#plus points if it's in a religious setting

[irritablepoe]

confession scenes my beloved

[seaslugfanclub]

Hi I'm a big fan of yours and I really enjoy the villains and y/n interactions. Btw I want to ask what made frollo develop feelings for y/n.

Do Judges dream of park attendants?

(Frollo x Reader)

TW: description of Panic attacks

————————————————————————

Out of all the Disney villains brought to life by Disney, Frollo is having the hardest time. All of his beliefs, everything he had sacrificed in his life have been destroyed in an instant the moment he opened his eyes in this Infernal theme park

Frollo doesn’t actually believe he’s alive anymore, that the Disney parks is his divine punishment

Though deserved, everywhere he goes he’s ostracized and humiliated. His fellow villains love to single him out to needle him, especially Hades.

He’s so tight that if you shoved a piece of coal up his ass, two weeks later you’d get a diamond

It’s obvious in the film that his mental psyche is as fragile as communion wafers, and this has been amplified to 100 now that he’s in a completely unrecognizable reality.

He hasn’t slept in months, barley eaten (he excuses this as religious fasting) and rarely talks to others

The only person who tried to regularly interact with Frollo is that scrappy park attendant, (Y/N)…

Usually it’s quick conversations, greetings and goodbyes, “how are ya?”s, and sometimes brief smiles. Something that both disgusts and confuses Frollo, a strange prickling feeling in his cheeks whenever he makes eye contact with (Y/N)

Panic attacks have become a regular occurrence for Frollo, usually when the sensory nightmare of Disney parks get to much for him, although he usually isolates himself to avoid being so vulnerable

Most of the time Frollo’s able to keep his emotions in check until he’s alone, so most of his panic attacks come out at night

One night his episodes were really, really bad, everything Frollo had tried to hold in finally boiled over, leaving the ex-judge crumbled to the ground, frozen in terror.

He didn’t need a fireplace to feel the licks of flames on his skin, and no matter how hard he clenched his hands over his ears, Frollo couldn’t stop the chanting echoing in his head.

It felt like a lead weight was on his chest, and dark spots were crawling into his vision, threatening to pass out

Frollo was too lost in his own head, mumbling prayers to himself as the crackling of fire and chanting drowned out all sounds, even the light creaking of his bedroom door opening…

“Pr- preces meæ non sunt.. dignæ Sed- sed tu bonus fac benigne, Ne perenni cremer igne…. Pie Iesu Domine,Dona ipse requiem…. Preces meæ non—”

“Frollo?”

The feeling of a hand resting on his head broke Frollo out of his mumbling. Through blurry vision the ex-judge made out a figure crouching above him, their hand slowly petting his hair. The sensation of soft fingers on his hair felt grounding, with each stroke the flames began to lull…. Has an angel finally come to end his misery?

“Frollo? Are you alright?

The black spots around his vision began to subside, as his teary eyes cleared enough to see the worried face of (Y/N), the young park attendant. At any other point in time, Frollo would’ve flinched away from their touch, cursing them out for having the gall to lay their filthy hands on a holy man, but all of his senses had failed him, and their touch had quelled the flames and disembodied chanting around him.

Starving for any source of familiarity, Frollos trembling hands reached to clutch onto (Y/N)’s pants,

“Je ne peux plus faire ça— Je—”

“Frollo, please- I can’t understand you…” (Y/N) pleaded, at a loss at what to do with the pathetic man before them.

(Y/N) was finishing their shift for the evening, their final task was to check on each villain to make sure they were set for night. They were walking down the hall to check on Sher Khan when they heard a thump behind Claude Frollos door, wall muffling the sound of weeping. Knocking on the door brought to response, and worried that the old man might’ve actually fallen and couldn’t get up, (Y/N) slowly cracked open the door.

Instead of being immediately kicked out by the ex-judge, French curses thrown at them— they found Frollo slumped against his bed, mumbling latin to himself, his eyes a thousand miles away.

(Y/N) was at a loss, they had never seen Frollo this desperate, this deep into despair. Even when they watched the “Hunchback of Notre Dame” and his song “Hellfire” was he this vunerable. This was unfamiliar territory.

But panic attacks were familiar, especially with how to deal with them.

“Frollo? You’re alright… Your minds just working against you right now.” (Y/N) hummed, continuing to pet Frollos silver hair,

“Here, I’ll be right back,” gently removing Frollos hands, (Y/N) grabbed a spare glass from his nightstand before rushing into the bathroom. Turning on the sink faucet, they filled the glass with cold water then crouched below the sink to open the drawers. They grabbed neatly folded a face towel, a Mickey Mouse insignia embroidered in the corner— (Y/N) wet the towel, making sure that it was thoroughly soaked then grabbed the glass, walking back into Frollos room, the man still on the floor, pale face just watching (Y/N).

“Try to drink something, I know you might feel nauseous, but I promise this helps,” They offered the glass to Frollo, who continued to just stare at (Y/N). After a few seconds between them, He hesitantly reached out and took the water with shaking hands.

As he began to take small sips, the cold water cooled his throat, and he could feel the water cool his insides as he swallowed. The flames were dowsed.

“It’s already 11, you must be exhausted… I think it’s best to try and sleep. Don’t even worry about changing, just get comfortable. I always feel better when I lie down.”

Helping him up, they watched patiently as Frollo collapsed into his bed, not even bothering to pull up the sheets. As he lay on his back, he finally closed his eyes, only for them to open again when (Y/N) lifted his bangs to place the cold wash-cloth on his forehead. His pale cheeks prickling again at the feather light touch of (Y/N) fingers and the cooling sensation of the cloth on his skin.

“Uh— whenever I get an attack, anything cold helps me bring myself back to reality.. and uh, and a wet washrag stays cool for a while, I like to wash my face with it to feel refreshed.” (Y/N) offered quietly, having a difficult time maintaining eye contact with Frollo.

Frollo was at a loss, never— never has he been the subject of such care from another human before, not as a boy, not from the church, not even from his lord. How could he even react to this? It was all to much.

He was tired, mentally and physically, darkness beginning to overtake his vision again, but this time from pure exhaustion.

Risking it a final time, (Y/N) gave Frollos hair one last pet, “I’ll find a way to take you off schedule for the rest of the week, I wish I could get you months off… I’m sorry. But for now, get some rest ok?”

With a final smile, they turned to resume their rounds, already late to check up on the others, but before they could step away from the bed, a hand grasped their arm, stopping them.

Turning back around, they looked down at Frollos pleading face, an almost manic look in his eyes.

“Stay… please… at least until I’ve fallen asleep..”

With wide eyes, (Y/N) looked down at him shocked, before sighing.

“Of course.. try to rest now.” They relented, taking a seat at the foot of Frollos bed. The others could wait.

Silence fell over the two, (Y/N) waiting patiently as a good 15 passed. Just when they thought he had fallen asleep a whisper escaped him,

“mon ange..”

And with that, sleep overtook Claude, no longer able to fight off his exhaustion. Warmth enveloping him as he dreamt of feather light touches and scrappy park attendants.

————————————————————————

Sorry if this feels forced or too OOC 😅, I just love Frollo so much, and taking care of others is my love language. When I tell you I need this man whimpering—

Translations:

“Pr- preces meæ non sunt.. dignæ Sed- sed tu bonus fac benigne, Ne perenni cremer igne…. Pie Iesu Domine,Dona ipse requiem…. Preces meæ non”:

My prayers are worthless, Yet, good Lord, graciously grant that I be not burned up by the everlasting fire. Lord, all-pitying, Jesus blest, Grant myself Thine eternal rest.

“Je ne peux plus faire ça— Je—“:

I can’t do this anymore—I can’t—

“mon ange..”:

My angel..

[insomniac-dot-ink]

Deep in the Woods in the Dark of the Road

Everyone talks about the fear of hitchhikers. Parents and urban legends repeat, Never pick up someone on the side of the road. Like food from the floor, you don’t know where they’ve been. Smiling ghosts, prison breakouts, serial killers on the lam. Very few stories talk about the edge of the road, the place where you lose yourself to these strangers in a stranger’s land. The ones that pick you up. I tell the story to anyone who will listen.

First, I have to tell them, “of course I don’t hitchhike anymore,” condemning my youthful folly for them before they will consider me a credible source. As someone worth listening to. My sister likes to remind me I was on the type of adventure only clean-shaven young men can get away with in the first place.

I like to remind her that I’m not sure I got away with anything.

May 12th, everything else shifts around it like the light, but that date might as well have been printed on the back of my hand. 

May 12th and the small Canadian town I had been staying in had a high school graduation, the place swelling with relatives and well-wishers. There was only one high school and their hockey team seemed to be the one big rallying point the people shared. Everyone became a grandkid to every aging adult and I knew it was time to move along in the same breath.

I meant to leave early in the day. Meant to leave earlier in the week too. Nonetheless, when you're on a country-long trek you do start to appreciate the little things and the Johnsons’ had a high-pressure shower. The Johnsons were a family of pit-stop angels for hikers and bikers, turning their home into an invitation. Hippies, aging athletes, and former-vagrants were the main types of pitstop angels–literal angels in my mind at that point. I told myself a second shower was indulgent and then I gave myself another shower. Me and time we’re never really on the friendliest terms, especially when I was a thru-hiker that had lost the trail.

I stood under the burning hot spray and melted. During the first shower, the water always runs brown and muddy, sloughing off layers of dirt and dead skin. I think I understood religious resurrection after showers like that. 

This one though, a second shower, ran clear and crystalline and perfect. 

Hot, steaming water and a steady drumbeat of pressure. Heaven. Heaven though, eventually turned cool and then freezing. A cold river from every faucet. I jumped out and had a mild freakout session. Leaving someone’s worse-off than when you found it was a big taboo. 

Plus, I was young and still embarrassed by everything. I wrote a hasty apology note, and then packed up as quickly as I could. It’s the type of age where you’ve started to realize you are responsible, but not old enough to know how to go about doing it correctly. I left a note. I scrubbed their counters and stripped the sheets off the pull-out bed. I scrubbed the counters a second time and then tripped out the door before they could get back. The day had turned into late afternoon. A spring chill seeped across the land and I took a backroad to the highway.

Originally, I had told my parents I’d be back by the end of season. Then I told them I deferred my college start date to the second semester. Then deferred again to next fall. Bumming around ski towns during the winter and making just enough money to get back on the trails in springtime. I had been skipping around different trails since then.

I needed to get on the road. I needed to find another car.

One of the tricks to getting picked up is to be clean, so I had that much going for me. Boiled like a lobster in oil, I felt new and good and I walked confidently backward with my thumb out. The second trick is to smile. I smiled and waved and walked along a long stretch of highway bordered by dense conifer forests.

If worse came to worse, I’d set up my tent somewhere among the tree trunks. A dampness coated my skin. Strong wind rustled the branches. A minivan approached and I smiled wide enough to make my eyes water. The van passed.

I took a break to chew down an energy bar and some Slim Jims. Drivers normally don’t stop if you’re chewing furiously and an internal sigh was building in my core. I wondered if the Johnsons’ were toasting their daughter right now. Giving a cheer. Making plans for dinner. I’d miss their dinner.

When I stood up again, the sun had dipped toward the steep mountains. I shielded my eyes and scowled. How the hell did so much time pass? I hurried to the side of the road, thumb out, smiling, rehearsing some of my best stories in my head. I liked telling stranger’s stories, a “thank you” for the ride. I had learned the best ways to spin terrifying encounters with mountain lions and the chipmunk trapped in my sleeping bag. Most drivers seemed to like it too. 

The sun disappeared behind the first peeks and the temperature plummeted. Pockets of darkness spread out before me between the shards of sunlight quilting the land. My teeth chattered.

The dusk had a feeling to, a weight. A car approached from behind me and I whipped around, hands too cold to be out. A beat-up Hyundai, off-green and compact. A tacky Sasquatch air-freshener hung from the mirror and the person behind the wheel wore sunglasses. He looked like a young guy, early 20s, with long brown hair down his shoulders. The hair reminded me of a girl, curly and well-kept, shiny in the dying light. The dusting of a beard offset the look. 

Several cars lined up behind the Hyundai. Their lights were all on, shining like a procession of lanterns. This is where they all were apparently. Figures, I thought, and I stuck my thumb out.

My stomach sank when the Hyundai swerved off to the side of the road. I was hoping he would pass and let one of the others pick me up. I usually preferred families, women, couples, and the like. I would like to say it was the romantic in me, wishing for ladies or aging lovers, but the truth was I had never really gotten along with guys my own age. But beggars can’t be choosers.

He honked the horn once and grinned at me. I checked over my shoulder like the trees might turn into a Holiday Inn, and then approached the window. 

He cracked the door. “Where you headed?”

“Vancouver,” I said, which was true enough. He gave the horn a second honk. “Alright, alright, alright, my brother. Going to the same jungle. Hop in.”

I gave him a crooked smile and avoided responding by opening the back door. Storing my enormous backpack was always a challenge, but the back seats were down and I slid Jessica, my pack’s nickname, right in. 

“How’s it going?” The guy had both a California accent and swagger to him. I ran a hand through my hair, already on guard.

“Cold as a witch’s tit out there.” I might as well get the bro-ing over with. The driver had holes in his faded band shirt and board shorts. Sandals probably too. 

“Only if you're walking down the side of the road like a lost kitten, my man. Here.” He cranked the heat in his car and I exhaled, gratitude shining from my center. 

“Thanks,” I said, showers and warmth and soft beds having changed me. I swallowed a couple times, not sure if bros even thanked each other. “So, what are you doing out here?” I asked, already formulating my story about the mountain lion. And yes, I do embellish just a bit.

“You know, this and that. What are you doing getting yourself ax-murdered all the way out here?” I shot him a look. “You know, this and that.” I cleared my throat, mimicking his tone, “Ax-murdering. Collecting hooks for my right hand.” He lets out a big laugh and that’s a relief. I grow emboldened. “What are you doing to avoid getting hook-handed this late at night?” He chuckles, chest rumbling like a car engine. Taking off his sunglasses, he places them in the cupholder. “Distract them. Ask them what ACDC they are into.” His gaze flicks to the back as he says it.

I noticed for the first time a guitar case wedged into the back. My eyebrows raise. “Sweet. You playing gigs?” “Just coffee shops and anywhere that will take a burnout with a dream.” I copy his tone. The swagger. “You any good?”

“Hell if I know. Coffee shops aren’t Juilliard.” He winked. “But don’t tell my mom that.”

My arms gooseflesh and at least my teeth stopped chattering. “Good to know. You have an LP? CDs?”

“Not yet. Still working it out.” “Nice. Well, I’m Ben. Not really a music guy, but an appreciator.” I realized I had gotten all jumbled by being freezing and messed up my usual intro. “Hailing from Boston by trying to be anywhere else.” He chuckled again. “Christopher.”

“Not a Chris, I take it. The whole thing?” “All the way through, brother. Think you can handle it?”

I clicked my tongue. “I usually stick to single syllables, but I’ll make an exception for you.” “From my new friend Ben? Can’t complain about that. Damn, can’t complain about a long night on the road. Nice to pick you up.”

“Nice to be picked up.” I realized too late the way that sounded and rubbed the back of my neck. “Beats walking. Or have to hook-hand my own damn self.” “Heh.” His inky eyes flicked my way and then he grins. I looked away at that, gently embarrassed in a way I couldn’t explain. I had gotten pretty good at the chameleon act but still wasn’t finding my footing here. His eyes were deep brown, inky-almost, and deep-set in his face. 

The beat-up Hyundai rumbled up a mountain pass and the sky turned the blue-black of a bruise. I tear my eyes back to the window. The conifers appear larger–like everything does at night, and pass in a blur on the back-forth mountain road. I spy a river through the trees and birds taking flight from somewhere in the distance, lights of tucked-away homes even further up.  

Christopher turns the music up at that. “You ever listen to house music?” “Can’t say I have.” I turn back, mountain lion stories forgotten. “Ben, my guy, you’re missing out. You don’t do German house music either, I take it.”

I put a hand over my heart. “Purely provincial.” “I’ll play the good stuff.” He grins. “Make an exception.” “You usually play your hitchhiker’s mediocre playlists?” “Exceptionally mediocre. The last one didn’t even make it beat drop.” “I’ll sit and take notes.” “Don’t let me down, Benny.”

“Now who’s not going all through?”

His dark eyes flash. “Thought you wouldn’t mind.”

“For you?” I gave a sardonic half of a smile and then let it fall.

Noises with bumps and chs played out over the speakers and I had to wonder why Christopher had a guitar instead of a DJ soundboard. Maybe he had both. A hand placed on my knee and I jumped. I went to brush it off, God, I didn’t need this to get unpleasant, but when I looked down nothing was there. Christopher’s hands were lazing on ten and two and he raised an eyebrow.

“You still headed all the way to Vancouver? It is a long drive.” he asked slowly and I nodded, unwilling to say my real plans. To just keep going. I started on the east coast and wouldn’t mind making it to the other ocean. “Good.” He turned the music up a second time. Despite the grating techno and sense of still not having found my feet here, the heat of the blowers washed over me. The rocking of the car and dull humming of the driver next to me. The lights of cars wound through the roads behind us and my eyes fluttered closed.

You don’t sleep in stranger’s cars. It’s rude for one thing and dangerous for another. Yet, the cold leached out of me and a drowsiness sent me over the edge into a deep abyss.

—----------------------

I heard humming now and then, dreamlike and threaded through my personal abyss. I cracked open my eyes, glanced at Christopher, humming to himself and tapping a beat on the wheel. And then drift off again in the very way I shouldn’t.

—-----------------------

A hand shook my knee. I had no idea what time it was and the weight of night startled me awake more than anything else. A pair of headbeams blared into my face and I brought up one hand. “What the hell?”

“Hey, Benny, buddy,” the driver, Christopher, said. It took me a moment to turn toward him. His sunglasses were back on and he was frowning. “Do you think you could mess with my phone? I’m not getting anything up here. Do you have service?” I blinked rapidly and pieced together the back of tail lights in front of us and head beams behind. “Traffic?” I croaked, rubbing my throat. “Here?” Only three cars ahead were visible, disappearing up a mountain bend into who knows where. However, I get the sense of lights lined up like little soldiers through the night, long and duckling-like. 

“I know, it’s whack. I was looking for a sideroad or something to get us out of this.” “How is there traffic in the middle of the mountains?” I rubbed my eyes until I saw spots, feeling groggier than ever.

“Probably a rockslide up ahead or a truck fell over, who knows. I think someone’s cleaning it up now but at the pace of, like tomorrow morning.” “What the hell?” “Now you’re getting it.” The line inched forward and Christopher refreshed his phone with one hand. I fumbled for my own phone in my small pack and cursed under my breath. “What?” Christopher prompts me.

“Out of battery.” I shake it like that might do something. “Hold on, I have an Anker in my pack.” I turn to climb into the back and dig through everything for my charger. 

“Wait, wait, I think I see a road. Put your seatbelt on.”

“We can’t just,” Christopher grabs the back of my shirt and tugs me back to my seat. I inhale sharply, remembering I am in a car with a stranger–maybe getting too close for comfort. I sputter out my protests, “we don’t know where we are. Where that goes.” Christopher was already turning off the side. “I bet I’ll get some signal if we head down the mountain. That’s headed down. Don’t worry about it. Put your seatbelt on Ben from Boston.” The nose of the car dipped down and I clenched my teeth, clicking my seatbelt in place. We rocked, boat-like, and the wheels fought against the dirt until we were level again. 

I wasn’t sure how I was feeling about Christopher at that moment. I wish I could charge my phone or maybe get out and walk. There were plenty of cars to hitch a ride from by then. Too late to make up my mind, the car’s wheels crunched on a new gravel road and our headlights streaked against an empty dark. The car behind us drove forward to take our place.

“Don’t you think other cars would go this way,” a bump in the road sent me jostling, “if it leads to the main road again?” “I’ll just get us some signal,” he mumbled. “Better than sitting in traffic.” I huffed, “Right.” The gravel road had the feel of a worn-down side street, probably leading to a series of fancy mansions or off-the-grid weirdos. Nowhere real. Christopher took off his sunglasses all over again and met my eyes.

“Sorry to get you take you on a side adventure.” He cleared his throat. “And wake you.” I remembered myself all at once and ran a hand through my hair. “Sorry,” I said, giving a self-deprecating laugh. “I’m normally a better house guest. Promise I don’t normally pass out in stranger’s cars.” “What do you normally do?” I shift in place. “Convince them to go off-roading in the middle of the night,” I deadpan. “Keep things interesting.” “That’s my line.” He laughs. Before we can really get back to normal and I can push away the dark flick of his gaze, Christopher slams on the breaks. “Holy hell!”

I grip on to the seatbelt, jostling back and forth, eyes go wide. “What?”

A line of cars appeared up ahead. My whole system tingled. “Were those there before? I didn’t see those before,” I repeated the phrase like a fool, “I didn’t see any of those cars a second ago.” A long line of cars, trailing off ahead and into the hills. “Out of the frying pan and into . . .” he trailed off. Christopher’s gaze lost its humor. He put his sunglasses back on. “Get out.” “Excuse me?” I definitely shouldn’t have taken that nap. “Get out.”

The hairs on my arm stood on end, breath catching in my throat. I glanced into the woods. The trees were tall here, leaving little undergrowth, and a sliver of moon lit barely penetrated the textured black. I could still make out headbeams, bright here, blaring, and moving through the trees. I reeled back, watching the lights bob in place. A few minutes ago, I had been chomping at the bit to get out of the car and find someone else to ride with. Now, I wasn’t so sure.

Head Beams swayed. Oddly. Unnaturally. Too far off the ground. Head Beams that couldn’t be headbeams when I squinted and looked. I gulped.

“Sure man, just give me a second.” I clutched at the seatbelt. A hand squeezed my knee and I glanced down, almost grateful if he was going to keep me for this reason or that. Nothing was there. 

I buttoned up my jacket, readying myself to walk until I couldn’t walk anymore. Get ready to be eaten by a mountain lion because I sure as hell wasn’t setting up camp any time soon.

“Nevermind.” Christopher grabbed the back of my head. His hand was large and firm around the nape of my neck. “Too late. Get down.” The lights bobbed and weaved around us and I didn’t need to be told twice. Better to be hunkered down than out in the open. A second later, a knock came at the car window. The type you might hear from an officer in a tv show. I hoped. Just a regular official telling us the roads weren’t clear, the rockslide was too big. Go back, go home, all of this was explainable.

“Can I help you?” Christopher’s window rolled down. I tucked myself into a tighter ball in the foot space. 

“Do you want to be loved?” The voice was sharp, a splash of cold water cloying through my senses. Branches against glass, more garbled than real. Then the words righted themselves in my head and I wished I was back at the Johnson’s. I could be with their family right now, however out of place, holding up non-alcoholic champagne and telling her life after graduation wasn’t so bad. Didn’t have to be.

“No, I’m all good.” “Do you want to be loved,” the voice said in an insistent tone.

“I don’t want any.” He cleared his throat. “We’re running behind, anyway. Have to go. You could tell th–” “Seven years. To be loved, do you want to be loved,” I peaked up from my fetal position, a thing bent into the car, “Seven years and a day. To be loved.” Christopher rolled up his window, slow and deliberate. “No. No,” he said, “not that.” I caught a glimpse, however briefly, of a head of something impossibly tall and with a singular eye, blinking and glowing and bobbing in place. My heart sang, briefly, called out, wanted. Then, the thing at our window turned and disappeared.

“That’s what I get for thinking it’d be someone important.” Christopher’s gaze lingered on my own, keeping me there and for the first time, I heard him humming, gently, in the back of his throat. Inky eyes, dark as night, and holding me there. 

“Stop it!” I clawed at the air back to the door. My chest heaved.

He swallowed, looking away. “I really was just trying to give you a lift,” he muttered, gripping the wheel. “I don’t even think they’d want me back so soon.” “Who?” I lapped the roof of my mouth, realizing I was parched.

Christopher leaned his head back against the headrest, looking above. “Don’t tell my mom,” he adjusted his seat, “I’ve been playing music for mortals.” —---------------------------

There are ghosts and ghouls and monsters and many things that want to eat you. I was a fool, not recognizing what types of things might want to eat me. Traffic was barely moving, whatever this traffic was. I was getting thirstier.

I swallowed, again and again. A steady stream of knocks came at the window, but Christopher waved them all off. “No thank you, no thanks.” 

Music spilled in the distance, faint and dreamlike, just like the soft humming Christopher had let out. I could see streaks of light against the seat, Christopher’s face, the trees up above. Once, impossibly, something passed overhead. An enormous head you might see displayed on mantles. Big as a house, mighty and towering up above. A long white nose and antlers thick as redwoods. Great tendrils of moss seemed to hang from the antler’s alongside lanterns. Lights strung up among the foliage and impossible prongs.

An elk, an elk enormous beyond imagination, passed and I exhaled. I really wasn’t in Kansas anymore.

“Do you have any water?” Christopher glanced down, eyebrows arching and eyes wet as dogs noses.

“None for you,” he said but in a tone that somehow did not convey rudeness. “Trust me.” “Trust you,” I muttered, “after being cramped and hiding for over an hour? God, it must be sunrise soon.” “No. I’m afraid not.” He heaved a sigh. “Fairy market and all that.” I gaped at him. “Would you like to run that by me one more time?” He shook his head. “Ben,” he said, tasting the name on his lips, humming, “sturdy name. Useful. You’ve got strong fate lines. You won’t die here tonight, as long as you do as I say. Well, won’t die or be stolen if I can help it.” I set my jaw and Christopher put his sunglasses back on. “Happy?”

I kicked out, deciding if I was going to have a delusion, I might as well have it sitting. I rested my back against the door, head peeking up above the windows now. “I want to go back to the main road.” 

Christopher didn’t reply. 

It could have been an hour or only a few minutes, before a face appeared in the window. At first, I didn’t recognize it as a face, a smooth moonlike token in the window. Then, it gathered itself into two sparkling eyes, a clever mouth, and delicate cheekbones. The lady's white hair piled high on her head, adorned with blood-red leaves and berries and she smiled. Her eyes were ink-dark.

“Oh no.” Christopher clutched at the wheel. The lady inclined her head, clever mouth remaining closed but eyes beseeching. A pang went through my chest, unbidden, I felt bad for Christopher. Lord have mercy on a fool. “I have to take this,” he said in a monotone. Air whooshed into the car, cool and light against my skin, tasting of mint or something sharper.

“Wasn’t expecting a visit so soon. Is dad here?” The woman didn’t seem to speak, but inclined her head. Christopher leaned forward, blocking my view or maybe blocking her from me. He got out of the car. 

The second the door closed, taking Christopher with it, I decided to make a break for it. 

—---------------

I racked my head for what I knew about fairies. Cinderella’s godmother, the tooth fairy, Peter Pan. Tinker Bell was probably not going to help me much unless, of course, pirates became relevant in the near future. Which they might, given the night I was having. I opened the door a crack. Sweet brisk air filtered in.

I contemplated the ground below. No longer gravel but rich black earth. My spine prickled and I held very still. The only thing I could come up with half-way relevant was a 11 grade project where we had to choose a poem to analyze. I had picked The Goblin Market by Christina Rossetti. As a 16-year-old I had chosen it for the racy content and riskier presentation in class.

Looking at the dark soil, I muttered to myself, “We must not look at goblin men, we must not buy their fruits: Who knows upon what soil, they fed their hungry thirsty roots?”

I squeezed my eyes closed. I had already spoken to the dark-eyed man and listened to his music, I suppose. I didn’t remember much else of the poem but the heat rising in my cheeks and Lizzie walking into the market. 

I kicked the door open, kept my eyes down, and went for my pack. My heart beat at the pace of the hummingbird's wings and my hands slipped on the door handle. Voices, whispering, indistinct. At the third try I wrenched the back open and got my pack out in one swing. The whispering grew louder and my eyes caught on the lights and the forest.

I knew the Canadian Rockies. I tripped over pine cones and hard stone, drank from crystalline lakes, ran my hands over Alpine forget-me-nots, froze and sweated and bled. This was them and so much more. The trees were the whitebark pines and firs, tightly knit together and crowned in ragged peaks. Voices called to me.

The darkness between the trunks bled into hands, red and mangy, like huckleberry shrubbery waving in the wind. Faces appeared in the shards of moonlight, lanterns bobbed and lurching heaving mountains of things moving in the far distance. Elk perhaps. Mountains. 

I pivoted in place, keeping my eyes away from stalled cars that made up this place. Voices called and righted themselves into words this time. “Young man. Mortal son. Hello.” A sheet of misty rain appeared to my left, melting from the dark and blinking handsome golden eyes. A sturdy nose. A pretty mouth.

“Would you like–” “Thanks. No.” I copied Christopher, not meeting the thing’s eye, and began to walk. The underbrush was not empty however, the forest moved with creatures big enough to crush. I wondered if any amount of walking would take me home.

Another voice broke through the murmuring. “You’ll never make it that way.”

I turned. And there were cars. Glowing bright as stars and windows cranked open. Figures sat inside alongside various goods. Twinkling soda cans and pearl necklaces hung next to each other on string. Stuffed bears and empty plastic bags filled baskets hanging out of car windows. Paint brushes, old CDs, and pine cones set out on car hoods. 

Market stalls. Of course. Some of them appeared as cars, others were old barrels and broken-down train cars off to the side. The beckoning of hands felt like it was coming from all directions.

“I don’t have any money!” I called like that would matter. “I’m, I’m a hiker. A traveler passing through.”

“We don’t take money. Those things,” a clump of white moths, fluttering around and around in a mass, spoke. Ink eyes. Beautiful, tumbling curls. She pointed at the empty soda bottles and stuffed animals, “not for you.”

I backed away. “I don’t have anything you might want.” 

The clump of moths smiled. “My darling, sweet boy . . . Would you like to be loved?”

I gulped down air. “I have to, have to go.” Weaving between stalls one moment and stalled cars the next, I hurried to where there must be an end. There must be an end to the market. 

Fruit the color of sapphires piled high on discarded card tables. Sardine cans and quilted blankets. Water bottles. Canisters and other hiker’s camel backpacks. God, I was thirsty. And I could hear all of them now. 

“Boy, would you like unfading beauty?” “Ten years of glory and a lion’s heart. Heart of lion’s for only ten years.”

Calling. Beseeching. A market you could understand the poem’s sisters getting lost in. My sleeve snagged on something in this endless market. I stumbled into what felt like a rock face.

“Hush now, sweet thing,” thick lichen, flaking and upright, spoke, “I will give you a belonging you have never felt before.” My heart went double time and the thirst ached. I knew it was aching. I knew I was Lizzie about to have her skin pinched and clothes torn. Sullied. Or perhaps, like Laura, changed. I wondered about my sister then. I wondered about being home.

“Belonging for thirteen years and thirteen days,” she smiled. My heart raced and I searched the fairy's face. “You deserve to belong just like anyone else, don’t you? Thirteen years and nothing more.”

“Of my life?” She smiled wider and placed a hand on my chest, fingers spreading like a mold. “Or your heart. Your soul. Memories. Wakeful hours. A song.” I shook my head, slowly and then vigorously. I took a step back.

“A bargain then,” her voice crooned in the groaning of old wood, “Twelve years. Twelve days.” Her hand spread, soaking into the flesh of shirt. “And a kiss.” 

“Thank you!” I nearly shrieked. “I’m not, I’m not. No.” I stumbled back, teetering away from the bright lights. I ducked and dodged into the darkened wood where smaller, stranger things dwell.

I stepped out of the light. The fairies called after me and their voices, luckily, faded into the murmuring of brooks and bird calls and rustling once more. I turned and felt the despair leach into my center. The line of stalls appeared endless, a train, a caravan, a curse.

I slumped down and put my head in my hands. No matter where I had looked, there was no sign of sun. I counted back from ten before I pried my eyes open again. “Christopher?” I called once and then shivered in place, perhaps the most lost I’ve ever been.

“Would you like to be good?” I didn’t look over when it spoke. “Good and know that you are good.”

I ran a hand through my hair. “I want to go home.” I groaned, still not looking down. “Or at least for my ride to come back.” Christopher, at least, had not tried to make any deals. 

“Hmm. Not home. No.”

I saw her hop up from beneath a crop of twisted roots. This fairy was smaller and less beautiful. A dainty clump of mountain ash that was only a hands-length tall. A bushel of delicate white flowers crowned in dew-like hair. She reminded me a bit, only a bit, of Tinker Bell. 

“You’ve been running from something,” her voice was more of a squeak. I was tired. 

“You could say that.”

She patted my knee and my throat throbbed hard enough to make me groan.“You could be good. And know that you are good.” 

I leaned back against the tree trunk. “How much?”

“For good?”

“For home.” “A year or two.” She shrugged. “For being good and knowing you are good. I’m not sure about home.”

I chuckled without humor. “Less than a decade. You’re not much of a bargainer.” “The others know I am small. And crushable.” Dew leaked down her shoulder tops. “So, I’ll take just a year or two of your heart. That’s all.” “My heart?” She shrugged once more, the water making its way down her fluffy skirt and dripping on the ground. “No love. No opening of it.” She put a hand over her chest. “And you’ll be good.” “Good. Huh.” “And know it!” she chirped, “so when you ask yourself, am I doing alright? Am I enough? When I am not earning or making or promising or getting a wife or standing big. You will know. Know that you're good without wondering.” My eyes burned and I rubbed at the corners until I saw spots. I cleared my throat, knowing I needed to steer away. “Where did you come from?” “Silly question.” “Sure.”

“I am like you.” “Not good then?” I raised an eyebrow. “In need of being good, apparently.”

She laughed, shrilly. “No. Not very good at all. Small. Crushable. Small and crushable are not allowed in the queen's caravan.” “That does sound bad,” I said, quietly, staring up. “I’d like to say I know how you feel, but . . .”

“But I do know things. And little boys like, they don’t have to make their own lives so difficult.” “Ha.” My gaze drops to hers. “You’re offering to make my life easy?”

A smile across the face of the little ash fairy, spreading all the way across her face like a jagged wound. “Good.” 

My breath wheezed out and I dropped closer. I was tired, eyes heavy, body aching like a kicked dog coming back to sit at your feet. “It wouldn’t hurt, would it?” She held up a cup made of her own petals. A cup of deep water and lapped at my cracked lips. “All you have to do is drink your fill.” The moonlight caught in the shallow dip and I tipped my head back. Three droplets passed down my lips, fresh as spring, cold enough to strike from my chest to my fingertips. I screwed my eyes shut and clutched at my chest.

The cold blossomed and it was what I imagined a heart attack might feel like. Or perhaps the opposite of one. 

“Wait, shouldn’t we, shouldn’t there be something to sign–” I choked and sputtered and then pain burst from my middle finger on my left hand. The fairy, small and crushable, dug her teeth into my flesh. Gripping ruthlessly, she attached to an open wound, drinking her fill. Dew perched on her head turned red and she made a supping, singing noise in the back of her throat. 

“That’s enough!” I shook her off and another sharp prick went through my wrist. A sting in my neck and then another by elbow. “Stop it!”

A chanting went through my head, a child’s chant like a nursery rhyme. You are good, you are good, you are good. I covered my ears with both hands.

“Stop it!” I bellowed. “This isn’t what we agreed to.” What had we agreed to? The creature tittered and others gathered around it, sharp and hungry. The roots and the rot and the writhing soil. 

I stood, world spinning and heart crushing together into a perfect aching cold. Are fairies allowed to be liars? A tingling spread to the ends of my fingertips and a dizziness overwhelmed me. I covered my mouth with one hand and stopped myself from heaving.

I might have blacked out, blacked out and not come back, and then a light parted the darkness of the wood.

“What have you done?” The words echoed in my head. The face of man, inkdrop eyes, and shining curly hair, looked down on me, pitying. “No,” he said simply. “You can’t. He is my guest.”

Blood seeped out of the cut on my hand and I think I might faint, actually faint like in the movies. Strong hands caught me and then two fingers, clean and warm, human even, pressed to my mouth. Light like the moon poured off of him. “Swallow,” he said. The light burned away the sickly chill. A white fire, burning a path down my throat and into my chest and leaving new life in its wake. 

“Better?” A crown hovered around the man’s head in a halo, stars, the moon even. 

Maybe I could have stayed, made clean and whole, and neither good nor bad. Could have stayed to be made better by the prince of fairies. But I wasn’t that type of person. Voices, again, of birds and wind and roots. I tuned them out. My eyes fixed on lanterns in the distance, meaningless words rushing over me. He spoke of being clean now, healed. The lantern flickered, floating there like something from the stories. 

I looked down at my veins, spiderwebbed in light. They glowed from the inside out. A light, poured from the outside in. A hand was on my knee. Like it had been in the car and I saw it was my own, digging into my flesh. My own hand clutching my own knee and taking me back to myself.

“Can we get him a blanket?” Christopher turned his face. I bolted. No packback, no thoughts, only feet on the ground. Light blared into my face, branches gripped at my clothes, tearing at seams. My nose began to bleed, tasting heated and metallic. I didn’t stop to mop it up. I kept the light of that bobbing thing in my vision, running and bleeding like I never had before.

Later, I would learn a will-o-wisp will is a type of fairy as well, meant for travelers. A light that will get you lost or drown you, if it gets the chance. Though, I was already lost. I ran until my shoes lost the ground. One moment I was sailing ahead, the next I burst through the surface of a lake. Cold engulfed me from all sides, plunging me back into my flesh. I kicked for the surface, up into the fresh night. The trees surrounded this lake in beetle-worn packs, brown and small. Mud caked the banks of the water. Stars were distant and small overhead. I laughed. 

I tore at my shirt and shoes and pants and rubbed deep dark mud across my skin. I laughed and laughed and laughed.

The water ran muddy. Ran red. Then, at least, ran a bright horrible glow, bleeding out and out and out. I bled out the glow of the fairy prince. I washed myself, heaving enough laughter until it turned into a whimper. I scrubbed myself raw until the water, with the sun rising among the peaks, ran clear. 

—----------------

I thought of the prince now and then, how he saved my heart from closing. How he looked at me. How he poured light down my throat, burning me up from the inside out and taking with it a curse. I should be grateful. I went home after all, I hugged my sister and my parents. Hell, I even re-signed up for classes, even as I knew I’d eventually drop out again. Went on a few dates. Gained some roommates I loved and a dog I liked even more. I told stories and stayed. My heart was my own. But I didn’t come back the same after hitchhiking into the depths of the woods in the dark of the road. It was hard to be grateful. Hard for it to feel like a favor to have my heart kept open when it was only replaced by a worse sort of feeling. Longing and longing and longing for inky depths and impossibility, memory that grips you by the throat and murmurs, what if you had stayed?

---------------

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[jedi-enthusiasm-blog]

"The Jedi are stuck in their ways! They still don't allow marriage!"

Woah. There's too much to unpack here.

Marriage has baggage, even in the GFFA. It's an institution that has been used to abuse and opress people, even in Star Wars (Nightbrothers and Nightsisters inmediately come to mind). It's reasonable that, to a culture like the Jedi who are all for compassion, equality and non-possessive relationships, this baggage would at least give some pause.

To add to the above point, if they were allowed to marry, why would they do it? The benefits of marriage are moot when it comes to the Jedi: raising children is done communally, as far as we know Jedi don't pay taxes, etc.

The only way I can see them marrying is if it's something important for their birth culture or if it's something their partner wants to do. And even then that's an if.

Plus, why do people marry? For companionship? The Jedi have that more than covered. Children? There are hundreds of children in the Order, I don't think having bio-children would cross their minds. Because of social pressure? That wouldn't exist in the Order because their whole thing is "duty first" and "no attachments", which means they wouldn't care much for marriage (something that typically is used to say you love that person above all else, which a Jedi cannot do). Because they feel lonely? They have like, thousands of people in their corner, all of them compassionate and supportive.

Moreover, have you considered that the Jedi way of life is so fulfilling people wouldn't feel the urge to marry? That they're completely happy with their lives? That they're connected to the soul of the universe and have reached spiritual enlightenment, and marriage pales in comparison?

Legends supports my point. In Cade Skywalker's time, despite marriage being technically still allowed, most Jedi choose to not get married. Aayla Secura, Kit Fisto, Siri Tachi and the man the myth the legend Obi-Wan Kenobi himself are all Jedi who fall in love, yet choose not to pursue a relationship because being a Jedi is much more important to them. And in canon the Jedi who get into relationships are Kanan and Cal, after Order 66 where they wouldn't have an entire community right behind them. Quinlan Vos falls in love with Ventress but returns to the Order if I remember right, but this part is foggy so excuse me if I misremember.

I'm biased because I don't even want a relationship, but… why the heck are y'all so obsessed with marriage and babies? Why are we using a culture allowing or not allowing marriage as a baseline for progress?

Why is marriage so important to you people that you cannot understand that some people set it aside to focus on other things for pragmatic, work-related, religious and spiritual reasons, or a simple lack of desire?

Just food for thought.

[retrievablememories]

marrow | dpr ian

summary: you're not the only eater. many of your kind exist, but you have always tried to avoid them, continuing to play the charade of the normal, boring life that you can never truly have. until one day, someone shows up at your door.

pairing: dpr ian x black fem reader

genre: horror, angst, hurt/comfort, slow burn romance, bones & all au, 1980s au

word count: 22.9k

warnings & tags: lots of talk about cannibalism, plus the actual act of it | gore | lots of blood | side and minor character deaths | morally gray characters? | depictions of mental illness, including anxiety, depression, self-loathing/low self-worth | mentions of religious trauma | stab wound injury | mentions of self-harm, suicide | bisexual reader | sex happens but only off-screen; there is some kissing | time period is the mid 1980s | setting is the southern U.S. without the period-accurate racism | some body horror; someone gets burned alive but it isn't real | vivid nightmares | ...there’s a lot going on here, just tell me if i missed something

marrow (noun):

a soft, highly vascular modified connective tissue that occupies the cavities of most bones

the choicest of food

a/n: this is a “bones & all” au, so if you didn’t like the movie/book you probably won’t like this. based off both the book and movie but with some changes.

please heed the warnings; there are strong HORROR elements in this fic. (i mean, people are eating other people…) if you’re not interested in reading about these particular concepts, please just scroll on by, make use of your filter settings, or block me.

as we all know, this is just fiction...it doesn't claim to be an accurate/real representation of anyone.

dividers: here | here

1985

You smell him before you can see him.

It comes as somewhat of a surprise: You don’t realize you’re smelling something different, something other than Alicia’s perfume, the cigarette tray, or the stale, woody air of the motel’s office, until it’s right up on you. It makes your body stiffen with fear. Not that you have any right to be afraid.

After a few long minutes, though, no one walks in. You don’t see the familiar blinding sight of headlights flashing in the windows as a car pulls up. And yet the smell remains. Despite your apprehension, you get up from your chair behind the desk to see if anybody is outside, walking to the windows facing the expanse of the parking lot. That is when you see a figure lying on the ground, somewhat obscured by the shadows where the office’s lights don’t reach. It looks to be a man, though you aren’t 100% sure.

From what you can see, he’s covered in blood. Large stains of it ruin the white of his shirt and the blue of his jeans. You could guess that it’s probably not his own. Your mind jumps ahead of you, trying to create the image of him feasting on the body of some unknown victim, of him carrying a bloody bag filled with someone’s clothes and trying to find somewhere to hide it…

It’s a terrible thing to think. Maybe he’s an innocent person, severely hurt. He probably used what little strength he had left to drag himself here for help. 

But the smell never lies.

You quickly grab a flashlight sitting in one of the cubbies on the wall. Then you open the door, the jingling of the bell loud in your ears, and give the parking lot a quick sweep before stepping outside, seeing nothing but the same cars that’d been parked at the same motel rooms earlier. With it being a one-story motel, there wasn’t much area you needed to scan.

Standing out here now and pointing the flashlight into the shadows, you can see he’s still breathing, at least. But now you can also see the dried blood around his mouth and down his neck, which makes you want to promptly walk back into the office and lock the door behind you. Turn out all the lights and pretend no one was ever here.

There’s a big blood stain in one area near his abdomen like he was stabbed; you can see that the fabric is torn. Whoever he ate clearly didn’t go willingly. But when do they ever?

Again you think about going back inside—maybe telling Alicia to call for an ambulance. You think of calling the police, and shame immediately follows. How could you call the authorities on him knowing you and him share the same crimes? You’re unsure of which action to take, but it’s a little late to make the decision now. You see him begin blinking from the light you’re shining directly in his face; you hadn’t paid attention to where you were pointing the flashlight as your mind raced with options. He raises a bloodied hand to shield his eyes, the movement causing him pain.

You shift the light away, pointing it in the vicinity of his torso again. Only now do you pay attention to the numerous tattoos covering his skin. Unsure what to ask or say, you can only come up with a broken “...Hey.” You haven’t used your voice in the last hour.

He doesn’t reply. Instead he pushes himself to sit up, his hand hovering over the presumed stab wound.

“What…uh, what are you doing here?”

He looks at you like he’s deciding whether he ought to be suspicious of you or not. The irony. “I need water,” he finally says.

“Water? I think you need a lot more than water.”

With effort, he starts getting to his feet, and you can’t help flinching away. It feels stupid to act this way, to still be so afraid. As if being afraid could allow you to pretend that you are more human than you really are.

And what timing—Alicia appears at that moment after being locked up in her room sorting paperwork all night. The door bell sounding off behind you makes you jump hard, the wooden beads on your braids all rattling against each other. You spin around to look at Alicia, who’s too busy staring at the man in front of you with concerned eyes.

“What the hell? Are you okay?” she asks, her voice loud in the relative quiet of the parking lot. The motel being located on a less-frequented stretch of highway means things are often quiet like this, with only the sounds of cicadas and frogs and occasional passing vehicles to fill the late hours.

“I’m fine,” he says, disinterested in her concern.

Her eyebrows rise at his accent. “You ain’t from around here,” Alicia says, as if that intrigues her. 

“But you’re not fine. Haven’t you been attacked?” you argue, gesturing toward the wound he can’t keep his hand away from. He lets it drop to his side then.

“I’m fine. I bandaged it. I just need water.” His tone and the dark quality of his expression don’t leave much room for you to object.

You and Alicia look at each other for a long moment; when she sees the tension in your face, you both come to a silent agreement. Strange people and motels go together like thunder and rain, but that fact often keeps you in something of a hypervigilant state. Unbeknownst to Alicia, you are certain you know why this man has shown up here bloody and wounded, insisting he only needs water and not even asking for medical help—which would entail needing to be admitted to a hospital—and you conclude it’s best to get him off your hands as soon as possible.

Once you do, you can start trying to forget about him and the smell of blood clinging to him. After not encountering it for so long, its return makes that familiar taste of iron rise up on your tongue like it’s encoded in your DNA, activating your salivary glands from just the memory of eating, and you feel like an animal for it.

Alicia relaxes her shoulders and puts on a gentle smile. “Well, okay. There’s a bathroom in the office. You can get cleaned up in there. And we got plenty of bottled water too, though it ain’t the fancy stuff like Evian.”

So you let him in.

You listen to the water running in the bathroom while you sit with your back rigid in your desk chair, like you’ll need to spring into action at any moment. Alicia doesn’t bother to speak, knowing the walls are too thin to get away with it, and leans next to you to write on a page of your notepad instead. You watch her small lettering fill the white space:

He looks fucked. We’re probably more dangerous to him right now than the other way around. You think he walked all the way here from town bleeding like that? Maybe someone dropped him here.

You realize with a jolt that Alicia thinks it’s all his blood. You shake your head but give no explanation. After a pause, she shrugs.

Still, you know where the gun is.

“Please…” you choke out, not wanting to think about having to use it tonight—or any other night, for that matter. 

You don’t know if he’ll be a danger, considering he clearly ate not too long ago. But you can never say that for certain. Every cannibal’s appetite and impulses are different.

When he comes back out cleaned of blood, Alicia casually slides the notepad out of sight and stands up straight again. The shirt he was wearing is balled up in his fist, leaving him standing there with nothing but his jeans and shoes on. Seeing people in various states of undress, especially in the South during the warmer months, is nothing new. Still, his nakedness feels oddly misplaced in this macabre situation, and you don’t know where to put your eyes. You end up fixating on the bandaging around his middle, which is all stained through with old blood. It needs to be changed, but that’s not your problem.

Alicia blinks for a moment, the side of her mouth quirking up slightly.

“Of course—silly me. You’re probably wanting some new clothes, ain’t you? We might have something in storage. I’ll just be a few minutes.” Alicia takes a pair of keys from one of the desk drawers. You want to grasp her arm and tell her not to go, but she just directs her eyes to the notepad; you nod reluctantly and watch as she heads to the back door of the office and out to the storage building a couple yards away. It’s a spacious outbuilding that holds everything needed in the running of a motel, including the commercial laundry machines.

Now that the man is somewhat calmer, he looks at you like he recognizes you. You turn away from him when you see the change in his gaze. It’s strange to be seen and known by another eater. Though it’s happened several times, it always unsettles you. You don’t know anything about him, but you’re suddenly, maybe irrationally, worried that he’ll reveal your secret to Alicia.

“I’ve never met another one like me,” he says.

There are several things you want to say. Why didn’t you say it sooner? Have you really never smelled another eater until now? Who did you eat? Will you just leave already? None of these questions are what comes out. “Never?”

“Never. But I suppose I don’t stay anywhere long enough to find them.”

Then please leave soon. 

“When was the last time you ate?”

You bolt up from the chair. There’s nowhere for you to go, though, so you stand there wiping your sweaty palms on your pants and glancing at the back door, hoping Alicia returns soon. “Don’t ask me that.”

You still won’t look at him, but he tries and fails to meet your darting eyes. You find a different part of his body to focus on. This time it’s his hand resting on the desk counter and the intricately designed tattoo that covers it.

“You must get hungry sometimes.” He leans closer, but the tall counter overlooking the desk keeps you separated. “Are you gonna tell me you’ve never had the urge to have a bite of her?” He gestures his head toward the back door. “It’s so fucking lonely out here, maybe no one would notice if you did.”

“Shut the fuck up.” You surprise yourself with the force of your reply, though your voice shakes. “I-I have self-control.”

And then he laughs. Like you two are old friends catching up—like you didn’t just curse him out. It makes him wince immediately, and his hand goes to his wound again. He sighs. “Sorry, darling, but I don’t think it’s about self-control.”

You ignore the name, though it irritates you and reminds you of the sleazy men that often make their way to the motel looking for midday entertainment in harassing young women. “We’ve both been born infected with it,” you say, your voice tight. “It can’t go away, but it’s something that should at least be minimized—not just given into whenever.”

“Is that how you think of it?”

“How could you not feel bad about it?” Despite yourself, you feel tears stinging your eyes. “Each one of them was a person with a life and dreams. We’re the ones stealing that every time we give in.”

“Feel bad about it?” He seems to consider that for a moment, his dark brown eyes far away. “The only thing you can do is get used to it. I would think that at some point, after you’ve eaten enough, it wouldn’t be shocking if it didn’t feel wrong to you anymore. Or if you started enjoying it. You’ve never felt that?”

You don’t answer his question, too disturbed and mentally exhausted to continue arguing and unable to agree with him. You wish he’d never crossed into this part of town, that you’d never met him. His presence makes your head and your chest hurt. He is everything you are and everything you don’t want to be, facing you head-on so that you cannot ignore it.

He’ll go away like the rest have, you try to reassure yourself. You’ve never befriended any of the other eaters you’ve met; at most, you ran into them a couple more times but never saw them again after. But even as you think it, it feels like a lie.

You sit back in the chair with a stilted movement just as Alicia returns, feeling like the precarious little life you’ve built is suddenly on the verge of collapsing. All the effort you’ve put toward modeling the spectacularly average life of the everyday human being—gone.

“Sorry that took a while. I figure you can’t put new clothes on with all that—” she gestures to the bloody bandage “—going on, so here you are.” Alicia hands him a small stack of clothes and a first-aid kit. “I hope that’ll do you some good, mister….?” She looks at him expectantly, and you realize that you haven’t known his name this entire time.

You feel his eyes on you when he answers, but your mind is elsewhere.

“It’s Ian.”

—

The next time you’re struck by the familiar smell of another eater, it happens in the early morning hours when you’re helping an older couple check out of their room.

It causes you to stumble and break in the middle of your sentence as your mind blanks, and you have to take a moment to remember what you were saying. The two elderly folks look at you strangely, their previous neutral-at-best demeanor now giving an air of annoyance. But at least they’re on their way out. You tune out their unsubtle mumbling about young people and their drug use as they finish up and step out the door.

You watch the front windows with a rising panic in your guts, wanting to run and hide but unable to move your feet. What horrific luck do you have to encounter two within the short span of three weeks? It seems that whenever they smell you, they come to you—whether it’s to size you up or attempt to make an acquaintance. 

And a few minutes later, there’s a beat-up sedan, a gray Renault Alliance, pulling up in one of the parking spaces.

What you don’t expect is for the person to be Ian.

The ground has been kicked out from under you. You think maybe you’re suffering from acute vertigo. Your breaths and heartbeats are simultaneously too slow and too fast as he gets out of the car, wearing a button-up shirt that he only bothered to button halfway and black pants. He’s pristine this time—no blood, no torn shirt with an open wound, though his movements hint that he’s still healing. His eyes are shaded by sunglasses, but he takes them off as he walks to the door, making eye contact with you from the other side of the glass. That look sends cold water down your spine.

In another life, if he wasn’t like you and you weren’t like him—if you both didn’t share this bodily pestilence, this cursed impulse—maybe you would’ve felt some spark of interest. Maybe you would’ve thought of him as handsome, giggled with Alicia about it later, a brief respite from your mountains of paperwork. But in this life, you don’t feel anything but repulsion and fear.

You’re momentarily blasted with the unbearable summer heat when the door opens. It’s quickly chased away again by the air conditioning, causing your skin to prickle. Ian gives a close-lipped smile as he stops in front of you.

“Why are you back here?” you whisper.

“Checking into a room. That’s allowed here, right?”

If he’s a paying guest, you can’t really turn him away. He hasn’t done anything yet to warrant that. Even if he does eat other people on a regular basis.

You look past him to the car sitting outside. “Why didn’t you drive last time?”

“I just got it.”

“From which dealership?”

He taps his fingers against the sunglasses and glances down before answering, his voice low. “I think you know.”

Some part of you wants to know who it was in a futile attempt to keep their memory alive if only in your own mind, but you don’t ask. You don’t even know what type of person they were, after all; maybe he’d rid the world of some domestic abuser. It could be…understandable, in that case. People die everyday, you try to remind yourself—a useless platitude you have always told yourself after the act is over. It never absolves the guilt. They would’ve died someday anyway only goes so far when their blood is underneath your fingernails.

“And why come back here, of all motels? There are others in this area that don’t have mold in the bathrooms and roaches in the walls.”

He pauses after hearing that information, like he’s trying to figure out whether you’re pulling his leg. “I thought I’d be in pretty good company here, you know.”

“I don’t want your company,” you say wearily, watching him as he starts taking cash out of his wallet. “Do you think I’ll let you stay here just because—?”

“Because we’re the same? Because you’d cover for me?” he says, voice even lower like he only wants you to hear. That doesn’t matter anyway. Alicia is busy cleaning and preparing one of the newly vacated rooms, and it’s just you two in the office. There would’ve been one more person present if anyone had answered your For Hire ad in the paper, but it still remains only you and Alicia running this joint. “My God, darling. Forgive me for thinking you’d have a little mercy on a fellow cannibal. Anyway, I wouldn’t be so obvious as to do it here.”

You give him a look of disdain. In all sensibility, you should turn him away. You have no obligation to help him or break the law in doing so. The circumstances of his last appearance were already outrageous, and now he shows up with a stolen car. Who knows if someone might come here searching for him and making you and Alicia complicit in his mess? And ultimately, you want nothing more than for him to stop bringing up the whole cannibalism bit. Deep down, you are afraid that these mentions of it—maybe even the simple proximity to him—will reawaken the urge you haven’t felt in over a year now.

You’ve stayed silent for a beat too long. In a mess of movements, he shoves his wallet back in his pocket, slips his sunglasses back on, and brushes a hand through his hair, disappointment visible in his expression. “Okay, then. I’ll go elsewhere.” Something about his reaction makes your stomach twist. Maybe the sheer resignation in it. You shouldn’t care where he goes after this, if he has anywhere to go. He’ll be miles away from you again, just like you want. But…

It comes rushing out of your mouth as his hand reaches for the door handle, and you have no idea why you say it. “How many nights?” 

—

It’s been a few days since Ian checked into the motel and you haven’t heard anything from him since then, but sometimes you spot “his” car in its parking space when you go to see about one of the other rooms. Whenever it’s not there, you can’t help but wonder where he’s gone and what he’s doing.

Without seeing him, you would almost be able to forget that he’s there, if not for the smell. It constantly keeps you on edge, more than you already tend to be. Alicia picks up on your restlessness but of course doesn’t know the origin of it—meaning she’s left to come up with a new guess everyday.

“Well yeah, he was surely strange…but maybe he appreciated us helping him out and just wanted to return the favor?” she’d suggested on that first day when he returned and you’d let her know with a less-than-thrilled attitude. “It ain’t like he’s the first weirdo to come around.”

“Maybe you just ain’t getting enough sleep. That’s enough to turn anybody’s mind out. Hope somebody replies to that ad soon so we can have some more help…” she’d said the day after that.

“You missed him earlier, but he came by the office this morning. Had an extra one of those breakfast muffin thingies and left it here. Ain’t that nice? He’s pretty cute, actually. You sure you ain’t just crushing and feel weird about it ‘cause he’s a paying customer?” Alicia laughed one afternoon, the third day of his stay. “Worse things have been done at this motel, Y/N.”

“No, Alicia,” was all you could muster up, and your stiff reply was just as good as an actual confirmation in her mind.

Sometimes, even though you are deeply ashamed of it and try never to acknowledge these rare moments after they happen, you stare at Alicia with her long curly brown hair and her sinewy limbs and her shining brown eyes, taking in the full breadth of her humanness, and you wish she were like you. Even though it would take away her normalcy and happiness…if she could smell that blood-curdling aroma that only you can—if she could understand the weight of this secret—if she knew what it was like to feel the rough grind of bone fragments between her teeth—

—maybe everything could be easier. You wouldn’t have to live with an imagined cowl of judgment, which she had yet to even bestow upon you, always blanketing your mind. And though you’ve always thought it better to have fewer eaters in the world than more, maybe navigating this existence wouldn’t be so isolating.

—

One muggy evening, the motel office phone rings, and you see on the caller ID that it’s from Ian’s room. You have to take a pause to steel yourself, letting it ring for several moments before you pick up the receiver.

“Hi, how can I help you?”

“Hey, yeah, um, the sink faucet has started leaking quite badly…not sure how that happened. It wasn’t like that last night.”

You sigh quietly, knowing you’d suggested changing all the faucets to Alicia a while ago, but the budget wasn’t quite there to do so. The summer festivals will be starting up soon, though, and festivals mean a higher number of travelers, so maybe there will be more money for it by the end of the season.

“...I’m sorry about that. I’ll be right there.”

“Right. Thanks, dear.” Your mouth twitches, but you don’t reply; you just nod as if he could see you. Neither of you hangs up. For an awkward stretch of quiet, punctuated only by the shuffling sound of movement, it seems like he wants to say something else. There’s an intake of breath like he will. You slam the phone down before he can.

You find the toolbox in its usual spot and take your umbrella from the stand before heading out the door. It’s raining lightly outside, the force of the droplets picking up and then dying back again every so often, but the humidity is so high that you feel uncomfortably soggy by the time you get to his room.

When Ian opens the door, there’s a cigarette burning between his fingers.

“Um, hello.”

You don’t like the way he smiles at you—like you’re co-conspirators on some big scheme. “Hi. You know where it’s at, yeah?”

You resist rolling your eyes. “Of course.”

He lets you in and then leaves the door propped open so he can stand outside and smoke. At least he won’t be breathing down your neck while you work like some other guests do.

Some game show program is playing on the small box TV; it looks like Press Your Luck. The sound of the TV and the rain falling outside accompany you as you set the toolbox down on the sink counter and start making the necessary fixes to the faucet. Situations like this one, though annoying, do give you a tiny bit of reprieve; you become too engrossed in the work to think about all your life’s problems.

That is, until you realize the problem with the faucet is too convenient to be caused by any natural malfunction or wear and tear. No he didn’t…you think, though part of you is still trying to convince yourself that your eyes and brain are deceiving you.

When you’ve successfully repaired the faucet, you straighten up and are startled to find Ian already leaning against the bathroom door frame, the cigarette now gone.

“Uh—well…works like a charm now.”

He acknowledges your work with a small nod. Before you can say anything else, he immediately says, “How do you experience it? The hunger.”

You could swear that your heart ceases beating. Your words come out in a shaky rush of breath. “Please stop.”

“You’re the only other one I’ve met, and I have to know what it’s like for someone else.” His voice and expression are genuinely pleading, and this takes you aback. “Please try to understand where I’m coming from.”

You put the tools back in the toolbox with trembling hands, your mind racing with things you should and shouldn’t say. “It doesn’t happen often,” you finally admit, your voice so small that he has to step fully into the bathroom to hear you. “There are usually months or years between occurrences. But when it comes…it’s oppressive. It’s like I’m being gnawed on the inside, like I have to do it or I’ll die. The last time was before I met Alicia.” The blurred memory of it causes you physical pain; it’s impossible to escape the self-hatred and disgust you feel, enclosed in this small room with him.

“Who was it?”

You shake your head. The thought of recounting what happened—no, what you did—makes you shudder. You refuse to let the barbed words leave your mouth for fear of being cut by them and bleeding out, but you find yourself mentally back in the scene anyway; you can almost hear the lapping of the lake and the distant sound of her voice if you concentrate. “Her name was Marygold. That’s it.”

He nods, left to accept that you don’t want to talk about her. “Years…hmm. The urge comes every few weeks for me.” He smiles sarcastically. “Lucky one, aren’t I?”

“...I thought you said you enjoyed it,” you murmur.

“Look, dear: What’s not enjoyable is always having to cover your tracks—or making too big of a mess and having to leave the area because of it.” He crosses his arms. “The guy whose car I have? He was just some lonely grocery store worker. You probably want me to say something noble, like I ate a fucking axe-murderer or something. No—I just needed a car again, and he was convenient. That’s how it is.

Maybe I could try to ignore the urge, put it off, but I don’t. When I feel it, I just go and find someone to satisfy it. Does the average person debate about whether they should eat a meal when they feel hunger? No, they just eat.”

You groan, your stomach lurching as you clutch the edge of the counter. “I-I can’t believe you messed up the faucet to get me in here to talk about this. What if Alicia had come instead?” For a second, you allow yourself to consider the danger in that implication—if Alicia had been in here with him alone…

He gives an airy laugh at your mention of the sink. “So I wasn’t very clever, then.”

Trying to gather yourself, you pick up the toolbox and glare at him. “I’ve told you plenty. Don’t ask me about this anymore.” In reality, you haven’t said even half of what he wants to know about, but getting anything else from you is impossible at this point. 

Ian steps aside to allow you to leave the bathroom. You grab your umbrella from where it’s resting against the dresser and hurriedly open it.

“Please don’t call again unless it’s a serious problem. One that you haven’t purposely fucking caused.”

He raises his eyebrows. “That’s unfair. Staying here means I’m also paying for your services, you know.” Then he adds, “Not that I believe in superstitions, but I thought it was considered bad luck to open umbrellas indoors.”

You roll your eyes, already halfway out the door. “That’s ridiculous. And it’s not like I was born with any luck to begin with.” You let the lock click behind you, not bothering with a goodbye or goodnight.

—

Guests continue to come and go as the season rolls into the beginning of July; they mostly consist of travelers from outside of the area, contract workers, and truckers. You and Alicia work yourselves to near exhaustion with upholding the motel’s operations. You have often thought it lucky that you found her when you did, as she’d just fired her previous two employees for stealing funds when you answered her ad. You don’t know how she would’ve done all this alone, owning and upkeeping this motel after her divorce from her husband; but she always carried herself as if she were just happy to be doing something entirely of her own volition, without him ordering her every move.

Amidst this rush, Ian’s been at the motel for several weeks now. You wonder if he plans on living here, as it seems he has nowhere else to stay. But he’ll need to eat soon, won’t he? Guilt begins gnawing at you as the days pass. You’re putting the other motel guests’ lives in danger just by having him here.

But he’s been doing this just as long as you have—and with greater frequency. He should know by now to avoid eating too close to home. In those quiet moments when you have more time to ruminate, you find yourself hoping that he’ll go somewhere farther out, maybe to one of the bars or a nightclub. As long as it isn’t here.

But you don’t know why you debate with yourself over this or wish such a morbid thing. Someone will have to die either way.

—

The last person you checked in had been hours ago, and the cut-off was at 10:00 p.m. No one else would be coming through here tonight. With that, you’d mentally prepared yourself for another night of getting things in order for the next morning. A half-empty cup of coffee sits on your desk as you go through the budgeting again, the computer’s light illuminating your face and straining your weary eyes. New bathroom faucets, I’m coming for you…you think.

Alicia’s floral perfume swirls around the room as she goes about tidying up the lobby area, switching out the magazines for more recent copies and sanitizing every hard surface with cleaning spray and a cloth. A couple with kids had been through earlier in the day to check out, and their kids had great fun making a mess of things, to the chagrin of their tired parents. Neither one of you had gotten around to cleaning it up until now.

You’re closing out of the budgeting spreadsheet window and about to move onto something else when your stomach twists and aches. It’s been so long that for a few precious seconds you don’t recognize the sensation, but then dread smashes into you when your brain registers it.

The smell of Alicia’s perfume is suddenly too loud. The smell of her body, soft and muscled and warm, is too loud. Your eyes drift to her tanned legs revealed by her shorts, and you’re overwhelmed with the need to sink your teeth into the fat of her thighs, the muscles of her calves. You swear you can already taste the blood running through her veins; you imagine how it’d feel on your lips. You want to sob from how badly you want it and how badly you don’t. 

Your eyes sting with gathering tears as you breathe hard, your panic increasing. You should get up and go to the door, run outside and get the hell away from her. Even if you have to run into the highway and surrender yourself to death by speeding car, you should leave and spare her of this nightmare, but you’re incapable of making yourself move anywhere but toward her. Your body acts without your volition.

That’s how you find yourself rising from your seat, pressing your body against the desk counter as you take a couple of strained steps in her direction. Her body is angled away from you as she finishes wiping down an end table, and you see her cheeks rise as she grins in satisfaction at her own work. You understand innately that this smile will be the last, and a terrible ache swells in your heart. You know you’ll regret not seeing it fully so that you could imprint it in your mind.

“Alicia…” you moan, anguished.

She turns to you in alarm, and you want to scream when she walks over to you. “Y/N! What’s wrong? You look like you’re in a world of hurt.” Her breath is warm, and beneath the scent of spearmint, you can still smell a hint of what she’d had earlier. Some frozen TV dinner of mashed potatoes, meatloaf, and peas. You yearn to share her meal—suck her tongue into your mouth, chew it into pulp.

The sights and scents are all too much, and you are so, so hungry.

“Are you ill?” Alicia asks, brows furrowed as her hand clutches your arm. In your hypersensitive state, you feel each individual finger, the lines on her palms, and the swirls of her fingerprints. Though they are hands you have thought about many times before, it’s as if you know them intimately now—like you formed them and carved all the lines yourself. “I knew it. I’ve been putting too much stress on you, ain’t I? You coulda told me, Y/N.”

Tears drip down your cheeks as you shake your head in denial of her words. “I...I’m sorry.”

Alicia’s expression is soft and remorseful, her mouth downturned. “I should be telling you that.”

Her selfless words only worsen your guilt, even as you lean forward—your body controlled by a force you can’t deny—and press your lips to her neck.

When it’s over an hour later, the only things that remain are her bloody clothes. Physically, you feel frighteningly satisfied with your hunger now alleviated. Your reward for it? A shower of blood. The vinyl floor surrounding you is covered in red. Drops of blood streak down the front and side of the wooden desk, with more on the wooden wall behind you. There are probably more microscopic drops of blood all around the office that you’ll never be able to find. The air is filled with a mingle of odors; the cleaning fluid she used earlier, your unfinished coffee, iron and flesh, the ever-persistent woody, rustic smell of the office itself—and much farther in the background, Ian.

From your place on the floor, you drag yourself up onto your desk chair and fumble the phone receiver with slick hands. It’s difficult to see the buttons with the tears blurring your vision, and you futilely wipe them away, which just smears more of Alicia’s blood across your face. You have to think for a moment to remember which room number is his, and you desperately hope it’s correct as you punch it in.

You think you could faint when you hear his familiar accent. “Hello? That you, Y/N?”

“Help me,” you cry, your voice strangled from the tears and hyperventilating. “God, fucking help me!”

He hangs up a second later. You don’t know what you expected, but that wasn’t it. You begin resigning yourself to your fate as you slump into your seat, the receiver clattering on the desk. Some guest will find you here tomorrow and call the police, and you won’t be able to prove either innocence or guilt. What could you say—I ate her, all of her? You could open my stomach for the evidence; I don’t want to live anymore anyway? Despite what you tell them, the police will think you insane and continue searching for a body that no longer exists. That’s how it often is; another eater had told you this many years ago.

A fresh wave of tears bursts forth, and it causes you to miss the figure rushing past the windows and flinging the door open.

When Ian comes up to you with concern in his eyes, his hands reaching out to steady your shoulders and hold your bloody, tear-drenched cheeks, you don’t know whether he’s your demon or your savior. You feel a perverse relief at his presence, knowing that only he can understand your situation; and you resent him enormously for the casual way he can do the same thing and hardly think of it. It’s this curse you share, borne differently.

“We can clean this up,” he insists as he kneels before you, eyeing all the blood around him like he’s done this a hundred times before. You shake your head and begin to mumble a rebuttal, and he grasps your cheeks more firmly to regain your focus. “Darling, listen to me. It can be like it didn’t happen.”

“It did happen,” you retort, voice strained with anger. “Even if no one else knows it, I will. I can’t stay here and work here everyday knowing I—” your words break, “—that I killed Alicia.”

“You can do it, Y/N. You can get used to it. You have to get used to it, learn how to clean it up and move on. You don’t want to live a life constantly on the run—believe me.”

You practically snarl at him through the tears. “I can’t run a fucking motel by myself.”

He pauses, and then says, “I could do it with you. It’s not like I have shit else to do.”

You scoff. “And what when you need to eat? What then?”

“I could—”

“Start eating the guests, and this will become known as the motel where people go to disappear. How long do you think you’ll get away with that before the authorities come?”

“I’ve already told you I wouldn’t do that,” Ian insists. You think he might continue trying to argue with you, but then he says, “Okay. Okay. If you want to be done with all this, then we have to get the fuck out of here.”

“And leave it like this?” you groan, glancing at the bloody floor.

Ian finally lets you go so he can stand up. “Of course not. We have to clean everything. How many hours do we have until this office is supposed to open?”

You two spend the next several hours meticulously scrubbing every surface in the office. You try to turn yourself into an automaton—focus on the motions your body needs to perform and empty your mind. You aren’t successful. Too many times, you find yourself sniffling and averting your gaze from Ian’s direction so he doesn’t see your teary eyes, which is ridiculous in hindsight; he’s already seen you sobbing and covered in someone else’s blood. Held your face while you did so, like you were a small child. It doesn’t get much worse than that.

When the cleaning work is done, you stuff Alicia’s clothes, your bloody outfit, and the stained rags and brushes into several plastic bags you dig out of storage. Ian promises to stop somewhere so you can burn them all later. Everything else you take is more clothes to wear, some essentials, and your birth certificate folded small and stuffed in one of the pockets of your traveling bag—your only form of ID, and the only memento you have left of your birth parents.

Before abandoning the motel, you remove Ian’s name from the guest ledger to make it seem as if he never stayed there; his motel room looks untouched by the time you’re both done getting his things out of it and fixing it back up. You return his room key to its designated place on the wall of keys and then hurry out of the office, unable to spare another look at the place you’re leaving behind. You and Alicia lived and worked here for so long, spent so many exhausting nights and early mornings keeping the motel going even when it seemed like it might not survive, but there’s nothing left for you now. In just one hour, you destroyed it all.

So in the early morning hours when the motel guests are still asleep and there’s no one to witness but the gradually lightening sky and the cicadas, you and Ian hit the highway in his stolen Renault Alliance.

Once you’re a few miles away from the motel, you roll the window down to get some fresh air, and the warm breeze is one of the few things that helps hold you together. You almost want to stick your head out the window. Maybe if you fill yourself with enough oxygen, it’ll replace all the remnants of Alicia inside you. But you don’t want that to happen, either; you have nothing else left to remember her by but some bloody clothes that will be destroyed anyway. Only the memories of her smile, her sunny demeanor, her melodious Southern accent, and her perfume will remain in your mind, vulnerable to the passing of time. And eventually, those too will begin to fade and lose their clarity, gone to the same murky place within you that the other victims reside in, revived occasionally by your unpredictable nightmares.

“Where are we going?” you ask, and it’s the first thing either of you have said since you left.

“I’ve already been through most of the North…and I’m not really eager to go back soon. So unless you want to hang around the South a bit longer, it should probably be out West.”

“...I’d prefer the South. What kind of trouble did you cause up North?” you ask, your voice devoid of any meaningful emotion.

Ian glances at you and taps his fingers against the steering wheel. “Some…people saw me eating someone. I took someone to this broken-down house, looked like it had been abandoned for years and I knew people rarely came through that area, so I thought it was safe. But some fucking teenagers came there to do their graffiti and shit, and…”

“What did you do?”

“I ran. I hid out in the woods until night, and then I got the fuck out of the state.”

“Which state?”

“Pennsylvania.”

You nod slowly. “And then you come down here and get yourself stabbed. By the person you were eating, wasn’t it?”

Ian chews on his bottom lip before saying, “Yeah.”

In another context, you would make some comment about him being sloppy with it even after his years of experience, but you’re too drained to engage in the back-and-forth that would cause. You sigh and sink deeper into the seat.

“I’m not from this town either, you know. I’ve already done my fair share of running. But with the urge being so infrequent, it’s easier to stay in one place for a while. And even if I do give in to it, sometimes…I can pretend as if I didn’t. Buy myself some more time. Not much evidence but clothes, after all. And clothes are easy to get rid of.” You’re silent for a few moments. “But Alicia…” You close your eyes. “I can’t pretend.”

—

The beginning of your new life is exhausting. You’d forgotten how stressful it is to live like this; you’d gotten used to having one place to live in, the promise of running water everyday, and consistent meals that didn’t come out of a convenience store or vending machine.

You gladly watch Ian flirt with waitresses or waiters at the restaurants you stop in so you can get discounted meals. It doesn’t take much negotiation for him to get cheaper stuff at the occasional farm stand, either; the vendors are quickly enamored by his smile and his charming manner and those pet names he likes to lavish on every living creature. You don’t know where he got all of his cash from—probably that poor grocery worker’s house—but you do remain cognizant of how much of it is left every time you both have to buy something. You haven’t even touched the money you took from the motel safe yet, but that won’t last forever either. Your mind always remains ten miles ahead of where you are in the present, making it harder to focus on anything.

Sometimes you find an abandoned or empty house to sleep in for a few nights, left standing alone by the homeowners who are on vacation—whether permanently or temporarily. Entry is easier thanks to your lock-picking abilities. But most often, you two sleep in the car. Ian lets you have the entire backseat, which made you feel awkward at first. “Are you sure?” you’d asked.

“Quite. Why not?”

“...You don’t have to be so courteous considering we still barely know each other. I mean, you…” you faltered.

He’d given you this sarcastic smile and said, “How sweet of you to think of me, darling. I could sleep back there with you so neither of us has to deal with the front seats—”

“Nevermind. I’ll take it.”

And other times, he chooses someone at random—a bearded man at a gas station, an older woman at a grocery store, some sluggish-looking twenty-something eating lukewarm scrambled eggs at a down-home eatery—and spends a few days watching their movements. He’ll follow them at an inconspicuous distance in the sedan and find out where they live; subsequently, there will be hours of mind-numbing car-camping nearby as you both wait to see their vehicle turn down the road at the break of dawn or the onset of afternoon. Another day means more opportunities for observation.

But not everyone owns a car. Sometimes he’ll become interested in someone who’s traveling on foot, and he’ll leave the car to you while he trails after them for hours. You hate it the most when he does this.

He has enough decency to tell you a specific place where you can both meet at again in a few hours—maybe a park, or a drugstore—or he’ll say something about meeting you back here later. 

“Later” is an unknown to you. Not knowing exactly when he’ll be back and not wanting to sit in the same place all day drives you mad. You might go to a local trinket shop or an outlet store or some boutique downtown to try to ease your anxiety. But sooner rather than later, you end up in your agreed-upon meeting spot, watching for his reappearance in the side mirrors.

Whether he walks or drives, you’re always left waiting on him once he decides to eat them.

The very first time he played this game, he’d told you to “come back later,” front door open and one leg already outside the car. You’d both been tailing a man for a couple of days already, and he had been none the wiser. He’d just returned home from work not too long ago; the sedan had rolled in after, and you both watched his house from your distant spot among the trees—waiting for something to happen? You didn’t know. The sun was setting, making way for the dark of twilight to paint the world; through the trees, you could see the glow of the house’s lights in the distance.

“What? Wait, what are you doing?” you hissed. You impulsively reached for his arm to pull him back in the car and then thought against it, retracting your hand. But you didn’t need to bother with pulling him back, because he leaned into you like he was telling you something confidential.

“Trying to give you a break. I would ask you to join, but I know you hate this and all, so just come back in like, two hours.”

You were unsure how to respond. You stared at him, knowing what he was about to do and wanting to stop him but understanding that your efforts would be futile. “Ian, what if I can’t find my way back here? It’s going to be pitch fucking black.”

He took your hand in his and squeezed it. If this was meant to comfort you, it did nothing of the sort. “You will. Just remember the street names.”

Then he’d left. You didn’t stay to watch him approach the house; you climbed into the front seat and carefully navigated the car along the path that wasn’t really a path and back onto the road. You waited the two hours, your eyes twitching to the car’s dashboard clock too many times as you drove aimlessly around the town with your palms sweating, hoping not to seem suspicious. All the while, you repeated the street names in your mind so that you could get back easily.

When the time came, you did find your way back—just as he said. The door was already open as you walked up the grassy path to the porch, your legs trembling from what you might find. Ian stood there with the yellow glow of the interior outlining his form, and as you looked past him, you saw that there was nothing amiss inside. There were no signs that any death had ever happened here, carefully scrubbed and cleaned away.

And that is how you ended up with a new home to stay in for a little while.

You’ve never seen him consume anyone, and you don’t ask. But sometimes you wonder…after he makes himself known to them—what does he do? Force his way into their house? Play whatever innocent persona that would give him a good reason to be suddenly on their doorstep, in their driveway? Does he press his lips to their neck the same way you do, the last gentle touch before the ravaging, or go for another body part—or does he kill them through some other method before ever sinking his teeth in?

Deeper down, you always wonder if maybe this will be the time he fails. That maybe he’ll change from hunter to hunted, or that he’ll be caught again.

He seems to have a preternatural skill for picking the types of people who no one would really miss, though. People who live alone and often in homes or trailers that sit off on a densely wooded and scraggly piece of land, separate from any houses nearby. Too far away for anyone to hear screams for help. Sometimes they’re the type of people who’ve burned all their bridges with their loved ones and whose calls for a savior would probably go unanswered anyway. This ability of his deeply unsettles you, but you never admit this aloud.

Once, you ask Ian why he even puts in so much effort—why he goes this far just to find someplace for you two to lay your heads at night that isn’t the worn material of the car seats. You aren’t expecting some virtuous or sappy answer, but you don’t quite anticipate his actual response either.

He hesitates for a moment, as if wary of how you’ll respond. “I like it—that’s all. That slow pursuit and the inevitable ending…somehow, they taste better that way.”

—

Initially, you weren’t sure if it mattered to have some sort of disguise. You’d crossed paths with hundreds of people at the motel and wondered if you might someday be recognized, that they would somehow know what you’d done, why you left the motel, and expose you to the national papers. (Some regional papers had reported on the motel’s sudden and unexplained abandonment, you find out later, but they proffered no clear answers for it or your and Alicia’s whereabouts.) But you didn’t know if those largely brief encounters would be memorable enough for anyone to recall you months later.

Either way, you end up taking your braids out not too long after you’ve been on the road. They were beginning to frizz to an unmanageable level anyway, and your chances of having them continually refreshed is virtually zero now. In a way, it’s a relief to not have them anymore, as if you have somehow transformed into a different person—a stranger you could look in the mirror at and not recognize as an eater—by letting your hair free. You burn the hair and all of the wooden beads inside a fire pit at a camping site, watching them die nestled in the flames.

But there are always occurrences that refuse to let you forget. Because on that same campground, you catch wind of another eater a few days after your arrival.

Their scent makes your stomach drop, as it always does in the presence of another eater. You wonder if they have purposely decided to stay at this site because they smelled you and Ian, or if they’re merely passing through. How will the encounter unfold this time, with three of you present? 

When you go to talk to Ian about it, you find him by the river, where he has managed to catch a few fish. They sit nearby in a cooler. The midday sun beams down on the both of you with no relief, and you have to shield your eyes from the water’s reflection. 

“I hope you know how to gut those, because I’m not doing it,” you say, frowning.

“It’s fine, babe. I’ve got it.” You scoff and roll your eyes, unimpressed.

“Can you smell that?” you ask him abruptly, quieting your voice. 

He looks at you thoughtfully, but you continue shading your eyes from the sun and trying to appear casual and not at all disturbed. The continuous tapping of your foot gives you away, though. Ian glances around to see that none of the others near the river’s edge are close enough to hear, and eventually murmurs, “Yeah, I can.” 

“Okay. Okay, maybe—”

“You’re nervous?”

You return his gaze then. “You’ve never met other eaters. I have. Let’s just boil it down to this: It’s often better for us to stay out of each other’s way. Us being dangerous to everyone else doesn’t mean we aren’t a risk to each other, too. Not because we feel actual hunger for each other—I’ve heard that isn’t possible. More strange genetic shit no one can explain. But some will feed on other eaters just because they can.” You shift uncomfortably. “Some see it as like…a conquest, I guess.”

“Is that why you were so eager to see me gone back then?” You don’t expect him to say that, and it takes you aback for a moment. He smirks, but the expression doesn’t have a genuine quality to it—like he’s only showing levity because he assumes you will be repelled by him without it.

“No, it’s…not why.” The real reason feels too vulnerable to disclose, so you don’t. Again, you find yourself unable to meet his eyes, and you return your attention to the blinding waters. “Look, I just wanted to tell you so that you’re—aware. I’m not saying we have to up and run away, but…”

Ian’s face becomes hard to read; you don’t know whether he’s feeling apprehension or whether he’s neutral about the possibility of meeting another eater. Or maybe even fascinated by it. “I get it. Let’s just see if they make the first move or something. And if they show themselves as dangerous to us, then we can leave.” 

You don’t love the idea of sitting and waiting for something to happen, but you aren’t fond of the thought of packing up and hitting the road again either. You are beginning to enjoy this campsite; it’s not so remote that you feel isolated, but all the campers are spread out enough so that you can avoid feeling crowded in or watched. Or like you’re exposing others to danger. “Fine. Let’s see.”

—

You and Ian sit outside at the fire pit after eating, listening to the cacophony of frogs at the river and other night sounds as your after-dinner entertainment. You hear a train in the distance and wonder where it’s going. You imagine hitching a ride on it and traveling someplace where you can settle down without the prying questions of new neighbors and the requirements of real estate agents—buy a house and live in one place for the rest of your life like normal people get to do.

You scrub your face with your hands and sigh. Ian perks up at your heavy exhale, a question in his eyes.

“When I mentioned genetics earlier…” you try to order your words correctly, “...I think I got this thing from my mother. I was told that I was given up for adoption as soon as I was born, as her parents didn’t think she would be fit to raise me, and they didn’t want me either. They didn’t specify why she couldn’t raise me, but I always assumed it was because of that.” This is more personal than anything you could’ve told him earlier, and you aren’t sure why it comes spilling out now. “I don’t think either of her parents were eaters. I think it can skip generations, but I’m not really sure…I don’t exactly sit and have tea and reminisce about family trees with other eaters.”

You’d been passed between many foster homes as an adolescent, never truly feeling like you belonged in anyone’s home or that any of your new “family members” loved or cared about you. At best, you were tolerated or left to your own devices. At worst…you’d once lived with a strictly religious older woman who was half the cause of your constant feelings of guilt. She never found out that you are an eater, but there was plenty more than that for her to convict you about. The lectures about hell and brimstone still come back to mock you if you let your mental guard down for too long. 

During the time when you’d been traveling through the world on your own, you only took shelter in churches—abandoned or not—if there was truly no other suitable place to camp for miles. The large windows always reminded you of eyes peering down on you, seeing inside of your soul and cursing you for the blood you’d spilled.

Ian leans back on his hands. The flames of the fire pit illuminate his face, and somehow, he looks different. Like the act of reaching so far back into the past is making him into someone younger, softer, and newer to the world.

“...I guess it would be my dad, then. I never knew him, and mum would never talk about him. I don’t know anyone else in my family who would be. Family secrets always stay so well hidden.” He begins chucking little sticks and other debris into the fire pit, and you watch them spark as they hit the flames. “Mum tried to hide mine once I started, but I felt like such a burden to her…I just went out on my own as soon as I could.”

“So when did you start, then?”

“When I was starting high school. What about you?”

“I was still in the single digits…eight or nine, I think…” I’d snuck out to my friend’s treehouse at night even though I wasn’t allowed to, and the hunger came without a warning. Despite the blood inside the treehouse, no one could ever figure out what happened. The missing posters all over town haunted me. The finer details are gone now, but you still remember the basics of it. These things arise in your mind but you don’t say them, wanting to avoid the sting of voicing what you did.

“So it’s not the same timing for all of us? I’d thought it was some fucked-up symptom of puberty that none of the other kids at school had gotten or something…” Ian says, his voice trailing off. After a moment of silence, you laugh and keep on laughing, though it’s more an expression of your incredulity at this situation—at your lives—rather than true amusement. Ian laughs alongside you, though he sounds more light-hearted about it than you do. “I’m serious.”

“Ah…yeah. I guess it kind of is, in a way,” you whisper, just enough to be heard over the fire popping and the forest’s sounds. “A coming-of-age type of thing. You can never be the same after it happens.”

“That first time was scary for me, but mostly because of mum’s reaction when I told her.”

“What about before you told her?” you ask, wondering if you’ll regret this question.

Ian tilts his head back and stares up at the stars for a moment. “Physically, I felt…complete. Like…I don’t know, sort of like something in me had been starved and empty my whole life and I didn’t realize it until I finally ate.”

To your surprise, you feel some measure of envy at this, wishing it could be that straightforward for you. If you could eat only to satisfy the need, to achieve wholeness, and not feel any particular emotion about it—least of all the normal combination of negative emotions that crash down on you afterward—things could be so different.

This and all your previous conversations together might be the most time you’ve spent talking about the urge with any one person. That realization cools your blood and makes you want to draw back again. You’ve told him about your relatives and nearly spoke of your first time, and now you find dangerous words itching in your throat: I think I envy you. Maybe it’s all too much to lay in his hands and trust him with—even though you had no choice but to trust him with your life at the motel.

Trying to restore the emotional distance between you, you get up from your spot on the log and promptly announce, “I’m, uh, gonna go piss.”

Ian’s eyebrows crease in the middle, and a short laugh bursts from his mouth. “Uh, sure, be my guest.”

You walk off into the trees, trying to tell yourself that the physical distance is enough for now—even though you feel like you’ve splayed your chest cavity open before him and let him scrutinize your every cell.

—

You wake up in the tent alone the next morning, pulled out of sleep from the sound of voices nearby. It’s not unusual for Ian to wake up before you; with you not needing to get up at dawn hours anymore to run the motel’s affairs, you take every opportunity to sleep as long as you can.

Within seconds of waking, you realize the smell of the other eater is much stronger, which raises alarm within you. You peek your head outside the tent’s opening to see what’s going on, adjusting your scarf on your head. Outside, you see Ian talking to someone else at the picnic table—someone who you can only assume is the other eater. She has strawberry-blonde hair that reaches the middle of her back and skin that’s been tanned from weeks in the sun; there are freckles across her face and chest, and her eyes are a clear blue. She seems engrossed in the conversation, and though you can’t see Ian’s face, he must be the same way; this is the second eater he’s met after knowing none at all his entire life. You’re reminded of the almost desperate way he’d appealed to you in that motel bathroom, and all your internal organs wince at the remembrance.

And then she glances over his shoulder and sees you sitting there yards away. A small smile shifts her expression, but it doesn’t have the same energy of the friendly smile you get from a passing stranger in public. It says I know what you are, and we both know you cannot hide it from me. It creates that familiar unease in you.

Ian notices the change in her face and turns to look at you as she gets up from the table to walk over to the tent. “Hello there. We were just having a nice little talk; it’s not often I meet other eaters who’ve never encountered their own before. You caught yourself a rare one.” She smiles with her teeth now. “I’m Sherry. What’s your name?”

You tell her a fake name, still cautious about your identity. You wish you’d been awake earlier to catch the beginning of their conversation, but it’s too late to ruminate on that. “What did you talk about?” you ask, shuffling out of the tent now. You’re only wearing a tank top and sleep shorts because of how hot the tent can get when you’re both in it; you don’t know how the hell Ian puts out so much body heat.

“You know, the things every person talks about…the weather, things to do ‘round here, favorite foods.” Sherry cocks her head at the last phrase, as if amused by her own words. You’re unable to muster up a smile to match hers. “Personally, I like to feed every month…I think Ian would agree. It’s too bad you don’t indulge as often, I hear? You could eat plenty more—not just when the hunger tells you to.”

It’s clear that he’s said more than he needed to. You shoot him an annoyed look, and Ian smiles weakly before biting his lip.

“I’m fine,” you say curtly. “Really. A few times a year is more than I could ever have asked for.”

Sherry nods, her smile never becoming less amused. “You’re one of those eaters who’s not fond of the whole deal. That’s charming. Maybe you were gifted with more compassion than the rest of us. Or maybe you’re just…repressed.”

A blurred montage of all the people you’ve previously consumed flashes in your mind, along with the lives they lived, and you don’t know whether to feel angry or defeated. “Better some compassion than none, I would say.” Even with the annoyance behind your words, it seems useless to say this; there’s nothing you could say to make her see things your way.

“To each their own.” Sherry shrugs, nonchalant despite your irritation. “But I suppose I should be going now to get my day started, so—nice meeting you two.” You both watch her depart, Ian giving her a wave before she disappears into the trees. You sigh deeply, trying to tamp down the boiling in your chest as you begin picking out something to wear for the day from the small pile of clothes you own.

“Alright, look—she came up and said hello, said she had smelled us, and I…I was curious about her experience,” Ian says.

“I don’t know why you’re explaining anything to me; you’re grown and can talk to who you want. No one was chewed to pieces, right?” you say sarcastically. “That’s pretty much a win.”

“Because you’re obviously annoyed.”

You stand up straight now, gesturing angrily with your clothes as you speak. “Maybe because you should’ve left me out of your conversation. I didn’t even want to talk to you about this shit at first, do you remember? But you kept fucking begging me. Now some stranger knows about my situation without me ever sharing it with them?”

Ian smooths his hair back with both hands and sighs. “Okay, I can see how maybe that was fucked up. I shouldn’t have said anything about you to Sherry, but do you realize she would’ve known you’re an eater anyway?” You glare in response. “I’m sorry, alright? But it’s hard for me to get used to you being so closed-off about it when all I’ve ever wanted was to know I’m not alone in this shit. It doesn’t make any bloody sense to me!”

“Because I never cared about being alone in it,” you say, and a tiny flare of guilt pricks you from the dishonesty. “I didn’t think about who else might experience it. I was too busy trying to hide what I was. Even if I did consider it, I didn’t want to be around anyone else who could’ve been—like me.”

Deep down, you realize that despite what you’d sometimes fantasized about Alicia—that if she were an eater too, she’d understand you without judgment and you wouldn’t have to live under such stressful circumstances—the reality is nothing of what you thought it would be. Living your life with another eater hasn’t relieved you of the condemnation and shame you always feel, and you wonder if maybe the emotions have been ground too deeply into your soul to escape them.

The darkness in Ian’s gaze reminds you of the way he’d looked at you and Alicia when you confronted him in front of the motel office. “Stop bullshitting, I don’t believe you. People get lonely about smaller shit everyday, but you didn’t care whether you were the only cannibal in the world or not?”

Before you can respond, you hear the sounds of foliage rustling and feet shuffling; there’s a small group of people walking one of the trails yards away and laughing about something. You can make out flashes of their clothes through the tree branches and bushes. Sweat springs up on your body.

You lower your voice, hoping they haven’t heard any of your conversation. “I don’t give a fuck if you don’t believe me. Your experience isn’t the only one there is. Just stop telling others my business. You don’t have that right. For all I know, you could’ve slipped something about the motel.”

Ian’s eyes widen. “I didn’t say a damn word about the motel! All I mentioned was that sometimes the urge takes years for you, and that you hate it when it happens. You think I’m that unreliable, after all I’ve done to help you since then?”

You know he’s right about the motel, at least. You’re still somewhat incredulous that he dropped everything to help you clean up and escape unseen when he could’ve stayed in his room, acted like nothing happened, and left you to be hauled off by the law. But you’re angry, and though it may be petty, you don’t want him to be right about this. “What am I supposed to think of you? I don’t fucking know you like that. In case you forgot, we were perfect strangers not too long ago.” 

“And I try to know more about you so that we aren’t strangers, but you never want to talk about anything. Last night was something rare, but does that even matter to you?”

Your conversation from last night is like a distant memory, the personal details you shared with each other now dust in the wind. You wish you could take all of those words back, embarrassed from the vulnerability you allowed yourself. You wish you’d never known about him being a kid in high school, not knowing what to make of the new life that was waiting in his DNA, and that you hadn’t felt some measure of sympathy for him after hearing that story. You wish you’d done a better job of keeping him at arm’s length.

You gather your clothes close to your chest and shove your feet into your shoes so you can head for the river. “I’m starting to think it was a mistake. That’s all I know.” You walk past him without waiting to see if he’ll reply, trying to ignore the hurt in his expression.

—

The next morning is similar in that you are awakened by the sounds of voices again, but this time they are alarmed. Shouting, searching. Farther away, but approaching your area.

Ian’s next to you sleeping this time, his back to you as you sit up; at the start of this camping excursion you both had agreed to sleep facing away from each other, mostly for your own comfort. But it’s also convenient in this current situation when you’re still pissed at him.

You climb out of the tent to get a better listen, standing in the early morning air that’s already becoming too hot. You realize now that the shouts are someone’s name—Michael. The distress and pain are palpable in the voices of the people calling for the presumably missing person, and your stomach begins hurting with dread as your mind fills in the blanks about what might’ve happened. Not in such a public space…

Ian pokes his head out of the tent a few moments later, his long hair covering his eyes. “My God, what the hell is going on?”

“How would I know?” you scoff, squinting through the trees. You see a middle-age man and woman heading your way; there are other individuals spread farther out in the forest, still calling that person’s name. You catch glimpses of them through the foliage, their hands cupped around their mouths and heads swiveling like owls. When the couple reaches your camping spot, you notice the tear streaks on both their faces.

“H-have either of you seen this boy between last night and this morning?” the woman blurts out, holding up a picture with shaky fingers. The person depicted is a gangly blonde boy with a bowl cut who looks to be fifteen at the most. His wide smile shows his metal braces, and he’s holding up a large catfish. “We can’t find our son, p-please. He l-likes to go out exploring by himself even when we warn him not to, even at night—and he didn’t come back this time—he must’ve went out last night and got hurt or something, b-because some other campers found a patch of bloody grass…” The mother collapses into incoherent sobs.

The father tries to pick up where she left off, though his brown eyes are also wet and red and troubled beyond measure. “S-some other campers found this area of bloody grass in the deep woods away from the marked trails, so we—we thought maybe he got hurt and wasn’t able to find his way back—this is our first time camping here—b-but…”

“There…there was so much blood,” the mother gasps, shaking her head and clutching the picture so tightly you think it might rip.

“I-I’m…sorry,” you say, your throat feeling choked with a guilt that’s not yours to bear. “We haven’t seen him, or anyone else. We went to bed pretty early and only just woke up, so…” You ate dinner in silence with Ian last night before heading to bed earlier than usual. He’d stayed out by the fire pit smoking a cigarette for a while longer before coming in beside you.

The father nods, though your words seem to be another weight on his shoulders dampening his hopes of finding his son. “Thank you,” he mumbles, gently tugging the mother along to the next camping area.

“Jesus…” Ian mutters. It’s hard for you not to get lost in a rabbit hole of thinking about that boy and his apparent love for fishing and what he might’ve become if given the chance and the time. If only someone had had some kind of mercy on him. If only some otherworldly force had saved him. If only someone had simply not chosen him as their meal.

You walk away from the tent, trying to settle your nerves and corral your thoughts. You don’t know where you’re going, and you don’t respond to Ian’s call of your name, but you let your feet carry you away until you’re standing at the shore, looking out over the river. You listen to the tiny waves splash against the shore and feel the cool water run over your feet and try to let it ground you.

Maybe you shouldn’t care. Not when you’re capable of the same; it’s too hypocritical. Still, you can’t stop thinking about it as you dig your toes into the mud, trying to block out the sounds of the search party in the far distance. You’re almost ready to crouch down and put your hands over your ears when a hand touches your shoulder. You whip around to see Ian behind you.

“What?” you ask, voice coming out louder than you intend.

“Relax,” he murmurs. “It’s not like anyone thinks it’s us.”

“Why would they? And who cares about that?” you snap. “A boy is dead, and you’re sitting up here—of course it wasn’t us. But we do know—”

“We don’t know that he’s dead, and we don’t know that either.”

“You don’t think she did it?”

Ian sighs. “Should we assume that? If she did—it was always gonna be someone, Y/N. If not him, someone else. No one gets spared when you have to live like we do, you know that.”

“You two seem quite similar, honestly,” you say, exasperated. “Maybe it’d make more sense for you two to be together like this instead of us. I just can’t understand how you think.”

Maybe you’ve made a huge error. Not by accepting his help, or even by renting him the motel room—you’d have to go further back than that. You shouldn’t have even gone out to check on him that night. You could’ve avoided this all if only…

One decision. The difference between you being in this campground-turned-crime-scene and you standing at the motel desk taking yet another stranger’s information was just one decision.

…But you still would’ve eaten Alicia, wouldn’t you have? The hunger is always beneath the surface, just waiting to reemerge. If not then, it would’ve been later.

You’re spinning out of control. The thought comes to you suddenly: There’s no way you can sustain this strange relationship with him, in which you travel endlessly with no destination and you try to pretend like he doesn’t eat other people and like you don’t have the same craving. Your talk at the fire pit should’ve shown you that; how can you ever be on equal ground with him in the way that another eater like Sherry could? And why should you want to? You’ve been trying to outrun this desire to consume for as long as you’ve had it; you won’t let him make you think this is normal.

Even if your thoughts are anchored more in your current emotional frenzy than in reality, you’re unable to regulate yourself to see things differently. A vise of panic grips your body and crushes you between.

There has to be a way out of this.

“Y/N. I don’t think you’re in the right state of mind right now,” he says more gently, noticing the frantic vibe emanating from you. “If you’re that concerned, we can leave, okay? Remember, we said we’d leave if things didn’t feel right?”

“Right…” you murmur, though your mind is elsewhere, planning. “Tomorrow. We can leave tomorrow.”

When night falls, Sherry returns to your campsite. To your knowledge, the search party is still out there somewhere, pushing out to the very edges of the campground’s boundaries to cover all the bases. All of the other campers who didn’t get involved in the search have either decided to stay to themselves or leave.

“Hey, friends. I come with gifts.” Her smile is big and white in the dark of night as she holds up some beer cans and a pack of cigarettes. 

That’s how the three of you end up sitting around the fire pit, smoke from both the flames and the tobacco curling through the air. Your beer can sits nearly empty in your lap; you’d taken a few apprehensive sips at first, and then more, in an attempt to numb yourself out. Sherry leads the conversation, talking about her travels and the exciting things she’s done and never once bringing up anyone she’s preyed on. You don’t know if she avoids the topic for your comfort. You highly doubt she cares. You say little to either of them, too lost in your own mind to engage.

But eventually, amid a lull in the talking, she sighs as if burdened and then smiles. It’s an odd contrast.

“I’ve always preferred to feed on males,” she announces. “I like to pretend each one of them is my father. I guess you could call it daddy issues, but I don’t give a fuck.”

Your heart quickens. “Your father?”

“‘Course. He’s the one who gave me this little gift. Then tried to kill me for it. Ain’t that something? Didn’t even do me the dignity of eating me; he tried to strangle me with his bare hands like some kind of brute.”

“That’s so fucked up,” Ian mutters.

“If I didn’t fight him like a bat outta hell, I’d be dead. I didn’t eat him after. I just ran away from home and never came back. But shit, sometimes I wish I had eaten him.” She chuckles, taking a drag from her cigarette.

“So, the boy…” you start, but don’t know how to finish.

Sherry leans her head against her palm and studies you before saying, “Take a guess.” Ian raises his eyebrows.

“But why him?” you ask, voice cracking. “Why in a place like this, with so many others around? Don’t you think it’s dangerous?”

“It’s not if you know what you’re doing.” Sherry shrugs. “Besides, he was curious, easy to lure, and outside at night when he shouldn’t have been. They never expect danger to come from a sweet little thing like me. You should take advantage of that.” Sherry gestures to you, grinning again. “Use your feminine wiles and all that shit.”

You pour the last bit of your beer into the grass and stand up from the log you’d been sitting on. “It doesn’t work like that for me.” You walk back to the tent feeling chilled despite the humidity of late August. You try to ignore the sensation of two pairs of eyes following you.

—

That morning, you wake up much earlier than Ian does. You check to make sure he’s asleep, his chest rising and falling evenly, as you crawl from under the covers. You’re as careful and quiet as can be as you gather your things in the tent and strewn around the campsite—though they are thankfully few—and shove them into your traveling bag.

Once you have all your belongings together, you slip back into the tent. Ian’s jeans are folded in the corner with his other clothes; you know the car keys are in one of the pockets. As you slowly search through them, you hope that he won’t awaken. You watch his face for signs of consciousness, and as you do, the sight of him lying there scratches at something deep inside of you. It arouses a sentiment you don’t want to think of as sympathy. Are you betraying him in some way by doing this?

The feel of metal against your fingers causes your heart to race. You slide the keys out with as much control as you can muster. Then you back out of the tent, telling yourself this is the last time you will see him, before letting the flaps close and obscure your view of him.

You don’t breathe properly again until you’re in the parking lot, clutching the strap of your bag and the car keys like you’re being hunted. You falter in your steps, however, when you see Sherry in the parking lot too, messing with something in her car—a boxy, dark red Chevy. She isn’t the only person out here—there’s a man and his small child at their own car, the man tiredly searching for some beloved toy in the backseat while the child whines—but somehow you feel cornered.

You try to ignore her as you shove the key into the lock and throw your bag into the passenger seat, scanning the trees as if Ian might be there, shouldering his way out of the foliage. There is no one.

“Leaving so soon?” You turn at the sound of Sherry’s voice, unsure when she got over here and how she moved so soundlessly. “It’s probably for the best; there’s rumors the park rangers are gonna be temporarily closing this site.”

You shrug, your body stiff. “And?”

Her eyes search the car as if looking for something in particular. “Doesn’t look like enough stuff for both of you. You’re leaving Ian behind?” She laughs, her face simultaneously surprised and amused. 

You don’t owe her an explanation, you tell yourself. “Don’t worry about it.”

“I won’t. When I think about it…you two probably wouldn’t have made it very far together, anyway.” She throws her hands up in a casual what can you do? motion and makes for the treeline, calling over her shoulder. “Maybe you’ll change your mind about eating one day.”

“Maybe not,” you mutter, sliding into the front seat and starting the engine.

—

Summer fades into fall, though the weather doesn’t yet reflect this change.

You drive for miles and try not to think about many things—most prominently, Alicia or Ian. Yet, your version of not thinking about Ian involves a lot of ruminating on whether you should’ve left, what happened to him after, where he might be now, whether he decided to tag along with Sherry or just ended up alone again. You feel sick whenever the last possibility crosses your mind.

It doesn’t matter, you tell yourself. He was alone before me, and he’ll be fine after me. We were never really going to work anyway.

During your worst times, you wonder if you were purposely setting him up for disaster; you’d told him yourself how dangerous other eaters could be. You know you would never try to feed on him, but what about Sherry? The guilt threatens to make you implode; sometimes you want to fly back down the highway and find him again somehow, and say…what? What could you say to make it less horrible? Whenever your mind turns down that road, you attempt to convince yourself that it doesn’t concern you anymore. Whatever happens to him, good or bad, is no longer your business.

Not thinking about Alicia involves a lot more open wallowing and feeling sorry for yourself while simultaneously hating that you feel any pity for yourself. You deserve no one’s sympathies. But that doesn’t stop you from curling into the backseat and recalling past memories through sobs, dragging your fingernails down your arms until you bleed and scar. Even when you’re asleep, your dreaming brain conjures terrible scenarios in which everything is normal again, you’re working at the motel again and you’re laughing at some silly comment she’s made, shying away from her as she tickles your arm or pinches your side, and it feels so real that it’s physically painful when you awaken.

So you spend your days like this, hoping to somehow purge the trauma from your system by ignoring it—and doing a terrible job of both. You go entire days without speaking to anyone, walking through parks or down busy sidewalks without regard for the people around you who buzz with life and excitement. You count the money you have left every night and begin shoplifting to try to slow down your spending. You even consider finding a job again, though you still don’t trust yourself to be in such close proximity to other people for hours at a time; you just have to find a city you like enough to live in first. Somewhere populous enough for you to be insignificant, and fast-paced enough for you to have plenty of distractions from your oppressive thoughts.

You ponder this idea one early morning in a small diner; there are a few people here for their breakfast, but not an uncomfortable amount. The other diners are too sluggish or disinterested to regard your presence—or each other’s presences.

The atlases for several different states lie on the table in front of you; you flip through one on Georgia. You and Ian had collected many of them while traveling. Maybe you could work somewhere that doesn’t require you to be around too many other people. A call center, perhaps. But you’d still have coworkers. Maybe a typist job; you’d spend all day behind a computer filling in spreadsheets and taking tedious phone calls. It wouldn’t be much different from what you used to do. You could sew clothes in the backroom of a tailor’s shop, or take some mind-numbing factory job…

You just need something to occupy your mind. Being left alone with nothing but your thoughts and the road ahead of you is wearing you thinner each day. Was it even this bad during the time you spent alone after Marygold? You can’t remember. Maybe your brain is blocking the memories for your own sanity.

As you place your tip on the table for the waitress, she stops in the middle of gathering your dishes and observes your face. You catch her gaze and stare back, wondering if she knows you from the motel. You’re beginning to mentally spiral when she says,

“You look like a girl who’s lost to love.”

“Love?”

She puts a hand on her hip, looking at you like you’re the saddest thing she’s seen all year. It makes you uncomfortable. “You have that lovelorn look I’ve seen a thousand times before. Poor thing. Who would think of breaking your heart?”

Myself. “I don’t love anyone,” you mumble, chest aching as you say the lie.

“Everyone loves someone,” the waitress says. “I believe you’ll find someone new, if that’s what you’re yearning for. Don’t be so down.”

You shake your head, wanting to escape this diner and this conversation. “I’m a little too fucked up for that.” Your voice fractures on the last words, and you hold your body still in an effort to stop yourself from crying. If you hold your breath long enough, maybe your body will shut itself down and forget that it was about to break.

“Everyone’s a little fucked up, too, girlie. But that’s why you find that special someone who can put up with your crazy—or someone who has the same wild hair up their ass.”

You swallow hard and let out an exhale; there’s still a sheen of tears on your eyes, but the drops haven’t fallen. Your lips form a miniscule smile at her turn of phrase, amusement briefly flitting through you.

“Anyway, I don’t mean to be nosy. I just didn’t want you to leave here looking so depressed.” You probably look more disturbed than you did when you first entered the establishment, so you’re pretty sure that mission has failed. But some part of you appreciates that this stranger took the time to even speak to you, to care that you looked upset and want to do something about it.

She smiles and places her hand over yours. You allow yourself to take comfort in the touch for a moment; warmth spreads upward from where your hands meet, sparking something in your chest. But in an instant, the vault door in your heart slams back closed from where it’d cracked open, and the fears rush back in, spiking all your senses into anxiety. You’re soon pulling away, slipping out the front door and into the morning sun.

—

You’re not sure how to feel when you smell him again. 

The scent comes to you while you’re in a grocery store, debating whether to pay like all the other customers or just steal the few essentials you need and leave. The end of October is days away, and the vibrant Halloween decor and packaging are in full force throughout the store.

Many emotions race through you at once. You become hyperaware of your increased heart rate and the sweat that prickles your body, and you can’t figure out whether you’re afraid of or angry at his presence. Or relieved. You wonder how he managed to find you again—probably the same reason why you know he’s here without laying eyes on him, though that seems unlikely. You don’t think any eater can pick up smells from that kind of distance. Then you consider that maybe this is just a coincidence, the two of you arriving in the same place. Or some sick variant of fate. Could the universe be that cruel?

You think about dashing out of the store before he can see you, though there’s not much point. Why should you run? You were here first. If so-called fate has decided that this reunion was always going to happen at some point, then you don’t want to spend the rest of your life running from him. So you wait for him to come to you, trapped in a tornado of emotions.

You’re in the vegetable aisle trying not to get sprayed by the misters suddenly cutting on when you see him. You shake droplets of water off your hand and then you glance up and he’s there, approaching you like he only intends to leave this store with one thing: you. For a split second, you wonder if it’s really him; his hair is unkempt under a baseball cap, and he’s wearing a pair of yellow-tinted glasses you’ve never seen on him. His bag is slung over one shoulder.

You can feel the anxiety pouring off of him when he stops in front of you; his fingers tremble as he fidgets with his rings. He has the air of an older brother—or what you’d imagine one to be like—annoyed and afraid after you’ve run off without him in the store and gotten lost, and you don’t know whether to laugh or cry or curse.

“Didn’t expect to ever see me again, huh, darling?” Ian keeps his voice mostly even, but it sounds like that requires significant effort. “Not the way you drove off with my fucking car, I bet.” It was never your car, you think.

“How did you even find me?” you ask, voice small. 

“Think about it. The atlas.”

You do think about it. And then you remember; you’d talked about the next place you’d travel to after staying at the campground. You both agreed on a random town named Hendersonville, which is where you are now—but only after months of directionless hopping around from city to city. How would he think to come here now, months after the fact, when it’s possible that you could’ve already been through the town and long gone, or decided to never visit Hendersonville at all? Terrible fate…

Something else catches your attention before you can reply to this. Despite the agitated state you’re both in, you realize that you’re picking up on his scent and no others.

“Did you and Sherry…?”

“She’s dead,” he says.

That’s the last thing you expected to hear. “What?”

He pulls down the collar of his T-shirt. There are many scars along the junction of his neck and shoulder that weren’t there before, and it takes you a moment to notice that some of them resemble teeth marks. 

“So…” Your throat seizes up, and you have to clear it a couple times to speak again, though you avoid speaking too loudly. “...she tried to eat you?”

He lets his collar go and nods with a jerky movement. “After only a month. I had to kill her or she would’ve done me in. It was close.”

Your words haunt you yet again. Us being dangerous to everyone else doesn’t mean we aren’t a risk to each other, too. And for that reason, you don’t understand why he’s returned to you, a fellow cannibal.

You are shocked again when you register that there’s a small part of you that feels sorry for Sherry. You think of how she tried to regain control after her father’s attempted murder of her by preying on so many other men, doing to them what she wished she had done to him, only to end up dead by another man in the end. There’s something terribly unfair about it all.

“I…see.” You realize you’ve been holding a bell pepper for an awkwardly long time, and you waffle between getting a plastic bag for it or setting it back down. Frustrated, you toss it back with the others.

“Then I ate her,” he continues. You resist the urge to recoil.

“And you’re back here in front of me because…why? You’re not worried I might turn on you the same? I did take ‘your’ car.”

His laugh is colorless and dry. “You’re fucking joking, right? I know how you are. You can barely stand to talk about it, and I’m supposed to believe you’d eat me?”

“Shut up.” You’re more offended by him saying I know how you are as if he understands you so intimately after only a few months. It angers you to think maybe he could know you—know all these unpleasant things about you and still want to return for you. You begin walking away from him then, though there’s no real urgency in your movements to get away from him.

“You shut up. You may have tried to throw me aside, but we both know we’re not finished with each other.” He follows you into another aisle; there’s an old woman pushing a cart coming from the opposite direction, and he waits to speak again until after she’s gone. “We’re some of the few who know what it’s like.”

You suck your teeth, feeling foolish. “But…that’s why I left you. Thought you’d gravitate to Sherry, fit better together.”

“You see how well that turned out. What does it really matter that we feel differently about it as long as we’re not trying to fucking kill each other?”

You don’t know how to respond to that, because responding would mean admitting you’ve put yourself through months of emotional torment on the basis of a false and impulsive assumption. You want to bury the guilt chewing at your organs but it only worsens when he says,

“I just—fuck’s sake. I don’t want to be alone again.”

You stare at each other as those words settle in the air, though you struggle to maintain eye contact and soon look away with a wince. The most unbearable part of it is the pain in his eyes.

“I’m sorry,” you whisper. “I fucked things up when I shouldn’t have. I…misjudged.” Your words fade at the end, as you are left with nothing else to say to remedy the situation. Ian rubs a hand across his face, shifting his glasses up as he does so, and you pretend like you don’t notice the redness around his eyes. The both of you continue walking down the aisle, slower this time, the silence between you thick. Neither of you feels any better than you did before this meeting, but at least there aren’t thousands of miles between you anymore.

Finally, he says, “So. Are you gonna get anything, or will we just walk around until closing?” 

“Well…I don’t know. Do you have a car? How did you get here?”

“I’ve been hitch-hiking. And walking. But mostly hitch-hiking.” As if to prove it, he slides a wad of cash halfway out of his jacket pocket. 

“Oh. I—was thinking of finding a job,” you blurt out. It has nothing to do with your current conversation, but you feel like you’ve lost your ability to talk to him in his absence. You reach for anything to stop from thinking about the reason why he was gone, why he had to hitch-hike with total strangers. “To get more money.”

“And staying here?”

“No…there isn’t anything in this town for me. But maybe somewhere else.”

“Gotta find somewhere to live, then. I’m guessing you aren’t counting on having a roommate.” His voice is cynical, and you know he probably expects you to abandon him again.

“It was just an idea,” you mutter. “I haven’t even tried to look for anything.” You find that you’ve walked back around toward the entrance of the grocery store. A life-size skeleton grins at you open-mouthed from where it’s been propped against a display bin, all 32 teeth showing. You shake your head and sigh. “Let’s just get out of here. I’ve been in here long enough.”

The sky is turning dark blue with the onset of night as you walk outside; the streetlights have already come on. You go to the driver’s side of the sedan and gesture for Ian to get inside. He hesitates for a moment like he might reject—your heart nearly ceases—then throws his bag into the backseat. Exhaling, you get behind the wheel. For a moment, you just sit there with your hands slack on the wheel as he gets in beside you and lights a cigarette with shaking fingers.

You almost miss his quiet words when he speaks at the same time you start the engine up: “Did you even miss me?”

You don’t know if you can admit that you did—or that “missing” him felt more like something had been scooped out of you, your insides painfully scraped clean afterward. You chalk it up to your inherent loneliness, the reason why you’re drawn to him despite not wanting to be. You wish your heart hadn’t reacted so painfully at the possibility of him deciding to leave you after all, and yet you have no one else. Not your grandparents who abandoned you, your cannibal mother lost somewhere in the world, or your father who died before you were even born.

“I…regretted it.” You don’t look at him, occupied with pulling out of the parking spot. “Yes, if it makes a difference for you to know…I regretted it all the time.”

He says nothing for a while. You wonder if your reply was enough, if he expected more. It feels like there’s a third thing in the car with you, sitting in the space between your bodies and preventing you from fully accessing each other—everything that remains unsaid.

“Where are you staying now?” he finally asks.

“An abandoned barn near here. Seems like the owners just up and left all their things. Still smells kinda like horse, but…the loft isn’t so bad.”

“...Nothing I haven’t dealt with before.”

—

“You never did tell me exactly how you showed up at the motel that first night,” you tell Ian. “I deserve to know that much, at least. What brought you into my life.”

It’s the second week of November, and you’re still in Hendersonville. 

You gaze at the large pond before you, your view broken every so often by Ian walking through the overgrown grass around the pond—treading an aimless path but never venturing very far from the car. The engine is still warm underneath your butt where you’re half-leaning, half-sitting on the hood, and you try to enjoy the warmth while it lasts. 

The pond is about 10 minutes from the barn where you’re staying, and you’d driven here several times when it was just you. But you’ve only been here during the light hours; seeing everything at night is much different. Something about it feels overly familiar in a way that unsettles you. The scene threatens to dredge up old memories of your nighttime swims with Marygold—right down to the nearly full moon, huge and clear in the sky. You have to fill the quiet with your voice if you have any hope of outrunning the dark thoughts.

Ian crosses his arms and sort of side-eyes you, like maybe he’s skeptical about you initiating a conversation like this after the fallout of the camping excursion, and you mimic him until he breaks with a small, barely-amused laugh. Better to focus on his past issues than your own, you figure—as fucked up as that may be. You don’t move your gaze from him as he tells the story, watching him continuously flick around a few loose strands of his hair on his forehead.

“Right. Well…I tried to eat this young farmer guy—saw him at this country bar, or he saw me, and I guess he liked what he saw…I ended up going home with him, because I was hungry. That’s why I’d gone to the bar that night. Told him I was living on the streets and had barely eaten in days. Made him feel sorry for me. And then I tried to eat him…but when he started fighting it, I didn’t realize he had a pocketknife, and he got me pretty good before I ended up killing him. Too much commotion alerted the neighbors. I only had enough time to try to bandage it before I had to get the fuck out. Walked through a fucking corn field…then eventually I reached the highway, and you know the rest.”

“So you killed someone and didn’t…finish them.” The thought of that almost bothers you even more than the eating itself. It just seems senseless. The man could still be alive now, but his life was ended and went to complete waste; his body didn’t even serve its purpose as sustenance. You realize that this isn’t even the first time this has happened, thinking back to that time he was caught while up North.

He doesn’t seem offended by your shift in mood—maybe just weary. He rubs his eyes. “It happens. But I aim to make sure it happens as rarely as possible.”

You turn away and look across the pond again, your mind getting lost in the dark copse of trees on the other side. Being outside at this time of night is not the most comforting thing in the world, but in truth, is your nature really that different from whatever dangers lurk in the woods? “I wonder, then…how are we any better than the average serial killer?”

“We kill because we have to.”

“Being chained to our physiology doesn’t get rid of our blame.”

“I never said it did,” Ian replied. “And that’s your problem. Eating doesn’t need to be innocent or pure or blameless in order for you to accept that it’s a part of yourself…it just is.”

You can’t muster the will to counter him, and he doesn’t press the matter, likely not in the mood for yet another round of verbal sparring. He resumes walking his circles, wearing trails into the grass. You continue sitting on the hood long after the engine has cooled, watching the moon’s reflection tremble on the water’s surface and imagining what you’d tell Alicia and Marygold and all the others if they could hear you, somewhere in the universe.

I’m sorry. It’s just who I am.

—

With Hendersonville behind you, you’re back to sleeping in the car many nights. Among the various things you see as you travel through urban cities and rural areas, fall festivals are common occurrences everywhere.

There’s one coming up in the distance now; you’ve been idling in evening traffic for minutes, and it becomes clear that this congestion must be because everyone’s heading to the festivities. You press your face closer to the car’s window glass to see. The bright lights of the numerous booths, rides, and decorations illuminate the late evening. Countless people walk or run around, some wearing elaborate outfits.

You’re just coming from a mom-and-pop restaurant where the wife of the owner had called you darling even more than Ian does. She’d assumed you both to be lovers and gave you a free slice of pumpkin pie to share, and neither of you bothered to correct her if it meant treats you didn’t have to pay for.

As you observe the festivities, you see that there are two booths set up on either side of the festival’s main entrance; one claims to offer some type of spiritual readings, denoted by a large sign of a purple crystal ball. But your eyes catch on the bone-white trailer sitting on the other side of the entrance. It has been converted into a mobile booth with a large sign with red and blue lettering that asks one question: Are You Going to Heaven? An older man with graying hair sits in the booth, hands clasped together as he watches groups of people entering the festival grounds. It’s too far away and too dark to be entirely certain, but you don’t think you’re imagining the cross hanging up behind the man on the trailer’s wall or the thick book resting near his hands.

“Looks like they’re having fun,” Ian says, face illuminated in red by the taillights of another car, one hand on the wheel.

“Mmhm…” you answer, your mind still hung up on that booth and sign as the car finally drives past. Memories of your former life knock at the door of your consciousness, but you don’t let them in.

You’re unable to ignore your discomfort later that night, though, when you and Ian return to the safe parking spot you’d found days earlier and settle in to go to sleep. The cold has finally become a permanent fixture as the months venture deeper into late autumn, and you clutch your blanket tightly to your body as you drift off in the backseat.

In your dreamscape, you wake up in Alicia’s bed in the living quarters of the motel office, blood dripping from every part of you—hands, arms, face, chest. The sight of your bloody hands splayed out in front of you makes terror spike through your body, your breaths coming short. As you turn to look at your surroundings, you see the remains of Alicia lying on the bed next to you, her torso almost completely hollowed out. Her brown hair is streaked with new and drying blood—same as the red-dyed ivory of her broken rib cage. Her dead eyes look at you with a frozen expression, pained and imploring. Begging, even. Why did you do this to me?

You have the sensation of screaming, feeling it emanating from your body and hearing the sound pierce your ears, but your mouth isn’t open. You try to scramble off the bed and away from the mess you’ve made of the woman you love, but no matter how hard you fight, you have no leeway; it’s like the sheets are holding your limbs hostage, sucking you in like quicksand. Sweat pours from your body and stings your eyes.

In the next moment, you’re no longer struggling, and Alicia is no longer next to you. You’re not in her bedroom at all anymore; you’re sitting at a kitchen table you don’t recognize. The kitchen has a rustic and homey appearance, as if it belongs in a country homestead. Lacy floral curtains frame each side of the window above the farmhouse sink, allowing the dark orange evening sunlight to stream in, and the black wood stove a few feet away from your chair has a steady fire burning inside of it. Someone’s cooking, then, or preparing to cook. Who?

Ian turns to face you from where he is standing at the counter—when’d he get there? You didn’t notice him before—with two porcelain plates in his hands and a delighted grin on his face. Have you ever seen him look so happy before? You smile back at him as your eyes shift from his face to the plates; balanced on top of each is a perfectly bloody heart, the muscle thick and hardy and still beating although it’s attached to nothing. The kitchen floor around you both is stained with large swathes of blood, which have sunk deep into the wood’s fibers, though you hardly notice this.

Ian sets the table and sits in front of you, and neither of you bother with utensils as you pick up each heart with your hands. You hold the heart against your lips, feeling the slickness of it and letting the blood smear across your mouth, marveling at the constant pumping motion of its ventricles. It’s endearing, you think. How it tries so hard to maintain life when it’s fruitless anyway.

Then you bite into it.

You both eat ravenously, blood staining your mouths and hands the deep shade of carmine. The taste of the raw flesh is better than any food you have ever consumed, and innately, you know this is what you were made for. You laugh at how good it feels, glancing up at Ian with pure mirth. The indulgence is so sweet that you don’t notice the wood stove growing hotter and hotter in the corner of the room until the wallpaper behind it catches fire.

By the time you finish eating and regain enough wherewithal to realize what’s going on, the entire room is ablaze, and you are alone. The fire crawls up your chair and then engulfs the table. There’s nowhere safe for you to run, but you try anyway as the flames catch hold of your feet and then your legs, eating their way up your body. You stumble through the house screaming, the heat raging around you at an incomprehensible level.

Your skin begins to slough off and you scream endlessly for it to stop, but it never does. There is always more skin to replace what’s being scorched off of you; it grows back with an unbearable itching sensation as it knits together, only to burn right up again. You collapse to the ground on your hands and knees, though it’s excruciating to put weight on any part of your body.

Through the brightness of the fire and the heat haze, you make out a strange white and blue pattern on the floor in front of you, and you realize that it’s shards from the porcelain plates. Together, the broken pieces spell out:

Are You Going to Heaven?

You wake up in a flurry of limbs and blanket, hitting Ian who’s sleeping in the reclined front seat. The accidental violence combined with the sudden rocking of the car is enough to startle him awake. His voice floats out somewhere in the chaos, but you don’t really register it as you fling the car door open and stumble out of the sedan. You walk a couple yards away from the car—just enough to let the cold night air spear through your skin and convince you that you’re no longer trapped in a much hotter place. You hear the front car door open behind you and footsteps on the grass as Ian steps out. He calls your name, and you pretend not to hear as you stare at the ground and then toss your head to the skies, hands on your hips for some sort of stability. Your stomach aches badly, but you can’t get sick now.

“What’s wrong? Did you have a nightmare?” he asks when he gets closer. 

It takes you more than a minute to work up a response without the possibility of a scream or vomit tumbling from your mouth, and he waits patiently as you do. “Y-yeah. It’s…probably not that big of a deal…I was…” The next words spill out before you can think to keep them inside. “Just a bit…freaked out by a…sign.”

“A sign?”

“The sign at the…festival. The white booth…” You wave your arm, unable to say much more. A steady throb is starting to take over your skull, and it’s too much effort to keep talking.

Ian thinks for a long moment before he seems to realize. He takes another step towards you. “Babe, look at me; it’s okay. Nothing bad is gonna happen to you. You’re fine. I know it feels bad in the moment, believe me, but you’re here now, and you’re safe.”

“You can’t guarantee that,” you murmur. You can’t imagine the look on your face right now, but your eyes feel dry and painful, like you’ve actually been in a fire pit for hours. Maybe he can safeguard you against the physical dangers this world presents, but he can’t hold your hand into the afterlife. If there even is one.

He grasps your upper arm, but only lightly so as not to make you more distressed, and draws you into his side—his head leaning into yours, his hair tickling you when the wind blows through it. You find yourself sagging into him even though you hate yourself for doing so. You don’t deserve this show of affection, not after how you left him behind and not even before then; you desperately want to preserve the distance between you, and yet you want this touch, too. You’re unable and unwilling to tease apart those feelings, though, as the only things that register in your mind are that he is warm against you, he is doing his best to comfort you, and his smell—the smell of him, not of being an eater—has become familiar to you in a way that disarms some frantic part of your brain. Because of all those things, you allow him to put his other arm around you and silently hold you in that grassy lot.

And for the first time since you met in that grocery store again, you feel like whatever’s between the two of you isn’t broken beyond repair.

—

1986

The next time you eat someone, it happens at a nightclub in January. 

Going to this club is Ian’s idea, although you agree to it when he brings it up. In hindsight, you can’t say what possessed you to do it. You’ve never been a fan of crowds of people because they could readily create a catastrophic situation if your hunger comes. Maybe it’s how fresh everything still feels after the New Year passes—the sensation of anticipation it brings. Maybe it’s the blanket of stars that appear extra luminous tonight, rivaling the shine of the city buildings around you. Maybe Ian has just gotten better at using his powers of persuasion on you, or his recklessness has rubbed off on you, similar to how you feared his desire for flesh would increase your own when you first met him.

No matter the true reason, you find yourself amidst a scene of sweaty strangers boxed in by the small club’s four walls. The other people’s proximity to you quickly spikes your anxiety, driving you away from Ian and back to the outer edges of the room, though he tries at first to persuade you to dance with him. You give him a slight smile and an eye-roll and let your arm slip through his tattooed fingers.

“Go dance,” you mouth to him before heading toward one of the many booths lined up against the far wall.

You sit there watching everyone dance for a little while, working up the nerve to rejoin the crowd. There are so many bodies, all moving to the sound of In My House playing over the speakers at what must be max volume.

“Did you come here alone?” a feminine voice shouts from your left, startling you. You turn to find a woman with softly-waved hair that touches her shoulders; she wears a dress with big swirls of color, the flared skirt stopping just past her thighs. Your gaze goes all the way down her pantyhose-clad legs to her high heels and back up again. The pink and purple lights framing her from behind make her seem like she’s glowing.

“Uh—” Awkward pause as you try to figure out how to respond. “I…didn’t, but the person I came with is just my friend, so…” You shrug. It feels somewhat odd to refer to Ian as a friend, even after all this time. You are two people traveling in the same direction, lashed together by your fatal flaw, but you suppose “friend” is as accurate as it gets.

She smiles amusedly, undeterred by your awkwardness. “So that means you’re free to dance with me, then?”

You think about how you rejected Ian’s offer and chuckle to yourself. Ironic. But you find yourself not wanting to say no to this woman with her sweet brown skin and dimpled smile, despite your inner sense of judgment trying its best to pull you back. So you accept, still feeling embarrassed as she slides her lace-gloved hand into yours and guides you onto the dancefloor again.

Her perfume contains different notes, but as you dance together to another uptempo pop song and the aroma encircles you, it reminds you of Alicia’s signature scent all the same. You try to put that reminder out of your mind, though it’s difficult. Instead, you make an effort to focus on her shining face under the lights, the long gold earrings dangling from her ears, the sway of her black hair and dress as she moves.

You Give Good Love comes on afterward, and before you know it her body is pressed to the length of yours, virtually no space left between you as she tucks her face into your neck. You put your arms around her and sigh at how she fits against you, thinking you might like to do something like this more often. All the time, really. It feels good in a way you don’t quite have words for, even though you’re still surrounded on all sides by a bunch of sweaty and excited people. Just by the movements of your bodies, you could close your eyes and be spirited away to some other realm where everything is right—where you are not the monster you’ve come to believe you are.

You are finally beginning to relax a bit when your stomach twists painfully.

All your organs freeze from the shock of this unexpected sensation. You have paused indefinitely, and you watch your body from above as you and the woman continue moving together, two dark figures flashing in and out of the strobing lights. And yet, you simultaneously feel yourself still in her arms. Her breath is on your neck, warm and smelling of alcohol and some fruit—lemons. The muscles of her back are beneath your hands; you want to peel her skin away and see what they look like underneath, run your fingers across the striations. Her soft cheek is pressed to yours, so soft that it makes you want to tear into it like the flesh of a plum and swallow it. Your mouth twitches with the desire to consume.

“No!” you shout, pushing her away from you so fiercely that she falls back into someone behind her. You turn and begin shoving a ragged path through the club-goers. The sights and smells of pure humanness are overwhelming, begging you to tuck your face into the nearest neck or arm joint and just bite. There are too many hearts beating in one space, too many lungs expanding with wet and bloody life. You begin to cry, but you force your body to continue moving until you’re stumbling through the club’s back exit.

In the dank alleyway behind the club, you splash through a puddle and collapse behind a dumpster, pressing yourself into the corner and hoping that the smell of garbage will disappear your appetite, though you know it doesn’t work like that. You tuck your head between your knees and try to breathe evenly. The music is only slightly less loud out here; whereas it was simply an overzealous volume before, you feel like you’re being crushed by the sound itself in your overly sensitive state.

You don’t know how long you sit there shaking, the hunger ripping your stomach apart and forcing a long whimper out of your mouth, but your whole body jumps when you hear the exit door slam open. When you look up, Ian’s stepping out of the doorway and fumbling with the limp body of a man, his hands clasped around the man’s arm and waist.

You watch with terrified eyes as Ian lowers the man to the ground in front of you, leaning him against the wall so that he won’t slump over. “No—what are you doing—”

The man in front of you is too drunk to put a sentence together and barely seems to know where he is. His sweaty brown hair flops in his eyes, and his bearded mouth moves with nonsensical speech.

“No,” you cry again. “I can’t do this. Don’t make me do this!” Ian crouches beside you.

“Darling, you have to eat.” His hand is on the back of your neck, not forcing you toward the man but trying to ground you in your body. He’s so close that his words reverberate within your nervous system. Eat. You shake your head, but you’re becoming lightheaded from the sheer hunger. The smell of alcohol from the man is overpowering, but underneath it you can still detect his vulnerable fleshiness, and you need to know how it tastes. As if once again disembodied, you watch your hands reach for the man’s shoulders, Ian’s own hand slipping away from your neck, and bring him closer so that his throat is bare to you.

You mouth at the sweat on his neck, the saltiness intensifying the taste of his skin; you lick his Adam’s apple and savor how the ridge of it slides against your tongue. Then you bite down.

The tears continue to roll down your cheeks as you devour the man. Ian doesn’t leave you to dine alone, however.

He reaches into the mess of the open chest, digs between the deflated flaps that are the lungs, and tugs out the man’s heart. Takes a bite of it. You watch as he does, horrified but unable to look away even as you crush part of a rib between your molars. He offers it to you—tears the muscle in half and gives you the unbitten part. You accept it with eager hands and eager mouth, chewing through muscle fibers like it’s a delicacy. Ian licks the blood from his fingers, a smile playing at his lips, and goes back for more.

It’s too much like the dream, and it frightens you. You half-expect a portal to hell to open beneath you both and send you free-falling into a lake of fire. But you are unable to make yourself stop. Neither of you stop until an hour has passed and the blood and a pile of crimson-stained clothes are all that remains.

You find a still-intact plastic bag in the dumpster and place the clothes into it before tying it thrice and shoving it as deep into the trash as you can. 

Using an old rag from the dumpster and another puddle of water at the back of the alley, you both do your best to remove the blood on your hands and faces. It makes you feel disgusting, but it’s the best you can do for the time being, and you can’t go inside the club or onto the streets like this. Then you shove the rag back underneath the pile of trash, too. 

As you and Ian emerge from behind the dumpster and walk down the sidewalk to find the sedan, despair envelops you. You accept it inside of you—let it spread throughout your bones and blood without much of a fight. You are defeated, understanding fundamentally that you can never be like the people in the club, the people walking these city streets, no matter how many of their human peculiarities and normalities you try to adopt. The knowledge hollows you out.

On the way back to the house you’ve been squatting in, you steal a cigarette from Ian’s pack and turn the radio to several different stations before choosing some talk show discussing nothing you care about. Emotionally, you’re floating somewhere in the space between numb and wounded.

But people die everyday, right?

Like with Alicia, Ian tries to prevent you from becoming lost in your grief about it. There isn’t anything said between you during the car ride. But once you get to the house, he wipes the fresh tears that spring forth, runs the shower for you, and makes sure you have clean clothes for afterward.

“Are you good?” he asks before you get in the shower, standing in the bathroom doorway with you. He brushes your cheek with the same hand that plucked the heart out. There’s still blood underneath a few of his fingernails and staining the cross on his ring. For a few seconds, you feel an unfamiliar comfort in knowing that he has seen you destroy another person and feels no animosity or repulsion toward you because of it.

“I’m fine,” you murmur, shifting your face into his palm. But the moment passes, and the chill overtakes you again. You step away from him and shut the door, letting the bathroom fill with steam.

—

Your feelings toward Ian have always hovered in an odd limbo, going from distrust to tolerance to something that can be called companionship. But just like the seasons transition into each other, something inside you starts to shift after that night at the club.

Your eyes begin lingering on him when he lifts his shirt to wipe away sweat or strips it off entirely when the heat becomes too much. Your gaze can’t help but be drawn to the way his long hair sticks to his damp, darkly-inked neck, or how his cigarettes fit between his full lips like they were made specifically for his mouth. When it’s the last few weeks of winter and you have no choice but to sleep together in the backseat for extra warmth—the car’s HVAC system on its last leg—being smushed into that small space with him isn’t unpleasant like you once assumed it would be. Far from it.

When you and Ian go to a theater one day—one of those matinees in the middle of the week that only elderly people attend—and end up watching a random film that you didn’t know was a romance, you are startled when you have the sudden thought that you want him in the same way. That you wouldn’t mind him holding your face in his hands again but kissing you this time, or walking down a street hand-in-hand, or lying next to him in some stranger’s bed and listening to him talk until you fall asleep. You try to send those thoughts somewhere far away, but days pass and they keep coming back, and that wanting in your chest only grows.

You’re reluctant to think of your feelings as love—at least not yet, with your heart still grieving the woman perished by your own hand—and you know he can’t save you from this reality that you must live in until your time ends. But as imperfect as everything is, you feel like he knows you in some inutterable way. You begin to believe that this could be enough. Maybe you’ve always subconsciously understood that the world of love is no home for monsters, proven by the multiple times it has expelled you from its viscera, leaving you shaking and bereaved. But maybe whatever this is now could be enough to escape its view and its judgment—two monsters together to leave the humans to their softer affections.

And though he doesn’t say anything outright, Ian notices your newfound attention, smiling knowingly whenever he catches you looking. His hand stays on yours for longer than it needs to whenever he passes you items, his fingers trailing away from your skin like they regret having to leave. When he shoplifts supplies when the money is low, he swipes silly little trinkets that he says he “thought you would like.” You catch the way he always presses his body closer to yours when you’re sitting together on a pier, on the hood of the car, on a random bench—anywhere. The tension builds between you for what seems like forever, drawing so tight that you’re almost afraid you both may get hurt when it snaps.

When it finally does, it feels natural to do, this dance that unfolds in the backseat of this sedan he stole over a year ago. You both know the hunger for flesh intimately even though you experience it in such different ways; instead of it being a grotesquerie that would repel a normal lover, it’s a bond that has inextricably tied you together, for better and worse. In that sense, the joining of your bodies is just another type of desire for you two to tease out the intricacies of.

The catalyst is one question posed to you on a humid summer night. “...Darling, answer me honestly.”

Ian’s eyes are heavy with some mix of want and curiosity when you turn to look at him. You’re both sitting in the backseat as you study a map from one of the atlases; you’ve spent a half-hour trying to figure out the best route for your next destination in Georgia, tracing the lines illuminated by the car’s dome light. Maybe you’ll both try settling down this time; find that new job like you said, and live in one singular place for a few months. Someone else’s house you can pretend is your own, someone else’s car you can drive around the city. Years are too heavy to think about, but months…you can do months.

But it’s clear your decision-making is over. Your attention had broken every time you sensed his eyes shift to your face and stay there for a little while, searching for something, before moving back to the map. Now, you let the map lie forgotten in your lap.

“What is it?”

“Would you hate it if I asked to kiss you?”

Your body temperature rises, but you reply to his question with a question. “Have you thought about that before?”

“Many times.”

You swallow hard. You want to ask him about the first time that thought crossed his mind—did he realize it around the same time you did?—but you say, “And why do you think I would hate it?”

“Things will change between us.”

“Things have already changed between us, several times.”

“This is different,” he insists, and you notice that the space between you has decreased, bodies subconsciously drifting even closer together. “If we go down that road, I don’t want us to go back. I don’t want you to have to wonder about whether I care for you. I want you to trust me.”

You lean your forehead against his, a small smile forming on your lips. “I already trust you, Ian.” You have never vocalized it before, but you find that you really do mean it.

Then you move forward, doing yet another thing that would’ve been utterly absurd to you this time last year—pressing your lips to his. Your insides feel like they’re melting, but not in the uncomfortable way that comes from the summer heat. It happens in a way that makes you think that, maybe if you both melt down into your very basic parts and become nothing but atoms, you might blur together completely. Ian’s reply is immediate in how his hand comes up to your nape, his mouth separating from yours for one painful second only for him to kiss you deeper. The map slips between you and to the car floor. It’s strange to indulge in this close proximity with another person without the threat of death, without the underlying worry that you’ll become hungry in the worst way, but it’s also freeing to a degree you didn’t know was possible.

That’s why you allow yourself to become submerged in his body heat, his mouth, his hands—everything.

Afterwards, you both climb back into your clothes only halfway; your shorts are left somewhere underneath one of the front seats, and Ian doesn’t bother putting his shirt back on—though it stays off most of the time anyway. Your bodies are sluggish but satisfied as you rest your head against his bicep, tracing your fingers along the tattoo under his sternum. They come away damp from the sweat that shines on his body. You still feel all the places on your own body where his lips and fingers touched, as if your skin has been imprinted, and you wonder if it’s the same for him.

The window is rolled down to let the smoke curl out as Ian takes a drag from a cigarette. A soft rock station plays on the radio, and he taps the beat of the song on your knee with his free hand. For the first time in many years, your mind isn’t crammed full with constant thoughts of guilt and contempt about being alive and being what you are. Even if it only lasts for tonight, for now, you can just exist.

[hazshit-hotel-hater]

Do you have a molly redesign?

I do!

She isn’t a fullbody or finished at all but I love her dearly. Whenever I draw her face I like to make her look really sweet until she opens her eyes and its like ⚫️w⚫️ and its like “oh! um!” Cause I love doing stuff with eyes. I want hers to be kind of creepy looking cause I mean shes a spider! But also I want her to look a bit out of place in heaven, her halo is a little crooked, her eyes are really big and don’t have much shine to them, and her general appearance is just a little off putting the way she stares and her interests. Like she was in the mafia and witnessed her brother overdose and slowly die in a coma, shes going to be kind of fucked up. Plus she has a bit of a thousand yard stare in canon anyway

I think molly being in heaven is really interesting honestly and it’s a large part of her character, like she’s very important to plot once Sir Pentious gets into heaven and we actually see more of it. Shes still her own person of course but she also serves as a way to show that some people in heaven are almost as strange as people in hell. Molly loves spiders and has an intense interest in true crime and surgical procedures, also again, she’s something that people are usually afraid of, like when you die and go to heaven most people usually aren’t like “OH MY GOD I HOPE IM A SPIDER…” but she totally was cause shes just like that.

Unlike Angel (hence why he isn’t up here) Molly was very religious and still holds a large chunk of religious trauma, however she remains faithful and is using her faith as a way to cope with her grief and stress. A large majority of her family were homophobic and transphobic so having two twins that were respectively gay and trans they didn’t take very kindly to that. Molly was just much much more closeted than Angel/Anthony. She still tried to help him with his problems but found it hard to when he was so engaged in the family business and turned to drugs instead of talking to her and we know how that ended up turning out already.

Molly never really got to transition while alive and spent the remainder of her life after Anthony died more closed off and a bit more sad than she already was. She didn’t entirely shut down but for a few years she absolutely did and eventually separated from her family and tried to pursue herself and her religion further (ie. getting a boyfriend and going to church) While Angel broke many of the 10 commandments, Molly made sure to do her best to respect them and would always pray afterwards. She did end up dying of old age and ended up in heaven, though upon arrival realising her brother was in fact not here was a detrimental blow to her mindset and sets up a bit of the point with how religion can be used both to help grief but also can be used to completely ignore grief as well as coming to terms with the fact those you care for might not always be the best people and sometimes you’re forced to leave them behind because of that.

I have not reached this point in the rewrite yet to figure out how or if Angel gets redeemed at all but I really like imagining them hugging and being shocked at how much the other has changed

[billybangbang]

Imagine dressing up for Butcher like this after hearing his rant at the Believe Expo

You confessing your "sins" to Butcher.

Butcher x reader

Not proof read, we die like men

Trigger. SMUT, Religious kink, seriously please do not read it if you are easily offended by blasphemy, nipple clamps, riding crop, and teasing.

You listened to Butcher rant about God being a cunt. His bluntness and casual assurance made you bite your lips and squeeze your thighs together. You loved nothing more than a man who didn't give a shit. When M.M. stepped in and pulled him away. You grabbed Butchers hand. He immediately interlaced his fingers with yours, shooting you a smirk. The next few hours, you walked together through the expo. The more you saw the more you wanted to tell these fundamentalists to shut the fuck up. But it also gave you an idea. You glanced at Butcher, smirking to yourself with what you had planned.

You excused yourself after the plan was set for Hughie to blackmail the strechy man. Making your way to the costume shop, you walked through it slowly, looking at anything that had to do with religious undertones. But nothing really spoke to you. So you settled on a veil and some ugly cross jewlery. Butcher would get the hint, you were sure. The next stop was the lingerie shop. There, you picked out a white two-piece set. White the color of innocents and being pure. You bit your lip, looking in the mirror. You looked hot in it. Your boobs looked amazing, and your ass was on point. You shook your ass watching it bounce in the mirror.

Now, just one more stop. The sex store. Butcher would probably pout that you went to a sex shop without him, but he'll get over it once he saw you.

You walked through aisles after aisle admiring all the different toys. You stopped on some nipple class that connected to each other with a silver chain and had pearls adorned. You picked the package up, looking it over. Damn you would look good in them. Quickly, you added them to your other stuff. Then you went and grabbed some lube, cherry lip gloss, and a riding crop.

For a second, you wondered if you should get Butcher a black dress shirt or something, but then something different came to mind. Quickly, you made your way home to the shared flat with Butcher. You laid out the only black dress pants he had and your favorite black sweater of his plus his black dress shoes. You laid it out on the couch with a note saying "wear me" and a 💋 from your cherry lipgloss.

You took a quick shower and styled your hair a bit before putting on the smallest amount of makeup to look as innocent as possible. You got dressed and took some Polaroids. You were too hot to miss out on the opportunity to hide some sexy Polaroids in Butchers stuff to remind him of you.

Butcher shot you a text that he would be home in five, so you quickly made sure that everything was in order in your bedroom. You had cleaned the countertop that was next to your bed of everything besides the nipple clamps laid out. Then the riding Corp and the lube. You had made the bed up with black sheets. Finally, you heard him open the door and quickly climbed on the bed, kneeling.

You heard Butcher grunting, probably read the note. You could imagine his frown and eye roll, but he did as he was told.

You heard the footsteps getting closer to the bedroom, and you could not help but squirm already anticipating the things he would do to you.

He opened the door, to see you kneeling on the bed. The light was dimmed and candles were everywhere. Fuck, you looked so hot. "Ain't that a nice surprise." He smirked. leaning on the door frame just watching you with his predatory gaze. "Whatever do you mean?" You asked innocently, giving him a slight smile. "I thought we had an appointment." You leaned forward pushing your breasts together. "I have so many things to confess, Father." Never did Billy think the word Father would sound so hot. He felt all his blood rush south. "Ain't that a shame. Ya' been a bad girl." You just nodded with a pout. " I am afraid so, father, but I cannot help it. I have so many impure thoughts." Butcher had to hold back a groan. Instead, he pushed himself off the doorframe and walked closer to you. He stood a foot away just watching you. Your heart was racing anticipating what he would do next. He slowly reached out and you thought he would caress your face like he so often did before kissing you but instead, he swiped his thumb across your lip, taking off some of your lipgloss before putting it between his lips. "Hm," he closed his eyes imagining tasting you all over. You looked at him your lips slightly open. "Confess your sins, tell your father the impure thoughts you got in that pretty little head of yours." He commanded. You took a deep gulp, trying not to squirm. "Father, I confess I have thought about sinful things." Butcher nodded, "go on." You took a deep breath and lowered your eyes as if ashamed. "No, no. Do not take your eyes from me, confess all your sins to me. I need to see the shame in your eyes to know you are repentant." You almost left out a moan. "I sometimes think about ... things, when it is late at night." You broke off. "What things, go on child." "I think about a man, touching me and me touching him," Butcher grunted. "The kind of touch a good girl like me should not think about. I dream about a man coming into my room, and pulling the covers off my body. He starts kissing me. I cannot help these thoughts it is like someone else has taken over my body. Father am I going to hell?" You managed to tear up, one falling down your cheek. Billy wanted to reach out and lick the tear off your cheek. He knew it was fucked up but he liked it when you cried it made him even harder. "No child, not if you confess even the tiniest detail to me." You nodded dutifully and went on. You described how the man would push you into the mattress, rip your shirt and start trailing kisses down your chest until he takes your nipples into his mouth and sucks. Butcher hums in pleasure he loves licking and marking your beautiful tits. Slowly he started to unbutton his trousers which had gotten too tight. His bulge was prominent and you whined at the sight of it. "No, eyes on me." You immediately obeyed looking into his eyes. "Ignore the rest, just look at me." You nodded. "Oh, father but I have not told you the worst of it. Every time I imagine a man walking into my bedroom touching me I touch myself, run my hands over my body. I get so wet and cannot help it. I have to touch myself, rub my clit, and finger my pussy." Butcher groaned as he took his cock out of his boxers stroking himself to your words. You were so tempted to look down and watch his beautiful cock yet even though you were pretending to confess your sins it would truly be a sin for you to obey his command.

"Go on, my good little girl still has things to confess." He continued to stroke his cock so close to your face. It was getting harder for you to concentrate all you wanted to do was reach out and touch him. Finally, you snapped. "I dream about opening my mouth, sticking my tongue out, and tasting a man, in his purest form." You followed suit, looking into his eyes while leaning forward slightly, pushing your tits even more together. Mouth open and willing. You slightly connected with the tip of his cock through your veil his pre cum sticking to your tongue. He slowly pulled back watching a mixture of spit and cum connect your tongue and his cock. "I am afraid your sins are too great. God tells us to punish sinners. I need to punish you." He stepped back and you whined. He turned to the dresser with the new toys. Shooting you a smirk.

He picked up the lube, and made his way over to you, he kneeled in front of you. "You clenched your soul with your confession like a good girl. But now we need to get rid of the sin in your body." He slowly reached out stroking the string above your breast. "Do you understand, child?" You nodded instantly. "Tell me." "I understand, Father, I will do as you say, I just want to be pure again." "Good girl," with a swift tug he ripped the fabric of your bra and threw it on the floor. You tits bounced with the force. "Hmm," he hummed in pleasure at seeing your tits. He reached out weighing them in your hand. "Is this what the man in your dream those to you." You nodded pushing your chest more into his hands. He rubbed them slowly before taking the lube putting some on the tip of his fingers. He lifted your chin so you would look directly at him. He reached out tracing your nipples with the cold lube. He watches as your face transforms into one of pleasure. "Do you feel that? This is sin leaving your body." "Yes, Father." He took his time getting your nipples nice and hard. It was driving you crazy, your underwear impossibly wet. "Now, we need to punish you so you will never forget the lord's words." He went and picked up the nipple clamps. He kissed your right breast before pinning the clip onto your nipple. You moaned, closing your eyes. fuck this hurt so good. Before doing int to the other. You looked so good with the veil on your face, your tits out and adorned with clamps. "Now you look like the good girl I know you are. But God needs to know it too." With that he reached down, between your legs, under your panties. "Tss, tss, what do we have here." He felt the wetness between your legs, circling your clit. You let out small moans, holding onto his arm. "Your impure thoughts made you wet, this is not acceptable. I will need to punish you further, or God will not forgive you." He pulled his hand back and you cried out. He walked towards the dresser picking up the riding crop. "Spread your legs, put your pussy on display for me." Fuck, yes you wanted nothing more. You scooted towards the edge of the bed, spreading your legs. The white was almost see-through now from your wetness. "Lay back my child, take your punishment like the sinner you are." He stepped between your legs, admiring your stretched-out form. Your chest heaving, your body tense with anticipation. Wham, he brought the riding corp onto your pussy. "Ah," you arched your back. Wham, another one had you moaning. Before he continued he caressed your pussy. God, you wished that he had taken your underwear of first but he was such a tease he would not give it to you until he felt you deserved it. He gave you five more lashes. "Seven, the holy number. You should be pure again." He kneeled down between your legs, and slowly he kissed the inner of your right tight, before moving to the left always leaving out your pussy. Slowly he dragged down your panties. "Hm, seems like this holy punishment was not enough. I will have to take more drastic measures to ensure your soul is saved." He took of his sweater and got rid of his shoes and pants. "The only way to save you is to fuck the thoughts out of you. Lay back on the bed, and take your punishment." You crawled up the bed before spreading your legs again, you were more than ready to feel Billy's cock. "Please, make me pure again with your cock." Butcher gave you a smirk as he crawled over your body. He leaned down, covering your whole body with his. "Don't ya' worry, I'll fuck the sin outta ya'." He whispered in your ear before giving you the most intense and sloppy kiss. You still had the veil over your face but that didn't stop Butcher, he was all tongue and teeth. He tugged on the chain pulling on your nipples, "Ah, I can't, I need you Father please." He tugged on the chain again, making your eyes roll back into your head. "I dream about you father, the man that comes into my room. It is you, all you." Butcher gave you a satisfied smirk. "Good girl."

He reached down between your bodies. He took his cock into his hand and swiped it between your pussy lips, circling your clit before thrusting into you with one swift push. You both groaned in unison. "Fuck yes," Butcher lost all control pounding into you, spitting profanities. "My own personal fuck slut, such a sinful baby, Imma fuck it out of you." He punctuated every word with a thrust. "Say it, say you are my sinful fuck slut." "Ah, I am, Father." You moaned. "I am your sinful fuck slut, always." He reached his hand between your body drawing circles on your clit. You felt the coil in your stomach tighten but before you could reach your peak he drew back. He pushed your hands above your head. "Keep them here. I want to see your tits bounce freely." You held onto the headboard, trying to contain your screaming. Butcher held onto your waist pulling you back onto your cock while fucking into you. "Yes, yes, yes, please." You whined. He could cum from the sight of you spread out. "Imma keep you hear now. As my personal fuck slut, never let you go. You gonna wear that little veil of yours and the lord around your neck and nothing more. I will fuck you in every which way I wish. First Imma cum in that pussy of yours, then on your tits and face. I'll fuck you from the back put my cock in your ass make you feel me everywhere. 'cause this cunt is mine." Butcher let out a deep groan, as he felt you tighten around him. God this man could talk you into an orgasm. He quickly pushed his hands between the two of you rubbing circles on your clit, alternating between small and quick and slow and wide circles. You could not hold it in any longer, "I'm gonna cum, Father, oh please." "Yes, my slut, cum for your Priest. Make me proud." With a final thrust, you came screaming his name. Butcher watched in aw how your face contorted in pleasure and it was the final straw for him. He quickly pulled out, quickly sitting on your chest. "You don't deserve my cum just yet. You need to show me your devotion before I will fill you up. Make you my cum slut." He was groaning while stroking himself furiously. You moaned at the thought, pushing your tongue out of your mouth waiting for him to finally paint you with his cum. He let out a final groan and came all over your face, you could hardly taste him because of the veil. But it quickly became Butcher's favourite accessory. He stroked himself until he was spent before picking up the Polaroid camera on the nightstand and snapping a picture of your face, the cross necklace and your tits covered in cum.

"Guess there is something good about religion after all," Butcher commented pulling you to him.

[balioc]

Holiday Engineering: What Not to Do

We can learn a lot from Chanukah, because Chanukah is a garbage-tier holiday.

I mean this in a mostly-detached, mostly-analytic way. Like many people who were raised Jewish, I have some very fond and happy memories of Chanukah. Anything can accrue fond and happy memories, if you have a way of getting people to do it. But Chanukah is full of features that actively detract from its being resonant, impressive, memorable, or fun. It is an anti-advertisement for its community.

If you're a would-be designer-of-holidays, this is actually a really useful thing. Mimicking the good and successful holidays is quite hard; their quality tends to hinge on a lot of idiosyncratic hard-to-replicate factors, and "invent something as cool and punchy as the $WHATEVER" can be a tall order. But it's easy to look at a design failure and say, "I"m not going to do that."

With that, let's go into the details:

CHANUKAH: THE GOOD

Timing. It's a midwinter festival-of-lights. Solid start. Everyone loves those. Brightness and festival cheer, in the long cold winter nights, is practically a need for many. The holiday mostly skates by just on being the winter light festival for the Jews. A+. Or, really, we should knock that down to an A, because Chanukah usually comes too early to be ideal for this purpose, but -- still, quite good.

Traditional food (side dishes). Latkes are incredibly popular, and for excellent reason. If you're trying to settle on a food that everyone will love, "fried potatoes" is a damn good choice.

CHANUKAH: THE NEUTRAL

Symbols. There's really just one that matters: the chanukiyah (nine-branched menorah). Which is, on paper, a very cool and snappy symbol. Distinctive silhouette, ritual engagement, plus the allure of fire. But it loses a lot of points for the fact that you don't actually light the whole damn thing, and get the proper visual effect, until the very end of a long-ass holiday when everyone's enthusiasm and attention have ebbed. On the first night, in particular, you light just two candles in your chanukiyah, and it looks lopsided and sad.

Traditional food (sweets). Jelly donuts are fine, I guess, if uninspiring and uninspired. Chanukah gelt is pretty lame as candy goes...but from a holiday-design perspective, it's hard to go too far wrong with giving kids candy.

Music. "Maoz Tzur" is kinda pretty. "Oy Chanukah!" is kinda fun. That's pretty much it, barring some silly kids' music (and I guess that Adam Sandler thing). Nothing that will knock anyone's socks off. But, honestly, two decent songs is more than many good holidays have.

Gifts. Being the big annual gifting holiday is a double-edged sword. It's some super-powerful mojo, culturally speaking. People are obsessed with giving and receiving gifts, in a way that's very hard to excise or evade, no matter how often you trot out your utilitarian language about deadweight loss. Chanukah gets a lot of its traction out of the fact that it's the holiday where you get presents. But. (a) In the modern world, the gifting holiday is unavoidably a locus of stress and misery for many people, and Chanukah doesn't have nearly enough upside serving to support that burden. (b) Chanukah is bad at being a gifting holiday. The gifting is not well-integrated into the event, it's a tacked-on thing copied over from Christmas, and it shows. There's no real ritual surrounding it, no presents-under-the-Christmas-tree equivalent, certainly no Santa Claus. Worse yet, the eight-day-holiday thing means that either you need a set of gifts whose awesomeness is equally divisible by eight (mega-awkward), or else you have inconsistencies and disappointments.

CHANUKAH: THE BAD

Theme. What is the holiday about, when everything is said and done? What is our key takeaway message from all the shit we're doing. "God is great, God looks out for His people, God performs mighty miracles." Stop. Shut up. You fail. That's every holiday, if you're operating within a religious tradition. You need something more than that, something powerful and deep and important and special, to be even halfway-decent as a holiday. But for the vast majority of Jews (including Jews in the most orthodox and observant denominations), that's pretty much all you get. Because...

Mythology. The story of Chanukah, the holiday's narrative raison d'etre, is just unconscionably bad. In some extremely vague sense, it's a story about Jews overthrowing foreign oppressors and casting off foreign influences...which is already pretty bad from a modern liberal perspective, we don't like jingoistic ethnonationalism these days. But the actual events of the Chanukah story are less about Jews-against-foreigners than they are about Jews-against-other-Jews. It is a story about fanatics seizing power and murdering cosmopolitans. Virtually everyone hates that shit, up to and including the most tribal-minded Jews. The rabbis of the Talmud were pretty iffy about Chanukah for exactly this reason, and didn't talk about it much, with the result that the holiday doesn't have much in the way of supporting cultural infrastructure. And you really can't tell the Chanukah myth without that horrible stuff; it's so baked-in that it gets incorporated into even the most sanitized propagandistic Hebrew-school versions of the tale (with exactly the effects that you'd expect on Hebrew school students). The miracle of the oil feels like a tacked-on narrative coda, because it is, because without it the only possible moral of the story would be "kill your neighbor if he's not pious enough for you." But it's much too little, much too late. The miracle of the oil is super lame by miracle standards: no one is saved from danger, there are no memorable SFX, the whole thing is relevant only to the rituals of a long-vanished Temple.

[There are several lessons that can be learned from this particular problem, at multiple levels of abstraction.]

Structure. You can have a good eight-day holiday, but a festival of that length needs an arc. The days need to be distinct from each other. You need to be either building up to a climax, or -- more commonly, as with Passover and [the twelve days of] Christmas -- coming down from a main celebration at the beginning in a long pleasant haze of semi-special time. Chanukah is flat and internally undifferentiated, except for the addition of more candles to the chanukiyah. You can't sustain real holiday feeling that long, and there's no particular day on which you're supposed to do anything special, so it all just turns into a mush of "how much do we care right this moment?"

Activities. The traditional dreidel game is the worst, most boring, most unbalanced game in the history of games. Pushing it on children only makes those children hate Chanukah, and Judaism, and games, and you.

Traditional food (entrees). There's no classic Chanukah dish that can serve as a viable main course, unless you're one of those people who can happily eat fried potatoes as an entire meal. This is a glaring omission. It's particularly bad for Chanukah, because Chanukah has so little else going for it that it really needs to lean hard on the standard holiday "gather for a festive meal" thing.

Social role. As many people will eagerly tell you, Chanukah was a pretty minor holiday for most of Jewish history; it got big largely because of a marketing push in the 19th and 20th centuries, mostly because people got scared about the prospect of the younger generations assimilating, and wanted to give them a holiday to compete with Christmas. Which is maybe the worst idea that anyone has ever had. For more reasons that I can easily list here, modern Western Christmas is an absolute SSS-tier holiday, one of the very best of all time. Setting yourself up as a direct competitor to Christmas -- inviting your own people to make that comparison -- is tantamount to telling them that your traditions and your community are worthless and weak, and that they should join the ranks of the gentiles. And that would be true even if your own offering were something halfway decent. Trying to do it with Chanukah...it's like Estonia declaring war on the US. It's the ultimate "we have food at home." It is, if you'll pardon my saying so, Christian rock.

[avalonia320]

what the fuck Marius

*discussion of The Vampire Chronicles, spoiler warnings for those who haven't read*

Just had to rant a little. So I am a long time reader of the Vampire Chronicles, first read them and became obsessed when I was 11 but I'm gonna be straight up - I kinda peace'd out after Memnoch the Devil because that was just a bit too weird for me and kinda personal; Anne Rice was on this whole religious journey at the same time my mother went on her own similar journey (and immediately told me I was going to hell) so the religious themes were just not it for me. After that I stuck with the first four books, which are still my favorites. Now that the series is out and I'm re-obsessed, I decided to read the later books.

I always liked Marius. I saw him as a mentor to Lestat, he just seemed like this older, wiser, and more patient vampire. I loved how exasperated and fascinated he was by Lestat. I thought his and Armand's story was tragic. But now I've read The Vampire Armand - twice - and all I can say is are you fucking kidding me. It's actually probably not for the reasons one would automatically think - yes I was skeeved that he bought a traumatized kid in a brothel and immediately engaged in sexual activities with him, (not to mention the whipping) but I'm also quite familiar with Anne Rice's erotica so these were not entirely unexpected themes. Anyway I'm not touching that discourse with a ten foot pole. We all know it's problematic. We're all watching the show any way.

But man, so what the fuck does Marius do immediately after he and Armand are reunited again after Armand's suicide attempt? Armand entrusts him with what is most precious to him, his mortal 'children', Sybelle and Benji. Armand leaves them for ONE FUCKING DAY and when he comes back Marius has made them vampires. WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK MARIUS.

Armand is screaming & crying and furious and then I hate-scanned what seemed like 30 pages of Marius making long speechy excuses for it and why it was actually so loving of him to take on the burden of being their Maker so that Armand can be with them forever and they won't hate Armand for it. Hello, Benji was 12 FUCKING YEARS OLD. Have we learned NOTHING from Claudia??? Couldn't give him another decade of mortality first?? God, this guy just will not allow Armand any agency in any part of his life whatsoever and it's MADDENING. Yes, Sybelle and Benji wanted to be vampires and I do think they would have become immortal eventually but again BENJI WAS 12! (and Sybelle is um...not exactly stable at the time either. Girl could have really used some intense therapy first before being frozen in her current state forever.)

Plus the fact that he just abandoned Armand to the coven that kidnapped him, killed his brothers, made him eat his closest brother and best friend - Marius couldn't have helped all that, having been set on fire and all but he had centuries to find Armand again and instead he was just like 'nah, it's whatever. I'm sure that twink is fine.' Meanwhile Lestat comes sauntering along and Marius is like 'oh hey person I've met five minutes ago, let me spill all the secrets of my life, not to mention the most secret secrets of all the vampires, including how to kill us all.' You know, I used to hate Armand and now I understand so much better why he's got so many issues.

Anyway, there's no point to this somewhat incoherent rant, I just had to get it off my chest. I don't know how Marius will be portrayed in the show and I'm excited to see it. Maybe I'll hate him even more. Maybe I'll end up loving him the way I love Armand despite everything he's done but man, I just really want to kick his ass right now.

[wombatwisdom]

I've recently started reading Judith Butler's new book "Who's Afraid of Gender?" where they discuss the various groups who leverage the fear of "gender" for their own means.

They never address Mormonism outright in the way it plays on the fears of gender and sexual minorities--mostly because they do not need to. The Vatican and other evangelical groups beat us to it, they wrote their proclamations on saving the family before we did, and used language shockingly similar to what we use.

Butler points out that "The Family" and its defense has become a smokescreen or scapegoat where religious institutions do not have to address real tangible issues (like the climate crisis or the perils of late stage capitalism) but instead can just say: "we were right--allowing the gays to marry and the transfolks to have rights IS causing the collapse of our societies!"

What is surprising to me, is how disappointed I am in our lack of originality. Did we really need to copy and paste this fear-based bigotry into our own church?

The truth is, of course it's unoriginal and of course it's man-made. The fear of the lgbtq+ community (and let's be honest most feminists too) is the threat we pose to the powers that be. Who gets the priesthood in a world where gender isn't set at birth? How does marriage work if one gender is "by devine design to preside over the home"? What if women realize it's better to be married to another woman than a man???? What if women really can do it all? What would become of the men????

And how do we convince them otherwise? They are anxious about a reality that does not exist but could threaten power, structure, and systems? And in truth LGBTQ+ concerns are not easily addressed without sizable redesigns, much of which would likely require divine intervention to get right.

And doesn't that all seem like too much work, when the majority of active members aren't really affected by systemic mistreatment of the LGBTQ+ community? Plus, so many have also bought into the phantasm (that's what Butler calls the fear of "gender"), that they are ready to defend "The Family" from it's various attackers (imaginary or real), and such redesigns could cause many unaffected to react negatively.

I feel stupid, mostly, for believing that our bigotry was somewhat unique. I foolishly thought that leaders were somehow interpreting spiritual promptings through a biases lens. But, it's so disappointly borrowed from congresses and committees benefitting from enforcing the same fear for the defense of the "Natural, Divine and so so delicate Family".

I do wish to believe that it could potentially change and get better. But we'd need a miracle--and apparently the miracle needs to be for not just us, but for the people we are borrowing the phantasm from.

[krawlernyannyan]

IT'S ALL ABOUT ENA (ft. SUNDAY WAS THE BAD GUY ALL ALONG)

After the v2.2 trailer I'm really starting to think the events going on in Penacony are somehow deeply tied to Ena the Order. At first I thought all the Order motifs (i.e. the eye symbol of Order being all over) around Penacony were just cool worldbuilding details about how the Harmony must've adopted the Order's symbology on top of THEIR Path, but now...

Like the thing that's really tipping me off here is all the goddamn puppets. The final boss of which is religiously-themed.

This is an insane idea but what if everything that's been going on in Penacony has been the result of somebody trying to re-establish contact with Ena and/or the Path of Order? One of the major discoveries we made in v2.1 was that something's wrong with the Harmony, so what if the Harmony on Penacony is being corrupted in such a way that it aligns more with the Order? It's not even hard to see how.

The Harmony should be about cooperation, resolving differences, mutual understanding, but on Penacony that's not remotely the case. The Family's main tactic to keep the peace has been robbing people of their memories and emotions - keeping them in control not necessarily so people can heal, but to keep them in line and serve their designated functions. The Family on Penacony has already been debasing its population into obedient puppets, doing everything possible to maintain the facade they've created.

There's also the fact that Penacony used to be a prison, a setting that embodies the kind of control and forcible penance that Order represents. Xipe's attention was drawn to it because its prisoners began uniting together in the dreamscape but what happens if Penacony reverts back to a prison?

There's a lot of things that click neatly into place with one extra assumption, that the person ultimately behind this distortion is the most Order-adjacent character in the Penacony cast: Sunday.

He's the most outwardly religious person on Penacony in terms of his faith and he's straight-up covered in the Order's eye symbol, even having them on his halo, plus his major character trait is being a control freak. Circumstantially, he fits.

At this point it's been hammered in that there's a traitor in The Family - as the person in charge of the Family (only answering to the unseen Dreammaster) he's literally pulling the strings on Penacony and in the best position to manipulate its environment, so him being the literal puppetmaster behind everything would be a neat turn of phrase.

While he's outwardly devout to Xipe it could be the case that his appeals are specifically to those aspects of Xipe that THEY absorbed from Ena.

Sunday's ultimate goal is to create a truly perfect paradise in Penacony, but his idea of that could be reliant on the complete control of its population to stop all conflict, hence why he's going to such lengths to get Ena's influence.

It's been stated that a lot of the Dreamscape exists thanks to blessings from Xipe the Harmony, leading to its relative safety, but if the Harmony starts getting corrupted and weakened, then that would weaken those effects and that could be why the deeper dreamscape is starting to flood into Penacony. (This would be an unintentional side-effect of trying to bring about Order, or at least one Sunday thinks the influence of the Order could resolve in its own way.)

Sunday's been putting more resources into finding the serial killer than he is into the Charmony Festival, upsetting other Family members. If he's the one behind everything, he should already have a plan in mind for the Charmony Festival and so it's not a concern to him but the serial murders act as a chaotic element upsetting his attempted Order so stopping them and restoring Order is his higher priority.

On the subject of the serial murders: one detail we got in v2.1 is that the victims seem to be entirely random with no correlations or similarities between them. It could be that we just don't know the underlying reason but what if it is random? Intentionally random because doing it like that means there's no order to them. Something chaotic to disrupt the mastermind's plans to re-align Penacony into the Order. If they're Enigmata-themed like Gallagher, the random killings serve the double-purpose of obfuscating their true intent by making people try to find reason where there isn't any.

(I want to emphasize here that Sunday wasn't behind Robin's murder. This idea only works if he and the killer are on opposing sides, plus when he confronts Gallagher about her death I believe he's genuinely upset about it. Her investigation into the Harmony on Penacony is probably why she was targeted but I still believe Sunday would've tried other ways of getting her onto his side if she found out.)

Now, Robin did presume he was innocent, but we can excuse that on the basis that it's unlikely she would assume her own brother had ulterior motives, and his "death" at the end of v2.1 could simply be a narrative red herring to make us think he's only a victim in all this.

The last point I want to make here: the main event of the Charmony Festival is supposed to be Xipe's incarnation descending (in this case Dominicus, who was referenced in v2.1). If someone is actively trying to tilt Penacony away from Harmony and towards Order, then by the time the Charmony Festival actually arrives it might be not be Xipe's incarnation we see descend, but instead an incarnation of Ena. Hell, we might have actually seen that exact situation happening in one of The Great Septimus' attacks:

[dreamwatch]

Written for @corrodedcoffinfest

Prompt: Gluttony | Word Count: 1313 | Rating: T | CW: Religious fanaticism, food horror | POV: Eddie | Pairing: None | Tags: Eddie, Gareth, Jeff, Matt (Freak), food challenges, Gareth has a bad time, horror because it's Halloween!

Eddie wasn’t expecting to end up like some suburban mom when they go on their first van tour. He doesn’t really eat much anymore; the bat attack didn’t just leave him with scars on the outside. But the guys are like baby birds, mouths permanently open waiting for someone to drop Wendy’s burgers into them. That someone being Eddie. 

The little birds are hungry, and because he can’t take Gareth’s whining anymore he agrees to stop in some podunk town in the middle of nowhere. There’s no Wendy’s here though, just a little diner on the side of the road that doesn’t look all that promising from the outside, but there are people inside so the food must be edible. And honestly, Eddie doesn’t really give a shit because he’s not going to be eating any of it anyway.

“Glutton Stop?” Gareth grumbles, as he climbs out of the van and stretches his back. “Sounds great.”

“Are you hungry or not?” Eddie snaps. 

Three pairs of shoulders shrug simultaneously, which he takes as a yes. They head inside, a little bell above the door alerting everyone to their presence. It’s oddly dark and out of date; less ‘Happy Days’ and more ‘Seen Better Days’, but through the gloom they find one table free, right in the middle of the restaurant. 

Everyone is staring at them. Matt elbows him and nods towards the huge cross above the diner counter. Fucking great. It sets his teeth on edge instantly; even before everything that happened Eddie didn’t really like to stand out in places like this. He was all for pushing buttons, but small buttons. Even Eddie has the smarts to be cautious when he strays away from home.

Jeff turns the menu over. “This place is kind of expensive.”

He’s not wrong, but they just caused a lot of fuss and attention walking in and everyone is watching them like hawks.

“Let’s just order drinks and fries and get the hell out of here,” Eddie says quietly.

A waitress approaches and runs through all the specials they definitely can’t afford. 

“What’s that?” asks Jeff, pointing at a yellowed poster on the wall. 

The waitress beams. “That’s the Glutton Burger. If you finish it in forty minutes your whole table eats free.”

They all perk up, excited grins spreading across their faces.

“It doesn’t look so bad, right?” Eddie says looking at the picture. A huge burger in a bun, massive side of fries, waffles, hash-browns, and a large milkshake topped with cherries and cream. He could have eaten that when he was a kid, no problem.

“We could totally do this!” Jeff says excitedly, looking at Matt. 

They’re all looking at Matt.

“Who is ‘we’?” he says shortly. “Oh, because I’m a little husky I’ll do it? Fuck you. Also, I’m vegetarian.”

Gareth frowns. “Since when are you—”

“Well I can’t do it,” Jeff cuts in. He points at his mouth. “Braces.”

“Okay, well may I remind you all of that I lost roughly five feet of intestines and two thirds of my stomach last year. I’m lucky I’m eating solid food, so I will not be partaking. Gareth? You’ve been complaining of starvation for the last three hours. What do you say?”

Gareth loves a challenge, there’s no way he’s saying no, so fifteen minutes later a huge tray of food is delivered to the table. It’s a lot bigger than it looks in the photograph. Eddie squirms.

“Ma’am, in the unlikely event that my friend here doesn’t finish, how much—”

“Gluttony is costly,” smiles the waitress. “Forty dollars. Plus whatever you guys ordered.” 

Shit. They’ve got less than twenty between them until the next gig, and that includes gas money. He puts his hand on the back of Gareth’s chair and leans in.

“Gareth, no pressure, but we’re pretty fucked if you don’t finish this.”

Gareth stares at him open mouthed. “No pressure? Really Eddie?”

A bell clangs behind them and the entire restaurant's eyes are on them. Eddie’s skin crawls.

An old man, severe and bald, comes to the table, arms out like he’s preaching to the other diners. The diners look at him seemingly awestruck.

“What is your name son?”

Gareth shoots Eddie a look. “Uh— Gareth?”

“We are about to watch Gareth commit the sin of gluttony.” 

There’s sounds of excitement from all around them as the man drops his hand onto Gareth’s shoulder making him flinch. “May the Lord have mercy on your soul.”

Eddie’s heart in his mouth.

“What the fuck is happening?” Jeff whispers to him.

Gareth’s eyes are wide. “Eddie…?”

Matt is saying something but Eddie can’t hear him over the sound of the blood rushing in his ears. He reaches out for Gareth.

“Hey, hey! Listen to me. They’re just trying to weird out the tourists, okay? Ignore ‘em. You’re best friends with the head of a murder cult, right?” He laughs but it’s hollow. “So fuck ‘em. Eat your burger. Chew it like your life— just, uh, chew it really well, okay? You got this man.”

Gareth nods weakly. “I’ve got this.”

The bell rings again, Gareth’s signal to start.

The burger is so big he can’t lift it off the plate, so he digs in with a knife and fork. He takes the first bite quickly, frowning slightly as he chews, but Eddie knows something is wrong when he goes in for the second.

“I think it’s raw.”

“What?” Jeff asks, leaning in for a closer look. His jaw drops open. “Gareth, don’t look!”

Gareth’s eyes are on stalks. “What the fuck do you mean, don’t look!” he says as Jeff grabs his face. 

Eddie leans over to get a look at the burger. His hand flies to his mouth.

Jesus fucking Christ. His stomach roils

“Gare, don’t look at that!” he says, his voice shaky. “We’re leaving.”

Eddie hears the click of deadbolts before he even turns in his seat. 

“Is there a problem?” the old man says from behind him.

Eddie gets to his feet, the chair scraping along the linoleum. “Yeah, there’s a fucking problem.” There’s a wave of shocked murmuring behind him. “This isn’t funny.”

“Oh, I am with you there, son. There is nothing funny about sin.”

“You can’t give—” he gesticulates wildly toward Gareth’s plate, “whatever that is—”

“He ordered it.”

“He ordered a burger!”

“And that is what we gave him.”

“That isn’t beef!”

“Never said it was.”

He glances across at the table, at Gareth’s pale face being held in Jeff’s hands. At Matt staring open mouthed at Gareth’s plate. He needs to get them out. Get the cops, because that isn’t— it can’t be—

He looks around the diner wildly; there’s a man standing at the front door with a shotgun, another in front of the bathroom door. The line-cooks guard the counter. 

He realises, finally, that no one else is eating. The books in front of them aren’t menus. They’re bibles. 

Holy shit. 

“Okay, look,” he says, breathless and  frantic. “If you let us go we won’t tell the cops, I swear.”

“You’ll leave when he has finished his meal, and not a moment before.”

“Wait, what—” Eddie’s stomach clenches, he can feel the burn of acid in the back of his throat. “What happens if he can’t finish it in forty? What if it takes longer?”

The man stares at him sharklike.

“Pray that it doesn’t.”

The van is quiet afterwards, just the sound of the highway coming in through the open windows. They pull over occasionally so that Gareth can be sick at the side of the road, then they clean him up and carry on for another twenty miles or so until they do it all again.

Eddie drives as far as he can as fast as he can, and they don’t stop until they make it back to Indiana.

This prompt fought me tooth and nail, hence my tardiness. I genuinely started this as something funny and light... and I don't know what happened. Can't help myself. Also sorry for typos, it was a bit of a rush at the and I'm kind of going blind to it... point them out if you see them! Now I just have to tackle Lust...

@the-unforgivenn 🫣

[yuri-is-online]

Back with some more thought experiments! This time, let’s talk about the actual worldbuilding of Twisted Wonderland. I mean, this is a completely separate world where fairytales and fantastical things actually exist. It’s functionally impossible for Twisted Wonderland to just be Earth plus some Disney sprinkled on top.

The biggest point that really gets me is that fact that methods to foresee the future exist. Astrology is a valid class in NRC and Yuu suffers from plot convenient prophetic visions. The mere idea that the future can be foreseen should have huge ramifications on how businesses and governments operate. Imagine knowing the effect of a deal or policy before it even happens. Or minimizing crisis by knowing about it before it strikes.

Magic should also affect technological development. We know that there was an age before magic was widespread among humans, thanks to Trein in GloMas. In that sense, I can see how up to a point technological development may be similar… but post-magic the technology should be different due to a different set of limitations.

Language is also an interesting topic. Setting aside things that humans probably can’t event speak like the Fae languages seen in game, what of the languages used in Twisted Wonderland? Would they be similar to Earth as a result of the Disney movies used to create its history? Does that explain why Rook speaks French?

This isn’t accounting for religion either. The Age of the Gods is a thing, drawing from the Hercules movie. That would mean that the Greek gods actually exist in Twisted Wonderland. So how did they fall out of worship? I mean, only Hades seems to be recognized anymore due to the Great Seven, and not even in a religious way.

Look, I’m going to hit the character count if I keep trying to list all of my questions. This is just all so fascinating! And true to my fixation on Yuu, this is all great content for exploring just how alien Twisted Wonderland must feel. Like, Yuu should honestly ask more questions. I don’t buy how easily they adapted in the game.

- 🦐

*cracks knuckles* Shrimp you have brought up stuff I've been thinking about for a hot second, I'm so glad you have come into my inbox ( ๑ ˃̵ᴗ˂̵)و ♡

I agree that I don't think Yuu would have adjusted as easily as they are depicted to in game, but this is a mobile app gacha game licensed by Disney so it's not going to focus as much on stuff like that. Luckily that's what we're here to do anyway~ I am going to go through these points one by one.

Point One: Astrology

The most we learn about how fortune telling works in game is from the Scalding Sands hometown event. There is an exchange between Cater, Trey, and Jamil about using coffee grinds to tell fortunes, and Trey specifically says something I think is interesting: we get two really interesting lines:

From what's said here we can tell two things: A) there is a distinct difference between types of fortunes and B) a distinct difference in the quality of fortune tellers. Someone like Cater is correct most of the time with his divination, but not everyone will be making actively relying on it for major decisions. I could absolutely see older kingdoms having a seer employed who a ruler could call on for supernatural advice, but I don't think that would be common practice in modern day Wonderland outside of maybe Briar Valley. Besides, just because you know something bad will happen doesn't mean you will be able to efficiently mobilize your forces in time to make a meaningful difference.

Speaking of which, not to touch on spoilers too much but Leven seems to be implied to posses the ability to actually clearly see the future, and as for Yuu's visions...

Well Lilia says he thought they might have a curse like Silver's (not that he knew why they were dizzy)... and the ability to see the future IS often handed out in Greek Myths as a curse, but well. Make of that what you will.

Point Two: Magi-Tech

The way technology works in Twisted Wonderland is a bit vague. From how Idia talks, I think there is a distinct difference between technology and magitechnology, with Idia specifically specializes in the latter. I actually went a really long time thinking that since Yuu hadn't a single trace of magic on them they wouldn't be able to ride a magi-wheel because of how Deuce talks about it syncing with your own magic and what not. Even magicless people in Twisted Wonderland don't seem to be completely magicless, they just don't have enough of a mana pool to actually cast a spell.

I think it would make sense to suggest magic and magitechnology probably affected Twisted Wonderland's development in the same way the silicone chip did ours, but the key difference would be that if you put too much magic into a device most humans can't use it. That would bring up a completely separate set of setbacks and issues... while there might not be a difference in the type of things built their internal construction would definitely be wildly different.

Part Three: Language

I think the easiest answer to this is yes. We know there is a "common" language that most places now use... I like to headcannon that language as being unique to Twisted Wonderland but I have seen some people think it is probably English. Which brings out my scrunchy face because the prevalence of English in our world is because of the British Empire... which never existed in Twisted Wonderland.

Rook speaks French because one of his favorite plays is set in Fleur City/the Shaftlands... which as a side note. In his Vampire card vignette he names the play that made him like Neige so much: Kingsroad~ The Sword to Become King!~ which is literally the Sword in the Stone based off of the little song he sings from it. I have been going crazy since GloMas thinking about if this suggests that King Arthur is french in Twisted Wonderland or if Rook is referring to another play... personally I think he's from Sage's Island but that's a crack for another post

Part Four: Greek Myths and Religion

There doesn't really seem to be any religious presence in Twisted Wonderland at all. It's unclear if Hades was ever worshiped or if he was just referred to as a god due to his perceived immortality and power. Given that there is something called the Jupiter group... and the Shrouds are a branch of the Jupiter family... AND that the Titans you fight in Chapter 6 are yelling about getting to and killing Jupiter... I think that it's highly likely there are events in Twisted Wonderland's history that correlate to the stories of the Great Seven, but didn't necessarily involve the Great Seven themselves. It's just that those events are remembered as having been done by them... for some unknown reason. Not to be conspiratorial... but do we have any proof they ever actually lived in Twisted Wonderland at all? (━＿━)ゝSure there are relics and things, and there are apparently paintings in the Land of Dawning Meusuem, but where did they come from? How old are they? I don't need sleep I need answers, is this a primary or a secondary source about the Queen of Hearts Riddle?

The End

I also wish Yuu would ask more questions, but I get why they don't :/ this is a gacha game blah blah blah but also. I don't think Yuu knows what questions to ask, there's a lot of stuff about life you don't think about as being abnormal until someone looks at you funny and I think Yuu realistically does a lot of that, but if you put every single instance of that into a game it would get very exposition heavy very fast. Luckily you, I, and everyone reading this have massive brains and can talk to each other about it!!!

[dullgecko]

What I think the Bad kid’s favorite shows/movies were as kids (obviously the fantasy variations of these shows, also some of these may just be American shows)

Fig: Power puff girls and My little pony. Fig still loves these shows, during freshman year when she was still a trying to be edgy she would have denied it.

Adaine: Wasn’t allowed to watch tv, but she did read the Frog and Toad books front to cover over and over again. She had to hide them at a certain point because she was “too old” for them.

Riz: Scooby-doo, he’d have it whenever it on, He knew the exact hours it aired. He’d solve the mystery himself before the show was over but he still loved them. Sklonda got him a dvd compilation as a gift one day and then he’d just watch it over and over.

Kristen: Also wasn’t allowed to watch movies (unless they were religious), but once she got to watch Winnie the Pooh and she fell in love with the character. (I 100% picked this because of Ally’s Pooh push).

Gorgug: Wonderpets, he was just fascinated with the way it was animated. His parents made him little metal figures of all of the character that he keeps on his shelf.

Fabian: Peter Pan, he loved the book, though he didn’t like how they portrayed the pirates. “His papa wasn’t evil.” When he watched movie came out he wanted to watch it over and over again. There was times where Cathilda might as well dragged him to bed.

Fig: 100% All her school books were covered in stickers and drawings from her favorite kids cartoons. She had shirts and purses and hairclips and all kinds of pink and frilly accesories with the characters on them that she was STILL wearing right up until her horns started coming in. Now that she's mellowed out a bit you might catch her with an occasional hair-clip or tshirt that doesnt really match her aesthetic anymore but somehow doesnt look out of place with her other clothes.

Adaine: Still loves her books and the bad kids bought her a new set after her house burned down, plus some more they thought she'd like along the same vein. Girls nights are usually spent introducing Adaine to all the sugary sweet childrens television she missed as a kid and she gets really into it. Kristen also gets to broaden her cartoon knowledge this way so its killing two birds with one stone.

Kristen: Tried to introduce her friends to some of her favorite cartoons as a kid but only got a couple episodes in before they were all horrifed about how culty it was and never tried to watch them again (she honestly did not remember them being this bad). Fig has made it her mission to educate the other two bad girls on the joys of childrens media and every two weeks they spend a night not sleeping and binging entire seasons of cartoons.

Riz: Loved Scooby doo but, inexplicably, hates police procedural shows (aka Law and Order) because they're so unrealistic and have dumb twists 90% of the time. He loves crime documentaries with a passion but his mom has to watch them first because if he watched one and they didnt reveal the killer at the end he would not stop trying to investigate it himself to solve the mystery. She had to flat out had to ban him from watching documentaries on cold cases because obviously they dont know who commited the crime in those instances and it hooks into his brain too strongly. He's solved at least two since sophomore year (evidence and tips were sent anonymously to the authorities and arrests were made) but it screwed with his already messed up sleep schedule to the point where he made himself physically sick and Sklonda had to put her foot down.

Gorgug: Didnt really watch all that much television as a kid but used to watch a lot of gnomish cartoons when he did, or shows with talking animals (there tends to be a big overlap in this regard). He preferred playing outside and would take the cartoon figurines his parents made for him on his own made up adventures.

Fabian: Peter pan, Hook and The Princess Bride were basically on repeat in Fabians house when he was growing up. He knows that Peter Pan and Hook were portraying pirates as bad but reasoned they must just be mean pirates unlike his Papa. His Papa defeated all the bad ones and got rid of the Pirate King after all. The pirates in all those shows were still undeniably cool though to his child mind.

[adolin]

my locked tomb hot take of the day is that the way Harrow’s symptoms are presented in HtN line up much more closely with religious OCD with poor insight and psychotic features than schizophrenia. She shows almost no signs of paranoia or delusions (G1deon really was trying to kill her! It’s absolutely true that the other houses would swoop in like vultures if they knew her house’s true position! Her sword and psyche were both actually haunted, to the point that Alecto could hitch a ride in her body. She is never shown in the text to hold a belief that is inconsistent with reality, IMO) and her only true psychotic symptom that we see is hallucinations, and she seems to most of the time have some idea that they aren’t real, which indicates a level of self awareness incompatible with schizophrenia. She also doesn’t seem to display many cognitive symptoms like thought block or disorganized speech and thinking. The rest of her behavior is highly obsessive (compulsive praying, wearing face paint even when nobody is around, obsessive studying, needing her food to be arranged on her plate a certain way) and is very in line with someone suffering from religious scrupulosity. As someone who has experienced both OCD and psychosis, and knows how the symptoms can overlap, this is is the hill I will die on.

I don't feel like I can contribute in any meaningful way to your points, so I'll just put this out into the world and say that I appreciate your insights!

Speaking from a #meta perspective: I know that around the time HtN came out, Tamsyn gave interviews talking about her own experiences being hospitalised for mental health reasons and implied that was what she was partly drawing on when writing HtN. I can't remember if she called Harrow schizophrenic or stated that it was her intention to write her as such, and the author is dead anyway. Plus, obviously, the fact that someone's writing was informed by irl experiences doesn't have to mean that said writing is a 1:1 parallel for those experiences, expecially in a sff setting where ghosts exists and in fact there's something that Harrow can see and nobody else can.

TO ME, the fact that people who experience psychotic episodes can recognise themselves in Harrow's internal monologue and experiences is more meaningful than whether Harrow “really” has a given specific disorder or she's just seeing ghosts. The point is that SHE feels a disconnect from reality and that she's delusional and cannot trust anything she remembers or reads. Nobody in-universe is ever going to diagnose her, you know? The series itself doesn't claim to be straight-up representation for any specific named issues — things like Cytherea's cancer or Harrow's mental state are left ambiguous and partly influenced by magic. I think the fact that readers can relate to some symptoms some characters experience is more meaningful than whether these symptoms all point to something that can be diagnosed unambiguously.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts with me!

[abarero]

Mikoto Sena and the Buddhist Path to Nirvana

Spoilers for Mikoto’s MGS, Sayonara Storage and Memory Drops.

So I wanted to do a little essay about Mikoto Sena and the influence of religion on her character. (See the great essay on the topic of Buddhism and Nemu’s character by @chairteeth here)

First off- let’s start with how do we know her religion? It’s mentioned by Mitama in Mirror Layer 36’s story that Mikoto’s mother has a Buddhist altar (butsudan) set up in her home with a photo of Mikoto on it. We can then assume Mikoto was raised as such.

With that in mind, let’s take a look at her character and how her religious beliefs may have influenced her.

Buddhists look within themselves for the truth and understanding of Buddha's teachings. Buddha discovered Three Universal Truths and Four Noble Truths, which he then taught to the people.

Three Universal Truths are:

* Everything in life is impermanent and always changing.

* Because nothing is permanent, a life based on possessing things or persons doesn't make you happy.

* There is no eternal, unchanging soul and "self" is just a collection of changing characteristics or attributes.

For Mikoto, let’s take a look at the last two points. First, the idea that possession of things or people doesn’t lead to happiness. As a girl who was raised very poor, I have a feeling that this belief was perhaps often brought up as a reason she should be content with what she has in life. (*This will definitely not cause any bitterness or rebellion later.)

Last one I feel is very interesting from a Magical Girl standpoint because well- you do have a literal soul in a gem. I feel like maybe it might make you feel a little better about the deal with Kyubey as opposed to say a view where your soul is your core everything though.

As for Mikoto you have her tap quote: “She was called a cheery optimist and a naive girl, but also a coward.. Huh...? Although I was talking about someone else, it was like I was talking about myself... I guess the being known as me is fading away after all... “

Which I feel shows the characteristics she views as her “self” plus you add in the fact it’s basically eroding with the witch mindset. I think this Buddhist belief might be why she seems less upset about the change from girl to pseudo-witch. Like she views that as one of the truths- like okay, so I’ve changed, I’m still me. Same goes for her Uwasa situation. You don’t really see her panic over losing her “self” until it’s really eroding her memory perhaps because of this mindset that it’s something that can change.

Next up- the Four Noble Truths!

The Four Noble Truths are:

* Suffering exists

* Suffering has a cause (craving and attachments)

* Suffering can be ended

* There is a path to end suffering (the Eightfold Path)

Since it’s relevant to the above, I’ll go ahead and list out the Eightfold Path. Think of it as your guide to happiness.

* Right View, which means having a clear understanding of the Four Noble Truths and the nature of reality

* Right Thought, which means cultivating wholesome thoughts free from greed, hatred, and delusion

* Right Speech, which means speaking truthfully, kindly, and avoiding gossip or harmful speech

* Right Action, which means acting ethically and non-violently, respecting all living beings

* Right Livelihood, which means earning a living through honest means that do not harm others

* Right Effort, which means putting in the effort to cultivate positive qualities and overcome negative ones

* Right Mindfulness, which means being fully aware of the present moment, your thoughts, feelings, and bodily sensations without judgment

* Right Concentration, which means developing a state of focused and clear mind through meditation practices

Okay so Mikoto has this life of suffering (moreso than usual) to begin with and yet she doesn’t really seem to go for the Eightfold Path. In fact, it’s almost like she’s intentionally going against the rules at times. She lies to her school friends about her home life, she goes out hoping to buy a knife to kill her father, and finally she wishes him gone. But she doesn’t stop there, after that works, she goes on to use her suggestions to convince a random family she’s their daughter too.

Now why might Mikoto be so adamant about breaking these rules?

First off, I feel like she’s got some religious trauma- like her parents probably told her not to be greedy about wanting some money for necessities and to endure things like being short of food for religious reasons. Poor families often use religion as a crutch to explain their own problems. Very much- endure the suffering it’s what the gods intended. Or in this case, it’s part of the Buddhist tradition in the sense that suffering is just one of their core basics of life. Be a good girl and the suffering will end. If you’re still suffering it’s because you weren’t good enough.

Secondly, aside from religious trauma as a rule breaking thing, she’s got a controlling family with abusive/neglectful parents, which means she feels like she’s never had control of her own life. She makes that wish and gets freed from that situation and suddenly she’s wanting to regain as much control as possible. Hence the pushback at rules.

Overall, I feel a lot of Mikoto’s “break the establishment” view comes from these two angles: Religion and Family. Because I think she would have a better school life for example if her family life wasn’t so garbage.

Next up- karma! In Buddhism, karma is the idea that a person's past actions, especially intentional actions, can have positive or negative effects on their future. The term "karma" comes from Sanskrit and literally means "action" or "doing". Now the cycle of karma really seems to play a part with Mikoto. For example, after her father is gone and her mother begins the same pattern of neglect, Mikoto wonders “Is this my punishment? How ironic.” It’s the first of many times her actions seem to result in a negative pushback.

Obviously using so much of her powers of suggestion to lie ends up darkening her soul gem to the point she witches out, once again it’s something she connects back to her wish and her use of her powers of suggestion. The moment she witches out, she thinks: “The time of my punishment was right before my eyes.” And she briefly reflects on her misdeeds as she turns witch as well, regretting her lies and treatment of her parents.

In Buddhism, saṃsāra is the endless cycle of life, death, and rebirth. Buddhists believe that saṃsāra is painful and unsatisfactory, and that it's perpetuated by desire, avidya (ignorance) and karma. The ultimate goal of Buddhist practice is to escape this cycle and achieve nirvana. 

This is interesting then because after becoming a brain parasite that hops from Hanna to Alina before becoming Winchester itself, Mikoto basically goes on a vengeance spree of sorts trying to cause as much destruction as possible. Once more, she chooses not the Eightfold Path, but rather goes directly against it.

In short, Mikoto wracks up a lot of bad karma and it’s only with Iroha that she starts to let this go.

@chairteeth speaks more about Iroha (and Ui) and their role as the Bodhisattva ideal in Magia Record, but I also want to highlight how Hanna plays that role for Mikoto.

The Bodhisattva ideal is based on the idea that a bodhisattva's wisdom and compassion can benefit all beings. Bodhisattvas are often portrayed cultivating qualities such as morality, self-sacrifice, and wisdom. They are also known for their extreme selflessness, as they postpone their own enlightenment until they have guided all beings to the source of fulfillment, nirvana. 

Basically Hanna is what Mikoto sees as the Bodhisattva ideal because she’s so kind and forgiving, often sacrificing herself for the sake of saving others. And it’s through the creation and time with Uwasa Hanna that Mikoto does seem to finally let go of her negative feelings and move onto a rebirth of sorts.

Hanna’s role in Memory Drops is guiding Mikoto back, doing everything to save her. It’s the hope that Hanna brings Mikoto that allows her to finally complete the saṃsāra cycle and pass on believing in good once more.

Nirvana is described as a state of peace beyond suffering, ignorance, and rebirth. That’s where Mikoto’s story ends and I find it quite poignant that she’s able to reach that place the way she does. It’s through Hanna and her belief in Hanna that she’s able to finally reach nirvana. By finally embracing and vowing to become like Hanna, Mikoto frees herself from the cycle.

Overall, Mikoto’s story is a great example of how religious views can influence a character and the way they look at their world. And I hope you enjoyed this little look into it!