#local scenes

[polyamorouspunk]

“Why Don’t You Just Move?”

A look at rural queerness and the hardcore scene.

With the recent and still on-going tragedy left in the wake of Hurricane Helene, a lot of light is being shed on southern states that make up Appalachia.

There’s a lot of misconceptions about Appalachia and the southern United States as a whole. There are a lot of good users on this website that have put a lot of effort into combating these harmful stereotypes and clearing up misconceptions.

But there’s more than just Appalachia in the south. There’s a lot of middle ground. Places that aren’t as rural as Appalachia, but places that aren’t as populated as cities like Raleigh, Richmond, Memphis, etc.

Places where people gather surrounded by other agricultural hubs.

There are queer people everywhere. In every culture, every religion, every country, in all of history, we have existed. We cannot and we will not be erased.

A common narrative that’s floated around for many years is “if red states are passing laws that are constructive to the LGBT+ community, then why don’t those people just move?”

So why don’t we just move?

I’m sure you can find a lot of well-written posts on here explaining many reasons why queer people not just in the southern states, but all over the world don’t “just move”, and one reason I’ve seen echoed over and over again is that “we have thriving communities here too”. We exist too.

How does one “be punk”?

It’s a question my mutuals and I get a lot, and a lot of us are tired of hearing it.

What does it mean to be punk?

Is it about the music? The clothes? The politics? Can you be punk if? Is it punk if you? Who? What? Where? When?

One common beginner tip to “being punk” is to find and join the local scene. This can lead to a lot of other questions, though. What is a scene? Where does one find the scene? How does one participate in the scene? Is there a minimum requirement?

Rest assured, literally no one is asking this offline.

A hardcore scene is so much more than just hardcore. A scene is a group of people where music is a common thread that builds the basis of other connections. A hardcore scene isn’t necessarily even hardcore.

“You have to listen to punk music to be punk”. Sure. But here’s the thing. In your local hardcore scene you will find: metal musicians, rappers, and more. You will attend shows with blues music, orchestras, and more.

Sometimes it’s not even music at all! Sometimes there is drag! Sometimes there are movie nights! Sometimes there are group outings!

It’s almost like… it’s just a social construct.

What is the local scene? The local scene is loud music. It’s smoking and drinking. It’s stopping by the corner store and the smoke and vape. It’s carpooling. It’s movie nights. It’s text chains. It’s group chats. It’s he-said-she-said. It’s they said. It’s AMAB enbies. It’s people who don’t care about “passing”. It’s DIY HRT. It’s she was a lesbian until she met him. It’s situationships. It’s hooking up and coming down. It’s bouncing from place to place to meet up with each other. It’s showing up someplace and seeing who’s there and waiting around to see who’s coming. It’s late nights spent partying on the weekends and back to school and work come the weekdays. It’s knowing someone by looks or name even if you haven’t put the two together yet. It’s trading socials. It’s Instagram stories and comments. It’s “DM for Address”. It’s “are you going tonight?” It’s “do you need a ride?” It’s “who else is going?”. It’s going somewhere and asking who’s coming. It’s sitting around on broken chairs and lawn furniture passing around a blunt, sharing a 24 pack of beer that 4 of you ran out to get with money you all pooled together, it’s “should we order pizza?” It’s “I brought donuts”. It’s hanging out in each other’s houses and rooms. It’s respecting the businesses that offer to house you. It’s generational friendships. It’s listening to your friends as they joke about their heritage and talk about their cultures. It’s the dog you pet when you’re sitting on the curb in ripped fishnets taking drunk selfies with your friends. It’s the man playing you the harmonica as you sit outside the THC drink bar on a Saturday night. It’s sitting out in the yard listening to someone play an acoustic set where they talk about the war and poverty and politics while you slowly get high surrounded by your friends. It’s sitting on a dock in the middle of the night fishing listening to emo music huddled together with your friends. It’s autistic people showing each other the bugs they’ve found in the dirt. It’s talking about your disabilities together. It’s shoving your friends in the pit and then holding their hands. It’s seeing the cos guys in their 40s and 50s who tend the bar and work the register calling you by whatever name and pronouns you give them. It’s all of this and so much more, and it cannot be conceptualized by one single fashion style, one single music style, one single belief system. It’s not someone calling you out because you went to Chick-Fil-A and don’t you know that’s bad, it’s not someone telling you that you’re a poser because you like Chappell Roan too or your clothes were bought at Forever 21 not thrifted and DIYed.

Everyone likes to talk about folk punk and other genres that bands like Dayz and Daze have popularized- or according to some, commodified and commercialized- but if you’re going to talk about music like folk punk, you’re going to have to respect the areas that it originated in.

Everyone want’s to talk about “local punk bands” when half the bands you’re seeing don’t even fall under the genre of punk.

Your local scene isn’t always going to be skate parks and thrash music.

Sometimes it’s the mom cooking you and all your queer friends dinner on a Friday night in her kitchen with crosses and a picture frame of her family with the quote “live, laugh, love”.

Sometimes it’s sitting around and listening to men who are old enough to be your grandfather with Vietnam Veteran hats play the blues while a pig roasts in a backyard BBQ, even though you’re in your 20s and you have blue hair and pronouns.

It’s sitting around and listening to your elders talk about how the scene used to be “back in the day”. Talk about the shows they’ve been to, the bands they’ve seen in their prime.

It’s asking what you do for work, where do you live, what brought you down here, what’s your college major?

It’s people. It’s people connecting to people. Regardless of the color of their skin. Regardless of gender or sexuality. It’s people of all ages coming together to listen to music with the idea that what you all have in common is living here and now, hating politicians, and thinking that someone should do something about the shitty state the world is in. It’s not a conglomerate. It’s individuality, and there’s no real wrong way of doing it unless you’re a Trump Supporter or a Nazi, and even then, they still have their own factions of the punk scene that are going to overlap with yours on occasion. The best you can do then is stand up for what you believe in and stay safe.

There are scenes just like mine all over this country. In southern states, in rural areas, in places that other, mainly white queers have “written off”.

So why don’t we just move?

Because this is our scene, and it’s what we make it, and in the heart of the south in the Bible Belt, we’re making it a queer-inclusive space despite what’s happening around us.

[sheepstiel]

imagine with me. early spn episode. early morning, they are driving through a vaguely canadaesque town. dean calls sam gay for eating a banana. cut to the next scene where dean is seen deepthroating a hot dog in the background while sam interrogates the local hot dog vendor guy.

[castillon02]

Tim reviews Jason's operations management and makes a suggestion.

"Your first move: hire a head of sanitation," Tim said.

"You think a janitor's gonna solve my suddenly-successful-startup problems? What, by sweeping them away?" Jason rolled his eyes.

Tim steepled his fingers. “The good news,��� he said, “is that your drug distribution and community norms enforcement hierarchy is very clear. You also have people doing marketing, program management, HR, facilities, and admin. Your system of rotating duties when people get injured isn’t bad—people generally benefit from cross-training—but you should formalize the top positions and compensate your new leadership team. Including sanitation.” 

“Sure, sure, I'll just tell one of my guys their job is to be head shit-scrubber instead of a badass neighborhood protector!" Jason threw up his hands.

Tim raised his eyebrows.

“It’s bad enough getting them to clean up a crime scene when they’re on my literal shit list! A couple of them thought that lighting the building on fire was an easier way to get it to stop smelling bad and having DNA. Guess who had to add five new slides to his powerpoint about evidence disposal?" Jason glared.

Tim grimaced. "I had an intern in the office who thought that he could just throw trash off his desk for the cleaning staff to pick up."

He and Jason shared a commiserating look that silently said, We were both stupid enough to work with the League of Assassins, and even we wouldn't do that.

“Anyway," Tim continued, "since you're dealing with...that...you can just hire an outside party. Lots of people in Gotham know how to clean up dead bodies and keep their mouths shut. I can advertise the position and send you the likeliest candidates for an interview. I’ll have to incorporate you, of course, but I’ve had the paperwork ready since I got back from the Middle East.” 

“Incorporate me?” 

“Red Hood LLC, technically."

Jason's breathing became calculatedly even.

"Once you’re legit in the eyes of the law, we can work on squaring away everyone’s taxes and keep you from getting Capone’d.” 

“I’m as legit as one of Two-Face’s two-dollar bills!” 

“Yeah, but when you’re an LLC, all your crimes are white-collar crimes, and no one cares about those.” Tim shrugged.

“...Pretty sure that’s not how that works, bud.” 

“It’s how the court of public opinion works. And if anyone tries to say that Red Hood, CEO of Red Hood LLC, and Red Hood, notorious vigilante, are the same person? Tell them to prove it. So what if you have the same outfit? It’s a free country and people can wear what they want. And if they ever get your DNA results, Oracle says no they didn't.”

Jason tilted his head and started smiling. "You want Red Hood to be the Scarlet Pimpernel and Percy Blakeney. At the same time."

"The more blatant you are about it, the better. Rub elbows with Gotham's elite and tell them that you can't imagine why someone would let a Crime Alley vigilante ruin their ability to wear a red hood as a fashion statement, but in your company, people have spines. Especially when they're job creators. If you play your cards right, red headgear will be back in fashion."

"And then?"

"And then," Tim's eyes gleamed, "you start selling merch."

"Oh, shit." Jason's smile turned into a full-on smirk.

"On a sliding scale, of course."

"Those nepo babies are gonna pay me so much money to look cool."

Tim smiled. "And that's how hiring a head shit-scrubber is going to mitigate your high growth and cash flow problems."

[mochii-derogatory]

oh bartender! one Stanford era Sam winchester night of self discovery please !!! and yeah sure make it unrecognizable as spn fanart thank you

[kevindavidday]

i know it's been said a billion times before but neil from jean pov really did clear up the reason why andrew was so grumpy about being attracted to him 'cause neil's objectively annoyingly hot when he's being a cunt (which is all the time)

[kalopsic-lagomorph]

class of 99 or smth idk

[deedala]

coming up for air

[lorelune]

of carnage

|| blade x reader || E/18+ || shared toxicity, band au || wc: 8.8k  || ao3 ||

You and Blade are mutually assured destruction. You know this, and yet it does not stop you from chasing after him.

minors, antis and ageless blogs dni

notes: well hello :3c this fic is part of a trade i did for some LOVELY selfship art with MOST BELOVED @rabbbitseason!! they asked for toxic bladie and reader and i come to DELIVER 🙏 setting and au are heavily inspired by my time in my local music scene and all of the 💀that came with it. i'm glad it can be all get repurposed into blade smut 🫶 THANK YOU!! to bitti for giving me so many fun wants to craft around!! THANK YOU!!! as well to @ofmermaidstories and @2kmps for beta reading!! now, please mind the tags on this one and enjoy <3

CW: dark content, band au, dubcon, pain during sex, bleeding during sex, toxic relationship between blade and reader, angst, hurt/a little comfort, manipulation, gaslighting by blade and the reader @ themselves, face slapping, spanking, spitting, reader smokes cigarettes, reader drinks, self destructive reader, past blade/dan heng, implied unrequited jing yuan/dan heng, kernels of jing yuan/reader

“Are you going to the gig tonight? Fu Xuan asks as if the answer isn’t obvious already.

You crane your neck back to look at her from your roost in front of your full-length mirror. Your knees dig into the carpet and the tips of your fingers are tinged with black. You’ve spent the better part of the last thirty minutes attempting to perfectly smudge the smoky line of eyeliner on your lower lash line. A tube of dark, red lipstick (his color) and sticky gloss rests on the fluffy carpet beside your folded knees.

“Of course.” You can’t make yourself smile, not when your stomach is in knots. “Are you?”

“I should if you are going,” she huffs, leaning against your doorframe. “You need a chaperone.”

(She’s probably right.)

“Please tell me you’re joking.” You grimace and turn away, unable to meet her gaze. She’s too good at reading you. “I’ll be just fine on my own, thank you very much.”

“... He’s playing, isn’t he?”

“I mean, yeah.” You rub more aggressively at the widening smears around your eyes. “But that’s not the only reason.”

“Sure.”

“It’s not, really.” You meet her gaze with a glance in the mirror. It’s hard to keep, her stare intense and full of judgment— (And worry.) “There’s a bunch of good bands tonight. There’s a touring group— all the way from Pier Point.”

“Uh-huh.”

“You have no faith in me, do you?” You pout, keeping your voice light, and hoping it comes off as a bit of a jest.

When you finally turn to face Fu Xuan fully, she dips to sit beside you, on her own folded knees. She plucks your soon-to-be-worn lipstick off the ground and uncaps it, just long enough to see the color, before sighing and closing it once more with a pop. 

“Not really, no.” Fu Xuan leans against your side, cheeks puffing out. “Not when it comes to him—”

“You can say his name, you know.” You smear chalky highlighter on your cheeks with your fingertips. “It’s not a slur. He’s just some guy.”

“‘Some guy’,” She groans. “If he’s really just some guy, why don’t we skip the gig tonight and stay home? We can order in some nice food, and I could invite Qingque.”

“... I—”

“You know that going is a bad idea, right?” Fu Xuan sighs. “We’ve gone over this before.”

“I’m aware of that.” You can’t suppress your scowl any longer, turning to face her. “Blade is fine—”

“He treats you like shit.”

“He treats everyone like that.”

“That doesn’t make it better. If anything, that makes it worse. You deserve better.” Fu Xuan sounds genuinely upset. “And you can do better. Easily. With literally anyone else, even if you find them at one of your nasty house shows. Try entertaining the thought?”

“You don’t have to be so—” You turn to her, fist balling up on your knees— “So mean about it.”

“It’s messy.”

“And it’s not your business.”

“It’s not!” Fu Xuan says, exasperated as she rolls her eyes. “I really shouldn’t even be bothering, but you are my friend. And it is painful to watch you chase the tail of a man who will hardly give you the time of day or bare minimum respect. Excuse me for showing concern.”

“Your concern is noted.” As it has been before. “But I’m fine. I wasn’t lying earlier— there’s other groups I want to see tonight. You... don’t have to come along just to babysit. I’ll be alright. I know you hate them.”

“I do.”

Fu Xuan crosses her arms and exhales, something angry and burning. “At least let me drive you. I can pick you up later too. Rather I do than some stranger or him—”

“Blade. His name, Fu Xuan.”

“Blade.”

“God, you do say it like a slur.” You roll your eyes, the pit in your stomach having become larger and darker. You swipe below your eyes and thank an Aeon or two that your eyeliner is waterproof. 

...

The house venue is a bit out of town, in the rural suburbs on a lot that’s big enough to host a crowd and not bother the nearest neighbors. Fields streak by during your journey, humming with junebugs and chirping with late- summer crickets. Low hills roll by as a harvest moon rises, waxing and half-full.

Fu Xuan drops you at the curb and idles as you collect yourself. A crossbody bag carries your essentials (your phone, your sticky lip products, a lighter to go with the pack of cigarettes that you actually don’t smoke, and two condoms shoved against the bottom). You fiddle with the strap against your shoulder.

“Call me when you need me to pick you up, okay?” Fu Xuan taps the steering wheel. “I’ll be awake.”

“Okay, mom.”

“I mean it—”

“I know.”

“Don’t go home with Blade. Or let him drive you home. He handles a car like he’s trying to kill himself.”

It’s a fair assessment but you still shake your head, trying to seem good-natured despite the rot you feel curling in the back of your throat. Bile, rising, before you have a drop of liquor in you. It’s a little pathetic; you’ll really think so in retrospect. For now, you walk toward the venue itching for a drink in your hand or familiar company. Thundering bass and ripping guitar vibrate from the basement windows, shaking the ground beneath your feet.

A crowd clusters at the back of the house. Folks swap cigarettes and clutch cans of cheap beer and flasks decorated with stickers. You quickly survey, looking for, searching for him—

(He’s usually out here before his set, hiding away somewhere with Kafka sharing cigarettes and glaring at anyone dumb enough to make a pass at her.)

A hand grabs you by the shoulder, and you nearly jump out of your skin. “Oh my gosh, you’re here! I didn’t know you’d be coming to the gig!”

It’s March, you know. She is easy to identify with the sweet, candy-like perfume she wears and the slight press of her almond-shaped gel manicure into your shoulder.  March turns you abruptly, throwing her arms around your shoulders and squeezing. Too tightly, knocking the air out of you in an instant. You give her a tentative hug back and pull away quickly. The contact scalds you.

“Have you seen—?”

“Blade?” March pouts and tilts her head. “You know, I feel like you only come to these things to see that guy. He’s nothing special. And I have seen him. He was off sulking a while ago, by the sheds in the back of the lot.”

“... I’ll have to check. Thanks, March.”

She sighs as you walk away from her, before calling out to Stelle (who is always a step or two behind her anyways.) 

You feel— bad about how you treat them. They’re both good people. So is the third in their trio, Dan Heng, a man with a beautiful face and an eerily calm demeanor, especially when compared to his companions. The group of them was introduced to you back when you first started attending these shows, hanging around the scene, and sweating in the basement of mildew-filled houses. They were some of your first friends, and easy to mesh with when you gave yourself the time and space to. Stelle always had a flask with lukewarm vodka or tequila, and March kept a case of seltzers in her trunk. Dan Heng was the ever-reliable sober cab. 

(It was nice back then. Before you had become so entangled with Blade and the subsequent social politics that came with chasing and occasionally fucking the hot, albeit emotionally-unavailable bassist of HUNTERS. It was far easier to hold those friendships than to orbit around a man who you can never tell if he hates you or wants to fuck you in his back seat.)

You find Blade tucked away around the side of the house, cloaked in shadow while taking long drags of a cigarette. The cherry glows in the dim light. From the basement window peeking out from the ground, a red glow pours out, illuminating the well-worn combat boots he wears. They’re crusted in filth, falling apart at the toe. 

(You’d still lick them if he asked you to. Hump them if he asked you twice.)

Another figure stands across from him. Serene, arms crossed, with storm eyes visible even in the poor lighting. Dan Heng keeps a perfectly neutral expression as he speaks, hushed, to Blade who wears a scowl so perfectly that it looks like he’s carved of immovable stone rather than not flesh. 

You’re not quite within earshot. You can’t make out their words, only their tone. It’s an angry exchange, one that’s charged with heat lighting and ire. Blade spits something at Dan Heng, venomous in his tone like he so easily is. Dan Heng replies back something so cooly that it’s like a low-tide wave lapping at your feet.

If you were better, you would turn around and leave. Neither of them know that you’re here, so close. It’s invasive to listen, but you know that there’s... history between Blade and Dan Heng. You’ve always wondered what it is, and considering that Blade has the emotional availability of a rotting vegetable, you won’t be getting those details out of him.

Maybe witnessing their dynamic (yet again) could provide you some clarity—?

(And maybe, if you know why Blade was so, so hurt by Dan Heng, you can do better. You can be the exact thing that Blade wants, and then he will want you, just as much as you want him.)

You listen more keenly:

“I’ve asked you to stop booking shows where the Express is already playing.”

“And I’ve asked you to get off my dick and stop being such a priss, but it doesn’t look like you’ll ever do that.”

“I’m asking you to be reasonable.”

“Sure, because clearly asking me to not play prime gigs is ‘reasonable’. Not to mention you should be taking this up with Kafka or Elio, not me. Did you just want an excuse to talk, Imbibitor Lunae—”

“Don’t call me that.”

“What, have something else you’d prefer to be called? I remember plenty of things you liked hearing. Want me to name a few?”

“Hold your tongue—”

A stick cracks behind you and you nearly jump out of your skin.

“Bladie~” Kafka purrs behind you, hands sliding up over your shoulders, hot breath over the back of your neck. “We’re on soon. Soundcheck in five, Firefly has a vodka shot for you if you want.”

You’re frozen.

Blade grunts from around the house, and as he does, Dan Heng emerges from the shadows quickly, on hastened feet, and nearly stumbles when you see him. Your expression must be— fucking stupid. Wide-eyed and slack-jawed as Kafka runs her nails up and down your neck. 

As Dan Heng practically sprints off, Kafka croons quietly into your ear, “And what are you doing all the way back here? Looking for Bladie again?”

You don’t need to speak for her to know your answer. Blade’s steps thud against the ground over the short, dry grass. 

Part of you knows you should scramble away and pretend you weren’t just lurking like a stray dog begging for kitchen scraps. It’s humiliating to be caught by Kafka (yet again), doing the same shit on a different day. Another part of you, one which is much louder, more persuasive, and saccharine sweet, urges you to face Blade. If you get caught in his maw, good. 

Your hands shake as Blade emerges from the dark.

He looks like death. Ghostly pale skin with deep purple eyebags, like bruises. His eyes are cut carnelian, ethereal and volcanic against his parlor. A cigarette hangs between his plump lips, threatening to burn and melt the pieces of his fringe that hang around his cheeks. Long, wild black hair, tipped in faded crimson, falls down his back in frizzy waves. His arms bulge obscenely in the tight, black shirt he wears. A carved jade pendant hangs off of his belt.

Blade stares you down and his scowl deepens, turning even more sour. He mutters something under his breath, something unintelligible but cruel. It’s not the first time he’s spoken to you that way. He’s done so more loudly and more brutally. 

You—

(Hate it. You love it. Well, maybe not love, but you crave the way that Blade is awful to you. You’re horrible.)

“Better get inside now,” Kafka hands drift to your waist, tugging on the belt loop of your pants. You let out a little yip. “I’m sure the front row is filling up fast. No need to spy on Bladie if you get a prime spot during the actual set, hm?”

She’s right; she usually is.

Kafka leaves you with an elegant twirl, humming one of HUNTERS songs from their new EP under her breath. You know the tune. You’ve been playing it on repeat for the last two months. 

It’s easy to follow the jarring trills of soundcheck as you float inside the home, following the trail of people headed toward the basement. Descending down the rickety, railingless stairs into thick, humid air that reeks of sweat, beer, and fledging mold. Down, down, down you go— maybe to hell, where you perhaps belong.

...

Moon Drinker by HUNTERS

You taught me that the high moon 

Was our lovers’ sigil

How quickly did you throw away our runes

How empty is your cup

Moon Drinker

That you would break mine too

...

The gig is decent. That’s how these shows tend to be and you enjoy them just enough to tolerate the stench and humidity of grungy basements like this one. 

Three bands play, IP3, the Express, and HUNTERS. The interest you expressed to Fu Xuan about Pier Point’s IP3 was a lie, but they’re not bad. The frontman, a blond with eyes like inverted crystals, has a sultry edge to his voice that verges on sexual. It’s a cleaner sound that rips into something dirtier, filthier, as their set goes on. 

The Express follows IP3. You’ve seen them more times than you can count, but the trio is still nice to listen to, even now. March always plays with the crowd in between her harmonies in a way that riles folks up just enough without causing abject chaos. The band plays a new song you don’t know, one that is angry and loud and so unlike their normal sound. Dan Heng is on vocals, rather than solely on guitar, and you’re reminded of how mournful and melodic his voice can be. The exact words of the piece get eaten by the cement foundation of the basement, but you imagine that it’s an elegy.

HUNTERS is last on.

They usually are, as their music is the loudest and gnarliest, and they’re typically the most well-known (even if they have a shit reputation and their crowds leave trashed venues in their wake). You feel— insane when they start playing. You know all of their songs, even if you don’t really like their music. Kafka’s voice is hypnotic in a way that’s disarming, even on a recording. Silver Wolf is too good of a drummer for the caliber of band that they are, and Firefly shreds easily on guitar, trained on strings since childhood, but using her talents in a grunge band rather than on a world stage.

Blade’s bass playing is messy. Though his tempo is sure and unwavering, the actual rhythm drags and punches in intervals that verge on unnerving. You have never been able to place if this is due to whatever rage and poison he carries into music making, or if his fingers are as arthritic as Kafka jokes that they are. 

It doesn’t really matter, in the end. The sound blends together in a cacophony that sounds like the way bursted flesh looks. If you could taste the way their newest EP sounded, it would be the iron tang of blood and the acrid burn of bile. 

You’re fucked for it— for Blade. You’ve been since you first became tangled in this web.

A pit opens in the middle of the crowd, small at first, but rapidly widening, with more and more people throwing themselves into it. They bounce around and bash against the individuals at the sides of the pit, only to be shoved back in a moment later. 

You try to stay away from it. Instead, you watch Blade like a fucking pervert.

The basement has gotten hot. Steamy, if you look hard enough at the air that barely circulates against the low, pipe-ridden ceiling. Blade has thrown his hair up in a high ponytail, wisps of hair still cling to his neck and temples, sweat visibly rolling down his neck. His shirt sticks to his toned chest as the overclocked speakers try to keep up with the HUNTERS most recently released song— ‘MOON DRINKER’.

Blade doesn’t look at you. Not once.

His eyes are fixed elsewhere, deeper in the crowd, beyond the bodies in the pit and those who hang at the outskirts by the house’s ancient boiler. Blade’s attention is fixed on— something (someone. You can assume who.) Not once does his gaze drift down his instrument, and never does he acknowledge the way you stand in the front row, so close, with your attention squarely on him.

(This is normal. So normal, it’s painful.)

The pit expands even further, widening as more gig-goers jump into mosh as one song bleeds into the next. You almost get swirled in yourself as a stranger slams into your side with enough force to nearly knock you to the ground. 

A broad, warm hand catches you by your bicep, hoisting you up before you even have a chance to fall. 

“Be careful now,” It’s Jing Yuan (who is much too powerful and rich to be at a basement show, but yearning pushes you both to do stupid, nonsensical things) who speaks directly into your ear, so you can hear him even as your ears ring muffled. “Are you alright?”

You turn to nod at him, flashing him a thumbs up and nervous smile. The cologne he wears permeates the space around you, overpowering the sweat and mildew with ease. He gives you an easy smile and a squeeze, before letting you. He sidesteps your frame to be closer to the pit, crossing his arms over his chest and shielding you from the worst of the throng. 

You’re grateful for the cover; it would be embarrassing to topple over right in front of Blade.

It takes you a moment to recenter yourself, lost in Jing Yuan’s scent and the roar of Firefly’s final, aching guitar riffs. You look back to HUNTERS once more as they finish out their set in a loud, carnal flourish. The expensive speakers they’ve dragged with them are going to fucking blow out—

Blade is staring at you.

Not into the crowd, toward the placid face and cold heart that so clearly plague him, not to his bandmates or instrument, but looking at you.

In the red-lit basement, his eyes nearly glow, unnatural in their anger as they always are. It seemed more concentrated, feral and crystallized in its intensity. Rage. You want to cower under it while your insides feel hot and frigid all at once. He pierces so easily, so thoughtlessly. As the crowd erupts into cheers and shouts as the set ends, you cannot move. Staked in place. 

Not once does Blade look away from you, and his mouth does not deviate from the twisted frown he wears.

... 

Swordmaker by HUNTERS

If I were forged alongside you, 

Do you think I would forgive you then?

If iron was your skin,

Steel your lungs

and lead your heart,

You would be easier to hold.

Empty are memories

Full is the garden

And bloody is the blade.

…

You should be better than this.

Blade slams you up against the back of the shed, the motion jarring and far too fast to be pleasant. Your head knocks painfully against the wood and peeling paint, and despite how you whimper with the impact, Blade doesn’t react. He doesn’t seem to care. 

(You know he doesn’t.)

He hikes your leg up over his hip and grinds against your core through your pants. The motion is rough, clumsy and far too harsh to be pleasurable. The dry friction through your panties makes you squirm and dig your nails into his shoulders. Blade grunts in your ear. You think he likes the pain.

The gig was only let out half an hour ago, and plenty of people are still milling around. Whispers are circulating about if and where there will be an afterparty. You weren’t paying much attention to them— they’re easy to ignore— especially when Blade had been dragging you by the wrist just far enough away from the main house to fuck without being overtly noticeable. 

(Barely, though. Blade can be loud and you can be loud when you’re with him. You’re tempting fate to be caught, seen with him in this way. It’s an open secret that you’re the scraps that Blade entertains himself with, but you would rather not be caught with your literal pants down.)

Blade smells like cigarettes and sweat. The scent of unclean smoke tangles in his unruly hair as you get a grip on it and tug. The juncture of his neck has the faintest hint of some cologne you’re sure he doesn’t know the name of and stale sweat. You press your lips there and dare to drag your tongue across his skin and taste him. It’s not a good taste, not necessarily, but you love it. Salty and filthy. (It’s disgusting, but familiar and morosely comforting.) You are drunk on it and it makes you feel pathetic at the same time.

A growl sounds in your ear as Blade pins you with his weight to the shed. Dragging you back from his neck, he grabs your jaw, forcing you to look at him fully. 

“Don’t leave marks.” He paralyzes you with his stare and sneer. 

“I’d never.” You try to sound earnest, even if it’s a lie. Because you would— you’d bite and tear at his neck (like he does at yours) until the skin there is black and blue. Happily, you would leave hickies above his collar. Split his lip and bite his jaw hard enough to bleed. You could wear his blood on your teeth and smile for once at these fucking gigs.

Instead, you do not bite him. You just let Blade maul you as he desires.

He grinds against your core. The pressure is unpleasant at this point, too much and too little all at the same time. When you whimper now, he just ignores you and slips his hands under your shirt. He grabs your waist in both hands and squeezes.

“Turn around,” says Blade, already twisting you himself, so your front is pressed against the shed.

“H-Here?” You laugh nervously. Despite your... reputation, something cold, unwelcome and uncomfortable settles in you. “C-Can’t we go to your car? Or inside?”

“Maybe later.”

(It’s awful. It’s sick, the way your heart flutters at the implications of ‘later’. ‘Later’ means more of him. More of Blade’s time, his touch, his hardly-there care. More scraps for you to gorge yourself on, more time to beg for more. It’s sick. It’s sick how fucked you are for him.)

Blade reaches around your front to undo the button at the top of your trousers. In a swift motion, he has them around your thighs. Just enough that he can bend you over and access your cunt with some amount of ease. He keeps your panties on at first (he usually does this. You’re never sure why. You can delude yourself into thinking it’s him taking his time with you, but you know that that is a lie). 

Blade places one of his hands on the back of your neck to flatten you against the shed, while the other must be unbuttoning his own pants to get his cock out, based on the jingling of metal and shred of a zipper. You swallow, your mouth dry. You’re dry, but you know that if you try to touch yourself to prep at this point, Blade will only be meaner.

The most he does is run two fingers over your slit, over your panties. It’s barely enough contact on your clit to be felt, but you gasp and shudder anyway. Canting your hips back, you try to encourage more contact. Anything he’ll give you.

He sighs behind you. Disappointed. Aggravated. It makes you want to cry.

Blade peels down your panties. The cold air shocks you, your core tightening up, but you hardly have time to adjust to the temperature before Blade’s equally cold hands fully part your folds. He sighs again, pulling away only to spit on his fingers, and smear his saliva around your hole. It feels dirty. You feel dirty.

When Blade pulls away, you whine at the loss of contact (at how cold it is, at how the crowd milling around smoking cigarettes and cheap weed is just on the other side of this dilapidated shed crows and laughs into the night). You swear you can recognize March’s giggle above the din of conversation.

You’re brought back to your entanglement with a harsh slap to your ass. Harsh and audible. The sound that escapes your lips is choked and high. 

“Don’t get distracted,” Blade huffs. He spits again, presumably on his dick. 

You nod, latching onto the pain radiating from slap to your ass. As if sensing it, Blade lays down another strike. This one is hotter, harder. He isn’t holding back. It is sure to bruise the tender flesh there. A mark. Something that will tangibly ache, something leftover from your tryst.

You could cry.

The velvety head of Blade’s cock nudges your folds. He brackets you into the wall, arms on either side of you. Heat radiates off his chest and sinks into your spine.

“‘Feels good?” He asks, voice hoarse as he coats himself in your meager slick.

“Y-yeah,” you lie. It’s not enough to feel good. You don’t care.

Blade seems content enough with your answer as he bears down on you. Flattening you to the dirt-covered shed, he hitches his hip down, then up, trying to fit the tip of his cock into your hole. He maneuvers your hips as he pleases, grunting when the tip of him catches on your cunt. When you dare to whine, even the smallest sound, he cracks his hand down on your ass again. Your vision speckles into darkness with the shot of pain and—

(The roar of anxiety and subsequent shame when you realize how much quieter the milling crowd nearby has become.)

“Hold still.” Blade's voice has sunk low, gravely with the cigarettes he’s been smoking all evening. 

The next time his cock touches your opening, he presses in without hesitation.

It’s—

It’s too fucking much.

It is, it always is, every single fucking time he fucks you. Any prep he gives you is perfunctory. Blade will never lavish you with attention, not in the way that you probably need. That you—

(Might even deserve.)

No, the most that Blade will do is fuck you filthy behind a shed, near some of his more well-adjusted peers and probably come inside of you. On past occasions, he has let you suck him off in the backseat of his car. He’s only accidentally (‘accidentally’) came on your face a few times. Less than ten, more than five. Once, he ate you out for a few minutes, but you swear to god he was groaning someone else’s name as he did.

(You’re fucking pathetic.)

This is always too much. Blade is too big. Too big, even if you were stretched and primed with a few fingers like would be right and proper. As tight and dry as you are, it’s painful. He has to grind into your cunt with rolling little thrust so he can fit himself in at all. Each one shocks a breath out of you, a shattering, fragile sound. 

When Blade bottoms out, he lays flat over your back. The weight of him is suffocating. His corded muscle is all dead weight above you as his cock twitches inside you. You can’t tell if he’s idling to allow you some time to adjust, or purely for his own leisure. You can’t be sure. You don’t want to ask him either.

“You’re tight.” Blade’s voice threatens to break.

(Of course you are. He’s the only person you will let fuck you, and these trysts only occur every few weeks, when there’s a show that you can be cornered at.)

He bucks into you, deeper still. The head of his cock is touching parts of you that shouldn’t be touched.

You whimper, “Blade—”

He growls in response. It’s a raspy and low tone that makes arousal burn in your gut and leak down your thighs. (You hope so anyway— it’s more wet and you don’t think it hurts enough that you’re bleeding.) Blade fucks you in earnest, then. There’s no delay, no waiting, no potential for momentary, perceived niceties. He pulls out of you almost completely, then thrusts back into you in one single motion. The friction burns and your vision wavers. 

(You still moan like a whore.)

You feel— dirty. Disgusting. Pathetic as he fucks you like. You don’t feel like a person as he fucks you; you never do. How could you? The grip he uses on your hips is too bruising and the force and strength he’s using to brutalize your cunt is just too much. He fucks you like he’s taking anger out on a piece of drywall. Blade shares physically with you in the way a dog shreds a chew toy to bits, then leaves it on the ground to fester.

Blade grunts next to your ear, nipping there.

He doesn’t kiss you— well, not often. He can’t with your current position. You wouldn’t expect him to anyway. Sometimes he leaves a ring of dark hickies across your neck, like a collar. You like those, but he always waits an extra long time to see you after he marks you like that.

(You presume to make sure that the bruises have fully yellowed, then faded. A clean canvas.)

Blade’s pace increases, just before he pulls out. His cock rests on the cleft of your ass and he tips his forehead to rest on the shed, just beside yours.

“You’re still dry.”

“Sorry—”

He cuts you off. “It’s fine.”

...

It apparently isn’t fine. 

Blade drags you toward the house. He barks at someone, then Kafka, to find a room. You feel dazed as he does. Out of your body, as you receive a number of knowing and unknowing stares from the lingering show-goers who cluster around a firepit. 

(How many of them heard you just now? How many know the exact sounds you make when in barely-there pleasure? In certainly-there pain? How many of them know the sound of Blade’s too-big cock slapping into your too-dry cunt?)

It makes you feel sick to think about.

A room must be found for the two of you, as Blade drags you up the stairs of the back porch. 

As he does, he hesitates.

(He has so rarely done this.)

His gaze is not on you; it pierces elsewhere in the dark. A floodlight off the back of the house illuminates a section of the yard, and just beyond its reach, nestled somewhere between the dark and light, he fixates. His jaw sets and locks. 

There are figures, you realize.

They’re easy to identify once you actually focus. One is lithe and short-haired, the other broad-shouldered and long-haired.  Dan Heng and Jing Yuan. Speaking on the outskirts. It feels private. Their attention turns from their hushed conversation to the two of you as Blade stares daggers and swords into them. As if he could pierce them with nothing more than his silent rage and angry eyes. 

You freeze.

Their expressions are obscured in the lowlight, but you can almost feel the looks they give you. Like a sickly mucus that gets stuck to you and rolls down your flesh in slow, cold globs. 

Dan Heng (once so dear to you, still probably dear to you—) looks guarded, thought darkened. Contempt twists his expression, anger following just after. You’d ever wager that he’s disgusted, maybe. Probably with you, because he knows you’re better than this. Beside him, Jing Yuan wears an expression of careful passivity, of geniality, as he always does, but it’s tinged with something sad and old. For all parties involved in this silent, momentary exchange.

Jing Yuan regards you directly, slowly blinking at you, as though he was a large house cat intent on making you feel safe, and not a presence that only drives the bubbling anxiety in you higher. 

It’s a seconds-long encounter that stretches for an eternity. You cannot make yourself move. You cannot feel anything other than rotten and small.

Blade lets out a harsh exhale and yanks you away. The scene breaks and you’re dragged inside. He whispers under his breath, vitriol-tinging his tone. Your panties feel sticky and wet as you walk.

Kafka had found a room for you, on the second floor of the house. God knows whose it actually is. You don’t get a good look at the room as Blade pushes you inside.. It’s dim, the only light is licking in from the dirty window, an afterburn from the raging bonfire outside. You hear muffled voices still, leaking in like a draft. 

Blade locks the door and pushes you onto the unmade bed.

It’s a cheap mattress with flannel sheets. It smells like old weed smoke and cheap incense. Fu Xuan would tell you that you deserve better than this. You think you might.

Blade climbs on top of you, jaw still locked, and eyes far away.

(You do wonder what happened between him and Dan Heng. Something did. Something gutting and heartbreaking— you hear it when Blade sings. A betrayal, an intangible knife cut but still so painful. Dan Heng has always spoken about Blade with a type of protective neutrality. He warned you to never get involved with Blade. To stay away, to not get on Blade’s bad side, and if something did entangle you with him, Dan Heng could sort it out. He has always cared so fiercely for those he loves; it’s a shame that you have squandered it.)

(Blade is a sentimentalist. Blade is so held in the past that it chokes him. It always has, during every moment you’ve shared with him. He lingers in the bloody past, he holds it in his hands with a grip that’s meant to snap bird wings and flay flesh. He hates Dan Heng. He still loves him, though. You see it on his face sometimes. You hear it in Blade’s music. The ache, the death, the unending grief and mourning and rage that the man simply won’t let go of.)

(It is obsession.)

It shouldn’t make you bitter to think about. Yet, it does. It’s not your place to hold those types of feelings, let alone express them. For so many reasons, Blade will never see you as anything more than a cheap fuck. You think Dan Heng is the primary one. Over time, you’ve grown bitter. Resentful. 

Blade pulls off your shirt in one swift move. He’s slower than he usually is. More deliberate. His hands are shaking, like how they do just after he finishes a set. It’s… off—

You hate it. You hate that the lingering pain of someone else will effect Blade more than you ever, ever could in the present.

You grab a fistful of his hair and tug. His breath catches as you do.

”What the fuck is your deal?” You sneer at him. There’s a cruel edge in your voice that does not sound like you. Blade brings out the worst in you, and you fall prey to it, so easily. 

Blade glances up at you, eyes sharp like cut gems. He says nothing.

”You and Dan Heng,” you laugh. You don’t mean to— you don’t, you don’t— and you yank Blade’s hair so he has to look at you better. “It’s pathetic, you know. How you look at him like a kicked fucking dog. What happened between the two of you, anyways?”

Blade freezes. So do you.

You’ve misstepped so brutally. So stupidly and tragically and idiotically. You’ve pushed too hard for what—?

Blade is on his haunches in an instance and he slaps you across the face.

Your head follows the force of the impact, forcing your face to the side. Your cheek smarts. It wasn’t— that hard. Blade is strong. He could do worse. Still, it shocks you. The pain is enough to make you gasp and reel.

”What the fuck—“

”Don’t,” Blade grabs your jaw, “open your mouth about things you know nothing about. You should know better.”

You should. You do.

”I could know more, if you ever told me, I don’t know— anything?” You laugh in his face, manic behind your eyes. You’re crushing the delicate nature of your cheap arrangement like how a child would crush a flighty butterfly’s papery wings. 

Blade shakes his head, smothering a laugh. He wrangles you forward, half-off risen from the bed, and parts your lips with his thumb. Before you can react, bite, claw— he is raising himself higher than you, dwarfing you in height, and spitting down into your mouth, onto your tongue.

”You don’t know when to shut up, do you?” He pats the side of your face, over the cheek that he struck. It burns. In another world, this touch would be tender. Here, you can only wince. 

Before you can reply, continue to run your mouth and rile him up further, Blade kisses you.

It shocks you, stuns you. 

He— he hasn’t ever kissed you before. It’s never been an explicit boundary, but never once during these trysts has Blade ever initiated this type of contact. It has felt dangerous to do so yourself. Something that’s too intimate, too personal to share. The core of your entanglement is the way he uses you. It’s impersonal. 

A kiss, you think, implies something more tender.

You gasp into his lips, and he takes the opportunity to all but violate the inside of your mouth. His tongue plunders inside, licking at his own spit that you have yet to swallow. A noise chokes off in the back of your throat. Something desperate and shocked that you hardly recognize. It’s filthy. He nips at your lips and pushes you back down.

Blade devours you. 

It’s too much, really. It’s a gesture of tenderness that has been so thoroughly mutilated, calling it a kiss feels paltry. The way his lips are on your own is much more like an argument and a subsequent conquest. One in which you lose ground. He nips at your lower lip, snags it between his teeth, and tugs it as he pulls away.

You pant, the sound of your own breath roars in your own ears. Your hands are still buried in his hair, grip unyielding, anchoring you.

Blade smiles, something poisonous and satisfied. You are too drunk on the singular kiss he gives you to care that much.

“That’s all it takes, is it?” He laughs, the sound dark and rolling, like the sound of an earthquake cracking the earth. 

He already knows you’ll beg for scraps. God forbid he gives you even a morsel more. 

The bed squeaks as he flips you by your hips so you’re laid flat, belly-down on the dirty sheets. Blade spanks your still-clothed ass for good measure before rustling around behind you. Assumedly to disrobe, just enough to fuck you. Assumedly, to ignore the condoms you brought (knowing he would disregard them—). Assumedly, to fuck you with every inch of your life. 

You want it. You want him so badly it physically hurts.

(Or, maybe you tore while he had you behind the shed. Who is to say?)

Blade clamors behind you, shaking, arthritic hands tugging your pants by the waistband. He doesn’t even bother to unzip them this time. Your panties get pulled down along with them, and they get tossed elsewhere in the barely-lit room. Blade spits behind you, and a sound of too-dry stroking follows. 

“D-do you want me to suck you off?” you ask with a hum. You’d let him fuck your face, if he asked. Or, if he wanted. Blade wouldn’t ask.

“No.”

“Just let me know.”

Blade sighs behind you, but you think little of it.

You brace yourself up on your elbows, lowering your upper half to be flat against the bed, and arching your hips as high as they’ll go. It’s as if to make yourself look appetizing. You hope it entices Blade, even a little.

(Please, you need him to want you. You need him to want you so badly. Please, please, please—)

The head of Blade’s cock rubs as your hole, down to your clit, then back up again a few times. He’s so hot, it’s like he is burning you. Contact that scalds. The contact against your clit is... nice. It’s the most warm up he has graced you with in a while. You could crave more, but settle for this. 

“C���mon Blade,” you whine. Your voice sounds airy. “Fuck me.”

He doesn’t reply, not with his voice. The rocking of his hips becomes more pronounced, and the slide of him against you becomes slicker. Still too big, too hot, but wet at least. Which is a bonus. Pre and blood are probably leaking onto the shaft at least a little bit too.

It makes it easier once he slides home in a single blow. 

It’s too fucking deep— especially with this angle. The head of his cock presses against your deepest parts, bruises them in a place where no one can see or feel but you. Blade is huge, the girth of him stretches you as his hips rest against your ass.

A wretched noise bubbles up past your lips. Something between a cry and a plea, for more, for less— to go home, to be in a warm, clean bed with someone who actually cares— you aren’t sure. Your desires have been twisted up and wrong for so long, you can’t tell what you really want. 

It makes you feel rotten, and then there’s only one thing you want.

(To hurt.)

Blade fucks you, then. Fully in, fully out of. Long and deep thrusts that carve out your insides in a brutal way. It’s violent. He leans over your back, and braces himself over you. You feel small, stupid, and hurt. A horrible swirl of things that make tears spring up at the corners of your eyes. You bury your face in the crusty pillow you’d manage to snag nearby—

And Blade tugs it away immediately. His big, calloused hand curls to hold your jaw up, so every pitiful whine and whimper you let out can’t be muffled. The bed squeaks as his thrusts slow.

“Don’t hide.”

“I-I won’t.”

“You were.”

“I won’t a-again—”

“You want this, don’t you?” Blade growls in your ears, then moves to the most fragile skin of your neck and bites. 

(You do, you do— god you do. You need this.)

You nod, and Blade keeps biting. His jaw nearly locks. You’re sure that you’ll be bruised for a week.

Blade scoffs and rears back, grabs your hips in both hands for leverage. And he fucks you.

That’s all it can be, really. You can’t get a solid hold on anything. The pillow has been thrown off the bed, and you struggle to find purchase on the sheets. All you do is take it. Pleasure, or something like it, builds in your core and goes nowhere. It simmers but never crests anywhere near orgasm. 

You don’t mind. This is enough.

Blade’s pace increases, never frantic. Never with him. Manic maybe, insane, tortured and damaged, but never frantic. Not with you. His rhythm falters as his cock slides in and out of you, slick beginning to stick to the inside of your thighs. 

His hand comes down on his ass. The other cheek, this time. It’s enough force to bruise again. You’ll have trouble sitting for a week.

As Blade nears his peak, his rhythm stutters. His breath grows harsher and more strained. His grip goes from bruising to breaking. You gasp with the pain, but don’t tell him to stop. His cock brushes against your cervix, and never your sweet spot. 

Blade flattens you to bed, prone, and puts his entire weight on top of you as his orgasm hits him. A strangled cry shatters from his lips into your ear as he fucks you too fast and too hard. A gush of warmth fills your insides, spilling to your outsides when there isn’t enough of you to hold all of him.

The bed frame slams into the wall with his final few thrusts. 

You lay there, in the filth, in the pain and the dissatisfaction of the tryst, and rot.

...

Blade leaves you there, at some point.

Not right away, but eventually. He rolls off you at some point, catches his breath for a while, checks his phone, then rises to right himself.

You cannot make yourself move. The only thing you can make yourself do is take slow, measured breaths. Each ache in your body is punctuated, loud and unignorable now that the fizzling pleasure of sex has dissipated. What’s left of it is this: carnage. 

“You have a ride home?” Blade asks. He must be near the door, based on the sound of his voice.

Fu Xuan’s warning words come to mind, and shame fills your belly. 

“Yeah.”

“Good.”

And he leaves.

You rot for a while longer.

This is not the first encounter that has gone this way. Blade fucks you like this and leaves. There’s no reverie or sweetness. There is using and being used, and the conclusion that always follows is this. Cooling, soon-to-be dry cum leaking out of you in thick droplets and a bite mark on your neck you’ll need to conceal for the next two weeks. Blade will ignore you like he doesn’t know you, next time he sees. But still fucks you like a toy.

It’s awful. It’s all you want.

You force yourself up at some point.

You’re surprised to find that your pants and panties are in a heap on the end of the bed. You are sure that they were tossed farther, but perhaps you misremember. Painstakingly, you rerobe yourself. Moving your legs in such ways hurts so bad, you could cry. You probably did cry while Blade fucked you. 

The quick stop in the squalid bathroom confirms this. Mascara smudges around your eyes and down your cheeks. The sticky gloss you were wearing has been smeared away. Not even a stain of the crimson remains. 

You feel hollow as you walk down the stairs, outside, toward the bonfire and its rapidly dwindling flames. A few folks still millaround, people you recognize, just barely, though no one you could call a friend remains around the pit. Stelle, March, and Dan Heng are long gone, probably. You’d feel too ashamed to look them in the eye anyway.

Someone offers you a warm beer and you take it. Your hands shake.

Hollow and wordless, you move around the backyard like a specter. Part of you wishes you were one, just something mostly formless and shapeless. Transparent. No one could see you make a fool of yourself that way. There would be no witnesses to your desperation and perversion.

You swallow back bile when it rises in your throat, and wash it down with a chug from the can.

You’re surprised to find Jing Yuan idling around the corner of the house. He looks up when you near him, and he greets you with the same genial smile he always wears. He nods to the space next him, already plucking a pack of cigarettes from the breast pocket on his shirt. You take one, and he lights it for you in the next instant.

“It looks like you needed that,” he hums. He doesn't take one for himself, only tucking the carton away and out of sight.

“Maybe.” You want to vomit. Or slide down the wall of the house and rot there. 

He laughs then. It’s too... warm of a sound for how you feel. For how dirty these venues are, and for the company that you have come to hold, it feels dissonant. Jing Yuan is too kind, too patient. 

(He cannot be your friend because your ruin would spread to him, maybe.)

“Take as many as you like,” he urges with a hum, and settles next to you.

Silently, you ruminate. Descend into yourself. You suppose, given the events you’ve seen tonight, that you’re both stewing in something akin to yearning. 

(Jing Yuan is better than you for it. He, at least, doesn’t sleep with his unrequited adored in someone else’s bed after a messy house show.)

“Do you have a way home?” asks Jing Yuan, breaking you from your slow-rolling spiral.

You shake your head. It would be rude to call Fu Xuan so late. You— you hadn’t really thought about a ride. Not yet. 

Jing Yuan looks you up and down and his smile looks sadder, “How about a ride home?”

“Sure.” You nod. 

The ride back home in Jing Yuan’s (too nice, too expensive, too decadent) car is quiet. An album from a band you don’t recognize plays at a low volume. Soothing, soft voices, so juxtaposed from the venue you leave behind. Maybe you just can’t recognize the words because you’re decaying. Your phone lays in your lap, over your aching thighs. 

[no new messages]

(Because Blade never messages you after a fuck. You’re not worth that much to him.)

...

Gingerly, you unlock your front door and enter your little apartment. Fu Xuan lays on the couch, on her back, with her phone against her collarbone. Her mouth is parted in peaceful sleep, though her hair is still done up, all of her pins are still in.

(She waited for you, again. And you failed her, again.)

You don’t know how she puts up with you. Or why either.

Some part of you wants to vomit. Wretch, like it’ll purge the awful, disgusting thoughts warming you. They do not serve you. You should just—

(Know better. You gain nothing from entangling yourself from Blade. The sex is... enough. Because Blade doesn’t know his own strength sometimes and makes it hurt, unintentionally toeing the line between too little and too much. It’s still not worth it. It shouldn’t be worth it. You’d be better off never going to any gigs, ever again. You wouldn’t have to disappoint and embarrass yourself to your old friends then. You wouldn’t have to linger in the yearning of others while never having that affection given to you.)

You collapse atop your bed. Your makeup has been roughly scrubbed off with an old towel, and you can feel the crunchy remnants of mascara clinging around your eyes. You can’t make yourself care. Burying your face in your pillow, you burrow into your blankets. You’ll probably be sore and hungover tomorrow... today? The songbirds are just beginning to chirp their morning arias. It makes you sick to your stomach.

As you begin to doze, your phone vibrates. 

[one new message]

blade: did you get home 

Your mouth feels dry and your chest feels so tight you could die. 

you: yeah. jing yuan drove me. 

[seen: 5:11 AM]

You hold your breath as Blade begins to type. Then stops typing. Then begins again. It goes on for several volleys and you really do think you might puke.

blade: get some sleep

You drop your phone somewhere in your sheets. Giddiness fills your chest, despite the exhaustion and ache and bone-rotting fatigue. Elation causes you to smile, something wide and girlish that you have to hide in your pillow, lest it be beared to the world.

(It’s a scrap. It’s nothing. It’s worse than the bare minimum and the bar is already in hell.)

But, it’s something.

A morsel. Something to clutch onto and hold and cherish.

You want to put his words between your teeth and swallow. 

[animatedjen]

Cal Kestis | Jedi Survivor

[crabsnpersimmons]

dreaming about the perfect pillow

fun fact: Moon is a hugger when he sleeps

(feeling better btw, not yet 100% but i can draw again! still need plenty of rest for reasons, but will be slowly replying to the asks in my inbox soon!)

[yo-yo-yoshiko]

Haha, idiot. That's what you get for having human emotions :'((((

And a closer shot on this one cause I LIKE THEM TREES!

[lazycranberrydoodles]

xie lian texts like a grandpa … i imagine pre confession their texts would be a graveyard of hua cheng’s failed attempts at flirting

xie lian's profile picture is from the manhua by starember / follow for more of hua cheng Ls

[lowkeyren]

the whole 2.5 was a wild ride ngl

[birrdify]

3 i respectfully need you to explode in a million pieces

[theofficialuriel]

[andoutofharm]

while we’re on the topic: SO many local bands are fronted by or made up of incredible women!!! check out their music!! go to their shows!! support women in music and especially women in music in your community and local scene!