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qwimchii · 1 year ago

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𝘣𝘰𝘥𝘺 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘴𝘰𝘶𝘭 (pt. 2) — 𝘴𝘪𝘮𝘰𝘯 𝘳𝘪𝘭𝘦𝘺

playlist pt. 1 pt. 2 pt. 3 pt. 4 pt. 5 pt. 6 pt. 7 pt. 8 (10/24)

𝘨𝘶𝘯𝘴𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘦𝘳!𝘨𝘩𝘰𝘴𝘵 𝘹 𝘧!𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘦𝘳

𝘴𝘶𝘮𝘮𝘢𝘳𝘺 — 𝘺𝘰𝘶, 𝘢 𝘨𝘰𝘰𝘥 𝘤𝘩𝘳𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘢𝘯 𝘨𝘪𝘳𝘭 𝘧𝘳𝘰𝘮 𝘢 𝘴𝘮𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘵𝘰𝘸𝘯, 𝘨𝘦𝘵𝘴 𝘴𝘵𝘰𝘭𝘦𝘯 𝘢𝘸𝘢𝘺 𝘣𝘺 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘸𝘪𝘭𝘥 𝘸𝘦𝘴𝘵'𝘴 𝘮𝘰𝘴𝘵 𝘪𝘯𝘧𝘢𝘮𝘰𝘶𝘴 𝘰𝘶𝘵𝘭𝘢𝘸, 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘥𝘦𝘷𝘪𝘭 𝘩𝘪𝘮𝘴𝘦𝘭𝘧 𝘸𝘤 — 14.5𝘬

𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘮𝘦 — 𝘧𝘭𝘶𝘧𝘧, 𝘢𝘯𝘨𝘴𝘵, 𝘴𝘮𝘶𝘵

𝘸𝘢𝘳𝘯𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘴/𝘵𝘢𝘨𝘴 — 𝘸𝘪𝘭𝘥𝘸𝘦𝘴𝘵!𝘢𝘶, 141𝘨𝘢𝘯𝘨!𝘢𝘶, 𝘨𝘶𝘯𝘴𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘦𝘳!𝘨𝘩𝘰𝘴𝘵, 𝘴𝘰𝘧𝘵𝘥𝘰𝘮!𝘨𝘩𝘰𝘴𝘵, 𝘪𝘯𝘦𝘹𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘦𝘥!𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘦𝘳, 𝘷𝘪𝘳𝘨𝘪𝘯!𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘦𝘳, 𝘢𝘨𝘦 𝘥��𝘧𝘧𝘦𝘳𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘦 (10𝘺𝘳𝘴), 𝘴𝘸𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘨, 𝘢𝘭𝘤𝘰𝘩𝘰𝘭, 𝘴𝘮𝘰𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨, 𝘣𝘭𝘰𝘰𝘥 & 𝘷𝘪𝘰𝘭𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘦, 𝘨𝘰𝘳𝘦, 𝘢𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘮𝘱𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘴𝘢 (nothing too graphic but please be warned!!), 𝘴𝘭𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵 𝘳𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘨𝘪𝘰𝘶𝘴 𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘶𝘮𝘢, 𝘨𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘨, 𝘮𝘶𝘵𝘶𝘢𝘭 𝘮𝘢𝘴𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘣𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯, 𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘫𝘰𝘣, 𝘱𝘳𝘢𝘪𝘴𝘦 𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘬

note: it's here 🤲 header gunslinger ghost render by @ave661

the next morning you woke, Ghost was gone again, much to your chagrin. you were beginning to pick up on a pattern—a strong tendency to disappear without a trace. his clothes were absent from your room and the kitchen table, where you haphazardly undressed him without thinking about the evidence left behind for an unsuspecting one-four-one and Kate to see.

the only trace of Ghost’s presence in your room last night was the neat pile of undergarments and clothes on the ottoman nestled in the corner of the room. after washing up, you slowly redressed that morning. in the mirror, your neck was covered in swollen purple patches—a parallel image to the softness of your bruised inner thighs. you were lucky enough to have been lent a high-collared blouse from Kate, mulling over everything with a bitter distaste in your mouth.

it only grew when you stepped into the back room, Soap looking positively smug and Gaz avoiding your eyes. John looked undisturbed as he paged through a book, sipping at his coffee mug with his boot neatly crossed over the other beneath the kitchen table.

“good morning,” Soap sang, practically skipping to you and handing you a sticky, cinnamon bun, rolled up in a sweet delight.

“thank you,” you said with a polite dip of your head, sitting beside John at the table.

“you know, Gaz,” Soap said suddenly, turning to his friend who only paled in response, his face looking sour. “i could’ve sworn i heard something last night—”

you withered with shame, but luckily, Gaz kicked him hard in the shin to shut him up. immediately they began to bicker, and John only gave a disapproving grunt.

“where’s Kate?” you asked, meek, and desperate to escape the three men in the room.

John jerked his head in the direction of the main store room, and you whispered a quick thank you to him, wiping the last crumbs on the back of your split skirt rudely before making a beeline out the room.

Kate was tending to the shop, lounging behind the counter as two customers perused the catalog. she was stitching together pieces of leather with a wax thread and needle.

you carefully noted the absence of Ghost in the store room as well, but didn’t comment on it when she shot you a fleeting, knowing look. it was gone as soon as it came and yet it made you burn with shame nonetheless.

“Ghost is out on business again,” she explained, sewing with a practiced hand, and you frowned.

“I wasn't…” the words died in your throat. instead, you implored, “let me join one-four-one today.”

she paused her ministrations and sent you a look of grief. “why? so you can run away?”

that irked you. “you know i won’t.” in a meek voice, you added, “where would i even run too?”

she shrugged, returning to her leather pieces. “i don’t know. maybe off into your own rich glory.”

you resisted rolling your eyes. smoothing the front of your split skirt, you folded your hands politely, posture straightening.

“are you really going to ransom me to my daddy?” you challenged, and her hands paused

“because if you are, i know your secret base of operations. i know all your names, one-four-one’s, and Simon’s. i know what one-four-one looks like and that you’re working with los vaqueros.”

her eyes narrowed, brow pinching.

you continued. “i think all that information would come very handy for Turner and my daddy.”

“so what are you going to do?” she snapped, “run straight to Turner and cry at your daddy’s feet?”

“no,” you said cooly, “i think you don’t plan on giving me back to my daddy at all.”

her eyes flashed and you contented with her glare, meeting it with the strongest one you could muster.

“because if you did plan on it, i’d tell them all that and more in a heartbeat. so why’d you let me in on all that information in the first place?”

taking a shaky inhale, you hoped to god you were right. “i know too much. i think you’re planning something else for me.”

she stared at you for a long moment before heaving a long sigh, screwing her eyes shut, surprising you when her mouth twisted into a tight-lipped grin, her blue eyes crinkled with a wild look.

“Ghost said you were a smart girl.”

she returned back to the leather work, finishing off the needlework by snapping the string with her teeth, pulling it taught with a knot.

“but no,” she said with finality, and you balked.

“no…?”

“let’s say that maybe Ghost is planning something for you. something big,” she dramatized with a mocking smirk. “you’re still our hostage. you stay here, the boys ride out. simple.”

she shot you a displeased look when she finished. “if you weren’t here, i’d be riding out too.”

you swallowed, shoulders falling slowly. all that pent up energy deflated from you like a balloon, defeat curling in your stomach. looking out the front store windows, you saw Sugar dozing at her fence post. you eyed her saddle on a rack behind the store counter.

nodding, like you were deep in thought, you stepped away from the counter. “right,” was all you offered and she gave you a mixed look of pity and irritation.

as if on queue, the one-four-one boys clambered from the back room, murmuring low words to Kate so that you couldn’t hear. Soap tipped his hat to you on the way out, and he began to turn away when you clutched at his elbow.

“where are you going?” you asked, casual, and his brows raised, looking from you to John to Kate.

after a long look, she just gave him a slight nod.

“five miles north. ‘nother nearby town,” he relented with a shrug, and the way his lips tightened let you know he was leaving something else out. you cocked his head at him, pressing with curious eyes, and his mouth fell open but Gaz grabbed him by the back of his collar and pulled him out the store, Soap shouting in protest.

“be back before sunset,” John said, gruff, closing the door behind them with a resounding thud.

you watched as they saddled up in the bright noon light. Kate sighed. the look on her face let you know she was lamenting just as much about their departing as you.

you lazed about the main store room, eyes flicking between the leather crafts items. belts, wallets, holsters, a few couple saddles. the clicking of the wooden clock suspended on the opposite wall served as your entertainment for the afternoon.

when Kate finally excused herself to close the shop for a lunch break, washing up first, you knew you had to make quick haste. sneaking down the hallway, you passed by the bathroom as quietly as you could, you were surprised to find the basement door unlocked.

maybe they did trust you, a small voice spoke in wonder, but you mentally swatted it away. your desire to find out what the hell was going on burned brighter than anything else.

you descended quickly down the stairs, wincing at every creak and thud, till your feet met cobblestone. sweeping around in the darkness, you pulled out the matches you pocketed last night. lighting one with a quick stroke, the room lit up in a warm orange glow and you scrutinized the place.

in one main room, preserves of fruits and veggies, miscellaneous barrels, and leather working stations littered with various tools and supplies crowded the room. you could only assume the doors branching from the main room were one-four-one’s bedrooms, and you confirmed as much when you tried turning the knob of each one, finding them all firmly locked.

cursing, you wished you could remember that lock picking trick Tommy used at the schoolhouse to prank teachers in your childhood. you clambered through the space, squeezing between a nook of filled shelves, pausing when an old bookcase caught your eye. by it was a small circlet of space, several chairs, and a desk sprawling with papers. you walked to it, hand smoothing over the map littered with marks, lines, needles shoved into the wood at certain locations.

the writings made no sense, all in their own code. a large portion was circled in red with a big T scribbled in the middle. you squinted. Turner, most likely.

it was north of the town you were currently in, or so you assumed by the small star bead shaped from an ivory bone pinned down on the map. like Ghost said, you were on the border of southern california, your mama and daddy most likely twenty miles to the east in Arizona. below southern california lay another red circled portion, dipping into mexico and southern texas. LV, it read, in a smaller, less menacing font. los vaqueros.

blue circles stretched from the west to the east, centered around towns and cities, big and small. one location in particular was familiar—jackson county, missouri. all that blue, stretching from california to louisiana, was one-four-one territory. you balked at the physical size of it.

the more passing seconds you took to study the map, the more you worried Kate may emerge from the restroom and find you snooping in their basement. if she did, you dreaded the thought of being locked up in your room for the remainder of your possibly indefinite stay.

a piece of paper caught your eye. it was a letter addressed to Turner from your… your daddy. you poured over the note, running over the quill grooves in your hands.

Mr. T,

my darling belle has been stolen by the devil. you promised me that working with you meant no harm to my family. i want her back. i don’t want no man getting the idea that they can steal my things from me.

you shuddered. his things, he had called you.

i want your men on every one of one-four-one’s outposts. none of their towns will be safe. i’ll round up my men and join the effort in two weeks time after we conjoin at the social. there, we can talk finances.

your eyes ran over the line again. social?

if Ghost won’t give me my daughter, i’ll make him.

your daddy didn’t sign off the letter. carefully, you put it back down in its place. how did the letter even get there in the first place? had Ghost intercepted its messenger during a shootout in a northern town?

you swallowed. did Ghost find it in your own daddy’s house? your house?

the thought of your daddy, keeled over his desk with a bullet wound in his temple, blood oozing out in a puddle as Ghost loomed overhead, pocketing Daddy’s letter in his trench coat, made you sick to your stomach.

you thought of what Ghost said the night prior. i searched half the plains for your horse.

did that include your daddy and mama’s house? your breath hitched. was your mama alright?

you steadied yourself against the nearby bookshelf, distracting yourself with its contents instead. fictional literature stared back at you, and you brushed your fingers down their spines in a slow descent until you met the very bottom row. a line of small journals, so small you could squeeze them into the extra space in your pocket, stared back at you. picking one on the very edge, your eyes widened at the title scrawled over it.

GHOST.

you opened it to its latest entry, dating back to the day you were taken by Ghost. in all capital letters it read:

PICKED UP GIRL FROM ARIZONA HOMESTEAD.

beneath it was a sketch of your profile and… numbers. there wasn’t an exact order or sense of them but they littered the page.

despite the numerical mystery, you found your eyes lingering on the catch of light conveyed through Ghost’s drawing, the twinkle in your eyes and the barest smile on your lips. you admired the attention to detail before flipping through to earlier pages.

a familiar, blaring title stuck out to you that dated back several weeks ago.

PICK UP GIRL FROM ARIZONA HOMESTEAD.

there was more writing below it.

RANSOM: $25,000 REFUSAL → PHASE TWO

you flipped to the page after it to find another entry on a typical grocery list. you thumbed through more pages with a frustrated huff, finding nothing more on phase two or a ransom. just more sketches of wildlife, horses, and scribbled dull paragraphs on irrelevant business investments.

you mulled over the strange entry and its date from weeks prior. the night Ghost had taken you had been an arranged dinner out of the blue with only a few days of notice. but the date of this entry suggested that Ghost had been arranging the dinner for much longer.

more than that, Ghost had forced your daddy to make a decision at the dinner table—pay up or let Ghost steal his daughter as collateral.

Ghost didn’t necessarily know that your daddy would go with the latter. but the entry already had a resolute ransom for your safe return, and a phase two plan for when your daddy refused the ransom. which, to your knowledge, has not happened yet.

in spite of your confusion, there was a relief knowing that your suspicions from the conversation with Kate earlier had been confirmed. they wouldn’t be giving you back to your daddy.

right?

quickly, you pocketed it, hoping no one noticed its absence as you weaved out the basement and up the stairs. the door was still shut as you left it, and you blew out the match, slowly opening the door, your heart hammering. there was a silence on the upper floor, a warm draft passing through the narrow hallway, blinding light streaming in through the windows.

you noticed movement beneath the bathroom door, and let out a shaky breath. what felt like hours in the basement was only minutes.

but you knew you didn’t have much time left.

you made your way down the hallway and into the main store room. hooking Sugar’s saddle over your forearm, you made a quick haste to your horse who lazily drank at the water basin by the fence. patting her shoulder, you saddled her up in record time, hitching the cinch tightly with the grind of your teeth. untying the reins, you grabbed the horn, hoisting yourself up by the stirrup.

as you backed Sugar away from the leather crafts store, you heard Kate shout, your head whipping to see her already moving with a terrifying speed to her own horse, a burly and strong looking thoroughbred that snorted heavily.

with a slap of your reigns against Sugar’s shoulder, and your heel digging into her flank, she took off with a pitched whiny. you always thought she was a crazy wild thing, but you were more glad for it now than ever.

the rush of the wind at your face didn’t help the scramble through your mind for the mental image of the town. the bell tower pointed to the north—head on a swivel, you pressed a hand on your stetson to keep it from flying away. conveniently, the thing chimed, making it known it was two hours past noon to the town

you pulled sharp on Sugar’s reigns, spurring her on through the sparse crowd that scurried out of your way as you headed straight for the tower, and out the town. the cobblestone path underfoot quickly fell into a dusty dirt and you headed dead on into the forest.

weaving between the sparse trees, ducking beneath them, and wincing when some prickly pines brushed at the exposed skin on your cheeks, you steadied on for a gallop for as long as you could muster before you were sure Sugar needed a break.

when you slowed to a standstill, listening for the breaking of a horse through bushes and leaves, met only with chirping and the rush of the forest, you nudged Sugar to walk on.

she hung her head low, winded, and you rubbed at her neck in comfort.

Soap had said the town was five miles north. your eyes sweeping across the barren terrain, you hoped that you wouldn’t come across a different town five miles north of one-four-one’s hidden base.

after another thirty minutes of short gallops, followed by slower canters and trots, you eventually wandered far enough to spot a town on the distance of the horizon.

you startled when a big boom resounded across the land, shaking the earth beneath you. something—a building maybe—that spearheaded the sky fell with a crash. Sugar whinied wildly, stuttering backwards with jerky movements, but you urged her on ahead with clucks and a heeled boot at her flank.

you rode fast to the town, swerving around the masses of people running around it. a woman, tugging on her floral, broad brimmed hat, carried two children under her arms and ran into the woods with next to nothing. some men rode out on horses, charging ahead without a glance back.

as you neared the outer wall of the town, you could hear the ricocheting gunshots, loud shouting, screaming, crying, the beating of horse hooves.

you cursed yourself for not thinking to grab a firearm. trotting along the wall, between a stretch of two buildings a man rode past in a flying gallop, twisted back to shoot at something—someone riding after him. you recognized his raucous, wild laughter.

Soap.

you spurred Sugar forward, creeping through a break in the walls where more townspeople leaked out in a panic. on the main dirt pathway, a horse tied to its fencepost tossed its head wildly. a revolver flashed in its saddlebag.

riding around the building, narrowly avoiding running people underfoot, you flanked the horse and pulled the revolver from the horse, then leaned down to untie the poor, squirming thing so it wasn’t in the line of fire. you grit your teeth, trying to mentally will your own horse from wriggling so much. once its reins were pulled loose, the horse bucked and made a beeline for the woods.

“hey!” an older man, beard flecked with gray, ran at your horse with a wobbling, drunk ire. the owner, you presumed, by the gun he was loading in his hand.

pressing hard into Sugar’s flank, she sidestepped him and you took the butt of your newfound revolver, jamming it into his jaw hard. he slumped to the ground ungraciously.

turning your horse in a fast pan, you rode from street to street, revolver swinging as you searched for familiar faces. it was a dizzying panic. you didn’t know who was who, or what was what, in the mass alarm.

“that’s her!” whipping your head over your shoulder, a group of men sharply turned their horses in your direction. Turner’s men.

cursing, you spurred Sugar on in a wild gallop as they pursued you.

you checked the cylinder of it—it was only half full. three bullets. cursing yourself over and over again, you gave them a wild chase, weaving between buildings and people into a marketplace. a cart of vegetables went flying as Sugar lurched, last second, to leap over it.

the movement jerked you, and you slipped to the side, world turning over as you fell to the dirt and skidded a good ten feet, knocking back into another cart. your revolver lay discarded a short length away, stetson thrown somewhere else.

Sugar galloped off without a second to look back.

scrambling to pick up the revolver as the group of Turner’s men approached fast on horseback, you gasped when your ankle completely gave out on you, falling once more to the ground. the adrenaline pumping through your veins didn’t give you a second to hesitate, crawling forward to grab the gun.

you shot into the group blindly, satisfied when one man shrieked, holding his arm where crimson poured, and slipped off the side of his horse. picking yourself up, you limp as fast your could leg could let you move down a branching dirt path, thunderous hooves coming from behind you.

you checked over your shoulder. they were dangerously close now.

the closest man’s hand��a turquoise bracelet glinting on his wrist—came down and swooped for your hair, missing when you ducked. but he groped for a hold on your clothes, when suddenly, he crumpled into the dirt behind you. blood splattered across your back, and you bit back a scream when a strong arm hefted you up onto their moving horse.

“i got you, darlin’,” John gritted out, and you clambered into the front of his saddle, clutching desperately at the mane of his chestnut mare as he spurred his horse on faster through the streets with one arm around your waist.

a rider approached your right flank, trying to maneuver close enough to shoot John and not you, but John was too fast and blew his head clean off. you couldn’t suppress the scream that tore from your throat.

John barked over the roar of the wind. “i’m gonna need you to cover my blindspots, eh?”

you nodded rapidly, panning your revolver over your shoulder as another rider neared.

“deep breath,” he commanded, swerving his mare to get out of range, bullets whizzing past your head.

you took a deep breath, watching the rider edge closer to your left as he slapped the reins against his horse’s shoulder, willing it to go faster. his eyes blew wide when you caught a glimpse of his gaze under the brim of his stetson, mouth parting in shock when you fired.

the bullet hit his chest dead on, and you watched in horror as his eyes went cold and empty, whole body slack as his shoulder crumbled forward in the saddle of his horse, before slowly slipping off the side and falling to the ground with a crash. his horse thundered on without him, blood soaking the dirt in a crimson halo around the corpse.

“good bloody shot!” John roared in your ear, and you turned your attention front again. the roads were emptier now with the stragglers having evacuated the town.

John slowed as he neared the town’s center square, and one man on a grulla and the other on a bay circled the fountain square in a pan, shooting at the men who came barreling down each pathway. each one dropped like a fly.

you counted about a dozen bodies on the floor of the square.

the man on the grulla laughed maniacally, who you instantly recognized as Soap. the other rode with a tight rein with a mechanic movement.

John pulled his horse to a sliding halt, almost making you fly over the shoulder of his chestnut if it weren’t for the arm around your waist.

“picked up a straggler!” he shouted, turning into the fray as another trio of Turner’s men came down an alleyway on horseback.

Soap flanked your horse, shooting two of Turner’s men down as John finished off the other. flies were whirling around the dead bodies on the ground. you wanted to puke.

“first time gunslingin’?” Soap asked, a poisonous glint in his steel eyes.

you didn’t have time to respond because Gaz was shouting— “your left!”

John was whirled, but not in enough time before two bullets hit his chestnut with sickening thuds. she whinied, rearing, and for a second time, you were sliding to the dirt, ungracefully landing on top of John in a winded pile.

you scrambled off him and he crawled to his knees as he reloaded his revolver. your own was thrown somewhere away—obscured from view as a couple of Turner’s men slid off their horses, striding towards you at a dangerous pace.

head on a swivel, you scurried backwards, a low throb in your ankle blooming. the adrenaline was wearing off as a thickening dread seized you. Gaz and Soap were occupied, grappling a thickening trickle of Turner’s men into the town square.

a man with a gold tooth, you recognized as an affiliate of the man with the turquoise bracelet from a few minutes prior, swung his leg back and kicked John straight across his cheek.

two other men seized you by the front of your blouse to hoist you up, but you kicked and screamed, biting down hard on a hand that came to pull on your hair. he cursed, throwing you back down into the dirt, and you skidded till your back struck something hard.

eyes widening, you twised your arm behind you to feel a familiar, cool handle. this time, you let them yank you up, letting the revolver fall into the loose cuff of your loose sleeve and holding it there.

the man with the gold tooth gripped your cheeks tightly and spat at your feet. his breath was grimy, alcoholic, and made your skin crawl.

“you’ve been giving us a hell of a time, angel.” his other hand stroked down your chest.

you twisted to bite his fingers and he slapped you, the strong sting bringing tears to your eyes. the two men were holding your arms back in a bind, one pressing his front into your shoulder, mouth almost to your ear.

“he’ll kill you,” you seethed, dead serious. the man with the gold tooth laughed.

“so you really are the devil’s angel?” he leaned back, hands on his holster, a menacing look twisting his lips. “thought Mr. Tuner was bein’ dramatic. looks like Ghost’s got a pretty missy now.”

the man by your ear chuckled, hot breath down your neck and you reeled, fighting against him.

“i’ll kill you myself if i have to,” you hissed, both to the man in front of you and to the one digging his hand into your backside, squeezing.

the third man sounded considerably younger, more nervous. “whadda’ we do with her, Charles?”

your eyes went wide. you remembered the man at the cabin, the one who said—

let’s move quick. Turner said the first man to lay hands on the girl gets dibs.

that’s what he had said.

a coiling fear seized your chest, your breath trapped and lungs stuttering. you looked to John, flattened and forgotten by Charles’s feet. you internally begged him to get up. when he didn’t move, you looked up behind Charles to Gaz and Soap, bloodied and firing round after round.

when the men hefted you to your feet, half-dragging you down the dirt road, you struggled, tears welling in your eyes. “no—” Charles tried to cover your mouth but you bit his hand hard and he snarled.

“no!” you screamed, fighting even when they yanked you into an empty saloon and threw you against the bar top.

Charles held you down with an iron grip, and other man unbuckled himself with a malicious grin. you felt overcome with an intense fear, trying to squirm up the side of the bar counter, but Charles held you steady.

you should’ve never come here. this was your fault. this was your fault.

the third man was just a boy, shaking as he stared at you splayed across the counter.

help me, you mouthed, but he just turned away so his back was to you.

this was your fault, this was your fault, this was your fault.

soon, your struggling subsided, and your mind drifted to a far, far, far off place.

the cool gun tight in your grip kept you tethered to your sanity when Charles kissed your now exposed calf. you tightened around the handle, feeling its silver embroidery, the men too distracted to notice the click of the safety.

an eerie calm drifted up in you as they continued their movements, Charles’s hand slipping underneath your skirt and drawers. you noted the glass bottle half full of beer abandoned right above your head.

you waited for the second man to float upwards, till his mouth was on your neck, and you shoved your sleeve right under his chin.

his eyes widened in surprise at your compliant behavior, humming something like approval before you pulled the trigger and blew clean through his face. he fell to the floor with a thud, half of his face gone, and Charles shrieked, looking down at his body in horror. that’s when you snatched the glass bottle of beer over your head and lurched off the counter to strike him in the head—over and over and over again.

your body was a machine, moving mechanically. the bottle shattered and alcohol pooled into blood. you didn’t stop until you couldn’t see the gold shine in his gaping mouth, until two arms gripped at your wrists, pulling your back into a broad, strong chest.

the musk of bourbon, smoke, and earth cleared your mind.

“Simon?” you squeaked, returning to yourself.

the familiar cold of his mask against your neck brought you back down to the ground.

he slowly pried the shattered bottle from your hand, only the neck and jagged shoulder left behind. he folded your hands into his gloved ones, crossing over your chest in a tight bind, crushing you to him.

you should’ve felt like you were debilitated, or trapped even, but you never felt more safe in his arms as you sobbed, tears streaming down your face. he was the only thing holding together the pieces of you right now.

he shushed you, smoothing a big hand over your chest as he rocked your entwined bodies.

“it’s alright, lovely.”

“it’s my fault,” you chanted, voice raw with effort. “it’s my fault, it’s my fault, it’s my fault.”

Ghost didn’t respond to that, and instead began explaining with a calculated, low murmur into your ear. “i told the boys that there would be some Turner boys in this town. nothing they couldn’t handle. but there was an ambush.”

your breath hitched at that, cries dying in your throat.

“i was stationed with Alejandro and a lot of his boys in a town two miles west of this. we thought Turner would tear through there.” his thumb smoothed over your exposed neck. “he didn’t.”

it fell into pieces now. one-four-one stationed here, expecting less than a dozen of Turner’s men, when instead, they crawled through this town like ants. an ambush.

“Kate rode into town like a wild animal. i thought someone died.” his voice dropped to a deadly whisper. “i thought you died.”

you remembered the lashing tendrils of panic you felt in pressed against the wall in the back room, Ghost bleeding out a couple feet in front of you, the billiard parlor up in flames across the street.

had he felt the same?

“the boys,” you began instead, pushing the memory away, “how are they?”

he gripped your chin, turning your face to his and pressing his forehead to yours. the swirling darkness of his eyes was more comforting than anything you had ever known.

“they’ll live.”

you shivered at that and he soothed you with a shush, gently pulling you to your feet. wincing, he caught your wobbling body immediately.

“hurt?” he asked cooly, but you could hear a sharp edge in it.

you gave him a sheepish look. “my ankle.”

he just nodded, sweeping you into his arms like you were his bride. even if it was so improper, the exhaustion that furled around you like a fog had you curled into his chest as he stepped over pools of blood.

over his shoulder, your stomach curdled at the sight of Charles, his face a gaping wound of pink, mangled flesh. he was half-beaten into the ground, and his associate was sprawled near his shoulder. the boy was nowhere to be seen.

you closed your eyes against Ghost’s neck, pressing your nose to its steady pulse. you barely registered the light that enveloped you when he stepped outside, the light crunching of dusty dirt under his boots a mile away. there was murmuring, new and foreign voices coupled with old ones. no more gunshots. no more shouting.

you let the foggy undertow pull you somewhere softer and sweeter—right into the roughness of your mama’s hands brushing your hair by the fireplace, Daddy reading an old book aloud behind your shoulder.

it was the rhythmic clatter of steel tracks against steel rail that stirred you from a light slumber. your sweet dreams had stretched into grotesque, bloody depictions the further they ran on, replaying scenes over and over in your head.

Charles’s face split open on the floor. red running from Daddy’s temple. a knife through your mama’s heart. Turner’s wrinkly hand on your thigh as he shoots three bullets through Ghost’s heart—his eyes wide as blood poured down his maskless face. but beneath the blood, he was faceless, skin smoothed over and pale, till his face morphed into Charles's deformed flesh and it replayed again.

a soft stroking along your thigh brought you further from the murky haze, and you pushed up against a solid form. you opened your eyes to find Ghost’s, blinking down at you.

there was an endless, crushing relief to see his mask still firmly clasped to his face.

you tried to push away any lingering curious voices in your head, but they pushed through the weak pockets of your mental blockade, whispering out, what’s under it?

you prayed that you wouldn’t find a faceless form beneath the red gleam of it.

his arm was wrapped around your shoulders and back, fingers digging into your waist and thigh. you were practically half in his lap, cheek pressed to his chest, his big trench coat slung over your curled up body.

for the first time, you realized, you awoke to Ghost’s presence by your side. you would’ve happily nuzzled back into his warmth and fallen back into the nightmares that clutched at you, if you didn’t realize that you had an audience.

eyes snapping open, and sitting up straighter, you blearily tried to shake the sleep away as you met the stares of several foreign faces sitting in chairs opposing you. save for the weary one-four-one—John dozing lightly, a new splint in bandage over his nose, Soap’s face a remote grim shade, Gaz’s and Kate’s attention trained on you.

you noticed Soap’s arm in a sling with a bitterness.

shifting, you looked out the train compartment window moving through the arid, weedy forest, sun dipping far into the horizon in a crimson-purple hue.

“good morning,” Ghost greeted, pressing the nose of his mask to your hair. muffling a squeak, you tried to shift away because it was improper, but his strength held you close, hot gaze burning into your cheek.

you cleared your throat, looking to the man nearest to you. his hair was slicked back in dark curls, a toothpick between his teeth. he gave you a wild grin.

“we finally meet, chica,” he said in a beautifully lilted accent. he stood to offer his hand politely, and you would’ve stood to curtsy if Ghost’s hold on you wasn't so… possessive.

instead you put your hand in his and he kissed the back of it with a sly look.

Ghost tutted, muttering an impatient, “Alejandro.”

your brows rose when Alejandro released your hand with a laugh. he gestured to a clean-shaven, handsome man beside him.

“this is my most trusted right hand—Rodolfo.”

he smiled at you politely with a slight nod but made no move to shake your hand.

you nodded back. “pleasure to meet you, sir.”

Alejandro gestured to the other men littered around the room, leaning back in their plush seats. “and these are my men. los vaqueros.”

your breath hitched, looking around the room in a slight awe. these men were legends you heard of in childhood—iron fists of justice in the south that grappled with corrupt conglomerates and drug-dealing cartels. they also dabbled in their own bouts of illegal trouble. their hard-lined faces stared back at you.

instead you croaked, “where are we? and where are we going?”

you jumped a little when Ghost thumbed at your cheek, almost forgetting he was there. “we’re mid-way through southern california, bound for san francisco.”

your eyes ran over the los vaqueros, donned with bandoliers and sombreros, then one-four-one, looking much smaller and more meager. you couldn’t help but give them a weary smile, a warmth spreading in you when Soap perked up a smile of his own.

“why?”

Kate leaned back in her seat, arms crossed over her chest. you were eternally grateful for the comfort in at least one other female presence.

“we’re going to war.”

you stiffened. “what?”

Soap quickly followed. “against the Turner boys.” his eyes darkened. “they’re wreckin’ all our towns. they won’t stop and we don’t have enough boys to get ‘em.”

Ghost’s grip on your hip tightened. Gaz pushed on. “we’re going straight to the source.”

in san francisco?

you remembered the map in the basement, the large red circle over midwest california that included the bustling hub that was san francisco, with a scribbled T in the middle. a feeling of dread gripped your stomach. this was going to develop into a gang war—or something like it at least.

“does it really have to come to that?”

you grimaced when a terse silence followed.

“this is more than about money, lovely,” Ghost said with a thickness to his accent. “this is about revenge.”

you summed that much up from the dangerous flicker in Soap’s eyes, but you worried more about where you fit into the equation. you thought back to Ghost’s journal, a sudden apprehension for the arm coiled around you tightly.

did phase two include you? were you of use once your daddy refused Ghost’s proposed ransom? and if you weren’t?

Ghost’s journal burned a hole through the pocket of your split skirt—maybe it was selfish, maybe it was childish, but a flurrying panic rose in you at the thought of going back home. you just couldn’t.

you bit back your tongue as Kate and a half-awake John moved to discuss with Alejandro in quiet murmurs that you couldn’t hear. they circled around a table, Soap and Gaz leaning into the conversation behind them.

you felt Ghost’s hand twitch on your hip as he shifted, gaze still trained on you.

sighing, you inclined your head in their direction. “go.”

he pressed his masked lips to your cheek in, what you deciphered as, a silent thank you.

you just swatted at him with a blush as he helped you to your feet, drawing his trench coat tighter around your shoulders. Rodolfo lended you a gracious arm to lean on as Ghost neared the table, your ankle an irritable throb in the back of your mind. the crowd split, his broad form pushing through, and merged again, Ghost’s stetson half-obscured from view.

you wanted to join their circle, or lean in at least, and absorb their low murmurs, but instead Rodolfo helped you limp out of the train compartment into a plush hall.

you must’ve been in a first class sleeping car because you had not seen something so lush—springy green carpet beneath your boots and a ruby red wallpaper that crawled with patterns of roses and prickly vines. the lights overhead were gilded in gold.

Rodolfo must’ve caught your gaze because he gave you a half-smile, clarifying, “Kate pulled some strings.”

you just nodded weakly. the thought of one-four-one’s influence spreading to big railway conglomerates was staggering, but at this point, didn’t sweep you into shock.

he led you to a door with a carved brass knob and chiseled key hole, fumbling with a circlet of keys in his hand. you looked down the hall and startled when, at the end of the hallway compartment, you spotted a man staring straight back at you. he wore a fashionable black jacket with silver buttons and embellishments, a cap on his head that read pullman porter on a brass plating.

his eyes flickered from you to the door Rodolfo opened with a soft click, before he drew the hallway compartment door shut with a slam. you watched him stride away fast through the window, other first class passengers lounging lazily in the opposite compartment.

“senorita?”

Rodolfo held the door open for you and you thanked him quickly, pulling yourself together and stepping into the luscious, but cramped, bedroom. politely, he closed the door, and you were left in a relief crushing silence.

the bed bowed beneath your weight as you sunk into it, kicking off your boots and laying out Ghost’s trench coat, falling back on it. you itched to loosen the strings of your corset but it was buried beneath too many layers of clothes for you to care about that now.

instead, you emptied the pockets of your fraying split skirt. you lined up Ghost’s journal, the matches, bunch of rope, and extra ammo on the bed. at the sight of it, you couldn’t help but lament the continuous absence of a revolver in your inventory.

you wondered if it was one-four-one’s intention to keep it that way as you picked through the room. there was an oil lamp on the nightstand—a carved cherry wood piece you took a moment to admire before moving to the equally exquisite armoire. opening it with a gasp, a bright bunch of fabric spilling into your face and almost knocking you back.

the thing was stuffed full of dresses and fancy garments—dresses, skirts, blouses in silk and chiffon with lacey embellishments. for a moment, you panicked. was this your designated room?

from outside the door, you heard someone taking slow steps down the hall. the knob was hallway turned when you swept up the stolen items you had laid out on the bed and shoved them back into your pockets.

Ghost slinked into the room without so much as a word and a tired look. your heart was still beating out of your chest.

“ever heard of knocking?” you frowned deeply. “what if i was indecent?”

he huffed an amused sound at that, eyes twinkling as he sat on the bed. “i’ve seen you indecent before.”

your stomach curled at the memory. suddenly, being in such close proximity alone with Ghost felt like a sinful thing, and a heat snaked under your skin, traveling up to your cheeks till it burned in your ears.

he cocked his head at you but not unkindly. “we need to talk, lovely.”

you nodded. “yes.” then, curiosity overtook you. “but what’s this?” you gestured to the open doors of the armoire behind you.

he cleared his throat and avoided your eyes, shifting on the bed. “they’re for you.”

your brows shot up. that’s what this was?

you looked from Ghost twitching on the bed to the stuffed armoire. you could imagine him picking out dresses and blouses and skirts at a tailor shop with Kate by his shoulder as you slept away the afternoon’s traumatizing events, then boarding the luxurious train with you curled into his arms.

a romantic gesture?

before you let your thoughts run away from you, sitting beside him on the bed, you had wanted to thank him in that polite manner your mama has always taught you, but you find yourself wanting to tease the apprehensive tenseness in his shoulders instead.

“it’s going to take a lot more than money to charm me, Simon,” you called softly, leaning into his side.

even if he had plenty of it, you thought dreamily, eyes running over the expensive fabric of his black suit.

he just scoffed, turning his head completely from you, but didn’t lean away. you inched behind him to smooth your hands over his shoulders which seemed to impossibly tighten even more.

“so tense,” you said in his ear, massaging your thumbs into the fleshy parts of his back. head tipping back slightly, his slow, deflating exhale didn’t go unnoticed.

“we need to talk,” he repeated, voice gruff. you leaned over his shoulder to peer at his face, but his eyes had already slid shut beneath his mask.

humming, you rubbed circles into the back of his neck, then inching back down between his shoulder blades and along his spine. one hand on his back, you slid the other to the front, watching the way his shoulders laxed with wonder.

when your fingers fiddled with the button of his vest, his gloved hand caught your wrist, heavy eyes looking over his shoulder at you with a warning that dripped with something darker. you squirmed under his gaze, skin feeling impossibly hot, a familiar clench in your stomach.

“you minx,” he said, voice a low rumble that coaxed a whine from your throat and only darkened the look in Ghost’s eyes.

he began to push you over to the bed with a hand on your chest, towering over you with a glint in his eye, but you yelped, squirming away from his hold. the movement tipped you over the edge of the bed and you crashed into the nightstand, almost knocking over the oil lamp. your ankle screamed in protest, but the images flashing through your head cut right through the pain.

the man unbuckling his belt. Charles’s hand holding you down in an iron vice, rough lips against your skin. his hand digging into your naked flesh beneath your undergarments. both of them looming over you with black eyes, and the glint of gold—

“lovely?” Ghost steadied you with an arm around your waist—but not in a way that constricted you. his eyes searched your own.

“what is it?” he demanded, and you swallowed hard, shaking your head.

“nothing.” you laxed, curling over him and instead pressed him down so his back hit the bed with a thud. “it’s nothing.”

you clambered over him clumsily, allowing his hands to guide you to a comfortable position, legs hooked around his waist and hands braced against his chest. it was solid and warm beneath you, like a rock that swelled slowly. you bit down on your lower lip, trying to the best of your ability to ignore the sharp stabbing of your ankle.

“you sure?” from his warm grip on your hips, and the narrow of his eyes, you knew he didn’t believe you for a second. you didn’t think he was stupid enough to not know why.

but you nodded with a stuttering breath anyway. “just let me…” you searched for the words, finding your head back in the place where you laid with him only a night ago. “take care of you.”

you unbuttoned his vest as he worked on your blouse, pulling it off with an ease that sent chills down your spine. you squeaked with surprise when he pulled you flush to his chest, sitting up to throw his vest to the floor and strip off his dress shirt. untangling yourself from him, you stood to undo your skirt, letting it pool around your ankles.

you looked up to Ghost who watched you from the bed, eyes a hungry, smoky glare. you studied the muscled gleam of his torso, breath hitching at the sight of his stitches. the wound was a raw pink and dangerously loose.

huffing an impatient noise, you yelped when he pulled you back onto his lap, pressing his mask into your neck and hair. it screamed such a Simon gesture that it had you melting into him, clutching at the fabric on the back of his head.

this was Simon. any dread furling at the edges of your mind dissipated. but still, you couldn’t hold yourself back from worrying—

“your stitches?” you gasped, feeling him pull up the fabric of his mask and press his hot lips to your neck, tongue sliding out.

a breathy noise left your lips and you squirmed, bracing your hands against the brawn of his shoulders to push him back down to the bed again. he gave way easily, to your surprise.

in the low light of the day, his lips looked pretty and full as he licked them. “they’re fine.”

you ran your hands over his chest, gasping when he pressed his hips up gently into you. there was a hardness in his pants that felt delicious against that painful ache of your core.

you muffled a sigh, allowing his hands to drag you over that hardness once more, then you gasped again. your eyes snapped up to his and he smirked, teeth glinting in the light.

“feel good?”

your head tipped back, hands scrambling for purchase. you gripped tightly at his forearms.

“i’m supposed to be taking care of you,” you whined out as he rocked you back and forth.

“you are,” he grunted through gritted teeth, head lolling back against the pillows, his muscled neck bobbing with a heavy swallow. your eyes followed the movement with a hunger, feeling a strange desire to lick over it.

even through your drawers, the friction felt like heaven, and as his movements grew faster, the tightness of your corset felt constricting around the heavy pants of your breast.

noticing this, Ghost moved to quickly unstring it, your hips endlessly canting against him. you felt a wonderful burn in your core, traveling up to your chest, throat, and tingling behind your eyes that were screwed shut.

you gasped when the corset fell away, a coolness enveloping your bare skin, jolting when you felt something hot and wet at your nipples. looking down, you moaned at the sight of his tongue swirling around the hardened buds of your breast, suckling one into his mouth. it left your chest tingling, the feeling raw and sensitive and foreign, but you only wanted more.

“that’s it. moan for me, princess,” he purred, one hand trailing down your bare spine and stopping at your backside, massaging it down into his hardness, spurring your hips forward.

you barely registered his words, biting down hard on your lip to keep the growing noises at bay as Ghost led you closer and closer to an inevitable precipice. he drew away his tongue from your chest, looking up at you with narrowed eyes. you whimpered in its absence.

“louder, pretty thing.” he tugged back a bit on your hair, so your head tilted back and your lax jaw fell open, releasing a slew of pretty sighs that had him humming approvingly.

“good girl.”

his husky words sent you hurtling over the edge, and your body shook with pleasured delight, vibrating across your skin in seizing spams. you would’ve toppled over if it weren’t for the strong arms that circled your middle.

“Simon…” you whined, clutching weakly at his arms as he scattered kisses all across your jaw, neck, chest, breasts till the murky colors exploding in your vision faded.

he lowered you back down to the bed, and you collapsed beside him, panting. he stroked at your hair, turning onto his side with a warm fullness in his gaze. your lips stretched into a weak smile and you craned up to kiss his neck softly, licking over that swollen appendage in its center like you had wanted to earlier.

you relished in the way his breath hitched. eyeing over his body, there was still a bulge in his dress pants that stirred your curiosity.

sending him a silent question with your gaze, his knuckles dragged over your exposed arm. he cocked his head. “i’m alright, lovely.”

“but…” your face heated up. “i want to see.”

he shifted on the bed, black eyes darting over your face. for the first time since you’d known him, Ghost looked… nervous.

“why do you want to see?”

“because…” the words died in your throat. his lips stretched into a wry grin.

“you don’t need to. i like you like this,” he sighed, twirling your loose hair between his fingers.

your brow furrowed. “like what?”

his grin grew fuller. “innocent.”

you mustered your most bitter look and threw it at him, mood plummeting when he let out a throaty laugh.

“you really want to see that bad?” his eyes went dark again, and you nodded eagerly.

with a long look, a hand twitching at his side, he just sighed and willed you closer with a beckoning hand. you sat up with a sharp clarity to your mind, inching forward towards his pants. he remained leaned back against the pillows, one arm stretched over his body and cradling the back of his head as he unbuckled his pants with one hand.

he pulled himself out of his undergarments, the flesh heavy, swollen, firm, and drooling a thick fluid at the flushed tip. your whole body heated up with something—shame, embarrassment, longing, or something even deeper.

“oh,” you squeaked, avoiding his gaze entirely, though you knew it was burning into your cheek. he grabbed your chin, turning your head to meet it.

“we can stop here, but i don’t know if i can hold back if you just—” he swallowed hard, “watch me like that.”

“like what?” you asked, lips parting and eyes growing doe-like.

he cursed, and you watched in amazement when his hand flexed around his length, abdominal muscles flexing in time with it, tip oozing out more fluid. weirdly, saliva pooled in your mouth, and you resisted the urge to swallow it back.

you wanted to put your tongue on it.

“like that,” he rasped, throat strained with effort.

you gazed at him wordlessly, hands feeling restless. you wanted to touch him.

he cocked his head. “what’s wrong?”

when you said nothing, his lips pressed into a thin line, starting to tuck himself back into his pants, and you felt a growing panic in you. “i told you i’m alright pretty girl—”

“no!” you lurched forward to snatch his wrist away, his length straining against his stomach. his eyes snapped up in surprise and you felt your entire face go red with embarrassment. “i mean,” you inhaled deep, “no. i… i want to…”

you swallowed hard. Ghost lips twitched, a very amused expression stretching his face.

“can i…?”

his hand rubbed over your thigh, squeezing. “can you what, pretty thing?”

you whimpered, clutching at his hand. “want to put my mouth on it.”

the growl from the back of his throat should’ve scared you but it only spurred you forward, settling closer to the side of him, your thigh firmly pressed against his as you sat your backside over your ankles. one experienced a stabbing pain, but the sight in front of you cut right through the nagging sensation.

Ghost’s gaze was intense, heavier than you ever felt before, even with his body laxed back into the pillows, one arm hooked behind his head.

“go ahead, lovely.”

tentatively, you reached out, brushing your fingertips over the very tip of it where all the fluids were spilling out in rolls down his length. the hiss he let out made your core shiver, vibrating back to life in slow, hot pulses.

“what does it feel like?” you whispered, and his eyes closed.

“good.”

“how good?” you pressed, dragging your fingertips down the underside and back up again. his breath hitched when you brushed over a sensitive spot nestled beneath the tip. massaging at it with your thumb experimentally, his eyes snapped open again, snatching up your wrist.

your heart skipped a beat, a new worry clouding your mind. had you done something wrong?

on the verge of apology, you stopped short when he pressed a kiss to your inner wrist.

“you have to tell me if you want to keep going or not.” his eyes flashed. “if we do, i won’t want to stop, and i don’t want to scare you.”

even beneath the layers of his mask, the way his jaw was set in a grim clench, you could see the sincerity in his face.

“i want to make you feel good,” you said with finality, and his lips twitched up.

“i know you do.” he rubbed your cheek with affection. “such a polite girl.”

“tell me what to do,” you almost begged, squirming in his hold, and he guided your hand back down to his swollen length, gasping when he wrapped your entire hand around it.

it was wet, sticky, warm, throbbing.

“feels good when you squeeze tighter,” he said softly, eyes going hazy when you immediately obeyed. slowly, he dragged your hand up and down its length, going completely lax against the bed.

you watched in amazement, clenching your thighs together as your entire hand went up and down it in a rhythmic grind, the swells of his chest rising faster with every ministration. his eyes fluttered close periodically, sometimes tightening his hold on your hand, then going loose, altering speeds between painstaking slowness and a quick jerking movement.

“doin’ good, princess,” he panted, and you flushed at the praise because you really weren’t doing anything.

scanning over his body, you remembered the way his breath stopped short when your tongue was on his skin.

you wanted to hear those sounds again.

leaning down, you shyly mouthed over the skin at his neck, sucking there, and you were immediately spurred on with the low groan that left his lips.

your lips traveled down past his collarbones, to the plush muscle of his chest, tongue circling his nipples now, and he jolted in beneath you, hand stuttering almost to a stop.

“christ,” he gritted out as you sucked there, thighs squirming together for an ounce of relief.

you found it when Ghost snaked a hand beneath your drawers, seeking out your puffy clit and eagerly discovering it, rubbing firm circles against you.

your lips fell away from his chest, and you almost crumpled onto him, grinding down into his hand with a greediness that bloomed through your whole body. he hummed approvingly in your ear, kissing the shell of it gently, when you jerked your hand over his length on your own—matching the movements of his fingers on your clit.

“fuck, just like that,” he rasped, sounding a bit desperate now.

his hand fell away from yours around his length, gripping at your hip instead to steady you. when he sped up, so did your hand, sparks flying beneath your eyelids as you keened loud. his lips were on your neck, and your whole body went numb, but your gaze was intent on his own length that throbbed deliciously strong in your hand.

it twitched, then shuddered, and you felt Ghost muffle a groan against your neck as his hips stuttered up, watching in amazement as fluids spurted out from the tip in rhythmic pulses, rolling down over your hand in a milky substance.

you both shuddered through mutual pleasure, and once the last of the wracking waves struck you, you crashed forward into his chest, a sticky and sweaty mess.

you caught his eye, tired and half-lidded, a bead of sweat going down his neck as his chest rose rapidly, and you couldn’t help but laugh—feeling giddy from the open display of his own pleasure that Ghost had just revealed to you.

his lax face shifted into one of amusement, craning down to kiss your nose. that’s when you remembered—

“i didn’t put my mouth on it,” you realized with a cracking disappointment.

looking down to his length, now softer and still covered in the fluids, you leaned down to press your tongue to it, but were pulled back suddenly by a soft hiss.

“don’t,” Ghost rasped, and you gave him a wide-eyed apologetic look.

he just shook his head. “it’s different than this—” he smoothed a hand over your clothed cunt, and you gasped with embarrassment at the blunt movement, “—s’more sensitive after i orgasm.”

you tilted your head. “orgasm?”

he brushed the hair from your sweaty forehead. “your climax,” he elaborated in a seductively smooth voice and you blushed, pushing his hand away as he smirked. you knew what he meant.

your gaze traveled back to the pool of fluid on his stomach, a curiosity brewing in you. “is that what this is?”

he followed your gaze. “mhmm. it’s what this is, too.”

he snaked his hand back into your undergarments, and you jolted with a gasp, squirming when he pressed two fingers against your entrance. when he pulled them back to show you, there was a sticky wetness on them—similar to the one on his pelvis.

“oh,” you said, flushed with embarrassment at such blunt displays of education.

you mentally chided your mama for teaching you absolutely nothing about this. though, you assumed she would’ve told you before your marriage about… lovemaking.

before a crashing guilt could consume you, the view of Ghost wrapping his tongue around his fingers that were sticky with your orgasm startled you back to reality.

“Ghost!” you exclaimed, pulling his fingers out of his mouth.

his brow furrowed as he huffed with frustration. “what?”

“that’s improper!” you slapped at his chest. “very improper! and…” your face screwed up. “unsanitary.”

that face-consuming smirk of his stretched his pretty lips. “don’t forget i was drinking it straight from the source last night.”

with your hand to your mouth, you gasped, pushing yourself completely off the bed as he shook with quiet laughter, delirious with it, even.

“i’m done with you,” you said with a roll of your eyes as he beseeched you to come back, but you refused to comply, clasping your corset back around you.

out of the corner of your eye, you watched him mop up the wetness on his body with his balled up dress shirt before he padded over, swiping your hair over your shoulder.

“let me help.”

you felt him lace the thing back up, and tug it close loosely. you sent him a look over your shoulder, instructing him to tighten it more, but he just grumbled, barely tugging it tight and you ended up shooing him away to do it yourself.

he gave you a grumpy, reproachful look and you had to bite back a grin at his behavior—that intimidating stoicism returned as promised as a rising ocean tide.

from the armoire, you picked out a loose nightgown, bodice embroidered with small bows and lace, sleeves pulling into a wide bell shape at your elbow. Ghost was still half-naked, leaning back on your bed with a sleepy gaze. he gave you a highly approving hum when you pulled it on before excusing yourself to wash up in the lavatory.

drawing Ghost’s trench coat back around your shoulders, and stepping into the hall, you muffled a shout when the same pullman porter was stationed at the end of the hallway, eyes boring into you. in the darkness of the night, shadows were cast strangely across his face, and his eyes looked like they were a pure black.

resisting the urge to step back into your room, where a very dangerous and strong outlaw lay, you just gave the porter a polite nod to move to a lavatory in the opposite direction. the porter stood stock still in the dark, not even moving to acknowledge you.

bitten with fear, you sighed in relief when you pushed into the private lavatory, locking the door behind you. inspecting your appearance in the mirror, you cringed at the disheveledness of it. there was a dark, purpling circle of exhaustion under your eyes and a swollen pink hue to your face—not to mention the frizzy circlets of hair defying gravity on your crown.

you took your own washcloth and dipped it in the basin, turning the faucet, praying for hot water. when none came after you stripped yourself of your nightgown, you grimaced as you scrubbed the cold washcloth over yourself. you wet your hair and brushed it back, splashing your face with the icy water, toweling off, then redressing yourself in the nightgown.

a hand on the lavatory knob, you worried about the porter at the end of the hallway. what if he had moved? what if, when you opened the door, you’d open it to his face—the all-encompassing black of his eyes?

suddenly, events just hours prior came crashing down on you. men looming over you. the sickening thud of the bullet hitting that man on his horse, face going black, before falling to the ground with a crunch. the clink of a belt.

gunshots were in your ears, an intense ringing after each click, trigger, pull, boom and smoke.

“no,” your hands shook as you slid down the lavatory wall, covering your ears.

the banging became louder. with each boom another body dropped dead, blood unfurling around it like a bad omen, its tendrils snaking. snaking towards you.

“no, no.” you couldn’t stop shaking.

this was your fault.

you had killed three men today. one, on the horse, second, bullet through the face, third, beat him to death in the ground. beat him to death.

this was your fault. this was your fault, this was your fault, this was your fault—

“HEY!” you jolted back to reality, breath in a dizzying flurry. really dizzying flurry. when you stood, you felt nauseous, almost keeling over and throwing up. you pressed your forehead to the cool of the wall, swallowing back the bile hard.

there was a banging knock on the door.

“how much fockin’ longer are ye going to take’n there?” you tried to work out your voice but all that came out was a scraping rasp.

“sweet mother of mary and jesus, what does a man need to do to piss ‘round here—”

you swung the door open suddenly and Soap jumped back with a yelp, pressed flat against the opposite of the narrow hallway. the soft, yellow lighting poured out into the dark hallway and bruises you didn’t notice before littered Soap’s cheeks, his right eye a pocket of swollen, purple flesh.

his anger dissipated in a second at the sight of you, giving you a nervous, wry smile.

“sorry, lassie, didn’t know it was you—” he paused suddenly, face contorting. “are ye cryin’, lassie?”

you touched your fingers to your numb face, pulling back to find a wetness on your fingertips. you just stared at him as he fumbled awkwardly, mouth opening and closing.

you spoke for him. “i killed three men.”

he didn’t even react, expression deflating as he nodded. “it happens, lass.”

he reached out a hand tentatively, just barely brushing his good hand over your shoulder, the other still hanging limp by his chest in a white sling.

how can murder be normal?

“no, i killed them. on purpose.” something in you broke. “i wanted them to die.”

he just shook his head again, gripping your shoulder tightly now. “they would’ve done worst te you if you didn’t, bonnie.”

you chewed that, finding it indigestible no matter how you looked at it.

Soap continued quickly, “i enlisted when i was sixteen. saw things in a war i shouldn't've. luckily one-four-one and Laswell had my back…”

he smiled fondly before shrugging. “war happens. death happens, lassie, whether you wish it on someone or not. those men had it comin’ for ‘em.”

nodding slowly, you barely mustered a tight-lipped smile when he patted your shoulder brazenly, beaming with a grin. behind him, a grumpy looking blonde materialized in the hallway, her hair tousled and still in full riding attire, grip tight at her holster. Soap’s grip dropped immediately.

“what’s goin’ on here?” Kate demanded, looking from you to Soap.

you jolted, the roughness of her expression pulling you back to reality. a creeping shame rose in you—crying in front of a man you barely knew, confessing your sins to him in your lacey nightgown in the middle of the dark, narrow hallway. Kate’s gaze hardened, and you balked, struggling to find an explanation when Soap interjected.

“i was just waitin’ to use the loo!” he tossed you a smile, but there was a mischievous glint in his eyes that told you to play along. “funny meetin’ you here in the hallway, princess!”

like ice water dumped over your head, you were strung back into your body.

you rolled your eyes. “don’t call me that.”

“right,” Soap sang, “only Ghost can say it. apologies, lass.”

you stepped out of the lavatory with Ghost’s coat around you and Soap slid in after you, shutting the door. looking into Kate’s furrowed face, you could see the red-rimmed bloodshot of her eyes and the bags beneath them. she looked exhausted.

beyond her, down the hall in the compartment where you ventured from earlier, John, Alejandro, and Rodolfo were still engrossed in conversation.

Kate followed your gaze with a sigh. “don’t even ask, missy,” she warned with a warm hand at your back and you suppressed a smile.

you were grateful as she led you back down the narrow hallway to your room, the porter still in the same spot from earlier, eyes dead on you. eyes looking dead as well.

you tried your best to ignore him but his head jerked, cracking it, rolling back his shoulders from the stiff position. rushing a bit faster, you could feel Kate’s hand tighten against your spine as you fumbled with the room key.

you jolted when she called down the hall.

“what the hell’re you lookin’ at?” she griped at the porter, who finally turned his head to the window beside him.

her eyes narrowed, and she grumbled low into your ear, “don’t go venturing off in this train alone at night, as much as i know you love to explore.”

there was a dripping sarcasm in her voice that you chose to ignore as you swung the door open, bidding her a soft goodnight as she gave you a tight-lipped smile before it dropped from her face into a scowl. but the full look in her eyes made you feel as though you may have grown closer than you thought over just the past three days.

shutting the door behind you, you leaned against it, sighing out, before turning to find Ghost in a sprawled out position like before. your spent clothes for the day were folded in the corner on a plush chair as well as his own. you couldn’t help but smile at that seemingly persistent habit of neatness he had as you laid down his coat over the back of the chair.

you neared him but he didn’t turn to look at you, just leaned his head against the wall.

you crawled onto the bed and brushed your knuckles over the red mask. you were disappointed to see the black fabric beneath it pulled down over his jaw again.

“have a good wash?”

he blinked owlishly out the window on the opposing wall, desert passing by serenely, washed in a cool blue tone by the sweep of the moonlight. the rattling of the train clinked through the room.

you opened your mouth before swallowing down hard.

no one has to know about your episode.

Soap had made sure of that in front of Kate, and you felt endlessly indebted to him. how would Ghost react if he knew you were having… mental struggles? you could only pray under your breath that it wouldn’t persist, but you doubted god was listening to your meek voice after the sins you’ve committed today.

shivering, you just nodded with a smile. “refreshing.”

“good.” his face swung to you, a hardness to his eyes. your brow furrowed but you buried it with another smile. “we need to talk.”

blinking, you slinked away from him and sat on the far edge of the bed, which wasn’t very far at all in the cramped room, his outstretched foot resting against your hip. you leaned back against the window, the moonlight casting his mask in a blue gleam.

“we do,” you agreed, though about what—you didn’t know where to begin.

what exactly would happen once you reached san francisco? would you be included in their business, or would they shut you out like before? a stranger and a hostage?

you one-overed Ghost’s relaxed form, to the muscles of his torso, the veins spidering up his arms, and the distant look in his eyes.

what was going on between you and Ghost?

what exactly was phase two?

you thought back to this afternoon in the basement and what you had found—the intercepted letter from your daddy and Ghost’s journal. your eyes darted to the pile of clothes in the room.

“looking for this?”

you jolted when he tossed something onto the open space of the bed beside you, stomach dropping at the words scrawled over it.

GHOST.

a snaking dread sized you, any lingering warm feelings of your shared night sliding off your body like icy water.

your eyes snapped up to his—cold and dark.

like the porter’s, a traitorous voice in you called out, but you immediately willed it away, because this was Simon.

“you can’t blame me for snooping.” your jaw clenched when he didn’t respond. “you took me and confined me to the shop. no one told me what would happen to me. i needed to know if…”

you swallowed around your next words. “...if you were going to ransom me back to my daddy.”

Ghost made no move, didn’t even blink, hand twitching on his bare chest.

“you want the truth?” holding your breath, you gave him a curt nod.

“i was going to,” he chewed out, and you blinked. “last night i was still deciding.”

last night. when you were curled up in his arms and he had taken your first bout of innocence from you. a spark of something dark lit within you. as of recent, it seems he’s taken a lot from you in general.

your gun, your innocence, your parents. your home.

“did you go see my daddy that day?”

that day when you said you were searching for Sugar, you wanted to challenge, was it all a lie?

you thought back to the intercepted letter—your daddy’s anger seething through the note, and his promise to wrung one-four-one of everything until he got you back. maybe the proper term was rescue.

Ghost’s jaw clenched. “yes.”

you sucked in a breath, a spiraling panic coming back to you like the one in the lavatory before. you willed it away best you could, pressing cool knuckles to your temple as you closed your eyes. images flashed—your daddy dead, blood everywhere, all over his papers, letters, clothes, a bullet in his temple and Ghost with a revolver to his head. was he dead?

did Ghost kill your daddy?

“is he alive?”

you waited for the answer with bated breath.

“‘course. even if he tried to kill me.”

a whoosh of air left you, and you leaned your head back against the cool window, taking in Ghost. his head was tilted, a curious glint in them that you ignored.

his voice was cold. “anymore questions?”

you gave him a hard stare. “what changed your mind?”

“about?”

you scoffed. “not selling me away after…” last night. you couldn’t bring yourself to say it.

his foot pressed into your hip but you ignored it. he sighed out.

“i went to your father to offer a ransom.” your brow raised. “$25,000.”

this sounded familiar.

“but he refused.”

you flinched at that, somewhere between a crushing weight of disappointment and embarrassment falling on you. you wiped away a brewing wetness in your eyes. Ghost couldn’t return you if your daddy didn’t want you in the first place.

“so?”

his foot dug deeper into your side.

“he told me something else.”

you finally met Ghost’s gaze, his head tipped forward and brows furrowed. you could tell from the way his eyes pinched with a haunted glare.

after a long silence ensued, you poked at his foot. “what was it?”

the void bluntness of his voice told you it wasn’t anything good.

“he refused the ransom because of his pride, but also because he didn’t want to ransom you when…” Ghost sucked in a breath, “when you already belonged to someone else.”

your mind reeled at that.

“what?”

“he thought it wasn’t fair he had to pay. he was already working with a businessman to make you his mistress.”

your stomach curdled, heart beating out your throat. “no, that’s…” you choked down some tears, “that’s not true.”

the end of your words turned up in a weak tremble that you desperately wanted to hide but Ghost pinned you down with his eyes.

“he was going to make you Turner’s mistress. that was part of their deal.”

your blood chilled at that, body going impossibly numb. what did this mean for you now? you scrambled to find purchase in your mind, in anything that would slow the spinning of the room. what did this mean for you now?

were you still of use to one-four-one? would they abandon you in san francisco to fight a war, leaving you to the streets? and if they did, would your daddy accept you back in his home, or turn you right over to Turner as his personal whore?

you shook, vision clouded over.

even if you didn’t choose your daddy, you still wish he chose you over everything.

you were his only daughter after all.

“that doesn’t make sense,” you said thickly, “why would he do that?”

Ghost was as still as a rock, his only sign of life was the hand that came down to play with the hem of your nightgown.

“bigger investment and more money, ” he said, voice eerily empty, and an iciness passed through you.

just another one of Daddy’s business transactions.

you remember what Ghost called out at the dinner table that night.

you sell your daughter to investors for a buck. do you really want to talk about honor?

your eyes flickered to Ghost again. had he known all along? or had he just taken a great guess from doing so many years of business with your daddy—who you really didn’t seem to know at all?

a weak, strangled noise came from the back of your throat.

“but in that letter,” you groped, clawing for anything, “he said he would do anything to get me back. he said that.”

your voice rose and Ghost’s eyes slid away from you to the window behind you.

you felt like a whining, whimpering child. a mile long chasm was being torn straight through the room, and when you looked to the other side, Ghost was the older, war-torn man he always was and you were just… you.

hopeful, naive, innocent.

you.

you balled up into your chest and let the tears stream from your eyes in the most silent sobs you could muster, only the gentle clinking of glass on metal in the room, train chugging on relentlessly, dragging you in tow.

had you really thought, only five days ago, that you could become a gunslinger alongside Ghost? a cowgirl with a great shot and a tough spirit?

you felt so far from all of it that you dug your nails into the soreness of your ankle, relishing the way the sharp waves of pain brought you back down to earth.

there was a sigh in your ear, and two strong arms that wrapped you up, but you twisted in them immediately, your nails digging into the flesh of Ghost’s arms as you shoved him away.

“don’t you dare,” you hissed, pressing yourself as far as you could from him in the diminishing room. your eyes flickered to the ceiling above his head. it really looked like the room was getting smaller—the ceiling shrinking by the second.

he only watched you with an eerie calm, a nauseous feeling climbing in you.

“you did this,” you spat through tears. “a couple days ago i was with my mama and daddy and everything was fine until you showed up.”

your breath shook. “you devil.”

whether Ghost was hurt by it, you couldn’t tell, because he only blinked harshly, but you regretted the words anyways. because you knew that Ghost was telling the truth. even if you did stay with your mama and daddy, and Ghost had never taken you, you would’ve been swept away to Turner’s big estate in san francisco anyway.

but the bile poured from you like a sweltering, infected wound. “i would’ve been married,” you cried out, tears dripping from your trembling chin onto the breast of your nightgown. of Ghost’s nightgown.

liar, a voice in you hissed, but you pushed it to the furthest corner of your mind.

“you stole me from my parents, took my honor, and you’re a liar!”

Ghost cocked his head at you, eyes glazed over and mask glinting. you hated that stupid mask. you just wanted to rip it off his face.

you jolted when he spoke, grumbling out, “i didn’t mean to.”

if there was a revolver slung in your holster, you would’ve shot him dead three times in the heart by now, just like your mama said.

Mama, a little girl in you cried, i’m sorry. i should’ve listened to you that first night in the cabin when he fell asleep.

he continued with gritted teeth. “i wanted revenge against your father for betraying me and i wanted revenge on Turner.” he wouldn’t look at you now. “i wanted to steal something of theirs and make it mine.”

of all the things he could’ve said, nothing in the world prepared you then. you lurched for him, vision red and wrapped your hands around his neck, wanting to see a flicker of fear in his eyes—or something other than the cold, dead wall you were talking to.

but he just flipped you easily in a calculated movement, weight keeping you pinned as you mindlessly struggled, arms in a bind above your head.

he talked over your cries and shouts now, voice in your ear— “i knew your daddy had a daughter. but i didn’t know she was so young and full of spirit and…” your struggling subsided. the look in his eyes seemed something like defeat. “...lovely.”

you spat right onto his mask but he didn’t even flinch.

“liar,” you hissed, working up into a frenzy again, squirming against his bone-crushing hold. “liar, liar, liar, liar—”

“i thought his daughter would be some rich, prissy girl who didn’t want anything to do with outlaws. then she told me she hated her happy, small town life, and her two parents that loved her.”

“liar, liar, liar, liar—”

“she told me that she could be a gunslinger if she wanted to be. she rode like one, too.”

you tried to scream and shout over his words and block it out of your brain, but his low murmur against your ear cut right through it all.

“when i realized what��d i’d done, that i’d stolen a girl who was a thief, it was too late. you saved my life when i got shot. i thought you would’ve ran away and left me for dead.”

his voice dropped even lower, the forehead of his cool mask pressing against your jaw. “i wanted you to leave me for dead.”

at that, your struggling subsided, confusion welling up in you like a stormy cloud.

“i wanted you to leave me for dead.”

he pulled back to press your arms to your chest and loomed over you.

“i wanted to be dead for what i was doing.”

you kicked out under his legs, knee connecting with something soft, and he dropped his hips with a hiss to pin you down.

“what were you doing?”

his voice was deceptively soft. “i was using you for revenge.”

more tears ran from the sides of your face like fleeing raindrops.

then a fast anger cooked in you, a slower simmer turning to a hot boil.

“i hate you,” you seethed, staring right into the wall of his mask. there wasn’t a human being beneath there.

just a calculated animal.

“i hate you,” you said again, voice breaking.

“good,” he nodded, though his tone was broken. “honest to god, i didn’t know your father was going to give you to Turner.”

you hissed, “how can you be honest to god?”

he ignored you. “i would’ve returned you to your family if they paid the ransom. even if they didn’t, i would’ve given you back eventually. but they didn’t want you and you didn’t want to go. it was always about Turner—we didn’t care about the money. your father happened to betray us and we found the perfect bloody outlet to Turner.”

you dug the side of your face into the side of the bed, refusing to look at him as he held you there. a pool of your tears formed beneath the swollen fleshiness of your cheek.

“i needed Turner to take the first step in this war. and he did. i got lucky when i happened to steal his future mistress.” his eyes flashed. “Turner hates it when his things are taken.”

“since, you’ve gotten what you want,” you cried, voice raw “what do you still need me for?”

he closed his eyes. “i don’t know.”

“liar.” the word was becoming melded into your tongue. “you want to use me for revenge. is that all i’m useful for, then?” your throat cracked open, wide and full of emotion. “i’m just for your revenge? did you bed me for revenge?”

his gaze was half-lidded, tired. “yes.”

you fell limp at that, feeling every ounce of energy drain from you—like the devil was sucking away your life force.

you wanted that poisonous, gurgling voice inside you to breathe out another liar, to call Ghost’s bluff for what it was, but it fell silent the moment you needed it most.

closing your eyes, Ghost’s body draped over your own, warm and solid and flushed together. he pressed his mask into your hair.

bourbon, cigarettes, and the musk of wood and dirt and sweet spruce.

you couldn’t even fight it. you don’t even think you wanted to—because even if no one wanted you in the world, not even your daddy, Ghost did want you for something. one thing.

revenge.

“get out,” you whispered, and he didn’t move, a big, swelling rock above you.

“get out!” you shouted, straight into his ear, but he didn’t even flinch. after another long pause he slid off you with a gentleness, a fleeting caress of his hand against your swollen ankle before he slinked away. there was a soft click of the door closing, Ghost’s boots thumping against the floor in the hallway.

you stayed in that position for a long time, pressed to the mattress right where he had left you.

it was like, if you moved, the invisible imprint of him against your skin would disappear like his physical form, lost into the night.

maybe this is what you needed, you decided. maybe, if you could convince one-four-one of your usefulness, that you were important to them, even beyond Ghost’s revenge ploys, you would become a permanent member and carve out a space in their lives. but not Ghost’s. never Ghost’s.

a withering, squirming dread in your stomach made it known that it would be impossible. at this point, you were too tired to even try and convince them to let you stay.

so you turned over and forced yourself into a relentless, exhausting sleep.

ok that was kinda crazy. but i promise the angst will not last forever. chapter 3 coming soon.........

i hope you guys enjoyed!! <;33

taglist: @poohkie90 @kunikku @silverianni @doublesuicidewithme @cliosunshine @one17 @warenai @saturnknows @tomiesdiet @migueloharaapologist2 @keiva1000 @kenma-izhu @lilvampirina @deltottoro @maki-z @leeeenistop @danika1994 @stillinracooncity @saevitiaa @itsalwaysbetternottoknow @karagd13-blog @nattywatty @oyaoyaoyaoyaoyaoyaoyaoya @havoc973 @mr-sol

#simon riley smut #simon riley x reader #simon ghost riley x reader #cod mw2 #ghost cod #call of duty #call of duty modern warfare #call of duty modern warfare 2 #ghost smut #ghost angst #ghost mw2 #simon ghost riley #simon riley x you #simon riley #ghost x reader #ghost x you #ghost fluff #simon riley fluff #simon riley angst

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maybe-boys-do-love · 11 days ago

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The Only Friends Conspiracy Corner

Welcome to my Only Friends conspiracy theory corner, where I lose my mind on the regular and explain why I believe Only Friends is a veiled commentary on the Thai BL entertainment industry and its relationship to Thailand's soft power economic model, especially Thailand's gay (aka pink money) tourism. As The Heart Killers gets relatively explicit about issues of structural political and economic power, now seems as good a time as ever to talk about Jojo’s last show that seemed to me to put so much of its political work in the subtext. This is just the starter pack. Hit me up with more thoughts anytime!

The Only Friends Hostel business. We have business majors in this show, a rarity in Thai BL, and for their class project they're opening a hostel. Each member of the friend group has a business role to play--Ray provides the real estate, Mew takes on leadership of finances and accounting, Cheum provides PR, and Boston's tasked with creative direction--but the value of the individuals, their roles in the business, and their willingness to collaborate with one another is the tension that drives the series. The characterizations, dialogue, and events in the series ought to be viewed in light of this. Mew, for example, partners off with Top, who encroaches on the friends' trivia group to answer for them a question about Thailand's first hotel, The Oriental, which two Americans established for sailors in Bangkok shortly after the opening of the Kingdom of Siam to international trade in 1855 and later two Dutch business partners reestablished after a fire. A single answer links Top to the influx of Western capitalism in the form of a hotel in Thailand! To count up the economic references in Only Friends would take a massive spreadsheet.

Artistic Passions. Each boy in the Y.O.L.O. bar friend group is associated with one artistic medium. Boston with photography and visual arts more broadly, Ray with music, and Mew with books (lol there's a scene in the last episode in which the translation has Force use the word force in a sentence immediately followed by Book as Mew mentioning his "books"). These are the components of the television and film medium: visuals, sound, and writing. Their romantic entanglements are also colored by their preferred medium and the narrative styles associated with them. Boston has his sensual dark room developments *wink wink,* Ray hooks up with a musician to visit record stores and concerts like a romantic movie couple, Mew makes his ideal seme court him in bookstores and dates straight out of a BL romcom novel. Even Cheum’s girlfriend, April, makes indie movies that go over our token lesbian’s head.

Atom, Cheum, and Mew’s BL Fantasies. It’s not surprising Cheum’s not about those art house flicks. Her, her brother, and Mew all espouse some BL tropes with harmful consequences. The most blatant is Atom’s stated belief that he ‘turned gay’ because of Boston, which he’s corrected on, but Atom, Nick, and Mew all commit to the BL (and broader romance) trope of equating first affections with true love. And Cheum sorts the gay men of her life into simplified categories of red flags or green flags, predators or cinnamon buns. Not all BLs are so simplistic with their trope usage and characterizations, but Only Friends highlights damaging tendencies that occur in the genre and among its fans.

The Pairings. Speaking of fans, one of the key strategies for creating fan interest are the pairings. While not unique to the BL industry entirely—Hollywood’s been pairing actors for publicity and dollars from pretty early on—BL pairs have a pretty distinct flavor, and Only Friends’ casting takes advantage of that. For our pair associated with the most fluffy BL narratives, we have ForceBook, a CP only ever paired together who have known one another since kindergarten. The maturer second love romance goes to FirstKhao, who both worked in other pairings before landing in their current contractual partner relationship. The situationship to end all situationships goes to two actors who, at the time, were not in a CP, something that Jojo has specifically mentioned as relevant to his interests when casting.

The Boeing of it all. Named after a fucking airplane manufacturer, with multiple references to his dreams of traveling internationally (concerts with Sand), flight (he's working to be a airline attendant), and flightiness (both his flightiness toward his bf’s and his encouragement of others to fly away from their partners). In a show explicitly about the hospitality industry? In a genre dependent on international viewers??? In one name, we get such a fountain of economic insight!

Begin Again. In the finale episode, Ray tells Sand he always wanted to wander around listening to music like they did in Begin Again. In fact, Mew and Top’s silent disco moment plays homage to the same sequence. Begin Again, however, is not a romance, despite what the marketing and weak reviews (from critics who expected a swooning repeat of indie gem Once from its director) implied. Instead, Begin Again uses romantic expectations as a trojan horse for an insider portrait of the music industry as the streaming industry changed its operating models. The leads are Mark Ruffalo who plays a has-been alcoholic producer (an important reference to even better understand Ray’s role in the hostel business) and Kiera Knightly, playing a singer-songwriter betrayed by her rising star boyfriend (acted by Adam Levine from Maroon 5). Spoiler alert: If you imagine something more between Knightly and Ruffalo’s characters than the deep relationship creatives can form making art together, you’ll be sorely disappointed. Ruffalo’s character goes back to his ex-wife (a bad omen for SandRay stans since the characters spend the time preceding their romantic walk in the last episode arguing about whether they still have feelings for their exes). Knightly’s chanteuse gets her former boyfriend to apologize and sing her song without pop theatrics on stage but she chooses not to join him and stick to her own independent path. Importantly, the film by the end respects both the popular and auteur artistic sensibilities, reserving more ire for the business models. No one character or method is completely demonized or sanctified. I can’t help but recognize a similar spirit in the portrayal of the three gay romance narratives in Only Friends—Boston’s queer tragedy, Ray’s tear-jerking gay romantic drama, or Mew’s BL comedy. The show acknowledges the formative role of those storytelling modes in the BL industry and even touches on some economic realities of choosing one mode over another. Some exemplary dialogue from the Begin Again:

“I just think that an A&R [a record label’s artists and repertoire representative] man telling an artist how they should dress or come across is total bullshit. People don’t want that. They want authenticity”

“Authenticity! Give me the name of one artist that you think passes your authenticity test…I’m not saying you can’t be a real bona fide motherfucker in this business but you’ve got to do whatever it takes and get people in to see your shows where THE MUSIC can start to do its real work.”

Personal Hygiene Lessons. In the last two episodes, we witness Ray’s community service teaching children about hygiene. “Once upon a time…” he begins, which immediately alerts me to television writers depicting the act of storytelling. It’s a story attempting to encourage daily toothbrushing to protect from plaque, but Sand steps in and scares them with the threat of a bug crawling into their body if they don’t brush their teeth—suspiciously more similar to issues of sexual health than teeth brushing. The next clinic presentation is about washing out your nose. Either Thailand’s got some hygiene practices I don’t know about, or Jojo’s writing team snuck in a sneaky reference to douching. Watching, I was reminded that Jojo and his good friend and fellow director Aof Noppharnach (Bad Buddy, ATOTS, so many other huge GMMTV series!) began their careers writing and directing a series directly about sexual health for GayOK Bangkok, produced by an HIV testing organization. After the first presentation, Sand explains, “I’m approachable to all ages and genders,” a prime marketing demographic if I’ve ever heard one! Just like Sand, Aof, who is now the senior director of content production at GMMTV, has made inroads for himself and others into a massive market by developing a writing, directing, and producing strategy for integrating queer content (here’s my post about his recurring motifs around HIV treatment) within family-friendly BL shows, often with a romantic fairytale-like quality hearkening back to Ray’s “Once upon a time…”

The Politician. The parents included in the series have distinguished economic and political circumstances they're associated with. Bear with me on the political-economy history lessons here. Boston, most prominently, has a father running for political office, and we meet him for the first time while Boston's wearing a 1998 t-shirt, the year the Thai Rak Thai (Thais Love Thais) party was founded by Thaksin Shinawatra, telecom billionaire and Thailand's first prime minister to lead a democratically elected government through a full-term in office beginning in 2001. He led key initiatives to promote tourism, make healthcare accessible, and, controversially, crackdown on drugs. Essentially, he provided the vision for the government that kick-started Thailand's move to its current project of soft-power. In fact, his youngest daughter, Paetongtarn Shinawatra, (who describes herself as a "socially liberal capitalist") is the current prime minister partly responsible for overseeing the equal marriage bill into law. Thaksin was ousted by a military coup in 2006 following his family's decision to sell its shares in major Thai telecom group to a Singaporean company and, faced with corruption charges in 2008, lived in exile (until September 2023, less than a month after Only Friends started airing). Ousted for not playing his part in supporting a Thai business? Boston, is that you? There is also a comment in the first episode about the massage parlor Boston's father built his financial success off of, and there's a conversation to be had there about Thailand's Thaksin-led shift away from and crackdown on its sex tourism industry. (The Department for Communicable Disease Control shirt on Style's shirt in episode 3 of The Heart Killers is a government organization in Thailand, not Alabama as the shirt says, which among other things monitors direct sex workers for STDs.) How might a focus on constant financial and moral improvement harm those who fail sanctions against promiscuity? What I find so artful about Boston's potential linkage to Thaksin is how he's constructed as Thaksin's parallel--in his journey toward exile and the over-consumption that led him there--and his antithesis. Boston's the victim, at least in his emotional well-being, of a neoliberal legacy. Thaksin's policies, similar to those of Rudy Giuliani and his predecessors in NYC, promoted family-friendly tourism and industry growth by supporting the corporate partnerships and broken window policing to price out and criminalize those unconventional populations who had taken refuge or even just found themselves in these locales after being marginalized elsewhere. In the same vein, the privileging of monogamous pairing in both BL narratives and BL fan-service expectations serve important goals encouraging breadths of people to accept and embrace gay love socially and politically—Thailand’s upcoming marriage rights bill, more expansive than most western countries, certainly has the BL industry’s influence to thank. Without further input, however, they neglect queer experiences beyond the realm of the first love or marriage plot. They neglect greater issues of equity, compassion, and freedom due to each individual human being (both actors and the general population), which the LGBT population, among others, has historically had an intimate experience with being denied or limited.

Nick’s Digital Underworld. Nick’s our little tech wunderkind in OnlyFriends. His character fixes phones, hooks up cameras and recording equipment, makes digital campaign posters, you name it! And I personally love that he’s both a skeevy pathetic tech wizard and radiantly beautiful. His cute-factor almost lets us forget about his voyeuristic tendencies. He’s just a content enjoyer, and Boston loves creating content—he just doesn’t want himself recorded…So why doesn’t Nick just get off to some porn instead? Only Friends didn’t name itself so closely to the amateur adult content website for no reason! In fact, we got an OnlyFans reference in The Heart Killers episode 4. Imma have to thank this post for noticing an OnlyFans sign in the background of Addicted Heroin Th and pointing out that it’s illegal in Thailand, cuz I had never considered anything about the country’s pornography laws or internet censorship. I’ll try to restrain myself from blabbering too much about the history I found here and here, but the important part: Thaksin’s once again our guy kicking it off. The Thaksin government censorship focused heavily on antipornography and the 2006 military coup brought in a more Orwellian political flavor to the proceedings, both of which have basically proliferated with continuing regime changes. In 2020, mainly because of increased censorship of adult websites (which is a current global conservative trend—I’m looking at you Project 2025—so don’t hate on Thailand too much), Thailand dropped to the third-lowest tier of internet freedom, according to the company Comparitech (which focuses on cybersecurity and online privacy), only above North Korea, China, and Iran. Both content creators and consumers can have some harsh punishments under the laws. With that in mind, it’s hard to imagine Jojo’s team giving us Boston’s pornographic art and Nick’s digital pornographic consumption as mere character dressing. The fact that they are the two excluded from the friend group at the end, excluded from the local business, from acceptance! Meanwhile, having censored the “deviant” contingent out of the equation, romance is alive and well at the OnlyFans—I mean, Only Friends hostel. As one kind of gay content is uplifted, another is suppressed and banished. No, Boston and the pornography industry he seems to signify are not perfect, but neither are his friends, nor the entertainments and political-economies with which they’re equated.

Without too much moralizing, these are the sorts of observations and hypocrisies Only Friends highlights. In my reading, at least, it depicts these media and economic trends through its characters, allowing them to play out and contend with one another as they have in reality. Sometimes the allegorical tensions or pairing of genres and capital occurs in the dynamics between characters. Other times, as I pointed out with Boston and his Thaskin connection, the tension exists within a single character. These strategies allow the show to engage with political issues while under the government’s censorship laws, but this is also just what great literary political writing looks like! It speaks to its time, but it will stand much longer as simply a character-driven story about the contentions that arise between money, sex, love, and friendship. I cannot wait for Girl Rules to give us Jojo’s GL perspective on related issues and for Only Friends Dream On to explore this territory in the context of an actual BL production! Let the chaotic theorizing ensue!

#only friends #only friends the series #only friends meta #only friends dream on #girl rules the series #jojo tichakorn #thai bl #bostonnick #sandray #topmew #the heart killers #bl discourse #ofts #bl drama

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