#rinse them
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blonkk · 5 months ago
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you know what idgaf fuck i’m tired of being big dawg all the fucking time. i want a man to give me flowers. that he PICKED and ARRANGED himself
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poorly-drawn-mdzs · 2 months ago
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Remember: The burning sensation is part of the process.
#Mouthwashing#blood#body horror#Emphasizing here that this is in reference to a media and character and not a cry for help on my end.#Mouthwashing is one of those games that tickles my brain and checks all the boxes for my niche interests -#-but it wasn't something that got the silly comic part in my cortex firing up. My analysis brain is eating well though!#What said...It is impossible for me to see this scene and not say out loud: “Me in the middle of my work day".#While there is a lot more going on with curly I personally resonated a lot with his struggles with burnout.#Burnout feels like mouthwash to me. That you keep rinsing out your mouth trying to get rid of the rotting smell#but it's just surface level solutions. The real cure requires something far more significant to actually make a difference.#The job 'is hard' and 'everyone struggles'. It's part of the process right? You're tired? Anxious? Depressed? Us too! Chin up!#Actually I resonated with a lot of things within Curly (this is a curly positive space - he's not perfect. He's just human).#One thing being his desire to see the good in people and believe in their potential.#Because here's the thing. Some people truly do just need someone in their corner who stands by them so they can grow and improve.#And some people will take advantage of your kindness. You focus so much on their humanity while you stop being a person to them.#The horrifically toxic relationship persists because Curly tries to see the bigger picture and believes in the good within.#Anyone who has lived through constantly trying to reframe the hurt as something else knows-#-just how many excuses your brain will make to avoid cognitive dissonance. It's human psychology.#Jimmy sucks so bad. But we the audience have the privilege of not having years of baggage associating him in our minds as 'friend'.
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inheroes--wetrust · 6 months ago
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i just had to steal this from twitter because this is the funniest fucking thing ive ever seen in my life. the MOST divorced couple of all time.
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ruporas · 2 years ago
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invisible scars (referenced previous talk here)
[ID: A colourless, digital Trigun comic of Vash and Wolfwood talking about Wolfwood's scars. They're both laying in bed and topless. Vash lays on top of Wolfwood, playing with the rosary around his neck. Then, Vash kisses a spot on Wolfwood's chest. Wolfwood asks, "What are you doing?" Vash smiles sadly, "You got shot here. In the last town we visited. You didn't even bother moving."
Vash props himself up over Wolfwood, who frowns slightly. Wolfwood is quiet for a moment before he says, "You remember that, huh?" Vash grabs Wolfwood's left wrist and brings it to his face. "And here." He kisses another spot there. "When you helped free the hostages from that robber..." Wolfwood dismissively says, looking away, "Was a lucky shot." Vash huffs, “Don’t brag. Jeez.”
Half of Wolfwood's expression is shown, eyes returning to Vash who is now sitting up, continuing to say, "And..." Vash goes on and kiss Wolfwood's right palm. "You got cut here, even though that girl was aiming at me." A moment from the past flashes, of Wolfwood grabbing a knife aimed at Vash, his hand bleeding.
At present, Vash moves down and puts another kiss on Wolfwood's right shoulder. "And here, from watching my back." Another memory flashes of Wolfwood and Vash back to back. Vash looks back as Wolfwood grins while holding Punisher, bleeding from multiple gunshots in his shoulder.
"And," Vash combs up Wolfwood's hair to reveal his forehead, "Here." A final memory shows Wolfwood with a regeneration vial in his mouth while getting shot on his temple. The next panel is framed in blood with Vash at the center, eyes wide and stunned in horror. The next panel is a closed up shot of Wolfwood's eye, locked on Vash's face.
Back to present, Vash’s head is bowed down as Wolfwood raises a hand to his nape and says, “Spikey.”
Wolfwood looks serious and frowns as he says, "We talked about this. Those were my decisions. They're not there anymore. Forget about them." Vash looks very sad before he smiles ruefully and says, "I still see them. All the time." He leans down so they touch foreheads. Wolfwood’s sorrowful expression can be seen as Vash says, "You protect so much. I could never forget what you've done to me. And many others..."
In the last image, they're drawn more cartoonishly. Wolfwood sweats and asks, "You don't actually remember every wound, right?" Vash points at a spot on his chest. "Kuroneko left a scratch here 7 times." Wolfwood, startled, says, "Why the hell are you keeping count—" End ID]
Credits for ID here and here
#vashwood#vash the stampede#nicholas d wolfwood#trigun#trigun maximum#another scars comic for one of the vw week days!!!! frankly i think about their scars WAY too often . most notably wolfwood's because#it really symbolizes a lot for him imo bc for vash it's a history of all the people that's ever harmed him betrayed him and the trust he has#given to humanity despite it all. its a beautiful reflection of his character and then u look at ww and presumably#since we dont really see him half naked Ever (shame) and i mean. i guess technically its a hc -- i assume he wouldn't have any scars bc#of the regen potions (which is why he doesnt have his t scars btw the regen pot took them away :pensive:)#in a way its like washing his hands of blood. giving him the body of someone who might never been involved in a fight never held a gun#but he knows thats not true yet he cant really do anything about it anyway bc he's still just human. if he stops taking the regen pots#he can't press forward. so its just a rinse and repeat and growing accustomed to whats inflicted on him because he knows it'll go away at#the end of the day. he's human but he's also not he's far beyond what could be considered a normal human but he still just is.#mortal but also not immortal. idk. i overthink about it a lot GMSKGMDK frankly i dont think it matters THAT much in the context of trimax#but it means a lot to me somehow. also thinking about how no matter how many times ww kills he's never numb to the sensation of it. maybe#the adrenaline gets to him for the beginning half but ive been rereading like.. vol 3? and that entire fight for ww#u can slowly see him spiral as he keeps on going on. anyway anyway. i love ww#ruporas art
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starry-bi-sky · 5 months ago
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Blood Blossom Au: before the nightingale sings
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for my batdad blood blossom au, the one where Vlad poisoned Danny with blood blossom extract and Danny ran away from him and ended up tumbling into the care of one Pre-Robin Battinson Batman :). A quick oneshot telling the tale of the tragic deaths of the Fentons
TW: Major Character Death Warning
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Not all deaths are created equal.
That is a valuable lesson in life to learn. One that Danny learns when he is eleven years old, standing in the pit of his parents’ creation; the culmination of their life’s work. The portal to the other side, the realm of the dead. To the infinite. 
He learns that when he’s eleven years old, in a hazmat suit that sags on him, and boots that clunk when he walks because the only ones that fit are his mom’s, and even those are too big. In gloves that he has to clench his fists in because otherwise they fall off. In goggles that slide down his nose even when he’s tightened them the farthest they can go. 
He learns that when he’s eleven years old, choking on giggles that harmonize with the laughter of his friends’ who stand at the mouth of the tunnel. Sam’s holding a polaroid in her hand. They’re just being kids. 
They’re not laughing when Danny’s hand hits the safety lock — the one with faulty wiring, the only one in the tunnel. The only one he could possibly hit. They’re not laughing when the portal buzzes to life, and the lights inside switch on row by row as the generator begins to rumble and hum. 
They’re not laughing when Danny dies. They’re screaming. They’re not screaming when he comes back.
Not all deaths are created equal.  
Some are poetic, beautiful. The satisfying close of a book as it comes to an end, of the hardback thumping soft against the pages like the sound of a door closing. A train run its course.
Some are violent; unsatisfying; unfair. The unexpected shattering of an egg as it rolls off the countertop when nobody is looking, the unmistakable crack as it falls to the floor. It is abrupt and messy. 
But most are just… unremarkable. Unintentional. Clumsy. 
Danny’s family dies one night in late January. He is thirteen years old, barely a month away from fourteen. It is unforeseen. It is preventable. It happens. 
It happens like this: 
Their water heater breaks one Monday in January. It’s old, sitting in the garage, and has dealt with nearly sixteen years of Fenton-grade chaos and shenanigans. Of parents tossing scraps and junk into the garage as brief storage to come back to later. Of illegal tune-ups on their vehicles that result in something exploding. Of little children running around and knocking things over, playing with poles and sticks they find on the ground, on the shelves. Of being lived and used.  
Something had to give. 
Jack Fenton notices it immediately when he comes upstairs that very afternoon — his children at school, his wife downstairs — to grab something from the garage. The very same scrap and used material they store like squirrels to use later. 
He stops what he’s doing to fix it.  
It wasn’t supposed to be permanent. 
Despite what many believe, Jack Fenton is not the idiot people make him out to be. He knows what he’s good at, he knows what he’s not. He knows he can be passionate and obsessive and single-minded about things. He knows that he is a scientist, an inventor; an engineer. 
He knows that he is not a plumber. That fixing water heaters is not something he knows how to do, not safely. And he loves his family. What he does is only meant to be temporary — a fix meant to only last a few days until they can call someone in who can fix it for them. 
So Jack Fenton futzes with the water heater, gives it a temporary stitch to last a short while, and reminds himself to call a plumber later that day to come in and fix it. He turns and leaves the garage with the part he came for —  a sheet of metal for his wife to melt down — and disappears back downstairs. 
He does not make that call; it slips from his mind. 
It is not his fault. 
One day passes, then two, then suddenly it is Thursday. The water heater has still not been fixed, the water heater has been forgotten. It is nobody’s fault.  
Danny asks his parents at breakfast if he can stay over at Tucker’s house for the night. Just one night. They’re going to study for their math test and then play video games until midnight, but he only tells his parents that first half. 
He’s been doing well in school. Really well — better than he has in a while. There’s been a delightful lull in ghost appearances for the last few weeks. The living don’t know why, but Danny does. The Winter Truce always calms the dead down for a while, something about how the Zone cleanses itself twice a mortal year and that fresh wave of ecto clears out the old and brings in the new. 
This year Danny got to participate. He’s feeling the effects of it too, and he’s been sleeping consistently well for the first time since the accident. 
It’ll never happen again. 
His parents agree under the condition that he doesn’t stay up late, and Danny harmlessly lies through his teeth and agrees. He goes and throws overnight clothes into his school backpack, and when he leaves for school with Jazz his parents are already departed into the lab. 
The last conversation he has with his sister is in her car on the drive to school. Inane, mindless conversation to fill the air and pass the time. Jazz comments on how relaxed he’s been lately; Danny tells her about the Winter Truce. She listens in rapt attention. 
She tells him that she’s glad to see him so well-rested. She thinks her little brother’s been growing up too fast these days. She thinks he’s been too tense. Too caught up with the spinning of the world around him that he forgets about himself sometimes. 
When they reach school, before Danny can get out of the car, Jazz looks to her little brother and says; “I love you.” 
Her little brother’s cheeks turn an embarrassed shade of red. He makes a scrunched up, grossed-out face, but can’t hide the smile pulling across it. “Don’t be a sap, Jazz. I’ll see you later.” He tells her, yanking his hood up over his head. She hears the bashful, ‘love you too’ before he walks away. 
That is the last conversation she ever has with her brother. 
Thursday is unremarkable, passing by in its normality as it always does. There’s one, maybe two ghost sightings; shades lurking around in curious infancy that are easily spooked away by the presence of a greater being. Danny doesn’t even have to go ghost. 
Thursday evening is even less so. Danny goes to Tucker’s house — Sam has a prior arrangement with her slam poetry club — and the two of them study for an hour before they toss their textbooks aside and reach for the game console. 
Danny sleeps in Tucker’s room with one of the extra blankets on his bed, curled across the room in one of the bean bag chairs. It shouldn’t be comfortable, but to Danny it is. He sleeps throughout the night, the portal shut down by his parents before they’d gone to bed. 
Early Friday morning, before the sun has even risen yet, before it’s even so much as a concept to grace the horizon, the water heater breaks again. It was supposed to be fixed. 
Carbon monoxide is a silent killer. Odorless and scentless, it kills within minutes. It fills the house like a shadow casting over the ground, creeping into the rooms. 
Danny’s family die in their sleep; painless and unaware. 
It’s not Jack Fenton’s fault. He didn’t mean to.  
Nobody wakes up with their alarms. 
Danny wakes up to Tucker Foley’s alarm on Friday morning, and he turns his head intangible and shoves it into the beanbag chair like an ostrich hiding its head in the sand. Tucker gets up before him, and throws a pillow at him as he reaches for the alarm. 
There’s laughter, messing around. The both of them get dressed, and Danny has breakfast with the Foleys that morning. He takes the bus to school with Tucker, and they meet Sam by their lockers. 
To him, everything is as normal as it should be. There are no ghosts for him to fight right now, school is as school does, and he’s on top of all his schoolwork. 
He does not see Jazz at all that morning, he doesn’t notice. Their schedules are so different, their routes on different paths, that it’s not uncommon for Danny to not see Jazz until he gets home some days. That’s if there’s no ghost attacks. 
At lunch, he gets approached by her friends. Worried creases between their brows, they ask him if he’s seen Jazz. She hasn’t shown up to any of her classes. She’s not answering their texts. It’s unprecedented of her; unheard of. 
Danny doesn’t admit to the concern that swells in his gut when they tell him this. He shrugs at them, and says he hasn’t seen her either. But it was probably nothing to worry about; she might just be sick and sleeping it off. 
He offers to text her and let them know if he gets a response, and that seems to ease her friends enough that they shuffle away in uncertainty. He keeps his word, and does exactly that. He pulls out his phone and opens her contact, and shoots her a message.
‘Where are you?’ 
He doesn’t get a response back, Danny is left on sent. He puts his phone in his pocket, and with a sense of unease creeping in the back of his mind, goes on with his day. He gets no response by the time the final bell rings; and he tries not to be worried. 
The house is quiet when he opens the door. Unusually quiet. He drops his backpack to the floor, it lands with a hearty thunk, and begins to take off his jacket. “Mom! Dad!” He yells. He hangs it up, and slips his shoes from his feet. “Jazz skipped school today!”
A laughable untruth that would get his sister all riled up normally; she should be able to hear him from the front door if she was in her room. The house just stays dead silent. 
He can’t even hear the usual banging and crashing from the lab. His unease returns. He reaches for the intercom that leads directly down to the basement, and presses the button to turn it on. A burst of static, and then he speaks;
“Mom? Dad?” 
Danny lets go, and waits for a response. He gets none back. That never happens, not when the house is this quiet. Not when he knows they should’ve heard him. 
Something sickly and fearful borns in the pit of his stomach, and begins to snake upward. He heads for the lab. The cool metal of the door is familiar in the grooves of his hand, and he doesn’t even need to think about the code as he punches it in;  he simply lets muscle memory guide him. It’s been the same since he was little. 
The door hisses as the pressure is released, and he swings the door open. He takes the stairs down two at a time. Something is wrong. His parents aren’t answering him. His feet pound against the metal. 
“Mom? Dad?” He calls again, more worried, more frantic. More scared. His voice echoes down the stairwell, and he reaches the bottom before it’s fully faded. The lab is empty. The portal is still shut down. 
It was four in the afternoon, they should still be down here. 
Danny races back upstairs, fear-raised nausea coiling in his throat. “This isn’t funny you guys!” He yells when he reaches the top, shoving open the door with more force than necessary. His head swims, his voice cracked. 
He checks the garage, the car is still there. 
“Mom!? Dad!” His voice bellows out throughout the first floor, loud enough that it bounces back at him and rings against his ears. He’s never raised his voice this much — mom would scold him if she heard him. But she doesn’t show up. “Jazmine!” 
Finally, he goes upstairs, and he can’t tell if what he’s feeling is anger or terror. Something is very, very wrong. 
He swings the door of his parents’ rooms open first, and there they are, with the lights still off and the curtains still drawn. As if they hadn’t left their bed all day. Some of Danny’s fear lifts from his shoulders just by the sight of them, but he’s still trembling. Something is still wrong — the room smells… off. Not good, not bad. Just… off. 
He swallows dryly, his throat still thick, and steps into the room. “Mom, dad?” They do not stir. “Didn’t you guys hear me yelling?” 
There is only room static. Danny’s heart shrivels in his chest with a tenfold return of terror, he feels ill. He remembers, just now, that they’re not heavy sleepers, and his dad should be snoring like a freight house. 
Danny reaches their bedside in seconds, hand outstretching for the covers, “Momma? Dad?”
Not all deaths are created equal. 
But many of them are accidental. Unmeditated. Shocking.
Danny Fenton finds his family dead in his childhood home. He runs to his neighbors in hysterics, inconsolable, in tears. Nine-one-one is called, but there is nothing that can be done. They were dead for hours by the time Daniel Fenton returned home. 
He sits on the front steps of the neighbor’s house beside FentonWorks, his jeans slowly becoming wet from the snow that was unable to be scraped off, and watches the paramedics cart out his family beneath white sheets. There are police cars blocking off the street, yellow tape blocking off his house, red-blue lights lighting up the block, an ambulance on the scene. He is wrapped in a shock blanket, and he is missing his jacket and his shoes. His tears are freezing onto his face, he can’t feel the chill. 
Not all deaths are created equal
But all of them are unforgettable. 
#dpxdc#danny fenton is not the ghost king#dp x dc#dpxdc crossover#dp x dc crossover#dpxdc au#dpxdc fic#blood blossom au#dpxdc ficlet#starry's writing#tw character death#cw death#angst#hurt no comfort#carbon monoxide poisoning almost sounds like a plain way to go when compared to the other batkids. but then you think about it for more#than a second and then the inherent horror of it all creeps in. danny found his family dead. he found their corpses.#i didnt feel comfortable writing it - just a little bit too heavy even for me yet - but just know that danny shook his parents as if he was#trying to wake them up when he realized they were dead. he went into emotional shock and kinda mentally shutdown.#he yelled and screamed and tried to wake them. and then rushed to his sister's room only to find the same thing. rinse and repeat#more time passed between danny finding them and him going to his neighbor's than what i showed#no more than an hour because the house was still full of carbon monoxide but longer than five minutes. long enough that when he finally wen#over - in hysterics and missing his shoes and jacket - he was completely inconsolable. he was having a breakdown.#when i was writing the ending scene with the paramedics and police and stuff i was very much calling on how i imagine Bruce's own experienc#might have gone. different but similar. with a thousand yard stare and water in their ears#two boys wrapped in shock blankets surrounded by police lights and having just seen their families dead. teehee
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bowenoke · 1 year ago
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edit: btw it is not safe to wear contacts in the shower! the option is included for accuracy, but please consider throwing on an old pair of glasses or just going blind into that wet box instead.
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ikram1909 · 1 month ago
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https://x.com/guillembp01/status/1861540822677692727?s=46&t=n0WKUc5Y-w3K4ghuvgYnXw sorry, I can never be normal about them 😭❤️
Being normal about them is never an option 😭😭
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footballshowrot · 2 years ago
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intricate rituals etc
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mothsantics · 6 months ago
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average call out post
"everyone, i have to come out to say that i have undeniable proof that this trans woman is pure evil. this damning evidence speaks for itself:
[screenshot of private and personal conversation]
[screenshot of conversation entirely removed from its original context so that it makes no sense]
[screenshot of private and personal conversation]
[screenshot of private and personal conversation, this one honestly makes the trans woman seem better]
[screenshot of trans woman's private nsfw account where she openly has a weird kink]
[screenshot of extra private and extra personal conversation]
these are all very shocking to see and i dont want to see this psychotic and insane narcissist keep getting support, so STOP SUPPORTING HER!!! but i do want this person to get better and i believe in change :) that is why i am posting this personal conflict ON SOCIAL MEDIA FOR EVERYONE TO SEE. so the person will get better :) :) so make sure to share this around and ostracize this woman from the community she thought she could trust and this will help me feel just and righteous i mean itll help her get better and less insane"
bonus points if the trans woman in question is a woman of color and/or mentally ill.
more bonus points if she reacts in anger due to suddenly being bombarded by people interrogating and slandering her (this means shes an irrational and unstable bitch!!)
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theladyofbloodshed · 7 months ago
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when my brother in law gifts me a house that i can't get in and out of BUT the woman who doesn't like me and constantly interferes in my relationship can come as she pleases to my house! oh! and my house still needs to be used for official functions! Thank you for the gift, so generous of you to lend me one of your spare houses after i saved you, your mate and your child <3
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catwouthats · 17 days ago
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The more comics I read the more I’m confused about people absolutely lothingggg Guy Gardner… like he’s a little bit of an asshole, but what seems to annoy people the most is how impulsive and annoying he is… Do they not see that he acts “too quickly” and with “too much anger” because in his eyes they are taking too long to figure out a plan of attack and people could die? Also, damn, some of the shit he does is just COMMON for green lanterns, but the moment he does it, it’s “wrong”.
“He doesn’t think about-” HE HAS SEVERE BRAIN DAMAGE!!! PARTS OF HIS BRAIN WILL NEVER GROW BACK POST COMA AND POST ANY OTHER HEAD TRAUMA!!! He is gonna be bad at considering consequences…
Also, if we are gonna hate on him for misogyny that he USED to have, where is the hate for Ted Kord? That’s right, it’s non existent.
Not to mention a lot of the hate I see is straight up MADE UP SHIT… like bruh…
I get he can be annoying, but sometimes… girl, calm down…
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henreyettah · 2 years ago
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Foxhole 🦊🦊 🦊 🦊🦊 🦊🦊 🦊 🦊
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everl0v3r · 2 months ago
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i am the type of person to look at a piece of media and say “is anybody going to put an aro/ace fan character in there” and not wait for an answer
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cheeriochat · 9 months ago
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Wash time
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untitledrockstar-if · 23 days ago
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do we rlly need a buff femme RO (which a lot of games already have, like literally most, ex. Julia Ortega from FH is 💪) when we potentially have an MC kinky/crazy enough to get their partner’s name tattooed on their inner thigh like there’s so much fun to be had here already besties, eyes on the prize
the true muscles are in the insanity we find along the way
lmao I don't think having a fun mc necessarily cancels out the other or makes up for it, but I don't see any of the ROs be that physically active in a world made out of plastic and drugs they live in.
and I also agree that we've got quite a few of them already!
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forwhump · 2 months ago
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a/n; IM SORRYYYYYY I feel like I haven’t posted anything in forever here’s something horrible to make up for it <3 (wren’s tortured again in this one)(but outside pov this time ! fun fun 🤩)(not actually fun tho v upsetting) (basically point murders a family but uses them to fuck w wren a little bit first)
word count: 4.5k
tw/cw: gun violence, sexual violence, rape/noncon, mass murder, misgendering (constant but unintentional)(also intentional), transphobia, psychological torture, imprisonment, implied sexual slavery
creepy whumper, outside pov
Running so hard he doesn’t have time to stop himself, Jonny collides with his mother’s kitchen door with enough force that his teeth rattle in his jaw. Benny, running behind him, collides with his back, and the added weight of him forces open the old door and they go sprawling across the kitchen floor together.
For a second, everything is almost normal. Mama’s standing over her cutting board. Billie’s burning something at the stove. Jenny’s sitting at the kitchen table, pretending to get work done but really playing solitaire on her laptop. They’d all moved home again to help Mama out with the farm and the house after their dad had died randomly and unexpectedly. It was nice, for a time, having them all together again. Jonny isn’t usually a sap, but it was nice. Until this.
Until the weirdo moved into Meadow. Meadow’s a farm, so to speak, and it’s on farmland, but it’s fenced off from the rest of the world with rows of tall trees. The place had been empty for a long time; it was weird anybody had moved in at all. It was weirder that the guy kept so much to himself. It made the choice of farm make sense, but it made him stick out like a sore thumb. People just aren’t like that in this corner of the world. With farms miles wide, neighbours aren’t close, so efforts have to be made to get to know them. You visit. You greet. You help out when you can. Town socials. It’s just what everybody does — except this guy.
Makes more sense now, though. The privacy. The secrecy.
“Slow down,” Mama chastises, as the both of them scramble up from the floor. “You’re too old now to be playing like that.”
Jenny scoffs. “Dorks.”
“Call the police,” Benny wheezes.
Mama looks up again. “What?”
“Call the police,” Jonny pants, and as soon as he’s on his feet, he slams the kitchen door shut, bolting it as quickly as he can with shaking hands.
“Jesus,” Billie says.
“What?” Mama repeats, putting her knife down to brush off her hands.
“You pick that thing up again right now,” Jonny commands. “Keep that in your hand. Call the police with the other. Jenny,” he orders. “You’re already on your phone. Call them, too. Get everybody out here.”
“Why?” Mama asks, but she does grab the knife. “What did you do?”
Benny shakes his head quickly. He’d managed to pull himself into a chair at the table, still catching his breath. Bit of a stoner these days, Benny. Better hope they don’t need to do a lot more running. Better hope the police get here before that guy does.
“Call, Mama!” Jonny snaps.
“What’s going on?” Billie asks. She’s a stoner, too. Useless lot of them. Not that running or sharp reflexes is gonna do a lot of good against that much military grade ammunition.
“Did you call, Jenny?” Jonny snaps.
“You know we have no service out here,” Jenny says with a snort, not looking up from the screen, too calm. “Mama has to call.”
“Are you calling?”
Mama isn’t. She’s hesitating. “I won’t if it’ll get you boys in a lot of trouble.”
“Oh my God,” Benny finally roars, “he’s got a girl, Mama!”
All three of the girls look up at the same time. Not appropriately shocked, but they’re getting there.
“What?” Jenny says.
“And so many guns,” Jonny says.
“And weird shit,” Benny adds. “Weird weapons. Weird torture shit.”
“And a girl,” Jonny repeats. “We thought she was dead, Mama, that’s why we went in —”
“You went in?” Billie asks, horrified.
At the same time, light explodes through the big window above the sink. Obnoxious headlights are swung towards their kitchen, the way they had run.
“He’s here,” Benny says.
“I’ll call!” Jonny shouts, and launches himself at the phone.
It’s dead. Almost comically, the phone is dead.
“Okay,” he says, and slams it back on the receiver. “Which one of you useless fucks was supposed to make sure the phone bill was paid?”
“Phone was Billie,” Jenny says.
“No, it wasn’t,” Billie says. “It was you, Jonny.”
Something slams against the kitchen door with a force that splinters the wood towards the centre.
Jenny screams.
Jonny says, “fuck!”
The door is kicked in. Jonny hadn’t actually seen their neighbour, not himself, not yet, just a fraction of the inside of his house and the bleeding, naked corpse he was keeping chained up inside. He sees him now as he fills the kitchen doorway. He’s a big fucking guy.
Fuck.
He’s got a big fucking gun in one hand. He’s keeping the girl slung over his shoulder with the other. Her hair is really long, and it’s kind of pink. Probably with blood, Jonny realizes, and it makes it hard to look at her.
Their neighbour looks at each of them, and there’s something not right in his eyes — he doesn’t have human eyes. He has the eyes of an animal.
Jonny doesn’t mean to, but he takes a step back.
He smirks, and Jonny almost takes another one. “What’s wrong?” He asks. His accent is deep, slow and Texan. It sounds fake. “Y’all were just so keen to meet me. And here,” he says, and lifts the girl off his shoulder to drop her, limp, onto the linoleum. He’d clothed her, but he’d dressed her in some stupid little doll dress. She’s so thin, in fact, her skin, where it isn’t bruised, so waxy, she almost looks like she could be a doll. Emaciated, probably, is the word for it. She’s probably dying, actually, and if she’s not, she’s probably getting there; she looks a lot like the way dying people are supposed to look. “Since you were so keen to get a good look at my wife.”
“Your wife?” Billie repeats.
Not a lot of her skin is waxy, in fact, because most of her is mottled in bruises or pink, shiny burns. Her hair is pink with bleeding. Her head moves a little, but she’s still face down, and she doesn’t move at all after that. For the second time that night, Jonny’s certain he’s looking at a corpse.
“Purty,” he says. “Ain’t she?”
“Oh my God,” Mama breathes.
“Oh my God,” he mocks, “how rude of me. I haven’t met you yet,” he says, and points, with his gun, at Mama. “I’m Darren. I’m your neighbour on Meadow. In the house your boys broke into.”
He keeps pointing it at her. She’s still holding a knife, but it’s a big fucking gun. Who brings a knife to a gunfight? What are they supposed to do? “I’m sorry,” Mama says.
“You will be,” Darren answers.
Without warning and with a speed Jonny would swear was unnatural, he turns the gun on Jenny. He pulls the trigger, and the gun sprays ammunition. He blows a good chunk out of her face.
For a second, after the skin of her cheek and the grey of her brain have sprayed the wall behind her, her body stays upright. Then it slumps forward onto the table with a horribly wet sound and Benny just manages to push back from it before he leans over and throws up, splattered with blood and chunks of teeth. Jonny can’t tell his shouting from Mama’s, from Billie’s, from Benny’s once he starts.
“You should’ve stayed away from my house,” Darren says, and his voice isn’t Texan at all.
“I’m sorry,” Benny breathes.
Mama’s wailing, unintelligible, and Billie slides an arm around her.
Jonny doesn’t mean to but his legs give out and he sinks to his knees. His ears are ringing. He doesn’t want to look at Jenny, what’s left of her, but this close to the ground puts him too close to the neighbour’s wife and Jonny doesn’t want to look at her, either. He can’t help it.
“Not yet,” Darren says. He pulls the trigger again, blows Mama’s kneecap right out of her leg and she goes sprawling across the kitchen floor with a scream. The barrel is still hot, sizzling against Jonny’s skin as Darren uses it to tilt his face upwards by the chin. “You,” he says. “You’re looking awfully hard at my wife,” he says, and his fake accent is back. It’s hard to tell if he keeps forgetting to put it on or if it’s just a layer to fucking with them. Something psychological.
He looks too close at Jonny with those fucked up eyes and Jonny can’t say anything.
“You like what you see?” He asks, and he asks like there’s a right answer. Jonny has no idea what the right answer could be.
“Is she still alive?” Is what comes out, and it’s not the right answer.
He frowns. “Of course she’s still alive,” and kicks her hard in the side. She makes a soft sound, and it makes the hair on the back of Jonny’s neck stand up, but she makes a sound. She isn’t dead. Darren clicks his tongue. “C’mon, cowgirl. Rise and shine, now.” With his boot, he pushes her onto her back.
She makes another soft, horrible sound. Jonny inhales sharply. Slowly, she blinks up at the ceiling, wide eyed and probably dazed. She has startlingly dark eyes, and her left eyes, where it’s supposed to be white, is a dark, bleeding red.
Darren smiles with all his teeth and it’s unnatural the way it stretches across his face, like he’s wearing a mask that doesn’t quite fit. It doesn’t reach his eyes even a little bit. “There she is.”
“What?” The girl says, definitely dazed. Her voice is rougher than it looks like it would be. She sounds like she’s from Texas, too, but she sounds like her accent might be real. She blinks at the ceiling, vacant.
“It’s time to meet our neighbours, baby,” Darren says. “And you’re being awfully rude, sleeping through it.”
Her hands are tied tightly in front of her. Slowly, her head turns against the linoleum, just far enough that she looks, for the first time, at Jonny. For a long few moments, she looks right through him. Then she sees him, and something horrible dawns on her face. She looks quickly up at Darren, who grins again, grotesque. “What are you doing?” She breathes.
“They wanted to meet you,” he says. “And I know you’ve been getting lonely in that big ol’ house, only me around to keep you company.” He smirks as he looks up, and it’s still unnatural, but it reaches his eyes. He’s mean. “Used to have a lot of gentlemen callers, my girl. Didn’t you, baby? Wasn’t anything I could do to get her to keep her legs closed.”
She starts to sit up but Darren plants his boot hard in the centre of her chest, hard enough it knocks the wind out of her. She gasps.
Benny sniffles and says, “listen, man —“
“Listen, man,” Darren mocks. “I have been trying to mind my own business. We have been trying to keep to ourselves. You broke into my home. You put your hands on my wife.”
“Oh my God,” she says, still winded, but her words fold in disgust, “I’m not —“
He points the gun down into her face and says, “stop talking.” She does.
It had been pretty obvious something really fucked up was going on over on Meadow. It was weird anybody had moved in because it had been vacant for so long, and it had been vacant for so long because it just had such bad vibes. Anybody that came to look at it left and didn’t come back for it. It was too isolated. Creepy. Anybody that moved into that place had to be up to something. Jonny and Benny had been curious, that was all. Jonny had figured it was some weird, creep old man with a taxidermy hobby, that he’d borrow one of their horses sometime to fuel it. Benny had said doomsday prepper; Benny was closer, in the end. When the first thing they had seen were all the military weapons, they thought he was right, actually. The bound, naked girl that was obviously not his wife had thrown them off course a little.
And still, Jonny couldn’t have anticipated he’d be the kind of man to then show up in their kitchen to shoot his sister in the face. They’re all gonna die, right? That has to be how this ends. How else are they gonna get out of this? What the fuck is wrong with this guy?
Across the kitchen, crouched protectively next to Mama, Billie sniffles. “Jenny didn’t do anything. Jenny didn’t break into your house.”
“She knew too much,” Darren answers, lifting his head too quickly, jerky. “You all know too much now, matter of fact. Figured your boys wouldn’t do a good job of keeping their mouths shut.”
“Then what are you doing?” Billie asks. When did she get so brave? Jonny must’ve missed it while he was cowering. “Get it over with.”
“Nah,” he says, and grins again, most grotesque this time. It reaches too much of his weird eyes. “I wanted to play with y’all a little. And you,” he turns the gun suddenly on Jonny, “are still looking awfully hard at my wife.”
He’d been trying really hard not to look at her, in fact. He swallows, and it kind of hurts.
“C’mere,” Darren says.
It goes in one ear and leaves out the other. Jonny only looks at him. Swallows again.
“Now,” he orders, and the irritation that leaks into his voice clears it of the fake accent.
“What?” Jonny says.
Darren sucks his teeth and says, “come here, boy. If I have to repeat myself again I’ll put down your other sister.”
Billie inhales sharply.
Dazed, Jonny heaves himself to his feet. He staggers closer, closer to Darren, to the barrel of that fucking gun.
Darren lifts it and says, “go on, now. Since you’ve been so fuckin’ curious. Get a good look at her. Go on.”
With shaking legs, Jonny kneels again, somewhere close by her thigh. He tries not to touch her. It’s hard to look. She probably was very beautiful once; she looks really sick now.
“I’m sorry,” she says softly.
Darren points the gun at her again. “Stop. Talking.” She does, and he turns it back on Jonny. “Well? What do you think? Looker, isn’t she?”
Jonny doesn’t say anything. Swallows again.
The gun clicks. “Isn’t she?”
“Yes,” Jonny says.
“I know,” he agrees. He’s forgetting the accent. It’s starting to slip, replaced with something Northern, something more carefully militant. “You like what you see?”
“Yes,” he repeats.
“Go on, then,” Darren says, Texan. “Fuck my wife.”
Her knees close in time with Jonny’s leaning away. “What?” He says. Mama sobs, and Jonny hears it clearer than anything.
“Oh my God,” the girl says, and she sobs, too. “Point —“
He aims the gun at her. His face is completely blank. He’s probably old — he’s twenty years older than her, at least — his hair is starting to grey by the temples, but he has skin kinda like a doll. Jonny doesn’t think there’s anything artificial about it — he wonders if any sort of expression just doesn’t come naturally to this guy. “Don’t call me that,” he says, flat. Northern. “How many times do I have to tell you to stop talking?”
Jonny wonders if he’d really kill her. It doesn’t seem like she’d be so lucky; he’d probably just make it hurt.
She sobs again. Jonny wonders how long she’s been with Darren, and for how much of that time she’s been sick. He wonders how old she is. He wonders if he wants to know.
“Relax,” Darren says to her, dismissive and cruel. “You used to fuck dogs. You can take this.”
Her chest heaves with crying but there aren’t any tears. Jonny wonders if she just doesn’t have any left. “Shoot me,” she says, thick.
He does. He points the gun down and shoots her in the foot. Jonny scrambles away. The gunshot is loud, explosive; the sound she makes is soft. Wet. Her head lolls to one side.
Darren steps down hard on her foot and she barrels back into consciousness with a cry, something ear piercing. “Be a good girl,” he says, “and keep your eyes open. You,” he says, and points the gun at Jonny again. “Get back over here and fuck my wife.”
Jonny swallows audibly. What is he supposed to do? He’s gonna die anyway. But how much does he want it to hurt?
Maybe it doesn’t have to hurt. Maybe he won’t kill them. Maybe, if they just play along —
“Darren,” she’s sobbing. “Darren, I’m sorry, please —“
Darren’s mocking the way that she cries, a hitching sort of rasp of a sound. “Be a good girl, now,” he says, and he lays the accent on thick. “Hitch up your skirt, cowgirl.”
She covers her face with bound, trembling hands. Sobs something that sounds like, “I’m so tired.”
“You can lay right there, sugar,” Darren says. “You know you do your best work on your back.” She sobs, and he says, “lie back and think of Texas.”
She lowers her hands. She’s getting really pale. “I think about Silas,” is what she says.
Darren’s face falls, right back into something flat and doll like. He points the gun down, shoots her in the same foot. She screams at a pitch that makes Jonny flinch. Darren spits in her face. “How many times do I have to tell you,” he seethes, lethal and Northern, “not to think about that fuckin’ thing? Get over here,” he snaps, and he’s speaking to Jonny this time. “Don’t make me tell you again.”
Jonny swallows bile.
Darren says, “you know what? What the hell,” and points the gun at Benny. “You, too. You’re watching awfully close. Get over here.”
Benny doesn’t look up from the girl, but he shakes his head.
Darren turns the gun. Aims it into the kitchen. “You boys get over here,” he says, “or I’m gonna shoot your mother in the fuckin’ face.”
Mama screams. Billie sobs as she hugs her tighter.
Jonny’s ears rings with the sound of them as he looks at Benny. Benny looks back, and he looks at him blankly before he looks away. Slowly, he heaves himself from his chair. Staggers to Darren and the girl like he’s possessed.
Darren smirks, angling his head towards Jonny. “Your turn, now.”
Jonny doesn’t remember moving but he finds himself swaying on his feet.
To Benny, he says, “kneel by her head.” To the girl, he says, “be good. Spread your legs.” She doesn’t, but she’s sick and she’s skinny and he kicks them apart, anyway, easy, steps down again with all his weight on her broken foot to keep her still. She cries out so hard her back arches off the floor and Jonny takes an instinctive step back. Just as quickly, he’s looking down the barrel of the biggest fuckin’ gun he’s ever seen. “Kneel,” Darren says.
Jonny does. He wishes he didn’t, but he does, sinking to his knees between the spread of her thighs. Her tied hands are shaking. “I’m sorry,” he says.
“Don’t,” she begs softly. “Please.”
“I’m sorry,” he says again, and she sobs.
“No —“
“Tip your head back, cowgirl,” Darren says. “Open wide.”
“No,” she says, and her breath hitches.
Benny doesn’t say anything but he slowly slides his fingers into her bloody hair, turning her head gently.
“No,” she pleads, trying to reach out with tied hands and it makes Jonny’s skin crawl. “Don’t,” she begs, and Jonny retches.
The barrel of the gun is pressed to the base of his skull and the size of it could probably blow his head clean off his shoulders. “Go on, now,” Darren says.
“Please,” she sobs, and she’s looking up at Benny as Benny tips her head back.
Jonny’s hands are shaking so hard he struggles with the button on his jeans. The ruffles of her dress are already soaked with blood and he retches again. She’d been bleeding when they found her in the house, but not this much. What did he do to her before he brought her to them? What’s wrong with this guy?
There’s something still so surreal about it, even with Jenny’s brain staining the wallpaper, even with the barrel hot against his scalp through his hair. This kind of shit doesn’t happen in real life, especially not to people like them, like Mama, unassuming farmers. Maybe a little nosey, but they’re only bored. Harmless. This is the kind of shit that happens in horror movies that aren’t even all that scary, they’re so unrealistic. How can this be happening to them?
He leans into her and her whole body trembles as she cries, as she pleads. Jonny tries his best to leave his body, to go somewhere else, but there’s too much and it keeps pulling him back to himself, to this place, to the floor of his mother’s kitchen. There’s the girl, the rough, panicked hitching of her crying, how desperately she begs him to stop, how hard she trembles. She presses her knee into him, tries to push him away, and Jonny can feel too much of the bones in her leg.
And then she isn’t crying, she doesn’t beg, because Benny is holding her head still as he eases himself into her mouth and Jonny doesn’t mean to, but he sobs, something hoarse.
Still, she struggles, but her hands are braced against Benny as she tries to push him away and it isn’t much of a fight as Jonny pushes up her skirts. As Jonny pushes himself inside her.
He tries to go somewhere else again, somewhere far outside himself, to someplace he isn’t fucking a crying girl in his mother’s kitchen on the floor in front of her at gunpoint. It’s hard to escape. He screws his eyes shut, tries to think about anything else, but she’s so wet and she’s so warm she’s almost too warm and Jonny knows it’s with bleeding, he can’t think about anything else, accidentally pushes into her harder than he meant to and her bleeding body makes a wet sound that makes him gag.
“I’m sorry,” he sobs.
Benny doesn’t say anything. Benny doesn’t say anything until he grunts. Shudders. Scrambles away from her suddenly and unsteadily.
She has just enough time to turn her head before she vomits across the linoleum.
Jonny bows his head as he sobs again.
Darren says, “enough.”
Jonny jerks away from her too quickly and her body makes another horribly wet sound. The sound she makes in return is too soft, kind of broken. “I’m sorry,” Jonny says.
“I’ve been telling you,” Darren says with a smile, “you will be.” There’s nothing natural in his smile. There’s nothing human in his eyes. “Get up,” he tells them, and steps over the girl, crossing the kitchen with slow strides. He stops, standing across from Mama. “And come here.”
Slowly, they do. They stand, fix their pants, stagger across the kitchen. It’s hard to explain, but Jonny feels kind of out of it, like he’d been hit really hard in the head. Everything’s gotten kinda fuzzy around the edges.
Darren smiles again. “Face your mother.”
Slowly, they do.
“On your knees,” Darren says.
Jonny doesn’t sob again but the tears don’t stop.
“I’m sorry,” Benny’s stuck. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”
Darren exhales a sound that might be a laugh, if he were human. “Choice last words,” he says. The barrel of the gun finds the back of Jonny’s head.
“Please,” Mama says, and he hears her louder than anything. “Don’t hurt my boys.”
“What would you propose I do?” Darren asks. The barrel is so hot through his hair Jonny’s sure his scalp is burning. “Your boys just raped my wife.”
“I’m sorry,” Benny’s chanting, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” He’s always been a big guy, now a farmer — he’s never seemed so small before.
“I’d hope so,” Darren says, and he says it with a flat, Northern accent, nothing Texan about it at all.
“Darren,” the girl says, and Jonny feels a bit sick, he still doesn’t know her name and he probably won’t ever find out, “don’t do this.” She sounds like she’s from Texas for real, and it’s not the first time Jonny’s noticed but it’s the first time it occurs to him that maybe Darren’s accent isn’t psychological warfare at all, maybe he’s making fun of his wife.
It’s obvious, suddenly, in the way he drawls, “I’m defending your honour, cowgirl.”
He’s quick. It almost seems like he’s too quick, too, to be human. The barrel is pressed to the back of Jonny’s head one second, and the next, Benny’s head bursts into plates of skull and meaty chunks of brain tissue. Blood is sprayed aagainst Jonny’s side.
He doesn’t say anything, he doesn’t do anything; he freezes, and he watches across the kitchen through red mist as another gunshot rings out and crouched next to Mama, a hole explodes in the centre of Billie’s chest. She makes a wheezing, gasping soft of sound. Her throat bursts open with the next gunshot, and she never makes a sound again.
“Why are you doing this to us?” Mama breathes. She’s been painted red with Billie.
“This is what happens to nosey families who don’t mind their fuckin’ business,” he answers. And he shoots Jonny’s mother in the face.
Finally, he turns the gun on Jonny. “Any last words?”
“I don’t know,” Jonny says.
He doesn’t hear the gunshot, there isn’t time, but he can feel the heat building against the side of his face.
Then, finally, it’s over.
For a long time, Wren stares up at the ceiling, at the blood splattered across the beams.
It was their kitchen. Point had slaughtered these people in their kitchen.
Wren doesn’t know why the cruelty surprises him, but it does. He didn’t think he had it left in him to be scared anymore but he’s that, too.
Point’s face comes into view above him. “This is what happens to people that try and help you,” he says. “I want you to remember that.”
He doesn’t look disturbed that he just massacred a family in the heart of their home, but he doesn’t look pleased, either. He doesn’t look anything. Somehow it’s worse. “What are you gonna do with me when I die?” He asks.
It makes Point smile. “You know I won’t let that happen,” he says. “We’re having too much fun, cowgirl.”
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