#rust cohle/original female character

[spacecasette]

Bolt the Horse — c h a p t e r o n e

@madsmilfelsen for u my angel ♡

In the summer of 2011, she wore her hair in two braids down her back, and spent a not insignificant amount of time on barstools. The air was humid as a clenched fist and humming, so the most she could do to alleviate it was with a Miller High Life in hand, shorts admittedly a touch too short for lookin', and nothing better than trouble to get done. It was in this way she found herself in a bar without a ride home in the pouring September rain.

She was not, in her 25th year, looking for any kind of trouble she could not feasibly get into on her own. She felt as if she could do enough of the fucking up by herself, thank you kindly, and did not take well to anyone who didn't seem like they could handle that.

Rust Cohle, as it turns out, could kind of handle it. At least, she notices, he can handle most things– the exceptions being exceptional humidity and obvious displays of misplaced hubris. They watch each other often; her slyly from atop her barstool, and him openly from wherever he stood behind the bar. It seemed like a lot of the time he could hardly stomach her sitting close to him at all, even when they were across the room. Once, when she was admittedly a little too drunk for a girl who was meant to be in charge of herself, she dropped a shot glass and nearly fell from her perch trying to retrieve the shattered pieces. She looked up to find his stare already fixed on her, whites showing in his eyes like a frightened dog. He was by her side in an instant, batting her hands away and calling her a "messy little thing", which she would have found insulting, if it weren't a little too accurate. But then he checked her palms for cuts and held his hand between the bar and her head when she got up, so she couldn't be too sure he didn't just feel bad for her. She would take it though, either way it was offered. She would never tell him to his face, but she was getting lonely out at her grandparents' house with only the coyotes for company. She liked too much being around to ever tell him to quit barking at her or rolling his eyes when she asked for a pen to do her crosswords with.

It's a Saturday night the first time she loses her grip. Condensed down to one or fifteen seconds, when she laughs loud at something another regular has said. At the sound of air pressed forcefully through Rust's nose in a poor imitation of a laugh, she looks up at him. Her glassy, liquor-slicked eyes, pupils big as the fuckin' moon, begging and begging with no end in sight. Her gaze darting over his face like she can't quite decide where best to fix it– and goddammit if that doesn't just tear him all up inside.

"What the fuck is wrong with you, girl?" He asks, and another of those half-not-laughs falls out.

"Dunno, Rust, wanna find out over dinner sometime?" she fires it back so quick it leaves him a little stunned, a fish whacked out of water. In lieu of a reply, he slides her beer away from her and sets a glass of water down in its place, though she pouts prolifically when he does.

"Prob'ly better if you get on home, little doggy, " he says, soft and condescending even with a corner of his mouth turned up the way it is.

"'M not little anymore, Rust, fuck's sake," she mumbles, taciturn and petulant even this deep in her drink.

"Go get some air, girl, I'll be out quick to drive you home," he tells her, casual like he didn't already know she'd been hoping and wishing for it all night, "and don't go pitching a fit about it. 'S fuckin' pourin' out there and you'd drown yourself in a thimble of rain if I don't."

The screen door in front slams quickly, and will catch you in the back of the head if you're not quick about getting in before it. Dani doesn't tell him this because she is very busy with falling over the threshold in a fit of giggles, bride to her own amusement at Rust having to shuffle her in like someone's feeble old grandma. He is rather short of patience at this hour, and she can feel herself dancing over top his last nerve, but she finds it honestly pretty funny so she makes a lot of stupid faces and asks twice if he'll tuck her in. She's not been sleeping in a bed in the house because they all make her feel a little too sad lately, so she makes a bee line for the couch in the center of the front room, like a rock face she's dead set to crashing on. Rust lets her fall into it– helps her, even, letting loose his grip on her arms to let her splay onto the cushions and roll her ruddy cheek down deep in the throw pillow. Her hair stuck to her face and her breathing slightly shallow, his fingers itch with the desire to check her pulse, to fret over her. Instead he keeps his hands to himself and watches, impassive, as she makes a valiant attempt at rucking her shorts down over her knees to kick them off, making no effort to help. His watching feels like something else, she thinks sluggishly, like a hot lick of fever climbing down her spine and sticking there as a burr would. When she notices him staring, she offers up her dopiest, softest smile, and slurs

"Rust. If you're gonna stand there all night, I won't stop you but first could you go grab me some sleep shorts out of the chester draws? First door on the left at the top of the stairs," she swallows, thick as honeyed night, "please."

The wiry automaton of his body clicks into action: mouth softly closing, limbs lurching into their movement, all economy and surprise.

He returns with her gray shorts, ratty things with the elastic long gone to dust, and sets them down on the coffee table. He turns around, all precious and respectful now that they're alone, and lets her put them on.

When he hears her settle and finally turns around, it's to find her already asleep, her cheeks flushed and limbs spread across the sofa like a child exhausted from the heat.

Sunday morning, she awoke neatly tucked under an afghan with a glass jar of water and two ibuprofen on the coffee table in front of her. Looking at the clock above the door, cogs clicking in the dim apartment of her skull, she realized with quite a start that if she wasn't dressed and ready in exactly 7 minutes, she was going to be rather unfashionably late for Sunday service.

Imagining the looks of misplaced pity from the faces of grandmothers and their daughters and their daughters' daughters was enough to light a decent fire under her ass. She dressed quickly, brushed her sticky teeth to rid them of the scent of stale beer and Black Velvet and was out the door toward the truck with 30 seconds to spare. Her hair, regrettably, was a mouse nest when she checked it in the rearview.

On the drive in, she remembered vaguely that Rust had brought her home late last night but had not, thankfully, stuck around quite long enough for her to embarrass herself any further than she had expected to. She had come to know herself when drinking anything harder than a Shirley temple to be rather childish, with an attitude and a neediness about her to rival some mothers' babies. She could be a sore loser when Robert would walk her like a dog in Rummy, and would play too many Mel Carter songs in a row on the jukebox. This last behavior never failed to put a very unreadable look on Rust's face, like she was leading herself to the gallows & he knew it. There was nothing to be done about her nature now, she supposed, except to apologize to whomever had to suffer it. Used to be her grandparents would correct her, sometimes sternly, but she could always weasel her way out of trouble if she put on the right pair of puppy eyes– now there was no one to set her straight over their knee and make her see sense.

Service was a fine, if a little lengthy, affair with a lot of the old biddies fanning themselves in the heat and cooing over her bruised up knees. She explained (falsely) that she had been moving some of Papa's things back in from the shed, and, arms full, had tripped up the porch steps. Feeling a little poorly about lying in church, she reasoned that telling them she'd come home drunk and tripped over her own threshold would have been inappropriate pew chatter, so it was okay for her to bend the truth into a sweeter shape once in a while.

Leaving church, she decided to stop by Hank's for groceries– mostly because she wanted something to make her feel productive, though she knew she was bound to spend her afternoon (and likely evening) walking around in the creek and reading on the porch. She was clear out of bread, and running dangerously low on the honey cereal she'd taken a liking to. Eggs, she knew, she could trade a neighbor for, so she treated herself to an orange dreamsicle in their place. When she was younger, and Mammy would take her here, she never said no to books or puzzles, but could always deny her granddaughter candy or toys. Now, it seemed, Dani had more books than she could reasonably read in years, and was of the mind that denying herself pleasure of this kind was a punishment she had not earned.

In the breakfast aisle, a feeling not dissimilar to a flight response catches her by the tail of her hair and will not let her go. She moseys slow like, taking her time to draw him out, entertaining herself with all the little barbs she might stick him with. Things like "you followin' me, mister?" or "funny meetin' you here, I thought you lived off coffee, cigarettes, and switch grass." But she didn't really have anything too smart to say when he finally sidled up next to her while she was fretting over cereal.

Her eyes darted to his hands, slung under the weight of the blue basket in his grip– sinewy, calloused– and then up to his shirt collar, chin, face, then eyes. She had to take it in little leaps else she'd get shy and find a way to leave before she'd said her piece.

"'M sorry you had to see me home last night. Didn't mean to get ornery, so. It won't happen again." It's soft, coming out her mouth, like they were the only people in the room.

"'S alright, just seems like someone oughta look after you once in a while," he says, just as quiet, as if talking to himself. The hum of the lights gets a little too loud and she can't quite think all the way, so her words come out rushed,

"How come you don't go to church?"

"I don't really fuss about with god." This surprises her, for some reason. She felt she knew his way, a little, how he looked at everything through the lens of dutiful futility. It stands to reason he wouldn't really bother with something so nebulous and unfixed, but for all she knows he's a thing flung straight down from outer space so she doesn't follow the thought too far.

"Well, me neither, except I like the singing, and Mammy always made me go. Just seems like the thing to do, I guess. Don't you got a thing you do? Just 'cause you feel like you're supposed to?"

"Unfortunately, sweetheart, everything I do is 'cause I'm supposed to."

Then they don't talk, for what feels like a whole winter but is really only a minute. She finds her prize on the shelf and quickly puts it in her basket, looking at her shoes until she finds the nerve to speak again,

"I'm trying to be your friend, Rust. Are you gonna let me, or are you gonna keep up this whole 'mysterious old man with a vendetta against fun' thing?"

He chuckles at that, but doesn't exactly answer.

"Look, I'm gonna be gone a while. Not long, should be back towards the middle of the week, but I want you to stay home. I mean that. Don't come by the bar, don't go anywhere I wouldn't know to find you, okay? You stay outta trouble and we'll talk about being friends when I get back."

She rolls her eyes at the implication that she couldn't handle life and its spinning without him herding her about.

"Fine. But when you get back, you owe me a beer and a game of rummy. And you can't pawn me off on Bob, either, I'm starting to think it's personal."

"Deal." They shake hands, and he's gone. When she finally quits looking down at her hand where he held it, she grabs her milk and butter, pays the kid at the till, and heads home.

Dani knows, for the most part, how to behave. She spent so long having so little reason to lash out that the muscle memory of trouble making had practically atrophied by the time she turned 19. She spends her first day at home reorganizing the bookshelves in the living room by genre, which eats up a good 3 hours after breakfast and fills her with a terribly pleased feeling to boot. By then, she's ready for a simple lunch of a ham and cheese sandwich with an entire sleeve of tollhouse crackers, which she eats on the porch with a can of pepsi beside her. The cicadas do their screeching song all day, and when she wanders out into the yard, she finds one of their molts clung to the trunk of a live oak. Papa's voice floats into her head, and she is thrown face-first into a memory of them gathered in the kitchen one early morning, heads bowed in little prayer to examine the bugs and moths he'd pinned to a paper towel on the counter. He'd told her about the dog day cicadas, how they sleep for 7 years and come alive to feed, breed, scream, and die. He'd pointed out the luna moth, its wings frayed and flaked where he'd handled it with a little carelessness. It had looked so graceful and serene, laying with its wings fanned and pinned apart with mammy's pearl-headed sewing pins. She remembers the sadness she'd felt when he had told her they lacked mouths, and existed only by the grace of whatever nutrients they'd ingested as caterpillars. She felt a bit like that now, catapulted into life without them in the span of a year, and with no way to cherish them except in reverse. Reduced to a thing that wanted, with no way of asking.

Dani spent the rest of the first day ambling through the trees looking for bugs and leaves and interesting bits she might save to keep the memory of summer alive when the rain came and the sun stayed away longer. At night, she ate buttered noodles and pinned her findings in a shadowbox she'd gutted, hunched over the kitchen table tweezing antennae and legs into place. When she felt herself growing sleepy, she walked the few paces to the sofa, and fell onto it with all the grace of a foal in its first hours. She dreamt that night that she'd forgotten her name, and was standing in the middle of her empty high school.

The second day passed much differently– the hours stretched their long fingers out toward the sun and took their dandy time to pass. She was restless, and it was hot, and she felt a searching inside her that could not be sated by any of the near dozen books she tried out. By 1pm she was packing a small lunch (ham and cheese again, with the last sleeve of crackers) and walking back through the trees behind the house to the creek. Toeing off her shoes and slipping off her dress, she slipped down into that cool, murky wet. She floated on her back in the middle a while, watching the canopy shiver apart to let the sunlight through in lacelike patterns on the surface of the water. Eventually, she uprighted herself and walked along the bank looking for a salamander or a frog, something alive she might find companionship with. It ended up being fruitless, which ratcheted up that irritable itch and culminated in a single misstep over an algae-slicked stone and sent her straight down backward onto her ass. Her eyes welling with frustrated tears, she laid there stunned with her tailbone throbbing something fierce for a good ten minutes. When her self pity ran dry and she remembered she was the only one around who could kiss it better, she gathered up the lunch she'd neglected to eat and went straight back to the house for a hot shower, or perhaps a nap on the sofa.

She woke around 6pm with all her bones feeling fused together at the joints, and a small puddle of drool on the throw pillow beneath her cheek. It was with a sense of delirious urgency that she climbed from her makeshift bed and upstairs to the bathroom, and upon flicking the light, noticed her hair had dried down in such a horrendous tangle she sat down on the floor and started to cry. She cried because she missed her Mammy and her Papa, because her body hurt, and because she was struck with the painfully sudden and obvious realization that she really was on her own now. She cried because she felt stupid, and small, and rather lonely here in this house she loved but felt guilty being in for some reason.

Eventually, the tide of her sobbing had slowed and she crawled over to the drawer to fish out her hairbrush, and set about making sense of the nest that had settled on her head. When it was done, and with great effort at that, she turned on the shower as boiling hot as it would go, and sat herself down to spend the better part of half an hour feeling put out and morose before she even picked up the shampoo. It was a quick affair after that, as she didn't really love having pruny fingers.

The boredom reaches a fever pitch around 10:30, untempered by two failed attempts at knitting and one batch of lemon muffins. Everything Dani has done in the last fourteen hours to restore a sense of normalcy has come spitting furiously back into her face, and she really truly feels like something in her is fixing to hatch. It's beginning to feel like an undoing, and she's uncomfortable, so she laces up her stupid shoes and walks the stupid half-mile to Doumain's. She curses Rust the whole way, scrunches up her nose and spits at his voice in her head telling her to stay put, like a dog that don't know any better than to leap out the door. She feels hot and itchy again, and she made up promises– one she did try hard to keep, but again her nature won out– and he said he'd be back by mid week. It's coming on 11 on a Tuesday, so she reckons she's close enough to compliance for fulfilling her end of a crummy deal. And anyway, she's fighting mad for nothing and wants a beer and a furious game of cards with Bob to soften up all the little hard upset parts of her.

When she arrives, it's unnaturally rowdy for a weeknight. The pool tables are full, and there isn't a spot for her at the bar until she catches Bob's eye and he makes another regular– Mason, her useless brain supplies– move out of the way to let her claim her usual spot. No crosswords tonight, she sets a deck of cards and a wad of folded ones on the bar-top between them. The other bartender is here tonight in Rust's place– she's only ever seen him once, and he wasn't all that nice, but neither is Rust, so her demeanor doesn't have to change all that much after all. She orders a tallboy of Lonestar and a shot of Black Velvet because no one will stop her, and she can't help herself, especially now. Bob gives her a sidelong look she's seen before, one that says she's skating on thin fuckin' ice, but she knocks back her shot like it owes her rent without meeting his eye. Her evening irons back out and starts to feel normal, if a little lackluster since Rust isn't around for her to pester and push. She really did think she might get away with coming here despite her instructions until one of those stupid dishwater-blond fucks– Amos or Andrew, the one with too-green eyes– comes over and starts inching in on her, thinking she won't notice. She tried out doing the right thing, angling her body away from him hoping he'd get the message and go find his luck somewhere else. He doesn't. Instead, he uses a knee to turn the seat of her seat of her barstool around to face him and says,

"What're you doin' over here all by your lonesome, baby? Come play with us, I'll buy you a fruity little drink if you want, somethin' to wet that," he looks down at her mouth, leans close and lecherous and rancid, "whistle."

"No, thank you. Bob and I are gonna play some cards, you're gonna go circle jerk with your friends, and we'll steer nice and clear of each other." Her brows and fingers knit together, holding herself in by the edges because she's honestly a little afraid she might bite him or scream or throw something. His answering smile comes, satisfied and too close for comfort that it makes something in her burn scalding and bright.

"Oh, come on, don't be such a sourpuss. Go a round with us and we'll see where the night takes us, hmm?"

Her fist connects with his left orbital socket before she even decides it should. His whole body ripples away at the impact– the desired effect– and while on his back foot she watches his eyes widen with the realization. Then he's on her, screaming and aiming for her neck. Dani feels, in this moment, a far off panic. Fights never really found her too easily, since she had a habit of keeping to herself (except, obviously, on this occasion). It's all she can do to flail about with closed fists until something lands or someone steps in to free her. And intervene, someone does: Mason, who despite having his seat stolen not twenty minutes ago comes to her rescue by pulling the kid off her by his collar like a rowdy kitten. She lies there, staring at the water stains on the ceiling, until Mason's face floats into her periphery and she's pulled to sitting. Her face feels sticky and hot all over, and her lashes are clumped together making it hard to blink up at the few faces looking down at her. She finds Bob's eyes, and the first words out of her mouth are,

"Please don't tell Rust."

He laughs, shakes his head, and offers her a hand which she takes to stand on her wobbly legs. Assuming she's being shown the door, she heads that direction only to be stopped by a hand on the crook of her elbow. She turns to face Bob, and his face is caught between a look of wonder and pity. He nods toward the back door, and she follows, head turned down towards her shoes. The soundtrack to Tuesday night clicks back to life and everyone goes back to their business as they exit the building. He fumbles with the spigot on the wall, and his hankie is removed, wetted, then used to roughly dab the drying blood off her lips and nose. Even in the bare moonlight, she sees it come away dark. She's heard Bob speak on so few occasions, she nearly misses it when he mumbles,

"Don't you go pickin' fights you don't know goddamn well how to win, missy. You're lucky Rust ain't here, he'd have probably hauled off and killed that kid." Her face burns at that, and not from the cut.

"I-I'm sorry, Bob, really. I just-he was being gross and it kinda happened before I knew any different what my hands were up to. Won't happen again, you know I'm not that type of girl."

He doesn't reply, but the "maybe you oughta think about that first next time" hangs in the air, limp and useless now.

He lets her into an apartment attached to the bar near the back door, which she sort of knew about but assumed was where he lived. There was hardly anything in it– no dishes on the sink or mess on the counters– until they got to the bedroom. The only evidence she could see that would lead her to believe it was occupied was a full-sized mattress on the floor, covered in a white flat sheet, and a pile of Louisiana history text books in the corner beneath the window.

"Sleep it off in here for tonight. There's a quilt in the hall closet if you need it, and the washroom's just next door."

He's gone out the door before she can thank him. She looks at the bed, and the moonlight coming through the blinds onto it. She could sleep, she thinks. She should. Grabbing the quilt from the hall closet– hard to miss, it was the only thing in there– she wraps it around herself, toes off her shoes, and lays down on the bed. Curled on her side, stray tears dripping across the still-bloody bridge of her nose onto the sheet, she falls asleep.

Rust gets home at 3:27AM, and Bob is waiting up for him, smoking a cigarette at the bar. It's not exactly uncommon, but he's usually back a little closer to sunrise and the time Bob usually gets up for the day, so he cocks his head to a 45° and asks,

"What're you doin up so late?"

"Just don't say I never told you nothin'."

"I have no idea what you're talking about, Robert. Goodnight."

"Suit yourself," he mutters, "shitheel."

Rust rolls his eyes but goes to unlock the door to his apartment without further comment. His keys clatter on the breakfast nook, and when he pads into the bedroom he finds her there, face crusted up with snot and dried blood. He finds her there, asleep on his mattress on the floor with her hands tucked up under her chin like a pair of swans. Close together, too, as if they were in quiet conversation about the day they'd had. He sighs, deeply, and heads back out to the sofa.

[sparklingmineraltequila]

American Wasteland

Note: Sorry this took so long. I moved city and pretty much have a new life. Still obsessed with Rust, though, so some shit sticks

Warnings: 18+, talk of war, alcohol, drugs, sex work, talks of past domestic violence, smut, just genuine misery between the two of them

America venerates suffering, that's what Travis had always told Rust. Sacrifice isn't pure if it isn't coated in a blood so red and so hot that your family can smear over their words, for centuries to come, excusing their comfort, their indulgence, their ignorance. They are afforded that comfort off of slaughter beyond their imagining. At least, that's what had happened after 'nam. A hero for his fucking country was the propaganda they had fed Travis; squash the bug of communism and, along with it, massacre millions of innocents, because what is America without its sons who are willing to fight for it.? Yeah, a fucking hero for a father, who's night terrors kept both of them up at night and who kept his engraved lighter saying High Speed Low Drag in his hunting jacket, always. That same lighter that Rust had used to light his first cigarette: rolled up flimsily in newspaper with the leftover tobacco and tufts of filter that he'd scraped from Travis' cigarette butts. The same lighter that Cassandra is now using to light her Marlboro Gold, hands shaking,

'Rust. That's all I get, huh? Not even a fucking surname?!' she spits, through a shaky exhale.

'I ain't gonna give you my surname. The less you know about me, the better,' Rust says back, his stoic demeanour attempting to mask that churning in his stomach. One that he has realised isn't for him but for Cassandra.

'Is Rust even your actual name?'

'You want a fuckin' social security number, too?' Rust drawls dryly.

'Don't you-Don't,' Cassandra's head shoots up from where it's been in her hands, her shaking tone now gaining a momentum of uncontrollable anger, 'Jesus-fuck. You men are all the fucking same. I-I ain't staying in this fucking place, anymore. Fuck it, fuck you, fuck every goddamn person in this wasteland of a place!'

Rust regards her with an even look,

'You ain't going anywhere. Not tonight. You ain't in the right state.'

'You ain't my daddy, motherfucker.'

'Goddamn right, I ain't but I'm also the only person you have who doesn't want to take advantage of you. So, hedge your bets tomorrow, baby, but tonight you're stayin' here,' Rust's voice is lapidary, stopping Cassandra in her tracks as she starts to shove clothes and books into her duffel bag.

'I said: you ain't my daddy and you sure as hell ain't keeping me in a place where I don't want to be,' Cassandra says in a tone equally as gelid, throwing her duffel bag over her shoulder. That elegant, fine-boned shoulder tinged with its bronzed hue; some of the love bites that Rust had left a few nights ago decorating Cassandra's collarbone. Rust fears that the sentiment festering under his skin is nostalgia. A nostalgia that scares him and, then, makes him cruel,

'No, Cassandra. I ain't your daddy cause all he did for you was get heavy handed with you and cut you up with his empty liquor bottles when he really wanted to teach you about mouthin' off at him.'

The colour drains from Cassandra's face,

'How the fuck do you know about that?' a sudden spark of spite reaches her as she sneers, 'Pull my file in your spare time, huh?'

Rust grabs her arm and yanks up her tank top, ignoring her yelp. He nods to the fine, white line along her ribcage,

'I ain't a fuckin' idiot, Cassandra. Skateboardin' fall, my ass,' Rust snarls, holding her ribcage with a calloused hand. Cassandra viciously claws at his hand, tears threatening to spill from her eyes,

'Get off! Get the fuck off!' and Rusts lets her go cause in that moment, the smooth, sultry cadence made slightly husky from after-sex cigarettes reverts back to the pleading of a little girl. Cassandra's words are devoid of any real bite, Rust notes. All that rage has been stripped away and all that she is left with is the panic of a little girl's voice turning into burning sobs in her throat; the stale cookies in her stomach turning sour from terror. There's that wide eyed looked, too. He can see it as Cassandra hastily covers herself back up and rearranges the duffel bag back onto her shoulder.

'Fuck you, Rust,' she says his name like it's a poison that she needs to spit from her mouth before it corrodes the flesh into a pulpy mess. Corrosion. Rust. That's what he is, it's what he does because sometimes corrosion is needed to get to the bone of things; to see what everyone else in too caught up in their delusions or affectations about fucking Natural Law to truly comprehend.

'Don't you fu-Cassandra!' Rust's voice boils up from his chest in a rough bark, watching Cassandra explode out of the trailer door, almost stumble down the rusted metal steps and collapse into the red dirt. He thinks he can't get any angrier until he realises that she's pocketed the keys to his Harley, on her way out, and sees her bolt over to where it's parked, behind the trailer. A cloud of dust rises up as the bike rumbles out of neutral and Cassandra desperately revs on the accelerator; her legs hardly off of the ground before the Harley tears away. In other circumstances, the dramatics of the exit would have made Rust scoff and chalk it up to youth's thirst for impact: the flurry of a scene. Not now. Not when this kid is tearing down a highway in a bike that doesn't have enough gas to make it to Liberty, let alone wherever the fuck Cassandra thinks she's headed. A kid, Rust thinks, A fuckin' kid that I've pulled into the abyss with me. Rust calls her a kid now but knows that when he finds her, he'll treat her like she's grown. A sentiment that propels him into his truck, cursing to himself as the engine splutters.

It doesn't take long to track Cassandra down; there's only one road from the trailer park that lead to the freeway. No doubt, where Cassandra is headed to. Ride fast and hard, and get the fuck out when the heat starts to sting: the classic cocktail of self-preservation cooked up by kids who've already been burned. There are too many of them down here, below that Mason-Dixie line. Rust would know. Fuck, if he hasn't spent his entire career on the force witnessing the aftermath. Drugs, abuses, assaults, homicides: you name it. The abuser becomes the abused; Nietzsche's infinite return has those poor kids falling flat on their faces into the nice shit storm of generational maladjustments that their parents left for them. Shattered dreams, skin sucked dry from mosquitos, teeth black and rotting from sweet tea, underneath that sticky southern sun. Rust wants to believe that it's an innate sense of duty towards these kids is why he's currently violating every Highway Code there is. And for part of him, it is. The other part, however, won't allow himself the comfort of what he knows is a lie. What started as pure sex appeal has started to morph into something deeper, messier.

The bike has even less gas than he thought as, the first Texaco that he sees, has Cassandra next to the pumps trying to wrench open the bike's gas lock. She wants to be caught, Rust knows, Wants me to chase after her, show her I give a shit. If she didn't, she would've gotten a hell of a lot more reckless. He watches her, almost with pity, as her pulls into the gas station and slows the truck to a halt, the breaks groaning with their lack of galvanisation. Rust shoves the car door open, his leather boots landing heavily on tepid asphalt,

'Get your ass over here,' his voice rough, as he strides over to Cassandra.

'I told you to get the fuck away from me,' she whips around, her fury making her abandon her previous task.

'Get in the fuckin' truck, Cassandra. I ain't doing the whole scorned boyfriend act for these nosey fuckers,' Rust deadpans, his ice blue gaze conveying to her just how fucking pissed he is.

'Did you hear me, motherfucker? I said to go back to your junkie biker brothers, find some hooker so that you can fuck out your half-baked emotional needs and leave me the hell alone,' Cassandra says with such venom dripping from her mouth that she almost fully means it; warm milk out of hand, she resorts to spite. Not fully, though: Rust can see the tears glazing her eyes and that's enough for him. A firm hand comes to grasp Cassandra's arm and put her in what is practically a headlock as Rust drags her to the truck. Cassandra's duffel bag slips off of her shoulder as Rust holds her firmly against his chest, bicep right up against the column of her throat. Some old man up from his pump, spit collecting at the corners of his mouth as he calls over,

'Everything alright over there?' Not from the area, Rust notes. Not solely due to the licence plate and milky arms but the slight wariness of his expression. A man unacquainted with the imperatives that the arrid terrain commands. The violence. Cassandra takes it upon herself to drop the unwanted attention as she chokes out,

'They don't teach you to mind your own fucking business in Iowa?!' the rage in her voice stemming from a deep humiliation in how she must look, Rust's arm tight against her neck. Rust takes in the man's mortification and grits into her ear,

'Shut the fuck up.'

He opens the truck door and shoves her in, slamming the door and heading over to the driver's side to catch her as she climbs out. Rust concedes her a heavy slap to the face before getting in, essentially crowding her back to the passenger's side. As he starts the ignition and pulls out of the gas station, Cassandra is eerily quiet, tears leaving hot tracks of salt and mascara on her cheeks. Rust debates on whether it's shame at getting caught or just pure desolation at, once again, finding herself completely fucked over, until he feels his jeans' waistband go slack. He feels the air hit that sweaty patch of back where the barrel of his .38 S&W was pressed and licks the inside of his cheek in an almost smirk. There she is, Rust thinks, knowing full well Cassandra's loathing of acquiescence as she points the gun at his temple, sweat curling his caramel hairs.

'Pull over or, I swear to God, I'll put your brains all over your goddamn car windows,' Cassandra's voice is firm but Rust sees her fingers trembling. Red. Her nails are lacquered the same colour as a Shirley Temple, poised on cool gun metal of the safety.

'You don't want to shoot me, Cass,' Rust says, his tone flat.

'Oh, I don't?' Cassandra scoffs.

'Nah, you wanna make a fuckin' scene so that I'll burst into tears and beg for your fuckin' forgiveness or some shit. That ain't gonna work on me, baby. I'm around too many pussies who ain't man enough to pull a fuckin' trigger, as it is. I can tell when someone's bluffin'. And you, Cass, I can sure as hell tell when you're bluffin'.'

'How are you so sure?'

Rust looks at a small trail leading off of the main road before sparing a sideways glance,

'That gun ain't even cocked.'

Cassandra narrows her eyes and pulls the hammer back,

'Happy?'

Rust steers the truck off of the road, onto the rocky country road, before stopping and turning to her,

'You wanna go? Go.'

Cassandra's gaze falters before she contrives it into that practiced indifference,

'You're kicking me out?' she says, her voice so fragile that Rust almost feels bad for putting her in this situation but tough shit: wisdom comes hard.

'Nah, just callin' your bluff. You got 30 seconds to go, if you want to,' Rust says, not even facing her but staring straight out ahead.

Cassandra stares at him, lowering the gun, and looks around helplessly. The tears come back, not when she looks at Rust's stony expression or the destitute surroundings, but when she looks at her duffel bag. All her life fitting into some beat up gym bag and, now, she's about to throw away the one thing that can protect her. A gun isn't shit compared to his hand on her ass and his fingerprints bruising her thighs; not to these fucking animals. Rust gives her the mercy of two minutes of silence before speaking,

'You ain't movin',' he says more as a statement than a question.

'Don't mock me,' Cassandra murmurs out.

'I ain't mockin' you.'

'You know that I ain't gonna go. I don't think I'm ever gonna be able to.'

'You can and you will, eventually.'

'I ain't sure, Cra-Rust. You ain't either.'

'Use Crash. I don't need you gettin' confused and fuckin' this up,' Rust says, gruffly.

'You sure that's it?'

'Am I sure 'what's' it?' irritation starting to creep into his tone.

'That the reason you don't want me using your real name is cause I'll jeopardise your cover.'

'I thought you were smarter than that, Cass.'

'What the fuck's that supposed to mean?' Cassandra suddenly straightens, her voice hard but still slightly tremulous.

'I thought you were smarter than to get your emotions mixed up with what is gonna keep your ass outta the crossfire.'

It's a low blow but it hits home. Cassandra looks down at her scraped knees, gravel and raw skin, before looking up again; her voice now a whisper,

'Do you feel sorry for me?'

Rust clenches his jaw, the simple juvenility of the question making him feel sick. He knows neither of them will be able to bear whatever tidal wave of sentiment is about to breach their carefully instated distance. The partial revelation of his true identity has already been more of an unmasking than he can stomach; especially to someone he cares so deeply for as Cassandra. Her knowledge of 'Rust' throws whatever the fuck they are doing with each other into something that goes beyond sex and protection, and Rust can begin to feel everything veering off track. He won't allow her to expose herself to him like this, not when he's already emotionally fucked her over so much, today. So, Rust finally turns to her and says,

'Take off your top.'

Cassandra falters, her voice still that hoarse whisper as she ask,

'What?'

Rust wills himself to turn his pity into scorn,

'Did I fuckin' stutter? Take off your top. Those shorts, too,' he says, his tone unnervingly even and made rough from his Camels. Cassandra stares at him for a moment before indulging him: shirt discarded first before she lifts her hips and awkwardly shimmies out of them. Rust notices her holding her side, her hand cradling the scar; something she's never really done until now. Not until Rust had forced her shame into the searing white light of recognition. He knows what Cassandra must be thinking, grouping him into that homogenous, male blob of ill-intent: her next job, her next dance, her next humiliation. He tries to pretend that it doesn't slightly tear him the fuck up when she looks at him with those eyes, now cold.

'What now?' Cassandra asks, sitting up with her spine long and upright, shoulders terse.

Rust pats his lap,

'Come here.'

'Rust, I-'

'I ain't ever remember sayin' you could call me Rust, Cass,' he says harshly, completely disregarding whatever appeal Cassandra's about to make over how to treat her. Pretty words that don't mean shit to Rust nor to this godforsaken part of the country. A place where women bring guns in their purses to hookups and there are wards for the babies born hooked onto opioids, has no use for floral, storybook sex. Here, it's fast and it's hard and it's painful and it's often paid for. Cassandra knows this type of sex, or rather its corruption. So, she shuts up and sits in Rust's lap; swallowing the bitter pill of docility.

'Move 'em to the side,' Rust taps the waistband of her panties with his knuckles. For a moment, a light tinge comes across Cassandra's collarbones at the crassness of the act. She hooks her fingers into the waistband, moving to pull them down, before Rust grabs her wrist,

'I say to take 'em off, Cass?'

'No,' Cassandra murmurs, trying to asses if Rust is pissed beyond belief or on some pretty loopy downers.

'So, you can hear me. I was thinkin' otherwise, given some of the shit you've managed to pull,' that dangerous mix of anger and worry begins to seep into Rust's tone. He can feel her wet heat through the lace of her panties; almost disappointed that she can get turned on by this shit. Old habits die hard, Rust thinks, lighting a cigarette and leaning back into his seat,

'Undo my belt.'

Cassandra stares at him, holding unflinching eye contact as she unbuckles him and unzips his fly. It's like a game of fucking chicken: which of them is willing to degrade the other more, for the sake of self-preservation. Rust exhales a slow stream of smoke watching Cassandra's thighs tremble from the exertion of holding her position. He quirks an eyebrow,

'You gonna tap out on me, baby?'

'No.'

'You wanted this shit that bad, didn't you, Cass?' Rust says, the forcefulness in his tone coming out of the pit in his stomach when he thinks what he's done to her.

'I did. I wanted this shit. Don't paint me out to be some dumbass little girl who opened her legs to the first man who reminded her of her daddy. That ain't what this is. I'm tougher than that, you know I am,' her voice starting to tremble again. Her hands absentmindedly wrapped around her midsection., as if to protect herself from the next laceration.

'You want it? Then move those fuckin' panties to the side.'

Cassandra stares at Rust with that fucking stupid bravado of rapacity, before gripping the crotch of them to the side; the tepid truck air mixing with the heady scent of her arousal and Rust's cigarette smoke,

'Go on. Fuck me like a man.'

Rust looks up at her while he pulls down his boxers, before grabbing her bruised hips and slamming her onto him. Not giving a fuck about the sharp, shuddering inhale. The lamb must learn to run with the wolves and Cassandra is far from a lamb. Especially as she is now, gulping down her whimpers of pain, desperately rocking her hips against his coarse hair to stimulate her little nub. She buries her head into the crook of his neck, nose rubbing against his jugular as Rust lands a firm slap on her ass,

'Don't get sentimental on me now, Cass,' he manages to grit out, feeling her arousal literally drip down him, 'Fuck am I gonna do with a weak lil' thing, huh?'

Cassandra tries to nod, her eyes squeezed shut and her groans muffled into the leather of Rust's jacket. Rust wraps his arms around her, holding her in a vice grip for the third time today, all of which have been some form of degradation or excavation of the dirty, nasty shit that Cassandra keeps hidden under sultry, bedroom eyes and that cutthroat tongue. At least this time, the aggression of the act is more tangible; neither of them are allowed any delusions. Not with how Cassandra's spit smears against Rust's stubble when he fucks into her especially hard or the cutting of taught lace on her hipbone or Rust's still lit cigarette burning dangerously close to Cassandra's dark waves. Apt symbolism, Rust thinks, as she angles her head to inhale from the tip; eyes starting to roll slightly at the mixture of in adverted friction of her bundle of nerves, and Rust's angry, frantic pace. She turns to look him right, as she leans her head in him, exhaling the smoke right into his mouth. Rust catches some powdery grey wisps, shoving Cassandra down once more onto him. As she groans, her hands never loosening, Rust leans in to mutter into her ear,

'You never fuckin' learn. Do you, baby?'

[rjgraves]

Rustin "Rust" Cohle/Original Female Character and a blunt.

[sil-te-plait-tue-moi]

i LOVE LOVE LOVE the way you write Rust. i’ve not seen anyone capture him like you. i’m binging all of your fics, please keep writing <3

YOU'RE SO SWEET, MY TEETH ARE ROTTING

thank you so much for your kind words! am writing, though begrudgingly

ao3 has a butt-ton of cool stuff if you're looking for all things Rust

like, the original characters people come up with in the Rustin "Rust" Cohle/Original Female Character(s) tag (which is what ive read mostly for him) is UHmazing and super creative

[ao3feed-reesefinch]

my least favorite detective

read it on the AO3 at https://ift.tt/8zwN2t4

by MartenHood

"a slight change" a little place to put my stupid police fics and stuff.

Enjoy reading!

Words: 3685, Chapters: 1/?, Language: English

Fandoms: True Detective, Batman (Movies - Nolan), Blitz (2011), The Mentalist, The Chicago Code (TV 2011), Hannibal (TV), Minority Report (2002), The Untouchables (1987), Deja Vu (2006), Person of Interest (TV)

Rating: Mature

Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Categories: M/M, F/M

Characters: Rustin "Rust" Cohle, Raymond "Ray" Velcoro, Harvey Dent, Jim Gordon, Tom Brant, Barry Weiss, Patrick Jane, Teresa Lisbon, Caleb Evers, Jarek Wysocki, Hannibal Lecter, Will Graham, Giuseppe Petri | George Stone, Eliot Ness, Harold Finch, John Reese, Doug Carlin, Carroll Oerstadt

Relationships: Rustin "Rust" Cohle/Raymond "Ray" Velcoro, Harvey Dent/Jim Gordon, Tom Brant/Barry Weiss, Patrick Jane/Teresa Lisbon, Caleb Evers/Jarek Wysocki, Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter, John Anderton & Danny Witwer, Eliot Ness/Giuseppe Petri | George Stone, Doug Carlin/Carroll Oerstadt, Harold Finch/John Reese

Additional Tags: Angst, Some Humor, Drinking, Love/Hate, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, References to Drugs, References to Depression, Ray and Rust really need a hug, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Men showing their vulnerable side, the author ignored the entire plot of the two seasons just to ship them, One Shot Collection, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Bottom Original Percival Graves, Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Female Original Percival Graves - Freeform, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Omega Ray Velcoro, Wet Dream, Idiots in Love, Enemies to Lovers, First Kiss, Accidental Kissing, Sharing a Bed, Roommates, Alternate Universe - Neighbors

read it on the AO3 at https://ift.tt/8zwN2t4

[hieroglyphicsqiosang]

Chapters: 15/15 Fandom: True Detective Rating: Explicit Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Rustin "Rust" Cohle/Martin "Marty" Hart Characters: Rustin "Rust" Cohle, Martin "Marty" Hart, Original Male Character(s), Audrey Hart, Macie Hart, Original Female Character(s), Laurie Spencer, Leroy Salter Additional Tags: Unreliable Narrator, D/s elements, Enthusiastic Consent, From Sex to Love, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Drug Use, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Unsafe Sex, Slow Burn, Divorce, Therapy, sexual identity crisis, denial with a capital D, Marty ain't straight, Marty POV, Unrequited Love, Or Is It?, Mutual Pining, get your shit together, Denial, Canon-Typical Violence, Angst, Breakups, Internalized Homophobia, Rough Sex, lots of fucking, no really, they fuck, Anal, Blowjobs, First Time, Emotional Sex, Angry Sex, Frot, Hand Jobs, Subdrop, Idiots in Love, HartCohle - Freeform, I know nothing about the real world only feelings so please forgive me if shit is wrong, Masturbation, Consensual But Not Safe Or Sane, Past Tense, Analingus Series: Part 1 of Once, There Was Only Dark Summary:

After shit exploded with Maggie and Rust, Marty found himself in a free fall that he didn't care to stop.

That is, until he ran smack dab into the man he'd been thinking about for months.

[spacecasette]

Bolt the Horse — p r o l o g u e

The morning her Mammy died, the birds stopped singing. When she thinks of that day, years and ever after, she suspects it was the silence that woke her up. No feet in the hall, no gurgle or hiss from a coffee pot, no click or shush of cabinet doors, nothing to indicate the day had even begun. Her internal clock was never to be fully trusted, but it had been nearly synced with her Mammy's for over a decade– she had no reason to suspect its failure now. So when she got out of bed and outfitted herself in slippers and a hand-me-down housecoat, Dani went out in search of her grandmother. There was no answer to her name being called through the house, and the downstairs was empty of putzing old ladies; they had, however, gotten into the brandy last night, so she thought it possible Mammy was still sleeping. Walking quietly back up the stairs and down the hall to Mammy and Papa's room, she opened the door slowly, so as to not spook her if she was awake. Mammy did, in her experience, really hate being given a fright.

Danielle stood at a headstone in late April in her bare feet, listening to the birds. The dirt was uncomfortably warm, and more than a little damp after the last few days' rain; which she thought strange, in the way that most things were strange during that time. Mammy had been dead 12 days, and Papa for 344– she found that the least strange of all. Everyone assumed her grandparents were so inextricably linked that when one stopped breathing, the other would follow suit just after, like an echo. Of course, she had her suspicions about why Mammy had outlasted Papa– chief among them being that Dani were sure to fall all apart without one of them to dote on. They had raised her and loved her, and in turn and time, she loved and cared for them until there was no one left to care for. She felt only the customary, "usual" amount of loneliness in the months following her grandmother's death, mostly because there was no one left to smoke on the porch with her and offer dead wrong answers to the daily crossword. In many ways, her life had prepared her for this eventuality, so when the check came due (as it always does), she could figure out what needed done without losing her mind in the process.

There was a will, of course, which her grandparents had insisted upon as early as their 50s, and which left the house, the truck, and a sum of about $20,000 to one Danielle Reagan Caydel. As such, Dani had not the slightest fucking clue what to do with the money except to squirrel it away in an account and carry out business as usual.

For every day in May, she fills every flat surface not presently occupied by tchotchkes with daffodils. They were a favorite of Mammy's, and she could never bear having them wilt and die without first being displayed and fawned over. "Like God's many little trumpets," she called them, "gold as silk-lined shoes in Heaven." Dani was not too fussy about God; could understand why people loved Him and feared Him, but couldn't be bothered with more than service on Sundays (mostly she liked the singing), and the occasional holiday.

What she loved most about God, and thinking about Him, was that He could be mean and then He could be sweet, and lots of people still called Him good.

She herself hadn't ever really been called "Bad" except by girls at school who knew her mama had run off and her dad was too twacked out to care. She did, however, sometimes feel very Bad. When she was younger, she used to steal away into the closet and push her Mammy's sewing needles under the nail of her left thumb, because it felt like hot irons. She felt then like someone had to be punished for the error of her birth, and since there was no one left to receive it, she figured it should be her. It was never nothing "too bad" to her mind, just that sometimes she'd get carried away and scratch the skin on the back of her hand till it bled. She worried a lot back then, about being right.

But when Papa and Mammy noticed, they weren't mad. No one yelled, or grabbed at her, or held her too tight like the boys on the jungle gym. They just said to her, "Honey, you're not nobody's fault. We love you just like you came to us, and however you'll be until we ain't around anymore. You don't need to do all that." And Papa kissed her head, Mammy kissed her cheek and brushed their noses together which meant "i love you", and eventually she didn't feel like going into the sewing kit except to mend her school shirts.

Sunshine coming through the tree canopy onto the surface of the creek turns stones into greengold disco lights. Bucket in one hand, ziploc of bacon strips in the other, she ambles about looking for a halfway decent rock grouping to find something for her dinner. Already this week, she has caught 3 bluegill and is of the mind they should be off the menu for a while. The thing about crawdads is that they they're pretty dumb & extremely grabby. This far into summer they're still in season– and it was a wickedly wet winter, which means they'll be out and about clear till the end of June if she's lucky.

An hour later, her shop bucket is near full and her knees are aching, so over slippery stones, Dani goes back up to the house for supper. The light and air of the refrigerator is cool on her sweat-damp face when she reaches for a beer. The stove clicks, the gas lights, and the thin aluminum stock pot clatters loud and stark in the empty house when she sets it down.

Her evening unfolds, and the sky spreads its ink everywhere all over it like a soiled rag. After the washing up, then clears the counters and puts the laundry in the machine on the back porch. She then finds herself alone in the dim light of the living room, restless and bored for the first time in weeks. The line of her life lately felt too straight, no story, no interruptions, and she finds it might need a little tangling– if anything, to provide the challenge of undoing something– and her heart is a bit sore, and the Budweiser's gone. Nothing much better to do, she figures, with her idle hands. She walks to the bar.

There's almost no one inside the bar when she arrives, but then again, it's quarter to 8 on a Tuesday, and she imagines not much of anything too exciting can be got up to at this hour. The bartender looks almost insulted when she lifts a finger to order, and his contempt seems to increase when she orders a tall boy of Lonestar. He does, to his credit, redeem himself by letting her smoke inside and mumbling from under his mustache, "you can do that in here, we're not a bunch of assholes".

So Dani finds herself on top of a barstool at Doumain's Domain for the first time that summer. She works diligently at the crossword book perched on the bar with a pen borrowed from the bartender because she felt like being a piss ant. It makes her feel like Mammy isn't so far off after all, because there's people around if she wants to talk, but she doesn't have to if she doesn't have much to say. Plus, she figures, it's nice to just share company without being expected to behave any certain way.

Things do eventually get exciting around 11, though, and the bar man has to throw out a couple of 20-something boys, liquored a little too far up and getting rowdier with every passing minute. When the pool table is no longer enough to keep their attention, they turn it on her, tugging at her braid and asking her if she wants to play a round with them. She finds she doesn't miss the sidelong looks the bartender gives her before he throws them out, or how he stands, interrupting their line of sight on her when he finally does. She sets her cash on the bar and leaves shortly after, unweaving her hair the whole way home.

[sparklingmineraltequila]

American Wasteland

Note: Super fucking late. I know I said that this was gonna be just them drinking and screwing but it descended into some super emotionally intense shit so please don't read if you're a minor or if you hate that shit

Warning: 18+ This is dark. Some EXTREMELY heavy description of physical abuse towards women, extremely unhealthy reaction of OC in regards to this abuse, Smut, drinking, smoking, swearing

No-one rides a motorbike who doesn't slightly want to die. It's not just the past few years of dealing with the scum scraped fresh off of Cell Block 1's floor that has led Rust to believe that. He doesn't need to see the Iron Crusaders' (and his own) track marks to know that every fucker here has a death wish; it's that low, churning engine rumble that tells him. Excitement often boils down to terror and you can't not care when your Harley's doing 100 down along the coast; a hurricane cooking up in the grey-blue of the Gulf. You'll die just swerving slightly. It's exciting. Rust sees that same excitement, the one of licking syrup off of the jagged edge, in Cassandra's eyes. Hell, it's why she fucks with him, both figuratively and literally. As she taps her fingernails on the sticky bar top, Rust can see that restlessness froth up, in her eyes; the way that they glaze over while she studies him. Cassandra's gonna make him fucking pay for it.

'You owe me, at least, a double,' she says, resting her forearms on the bar as she makes a show of arching her back and rolling the cracks out of her shoulder. Rust looks at her, unimpressed by her languid stretching,

'Those shorts show enough, as it is. Ain't no reason to be doing all that shit.'

'Jealous?'

Rust reaches for the Camels in the inside pocket of his leather jacket,

'Of these motherfuckers? Ain't no-one here that could handle that goddamn attitude. And for the smell outside, ain't no-one here handlin' their liquor, either.'

That earns a huff of a laugh for Cassandra,

'Let the poor bastards have some fun. Most of 'em are probably just trying to take a load off and relax.'

Rust sighs out a flood of grey and eyes her from the side; a cool, appraising look which Cassandra doesn't miss.

'What?' she asks, her head jutting forward slightly and eyes already narrowed, as if already anticipating the bite of his words.

'These are the same men that fuckin' feel you up, back at the club. These beers and shit is just what loosens 'em up.'

'That's just all men,' Cassandra says dryly, not even attempting to muster any indignation at the fact. A girl already resigned to nicotine stained callouses palming her tits and ass. How much do you value your body over rent? Where do you draw the line between the meat that courses with capillaries and nerves and life, and the meat that jiggles when a biker spanks it? Is it worth defining it? Rust knows that, for Cassandra, it sure as hell isn't. Shit, it isn't for either of them, or anyone at that. Sentient meat with electrical impulses tricking us into thinking that it actually matters if we put a gun in our mouth or not, next Tuesday. Rust gives another grainy, derisive scoff,

'Fair enough.'

'Plus, they pay rent. As long as they have the money, they can do whatever they want,' Cassandra shrugs while scraping at some gunk, on the bar, with her thumbnail. Neither of them look at each other.

'I thought we agreed that you weren't gonna bullshit me anymore, Cass.'

'I ain't bullshitting you.'

Rust's gaze moves from the beer taps to an ashtray,

'You goddamn hate it, Cass. I hate it for you.'

'I never said I didn't. But I ain't about to turn down a lap dance cause I've got morals. Shit, Crash, you think I'm that much of a kid?'

Rust can see the way she finishes with a smile and licks the inside of his cheek to prevent his own faint smirk; as if it's some depressingly fucked up inside joke that the two share.

'I am pretty good at pretending that it turns me on, though. Ain't I?' Cassandra says, leaning her side against the bar top with glint in her eye that Rust thinks looks far too much like baiting.

'Keep talkin' like that and you're only gettin' a single.'

'Yeah, that sounds like a fucking admission to me.'

Rust knows why she does this shit; he's seen it enough in the smoky, post-sex haze of their trailer-floor bedroom. Their bodies sticky to the touch, Rust festering in a pit of self-loathing, that he now doesn't even attempt to claw out of, and Cassandra, toeing the line between humour and cruelty, in a desperate attempt to cover up how fucking exposed she is to him. It acts as a way to convince herself that she wouldn't let him hurt her. They both know she's lying. Beneath a nicotine-yellow ceiling and the monotony of the squeaking fan, it's easy to pretend that they are what they present to each other; neither one of them has it in themselves to strip the other bare.

Cassandra is silent for a moment, too long a moment, so Rust bites,

'What?'

'So, I can't call you Ru-'

'No.'

'Not even when we're fucking?'

'Especially not when we're fucking.'

'It ain't like I'm gonna slip up.'

Rust nods to the bartender, uneasy with the raw territory that the conversation is quickly accelerating towards,

'Two fingers of Jameson,' he says, before turning expectantly towards Cassandra.

'A Budweiser and a double of tequila; lime and all that shit.'

The bartender gives Cassandra a slight arch of his brow, clearly unimpressed in having to get out the shot glasses in a place where the liquor bottle usually just stays on the bar top; anyone its owner until they pass out or their wallet runs dry. He acquiesces, though, satiated by having a girl like Cassandra in his bar. Cassandra sees it in his eyes, too: the moment where aggravation turns to lust. She's seen it often, as well as its inversion. The two things men know best, she'd told Rust once, after some fucker bit her shoulder during a lap dance, unable to stop jutting his hard-on into her as he'd called her a 'fucking teasing little bitch', Sex and Rage. So well, they often mix 'em up. Cassandra knows better than anyone else how to tree that line; girls in her line of work usually do. Turn that anger into libido by grinding on them well enough, or try to get hit in a place where you can't see the bruise too much. Don't want the customers to acknowledge that their domination of this body is as fucking pathetic as the last guy who payed to fuck her up. Bruises that belong to different men just don't carry the same degradation. You're a fucking punchbag, nothing worth actually beating into submission. Rust knows that's part of the reason that Cassandra has never bothered to cover up the one's he'd leave after they fucked: someone had finally deemed her worthy to stick around after the time ran up to teach her a lesson.

Rust turns to the bartender, deciding whether, with the coke that he took before chasing after Cassandra still pulsating through his capillaries, he should ignore the slobbering slack-jaw looks he was giving her. He's so goddamn exhausted, after all. Hell, he's already violated more CID regulations than he can count by even starting this shit with her but, then again, he's been in this fucking purgatory of bikers, meth and lukewarm liquor for 3 more years than he should so who's doing semantics?

'That Motel 6 across the lot still runnin',?

The bartender nods,

'As long as there're hookers and junkies on God's green earth.'

Rust lights another cigarette before saying,

'Finish your beer, baby. Then we head.'

The bartender miscalculates, misinterpreting Rust's biker leather as some sort of male cammeradery, and juts forward to ask,

'Hey man, after you're done, you mind tellin' me which room you leave her in?' his hunger glazing his eyes like it would an animal's.

Rust doesn't even have time to break his nose before Cassandra semi-lunges herself across the bar, only restrained by Rust's forearm as he tells her,

'Easy. Easy.'

Time and breath wasted, though, with the way Cassandra writhes against his grip, arm pointing into the bartender's face as she sneers,

'I'd give you two seconds, motherfucker, before your dick gets soft and you start crying to your momma cause it won't go up again, you dumb fucking piece of shit. Ain't even fucking man enough to spot an actual hooker.'

The bartender's face twists, as the insults spew out, and his own vitriol starts to froth up,

'Oh, so you ain't even smart enough to get paid for it? This son of a bitch just fucks you for free, huh? Shi-it, your daddy must've fucked you up bad.'

Rust hauls Cassandra out of the bar, as the pair of them continue to shout whiskey-spit slathered insults at each other, the violence of the curses slithering up from wherever they had hidden it with pills, liquor or sex, for the time being. The moment the bloody meat of catharsis presents itself, they turn into rabid dogs; heat, insect bites and all.

After body slamming the bar door to open it, Rust has to restrain himself from shoving Cassandra off of his chest as she unevenly places her feet on the asphalt, the heel of her cowboy boot twisting and making her stumble to her knees. Rust, still too furious with her goddamn attitude and the bartender's comments, doesn't even turn around as he strides towards the Motel 6,

'Get the fuck up and walk, Cassandra.'

Cassandra pushing herself up, the gravel still embedded in the soft flesh of her palms,

'Oh, so now you're fucking mad at me?!'

'What did I goddamn tell you?'

'To not call you Rust.'

'Shut the fuck up with that, right now.'

'Then, what?'

Rust doesn't look at her. Hell, he even quickens his stride,

'That you're gonna get yourself fuckin' killed with that goddamn mouth. You know the shit an angry man is capable of better than anyone else and you're far too fuckin' smart to be having pissin' contests with a bunch of liquored up assholes.'

It's harsh. Shit, it's a punch to the gut, Rust knows, but he's gotten to the point where he cares about Cassandra way too fucking much to let her be this goddamn stupid when he's around. She knows that, ashamed of her own naivety in thinking that she could ever protect herself from a man who wanted to hurt her. Rust glances at her,

'I get that you're angry, Cass. Don't let it make you a dumbass.'

'Anger is the only goddamn thing that has ever kept me safe. Angry women are the only people who have ever kept me safe.'

Rust clenches his jaw but knows that she's right and finds a lingering sense of relief that she didn't include him, on that list.

Even more so when she has him on his back on their motel room mattress. Rust knows it's goddamn selfish and twisted to be grateful for Cassandra's hard-earned cynicism, won from the sharp edge of male entitlement, but it keeps her fucking safe from him. Ironically, when they fuck is the only time that she doesn't look at him with a tinge of that silent, gnawing desperation. No, not with the way that she's moving on top of him, now; tits pushed up in that white lace bra, strands of hair getting stuck on the slick bottom lip of her open mouth. After Cassandra had desperately scrambled to get out from underneath him, shoving his shoulders down as she'd promised,

'Please-I'm sorry-It'll feel good. Just let me.'

An inversion for both of them, as they slowly find their rhythm; the bed's awkward creaking a deep contrast with the pure fucking heat in their held stare. Rust doesn't know what to do with his shit but lie back and try not to come just from the way she looks at him. Ever since being undercover, sex has been another convoy of power and domination; violence with just the same amount of blood and spit. Sex has never been an essentially good thing for Rust, not until he met Claire. For a couple years it was, now it's just become an amalgamation of proving how much of a sick asshole he is to the rest of the Crusaders and a reminder of the lurid hubris that led to his daughter's death. To be forced back onto this mildew infested mattress, and have a girl as beautiful as Cassandra take care of him, makes Rust want to either vomit or cry. But he lets her, he knows she needs this shit. Let her feel in control for 5 goddamn minutes of her life, Rust thinks, as Cassandra deeply rolls her hips down as he lifts up. An in adverted moan escapes from both; skin starting to gloss over with exertion. They both attempt to inculcate some of that violence they both need so badly: Cassandra scrapes her nails down his chest and forearm, while Rust reaches that very forearm up to grab her throat, his other hand forming yet another bruise on her hip.

'Fuck, fuck, fuck,' Cassandra whimpers out, as she stares down at Rust who reaches the hand that's on her thigh to grab his Camels; desperate for a goddamn anchor. As he lights one, he holds her there by the throat. Cassandra stares down at him, her body trembling with pleasure but her gaze steady.

They don't kiss.

[sparklingmineraltequila]

American Wasteland

Note: Took me slightly longer than I'd have liked but there's been some pretty intense weather where I am. We are finally starting getting to get to the meat of it with these two.

'93/4 Rust Cohle x OFC

Warnings: sex work, violence, drugs, slight smut, weird semi-roleplaying at the end

The girl performing the strip tease hsd a deep blue bruise on her thigh. She's skinny. Too skinny. Not just because her hip bones threaten to permeate the pale, embryonic stretch of her skin, but because of that look in her eyes. Crazed. Starving. Attempting to seduce the men sat round the stage with practiced sultry glances, promising a good time if they just let her sit on their lap, awkwardly grind onto their hard-ons and then let them slip a couple bills in her padded out bra. Rust isn't even sure he can decipher what that look is after. Attention? he muses, Affection? No, upon further inspection of her, he pushes aside his psychoanalysis and reaches a far more pragmatic, desolating conclusion: food. Poor kid is hungry.

He's slumped in a booth, beer in one hand and rolled up dollar bill in another, the club's music and raucous laughter of his fellow Crusaders throbbing in his head. Ginger turns to him,

'What's that about then, Crash?' a leering smile adorning his tobacco stained teeth. Rust meets his gaze, a glaze a drug induced lethargy over his bloodshot eyes,

'What's what about?' he drawls, taking a pull on his beer. Tastes like warm piss, he thinks.

'Cassandra, right? One that looks like a fuckin' playboy model with those tits and that smile. You got her livin' with you, you lucky son of a bitch. Fuck, I'd give a solid month's cut to take some out on that bitch. She good for you?'

Rust thinks he can taste the bile in his mouth; acrid, slippery stuff coating his tongue as he speaks,

'Hell yeah she's fuckin' good for me. You think I'd let stay with me if she couldn't shut the fuck up and take it when I need her to?'

And he hates himself. God, he fucking hates himself. He wishes that hate could come from the vileness of the words he just spoke but it doesn't. He hates that the idea almost tempts him, seduces him with the promise of Cassandra breathy and sweating, her dark hairs sticking to that delicate neck, slick with sweat. It was like that the other night, when she had taken it upon herself to pay him another way after he had refused her money or 'rent payment.' Smart girl, Cassandra. She knows the price of things. It's never just an offered cigarette, a lent cup of sugar, a benevolent hand. No, not in this theatre of cruelty where the stakes seem to only get fucking higher which each passing year: there's always someone cooking it cheaper and better, a girl willing to do more for less. Self respect erodes fast here, replaced with a voracious need to survive. Cassandra knows that.

It was this way that she'd ended up on his lap, clambering onto him as he'd sat outside the trailer for a smoke. She'd rubbed herself onto him, like she'd done the first time in the club, only now he was far more at the mercy of the sentiments starting to take root in his chest. He'd almost managed to push her off, almost, but when the stiff metal of his jeans' fly rubbed against the lace of her underwear and the friction elicited that breathy moan of hers right in his ear, he would've rather taken a mean left hook than push her off. Come on, baby, she'd exhaled, trying the dulcet stripper routine, before her growing arousal forced her into the more desperate negotiation of Please, Crash. I promise I'll be good for you. Real good. Whatever you want, she'd whimpered, the buck of her hips growing more incessant, beginning to make wet spot on his jeans. He had looked up at her as she'd writhed against,

Not here, Cass, he'd managed to grit out, It ain't the time or the place.

Crash! she'd almost sobbed as he'd finally mustered the self-discipline to gently push her off him. She had crumpled onto the grass, slumped onto a leg of the lawn chair he had been sat on. Out of all of the times he had seen her looking fucked up: a nosebleed smeared halfway across her face from a client punching her in the nose, the gaunt, vacant look she'd worn for the week when her daddy finally mustered the courage to put a gun in his mouth, the humiliation and shame in her eyes when another Crusader was getting a dance and he'd be sat across the table. None of them had made him as furious as as he had felt when he looked down at her like that. Where the fuck that fury came from, he didn't know. Somewhere in the realm of pity.

Get the fuck up, Cassandra. Now. He had all but snarled at her. She had looked up at him and got up; the acquiescence of a woman who knows when a man could and might hurt her. She hadn't observed it for much longer, though.

What the fuck is your problem, Crash? I fucking see how you look at me. Shit, I can see your hard right now. You always looked at me at the club, would only ever accept dances from me, talk to me during them about shit other than how good I feel or smell or whatever-the-fuck. You lent me your fucking books! You asked me what I think your first tattoo should be! You let me live with you when my rent gets raised and I had nowhere to fucking go! But sex is too much, too much of an affront, she had seethed at him

I ain't doing this, you hear? I'm tryin' to protect you from the fuckin' corruption of this place and all you can think to do is be pissed off that I won't fuck you? Grow the fuck up

Well so help me for thinking that. Don't people who are- And Cassandra had caught herself, thank god she had caught herself. Poor baby, time old mistake of confusing sex with a man's love. Cassandra should know better, she does know better.

Who are what, huh? Rust asks, the unfinished question a cruel, callous tactic; he's baiting her, waiting for her to expose that soft underbelly like those Dolly Vardens he and his dad used to fish, slitting them open, a mess entrails and blood slopping out. She'd stared at him,

Don't be cruel

He'd narrowed his eyes at her, before getting up and throwing his cigarette but aside,

Look around you, Cass. You can't afford to be at the mercy of how I treat you

That's how they had left it with her slamming the trailer door and him going to get hammered with some of the other Crusaders. A vicious cycle, he knows, Palingenesis: circular continuity. How Cassandra had defined it one night, trying to aneasthetize his lurid habits with some polished, philosophical definition. He can't be too pissed, she learnt it from him. At first, defining it philosophically makes his suffering feel warranted, needed. He realises now that there is no need for suffering, it's a default setting to the fucking horror of existence. He can just stomach recognising it.

Ginger's now calling Cassandra over and she stalks over, all bone and sinew wearing a matching white lace bra and panties. The same ones she'd been washing in the sink with some random shower gel she'd found in the shower. Fuck, his shower gel.

'Well come on over, baby,' Ginger leers, 'Our Crash treatin' you good?'

Cassandra scans over the semicircle of Iron Crusaders for a mere second, before sitting snugly in Rust's lap. Sharp as a tack, his Cassandra, only way to keep a hunk of meat safe from the dogs is to give it to a bigger, meaner dog. She shuffles herself up his lap to his chest, demurely crossing her legs.

'Oh yeah. Real good,' she looks at Rust over her shoulder. She knows what they want: a good, little girl in her matching lace set at the mercy of their drugs or their prying, calloused hands or the 9mms tucked into the waistband of frayed denim. A little lamb who'll ask them where she's supposed to touch and if it's supposed to hurt like that. Rust knows it too.

'Damn right I do,' Rust agrees, landing a heavy slap on the side of her thigh which makes her jump slightly. The Crusaders errupt at this in either laughter, whistles or comments,

'Seems you ain't trained her that good if she's still that jumpy.'

'Slight little thing, ain't she.'

'Relax, sweetheart. Ain't no-one here gonna hurt you for no good reason.'

Rust wishes he could spare her this; rub the whiskey over her gums and numb it. But he can't, he knows any slip up will end up fatal for him and worse for her.

'You just ain't used to a how a real man treats his woman, yet. Ain't that right, baby?' he drawls, brushing some hair from her face with a cigarette pinched between his fingers.

'I am learning, though. You said I was, last night,' Cassandra replies, playing up the petulant pout.

'That was in a different context, baby,' he says mockingly, giving her a patronising pat on her thigh as the Crusaders whoop. 'She's a good listener, boys. Real good,' Rust says to their spectators. As vulnerable as she might be, Cassandra knows exactly how to work her crowd: male desire for sex and power mixed with a pretty girl's submission. Match, gasoline: boom.

Ginger leans across the table, 'So you do everything ou Crash, says huh?'

'Oh yeah,' she replies, 'Even when it hurts.'

Rust feels nauseous with lust.

[sparklingmineraltequila]

American Wasteland

Note: I suck at first chapters. Summer's here and I want to be somewhat productive, so this'll be my baby for the next months. Terrified by posting this given the sheer quality of other Rust fics and 'True Detective', itself. Updates are coming cause it's deliberately vague

'Don't fucking patronise me,' Cassandra spits, yanking out her packet of Marlboro Golds that are wedged between her calf and her cowboy boot. She palms the clammy pack, lighting up with trembling hands and raw nail beds.

'Stop acting like a fuckin' kid and I'll stop treatin' you like one,' Rust retorts, his stoic disposition almost managing to veil his simmering anger, only betrayed by the whites of his knuckles gripping the steering wheel.

'I appreciate you doing this and all, I really do, but don"t get it fucking twisted, Crash: you ain't my friend, you ain't my boyfriend and you sure as hell ain't my daddy.'

'You think this is some type territorial shit?' Rust grits out, the mounting rancour starting to permeate his tone. He looks over and plucks the cigarette from her lips, his tone mellowing to a drawl when he says 'You have no business smoking at your age.'

'I'm twenty.'

'Exactly.'

The blasé dismissal sends Cassandra into a mute rage; one she sees as a veritable demonstration of indignance. Rust, however, likens it more to a petulant child's tantrum. After a couple minutes, she's licked her wounds enough to pipe up,

'Nietzsche would agree with me, you know? I'm emerging from the confines of my slave morality and becoming an 'Untermenschen' through exercising courage and free will through smoking and, thus, breaking socio-cultural norms.'

Rust runs a hand over his stubble, more to hide the twitch of a smile than to express any real chagrin. 'I should've never leant you that book. Only thing I've done is encourage that smart ass mouth of yours.'

'You want me to be nice and docile? I can be sweet if you want, baby. Real sweet,' manoeuvring her body so that she's kneeling on the truck's bench, body pressed to his side. He gives her a side-long look, face impassive. Cassandra probably couldn't be sweet if her damn life depended on it. Actually, it had often depended on the exact opposite. Girls as beautiful as Cassandra don't make it this far unless they've got a brain to match the legs and a razor-blade wit to match their syrupy eyes. Rust knows he'd rather be fucking lacerated than choke in that thick molasses of her seduction. He was too damn smart and too damn jaded to be affected by a girl with the ass of a stripper and the face of one of those fucking shampoo models, the ones he'd see on the screen at the bar, during a big game's commercial break; hiding his adolescent flush of arousal from his father with his hunting jacket's sleeve.

Too cynical. Too exhausted. Too fucked up. But here he was: enough coke in him to alert Medellin's DEA and with Cassandra in his truck, now busy taking off her tight, leather jacket.

'Put that on again. Now.'

'Scared you'll see something you like?'

'Not on a twenty year old.'

'Most guys would see that as a turn on.'

'I ain't most guys.'

'No shit,' she slumps back into the truck bench, picking at the slight fray of her miniskirt. He pulls into some derelict diner, the neon light of the sign seeping into the crevices of his eyes and permeating into his brain. Nausea quickly follows and turns to a deep malaise. Then panic. A panic symptomatic of one he felt with Sofia.

Sofia. Does he see Sofia in Cassandra? The traces of juvenility in how she slumps in his truck like a scolded child. The mercy of an answer comes fast:

No. What he wants to do to Cassandra is anything but paternal.

'Get out. We're getting something to eat,' he says gruffly and, for once, she complies. 'Instinct,' he thinks, 'girls like Cassandra don't turn down a payed meal.' He watches as she hops out of the truck, her taught, tan limbs striding across the lot, cowboy boots clacking on still hot asphalt. A few truckers stare, some whistle. She knows they're looking, she doesn't care. Cassandra isn't one to entertain male attraction based on vanity. No, she has a perspicacity about her that only comes from blood, grit and experience of the sharp end of male entitlement. Not like the usual hookers or hang-ons that the Iron Crusaders frequented; women who needed to be spoon-fed dollops of dulcet encouragement, always wanting to be told how good they were for him, how badly he wanted them. Wants he had yet to facilitate. No, Cassandra was a different type of hungry. Hungry enough to know that spoon feeding was dangerous; it allows the giver to withhold, to control. Cassandra knew that sometimes you had to lick it off of the jagged edges yourself.

'You coming, baby?' Cassandra calls to him, snapping him out of his train of thought. Not doubt, using the pet name to get a rise out of him. He walks over, not deigning her teasing with a reaction and walking inside the diner. She follows him, sliding into the same booth.

'Hardly even looking at me, huh? For a member of a fucking biker gang, you're very sanctimonious.'

He bristles, knowing she didn't mean it that way. How the fuck would she even know? It doesn't matter, one slip up and he gets a bullet to his head. Not that, with the way his capillaries throb and the sky and ground begin to bleed into one to the soundtrack of Sofia's gurgled choke, after a particularly loaded syringe, he wouldn't welcome it. Either way, he has to mitigate any suspicion.

'You ain't woman enough, yet, baby.'

He sees the hurt flash in her eyes. 'Good,' he thinks 'Better it hurt than I drag you down with me.' Ever the tenacious one, Cassandra almost immediately re-contrives her prior indifference,

'Your 'brothers' think different.'

He clenches his jaw.

'You gonna be this tightly wound, all the time?'

'Not if you behave.'

'I'm just making conversation.'

'You're a smart girl, Cass. I'm sure you can think of another topic aside from my aversion to fucking 20 year olds.'

The waitress comes to take their orders, looking pitifully at Cassandra, and then with indignation at Rust. 'Good,' he thinks, knowing damn well how a bloodshot biker, reading of malt liquor and Camels, must look next to a barely clothed young girl. Cassandra seems to relish the sordid appearance of them together, overtly pressing her tits over the table's edge, faux-innocence on display as she asks if he wants syrup with that.

'No,' he says frigidly, to both her and the waitress; the waitress taking that as her cue to leave. After a few minutes, Cassandra asks,

'If you don't want to have sex with me, why are you helping me out like this?'

'I'm not purely driven by my libido, Cass.'

'Most men are.'

'Fair enough,' he retorts dryly, the twitch of a barely perceptible smile on his lips.

'Don't avoid the question. You're not doing this out of pure fucking altruism.'

'Big words, baby,' noting the roll of her eyes, but also how her collarbones tinge pink at the praise.

'You're doing it again.'

He relinquishes, 'Because I sure as hell ain't altruistic but I ain't a complete monster, either. You may be tough but a girl like you out on the street...' His expression turns grim. 'You ain't lastin' the night. I can keep you safe.'

'What's your price, Crash?' eyeing him with trepidation.

'Here she is,' Rust thinks.

'Nothing. I just want you to get out of this goddamn American wasteland.'

'I don't trust you.'

'You shouldn't.'

'That's what the better people usually say.'

'I ain't no better than any motherfucker in your life, baby.'

She hums, unconvinced. 'So..I can stay with you, then? Just until I get back on my feet.'

He nods and, to his concealed amusement, she sits up a little straighter. He eyes her, wondering whether to nip her juvenile infatuation at the bud, but allows her it. Who knows the last time she allowed herself the luxury of genuine attraction.

'One question,' he breaks the silence, 'Why Cassandra?' She looks at him as if he's crazy. 'Name like that in a place like this,' he elaborates 'How did your dad come to that decision?'

'You ever read the Iliad?'

He raises his brow. 'Does it fuckin' look like I've read the Iliad?' The liquor in his bloodstream slowing his speech into a dry, lethargic drawl.

'You say that and then go lend me books by Nietzsche and Kierkegaard.'

'You keep that between us, you hear me?'

'Scared I'll taint your tough-guy act?'

'It ain't an act, baby,' a hint of warning and, even more subtle, disgust in his tone.

That shuts her up. They both know it isn't an act. No, she knows who he his; fuck Crash or Rustin Cohle, she sees him down to the bone. That endemic anger baked into his marrow and stitched into the sinew of his muscles. Anger that when focused is conducive, when not is devastating: the latter becoming more and more often, thanks to Crash.

'What about the Iliad?' he redirects the conversation, having sensed the trepidation in her eyes.

'Cassandra. She's one of the focal characters. Not that my parents kew that, but there was an abridged version on the waiting table of my mother's clinic. Liked the name. Evidently, didn't read the fucking book.'

'Why d'you say that?'

'Cause Cassandra is fucked from the beginning, middle and end. It's a fucking tragedy ,yeah, but she doesn't get a moment of love, hope or respite.' She stops to take a sip of her steaming coffee, noting Rust's raised eyebrow.

'Don't worry. Caffeine hardly affects me, anymore,' before continuing. 'But yeah, Apollo is taken by Cassandra and she refuses him. So, as any powerful man does when rejected, he takes what he wants, anyway. But the violation of rape isn't enough; he curses her with the gift of prophecy, but prophecy which no one will ever believe and everyone just calls her insane. Classic, huh? Beware the crazy bitch.'

'How does it end? The Iliad?'

She holds his gaze, that intelligence he loves burning through her eyes. Her carefully constructed veneer of saccharine sexiness is stripped away, leaving her at her rawest. Her rawest and angriest.

'The city fucking burns.'

He holds her gaze, rising to the game of chicken he knows she's inviting him to.

'You gonna be give me trouble, baby?'

'Definitely.'

[sparklingmineraltequila]

American Wasteland

Note: I don't think Rust is a big fan of getting head cause I think that it's much more aligned to Marty's character. However, I think it fits all too well with Crash era Rust so this is me trying to reconcile the two. I also don't think my Philosophy teacher would be too overjoyed knowing I'm using what she taught me to write foreplay but at least it stuck.

Warnings: 18+, violence, drugs, alcohol, reference to sex work, implied past abuse, rough sex both past and present

There are a lot of ways that you can get fucked up by a liquor bottle. Rust knows this. But mainly, there are two ways. The first is the classic act of getting drunk out of your mind: the type of drunk that can only end in violence. Rust doesn't always need to gulp down a bottle of Jameson, straight and hard, to feel the acrid burn of repulsion and vomit in his stomach. Sometimes, the slow sipping of a 12 pack of Bud or Lone Star is preferred on days where he's more lucid, has more of that sickening desire to punish himself with Sofia's face and blood and gurgling cough. Tearing that beer can and slicing at his skin might be a more effective, visceral act of punishment, but it's too quick. No, he brought her into this meat grinder of a world, he should feel that same machinery gnashing away at his being before he is allowed to slide into the stagnation that the piss warm beer allows him. Then, you have the far more crude way to fuck someone up; the jagged edge of smashed glass will do that just fine. Quick, cuts easy into the supple flesh of the cheek and makes a hell of a show. As he glances over the bottles of whiskey, Cassandra lets out a low whistle,

'Johnnie Walker Blue Label. This was the shit my dad used to blow rent on. You'd think for such a piece of shit loser, the man would've had cheaper taste,' and Rust can see a faint lacquer in her eyes, the impenetrable kind making her relive those scenes of her slurring daddy with a heavy set jaw and even heavier hands, the musk of her own fetid sweat mixed with talcum powder on her t-shirt in a pathetic, 8 year old's attempt to get the smell out, the hum of a refrigerator while a little girl cries at the kitchen table cause she doesn't get to feel safe around daddy. Hard to reconcile that image with the 20 year old in a white cotton sundress that ends too soon and is cut too low; the blueish lighting giving her skin a cool sheen. Cassandra puts the bottle back and walks over to where Rust is slotting his usual Jameson under his arm as he picks up a second bottle. From his crouching position, he can see the delicate purple hue on her thighs, arranged in the pattern of his fingerprints. A sickening sense of pride settles itself next to the self-disgust in Rust's gut at the marks and the satisfaction with which Cassandra is looking at them.

'Roughed you up pretty good, huh?' Rust says, gruffly. Cassandra glances over a delicate shoulder from where she's inspecting the Bourbon shelf,

'They hurt.'

'Bullshit, baby. You think I didn't see you were tracin' 'em in the truck, on the way here.'

'Doesn't mean they don't hurt.'

'True,' Rust stands to his full height, 'but d'you know what it does mean?'

'What?' she turns to face him.

He walks over to her, giving her cheek a couple, little pats his fingers, 'That you liked it.' Cassandra gives a derisive scoff but not one that can hide that glint in her eye: relief. Not just that Rust has indulged her infatuation, fucking her into the mattress until she forgot how to say 'Crash', but the protection that those bruises afford; the bruises of a young girl turned woman, bruises who's shade of blue show that the man who gave them is a tough son of a bitch.

'I hate it when you do that,' Cassandra states, somewhat petulantly.

'Do what? Point out that you can't do one over me?'

'No,' she says, narrowing her eyes, 'When you slap me around like that. I feel dumb.'

'That ain't slappin' around, trust me. And you ain't dumb, that's for sure, Cass,' Rust huffs, looping the plastic casing of a Lone Star six-pack through his fingers, 'But you shouldn't look to me to affirm that for you.'

'I don't need you to affirm shit for me.'

'Good, cause I ain't got the fuckin' time or will for that, too. Pick up your head, Cassandra. Stop fuckin' poutin',' Rust's tone is sharp. Cassandra rolls her eyes but she struts behind him, following him to the cashier. As Rust waits in line behind some trucker, Cassandra scuffs her boots against the floor, pulling her gum taught over her tongue until to snaps.

'You snap your gum,' Rust states. Cassandra looks up at him from where she was analysing the snake skin on the point of her boot,

'Huh?'

'You don't blow bubbles, you snap your gum.'

'I ain't gonna give the men 'round here the whole school girl routine. Fuck that,' she scowls. The corner of Rust's mouth twitches slightly at her sharpness; that guile about her never fails to dump buckets of ice cold water over his perception. His smart, smart girl, knowing that a quick, hard fix of money isn't shit next to the promise of survival that grit can give. Leave the milk boxes and cotton socks to the little girls, you're a woman now. It takes a certain intelligence to be sexy, to bear the soft, supple skin of ass, tits and thigh in a delicate veil of lace, and to still keep the wolves at an arm's length. Give them the scent of your blood, hot and throbbing, let them believe that the practiced gasps and rolling neck are just for them, but don't let them tear your skin. The wolves are ravenous in this wasteland, they get a taste for blood and they will gut you from the inside out.

Rust pays, ignoring the cashier's mild look of disapproval or envy at how Cassandra comes to stand next to him. She watches as the bottles get bagged up and Rust turns to leave. She gestures to him as they walk out, her boots clacking on the baked asphalt like one of those old, clunking clocks,

'Let me carry one.'

Rust barely spares her a glance, 'You're underaged. Shouldn't be drinking.' That almost makes her laugh,

'You're fucking kidding, right? I'm a stripper. You remember that, Crash?'

'You're also in college. Need to stay sharp, baby.'

'It's a Friday,' her tone dry, 'Plus, you're always offering me beers.'

'No,' Rust corrects, 'You take my beers and I let you get away with it.'

Cassandra rolls her eyes as they climb into their respective sides of his truck and Rust would be lying if he didn't feel the twist in his stomach at the practiced ease of the act, the facility of their place in the other's space. Rust starts the ignition,

'Stop rollin' those eyes at me.'

'Fuck off, Crash,' she retorts, only slightly annoyed and Rust just hums,

'You're real fuckin' cocky for someone who's in my hands about how many times they get to come, tonight.'

Cassandra almost opens her mouth before clamping it shut, making a big show out of rolling down the window. Smart move, baby, Rust thinks. A sentiment that holds up, after he bends her over the sink, bunching her dress over her hips; gripping her hair, forcing her to look at herself in the mirror as she takes him deep and hard. What Cassandra doesn't know is that the mirror is almost more for Rust's reflection than it is for hers. Forcing himself to look into his own glacial blue eyes, this way he can't indulge in the complete bliss of Cassandra's wet, tightness. No, if he's going to allow himself this then he's going to be fucking straight about it: he's a coked up, undercover narco currently using some vulnerable 20 year old girl who has no clue who he actually is. Rust wishes that the reason he's fucking her so hard, scraping his nails on her scalp, is that he hates her, sees her like one of the hookers that the Iron Crusaders systematically violate; it would make this shit a lot easier. But he doesn't and it's not. Rust is past indulging delusions for the sake of comfort. It was Nietzsche's idea, if he can remember correctly: embrace the pure fucking horror of eternal return, this ontological prison we're all stuck in, and you might finally find some enlightenment amongst the squalor.

'Put your leg up. Let me see those bruises,' he grits out, hand clamping onto her thigh in an attempt to lift to up.

'No-fuck-I won't be able to hold it up,' Cassandra stammers out, knuckles white as a scar on the ceramic rim of the sink out of exertion of holding herself in place when Rust shoves her forward with a particularly brutal thrust of his hips.

'Tsk, wrong answer, baby,' Rust says, shoving her leg up and bending it at the knee so that it rests in the sink bowl. The new position opens her up, not only showing the patterns of bruising on her inner thighs but the glistening wetness of her seam as he pushes into her again. The mixture of the two is a lurid depiction of what sex is around here; its inextricable connection to violence. Like meat and salt. The drop of thin, clear arousal now running down Cassandra's leg, the cracked scabs on his knuckles from a bar fight, the clunking rumble of the AC boxes outside the trailer: blood, sex and heat. Rust reaches a hand down and gathers the drop of wetness on his fingers, he brings it to his mouth and tastes it. Cassandra looks like she wants to cry as he catches her eye in the mirror.

'What's that face for, baby? Ain't never had a man taste you before?' Rust's voice thick from exertion and desire, her tartness covering his tongue.

'That's a really fucking intimate thing to do,' she says and poor baby sounds like she might either sob or come.

'No, it ain't, Rust lands a heavy slap on the bruises, as if to reprimand her for the implication, 'It's how a man fucks a woman.'

'So, I'm a woman to you now?'

'I don't fuck little girls, so yeah,' Rust says, his hand in her hair coming down to grip her throat. That's the one small mercy of innocence, Rust thinks, it can only be corrupted once. He yanks her head up by the chin,

'Look at yourself real good, Cass. This what you want? Some doped up biker with a load on, fucking you, leaving you all roughed up-Look at me, Cassandra,' he snarls, his tone harsh to conceal the begging behind it,

'Yes! Fuck, yes I do!,' she cries out, her adamance mixed with the first tremors of her impending orgasm. Rust lets out a growl, something deep and atavistic, as he yanks up her knee to bend her leg around his hips, now obscenely deep. Cassandra is now halfway slumped against the skin, the cold metal of the tap pressing into her sternum. This shit is good, too good, like the cool bliss of the moment the heroin hits your bloodstream and everything feels fucking pure. He pulls out as her feels her begin to pulsate around him and she cries out. Good, Rust thinks, wanting to punish her for being so goddamn complacent, Get used to crying if you want to fuck around with this shit, baby. He manhandles her to her knees as the muscle in his jaw twitches at what he's about to say to her,

'You want it that bad? Show me,' Rust deadpans, hand twisting into the dark mass of Cassandra's hair. She looks up at him and has the fucking audacity to arch her eyebrow at him before she takes him into her mouth, gagging slightly. Rust has never really seen the appeal of getting head, once he moved past the initial adolescent fascination. It makes him feel out of control, undisciplined, subject to his body's pure evolutionary need to procreate. It's one of the most self-serving, vapid states you can be in, mouth wide open, dumbstruck by ecstasy, unable to form of coherent thought except to mindlessly shove yourself further into the other person who probably isn't enjoying it anywhere near as much as you. Yeah, that's what Rust hates about the whole act, the mindlessness of it. But, fuck, his body isn't even his anymore, belonging to some fucking DEA's office to dope up and regurgitate whatever information they need to peddle their case further, without ever getting their hands dirty or doing some real fucking work. So, he may as well abandon himself to the weakness of his innate biological need.

Cassandra tries to give herself some respite by licking a long stripe up his length but Rust is having none of it: he presses her down so that her nose flattens against his pubic bone making her gag again and harder, shoulders convulsing too.

'Come on, baby,' Rust croons cruelly, using his spare hand to light a cigarette, 'Thought you said you could take it.' Cassandra briefly takes her hand off of the back of his thigh to give him the middle finger, quickly reinstating it as Rust presses as hand to the back of her skull and thrusts harder,

'Keep that shit up and I'll make you gag on your own finger, next.'

A few more chokes and constrictions of Cassandra's throat, and Rust is coming hot and heavy down it. He doesn't let her catch her breath,

'Get up,' he says, fastening his belt with his cigarette still hanging from his mouth. Cassandra just slumps against the bathroom floor, held up half by a trembling arm and half by leaning against Rust's leg. She glances up, hearing the clink of his belt,

'You're getting dressed?' a slight desperation to her voice.

'No points for deduction, Cass.'

'No, no, wait-,' she says, clambering up, or at least trying to, on shaky legs, 'Crash, Crash, I didn't come. Please-'

'What did I tell you about you bein' grown? Grown women fix their own messes,' Rust says, face and tone stoic as he casts to the slick that has dripped down from the apex of Cassandra's thighs onto the floor just under her, her smeared lip gloss, her nipples hard and visible through the thin cotton of her dress. He gives her hair a harsh ruffle before walking out the bathroom. As he grabs the Jameson bottles and beer, he stops in front of the trailer's door calling out behind him,

'Get to work, Cassandra.'

[sparklingmineraltequila]

American Wasteland

Note: I know it's short but trust me. And I damn well know that the Iron Crusaders are bikers and not fucking cowboys but the whole premise of this chapter/fic derives itself on the erosion of a culture, it sinking into the wasteland and going up in flames before a peoples' very own eyes, so let me have my cowboy pic. 2002 Rust I'm coming for you

Warnings: Violence, Swearing, Smoking, Drugs, War, PTSD, Talks of death and not suicide but wishing for it

'God is dead. God remains dead and we have killed him.'

Rust knows how fickle morality is. We perceive it to be this shining, golden beacon and place all of our institutions, plans, and desires on it; relishing in our righteousness for having done so cause that makes us moral people. Good, upstanding citizens who shine their shoes, press their shirts and drink their glasses of whole-fat milk;. Overfed and ignorant, ignoring the pill bottles that seem to go down too fast and the cheap malt liquor behind the cereal. Morality lets us do this: follow a neat set of rules and forgive all our other sins. But then morality died or, at least, God did. April 1966, splashed on the cover of Time magazine; modernity killed divinity. But because humans are so fucking fragile, we needed another God and fast, cause the kids were fucking and the men were dying and the women were almost free. So, the markets and the money men came. The keys to the kingdom were there for our taking on Wall Street's screens and whatever malady God couldn't salve, the pure heroin of the free market could. The free market became morality; what are you going to choose between? What has value to you? What do you care about? Not ourselves, that became clear. America had been rotting from the inside out since it was founded on blood-saturated soil but the decay had now started to stink. And while Wall Street got coke, the rest of us had crack. Headed straight to the new millennium with that dilation, that aggression, the coke bugs under our skin crawled out from underneath. The nightmare was real. There was nothing to want from the material and nothing could be saved.

Rust got unlucky (kind of), tucked away in some corner of Alaska, watching through the occasional bar TV screen as America's Golden Age passed him by. He didn't't need the TVs to tell him shit, he saw it all right in Travis; the number that 'Nam did on him, what it means to fight for the greatest country on earth. There's honour in choosing the right way to die but where's the fucking honour in acrid sheets, yellow with sweat and other liquids Rust never dared dwell on too long, when you live? Where's the goddamn honour in that? Then came Claire and Sophia and the goddamn white picket fence. And, fuck, was he happy. So goddamn happy that he doesn't know how he didn't drink himself to death when he carried what was left of his little girl through a lithium white hospital or when Claire had finally left. Rust can't remember if his mother ever got him some plush toy to sleep with; he certainly never did with Travis. But that night, for the first and last time in his life, he did. Rust had passed out on the couch; a nearly empty Jameson grasped in one hand and Sophia's worn lamb, the single toy Claire left, in the other.

As he stares at Cassandra, he sees the effects of this goddamn wasteland; the one Sophia saved herself from. This beautiful, young girl in some torn up, white t-shirt with its hem and threads hanging off limply; a fury in her eyes that bleeds out when she looks at him for too long. Cassandra takes a drag,

'You ever gonna leave? Go back to being a normal cop, I mean?'

Rust tenses but allows her questioning. They're alone, sat on two decaying lawn chairs as their knees brush faintly against one another, and he could at least acquiesce some of her more childish tendencies, when they do emerge,

'If a bullet in the head or a heavy load of dope don't take me out first,' he drawls, dryly.

Usually, Cassandra would concede with her own huff of laughter or joke about what a pussy, or bastard, he is, depending on how bored she is. Today, she just looks at him and tries not to cry,

'That ain't fucking funny.'

'What makes you think I'm tryin' to make you laugh, Cass?' Rust deadpans,

'How about you, Cassandra? When're you plannin' to move on from strippin'?'

When Rust sees that white-hot spark in her eyes and scoffs,

'Exactly. We both got to do shit that ain't pretty but we gotta do it.'

Cassandra stares down at her cowboy boots with something desperate and animal in her gaze. There used to be something much more playful about her attraction to him: the sheer nightdresses the hazy exaltations of smoke from glossed lips, the digs of those Shirley-temple nails into his arm. Now, she just stares at him; lust which turns to dread and then horror. She's always punished herself for her attachment to him; almost as much as Rust has, himself. Cassandra rubs her nose with her thumb, cigarette ash becoming powdered sugar on thighs,

'That where you're going tonight? Cause you got shit that needs to be done?'

Rust feels a twinge in his gut, something which feels too much like relief for his liking. If he didn't feel so goddamn guilty about the filth that he's managed to smear onto Cassandra, he might've been actually seeking that cool, steel bullet ripping through his temple. Ginger's been agitated, telling his boys to stockpile all the fucking 9mils they can get their hands on, which makes Rust scoff at the fucking idiot for mistaking gunmetal for the balls he so obviously doesn't have to get shit done. Not like Rust.

'Yeah.'

'You gonna tell me?'

A muscle tightens in Rust's jaw,

'No.'

'Miles gonna be there?'

'What's it to you?'

Cassandra scoffs,

'Pervy-ass fuck. I goddamn hope you put a bullet right in his-'

'Shut the fuck up 'fore someone hears you.'

'There ain't no-one here.'

Cassandra gestures around the desolate trailer park, stained lawn chairs strewn around battered single wides and Rust can almost smell that damp musk on their carpets. He feels so goddamn suffocated that he might vomit. It gets even worse when he sees that feral edge starting to creep into Cassandra's eyes and movements; like she sees what he's seeing too but she's actually fucking stuck. Rust can get the fuck out through the mercy of law enforcement bureaucracy or (preferably) that final sweet, sweet release. Cassandra's stuck in the molasses of the way that time moves down here. No actual laws to constrict her but none to save her either; her only option to put on some pretty lace and hope for a fistful of ones instead of just knuckle and bone. Violence or submission. Rust has tried to tell her that she's got a good thing going with college but Cassandra is too smart to subscribe to hope, something she's never been able to afford wondering how much it cost.

Rust gets up and gives her hair a rough ruffle which she, for once, doesn't jerk away from; allowing herself the moment of tenderness. Almost like she knows.

'I need to go see, Ginger. Talk some shit over for this fuckin' deal.'

Cassandra just nods, unable to even look at him. Rust knows that she's about to burst into tears so he walks away. Cassandra muffles her sobs with her hands so that he won't hear her. Acts of mercy on both their parts.

When Rust gets back, two hours later, Cassandra has packed her shit: no ratty textbooks, no random thongs left about as petty, coquettish acts of seduction, no boots, no duffel bag, no trace that Cassandra was ever there except for the yellowing walls of the many post-sex cigarettes that they shared. Rust tucks his 9mm in the waistband of his jeans and makes his peace with a death he knows he doesn't deserve.

On his exit, he leaves the trailer door slightly ajar.

[sparklingmineraltequila]

American Wasteland

Note: They might eventually learn to be nice to each other. Very grateful to everyone who's reading and hopefully enjoying, too

Warnings: 18+ Violence, talk of possible sexual assault, alcohol, some pretty graphic descriptions of drug use and needles (if that makes you nervous it's only the first paragraph). Smut and Rust is mean and high as a kite. Cassandra is more than consenting but I'm a firm believer that with the cocktail of hardcore drugs, devastating grief and the overall testosterone fuelled Crash persona he had to embody, sex with him would be rough. Not bad, but rough.

Caramel. Burnt and bubbly, that thick, sticky goo swirling around. Cassandra had made it once, after class, cause she'd see it on the on some bored ass-housewife baking show during a bout of insomnia. Poured all over graham crackers with an extra sprinkle of salt and, when it had cooled down enough, she'd swiped her finger across the pan, letting the golden sludge coat her fingers as she sucked it off. No 'fuck me' eyes, no deliberate dragging of fingertips over pouted lips. No, this was pure fucking indulgence. For a brief, caramel slathered moment of a purely childish whim, her body belonged more to her than it had done for years. Anyway, Caramel. Yeah, it's what Cassandra told him meth reminds her of; bubbling away on that slither of foil. Smoking, snorting, inhaling, whatever: she could tolerate that. Injecting, she could not. Said it made her agitated, that she could almost hear the puncture of the skin's jelly when the needle went through.

That was why Cassandra is so fucking jumpy, now. Through the coke, speed and crass commentary on their supposed sex life, she'd remained calm. Like an amateur form of astral projection, she had described it as while doing their laundry in his kitchen sink, you detach yourself from your body. I ain't really there, just a vehicle for what I need it to give me in that moment. It's just meat at the end of the day. Meat that is serving as a vehicle for a purpose: money, sex, drug receptacle, exercise, etc. A theory that had held up until now; the restlessness of discomfort and boredom making her squirm on his lap. Rust tries to reign her in with a firm forearm pressed to her stomach, which works, until her sharp, glossy nails start to dig into his skin, leaving little half-moons adorning the tick leather of his biker jacket.

'Cool it. Two more beers and I'll take you home,' he mutters into her ear, his forearm pressing her deeper into his chest as he does so.

'You think you're fucking driving after the shit you've put in your system?! Boy, you must be out of your fucking mind. No, I'll be the one driving,' Cassandra spits back, her acerbic tone warranting the attention of a few surrounding Iron Crusaders who can't resist to add in their two cents,

'You gonna let your woman talk to you like that, Crash?' a biker called Razor teases, a lacerating edge to his voice. The cocktail of drugs and liquor pulsating through his bloodstream mixed with powder keg that is Cassandra are putting Rust's nerves on a knife edge. If he was a better (and more sober) man, he might've treated her better, might have allowed himself more tenderness in her regard. But he's not and he can't. Any sign of weakness and the suspicion will grow and fester like mould, and he's not the only one with the fucking gun pressed to his temple: Cassandra's right there with him. Except it won't be gun for her. No, those fuckers will relish in finding a far more sadistic, humiliating way to prove the dominance of the Iron Crusaders. And the worst part? Cassandra's 'punishment' will only be an extension of his own. What's more denigrating than that? That the violence, just like the body it is inflicted upon, doesn't belong to you. Rust tries to justify how he's about to act with that train a thought but quickly pushes it down. He's past the delusion that justification facilitates. Once you hit a dog, you need to kill it. Otherwise, it'll rip you to shreds.

'Trust me, she knows her place. She's just acting up in the hopes that I give it to her a little rougher, tonight,' he deadpans, before grabbing her chin and tilting her head back so that they can make eye contact, 'But she should be careful. Much more out of that smart, little mouth of hers and I'll use it as a fuckin' ashtray.'

Fuck, he sees the pure ire that that phrase elicits from Cassandra's eyes over the whoops of the Crusaders.

'Try it and I swear to God I will spit it right back in your fucking face,' she borderline snarls at him. All this over some needles, baby? Rust thinks, his now non-existent sobriety only allowing his apathy towards her recklessness stretch only so far.

'Cassandra, baby,' he crassly pats her cheek a couple times like you would a pet, 'I'm giving you a total of 10 seconds to shut that mouth before I occupy it with somethin' much more useful for me and much more entertainin' for my brothers than your sass mouthin'.'

'You fu-' she doesn't get the word out before Rust stands up, lurching her body up with him: her abdomen folded over his forearm while supported by a firm hand on her crotch. Definitely uncomfortable, he muses, maybe even a little painful. Though, he'd feel a lot fucking worse if his hand wasn't pressed up against a wetness that is about two hours in the making. He puts her down,

'We're leaving.'

'No, we ain't. My stuff's still in the back-'

'Do you have shoes?' Rust deadpans.

Cassandra glances down to her Tony Lamas, 'Yeah, but-'

'Then you can walk to my fuckin' truck and sit your ass in it. You'll get your shit tomorrow.'

She stares at him and, beneath the gelid fury of her features, he sees a deep, burning desires; that same burning that reduced Troy to ashes. All over one man's fucking desire. That's what everything in this god forsaken world boils down to: that carnal, visceral act of sex. And everything is about sex, except sex. Sex is about power; a power that Rust and Cassandra are fighting for. Oh he sees it in her eyes, all right. Poor baby, don't you know a working a pole or giving a lap dance is one thing, Rust thinks. But Cassandra already knows that dance and she knows this word; her gaze carries the authority of a girl weaned on the milk of a world where icy, serious shit happens. Insatiable thing as always, his Cassandra. Like a sordid, seedy-underbelly inversion of the ingenue blossoming into the woman, Cassandra needs the heady, briny smell of the room, to lick the salt of sweat from his temple, for him to fuck her because she's been cold for too long and the burn won't matter cause fire is fire.

He yanks her arm, pulling her out of the club with him, as he calls over his shoulder to the Crusaders with mean grin,

'Don't wait up for me, boys. Try not to bleed Ginger of all his money, the fucker owes me a rematch.'

Met with some whoops and 'alrights', Rust pushes open the heavy, mirror door and pulls her towards his truck. Wrenching open the passenger side door, he all but throws her inside. When he sits down, Cassandra pounces on him, trying to get a few slaps on him before he shoves her back down.

'Is that your idea of fucking payment, huh? Yeah, let's just degrade the bitch infront of the rest of those pigs. That'll show her who's in charge,' she seethes.

He yanks on the stick shift and pulls out of the lot, now speeding down the road back to the trailer park,

'You know, Cass? You being angry at me would be a lot more effective if I couldn't smell how wet you are.'

Rust braces for the slap, tensing his hands on the wheel so as to not lose control of the truck but Cassandra just stares at him, dumbfounded. A flush creeps up on her collarbones. Whether it's from shame or the pure shock of arousal, Rust doesn't know. He contents himself with either outcome.

'Are you gonna fuck me, tonight?' in a voice so meek and whispered that it should never be used to speak those words. Rust takes as sharp inhale of the Camel he just lit,

'Yeah. But I ain't touching you 'til we're home.'

'Why the hell not?'

He glances back over to her, giving her a one over in those white, lace bra and panties, those endless legs in the worn leather of her cowboy boots,

'I wanna see how wet you can get without me even touching you.'

Very, Rust discovers, as he has her strip off in the middle of the trailer and hand him the damp panties.

'Shit, baby. All I have to do is manhandle you a bit, huh?' Rust murmurs, tilting them in his palm to admire the glisten under the nauseating, yellow overhead light.

'Crash, I-'

'Shut the fuck up and put this on,' he says, handing her his heavy, leather biker jacket. She stares at him before taking the jacket and shrugging it on. Gunpowder, liquor, tobacco and sweat. The cool metal of the zipper does nothing to soothe the burning of her skin, where it rests on the bulge of her breasts.

'Turn around,' Rust mutters and, still staggered by the brazen act of possession he's just performed, Cassandra obliges; demonstrating the embroidered High Speed Low Drag Son of a Bitch and Iron Crusaders emblem on the back. The jacket ends just above the curve of her ass, the sleeves slightly too long: the overall effect should give some sleazy, leather-clad Lolita effect but it doesn't. Not with how his Cassandra rolls back her shoulders, juts her hip and lifts her chin when she turns to face him, again. Those cool, dark eyes regarding him with the wisdom of a girl too young to contain the effervescence of passion and danger that Cassandra does.

'I said turn around.'

She bites the inside of her cheek but turns and Rust lands a stinging smack on her ass, making her jump pathetically.

'Go lie down on your back. Keep that jacket on,' and again, she acquiesces. Once lying down, Rust hovers over her and retrieves the single stack 9mm and a small ziplock bag containing white powder, from the inner pocket. That stirs Cassandra from the lethargy of want she's been under,

'Are you fucking serious?' she sits up on her elbows, the jacket falling slightly open and exposing the contrast of tanned skin with the milk paleness of her breasts.

'With the shit in my bloodstream, I have about an hour before I start getting cold sweats and convulsions. An hour ain't gonna be nowhere near enough time to do what I intend to do to you. So, hold still,' he drawls before placing a heavy hand on her sternum, pushing her back down and scraping a line on one of her tits. She feels a jolt in her stomach before an embarrassing rush of heat between her thighs as he lowers himself and inhales it off of her, jerking his head back as the chemicals merge into his bloodstream, plunging him into white hot, acidic ecstasy. He reaches down and runs his fingers at the seam of her core, rubbing that little nub,

'Where's all that attitude now, baby? I don't have to be mean about this, y'know?' Rust murmurs, now grinding the underside of his palm into her wet heat. Cassandra gulps down a moan as she responds,

'You do,' she half states, half whimpers.

'You're right. I do,' as he smiles that nasty smile again and lands another sharp smack, on her core this time which elicits a choked moan from her.

'Back up, baby. Go further onto the bed,' Rust says before standing to his full height as Cassandra awkwardly shuffles back, the jacket now hanging off of one of her shoulders.

'I should fuck you from the back, that way you might finally learn some fuckin' manners,' Rust says, pulling off his shirt and dropping to his knees onto the mattress. Cassandra scoffs, that usual incorrigibility bubbling up. Fuck, he has her naked, wearing his fucking biker jacket and she can still summon that rancour, the one nurtured by a life of obsolete promises, blood on linoleum floors and the way your first cigarette tastes more bitter than the rest as it's now your only remaining comfort after daddy not holding you anymore. Never one for insipidity, Cassandra spits back, acrimonious,

'What? So, you don't have to look me in the eyes like a real man when you come?'

Rust lets out a harsh huff of laughter, devoid of any amusement, 'All this sass mouthin' from someone who's practically humpin' the sheets for some release.'

Which earns a kick from Cassandra, foot aimed at his nose before he grabs her ankle, hauling her leg over his shoulder; the abrupt movement making her core rub against the denim of his crotch. The sudden friction making her inadvertently buck against him. Rust looks down,

'Either you stop that or I will make you get off with just this,' he drawls and Cassandra doesn't even have the strength to argue.

'Please, Crash, please. You know I'll let you do anything you want.'

He hums, tempted, while he unzips his trousers and pulls down his boxers,

'Your pussy's too good for you to be givin' yourself away this easy.'

'How would you know?' she breathes out.

'Wasn't born yesterday, Cass. Pussy this wet,' he grunts, sliding in two fingers straight, 'and this tight, don't come easy and it don't come often. Plus, since whoever or whatever made you, made you fuckin' perfect in every goddamn way, I doubt they skimped on this.'

She moans, too dazed with fucking herself on his fingers to really notice the compliment. He lowers himself onto his forearms and blows gently onto her seam,

'No, no, no, Crash. You're gonna make me dry, it's gonna hurt,' Cassandra whimpers out, squirming before he brings his tattooed forearm to rest on her stomach, pinning her down. He looks up at her, ceasing his fingers movements,

'It should fuckin' hurt. Way you've been actin' all night.'

'Please, please, Crash,' she sobs.

Rust hums pensively before sitting up on his knees, grabbing a fistful of Cassandra's hair, to yank her head up, and holding out his slick fingers in front of her mouth,

'You don't want it to hurt, baby?' he murmurs in that dangerous, velvety drawl.

'No.'

'Fine. Spit on it,' he deadpans, keeping his hand in front of her. And she does it.

'So, you can behave,' he says, rubbing the wetness on her core, not that she needs it with how it's running down her and onto his sheets. That tart, salty smell; so distinctly woman. We're all just fuckin' animals. Monkeys, Rust thinks. But right now, as he slides his cock into the whimpering mess of tanned limbs and leather beneath him, he feels more human than he has in years. He recalls reading about negative utility: we as humans don't actually really care about pleasure, just minimising suffering. Bullshit. This fucking hurts, it hurts with how hard he is, the ache in his knees from holding this position, the burn of the capillaries in his nose from chemical erosion. He knows hurts for Cassandra, too; way that she's gasping and choking, poor baby probably hasn't got it since prom night. But, fuck, if he wants it. This pain is only whetting his appetite for the pleasure to come, as he feels Cassandra already pulsating around him; like the moment right after he takes LSD when his mouths tastes like blood just before he tastes colours. In this pleasure-pain maelstrom, his definitions start to fade. Yes, he feels more human right now than he has in years, since he has since he saw the mess of blood and teeth on his driveway. Rust looks down at Cassandra, a gleam of sweat on her brow just like his own. As the culmination of living takes over his thrusts and his senses, the only thing grounding him is her voice, like a mantra,

'Crash.'

[sparklingmineraltequila]

American Wasteland

Note: Finally, a Cassandra POV. Sorry that it's a tiny bit shorter but I have had one of most emotionally traumatising weeks of my life. Don't worry, next chapter I'm back on my shit with smut and all.

Warnings: 18+, drugs, alcohol, sex work, references to past abuse, domestic violence

Hot afternoons can feel like an impending scream. It's the mundanity about them that has always killed Cassandra. All the filth and despair of wide, yawning night with its neon lights and hookers on pavements and aching solitude is manageable; at least she can focus her misery on something concrete. But these baked afternoons, when the hours bleed into one amalgam of humming fans and beading sweat, plunge her into a white hot light of clarity at just how fucking sad she is. She's indulging herself too. Has been for the past three fucking hours, doing nothing but picking at her nail beds and staring at a stack of Crash's books against the wall and studying them. He dog-ears his pages, she already knows that, and from here she can see that he cracks the spines too, not surprising. Cassandra quickly pushes down the bubbling sentimentality she feels at the closeness of Crash in those simple acts. Harder still when thinking about those ice blues eyes, the absent minded twisting of a wedding band that's no longer there but the memory of an ex-wife that Cassandra knows nothing about but her name, that oily scent of tobacco on his fingers when he pushes them past her lips. The trailer door opens and he comes in: Crash holding a pharmacy bag,

'You're up,' he states, not daring to make eye contact after what transpired last night. Cassandra thinks it's the first sheepishness she's ever seen cross the stoic lines of his face. She doesn't reply.

'I got you some aspirin,' he continues, setting the bag next to the bed, regarding her for a moment longer which she returns with a glacial look.

'I don't have to talk to you,' Cassandra deadpans, not even bothering to sit up.

'I know,' Rust returns, with an equal frostiness that sends Cassandra into indignant fury.

'How dare you take that mild-ass tone with me,' she spits, now shifting to sit up, 'I got fucking drugged and fucked and then made a complete goddamn fool of myself spewing my guts on the side of the road like some fucking teenager.'

'You are a teenager.'

'I'm twenty fucking years old.'

'Oh you think that a couple months, some cussing and hard-ass attitude means you ain't a teenager. You've still got your goddamn baby hairs, Cassandra.'

He's right and it makes her sick. All the things that she's done to shed that oppressive sheath of girlhood to become a woman. Woman: the word always seemed glossy and unattainable to Cassandra. Fuck if she didn't practice at whatever she thought it entailed: learning how to properly inhale, switching from tights to stay-ups, conditioning herself to like beer by forcing herself to order Blue Ribbons when she went out. It would also mean a whole new type of navigation in her relationships with men; the idea of sex now lingering behind every exchange. Sex. It's what has practically defined her life since she went through puberty. Who to do it with, who not to, how to use it, how to make that biker think you want him without ending with your head bashed against the stage when he realises you don't. Cassandra has learnt to keep her desire and attraction to a minimum. Like with dope dealers, the dumbest shit you can do is get addicted to what you sell. Then Crash came along and fucked up her whole plan. In and out of stripping, pay for rent and save up for student debt, get away from dad and stay alive and sane. But no, not since that night that he came in that year ago, hair starting to turn from that golden to the caramel brown that it is now and cut surprisingly short for a biker. He'd sat with Ginger and a few other of the Iron Crusaders, nursing a Lone Star with a look. far more terrifying than the feral cruelty behind his companions' eyes: ice cold impassivity. A man with nothing to lose has a degree of violence to him allowed by his complete detachment to anything and anyone. Cassandra knew this and yet still locked eyes with him every time she saw him watching her on stage. Never a lap dance, though. She'd tried once and his disgust had made her feel smaller than any of the copious insults dolled out by her father,

'No.' Crash had said firmly, pushing her off with a surprising gentleness.

'It's fine, y'know. It's my job,' Cassandra had tried to reassure him, sitting next to him. He'd turned to look at her and had asked,

'How old are you?'

That had made her arch her eyebrow,

'19. Why? You like 'em older?'

To a less observant person, Rust's jaw muscle twitching would've gone unnoticed,

'Yeah, I do,' he'd said, shoving a twenty dollar bill in her panties' waistband, Cassandra noticing how he'd chosen to place it on her hipbone, 'Clear off, baby.'

'Want me to send over Rose? Red-head, real pretty.'

As Cassandra had said this, a burly Iron Crusader had called her name from across the club, making her turn,

'Yeah, baby?'

'Come bring that pretty, lil' ass over to daddy's lap,' the man had slurred, making Cassandra wince and start to head in his direction. That was until Rust had grabbed her wrist, halting her,

'Easy, Thunder,' he had called over to his fellow Crusader, 'I haven't decided whether to take this one for a spin, yet. She any good?'

'The best, Crash,' Thunder had cackled back, raising his beer in salute to him. With that, Crash had pulled her down into the booth next to him, lighting and a cigarette with complete disregard towards a confused Cassandra perched next to him. When she'd tried to straddle him again, he'd pushed her off,

'Listen, I have a quota to make so do you want a fucking lap dance or not?' She had huffed with a slight agitation in her voice that she hadn't yet learned how to conceal. In those days, she was hungry for it: money, sex, attention, security. Too hungry to learn how to manage it when it spilled over and tinged her tone in desperation.

'What's your quota?' Rust had asked through an exhale of smoke, seemingly uninterested.

'Around 50 dollars, at least.'

He'd arched his eyebrow at her,

'You tryin' to do one over me?'

'I'm desperate, not stupid. If I was trying to scam someone, I'd have picked some liquored up truck driver who hasn't gotten some since Missouri,' Cassandra had stated dryly, making Rust's lip quirk up momentarily.

'50 dollars, at least, by the end of your shift, huh?' he'd drawled, cigarette pinched between his fingers.

'Yeah.'

'What time's your shift end?'

'About another hour.'

'How much money are you on?'

'Straight floor work? About 40.'

Rust had reached into his back pocket and pulled out a tattered, leather wallet before putting down 5 ten dollar bills,

'50 but you stick with me until you're done.'

Cassandra had eyed the bills with suspicion and Rust dryly stated,

'Don't be an idiot, Cassandra. Take the fuckin' money and just sit your ass down.'

'You know my name?'

He had jerked his head towards a huddle of Iron Crusaders in another booth,

'You're popular.'

'Oh.' she'd nodded, slightly deflated by the implications. Rust had picked up on the tinge of shame in her eyes,

'Ain't no shame in it, baby.'

'You don't have to be nice about it.'

'I ain't nice.'

Cassandra had regarded him for a moment longer, thrown off by his apparent self-discipline,

'So, you're stuck with me for an hour. What do you wanna do?' she'd asked, tucking her knees onto the booth. Rust had barely spared her a sidelong glance,

'What're you drinking?'

'Jack and coke.'

He'd scoffed at that,

'You're nineteen.'

'And you're a biker running meth so who's breaking the law more, here?'

That had gotten a proper look from Rust, almost turning his head in her direction before handing his glass,

'How's straight whiskey?'

Cassandra had taken the glass from him and taken a straight gulp while being watched by an impassive Rust,

'What's your name, baby?' she asked in a saccharine tone, a slight tilt to her head.

'Drop the act.'

'I don't have a fucking act. This is how I talk.'

Rust had hummed at that,

'Crash.'

'Crash, huh?'

'Yeah. Crash,' Rust had replied, fixing her with a cold stare. Cassandra had nodded, slightly intimated,

'Ok, Crash.'

A schoolgirl crush had morphed into a worrying codependency that had left her strewn on his mattress, in a semi-catatonic state. Worst part is: Cassandra cannot bring herself to hate him. The sickest part of her is even hoping that he kind of finds her attractive like this: at her rawest, most ugly state. She doesn't know how much longer she can keep the jig up; this near constant state of self surveillance is weighing on her heavily and this lacquer of practiced indifference is eroding. Fast. Even now, as Crash places a glass of water, a carton of Marlboro Golds and a bag of those plasticky powdered donuts by the mattress, she can feel her resolve faltering; trying to ignore the small disappointment that he cares so little to concede her her cigarettes. The grit in her wants to right-hook him hard and run away from this place, but she can't and she won't. She doesn't have anywhere left to run and the humiliation of having to ask to crash with one of her fancy college friends gnaws at her. She notices him staring at her, crouched by the mattress. Burying her head in the pillow, she mumbles,

'Stop it. Please stop it cause, I swear to god, that I'll cry if you don't.'

'Cry, then,' Rust mutters, 'Ain't no shame in it.'

'Yes, there is. A lot. Crash, I'm-I'm a whore,' Cassandra chokes out in a sob.

'Hey-Hey, you never fuckin' say that ever again. You hear?' Rust says, voice raising slightly as he clasps her jaw with his hand, 'What happened last night was me, all me. You were high out of your fuckin' mind and, even if you weren't, you couldn't had said no if you wanted to.'

'But I liked it.'

Rust ignores the heat that pools in his gut at those words,

'That don't make no fuckin' difference.'

Cassandra brings her hands to her face, trying to conceal her tear streaked cheeks. A futile endeavour, given the heaves of her sobs,

'It ain't even that. I've been a stripper since I was eighteen. Eighteen, Crash. What the actual fuck is wrong with me?!'

'You were a desperate, little girl with a daddy who beat her and no other choice in this cesspit of a fuckin' world other than to strip for men like me.'

'Not for men like yo-'

'Yes, Cassandra. For men like me. Stop making fuckin' excuses, you're smarter than that,' Rust borderline snarls, her chin still grasped in his hand as he shakes it slightly, emphasising his words.

Cassandra stares at him for a moment before she gives Rust the type of embrace that she hasn't given since she ran up to the police officer who pulled up, just as her dad burst out of the house with the jagged end of a bottle of malt liquor in hand. She buries her nose between the seam of his leather jacket and his faded t-shirt, inhaling deeply: sweat, Camels, beer, faint scent of deodorant. She moves her head up to thank him in the only way she knows how to and starts to kiss his neck. Rust gently grasps her shoulders to pull her away,

'Not now, baby. Tomorrow but not today.'

'I can-'

'You ain't in the right state of mind. I can see it. You ain't my Cass, right now. You're that scared little girl tryin' to reconcile the fact that her daddy has hit her for the first time and that it ain't gonna be the last.'

Cassandra flinches at that,

'Why the fuck would you bring that up?'

'To remind you that you should be scared.'

'Of you?'

'Of any man.'

Cassandra eyes him narrowly as he stands up,

'You heading out?'

'I'll be back, tonight.'

'Can you hand me a book?'

'Which one?'

'Something relatively chill.'

Rust goes to his stack against the wall, runs his hand down and stops at a book before lifting up the ones above it and slotting it out. He hands it to her,

'First bit of philosophy I ever read. I think most of what he preaches is placid bullshit but it ain't too intense a read.'

Cassandra takes The Stranger from Rust's hand and briefly flicks through the pages before landing at the first one. She squints to read some pen scrawl,

Houston, 1987,

For all those sleepless nights and to kickstart those philosophy courses that you've been mentioning,

From Claire to Rust

Cassandra's head snaps up, brow furrowing. She recognises one name, not the other. Her voice is gelid as she ask,

'Who the hell is Rust?'

[sparklingmineraltequila]

American Wasteland

Note: This chapter is dark. If you're uncomfortable with the things I put in the warnings, do not read it. If you are old enough to be reading this fic, then you are old enough to monitor your media consumption. This is a work of fiction inspired by an equally dark TV show. If the things that happen in this chapter ever happen to you in real life, there are resources online and people you can talk to. Coercive sex with substances is assault and never your fault.

Warnings: 18+, drugs, alcohol, references to past abuse, dubious consent, coercion to have sex: experienced by both parties, smut, references to sex work, references to sexual violence

Drenched in opiates and regret: Rust's current state of mind. Cold sweats, a power drill mashing into the soft pulp of his brain and an incessant need to vomit the liquor and random drive-thru burger congealing in his stomach: consequences of chasing the dragon. Cassandra isn't talking to him, having spent the past two days sulking and abstaining. Not since he left her like that, trembling on the bathroom floor which Rust doesn't have much sympathy about; something that only infuriates Cassandra further.

He'd found her bookmarking something in one of her textbooks when he got back, perched on the end of the mattress in her cotton sleeping shorts and some faded t-shirt with the hem coming loose. She hadn't even glanced up.

'Gonna kick up another one of your fusses, Cass?' Rust had stated rather than actually asked, opening the fridge to find the carton of Tropicana in an attempt to stave off the impending withdrawal. Cassandra had stayed silent, underlining a specific paragraph on Tort Law with laughable concentration. The slammed fridge door and soft thud of his jacket on the counter had roused her,

'That's real fucking mean of you. What you did before,'

'You sound like a kid, Cassandra.'

That had made her clench her jaw, 'Just cause I'm younger than you doesn't mean you can call me a kid and speak down to me whenever we argue.'

'We ain't arguing,' Rust had said, lighting a cigarette with a nonchalance that had only served to piss Cassandra off even more,

'I am.'

'You are,' he'd agreed with that same aloofness.

'Oh, screw you, Crash,' Cassandra had said, dumping her textbook to the side of the mattress, 'You want to take that fucking attitude with me? Fine but you ain't touching me. You don't get to play that shit with me.'

'All this cause I didn't make you come?' Rust had sucked the air through his teeth in mock condescension, 'You gotta be tougher than that, baby. You ain't gonna last two fuckin' seconds if you pout this much over a lil' fun.' It's not about that. Well, maybe slightly but far from entirely. What Rust did completely fucks the power dynamics between the two of them and scares the shit out of Cassandra. In a place where the pleasure that a woman can give is her currency, a man who can upheave the situation, like Rust did, is terrifying to a girl like Cassandra. That smooth, slippery heat between a woman's legs and the place where the perfume collects between her neck and jaw has seen more men tamed than any guns or money ever have. Even in this, the shittiest armpit of Houston's outer bayous, more deals have been struck and information shared on the creaky plastic covering of cheap motel beds, in hazes of post-orgasm cigarettes, than in any biker bar. Rust's unwavering clarity is dangerous to Cassandra; it plunges her into a near total state of vulnerability that no languid neck rubs or 'Come to bed, baby''s can salvage her from. This isn't some tantrum of a neglected, over-stimulated brat (for the most part) but a desperate scrambling of a girl who's had her entire way of securing safety ripped from underneath her. Rust had almost felt pity gnawing at his gut as she stands there, smooth, tanned limbs and thin cotton. Almost. He'd left the conversation at a biting,

'Grow up.'

He's doing her a favour, really. Rust has warned her of the man he was. He's always considered the mark of a weak person to be an obsession with fulfilment and satisfaction. You didn't get exactly what you wanted? Life kick you right in the fucking teeth? Tough shit. All these fucking plans, all of these futile, paper thin dreams, all this me-me-me; people too blinded by the convictions of their own desires, blinded by how things should be to see how they really are. Judeo-Christian God type shit, Rust thought, Givin' people that false sense of cosmic importance and righteousness. Cassandra can't afford that type of naive idealism and she has never indulged it until now; Rust is making her soft. Cassandra has spent the past couple days giving him monosyllabic answers and looking like she's eating sorrow by the spoonful before Rust shatters it.

It all comes to a head when Ginger tells him to bring Cassandra that night, to the Iron Crusaders' clubhouse. To get better acquainted with your new piece; gotta make sure she's worth the trouble she gave you last time, he'd said with Rust practically being able to see the slobber foaming at the corners of his mouth. And Rust agrees coming to the resolution that those fuckers would never touch Cassandra without him giving them the get go. For once, the archaic machismo of biker gang rules have their perks. Rust is many things and green isn't one of them; he knows whatever is happening tonight isn't going to be the usual liquor, gambling and shooting random shit routine. They would've just pestered Cassandra at the club, if so. He had considered leaving her here, denying Ginger would've aroused suspicion and been a one way ticket to a bullet it his temple, but the best chance she has at getting through whatever perverse shit they have planned is with him. So, Rust does another line to offset the impending cold sweats and to iodise his blood with some of that sharp, hot sting that only something completely fabricated in a lab by man or grown by the raw fucking ingenuity of nature, deep in the Colombian jungle, can give you. As Cassandra comes out of the shower, wrapped in a towel, Rust fixes her with a frigid tone,

'Get dressed. We're goin' out.'

'I ain't going anywhere with you,' Cassandra bites back, making her first eye contact with him in 48 hours. Rust can feels the coke frying his nerves to a fucking charr,

'I didn't ask, I said we're goin'. Don't play around with me tonight, Cassandra. This is serious shit you're fuckin' with.'

She stares at him with those deep, glossy eyes: colour of the molasses Rust used to eat straight from the jar as a boy, that turn to the colour of whiskey in the sun, the one he drinks now that he's a man. He sees it click, she's too smart for it not to. Not the same, calculated intelligence of wariness, in an attempt to avoid the meat thresher. No, that's reserved for girls who exist with the downy padding of money and someone who actually gives two shits about what happens to them. The other girls, those who exist in the dirty cracks between church on Sundays and family dinners, in liquor soaked childhoods with busted bathroom locks and hard leather belts, don't get that luxury. They have the opposite intelligence of momentum: knowing when to ride fast and hard, saying fuck it right into the maws of the beast cause no one's ever protected you so may as well go down looking the fucker in the eye instead of hiding in the corner, like you did as a little girl. Cassandra has that momentum now, as she asks,

'Where are we going?' wrapping the towel tighter around herself, almost as if to comfort herself for the answer she knows is coming.

'Iron Crusaders' clubhouse. Ginger wanted to see you again.'

She looks at him like a spooked horse: head rearing back, eyes wide with fear. Rust plants his hands firmly on those delicate shoulders as she panics,

'I ain't going there, Crash. No, no, no. I'm serious, they'll-'

Rust cuts her off, pulling her into his chest and stroking her hair; his own tenderness taking him by surprise,

'Easy, easy, baby,' he leans down to murmur into her ear, cigarette smoke on his breath, 'This ain't somethin' I'm taking lightly. They won't do anythin' to you that I don't let them do first. Biker gang ethics.'

'Will you? Let them do something to me?'

'No,' Rust says and he means it. Not them.

They ride Rust's, or Crash's, Harley over to the clubhouse. Nights like these are when Rust feels his definitions fading. No more Sophia, no more mowing his lawn and having to watch out for her toys in the grass, no more of those incredible fucking birthdays that there will only ever be two of, no more of those horrific fights with Claire over whether his baby girl should be reduced to a pile of ash or shut in a box and shoved under the cold, wet dirt. That shit is gone and the only thing worth a damn to him, in a way that he can't yet reconcile, is gripping onto him for dear life with trembling hands and stiff arms. Rust is past empty platitudes. He knows who Crash is and it nauseates him when he thinks of what he's going to have to allow himself to do. Cassandra swings her leg over the bike to dismount, her bare leg red and raw from the wind on the ride over. She looks over her shoulder at Rust coming up behind her, placing his hand on her lower back before sliding it down to her ass. As they walk up to the entrance, he mutters gruffly to her,

'Whatever I tell you to do, you do it, you hear?'

'That's not real reassuring,' she glances up at him.

'I ain't trying to be.'

'Course you ain't.'

'I ain't gonna give you a fuckin' forehead kiss and gold star, if that's what you're askin',' Rust states, dryly.

'Yeah, cause that's exactly how we've done it up until now,' Cassandra shoots back, an acerbic sarcasm to her tone.

'That's exactly what I mean. That attitude. You got anymore of that, you get it out of your system now.'

The cold authority of his tone catches her attention,

'Crash?' she asks, her voice a fraction of what it was a moment ago.

'Yeah, Cass?'

'Why the hell am I here?'

'Pure, dumb fuckin' ontological chance. And a damn unlucky one at that.'

'I meant literally, asshole.'

'If we're bein' crass about it: eye candy,' Rust says and internally begs for that to be it. That Ginger and the rest of the boys just want a look at some tits that they've had their eyes on for a couple months and maybe, with a bit of liquor in her, get an idea for how Rust fucks her in bed. And Cassandra, ever the sharp one, is playing the part. A slight thing, all clad in denim and leather, with the outline of her bra's thick embroidery pushing against a cheap, cotton tank top. Their damsel in distress, a trailer park princess that they can save from those stifling, cicada serenaded afternoons of heat and boredom. Plunge her into the cool of the wind whipping past a cruising Harley, of the condensation on a loaded Jack and Coke, of that cold needle sinking into her vein for the first time. They want her, right there in heavily inked arms and bulging biceps, hands that'll hit just as hard as daddy did but in different places until they too become the same. Who'll warn her paternally to be wary of nasty men like them, before kissing her in a very un-paternal way. So Rust leads her through the clubhouse, to the backroom where Ginger told him he'd be and right into the lion's den, hand on her ass and self-loathing in his gut.

'Crash! Over here, brother!' Ginger is sat surrounded by other Crusaders, all varying degrees of drunk and high, most both. Kit is strewn on some greasy table, along with an assortment of Lone Star and Blue Ribbon cans. Rust settles himself on the chair that Ginger pulls out for him, patting his lap to indicate to Cassandra to sit on it which she does, to his relief. Ginger leers at her,

'Well missy, you calmed down since I last saw you? You ain't givin' our Crash anymore trouble, huh? Cause we ain't got much patience for women like that 'round here. None at all. Ain't that right boys?'

Ginger is met with a bunch of whoops and Damn rights before looking back at Rust,

'She behavin' herself?'

Rust pinches a freshly lit cigarette between his fingers,

'Damn right she is. Gave her a good lesson,' he smacks the inside of her thigh, causing Cassandra to inadvertently open them, 'Open your thighs, baby. Let 'em see that you know how I feel about that insubordination.'

That purple bruising is still visible and, earns whistles and laughter from the Crusaders. Cassandra clenches her jaw and snaps her legs shut, a defiance that doesn't go unnoticed from Ginger,

'You still got somethin' to say, girl?'

'No,' Cassandra replies softly but firmly.

'No, my ass. You got a hell of a chip on your shoulder, girl. Can see it from here.'

Rust takes another sharp inhale of smoke,

'Easy, Ginger. She's still learnin' how to be. Practically still wet behind the ears about half the shit I teach her. Fuck man, you should hear the sounds she makes,' throwing in the crude remark as a way to appease the hoard of doped up, drunks with their dicks almost in their hands and their .38s right next to them.

'Figured. S'why I got you a present, brother.'

'Oh yeah? Fuckin' Santa come early?' Rust drawls dryly, thumb rubbing circles on Cassandra's thigh. Ginger chuckles, eyes full of malice,

'Nah, not exactly,' he pulls a white block from the inside of his own biker jacket and dumps it own the table. Rust looks at it, unimpressed, and asks,

'Coke? Is it the good shit?'

Ginger pulls out his switchblade and grabs the saran-wrapped block off of the table, again,

'Courtesy of Miles. Special batch cut with some Molly, real loopy shit.'

'Who the fuck is lookin' for that mix?'

'Pimps. Both get their girls going quicker and faster, for longer.'

A muscle in Rusts's jaw twitches at that and he feels Cassandra tense in his lap,

'I look like a pimp to you, motherfucker?'

'Nah, Crash, but you havin' problems with your lady, ain't you?'

Rust's stomach churns bile at the implications of what Ginger's suggesting and he feels Cassandra go completely rigid. He takes another inhale,

'I don't need coke to get my girl to fuck me, Ginger.'

'Oh I know you don't, 'way you've got that bunny perched in your lap all pretty. This is just to relax her up a bit, show her that one way or another she gon' give it up to you,' Ginger says grinning, ill-intent smothering his words like a slime. He pulls out his switchblade to cut through the seran-wrap and scoop out some of the powder.

'I don't need to coke to do that, either,' Rust says, with the bile now threatening to creep up.

'Consider it quality control, then. She takes a hit and you see how good this shit really is. Then, I report back to Miles,' Ginger's tone now taking on an edge of hardness. Rust recognises the switch, the cool, gun metal against his and Cassandra's temple feels tangible with every syllable pronounced. Harming himself is one thing, this is entirely another. So, Rust doesn't know if he'll ever forgive himself as he looks at Ginger and says,

'Let me do the honours,' carefully taking the blade from Ginger as to not spill any powder. As he holds it under Cassandra's nose, she looks like she might cry. A shaky exhale blows some powder off of the blade, coating Rust's dark jeans in it,

'Don't fuck around, baby. Inhale the goddamn stuff,' Rust says, voice stiff from anger and tension. A trembling hand comes to press her other nostril shut, those same raw nail beds he first noticed in his truck, driving her to that crappy diner. She takes a jerky inhale, like a kid would; trying to imitate how she's seen people snort a line on TV. Those same trembling hands come to hastily brush away the powder smeared around her nose. It's not enough. If Rust is going to have to do this to her, he wants her so far gone that she won't have to deal with any emotions apart from complete ecstasy during the act itself. He wonders momentarily if it's more unethical to drug her up even more, to strip her of personhood and bodily autonomy more than he and Ginger already have, but pushes the thought away. What part of any of this is fucking ethical? He grabs the block and digs out some more powder with the blade, before taking it on his thumb and roughly smearing it against Cassandra's gums. Much to Rust's revulsion, Ginger and the other Crusaders laugh gleefully, like little boys throwing stones at dogs, all over again. Cruelty as entertainment. Only this time, the dog is Cassandra. She blinks hard a few times. This is the coke, Rust thinks, The molly will take another half hour. Rust wants to get her out of here, minimise the degradation. He pats her thigh,

'Let's go to a backroom, baby. See if Ginger is all talk 'bout this shit.'

Cassandra stumbles up, a thin sheen of sweat starting to gather on her temples, pupils blown out. Ginger and the other Crusaders let out jeering laughter, tinted with unmistakable hunger, as they watch Rust stands up and land a heavy smack on Cassandra's ass, as his says,

'Right down there, baby. First door on the left.'

Some Iron Crusader who reeks of beer and day-old sweat shouts behind them,

'Fuck off some of her baby fat, Crash!' and Rust makes a promise to himself to make that fucker swallow his teeth when this is done.

The coke is making Cassandra jumpy as Rust pushes her into the backroom: just a mattress on the floor and some random lamp next to it. It looks like the set of some fucked up, illegal torture porn movie. Not too different from what actually goes on in here, with the sounds he hears and the way some of the hookers emerge from the door. Rust briefly feels a pang of guilt for having to screw Cassandra in this room, on that mattress but he quickly pushes the arrogant sanctimony of the thought away. Who the fuck does he think he is? What truly separates him from those other men? Neither of their girls had any choice in the matter, not really. Prostitution is a way that men can justify abusing and objectifying vulnerable women just to get their dick wet, by paying them some cash. What choice do you have when you're 17 with a raging Crystal addiction, two cents to your name and a home that you'd rather fuck a truck driver for a twenty than go back to? He hasn't given Cassandra a choice, either. She's now pushed him against the door, the drug throbbing hot through her veins, as she sloppily licks and kisses at his jaw,

'Fuck, Crash, I can fucking feel it,' she bites at his neck, the coke making her agitated, ravenous. He pushes her back,

'Just take off your shorts and underwear. This is gonna be fast, baby.'

Cassandra gives that defiant, little pout,

'I don't want it to be fast. I want you to take your time, be mean like you usually do.'

'This ain't like usual.'

'I know. I'm so much wetter than I've ever been.'

Rust clenches his jaw so hard that the vein in his temple starts to protrude,

'I ain't fuckin' playin' games, here. Take off your shorts and underwear, and lie down on the goddamn bed, Cassandra.'

She stares at him cooly before peeling off that thin leather jacket followed by her tank top, and then throwing her top at Rust's face,

'You made me take it.'

'I know I did.'

'Yeah, you did. So, the least you could do is fuck me good, like you usually do,' she says, stumbling out of her boots and shimmying out of her shorts which she dangles on her foot, before kicking them in his direction, too. Now in just her bra and panties, she sits on the edge of the mattress,

'Please.'

'I'll fuck you however I want. Get on your hands and knees, Cassandra,' Rust says, unbuckling his belt. She does as he says, too eagerly for his liking, as she arches her back: deep and low,

'Please, please, Crash,' and from this angle, he can see that wetness she was talking about; making the thin, grey polyester of her underwear dark and shiny. He palms it roughly, the stress and repulsive nature of the situation making him cruel,

'I'd keep that shit to yourself, Cass. This wet and I haven't even had to work for it?'

She moans, too far gone to feel any embarrassment,

'I'm always wet for you. I've been like this for the past two days.'

'Too proud to just suck it up and let me fuck you, hm?' Rust says, moving her panties to the side to see the glistening slit. Just the feeling of the cold air on her dampness has Cassandra arching her back even deeper and whimpering,

'Please, please, I'll take it anywhere you want me to. Even-'

Rust clamps his hand over her mouth,

'Don't.'

When he lets go, a small string of spit follows Rust's hand. Cassandra has desperately unfastened her bra, the sweat on her body starting to shine and drip. This is the Molly kicking in, Rust thinks. He grabs her throat, pulling her up from her hands and knees, to where she's on her knees with her back pressed against his chest. A calloused hand reaches down into the waistline of her panties and down to caress her swollen heat,

'Never in my goddamn life have I had pussy this eager, This the drugs or just you?' he mutters into her ear.

'The drugs,' Cassandra says back, just to be her usual incorrigible self. A futile task with how she's soaking through her panties and rubbing her ass on the hardness in his jeans. Rust lets out a deep, rumbling scoff of laughter at his girl's incessant need to be a pain in the ass and plunges a two fingers deep inside of her,

'Bullshit.'

The sudden feeling of being filled up is almost too much for Cassandra's ecstasy riddled brain to reconcile with. Everything is so sensitive, so swollen with blood and heat and chemical euphoria. She squeezes and pulses around his fingers,

'Crash, if you move, I think I'm gonna have to come,' she gasps out.

'This ain't about that, tonight.'

Spoken too late. All Rust was trying to do was ease the pain of the stretch, allow her that mercy, at least, but that's enough for Cassandra, who lets out an obscenely load moan, writhing against where he keeps her firmly in place, on his chest. Rust hums pensively,

'You make a mess and you're gonna have to clean it up, baby,' he murmurs, shoving his soaking fingers into her mouth before pushing her back down to being on all fours,

'Hold still.'

She hears him unzip her jeans and shuffle around behind her, as aligns himself to her slit,

'You're not even gonna get undressed?' she says, too out of it to sound really hurt as she tries to ease herself onto his dick.

'Like I said, this ain't gonna be like we usually do it,' Rust grits out, not wanting to make this any closer to what real sex should be.

One firm hand holds her hip still, while the other pushes on her lower back, making her back arch and her face press into the mattress. Cassandra thinks it's for the sex appeal, Rust knows it's cause her can't look her in the eyes as he does this: fucks her while she's out of her mind on the drugs he forced into her. Some twenty year old girl, living with him, helping him shave when she can't take the stubble burn on her thighs and throat, cooking her terrible, lumpy pancakes and leaving him some in the fridge for the ungodly times he gets back. This kid, no mascara or lingerie or practiced 'tough girl' ease can hide the juvenile trust in her eye as she looks over her shoulder,

'Please. It kinda hurts. Just fuck me and make it stop. It's so....much.'

Rust could be sick as he pushes herself into her heat and she fucking whimpers. The room is filled with the sound of skin slapping; he's being too rough. He can see the poor thing desperately gripping onto the soiled mattress as she grips onto her hips, leaving more bruises. Good. Let it hurt. I want to see it. Don't let me forget what I've done to her, Rust thinks. Cassandra opens her legs wider and sinks deeper into the mattress, practically limp from pleasure except for her hips which firmly meet his thrusts and the trembling of her thighs. A shaky hand comes to rub the nub at the apex of her thighs,

'Jesus-fuck,' she chokes out, a tear dripping down her face as her first orgasm hits while Rust is still inside of her. The stretch of him compared with the intense pulsating of her walls becoming borderline painful. Rust clenches his jaw, not one to succumb to tight pussy that easy. He runs a hand up her spine, along the smooth outlines of her vertebrae,

'You need to eat more, baby,' through a grunt.

'There's-fuck-there's no fucking way you're lecturing me right now,' she gasps out, squealing when Rust's hand slips down from the base of her spine to caress her little nub, himself.

'No, no, it's still too sensitive,' Cassandra says, trying to squirm away. Rust isn't in the fucking mood, though; just wanting to keep her drunk off of sex and drugs until he makes himself come as fast as possible, and get her the fuck out of here.

'Shut the fuck up and take it. I ain't askin' you to do a goddamn thing but lie there and fuckin' take what I give you,' Rust mutters, voice thick with exertion and the crescendo of his orgasm.

'But-'

A loud smack on her ass shuts her up,

'Stay. Still.'

And she does, letting out lewd moans as he fucks into her, watching her arousal literally drip out of her. His course hair semi-rubbing against her clit is enough to bring Cassandra to come as Rust reach his own orgasm, grunting and wallowing in self-disgust as he watches himself seep out of her. The sight, had it been in another circumstance, would have probably turned him own: the milky fluid running down those tanned thighs. In this case, it only cements that anti-natalism that has started to permanently solidify itself in his psyche. That an act as brutal and exploitative can qualify as the origins of a pure, innocent life which will be subjected to similarly brutal and exploitative things. Fuck it. Fuck this goddamn filth and squalor of a world. As he stands up, pulling up his boxers and jeans simultaneously, Cassandra is lying crumpled on the mattress. As if the seduction of drug induced stupor has been ripped away, she reaches between her legs and scoops up the mix of their arousals, wincing slightly due to the extreme sensitivity. The copious slick coats her fingers and Rust is unsure of the vacant expression on her face; usually, she would've made a show of licking it off, slowly and staring him right in the eye. Now, she bursts into tears. Rust doesn't know what to do but dress the poor girl. She's fucking terrified, he thinks, She doesn't want a hug or a kiss, she needs to feel some semblance of control, again. Slowly, he eases her off of the mattress, trying to ignore the stab in his gut when she initially flinches.

'Easy, easy, baby,' he murmurs to her, for the second time that night.

He slides on her underwear, cleaning up the trail of his cum with a pack of Kleenexes that Cassandra keeps in her pocket, another devastatingly intimate detail that only amplifies his self-loathing On goes the rest of her clothing: shorts, bra and tank top, all the while with silent tears running down Cassandra's face. Rust guides her out of the room, pressed tightly against his side, as he guides her through the heady haze of cigarette smoke and acrid sweat on leather balsam that characterises the Iron Crusaders' clubhouse. Some stare, others wink at him or smack him on the back in congratulations, no doubt at Cassandra's tear-stained face and shaking legs. She keeps twitching and rubbing at her nose, the drugs fizzing in her nose are probably turning her capillaries to mangled, bloody sludge. Rust reminds himself to give her a towel tonight to staunch any possible nosebleeds. The air is cloying and humid when they exit, like you could eat it with a spoon; while the nocturnal sounds of cicadas and bullfrogs paint a deceptively picturesque scene. Rust leads Cassandra over to the Harley, going to ease her leg over the seat before she sharply interjects,

'I can do this shit for myself.'

'I know you can,' Rust replies, stiffly but in a soft tone.

'I can do this shit for myself and handle myself, I-I can-' her train of speech, almost a mantra, is cut off by big shuddering sobs. Rust looks her in the eye and sees that 18 year old again, showing up to the strip club for the first time in a freshly washed set, smelling of fresh cotton, with a need to make rent, that 15 year old knowing that if she wears that dress to the mechanic he'll probably give her a discount on her daddy's oil change, money that can go towards keeping the lights on, that 10 year old girl sitting on cold bathroom tiles at 2am, telling herself that her daddy won't hit her cause he's her daddy. A girl who has always known how things need to be handled and has no qualms about getting her hands dirty in the lurid shit expected of a young girl at the mercy of poverty and men.

'I know,' Rust mutters, getting on himself, and guiding her to wrapping her arms around him. It doesn't surprise him when she holds on for dear life, wrapping her arms around his torso and taking deep inhales of the smell of his biker jacket, as the engine rumbles to life. This tranquility lasts for a couple minutes before Cassandra is digging her nails into his neck, shouting Pull the fuck over against the wind. Rust obliges and watches as she scrambles off to vomit on the edge of the road, crumpling to her knees in the process. He doesn't get much closer, watching her cooly from the Harley which is parked on the side of the dark road. After a few more retches and dry heaves, Cassandra turns to regard him over her shoulder, still hunched on her knees. A look in which Rust sees hatred, fear, rage and a morbid sense of almost respect. She spits the last remnants of sick out into the foliage before speaking,

'I don't know who the fuck you are, Crash, and I don't want to know. You read all those fucking books, you never talk about yourself, you ain't like the other Iron Crusaders. I can see it in your eyes when they spew that chauvinistic, white supremacist bullshit that you can't fucking stand them. You have your own twisted and oblique set of rules for yourself which you never deviate from. You ain't a fucking biker, not like these ones.'

Rust looks at her cooly, 'You threatenin' me with somethin', Cass?'

'No. I told you: I don't want to know. Only thing it's gonna do is get me into deeper shit.'

'So, why are you telling me this?'

'Cause I want you to know that I ain't stupid.'

'I know you ain't stupid, Cass.'

'And I ain't okay with what happened tonight.'

'Neither am I.'

She starts to work herself up again, her breaths becoming fast and shaky, 'I ain't safe here. I ain't never been safe anywhere but I definitely ain't, here. Tonight proved that.'

'Tonight proved a lot,' Rust replies, a trace of self-loathing evident in his tone, 'I'm a bad man, Cass.'

'I know.'

'So, what the fuck are you doin'?'

'I don't give a fuck if you're a bad man. I've spent my life around them. I just need to know that you'll keep me fucking safe. That's it. I just need to know that you can keep all those other bad men away, like those tonight,' she's now crying again, voice thick with it as she asks,

'Can you keep me safe, Rust?'

Rust looks at Cassandra, taking a look at her pathetic form and plea. He recalls reading something that Nietzsche wrote: eternal return. Does he want to do this action an infinite amount of times, into perennial continuity. He knows his answer, what he wants to reply an infinite amount of times over, he has a duty here,

'Yes.'

[sparklingmineraltequila]

American Wasteland

Note: Part three. I realised I never specified an exact timeframe so I'm clarifying that this is the last few year/months of him being undercover, about '94 Rust. I'm an ao3 girl so I'm figuring out how to lay fics out on Tumblr. Deeply appreciate everyone who's reading

Warnings: Drugs, drinking, swearing, smut insinuations and references to past violence but it is a True Detective fic, so

'Do you think we can ever truly talk about God?' Cassandra pipes up, as she's smearing herself in her pre-work lather of coco butter. When the sheen of the grease hits the light, it emphasises the taught expanse of her stomach and the tendons in her calfs. An amalgamation of divinity and delicate mortality; the pathetic fragility of the flesh, blood, skin and bones all knotted together, craving cosmic importance. 'Our soul, if there even exists such a thing,' Rust thinks, 'is just a ghost in a machine.'

Rust glances over to where she is standing in a matching lace, navy set, leg elegantly poised on the counter as she continues smoothing the ointment onto herself. He's lying on the mattress, still fully clothed, as he pinches his cigarette and stares back up to the ceiling. The events of the past few days, a visit to a meth lab in Galveston with Ginger followed by a drug and booze binge, have fucked his cognitive workings into a scramble of old memories and new sounds: the smell of gunpowder on his biker jacket, Cassandra's absent minded humming of an old Willie Nelson song, the brown sludge in his nail beds from when he was draining his Harley's oil, the black grease mixing with the residue of the red, Texan dust. He wills himself to give her a semi-coherent answer,

'I don't believe there's anyone there to talk to,' he drawls.

'I said about, not to.'

'What's your point, Cass? I ain't got the fuckin' will, tonight.' Rust thinks he can feel the chemical reactions behind his eyes; his enzymes breaking down proteins, the Speed throbbing through his neurotransmitters.

She rolls her eyes at him as she swaps leg, 'Chill out, I'm only wondering what you think. You know I value your opinion.'

He stiffens at that. 'Don't do this, baby,' he thinks 'It ain't worth whatever you think it is.' She's been doing this more often, letting that docility seep through the crevices of her impassible constitution. She hates herself for it, he can hear it in the acerbic tinge of her words, when she says shit like that to him. Sometimes, when he really concentrates at the expression in those dark pools of her eyes, he knows she believes she has deserved every horrific thing that has ever happened to her.

'I ain't really got an opinion on this matter, yet,' he says through an exhale of smoke, 'Why don't you tell me yours?'

'I know why, like, logistically we talk about God in modern languages, that's self explanatory. But it feels wrong, like we're corrupting the actual concept of a god.'

Rust doesn't look at her but says, 'Go on.'

'I think speaking about God in a dead language preserves him. Dead languages are frozen in time: absolute. They don't allow the transmutation or fucking corruption that modern languages do which are always evolving with dialects and younger generations,' she pauses, slipping her leg down from the counter as she slides her loose Budweiser t-shirt over her body, much to Rust's dismay. She continues,

'Also, on a more personal, aesthetic note, I think worship sounds a lot more metal in a language that isn't the one I use to order at fuckin' Waffle House.'

Rust snorts at that. He hears the slight smile in her voice as she replies,

'I know it sounds dumb when I condense it like that but that's literally my entire point. Worship is so often so dependent on the words we use and we venerate God in the same language that the televangelists or politicians use to con people on TV, the one that the girls at work use to sweet talk a customer into a lap dance? Seems fucked and incoherent to me.'

'I'm sure you can do that shit in a dead language too.'

'Nah, they existed before us. Whatever we try to imbue them with means fuckall, they don't participate in the reality of our information anymore.'

That gets him to sit up, the conversation staring to sober him up, 'Reality of information, huh? You've been stealing my books again, Cass?' a trace of a smirk on his lips. She huffs at him, stood in the middle of trailer,

'You were gone for three days and class is off for Spring Break, what the hell else was I supposed to do?'

'Buy some decent nightwear?' he remarks dryly. The reference to another one of her seduction tactics gets a mischievous smile from Cassandra . The past couple of weeks, she has been going to bed in some very short and, sometimes, very sheer nightdresses. Despite having made the chivalrous choice of sleeping on the floor of the trailer, chivalry being a virtue Rust is largely unacquainted with these days, his isn't unaffected by the sight of her sprawled out, almost beside him. Especially, when the nightdress naturally rides up during the night; a factor that has forced him to take too many a late night smokes outside.

'Nah, not when I know you enjoy it so much.'

'Cassandra,' Rust warns.

'Shit, full name?' she teases, 'You know, you're the only person who I let call me Cass.' She walks towards him, crawling onto the mattress and lying down next to him to look up at the ceiling. Rust doesn't move, not a goddamn inch. 'She'll know,' he thinks, 'Fuck, she probably already does.' Girls like Cassandra, girls too sexy and too tough for their age, always know. They have to. Growing up in a trailers, apartments and halfway houses, knowing that their tips which become their meals are based on how long they'll allow a drunk patron to stare at their tits or pat their asses as they serve them. They can smell male attraction from a mile off, tongues running over canines in mouths addled with whiskey and cigarettes. Oh yeah, they can tell and they know exactly how to play that game.

Rust wonders if he should feel some resentment towards her for it. He doesn't.

'Oh yeah?' he mutters, unimpressed.

'Yeah.'

'Lucky me.'

'You are. You know how many of your brothers would kill to give me a nickname?'

'Sounds to me like they already do,' his tone being harsher than he intended.

She goes silent and Rust hates himself more now than he did the other day, when he smashed a meth cook's head into a sink 14 times for screwing the Iron Crusaders' supply. The fragments of teeth and filaments of saliva mixed with blood that were left in the sink have nothing on the current look in Cassandra's eye.

'Don't be an asshole, Crash. You know I don't enjoy any of it,' her voice hoarse.

For the first time this evening, he looks her in the eye. 'I know,' tone steady but with a trace of true acknowledgment. Cassandra picks up on it, nodding her head. In these two innocuous actions, both have apologised and are forgiven. She stands up and grabs her duffel bag,

'You gonna swing by, tonight?'

He fucking wants to. Badly. He'd stomach the neon lights fucking with his Synesthesia, the lurid couches and the other Crusaders betting on how well each girl would 'take it'. He'd endure the fucking mire just to have Cassandra looking at him when she's on stage, the lights making her white smile a cool lilac.

'Nah. Can't tonight. Something at the clubhouse.'

'Oh, ok.'

'Poor kid. Like a kicked puppy,' he thinks. For the second time tonight, he can't stand that look in her eyes. He offers,

'You want a ride to work, baby? I'm headed in that direction, anyway.'

Something shifts slightly in her eye. The ball is back in her court. She savours it, rolls it over her tongue as victory coats it in something sweet and tart. Never one to show mercy, Cassandra toys with him,

'You'd give me a ride even if you weren't headed anywhere.'

Rust scoffs, fixing her with a look of chagrin; gleam of affection ,almost, trepidation in his eyes,

'I know, baby. I know.'