#one of my friends was scouted to be a model while she was just. walking the street

[rottin6]

fashion style pleaseee layla, i have a gut feeling that you dress cool

apologies for the late reply but fashion is something i’m so. insane about that i wanted to make sure i give you a proper answer xo

i love love love to shop and i’m always buying clothes n stuff (just bought the most gorgeous bag ever) but my outfits are sorta consistent. like i feel like i’ve managed to finally cultivate my own style after years of going through (horrible) phases

(all my pictures)

i mainly wear dark tones, i have a lot of black in my wardrobe especially when it comes to accessories. the above pics are me when i’m going out but i’m obviously not going out all the time which is when i’ll either stay in my pyjamas or just stick to the whole cargos n sweatshirt combo. i am only 5’ however so sometimes i have to switch out the sweatshirt for a small top otherwise i will look like im drowning in my clothes which i do not want!

(not my pictures)

when it comes to shoes, i will wear the fuck outta heels cause i’m not growing taller anymore. kitten heels are my best friend but stilettos are a first love, can’t go wrong with either of them. heels n jeans are always a good combo for me but i am a london gal true and through so trainers/sneakers are a must. atm i fw adidas campus (not the sambas! hate them with a passion!). waiting for the new balance 530 trend to be over cause the 550s are just so much cuter

(not my pictures)

bags…might as well call them fucking cocaine. i love any kind of bags except for backpacks. i was well and truly that girl in high school who would carry all her shit in a bucket handbag cause why the hell would i want to rock up looking like rowley jefferson?? coach bags are my fave rn i just think they’re so pretty. i tried to like the lil mini bags but they’re so. inconvenient like bitch?? hello i can’t fit my phone in here!?

honorable fashion mentions:

love a little black dress, i will take every opportunity to wear one. love those big woolly scarves that you can wear around ur head in winter, best thing ever made. those lace tops that just look good with everything. leather jackets especially over a dress and it’s oversized and done right.

and i always always have my nails done n change my phone case depending on the outfit, i think they’re two things that really put a look together (moreso the phone case).

and that’s really it tbh, love u if u read all the way and cared about this as much as i do pls 😭

[arimiadev]

spooky indie visual novels you've never heard of for spooky season

since it's October I thought I'd put together a list of spooky indie visual novels (horror, Halloween, creepy, dark comedy, anything in the spirit of the season goes) that you've probably never heard of but can play right now on itchio!

model employee

Model Employee is a corporate horror visual novel. Just discharged from the hospital and massively in debt for their life-saving cybernetics, the player-character must adapt to the “extreme” work-life balance of a Tethys Team Member- but they have help. Penny, the artificial personality that controls all security, waste disposal, and employee surveillance in the facility, specializes in reinforcing an especially cutthroat variety  of workplace culture- and she’s taken an interest in you.  If you want to get ahead in your career, you gotta be willing to take some risks.

model employee is such a tightly structured visual novel for being made in just one month for a game jam, making full use of everything while surprising you at every corner. every part of this game was so well planned and thought out- dystopian corporate satire isn’t my cup of tea (we’re living it) but the way they present everything in this game makes it feel so much more intense.

beary the hatchet

It’s Halloween 199X, and you killed someone during your morning shift. Honestly it’s inconvenient. This job was imperfect, sure, but you got to wear a mask with no questions asked and the pay was livable. But now you’ll have to keep the body in the backrooms till your shift is done. Bummer. “You’re… the absolutely WICKED and AWESOME Bearwater Grizzly Killer, aren’t you?!” …and now enters the dreaded true crime fan.

beary the hatchet is such a uniquely lovely game to look at, even if the subject matter is grim. I love the color palette and tones in this, I love the 2.5D graphics, I love how expressive all of the designs are. it’s a game oozing with style.

WE KNOW THE DEVIL

Anyone can kill the devil; that’s why they always make teens the vampire slayers, the magical girls. But some kids can’t even get that right; and that’s why meangirl Neptune, tomboy Jupiter, and shy shy Venus have to endure one more week of summer camp and each other, singing boring songs about jesus, doing busywork for adults, and hoping god’s radio can’t hear them. Before they can leave the summer scouts, they’ve got to spend twelve hours in the loneliest cabin in the woods and wait for the devil to come and live through the night–or not. You know.

it’s a visceral experience, something that feels foreign and familiar at the same time. I love the direction for it, the sketchy monochrome sprites against the colored photos- parts when there aren’t any characters on screen feel that much more real, like you’re watching found footage because of how tense everything is.

disconnect

Late at night, a phone call from a friend keeps disconnecting from you… On and off, on and off, constantly… …What would you do if you realized your friend wasn’t who you thought they were? And how would you react when the truth was finally revealed? (“̷̢̑W̸̨̊o̸̫͊u̷̱͝ḽ̸͛d̴͉̐ ̵̚ͅy̵̜̽o̸̥��u̷̮̎ ̷̜̏s̶̤̄t̸̥͐i̴̻̕l̸̰͝l̸͉̓ ̷͕́ȁ̸̩c̸̡̓t̵̜̊ ̵͓̈t̶̙̄h̶̦͂e̸̩͠ ̸̩̅s̶̘̏a̷̪͛m̵̮͒e̴͖͑ ̸̭́w̷̨̚á̴̱y̵̯̑?̶͎̌"̷͈̆) Find out what happened to our scaredy-cat protagonist, Indie－a famous horror storyteller on the H-T-M (Horror, Tales, and Mystery) forum. What would she do when she unintentionally uncovered a mystery hidden deep within her own home?

I love the style of disconnect and the unorthodox way of getting to the truth of the matter. I’m not normally one to play furry VNs, but the designs are adorable and I love the presentation of the game, it has a lot of animation in it. there’s also one moment not too far in on this screen that made me scream…

curse of the juniper tree

Curse of the Juniper tree is a tale of two siblings, a cursed tree and an isolated village. It is a short kinetic visual novel featuring 2d exploration. Walk around the snowy village and talk to its inhabitants! Story is loosely based off the fairytale called The Juniper Tree by the Brothers Grimm in Grimm’s Fairy Tales in 1812.

this is a lovely and short story about two siblings living in a frozen land together. it’s a very atmospheric story with so many beautiful blues and detailed character designs. the controls were a bit hard to figure out at times but it’s worth your time.

reaplaced

Grea Perrim is a reaper of souls, and it’s her duty to bring the deceased to the other side. But in the world of reapers, death isn’t any kind of equalizer. The value of a soul is directly tied to the peculiarity of its death. Grea’s supernatural senses bring her to a Halloween house party with three costumed guests. She soon finds the most valuable kind of soul: the victim of a locked-room murder. In order to reap the soul, Grea must unravel the identity of its killer and explain its death in full. Is this the work of a human? A witch? Or something else entirely…?

reaplaced is a fun little whodunnit set on Halloween about a grim reaper out on the hunt who finds herself in the middle of a murder mystery. it’s much more indepth than I was expecting and the soundtrack is wonderful—there’s a lot of small touches to it that make it great.

Silver Thread

An exorcist that doubts the existence of ghost might sound contradictory but to Alicia Wilkershire, this is the right way to get closer to the truth. Her latest job sounded like another run-of-the-mill case and she greeted her client with her usual pessimism but is it, really?

Silver Thread is a spooky and short RPGM game about a skeptical exorcist trying to help a guy with his problems. the style is lovely and if you also like this kind of style, the developer has several other RPGM games like this!

Elevator Hitch

Elevator Hitchis a short 2.5D surreal horror/escape room visual novel with point-and-click and puzzle elements following the story of two co-workers suddenly finding themselves stuck together in a "Perfectly Normal" 70s office elevator.  They must explore each liminal-looking floor and find a way to get off the elevator to their actual destinations.

like a few others on this list, Elevator Hitch was made in just a month for the Spooktober Visual Novel Jam and was my favorite game from the year it came out (2022). it's more of an adventure style game than pure visual novel, so expect puzzles and a lot of bad ends! this developer also has a lot of other similar style adventure visual novels.

The Case of the Serialized Killer

When a popular illustrator is found dead, disgraced demonologist Harold Ludicael is hired to summon her ghost. Ghosts are the one thing he can't summon, but with sharp insight, perhaps he can solve the mystery, and resurrect the most important thing: His career.

this visual novel is an absolute feast on the eyes as all of the art is done by traditionally painted watercolor artworks! the characters are all unique and the world feels very lived in. if you like murder mysteries then check it out.

Stillwater

"𝕊𝕖𝕖𝕚𝕟𝕘 𝕤𝕥𝕣𝕒𝕟𝕘𝕖 𝕥𝕙𝕚𝕟𝕘𝕤 𝕔𝕠𝕞𝕖 𝕒𝕥 𝕒 𝕡𝕣𝕚𝕔𝕖…" A woman arrives with a mysterious letter in hand addressed to her grandfather. Etched in crimson is a foreboding message, a warning—a promise made from a time forgotten. Private Investigator Hugo Laurent and his assistants must solve this bizarre case before an old family's curse befalls them all.

Stillwater is a lovely looking game - I love everything about the art direction for it. it's not overly scary but very atmospheric with several endings to find.

Who is the Red Queen?

Alice falls down the rabbit hole into a Wonderland not quite right. Meeting an eclectic collection of people, animals, and some things in between, she sets out on an adventure in this odd new place to find the missing Red Queen. Or, more specifically, to find the pieces of the dismembered queen whose body has been strewn across the land.

a familiar but new take on Alice in Wonderland, now with a lot more yuri. like a lot of the VNs I've recommended, this was originally made in just 1 month. this one in particular has a lot of dead ends, mention of gore & dismemberment, and other content warnings.

okay now that you've made it this far I'm going to promote my gay horror / Halloween visual novels

Asphodelium

Hazel is an ex-adventurer who's settled down with some of his previous guildmates after the adventure of a lifetime—taking down a doomsday cult that tried to end the world, but at the cost of killing their former guild leader who turned against them. Despite their adventure still haunting him months later, he's tried to move on. —That is until a man with the same face as their guild leader approaches him. This is a story about cults and killing and killing cults. And being in love.

Asphodelium is a melancholic dark boys love visual novel that I made solo in about 3 months. it's entirely in NVL mode (I love you NVL) and around 3 hours long and my personal favorite game I've made so far.

Dahlia

a vampire has snuck into your room while you were sleeping. the only question is - are you next on her menu? Dahlia is a very short sapphic visual novel made in under 36 hours for the Velox Formido game jam, a jam for shortform visual novels. survive being trapped with a lovely little vampire, or don't.

also NVL mode because I love NVL mode. this is a short and sweet vampire visual novel I made solo in a weekend for a game jam that has several different endings.

Witch You Want

With a rather sparkly magical paper, you find a job listing for a local witch needing an assistant with making potions before the town festival that weekend. You sign up, unsure exactly what to expect...... A pompous and questionably excellent witch runs a local apothecary in town but finds that if she wants to make enough potions before the festival that weekend to sell (and keep her ongoing potion shop afloat) she'll need some assistance. After a dubious help wanted ad, she gains you as an assistant. Will the two of you see through to the festival? Will you be able to make a single potion? Will this girlfailure capture your heart?!

this is my latest visual novel that released just a few days ago! I directed & programmed this short cutesy game for a game jam at our studio. it's pretty fluffy romcom with a potion minigame in it. please help our girlfailure make potions, she needs all the help she can get.

[cynical-ghost]

YEARS AND YEARS

Paring: Charles Leclerc x Fem!Reader.

Genre: One-shot, fluff, secret relationship, friends to lovers.

Warning(s): use of Yn.

Synopsis: They had been friends since they were young, but soon that become more and people started noticing.

A/n: my first one-shot! Sorry if it’s bad, I didn’t know where this was going - not proofread.

Yn Ln had been brought up around racing, she attended every race she could and participated in karting when she was younger. The Ln girl enjoyed her time racing against others and the adrenaline it granted her, but as she grew older she drifted from the race track and moved on to other things.

She still had a passion for racing, even if she wasn’t the one in the drivers seat.

Yn still stayed in contact with her racing friends, they often met up and participated in fun activities or just had chilled out movie nights in one another’s apartments.

The friendship she had with Charles Leclerc had always been a close one, her family had moved from England to their holiday apartment in Monaco when she was four years old to give her a better chance at a racing career when she had expressed her passion for the fast paced sport.

She attended the same school as the boy and they quickly became friends after bonding over their love for racing. The two children had ran over to their parents after school and told them about their newfound friendship which led to play dates and days out for the two families.

As they grew older they became more and more competitive and gained a friendly on track rivalry.

When Yn turned sixteen she started exploring other fields of work such as modelling and music. The time she had reserved for Karting decreased, while her friends were being scouted for bigger racing opportunities like Formula 2

By the time she was eighteen she had stopped racing altogether, spending all her time working on other projects. Charles and herself were still very close, though they did things that usually would not be put in the friendship category.

Every time someone would see them they would always be touching, ether holding hands or sharing to-long hugs. When someone would call the two nineteen year olds out on it they would deny the accusation of them being in a relationship.

The to-long hugs soon progressed into quick, secretive kisses in hidden places, and the hand holding became a permanent attachment.

Their friends shared amused glances with each other whenever they saw the two together (which was all the time), The group of racing drivers and their respective partners came together and devised a plan that would hopefully get the ‘friends’ to spill their not so secret relationship.

~~~~~~~~~~<><><><~~~~~~~<><><><~~~~~~~~~~

Yn Ln was in Ferrari hospitality getting herself a quick snack to eat while watching the race, as she walked out of the building with her Jaffa cakes and a bottle of cherry Pepsi in her hands she was stopped by Max Verstappen as she passed by the Redbull garage as she wandered about to pass the time.

“Yn!” The voice of the man dressed in navy blue called out to her, her head whipped to where the shout of her name had came from.

When the woman saw it was her friend Max a smile tugged at her glossy lips, “Max, shouldn’t you be getting ready for the race?” She asked with a tilt of her head, her words coated with the slightest accent.

The man looked over his shoulder quickly, making eye contact with Kelly, before looking back at the person standing in front of him waiting for a response.

“I am, I just wanted to ask if you and Charles wanted to join me and the others for a few drinks at our hotel.” He asked. “Everyone is coming, it would be a shame if you guys didn’t.” He added, looking over at Lando who was walking by.

The man in papaya smiled cheekily and waved at the two, before running off to his garage so he wouldn’t be late for the start of the race.

“Sure, thanks Max.” Was her quick reply, she always enjoyed when the group got together and had a laugh.

The racing driver bid her goodbye as he strode back over to the team of mechanics.

The race had been a good one, Max coming in at P1 and Charles P2 with Lando joining them on the podium with P3.

After the team celebrations and a quick trip home for outfit changes, Yn and Charles were on their way to Max and Kelly’s hotel, they were both ready to wind down after the busy and successful day they had surrounded by their friends.

They were greeted by the other racers and their parters who had also been invited with hugs and congratulations in Charles’ case.

The group huddled together to get comfortable on the double bed and the few chairs around the room and started to watch a generic action movie picked by one of the racers.

The movie was about an hour in when the snacks that had been brought for the movie night looked to have been ravaged by a pack of wild animals, some of the packaging had even been ripped to pieces by Lando and Carlos who fought to get the last Reece’s (Lando won).

“We need more food.” Lando whined, throwing his head back to look at the others from his place on the carpeted floor.

Oscar nodded in agreement and looked to his girlfriend Lily, who was tucked into his side, to see if she wanted anything, she requested a drink quietly to him, still focused on the movie playing on screen.

“We could go for a few bottles of Coke and a some of chips.” The McLaren driver added his own order to the group.

Everyone looked at each other as to determine who would leave the confort of the hotel room to go and buy the requested food and drink. Soon every pair of eyes except for two landed on Yn and Charles who were cuddled up on a tucked away loveseat.

Yn sighed before standing up to stretch her back “Fine, fine we’re going.” Her voice came out ragged due to tiredness and having not been used for a while.

Charles look up at her from his spot on the couch, the two seemed to be having a conversation with their eyes before he too joined her in standing up.

“We’ll be back soon.” The man stated, his words thick with accent due to lack of use.

As the two left the room, quiet chatter started behind the closed door.

“Did you see the way they were cuddling! They can’t keep denying they are together if they are doing things like that in front of people.” Lando started in a whispered exclamation.

Carlos nodded, agreeing with the McLaren driver, “I noticed that too, they were clinging onto each other since the movie started.”

Charles and Yn walked alongside each other, a bag full of snacks and beverages carried by the man. They had been stopped a few times to take pictures with fans along the way.

“Do you think we are being to obvious?” Yn asked quietly as to not be heard by passers by.

Charles thought for a moment before answering in an equally as quiet voice, “maybe, but do you think it’s time to tell them? I mean we have been dating for almost three years.”

“We should probably tell them.” Yn mumbled, she hadn’t realised it had been so long since they had started dating, times flys when your having fun I guess.

The two reached the hotel room, stopping outside the door to go over the plan to tell their friends they have been together for as long as they have been.

Leclerc and Ln walked in with their hands clasped together. “We have something to tell you all” Charles started.

The group inside the room looked at their hands and glanced at each other. “Is it they you two are dating?” Lando blurted earning wide eye looks from the couple.

“Uh-yeh, yeh we hav-.” The two stumbled over their words having not realised their friends had caught on.

Max let out a wheeze at the sight of their caught out faces, Kelly softly hitting the back of his head before letting out a chuckle herself which caused the rest of the group to laugh at the pair still stood by the door.

Yn and Charles gave a sigh of relief at not having to tell the group of drivers and parters themselves, rolling their eyes at the laughing figures of their friends.

As the laughter sobered up max spoke up “so how long of you two actually been together?” The others staring at them intently also wanting to know.

“Three years….”Charles coughed out.

“Jesus!”

“Did you just forget to tell us or something?!”

Were some of the outraged answers from their close friends. Max looked at Yn’s face and realised that that was actually what had happened. “You really forgot to tell us didn’t you?” He laughed out.

Embarrassed nods were all he got from the pair.

[bryngmemoney]

✁FASHION FLIRT✃

Megumi Fushiguro x Reader

⭑story masterlist link

tw:none

Writing between messages!!

🪡Chapter Thirty-four: Show

You walked past a couple of models and students, trying to find him. Moving by the side of yet another collection you finally saw Megumi. He was standing there, simply looking around taking in his surroundings. “Megs!” you announced. He slightly jumped in response, then recollected himself once realizing it was you. “Y/n don’t scare me like that.”

“Sorry, but just wanted to see if everything’s good. I just checked in with Yuki and Ino and everything’s in place, do you feel alright?”

Megumi looked around, before sighing and wrapping his arms around your waist, burying his face into your shoulder, of course being careful to not mess anything up.

“Megumi?”

“Hm, yea i’m good, just a little nervous.”

You patted his back in response, pressing a quick kiss to the side of his face that was still visible to you. “You’ll do fine, and if you do happen to mess up I won’t be mad,” you reassured. “Won’t mess up, just don’t wanna embarrass myself.” You laughed a little, while he stood up right once again.

“15 minutes till start time!” someone in the crowd announced.

“Okay well, I’ll see you after, good luck Megs,”

“Mhm, take care love,” he replied in a more hushed tone, “See you after.”

“Who are those people?” You whispered to Maki next to you. “Which ones, the ones in the front?” You hummed in response, signalling that she was right. “They’re photographers, but there is also a few scouts I heard, then of course the ‘judges’ who are helping grade.

“Ah, okay, i’m kinda starting to freak out a bit.”

“Don’t Y/n! I’ve seen your designs and they look super cool, you’ll pass for sure!” You turned towards Yuji next to you, giving him a smile. “Thanks Yuji.”

“No problem!”

A couple minutes after the official start time the lights began dim around you, and brightening on the walkway. “Oh my god it’s starting!” you heard Nobara whisper-shout.

A few collections had gone by now, and you sat with anxiety waiting for yours to show up. Once Yuta walked out, you nudged Maki next to you. “Look it’s yours!” you excitedly whispered. “Yea, I know,” Maki mumbled in response, and although she seemed nonchalant about the whole thing, the slight fidgeting with the end of the skirt she wore was enough to tell you that she was also feeling a little nervous.

After Maki’s finished up, your breath was caught in your throat at seeing Megumi walk out. Transfixed on watching him walk down, you had your complete focus on him. For a split second you met his gaze, and had flashback of the first time you saw him walk during the audition.

“Lovestruck much?” Yuji said while nudging your side. Maki on your other side was fighting back her snicker at your expression. “Oh shut up, he made eye contact with me!”

“Y/n you’re literally dating him.”

“..And here in front of me is fashion student and designer, Y/n L/n!” Yuji exclaimed, holding up his phone’s camera in your direction in front of him. You turned around and gave the camera a small wave. “They’re dating my best friend, and he actually modeled for them, that’s how they got to know each other!” Yuji spoke indirectly to no one but his little vlog he was recording. “We’re gonna go give him flowers.”

You finally reached the door they had set up in the way of the official backstage and the hallway you guys were walking down. Yuji continued holding up his phone recording. “This is the backstage, we’re about to see all the models.” You opened the door, and with his free hand Yuji held it open letting you both in.

“Do you see him?” you asked as you both made your way through the crowd. “Uhh..” Yuji began, “Wait yeah look!” Yuji pointed, catching his hand in the frame of the video were he points to Megumi leaning against the railing of a short set of stairs.

“Megumi!” You called out, he looked towards you as you walked up the small steps, engulfing him in a hug, then backing up and handing him the roses.

“Say hi to the vlog Megs!” Yuji spoke up, recording from below you two. In response he just turned around, trying to hide the blush on his face, when the collar of the shirt doesn’t do enough, he uses the flowers once he feels Yuji approaching. “Don’t be shy!” You laughed at their antics, finding Megumi’s reaction the best.

“Shut up get that thing out of my face,” Megumi said trying to continue to turn away from Yuji. “Don’t be a grump c’mon!”

In an attempt to snatch his phone away from him, Megumi reached over, however completely forgetting about the lifted up step, causing him to trip over it. With that he tumbled over Yuji, both of them falling backwards. All the camera caught was Megumi’s hand grabbing it before hearing both of them exclaim as they fell, and your gasp, followed by a worried “Megumi!”

“Oh my, what happened here?” You turned towards Gojo who had showed up at probably the worst possible time, a taken aback Utahime besides him. “You’ve gotta be kidding me,” she grumbled, watching as the two boy groaned attempting to get up.

“Sorry,” you apologized on all your behalfs.

Author’s Note: epilogues out now too

guys this was sm fun to write and thank you all for support you’ve shown the story <33

im gonna start on another smau soon in a couple of days, i have two ideas and i can’t decide btwn them so you guys can click here to vote on which one u want to see first!!

hope you guys enjoyed!!

TAGLIST

@iridescentrays @gumimegz @maya-maya-56 @mamafly @lunavixia @swissy23 @coltsgf @m00nglad3-mp3 @etsukis @xosren @qtnfer @oengleli @harek89 @y-sabell-a @morgyyyyyyy @getolvr @liliumaraneae @k3lbade @aiieera @dancedancey @get0sfav @chuyasthighs0 @hyssoplampflickers @kpopanimen @sad-darksoul @vivi-loves-penguins @kasumitenbaz @talkingsperm @nymphsdomain @inlovewithlondonn @rzcnlb @enchantingkitty @fuyuzemi @lysaray @ni-ki-ismyluv @reneny @frumira @mixzimi @miralunaela @dreamxiing @p3achiee @anianurst @fishii28 @arguendo @samutoru @hallothankmas @invisible-mori @aiserex @all-in-the-fandoms @milza12 @nyxlai @daintyminho @tokyodarlng @molovs @hopeladybug @dazaisms

[sun-stricken]

Headcannoms about friendship between Bickslow and Gray? I like to think after the fighting festival he really tries to make it up to Gray.

Gray: ‘we’re chill. It’s fine.’

Bickslow: ‘my babies will now perform a dance of apology’

Also a scenario I’d like to share!

Lucy: hey, Gray I picked up your mail. Why do you have a letter from a modelling agency?

Gray: oh that. I don’t know they just keep sending me them even though I’ve told them no.

Lucy: you’ve turned them down repeatedly?! *while crying inside*

Gray: yeah? It’s weird ‘cause I didn’t even apply.

Lucy: Lucy kick!

i for some reason hadn’t considered the idea of them having a close friendship, but i am now so here! a gift !

i had so much fun with this

* my personal hc is that Bickslows dolls feel a lot of what he himself feels, and also theyre kinda like birds

* so they too try to make it up to Gray, they bring him little things they find, such as shiny rocks, pins, and other tiny objects they find

* Bickslow just nods in approval from the sidelines when they bring them to Gray

* They were both fairly awkward with each other post festival but after Bickslow gave Gray an honest apology they began to turn over a new leaf

* people find the friendship strange tbh, Gray is known as this vaguely calm and like, super normal guy, and Bickslow is just— not

* theyre surprisingly comfortable with each other

* they dont hang out a lot outside the guild, but thats not to say they dont ever,

* While they dont work the best together and it took a while be able to fight along side on another,

* If the Thunder Legion and Team Natsu have to pair up usually they do bc they’re comfortable with each other and trust can go a long way

* theyre both texting fiends, like its a problem how much they message their friends, so when they found out the other was the same oh my god was it a train wreck

* their conversations can go for hours and if you read through them youd probably have an aneurysm because the topics make no sense and Bix doesn’t even try to spell correctly

* They have gotten close and friendly but that doesnt mean theu ever know what to expect from the other, their opinions and thoughts are so different from each other, if rhey ever have the same idea its like all the stars and planet’s have aligned and world is about to end

* Bickslows hair is naturally black and Gray helped him dye it once and they deadass looked they walk out the smurf set for weeks, Bix’s bathroom looked like they murdered a hundred of them

* Gray has an affinity for collecting hand weapons (swords, spears, bows, etc) while Bickslow likes taking apart and building old bombs (actual explosive grenades, land mines, smoke/flash grenades)

* they bonded over it and talked about it in public and terrified about 20 people rhat were in earshot

* theyre both a big hit with kids

* Bickslow gets added to the long list of people who barge into Gray house unannounced

* a lot of the time they will talk (coughcomplaincough) about two different things in the same convo

* Bickslow: the cops were at my door again last night because of the inactive grenade i threw in the fountain, woke me up and everything

* Gray: ugh, i hate that, Natsu blew up a building again and Erza yelled at the both of us

* Bickslow: thats so rude, do you think i should make another one and send it to them?

* Gray: totally, she knew it wasnt me but i still got scolded

so happy ppl have realized how pretty Gray is, now we’re gonna talk abt it bc im an overachiever

* Hes been scouted by plenty of different modeling agencies over the years, which really boosted his ego but very quickly became annoying as hell bc he never even applied

* He gets a couple a month, and he accepted once just to get them off his back and found it really embarrassing bc he was everywhere

* his friends in and outside the guild bought the magazines he was featured in and teased him mercilessly and he never stepped foot in another agency ever again

* Hes really photogenic but hates gets his photo taken, most of the pictures hes in ‘willingly’ hes glaring at the camera

* he now just blocks the numbers they call him on and throws out the letter they send him, if they stop him on the street he will walk away before the conversation even starts

* when Lucy found out something inside her died a little

* she pestered him about it and said she’ll go with him! he wont even have to take the money for it! she’ll take it! 😁

* she gets shot down every time but that doesnt mean she quit trying

[inkblot-inc]

RCD: FWNB

Summary: This is the backstory between Natasha and Skitch, told during NYFW; Friends With No Benefits, also known as Fuckin' With No Bitch.

Pairing: (past) Natasha Romanoff x Reader, Jeweler!Wanda Maximoff x Metalworker!Reader (present, but briefly mentioned)

[Get Familiar With the RCD Universe] [Part 1] [Part 2] This is Part 3 [Part 4]

Warning(s): Toxic relationships (romantic and platonic), unrequited feelings handled poorly my dude, brief descriptions of violence, there's language in here bud, I remember typing it. This one is probably the most angsty now that I think about it-

Note(s): This thing right here is significant enough that I wanted to dedicate a seperate part to it.

Word Count: pretty sure we're past 1.5k here

ALSO: *squints* I give NO ONE permission to repost or translate my work. Make your own shit

Let's get into some backstory, shall we?

Natasha and Yelena's dad, Alexei, was ex-military and friends with Logan, and both of them came to see Logan as their uncle and even another parental figure. Since Natasha and Yelena's parents weren't every engaging, they often went over to Logan's, where he looked after them. With Skitch being Logan's adopted kid, they of course got to know each other and become very close. Logan would also bring the three of them to work with him to keep an eye on them. Yelena and Skitch became very close, basically thick as thieves, while it was clear that Skitch adored Natasha.

It was like that when all three of them were in school years together. Yelena and Skitch were definitely a bit closer just because they were the closest in grade, but Skitch couldn't help but be drawn to Natasha; she had brains, beauty, talent, all of it. And they never complained while having to watch Natasha take her after-school dance classes before walking to TMD together.

it was on one of these walks to The Maker's Damned during high school that Skitch confessed to Natasha. She never gave a straight answer, but she did wind up full-on kissing Skitch before they could walk into the workshop.

Your brightness in your eyes could only be outdone by the shine of your smile. "So does that mean you feel the same way?"

Natasha simply rubbed your forearm while giving you a small smile. "Don't think too hard about it, Skitch."

Your eyebrows furrowed as your smile lowered a bit, "I mean.. alright," You opened the door to the workshop for Natasha to go through first.

"Thank you, Y/n," she left a quick peck on you cheek before entering and you couldn't help the dumb smile left on your face.

"Yeah..."

---

'don't think too hard about it,' became Natasha's all expenses paid ticket to your heart, your time, and your romantic attention. While you wanted to remember that nothing was officially set between the two of you, she almost set an expectation for things to go somewhere with all the new one on one time you had with Natasha that felt more like dates than just hanging out, the stolen kisses and makeouts before and after classes. Never anything more than that though...

Skitch's relationship with Natasha began to fray once Natasha got into college. Skitch already knew they weren't going to college themselves (they didn't really know what they'd do there, and they didn't think they'd make it into a good one anyhow), but regardless of whatever confusing fuckery Nat was playing with skitch, she was still considered family to them, and Skitch believed that they'd still be close.

This was not the case.

Natasha, who initially was in college for dance, was scouted to do modelling and made new connections and friends. Upscale friends. It's no secret that Natasha and Yelena's upbringing was far from cushy: they had everything they needed, and they worked for all the extra things they wanted. Natasha even worked a few hours at TMD with logan doing inventory last two years of high school for some extra cash.

But Natasha tried to bury that part of her life, going as far as ghosting Logan and Skitch and all the peoples at The Maker's Damned to focus on cultivating her budding career as a model. Weekly rendezvous and daily calls between Natasha and Skitch turned into once a week if the timing was right. Further down the line, Natasha used her connections to branch out into Fashion and design, creating what is now known today as the Romanova brand.

Natasha had become invested in her new friendships, even started dating some science buff she met in college named Bruce Banner. He was nice enough to start, but he was always just a bit pushy and so different from Natasha. Natasha and Bruce were off and on, and the last time that they ended things, Bruce showed up to Natasha’s apartment and got very aggressive with her. Skitch, who, at the request of Yelena, came to check on Natasha and hopefully patch the rift (she) made. Upon arrival, Skitch saw Bruce trying to force his way inside Natasha’s apartment and pulled him away. This escalated into an altercation between Bruce and Skitch, Bruce not knowing (or caring) who skitch was, got belligerent with them as well.

Remember Skitch's police record? yeahhhh.

Skitch wound up putting hands on the man, breaking his nose and arm while leaving several other bruises on him. Skitch wound up with a nasty gash on their cheekbone, and after getting them to the ground kicked them in the ribs a good few times. Bruce called the police on Skitch, where they were charged with simple battery, [they were able to deescalate the situation to get the incident charged as a misdemeanor instead of a felony]. The public story was that Skitch assaulted Banner unprovoked while he was at his girlfriend’s house, which Skitch was advised to agree to by Logan. Skitch spent six months in jail instead of the sentenced full year due to good behavior.

Skitch and Natasha subsequently had a falling out due to this incident once all three of them are at the police station, where Natasha was further agitated by Skitch showing up to her place unannounced. Nevermind the fact that she very well could have been in danger if Skitch wasn't there.

Logan walked out into the waiting room with Skitch after they gave their statement. "I'm gonna go see about some ice for your...everything, bub. We'll probably put it on your face first to get the swelling to go down." you slowly nodded as Logan handed you a towel to clean up your face a bit, "I saw the other kid though... Good work." He patted your shoulder before he walked off.

Natasha was fuming when she came back from giving her statement. "You Show up to my apartment, that I know I didn't give you the address to, and cause even more problems for me to have to clean up! Just abandon your schoolyard crush on me and leave me the fuck alone!"

You rolled your eyes as you felt a headache coming on. “Never mind the fact that your SISTER asked me to come by to try and check on you, but you've never had to worry about me taking up your precious space when you’ve made it abundantly clear that you don’t give a SHIT about me!”

You took a deep breath since raising your voice made pain shoot through your side. "I didn't just agree to plead guilty cuz I was trapped, Nat."

Natasha scoffed at that, "What, so you're going to jail for me now, too?"

You leaned back on the bench and looked The redhead dead in the eyes. "Who do you think is next on the list of every pompous ass like Bruce Banner if it didn't look like I acted on my own? Who do you think they're gonna wanna ruin next if they knew I was there out of concern for you..."

Natasha bites her lip as the realization sets in; Bruce was a golden boy with a promising future as a Doctor/Biochemist/whatever the fuck he wanted to be, with more than half of his advisors going to bat for him. Natasha's budding modeling career would be clipped at the knees with no effort, all her contacts would turn tail if you didn't say you acted on your own. Even now you were acting in her best interest. Even now You were still protecting her.

With that realization, Natasha got up and left the police station on her own.

'Thank you.'

You watched Natasha leave before banging your head on the wall you leaned up against, your eyes closed.

'You're welcome.'

and that was the last time You and Natasha saw or spoke to each other.

Yelena felt guilty as all hell knowing she sent Skitch to check on her sister and then wound up doing time trying to help her. She yelled and she screamed at Natasha for not sticking by Skitch when that's all they've ever done for the both of them.

"It isn't about love, it isn't even about infatuation or a chance, it was about giving a fuck, Nat! Y/n was there, because I asked them to go, and because I knew they cared that you were okay, which is more than they can say about you."

This incident is also what wound up straining Natasha and Yelena's relationship as well.

Yelena kept close ties with Everyone as she ventured into Coordinating and working as a Sieu Chef in New York. Skitch and the others keep up with Natasha through the public eye and Yelena's updates (that she doesn't get too much of).

There's not even a cosign on the Christmas card Yelena sends in the mail for Skitch and Logan every year. Even as one who believes in forgiveness, after getting out of prison, Skitch stopped thinking "what did I do wrong? How can I fix this?" and started focusing on working at The Makers Damned full-time, though the notion of Natasha leaving "the common people" for a more lavish, glamorous life and career still sticks with them.

Though you could say that Skitch not holding resentment for everyone who live lives like Natasha does led them to pursuing their relationship with Wanda...

[itsmebytch001]

Yandere AOT Pt1:

Note: Hello, in all my yan Fics, it may get dark, but it will never be SA, or non con, or anything like that, it's okay if you're into that, as long as you don't bring that into the real world.

TW: Emotional manipulating, mild violence Yandere Mikasa Yandere Annie, with more yandere to come!

You, a newly accepted member of the cadet core, eager to please and to prove yourself as a cable soldier sat in your hard and un-pillowed bunk bed, staring at the wooden celling trying to sleep, one day in and your already seconding guessing what you've done...why are you here? For a cushy life as a member of the military police? Guard the walls? Or to fight titans and seizes and adventure new lands outside the walls? Who knows! You certainly didn't. The first day had gone fine, You stood in a line, back Stright with a fauve face of determination trying not to cry as a old man yelled at the people Stading beside you, as he walked down the row of new soldiers asking them

"And why you here?!"

They answered with reasonable statements like "To take back wall Maria" or "To protect the walls" except one guy who said "To kill every last titan, EVERY LAST ONE" He was a bit weird, You later found his name was Eren.

Bringing you back to the present, gazing again at the ceiling, you hear the shuffling of the girls sleeping around you, one snoring loudly, you pressed your pillow into your face hoping to drown out the noise, waiting for the next day to arrive.

Months have gone day since that day, soon you will be proper graduating soldiers instead of silly untrained children. Today was hand to hand combat training, which you thought was slightly useless, unless you were interested with the military police, in which case you may need to rough up some people, but if you're a scout? what the hell are you going to do with the knowledge of how to throw a proper punch as you are bitten in half by a ravenous Titan?

You were partnered up, shown how to block, how to kick and disarm a gun with a wooden model, every one was either goofing off, or half assing the training, expect one Annie who dominated over all others, sure she was fighting dirty with that under handed leg toss, but it sure was impressive, you noticed she kept side eyeing you as you waved around a toy wooden gun...strange.

Mikasa approached you...

Mikasa: "hey...what are you doing?"

Y/N: " nothing much, you?"

Mikasa placed her hand on your shoulder, and pulled you towards her.

Mikasa: " You should pay attention, you might need these skills in the future if the right situation arises."

Y/N: " yeah but..."

Mikasa: " but nothing, come one"

she said, slightly dragging you away to the centre of the sandy arena. She put her hands up in fits, as she was about to fight you,

Mikasa: "Put your hands up, defend yourself"

timidly you put your hands up, in a uncertain fighting position, you knew she wouldn't hit you hard, or to much...*BLAM* She punched you right in the nose.

Y/N:" Ahhh!"

Grabbing your face in pain, cowering away from her, you yelled out.

Y/N:" Mikasa, what the fuck?!"

Mikasa: "defend yourself!" She said as she lunged again at you, you dodged quickly, as her leg swung in your direction you again tried to swerve her, but it was too late, her leg whacked you in the rids, again you tried to escape her in a quick run, drawing the attention of your comrades as you ran from her, her scarf wavering in the wind as she chased you, you knew you couldn't out run her, but you weren't just going to allow her to beat you. You hoped maybe your friends watching would help but one did, but then, just as Mikasa was about to be untop of you, a blonde dash came to your saviour, tackling Mikasa to the ground, It was Annie.

As Annie pinned Mikasa to the ground while she struggled underneath her you stopped to catch your breath, looking over to Annie and Mikasa a proper scrap had emerged.

Mikasa: " Get The HELL off me!" she screamed as she wriggled under Annie.

Annie: "Calm down"

Mikasa then headbutted Annie, so hard it caused a nose bleed, Annie fell back off of Mikasa, but quickly and calmy stood up, ready to fight. Mikasa too stood up ready for a beat down, this was all escalating vey fast, and over you? Seemed a bit much really.

Mikasa primally screamed as she lunged at Annie, throwing a high kick. Annie then expertly grabbed her high leg, and tossed her over to the ground, and then began to twist. Mikasa screamed in pain as she struggled against Annies grip. You thought she was going to snap the bones in her leg until...

Jean: " Hey hey! ladies! calm down a bit will ya?!"

Annie: " back off Jean this doesn't involve you"

Jean:" Annie, if you hurt her, you could get thrown out, and come on it's nothing serious"

God he was condescending, though in this case he was right. Annie coldly let go of Mikasa's leg and walked off into your direction, as she walked by gazing down at you, her sharp eyes glaring at you, her shoulder purposefully shoved into yours, you were confused, she had just defended you from a psychotic Mikasa, why so rude?

As the others surrounded the dissipating commotion, Sasha then asked.

Sasha: "What the hell was that about?"

Y/N:" I honestly don't know"

Armin then rushed over to Mikasa side, Helding her up, and letting him lean on her since her leg was injured, they do began to waddle in your direction, and as they passed you, you met Mikasa's hard eyes, she looked as if she was about to cry? How odd.

Pay it no mind, you thought.

So as the day went on the sun began to set, and as you, and all you're sweaty comrades fuelled into the mess hall, you sat on the table agistment to Mikasa, Sasha, Eren and Armin, you were tired, in pain and starving, picking at your depressing scarps of food, bread, mash and water, sitting alone you noticed the ever growing feeling of being watched, you turned your head you see Annie, calmy staring you down, had you done something wrong? seriously what is her problem?

You turned back around to focus on your food, but then, in the seconds you turned your head around Mikasa had sat in front of you, With her plate of food scrapes as if she were to eat lunch with you? After she what happened this morning? She sure had some nerve.

Mikasa: " Listen Y/n, I wated to...apologises, for this morning. I should not have just ran at you like that, or hit you that hard in the face"

She seemed genuine.

Mikasa; " But really i meant what I said, you should have payed attention to the training, incase you need it, And if you like...I could train you?"

You were conflicted obviously, but you did need the training in order to do well...And Mikasa was an excellent fighter..so you agreed.

Y/N: "I would like to train with you, but really it wasn't cool how you almost broke my nose! if Annie hadn't stepped in would you have beaten me to a pulp"

Mikasa: " I...I just want you to be ready, if someone attacks you have to be ready, ready to strike, to defend yourself! You don't you die! I'm sorry that i was hard on you but I just want to to defend yourself"

You weren't willing to argue with her anymore.

Y/N: "Ugh...fine FINE..."

Mikasa: "So you'll train with me?"

Y/N:" Sure, yeah that would be useful"

Mikasa: "good. I'll see you tomorrow at dawn"

She then stood up, and returned to her table.

At dawn? Tomorrow at dawn? seriously? Dear god what have you just agreed too?

LIKE FOR A PART TWO!!!

[casicroaks]

Tiffany Valentine has two things in her mind: love and murder. The origins of the brains behind the infamous Lakeshore Strangler and the string of broken hearts she left along her way to Chicago, interwoven with the development of the tempestuous relationship between her and a certain Charles Lee Ray.

CHAPTER 12

[ CHAPTER 1 // CHAPTER 2 // CHAPTER 3 // CHAPTER 4 // CHAPTER 5 // CHAPTER 6 // CHAPTER 7 // CHAPTER 8 // CHAPTER 9 // CHAPTER 10 // CHAPTER 11 // CHAPTER 12 // CHAPTER 13 // CHAPTER 14 // CHAPTER 15 // CHAPTER 16 ]

CHICAGO, 1986

We had been lying under the shade of that tree for a few hours now. A while had passed since the shade had moved enough to leave us unguarded again. The warmth felt good on my skin, and even though the sun was shining pretty strongly, it was nice to stay there, on the soft grass, with the gentle breeze from the waterfront. It felt like it had been ages since we actually stopped and enjoyed the outdoors for a while.

“Thank God it’s spring again,” Chucky sighed. “And it really feels like Saturday, to boot.”

“But you don’t have a job,” I reminded him with a little giggle.

“What does that have to do with anything?”

It had been a few months since we had moved to Chicago, and I didn’t miss Hackensack one bit. I half-opened my eyes to take a peek at the world around us. Birds were singing their pretty songs from the treetops. Seagulls flew above us like little white crosses against the pure periwinkle blue of the sky. The rustling of the fresh new leaves in the trees and the chattering of the scattered crowd relishing the sunny weekend weather at the park was as calming as the faint sound of the waves of the Michigan lake. People walked their dogs, children flew their kites, friends had picnics, other couples just like us were similarly sprawled on the bright green grass, basking in the sunlight. I closed my eyes again, focusing on the low quiet thumping of his heart, and pushed my sunglasses back up the bridge of my nose.

“You know, I was a real outdoors sorta kid, back in the day. Didn’t have many friends in the first place, so I tended to spend a lot of time on my own,” I said, going back to the few times I sunbathed by the park, smoking and wasting the hours before it was time for dinner. “Playing in abandoned houses, collecting spiders, exploring the neighborhood…”

“Huh. I wouldn’t have thought of you as a tomboy.”

“I wasn’t a tomboy,” I frowned. “I just liked being out of the house.”

He stroked the side of my arm. We were both feeling kinda drowsy.

“What about you?” I asked him, pushing his sunglasses up and off his eyes. He blinked and scrunched his nose, briefly blinded by the light. “I can imagine you being a total boy scout type.”

He laughed, covering his eyes with his hand.

“I dunno, Tiff… We had a yard, back at my parents’ house. I guess I played in it,” he shrugged. “But the second home had some really nice grounds. Lots of trees, a whole forest surrounding it… Great for playing in, as a kid.”

“The second home?”

“Yeah—”

“You were in more than one home?”

“I was at two homes,” he said. “One back near Hackensack, the other in South Jersey. Had a pretty shitty time at the first. And, I mean, I was kind of a sheltered kid before, not the best at making friends. Not like I wanted any.”

I rested my cheek against his chest, playing with one of the buttons of his Hawaiian shirt. It wasn’t a confirmation, but I had had the suspicion he was an only child for a while now. Him having been a spoiled little thing made a lot of sense.

“I was convinced I’d be adopted in a month, at most,” he continued. “You know, I was a model kid. I knew all the right things to say. But time passed, and I kept getting annoyed with the other boys… And after picking a few too many fights I should have known I was too small to win—”

“You killed them?”

“Close enough,” he said with a little smirk. “I started a fire in their rooms, and it spread, and soon the whole orphanage went up in flames.”

“So you set an orphanage on fire?” I chuckled, honestly quite impressed. “Were those your first kills?”

“Huh?”

I crossed my arms over his ribs, and rested my chin over my hands. “I totally get it. One day you just have enough, you snap, and… You know. Things happen.”

Chucky sighed. We didn’t really talk about our life before meeting the other. Not that I was gonna complain. It was nice to see he trusted me enough to share something personal.

“After that, I was transferred to Burlington County Home. That was a more liberal type, the sort that’d get you a slap on the wrist if you were caught smoking pot in the hallway.”

I laughed. It would figure that it was there where he got introduced to some good music. Maybe it was along the same time I got introduced to Heath’s house parties, to his cool friends, and to what being cool was all about, too. I liked the idea –our parallel stories. There was a feeling of destiny to it.

“There I made an effort to start fresh, win people over… It was like turning a new leaf, you know? With all the records of my behavior having been burned up, and with most of my old tutors in intensive care. And besides,” he smiled wider. “My story of having survived a fire gave me quite a bit of a reputation among the other kids.”

“Bet you didn’t quite say how the fire started, though.”

“Well, you always got to doctor your stories,” he said, raising his eyebrows over the rim of his sunglasses. “Omit some details, add a few new ones.”

I sighed and nodded, too. I knew exactly what he was talking about. Perhaps he had told himself, after that fire, what I had told myself after killing Heath: that it had been great fun, but that a functional member of society can’t go around killing all willy-nilly. After all, everyone loses their temper once in a while. I used to wonder if there were actually a lot more people who had killed someone in their lives –not just cops and surgeons, but your average joes and janes, people you came across in line while buying groceries, in the crowd at the movie theater, or spending a lovely afternoon in the park. One little accidental death doesn’t make a killer. No –you need to commit to it. You need to really love it, care about it, know what you’re doing. Otherwise, you’re just an amateur waiting to get caught.

“If you had stayed at that Hackensack home,” I said quietly. “Then we might have met a little earlier.”

He raised his sunglasses and squinted down at me. “You think so?”

“… No, not really,” I muttered, thinking it over. “I was probably already on my way to New York by then. Besides, the chances of us two meeting back then… I don’t think they were very good.”

All around us were little wildflowers, welcoming the season. I sat up and picked tiny daisies and buttercups, gathering them in mini-bouquets and spinning them, getting green stains on the tips of my fingers. Once I had a nice bunch, I leaned back on the grass, against him, and weaved them all along his black hair.

“At what age did you run away?” I asked him.

He looked up at me in surprise. Chucky hadnʼt mentioned it, but I could pretty safely assume so.

“… I was fourteen.”

Another perfect coincidence. I smiled. “Yes, you and I might have gotten along just fine.”

Not often did I think about that other kid at school, the only one who had asked me to be his girlfriend, Darry Cade. The pussy. Another missed chance to make a friend. If he had been Chucky, I knew he’d have agreed to run away with me. There was not a time in his life in which he would have turned down such an offer. Chucky was many things, but he wasn’t a pussy.

“What were you up to back then?”

“Oh, you know…” I shrugged, gazing down at my hands, wondering what childhood he had painted in his mind for me already, and how far it’d be from the reality. “We were just a normal family. Mom, dad, me, Bri… I went to school, I looked after my little sister, I helped my mom around with housework… It was a good life. Normal. I just… It was a bit stifling, you know? And you know how mothers can be kinda bossy—”

“Not my mom,” he said with clear pride in his voice. “She was the coolest. She let me stay up late, reading all night, even on a schoolday.”

“Lucky you,” I chuckled. “Mine was… She wasn’t so cool. And my dad, he was always somewhere else, only home for dinner…”

A stowaway ant had crawled its way out of a daisy, and onto Chucky’s brow. It went down the thin path of an old pale scar. I recognized it as the traces of scratches I had given him some time ago. They were almost invisible, except under a certain angle and a certain light.

“But it was a good life, all things considered. I can’t really complain.”

I could –but I didn’t want to. Besides, what was the use? Just to have him pity me? For him to bitch about how much I bitched?

He felt the ant on his face and raised his hand to try and kill it. I clicked my tongue. Carefully, I picked it with my nails, like I would pluck an eyebrow hair with tweezers. Slowly, I crushed the little bug until it stopped squirming.

“You know, Tiff,” he said with a smirk. “It’s that type of fine upbringing that makes us such outstanding citizens.”

We both burst out laughing.

Not very far from us, I heard the coos and babbles of a cute baby in a bucket hat. The parents laughed along and encouraged them, holding their little chubby hands, and helped them give a couple stumbling steps on the grass. I watched the family keenly. Sometimes I made an effort to remember my first memory; whatever it was, I had to guess it was probably something similar to that scene of the parents with their baby. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t quite picture it, though. I had a bunch of scattered images of me being dressed up by my mother, me being bounced on my father’s knee, me with my toothless mouth open wide, either in a laugh or in a scream, but then I realized these were all photos we had around my parents’ house. Real details were fuzzy. Both of my parents had looked the same across the years, so I had no way to know which event came first, whether a blurry, off-key Christmas pageant was during kindergarten or during elementary already, or whether a frosting-covered cake, made to look like a big hoop skirt for one of my dolls, was lit up for my fifth or for my seventh birthday. I do remember throwing a tantrum when I lost my favorite star-shaped barrette during the performance. I remember wondering if my doll’s cheek would melt with the fire of the candles.

“My mom thought I’d end up being a doctor,” Chucky commented quietly, lost in thought. “I mightʼve gotten into medical school, like my dad.”

“Mm… We should probably think about getting jobs by now,” I said, taking a deep breath. “Shouldn’t we?”

He stroked my hair. “… Well, we might not need to.”

I looked back up at him. “You say we just keep on looting?”

“I mean,” he shrugged. “We can probably manage just fine that way.”

“Come on, most people don’t carry that much in their wallets,” I said with a frown. “Besides, you never take care of groceries and stuff, it’s easy for you to say so—”

“Alright, alright…” he huffed, taking off his sunglasses and pressing his eyelids. “I’ll see if I can get hired for something.”

I went back to resting my head on his chest, and considered what my options were. “You know, I used to want to be an actress.”

“Really?”

“Yeah… But I wasn’t any good at it. I had to give it up.”

“Shame.”

“I guess I’m not that good at anything besides killing,” I said, letting out a resigned chuckle.

There was a pause. Chucky then propped himself up on his elbows. “Hey –don’t say that. You’re a damn great cook, and you had that job at the hair salon for years… I don’t think you’d be able to hold down a job for so long if you didn’t do something right.”

I smiled at him. Genuine, creative compliments weren’t his strong point, and he was particularly stingy with them. Still, he had made an effort, and truthfully, I was more than a little bit moved. “Guess so.”

“Only thing…”

“What?”

“You do drive like a goddamn maniac.”

I laughed out loud. “Why, thank you, darling.”

“Am I wrong?”

I pounded my fist on his shoulder, laughing louder. He wrapped his arms around me, his chest shaking as he repressed a giggle, trying to get me to stop hitting him. It took a while before I calmed down, still smiling, and plopped down over him. He took off my glasses and set them over his own, making me laugh longer, louder, with those little snorts that he always found so funny. Just straight ahead of me, I noticed one of the other couples sitting up on the grass and shooting me a glare. Probably thinking I was too loud. I flipped them off. What a goddamn need some people had, to get all up in other people’s business.

“Do you ever think about being, like…? Normal?” I asked.

“You say this isn’t normal?”

I rolled my eyes. “You know what I mean… Like, a more traditional way of life.”

Chucky frowned and thought about it for a moment. “You mean white picket fence, two and a half kids, disposal in the sink, that sort of stuff?"

“Yeah. That sort of stuff.”

“No. I never think about it,” he scoffed. “Listen, Tiff, can you really imagine me working a nine to five? Carrying a stupid briefcase around, like a goddamn yuppie?”

“No…”

“So? We have a good life. We have all we need. All we could ever want.”

I gave it some thought. He was right, in a way. We had each other, and a nice place all for ourselves, and our fun little hobby. Really, what more could we ask for?

Well, for starters, I would have liked a real house. Not that our apartment wasn’t perfect, because it was. But I had always dreamed of a proper house, with a good kitchen, a dining room, a nice big bathroom with a tub, somewhere with a yard where I could grow flowers, and that would have a porch on which to sit on summer evenings… And a wedding, that would be really nice too. I gazed at Chucky’s face, breathing softly, his eyes closed behind the two pairs of sunglasses. It would make a funny sight, him dressed up in a proper tux, waiting for me at the end of the aisle. Before we left for Chicago, I had the luck to be invited to Connie’s wedding, back in Hackensack. It had been such a beautiful occasion –even though the groom was a cheating bastard. And, as silly as it could seem, I still dreamed of a white wedding, a proper one, big and impressive and with a lot of guests, and a big poofy silk-and-lace dress, in a grand church, and full of flowers and music and light, just like Connie’s. The sort that would make the local news. That would be a true dream come true, I sighed, coming down back to reality.

Only thing that would be missing from it, then, would be…

“Have you ever thought about having kids?” I asked him.

Chucky scoffed again. “Fuck no—”

“Come on, don’t tell me you haven’t considered it at least once.”

“What would I want kids for? Just to have them demand attention all day, and cry out all night?” He shot me a look from under the sunglasses. “I already got you for that.”

“Kids keep you company once you’re old,” I pointed out, thinking about something Connie had told me, part of the reason she had married her boyfriend. “It’s actually a pretty smart long-term decision to have children, when you think about it. Like an investment.”

“Well, let’s just agree to disagree.”

I pouted and poked his cheek. “Aw, are you that bad with kids?”

“Nah, I’m good with kids. It’s just that I hate them,” he replied. God forbid he admit he was bad at anything. “You know, those little fuckers can get pretty wily once they start walking.”

“What, did a baby try to bite a finger off you once, or something?”

“I grew up in an orphanage, Tiff. I know what kids can be like.”

I rolled my eyes, and looked down at the grass, pulling little green blades. Everything pointed to me not being able to change his mind. Not that I was suggesting anything, of course. We were just saying stuff to pass the time. He did notice some kinda shift in my mood, though. With a little sigh, he sat up, picked a buttercup from his hair, and tickled my neck with it, getting me to smile again.

“Listen, babe, we’re just not cut out for... For the supposed normal life,” Chucky said, in his best attempt at being reassuring. “We’re not like others. We are who we are. And we are… We’re special . And besides,” He put the buttercup up over my ear. My dark roots were showing again already. “I wouldn’t be a good father anyway. You know that.”

“I don’t know about a father… But I think you’d be a good husband.”

He snorted, and leaned back to lay on the grass, staring up at the sky. “Very funny, Tiff.”

I rested my chin on his chest. “You know that, if you popped the question, I’d say yes in a heartbeat. Right?”

He forced an unconvincing laugh. “Sure.”

“I’m serious!” I insisted. I turned his jaw so he would be looking straight at me. He rolled his eyes. “Hey. I love you, Chucky. You know that.”

He looked me in the eye, and finally gave me a genuine smile. “Yeah, I know.”

“So, what’s so funny about it?”

“It’s just… Come on, Tiff, this is crazy talk! Marriage? Really ? Do you honest to God think I would be a good husband?” Chucky huffed. “We’d just end up trying to kill each other. And you’d ditch me the second I got too old for the chase.”

“Don’t be stupid, Chucky,” I said, sitting back up. Did he really have that idea of me? “I wouldn’t leave you for the world, even if you got all ugly and wrinkly and fucked up in the face.”

“You say that now—”

“After all, you’d do the same if I got all fucked up,” I said with a shrug. “Right?”

He glanced at me, and let a few too many seconds pass by. “… Yeah, sure.”

I gave him a shove. He let out a real, bright laugh.

“You asshole, not even I am that shallow!” I cried, trying not to laugh too, as he shoved me back. “If I were, I wouldn’t have stayed with you for this long—”

He laughed again. I tried to slap his arm but he grabbed my hand, so I slapped his shoulder with my other hand, and we play-fought, him pushing me on my back and trying to tickle me, me giggling uncontrollably and trying to kick him off me, while at the same time swatting his hands as best I could, trying to gain the upper hand and tickle him back. I finally managed to grab his shoulders and shove him back and climb on top to straddle him –though there was a good chance he just let me overpower him this once –and distracted him from the little roughhousing with a kiss, declaring myself the winner of this round.

Chucky never said it out loud, but I knew how he really felt about all these things. Maybe I was being kinda stupid for thinking about our future like that. I just couldn’t take my mind off it. The more time that it passed with us together, the more I was convinced that, as much as he didn’t seem to care about that sort of life, this thing that we had was definitely gonna last. And if we were going to stay together, then what was so wrong about trying to plan for it? 'Live for today' , or however his personal philosophy went, didn’t need to come into conflict with just thinking things ahead of time.

I was spending a lot longer than I would have liked to admit, wondering these things to myself. Sometimes I did wonder if we’d ever truly get too old for the chase, having to, for whatever reason, stop going on our hunting dates. That might have been what scared Chucky, the idea of not being able to do what he loved anymore. Maybe he thought that a little more traditional life would clash with that –but why should it? Why wouldn’t we be able to be who we were, and still enjoy all the middle-class perks and comforts? After all, not all serial killers had to be rednecks and bums. We were smart, we could find some way to make it work. All I really needed was for him to see how good this could be, for the both of us.

After all, I knew he couldn't deny how much better it was to be comfortable in a little place of our own. 

Unboxing all our stuff took us a lot more time than we spent packing. Since we didn’t have anywhere to put our clothes at first, we just left them in the suitcases. The priority was to take out the more fragile things: while Chucky put away the knives and our mugs and the little dishware we had brought with us, I spent some time unwrapping my doll collection and my trinkets that would adorn the mantle. At the bottom of the box, lying awkwardly on a pile of Chucky’s books, I found Peeping Tommy, and beamed at the sight of him. Of course I knew he would have brought him along with us to Chicago, but still, seeing the tiny clown in the flesh was a relief. What wasn’t so nice was to notice the poor little guy hadn’t gotten through the trip unscathed: there was a long thin crack going from the upper side of his face down to his nose. It was barely noticeable, I told myself, running my finger through it, but it was still something I knew I should take care of. I decided to leave it in the box for the time being, and once we had settled down better and I could start buying back all my doll-fixing supplies, my glue and my paints, I would get Tommy looking as good as new.

And settling down in the apartment didn’t seem to be difficult, at first, until we realized just how many things we were actually needing. Some basic stuff was all covered, like heating and toiletries, but we basically ate all our meals either standing up by the counter in the kitchen, or on the sofa we got for the living room. Flea markets and garage sales were where we found most of our furniture, and we brought them up to the apartment after tying it up to the roof of the car and some effort to bring it up the stairs. First thing we got was a sleeper sofa, to at least have somewhere to lay down that wasn’t a couple of pillows on the floor, until we could get ourselves a decent bed. Eventually we found a beautiful old wrought iron bed frame, a good-enough mattress, and a dresser, and two little side tables. A couple weeks later we took a trip to the local Goodwill, and I got a few picture frames where to put some magazine cutouts to adorn the walls, so they weren’t so bare, while Chucky examined some knickknacks and wandered around the t-shirt section. We both had our own collections: I had my dolls, of course, and collector’s magazines, but also a few china figurines, old cake toppers, porcelain pillboxes, pretty candles, and interestingly-shaped bottles; while he collected animal bones, small statues of skeletons and devils, retro masks, and other weird little knickknacks –anything that called his attention, really. The more the merrier. I didn’t manage to find a new sewing machine at a decent price, however, which was what I missed the most of my old things at Hackensack that I couldn’t bring with me to Chicago.

The bedroom, more than the kitchen or even the living room, was the place that was the most lived-in. Chucky piled his books by the side of his bed for the first month or so, before he got tired of having such a hard time organizing them, and decided he would make shelves. It was his first time doing any carpentry work, apart from that forgotten Ikea table, and with his lack of patience and our lack of tools I knew before he even started that he’d end up with a swollen finger or two, at the very least. He refused my help, shocker, and since after a while he got particularly worked up, I decided to leave him to it and watch TV, keeping the volume low enough so I could snicker at his swearing and little tantrums. Still, it worked out well enough, the shelves weren’t too crooked, and I could display the rest of my collection, and he could place his books so he could organize them more easily. Similarly, I soon got sick of having to dive through the suitcases to find the clothes I couldn’t stuff in the dresser drawers. He managed to get us a clothing rack from which we hung our coats and my dresses, and a few days later I found an empty dollhouse at the Goodwill that I fixed up and refashioned into a shoe sorting thing. I even got us a tall, pretty bamboo palm from a hardware store, to bring a little life into the living room.

Slowly, piece by piece, the apartment became a proper home. A month or so later we could already say we were nicely settled.

I made an in-depth analysis of my options around the city before I took the car for a checkup. Luck would have it that the guy at the garage trusted me with a place to get the license plate changed, so I wouldn’t be caught with a stolen vehicle. Darnell’s was the name of the place, managed by this large man, Darnell himself, who was really interested in it. He offered me some pretty good money for it, even after I told him it wasn’t for sale. Truth be told, his last bid was a really tempting one, but I reminded myself that the Pontiac wasn’t just another joyride. This one had sentimental value. Besides, what was I gonna do with the money? Get me a shitty Chevette? No way.

We spent most days cruising around and getting acquainted with the city. We did the touristy stuff for a few days, and then we just became familiar with the neighborhood, so then we could branch out and go further. We got a feel of which streets were the most patrolled, and which ones were the best for when we wanted to go on our special hunting dates and pass by undetected. The change of scenery was really exciting at first. The new routine didn’t last very long, though: at first, it was as if we were the only two people in the entire world. But as time went on, Chucky started going out on his own during the day, only showing up late at night for us to head out together. He slept at home, but he would sometimes not even be there when I woke up, and so I had to have breakfast on my own –not even back in Hackensack he ever left me to have lonely mornings. Maybe I would have been able to understand it better if it wasn’t so inconsistent. Some days he’d be there to wake me up with a kiss; some days he would be gone and wouldn’t even show up until the next evening. I didn’t have a job to keep me distracted yet. I only had him, there in Chicago, and when he wasn’t there, it really felt like I had nothing at all.

And I hate having to wait. I hate empty moments. I hate silences. My hands start trembling if too much time passes and I don’t have anything to do. I need something to devote myself to. 

So I did my best to keep myself busy. When he wasn’t around I took out the Pontiac, filled it up, and scoured the city for cool new places to visit, for when he finally showed his face again. It became my new occupation to find restaurants we could go to, and nice cinemas, and a few clubs that didn’t sell drinks that cost an arm and a leg. I also applied for jobs, but nothing came up; besides, I didn’t really want to do anything that was too far from our new home.

One Tuesday afternoon I was alone again, so I drove to a record store I had my eye on. After all, I had a car now, so it stands to reason that I was needing my own tape collection. I picked some of the loose change I had scattered under the car seat, fixed my lipstick in the rearview mirror, and got into the place. I think the music that was blasting in there was some B-52s, but I’m not completely sure. There was a guy by the cash register reading a newspaper, with the front page announcing the latest murder of an insurance salesman by Irving Park, not too far from where the store was. I looked away from it with a little smile. Going through the box of tapes on sale, I found Purple Rain ; I picked it up and turned the case and went over the tracklist, and out of a sudden I remembered it had been a Prince song, the first one on that list, that which had been blaring out the loudspeakers at that Hackensack nightclub years ago. It surprised myself to even remember that. I wondered if Chucky remembered it, too.

“Hey,” I said to the nearest person, thinking she was an employee. “You got any Joan Jett?”

“I don’t work here,” she said, and turned around towards the cash register. “Hey, Jack! Look alive, you got a customer.”

The guy looked up from his newspaper. As soon as he saw me, his mouth gaped open, and then it struck me. 

“Tiffany?”

“ Jack ?”

God knows how I recognized him. He had badly chopped his hair into a homemade mullet, replacing the scruffy look he had as a teen. There were scars of recent shaves on his jaw, little dots that weren’t fully healed yet. All in all, though, he did look healthier: no longer sunken eyes and cheeks, no more the look of someone who slept on park benches. I wondered how different I must have looked to him, from that scrawny sixteen-year-old he had first met.

“Wow, it’s really you!” he smiled. “Damn, it’s been a while.”

“Ten years?”

“Give or take, yeah, I guess…”

I stared at him, wondering what the odds were for us to ever meet again –and in Chicago, of all places. For a moment I had a sudden worry that he might have somehow followed me from New York… But that made no sense, of course. And besides, if he knew anything about me, it was that it wasn’t wise to piss me off.

“What’re you doing here? Promoting your band?”

“Man, I wish. I’m hitchhiking my way to San Francisco,” he declared, as if that was a particularly cool thing to do. “Money’s been tight lately, so a friend got me this job, for the time being.”

“Huh.”

“What about you?” Jack asked, leaning forward. “You wanted to be an actress, right? I really thought you’d make it, back in New York.”

I scoffed and looked away, cursing at myself for even smiling in his direction. Still, I wondered if he meant it. He knew I had wanted to be someone. If he ever believed I had what it takes to be a star, he didn’t really say it until now.

“You know, the old twists and turns of life… You never know what fate’s got in store.”

The initial shock of reuniting with him finally washed away. We were never a thing. He never agreed to call me a girlfriend. If anything, more than regret, I had resentment.

“How’s your hand?” I asked, gesturing towards it. “Did the finger ever grow back?”

“Not yet, but I’m still holding out hope.”

I gave him an open-mouth grin. Jack just kept smiling, perfectly calm, as if we were discussing the weather. I wondered what he told people who asked about his wound. It was a given that he’d never tell anyone a not-girlfriend chopped it off at the back of a movie theater. Maybe he’d say he lost it in a knife fight, that surely sounded convincing enough. Back when I was in the dating pool, I had met a couple guys who liked to point out their domestic accidents and cat scratches, and say stuff like they had been assaulted at knifepoint and somehow miraculously managed to fight the attacker off with barely a scrape. And I’d smile, too, because I knew that that was what they wanted me to respond with.

“You’re, uh… You’re looking good,” he said with a nod, his eyes still fixed on me. Then he glanced down the neckline of my minidress, like they always did. My own smile faltered. “Real good.”

Should have seen it coming. He wouldn’t be half as nice to me if he didn’t have something else in mind.

I glared at him. Better to make it clear right then and there. “I have a boyfriend.”

Jack’s smile became less natural, stiffer, more of a grimace. Disappointment could have that sort of instant effect, I thought, biting my tongue. “Oh –really?”

“Yeah, really,” I said with a chuckle, quirking my eyebrows. “Two years, actually. Going nice and steady.”

“Wow. Lucky dude.”

He might pretend he had forgotten about trying to get his hand under my skirt. I hadn’t forgotten how Jack had stood me up in the dead of winter. Briefly I considered inviting him over, so Chucky and I could have some fun with him –but I decided to be forgiving, and let bygones be bygones. After all, I could be merciful. I could be nice.

“Sure is.”

“Is he here with you, in Chicago?”

I sucked on my teeth. The guy just didn’t give up. 

“Was his idea to come, actually.”

“You happy with him?”

What’s it to you? , I almost snapped. Instead, I just closed my hand into a fist, took a deep breath, and smiled. “Happier than ever.”

“Good,” Jack said, finally getting the message. “Good to know.”

I nodded. We kept silent for a moment.

“… You came for tapes?”

At least that gave us some room to talk like normal people.

Jack jabbered on and on about the Chicago music scene, complained about 'all these goddamn posers and sellouts ', and listed bands I had never heard of. I pretended to be really invested in all of this, even managing to ask a few questions for his sake. I'm not sure why I did it. I guess that a part of me still had some affection for him, somehow, after all this time. And Jack was genuinely happy to see me again, despite me leaving him with an uneven number of fingers. I think that was weirder than me taking some pity on him and allowing him to ramble on about his hobbies.

“Hey, by the way,” he finally said as he focused back on me. “When did you arrive in Chicago?”

“Hm, about three months ago? I think?”

Jack nodded. He took out a piece of paper and scribbled a number and an address. “Listen, if you ever need anything, like, I don’t know, some tools, some contacts in the city… I got a few guys who can help out.”

“Guys?”

“Yeah, folks I know ‘round here.”

I frowned. There was a feeling that there was something left unsaid. Like he expected me to do something in exchange. He handed me the paper. I looked at it. It really was just phone numbers and addresses, and a small list of names. His was included at the top.

“Last week I had an issue with the heater at the place I’m staying over. Paulie there,” he pointed at the paper. “He came over and fixed it for me. I paid him in lunch and beer. He’ll probably take the same from you, if you ever need to give him a call.”

I folded the paper and tucked it into my bag before he changed his mind. “Why’re you being nice to me?”

“You mean, because of this?” he asked as he raised his hand. “Well… Boyfriend or no boyfriend, I remember how hard things were, back then,” Jack said, scratching the back of his head. “I guess one can use all the help one can get.”

That did get me to give him an honest smile. I had no way of knowing whether or not Jack was being honest, obviously –but it was just an offer. And who knew, maybe I would end up needing some help, God forbid. I wasn’t gonna say no to a possible lifesaver because of some old stupid fight from back when I was a teenager... As tempted and justified as I was to keep the grudge.

“After all, you never know what fate’s got in store,” he shrugged. “Right?”

“Right.”

 Jack smiled at me again. I smiled back. It was so ugly, to feel those teenage crush heartstrings being pulled once more, after so long. It was difficult to even remember that I still hated him. We talked a little more, we said our goodbyes, and after a while I left the store with a pretty good haul of Lita Ford and The Pretenders.

So, really, it turned out a good deal of the ‘help’ Jack had offered me were the numbers of a few of his friends: weed dealers, aspiring musicians and desperate handymen. But he knew the local scene much better than I did, even with less time in Chicago than Chucky and I had, so I kept it. In the end, I liked the idea of having at least one friend in this new city, at least until I could properly feel at home.

Summer was soon on its last legs, and then it was fall again, and the cold came back with a vengeance. We were both really thankful the fireplace at the apartment was fully functional. Only problem was, neither one had gotten jobs yet. Money had gotten tight, and we were really living from kill to kill, taking all we could from the bodies we slaughtered. Most of all, whoever we chose during our dates was always a gamble. Since we were working together, there was no chance any of our victims managed to overpower both of us and escape, that was for sure. But people who dressed up to the nines did not always have much cash on them: our golden tickets, rich people who flaunted it and carried fat wallets, were pretty rare. That was without even mentioning how they tended to stroll around richer areas of the city, with heavier surveillance and cops in every corner. We were bold, but we weren’t stupid.

In the end, til either one of us got a new job to at least take care of groceries, we’d make do with our loot and a bunch of savings we kept under the mattress. That did mean less movie nights and less eating out, but it was sort of a given this would happen; and besides, both of us had gone through hard enough times to not make too much of a fuss about it.

We had missed the date for spring cleaning by a couple months, so one afternoon I decided we would get things done and finally make the apartment look neat and organized for once. It definitely wasn’t an empty two-room anymore: the clutter we had been gathering had turned pretty worrying. It wasn’t that we didn’t have room for it all, because we certainly did. The issue was putting everything in its proper place.

“You’re gonna do the bathroom, right, hun?” I asked him after I had changed into the oversized Betty Boop t-shirt I didn’t mind getting dirty, putting on the rubber gloves and heading to the kitchen.

“Yeah, yeah,” he nodded, still staring at the TV.

“Hey –did you listen to me, Chucky?”

“Yeah, I said I heard you already,” he said, and finally turned around. “I am gonna do the bathroom… And it’s damn near impossible not to listen to you, you’re always screeching.”

I was about to snap back at him –but told myself that if we started arguing, then nothing would get done.

The kitchen was bigger than the one at my Hackensack apartment, but small enough that, thankfully, cleaning it didn’t take too much effort. All I needed to do was water down some bleach, soak up a rag, and give everything a wipe. The biggest issues were the fridge and the oven –but the fridge only needed to be cleaned once a year, and I rarely used the oven anyways, so that could wait a little longer.

“When d’you think you’re gonna be able to take care of the bathroom, sweetface?” I asked him once I was done, coming back into the living room, pulling the rubber gloves off my hands and checking I hadn’t messed up my nails. “I’d hope your very busy schedule can be cleared out before New Year.”

“You’re a riot and a half, Tiff.”

The TV was still on, but he was no longer paying attention to it. Instead, he had sprawled all over the couch, chewing on the end of a pencil, staring at something in the pages of his sketchbook. He was working on the last blank ones: all the previous pages were all creased and worn. On the coffee table was an old box of black pencils, also worn down and almost empty, a pencil sharpener full of shavings, and the very small end of an eraser that was a few more uses away from disappearing completely.

“Huh. I didn’t know you were such a dedicated artist.”

I wondered with a giddy smile if he was drawing me, and tried to catch a glimpse of the page he was working on, but he quickly closed the sketchbook before I could manage to make out anything.

“Hey –no peeking!”

“Why? Are you drawing nudes, or something?”

“Yeah, I’m drawing you inside out,” he joked, before going back to it. “No, it’s just… It’s just doodles. None are that finished yet.”

“I wanna see them, when they’re done.”

He glanced up at me, and gave me a smaller, non-compromising smile.

“Alright, I’m gonna tackle the mess that’s the bedroom,” I declared, stretching my arms and preparing myself for the challenge. “Would you go down and get a roast from Sawyer’s, so we can have dinner later?”

“… Huh?”

I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and put my hands on my hips. Chucky did that far too often recently, pretending he didn’t hear me to get away from doing basic helpful things around the place. “I said, go down and get a roast from Sawyer’s.”

He drew in a sharp breath. “Sorry, no can do.”

“Oh, really? What stops you?”

“Well, I’m… I’m busy,” he insisted, turning his sight down to the sketchbook.

“With what?” Being too into a drawing was no damn excuse. “’Cause it’s certainly not cleaning the bathroom nor tidying up the bedroom.”

“That mess is all yours,” he said. “My clothes are on the rack.”

“You wear my sweaters—!”

“Yeah, exactly – your sweaters.”

I huffed. Granted, he was, admittedly, a little more organized than I was. He did hang up his coat when he came home, and he did put his ties on the rack and folded his t-shirts –that is, if he even remembered I had them washed. Me, I guess I could happen to be a little more scatterbrained… But still, with everything I did around the house, the least Chucky could do was lend a hand. It wasn’t just about the clothes, of course: he was the one who’d complain first about dust bunnies gathering in the corners of the room, all the while he didn’t even know where the broom was kept. He never wiped his feet before coming into the apartment, even though we had a perfectly good doormat. He always left the used wet towels on the floor of the bathroom. And that was all without even mentioning how he never even cooked or helped around the kitchen. Only time he ventured in there was to raid the fridge anyways.

I slammed the handful of wrinkled bills and coins on the only empty space on the coffee table. “It’s all there. And make sure they don’t rip you off,” I told him. “Count it. And remember to bring my change.”

“I’m not fucking going!”

“Yes, you fucking are,” I said, shooting him a glare. “Or you’ll fucking starve.”

“I’m not even hungry.”

Right on cue, his stomach rumbled, very loudly. I smiled. He groaned with a drawn-out eye roll. 

“ Fine . Fucking Christ,” he muttered, shutting the sketchbook, tossing it to the side, and getting on his feet. He stopped on his tracks when he reached the kitchen –he just had to have the last word. “You really get off on bossing around, huh?”

“Look who’s talking!”

He yanked his coat off the door hook, threw it over his shoulders, and stormed out.  

I cursed him out, grumbling under my breath. Recently he had been particularly thin-skinned, flying into a rage at the slightest provocation –whether it was a real one or imagined. He had always been quick to anger, especially if he hadn’t killed anyone in a while, but this was turning ridiculous. I was about to count the days since our last date when I reminded myself that, actually, it was none of my business. If he wanted to get into a hissy fit because I asked him to do one simple thing then that was his problem. Chucky could deal with it himself; he was supposed to be a grown man, for God’s sake.

All I could do was hope that he would be back with the roast before it was time for dinner.

Going back to the bedroom, I tried to get back to tidying up. I’d be used enough to my own chaos I wouldn’t have any hard time finding my stuff. Living with someone else meant another pair of hands eager to mess with my delicate order, which didn’t help matters. I was done with folding and stuffing sweaters in the drawers, and my shoes were already in their proper rooms in the dollhouse, and my jackets were hanging along with his. Next up, I sorted accessories, looking for my belts in the drawers, cursing at myself for not setting them aside in the clothing rack, hanging from a hanger like with his ties, where I could find them more easily. Humming to myself to manage my frustration, I almost didn’t hear the front door creaking open.

I stopped rummaging for a moment, and listened. There was the familiar weight of his shoes, along with the crinkling of a plastic bag. Of course it was him. Who else could it be? I needed to keep focused on tidying up, because if I got too distracted, I’d find something else to do, and then I would never finish clearing out the mess. I kept searching, throwing balled socks and tangled stockings to the sides, huffing and sticking my hand as deep as I could to feel around for anything that felt like leather. The steps came closer behind me, and there was the creaking of the floorboards by the bedroom doorway.

“I’ve come to get you—!”

I turned around halfway through a sigh –but I got a quick look at Chucky just before he was almost already against me –he was wearing this black apron, and was holding a cleaver in his right hand. At the sight of it I opened my eyes wide and gasped, and before I could say anything he was already circling me with his arm –and I squealed and laughed, trying to get away.

“I dare you—!” I cried, trying hard to keep a scowl on my face, and failing spectacularly.

“Yes, my dear, your time has come!”

Chucky picked me up for a moment, and I kept laughing, too tickled by his fingers clutching my sides to even pretend to be scared. I wriggled a bit and even without elbowing him or anything he had to put me down again –and I felt the cold metal of the cleaver’s square edge touching my arm –and he tried to pick me up once more. He realized it was no use, but he was just happy with trying to hold me to stay still –which, with only one arm, was harder than he had expected.

“I’m gonna cut you up!” Chucky exclaimed, in a funny British accent. “Cut you up and cook you for dinner!”

“H-how?” I managed to blurt out in a wheeze, between laughs. “You, who c-can’t fry a steak to save his life?”

I got free, and in a split second wondered where he had gotten that cleaver from (he had most likely bought it partly with the change from the butcher’s, I realized later), and whether I had any chances to grab it off his hand, when I stupidly tried to turn to him just as I stepped away and tripped over the bed. Holding his arms up to the sides as if he was a monster preying on me, the cleaver in his hand almost touching the blades of the ceiling fan, Chucky lurched forward, very slowly. I giggled, covering my mouth with my hand.

“You’ll see –I’ll eat you up…”

With the biggest grin, he bit the large square blade of the cleaver, holding it between his teeth, and charged against me –tickling me while I laughed and squirmed and squealed. I gave him little punches to his chest, in my attempt at fighting back, while keeping away from the knife he had pointed at me coming from his face. At some point I was laughing way too much, a full body laugh, with my back on the unmade bed, my eyes tightly shut and my knees buckling, and I couldn’t even see where I was grabbing. I was confident, even half aware of it as I was, that I had managed to lay my hands against Chucky’s shoulders, pushing them back. From there it wasn’t very difficult to go up to his neck, where I could curl my fingers and sink my thumb, pressing with my nail, pulling him down along with me. I felt the poking tip of the cleaver against my arm, but I didn’t care. Soon enough he had stopped tickling me, and I could open my eyes again.

Kneeling on the floor, still with the knife between his teeth, Chucky cocked his head as well as he could, what with my hands wrapped around his neck, to get his hair off his face. I let him go, breathing heavily, and propped myself up with my elbows. He grabbed the handle of the cleaver and took it out of his mouth. There was a damp half-circle on the blade where his chompers had been holding it. I giggled.

“God, you’re such a kid.”

“But you love it,” he said, still with that smug smirk of his, now in his normal voice.

“Yeah… I guess I do,” I sighed, smiling, looping a finger under the straps of the apron that went around his neck, and looked down at the cleaver under his hand. “You’re gonna be the disposal expert, now?”

“The knife’s for me,” he replied. “But the apron’s for you.”

“Shame. It looks good on you.”

“I know,” he snickered. “Still... I wouldn’t fill it out as nicely as you would.”

I chuckled, and he leaned closer, and I gave him a kiss. His hand cupped my jaw as he kissed me back.

“You better share your toys,” I told him once I pulled away, gasping for air.

Chucky pressed his forehead against mine. “You’ll get your turn.”

We kept kissing, opening our mouths a little wider, moving closer. He brushed the cleaver against my thigh, softly. His other hand wasn’t as delicate: he was already grabbing me, now going down to my waist, finding the hem of my t-shirt and getting right under it. I helped him out, taking it off and pulling it over my head and throwing it to the side of the bed. He smiled when he got a peek at my pretty white lace bra –but I didn’t give him much time to enjoy the view. I reached behind his nape to pull him back to me, and kissed him as if my life depended on it. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the cleaver coming closer, felt it tracing its way up my thigh, over my torso, before settling on my chest, just around my collarbone. It was barely touching me so far –but once Chucky got it where he wanted, I felt the edge of it, the blade pressed against my skin, not wanting to cut yet. Like a silent threat. My pulse began to quicken. I leaned back for a second, breaking up the kiss.

“How sharp is it?” I asked him in a whisper, looking into his eyes.

“You tell me.”

I grinned, and leaned forward once more, not for a kiss but to see if he’d keep his hand still, holding the cleaver, the tip of it already itching to get deeper into me. See if he’d chicken out. All the while I kept staring him down, daring him to push it even further.

His eyes flitted from the knife to my own eyes. For the briefest moment I saw the same stunned thrill I had seen back when we first met. But the knife was closer now. And we weren’t strangers anymore.

Chucky pressed further, just a little bit, turning the cleaver so only the thin edge of it would touch me; and then dragged it along, drawing a short red line below my collarbone and just over my heart. I winced and whined quietly, tensing my arms, curling my toes. There was a pang of pain, and the sting of broken skin. It wasn’t deep at all –but it wasn’t exactly a papercut either –and I let out a small sigh when I felt the first drop of blood trickling down my chest. He lowered the cleaver, leaned closer and kissed the wound. I shut my eyes and grit my teeth. His lips were warm, but what really made me shudder was the wet tip of his tongue, running across the cut. It brought to mind religious pictures I’d seen as a kid –inappropriate pictures, even for Sunday school –of saints kissing Jesus’ wounds. I laughed to myself, wondering if they had used tongue too.

He moved away and looked up at me, with a bit of red on his mouth. And he smiled –maybe he thought he was tickling me, by the way I was giggling.

“You do look good enough to eat.”

I stroked his cheek and pulled his lower lip down softly with the nail of my thumb. There was a thin thread of blood on his teeth, pooling around his pink gums. And he kept gazing up at me, with those big hungry eyes... I barely noticed myself doing so –but I spread my thighs to the sides, a bit wider than before. He looked down. He understood immediately. 

Bringing the cleaver down, Chucky pushed my right knee even further, focusing on the inside of my thigh. Then I understood. We shared a brief look before he traced the way from my knee to the seam of my panty with the tip of the knife, sending a shiver up my spine.

“Stay still,” he ordered.

“Or what?”

Chucky brought the sharp tip of the cleaver against the growing little damp spot. I gasped.

“Or we’re gonna have a little accident.”

I closed my hands into fists. He pressed the blade harder against the panty. I did feel a rush of dread, even as sure as I was that it was all an empty gesture. He watched my face, clearly loving my uneasiness, before twisting his wrist and turning the cleaver in his hand, and I felt it, thin and hard, circling my folds –I barely managed to avoid jerking my hips –a whimper escaped my lips before I could even try to stop it.

“You scared?” he asked, and he sounded delighted by the thought.

I was. Like watching a horror movie, or riding a roller coaster, where you're nice and strapped for the ride and know you're safe, knowing it doesnʼt change the fact that your body feels danger. That the only thing it can do is to become excited. 

I scoffed as well as I could. “As if you would really do it...”

As if to question my trust, Chucky suddenly pulled the tip up, gathering the fabric with its point, and kept it just in my center, right in the middle of my pussy, leaning the long edge of the blade ever so slightly against the wet panty crotch that barely gave me any security. I tensed up. He pushed it, as if he was completely ready to just slice me in half. I moaned between teeth. Only then he slowly traced the way back again through my thigh towards my knee. I gave a sigh of relief. He was now choosing where to make that new cut, I realized, while the blade went back and forth. And I was thinking about whether to lean forward or not –to watch as he worked, or if to sit back and enjoy it –when I suddenly felt the cold hard edge of the blade sinking in –deeper than before –and I shut my eyes and cried out –moving my thigh in one sharp spasm, out of sheer reflex –tensing up and helping the cut become deeper. He gripped my knee to keep it still. The stinging of the cut was strong and sudden, but quick. A bit of relief, a sense of release. Another hot drop of blood. As soon as he was done, he hurried to kiss it. The contrast was heavenly. I opened my eyes and gasped, reaching down for his head, running my fingers through his hair.

“Baby—”

He sucked on the wound for a little longer, before planting a couple wet kisses along the inside of my thigh, nibbling and biting around the cut, letting it bleed out for a moment and kissing it again. I sighed. The cleaver clanked against the floor.

Chucky had gotten me where he wanted. Without so much as a warning, he pulled my panty to the side to give my pussy a quick kiss. I wailed. I felt his self-satisfied smile just before he kissed me again, this time a longer one, pressing with his tongue, just like he had done with the wound. I whined, higher. He kept warming me up, running his thumb over the fresh cut on the inside of my thigh, smearing the blood, squeezing enough to make the sting as sharp as the pleasure. I shut my eyes and bit my lips, keeping myself as quiet as I could, not wanting to give him the satisfaction of becoming so loud so soon. When he stopped and tilted his head back –and I leaned forward to see what he was up to now –his mouth and his fingers were all sticky and red. My pulse quickened. His hands raced to pull down my panties. My heart was pounding in my ears. We exchanged another little look, and a smile.

He closed his eyes –opened wide –and ate me out, one arm circling my right thigh and holding it in place, one hand pushing down my left thigh and jamming his finger in the wound. I cried and whined and called him –rocking my hips against his face –clawing the sheets of –tugging at his hair, sinking my nails in his scalp. And he made this little low moan with the back of his throat, dragging his tongue, pushing my hips to get where he needed to, fighting against my squirming –and I just whimpered, shaking my head. There were flashes of pleasure, making me gasp and curse him out, just as there were sudden pangs of sharp pain that had me sighing and begging. God, it hurt. It really hurt, his firm butcher-like hand grabbing the slippery thigh and pinning it in place... But it did an amazing job at keeping me desperate for some kinda relief.

Another drop trickled down my chest, down my belly, drawing a red line down towards his head between my legs. We had never done this before, I managed to think. One thing was biting, slapping, binding… Another was full-on cutting. But how different was it, really? Just because it drew a little blood? Was it so weird that I liked it?

His tongue began to work faster. My hips rutted along him to match his pace. I shut my eyes tight and brought a hand to my chest, feeling my frantic heart right under the first cut he had made. I ran my finger over it. The touch of skin against the open wound obviously hurt, but just enough so that it was bearable, just enough so that it didn’t really take anything away from the bliss of his mouth working me… If anything, along with the burning cut on my thigh, it made it feel even better.

Out of nowhere he pulled back to take a breath, and I was left trying to catch my own, legs already weak, while he stretched his neck and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. I grabbed the strap of his apron and dragged him to me for a deep kiss. We could rest when we were dead. One of his hands went up to my waist, pulling me closer; the other, that which had been pressing my wound, went up and cupped my tit. His mouth rushed down to my neck, my shoulder, and finally on the cut he had made below the collarbone, kissing it again and again, keeping the blood flowing. Two fingers slipped under the cup of the now red-stained bra, playing with the nipple, squeezing and pinching. It was hard to even try to keep quiet, and definitely impossible to remain still. A hand slithered behind my back, and he fiddled with it for a little bit till he managed to unhook my bra. Once he pulled it off me, he stopped to gaze at my tits with a smile, feeling them for a moment before he licked his lips –and got to kissing, sucking and nipping for dear life, lovingly, hungrily. I could only grab onto him and straddle him, feeling how much he wanted it. How much I wanted it. But it was clearly not enough.

With his mouth occupied, and one hand pulling me to him, his other hand went down and fumbled around with his apron –for a moment I thought it was gonna go under the waistband of his pants –before finally, thankfully, running over my pussy again.

 He pushed a finger in. I wailed, losing any self control I had left, and just gripped onto him, running my hands under his shirt and sinking my nails on his back. His breath was shaky, I could feel the ache in him, but he managed to keep his hand pretty steady, dipping in and out, up and down, in slow strokes. And somehow, despite my thrashing, I managed to shut my eyes and move along, automatically, on the edge of the bed, without even thinking about it, following his rhythm, as if we were one. Soon he decided my howling still wasn’t enough. He curled his finger, going quicker, and rubbed his thumb in little circles, and closed his teeth around the nub of my right nipple –and that ended every thought that was somehow still fluttering around in my mind.

He fucked me like that until I almost came. I'd given him plenty of hushed, blubbered, pathetic pleading, in between the convulsing and the contracting, but it hadn't been what he wanted from me. There was a little dribble of spit on his chin when he backed away from my chest, panting, groaning slightly when I dragged my nails harder, trying to keep him close. Just to make sure we were on the same page, I slinked one hand further down, under his waistband, under his underwear, feeling him up. My lips grazed his ear when I whispered to him about how hard he was already, and how badly I wanted it. It answered immediately by twitching in my hand. I think he chuckled and said something about me being so needy, but I could barely hear him anymore. As if I was the only needy one, anyway. He kissed my jaw a little more, all leisurely, then moved back down planting a couple light hickeys around the still sore wound on my chest. I tried to complain about him leaving me hanging like that. I brought my hand down to finish the job myself, but he stopped it. I was starting to worry that he would actually really just decide that I had had enough, just to be an asshole.

And then, he burrowed his face in the curve of my neck, and added one more finger, and his hand –his hand buried itself in me like a blade –and I could barely breathe anymore.

Not that I would ever admit it, but he had a better track record getting me off than myself. I knew perfectly well how that sort of thing would make him even more of an arrogant bastard than he already was… But, if he didn’t know it already, then he didn’t need to know.

He got me to the edge, just to the edge. He brought me to a sob. Maybe that was what he had been chasing, more than begging, more than screaming. No full release yet, but we were getting closer. Then he decided once more that it was time for a pause, and pulled away, moving back, and I still moved along with him, not wanting to stop yet. He knew what I really wanted.

“You asshole–”

“Ask nicely, or you'll get jackshit.”

“Just fuck me...”

“I mean it.”

I rolled my eyes. As if he would really leave me hanging there, when I knew he wanted it as badly as I did.

“Come on… Don’t make me wait…” I begged once more in a pained little whine, desperately reaching out for his shoulders, now putting on the show he wanted and making the pleading as straightforward as I could, knowing full well how much he liked that, how that had been his aim all along. “Please … ”

He smiled wider, clearly glad about his work, and took a little moment to breathe. Or maybe he did want to make me wait for it a little longer –who’s to say. Despite how thoroughly he had wrecked me, I managed to pull myself together, and sit back up on the edge of the bed. And, just to make sure he didn’t doubt it for a single second longer, I stroked his cheek and leaned forward, chest heaving, eyelashes fluttering, inches away from a kiss. I stared him down, down his blue glassy eyes, on his knees, in the space between my legs. Gazing up at me like that .

“ Please .”

That seemed to do the trick. Chucky fumbled in the back pocket of his pants, looking for a condom. When he finally managed to find one, he tried to open it, but his dirty fingers slipped off the plastic wrapper.

“Just give it to me—”

“I can do it.”

He couldn’t. He tried a couple more times before losing his patience and ripping it open with his teeth. I snickered, already reaching down to unbuckle his pants, while he hurried to take the apron off over his head. He climbed on the bed and I glanced down and smiled, getting a quick look of his dick, already dripping with precum, before he slipped the condom on. I pulled him down to me and kissed him slowly, running my hands over his shoulders, now making him wait a little more, like he had done with me. He still had the coppery, sweet-and-sour taste of my blood on his tongue. But he was getting impatient. He pushed me on my back, and kissed the wound on my chest one more time before going to my mouth, making me taste my own blood in his spit. And I kept thinking about the red trail rolling down my chest…

And that reminded me: “Wait, wait, wait—”

“What?” he asked, stopping for a moment to look down. “Did it break?”

“No…” I propped myself up, still panting a little bit, and ran a hand through my hair to push it off my face. “… Did you remember to put the meat in the fridge?”

For a second there he was pretty confused. Then, he laughed. “Yes, I did… Don’t worry about it.”

We kissed again, one more sloppy kiss, and he quickly turned back to my neck, which definitely helped me get my mind out of the fridge and back into the bedroom. As if he had just read my mind, he sunk his teeth down just a bit, just how I liked it. I held him tighter –gave him a long moan. It was as if I melted down on the sheets. And he wouldn’t be able to keep it together much longer either. He took a moment to get into position, pulling my hips closer. Just then –gazing up at him – my legs wrapped around his waist –then he slid into me.

I grabbed his hair in my fist –gripping hard, white-knuckled –yanked his head away from me –and I cried out, loudly, loud enough for the neighbors to hear. He grinned, eyes closed, letting me pull him tighter and harder backwards, like curbing a dog with a leash. Slowly, after that initial shudder had passed, my arm relaxed; I released him, he breathed and pressed his head against my shoulder –and began rocking his hips –slow and steady –clenching his jaw –swallowing –his Adam’s apple bobbing, his neck tensing, my hands running across his skin and feeling what lay underneath. Muscles, bones, sinews, veins. He pulled me up and pressed himself against me –skin against skin –my wound stinging at the touch of him –his warm breath on my chest, panting louder, pushing harder.

“Look at me,” he demanded, when he pushed my hips higher and angled himself better, getting me to shut my eyes and cry out. “You're mine.”

He had learnt some stuff from me by now. He was better at telling me what he wanted, what he needed. Less of a straight-up fuck, more of an actual scene. I loved that. It was all I ever wanted for us. 

“C’mon,” he said, stroking my neck, pushing my chin up with his thumb. “Say you’re mine, honeybun.”

I gazed up at him, just like he had done, and smiled. “You forgot to say please.”

Out of a sudden, he frowned and stopped. I frowned, too, and was about to ask him what was wrong –if he had left the fridge open, if he had forgotten about the change, if he had somehow come already –but then the hand’s grip tightened around my neck –suddenly I couldn’t breathe –and he choke-slammed me. In my surprise I opened my eyes wide, weakly turning my head, trying to cough. 

“Still in the mood to joke around, Tiff?”

After that initial shock I managed to breathe in and chuckle a little. I had to admit I was impressed. He wasn’t too good at being harsh. He stumbled, he hurried, he didn’t play the role well enough. Last time he tried, he got too excited and it got out of hand, and I ended up furious at him, and gave him the silent treatment for about three whole days. Our last real big fight. If he was gonna be cruel, it just came easier to go all out.

“So selfish …” I said mockingly, with a little pout. Not the wisest thing, maybe, but I knew he did like it when I gave a little fight. “I think I like you better on your knees.”

“I bet you do.”

He grabbed me harder.

“You're mine,” he insisted. “C'mon. Say it. Say you’re mine.”

I grinned wider, drawing a quick breath through grit teeth. “You’re mine .”

Not what he wanted –but did I lie? His fingers closed around my neck. The warm palm of his hand pushed down my throat. It was so sudden –I tried to laugh –but it was hard to even breathe. I brought my knees closer to my chest. His hand squeezed tighter than before. I could feel my heart beating in my head. Not wanting to be less, I put my hand on top of his hand, clutching his. He let out a little strained groan, at how deep I was sinking my nails on his wrist –but he didn’t let go yet.

“Now –it’s your turn to say it, sweetface,” I managed to barely mumble, all choked up, with a quirk of my eyebrows. “Like –you mean it—”

“Say it,” he insisted, his voice becoming lower, trying very hard to seem serious –menacing, even. I decided to reign in my smile and play along for a bit. “ I’m yours .”

My eyes were starting to water. I was getting dizzy already. I’d been pressing my knees against his hips, squeezing my thighs together tight, and they were trembling a bit because of the strain, soon about to give up and go limp. It was clear that I hadn't gone limp yet, though, by how he seemed to be enjoying himself. Part of me wanted to wait a little longer, see for myself how far I could go, how far he would let me choke this time. But then again, he was already in me, and I wanted that goddamn release he kept putting off. 

My lips finally parted. His eyes opened a bit wider. A pause, to build anticipation. He was pressing hard enough that my voice came out rather husky. “… I’m yours .”

His expression shifted, and he smirked, satisfied. And then –he looped an arm under my right knee –pulling it up –thrusting harder –making me yelp. 

 “You're damn right,” he smiled wickedly, and I laughed with a wheeze. Now that was something I loved to hear from him. 

I think I had been plenty patient, all things considered. Not anymore. I pushed him closer to me with my free leg, holding him tighter. He grunted. I shut my eyes. He held me closer, found the spot that got me squirming, moved faster. I arched my back in a gasp. His breathing became more shallow. I opened my mouth and gave in with a bunch of throaty moans and whines. I was so close. I didn't hold back anymore. And he didn’t stop. One hand went to grab my left thigh, digging his thumb in the wound, making it hurt so much I could just not separate it from the rush of pleasure I was riding. With his other hand, the one that had been wrapped around my neck, he grabbed my jaw and got me to open my eyes, to look up at him, as we were reaching the end. I tried very hard not to blink, even when my eyes were blurry and burning. As if there was anything else I would rather be looking at... And he kept repeating my name through gritted teeth, calling me as he started to lose focus and turn his sight up, but I could only whine higher and higher and half-mumble profanities, his name choked out in the bottom of my throat.

In the end I finally, finally came first, with a shudder and a hoarse cry and a little warm tear running down from the corner of my eye. He came soon after.

“ Fuck —”

I lost, but it didn’t feel like that at all. The heavenly daze I found myself in stopped me from getting too mad about it. My hand trembled up to touch the bruises on my neck, then down to my chest, to press down my heart and try to soothe myself. When I looked back at my palm, it was slightly tainted red. I was still bleeding, barely so –most of it was on his chest, a smudged stain that mirrored mine. His arms finally gave out and he fell over me gently, as if in slow motion, and rested his warm cheek on my flushed chest, still breathing heavily. We were tangled together, embracing the other with unsteady arms and loose legs. It was a nice type of tired that we shared, like a nice burst of heat and swelling, like after a good cry.

“Don't go,” I asked quietly, in a whisper, wrapping my arms around him, holding him close. “Don't leave.” 

“I'm not going anywhere,” I heard him saying against my ear. “Where would I go?”

The rush of pleasure slowly gave way to the sting of the cut. It was warm and cozy there, though, by his side, in my skin, in his, despite the tired muscles, stained and sweaty. I thought about whether to go ahead, stumble off the bed and clean the wounds with some alcohol and cottonballs I kept in a tin box in the bathroom. But I didn’t want to move. Not a year ago, we would have taken a little break and then carried on, kept the blood pumping, before we could even let the bedsheets grow cold. Now we just breathed, heavily but quietly, wrapped in the other, eyes half closed.

I winced when he moved a bit so he could fit more comfortably next to me. He rolled over, and sighed, and circled my shoulders with one arm. Absentmindedly, I leaned my head against him, laying a couple little kisses on his red chest. 

 “Jesus, Tiff –you're still bleeding.”

His hand went over my inner thigh, and I moved it so he could get a better look. Meanwhile, dizzy and still struck by the soft exhausted soreness of my muscles after the release of all that tension, I sucked on a finger to get the blood from under my nails. 

“How're you feeling? Lightheaded?”

I smiled, for some reason, and nodded. I felt drunk, or high, or both.

“Yeah, you've lost a bunch of blood.��

Well, it had to be that or the choking. But I couldn’t even worry. Chucky groaned as he got up and stumbled out of the bedroom. I heard his feet going over the carpet through the living room and to the bathroom. He soon came back with the cottonballs and a box of Band-Aids, and dragged himself back to the bed.

“Shit. I forgot the rubbing alcohol.”

He sucked on his thumb and wiped some of the blood off the wound, before going over it with the dry cotton. It was as if he was playing nurse. His hands were still dirty, and as he traced the wound his finger trembled just a little from the recent strain. A sweet, funny sorta weakness. 

I reached out for him. “Darling... I love you.”

Chucky looked back up at me, and smiled. He didn't say I love you back, and I didn't need him to. I knew it. And if he loved me half as much as I loved him, then I had more than enough. You're mine , he had told me. Even as I teased him, he had to know it was true.

I really wished that could be enough. 

After that he just laid next to me, and we spent who knows how long in silence, each one lost in thought. Lately, more often than not I caught him staring at the wall, focused on something I couldn’t see, with that intense look on his face. Sometimes it was as if he wasn’t even there.

Heʼd get annoyed when I asked him about it, so I just stopped, eventually. Chucky always made up for it when he got in a good mood, when we were out on our dates, when we managed to really have some fun together. But as much fun as I had with him, I still felt lonely the rest of the time. 

I ended up calling the numbers Jack had given me, and spent more time in the store where he worked, and somehow I ended up becoming friends with him again. Well, sort of. Like before, back in New York, the key word was quiet . I went out with him during his lunch breaks, along with his coworkers (he always said there were no more available spots at the store), and they all talked about the latests bands and the top records, and about some drama between singers and their wives and their lovers, and I just ate my fries and listened to them, and laughed at their jokes, and told myself I had friends. Jack had a side job selling weed, so he was my dealer, kinda, and we would all go to the back of the record store and smoke together a little sample of his, and this is what I did so I didn’t go crazy on my own. It was good enough, mostly. Every once in a while, Jack would shoot me a funny look, or smile at me like we shared a secret, or make a comment that got the other two girls he worked with raising their eyebrows. I had the feeling he was fucking at least one of them. I knew that, whichever it was, she wasn’t the one he wished he was fucking.

Once, one of the girls, Hallie, asked me where I saw myself in five years. I didn’t know what to answer. She insisted that I had to answer something , and Jack made a joke about me being off living it up in Hollywood by then. I shut him up telling him I hadn’t been to an audition in the last six years. The other girl, whats-her-name, said that it didn’t mean I couldn’t end up working as a janitor at the Universal Studio lot, if I worked hard enough. They laughed. I distinctly remember putting my hand inside my bag and stroking the metal handle of my nail file, breathing in deep, imagining the feeling of the pressure of the blade in the flesh, and smiling at them with a little fake laugh. Meanwhile I just kept thinking of ways to kill her that would look like accidents, to calm me down. I needed someone to spend the lonely hours with, anyone, but they weren’t really my friends. 

When it was time to get back home, I made an effort to drag it out. Just in case Chucky got there first, so he'd find the apartment empty, just so he could feel how I felt. I always took the long way round and passed by the residential neighborhoods, the suburbs that looked much like where I had picked my Pontiac, and looked at the big houses, the cared-for lawns, the toys left by the children out in the driveway. There were a bunch of them with those ‘ for sale ’ signs out, but I knew I didn’t have nearly enough money or credit to afford even a mortgage. I didn’t care. I could spend hours driving through those places. If it was a weekday and it was obvious nobody was home, I would park in the middle of the street, and have a smoke, and imagine myself living there. I would have dinner cooking, and I’d spend the rest of my afternoon talking to my friends, my real friends, or playing with my kids. I had two kids in these fantasies, a boy for him and a girl for me. Chucky was in the picture, of course. When he got home the kids would dogpile him to welcome him back, and he’d laugh, and pull me close for a kiss, and then they’d tell him what they had done in school. They would be smart, real smart, I just knew it. And I would look at them proudly, and kiss the top of their heads, and Chucky would close the door, and we’d spend a nice evening all together at home.

On weekends, if the weather was nice, we could even go on the hunt, all four of us, together. I wasn’t completely sure of how this would work (especially at the beginning, when the kids were still noisy little babies), but weʼd come up with something. Eventually, it figured they could choose whether to come along with us, when they were old enough. I had my first kill at fourteen, after all: I had a feeling Chucky’s had been younger. I didn’t think it would really be too difficult for them. As long as we didn’t get caught...

Chucky rarely got home before I did. He usually arrived by the time I was either watching TV as a last resort, or when I was trying to organize the chaos that our living room always turned into, or sometimes both at the same time. Sometimes, he got home when I was making dinner, which at least meant that he would have dinner with me. Most often he didn’t even eat anything, unless I was eating, too. It had started to worry me. It hadn’t been like this back in Hackensack, or at least not that I was aware of.

“Still no job?” he asked me after hanging up his coat.

“Nope,” I said, watching him from the corner of my eye, as he loosened his tie. “What about you?” 

“Iʼll find something... Eventually.” 

He picked an apple and gave it a bite. I shot him a glare, but said nothing. Among Chucky’s many annoying little quirks, one of the weirdest was grabbing an apple, having four or five bites, and then leaving it in the fridge, as if he was saving it for later. We had three half-eaten apples, all brown and rotting, currently waiting to get thrown away with the rest of the garbage.

“You’re making dinner already.”

“You don’t say.”

“Isn’t it early?” he asked, sitting on the counter.

“It’s six o’clock.” He had arrived early, for once. I knew I should be happy about it, but I really wasn’t.

“And you’re hungry?”

“Yes, I’m hungry.”

Chucky snorted a laugh. “You’re always hungry. You know, you keep that up, youʼre gonna get huge.”

“Get your ass off the counter.”

He had another bite. I elbowed him, and he gave me a kick.

“When was the last time you ate?” I asked him. He hadn’t been home the day before, not even for breakfast. I had woken up alone, without a note or anything, and just had to trust that he’d eventually show up. When he did, he gave me no explanation. I might have still been a little bit angry at him about that.

“I dunno... Yesterday? I guess?” he shrugged. “We had dinner while watching the nine o'clock news. You made ribs and mashed potatoes. I spilled sauce on the couch and you threw a whole damn fit. Don’t you remember?”

“That was before yesterday. You didn’t have anything after that?” I insisted. “Not even coffee?”

Chucky shrugged again. Another crisp bite, and then he got off the counter, sauntered towards the fridge, and left the apple in there. Four apples to throw in the garbage. It was like a goddamn Sesame Street skit. I turned around to throw the onion skins into the trash can, and stumbled on him standing in my way, and huffed.

“Are you gonna help, or are you just gonna take up space?”

He raised his eyebrows at me. “Watch that mouth, Tiff.”

Great. When he was being all testy, and I complained, then I was just being too sensitive. But when I snapped at him, then I was being insane. I had no way to fucking win.

“So,” he said, leaning against the fridge behind me. That kitchen was too damn small to have a conversation in. It reminded me a lot of the kitchen back at home, from when I was a kid. At least I helped around with cooking. “You’re making new friends already, huh?”

I had told him about Jack and about the record store. It didn’t sound like he was happy for me.

“Well, I didn’t think you had any friends in the first place,” I replied. “Do you visit them, too? When I’m not around?”

He didn’t reply.

“Where do you go?”

“Whatʼs it to you?”

There it was. That irritated tone when I asked something completely reasonable.

“Oh, for crying out loud, Chucky,” I said, gesturing with the knife. “I think Iʼm entitled to know.”

He shot me a side glance. “... I go meet up with some folks at North Damen and Grand Avenue. Theyʼre into the voodoo stuff I told you about.”

Chucky had never told me much about it, really, but I got what he meant. Still, I scoffed. “So youʼre spending all that time in a book club?” 

“Yeah, Tiff, Iʼm in a fucking book club,” he said. “What dʼyou think?” 

“I think itʼs a shitty excuse.”

“What the hell’s wrong with you?” he said, raising his voice, so I knew that it was on. “Are you on the rag or something?”

“No –it’s the same time, every month, and it has been so for years. And you might know that, if you ever listened to me. If you ever paid any attention at all.”

I peeled the onion and was about to start chopping, when I remembered that I had forgotten to take out the pasta sauce jar from the fridge. I groaned and turned around and he stepped aside to let me get it. All the while he just stared at me, as if expecting an explanation.

“So it’s not that. What is it, then? Huh?”

“Take a wild guess,” I said as I continued chopping the onion.

He laughed and shook his head. “You donʼt even know. You’re just throwing a fit for the sake of it.”

“Youʼre barely home anymore,” I said, raising my voice as well, forcing myself not to sniffle. “You show up whenever you want, meanwhile Iʼm here wondering if youʼll be back for dinner.”

“Thatʼs what you're getting all worked up about?” he said as he kept chuckling. “Iʼd say you're old enough to be able to be on your own, Tiff. Iʼm not about to be your damn babysitter.” 

“You asshole, you're the one to throw a tantrum and make a scene when I get home a little late!”  

On and on with his crazy logic. But the truth was that, when I got angry when he was late and didnʼt tell me beforehand, I was just worrying something might have happened to him. When Chucky got angry I was late, it was him getting all pissed off because dinner wasn’t ready (even when he supposedly wasn’t hungry in the first place), or because some chore he could very well do himself hadn’t been done... I worried about him, and all he worried about was that I did everything he was just too ‘busy’ to do himself.

“I cook and clean after the two of us, I get rid of the bodies, I’m the goddamn getaway driver… What do you do, besides flicking the wrist from time to time to spill some guts?”

“Jesus fucking Christ, don’t you ever get tired of whining?” he said. “If you hate me so much, then why do you even stay?”

That really was the million-dollar question. “Why do you think?”

He frowned, and turned away for a moment. I didn’t know if he really didn’t have a clue, or if he was just considering different options. Still –he didn’t answer. I crossed my arms and waited. Time passed, and just silence from him. No answer was worse than a wrong one.

“… I guess you just don’t know. Big surprise,” I said, squeezing the ground meat in my fists, making a huge effort to keep my voice from trembling. “You piece of shit.”

“ Should I know?”

“I really should just split. Since you clearly don’t appreciate anything I do for you!”

I was on the edge of going off, but if I was going off, his reaction was just as insane. It was kinda hilarious, to see him swing wildly between wanting to keep his cool, pretending to be unfazed, and losing it and scream bloody murder at me.

“I’d like to see you try,” he finally grumbled, finally deciding to pretend to be the bigger person.

“Just watch me.”

“Come on, you’re not gonna leave,” he scoffed. “You wouldn’t last a fucking day without me!”

“Well, you’re not exactly a fucking delight to have around, quite honestly!”

 “Iʼm the only one you got.”

 That gave me pause. I looked up at him. He smiled, knowing just what he’d done. I hated that he was right. At least, to my knowledge, I was the only one he got, too.

“I can get someone else,” I shrugged, pretending to be focused on the meatloaf. “Easily.”

“Yeah, right,” he scoffed. “With your magnetic personality, sure. Admit it, Tiff, you’re lucky you’ve found me.”

“Lucky’s not the word I’d use.”

“I’m the best thing that happened to you, babe, and you’re bending over backwards to deny it.” He laughed again. “You can’t even argue with it!”

“Keep that up, and I’ll show you exactly how I’d argue with that,” I said, finally turning towards him. “With my goddamn luggage in the trunk of the Pontiac, ready to...! To...!”

He raised his eyebrows again, waiting for me to finish my sentence. I just couldn’t. He grinned.

“God – fuck you !” I screamed while he kept cackling, and I turned back to the bowl. “See who’s fucking laughing, when you come home and see me good and gone!”

“Really? What would you even do, then?” he yelled, all of a sudden taking me very seriously. “Go back to that sad old life of yours?”

“Well, it’d be better than having to stand your damn tantrums!”

“C’mon, you’d still be screwing random fucks if I hadn’t showed up.”

“And you’d still be killing on your own if I hadn’t showed up! No,” I cried, turning around once more to face him, pointing at him with greasy fingers. “You’d be either dead, or in jail. ‘Cause that’s what would have happened, because your goddamn lucky streak would have ended someday.”

“You’re really blowing up your own smarts, Tiff. Stick to cooking and driving.”

I finished shaping the meatloaf, threw it on a broiler pan, and shoved it into the oven.

“You would’ve died without me by now,” I repeated to myself as I washed the chopping board. “If it weren’t for me–”

“Aw, get fucking real for once!” he yelled, slamming his hand on the counter. “You think I’m an idiot!? That I can’t look after myself!?”

“You obviously can’t!”

“You don’t do shit ‘round here!” he cried, so loudly I thought he might as well shatter the window. “What you actually do is scream about how important you think you are! It’s all in your damn head! You think you do everything because you’re a selfish fucking brat!”

“So I’ll just leave, then!” I cried. “Since I’m so unimportant! ‘Cause clearly you don’t want me here!”

“You’re not fucking leaving!”

“ Try and fucking stop me! ”

I stared at him, gripping the edge of the counter. He stared back at me with wild eyes, all tense, as if the only thing in his mind was how much he wanted to throw a punch at me or to choke me to death. But I had the chopping knife at hand. I guess that’s why he didn’t do it. We just stayed like that for a few seconds, measuring each other, expecting the other to make the first move.

And, when I didn’t do anything, and he just couldn’t keep it in any longer –he took a deep breath –gave out a short scream –and punched the wall. I jumped. When he pulled his fist back, there was a hole in the white paint, and cracks all around it. Chucky shut his eyes, clenched his jaw, and winced just a tiny bit. It had to hurt like hell. I sighed, and clicked my tongue, and almost went out to the bathroom to bring something to clean the wounds on his knuckles. But I hadn’t fully come down from the high of my rage yet. 

“Oh, real smart, hun,” I said. “You happy now? Do you feel better? I guess you're gonna have to call someone to fix that –unless you're counting on me to clean up your mess again–!”

“ Shut up! ”

For once, I did. He knew I was right, anyway. Chucky stretched his fingers, as if that would help with the pain, with a shaky frustrated huff. After a moment, though, when he looked back at me, it looked like however much it hurt, it wouldn't hurt half as much as whatever he imagined he was doing to me. And me –I just stared at his hand. I thought of when he pummeled that guy to death in the roadside motel when I asked him to. I thought of when he was about to punch me by the side of the highway, and didn’t. How, as angry as he got, he somehow managed to hold on to some small degree of control. It angered me even more. That meant that anything hurtful he said, he really meant it.

And he still had a little more poison to throw my way.

“No wonder nobody gives a shit about you,” he said.

We kept quiet. I could hear his heavy breathing, and my own, and then the noises of the city, the police sirens, the rumbling of cars, the chatter of the TV of the neighbors. By this point they probably knew this was a rather common thing to happen next door. After a while I just turned around, opened the faucet, and washed my knife, and waited for him to say anything else, preferably an apology.

“Go die in a ditch, Tiff,” Chucky finally said. “I'm fucking sick of this shit.”

I tensed up, ready to shove him off me in case he got too close. He didn’t. Instead, the door creaked open, and then it slammed shut, and when I turned around his coat wasn't hanging by the hook on the wall, and I was alone in the kitchen again. 

The meatloaf was done: half burnt, but certainly done. I served it in one dish, since everything pointed out to me having to dine alone. I almost threw the rest of it to the garbage, see how he liked it. Just as I opened the trash can, though, I thought it over. I had seen this going down before. In the end I put the rest in another dish, and saved it in the fridge. The TV gave me some company while I had dinner, still sniffling with the strong stench of chopped onions. I stayed up all through the late night news until I fell asleep on the couch. And then, the next morning, unsurprisingly, Chucky wasn’t there.

I worried, because that’s what I do. I just can’t help it. As much as I tried to stay angry and change the script for once, all I could do was try to find other things to keep my mind off it, off the image of Chucky getting too drunk or angry or cocky, and picking a fight he couldn’t win, and getting his ass handed to him and not knowing when to stop, and hurling himself into some serious shit, and digging himself deeper and deeper, until not even a phone call could get me to pick him up, no overpriced ambulance could help him, no amount of praying could save him, and he would end up a limp dark rag thrown over the curb, choking in a pool of his own blood, dying silently under the feet of passersby...

I set the TV at top volume, shifting between MTV and the morning cartoons, and brought everything I needed into the living room. It was time to get busy. First I fixed Peeping Tommy’s face crack, filling it with some putty, and repainting it very, very carefully, to match colors as perfectly as possible. When he was done I set him up on Chucky’s nightstand, so he could see how nicely he had cleaned up, when he came back. Then, I decided I could do with a smoke, and took a little from our stash, and that did help a bit more to calm me down and focus. After that I hand-sewed some stuff from my to-fix pile, prickling my fingers with droopy clumsy hands: there was a black leather coat Chucky had picked up that he never wore, because he was too comfortable in his old trenchcoat, so I wore it instead, but it needed a new lining, so I improvised one out of an old ugly purple satin shirt I had; and afterwards I added a lacy hem to a couple camisoles, and reattached a few buttons in Chucky’s favorite shirt, and tried to rub baking soda and lemon juice on an iron burn that had ruined one of his white tank tops and that no matter how many wash cycles it went through I couldn’t fully get off. And then, because I was now relaxed but bored out of my mind, I went out and bought a Bedazzler and a bag of studs and rhinestones and went back home and added a bunch on a jacket and on a dress while trying to copy stuff I’d seen in fashion magazines. And then I got hungry, and went back out again and bought groceries, spending the rest of the money we had left for the month, and then I went back home again and just when I thought I was gonna go insane I remembered it was time for Search For Tomorrow , so I made myself a sandwich and ate it on the couch while watching the soap opera with my newly bedazzled purple dress on. The episode ended, and I brushed the crumbs off the couch and onto the rug, and I was dumb enough to glance at the time again, and notice the growing darkness in the apartment, and remember that Chucky still wasn’t home. So I changed into my nightgown and got straight into bed, so as to avoid thinking about it, but I wasn’t as tired as I had thought, and took a long while to fall asleep.

When I finally did, I was suddenly woken up by a creaking of the door.

“Tiff...”

“Hm...?”

I turned around to see Chucky in the dark, lurching around the bed, dragging his feet. I blinked. I expected to feel ecstatic, or furious, at seeing him again; but instead I just took a deep breath, wishing he could have come home when I was awake.

“You asleep?”

“Not now, I’m not...”

Chucky plopped down on the mattress, making the rusty springs squeak. I cursed him in silence. As if it wasn’t enough noise already, he untied his shoes and dropped them to the floor with a loud wooden thump! I groaned. It had taken me so long to finally fall asleep, and of course he had to come and bother me. Just in case he had forgotten I was there, I gave him a little kick, to signal to him to keep it down. He ignored me, took off his pants and tossed them anywhere and made more noise with the racket of the belt buckle hitting my dollhouse shoe rack. Once he had made himself comfortable, Chucky slumped heavily beside me, pulling the bedsheets to him, and stretched an arm over my waist.

“Hey—”

“Shh.”

I elbowed him. “Don’t you shush me—”

“Alright, alright,” he slurred with a drowsy sigh, his voice trailing off. “I’m not shushing you… Just stop bitching.”

I kept quiet. It was senseless. And he was half asleep already, breathing quietly, nuzzling my neck, holding me tighter. I laid a hand over his, feeling the little cuts on his knuckles. He was freezing cold. I had to assume he hadn’t eaten.

“You’re incurable,” I muttered under my breath. He didn’t seem to hear me. I wasn’t surprised.

Next morning we woke up at more or less the same time, and had breakfast together. I knew he had to be hungry, even if he didn’t notice, so I made pancakes with the groceries I had bought the previous day. And Chucky was so happy about it, smiling and pulling me to his lap and kissing my cheek, that I couldn’t be bothered to stay mad, no matter how hard I tried. He decided to stay home, and we just spent a lazy day together. At some point he dozed off while we watched TV and fell asleep again, his head resting on my lap, and while I stroked his hair, I kept wondering... What would I do if I left him? What would he do if I did it? That life before each other seemed so far away to me now, and not just because of the three states that lay between Chicago and New Jersey. I know I have a hard time being on my own, so obviously I’d end up trying to find someone who could keep me company, who loved me and that I could love. But after getting a taste of this kinda life, I couldn’t really just get anyone. Nobody would feel as right.

I brushed some hair off Chucky’s face, turning the volume of the TV down a bit. He looked so peaceful when he was asleep. He never snored, nor mumbled, nor tossed nor turned; hell, he barely seemed to breathe.

And he... What would he even do? He had these supposed friends who had an interest in voodoo, apparently. I wondered how many people there were in that group, if they ever spent time together as actual friends. If he had ever told any of them about me. The sheer idea of there being someone in that group that he could have a liking to, someone Chucky might like better than me, that he’d rather spend time with, was enough to get my blood boiling. But he wouldn’t. It couldn’t be.

We had each other. That was how it was meant to be. These were all empty threats. Our own little ways of checking the other was still there.

That was the biggest fight we had in quite some time. It did its job, getting all that anger we had building up out of our systems. From then on it was just a few little bickering sessions every once in a while. We still didn’t have much money, and we still didn’t get any jobs, but Chucky at the very least tried to be home a little more often, to keep me company. The cold helped, too: I had an excuse to snuggle next to him, and wrap him in blankets and coats and cuddle him when we were in the bed, or laying on the couch, or smoking on the street while searching for our next victim. We broke our own record on monthly kills, so that kept us both in a pretty sustained good mood. He still went to his so-called study sessions, though he stopped staying out late afterwards so often. Chicago winters were a lot harsher than he had thought, he had told me, as an excuse for getting home earlier. And, on my part, I made an effort not to get angry when he did get home while I was sleeping, or trying to sleep. I tried to get happy, instead. Grateful. I got really clingy, back then. But Chucky never complained about that.

I think that he actually liked it when I was so attached to him. Mostly because, back then, he seemed to be as attached to me as I was to him.

“Weird, gotta say,” Chucky told me as he raised his eyebrows. “Not like you to let this type of opportunity pass you by. Too busy to get your man a little gift?”

“Well, maybe I don't know if you've earned a gift this year,” I replied with a shrug. “You haven't been very nice.”

He smiled at this. “I could always be worse.”

“That was never in question.”

He laughed, wrapping an arm around my waist, pulling me closer to him, and I laughed along. Christmas Eve, and the city was numbingly cold. We had gone out on a mission: I had seen an ad in a magazine about custom engraved necklaces, which I thought was a wonderful gift. Chucky’s not the type to wear such things, though, so I’d been looking around for a good place where I could get an engraved hunting knife, but that seemed to be harder than I had originally thought. We hadn’t had any luck finding anything else good at our usual secondhand store, so we decided to venture into the bigger shops in Michigan Avenue, partly because we knew that there were bargains abound and because the crowd was our best bet at getting some warmth. Of course, by the time we managed to make our way through traffic, all of the good stuff had flown off the shelves, and people were actually getting into fights over the goods throughout the aisles. In the end, Chucky and I decided it was not worth it, and headed back outside.

“If I have to listen to Santa Claus is Coming to Town one more time, I swear...” he grumbled between grit teeth, sinking his chin under the collar of his overcoat when we passed by the sliding doors of another big store, blasting the heat and the radio at full power.

“Isn’t it lovely, though?” I said with a little skip. The dead trees were covered in twinkling lights, and the shop windows were decked in beautiful themed displays. It would take more than a few unruly crowds to bring me down. “Families gathering for a home-cooked dinner, children going to bed dreaming about their presents... And it’s nice to see people taking so much pleasure in spending time together.”

“You see many happy people?” he asked. “All I see is people pissed they didn’t get the steal they’ve been standing in line for hours for.”

“You Grinch,” I laughed. But he did have a point. The happy people were indoors, having a good time with their loved ones. The streets belonged to the desperate.

“Spare change, please?”

A beggar surprised him at a street corner, getting right in front of us. Chucky whipped his head at her, stopping right on his tracks, dragging me to stop with him. It was a pale old woman, all bundled up, hair covered in a black veil and a black coat, with a rosary hanging from her neck and holding a bright red bucket labeled Help The Children in her bony white fists. A holy panhandler. I remembered we weren’t far from Saint James, where I had seen a beautiful white wedding taking place a couple weeks ago, on the steps of the church. The nun was shivering in the chilly wind, and with her black and white getup, she looked like a penguin escaped from the zoo.

Chucky scoffed. “Do I look like Mother Teresa?”

“Oh, hush, Chucky. After all, like my mother always said: you reap what you sow,” I smiled at the little old woman. She was lucky she had found me in a merry mood. “You never know when you might end up being the one needing a little help.”

“Bless you, miss...”

I kept smiling, but looked down at my hands for a second. It was a silly thing, I know, but it kept making me wonder –why did nobody call me Mrs when I went out with Chucky by my side? It was clear we were together. We couldn’t be standing closer together if we tried. Maybe it was because I wasn't wearing a ring. Nuns are conservative like that. 

“Tiff...” he butted in, standing a little apart, as he shot me one of his annoyed looks. “Are you serious right now?”

“Hm, I just can't seem to find my wallet...” I said, ignoring him, moving away from the corner and into a little nearby alleyway where the wind wouldn’t be so strong. The nun came along with me, and then Chucky followed us, too. “Please hold this for me, will you?”

I handed the nun my sunglasses while I kept searching. Then I handed her a packet of condoms, and then a postcard I had meant to send Molly but hadn’t gotten around to do yet, and my makeup compact which, without any more hands, the nun had to hold in her mouth. And I pulled out my nail file and slashed the nun’s throat, a superficial wound, but deep enough so that she couldn’t scream. Chucky cackled in happy surprise, and when she dropped my sunglasses he caught them midair. He put them in his coat pocket just as the nun turned around to him, grabbing at him as if asking for help.

Before she even noticed what was going on, Chucky grabbed the beads of her rosary in one fist, twisted it tighter, and pulled hard. The nun squeaked and squirmed, but in between the throat wound and the tight pressure on her windpipe, she didn’t make another sound. I watched as he shoved her old bones onto the narrow sidewalk, pinned her down with one knee, and kept pulling until her eyes were white and bulging, and her tongue stretched out her thin cracked lips as if trying to escape.

“Where's your God now, sister?”

I snapped out of it with a laugh. I assumed we were safe in that little dark alley, anyways, so I allowed myself to enjoy it for a while longer. Once Chucky decided she had croaked, I crouched down and picked up my stuff and the unexpectedly generous amount of coins and bills some blessed souls had given to the needy.

“Thank the Lord for charity,” I said, pocketing the change.

“Got it all?” he asked, dropping the body and getting back up on his feet.

“Yeah,” I slipped it inside my coat's inner pocket, and was about to hurry down the alley along with him, when I had another look at the nun. “Oh... Chucky?”

“What?”

I grinned, looking back up at him. “She’s still alive, sweetface.”

He frowned and crouched, and checked on her. She was paralyzed and speechless, but her eyes were still moving, and she still wheezed with her last few breaths. I clicked my tongue, shaking my head.

“Sloppy job,” I said, taking out my nail file.

“You think you can do better?”

“Oh, I know ...”

I kneeled too, knees on the cold hard pavement. I held her jaw and pulled it up, and continued slicing deeper, following the line to the back of her neck. The little shriveled old lady had a lot more juice in her than I had assumed. My festive white-and-red painted nails got a few specks of blood, which I quickly sucked off, looking back up to him to give him a go-ahead nod. Chucky smiled, took out his knife –and stabbed in the right spot on her back to get one last spasm out of the nun. We shared her for a little while. We got so into it –she kept moving her eyes like a broken doll, she just didn’t seem to die –that we only got out when I was startled by a voice too nearby, that didn’t sound much like him at all.

“Oh, my God –oh, God !”

That was our sign. I jumped back onto my feet, almost slipping on the puddle. Chucky got up and grabbed my arm and squeezed tight and we ran like hell. I turned around to look over my shoulder just as we were about to turn the corner and I saw, behind us, a small crowd gathering around the dead nun –and a man running and following us –and I gripped Chucky’s hand –and ran faster.

The sudden sound of sirens made me jump. I looked around me as I tried to remember where I had parked the car. Chucky yanked my arm. I just followed him. We went through a few clear streets and alleys while avoiding the crowded avenue –I had to trust he knew where the Pontiac was –until I finally realized that he wanted to get into an almost-empty store –about to close –and I stopped him and looked around once more and realized where we were –just half a block away from where I had parked –so we kept running, and we looked back, and couldn’t see the man but we couldn’t be sure yet, and just before we crossed the street and turned the corner I saw him, along with a couple other people, huffing and panting in the distance, and I digged into my bag for the car keys and as soon as I saw it I pushed it into the lock and opened the door.

We jumped inside the car, I slammed the door behind me, and without warning he pulled me to him and kissed me, and for a moment I tried to look behind me and through the window, but he grabbed my face and kept kissing me furiously, and I got what he was doing and wrapped my arms around his neck and kissed him back.

A moment passed. I heard footsteps rushing past us. Another moment passed. Chucky stopped and turned his head away. I kept kissing his jaw, under his ear, still breathless, still with a racing pulse.

“Are they gone?” I asked in a hush.

He nodded, and sighed. Still clinging to his shoulders, I looked over my shoulder towards where he was looking. I thought I could see the shape of a couple officers questioning some passersby, but I couldn’t be sure if they were cops at all from the distance. It could just be my still-jittery mind all shook up. I found my reflection in the mirror, and saw he had managed to really smudge my lipstick in the hurry.

“God,” he muttered. “That was way too fucking close.”

“Do you think they saw us?”

We stared at each other for a moment. He passed a hand through my hair, which was probably a mess. I giggled, and he chuckled with me, and we laughed together, tired but relieved and happy with the rush of the race and the thrill of the kill. I started the car. He kissed me once more, and then we headed back home.

On our way there, we started arguing on what we should have for our Christmas dinner. At first I was all excited as I told him the list of things I had in mind: I had gone over my Betty Crocker cookbook in the last week and I was looking forward to preparing baked ham, some mashed potatoes, and baked apples, too. And then I remembered there was next to nothing in the fridge. I had forgotten to buy enough groceries to last the month, and of course Chucky took that chance to complain about how I always left everything to the last minute.

After parking the Pontiac I finally accepted I had to make a quick trip to the store. I kept going back and forth about whether I should not waste any more time and get there straight away before it closed, or go back home first and change into something that wasn’t all dotted with blood. All the while Chucky declared he would stay in the apartment, refusing to come along with me, and I insisted that at the very least he help me carry the bags. He bitched and moaned for a while and, in the end, I said fine , as long as he set the table and washed the dishes after dinner.

I’m not sure how I didn’t even feel it coming. I was too distracted looking for the keys in my purse while I walked up the steps, I guess. It was just when I raised my eyes to the entrance of our building that I saw her: with the little black shoes, the old black wool coat with faux-pearl buttons, the bright red beehive hair.

My mother turned around to face me. I could feel the blood draining from my head.

“Ah, finally... At least this means you’re not ignoring the buzzer,” she said, gripping her little black handbag a bit tighter. “I’ve been waiting for ages, out here in the cold.”

For a moment I thought I was imagining it. It was impossible, after all, for my mother to be there, after so long, standing right in front of me. Really, it made no sense. Maybe I was dreaming it. Maybe it was all some weird nightmare, a result of eating too much before bed, like she always told me not to do.

“You clearly haven’t had any problems with money,” she said as she looked at me up and down. “By the way you’re looking, you’ve managed to feed yourself well.”

I said nothing to this. I just reached for my neck, wondering if it had gotten too thick, if my cheeks were too full. It had been about a decade since she last saw me. Had I changed much since then? My mother, on the other hand, looked just like she did when I last saw her. I thought of the framed wedding photo by the front door of her house. She had looked so much like me, back then. She, of all people, probably knew how ugliness could slowly settle in.

“… So? Aren’t you gonna invite me in?”

Chucky’s hand rested on my back, bringing me back to the present. I tried to say something, but whatever words I managed to string into a sentence died in my throat. Instead, I just nodded, and opened the door.

The three of us went into the elevator in silence. My mother’s attention had shifted from me to Chucky, and even behind his sunglasses I knew that he was similarly studying her. Just then I feared there was any blood on us –if she was so quiet because she was wondering why on Earth we were coming home at that hour with red splattered on the side of our faces. I took out my compact and checked, pretending to fix my makeup. 

“I don’t suppose you’re thinking of introducing me to… Whoever this man is.” she said out of a sudden, making a small gesture towards Chucky, which annoyed me but at least reassured me that she hadn’t noticed anything particularly troubling.

I cleared my throat. “Mom, this is my boyfriend, Charles.”

He took off his glasses and gave her a half-hearted half-smile. In return, she also gave him a long hard look up and down, stopping to glare at his hair.

“You are a man, I suppose…”

The elevator stopped with a sudden jolt. Chucky took in a sharp breath, and I saw the flash of anger in his wide-open eyes, and for a moment I just knew he was about to whip it out and curse my mother to hell and back—

“So, how was the trip?” I said quickly.

“By all accounts, not really worth it,” she said once we stepped into the hallway, glancing around at the cracked paint of the building walls. “When you said you had moved into Chicago and were going steady, I was expecting something better than this.”

She was never one to mince words, especially with the lack of fucks to give that comes with age. Chucky shot me an annoyed glance from behind her back, and made a gesture pretending to hang himself, tongue lolling out and all. I grinned, quickly pressing my lips together to disguise it when she looked back at me.

“Are we going to stay in this dirty hallway for the night?” she demanded.

I unlocked the door to our apartment. My mother walked in first, and examined the kitchen carefully. There was the pile of dirty dishes on the sink, empty bottles on the counter, some old newspapers. Apart from that, the kitchen was pretty spotless: I had cleaned the counters a few days ago, wiped the little window, even mopped the floor. Still, my mother made a grimace before moving on to the living room, which was another story altogether.

“It’s not that bad,” I said, locking the door. 

“It’s not exactly the very image of cleanliness, either,” she said. The lived-in, warm smell of our place was at odds with the soapy scent of the cheap perfume my mother always wore. “Then again, I assume you wouldn’t even keep your place this tidy anyways unless there was a man in the picture.”

“If I knew you were coming, I’d have cleaned up a little.”

“You shouldn’t need an excuse to take good care of your home. The face you give the world tells the world how to treat you.”

As soon as she began saying it I could already mouth the words myself. She had told me something along those lines quite a few times. Of course, whatever me and my boyfriend did in private was our business and only ours –but when your mother drops by, you’re expected to be up to the test. I was about to follow her into the cluttered living room, maybe try to hurry and hide some of the mess under the sofa before she could notice it, when Chucky grabbed my arm.

“Hey –quick word…”

My mother turned around and glanced at us. We both gave her a little smile. She sighed, and focused her attention back to the pigsty where her daughter lived. Chucky dragged me back beside the fridge, closed the door, and then banged his head as low as he could against it. I turned on the sink faucet, letting it run for a few seconds over the greasy dishes, before soaking my hands in the ice-cold water to wash away the traces of blood.

“How –the fuck –does she know where we live!?”

“I sent her a postcard,” I sighed, pinching the bridge of my nose. “I didn’t think… Jesus, I didn’t think she’d come this far!”

“What’d you send her a postcard for!?”

“I just wanted her to know how I was doing!”

He leaned his back against the door, covering his face with his red-stained hands, muffling a yell, and took a deep breath.

“Well, there goes a perfectly good night,” he muttered. “How can we get rid of her as soon as possible?”

I scoffed, shaking my head. “Oh, she’s stubborn. She’s not gonna leave till she decides she’s had enough.”

Chucky unbuttoned his coat and showed me the situation he was dealing with. His white shirt was drenched in mostly dry blood, less bright red and more cherry-colored –but still plenty suspicious. 

“Listen, I’m looking like fucking Carrie here, Tiff. I’m not exactly meet-the-parents presentable at the moment,” he said. “Hell, you want her to ask us how we met while I look like this?”

I knew that was the sort of question she’d make, whether we wanted to tell or not. I thought about it, tapping my heel against the floor tiles, sinking my nail on my lips.

“You get to the bedroom,” I finally said. “I’ll chat with her, distract her a bit, see how I can get her to leave.”

Chucky nodded in agreement, tightening his jaw. I handed him a wet dishrag for him to wipe his neck and hands with before turning the faucet back off.

“I didn’t want this,” I told him in a whisper, just to make that clear. “I didn’t invite her over. I didn’t want her here.”

He sighed, throwing the dirty rag back on the counter. “I know, babe.”

“I would have liked to patch things up with her... Maybe help her change back into when she was just my mom,” I admitted. “But not like this. Not this suddenly.”

He rolled his eyes. “Something I’ve learned throughout the years, Tiff, is that people don’t really change. They just stop lying to themselves.”

It made some sense. At some point my mother must have decided she could stop trying to pretend to like me.

“She’s still my mother, though,” I said. “I guess I still owe her… Something.”

She had come all this way to Chicago just to meet me. That had to count for something . As much as I wished she would just take a quick look around, say a couple biting lines, and walk away, I also wished she would stay a little longer and see for herself just how well I was doing, and how much happier I was now. She didn’t seem to believe me. I had to ask myself what would ever convince her of it.

But then, I remembered what my mother had told me. ‘ Love isn’t something we’re owed, it’s something we earn ’. Had she earned the love she expected of me? Did I really owe her anything? 

“You know... You can love someone and still kill them,” Chucky suddenly said, matter-of-factly. “It’s not as hard as it sounds. At all.”

“Really?” I said, picking the dry clumps of blood off from under my nails. If my mother hadn’t noticed the stains we had, it was likely she wouldn’t notice such a small thing. Still, one can never be too sure. “Who did you kill?”

“Long story for another day.”

Not wanting to face her just yet, I glanced through the half-open door to the living room, where my mother was now inspecting the view from our window. After a moment, I looked back to Chucky. He raised his eyebrows.

“What?”

“You heard me.”

“For God’s sake, Chucky, don’t be stupid,” I huffed, leaving the kitchen.

Back in her line of sight, my mother hurried towards me. I braced myself for what was coming next.

“This place stinks,” she declared. “Don’t you ever open the windows? It smells sickly in here. You’ll get sick.”

“I won’t, mom—”

“And so cold, too! Don’t you turn on the heater?” she asked. “And in winter, of all times… You’ll catch your deathly cold.”

“I won’t —”

“You sure? With the way you’re dressed?” she exclaimed, grabbing the lapels of my faux-fur coat and shaking them in her fat little fists. “Looking like a cheap minx, for God’s sake…”

My cheeks were burning, but I tried not to let it show. What mattered most was that my mother was distracted enough with this to not even notice Chucky slipping behind us, out the living room, and in through the bedroom door.

“Have you been using a curling iron?” she said, furrowing her thinly plucked eyebrows, reaching for a hair strand on my forehead. “Doesn’t look like curlers—”

“ Yes , mom, I’ve been using a curling iron…”

“You’ve been bleaching it so often, your hair’s becoming thin. You should change to a better shampoo, at the very least, or the heat’s going to keep damaging it.”

Great, so my mother had come all the way from Hackensack to tell me what to do with my hair. Even as I turned my face away from her she kept pulling at my curls, brushing them to the side and adjusting a few stray hairs over my ears.

“Just… What are you doing here?”

“Brittany earned that scholarship she had been studying so hard for, did you know? Probably not, seeing as you didn’t even try to keep in touch with us,” she muttered, and finally left my hair alone. “Well, now that I am a widow, and that your sister is away at college, I have quite a bit of free time in my hands...”

I shot her a look out the corner of my eye as I took off my coat. I pictured her, sitting on the sofa and smoking her herbal cigarettes in the living room of that old little house, exactly the same as it always was, except that now she was completely alone. Meals were single-serving, there were no shirts to iron, or toys to put away, or beds to make, except her own. The weekly bridge games were not enough of a distraction. I looked down at my boots. It embarrassed me, to recognize that loneliness that I had felt so often in my own mother. Was I to blame for it? I had been the one to run away, after all…

“Anyways, you said in your postcard that you were doing well. Of course, whatever ‘well’ is for you is a mystery. So, taking advantage of the fact that I’m free now, I had to come and see for myself.”

“You had to come check up on me?” I said, crossing my arms. “I’d thought you had given up on me.”

“I have given up on you, for a long time now. And still, despite my better judgment, I have looked out for you, cared for you, worried about you…” She gave one more glance around. “The least you could do is offer me some tea.”

I went back into the kitchen and filled the kettle with water. I turned on the stove and put it on top, automatically thinking about whether I had anything to accompany her tea. On a little dish, covered by another one of our dishrags, there were some gingerbread cookies left (a true Christmas miracle), but I knew she would just complain about the excessive frosting. I scoured for a bit till I found a jar in a cupboard, with two lonely chocolate chip cookies that Chucky had either forgotten about or had been saving for another time. The first one was the most likely.

“Water’s heating up,” I told my mother, coming into the living room with my offering of the prettiest china dish we had, holding the two chocolate chip cookies. Despite everything, she was too well-mannered in the very specific way of never talking with her mouth full. I would take full advantage of that. “Thought you might like something to have with your tea.”

“Chocolate chip,” she said, unimpressed, picking one and inspecting it. “A child's choice. But I guess it’s better than nothing.”

She took a small bite. Even there in the living room, with her noisy chewing, I could hear the hissing of the gas stove, and the water that just wouldn’t boil quick enough.

“Not too bad,” she finally said, before she frowned. “Wait a minute… Is this my almond cookie recipe?”

“What?”

“This has almond extract,” she hissed, shaking the cookie around, spreading crumbs everywhere. “And lard instead of butter. You took my almond cookie recipe and added chocolate chips to it.”

She sounded absolutely appalled. A thought flashed in my mind: I could have dipped the cookie in some rat poison we kept under the sink, see how she liked it then.

“So what if I did?”

My mother set the cookie down, giving a long sigh. “Turn on the heater, or light the fireplace, at the very least. It’s so cold here, almost colder than it is outside.”

For once, Chucky had remembered to buy kindle for it. I lit the fireplace and waited, kneeling in front of the growing fire, avoiding my mother’s gaze, while she stood beside me. Once there was a nice warmth coming from the hearth, I considered going ahead and changing into something else as well, but didn’t want to have to pass by her side again yet, feel her questioning eyes on my back. Anything I changed into would be the target of a bunch of new criticisms anyways.

“Is that better?” I asked her.

“It’s better than freezing.”

Age had really done her no favors. I reached for the fire poker and removed a few ashes, causing a little spurt of sparks. It felt nice by the fire, warmed up and cozy. My mind wandered back to some very early memory, of some other winter, when my father had bought a brand-new heater and we were sitting around it, having hot chocolate, trying to keep warm. I had a memory of my mother’s soft breathing, her hands cupping the mug, my head resting on her lap. Most details were fuzzy, but I could perfectly remember the electric buzz of the heater, my mother’s heartbeat, the quiet funny gurgles of her belly as she swallowed gulps of hot chocolate. I had a sudden wish to rest my head on her lap, like I had done back then. In my mind, one of her hands moved away from the mug and reached to stroke my hair, so very gently; but I wasn’t sure if that was real or something I added later to the memory.

The tip of the fire poker had turned bright red. I gripped the handle tighter in my fist. It was heavy, pure iron. If I left it close to the fire for a little while longer, it would get white-hot. The tip of it was probably sharp enough –and if it wasn’t good enough for a nice quick stab, then I could beat her to death with it. Would the screaming be loud? I knew she could yell pretty loudly if she wanted to. Would the neighbors notice? Would they even care?

“What do you work in?”

“Secretary,” I quickly lied. “For a real estate company. Only part time, though. I mostly stay at home.”

“And this Charles, what does he do?”

“He works in waste disposal.”

“Figures.”

I left the poker in its place, stood up, and pretended to fix the garland on the mantle. There were the holiday decorations I had set, my biggest Christmas purchase, that had seemed so cheery when I first arranged them. Their little plastic smiles now seemed mocking.

“Where’s that boyfriend of yours?”

“He’s changing into something more comfortable,” I replied, adjusting the tiny Santa hats on the heads of my dolls. “He wants to look presentable, to properly meet you.”

“I don’t like him.”

“I know, mom.”

“I’m not joking. There’s something strange about him. He seems…”

I glanced at her over my shoulder, admittedly curious to what word she would find the best to describe him with, and wondered whether Chucky was listening on us from the other side of the door.

“… Unpredictable.”

“We’ve been together for almost three years now.”

“I don’t mean that,” my mother insisted. “I mean, he’s… Sinister .”

“Well, I like him that way.”

“No, you don’t,” she said tiredly. “You think you do, but you don’t. Don’t fool yourself, take a good hard look at him. You must know the type by now. No commitment. No loyalty. That’s what I mean by ‘unpredictable’. He can’t be trusted, especially not by those he has wormed his way into staying by his side.” She took another bite of the cookie, and chewed thoughtfully, and swallowed before continuing. “He’ll end up letting you down, Tiffany, mark my words.”

“Where was that great intuition when dad ended up cheating on you?”

Silence. For a moment I was sure she would walk up to me and slap me. She didn’t. She just grit her teeth, left the half-eaten cookie on the dish, took out one of her cigarettes from her black handbag, and kept still, carefully picking which words would hurt me as much as I hurt her.

“He doesn’t really love you,” she finally declared, almost spitting the words.

“As if you knew so much about love,” I grumbled, reaching for the pack of Marlboros on the coffee table.

“I do,” she said, and she lit her cigarette. “You know I do, Tiffany.”

“Charles does love me,” I tried to keep my voice even. The pack was empty. “He shows it to me. He’s… I don’t think I’ve ever been truly loved, before him.”

“He really has reeled you in, then,” she sighed, and dropped the ashes of her own cigarette on my carpet. “If you believe that bunch of crock. How long do you honestly think this can last?”

I didn’t reply. It would last for as long as I lived –or at least for as long as he kept loving me –but I wasn’t gonna tell her that. I already knew what her response would be.

My mother scoffed. “You think that because you have a couple things in common, because the sex is still decent, because he gives you a little gift from time to time, that he loves you. But none of that is real. I made that mistake. Don’t repeat what I did.”

“Well, what’s your advice, then?” Since she was so full of wisdom…

There was another drawn-out silence before she spoke again. “I knew that, once I married your father, I would never be able to go back to my family. That was a choice I made, which I have lived with for the rest of my life.”

I wringed my hands. To be quite honest, I wasn’t sure I wanted to be a part of that family anymore.

“I’m giving you a chance I was never afforded, Tiffany. You make a choice, you pay the price. Wait, and think, before you regret it.”

“Do you ever regret it?” I asked. “Leaving your family?”

“Regrets don’t mean anything,” she said, looking down. “I had a new family. At least I wasn’t alone.”

“I’m not alone.”

“Right,” my mother said, shooting a glance towards the closed door to our bedroom.

“He does actually like me as I am, mom,” I insisted. “He doesn’t want to change me into something else.”

“Does he, now?” she laughed bitterly. “I find that hard to believe. You were never easy… Of course, I guess part of the blame lies on me. I made you the way you are, warts and all,” she said, sitting on the armchair by the fireplace, creaking under her weight. “I made a goddamn monster.”

Her words made me realize how many childhood memories I had, all of them muddled and fading, of her doing things for me. My mother bathing me, my mother feeding me, my mother giving me a spoonful of cough syrup in bed. And then, memories of me rejecting her care. Me bathing myself, me cooking for myself, me downing aspirins in the bathroom. ‘ Stop exaggerating ’, I remembered she used to tell me. ‘ Don’t be so dramatic. ’ I was about to repeat her own words to her. Then I thought, I was kind of a monster. At least to her. Compared to who she wanted me to be, I guess I was a monster.

Maybe I did owe her. 

“I don’t know where I must’ve gone wrong… Since your sister turned out to be such a well-behaved lady…” She looked up at me, and let out a deep sigh. “What happened to that sweet little girl you used to be, Tiffany? When did she turn into…? Into this?”

I had no answer for her. My mother stared up at me until I felt uncomfortable, but I stared back for as long as I could, determined not to let her see it. She was looking for some doubt, some sign of weakness she could sink her teeth in and exploit. It had been years since we last talked to each other, but I knew her stares and glares very well, and I wasn’t a little girl anymore. I wouldn’t be intimidated by her any longer.

“Did you ever find out who the other woman was?” I asked her. My mother was quick to point out my faults. Better to remind her of her own.

“No. But I can imagine it was some vulgar streetwalker,” she said, lowering her voice, fiddling with her ring. “Or more than one, surely. These women are fickle, of course. You can’t really put a price on love… Though I don’t think that love was what your father was looking for in them, in any case.”

It wasn’t the same, of course, but I still wondered what she would say if I told her about my string of one-night stands, after my last breakup. She would be disgusted, that was for sure. She would probably not be there in my apartment if she knew. To her, I would be a vulgar streetwalker too. I gripped my wrist and sank my nails in my skin. The little taste of pride I had about having become what she despised most was quickly overpowered by the sudden disgust I had at myself.

“Maybe he did,” I shrugged. “Maybe he did love that woman... Whoever she was.” 

“Oh, please. You didn’t know him like I did,” my mother said. “You didn’t know him at all. Even you, with your whining and your tantrums, did more around the house than he did. When he was promoted, boy, I really believed he would have more time for the family… At least he could have stayed faithful for Brittany’s sake.”

“If he was such a pig, then why did you marry him?”

“You must know how relationships start like dreams come true,” she said, arching her thin eyebrows. “Before they turn into full-on nightmares.”

She must have known how that thought kept gnawing at me. Always, in the back of my head, popping up when I least expected it. Like a parasite, or a rash. How true love never seemed to last.

“I’m just trying to look out for you, Tiffany. Men were born to lie,” she declared. “And women to believe them.”

He loves me –he loves me –he loves me , I repeated to myself. She was just trying to get under my skin. Chucky wasn’t like the others. He had to love me. There had been so many chances for him to just kill me. He wasn’t afraid to shed blood. If he didn’t love me at least a little bit, why the hell would he even keep me around?

“So, you think you got it all figured out now? You think you’re happy?”

I wasn’t so sure now. What was the difference between thinking you’re happy and being happy? Was one real and the other a lie? I felt happy with Chucky around, even despite the few rough patches, the occasional arguing and the fights. It felt real, more real than anything else I had ever felt. Though… Certainly, back with Heath, with Cesar, with Arlene, I just loved them. I just felt it, and it was enough to convince me it was the real deal. Could it be that I was just fooling myself again, just like I had done so many times before?

Regardless of the answer, I forced myself to smile, raise my chin, and take a deep breath.

“Yes. I’m happier than ever.”

My mother drummed her nails on the armrest. Her expression sparked another memory, the way that her presence in general simply did that, plucked from years I had a very weak grasp of. I was back at her house, and I had thrown a fit or something, and after her typical yelling she had decided to go for another tactic. ‘ Fine –you can cook for yourself, then. Cook for yourself, clean for yourself, do your own laundry, pay your own bills… I’d like to see you managing without me. I’d like to see you try. ’

“Well, Tiffany… As the saying goes: if you love something, you have to set it free. And you have been free for a while now.”

I didn’t want to be free. I wanted to be loved.

“We don’t have to keep seeing each other. We can forget the other exists,” I said. It was the easiest thing to do, and the one that, most likely, would hurt the least. “Hell, it’s what I’ve been doing ever since I left home.”

“Don’t be stupid, Tiffany, you couldn’t forget about me even if you tried,” she said. “I’m who gave you life. I’m your own flesh and blood.”

“Say what you want, mom, but I’m not gonna go back to Hackensack with you.”

Because that was what this was all about. She just didn’t want to be alone in that crummy house.

Suddenly she stood up, startling me. She stood almost as tall as I did in my heels, in front of me, with that disappointed look. One of her hands moved away from the handbag, and approached mine, giving it a small but tight squeeze. I held my breath. I didn’t pull away. Her hand moved farther, now close to my cheek. I did wince there, not wanting to give her the satisfaction of submitting. I didn’t move any further than that. The back of her fingers stroked just beside my jaw, careful not to let her hard acrylic nails touch my skin. I grit my teeth. My mother’s hand was much softer than I remembered.

And then, the only thought I had, all I really wanted, was for my mother to hold me close.

“I have come all this way, I’ve done all of this, because I care about you, despite everything. Despite how impossible you are, and how much you say you want to keep away. I know you,” she said quietly, almost shamefully. Worst of all, I knew she was telling the truth. “And you know that, don’t you?”

I stared back into her dark brown eyes, the eyes that were almost exactly like mine. My lip trembled –and I grit my teeth, forcing myself to stay stone-faced. But still I couldn’t shake the image of my mother, all alone, a drink in one hand and a smoke in the other, spending the afternoon in the living room of her empty house. Waiting for something out of sheer faith. It was her when I came home late, and it was me when I was too tired to cry after my latest breakup, and it was her when I got up early in the morning with period cramps and she had already done all the chores, and it was me when I felt absolutely nothing and could do nothing but stay still and let the time pass me by—

Chucky came out of the bedroom. He was now wearing one of those floppy t-shirts he had picked at the Goodwill: this particular one read ‘ Get Really Stoned: Drink Wet Cement ’. I let out a relieved breath, and snickered at the sight of it. He winked at me. My mother just glared at him.

“Oh, nice –cookies,” he said chipperly, taking the other one from the pretty little dish and munching on it as noisily and rudely as he could.

I kept pursing my lips, trying to hold back a grin. My eyes were still burning. At least he found a way to ease the situation, in the best way he knew. Thankfully, before my mother could start her grilling, asking for all the gritty details and the obligatory questions about our relationship, about his education, his family and his reputation, the kettle whistled to call me away back to the kitchen.

“Give me a minute,” I told her, able to loosen my shoulders at last. “I’ll bring you your tea.”

“I’ll help you,” Chucky said quickly, following me back into the kitchen.

I had a wave of fear that she would sneak into our bedroom while we were both away in the kitchen, out of sight, with him having closed the door again so we could talk and not be heard. I didn’t know exactly what my mother could find that could give away our little hobby. Really, there was probably nothing in there that she would ever approve of in the first place, I realized, thinking of our clothes lying everywhere, the newspaper clippings, the unmade bed, the weird books he read…

“Christ, Tiff. Your mom fucking sucks,” Chucky told me in a hush. “Why didn’t you ever tell me she’s such a bitch?”

So he was listening in on us. “I know she’s got her issues—”

“Yeah, no shit.”

I pressed my knuckles against my chin, digging my nails into my palms. As hard as I tried, I couldn’t remember a time in which she had stroked my cheek like that.

“… She’ll want to stay for dinner.”

Chucky glared at me.

“I don’t think I can bear even five whole minutes more with her,” I admitted.

He clapped in relief. “Thank God, you said it. So!” There was a sudden energy to him, as if he had gotten all wound up and ready to go. “How should we get rid of her?”

I took a deep breath. I glanced at the cabinet below the sink. “Rat poison in her tea. Right? That sounds merciful.”

“You say she deserves it?”

“Well, I don’t know if I can be merciless with her,” I said as I poured the hot water into the teacup, thinking back to the poker by the fireplace. “She’s still my mother.”

“Tiff, come on,” he said, raising his tone. “She treats you like shit!”

“Keep it down,” I hushed him. “And it’s not that bad. It’s just –it’s just how she is. She’s probably really tired from the trip—”

“She hasn’t seen you in years, and she talks to you like this!?”

Chucky was right. What was I even doing, trying to find excuses for her?

The bag of red tea quickly dyed the water a deep rich color. “Yeah, poison won’t cut it. Something stronger. Something final.”

“I can distract her with some story,” he suggested. “So you can come from behind and slash her throat.”

“No… No, I don’t want to touch her.”

He frowned, glancing at the kitchen drawer where we kept the emergency Glock. “A bullet would make too much noise, even with a pillow to muffle it. Would you really risk it?”

“No, I mean… I don’t think I can... That I can touch her. I can’t look at her while I kill her.”

“Hm… What about suffocating her with a plastic bag, then? That’d be clean.”

“Could you do this for me, Chucky? Please?” I asked him, wringing my hands. “I… I can’t do it.”

“What?”

“I want her dead, I do, it’s just… I… I don’t know what it is, I just can’t…”

“Tiff,” he said, with a look of disbelief. “What the hell are you talking about? You’ve done this a million times. You’ve done this less than an hour ago!”

“It’s different,” I said quickly. “I’ve thought about this so many times, but… I’m afraid I’ll… I won’t be able to…”

“You won’t be able to go through with it?”

I nodded. He was almost let down for a moment, but then he picked himself right up, and gave me one of his smirks.

“Well, that’s what you got me for, babe. If you end up getting cold feet, I’ll finish it for you, no problem.”

“No… No, Chucky, please,” I stammered, more and more embarrassed of my own reaction to all this shit. “Just… You do it. I know you’ll do it right.”

“But, Tiff—”

“Please, please… I can’t.”

“It’ll be fun…! We can do it together,” he promised, his voice softening. “We’ll have a blast.”

“I can’t—” I said, my voice cracking.

“Yes, you can!” he insisted, and he held my hand and squeezed it tight. “I know you can—”

“Chucky, please …”

“… Alright, alright.”

He turned around, and picked his second-favorite knife from the drawer.

“But I’m not going for poison in her tea.”

“Do it however you want.”

He was about to leave for the living room. At the last moment he gave me one more look.

“Are you watching, at least?”

I gave it a thought, still wringing my hands.

“I’ll stay here in the kitchen. Just call me if you need anything.”

Chucky looked down at his knife, turning it in his hand. “You know, it’s a damn pity. I think we could really enjoy this… Are you really sure?”

“Yes. I’m sure.”

I don’t think he understood why I couldn’t go through with it. Hell, not even I understood.

Chucky hid the knife in his pants’ back pocket, picked up the teacup and left for the living room. I closed the door behind him but kept close by, listening carefully to anything and everything that went on.

The TV was switched on. There was no keyhole in the kitchen door –I only had sounds to tell me what was happening. The noise of some game show covered the clinking of the teacup on the coffee table, the barely-thankful harrumph of my mother, the steps of Chucky’s shoes circling the rug. All of which I could imagine perfectly well, with or without evidence.

I closed my eyes to listen better. I even held my breath. Chucky had taken a knife with him, but I had already told him a hundred times that I didn’t want any bloodstains in the living room, since it was so hard to get them off the furniture and off the hardwood floors. Maybe he’d go for smashing something on her head, maybe suffocating her with a bag, like he had suggested. Maybe strangle her with his own hands. I hoped it hurt. I hoped it was not quick and painless. I hoped the last thought in her mind was that this was what I wanted.

A stomp of a heel –I jumped. I kept holding my breath. I remained as still as I could. A loud gasping, a groaning, almost a squeal, loud enough to be heard even with the brash laughter of the game show. A familiar chuckle. At last I opened my eyes. My fingers were cold and still gripping the doorknob, my heart was racing in my throat. I was squatting so low behind the door I was almost on my knees. There was silence beyond the TV. But it wasn’t done yet, there was a tension in the air, and I could perfectly imagine her face becoming as white as my hand, life draining out of her, leaving only the clownish makeup colors. I lost track of time, wondering what expression she’d have. Whatever it was it’d be ghastly anyways. My mind soon went to more important questions. Was Chucky killing her slowly? Was he enjoying it?

“Hey, Tiff,” he called. “It’s done.”

Slowly, I cracked open the door, and stepped into the living room, staring down at my boots. My mother was back in the creaky armchair, with her arms hanging limp to the sides. I looked up, bracing myself to see her –and, thankfully, the horrible sight of her shocked face was pretty softened by the jolly glow of the Christmas lights Chucky had strangled her with.

“I knew you didn’t want any blood on your nice couch.”

He sat beside her, on the armrest, waiting for me to say something. It took me a moment before I could walk over to her and look at her properly. There were the lines of the strangling on her neck, deep marks, as if she had been a tied-up roast. Her face was slightly purplish-blue, not white. The mouth was still gaping, her eyes wide open. I stared into her eyes for a few seconds, almost waiting for them to move and stare back at me. It hadn’t been an easy passing. Yes, Chucky must have really enjoyed it.

“Want me to close them for you?”

I scoffed, and did it myself. She still wore the same makeup she put on when I was a kid, the same I wore when I stole her blue eye shadow. The blush was applied almost violently. Her eyelashes were as sticky and stiff as always. She had changed so little, really, even in death.

“… So that’s what you’re gonna look like in twenty years.”

He snickered when I gave him an angry shove, knocking him off the couch’s armrest.

“Alright,” I said, taking a deep breath. “Let’s get started.”

We pushed the couch and the armchair out of the way and carpeted the floor with the bags so as to not stain the floor nor the carpet. It took a while, but it was nothing compared to the task ahead of us. I had a feeling Chucky was having a good time anyway. As the disposal expert I had the hard work, obviously, starting with the legs. Like that night at the hotel, when we had first met, it was a chopping job, made easier by having a proper cleaver instead of a carving knife. Regardless of the tool, holding my mother’s fat ankle, staring down at the black pumps she was wearing, I found myself doubting. Why, I didn’t know. She was dead already. It was just a piece of meat for me to cut up.

“You want me to do that for you, too?” he asked.

“Can it, Chucky.”

“Alright, sheesh…”

I pushed my hair off my face, telling myself to pull it together. Raising the cleaver over my head, feeling its weight and tensing my arm, I brought it down in one quick hard swoop –the cleaver went right down the flesh –and stopped suddenly at the bone, and it made a small dent as it got stuck in it. I grit my teeth and yanked the cleaver out the ankle, and raised it over, swinging it down, three more times before I finally managed to separate the foot from the leg. Once that was done with, I tossed it to the side.

“Nice job,” he said. “Try to aim for the joint next time, maybe that way you won’t dull the cleaver’s blade that much.”

I huffed and wiped the splattered blood off my cheek. This was taking too long. What we needed was a saw. The old woman had stronger bones than I had thought. I went through with the other ankle, while Chucky got experimental and tried to saw the elbows off with one of our steak knives, and when it didn’t work so well, he tried with the carving knife –which at least got it done quicker, and gave him an easier time snapping bones. I knew the biggest challenge would be the head, so I left it for last. Eventually, though, I had to do it: so, as Chucky bagged the chopped parts, I hacked my mother’s head, sinking the blade into her neck, bringing my tired arm up again, sweat falling down my back, the cleaver coming back and forth like a faulty guillotine. My arm was aching badly. I was exhausted from the effort of the previous joints. And this part, with my mother’s face, eyes closed as if taking one of her migraine naps, felt like it was going on forever. And the head just wouldn’t come off. I knew that if I didn’t get it done Chucky would insist to do it –I knew he was itching to use the cleaver –but I had to do this myself –if only I could finish it –and take my mother’s damn head off her neck…

“ Goddammit, you bitch—! ”

I screamed at her dead body. By the sixth time the cleaver had gone through her flesh, I still hadn’t gotten to fully behead her yet. What would it take for it to do so? How many hacks? How much longer did I have to keep chopping for it to come apart? I kept yelling, shouting and swearing, too furious to even notice Chucky standing behind me. And when it finally, finally rolled away from the neck, adding one last victorious spurt of blood to the pool around my knees, I was all sore and my throat was dry. I blinked. A few tears burned my eyes. I blinked again, sniffing and groaning, and I breathed, closing my eyes and turning my face up to the ceiling. There was a silence, still thick with the echoes of my yelling. It took me a minute before I could open my eyes again and brace myself for what came next.

“... You okay, Tiff?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay,” he said quietly. “Ready to go?”

We put the remaining limbs in the bags, put on our coats, and went to dispose of the body. Carrying one garbage bag each, it was still pretty damn heavy for just two people, no matter how the weight was distributed. It was Christmas Eve, and apart from a few drunks staggering around, the streets were almost empty: people were celebrating the holiday in their homes, which meant we could sneak off to the lakeshore without being seen or calling any attention to ourselves. Chucky joked that if someone stopped us and questioned us, we could say that we were Santa’s helpers, bringing toys in these bags for needy children. I laughed a bit to humor him, but I wasn’t feeling like joking around much anymore.

One bag at a time, he made a little slash in them so they wouldn’t float, and we shoved them over the edge and into the dark water. They sank almost instantly, first blowing up like balloons, the air being pushed up, and then letting out a few quiet bubbles before finally sinking like stones. And then it was done. My mother was officially dead and gone, now on her way to line the bottom of Lake Michigan.

“You cold?” Chucky asked me, lighting a cigarette and taking a drag before passing it to me.

I shook my head before accepting it.

“Let’s get home.”

We walked in silence for a few blocks. It started snowing again. The apartment wasn’t very far, but now that we had the weight of the body bags off our backs, we were in no hurry. And besides, I wasn’t feeling like cooking a Christmas dinner anymore. I wondered whether we had any chance of finding a restaurant that could be open and had a free table for us at that hour. The odds weren’t good.

“Wait, hun,” I said with a groan, three blocks from home. “My feet are killing me…”

It wasn’t the feet as much as the knees. I’d been on the floor next to the body for too long, putting all my weight in my knees and arms, sawing and chopping away. I had stopped just as we passed by a little playground. I took off my heels and wandered off over the frosty grass towards the swings.

“Tiff, come on, I’m freezing my ass off—!”

“It’ll just be a minute,” I insisted. “Stop being such a baby.”

I sat on one of the swings and let out a deep sigh. It really was cold, but my knees were very much relieved once I allowed them to relax. Chucky waited on the sidewalk, shifting his weight from leg to leg, smoking and sighing in annoyance, before finally huffing and sitting on the swing beside me. We kept quiet. After a moment, he handed me the cigarette back.

“We can do this at the apartment, you know,” he grumbled.

“Back there we’ll have to get to cleaning all that blood,” I replied, blowing the smoke up over our heads, watching it dissolve in the wind.

“Bah, I’m not gonna hold it against you. It can wait till tomorrow,” he said, and rubbed his hands together to keep warm. “It’s Christmas, after all.”

“How considerate of you.”

My voice came out a bit harsher than what I had intended. Hoping he hadn’t noticed, I clicked my nails, holding the end of the cigarette that was almost fully done through. Chucky turned to look at me. I flicked the cigarette stub on the dead grass, slipped my heel back on, and stepped on it. A couple little sparks sputtered away before it went dark.

“Guess tonight’s menu’s gonna be leftovers,” he finally said, rocking back and forth on the swing, the chains creaking and squeaking above him. “That is, if there’s anything left in the fridge.”

I was about to snap back at him, and say something about him never bothering to get groceries, and instead eating whatever and whenever he wanted, all take and no give –before I got a knot in my throat. This, he noticed. I looked down, swallowing, wishing I had something to wash off the taste of salt and nicotine from my mouth. ‘Ladies don’t spit’ . Another of her little nuggets of wisdom. Chucky’s hand rested on my shoulder, turning my swing so I could face him. I turned away. I tried to laugh, as a last desperate attempt to mask the incoming blubbering.

“Hey, hey –why’re you crying?”

A bit too forcefully, I sniffed and wiped my eyes. My makeup was definitely a complete mess by then. “I… I don’t know—”

“Well, are those happy tears or sad tears?”

“I don’t know !”

“C’mon, don’t worry about it… What’s done is done,” he said, his voice sounding like it did when he was building up to a punchline. “She’s in a better place now, and all that shit.”

“I wonder,” I said, with a bitter little giggle that came out quite alright.

He chuckled along, and rubbed my shoulder. “See? You’re okay. Nothing to worry about.”

“I’m not worried,” I insisted. “I’m not.” And right on cue, when I was just getting too confident, my voice cracked.

He knit his brows together. “Well you don’t seem on cloud nine, either.”

I could feel it –something similar to pity in his voice. No, not pity: something more like confusion, disappointment, frustration. Like dealing with a kid that refused to do her chores. An ungrateful kid. A difficult brat. I huffed and shut my eyes and swinged on the set. Some movement might get some blood running through my body, I thought. The chains of the swing were burning cold against my hands. The chains creaked rhythmically, back and forth, and with my eyes closed I was taken back to a winter in which I stayed out after sundown, at the Hackensack playground, sucking in the cold because my mother had forbidden me to do so, arguing that I’d get a fever. I did get a fever. I got so sick I couldn’t go to school; I could barely leave my bed to go to the bathroom. All the while my mother nursed me back to health, telling me to open up so she could give me spoonfuls of cough syrup, grumbling about me being incurable.

Too many memories, too quickly. It was as if I was drunk with them, sick with them.

“What was that thing you said, about what you believed in? The afterlife?” Chucky asked me, suddenly swinging beside me. “You said it doesn’t matter. It’s just death—”

“It does not matter!” I shouted. “Jesus –this isn’t about her, you asshole!”

Another silence, barely interrupted by the creaking of the chains, then slowly becoming silent again. I was never good at holding back tears, but right then I was making a real effort, and prayed to myself I could manage to keep it in at least long enough so we could get back to the apartment, wash my face, have dinner or whatever and then go to sleep. There was a vague awareness that I had made some sort of plans for Christmas Eve, but right then all I wanted was to crawl under the sheets and have a good long cry.

“… Did she get to you that bad?”

That was the last straw. I jumped off the swing, stood up and crossed my arms, walking away. All I needed was to stop the sniffling, and then I’d be alright. For a moment I looked down at the snow that was gathering at my feet, but when a tear slipped from the corner of my eye I immediately pulled my head back and stared up at the black cloudy sky. Not a single star in sight, only the sparkling white snowflakes being blown by the chilly wind. The cold was really setting in now, but I was unsure whether I wanted to go back inside or not by now. Back home it was nice and cozy, but there in the playground it was dark enough that, if I really started bawling, at least we could pretend I wasn’t.

Enough snow had piled up so that I could hear his steps coming from behind me. I wiped the lower lid of my eyes. I told myself I had it under control. I was alright. If he insisted on going back to the apartment, I’d say yes, and that would be the end of it.

Instead, Chucky hugged me. I held my breath for a moment, pretty surprised. It’s not that he never hugged me, of course, just that it was not really his preferred way to show any sort of sympathy. When he did hug me, it was usually in the thrilled aftermath of a nice kill, or when we were half asleep in bed, and he clinged to me, as if to make sure I was there. But not like this. Not that I didn’t welcome it –it just felt kinda awkward. After a couple seconds, though, I was far too warm and comfortable to want to break it off. I closed my eyes and hugged him back, resting my head on his shoulder, taking a deep breath. And I finally let myself cry.

“Tiff… You know youʼve got nothing to be ashamed of,” he said after a while, his voice muffled against my fluffy coat. “Right?”

“Yeah.”

Chucky moved away just a little. He kept one arm around me, keeping me close. He cupped my cheek with his still-warm hand, and wiped a tear off with his thumb. I sniffed once more.

 “… Thank you,” I said quietly.

Was I thanking him for killing her for me? For staying by my side and comforting me? I don’t think I was even sure. A puzzled frown crossed Chucky’s face for a second, but then smiled.

“Anytime.”

It had been smart of me to keep our previous kill’s loot in my coat’s inner pocket. Just around the corner we had a Chinese restaurant that was still open. We bought a whole bunch of takeout to bring home with us, rushing back to the apartment with the boxes kept warm under our coats. There was also an old bottle of mid-quality whisky I kept in the cupboard for emergencies, and this seemed like enough of an emergency to me. Not exactly the most picture-perfect Christmas dinner, but it certainly beat going to bed on an empty stomach. We spread the banquet on the coffee table, then sat on the sofa, my legs stretched over his lap, and we covered ourselves with the biggest coziest blanket we had. There wasn’t much on TV, apart from Perry Como’s holiday special and reruns of How The Grinch Stole Christmas , but we caught It’s A Wonderful Life, which Chucky had never watched in full. So we watched it, and I cried a little more, and we drank and ate as much as we could before getting sick, until we fell asleep.

I don’t think I really ever told him just how thankful I was. Years of dreaming about my mother dropping dead, but I never actually made a plan, or thought about actually going through with it. Chucky didn’t need a plan. When the opportunity showed up, he simply took it. A hundred percent hassle free. It wasn’t his mom, anyways. To him it was just another kill. But I knew he knew how much it meant to me. And he had understood how much I needed him to be patient with me, that night.

Those really were the best times we had. If we argued, we forgot about it immediately. If we fought, we made up right away. If the other seemed to be feeling kinda low, we cheered each other up. So often back then I found myself grabbing on to him, in his arms, wishing and praying that the moment could last forever. I didn’t want morning to come, him to leave, or me having to be alone again. But time passed us by anyway, regardless of what I wanted, as if mocking me. All I could do was enjoy it as much as I could.

It had taken him a couple months to catch up with me, but my boyfriend had finally turned twenty-eight. And I promised myself that this birthday would be a really good one.

Anyone who knows me knows I love parties. I love having opportunities to dress up and celebrate and pick gifts for people I’m close to. Chucky, well –he wasn’t much like that at all. Not that he hated them, on the contrary: he knew how much it meant to me, so for the last three years we had been together he had made sure I had a truly great birthday and Valentine’s Day; anniversaries were always a blast; and, of course, he was a huge fan of Halloween, almost as much as I was. Other lesser holidays, like Easter, Thanksgiving or Christmas, were just excuses for us to do a little something special. But his own birthday, he never gave it much thought. I liked planning places to visit, dates to have. To him, for whatever reason, something as important as his own birthday seemed like more of an afterthought.

Not this year, though, I had told myself, once I picked up the Pontiac from Darnell’s after one last thorough checkup.

“For God’s sake, Tiff,” he called out from the bedroom, over the background buzz of the TV’s newscast. “You still getting ready?”

“I’m almost done, geez… What’s the hurry?” I yelled back. After just finishing with the eyeliner, I still had a little more work to do on the eyes. “Perfect’s not easy, you know.”

After applying mascara generously, I moved back away from the mirror to see the bigger picture and take in the results of my effort. The eyelashes were nice and thick, just how I liked them. The eyeliner looked even enough for me. Finally I smiled, satisfied.

Just then I noticed the shadow behind me in my reflection. There he was, leaning against the doorframe, watching me through the mirror. I had been so focused I hadn’t even heard him coming close. I smirked, putting my little tools away, and just to bother him a bit more, I pretended to fix some invisible flaw with the tip of my nail for a minute or so. Chucky let out a loud annoyed groan. I giggled. As if he didn’t love watching me getting ready. 

“Alright, I’m done now.”

I had pulled out all the stops for the special ocassion. We had gone to the movies to watch a double feature, and then we had dinner at home. There was still the warm spiced lingering smell of the tomato sauce we had with the Swedish meatballs, wafting through the rooms of the apartment, and there was even a little bit of the waxy burnt wick of the birthday candles I had insisted Chucky blew. And that was not the end of it. I still had a surprise left for him, and despite his usual impatience, he seemed plenty satisfied with everything else we had done that day, so he wasn’t particularly restless. What’s more important, he was grateful. Between laughs at the cinema, he had circled my shoulders and brought me closer, not to do anything, just to keep me against him, like a grounding wire. During dinner, he would constantly look up from his dinner and give me small glances, as if to keep telling me, that way, what he repeated before and after I set the plate in front of him: that it was delicious, and that I was an angel. And there, with both of us in the little bathroom, before we would head out again, he gazed at me through the mirror, with a proud little smile of disbelief on his face, as if he couldn’t believe his luck. As I was the most beautiful creature in the world. 

“Hey,” I said, smiling back. “You’re looking sharp.”

“Huh?”

I huffed, and turned around to face him instead of his reflection. “I said , you’re looking sharp.”

“Yeah, yeah, I heard you,” he said, grinning to himself. “I just wanted to hear you say it again.”

I rolled my eyes at him. He snorted a laugh. I grabbed his necktie, tightened the knot, and pulled him to me for a kiss. It had been my original birthday gift –a real new purchase, coming all the way from the ritzy displays at the Carson Pirie Scott department store downtown, instead of the bottom of a bargain bin at Goodwill. At first I was really worried he might not like it, or that it might be too garish (the saleswoman had been very insistent, and it was very likely she had done most of the convincing when it came to choosing it, after my initial interest), but Chucky’s delighted reaction when he unwrapped it was as genuine as they come. It was a yellow tie, with a pattern of bright red diamonds all over it. Even if it might not had been the type of clothes he usually wore, it had reminded me of him as soon as I laid eyes on it. It reminded me of him, and of the sort of colorful stained glass you’d find on the window behind the altar, at the end wall of a church. Pretty fitting for the occasion, I’d say.

“So?” I smiled, fluffing up my curls and doing a little twirl. “What do you think?”

After a while of trying to choose what I’d feel most comfortable dancing in, I decided to go for the red pleather pants, a black bustier and a see-through top, in case it got chilly. Chucky wrapped his arms around my waist, and looked at me up and down, frowning as if he was concentrating really hard. I stifled a laugh as I waited for the verdict.

“… So no skirt, huh?” he asked, and patted my thigh. “I thought you’d wanna show off those stockings I got you for Valentine’s.”

“When we get back,” I said, tapping his lips with the tip of my finger. “No skirt, no pants, no nothing. How’s that sound?”

Chucky smiled. “Sounds good to me.”

He followed it with a kiss: a little kiss, the sort of kiss that felt more like a goodbye than like a thank-you. I blinked, still smiling, though a bit confused. Only then I noticed how, despite how happy he seemed, that his calmness and patience was beginning to appear like it was hiding something else. Chucky didn’t kiss me like that, so lifelessly, unless there was something he was turning over in his mind.

“Oh, wait –I gotta find the map,” I said, leaving the bathroom and heading back to the bedroom. “Can’t rely on my memory for this one.”

He chuckled a bit. With my own thoughts shifting between the drawers full of junk and the crammed glovebox of the car, I tried to juggle some possibilities for why Chucky wasn’t bouncing all over the walls, why he wasn’t pulling me to him constantly now, why he wasn’t humming or whistling to himself, why he wasn’t ecstatic, like he had been in other happy occasions, and with less. Was he too full with dinner, or maybe not full enough? Did the cake give him heartburn? We both could handle much harder stuff, and walk it off without breaking a sweat. Had the morning sex been somehow disappointing? He didn’t seem to find it disappointing, then. Had he smoked a joint while I was getting ready? That might have been it... But I didn’t smell it, and besides, he always had the bare decency to offer me a toke when he took something from the stash.

When I came back to the living room he was standing in front of the window, staring out at the skyline, silhouetted against the flaming orange sunset. I hugged him from behind, and leaned my chin on his shoulder. He said nothing, not even a glance back at me, not even a smile. It was as if I wasn't even there. Something was off.

“You okay, darling?” I asked him. “We can stay home if you want, find something else to do.”

Chucky blinked himself back into the present. “Nah –now I gotta know what you got planned.”

I didn’t ask him any further. If there was something bothering him, I had to trust he would tell me; after all, it was not like he ever had any difficulties complaining when he wanted to. Better to keep my spirits up and hope some of it would rub off on him, and that we could still have a good time.

“Uh, Tiff…” he began saying once we were on the road. “When are you gonna tell me where we’re going?”

I smiled, getting off the highway. “It’s a surprise.”

“You’re starting to freak me out.”

I laughed. That didn’t seem to soothe him very much.

It was a half-hour drive. The area was full of tall grass and trees, perfect to leave the car without it being spotted by potential thieves. The stark white headlights made the surrounding forest seem haunting and mysterious, with only a small section of the woods being visible in the dark. Meanwhile, Chucky kept an eye on the map, telling me where to turn to reach the red X I had marked, all the while trying to guess what the X stood for.

“A drive-in theater?”

“No.”

“Hm… Night hunting?”

“Nope.”

“Some kinda weird ritual sacrifice in the woods?”

I chuckled. “No, not tonight, no…”

We finally got off the paved road and onto the dirt, onto a rocky path over dead grass and broken branches, getting a few flashes of brightly lit treetops and bushes… Until I braked, the car stopped swaying, and we were right in front of the place.

Chucky leaned over the glovebox, almost pressing his nose against the windshield. “What is it, an old schoolhouse?”

“Cold, cold…”

“A church?”

“Getting warmer…”

He glanced at me, clearly confused. I smiled wider. We got out the car, and as we got closer to the ivy-covered white church, the night sound of chirps and croaks was replaced by thumping music.

“Midnight mass?” he asked. “At this time of the year?”

“It’s a different kind of party.”

“… An orgy?”

I laughed. “No, not that kind of party either…”

Once we had gotten close enough, we saw movement: dark silhouettes of people stumbling around the tall grass, downing cans, laughing, sneaking in through the windows. The music was loud enough now to recognize it as such. And, as it dawned on him what this was about, a big bright smile crossed Chucky’s face.

“… But close enough.”

He grabbed my face and covered it with kisses. I laughed, trying to push him away.

“Stop, you’re gonna mess my makeup—!”

He grinned, held me tighter, and smooched my eyes, smudging my carefully applied blue eyeshadow before kissing my mouth once more. That was more like him, I thought with a giggle, watching him hurry out the car, barely stopping to check I was still behind him.

The front door of the church was chained and locked to hell and back. Fortunately, a few windows had been smashed so thoroughly it was easy to climb in through them.

It was a cavernous place, full of broken glass and rough rubble and ripped mattresses and car tires. At least, that was what I could manage to see. There was almost no light inside, only a few small desk lamps near the DJ and near the improvised table where a guy was handing beer bottles and serving something in plastic cups.  More than what you could or could not see, the focus was on the music. The hum of a generator feeding the music system, the buzzing and booming of the loudspeakers, it all sounded like a rumbling you could feel deep in your bones, coming up from the soles of your feet all the way to the back of your skull. And the music echoed all over the barely visible, supposedly tall ceilings of the church, so when it reached you it was like a memory of a song, more than something you were hearing in the moment –but still undeniably present.

Chucky and I started off with whatever we were handed when we asked for a drink. The expensive stuff. We downed a plastic cup each, tasting Kool-Aid mixed with whisky along with something sharply chemical. It was like a gulp of gasoline to the throat, and like a kick to the gut. We dared each other to have another, and then we shared a beer that didn’t taste much like beer anymore. Soon we had succeeded in becoming absolutely wasted.

We clung to the other, all dizzy, the world turning in circles around us as the little light there moved unsteady along with us. I thought back to when it had been my own birthday, at Navy Pier. I had felt so free then, flailing around, squealing and being pushed around by gravity and pressure and loving every single minute of it. It was the same heart-pounding excitement, but there was something else, too. 

“ Acid on the floor, so she walks on the ceiling— ”

Something about the place, or about the stuff I took, made me feel lost. I grabbed him, trying to pull him to me for a kiss, wanting some reassurance. I was lucky to notice that the person I had grabbed wasn’t quite my Chucky before our lips touched, so I shoved him aside, and staggered across the broken ground, over the cracks and the holes. I was getting sick, and not exactly in a fun way. 

“ And the body electric flashes on the bathroom wall— ”

 I pressed my back against a wall and stared up, trying to get my head to stop spinning for a second. The roof had been destroyed over the years. Some beams were still holding up, and I sorta could see the shape of a steeple somehow intact, but there was nothing to guarantee that it couldn’t come crashing down at any minute. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. At some point the place had been a functional church, I thought. People must have come here for Sunday mass, to baptize their kids, even maybe had a few weddings, right there, in the middle of nowhere.

I walked out of the church through a busted wall, watching that I didn’t trip with my heels. The tall wild grass tickled my ankles. The sky was rather cloudy now. The music was loud enough you could hear it even outside, but there were the quiet sounds of nature, too: the crickets’ songs and the wind in the trees. I finished the cigarette, pressing my nape against the concrete. Would the empty houses at the edge of our suburbs, back at Hackensack, at what used to be my home, end up like this? Reused for secret parties? It sounded like much more fun than to just keep them as junkie hang-out spots. At least here there was music that wasn’t slurred singing, and drinks that weren’t a half-empty bottle of cheap vodka.

“Tiff? Are you here?”

I gave a little whistle to signal to him where I was. Chucky stumbled towards me, over the debris and the garbage and the tall grass.

“The party’s in there,” I told him. “What’re you doing out here?”

“I was gonna ask you the same thing.”

He took the butt of the cigarette I still had between my fingers, picked it as delicately as he could, and smoked what was left. Keeping it in, he held my face in his hand, and I opened my mouth, and he leaned forward and blew the smoke in between my lips. I knew there were people just a few feet away, back at the party; but somehow, it really felt like we were alone out there, sharing secondhand smoke like a secret.

“You got bored already?” I asked him with a smile, keeping my voice low, for some reason. As if I cared about being disrespectful on holy grounds. “I thought you’d like it—”

“I do like it.”

“But you wish we were back at home?”

He looked back at me. I rested my arm on his shoulder as I tried to find his answer in his face, to no avail. I just knew that there was something up with him, some kinda frustration, something that was gnawing at him and he couldn’t put into words. A shitty feeling to have to put up with during your own birthday.

“Sorry, Chucky,” I said, stroking his cheek. “I thought this would cheer you up.”

“Tiff...”

“Yeah?”

“We’re alright.”

I kept gazing at his face in the shadows. There was nothing I could read there or draw a conclusion from. He sounded honest, at least, but I wasn’t so sure.

I kissed him, as the reassurance I wished I got, pressing my nose against his, feeling a few drops of sweat sticking from his forehead to mine. But he wanted something more than reassurance. He wrapped his arms around me, and kept me still and quiet against the wall, finally kissing me back as if trying to push something off his mind. I knew how I could help with that. I reached down to palm him over his pants, and he groaned a little in response, pushing himself against my hand, asking me to go on. As I unbuckled his belt, he pressed a knee against the wall and between my legs, and I kept kissing him and pulling him close, running my free hand over his back, hooking my leg around his, snaking my body around his, trusting he could keep holding me enough to just let go and hang on to him. He had me, I trusted. While I kept fondling him, I started to rock my hips lazily against his thigh, and he got to sucking and nipping at my neck when he realized what I was doing. He was going slow. He wanted it to last. I wanted to hurry up, get to the good stuff, and then maybe have another drink and then go home. He kissed me, and now I was the one with the mind elsewhere.

“Hey. You here?”

“Yes... Yes, yes...”

I opened my eyes when I heard footsteps on the grass. Some drunk had ventured out the party too, and was leaning his arm against a wall and pissing on some dandelions. I watched him for a while, until Chucky noticed I was losing momentum and began touching me over the panties. I grunted. The noise called his attention, and the guy turned around, still a black shadow in the distance. He watched us, and I watched him, watching us, up until Chucky decided I needed to join in and dipped a finger, and I cried out and shut my eyes. 

I dragged myself back into the party, dancing by myself, with the electronic beat echoing in my head. I felt glass against my palm, so I pulled my hand to my mouth and had a sip. My cheeks were still flushed, and there was still a nice warmth on my skin, in the middle of the crowd. White and red flashed before my eyes. I was riding high above the crowd dressed in black. My head moved back and forth, my hair feathering my shoulders while my jacket dangled from my elbows. Even if I hadn’t been moved by the dancing crowd I would’ve been swaying to the music, as if rocked in a cradle, as if riding a seesaw. Something dripped off the side of my mouth. I licked it off and swallowed the sharp bitter something mixed with creamy lipstick. Something like glass shattered under my heel, and I gripped my bottle a little tighter. Whatever it had been was too small to be a bottle. I walked off at some point and stumbled upon two drunk shirtless guys either wrestling or making out, while a small crowd gathered around watched them with barely any interest. The light flashed on them for a second, like lightning. I blinked. The two guys seemed to be about sixteen, at most. Did Jack tell me to come to some child’s birthday party?

I bought another drink. I knew that some of the guys standing in the sidelines, chatting with their friends against the graffitied walls, would probably sell me something good, if I had the money for it. I was almost sure I didn’t have the money for it. That might’ve been a better gift, I thought. Once, Chucky had told me he liked yellow best when he was high. I liked red the most: if caught in the right moment, a flash of red was like an electric shock.

“Sweetface?” I called out, as if he could hear me over the music.

I heard his laughs ringing close by. There was a small room beside the choir that somehow still had its four walls intact. Inside, sitting on what was left of a door, I saw him. He’d found a guy who had brought a canister of nitrous oxide, and they were having the time of their lives, passing a mask back and forth and cackling their heads off. At the sight of me the other guy smiled and tried to stand up, but Chucky grabbed his shoulder to prop himself up and shoved him back down on the broken wooden board.

“Glad to see you finally having fun,” I giggled for no reason.

He brought a blunt he was nursing in his hand back to his lips, and giggled, too. “Have I ever told you, Tiff, that you got the most adorable laugh?”

I picked the blunt from his mouth, took a drag, and sighed. “God, you really are off the shits.”

He followed me out of the little room. I glanced over my shoulder at the canister guy, who was back to their giggle gas. He was older than the wrestling duo, but still skewed young –no older than twenty, at least at first glance. Medical student, I assumed.

Soon I lost Chucky again.

I don’t know how I ended up talking to a skinny short girl who had lost the friends she had come with too. She kept talking on and on, leaning close to me so I could listen better, about how hard it was to meet fun guys nowadays, how all men wanted was a quick fuck and ditch before sunrise. I found myself agreeing with almost everything she said. Her breath was warm and sweet, and her face was sticky with sweat, with a black curl that seemed glued to her forehead. I plucked it out, like an old scab. She giggled like a child. Deep black eyeliner ran down the corners of her eyes. I thought at first it had to be sweat, too, but it might as well have been tears. I asked her if she was alone there, but she didn’t hear me.

She ended up wandering off. I danced a little more, scouring the chaos that was the dance floor, and bought another beer. To my surprise, I found another familiar face. Jack was standing behind the broken pulpit where the DJ was, beside a cracked wall and standing over a pile of debris. It was easy to recognize him under the bright moonlight that seeped through a hole in the roof. Out of the city the moon was a really beautiful sight, all big and white and clear. I stared up at it for what felt like hours. It seemed magical. I wondered if what I took had been stronger than usual.

“There you are,” he mumbled when he noticed me. “I was wondering if you’d show up.”

I stretched my arms to the sides and gave a little curtsy, as if being presented by a pageant announcer. Jack walked up to me until he got real close, too close, towering over me with the confidence of someone who didn’t quite know me at all. I dug my hand inside my jacket pocket and gripped the handle of my nail file, just in case, for comfort.

“Thanks for the heads-up,” I said to him, looking down at a wet stain on his shirt.

“I’m glad you came.”

“Bet you are,” I smiled playfully. “Don’t get too used to it. I wouldn’t if it weren’t for my boyfriend’s birthday.”

His face dropped once more. I was starting to find it really fun, seeing how he got his hopes up and then smashing them to pieces with just a little word.

“Well, I’m glad I could be of use.”

“Oh, you really were,” I nodded, and took a sip.

Even in the little light I could notice Jack was still staring at me. I swallowed, and stared back. I knew he only wanted me now because I wasn’t available. And he really wanted me now. As entertaining as it was, toying with him, my grudge kept festering, giving me ideas. I brought a finger to my mouth and nibbled on my nail. He tilted his head, following the movement of my hand. I just had to consider teasing him a little further. I wanted him to feel that frustration I had, when back then all I had wanted was for him to tell me how much he loved me, and instead all he gave me was a nervous chuckle and a misplaced hand.

“Who’s the freak with the funny tie?”

Jack pointed at someone in the crowd, striding over to us. Once the light flashed on him I recognized Chucky. He had spotted us talking, and by the look of it, he had noticed something about Jack that he didn’t quite like.

“He’s my boyfriend,” I sighed as I had a drag. I saw what was coming from a mile away.

“ That ?”

I laughed between my teeth. “Come on, Jack, as if you were a certified goddamn hunk.”

“I don’t mean that, I just—” he scoffed, shifting his sight between him and me. “… Dammit, I just thought you’d be with someone more up to your level, Tiffany.”

“Up to my level, huh?” I raised my eyebrows. “You mean someone like you?”

He scoffed again. As soon as he got to us Chucky gave Jack’s shoulder a shove.

“Hey –what the fuck d’you think you’re doing?”

Jack turned to him, and without skipping a beat he flashed a big bright smile. “Hey, birthday boy—!”

“I asked you a question.”

I closed my eyes and gestured towards him. “This is Jack. He’s the one who tipped me about the party.”

“Oh,” Chucky frowned. “So you two know each other?”

“Well, yeah ,” I said, putting my hands on my hips. “Hun, do you think weed just grows on trees?”

He barely seemed to listen to me. He was far too busy glaring at Jack, who just now seemed to be getting a bit uncomfortable.

“So, uh… How’re you enjoying the festivities?” Jack asked him.

“You know,” Chucky muttered, tilting his head dangerously to the side, just barely having the balance not to fall. “… Enjoying it. So far.”

Jack gave a little chuckle and nodded. “That’s good, man!” he said, and took a gulp from his beer. “That’s good. Say, where did you get the bitching tie?”

Chucky smiled, still askew. His eyes were already wild. “It was a gift.”

Jack shot me a confused smile. I knew what was gonna happen.

Indeed, Chucky smashed Jack’s head with his bottle. It burst in a rain of glittering wet glass. Jack dropped his own –and Chucky grinned a little wider, between barely repressed rage and sheer joy –and shoved the broken bottle shards into his guts. Jack gasped and groaned and stumbled backwards, too shocked to do anything, to even hurt. Chucky pulled out the broken bottle and threw it to the side –it was good for starting off, but not very fun for keeping it up –and he took out his knife from his coat pocket. I quickly looked around to see if anyone had noticed, out of habit, but I wanted to see what he’d do next. Chucky didn’t want to waste any time either. He stabbed him, and twisted the knife with one quick turn of the wrist. Jack groaned, his eyes bulging out of their sockets. Finally, it hurt. Blood began to flow, bright red even in the dark. I couldn’t stifle a giggle. Chucky pulled out the knife and, just as Jack bent forwards and brought a hand to his wound, he grabbed his knife with both hands and continued stabbing him over and over on the back, until Jack collapsed, and then Chucky somehow managed, in his tipsy state, to kneel over him and keep on stabbing him. He kept stabbing him even after he had gone very much still.

“You really didn’t need to do that,” I said. I think he didn’t quite hear me either.

After a while Chucky finally decided he had stabbed him enough, wiped the knife on his jacket, and stood up with some effort. I patted his shoulder.

“Are you proud of yourself, now?”

Just then we realized that the music had stopped, and a few of the other people at the party were staring at us. Chucky spat on the floor and wiped his mouth.

“ The fuck you all looking at!? ” he yelled, raising the bloody knife.

“He’s just feeling a little sick,” I told the crowd. “It’s perfectly okay.”

And, to prove just how okay he was, Chucky puked on Jack’s bloody corpse.

Nobody did anything. What would they even do? Call the cops? At least Chucky wasn’t that stupid, thankfully. Still, I couldn’t pretend I wasn’t pissed off.

“We’re not gonna be allowed back to these parties, you know,” I huffed, once we were back in the car, on our way back home. “Not if you keep pulling this shit.”

It had felt like ages in there, but the sky was still dark. Each time I managed to glance at the clock, as soon as I looked away I forgot what I had just read. Fully giving up on my carefully applied makeup, I rubbed my eyelids and yawned. The exhaustion was catching up with me. In about a couple hours or so, the hangover would be head-splitting.

“We’re getting old, Tiff.”

“What?”

“I said, we’re getting old.”

I just laughed. “Speak for yourself.”

“No, I’m being serious… Did you see all the people back there? Kids, teens… God, we’re so washed up.”

I turned to him for a second. He was being serious.

“It’s just a birthday, sweetface ,” I told him softly. “Don’t worry.”

“Y’know, I’d rather die than end up turning old and crusty,” he kept saying, shutting his eyes, pushing his head back. “Not being able to move, needing help to fucking piss ...”

“You don’t mean that.”

There was a tension in the air, something beyond him slaughtering Jack among a crowd of hopped-up people, beyond the clumsy breaking of our law of ‘ leave no witnesses ’. A part of me wanted to chew him out for flying off the handle so carelessly. Another part of me was silently glad he had killed Jack. Regardless, my mind was too scattered to even focus on any one subject to start talking. The alternative, to stay quiet all the way to the apartment, slow as I was going to avoid any accidents, wasn’t too appealing either.

“So this is it,” he muttered to himself. “It's not gonna get any better than this.”

I turned on the stereo, since for once Chucky didn’t seem interested in arguing about whose turn it was to choose the music. It was already halfway through, so I left the previous Sabbath tape in there. The echoing electric guitars made the headlight-illuminated road ahead of us seem even more haunting. I liked that; I just hoped it didn’t mess with Chucky’s head too much. There was no way of knowing all he had taken, and with how sullen he was, there was a chance he was a few seconds away from stumbling into a bad trip.

“ The lover of life’s not a sinner… The ending is just a beginning— ”

Chucky stared at his hands. I glanced at them too, out the corner of my eye, under the white glow of the dome light. They were rather pale, and I got a quick look of the soft blue of his veins, branching out from his wrists to his tense fingers, like tiny lightning bolts.

“I don’t think I ever had an X-ray done…” he said suddenly, slurring his words. “But there are bones and shit under my skin. Blood and meat and stuff.”

“There sure is.”

His voice turned lower. “We will be dead one day.”

“You came up with that revelation all on your own?”

“Doesn’t that disturb you?"

“Why would it? It’s the most normal thing there is,” I shrugged. “Are you thinking about your last will and testament already?"

“Don’t joke about that.”

I frowned. Weird . First time he ever said something like that. “What’s wrong, hun? You took too many downers?”

“No, I don’t think so… I just –I’ve been thinking…”

He kept quiet for a moment, long enough that I assumed he might have lost his train of thought. I focused back, as well as I could, on the road, the music, the smooth humming of the car engine and the whistling of the wind. The Prince tape was still unopened inside the glovebox. I thought about putting that one on, at least to lift up his mood a bit.

“You ever… Feel disconnected from your body, Tiff?”

A chill ran down my spine. I was expecting my mind to wander to any of my drugged experiences, anything from Hackensack pot to New York blow to the couple scattered experiences I’ve had with acid –but it went straight to Heath kissing me, on his dirty mattress, breathing on my neck –and I was floating away, somewhere above where my body was. I hadn’t thought about that in years.

“Yeah... I guess.”

“It’s… Sometimes it’s like… My body doesn’t tell me when to do… Human things,” Chucky muttered. I wondered just how high he had gotten, for it to keep him talking like that. “I know that sounds nuts. But, I mean… You know, I can forget to eat. To sleep. And that’s… Not normal . Right?”

“We’re not normal,” I reminded him, in a voice that tried to be comforting. “We’re not like the others… We’re special.”

Chucky breathed with some effort. It reminded me of when I was about to start crying. But he never cried. The sheer idea of him getting upset enough to cry, like an actual cry, tears and sniffles and all, was somehow terrifying. Unnatural. I couldn’t even try to imagine it.

“You know… When I was a kid, my mother told me I was special,” he said. “She always told me, ‘you’re the most special kid in the world’. I believed it, because of course I did, everyone wants to believe that. All mothers tell their kids that. But…”

I shot him a glance. He wasn’t staring at his hands any longer, and he didn’t cry. Now he was completely still, with empty eyes, leaning his head against the side window. I reached out to him and stroked his cheek.

“Darling…”

He didn’t move, didn’t hear me, gave no response. He seemed to be completely gone, locked up in his own head. He must be just tired, I told myself. Even still… Chucky didn’t act like that when he was tired. Hell, he was never this glum.

Could it really be just the drugs that hit him bad? I chewed on my lip, looking back into the night road.

Whatever it was, I hoped it was just a one-time thing.

[aelove]

i had the craziest dream last night ...

basically, i went to school in this wierd hogwarts ripoff boarding school (but it was in a mall) & so anyways i went to all my classes but then i walked into english and found out that there was a test on animal farm (which i hadn't read) so i started freaking out & just decided to skip class instead. i was worried that my teacher would find me so i hid in an abandoned art classroom until the bell rang & then bc the school was a mall, i just started window shopping & ended up picking up a book that seemed good. anyways i was just walking around while reading the book when someone murmurs beside me that the guy next to me rlly wanted my book but i had taken the last copy. i turn behind me to look and he was rlly cute so i subtly try to match pace with him & we end up walking side-by-side until we get to our next class. the cute guy's friend randomly passes him a microphone and he starts singing breakup songs rlly loudly until we get to our next class which was in a starbucks looking cafe. he's out of breath by the time we get there & so he just starts chugging from a water bottle which ended up being mine. he looked embarrassed but i was like "wtv just give it to me and recycle it for you". our teacher takes us out of the cafe & starts walking around the mall with us & then for some reason the cute guy gave me a piggy back ride. while he's carrying me, he gets scouted for a modeling gig & leaves with the agent ... then this random time skip happened where i got the assumption that i had been asking friends to give me updates on the guy bc he's rlly busy with his modelling career. so my friend tells me abt how the cute guy is rlly insistent on house rivalry (this is where the hogwarts part comes in ...) & then i saw this wierd flashback of cute guy with his ex where his parents made them break up bc she was from a different house from his … then flashback ends ... and the scene changes to cute guy on a modeling trip in this volcanic looking mountain area. one of my friends is with him and talks to him abt how i like him & cute guy says he feels bad abt it so he’ll talk to me once the trip is over … but then cute guy gets kidnapped by a bunch of these tiny warriors (they look like clash of clans characters ...) bc he’s some sort of “prophesied warrior” and they send him in a portal to another dimension … & then i woke up

[wdxghosty]

BreakOut

2012 Ophelia fic

The three of them were out in a park walking, doing normal people stuff, even though you weren’t normal people. They got weird stares from mothers walking with their children, people walking their dogs, and elderly couples stare at you guys in shock.

“You guys don’t think we could’ve gone to prince’s house, look at all the people staring at us” Jean puts his head down in slight embarrassment, all the eyes on them were too much for him to take.

“Well I wouldn’t say these outfits are the most family friendly…” Val tried to cover her waist with her flowy sleeves to moderate success.

Irritated by all the shame oozing out of her friends, Ophie decided to speak up. “Why are you two acting like this? We cosplay all the time, do you shouldn’t be embarrassed. And Valley, my love, cleavage and mid drift isn’t gonna send you to the ninth ring of hell.”

Ophelia’s a 16 year old designer, and cosplayer, with a couple of hustles on the side. She doesn’t like being her own model so she’ll get her friends to do it, sing the do gladly. Today was like any other, they go somewhere to take pictures them leave, but today was different.

While walking back to the car, they were putting all their stuff in the trunk, when a bright purple triangle tore through the sky. And what is best described as a lovecraftian apocalypse begun.

———————-

While running through the city, the clothes she was wearing ripped up, but that was the least of her concerns. All she could hear were the blood curdling screams of people all around her, she wanted to help but she knows helping is meaningless in a situation like this.

Ophelia ran back to her house, she hastily changed out of the clothes she was wearing and plot something more practical on. While running she saw orbs transforming whatever they scanned into monstrous anthro things, and she knew it wouldn’t be long before they reached her place.

After grabbing light water and food, stuffing it into messager bag, she grabs three things off her shelf. A purse, and parasol, and two lace fans. She grabbed a back and white snake mask before heading back out.

She planned to go upstate, thinking that’s far enough from the city, but to get out of manhattan she’ll have to go back to the city.

While creeping around the streets, sticking to the shadows trying to stay as, discrete as possible she hear rubble falling, then someone screaming.

“…I can’t. I shouldn’t.” She thinks to herself, “it’s the fucking apocalypse, I need to worry about myself, and anyone else skilled enough to get out…” she gets up to try and walk away but right before her eyes she sees someone her turned into a tentacle monster, she freezes.

Watching as that person loses all humanity, she snaps back into her body quickly hiding so the scanners won’t catch her. Even the coast is clear she gets up and starts running, in the direction of the screaming man.

“Hello?” She tries to project her voice while whispering, hoping the guy can hear her, “Sir are you still here?” A pit formed in her stomach, and the sinking sense of her mistake sprints to catch up with her. “HELLO” silence, the severity of the situation weighing in on her she lets out one last call. “sir please say something…”

“Over here, it’s hard to talk while trying to push cinder blocks off unit chest…”

She rushes over to the voice, seeing a guy wearing a bunch of… stuff? And a hockey mask, that supposed to look like a skull I guess.

She instantly drops to her knees and try’s to pry the blocks off of the guy, with their combined strength he’s freed and stands up on his own too feet, and dust himself off.”

“You’re a real life saver, thanks for that.”

“You’re wel-“

“No time get up we have to go.” He runs head first onto one of the scouting eye ball things suns destroys it

“Whatareyoudoing!” She harshly whispers, trying to stop him before more come.

“Just follow my lead viper, I’ll get us to safety.” He runs down the street, and Ophelia follows him.

“What did you call me?”

“Well your whole snake motif, Viper, it just fits.”

“Well I’d like something more like Boa, or inyoka, mabey even na-“

“You talk a lot,” Casey grabs her but the wrist and starts running “just follow me!”

————

The eventually made it into a car and they started driving,

“OMG that was…”

“So cool.”

“We almost died” she shrieked, “we almost got turned into monsters by a green substance and we had to escape laser and alien stuff while doing it!” She went on a tangent, about how Casey’s actions almost got them killed.

“But it was fun.”

“It kinda was- BUT that’s besides the point.” She slumped down in the passenger seat of the car, “what were you doing wandering around, and not hiding?”

“You were wandering.”

“I was escaping.”

There was a short silence in the car before Casey spoke up, “if you need to know I was looking for my sister, and dad. But as you can tell I didn’t find them…”

“Damn…” she was never the best at cheering people up, so she would always try and make them feel like they have common problems.

“Well my family left me, if that makes you feel any better. I know left is weird terminology but it’s the truth. Moved me across country and only calls to make sure I’m alive. But they also bought a nice house for me so I don’t mind it as much as I could.”

Casey just started laughing his ass off at her statement, “I- I can’t believe you just said that!? So uncalled for… also sad, but funny”

“Okay dude just drive.”

“Just saying”

Casey and Ophelia went driving around the city, barely evading krangg solders. It was obvious he was looking for someone but he didn’t find them. All of a sudden he made a super sharp right turn,

“What the fuck, what happened!?”

“Nothing!”

A red head, jumped in the car and instantly told Casey where to go. She was in too much of a panic to notice Ophie, so she kept her mouth shut.

——-

It felt like she’s before nightfall came, but finally the dust settled… more like people disappeared. It’s unusual to see such a populated city, so barren… all of a sudden she hears the back door swing opens, she draws her parasol seconds away from opening it, until she sees.

“oh my god, IS THAT GUY DEAD!?”

everyone in the car instantly turns to her in shock, and she’s looking at them in shock.

“Well considering this is an apocalypse, I guess that’s normal…”

Then she looks at the passed out guy, and the people who carried him in. And she screams.

“HOLLY SHIT ARE THOSE ANTHRO TURTLES!? Huh twitter furries really over exaggerated you looks…”

“Never mind that, CASEY!”

“On it.” He instantly hit the gas and Ophie fell back in her seat. The tension in the car was thick as the headed for upstate New York, but when they got to the farm house she decided to stick around.

Thx for reading, I’m currently working on chapter 2 so if you liked this then you should read it when I post it<<<333

[snailfen]

2 4 and 6 for the really risky asks!!!

2. whats your favorite flavor of ice cream?

Hmm ok this is a little tough. I like orange sorbet but ice cream specifically...

raspberry! moose tracks is pretty good also. i tend to tread lightly when it comes to ice cream with chocolate and caramel cus sometimes people just put Too much shit in there and it becomes overwhelmingly sweet. you can never go wrong with fruit however

4. if you have pets, what are their names?

(got rambly with this one sorry in advance LOLE) i do not have a pet :(. it sucks cus me and my sisters always wanted to have a cat or a dog as long as i can remember but we just keep ending up with landlords who do not want us to have one! our familiys current landlord was alright with us getting a cat when we first moved in but they took that back >:(

closest ive had a pet was my older sister's girl scouts pet hamster. we took care of him 2 different times! his name was mr fluffybuns and iirc he was a white dwarf hamster!

other than that theres my uncles chihuahuas i guess! he named them poquito, chiquita and lolita. he got two of them around the same time i was born, and by that i mean he got them while my mom was visiting family with me for the first time. theres a video of baby me sitting on the floor while 2 chihuahua puppies run around me and bark at me which is cute as hell. and also theres a bunch of photos of me and my older sister holding them and chiquita, who he got later!

my sister was always really interested in dogs, and i always was interested in what she was interested in, so we did our best to get close with them as kids. they were always really friendly with me even when i only saw them on a yearly basis.

6. whats a really good memory you have?

hmm... one time i was playing gmod with an online friend really late. we were both eeveelution models iirc (i was jolteon, they were umbreon) and we messed around the entire time. we did a bunch of funny shit, like i built a headcrab enclosure once.

we downloaded some city maps and explored them for a bit, just walking around and spawning stuff and chasing eachother. i built another headcrab enclosure and spawned them until they escaped, we did a skit in a hospital building i think, i put furniture in an apartment because it was empty as hell, we found some docks on a lake and chased eachother on boats, and we showed eachother ridiculous stuff we had downloaded for gmod.

at some point we walked into this really charming diner building, like the kind with black and white tiled floors and booths and neon lighted signs on the windows, and we sat down at a booth and we ended up talking for a good while. we talked about a lotta stuff, like our hometowns and family and a lot of personal stuff.

it was really special since I'd never had one on one interactions like that before. this was during mid-quarantine/virtual learning to my memory, and it felt nice to just talk with a friend alone, in our silly little game. i was going through a lot due to virtual learning as well and it was nice to stop worrying about everything and just mess around with someone.

i really would like play gmod like that with someone else again...

[rubyreduji]

strike a pose — kmg & xmh

summary: you’re korea’s top model and today you have a photoshoot with your old college friend, kim mingyu, and the famous fashion designer, xu minghao

tags: smut (minors dni!), model!reader, photographer!mingyu, fashion designer!minghao warnings: explicit unprotected sex, threesome, oral (m. & f. receiving), praise, fingering, multiple orgasms, cum eating, vv soft wc: 4.2k an: this is obviously NOT how real modeling works at all but we’re gonna ignore that. also here's the inspo for the reader's lingerie she wears throughout the fic!!

“This is your last item on your schedule today, Miss L/N. It’s a photoshoot with Pledis Magazine for THE8’s new lingerie line,” your assistant tells you as you two walk out of your interview for Vanity Fair.

“Thank you Seungkwan. Would you perhaps know who the photographer will be?”

“Kim Mingyu, ma’am.”

Your mouth falls open a bit at this and you quickly close it before thanking Seungkwan again. You and Mingyu have a…complicated history. You two went to the same college back when you thought you were going to become a photographer and not a model.

Being in the same year and both photography majors you two got to know each other well. You guys were friends, but you were also more than that. You skirted around each other’s feelings for four years but nothing came out of it. You were then signed to different agencies and there you got scouted for modeling being told that “you’re too gorgeous to stay behind the camera”. You don’t run into him much anymore but there are a few rare occasions, like today, when you get him as your photographer.

You two pull up to the Pledis building and you’re brought to the photography studio. You’ve done photoshoots for Pledis before but you’re always paired with a random stylist and photographer. In the car you prepared yourself to see Mingyu, but you weren’t expecting to see Xu Minghao here as well. You know it’s his clothing line that you’re modeling, but at these kinds of photoshoots you never see the fashion designer first hand.

You’ve only met Minghao a handful of times at different fashion events but you never talk for long. You personally think he’s attractive enough to be a model as well with his smooth skin and silky hair.

“Well there she is.” It’s Minghao who addresses you when you step into the room.

Mingyu and Minghao are friends, you know this much. It’s not uncommon for the tabloids to catch them together going out for drinks or lunch. You think currently Mingyu is signed directly under Minghao as he does all of Minghao’s photoshoots.

“Hello Minghao, Mingyu.” You address Minghao with your next sentence. “I wasn’t expecting to see you here.”

“Ah, one of my stylists is out sick today and I had some time to come help out myself. When else would I get the chance to style one of the biggest models in Korea.”

“I wouldn’t say that.” You flush at his flattery.

“Ah, you’re too humble, Y/N. Now, let’s get you into hair and makeup. Then we can start dressing you. Or well, undressing you.” Minghao winks at you and your face heats up even more. You don’t know why you’re so affected by his words. It’s a dumb joke about how you’re going to be modeling underwear today and that’s all, he’s just teasing you. You’ve modeled lingerie before and you’re rarely ever affected by comments that are thrown your way, but with Minghao you can’t help it. The man is not only handsome but also talented and charismatic, you can’t help but be a bit flustered by him.

“It’s good to see you Y/N,” Mingyu says to you as Minghao walks off to talk to one of the make-up artists.

“Yeah, it’s been a while.” You can’t seem to make eye contact with Mingyu. You instead stare at the camera in his hand. It makes you think back to your uni days, when you would go on photography dates and pass the time by going to photo museums and doing impromptu photoshoots together. It wasn't uncommon for you guys to edit your photos together while cuddled up on your bed while a movie played in the background.

You think that you loved Mingyu at one point. Hell maybe you still do. Nothing would surprise you anymore. Maybe that’s why you can’t make eye contact with him, scared that if your eyes meet his big brown eyes you’ll instantly fall for him again.

“Y/N! This is Mina, she’ll be doing your make up today,” Minghao calls you over and you finally break your stare from Mingyu’s hands to where the fashion designer is standing. You excuse yourself from the older man to go get ready for the shoot but you can feel his eyes follow you as you walk away.

“There are five sets that you’ll be modeling today. Does that sound okay to you?” Minghao asks you. You’re alone together in the dressing room. You’re wrapped in a black silky robe and sitting on the coach as Minghao stands in front of you next to a clothing rack.

“Sounds good. Seungkwan debriefed me when the original email came in and a bit in the car as well before we got here,” you explain.

“Yes, he seems like a good kid. And just making sure, I know you signed the contract already, but you are comfortable doing this, correct? I won’t mind if we have to push this back or even find a different model. Your comfort is of utmost importance.”

“Yes Minghao, I promise I’m okay with this. It’s not the first time I’ve modeled lingerie.” You appreciate his concern though, always the gentleman.

Minghao sends you a small smile. “Well then, let’s get started with the first set then.” He turns to the clothing rack and grabs the closest hanger. The piece he pulls out is a navy blue satin dress piece. The cups of the bra have lace detailing on them and the dress has small thin straps to hold it up.

You stand up and take the piece in your hands. It feels nice and light. There’s a partition for you to change behind and you’re about to walk behind it when you stop. “Should I uh,” you flush a bit, “wear anything under it?”

Minghao also flushes at this. He refuses to meet your gaze, staring at the wall instead. “W-whatever you’re comfortable with. It was made so you don’t, but since this is a photoshoot…”

“I see. Thank you.” You walk behind the partition and drop your robe. You’re in just a pair of plain black panties and a matching bra. You shuck both off before pulling the lingerie over your body. You decide to sans your panties and you step back out into the room.

“Oh wow, Y/N. You look incredible,” Minghao tells you and you blush a bit.

“Thank you. Does it look okay?” You walk back over to where the fashion designer is standing.

“More than okay. You look ravishing.”

You two walk back out to where Mingyu is and you notice the room is cleared of everyone besides Mingyu himself. “I thought it would be more comfortable if it was just us,” Mingyu explains. His voice sounds a bit tight and he can’t stop staring at you.

“Yes, that's nicer. Thank you.”

“We’re uh,” he clears his throat, “we’re going to shoot this more boudoir style so we can accent not only the lingerie but you as well. There’s a couch and a bed set up over there and I’ll help pose you.”

The first set you do a couple of basic boudoir poses. You lay on the bed, you stretch your body across the wall, you fold your legs under you as you sit on the couch, so on and so forth.

The next piece Minghao puts you in is another dress but this time it’s black and sheer and looser around your body. You wear a pair of small black panties under it and when you walk out Mingyu is nearly drooling over you.

“Oh wow, Y/N.”

“Like what you see?” You do a small twirl for him, a blush fanning your cheeks.

Mingyu gulps thickly before realizing that he has a job to do. To hide his embarrassment he quickly gets you into position for the next shot. Mingyu can barely meet your eye during the whole shoot, all of his requests coming out in a meek voice.

The next set is ruby red and velvety. It has lots of straps and you feel a bit awkward trying to figure it all out so you call for Minghao. With your permission he steps behind the partition to see you struggling to fit into the piece correctly.

“May I touch you?���

The context of the question is innocent but you can’t help but get flustered over it. “Y-yes.”

Minghao’s fingers tug at the choker and waist piece gently. “This piece needs to go on before the bra. Here, let me help you.” He undoes the piece from your neck and lets it hang off your waist before his fingers flit to the bra clasp. “May I take this off? I promise it’s nothing but professional.”

You can’t find your words so you just nod. With permission Minghao unclasps the bra and pulls it away from your body. You’ve modeled revealing clothes before, but being actually naked feels completely different. It’s vulnerable.

To Minghao he’s probably done this a million times but you normally dress yourself at shoot and only have the stylist help you when you’re fully covered, and even at that they’re always female stylists.

You fight the urge to cover up your chest as Minghao makes quick work of placing the pieces in the correct order, his fingers flitting over your warm bare skin, leaving goosebumps in their wake. Once the lingerie is all set into place you thank the designer in a small voice before scuttling back out to Mingyu.

This time he makes use of the bed, having you stretch your body out so he can take full body shots. After that he has you rest on your knees. “Cross your arms at your wrists and then bring them up to rest on your head. Yeah and then arch your back a bit. Just like that. Can you spread your legs more?”

“O-oh?” You squeak out.

“N-not like that!” Mingyu’s face grows red when he realizes what he just implied. Mingyu snaps the photos and is quickly changing you to your next pose, too flustered to keep you in this pose for long.

The fourth set Minghao has designed is baby pink with a corset like top and small sheer bottoms that don’t leave much up to imagination in your lower regions. Just like earlier you feel vulnerable and you’re about to tell Minghao you can’t do this set but the way he looks at you when you walk out from behind the petition helps fuel your confidence a bit. You’re even more confident when Mingyu’s eyes land on you when you walk out to him. He can barely take his gaze off your you, his eyes lingering on the panties for a while.

It's now that you can see the half hard-on Mingyu is sporting in his pants. It’s mostly covered by his dark pants but when he moves just right you’re able to catch a peek at you. It fills you with embarrassment and a bit of pride knowing that you did that to him. It also fills you with a bit of lust. 

“Can you touch yourself?”

“Y-you’re so shameless today Kim Mingyu,” you stutter over your words, your voice tense.

“Y/N,” he whines. “I’m trying to stay professional here, can you please do the same?”

“You’re the one asking me to touch myself!”

“That’s not what I meant!”

You’re both fully flustered now, blushes covering both of your bodies. You avoid eye contact as you finish up the rest of the photos for this set. As you walk back to the dressing room you think about him. You’ve never had relations with one of your photographers before, but this is different, this isn’t just a photographer, this is Kim Mingyu.

You think about the way he keeps staring at you like he wants to eat you up. You find yourself thinking you wouldn’t mind if he did.

The final piece Minghao has for you is dark green and it's the most on par to something you would wear in your normal life. It’s lacey with small floral patterns in the lace and straps that wrap around your hips and chest. The color looks good against your skin and you love the way the bra cups our boobs, extenuating your cleavage.

Minghao brings you out to Mingyu who absolutely is staring at you now, unashamedly. He licks his lips before speaking. “You are so stunning Y/N. You’re so beautiful.”

“Thank you Mingyu, that really means a lot coming from you.” And you mean it.

For some reason the air feels different as you guys take photos this time. You feel even sexier, which you didn’t know was possible. It might have to do with the way Mingyu has gotten bolder with the poses he’s been putting you in. It might also have to do with the way the two men stare at you, getting you more aroused. The tension infects the air, making it almost hard to breathe.

Mingyu directs your poses in between the praise he lays on you, his voice husky and low. Minghao is quiet as you contort your body, but you can see the way his eyes glint everytime Mingyu has you arch your back or pop your hip.

Mingyu tells you guys the photoshoot is finished but nobody makes a move to start cleaning up.

“You look really good today Y/N,” Mingyu’s voice cuts through the silence.

A streak of boldness washes over you and you decide to make good use of it before it goes away again. “Why don’t you come over and show me how good I looked.”

“Aw fuck it,” Mingyu mumbles before he’s setting his camera down and striding over to the bed. He doesn’t even give you time to process that he’s returning your advances before his lips crash right into yours.

You’ve dreamed of this moment but nothing has prepared you for how good it actually feels. His pillowy lips move against yours and you grab onto his shirt to pull him into you harder. Your lips clash together as you try to taste all of him. His large hands lay on your waist and the warmth has your pussy dampening Minghao’s lingerie.

Speaking of Minghao, the younger boy moves closer so he can place his hands on you as well. You feel him crawl onto the bed behind you and pull your body into his, your back pressed against his front. His hands smooth over your hips and rest on the tops of your thighs, so close to your wet heat.

“You were so good for us,” Minghao whispers to you. “Wanna make you feel good because of it.” His mouth connects to your shoulder and he gently kisses the bare skin. You already feel so good just by having their hands on you. You squirm under their touch and Mingyu finally pulls away from your mouth.

“Oh baby, are you needy? Don’t worry, we'll take care of you,” he coos. “Can I touch you here?” His hands ghost over your breasts and you nod. Mingyu eagerly cups his large hands around your breasts and stars to squeeze. You arch your back up into your touch and mewl out slightly.

“You’re so beautiful,” Minghao mumbles into your neck. “Need to touch you so badly.”

“G-go ahead,” you tell him. As a model you’re used to the praise but it feels different coming from these two. Minghao’s nimble fingers move across your skin until they press the lace of your panties against your clit. The texture is rough against your bud and it stimulates you enough to have you clenching down around nothing.

“Does that feel good love?” He rubs steady circles into you as your pussy leaks even more.

“So good,” you mumble against Mingyu’s chest where your head is buried. Right as you respond to Minghao, Mingyu slips his hands under your bra and starts to roll your nipple between his fingers. “O-oh, Gyu~”

“God, you sound good. Keep the noises coming baby,” Mingyu tells you. With both of their fingers working at you you can feel bliss starting to take over all of your senses.

“I want to eat you out,” Minghao says out loud. Your mind goes fuzzy at the thought and before you know it Minghao and Mingyu have switched places so now the older boy is behind you while the younger is in front.

“Let’s take these off, yeah?” Mingyu tugs at your panties and you nod. He helps you slip them off your body so your bare pussy is now out in the open. He then unclasps your bra as well and lets that fall to the floor. Mingyu then pulls you onto his lap, your legs spread over his to give Minghao better access.

“You’re a dream,” Minghao tells you as he settles between your legs. He kisses up your inner thigh, making his time to work his way up. Mingyu’s strong arms fasten around you, pulling you back into his chest. He mouths at your neck, whispering soft praise to you as he does.

Minghao finally gets impatient and leans forward to lick a stripe up your entrance. You buck your hips up at the touch and whine, wanting more. Minghao complies to your wishes and wraps his hands around your thighs, holding them apart even further, as he starts to lick and suck all over. His mouth feels heavenly on you and he eats you out like he’s never tasted anything as divine as you.

He presses his tongue flat against you, licking up all of your slick. His nose buries itself into your pussy as he presses his tongue into you. He laves his tongue upwards, reaching deep into you. Your hands come down to grab at his hair, wanting to keep him in place.

Mingyu palms at your breasts again as you writhe around in his lap. His hands are gentle as they massage your supple flesh, spreading pleasure throughout your body. Your breathing is getting unsteady as you feel yourself work closer to your orgasm, both men doing a good job at making you feel good.

It only takes one more lick from Minghao to have you coming apart. You shudder as you cum on his tongue. He continues to lap at you until you’ve come down from your high. He’s rubbing soft circles into your thigh as you catch your breath.

“God you tasted so good. Want to stay between your thighs forever,” Minghao mumbles as he rests his cheek against your leg.

“Are you ready for more or do you need a break?” Mingyu asks you in a low voice.

“I want more,” you admit, a bit embarrassed.

“You got it baby.” Mingyu turns your head so he can capture your lips again. As he does his hands trail down your body and he slips one of his fingers into you. His finger is large and you can feel it reaching deep in you already. He slips another finger into you after a moment and then starts to slowly thrust them in and out. Your lips move against his passionately as he fucks you on his fingers. You can feel Minghao kissing and sucking at the skin on your thighs and you feel fully content, letting the boys take care of you.

Mingyu pushes a third finger into you and you moan against his mouth at the feeling of being stretched out. His fingers are thick and they give you a full feeling as he plunges them in and out of you. You can hear the soft, slick sound of his fingers working at you and it turns the tips of your ears red.

You’re still sensitive from your first orgasm and you already feel yourself breaching your breaking point when Mingyu brings his thumb down to rub at your clit. Your pussy clenches tight around his fingers and your body is twitching as you cum for a second time. Mingyu coos at you and helps fucking you through it before he pulls his fingers out and licks them clean.

“Hao is right, you taste delicious.”

Your mind is blissed out but you have enough sense to pull away from Mingyu a bit so you can look at both of them. “I uh, want to make you guys feel good as well.”

“Aww our baby wants to make us cum?” Minghao teases and you nod a bit. “Well how can we turn down that offer?”

That’s how you end up between the two men. Mingyu lays behind you, his cock brushing up against your slit, as you gently lick at Minghao’s dick. He has a gentle grip on your head, helping guide you as you run your tongue along the underside of his length. Mingyu gently pushes into you and you can feel yourself stretch out even wider at his large width. He ruts into you, trying to get you to take all of him. You moan at the feeling, the vibration going straight into Minghao’s dick. Minghao’s grip on your hair tightens a bit but then loosens when he realizes how tight of a hold he had on you.

You bring up a hand to fondle his balls as you move your head to take his tip between your lips. His cock isn’t as thick as Mingyu’s but it’s long in length. You don’t think you’ll be able to take the whole thing down your throat, but you don’t think Minghao will mind too much.

Mingyu’s large hands are splayed across your stomach and hip as he starts to roll his hips into yours with long strokes. You love the way he’s so gentle, taking his size into consideration. His mouth leaves a trail of warm kisses across your shoulder and back and you melt at the action.

You slowly are able to work more of Minghao into your mouth, licking and sucking at him to bring him pleasure. Even when you feel his tip hit the back of your throat you don’t have his whole length in you and you resort to using your hands to stimulate the hilt of his cock.

“Your mouth feels so good for me baby, keep it up. Love it so much,” Minghao praises you, his fingers pushing your back off your forehead.

“You’re so tight Y/N, it’s insane. I’ve been waiting to do this since second year of uni and it’s so worth it,” Mingyu says.

You cherish the way both men talk to you in soft, kind voices. They make you feel like the most beautiful, loved person on the planet. It feels so right to be pressed between their warm bodies, no other place you’d rather be. 

You can feel Mingyu’s hips speeding up, his thrusts getting deeper as he does. His thick cock brushes right against your g-spot and you whimper out. Mingyu realizes what he’s done and he angles his cock to hit that spot again. You keep moaning around Minghao’s dick which makes him grab onto your hair tight. He cums down your throat a second later, your name falling from his lips as he does. When he’s done filling you up with his seed you pull off him and he brings his hand down to stroke your cheek, telling you how good you did.

Minghao lays down next to you and brings your lips to his. You two kiss sweetly as Mingyu starts to pound harder into you. You can tell he’s close by the way he’s whimpering slightly. You feel your own orgasm approaching as well. While you guys are still locked at the lips Minghao’s fingers trail down your sides before gently touching you between your legs. Your body shakes at the stimulation and it doesn’t take much longer for you to be creaming on Mingyu’s dick. Your pussy squeezes his dick tight as you orgasm and Mingyu is groaning at the feeling. Your insides flutter as you feel ecstasy course through your limbs.

“Oh shit, I’m gonna cum,” Mingyu mumbles.

Mingyu swiftly pulls his dick out of you and you pull away from Minghao so you can slide down the bed and take his tip in your mouth. You swipe your tongue against his slit and that’s all it takes for him to release his load into your mouth. His cum spurts against your tongue and you swallow him down when he pulls away.

“Fuck that was so hot baby girl,” Mingyu says, staring down at you with a pink flush on his cheeks. A blush appears on your cheeks and you look down at the bed.

“Don't be shy on us now baby girl,” Minghao tells you. “You were so good, nothing to be embarrassed about.”

“I’m sorry, I just, really liked doing that,” you tell them.

“We did too,” Mingyu says as he pulls you into his arms.

You whine. “I want to stay, but Seungkwan will be here soon to pick me up.”

“Ah right, we’re still in the studio,” Minghao mumbles as if he forgot you guys were doing a photoshoot earlier.

“No worries baby,” Mingyu assures you, “I’m sure it won’t be our last time doing that.” 

[linnoya-writes]

Zutara sleepover “borrowed friends/borrowed books” Modern AU

Zuko, Haru, Teo and Sokka met when they were 11-13 years old, on a summer camping trip with their local Boy Scout troupe.  

Jet was the tall, charming, model scout leader on that two-week-long expedition in the Canadian Rockies, and Zuko and Sokka immediately bonded over their mutual dislike of the guy.  After that trip -- before September officially drives his friends away to their respective schools -- Sokka invites the boys to his backyard for an impromptu camping trip.  

11-year-old Katara had gone on a trip that summer as well, volunteering with Habitat for Humanity for two weeks.  She had no problem making friends with her bunkmates: Suki and Yue and little tough-nut Toph after talking about the trip leader’s son, Aang.  It was annoying but cute, seeing how this 9-year-old kid had been trying to charm his way into Katara’s heart while not doing squat on the actual trip.  When Aang surprises her with a kiss one day on her morning walk, Katara is stunned.  She immediately goes to tell Yue about this: her first kiss.  How it felt kind of... wrong... and dry... desperate, and childish...and Yue comforts her, saying how it’s okay to feel this way, how Aang should’ve asked her if she wanted to be kissed, and how first kisses aren’t usually perfect, anyway.  Suki steps into the conversation, agreeing, saying how she still gets nightmares about saliva after her own kiss last summer.  And Toph chimes in, her 9-year-old mind grossed out at the thought of kissing anyone.  The girls laugh, and Katara feels happy, like she’s made some life-long friends over a mediocre first-kiss experience.  

She invites the girls to her house for a slumber party before summer ends.

And as it turns out... it’s the same weekend as her brother Sokka’s backyard camping trip.  

Katara and Sokka protest this to their dad, and Hakoda says that it wouldn’t be fair to cancel someone’s plans over another’s.  

“Fine,” Katara side-eyes her brother, “but leave me and my friends alone.  No funny business!”  

“Fine by me,” Sokka mutters. “We’ll just be in the backyard.”  

When the boys arrive for the that sleepover, Haru is the first one to take a notice of the girls arriving in their cars one-by-one and greeting Katara at the porch.

“What’s going on?” Teo asks as he unloads his arm-crutches. 

“My sister’s having a… slumber party.” Sokka crinkles his nose in disgust.

“We should invite them to camp with us!” Haru suggests, already waving to the girls, but Zuko -- who was too busy unloading the giant tent box from his uncle’s car to pay any mind to the girls -- frowns.  

“My sister has slumber parties all the time,” he rasps cautiously.  “We should stay away-- unless you want to wake up with a face full of makeup”  

Sokka slaps Zuko on the back, glad that they see the same way.  

It’s only when Yue shows up that Sokka suddenly forgets what they were talking about.  

“Hey!  What’s this I hear?” Toph’s squeaky voice perks up from the patio.  “Are there boys in front of this house?” 

Katara scoffs, “Yes… but don’t worry. They won’t be bothering us.” 

She expects her brother to snap back at her, but to her surprise it’s the sullen boy with the scar who jumps in.  

“Oh— we don’t plan to,” Zuko quips to her, easily. “Enjoy your fancy makeover, Princess.”  

The last thing Katara expects is that unfamiliar, husky voice to come full swing at her, on her own patio, and Katara’s practically lost for words.  

It’s Suki who chimes in.  “Excuse me-- who’re you calling a princess, Prince Pouty?”  

Zuko doesn’t back down, looking annoyed.  “Isn’t that what slumber parties are for? For princesses?”  

Yue stands next to Katara, almost protectively as she says “for your information, we’re doing a lot more than makeovers.” 

Sokka still says nothing to ease the tension; he is practically drooling over Yue, to the point where Haru elbows him. 

Teo attempts a smile, “um... well… if you guys want to roast marshmallows with us, I brought plenty!” 

Toph raises her hand instantly.  And that’s when Katara speaks.

“Toph— no! We had a whole night of activities planned.” 

“So what?”  Toph exclaims. “They seem fun!” 

"And they brought a volleyball net,” Suki mutters. “I have an idea--” 

Katara braces herself.

“Hey, Pouty!”  Suki shouts, loud and proud to the boy with the scar. “How about some boy-girl three-on-three volleyball action?” 

Zuko stares at the girl’s stance, incredulously.

“Forget it; this was meant to be a boys’ night.”  

It’s when her friend gets thrown off by Zuko’s quip that Katara finally rolls up her emotional sleeves and throws back.  

“Oh come on, Mister Stuck-up Snob.” Katara smirks. “Are you scared to play against some spoiled, dainty little princesses?”  

Toph, Haru and Teo laugh.  Sokka eventually does, too.

Zuko’s brow rises.  He feels his heart racing, and immediately starts to wonder if being Sokka’s friend is worth having to deal with this annoying girl.  Zuko can already see his sister becoming the bane of his existence.  

And Katara feeds that brewing, competitive fire.  “Loser makes the winners s’mores?”  

He clicks his jaw.  “You’re on.”  

Katara wasn’t expecting that determined look to show up on his face-- it catches her off-guard.  She almost misses the high five Suki gives her.  It’s then that she decides this new friend of Sokka’s will is the bane of her existence.  

Of course, Katara, Suki and Yue easily crush the boys in volleyball.  Zuko and Sokka argue like old ladies about who should’ve spiked the ball when. They’re both so red faced and Haru just tries to keep them together in his shy, awkward demeanor.  Teo and Toph seem to hit it off easily on the sidelines, forgetting that they should be monitoring the game for points.  

Zuko sneers at Katara’s winning smirk, but when she puts her hand out for “good game” he holds it firmly... but then, the hold goes soft.  It just happens.  Why, they’re not sure.  But she notices his face, how close Zuko suddenly is to her.  She sees the lining of his scar.  He sees the tiny freckles on her nose.  

It’s awkward. She hates that. He hates that, too.  

Haru then says something to Katara, and her hand flinches out of Zuko’s.  Toph then punches Zuko’s arm affectionately- “How does it feel to get your ass handed to you by some girls?” 

He mutters “girls are crazy” and returns to setting up the tent.  

When Hakoda pops out saying that he’s going to order pizza for the girls, it’s Sokka who looks at Yue and bravely says “how about we all just eat out here?” 

Zuko and Katara whip their heads in unison to Sokka, with a resounding “what?!”  

Suki joins in. “Yeah! It’s too nice of an afternoon to be cooped up inside a house all day.”  

“But… what about the movie night?” Katara attempts meekly. “And manicures? And facials?”  

Toph laughs. “Can’t we do that out here? Maybe give the guys a complimentary facial?” 

Teo raises his hand instantly. “I volunteer!”  

“And  um…” Sokka looks at Yue as he speaks, “we have a projector we can set up to play the movie.”  

“That would be nice!” Yue beams, but Katara frowns. 

“Sokka— it’s a romcom. You hate romcoms” 

“Whaaat?” His eyes bulge, nervously, playfully over to Yue. “That’s not true.”  

“And if the movie gets too lame,” Teo turns to Toph, “I brought my guitar. We can sing in front of the campfire.” 

Suki smiles, “You play guitar?” 

But Toph punches her without warning. “Back off— I got dibs on him!”  

Everyone seems to be laughing and enjoying the idea of a joint camping/slumber party.  Everyone except Katara and Zuko.  But being outnumbered, they swallow that bitterness and just roll with the night barely exchanging any words to each other. 

On the cookout, Zuko handles the burger flipping, and gives Katara hers medium rare as she requested, doing all he can to avoid any more quippy things from her.  She says nothing to him anyway.  Not that he cares.

During the impromptu facials, Haru nervously tries and fails to secure a wet mask onto Katara’s face and she sneezes from the cloth... and when she turns her eyes to Zuko for a moment, she can see him glancing away.  

It sounded like he had been laughing. Chuckling, really.  But it must’ve been her imagination.  This guy didn’t seem the type to smile... much less laugh. 

By the time sun has disappeared and the projector has successfully beamed up for the movie, everyone is exhausted but still willing to payi attention to whatever is happening between these Lara Jean Covey and Peter Kavinsky characters.  

“Booo!— he’s too preppy!”  Sokka teases while he, Haru and Zuko finally complete their assembly line of s’more-making for everyone.  

Katara takes a s’more without looking at Zuko, fully engaged with the movie. Sokka and Yue snuggle closely as they look at the projector screen.  Haru is trying to keep his eyes open.  Meanwhile, Teo and Suki are quietly teaching Toph how to play guitar with her nervous fingers.  

As the movie continues, Katara can’t help but notice how Zuko stares at the screen sternly, and she finally grunts: “Okay. It’s stupid. I know.” 

Zuko turns over to her, and just shrugs. “It’s not as bad as Twilight.”  

And Katara perks up, not even missing a beat. 

“Oh my god-- nothing is as bad as Twilight!  That whole dynamic-- that complete and utter devotion to each other— is so toxic!” 

“How that whole thing became the staple for teenage romance is beyond me.”

Katara laughs.  “How do you even know about Twilight?” 

“My sister read the books, and then my mom. I couldn’t get away from it.”

 “Ugh-- I’m so sorry.” 

“Doesn’t matter.” Zuko shifts his weight more comfortably on the ground.  “This isn’t so bad. The Peter guy isn’t obsessive. And he has a life.” 

“Yeah. And Lara Jean gets to be herself. She does things outside the relationship!”  

Zuko raises his brow. “You mean, the fake-relationship?” 

And Katara feels the grin on her face. “Oh. Right. You haven’t read the books—never mind.” 

Zuko stares at her.  “You’re telling me they actually become a thing?” 

“Not saying anything!”

By the end of the movie, Katara has already made the trip to her room and brought down her copies of the books for Zuko to read, in case he wanted to. 

He says nothing, but takes the books with a small smile. 

With Haru already passed out after the movie, it seems it’s time for the girls and boys to part ways.  Zuko puts out the campfire to give Sokka and Yue some final time, and he sneers in disgust over at Katara’s direction while she and Suki clean up their facial/manicure things.  Toph makes a fist-bump with Teo, promising more guitar lessons in the future before he goes to his tent, and she and Suki head inside to Katara’s room to hit their sleeping bags. Yue plants a kiss on Sokka’s cheek before leaving, and Sokka looks so smitten and blushed he escapes into his tent.  

Zuko and Katara are the ones to stay behind and finish cleaning.  It doesn’t take too long, and with the only light now coming from heated coals in the campfire, they can barely make out each other’s faces.  

Still, they stay.  Zuko squints as he flips through the first book Katara gave him, quoting parts of it with a weak attempt at a teenage girl voice.  It makes Katara laugh and punch him, and he fakes a weep.  

“Alright-- “ she starts. “What kind of books do you like to read, Mr. Stuck Up Snob?” 

Zuko puts a blanket over his shoulders, looking up at the sky.  “I just finished the last Percy Jackson book, about Greek demigods and monsters.  Now, I’m trying to get through War and Peace, with my uncle.” 

Katara blinks. She doesn’t laugh.  After a moment, she speaks quietly.

“I’ve been trying to get through Pride and Prejudice for years.” 

“Hmm. Never heard of it.” 

“Shut up.” 

He chuckles. Not only is this a revelation for her-- hearing the boy actually laugh, knowing she hadn’t imagined it earlier... but it’s also strange.  It feels like she’s already gotten a grasp of his sarcasm. 

They stay out there in the darkness, laying out on blankets… talking about their time at Scout Camp, at Habitat for Humanity… how annoying it is to have a perfect little sister, a know-it-all older brother… and, after a long quiet moment looking at the sky and hearing a chorus of distant crickets… they get to the other things.  

How she lost her mother, how he got his scar.  

How their families fell apart.  How they’ve managed, since.  

It’s too dark to notice, but their frames slowly shift towards each other at arm’s length as they talk.  They fall asleep out there, under the stars and blankets in the backyard.  

Then, at the crack of dawn, birds chirping, Katara opens her eyes to Zuko fast asleep, so peacefully next to her… and without moving, she studies him.  His dark hair. His frown, softened. His nose twitching by a light breeze that passes by.  

And then she realizes how this looks, a boy and a girl… the two of them sleeping like this, outside, together.  She panics, heart drumming against her chest.  Katara frantically heads inside the house… thanking the gods that Suki, Yue, and Toph are still fast asleep.  Katara quietly sneaks under her own untouched bedcovers.  

Zuko wakes up alone, to the ice cold rush of water thrown on him by Sokka and Haru. 

“Enjoying the slumber, sleeping beauty?” Sokka quips. “It’s breakfast time!” 

Zuko rubs his eyes; he had not had such a peaceful sleep in forever… and for a moment, he’s convinced that it was all a dream, being out there with a Sokka’s sister, talking through the dead of night.  But when he looks up at Katara’s window— the girls are all gathering and gossiping as they awake up in sleepy faces.  And Katara glances over to him through the window, just for a second as she makes her bed… and that’s how Zuko knows: it was not a dream.  

He pinches his nose, wiping the cold water from under his eyes.  

He wonders what the girls are talking about, what Katara is telling them; if she’s saying anything about staying out all night.  With him.  Probably not. 

But Zuko doesn’t frown at that, exactly. 

Hakoda makes enough scrambled eggs, pancakes, bacon and toast for the eight kids… and while the boys and girls talk about volleyball and good songs for beginner’s guitar, Zuko and Katara only say a few words to the table; nothing directly to each other.  They steal a few glances, though, and it’s Hakoda who notices.  When Sokka hears that Zuko got on the waitlist for the newest Zelda game, he perks up and says “Hey, Dad!” with a mouthful of egg. “Can we do a video game night next month?” 

“Heck yes!” Suki says happily. “I will most delightfully enjoy kicking all of your butts.” 

Sokka gives Suki a puzzled look. 

Hakoda laughs. “Alright— Katara, how would feel about that?” 

She looks up, unprepared. “Oh… I mean, it’s not really my thing, but sure.”

Zuko looks over at Katara, and she grins, but they say nothing.  

When they all pack up to go home, Zuko barely looks over Katara’s direction, and it’s only when he leaves that he manages to face her.  

“Not the worst slumber party I’ve been to,” Zuko mumbles, hands in his pockets.  

Katara tries not to laugh at that, holding her arms to her frame. 

“Yeah. Um. Let me know what you think. About the books, I mean.” 

“Sure.  I might not even read them.”  

Katara rolls her eyes. “You want to. Just admit it.” 

He frowns dismissively, watching the car pull up. “Whatever.” 

“Fine. Just bring them back to me, okay?”  

Zuko scoffs. “I promise I won’t use them as doormats, Princess.” 

She jabs him, and Zuko ignores it.

He heads straight to his uncle’s car, waving to Hakoda.  “Thanks for having us over, Mr. Kuruk.”   

“It’s Hakoda, son.”  

“Okay. Bye Sokka.” 

“See you soon, buddy!”  

In the car Zuko is quiet while his uncle pulls out of the driveway. 

“Did you have fun?” his uncle asks. 

Zuko just nods, sternly, looking down at the stack of books on his lap.  

Iroh notices those books as well, wondering what’s inspired Zuko to suddenly read the things Azula likes… but not questioning it. 

Instead he says “I’m glad that you’re finally making friends.”  

Zuko just shrugs, and carefully opens the first borrowed book to begin reading.  

When the car rolls out, Hakoda notices Katara, looking out to the car almost as if she were in deep thought.  

“He’s cool, right?” Sokka says to their dad. 

“Yeah.” Hakoda agrees. “He seems like a good kid.” 

Katara shakes her head, arms folded in. “He’s weird.”  

Sokka and Hakoda turn to her direction, oddly, and all Katara does is go straight to her room and falls asleep as her head sinks into the pillow.  

Her brows furrow as she sleeps… trying to think of anything other than a certain boy’s raspy voice, stern face, warm hands.  

And that’s how it starts.  

A month later, during the big video game night, only Zuko, Teo and Suki show up… but Katara and Yue are knee-deep in a science project for Mr. Pakku that they only run downstairs to grab a quick snack from the pantry.  As they does so, Sokka greets Yue sweetly asking about the project.  

“Who’s winning?” Yue asks. 

“I am,” Suki chimes in proudly. 

“But not by much,” Zuko mutters, and Suki laughs which makes Katara turn to see them playing together.  Suki is edging her shoulder teasing against Sokka’s, rather than Zuko’s, and something about that eases a knot in Katara’s stomach.  

It’s only then that she notices all of her three borrowed books returned, as promised... stacked neatly on top of each other at the kitchen table.  

Zuko glances over Katara’s direction and acknowledges her with a nod. 

It’s not enough to say whether or not he indeed read all the books… and Katara decides she doesn’t want to know. At least, not then. 

Before a blush crosses her cheeks, she grabs a bag of chips and apple with one hand and quickly waves a hello to Zuko as she heads back up the stairs.  

His heart skips a beat. He wasn’t ready for it.  Her smile.  

At the end of that night, when Sokka says they should play video games again, Zuko nods in agreement.  But in his mind, only the face of a certain girl passes by.  He sees her competitive smirk, her kind eyes, her soft hands.  It’s not much, really… but it’s enough for Zuko to wonder just how much of him was excited to go back to Sokka’s house to actually play video games.  

The next time he comes over, Katara isn’t studying. 

She has managed to join in on Super Smash Bros brawl, patient with Sokka’s instructions on how to play, despite how much she says the activity seems “mindless… just a bunch of digital characters throwing punches at each other.” 

Zuko fights back a chuckle from that, and his jaw clenches when she throws him a competitive stare… but he stays focused on the game.  He wins, and the look on Katara’s face says she’ll look forward to playing him again.  He doesn’t mind.  

It’s not until the third time he comes over for video games that he and Katara go to the kitchen to grab water together... and they finally, finally talk about the books.  

And school.  

And other things besides the fact that they’d once stayed out all night, talking in the backyard.

A year later, when Sokka gets a smartphone, Zuko happily accepts his Instagram invitation and “Boy Scout” group chat invitations… and he chuckles whenever Katara steals her brother’s phone to text Zuko a quick greeting from cyberspace.  

Another year later, when Katara finally gets her own smartphone... the girl doesn’t wait a minute before accepting her best friend’s Instagram invitation and they text each other at their respective schools throughout the day, almost every day.  

Another year later, and they call each other... almost every night.  

Another year later, and it’s on exceptionally rough days that Zuko finds himself showing up to the house.  It’s alright.  Hakoda has already welcomed him.  It starts with watching some after-school SciFi thing with Sokka, happily eating a snack that Hakoda may offer him, and then... it’s her.  

Katara feels the smile form on her face when she sees him.  

The rough day may be about her, or him (they tend to be interchangeable, at that age), but in any case, the day always ends with them together.  Doing homework quietly on the kitchen table... sitting on the patio chairs, talking  about things... laying out in the backyard just to look up at the evening sky.

And it’s on one of these days when, without words, Zuko bravely asks his best friend if he can kiss her.  Without words... she says yes.

And that’s how it starts.

[chloe-the-ice-queen]

This Doesn’t Mean We’re Friends - Ch. 2

Hey guys! Another chapter done and posted, I hope y’all enjoy it!! Let me know if you want to be added to the taglist, I probably won’t cap it unless I really need to :)

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Marinette and Chloe rode in the Bourgeois limo from Marinette's bakery to the Grand Paris. Chloe filled her in on what to expect and what to do. "I'll be with you most of the time, so I can tell you who to steer clear of, and who you should try to talk to. I'll try to introduce you to a few people I know would be interested in your designs. You made that dress, right?"

"Yeah, designed and created it from scratch." Chloe eyed Marinette's dress appreciatively. It was tastefully made, the dark blue complementing the girl's dark hair and bluebell eyes. The top was halter-style, with a high neckline and no sleeves. It fit Marinette's form, with rhinestones glittering on her torso. The bottom half of her dress was long and elegant, falling loosely to the floor, the front hem higher than the back, showing off Marinette's silver heels. It wasn't half bad. 

It was actually quite impressive, as most of Marinette's designs were. She had upgraded from her normal pink capris and grey cardigan outfit after Lila had come back to school, transitioning to a more stylish, modern look. But this dress was nothing less than gorgeous on the small girl, but wasn't overly classy and overdone like some dresses she was sure to see throughout the night. It looked nice, but it didn't look like she was showing off, which Chloe could appreciate.

Chloe herself wore a sleek, sleeveless yellow dress that highlighted her fair skin and bright blue eyes. Chloe's hair flowed freely around her shoulders, curled and styled, while Marinette had hers up in an elegant bun, with loose curls framing her face. Together, the two girls contrasted each other, but the stark differences went well together. 

As they pulled up to the front of the hotel, paparazzi and reporters swarmed the red carpet, bombarding the famous partygoers.

"They shouldn't be too interested in us, but just ignore them." Chloe advised Marinette, before opening her door and sliding out of the car. Marinette slipped out behind her, adjusting to the flashing of cameras and the buzz of conversation. She shut the door behind her, and joined Chloe in walking up the front steps.

Just going to the event was sure to bring her some recognition, especially accompanied by Chloe, but she wasn't too worried about being bombarded by paparazzi. Only a few reporters bothered them, and as instructed, Marinette tuned them out.

Once they entered the ballroom, the chatter became more of a dull roar. Chloe greeted a few people mingling just inside the doorway, before they were accosted by a very familiar voice. Adrien, who was dragging a disgruntled Lila along behind him. "Hey guys! It's nice to see you here!" Adrien enthused. 

"I'm sure." Chloe said, unamused. "Now if you don't mind, we need to-"

"I thought that you could introduce us to some of your friends here, Chloe. That way Lila can make some new friends-" Adrien interrupted. Lila suddenly looked interested in their conversation. 

"Well, since we know how many connections Lila has, I'm sure she doesn't need me to introduce her to anyone." Said Chloe. 

"Don't be like that Chl-"

"Chloe!!" Someone near them half shouted, turning the heads of people around them. A boy around their age was walking over to them, waving. "I wasn't sure if you'd come or not. It's been a while." 

"Henri!" Chloe said, looking entirely amused. "I haven't spoken to you since that party in London."

"I doubt either of us will ever be invited to that again." Henri said, making Chloe laugh. Now that he was closer, Marinette studied him. He was very handsome, objectively, of course. The kind of easy beauty that makes you want to laugh or cry. He had dark brown curls, and kind brown eyes that sparkled with amusement. When he glanced at her, she felt her face flush a little. Chloe and the stranger, Henri, traded stories and jokes for a minute, while the other three observed. Adrien seemed to recognize the newcomer, and Lila was waiting for her chance to jump into the conversation.

"Now," his voice was quieter, teasing, but making sure the other three heard him as well. "You should introduce me to your very pretty friend here. I don't believe I've seen her at any of your events before." He smirked at Chloe, who rolled her eyes. 

"This is-"

"Lila, nice to meet you." The green eyed girl said, sticking out her hand, which he ignored, looking at her with annoyance and slight disbelief, if Marinette had to guess.

Chloe seemed taken aback, "This is Marinette, an amazing up-and-coming designer who my mother and Gabriel Agreste have both scouted for their brands." She turned to Marinette, "This is my friend Henri, his parents are both models and his mother is a designer my mother has collaborated with. I'm sure the two of you have quite a lot in common, so why don't we go find a table to chat?"

"Why don't we come with you? You know that I happen to be friends with quite a few designers and models myself, I might be able to give some input." Lila said, while Adrien, who had been looking angry at Chloe, perked up. 

He and his date began to follow the trio, when Chloe said, "Sorry, you two, but my mom reserved a table just for three. And I'm sure Lila can get you guys seats next to someone much more important anyways." She grabbed Marinette and pulled her along with her to a table near the front, Henri following behind them.

"Adrien's gotten worse since last time." The boy remarked as they sat down.

Marinette looked at him disapprovingly, when Chloe responded, "I agree. I thought it was just because of his dad, but his social skills have somehow become even worse since he started going to school."

Marinette looked surprised. Probably because she felt surprised. Didn't Chloe like Adrien? Wasn't he her best friend? Maybe they had a falling out, or maybe Chloe had stopped liking Adrien for the same reason Marinette had. Whatever the case, they could all agree on one thing. 

"That girl is nasty." Henri said. "Do you know her?"

Marinette and Chloe looked at each other. "Unfortunately," Chloe supplied. "She's in our class."

"Ah, my apologies. Anyways, it's a pleasure to meet you, Miss Marinette. If you're as good as Chloe said, I'm sure I'll be seeing you around more."

Marinette smiled as Chloe said, "She is quite talented. She made the dress she's wearing."

The bluenette looked at her shoes under the table. "Ah, an excellent designer then. I'll be sure to mention you to my parents when I get the chance. In the meantime, though, Chloe, I need to be going. I need to talk to a few people before I head out, it was good to see you again." 

The three stood, and Henri turned and hugged Chloe, and then turned to Marinette. She smiled. "It was a pleasure to meet you, Henri."

"The pleasure is mine, I'm sure." Henri said, and took Marinette's hand, kissing the back of her knuckles lightly, his eyes teasing. Marinette laughed, blushing slightly. 

The trio separated, Chloe pulling Marinette off to meet other people.

Through the entire interaction, two pairs of green eyes watched the small group from across the room. One filled with jealousy, one with annoyance and maybe a little sadness too.

----

Throughout the night, Chloe introduced Marinette to dozens of people. A few designers, models, artists, business moguls, celebrities, you name it. In return, Marinette stayed with Chloe and endured tedious conversations she had to engage in for her parents' sake. Chloe would never admit it, but having the baker girl there was nice, it made the evening slightly less unbearable. 

For the bluenette, it was great exposure into the fashion world. She got to meet several of her idols and make connections with influential people. People started to hear about her designs, many of them admired the dress she wore that showcased her budding talent.

Style Queen herself was thrilled to see her there. Chloe had let her mother know who she was bringing once Marinette was invited, of course, but Audrey was still happy to see her favorite young designer.

At the end of the evening, Marinette and Chloe rode back to the Dupain-Cheng bakery together. When the limo pulled to a stop, Marinette started to get out, then paused. "Thank you so much for everything Chloe. I know you don't like me much, but tonight was so much fun and I'm so grateful that you introduced me to so many people. And thank you for inviting me to come with you, even if it was just to tick off Lila." Marinette gushed, honestly honored by Chloe's thoughtfulness, even if it was caused by spite.

"Yeah whatever, you're welcome Dupain-Cheng, this doesn't mean we're friends, okay?" Chloe grumbled.

Marinette smiled. "Good night, Chloe." She closed the door before Chloe could respond, and walked into the bakery. 

----

When Marinette went to bed that night, she went to sleep with a happy buzz in her chest, Tikki nestled beside her on the pillow. 

Alrighty then, I guess that’s Chapter 2 done! I hope y’all liked it!! And that should also be the end of these super short chapters, the next one will definitely be a lot longer, and will hopefully be posted sometime tomorrow?? I love you guys, thanks for all your support!

@agentofscifi

[missymurphy1985]

The Unrequited (Cillian Murphy X fem!reader - One Shot)

Warning - smut

Requested? Yep ☺️

Taglist @queenshelby @margoo0 @being-worthy @peakyscillian @peakyciills @janelongxox @elenavampire21 @ysmmsy @cloudofdisney @lauren-raines-x @misscarolineshelby @screemqueen @cilleveryone @peaky-cillian @misselsbells06 @datewithgianni @heidimoreton @jardinsecos @bitchwhytho

"It's no problem Cillian, honestly! I'm happy to have him!" Your phone to your ear while you quickly tidied up the house.

You'd known Cillian since university - both of you studying law, but of course only one of you actually completing the course. Your friendship had lasted though. You were the only person he trusted with his husky, Scout, when he was away filming. He made the mistake of leaving him with his brother once because you were on holiday at the same time he was due to be away - but he had young children and the dog was a little on the boisterous side. Not in a bad way, just a 'hyperactive, play with me every five seconds' kinda way that suited you perfectly. You adored that fluffy nutcase. Taking him for long walks in the Irish countryside, before snuggling with him on the sofa in the evening with a glass of wine.

Yes, you would take care of him for three months while Cillian was away filming series one of Peaky Blinders.

You called your dad, who ran the law firm you worked for, and explained that Scout would be joining you for three months - you didn't have any court appearances due, so he was happy for you to work from home.

A few days after that initial phone call, Cillian was at your door with Scout and a bag of his food, treats, and toys. You already had a bed for him and blankets from the last time he stayed with you.

"I'm so sorry for the short notice y/n, you know what the BBC are like!"

"It's fine honestly! You know my Dad - he loves it when we work from home. Doesn't have to pay as much electric in the office!" You laughed. He laughed with you, and you felt your heart beat a little faster. Putting your game face on, he had no idea how you truly felt about him, and he would never know either.

"You have everything you need? Passport, plane tickets, hotel booking confirmation?"

"Yes, mother, I have it all."

"Just making sure!"

"What would I do without you eh?" He pulled you in for a hug, kissing your cheek. You loved it when he did that, but also wished he didn't...

"Go, your flight won't wait for you!"

He ruffled Scout's fur and gave him a hug, before heading off to the airport. You unpacked the food, toys and treats, finding a bottle of expensive red wine at the bottom of the bag.

"He never forgets," you smiled.

************************************************************

Your days had been filled with alternating an hour of work with an hour of playing with Scout, then taking him for a long walk by the Liffey. The kids on your regular walk all fussing over him each day you walked past them. He was such a good boy - perfect around children and even other dogs. He was an absolute dream to be around. Just like his owner...

Shaking off the rain from your coat as you stepped back into your house, you couldn't quite believe how quickly the time had gone by. Cillian would be home tomorrow morning, and arranged to pick Scout up on his way back from the airport. He'd called daily, not to check on Scout, he said he knew his boy was in capable hands, but to see you both and have some semblance of normality while he was there. Seeing him in his smart suit, his hair shaved at the sides, you couldn't deny he looked incredible.

You settled on the sofa, Scout at your side chewing on a rubber bone you'd bought him earlier that day.

Your phone rang, your best friend Hayley. She had known you longer than Cillian, your best friend since primary school, and was the only one you'd ever confessed your true feelings to.

After ten minutes of general chit chat...

"No, Hayls, I haven't told him."

"Why?!"

"Oh come on, I'm not blind! Have you seen the girls he dates? Leggy, skinny... Look at his ex! Some model from London! He's clearly got a type, and I'm not it."

"Girl he adores you, it's so obvious."

"As a friend, yes, but nothing more. I'm the dependable one, the one he can rely on to look after his dog."

"Yes, you're dependable, but not just as a dog-sitter. He can trust you. He tells you everything, and he knows you'll never judge him for it."

"I love how your imagination works love. I've gotta go, movie's starting and Scout is glaring at me for ignoring him." She laughed and left you to your cosy night in with Cillian's dog.

As the opening sequence rolled, Scout lay in your lap, your hand stroking over his soft fur.

"Your human is pretty special, isn't he Scout?"

He looked up and you and tilted his head.

"Why can't I just tell him, huh? Just tell him how I feel? How my heart leaps when I see his name flash on my phone? How I get butterflies when I see him? How I know that a woman like me will never compete with the girls he likes?"

He tilted his head again.

"Oh come on, you daft fluffball, you know what I'm talking about! I've got more curves than a country road. I don't even wear mascara unless I'm in court. I live in sweatpants and PJs. I prefer a night in to a night out. Reading a book, not hitting the town. He'd never look at me as more than that frumpy, dependable, boring y/n." You felt tears prick the backs of your eyes, and Scout, bless him, nuzzled into you.

"At least you love me, don't you boy?"

"Is that what you think?"

You turned sharply, panic replacing the sadness, as you looked in your living room doorway and saw Cillian stood there, bottle of wine in one hand and a bunch of flowers in the other. A small smile on his face.

"Shit, Cillian... I didn't..."

"Got back early. Wanted to surprise you. And yet, I'm the one who's surprised."

You felt so embarrassed, such a fool...

"I... I'm sorry, I didn't... How did you get in?"

"Door wasn't locked."

"Oh.. um.."

"Listen," he placed the wine and flowers down on the dining table in the next room. Scout ran to him and he fussed over him for a few moments, giving you time to relax your heart before it exploded in your chest. He pulled out a bone he must've picked up on the way and sent him off with it in your kitchen to keep him occupied. He looked up at you, and you immediately looked to the floor, your head falling into your hands.

"I'm sorry, I must've had too many glasses of wine and - "

He was beside you in seconds, pulling your hands away and facing you towards him on the sofa.

"You wanna know the reason I went for those girls?"

"Why?"

"Because I didn't think I stood a chance with you."

"Oh come on, you're just telling me that to make me feel better."

"No, I'm not. Why do you think you're the only person I let look after Scout? Who was the first person I called when I got the part on Peaky? When my grandma died? When my nephew was in hospital after a bad asthma attack? When I locked myself out of my apartment, again?"

"Because I'm dependable."

"Because you're you. I need you when I'm happy, sad, lost, confused, lonely, scared.. I need you for it all."

"Just because you need me doesn't mean -"

"I love you."

"What?"

"I love you. Fuck it feels good saying it out loud," he chuckled, looking to the ceiling, you could feel the relief radiating from him. That heartbeat of yours? Racing. Those tears? Fading.

You took his face gently in your hands and brought his eyes down to meet yours again. His fingers traced over your lips softly.

"I love you, too." You'd barely got the last word out before his lips silenced you. Your bodies quickly moving closer, needing the contact as much as the other - your hands in what was left of his hair, running through the strands as his body moved over yours. You found yourself lying on the sofa, the man you'd longed for for years lying on top of you, your legs wrapped around his hips.

"We should stop -" he gasped, coming up for air.

"Yeah, probably..." You replied. Eyes meeting again, a silent 'fuck it' exchanged between you and your lips met again.

"What I meant was - probably shouldn't be here with Scout metres away waiting to pounce thinking I'm hurting you," he laughed, standing up and pulling you onto your feet.

"Depends, are you going to hurt me?" You asked, slight worry on your face.

"Only if you ask nicely," he smirked, leading you into your bedroom and closing the door behind him.

You felt so nervous and self conscious, your legs were like jelly. You'd dreamed of this very moment for so long, and now it was here you didn't think you could go through with it. He sensed your reluctance.

"Hey, we don't have to do this?"

"I do, I really do, but... God you're going to think I'm so stupid..."

"What's wrong?"

"I haven't... I mean..."

"You're a virgin?"

"No! Christ Cillian I'm 31!"

"Okay, so what is it?"

"I'm not exactly prepared, you know?" You glanced down at your body, and he rolled his eyes chuckling.

"So? You think I'm bothered about hair? Have you seen my body y/n? Look, I don't care about any of that. What I care about is making you feel good."

You bit your lip as he slowly pulled your t-shirt over your head, his eyes taking in every inch, every curve. Smiling when he saw you weren't wearing a bra - your full breasts on display for him, nipples hardening that had nothing to do with the cool breeze in the room.

"I don't think your body cares about it, do you?" He winked, taking one of your breasts in his hand, softly squeezing the flesh and running a thumb over your nipple before his lips kissed all of your worries and fears away. The goosebumps on your skin told him he was doing exactly what you wanted him to do - the way your breathing hitched as his hand stroked under your breasts led him to one of your erogenous zones with ease, and he focused his attention there. His lips moved to your neck, finding another hot spot as he felt your legs buckle slightly. One hand moving under your breasts, his teeth nibbling the side of your neck, you could have cum from this alone, but you wanted more. Now.

The fingers of his free hand played with the waistband of your jogging bottoms, slowly creeping underneath it and over your mound. His fingers lightly ghosting over the soft, short curls. You couldn't hold back the gentle moan as his fingers dipped, stroking over your folds.

"You prefer this," he dipped down to gently push a finger inside, "or this..." He pulled it back our out and glanced it over your clit. The way your body flinched made him grin, and he pushed you against the wall. His fingers bringing up your slick juices and circling the small, swollen bud. You lifted your leg up, resting your foot on your bedside table as he slowly worked you up into a shaky, writhing mess against the wall. His body moved between your open legs, leaving just enough room for his right hand to do what you needed.

"Feel good?" He asked in your ear, his breath on your skin adding to the sensations running through you.

"So good.. don't stop..."

"Why not?" He smirked, easing his finger off you.

"Please, Cill..."

"Hmm, quite like hearing you beg," he bit his lip and continued stroking, your juices flowing down your thighs. Your hips began to grind against his hand, you were so close.

"Gonna cum for me baby?" You nodded, unable to form words. His fingers were circling quicker, the white hot pressure building inside you. His lips on your neck, his free hand under your breast, kneading and stroking in time with his magical right hand between your legs. Your hand moved to his hard length under his jeans, kneading against the material, feeling it throb under your touch.

"That's it, that's it, don't... Oh god..." You orgasm hit you so hard he had to hold you up. Your legs couldn't hold you any more. His strokes slowed down slightly as he teased you through the most powerful climax you'd ever had.

"Tastes so sweet," he grinned, pulling his slick fingers from you and tasting them against his lips. Your bottoms swiftly removed, he placed soft kisses up your legs on his way back up. Prickly hairs on your legs not fazing him in the slightest, his lips moving closer to your groin making your whole body shake. Your hands moved to his jeans, unbuttoning them and letting them fall to the floor. He pulled his own t-shirt over his head and you admired the toned, newly hair free chest in front of you. Faint outlines of Tommy's tattoos on his chest and arm.

"One of us shaved, at least," he shrugged, earning him a shoulder smack from you. You giggled together as he pulled you off the wall, sitting on your bed.

You knelt between his legs, his hard cock now eye level. Licking your lips and looking up at him, any hint of self consciousness gone. His hand moved into your hair, a look of pure desire written all over his face.

"You like this," you smirked, your hand stroking over his shaft from the base to the tip, your thumb gliding over the leaking slit at the top. "Or this?"

The deep groan that left him when you sank your mouth over the head of his cock gave you your answer. Your head slowly bobbed up and down, taking him deeper into your throat with each stroke. He tried to refrain from thrusting up into your waiting mouth for fear of choking you, but the way you loosened your throat muscles was almost too tempting. His hand on the back of your head, holding you steady as he pumped his hips up, desperate to feel your lips against the base of his cock.

You allowed him to fuck your mouth, holding your hand over his on the back of your head, feeling his cock hit the back of your throat. A few slight gags, but your core clenched the deeper he went. Hearing his moans, the gentle pants, hearing just how much you were turning him on.

"I'm not finishing in your mouth this time, get up here," he groaned, lifting your mouth off him. You climbed onto his lap as he lined himself up against your entrance. You hovered over him, allowing just the tip to enter as you slowly bounced.

"Don't tease me," he gasped, needing to feel you. All of you.

You sunk down hard.

"Fuck..." You cried in unison, the feeling of finally being connected after all these years of dreaming about it almost too much. Once you'd adjusted to him, you began to move. Slowly at first, finding a rhythm to suit you both. He leaned back on one hand for levity so he could thrust up in time with your movements, his other back underneath your breast.

A rhythm was found almost immediately, his cock hitting your sweet spot easily - your grinds against his perfectly timed upward thrusts.

"So good, so fucking good, riding me..."

"Shit, Cillian, oh god..." He wanted to flip you over and fuck you into the mattress, but you held him in place. You wanted to be the one in control and he was more than happy to let you.

"That's it, use me, take what you need," his hands moved to your waist, helping you bounce on him harder, his cock hitting so deep you swore you could feel him in your stomach.

"You look so hot riding me, fuck, you're perfect... Need to feel you cum again, can you do that?" He was almost panting his words out, his breathing coming in short little gasps as he felt his balls tightening, his own orgasm forming quickly in his abdomen. His thumb found your clit, the slick juices pooling around it from your orgasm earlier and his own precum leaking from him.

"Cillian.... Cill.. I'm gonna... Holy fuck..." Your head flung backwards as you came again, your whole body trembling from the power of it.

"I've got you, fuck... Fuck, fuck, fuck, you're making me cum, gonna cum, gonna cum..." He stumbled over his words, his eyes rolled back into his head. Your walls clenching and gripping him was too much, as he filled you with ropes of his warm cum, lining your walls. His abdomen clenching, his eyes on yours as you came together.

He fell back onto the bedsheets breathless, you collapsed on his chest. His cock still inside you, pulsing with the last of his seed emptying into you as you milked him, squeezing your walls.

"So good, so good..." You gasped, coming down from your high. His hands in your hair, stroking your head.

"You realise you're mine now, yeah?" He grinned, gentle groans as he finished releasing into you.

"Always have been, Cill."

[jeonfiles]

once more to see you | kth 01

pairing: taehyung x reader ft. seokjin

genre: angst, fluff, unrequited love

synopsis: taehyung is the complete opposite of you, and you're so in love with him. he's not interested in you at all, but he's willing to pretend so he won't be known for breaking the sweetest girl in school's heart. he knows you'll end up hurt either way.

warnings: taehyung is an idiot, a lot of pining, y/n is annoyingly dependent on validation, y/n does a lot of silent prayers, y/n is a track star, childhood bsf seokjin (cute), mentions of deceased family member

music for this chap: she had the world , carry me out

a/n: taehyung will disappoint u in the beginning but hes cute i promise

"I get why you like him Y/N," Sohee swallowed the rest of her sandwich before finishing her sentence, "He's so hot. People say he's interested in you too, y'know?"

Sohee visibly tried to get food out from the back of her mouth using her tongue, and it made you chuckle at the sight. "I don't think he does." You sighed, resting your chin in your palm.

You were both situated at the table in the inner corner of the cafeteria, with a full view of who walks in the door, and sometimes you swore you could see Sohee drool when attractive guys walked in that exact door.

"Hello, of course, he does! Even his friend Jimin told Kang Seulgi from Class 1, who told Go Euntaek in class 3, who eventually told his girlfriend Baek Ho-rang who ran to me to tell me the great news." Sohee gasped for air after rambling, and you rolled your eyes,

"Stories change when that many links contribute." You scoffed, sitting back in your chair and reaching for your juice box on the table, taking a huge slurp, which you knew would annoy Sohee.

"You don't believe me? Guess we gotta ask a link closer to the source then." Sohee stood up from her chair, and you looked at her with a raised eyebrow.

"Park Jimin, get your ass over here will ya?" She nearly shouted across the cafeteria, and now all looks were pointed at you two, and you felt the urge to just slip down the cracks of the floor tiles and hide there forever grow stronger for each nanosecond.

You sunk further down on your tacky, orange chair, but you could still see Jimin's black locks sway a little over the crowd as he walked over to the table you were sitting at.

"What's up sugar?" Jimin smirked at Sohee, and Sohee didn't even budge, and you had no idea how she did it. He was stupidly attractive and could make any girl drop her pants with a comment like that.

"Jimin my dearest, a little birdie told me that Taehyung likes my sweet Y/N, could you confirm?" She batted her long lashes and smiled prettily at Jimin.

He looked to the left, sucked his teeth, and said, "I can't, I'm sorry." You realized you had grown a little too hopeful, and your heart sunk quite a bit when he spoke.

"Does he think I'm pretty at least?" You spoke up, eyes shining when you looked up towards the standing Jimin, the harsh lights in the cafeteria reflecting in them.

"He hasn't mentioned you much, to be quite honest." He shrugged, walking back to his table, where Taehyung and the rest of his friends sat.

Your heart thumped when he met your eyes, and you looked away in panic. The rest of lunch was just Sohee apologizing and you avoiding eye contact with any of the students at the nearby tables.

Jimin mentioned you and Sohee's name several times, he was a loud speaker, and you were so scared of what he was saying you could probably die right then and there.

Saved by the bell, you picked up your stuff and got ready to start running to your classroom, praying you wouldn't meet any of Taehyung's friends, and especially not Taehyung as you ran Usain Bolt style.

You looked down while running, not thinking twice about leaving your best friend behind, you suddenly fell to the ground with a thud. This was surely not one of your glory days.

When you looked up, you wanted to cry. It was none other than Kim Taehyung, and he didn't look pleased. You gathered your things and muttered "Sorry." under your breath probably about 10 times, and he just watched, disappointingly.

"You're a klutz. Why were you running?" He spoke, and your knees turned into jelly when you tried to stand up, you nearly fell and dropped all your stuff again, but he caught you by the arm, straightening you up like it was nothing.

"Uh... Uhm... Err..." you mumbled, and he rolled his eyes, and not in a joking manner. "Fuck that, why are you going around telling people I like you?"

Your breath hitched, and he stared at you coldly. "I didn't! Gosh, my friend Sohee told me someone had told her that you liked me, and- uh... We asked Jimin, and-" He put his hand over your mouth, making you shut up.

"I don't want you two to go around making up baseless rumors about me, it's incredibly annoying for me to go around correcting people who assume shit just because your little friend speaks louder than a bunch of hyenas at a tea party." Taehyung nearly spat, and you took a step back.

You noticed that people were listening in, their stares burning holes in your back. He was livid, and you didn't understand why, you just smiled, praying to god that this would end soon.

"I just thought you liked me-" You began, and he interrupted you, "You thought I was gonna like someone like you? Get over yourself and enter the real world."

The hallway went silent, your lips trembled as hot tears raced down your face, and like the track star you were, you fled the scene and passed the finish line into the bathrooms.

You stayed till the school day ended, not knowing what was unraveling outside the four walls of the stall.

Sohee 💜: 01:12 pm

Y/N, where are you? i heard what happened :( i hate taehyung im gonna chop his sausage off

Sohee 💜: 01:38 pm

taehyung is fighting w doyoung because doyoung decided to defend you this is hilarious

but fr where are you

Sohee 💜: 01:57 pm

doyoung gave taehyung a black eye damn

doyo is on the verge of tears when taehyung said you liked him and not doyo

taehyung cant not have feelings for you like there must be smth deeper going on

Sohee 💜: 03:39 pm

class just ended i'll wait out back

Sohee always knew when to leave you alone, so she did, partially. You usually shut off your phone when you're upset, but she still sends you texts to update you whenever you turn it back on.

This time, it was quite dramatic, and you rushed out of the icky stall and ran (again) to reach Sohee to get the full story, and as you expected, it was interesting.

"Basically, Doyoung punched Taehyung and Taehyung was a little too OP, so he failed to initiate a fight, so it just turned into Taehyung being an ass to Doyoung for defending you." She shrugged, adjusting the straps of her leather backpack as you walked home.

"Taehyung's rep is so tainted right now, I don't know how he's gonna fix this my dear Y/N, so I guess he got his karma. He's an idiot and I'm glad other people are starting to see."

You nodded yes, pushing out a fake chuckle, while silently you prayed that everything would soon be back to normal and that Taehyung would forgive you for the mess you caused.

Being in love with Taehyung for a year had taken a toll on you, and your best friend since freshman year had noticed too. You were different.

You used to be so independent and optimistic, but now you would strive for validation, and you had turned into one of the most insecure people Sohee had ever met.

Sohee tried to pull you away from him, but to her demise, it only got worse when you tried to meet other guys. She figured that the only way for you to disconnect from him was if you had your go with him, or if he treated you like a complete idiot.

You waved goodbye to Sohee as you entered your house, kicking off your shoes and throwing yourself down on the couch. You wanted to scream, but you saw your brother's and another guy's shoes in your hallway, so you kept it inside.

After having watched an episode of Seinfeld, you could hear the floorboards creak, and your gaze found its way to the hallway, where your brother, Yoongi stood, peeking out from his door.

"Ah, Y/N, you're the one who's home?" He smiled brightly, eyes turning into small crescents, which made you awe at the sight.

"Yuppers." You said and sat back again, pressing play to start the next episode. "Who's your guest?" And as you uttered your last word, another head peeked out from the door, and you couldn't help but feel the happiness brew inside you.

It was Kim Seokjin in all his glory, and this time, he looked even hotter. It had been about two years since you last saw him because he moved to Germany to study medicine.

Seokjin had been your neighbor since you were born, and you pretty much grew up with two older brothers who always took care of you.

No one dared to mess with you, because Seokjin and Yoongi always got to them first. That way, you grew up without a care in the world, protected from all evil.

You had no idea when you fell in love with him. It was somewhere during puberty, where your interest in Brad Pitt and Kim Soohyun from Dream High had grown stronger.

You remember Seokjin was scouted for modeling, acting, and even idol groups all through your childhood. He did a few ads, photoshoots, a popular teenage drama called Double Trouble, and even managed to get his own Wikipedia page.

There was no doubt that Seokjin was an attractive man, and in the two years he had been gone, his face fat was completely gone, and he had defined cheekbones, a slimmer and tighter figure, and you thought he couldn't be any more perfect.

"None other than God himself," Seokjin said smugly, opening his arms to greet you with a hug, and you threw your blanket you were covered into the side as you bolted into Seokjin's arms, legs wrapped around his waist.

He slowly put you down so your feet touched the parquet, and you felt a kind of euphoria as he smiled at you again, the same smile he had flashed you as long as you could remember.

Everything about Seokjin had matured and changed, but his smile remained the same. "What are you doing back?" You sniffled, holding back the happy tears that were forming in your eyes.

"Hey, don't get me wrong, I love Germany, but it's a little bland. I miss ahjumnas complimenting me on the subway and the bomb ass food here in SK." Seokjin grinned as he wiped a tear that fell down your face.

Yoongi was leaning against the door frame, smiling at the grand reunion. You knew he liked seeing you two together, and you had a small suspicion about him shipping you guys.

"Please don't ever leave again." You gripped onto his shirt, digging your face down in his chest, and he said, "I swear to god if you're wearing makeup right now-"

You laughed as you pushed him away, placing your hands below your chin and batting your eyelashes dramatically, "I'm all-natural."

"Naturally pretty." Seokjin leaned forward and whispered in your ear, and your heart did a little somersault.

Seokjin's always been a charmer.

You woke up in your room, pink sheets draped over your half-naked body as tons of messages poured in on your phone, vibrating so much it nearly fell off the edge of your nightstand.

You grab it while rubbing your eyes, and you're shocked to see the messages that had exploded on your lock screen.

Unknown: 08:39 am

Hey, it's Kim Taehyung.

Look, I'm sorry for the shit I said to you and I would love to make it up to you in some kind of way.

Maybe I could take you out?

I get it if you don't want to, but I heard you were interested in me so...

What kinda food do you like? Activities, hobbies?

I really wanna make this right :)

You: 08:43 am

oh hey! I'd love to, you kinda owe me one. if it's your treat, I suppose we could get some sushi and boba...

btw I don't like u like that

Contact made, saved as "taehyung <3" at 08:44 am

taehyung <3: 08:47 am

Okay. Meet me at Nori Table at 6 pm. Don't make me wait.

Your heart was palpitating, and when you pressed your phone up to your chest, you could feel your body heat up from your scalp to your toes.

Maybe Kim Taehyung had no interest in you right now, but he sure would after tonight. You were gonna make him love you, soon enough,

Running to the shower a few hours of Seinfeld later, you scrubbed with all your might with your newest strawberry scrub, did your makeup, curled your hair, and sat down on the couch, outfit draped over the armrest of the chair.

It was an hour till you were leaving, so for the time being you sat with hair rollers in your hair, dressed in pink sweats. Seokjin and Yoongi had been awake all night, you had heard them laugh and play Mario Cart all night, it reminded you of old times.

Old times where you went to bed crying because Yoongi and Seokjin's bedtime was later than yours at sleepovers. Thinking back, your parents made a pretty rational decision, but you resented them for it.

When Seokjin left for school in Germany, during your Sophomore year you cried again. You thought it was so unfair that you had to be two years younger, why couldn't you come with him?

You were painfully in love with him, and you had been probably since you were. A few months after he moved, your feelings faded. You were love-free, only to fall stupidly in love again with Taehyung just a year later.

You were forced to snap out of your train of thought because you heard the floorboards creak again. When you looked over at the dark hallway, you saw a tired, yet familiar face smile at you.

Seokjin looked quite disoriented, hair ruffled and eyes puffy, yet he looked like a Greek god. Sculpted to perfection, he smiled at you like he did yesterday and all the times before.

"Morning." He grunted out, his morning voice prominent. You chuckled when you looked at the time, feeling kind of bad for Seokjin who had slept away the majority of his day, which you knew he didn't like.

"It's 5 pm, cutie. Mom said you guys could order takeout, cause she's working late." You stood up, and Seokjin gave you a good look up and down, and then diverted his gaze to the lavender ruffle skirt and white long-sleeve blouse you had neatly hung over the armchair.

"What's the occasion?" He nodded over at the clothes and then your hair rollers and full-face makeup-covered face. He threw a few walnuts from the little bowl on the coffee table into his mouth.

"It's none of your business, but I have a date tonight," you said smugly, and a walnut flew out of Seokjin's mouth in shock.

"A date? Like a real one?" He frantically asked, and you nodded as you walked away with your outfit in hand.

You came back out minutes later, and Seokjin had to hold his mouth shut so it wouldn't drop to the floor. You had matured so well, a white blouse adorning your waist, and the lavender skirt hugged your curves nicely.

You had decorated your neck and ears with golden jewelry, and you had a pair of Air forces dangling from your left hand. You were beautiful, hair let free from the hair rollers, curls swaying as you did a twirl.

"It's alright, I guess." He pretended not to care, and your proud grin morphed into a frown pretty quickly, and he noticed.

He stood up and walked towards you, standing very close. His tall figure was hovering over you. Seokjin leaned forward towards your ear, not whispering this time,

"You're gorgeous." He pushed your curls behind your shoulder, adjusting your golden necklace as he returned to Yoongi's bedroom.

You were screwed.

The time on your phone showed 6:06 pm. You recall him saying ‘don’t be late’. What a hypocrite. It had started to pour down, so you were squeezed up against the brick wall of the restaurant so the ledge above you would shield you from the rain.

You were shaking from the cold, legs exposed because of your skirt. Sighing deeply, you reached down into your purse to text Taehyung, but when you looked up, you saw him running over to you.

He was holding a bouquet of pink delphinium and peonies. You’d always been interested in flowers, and this small gesture made you all fuzzy inside.

“I apologize for my late arrival m’lady. The flower shop was about to close down for the day, and I had to beg the cashier to let me in, promising to buy a huge bouquet if she did.” He smiled as he stood in front of you.

“No worries sir, I haven’t been waiting for long.” You chuckled, as you accepted the bouquet. His eyes scanned every inch of your body, and he said, “You’re shivering. Let’s go inside.”

This was a side of Taehyung you had barely seen before, caring and warm. This was also the side of him that initially made you fall for him.

The memories of him reading stories for children at the hospital was heartwarming. Whenever you went to visit your brother, who has now passed, you would see him read stories for all the unlucky kids.

Your brother, who was only 7 years old talked about Taehyung like a superhero, and it seemed as if Taehyung’s stories were the highlight of his days at the hospital.

Daejung wasn’t a kid you would pity. In his last months in the hospital he never once cried. You believed that Taehyung was a big part of the reason.

That’s why you fell in love with him. He hadn’t been a superhero in the form of saving lives, but he definitely made a whole lot of sick kids happier.

How could you ever repay him?

Taehyung rested a hand on your shoulder and lead you inside the door, and there stood a beautiful tall woman, black hair to her waist, almond-shaped eyes, and full lips.

She was beautiful. You looked up to see Taehyung’s reaction, and he wasn’t looking at her, he was looking at you. His eyes met yours, and you could’ve sword the whole world stopped.

“Excuse me?” An unfamiliar voice spoke up, and it kicked you right back into reality. It was the pretty woman speaking, an even prettier voice to match her.

“Do you have a reservation?” She questioned, smiling so genuinely from ear to ear. “Yes. It’s on Kim.” Taehyung spoke so confidently.

“Ah, for two. I’ll be your server tonight.” She waved for you to follow her, and before she turned around, you saw her name tag.

Bae Eunmi. A pretty name for a pretty person. Of course, she had to be pretty. Your confidence sunk even lower, and your insecurities grew.

“I’m not interested in her, by the way. I’ve talked to her before. She’s all beauty and no brains. Not for me.” Taehyung whispered into your ear, possibly to reassure you.

You sat down at the table and ordered a huge plate of different types of sushi, maki, nigiri, uramaki, and even sashimi.

This restaurant was fancy, nearly too fancy for your liking. It was huge and flashy, and it made you doubt your outfit choice completely.

The restaurant fell silent since there weren’t many guests here this early. The silence wasn’t awkward between you guys. It was just, too silent, and you decided to break it.

“Do you still write stories?” Taehyung’s face froze. How did you know about the stories he wrote? Had you been stalking him? Was this when everyone would find out how weak he truly is?

“How did you find out... About them?” He asked hesitantly, fidgeting with a small woven basket with bread placed on your table.

“When sun and moon met, moon felt bad. When the moon was alone at night, he cried, because he wanted to shine just like the sun.” You quote his story word by word, it was your favorite paragraph.

He looked at you with a confused look and his eyes told you that he wondered why you knew the story so well.

Before he could speak up, you said, “My brother's name was Daejung. He looked up to you and constantly told me about how he wanted to be like you when he grew up.” You placed your hands on top of his over the table.

Taehyung was speechless. He sat there, body completely frozen as he processed what you just said. The little boy he had mourned for many months was the same flesh and blood as you.

“Daejung told me how he wanted me to marry you because he thought no one else deserved me.” Letting go of his hands, he continued sitting completely still.

First, he felt disappointed in himself. Disappointed of the way he had treated you, how sad Daejung would be if he knew.

Second, he could see him in your traits. Your button nose matched his completely, and your eyes sparkled just the way his eyes did.

Third, he realized he had to take care of you. Fall in love with you, for Daejung. Taehyung had promised the little boy to take care of his friends and family when he has at his worst.

His expression completely changed. It softened, and his eyes looked at you like you were godsent. He believed you were too. It was fate.

join the “once more to see you” taglist

a/n: u guys know the angst isn't over lol u guys r never gonna see the light at the end of the tunnel ! this chapter was originally a bit longer but i have to test the waters and seeing how u guys like it !! pls reblog <3