this joke like five times)

PLEASE know this is just going to be like. liveposting. rather than an analysis im typing this all while i'm reading the comic

pkna spoilers. again long post do not feel like you have to read unless you want to

please know that every time i look at an evronian now i think HOLY SHIT ! its Agron from Evron! me and my friends had a very enjoyable reading of issue 1 but this bad boy is allll me baby

i was going to say wow this penguin guy looks sick i wonder if he's an actual charcter and then i realized the big metal thing is NOT armor that is their WEAPON and i am more dsappointed but yknow what sure. we need more penguin representation in duck.verse aside from those fuck ass penguins (referring to tus.kernini's penguins)

i would also like to note that the italian sound effects are very funny. i am told there is a SPAM later in the comic and i would like to see that come to fruition

ooh? you're already at the making breakfasts stage donald? how fascinating... sorry no matter if i get an attachment to uno i will acknowledge he is forever donald's alright. the fucking way uno looks back i'm so... he's so goobity. he's such a thing. such a goober in fact

well you see uno. this vandal is a club penguin fan and is looking to recreate the box dimensio--nevermind he's not taking any of the boxes joke cancelled HAH NEVERMIND HE IS TAKING THE BOXES see i told you

your AUNT is a mutant. obsessed with the idea of donald duck using your aunt instead of your mom because of his family being full of a whole bunch of uncles and aunts its beautiful i think

angus fangus can you please get your bitch ass out of here and into the other hemisphere for me? thanks. you made donald sad. you made him so fucking sad im so (feat lyla lay swagger)

cog i ough. from what i understand from other comics the publication that tries to frame them is almost never Actually On Their Premises. this could lead to some interesting setups...

donald yyou little fucking shit. i see where the 87 triplets get it from. i mean i approve but you little fucking shit. i love that uno just goes along with it like yeah this guy's a dick let's mess him up

im appreciating how they write lyla okay. she's so Manipulative but not in a bad way you know. yes she just said she was the duck avenger but she's doing it in order to gague donald's reactions, or as donald thinks possibly tip him off? she clearly knows a lot more than anyone gives her credit for and yet here we are.

oh she fucking knows knows actually alright. alright i see where they're going with this (i dont) (i am reading with Intrigue...) wait wait my epic brain thoughts alright.t they're doing the thing where they set something up and then they have a reveal so lyla lay. just might be a mutant like time fucky wucker was talking about eh? eh?

the fucking fight scenes int his comic... the way they show the differences between weapons and just like. play with the panels. it might be standard for th medium and i just havent read hat many comics but i love shit like this

please know that if uno didn't exit camera 9 would be my favorite character. spamcore. to me. and the fucking way they portray time travel here ough. cool as fucking hell. the slow stepping forward and the Wind Effect oho. ohoho.

uno's fucking face sory i just. i too wonder how the fuck they're gonna outliquida.tor themselves out of this one becuase this. guy does in fact seem overpowered but donald probably has to deal with many more overpowered people

2 issues in and we've already introduced time police dear lord i wonder how it's going to snowball from here.

the duck avenger version of the everyone's an idiot d.arkwing falacy. everyone's a fucking snoop and its beautiful. donald is so serious here and yet everybody else is like five steps ahead of him

uno smiling is so fucking precious i don't care what anyone says its so fucking precious okay. please know i'm starting to feel important is making me emo but im writing the rest of this post immedaitely after rewatching a goo.fy movie with people so... and after three episodes that make em fucking nsnngamgsnmgngnsmgab you know

the fucking way i actually went :O over this i'm so predictable omg. that's so cool. robots... are so cool holy shit. so there's just robots everywhere alright thats Fucking Sick Actually. i retract the thing i said in vc today acab does not apply to her i think she's... a silly girl...

hey uno. you see with uno. i dont even know much about him yet. i don't want to say it for certain right now but it feels like. not quite a bright spark in terms of Level yet but like. like bright spark in that i feel like him rejecting me would make me feel good you know. yes please list all the ways that though i am mechanical i am a disgrace to all robotkind, with my primitive technology and even more primitive habits. this could change. i am on the second issue of this long running comic. but at this point that probably isn't the case. uno makes me feel like a rat in that he's beautiful and i will prioritize saving him over the various citizens in the city. not that he needs it

gay ahh wink from this mega.mind lookin ahh... dude i literally went to movie night and then when i came bakc there were like. two three pages left. but y'know what i ough. as i've said before i am invested in this thing and i have homework to do but i also kinda wanna do week three right now y'know. oughghghg i just. i'm so glad that they like gave l.yla lay an acutla purpose like i knew she had to be the only pk.na character in mudae for a reason but from her introduction i was SO worried they were just gonna have her be. The Girl Friend Character but she is shaping up to be so so so much more than that.

thank you dipshit duck for getting me to like. suck it up and be comfortable with reading comics because theres so much duckverse has in store for me and i cant wait to experience it all