#my room is NOT that big i am bad at measurements but it can't be larger than 3m by 3m

[darkficsyouneveraskedfor]

Paradigm Shift 6

Warnings: this fic will include elements, some dark, such noncon/dubcon, and other untagged triggers. Please take this into account before proceeding. It is up to curate your online consumption safely.

Summary: you get transferred to a new position but it’s hardly a breath of fresh air. (plus!reader)

Characters: Loki, Bucky Barnes, this reader is known as Billie.

Author’s Note: Please feel free to leave some feedback, reblog, and jump into my asks. I’m always happy to discuss with you and riff on idea. As always, you are cherished and adored! Stay safe, be kind, and treat yourself💜

💼Part of the Bad Bosses AU💼

You sit against the wall as the important people line the edges of the desk. Swiveling, toying with ballpoint pens, tapping on flat tablet screens. You're the only assistant there and it's made more obvious as you're the only one not invited to sit with the VIPs.

The executives go down their agendas. Boasting mostly about their numbers, others using flowery language to hide their less than stellar results, and some posturing rather than sharing anything of value.

Odinson looks less than interested. His eyes stray now and again to the walls. The glass is covered by the drawn blinds which he seems to forget as his mind arounds. He must have found a new distraction. You got out just in time.

He cracks his neck, "very well. Submit your numbers as usual. I'll be in touch with those I need to be."

He stands and struts to the door as the rest of the table look at each other. They're put off by the suddenness of his dimissal. Ellie was still presenting her budget.

"Billie, a word."

It's your turn to be surprised. As the other suits pack up or lounge and swipe at their phone, only two gazes react to the command. Barnes and Laufeyson turn to watch you stand. This is treacherous.

Barnes tilts his head and Laufeyson squints. Like a wolf and a snake, measuring their prey. Well, you will not be devoured so easily.

You cross the office and follow Odinson out. He doesn't look ahead, rather cranes to focus on something, or someone you can't pick out. He stops short and you hit his back.

"Ah, uh, oh," he spins to face you and plants his hand on the wall, his other pushing back his stands of blond hair. "Am I in your way, darling?"

"Hm? No, you told me--"

"Ah, yes, yes," he chuckles raucously, "be assured, I had good reason," he leans in and looms over you, "my brother, tell me your thoughts."

"Erm, well, it's not been very long," you reply.

"You are a clever girl, Bill, tell me."

"He is good with numbers and I think he's well-placed. He and Barnes could be productive but I think Logistics needs--"

He raises his head and searches the bull pen. He huffs and stands straight, turning on his heel.

"You will keep notes for me on this matter," he demands. "Be off, before he is about one of his moods."

He strides away without your reply. You wouldn't have anything nice to say anyway. That was abrupt and odd. As for his last remark, you're not sure which of your bosses he refers too.

You march back toward the conference room with your laptop under your crossed arms. As you approach, Laufeyson steps into your path, no doubt having observed your conversation. Before you can tell him to move, he winces and steps away from the door as Barnes rescinds his thick finger from his jab in his cohort's ribs.

"For someone so skinny, you make a hell of a wall," Barnes snips.

"I am lean, not--" Laufeyson sighs and shakes his head, turning back to you. "What did my brother want?"

"Yes, what did the big bad want?" Barnes stands shoulder to shoulder with Laufeyson, well almost, he is a bit shorter.

"He asked if I needed anything. Like a desk mat or tranquilizer." You retort.

Barnes snickers and Laufeyson glowers deeper.

"Very witty indeed."

"I'd love to do my full set for you two but I believe you have other meetings in your calendar," you advise.

"You sound like my drill sergeant," Barnes scoffs.

You arch a brow and stare back. You wait. You will. You're not there to do their work for them.

"Have you a mind for coffee, James?" Laufeyson asks.

Barnes growls, "I'll drown you in it if you call me that again but yes, I could use a boost."

They keep their eyes on you. There power plays are boring. Do they really get off on grounding down an assistant sentenced to purgatory? Actually, that make you feel a bit better. That's how little they have going on.

"I'll go--"

"We'll come," Barnes insists. "Could stretch my legs? How about you, Loki? Built like a spider, sitting in those chairs--"

"You shouldn't be so concerned with my physique and perhaps start cutting those mid afternoon muffins, eh?" Laufeyson retorts.

Even when they get along, they dont.

"It would be quicker if I went myself," you say. "You have Rogers--"

"He's a friend. He'll understand," Barnes interjects. "Garcons?"

Laufeyson nods, "perfect."

You blink but don't let your agitation through. You simply nod.

"Alright, I'll need to put my computer away--"

"Eh, you," Laufeyson catches a passing intern by the back of his collar. "Take this to logistics."

He takes your laptop before you can react and hands it to the spindly yellow-haired undergrad. You give an apologetic look as he utters out a 'yes, sir' and hurries away.

"You didn't need to do that," you argue.

"I hope my brother didn't give you the impression that I take orders from you, darling. It is rather the other way around." Laufeyson sniffs.

"He only takes orders in the bedroom," Barnes chuckles.

"That's hardly appropriate," Laufeyson huffs.

"Loosen up. Skip the coffee and take a shot," Barnes raps his knuckles on Laufeyson's sleeve.

They turn and grumble at each other. You don't move until they reach the elevator. You're not stupid. They have to show their dominance. Too bad you don't care who's in charge, you just want to get the job done.

[aro-aizawa]

god i love when i finally get round to doing stuff that i've been meaning to for 2+ years. it feels so satisfying but at the same time i have DESTROYED the surrounding area. i am so sorry mum your sewing room JUST got clean and here i am cluttering it up again lol

[lynnbanks]

Ooh! Maybe a Luke x reader where it’s an unexpected pregnancy? She holds off telling him cause she’s afraid of his reaction, and accidentally tells Jack first.

She had no idea she was with child until her latest doctor's appointment where they made her take a test before she could be prescribed her new medication. One second she is worry-free and excited to get lunch with her boyfriend after her appointment and all of a sudden the thought of doing anything makes her sick.

“We know from your blood work you are pregnant but unfortunately you will have to go up to the 7th floor to make an appointment with an ob-gyn.” and y/n is still very much in shock and just shakes her head yes. Walking out of the doctor's hands shaking “What the fuck am I going to do.”

I can't tell Luke I'm pregnant, what if he leaves, what if this tears us apart, what if we are bad parents, what if I am ruining his career? All these what-ifs with nobody to pull her out of it.

She makes it to the spot where they agreed to meet for lunch “Hi baby how are you feeling?” Luke asked, taking in her pale face and shaking frame “Did everything go okay? You don't look too good.”

Pulling herself from her thoughts “Yeah um I-they had to take some blood so I'm a little shaky that's all.”

“Well, we should probably eat then!” He says it with a big smile, happy to see his girlfriend after just a few hours apart. and she couldn't be the one to wipe the smile off of his face so she decided to not bring up what the doctor had just told her.

3 weeks later y/n is now 11 weeks pregnant and has just about all of the early stage symptoms. Her first appointment with her ob-gyn is next week and she is terrified. Luke is starting to notice some changes in her too. She is more distant, and emotional this morning. He caught her throwing up after breakfast and when she was done she acted as if she had been caught doing something bad.

“Let's get you to bed sweet girl, you need some rest.” y/n can't tell if it is the fear, the guilt or the baby growing inside of her but she feels like she is about to throw up the very little food she has been able to keep down. “ you must have caught what jack had last week,” Luke says covering her up

And it is that exact reason Jack was home early from practice 3 days later to find his brother's girlfriend passed out on the floor in the middle of the apartment. And is sitting with her in the emergency room till Luke can switch with him. All is fine until the doctor walks into her room “Hi my name is doctor brown this is Emma she will be taking notes for me while we talk”

pulling out her stethoscope to do a plus measurement test “So what are we in here for today?” before y/n can say anything Jack says it for her “She was passed out on the floor of our apartment.” the doctor nodes her head “In your charts, it says you are in the early stages of pregnancy. Do you know how far along you are?”

the room goes dead silent “The reason I say that is because it is normal to be dizzy during the first few weeks but if it is causing you to faint we definitely want to check in with your OB to make sure mom and baby are doing ok.” y/n can feel the tears fill her eyes this was not happening right now

“ I'm assuming you are Dad?” the doctor says to Jack who looks just as pale as she did when she found out “Um n-no no that would be my brother” he says looking at y/n who looks like she might have a mental breakdown at any second

“Oh I'm sorry um well from what I am seeing everything looks good but we still want to do an ultrasound just to cover all our bases. We will have someone come in just a few minutes to get that done for you,” she says, pumping some hand sanitizer into her hands “My only suggestions would be lots of rest and to drink lots of water and if everything is all good with the ultrasound you should be out of here pretty soon.” be for leaving me to fix this mess alone.

“ Did you know?” Jack asked and all y/n could manage to do was sob into her hands and shake her head yes “Does he know?” she shook her head no “Oh y/n” he said as if she was a lost puppy coming up to hug her tight while she let it all go “I don't want him to leave me.”

She was full-on sobbing “What, why would you think that?” “ I am ruining his life!” Jack pulled away to get a good look at the girl he saw as a little sister breaking down in his arms “Hey it takes two to tango and it's not fair to him for you to say that when he doesn't even know.” y/n hadn't thought about how unfair it was to judge Luke for a reaction she didn't know he was going to have

“ I'm scared; every woman in my life has done it alone. I know what it looks like and I can't do it.”

Jack is rubbing her back trying to soothe her as best as he can. “Luke is nothing like those guys ok and if he did ever turn out to be one of those guys you know me and Quinn would be right by your side as you kick his ass.” y/n laughed a little at that “ but you keeping this from him is going to break his heart.

Let me know if y'all want Luke's reaction if I keep writing right now it is only going to get worse. I also love doing y'all requests. And again grammar spelling and all of the above don't exist here.💋💋

[fanfiction4sooya]

i need to hear/read your opinion on this one: g!p cho miyeon as a mafia boss hard dom

my mind has SO MUCH thoughts that I might just combust

Thanks for the ask babe 💖

And well I really can't see her as a hard dom, my girl is so bubbly all the time... BUT

Let's say she is, I think she would be a menace because of how obsessed she'd be with you.

Like imagine you and your friends entering the club she was at and she immediately falls for you, wanting you so bad her cock strains in her pants. It doesn't take much for her men to put you and her in a room together, her charming smile making you melt as she told you she needed to have you forever. And the craziest thing is that you actually thought the same!! (Sapphics am I right)

It takes only a few months for a big wedding to happen. She (possessively) wants you to be hers as fast as possible 😅

I feel like as your dom she'd slowly build you to get exactly how she wanted you to be. First she would lightly slap your face, then whip your ass a bit harder... Until you could really take all she wanted you to take 🫠🫠

I can imagine you on your back, your head upside down for her to use your throat as a fleshlight 🤤 her squeezing your neck as her cock slides in and out of your throat, moaning when she felt how tight it felt. Your wrists tied together under your knees as her free hand held a leather whip to strike your soaked pussy over and over, your screams making you tight around her length every single time the leather made contact with your clit, tears free falling from your eyes because of the pleasure and pain you were feeling. She likes to pull your nipples excruciatingly hard, almost breaking the skin.

She always makes sure to do your aftercare, take time to feel you and to actually help you recover. She is a monster to others, to you she is your kind and considerate wife.

I think she goes quite insane when someone does anything that upsets you, not measuring the consequences of what she'd do to those that troubled her woman... Of course you find it so hot when she protects you, always making sure to reward her by letting her balls deep into any of your holes she preferred to be in 🫠🫠🫠🫠

Oh and tell me about it when she starts size training you to take more than her big cock in your ass...

[biblio-smia]

congrats on 800! “where's my goodnight kiss?” with clapton 🥹🫶

clapton is so,,, i want him so bad | part of v’s 800 follower celebration!

it's not very often that clapton takes extreme measures to see you. most days, he is satisfied with holding you between classes, taking you out almost every day afterwards, having you over and making you stay for dinner.

however, some nights he experiences this insatiable longing - a pain in his chest that begs to see you.

so, naturally, clapton sneaks out and finds his way outside your window.

he's knocking lightly, though he's anxious to be inside. it's chilly out and clapton didn't exactly layer up, his feet taking him to his desired destination without much thought. clapton doesn't even know if you're awake - selfishly, he hopes that even if you are, you'll wake up.

it takes a few moments but you're there, thoroughly confused, even more so as you push your curtains aside and see clapton standing on the other side of your window. clapton doesn't mind the playful roll of your eyes because you open your window for him, letting him climb in (with your help, of course).

"what are you doing-" you're cut off by clapton kissing your cheek and the laughter that erupts out of you as his hands find your sides. "clapton, shhh!"

"you're the one being loud," clapton whispers, taking a break from kissing you to look at you.

"what are you doing here?" you finally manage to say.

clapton shrugs. "i missed you."

"so you just... came over?"

clapton grins, resting his head on your shoulder, wrapping you up in his arms. "am i not allowed to see you?"

"not at twelve a.m. when my parents are asleep."

"they don't have to know," clapton chimes, pulling you back into the cozy bed he'd pulled you out of.

the gesture is dramatic, but you can't deny it's romantic. clapton, walking for how long, just because he missed you? your heart beats a little quicker as you let clapton pull you into his chest.

you cherish it. the little habits clapton is guilty of when he's tired, the deepness his voice takes on. he stares at you while you talk, wide-eyed and focused. he tries, and fails, not to yawn, knowing you'll have no choice but to send him home if his eyelids begin to droop.

when clapton can barely keep his eyes open, your sweet voice lulling him to sleep, you give him a look. here comes the worst part: saying goodbye.

it'll only be for a little while (you have a feeling clapton will be at your doorstep tomorrow morning), but clapton resents the feeling regardless, wishing he could stay until morning with no consequences. he dreams of nights where he can sleep next to you and mornings where you're the first thing he sees when he wakes up. maybe one day.

you open the window back up for clapton, not minding the big 4:46 that flashes on your clock. he's one leg out when he stops, eyebrows suddenly furrowing.

"hey," he beings. "where's my goodnight kiss?"

you fight the laughter that bubbles in your throat as you kiss clapton's cheek, watching the disappointed frown form on his face.

you give in eventually, grabbing clapton's face and pressing a long kiss to his lips. then another. then another.

by the time you're done, clapton's ears are red and his eyes are hazy.

"is that good enough?"

"perfect," clapton mumbles, swinging his leg out of your room. he stands through the opening of your window, soon to be too far to hold. "i'll call you in a few hours."

you wonder how much sleep you'll be able to get. "you're on thin ice."

"i miss you already."

you smile bashfully, nudging clapton in the direction of his house. "go home."

"i wanna kiss you again."

"tomorrow," you promise. "as many kisses as you want."

this satisfies clapton, at least for now. who knows about tomorrow?

[phoenixfire-thewizardgoddess]

Headcanon/Concept:

'The Tattle-Tale Heart'

"You should be dead." Lucifer advises, his tone bored and overall utterly unenthused about the whole situation. To be fair to his majesty, Lucifer was doing this under duress.

Said duress was a few feet away, eyes brimming with anxiety and worry as her father crouched over the pinned Overlord, clearly concerned for a number of reasons. The chief of which was the injured red prick, and a close second was likely the fact she'd had to use force against someone even for their own good.

A Princess of all that was dark and demonic, and yet, the little lives of sinners and their miserable woes seemed to wring her heart out. It was touching, and infuriating, in equal measure. Sometimes he can't help but wonder if she held more of Lillith or himself in that deceptively sweet humanoid form. Both had loved to help, in their own way... but only Lucifer had once agonised over enforcing his will on others.

Struggling against the bonds tethering the idiot to the floor, -and good luck with that you pompous fuck because those are divine bindings-, Alastor snarls at the King. Face so close they could just about kiss, though nothing would disgust him more, and he's pretty sure from what he's sussed out about the guy... Al here wouldn't be a big fan either.

Hah, maybe he should, just to get one over on the assho-... whoa, no, nope. That would cross a line. He blinks back to the situation at hand as Charlie touches his shoulder, a gentle query.

"Uh, Dad? Are you okay?"

"Er, yep, yup, yes totally my duckling! Just got lost in my head, you know how it is." Cemented into the current moment, Lucifer again rests his palm against the damaged flesh before him, the divine energy surging back at him was almost depleted through his earlier efforts but the wound looked pretty bad underneath.

"And you, you arrogant dick, should be dead."

"And you, your majesty, should have your eyes checked... it is merely an injury taking it's time to heal over. It's hardly the first time an angel has gotten too close... speaking of, would you care to remove your hands from me before I remove them for you?"

The warbling warning in the voice is easily batted aside by the royalty present, as the severity of the injury becomes clear as the light leaves it. Lucifer feels the divine surge of it in his palms as it joins his own half-divine, half-demonic form and writhes about for a bit.

An angelic essence tantrum, one could say, and knowing that it came from Adam of all the arrogant feathered fools above... Lucifer would have to say it was on-brand.

Charlie gasps, "Oh Al, you should have said something..."

Lucifer's gut clenches as he can actively see the way something sharp in Alastor's expression softens as he addresses Charlie.

"My dear, this is hardly the worst thing that has happened to me in Hell, it would have healed in time. What else do we have down here but time to make further mistakes? Hah-ha!

"No. I asked you to fight with me, and you took on the First Man to help defend my dream... so Im telling you, as your business partner and weird sort of managerial kid, that you should have said something to someone before it got this bad. And I am really, really angry with you, right now, because I hate seeing any of you hurt... and knowing that you didn't think you could come to ask for help was-... was-..." Charlie's expression dissolved into angry, desperate sobs that seemed to throw both the men into the room into disarray.

"Now, Charlotte-... "

"Char-Char, it's okay, Daddy's fixing it!"

"...indeed, 'Daddy' is trying, apparently." Alastor can't help but snipe, earning a tightening of the bindings until he snarled. He opens his mouth to deliver what might be a withering statement about Lucifer, when things go rather awry.

With a violent slam, the door opens, and Vaggie enters with the spear aimed point-first. "What's wrong, babe? What did he do?"

"Contrary to your opinion, Vagatha, it appears it may be what I did NOT do... that is cause for this kerfuffle." Alastor explains, and his ears flattened backward against his skull, clearly surprising Charlotte enough that she stopped crying.

"Wait, those are your EARS? Ohmygosh they look so fluffy, can I to-... no, wait, you don't like touch. I'm so sorry..."

"A negotiation for later, perhaps."

"Oh you sonovabitch, don't you dare try to make a deal with her-...!"

"I wouldn't dream of using such a paltry thing for-..."

"Actually, Sir, they already made a deal." Vaggie adds in, and the room goes dead silent. "Which yooooooooou clearly didn't know about, and I'm going to need you to take several deep breaths because we JUST rebuilt the hotel, your Majesty."

"Oh relax, she still has her soul... it was for a favour. It was the best way to ensure our reputations remained intac-..." the sentence broke into a sharp static scream as Lucifer's clawed hand slipped into the angry maw of the jagged wound. Blood, fever-hot, slipped down his arm as the King slipped under a frantically trembling set of lung to grasp-...

...nothing.

The confusion snapped him right out of the momentary malice, eyes flickering back to normal as horns and tail receeded. Only just noticing Charlotte and Vaggie's hands on him, trying to yank him back from a very dark place.

Anger surges back up, how dare this sinner make a deal with his Charlotte? And then dare to call out the King for being a terrible father?

And yet... the statistical anomaly doesn't line up here.

"You should be dead." Lucifer states in a monotonous voice, no inflection of the curiosity and bewilderment that races through him. He casts about again and feels Something that isn't right, beating away impossibly... and a trace of something familiar. "Where's-... where's your-..."

"Dad, STOP!"

"SIR, PLEASE!"

Heeding the frantic cries, he allows the women to haul him back and away from the Overlord, his arm covered to the elbow in slick crimson blood. With some small amount of smug pride, Lucifer notes that the Radio Demon is ashen and panting, the frayed stitches about the wound were snapped from his attempts to pull away in his bindings. He sure hoped that the fucker would feel his hand there anytime he thought to try making a deal with Char-Char again.

An enraged Charlie fills his vision, horns on full display.

"Dad, what the seven rings was THAT?! You had NO RIGHT to hurt him like that, and I can-... I can make a deal if I want to. If you ever do that again I'll-..." She looked to be struggling to find a good enough threat.

"...sell your soul to the porn moth guy?" Vaggie grimaces.

"Yes! That!" Charlie points, eyes wild. "I'll let Valentino have my soul, and probably all my ho-..."

There's a loud screech of static and a demonic "NO!" at the same moment Lucifer cried, "SWEETIE NO!"

"You will never even jest about such a thing!" Alastor adds, his fixed smile twisting into a truly disgusted grimace. Charlie turns to him immediately, as if to reassure, but chooses instead to snap away the bindings.

"I'm sorry, I won't... he licked my arm that one time I went there and I accidentally set fire to his studio, so I'd rather fight ten Adams than try that again, so-..." she was rambling, her hands hovering as if she wanted to help but didn't know where to start.

Thankfully, Vaggie happened to have at least basic field medic training and some excellent common sense (hell edition) in her possession. She did wrinkle her nose at the strong scent of blood, exposed innards and some sort of infection that had yet to flush out as she knelt beside the overlord.

"Well, this is gross. No two ways about it. I think we'll need to clean this up first and then do some dressings... do we have any antibiotics floating around the hotel? Or was draining the angelic energy enough to get your regeneration to kick in? Not sure how it works for Overlords compared to regular sinners."

All business. In the moment and handling the crisis in front of her like Lucifer should have.

Chagrined, Lucifer snapped his fingers and removed the extraneous blood from everyone present. "Charlie, I'm sorry you had to see that, I just-... you can't go making deals. Not with sinners, or goetia, or hellhounds, or the Sins - especially not Uncle Mammon if I see one sexbot version of you I will exterminate him to ashes- or ANYONE ever again. You're the Princess of Hell, a favour can be twisted to topple the entire realm if used carefully..."

"Dad, I know that. But I made a choice, and you don't get to come along and torture people I care about because of that choice." Charlie shoots back, there's a pointed venom in the statement, and briefly Lucifer considers what it must have looked like for her, to see him go from healer to harm-inflicter without a momentary pause.

"You're right. I overreacted." Next time he would wait until Charlie wasn't there to enact violent revenge. "Now, if you want me to I will heal the deer as long as he uses your favour up to get that healing."

"What?!" Charlie is indignant. "No, no you don't get to make my decisions for me like that. If you make that the condition, I'll just... make another deal for-... for twenty favours! Including weird sexy stuff that would make Angel blush!"

"...please don't, on my account." Alastor drawls, looking vaguely ill at the notion. "And do not trouble yourself over it sire... I have no intention of using the favour, it was necessary to share the information across. You created the rules for this place after all. "

Lucifer could second that. "True." Damn, he hated giving ground to the daughter-bewitching demon.

"Would you like to make a deal about the favour, little majesty, to make you feel better?" Alastor grinned, strained at the seams and uncomfortable to look at for too long.

"Oh fuck off... how about this, I heal you and you tell me where the FUCK your heart is?" He offers instead.

"WHAT?" It's unclear who shouted that lounder, Vaggie or Charlie. Telltale footfalls on the lower staircases meant that this little exchange had not gone unnoticed by other staff and their solitary guest. The door locked itself with a little devilish insurance against sudden intruders.

Alastor tried to glare hatefully at the King, but the effect was rather ruined by his pale features, and the obvious strain of remaining functional given everything going on.

"Perhaps you do need to have your eyes checked, I am certain you just missed it due to your ineptitude with anatomy. Isn't that why your wife le-...mmph?!"

Vaggie had taken the initiative to slam her hand over his mouth in a brave and very desperate action to stop the King from incinerating the Overlord they begrudgingly cared about and worked with.

She made a shrug gesture and tried to laugh it off. "Uh, Sir, sometimes the bloodloss makes people a bit delusional... and conceited... and really fucking rude... so let's pretend he didn't say that, okay?"

Seething, tail lashing, the Devil hiimself had to count to fifty-eight in his head to calm down... but he managed it. He could be the bigger-... uh, the better demon here. Can't let the guy bait you again, he's just deflecting.

"Oh come now, Bambi... is that the best you got?" He grins, moving closer and enjoying (a tad too strongly) the way the other pulled back from his outstretched hand, only Charlie and Vaggie's presence trapped him in place. Subtly moving to pin his arms down. "We're going to overlook your bullshit bignoting for now, because I can see that Adam really fucked you up, and I suppose that you do kinda deserve a little bit of help for defending the hotel. I just need you to tell me where your heart is... and how in the seven rings you're still breathing."

Those ears remained flattened.

"Al, is it... something you CAN speak about?" Charlie asks, and the red eyes shoot open to stare at her, taken aback. "I... I saw the collar, a little while back. It was by accident, I swear!"

"I would rather you not have known, little majesty, it will draw attention... but I can. Speak about the situation. I guess."

"I really appreciate you trusting us with this." Charlie encouraged, genuinely proud of getting honesty from her friend, whose past, secrets and motivation were all a mystery at this point.

With a flat sigh, refusing to look at Lucifer, Alastor simply advised "Vox has it."

There's a beat of silence.

"Like, in a jar or-...?"

"You mean, metaphorically...?"

"Ugh, is this a cannibal dating thing?"

As their questions garbled together, Lucifer could see the way the Overlord immediately closed off to them, that fake smile brightening until a fake persona was firmly in place.

"Nevermind. If you have sated your curiosity...?"

"Hold on, if what I think you did happened, then it's not possible. So what I want to know, is how you managed to do it?" Lucifer says, shifting on his knees because the carpet wasn't as plush as he'd originally assumed, and tentatively putting his hand against the wound. The weirdest thing... was that he could FEEL a heartbeat.

With concentration, he sent healing throughout the injury, encouraging broken vessels and torn muscles to mend, binding flesh and viscera back into place, and sending a sharp flush of energy to root out the infection he could just about taste in the air at this point.

As his magic passes through the pulse-point centres, a picture begins to form in Lucifer's mind.

"You have a pulse... so something's doing the pumping." He murmurs. "There's a shadowy something there, like a fake heart... made of something imbued with three different types of magical signature... and I can't think of anyone who would have known how to do this, in this ring. But it's not...real? Like an echo, but it's working."

"As I said... this is not the first encounter with an angel, your majesty."

"Hey, you alive in there?" a voice calls, multiple fists bang on the door. "Say the word, we got weapons!"

"We're okay! Thank you, though!" Charlie calls back.

"Use ya safeword if ya need it! We'll come... heh... right in and start blastin!"

"Fortheloveof-... OKAY, THANKS!"

Lucifer snapped his fingers in front of Alastor's face.

"Hey, focus, I need to know how this happened, it doesn't make SENSE and reeks of something sinners shouldn't be able to do. I healed you, so spit it out already."

"...fine. During a disagreement several years ago, in the manner in which we often disagreed, neither Vox nor I realised the Extermination had begun until angels flooded the area. Enlarged forms making us the centre of attention until one managed to pierce Vox's heart and take him down."

Alastor clenched his teeth so hard that rivulets of crimson began to run down his chin. A faint outline about his throat glowed a familiar colour, and Lucifer was rather hoping that the digs at his eyesight might be true, because there's no way that-...

"When the exorcists assumed we were both deceased or dying, they left... and someone else arrived. Someone who we all know... who would not be pleased to have their name shared. Someone whose magical healing was more... creative than most, and would use that for the chance to collar at least one overlord to their cause."

"Don't you hate Vox though?" Vaggie asked.

"Not really, no. I dislike what he has chosen to become, and the disagreement was around the liberties that foul moth was taking... if you think having him lick your arm was bad, Charlotte, try having him attempt to jam his tongue in your mouth before formal intorductions were even made. I wanted him dead. Vox saw potential and growth there... we disagreed."

"So you were... friends?"

Alastor tilted his head with a crunching sound, positively beaming as he added, "Why no, dear... we were married."

Lucifer rubs his temples, feeling like the main character of a sitcom at this point. "Okay, so you like the television, got it... next part, tell me about the heart!"

"I already have. To clarify, Vox was almost gone and Someone knew a way to move a willing participant's organ to the body of another, until such time as the recipient's own has healed or the living donor is killed. The specifics of it all remain somewhat... blurred, due to the nature of the situation, but it also creates a facsimile that works in place and at the same rate as it's real counterpart outside the body. I suspect it was bound with a trace of Vox's magic, as well as my own... and that of Someone."

"Ho-ho-hokay, that is ridiculous, that kind of thing has never worked. I saw some weird humans trying that sort of nonsense in the Living World a few centuries back, but they also seemed to think drilling holes in your skkull could make headaches stop, so I didn't take any notice!" Lucifer rambled, digging through the disorganised mess in his head for some clarity on where, when and which peoples that information pertained to. Downside of being immortal... you remembered a lot, but you only had the one main train of thought to check all the stations.

"Oh, it worked, alright... as you could see. Or more aptly, could not." Alastor rebutted. "It worked, because there were elements that Someone needed to use, that a living world counterpart would have no ability to extract or utilise. Such as memories, feelings, concepts that were given form as part of whatever it was they did."

"Does... Vox know?"

"No."

"Wait, how does he not know? Did you just like, not tell him 'oh hey by the way you have my heart in a literal and a metaphorical way'?" Lucifer frowned.

"Part of what Someone did required the blood of an enemy, the loss of an innate right, and the memories of affection shared. Somehow this conveyed into lost freedom and Vox's memories of our relationship being erased entirely. He is, however, alive."

"That, uh, that sucks... dude." Vaggie tries to provide comfort, but is wildly out of her wheelhouse here. Charlie looks likewise flummoxed.

"Hah! Why yes, it does suck... but what is done is done. I have chosen to see it as mildly hilarious... after all, if the picture box does get his fondest wish and manages to kill me, he'll drop dead right alongside my corpse! Hahahahahaaaaaa!"

Charlie grimaced. "Oooh-kaaaaay, Al... you know I love and value you... so please don't take this the wrong way but... I'd like you to maybe try a few of the therapy sessions."

"My dear, I'd rather have your faher go fishing for my non-existent heart again..." there's a pause. "Hah, how poetic... the Devil seeking after the heart of a sinner, it feels like one of those telenovelas Niffty loves to watch. Oh, she will get a kick out of this when I tell her!"

"Whoa, I was trying to hurt you... don't make it weird!" Lucifer backtracks, eyes wide in alarm.

"Were you not elbow-deep inside m-...?"

"Nope! No! Not doing this, I get enough innuendo from the tall guy downstairs, thanks. From you, it's horrifying. Just... no." Lucifer flushes, angry and a little horrified about how this had all gone to (heh) Hell from the minute Charlie had decided to ask for his help.

'Dad I'm worried about Alastor, he's really hurt and won't tell me what's wrong.' She'd said. 'Please help me corner him and see what we can do, Vaggie said she feels angelic energy on the guy.'

And so he'd trundled along to play hero dad for Charlie, as always, and the red fucker had thrown such a hissy fit that normal restraints couldn't pin him down. So Lucifer had to break out some blessed ropes that he hadn't seen since Lillith left, and Char-Char had to whip up some royalty-grade divine bindings. He was very proud of her, but this was a mess of a situation.

Not to mention the fuss the big baby kicked off when Lucifer had snapped his shirt and coat aside to get at the bandages. Ugh.

And now here he was dealing with the only person in all hell he thought wouldn't thrown an innuendo his way, making weird insinuations while Charlie and Vaggie sat in stunned apprehension.

What was his life these days?

Ah, fuck it.

"Okay, so... what does this mean for the hotel? If the Someone is who I think you're alluding to, 'cause I'd know that magic anywhere, then clearly you're here for more than entertainment." Lucifer levels at Alastor, who was subtly wiggling his way free of the restraining girls.

"Nothing I can share. It would suffice to say that I was with Someone in a place a Cut Above the Rest for seven or s years... and then was tasked with ensuring that the others remain In Their Place without overtly damaging anything. If that makes sense?"

"...loud and clear."

"But why would... that person... want to see me fail?" Charlie asked, crestfallen, and Vaggie was instantly shuffling across the carpet at her for a hug. "I... I called so many times..."

"The ties that bind sometimes have knots in them, my dear... and as I am a man of my word, so are they."

"Who did... they... make a deal with?" Lucifer asked, curious and anxious all at once, feeling rather like a well-shaken can of soda.

"...one whom Niffty managed to tidy away. I do not know what that means."

"Okay, this is not great, but its more info than I had before all this started. So... is Someone coming here? What does it mean for you if they do? Does the whole..." Lucifer taps at his own chest, "stop working if you tell us anything, or something happens to them?

"I... don't know. The deal was made under circumstances of altered consciousness and bloodloss... but I would not be willing to test shattering or pressing against the boundaries just yet. I will not put that idiot video podcast in harm's way, even if he will never remember why."

"Understood." Fuck this fucker for starting to feel relatable. But if it was Lillith, or Charlie... he'd do whatever it takes to keep them safe.

"Okay, so we just... prepare for whatever happens, then, I guess. And if we have to do magical CPR on a television or something, we do it." Charlie says, right eye twitching as she makes some elaborate plans in her terrifyingly clever brain. "Vaggie, I'm going to need to break out my glitter glue for this... but I have a plan."

A flash of fear in that bright eye, before love replaces it. "Anything for you, babe."

"Do you require assistance, or would you prefer I return to regular duties instead? I understand that one of the rooms may have gained sentience and has attempted to eat Niffty twice today." Alastor says, buttoning his shirt closed, and using a small flick of his magic to remove both rumples and bloodstains from the fabric.

"Oho no, mister, you are taking it easy!" Charlie threatens, finger pointing and waggling sternly.

"Yeah, you don't look great... your body at least needs a chance to restock. Magical healing doesn't mean it didn't deplete your energy, just that a little boost tried to get stuff jumpstarted." Vaggie adds, matching the Radio Demon's glare.

The room starts to go dark, as distortion swims freely through the air; no longer constrained by blessed rope and able to use his powers again.

"Yeah, no... not dealing with this." Lucifer rolls his eyes, extends a hand to the sinner's forehead and intones, "Sleep." Expression impassive as the Overlord crumples forwards, almost directly into Lucifer, who is thankfully stronger than his diminuitive form suggests.

As he rises from the floor and hefts the other into his arms, the King can't help but notice the frantic tempo of the other's pulse, visibly beating against that pale throat. Lucifer frowns, sure he'd managed to purge the infection from the Demon, because right now his pulse should be languid in sleep...

...and then a small flicker of movement outside the window catches his eye. A flash of crimson sunlight accidentally alerting the three royals and royal-to-bes of an unexpected voyeur.

"...he's gonna kill us all when he wakes up." Vaggie groans.

Charlie snaps her fingers and the drone shatters, but it's already too late.

-------

Across town, with his eyes wide in horrified awe, Vox finds himself putting a clawed hand atop his thundering heart.

"...fuck."

And wasn't that just the understatement of the day?

[velvetvexations]

RE: Lovecraft's racism

I don't have anything meaningful to add, just some personal anecdotes.

I started reading Lovecraft from some selected works books, and I didn't see any issue for most of it. I didn't know his reputation, and also I am European so race is not something that I am actively aware about (because POC here are extremely rare and mostly are rich tourists and exchange students rather than minorities). Up until he described Inuits as "dwarfish creatures who call themselves Eskimos".

Later I have read complete collections of his works and saw some absolutely horrific racist sentiments, and also now that I am tumblr-level socialist I can see all problematic innuendos in selected works as well, so it's in no way defense of Lovecraft. Just my addition.

P.S.: I also think that people calling Lovecraft exceptionally racist just didn't read a lot of popular USAmerican fiction of the time. Burroughs is IMO worse, or at least more obvious about it.

P.P.S.: There was a popular joke some time ago like "Lovecraft would go insane if he met me" that was made by white neurodivergent queer people, and I feel that it's weirdly tone deaf. We don't know Lovecraft's opinion on homosexuality or transgenderism, at all. He probably was at least somewhat homophobic considering times, but we just can't prove that he wouldn't have changed his mind if presented with science-based arguments, and autism is definitely not what he considered scary mental illnesses. His entire deal was being racist, not just generally bad person.

P.P.P.S. (wow): Also, not enough people talk about him describing political system of Great Race of Yig (or whatever they are called) as "a mix of socialism and fascism"

Actually, we DO know how he felt about queer people!

From a letter to J. Vernon Shea:

I guess it is true that homosexuality is a rare theme for novels—partly because public attention was seldom called to it (except briefly during the Wilde period) until a decade ago, & partly because any literary use of it always incurs the peril of legal censorship. As a matter of fact—although of course I always knew that paederasty was a disgusting custom of many ancient nations—I never heard of homosexuality as an actual instinct till I was over thirty…which beats your record! It is possible, I think that this perversion occurs more frequently in some periods than in others—owing to obscure biological & psychological causes. Decadent ages—when psychology is unsettled—seem to favour it. Of course—in ancient times the extent of the practice of paederasty (as a custom which most simply accepted blindly, without any special inclination) cannot be taken as any measure of the extent of actual psychological perversion. Another thing—many nowadays overlook the fact that there are always distinctly effeminate types which are most distinctly not homosexual. I don’t know how psychology explains them, but we all know the sort of damned sissy who plays with girls & who—when he grows up—is a chronic “cake-eater”, hanging around girls, doting on dances, acquiring certain feminine mannerisms, intonations, & tastes, & yet never having even the slightest perversion of erotic inclinations.

Even worse, from a letter to James F. Morton:

Have you seen that precious sissy that I met in Cleveland? Belknap says he’s hit the big town, and that he’s had some conversation with him. When I saw that marcelled what is it I don’t know whether to kiss it or kill it! It used to sit cross-legged on the floor at Elgin’s and gaze soulfully upward. It didn’t like me and Galpin—too horrid, rough and mannish for it!

The idea that this fucking dweep saw himself as the alpha male in the room is dadgum hilarious.

And yet, R. H. Barlow and Samuel Loveman (again) were gay. Did Lovecraft know? He met the aforementioned "precious sissy" at a gathering Loveman had taken him to. R. H. Barlow wrote a story lost to us called "I Hate Queers" which Lovecraft read that certainly sounds psychologically revealing, but his brief commentary on it really tells us nothing about the content and if it made Barlow's closet more transparent or not.

Derleth said Lovecraft "seemed" to be unaware they were gay, but what the fuck does that asshole know? Lovecraft personally explained the ideas behind his stories to him and he still fucked up the Mythos for decades with his bullshit. On the other hand, Derleth was bisexual himself, and I don't know how Lovecraft couldn't have picked up on it from this letter he sent him:

I can understand your detestation of sex irregularities in life as violations of harmony and I here fully agree with you. I had previously misunderstood you to mean protestation from a basis of morals, and on this basis I would have stood squarely opposed to you. I have known and still know many people who are sexually irregular, both homosexual men and women, and except for three cases out of perhaps 21, I have always found these people highly intellectual, fully aware of what they were doing, and in all cases quite helpless. Speaking perspectively and in the abstract, I could as easily conceive myself entering upon a monogamous homosexual relation as a heterosexual one—though perhaps practice would change that point of view. To quibble about mere words, I should not say that perverts necessarily lived inartistically.

As to if Lovecraft would have accepted scientific evidence in favor of queer validity, maybe. He was becoming a full-blown Actual Communist towards the very end of his life and his racial views, while still preferring to keep cultures separate, had gotten to the point where he believed a Chinese baby raised by White parents would be essentially the same as a White person, which is, uh, technically progress?

[ikamigami]

What gets me is that both Sun and Earth acknowledge how kind New Moon and they used to be, that he and Earth were super close to the point of sharing their deepest thoughts with one another, Sun had said to New Moon "I liked you more than the old you", it wasn't about New Moon being smarter or stronger than Old Moon, that didn't matter to Earth or Sun, they were okay if New Moon couldn't bring back Solar, they were okay with New Moon 'not measuring up to the old him', even now New Moon is their brother, not in a transactional way but in a real, close way, he a really good brother and just a kind person even when he got angry or messy! That's it too, New Moon could get angry or reckless before, that isn't the problem here, the problem was he decided to "snap", and its one thing to be really messy with grief and say some not great things, this episode made it clear the insults weren't the big problem, though I should also point out that if you start lashing out to hurt people on purpose, cutting ties with them like that, then why would you not expect consequences? And it's not like Sun and Earth disowned him, they didn't, but their trust in him was broken by what he said, because he went beyond insults and instead chose what he knew hurt them both the most and meant it, you don't get to do that, betray someone like that, and then walk away expecting your relationship with someone to be exactly the same, not without working to fix it, which he hasn't so far But either way the big problem was New Moon going further than Old Moon in the sense of actually attempting to kill a family member willingly, Old Moon was terrible, but the closest he ever got to murdering one of his siblings on purpose was punching Sun in the face or verbally threatening to "unplug him", which was still very messed up mind you but New Moon took it several steps further, it wasn't an accident like "oh I didn't know you were in here", or a "I am doing this but I will give you time to get out", he told her he doesn't care about her right before doing it and would've killed her if the blast wasn't stopped and everybody knows that and is not okay with it, rightfully so, grief is not a justification to attempt to willingly murder innocent people, especially ones own family who you claimed to love so much, I do not could Ruin or Bloodmoon because they aren't innocent, if it was just them in the room there wouldn't be a problem here, and if New Moon did that because "he feels they disowned him", they made it clear they didn't, I don't even think New Moon in his moments of reflection he actually said "they abandoned me", and isn't it just as bad that you betray someone close to you and they express they are hurt and that your relationship will be different going forwards, but they're still there, and your response is effectively "welp I don't care if you die now, get out of my way"? And even then both of them are still conflicted, Earth is still very angry but as she said she still can't fully just cut ties, and Sun is even more hesitant, and yeah, them going "Forgiving them depends on if the apology was actually sincere" and even then if they didn't forgive him for going that far that would be valid considering the severity, if it is revealed there was a corrupting influence that would help New Moon's case, but he still made bad choices he needs to answer for, even a part of his conscience knew it was all wrong but he chose to do it anyway

100% true! All of this! Everything you said is exactly true and right!

They still care and can't fully stop caring about New Moon. But they have every right to feel betrayed and hurt and to not want to forgive him. But like you said they are thinking about the option of forgiving him because they loved him and I think that they still do cause emotions are a funny thing which is hard to control and even if they may say "we don't care about him and we don't love him anymore". That love and care is still there in their hearts. And this is also why it hurts so much. This is why New Moon's betrayal hurts so much.

And you're right that virus or not New Moon still has to be hold accountable for his actions and he needs to show regret and apologize and even maybe he should do something to show that he means that. And also like you said Sun and Earth saw New Moon as brother. Sun liked New Moon more than Old Moon as his brother. They don't care if his smarter if he can do and fix everything. Like you said they don't care about it. I agree with everything you said here, dear anon.

Thank you for this long message because you addressed everything, every little and important detail and I think that it's very needed for everyone in this fandom to see. Thank you ^^

[littlegreenwyvy]

Wear a fucking covid mask

Wear a mask Wear a facemask, when you're indoors

Wear a N95 face mask if you're gonna be in public

wear a face mask

Wear a mask if you're going out

I don't know how to explain to people -- my friends and coworkers and family and strangers and people who make important decisions and people just living their lives -- that you are the reason over a thousand people die every week.

You are the reason I cannot leave my house without risk

You are the reason I can't go to the movies or a bar or to get a haircut or a restaurant or the doctor or the dentist or the library or go to fucking WORK OR SCHOOL without coming to terms with there being a non-zero chance I will be dead within the month.

Just because somebody had a friend over who had a ''''cold'''' last week and I happened to sit next to them on the bus.

“Oh it's not that likely” “Oh it'll be mild” “Oh HEALTHY people don't get severe illnesses”

First of all: Wrong

Second of all:

I"M NOT HEALTHY PEOPLE; I'M DISABLED FROM FUCKING COVID

"Oh it's okay because only YOU will die, not us good and healthy people : )"

My favourite is all the excuses

“Oh things aren't that bad yet so I won't take the preventative measures”

"Well I already had it and it wasn't a big deal, so I'm not gonna bother"

"I'm not gonna live my life in fear"

“Well I don't have to anymore so I'm not going to”

You SHOULD HAVE TO

I know it's an unpopular opinion, but I genuinely think that you SHOULD have to wear a face mask and stay a meter apart and take a test before going somewhere. At least in a fucking HOSPITAL or something.

I shouldn't have to BRING MY OWN EXTRA FACE MASKS because my doctor DOESN'T FUCKING HAVE ANY IN THE FUCKING OFFICE

And then they give me the fucking look

That look they get in their eyes

From my fucking DOCTOR, who I go to for my CHRONIC ILLNESS, which I got FROM HAVING COVID.

I should be able to go to work or the library or just out in public without risking catching the fucking plague.

So to all people who choose not to wear a mask: I hate every single one of you. All of you who don't wear face masks indoors:

YOU are the reason for this.

Yes even my friends; I'm sorry but I am blaming you and guilting you about it. If we lived nearby I would not be able to hang out with you because you are unsafe for me to be around. And that is fucking HEARTBREAKING. My FRIENDS, who I LOVE DEARLY, and WANT to be around, and I fucking can't, because of decisions that YOU make. All those times we talk about 'oh if we met up' 'oh if you travelled here' I can't fucking TRAVEL are you NUTS?

Do you know how long you're supposed to isolate if you suspect you've been 'in contact' with someone who had covid? CDC says 10 days from when symptoms start. If you still have symptoms on day 11? Start another 10 days.

Do you know what 'in contact' means? Maybe you do maybe you don't; I had to look it up myself, but maybe it was communicated better in your area. If you've been in the same ROOM as someone for 15 minutes; up to 2 days before their symptoms STARTED (and of course while they are showing symptoms) and up to 10 days AFTER their symptoms began. That means if you know someone had covid last week? They're still potentially transmissible. A stranger in the waiting room at the doctor's office has a cough? Possibly covid. And you know the BEST PART? We have NO IDEA how many cases are asymptomatic. That means that ANYBODY in public could potentially transmit it to you. Lower estimates suggest in the single-digits to 10s of percent of covid cases are asymptomatic, while higher estimates say up to 50%. We just don't know! There's no way to because it's not monitored fucking AT ALL anymore!

Do you know what this means?

It means there is NO WAY of knowing what the risk is. It's a gamble, full-on. Even more so than ever before. And do you wanna know what? I wanna fucking live. The potential to lose my entire fucking life isn't worth it for just about anything, if I'm being honest. I've already been through that once. I had a career in music lined up. I was just about to finish my degree as a clarinetist. I was performing in orchestras as a soloist. And you know what happened? I got covid. Suddenly my lungs and my diaphragm don't work so well anymore. For two whole years I couldn't stand or sit upright for more than an hour at a time, or else I would pass out. Nowadays it's improved; it's not more than 4 hours at a time, and I only feel faint for a while before passing out.

But do you know what that means? It means I can't play clarinet anymore. Over a decade of schooling and practicing and mastering my craft: Gone in an instant. I'll never play again. I lost my entire future and my entire career, because I got covid in 2021, from people who had stopped wearing masks because 'covid was over'. They got it. I got it from them. They survived and are fine. I barely survived and I very much am NOT fine.

This is why I'm so reluctant to take any more risk. Even if I survive, what else will I lose?

My ability to taste or smell? My muscle control? Will my heart condition get worse? Will I never be able to think clearly again? I already can't. How much worse can it get?

Sources seem to say: Much worse

I can't stress this enough that I am LUCKY to be where I am now. I can't function if I don't get more than 10 hours of sleep. I have to take medications every day to SURVIVE. At the end of my work day I pass right out, and wake up just in time to get ready for the next day at work. I do not have a life anymore. And I'm LUCKY, because I RECOVERED. THIS is what 'recovery' looks like, from long covid. It may get better over the next few years. It also might not. It DEFINITELY won't if I get covid again.

If YOU don't care about that, or about how that could happen to you, then I will never willingly be around you. Again, this even goes to my dear friends.

Wear a face mask and STOP being the problem

[sweaterkittensahoy]

WE HAVE A FLOOR

OH THANK FUCK

So, for those of you who don't know or don't recall or just love seeing this fucking story again and again because this shit has HAUNTED me for NEARLY TWO YEARS, let's turn back the clock:

2022:

By the end of June 2022, the following things had happened to me in the year 2022:

Six sinus infections, one right after the other. Tested for Covid each and every time. Not Covid. When to the doctor on day 12, got the antibiotics, shit cleared up. And basically the moment the antibiotics cleared my system, new sinus infection.

Had so many in a row, in fact, that my my ashtma wouldn't calm down, and we had to get me on steroids for ten days to basically reset my lungs.

Went to a family wedding, first big trip since lockdown.

Came home from the family wedding and had Covid. I regularly get body pain with my fevers, and this was the worst body pain of my life. I barely remember going to the doctor for the test so I could take time off. It was bad.

Was very close to a major realization that a friendship I thought was going to last my whole life had become utterly toxic and abusive.

And then the end of June hit. And I woke up one morning to Sean cursing, which was alarming. Because I curse like a sailor, but he does not. I get up to see what the problem is.

The problem is a quarter-inch of water through most of our apartment. It was coming through our light fixtures. We are in a renovated basement of a house from the 1920s. I ran outside then up the stairs to see what was going on up there.

The house is two stories. Overnight, the toilet supply line on the second story had begun to leak. This kind of leak is a silent affair. We don't know when it started. But when we woke up, the entire living/kitchen area was flooded. The laundry room/bathroom was flooded. The water had soaked into the bedroom carpet so far that it was sopping wet from the door to about two feet in.

The office had, miraculously, not taken a drop. Still not sure how that worked.

We call the management company. We call insurance. I swear my ass off because Sean has to go to work, which means I'm stuck alone all day with the mess and a dog who does NOT understand why her paws keep getting wet.

Demo guys show up. They are very, very nice. By the time they're done on day one, there are two dehumidifiers and several large fans going in my house.

We don't have A/C by the way. And it's late June, and even in PDX, that's not great.

Three days later, the demo guys show back up to take out everything that can't be fixed. Our place looked like this:

Once they took all the wet out, we had this hole in our ceiling:

And were walking around on this floor:

That's the original cement floor that was put in when the house was built, by the way.

And then, we spent the ENTIRE SUMMER waiting for someone to FIX OUR FUCKING HOUSE. From the end of June until FUCKING SEPTEMBER we were living with an open ceiling and no actual floor.

I'd email the management company. I'd call. They'd say "Oh, we're working on it. The owner is dragging his feet."

Put a pin in that claim. We'll come back to it.

At the end of July, I ended that friendship I mentioned. I am using it as a measurement here so you understand that a month into my house being like this, I was also going through a massive emotionally fucked up situation.

Work was so fucking busy I nearly burned out. On top of trying to get some answers about when I was gonna get a fucking ceiling and floor again.

By August, I snapped and sent a terselye worded email about how it should not take this long to make some fucking decisions. I got back, "Oh, we're trying, but the owner isn't communicating with us."

Put a pin in that claim, too.

Finally. FINALLY. After FOUR contractors came and looked and gave estimates, we got told "Okay, we're gonna fix your place. In September. It'll take three weeks."

So, for three weeks, we moved into a hotel, and it was...it was fine. But it's not home, okay. I just wanted to be in my fucking house with a fucking ceiling and floor.

Finally, three weeks later, we moved back in, and we had a ceiling! And a floor!

And then I got what I thought was food poisoning. 48 hours of some of the worst pain I've ever had, and my endometriosis is severe enough I had a full hysterectomy at 31 or 32 (I honestly don't recall). Okay. I know from pain. Went to the doctor. Got an anti-nausea injection from the biggest needle I have ever seen in my LIFE. The doctor pushed on my gall bladder and asked if it hurt. I'd been continuously sick for 48 hours. Everything hurt. I said, in all honesty, I couldn't tell.

Went home. Rehydrated. Things seemed fine. They guessed it was my gall bladder anyway, and since I had no history of issues, said "Let's try to change your diet before we go through surgery."

Fine. Whatever. Didn't care.

A week later, in the first week of October, I ended up in the ER because I was sick again. So sick, in fact, I could not keep down apple juice. It took TWO DAYS to get a surgical spot. I went through caffeine withdrawal. The Try Guys released their video about firing Ned. All I wanted to do was go home to my finally fixed house and fucking sleep.

Surgery went fine. Had a full-room hallucination that Sean and I were Chucky and Tiffany from the Chucky movies. Kept telling Sean to kill the nurse so we'd get a larger cut of the money. This has never happened before, but I've also never been on Dilaudid for several days in a row to control my pain. Apparently, when that happens, I think I'm a serial killing doll.

Go home. Rest up. Things seem fine.

In November, I walk into the kitchen one day, look down, and see a space between two of the floorboards that should not be there.

I refuse to deal with it and throw a rug over it.

Over the next several months, more boards start bubbling and warping.

The floor, it appears, has some fucking issues.

I ignore it for almost a year. Yes, I know what you're thinking, "Gayle, why?"

Because 2022 was a fucking disaster, and a major part of it was the flood, and sometimes you just gotta avoid that shit, okay?

But, finally, it's bad enough I know I gotta say something. I send the management company a note. They send a guy. He's great. Says I'll hear back in a week.

I don't.

And then I don't.

And then I don't.

And then the owner asks to inspect the property to see how things are looking.

He sees the floor and is shocked. This is not good. Why is it like this? How long has it been like this? When did I put in a maintenance request? And what was the last thing I heard?

This is November.

In December, we are informed via letter from the owner that he would like to be cc'ed on every request we send to the management company because he is not pleased with their performance.

Well, okay.

In January, we get a hard freeze. And then we got a pinhole leak in a pipe. That I discovered when walking into the kitchen and stepping into--you guessed it--a quarter-inch of water on the floor.

It was comin up from under the boards, but the hole was actually in our wall. We had glare ice. No one in PDX knows how to handle glare ice. The owner made the trip from the deep suburbs to us every day he could (he got stuck once) to get the problem fixed as quickly and neatly as possible.

I heard him on the phone with the management company several times explaining what he was doing, how long he thought it would take, and thanking them for communicating with us.

Which.

It took 4 days. I got one email. At 6:30 PM. On a day I heard him call them at 10 AM.

So. Suddenly "the owner isn't responding" and "the owner won't communicate" seem like complete fucking bullshit. Because he sure as hell responded when he found out there was a leak (we cc'ed him on the email as requested), and I fucking HEARD HIM communicate.

And then we found out that the owner had not had final say on the floor, which now had to be replaced not just for bubbling but for being fucking wrecked from NEW water damage.

But for this new floor, we just went through him, and would you look at that. Clear communication. Regular updates. We were on the concrete again for about three weeks because that's just how far out contractors are booking right now. But the work was done when he said it would be, and by god, it's clearly a much higher quality of flooring.

So. It's done. It's fucking done. It looks beautiful. The owner scrubbed our bathroom before he left for some fucking reason and was worried he'd lost the knob off our washing machine (we bought it used; it's never had that knob). When I met him the first time after the big leak, I thought he was a complete asshole, and it turns out he's actually all right. He gave us money for dinner this week and is also gonna get us a few days of rent comped for having to have people in and out. I'm never renting through this management company again, but if that dude's got other properties through someone else, I'd go there in a second.

April 5, 2024. May it be the last reference I ever have to make to a fucking floor repair in this house.

[familyabolisher]

what do you think of gretchen felker-martin’s work, if you’ve read it? I expected a lot from manhunt based on everything I heard about it but found it to be just fine

short answer: manhunt's prose sucked

long answer: i'm so over this little clique which has identified - by and large correctly - that what tends to sell in mainstream publishing scenes for genre lit is v meek, tepid writing with timid politics and didactic liberalism shaping its discourse, and used this fact to effectively carve out a marketing niche. the selling point of manhunt wasn't felker-martin's skill as a writer (to be perfectly honest: she does not have a lot of this); it was her consciously positioning herself amidst a discourse of "puritanism," liberalism, "censorship," "childishness"(!) etc in genre lit such that buying and adulating her book was a way to signal one's immediate "side" in the genre lit discourse wars. like ... that's a grift and a half, innit.

i do have some sympathy for this position! i know that gretchen is largely responding to the harassment of isabel fall, and i respect that. and i do, i guess, agree with her that the bulk of contemporary anglophone genre lit in mainstream spheres is having to measure up to a particular palatability such that eg. trans women's writing comes under heavy scrutiny & the sort of writing that fall was doing encounters precisely the backlash she got. i just - don't buy into her imagined solution of publishing a very graphic horror book about terfs with tor nightfire to own the libs.

the problem is that it's an incurious position. going to the capitalist hegemony and getting mad when there's liberalism in the literature is like going to the circus and getting mad that you saw clowns. there's no desire to move away from these circuits which reward easy stories & bury difficult ones; there's no desire to question why we hold these sites of production up as ultimately legitimating structures. there's a real sense that just getting the big names in publishing to publish the Right books is a significant accomplishment (and by extension, you as the participant who Agrees with gretchen on this matter must therefore Support Her Work).

i'll admit that i never actually finished manhunt - i didn't get very far in at all because the prose just drove me insane. so maybe i can't give a fair assessment of the book. but the problem i had reading it was that like, the prose was bad! more specifically, it was an incurious prose, reflecting what i identified above - an incurious approach to storytelling. it was an excessively didactic voice guiding me as a reader from discourse point to discourse point like she was worried i wouldn't get what she was going for if she didn't make it absolutely crystal clear in quotidian prose. this tends to make for the kind of story where i'll think about it for maybe 20 minutes and then be done with it forever, because you've already given me all the answers yourself. like. challenge me! stop patronising the reader! if i wanted this i would go read a medium article!

like, i like novels that construct discourse through literary technique such that they leave me with these various entry points & angles from which i can think about them & respond to them in a sophisticated manner. when a book comes barrelling into my living room and goes Hi, I Am About Discourse Points 1, 2, and 3, i am left with very little space in which to do that. i also just - and maybe this is boring of me, but - i like when prose is good! it's very like, well, congratulations on publishing a novel where you write jkr getting like burned alive in her castle or whatever it was but did you care about this story as anything more than a vehicle for Discourse? lol

(there's absolutely a place for quotidian + straightforward prose, fwiw, and i wouldn't appeal to Literary Technique as a measure of quality, but - like, it just wasn't a technically skilled book, and it wasn't a book which had much of a desire to be received as much more than a bit of grist for the discourse mill.)

also i find gretchen annoying on twitter but since twitter is the website for annoying people i guess i can't hold that against her

[babeczka415]

⚠️T/W: talk about depression and mental struggles

I feel myself slipping into a dark hole. It's been months since I've seen Jake as he had to run from his pursuer. Jessy and Dan have tried to help soften the blow but I don't want them tonight. I only want him here tonight.

I pull out my phone and see all the unread messages from everyone. Only chat I'm caught up on is his. I open it up and it says he's offline.

I let out a sigh "baby, please come on" I whimpered between tears on my couch in the dark.

MC: Jake, do you have a moment?

I watch waiting for him to come on and finally I see his picture next to typing bubbles.

Jake: Everything okay, my love?

MC: No, I really need you tonight. I'm in a dark place.

Jake: You know it's not safe.

MC: I don't care!

Jake: Baby please, you know I just want to keep you safe while I'm trying to clear my name.

I start typing but then I see him go offline. I sigh, throwing my phone down on the coffee table that's full of empty cups, tupperware and wraps. I wrap myself up in a big blanket and put on a movie just for some background noise.

About 30 minutes later I hear my front door open and I grab the baseball bat that Dan gave me the other day when he came over to check on me.

"MC?" I hear Jake's voice as the front door closes.

"Living room" I say not wanting to move at this point.

Jakes POV:

I signed off, frustrated that she doesn't care that I want to keep her safe. However, I can't leave her in the dark place she's in. I grab my bag from the spot I'm hiding in and throw my stuff in it. I order some Chinese food and stop by the grocery store for some of her favorite snacks and drinks before I pick up the food.

This is something we've talked about on what she needs when she gets into this place and right now she needs all of it and me. As I'm checking out at the store. I see some sunflowers and I pick them up for her.

I go to her apartment and unlock the door. I open it and there are no lights on, all I hear is the TV on in the living room. I call out for her and she says she's in the living room.

The fact she didn't come running to me, makes me worried for her. Before I enter the living room my phone goes off and it's a chat with Jessica and Daniel.

Jessica: Please tell me you've heard from MC, Jake.

Jake: I just walked into her apartment. I'm worried for her.

I put my phone back in and I see her wrapped up in her blanket just laying on the couch. I go to put the bags down but there isn't any room. I find a spot on the floor and kneel next to her.

"Hi my love," I say, brushing her hair out of her face. I see she hasn't been taking care of herself and it breaks my heart.

"Hi" she says with a numb expression as she takes a deep breath and smells the Chinese food.

Her eyes get big as she looks at me "I got all your favorites. I didn't realize it was this bad," I say as I hand her the flowers and see a tear drip down her cheek.

She nuzzles into my hand as I go to wipe it away. She moves back on the couch and opens the blanket. I crawl in with her and pull her close.

"Tell me what happened. Who do I have to hurt?" I ask wrapping my arms around her.

"I keep fighting voices in my mind that say I'm not enough. Every single lie that tells me I will never measure up. Am I more than just the sum of every high and every low? Remind me once again just who I am because I need to know." She muffles into my hoodie.

I lift her head so I can look into those brown eyes. "Baby you are more than enough. You are love, you are strong, you are the top of my world. I don't want you to ever think that you aren't. I am not me without you."

She leans her head against mine and I pull up the hoodie so it's covering both of it. She finally starts to doze off but I don't want the Chinese food getting cold.

"Hey my love, why don't you go shower and I'll make you up a plate of the food?" I say running my hand on her cheek.

"Can you join me?" She asks so shyly, unlike her normal self.

I can tell she doesn't want to be alone right now.

"I'll be right here when you come out okay? I'll even clean up a bit for you."

She lets out the saddest shy I've ever heard from her. I finally get up and so does she. She heads into the bedroom and about 10 minutes later I hear the water running. I grab all the cups and bring them into the kitchen. I grab a garbage bag and toss all the food wraps.

I wonder how long this has been going on so I pull out my phone and open the chat with Jessica and Dan.

Jake: How long has she been like this?

Dan: A couple weeks. She never told you?

Jake: She mentioned she missed me but it's bad. I wish you guys would have told me sooner.

Jessy: Sorry she asked us not too because she didn't want you to worry. I guess it became too much finally.

Jake: She's showering right now and I'm cleaning up and making her up some Chinese food. Any changes for the worst I'll let you guys know

Dan: Thanks hackerman. I know you love her and are just taking care of her. We tried too for you.

I put my phone down and put the food and drinks away. I grabbed for her and make up her plate. She comes walking out wearing a big tshirt and her hair in a bun. I can tell she was crying and I pull her close.

"We will make it through this MC" I whisper into her ear.

She pulls away and notices everything cleaned up even the dishes. "You didn't have to do all this Jake. I just needed you " she says looking into my eyes.

I see the hurt in them and it breaks my heart because I know me not being there so much has caused it, but I promised her I'd always protect her.

"Yes, I did have to. I have to protect you from everything. The external demons and the internal ones. Those right now are the ones you've been fighting for too long without me" I say grabbing her face.

She pulls away and goes and sits down "you talked to Jessy and Dan" she sighs.

"Yes I had to know how long this has been going on. Why did you wait so long to tell me?" I ask handing her the plate I made for her.

"Because I knew you were trying to protect me from them finding me." Mc says.

"Love, yes I want nothing more than to protect you. However if you need me that bad that you're fighting your own demons I will always get here as fast as possible. I just happened to be near here right now so it didn't take me long." I say as I grab a fork of her favorite fried rice and put it up to her mouth.

She takes and eats " are you going to spoon feed me all of it?" She gives me a non impressed look.

"I will if I have to so you eat something besides the junk food I cleaned up" I say with a smile.

She smiles back at me, just a little one but enough she knows I'm going to take care of her.

We both finally eat and I take her hand and bring her into the living room. I put on her favorite comedy movie and pull out my laptop and set it on the coffee table so I can keep a watch but I wrap her in my arms.

She finally falls asleep and I can't help but smile because this is the life I'm trying too hard to get too. Having her in my arms daily and smiling even on her rough days.

[appynonna]

Our Universe

Chapter 12: Level of Concern Pairing: Poly!OT8xoriginal chararters Rating: 18+ Word Count: 3,337 Words

Trigger Warning: pet names. Teasing. Nothing bad at all I do believe.

This is a work of fiction. By no means is meant to be taken seriously and does not reflect on the people used within the story.

Previous Chapter -> Here Master list -> Here

Arthur notes: Hello dearies, So with trying to get the chapters longer, I'm not going to push them out as quickly, Most likely once a month or so. I currently am working on this story, How Ari Meets the Guys, as well as another story. The new story is still in the works and I don't know if I'm going to run with it yet or not. In the meeting chapters, I have Mingi's chapter almost done and Seonghwa's is about halfway done.

---

A few minutes later Yechan came back with a covered glass bowl and a long spoon. "It had this on it," She said handing me the chicken starch note.

'You need to eat. ~ W'

"Wooyoung left you a snack?" Seonghwa asked smiling like he already knew, Mostly he did. It turned out to be a fruit salad. Strawberry, Kiwi, Apple, and Dragon Fruit.

"It also has a bit of mixed berry jam," Hwa said. I nodded grabbing the spoon and taking a small bit as Seonghwa and Yechan returned to talking about animal Crossing.

Pulling out my phone I started scrolling through a random social app Send stupid memes to Kai that made me laugh, and a few to San.

After a few minutes, I felt the bowl be lifted out of my lap. I looked up at Yechan. "You were nodding" She stated, I looked over at the phone.

Seonghwa was still sitting in the low light but now Yunho was next to him. "Good Morning Peach" Yunho gave a soft smile, His glass sitting low on his nose.

"Annyeonghaseyo YuYu" I replied as Siren jumped up into my lap.

"Siren Down," Seonghwa said, making the dog in question look up at him, only to lay his head back down on my stomach. Seonghwa clicked his tongue. Siren set up again but looked behind the sofa at our front door.

"Siren?" Yechan called out turning to the door, At the same moment the door opened. The dogs alerted at the same time Yechan turned towards the door. Her matte black gun was at the ready.

"Listen here you little shit" Rhea walked into the living room as I watch in disbelief, Yechan was confused "How did you get in here," She asked looking down the slide of the pistol confused

"Don't worry about that" Rhea replied walking up to the sofa that I was sitting on.

"You can't just bust up in here like that, I could have shot you!" Yechan tried to tell her, But Rhea had her attention on Ari.

"Your life is more important than just blowing off a drug overdose" Rhea's eyes were watering a little bit as she continued " Someone drugged you and you're acting like it's just a random Tuesday" Siren kept looking between the two of us, Almost like he was unsure as to who he needed to go to.

"It's not big of a deal" I tried to tell her, petting Siren's head "It's not the worst thing that has happened to me" I smiled at Rhea, trying to play down the growing situation.

If I could measure the level of concern that was on her face on a scale of one to ten, It would have been an eleven.

"What do you mean Ari?" Seonghwa beat her to the question "Ari?" Yechan added. Looking between Yechan and Rhea then back to the phone, My head was spinning. "I-I" I stuttered looking back and forth between them

"NO," I said getting up from the sofa and taking off upstairs.

-3rd POV-

"Yechan, what is happening?" Yunho asked leaning towards the phone. Given that he used the legal name and not Her given Nickname, Yechan knew he was worried.

"I'll be back," Rhea said walking into the kitchen Yechan turned back to her phone "I don't know, but I think she got overwhelmed," Yechan told them looking towards the stairs

"I think she has something she needs to work out" Yachan reached for the phone as Rhea came back into the living room, Putting her Phone into the Pajama shorts pocket.

Walking around the sofa Rhea sat beside the other girl. "Ari hasn't talked to you much about before she came to town, has she?" She asked Seonghwa eyebrows knitted

"She has spoken a little bit of it, She is from Soule City, Shitty parents, No siblings" He added "I think Hongjoong tried to find her parents back at the beginning but nothing came of it," Yunho said playing on his phone.

"Ya, I know 'Ari' is a nickname that she goes by but I'm unsure of her real name," Rhea said taking the phone from Yechan "You know, because of privacy" She Side-eyed Yechan.

"Don't give me that look" Yechan's voice raised "We check everyone out that we work or have relationships with"Yechan crossed her Ams over her chest

"Besides I could kill anyone 127 different ways" Yechan smirked at Rhea

"If I didn't know you that would be very alarming," Rhea said as the others laughed together

"Someone needs to go check on her," Yunho said after a few minutes "She gets in her head too easily" he added "I'll go see if we can figure out where she went," Seonghwa said getting up leaving the girls with Yunho.

"Where are you at anyways?" Rhea asked Yunho

"We had to go up to Ganji city but we should be back later tomorrow or the following morning," he told the redhead "I'm going to get off here and try to get some sleep, If anything happens please call." He said then Yechan took the phone and stepped outside to talk to her husband privately.

Rhea pulled out her phone while waiting for the couple to talk.

-Ari POV-

I wasn't sure why I ran, I knew I could talk to any of them about the past and nothing bad would happen. They had always welcomed me with open arms, But I couldn't.

The past should stay in the past.

Wrapping the blanket around me I climb in San's bed, Holding his babies close to my chest. Sandeoki and Wooyonyang. The room had the purple low lights on, My phone lighting it up making it brighter.

Joongie

Connecting the video I could see that he was sitting at his desk. There's my love" He said with a smile "Yeosang told me you had a rough night" I nodded at him, hugging the stuffies tighter to my chest

"It's been a lot and everything just feels like it's too much," I told him my voice shaking

"I wonder if it would have been better if I had stayed in Soule City" Looking at the screen he was watching me, Intensely listening.

"I know Namjoon said it was for the best that I left but I wonder if he was right" Hongjoong eyebrow went up at this little information. "If you hadn't left then we wouldn't have ever met," He told me leaning slightly toward the phone

"But I have brought you nothing you nothing but trouble lately" I tried to argue back but he wouldn't have it "You are worth it and so much more" He placed his hand under his chin.

The family ring shone brightly.

-3rd POV-

"Are there a few things in the past that I would change? Yes, But I still would want you here. We all do, We love you, and nothing you say or do would change that. The past is the past and you are our future" If Hongjoong could have hearts in his eyes he would, as he looked at Ari with all his love.

Ari wiped the tears off her cheeks.

"Thank you Hongjoong" Ari Whispered to him.

"Anything for you my love." He smiled again "Want to see what I been working on?" Hongjoong asked trying to take her mind off the sour subject, But making a note as to why Namjoon's name was brought up.

Ari nodded, and Hongjoong smiled Nervously. He was holding up the sketchbook that he normally carries in his work bag everywhere. He placed the book back on the table and picked up his phone, flipping the camera around to show the sketch right side up.

It was a beautiful dress design, It looked like it was supposed to be a floor-length ball gown. You could tell that he had tried to do something in the middle of the dress but erased it a few times.

"I wanted to have a crystal-looking design here" He pointed to the part that was erased with the pencil. "But I just can't make it look right" Hongjoong let out a sigh. "It's pissing me off" he added flipping the phone back around

"You could ask Yunho for help with it" Ari offered. The tired man nodded. "I was going to, Just haven't had the right moment to. " He said with a soft smile, The Corner of his mouth curly up.

"Feeling Better now," Hongjoongs asked the sleepy girl. She nodded A little bit "I am" Ari nodded "Close your eyes, love," Hongjoong said, Ari did as she was told.

Ari fell asleep to Hongjoong softly singing as he worked on the dress design.

"I'm drivin' around in my car. I'm drivin' too fast, I'm drivin' too far. I'd like to change my point of view. I feel so lonely, I'm waitin' for you"

Hongjoong was mindlessly singing as Ari slept on, Stopping every few minutes to look at the sleeping girl.

-Ari POV-

Waking up I was still in San's bed. Checking my phone I had an unread message from Joongie.

Sleep well, my love. ~ KH

I laughed a little at it and sent him back a message that I loved him too.

I checked the time as I tried to get out of bed, 1:23 pm. Tried to push the blanket off me it didn't budge "Siren Move" I tried to wiggle my legs, Still, I was unable to move.

Sitting up I was able to see that it was not SIren in the bed with me but Rocky. Django was lying by the door. No Siren in sight.

"Rocky, why are you in the bed?" I asked the overgrown Pup as he rolled over on me, His stomach landing on mine, I scratched his head. "Come on, Up" I patted his back making him get up. I followed him out the door, Django following us.

Heading downstairs Rhea was on the sofa hugging Siren, Odd. Yechan's bedroom was shut but her office door was open.

Walking over to her office I could see she was at her deck looking at one of her monitors. I knocked to not startle her. Dune lay in his dog bed off to the side of the desk.

"Morning sleepy head" Yechan looked up for a second as I made my way to her.

"Something wrong?" I asked once I was at her desk. The monitor had the office security cameras showing. "I think so, I got an alert from the office but no one is showing in the building," She said pulling her phone out "I'm going to call Intak and have him go have a look," She said as she dialed the number placing it on speaker.

I sat on her desk.

Yechan eyed me for a second as I was fiddling with one of her pens, Trying to spin it between my fingers only to drop it when she grabbed my leg closest to her. Pulling me over slightly and placing my foot on the chair. Yechan started to rub under my knee tickling me as her phone started to ring.

I closed my eyes at the warmth from her hands. The guys had always told me Yechan always felt hot, Now I see what they mean.

"Hello?" A male voice called out, I jumped slightly. "Hey, Intak can I get you to do me a favor?" Yechan asked as she ran her nail along the back of my knee making me laugh a little bit

"Ya, I'm just finishing up what I was doing now, It should only take me a few more minutes. What do you need?" He asked, a tapping could be heard from the other end of the phone. "Can you go by the office and make sure it's all closed up?" She asked him. Leaning towards my knee, her lips lightly touching the scar on my knee.

"I'm here now, I'm in the building," Intak told her.

Yechan pulled away from me quickly dropping my leg in the process of turning back to her laptop. She muted her phone turning to me "Call Jongho and give him the run down" I nodded pulling my phone out and calling him quickly

The phone connected after the first ring "Ari, we are in the meeting right now" He quickly said as a door closing could be heard. "I know, I'm sorry. Yechan asked for me to call you" I quickly explained to him what was happening with the cameras not detecting.

"It's showing like that on mine too, Tell Yechan to go down and check out the office herself," He said "But I have to go back in there now, If something happens call me back" He then disconnected the call.

I walked back over to Yechan's desk "He said to go check it for yourself, and to let him know" Yechan nodded "Go get dressed and we will head into town" Yechan was typing away on her keyboard "We?" I asked her, and she nodded. "I'm not letting you out of my sight until the guys get back" She then turned and looked up at me from her office chair "Now little bunny, Go get dressed"

I could feel my mouth go dry. Nodding I walked out of her office, past Rhea who raised an eyebrow as I hurried past her. Quickly made my way upstairs with Django behind me. I grabbed the first thing I saw in my closet and a white long-sleeve shirt to go under it. Putting my hair up into its normal ponytail, I did my makeup quickly and put on my lacy white ruffle socks. Grabbing my black heels I went out the door heading back downstairs.

Rhea was still in her Pajamas but Yechan was dressed to the T, Corset and all. She had left her black curls down, The Black dress pants and white shirt had a black corset holding the look together along with looked like black boots with red soles. "I swear, could you look more polar opposite" Rhea said as she stood up from the sofa. I looked down at what I was wearing and then back to Yechan. Completely opposite.

Her black and white with a touch of red business was so starkly different from my short blue dress. It had a pop of black in it but the long white puffed-sleeve shirt out shined the little bit of black. Looking back at Yechan's sharp outfit, something was missing.

"Oh," I said then took off back upstairs "Ari, We need to head out" Yechan shouted behind me "Two seconds" I hollered back.

"One, Two" Rhea said laughing then yelled "Ow" I had to guess Yechan hit it. Heading back to my room and into the closet, I walked over to wear all of my hair accessories hung up. I quickly spotted the little Silver rhinestone stone star.

Quickly running, and almost falling, back downstairs. Rhea was sitting on the arm of the sofa and Yechan the tapping her foot while looking at her phone. Walking over to her I was able to tell that with her heels she was not slightly taller than me, I pulled her over to the stairs. "What are you doing?" She asked, I hushed her as I stopped at the stairs, and stepped up so I was taller than her again, Rhea watched with a smirk. I pushed Yechan slightly to one side making her turn then quickly pushed the baby hair behind her ear pinning it down with the little star.

"That's better" I stepped off the step and walked past Yechan to where my heels sat on the floor.

-3rd POV-

Yechan turned watching as Ari walked over to the shoe rack, Sitting down to put on the shiny black shoes. Turning around to Rhea, Yechan raised an eyebrow at her "She does that" Rhea walked past her heading to get her keys "I got to go to the apartment then to the shop" She then walked out the door right as Ari called out she was driving.

"What the hell is going on?" Yechan said to herself, following Ari out to the garage, and Dune followed her. Dune loaded in the back seat, Yechan bulked up as Ari pulled out of the garage not wearing a seat belt.

Ari [poked the other girl's hand "You good?" She asked Yechan. "Yeah, You just keep surprising me is all," Yechan told Ari, making her smile. "that's a good thing, Right?" Ari asked

"Yes, That's a good thing," Yechan told her and the two fell into a comfortable silence only to have it be broken by Ari's phone going off. A message comes up on the car's display that a text was received from Sannie.

Ari picked up her phone looking at the screen to see it say a photo was sent and then sat the phone back down, screen side down. "Everything ok?" Yechan asked looking at Ari's blushing face, Knowing full good and well what kind of photos San likes to send.

"YOu should check it" Yechan advised watching Ari's ears turn redder "It's fine, it can wait" Ari waved out her Right hand, Hoping thatYechan would drop it "But it might be important" Yechan offered innocently "No it's fine" Ari went to grab the phone sitting between the two girls but Yechan grabbed it first "I'll check it for you" Yechan smiled, swiping the phone up to unlock it.

"NO" Ari Yelled reaching for the phone. Yechan pulled back and leaned against the door. "Oh, you're full of surprises today. Why don't you want me to check it?" Yechan asked, Ari's face was as red as a cherry now. She mumbled "Because" as she fanned her face with her hand. If the blushing could get worse it would have.

"Because is not a real answer" The look on Ari's face was priceless as the blushing girl made a whining noise "Because why Ari?" Yechan playfully poked Ari's cheek drawing attention to her warm cheeks. "Because," Ari said as Yechan leaned on the center console placing her hand under her chin, "Because?" The banter was playful.

"Because it could be anything from a butterfly to a Dick" Ari tried to reach for the phone again while Yechan laughed at the blushing girl. "Bunny, You act like I haven't slept with him before," Yechan said so nonchalantly pulling the photo up on the phone. Yechan smiled.

"Oh, That's so Sweet. He has such a beautiful heart" Yechan poked her bottom lip out placing a hand over her chest "oh, Let me see," Ari said looking over at Yechan and then back to the road quickly. Yechan turned the phone around, trying not to laugh.

Ari made a noise that sounded like a mix between a whale, a mouse, and a strangle.

It was a classic San photo, He was sitting in front of a mirror holding up his phone to take the photo. The black and white silk shirt was left completely open, along with the black faux fur coat over it. His toned tan chest and abs were on full display.

Yechan was laughing as the car veered a little and quickly straightened up. "Yechan" Ari whined, taking her phone from the short woman. "I'm sorry, You're just too easy to mess with," She said pulling her out of her phone and typing something quickly before putting it back up.

By the time Yechan stopped her laughing and Ari's breathing was under control, Ari was pulling into the small parking lot of the office.

Intak was sitting on the steps in front of the door. "Is it just me or does he look guilty?" Ari asked leaning on the steering wheel "Yeah, He does." Yechan replied taking her phone out and sending a message to Jongho letting him know that they got to the office. He just replied with "Ok, I'm watching."

[popculturealchemy]

volume . decibels . difficult 3D measurement . . volume of content feeling forced to fill space maybe thats normal want to give quality but remembering bad episodes of things . whats my objective . . . Expectations Boundaries We are we going What can I think about to feel good today I like just laying in bed lately in the dark feels relaxing deep breathing no phsyical work period lately . black prism bean bag chair through space in my mind . finding peace . finding peace looking for people finding peace . . . feeling like spreader of chaos . am I being chaotic today . am I too much or too little today what size do you want . the system is rigged smaller and smaller boxes . big black prism in your living room new anthropology in your space . whats this racket yelling at me where's the clicker . tv dinner white noise glittering diamonds twirling on platters yellow phone numbers black prism shiny objects things I don't have things that don't exist . things made in warehouse feeding volume free things got for free being shipped to your door easy as diarrhea . . wasted cardboard filling up your house making my bed out of amazon cardboard air matress puffy bag with amazon logo . . shoes and slippers from bubble wrap envelopes . plastic wrap spring roll outfit . . . . accumulation volume black prism protect my pixel from the black prism remembering I still have words and a vanvas . basic consciousness awareness of time . . constants invariable variables what tone am I going for am I really trying to help people with this . is this a weird scam writing my thoughts questioning my motives for even trying . why is he trying? is he trying to win or something? is he trying to be happy? . weird feelings not liking myself in public lately . . under the bleachers feeling wanting crawl somewhere feeling spider where you can't see me thinking maybe you'll still love me . getting on track without punishing myself

[whispersafterdusk]

Horizon

"Far beyond the horizon, On the north side of the sea, lay a quiet port within the bay where home and heart await me. Let the waves be kind and wind be swift, may the sun shine through and through. May my cargo sell and my pockets sag when I come home to you."

"You seem in fine spirits."

Something halfway between a gasp and a strangled cough exploded out through Roaring Whisper's lips as he simultaneously stopped humming the shanty and also choked on his drink at the unexpected voice; he managed to keep from spraying anything on the book open in front of him but it took several coughs and a loud clearing of his throat to clear his airway as he spun on his stool to find Y'shtola standing in the doorway smiling in at him.

"Should I have knocked?"

He coughed again into his palm. "Sorry. Thought I was alone."

"It seems I should be the one to apologize for coming so close to ending our hero and having to explain that no man nor beast nor primal was the culprit, but instead an accidental inhale of tea."

Roaring snorted and wiped a dribble of his drink from the corner of his mouth as Y'shtola stepped into the room and carefully picked her way among the stacks and crates of books.

"What were you humming just now? I can't say I've ever caught you in such a mood."

"Old shanty. Feeling a touch homesick is all."

She tilted her head, silently studying him for a moment before running her fingertips over the piles of parchment scrap and books that cluttered the table between them. "So far as I'm aware there's nothing about to end the world at the moment - why not take some time for yourself?"

The answer was a simple one but not one he especially wanted to discuss at the moment so he settled for shrugging as he stuck a dry quill into his book to keep his place before closing it. He then could tell from the look on her face that he was not getting out of this conversation until she'd pried the answer out of him and inwardly he sighed as she settled on a stack of books across the table from him.

"What is on your mind, then?"

With a huff he dropped the book onto the table. "It's a song of home. Which I am lacking. I have a place I live but where you sleep does not make it home. All…that has happened, and things I was forced to remember. It makes me miss a place that does not exist."

That was really the crux of it. Having weathered the First and seen Elpis, and learned of his own past, it… There was an ache in him for something he'd never known he'd wanted and couldn't return to either. Whatever contentedness he'd had before in his life had been taken from him and replaced with something like an itch he'd never be able to scratch.

"I…see," Y'shtola said quietly. "And I assume you've thrown yourself into this current project to drown out the feeling."

Roaring nodded. Losing himself in research was better than being lost inside his own head, and at the very least the spell he was trying to locate and refine would benefit him in the future.

After a pause Y'shtola picked up one of the stacks of scraps he'd been scribbling notes on and looked it over, squinting -- Roaring felt a bit of guilt at that despite knowing that he'd never written he notes with her in mind so he shouldn't have felt bad at using the most basic of inks, causing her to expend more effort to see it. "You know, Tataru has been looking for an overseer for her next big project. Perhaps you should see what she needs? It may be better than burying yourself here."

"Perhaps," he replied.

She flipped the top scrap over in her hand to check the back then placed it face down on the table. "Do the lyrics of this shanty at least bring some measure of peace?"

"Not especially. But it's better than the silence."

"May I hear it then?"

Roaring scratched at his cheek, feeling them tint pink slightly; he hadn't actually sung a shanty since his sailing days, and there was also a question of whether he could carry a tune while trying to not be so loud.

Y'shtola, unbothered, continued to look over his notes.

Clearing one last trace of tea out of his throat Roaring picked up his book again. "…far beyond the horizon, on the north side of the sea-"

[polaroidpascal]

i've rarely, if ever, explored the world of dark!joel fics... but holy. fucking. shit. i've been struggling to put the words together to explain the way this makes me feel, and it only gets stronger and stronger with the more you decide to share with me. like... i am so fucking invested in this. i wish there was a way i could just pluck my heart out and translate the physical feeling into words or like a visual but i literally can't, IT'S JUST TOO MUCH 😭😭😭

ANYWAYYYSSS... i am sooo fucking excited for more of this. i'm so invested. i'm on edge. i'm holding my breath. i'm falling for him when there is LITERALLY no reason to. i'm deluding myself into thinking he's not that evil but man, oh man, i know he is, like sooo evil. BEYOND evil. and he is also beyond saving, truly.

winter, i bow down to you 🧎‍♀️

it’s not like she’s winning the “mom of the year” award any time soon, either. She’s never even been nominated.

the "she's never even been nominated” made me giggle 😭

You sit cross-legged, elbows propped up on your knees so that your hands can support your weary head, the skin of your palms becoming slippery with salty tears as your crying just doesn’t seem to stop. The road you’ve found yourself on seems relatively low-trafficked, the heaving sounds of your sobs accompanied by more cricket chirps and rustling wheat than rumbling tires.

idk why i could see this so clearly in my head and it made me so sad. like my chest started getting achey i was like :( i feel like i AM her fr

He’s probably just somebody’s harmless grandfather, anyway, judging by his motheaten flannel and gray-stricken beard you can see now that you’ve approached his truck a few paces closer.

JUST SOMEBODY'S HARMLESS GRANDFATHER AIDUBFAKJSDBF

Joel is lucky that all he came away from it with is that ugly little scar that mars the bridge of his nose. He can’t say the same for her.

ohhhhhh my god... making his nose scar be from one of his victims... and from her specifically... oh my fucking GOD.

You suppose that’s what you’ve been needing all this time, someone to guide you and understand you and at least pretend like they care about you.

hello yes i am in this fic and i don't like it 🧎‍♀️ i literally stepped back for a sec i was like woah.

The last room they had, yeah, right. You’re just the most pathetic little thing, aren’t you? You’ll believe just about anything that comes out of his mouth if he turns up the ‘southern charm’ dial a few ticks, throws in a feigned apologetic-looking expression for good measure. It’s sad, really. For you, anyway.

HELLO YES I AM IN THIS FIC AND I DONT LIKE ITTT 😭😭😭

That’s what the others would have done. It’s what they have done. And they faced the consequences.

the panic i got from this... and she's not even awake. and these are just his thoughts. she has no fucking idea... oh my god. 😵‍💫

In the morning, if you do remember any of it, you’ll just chalk it up to a very strange dream, one fueled by the desire he knows you’ve felt towards him since he picked you up. You’ll be left with a strange assuredness that he feels the same way about you, without really knowing why.  But Joel will always know.

he knows her type too good. he knows exactly what will happen. and then it fucking DOES. joel will always. know.

What you are certain of is that neither of you ever have to go back to that town ever again, and that feels good, too. And if it feels good, then it can’t be bad.

if it feels good, then it can't be bad oh my god you really do want me dead winter. i'm on the floor. i'm going through every emotion humanly possible rn.

again i'm so in awe at this bc i don't typically read fics like this... but holy fucking shit. i'm just in awe at you. i'm so sat for more of this. once again saying that i can't even describe how this has captivated me. i wanna give your brain a big old kiss 🧎‍♀️

strangers | part 1

summary: following in the footsteps of a girl you once knew, you decide to up and leave home one morning without looking back. when you find yourself to be tired, hungry, and alone in the middle of nowhere, you're thankful when a kind stranger offers you a ride, a warm meal, and a place to sleep for the night. he only tells you about himself in bits and pieces, but he seems trustworthy enough, and what you don't know can't hurt you, right?

!!PLEASE READ WARNINGS, THIS IS A VERY DARK FIC!!

I've tried to label this fic as detailed and as boldly as possible. I will not be held responsible or bullied off the internet if you choose to read this potentially upsetting/triggering work of fiction anyway.

warnings: joel miller x f!reader, 18+, smut, age gap (reader is college-aged, joel is mid-50s), no outbreak au, serial killer!joel, dark!joel, talk of death/murder and blood, mommy & daddy issues, brief talk of domestic violence, lying/gaslighting, manipulation, f-receiving non-con somnophilia (no sex, but groping, fingering, dry humping, kissing, and choking), degrading language toward victims, pet names (baby, darlin', sweetheart), some joel pov, no ellie/sarah but tommy has an unnamed daughter, somewhat inspired by "strangers" by ethel cain, takes place in illinois/ohio/indiana, vaguely set in the 70s/80s, this part is mostly introduction/storytelling/yapping, please respectfully let me know if i missed anything and i will rectify the tags

word count: 9.8k

a/n: i started this as a oneshot way back in november, and then it sat abandoned for a very long time. thank you to my lovely friends @polaroidpascal and @chippedowlmug for encouraging me to finish it, and also bestie kiers who never hesitates to match my freak. also thank you to the many writers who made me feel inspired to write something dark and not give a fuck what people think about it. i hope you enjoy this joel he's a freak and i love him and if you say anything mean about him i'll send him after you <3

divider by @saradika

part 2 coming 8/16

Ruby Carpenter.

You had spent all day trying to remember her name without really knowing why. Maybe it’s because as the sun sets on what would be the first day of your junior year at the nearby state school, you wonder if she ever made it to one of the fancy ivy leagues she had always aspired to attend. You wonder if she’s even still alive.

Ruby had disappeared a few years ago now, the summer after your senior year of high school. For nearly a year afterwards, her missing posters remained stapled onto every telephone pole and stuck onto every store window around town, until the paper began to disintegrate and the ink began to fade. In that time, you couldn’t even make a quick run to the grocery store without being confronted by dozens of replicas of her yearbook photo printed onto the sides of all the milk cartons. Despite all of the efforts to find her, including several search parties and a decent amount of statewide media coverage, everyone had just stopped looking for her, eventually. Even the police. Even her parents.

It was decided that she had probably just run away, and you can’t entirely blame her, but you can’t imagine why she would, either. You remember her perfect head of blonde ringlet curls that shone a yellow gold in the sun, and her bright blue eyes that turned fiery in her more passionate moments during classroom debates. She had every boy in your grade wrapped around her finger, was the teacher’s pet in every class, and it wasn’t even a question whether she would win prom queen your senior year. She was always sweet to you, always complimented your outfits or your makeup or your art projects with a genuine lilt in her voice and a kind smile, so you could never bring yourself to hate her even though it would’ve been so easy to. You figured she was going to cure cancer or become the president after you had all graduated, which is why you never really stopped wondering whatever happened to her that summer. She was beautiful, with boundless potential and a bright future ahead of her, why would she have just given it all up?

Everyone around town knew Ruby, or at least it seemed that way. But maybe nobody ever really knew her as well as they thought. Maybe she’d had a secret boyfriend all that time who whisked her away that summer, maybe she had decided to try drugs and fell down a rabbit hole that she couldn’t claw her way out of, maybe she had finally figured out that the only thing this town would ever be good for is holding people back. Maybe she did just wake up one day and decide to run without ever looking behind her.

Maybe you should do the same.

With your dad long gone now and your step-father doing a piss poor job of filling in the hole he left, following in Ruby’s footsteps has sounded like a better idea with each passing day. Rob isn’t even really your step-father, anyway, just your mom’s sorry fucking excuse for a boyfriend. The guy’s already been married upwards of three times before, why try for another one? He’s a lazy son of a bitch who can’t hold down a job at a fast food joint for more than a couple of weeks at a time, who sleeps every second of the day that he’s not chugging through a six pack, and who leaves marks on your mother uglier than his fucking face. 

She doesn’t deserve to be treated that way, of course, but it’s not like she’s winning the “mom of the year” award any time soon, either. She’s never even been nominated. She’s forgotten just about every one of your birthdays, been the reason you’ve never had any friends come over, and in her most recent offense, blew all the savings you had put away for your last two years of college. Which is why you’re not spending tonight celebrating being one year closer to at least having an official-looking piece of paper to show for yourself. Instead, you’re using the rattling of your bedroom window unit and the booming bass of your radio to drown out yet another drunken screaming match between your mother and the guy she lets live in your house now, watching the world outside pass you by and knowing that if you don’t do anything about it now, you’ll never make it out of here. You’re thinking about Ruby Carpenter, hoping she found somewhere greener and more promising and was able to make something of herself, far away from here. And you’re thinking that this rusted orange sunset is the last one you’ll ever see from your bedroom window.

It’s decided, then. You’re leaving, first thing tomorrow.

—

You’ve only gotten a few hours of sleep by the time your alarm clock chimes to life at five o’clock on the dot. You’re quick to silence the shrill beeping with a swift swat of your hand, careful not to wake anyone else in the house. The sun has just barely begun to stream in through the blinds of your bedroom window, but it illuminates the room just enough for your eyes to land on the backpack you had stuffed full of a few changes of clothes last night, waiting for you by the door. 

You don’t waste any time stripping off your pajamas and pulling on just about the only clothes left in your room that aren’t in your bag. You’ve got your teeth brushed, face washed, and hair tamed in all of about ten minutes, too anxious to spend even one more unnecessary second in this house. You swing your backpack over your shoulder, pull your bedroom door open at just the right speed so that the hinges don’t squeak too loud, and tiptoe delicately down the stairs, careful to avoid the creaky floorboards that you know like the back of your hand—the one three steps from the top, the one at the landing about halfway down, and the very bottom one.

You land softly when you leap over that tattletale bottom step, successful in the most difficult part of your escape plan so far. Rob is passed out on the living room couch in typical fashion, his mouth full of crooked teeth hanging open as his grating snores permeate the calm morning air. He’s still got a death grip around an empty beer can, even in his sleep, and your mother will likely be the one to toss it into the trash for him, useless fucker that he is. You aren’t going to miss either of them, and you imagine they’ll just skip trying to replicate the first half of the aftermath of Ruby’s disappearance altogether—no posters, no search parties, no police. You’ll just be gone, one less mouth for your mother to feed. Though, you’d been mostly feeding yourself since you were tall enough to slide a couple of bills across the counter at the corner store down the street, anyway. You’re ready to disappear, the same as candle wax when it burns, the same as the end of a rainbow, the same as Ruby Carpenter.

You don’t bother looking back when you shut the door behind you, content to leave it all behind just as the sun begins to rise and set the sky ablaze. By the time it sets again tonight, you hope to be in a different county, in a different state, anywhere that isn’t here. The rest, you’ll just have to figure out when you get there, wherever “there” may be.

—

You had only realized about an hour ago that you’d forgotten your cheap digital watch in the drawer of your bedside table, where it’s laid unused for the past couple of months, because who needs to tell time during the summer? You never had anywhere to be, never had to get to class or turn in a paper by a certain time, so it’s just been collecting dust since you had unclipped it from your wrist on the last day of spring semester. It sure would have come in handy right about now, when you have no fucking clue what time it is. The sun had disappeared behind the hills several mile markers back, so it must be… eight o’clock? Ten o’clock? Fucking midnight? You have no idea. What you do know is that you’re exhausted, hungry, and your feet hurt like hell. You aren’t really sure what you expected, the reality only just now setting in that you don’t even have ten bucks to your name anymore, thanks to your narcissist of a mother. The crumpled up bills you do have in your pocket are hardly enough for a goddamn sandwich, let alone a motel room. The cool night breeze raises goosebumps on your skin, and you swear you can see your fucking breath, even in the middle of August. You wrap your arms around yourself just as tears begin to prick at your waterlines, and you let them fall as you collapse onto the scratchy patch of dead grass on the side of the freeway, not a park bench or a bus stop or even a gas station in sight for God knows how many more miles.

You sit cross-legged, elbows propped up on your knees so that your hands can support your weary head, the skin of your palms becoming slippery with salty tears as your crying just doesn’t seem to stop. The road you’ve found yourself on seems relatively low-trafficked, the heaving sounds of your sobs accompanied by more cricket chirps and rustling wheat than rumbling tires. But a few high beams do streak across your vision every once in a while, coloring the backs of your eyelids a flaming scarlet.

After several minutes, your tears seem to dry up on their own, your body likely too dehydrated now to produce any more. You wipe the moisture from under your eyes with the back of your hand, sniffling as you gnaw at the skin of your bottom lip and debate if you should just turn back now, give up on your stupid little plan (or lack thereof) and just call the whole thing a loss, pretend it never even happened. Your mother and Rob won’t have even noticed you’d left.

Just as you pull yourself back up to your feet, set on at least finding somewhere that isn’t the hard ground to sleep on tonight before you make your way back home tomorrow, the warm headlights of an old pickup truck are shining bright in your eyes. You put your arm up to block them as the truck slowly squeals to a halt in front of where you’re standing, and you squint your eyes at the driver as your vision adjusts.

“You need a ride, sweetheart?” A man asks in a gravelly voice, and you can still hardly make out what he looks like. Based on the southern accent you pick up on, he doesn’t sound like he’s from around here. 

“N-no, thank you. I’m okay,” you respond shakily, taking a nervous step back from the stranger and his rusted pickup.

“You sure? Looked like you were cryin’ over here, like you might be lost or somethin’.”

“‘M not lost, I know where I’m going.”

“Oh yeah? Where’s that?”

Shit. 

You take a guess.

“Um… the motel down the road,” you reply, tilting your head in the direction you had been walking in.

“There ain’t a motel down there, sweetheart. Ain’t nothin’ in either direction for miles, ‘s all just farmland out here. Reckon you’ve already figured that out, though.”

You pause, unsure of what your next move should be. He knows you’re lying, knows you’re alone with no fucking idea where you are or where you’re going. You could run, but even that shitty truck of his could catch up to you in a matter of seconds. You take another step back, swiveling your head around to look up and down the road as you try to figure your best way out of this.

“Just lemme give you a ride somewhere, darlin’. There’s a diner just off the exit, ‘bout twenty miles up ahead. Could take you that far, at least, get you somethin’ to eat,” he offers. A warm meal does sound pretty good right now, and you suppose you aren’t exactly in a position to refuse his help.

You think on it for a second. “What’s it called? The diner.”

The stranger huffs. “Moody’s.”

“What do they have?” you challenge.

He sighs. “It’s a fuckin’ diner off the side of the freeway, darlin’. They got greasy food and black coffee, ‘s about all you need.”

You don’t say anything.

Then, after a beat—“They got some kinda sloppy mess they call the Thunder Burger. ‘S got onion rings and shit on it. Ain’t half bad.”

You have to admit, he’s passing your pop quiz with flying colors. His answers have been too quick, too specific for him to be lying to you. There’s a pretty solid chance this diner does exist, and that he’s been there before. The man hasn’t said anything that’s indicated he wants more to do with you than to offer you a ride and some dinner. He’s probably just somebody’s harmless grandfather, anyway, judging by his motheaten flannel and gray-stricken beard you can see now that you’ve approached his truck a few paces closer.

“Okay,” you concede, your stomach growling loudly as the man leans over the bench seat to pop open the passenger side door for you. You shrug off your backpack and climb into the cabin, clicking your seatbelt into place as you situate yourself on the cracked leather seat. 

“All set?” the stranger asks.

“Mhm,” you hum, finally getting a better look at the man you might just owe the rest of your life to after tonight. For being somebody’s grandfather, he’s… kinda handsome. Really fucking handsome, actually, in a rugged sort of way. He’s got warm amber eyes that sparkle even in the dark of night, a kind smile that completely disarms you in an instant, and a splintering scar across the bridge of his nose that somehow only adds to his good looks. You try to suppress your own grin as you look away from him quickly, opting to focus on fidgeting with one of the fraying edges of your denim shorts instead. Even in your peripheral vision, you don’t miss how his eyes shift from your own to the exposed skin of your thighs. He doesn’t say anything, just clears his throat as he shifts gears and steers his truck back onto the road again. 

He lets the next few minutes pass in comfortable silence before asking, “You got a name, sweetheart?”

You tell him, and he flashes another charming smile at you. “I like that, ‘s pretty… Well, I’m Joel. Sure you were wonderin’. Now you ain’t gettin’ a ride from a stranger no more, are ya?”

“Yeah, I guess I’m not,” you giggle, and you’re surprised at how comfortable you feel with him. “So… you’ve been to Moody’s before?”

“Handful of times, yeah. When I’m passin’ through.”

You nod. “So you come up here, like… for work or somethin’?”

Joel chuckles. “Or somethin’. You never even heard of the damn place, so… reckon you don’t find yourself out here very often, do ya?”

“No… ‘M not even really sure where ‘here’ is, to be honest. I just kinda… started walking.”

“Ah… a runaway, then, are ya?” Joel asks, with an appreciated amount of understanding in his tone rather than judgment. “‘M sure your folks are missin’ ya right about now, must have your boyfriend worried sick.”

You scoff at that. “Fuck no. They probably don’t even know I’m gone, won’t even bother trying to come look for me. And I don’t have a boyfriend, so…”

“Damn shame. ‘M sorry about that, sweetheart,” Joel comforts, placing a large calloused hand on your thigh. It makes your breath hitch, but his touch isn’t entirely unwelcome. You let him squeeze once at the plush of your leg before he replaces his hand on the wheel, and your cunt spasms out a little fluttering pulse against the seam of your shorts, despite yourself.

The rest of the drive to Moody’s is relatively quiet, save for the gentle crooning of an old country singer emanating from the cassette player on the dash. The soft singing and steady strumming of a banjo combined with the muffled chugging of the truck’s engine is enough to lull you to sleep, especially after the day you’ve had. You know that just about every mental alarm bell you have should be screaming at you to jump out of the car, to run, that sleeping alone in the dirt would’ve been a better decision than getting into this strange man’s—Joel’s—truck, but you’re too tired to hear them. He smells good, like woodsmoke and pine and cinnamon, and if he wanted to do something awful to you, he probably would’ve done it by now. So you trust him, for now at least, and let your lashes fan out against your cheeks as your head falls back against the cushioned headrest, coaxed into sleep by the lullaby of tires against pavement and fingertips against guitar strings.

—

You only rouse when you feel the truck come to a stop about half an hour or so later, slowly blinking your eyes open against the bright neon sign that reads “MOODY’S” in bold capital letters. Your jaw stretches wide as a yawn overtakes the muscles, and you hear Joel’s southern drawl replace the one from the cassette as he shuts the engine off.

“Mornin’, sleepyhead. Not too tired to eat somethin’ now, are ya?”

Another unpleasant-sounding rumble from your empty stomach answers for you, loud enough for both of you to hear this time. The air puffing out of the diner’s kitchen smells strongly of fatty bacon and rich coffee, just like Joel had promised you the place would offer. Although the digital clock on the dash read just after 10:30 before you fell asleep, you’ve never craved breakfast quite like you do right now. You absentmindedly lick your lips as you imagine the sweet and savory—and more importantly free—meal that could be waiting for you beyond that blinding beacon of a sign.

“Well, alright then. Let’s get some food in ya before you keel over, hm?” Joel says as he exits the truck, landing on his feet in the dirt parking lot with a soft groan. He waits by the hood for you to meet up with him, and you walk up the couple of steps to the entrance together. He holds the door open for you, and you offer him a shy ‘thank you’, to which he responds with a soft spoken ‘welcome, sweetheart’. You stand shyly behind his broad form as he asks the hostess for a table for two, and she leads you to a green leather booth tucked into the corner of the diner. She hands each of you a sticky laminated menu, the pages a charming mess of clashing colors and faded pictures and retro-looking fonts, then departs with a promise that your waitress will bring the two of you some water as you take your time deciding on what you might like. 

You light up upon reading that Moody’s serves breakfast all day, and that they can make you exactly what you were hoping for—a stack of chocolate chip pancakes with sides of bacon and hashbrowns. You can’t help but smile to yourself as you wiggle in your seat, excitedly anticipating the waitress to come back around so you can order.

“Whatcha so excited about over there?” Joel asks, eyeing you from across the table as he glances up from his own menu.

“Nothin’, I was just hoping I could get some pancakes, and they have ‘em on the menu,” you explain giddily. “I’ll probably get some coffee, too, really complete the whole ‘breakfast for dinner’ thing.”

Joel huffs through his nose. “Decaf, I hope. ‘S the middle of the goddamn night, sweetheart. Gonna be bouncin’ off the walls in the room later, hardly get any sleep.”

He’s right, you suppose. But wait—“What room?”

Joel shrugs casually. “There’s a decent motel another exit or two down, figured they could probably get us a couple o’ beds for the night. But, ‘m sorry, shouldn’t have assumed—”

“No! No, it’s okay.”

Is it? You only met the man less than an hour ago, and you already agreed to let him give you a ride before you even knew his name. You suppose you hadn’t really thought about what would happen after he bought you dinner, but not thinking ahead seems to have been a theme today, hasn’t it? You remind yourself that he’s only been kind and respectful to you so far, save for that placement of his hand on your upper thigh soon after he picked you up. But that could’ve just been a friendly, paternal gesture, right? And he said a couple of beds, when he mentioned the motel, which seemed to imply that he plans on the two of you sleeping in separate beds, maybe even separate rooms. You’ve found yourself having to make yet another somewhat reckless decision tonight, but one that would be in your best interest to say ‘yes’ to, at this point. What other option would you have if you declined his offer?

“Don’t really have anywhere else to go, so… yeah, okay. Motel sounds good. And decaf it is, I guess.”

Joel’s apologetic expression quickly morphs into a satisfied smirk. “Good girl,” he praises. You like how the words sound coated in his thick drawl, even though you probably shouldn’t. You shift where you sit as that familiar fluttering sensation returns to the seat of your panties, just for a moment. You’re grateful that the waitress arrives at the booth not a second later, cheerily introducing herself as she sets down a glass of water for each of you. When she asks if you’re ready to order, Joel gestures to you as if to say ‘ladies first’, and you politely prattle off your request. You make sure to emphasize that you’d like your coffee decaf, and ask if she could please bring some more of the little cups of vanilla creamer to the table. “Not a problem, honey,” she replies, and Joel winks at you as she asks what she can get for him. He orders the Thunder Burger he had told you about earlier, and a black coffee, which he doesn’t request to be decaf. The waitress leaves the two of you alone again with an ‘I’ll have that right out for ya,’ and you let your eyes follow the calming baby blue color of her dress as she glides her way back to the kitchen. When she disappears around the corner of the bar, you take the opportunity to study Moody’s other patrons. There isn’t another young person in sight, mostly just men around Joel’s age with similarly heavy bags under their eyes, likely truck drivers indulging in their first hot meal of the day within the diner’s comforting wood-paneled walls. You wonder if that’s how Joel knows about this place, because he “passes through” this area on long hauls across the midwest. You open your mouth to ask him if your assumption is correct, but he cuts you off before you can say anything.

“I gotta admit, sweetheart, I’m curious… The hell was a pretty thing like you doin’ out in the middle of goddamn nowhere tonight? I mean, I know you’re a runaway ‘n all, but… shouldn’t you be one o’ those college party girls or somethin’? ‘M sure you got plenty of friends wonderin’ where you are.”

You sigh, shaking your head as you distractedly pick at a splintered piece of wood at the edge of the table.

“I was in college. Was supposed to be going back again this year, but… my mom spent all the fucking savings I had left for the rest of it on fixing up her dumb boyfriend’s car. It’s just been sitting in the fucking lawn all summer, sure as hell not being used for something useful like going to the job he doesn’t have. That bastard…” You say the last part under your breath through gritted teeth.

“Shit… Tha’s a tough deal, baby, ‘m real sorry to hear that,” Joel comforts. “But y’know, everybody’s got mommy ‘n daddy issues, don’t mean you just up and start walkin’ all by your lonesome, not even have any idea where you’re goin’.”

“Well, it wasn’t just that. There was… nevermind, it’s stupid.” You slump into the cushioned booth, silently cursing yourself for even bringing it up.

“What is it?” Joel pushes, sitting up straighter to show you that he wants to listen, wants to get to know you. And God dammit, he might be the first person you’ve met in a long time who actually seems to care about what you have to say, as strange as it is. You flick your eyes up to his face, and he’s wearing a sincere gaze that convinces you to continue.

“There was this girl I went to high school with. She disappeared a couple of years ago, nobody ever found out what happened to her. People figured she probably just ran away, and I thought… I dunno. That maybe she had the right idea, leaving that place behind. I always held onto this hope that maybe she was still out there somewhere actually doing something with her life, that maybe she just changed her name or something and disappeared on purpose.” You pause. “I guess I just thought I might be able to do the same, if I left.”

“I see…” Joel muses sympathetically. “Maybe I oughta give you a lil’ more credit, then. Must’a been tough losin’ a friend like that, not knowin’ where she ended up.”

“I mean, Ruby wasn’t really my friend. She just—”

“Hang on. Ruby, you said?” Joel interrupts, his eyes suddenly looking a little wild.

“...Yeah. Her name was Ruby. Ruby Carpenter.”

—

Fuck.

Joel has to adjust himself under the table, his dick now hardening uncomfortably in his jeans at just the mention of her name. He remembers Ruby, remembers chuckling to himself when he realized the irony of her name matching the color of her blood, remembers watching the news coverage of her disappearance in this very same diner, those handful of years ago. She was a sweet thing, he remembers this, too. It was a shame she had ended up being such a fighter, that she had to get put down the way she did. But she shouldn’t have thrown that fucking rock at his face, called him a sick fuck and a freak as she made her pitiful little escape attempt. Joel is lucky that all he came away from it with is that ugly little scar that mars the bridge of his nose. He can’t say the same for her.

“Why? You heard her name before?” You ask him, an unfortunate little twinkle of hope in your eyes.

“Maybe.” Yes. “Sounds a lil’ familiar, might remember hearin’ about it on the news or somethin’.”

That goddamn news coverage sure as hell taught him a lesson. Joel had spent months trying to keep the cops off his fucking tail after he had dumped her body on some forgettable patch of land behind an old decaying barn. He had even gotten pulled in for a fucking interview at the station in what he now presumes to be your hometown, where they had questioned him for an hour or so about her disappearance. He still isn’t sure how he talked his way out of that one. Ruby might not have been good for much else, other than pissing him the hell off with all of her pathetic crying and begging to just please, please let me go back home, but she did help him perfect his craft, he can give her that much. It’s because of her that Joel makes certain now that any girl he picks up doesn’t have anybody who will miss her or plaster her face on every local channel or send out goddamn search parties to find her. Girls like you.

You’re just so perfect, it would be so fucking easy for him to make you disappear for good, it’s almost comical. It had hardly taken any convincing at all to get you to climb into his truck, had taken even less to get you to agree to go to some seedy ass motel with him that might not even exist, for all you know. It does, but you didn’t even try to test him about it this time, just put all of your trust in him like a stray puppy would to the first person to pick it up off the street. That is just about what you are, he supposes. So far, you seem like the perfect candidate to become his little captive pet. If you keep it up, maybe you won’t meet the same fate as the rest of them. He’d told himself he’d be done after the last one, anyway, his body too old and achy and slow now to chase after the ones who put up a little more fight, like she had. She’d nearly escaped, made it a decent way through the woods and almost reached the main road before tripping on an exposed root and snapping her ankle. He remembers how weak and scared she’d looked before he’d used his knife to put her out of her misery, and it makes his dick twitch. Joel doesn’t plan on snuffing you out, not right now at least, since you haven’t given him a reason to. But his fingers still twitch where they rest on the table, moving out of instinct as he can’t help but imagine what they’d look like wrapped so tightly around your little throat. Would you cry? Would you beg? Would you pray? Would he have to glide his blade across your vocal chords just to get you to stop screaming so fucking loud? He wonders.

“Oh… Was that one of the times you were just ‘passin’ through’ for whatever reason you haven’t told me yet?”

Joel hadn’t realized that his eyes had been unfocused for so long, or that he’d been holding his breath, or that his hand had been squeezing his glass of water so hard he’s glad it hadn’t shattered. The airy sound of your voice brings him back to reality, and he huffs a light chuckle as he fixes his face into a more pleasant expression. 

“Yeah, ‘spose it was.” 

You roll your eyes at him playfully. “Come on, Joel. I just told you, like, my whole sob story. I feel like I deserve to know at least one thing about you now.”

You have a point.

He gives in. “Fine. I got a brother, used to come through this area when I’d pay him a visit. That good enough for ya?”

You cross your arms. “No. What’s his name?”

“Tommy.”

“What’s he look like?”

“Like me. Little younger. Little uglier.”

You laugh at that.

It makes Joel smile.

Maybe you could be the one he’s been looking for all this time. Too bad he had to waste so many others before he finally got to you.

—

The waitress comes back to your table soon after that, with your steaming plates of delicious-smelling food and hot mugs of coffee balanced expertly on a large plastic tray. She sets them down in front of the pair of you with a cheery smile, and you thank her happily when she doesn’t forget the extra sickeningly sweet cups of creamer you had requested. Joel doesn’t take his eyes off you once during the interaction, not even to feast his eyes upon the monstrous burger now sitting before him, not even as he thanks the waitress for delivering it to him. His lingering gaze makes you feel a little warm, but it could just be from the heat radiating off of your plates.

“What? You’re not getting a bite of mine, if that’s why you’re looking at me,” you tease, already getting to work putting the sugary creamer to good use.

Joel just shakes his head, his caramel colored eyes still never leaving you as your coffee begins to resemble their hue. “No, ‘s not why.”

“Whatever,” you reply through a giggle, making a poor attempt to hide your girlish grin behind the lip of your white ceramic mug. 

The two of you eat your meals in relative silence, mostly enjoying each other’s company and basking in the relaxing ambience created by silverware tapping against porcelain, hushed conversations, and the local country station playing through the old radio sitting on the counter. The reception is a little spotty way out here in wherever the hell you are, so you can’t quite tell what song it is. But Joel seems to know, judging by the rhythmic bouncing of his knee under the table that creates little circular ripples in your coffee. Maybe you’ll ask him what it is later, how he knows it, if you can listen to it again in the truck together. He doesn’t seem to be as much of an open book as you’ve already given yourself away to be, and you respect that about him. It doesn’t make you any less curious, but you resign yourself to getting to know him better in the small doses he’s willing to offer you. 

You decide to begin a mental list of all the things you want to ask him later, knowing that by the time you make it to the motel tonight, you’ll be far too exhausted to do anything more than just collapse onto the springy mattress and sleep until you get kicked out of the room the next morning. You almost wish you hadn’t listened to Joel’s request for you to take your coffee decaffeinated tonight, and you still aren’t quite sure why you did. It just feels so strangely easy to give into him, to trust him, to let him make decisions for you. You suppose that’s what you’ve been needing all this time, someone to guide you and understand you and at least pretend like they care about you. Joel has shown you more concern and care and protection in the last hour or so than either of your parents have pretty much your whole life. And he’s good at this, making you feel wanted, making you feel like somebody, even in subtle ways, just by looking at you.

“A’right, why don’t you finish up, darlin’, ‘n we’ll hit the road again. Practically usin’ your pancakes as a pillow over there.”

“Oh, sorry,” you apologize sleepily, waking yourself up enough to make quick work finishing off your plate and your last few sips of coffee. 

“Nothin’ to be sorry ‘bout, sweetheart. Lord knows you need some rest, won’t be too much longer now,” Joel assures, fishing a few tens out of his faded leather wallet and placing them on the table. He slides to the edge of the booth and stands himself up with only a few pained noises as he straightens out his back, then offers his hand for you to take. You use it as leverage to pull yourself upright, and your hands linger in each other’s hold for a few seconds longer than they need to. The hostess thanks the two of you for stopping in when you pass her by, and Joel opens the door for you again as you leave Moody’s. He opens the truck door for you, too, and promises you that the motel is just another couple of minutes down the freeway. You make an effort to stay awake in your seat this time as Joel begins the drive, opting to gaze out the window and focus on trying to make out the sparkling constellations above the treeline. You smile privately at the moon when you find that she’s following closely behind you just as she always does, bright and full. 

She doesn’t leave your side until you reach the unassuming little roadside motel, which to your gratitude, proudly displays their vacancy on the flickering sign in the parking lot. It doesn’t look like a five star joint by any means, but you know it will serve its purpose just fine. Joel instructs you to stay in the truck while he goes about getting a room for the two of you, and you don’t object. He’d insisted that you didn’t need to be on your feet any longer than you already had been today, and you were too tired to argue with him even if you wanted to. When he returns, he taps lightly on the passenger side window so as not to startle you from the half-asleep, half-awake state you’ve found yourself in, and swings your backpack over his shoulder as he helps you out of the truck. He leads you to the room at the end of the row, and the door takes some finessing of the key and a shove of his shoulder to open. Joel flicks on the light, and you let out a disappointed-sounding ‘oh…’ when it reveals your accommodations.

There aren’t two beds like you had assumed Joel was going to request. There’s only one.

Joel catches your reaction. “‘S this gonna be alright? I know it ain’t the Ritz Carlton, but—”

“No, the room’s fine, it’s not that. I just thought… I just assumed that… I didn’t know it was gonna be, like… just the one bed.” You try to explain your discomfort as gently as possible, without seeming ungrateful for everything Joel has done for you tonight.

He looks at you sympathetically. “I know, I ain’t tryin’ anythin’, I swear. Guy told me it was the last room they had, jus’ figured it was better than nothin’.” 

You offer him a soft smile, but your eyes must still look a little wide as you begin to nervously pick at your fingernails. Joel continues, “I can take the chair if you want, darlin’. Get the bed all to yourself, how’s that sound?”

You visibly relax at that, your shoulders deflating as your smile becomes a little more genuine. “Okay, that’s good. Thank you.”

“‘Course, sweetheart. How’s about you take a nice hot shower, rinse off some o’ that dirt you picked up from walkin’ all day… Don’t suppose you got some suitable clothes in here for sleepin’ in?” Joel asks, handing your backpack off to you.

You shake your head. “Just some jeans and t-shirts, and another pair of shoes. And… y’know, some underwear, and stuff.”

Joel pinches the bridge of his nose, then rubs his fingers across his forehead exasperatedly. “I swear… it’s like you didn’t think there’d be a tomorrow or somethin’, girl. Christ.” Joel looks out the window to his truck parked just outside. “Tell you what, think I got somethin’ in the truck you can wear. Why don’t you see if they got anythin’ on the TV tha’s worth a damn, ‘n I’ll be back, alright?”

You nod, “Okay,” then set your backpack down on the drab carpet in favor of picking up the remote perched in front of the small square television. You sit yourself down on the edge of the bed as Joel leaves the room, and begin to flick through the few channels that aren’t just a screen full of snowy static.

Local news. Commercial. Game show. Commercial. Documentary. Commercial. 

Eventually, you land on what seems to be one of those old black-and-white western shows that you can never remember the name of. You only know that the reruns used to play on Sundays around lunchtime, because Rob would always be half paying attention to it with a beer in his hand when you and your mom would get home from church. For how adamant she was that you attend every weekend, she sure never called him a harlot and a sinner for not wanting to go with her. You’re not sure she had ever even tried to get him to go, but he probably didn’t own anything decent enough to wear, anyway. Whatever, fuck them. The show seems like the kind of thing Joel would like, so you let it keep playing. 

He comes back a moment later with a small stack of folded up clothes, tossing them over to where you sit on the bed. You unfold what he’s given you and examine them—a pair of simple pink cotton shorts, and a white tank top with a ditsy floral pattern scattered across the fabric. The clothing is a little more revealing than you’d like, but you figure you’d be a hell of a lot more comfortable wearing them to sleep than the denim shorts you have on now.

“These are… great. Thank you, Joel. But…” you snicker. “Should I be concerned that you have a very convenient supply of girls’ clothes in your truck?” Joel scoffs. “‘S for when I got Tommy’s kid with me, smartass. He’s got a daughter, few years younger ‘n you.”

“Okay, well, I dunno how I was supposed to know that, but… as long as you don’t have a girlfriend who’s gonna come after me for wearing her clothes.”

Joel only chuckles in response, his attention suddenly pulled to the TV.

“Gunsmoke, huh? ‘S a good choice, definitely what I’d classify as ‘worth a damn’.”

You smile to yourself, and his approval makes that warm fluttery feeling return to your belly. “I didn’t even know what it was called, just seemed like something you’d like.”

He turns back to you. “That obvious, huh? ‘S just ‘cause I’m old and southern, ain’t it?”

“Maybe a little,” you admit, making a pinching gesture with your hand.

Joel nods as he makes his way over to the armchair on the corner of the room, collapsing onto it with a groan. “Well, why don’t you go ‘n get yourself all changed and cleaned up, ‘n if you’re quick enough maybe we can finish the episode together and then get some shuteye, hm?”

You swiftly unzip your backpack to retrieve one of your clean pairs of underwear, then bound over to the small bathroom with them and your new change of clothes in hand. It’s not the most spotless one you’ve ever had to use, but you’ve honestly seen much worse. You rinse off quickly in the steaming shower, using the scratchy motel-provided washcloth to scrub the dirt from your legs, stuck to you with the sweat you worked up from God knows how many miles of walking today. 

Today. You can hardly believe it hasn’t even been a full 24 hours since you left home yet. It seems like you’ve already known Joel for days, maybe even years, as silly as it sounds. You wonder if he might just take you in after this, or if he’ll have had enough of providing for you after just one night. He seems like a man of limited means, and he’s already given you so much. If you’re brave enough, maybe you’ll ask him tomorrow, when you get to the ‘so… what now?’ part of your time together.

For now, you step out of the shower and dry yourself off with an impossibly scratchier towel, then pull on your panties and the tank top and shorts Joel provided you with.

Jesus, how much younger is Tommy’s daughter?

The shorts just barely cover your ass, and there’s a sizable gap between their waistband and the bottom hem of your top. The thin, white material of the shirt only serves to accentuate the way your nipples poke through the fabric, but you suppose there isn’t anything you can do about that.

You quietly crack open the bathroom door, and are somewhat relieved to find that Joel’s already fallen asleep in the chair. You do wish you could’ve finished the episode of Gunsmoke with him, but the end credits seem to be rolling already anyway, and you’d rather avoid being seen in your very ill-fitting pajamas. Although, you do wonder if he’d say anything, or if he’d just let his hungry gaze linger in silence again, holding himself back from touching you beyond a comforting pat on the thigh.

You pick the remote up off the bed and use it to make the TV screen sizzle to black, then tip toe over to the lightswitch by the door and turn it off, the room now completely shrouded in darkness. Joel snores softly from the chair as you blindly feel your way back over to the bed, pulling the covers back and nestling yourself underneath them. The bed is surprisingly comfortable, considering, and it doesn’t take long for your exhaustion to catch up with you. Your thoughts become slower and slower along with your breathing, and you’re asleep not even five minutes after your head hits the pillow.

—

The last room they had, yeah, right. You’re just the most pathetic little thing, aren’t you? You’ll believe just about anything that comes out of his mouth if he turns up the ‘southern charm’ dial a few ticks, throws in a feigned apologetic-looking expression for good measure. It’s sad, really. For you, anyway.

Joel fakes his snoring for another thirty minutes or so, until he’s certain you’re sound asleep. He had heard your breath even out almost immediately after you had tucked yourself in, but he had chosen to lay in wait for a little while longer, just to make sure you wouldn’t put up too much of a fight when he made his move. You don’t seem like the type, considering how you’d hardly argued with him at all tonight, like when he had convinced you to forgo the caffeine with your dinner. There’s a reason he wanted you sleepy and subdued tonight, but you didn’t know that. Joel likes how well you listen to him, how easily you do as he asks.

He also likes how warm you are, how small your body is compared to his own, the difference in size especially prominent now that he’s laying snugly against you, his front pressing firmly into the back of you. You don’t wake from his lumbering movement, only coming to slightly when you feel his arm slide underneath your body, his warm hand snaking its way beneath your tiny shirt to squeeze at your plush tits. 

You mumble out a little “Hm?”, which he’s quick to quiet with, “Sorry, darlin’. Chair was too hard on my damn back. Just go back to sleep, ‘kay?” That chair felt like laying on a goddamn cloud compared to some of the other surfaces he’s found himself having to sleep on before, but again, you don’t know that, and what you don’t know won’t hurt you. You probably won’t even remember this in the morning, how his hard cock is slotted so perfectly against your ass, especially without the confines of his thick jeans holding him back. They’re discarded onto the floor now in front of the armchair, along with his flannel shirt and jacket. Joel holds you tightly against his bare, hairy chest as he circles a roughened pad of his finger around one of your nipples, smirking to himself at how quickly the bud hardens from his touch. He knew you wanted this, and the wet spot that the fingers of his other hand are teasing in the gusset of your panties is proof of it. How long have you been leaking for him like this? Had you been soaking the seat of his truck earlier today? Filthy thing.

You still don’t rouse when he pulls your panties aside and slips a finger inside your slick cunt, or when his grip on your tit loosens in favor of sliding up higher under your tank top, his hand coming to a rest around the base of your throat as he pumps his finger in and out of your tight heat. It would be so fucking easy…

But he can’t, he won’t, because you’re not like the others. You want to get to know him, you let him take care of you, you seem to like his company, and you don’t leap out of bed and call him a fucking perv and a dirty old man for what he’s doing to you. That’s what the others would have done. It’s what they have done. And they faced the consequences.

But you’re different. You’re not like them. You’re like him. A lost soul, that’s what you are. Nowhere to call home, no one who misses you or loves you or gives a damn what happens to you. Joel’s mouth had tasted bitter when he had told you about Tommy, or rather, lied about him. Joel hasn’t seen the fucker in years, certainly doesn’t pay him any visits or watch his brat, not since Tommy had learned the truth. You better not show your goddamn face around here ever again, you understand me? Tommy had spat at him. You’re fuckin’ sick. Only reason I don’t turn your ass in myself is ‘cause you’re my goddamn brother. But if I ever fuckin’ see you again, I won’t hesitate. Better make yourself pretty fuckin’ scarce ‘fore I change my mind. That might’ve been about the only time Joel had ever taken orders from his little brother. 

That bitter flavor is cut by the sweet tang of you that he tastes on his finger now, so young and eager and fresh. The hand around your throat squeezes a little tighter, and Joel’s hips begin to move against your ass as he allows himself to suck wet kisses onto the skin under the hinge of your jaw. Softly, gently, so as not to wake you. He could come just like this, using your pliant body in your sleep, rutting himself against your still form with the taste of your pussy on his tongue and his fingers pressed against your pulse points.

He’s close when you stir again, making broken hiccuping sounds as you choke on your breath.

“Shh, shh,” Joel soothes. “You’re alright, sweetheart. ‘S just me. Just—fuck—hold still, go back to sleep, baby.” You let out a quiet whimper, squirming against him just a little bit, but return to your unmoving and silent state a second later. Joel finishes himself off quickly with another couple of shallow thrusts against you, his large hand still gripped around the column of your neck, trying to stifle his groans as he spills into his briefs. He removes his suffocating hand and keeps you pressed tightly against him for a while after that, tanned arms wrapped around your waist and breathing in your scent as he waits for you to settle back down. 

When he’s sure he won’t disturb you again, Joel releases you from his hold and pads quietly back over to the armchair, redressing himself and resuming the position you had left him in. In the morning, if you do remember any of it, you’ll just chalk it up to a very strange dream, one fueled by the desire he knows you’ve felt towards him since he picked you up. You’ll be left with a strange assuredness that he feels the same way about you, without really knowing why. 

But Joel will always know.

—

The digital clock on the nightstand only reads around 8:00 when you’re awoken by a beam of sunlight shining brightly against the backs of your eyelids, streaming in from the window’s lopsided blinds. You had gone to sleep with your back to Joel, but you find yourself facing him now. He looks kind of peaceful when he’s asleep, that permanent furrow etched between his brows finally smoothed out as he dozes. A small smile tugs at the corners of your lips, but they fall quickly when you adjust your legs and feel the cool dampness against your core, the sensation bringing back the memory of the dream you’d had last night. 

It had felt so real, but it couldn’t have been, could it? There’s no evidence that Joel had really laid next to you last night, that he’d really touched you like that, that you’d wanted him to keep going. It must just be some kind of strange side effect of the affection you feel toward the man who had rescued you, more or less. You’ll likely just part ways after today, anyway, so it’s probably best to just try and forget about the whole thing, put on a fresh pair of underwear and pretend it never happened. 

Joel is awake by the time you’re done freshening up in the bathroom, and he greets you with a raspy ‘Mornin’, sweetheart’ as you retrieve your backpack from next to the bed and shove your ruined underwear into the bottom of it. “You get some good sleep last night?” He asks, rubbing a hand over his eye.

“Mhm, the bed was nice, more comfortable than the one I had at home, honestly.” You finish zipping your backpack closed and sit back down on the bed, pulling on some socks and the lace up sneakers you had been wearing yesterday. “I hope the chair was okay, like, for your back and everything.”

“What makes you say that, baby?”

You pause in the middle of tying one of your shoelaces, turning to look at him with a confused pout. “Didn’t you…? I thought you had told me something about how the chair would be hard on your back. Like, last night.”

Joel frowns, shaking his head. “Don’t think so, darlin’. Chair was just fine.”

“Oh… Well, that’s good.”

Maybe it had just been a dream, then.

Joel hands you a few bills from his wallet, and tasks you with getting the two of you some breakfast from the gas station across the street while he cleans himself up. He tells you that he doesn’t eat much in the mornings, but that you can get yourself whatever you want, as long as you bring him back a carton of cigarettes and a black coffee. You obey eagerly, retrieving what he asked for and getting a pack of miniature powdered donuts and an equally as sugary coffee for yourself.

He’s just stepped out of the bathroom when you return to the room, and your face feels hot when you see him with his dark hair slicked back and wet from the shower. The few strands that fall onto his forehead as he laces up his boots almost make him look a little boyish, despite his whitened temples. 

“Such a good girl, thank you,” Joel praises when you hand him his items. 

You respond with a shy ‘You’re welcome’, but he doesn’t miss how you seem to light up at his words. You plop yourself down onto the worn-in chair that Joel had used as a bed last night, happily munching on your gas station donuts and sipping on your coffee. It all makes you feel warm from the inside out.

But you figure you should find out what the rest of today might look like before you let yourself enjoy the beginnings of it too much.

“So, um… We’re just gonna check out this morning and then… what?” 

“Whaddya mean, baby?”

“I mean… are you just gonna, like… take me to the nearest bus station or something?”

Joel’s confusion is written all over his face, embedded deep into those lines between his brows. You could swear he almost looks a little hurt. “Why would I do that? ‘S that what you want?” He asks softly.

You try to backpedal a little, afraid you might’ve offended him or seemed ungrateful in your question. “I just thought it might be what you want. That you probably have somewhere else you need to be, like Tommy’s or—”

“No, I don’t,” Joel says definitively.

You pause. “Okay, so—”

“You ever been to California?”

His question stumps you for a moment, seeming so random in its nature. “No.”

“You want to?”

You shrug. “I mean… sure. Maybe someday—”

“Why don’t you come with me then, baby?”

You let out an awkward giggle. “...Come with you where?”

“To California. Come with me.” Joel’s tone is genuine but firm.

“Like, today? Are you sure?”

“I mean, we ain’t gettin’ there today, darlin’. But yeah, I’m sure. We both got nowhere else to be, do we? So let’s just go, we’ll see it together.”

You beam up at him, realizing that he’s being serious. Joel does want you, wants you to be his companion, maybe even something more that you’ll discover on familiar-looking back roads and in cities you’ve only ever seen pictures of. 

“Okay,” you agree excitedly. 

Joel nods. “Okay, then. Lemme go check us out ‘n we’ll get back on the road again. Burnin’ daylight already,” he jokes. He carries your backpack out to the truck for you, setting it down between your feet after he opens the door and helps you inside with a stable hand. It only takes a few minutes for Joel to hand in the room key and pay for the night, and then he’s back at your side. You begin to feel like that’s where you always want him to stay. 

“So, where to first, baby? California ain’t goin’ anywhere, can take as long to get there as we wanna. We’ll go wherever you like, take your pick.” Joel leans across your body to dig a folded up map out of the glove compartment, handing it to you. 

You examine it, your eyes darting across the dozens of dots with the names of cities next to them, some you’ve never even heard of. You point to one that you have heard of, but have never been to, because you’ve never even left the state you grew up in before.

“Um… how about Detroit? I’ve heard it’s nice, I think.”

Joel belly laughs at that. “It ain’t, but sure. You wanna go to Detroit, that’s where we’ll go. Buckle up, baby,” he instructs, patting your thigh. You oblige, and it feels good to finally know where you’re going, and that you’re going there with someone who cares about you, who feels safe, who wants you around. You also feel a little hopeful that maybe you were right about Ruby, after all. That you didn’t start walking for nothing, that you weren’t following some childish delusion, that if something as good as Joel had happened to you when you left, that maybe she had found herself on a similar path, ran into somebody good who took her wherever she wanted to go and helped her find someplace she belonged. Maybe she found her way out to California, eventually. What you are certain of is that neither of you ever have to go back to that town ever again, and that feels good, too.

And if it feels good, then it can’t be bad.

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