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witchywithwhiskey · 5 months ago

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🔪 Slasher 🔪 Choose Your Own Ending

pairing: DARK horror movie villain!bucky barnes x female reader

summary: somehow, you end up in your favorite old horror movie, and you decide to take the opportunity to fulfill one of your fantasies—you're gonna fuck the villain, bucky barnes.

warnings: 18+ content (minors do not interact!!!), dark themes and elements, typical horror movie violence (blood, murder, some gruesome descriptions), smut, unprotected sex, semi-public sex, creampie, unsafe sadist/masochist dynamic (reader is into it but there are no safe words), dry humping, knife kink, size kink, chase kink, oral sex (m receiving), rough sex, rough body play, light spanking, choking, breath play, bratting/brat taming (reader is slightly unhinged), dirty talk, degradation kink, praise kink, boot riding, dacryphilia, pet names (cottontail, baby), reader passes out during sex, possessive behavior

word count: 13.3k total (11.6k with only the dark ending; 11.9k with only the fluffy ending)

a/n: i really didn't know if i'd be able to finish this fic in time for the end of my Slasher Summer challenge because it's probably one of the most ambitious fics i've ever attempted. it's loosely inspired by the movie The Final Girls (highly recommend) but i couldn't decide how i wanted it to end, so y'all get TWO ENDINGS!! both are included here, with additional warnings down below. i worked really hard on this, so i really hope y'all enjoy!!! 😅

The last thing you remembered was the feel of fuzzy static on your tongue, fizzling through your arms and legs and making you feel like every nerve ending in your body was buzzing to life. You had a vague memory of licking something you probably shouldn’t have, but then your ears popped and you felt solid ground beneath your feet.

Staticky silence was suddenly replaced by shrill screams of excitement and the mechanical whirring of carnival rides. The rich scents of funnel cakes and popcorn and cotton candy filled your nose, making your mouth water with the desire to eat your weight in fried food.

Blinking your eyes open—not remembering when you’d closed them—you were met with the entrance to the Bakersfield Fun Fair. The big banner declaring the name of the carnival sparked a hazy recognition deep in your mind, but when you looked around, you didn’t quite recognize where you were, and you had no memory of how you’d gotten there.

Still, something about the fairground, with its ticket booth and carnival rides and all kinds of stalls selling food or touting games to play for prizes, felt familiar. Like you’d seen it in a dream, or when you were a child the memory was a distant thing.

Muggy summer air brushed against your skin with a soft breeze that helped to alleviate the worst of the heat, the air holding a hint of chill as the sun set on the distant horizon. It cast everything you could see, which was mainly just the carnival and the grassy field being used for a parking lot, in a golden glow.

Finally, it occurred to you to look down at yourself, finding that you were wearing cutoff jean shorts and a plain tank top—neither of which you recognized.

The confusion you’d held at bay suddenly overwhelmed you, making you feel as dizzy as if you’d just ridden the tilt-a-whirl, which you somehow knew was nestled somewhere in the fairgrounds. Your stomach lurched as your mind tried to make sense of where you were and how you’d gotten there. You closed your eyes and tried to think.

As you concentrated, memories began to surface in your mind, like you were dragging them up from the depths of a deep, murky lake.

It wasn’t summer. It was fall, you remembered, and just moments before you’d been curled up on the worn, aged rug in your grandmother’s basement. You were housesitting for her while she was on a cruise.

You remembered closing your laptop, heaving a huge sigh of relief at finishing work for the day, then going down into the basement. You’d spent countless hours there as a teenager watching movies on the big, boxy TV set, the kind where you could feel the static if you put your hand against the screen. Your favorite movies to watch were the horror ones…

That was it!

That was why Bakersfield and the carnival seemed so familiar. Bakersfield was the small town terrorized by the ruthless villain in your favorite horror movie, Slasher, and the final act’s killing spree took place at the town’s annual end of summer carnival. The Bakersfield Fun Fair.

And the villain was Bucky Barnes, a psychotic killer with a sadistic sense of humor and piercing blue eyes.

You’d had a crush on him when you’d first watched Slasher as a teenager, and your attraction to him remained even well into your adult years. You’d decided to put the movie on because you’d been lonely at your grandmother’s, figuring a night with your favorite horror movie slasher would be the closest thing to a date you could get.

Once you remembered that, the rest of it came back to you. You’d been curled up on the rug in front of the TV, and your favorite scene had come on. It was the one where Bucky is cleaning a bullet wound in his shoulder—given to him by the movie’s mean girl, right before he brutally stabs her in the head—and he had his shirt off, showing the broad expanse of his muscled chest.

It hadn’t been your finest moment, but you were lonely and you got it into your head to lick the screen of the TV over Bucky’s bare chest. And then, that was it. That was all you remembered—and the feeling of static on your tongue.

Opening your eyes, you looked up at the banner again. You blinked. And blinked again. Then you pinched yourself. You didn’t wake up.

The sign still read Bakersfield Fun Fair. But…that was impossible.

Your jaw went slack as you looked around—really looked at your surroundings.

In the time that you’d spent figuring out where you were, the sun had dipped behind the tops of the trees in the forest beyond the fairground, turning the sky pink and orange, fading into a deep cerulean. There was a ferris wheel in the distance, and the canopy top of a carousel off to the side.

There were lines of stalls stretching in both directions beyond the entrance to the fair, some with ring toss games and others with milk bottles to be knocked over. Other stalls were selling all kinds of junk food, from cotton candy to candy apples.

Everything looked and sounded and smelled real. You could practically taste the funnel cake on your tongue, and feel the powered sugar-covered fried dough melting in your mouth. You could clearly see the faces of all the people milling around the fair, kids breaking off with hands clasped tight around their tickets as they went running down the various rows of stalls.

And the closer you looked, the more realized everything was dated. The clothes, the rides, the toy prizes. Everything looked like it was from the early 90s, when Slasher was made. Even your own clothes and the tennis shoes on your feet looked like they were out of the 90s.

It was bizarre, and yet, it didn’t feel like a dream. But it had to be a dream. Right?

Spinning around in a circle, you decided that had to be the case. It was the only thing that made sense. It’s not like you could’ve been transported into the world of your favorite horror movie. Stuff like that didn’t happen; it broke all rules of physics and other science stuff you didn’t understand.

Deciding to just roll with it and enjoy your dream, you shrugged off your confusion and headed into the Bakersfield Fun Fair. While you meandered down one of the lines of stalls, you wondered if you’d see any of the characters from the movie. You wondered if you’d see Bucky.

You almost tripped over the grass beneath your feet at the thought, your heart speeding up in your chest and beating excitedly against your rib cage as you considered the possibility of actually meeting your biggest horror movie crush.

But your mind didn’t stop there. Oh no. You were the girl who’d decided to lick an old, staticky TV because it was the closest you thought you’d ever get to licking Bucky’s bare chest.

Naturally, your mind took the thought of meeting him much further and you thought about fulfilling one of your most cherished fantasies. If you were in the world of Slasher, you wanted to fuck Bucky Barnes.

Before you’d ended up at the Bakersfield Fun Fair, in some ultra-realistic dream, the closest you could’ve gotten was finding a guy who looked like Bucky Barnes and try to convince him to wear the Slasher mask while chasing you through the woods.

But you’d found yourself in the world of your favorite horror movie—whether by way of your subconscious dreaming about it, or some breakdown of the space-time continuum—and you had the chance to fuck the actual Bucky Barnes. Giddy excitement flooded through you, and you began skipping down the line of carnival stalls, trying to remember what exactly happens in the final act of Slasher.

It probably should’ve worried you how unconcerned you were with the possibility that Bucky could kill you before you even got started trying to convince him to fuck you. But it was your dream, so what was the worst that could happen? If he killed you, you’d just wake up horny and dissatisfied, right? Then, you’d have to take care of yourself, which wasn’t any different to any other day of your life.

Nah, you were almost entirely certain you were in a dream, and because it was your dream, you wouldn’t have too much trouble getting Bucky to fuck you. You just had to find him…

As if right on cue, screams erupted from the opposite end of the fairground, and it sparked your memory. The action at the end of Slasher ramps up when Bucky storms the Bakersfield Fun Fair and the final girl, along with the remainder of her friends, try to set a trap for him.

Trying to hid your giddy grin, you raced through the fairground, heading in the direction of the screams. Since you’d remembered the beginning of the end of the movie, you couldn’t help but think about what else happens. Bucky carves through the final girl’s friends one by one in various, gruesome ways on the carnival rides at the fair. Then, the final girl eventually traps him by crushing his arm in the gears of the carousel.

Bucky doesn’t die, of course. He comes back in the sequel, Slasher II, and sports a metal arm that glimmers in the moonlight while he stalks the final girl around Bakersfield all over again. It’s not nearly as good as the first movie, but Bucky is still very hot, and you watched the sequel nearly as many times as the original when you were a teenager.

You were so distracted by thoughts of Bucky’s prosthetic arm, and what it would feel like to have his metal hand wrapped around your throat while he fucked you, that you didn’t realize you were suddenly alone in the fairground, and you’d made it to the Tunnel of Love ride.

It was then that you spotted the macabre scene of the final girl’s best friend—you couldn’t remember the character’s name, it was something boring like John—with his heart ripped out of his chest and held in his limp, dead hands. His lifeless eyes stared unseeingly ahead, looking almost like a movie prop, but so, so much more real.

This particular kill was one of Slasher’s most controversial, you remembered. Half the cult fandom argued it was too on the nose, since the movie heavily implied John was in love with the movie’s final girl and never found the courage to tell her. The other half of the fandom enjoyed the tragic romance of it.

Personally, you didn’t care much about the kills or the drama between the final girl and the other characters. You really only watched Slasher for Bucky, and only cared about the creativity of the murders when he looked particularly hot doing them.

Your mind whirled as you stared at John’s dead body, your brain focusing on the Slasher message boards you’d trawled well into your college years, rather than trying to make sense of the horrible sight in front of you. It really, really looked like real blood soaking his clothes—and you could even smell the coppery tang of it in the air.

Instinctively, you took a step back, the grass of the fairground soft beneath your feet. The sun had slipped fully behind the trees of the forest beyond the fairground, casting long, ominous shadows over the scene. Your heart beat harder in your chest, and you took another step back, as if putting room between you and the horrific sight in front of you would somehow make it easier to reconcile.

You took one more step backward and bumped into something solid, something that you knew deep in your bones shouldn’t be there.

The smell of blood was stronger suddenly, mixing with an earthy, spicy scent that didn’t make sense for the carnival fairground. Holding your breath, you slowly looked over your shoulder and were met with the sight of a black leather-clad chest.

Already, you knew it was him. But you dragged your eyes up and sucked in a gasp when you met the piercing blue gaze of Bucky Barnes.

His eyes were filled with a cold hatred that was so visceral, it made your stomach twist in a way that was not entirely unpleasant. Inexplicably, warmth bloomed low in your core, unfurling and reacting to the villain’s presence. Finally, you were face to face with your biggest horror movie crush, and you couldn’t help but take a moment to take all of him in.

Bucky Barnes was even bigger and more intimidating than he seemed on your TV screen, and he was more handsome too. His eyes were an electric blue, the color so bright, it seemed like it glowed from within. And his chin-length brown hair fell on either side of his face, highlighting the strong line of his brow and the intensity of his gaze.

The villain’s mouth and nose were covered by the hard plastic mask that matched the utilitarian leather jacket and combat pants he wore with thick, heavy boots. There were straps on the leather jacket that spanned his broad shoulders, and a utility belt around his trim waist where he secured the various knives and weapons he used throughout the movie.

Looking up at his face again, you realized Bucky was so much taller than you expected, standing behind you like a mountain of cold hatred, radiating danger and menace. Unfortunately for you, that only made the heat simmering in your belly burn hotter until you were squeezing your thighs together against the ache building there.

You knew your body’s reaction to the psychotic murderer was foolish, to say the least, but there was something about the dangerous man that made your heart beat harder, and made you want to spread your legs for him.

Glancing down to Bucky’s hand, you saw the big butcher’s knife dangling from his fingers. He hadn’t raised it yet, and when you looked back into his eyes, the villain seemed to be watching you closely, as if wondering how you were going to react to him.

The longer you went without screaming or running away from him, the more his brows lowered over his eyes. He began to look perplexed.

That was fine, you could work with perplexed.

Carefully, as if dealing with an animal you didn’t want to spook, you turned around and set your hands gently on Bucky’s massive chest, your fingertips toying idly with the leather straps on his jacket. Holding his gaze with your own, you slid your hands up to his shoulders and pushed yourself up onto you tiptoes so you could twine your arms around his neck, as if he were your boyfriend and you were welcoming him home.

“Hi,” you murmured, your voice coming out breathy as your heart beat wildly in your chest. You fluttered your lashes at Bucky, figuring that if you didn’t treat him like a threat, he wouldn’t be. And so far, it was working.

The horror villain didn’t seem inclined to respond to your shy greeting, so you pressed yourself close to him, enjoying the feel of his hard body against your soft one. Arching your spine, you pushed your tits up in your tank top, as if offering them to him.

You were gratified when Bucky’s gaze dropped to your lightly heaving chest, and felt his empty hand twitch against your bare thigh, like he wanted to touch you but was holding himself back. Not that you needed him to touch you to know he was enjoying the feel of you against him.

Bucky’s bulge was already digging into your lower stomach, and you suspected he’d already been hard before you’d pressed against him. But still, you were gratified when, every time you shifted against him, he twitched in his pants, his cock eagerly responding to you.

The interest of Bucky’s cock had a smile spreading across your face, making you look like the cat who got the cream as you tipped your head back and grinned shamelessly up at the horror movie villain.

“Is that a knife in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?” you purred, rocking your body against Bucky’s bulge and pressing your chest more tightly to his leather jacket. You were practically rubbing on him like a cat in heat, but you couldn’t stop yourself. It felt too good to feel his solid, sturdy form against you.

As you shifted closer, you could feel the tackiness of blood on your arms and chest, and when you glanced down, you saw that some had stuck to you from Bucky’s jacket. It was odd to see the blood on your skin, but it felt like another reminder of what you were doing—and, especially, who you were doing it with.

Fire was blazing through your veins as you cast your hooded eyes on Bucky’s face, your mouth going soft as you met his piercing gaze. There was a cold flame in the depths of his blue eyes, one you’d never seen in all the times you’d watched Slasher, and it filled you with pride to realize Bucky liked having you pressed against him.

In response to your question, which you’d almost forgotten in the seconds after it passed your lips, Bucky huffed a laugh behind his mask. Then his hands were on your ass, and he was grabbing your soft flesh with an unyielding grip. He hiked you up higher against his chest, using his inhuman strength, and your legs fell open instinctively, so his thick bulge dug into the juncture of your thighs.

A wanton moan fell from your lips, your head falling back as you rocked your hips in tiny circles, grinding on Bucky’s hard cock through your clothes. You could feel the flat steel of his knife pressed to the back of your thigh, and your core pulsed at the weapon’s proximity to your most sensitive place, but you didn’t have any worry he was going to use it on you—not when he was staring at you with such a greedy look in his eyes.

Bucky growled out, “Dumb slut,” as his fingers dug into your ass through your jean shorts, but you were too distracted by humping against the mountain of a man, pleasure swirling through your body and filling your head with cotton candy nothing.

All that mattered was grinding against Bucky’s bulge, and the fact that you were finally—finally—getting to live out your darkest fantasies of fucking the horror movie villain.

“Y’know, I always wondered if killing made your cock hard,” you murmured breathlessly, catching Bucky’s eye and giving him a cheeky grin. “Guess I have my answer now.” You dragged the seam of your shorts up the thick length of Bucky’s cock, drawing a growl from him, your smile spreading wider. “Unless you just have a soft spot for dumb sluts like me,” you said, giggling at your own joke and batting your lashes at him.

Bucky shook his head at you, but not like he was disagreeing with you—more like he was already exasperated with your antics.

“I thought I already killed this town’s biggest slut,” Bucky ground out, and though you couldn’t see his mouth or jaw, you somehow knew he was grinding his teeth. His fingers dug harder into your ass, his grip nearly punishing as you squirmed against him.

You found an angle that had your clit rubbing against the tip of Bucky’s cock through your clothes and you let your head fall back, a filthy moan spilling from your lips. The obscene sound rose toward the darkening sky above the fairgrounds, loud against the silence that had fallen over the deserted carnival.

When you managed to get control of your tongue again, and pick up the thread of your conversation, you shot Bucky another grin.

“I’m not from Bakersfield,” you purred, pulling yourself closer to Bucky’s face, until your lips were nearly brushing against the hard plastic of his mask. You could feel his breath, hot and heavy, gusting through the slots on the front, making you shiver. Your expression settled into one of fake seriousness as you stared him in the eye. “And you have no idea how much of a slut I can be.”

A growl rumbled in Bucky’s chest, and his blue eyes narrowed on you, like a predator deciding on its prey.

“Is that a challenge or an invitation, little cottontail?”

He slapped your ass with the flat of his knife, an obvious instruction to keep humping against him.

As you followed the order, you choked out a one word answer, “Both!” Then bit your lip against a moan, hiding your delight at the nickname—and your surprise that Bucky would call you anything so sweet.

But you didn’t seem to be grinding against him hard enough, because he dragged the sharp edge of his knife over the backs of your thighs, just beneath the curve of your ass. He didn’t press hard enough to break skin, but you could feel the threat in the gesture.

You lost the battle against trembling in the big, horror movie villain’s arms, and whimpered, rocking against him harder as a single tear leaked down your cheek. Pleasure was pulsing through your body, hard and fast, the same rhythm in which your heart beat in your chest.

Bucky rumbled a sound of pleasure, his blue eyes going molten as he watched the tear track down your face. He seemed to have forgotten your conversation entirely, more focused on your smaller body humping against his larger one.

You had long since soaked through your panties, and you could feel your arousal leaking through your shorts, coating your inner thighs in your wetness. But dry humping with Bucky wasn’t what you had in mind when you’d fantasized about the horror movie villain through most of your adult years. You needed more, and you had just the idea—a fantasy you’d long wanted to fulfill. With Bucky Barnes especially.

“I know you’re sort of busy, killing and all that,” you huffed, your body straining to keep rocking against his thick length with the speed he desired. “But I was wondering if you might want to take a break and play a game with me?” Your voice was hopelessly breathless and breathlessly hopeful, the pleading in your tone blatant as your words pitched higher with your question.

Bucky’s brows lowered in confusion. “What kind of game?” came his rumbling, distorted voice from behind his mask.

With a flash of a smirk, you shifted one hand to his shoulder, where you remembered the bullet wound would be beneath his jacket. You could feel the slight raise of the bandages beneath the leather, and you dug your thumb into the spot. You were rewarded by a vicious growl and Bucky’s hands falling away from your ass, the cold steel of his knife disappearing from your skin.

Hopping down, you danced a few feet away from the now-enraged psychopathic killer, making sure you were beyond the reach of his long arms, including the length of his knife before you stopped. Something in your core tightened with excitement when Bucky’s cold, blue eyes focused entirely on you. Even the sight of him shaking out his arm seemed somehow threatening.

You could see the dark stain of deep red blood in the black leather of his jacket, and couldn’t help but grin. You’d unleashed the darkest side of him, and you couldn’t be more giddy.

You knew Bucky had been holding back on you while you’d been in his arms. But you didn’t want to fuck a horror movie villain because you wanted some harmless dry humping. You wanted him to wreck you. You wanted him to hunt you down and make you his.

“The game is this,” you began, skipping back a few steps when Bucky lunged for you—though you noticed he reached for you with his free hand, rather than his knife, which you took as a good sign and grinned wider. “If you catch me, you can fuck me.” You held his gaze, your smile turning a little feral as you watched the seething villain. “As hard and as rough as you want.”

Your final words made Bucky pause, like a predator going still right before launching itself at its prey. His electric blue eyes shone brighter, reflecting the neon lights of the carnival as they fall across his handsome face.

You could feel the energy in him shift, and even though you couldn’t see his mouth, you somehow knew he was grinning. You suspected it was even more feral than your own smile.

“You really are the dumbest fucking slut, little cottontail,” Bucky growled, equal parts humor and menace in his tone, sending a delicious shiver skating down your spine. He took a step forward, his eyes sharp as they watched you skip backward, staying out of reach of his hand and his knife. “You better not let me catch you, baby, because if I do, I’m going to make you scream bloody murder as I split you open with my cock.”

The grin on your face was so wide it was beginning to make your cheeks hurt, but you couldn’t wipe it away even if you’d tried. Your entire body was buzzing with anticipation, adrenaline already pumping through your veins as you prepared to run. But you couldn’t help yourself, you had to taunt Bucky just a little more. If you were only going to get one chance to fuck your horror movie villain crush, you were going to make it count.

“Bet you say that to all the girls—bet none of them can scream like me,” you sassed, bouncing on the balls of your feet and scampering back a few more steps when Bucky took another menacing step forward, his big, heavy boot crunching the grass beneath him.

You laughed at his scowling face, the sound loud and wild in the quiet that had fallen over the fairgrounds. Even the music of the carousel had gone silent. But you couldn’t hold your tongue. You loved the look of danger on Bucky’s face too much.

“You gotta catch me first, Mr. Slasher, then we’ll see if you can make me scream.”

With that parting challenge, you gave Bucky one last cheeky, impertinent smile, and the you turned and took off.

Sprinting off into the Bakersfield Fun Fair, you didn’t dare look behind you, knowing instinctively that Bucky would be close on your heels. Your mind raced as you tried to form some kind of plan, since you hadn’t thought this far ahead.

Of course, you had every intention of letting Bucky catch you, but you didn’t want to make it too easy for him. Besides, you’d always wanted to be chased by the hot horror movie villain, then overpowered and taken by the brutal man, so you wanted to make sure you enjoyed yourself as well.

As you turned a corner and began running down a row of carnival rides and games on the edge of the fairground, you spotted the funhouse in front of you. Grinning wildly, you pushed to run a little harder and launched yourself up the metal stairs leading into the funhouse.

There was a spinning barrel right away, and you clambered through it, the silence inside the funhouse swallowing you up as you plunged into the depths of the structure. Hauling yourself up a flight of stairs, you stumbled to a stop when you found that the interior of the funhouse was a maze of mirrors.

Your heart was practically beating out of your chest as you began moving through the maze, your hands outstretched to feel your way between the mirrors. Too soon, you heard Bucky’s heavy footsteps on the metal stairs leading up to the level with the maze and you tried to scurry faster, but you kept bumping into mirrors thinking they were a clear path forward.

A deep, dark chuckle echoed through the stuffy room in the funhouse, the sound distorted through Bucky’s mask, making him truly sound like a horror movie villain.

The sound of his laugh sent a shiver racing down your spine, your heart rate picking up as you heard his heavy boots begin walking through the maze. It seemed like he was moving much faster than you and you tried to pick up your pace.

“When I get my hands on you, little cottontail,” Bucky began, his menacing voice filtering to you easily, sounding like he was right behind you. “You’re going to regret being such a dumb slut—I’m going to destroy your tight holes with my cock and ruin you until you’re all mine.”

“Don’t threaten me with a good time!” you called over your shoulder, just before barreling into another mirror with a defeated, “oof,” as you tried to escape the maze.

Huffing in frustration, you turned and went down another path, your panicked breaths so loud in your ears, you couldn’t hear Bucky’s footsteps anymore. You bit your lip, trying to stay quiet, but your lungs protested, your pounding heart making you feel the blood pumping through your veins with every step you took.

“If you’re a good slut, maybe I won’t kill you,” Bucky rumbled, his voice definitely closer than it should be, and you whipped around, looking for the source. But he was no where in sight. “Maybe I’ll keep you—chain you up in my basement, and use your body like the fuck hole you were meant to be.”

You tried to ignore the way your pussy quivered at Bucky’s threat, your body wanting him to do exactly that. But you pushed on, though you were having a harder and harder time remembering why you didn’t want him to catch you. Your panties were soaked and your hole was aching to be filled. And Bucky seemed more than willing to fuck you until you were nothing more than the dumb slut he accused you of being.

Rounding a corner, you gasped loudly as the massive form of Bucky Barnes loomed in front of you, his blue eyes immediately finding yours and making you feel like prey trapped by a much larger predator.

Spinning on the ball of your foot, you turned and tried to escape in the other direction, only to run head first into Bucky’s chest. His arms closed around you, and you belatedly realized the Bucky you’d seen had been a reflection in one of the mirrors. He wasted no time, squeezing you so tight to his body that you cried out, his strength forcing the air from your lungs. You were caught.

“I win, little cottontail,” Bucky sneered, crushing you harder to his chest while you struggled to breathe, your ribs feeling like they were on the verge of snapping.

Then, suddenly, he let you go and you slumped to your knees, your legs giving out as you fell to the metal floor of the funhouse. Your head was spinning from the lack of air and you focused on pulling as much oxygen into your lungs as possible, the adrenaline in your body making you feel your heartbeat in your temples.

While you were distracted, Bucky quickly worked his pants open and before you knew what was happening, his thick, heavy cock fell on your face with a lewd slapping sound. You flinched. But then Bucky’s musky scent filled your nose, and you relaxed. Warmth spread through your body as your mind went fuzzy for an entirely different reason than lack of oxygen.

Your mouth fell open instinctively, your head tipping back to press your lips to his girth, and you felt more wetness dripping from your slit between your thighs.

Bucky chuckled at your obvious submission, but still used the flat tip of his knife to tip your face back further, until it was practically horizontal. He worked his hips languidly, sliding his cock over your face, precum dripping onto your skin and making a mess of your cheeks and forehead.

“Open your mouth wider, dumb slut,” Bucky growled, his eyes glittering in the dim funhouse as he stared down at you.

When you did as he ordered, sticking your tongue out for good measure, the tip playing with his balls, the horror villain made a pleased sound deep in his chest. You had the distinct impression he was smiling again, and you almost dared to ask him to take off the mask, but decided against it. Part of the fun of fucking Bucky Barnes was him keeping the mask on.

“Good girl,” Bucky purred, petting your head with his free hand. He dragged his hips back and pushed the leaking head of his dick into your mouth. “Now, suck.”

The metal flooring of the funhouse dug painfully into your knees, but you pushed the pain from your mind as you focused entirely on Bucky’s cock. Wrapping your lips around the head, you sucked gently, the taste of his precum bursting on your tongue. Your chest warmed with pride when he groaned in pleasure.

You’d intended to take your time—wanting to savor Bucky’s cock and learn every inch of the thick, veiny length before making him come in your mouth. But it seemed your horror movie crush didn’t have the patience for that. You supposed you shouldn’t be surprised. You did make him chase you.

“Is that all ya got, little cottontail?” Bucky growled, using the hand on your head to push you down roughly on his cock, making you gag, your hands flailing against his hard thighs. “I thought you were some kind of slut—thought you’d be throating my cock the second you got your lips around it.”

Tears poured down your cheeks as he pushed deeper with a grunt, your fingers curling into fists against his thighs as you tried to open for him. Bucky’s cock forcing its way into your throat stung a little, and you worked to relax your muscles, but they kept squeezing tight, preventing his hard length from sliding all the way in.

Finally, Bucky pulled his cock free from your mouth and you gasped for breath, a hand massaging your throat, the inside feeling raw already. But Bucky didn’t seem to care.

He bent down over you, grabbing your face in his free hand and using the sharp end of his knife to wipe the tears from your face.

“I thought you wanted this, baby,” he rumbled, his tone mocking and patronizing, a laugh in his distorted voice that made you think he was grinning and enjoying your struggle more than he was trying to let on. “You said I could fuck you as hard and rough as I want.” He paused to tsk at you. “You can’t even take my cock without gagging—some slut you are.”

Embarrassment and no small amount of humiliation flooded through you, making you pout. OK so maybe you were more of a slut in theory than in practice, but you did want this. And you’d been trying. Couldn’t he see that?

Crossing your arms over your chest, you glared up at Bucky, your lips still pursed in a pout.

“Your cock is too big,” you huffed, a hint of a whine in your voice. “Let me try again.”

Bucky laughed, the sound cold and mean, though that only made your pussy drip even more for him. He patted your cheek patronizingly with his knife before fixing you with a hard look.

“You either take my whole cock in your dumb slut mouth, little cottontail,” he growled, a threat in his tone. “Or I’ll make you take it, ya hear me?”

The menace in his deep voice sent a shiver racing down your spine, settling heavily between your thighs until you had to squeeze them together against the ache in your core. You nodded your understanding. “Yes, sir,” you murmured.

“Good girl,” came Bucky’s rumbling, terrifying voice. Then he stood up and shoved his cock into your mouth again, so suddenly that all you could do was make a muffled, surprised noise and take it.

You bobbed on the hard, thick length of Bucky’s cock, stretching your lips until the edges stung, forcing his girth deep into your mouth. You gagged when the tip pressed against the back of your throat, but you tried to ignore your body’s response and work past it. No matter how hard you tried, though, you couldn’t get his dick all the way inside your mouth.

After a few minutes of letting you try and watching you fail, Bucky let out an impatient growl before muttering, “Looks like you need me to make you take my cock, baby.” Both his hands grabbed your head and he tilted it back, so your gaze met his. “Just remember, if you’d been a better slut, you wouldn’t have made me do this.”

Your eyes widened, tears leaking out the corners as he moved you into the new position he wanted, with your back to one of the mirrors, your head trapped between the hard surface and his cock. Your fingers fisted in the fabric of his pants near his knees, but you didn’t protest, just stared up at your horror movie villain, anticipation zipping through your body.

“Don’t worry, little cottontail,” Bucky rumbled, and you could tell he was smiling again, the corners of his eyes crinkling in a telltale way. “This won’t hurt nearly as much as if I’d slit your throat—but it’ll probably last longer than it would’ve taken you to bleed out.”

At that ominous comment, your pussy clenched, even more wetness dripping from your pussy and soaking your shorts. You clenched your thighs together, but that was the only part of your body you could move other than your arms. You were helpless to Bucky’s brutality, and you loved it. If his cock wasn’t already buried in your mouth, you would’ve urged him on.

Wasting no more time, Bucky shoved his dick deep into your mouth, pushing past the squeezing muscles in your throat, groaning when you choked and gagged on his thick cock. Your jaw ached and your throat felt raw, but you accepted it, you welcomed it. Bucky’s roughness was only making your pussy wetter, and you couldn’t wait until you could feel him sinking into your tight, wet hole.

Still, you couldn’t quite control your body’s reaction to the intrusion in your throat. Your throat spasmed and you let out a strangled little sound of desperation as it got harder to breathe. You arms flailed and your body tried to escape, only to bang against the mirror behind you. The fact that you were trapped, really trapped, made more tears leak from your eyes.

“That’s it, baby, cry for me while you’re choking on my cock,” Bucky rumbled, holding your head in his hands as he stared down at you, kneeling for him, your throat bulging with his cock. His eyes sparkled like he enjoyed the sight far too much. “Your dumb slut tears are making me harder.”

You felt his cock throb in your throat as proof, but then he was pulling back, only for his hips to snap forward, burying his hard length in your throat all over again. More tears poured down your face, your throat closing on a sob that wrenched a deep, pleasured groan from Bucky.

“Fuck, that’s it—take it, slut, you might be crying, but you fucking love it, don’t you, little cottontail?” Bucky rumbled, breathless laughter in his tone. “You love letting me use your mouth like my own personal fuck toy, bet your pussy’s dripping onto the floor, making a mess of your thighs like ‘m gonna make a mess of your face, huh?”

You couldn’t help it, you moaned around Bucky’s cock, his words stoking the blazing fire of your arousal. It didn’t help matters that he was right—your thighs, your shorts and your panties were a mess, all soaked with your desire.

Bucky grunted when he felt you moan around his hardness, his hips snapping against your face harder as he pounded into your mouth. His hands held your head in a punishing grip, his cock ramming deep into your throat while the back of your skull was pressed against the mirror behind you.

A whine worked its way up your throat as you squirmed, your pussy pulsing with the need to be filled, to be rubbed, to get some kind of attention. One of your hands fell between your thighs and you rocked against it, your clit rubbing against the seam of your shorts until you were moaning and sobbing around Bucky’s cock.

Suddenly he stopped. “What’re you doin’ down there, little cottontail?” he rasped, ducking his head to the side so he could see around his cock and your face. When he caught you with your hand between your thighs, he laughed, his glittering blue eyes finding yours. “Oh, I see—the dumb little slut’s dripping hole needs some attention, huh?”

Bucky shifted, using his booted foot to kick your thighs apart on the metal floor of the funhouse. Then he shoved his boot between your legs, and jerked his head like he expected you to sit on it.

“You need something to hump against, don’t you, baby?” he asked, his tone mocking. “Well, go ‘head. Ride my fucking boot, little cottontail.” His voice was dark and deep, the sound of it making you shiver. But you couldn’t pretend you didn’t want to follow his order, so you lowered yourself down onto his boot.

The moment your aching core dragged over the laces of Bucky’s boot, you let out a low, filthy moan, the sound muffled by his cock in your mouth. It was exactly the kind of friction you wanted, your clit and messy slit rubbing against the seam of your shorts and the roughness of his laces. Pleasure bloomed, hot and heady, and swirled through your body, overwhelming your mind.

Above you, Bucky groaned, shoving deeper into your throat until your nose was pressed into the thick thatch of hair at the base of his cock and his balls were nestled up against your chin. Spit and precum and tears were leaking down your face, making a mess of your jaw and chin, dripping down to your tits while Bucky watched you with hooded eyes.

“Do that again, baby,” Bucky grunted, holding your head down on his hardness. “Moan like a dumb fucking slut on my cock while I ruin your throat.”

It took little effort to moan again as pleasure and pain swirled through your body, your hips working on Bucky’s boot, grinding your slick cunt against the stiff leather through your panties and shorts. Your clit rubbed over the laces, your mind filling with clouds of bliss as you sank into the feeling of your pussy grinding against Bucky’s boot and his cock fucking your throat.

Bucky was grunting and groaning loudly, his sounds of pleasure a reward for how good your slutty mouth was making him feel. He pounded into your face, his balls slapping against your chin, seeking his release while you humped against his boot, intent on finding your own pleasure while he used you.

You were both lost entirely in each other, too focused on seeking pleasure to notice someone else had entered the funhouse. Bucky’s eyes were only for you, and you were staring up too intently into his face, watching pleasure make his eyes go hazy to pay attention to your surroundings—which was the only reason one of the final girl’s friends was able to sneak up on the two of you.

“Get away from her, you monster!” The girl’s shriek was followed closely by the splintering sound of a wooden bat as she swung it at Bucky, and the thing shattering apart against his back. Her face, twisted in fury and determination, quickly shifted to surprise and panic.

For his part, Bucky merely grunted, barely lurching forward as he shoved his cock impossibly deeper in your throat while he bore the attack. But then he was moving quicker than your pleasure-drunk eyes could fully process, your body only aware that he was pulling back until only the tip of him remained on your tongue. Growling furiously, Bucky turned and used his knife to slash the girl’s throat.

You vaguely recognized the girl as one of the characters in Slasher who gets killed at the carnival in the third act, though you couldn’t remember which ride Bucky kills her on. Maybe it was the funhouse—that would explain how she found the two of you.

In that moment, you didn’t much care. You’d been busy with Bucky and you were more than a little annoyed at the interruption. Your body was buzzing with your unslaked need, and you felt horny and frustrated as you turned your attention back to the horror villain above you.

But Bucky’s focus was entirely on the other girl, who was grabbing her throat uselessly, trying to stem the gush of blood as she stumbled into a mirror, leaving a bloody handprint behind. Bucky’s eyes were gleaming as he savored the sight of the dying girl, the corners of his eyes crinkling like he was grinning.

His cock was still in your mouth, but just barely, and the longer he watched the other girl die, the more a pout grew on your lips.

After a few long moments of the girl’s death dragging on, you’d had enough. This was your fantasy come to life, and if Bucky wasn’t going to pay attention to you and get you off, then you were going to make him.

Carefully, you extracted yourself from between Bucky and the mirror you’d been pressed against, your pout only growing when his stiff cock slipped from your lips and he didn’t even notice. Quickly, you crawled around the corner and once you were out of sight, you hopped up to your feet so you could move faster.

Your legs felt weak from your earlier running and kneeling on the hard, metal floor—not to mention how close you’d been to coming on Bucky’s boot. But you urged them to work as you moved as quietly as you could through the rest of the maze.

You were already almost to the exit when Bucky finally noticed you’d escaped. His angry roar of, “COTTONTAIL!” echoed off the mirrors and metal walls inside the funhouse. But his rage only made you snicker. It was his own fault, after all.

“You shoulda tied me down or paid more attention to me if you didn’t want me getting away, Mr. Slasher,” you called over your shoulder, taunting him as you darted around the final corner in the mirror maze, finding your way out. You clambered through the rest of the funhouse, Bucky’s stomping footsteps reverberating around you and making your heart beat faster with fear and excitement.

You slid down the slide that worked as the exit from the funhouse and as soon as your feet hit the grass of the fairground, you sprinted off again. Wracking your brain, you tried to think about where else Bucky kills the final girl’s friends in the final act of Slasher. All you could remember was the ending, with the carousel.

You turned a corner, running in the opposite direction of the carousel and that area of the carnival, not wanting the final girl or anymore of her friends interrupting you once Bucky caught you again.

Sooner than you expected, a leather-clad chest slammed into your back and, within the next breath, you hit the grassy ground as Bucky tackled you. One of his hands wrapped around the front of your throat, his fingers digging into the sides of your neck while he pressed his face into the side of yours.

Even through his hard plastic mask, you could feel his breath on your skin, his hot, heavy breaths gusting past your cheek as he panted like a rabid dog.

“I win again, baby,” Bucky growled, his voice even more threatening thanks to the fury in it. He clearly didn’t appreciate that you’d made him chase you again, and the coldness in his tone promised that while you might find pleasure in what he was about to do to you, you were also going to feel no small amount of pain.

“And you can be sure I won’t make the same mistake twice,” he went on, resting more of his weight on your back until you were pinned to the ground beneath him, your body struggling to catch your breath as he crushed your lungs. “Now that I have you, you’re never getting away from me again—you’re mine, little cottontail.”

Your heart panged in your chest, and it took you a second to realize the feeling was yearning. Because that was the heart of it, wasn’t it? You wanted someone to see you at your brattiest, with your darkest desires all laid out—and even seeing your soul bared for them, you wanted them to want to keep you. Part of you wanted to roll over and open your legs for Bucky, tell him you were his forever. But that wasn’t really in your nature.

Instead, you huffed a belated laugh, squirming beneath Bucky and fighting against his considerable strength even though you knew it was no good. You weren’t going anywhere, and you loved it.

“I’ll believe it when I see it, Mr. Slasher,” you taunted, bucking your hips hard. You felt Bucky’s big body jostle just a little and, sensing a glimmer of freedom, you fought harder.

Then cold steel replaced Bucky’s hand at your throat and you went still. Despite the fact that he’d used the knife mere moments ago to kill someone else, you were almost certain he wasn’t going to do the same to you. Well, pretty certain.

Besides, you were still convinced you were in a dream and dying would only wake you up. But with Bucky’s knife pressed to your neck, you didn’t exactly want to test your theory.

The horror movie villain chuckled, his chest rumbling against your spine and his breath ghosting over your cheek.

“That’s the first smart thing you’ve done all night, little cottontail,” he murmured, his voice so dark and deep, it made you shiver.

He dug the steel of his knife into your throat, using his other hand to guide you up onto your hands and knees. Bucky’s big body was curled over yours, his hand reaching beneath you to grope your tits while he groaned against the side of your face.

“Such soft tits, baby,” he grunted as his fingers kneaded your flesh through your tank top. Then his hand was diving under the fabric to pinch your nipples, making you cry out and arch your back. “Yeah, that’s it, ya dumb slut, let me hear how much you like having a monster like me playing with your tits.”

You whimpered when he pinched your nipple hard and shook your breast, the sting of pain and pleasure consuming your mind and making you grind back against his thick cock, which he’d tucked back into his pants. An impatient whine tumbled from your lips and it was on the tip of your tongue to beg Bucky to fuck you, but it seemed he was just as eager to get on with it.

Skimming his hand down your body, Bucky found the button of your shorts and quickly undid them. He sat up on his knees, dragging you with him and keeping his knife at your throat.

He shoved your shorts and panties down roughly past your ass to your thighs, then dipped his hand between your legs. A loud groan rumbled in his chest when he realized how wet you were.

“Fuck, you really are a slut, aren’t you, baby?” he taunted in a mocking tone, and you could almost hear the smile in his voice. His fingers slipped between your drenched folds and all you could do to answer him was moan as he teased your pussy. “I’m gonna fill up this slick cunt, little cottontail,” he rumbled in your ear, a promise ringing in his words. “I’m gonna destroy your tight hole until you’re nothing more than my dumb, cock-drunk slut.”

Between Bucky’s fingers playing with your pussy and his words wreaking havoc on your pleasure-soaked mind, you were desperate for him to follow through on his promise.

Suddenly, you’d had enough of the game you’d been playing with Bucky and you wanted him to finally—finally—fuck you.

“Please, Bucky, please, please, fuck me,” you sobbed, tears leaking from your eyes and down your cheeks as you rocked your ass against his hard cock. “Please, god, I need it—I need you.”

For a moment, Bucky was silent and unmoving. Then he was shoving you forward into the grass so you were back on your hands and knees. His knife just barely grazed the side of your neck as you fell forward, and you whimpered at the light sting of it.

The next thing you knew, Bucky’s cock was slapping against your bare ass, and he was lining himself up with your soaked, fluttering pussy. Your fingers dug into the grass, preparing yourself to hold on for dear life.

“Remember, little cottontail, you said I could fuck you as hard and rough as I want,” Bucky rumbled, sliding his cock between your legs, coating his thick length in your desire. “If it’s too much for you, you can scream all you want, but I’m not stopping until I’ve filled your cunt with all the come in my balls.”

You could hear the laughter in Bucky’s voice, but didn’t have time to respond to his words because in the next second, he shoved himself all the way inside you with one thrust.

Bucky’s thick, hard cock slammed deep into your tight pussy, and a scream wrenched free from your lips, making your already raw throat hurt even more. But it was the delicious kind of pain that mixed perfectly with the feeling of Bucky filling you up for the first time.

His girth was bigger than anyone or any toy you’d taken before, and it felt like you were being split apart, your insides rearranging to make room for his huge cock. It was only because you were so wet that it didn’t really hurt, but the sting of the stretch was enough to send your mind reeling, your thoughts scattering until the only thing that mattered was Bucky’s cock inside you and his body behind you.

Bucky made a noise that was half groan, half growl—sounding entirely feral behind his mask as his hands dug into your hips. You could feel him still holding his knife, but the steel wasn’t pressed against your skin so you didn’t give it much thought.

“God, that’s a tight fucking cunt ya got here, cottontail,” he rasped, pulling back and slamming forward so hard, your arms shook and you nearly collapsed face first into the grass. “Feel like you were fucking made for me, baby—made to be my fuck hole, made to take my cock.”

True to his word, the horror movie villain rutted into you hard, paying no mind to your pleasure, just taking his own. But that was exactly how you liked it, and you couldn’t help the litany of desperate moans and whimpers that tumbled past your lips.

Before long, your arms gave out and your cheek pressed to the grass, which was cool against your face. The position made your back arch and your ass stick up in the air. Bucky made a pleased sound, slapping your ass in a gesture that almost felt like praise.

“Yeah, take it like a slut, baby,” he growled, pounding into you harder—hard enough you could feel your ass and hips and thighs ripple with the force of his thrusts. “This is how dumb sluts are meant to be fucked.”

You whined at the searing pleasure of Bucky’s cock hammering into your cunt, and you arched your back further, giving him easier access to drive even deeper into you from behind. Your reward was another hard slap on your ass—that time with the cold flat steel of Bucky’s knife. You squealed, then moaned as the sharp sting devolved into even more pleasure.

Bucky laughed, the sound wild and dark. Then he curled his body over yours, dropping the knife in the grass so he could grab wrap one of his hands around your throat while the other groped your tits.

“You’re mine, little cottontail,” he growled in your ear. “I own your body now, and you’re going to be my personal fuck toy for the rest of your life.” He rutted into you, hard and rough, his hips slapping against your ass mixing with the sounds of your wet pussy being fucked. “I’m gonna chain you up in my basement, and you’re gonna be my basement slut—my little cottontail—forever.”

It was impossible to nod, and impossible to speak, with how tightly Bucky had you pinned beneath him while he fucked you. So you wrapped a hand around his wrist, not pulling him away, but squeezing hard enough that you could feel his pulse thrumming beneath your thumb. You clung to him, telling him wordlessly that you were submitting to him, tears gathering in your lashes as pleasure overwhelmed you.

“Fuck,” Bucky grunted, pounding you hard and fast, the hard plastic of his mask digging into the side of your face. “Cry for me, cottontail, you know it makes me harder.”

His fingers dug into the sides of your throat while his other hand tortured your nipples, tugging and pinching them, until your tears began leaking from your eyes. Bucky ducked forward, nuzzling your tear-stained cheek through his mask, groaning as he hit a spot inside of you that made your whole body clench and your mouth drop open in a soundless scream.

“I can feel your cunt choking my cock, baby,” Bucky rumbled in your ear. “You really love everything I’m doing to you, don’t you, dumb slut?” His hips pressed against your ass and he started grinding his cock deep in your core, the tip brushing against that spot inside you that made you see stars.

“Yes, yes, Bucky, yes,” you sobbed, your words breathless and soft and only able to escape because he’d loosened his hold on your throat slightly. But then he tightened his fingers again and you made a desperate little gasping sound.

Bucky laughed, the sound evil and mocking, and your cunt pulsed again. He refocused on fucking you, pounding into you and chasing his own pleasure. You tried to scream, the pleasure nearly mind-blowing, but his hand on your throat made sure you could only make the barest of noises.

“You’re gonna come on my cock, little cottontail,” Bucky rumbled, his hard plastic mask chafing against your sensitive cheek. “You’re gonna come and show me that you’re mine, that you accept your new life—and me as your master.”

Your fingers squeezed his wrist again in understanding, and then you couldn’t think anymore. Bucky’s cock was pounding into your pussy hard enough to almost hurt, pleasure pulsing through your body as he plucked and played with your tits. Your head was going fuzzy from a lack of air, but that just made everything else feel better and more.

When Bucky’s hand abandoned your tits to slip between your thighs, it only took a few strokes of his fingers against your clit to set you off. At the same moment, Bucky’s hand loosened around your throat, and oxygen flooded your lungs as you came on his cock.

It was almost an out-of-body experience, coming on the thick length of your horror movie villain crush, your mind going entirely blank as your body tried to process all the pleasure and sensation flooding through it. A loud, piercing scream sounded in your ears and it took a second to realize it was spilling from your own lips.

Bucky’s hand tightened around your throat again, tighter than before, cutting off the sound of your pleasure while he grunted and groaned above you. He was rutting into you as your walls squeezed his cock, taking his pleasure as he prolonged yours.

Blackness was starting to creep into the edges of your vision when he finally roared loudly, his cock throbbing inside you as he spilled his come deep in your pussy. His fingers dug into the sides of your throat harder, choking you through his orgasm as your body fluttered with the last waves of your release.

The last thing you heard was Bucky muttering, “Good girl, take my come, little cottontail,” as he pumped you full of his thick, sticky seed. Then, there was nothing but comforting darkness, and you sank into it, feeling satisfied and happy as you passed out in the arms of your horror movie villain…

Now, the choice is yours, dear reader. Do you want to stay with Bucky Barnes and live in the world of Slasher? If so, read on for the dark ending! Or do you want to wake up and meet someone a little less psychotic? If so, skip down to the fluffy ending!

Slasher - Dark Ending

dark ending additional warnings: dubcon, somnophilia, slightly painful sex, basement wife-ing, references to Bucky's arm amputation, Bucky is even more psychotic

You were woken by your body jostling against concrete, an aching mix of pleasure and pain radiating between your thighs. The slick sounds of fucking met your ears and, belatedly, you realized you were impaled on a cock, the thickness of it stretching your tight hole to its limit.

Your inner thighs felt chafed and your back hurt from the position you were contorted in, your shoulders propped up against a cinderblock wall while you were folded in half at the waist, a heavy body pinning your legs to your chest while they fucked you. You were naked and a little cold, but the body against you was warm.

Blinking your eyes open, you were met with the sight of Bucky’s handsome face contorted with pleasure as he fucked you. There was a new glimmer in the depths of his blue eyes—something wild and feral and more than a little frightening. His mouth spread into a savage grin when he saw you were awake.

“There’s my little cottontail,” he rumbled before ducking down and kissing your cheek in a gesture that would’ve been sweet if not for his stubble roughing over your sensitive skin. You whimpered softly at the abrading feeling, your pussy pulsing despite your exhaustion.

When he pulled back, the sound of chains rattling above you finally caught your attention and you looked up, finding your wrists shackled above your head and bolted into the wall of the basement. Dim morning light was filtering in through windows set high in the walls, and you couldn’t make out much beyond the shadow of the stairs leading up to the first floor.

Before you could gather you wits enough to ask a question, or wade through your confusion to figure out what question you should even ask, Bucky slammed deep inside you, wringing a weak moan from you. It was only then that you realized he’d been taking it easy on you while you were asleep, but since you were awake, he started fucking you harder. Pleasure, pain and bewilderment warred with the tiredness of just waking up as you tried to think.

Your eyes slid closed while you tried to block out Bucky and your surroundings. You needed to figure out why you weren’t in your grandmother’s basement, having woken up from the dream you’d been sure you were having.

But Bucky didn’t like that. His weight settled more heavily on top of you, making your hips ache in protest, and grabbed your face roughly in his hand.

“Look at me, cottontail,” he rumbled, shaking your head until your eyes fluttered open again.

Tears leaked out of the corners of your eyes and your mouth worked, trying to find the words for how you felt. You’d wanted this—wanted someone like Bucky who saw who you really were and still wanted to keep you. But now that you were actually chained up in his basement, you wondered if maybe you’d jumped in the deep end without being able to swim.

“Don’t look so confused, baby,” Bucky growled in a patronizingly sweet tone, thumbing your tears from your cheeks and making you flinch as the salt of them irritated your skin. “I told you I was never letting you go—you knew this was going to happen.” He was grinding his cock deep into your well-used cunt, the pleasure almost painful. “Now that you’re chained up in my basement, you have no hope of ever escaping from me again.”

The head of his cock battered against your cervix and you cried out, your head thumping against the cinderblock wall behind you. The pain mixed with the pleasure of thick length rubbing against your sensitive inner walls until your mind was spinning.

You just couldn’t wrap your head around it. You really hadn’t known this was going to happen. You’d thought you were dreaming and were going to wake up after you’d fucked Bucky Barnes, but apparently that wasn’t the case. Apparently you’d really somehow been transported into the world of Slasher.

“Thank me for keeping you, little cottontail,” Bucky growled, wringing another pleasured whimper from you as he kept grinding his cock into you. “After all, it wasn’t easy getting you here after that bitch crushed my arm.” His voice was dripping venom and he rocked his hips harder, forcing tears from your eyes as his cock battered your cervix.

It was only then that you understood why so much of Bucky’s weight was resting on you while his hand held your face. Darting your eyes to Bucky’s shoulder, there was a thick, bloody bandage wrapped around the place where he must’ve amputated his arm after the final girl had crushed it in the carousel gears.

Your stomach rolled at the sight, empathy for Bucky surging through you. It really couldn’t have been easy getting you back to his house when he was injured like that.

But before you could follow the order he’d given you, Bucky yanked your face back to look at him. He ducked closer, so all you could see were his eyes, wild and psychotic, boring into your own.

“Thank your master for keeping you!” he growled harshly.

Your heart panged, and you rushed to do as he said. “Th-thank you for keeping me, Bucky,” you cried, tears streaming down your face, your voice filled with genuine gratitude. “Thank you, master!”

The anger leeched out of Bucky at your words and your tears, and you could feel his cock throbbing inside you.

“Good girl,” he purred, nuzzling your cheek in reward and kissing your jaw with his soft lips. “My good, dumb slut—you’re going to make such a good basement wife for me.”

A small, confused noise squeaked out of you and Bucky pulled back, a grin on his face. He nodded up toward your hands and you twisted them in your shackles, finding shiny, silver metal glinting off your left ring finger. You sucked in a gasp, feeling speechless as your mind failed to process another shocking revelation in so little time.

“Your dream is coming true, baby,” Bucky rumbled, licking the tears from your cheeks, taking your silence as understanding and submission. “You’re going to be my own personal fuck hole—my pretty little dumb slut—for the rest of your life.”

Bucky canted his hips, grinding his cock into the depths of your pussy while the base of him rubbed against your clit and the pleasure that had been winding tighter in your core suddenly snapped. You came with a loud, sobbing scream, your head thrown back against the wall of the basement as tears cascaded down your cheeks while you succumbed to the pleasure, your cunt greedily squeezing Bucky’s cock.

A small part of you wanted to black out again, hoping you’d wake up back in your grandmother’s basement, unsure if you had what it took to be the full-time fuck toy of your favorite horror movie villain. But somehow you knew that wouldn’t happen.

Whatever had transported you into the world of Slasher seemed to be a one-way ticket, and you’d made your choices. The fact that you were at the mercy of Bucky Barnes was no one’s fault but your own.

And yet, you couldn’t bring yourself to regret anything you’d done. After all, you’d gotten exactly what you wanted—you got to fuck Bucky Barnes. And if you had your way, you’d fuck Bucky Barnes every day until you died. Which was good, since that seemed to be exactly what he had planned for you.

Just then, Bucky grunted, his cock twitching inside you and he slammed deep, grabbing your face and pulling you in for a messy kiss while he came, coating your insides with his seed. His lips were hard and demanding, but you weren’t some wilting flower—you nipped his bottom lip hard enough to draw blood.

Bucky’s cock throbbed inside you as he chuckled, kissing you again, the taste of his blood bursting on your tongue as you devoured each other.

When he pulled away and collapsed on top of you, a satisfied smile curved your lips. You glanced up at the ring on your finger again, thinking it wouldn’t be so bad to be Bucky Barnes’ basement wife.

Slasher - Fluffy Ending

fluffy ending additional warnings: talk about past roleplay, some potentially risky decisions on reader's part, that's really it

You awoke with a start, the loud, chiming sound of the doorbell echoing through your grandmother’s house and dragging you back to reality from the depths of your dream. A faint soreness permeated your body, and you frowned, the memory of your dream clinging to the edges of your mind.

Groggily, you opened your eyes to find you were curled up on the familiar rug in the basement of your grandmother’s house, and you suspected the hard floor was likely the cause of your soreness. Still, you felt a faint tingling all over, the remnants of pleasure from your dream and you smiled as you stretched languidly, easing most of the aches in your limbs.

The doorbell chimed again, and you dragged yourself up, wiping drool from your cheek as you pulled your cardigan tighter around yourself and climbed the stairs up to the first floor. On your way to the door, you checked the time, finding it was nearly midnight, and wondered who was stopping by so late. All your relatives and all your grandmother’s friends would be asleep.

Flicking on the porch light, you opened the front door, but the left the screen door latched when you found a strange man standing there. The frigid autuman night air wrapped around you, and you crossed your arms over your chest to stave off a shiver.

“Hey Mrs—” The man had been standing with his back to you, facing the street, and swung around when he heard the door open. But he paused when he saw you, his greeting cutting off as if he’d been expecting someone else.

A distant corner of your brain pointed out that of course he was expecting someone else—you were answering the door at your grandmother’s house.

But you couldn’t pay attention to your mind’s logic because you were silently freaking out. The man looked almost exactly like Bucky Barnes.

He had the same sparkling blue eyes, though there wasn’t any of the cold hatred that haunted your favorite horror movie villain. And his mouth was curved into a charming smile, which you knew for certain you’d never see on the version of Bucky from Slasher. The man’s hair was also shorter, and the stubble on his jaw was a little less scruffy, like he’d shaved that morning and it had grown out since then. The style really worked for him.

He was somehow even more attractive than Bucky Barnes. You didn’t know how that was possible, but apparently it was.

The man shifted on his feet, running a hand through his hair, looking a little abashed.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to disturb ya,” he said, a slight Brooklyn accent in his voice. “Sometimes I borrow some ground coffee from the lady who lives here when I’ve run out.” He shot you a sheepish smile and shrugged. “And I’ve run out.”

“Oh,” you said, a little dumbly. “You must be talking about my grandmother.” Your surprise over the man’s resemblance to Bucky was wearing off, and you found that his smile was infectious. He had a charm to him that made you want to tell him more than you should, which must’ve been why you found yourself saying, “She’s on a cruise, and I’m watching her house.”

It might’ve been a mistake to tell a strange man that much, but instead of doing anything to make you second-guess yourself, he just smacked a hand against his forehead. The gesture was so endearing, you couldn’t help but laugh, warming to him even more.

“You’re right! She told me about that.” He paused for a moment, his gaze raking over your face—hopefully not finding any traces of drool on your chin—and his eyes softened. “Sorry again to bother you, your gran’s normally up watching one of those late shows, I hope I didn’t wake you.”

You snorted to yourself. Of course your grandmother was known for staying up later than you. But you didn’t want the man to feel bad. It wasn’t like he woke you up before you came on dream Bucky’s cock.

“No, no, it’s fine,” you said, shaking your head and smiling softly to let him know it really was fine. Again, you had the urge to say more to him than you normally would to a stranger. So, before you could hold your tongue, you blurted, “Do you know you look exactly like the villain from this old horror movie?”

Even in the dim yellow light of the porch, you could see the man’s cheeks turn pink while he scrubbed a hand over his jaw. But he was hiding a smile behind his palm and when he caught your eye, there was humor in the depths of his gaze.

“Yeah, I get that sometimes,” he said, his voice suddenly lower. “Bucky Barnes from Slasher, right?”

You nodded, almost mesmerized as you stared into his eyes. “I had the biggest crush on him,” you admitted, because apparently the filter between your brain and mouth had been left on the rug in your grandmother’s basement. But the man only chuckled, the light flush fading from his face.

“Did you now?” he asked, his eyes shimmering with humor as he looked at your face, his gaze raking over the curve of your lips. He shifted closer to the door and a shiver skated down your spine at the way he loomed over you. “Y’know, my friends have called me Bucky ever since we watched that movie one summer when were idiot kids.”

“Y-your name’s Bucky?” you asked, excitement making your voice come out like a whisper.

The man looked to the side and chuckled, the sound low and rich and making you want to giggle ridiculously and kick your feet. When his gaze found yours again, his eyes were sparkling with playfulness and something more; his mouth was curved into a devastatingly charming grin.

“No, my name is James Barnes, but pretty much everyone calls me Bucky.” He watched you absorb this information, shifting even closer to the door until you could feel the warmth of him seeping through the screen. “Would you like to call me Bucky, pretty girl?” he asked, his voice pitching so low and deep, you could feel it between your thighs.

Your shoulders trembled as you shivered, nodding eagerly as you whispered, “Yes, please.”

Bucky rumbled a pleased sound, and his hand raised toward the screen, like he was reaching for you. But then he paused, as if catching himself. Huffing a laugh, he drew his hand back and wiped it down his face, seemingly forcing himself to straighten and take a step back.

You almost whined in protest, but caught yourself at the last second, biting your lip against a frown as he moved away. You hadn’t realized how close the two of you had drifted to each other through the door until he was pulling away. You understood it was probably weird, the way you were acting with each other considering you just met, but the chemistry between you was palpable, and you desperately wanted to explore it as soon as possible.

“I probably shouldn’t tell you this, but I have the mask,” Bucky confessed, breaking you free from your thoughts.

You were glad for it, because he was giving you another loaded look and you felt your belly swoop, butterflies taking flight as he smiled at you. It took a second to process his words, and when you did, you couldn’t help the impish grin that spread across your face. You gestured for him to go on.

“I bought it for a girl I was seeing who said she wanted to roleplay,” he went on, shoving his hands in the pockets of his jeans and looking off to the side again, like he knew he wasn’t supposed to be telling this to a girl he just met, but couldn’t help himself. “But I think I scared her off.” He turned his penetrating gaze back to you, pinning you in place while you held your breath. “You don’t strike me as the kind of girl who scares easily.”

You snorted again and tossed your head. That was an understatement, if your dream was any indication of your desires—which it was. You gave the man called Bucky a cheeky smile. “No, I’m definitely not,” you told him, a hint of a challenge in your tone.

For a long moment, the two of you just stood there, staring at each other. Then, you made a slightly reckless decision. Your hand reached for the latch of the screen door and pushed it open, all while holding his gaze.

“Why don’t you come in and get that coffee you needed,” you offered, hoping your instincts about Bucky were right, and he would turn out to be exactly the kind of man you wanted in your life. Besides, you told yourself, your grandmother liked him well enough to lend him some coffee—and you trusted her judgement so he must be a decent guy. “And you can tell me what about your roleplay frightened off that girl.”

Bucky’s smile spread into a full-on grin, and he eagerly grabbed the door, opening it wider while he stepped forward. When you didn’t move back right away and instead allowed him to step into your personal space, his gaze dropped to your mouth, his eyes darkening and the corners of his mouth twitching in another smile.

“Deal,” he rumbled. “So long as you tell me more about this crush of yours.”

The memories of your dream flitted through your mind, feeling more real than any dream you’d ever had before, and you found you couldn’t wait to tell Bucky about it. The man in front of you was warmer and kinder than the one you’d met in your dreams, but you had a feeling he had a dark side that liked to come out to play—just like you.

“Deal.” After you said the word, you felt as if something truly special was beginning and your heart raced with excitement as you stared up into Bucky’s handsome face. Both of you were grinning like idiots.

Finally taking a step back, you welcomed Bucky into your grandmother’s house, knowing deep in your bones that you were going to be in each other’s lives for a very long time—possibly even forever. And you couldn’t help but think that having this Bucky Barnes was even better than dreaming about your horror movie villain crush. After all, at least he was real.

#slashersummerwc #bucky barnes #bucky barnes fanfiction #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes smut #bucky barnes x you #bucky barnes au #bucky barnes fanfic #bucky barnes fic #dark bucky barnes #bucky barnes imagine #bucky barnes one shot #horror movie au #sebastian stan fanfiction #sebastian stan smut #sebastian stan #sebastian stan characters #witchywithwhiskeywork

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after-witch · 10 months ago

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Death by Stereo [Yandere Chrollo x Reader] [Vampire AU]

Title: Death by Stereo [Yandere Vampire Chrollo x Reader]

Synopsis: You’re just a nobody living in a small town when a mysterious stranger with a leather jacket, good looks and a penchant for kissing your hand rolls in, just in time for the ever-popular summer carnival. Things are going great, until dead bodies start piling up.

Word count: 17,510

Notes: yandere, vampire AU, descriptions of dead bodies, some violence, gore, abuse

Thursday

Is there anything more wearisome than a small town? Small towns grind you down so slowly that you don’t realize your feet have been eroded into useless nubs before it’s too late, and you have nowhere to run, even if you had the inkling to get away.

A small town has its charms, as they say--but it has its burdens, too. You know all the faces, but all the faces know you; some of them have even known you since you were just an ultrasound picture carried dutifully in your mother’s purse, pulled out at coffee shops and book clubs.

They know when you got your first period (age 13, in the middle of gym class--you were wearing white shorts); when your first boyfriend dumped you (at the school dance, right before he made out with the third most popular girl in school); what colleges you applied to, and later--why you dropped out (your dad got sick) and how he was doing (not so great but getting better) and where you worked, how you liked your coffee, and all these impersonal and personal details that made up the monotony of your life.

It was a trap, this small town life. A faux bubble of intimacy that your parents embraced, but you’d never fully believed. Because despite knowing so much about you, no one here really knew you. They could tell you that you looked just like your mom at her age; they could sling down a mug with your coffee order without you opening your mouth (black, 1 sugar, 1 cream, no milk)--but they didn’t want to hear about how much you wanted to travel; how much you wanted to see.

Did it matter? You weren’t getting out anytime soon, anyway.

Like all small towns, yours had a claim to fame. While others might boast being the hometown of some B-list celebrity or the site of an all-you-get-eat seafood festival, your particular small town had one edge over the others: a summer carnival right on the beach, designed to appeal to nearby tourists who came to much larger, resort-friendly beaches for the summer season.

The tourists loved to flock here on that singular summer weekend, pretending they were enjoying a quaint local carnival where they got drunk on cheap beer and sampled funnel cake until they puked. And if the locals hustled them as much as possible, overcharging for drinks and parking and sightseeing maps, was that so bad? Small towns needed to leech off new blood once in a while, after all.

The carnival was four days long--Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. Sunday was, of course, the grand finale. There was a massive fireworks show on the beach, a huge concert with local and sometimes vaguely familiar bands. A lot more booze traded hands on Saturdays, and the beach was lit up with more than just fireworks; the local volunteers always spent the next week picking up cigarette butts and discarded joints in the sand.

The carnival can be fun. Although like anything that happens every single year in a small town you’ve lived in your entire life (save the one year of college you managed before your dad’s test results came back) it gets wearisome.

Still--you go. What else is there to do? Besides, you’d be stupid to deny that it’s more fun to spend your summer weekend wandering the carnival, riding a few rides, speaking to people, than to sit at home or pick up an extra shift at the diner.

That’s why you’ve wandered into the carnival today--Thursday. Thursday is your favorite day of the carnival, because it’s the most quiet, relatively speaking. There are tourists here, sure, but they’re not rowdy yet. Not as overcrowded. There aren’t gaggles of kids running around with lobster-red faces and arms because they’re parents didn’t understand the necessity of sunscreen; there aren’t groups of women traveling in packs with matching sunglasses and hats, enjoying a summer break away from their rich and distant husbands.

It’s mostly locals on Thursday. People like you, bored coffee shop workers with nothing better to do on a Thursday evening.

Or people like Jake Jenson over there, currently aiming a colorful dart at a row of balloons in one of many carnival games that would hustle drunk tourists out of their money this weekend.

Jake was the town drunk--a title he gave himself, and others were only too happy to oblige him. He stuck to himself most of the time. During the carnival, he won as many carnival prizes as possible, and traded them to tourists with shitty aim for beers or cigarettes.

And over there--the early birds. They’ve come three years in a row, you think from somewhere in New York. They’re attached at the hip, constantly rubbing their noses together like some twee movie couple, and you’ve heard them complain that the boardwalks in their part of the country are a lot more “authentic.’

Sure, there’s the familiar faces, but unfamiliar ones, too. An older gentleman and his wife, who walks next to him more slowly, with a cane. He’s balancing a plastic plate with a fresh funnel cake in his hand. They’ll find a bench to sit down and enjoy it, maybe people watch, like you.

It’s time for one of your favorite games: making up stories for the various tourists you probably won’t ever see again. This couple--this is the last trip they’ll take together, because the wife got an awful diagnosis, and they’re spending what would have been the rest of their retirement savings on the dream vacation she always wanted to take. They met during the war, decades ago… he was a soldier and she was a nurse, and he hurt his leg, maybe, and wound up in a field hospital.

It would have been terribly romantic.

Your eyes shift away from the couple and onto a few other new faces.

Maybe that’s why you liked the carnival. It was nice to look at new people and imagine where they came from, what they did. The kind of life they had, which was surely more interesting and worldly than yours.

With people watching in mind, you abandon your bench in front of the games and head deeper into the carnival, weaving yourself in between snack and ticket booths, stepping over large black cables that kept the rides running.

Dusk had already settled in, and the warm glow of the summer had been replaced with a deepening sense of evening. The carnival lights had already begun to play against the darkening sky, creating that magical atmosphere that couldn’t be replicated during the day.

You don’t notice the stranger at first. It’s dark, the lights are a bit dizzying, and there are plenty of people simply wandering around and taking in the sights. What’s one more stranger, when over the course of the next few hours and days, the summer will be increasingly filled with them?

But this particular stranger shows up in the corner of your vision and immediately strikes you as… odd. He’s just standing there.

Watching you. Staring--right at you. What the fuck?

He’s wearing all black, and there’s some sort of scarf or cowl over his face. His eyes look impassive but there’s something awful in them, even in the brief glances you get from catching him from the corner of your gaze.

What a creep.

It sours the mood, and you decide to leave, or at least take a break and shake off whatever out-of-towner decided to pull off his best edgy horror movie impression to creep you out. It wouldn’t be the first time a tourist behaved like a jerk, or a weirdo, especially if they’d be drinking.

Something about nighttime at the carnival made people go wild.

So you head away from it all, from the couples trying to win stuffed animals, from the giggling shrieks of people on rides that spun them upside down until they wanted to puke. And maybe you should just head right home, but it’s not fair to waste a night of good weather.

Cool, but not too cool. Pleasant. The moon is out and the stars twinkle overhead.

Heading out on the dock might be nice. Tourists don’t bother with it, at least not on Thursday, when the beach isn’t lit-up and there’s no particular reason to head out this way.

But you’d been to this beach in the evening before; you weren’t scared of the dark. By contrast, you liked the way the beach sounded at night. The water moving in and out, slow and sure. The occasional sound of wildlife splashing in the water. And the din of the carnival behind you, all rainbow lights and indiscernible human happiness.

Your joy is cut off by the sound of footsteps. Your heart leaps in your chest and your hands slam into your pocket instinctively, fumbling for your keys. Fuck, how were you supposed to use these in self-defense again? Put them between your fingers?

Your heart hammers and you slowly turn around, squinting as you make out a figure approaching you in the dark.

“I’m sorry,” a voice calls out, penitent. “Did I scare you? I’m trying to get reception.” The man wiggles a small silver object in the air, raising it above his head. A small LED screen lights up and your heart rate begins to calm, slowly but surely.

After a few beats, he sighs, and shoves the phone in his pocket.

He turns, apparently to leave, but then looks back at you. “Are you all right? I really didn’t mean to startle you.”

You swallow, lick your lips. Feel stupid for the keys in your fingers. He seems nice enough. A typical tourist. “Um, yeah.” You laugh, an empty sound. “I guess I’m just a little jumpy tonight.”

The moonlight doesn’t give you a clear view of the man’s features, but you can see him tilt his head a little. “Jumpy?”

The keys in your pocket rattle when you let them go, and pull your hands out to point back towards the carnival. The man follows your finger with an almost studious interest.

“Someone was following me, maybe? Or he just seemed a bit creepy.” You laugh again, a habit ingrained after years of dealing with men in odd situations--defuse, tread lightly, always. “He was staring at me, but I couldn’t see his face. He had a scarf over it, I think.”

The man in front of you hums in acknowledgement after a moment. He almost seems a little amused, which is both irritating and relieving in its own way. You were just being silly, jumpy, overreacting, weren’t you? Maybe the guy wasn’t even looking at you in the first place.

“Can I walk you back to the carnival? It doesn’t feel right to leave you here alone.”

Ah, no, you think. Sure, the man in front of you might just be a tourist in search of reception, but that doesn’t mean you’re stupid. This is how people get murdered. Or attacked. Or like, hoisted into white vans and never seen again.

“No, that’s okay. I was going to stay out here longer and look at the stars. I’m going home soon, anyway.” Not a complete lie, since you did really want to go home. Something like this is usually enough for most people to take the hint, right?

The man doesn’t turn around. Instead, you see the shape of his smile, lit only by the moon in the sky above.

“You want me to walk you back to the carnival,” he says simply, and offers his arm out, like some kind of old-fashioned gentleman.

Oh. Of course you do. What were you thinking, staying out here on the dock at night? Mosquitoes would eat you up, anyway.

You smile in return and take his offered arm, stepping lightly as you make your way back to the carnival with a complete stranger.

Only by the time you make it back to the threshold of the carnival, which seems to be eaten up by the darkness surrounding all of the twinkling lights, he’s not really a stranger, is he?

And as you get closer to the carnival, the natural darkness of the beach gives way to an abundance of artificial lights that allow you to see him better. He’s cute--no doubting that, with dark hair that frames his face, and a bandage around his forehead. Maybe an accident, or an unfortunate birthmark.

Even if you weren’t familiar with most of the town’s residents in one way or another, you’d know he was an outsider from the way he’s dressed. A slim motorcycle jacket and dark jeans… not the type of guy that hangs around here for long.

As you stop at the border of the carnival, he asks where you live, and you tell him--”around.” He admits that he’s only in town for the carnival week.

“I figured,” you say lightly enough.

He raises his eyebrows. “Is it that easy to tell?”

You put your hands into your pockets and look around you.

“I mean, it’s a small town, right? Everyone knows everyone, after a while. A new face stands out pretty easily.”

His smile is charming. Practiced, but charming. Or maybe being practiced is how it’s so charming in the first place. “That makes sense.” He considers you for a moment. “You like to watch the tourists, then?”

You shrug and gesture with your chin towards a mom with a toddler clinging to her hand, pulling her along towards one of the games with enormous stuffed animals.

“I like people watching, I guess. Sometimes,” and as you’re saying it, you don’t know why you’re telling him this so openly. “Sometimes I like to make up stories about people I see. Like, where they’re from or what they do or a backstory like they’re from a movie or whatever.”

Your cheeks feel suddenly, stupidly hot. Christ, you meet a handsome stranger on the beach and your first major conversation involves you admitting you make up stories about people? You’ve got to get out of this town more.

But he doesn’t seem like he’s judging you. If anything, he looks interested.

“And what would you imagine for me?”

The question is unexpected.

“I think…” You try to force your mind to wander like it does when you people watch organically. What would you imagine, if you came across him walking around the carnival in the evening? He’d be on his own, surely, maybe his hands in his pockets. Quiet. A soft smile on his face, maybe?

“I think you’re some sort of… librarian. Or a curator. A collector?” You shake your head, unsure of exactly where you want to go with this one. “The point is, you’re traveling around the country, looking for things to add to a museum or library or something like that. And you came across an ad for a summer carnival and thought you’d take in some local culture.” You gesture towards the carnival--the lights, the crowd of people, the humanity on display. “But walking around here makes you feel lonely. So you walk down to the beach in the hopes of distracting yourself. Only,” you add, with a cheeky grin. “To come across the most amazing small town waitress in 100 miles standing on the dock like a weirdo.”

He doesn’t smile at your story. Not exactly. Instead--and you look away when you notice, feeling too rude for staring--his eyes widen just a smidge and he purses his lips in a thoughtful way.

“My name is Chrollo,” he says. “May I have yours?”

Chrollo is kind of old-fashioned, you decide. Perhaps you were more spot-on than you realized with your story.

Maybe you shouldn’t give your name. But there’s a giddy feeling inside your chest. Something akin to what you used to feel when you were a teen and you snuck out in the middle of the night for bonfire drinking parties.

I mean… a handsome stranger in a motorcycle jacket who escorted you back from the beach wants your name? You’d be stupid to say no.

So you give it.

At that, he finally smiles again.

“Well, then,” he says softly, saying your name in such a way that makes you hope he’ll say it again in the future, “I hope I’ll see you tomorrow night.”

“Help! Someone help me! For God’s sake!”

Jake Jensen cried out these words as loudly as he could--as clearly as he could, with booze slurring his words and making his mouth all mumbly. But he wasn’t loud enough. No one heard him. Not over the music and delighted screams of the carnival.

He had been chased away from the beach, past the dock, into a little storage shed used for kayaks rented to tourists during the summer. His worn out body protested with every movement, his lungs hacking from years of cigarettes.

His attackers, who blocked the door frame, said nothing. They only looked at one another, silent words passed between them, and the taller of the two grinned in the darkness.

Jake Jensen died screaming.

Friday

You tell yourself that you’re only sitting here on this bench, munching on fresh hot popcorn, because you had a hankering for carnival food. Definitely didn’t come here in the hopes of seeing a certain someone. You tell yourself this even as your eyes dart here and there, looking for any sign of the not-quite-a-stranger from last night.

The sun has just set, and it’s a bit hard making out faces in the glow of the early evening. There are a lot more people here tonight, a new wave of tourists drowning out the familiar faces. Not that the locals shy away from the carnival--you spot your former best friend from high school, your old math teacher, one of the regulars at the diner… Jake Jensen isn’t in his usual spot at the games, but maybe he’s sleeping off a hangover. He never misses a summer carnival.

“Hello again.”

Oh--you choke on your current handful of popcorn just as Chrollo appears suddenly in your line of sight, hands in the pockets of his motorcycle jacket, a casual smile on his face.

“Hey,” you say, coolly, like you didn’t just nearly spit chewed popcorn kernels in his face when he approached. The silence between you doesn’t last long, but you fill it anyway. “You um, want some popcorn?”

But when you hold out the now half-filled container, Chrollo only looks at it curiously. Like he’s never seen popcorn before or something? But then he takes a small handful and pops it in his mouth. Chews--but he might as well be chewing broccoli, for all he seems to enjoy it. Oddly, he watches you while he chews, seemingly studying your face. Did you have popcorn in your teeth?

Better to fill the silence again.

“Well, what do you think?” You ask, grinning, popping another handful in your mouth. “It’s my favorite because it’s fresh, and that booth actually uses real butter. Not the fake oil stuff.”

Chrollo hums in agreement. “I see. I thought that tasted like real butter. Thank you for sharing.”

You decide on the spot that you’re going to make the most of this evening, popcorn-in-teeth or no. So you shrug and give your best smile. “No biggie. Buuut… you will owe me.”

He raises his eyebrows. “Oh? And what will I owe you?”

It’s your turn to hum as you look out towards the carnival, scanning past the numerous faces, the booths, children running with balloons and sticks of cotton candy. “A ride on the Ferris wheel once it’s properly dark would be nice.”

A snort, though his nose. “I think I can manage that.”

He offers his arm again, and you take it, not minding how old fashioned it was. Somehow, despite his jacket, his sleek hair, the hint of motorcycle oil mixed with cologne, old-fashioned seemed to suit him.

Lots of things seemed to suit him, actually. You learn this as the evening wears on. He’s great at carnival games, choosing only a select few that he claims to be an expert in. He wins you a few stuffed animals that you pass on to little kids, save a smaller teddy bear that you can shoved inside your purse.

You learn other things, too. Like, he’s a great listener. He lets you talk--about yourself, about the town--and doesn’t interrupt or tell you that you talk too much or make it clear he’s not listening to a thing you say. He even asks you questions, which shows he’s actually listening, and not just thinking about other things and waiting to ask you to go somewhere “private” like some other guys.

It’s nice, surprisingly nice, to find someone from out of town who’s so thoughtful.

The line for the Ferris wheel is always long once the sun goes down, and you’re one of the last rides of the night.

When the carnival worker locks the bar down over your waists, you kick your legs and wait for the strange rush of adrenaline and pleasure that comes with the Ferris wheel. It’s a beautiful sight--all colored lights contrasted against the night sky, whisking you high into the air and giving you a view of the entire carnival and the ocean beyond.

But your body always reacts to the imagined danger of being carried so far away from the safety of the ground, and when the Ferris wheel reaches the top and begins to circle over for the first time, your stomach lurches and you gasp.

“Are you scared?” Chrollo’s voice is low--you could swear he’s teasing, but there’s something else in there, too.

“Yeah,” you say, breath catching as you're brought back closer to the ground, only to be whisked away again. “Of course. What if something goes wrong, and I fall off and break my neck?”

Chrollo tilts his head. “You’d be dead.”

You can’t help but grin. He’s so to-the-point sometimes. It’s charming in its own way, although you can’t exactly describe what “its own way” means with Chrollo. It’s like he stepped out of some old fashioned film but also came out of a cooler city. A biker who carries around an embroidered handkerchief, or something like that.

“And I don’t want to die, hence--the stomach flipping.”

Chrollo looks ahead, then, taking in the view as the Ferris wheel carries you over again. “No? How long do you want to live, then?”

The snort is involuntary. A philosophical question on the Ferris wheel--not exactly what you expected from tonight. But maybe it’s not so bad. He’s good company. And Chrollo looks earnest in his question, too, which makes you feel guilty for snorting in the first place.

Maybe it’s the lights of the Ferris wheel that dazzle you; maybe it’s the way being on the Ferris wheel at night makes you feel like you’re in some wonderful haze of a dream.

Whatever it is, you fling your hand into the air, towards the carnival, towards the stars.

“Long enough to achieve my dreams,” you breathe out, earnest, almost sing-song. “Whatever they might be. I haven’t figured them out yet.”

Chrollo turns his head to look at you. His eyes almost seem magnetic against the night sky, with the lights of the carnival playing in them.

Then, as the Ferris wheel brings the two of you down towards the ground, you see him. The man from yesterday, with the cowl over his face. He’s looking right at you, and it’s no mistake or figment of your imagination.

Your head swivels to the side and you grip the bar of the Ferris wheel until your knuckles hurt. You jerk one hand out and point to the stranger on the ground with a trembling finger.

“There--look! Look!”

Chrollo takes a moment to respond, and follows the sight line of your finger.

But now--there’s no one there.

“What do you see?” He asks, clearly unknowing that the object of your terror has vanished into thin air.

“The man… the man from yesterday. He was right there. I swear.” Your chest hurts; fear hurts.

Unbidden, Chrollo pulls you close to him, and you let him hold you tight.

“You’re all right. I’m here.”

He holds your chin in his fingers. “You’re safe, do you understand?”

The fear in your chest seems fuzzy now, like it had almost never been there in the first place. How silly of you to be scared, when Chrollo was right here. It doesn’t even seem strange that he’s touching you so intimately, does it? So you nod--yes, yes, you understand.

Chrollo smiles.

“Let me kiss you,” he says simply.

And you will. Of course you will. What else would you want to do?

But as you lean forward, eyes already closing, he pulls himself away.

“Wait.” You blink, head clearing, and he continues, words slow, careful. “Would you like to kiss me?”

Now, you think about it. Maybe it was too hasty. But the lights of the carnival are beautiful and Chrollo is beautiful, and he’s been so thoughtful all day, and now he’s here, holding you, promising to keep you safe from carnival creeps.

A summer carnival is the time for a flirty romance, after all.

“Yes,” you answer, simply. “I would.”

Chrollo’s finger strokes your chin as you lean in and share your first kiss on the Ferris wheel, glittering lights and carnival music dancing in your mind.

The wife died first. Too quickly, but perhaps it was all the alcohol in her system; $1 margaritas at a local watering hole on a Friday night did nothing to make her more agile when being chased by predators while running in black city heels that had no place in a small town carnival.

Well, to the dying woman’s credit: it was the heels and alcohol and the sliced tendons in her ankle. Taut wires cut through her flesh like butter and she was down for the count, crawling, sobbing, begging for her husband, for God, for anyone to help her.

No one did.

Those pitiful cries, too, were cut down by a wire pressed into her throat; silencing her vocal chords, yes, but spilling blood over her neck that was as pretty as a sight as anything to those watching her choke and scrabble her hands against the ground, eyes wide, gaping, wondering--how is this happening to me?

The margaritas may have hindered her before her unfortunate ankle accident. But they did make her blood taste sweet and tangy. Metallic, rich, with a twist of lime. All that was missing was a miniature umbrella.

This joke was said aloud, once everyone had a taste of her. A few laughed, blood on their teeth.

Her husband didn’t seem to find it funny, but perhaps he was more preoccupied with his own current slow death. An arc of his blood spurted into the air--”Don’t fucking waste it, Uvo”--before a greedy mouth latched onto the wound, beginning to suck him dry.

The husband, like the wife, would be shared.

Soon, though, there would be no need for sharing.

There would be enough for everyone to have their fill--and beyond that.

There would be enough to gorge.

Saturday:

Three people are dead.

You didn’t know them know them, but the shock is still there, making your hands tremble a little as you pour morning coffees and deliver plates of steaming eggs and overcooked bacon to tables of locals and tourists in almost equal measure.

Jake Jensen is one of those people. The identities of the other two are unknown--”Due to the state of the bodies, no identification could be provided at this time,” said the sheriff, above a rolling news ticker that had been on the diner’s singular TV all morning--but they might be a couple. A man and a woman.

People die all the time. Sure. But… dead bodies are not often found in your small town, where gossip typically revolves around couples breaking up or a local store not putting up enough holiday decorations to appease the older crowd.

Yet now, in one morning, there are three.

Jake Jensen, who was found near the beach.

And an unknown man and woman (John and Jane Doe) who were found in a wooded area near the carnival.

“Mighta been a bear,” says one of your regulars, gnawing on a piece of his burnt bacon. He liked it that way.

“I heard they were drained of blood!” Your head--and others’ too, you suspect--turns to the voice. It’s not a local. Someone who’s far too dressy for the diner, sipping on a coffee they brought from home while they sample your diner’s less than stellar fruit salad option. He’s oblivious to the stares, to the eye rolls, to the immediate dismissal that his outsiderness earns him. “Two puncture wounds on the neck. Heard it from a cop while I was walking in this morning.”

Someone murmurs a joke about vampires and the locals chuckle, then go back to their coffee, their eggs, their eyes now and then glancing up at the old TV screen.

Your eyes roll, too, but then you wonder.

If they were murdered--and it’s an if, of course, because it could have been animals and Jake Jensen could have gotten so plastered that he fell off the dock or something, murders just don’t happen in your town--then… could it have been that creepy guy from before? The one who’s been following you around the carnival?

Shit, maybe he was waiting for the chance to get you alone, so he could drag you off to the dock or the woods and slit your throat. The thought gives you goosebumps, and acrid coffee tries to climb its way up your throat, before you swallow it down.

It was a good thing you had Chrollo around for the past two days.

And you’d be seeing him again tonight.

They weren’t canceling the carnival--it brings in too much money. And while a part of you is all sore and soft for poor Jake Jensen (who was never mean, just drunk) you try to brush it away. It’s sad. But life is sad.

You don’t want to be sad tonight. You want to look nice--for Chrollo? He wasn’t the first out-of-towner that had flirted with you, that you’d flirted with back. He was the first one that you’d ever genuinely looked forward to seeing again, though.

So.

You want to be wearing your best smile when you meet Chrollo again tonight.

And you can’t do that if you’re thinking about Jake Jensen’s body washing up on the beach or if there’s a small, tickling question dancing through your mind--

What sort of animal leaves two pretty little puncture wounds on the neck?

You sit on the same bench as before; the bench, in your mind, where you and Chrollo have taken to meeting up these past few days.

There’s no room in your stomach for popcorn tonight, though. Or rather, there’s room--your stomach growls--but you can’t imagine chewing anything rich, hot and buttery right now. Your thoughts flit between horror (poor Jake Jensen, one time, when you were younger, he helped you fix a flat bike tire) and romance (Chrollo’s lips on yours, warm, the breeze tickling your neck, the lights of the Ferris wheel twinkling around you).

You feel bad for wanting to enjoy tonight. But that’s not fair, is it? Another small town tragedy: caring too much about someone you didn’t really know as anything more than a passing familiar face that you can’t even focus on a hot date.

Fuck.

“Daydreaming again?”

The evening sky above you is a wash of deepening colors, devoid of actual sunlight but clinging to the last vestiges of it like a child refusing to let go of his mother’s hand on the first day of school.

He’s holding up a stick of bright pink cotton candy in one hand, while the other arm is offered for you to take--the contrast between his leather jacket, the ball of fluffy sugar he’s holding, and the way he sometimes acts like an old timey gentleman out of the movies is enough to make you smile.

Perhaps there’s bitterness in it, because as soon as you’re standing, Chrollo regards you with a measured look.

“Are you all right?”

Well. You don’t want to ruin your evening, but it would be stupid to pretend everything was all sweetness and sunshine, wouldn’t it? It’s better to get it out of the way.

“Sorry, it’s… I don’t know if you saw the news?” He says nothing, and you continue. “Those people that they found dead this morning.” Your lips press together. “I mean, the guy--I knew him, sort of? Everyone did. He was drunk all the time, yeah, but he wasn’t a jerk about it.”

Chrollo hums.

“I can imagine that would be shocking for you to hear.”

Your smile is shaky, and you nab a piece of cotton candy from the stick and shove it in your mouth. The sweetness contrasts awfully with the words that pass through your lips. “For you too though, right? I mean, it’s not every day three people turn up dead at some small town carnival.”

Chrollo raises an eyebrow in a way that seems to say that he is not particularly shocked by the news.

“Shit, really? What are you in your non-touristy life, a mortician or something?” A sudden realization washes over you, that Chrollo has an entire life outside of you and these carnival evenings; he has a past, and family, and friends, and a job. Hopes, dreams, the whole nine yards.

“Something like that,” he says. When you move to apologize, he shakes his head. “It’s alright. I’m not terribly shocked by these things, I suppose, because of what I see in my day to day.” He looks at you a little curiously. “But I can see how it would rattle you.”

You open your mouth, but you don’t know what to say. Sugar sticks to your teeth.

“Come on.” Chrollo drops the cotton candy into a nearby trash can, and leads you towards a row of carnival games. “I know what might take your mind off things.”

For once, you’re glad to see the carnival games; the fast-paced spitting words of the barkers trying to hustle money from kids and couples, the sound of darts popping balloons, the triumphant music that plays before the obnoxiously difficult water shooting game.

You’re even glad to see the tourists in all of their Saturday glory, which isn’t so much “glory” as it is a sort of restlessness. Saturdays were always a strange day at the carnival; the last middle day before the grand finale. An unusual mixture of sleepiness, anticipation, and a buzz that held everyone together until tomorrow.

Strange day, strange faces. Some stranger than others. Staring up at the bell at the top of the Test Your Strength game is an exceptionally tall man with wild dirty blonde hair. By the size of his muscles, he might just break the game, which hadn’t been replaced in the many years you’d been coming here in the summer.

You tug on Chrollo’s arm and point the man out. “What do you want to bet the carnie will try to get him not to play? He might just break the thing…”

“I don’t doubt it.” Beside you, Chrollo snorts, but doesn’t linger on the man as he leads you further into the carnival.

The two of you walk, and talk. About nothing and everything. He asks you to come up with stories for a few tourists, and you do. Light ones. It really does take your mind off things. At some point, Chrollo buys you fries, which taste slightly sweet; probably cooked in the same oil as the funnel cakes.

You dig in your heels in front of the fun house, but Chrollo shakes his head, and won’t go in.

“Are you scared?” You tease. At night, the fun house was all lit up, and the clowns painted on the front had a ridiculously sinister air to them.

But Chrollo doesn’t smile or laugh. “They make me dizzy,” he says, quietly. There’s something behind his words, but you don’t know what. A medical problem? A bad experience? You apologize and then he does smile, shaking his head, at himself, or you, you’re not sure. “Think nothing of it, dear.”

Dear.

You want to hold onto that bit of affection like the sky holds onto the sunset on summer evenings. At least as long as you can, which tonight, seems to be until Chrollo takes you on the Ferris wheel again.

This time, he holds your hand as soon as the attendant locks the bar down. Your fingers interlock and squeeze and it sends butterflies rushing through your chest. What was there to worry about, to think about, when you were sitting next to him?

It takes a few turns around the Ferris wheel to remember what you were supposed to worry about, because on the trip down, your stomach fluttering from romance and gravity alike, you see him: the strange man. The stalker. The maybe-serial-killer-on-the-loose.

He’s standing still in the crowd walking here-and-there around the Ferris wheel, couples intent on getting in line, children running from tired parents as they beg for another carnival game.

And he’s staring straight up at you.

You don’t think this time. You grab Chrollo and point straight down and practically screech out the words: “There! He��s there! Look, look--look!”

And the stars must be aligned, because Chrollo actually sees him. His grip on your other hand tightens and he pulls you closer to him as you make your way back around the Ferris wheel and the man goes out of sight. By the time the two of you are at the top again, the stranger is gone.

Your goosebumps remain.

“We should talk to the police,” you murmur, a quiet, scratchy whisper.

Chrollo turns towards you. You recognize the look. The “Do you really think the police will do anything about this?” sort of look.

“I’ve been thinking…” You squeeze Chrollo’s hand and he squeezes back and that’s all you need to keep going. “That maybe he might have something to do with those people? The ones they found this morning?”

Chrollo’s eyes widen just a little. It’s both comforting and worrying to see him look taken aback, even if it’s only a bit.

“I heard…” You feel stupid saying this. But you shouldn’t feel stupid, not with Chrollo. He hasn’t given you a reason to feel like you can’t tell him things. “Someone at the diner today said they were found with puncture wounds on them. I was thinking, maybe… like an ice pick? Or a screwdriver or--I don’t know. But maybe they were killed.”

“Perhaps he’s a vampire,” Chrollo offers, voice low, lips curled into a smile, and your face must reflect the flash of offended shame that rushes into your chest, because he immediately apologizes. His sigh flutters against your cheek. “Well. He wouldn’t be the first killer to prey on crowds or small towns, would he?”

At least he didn’t say you were crazy to connect the two things, vampire joke aside.

He keeps you close once the ride is over, and you wouldn’t have it any other way.

“I’ll inform the police,” he insists, when the two of you finally stumble on a pair of deputies patrolling the carnival. He leaves you standing next to the Test Your Strength game, where the carnival barker has agreed to keep an eye on you. It made you feel like a child, but for once, maybe that wasn’t a bad thing--to be watched and protected.

You watch, biting your nails now and then, as Chrollo and the deputies talk. In the end, they shake his hand, and you feel cool relief in your stomach. The police will know what to do with the information. If this guy’s a killer, they’ll catch him. If he’s not, well. The carnival was almost over, and you wouldn’t have to worry about him much longer.

Things will be normal soon.

When Chrollo returns, you take his arm without hesitation, but this time he begins to lead you away from the carnival.

“I was thinking,” he says, “that we might go for a walk. Get away for a bit. If you don’t mind, that is.”

You don’t mind at all.

“Do you like trails?” You ask, steering him towards a trail that leads from the beach to a popular hiking spot for locals. “It’d be a bit more private. As long as you’re not scared of the dark.”

Chrollo chuckles. It’s a warm, dark, rich sound, and it sends a delightful thrill right through you.

“I’m not if you aren’t,” is all he says, and that’s enough for you to point out the way.

Thoughts of dead bodies and stalkers fade away with the carnival, whose sights and sounds fade bit by bit as you and Chrollo leave the beach and begin making your way into a wooded area with a paved hiking path lit on the other side by electric trail lights.

“I’m surprised to see these,” Chrollo says, quietly. He pulled his phone out at the start of the trail to give the two of you more light, though the trail lights were decent enough, especially since you’d been up here more times than you could count.

“Mm,” you murmur. “Locals come up here all the time at night. Especially teens. Usually to make out and stuff.” Chrollo gives you a look and your cheeks hit up, but you don’t elaborate. He doesn’t need to know about your high school escapades. “They added them to avoid the inevitable lost-teen-in-the-woods-at-night rescue scenario, I think.”

“Clever,” he says.

The waterfall is loud when you’re this close; so loud you can’t hear anything in the moment but your own thoughts, which have grown louder and louder somewhere between the hiking trail and this popular waterfall spot. So popular that it’s lit with a flood light near the top--supposedly a teenager slipped in one night and drowned in the shallow pool, though you’ve never been certain if it was a true story or not.

Regardless, you’re not sure you want to stay. No--you know you don’t want to stay.

This is a bit much, is what your thoughts are starting to scream. Chrollo is nice, but you don’t really know him, do you? And you just walked somewhere alone with him in the dark after being surprised by a maybe-stalker, the day that three people were found dead around here.

Yeah. A bit much might be an understatement. You should really get back to where there’s more lights and people and civilization in general. If Chrollo is a nice person (and he is, you insist, you’re just being smart!) he won’t mind.

“I think we should go back,” you say, but Chrollo can’t hear you. So you cup your hands around your mouth and lean closer to his ears. “I think we should go back!”

You expect him to nod and take your arm and lead you carefully down the lantern-lit trail, perhaps still using his phone to guide the way. Instead, he takes your chin in his hands--you move to jerk it out, you’d rather wait until you’re back at the carnival to kiss again--but his grip is impossibly strong.

“It’s all right,” he says, and it’s the strangest thing, you can hear him so clearly despite the roaring waterfall just a few feet in front of you. “You know that you’re safe with me. You don’t want to go back yet.”

How strange. How silly. Why did you want to leave, when you just got here? You didn’t even show him the best part yet.

“Come on!” It’s your turn to pull him along as you carefully walk the path leading to the front of the waterfall, which has already begun to soak water through your clothes.

“Is there a cave?” Chrollo asks--and again, you’re struck by how easy it is to hear him, despite the water rushing down in front of you.

“You sure know your way around local watering holes,” you jest.

He merely smiles. “I travel a lot.”

With that, you grip his arm tighter and run through the waterfall, shrieking in delight. Both of you emerge on the other side soaked; you, grinning, and Chrollo, looking around with interest.

The inside of the cave was lined with endless rows of fairy lights, courtesy of a local high school group. They had also brought in the two couches--used leather, frayed and flecking, but good enough for a hang out. When you were younger, there were only folding chairs; which were great for sitting, not so much for much less.

“Do you like it?” You ask, then feel stupid. Why do you care so much what he thinks of some local hang out spot, especially one you hadn’t been in for ages? The same reason why you’d spent all day telling him about your daydreams, about small town memories, bits and pieces of local lore that he didn’t brush aside but seemed to enjoy hearing.

Chrollo was so different from the others you’ve met at the summer carnival.

Maybe that’s why your heart begins to beat fast the moment you catch his eye again. His skin looks almost dewy in the glow of the lights, thanks to the water; his eyes shine, reflecting a soft, warm twinkling glow.

It’s just the two of you. No tourists, no locals, no would-be stalkers. Even the carnival itself seems far away; the lights blocked from view by the rushing water and canopy of the forest, even the wafting smell of popcorn and stale beer was long gone out here.

It was just you and Chrollo in a cave at the end of the evening.

But… it didn’t have to be the end of the evening, did it?

You ask him, this time.

“Do you want to kiss me?”

“I do,” he says. “Very much so.”

This time, your kiss is tinged with the tang of river water.

Five bodies lay scattered in the grass. Young men, young women. Teens that had been giggling and stumbling through the forest, flasks of pilfered whiskey in their bags.

Now some dead and going cold, their limbs twisted, their mouths open in silent screams.

Two were still alive, whimpering, weak hands beating against monsters’ chests as open mouths hungrily lapped up their life blood. They had screamed, all of them, but no one could hear them in the woods--over the water.

“This is a lovely spot,” said a woman, brushing back her blonde hair. A bit of red gore had stuck to the strands and she tsked at the sight of it. “The waterfall adds a nice touch.”

The man hummed, and stuck his hands in his pockets. The slightest touch of red showed on his lips; like a woman pressing her lipstick-covered mouth onto a bit of tissue to get rid of the excess.

The carnage made him indifferent; the whimpers of the dying, even more so. But as he looked around at the carefully placed lights on the trail, the way they flickered against the waterfall and its hidden cavern like delicate stars, he smiled.

“It came highly recommended.”

Sunday: The Final Day

Chrollo was in your bed last night, and you thought he’d be there in the morning. But when the sound of birds pulls you delightfully out of a restful sleep and you blink your eyes open to dappled sunlight through your blinds, you realize that the bed is half-empty.

Just you and the sheets and the leftover smell of Chrollo--cologne and, more faintly, sweat and sex.

You freeze, listening for the sound of someone meandering about an unfamiliar kitchen. He could be up and about already--making coffee or breakfast. The image of him serving up a plate of bacon and eggs almost makes you laugh.

But the apartment is silent, save for your breathing, the sound of a clock ticking in the living room.

Your heart lurches and shame pricks at the back of your eyelids. He fucked you and ran, didn’t he? Just like the others, just like--

But just when you’re about to give into the temptation to scrub yourself all over with hot water and erase every trace of Chrollo that ever existed in your presence, you see it: a piece of paper, torn from a notebook you keep on your dresser. Carefully folded over and placed on the side table next to the bed.

Your name is on it, written in a surprisingly beautiful, scrawling hand.

Curiosity and leftover shame-tinged dread curl together in your stomach as you sit up and slowly pick up the note.

Dear--

Your heart lurches again, for a different reason this time.

I apologize that I did not give you a proper farewell. I had an urgent matter to attend to. Forgive me, won’t you? We will see each other tonight, I hope, for a memorable and unforgettable evening.

Of course he didn’t fuck and run. He wouldn’t do that. And tonight would be--well, memorable and unforgettable, just as he said.

The pitter-pattering inside your chest takes on a new delightful cadence as you get yourself ready for the day. No work--you had Sundays off, thank God, maybe literally, for that. It was a shame Chrollo didn’t tell you where he was staying; presumably, the only hotel in town. But maybe he was at one of the B&Bs or was shacking up at a room for rent.

It would be nice to see him in the daytime, too.

But he didn’t, so you’re left with nothing to do but flick on the TV and make yourself a cereal bowl. Well, that’s wrong. That’s not the only thing you could do. You could go to your parent’s house and help out your mom; she could use a break with caring for your dad.

But… was it wrong to be selfish, just a little, for just one day? You didn’t want to see Chrollo tonight with something unpleasant sticking inside you, on the potential chance that your dad was having a not-so-great day.

It was better to approach your last evening together with a sunnier attitude.

Although you don’t really have a choice, because the first thing you see when the news returns from a commercial break is a giant banner scrolling across the screen: TWO MISSING TEENS FOUND DEAD AT LOCAL WATERFALL. POPULAR TRAIL CLOSED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE.

In the background, the sheriff recites familiar lines about respecting the privacy of the dead, about putting the full energy of the police force into finding the investigation, about how there is no need to panic. He says that it may not have even been foul play.

Somehow, you don’t believe that. You just know.

Sugary cereal seems to lodge itself inside your throat. You were just there. You were just there, kissing Chrollo, holding his hand, and now two teenagers are dead and lifeless and, and--

And if it was that same man… the one who was staring at you, stalking you… how close did you and Chrollo come to dying last night?

Tears prick at your eyes and you grab your purse. Maybe you would spend the day with your parents, after all.

You should be more excited to see Chrollo. And you are, truly. But between the news this morning and the dull realization that this would be your last evening together ever, it’s hard to feel too enthused.

Chrollo would be going home after tonight. Tourist trap over, no need to stick around. Something childish in you thinks: maybe I can convince him to stay a little longer. And if he stays a little longer, he’ll see how nice it is here (it’s not) and maybe he’ll want to settle down (he won’t).

Oh, how stupid. It’s like when you’d meet the endless stream of New Best Friends every summer weekend as a kid, and you’d beg their parents together to extend their vacation.

It wasn’t going to happen. You’ll never see him again after tonight, and you’ll go your separate ways, and that’s that.

Reality sucks sometimes.

You’re still stuck in the dreary shit cloud that is reality when Chrollo’s now somewhat familiar footsteps approach you on the bench. The bench, your spot--your spot? As if you and Chrollo had anything that could be called an actual relationship that warranted the use of “your” plural.

You shake your head, hoping it shakes those silly childish delusions, and force yourself to smile.

Chrollo, to your surprise, doesn’t smile back.

Instead, he leans down, and takes your hand. His eyes roam over your fingers like they’re something special and it makes your stomach flutter stupidly.

“You seem a bit sad,” he says, bringing your knuckles to his lips for a kiss. The way that makes you feel is something you love and hate in almost equal measure. It’s not fair, is it, that he makes you feel this way--when he has to leave, and you’ll never see him again.

Perhaps it’s the knowledge that you will part ways after tonight that makes you speak freely.

“I’m just sad that you’ll be leaving.” He blinks at you, and turns his head a little. “That we won’t see each other after tonight,” you clarify.

You expect him to nod and agree, and perhaps say something trite but comforting, like, “We’ll just make the most of it.”

Instead, he gives your hand a squeeze.

“We don’t have to part, you know.”

It’s your turn to blink. A silly, little-kid-in-you hope does a twirl. He could stay--and this could maybe, possibly, in some far off millimeter of a chance, turn into something more serious than a summer fling. “You could extend your vacation? Your job would do that?”

Chrollo finally smiles at you.

“My life is flexible. But,” and now he pulls you up so that you’re standing. It’s a fluid, easy gesture for him, almost too easy--he’s stronger than he looks. “I was thinking that instead of staying here, you would come with me.”

The world around you is not silent. The carnival is always producing an eternal cacophony of sounds--screaming patrons hung upside down on the more thrilling of rides, cheery carousel music, laughter, popcorn endlessly beating like a fast paced drum, everything and anything all mixed together into a swirl of sound.

But it might as well be silent, because you feel like all you can hear is your heartbeat in your eyes for a few stretched moments.

“What? You’re not serious.” You smile, too, but it feels fake. Like it’s plastered on and cracking underneath. There’s a brief thought--maybe he means, like, for a weekend?--but you instantly know that’s not what he’s talking about.

This is too much, too fast. Too out of the blue.

Chrollo looks at you in a way that almost makes you uncomfortable. Like he wants to see something inside you that you’re keeping for yourself. Then that gaze is gone and he’s smiling softly, charming, a little bittersweet.

Bittersweet is familiar territory, and the ringing in your ears fades in favor of a carnival barker offering 2-for-1 prizes on the Test-Your-Strength game.

Chrollo’s voice cuts through it all, jovial, unassuming.

“We can talk about it later, if you’d like. Let’s go enjoy the carnival a bit more before the concert.”

That would be nice.

“I’d like that.”

And you mean it--you do. You shake your head and let Chrollo intertwine his fingers in yours, and it doesn’t take long for his question to fade away from your mind as you weave in and out of the crowds.

If you weren’t so distracted, so disarmed, you might have noticed an uncomfortably familiar figure clad in black watching the pair of you intently.

The Ferris Wheel worker should have kicked you off several spins ago, but Chrollo had slipped him a twenty as he buckled the safety bar down. It’s nice, this extra time with him--it’ll be the last time you ride the Ferris wheel together, after all.

What did it say about the state of your love life--or your life in general, actually--that slipping a carnie 20 bucks made your heart soar (and twist, and ache) even a little bit?

The night is prettier from the Ferris wheel. The world, too. Up here, you can’t see the grit and grime. The fermenting candy apples littering the ground, dropped two days ago by careless kids; the too-drunk couples arguing about whether they should stay for the concert or not; the exhausted carnival workers smiling hard no matter how much they get yelled at for their rigged games.

All you can take in from up here is the broad vantage point. Crowds and happy sounds--squeals and music interplaying above crowds of people, including a growing crowd on the beach in front of the black stage, waiting for the concert to start.

Chrollo’s grip on your hand tightens and draws your attention back to him. Even he looks more beautiful from up here, with the rainbow lights of the Ferris wheel playing on his face.

“I’ve enjoyed our time together,” he says softly.

Ah, you realize. The extra spins were for the inevitable “we’ll never see each other again but it was a blast” speech. You knew it was coming. Doesn’t make it any less bitter in your mouth. But what good is holding bitterness against your tongue?

“Me too,” you say, and it’s not a lie, even if you hate the way the conversation must end. You try to focus less on the sourness and more on the sweet that came before. After all, Chrollo was… well. Handsome, yes, magnetic, yes. But more than that. He seemed thoughtful. He listened to you prattle on about yourself and your small town, and he didn’t even make fun of you for knowing so many local stories.

He was good in bed, too, wasn’t he? You blink and realize you don’t actually remember all that much about last night, except that he wasn’t there in the morning. Vague snatches rush through your memory. You remember his mouth on your lips, his hand trailing against your skin, removing your clothes. You remember his mouth against your neck, then this teeth, nipping, and--

It’s all fuzzy. But you weren’t drunk. So why--

“Have you thought about what I said?” He asks, and once again you’re pulled away from your thoughts, although this time you’d like to focus on them. Why couldn’t you fully remember last night?

When you don’t answer, he raises his eyebrows.

“About coming with me,” he says, a bit louder, as if you can’t hear him over the carnival din.

You let out a soft puff of a breath, then, and force yourself to focus on the current conversation. For now.

“You’re serious?” You don’t mean to sound so flippant, but you do. Chrollo frowns, just a little, and you feel like a bitch for it. “Sorry. I just--I didn’t know if you really meant it.”

“I am,” is all he says.

You didn’t like the idea of the conversation headed towards Chrollo leaving, but you like the idea of him genuinely asking you to come with him even less. Partly because you know you never could, and partly because there’s some small, stupid, fantasy-of-your-hair-blowing-in-the-wind-wearing-a-leather-jacket-on-a-motorcycle part of you that wants to say yes.

“Chrollo, I can’t do that. I have a job here. A life.”

Chrollo doesn’t let go of your hand, but you can sense the way his muscles tense.

“A job at a local diner slinging hash browns,” he says, voice dry and almost hurtful. You must look offended--are you? You can’t tell--because he turns a little in the seat, trapping you with his gaze. His voice is earnest now, drawing you in.

“Don’t you want more out of life? The ability to pursue your dreams--to figure out your dreams?” One hand goes to your cheek, and his knuckle brushes against your skin. “You could travel. See so much more than your little town. Imagine it.”

An image starts to build in your mind. Unbidden by you, but there, somehow, nonetheless. Of you riding behind him on a motorcycle, holding onto his waist as he takes you wherever you want to go--wherever he wants to go, together. Life would be wild and unpredictable, but easy and fun and--

“My family,” you murmur, and Chrollo seems surprised that you’ve spoken.

His lips press thinner. “You could write to them, call them. No matter at all.”

Whatever fantasy has built in your head gets swept away and the Ferris wheel finally comes to a stop. The seat rocks back and forth and the bored (but $20 richer) carnie lets you off. Chrollo helps you as he’s done every time.

You wait until he’s escorted you away from the Ferris wheel to turn and address him.

“Chrollo, I can’t--” You try to find the right words, but there are no right words. “I don’t know you. Not… really. Not enough to give up my life here.”

Chrollo is quiet. He considers you, turning his head a little. You feel awful--maybe you should just end the night here, on this shitty, sour note, because you’ve probably ruined the rest of the evening anyway. You wish he hadn’t asked again before the night was over, but there’s no way to fix it now.

You’re ready to leave, to bite your cheek so tears don’t come. You’re prepared for Chrollo to say something low and insulting, to dismiss you, because why should he waste another minute on someone who would rather stay here in this shitpot of a town than--

“Come along,” is what he says, finally, holding out his hand--to your utter confusion. He still wants to go to the concert? With you? Now?

But you take his hand anyway.

“It would be wasteful to end our evening early and miss the concert.”

His grip is harder than it has been, but maybe you’re imagining it as he pulls you along, weaving in and out as the crowds grow larger and a little more drunk the closer the pair of you get to the beach.

This doesn’t feel right, suddenly. He’s upset, that’s why he’s holding you so tightly. Or maybe you’re upset and imagining it. Either way, it doesn’t feel good. Your primal gut instincts are telling you that it’s better to cut your losses and leave now, then to spend the night with a flipping stomach.

“Maybe I should just go home,” you yell over the crowd.

Chrollo stops, and you stumble forward a little, but he catches you in both arms before you make an ungraceful acquaintance with the ground. The hand not gripping your own gently grasps your chin and he leans in, not quite kissing you. His breath smells off, like rust.

“And miss the grand finale?”

You should insist on going home. Everything’s gone shitty. It’s too crowded and the music will be too loud, and Chrollo is clearly irritated with you--

“Come to the concert,” he whispers, and none of that seems to matter anymore. Of course, you’ll go to the concert. What else would you do?

He keeps his grip on your hand as you walk onto the warm, crowded sands of the beach, even though you have no intention of leaving.

Booze, sweat, and popcorn. That’s all you can really smell now, surrounded as you are by crowds of people jumping and swaying to some rock band you’ve never heard of before; but no one really cares what the music sounds like on a night like this, when alcohol has been flowing and summer is at its peak.

Even Chrollo seems to be enjoying himself, although he’s not dancing. Just holding you, his arm around your waist, pressing his lips now and then to your forehead.

You feel bad. That must be why there’s a pit in your stomach. You were being rude to him. Of course he’d ask you to come with him--if he’s the type to live so freely, he wouldn’t think twice about making the offer. He just doesn’t understand what it means to be rooted down, willingly or not, the way you are.

You can’t hold something like that against him, so you don’t.

Instead, you sway to the music, hips bumping against Chrollo now and then. Maybe after this, he could come back to your apartment again, for one last…

All thoughts in your head are stomped into the stand when you spot the strange man with the cowl in the crowd. He’s standing stock still while everyone around him jumps and dances and flaps their drunken arms.

And he’s looking right at you.

“Chrollo--” There’s no time to waste, and you grab his arm and jerk him towards the direction of the stranger.

But he’s gone. He’s just fucking gone. Cold terror seizes your chest.

“What is it, love?”

The nickname doesn’t even register.

“That--the man--the guy from before--he was there.” Your voice begins to tremble, frightened tears welling in your eyes. “Can we leave? Please?”

Chrollo pulls you closer to him and you feel dim comfort as he wraps his arms around you and presses his lips against your head. But he doesn’t tell you that of course, we’ll leave, of course, I’ll get you somewhere safe, of course, let’s talk to the police.

“Hush.” One hand begins to pet your hair. “Not much longer now. It’ll be over soon.”

“What do you…”

Behind Chrollo, you see another familiar face. Vaguely familiar. The tall man with wild blonde hair, the one who looked like he could snap the Test Your Strength Game in half if he really wanted to--he’s standing still, like the man from before, while everyone jostles happily around him. He’s not looking at you, but that doesn’t make it any less unnerving.

Your eyes dart over the crowd.

There are others, standing still. Others who seem out of place immediately, either because of their appearance or something awful you can’t describe. A woman with pink hair looking impassively as she scans the crowded beach, keeping her body perfectly still. A man with long black hair and something shiny and thin strapped to his shoulder. A woman with blonde hair in a smart black tailored suit that no one in their right mind would wear to a summer night carnival concert. Others, too, all out of place and making you want to be anywhere but here.

And then in a few blinks, they’re all gone. Like they were never there.

Dizziness overtakes you, along with a strange sort of fuzzy fear. Is this what a heart attack feels like, maybe? No, it’s just panic. Understandable but undeniably awful panic.

“Chrollo,” you manage, voice shaky. “Something’s wrong. There’s people, they seem--it’s---I don’t know how to explain, we should--I think we ought to--”

Chrollo doesn’t say anything. Instead, he turns you around, keeping you in his arms as he makes you face the stage.

“You’ll miss the concert,” he whispers in your ear.

Helpless irritation courses through you. Who cares about the concert right now? You have half a mind to ask him why he’s not listening to you, but that impulse is gone the moment you see the tall man with blonde hair and impossibly large muscles leap onto the stage.

The guitars and drums come to a confusing, stuttered halt. The lead singer, clad in an oversized black t-shirt with a skull on it, looks like he wants to throw his guitar at the intruder.

“Dude, what the fuck, we’re playing up here, you can’t just--”

Even from your vantage point, you can see the large grin the blonde man sports on his face as he raises his fist and knocks the lead singer’s head off with a single punch.

The body remains standing for a moment before collapsing without grace onto the stage. Blood spurts from the wound, spritzing high enough that it sprinkles the faces of those closest to the stage.

There’s a noise from the crowd that almost, for a moment, sounds like a burst of startled laughter.

And then the blonde man leaps onto the corpse, opens his mouth until it’s gaping far too wide to be human, and begins to suck on the headless neck like a crawfish.

It’s that moment when people finally begin to scream.

Your head jerks towards one of the screams, and she’s there--the woman with the pink hair. Latched onto someone’s neck while blood dribbles from her mouth and the person, eyes bugged out, cries out in wordless pain. His body is cross-crossed with strange cuts, like someone pressed him through a sieve.

You spin around, looking away from horror, only to see it again: the man with the long hair swings something out--a sword?--and strikes someone’s arm clean off his body, then pins that person down and begins to suck at the spurting blood.

That’s not all he hit. The person in front of them, a woman holding two drinks, staggers to the ground. Half her face slides off, revealing bone and brain. Lukewarm beer and gore meet the ground together.

You’re not entirely sure if you said Chrollo’s name, or when he let you go, or what you should do. All you know is that when you finally pull yourself together enough to look at him, he’s simply watching the events around you like a boring television show.

Like people aren’t screaming and running and bumping into you. Like blood isn’t flying. Like you aren’t seeing things that you’ve only seen in shitty horror movies.

He’s in shock. Fuck. So are you, maybe? But it will be up to you to get the pair of you to safety, so you grab his arm and shake him hard.

“Chrollo! We have to go! Now!”

He doesn’t move. You shake him again, and he finally looks at you.

He smiles, and holds out his hand, ignoring your jostling.

“You’ve had time to think about it, haven’t you? Will you stay with me?”

Oh, he’s definitely in shock. That doesn’t stop the impulsive words that flee your mouth as quickly as the people around you are trying--some not successfully--to flee the beach.

“You’ve lost your fucking mind. Let’s go!”

You don’t register what’s happened until you’ve hit the ground. Someone finally ran smack into you, and something--their elbow, maybe--strikes your head, hard. Pain blossoms in your knees and the side of your head when you hit the ground, then explodes when someone steps right on your hand.

There’s a feeling of lost gravity when someone yanks you up--Chrollo--but when you’re on your own two feet, he’s not there anymore.

You call his name. Once. Twice. Three times, four. He might not be able to even hear you over the din, if he’s nearby. Maybe he got swept away by the panicked people. Maybe his shock wore off and he ran to get help. Or ran--and left you.

There are a few moments where you almost run deeper into the crowd to look for him. A stupid thought. But then the wild, shock of fear inside you turns to complete ice and you’re not sure of anything in the world because he’s there.

Standing in front of you.

Close enough to touch.

Your stalker. The man with the cowl. Only the cowl is down, now, and his mouth is covered in a smear of blood. He smiles at you, and it’s not a nice smile at all. His smile grows wider, and you have to blink several times to realize what you’re seeing.

He’s got fangs.

Two of them, red tinged. Sharp enough to puncture your neck.

They’re vampires. Actual vampires. Actual, damn bloodsucking vampires.

There’s a brief, panicked thought--where’s Chrollo?--before your flight kicks in, and you’re scrambling through the crowd like everyone else. You stumble, of course you do. Over bodies, some dead, and you almost fall flat on your face when you make it off the beach and your ankle rolls on the uneven grass-covered ground.

If you were thinking logically, you might have run to the car park, and hopped into your car. You might have run in the direction of the crowds thinking the same, and gotten lost in them.

But there was no logic. Only pure primal panic, the realization that you people were being murdered all around you like animals, and you were one of those animals because one of the monsters was chasing you.

You didn’t dare to look back to see how far away he was; you just knew, deep down, that he was following you now. Running wouldn’t work: you couldn’t run forever, not with the pain in your ankle, and he’d catch up with you even if you weren’t panicked and in pain.

You had to hide. But where? The carnival was all lit up at night, and the beautiful lights that had been fun to see just a day before now made you want to scream. He could see you, just about clear as day, no matter where you ran.

Unless you can find somewhere to hide inside.

It’s this thought that pushes you to dash inside the fun house, sneakers pounding on the silver ramp leading into the entrance painted over like a mouth devouring any children who enter.

The stillness inside startles you more than anything else. The lights are on. The music is playing, quiet, delightful. It’s hard to hear it over the dulled screams coming from outside, and from the awful, pounding rush inside your ears.

You follow the short hallway until it leads to something which you’d forgotten about; but it wasn’t your fault. Panic made you stupid, and you hadn’t actually been inside a fun house in years.

The glass maze. All-see through panels that you’d smash into on an ordinary day, much less this one, where your mind is fried from panic and adrenaline keeps your body from coordinating properly. You smash against the panels a few times before you see it… something, behind you.

No. Not something. Someone behind you. Or near you. Or far away.

You can’t tell exactly where this person is, because of the fucking glass maze, but the fact remains:

He’s there--he’s here--he’s going to get you and kill you and it will hurt so bad.

You scream, at some point, and it’s dumb because the sound simply bounces off your current glass predicament and hurts your ears.

Maybe panic pushes you through, or maybe you’re just good at completing mazes when you’re in fear for your life; whatever the reason, you make it out. You stumble through a hallway made of rollers that nearly send you sprawling, until you’re at the end of the hallway.

A small red spiral staircase, barely usable for adults, is your only hope.

You don’t try to be quiet now and the metal stairs clang under your feet as you run up them, feeling dizzy, feeling like this might be the last thing you ever do in your short, stupid life.

The second floor isn’t entirely enclosed. It opens out onto the carnival in the front, and there’s a slide to take you down near the end. The wall behind you is covered in a series of mirrors--the kind that make you tall or short or wide or impossibly thin.

It’s not the mirrors that catch your eye, though. It’s what’s down below.

They’re all down there. The monsters from the beach. All covered in various amounts of blood and gore. Splatters. Smears. Like they’ve all gotten into different scrapes--killed people different ways.

All of them have blood around their mouths.

Fear rings in your ears. You want to wake up, more than anything. This is a nightmare and you want to wake up.

You don’t wake up.

Instead, you hear a metal clang.

Then another.

And another.

Someone is coming up the stairs.

Thoughts dart here and there, but there’s nowhere for them to go. If you go down the slide, well. There’s a gang of monsters waiting to kill you down below. If you stay up here, well. There’s still a monster waiting to kill you.

The metal clangs again, and again, and again.

He’s coming up the stairs and he’s going to kill you. You’re going to die. Today. Now.

Warm urine runs down your leg and thoughts come, too quick to really process: Mom-dad-school-work-never-did-anything-my-childhood-dog-that-one-time-we-went-to-Canada-to-visit-my-aunt-I-kissed-a-boy-under-the-bleachers-I-forgot-to-tell-dad-I-loved-him-yesterday-I-I-I--

It’s not the monster with the cowl who comes walking up the landing of the stairs.

It’s Chrollo.

It’s like you blink and you’re in his arms, clinging to his shirt and sobbing like a child. He presses a kiss to your hair and you realize, gratefully, that he doesn’t look hurt. No blood on him, no scrapes, no bruises.

“Thank God you’re here. Thank God you’re okay,” you say, reflexively. “Thank God, thank God, thank God.”

Chrollo pulls you tighter against his chest, and murmurs, “God? An interesting choice, my dear, considering…”

You aren’t even really listening. You’re just happy. Delirious, even. Chrollo’s here. He’ll help you. You can make it out together. Somehow.

There’s an almost giddy sort of hope in your chest--until you hear the metal stairs clang again. And again. And again.

You whimper stupidly and pull on Chrollo’s arm.

“We have to get out of here. Somehow. I don’t--maybe we can distract them?” Your eyes glance down at the monsters below you, who only seem to be watching more intently. The man with the blonde hair, which is now caked in blood, has an awful grin on his face. You imagine you can see his fangs, even if he’s too far away for you to properly make them out.

Chrollo doesn’t move. Shock again? Or he sees them, too, and knows the two of you won’t make it a step off the slide before being attacked.

The footsteps on the stairs stop. You look behind you, and your bowels clench at the sight of the monster with the cowl, pulled down, that same small, mean smile on his face.

Your hand tightens on Chrollo’s arm. A sentimental, if selfish, thought: At least I won’t die alone.

Chrollo turns, too, and looks at the man who’s been haunting you for days. Looks at the monster who has already killed people and feasted on their blood; at the creature who will now undoubtedly kill the both of you. Lovers for only a few days, but forever in death.

Chrollo sighs, and inclines his head towards the man.

“Wait a moment, will you, Feitan?”

There were many things you might have said in this moment. Eloquent things. Meaningful things. Things borne from inner betrayal and horror and anger. But all that comes out of your mouth, which gapes ridiculously, is:

“Huh?”

And then something clicks, and realization dawns like a morning you don’t think you’ll live to see. The idea comes naturally, somehow. Borne of a childhood reading books and watching movies about vampires. Bloodsuckers.

Your head turns, and you look over towards the wall of mirrors. You’re stretched thin like taffy about to break, your features a jumble in the dirty, cheap material.

In the mirror in front of Chrollo, which should make him ridiculously short, there is nothing at all.

When you look back at him, your eyes wide and pupils blown, he’s no longer the person you met a few days ago; the person you took to your bed, the person you were lamenting leaving. The person who kissed you and made you feel good, inside and out, if only for a while.

He’s a vampire.

“I advise you not to run,” he says quietly, if not, perhaps, a bit sympathetically.

You do, because you aren’t a fucking moron. Though you don’t make it far, as it doesn’t do you any good to run towards the staircase. You run right towards the other monster--Feitan--who grabs you with ease.

He’s faster and stronger than he looks. Maybe they all are. Your body and brain don’t care about that, though, so you struggle with all of your might.

In response, your arm is deftly twisted behind your back and you expect this monster to stop, you expect your arm to meet its natural resistance while you struggle.

He doesn’t. It doesn’t. Your arm snaps and the pain is so sharp, so sudden, that your vision goes blind for a few seconds. In those few seconds, you scream.

When you’re aware of the world again, there’s still the pain. Sharp and awful and renewed every time you jostle your body in any direction.

Chrollo, walking up to you, hums in sympathy.

“I know it hurts, dear. But this is what happens when you don’t listen to my orders. Do you understand?”

The strangest thing (and in a world where the man you fucked last night is currently standing in front of you with fangs, that is saying something) is that Chrollo’s expression is not wild or monstrous at all. If you thought about it, and you’re having a hard time thinking with the pain of your arm and fear of impending death, you might say he looks hopeful. That you will understand. That you have learned something.

And you have. You’ve learned that he’s a liar, that everything he ever said and did was just to keep you around long enough to literally eat you, that he has no morals, no empathy, that he’s not even a person.

“I understand,” you manage, voice tinged and weak with pain, “that you’re a fucking monster.” You spit at him. Or try to. Your mouth is too dry to manage more than a stringy dribble that sticks to your chin.

At this, Chrollo sighs. He shoves his hands in his pockets and frowns.

“You didn’t speak so crudely to me earlier this week.” A little smile. “Last night notwithstanding.”

Bitter tears well up in your eyes. It was all just a game to him. Cat and mouse. Every smile, every thoughtful word. Every kiss. Your bodies pressed together, his mouth on yours--

“I didn’t know you were a… a… fucking vampire earlier this week.”

Chuckles, from down below. Feitan, behind you, snorts.

Chrollo doesn’t look angry, but you can feel a flash of it ripple through the air. It quiets the chuckles. Feitan tightens his grip on you, and the flash of pain makes you groan and slump forward.

“Regardless,” Chrollo says, “respect must be maintained. I expect you to refrain from these little outbursts. Do you understand?” There’s still a tinge of cooing sympathy in his voice--it makes anger bubble up in your chest.

“Fuck you.” This time, the spit flies, and hits his cheek.

The gestures are slow. Unassuming. He wipes the spit off with the back of his hand. He wipes the back of his hand on his pants. And then he nods at Feitan.

Feitan’s hand reaches around your throat and when you glance down, you see that his nails grow. And sharpen. Sharp enough to cut, sharp enough to--

He drags his hand down your collarbone, and you feel the awful, deep sting of it before you see the blood spill out from your flesh. It coats the bare skin between your collar and the top of your shirt like some sort of morbid camisole.

You cry out, you shriek, but he doesn’t let you go until Chrollo gives him another nod. You’re shoved towards Chrollo, who doesn’t grip you, but merely lets you stand, swaying, in front of you.

When you finally get the courage to look up at him, his pupils are blown up like a shark’s.

“I’d like you to stay put this time,” he tells you, voice deeper, richer, at the sight of your blood. “And not run away from me. I’d like you to listen, and refrain from being… impulsive.”

He leans in, and the scent of rust hits you, but this time you know what it means. “I could make you do it, you know. I don’t have to ask.”

Realization hits you again, and it hurts even more this time. That night, on the dock. And on the Ferris wheel. And how many other times he’d told you to do something, feel something. What was really you, and what was him?

And now, despite all this, despite the scent of blood in the air and the wails of horror coming from the beach, he wanted you to listen to him? The audacity of vampires--it might have been funny, if you were in the mood to laugh.

“Like hell,” you mutter.

Chrollo breathes out through his nose. Impatient.

“I don’t believe I heard you, dear.”

You look up at him, gaze sharper. Heart sharper.

“Like. Hell.”

The slap you give him is weak. You’re surprised your good arm even managed it, all things considered.

But the shock of the act that ripples from Chrollo to Feitan and even down below is what gives you a few microseconds to escape, to run, ears ringing from the pain of your jostled broken arm, and throw yourself down the slide.

You don’t have a plan. How could you? As soon as you get to the bottom, you’ll just run. Run and maybe die but maybe you’ll get away, someway, somehow.

You don’t get more than a few steps before you fall. Not fall, exactly. Trip. You trip over something that shouldn’t be there, something taught and thin. A wire?

You see, from the corner of your vision, the woman with pink hair yank her hand backwards and the wire that shouldn’t be there slices deeply into both your ankles. Blood seeps through your socks before you even hit the ground.

Your ankles burn and bleed, and new sparks explode behind your eyes when your broken arm smacks the ground at the worst possible ankle. You think you scream, but it’s hard to tell, over the pain.

Chrollo and Feitan jump down from the second story of the fun house. It should break their ankles--it does not.

Someone turns you over on your back with their boot and you’re left staring up at the sky, ink black and throbbing with stars. It was such a pretty night, before all this.

Above you, Chrollo and Feitan look down with decidedly different expressions. Chrollo regards you coolly, with no real expression on his face; it’s like a porcelain mask, indifferent, never-changing. Feitan, on the other hand, is smiling--he’s looking not at you, exactly, but at your blood.

It’s Chrollo who speaks.

“I would like an apology for your behavior.”

If your eyes were not safely attached to their retinas, they might bug out of your face entirely. You are laying on your back with bleeding, mangled ankles; your arm is broken, flopping, useless; a collar of blood adorns your neck. Vampires are standing above you, fangs at the ready, having already spread carnage through an entire beach of concert-goers.

And he wants an apology?

You want him to go away. To not be real.

You want your mom, and your dad, and your childhood bed with covers big enough to hide you.

So you shake your head, helpless, like an infant lying on their back.

Above you, Chrollo says your name. Sternly. Just once.

When you muster up the words, you taste copper. You must have bitten your tongue after tripping.

“F…fuck you.”

Stupid words, you know. But you’d rather your last words be this than pointless begging. Now that would be stupid, begging for your life in front of grotesque creatures who want nothing more than to devour your blood.

Somewhere above you, a gruff voice says, with a hint of glee in his voice:

“Want me to do it, boss?”

Your eyes dart around, but you can’t see anyone else. Even Feitan seems to have stepped back, leaving you with no one but Chrollo in your line of sight.

Chrollo tilts his head a little, considering.

“No,” he says, finally. “Feitan will handle it. I appreciate your methods, but you might break something a little beyond repair.”

Whoever spoke chuckles, but doesn’t disagree.

The words reach you, but you don’t take them in for a slow moment.

Break… break… what else can they break, what else can they possibly do--

There’s a weight above you. A dark one that smells of blood and metal. It’s Feitan. He blocks out everything else, just for a moment, staring into your eyes with their big pupils and blurring tears.

When he pulls back, you see him move, but don’t know what it means until you feel an explosion of red hot pain in your hand--the hand you slapped Chrollo with. Your fingers crunch and break and you try to pull your hand away, but Feitan’s boot keeps it pinned down, grinding his heel until you shriek so loud that you think the inside of your throat will blister.

Time itself is hot and painful. You’re not sure how long it goes. You’re only sure that when you try to move your mangled fingers, they don’t move. Hot, thick pain shoots down them and it makes you stop trying to get up.

It’s not like you could run, anyway.

At some point, you hear a new sound. Sirens in the distance. Police? Ambulances? There’s no hope in your chest, no thought that they’ll save you. Even if they got here in time, the monsters would kill them.

Somewhere above you, Chrollo talks, though his words sound like they’re being spoken through water.

“Take care of them, will you? We’ll meet up near the waterfall before we head out.” A question from someone. A pause. “Yes, I’ll handle her.”

The voices fade away. Either because they’ve walked away, or you’re finally going to die from the shock. That might be a mercy compared to whatever grisly end Chrollo has in store for you. Is this how he planned for you to die, after all? Or was it meant to be swifter? You might have screwed it all up with your running and spitting.

Before Feitan broke your hand, you might have been proud of the spitting. Now you just wish you’d let them kill you quick.

Finally, Chrollo returns to your line of vision. He’s a bit blurry from your tears, from your pain. Probably a bit from your blood loss, too.

He kneels down next to you, and you tense. Even tensing hurts, and you whimper.

“Are you going to kill me now?”

Beside you, Chrollo coos. A soft, sticky sound. He takes your broken hand and your voice wants to shriek, but all you can manage is a strangled cry. He kisses your broken fingers like a gentleman.

“Kill you? Of course not.” He presses a last kiss to your mangled hand. “I do want to see that sweet girl from before.. the one who daydreams about strangers and holds onto my hand so tightly on the Ferris wheel.” An indulgent look crosses his face and he gives your broken fingers a painful squeeze that has you groaning.

“She’s still in there, no doubt.” His thumb brushes against your cheek, pushing away the dried salt of your tears. “Buried under fear and pain and newfound knowledge, no doubt.” He smiles nostalgically. “But those can be remedied with time.”

He’s crazy. I mean, you know he’s a vampire, sure. But he’s also fucking crazy.

“I want to go home,” you croak. Even though you can’t reason with crazy. “Please. Please.”

His eyes blink down at you. How old is he, anyway? Centuries? Longer? To him, you must be nothing. Insignificant. Ridiculous.

He doesn’t mock you, though. He only continues stroking your cheek with his thumb. “I’ll be your home now, wherever we go. And we will go so many places.” There’s some sort of dulled excitement in his expression that turns your stomach. “And from now on, you’ll do what I say, won’t you?”

Tears spill over your eyes, trickling down over his thumb. You don’t have the energy or the lack of survival instinct to say no. But you won’t say yes, either. You can’t.

“Well. I can make you obedient, if you’d rather be stubborn.”

You’re about to ask--”What?”--when he kisses you, shutting you up entirely.

You’re afraid to move. Your lips tremble against his, thinking only of death--of his fangs. His lips move and brush against your neck, and a mocking forgotten memory of last night flashes through you. He kissed your neck last night, too, a wet, sucking kiss that had your toes curling. Your toes curl now, too, out of fear. The blood from your ankle makes your toes slick inside your shoes.

And then his fangs sink into your neck and hot, searing pain shoots through your entire body, masking everything else. Your ankles. Your broken hand. Your brutalized arm. The cut on your collar. None of them matter compared to this pain, which is not localized at the sight of the bite but spreads throughout your bloodstream, making it impossible to think of anything but how much it hurts.

You’re dimly aware of your screaming. A helpless sound you heard from countless others tonight. Your legs kick, and you realize, vaguely, that you can’t really feel them anymore. They hurt, yes, but there’s a numbness behind it. Are you really moving them at all?

There are more screams now--from the beach. You don’t know how you know, but you do. It’s like you can see it in your mind although you’re flat on your back in front of the fun house with a monster draining you of blood.

The world spins as you imagine how the first responders must be dying right now, while you’re dying. Are they wishing they never responded to the emergency calls? Are they thinking about their families, their friends, and their little dogs, too?

Chrollo’s mouth is against yours again, and you taste yourself on him. Bitter metal, still warm. He’s blurry as he pulls back and bites against his wrist. What should be vivid red blood is dark and ugly--dead. He hovers his wrist above your mouth and the substance drips onto your lips. It’s cold, vile.

A final insult before you die, making you drink this nasty stuff. Vampires have a sick sense of humor.

But what did you know about vampires, anyway?

You black out as Chrollo murmurs something above you.

At least, you think, this is finally over.

You do not wake up in heaven or in darkness, either.

You wake up in a man made clearing, sitting against a tree, with a blanket draped over you. In front of you there is a fire, not roaring but alive enough in the night; a pot with spilled chili lay on the ground. Behind the fire is a camper van with its door wide open.

The corpse of a man is propped against the door of the van, keeping it open. His mouth is slack and ah, he’s not dead yet, is he? There are two glaring puncture wounds on his neck, but he’s still around. His fingers twitch and seem to register you with tired eyes, that drift from your face over to the far end of the camp.

You follow the look, and oh. There are two dead teens piled next to the fire. Already drained, already dead. His children, you think.

The world seems to come into more focus then.

You are, as far as you can tell, alive. You’re propped up against a tree. It’s night time. The people--the monsters, the vampires--are here, in this campsite. Some of them glance at you once they realize you’re awake, but no one says anything.

Strangely enough, you’re not in much pain. Soreness, yes. But you should be in agony. Your hand feels okay--sore fingers, but no longer blinding pain, and you can bend them almost normally. Your arm, too, feels sore but mended. Your hands reach up to your collar, your neck, but there’s no trace of the wounds except a thin scar on your collar and two small bumps on your neck.

How did it heal so fast? Did they bring you here to hurt you again? Keep you like some sort of blood bag?

Your eyes travel down to the blanket draped around you. It’s heavy, comfortable, and stained with blood.

You jerk like you’ve been electrocuted and throw the soiled blanket from your body.

Someone nearby laughs. “Picky princess, huh?” You vaguely recognize the voice--the tall man with wild hair. The one who knocked a man’s head off at the beach.

Just as renewed panic begins to awaken inside you, Chrollo appears from seemingly nowhere.

“You’re finally awake, I see.”

You shrink against the tree, and look around. Could you run into the woods? Were you still in the trail by the beach? How far could you run?

Chrollo smiles, and sits down next to you like this isn’t horrifying or unusual at all. “Don’t be ridiculous, dear. There’s nowhere to go.”

Your throat is dry and your words stick to your mouth several times before you can speak.

“Where… are we?”

If you’re close enough to home, you might still get out of this. Somehow. Find a gas station or a rest stop and beg for help.

“Far away from that little town, I assure you.” Chrollo jerks his head back and you finally see the row of motorcycles parked near the campsite. “We won’t stay here for long. We rarely do. Just long enough for you to get healed up, this time.”

Which means he plans to take you with him--with them. For how long? And where? And why? Why take you? Why not kill you, why not drain you dry in front of the fun house and leave your corpse for survivors to find?

You could ask all of these things, but you’re not sure you want the answer. Instead, you give the only answer your mind can manage, which is to curl up against yourself and cry.

“I want to go home.” You whisper, out of practicality more than anything. Your mouth is so damn dry.

“None of that,” he says, a little sternly. His expression softens when you flinch, and he brushes the hair from your face. “Don’t waste your breath on such a silly sentiment. You’re not going anywhere I don’t want you to go.”

“You said you didn’t know me well enough to leave with me,” he continues, pressing a chaste kiss to your cheek, then a warmer one to your unwilling lips. “You said you hadn’t had time to figure out your dreams. Now, you can take all the time you need for both of those things. We’ll have eternity, after all.”

Dull, cold horror pools in your gut.

Eternity.

“Did you… am I… did you make me--”

Your hands shoot to your mouth, to your teeth, feeling for fangs. But there’s nothing new inside your mouth, unless you count the awful cotton dryness that blankets your tongue and teeth like film.

He smiles indulgently, and you hear someone nearby snort.

“No.” A pause. “Not yet, not quite.” He smiles at your ignorance and takes your hand away from your teeth, giving it a kiss that feels like mockery even if you get the sense that he isn’t trying to make fun. “That may come later, if you behave. For now, I’ve made you…” Another kiss, this time with a smile on his lips, as he seems to debate on what to say. “… let’s say, mine.”

You shiver. From fear, and from cold.

Chrollo presses another kiss to your lips, until he can shove his tongue in between your teeth and run it against your own. You taste yourself on him, still, that rusty taste. It makes you gag, and he pulls away.

“You must be cold. I don’t want you catching a chill so soon. Why don’t you go sit in front of the fire and warm up?”

You shake your head, wanting to spit out the taste in your mouth, but not having the courage to do so.

He watches you for a moment. Calculating, cold. He makes you think of an animal, in this moment. An animal thinking on what to do when his prey does something odd in the wilderness.

“Go sit in front of the fire,” he tells you.

And without wanting to, without meaning to, you do. Your body jerks up and you walk over to the fire, with its spilled chili and corpses left in its wake, and sit down.

It’s like before, at the carnival, but different now. There’s no warm suggestion, no soothing manipulation. Only an order that you obey, and that’s that. When you try to push yourself up, you find that you simply can’t make your body do it. You can flex your fingers, your toes. You can move your arms up and down. But you cannot, in any way, stop sitting in front of that fire.

“I’d prefer you to do things willingly,” Chrollo says from his spot near the tree. “But I don’t mind giving orders either, love.”

Love.

You’re not sure he knows the meaning of the word.

But neither do you.

Despite the fact that there are two dead kids and their dying father just feet away from you, you find the fire comforting. It’s warm. It’s bright. It’s everything that the monsters around you aren’t; and you aren’t one of them, not exactly (not yet, your brain screams, he said not yet) and maybe you can cling to that. Cling to your humanity, to get you through this.

The fire crackles in front of you. At some point, Chrollo sits down, and offers you a bowl of chili that they must have set aside for you before knocking the pot down.

It’s lukewarm, and a bit bland. The dying man wasn’t a great cook. But you eat it, slowly, carefully, while Chrollo watches with an almost serene expression on his face. Like watching you eat was the most endearing thing in the world.

Above you, the night sky watches the scene with indifference.

#yandere chrollo #yandere chrollo lucilfer #yandere hunter x hunter #yandere #afterwitch writes #this fic is my baby /wraps it in a blanket

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