#something that would flesh out his character

[suzdin]

Home Is Wherever I’m With You

Joel Miller x f!reader

Summary: After the tragic loss of your father and home, you find yourself at the mercy of a cold, detached stranger who holds your fate in his hands during a violent snowstorm.

Notes: okay fair warning, I started writing this when I was feeling extremely low, and finished it several weeks later when I was doing better, so if it seems disjointed and sloppily thrown together, that’s why! But I swear there’s a happy ending!

Warnings: ANGST!!! I cannot stress the amount of angst. Suicidal thoughts and ideation, especially at the beginning. Alcohol consumption. Main character deaths; all of them. Lots of depression and poor mental health, mostly with Joel. Angsty!Joel, asshole!Joel, soft!Joel, semi-dom!Joel, protective!Joel, masturbation (m), oral (f receiving), face riding, unprotected p in v, creampie, biting/marking, pregnancy heavily hinted at, more angst

Word Count: 7,100+

dividers provided by: @saradika-graphics ❣️

Tags: @ohheypedrito @kateispunk @kellybelly1978 @berryispunk @chronically-ghosted @morallyinept @natdeandar @guelyury @daddy-dins-girl

Joel crouches in front of the old cast iron stove, his knees groaning in protest as he stokes the embers within using an extra scrap of wood.

He doesn’t know why he’s going through the trouble. It isn’t like he’ll be around much longer. Maybe he just wants to feel warmth one last time before he does it. And this time, he won’t miss.

He’ll be cold soon enough anyway.

He gets the fire breathing again, closing the hatch and settling back into the old leather recliner in the corner, worn and cracking with age, much like himself.

He palms the neck on a bottle of bourbon, taking a hefty swig and wiping his lips with the back of his hand, his face crinkling in rumination as he watches the flames dance behind slats of iron.

Sarah. Tess. Tommy. And then Ellie. He had failed each and every one of them; those he claimed to love, who he vowed to keep safe. He had let them down. He had let himself down.

He takes another pull on the bottle and sets it down heavily on the table next to him, replacing it with his Smith & Wesson, heavy digits curling around the grip.

He traces the scar on his temple with the point of his index finger, feeling the faint indentation in the flesh; a constant reminder of yet another failure.

He lowers his hand back to the revolver, finger circling the trigger guard, dark eyes downcast as he attempts to summon the strength to do what he needs to do. Again.

His hand tremors as he lifts the gun and presses the cold barrel to his temple, thumb cocking the hammer back with a hollow metallic clunk that resonates through his skull and soul.

“C’mon, Joel. Get yourself fucking together for once.”

His eyes close, nose scrunched in a deep scowl.

Just do it, Joel. Pull the fucking trigger.

The ball of his index finger curves around the bend of the trigger, twitching with indecision when the back door to the cabin abruptly flies open, temporarily snapping him out of his psychosis.

It’s just the wind. That’s all it is. A gust of wind from the incoming snowstorm.

He doesn’t move from his space on the recliner. The cold won’t matter in a few seconds anyway. He lifts the barrel to his temple again, aligning it just right…

The back door clicks shut. It wasn’t slammed, like the wind would have done had it been the culprit. It very audibly clicked. Like someone or something shut it themselves.

Immediately following the click, he hears the unmistakable scrape of boots on wood, the revolver lowering from offensive to defensive position.

No sooner do you get the door closed that you notice a faint flicker of light from the adjoining room, your heart beginning to thrum like a jackhammer in your chest. From the outside, in your weary state, the dilapidated old cabin looked abandoned as far as you could tell, realizing too late that it isn’t.

But now you’ve stumbled into someone’s den, and they could very well be armed and aiming to shoot. They could even be cannibals for all you know.

You could leave. You could just leave and pretend this never happened. But you haven’t seen any other shelters for miles… and the storm was only going to get worse.

“Who’s there?” a gruff male voice calls out from the other room, breaking through the stifling silence. You go stock still on instinct, your hackles bristled along your spine.

When you’re able to gather your bearings, you respond with your name, your vocal cords numb and strained from the cold.

“I mean no harm. I just need a place to sleep out of the storm. I promise to leave at first light,” you quickly add.

Joel stiffens when he hears a woman’s voice, his finger still circling the trigger guard as it had only moments before when the gun was trained on himself.

“Are you armed?”

“Just a small pistol and a jack knife. And I’m out of ammo,” you call back truthfully.

Everything is quiet for a moment aside from the crackle of flame and the howl of wind that rattles the windows and bends the outer wood. The silence between you and the unseen man feels like it stretches on for ages.

“Approach the door with your hands raised. An’ when I say, slide the gun and knife over to me.”

“Alright,” you reply quietly, approaching the ajar door in front of you, hands already skyward, kicking the door the rest of the way open with the toe of your boot.

You step forward two paces into the room, the scent of alcohol stinging your nostrils, your gaze settling on a haggard looking man in the furthest corner from you. His hair is wild and askew, eyes sunken in like a corpse, recognizing the hopeless glint behind them; no doubt a reflection of your own. A large pistol is clutched in his meaty fist, cocked and aimed.

“Gun first. Then the knife,” Joel says, his brow angled downward in a dark line, shading the even darker set of eyes.

You keep one hand in the air as the other reaches into the band of your jeans, removing the pistol and sliding it to him, stilling as it hits his boot.

He picks it up, discharging the clip to find that it is indeed empty, as you had claimed. He sets it next to the bourbon.

You slide the knife next, an average, run of the mill jack knife with a four inch blade. He inspects it, noticing a few remnants of blood still tarnishing the steel.

“Who’d you kill with this?”

“I used it to skin hares and squirrels.”

His face pinches with confusion, tilting his head at you like a dog hearing an unknown sound for the first time.

“Y’skinned hares and squirrels with a jack knife?” he questions doubtfully.

“It’s all I had,” you explain.

Joel eyes you warily. You’re definitely not dressed or equipped for this kind of weather. The only thing that seems to be keeping you warm is a thin hoodie, a regular set of jeans, and a pair of boots soaked through with snow.

He sighs. He isn’t going to kill himself with you here. He may not be the nicest or most caring man in the world, but he isn’t about to traumatize you. He’ll wait until you leave. You said you’d leave at first light.

In the meantime, he has to deal with someone being in his space, which he doesn’t exactly want to do, especially in his last hours. But he isn’t about sending you to your death, either. You probably have more to live for than he does.

“Here,” he says, kicking an old wicker chair toward you. “Your feet’re soaked. Take off your boots and warm your feet ‘fore you get frostbite.”

You lower your arms and take a cautious step forward, and then another, slowly sinking into the flimsy and rotten chair, bending to unlace and remove your boots.

You try to wiggle your toes but they won’t move, at least not yet. Joel watches with a scrutinizing glare, his hand still on the Smith & Wesson in his lap.

“What’s your name?” you ask him, pushing your boots aside.

“Ain’t important.”

You cast him a look but don’t press, scooting your sore and frozen feet closer to the stove, feeling yourself starting to slowly defrost.

You thank him for letting you stay.

He ignores your gratitude, dark browns drifting over your frame.

“Where’d you come from?” he asks.

“Ain’t important,” you counter, casting him another glance.

He leans forward, planting his elbows on his knees, pinning you with a deep scowl.

“I’m the one with the gun,” he chides in a deep timbre, his tone brooking no room for protest. “Guns,” he quickly amends.

Your eyes lock with his momentarily, assessing his conviction before deciding not to test it.

“A settlement near Billings.”

“Alone?”

“Yes.”

He leans back, his gaze unmoving, letting out a breath through his nose.

“An’ exactly what prompted you to run out into a snowstorm with just a hoodie and no supplies?” he asks.

You flinch as if he’d just backhanded you, averting your gaze. If you were looking, you might notice his face softening, if only just a hair.

“Raiders came into our settlement. My father… he gave me the pistol and distracted them while I snuck under a gap in the fence. I didn’t have time to grab anything else,” you tell him.

“And your dad?” Joel asks delicately.

“Didn’t make it out,” you reply grimly, your body beginning to tremor, a combination of repressed emotion and your muscles beginning to thaw.

Joel falls silent, absorbing your words as truth. He can’t find a reason that you would lie about something like that.

“I’m sorry,” he sympathizes, his voice gentling.

You bring your knees to your chest, your chin resting between them, arms wrapped around your shins.

“Thank you,” you say again, your voice hardly above a whisper.

——

Your eyes snap open, realizing you must have drifted off at some point, finding yourself curled into a fetal position directly in front of the dying fire.

A blanket you’re sure wasn’t there before is wrapped around your frame. You’ve no idea where it came from, it’s a bit scratchy and smells funky, but what matters is it’s warm, subconsciously pulling it tighter around your shoulders when you feel a chilled breeze brush over you through the cracks in the wall.

“Mornin’,” Joel hums softly above you.

“Morning,” you echo, shifting as your eyes scan the room, the cabin just as dark and cloaked in shadow as when you arrived. You’re unsure how he knows what time of day it is, but you decide not to question it.

He’s in almost the exact position in the old recliner as the previous evening, his hand unmoving from the revolver still in his lap. You can’t help but wonder if he had any rest at all, not sure if him watching you sleep should be comforting or disconcerting.

You sit up with a stretch, your joints crackling like twigs as you work out the aches of not only having traveled this far on foot, but also sleeping on a hard wooden floor all night.

Better than freezing to death, you decide.

You scoot until your back is flush with the wall, leaning against it as you silently study Joel.

“Thank you for the blanket—“ you begin, but he quickly cuts you off with a hard glare, nudging your dried out boots to you with his foot.

“Boots’re dry. It’s morning. ‘bout time for you to leave,” he says, his voice low and rough.

It dawns on you that it’s still dark because the storm hasn’t lessened at all, banks of snow clogging the windows and doors, blocking out what little available sunlight there is.

Your brow knits together and you cast him a wary glance, bottom lip trembling.

“But it… it’s…”

“The deal was first light, darlin’, and I’ve given you plenty more than that.”

“Please… just… a few more hours? Until the storm dies down some?” you plead, tears pricking at the backs of your eyes, preemptively threatening to freeze your eyelids together.

He’s silent and contemplative for what you feel is longer than necessary, a muscle fluttering in his jaw.

He knows he should send you away, even if it means a certain death. He can’t have you here, swimming in his grief, prolonging the inevitable.

The other option, of course, is to shoot you and then himself, a swift and merciful death that you deserve far more than he does. His fist tightens around the butt of the revolver, an action that does not go unnoticed by you.

“No,” he says plainly.

“Please, I’ll do anything,” you say, your voice cracking with emotion and desperation, shifting to your knees as you shuffle a few inches closer to his chair. He did give you a blanket, so there is a human being in there somewhere. “I can’t—“

“I can barely take care of myself, much less another person. Ain’t nothing you can offer me, nothing to barter with—“

“I’ll let you keep my gun and knife. Please. Just a few more hours…”

His jaw ticks again. Your odds are already low as is, but liberating you of your only means of defense, your only means of perhaps obtaining a meal, if only a meager squirrel or hare, would completely diminish any shred of a chance you have left.

He could give you his one and only jacket. Not that he’s going to need it after you leave, anyway.

“No,” he says again, more sternly than before.

His gaze is unmoving from yours, the slow, steady circling of his pointer finger on the edge of the trigger guard doing little to settle your nerves, the conflict apparent behind his dark eyes.

You know you don’t have much to offer. You’re not great at hunting. You’d exhausted your entire clip on what barely qualifies as a meal, leaving you with very little sustenance once the bullet had almost completely obliterated any viable meat.

You can’t fight or shoot worth a damn, either. Your father had tried to teach you in vain, his frustration with you growing to a fever pitch over the years, but it had never been your forte.

Because you never thought you’d have to live without him.

You can scout. Gather. Keep the cabin up, replace rotting boards and rusting nails, keep it clean and tidy. But not in this weather, and not for a few months yet.

So you default to the last thing you know how to do well. The only thing you know without a shadow of a doubt you’re good at, if any of the men at your settlement had anything to say about it before they perished.

You inch closer, your tired knees scraping against the dirty, splintered wood, hands trembling as you hesitantly reach toward his parted knees.

He anticipates more begging and pleading. Maybe a sob story or two.

What he doesn’t expect is for your hands to grab his belt, the meat of your palm ghosting over his crotch as you fumble to undo the worn rungs of leather.

His cock twitches instinctively and he can’t recall the last time a woman touched him like this. Made him feel anything but dead inside.

He moves with a sudden swiftness that surprises and startles both of you, the hand not currently on the revolver grabbing hold of your wrist like a striking serpent, his grip biting into your delicate bones so roughly you realize how effortless it would be for him to snap your wrist, should he feel so inclined.

He rises to his feet, dragging you with him and giving you a hard, reprimanding shake, teeth bared inches from your face.

It occurs to you seeing him fully upright like this just how tall, how imposing he is; worn, threadbare flannel stretched to its limits across broad shoulders and thick biceps.

“Christ, woman, the hell is wrong with you? What kind of man do you take me for?” he growls, a subtle twang piping up in his voice, his clenched fist releasing your wrist with a minor shove. You stumble backwards, catching yourself on the wall.

His nostrils flare, drawing in a deep, steadying breath, his eyes slipping shut as he tempers his simmering anger… and something else he doesn’t want to acknowledge.

“Fuck,” he grunts, eyes slowly opening again, rough digits carding through his graying curls. “If it means that much to you… you stay until the snow stops, an’ not a second later,” he nearly spits in your face. “Got it?”

When you easily nod in agreement, he stalks out of the room with a huff, every heavy footfall vibrating beneath your feet, slamming the door shut between you, leaving you standing there in the middle of the room, alone and unsure what to feel.

—

Joel goes into the now defunct bathroom, the traditional porcelain toilet that was maybe brand new decades ago currently unusable, the water in the tank and plumbing frozen solid, the pipes under the earth most likely cracked and warped.

He drops trow and leans forward with the flat of one palm against the wall, the other hand gripping himself.

He lets out a shaky breath he wasn’t aware he had been holding in, pissing into the cistern he had dug under the cabin two summers ago, a task only made more difficult by the partial erection he now has thanks to your — albeit brief — touch a few moments ago.

“Fuck, Joel,” he sighs as he empties his bladder, his cock only growing stiffer in his hand as he imagines how good your lips would have felt wrapped around him, what kind of pretty sounds you would have made for him.

“Fuck,” he grits again, cramming his painfully hard erection into his jeans when he’s done.

—

Hours turn to days, days to weeks, weeks to months — “until the snow melts an’ not a day later” — spring not far around the corner, the sun growing brighter and hotter in the sky with each passing day.

Joel’s suicidal ideations were still an ever present plague on his brain, though he kept that part of himself tucked neatly away, as he did most things that were personal and private. He never spoke of Sarah, Ellie, anyone. Never talked about his life before Outbreak.

In turn, you never talked about yours either, aside from what you’d told him the first night, too frightened that you might scare him away simply by opening up, by trying to stitch together what little relationship you had with one another.

The more time you spent with him, the more of a burden you began to feel. It didn’t matter how much you helped out, even if you kept a respectful distance between you, especially when he seemed extra bristly or in his head that day. He was always skulking about, his face pinched in indignation in what you were certain was unspoken hatred for you and your existence.

It was early morning and you were at the edge of the valley, the spot near the treeline that was choked with underbrush, gathering pathetically small handfuls of wild strawberries and huckleberries that were just beginning to fruit. Definitely not enough to have much impact on your aching bellies, but it could be supplemental to whatever protein Joel could scrounge up, which hadn’t been much as of late.

You wipe a fresh layer of sweat from your brow despite the air still being bitterly cold, collecting what meager pittance of berries you can, sucking in a breath of air as you steeled your nerves to head back to the cabin.

—

Joel’s door is still closed when you return. Not surprising, considering how early you’d gotten up that morning, Joel likely still exhausted and aching from the ineffectual hunting trip the previous day.

You place the berries into a bowl on the counter, your fingers curling into the peeling linoleum as you stare out the window that overlooks the southern end of the valley, sun cresting through the twisted and gnarled branches of still-bare trees.

You’ve been milling around the idea of leaving for weeks now. You’ve come close to doing so several times, knowing it would make Joel happy to not have you on his mind or in his space anymore.

Your hand hovers near the hunting rifle slanted against the wall, ultimately deciding against it as you tuck your pistol and knife into your pants, tossing half of the berries into a bag and shrugging on the jacket Joel had found for you on a hunting trip.

You take a final glance at his door before sucking in another sharp breath, opening and closing the back door for what you assume to be the last time.

—

Joel hears you return only to leave again a few minutes later. He thinks little of it, something you do frequently throughout the day when foraging or inspecting snares.

He wishes he could express his gratitude to you, thank you for how much you help out. How much you’ve improved his life just by being here. It kills him to see how you shrink away every time he enters the room, but he understands why. He hasn’t given you a reason not to.

Once he’s sure you’re out of earshot, he resumes pumping himself, hips bucking into his fist seconds before spurting hot ribbons of come onto his lower abdomen, eyes rolling back in his skull, your name a curse on his tongue as he imagines your mouth working him over in place of his fist.

As much as he’s wanted to touch you, sink himself into you every night, he’s been too afraid. Afraid to even speak to you, afraid of becoming attached only to lose you, like he’s lost all the others.

—

When you don’t return by mid day, he begins to worry.

He tries not to. He tries to tell himself maybe you decided to forage a little longer than usual, or maybe you’re at the river searching for freshwater clams since the weather is slowly beginning to warm.

Still, he can’t shake the feeling that something is off. That something is wrong.

He finds the bowl of fresh berries on the counter, evident that you had been foraging at least part of the day. But it didn’t feel right. It wasn’t good enough for him.

When you don’t return by nightfall, he knows without a shadow of a doubt that something is wrong.

This isn’t you.

—

Two days pass and you realize just how badly you fucked up.

The berries barely made a dent in your hunger and the only other food you managed to find were a few wild mushrooms that you’re pretty sure weren’t the edible kind, if the half gallon of resulting vomit an hour later was any sort of indication.

You fucked up. You fucked up royally and you miss the cabin. You miss the warm stove and the bed Joel made for you close to the fire. You miss how he always kept you fed and protected, even if you’re certain he hates you.

You miss Joel. You miss his grunts, you miss the way his face pinches when he glowers. You miss what he looks like when he chews, almost like he’s angry at his food somehow. You miss his smell when he comes home covered in grime and sweat from a full day of hunting.

Dusk has fallen on your second day without food or water, your bones feeling like powder and your muscles like jelly. You’re exhausted, head pounding with a combination of fatigue and hunger as you take shelter from the wind in a small outcropping of rocks, wishing he was here with you.

You’ll go back tomorrow, you decide.

—

Joel watches the sun sink behind the horizon of trees, cloaking the surrounding forest in near darkness.

He knows he should stop to rest for the night. Like you, he left in a rush without grabbing much in way of supplies or sustenance, but had been lucky to graze a buck that he was passively tracking while searching for you. He’ll likely find it soon.

He periodically came across fresh deer imprints in the earth, clean tracks slowly changing to drag marks, indicating the buck was either dead or close to death.

But you were constantly at the forefront of his mind. You were his focus. His reason to keep going. His reason for continuing to live.

And when he finds a perfect indentation of your left boot moments before the sun lowers completely from the sky, he knows he can’t afford to stop now.

—

It’s still dark when you wake up, your eyes coming into focus along the faint edges of what you can see, which isn’t much. Some rocks. Some trees.

You shift, rolling to your opposite side to go back to sleep, tucking your hands under your cheek as a makeshift pillow. A breeze blows over you, made stronger by the funnel of rocks, and you shiver, pulling your jacket tighter.

Snap.

Your eyes fly open again, immediately jumping to your haunches as you palm the pistol next to you.

You train your ears toward the source of the sound, somewhere in the trees, listening intently, your mind on shuffle with all the possibilities of what it could be.

It didn’t sound large enough to be a bear. A puma, perhaps, one who didn’t seem to be hunting you, hopefully, due to how loud the sound was.

Infected? A slim possibility. Rare up here, but not unheard of, which left you with the most likely option: it was human.

You attempt to still your breath, your fist white knuckled around the butt of the gun. It’s too dark to see anything, and all you hear is the soft whistle of the wind.

—

Joel registers the sound of you shifting from somewhere up the incline above him, limbs turning to stone as his mind cycles through all the same scenarios as you.

He lost your tracks halfway through the night, finding himself going in circles, so it’s quite possible it’s not you he’s just stumbled upon.

He slowly removes the rifle from his shoulder, lifting it to half mast in case whomever he’s stumbled across is hostile… or infected.

“I’m armed!” he calls out, lifting the rifle to a defensive position with the butt pressed to his shoulder. “I have no beef with you if you have none with me,” he adds.

You swear your heart stops, tears suddenly stinging your eyes with salt.

“J-Joel?” you whimper, almost imperceptible, but it’s just loud enough.

Joel can only react, unthinking, responding on muscle memory alone as he somehow manages to traverse the steep, rocky incline in seconds without eating it.

You jump upright to your feet, despite how weak you are, and before your brain even has a chance to tell your legs to move, you’re struck by a wall of muscle, thick arms coiling around you and pulling you against his chest.

“Thank god, thank god,” Joel sobs into your hair as he drags you down to the ground with him, his voice softer than you can ever remember, the wetness of his tears soaking through your shirt. “I thought I’d lost you…” he whispers, his voice wavering.

He inhales your scent deeply, his hold on you nearly painful, but you don’t mind, your face against his chest as your own tears start to fall.

—

“I’m sorry,” Joel murmurs softly as you’re walking back the following day, glancing over at you, dark brown eyes gently regarding your side profile in the early morning light. “I’m sorry I made you feel like I don’t care. I just…”

“I know,” you respond, pausing to collect your breath and your thoughts. “I know why you did it. I’m sorry I doubted you. I’m sorry I scared you…”

“Hey,” he says, gently cupping your jaw as he tilts your chin up to meet his gaze, calloused thumb tracing your jawbone, pausing at your bottom lip. “S’okay.”

Your lips pucker, impervious to stop yourself from planting a small kiss to the pad of his thumb as it brushes your lip.

He lets out a low breath, his hand snaking around to the nape of your neck, fingers lacing through your hair as he tugs you closer, lips crashing against yours in a passionate, heated kiss that flows trembling from him with every fiber of withheld emotion and desire.

—

You arrive at the cabin half a day later, impressed but not surprised by how swiftly Joel was able to navigate both of you back safely.

He even successfully locates the downed buck, stiff with rigor mortis and cold, half chewed by a pack of wolves that scatter with a single rifle shot fired over their heads, the large animal now dragging listlessly behind Joel as you finally break through the barrier of trees encasing the valley where the cabin resides.

Smoke still curls from the chimney, fire long gone but embers undoubtedly still hot, and you find yourself smiling. With relief, with anticipation.

You’re exhausted, famished and dirty. Yet you still assist Joel in stringing up what’s left of the buck to the outside of the cabin until he can properly butcher it, feeling obligated to do so after everything that’s happened, despite his protests.

Once the task is complete, you retire to the warmth and comfort of the cabin, curled against his chest, feeling at home for the first time in months.

His fingers idly trace the bow of your spine, both of you falling into a fast sleep for what feels like days on end.

—

“I was so goddamn stupid,” Joel growls softly as his lips chart a path down your soft inner thighs, finding himself grinding his hips into the mattress for relief. “So goddamn stupid an’ bullheaded, an’ I almost lost you for it.”

Your spine arcs instinctually when his breath ghosts tauntingly close to your soaked folds, your fists finding his graying locks with a tug.

“Joel, stop talking and make it up to me,” you whine, earning a disapproving glance from between your legs, but there’s an undercurrent of playfulness behind his eyes.

“Make it up to you, huh?” he purrs, separating your folds and inhaling your natural scent. “By tastin’ this perfect little pussy?”

“Yes,” you whine again, writhing like a worm cooking under the sun in his grasp, your fingers tightening in his hair.

“Uh uh,” he scolds, moving further away from where you’re desperate for him. “Ask nicely.”

His lip curves almost imperceptibly into a sly smirk, his gaze growing a shade darker.

“Please, Joel,” you amend, still wiggling, almost involuntary at this point, his fingers digging into your hips as he pins you against the bed.

“Please what?”

“Please, I need to feel your mouth on my pussy,” you whimper.

His nostrils flare, smirk growing just enough for you to realize you weren’t just seeing things.

He doesn’t waste another second as he dives in with a low, reverberative growl and begins feasting on you like a man starved, his meaty forearm barred across your hip to hold you in place so he can eat you out properly.

His tongue parts your folds, licking a broad stripe up your seam with a groan as he tastes your essence for the first time, moving back down to your opening to tongue fuck you, the ridge of his nose grinding deliciously against your throbbing clit.

You tug harder against his strands with a moan, helping to guide him where you need him most.

Joel grunts your name into your core, eyes locking with yours over your mound, and it takes everything in you not to fall apart right then and there.

He abruptly pulls his mouth from you, making you whine in protest, another smirk notching the corner of his lips as he rolls onto his back, rigid cock swaying slightly with the motion of his hips.

“Get on my face, baby, I need to get deeper,” he says, grabbing your wrist and gesturing you closer.

You don’t even have to give it another thought, scrambling over him, folded knees planted on either side of his head.

He yanks you down abruptly to his waiting and eager mouth before you’re halfway settled, tongue curling into your wet heat with a deep groan that vibrates straight through you.

His fingers dig into the meat of your ass, directing your movements, grinding you against his face as he continues to feast on you like you’re nothing less of a five star meal.

Your hands furl the edge of the headboard, spine arching, and it doesn’t take much longer in this position to be sent over the edge, your orgasm ripping through you like a bolt of lightning, Joel’s name a sacred prayer on your tongue as everything inside of you completely uncoils.

He keeps you there long enough to let you ride out your high, tongue still laving at your spasming walls until it’s too much for you to handle.

You shift off of him, his facial hair glistening with evidence of your release as he pulls you down into a rough, needy kiss, letting you taste yourself, flipping you over and pinning you beneath him, arms caged around your head as he grinds his hardness against you.

“You have no idea how many times I jerked off thinking about you like this,” Joel confesses, nipping at your jaw, then your bottom lip. “How you would feel. How you would taste.” He kisses down to your collarbone, his teeth gently grazing.

“And you have no idea how many times I touched myself thinking about you,” you confess in reply, Joel’s head lifting to meet your eyes at your admission. “I had to bite my lip every night to keep from moaning your name...”

“Fuck…” he growls, settling his pelvis between your thighs, pushing your legs further apart, lifting one to prop against his shoulder.

“You make me feel things I haven’t felt in years,” he rumbles, giving himself a few firm pumps before notching himself at your entrance. “Y’want me to go fast or slow, darlin’?”

A warmth spreads through your chest at the simple act of him asking, knowing it isn’t just mindless sex to him, that he actually cares, if that wasn’t already obvious from how enthusiastically he just ate you out.

“Slow, then hard and fast,” you tell him, earning another deep rumble as he starts to push himself inside of you, fat head stretching your walls.

“Christ, you’re perfect,” he says softly as he steadily gains ground, his hips shuddering with restraint once he bottoms out, sheathing himself fully. “Fuck, darlin’, you’re strangling me,” he grunts. “I don’t know how long I can last...”

The pain of withholding in his voice is palpable.

“Joel, you just made me come super hard,” you tell him. “Don’t hold yourself back just for me.”

His bottom lip juts out and quivers with the thin veil of control he still has, fingertips digging into your hips, crescent moon shapes left behind in your skin.

“Y’sure?” he asks, internal conflict evident in his voice as he rolls his hips half a thrust forward. “‘cause soon as I start, I don’t think I’ll be able to hold back…”

“I’m sure,” you reassure him, letting him hear the conviction in your voice.

He takes in a steadying breath and gently gyrates his hips forward once, twice, his head tilting down to watch the way he disappears inside of you.

It must be the way you’re taking him so well — or maybe it’s the months of not allowing himself to touch you — the thin thread of restraint suddenly fraying after the initial soft, testing thrusts, a barely audible ‘fuck’ escaping his lips seconds before he begins railing into you with everything a man of his age has to give… which is a lot.

Joel’s hand is on your calf, holding your leg flush to his chest, the other on your hip in a bruising hold, watching the way your body sways in rhythm with his motions, teeth bared in concentration.

“Darlin’… I’m… I… where do you want it?” he pants, the question almost sounding pained.

You know you should make him pull out and finish on your stomach. Contraceptives are a rare luxury these days and you’d always made your previous boyfriends pull out. But you can’t stop yourself, the permission spilling from your lips thoughtlessly.

“In… inside…” you whimper in desperation and Joel doesn’t even think to question it.

He collapses on top of you, his hips sputtering and shaking, a deep, guttural snarl sounding from his chest as he spills into you, filling you to the brim with hot jets of spend.

Despite not coming a second time, the sensation of him shooting inside of you still feels good, his warmth filling every crevice it can reach inside of you.

He buries his face against your neck, gingerly taking some of your flesh between his teeth, biting down just hard enough to leave a faint impression.

His hips gradually slow and still, your name a reverent curse on his tongue.

“Christ,” he pants, wrapping you snugly in his burly arms. “Christ, darlin’.”

—

Spring finally reaches the valley, replenishing the land with color and sunlight, allowing you and Joel to wander out further and further every day.

He tells you he wants to find something nicer than the cabin. Somewhere larger, more permanent, even though you’ve told him time and again that you’d prefer to stay.

And you do, for a spell.

That is until you find your body growing more sensitive than usual. Until you find it increasingly difficult to keep some of your meals down, trying to convince Joel it’s nothing, that it’s just a summer cold, when you both know it’s not.

Joel dotes on you, burdens himself over you, knowing exactly what it is without wanting to say it. All the signs are there, almost textbook, unable to keep his memories from drifting back to the days before Sarah was born, how her mother’s symptoms were damn near identical.

He doesn’t dare tell you how scared he is, how much this terrifies him all the the way to his bone marrow, but you know. You see it in his gaze when he looks at you, feel it in his touch when he pulls you against him at night.

—

You’re on a scouting run one warm summer day, Joel hardly more than two feet from you at any given moment, so many unspoken words and feelings still hanging in the air between you.

He reaches for your arm to steady you when your feet slide on a patch of loose rocks, his palm instinctively moving to protect your stomach. You’re almost sure he wasn’t even aware he did it.

“Joel,” you say, placing your hand over his. “I’m alright.”

His brow furrows, silence speaking louder than any words he could say.

He’s reverted into his headspace again, more quiet these last few days than he has been. And it worries you. You hate that he bottles everything up, but you know that confrontation could make him shut down even more.

You begin walking again, his hand absently resting on the small of your back, and you continue down the path in stagnant silence.

Suddenly, Joel stops, eyes squinting to confirm what he’s seeing is real.

A neighborhood.

—

The neighborhood would have been considered a new development before the world went to shit, most of the lots bare and choked with two decades worth of weeds, some houses half built and some finished but likely vacant at the time.

There are only a few that look to have been potentially occupied before everything, three larger homes next to one another in a cul-de-sac at the end of unmanaged, cracked pavement.

There’s not much of interest in the first few homes you inspect, watching the way Joel silently scrutinizes everything as a potential future dwelling, not a single corner left unchecked, his latent instincts as a contractor still well ingrained in him despite the expanse of time.

By mid day, you’re both sweating profusely, Joel moreso than you since he isn’t letting you do much, forcing you to put food and water in your body, brooking no argument when he gives you his ration as well.

He knows you should head back soon before you’re out too late, but there’s still one house left to search and he doesn’t want to make the trip a second time if it isn’t worth the trouble.

The largest house, a two story spruce green craftsman with gray trim, his heart aching with nostalgia at how much it reminds him of his former home in Austin.

You start the same route as with the other houses; from the top, room by room, working your way down, your anxiety growing the lower the sun dips in the sky, knowing you only have a couple hours at best before it’s too late to leave.

The main floors scoured, you follow Joel to the basement, your hands on his shoulders for stability as you slowly work your way down the creaking stairs, your eyes adjusting to the shadows the deeper you travel.

When you’ve reached the bottom, Joel pulls out his flashlight, hitting it against his palm a few times before it flickers to life, the thin beam of light reflecting off the freshly disturbed dust.

You cover your nose and mouth with your shirt to keep out some of the flying particles, watching as Joel stumbles upon a stack of neatly piled and labeled storage totes in the furthest corner from the stairs, adrenaline beginning to course through him like a drug as he reads the faded sharpie scrawled on the sides.

“‘Canned goods and preserves’,” Joel says quietly, his voice higher in pitch than usual, more hopeful. There’s at least four totes labeled canned goods that you can see, possibly more, dates ranging from anywhere from late 2000 to summer of 2003.

He moves slightly to the right, his body tremoring as he examines the next set of totes.

Multiple totes labeled MREs, dated around the same range as the canned goods. He rips the top off of a few of them open to confirm that his eyes aren’t deceiving him, that this isn’t a cruel dream, nearly doubling over when he sees just how real it is.

“Joel?” you ask, concerned, stepping nearer to him when you see him trembling and clutching his chest. “Baby ..?”

He suddenly turns and throws his arms around you, and it dawns on you that he’s crying, he’s crying and trembling, eyes full of happy tears.

“A fucking prepper. A fucking prepper just saved our lives,” he whimpers into your hair, squeezing you against him, and all he can think in that moment is thank fuck for those crazy assholes. Thank fuck for people like Bill.

—

In the weeks that follow, you and Joel clean and repair the house — Joel doing most of the work, per his insistence — but it’s in surprisingly good shape despite its age and lack of upkeep, and even with just the two of you, it doesn’t take as long as you’d expected.

You can’t help but miss the cabin, the natural beauty of the valley. But Joel was right to move you. It’s safer here, more insulated from weather, more space to grow. And perhaps, one day, the cabin can be someone else’s salvation, as it had been for you.

Another night falls on one of the final lingering days of summer, barely able to see the shine of Joel’s eyes in the dim light as he climbs over you, parting your legs with his knee, rumbling low in his chest as he peppers kisses and bites down the column of your neck.

[valentine-cafe]

˖⁺. “ let me love you darkly, slowly ” : 

﹙ top outlaw male x bttm male aristrocrat reader ﹚.𖹭 ݁

. . . verse 9819 alessio x male reader !! 🍒 : ﹙  outlaw  ˖ serial killer ˖ inhuman illusionist  ﹚

the infamous aristrocrat serial killer has your family on his hit list. but it would seem that you are different. will you take his hand and run with him? so that he may love you darkly, slowly.

﹙ cws ﹚: dark romance ˖ explicit content at end ˖ mentions of parental abuse ( towards reader ) ˖ violence ˖ death ˖ penetrative sex ˖ hand job ˖ rough sex ˖ multiple orgasms ˖ alessio uses clones of himself in sex | wc : 0.7k

﹙ receipts ﹚: a dark little piece for our favourite outlaw <3

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Usually, the infamous ace of spades’ knives are always willing and ready to sink into the vulnerable flesh of his next political victims. You were no different, until you were. A precious dove to fly into his life, that he had thought a hawk at first sight, judging by the image of your family across the city.

The youngest son of a famous aristocrat. Whom Alessio had pursued with intent of seduction before death. Yet your heart was made of something more beautiful than gold. Nothing like your father’s. Each smile that graced your lips was a blessing to him, he’d been ashamed of targeting you.

One may wonder why he went for you first and not the man that brought you into this world. Well, the very reason for that is that your entire family were on his list of undertaking, and he decided to go one by one, random pick. And you so happened to be the one the wheel landed on.

Your name was quickly wiped from it, with the blood of your mother splattering the paper. The note he left on her desk wrote:

“Farewell, to the two-faced wench, who advocated hiking medicare prices.” The pencil scratched across her signature, then got stamped with the ace of spades in Alessio’s quick escape.

He’d taken you with him that night. Held your hand tight in his as you ran away from the burning estate. Perhaps it was the unhealthy amount of childhood discipline and reprimanding you had earned as you grew up. You did not really care for the deaths of your family. Your father beat you bloodied and bruised, and your mother tormented you at any possible moment she could.

Your siblings were none the better than them, growing into their toxic behaviour and mannerisms. You refused to let your soul sour the way theirs had. It wasn’t hard to tell right or wrong. It wasn’t hard to really understand what the man you were running away with was doing.

It was no secret, you should have been long gone by now. And you were announced so by the public after the burning of the cold place you called home. With no trace of the family found below the rubble.

Instead, you now occupied yourself with the people of the lower city, aiding the poor and funding your saviour’s organisation with all of the money you had inherited. How they got a hold of it, you weren’t so sure. You didn’t bother questioning.

You found yourself falling for the man that was your executioner turned saviour. A part of you questioned your own morality.

But what was morality when compared to his kisses? What was the meaning or black and white when his hands fixed to your waist and held you so tight against him? Right and wrong be damned. It felt all the same in his arms.

By night, you often found yourself in Alessio’s bed. The air getting knocked out of you when he fucked you from behind. His hand squeezing away at the base of your dick to pump ferally at it. His dick pounding your pretty ass open and eager for him.

“That’s it—” You gasp out in unison to the grunt in your ear, hole and walls fluttering around him. While his arms cage you against the dark bedsheets.

The sight of your bodies intermingled, dimly lit, with a sheen layer of sweat covering your skin, flutters your tumm, as a hand reaches down to direct your face upwards. Helping you watch what he’s doing to you.

“This pretty ass ‘s all mine— All fucking mine-” Rough hands split your legs apart and images of him begin to appear all around you, to touch you, praise you, kiss you.

His powers are incredible in bed. Your head gets loopy by the feel of one of his clones sucking down hard at your throbbing tip. You barely get to process that he yanks yet another orgasm out of you. Cum squirts out on his hand which he brings up to lick away at.

“My pretty little dove,” he groans from above you. Swarming your blissed out face with rough hands to cup your cheeks. His movements hardly halt. Long, hard strokes shake your trembling body.

This. This feels right. Him inside. Him on top of you. All over you. To hell with wrong. You’d take the grey if it meant his warm hands. His intoxicating lips.

“Please.” You quiver.

Alessio can all but grin. His pretty little aristocrat. Now all his.

“Say it again baby,” he hums. “Beg. It suits you far better.”

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[sunshine-and-moonshine]

Conversation Hearts

Requested: No

Warning(s): Implied nsfw, mentions of condoms and lube, mention of nightmares, humping, biting

Summary: Little blurbs for CoD men based on some conversation heart words

Characters: Simon “Ghost” Riley, Johnny “Soap” MacTavish, Kyle “Gaz” Garrick, Alejandro Vargas

Ghost - All Mine

“All mine.” You whispered in his ear, your hands crawling over his skin, a blessing. The touch of a god of love, something so pure and beautiful caressing his mangled flesh. He wasn’t worthy of it, but he craved it all the same. Your touch, your scent, your presence, your love. He wasn’t worthy, but he’d kill everyone else who got close, so that he could keep your attention for just a little bit longer. Ares with his Aphrodite, war and brutality against the soft and beautiful, the disgusting against the perfect.

“Yeah, Luv, I’m all yours.” He echoed, his hands gently cradling your hips, desperate to keep you as close as he could. Aching for your touch like an addict, like he’d die without you so near to him. He didn’t know how he survived before you and he knew he could never do so again now that you were in his life. “Always yours. This heart of mine is yours, til the second it stops beating. When I’m nothin’ more than a pile of ashes and dust in your hands.”

“My my, quite the romantic today, Mr. Riley.” You say with a chuckle, and it rings in his skull like wedding bells. Mr.Riley. He never much cared for his name, not the name that he shared with scum like his father. But you made it sound almost…pleasant. He wanted to hear it more, wanted you to never stop saying it. And maybe, one day, you’d call him by your last name instead. Your name attached at the end of his. He sounded it out in his head, loving every meshed syllable. Wanted to engrave it on his skull so that whoever eventually killed him knew who to send his raw bleeding heart back home to.

Gaz - Cutie Pie

“Cutie pie.” Your voice coos in his ear as he starts to wake up, scratching an itch he didn’t know he had, just by speaking to him. Calming him from the lingering panic of his nightmare before he could even get himself any more worked up. “Angel boy, love of my life.” You whisper again, peppering kisses against the rounded apples of his cheeks, along the line of his jaw, on the bridge of his nose. “Come back to me, Sweetheart. It’s all okay.”

“I’m here.” He whispers, his lips twitching into a smile when he feels your hand slide into his, linking your fingers along his own. “I’m right here, Lovey. I’m okay. Sorry to worry you like that.” He says, running his thumb over your knuckles, feeling the pulse in your palm beat against his own. He could almost convince himself that they were perfectly in sync, as they were meant to be.

“Ain’t gotta be sorry, Sugar Cube.” You tell him, your voice as soft and delicate as the baby feather of a dove. Tickling at his heart, at his soul. Every syllable from your mouth like a love spell made just for him. Perfect in every way that he could think of. Irresistible. More tempting than the secrets of Pandora’s box, and even more satisfying to indulge in. He would die happy, if you were there to talk to him until his eyes shut forever, and he slipped into the dark abyss. “It’s what I’m here for, Baby. Here for you, whenever you need me to be. Now and always, you got that?”

Soap - I Love You

“I love you.” Soap whispered against the curve of your throat, trailing his lips down your clavicle, over the slope of your shoulder. “I love ya so much, mah bonnie darlin.” He ran his hands down your sides, in the dip of your waist and over the arch of your hips, over your trembling thighs, your body shaking with emotions that you couldn’t even begin to place. Couldn’t begin to put names to. You weren’t sure you’d even be able to place them if you had a perfectly clear mind.

“I lo-love you too, Baby.” You whine, hips jerking against the soft pudge of his belly when he squeezed the fattest part of your thighs and runs his teeth over your collarbone in the faintest imitation of a bite, so unlike the deep feral ones he usually left along your body. Your legs kicked uselessly against his thighs, your back rising in a perfect arch, mouth agape with a soft choked noise that made him chuckle against your flesh.

“I love you more.” He says, grinding his throbbing cock against the bed, so violently that the whole mattress shifted up, just a little. His lips rolled up, baring his teeth in a facsimile of a scowl. A beast in the midst of a rut, and you were the prey he’d chosen to pin beneath the weight of his paw. “Love you more than you could even dream, my darling. My love. My perfect little fucking minx.”

Alejandro Vargas - Kiss Me

“Kiss me.” You giggle, eyes peering at him like you could find the secrets of the universe resting in his eyes. He smirked, tilting his head and arching his brow at you, staying silent for a long moment just to make it seem like he was thinking about it when you both knew that he was just going to dive in anyways. “Ale, kiss me.” You say again, with more force in your tone, grasping at the collar of his button down shirt and pulling him closer. “I need you to kiss me, Tesoro.” You whisper, brushing your lips against his.

“Te amo, Mi Corazon.” Alejandro snarled against your lips before fully leaning in, his teeth knocking against yours for a moment, your noses squished together before he righted himself, turning the action more pleasant, more sweet. Moans and gasps shared between you, out one mouth and into the next. Eyes squeezed shut until he pried himself away, making your whine. But he didn’t go far.

“Happy Valentine’s Day.” He whispered, making your eyes flutter open just in time to see him pull out a tube of chocolate flavored lube and a thick stack of condoms from his back pocket. “How about we celebrate this day the right way, huh?” He says with a wink and a dirty grin, barely even giving you a chance to process his words before he was grabbing at your arms and herding you to the bedroom, laughing the whole way there.

[gnohomotho]

Just a game (part 4) ۶ৎ

Pairing: Hwang In-ho // The Front Man x fem!reader Summary: After losing your consciousness in his arms, you are at the mercy of In-ho, a man you don't, as far as you know, even know the face of. Yet he has shown you more than one, perhaps even his true visage - through the touch and the inner machinations that are tearing at his heart. The rules of the game are slipping, the Front Man is grabbing at control, making sure the field is level for you to be his. It begins with yours, then shifts to In-ho's point of view - double the fun. Warnings: And it is still the God damn Front Man Although darker, the chapter(s) carry an odd amount of fluff along with quite a bit of angst. Quite a bit of voyeurism, descriptions of naked bodies and lust, mentions of SA (very light, only hinted at), touch, need, drugging people, dubious consent at best. Medical malpractice and ignorance of the ethical codex. Word count: 6.4k A/N: I would apologise for the word count, and I will. (ᵕ—ᴗ—) But if I had either, I would really put my heart and soul into this work, so it's not quite the usual gorgeous fanfic that starts fast and ends with hot, steamy, angsty sex and eternal love. I wanted to flesh out characters, from you, to In-ho himself - keep it in character yet write a believable Front Man struggling with both himself, his present, his past, and you - a woman he is falling madly in love with. If you like my work, I appreaciate every single heart // repost // reblog // follow // message! ♥ Thank you! ♥ Link to previous Link to next

Running, running. Tripping. Something catching up. Running. You have to run up. Up! Feet tangled, barbed wire, cannot run, hot, warm, soaking--- A figure in the distance. Clad in white. Run to him. Run to him. Something catching up. Sharp pain. Wet. From stomach down down down. Copper, sticking, limbs, slow. The figure is an illusion. Don’t turn around. Don’t turn around. Darkness. Enveloped. A cape. Over you. Pulled away. Collapsed. Earth. Swallowed. Mud. The cawing of a----

Your eyes flutter open. In the long distance, so far away yet so shrill, you hear the cawing of a crow.

The harshness and fervour trickles through your swollen, heavy mind full of cotton and icy rivers of forgetting.

Groggy, tired, stiff, everything seems so blurry and pushed away from your consciousness. Your hands feel like cold, empty plastic, and you cannot lift them.

The flat light in the ceiling feels awful, all a dream; such a loud, piercing, horrible dream. Saying nothing. Screaming.

In the distance, the crow caws once more, and you grab onto the sound like an anchor to remain grounded. At least enough to assess the damage.

There’s a blanket over you, you wiggle the tips of your toes to feel the fabric all the way down. Thank god. Covered. All covered. Even so, trying to mentally tun through your form, you feel the softness cover something foreign, something that isn’t you. Your skin prickles and repels all it touches.

All it touches. Even you.

Don’t move. In the back of your sleepy mind, no matter how tired, how tranquilized. You know. You know it’s an advantage to play dead or sleeping.

Voices. Seeping in like an echo of static.

“Contacts taken care of…no issues…family? No, of course not…”

“Observation. Rather not....”

A voice you recognize.

“I would be inclined to disagree.”

Footsteps. You close your eyes, hard, and try to steady your heart – it wasn’t catching up to the situation anyway. Everything threatens to spin the moment you see nought but darkness; you could be floating ten miles deep in the ocean. Marine snow and all-encompassing darkness, no breath, no hope, only cold and squids. Suffocating, oppressive, swallowing you whole....back, come back, focus, stay, lights behind your eyelids swirling and blue exchanging black; your ears are ringing, and you seem to be drifting away again until---

Touch. Your plastic hand feels touch.

Electricity momentarily flutters across your fingertips and travels up your forearm. You want nothing more but to pull away, but keep up your pretence. You hear a steadied breath, quiet, controlled. Skipping a tad towards the end of the exhale, as if steadying itself. The presence, the scent, all is familiar yet oddly intertwined. Signals jamming before they reach their destination.

The messages fly but the network is down.

You hear an inhale and what could be a sigh. You’re very unsure whether it is exasperated or elated, but you don’t welcome either.

It makes way for a voice that reminds you of all-concealing frost coating barbed wire.

“Rest. Rest, little one. Everything is being taken care of.”

You feel naked fingers trail up around your knuckles, softly drawing on your skin. They then travel down the back of your hand, following your veins, down to your wrist and back once more. The motion repeats, you feel light nudges of warmth alternating with tingles freezing your neck down to your pillow. Your breath is threatening to give you away, you ever so slightly, unnoticeably open your lips so that your chest remains quiet and does not harbour nor exhale too much air. You're nervous, you're worried, you’re catching fire while submerged in ice please stop, stop touching me, hold me, go away, hold me, I'm scared, I'm scared, kiss me, go away, hold away the cold, go away, go away, hold me, go away...

The errant hand finishes its last motion by enveloping yours entirely, and remaining firmly in place as his other hand joins it around your own.

The slow caressing motion alleviates nothing of your petrified, electrified thoughts and current racing through your chest. The caress touches over, under, holding in secure warmth as it brushes coarse fingertips along your cold skin. Two fingers slowly, slowly leave the sanctuary of your intertwined palms and journey up your arm, stopping at the crane of your joint, and touch something new – circle the little scar – and travel safely down again. Leaving a trail of exposed electrical wiring.

Firm sensations of those errant palms circle yours – touching, teasing, exploring – and clasp around their newfound plastic extremity. Rough to the touch, yet gentle; cold at first, but firmly creating heat against your skin leaving no gap for air or intrusion.

One disadvantage to feigning unconsciousness is only having a single card to play, while the other party holds the entire deck. Hell, the other party is free to choose the game, you can't see nor protest.

A disadvantage you will soon discover.

As you command your chest to fall, your limbs to lay, and your breath to steady, you realise something that sends slow, sharp nails of a chill through your spine.

Silence.

No touch.

No noise.

Your brain threatens to drift again, half in lack of grounding, half in panic. Perhaps one more card is simply known as 'fainting your way out of the problem', though it needs to be played repeatedly and usually ends in a game over.

You hear nothing stretching the moment, then the next, then the next...nothing since the hand slid away from your own and left an icy vacancy spreading across your skin.

༻❁༺

Seconds tick by, no sound.

No other voices.

No steps, no commotion, no normal noises.

This is bad. You figured a hospital would sound like a hospital, you'd even welcome rudeness or cussing, you'd even welcome your family, anything that slightly resembles a maquette of normality – this just emanates kidney theft and human trafficking. Fuck.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

Minutes tick by, had he managed to leave so quietly? Perhaps you misheard. Perhaps you were still groggy and your senses too dull. Perhaps---

Face.

Oh no.

A sensation on your face almost, almost pushes your eyes open – but you catch the flinch at the last second – it seems your tiredness and lack of reflexes add a single card to your deck.

Trying very hard not to squirm or pull away, you begin to feel soft, gentle brushes upon your face. The first brush kisses your cheeks, lingering on your skin as if testing, feeling, trying not to scare a fledgling bird.

Then it begins to trace its warmth down around your cheekbones, threading little shapes along your facial lines; then back again in a very intimate, repetitive motion. There…and back.

There. And back.

Timid, at first, light as if sensing for an exposed wire just below the surface. Longer and reassured as his precise fingers repeat their pendulum-like movements. You tried not to feel nice. But truth be told, if you erased all else, all other variables, the entire scene, it was…

Soft, like the feathers of a baby owl, careful, like the tool of a jeweller dusting a delicate stone, and simply…warm. Caring. Studying.

Affectionate in its detail.

The fingertips slowly circle your eyes and run meticulously along your eyebrows, then return once again to draw light sickles under your eyes. There and back. There and back.

Upon your cheeks, you feel more fingers at once, with more surface area intertwining and dancing with yours. Brushing and caressing, touching as if enjoying the sensation of touch itself for the very first time.

Exploring…curious…

…tender, even.

The tingling sensation moves lower, and you begin to feel the cool tips running down your chin and your jaw, as if he were drawing your portrait with nothing but touch. A single finger copies the shape of your jawbone, and periodically does the same to the other side. Then it repeats the motion with the knuckles of the reverse side of the hand.

The touch grows slower, more pronounced as it travels down your naked neck.

You are trying not to gasp, praying your heart doesn't give you away as his full assured hand rests and traverses your carotid artery, your throat, your tingling muscles threatening to paralyze or spasm or warm to his touch – all at once. He rests upon the vein, its warmth and beating fervour challenging his still, stoic grasp.  

His hand doesn't linger, though, sending a current and brushing all the way down, forcing warmth to pool in your chest, stopping at the crane of your neck and finding the little dips in your collarbones. Gently circling and caressing the skin over and around them.

Once more you feel the more intimate touch of fingertips, reversing their journey up your neck, this time exploring more fervently. You never realised how slim and small your neck feels, now at the mercy of a hand that could simply…push its fingers down and clench. The tingling in your mind latches onto your growing fear, along with the sensation of care and utter helplessness. The lack of control and tranquil panic, as well as a very subdued, likely drug-induced need for more, create an odd ball of electricity that prickles through your chest and stomach, tingles across your ribs and breasts...

The fingers trail up your neck and stop at your jaw once more, this time changing their journey just a tad. You feel a single finger touch the area just above your lips and gently, slowly, ever so slowly trail down upon them, relishing each prolonged second, finally resting upon your mouth. The motion is as soft and light as a butterfly wing flutter, and lingers – then moves to your lower lip – then rests upon your lips’ entirety, exploring and caressing your mouth. Slowly, everso slowly; for a moment you let yourself dissolve into the lack of differentiation between his touch and your body.

If it was fear, perhaps mixed with sudden entirely mixed signals, perhaps the drugs, perhaps the absolute madness of the situation and the days prior, perhaps your condition, perhaps---you were reacting to his touch. Inside, a pool became a current, a slowly awakening tide; and he seemed to harbour a single full moon’s pull in each fingertip.

The sensation of cloth slipping from your skin alert you out of your trance to newly exposed areas grabbed and unwrapped by a sudden tendril of cold air.

This time, you fail to control your reflexes, your entire body tensing and reacting to the shiver that runs through your entire being.

Both the touch and moment cease, abruptly; your lips left cold once more in one swift retraction.

A click of a heel, then another hits the ground. As if he were stepping away. Yet still. Slowly. Quickened heart, errant thoughts, bad scenarios, needs you had buried and mourned a long time ago all try to either scream or calm at once, leading to a very simple short-circuit. How you hated being watched, how you hated being helpless, you think, how you hated being a toy for another old man’s perverted game, as your chest refuses to calm down again. Vulnerable and watched. Exposed. Ashamed. And now. Your disguise is compromised.

This is absolutely an unsatisfactory bitch of a situation, and I truly wish to scream.

But the tiredness clings to you, head spinning in a mixture of chemicals and your own sensations, responses, needs, and fear. In contrast to his touch, false or not, your mind is a battlefield; everyone is bleeding or entirely delirious. Clinging to something, anything, you try to think – this is a reaction, it is expected. The mad ones, shaking, rocking back and forth crying for comfort; perhaps the man with a mind empty living on nothing but twisted memories and dissociation wherein hope itself became a troublesome burden, or the soldier climbing out into machine gun fire to throw grenades into the enemy’s dugout shouting fox-hunting hymns and laughing. All reactions. All understandable. But not mine. Nothing bad is happening. Nothing bad happened. I am so, so, so very stupid. Why did he not hurt me? Why did he not hold me? What the fuck is wrong with me?

Trying not to cry in a situation as messed up as this leaves you a husk. Tired. In the end. You want to go home. Just be safe. Never mind the place does not exist, just…safe.

Death seems safe, could he not had done the kindness of finishing the job? Why drag it out?

Slipping away, now that he is no longer guiding your spirit back to your skin wherever he brings warmth and well-acted care, you try to calm and not replay the prickles of anticipation fingering strings echoing a darker tune within your heart’s chamber.

One more thing worried you. Even before he came in, you tried to wiggle your fingers to feel for fabric and familiarity of finite objects, but it took you...too long. Barely one, two, lifted at all. Your mind was not there – barely visiting – but you hoped at least primal programming would kick in. Yet your hand felt foreign, not there, lifeless, intruding…plastic.

The more you focused on it, the less its edges resembled something corporal. As if you were dissolving in a blurry river eating you up, flesh and bone, in quiet indifference. There was a prickle in your arm, but you could not look nor check to reach it. And it worried you.

Steps away. Growing quieter and quieter, reverberating in the hall away from you.

Finally you let your chest fall in a sigh of nervous, utterly desperate relief – you listen to your own shivers as it lifts and contracts and almost suffocates you in a chaotic rhythm to the beat of your heart which is threatening its own eviction. The sound of your hurried breathing fills the room, and you latch onto it as one of the few molecules of validation of reality itself – you, you being alive, you being absolutely screwed, and you…you being on the brink teetering over.

༻❁༺

More footsteps.

Oh come on. Please. One molestation a day is enough.

But these fall faster, the manner hurried, even, and far heavier and clunkier than the calculated steps of your haptic visitor.

"Y/N?? Y/N?"

Urgent. Muffled. There.

Then quieter, a mixture of assertiveness and obedience, attempting to be polite but unable to reign in the emotions guiding his intonation.

"Are you sure I can come in, I know her code, she always uses the same number...is she alright?!"

Oh no. No. What have you done, Y/N, what have you done...you getting hurt? Fine, your business, your currency. But never collateral, never...you stupid, stupid---get out!

"Are you sure I can see her? I'm not...related or her boyfriend, husband, I just...can I see her? It's urgent, I can tell you all her needs, her medication, I think, just, just please let me see her and see she's ok..."

That voice. The code. Of course, you always filled out hospital forms with the same four-digit code, so that your family, should they even attempt the incredible labour of picking up a phone to check on their daughter, would get no medical nor personal information. The funny thing was, anyone who'd known you for more than five minutes and bothered to listen to you would know that number – it's nothing but a year you hold dear.

Hurried steps and suddenly an urgent stop before you.

"Y/N? Can you hear me? Shit, kurvadopichi, Y/N?"

The voice, muffled by what you hope is only a surgical mask, turns away from you as the sentence concludes. Are you not alone? With a tiny glimpse of hope comes the thing to gouge it right back out of your eyes. Is this an entertaining game?! Steadying yourself at the very least mentally, thinking it’s just another hurdle and then you may act, you rationalize that his frenzied steps masked another set in their wake.

"She's never actually fainted or lost consciousness for long, she lies down and it gets better...what's going on? Can she hear me? Do prdele, Y/N..."

Just as you would move your lips to assure, to warn, to react, your effort comes to a halt in a single fleeting moment.

"She's going to be alright."

Ice. Ice on your back, ice enveloping your shoulders, ice going straight for your tender brain. That voice. It didn’t matter how muffled or how level, how sickeningly in character – that voice, so close to someone you hold dear, destroyed your last speckle of hope with unceremonious indifference. And it continued, teasing in its role. The cards, the game, your dear ones’ safety – all in his hands.

"Just a bit fragile. She took a nasty fall on our walk and in her condition, the doctor was forced to provide a heavier analgesic dose." A soft but serious humm circles your ears and almost makes you sick. “I was concerned, and further examination…proved me quite correct.” His voice seemed as violating as his fingers, his words and their meaning following suit as the realisation slowly dawned on you.

"She should be enjoying a long, deserved rest."

I’ll give you a long-deserved rest---but the softness in your dear friend’s words threads through your make-believe fighting spirit leaving only helpless sadness. You want him to be safe, you want him far away from here, you want to…you want him to go home.

"Can she...hear me? Can she hear the crows at least? Y/N, I'm sorry, I should have done something...I knew it was getting bad, but…” That strong, shaky breath you know so well breaks your heart. This is all your fault, all of it. Your housemate keeps it together quite well, but when he doesn’t…

“I missed you, Y/N, your tea is getting cold, I'll make you ten more if you come home."

The air seemed to stiffen, somehow, the walls swallowing the echo of his tender words. The silence clung heavily to every inch of you, your kind housemate utterly unaware. Oh Lubi, please stop that, stop saying that, digging a grave, digging digging...

“I know you hate being touched, Y/N, I know I made it worse, but imagine I’m holding your hand.”

The atmosphere stiffened further; it could be carved with a butterknife. Your housemate utterly blissfully unaware – but at least your body and your hands remain untouched.

“Just like you held mine two days ago – sitting on that floor – you helped me back from something awful – and you did it smiling. You told me it’s ok. That if it gets bad again, you’ll be there. The hallway will still be there. The floor will still be there. And it’ll be ok. Well, it’s not ok, the hallway is empty, and you’re not there, and I...I know I said a lot, I’m sorry, I didn’t know…”

And you did it high as a kite on pain meds that weren’t doing a thing, terrified that you’re going to fall over, terrified of being selfish and so utterly tired of remaining here, and not at all wishing to touch nor be touched. But you’d do it again and a flame of defiance rose in your still chest. Your friend continued, still entirely unaware but his voice sounded…so worried. Worried about the wrong thing, the wrong person, please get out!

“…And I said you’re going to be a wonderful therapist. Well, you are. But. That lady needs to be alive and conscious, not all your clients can be dead – and I can look after you.” He tried to laugh, but you heard the sadness in his voice, the anxious hope and abandon – heart on his sleeve.

“…We figured out hugs after your first two operations, even if I had to annex a public bench, we can figure anything out. Just come home, please. All the soup. All the tea. All the tenderness.” He’s using our special things, he’s trying to put all our shared gestures and inside language into the room, you realise.

And it works. Pushing that tight, suffocating atmosphere back like a storm cloud faltering in the warm wind, revealing a few speckles of light. Even ending on a word you cherish so much. Tenderness. Tenderness of patient minds. He remembered. You must react, before he gets hurt. Perhaps some kind of signal, something, or just yell at him to get out and call the police as he runs, spring up like a reanimated corpse and warn him---before a voice cuts through the room and pushes your head firmly underwater:

"I don't think she's able to say anything."

The command and threat were so clear they might as well have kicked you in the head.

"If she knows what's good for her delicate state, and the delicate state of you, young man, unfortunately, she won't respond to you."

༻❁༺

Silence. You managed nothing. Little speckles of tears sting in the corners of your eyes.

The bed creaks and its weight shifts, you no longer care if you’re seen nor awake, you are done. The feelings of anticipation and yearning, cut off, replaced by touch hiding poison and likely nothing but possessive depravity won’t leave you. You feel so stupid, so helpless, so useless – now you are worried for your friend, knowing that you put him in direct line of fire while trying to get shot yourself.

“Are you awake, miss Y/N?”

Unmuffled and clear, you would almost welcome the familiarity. Almost. While your brain searches for a hint of danger or reason to discredit – but no. This person did not hurt you, as far as you know. Not directly. He probably had no choice; you heard that voice, you heard the threats aimed at you.

Your eyes slowly open.

From the blurry white background and slowly manifesting reality, the first thing your adjusting eyes truly encounter are two dark, heavy pools, staring directly into you.

The same, darker lips, the polite, resting demeanour, the studious expression conveying patience and concern.

And the lines carved into a face you would have, in a different life, wished to see smile.

No malice rests in those dark pools, no possessiveness. Only calm. He would almost look…troubled, were he not reassuring. You wonder whether he’s reassuring you or himself, and shift in an attempt to lift your body into a sitting position.

You fail as your elbows give in under you with an unceremonious thump. You notice his hand instinctively react but retract almost as fast.

Slowly, as if to convey safety and distance, he moves away from the bed and walks around you, stands ever-so-close, carefully adjusting your pillow without directly touching you. As he is still in your peripheral vision, your arm prickles, though, but you cannot turn your head to see why. Perhaps the cold air of the pillow-moving motion. The arm feels cold, but you’re too enveloped in finally being able to see. And you look away, as gravity hits you again.

“I…I can’t move. My friend. Please…I…don’t hurt him.”

The man gently moves the blanket across your arm again where it fell in your first futile lift attempt, but does not linger and does not touch you. You welcome the gesture, heart melting a tad. Still a frozen, trepidating husk though. He sits at the edge of the bed once more, the blanket firmly dividing you. You managed to shift into a half sitting position, pillow doing most of the work. You feel vulnerable but…momentarily safe. His quiet voice does not disturb that peace, and once more, you feel your heart crack a small piece of ice away. 

“I’m sorry, the boss was only making sure you’re taken care of, including your loved ones. He would prefer them not to worry.”

Nor raise alarms when someone who is never late suddenly racks up a two-day delay.

“So he’s not hurt?”

A crow caws in the distance. You stare at him from your vulnerable position, still almost unable to move your head.

His eyes convey something you…you are surely imagining.

But you would get pulled in, in your desperate, wistful state; should his hand rest on yours now, you would use all the warning lights as a checkpoint for a modicum of safety and care. Helplessness is a feeling you dread, loss of control and swimming with the current a means of survival; yet now you feel your hands tied and the tug of someone at the other end.

And that is worse.

His gaze softens, with a glimmer of something you cannot quite figure out – a spark of something darker, but it disappears like a glint of snow falling off a streetlamp.

“Of course not. The boss decided against doing anything against your will.”

Sure he did. Because all of this screams consent.

“From what he’s shared with me, I understand that violation would not be fair on you. He only intended to give you the best care, and was concerned you would wish against the gesture.”

Your body viscerally reacts to the word, violation…and he’s right, of course. Though you cannot check or move, you know your body very well, and it wasn’t reacting in a way that…reminded you of anything. Hence, the surface level touch and some prickles were the most you can recognize, so far. But you’re not ok. This is not ok. He’s speaking as if this was all fine, as if all this was a gesture of kindness and selfless empathy when it’s the polar opposite. Even tired, your voice carries your doubts and your sincere condemnation of both him and his boss.

“Kind not-named-sir, I can’t move. Someone likely drugged me. Someone threatened my friend in front of me so I would comply. I don’t know what’s going on and I still cannot move.” You leave out the touching for obvious reasons. You try to remain calm, but you wish to scream. His calm, almost thoughtful demeanour fuelling the sense that this situation is wrong. The man shifts, eyes closing and softening a tad. If he was pretending, he must be investing a lot of energy into keeping up the pretence.

“I’m sure the boss did not wish for that, only your safety.” The low humm permeates your ears, almost soothingly so; you study the soft lines in his face and rest upon them, noticing the contrast of his dark hair and stoic visage, which breaks in the pragmatic softness of his tone each time he speaks.

“To be quite honest, if I may…” his dark eyes slowly move and stare at the blanket across your stomach area and you lift your eyebrows, “someone close to him shared your condition. Judging by the scars,” his hand hovers above the left side of your pelvic bone, up a tad, extending a finger in the general area and moving to your stomach, “you share the repeated attempts and lack of results.”

Just as you were warming to his words and finding some solace, water falls on your little fire.

“Please don’t remind me, kind-not-named-sir, those times weren’t nice.” Should have bribed the anaesthesiologist, you half-mumble to yourself. Did you imagine a soft chuckle escape his lips? You feel…odd. Tingly. Light. Restful.

“I know. The boss shared inklings of what you’ve been through. Alone. It makes sense that he chose a lack of violation before any further steps.” His hand retracted, but rested ever-so-slightly against the blanket barrier of your hips. With all you can, you muster and command your right arm to lift, sliding across the surface of the bed, the blanket, and finally, finally able to rest upon and protect your stomach. The gesture seemed to ignite something in your visitor, the same way a crow caw caught your attention – interest, fondness, recognition.

༻❁༺

Further steps.

༻❁༺

Oh, that gesture.

That gesture that first caught his attention, and the fire in those deep, doe eyes that kept it.

Even helpless, more helpless than you knew, you did not give in, not letting him fool or scare you. There was something in your eyes and in the way your body lay, in the way it reacted to his touch ever-so-lightly that truly intrigued him.

In-ho was playing a game, yet felt like a player himself. And for once, the stakes truly were high – there was no protection for him here. He knowingly put something on the line, something in those chips, in those cards sprawled on the table, and unsure of its gravity, he was mindfully reaching for currents knowing they'd slip through his fingers.

Patience, he mused.

Patience, creating a refuge in No Man’s Land, a small dugout barely concealing you, but it was patience and serenity in a moment where you should be panicking and begging. His mind wandered to the moment you fell against him, alone in the room, utterly his to do with as he pleases.

And you looked…serene.

The back of your head fell softly against his hand, and he guided it to his chest. Letting go of the needle, he held you in both his gloved hands – realising how delicate and how tender your features are against his. How utterly his you are right now, how much control he exudes. Slowly those wrinkles of concern disappeared from your forehead, and he rested your head under his chin as his hands almost unwittingly caressed your head through your hair, which fell upon his chest like a cascading river. As you drifted away, you smiled, and he knew his words reached you in the darkness. Smiling, delicate, utterly his.

༻❁༺

In-ho walks through the scenes of you, his mind a current of many rivers traversing and flowing their waters into one undiscernible, all-permeating flood. It’s not confusion, it’s not desire, it’s not nothing, it’s not everything and yet…

“Her kind, not-named sir…” he whispers to himself.

When he saw your body, laying there, helpless…one river, clear and slow, pure and trickling patiently, brought with it slight worry, a twinge of doubt, even...an odd sense of compassion. Almost as if he were doing something…wrong and kicking up mud in such translucent waters.

Perhaps it was the white blanket, the way your hair rested on the pillow, the way your pallor reflected the harsh blue light above you – it felt like a desecration.

In-ho’s mind attempted to bring up his dream, but he firmly pushed it back. His eyes darted to your stomach, though he tried to tell himself it was merely interest. He already gave you such kindness, such benevolence; interest should be the least of his transgressions. Trailing dark eyes down the convex dip between your pelvic bone, the small mound of your stomach and up your ribs, all draped in white, his cold gaze stopped at your face.

That beautiful, peaceful face…In-ho’s thoughts entered his mind before he could dismiss them as he had his dreams. You could have been dreaming yourself, he thought, the dose he gave you was too strong.

Dreaming of him. Perhaps. Dreaming of something where nothing hurt. In-ho's eyes momentarily softened as he recalled the feeling of your hair falling against his chest.

The way you let him hold you as your consciousness slipped from your delicate fingertips, the way you trusted him even as he administered the very thing that laid you bare before him, at his mercy. You trusted and smiled up at him. Not naïveté. Not quite abandon. As if you forgave the river, accepted your fate, and let the current carry you on, understanding the full consequence of cruelty and indifference…yet beauty and tranquillity…of the pull.

Did In-ho wish you to rest? Truly? Or was it a wish to violate you further without consequence.

The other river, dark, deep, carrying things that tear flesh and stone alike apart without care nor sound shared its waters with his mind. A gloved hand cupping that face and seeing nought but fear and cold realisation in those eyes. Giving you a glint of hope and throwing it in the depths, with you to follow. To take you, hollow you out with his own desire and momentary need, and cast you away empty and cracked. The same as the others. A body on the pile.

Or was it a simple tool for observation to examine without disturbing the scene.

Examine and change the past. By using an unassuming, naïve nothing that can't live in the present.

In-ho stepped closer. Too many rivers. The more he tried to clean his mind in the dark depths of depravity, the more your tender, vulnerable, yet serene form pulled him out and firmly pushed his head into clearer waters. Another was flowing behind him, he barely noticed, tried not to notice – for every river of forgetting is a river of remembrance. His own life, before all this. A woman still and beautiful, draped in white. Head uncovered. Head uncovered.

He wondered if you could hear him, know of his presence.

In-ho quietly searched your skin and your body for signals, your chest for soft lifting with rhythmic breath, your lips, for quivering and blood circling their red lines, for eyes twitching at the change of air. The way your lashes almost unnoticeably stirred each time your heart sent life through your body, like tiny flower stems in the breeze.

Perhaps by accident, perhaps after reading too much about you, he remembered a sentence from the book he bestowed upon you, knowing you carry the poems in your heart. Nothing but a poem by a soldier telling his loved one stuck in the same hell to please not sleep in such a position, pulling at In-ho to wish to shake your shoulder and hear you gasp.

You are too young to fall asleep forever, And when you sleep, you remind me of the dead.

Though guarded, frozen, In-ho told himself, to keep away the rot, his heart was pumping. Warmth began to twitch in his fingertips as he stepped closer. A pull from your still, innocently dreaming form.

Examination, nothing more.

Your skin reacted to him, even if you had no power nor idea in his mind. Your skin touched his just as he touched you, and it felt like the most natural state of being while the curiosity of sensing something entirely novel held his interest.

In-ho quite simply did not wish to let you go, and he himself could not decipher why – leading him to allow something he would never forgive, never permit, never even think to partake in himself: he loosened his self-control and let the river, no matter which, swallow him whole. A small universe with a serene girl, her delicate form, their shared touch, clandestine and safe to dissolve with.

When your lips parted, he noticed. He noticed the tender curve and the sharp intake of a tiny, almost unnoticeable breath – and his entire hand tensed down to his shoulder. That face. So very close, every feature resting before him.

Tender, supple, inviting lips, a tiny opening, a small signal for him – and only for him. You were reacting to him. You were aware of him. You were giving yourself to him.

Inviting him.

When In-ho let his warmth rest upon your neck, his hand such a sharp contrast to your pallor and softness, exacerbated by the length and fragility of your neck, he almost did not pull away. The gentle thump against his palm, against the roughness of his own skin, the utter control he had over your body and mind in that moment.

As intoxicating as it was sacred, he blinked slowly and forced his arm to move down, down…curling those fingers as if threading your fleeting warmth, his own body so close to yours he could feel you.

He heard your fast, steady breaths and listened for them, In-ho’s own shallow breathing losing itself in you. He noticed the shiver each time you reacted to him. Your skin begging him to remain, your warmth circling to his touch.

Hwang In-ho, in a state of almost mesmerised calm, beaten at with desire and need to both protect and desecrate; to remain far yet be one with you, gripped the corner of the blanket resting beside your hand.

And pulled.

Before the stark shiver and rough intake of breath broke the illusion, In-ho was left at the mercy of your beautiful, level shoulders, the full extent of your neck and collarbones guiding his eyes along their fully exposed length, the gentleness of pale flesh contrasting those petite yet infinitely resilient blue highways running through and circling your nape, your sternum, precisely delineating your throat as if to guide and protect, yet circling and branching under his gaze as if to underline your resolute fragility.

In-ho followed their course running along your ribs, the sharp downturn below them, down, down – the very top of your chest pulsating with new breath, controlled struggle, suffocating need, all his doing – all his--- In-ho’s eyes unwittingly drew down to your breasts, now half uncovered, and drank in the softness and electricity circling their supple pink contrast.

Quivering under him.

Just as the river pulled him under, he caught an errant branch and lifted above the feeling. He sharply retracted his arm, and placed his other directly to his side, straightening to his full height above you.

Tender flower, tender flower…needn’t be picked half wilted.

But your image remained with him, you walked with him as he took in your friend, it walked along his side when he lifted his arm to open a door, your skin still directly upon his. Your scent, your shiver, your presence never left him. Perhaps that is why nought but fire caught his mind when hearing your friend speak.

No longer only insolence, but a feeling In-ho decided to call discontent clouded the entire room. A very kind euphemism for the darkness enveloping his mind as he looked at the unassuming young man heaping praises and sweet nonsense at you.

Shielding you from him.

Taking away the sanctity In-ho had momentarily built with you and allowed to blossom in the millimetres between your bodies, your skin, to fill your head and mind with frivolous, cheap, pathetic babbling.

All he needed here was access to you and the fooling of your close circles, but in that moment, he knew all it would take was a gesture of his gloved hand. Watching the back of your friend’s head, his unassuming golden hair threatening to brush you, In-ho almost threw the game away.

Whether for the words or the touch, he was furious – at his own reaction to you, but that anger adequately transferred to a young man obviously caring too much for you, too much for mere friendship.

In-ho knew enough about him, he studied you after all, but from your messages, from your correspondence to other people, from watching you…no, he is nothing, nothing of a threat. The young man is a means to an end, and In-ho can take care of him later. Yet the fire enveloping his heart did nothing but let the frost ossify it in place.

That little place in your arm where you couldn’t quite see. That little place with a small opening, a little plastic cannula nested in you, would need another strong dose of something else. Something to keep you…docile yet…his.

Of your own free will.

[merakiui]

HALLOWEENIE. [3]

skully j. graves x (female) reader cw: nsfw, retail au, smoking, modern au (no magic), cheesy workplace romance, may be ooc (some creative liberties were taken for various aspects of skully's character and may not align with characteristics shown in tnbc event), characters written as 18+ note - skully returns for another season of work at fellow honest's halloween store. is this the year he finally musters the courage to confess to his cherished coworker, or is it going to be another year spent with his nose buried in his poetry journal? // split into three parts due to size. read part one and part two.

Fellow saves everyone from the nail-biting tension by not scheduling you and Skully together, which takes the duo out of his prized Dynamic Duo. Now you’re just a disaster. Skully doesn’t fade into obscurity, though. Rather, he’s ever-present in your thoughts. You think about him when you drag yourself down the halls at school, occasionally sticking your head into the drama club or the music room in hopes of spotting him. You’re not sure why. You’ve never had anything to do with either of those spaces, but now you’re haunting them like a pesky poltergeist in search of something just out of your grasp.

That’s what it feels like to have this cavern open up between you and him. As if you’re confined to separate worlds. You dwell in the realm of the dead and Skully exists in flesh. It’s impossible to cross paths like this.

No one seems to know of him either, which makes him seem more cryptid than he actually is. When you interrupt a drama club meeting with, “Which one of you nerds knows Skully J. Graves?” they blink owlishly at you.

You’re beginning to think he really is the ghost and you’re actually the living person.

You’ve considered visiting him during one of his shifts, but then you’d be no better than Salad Fingers.

This is so lame. Why do I care so much? I shouldn’t, you think, scrolling on your phone while Rollo does inventory for Fellow. You search for Skully’s number before remembering you never exchanged contact information.

“Your moping is bringing sales down.” Fellow raps his cane against the linoleum to get your attention.

“I’d argue it’s bringing in more business. Not often the customers get to see me without my usual swag.”

“That’s what she’s calling it?” Rollo mutters from behind his clipboard.

“Miss (Name), it pains me to see you in such a tizzy. Skully hasn’t been any better, I assure you.”

You perk up at the mention of him. “What does he say? Does he talk about me? Does he hate me? Should I disappear forever and never return to this town?”

“Whoa, whoa! Where is this coming from? Honestly, the youth are so complicated nowadays.” It’s a whack from Gidel’s hammer that sets Fellow straight. “Ahem! Right. What I meant to say was that it’s obvious this situation is causing a fair bit of trouble for both of you. These conditions limit your ability to work as you normally would. As your boss, I should only intervene when it’s truly detrimental, but as someone with a brain I think we’d all benefit from a quick solution to this mess.”

“Believe me—if I could wave my magic wand and fix this, I would. But we can’t just kiss and make up. I hurt his feelings.” You run your finger over your phone and catch your shattered expression in the cracked screen. “No amount of apologizing can undo that.”

“You ought to know he asks after you.”

“No, he doesn’t.”

“It’s true,” Rollo adds. “Incessantly.”

“Why?” When all three of them look at you like it couldn’t be more obvious, you throw your arms up. “No one answer that. I’ll take you out back and curb you if you do.”

“I won’t speak on Skully’s behalf, but I believe it’s rational to assume he would never want you to disappear.”

“And he certainly wouldn’t hate you. Goodness, I don’t think that boy has the heart to harbor hate.”

“No, he does. He definitely does,” comes your and Rollo’s swift correction.

Gidel opens to a page in his notebook, where he’s doodled you and Skully holding hands in a heart. It reminds you of the flower wreath, which still resides on your desk even though the flowers are beginning to curl up and wilt.

You groan and slump in your chair, arms hanging limply at your sides. “Halloween’s in two weeks! If I can’t find some way to make it up to him, he’s gonna spend his favorite holiday sad and miserable.”

“Heartbreak isn’t something you can simply mend with goodwill. It’s a process. You heal over time.” Melancholy descends on Rollo’s face. You get the feeling he’s weathered the woes of a broken heart before. If anyone understands loss, it’s Rollo Flamme.

He loves me and I crushed him.

“You don’t think I gave him false hope, do you?”

“You couldn’t have known.”

“Even though it was as clear as glass to anyone looking in,” Fellow murmurs, and you choose to ignore that. “Well, what’s done is done. Cliché as it sounds, you can only move forward from here.”

You lift yourself off the chair and stretch. “I’ll grab the broom and get to sweeping.”

“Don’t bother. We won’t do all of that tonight.”

“Ooh, looks like someone was bitten by the bug of benevolence. How sweet.”

Fellow chuckles and collects the completed inventory from Rollo. “You’re free to go. I’ll see you tomorrow. And, Miss (Name), try to get some sleep.”

Immediately, you open the camera on your phone to check for any noticeable signs of sleep deprivation. Finding none, you scowl at Fellow.

“Not funny. I actually thought you were being serious.”

“But you checked.”

“That she did,” Rollo notes with a small grin.

“Because you—ugh. You could’ve just said my shoes are untied.” You click past the both of them in your Mary Jane pumps. “What does it matter if I’m losing sleep?”

“Are you?” 

“I’m not. Shut up.”

You’ll bury yourself alongside the worms and maggots before you confide in them about your recent sleepless nights, each one punctuated with a replay of your fight with Skully and all the ways it could’ve gone differently had you just been honest.

There are two sides to your honesty: the lies that can pass as the truth and the actual truth—the truth you were keen to shelve ever since it cropped up.

The truth that feels a little like the onset of…

You won’t dwell on it or the profound consequence it has on tonight’s dreams.

You’d praise the convenience that is small town logic if it applied to Skully. In this foothill town enshrouded in trees and mountain peaks, everyone knows everyone. Students only have one choice for university, and it’s a dinosaur-aged institution that’s probably seen every era and more with countless graduating classes having been fostered in its brick walls. If you’re searching for someone, you shouldn’t have to look very far. Inevitably, you’ll stumble upon someone who knows someone who knows someone who can get you into contact with that person. Everyone’s stapled into the paper chain here.

Everyone except Skully, apparently. 

It continues to baffle you that no one—not even any of the students in his classes or club—knows of his existence.

“Skully J. Graves,” you stress to the head of the drama club, who stares absently in reply. “He’s literally in your club. White hair, glasses, tall, kinda nerdy but overall really sweet. Does any of that ring a bell?”

When you’re met with silence from him and the rest of the club, you smack your hand against your face and groan. “Jack Skellington.”

A murmur of collective consideration sweeps through the group.

“You mean that weird guy who keeps to himself?” a girl pipes up.

You give her a censorious look. “You’re gonna hafta be more specific, girlfriend. You’re naming, like, a decent chunk of the school’s population.” 

“Always has his face in his books,” another offers. “Not really friendly, that one. Definitely on the quiet side.”

“And he’s usually scribbling stuff in a journal during club meetings, right?” a third student asks.

“Yes!” You clap. “That’s my guy!”

“Ohh, you’re talking about Halloweenie,” the head of the drama club says, snapping his  fingers once the descriptions finally click.

Halloweenie?

You’ve known Skully to go by all kinds of nicknames at the shop: Skulls, Skeleton, my boy, and (from snotty Salad Fingers), Prince of Darkness. This one, however, is brand-new. You don’t need a thesaurus to get the general gist of the meaning behind that self-explanatory name.

“What do you want with him?”

Apple-red lips curl up into an impish grin, and you lift your finger in shush. “It’s a secret.”

“Well, good luck finding him,” he says with a snort. “Halloweenie’s practically a ghost when he isn’t working on props for the shows. He could be anywhere on campus.”

The rest of the club confirm this with mechanical nods. It’s so synced it’s almost like they’re a group of mind-controlled marionettes.

I can’t believe none of these losers know where Skulls is.

You remember browsing the drama club’s website with Rollo. Skully was noted as an ordinary stagehand there. Once more, it seems like fate is having a grand time keeping the two of you apart. Maybe it’s better that way. Maybe you don’t deserve a friend like Skully.

Before you can sink into self-deprecation, you whirl towards the door. 

“You come by looking for Halloweenie a lot, y’know,” a member accuses, arms folded like some hard-boiled detective. “You into him?”

What the fuck? Why is everyone assuming that?

“Nooo—oh, hey! What’s this?” You point to the poster pasted on the door. The words Drama Club Presents: A Thrilling Tale of Treacherous Love and Music! are printed in fancy font above an infamous mask. “Is this what you’re putting on for this year?”

“For Christmas, yes. It was either that or an actual Christmas play. Like ‘A Christmas Carol’ or something equally festive. Majority wanted the charming and dangerous Opera Ghost.”

“Good taste. So where can I audition?”

“Can you sing?”

“In the shower.”

“Can you act?”

“What is life if not the stage we play on?” you counter, stealing a philosophical page from your boss’s book of esoteric wisdom.

The head of the drama club isn’t impressed. To be honest, you’re not either. An actor’s life is not for you.

“Why? No offense, (Name), but you’ve never been interested in us or the work we do. You’ve gotta have passion and soul to put yourself on that stage—something you so clearly lack. If you’re only doing it for Halloweenie—”

“That stings, Prez. And here I was ready to dazzle my way to stardom.”

“Sure.” He rolls his eyes. “If you have no other business with us, have a good day.”

Are all the presidents in this school hard-asses?

Sensing your presence is no longer welcome, you wink and take your leave.

Now left to aimlessly wander the halls, you think back on Skully’s lamentations from before: I was all alone before you moved here—nothing more than a quiet, transparent existence.

You know what that’s like because that’s exactly how you lived when you were growing up. There is no trick to surviving the devils of childhood. You just have to hope that if you’re silent enough they’ll leave you alone. Because hiding beneath the covers only works when they’re figments of your imagination. When they’re very real and oh-so-tangible, they can dismantle the seemingly impenetrable blanket fortress you put so much faith in.

If you lived as a ghost back there, then this dreary town was your resurrection.

Perhaps she, sitting solitary on her throne, is lonely just like me.

Skully was right. As it happens there is no truth in being accessible to everyone in your infamously obnoxious, effervescent way. You’ve built yourself up on flowery lies—a faux Spider Queen who isn’t so venomous as she’d like everything to believe. The (Name) who smiles and flirts, who holds every bed partner at arm’s length because she’s too scared to let them into her embrace, is a phony.

The Spider Queen is scared of loving and being loved.

That’s why she strings everyone up in her web, never letting them know what hides beyond gossamer strands woven so meticulously thick.

Because once they start to disassemble her messy masterpiece they’ll see its flaws and insecurities woven into unmistakable patterns.

Get it together, (Name). No way were you about to throw yourself into a school play all for some guy! Be more swag and less dramatic.

But just as you admonish yourself with that, a discordant note rings out. You failed to realize you were traversing random halls until now, where you find yourself in a desolate corner of the building, just outside the music room. Shaken from your self-doubt, you peek into the room out of plain curiosity…and immediately come to regret it when you spot a familiar head of white hair.

His back is turned to you, head bowed, and he plays according to the sheet music propped in front of him. You linger in the doorway to listen and it hits you then—what he’s playing.

A piano rendition of “The Music of The Night.”

Transfixed, you allow yourself to creep in closer. The soft, soulful melody lulls you into a state of serenity. Watching him and his fingers waltz along the keys, you can’t help but feel like you’ve missed your chance. What that chance might’ve been, you don’t have the guts to name.

Just when he’s about to reach the chorus, he misses a chord and the entire piece falls apart.

“Consarn it!” He slams his hands down on the keys.

You wince at the strident smash that echoes through the room, but nothing is more jarring than his language. You’ve never heard Skully, the quintessence of chivalry, curse so openly, even if it’s very 1800s. But after your argument with him, you’ve acquainted yourself with his temper and all that boils within it.

“It needs to sound just like the song.” The sound of shuffling sheet music follows. “If I can’t get past this chord…” He sighs and taps a few keys in random succession. “My dear will never be impressed with my lousy performance.”

Your heart flips over in your chest, knots itself like Ouroboros, and then collapses into your stomach. Any confidence you had in approaching Skully vanishes in a blip. Of course he’s still into you. Why wouldn’t he be? Rejection and a few weeks of separation aren’t going to undo years of infatuation. Silently cursing the world, you press the heels of your palms into your eyes, realize you’ve just ruined your eyeliner, and drag them away with an aggravated breath.

“Is someone there?”

Skully turns on the bench right as you stumble out of sight. Your sneakers squeak on the tiles as you make your escape, darting around a corridor just in time to avoid the confrontation. That’s all you’re good at. Salad Fingers’s criticisms play in loops. You hasten your steps. Running away.

Rollo’s slender fingers work deftly to lace up your corset. In the background, faintly pouring in from the kitchenette, Halloween music plays. 

“Tighter,” you hiss at him, bracing yourself on the edge of your vanity desk, hips jutted out and ass raised high. “Make it so I can’t breathe—like I’m getting disrespectfully choked by the latex. None of that ‘Love Me Tender’ shit. I need to be fighting for my life in this fit.”

“This is foolish. You should prioritize your comfort over…whatever this is.”

“Aww. You really are an angel, looking out for me and my lungs.”

In retaliation he yanks on the ribbons and the corset cinches around your ribs, effectively stealing your breath. You crumple against the desk with a wheeze.

“Is that tight enough for Her Majesty?” he asks, smirking at you in the mirror. 

“P-Perfect…” You raise a weak thumbs-up. “Thanks, Uriel.”

Rollo rolls his eyes. He looks every bit the modest angel in pure-white robes with accompanying gold accents. The look is finished off with feathery wings, a halo headband, and a pair of open-toed sandals. He adjusts one of the aureate cuffs around his wrist and scrutinizes his reflection in the cheap material. Conversely, you’re dressed as a sexy succubus, all red, tight-fitting, skimpy latex and matching thigh-high stockings. The costume came with horn hair clips, an attachable tail, and a pitchfork. It was your creative idea to accessorize with a black choker, sheer, lacy gloves, and suede knee-high heeled boots. You even got your nails done for the occasion, and they drip in grisly patterns of blood splatter.

“It’s missing something.” You pull Rollo against your hip so he can see what you’re attempting to visualize.

“Your makeup looks fine, (Name).”

“Not that.” Your blunt-toothed, smiling reflection peers back at you. “Oh, I know!” 

You rifle through your makeup box to find them: the packaged fangs you swiped from Fellow’s store just the other day. Your boss graciously gave you and Rollo the day off after it became clear he wasn’t very willing to shell out holiday pay. Knowing your erudite roommate, he would’ve debated Fellow into his grave until he budged. Day off or holiday pay? It would’ve been his losing battle no matter which side of the argument he fell on. 

Gleefully, like a cannibal ripping into a corpse, you tear open the plastic and fit the fangs on over your teeth. 

“What do you think?” you ask, flashing a wicked grin at Rollo. 

“Appropriately hellish. Anymore and the Devil might come up here to give you his regards.”

“Aren’t I just the luckiest girl?” You giggle and nudge him. “You’re not half bad yourself, Bible Study.”

“High praise coming from Satan’s Sweetheart.”

“The Devil wears imitation Prada.”

“‘By all means,’” he quotes, draping a fuzzy jacket over your shoulders, “‘move at a glacial pace. You know how that thrills me.’”

With a snicker you follow him out the door, playfully poking at his back with the pronged pitchfork to hurry him along. He swipes the car keys on his way.

Paper lanterns and strands of amber-hued lights are strung up on low-hanging branches. In the very center, hollowed out into the ground and circled with sizable stones, is a bonfire pit. The flames lick towards the stars, wavering in time with the bass thumping through the trees. If you didn’t know any better, you’d think the swaying silhouettes were monstrous fiends gathered for Halloween night.

Having left your jacket in the car, you’re quick to pull Rollo towards the refreshments. You’re desperate to warm yourself with a few drinks before you make your way towards the fire and the throng of bodies. Rollo, while not the partying type, is very particular with his preferences, so you don’t expect him to jump at the sight of beer. It does, however, startle you when he slides the cloth covering away from the basket draped on his arm to reveal a bottle of sacramental altar wine.

Sometimes you forget your roommate can be cool.

“You’re the best.” You pull him against your side in another hug. He doesn’t fight it. The yellow-orange glow casts shadows on his face, obscuring his pleased smirk. “I cherish you, you know that?”

“Yes, well, I can’t allow you to indulge in this party slop.”

“Amen!”

You squeeze him once before releasing him from your constriction to grab two cheap chalices. After checking to make sure they’re clean and haven’t been tampered with, you stride over to Rollo. You notice he’s eyeing the pit warily, his haunted expression looking much more cadaverous in the firelight. Gently, you shake his shoulder and step in front to intersect his view of the fire.

“Hey, you okay?”

Rollo shakes himself out of his head and loosens his grip on the bottle. “Yes… Yes, I’m fine.”

You want to trust him, so you hold out the cups. “Wanna say our prayers and indulge in the Body of Christ?”

He taps your head with his fist, features drawn in a humorless lour. “Bread is the body. Wine is the blood.”

“My bad, Father.” You pout at him. “Forgive me for my sins and transgressions and everything else. I’m just sooo unholy.”

He spends a quiet moment staring at you—long enough that it has a smile spreading on his lips. He breathes a soft laugh. “What a peculiar choice of words for a demon.”

“Even more peculiar for an angel to be drinking on the job.”

“I suppose that makes us even.” He unscrews the cap and pours a generous amount in both cups. You watch the scarlet liquid slosh within. Capping the bottle, he tucks it away in the basket and takes the cup from you. “Merci.”

“A happy Halloween to us.” You raise your cup and his bumps against yours in toast. “Are you ready to be dead on your feet for tomorrow’s shift?”

“Only undead,” he replies, following you to a fallen tree. “I’m driving, so I mustn’t become too much of a zombie.”

“Who cares about coherency? Live it up tonight! We can sleep in the car. I’ve got pillows and blankets in there.”

“Mhm,” he hums around the plastic rim.

You plop down on the tree trunk and take a gulp, smacking your lips in approval. “If it’s cold, we can just cuddle.” You bump shoulders with him.

“I’ll pass. The last thing I need to earn is more of Skully’s frosty envy. I’d like for my plants to survive winter, if possible.”

“Ugh, right.” Your gaze drifts to your pitchfork propped against the tree. “I don’t know what I’m gonna do. I mean, I almost joined the school play for him. That’s bonkers even by my standards.”

“As if the club would allow that.”

“They hate me for my potential.” You click your tongue. “How can I make this…not worse? Because it feels like all I’ve been doing is making it significantly worse.”

“You should have a proper conversation. One that isn’t senseless screaming.”

“He was inside me, Rollo. How the hell am I going to have a ‘proper conversation’ when that’s our history?”

He peers into his chalice, contemplation burning behind his eyes. “Well, I wasn’t expecting you to lay with him. ‘Disprove his alleged crush,’ she said and then proceeded to do the exact opposite.”

“I mean, I don’t want him to think I hate him or that he has to avoid me. That’s not it. And I wasn’t trying to sound so cruel that day. Stuff just slipped out unchecked and he wasn’t listening. It’s not like we can go back to being friends with this whole cloud of unrequited romance hanging over our heads.” Sighing, you draw circles into the leaf-strewn ground with the tip of your boot. “I wish things weren’t so complicated. It’d be easier if he was terrible through and through, but he’s not.”

“What makes it so complicated?”

“His feelings.”

“Are you sure that’s all?”

You narrow your eyes at him, perplexed. “Why? Is there supposed to be something else?”

“What about yourself?”

You chug the rest of the wine in your cup. It burns the back of your throat and straightens out your thoughts. Not so much your heart, though. Rollo takes his time pouring to give you a moment. He even offers you half of a baguette from the depths of his basket, which draws a snort from you.

“What? You can’t drink on an empty stomach. Last time you did that, you sullied the car with your vomit. It took days to clean and freshen up the interior.”

“At least it was pink! That’s much prettier than non-pink barf.” You shake your head, unwilling to argue old news. “Thanks for your concern, Little Red Riding Rollo, but I’m not hungry.”

“I’ve brought an assortment of jams and cheese.”

“Oh, my gosh,” you say around a high cackle. Rollo doesn’t see the humor in any of this, but he still manages a pinched smile. “You’re amazing. The best roomie I’ve ever had.”

“I try.”

“Okay, Father, I yield. Break the bread and let’s give thanks.”

Between sips of altar wine, you and Rollo munch on pieces of baguette spread and topped with strawberry jam and nettle cheese. 

“Why me?” you ask around a mouthful of bread. “I know Skulls isn’t sociable at school—drama club told me all about the unlikable Halloweenie—but I’m sure there are better candidates for him to crush on. I’m a mess. I can’t garden or look after houseplants like you do. I can’t do any of that cute shit girls do on their socials—like live aesthetically or be effortlessly adorable. I don’t think I’m Skulls’s type.”

“Hmm.”

“He said I’m the only one who’s ever understood him, but isn’t that what friends do? You and I understand each other and we’re friends.”

“Somehow that’s different.”

“How? What makes it different?”

Rollo shrugs. He looks like a mouse as he nibbles at his bread and cheese. “Perhaps it’s because my relationship with you is nothing like the one you have with Skully.”

You scowl at the crowd of dancing, costumed partygoers. It’s only different because of love and sex.

“Putting that aside, what makes you think you’re not his type? Have you ever considered what his type might be?”

You hadn’t given it much thought. Skully has never mentioned love and its variations at work. That’s your job—to complain about and commend all of your flings and situationships whenever it’s necessary. To flirt with customers who look wealthy, attractive, or like they’d be good in bed. To aim for a phone number or an exchange of socials when they’re funny, sweet, or just annoying enough to seem charming. Your list of past lovers is as long as a photo spread in a wallet.

“If we consider his poetry,” Rollo says, as if pushing you towards a cliff you don’t want to jump from, “his preferences aren’t so elusive.”

Even though there’s no reason for it, you feel an unusual warmth climbing up to settle under your cheeks. You hurry to tilt your cup back, putting your mouth on the same lipstick stain from earlier.

“So what sort of type is the Spider Queen?”

“She’s meant to be you, is she not?”

But you’re not sure what he sees in you—in the Spider Queen. You annoyed him during the first real conversation you had, back when he was just fifteen and you were an angsty eighteen-year-old trying to look like she hadn’t just gotten disowned by her family. What changed in the four years since then? You remember he absolutely hated the Halloween party and spent the entire time scribbling in a journal. You wouldn’t be surprised if the entry about his first impression of you was written that very night. He has every right to despise you for your rowdy spirit. What he sees in you, you clearly can’t see in yourself. Maybe you’d feel less guilty about the situation if he hated your guts, but that’s not the case.

“I don’t know!” You groan. “Maybe he’s in love with the character he’s created and not me.”

“I highly doubt that.”

“Do you have candy in there? I need something that’ll mess me up and make me forget all about this.”

I need to stop running away and face reality.

“I’m certain the alcohol will do the trick.”

And it is. You haven’t kept count of how many chalice-sized drinks you’ve had, and at some point you’ve even swiped the bottle from Rollo’s basket. 

“Shall we address the facts?” he tries again, and you’re tempted to listen because he’s logical enough to sort through the emotions. “Skully is in love with you, a truth too blinding for you to notice, but we were all wearing sunglasses.” You smack him for that and he clears his throat. “Right. The two of you went on a ‘date’ and it ended in bed. You’ve told him you don’t love him. Really, (Name), if your feelings don’t match his, I see no other reason to stump yourself.”

And isn’t that the truth?

But there’s a niggling sense of something more that you can’t confront. You push it down to make room for the wine.

“I need a cigarette.”

“From one vice to the next. Very clever.”

Your acrylics tap anxious pitter-patters against the glass bottle. A distraction would suffice—anything to take your mind off of Skully. If you could saunter into the crowd and fall into the arms of a temporary thrill, you would. It’s what you plan to do as your eyes survey the crowd, cherry-picking faces from the firelight. And then, just past the flickering flames and undulating ghouls, you see him.

“Erik!”

You stand up so quickly that you lurch forward. The bottle almost slips from your grasp. Rollo catches your arm before you can fall.

“What?” Rollo blinks up at you in bewilderment. “(Name), sit down. You’re drunk.”

“Piss off. I know what I saw. Someone’s come as the Phantom.” You throw your head back to suck down the rest of the wine. “And it takes more than that to get me tipsy.”

“Congratulations. How’s the liver?”

“Ha-ha-ha,” you snap, sarcastic. “Unlike you, I’m about to tongue it with the Phantom. Not many can say they did that on Halloween night. Be back soon!”

“No one else is trying to accomplish that!” he calls after you, but you only catch part of it as you beeline for the fray.

Pitchfork in hand, you weave around kissing couples and clusters of friends. You have your sights set on the mysterious Phantom, his back turned to you. You call out to him: “Hey, you!” but your voice is lost in the deafening beats and the ecstatic, tipsy whoops from the partygoers.

“Excuse me! Pardon,” you hiss, pushing past a witch and a knight. “Move.”

You’re nearly there. But then someone knocks into you, and you stumble into another person. He catches you with a whistle, his palms strangely slimy.

“Hey there, little lady. Looks like it’s my lucky night. You sure you’re not actually an angel in disguise?”

You scrunch your face, looking past him. The Phantom is gone. “Fuck!”

“At least introduce yourself.” He laughs and spit speckles your cheek. “Then we can get there, yeah?”

“You want an introduction?” You slam your heel on his foot and are quite pleased when he draws back with a curse. “How’s that for angelic? Happy Halloween, asshole.”

Equipped with a mission, you disappear into the darkness. Stapled to your feet, your shadow stretches into the trees behind you. In hopes of locating the familiar mask or cape, you whirl to and fro. It seems like you’ll never find them, and for a second you wonder if they’re a hallucination birthed from your tumultuous feelings. Of course you’d be imagining the Phantom after that day in the bookstore with Skully. It’s like he’s everyone you look. How could he not be? Halloween is his day.

You hope he’s happy, even if it’s only for tonight.

This is a waste of time. I’m going back.

You pivot on your heel…and there he is. The Phantom of the Opera, hunched over between the trees, his gloved fingers splayed against the rough bark. The exact opposite of graceful and mystifying. More of a mess than a graceful, gothic beauty. Your mouth drops open, and then you cringe when you hear a not-so-musical retch.

Oh.

He’s sick.

“Uh, hi…” You inch closer. “I recognized your costume. You’re supposed to be Erik, right? The Phantom. You know—that guy from the opera?”

He wipes his mouth on the back of his hand and turns to look at you, woozy and mechanical. Your heart rushes into a gallop when those infamous orange eyes fall upon you. Even with the mask hiding half of his face, you know it’s him. You think he’s worked out your identity as well because he straightens to his full height on unsteady feet, as if he’s been slapped sober. The only indication he’s inebriated is the way he sways like a spinning top on the verge of falling over. 

“Skulls—”

“(Name)—”

“Ah, um. My apologies. You should go first.”

“No, it’s nothing.” You wring your hands around the length of the pitchfork. “Um. You… You came.”

“I was looking for you.” He gestures to the crumpled can at his feet, sheepish. “Found that instead.”

“Why?”

Skully twists the hem of his cloak in his fists. “I wanted to wish you a happy Halloween and show you my costume.”

His costume? You remember he told you and Rollo he was going to dress up as something scary, and while the Phantom is technically a fearsome villain… It’s not the first thing you’d think Skully would go for. Did he dress up for my sake? What if he had another costume planned but changed his mind after—stop that. Don’t go down that rabbit hole.

“But you hate parties.” You poke at the can with your pitchfork. “And you don’t drink.”

His eyes glaze over. You watch his lip tremble. “I’m sorry. I… I thought that if I… If I could just—” He inhales a rattling breath. “If I was more like you—like Mr. Rollo or any of your partners—you might… Y-You might want to—” He breaks off from that sentence with a choked cry and sinks to his knees.

“Skulls…” Lowering to his height, you reach out for him, hesitate for a strained breath, and then gingerly peel the mask away to reveal his teary, snotty face. 

“I’m so s-sorry,” he continues, his voice breaking more and more. “I yelled at you. I wouldn’t listen. I pushed you into a corner and provoked you, and that wasn’t right. I was no better than Salad Fingers.” He places his palms on the ground to steady himself. A sob shudders through his body. Salty globs pool along his lash line and slide down to his chin, landing in steady drops on the leaves below. “It’s not fair. It’s not fair, not fair, not fair! All of those undeserving people who get to behold you! Those… Those foolish, idiotic bastards—none of them are worthy of you. I don’t understand. They never see you. They’re so attached to flimsy, vapid pleasure that they don’t even cherish you properly. Why?”

You manage to find your voice then. “I don’t care about them. I mean, I did. I always care. Just not like…that.”

“So then why? Why do you let them—why won’t you let me—”

Love you?

“Skully, you’re drunk.” Hardening your heart, you stagger to your feet. “Now’s not the time for this.”

Running away again. Typical, Salad Fingers jeers. She’ll eat your heart if you aren’t careful. Save yourself while you can.

You swat his influence away.

A twig snaps behind you. You almost don’t hear it over Skully’s sniveling.

“Do you know how many fools have been pointing me to ‘Grandmother’s House’ whenever I ask after you?” comes Rollo’s voice, every accented syllable threaded through with annoyance. “I’m sick of this asinine nonsense. It’s not even funny. I’m very clearly an angel, and yet everyone thinks I’m on my way to see—oh, Skully’s here. Ahem. Pardon me.”

“It’s just not fair,” he’s mumbling to himself, over and over, like a broken record. He doesn’t even acknowledge Rollo’s arrival or greeting. “Not fair, not fair, not fair.”

“Is he…all right?”

“Does that look ‘all right’ to you, brainiac?” You knock Rollo upside the head with your plastic pitchfork, and he rounds on you with an indignant glare.

“You tell me! I only just found you.” Rollo can’t hide behind his handkerchief, so his frustration is on full display. It twists his features into something loathsome.

“He’s drunk.”

“Clearly.” Sighing, Rollo stoops over him. “Skully, can you hear me? How did you get here?”

He pans his bleary gaze over to him and sniffs. “What’re you supposed to be?”

“God’s little lamb.”

“That’s not terrifying at all.”

“It is if you carry the guilt.” He takes a harsh elbow to the ribs for that, one he begrudgingly accepts with a scoff. “You should go home, Skully.”

“Did someone bring you here?” you ask, peering into his face. It’s hard to imagine him willingly coming with a friend or classmate.

Actually, it’s hard to imagine he came here at all.

He lifts an unsteady arm and gestures in a general direction. “Bicycle,” he says.

A silent debate mushrooms between you Rollo, wedged in the space where your eyes meet.

“He’s a liability,” you whisper after pulling him aside.

“A liability to your love life, maybe, but we can’t just leave him here.”

“I wasn’t saying we should! I just don’t think it’s gonna help if he comes home with us. He’s not thinking straight. And last time he was there…”

“So we drop him off at home and his parents can handle it. I know the way.”

“They’ll kill us. Are you looking to be lectured tonight?”

“He’s nineteen.”

“Doesn’t matter. That’s their baby—all two-hundred-something centimeters of him—and he’s drunk off his ass on Halloween night.”

“He risked a scolding all for you, didn’t he?”

“He…” You groan, unsure of what to say. “I’ve never met a guy like him. He’s in another league of his own.”

“And I don’t suppose he’s ever met a girl quite like you.” Smiling, Rollo cocks his head playfully. “You’re meant to be.”

“I’m meant to punch you in the mouth if you keep talking stupid. Just—ugh, fine, whatever! You carry him back to the car. I’ll get his bike. He can crash with us tonight. A slumbie is safer than getting him and ourselves in trouble with his parents.”

“So the demon’s secretly a good girl.”

“All that altar wine’s going to your head and making you cheeky, ‘God’s little lamb’. I guess you do care for your friends after all.”

Index pressed to his lips, he hushes you. It takes a few minutes of coaxing and “Lift your head, Skully. How else are you going to look up to Jack Skellington?” before Rollo manages to get him to his feet. He’s all gangly limbs as he drapes himself over your roommate, clinging like mildew to a damp corner. Grunting with the effort, Rollo hoists his arm over his shoulders and Skully flops against him like a worm.

Before the two of them begin the hobble to the car, Rollo asks, “Will you be okay on your own?”

“I’m the Devil. There’s nothing I can’t do!” You wave your pitchfork around and flash a fanged smirk. “They don’t call me God’s strongest soldier for nothing.”

“Uh-huh. Well, be safe. If you’re not at the car in the next five minutes…”

“Yeah, yeah. You’ll exorcise me on the spot. I hear ya.”

Rollo turns away then. “Could you be any more boneless, Skully?”

“Why, of course I can! Does this help?”

“Wha—hey! Don’t go limp! Stand up straight!”

After locating his bike and wheeling it through the woods to the car, where you and Rollo work together to load it in the back, you both head for the driver’s side.

“I’m driving.”

“No, you’re not. I am.”

“You’re drunk.”

“Don’t think I didn’t see you merrily sipping your little God juice like a sailor.”

“You had more than me, and it’s not ‘God juice’. It’s sacramental altar wine, sourced from the finest—”

“Blah, blah, blah. My name is Rollo Flamme and I—”

“My wonderful, spectacular, amazing…deeeaaarss,” comes Skully’s slurred voice. He pokes his head out from the back, half-leaning out the open door. “I can drive.”

Rollo stares blankly at the very inebriated Skully.

“Yeah, go on, Rollo. Let the Phantom drive. I trust him with my life.” You stick your arm out and present him with a cheerful thumbs-up.

“Skully, sit back down. And don’t even think of getting sick in the car.”

“Yes, sir.” You hear the click of a buckle and then, miraculously, he passes out.

“Walk a straight line and I’ll let you drive.”

“I got this. Watch.”

You shove your pitchfork at his chest and, looking to make sure he’s observing, walk along the strip that divides the road from the forest. It doesn’t feel like you’re doing it right, your feet blurring and crossing over each other clumsily, but somehow you think it must look straight to Rollo. Once you’re thirty paces from the car, you whip around to hear the verdict.

“Well? Straighter than straight, yeah?”

“About as straight as a rainbow. Now get in.” He opens the passenger side for you and tosses the pitchfork in the back next to a snoring Skully.

Wordlessly, you perform your staggering walk of shame back to the car. The drive home is punctuated by the sophisticated notes of Indila’s Mini World album. The song’s instrumental—the one where you can only parse the lyrics love story—reminds you of a music box. You sink into the worn polyester seat and paint yourself as a princess in a grand, glittering palace. Waiting for you in the gardens, haunting your head like your very own gothic ghost, is the too-tall, dorky Phantom of the Opera.

Maybe it’s the alcohol—it’s definitely more than just the alcohol—but you feel warm thinking about him. So warm you forget you’re not wearing your jacket.

Fuck. This altar wine is really hitting. How are they not partying during every sermon? Oh, wait, they only drink a pinky’s worth. Laaaame.

“I think, if I were to murder someone, I’d get your help getting rid of the body.”

“Please don’t,” Rollo mutters, awkwardly lifting Skully out of the car with your aid.

“Don’t ask for help or…?”

“Don’t make me accomplice to a crime and don’t murder anyone.”

By the time you’ve carried Skully up the stairs to your door, you feel the mawkish beginnings of affection weighing on your shoulders. That, and Skully’s arm.

“Hey, Rollo?”

“Mhm?”

“Thanks.”

“What for?” He fiddles with the keys in the dimness, half-listening.

For being my friend. For never getting tired of me even when I’m nothing but trouble.

“For being my roomie.”

His hand stills. “Don’t be foolish,” he says, clicking his tongue in chastisement. The key twists in the lock. He pushes the door open with his foot, revealing an apartment cloaked in shadow. “You said it yourself. We’re a team. We need to stick together.”

“How else is rent going to be paid?”

He exhales a short, authentic laugh. “That’s the million madol question.”

Skully is deposited on the sofa, snoozing away like it’s the middle of winter and he’s hibernating. After locking the door and flicking on the lights, where you then proceed to hiss like vampires as said lights burn holes into your eyes, you and Rollo roll your stiff shoulders.

“We should stay indoors next Halloween.”

“Agreed. Maybe introverts know what they’re doing. This was exhausting.” Plopping down on a nearby stool, you work to remove your heels. It’s more challenging than it seems, what with alcohol muddling your motor skills. “My feet are killing me.”

Rollo pulls the fridge open and pokes his head inside for mindless inspection. “Hmm. Whose turn is it to buy groceries?” 

“Mine, probably.” You toss your boots across the room and flex your toes. “I’ll do it tomorrow.”

“We can survive a little longer. At least until the middle of the week.”

You snort. “So are we leaving Skully out here? Should we call his parents?”

“I doubt they’re worried. Not truly.” Rollo shuts the fridge and comes to stand on the other side of the kitchenette peninsula. “It’s a small town with a middling population, and the majority are harmless elders.”

“But what if they think he got murdered?”

“Because someone’s itching to put Halloweenie in his grave. Sure.”

“Okay, fair point.” You glance over your shoulder at Skully, his legs hanging over the end of the armrest. “He’d make for a difficult corpse.”

“If two of us struggled to drag him back here, imagine how much more burdensome he’d be undead.”

“Ooh, a zombie. Something tells me he’d rather be bones than rotting flesh. Just like Jack.”

“Somehow—“ Rollo drums his fingers along the countertop— “I feel it’s poor manners to talk so morbidly of our very alive and well coworker.”

“Mm, probably.” You swivel in your seat. “More importantly, where’s he gonna sleep?”

“I’m keen to leave him here. We’ll dim the lights.”

“Kinda rude to make him sleep on the most uncomfortable couch in the world.”

“It could be worse.” Rollo walks around to the wall opposite of you to lower the switch. The lights lessen in their intensity, from searing to merciful. “Besides, where else is he going to sleep? There isn’t room on my bed.”

“He can sleep in mine,” you say without thinking, and you really aren’t because he looks at you like he can’t believe he’s hearing you right now. “He deserves a comfy bed, at the very least… It’s not gonna mend heartbreak, but it won’t give him stiff joints in the morning.”

“Where will you sleep?”

“On the floor.”

Rollo raises a dark brow. “The (Name) I know would never sacrifice her comfort for someone else.”

“For flings, fuck no. But he’s a friend.”

“All right,” he concedes. “Let’s get him to your room. He’s staying there, though. I’m not going to move him anywhere else.”

“Roger that, roomie.”

Like before, the both of you lift him from the sofa and, taking care not to disturb his slumber, transport him to your room. He’s lowered onto your unmade bed. You move with absolute precision, undoing the clasp around his neck to pull his cape from his person so it won’t tangle around him in sleep. And then you drag a fluffy quilt over him. His fringe falls over his face in a way that reminds you of Sleeping Beauty…only if she had been pie-eyed and prone to vomiting in the hours before her eternal slumber. He looks less of a prince and more of a pale monster.

Sleeping Liability.

You wince. That sounds a lot like something Fellow would say. You’re too young to start thinking and speaking like your boss.

It’s then when you realize you’ve been staring at him like you’re about to lean in for true love’s kiss.

“Are you going to bed?”

“No, I’ll be up.” Rollo rubs his tired eyes and stifles a yawn.

“Try to get some sleep. I’d say let’s watch a movie, but I don’t think I can stay awake for another hour.”

“Don’t force yourself. We all need the sleep for tomorrow’s shift,” he says, but you suspect he’ll be up late into the night and he’ll wake just as early.

“Ugh. Don’t remind me. I guarantee Fellow’s gonna be just as sleep-deprived as we are. Gidel probably kept him out as late as he could for trick-or-treating.”

Shaking your head, you begin to pick off pieces of your costume. The detachable tail, the horns, the little fangs. You prop your pitchfork against the vanity desk.

“So we all have valid reasons to complain.”

“I’m always ready to be a hater. No fair we have to go into work after a fun night. Why couldn’t he be nice and give us tomorrow off as well?”

“One can hope.”

“And one does.” You open your closet and retrieve a few spare blankets from within. “Good night, Rollo.”

“Yes. Good night to you as well.”

His footsteps pad down the hall to his room and then you hear him ease the door shut. It’s not even a minute later when your thoughts begin to buzz in your ears. You busy yourself with spreading out the blankets and creating a comfortable place for yourself on the floor, listening to the low hum of a fan in place of soothing music. The fairy lights strung around your bed shine soft light on the snoozing Phantom, who’s curled into your bed like it’s to become the chrysalis that envelops the squishy, vulnerable pupa that is Skully.

You don’t want to think about it. About why he was here tonight and why he came dressed as one of your favorite characters. And the last time he was on your bed was when…

Blotting that memory out, you snuggle into the blankets and rest your head on a sizable plush you’ve swiped from the end of your bed. If you can sleep all of this mess off, you’ll have a better time making sense of it once morning dawns.

That was your plan, but now that you’re in the position for sleep, eyes closed and mind racing, you find yourself unable to settle down. You turn one way and spend the next few minutes in your own head, tossing around Skully’s motives and what everything means. Maybe you’d sink into slumber if you were contemplating brain-bruising philosophy, but when every route leads back to that complex, confounding feeling it leaves your body crackling with nerves.

Shifting over on your back, you gaze up at the ceiling. “I’m sorry, Skully,” you whisper before you can stop yourself. “Salad Fingers was right. I’m only good at running away. I’m the best at being the worst. I’m, like, super, pathetically, abysmally bad at romance. I don’t know how to do it or what it means to feel it. I… I’ve never given myself that chance.”

I’ve spent too long pushing everyone who’s ever tried to love me away. 

You feel around blindly for your goat plush and hug it to your chest. His name is Mini Rollo.

“The truth is that my worst fear isn’t even thunderstorms. I hate those, too, yeah, but it’s love that scares me the most. Which probably sounds really silly to you because you’re so…full of it. Full of love, I mean. And I was afraid. Afraid that you’d found something about me that’s worth loving. I mean, you kinda saw through me from the very beginning and not many people do that. It made me feel so itchy. Like, what the hell? Who does this guy think he is, solving me like I’m some lousy cube puzzle? How’d you do that?”

A weak laugh tumbles out of you then. You’re not sure where the humor is in any of this. Maybe you’re just laughing at yourself.

“What scared me most, though… I caught myself considering it. It’s all I’ve been able to think about, actually.” You bury your face in Mini Rollo to save yourself the embarrassment of addressing a dim room with an unconscious audience. “I really don’t know how you do it. You’re like an infection. Or, uh—hold on. That came out wrong. Ugh. Just as bad as the lice poem. What I meant to say is that you’re so good at making me feel happy. So I guess that means your energy is infectious?”

Sighing, you shut your eyes and place yourself in the memory of that day, swapping cruel cowardice for a real confession. Mini Rollo’s soft head is tucked beneath your chin. “No one’s ever danced in the rain with me before to chase away my anxiety. And they’ve never made me their muse or written pages and pages of poems about me. They’ve never made me smile and laugh as much as you do. They certainly didn’t come to my door to give me an entire handmade flower wreath. That’s the stuff you’d only find in romance novels. You’re seriously one of a kind.” You force another sad, pitiful laugh. “I don’t deserve you or your love. If anything, you’re the cool one. Definitely way more than a fly.”

You’re my Pumpkin King.

“Never mind. What am I saying? Ew, ew. Gross. This is so…yuck.”

Stop talking. You’re making it worse, (Name).

You yank the blanket over your head and stuff down whatever else is threatening to spill out in this moment of alcohol-addled vulnerability. Although you’re not sure how much of that was liquid courage.

Is love supposed to feel so…itchy?

Like a sweater woven from coarse wool. Like an irritating bug bite that’s just out of reach. Like an allergic reaction. 

But then that same love is also so welcoming—a blanket fresh from the dryer, a flattering poem penned from the heart, a dance in the rain. A distinctly Skully-shaped love, one that’s cradled in the cobwebbed confines of his heart. 

You don’t want to run away from that—from him.

Warmed by these revelations, made weightless from the truth, you drift away on a stream of waning consciousness.

Good night, Skully.

Morning trickles through the mountains, bringing with it strips of sun that shine through the thin part of ratty curtains.

Your body is strangely light when it should be heavy with a skull-crushing hangover. Even your mind, which is normally fuzzy and filled with an unshakeable pressure in the dawn of last night’s chaos, is the shape of a Zen garden. You think you hear movement in the kitchen, but your sixth sense tells you it’s still too early and so you roll over in search of Mini Roll, who somehow slipped from your embrace during the night.

You find Skully instead.

He’s squished in the space between your bed and the nest of blankets piled around you, and it leaves you wondering how he managed to get down here. From how soundly he slept last night, you didn’t take him for a restless sleeper. You realize then that his eyes are open, watching you, and suddenly nothing else matters.

Oh.

“H-Hey,” you whisper, cringing at the roughness in your voice.

“Hi.” His voice is no better. More of a crow’s call than fluttery birdsong. “Good morning.”

You’re not sure what to think at first. Is this real? How did he get on your floor? Why is he here? Where’s Rollo? Where’s Mini Rollo?

You reach out; your palm hovers over his head. To save you the trouble, he leans into your hand. He feels real. He looks real.

“There’s only 365 days left until next Halloween,” you blurt.

Skully blinks at you. “364.”

You start to smile. He follows your lead.

He’s real. It wasn’t a dream.

“Um… So,” you start, but he reels back before you can get the rest out. 

“S-Sorry! I’m sorry! I’m much too close.” He scrambles to sit up, but the sudden change in position has him gripping his head. “Spinning… Oh, I feel ill… Please give me a moment and then I assure you I’ll be out of your hair.”

You bare your teeth in an awkward, sympathetic simper. Welcome to hangover hell.

“Why were you on the floor anyway?” you venture, sitting up with him, and then the shitty feelings descend. You hiss out a colorful word.

You realize you’re still wearing your costume from last night and, even though you think you should wrap yourself in a blanket, it’s nothing Skully hasn’t seen before. He’s seen all of you, as a matter of fact, and the knowledge of that sends a timid tremor ricocheting through your veins. You feel like you need to cover up now, as if you’re somehow exposed in your skimpy latex and sheer stockings, and it’s a ridiculous thought. The time for diffidence and modesty has long since passed.

Skully refuses to meet your stare, opting to gaze at a boring corner of your room instead. “I…” He sighs. “I heard you last night. And shortly after you retired… Well, I was struck with a jubilation like no other and I…”

“Rolled right off the bed?”

You picture it then: a squealing Skully squeezing the pillows and kicking his legs out, tangling himself in the sheets, every nerve alight with celebration.

“I’m sorry. I would’ve moved, but I feared I’d wake you if I wasn’t careful. You looked so relaxed… I couldn’t bring myself to risk it, so I remained there until now. Oh, but I promise I didn’t do anything untoward while you slept! I’d never!”

You exhale through your nose. “I trust you, Skulls.” And then you stiffen. “Wait. You heard me? H-How much?”

“All of it?”

You flop back onto the floor and muffle your groan in your hands. Not how you’d been hoping to start your morning. The hangover, you can handle. No problem. Whatever’s going on between you and Skully? Big problem. Massively heart-sized problem.

But you’re not going to tuck your tail and flee. Not this time. You’re better than that.

“I think…” Skully hesitates around the mouthful perched on his tongue. “I acted rashly last night. You saw such a terrible, immature side of me—and on Halloween, no less! There are no words in the dictionary to describe my shame.”

You remember his drunken meltdown. It’s not the prettiest image, but there’s no one else in this world you know of who’d go to such lengths for you. 

“You’re upset. I get it. Alcohol will do that to you. Makes you ten times more of an emotional wreck than you already are. I would know.” You’re not sure where you’re going with this, but you peek through your fingers at him and hope the tenderness in your tone hits its mark. “What I’m trying to say is that I’d like to try. If you don’t mind. If you’ll have me.”

I think I understand now—what I want.

“Try?”

“This. Us.”

He stares at you with dinner plates for eyes. A few seconds of silence bloom between you, and all throughout it he’s growing more pink-cheeked.

“We don’t have to! I mean… I completely understand if you don’t want to after everything. I’m a mess and I haven’t treated this situation very well, but I’m willing to give it my best shot. Fellow always says there’s only one way out of a ditch and maybe—”

Skully’s outstretched arm is in your face next. You follow the length of it to find his encouraging expression. Tentatively, you place your palm in his and allow him to help you up from the floor. You sit in front of him on your bed, and it’s as if you’re the last two humans on the planet.

This is new. The anxiety and the nervous sweats. The rushing blood in your ears. You’ve never felt this way before.

Then again, you’ve also never done any of this before. It’s all instinct; you’re treading the path projected by your heart this time. It’s every bit the terror you imagined it to be, but it’s exhilarating and refreshing all the same.

He’s still holding your hand. When you look down, you notice it’s shaking. You can’t tell if that’s from you or him, but it settles once your fingers interlock. 

And then, before you can prepare yourself, he’s yanking you towards him. The force of his pull has you falling, and your arm shoots out to prop yourself above him. 

“MayIkissyou?” he babbles, hurrying through the question so it’s pronounced like one gasping breath. And then he catches himself. “Forgive me. I’m just…so relieved! Oh, I was terrified you’d hate me and think I was a rotten person.” He’s tearing up, but you surmise these are happy tears. “I thought we’d never end up together. Like in ‘Sally’s Song’! I thought we were doomed. I thought I wasn’t the one for you…”

“No, I couldn’t ever hate you! You’re not a rotten person. Never. I—” think I’m falling for you— “I’m feeling things for you. Like in-my-heart things. Good things. That’s a horrible way to put it, I know, but I promise I mean every word. I’m just not as eloquent when it comes to these things. Compared to your poetry, I probably sound so dumb and—whoa!” 

His arms wind around you, and he traps you in a tight embrace.

“(Name)… My darling.”

“Y-Yes?” 

He sounds so serious… Wait, wait. Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit! Don’t tell me he’s gonna say it? The L word! I don’t know if my heart’s ready. It wasn’t the first time he said it. Will I be okay? This is fine, right? It’s normal. It’s just…love. Aaahhhh!

“I’m pleased we’re so close.”

“Uh, yeah. Me too.”

“Without my glasses, I can scarcely see anything. You’d be nothing more than an indistinguishable, blurry shape. A beautiful shape, of course, but still impossible to discern!”

“Oh.”

Never fucking mind.

Hand in hand, you emerge from your room as more than friends. A couple. Lovers. A pair. So many florid titles you could probably fill the remaining pages in his poetry journal with. You’re not sure which one you should use to describe you and Skully. You’re used to temporary affairs. But this—what you have with him—feels like more than that.

Us. It’s us, you decide, and it’s the cheesiest thing but you’ll be damned if you deny yourself this newfound sweetness. 

Skully’s wrapped you up in his cloak. He’s also still clad in his costume, and he made quite the fuss about yours just moments ago.

“Now that we’re together,” he said with a childish pout, his face burning red-hot, “I don’t want others to see you like this. It’s selfish, but I can’t help it. I want to preserve these lovely sights for myself.”

“It’s just Rollo,” you argued. 

“Especially Mr. Rollo.”

You find his possessiveness endearing. Maybe you’re crazy for thinking that, but it’s addicting to be wanted so robustly and appreciated in full. Honeymoon phase be damned. You want to giggle and blush over everything Skully says and does, even if it’s complete nonsense. He could tell you the moon is made of cheese and you’d turn gooey like fondue. 

“Good morning, you two,” Rollo greets, a cup of coffee cradled in his hands. His pale lips quirk up knowingly. “And what a good morning it appears to be. Gidel and I are due for a payout.”

You level him with a glare that could wilt lettuce. “I can’t believe you. Your greed sickens me. Isn’t gambling a sin?”

What happened to being honest examples for the youth, Fellow?!

“When it’s a gamble you have every chance of winning, does it truly count as such?”

“It does if you’re betting money! And even Gidel got in on it? Are you serious?”

“Fellow owes him new art supplies. The fancy kind.” 

“Well, if it gets the kid his crayons…”

“Might I ask what the bet was for?” Skully pulls out a barstool for you, ever the winsome gentleman. He seats himself beside you.

“Whether you and (Name) would get together on Halloween or Christmas.”

“In that case, my sincerest congratulations to you and dear Gidel! Isn’t that wonderful, my love?”

“H-How do you know we’re together? You don’t even have evidence to confirm…” You trail off. Skully props his elbows on the countertop, a moony look softening his eyes.

“Surely you’re not as blind as you are dense.” Rollo glances between the both of you, as if asking, Are you seeing this shit?

Before you can snap back with defensive vitriol, he sets a paper bag down. A sugary peace offering awaits. It works a little too well because you forget everything he’s ever done at once.

“Pastry day! You’re the best, Rollo.”

“I’m aware.” 

“It looks and smells divine! Thank you graciously, Mr. Rollo.” Skully fishes something from out of the bag. “Shall we share this croissant, my dear? In honor of our first meal together as a pair of love-doves.”

Whoa. That’s so official. Hearing that is…really nice, actually. Kinda huge and a little scary, but nice.

“Skulls, I’d say let’s do it, but I’m way too hungry to go halfsies.” He’s quick to wither at that, his cuteness a weapon you’re unable to fight. You giggle and lean it to peck his cheek. “How’s that instead?”

“Not even a dozen sugar cubes could compare to how sweet you are.” He clutches his chest, swooning like a fanboy struck down by Cupid. “Aah, I adore you most ardently.”

Rollo fills two mugs with what’s left in the coffee pot. “There’s tea if you’d rather that.”

“It would be rude for me to turn down your hospitality. If it’s not too much trouble, tea would be much appreciated.”

“More for me.” You take hold of both mugs and are instantly soothed by the warmth bleeding through the ceramic. The caffeine will ward off the rest of whatever hangover symptoms might be encroaching.

While Rollo fills the kettle with water, Skully searches through the bag for a pastry that suits his tastes. You’re already licking your fingers clean of croissant crumbs. 

“I must thank you for allowing me to stay here through the night. I apologize if I caused you any trouble.” Skully bows his head. “You must forgive me. I don’t quite remember much of last night’s escapades.” 

“It was nothing. We weren’t gonna leave you in the woods.” 

“We considered it.” Rollo sips idly, unbothered by the now distraught Skully. 

“Don’t listen to him. Rollo’s being morbid on purpose. We’d never do that to you.” You take Skully’s hand beneath the counter and squeeze it. “We almost dropped you off at your house, but we decided against it at the last minute.”

An awkward chuckle rumbles through him. “I owe you more than my gratitude.”

“As long as you’re safe and comfortable, that’s all that matters. Make sure you let your parents know if they’re asking after you.”

“Mr. Rollo… Your kindness precedes you.”

“Rollo has a big heart today,” you tease around a bite of pain au chocolat. “He bought sweets, he made coffee, and he’s so chatty. Must be a lotta money Fellow’s coughing up if you’re in a good mood.”

He rolls his eyes, quietly amused. “We all have reasons to be pleased.”

You suppose that’s true. It’s a happily ever after for each of you.

“Oh, that reminds me!” You turn towards Skully. “Give me your phone. There’s something I owe you.”

He relinquishes it without a second thought, which allows you to input the digits for your number. You should’ve done this a long while ago—back when you first extended your hand in friendship—but as they say there’s no time like the present. You can move forward with this. It’s a stepping stone in a new direction!

You catch a glimpse of his contacts while you make one for yourself. He doesn’t even have ten contacts. Of the few saved, you spot his parents—named Mama and Papa separately—and then Rollo and Fellow. And then there’s the latest addition: you. You’re not sure what to call yourself, so you simply leave it as your name. You’re certain Skully has plenty of contact names in mind already. You won’t veto any of them because you’re positive they’ll stick.

“There.” You hand him the device. “My number’s saved.”

With a gasp, he stares at the screen with wide, disbelieving eyes. “Oh! Oh, how splendid! I will treasure this gift forever.”

“It’s not that special,” you start to say, but the rest of the argument dies in your throat. It is to him. Very special. You don’t want to take that away from him. “Don’t hesitate to text me. I’m always down to chat.”

“I shall text you every morning and night without fail. And every hour between then, too.”

“D-Don’t overdo it!”

“She says that, but she’ll enjoy every second of it,” Rollo cuts in, setting a fresh cup of tea down in front of Skully.

You hide in the ruffles of Skully’s oversized cloak. “I never said I was opposed to it…”

To think I was missing this all along. This warmth… It’s so sweet.

You waste the rest of the morning away with the both of them, laughing about whatever you can remember from last night’s Halloween.

 “It may not have been very successful, and it certainly wasn’t my ideal Halloween,” Skully explains to Fellow and Gidel hours later, both of them rapt, “but it didn’t end in complete disaster.”

“All’s well that ends well,” Rollo applauds.

“Of course you would say that,” Fellow grumbles. “To be loved is to be changed apparently. What a scam.”

“Ah, that’s right. Seeing as our resident lovebirds have taken to the nest, I do recall someone owes me the sum we agreed upon. And Gidel is awaiting his art supplies. It’s only fair, no?”

Gidel, who is brimming with excitement on Skully’s behalf, a supportive mirror image of his joy, snaps over to give Fellow puppy eyes. To really sell it, he digs around in his pockets for a few halves of crayon. Your squirming boss is looking everywhere but at the two of them, sweating from head to toe.

“Gentlemen, gentlemen!” Fellow lifts his arms in timeout. “Why must we let our desires lead us? Shouldn’t we learn to live as minimalists? Repeat after me! Hi-diddle-dee-dee! A minimalist life for me.” When no one follows suit, he drops to his knees in desperate prostration. “Best two out of three? We can bet on whether they’ll stay together long enough to get married or if they’ll split along the way. How does that sound? Just peachy, yes? If we’re in agreement, just name the terms and then we shall see! I’ll double the payout. Gidel, you can have an easel and oil paints. Isn’t that much better than a few measly crayons? And Rollo—my fair friend, surely you’d rather pay rent for the next five months rather than just one?”

That was fast. He really has mastered the art of begging like a bitch baby, you think, folding your arms over your chest. A few customers glance at the spectacle, curiously attracted to the obnoxious whines of a grown man.

“You made a bet and you lost. I’m merely here to collect my promised payment, as is Gidel.”

“How’s about you get yourself something from the store? It’s on me!”

Rollo surveys the store and the major half-off sale that has descended over what’s left of this year’s stock. “I don’t celebrate Halloween.”

Gidel shoves the broken crayons at him. Neither is going to budge. It’s amusing in the way an old sitcom is, but the way they interact with each other makes them look more like puppets than people.

“Aaaaghh! You’re unrelenting!”

“Just give Rollo his money and Gidel his art supplies.” You prop your feet up on the counter, your back poised against the wall. Skully nods in agreement. “Begging only makes you look worse, Fellow.”

With a growl, he pushes himself up onto his feet. “Yes, yes. I suppose you have me cornered.” And then with a woeful sigh: “Skully, my boy, couldn’t you have waited until Christmas? The holiday is right around the corner according to every marketing scheme ever. Halloween isn’t even remotely romantic!”

Skully gasps, scandalized. “It is if you’re Lord Jack and Sally! Halloween is the most romantic holiday! Have you never heard of traditional gothic romance?” He huffs and turns his nose up. “You have much to learn, Mr. Honest.”

“You’d be ill-advised to argue Halloween with the Phantom of the Opera,” Rollo says, holding a hand out. He scowls behind his handkerchief. “My money, if you would.”

“All right, fine. Don’t give me any more trouble, you hear?”

“Perhaps next time you should have more faith when placing bets.”

He stuffs a handful of crumpled bills in Rollo’s palm, grumbling all the while. You watch your roommate count each one, double- and triple-checking to ensure it’s the correct amount.

Gidel blinks up at him, hammer raised in threat.

“Yes, Gidel, I’ll get you those supplies. You have my word.” Fellow heaves a withered sigh. “You little devils are so conniving.”

“You love us. Don’t lie.”

“We cherish you, too, Mr. Honest!”

“I suppose you’re not impossible to tolerate. A semi-sensible boss,” Rollo agrees, pocketing his well-earned cash.

Fellow huffs, face tinged pink, and refuses to look at any of you. “You’re all nothing but trouble. I can’t believe I’ve put up with you kids for another year. How many more can I take?”

That’s right. Halloween’s over. The store closes in a week, you realize with a start. It went by so fast, and so much has changed.

You look at your humble work family—because that’s exactly what they’ve become in the time you’ve known them—and feel a smile stretching. These are your people. Misfits who have struggled to find their footing in the world. You watch a smirking Rollo and Gidel playfully push all of Fellow’s buttons, with Skully occasionally chiming in with a comment of his own, and you can’t imagine working minimum wage with anyone else.

If someone told you you’d end this season with love, you’d have laughed in their face. Back then, the mere idea was preposterous! Lust has always been your prerogative—loveless desire placed on a towering pedestal, far enough from the blooms of romance cluttering at the base, desperate to claw their way up into your heart. It’s not a joke or an aversion anymore. It’s real. Your first relationship that isn’t built on intermittent sex.

You wonder if you’re still stuck in last night’s Halloween, drunk off your ass and on the verge of passing out. Maybe you did and this is all a surreal dream—a fantasy spun from the silky strands of your heartstrings.

It’s not. Thank the stars it’s not.

There’s a lot you don’t know about romance and what it takes to maintain a relationship with sentimental stakes. You’re not an expert and neither is Skully. Perhaps no one is. Perhaps there is no such thing as experts and perfection where love is concerned. It’s a mystery—one you won’t be investigating alone.

Glancing at Skully, who’s still without his glasses and has been squinting at things from afar ever since this morning, you realize he looks different like this. In his Halloween costume—something he wore exclusively for you—and with his autumnal eyes uncovered by his trademark shades.

He’s cute.

And he’s all yours.

What a magical thing.

The sticky, sweet smell of sugar cookies and gingerbread umbrellas the apartment, cloying like dew on grassy lands in the first rays of sun. A cinnamon-scented candle mixes with the natural scent of the balsam fir positioned in a corner of the sitting room. It reeks of Christmas in here—of commercialized cheer and festive fun—like Santa Claus crash-landed through the door and spattered against the walls in a smattering of good tidings and season’s greetings.

Rollo was against a real tree at first, grousing over the mess and all the work, but even he couldn’t remain a grouchy Scrooge for long. He always softens around the holidays, which makes it easier to exploit his tender heart. And so together, while blasting a playlist of Christmas tunes at full volume, you hung ornaments and strung lights and garland along the full, fragrant boughs.

“We used to do this a lot,” he told you as he placed the star at the very top, and you turned the speaker down to hear him. “Before my brother… Ahem. My father would lift him onto his shoulders and he’d be the one to put the star on the tree.” He smiled at it, his eyes glazed in reminiscence. “And what a luminous star it is.”

You pulled him in for a reassuring side hug. “It’s gonna be a good holiday. Your brother would love it. He’d like that you’re carrying on the star tradition, too.”

Rollo hummed, and for the next few minutes you stood and admired the tree in peace.

Now you’re weeks into December and basking in the break from school. Normally you’d take this time to catch up on lost sleep, wasting the hours away into late afternoon in a comforting cocoon of blankets, aimlessly scrolling through your phone, but today you’re up plenty early. Excitement buzzes through you, even more so when you sniff the air and come away with all kinds of mouthwatering smells. You jump out of bed at the sound of “Last Christmas” and throw on a slim-fitting white sweater and a red jumper skirt with fur trim. After gliding through your makeup routine, you pucker your ruby-red lips in the mirror and fit a Santa hat on your head. It matches the peppermint patterns on this month’s set of acrylics.

You find Rollo hunched over the counter, wearing an apron and garnishing the Yule log with red currants and fondant mushrooms. He sprinkles icing sugar over the cake to give the impression of snowfall.

“You’ve outdone yourself.” Whistling, you examine the counters crowded with all kinds of dishes—some native to Rollo’s hometown and others from your favorite recipes. “Santa’s Little Helper works so hard. I hope you got some sleep.”

He smacks your hand away when you reach to pluck a berry from the cake. “This is nothing. Besides, I’m almost certain Skully’s going to bring snacks.”

“Probably.” Pouting, you cradle your hand and feign hurt. It’s ineffective against the no-nonsense Rollo Flamme. “You should’ve seen the way his parents lit up when he introduced me last month. You’d think he was telling them about how he won the lottery or something—the way they couldn’t stop gawping. I guarantee they’re sending him over with a tray of something to repay the favor.”

“Good. And I hope that Fellow sticks to his promise of bringing an appetizer.”

“He will. Gidel’ll make sure of it.” You sniff your wrist and frown. “Do I look okay? Am I overdoing it? Too much perfume?”

Rollo glances at you. “It’s Christmas. Everyone overdoes it.”

“I know, I know. But… I dunno. It’s my first major holiday with Skulls and I don’t wanna look like I’m trying too hard.”

Rollo places the glass dome over the cake and sets it off to the side. “Isn’t that the whole point?”

“You’re not helping. Do I look nice, at least?”

“You look very nice.” And then he ducks down to check the cookies in the oven. “Why are you so worried? Skully will appreciate you and your efforts regardless.”

“That’s just it! What if I look just okay? I’m not saying he has to drool over me, but if he shows up looking like a prince and I look like a bog monster—”

A sharp rap at the door shakes you out of your spiraling ramble. You and Rollo look between each other and then at the door. He starts for it and you throw yourself into his path to intercept him. 

“Wait! I’m not ready. Put a different song on—something to hype me up. Like Michael Bublé’s Christmas album! I need his confidence.”

“(Name), you’ll be fine.”

He strides past you, but you race the rest of the way to get to the door before he can. Wrenching it open, your heart sprouts wings like Icarus…and then immediately burns away at the sight of Fellow and Gidel. Temporarily relieved, you usher them in with a welcoming grin.

“Happy holidays!” You bend down to Gidel’s height and ruffle his hair. He beams up at you, his face half-hidden in a scarf that seems to swallow him whole. “Are you excited for Santa, Gidel?”

He nods and, digging through his pockets, pulls out a crumpled list. You read through the shaky misspellings (and the added corrections from Fellow) and your heart melts. It’s so wholesome. He wants art supplies, carrots for the reindeer, a new sewing kit for Fellow, books, a new hat…

“This is a great list! I’m sure you’ll get everything you want and more.”

“Now why can’t there be a Santa for adults?” Fellow huffs. “I’d love for the big man to come down and shovel my walkway or pay my bills. Winter Wonderland, they say, and yet I’m more frozen than the tundra!” He shakes himself out of his coat, which Rollo gracefully hangs on the nearby rack. He takes Gidel’s winter wear next. “Merry Christmas, both of you. I’ve brought apples.” Looking quite proud, he holds out the bag.

“Nice to see you, too, Fellow.” You lean in to embrace him and he returns the gesture merrily. “I hope the winter’s been kind to you and Gidel.”

“You’re too kind, dearie.”

“You didn’t think to do anything with the apples?”

“Now that, my fine friend, is where your imagination comes in! An apple is a very versatile fruit.” Fellow plucks one from the bag and, after shining it on his sweater, takes a greedy bite. “To some, it’s just an apple, but to others it could be candied or turned into pie. Limitless possibilities.”

“Hmm. Well, thank you for this. I’ll wash them and put them out with the rest.”

“Make yourselves comfy,” you add.

“Oh, and by the way… Would you assure (Name) she looks the furthest thing from a bog monster?”

“What’s this about a monster?” Fellow peers at you, incredulous, while he helps Gidel out of his winter boots.

Embarrassment flashes through you. “N-Not important! Don’t listen to Rollo.”

“She’s fretting over her appearance.”

You bark out a sudden laugh. “Who said anything about that? Me, fretting? No way. I’m just…conscious of today and everything. You know how it is.” You wring the hem of your dress. “It has nothing to do with fretting.”

The three of them—yes, even Gidel—look on with mutual disbelief. Fellow’s the first to break the silence.

“You’ve been together for—how long has it been now?—a month or so, and now you’re afraid of these things?”

“It’s been one month, three weeks, and three days, actually, and I’m not afraid.” You scoff. “Christmas is a big deal for couples. At least, I think it is. If the movies are to be trusted—”

“Miss (Name), take it from me—”

“I’m not sure I want to.”

“Holiday romance is a scam—ack!” Gidel jabs Fellow in the side for that. He clears his throat before carrying on. “But! But, but, but—I’ll be the first to tell you that that boy loves you more than anything, be it during the holidays or on a regular day. Bog monster or not.”

Nodding quickly, Gidel points at you, poses like Skully, and then forms a heart with his hands. 

“Based on what we saw of his poetry, he’d probably salivate if you became a monster,” Rollo says, and you can’t refute his claim. “So what’s really plaguing you?”

Sometimes you hate how easily Rollo can read you.

“I haven’t told him I love him. We’ve been together all this time and he showers me in it—it’s obvious—but I haven’t been able to say those words myself. I don’t know why.”

You miss the way they all facepalm.

“I don’t want him to think I don’t feel the same—because I do! I love him to bits. Just…how? How to put those three words into a sentence, and how to say that sentence to him?”

“‘I love you, Skully’. Easy. Wouldn’t you agree, Gidel?”

He stalls around a nod.

“If only.” Rollo sighs. “You show your appreciation for him in other ways. I’m sure he understands.”

“But I think he’d like to hear it. Anyone would.”

“Lucky for you, Skully isn’t ‘anyone,’” Fellow remarks, patting you on the shoulder.

Still… It’d be nice to say it.

Just then, a rhythmic knock resounds. You look to Rollo for help, but he, Fellow, and Gidel have retreated to the oven to pull the cookies out. Why it’s a two-man-plus-spectator job, you don’t know.

The door opens to reveal Santa. A much thinner, lankier version, but Santa nonetheless. With a beaming smile and a hearty chortle, Santa Skully announces his arrival.

“Merry Christmas to you, my dear! You look as lovely as always.” He grabs hold of your hands and pulls you in, kissing each of your cheeks in turn. “Simply ravishing.”

You’re hot down to your toes. The cold air from outside helps regulate your temperature, if only for the moment.

We literally went on a date last week and yet I can’t stop myself.

“You look very handsome, as always.” You tug him down to your height to return his smooches with some of your own, placing one directly on his mouth. You linger long enough to leave him reeling with rekindled cravings. “I hope I’m on Sandy Claws’s nice list this year.”

“Let’s see,” he teases in a singsong, pretending to unfurl an imaginary scroll. He scans it for a few seconds and then leans in to whisper, “Sandy Claws says you’re just shy of naughty, but we can arrange a solution.”

“It won’t be an easy fix.”

“Then aren’t I lucky to have a wonderful soul such as yourself to call my own? A little naughtiness never hurts.”

Fuuuuck. I love him.

With a giggle, you release him and pat his suit down. “Everyone’s already here. Let’s get back inside before we freeze.”

“We wouldn’t want you to become Frozen Charlotte. Beautiful as you would be, I quite like you warm and alive.”

“As do I.”

You step aside to let Skully in. He hauls a red sack through the door. “Good day, wonderful people! Happy holidays and Merry Christmas!”

“Skully, my boy, you made it!” Fellow slinks over to shake his hand. “A very merry one to you as well.”

You shut the door to keep the cold out and watch as he takes his turn greeting everyone.

“I’ve brought gifts for everyone, and my parents sent me with a treat for today’s gathering. They send their well wishes and regards, each one baked into this tantalizing treacle tart.” Carefully, he pulls it from the bag, wrapped delicately in foil, and passes it to Rollo. “It’s my mother’s own recipe. I wish I could take the credit, but unfortunately I’m still learning how to bake.”

“I’ll be sure to send them a card to express my thanks.”

“Why, I’m honored, Mr. Rollo! They would love nothing more.”

“Ooh, a tart? Now that sounds scrumptious. What say we tear into the food, Gidel?”

Gidel agrees with two thumbs raised.

“If you fill up on sweets now, you’ll never have the appetite for dinner,” Rollo scolds.

“By the time the food’s done cooking, we’ll be plenty hungry. And we have lots of stuff to do to pass the time.” You make a vague sweeping gesture with your hand. “Decorating cookies, making gingerbread houses, watching movies… It’ll be fine.”

No one’s going to argue with that. And even if they were about to, the delightful Christmas music puts everyone in bright spirits.

While you and Rollo prepare the main courses, Fellow, Skully, and Gidel clear the table to make space for trays of now-cooled cookies and gingerbread. A rainbow of frostings and various toppings are set down next.

“A very smart use of your guests’ labor,” Fellow comments, but he doesn’t have any credibility when he’s clearly putting his soul into crafting a little bow for his gingerbread man. And then he catches Gidel’s arm before his sleeve can drape into one of the bowls. “Be careful! Now what have I told you about rolling up your sleeves when you’re going to be working?”

He sets his cookie down and turns in his chair to help Gidel fold his sleeves back. He’s given a grateful smile in return.

“What do you think of mine so far, dear Gidel? I’m recreating Lord Jack’s terrifying likeness in cookie form! Ooh, are you decorating yours based on Mr. Honest? How darling!”

Skulls, you’re a delight. I hope you know that.

“What is it?” Rollo asks.

“I’m thinking,” you reply absently, gazing at your reflection in the oven. The Christmas ham cooks within. 

“How dangerous.”

“I really like him, Rollo. It’s one thing to show it, but I want to be able to tell him. I want to say it and not feel so…insecure. Yeah, that. That word fits.”

We’ve gone on dates, we kiss, we hold hands, we have sex. He tells me I’m pretty and I melt. I give him all kinds of things because I like spoiling him. I’m going to spend Christmas Day with him and his parents. Everything we do is lovey-dovey, so why can’t I say it? It’s not like it’s a forbidden phrase.

It was for most of your life, though, and that’s the crux of the problem. The phrase has negative connotations. It’s been weaponized in the past, a verbal dagger meant to carve at your chest. Even now, a month into your relationship, you can’t tamp down the surprise whenever Skully lavishes you with that three-word phrase. Over and over, as if it’ll imprint itself on your soul if spoken enough. He means everything he says—each iteration of fondness. You wish you could be so unfaltering in your approach. You wish you could just scream the words because they’re trapped inside your ribs and you desperately want them out. You want Skully to know.

“I’m glad everyone can come together like this,” you say instead, and thankfully Rollo doesn’t press the matter. “We should get together to celebrate the New Year, too.”

“So long as our schedules align.”

“As if Fellow’s gonna be too busy for a free meal.”

For the rest of the day, you decide it isn’t worth it to sweat over the complications of love. You can do that after the holidays. Or later tonight when you’re alone with your thoughts in the shower. Either way, now’s not the time.

I’m too pretty to stress over this.

Somehow it works. You’re beginning to wonder if procrastination (alongside a dusting of delusion) really is the solution to all of life’s issues. Maybe not a long-term fix, but it provides temporary relief from the demons haunting your every thought.

I’ll say it once I’m ready, you catch yourself thinking hours later while Skully feeds you. Mindlessly, you open your mouth to receive another spoonful of whatever’s on his plate. There’s not a time limit on stuff like this. It’s not like I have to say it today or tomorrow or two weeks from now. 

“I really should capitalize on Christmas…” Fellow announces, mostly to himself, as he peers out the snow-frosted window. “This town grows so soft during the holidays. It seems far more profitable than Halloween.”

“We can dress Lord Jack up as Sandy Claws and have him pose in the very front!” Skully suggests, pausing midway to accept a bite from your fork. “Wouldn’t that be marvelous?”

“Hmm. There’s potential.” A flicker of mischief spots Rollo’s green hues. “You could play mall Santa and listen to everyone’s Christmas wishes.”

Fellow laughs and cuts into the slab of glazed ham on his plate. “Sounds to me like someone’s offering to stand in as an elf.”

“That’s what I’ve been saying!” You slam your hand down on the table. “He’s Santa’s Little Helper! Who’s with me? Gidel?”

Said boy is looking at Rollo with hope painted across his youthful face. Any initial objection Rollo had promptly vanishes at the sight. He sighs loudly behind his napkin.

“Ask me again next year and then we’ll see.”

“I didn’t hear a no! Did you, Skulls?”

“We can all dress up together! How lovely!”

“Then it’s settled. Santa’s Workshop will open for business next holiday season!” Fellow raises his glass in toast, and the rest of you follow suit.

“Cheers to that!”

Some time later, while you and Skully exchange gifts with Gidel, Fellow and Rollo slip out of the room. You don’t realize they’re gone until it’s just the three of you, Skully’s chatter filling the space and tricking you into believing there are more people present. It’s not like them to scheme so collaboratively, and they’re not going to pick at the desserts. Suspicion crawls up your back and spins its web in your chest. Those two are up to something. You’re sure of it.

“This one’s for you.” Skully’s voice draws you back to the present. He hands you a tiny box with a bow. “From dear Gidel.”

“For me? Oh, that’s very kind of you.” You peel the lid back and lift a beaded necklace with an accompanying drawing from inside. It’s of you and Gidel holding hands, happy smiles and flowers all around. “This is beautiful! Did you make this yourself?”

He nods, face flushed with pure happiness. You fasten it around your neck, swelling with pride the whole time.

“It suits you well. An excellent job, dear Gidel! And your art looks exquisite. You’ve captured my darling’s radiant smile.” Skully pushes his gift into Gidel’s hands. “Here—open mine next!”

The packaging remains intact for all of five seconds before it’s shredded to pieces. Inside are an artist’s sketchbook and a how-to art guide. Gidel’s mouth falls open at the sight of them.

“I thought you could use something a little more professional. Notebooks are great to start with, but a real sketchbook suits our budding artist even better!”

He hugs both books to his chest and then, setting them down, throws his arms around Skully. 

“You’re very welcome! I await the masterpieces that shall soon grace these pristine pages.” He places his hat on Gidel’s head. “Nurture that imaginative spirit of yours and never stop creating.”

“Miss (Name), would you be a dear and come here for a second? Rollo needs you for something,” Fellow calls from just down the hall.

And then Rollo, in a hushed hiss: “Fool! You’re supposed to call Skully first!”

“Oh, pish-posh. They may as well be one body, the way those two fawn over each other.”

“Just be quiet!”

These idiots… you think and shake your head, amused with their antics. 

“I’ll be right back.”

You kiss Skully’s cheek and pat Gidel’s head, and then you’re rising to your feet to tromp down the hall towards your bedroom. You’re not sure what to expect when you round the corner and find the both of them there. And nothing’s amiss. Your suspicion triples, and you cast a dubious glance between them.

“Okay, you two, what’re you doing? It’s not like you to plan…whatever’s happening here. Hold on. What is happening?”

“Call it a Christmas miracle, dearie.”

“Or a favor. Whichever is sweeter on the tongue.”

You roll your eyes and that’s when you spot it. The mistletoe hanging from your doorframe.  

“All right, Gidel, you can bring Lover Boy over!”

Right on cue, Gidel drags a sputtering Skully along. 

“What’s this about? Dear Gidel? Mr. Honest? Mr. Rollo?” He looks at each of them. “Is this a surprise? Am I meant to cover my eyes?”

He’s brought in front of you. Gidel grabs both of your hands and forces them together.

“Merry Christmas, you two,” Rollo says as he departs for the sitting room, where a few gifts still linger untouched beneath the tree.

“Three words,” Fellow reminds you with a hum. He mouths them to you as he passes: You got this.

Even Gidel offers you an encouraging thumbs-up before he, too, skips after Fellow.

“I’m not sure I follow…”

“Look up, Skulls.”

He turns his bespectacled gaze skyward and gapes at the mistletoe. “Oh… Ohhh! Did they put this up for us?”

“Seems like it.”

Awkward silence gathers in the hall.

“Should we kiss?”

“We should kiss.”

“Ah, sorry. You first.” You shrink away, but Skully holds firm to your hands. 

“I would be honored to kiss you.” And then he squeals. “Aah, it’s really mistletoe! My first kiss under the mistletoe with my sweetheart!”

He leans in, but you’re not ready. You can’t kiss him until you’ve told him. Until you’ve uttered three magic words.

“Skully, wait!” 

He pauses. “Is… Is something the matter?”

You steel yourself. “I… There’s something I want to tell you.”

“I’m listening. You can tell me anything, my dear. Anything.”

“Okay. Cool. Good.” Where the fuck am I going with this? Words. Love. Right. “I know we haven’t been together very long—I’m hoping we stay together forever—and you’ve always been so expressive about your feelings. Heart on your sleeve and all that. But I… I’m not the best at this and I know it’s painfully evident, but I’m really happy to call you mine because you get it. You get me. And I guess I’m the luckiest girl alive to have someone like you. No, not guess. I know I’m the luckiest. Wait, that’s not the point I’m trying to make. Ugh. This is so rambly. Sorry, sorry. The point I’m trying to make is…”

I love you. I love you more than I’ve ever loved anyone and I need to say it. I need you to know.

Skully’s hand grasps your chin and turns your head back to face him. The contact—his warm palm, soft fingers, gentle, magnetic touch—reminds you of why you feel these things. Tongue-tied, buoyant on a sea of clouds, always strung up in the wonderful web that is romance.

“I’m sorry I’m so bad at this. I wanted to say it the first day I realized it, but I couldn’t. I was scared and maybe I still am, but I want to tell you.” You inhale a deep breath. “Skully, I… I really, really… Really, really, really—”

He sweeps you against him, his lips on yours for but a breath. “I know,” he murmurs, closing his hand around yours. “I love you, too. And until you feel comfortable saying it out loud, I’ll continue to echo the sentiment. Now and onwards.”

You stare at him. The first tear tracks down your cheek and then another. Before you can stop yourself, you’re crying. He smiles in that sweet, sympathetic, Skully way. It sculpts your heart into a candle, and the wax organ weeps all over your ribs. Messy. But you wouldn’t have it any other way.

“No fair… You’re too cool and I’m a mess.”

Thumbing your tears away, he cradles your face in both hands like a saint. “The Spider Queen is always cool and so is my darling (Name). I will always think so.”

“Even when I’m a dreadful mess?”

“Especially when you’re a dreadful mess because that, too, is beautiful. Dreadfully beautiful.”

“You’re seriously amazing… I adore you, Skulls.”

Glassy-eyed and sniffling, you yank him in for a starved kiss underneath the mistletoe.

You might not be able to say those three words right now, but this comes close.

It’s love all the same.

[davenswitcher]

Eternal Flame

Pairing: Astarion/Durge, Astarion/original male character word count: 386 Tags: boob worship, F!Astarion, one mention of breast milk A/N: So this came to me as I saw the delightful piece by @meanbossart where Astarion calls upon Corellons Grace (part 2 on Patreon), As a challenge I did not write this in second person but third and might be different from my usual stuff :) Read on AO3 here

When Astarion prayed to Corellon it was supposed to be a joke. A jest. A little something to throw his love off guard, but by the gods didn’t he think he’d enjoy it so much to feel those big calloused hands on his now softer, rounder curves. To feel those lips on his plush breasts. His teeth tugging on his nipples and areola.

“Ah, careful, darling. No biting.” 

“But how can I not. Your breasts are inviting me to do so.”

“You can suck, but don’t bite….too hard.”

“Like this?”

Astarion gasps at the feel of his lover sucking and licking his nipples. Like a lightning bolt that leaves pleasant tingles all over his body. He feels the man’s moan vibrate through his body. Then, he takes his other breast in his hand, the plush flesh spilling over in his now smaller hands, massaging the supple flesh and rubbing his nipple with his thumb. The other man releases his nipple with a small pop and leaves small hickeys in his wake. The drow’s yellow eyes gleam with mischief as he gets ready to take the nipple of the other breast in his mouth and lets an intrusive thought burst out of him, “you know, I’ve heard elven breast milk tastes like mint. What do you think yours would taste like?”

Astarion squawks and presses the drow closer into his breasts.

“Shut up and keep sucking.”

The man chuckles and does as instructed.

Astarion can feel himself getting wetter by the minute and soaking through his underwear.

“Gods, I might come soon.”

His ears twitch in delight as his drow lover sucks more eagerly and scrapes his teeth on his nipples, creating a delightful sensation. Big hands massaging his soft ass and thighs harder. It feels like he’s even more sensitive than before, feeling every scar his love inflicted on himself all those years ago. Feeling every little perfect imperfection. Astarion’s skin breaks out in goose flesh, every little imperceptible hair standing on end as he comes and clenches around nothing.

“Gods, my love,” he sighs and leans on his lover heavily.

“Mh, so soft,” the drow man mumbles, making Astarion giggle softly.

Suddenly, Astarion is carried into their shared bedroom, where the tall drow man continues his ministrations, while they cuddle in their soft sheets.

[testyqwcde]

Please stop panicking and recognize that the time jump doesn’t spell the end for Haladriel. The writers still have plenty of room to explore exciting possibilities, and here are a few scenarios that could bring some spice to the story:

Scenario #1: Throughout the season, Galadriel might act as though nothing has changed. However, we would get flashbacks revealing crucial interactions between her and Sauron, providing insights into past events and decisions made in Season 2 and 3. These flashbacks could help ti flesh out their dynamic, showing how their shared history continues to impact their present.

Scenario #2: Sauron struggles to forge the One Ring until he realizes he needs the right alloy to enhance its power—something foreshadowed in Season 1. In a pivotal moment, he melts down the crown with his and Gal's blood on it to forge the Ring. This act could unlock Galadriel’s dormant powers, which she’ll slowly learn to control throughout this or next season. We could see their interaction when the ring is forged and Gal can feel how is binding her in the darkness.

Scenario #3: The wound Galadriel received in Season 2 unlocks her latent abilities, though she struggles to control them. Meanwhile, Sauron, focused on forging the One Ring, doesn’t make any direct attempts to reach out to her. Once the Ring is complete, he uses it to manipulate the Elves and bind Galadriel through Nenya. Gil-Galad senses the danger but is too late to stop it. Galadriel, now swayed by the darkness, is torn between her old self and the influence of Sauron. In a dramatic turn, we witness a darker version of Galadriel as Sauron begins his destruction of Lindon. Ultimately, she might pull herself back from the brink, possibly with Elrond’s help, learning to master her powers in a moment of inner strength.

Scenario #4: By this point, Galadriel has learned to block Sauron’s influence, though she still feels a pull toward him due to the wound he inflicted. Over time, she grows stronger, able to control her emotions and no longer trembling at the thought of him. However, as Sauron’s plans unfold, Galadriel is left with no choice but to probe his mind to understand his schemes. This could lead to an intense, open conversation between them, subtly revealing their lingering feelings for one another, as both grapple with their past and the choices they’ve made.

POV these scenarios offer a range of possibilities for tension, character growth, and complex dynamics.

There is a lot of room for Haladriel despite the time jump!

[zeel-zzz]

To be Barty Crouch Jr.

[this a short 'character study' of Barty in a fic i'm writing]

HUMAN BARTY | ROSEKILLER| WC : 514 cw; implied abuse, mention death, religious imagery

"Barty and his need to worship"

He has sinned and been forgiven time and time again.

He has seen the moon and the stars and the heavens above.

He has lived and he has died.

His father fears that something inside him has changed, has twisted when he returned from death.

“You are sick, broken, possessed. You hold his face, you hold his name, but know this, you demonic spawn, you are not my son, you will never be my son for he is dead and with the Saints.”

Except he wasn't dead, he was here standing in front of his father watching him burn his favorite toys and books.

He was ten.

He was twenty when he met a real demonic creature.

He was twenty when he fell in love with the demonic creature.

He was twenty when he wanted to become one as well.

Life and death, blood and flesh. It all lost meaning.

It all became the same. 

Death was just an extension of life that no one could escape, not unless you were one of those demonic creatures his father feared so much.

Feeding upon the living to ensure their strength.

He grew to love the idea. Being needed to continue living. Having purpose to the very thing his father despised. 

Feeling wanted, feeling desired and loved by the very things he should want nothing to do with.

“Darling, you feed me so well. I don't think anyone could compare to you. You're sweet but never overwhelmingly so. Absolutely perfect for me.”

That's what he loved, being perfect, being adored for who he was without remorse.

Fuck his father, fuck the Saints he worshiped.

This creature before him. The one who he would go to his knees for is the only one he would ever go to worship.

The Saints took his life and returned it just as quickly, but they took all his happiness and no amount of repentance or prayer would return things to how they once were.

But here, being pressed against a wall with teeth at his shoulder and nails digging into his arm, he could finally find acceptance and love for a being of greater power.

His blood, his life, all for the taking. Layed out as an offering to the one who picked him up from the ground and showed him ecstasy with nothing more than his mouth.

He has sinned and he has been forgiven by the Saints his father worships and adores. He has spit at their altar, and defaced their image. Fucked against walls of their most sacred temples just to spite them.  

Fuck them all. Nothing could compare to him. An altar in his name. Marble statues in his image, never catching his true perfection. No hands would be able to create him in a perfect replica.

Evan Rosier, the only thing worth worshiping in this  forsaken city. On his knees, with his mouth, with his body as an offering. 

“With blood as sweet as nectar, how could I ever ask for more than that.”

He would do anything to continue worshiping this creature of sin. 

SIRIUS | REMUS | REGULUS | JAMES | EVAN

[keferon]

*clasps your shoulders gently and looks you straight in the eye*

Keferon. Please read Ninth by Kyn on AO3. I think you would love it very much. It has a large chapter count, but don't be intimidated, it's very easy to get into. It is currently unfinished, but is being updated regularly.

You are the seventh person that recommended this fic to me so ahahahaha yeah

I’m doing great Help I hate some parts of it but I love the other parts I’m spinning in the blender

…..I made the moodboard….

[sluckythewizard]

'I wont cry for you, I wont crucify the things you do. I wont cry for you, see, when you're gone, I'll still be BLOODY MARY'

[wildsaltair]

Ranting in the tags isn’t enough so I’m going to say one more time that just because Maximus isn’t morally gray doesn’t mean he isn’t complex

[kugisakiss]

Since I was going through the Super Digest Books whilst looking for popularity poll results anyway, here's a couple more highlights

Q85: When are detective Takagi and Miwako Satou going to get married? A: I wonder (laughs). If they married one of them would have to leave the force, though (laughs) >>Super Digest Book 90+

Q23: When Sato will be married, will she retire from the police force? Or will she get transferred to another police division? A: But she likes to be a policewoman… >>Super Digest Book 40+

Q97: When detective Takagi and detective Sato will get married, which of them will be in charge of cooking? A: Well of course, that’ll be Takagi (laughs) >>RECIPE PLUS Super Digest Book

malewife takagi real and confirmed

also, a lot of the time, Gosho avoids giving any of the ongoing "mysteries" away, so like..

Q62: Are Sera-san and Haibara cousins? A: Stop asking in a roundabout way, I'm not going to get tricked! (laughs)

Gosho: no spoilers!!! Gosho, 30 seconds later:

Q87: While solving all the problems in Conan, will the mystery on Kaito's father getting killed get solved in the mean time as well? A: They won't be solved at the same time! Moreover, he didn't get killed!

both from the Super Digest Book 80+, released in April 2015.. I'm not that knowledgeble of the MK series but I'm pretty sure this wasn't revealed at any point before this,, what was he even thinking lmao

there's a forum post from the DCTP forums where the translation was posted and people were talking about how much they hate this, if anyone's interested in reading the reactions. seeing people speculate about things is pretty fun too. Super Digest Book 80+ Translations

[psychopomp-namine]

.

[my-thoughts-and-junk]

my 1 (one) stardew opinion is shane should not have won the bachelor poll

[elibean]

well that was very clearly two eps squished into one lol i wonder why they did it that way

[twinsarekeepers]

Reading some of the critiques of pjotv and now I know why y’all are on tumblr and not in the writer’s room 💀💀