#not-so-big-now Dug dig-dugging his own grave over here

[jeeaark]

Well now we GOTTA see Lae’zel x GG x Durge (Dug) as well 🙏🙏

This joke has been brought to you by 'death by snu snu'

[paperbackribs]

Tags: steddie, getting together, featuring the chaotic friendship of Eddie & Dustin

🤎🌱🤎

Steve's hands are already at his hips, “Eddie, what are you doing down there?”

Eddie glances up from the hole he’d dug in the woods beyond Steve’s backyard. Looking at the dirt nearly up to his shoulders he belatedly realises that he may have become a tad fixed on his big idea.

Dappled sunlight falls through the tapestry of foliage above and the chirping of birds nearby cheerily fill the lush landscape, but none of it seems to distract Steve from his concern as he squints down at Eddie.

“Where’s Dustin?” Eddie counters like he doesn’t currently resemble a cartoon villain digging traps for the native wildlife. He resists twirling an imaginary moustache over his bare upper lip, but Steve must have an idea of his thoughts because he squints suspiciously over his arms as he folds them.

“I don’t know,” Steve says slowly from high above, “should he be here while you create what looks like your own grave?”

Eddie props his arms over the lip, tilting his chin up and aiming for charming. Playful even. “Now, why would I do that, Stevie? Life is a magnificent thing, worthy of delight and whimsy.”

“Whimsy,” Steve repeats sceptically, “like you practically digging up my backyard. You know, someone could fall and sue me, right?” Despite his scolding tone, Steve bends to kneel on the ground, his delicious thighs by Eddie’s folded hands and head hovering over his.

Eddie flutters his eyelashes as Steve waits on him, nearly close enough to kiss if he would just tilt down a fraction. “You could get in here with me, make it so there’s no room for anyone else.”

Steve’s bright hazel eyes flash and Eddie wishes he could get a handle on whether it’s because of Eddie’s suggestive tone or if it’s that Steve is simply annoyed with his antics.

Just when the silences stretches for a second too long, enough that Eddie thinks Steve might lean forward, close the gap and take Eddie’s lips in what would surely be a spectacular first kiss, he instead smirks, slyly pushing a handful of loose dirt into the hole from the high mound above Eddie’s head. It rains over Eddie’s right shoulder, which he shrugs fatalistically — he’s fairly covered at this point anyway.

“Eddie, tell me why you’ve dug a hole near as tall as you by my backyard.”

“Or what, you’ll bury me with all the other bodies out here?”

“Something like that.” Another handful rains down and Eddie sighs, “It’s a compression hole.” Steve’s hand halts, “Like the socks?”

Eddie takes the opportunity to reach out and clasp Steve’s hand, ostensibly to stop it from pushing more dirt over his shoulders but really just taking the opportunity to touch Steve. Hold the warmth of his hand within his own, stroke the silken back of it with his thumb.

Eddie steals many moments like these and Steve always lets him, but he never knows whether it's because of Steve's generous nature or if it's because he wants Eddie touching him, specifically.

“Like the socks,” he agrees, eyes sharp as Steve’s cheeks flush a faint red. Yet he retains a sceptical mien about him so Eddie further explains. “Dustin has this book—”

Steve snorts, “Here we go.”

“Dustin has this book and it says that the Aboriginals from Australia have known for ages how to take care of deadly snake bites.”

“With a hole.”

Eddie is always fascinated to see the evidence of Steve’s smiles in the shine of his eyes, and he delights in being one of the few people who often brings out its brightness. “With a hole,” he agrees with a cheeky grin, happy at Steve’s amusement.

“Bit by a Red-belly then you're in the hole for x amount of days. By a King Brown then for an nth amount of days. Placed in the hole and buried up to your neck, the compression of it all works the venom safely through your system.”

He's sad to see those pretty eyes hidden from him as Steve closes them with a deep, bracing breath. “Eddie,” he begins in a warning tone, drawing his hand away, “is Dustin finding a poisonous snake to bite you with.”

“No, definitely not,” Eddie hedges but at Steve’s stern look he squirms, “because poisonous would mean that I can’t eat them?”

“Venomous then!”

Eddie thinks that maybe he’s losing his capacity to charm Steve if the ire rising in his eyes is anything to go by. He shifts uneasily on the hard dirt below him, feeling particularly trapped as Steve’s frown deepens while looking like he’s considering burying Eddie without the bite and definitely above his head.

The sounds of eager feet crunching over dry leaves and fallen branches sound behind Eddie and he tilts his head in time to see Dustin fly through the trees with a long, wriggling animal in his hands. “Found one!” He calls triumphantly, the curls around his face bobbing in excitement. There's a smudge across his cheek that Eddie suspects was made by crawling through the dirt and bushes to find his captured prey.

About twenty inches long, thin with yellow stripes framing its scales of green and brown, the garter snake wrapped around Dustin’s left arm tastes the air in front of it with its pink forked tongue. Simultaneously looking unhappy at being captured while utterly disinterested in the humans surrounding it.

Dustin’s face crinkles in confusion as Steve starts laughing behind Eddie’s back. “What? What is it?” He asks Steve who, Eddie looks over to see, has fallen back onto his butt, head tilted to the sky as he snorts and chuckles at the harmless animal Dustin has procured for their experiment.

“Never mind,” Steve waves an expansive hand towards the two of them, “carry on. As you were.” Humour dances over his brow and broadens his smile, “Here, I’ll even help. Pass it over, Dustin, I’ll throw the terrible monster at Eddie myself.”

It’s Eddie’s turn for his cheeks to flush now and he might be more embarrassed if it weren’t for Steve catching his eye, sharing a look of amusement with him rather than at him, and Eddie finds himself charmed by Steve Harrington once more.

It's not the first time and he knows that it won't be the last. Steve has had Eddie firmly wrapped around his little finger for far too long to say now, and Eddie's only waiting for the barest hint to step forward.

He sighs and turns back to Dustin, “Let the snake go, it’s a bust.”

Dustin opens his mouth to protest, but Eddie heads him off, explaining that the only creatures in danger of the carnivore in his hands are worms and maybe a mouse or two.

Eddie reckons that if Dustin were a mouse his tail would drop in disappointment right now, looking as sad as one can as he trudges away to release the snake in a safer place deeper in the woods.

He turns back to Steve to find him crouching now, braced with a hand outstretched towards Eddie. His eyes are still bright from his earlier laughter, but an invitation now winds its way through them.

“How about I help clean you up?” Steve asks in a dark murmur and Eddie lights up, finally finding an answer to the question that's been jittering in his heart.

“Why don’t you,” Eddie grins in agreement, clasping Steve back and pushing up to meet him halfway. As he scrambles out of the hole, Eddie pats the lip of its edge in affection as he continues to hold onto Steve’s hand. He silently thanks the soon-to-be-forgotten experiment and winds their fingers together, following Steve home.

💚 More steddie here

[misguidedasgardian]

From the Ashes (V)

V. Afraid to sh**t strangers

MASTERLIST

Summary: Youa re not as invincible as you thought you were

Warnings: Supernatural (and all that comes with it), monsters of all kinds, pyrokinesis, cursing, murder, child endangerment, impersonating of law enforcers, grave robbery, guns,

WARNING this chapter contains torture, blood, stabbings, heavy stuff, might miss some warnings

Wordcount: 4,9 k

Notes: Let’s get this party going. I’m trying to make the titles of the chapters… classic rock songs! heje

You took your time reaching Bobby’s, in fact, you had a few stops along the way…

“DO IT (Y/N)! DO IT!”, screamed Dean, swinging a old iron rod from the fireplace all over

You grabbed the old creepy doll and set on fire, it burned like paper, but Dean was pushed across the room

“IT DIDN’T WORK!”, you screamed, “AH!”, you couldn’t see it, but a big force pushed you and threw you over the room as well, crashing against an old closet with glass in its doors

It hurt, but you were fine, it still took your breath away anyways

“Dammit!”, you cursed.

“If it's not the freaking doll what is it?”, asked Dean, grabbing the Iron rod again, the man showed itself in front of Dean again, and he swung at it, making him disappear, “Dad?”, he asked

“I’m digging!”, he said through the phone

“We need to get out of here!”, you said, but the ghost had other plans as you were walking by a window, the son of a bitch pushed you through it. you landed heavily on the grass, trying to take a breath

“You alright?”, you heard Dean ask from the house

“Yes!”, you moaned, “just sick of being thrown around”, you whined, you saw John on the other side of the garden, where the creepy private cemetery stood, you ran towards him, took the shovel from him and started digging, faster, incredibly faster 

“I’m going to help Dean!”, he said, running towards the house, his shotgun with salt cartridges in it. You stopped when you heard a noise, like something was amongst the trees, but no matter how much you tried to look, you couldn’t see anything. You heard gunshots from the house, so you didn’t care anymore, you digged until you found the coffin, and you ripped the door away, you finally found the bones of the patriarch of the family that had been brutally murdered, you searched in your person but you didn’t have a lighter, then you remembered that it was a force of habit because John insisted you do it too in case another person was lurking, but you had no time for that now. Flames flew out of your hand, setting the entire coffin and the skeleton inside it aflame.

“Yeah!”, you heard Dean mutter, you laughed, coming out of the hole you had dug yourself in. “That’s what I’m talking about”, it had been fun, these two interior designers had purchased the palace to renovate it, not scared at all by the history, and well, one had lost an arm because of a self-working saw, and… well… they were far gone by now but at least nobody else was going to be dismembered. 

You heard again that sound from the woods, like someone or something, was lurking around, but again you saw nothing, it was probably the wind, it was getting chilly anyways.

The boys came out of the house, and you smiled widely at them

“You didn’t use the lighter!”, it’s the first thing John said, your owned

“I didn’t have it, it must have fallen when the ghost was throwing me around or something”, you said apologetically, he had a disapproving look on his face but he didn’t say anything else. 

You ended up in the local bar next to the motel. Dean was talking and about to close the deal with the bartender, you you sat there, in a really uncomfortable silence with John, whose humor seemed to be in the gutter

Once you checked John wasn’t looking at you, you looked around to find who was making you feel watched, but you didn’t see anyone. Your instincts were heightened, but you tried to calm down, it was the high of the hunt, it had happened before.

“I’m going to bed”, you whispered, raising from the table, you drank the last of your beer, John only nodded. Your stomach turned when you saw him eyeing a woman in a leather jacket across the bar.

You walked alone back to the motel, you were exhausted, but again, you felt a looming presence behind you, but you turned and saw nothing. You kept walking, you heard footsteps, but there was nobody there. Done with it, in a second you were in front of the door of the motel. You entered, feeling spooked, but again, the high of the hunt was powerful, and ghosts particularly disturbed you, because you couldn’t fight back much, so, you took advantage of the fact that both boys were out, to take a long shower. That eased your nerves for a bit, you were still alone when you exited the bathroom.

Was John angry at you?

Why could he barely look at you?

But you appreciated the solitude, even though thinking about John and Dean “getting it” with some random women made your stomach crawl. You felt lonely, so you turned on the TV as you dried your hair. 

You noticed that the blinds were a bit ajar, so you closed them completely, still feeling on edge. 

You snuck onto the bed and even though it was a bit… unreliable, you did felt better, you cuddled within yourself, and focused on the soap opera that was playing on the TV. It was a classic one, you enjoyed it a lot. You let your mind wonder how life was going to be for you if you had a group of six friends and you lived in New York and you had a normal job.

You woke when you heard someone trying to open the door, but not like they forgot the key, that was the unmistakable sound of someone with stealing tools trying to open the door. You sat on the bed, you looked at your duffel on the floor, you lounged for it elegantly, and silently, in a second you had your knife in your hand, ready to launch at whoever was at the door, but the sound stopped, and you heard footsteps walking away. Then you heard someone else coming in, heavy boots, just by the sounds you immediately recognized John, you left your knife in the duffel, and hid back in the bed

If he didn’t see anyone, you probably imagined the whole thing up. You were still nervous. 

You cuddled in the bed again, pretending to be asleep, John entered heavily, and by the pace on his steps you could tell that he drank… quite a lot. You felt his eyes on you, but you just kept your eyes closed, and your breathing even, you heard him sigh, and then he took out his clothes and landed on the other bed two feet from you. 

“What a bunch of garbage”, you heard him mumble, and he turned off the TV.

The very next morning you woke up before everyone else, Dean was sleeping and snoring a bit, so you could tell that he had a few too, so to punish them you went to have breakfast at a waffle house all by yourself. Oh how you loved waffles

You had a waffle maker in your car, the only “homy” thing you owned, but never got to use it. You purchased the local newspaper, it was the best source of information to find new cases. But as you were walking, that feeling started again, and this time, when you turned inhumanly quickly, you could see a shadow hiding in the corner of the building

Maybe you weren’t imagining it after all.

It was all too much coincidence. And if anything you had learned in your line of work, is that coincidences didn’t exist.

So you kept walking to the waffle house, and you sat on a table in the corner by the window, which allowed you to see the whole dining room, and the outside too. You pretended to read the newspaper, well, you actually did, while you looked around. Whoever it was, it was good

Vamp? It was broad daylight, and it was fall but still, it was pretty sunny. Ghost? your car wasn’t moving… something else? You had come to realize, with experience, that you were never the first target of monsters, it was always Dean or John, they could sense that you weren’t a human, so, it was unlikely… Although Vamp did sound alright, they catch a scent and don’t let go, maybe it was vendetta for what happened a month ago when you returned.

But no matter how much you looked, you couldn’t find anybody looking suspiciously at you. 

You wanted to believe that you weren’t losing your mind.

But when were you ever wrong? so far… so good…

You enjoyed your breakfast, trying to put everything in the back of your mind, nobody was going to hurt you in a diner, nobody was going to hurt you on the street, but still, you kept one eye open. It was the best breakfast you had in a while, you believed, they served whipped cream at the side with some berries and a good syrup. 

So good you ordered two to go

And with the newspaper under your arm and the orders in your hand, you walked back to the motel

“Brought breakfast”, you announced, making sure you made a noisy entrance, both men were sitting in opposite beds, in their underwear…

“Early bird”, Dean was… popular with his bird puns

“Best waffles I had in a while”, you said happily

“Marry me”, he begged, you just stick your tongue out, “thank you baby”

You dropped your order on the small table and they went at it with gusto. While you thought about ways to tell them what you believed 

Dean realized you wanted to tell them something in a second, looking at you and frowning

“I need to say something”, you clarified, both stopped eating and looked at you

“What?”, asked John

“What I’m gonna say…”, you started, rubbing your chin, between your thumb and index fingers, “... I just…”

“Do it”, encouraged Dean, his patience already going thin

“I think… I’m being hunted”, you said slowly

“WHAT?”, asked Dean, John just frowned, “wait, like… hunted… or haunted?”

“Hunted”, you confirmed, “I feel watched all the time and, last night I swear I heard someone trying to get into the room”

“It was dad”, said Dean, you shook your head

“It was before, this person tried to pick the lock, then he heard john and left, a hunter”

“How do you know is a hunter? maybe it's some creep”, said Dean, you shook your head

“I thought about it, I don’t know…”

“Maybe it is some creep”, said John, you shook your head again

“I think is better we apply some caution”, you said

“We are moving today”, muttered John

“I know”, you answered, “let's split for a while, move towns, I’ll do the behind the scenes research and I’ll get another room”

“You want to use yourself as bait?”, muttered Dean

“Yeah, why not?’, you said

“I don’t know… what if they manage to gank you?”, he said

“They won’t”, you said quickly

“Are you sure?”, asked John, and you nodded

“Go before me, I’ll join you”, yu said with certainty

“I won’t leave you alone”, muttered Dean

“What could ever happen to me?”, you asked lightly

He wasn’t convinced, he looked back at you when he was getting on the Impala, without you, but he did, you only nodded at him, knowing that everything was going to be alright.

You saw them leave, and then you returned to the room and grabbed your things, and then, you came back down towards your Firebird, when you touched the handle to open the door, something inside it burned your hand.

You hissed, checking your hand, it looked burned.

Iron

“What…?”, you felt a prick in your neck, when you took it out, it was like a dart, with poison on it… you took it out, it stung, but you didn't feel anything, it was a red liquid… you only had to smell it a bit to realize

“Dead man’s blood”, you whispered

But the next thing it came wasn’t a dart, it was a bullet��� 

In your dreams, you weren’t fighting against somebody, but rather… a something…. the first 

You were floating, you weren’t conscious enough to do something about you just, were floating in space. But something kept you, a prick, in the back of your neck, between your scapulas, you knew…

You tried to expelled it

You felt like you couldn’t move with it there 

You pushed against it, you used your hands, you wanted it out, this thing… this thing is tormenting you. you pushed and you pushed until you succeeded, alienating this… thing… this small metal thing away from the perfect blank space you had made for yourself 

But when the thing was out, you couldn’t relax into the pleasure of the blank space you were swimming in, you couldn't….

You now had strings

Tieying you together, you couldn’t move…

Then you felt the restraint, against your hands, your legs, you couldn’t move.

You painfully came together, your eyelids were heavy

“Dean?”, it was the first thing that came to mind, the only one you wanted to be next to.

But he wasn’t there

The pain of the restraints crept over your arms and legs, and when you opened your eyes suddenly, you weren’t in a cozy motel room, you weren’t inside the impala, you weren’t with Dean or John

You stood alone

Tied to a chair, in an old, and by the looks of it, abandoned, warehouse

“Dean isn’t here”, you heard, you were already tired by the situation, by the fact you barely slept, by the whole of it. In front of you appeared a man, young, strong built, dark skin and crazy eyes really. He looked like a hunter, well, only one of them could have taken you down like that. You moved and you felt something falling from your head to the floor, a metallic sound, you peeked… It was the bullet 

All of it was real

“What?”, you growl, wanting to get this over with. You tried to move, but then is when you realized… the stiffness of your muscles, and the burn of Iron in your wrists

“I’ve been following for a while”, he muttered

“You are Gordon, right?”, you asked, “you hunted with John weeks ago”, now you understood why he didn't let Dean and you join him

“Yeah, but he forgot to mention, he had a monstrosity with him”, you frowned

“What?”, you asked

“At first I thought you were a vamp, you are fast and strong, but no… you are something else”, you frowned, “mind control? Is that why you are with the Winchesters?”

“I haven’t controlled anyone, never in my life”, you said quickly, you squirmed, “let me go, and we can put this behind us’, you offered

“I eliminated a nest of vampires a while ago, they had pictures of you, of places you’ve been”, he continued, “they wanted to hunt you down, I had convinced myself…”

“Yeah, you look like you convince yourself of many things”, he frowned, he leaned in until your faces were on the same lever

“You were just a blood sucking traitor”

“Guess again”, you whispered. He seemed already angry. He seemed demented that’s what he looked like

“No demon, shapeshifter, or skin crawler…”

“Is this going to take long? I have places to be…”, you muttered, he smiled, and then he took out his knife, made of iron.

*WARNING, TORTURE

He pressed it against your cheek

You whined in pain when it burned 

“Why?”, you asked

“I know what you are”, he muttered

“Do you?”, you asked back, “do you really?”

“Have my theories”, he said, “it took me a while, though”

“If you know what I am, you do realize, you are way all over your head”

“Who is in chains right now?”, he asked, you started panicked, you couldn’t break free, these weren’t those cuffs you could get out of if you dislocated your thumb, these were the ones that were thick, the size of your wrists, the old one

“Why are you doing this?”, you asked calmly, “I’ve never done anything to you”

“You are a monster”, he said, “you are a supernatural being, and I’m a hunter, I hunt supernatural beings, to clean this earth from you and your kind”

“I have never harmed a human being”, you said through gritted teeth, “I don’t feed on anything, or anyone…”

“It doesn’t matter”, he muttered, “you will eventually”, you then realized there was a table, full of objects and things that could harm all sorts of creatures, there was blood, silver, bullets, salt, all of it.

“You don’t know how to end me, do you?”, you asked, he only chuckled

“I have time, and I have means”, he said simply, he grabbed a silver knife, “would this do the trick?”, he asked, in a swift movement, he caressed you with it on your cheek, this knife did nothing, it tickled, you didn’t say it though, he then slice it, you tried not to wince, it still stung, but once the blade left your skin, it began healing, burning the wound away until there was nothing left.

“What about this?”, he grabbed the jar filled with dead man’s blood, and he made you swallow it.

You choked on it, the disgusting taste and smell making you wretch, but again it didn’t kill you

“That’s disgusting!”, you garbled, spitting all the blood you could away, “you are sick you know that?”, he did not seemed pleased

“I already know bullets don’t work”, he muttered, “for long”

“You shot me in the back of my head”, you said slowly, “you try to blood-board me, and you are knifing me up real nice…”, you said slowly, “let me go before there is no turning back”, you said angrily, and you didn’t meant for when you were dead, you meant until you get really, really angry.

“Iron works though”, he said, unimpressed. You squirmed when you saw the blade coming, he started near your shoulder, towards your neck, slicing your shirt, making your skin burn. 

You stiffened a scream, you couldn’t give him the satisfaction, this guy was not only trying to do “the right thing” this dude was a psychopath

A phone, your phone, started ringing. Since you took that bullet to the moment you woke up again it had been a couple of hours, quite a few actually, the broken window allowed you to see it was already late afternoon.

“Ah look, it’s Winchester”, he said teasing you with your own phone, he picked up, “Hello John”, he said into the phone, he put it on speaker, “I’m with your girl here”

“Leave her alone Gordon”, he said, short and sweet, “you don’t want to do this”, Gordon only hummed 

“I think I do, that’s my job John, getting rid of monsters”, he said, he was truly, insane

“She is not one of them”, he said firmly, “let her go Gordon, or I swear…”

“She is got you all wrapped up”, he said, unconvinced, he had his iron knife, he pressed it against your cheek and it burned like hell, but you tried to stifle the whine that wanted to come out, “I’m going to release you from her”, he said, “you will thank me”, he pressed the knife deeper, and then, with a single movement, he stabbed you on the side

You had never felt a pain like this before, you screamed, a gut wrenching shriek

You heard your name, John was screaming into the phone, desperately 

“John”, you whined, “please”, he left the knife imbedded into your skin, so it wouldn’t heal

“You are tough to crack, I’ll give you that”, he said, cutting the line, “but you will die, one way or another…”

“TOUCH ME AGAIN… AND THEY’RE GONNA NEED A VACUUM CLEANER TO GRAB YOU FROM THE FLOOR!”, you threatened, “YOU PSYCHOTIC SON OF A BITCH”, you threatened 

“Ah, there it is”, he said with a sick smile and those crazy eyes of his, “the monstrosity”

“FUCK YOU!”, you scream, blood coming out of your mouth, the blade in your side sending ripples of pain all through you, came and went in waves, and the pain was so sharp you were becoming dizzy. “AAAAHHHH!”, he cut you again above your collarbones, “you say you are doing a service, but you are enjoying this are you? wacko”, you cursed, he returned to the table.

“Are there more of you?”

“No”, another cut, making you whine, “Not that I know of!”, you said truthfully, but he wasn’t contented 

He was at it for hours

Hours

He tried everything he had on the table, all things he could have used for other supernatural beings. Whatever he made you ingest didn’t work, whenever he cut you, you healed, the only thing that worked was Iron, but he seemed pleased with his little discoveries.

You eyed the long knives at the end of the table, he was working his way up.

Would you die? if he chopped your head off?

Could you grow another? You were sure it was going to take you a few days or weeks to do so, once, by accident, you had closed a door a bit too harshly and you trapped your own finger. It hurt like hell, but in a few hours, it had grown again, your finger seemed to melt, to burn, and soon it was healed again

Or from your head grows another body? that could take a month, you guessed… 

The pain was really making you dizzy, when he turned he had some sort of dagger on his hand with blood on it

“This is John Winchester’s blood”, he muttered, “I know phoenixes mate for life…”

“So?”, you asked, “he isn’t my mate”, you said quickly 

“I’m saving this for later”, he said, pleased with himself. You squirmed and moved, but you couldn’t release yourself, and now… you were breaking, now you were truly thinking he might have cracked the code. All creatures, no matter how “inmortal” they believed to be, had a way to go, this might be yours.

Your mind seemed to drift off of the scene, it felt heavy, it fell back, you looked up at the ceiling, but you couldn’t really see it. Images started bombarding your mind, so many, and in so quick succession, what remained was an image of the phoenix ring, then a truck, with a strange symbol on it, you saw a small city in Italy, then you saw John, then, it was you, arms wide open, you were burning and then it all felt blank

You were truly losing it, you believed 

When you came back, leaning forwards, Gordon seemed to be even more angry

You felt the knife doing more damage, every time you moved, every time you took a breath. You wished you had paid attention in highschool, you would know what it's scratching inside of you. 

Weirdly, the fact that the knife was still in you is what had allowed you not to die -or faint- for loss of blood, but it just seemed it was a slow way of torture. 

You heard the tires of a car, breaking outside, he stopped in a second, looking scared

He took a gun out of the back of his pants, and ran towards the entrance, you couldn’t even keep your eyes open, blood dripped from your mouth, and… you drifted out a bit. 

You heard gunshots, people screaming, exchanging insults, but everything was like you were underwater

That is when the shivers starting, you felt so weak, you were trembling

“(Y/N)!”, you must be daydreaming, because soon Dean was in front of you, grabbing you by the shoulders, “I can’t believe this!”, his voice seemed broken, “what happened?”, you shook your head, you could barely speak, “Why isn’t it healing?”, he asked, alarmed, looking at your cuts

“I-iron”, you managed to bumble, feeling a metallic taste in your mouth. He hissed when he saw the knife. Luckily for you, it was more like a dagger, short, anyways.

“You need to get to the hospital”, he said quickly, you shook your head, he looked back at the table, found the keys, ran back and uncuffed you

“(Y/N) I’m so sorry”, he whined

“It wasn’t your fault”, you whispered

He grabbed you gently, and took you out of the warehouse, the knife still sticking out of you

“How did you find me?”, you asked, but there was no answer

“Dad she is in bad shape”, said Dean, “Don’t know what to do”, you didn’t see Gordon anywhere, it was already dark, only the lights from the cars lighting up the scene

John came close to you, encased your face with his big hands, looking down at you.

“You're going to be fine doll”, he promised, “let’s take her to the hospital”, you whined a no, but John took you from Dean, and put you inside the Impala, Dean was driving your car right behind you.

“They’re gonna call the cops”, you manage to whisper

“No where we are taking you”, he said gently, he started driving crazy fast, you could tell he was trying to keep it cool, but you could see the white on his knuckles from gripping the wheel too hard

“John?”, you asked, as your vision became blurry, “I don’t feel well”

“Hang in there doll, alright? we are getting you some help”

“I’m gonna die or something”, you could feel your heart beating in your ears, strongly, and quickly. You closed your eyes

“No no no no”, he said quickly, “don’t you dare fall asleep on me doll”

“Sorry”, you mumbled, but you did. You fell asleep

When you came to your senses, it was because of an intense pain on your side. You whined weakly, trying to pull away

“They are patching you up doll”, muttered John, “stay still”

“It hurts, don’t touch me”

“How is she still alive?”, you heard someone ask

“Long story”

“She’ll need a blood transfusion”

“She doesn’t, just close that wound and clean the others”, said John firmly, but you didn’t listen anymore, you lost consciousness again.

They put you on a wheelchair to take you out of the hospital, your side hurt like hell, but you were already felt 

“I’m sorry”, you mumbled, when Dean tried to put you in the Impala

“For what baby?”, he asked softly

“I’m sorry”, you said again

“You have nothing to be sorry for, alright?”, he closed the door gently and you heard them speaking

“Dad I don’t want to leave her”, muttered Dean

“You’’ll be right behind us Dean, don’t be a brat”.

You felt like you were turned into a pincushion, but, as the wounds were closed and bandaged, you felt your strength returning to you, your heart pumping more strongly, replenishing your blood inside of you. 

But you were still shaking, like you were cold

John got inside the car, he didn’t start right away. He called your name, but you barely register it, you just looked ahead, your body shaken by spasms

Your body was begging to shut down, to give you a break, you felt so tired, you just wanted to rest, to forget, to sleep, to wake up in another time, yesterday, or a year from now.

“... And I’m sorry”, that caught your attention, you had to put the entirety of your body to work to turn to look at John

“What?”, you asked

“I shouldn’t have pushed you away, doll, because of me you got tortured”, you had lost a chunk of this… confession? he was throwing your way, but still, you didn’t have the mind to answer him

“It’s my fault”, you said simply, and you cuddled against the door.

“No it’s not”, he said severely, your breath was shaky, but he took it as a sign to start the car and start driving it. 

When your reached the motel, you were strong enough to open the door and walk out by yourself

The room luckily was on the first floor, John seemed hesitant, but opened the door, you entered slowly

You climbed on the bed that was furthest from the entrance, and then you cuddled on yourself, in a fetal position. The boys entered the room right behind you, Dean was on you in a second

“Hey baby”, he said calmly, touching your shoulder, touching your face, you didn’t want anybody touching you, except for Dean, “talk to me”

“I just… need a minute”, you whimpered, you couldn’t stop shaking, you didn't understand why, your wounds were mostly healed, it was like the nerve damage never did, your body was spasming, like in the heat of the pain. 

He climbed on the bed behind

“Is this alright?”, he asked, you nodded, and he hugged you tightly

taglist! @deans-spinster-witch

[cinematicnomad]

several sentences sunday

tagged by @mellaithwen 🥰 i am forever idly working on a derek POV companion fic for taste your beating heart. right now it's only about 6k long and i've made it to...oh, the end of chapter 1 from the original fic? but i envision this as a shorter fic, maybe 30k tops. so have a scene from near the start when derek and stiles first speak:

“No?” Stiles sneered. “Is this a pattern of the Hales, big guy? Tell me something, Derek—is Cora going to come after you only to find your body in pieces? Why are you here?” 

Derek lunged at him, a little wild, his fangs dropping fast as he shoved Stiles up against the wall. He did his best not to press as hard as he wanted, not to dig his claws into the tender give of Stiles’ flesh. He wanted to though—God, he wanted to so badly. His shift itched at the back of his eyes.

It would be easy to hurt Stiles. Derek wouldn’t have to try hard, he’d simply have to let himself press a little harder. Here was the boy who had desecrated Laura’s grave, who’d mocked Derek’s grief, and was best friends with the wolf who forced him to bite an Argent. 

But that wasn’t all Stiles was, wasn’t all he’d done over the course of the years they’d known each other. Distantly, he recalled the comforting weight of Stiles’ hand on his shoulder as he kneeled in two inches of water and cradled Boyd’s lifeless body in his arms. It hadn’t been much—couldn’t turn back time or save Boyd’s life—but it had been more kindness than Derek had come to expect from life. Certainly more than he’d come to expect from anyone in Beacon Hills. 

He forced himself to breathe evenly. 

“I don’t think you have any right to talk about my family and bodies in pieces,” he said, his throat tight around the grief that choked him. “Or did you conveniently forget how you dug up my sister and had me arrested for her murder?” 

A person with a stronger sense of self-preservation might cow in the face of a pissed off werewolf. Not Stiles though. Never Stiles. His lips curled back to expose his own snarl as he said, “I think I can say whatever the fuck I want when you’re staying in my house and endangering me and my dad.” 

The anger drained from Derek then. 

Stiles pushed off the wall and slipped out of Derek’s hold easily. His lips were still moving but Derek couldn’t hear him above the roar in his head. He didn’t want to be here—in this God forsaken town or this home—didn’t want to be a threat to whatever delicate balance of safety Stiles had carved out for himself and his father. 

He was only planning on staying as long as was polite before he begged off in a few days. Derek was here for the sole reason that Scott had insisted and he was the Alpha. And he couldn’t say no to him. Not really. 

But there was no reason to force more intimacy than was necessary. He didn’t need to make friends with Stiles or burden him with his presence. Didn’t even really need to make conversation with him, either. And so he swiped his duffel bag off the floor where he’d dropped it and made his way upstairs. It didn’t matter what Stiles thought of him. He was here for one purpose: to figure out what had called him back to Beacon Hills. 

Once he sorted it out he could leave again. For good, this time. 

tagging: whoever wants to do this tbh

[siribear]

so anyway i haven't posted anything for this story on tumblr in like 3 years apparently?

basically whisper went to the institute and almost died.

here we go:

MacCready wipes the sweat off his brow with the back of his hand.

When he woke up this morning, there were the usual sounds of Sanctuary that he’s grown used to, fond of: the kids’ lessons drifting out of broken windows, farmers scraping at the land, the hum of the generators powering the lights and signs and water pumps of the neighborhood. Now, it’s the soft sniffling of mourners, a sad track playing through the ham radio connected to the Castle, and shovels scraping the dirt as he and a handful of other residents dig the old psyker’s grave.

MacCready didn’t know her all that well, but Mama Murphy helped Duncan find a toy he misplaced soon after getting here, and he hasn’t minded her since. But as he looks over the faces of the ones gathered near her grave, he counts a lot more people than he’s ever seen at a funeral before. He kinda wishes he sat and talked to her more, especially since he passed her every morning when he took Duncan to school by himself.

Speaking of - he looks up to see Duncan still tucked in next to Alice, holding tight to her hand. Lucky kid, he thinks for a moment, before looking at Alice herself. Her eyes might be on the grave at his feet - almost finished, even though he hasn’t helped for several minutes now - but her gaze is glazed over. She’s somewhere else entirely, swaying like her dress in the wind.

He picks up a shovelful of dirt before someone notices him staring. Though between the music and the crying, he doesn’t think anyone actually would.

When the grave is dug and Mama Murphy lowered into it, Marcy is the first to speak. They’ve all known each other since Quincy, MacCready learns, and things were pretty bad before they got as good as they are. Marcy didn’t trust her until Sanctuary started rebuilding, she helped Jun through the worst moments after his son died, Sturges used to think of her as his own grandma, and Preston used to go to her for advice when the Minutemen first fell apart.

And then the eyes of the present Museum Survivors turn to Alice, waiting. She looks smaller now. It’s not the denim dress, even though he’s never seen her outside of jeans and some kind of shirt (hers or Deacon’s or the one time without). It’s as if when she came back, she left some big part of her behind.

“Like everyone else here, Mama Murphy saved my life.” There’s a gasp and hush through the radio. Someone certainly didn’t expect to hear from her. “When we first met, I didn’t know who I was. So I made someone up. Someone they needed. Someone I needed to be.

“The last thing she told me was that, even though there was a decision I was struggling with at the time, whatever I chose would be the right thing. Honestly, it scared me that she knew me better than I know myself, but at least she thought the best of me.” Even he can’t help but chuckle, though he has trouble imagining her doing anything but the right thing.

“Because of that, I never thanked her enough for saving my life, and the lives of those I care deeply about. And now the only way I can do that is to keep going. To turn Sanctuary, the Minutemen, the whole Commonwealth, if I can, into a place she’d be proud of. A place people can be safe. A place where they can pass in peace, at home in their beds, surrounded by people that care about them. That’s how I’ll carry her memory with me.”

There’s a reverent silence that follows, and then more crying, and then Duncan pipes up with a heartfelt, “Me, too!” that brings some levity. Alice picks him up and balances him on her hip. Duncan waves when he can finally spot him over the crowd, and when MacCready waves back, Alice smiles. And if standing next to her as she freed him from Winlock and Barnes and the gunners, or as she risked her life for Duncan’s serum, that right there - that would have him joining with the Minutemen in a heartbeat.

That's a smile that should be on the recruitment posters.

-

Preston has a million and one questions for her once the funeral is over and Mama Murphy is buried. Is she okay? Is her son okay? When did she get back? Does she need anything? She lets him go on, until finally Sturges tells him to give her a chance to answer at least one of them.

“I’ll be down there soon, I promise. There’s something I need to do up here, first.” There’s a scrap of paper in the breast pocket of her dress: he’ll be there. Just wait one more day. There weren’t any jet inhalers in the room when they found her, she was told. Mama Murphy said she knew how she was going to go… so maybe it was a package deal of information. It’s a hope she carries to keep the gnawing feeling of guilt at bay.

Whisper runs a finger along the top of the ham radio. “I got that party favor you asked for, Sturges,” she says, intentionally vague.

“Really?”

“Mhmm. Preston, could you get everyone together for the party? I’m thinking it’ll be a big one.”

She hears his clothing rustle sharply. “Yes, General. I’ll make sure everyone’s ready to celebrate your return. Did you need anything else, ma’am?”

“No.” She stands. “Just be prepared for any party crashers, will you? I appreciate all you do.”

Preston clears his throat. “Thank you, ma’am. We’ll see you soon.”

-

With school canceled for the day, MacCready takes Duncan back home and Whisper is left to what she hopes is her final stake out. The violin pieces over Radio Freedom are more somber, but the message to her keeps on its loop. She has no doubt the Brotherhood listen in to their station, and if they hadn’t been listening in to her conversation with Preston and Sturges, there’s no reason to give them cause to wonder.

She flips over to Diamond City Radio with a hiss of static then straight into I Don’t Want to Set the World on Fire. She hums along, foot bobbing to the tune. Anxiety tightens in her chest with every breeze that rustles the dead leaves, but whenever she turns her head, she’s still alone. Honestly. How long does it take to cross the Commonwealth these days? Whisper did it in a few days and all it cost her was a few days of sleep!

Head in her hands, she groans.

A twig snaps. Just the one. Her hand twitches toward Deliverer resting on the surface of her lookout. The sound of footsteps grows closer. Whisper stands and turns to look behind her -

-  And out from the forest, finally, steps Deacon, dressed in his dirty white tee, hands tucked into the pockets of a familiar pair of distressed jeans.”Hey, partner. You wouldn’t believe the traffic getting up here. It was terrible.”

Whisper blinks. Tears prick the corner of her eyes. Her bottom lip quivers. Then she grabs her gun and aims it at him before he can get too close. His eyebrows shoot up over the frames of his sunglasses, as do his hands to the air. The pistol is shaky in her hand, even with the other braced under it to keep her steady.

“Do you have a geiger counter?”

Deacon relaxes, and she almost does. But she can’t. Not yet. “Mine is in the shop.”

The dam breaks. She tosses the pistol to the ground and runs to him, tears already streaming down her cheeks. She tucks her head against his shoulder, and he holds her to him with one hand cradling the back of her head and the other trailing gently up and down her spine. He smells like sweat and gunfire and stale cigarettes and catacomb air. He smells like home.

“I’m sorry,” she hears him say. “I’m so sorry, partner. We should have found another way. You shouldn’t have gone alone.”

“It’s my own fault.” She lifts her head to look up at him, and from her angle she can see the furrow of his brow. “I bulled over everyone else because it had to be me. I didn’t think - ” She wraps her arms around him tighter. “I had no idea what I was walking into.”

“Whisper.” He takes her by the shoulders, gently pries her off him. “What did they do to you?”

She looks over to the vault and wipes away a stray tear. “I think it’s better if I start from the beginning.”

-

Whisper isn’t the first one to try to get into Vault 111. Deacon knows. He’s sat up in that very same lookout that he found her and watched and waited as others attempted to break in. But no other stolen vault pip-boy or percussive maintenance could persuade the door to open. Yet when she pulls the cord out from her own pip-boy and plugs it into the door control mechanism, the machine flickers to life.

“I said that I would tell you everything when I got back,” she says, voice still a little rough.

Of all the things he thought he’d see when he got up on that hill (a trap, an Institute courser, three super mutants in a trenchcoat - ), Whisper pulling a gun on him then breaking down wasn’t one of them. He’s never seen her cry before, he realizes. Not that he’s much of a cryer himself, but for someone with as much on her shoulders as she’s had, he’s surprised she didn’t break sooner.

Whisper presses the button, and just outside, the blast doors slide open in the middle, like a great eye waking up.

“The first time I went down here,” she breaks the silence and begins walking toward the vault-tec symbol painted into the metal door. “I was dressed almost the same.” She flares the skirt of her dress. “We were supposed to go to a ceremony. Nate was going to give a speech, get a medal for his service. And then we were going to go shopping for Shaun’s Halloween costume.”

Deacon follows her onto the symbol and waits. The ground feels unsteady on his feet, and when it rumbles, he half expects for the metal to fall out from beneath them, for them to tumble down into the vault below. Instead, the ground rises up around them, until it passes over their heads, and the only light are the fluorescents built into the wall of the large elevator.

“Can I ask you something?”

“Anything,” he answers, as casually as he can. He’s still processing the small bits of information he’s gotten. First: her pip-boy worked on the door. Second: first time she went down here?

“If you had a second chance at a life with Barbara, right now, would you take it?”

Now he turns to her. The elevator ride casts her face in light, then shadow, then light, but her expression is neutral. Not expectant. If he chose to lie to her now, she would understand and move on, as always.

“I’m not the same person she married anymore.”

She turns away, the corner of a smile casting a sharper shadow across her face. She’s pleased with his answer, at least.

“That’s how I felt.”

“What?”

She shakes her head. “Sorry, I’m getting ahead of myself.” The elevator hits the bottom with a slight pistoning bounce. Deacon spreads his arms and feet wide to brace himself for the whole thing to come down, but Whisper grabs him calmly by the forearm. “It’s okay. We’re at the bottom.” A high mesh fence surrounds the elevator; the opening slides around to the back, and then they’re free to enter the vault.

It looks just like the entrance to vault 81, from here.

“Watch your step getting out. The floor is uneven.” Deacon toes the edge of the elevator floor and finds the lip she’s talking about. He steps over it. “It’s okay. We were all in shock when we reached the bottom, too.”

“Whisper, who’s ‘we,’ exactly?”

Still holding on to him, she leads him up the stairs, across the grated bridge, down a long, narrow hallway. Windows lining the walls peer into rooms lined with individual pieces of heavy machinery, each uniformly the same. Metal boxes, with water leaking out from underneath them.

“My neighbors and I,” she says. “We were led just down here.”

There’s no atrium to greet them at the end of the hall, no welcoming signs of life. The hairs on the back of his neck stand up. Something isn’t right.

“Here.” He doesn’t know when she released his arm, but now she gestures at a terminal jutting from the wall. “The guest list. Nate and I were last minute additions.”

He steps up slowly. Compared to before, Whisper’s calm. Not serene, but… detached. He looks over the list; names and descriptions, male, male, female, male and infant… Nathaniel and Shaun Ward. Female: Claire Ward.

When he turns to look beside him, she isn’t there. Instead, she’s standing in front of one of the machines, one hand on the glass window. He passes by the dead bodies in the other pods as he walks down the remainder of the room. Sealed shut, the bodies aren’t even decomposing. They could be sleeping. Her neighbors.

“The one behind me was mine,” she says without looking away. “A little over two hundred years ago, I stepped into that pod. We didn’t - we didn’t know. They said it was for decontamination. We had just seen the bomb drop. The one that made the Glowing Sea? I’m sure none of us ever could have thought…. ” She takes a deep breath. He feels himself mimic her.

Then it all comes out. From start to finish; from bomb drop to Institute and back. She ends it with, “Deacon, this is my husband.” Whisper’s got good taste, he has to admit. Handsome - not even death could take that from him - and a vain part of him can’t help but notice Nate is also a ginger. “Shaun tried to tell me that they… saved him. I know we say synths are people, but that wasn’t my Nate. He was programmed to… to… 

“He wanted to try again at raising a family. But I walked away.”

“That’s why you asked about Barbara.”

She wraps her arms around herself and shivers. “Yeah.” With a look to her husband’s pod, “I don’t know if Nate could look at me the same after all I’ve done. He fought in the Great War, but… I’m not the same woman he came home to afterward.”

He shrugs. “He’d be an idiot not to.”

Whisper stares. “I - thank you.” She coughs. “Can we, um, can we go? This place still makes me uncomfortable.”

Deacon steps in beside her, puts an arm around her shoulders. “I get why the catacombs bothered you so much now. Don’t look at me like that. You were more jumpy down there than you were walking through raider-infested territory.” He stops when they’re halfway back to the entrance. “You, er - didn’t want to bury him just yet?”

She pulls him back along. “When this is over. We’ve already buried one person today, anyway.” At his look, she clarifies, “Mama Murphy.”

“Sorry to hear.” He steps into the elevator, and when she sends them up, he’s hit with a wave of vertigo as the floor disappears below them. She draws his attention with a hand on his cheek.

“How many agents am I facing when we get back up there?”

“It’s just me here, partner.”

Two of her fingers walk their way up his chest. His heart skips a beat. “Really? I didn’t think they’d trust me after…” The fingers fall away.

“Well…” He lets the word trail off, high and pitchy. “You’d still be waiting for me if I hadn’t snuck out when I did.”

She hangs her head. “Yeah, sounds about right.”

The sun breaks over the top of the elevator, spreading over them like the world’s quickest - and most welcome - sunrise. He grabs her hand and swiftly leads them off the elevator before the earth decides it wants to swallow them back up.

“Did you know?”

“I know a lot of things, pal. What do you want to know about what I know?” She huffs, and there’s a grin threatening to break her frown.

“About… any of that. I saw the rail sign up on the hill. Have you just been humoring me this whole time? Letting me think I had this big secret, but everyone was in on it?”

Ah. “Not exactly.” They walk past the gate of the would-be military checkpoint. The skeletons have all gone since he’s last been up here himself. “I had PAM look into past Institute sightings, and this place came up. Figured it couldn’t hurt to keep an eye out, but for the longest time it seemed like a bust.” The bustle of Sanctuary is good to see. Exactly what he’s been begging Desdemona for the Railroad to branch out into. “Once again, you found us before we could officially find you.”

She squeezes his hand.

-

“Allie!” Lost in her own thoughts, Whisper doesn’t see Duncan until he runs into her and wraps his arms around her thigh.”Dad took me out on patrol with him since we didn’t have school today! We didn’t go too far though, but I saw a molerat and a bloatfly and Dogmeat and I played fetch with a stick.” He takes one long, inhaling breath. “Where did you go? Who’s he?”

Duncan maneuvers around to put her squarely between him and Deacon. She pets his head as he goes shy and cautious around the newcomer. “This is Deacon. He’s a very good friend of mine. He’s a little silly sometimes, but you can trust him. I promise.”

“Mac’s kid, huh?” Deacon says, kneeling. “I can see the resemblance.” Whisper grins, feeling Duncan lose his tight grip on her just a little.

“Why do you wear those?” Duncan asks, pointing at Deacon’s sunglasses. “No one else does.”

Deacon’s voice dips low into a conspiratorial whisper. Duncan leans in close. “Don’t tell anyone,” he says, looking between her and Duncan, “but these hide my reptile eyes.”

Whisper explains what he means when Duncan gives her a confused look. At that, the little boy’s own eyes go wide. “Can I see?”

Deacon stands and props himself up by the elbow now resting on her shoulder. “Sorry, kid. Wouldn’t want to scare her.”

Duncan frowns. “But if Allie’s your friend, she wouldn’t be scared.”

A conceding nod that she feels in her shoulder. “You’re probably right. But I like having her around, so I won’t risk it. Hey, Mac.”

“Deacon.” MacCready looks between them, then down to Duncan now standing comfortably next to Deacon. “Does that mean you’re leaving now?”

Her hand that’s been idly combing through Duncan’s hair stops. “I - ”

“No!” Duncan whines. “I don’t want you to go.” He clings back to her leg. “What if you don’t come back? Like mama?”

Whisper picks him up before he can work himself up into a full blown meltdown. She walks them toward their home instead of continuing to draw attention in the middle of the road as they always seem to do. Duncan murmurs a litany of you can’t go, you can’t go into her ear in between sniffles and mucousy coughs. In return, she whispers anything she needs to, to soothe him. When she sets him down on his own bed, he only holds onto her neck tighter. MacCready sits down next to him, one hand on his back. Deacon, she hears lean against the doorframe.

“Please don’t go,” Duncan says, muffled against her shoulder.

“I’m sorry, sweetheart. I have to. But I’ll come back, okay? I’ll come back, just for you.”

He pulls away, eyes big and watery. Snot runs freely down one nostril. “Do you promise?”

She holds one pinky up in front of him. “I promise. Pinky promise.” His little finger wraps around hers. “There, that means it’s real.” He wipes his nose with his sleeve.

“Are you going away tonight?”

She looks to Deacon. Originally, she wanted to, but now - Deacon yawns, long and loud, and stretches his hands up to the top of the doorframe. “Boy, am I tired. I don’t think I could head out tonight if I tried.”

She mouths thank you over Duncan’s head. “How about we all have dinner together tonight, then Deacon and I will head out in the morning.”

“Okay!”

“That means we need to get you all washed up, kid.” MacCready gathers his son in his arms, and he goes easily. “Sorry about that. He’s - kind of attached to you.”

Whisper smiles. “Well so am I.”

-

“Thank you again,” Whisper says once they’re back in her bedroom. Outside the closed door, Codsworth prepares dinner with a clatter of pots and pans. “How long do you think we have until Des sends a search party looking for you?”

Deacon sits cross legged on the bed. “We can spare the night, anyway. Any longer and I’d have to send a note with one of your caravans.”

“Well, good. I’d hate to leave Duncan like that. He’s a good kid.”

“And he adores you enough to rub snot all over your dress.” He gestures her closer, and puts his fingers to work undoing the buttons down the front. Slowly, he unhooks the fabric around each one, the knuckle of his forefinger leaving a trail across her bare skin.

Stepping closer between his newly splayed thighs, she says, “Speaking of, thank you for earlier, also.” She hadn’t expected to fall apart so suddenly. With all the relief at seeing him again, knowing it was really him, there was no more room for the tension welled up inside her, and it had only one place to go. “I won’t make it a habit.”

“Mi shoulder es su shoulder, sugar.” He shrugs her out of the blouse. The skirt hangs on by the belt, but he doesn’t make a move to uncinch it. Instead, he runs his hands across her stomach, up to the hem of her bra, her muscles fluttering at the touch - and then he flinches back.

She looks down at him and his hands frozen an inch away from her skin. “Deacon?” No answer. With a finger under his chin, she forces him to look at her. “What’s wrong?” Her other hand removes his sunglasses and places them on the bed. There are no reptilian eyes staring back at her, instead all she sees is blue eyes filled with -

The door to the bedroom swings open without so much as a knock. “Hey, Codsworth says dinner’s almost - Jesus - “ Whisper takes a half step away and covers herself with her arms. MacCready quickly slips back into the hall. When she looks back at Deacon, he’s already standing with his sunglasses back on. “Look, Duncan’s waiting at the table. If you two are done - ?”

“Don’t have to tell me twice!” Is all Deacon says with notable false cheer before leaving without so much as a glance in her direction.

Whisper covers her mouth, either to hold back a sob or to stop herself from being sick, she isn’t sure yet.

“Hey,” MacCready says, stepping slightly more into the room but eyes firmly on the floor. “Everything okay?”

Whisper buttons up the dress, snot be damned. “Yeah, Mac.” She sounds normal to her ears, at least. “Everything’s fine.”

Except it isn’t. She’s seen Deacon afraid before, but never of her.

-

Duncan keeps dinner from being awkward. He insisted on sitting next to her, which leaves MacCready on the other side of the table and Deacon at the head beside Duncan. Conversation flows as Duncan wills it, their little conductor oblivious to how the adults do their best to avoid looking each other in the eye.

“It’s okay if you go now,” he says with the most glowing approval. “Because daddy’s going, and he can keep you safe from bad guys, like you said.”

“What?” MacCready asks when her look is questioning. “Were you just going to leave me behind?”

Yes, she thinks. Because you have this little boy to live for. “No, of course not. The more the merrier.”

He leans back. The chair bears his weight with only a small protesting squeak. “Good. I still owe ya for… you know.”

Duncan shines under the spotlight MacCready casts on him. “I’m gonna be as strong as dad one day. Then I can protect you, too.”

Whisper steeples her hands over the table, then rests her chin on them. “Is that so? You know you have to eat your greens first.” A pile of green stalks, like too tall broccoli, lays untouched on his plate. Duncan glares at it as if she just asked him to eat bloatfly.

“They’re gross, though. I don’t want to eat them.”

“Eat up, kid. You’re gonna hurt Codsworth’s feelings if you don’t.” The Mr. Handy is in sleep mode in the laundry closet, unable to dispute the claim. Duncan still pushes his plate away.

“You’re such a dad about it, Mac.” Deacon pipes up. “Watch this. Hey, little Mac.” Duncan’s favorite new nickname gets his full attention. Deacon leans over the table, and his own plate with a slightly smaller pile of vegetables, and grins. “I bet you can’t eat all yours before I eat mine.”

Turned to Deacon as he is, Whisper can’t see the kid’s reaction, but she can see his back straighten at the challenge. “Nu-uh.”

Deacon goads him further, “I bet you don’t even eat one before I finish eating.” Duncan jerks his plate back and holds his fork in a fisted death grip. He goes to stab one of the stalks, Deacon grabs his arm. “Whoa there. Rules first, right?” The little boy nods eagerly. “You have to chew and swallow each one before you eat the next. And show your dad, too, so I know you’re not cheating.”

“Okay. Allie has to make sure you’re not cheating too.”

“I’ll make sure he isn’t being sneaky. Don’t worry.” Deacon grins.

“Count us in, partner.” 

She does, and at Go! Duncan tears into his vegetables with the gusto of a starving animal. He chews quickly, swallows, then makes a loud ah! sound every time he shows his dad his empty mouth. He barely looks at Deacon, eating as slowly as if his greens were the mirelurk they ate at Coastal Cottage, but when he does Deacon makes a show of chewing quickly and struggling to keep up. And Whisper can’t keep her eyes off him. Not because of the contest, even though she has to give him a Vault-boy worthy thumbs up whenever Duncan is looking, but because she’s missed this. Missed him. And in this moment she gets a glimpse of… something too intangible to put a name to, just yet.

She finds she wants to, though.

“I win!” Duncan startles her with his shout. “Look, you didn’t even finish,” he gloats.

“Nope, kid, you got me.” Deacon sighs theatrically, one hand on his stomach. “I concede my defeat. You are the better green eater.”

“What do I get?”

“Duncan,” MacCready chides, but Deacon hushes him.

“Come on, dad, it’s only fair. He won. Say, ever heard of Grognak?”

That opener gets the two of them started on a whole conversation about comics, with Duncan hanging on Deacon’s every word. Whisper and MacCready clear the table of plates and empty nuka cola bottles (the bottle caps go into MacCready’s pocket), with Whisper pausing only to take a chance to press a kiss to Deacon’s temple. Her own victory is to feel him lean into it.

At the sink, Whisper washes and MacCready dries. Whisper tunes her pip-boy to DCR. “You’re sure you want to come along? I - “ quieter now, though Duncan isn’t paying attention, “... I plan on going after the Institute. It’s going to be dangerous.”

MacCready shrugs. “You’re my boss. My… general. Is that what I’m supposed to call you? Whatever.”

“But Duncan - ”

“Isn’t safe with the Institute still around. I’m doing this for him, too. C'mon, let me do this.”

“I can see where he gets that sweet pleading look from.” She looks up at him, tall and lanky, as if a stiff breeze could knock him over. “One condition.” She raises one soapy finger. “You cut your hair. It’s getting way past regulation.”

He laughs. “Yes, ma’am.”

-

The departure of MacCready and his son finds Whisper leaning against the back of her couch and Deacon staring at the door as if he’s debating whether or not he wants to leave as well.

Whisper doesn’t let him. “Deacon, talk to me.”

She watches as his demeanor changes; his shoulders shift down in resignation, then up in acceptance. “What do you want to talk about?”

Her and Nate had a rule: never let the sun go down on bad feelings. “Are we good? I’m sorry I kept everything from you - from everyone, really - but I guess I thought...” She wilts like what remains of her centuries old garden.

Deacon puts a friendly hand on her shoulder. “You and me, we’re always good. If you had told me that story when we first met, I’d have laughed in your face. Probably.”

He holds himself stiffly. Keeps a healthy distance between them. “Then why did you flinch when you touched me?”

“Random muscle spasms. When you get older you’ll get them too - ”

“Deacon.” Her tone is desperate.

He runs a hand over his head and walks a contemplative little circle in front of her. “Fuck. Well, I’m dead anyway if I’m wrong.” She stops him before he can make himself dizzy. “Your… your scars are gone.”

Whisper blinks. She had put her hands on Nate and she knew. “Oh. Oh. No, they - the Institute had to stitch me back up after - ” After Glory downed her. Her blood spilling out onto the ground, her strength getting weaker, staining Deacon’s shirt red. “I’m not a synth, Deacon. I’m still - me.”

His mouth is a thin frown. “Whisper, I don’t think you realize how bad you got hurt in Bunker Hill.”

Anger rises to the surface. “So tell me. Because I sure as hell felt how bad I got hurt.”

Deacon looks at his hands as if she should see something in them. “I held your-your guts in my hands, Whisper. What I wasn’t trying to hold in was… ” He takes a shuddered breath. “... was on the ground. Or quickly on its way.”

“I was in an autodoc for three days,” she says, shrilly. Once again, Deacon flinches. “I wasn’t replaced. I can’t be - it wouldn’t make sense - ”

Once again his hands are on her shoulders, gentler now, soothing. “It’s okay. It’s okay, we’ll deal with this.”

She shrugs him off. “Listen to me. Shaun hates synths. He doesn’t even see them as human, so he wouldn’t make me one. Not when he wants me to lead the Institute. His legacy.”

“He remade your husband,” he helpfully supplies.

“For me. So I would stay.” A knot forms in her throat, the truth difficult to swallow. “Besides, if I was a synth, they would have just programmed me to love him, instead.” She’s going to cry again, she can feel it. The dam’s already broken, and now it’s all free to rush out. Her legs give out like a tree uprooted in the deluge, and she slides to the floor with a sob. “It would have been easier,” she hiccups.

She hears Deacon join her on the ground before he pulls her to him again. “I thought you were a synth the moment I saw you again,” he confesses into her hair. “I didn’t think there was any way you could have survived. I even thought about going under the knife again. Getting a new face, so I didn’t have to stare at the one that watched you die.

“Whisper, I flinched because I thought you had been replaced, and, for that moment, I didn't care.”

Didn’t care? If she was replaced, the Institute could ruin the Railroad, the Minutemen, the fragile peace they’ve cultivated across the Commonwealth. “Deacon…? What are you saying?”

He leans back, but still huddled close like they’re sharing a secret. His nose nudges the hollow of her cheekbone, and every breath breezes across the curve of her neck. “One last test.” For this, he removes his sunglasses, and the apprehension glittering in his eyes can be felt in the shaky grip he has at the nape of her neck. “Whisper, what’s my name?”

A shiver runs down her spine at the roughness of his voice. “You told me to forget in the morning,” she answers, even though she never did. 

The hand at her neck reaches up to tangle in her hair, and then Deacon kisses her first.

She had asked him once why he never did before, when insecurity made her feel as if she was forcing intimacy on him despite his enthusiastic response. Plausible deniability, he told her. Lies are always more believable with a little bit of truth dashed in, and if Des pressed him about starting something with her, well, it would be the truth if he said no.

There is nothing plausibly deniable about his tongue caressing the soft palate of her mouth, or her keening whine in response. She climbs into his lap, throwing a leg over his to straddle his hips. She pulls away to breathe, and he takes the opportunity to kiss a trail from the hollow of her throat up to her jaw.

Whisper moans his name - his real name - and is rewarded with his hand hiking up her skirt to her hip. He kneads the skin there, thumb dipping under the band of her underwear. She thinks of his poor knees when he shifts. “Deacon,” she struggles out, mind a fog, and nothing registers but his hands and his mouth. “Take me to bed.”

His hand on her hip yanks her hard against him, and she feels just how excited he is at that suggestion. “Your wish is my command, sugar.”

Legs hooked behind his back, she anchors herself to him as he carries them - almost back to her bedroom. Her back hits the wall outside the door. With one hand, he locks her wrists above her head. When he kisses her again, his hips mimic the thrust of his tongue. The other hand works the buttons of her dress. The cool air is a relief against the flush spread across her body, the burning heat spreading through her veins, flame set alight every time he touches her. She rocks her hips forward. WIth a soft hiss, he releases her wrists and finally carries her to her bed.

Even when he deposits her on the mattress, they aren’t apart for long. As if even letting her go for a second pains him. If he isn’t touching her, she’ll disappear for good. She sits up to pull her dress over her head. He helps her, fingers skimming every inch of skin he exposes. 

He dips his head to her breasts and licks the valley between them. Whisper arches against him, grinding down against his still too-clothed lap. God help her when he unhooks her bra and draws a nipple lightly between his teeth. She goes when he eases her back down to the mattress. He hovers over her, eyes roving, and even in the dark she can see his pupils are blown wide.

Whisper runs her hands up under his shirt to help him out of it. With a hiss of fabric, it joins her dress and bra somewhere on the floor. Her hands go to the button of his jeans before stopping, finding the the rough scars across his torso. The one just below his ribs from the mirelurk queen, the peppering of scars from gunshot and knife wounds, and a new one high up on his collarbone. He watches her as she maps them out, his chest steadily rising and falling as he catches his breath.

“Everything accounted for?” He huffs.

She hums low. She presses a kiss to the scar on his collarbone. “What happened here?”

“Bunker Hill. Ran into a Courser but your, uh, Brotherhood friend helped me out.”

Whisper shows him just how glad she is that he survived.

Their next steps are slower, more deliberate. No longer frantic, but tempered. Want still simmering beneath the surface, but no longer threatening to burn out all sense. Deacon begins again, mouth moving determinedly south. One finger hooks through the band of her underwear, and she arches again to slip them off. Still he takes his time, pressing kiss after kiss to the inside of her thighs. And just when she hopes he’ll grant her some relief, he glances at her over the planes of her stomach and grins. He rests one of her legs on his shoulder, presses another kiss to her thigh. Then one hard swipe of his tongue has her loudly moaning his name.

He’s always been good with his tongue, but now it’ll be the death of her. Sometimes, she swears she recognizes a snippet of shorthand that he writes into her until another swipe erases any semblance of thought like an eraser to a chalkboard. Once he introduces his fingers, it isn’t long until he has her seeing stars.

When she comes back down, he’s pillowed his cheek against her thigh, watching her and looking incredibly pleased with himself. “Knew I missed you for a reason,” she sighs with a grin. “Come here.”

He does, and it’s her turn to taste herself on his tongue. His jeans and briefs join the growing pile of clothes on the floor, and then she finally gets to learn the feel of him entirely against her. No longer hindered by just-get-naked-enough, Deacon fits a knee underneath hers and hikes her leg at an angle. Open beneath him, she urges him forward, and he finally thrusts home.

They moan together. Whisper’s head falls back further into the pillow, and Deacon pulls out and buries himself again. His breath is hot and heavy against her shoulder, the only sound other than flesh against flesh and encouragement moaned in the dark.

Pleasure builds quickly, welling in her core and tightening every nerve. Deacon’s hips stutter, pace uneven, fingers caressing where they’re joined in an effort to send them over together. He whines Alice in her ear and she builds her home in it. The tension snaps, and she’s falling hard, taking him with her, and together they’re tumbling limp limbed on the mattress.

-

The afterglow finds Whisper’s head on Deacon’s chest, listening to the rhythmic beat of his heart. It’s almost enough to lull her to sleep, mental and physical exhaustion doing its best to pull her under.

“Go to bed,” Deacon rumbles. Hypocrite, she thinks. Under the blanket, his fingers keep a lazy circle on her hip. Every fifth circle he dips down into the vee of her hips, then returns. “We have to get up early tomorrow.”

“Not that early.” He’s already half hard in her hand. “We have to say good-bye to everyone.”

“Not that early,” he agrees.

She rides him until names given and made blur together in unbroken breaths of oh, god, and please, and fuck, and they come apart again when words have no meaning and the feel of them is enough.

[darkboysroadtrip]

As they walk Antha lifts into the sky every now and then to make sure they're still on their course.

They've been walking for around fifteen minutes now, the long grasses were hard to trudge in and Thomas got tired of trying to keep up and annoyed at how much he was tripping and being tangled, being four is hard when everything is big.

So Patton has him on his back now, Thomas dozing in and out of sleep every few seconds.

The long grass turns into a dirt pathway, it's not far now until the cemetery.

The sky gets darker with every minute that passes and with the last five or so minutes that have passed to get to their destination it's almost completely darkened.

They stand before a rickety metal gate with broken hinges and rusty fencing.

Antha blows the gate open and zooms off to look at the tombstones.

She's not exactly sure where Melody is buried but she knows it's here somewhere.

It doesn't take her long to find it though, she guides them to the worse for wear grave.

It reads:

Meoldy Hugo.

Beloved Daughter, from a loving mother.

Beloved Mother to a sweet little boy.

And Beloved Niece to a brave aunt.

Loved by the community sadly taken too soon.

1971 - 1993

Antha kneels at her daughters grave, her hand resting on the face of it.

Her own face is saddened to read of how young Melody was when she died.

Antha looks over to the grave next to Melody's, it's her own, her eyes narrow at the empty grave but then turns to fire when she notices the one next to hers.

The fire in her eyes turn quite literally when she destroys the already crumbling stone then turns her attention to the children.

Her eyes soften at them before she swirls herself around the group, surrounding them in a ghostly hug.

She then floats to the back of Melody's grave and hovers there.

Logan walks up first, she takes the locket out of her pocket.

The others walk up in front of the grave with Logan.

"I wish we could have known you more" Patton says.

"Yeah" Virgil agrees, "having a ghost friend around would be super cool."

"Imagine the pranks we could pull!" Remus adds.

"No one would see them coming" Dee says.

Antha laughs a silent little laugh at the children's thoughts.

Logan looks up at Antha, her brows knit together in confusion which is not something that happens often.

"I'm not sure what this feeling is but..." she trails off trying to think of her words, "I feel a kind of connection with you and I'm going to miss you."

Antha smiles down at Logan, she cups her cheek and kisses her forehead.

Logan smiles, for reasons unknown to herself soft tears start to fall and she tries to wipe them away but they won't go.

She kneels with the still falling tears and digs a hole deep enough so the locket wouldn't get dug up.

For once she doesn't care about how dirty she is, the mud on her hands and under her nails don't seem to bother her as of right now.

She looks up from her position on the ground to see softness in Antha's eyes.

"Bye" her voice comes out softer than expected, she places the locket in the hole and buries it.

Almost immediately Antha starts to glow, a bright brilliant silver with sparkles and streaks of elegant blues.

Her form twirls and swirls, she's practically dancing around them as her form changes from her ghostly aura to a more solid person.

The deathly paleness of her tanned skin leaves her, the shining spots on her face and arms stay shining however more freckle looking than before, her hair is now tamed from the water like movements it had.

Her dress is now cleaned and devoid of rips and the gash around her throat has vanished.

For the first time she's able to speak to them.

"Thank you, all of you" she glances to each one of them -tenderness solid in her words- "I would never be able to thank you enough, you seven have made my last moments as a spirit wonderful, not to mention the only ones to ever even try to help."

"Of course we would" Patton says, "we couldn't not."

Antha smiles "I hope you keep that kindness and tenderness in your hearts, the world needs more of it."

One last glance around, she ends on Logan.

She lands her hand on Logan's head petting her, "I must go now, I wish nothing but amazingness and joy for you - all of you."

And then in a brilliant flash, she's gone.

[cryptid-killjoy]

Between having the Triplets and Christmas the Shipping Vessel would have to be emptied. 

Koda, Willem, Zero, Victor, Dale, Piper every able bodied person willing and no Valerie was not up to the task physically yet, Ray either, but magically speaking the girls worked wonders. Between the weather, temperature of the ground, cloaking to get the corpses from sea to their property, to identification, and trying to organize them so families could buried together, the girls were still a great help. 

This would be when Chess would be found and have to be buried in her own space by the short cut. Koda and Valerie would have their own moment about that. Valerie would offer space for Koda’s mothers if he wished, but he’d turn it down. He’d want to get them back to the reservations with family eventually. 

For the time being Chip and Dale are going to pull together for markers with slate and metal from all over the land, whatever to make do. Valerie intends to make a modest mausoleum for Zeke and Brigitte. In the end Valerie intends to get proper matching stones for everyone else similar to Arlington or unknown cemeteries. she wants them all to match and then she’s going to go in after and make something artsy on each and every single one for each person individually when she engraves it for them and their family. But, all that can’t happen before Christmas. So for now markers and names after identification and burial is feat enough.  She would make very certain they were shallow graves due to certain belief systems she held. She couldn’t give them all exactly what she wanted just due to the masses. She decided this was the best way to go for practicality. But, the family plot would be there now forever. Safe. Thomas and Valerie would make sure of it. 

Dug will also be a huge help in the digging just like with the moat. He’ll come in with his big bulldozing jowls and lighten the load a little with such masses. It would be an emotional type day and physically exhausting for all. It was also the sort of time brings people together. This isn’t the sort of thing you can do with someone and not feel closer to them. Stories and memories about all the lost would come out throughout all the hours as this project went on. 

Valerie would feel extremely grateful for help with this. She’s going to allow all those here who aren’t voodooists and part of this since they’ve been such help to be a part of their celebration of life too. So, despite not knowing these people, anyone who feels they want to after participating in their burial are welcome at that party too. So just know from the time the triplets are born through Christmas it’s been emotional but also one party after another. The Voodooists are big on the alcohol and this party would have been a slosher. The Gods love it for tribute and no way it wouldn’t be thrown around in celebration of all their lives to keep up the fun, music, the whole bit, refusing to let it be sad. 

There will be another smaller little party when they finally get the stones in survivors finally come, but that celebration had to happen now. It was a must for these guys. 

[writteninkat]

My brother's best friend | Bakugou x Reader

summary: being eijiro's little sister is great. he sticks up for you and cares about you so much and you can feel his love on you but what you love the most about him? his best friend, katsuki bakugou.

w/c: 2.7k

warnings: oral (f!receiving), choking, hair pulling

a/n: being fucked by your brother's hot best friend?? i have fantasies abt it 🤤

navigation

Eijiro Kirishima is an amazing big brother; he’s kind, super friendly, he makes sure no one bothers you, he’s the one person you can rely on the most and he’s not only your brother, but your best friend as well. He’s the one you tell secrets to, the one you rant to, he’s the one who corrects your mistakes and makes sure you don’t feel too bad about them.

But what you really love about Ejiro? His hot best friend, Katsuki Bakugou.

This tall, large, blond, loud, good-smelling, foul-mouthed creature is your brother’s best friend and you can’t help but wear the skimpiest clothing when he’s around. For seven years, ever since they met for the first time and became friends in high school at UA, you’ve been wanting to catch his attention.

And in those seven years, you’ve learned to sense whenever his eyes were on you. And you know this man wants something from you, and he knows you’re willing to give him whatever he wants. The problem is, he just doesn’t do anything about it. And it pisses you off to a certain extent.

“Y/n, Bakugou is here.” Eijiro yells from the kitchen as your fingers type quickly and noisily on your keyboard. You have your headphones on, your hands are occupied by your W, A, S, D keys and your mouse, and there’s the annoyingly powerful boss you and your friends have been trying to defeat for the past ten minutes.

“Yeah, yeah, tell him I said hi.” Your eyes flicker from one corner of the screen to the other as you control your character to dash from one place to another. Your mind is so engrossed in the game that you don’t even notice Katsuki beside you–he’s crouched over with his hands on his knees as he watches your game.

The second the smell of burnt caramel fills your nostrils, you feel a quick sense of rush travel down your body before you turn your head to the side, confirming that Katsuki was in fact, right beside you. He’s close–too close compared to how he usually is when he’s with you, so close that you can see just how pretty his eyes look, how soft the face on his skin is. Your fingers itched to run through his blond hair and you bite your lip at the sight of his lips just so close. You can just lean in and you could be kissing Katsuki Bakugou right now.

“–dying.”

“Huh?”

“You’re dying.” Katsuki points out, shaking you out of your daydream. Your eyes widen at the sight of your health bar slowly turning red.

“Shit.” You mutter out, quickly controlling your character to run from the monster. “Heal! I need Bennet!” You yell into your mic and let out a relieved sigh when your character’s health slowly rises. “Why did we think it was a good idea to challenge a level 90 monster?” You hear one of your friends complain into your headset and you chuckle, you guys really dug your own graves.

“I’m tired. We’ve been in co-op for a few hours now. Let’s call it a day and play again tomorrow.” You speak into the mic and your friends quickly agree with you, leaving the domain one by one until you’re the only one left. You follow in-suit, watching as the Challenge Failed sign glows red before you exit the game and turn off your computer.

When you turn to your side, you frown to see that Katsuki’s no longer there. Instead he’s sitting on the couch, scrolling away on his phone with his legs spread out lazily. Your gaze quickly falls onto the space between his thighs, digging your teeth onto your lower lip.

“I need to go grab some books for my new classes, I totally forgot to grab them yesterday.” Eijiro paces across the living room, taking his bag from the kitchen counter. “Idiot.”Katsuki mutters. “I’ll come with.” He begins to stand up but your brother is quick to push him back down onto the couch. “Nah, I can’t do that to you. There’ll be a long line and it’ll be tiring to just stand there and wait. If you wanna help me out, you can maybe cook us some lunch?” Eijiro chuckles as his best friend glares at him. “Hah? You think I'm your personal chef or something?” Katsuki yells while Eijiro tries to calm him down. You quickly make your way to the kitchen, taking some chicken from the freezer and putting it in the sink, allowing the ice to melt off of it.

“Then, I’ll see you guys later!” Eijiro waves goodbye as you prepare all the ingredients to make chicken katsudon. “What are you making for shitty hair?” You hear the blond ask from behind, feeling your heart about to beat out of your chest. “Chicken Katsudon.” You answer plainly, wanting to look as unaffected as possible.

The air is still and everything is calm for a moment, until two hands reach over to grip the edge of the counter. His scent is stronger than ever, your heart palpitates at the feeling of his hot breath fanning against your nape and you shudder at the feeling of his chest pressed against your back.

“It’s rude to stare.” Katsuki points out, “And you’ve been staring at me for years now. Do you need something from me?”

You lick your lips, wetting them–a habit of yours whenever you’re feeling nervous. Despite your shaky hands, you continue beating the eggs. “How about you? You look at me like you want something from me. Shouldn’t you just man up and ask for it? Or are you too much of a coward to do something?”

In a flash, Katsuki spins you around, pressing you against the edge of the counter as you turn your head away, avoiding his gaze. He chuckles at your feeble attempt at avoiding eye contact, or was it to hide the growing blush across your cheeks?

“You want to test me on that?” He mutters, lips dangerously close to yours. While you know you shouldn’t reply, while you know you should push him away, while you know he’s your brother’s best friend and Eiji would probably not be okay with it, you face Katsuki anyway. You look at him dead in the eye, gaze strong and head tall.

“I do, actually.” Your tone sounds confident and powerful. “Who would have thought that one of the most powerful students in UA is a little bitch when it comes to his feelings–”

Katsuki presses his lips against yours, kissing  you quite roughly with both your teeth clashing and tongues fighting against each other for dominance. He grabs onto your waist, pulling you even closer to him and you wrap your arms around his neck, lifting yourself up as your legs wrap around his waist.

The kiss is all sorts of things; hot, rough, sensual, sexy, needy, selfish, demonically passionate, fervent and shameless. Katsuki kisses you like you’re water in this desert of a world. He kisses you like you’re the final piece of a puzzle, what he lives for, what he’ll die for, what glues his life together. His arms hold you softly as though you’re some important and fragile porcelain doll, but it’s strong enough to make you think that he sees you as something that might disappear if he loosens his grip for just a moment.

The both of you pull away, your chests rising and falling with intensity as you lock eyes with each other. His vermilion eyes hold so much emotion that you can’t exactly pinpoint which one’s bad and which one’s good. “What took you so long?” You ask, breaking the deafening silence.

“Me?” He chuckles, “I was waiting for you.”

And just as quickly as it happened, his lips are back on yours as the two of you relive the feverish kiss. It feels so /right, and good, and amazing that you want more of it. You want more of him. As if reading your mind, Katsuki’s hands slowly wander down the sides of your waist, gripping at the soft skin before travelling down the exposed skin of your thighs.

“Always wearing these goddamned shorts.” The tips of his fingers insert underneath the soft fabric of your bottoms as he feels over and squeezes the plump skin of your ass. “Shit, just fuck me already.” You grit your teeth making Katsuki chuckle.

“Your wish is my command.” He combs his fingers through the soft locks of your red hair. Unlike your brother’s, your hair was soft. He felt absolutely no product on it and can tell you cared very much for it. It also feels strong enough for him to–”Nnggh, fuck, Suki…” A moan slips from your lips as he tugged at your hair. He smirks, kink unlocked.

His lips travelled down your jaw, neck collar bone and chest, sucking soft and deep reds all over your skin. He leaves bite marks on the valley of your breasts and his hands make quick work of pushing your tank top up, allowing your breasts to spill out. Katsuki smirks, taking one of your nipples in his mouth as he flicks and plays with the other, looking up at your needy expression. Your brows are knitted together and your eyes are looking down at him, watching as his tongue laps over your sensitive bud. Katsuki smirks, taking your nipple in between his teeth, teasing you a little more before abruptly pulling away.

His lips continue on their journey down your stomach, kissing and sucking all over before he’s pushing you down on the counter, the ingredients to your right, forgotten as your back hits the cold marble counter.

He hooks his fingers at the waistband of your shorts, looking up at you with questioning eyes as if asking for permission. You smile, lifting your hips to counter his silent query. He slips off your booty shorts, gaze landing on the pretty red thong you have hidden underneath those skimpy shorts.

Katsuki feels as though his breath had been taken away as he stares at your clothed sex looking so pretty, all for him to consume, to devour. He inches towards your damp cunt, pressing his lips against your folds before lapping his tongue over them. He repeats this action multiple times as if he were a little cat who’s been given a poopsicle during a hot day.

He pushes your underwear to the side, gripping tightly on your thigh the second he sees your glistening pussy. Your scent is intoxicating and he can feel your warmth just radiating at him who’s inches away from you. You lean in and the first thing he does is bury his face in the area between your thighs. No he doesn’t lick you, or kiss you, or even blow raspberries on you. He just presses his face at your cunt and you chuckle at how adorable he is.

“You look happy.” You smile, making him pull away. He’s grinning from ear to ear, looking at you as if you’re some blessing that has fallen from the sky. “Oh I am.”

Katsuki sticks his tongue out, leaning over to press it against your hole teasingly before pushing the muscle inside. Inside, you’re both warm and wet. To Katsuki, you taste like the world’s most delicious candy. “Oh god, oh yeah, just like that, ‘Suki.” You pant, your hands flying to his hair. “Fuck your tongue feels amazing.”

He wiggles and thrashes his tongue all over and around as he sucks at your juices, lapping you up messily like you’re a full-course meal. “I’m close! Shit I’m so close!” You whine, the thought of Katsuki purely using his mouth and that his fingers have nothing to do with your orgasm gives you an extra push to the edge. When he sucks at your clit, your thighs tremble on either side of his head as the knot in your stomach comes undone. A moan is ripped from the back of your throat and you try to recall when was the last time you came so hard with just someone’s mouth.

This might be a first for you.

Your chest rises and falls considerably and just when you think he’s done, you’re being flipped onto your stomach as something presses against your dripping cunt. Your eyes widen and you look behind you, the last thing you see being Katsuki’s smug grin before he’s pushing inside you. “Oh, big! So fucking big!” You moan loudly, an inch away from yelling at the feeling of being stuffed so full. It feels different than how you expected it to feel, making you look behind you once again to check whatever it was you were feeling. The sight of white rubber covering the blond’s cock makes your heart skip a beat.

“What? Thought I was using some toy on you or something?” He spat quite arrogantly but you push his tone aside as you shake your head. “No, I just–I didn’t think you’d wear protection.”

Your answer catches him off guard, causing his hips to falter a little. “Did you think I’d do that without your permission?” He sounds offended and if it weren’t for the conceited look on his face, you would have felt bad. “I’m trying to fuck my best friend’s sister hard. We don’t want unplanned surprises suddenly popping up, do we?” He doesn’t even wait for your answer before he’s thrusting inside you. His thrusts are deep, rough, and fast. Your tits bounced up and down with every quick movement and your eyes rolled back every time he hit your spot without even looking for it.

The sound of skin slapping, your uneven breathing and Katsuki's grunts fill the room. He tugs at your hair, pulling your head towards him as he wraps his hand around your throat, finger tips digging at the sides. When your walls tighten around him, Katsuki can’t help but chuckle incredulously.

Who would have thought Kiri’s little sis was such a freak? Kink number two, unlocked.

He pounds into you harder at the feeling of his high slowly itching towards him. Your legs wobbled as your fingernails dug at your palm and with one particularly deep thrust, your walls clench around his cock and he releases inside the rubber, inside you.

Your legs give out and what’s stopping you from hitting the floor is the fact that you’re in between the kitchen counter and your brother’s best friend. Katsuki grips at your waist, helping you stay standing but it’s more like he’s keeping you up. He quickly pulls out of you and turns you around, allowing your body to fall onto him weakly like a ragdoll.

He walks out the kitchen, entering your bedroom as he lays you on the bed. Your eyes are growing heavy with each passing minute as the sight of your pussy glistening with your cum entices Katsuki in every way. You raise a brow tiredly at his hungry expression before rolling your eyes.

“Didn’t I tell you? If you want something, you should do something about it.” You mutter, unable to talk properly from the fatigue. Katsuki swallows thickly and you chuckle lightly at how weird he looks when he’s...nervous.

“I wanna fuck you. I still wanna fuck you.” It’s straight to the point, something so like and at the same time unlike him. You push your body to lay yourself on your back, “Please just make sure to clean me up after.”

“Woah, that took way too long.” Eijiro laughs as he enters your shared apartment. He looks around, taking note of the steaming hot bowl of Katsudon on rice on the counter, however he doesn’t seem to find his little sister or best friend anywhere. Did they go out without me?

He checks your room, just in case and inside he finds you sleeping peacefully. Your clothes have been switched from your usual tanktop and shorts to what looks like sweatpants and a sweater. Behind you sleeps a peaceful Katsuki who has his arms on your waist and his lips pressed against the back of your head. Kirishima smiles, quietly closing the door.

Sero owes him a hundred bucks.

[dollyyyhouse]

☾ ɢʀᴏᴛᴇꜱQᴜᴇ ʟᴏᴠᴇ ☽

☾ ǝʌo˥ ǝnbsǝʇoɹ⅁ ☽

Helloooo! Here's another random fanfic I made, it's sorta a mixture of angst and horror. I wanted to like incorporate the two, if you like this please let me know so I can make more!! And if you requested an idea, I'm working on it and it should be out soon <3 ^^

BIG TRIGGER WARNING FOR : Mentions of gore + body horror, murder!!!!!!!!!!!!

A sinister sight was forming at the House of Lamentation. The usual moans and creaks that occupied the house had stopped, even the ghost haunting the house became eerily quiet at what they had witnessed— they could only watch in horror.

A pair or hands laid limply against the floor, a long trail of blood following the body; your body. Two twins were at the cause of this, shame and horror struck them after they realized what they had done, so they decided it would be for the greater good to just dispose of your body in secret. While the younger twin carried a large shovel and the older twin loosely held you by your ankles, they hurried to move your body.

"Hey Beel, do you think anyone will notice?" The younger twin asked, shooting a glance at his older brother. "Mmm.. I don't know, I hope they don't." He looked back at your body, realizing that by now your face had become even more bloody and grotesque after being dragged against the rigid floor so much. "Maybe they'll think MC ran away? If we get rid of the evidence good enough I'm sure they won't have a clue what really happened." Beel nodded to Belphie's statement, both of them seemed unsure yet hopeful. "What about Lord Diavolo and Barbatos, won't they notice right away?" The two of them shivered at the thought, neither Lord Diavolo or Barbatos were demons you wanted to mess with— the twins heads surely would've been chopped off with a guillotine if they told them what they had just done. Belphegor was lucky enough to be in the attic, if the royals knew the sin they had committed then what would've happened? Starvation, being tortured with no rest, beheading, locked away for thousands of years, all the possibilities were endless yet terrifying.

Belphegor released a sigh, he could've cared less about his own death, but what he feared was Beelzebub's death. It was the same with Beelzebub, he only wanted his little brother to live. "Ah.. what are we gonna do? If we aren't killed by Lord Diavolo then Lucifer will kill us.. I'd rather die at Lord Diavolo's hands.." By now they had arrived at their destination, a small hidden area covered by bushes and trees close by the HOL. "Okay, I'll dig and you hold MC's body." They exchanged nods, Belphie lifted you up into his arms— your corpse could only dangle from his grasp, lifeless eyes staring off into the distance.

A truly gruesome sight, their beloved human, their master, the one they held so close just a few hours prior was now dead. Your body was soaked in your own blood, wet hair soaked in blood, nightgown soaked in blood... everything was soaked in blood. The dark red liquid tainted the floor in the house, it would take hours for them to fully erase all the evidence. Although they didn't want to do it, they knew they had to.

Beel tossed the shovel aside, a shallow grave was dug— just for you. The twins looked at your corpse with sad eyes, they felt guilty.. but what would happen to them if everyone found out? Not wanting to risk it, they'd rather it come to this. So, what was all of this over?

Well, even they weren't sure. Something snapped in the both of them, while you were asleep in Belphegor's bed; Beelzebub stood above you, watching you peacefully rest. Belphegor just sat back and watched, paying no mind. It was then when Beel had mentioned how delicious you looked, saying how he wanted to rip you apart, limb by limb and tear all the meat off of your body. His little brother could only chuckle, unaware of what his brother was about to do. While Belphegor laid next to you, Beelzebub grabbed you by the throat; squeezing it until he heard a loud crack. Blood began to cover the bedsheets, in the moment the both of them were overcome with sinful desires. The urge to watch you bleed out, and the urge to tear the skin and meat off of your bones. They managed to snap out of it before they could harm you anymore, that was when the panic kicked in. They sprung into action, quickly hauling your body out of the room.

Belphegor tossed your body into the grave, your right hand slightly above ground— they were in such a rush they didn't notice that their attempt at getting rid of all of the evidence was poorly done. Dirt began to consume your helpless body, before they ran off, both said bittersweet goodbyes that would never truly communicate to you.

Your right hand sat above the ground, soon to be found by either a demon or feral beast.

[mostlycompetentwriter]

Hi hello! So pleased to hear your requests are open! Can I please request for a marriage au mafia style where the reader gets hurt or assaulted by the rival gang in front of him and due to being restraint he can't get to her and he cries and begs for her stop. Then thankfully Chan and the others come to the rescue and you want nothing more than to be in chnagbins arms. Maybe a lot of angst and fluff afterwards too. Can't wait to see what you come up with 💕

Pairing: Fem!Reader x Changbin

Warnings: Mention of violence and blood; cursing and language; lots of angst and some fluff at the end; mature content

Genre: Mafia AU; Established Relationship

Where are you?

It feels like a dream. The very strange sensation of that in-between state because you were incapable of distinguishing consciousness from something less than. 

Am I alive?

You must be, aware of the sensation of cold, shivers running down your spine, raising little bumps across your arms...

“Princess!”

What? Did you hear that?

“Y/N!” the voice came again. More urgently this time.

You realized then, with the grounding agency of that sound, that your eyes were closed, but it was a struggle to open them, slowly coming back from whatever had sucked you down, wincing at the dull pain in your head.

“Y/N,” the voice sighed this time. Like it was relieved to see you cognizant. “Tell me you’re okay, love.”

Love?

It hit you at that moment, the sound of the voice. One you could recognize no matter the degree of darkness holding you under, and you managed to open your eyes enough to meet Changbin’s gaze from across the room. 

“Changbin?” you questioned. Or, at least, you thought you said his name. You couldn’t be sure since the sounds around you made it seem like your head was underneath water, distorting everything, and the roof of your mouth was dry and tasteless.

“That’s right, love,” Changbin said, and you struggled to keep him in your line of vision, watching his form swim and dance in strange directions.

“I don’t feel good,” you admitted, hearing what might’ve been a sharp intake of breath.

“Where does it hurt?” Changbin asked, and you frowned at how difficult the question was since you weren’t sure how to answer it.

There was too much numbness, and you were far more concerned with restoring your senses, slowly feeling your ears open back up and the things surrounding you come into focus.

Meanwhile, Changbin was still talking. “I’ll kill them all,” he growled. “This was never supposed to happen.”

Them? you thought to yourself vacantly, gingerly turning around as much as your bindings would allow, realizing only after a brief relapse of confusion that your hands and legs were tied to the metal chair you sat on. 

“Where are we?” you asked, finding your voice amidst everything else.

“I’m not sure,” Changbin whispered, and he suddenly sat upright in his chair, eyes narrowing and features taking on that practiced hardening that you associated with your husband at his most dangerous.

But a Changbin bound and tied by seemingly impossible to escape restraints didn’t exactly scream power to you. In fact, it seemed more like a power imbalance, and you were left reeling for answers when the sound of a distant door opening and then closing filled the space between you both.

“I see you’re awake now,” an unfamiliar figure announced, voice slightly accented. He walked with an arrogant swagger, matching the exaggerated steps he took and the smirk he wore on his grizzled features. “We’ve been waiting.”

“Don’t touch her!” Changbin snapped, jerking against his restraints as the veins in his neck visibly popped in response to his obvious anger and frustration. 

“Who? The girl?” the man asked with a lazy gesturing towards you. “Then you’ll give us answers, no?”

“What do you want?” Changbin asked, and you noted how his fingers were clenched tightly against the arm rests attached to his chair.

“The new shipment of weapons,” the man said. “Your men took them from us the other night. Came in and shot my best sniper.”

Changbin sighed, clearly frustrated. “They were originally assigned to us.”

“But then we made a better deal!” the man growled. “It was my name on that contract, and you had no right to interfere.”

“Says who?” Changbin asked, fishing for more information.

“I can’t tell you that,” the man replied. “I’m only the messenger.”

“You act like it’s more than that.”

“Oh?” the man smirked. “Well, I am a big deal.”

Changbin glowered at the arrogance. “I don’t lead the organization.”

“I know, but you’re an important player,” the man continued. “And your name was everywhere when I started investigating.”

“The weapons were a necessary exchange,” Changbin argued.

“But they were ours!” the man declared passionately, and Changbin knew better than to try to argue with someone so overzealous.

“Fine,” Changbin huffed. “I’ll have my men restore the weapons.”

“Wonderful,” the man sighed, tucking his hands into his pocket. “There is one more thing, though.”

“One more?” Changbin snorted.

“I know of your importance, Mr. Seo,” the man said. “I assume that you’re someone in possession of good information.”

“Like what?”

“Like that little bar you opened downtown,” the man continued, taking another step closer. 

You froze when he pulled a knife from his pocket, studying the way the light reflected off the harsh metal. “What about it?” Changbin grumbled, eyes focused on the obvious danger in the room.

“I’m curious about its sudden success,” he said, and you shivered when he started circling your chair. “Seems like something is missing.”

“Just good business,” Changbin said, but you could tell he was trying to get one step ahead of the guy - discerning the meaning of this unexpected conversation.

“Or, you figured out how to delegitimize the competition,” the man harshly exhaled, and you whimpered when you felt the cold blade of the knife tease the sensitive skin of your neck. 

Changbin sat up just a little higher, biceps flexing against his restraints. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“Obviously,” the man hissed, digging the blade just enough to draw a tiny pinprick of blood. “You’ve sent your men undercover to spy on my business! To spread rumors and lies and turn my clientele away!”

Changbin chuckled at the outrageous claim, but it was devoid of any humor. “You probably fucked your business over yourself.”

“Do you think I’m a fool?” the man growled, searing metal against flesh. “I know men like you, Mr. Seo, and I’m willing to bet that you’ve played a bigger part than what you’ve let on.”

“I have better things to do than fuck with some second rate booze club,” Changbin growled. “We’ve got clubs all over downtown. They’ve all been successful, and it has nothing to do with sending off the competition.”

Changbin smirked then, something harsh and mocking. “Maybe you’re just a really bad businessman.”

But it was the wrong thing to say, and you withheld a scream of terror when the man suddenly wrapped biting fingers into your hair. “You want to save your cocksleeve?” he growled, gripping even tighter to your aching scalp and wrenching your head back to expose your throat and the small laceration he had left there on the smooth skin. A puddle of red amidst the rest. “Tell me why you did it!”

“I can’t!” Changbin snarled in return. “My guys never stepped foot in your territory.”

“LIES!” the man roared, and you were teetering precariously in your chair, back legs lifted from the safety of the floor.

“If you hurt her,” Changbin said, and his tone was staggered and weak. “I will make sure you suffer a thousand times worse.”

The man laughed, incredulous as he looked around the room. “And what do you plan to do about it?”

Silent tears fell down your glistening cheeks as you felt the man’s warm breath against the side of your face. “Maybe violence isn’t enough for you. Maybe I need to get what I need by other means.”

Your stomach dropped at the guttural tone, trying to meet Changbin’s eyes from across the room. “You’ve been warned,” Changbin said. “The grave you’ve dug for yourself is deep enough.”

“Oh?” the man laughed. “Well, since you think you’re in such control here, let me remind of you of the reality of the situation...”

“Changbin!” you cried when you were abruptly lifted from your chair, knife cutting through the ropes binding you, sending you colliding back against the solid mass of an unfamiliar form, loose hands roaming across your torso. 

“Stop!”

Changbin’s voice was just veering on the edge of desperate, recognizing that you were in no position for him to sound anything less than serious. 

“Stop?” your captor repeated in a mocking tone, and you felt the blade of the knife return to your throat, slicing down harder and finally triggering the hair-raising scream that you had been suppressing. Trying to be brave for Changbin.

“You can’t do this!” Changbin cried, and you were amazed to see the faint rivulet of a tear stain - the mark of weakness that your husband tried so hard to suppress in this violent line of work.

If you thought about it, there were only a handful of times that you had ever seen Changbin cry.

“I’ll do anything,” Changbin whispered. “I’ll even take her place! Just don’t hurt her anymore.”

“Hmmm?” Your captor relinquished his threatening attack, and you could breath a little easier when he turned his attention back to Changbin.“What if I offer you a compromise? Tell me how you’ve managed your business affairs, and I won’t kill your little plaything.”

Changbin inhaled sharply, gaze full of a sinister rage you knew was reserved for his greatest enemies. “You’ll be screaming for a death of your own by the time I’m done with you.”

“You still don’t understand,” the man sighed, and you gasped when chapped lips brushed against your cheek. “Maybe I’ll fuck her first...”

“You won’t have the time.”

“Says who...”

He trailed off then. The last words you ever heard from your captor before an enormous explosion interrupted the tension, walls and floors shaking as dust and debris fell from the ceiling overhead.

You could feel the body behind you trembling as well, but you knew that it wasn’t from the explosion. It was from fear, and in a split second of panic, the man shoved you to the ground, and you yelped when your head collided hard against the concrete. 

You attempted to pull yourself back up, but there was something numbing and weighty keeping you on the floor, darkness swimming threateningly in front of your eyes once again.

There were familiar sounds: the sharp click of a gun, the whizzing of bullets flying overhead, and the cacophony of screams and yells.

The pain was keeping you from focusing, aware of vague figures passing in and out of your periphery, running and moving in all sorts of directions. It was chaos at its finest, and you were incapable of comprehending any of it. Instead, you could only focus on two things: the pounding of your pulse against your eardrums and the intermingled buzzing of familiar tones.

There was a hand on your shoulder, but you were incapable of responding to their call, succumbing to an irrefutable and dreamless sleep.

The first thing you noticed when you were capable of understanding your surroundings, was the silky fabric of the bed sheets.

They were smooth to the touch and you flexed your fingers around them, humming in contentment when you silted open your eyes just enough to confirm that they belonged to you and Changbin. The ones you used on the King-sized bed in your shared room.

But therein lay the problem: you were alone in the bed, and the only voices you could hear certainly didn’t match the same tone of your husband.

You swallowed hard, flinching when the motion brought attention to the thick bandage around your neck, and upon touching the material, you were bombarded with a barrage of images reminding you of everything that had happened the previous night. 

It was enough to leave you shaking, seeking some form of comfort as you roused your body just enough to turn around to the sound of those voices, recognizing Chan, your husband’s boss, and Seungmin, the residential healer.

“Chan?” you groaned, grimacing at the dryness in your mouth.

“Y/N,” he acknowledged you, rushing over to your bedside in an instant. “How are you feeling?”

“Okay,” you said, watching as he lifted a bottle of water to hand to you.

“Drink this.”

You nodded, taking it from him. “Where’s Changbin?”

The question was met with silence, and you frowned when Chan and Seungmin exchanged quick glances. “Well, if nothing hurts, then I have other appointments,” Seungmin said, hurriedly dismissing himself from the room.

“Coward,” Chan muttered, but he was nothing but smiles for you, coming to sit down at your bedside. “Changbin...he’s busy.”

The answer wasn’t satisfactory, and your heart started beating a little faster. “Where?”

“Downstairs,” he said, and you knew exactly what that meant. 

“He brought him here?” you muttered, hating the idea of having someone like that under the same roof you called home. 

“Changbin insisted,” Chan replied, and you realized that he disapproved as well, but it still didn’t help your tender sensibilities, and you were ready to implode from the inside because you needed Changbin’s comfort.

“I need him,” you said, fixing Chan with a stern look. “Can you ask him to come up here?”

“He won’t be convinced until he’s done,” Chan said, but his gaze was soft as he leaned in closer. “I can help, if you’d like.”

It was a nice gesture, and normally you might take him up on an offer of comfort, but Chan wasn’t going to heal the turmoil bubbling inside of you.

The emotions burst forth, and your eyes had already glossed over from tears shedding themselves like dead leaves falling from a tree in the middle of a windstorm. “I just want Changbin,” you sobbed, and Chan was barely perceivable through the mess of your tears. 

You could tell Chan was upset by your dismissal, even as his fingers tried to brush away the wetness dotting your cheeks. “I’m sorry, Y/N,” he said, and it spoke to a history between the two of you that often when unsaid.

You had been given to Chan, your organization’s leader, as a peace offering from a rival mafia group. It was a cruel trade, and you resisted as much as you could, especially since, at first, you were meant to be his betrothed.

And you came into the Miroh Group with a determination to resist them to the very end.

Until Changbin stole your heart.

From there, you couldn’t believe that you had gotten so lucky, falling in love whole-heartedly, capable of forgiving Changbin’s worst sins.

Including his more sadistic tendencies.

“You can try to see him,” Chan said, seemingly satisfied after wiping away most of the evidence of your internal breakdown.

You nodded immediately, even though you understood that what you might find downstairs wouldn’t be anything comforting.

You felt a little unsteady on your feet, even with Chan helping you down the concrete steps descending into a place you tended to avoid.

The smell of alcohol and blood were both overwhelming, and you stumbled on the final step, rearing back at the sound of a truly gruesome gurgle that reminded you too much of drowning. 

In the middle of the room you managed to make out Changbin, wearing dark pants and a white t-shirt, allowing you to see all the blood painting the texture in ugly patterns.

But then your attention wandered over to the poor soul strapped to the chair, barely recognizable because of the damage caused by your husband, the one who was gaping at you while holding a knife in one hand and scissors in the other.

"Y/N,” Changbin whispered. “Why aren’t you resting?”

You shook your head, looking past the gruesome, mangled damage to see the pained expression of your former captor. 

Changbin had made good on his threat to tear the asshole apart, and your stomach rolled at the awful display of violence.

Done at the hands of the man who made the sweetest love to you in the dark recesses of your bedroom.

Still, you craved his presence, falling into his open arms as he held you close after tossing aside his tools. “Shhh,” he whispered to calm your tears.

“You weren’t there when I woke up,” you sniffled.

“I’m sorry, love,” Changbin said, soothing your cries with soft cooing. 

You savored his closeness, tucking your chin over his shoulder and opening your eyes to look upon the decrepit appearance of your former captor. “What are you doing to him?” you asked, and you felt Changbin sigh as he pulled back from you.

“I know you don’t approve, love,” Changbin said, and he glanced down at his ruined t-shirt and jeans, drenched in blood. 

Under most circumstances, you would agree, but you felt your hand jumping to your throat, wrapping around the bandage covering your wound. 

Changbin frowned at the movement, likely remembering the events that led to your injuries. “Kill him,” you said, and both Changbin and Chan seemed taken aback by your response. It was completely out of character, coming from someone who often disapproved of the murderous part of their work. 

“Y/N,” Chan whispered, and you could see that he wore wariness on top of his horrified expression.

“Come upstairs soon,” you said, squeezing Changbin’s hand with your own. “I need you.”

Your husband nodded, looking at you with something akin to awe as you left the downstairs basement with Chan hot on your heels and torturous screams assaulting your ears. 

Chan only left your bedroom once Changbin arrived, showered and clean, wearing sweatpants and a t-shirt. 

“Careful,” Chan whispered to him on the way out, and you shivered.

But there was nothing that could warm you up more than Changbin, and you even managed a smile when he climbed into the bed behind you, wrapping a strong arm around your waist to pull you closer. “Hi, princess,” he whispered, and you felt like bathing in the sensual tone of his voice.

“Changbin,” you sighed in return, turning around so that you could face him.

“It doesn’t hurt too much, does it love?” he asked, reaching out to tenderly stroke his fingers across your bandages. 

“Not anymore,” you said. “Seungmin did a good job.”

“He better,” Changbin rumbled, and you tried not to roll your eyes at your husband. 

“I was really upset earlier,” you said. “When I couldn’t find you.”

“That’s my fault, princess,” Changbin said. “I didn’t know you would wake-up so soon....and there were things I needed to take care of.”

You sighed, closing your eyes hard against a distant image of your mind conjuring the bloodied and ruined form of your captor. “Did you find out who he belonged to?”

“Yeah, a small organization under Park,” Changbin said. “He was more than willing to talk after I took one of his fingers.”

Your heart twisted at his nonchalant tone. “I guess you silenced him.”

Changbin hesitated, pausing to look at you with concern. “Are you mad at me?”

“Just...disappointed,” you said. “I couldn’t hold myself together.”

“It would’ve torn me apart,” Changbin replied. “If I let him go without making him suffer for touching my princess.”

You closed your eyes, feeling Changbin trail his fingers across your arm. “But you’re here now?”

“Of course,” Changbin agreed, leaning in to kiss you gently. “I’m yours, love. For as long as you need me to hold you.”

“Might be all night,” you said, moving up to kiss under his jaw. “I need you in a lot of ways.”

Changbin chuckled at your implications, leaving nothing to be imagined as you grazed one finger over the front of his sweatpants where his cock lay flaccid. He titled your chin at a better angle, a glaze of lust darkening his eyes. “When you feel better,” he purred. “I’ll take care of your little pussy.”

You shook at his seductive promise, curling even closer to him as Changbin’s thudding heart lulled you into a comfortable peace.

[y0itsbri]

shameless summer series - lifeguard au 🥽🩲🌊

debbie has her eye on the new lifeguard at the public pool. unlucky for her, said lifeguard already has his eye set on a different red-headed gallagher.

(think like s2 era)

also happy a.u.gust! @gallavichthings

words: 1.7k

"Debs, why do I gotta take you to the pool again this week? I thought you already fixed whatever was the problem with that blonde bitch," Ian whined, shoveling cereal into his mouth. Two tubes of sunscreen sat on the table in front of him.

"It's not about her anymore." Debbie retorted, like it was the simplest thing.

"Okay. Then what is it about?"

"Nothing!"

"Ask her boyfriend." Carl yelled over his video game in the living room, taking any opportunity to embarrass his sister.

Ian and Debbie's voices overlapped with a "Boyfriend?!" and "He's not my boyfriend-- Carl I'm going to fucking kill you!"

Debbie tossed a fork at Carl's head.

"Oh, now I'm definitely in," Ian laughed and winced before Debbie could throw a fork his direction.

--

The walk to the pool was relatively quiet aside from the rhythmic smacking of their sandals against the gravely pavement.

Debbie leapt a few strides, trying to outrun her shadow and failing each time. Ian chuckled, pulling the towel around his neck and swinging his keychain with the other hand.

Now that it was just the two of them, he tried again.

"Soooo," he drawled. "What's with this secret boyfriend?"

Debbie sighed. "He's not my boyfriend. Well, not yet."

"Hmm?"

"He's one of the new lifeguards since Justin got attacked by that dog last week."

Justin still owed Lip a beating for something or other so Ian was glad he didn't have to deal with Justin today, at least.

"You think this new lifeguard is a little too old for you?" Ian wondered.

Debbie shrugged. "Not like it matters much."

Ian couldn't argue with that logic. "I'll kick his ass if he bothers you, yeah?"

"Please. He doesn't even look at me. Even when I was fake-drowning." She skipped down the sidewalk, nearing the pool entrance.

Ian shook his head. His sister was something else.

--

After they set their towels down, Ian's eyes scoured the lifeguard chairs immediately. Too-tan-Toni, shrimp-speedo-Sam, and holy-fucking-shit. Was that Mickey Milkovich?

Ian hadn't let himself think about Mickey since he left town. But it was hard not to now that he was right in front of him again. Shit.

Mickey spread out across his chair, sunglasses low on his nose, watching the newcomers and he smirked before glancing back towards the pool. He blew his whistle and yelled at some kid to 'slow the fuck down unless you wanna bust your ass -- and I ain't fixing you up!'

Ian was brought back to the moment by Debbie's hands waving in front of his face. "Helloooo, earth to Ian! Sunscreen?"

Ian could've sworn he heard a chuckle coming from the direction of the lifeguard chair as he dug the sunscreen out of his shorts pockets. No. He was just being paranoid. His cheeks blushed regardless.

"Is that...?" Ian nodded his head towards the raven-haired man.

"Shhh!" Debbie slapped him on the arm. "Don't make it obvious!"

Ian rolled his eyes at her ridiculousness.

He covered Debbie's back and shoulders in the high resistance sunscreen before she took off towards the side of the pool with the diving board, eager to show off her skills.

He yelled after her. "Wait, fuck, Debs you forgot..." He glanced around.

His eyes definitely locked with Mickey's now.

Fuck.

Mickey hopped off his chair, waving his hand to dismiss his crowd of moon-eyed preteen girls and middle-aged women in scandalous bikinis. Ian would have shuddered at the thought if Mickey wasn't making a bee-line directly towards him.

Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck. Fuuuuuck.

"'Sup, man? Been awhile..." He smirked. "Raggedy Ann run out on ya?" Mickey bowed his leg out on his final step towards Ian, a little closer than he expected.

"Uhhh...." Real smooth, Ian. His words were bound to fail him again with the man in such close proximity to him, so he simply held up his bottle of sunscreen and shrugged.

"Toss it here," Mickey coolly demanded.

Ian was thoroughly confused, but threw it anyways. "What?"

"You heard me, Red. Turn around, I'll get your back."

"Protecting and serving the local ginger kids at the pool?" Ian joked weakly, finding his voice again.

Mickey huffed a breath. "Fuck the pigs. The only thing I'm protecting is your ass from a sunburn."

Ian was still confused as to why Mickey was offering to rub his back at a very public pool when he would have literally beaten his ass for looking his direction before.

All of Ian's thoughts subsided as he felt sturdy hands push the warming liquid around his shoulder blades, up his neck, then down his spine. Mickey's thumb digging deep into his muscles. He suppressed his urge to shiver despite the rising temperatures of the hot Chicago summer.

At least he thought he had suppressed it. A huff of air on the back of his neck said otherwise.

Mickey started pulling his hands away and Ian leaned back into them again. Mickey whacked the side of his head before tossing the bottle of sunscreen onto the chair in front of them.

"No free massages, man. Just sunscreen." Mickey licked the corner of his mouth and looked from the ground up to Ian's eyes.

He had to know how devious he looked. Ian didn't want to be presumptuous, but he just held eye contact.

"Unless," Mickey veered, slowly backing away, "the favor was returned in one way or another." He winked.

Ian stood, mouth agape as Mickey turned and waved again to the group of girls who still hadn't taken their eyes off of him. He hopped up onto his chair, whistle in mouth in no time like nothing had ever happened.

What the fuck was going on?

--

Ian spent the next few hours very much Not Looking At Mickey despite feeling a heated stare on him.

Even when he was having a breath-holding competition with Debbie, his brain couldn't stop the endless stream of Mickey Mickey Mickey.

After Debbie's third win, Ian felt like he was on the verge of passing out, so he returned to his towel, chugging his water bottle.

In a moment of weakness, he glanced at Mickey, only to find him already staring. Mickey tilted his head towards the main building and quietly dismissed himself to go on his break.

Ian knew.

He wasn't that stupid. He knew Mickey wanted him to follow. And he knew that it wouldn't be a good idea. All the while, his feet took him closer.

The building felt even hotter than the outside, the AC must've gone out and no one bothering to replace it.

This was a bad idea.

Ian was just about to turn around and leave when he heard the click of a lock.

"'Bout fuckin' time," Mickey stalked forward, eyes raking up and down Ian's body appreciatively.

Ian was putty.

He groaned as he let himself be pulled forward by the hips. "Didn't know you were a lifeguard?"

He sighed as Mickey toyed with the band of his shorts in between his tattooed fingers. His nails scraping dully against his sides.

"Dad got shanked. Family business went under. Had to go legal." Mickey's hands moved upwards as he raked his fingers through the sides of Ian's still-wet hair, gripping onto the back of his neck. Ian slid his own hands up Mickey's back, pushing his red tank top up with it, exposing his pale skin.

"Missed this." It was a whisper.

Ian attached his lips to the side of Mickey's neck briefly, tasting remnants of salt, chlorine, and sunscreen, before Mickey sunk down to his knees. Ian's hands were now gripping dark hair, and he was sure that the rocky pavement of the unfinished building had to be digging into Mickey's skin, but he made no sounds of discomfort.

Sure, he missed this, but he missed him more, not that he could say that.

--

On the walk home, the sun was hanging low in the sky and both Gallaghers' cheeks were sunburnt pink.

"Did ya have fun?" Ian asked, knocking his empty water bottle against the top of Debbie's head.

She scrunched her face up, but replied with some pep in her voice. "Yeah! Today the hot life guard actually looked at me! Maybe bringing you around was good luck."

No way in hell Ian was going to out Mickey to his little sister, let alone out himself. He put on a big-brother reassuring smile and changed the subject.

"Good luck for you maybe. I lost literally all of our competitions today!"

She giggled, "That was all skill, not luck. Frank's been helping me practice!"

Frank? Maybe Ian needed to spend a little more time at home. On the other hand, maybe it was a good thing Ian hadn't been spending a lot of time at home.

--

Ian left after dinner unannounced, taking his well-worn trail to the baseball dugouts.

When he approached the field, he noticed a small orange flame illuminating the man's face and a cloud of smoke fog through the chained fence. He smirked.

"Couldn't get enough the first round?" Ian taunted, announcing his presence as he leapt over the fence, an old habit.

"Fuck you, man," Mickey scoffed and blew his smoky breath in Ian's grimacing face.

"Oh I think you plan on it." He stepped closer.

"Is that so?"

"Mmhmm," Ian plucked the cigarette out of Mickey's fingers. "Can't have you with bad lungs, then what will all the poor defenseless swimmers do without a capable lifeguard?"

"Let 'em drown," Mickey smacked Ian's cigarette out of his hands and closed the distance between them.

"It would crush your groupies to know you care so little," Ian murmured against his neck.

"This is a bad idea," Mickey breathed, tugging at Ian's crumpled shirt.

"The worst," Ian yanked his shirt fully off.

Mickey pulled back, eyeing Ian's now-bare back.

"Mmm, no sunburn. That would've ruined my plans." Mickey smiled smugly.

Oh shit.

Ian swallowed. He was already way too far off the deep end. Luckily for them both, Mickey knew how to swim.

[ashintheairlikesnow]

Misread Details: Robert

CW: Dehumanizing language, BBU blanket warning, serial killer/death talk, descriptions of death/abduction/murder, blood, whumper death, some real vague implied noncon references, creepy whumper, sadistic whumper

Part One: Nanda | Part Two: Brute | Part Three: Robert

The Dark Discovery in Robert Weber’s Basement: Box Boy Killer, Part 3

r/LetsTalkTrueCrime

•Posted by u/oshaycanyousee

3 days ago

After Part One, where we learned about the mysterious, but possibly entirely natural, death of Nathaniel “Nanda” Benson, and Part Two, where we saw Henry “Brute” Hanlon’s double life lead to his untimely gruesome murder, you see the single thread that connects these two men who otherwise never met, interacted, or even shared a single person in common… a nameless Box Boy, present at the death of Nanda even if he isn’t responsible for it, and the proven killer of Brute.

It’s my theory that this Box Boy may have accidentally killed his legal owner, Nanda, and then picked up a taste for the act and moved on to taking shelter with those he turns into his victims.

With Brute, he simply didn’t know the man had a wife and children and entire other life, and may have assumed no one would come looking for him or recognize his death. With our third individual, Robert Weber, it seems like our Box Boy Serial Killer got in over his head.

I give you… the Accidental Vigilante death of Robert Weber.

You decide if our unknown killer is simply the unluckiest guy in the world or a killer who even now may be somewhere living with - and earning the trust of - his next victim.

-

One bright and sunny day in the quaint, old-fashioned California town of Rancher’s Rest, Robert Weber was late for work.

Weber worked in a vehicle repair business owned by lifelong “RR” resident Randy Niles, who had known Weber since his childhood and had been his boss since Weber was eighteen years old and fresh out of high school.

Niles, who is now nearly seventy-five and still spends his days in the shop with an Australian Shepherd named Cody and a blind pit bull named Sue keeping him company everywhere he goes, stated that Weber had no living family he knew of beyond his sister in Vermont, and he was just about the closest thing Weber had to a relative just from having known him so long.

“He didn’t have too much to do with his sister,” Randy said in an interview with Unsolved Mysteries. (You can see the interview on the new Netflix reboot of the show! It’s a really good episode, definitely recommend. It’s how I got into this case in the first place.) “Or nobody, really. Just us at work, the guys at the bar, that kinda thing. He was quiet, kept to himself really. You’d never just strike up a chat around town or anything. But he got on just fine with the boys here in the shop. He was a bit of an egghead, too, always going on about this thing or that he’d seen on the news. Little… odd. Little bit off, you might say. But really, who isn’t? In any case, you know, I’d known him since he was a little boy, so he was just Bobby Weber to me.”

Then, of course, one day Robert Weber didn’t show up to work. Randy Niles immediately felt that something was very wrong.

“When nine, nine-thirty came and went and he wasn’t there,” Niles said, “I knew someone needed to go check on him. Bobby showed up for work right on time or ten minutes early, rain or shine, for twenty years. My first thought was maybe he’d had an accident at home, or some kind of, you know, health thing. Almost never called in sick, took one vacation a year, that kinda thing. So I drove right on over there. This would’ve been, oh, probably ten or ten-fifteen when I got to the house. Had my dogs with me, and they never did like Bobby much, but as soon as I opened my door and got out of my truck they just lost their damn minds. Barking, growling, Cody’s hackles were up like you wouldn’t believe. I know it sounds damn crazy, but I’m sure those dogs could smell that evil had been done in that house.”

On camera, Niles goes quiet, here, his gaze slipping away from the interviewer as he scratches at the side of his nose. When he looks back, the hint of good humor that seems to be an eternal part of his expression is gone.

“I didn’t know what Bobby had been up to all this time. None of us knew. I’ve known Bobby Weber his whole life, and I… I had no idea.”

Randy Niles was unable to convince his two dogs to exit the truck, and eventually rolled down the windows to give them some air and a way out if they chose (he is insistent on this point in the Unsolved Mysteries episode - “don’t you dare say I left my dogs locked up in a truck on a sunny day, I sure didn’t - Cody even knows how to pull a door handle if it’s the right kind”) and got out to knock on Robert Weber’s front door.

No one answered.

Niles knocked again. Still no response.

The front door was locked, but Niles was able to locate an unlocked back door into the garage, where he found Weber’s car neatly parked and nothing out of place. However, once he used an interior door in the garage to enter Weber’s home, what he found was so shocking he still struggles to describe it today.

“The, uh. The first thing I saw,” Niles says in the Unsolved Mysteries episode, wiping at his mouth with a handkerchief, “was a cage. Big old cage in the living room. Like a kennel for a big dog, Great Dane or something, except… except, you know, kennels’re usually mostly wire, not that heavy. You can fold ‘em up, put ‘em away. This was… geez. This was pure metal. Bunch of blankets all piled at the bottom, too. Here’s the-... you know, my mind just didn’t want to even make the thought, but I just, I looked at it and-”

In the episode, Niles has to take another moment, here. His eyes grow wet, and his voice is hoarse when he speaks again. “People cage. Bobby had a damn man-sized cage in his living room. That’s when my stomach just fell out. Even then, though, I couldn’t-... I just thought, oh, well, what people get up to in their own homes is their business. But still, I just. I just decided, find Bobby, figure the rest out later. So I kept walking around looking for him.”

Randy Niles continued to call out, hoping to hear Weber’s response, but received none… at first. The radio in the kitchen was playing a local public radio station (“Bobby always hated the country western and classic rock we played at work, he was a big news man, big into classical, jazz, you know.”)

Niles noticed, he says, that the cage next to the couch had a wooden top, as though it were meant to act as a side table, and on that table was a small woven basket. Inside the basket appeared to be several State IDs and Driver’s licenses. Niles took note of this but his first assumption was maybe that Robert Weber had stolen some IDs or something.

Which was technically true, just… not quite the way he thought.

The kitchen, hallway, and all three bedrooms were equally empty of life. Every room was clean, everything neatly in place. Empty bottles of Jameson whiskey, Weber’s favorite brand, were lined up like décor along the mantel, and one half-full bottle was next to two clean, empty glasses on the kitchen table.

Even the beds were perfectly made.

The only thing missing was any sign of Robert Weber himself.

The question of Weber’s whereabouts was answered when Randy Niles heard a sound coming from the open door to Weber’s unfinished dirt basement.

“Like a ghost,” Niles said in his interview. “Just this low moaning sound. Hardly even thought of it as human, you know. But I just-... I called out, ‘Bobby? That you?’ and the moaning got a little louder, like whoever it was was tryin’ to answer. I could still hear my girls in the truck just going nuts, probably worried about me knowing what they maybe could smell even out there. I figured… I figured I’d best call the cops and get them out here. Seemed like a plan. So I picked up my phone and dialed, and then I headed down those basement steps.”

What Randy Niles discovered in Robert Weber’s basement was a dying man, battered and stabbed eight times, lying in a half-dug grave.

Robert Weber had been beaten with the very shovel that had done the digging. The shovel lay off to the side, caked in dirt and blood. Police would find some of Robert Weber’s hair on it, too. Then, the individual who had beaten him had gone back upstairs - blood smears were found on the railing to the stairs - and taken a kitchen knife out of the knife block on the countertop. A bloody fingerprint was found on the side of the knife block. They had then returned to the basement where Weber was stabbed, almost entirely through the stomach and chest, twenty-six times, until the cheap knife simply broke from the force.

Randy Niles admitted in his interview that he became very ill at this time. “From the shock,” He elaborated. “I haven’t been able to smell much since I was in a car wreck when I was young, so I didn’t smell what-... what my girls prob’ly smelled from outside, and what the cops smelled. To me, it was just… just a little off, is all. It was the sight of it that got to me, not the smell. The sight of the-... the hand.”

Behind Robert Weber’s body, the hand of another person was sticking up out of the loose dirt, as though someone was trying to dig their way out.

“I remember… I remember her nail polish was pink. That’s when I got sick, actually, was when I saw that hand with the painted nails. That’s when it just hit me all at once what Bobby had done.”

Randy Niles went back up the stairs and waited for the cops to arrive. Rancher’s Rest is a small town where everybody knows just about everybody else, and Niles was on a first-name basis with every single police officer he spoke to that day and in the days after. He would learn alongside the investigation that Robert Weber was not simply the quiet, intellectual car mechanic he had always seemed.

Instead, Robert Weber was a serial killer whose potential final victim had managed a miraculous, deadly escape.

Robert Weber never answered a single question about his own murder - he never fully regained consciousness and died in the ambulance on the way to the hospital. His injuries were simply too severe. His autopsy showed that the cause of death was a stab wound that went deep into his chest and that he was first stabbed only after the beating with the shovel had taken place. Like Brute, most of his stab wounds were applied post-mortem in a rage rather than as part of the killing itself.

Medical examiners also found scratches on Weber’s face and arms, indicating that he had attempted to defend himself - or someone else had attempted to defend themself from him.

So why was Robert Weber killed, and why was there already a body in his basement? Investigators would piece together the story over the following days and weeks from a crime scene that only seemed to become darker and more baffling as time went on.

Excavating the basement was originally thought to be something that would be brief, but after the first body was removed, another one was found beneath it. Then another off to the side of that. And another, although this was simply bones.

Every time the forensics team thought they’d found the last human bone, they dug a little deeper or in a new spot and found more.

Eventually, the remains of twenty-two individuals would be removed from the basement of Robert Weber’s home, not including Weber himself. The oldest located victim was identified as Melinda Traxson, an Iowa woman reported missing by her family after she ran away in March of 1996… more than two decades before Robert Weber didn’t come to work one day.

Investigators are still working to match up every body with a missing persons�� case. For nearly all of them, the cause of death could not be easily ascertained due to the deterioration of the remains, but some showed signs of skull fractures. Identified individuals so far include:

Melinda Traxson, 19, from Iowa, ran away from home in 1996.

Billie Mortimer, 21, disappeared from a day out with friends at Lake Tahoe one year later in the summer of 1997. Her friends went to get lunch from the car after a swim and when they returned, she was gone.

Matthew Ranger, 22, went missing during a road trip to Yellowstone National Park in 1997 (only five months after Billie). His car was found abandoned by the side of the road with a flat tire.

Karl Janssen, 24, a tourist from the Netherlands who was also visiting Yellowstone, disappeared a month after Matthew. Last seen by an employee of the park who witnessed him speaking with another young man and getting into the man’s car. The employee said that the two seemed to be friendly with one another and did not seem like strangers.

Hannah Pointer, 26. She was reported missing in 1999 by her mother after failing to return home from work in Reno, Nevada. This disappearance occurred more than a year after Karl Janssen’s. Investigators would later discover that during this time period, Robert Weber dated a young woman from his hometown and he may not have wanted to risk her finding out what he was doing.

Isaac Jackson, 26, a Rancher’s Rest resident who disappeared after going out to a local bar to see his friend’s band play in 2000. His car was found submerged in a small pond two years later. This is the first time Weber apparently killed anyone close to home. He was actually briefly suspected in Jackson’s death, as he was the last person noted to see Jackson alive, but was cleared of suspicion at the time.

Dustin Swill, 21, who was driving from Colorado to California to visit his sister who had moved to Berras to work for WRU in 2001. He was last seen in a gas station near Yellowstone, where employees noted he spoke to a man who was smoking outside, who gave him a cigarette. When Swill left, employees saw the man put out his cigarette and leave shortly after. They did not find this unusual or noteworthy at the time.

Maria Vargas, 25, a Rancher’s Rest resident who was reported missing in 2002. Her family is intensely private and have shared few details about her, but it is known that her boyfriend at the time suspected Weber, who had attempted to convince her to leave the boyfriend for him and had apparently threatened her. He remained a suspect but there was never enough evidence to charge him.

Jennifer Striker, 28, from who never arrived for an appointment with a realtor in 2011. The long pause between Maria Vargas’s murder and Jennifer’s appeared to be due to Weber keeping a man named Finn Schneider within his home for more than a year after abducting him, as well as Weber serving five years in prison for a violent assault on a man he believed had sold him a defective vehicle. (Schneider was no longer in the home before the assault and prison time.)

Riley Nievelt, 25, was staying at the Big Meadow Campground with six friends during a weeklong vacation in 2012. She vanished while on a trip to purchase supplies. Her cell phone was found on the ground in the parking lot of the Food Lion in Rancher’s Rest, a short and easy drive away. At this time, with multiple individuals vanishing after being seen in Rancher’s Rest or being residents of the town, police begin to suspect and start hunting for a possible serial killer.

Alexander Peterson, 29, was a long-haul driver who vanished while working. He was last seen at a rest stop in 2014 on the California/Nevada state line, and would likely have passed right through Rancher’s Rest on his journey. He was reported missing by his ex-wife in South Dakota when he did not return as scheduled for a custodial visit.

The most recent victim, and owner of the hand that Randy Niles saw sticking up out of the dirt, was Yolanda Pierce, 26. She was a Rancher’s Rest resident with a troubled relationship with her husband, who had stormed out after an argument and was never seen again. She is believed to have died the same day as Robert Weber.

More remains exist but have not yet been identified. If you or anyone you know has a friend or family member who went missing during this time period in or near Rancher’s Rest, Yellowstone National Park, or Death Valley, it may be worth looking into, as those appear to be Robert Weber’s “hunting grounds”.

Disappearances in Yellowstone and Death Valley almost always matched up with Robert taking one of his rare weeklong vacations from work.

When investigators located three large diaries hidden inside a locked box in Weber’s closet, the first two fully filled up and the third nearly two-thirds finished, they found an exhaustively detailed record of Robert Weber’s crimes.

In these records, they discovered Weber’s first three victims were killed within 24 hours of abduction, with the rest being kept alive for longer and longer time periods. It is believed all of them met their end in Robert Weber’s basement.

Diary entries included records of two victims who were not a part of the bodies buried in Weber’s basement, both of whom may still be alive:

Finn Schneider, 19, a German tourist who disappeared in 2003 during a visit to Death Valley. Until Weber’s journals were found, it was believed he had perished in the park and had simply never been found. Robert Weber also visited Death Valley during this time. No one linked the two together. Evidence found in Weber’s home after his death, including the aforementioned diary entries and photographs, shows that Schneider was alive in Weber’s home for nearly sixteen months. It is believed Weber purchased the “human cage” that Randy Niles noticed around this time. The last diary entry that mentions Schneider states that he was “traded” on June 16th, 2005, to an individual only referred to as “Mouse.” What Weber received in exchange is unclear, but he was seen driving a new, custom-painted truck around this time, which he said he bought “from a personal ad” when asked by Niles about it. Schneider has never been found. However, his mother did receive a phone call in 2013 from an individual she believes to be her son, telling her that “Finn” was okay and to stop looking for him.

Our Box Boy, 334235, purchased by Nathaniel Benson years prior, whose whereabouts had been unknown since he murdered Brute Hanlon. Weber believed the Box Boy to be in his early twenties, according to his diary entries, and mentioned that he had picked the Boxie up hitchhiking and had intended to kill him before seeing the barcode on the inside of his left wrist and changing his mind. His diary suggests the Box Boy remained in his possession for roughly a fourteen months prior to Weber’s murder. Police have not released the details of what the Boxie was subjected to during this time, stating only that it is not the public’s interest for this information to be known, and they would like to locate the missing Boxie and interview him about certain details.

Four murders occurred during the time the Boxie was kept by Robert Weber. Weber noted that “the dog helped” with either murder or burial, suggesting that he may have worked as Weber’s accomplice in his terrible crimes.

Is it possible that they bonded over a shared urge to kill? Did the Boxie start a captive and become a companion?

Weber’s diary contained other disturbing facts, as well:

Weber also noted three failed abduction attempts in detail, in 1998, 2004, and 2017. In each he described with incredible precision of memory the appearances and descriptions of each person he failed to capture. He also appeared to do intensive research using their license plates and other information to find out where they lived and who they were. The names of these individuals have been kept quiet for privacy reasons.

Other failed abductions were noted, about one per year, without much detail. Or at least not enough for police officers to know who they were. Nearly all these failures were in one of three locations: Yellowstone National Park, Stanislaus National Forest and nearby campgrounds, and in or near Death Valley.

The last entry in Robert Weber’s diary was penned the day of his death.

NOTE: Weber referred to the Boxie as “the dog” in nearly all his journal entries. His last entry went:

May 6th, 20XX: The dog is pissed about something again. He’s always pissed about something. I think the thing in the basement probably kept him up all night with her caterwauling. He never gets used to the noises they make. God knows I can’t sleep either, at least not well. I’ll handle her tonight, have a drink with the dog after, see if that shuts up his nonsense for a while. Note: missed NPR interview with Senator Carlotta Grant on new leg. about the bb prohibition act. Find that on website later.

Found in Weber’s home, in boxes under his bed, were a series of restraints made of leather, high-quality items that appear to be custom-ordered to specific measurements. These included “gloves” intended to keep someone from being able to claw or scratch in their own defense, five sets of cuffs, a body harness, a leather half-face-mask that police referred to as a “muzzle”, several gags, some of which were deemed to be “designed to cause injury to the inside of the mouth”, and “other assorted items for use in torture and torment”.

You can find some leaked police docs online that go into more detail, but suffice to say they pretty much match the kinds of “toys” found in Nathaniel Benson and Brute Hanlon’s homes, too. And apparently, if you really know where to look, you can find some blurry low-quality photos Weber took, too.

While the items are a bit salacious, they aren’t entirely uncommon in consensual relationships, too, so it’s really not clear if they’re evidence of the Boxie being held against his will or not.

The investigation of the crime scene suggests that at some point after writing his final diary entry, Robert Weber made himself a pizza, which he ate half of and put the rest away in the fridge. His shaving cream and razor were found out on his sink, and Weber’s body was clean-shaven, suggesting he shaved shortly before his death.

He then watched three episodes of Law & Order: SVU. We know this because he texted during this time with his only living relative, the sister in Vermont. Little is known about Weber’s family and childhood, beyond his sister’s recounting of a quiet, strained home life with an overbearing mother and her mention that Robert endured several head injuries as a child and adolescent, including one that hospitalized him for days.

After he finished watching TV, Weber entered the basement and murdered Yolanda Pierce. It is believed he took the Box Boy downstairs with him, either as accomplice or witness. At some point while he was disposing of Yolanda Pierce’s remains, the Boxie became enraged for one reason or another, beat him with a shovel, got the kitchen knife from upstairs and stabbed him to death, and then left the house.

A neighbor remembers hearing odd noises around 3:30 AM and looking out their window to see a shadowy figure walking quickly down the road, but they weren’t able to see well enough to say whether or not the individual matches the description and WRU-provided photos of the Boxie. It does seem reasonable, though, to assume that the neighbor witnessed the Boxie fleeing the scene of the crime.

The Box Boy has never been seen again.

Police are pretty mum about the active investigation into the Box Boy’s whereabouts. I was able to get ahold of one source closely related to a member of the investigative team who said that there’s just not a lot of urgency. “Weber killed nearly two dozen people, just that we know of,” The source said. “The cops are a little bit ‘good riddance to bad rubbish’ about the situation. Unless the Boxie comes back to RR, they’re just inclined to let sleeping dogs lie.”

The sense of “let it be someone else’s problem” would be understandable… if this Box Boy weren’t responsible for one other direct murder, possibly two.

Police believe the Boxie has not left California, and is likely to be continuing to survive by engaging in prostitution or perhaps panhandling or some other hidden way of making money. Unconfirmed sightings have been located in three cities in central California, but all of these are unverified and should be taken with a grain of salt.

It’s also possible he hooked up with a pet liberation movement group, in which case he may be hiding out in a safehouse, protected from the consequences of his actions by the pet lib movement’s understandable insistence on total secrecy and anonymity for the Boxies they take in.

If he’s an innocent victim of circumstance, that’s fair.

If he’s a burgeoning serial killer with three victims under his belt and a taste for inflicting terrible violence on those who take him in… well… anyone who gives him shelter may be next.

Is our Boxie a purposeful killer or just supremely, almost incomprehensibly unlucky? Will he kill again? Was he Robert Weber’s accomplice or his victim?

Will he strike again?

Should there be an audit of WRU’s psychological testing on potential sign-ups to see if, perhaps, a Box Boy-wannabe with an urge to kill slipped through the cracks?

What do you think?

-

@astrobly @finder-of-rings @burtlederp @whump-tr0pes @raigash @eatyourdamnpears @orchidscript @doveotions @pretty-face-breaker @boxboysandotherwhump @outofangband @whumptywhumpdump @whumpfigure @thehopelessopus @downriver914 @justabitofwhump @butwhatifyouwrite @newandfiguringitout @yet-another-heathen @nonsensical-whump @oops-its-whump @endless-whump @cubeswhump @gonna-feel-that-tomorrow @whumpiary

[lifewithdavefarts]

DaveFarts - Episode 10 “The Elevator” [Episode List] After visiting a friend’s house, Tim and the gassy-as-usual Dave take a really slow elevator together.

The Elevator

I took a quick sip of beer as our friend Adam left the living room to get another can in his fridge. What was left was a weirdly awkward silence and Dave, with his own beer, glaring at me.

“Dude,” he whispered. “It’s been a hour. I thought you were gonna tell him.”

I chose Adam as the first non-Dave bud to come out to, but it ended up being surprisingly hard to do. It’s not like Dave was forcing me or anything, or that Adam was a bad person; on the contrary, Dave was simply there with me as my emotional support in case things go south (but we both know they won’t) and Adam was, well, just Adam. Dave’s rightful reaction to me not coming out as planned didn’t bother me and as I said he wasn’t there to intimidate a confession out of me.

“Look, I don’t feel ready, okay?”

“You’ve been talking about the weather for 20 minutes.” he hissed. “What’s next? Geology?”

I chuckled. “Actually, this reminds me that they found this weird rock in South Amer-“

“I can’t believe this.”

“What’s not to believe? You take a big shovel and-“

“And I’m gonna dig my own grave if you start talking about rocks.”

I chuckled again. I know he wasn’t really mad.

Annoyed? Maybe. But mad? Nah, that’s a stretch.

He had all the rights to be annoyed though, but in the end it was my decision to make and he knew this.

We kept whispering as we heard Adam rummaging the fridge like some kind of raccoon longing for a cold drink.

“Look.” I said. “it’s late now anyway. Let’s just leave. Sorry I wasted your time.”

“Fine.” he replied. “Let’s finish our beers first at least.”

“That goes without saying.” and I took a long sip.

Truth is that I hadn’t any real reason to hide my homosexuality from Adam or any other of my buds actually. First, we’re in our 20s, we’re all mature and open-minded here. And in the end, excluding the whole fart-thing going on with Dave, they were all like him, chill guys. Adam, despite always sounding like someone who wants to have none of your shit, or anyone’s shit really, more than once proved that it’s just a facade and not-so-deep down he’s always ready to listen and back you up whenever you needed it. He did just listen to me talking about the weather for 20 minutes, so either he’s fascinated by the subject or knows I’m trying to tell him something else and is just patiently waiting.

The thought of wasting both of my buds’ time in a way or another kind of bothered me to be honest, so I was more than okay with wrapping things up and just leave, which me and Dave did mere minutes later.

“See you bro.” my bud said to Adam, standing by the door, as we went outside in the hallway, not far from the stairs and the elevator “Tim wants to talk about rocks so I’m taking him out of here before he kills you with boredom.”

“The one they dug up in Colombia?” Adam asked, much to our surprise.

“Yeah.” I answered. “They know it’s andesite but it has some interesting carvings on the surface and-“

A startled “What the fuck.” from Dave echoed in the hallway and the entire apartment building.

“What the fuck indeed.” Adam uttered, rather excitedly, completely missing the point. “This could change the archeo-history of the entire region.”

“I heard enough.” Dave said as he walked towards the elevator.

Both me and the other rock-enthusiast laughed at his reaction.

“By the way, I’m going to join you for a bit as I gotta walk the dog.” Adam remembered, reaching for a leash behind him.

“We’ll see you outside then.” Dave replied and then turned to me. “Tim, elevator, now.” he ordered.

“You sure, guys? You remember that thing is slow as shit, right?”

“We’ll be fine.” my bud said, patting my back. “I guess I’ll make Tim last longer then.” he joked.

“That only happens when you call me ‘daddy’” I joked back, as we walked towards the elevator, leaving our common friend behind.

“Rrrright.” Adam said. “I’ll get the dog while you two solve your sexual tension. See you outside.”

I pressed the button to summon the lift, Dave’s arm still around my shoulder as if he had something to show me. Truth to be told, I somehow knew where this was going.

As the panels of the door opened, we stepped into the elevator cab. I pressed the “G” on the control panel. I heard a mechanical noise and the elevator started its long, slow descent (we were at the 10th floor), after the doors closed behind us of course.

It was a cold evening and the cab wasn’t any warmer. I turned to Dave, who was wearing a dark blue hoodie and a pair of grey jeans. He looked at me with a smirk, hands in his jeans pockets; he raised his eyebrows and, without warning, a loud thunder echoed in that enclosed moving space.

The roaring fart had a slow start, with some interruptions, actually a sign for how big it was, but Dave, being an expert, quickly tamed the gassy beast and properly “tuned” the sound of the blast after a couple of seconds, keeping a consistent pitch, while also making it sound loud and deep. It felt like he was ripping one of those huge “when the girl finally leaves” farts, only, well, Dave-sized, which is always a sight to behold… hear? In this case there was no girl so he probably simply held all of his farts in to not ruin “the moment”, in case I wanted to come out back at Adam’s place (with beer acting as a bonus fuel).

A silly smile was drawn on my bro’s face as the fart kept going strong and proud, sometimes reaching some incredibly loud moments. He chuckled a bit and even winked at me when the blast made some particularly “meaty” noises, if that makes any sense. The fart was impressive on his own but Dave “interacting” with me while still masterfully passing gas was incredible as well (and, of course, hot).

The number 6 on the control panel lightened up and only in that moment I realized two things: the first being that the elevator was indeed slow as fuck; the second is that around 40 seconds passed and neither Dave nor his fart “flinched”. I was widely aroused by that and I felt the air around us getting more and more “polluted”, but not in an unbearable way actually. The blast kept echoing inside the elevator and I’m pretty sure that it could have been easily heard, albeit a bit muffled, by anyone taking the stairs.

Dave farted in my face many times, but no fart reached the length and power of this one, which is saying a lot. My bud’s butt-burps normally last around 6-12 seconds and don’t get me wrong they’re amazing, but man, maybe this one rip would have been too much to endure even for me: it simply wouldn’t stop. It’s like there was a loud engine in the elevator which couldn’t be turned off as I couldn’t hear anything else.

I was instead the opposite of turned off and teasing bastard Dave Maning knew this and, as usual, had no issue with it. At this point it was a race between Dave’s longest fart and the world’s slowest elevator.

We were now at the 3rd floor and my bud probably wanted to do a “big finale”; he was visibly pushing the blast out now, as if he wanted it to last as long as possible, a smirk still drawn on his face. He closed his eyes and the sound made it look like another fart was ripped over the sound of the previous fart, as if two audio channels in his ass somehow overlapped. The sound was of course louder than ever; the smell now, and only now, getting a bit hard to get used to. But to be honest, Dave’s skills as a sound designer alone were impressive enough.

A big part of me, mainly the one between my legs, wanted to get on my knees and plant my face in his denim ass before the fart faded out, but I knew that would have been too much even for such a chill guy like him. I’m sure he wouldn’t hate me or anything at this point but we both know there are some untold boundaries and honestly it’s better this way. I know how lucky I am to have someone like him around (farts or not).

My farting bro probably read my mind as he slowly turned around and got closer, again without affecting the fart’s quality and, being a bit taller then me, basically farted on the upper part of my hip. It almost made my entire body shake due to its power and it felt good. Now I really wanted to bend down as if I was tying my shoes but what stopped me this time was also the thought of… not surviving. I was familiar with Dave’s farts but this was absurdly powerful even for him.

And finally, as Dave resumed his previous position, again looking at me, the fart stopped, followed by my friend letting out a relieved whistle, and then an immature cackle.

Not even 2 seconds after that the elevator reached its destination, stopping as well. I jokingly clapped my hand and shook my head in disbelief. “Bravo!” I said, as if I just watched some fancy stage play.

Dave simply smiled and turned his back at me to face the exit, as we both waited for the just-as-slow panel doors to open.

“At least not all the time here was wasted.” he laughed.

“Bro, we had a beer together. That’s never a waste of time for me.” I replied.

“Wow. Rocks, gay and cringe. You got it all, Tim!” he replied.

We both laughed at me being needlessly cheesy and finally stepped out of that gas chamber. Someone stepped in the cab as we left it and the doors closed, leaving us in the hallway at the ground floor. We heard muffled coughing noises almost immediately and we laughed again, as we knew the disgusting reason. Poor, innocent soul.

“Ok but bro” Dave then said, looking a bit more serious. “You gotta do it someday. Trust me you can trust all of us.”

“I know man.” I replied, as we walked towards the exit “Next time I meet Adam, doesn’t matter where and when, I’m gonna tell him that I’m gay.”

My voice echoed in the building and through the stairs, but I didn’t care.

“You’re… gay?”

Okay, I cared.

We both turned around, puzzled.

It was Adam, right behind us (with this dog on leash), descending one last set of stairs before ending up in front of us. Somehow he’s been slower than the elevator, which both me and Dave found hilarious but I also had other emotions going on that moment.

Dave patted my shoulder encouragingly and stepped back: it was my time to shine.

“Yep.” I simply said. “I wanted to tell you hours ago but I didn’t have the guts to do it.”

Adam just stared at me with a confused expression.

I didn’t feel as nervous as I anticipated. “Yes, Dave knows it…” I quickly added, noticing him staring at my other straight bud. “And I asked him to not tell anyone.”

A moment of silence followed and those always feel like they last hours.

“I mean you two clearly have been dating each other for years” Adam joked. “So it’s no surprise, really.”

“WHAT WE HAVE IS SPECIAL!” Dave shouted, jokingly faking a desperate reaction.

I simply laughed and before I could process how well everything was going I felt Adam doing something very unusual for him: he hugged me.

“I’m glad you told me, man.” he simply said. “You know you can count on us.”

I know times have changed and all but this felt like a victory. Every time I’m gonna come out to a friend of mine it’s one step closer to the peak of a mountain and once at the top I will finally-

“Fuck, I forgot my phone.” Adam said, patting his pockets. “I’ll just take the elevato-“

“NOOO!” both me and Dave screamed, knowing that it was still a deadly gas chamber.

Adam simply replied with an annoyed expression and went for the stairs, the dog just behind him.

“Oh hey by the way.” I asked. “What took you so long? You said the elevator was slow but somehow we made it here before you.”

“Don’t underestimate me.” he replied. “It’s just that I heard some weird noises echoing through the stairs and me and another guy tried to understand what it was.”

Dave tried to not to burst into laughter, while I simply smiled like an idiot. Adam and his dog then went up the stairs and left us in silence, not until my gassy bro decided to break it the way he usually does.

A loud fart erupted and echoed through the building, only lasting around 4 seconds this time.

“There it is again!” we heard Adam say, a couple floors above us.

Me and Dave shared an amused look and went outside trying to not laugh like immature idiots. I felt the cold weather all over me, which was relieving considering the gas trap I’ve been trapped into only minutes earlier.

Despite a slow, yet really entertaining elevator ride, and my awkwardness, no time went wasted today.

“I’m proud of you, bro.” Dave said, this time serious, but still smiling.

“Wow.” I replied. “Straight and cringe. You got it all, Dave.” and winked at him.

“Don’t get too cocky now, rock nerd.”

I was rock-hard, to be more precise that’s for sure, but that was a detail I’d take care of later, perhaps thinking back of that absurd elevator ride. Whenever I’m with Dave, I’ll make sure we’re never taking the stairs again.

End of Episode 10

[solarwonux]

10.  “I still remember the way you taste.”

31.  “Why haven’t you kissed me yet?”

villain!wonwoo x superhero!f!reader

w.c: 2.6k (it was mistake okay I got carried away we should know this by now)

warnings: fluff, talks of death, ghosts, torture if you squint, graveyards, digging up graves (don’t do that yall), angst a little, it’s hinted that the reader can communicate with ghosts. (if you’re uncomfortable with any of these themes this one is not for you)

note: I CAN EXPLAIN OKAY I KNOW YOU WANTED JOKER WONWOO BUT LIKE IT STARTED OFF THAT WAY AND THEN I GOT SOFT. Enjoy let know your thoughts please, they mean so much to me. 

Also i will answer asks at some point, school is just keeping me super busy, BUT IM NOT IGNORING THEM THEY MAKE ME SMILE EVERY TIME I SEE THEM.

masterlist || drabble game

Wonwoo wiped the sweat off of his brow with the back of his hand, panting slightly as he stared down at the empty grave. “Remind me again why we’re doing this?” Vernon asked, digging his shovel into the ground with the heel of his boot. He rested his forearm against the handle looking at Wonwoo through his sweaty bangs. 

“There is no reason, I was just bored.” Wonwoo shrugged, his cheeks were dusted with dirt and his white dress shirt was anything but white. The truth was he had a reason, he needed a way to meet you halfway and causing chaos was the only way to get you out of that shiny tower in the middle of the city where all the heroes resided. But his reasoning would never be voiced out loud, especially not to Vernon and so he lied like it was second nature to him. 

Wonwoo missed you, He missed getting under your skin with his snarky remarks and idiotic plans to take over the world. Or at least the city. The world was his end goal, but in order to do that he needed to succeed at taking over the city first and so far he had failed. Mainly, do to you and your teammates interrupting his plans. Though along the way something unexpected happened. He had undoubtedly fallen truly, madly, deeply in love with you. It had annoyed him at first, his mind was constantly enveloped with thoughts of you. Interrupting everything he spent years working on. 

It took him months to come to terms with his unwanted feelings and if he hadn’t snuck into the masked ball held every year at the tower; he probably wouldn’t have. But the second he saw you come down the grand staircase of the ballroom wearing a dress so blue, it put the night sky to shame; he kissed you before he could stop himself. Despite the mask he was wearing you had spotted him in the crowd and led him down an empty hallway when his urges got the best of him causing him to sin. When he pulled away he was shocked just as you were, but he was definitely floored when you had cut his apology short and kissed him again. 

“So you decided to dig up an empty grave for fun?” Vernon pushed his dirt stained hand through his hand, leaving behind little specks of dirt in its wake. “How did you even know this grave would be empty?” 

“It’s mine...well used to be mine. Obviously I’m not dead.” Wonwoo’s nonchalant tone sent shivers up Vernon’s back. Once again he found himself wondering why the hell he always found himself going along with Wonwoo’s schemes. He knew there was a reason. Wonwoo never did anything without calculating all his moves beforehand, but he wasn’t sure if he wanted to know the true reason, more so if he was going to find out soon anyway. His suspicions were confirmed when he caught sight of you. He should’ve known that this was just another one of Wonwoo’s ways to get to you. 

Vernon didn’t understand your relationship with Wonwoo, scientifically it didn’t make sense. In simple terms Wonwoo was hated by everyone and you on the other hand were not. But the two of you had snuck around for years up until the accident five months ago. Ever since then Wonwoo’s spirits were low and he was going mad. If he wasn’t holed up in his tiny room at the apartment he was bent over a desk mumbling to himself, trying to come up with ways in which he could see you again. All of Wonwoo’s attempts before this one had failed and to say he wasn’t surprised to see you sit down, legs hanging over the edge of the grave while looking down at Wonwoo lovingly, he would be lying. Though, he supposed it had to do with the fact that Wonwoo’s grave was dug up. 

“You guys having fun there?” Wonwoo jumped. He rapidly smoothed down his shirt, leaving behind streaks of dirt, and fixed his hair before turning around. A smug smile adorning his features. Vernon shook his head and rolled his eyes. Sometimes he missed the days in which Wonwoo wasn’t in love. 

“Princess what brings you here?” He winked. His clammy hands grew more wet as he leaned against the shovel, before it failed underneath his weight causing him to trip. Seeing you again was like a breath of fresh air, the pictures he kept of you and looked at every night did you no justice. For you shined brighter than the stars in the night sky and it always made Wonwoo’s heart skip a beat. 

“Cut the shit Wonwoo, I know you’ve been turning this city upside down at least once a week to get under my skin.” 

“Well, what was I supposed to do? You haven’t been answering my calls, texts or emails.” Wonwoo threw his hands up in disbelief and you rolled your eyes at his ignorance. 

“Apologize, that’s all you had to do and you wouldn’t be here digging your own grave...literally.” You huffed crossing your arms in front of you, ripping your eyes away from his. Suddenly the memory of the accident came lingering back. You knew, given his nature, Wonwoo was calculated. He used his powers to affiliate pain on his victims without moving a muscle to get what he wanted. Though, he had never used it on you, until that night. 

He had been blinded by rage and pain and you had never seen him use so much power in your years of knowing him. It scared you and when you had tried to coax him out of whatever state he was in. He did the one thing he promised he would never do. 

He used his abilities on you. 

Wonwoo sighed before hosting himself out of the hole and taking the empty seat next you. “I wanted to do it in person, but you never showed up.” He looked down at his hands playing with his fingers, twirling the ring on his pinky. His body was consumed with guilt as your screams of agony replayed in his head. Just like they did every night. He had never once felt anything but satisfaction and bliss whenever he used his powers on someone. In fact he loved the way his victims begged him to stop, that was until you were on the receiving end of his torture. 

“You know where I live. It’s a big shiny tower in the center of town. Pretty hard to miss honestly.” The airy playfulness of your voice made his stomach swirl. He truly missed you and not just on nights when the two of you gently explored each other's bodies, but just in general. 

“I know but you know how much I hate the others, especially Joshua. He always has to stick his nose into matters that don’t concern him.” He huffed, flicking a tiny spec of dirt off of his trousers. “And I was scared.” He confessed lowly, shocking Vernon who had now taken it upon himself to sit on the soil filled ground to watch the spectacle in front of him. Wonwoo never admitted his fears and though Vernon sometimes could feel them radiating off him. It was different hearing it come from his friend's mouth. 

“Of Joshua? Dude’s only got super strength and-”

“No of you. I was scared to see you suffer and to turn me away. I was scared that if I did show up putting aside indifference for your friends just to hear you say that you didn’t love me anymore.” Wonwoo let out a deep sigh at the ending of his words. He dropped his shoulders feeling the weight being lifted off them. He felt your body shake next to him and it confused him greatly, even more so when it was followed by your laugh. Though he loved it and missed it greatly. He couldn’t deny the anger he felt towards you as you laughed at his vulnerability. 

Slowly, he felt his heart close up again and brought himself up to his feet faster than he could blink. His feet moved faster than the doubt racing through his veins and your laughter came to a stop. 

He now remembered why he swore to never love again all those years ago. 

“Wonwoo, wait come back.” You hurried to your feet, smoothing down the creases on your leggings. Vernon copied your movements. He could sense the fear coming from your body, and it overwhelmed his senses. Behind his soft eyes he quietly told you to hurry before Wonwoo did something he wasn’t supposed to. Even though Wonwoo always did without planning ahead of time, there were a few instances where he didn’t care and acted carelessly. And he found himself fearing more for your heart rather than his friend's safety. 

You sighed tugging on the sleeves of your sweatshirt before turning around and ran after the only man you had ever loved. You passed many tombstones, silently paying your respects until you stopped in the middle of a small clearing, home to one familiar tombstone and Wonwoo. His hands in his pocket, eyebrows furrowed and his teeth chewing down on his teeth. 

“After she died, I promised her I wouldn’t love anyone again.” He whispered, “but then you came along and ruined it.” He turned his head, his eyes glossy with wanted tears. “Do you know how much I beat myself up every day for what I did to her. For what I did to you. I hate myself for it, I hate that I can inflict pain on everyone else but myself because I’m not one that should be suffering, not everyone else.” 

By now he had finally let his tears go. They raced down his cheeks rapidly and it shattered your heart. 

“It hurts me that you think that way about yourself. She didn’t die because of you, you tried to save her and-”

“I was too late.” Wonwoo snorted and rolled his eyes. He stared intently at the tombstone in front of him, reading his little sister’s name over and over again, letting it burn feverishly inside his mind. He missed her dearly and sometimes he wondered why you never told him anything about the conversations you would have with her whenever she visited you. But you had told him that it was a family secret between the two of you and he never questioned you again because you had used the word family and it made him feel all giddy inside.

“Let me talk Wonwoo.” You said closing the gap between you and Wonwoo. You grabbed his face in your hands and wiped away his tears with the pad of your thumb. He had always been there to comfort you on your lowest days. His sweet words and warmth grounded you back onto the Earth, but you had never gotten the opportunity to do the same to him. He always kept himself closed off and reserved. It had taken almost a year into your secret, not so secret relationship for him to tell you about his sister’s unfortunate death and a few more months after that for him to say that he loved you. Despite all those small passing moments of vulnerability he had never once cried in front of you. 

“I love you and you’re stupid for thinking that I would love you any less because of what happ-”

“I hurt you though,” Wonwoo cut you off, earning a ground shattering glare from you that sent shivers up his spine. “Sorry you can continue.” He whispered. 

“Thank you.” You smirked and wrapped your arms around his neck, making him freeze. You were the strangest person he had ever had the pleasure in knowing because normal people would never be as comfortable as you were in his presence. “I know the kind of person you are Wonwoo, through this cold exterior there is the most loving and sensible person I have ever known. I mean, baby, you spent a whole day sulking because you forgot to water your plant.” 

“You gave me that plant for my birthday, therefore he’s our child.” 

“This is exactly my point, you have the biggest of anyone I have ever known. Unfortunately, you have been dealt a bad hand in life and I really don’t understand your obsession with taking over the world. But you’re not a monster.” 

“I hurt people though, sometimes for fun.” He whispered against your skin. In the midst of your speech he had given in and circled his arms around your waist before burying his face into the crook of your neck. Leaving the two of you in an awkward and uncomfortable position. 

“And who are those people?”

“Bad people.”

“Exactly baby, they’re the scum of the Earth and you have helped stop them.” 

“Okay, but that doesn’t make me a hero. I’m just doing what you guys can’t do. On top of that Joshua’s super strength is useless, he only gets praised because he’s hot.” Wonwoo finished and raised his head, smirking. He sent you a playful wink, tears long forgotten, causing you to roll your eyes. 

“Mingyu takes forever to get ready, but that’s besides the point. You’re not a monster so stop treating yourself like one.” 

“Does that mean you forgive me?” He pouted batting his eyelashes at you. 

“Yes you big idiot.” 

“Then...why haven’t you kissed me yet?” He puckered his lips and made kissing noises, making you laugh. “Hey I’m waiting and you know I’m impatient.” He spoke through pouted lips as he leaned in closer, his lips hovered over yours teasingly until you finally caved and kissed him. He sighed happily against your mouth and deepened the kiss. He had spent five months without the feeling of your touch and it scared him that he would forget how it felt. Yet, now as he kissed you with everything in him he realized he hadn’t and it overjoyed him to the point in which he accidentally let out a moan; making you pull away quickly and eyeing him down. 

“Control yourself, your sister, her friends and Vernon are here.” You scolded making him pout. 

“I’m sorry, i just...I still remember the way you taste, and I got excited.” He wiggled his eyebrows suggestively. Before he could plant his lips on yours again he was met with your hand pushing him away. He whined as you tore his arms away from your waist, his body growing cold. “Nooo, one more kiss.” He reached out making grabby hands at you like a child. Instead of giving into what he wanted you turned and started walking away, “Wait, where are you going?” He stumbled against his own feet before following you. 

“Home.” You looked over at him and stuffed your hands into the front pocket of your hoodie. “You have a grave to cover up with Vernon.” 

“But I haven’t seen you in five months, just give me five more minutes please.” 

“Wonwoo you just didn’t look hard enough baby.” You said giving him a knowing smirk before leaning over, giving him a chaste kiss on his cheek. He felt his eyes grow in realization as everything started to click in his head. If what you had hinted was the truth and you had shown up to every single sight he had caused trouble in, then he had to give it to you. You were a lot more clever than you led on. “Don’t think about it too hard, I’ll leave my window open for you.” You smiled widely giving his cheek a pat and disappeared through the trees. 

“You live on the twenty fourth floor.” He yelled after you, his hands falling down at his side in defeat. He heard someone snort next to him and suddenly he remembered that Vernon was there silently observing everything, just like always did. 

“Figure it out baby, you always do.”

[hellimagines]

Indebted to You -- Barry OBX

Masterlist

Summary: As JJ Maybank’s older sister it’s always been your top priority to protect your little brother. Even if that means easing your father’s temper by indebting yourself to Outerbanks’ top dealer.

Warnings: child abuse, frequent dr*g mention and dr*g dealing (of the non-oui’d variety), paying off someone else’s debt non-conventionally

Pairing: Barry x fem!Maybank!reader

Word Count: 2.4K

DISCLAIMER: Please, for the love of fuck, DO NOT do hard dr*gs just because you think they’re ‘cool’ or because you think dating a dealer is ‘cool’. Believe me when I tell you that neither of those things are cool, and that is NOT what I am trying to get across with this story; I don’t condone hard dr*g use.

A/N: This is something I pulled out of my ass because I wanted to write for Barry really bad, but I didn’t have any ideas. It has potential but I’m not sure if it’s gonna go anywhere. Also, Barry may be a little OOC since we don’t get much from his character. Anyway, I hope you guys like this and let me know what you think!

You released a slow, aggravated huff while staring down at your drunken father. He sat hunched over on the couch, with his elbows digging into his knees and his gaze trained on the coffee table before him. Behind you, your younger brother was curled into an armchair with a frozen bag of expired peas pressed against his left eye and a bloody tissue under his nose. You yourself had a welt already throbbing and beginning to swell on your cheekbone, but you ignored it in favor of kicking your dad’s limp foot. His head shot up, neck cracking with the unexpected speed, and narrowed his eyes at you dangerously.

“You had some nerve steppin’ in on something that wasn’t your business. What’ve I told you ‘bout stickin’ your nose where it don’t belong?” he snarled while attempting to stand, but was pathetically unsuccessful due to his inebriated state. All he managed to do was stumble and fall back down on the couch with a grunt. 

You rolled your eyes, “And what’ve I told you about mixing your whiskey and blow? I already have your grave dug outback, and the sooner you keep this shit going, the sooner I get to toss your ass inside it.” Luke scoffed at your words but didn’t offer a rebuttal as he flexed his bloody knuckles. “JJ didn’t touch the fucking money-- I’ve been keeping ahold of it so nothing goes missing before I head to Barry’s. You’d remember that if you weren’t fucking high or drunk all the time. JJ’s got his own job and is making his own money, he doesn’t need to jack your rolled bills for anything.” 

You pulled out a wad of recently-flattened bills, shaking the cash in front of your dad’s face. It was roughly $600 that you had made the past weekend while bouncing from Kook party to Kook party. Luke’s eyes widened at the sight of the money and he instinctively reached out to grab it from you. Your arm jerked back and you clutched the wad tightly before shoving it back into the pocket of your leather jacket. 

With a shake of your head, you looked over your shoulder and gave your brother a once over, nodding to yourself after assessing he wouldn’t be dropping dead anytime soon. “Why don’t you go to JB’s? I’ve got shit handled here and I heard the waves were supposed to be good before the sun sets.” 

“You sure? I can go with you-”

“Over my dead body. I got involved in this so you didn’t have to. Scram, before I change my mind and make you clean the kitchen.” JJ frowned but did as he was told, depositing the peas back in the freezer before making his way out the front door. You turned back to your dad, who was now laying on the couch with an arm thrown over his face. “I don’t have many more runs to do before we’re out of this shit-eating debt you caused with Barry. Keep your paws off the cash and we won’t have any problems, okay? You can’t fuck this up before I manage to fix it. Please, dad,” you whispered pleadingly and lowered yourself to the edge of the coffee table. 

Your dad peeked open an eye at you before laughing darkly. “You’re running the game, princess. The streets know you, but even worse, those rich Kooks know you and know what you have to offer. That won’t be forgotten, especially with how good you’ve been running that shit. You’re not gonna be getting out anytime soon, so what’s it matter if a couple twenties go missin’ or a gram gets cut on our table? Don’t piss Barry off and don’t get caught by the cops, and you’ll be set for life.” 

“No, I’m not like you,” you growled as your lip curled into a sneer. “I don’t wanna keep dealing and end up bitter and angry and alone, like you. Once I’m finished working off your debt, I’m done.” 

Luke shot up from the couch in the blink of an eye, towering over you while gripping your jaw tightly. You could feel his fingers painfully digging into your skin, pressing against your teeth, and making you wince. “Doesn’t matter what you fucking want. This isn’t your world, princess. Once people know who’s moving product in the streets, you’re stuck. So you may as well embrace the Maybank name and take what you can while you can. Now, be a good girl and go make daddy proud,” he hissed in your ear, before roughly letting go of your jaw by flinging your head to the side. You teetered off the edge of the table and fell to your side on the floor, but Luke didn’t spare you a second glance as he stepped over you and stumbled to his room. 

After pushing yourself to your feet and massaging your sore jaw, you shot a glare toward the direction of your father’s room. “Fuck you,” you spat quietly before leaving the house and slamming the door shut behind you.

By the time you made it to Barry’s trailer, the sun had set and the small grassy area Barry called his ‘backyard’ was lit up with lights, noises, and people. You made your way around the trailer, nodding to a few people you recognized before you found Barry lounging in a lawn chair with a beer in his hand. His smile was wide and dirty as he laughed with the people surrounding him, seemingly at ease with everyone. When he noticed you walking toward him out of the corner of his eye, his smile brightened and he shouted out for you.

“Ay, look who it is!” he yelled, waving an arm out toward you while the others cheered at your arrival. “I was just thinkin’ about you, sweetheart. C’mon, sit down with me. I left a chair open just for you,” Barry smiled, gesturing to the black lawn chair beside him with a Mikes waiting in the arm pocket. Despite yourself, you couldn’t help but to snicker softly at him and take the offered chair. 

“What made you so certain I’d show up tonight?” you hummed teasingly while opening the spiked limeade that had been waiting for you. 

Barry grinned over the lid of his beer, his brown eyes watching you intently as you drank from your bottle. “Because I know you, sweetheart. Sunday nights are your drop-off nights.” Your cheeks warmed at his comment, but you played it off with a scoff and shake of your head. “I wanted to make sure you were more comfortable tonight, so I kept that chair open for ya and grabbed your favorite while on a liquor run.” 

A harsh scoff came from a chair on the other side of Barry, and you peeked around him to see who it came from. “Special privilege for his new fucktoy, what a surprise,” the voice muttered, and you recognized it as one of Barry’s frequent buyers, Sherry. You’d never had a conversation with the girl despite having gone to school with her in the past, and even though she was always at Barry’s get-togethers, she typically seemed more focused on her next fix rather than talking with anyone.

“The hell is that supposed to mean?” Barry snapped, turning to look at her with a clenched jaw. He seemed to purposefully be blocking her view of you, and you remained silent as the altercation unfolded.

“You know what it means,” she snapped back. “Whenever a new piece of trash starts selling for you, you put your dick in her and use her until another one shows up. But, you never bought them their favorite bitch-drink or saved them a seat, so what makes this one so much better, huh? Why does she get to sit in the big, nice chair next to you, but the rest of us have to have three-legged chairs and warm beers? What about her cunt makes her so much better?” Marie shouted, causing a couple of the others to whistle in disbelief. 

Before Barry could respond, one of the boys in the circle spoke up. “Maybe it’s cause she’s not a psychotic bitch who snorts the blow instead of selling it.”  You could hear Marie’s angry gasp at the diss, and when Barry gave her a pointed look rather than defending her, she flipped off the group before storming away. 

“Remind me why we let Sherry stick around all the time?” Someone questioned as you idly picked at the label on your bottle.

“Because this ain’t a fuckin’ gated community,” Barry scoffed as though it was obvious. The other chuckled in agreement before the conversation picked up and everyone went back to their own thing. You cleared your throat awkwardly once the attention was off of you, not knowing how to respond-- or if you were even supposed to. Barry gave a deep sigh, “Sorry about that, sweetheart. Don’t listen to anything she said, Sherry just hasn’t been doing great since she lost custody of her son. You’re not a fucktoy and I ain’t got no intention of using you like that.”

“Don’t worry about it, she’s going through shit and I get it. I shouldn’t stay long anyway, Luke’s fucked off his ass and if I’m gone much longer he’ll flip,” you shrugged, reaching into your pocket and pulling out the cash as you spoke. “I made about $600 this weekend, and I know it’s not as much as it usually is, but someone had already hit up the beach and two of my usual places by the time I was able to start selling. So, I was stuck at Rafe’s party all of last night and only a handful of small pickups on Friday night.” You handed the wad over to Barry with an apologetic wince. “I still have some blow left over, so I’ll try and push a few eight-balls before the weekend. I’m sorry it’s not more.” Barry flicked through the cash quietly as you explained everything to him, before folding it into his pocket once it was all counted. He finished off his beer while looking you over, causing the nervous feeling in your stomach to grow. 

“Sweetheart,” he began with a shockingly gentle sigh, “You ain’t gotta apologize for any of that shit. You’re cleaning up your daddy’s debt because he’s too useless to do it himself, yet you’re not bitter or angry at everyone because of it. I’ve heard of the way you stick by new users throughout the night, making sure they’re using safely and doing okay. You still go to your day job and take care of your brother and his shithead-friends despite being up past dawn most days. You’re doing great, and I don’t ever wanna hear you apologize for thinking you’re not doing enough.” 

Your cheeks flamed and your eyes widened in shock as you spluttered helplessly at the man in front of you. “I wasn’t implying that I wasn’t doing enough! I just know how much my dad owes you, and $600 weekends are gonna take too long to pay it off.”

Barry raised an eyebrow at you before grabbing onto the arm of your chair and tugging you closer to him. You yelped at the sudden movement, bracing yourself for the inevitable collapse of you and your chair. Barry laughed loudly at you when you squeezed your eyes shut and gripped the chair tightly, but there was no mirth or mock behind his laugh. Once the chair stopped moving and his laugh slowed to a chuckle, you breathed a sigh of relief.

“Relax,” he chuckled, reaching out to move a strand of hair out of your face. “I wasn’t gonna let you fall, just wanted to talk to you better.”

“You could’ve just asked me to move closer,” you grumbled, casting your eyes to the side as your cheeks flushed. “And I told you I can’t stay long to chat.”

Barry gave you a nonchalant shrug, “Where’s the fun in that? Besides, if your daddy’s got an issue with you keeping me company, I’ll just go and have a talk with him. I don’t want you worrying about him when you’ve got enough going on. Stay for a bit, sweetheart. I’ve got a whole cooler full of those Mikes, and you’re the only one I’m allowin’ to drink ‘em. If you really wanna go, I won’t stop you, but I want you to know that I don’t mind you stickin’ around me for a while.”

You bit your lip as you considered Barry’s offer, quietly looking out at the happy party-goers. It was calmer than any Kook party or Boneyard Blowout you had attended, and you had to admit that you loved the calm and welcoming atmosphere. Barry’s warm hand settled over your propped up knee, bringing your attention back to his hopeful eyes. 

“Okay, fine,” you caved and Barry squeezed your knee in delight. “But, you have to go get me a drink. Sherry was right, this chair is comfortable as fuck and I don’t wanna get up.” 

“Whatever you want, sweetheart,” Barry teased and patted your knee before leaving to grab your drink. You stared after him with a bashful smile, unable to help yourself as the nervous feeling in your stomach evolved into flustered butterflies.

‘Shit,’ you groaned to yourself, ‘I’ve got a schoolgirl crush on this motherfucker. I’m so screwed.’

[chalkrevelations]

SO. Word of Honor, Episode 10, and everyone is deep in their feelings … well, their feeling, which is misery.

First, due diligence, and I really mean it on this one: SPOILERS not just for this ep but for the entire show. Out of the car, for now, and come back later, if you want to watch the whole thing unspoiled.­­

Well, it’s the breakup episode, y’all. Everyone is wallowing in misery, and Our Couple is taking that out on themselves and in some cases (:cough:WKX:cough) ­on everybody around them. We open on sad-sack Wen Kexing digging sadly in the dirt with a sword, the bodies of the Four Sages of Anji laid out beside him as he gives a RIP speech about how you have to be careful when making friends, because they’ll turn out to be bad news, which is clearly yet another warning about himself, because I don’t think anyone in the mob who killed these aging hippies in the last ep was a friend (although I suppose it could be argued that WKX is talking about their friendship with Gao Chong getting them killed) and anyway, you have to understand that WKX is a demon under the skin, not even really human, you guys, and he’s only ever going to disappoint everyone. Has he not made this clear by now? His sword breaks at this point, which probably ought to tell him he’s not going to be able to bury any of this mess. Then Zhou Zishu shows up and is understandably unhappy at the way his decision last ep to walk out on faith for this guy has gone completely pear-shaped, and he asks some rather pointed questions about whether four dead Sages of Anji is what WKX wanted and if he’s happy now – questions that sound, my dude, a little confrontational. I mean, I think you’re entitled, given the situation, but I’m just sayin’. WKX flings off ZZS’s hand and wants to know if “Leader Zhou” has only ever killed bad people, which is a hit that lands, and it hurts, just like it was supposed to, and this is definitely one of those nightmare scenarios where everyone just keeps digging themselves deeper. ZZS is all, FINE THEN, and leaves. Again. Because WKX is apparently a demon in human form who’s only ever going to disappoint everyone. Including his zhiji. I love you with all of my heart, ZZS, but a little bit, you come off like you only showed up to twist the knife, my man. Anyway, ZZS stomps off to go mope at Yuefan Tower, the scene of his bad decision to trust this guy BEFORE finding out he sets up revenge murders for fun. We’re treated to a flashback sequence of some of ZZS’s Tian Chuang state-sanctioned violence, including a pile of bodies in a burned-out house with a little girl who reaches out to him and calls him “shushu” (which I think is a reference to something that actually happens in Qi Ye); killing that official dude and making Jing’an drink poison, from Ep 1; inserting the Seven Nails into Bi Changfeng - a whole bunch of bad shit that WKX has dug back up way more successfully with a few words than that grave he was trying to dig with his broken sword. ZZS sighs mournfully and unfairly beautifully (your FACE, my dude) over the fact that he thought he found his soulmate, but he was apparently WRONG, and meanwhile, we see Han Ying lurking worriedly and devotedly in the background.

Then, both of these morose motherfuckers proceed to drink themselves (even more) stupid over each other, WKX in a brothel and ZZS moping by himself downstairs at the (No Longer) Getting Lucky Inn, leaving poor Han Ying and A-Xiang to eventually deal with them. ZZS is literally falling over as he calls for more wine – you are a sloppy drunk, laopo, although I have to admit, you’ve worked your way through a lot of bottles, so I suppose it’s understandable – and WKX proceeds to drink his four ... five? ... four, I think, girls under the table and clearly has no intention of sleeping with them, because it might interfere with his waxing drunkenly and mournfully about finding a thing you thought you’d lost forever but not being able to keep it at the price of giving up your big revenge murder plan you’ve been working out since you were 8 years old. (Also because he’s gay af. I’m just sayin’.)

So, yeah, Han Ying and A-Xiang eventually have to deal with these two, and for my money, the single most important scene of the ep - thematically, at least - is the one we get between A-Xiang and WKX, where a couple of big things are going on. One of the themes I see again, running through this ep, is the separation between the human world and the world of “ghosts,” and how that line is policed, and how Wen Kexing tries to maintain it as a bright line, in order to maintain his own distance from Zhou Zishu and the world. Now that things have gone so spectacularly wrong with ZZS, he’s going to dig in on the “ghost” side of that line for all he’s worth – much harder than he was digging that grave for the Four Sages of Anji, given he breaks the sword and gives up halfway through on that one, but this one he’s determined to get all the way to the bedrock on. So yes, in this scene we get the theme made explicit again, of human-ghost separation - which will echo and rebound throughout the rest of the show, until we see its awful, gory truth made manifest when it turns out WKX is horrifically correct and A-Xiang is NOT, in fact, going to be allowed by “humankind” to leave Ghost Valley and walk up to the human world with her lover, while meanwhile, if WKX is going to get out of the valley, he’s not staying in the mortal world but is going to end up on the icy remote mountaintop. BUT ALSO, this may be the first time we really see the show put A-Xiang forward as a proxy for Wen Kexing. This is going to be an increasingly weighted Thing as we go on, of course, but what I didn’t remember on my first watch-through - even after I realized what they were doing with the A-Xiang/Cao Weining and Wen Kexing/Zhou Zishu parallels further down the road – is that, in this first time we really see it, it’s not even about their respective love interests, it’s about their respective relationships with Chengling. I mean, clearly, clearly, when WKX is being a drunk asshole to A-Xiang about how she’s been too long in her human skin (and huh, interesting that, when we also have instances where fake skin disguises are literal), and DON’T EVER FORGET WHO YOU ARE, HEARTLESS AMETHYST FIEND GHOST VALLEY MASTER HEARTLESS AMETHYST FIEND, and who among them would ever pity you me you, he’s really talking about his recent breakup with ZZS, in which he got called a crazed psychopath just for setting up a few amusing revenge murders. But here’s the thing – what triggers the diatribe is A-Xiang saying she feels sorry for Chengling trapped in Yueyang Sect, in the course of nattering on about what’s up with Chengling, and what she and Chengling have been doing together, and how much Chengling misses WKX. Which is, A-Xiang tells WKX, a lot. After which WKX puffs himself up and proceeds to be a drunk asshole to her, because of course, he’s not worthy of having anyone care about him, they might think he’s human, or something, and then he’s only going to get hurt again when they find out he’s NOT. So, all that happens. We also find out in this conversation that Changing Ghost was responsible for the pile of heads; that A-Xiang was at the Funeral/Wedding Game and saw Deng Kuan become the last survivor and get set free in much better condition than he later showed up at Yueyang Sect, so what the hell’s happened to him in between; and that A-Xiang definitely thinks her Murder Dad master is crazy but isn’t afraid that he’ll end up killing her someday. I mean, let’s be clear, I don’t think she’s absolutely positive that he won’t go crazy and kill her – she’s just not afraid of it. Zhou Ye is fantastic here, because she has A-Xiang give WKX this gorgeous little smile that’s so simple yet just so filled with love and trust and faith and everything that must have kept his heart alive all those years, the one that she probably gave him even after he burned her mouth on congee that was too hot, and I end up clutching my chest because I think she’s killed me. And then in a horrible twist on what’s eventually coming down the pike, she tells him that she’d follow him even if he’s crazy, and that if he killed her, she’d even follow him in death, and GOD. MY HEART. Because we’re going to see that in fact, he’s going to almost follow her into death, and then he’s going to dream of her leaving him instead of actually staying with him after death, and the only thing keeping me together at this point is the idea that Nian’xiang will actually be A-Xiang reincarnated so that she can be with WKX and the rest of her family again.

Anyway, all of this is apparently a dress rehearsal for WKX, because he then gets himself dolled up in some luscious green robes and proceeds to go to Tragicomic Ghost’s mansion in order to terrorize the troops and spread the misery. He requests a report from all of his top ten nine eight devils; credits them with three Funeral Games (I guess we don’t get to see the other two), annihilating Danyang Sect, destroying Mirror Lake Sect, killing Mount Tai Sect’s leader (Ao Laizi), and leaving a pile of heads for Yueyang Sect to find. He’s doing his best Lunatic Wen bit, but come on, my friend, do they really deserve credit for ALL of that? Do they really? It sounds like you have your suspicions, as well, because you want to know who was responsible for the Mirror Lake massacre. Everyone looks around, pointedly not meeting his eyes, so, hmm, it must have been Long-Tongued Ghost, right? Right? (Who we last saw getting killed and getting his (Danyang) Glazed Armor took by Wen Kexing while pretending to be Hanged Ghost.) Changing Ghost, who’s supposedly Long-Tongued Ghost’s superior and who’s smart enough to sense the wind shifting, even if he’s not sure in which direction, hastily says that LTGhost doesn’t listen to him anymore. (Yeah, because he’s dead.) At this point, White Grim Reaper is dumb enough to draw attention to himself, and WKX chokes him out just ‘cause. ‘Cause he’s Lunatic Wen, and fuck you, that’s why. Both Tragicomic Ghost and Beauty Ghost look more Completely Done With This Bullshit than scared – in contrast to the men, who are shitting their pants - which is an early indication that their relationships with WKX are different than his relationships with the male Devils. WKX also makes some pointed comment about how oh dear, he’s killed someone, and they were already low on manpower, but as a chief of GHOSTS, that’s all he has to work with, isn’t that RIGHT, Changing Ghost – which sounds on the surface kind of like policing that line between ghosts and humans, but really seems more like he has his suspicions about exactly who Changing Ghost is actually working with, because while he may not be as smart as A-Xu, he’s not DUMB. Now, let’s all come up with a plan to fuck over the Five Lakes Alliance during the Hero’s Conference. Aaaaand … end scene (and ep).

Meanwhile, Han Ying is dealing with his poor, drunk dumbass charge, and we see ZZS wake up in some richly appointed rooms, in some strange bed, and he’s clearly thinking “Oh snap. What I do last night?” Also, feeling the hangover. Once he manages to get his boots on, he notices a shrine, complete with candles, and just about this point, Han Ying busts in like he’s WKX or something (although to be fair, it is his bedroom), and wants to know exactly wtf is wrong with ZZS, getting blackout drunk with his actual face hanging out like he doesn’t care who recognizes him? (I just have to take a moment here, and point out that ZZS, who went all in, in the last ep, and who will continue to be the more open one as this relationship goes on, is being berated here for not wearing a mask, for showing his real self, while the issue for both A-Xiang and WKX is going to continue to be keeping on a protective mask/skin, even though WKX accuses A-Xiang himself in this very ep of thinking the mask is real and not just a cover for her true face. Anyway.) Oh, and also, My Lord, how is your injury? DO YOU NEED SOMEONE TO TENDERLY CARE FOR YOU? I like this scene, because Han Ying’s actually kind of angry at ZZS, and a little bit, he shows it, and we get to see that he’s not spineless, even in the (blindingly beautiful) face of ZZS, he’s just devoted. And if that means keeping this dumbass safe from himself, well, Han Ying will try to do that, too, even if it’s enough to drive him to find religion, as we also find out in this scene, explaining the shrine. I suppose he needs all the help he can get. Anyway, ZZS tells him that he’s too mean to die just yet, although he doesn’t expect any blessings on his path, and Han Ying responds – and I think this is important, given ZZS’s decision last ep to spend the rest of his life living instead of dying – that “any day we live is a day gained.” (HAN YING. MY BELOVED.) ZZS pulls some Glazed Armor out of his robes to give to Han Ying, and they both realize that it looks exactly like two pieces Han Ying already has his hands on, gdi WKX. At this point, ZZS reiterates that he just wants Han Ying to lay low and stay safe, Han Ying reiterates his undying devotion, and ZZS has clearly had it with these kids and their starry-eyed devotion. He tries telling Han Yng again to just live a good life - as if Han Ying is at all wired that way – before making some dramatic pronouncement about expecting to have to deal with what’s coming to him in hell and sweeping out the door in the last we see of him this ep.

Let’s see, other things that happened:

Gao Chong, Zhao Jing and Shen Shen confer over their complete loss of face in the run-up to the Hero’s Conference; Shen Shen gets very offended and denies killing Ao Laizi, which is the rumor going around town; Gao Chong says the Ghost Valley isn’t responsible for Ao Laizi’s death (which they are) or for spreading the rhyme about the Glazed Armor (which they are); Zhao Jing says Five Lakes Alliance can’t get a reputation for forcing other sects to do things (when he can manipulate them into doing what he wants), and Shen Shen wants to know WHY THE HELL NOT (oh, Shen Shen) when the jianghu has always been, and I QUOTE, “a place where the strong pery on the weak,” so again, I have to kind of side with WKX on this one about the hive of scum and villainy. Or I would if you guys seemed capable of actually accomplishing anything.

Elsewhere in Yueyang Sect, it’s been Bullying Hour again for Chengling, and A-Xiang is furious when she finds out, threatening to break the legs of whoever’s responsible for smacking him around (she really is like the most delightful Chengxian love-child, I have to say). She also has some Wolong Nuts – crispy and delicious! – for him. Gao Xiaolian shows up with some treats, but Chengling doesn’t want her food, and also he doesn’t want to marry her, because he doesn’t want to be Gao Chong’s puppet, which is kind of new, because he said a couple of eps ago at the Five Lakes monument that he would abide by Gao Chong’s decisions. I guess now that he’s found out from A-Xiang that their Murder Dads are still around, he thinks there’s still a chance to run away with them. Gao Xiolian runs away, crying. Harsh, Chengling, but it does give him the chance to complain to A-Xiang that he’s effectively under house arrest, WHERE ARE OUR MURDER DADS TO SAVE ME?

Last but not least, there’s this incredible scene with Yu Loser Qiufeng, leader of Mount Hua Sect, in which one of the Mount Hua Virgins (tm WKX) comes complaining that everyone is looking down on them. Yu Qiufeng tells him that the entire jianghu is falling apart and to suck it up, and then another Virgin (tm WKX) shows up to say that some people from Mount Tai Sect are here to talk about Dead Ao Laizi, because the Five Lakes Alliance killed him omg. Yu Quifeng’s response is literally “Tell them I’m not here,” and when the disciple wants to know how he can possibly say that, Qiufeng’s response is literally “Say I went out. Say I’m sick. Say I’m dead.” (OMG, Zongzhu can’t see you right now, he’s dead!)