#tw gratuitous bleeding

[winguontheweb]

WAKE UP IT'S HALLOWEEN

Bonus Thursday update!

Moonchaser - Page 18

[post-it-notes7]

A secret bonus to this previous post

[nym-wibbly]

Love Lies Bleeding by Nym #8

"It's all about those boys, isn't it?" Naomi won't stop talking.

All resistance weakens under sustained attack. As an obedient servant of Heaven, Castiel used that fact without remorse or mercy, a blunt instrument. How many times did these angels who answer to no god have him honed to mindless perfection? Sword. Hammer. Castiel. He's slipping away.

"Those chaotic apes. We thought it was this vessel at first." Naomi lifts his chin as his grip on consciousness weakens, dragging him back to focus on her eyes. Blood pools quickly in her palm before overspilling to mark her crisp, white cuff. "That he changed you somehow, polluted you. The bloodline, some error in the Novak DNA. But everything in your mind is tainted with Winchester." She speaks the name the same way she says corruption and dereliction of duty. Revolted. Insulted. "You haven't even been inside one of them."

On his best days, Castiel struggles with the human art of double entendre. Still, he thinks of Dean immediately, of a wickedly raised eyebrow and smothered smirk behind the neck of a cold beer bottle, of how factually wrong Naomi's statement is on the crudest possible level, and breaks out laughing, laughing, laughing through the spraying blood until Naomi backhands him hard across the face to make it stop.

When his vision stops popping with red-black stars and he focuses again, he can plainly see the naked terror in her snarl of disgust.

[hp-hcs]

• smut• and lead us nott into temptation — asshole! pureblood! dom bottom! theodore nott x male! muggleborn! catholic! sub top! reader

requested by 🦈 anon! (aka my silly goofy lil guy <3)

WARNING: if you don’t like sacrilegious shit or gay male reader inserts, KEEP SCROLLING

i’ve got enough religious trauma to last me many lifetimes, so writing this one was just like ✍️🥲📿

tws: ⚠️dub-con⚠️, 🔞smut mdni🔞, literally no plot, manipulation, coercion, amab reader, virgin reader, corruption kink, pure blasphemy ngl, inappropriate use of religious prayers, lot of shit talking about the catholic church, gratuitous use of em-dashes, gratuitous use of the pet-name “angel”

you and theo are dormmates or something? idfk man this is literally just 2.2k words of depravity

not edited cause tbh i’m hella embarrassed that i wrote this

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

“…hallowed be thy na— Theo?”

“What are you doing?” your roommate asked as he stepped inside your shared dorm, his eyebrows furrowing as his gaze focused on the rosary in your hand. 

“Praying,” you mumble, cheeks flushing under his heavy stare. 

“You’re religious?” he asked, his eyebrows shooting up in surprise. “You believe in all that Muggle deity bullshit?”

“Yes.” You stiffened, lips twisting in distaste at his choice of words. 

You could physically see his pupils dilate at your affirmative answer. 

“Shit,” he mumbled under his breath. “So you’re…what, celibate, or whatever it’s called?”

You startled at the sudden change of topic. 

“Um…abstinent, yes,” you corrected, taking a step backwards as he moved closer. 

“Shit,” he cursed again. “That’s fuckin’ hot.”

He kept moving forward, crowding you back against the wall. You squeaked when he rested his hand against the wall beside your head, blocking you in on one side. He gently, but firmly, gripped your jaw in his other hand. His gaze raked up and down your body.

You gulped. “Th-Theo, what’re you d—”

He cut you off with a harsh kiss. 

It wasn’t gentle. It wasn’t soft or sweet. It was Theo biting your bottom lip hard enough to bleed, tightening his grip on your jaw to wrench it open, and shoving his tongue in your mouth.

You were frozen, the rosary slipping from your fingers and hitting the floor with a loud clatter. After an aggressively…passionate? possessive? minute, Theo pulled back. 

“My sweet little angel,” he cooed, gently stroking the side of your face. “So pretty and pure.”

Your skin prickled under his touch, at the way his eyes darkened with hunger. The way his gentle caress belied the drop of blood running down your chin. 

He looked like sin. The way his hair curled above his ears, his pretty pink lips dotted red with your blood…

He looked like the Devil himself. 

“I want you to fuck me, Y/n,” Theo murmured unabashedly into your ear. 

Your knees trembled. Your heart raced. Your eyes were so wide, it was near painful. “Wh-what?”

“Please, angel? I want you to fuck me,” Theo whispered against your lips, a sensual tone in his voice. 

“Or,” he sighed over-dramatically, really playing it up, “if you want to remain a prude, you can tell me to stop right now and I will; no hard feelings.”

You trembled. What were you doing? Why were you even considering this?

Theo’s hand remained on your waist, and he ran his thumb across your bottommost rib in a steady pattern, back and forth, as he waited for your answer. 

“L-Leviticus 18:22,” you spluttered, doing your damn best to ignore the way the sunlight streaming through your dorm window highlighted and accentuated Theo’s gorgeous bone structure. “Th-thou shalt not lie with m-mankind, as with womankind: it is a-abomination.”

“That’s not a no.”

“That’s not a yes!” you argued. “Besides, lust is a sin of its own!”

“No, this doesn’t count.” He waved a hand dismissively. “It’s an abomination, not sex. Says so right in your little book. So therefore…” his fingers wandered down to the waistband of your trousers, dipping teasingly underneath to ghost over your hip bone before retreating. “Therefore it can’t be lust.”

It was the most backwards logic you’d ever heard. 

But it was hard to think about turning him away when the heel of his hand was suddenly pressing against the front of your trousers. 

“I-it…it isn’t?” you choke out, a confusing new sensation sparking in your stomach. “A-are you sure?”

“Of course,” Theo said, so confidently that you couldn’t help but believe him. 

“I-if you’re sure…” you trailed off, eyes widening as Theo dropped like a rock, his knees hitting the flagstone with a resounding crack that you wished you could record, just so you could listen to it over and over and over again. 

His impatient fingers fumbled with the button of your trousers, yanking them and your boxers down to your mid-thigh in a single smooth motion. 

You flushed bright red at the mere notion of being naked from the waist down in front of another person; let alone Theo, the boy who’d been your roommate for the last eight years. 

He kept his gaze firmly locked with yours, those unnervingly dead eyes framed with sinfully long lashes, as he flattened his tongue against the base of your dick and licked a long, slow stroke up the length of it. 

“Oh, fuck—” you cursed, your head falling backwards and hitting the wall behind you with a solid thunk. 

“I don’t think I’ve ever heard you curse before.” He grinned, his thumb swiping over the head of your dick and collecting the dribble of precum that was steadily leaking from the tip before spreading it around. 

You whined pathetically, your thighs shaking as a moan was wrenched from your lips. Theo grinned wickedly at how debauched you already looked. 

Without a speck of hesitation, he closed his mouth around your dick, his clever tongue teasing the underside. He hollowed his cheeks around you and you gasped out a choked-off moan. 

Theo’s hand snaked up and found your wrist, guiding your hand to the mess of curls on the top of his head. Your fingers tightened in his hair, gripping onto a handful of it for dear life just to keep yourself from passing out from the overwhelming pleasure. Honestly, the only thing keeping you from falling over was Theo’s tight grip on your hips. 

“Shit shit shit shit—”

He pulled off of your dick with a sinful pop. 

“Keep reciting,” Theo rasped, his voice already rough and breathless. 

“Wh-what?”

“I interrupted your prayer when I walked in here. Keep reciting.”

You gulped, licking your lips nervously as you tried to remember where you’d left off before fully giving up and just starting the Our Father over. “O-Our Father, who art in Heaven, hallowed be thy name. Th-thy kingdom come, thy w-will be done, on Earth as it— hah~”

Your head fell back against the wall again as Theo sucked furiously on the tip of your dick, all of your thoughts going out the window. 

Theodore, that bastard, pulled off again.

You whined at the loss. “No- d-don’t—”

“Ah ah ah,” Theo chided, patting your thigh. “You stop, I stop. Keep going.”

You hissed out a displeased grumble before returning to your prayer as he returned to his S-tier dick sucking. “O-on Earth as it is in H-Heaven. G-give us this d-day our— Theo— daily b-bread—”

His fingers slipped down from your hip to brush against the sensitive skin behind your balls. 

Your hips jerked forward on instinct, and Theo moaned like a cheap whore around your cock as it was shoved down his throat, his nose suddenly buried in your pubes. 

“And f-forgive us our tre-trespasses…” you panted, fingers tightening their grip on his hair as your eyes squeezed shut. 

There was an odd sensation, like a coil tightening, behind your belly button. It was strange, although not unpleasant. 

“…as we f-forgive those who— who trespass aga-against us.”

Theo pulled away again. You opened your mouth to curse him out—Heaven knows he deserved it, the damn tease—when he got to his feet and promptly shucked off his shirt and trousers, dropping his boxers without a hint of modesty or insecurity. 

You stared, mouth agape, as Theo wandered over to his bed, seemingly in no hurry. He slowly splayed himself out on his bed for you, casting a wandless lubrication charm with a sly grin and an easy, relaxed posture that was belied by his achingly hard cock practically touching his stomach. 

“Close your mouth, angel,” he purred, beckoning you closer with two fingers. “You might catch flies.”

You took a small step forward, entranced by the sight in front of you.

“Keep praying, angel,” Theo murmured, running a hand through his already-disheveled curls—which only served in making his just-fucked hairstyle even more pronounced. 

“A-and lead us n-not into temptation,”—Theodore Nott was nothing if not temptation in its purest form—“but deliver us from evil.”

 You took another step closer, then another, until you were by his bedside. “Amen.”

“Amen,” Theo echoed, reaching for you with one hand. His fingers knotted themselves in your shirt, yanking you down on top of him. 

He grabbed the back of your neck and smashed his lips against yours. You wiggled, kicking your trousers and boxers off from where they were still stuck around your knees before pulling back to gasp for air. 

Theo grabbed the front of your shirt again, yanking on it. “Off.”

You complied without a second thought, tugging your shirt off over your head in one fluid motion. 

Theo groaned at the sight of your body as you tossed your shirt God-knows-where. He grabbed the back of your neck again and tugged you into another passionate kiss. 

“One day, ‘m gonna ride you,” he mumbled against your lips, running a possessive hand over your stomach. “My fuckin’ gorgeous boy. But today, you’re gonna fuck me.”

He pulled you fully on top of him, your knees between his, your forearms flat against the mattress on either side of the boy underneath you. 

“Y’know, I never told you to stop praying,” Theo murmured, reaching downwards. His fingers tightened around your cock, stroking it a few times before guiding it closer to his ass and pushing his body down against it. 

You swallowed nervously as you took the not-so-subtle hint, taking a deep breath before slowly pressing the tip in and continuing your Rosary. “H-Hail Mary, f-full of Gr—ah!—ace—”

You had to pause then to bury your head in the crook of his neck, your breathing coming in shaky gasps. Your body zinged with pleasure, your toes curling. 

“That’s it, baby,” Theo cooed, petting your hair gently. “Doing so good. Keep going. Makin’ me feel so good.”

“Th-the Lord is with thee. Blessed art th-thou amongst women—” you whispered breathlessly against his sweaty skin, pausing again for another second to compose yourself before you very slowly and hesitantly pressed in further. 

Theo’s knees tightened around your hips as he dug his heels into the backs of your thighs, urging you closer. “Sh-shit— angel, I need you to go in all the way. C-can you do that for me, pretty boy?”

You nodded and took a deep breath, and slowly and carefully pushed yourself all the way in, bottoming out inside of him after an agonizingly long moment. 

Theo gasped sharply as soon as you were fully seated inside of him. His fingers tightened their grip on your shoulders until his nails managed to break the skin. You leaned down to press your lips against his—much more gently than he had—and moaned into his mouth at the slight sting from his nails. 

Theo sighed in pleasure against your lips and returned the kiss. “M-move, angel. Need you t-to move.”

You slowly pulled nearly all the way out, your eyes fixed on his face. You wanted to document every facial expression, every muscle twitch, everything that Theo did while underneath you. 

Watching his lower lip tremble as a moan spilled out of him had to be your breaking point. Your hips snapped forward of their own accord, quickly filling him back up. “A-and blessed- is- the- fruit- fuck- of thy w-oh!-mb, Jesus.”

His head fell backwards with a loud cry, his nails raking up your back as he scrambled for anything to cling onto. “Yes! Fuck— harder!”

“H-Holy Mar— shit! M-Mary, Mother of G-God…”

You sped up, driving into him faster and harder with every frantic demand that left his lips. You let out a high whine as Theo leaned up to suck on the tender flesh under your jaw with a feral-like possessiveness. Red and purple marks had already begun to bloom along your neck and jaw. 

The coil in your stomach tightened even further.

“Th-Theo, I don’t— wh-what’s—?” you stuttered, panicking at the unfamiliar sensation. 

“Y-you about to cum, angel?” he panted. He stroked a gentle hand over your lower abdomen. “You feel s-something funny right here?”

You whimpered and nodded frantically. “P-please— I’m gonna—”

“No. Hold it, angel.”

“Wh-what?”

“You don’t get to finish until you finish your prayer, baby boy.”

You hissed in discomfort. “P-pray for us sinners—”

Your words were interrupted by a high-pitched moan from Theo as his back arched off the bed. He started chanting your name, over and over again, like a prayer of his own. 

His fingers scrabbled for a hold on your shoulders as he tightened around you. “Shit shit shit— ‘m not g-gonna last— fuck! Cum for me, angel,” Theo pleaded, his nails digging further into your back and leaving long marks that quickly blossomed into a rich pink color. 

“Nowandatthehourofourdeath!” you rushed the last line with a near-shriek as the coil in your abdomen exploded, your toes curling again and your vision going white. Your arms buckled and you collapsed on top of Theo, who was experiencing the exact same thing as you.

You both just laid there in a sweaty heap, limp and boneless from your respective mind-blowing orgasms. 

“Amen,” Theo said softly, finishing your prayer. He casted a wandless cleaning spell on the both of you before gently wrapping his arms around you and stroking your scratched-up back as you both came down from your highs. You let out a pleased purr at the feeling of his soft touch gently brushing over your stinging scratches, a wordless spell from Theo methodically coating the marks with a numbing topical ointment. 

You echoed the sentiment after a moment of catching your breath, content to just cuddle with him in this moment. You pressed a kiss to the side of Theo’s throat and whispered a singular word against his skin, “Amen.”

[heich0e]

begin - nicholas wolfwood/f!reader (trigun) prequel to the poly!au, bounty hunters!au, wild west-ish, tw BLOOD/INJURIES, reader is patching up a bullet wound so warning for all the expected nastiness that entails, tw mentions of attemped assault (not reader and not in detail), mentions of sex work, gratuitous mentions of nico's stubble

BOUND - poly!au masterlist

You live in a nothing town, in the dead middle of nowhere, called The Bend.

It’s called that because a long time ago—long before your days, or your daddy’s days, or even your granddaddy’s days—there used to be a wide, rushing freshwater river snaking through the valley, and right where the town centre now sits is where it used to turn east to the far-away sea. 

But the river’s dried up now, and it took the green grass with it.

The sea is farther than you could ever hope to travel. 

And the B on the sign that marks the border into your dusty little nothing-nowhere town has rusted off and decayed away with the years, which means the only warning that any misguided traveller has to tell them where they’re heading is an ominous old sign, half-rotted, that reads:

Welcome to The  end.

It’s fitting, you think. An omen to give anyone who wanders within spitting distance of the border a final caution that they have one last chance to turn around. A choice to get out while they still can.

It’s a choice you never had.

You were born and raised in The Bend. Your blood runs thick with the dust that coats the decrepit old town. It’s all you’ve ever known, and all you ever will know; your beginning, your middle, and your miserable, inexorable end.

Because that’s the thing about The Bend: few people ever show up here and those who do aren’t stupid enough to stay. And the unfortunate few that are born from the dusty earth and dried up riverbeds, like you? Well, those ones never leave.

There’s some comfort to be taken from that, you suppose; a kind of stability that comes from monotony. From certain inevitability. Every day the same, unchanging. A familiarity to the nothingness of your little town, your little house, your little life.

But then, on a night just like any other, something changes.

One night, you meet him.

Nicholas isn’t quite sure how he ended up here, but he isn’t all that surprised either. 

There’s something kind of undeniably fitting about bleeding out in the middle of fucking nowhere, supported on either side by two of the finest prostitutes The Bend has to offer—and flanked by a handful more as the group guides him through the dark, dusty night.

The Bend isn’t the first hellhole town Nicholas has ever stumbled into. His line of work has brought him to more than his fair share of seedy dumps just like this one. Towns like this are the perfect place for someone to hide from the law after all, because not many people would bother to come looking for you in places that might as well not exist. Most bounty hunters don’t even know about this particular town, and they don’t care to learn, especially since half the maps on the market don’t even bother marking its sorry half-existence down.

But Nicholas isn’t like most bounty hunters.

That’s what brought him to The Bend.

There’s a vicious flash of lightning that suddenly forks through the sky overhead, lighting up the dim, depressing town and the dusty valley beyond it as brightly as the midday sun for just a blink. It’s followed almost immediately by a crack of thunder that makes the packed earth under his unsteady feet tremble, and Nicholas knows that means the lightning’s closer than he cares for it to be.

“’s it gonna rain?” he slurs, tearing his eyes away from the sky and looking over to the woman supporting him on his right (or is that his left?)

He wracks his hazy, addled brain as he tries to remember her name. Starts with a V, he’s pretty sure. Victoria? Viola?

She snorts, her ruby rouged lips lifting at one painted corner. “Honey, it’s been almost five months since we’ve seen a drop of rain around here, and even then it was nothin’ to write home about. You just focus on puttin’ one boot in front of the other, and don’t go gettin’ your hopes up.” 

All at once, Nicholas is reminded of the burning pain in his arm; the searing, radiating agony of a bullet nestled deep into flesh. 

Oh. Right.

He got shot.

It’s not the first time he’s suffered a similar wound, nor will it likely be the last if he makes it through the night—God, or whatever all-knowing bastard’s out there, willing. That doesn’t make it any less of a miserable bitch to deal with, though.

How the hell did he get shot, again?

He ponders this question for a moment, reflecting on it through alcohol sodden introspection, and the answer comes back to him in bits and pieces as he keeps aimlessly shuffling along through the night.

The sound of heels clicking overhead at the town saloon—that’s the first thing he remembers. The clacking metronome of Big Annie’s working girls crossing the wooden floorboards of the brothel that operates above the only place in this awful little town to get a half-decent drink.

A drink. 

Yes, it was something bitter and dark—completely nauseating to presently even think about. It burned on the way down, and now it sloshes unpleasantly in his stomach as he walks. The girls had made him down the better part of a bottle after he’d been shot—to help with the pain, they’d said, and he’d been anything but reluctant to heed their advice—and he’d already had fair a few glasses earlier in the evening as he’d occupied his table in the corner of the bar on top of that. Panic had palpably sizzled between the women while they watched the tattered cloth Nicholas held to his arm ink steadily darker with scarlet in the lamplight of the old bar following the shooting—the tension building amongst them like the perspiration beading at his temple. They were bickering about something then.

No, not something.

Someone.

“We gotta take him to see Mama!” 

It was Charity who said that, he recalls—the pretty little thing with full lips and a mane of thick, curly hair that Nicholas had complimented the first time he ever saw her traipsing through the saloon. She can’t be a whole lot older than 20, and her voice is still high and childlike; even more so that particular evening as she stomped her foot petulantly, looking over at him with worry-filled eyes as she made her plea to the other girls watching him bleed out in the musty wooden booth.

“Mama won't want anything to do with this one.”

That was Violetta who’d replied to Charity’s fractious appeal. She’s one of the older girls who works for Big Annie at the brothel. She’s got a sort of seasoned air to her, with a husky rasp in her voice—like the sand that blows through the empty streets in town has roughened it. She’s still undeniably pretty, but she comes across a little tougher than the rest of them. Doing the job she does in a town like this one, Nicholas doesn’t blame her for it.

Violetta’s the one currently supporting his right side, leading him through the night towards the woman who’s supposed to be his saving grace.

Towards Mama.

But who the hell is that?

He’s sure he’s heard the name in passing while he’s been kicking around the town saloon between his work, nursing half-noxious drinks and flirting harmlessly here and there with Big Annie’s working girls—who seem to have taken a liking to lingering around his table between visits from johns. 

Nicholas wasn’t even supposed to be staying in The Bend long, only for a day or two to follow up on a bounty lead he’d caught wind of three towns over—but the lead went cold, and a few days turned into almost a week. Nevertheless, while his stay may have been extended, he just he never thought to ask any more questions about this mysterious matriarch all the working girls seemed to know so well and speak so highly of. But now, as those very same girls are dragging his half-conscious ass to the other side of town in search of this Mama, he wishes that maybe he’d dug a little deeper.

“Mama’s gonna get you all fixed up, handsome,” little Charity appears on Violetta’s other side, her eyes wide enough as she stares at him that they reflect the next flash of lightning as it rips through the dark of night. She looks worried, in spite of her words—even in his present state of drunkenness and blood loss fuelled delirium, he can tell that much. 

They all do. Even the toughest, Violetta—though she seems reluctant to let on as she stands stoically at his side and shoulders his flagging, stumbling weight. 

Charity nods, but it’s a gesture that seems more to reassure herself than anyone else. “Mama always takes care of us; she’ll have you good as new by morning.” 

Ah, so this woman must be a doctor of sorts—or as close to it as a shithole little town like this can offer.

It’s Nicholas’ turn to nod, a bobble of his cotton-filled head the only recognition he can muster to her words, as he just keeps staggering on under their guidance. He’s lucky that The Bend even has some kind of doctor to look after him, even if it’s just some old lady who looks after the saloon girls.

The unlikely group soon arrives at the doorstep of a little house at the edge of town—as slummy and dilapidated as all the rest of them—and Queenie, the girl who’d moments before been supporting Nicholas’s injured left side, raps sharply on the door.

“She’s not gonna answer,” Violetta mutters dourly under her breath, still at Nicholas’ right side.

“She will,” Charity counters with her arms crossed over her chest, punctuating the assertion with an indignant little huff for good measure. “Mama always answers when we come knockin’.”

But Nicholas worries for a moment—a long moment as the door stays firmly shut—that Violetta might just have a point. It’s the middle of the night after all, and this ‘Mama’ could very well be sleeping like any other reasonable person would be at this hour. 

Queenie knocks on the wooden door for a second time, this time with an open palm. This series of raps is a little louder. A little more insistent.

“Mama? It’s us! Open up!” she calls, casting a worried glance over her shoulder at Nicholas—who’s got his entire weight slumped over onto poor Violetta, now.

Nicholas is bleeding out on the front porch, and part of him still almost feels bad for waking up some poor, unsuspecting old—

The door flies open.

“What the hell do you want?”

Oh.

Nicholas knows that his eyes travel up your frame in a way that can only be considered wholly impolite. But he’s not really in his right mind, after all—or at least that’s what he tells himself as he justifies his immodest stare. He starts at the uneven cuffs of your paper-thin trousers, before climbing up, up, up your body to the tight white undershirt your wear—appreciating the way it clings to the curve of your waist and sits snug around your chest, and he particularly admires the pretty little edge of lace that frills around the neckline at your breasts. Finally, his gaze makes it to your face, and you look irritated to say the absolute least on the matter.

He’s not all that sure what he was expecting to find on the other side of the chipped paint of this shabby front door, but he can say with a steady hand to his foolhardy heart that it certainly wasn’t you.

For a moment, Nicholas is convinced they’ve got the wrong house—as improbable as that might be in a town as small as this one. At the very least, he waits for someone else to come to the door—a mother, or grandmother even—because surely you can’t be the one that these women have been calling—

“Mama! You gotta help us,” Queenie exclaims. She’s luckily perceptive enough to stick out her foot once she sees you fully process just what’s waiting for you outside, keeping the door jammed open with her heeled boot as you rush to slam it shut.

“I haven’t gotta do anything,” you counter sharply from around the edge of the door, your face pinching in a blatantly vexed expression at the way the woman is keeping it ajar.

Your eyes flicker over to Nicholas through the gap between the door and its frame, surveying him with a look of disdain that might just have been enough to offend him if he were a little more himself.

“Mama, he got shot!” Charity suddenly bursts into what can only be described as a spectacular display of tears—blubbering noisily between each word as she elbows her way through the group towards your door. She reaches across the threshold and desperately clutches at the front of your shirt with both hands as she pleads to you. “P-please let us in, y-you’re the only one who can h-he-help him.”

“Bertie, what in God’s merciful name is wrong with you?” you sigh aggrievedly, roughly batting her hands away from their grip on your clothes. In the next breath, you wrench open the front door to your home, stepping back to allow your unexpected visitors the space to cross through the doorway. “And cut the waterworks or you’re gonna wake up half The Bend and get us all shot.”

As the girls help Nicholas inside and across the gnarled, warped floorboards of your little house, you slip wordlessly away into another room out of sight. When you return moments later, you’ve pulled on a creased button-down over that pretty little undershirt of yours. 

Nicholas can’t help but notice that you’re dressed practically like a man, especially in comparison to the painted faces and petticoats of the other women in the room. But it strangely suits you, for reasons he can’t quite place.

“He got shot fightin’ some bozo tryin’ to rough up Ada on her way home,” Violetta explains when you look to her with an expression that demands context. She’s the most level-headed of the five woman gathered in your tiny home, so no one can blame you for turning to her first. 

Nicholas feels dizzy, the modest lamp-lit room around him reeling like a child’s toy spinning top gaining speed. 

Did he do that?

He remembers hearing something out back in the alley that runs behind the saloon and the inn when he went out to take a piss late into to the evening, well after it had dropped dark. He was already sufficiently drunk by that point, but there was no mistaking the sound of a woman putting up a fight the moment that he heard it. He followed the racket and found the pair quickly—on instinct more than anything—grabbing the drunken man by the scruff of the neck and hauling him off the poor girl he was trying to force himself on. In the ensuing scuffle, the man pulled a gun that Nicholas wasn’t expecting. With his senses drink-dulled, he didn’t react quickly enough to miss the shot entirely and caught it in his arm—but he’s lucky the guy had such terrible aim to begin with, or the night could have turned out a whole lot worse.

But who’s this Ada? He thought the girl he’d helped’s name was Priscilla—having met her a few times in the saloon. She was always quieter than the rest of them, a little more reserved. She didn’t say much to anyone from what Nicholas had witnessed in his time spent in The Bend. But Ada’s not the first name he’s heard since showing up at your door that’s unfamiliar to him.

“You've got a lot of nerve dragging some no-good, half-cocked brute to my door like this in the middle of the damn night, Sarah Jane,” you hiss through your teeth, your eyes flickering from Violetta over to Nicholas once more.

Violetta snorts, but offers no argument.

“Please, Mama,” Priscilla (or is it Ada? Nicholas can’t keep track anymore) says quietly, though her tone is unmistakably earnest. It’s the first time she’s said anything since the girls came stumbling through your door with the injured man propped between them. First time he remembers her saying anything at all—at least other than when he heard her screaming and chased off the scum that was hassling her.

Your attention suddenly turns to where Priscilla stands just off near the corner of the little room, with Theodosia (another one of Big Annie’s working girls) at her side with a comforting arm looped around her waist. It’s not hard to see the way the woman trembles as she holds her shawl around her shoulders. She’s got a bad scrape across her cheek, and her lip is split—evidence of the ordeal she’d gone through earlier in the evening. Her skin still looks clammy and sallow from the shock. 

Your expression softens as you contemplate her.

“C’mere, Adaline,” you beckon to her, reaching out a hand. “Step into the light and let me take a look at you.”

She approaches you without any reservation, and you carefully inspect her wounds after taking her face gently in your hands. A long, resigned sigh slips from your lips once a moment has passed, having turned her face this way and that to fully scrutinize her condition. You look around at the women gathered in your home, and the man slumping between them, then your head hangs in defeat. Your hand lifts to pinch the bridge of your nose.

“Bertie, go grab my bag from my room. Georgie, fetch some clean water from the basin in the kitchen.”

Charity and Theodosia move briskly once you’ve issued the order—like they don’t want to give you the opportunity to change your mind.

Nicholas finds it a little funny how easily these women yield to you, though most seem to be your seniors—you’re just a scrappy young thing, only a few years into your adulthood if he had to guess. As he watches you, he sees that you carry yourself with a  certain quality that’s beyond your years—every action and word steeped with a sort of weary assuredness that you haven’t even lived long enough to properly earn. 

He watches you move with the grace of a woman, and listens to you speak with the authority of a man—and It could be the blood loss talking, but Nicholas thinks you might just be the most interesting thing he’s stumbled upon in this god-forsaken little town.

“You’re a doctor?”

You freeze, your head snapping in his direction when you finally hear him speak.

Your lip curls and you bare your teeth to him, and Nicholas is suddenly reminded of those city cats that wander the back alleys in Julai, hissing with their hackles raised when you happen across their path.

“Do I look like a doctor to you?” you sneer at him derisively.

For some unplaceable reason, Nicholas almost wants to laugh—the sensation bubbling up in his stomach in the wake of your harsh words.

(Though, that might just be the liquor.)

“Her daddy was a doctor,” Queenie whispers to him quietly as she and Violetta help Nicholas up onto the wooden table at the centre of the room at your instruction, leaning him back until he’s laid flat across it with a grunt. “Only one The Bend’s seen in the last 80 years."

“Prudence, you better shut your damn mouth if you want me to do anything about this mess,” you snap without looking up, busy rifling through the ancient leather medicine bag that Charity just dragged in from the other room.

You tend to Priscilla first, fixing her up with a compress on her cheek and a salve for the cut on her lip. She’s not the most desperate case in the room, but no one tries to turn your attention to the man on the table until you’re good and ready to do so of your own accord—a unanimous, though entirely unspoken, pact of silence lest your precarious agreement to help be withdrawn. Once you’re satisfied that the woman’s been sufficiently looked after, leaving her once more in the dutiful care of Theodosia, you finally turn to Nicholas.

The lamplight is fairly dim, even though you’ve moved it closer to the table to help illuminate your work—and there’s very little oil in the grimy reservoir of the glass lamp to keep it burning.

You approach him slowly.

“You a lefty?” you ask him, plunking yourself down in the wooden chair nearest to his injured left arm.

“Luckily not,” he slurs, his head lolling over to look at you as you sit beside him at the table.

“Luckily?” You huff, and Nicholas thinks that maybe it’s as close to a laugh as someone as mirthless as you ever gets. “You must not’ve heard: luck left The Bend years ago, and it’s not coming back.”

Nicholas really does find himself laughing then in the face of your plain, bur distinctly dour expression—and he immediately winces as a sharp pain shoots through him from the strain of trying to hold it back.

Your eyes survey the sopping, blood-soaked handkerchief he’s holding to his injury, then you lean over towards the medicine bag and begin digging through it again. He watches as you pull out an inhumanely large needle and some thread.

“Clear out, ladies,” you remark flatly to the group of onlookers without glancing up from the contents of the bag before you. “None of you are gonna wanna see this.”

The girls delay momentarily even after you bark out the order, as though worried that once they leave the room your willingness to help may exit with them.

You lift your face in their direction, some gauze and a corked flask of an indistinguishable transparent liquid in hand. Your lips pull down noticeably at the corners when you see the way the women are hesitating. “Go on, then. I’m making this exception for you once, and never again. Get Ada back home safe, and then the rest of you oughta do the same.”

Still, no one seems keen to heed your words.

You and Violetta share a pointed look, and it’s clear your patience—hardly-there to begin with—has worn dangerously thin.

“Alright, whores—clear out!” the older woman says, turning on her heel and corralling Queenie, Charity, Priscilla, and Theodosia towards the door with her arms outstretched. “Unless one of y’all are keen to be the next one who needs stitchin'!”

It takes a moment to get everyone moving—Charity in particular putting up more of a fight than the rest of them—but eventually Violetta succeeds in ushering them out. She casts one final glance back from the doorway, and Nicholas catches the exchange of almost imperceptible nods of thanks between you.

It’s unbearably quiet once they’re gone.

You move swiftly but silently, and set to work without a single word exchanged between you and the man stretched across your table. Without hesitating, you drag a thin blade in two strokes up the front of Nicholas’s bloodstained shirt—one cut along the torso and then another up the sleeve—and then pull off whatever’s in your way. You don’t so much as bat an eye as the tanned skin of his chest and abdomen is suddenly bared; there’s no distinguishable emotion or thought on your face that Nicholas can make out, but he’s also fairly distracted as he bites back the groans of pain that threaten to slip out each time you jostle his injured arm too roughly. 

Next, you begin cleaning the surface of the wound—as best you can given that it’s still unstitched—in preparation to fish out and remove the bullet still stuck inside. That little flask from earlier has some sort of antiseptic in it, which Nicholas discerns by the acrid smell and unbearable burning that rips through him as you let it trickle over the open gouge in his skin. He cries out as it happens, and the sound even takes him by surprise—guttural and completely instinctive.

“Don’t be a baby,” you sniff, dabbing away at the blood and antiseptic around his wound with some clean gauze.

“Sorry,” Nicholas mumbles through his panting breaths, pressing his opposite hand over his mouth in an attempt to keep himself quiet.

Your eyes flicker up to his briefly in the wake of his apology, and your gazes meet. You’re the first to look away after the momentary hold.

Next, you tip the flask into your hands, coating your palms in the stinging, astringent antiseptic. The lamplight catches in the little droplets as you shake them from your fingertips.

“My daddy told me once that doctors have to tell lies to keep their patients calm,” you say quietly, your lips pursing forward as you wrap one cool hand underneath his bicep. “Said that it’s just part of the job.”

You suck in a little breath, meeting his gaze briefly once more.

He can’t help but think your eyes look pretty when the light reflects in them like this. 

“But I’m no doctor—and this is gonna hurt like fresh hell.”

Outside your rickety little house on the edge of this forgotten, nowhere town, another peal of thunder roars.

You don’t often patch up bullet holes.

In fact, you can count on one hand the number of times you’ve tried.

But you’re not a professional, and you’ve never claimed to be; you’re just a doctor’s daughter who used to follow her father on his rounds through town, helping out whenever and wherever it was needed. Unavoidably, you learned some things along the way—like treatments, and time-honoured remedies, and how to sew a stitch so it won’t pucker when it scars—but you’re about as far as anyone could be from trained. You’ve got no education beyond your reading, writing, and basic arithmetic—what little education the school house in town could offer you until you just stopped going altogether—and your experience is limited only to the care you offer to Big Annie’s girls: whether it’s cleaning up the messes left by their particularly nasty customers or treating them as best you can when they fall ill. 

You don’t bother telling any of this to the man bleeding all over your table, though. You doubt it would do him much good.

Daddy used to deal with gunshot wounds all the time. They’re about a dime a dozen in a town like The Bend, after all, where tempers are high and spirits are low—not to mention where the men outnumber the women by about ten-to-one. 

And if there’s one thing you know about men, it’s that they all love slinging guns but less than half of them ought to be allowed to—because it always leads to injuries like this. It’s rarely ever women who walk around town getting themselves shot.

But in spite of all that, and your lack of experience, you watched your father go through the motions frequently enough that the movements come to you now like second nature: disinfect, remove, keep pressure, suture, bandage. You know the order of things, and you find your mind clear and your hands steady as you set to work—starting by cleaning him up as best you can to prepare to extract the bullet. 

You can see the very butt of it in peeking out from inside his ugly wound; a pesky little thing, slick with blood that catches in the light when his arm twitches towards the lamp. It’s not nestled too deep in there, thankfully, and he’ll probably be fine if he lets it heal properly—but it’ll still hurt like a bitch to pull out. 

But that’s his problem, not yours.

Unfortunately, you don’t have a pair of tweezers you trust to pluck the bullet out—at least not a pair that isn’t rusty—so your god-given tools will have to be what you use for the undertaking. You disinfect your hands as best you can before you begin.

“Would you stop squirming?” you mutter under your breath as the man on your table flinches the first time your fingers graze his open wound.

“Sorry,” he mumbles back, and your eyes flicker up to his face again briefly. 

This man keeps apologizing to you. 

It’s unsettling.

His dark eyes are heavy lidded, but you can still sense them tracing along the lines of your face as you work. There’s visible sweat beading at his temple as he lies flat on his back atop the wooden table in the centre of your home, and his bare chest rises and falls with heavy, laboured breaths that shake every so often on the exhale—the lamplight at your side catches in the perspiration glistening there too, near the little smattering of hair that sits at the highest point of his sternum.

This guy—this stranger who’s bleeding all over the table you eat your meals on—really pisses you off.

He’s got an awful lot of nerve to show up here in the middle of the night, looking for your help after he went and got himself shot. A small part of you knows that’s not entirely fair to think, because he got shot helping Adaline and it was the girls who’d brought him to you in the first place, but you still can’t help but be resentful. 

You feel yourself frown.

Your fingertips dip inside the wet heat of his wound for the first time, and he lets out a gasping, wretched groan from deep in the centre of his chest—so loud it almost makes you flinch.

“Don’t pass out,” you warn him flatly, pinning his injured arm more firmly to the table and prodding further in as you try to get a grip on the evasive little bullet with the very tips of your fingers. “You’re dead weight if you’re unconscious, and I’ll drag you outta this house in parts if I have to.”

“Noted,” the dark-haired man says through clenched teeth, his eyes squeezing shut as he attempts to stomach the pain.

You don’t have anything to offer him to dull the sensation—though you’re not sure you’d waste something so precious on him even if you did. After a while, and a bit more poking and prodding, he seems to acclimatize to the agony anyway. 

Or at the very least he gets better at masking it.

“I’m Nicholas, by the way,” he grits out after a while of you unsuccessfully trying to remove the bullet—frequently having to pause and wipe away the blood that’s continued to seep from the wound, slicking you down to your wrist. It stains the cuff of your shirtsleeve now, and you regret ever pulling it on to begin with, because you know it will be a nightmare to pound out in the wash.

“Didn’t ask.”

“I know,”—miraculously, he manages to laugh a bit, even as you’ve got two fingers digging around inside his arm—“just thought I’d tell ya anyway.”

You don’t bother replying, your eyes honed in solely on the task at bloody hand.

“‘M grateful for your help, y’know. Even if it’s just an exception,” the man—Nicholas—slurs next, his head tipping to the side on your kitchen table. You can tell that he’s talking, if nothing else, to distract himself. A lonely bead of sweat drips down his throat as he looks at you. “It’s awfully nice of ya to take pity on a no-good brute like me, Mama.”

You feel a crick of irritation tighten in your jaw then, as he parrots your earlier words back to you. Your fingers, still poking around to retrieve the bullet in his shoulder, twitch—and you aren’t sure the gesture is entirely involuntary. The man on the table before you yelps, flinching away from the pain, and you lean closer with your eyes still fixed on the wound piercing his skin.

“Don’t call me that,” you hiss through the dull scrape of your teeth grinding tightly together.

Nicholas lifts his right hand to his mouth, curled into a fist, and his pearly teeth bite down hard into the flesh at the base of his thumb as he pants through the pain. You finally, mercifully, manage to get a grip on that damned bullet, plucking it out and tossing it into the waiting dish atop the table with a delicate, terribly anticlimactic clink. You swiftly press a pad of clean gauze to the wound to staunch the bleeding while you reach for the stitching needle you left set off to the side.

“Hold this,” you order him, and the man lets his hand slip from the bite of his jaw to do as he’s told while you rifle through the bag at your feet. You can see the marks his teeth left in his skin as he takes the gauze from your hand into his own and begins to apply pressure.

You stand and wash your hands off as best you can in the basin of water Georgie brought in for you earlier, poised at the end of the table. The liquid tints pink as you first dip them in, and then slowly it turns an even darker, uglier colour as you properly scrub his blood from your skin. You shake as much of the water off your hands as you can, and then use the front of your shirt to sop up the rest—faintly rust-tinged handprints left in the cotton.

You take your seat once more, and Nicholas watches you through mostly-closed eyes as you set about sterilizing the needle.

“How come I can’t call you that?” 

You light a candle using the lamp at your side. Then you swish the needle around in antiseptic before running it through the flickering flame until it sparks—careful not to let it lick too close to your fingertips. Your eyes slide over to Nicholas as you pluck it from the fire.

With his face tilted towards you, another little drop of sweat has tracked down his cheek towards his prominent nose, and it glistens against his flushing skin in the warm light of your oil lamp. His eyes are glassy and unfocused, too—from what you don’t doubt is the combination of pain and whatever booze he’s been guzzling to numb it—and lips part on a shuddering exhalation as you survey his face.

“Call me what?” you mutter, averting your eyes and turning again to search through your medicine bag for a clean roll of bandage.

“Ma—” A sudden, harsh glare cuts him off before he even has the chance to say it. He smiles a little, the expression half-delirious, and you can’t help but think that if he weren’t so weakened from the pain that wracks him, he might have even managed another laugh.

You kiss your teeth quietly. “Only the girls call me that.”

The man bleeding out in the middle of your table clearly knows your tone of voice means not to push it, because he doesn’t. Instead, he turns his head until he’s staring up at your dingy ceiling once more, though you can tell from the faraway look in his eyes he’s not seeing much at all. 

“The girls,” Nicholas remarks quietly, speaking more to himself than anything. “You don’t call ‘em by their names.”

That’s right: he’d only know the girls by their working names. You’re surprised he even caught that.

“The hell I don’t,” you mutter, turning back to face him in your seat once more with your last roll of bandage clutched tightly in your hand. You set it down atop the table as you set your supplies up just how you like them. “I call them by the names their mothers gave them.”

Nicholas hums thoughtfully. “Sarah Jane, that’s Violetta?”

You grunt out an affirmative, threading the freshly cleaned needle with nimble, dextrous accuracy. 

“And Charity, her real name’s Bertie?”

“Bertha May,” you correct him, snipping away the excess thread with a little pair of mostly-dull scissors—careful not to take more than you’ll need, but still giving yourself sufficient supply to work with.

“Priscilla’s name’s Adaline,” Nicholas continues, his eyes still tracing the cracks in your ceiling. “And what about Theodosia and Queenie?” 

“Georgina and Prudence,” you supply flatly as you secure a tight knot in the end of the stitching thread.

Nicholas sighs before slurring, “’s a lot to keep track of.”

You snort. “Wait until you find out Big Annie’s real name.”

He looks over at you with wider eyes than you’ve seen on him since he came staggering through your door. He catches the expression on your face and his own softens, clearly sensing that you’d said it only in jest. 

Annie’s just short for Annabelle, after all. Madam’s rarely need to take up new personas—why would they need to be someone they’re not if they aren’t the ones doing the dirty work?

Nicholas watches as you tug on the stitching thread one last time to test its strength—eying the glinting needle warily. You set the threaded implement carefully off to the side once you’re confident it’s ready.

“So you learned all this stuff from your daddy, huh?” he asks you next.

You swallow over the unpleasant lump you suddenly feel in the back of your throat and reach up, nudging his hand away from where he’s holding the gauze to his wound. He’s become a real chatterbox now, and part of you wonders why you’re even tolerating it.

You clean the area with antiseptic again—and Nicholas is just as dramatic as he was the first time as a low moan of pain tears through him. For a moment you worry he really might be on the brink of passing out, the whites of his eyes taking over as they begin to roll back, so you know you need to keep him focused.

“He used to take me with him on his rounds,” you mumble a reply to his earlier question. 

Nicholas’s eyes open a bit wider when he hears your voice, a little more focused now than they had been.

“My daddy, I mean,” your tone is dismissive and flippant, but it seems to be an effective distraction. “I just picked things up here and there while I watched him work.”

“You’re a natural.”

You snort mirthlessly in the wake of his reply. “Don’t know about all that.”

“You just pulled a bullet outta my arm with your bare hands, that’s gotta count for something.” Nicholas hisses as you press the antiseptic-soaked gauze to his wound one last time, then he sucks in a sharp breath. “And the girls trust you a lot, so you must be good at it.”

“Somebody’s gotta take care of them.” 

Lord knows no one else around here does.

You set the scarlet saturated gauze aside in the dish with the discarded bullet, then pick up your needle.

You make neat, even sutures through his skin, and you take your time to do it right. You’ve always been good at this kind of thing, even when you were young. You were born with a keen eye for detailed work like this, and your daddy used to get you to finish up the smaller wounds he was called to treat that needed finer stitching—said your little hands were just better at it than his own big, life-roughened ones. He always used to tell you that you got your steady hands from him, but your nimble fingers from your mother.

Not that you’d know anything about that.

Nicholas has stopped flinching now, a little more relaxed than he’d previously been, and you can’t help but look up at him every so often as you work—wondering if that steady, even rise and fall of his chest means that he’s finally knocked out. Especially since he’s suddenly gone so quiet. 

But each time you check, you find his eyes are still open—though only just barely—and are peering up towards the ceiling. Sometimes you catch him glancing at you too.

Once the wound has been fully closed in a tidy little line of stitches, you wrap the roll of bandages around it with some gauze tucked underneath, just in case.

“You’re all done,” you say quietly, slumping back in your chair once you’re finally finished.

All at once, you feel exhausted—the adrenaline you didn’t even know had been rushing through you disappearing in a blink. It reminds you of how the wind dies in the valley in the wake of a bad storm, like it took the breeze with it. You’re all too conscious of the fact that it’s the middle of the night now, and that you ought to long be asleep.

“Thank you,” Nicholas says as he pushes himself up onto the elbow of his uninjured arm, though he still winces at the movement. You don’t make any attempt to help him.

His shirt is in pieces, and he discards it since it’s of so little use to him now, shaking his right arm to free it from the only sleeve that remains in tact on the garment. You watch as he pushes himself fully upright, throwing his long legs over the side of the table to stand. When he does, he dips slightly—like the sudden movement makes him woozy, and his knees are weak—and his right hand shoots out to balance himself on the edge of the tabletop on instinct. You suppose it’s not unexpected given the amount of blood he lost.

You watch his toned, tanned back as he stretches himself out as much as his injury will allow; observing how his skin pulls taught over the defined musculature that surrounds his spine. He’s littered with scars—a map of wounds that weren’t stitched as neatly as the new one on his upper arm—and part of you can’t help but wonder how he got them all. Can’t help but wonder what stories those marks tell, written in a language you don’t know how to read.

You look away, feeling an inexplicable heat flood rapidly to your cheeks.

You stand and quickly slip off your own overshirt—just some old button-up left behind from your father, though you have no memories of him ever wearing it. You clutch it in your fist and stick it out for him to take.

He eyes it in surprise for a moment before accepting it.

“Those blood stains are yours, anyway. You might as well have it,” you say, eyeing the red mark at the cuff on the right-hand sleeve as the garment passes from your hold into his, “in any case it’s in better shape than the one you came here with.” 

It saves having to clean it, too. So it’s all the same to you.

“I’ll pay you,” he slurs, still unsteady on his feet as he begins rifling awkwardly through his pockets with his only useable hand. He almost tips right over in his haste, but you quickly slip beside him and steady his frame.

“Yeah, you will,” you agree, holding tight to his right arm to keep him standing. “Worry about it tomorrow.”

Nicholas’ bare skin radiates warmth with only your thin, lace-trimmed undershirt left separating you as you stand pressed into his side. He peers down at you curiously, blinking slowly like he’s being called to sleep. From this close, with him standing properly upright for the first time, you realize just how big this man is—tall, with a broad chest and defined muscles, and stubble dusted along his sharp jawline that you hadn’t noticed before. You take a sudden step away to put much needed distance between the two of you, these realizations making something stir in the pit of your stomach that makes you feel squeamish. 

“Do you know your way back to the inn?” you ask him, your arms crossing over your front.

Nicholas bobs his head in a completely unconvincing nod. It’s not like the town is big enough to get lost in in the first place—and he very well might know his way if it were daylight, or he weren’t half delirious—but sending him out into The Bend in his current state would be as much of a death sentence as it would have been to turn him away when he first showed up at your door. 

You sigh in resignation.

“Just sleep on the floor here for tonight. I’ll check your stitches again tomorrow morning before you leave.”

The man looks taken aback, but he nods quickly—as though he doesn’t want to give you time to rescind the unexpected offer.

You fish around in the depths of your father’s old medicine bag, eventually pulling out a bottle of murky liquid as Nicholas gets settled with an old cushion and a threadbare quilt near the unlit hearth of the fireplace. You use the edge of your nail to uncork it, take a quick whiff to make sure it’s the right one, and then tread towards the man on the other side of the room.

He peers up at you from his makeshift bed on the floor, resting with his knees apart and his long legs sprawled out in front of him. You pass the little glass bottle to him, your fingers brushing as it passes from your grip into his. “Drink this, it helps to fight off infection.”

He eyes it warily. The outside of the bottle is suspiciously grimy, and the putrid colour of the liquid inside is no less reassuring. “What is it?”

“Hog Fennel.”

He grimaces, peeking into the opening of the bottle with one eye closed. “Sounds foul.”

You snort. “It is."

Nicholas doesn’t draw it out any longer, tipping the vial back an draining it all in one shot. He winces once he swallows it down, his pink tongue peeking out a little as he pants through the taste—which you’re sure is bitter and disgusting.

“How was it?” you ask him wryly.

“I’ve had worse, honestly,” he says, shooting you a little grin you can’t believe he’s able to manage not only in the wake of such a disgusting concoction but considering what he’s been through that night.

You blink, your brow furrowing, and then eventually nod dismissively before turning and shuffling off towards the other side of the room where the door to your bedroom is found.

“Thank you.” 

Nicholas speaks again as you’re just shy of crossing the threshold into your room, you consider pausing in your shock but then think better of it.

“You already said that,” you reply, your tone annoyed, and shut the door behind you.

You open it again a second later to poke your head back out towards him.

“I’ve got a gun in here, by the way, and I won’t miss. Just in case you were thinking of trying anything funny.”

Across the room, Nicholas is already laying down on his pitiful excuse of a resting place, looking strangely content.

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” he says with a smile, though his eyes stay closed.

Part of you is annoyed at how comfortable he seems. How easily he talks to you. How normal his presence feels in your home.

Another part of you—one that’s deeper, locked away and hidden out of sight in a place where you think you’ve lost they key—isn’t.

You slip back into your room and close the door behind you with a soft click. 

And in the silent stillness of your little bedroom with your shoulder blades pressed back into your bedroom door, you realize that the thunder outside has stopped but you can hear the softest, faintest pitter patter of raindrops through cracked glass of your window.

Rain came back to The Bend.

Maybe luck would follow.

[eldritch-spouse]

I READ YOU LIKE FEAR AND HUNGER PLEASE AGREE WITH ME

Pocketcat (without the unfortunate insinuations ingame) is so fine. He's a dapper gentleman with a mask, terrible posture, and the sluttiest waistcoat. I would give him all of my soul stones

TW: Mentions of implied in-game pedophilia.

I'm sorry anon, I can't agree for two main reasons.

1- I'm just not that big of a furry, he would need more to stand out to me;

2- I can't ignore the "insinuations". Pocketcat actually rubs himself through his pants as soon as you hand him the girl or the demon kid, and that just... It's unnerving and vile, which fits the gratuitous shocking themes of the game, but it ensures that I'll never give him the time of day. I can't slutify the pedophile furry, rsnrkr. Limits.

There's much better options I can focus on regarding Fear and Hunger. Man, I'd take the fuckin poe who sodomizes you over Pocketcat.

That being said, my own tastes are questionable, because I'm pretty fond of the night lurch, and they've got like, horn-dicks. They're a likely metaphor for sexual abusers, and you do get the anal bleeding status effect everytime they getcha. But then again, half the things in these games will just assault you. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ That's just how Fear and Hunger is, if you happen to have a hole, then one of these things will invariably invade it.

[tarditzgrade]

this is probably my last fic for greenflower week. i've got no ideas for the other prompts so i'm gonna work on compiling them into a ao3 fic that'll go up tomorrow maybe probably. besides that though

Day 4 - Healing/Hurt

Lloyd finds Brad after he got in a fight and offers to help bandage his wounds.

around 1082 words :). tw/cw for mentions of blood and violence. it's not gratuitous and the injury is kept kinda vague, but it's still there.

“I still can’t believe you got into a fight.” Lloyd called from the bathroom.

“I still can’t believe the guy had the audacity to scratch me.” Brad responded from his spot on the couch. He turned over his forearm to get a better look at the scratches that ran up it. That guy must’ve had talons on him.

Brad readjusted the ice pack Lloyd had given him earlier. Oh, how the tables had turned. Usually it was Lloyd showing up at Brad’s place in the middle of the night because he got beat up.

This time, Lloyd had found Brad beat up after fighting with some guy in the city. According to Brad’s own assessment, he thought he was fine to patch himself up, but Lloyd insisted on going with him to his place to help out.

“Where’d you say the bandages were, again?”

“Middle shelf of the cabinet. The rest of the first aid stuff should be there, too.”

“Oh, I see it.”

Several clatters could be heard following that statement, supposedly the sound of many plastic items hitting the floor.

“Sorry! I dropped a few things.”

“It’s fine.” Brad moved the ice pack he held on his side again. Maybe he should get something to put in-between him and the ice. This cold was starting to feel biting and his shirt didn’t seem to be enough. “Can you grab a small towel while you’re back there?” Brad called.

“Yup.” Lloyd responded.

Brad sighed and looked back at the scratches on his arm. None of them were too major on their own and they had all stopped bleeding a bit ago. The issue was that they were numerous. It was like he had gotten mauled by a cat, but instead it was a grown-ass man.

“Okay, I don’t know if this is all needed, but better safe than sorry, right?” Lloyd came back into the room with a few medical supplies. “Here’s the towel.”

“Thanks.” Brad accepted the towel and placed it between the ice pack and his shirt. Yeah, that felt better.

Lloyd placed the stuff he brought down on the coffee table, then pulled Brad’s arm closer to him. He grimaced. “What’d you even do to get this scratched up?”

“If you think this is bad, you should see the other guy. I think I caught him across the face once or twice.”

“I don’t doubt it.” Lloyd sat down next to Brad to look at his arm better. “Since when did you get into fights?”

“I mean, I went to Darkley’s, too, so I’m no stranger to it. But this was an exception. He started it and I was just defending myself.”

“Well, as long as this doesn’t become a pattern, I guess it’s fine. The scratches are just on this arm, right?”

“I think so.” They had already cleaned the wounds earlier, with Lloyd running Brad’s arm under the water himself. Brad, again, felt that he could’ve done all this on his own, and expressed this to Lloyd, but Lloyd asserted that he wanted to help.

Lloyd made a move for the pile of medical stuff before stopping, hesitant to select something.

“Are you okay, Lloyd?”

“Yeah, uh, do you apply ointment for stuff like this or just skip straight to the bandages?”

“…you don’t know?”

Lloyd picked up one of the tubes of ointment. “Not really. When I get hurt, I just put a bandage on it until someone else who’s better at this stuff can come look at it. Sometimes I don’t even bandage it if I’m short on time.”

“That’s usually how cuts get infected.”

“Probably,” was all Lloyd had to answer. Before Brad could fire back his concerns, Lloyd had decided on an answer to his previous question. “Y’know what? Let’s just do the ointment, anyways. It can’t hurt.”

“Are you sure?”

“Kinda.” And without further elaboration, Lloyd applied ointment to the first cut.

It didn’t hurt, and Brad didn’t expect it to. It was Lloyd’s determination that surprised him more than anything.

Lloyd worked quietly and diligently, individually rubbing ointment into each cut. Brad let him sit in silence and watched as he did. Despite his apparent ineptitude with this kind of stuff, he seemed to be fairly confident with his methods.

Occasionally, he’d ask Brad if he was doing alright or if he needed another ice pack, but Brad told him he was okay.

“Okay,” Lloyd rubbed ointment into the final wound. “I think that’s the last one. The rest are too tiny to care about.”

“If something happens with those, I’ll tell you.” Brad turned his arm over to verify what Lloyd had done. “What now?”

“Bandages, probably. Do you want, like, one big wrap or a bunch of tiny ones?”

Brad laughed at the thought of his arm riddled with tiny band-aids. “The wrap is probably more practical.”

“Okay, just making sure.” Lloyd found a roll of bandages in the pile he brought out and began wrapping it around Brad’s forearm.

“So you don’t do any of the medical stuff for the team?” Brad asked.

“Nope. Only reason I’m in the infirmary is if I’m hurt.” He tapped Brad’s arm to signal he was done.

“I think you should try helping out there more. You did a great job with this one.” He leaned over to plant a kiss on Lloyd’s cheek. “Thanks for taking care of me, green bean.”

Lloyd smiled at the nickname. “Anytime.” He gathered up all the medical supplies on the table and went to put them back in the bathroom.

Brad watched him go. Damn, he was lucky. Lloyd didn’t have to do this. He had a whole city to watch over. But instead he took the time to stop and help him out with something as small as this, even if it wasn’t entirely his forte.

What did he do to deserve someone like Lloyd?

Lloyd came back after a bit, but he didn’t sit down. “Anyways, you should rest up. Don’t forget to change the bandages after a while. And watch those bruises.”

“I will.” Brad responded. If Lloyd was gonna stop and help, Brad might as well indulge. “Do you have any plans after this?”

“Well, it's late, so no, I don’t.”

“You wanna stay the night? I’m not doing anything tomorrow morning.”

Lloyd thought about it, but ultimately agreed. “Sure. As long as it’ll keep you out of fights.”

“It probably will.”

[wounds-seen-and-unseen]

Augusnippets Day 10: Path of Hurt- Begging for Mercy.

For @augusnippets day 10: Path of Hurt- Begging for Mercy

This snippet takes place in the same universe as my snippets for days 2, 5, and 8.

Word Count: 783 words.

There is fairly gratuitous use of French in this snippet, as well as a word of High Valyrian. Translations will be right above the cut.

TW: Humiliation, self-sacrifice, graphic description of physical injury, begging.

Translations:

French

S’il vous plait, je vous en supplie. Ce n’est qu’un enfant.- Please, I beg of you. He’s just a child.

Je parle francais.- I speak French.

Recommence, ce que tu as fais a mon ami.- Continue/do it again, what you were doing to my friend.

Bien.- Fine

Mais, qu’est ce que tu as à donner à la place?- But, what do you have to give in his place?

Je ne sais pas. Mais, je suis son commandant, sa sécurite est de ma- I don’t know. But, I am his commander, his safety is my-

Rien.- Nothing

Alors mon ami prendra ce qu’il peut.- Then, my friend will take what he can.

Please correct me if my French is wrong, I am not well-versed in the language, what I have used here is with liberal help of Google Translate.

High Valyrian

Ilagon: Prostrate. I mean to use it in the way of (I) prostrate myself (before you).

Tagging @ba-bhump @dreamer-in-sleep @starlightasteria

Snippet under the cut.

Jaime hates that he cannot stop them, not for want of trying. He has tried many times to bodily shield his men from their captors’ cruel mercies, but they only ever found it funny and shove him aside. As cold, tired and hungry as he is, he’s barely able to move, try as he might.

He tries, still, for they were beating Podrick, the boy who Jaime has long suspected is younger than 18, just a child. A hungry, sick, child. Jaime’s eyes widen as the assailant draws a loaded gun, knowing he must do something, but at a loss on what to do.

A Lannister does not bend. Father’s voice reminds him. You are responsible for the welfare of your men, Lt. Colonel Lannister, reminds his Colonel’s voice in tandem.

Jaime has always learnt that honour stands above all, that he is a soldier and a leader. For his men, if Jaime’s Lannister pride has to fall, so be it.

Jaime tries to blink past the fever that is blurring his vision. Reaches out and manages to hold the booted feet of the man kicking Podrick. The man looks at Jaime, his hands almost cradling the boots. “Please,” Jaime breathes hoarsely, trying to communicate his desperate plea. The man does not understand, or perhaps he does, simply choosing to disregard Jaime, for he moves his leg.

Jaime clutches on all the tighter. “S’il vous plait.” He tries in French. “S’il vous plait, je vous en supplie. Ce n’est qu’un enfant.” Podrick is turning wide eyes up at him, gasping painful breaths. Addam, his closest friend, has closed his eyes and looks likely to plug his ears as well. The other man, Jaime’s hand still curled around his foot, merely looks curious. Lost of any other options, Jaime reaches for his limited knowledge of Valyrian. “Ilagon,” he says, bowing his head as well, swallowing back the humiliation he is helpless against, fighting against the blush he knows would be visible on his cheeks. The man’s face clears, and his hands are just the wrong side of gentle as he pries Jaime’s shaking hand off his boot.

Jaime manages to smile at Podrick, helping the boy up. For lack on any other supplies, he ties his old handkerchief to staunch the bleeding wound on the boy’s shoulder. “Sir…” he hesitates. “My Lord, thank you. I am sorry for…” Jaime keeps his hand on the boy’s head. “It is nothing to be sorry for. I am responsible for your protection, and what little I can do, I will.”

The booted man enters once more, accompanied by a friend. Jaime blinks up at them, moving in front of Podrick. His friend comes forward. “Je parle francais.” He says simply. Jaime tenses, waiting.

“Recommence, ce que tu as fais a mon ami.” He commands. Do it again, what you did to my friend. Podrick flinches, looking down. Jaime swallows, but nods silently. When he tries to stand, his shaky, bruised legs do not support his weight, and he falls to his knees. Both of the men in front of him look faintly amused. Jaime grits his teeth against the pain, supporting himself on his hands and knees. Just as Jaime is swallowing the last of his pride and dragging himself forward in a slow crawl, the booted man comes forward, stopping just in front of Jaime’s hand, gun held just above Jaime’s head.

Jaime does not hesitate. He cannot afford to. He reaches out and holds the man’s left boot in his right hand, supporting himself in a kneel with his left, head bowed, gaze on the ground. “S’il vous plait.” he breathes, voice cracking. “S’il vous plait, je vous en supplie. Ce n’est qu’un enfant.” The man turns to his friend. Their words float above Jaime’s head until he recognises the French. “Bien,” he says, and Jaime almost collapses in sheer relief.

“Mer”- before he finishes even a word, the other man continues to speak. “Mais, qu’est ce que tu as à donner à la place?” But, what do you have to give in his place? Jaime answers with the only words he can. “Je ne sais pas. Mais, je suis son commandant, sa sécurite est de ma”- the man cuts him off. “Qu’est ce que tu as á donner á la place?” Jaime, heart in his throat, answers in a whisper. “Rien.” Nothing. “Alors mon ami prendra ce qu’il peut.” his translator replies with a soft smile, nodding at his friend.

The man’s foot simply presses harder than Jaime can silently withstand. He can see Addam’s eyes fly open at the crunch of breaking bone, and Jaime screams, unable to stop, to bear the pain.

[envysnest]

Snakeskin (Sephiroth/Reader) (ch. 11/?)

AO3 / Pillowfort

Rating: Explicit

Chapters: 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8 / 9 / 10 / 11 / 12 / 13 / 14

Tags: First Time, Reader-Insert, Hurt/Comfort, Bittersweet Ending, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Frank Discussions of Past Rape/Abuse, Everyone is Queer, Canon-Compliant (if you squint), Pre-Crisis-Core Seph, Slow Burn, i continue to disappoint my friends and family, sephiroth is a virgin and in this essay i will, Reader is a Cis Woman, fluffy sex, Praise Kink, Gratuitous Biochemistry

Summary:

You are a young biologist, fresh out of graduate school, working in Shinra's R&D Division under Professor Hojo. You had long since given up on finding a partner and starting a family, preferring instead the company of your cell samples and your scientific instruments.

As the conflict in Wutai worsens, you strike up an unexpected friendship with a First Class SOLDIER.

(Sephiroth/Reader Slow Burn)

TW's for this chapter: Gore and blood (the first section before the page break), nosebleeds (the first two sections).

---

You feel warm. You are outside. Long grass waves in the wind. Midgar does not have long grass. You are sitting in the grass. 

Sephiroth sits cross-legged in front of you. He asks you something. You can’t hear him. 

He smiles and asks again. It’s like he’s speaking through fabric. The birds are singing. They’re very loud. The wind picks up.

You open your mouth to ask, What did you say?

Something warm spills out instead. It is blood. You look into your lap, at your hands. There is so much blood. The birds are singing. No, those aren’t the birds: a live audience is laughing at you. Sephiroth ignores them. 

What? you ask, but you don’t hear your own voice. The audience laughs harder.

Sephiroth sits there and smiles. His teeth are stained with blood. Whose blood?

You touch your fingers to your nose; it is bleeding, too. Your blood?

The sun is bright. You can’t see.

Something is wrong.

Something is wrong, you think. Something is—

---

Your Shinra-co. Sunrise Alarm was on; its lamp shone directly in your face. Gentle, pre-recorded birdsong drifted through your bedroom. You groaned and swatted at the air. After a few tries, your hand found plastic. 

The birdsong stopped; the the alarm clock’s light dimmed to nothing.

The radiator hissed and spat as you sat up. It was unbearably warm in your apartment; your lips were cracked and parched. You rolled back over and stared at the wall. At eye level was Sephiroth’s note, the one you had saved from Saturday morning. 

Be back soon. Had a training thing I couldn’t get out of. Anything in the fridge is yours. Seph.

Had this weekend been real? 

Had you collapsed into bed on Friday night, exhausted from work, and hallucinated your way through a holiday?

Had you begun sleepwalking and writing notes to yourself, lost in a delirious stupor?

You coughed, and the faint, metallic tang of blood crept up the back of your throat. For a second, panic gripped you: metal glinting, gore dripping onto grass, artificially-blue eyes—

You touched your fingers to your nose. They came away red. A few drops of blood stained your pillow. 

---

It was, at last, the end of the holiday season. Shinra employees returned to the office bleary-eyed and unfocused, as if they had walked into work by accident. You tried saying hello; many looked away or scowled back. You couldn’t blame them: you were barely lucid yourself. 

You had spent the previous night obsessively flipping through Shinra’s promotional material. Everyone, it seemed, had an opinion on Sephiroth: his hair, his voice, his fighting style, the way he held Masamune. Like sticky children, they ripped apart every inch of footage they could find, dissecting every second of Sephiroth’s life. It was exhausting to watch. You crawled into bed at one in the morning, feeling cold and violated yourself.

Eager to hide, you took your morning coffee back to your cubicle. A fresh e-mail from Hojo (c.c. Lazard) blinked on your laptop screen: Presentation Schedule [ μ ] – εуλ 2000, sent at some bizarre weekend hour. Your heart sank: you were scheduled for a department-wide presentation in April. 

Hojo had forwarded you a second copy minutes after the first:

Doctor, This will be an exciting opportunity for us both. I will be submitting my annual performance review shortly after your presentation. Please ensure the data you present are representative of the high standard I hold this laboratory to. Warmly, -H. Senior Biochemist III, Shinra Corporation R&D  Shin-Msg ID no. 9413 “A lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on mine.”

You folded your arms and rested your forehead against them. Shinra’s fiscal year turned over shortly after your presentation slot. You would already be held to Lazard’s standard (excruciating), and now Hojo could blame you if he didn’t get a promotion (irritating, angering, infuriating, undeserved). Never mind that Hojo’s department had the retention rate of a sieve; never mind that you had to beg around for equipment and samples. A year into your work, and your main job had become repairing Hojo’s tarnished reputation, taking complaints with a smile. You felt your mood sour rapidly. The man himself seemed to be constantly stealing your—

“Professor?” Hammond.

You didn’t pick your head up off the desk. “Samples are gone,” you groaned, “right?” 

“Marce asked me to ask you,” Hammond replied. He shifted his weight on the cubicle wall, folded his own arms and rested his chin on them to mimic you. “She told me not to tell you that, though.”

Did you tell Hammond about Hojo’s casual theft? Shinra— with its labyrinthian clearance levels and endless NDA’s— wasn’t especially forgiving when information got into the wrong hands. You weren’t sure how much Hammond knew: for example, if there were more biochemistry labs beyond this one, or what Shinra might need them for. Truthfully, you weren’t sure, yourself. 

You spoke to him carefully. “QC picks samples randomly. They check purity so that we can back up anything we publish.”

“Oh.” This answer seemed to satisfy him. He scratched the back of his neck. His hair was shorter, you realized; perhaps the barber had nicked him there.

Eager to change the subject, you said, “That cut looks nice on you, Hammond.”

He grinned. “Like it?” He pulled at a stray curl near his forehead. “I wanted something professional. Something that said, Shinra Biochemistry.”

You smiled. “Next time, I’ll get a shave and tell them to dye Shinra Biochemistry across the back.” You drew a line behind your own skull to demonstrate. “In bright red.”

Hammond threw back his head and laughed. “Hell no! Hojo would have a fit.”

“I’ll say it was my idea.” You waved a hand. “Anyway. Can you please check on the mass spec data for that replicate? Let’s see if the glucose receptors hit that polysaccharide a third time.”

Hammond rolled his eyes and gave a playful salute. “Sure thing, boss.”

“Gooooo.” You mimicked pushing Hammond away from you. “Now. Or I’ll walk the three blocks to Morlund’s and buy the hair dye.”

After Hammond had left, you woke up your computer and stared at Hojo’s e-mail. Something nudged you: it had barely been twenty-four hours, but this seemed as good an excuse as any. 

You opened Shinra’s chat messenger and took a photo of Hojo’s signature. For a few tense seconds, you stared at the blinking text indicator. You still hadn’t replied to Sephiroth’s message from the night before. 

Will he be upset if I don’t?

You shoved the thought away and typed:

>>I hate everything about this signature.

You set your phone down next to your keyboard and wrung your hands. Your phone stayed silent. Feeling bile rise in your throat, you tried to draft an e-mail that wasn’t Stop stealing my samples or Please stop e-mailing me forever I quit goodbye also fuck you. 

Halfway into your fifth draft, your phone buzzed.

>>This was before your time, but this one was…special.

There was a picture attached. You cupped your hand around your phone screen and zoomed in. Sephiroth had taken a photo of his own computer screen; when you turned up the brightness, you could see his reflection in his computer. He had pulled up an old e-mail form Hojo that ended with, “My time is precious. Please be brief and straightforward in replies.”

You sighed with relief. If Sephiroth was joking with you, then maybe…this weekend wasn’t a hallucination, after all.

You replied:

>>Shiva’s tits hahaha >> was he always like this??

Sephiroth:

>>Yes. Like a moldy lemon.

You covered your mouth to keep the laugh in.

>>I don’t know what you mean but I know what you mean

He replied:

>>Can explain Fri. Have to go…be good...

Your breath caught. Sephiroth wasn’t a stupid man; surely the Friday reminder was a passive-aggressive way of telling you you hadn’t responded to his text. And what did the punctuation mean? You scrolled up and down through the conversation, but there was no mixed message you could identify. Had you said something wrong? Perhaps you could apologize in-person.

Or…

Or maybe he was teasing you. You could hear— feel— his whisper in your ear: Be good.

You ran your thumb over the message. The messenger app moved: up down up down.

---

You veered away from your usual walk home. You couldn’t stand to look at the defaced poster again. Even thinking about it made you feel hot with shame; as if you, personally, aided the death of thousands for a paycheck.

Aren’t you? you thought. You’re sleeping with a murderer for free.

You took a wrong turn and kept walking. It was usually dark when HQ let out for the evening, but the blackness now felt total, suffocating. Sector 8’s street-cleaning bots enthusiastically salted the sidewalks, leaving patchy white stains on your trouser cuffs.

This guilt wasn’t something to process in therapy. Shinra had birthed Midgar, and it clung to it like a stubborn mother. You couldn’t risk word getting out about your…thing. Most research was either funded by Shinra, or by a company hoping to be bought out by Shinra. 

Most of the High Street stores still had holiday decorations up. A cafe full of people yawned open, spilling onto the sidewalk; it was warm and damp inside. A huddle of musicians smoked cigarettes by the dumpster. You looked down, away from them, as you passed.

Even your advisor had been funded by a Shinra research grant; that alone had gotten your foot in the door. Everyone said it would be a good job, a good company, a great way to start your career. You trusted your therapist, but everyone had a price.

A couple of girls from the Sector 8 Community College walked arm-in-arm, giggling. You squeezed to one side to let them pass you.

And what about what Shinra was doing abroad? You weren’t stupid: you saw the news. It had to be for something. It was no secret Wutai despised its own people. They didn’t have reliable clean water there; they relied on water filter donations. To disguise cities from drones, the government cut the power off at night. Midgar’s refugee and migrant communities went dark at 8 pm out of habit. Wutaian hospitals used smaller generators, powered with natural gas, to run. Mako energy could power thirty ventilators where oil and gas could power one; mako was cheaper, too. 

If your research succeeded, if Shinra succeeded, mako could also deliver life-saving cures. Wutai’s parliament and royal family seemed to value ego over their country’s well-being. If only they didn’t fan the flames of petty nationalism; if only they accepted Shinra’s help.

Shinra was trying to help.

Right?

You cut through a small public square. An older couple ahead of you walked their dog at a glacial pace. You forced yourself to slow down.

Shinra could transition Wutai to cleaner, more reliable mako energy; Shinra could supply mako-derived medical treatments. They’d even build the infrastructure for free. What were a few more power plants, when they already powered the Eastern Continent?

And besides, you couldn’t possibly leave Midgar. Everyone you knew was already here. A new city would mean leaving them all behind. 

It would mean leaving Sephiroth behind, too.

Now outside of the square, you came face-to-face SOLDIER recruitment poster. Its edges were torn. A different Sephiroth was here, reaching out to an awestruck boy. Sephiroth’s blue eyes were benevolent. 

Always looking out for—

Metal, laughter, gore, grass—

Your heart seized in your chest. You turned sharply, nearly running into the couple and their dog. They looked up, the wife’s eyes wide. The husband said something in Japanese: maybe friendly, maybe hostile, but a phrase you didn’t recognize. The dog’s tail wagged slowly.

With a mumbled apology, you escaped into the nearest store. A metal bell jangled above you.

You leaned against the glass and tried to catch your breath. The tile below you was a sunny orange; you stared at it, traced the lines between tiles. Soothing folk radio played over the speakers. 

When you looked up, a row of rainbow objects greeted you. 

For a moment, you couldn’t make sense of what you were looking at— until you looked behind you, at leather harnesses of all shapes and colors hanging on the walls. The rainbow objects in front of you had a familiar shape.

In your distraction, you had run into a sex shop. 

You closed your eyes. Of all the places to end up.  The irony was cruel. You weren’t even sure this shop existed: maybe this, too, was a cruel trick of the light. As far as you could tell, you were the only customer. It would look strange, perhaps even prudish, to run out (though every part of you wanted to run). 

Straightening up and clutching your bag, you began a slow wander through the shop.

The shelves before you boasted dildos, vibrators, plugs: all shapes and sizes and colors. Some were so artfully designed, you couldn’t imagine how to use them. You felt heat flush your cheeks as you scanned the options. The cheaper offerings featured scantily-clad women leering at the viewer; you were sure that some were computer-generated. Out of habit, you looked down at your own body. (Hidden by your coat, and memory liked to lie.) You moved on.

A dark purple bookshelf, packed full, sat next to the harness wall behind you. You squinted at the titles: The Modern Sutra, F*cking With Confidence. There was an entire shelf for queer erotica. Even the usual gil-store fluff (labeled HOLDAY SALE!!!) was here, too.

Seph would like those, you thought. 

You shook your head and looked away. Enough of him, you scolded yourself, you’re obsessed.

The heat inside the shop was stifling. Harsh fluorescent bulbs ran the length of the front counter, illuminating velvet stands of body jewelry. The cashier, pink-haired and pale, smiled at you before returning to their phone. Behind them was a hand-written sign: NO WALK-INS FOR PIERCING!!!!!

A makeshift sex toy museum ran the far wall. An immaculate glass container boasted an old, cracking leather harness. A wooden dildo jutted proudly from its center. 

In the 1800’s, said the plaque, medical doctors believed vaginal penetration could aid with female “hysteria.” 

I need that. You snorted, hoping to appear cool and knowledgable, but you were sure your blush gave you away. Clearly something was wrong with you if you were this flustered and frightened at a fake dick. Stupid girl.

Your palms were sweaty and stifling under your winter gloves. Your eyes traveled the length of the harness. It had clearly been well-loved.

Another thought came to you, uncontrolled, unfiltered: Sephiroth looking up at you from under his lashes, his ears red, his chest bare and glistening under your hands as you—

“Need help finding something?”

You recoiled and looked up. The cashier was watching you over the counter, smiling.

“No,” you said, and you winced at how loud you were. You tried again: “No, I’m fine.”

“Alright, hon,” they said jovially. “You just let me know.”

As they finally turned back to their phone, you deflated with relief. You took off your gloves. You looked past the museum to a small velvet room. Lingerie decorated the walls. Blessed escape: you ducked inside to hide from scrutiny. You shoved the gloves in your pocket.

The tinny music was muted here. A row of headless mannequins sported corsets that looked far too expensive for you. Single pairs of panties lay draped across a shelf: baby-pink, black, cream, robin’s-egg-blue. You felt a pair between your finger and thumb; the silk was weightless against your skin. A photo of a judgemental drag queen was nestled among the offerings. SMILE, GIRL, said the caption, YOU’RE BEING RECORDED!  Her eyes followed you as you turned to the bra shelf. We carry up to 46 GG !!, said a hand-written sign, complete with a clumsy smiley-face. 

There were stockings here, too: crotchless, fishnet, thigh-highs.  Their counterparts, still in their beautiful embossed boxes, sat on a shelf nearby. 

You hesitated over these. Lingerie wasn’t something you normally liked; what was the point? It was expensive, and no one would see it, anyway. You didn’t want to admit the sorry and ragged state of your intimates. Your cotton underwear had become loose and tattered over years of re-use. You wore the same drugstore tights until they snagged, and when they did, you bought an identical pair for less than 1000 gil. Your best bra cups were connected by a few nylon strings and a prayer.  

But—

Cut it out, you thought, but it was too late.

But Sephiroth had touched your drugstore stockings like he had loved them, loved you in them. I wish I could have you through these, he said; at least, wasn’t that what he said? Didn’t he look pleased with you? 

Was he just trying to be nice? 

The memory warped in your head: Sephiroth laughing at you when your back was turned, Sephiroth thinking only about how horrible the tights felt. How ratty; how cheap. They didn’t even fit you anymore, after all. He probably saw how they bit your skin and dug into your waist. You clearly didn’t know what you were doing.

Anger bubbled up inside of you. What did he know? What gave him the right? He’s a man, you thought. He’s never even touched nice ones.

And then, with a jolt: He’s never touched them at all. He wouldn’t know that stockings could look better, feel better, than yours. Surely he had seen better in porn; you know you had. Your thriftiness seemed obvious to you, at least by sight.

But.

You touched the crotchless stockings with your fingertips. They were made of the same silk as the panties. There were even small, embroidered hearts near the waistband. Maybe they didn’t come in your size, and you held your breath. No: a quick glance through the boxes, and your size was there. They were even within your budget. 

Would he even want to sleep with you again? What if you bought these, and he never wanted to see you again? 

You looked into your bag. At the very bottom were your keys, and on the keyring was the FOB to Sephiroth’s apartment.

Buy it for you, urged a small voice in your head. Just buy it for you.

You found your size in black; at the very least, these could be worn under a work skirt. The packaging was heavy, sturdy. You took it to the counter, resisting the urge to hide it between your hands as you did.

“Find everything okay?” chirped the cashier.

You nodded, not meeting their eyes. You stared at the buttons decorating their shirt instead. THE PLANET IS FOR EVERYONE, said one. #STANDWITHWUTAI said another. You could recognize the A for Avalanche. 

“I like your pins,” you said quietly.

The cashier grinned and looked down at them. “Thanks!” They gestured idly at their lapel. “There’s a craft fair in Sector 5 once a month. I usually get some there.”

“Oh,” you said. You fished around in your wallet. “That’s, um, that’s cool.”

They nodded. “Cash or card? We take ShinPay now, too.” 

You hadn’t set up your phone for ShinPay. You sheepishly handed over your card. If the cashier thought any less of you for your corporate attire, they didn’t say so. They bounced on their heels as you both waited for the transaction to resolve.

You took your card and the plastic bag with a thankssomuch and shoved both deep into your work bag, not even bothering to return your card to your wallet. You barely registered the cashier saying, “Enjoy!” as you scurried out of the shop. The cold winter air felt like a blessing against your skin.

As you wrestled the gloves back on, you locked eyes with the poster Sephiroth. That stupid, benevolent smile: he knew what you had just purchased. 

You scowled at him.

---

J - 180 - L - 9177 hadn’t grown after your last split. You tilted the plate; a few lonely cells slid to the bottom, sloshing helplessly around in their media. The cells seemed to have gone dormant again.

You didn’t have an excuse to dose these cells with mako tonight, but you suspected that mako had made them grow. It was hard to tell if they were consuming a normal food source in its absence. Did they need the liquid media for anything more than electrolytes? Could it even be hurting them?

You chewed the inside of your cheek and set the plate down. 

What if the cells had a steady supply of mako, rather than fresh liquid media? 

You tapped one gloved finger against the fume hood bench in a nervous staccato. The chemists weren’t even close to characterizing all of mako’s components. Did it even have the ingredients to support life? Was there more to mako than what it did to SOLDIERs?

Would J - 180 - L - 9177  continue to grow until the cells starved each other out? 

Or would they fight for resources, like frightened rats in a cage?

Would they—

“Still here?”

You looked up. Sephiroth had just poked his head around the corner. His gloved hand lingered on the doorframe, as if you had caught him mid-movement. 

You blinked. Your head felt fuzzy, like an old car trying to shift gears. You were still stuck on  J - 180 - L - 9177. As you continued to stare at him, he turned his head just so, as if silently asking again: Still here?

You stammered.“You…you came back? Here?”

His eyes flashed like he was about to laugh, but he cleared his throat instead. He slunk into the doorframe. The corner of his mouth twitched upwards. “I live here,” he said.

“Oh.” You waved one hand around inside the hood.  “No, what I…what I meant was that you’re, um. Not…don’t you have, like, a mission?”

He stepped closer to you. He wore the standard SOLDIER turtleneck under his uniform coat. “I’ll be out of HQ in ten hours. Or...” He fished around in his pocket for his phone and glanced at the screen. “Nine hours now.”

You looked up at him, tapping the edge of the hood. “And you’re visiting me?”

Sephiroth pocketed his phone with a guilty smile. “Is now not a good time?”

How you hated that effect he had on you; how you hated his soft voice. How you wanted to fall into his arms. “It’s a fine time,” you breathed.

“Should I wait here for you?”

“Yeah, you…you can sit?” You nodded towards the spare chair: the one that was a little too small for him. “Like. Only if you want.”

You turned back to the cells, but you were focused on Sephiroth’s breathing, the shift of his clothing, his footsteps on the tile. It was as if he had grabbed your attention out of the air, like it was some tangible thing. He didn’t reach for the other chair; instead, his footsteps stopped somewhere to your right. 

You had just ejected fresh media onto the plate when something brushed the back of your neck. 

You gasped, hand flying to your skin, but there was nothing there. 

You looked up at Sephiroth, who had now withdrawn his hand. The two of you stared at each other for a heavy moment. Your cheeks burned.

He tilted his head. “Did I startle you?”

“There are cameras in this lab,” you said. You turned away from him and sprayed your hands with isopropyl alcohol again.

“Not here,” he replied. He was right: the cell culture room was a blind spot in Hojo’s kingdom. Had it not been, your secret cultures might have been found weeks ago.

“I…don’t know why I said that.” You stuck your hands back in the fume hood. You looked up at his confused face, his bemused smile. “I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean to jump.”

His brow smoothed over with obvious relief. “You can tell me if you don’t want me to touch you.”

Your mouth twisted; you felt admonished. “Yeah, I know.”

“Was it bad?” That gentle, conspiratorial tone again, the very same one that you pictured Be good in. He didn’t have to put a finger on you, and you felt like he was touching you again. 

You smiled, then tried to stop smiling, then smiled anyway. “Just didn’t expect it.” You loaded a fresh glass pipette, set to mixing the fresh media. You tried to angle the plate away from him, so he wouldn’t see those strange gray cells. 

He didn’t seem to notice. “But did you enjoy it?”

You sheathed the used pipette in its plastic wrapping and threw it into the sharps. It felt good to feel him on you, albeit through his gloves. If you had been able to see him coming, you would’ve welcomed the touch. 

But no: if you had seen him reach for you, you would’ve shied away, too. 

Worry bubbled up in your mind. What did it mean when you wanted something— wanted something small, tender, even less than what you two had already shared— and still felt afraid of it? What were you supposed to do now? 

Metal, grass—

You capped the plate and updated the label.

He asked, “Is that a no?”

“I, um, actually don’t…don’t know?”

“Then I’ll ask an easier question.” He leaned against the bench to your right and crossed his arms. “Would you like me to do it again?”

Yes, you thought, with not a little guilt. Again.

“I…” 

You stared at the cell plate. You twiddled the marker between your index and thumb: a leftover tic from undergrad. Sephiroth said nothing. You could feel his eyes on you. 

Was there a right answer? Was the right answer yes?

When you looked up to meet his eye, he tilted his head. He didn’t seem at all upset with you.

You slowly capped the pen and nodded. You were rewarded when the corner of Sephiroth’s mouth quirked upwards, just so.

You tossed the marker into the hood. “Let me just…let me clean up. Please?”

“You don’t have to ask,” he replied, and your breath hitched at the memory that dug up. He gave no indication that he noticed the connection, unless— and maybe this was just your imagination— his eyes really had darted to the floor for a half-second. He backed away and stood in the doorframe again.

Your hands trembled as you tidied up after yourself; you avoided his eyes. The plates were sealed and labeled; you emptied the sharps bin into the larger, sturdier box below the fume hood. The plastic around the glass pipettes waved gently in the hood, and heaven help you, you thought of the stupid stockings. You thought of them, still in their stupid box on your stupid kitchen counter in your stupid home, and you had the wild, stupid urge to talk about them. Hey, I remembered you liked my tights for some reason, I was desperate enough to buy fetish tights for you, please fuck me again?

You put the plates in the incubator, careful to sandwich J - 180 - L - 9177 between your human cell plates until they were out of Sephiroth’s view.

You removed your gloves and threw them into the biohazard bin. Sephiroth took a step forward, but you said, “Wait,” and you draped your lab coat over the back of the chair. He put his hands behind his back as you approached him, looking like a patient student waiting his turn to speak. He looked like he was trying not to laugh. Desire flared in you.

You stopped in front of him, wringing your hands.

What now?

“Um,” you said. His chest was in front of you. You didn’t want to touch: didn’t want to make him uncomfortable, force your desire on him. “What…?”

He leaned forward. You could see his long hair spilling over his shoulder out of the corner of your eye. “Yes?”

“Can I hold you?” you whispered.

“Oh,” he sighed. “You—“

Just as you were about to back away and apologize, he reached to you. Ever-so-tenderly, he gathered you into his arms. You buried your face in his chest and found yourself impeded by the leather straps there; you rested your head to the side of them. His uniform smelled of fresh leather and sweat. You brushed your cheek against his pectoral muscle. He felt just as good as you remembered. The turtleneck was scratchy under your skin.

Still hesitant, still feeling desperate and wanting, you snaked your hands around his waist and squeezed. You felt him press his nose to the top of your head.

Everything in your mind went silent.

You held each other like this for several minutes, not speaking. You searched the cell chart on the wall in front of you, traced its familiar diagrams of Best Sterile Practice and Parts of the Cell and Media Handling. Sephiroth’s body felt surreal under you, as if you had never touched him before this. His breathing was so steady, his heartbeat thundering under your cheek.

This is real, you thought. This is real.

Was this the same man you had seen on your screen? How could it be? You remembered Sephiroth’s lost expression on the talk show, the way the audience laughed at him. You turned your head towards his coat lapel, ran your fingers over its outside until— yes— you felt the outline of the honeybee over the leather. It was still hiding there, flush against the turtleneck.

“Your heart is racing,” he said into your hair.

You shoved the sorry down into the pit of your belly, right there with the horrible nightmare and the defaced poster and the guilt. “Nervous.”

“About?”

You remembered Hojo’s e-mail from earlier in the week: the perfect excuse. You rolled your eyes against his chest. “I’m presenting to the department early this year,” you groaned. 

“Mm?” You could hear the smile in his voice. He seemed happy to just hold you and feel you talk against him. You weren’t even sure if he was listening; you continued anyway.

“Hojo told me he’s getting his yearly review after. Remember the e-mail? Apparently I should make him look good.”

“Are you not excited to do so?” He released you, hands lingering on your shoulders. His tone dripped with sarcasm as he simpered: “Doesn’t that simply delight you?”

“Ugh!” You looked up at the ceiling in mock offense. Sephiroth laughed. “No!” you said. “I’d rather die.”

“Professor, I am simply so disappointed in your work this quarter.”

You jumped and looked beyond Sephiroth’s shoulder. The doorway behind you two was empty. The lab doors hadn’t opened. Wasn’t Hojo home by now? 

You met Sephiroth’s eyes with alarm, but he was still smiling. He opened his mouth:

“I truly believed I could use you to make a nice bonus for myself.”

Sephiroth was speaking, but it was Hojo’s voice leaving his lips. 

You widened your eyes at him. “Huh?”

“I needed that for my second home in Costa del Sol.” The impression was flawless; you couldn’t hear his voice through it. He must have noticed your shock, because he smirked down at you. “And now you’ve RUINED IT.”

You stared at him.

And then you started to laugh.

“I don’t find the matter of my finances amusing,” Sephiroth snapped in Hojo’s voice.

“Oh. My god.” You couldn’t stop laughing. “Stop.”

“What ever will I do?” Sephiroth cried, gently shaking your shoulders. You snorted as you tried to catch your breath from laughing. “I’ll have to vacation in Junon!”

“Stop, stop!” 

“Like some commoner!”

You giggled and pushed against his chest. “Seph! That’s horrible!”

“What a shame,” Sephiroth purred. Hearing his voice again was a sharp relief. “I practiced just for you.”

“Please never ever do that again.” you gasped, swiping at the tears in your eyes. “It was. So scary.”

“I told you,” he said, “A force to be reckoned with.” He ran a thumb over your lips. “Finally,” he  mock-whispered. “She respects me.”

“Shush.” You stood on your tiptoes to peck him on the mouth. He hummed with pleasure underneath you. The sound made you shiver.

You waited until he opened his eyes again. “I’ve always respected you.”

The corner of his mouth quirked. He was looking at you so gently. “I know,” he breathed.

You tried to kiss him again, but he leaned away. Fear and disappointment surged through you until you saw his expression: still gentle, still focused on you. 

His voice was rough: “Save it for this weekend.”

You blinked. What if he didn’t want you to kiss him? 

Your stomach dropped. Had you done something wrong? You reviewed the way you had kissed him: too messy, perhaps? Too needy? You had a habit of being too much, after all. A mistake, then.

What you said was, “Okay.”

He chuckled. “Don’t sound so disappointed.” He rested a hand on your shoulder as he turned away. “I just don’t want to lead you on.”

“What does that mean?” you said to his back.

“What I said,” he said over his shoulder. He was still smiling at you as he disappeared around the corner. “Friday night. When we’re alone.”

“Wait!”

His voice carried across the lab. “Be good.”

“What—“

The lab doors opened and closed: thundering, final. Your arms still hung in midair, wrapped around nothing. 

Your voice echoed in the cell culture room. “What does that mean?” 

It was hard not to see malice in his smile. He was probably making fun of you after all. 

You gathered your lab coat. Your name was embroidered in mako blue under the Shinra logo; you ran your fingers over the stitching. 

With your luck, you’d come back to his apartment and find him standing there with all of SOLDIER and Shinra Biochemistry laughing at you. “Surprise!” he’d say. The banner above his head would say, You fell for it! You winced as you put your coat back on. Everyone would jeer at you in your outfit, in your crotchless tights, and you’d cry and run home barefoot and they’d laugh harder. 

Something in you hardened. You balled your fists at your side. “The tights are for you,” you said to yourself. He didn’t have a clue.

He also didn’t know that you were terrified.

---

Friday was overcast. On your way back from the office kitchenette, you heard a commotion near the elevators. The excited shouting was loud enough to cut through the glass between your cubicles and the 64th floor.

You craned your neck to look through the glass. A few scientists leaned over to join you.

Nothing happened at first: the 64th floor bustled as usual. A few people sat in the lounge near the escalators, staring at their tablets or talking over coffee or hunched over their phones.

Their heads turned in unison to the elevators. Confusion showed on their faces: they were looking at something specific.

One-by-one, their expressions turned to horror.

Genesis stormed past, holding his nose with a bitter expression. The fans trailing behind him seemed oblivious to his foul mood. The lounge employees stood.

You could make out bandaging under his fingers. The scientists near you murmured.

His nose had been broken, and he was trying to hide it.

He turned his head and glared at you through the glass. There was bruising under his left eye.

Your blood ran cold. A few steps later, and he was gone.

Go to next chapter >>>

[yeyinde]

Hello :) English isn't my first language , so please correct me if anything is wrong . First of all you're writing is ABSOLUTELY AMAZING ! ! ! I don't know if you're taking requests but if you do can you please write an RZ|Michael Myers x shy reader , in which Michael comes home after a kill and finds his S/O showering and can it be smut ? But , if you don't take requests right know and you don't want to write about Michael , that's totally fine . Anyways , I hope you're having a wonderful day <3

ahhhhh, thank you so much!!!! 🖤🖤 i am absolutely taking requests, and i do write for Michael (i have been working on some peepaw Myers smut on the DL for a bit now, so my apologies if some of OG Myers mannerisms bleed in), but love all versions of MM, so thank you for giving me an excuse to flex my hand with some RZ Myers~

and sorry for the delay! i wanted to get reacquainted with RZ Myers so i spent some time watching the films again to get a better grasp on his movements, mannerisms, and the little idiosyncrasies i could spot!

i really hope you enjoy this! and - sorry, again: this kind of got away on me, and its maybe-sorta-kinda clocking in at 11K. oops. 🥹

⤷tw: gratuitous smut, fluff, mentions of gore and death, Michael being Michael, dom!Michael

You tell yourself you're not nervous, that there is nothing to be nervous about in this strange little microcosm you've fallen inside (snatched, dragged, locked in a gilded cage where you are tucked away from a world that might lash out and hurt). 

No, nothing at all. 

In this ethereal, otherworldly place inhabited only by two (and your cat - cats, really, because you love all of your strays equally) there is no set routine; therefore, there is nothing to be worried about since something like this could only be fretted over had you the luxury of normalcy. Of established rules. Regulation. Schedule.

It's silly to worry, then. Silly and stupid and pointless. 

You're not nervous. You're not.

But the anxious knot that gnarls inside of your chest spools and thickens with each passing minute calls you a liar. 

The clock in the corner ticks the time down like an augury, and your eyes bounce between it - this ugly grandfather clock with a pendulum that hangs too much like a noose for you to ever enjoy the sonorous lull - and the back door, as if in those scant microseconds, he would appear in the doorway, head hanging low to avoid clunking his forehead off the trim - because he's just so tall, just so massive -, and would just be standing there, watching you. Like he always does. Staring. Assessing. 

For such an indomitable, unfathomable mountain of a man, he's surprisingly catlike. 

A silent, stealthy jaguar hidden in plain sight. 

(There is a predator in this picture!, your aunt shares on Facebook. Can you spot him?

You never do. You don't have an eye for locating hidden danger, and when you scroll down, spotting the cat lurking in the red circle, you realise you weren't even close.)

When you look at the back door once again, there is nothing crowding the archway. No one lingering near the basement stairs. The open hallway is empty save for your bins lined up in the small mudroom that connects to it by a set of three steps on the halfpace.

You know the layout of your house like the back of your hand, just like you know the places he likes to hide. To wait. The little enclaves barely conceal the sheer, absurd bulk of him, and they're all empty. 

You hear nothing. Not the rattle of the lock. The creaking of the cellar stairs. Nor the unmistakable sound of his muffled breathing. 

You're not worried. Saudade doesn't belong in your heavy chest. 

Tick tick tick… 

There is nothing to be worried about. 

Tick tick tick… 

Your gaze tears away from the door, the clock, when the familiar jingle of the local news station cuts through the tenebrous clouding your living room. 

The man - clean, sharp, greying around his temples - jogs a stack of papers on the curved desk, his mouth set in a grim line. 

It's been nearly a month since you've seen him last. 

He comes and goes like the many strays you pluck from the alleys and take home, nursing them back to health, feeding them until they're plump and nourished, and then letting them wander back from wherever little corner they originated from, knowing that you'll see them again when the rats thin and the new litter is able enough to hunt on their own. 

Scarcity is what brings your family together. 

"...A series of murders are once again shaking up the county. No curfew is set as of late, but the police are urging the public not to wander at night alone, to stay in large groups, and to lock all windows and doors…"

Hunting in Haddonfield is scarce lately. 

You taste copper on your tongue before your bottom lip starts smarting as your teeth break the flesh. Your tongue rolls out, smoothing over the irritated skin, and wiping away the droplets of blood that pool in the seam of your mouth. It's salty, astringent. The metallic tang makes your mind wander, drifting to him. 

Like a magnet, your eyes are pulled back to the hallway. 

The taste of blood reminds you of him. The thick, heady scent of rust seems to exude from every pore on his body. The burning miasma of decay. Death. 

(Danger, something in the atavistic recesses of your mind spits. Danger and doom. Demise.)

"...Seven more bodies were found-," you blink, gaze focusing on the dim hallway that sits, stagnant, vacant, and turn your head back to the television. Faces flash on the screen behind his head. Their names sit in a little white rectangle below the last image of them alive, happy. 

The one in the middle looks familiar. A familiar stranger. 

It hits you when you spot the little mole on her chin. 

The bubbly clerk at the mum'n'pop grocer on the outskirts of the city. She always pretends to ring up your tampons and pads, but each time you sit in your car and glance at the receipt, they're never there. 

It's done with no words. She isn't seeking recognition, or plaudits.

The last time you saw her, she added a bag of chocolate clusters to your order, perching them on top of the box. You walked in looking like death and hunched over from the cramps that turned your face nearly ashen with pain that day. No words. No inclusion of nearly nine dollars and forty cents on your bill. She even grabbed the expensive brand - the one that uses all-natural ingredients. 

She winked when you looked at her. A secretive little thing meant only for you. 

And now - 

You suck in a shuddering breath through clenched teeth. The temperature drops. Your teeth ache from the cold. 

Sometimes you like to pretend that the world doesn't exist outside of the four walls that close in around you. That everything else is a bad dream, an illusion. It's just you on this lonely island on the outskirts of a town that bred the unequivocal evil that haunts the shadows and hunts down those misfortunate enough to stumble in its ravenous path. 

Just you, him, and your cats. 

And he, of course, is the shapeless chasm of evil skulking the town and butchering the lovely shopgirl who gives you free chocolate when you wander in like an omen of death. 

It's not his fault. 

The excuse is thin. Sorrow gnarls inside of your chest, edging into the anxious thrum that steady billows up, polluting you with that fretful, nauseating sense of worry. 

You know you can't just mark down the residents that are off-limits. No such thing exists to him. The concept of unkillable is as confounding to him as this whole thing is to you.

But - 

As much as you like her - liked - you've made your choice, haven't you? The sorrow is overwhelmed by the worry. 

What if the police found him? What if someone hurt him? What if, what if, what if - 

What if he never comes back? 

This whole thing started on an ephemeral moment of happenstance. You wandered out into the alley right beside your house, pstpstpst'ing in the dark with an open bag of Temptations whilst you searched for that little stray who ran off with your socks - the cosy kind that keeps all your toes warm - when you stumbled into a wall. A warm one. Fever-hot. A hand lashed out of the caliginous recess, sealing around your arm before the gasp in your throat had a chance to pass your lips. 

It felt like a vice. 

The unrelenting coil of iron wrapped around your arms, squeezing the bone with such unfathomable force that your knees quaked from pain leaking into your forearm. 

The bag dropped from your shaking hands, spilling shrimp and lobster flavoured cat treats all over the dank, grimy alley floor. 

You couldn't see anything through the gloom or the sudden vertigo that ensnared you when you glanced up, trying to catch a glimpse of the mass of pure strength perched in front of you. Your head swam as the man's sheer length stretched on for aeons, never ending, roiling up nearly two metres tall. 

Your knees buckled. 

His hands gripping you was the only thing that kept you from collapsing into the murky puddle below. 

Through the town, murmurs erupted about the Shape. His history leaks blood and misery - mayhem and calamity follow him wherever he wanders. He's an omen of death. Decay and pain, murder, is his auspice. 

He's pure evil, the flashy doctor on the television set ground out, tone severe. His brows furrowed tightly together as everyone else around him hurtled blame and reason. He ignored them, his gaze unwavering as he stared into your very being through the monitor. Stay away from him. If you see him-, there was a hitch in his voice; and then, solemn. The silence of the newsroom was palpable: well, you'd be better off praying for a swift death. 

And so, that's what you do. 

"Please, please-," you don't pray to god. Gods. Your pleas are meant for him even though the black eyes that gleam in the low moonlight that hangs over you like a portant all tell you that it's futile. He doesn't listen to prayers. Your breathless orisons fall on deaf ears. 

You think about your cats. The ones locked inside your house right now with no escape. Food will run low. Water. You don't have many friends that keep up with you often enough for them to notice your absence. 

It's then, at that moment when his hands squeeze and your bones creak under the strain, that you wish you didn't prefer your own company over that of others. Cats. That if you weren't so docile and content to be alone, someone would notice the glaring lack of you, and rescue the poor strays you trapped inside your charnel. 

"Please," you choke, eyes burning with tears that stream down your face in rivets. It's your last adjure, plea, to whatever humanity is left to rot inside of him. "P-please just open my door…? My cats are inside, and I-"

The clouds overhead split apart. The milky glow of the moon illuminates the dim alleyway, cutting through the tenebrous cloaking the being that grips you from the shadows. 

The murky light makes the deep splashes on his chest look almost like ink. 

You thought it was his head. 

Oh, god. You'd been pleading with his chest this whole time. 

You glance up, nervous, shaking, and are met with the waxen mask, creased with age and covered in grime. Blood, perhaps. The sight of him, the way the back of your head has to nearly rest on your spine to stare at his face, makes you shiver. Makes your hands tremble and your heart thunder inside of your chest.

It would be very logical for the blood in your veins to run cold.

But with the intense, piercing way he stares down at you, chin tipped toward his chest, it spumes molten, liquid heat that rushes through you with enough force that you feel a little dizzy with it. 

Oh, no… 

Oh -

He bends down, and the thick, metallic scent of blood overwhelms you. Dirt. Sweat. The miasma of rot makes your heart give a painful thud. Fear. Terror. 

(And something else.)

His breath turns stertorous. 

You brace yourself, tensing for the sudden paroxysm of a vicious attack, your mind flashing with all the things you did, didn't do, should have done, and will now never get the chance - 

- He lurches, and then like a pendulum, swings back. 

You're jerked forward when he falls into the trash behind him, clattering against the bins stacked up near the garbage shoot. 

The silence that settles over you is smothering. 

You expect him to get up, to finish what he tried to start, but he doesn't. He lays, motionless, in the gutter. His grip on your arms slackens, and they fall, limp, to his sides. 

It's then that the damage to his torso reveals itself to you. The blood coating his body wasn't, entirely, foreign. 

He's injured. 

You hesitate. 

You should leave him here to die. Call the police. Thank your sudden stroke of luck. Kiss the ground and look for some deity to worship for this salvation. 

You should, but you don't.

(You've always had a soft spot for dirty strays.)

He comes and goes, now. Like the many cats you feed. 

Wandering around before slowly ambling back to your house in search of more sustenance. 

Somewhere in the muddled awakening, when he blinked his eyes open and found himself staring at the white popcorn ceiling in your living room, catching sight of you careful dabbing at the sweat drying on his brow after the rupture of a fever, you - and your house - become something victual for him. 

It was tense, at first - and really, it still is - but in the interim of patching together the gory remnants of his abdomen and breaking down in the solitude of your bathroom, huddled in the basin as water rippled across your skin in a baptism of sin, you found purpose in the murkiness that enshrouded you. 

The dubious morality nearly crippled you, leaving nothing but an empty husk of regret and terror as his skin knitted itself together, sealing over the wound that, had it been left in the trash, would have killed him. The infection, poisoned blood, animals - it would have all contributed to a corpse in the alley. 

The stench would have drawn notice to his final resting place, and the reign of terror the chasm of evil, the Shape, brought to your town would finally be over. 

And yet -

There was something itching in your pericardium that made leaving him alone feel tithe abysmal as the brief relief of letting him die. 

This is your fault. 

Your lip aches. Your tongue lolls over the broken skin, soothing the sting. 

Whatever it was that made him decide not to kill you when he felt your hands on his forehead, when he saw you trembling in the corner, gasping for breath and praying for a swift end, is a mystery to you. 

But maybe there is no logic. You feed the strays because you want to. 

You buy the extra cat food, and litter, and spend your earned money to get them spayed and neutered and cared for, not because you have to, but because you just do.

And maybe it's the same for him. 

You're somewhere in the middle of unkillable - for now - and nourishment.

Or you were. 

Then something inside of him snapped, evolved. 

You weren't here when he slipped inside of your home like he belonged, flinching at the state of him dripping gore in your mudroom, and then slowly, cautiously, skirting around him, fretting in the background. 

You weren't there.

No -

You were at the vet. 

When you returned, cat cradled under your arm and dozing off the effects of anaesthesia, you were met with an eerie silence, and bloodied footprints pacing across your floors. 

You had just enough time to set the cat down on the landing when his hand lashed out through the aether once more, grabbing your delicate neck and slamming you against the wall so hard the photos you hung (all pictures bought from Ikea to make your mudroom a little less drab) clattered to the ground, cascading glass and broken wood over the messy floor.

His breath comes in great, heaving rasps; anger seeps into every crevasse as his eyes, feverish with bloodlust, bore down at you. 

The apoplectic fury that roars through him is sudden, unexpected. He'd been so docile toward you thus far. Your defences lowered, almost, when weeks passed and he made no move to end your life. 

He crept around your house like he belonged, watching you from the doorway of your bedroom as you slept. It was the most he'd done to shake your sense of comfort and privacy. 

He never touched you, except that time in the alley and when he'd first woken up, both times grabbing you out of reflex rather than intent. 

This - 

This is purposeful. 

The quick rise and fall of his chest makes your toes curl in confusion, fear. 

Why now? Why he is - 

He leans in, the wheezing breath sounding muffled and garish behind the latex, and then he - 

Sniffs.

It's so unexpected, so jarring, that your head thumps against the wall when you flinch. 

Why is he - 

His hand reaches up, grasping at the wispy, tangled hair of his mask, and with a great tug, it's pulled from his head, and dropped - discarded - on the floor. 

You've only seen him barefaced when you lugged him into the mudroom, and settled him on the carpet between your couch and coffee table. It wasn't his choice; you'd removed it in your search for additional injuries. 

This, however, is all him - his choice, his decision.

And it baffles you. 

You don't know why he took the mask off, why he's so angry - why he keeps coming back, why he stares at you so much, why he does what he does, why you - 

You find out with the briefest flutter of his eyelids narrowing at you. His nostrils flare. And then he moves, plunging his head closer to you until your foreheads are pressed taut together, and suddenly - unexpectedly - his mouth is on yours. 

He doesn't move. His lips are lax. It might not even be a kiss, you don't think, but then his head tilts, slanting his mouth over your own, and his lips part, only just, and it's then that you realise that he is kissing you. 

Or in proxy of it, anyway. 

He mimics the right movements, but there is no action beyond that. It's almost as if he doesn't know how people kiss, just that they do, and this is what it looks like when you stand off to the side and watch. 

Movies. Real life. The images you've seen play in your head over and over again, lining up perfectly with the way his head moves, the way his body leans into you, bracketing you against the wall. His hand around your throat keeps your chin up, your head immobile, while he cocks his head to the side in a mockery of romance that's so utter endearing you nearly pass out from blood that rushes to your cheeks. 

Oh, god. 

Michael Myers is kissing you. He doesn't know how, but he's trying, and it's - 

Oh, god. Oh -

It changes the chossy foundation established between you. 

Michael stakes a claim on you, on your house, that is incomprehensible to you; this abstruse chasm in which you're precariously balanced on the precipice, gazing in at the inscrutable abyss that looks back at you, and kisses you, and pulls you close, and smothers you with the sheer absurdity of it all, is confounding. Beyond reason. 

You haven't initiated any of it. 

All the lines crossed between you were at his hands, his whim. When he strips you bare and looms over you like a starving breast, a ravenous god, you let him - willingly, eagerly - but you never breach those parameters on your own accord. 

The abrupt physicality of your evolving - something - with Michael Myers wreaks havoc on your poor, straining heart. The embarrassment comes in a maelstrom. You skirt away from his grasping hands, gasping and flushing scarlet as the blazing heat of his body sears your skin. 

It's too much sometimes. 

To go from near death, to a ramshackle symbiosis of sorts - a ghastly, unspoken agreement in which you are not to be killed provided that you aid him when he comes skulking through the alley, and meandering about your haven like the very same alleycats you pluck from the barren streets -, to this, is, well, odd, to say the least. 

Was it there the whole time for him? Did he look at you with his lidded gaze from the onset? Did that dark hunger spool inside of him from the beginning or were the embers flamed by something you did after? 

Was it the empty house he wandered into that set him off? 

(Does it really matter?)

"...If you see any suspicious figures, do not engage, and call local authorities right away-," click.

You toss the remote on the cushion beside you, leaning your head back on the rest, gazing listlessly at the ceiling. The swell of panic hasn't subsided, but it's all futile. 

Michael has no collar. He comes and goes on his own, driven back to you by that strange unknowable thing that makes him desire you, that makes him tug you on his lap and paw at your body until you're quivering from his touch. When he finally sinks inside of you, all thought is dissolved into frayed synapses that spark, filled with nothing but pleasure. Logic, reason, questionable morality, the existential ennui that drapes over you like a stormcloud, only seeps into the tenebrous when he is around. 

And he hasn't been around for nearly a month. So, it comes in vicious waves, now. 

Maybe he found whatever he was searching for in your flesh, and didn't need it any longer. Maybe the tremble in your hands caused by his touch, the briefest brush of his skin nearly overwhelming you, and the etiolated countenance you carried when he loomed large and imposing, in your space, was disinteresting to him. 

You've seen it before in the others, haven't you? 

Hunger satiated. Thirst quenched. They wandered away from you, no longer needing the aliment you provided. 

You should be thankful that his curiosity has been abated. 

(But like most things you ought to be, you aren't.)

The only constant with Michael is a trail of bodies and the habitual sense of fear and unease as he lurks in the crevasses of Haddonfield, waiting to happen upon his next victim. 

He leaves you in a state of pell-mell and uproots your bucolic existence with his confounding presence, and the strange way he fits you inside of his world. 

Your thoughts are plagued by uncertainties that make your stomach churn with knots; a festering mass of unease and anxiety. 

You need a distraction. 

Your eyes glance furtively toward the hallway - barren as it has been for the last month - before the little sigh of dejection passes through your lips. 

It's silly to worry. 

With one last hopeful glance at the still empty hallway, you rise from the couch, and drift toward the washroom adjacent to your bedroom. You'll scour the nerves off under the scalding nozzle, and then watch something cheesy and stupid - a mindless movie you turn your thoughts off before falling asleep. 

Peanut Purrter and Jelly swarm you when you stand, mewling for the food they already ate, and you bend down, scratching behind their soft ears. Out of all of the cats, these two are the most affectionate. They never leave your side, either. You picked them up out of a bin, took them home, and they quickly decided that the outdoor life was just not for them. 

It happens sometimes. 

All their wants are fulfilled in the sanctity of your four walls, and they seem content to live out the rest of their days wandering through the halls, and watching the birds from out the window, or the fish in your tank. 

Jelly pushes his soft, orange head into your palm, eyes slipping shut as his loud purrs fill the hallway, and you can't stop the little thought that slips out of the recess where notions of grandeur and impossibilities are let to rot, wondering if one day, Michael will find that, too. 

(And then, embarrassedly, selfishly, you wonder if it would be with you.)

You bury your flaming cheeks into Peanut's lush fur, and use her as a shield to hide the silly little thoughts that roll inside of your head late at night. She's happy to go along for the ride, content to paw at your hair and flick her tail over your arms. 

"How stupid," you murmur into her fur, the flush spreading like a fever. 

She bleats in response.

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The shower eases the tension that builds, settling the cortisol that pools inside of you.  

Thoughts of Michael slip down the drain, but only just. He lingers in the periphery - has since you first found him in the gutter and dragged him inside - like an inescapable shadow. Your hands scrub over your face in a futile attempt to wash the blush off your cheeks. 

It's easy to push the idealistic musings into the chasm that chews them up and spits out realism. 

It's the worry of the unknown that refuses to relent. 

Is he hurt? Did he get caught? Why hasn't he come home -

Home. 

No. This isn't his home. His home is a dilapidated house in the suburbs of Haddonfield. 

Your little bucolic abode on the fringes of the wilderness is not home to him: it's a refuge. A place to get his needs met and lay low. 

A means to an end. 

The thoughts gnarl inside of you, festering under the weight of uncertainty.

You wish you could ask him, but even if he was here, you know you wouldn't. The words sat on your lips so many times before only to be swallowed down quickly by the fear of rejection, of pushing him into a corner. 

You reach for the soap and wonder where this is heading. Maybe he wouldn't return. Maybe he didn't need you anymore.

Maybe -

There is a rustle. A looming shape just outside of the blue cover. And then your curtain is wrenched back. 

The startled scream is smothered in your oesophagus at the sight of him, brooding, massive. He takes up all space in your small washroom - so tall that he has to duck his head down to look at you lest his view is hindered by the curtain rod. 

(Can you spot the danger? You didn't even know it was there-)

He appears almost as quickly as he disappears. His eyes never waver as he watches you huddled under the scalding spray of the shower head, hands curled between your breasts as you lather a bar of soap in your hands. 

(Sea salt and eucalyptus. The loam scent reminds you of him.)

You flush, hunching further as his usually impassive stare hardens, brimming with an intensity that is only matched when he's angry or victorious after a kill. 

Michael peels back the shower curtain, exposing more of your nude, wet flesh to his burning gaze. 

"M-Michael-," you start, stuttering over his name, but the rest turns into a breathless huff of surprise when he pulls off his mask, and ducks under the rod keeping the curtain in place, clambering into the shower behind you. 

As soon as the water hits the leg of his jumpsuit, grime and dirt bleed off of him in rivets, turning the pooling liquid black. The brackish water sloshes as he steps in beside you, looming over you. 

The shower seems comically small in comparison to the length and width of him. His shoulders hunch, head dropping to avoid hitting the waterproof ceiling. You shuffle back, numb with surprise at his unexpected appearance, and with the way he moves - agile and graceful, despite his size. 

He fills the space, pushing you back to the opposite wall with the nozzle directly over your head. It reaches to his sternum, the weeping spray drenching his jumpsuit until it's nearly black from the water and the dried blood that runs down the length of his torso. 

It must be uncomfortable, you think, but he makes no move to undress, and seems completely unbothered by the oddity of the situation. 

It's been a month. Not much has changed. He is still the same strange - deadly, dangerous - man he'd always been. Always is. 

Your smile is a touch wobbly, filled with nerves of a new kind; the same anxious thrum wells inside of you at the sight of him. Your mind oscillates between terror, fear, and that primal pool of self-preservation that quickly rips through you, and bellows to stay still, to hide so that the hulking predator can't see you, can't devour you; and the unmistakable sense of relief at the sight of him standing so close to you. 

He's here, your mind chants like a broken record, tone shifting like a swinging pendulum between nervousness, fear and happiness, solace. 

Michael has a tendency to wring out every iota of intensity in each emotion you feel. There is no slight, no halves - it's whole. All. You're never slightly happy to see him. You're exuberant. You're never a little scared of him. You're terrified. 

You've never felt this way about anyone else before. The visceral emotions he makes you feel leave your mind spiralling on a downward descent off the edge of a steep precipice. 

And even now, with him towering over you like an inescapable wall of pure strength, you're wracked with tremors from the force of the relief, the conflict of fight or flight, and the undulating sense of contentment at having him so close to you. 

"Michael…" you murmur again, caught between terror and need. 

The slightest narrowing of his eyes is all he gives you in response. His chin dips down, meaningful, purposeful, and you know, you know, what he wants. What he came for. 

Covered in blood that doesn't belong to him, fresh from the abattoir he makes of your town, you can't help the thrum of want, need, happiness that spumes inside of your chest, consuming the worry, the fear, in one quick bite. 

It's gone, dissolved by hydrochloric acid and the unrelenting urge to close the chasm between you and the bulk of his body where you stand, barely brushing past the last rib of his torso. Michael knows. Of course he does. 

You were naïve in the beginning when you assumed him to just be a mindless killer; that the eyes that gazed at you were vacant and unseeing. 

Michael Myers is more observant than you could have ever fathomed. 

Nothing escapes him. 

Not the tremble in your lip, the spasms of your shaking fingers, the glistening water that runs down your flesh, already prickling with goosebumps despite the steaming heat of the shower.

He can see the need, the want, brimming up in your eyes as you gaze at him fleetingly, unable to match his stare, and overcome with that burning tang of embarrassment, shyness, that overwhelms you when he stands too close. 

He can see the war in your mind: 

Yearning for proximity until all you can feel is his heavy flesh on yours, merging together into a muddled mess of euphoric pleasure.

And;

The hesitation to get too close. The nervous thudding of your heart when he moves, like a scared little animal of prey stumbling upon a resting predator. Unsure what to do. How to approach. And if you even can.

It becomes too much. Your eyes drop - submissive, docile - to the white panelled floor below, watching the blood run over your feet, staining the mat pink with the gory residuum of seven - known - victims. It makes you recoil slightly, toes curling in the river of ichor. 

Michael’s head tilts. Another display of impatience. 

Right. Your teeth sink into the soft bed of flesh. Nerves turning to ash. 

Your hands shake when you reach up, knuckles brushing over the metal chain of his zipper as your trembling fingers grasp the pull. Michael keeps his intense, heavy gaze on you as your fingers spasm, too nervous to take the lead and undress him. 

Like a skittish little mouse under the paw of a cat, you tremble. Paralysed. But not with fear - with nerves. 

It's been a month, you want to say. You're not prepared. You're not - 

It's a lie, though. You laid in bed for the last four weeks with your hand under the covers, and his name on your lips like gospel. 

If anything, you're over-prepared. All too eager to feel him. To let the boogeyman take you. 

The thoughts running through you make you shiver. In your musings, Michael's head tilts.

The amplitude of his patience is deep, but not endless. 

His hand reaches up, closing in your own. His palm swallows your hands with an effortless ease that makes your knees quake. 

The implication in his action is clear: hurry up. 

You nod, mostly to yourself and you scrounge together the nerve that is quickly being eroded by the cascading water pouring over you. The grind of the metal teeth peeling back on the zipper, the rush of the water, and Michael's deep, even breaths are the only noise that fills the small - too small - shower. The muted cacophony echoes against the ceramic walls, reverberating through you. 

The zipper snags on the grove, and can go no further. You swallow thickly, eyes darting up to catch a glimpse of his expression covered under the damp, tangled curtain of his long brown hair. An inky abyss stares back at you. Under the impassivity of his expression, the vat of unfathomable black churns and froths with intense, burning fervour.  

He shrugs his shoulders, and the jumpsuit slips down from the weight of the water, pooling at his ankles. 

You flinch when his cock springs up, freed from the loose confinement of his overalls, and you think you catch a glimpse of his canines when he spots the bloom of blood spuming under your cheeks. 

You peek up at him, stomach knotting with a flutter of nerves that batter relentlessly at your soft lining, anxious to escape the prison it's kept in. His teeth are hidden by the even seam of his lips, expression veiled with a thick veneer of that same implacable nothingness that's reflected on the latex laying dormant, forgotten, on the carpet. 

When you finally meet his gaze, Michael's eyes flutter. And then he drops. 

Michael sits in one swift movement, dropping down to the shower bench behind him. His knees jut forward on the seat that's far too tiny for someone so big. 

Without him looming over you, you feel like you can breathe again. Quick breaths are eagerly stolen into your starved lungs. His proximity alone makes you sweat, makes you feel like you're being smothered. Hypoxia sets in until you're dizzy with it.

His hand reaches out, wrapping around your arm in that same too-tight, too firm grasp he always uses. 

It would be a lie to say he doesn't know his own strength by now. Michael Myers is very aware. Very attuned to himself in a way that you don't think any other person could ever manage to be. There is no unknown with him, no indecision. No unease. When he does something, it's always with purpose. 

So, when he takes hold of you like this, a shade away from burgeoning pain, you know that this, too, is done with meaning. And when your gaze drops to the floor, unable to meet the burning smoulder that stares at you, expectant, waiting, you see the purpose very clearly. 

He's hard. 

The moment your gaze brushes across the pearlescent precum pooling on his flushed, engorged head, his cock twitches, jerking against his broad, firm stomach. 

The hot water is limitless with your tank. It'll never run out so long as the electric light keeps it burning. But the spray that grazes your skin feels icy compared to the heat thrumming in your veins. You feel hot. Feverish. 

Panting into the steamy, oxygen-starved basin, you hastily snap your eyes shut, squeezing them tight to stem the sudden torrent of want that rages inside of you at the sight of him - knees spread in the perfect picture of languour, one hand on you, an effortless shackle keeping you from escaping, and the other limp by his side, knuckles brushing against the ceramic shower seat. 

He's probably tilting his head in that way he's wont to do - a little dip of his chin that conveys and implacable: well? and you can almost hear the accompanying, what are you waiting for? echoing in the stifling chamber. 

Your face is on fire. The embers flicker and drop sparks across your chest, spitting at the tips of your ears. 

You can't - 

Well. You simply can't. 

But Michael doesn't understand the concept of no, of wait, of this is too much and it's been so long and he's too -

Overwhelming. 

Everything is: his presence, the way his intensity feels like physical weight bearing down on you, his absurd size, his indomitable prowess and strength that sometimes makes your knees buckle and your limbs slacken in fear, his insatiable appetite -

He's hungry. Your teeth chatter from the shiver that rockets down your spine. 

There is no preparation for when his hands seal around your waist, unamused by the embarrassment that overtakes you. It happens too fast for you to keep up. His muscle coil, tightening, and then you're being heaved up into the air, suspended over his lap by nothing but his brute strength. 

Michael moves you around like you're a life-sized doll, filled with nothing but spooled polyester cotton. And to him, maybe you are. You're a malleable thing that flushes blood red in his presence, the hue never failing to catch his rapt attention immediately, and pique that little part of his brain that wants more. Little nips decorate your chin, neck, collarbones, chest - all a buccaneer smear of blossoming brands in the shape of his teeth; his insatiable lust for that particular cardinal shade manifesting on your flesh. 

He stares at them after. Eyes fixed on the burst capillaries that pool blood just under your skin. His breath is always a little quicker when he sees them the next morning, a little raspy, ragged. 

(He'll push you, then, against the wall and take you there, eyes never straying from the soot-coloured stains smearing flaxen and violet.)

There is no illusion of control with Michael. No sense of shared power or leeway. The ebb and flow begins and ends with him - his whims, his wants. You're merely adrift in the current, clinging to driftwood as his currents drag you along. 

It's here, perched on top of him, in a position where - had it been anyone else, you might have considered yourself in control, where the truth of that really stands apparent. 

Your knees aren't even touching the bench. They're folded up, caps pressed into the seam of the wall and Michael's hips, legs folded under your thighs, and toes dangling off the edge of his bent knees. 

He holds you tight, refusing to let you go, and pulls you taut to his chest until you can go no further. 

Even with you perched atop him, he has to angle his chin down to meet your gaze. Big. Towering. Mountainous. His arms flex, muscles coiling under the tawny flesh that barely contains it, and it's the jut of his veins that makes you gasp, eyes lidding as desire spools inside of you. 

Sometimes you like to imagine what he would be like had he chosen a different path in life, one void of bloodshed and terror. A model, you think, delirious with the hard press of his body against yours - so fragile and delicate by comparison. He'd be lusted after by an endless stream of people desperate, like you, for just a graze. 

It feels a little taboo to touch him, but you're imbued with the visceral sense of cacoethes.  

Unable to stem the itch in your palms, you press them against his chest, feeling the hard plains of his body under your fingertips. His skin is warm. Chest dusted with a flaxen smattering of ulotrichous hair. It prickles against your skin when you rub your hands across his broad torso, tentatively running them up toward his collarbones.

It had taken quite a substantial amount of courage - of the liquid kind, no less - to touch him of your own accord. He seemed rather pleased when you did, when your hand reached out and felt the bulk of his forearms, so wide that there was still a finger-width of flesh poking out around your thumb and pinky. His muscles tensed under your curious prods. The first tightening of his corded arm seemed largely out of the unwonted brush of your skin on the outside of his usual demanding design. Then he relaxed. His muscles flexed, as if to show you a proper demonstration of his indelible strength. 

His skin rippled. Veins bulged, pressing taut to his flesh. 

The sight of it made your mouth water. 

Still does, you think, eyes greedily taking in every inch of his exposed skin, the expansive flesh offered to you is irresistible. Your hands roam, free and unhindered by the usual hesitation that encapsulates you. It's the distance. The time apart has chiselled open a rapacious hunger inside of you. 

Michael watches as you paw at him desperately, eyes widening, breath stuttering when his chest expands under your hands. Your palm passes over his heart, and the steady thud is almost jarring. It knocks through the haze of want that overtook you, and you find yourself almost surprised, like always, when Michael's humanity is confirmed. 

He's not a husk driven by basic needs. Evil. 

He has a heart - one that beats just like yours. 

You pull back, your palm lifting off of his chest until just the very tops of your fingers remain on his skin. 

Sometimes you convince yourself that he's a spectre. Ichor and evil are confined in the pulpy sinew of a human. A matryoshka of sorts where the exterior seems largely normal - or as normal as someone as massive as he is could ever seem - but the inside is filled with empty layers all stacked together. 

Murder. Bloodlust. Mayhem.

Carnage. Death. Decay. 

It muddles together in your mind and makes you think of him as a quietus. A being that does not belong in this realm where ghosts and demons and ghouls are relegated to the altar where they are condemned by a vicar. Cast out of the established spectrum in the material world that closes in on you like a noose. 

The dense, solid flesh under your hands confirms corporeal nature, but everything else about him mystifies you. 

A little part of you wonders if he really is a quietus prowling around in this moral plane; an escapee from the pits of hell left to wreak havoc on the world of the living to satiate that lust for calamity that brims inside of his slate-coloured gaze; the same hue as death, decay.

The same eyes that ensnare you - captivate you - rendering you mute, silent, in the echoing cacophony of the dead that bellow at you, their blood running down your drain, congealing on your toes. 

(You wonder, then, what it says about you that you're willingly perched on the lap of Stygian ilk like a poised queen on a throne of skulls. 

Right where you belong.)

You meet that smouldering gaze.

He's surprisingly accommodating today, you note, glancing at him through the wet veil that hides his expression from you. Your fingers twitch on his chest. You're overcome with another inadvisable whim - the urge to sink your hands into his hair and scrub the dirt away from his ashen locks is hard to ignore, but that might be pushing the limits of what he allows too far. 

You dig your nails into the flaxen hair on his chest instead, grounding yourself against the silly notions brimming up inside of you.

It's in those musings over your unexpected caprice that Michael's patience wears. 

His jagged nails bite into the flesh on your hips, the stinging prickle of a furze meant only as a warning. He wants something. You're taking too long. He's getting impatient. 

But the thing is: you don't know what it is he wants. 

Your lower lip juts out, and you sink your teeth into the plush skin. It would be easier if he spoke, telling you what it is you're doing wrong, or if he showed you what it was he wanted. But it's futile. 

He does neither. Michael gave you a warning, and now he waits. 

The nervous gnashing in your chest grows under the intensity of his stare. His eyes narrow just a touch, fixed on the pink slip of your appendage poking out. He's so focused on it, that you feel like you can breathe a little better without the weight of his gaze penetrating into your being. Eye contact with Michael Myers fills you with the maddening urge to roll over and show your soft belly, to bare your vulnerable neck in submission. 

Your tongue flicks up, swiping across your upper lip. His eyes follow it. 

You do it again. Again -

Just as you're beginning to catch on to what he wants, he tires of the little game you're (unintentionally) playing. 

To him, you're toying with him. Holding up a piece of meat and dangling it in front of his maw. 

You flush, stuttering out a simpering apology, but Michael cares very little for the placating words you attempt to persuade him with. The burn of his unyielding grip burrows into you again, and it's the only warning he gives before he wrenches you forward, pulling you until your breasts are flush with his chest. 

He devours the broken gasp of his name that stumbles from your lips, feasting on you like a starving beast. 

Michael is a quick learner. Almost as soon as you opened your mouth, moulding your lips against his, he picked up the finesse behind the action, and consumed you. He doesn't let you take control of the kiss - once he learnt the little things that make you pant into his mouth, moan brokenly against his tongue, his hunger grew. His kisses leave you breathless in a way no one else has ever managed. 

Like most things in your life before Michael, kissing was always just okay. A prelude. A chore. 

And now you whine against his lips as his tongue lashes out, filling your mouth in search of more of your taste. 

It's good, now. Great. Amazing. An explosive sensation of searing heat, and kiss bruised lips. You pull away, gasping for air, and feel the sting on your mouth from the force of his ardour. 

Lidded, hazy with want, you pull yourself closer to him, whimpering when his cock presses into your navel, smearing precum across your wet skin. 

It's been a month. A month of nothing. The scent of him left your pillows weeks ago, and your imagination was barely enough to quell the rapacious ache inside of you that longed for the firm, unyielding press of his body over yours. 

And now, he's here. He's yours for the taking. 

Your fingers itch again - the urge to touch is strong. Consuming. 

But you don't. You flush a deep maroon, tipping your chin away from his gaze, and rock against his lap, seeking a quiet, unnoticeable pleasure. 

He's too much. 

You can't ever bring yourself to give into the greediness inside of you, and instead take what little you can get away with. The idea of just -

Taking feels a little too sacrilegious. A little too bold. It's not in your nature to do so, and the idea of testing those implicit boundaries with Michael is a little too daunting. 

So, you cant your hips against him, squirming in his lap to abate the ache growing inside of you with what little motions he'll allow as Michael nips down the column of your throat. His mouth on his skin, teeth burrowed into your pulse point, the thick length of him so close to where you want him, need him, is too much. 

He catches the bloom of red under your skin when you blush, feels the stutter of your breath as it crawls up your throat. The want in your voice, the need, is palpable when you choke out his name. A soft, meek little thing: the coo of prey, begging so prettily for reprieve.

Michael buries his chin into the curve of your neck, forcing your head back. His hands slide, bracing over the delicate vertebrates of your spine. They're almost fluid in his hand. The bones in your body are as easy as papier-mâché for him to snap. To break. He could ruin you. Sink his canines into your jugular and tear out your flesh, letting you bleed to death in his lap. He could keep the sensual arch of your back going, pushing and pushing until he snapped you in half. You're so -

Fragile. 

His cock twitches against you, spitting prespend over your belly. His cock burns hotter than a brand, molten against your skin. 

Michael's arms tighten around you, fingers digging into the knobs of your spine. Panic wells inside of you. He's going to do it - snap you in two -

-and Michael -

-picks you up effortlessly once again, and holds you over his aching cock. 

There is no foreplay tonight. He won't slide his hand between your soft thighs to feel how wet you are for him, fingers toying with your slickness until you moan out his name in that particular cadence he likes best. He won't drag them up, making you see them glistening with your desire. Forcing you to acknowledge your want for him, to see it glimmering on his hand. Evidentiary proof that your body yearns for him. That you belong to him.

He won't because he's impatient, now. Your wiggling, the little gasps of his name, the way you cling to him and fit in his lap, have all worn his patience down to nothing. 

(To Michael, he's had nearly a month of edging, foreplay, with each of his kills that left him half-hard and aching, and on the verge of wandering back to your familiar abode to satiate the burn in his loins.)

He'll take you like this. 

And maybe later, when he wakes in the middle of the night with you slumbering peacefully beside him, in the spot you belong, he'll slip under the covers and spread your aching thighs apart, rousing you to the sensation of his mouth devouring you, tongue greedily lapping at your centre until you're a quivering mess, begging him for respite that'll never come. Not when he hasn't had you in nearly a month. 

This is only an appetiser. 

You know this by the darkening glaze in his eyes as he pulls you close, grasping you tight, until the flushed head of his cock slips between your thighs. Shuddering from the way the blunt tip presses against you, you scramble to find purchase as he steadily lowers you down. His cock slips inside, stretching you wide to make room for the rest of him. 

Michael doesn't do things in halves. 

There is the slightest hitch to his breath once the first inch passes, bringing tears to your eyes at the burning stretch of him filling you. Once he's found his mark, he leans his head down, nuzzling into your neck.

You know what's coming. You know - 

But there is no time to prepare yourself for the suddenness of being split apart while his teeth sink into the soft flesh of your neck. 

A shrill cry is ripped from your throat when he bludgeons into you, the head of his cock battering into your cervix in a way that has you seeing phosphenes with your eyes wide open. Your toes curl, fingers dig into the flesh of his broad shoulders, body spasming with the sudden paroxysm of him being seated so deep within you. 

His jaw is vice on your neck, and for a moment you fear that he's going to pull away with a chunk of your flesh, but it's gone when his teeth go slack, and his tongue runs out with rapacious greed to lick up the fresh blood that spills down your chest in pink rivets. 

You sob, quaking from the suddenness of it all, and try to abate the hypoxia from inking out your vision. The abruptness, the pain of the bite, the burn of the stretch, all knocked the air from your lungs, and you struggle to come to yourself through the overwhelming sensations he ripped through you. 

It's a mercy that he stays still, letting you adjust to his girth as he laps at the blood he spilt, nipping at your broken flesh. Michael is big. You barely had time to marvel at the size of him before his urgency to fill you became too much, but you feel it now with incredible clarity. 

It pushes to the very edge of your mettle, teasing the resiliency of your body until you feel like you're on the verge of splitting apart. Broken, irreparably, by the thickness seated to the deepest depths inside of you. You shift, wincing at the way his cock moves when you do, the base of him stretching you in a way that has you heaving brokenly into his chest. 

It aches. He feels endless. You pry your fingers from his shoulders, only slightly remorseful at the sight of four indents cutting through his flesh, and drop your hand down to your stomach. More than a little delirious on that white-hot pain, you almost think you can feel his cock through the layers of tissue, pressing against the skin of your abdomen. 

"Michael-," you sob, head spooling with the thick haze of pleasure-pain that ricochets down your spine. 

He knows what you want. What you need. He always does, and while he might be a right bastard when it comes to giving it to you when you want it, he never leaves you dissatisfied. But this - the watery stream of blood leaking over your collarbones, dripping down your breasts, is what he cares for most, and so -

You'll wait. 

You pant. Squirming on the throne of his lap in a desperate attempt to find that spot inside of you that makes you see an array of refulgent nebulae behind your eyelids. 

Your walls tremble, body shaking, but slowly, slowly, the ache inside begins to spool, coiling into something different. Numbed pleasure seeps out of the place he's nudged, seated so firmly against, and begins to leak into your bloodstream. 

The first, quiet gasp that's ripped from your chest verges on absolute bliss. It's a call. A beacon. 

And Michael answers. 

Michael plants his feet firmly on the floor, and you feel the flex, the coil, of his strong hamstrings pull taut. Too busy admiring the strength in his body, you fail to recognise the signs. His hips jerk suddenly, pushing upward with enough force to jostle you. You gasp, slipping on his hard, wet skin, and slamming into his chest. Your hands reach up, holding onto his shoulders as Michael begins to move under you - the prowess of a tiger, a caiman, pure muscle barely contained by the prison of its flesh. 

He doesn't wait for you. 

All you can do is cling to him desperately, eagerly seeking purchase from the deep, demanding thrusts he batters into your body from below. 

His mouth is on yours again, swallowing the hiccuping moans you make, the keens, as he pistons into you. The pace he sets is rough, a touch brutal: he forces himself in as deep as he can go, pauses there just to let you feel it, and then pulls out until only the tip of his cock remains, and he waits again. It's a brief second, but they come so sporadically that you can't work out a pattern, not when the firm press of his cock inside of you knocks all logic out of your head.

Synapses overheat with each delicious drag of his cock against your gummy walls until they misfire, filling with a slurry of oxytocin and dopamine, rendering you stupid, dizzy, and drunk on the thickness of him, the way he fills you, and slams into the places inside that make your nucleus accumbens coruscate like a supernova. 

His hands clench around your hips, lifting you up off of his aching, hard cock, and forcing you to meet him in the middle of his next thrust. It rattles through your core until your voice is hoarse from the cries he rips out of you. It borders on the blissful equinox of being too much, too painful, and too good, too euphoric. 

All you can do is cling to him. Let him move you around how he pleases.

His breath quickens in tandem with your mewling sobs, head nuzzling into your chest when he lifts you up, and he pants into your wet flesh, head cushioned by pillowing softness of your breasts. 

The flesh is much too unblemished for his liking. 

His teeth sink into the soft underside of your breast, leaving behind a ring in the shape of his teeth that has your walls fluttering around him, squeezing him tight as the sudden burst of pain is perfectly complemented by the brutal pleasure he forces into you, head battering harshly into the gummy walls that have you singing his name in adulations. 

The sweet sounds you make spurn him on. The brands he decorates on your flesh split and bleeds as he trails his mouth through the valley of your breasts. 

His molten mouth seals over your aching, hard nipple, and pleasure whites out that place inside your head that worries. Your hand snaps up, burrowing in the messy tangle of his locks, pushing his mouth firmly into your chest, unwilling to let the way his tongue feels rolling over your buds go. He's sadistic, you think, fringing on utter delirium. He'll let go. You know he will.

His body rumbles with a growl when you tug on his hair, forcing his mouth to stay latched onto you. It vibrates over your sensitive flesh and makes you paw at his chest when the pleasure liquifies, roaring through your core until you can taste the cosmos on your tongue. 

It's not a warning. You know this because his mouth turns harsh, ravenous. He brutally fucks into you, pulling your body down to meet him with each thrust until you're howling his name so loud that you're sure the police department can hear your echoing cries rattling through the city. 

Your body dissolves in his hold, limbs turning phospholipid. The only thing keeping you together is his burning hands on your flesh as he moulds you in the ways he wants, bouncing you on his lap as molten pleasure courses through you. 

The coil tightens. Michael pulls away from your nipple, pushing his head between the valley of them, and pants into your sternum. The deep, haggard breaths he takes has you shuddering over him, so close now that you can feel it spreading liquid bliss through your body, pooling in the pit of your belly. 

Pleasure congeals in your marrow, and all at once you're on that precipice, careening over as you cum on his cock, sweet hymns falling from your lips as Michael's cock bludgeons deep inside of you. 

His hips shift, canting into you in a thrust that feels distinctly weakened, lax, compared to the others, and it's then that you hear it. A little grumble in the pit of his chest. He batters inside of you in quick succession, hands gripping you tight enough that you wonder, vaguely, drunk on the feel of his cock spearing into you, if he'll break your ribs before he finishes. 

In the muted slurry of your mind, you have the wherewithal only to glance up at him through your wet lashes when another rumble reverberates through your being.

And really -

It's enough to send you careening over that precipice once more.

His eyes flutter, full lashes dusting over his ruddy, wet cheeks. His chin tips back, jaw clenching to bite back the groan you feel ripple through his chest. You stare, mesmerised as his Adam's apple bobs. His fingers squeeze you tight, pushing your hips down on his lap as he struggles to fill you with every last millimetre of himself. 

Michael holds you steady, powerful thighs flexing under you, and then he lifts his hips, bludgeoning into you with enough force that you cry out his name, eyes widening at the deep pleasure, the burn of the stretch, the too-full feeling of him forcing his cock as deep as it will go. He jerks once, twice, and it knocks the air from your heaving lungs. Liquid heat fills you as he spills himself inside of you, and you mewl at the feeling of being too full. It's too much. Your eyes roll back as he grinds his cock inside of you, chasing the frayed ends of that intoxicating cudgel of pleasure that ripples through the two of you. 

Your spine is liquified. Body dissolves with the spray of the shower that patters across your back. 

You slump in his grasp, falling against his heaving chest. 

It's too humid. Too hot inside the shower, but your legs are mush, bones brittle and charred from the surge of electrifying pleasure that lacerates through your being. You can't move. Won't. You gasp wetly into his chest as the deluge of bliss spools inside of your veins. 

You blink, then, dazed. 

When Michael fucks you, it always ends up feeling like a battle. Like you rolled out of the combat zone, battered and bruised, aching in ways that sex shouldn't make you feel. 

But it's good. So good.

He's ruined you. Now, forever. You don't think you can live without the feelings he wrings from your being - the white-hot pleasure that rockets down your spine until you're screaming hymns in his name. 

It's the sensation of a freefall of a vertiginous precipice, and the unrelenting waves of panic that envelops you as you spiral downward toward an unseen end. What lay at the bottom is hidden by the murky abyss that spools inside of your mind whenever he's close, chasing out all logic and thought, all reason, until you're putty in his hands. 

You slump in his lap, sucking in desperate gasps of balmy air as your body reassembles; atoms fusing, molecules merging until you're flesh and bone once more.

You can't speak. Your throat aches, ripped raw with the force of your cries, but you whimper out just to confirm that you are, in fact, alive; that his intensity, the brutal way he fucked you, didn't send you into the heavens. It's a coo drenched in repose. A satiated sound. Lax and languid. 

Sagging into his chest, your limbs melt. Bones turning once more into putty. Reassumebed just to dissolve in his hold once again as the electrifying aftershocks of the post-orgasmic haze thicken in the spiralling slurry of your mind. 

Your head nuzzles into his chest. Another sigh passes your stinging lips, ghosting over the thick expanse of his chest. 

You could sleep like this. 

Tired eyes smeared with the residuum of many sleepless nights blink, wet, sticky lashes fluttering over his skin. It's a struggle to stay within the confines of reality. Your mind slips, easing into that metaphysical place where nothing except these four walls and the solid bracket of his body exist. The world fades into the aether. Forgotten. Discarded. Nothing matters but you and Michael. 

Under your temple, his chest rumbles with another sound that makes you keen in response. The modern synapses have faded into ashes, leaving nothing behind but pure primalism. 

And when your predator calls for you, you answer.  

It's the only affirmation he needs. His arms close around you, locking behind the soft curve of your ass. The movement makes you purr into his chest. The coarse dusting of hair tickles your nose. 

You're slipping, slipping - 

And then Michael stands. Abrupt. Purposeful. 

You squeak at the sudden movement, eyes snapping open, and dizzy vertigo overtakes you as your weight drops into the solid plinth of his arms. 

Michael's breath ghosts across the shell of your ear in something that might be almost mirthful, humourous, had you not known him. 

A burning flush singes the apples of your cheeks and the skin of your chest when he moves, and the motion jostles him - his cock still deep inside you. 

"M-Michael-," your whimper ends in a gasp as his spent cock twitches inside of you at the sweet way you mewl his name. "You-"

He ignores you, stepping out of the shower without even bothering to turn it off. 

He makes no move to grab at the fluffy towels you keep in the closet by the sink, nor does he seem bothered by the puddle of water each footstep leaves behind. You shiver when the cool air grazes across your wet skin, burrowing your head deeper into his neck, greedily seeking the warmth that seems neverending with him. 

In half the steps it usually takes you, he arrives at your bedroom, slipping inside with ease that warms your chest. You know he isn't the type to dawdle or worry about preamble, but the familiarity and comfort in which he moves inside your space, your home, fill you with the threads of contentment, happiness. You hide your blossoming grin, this silly little thing that tugs at the corners of your lips, into his flesh, and breathe in the loam scent that still clings to him. The heady musk of ozone and humus that is so uniquely Michael it makes your heart flutter. 

When the squall of that mushy affection recedes and your face isn't making the most outrageously gooey expression, you pull back, glancing up at him. 

You'll dry off, dress, and slip beneath the sheets with him beside you, finally getting the rest that evaded you for nearly a month. You wriggle in his grasp, straightening yourself for when your feet meet the ground. 

But it doesn't happen. 

Soaking wet, he stands at the end of your bed, and then turns on his heel, dropping down with you still perched in his lap. You gasp, jerking upright, but he doesn't let you go. 

In a fluid motion that leaves you reeling at the absurd agility of a man so damn big, he tightens his arms around you and shuffles on the bed until his head is under the pillow. He sinks into the mattress, unbothered by the way the bedding sticks to your skin, and the growing wetness under his back. 

The deep heave of his chest as he exhales in something that can only be utter contentment quickly dissolves the protest that pools on your tongue. They stick to the roof of your mouth before being swallowed down when his arms wind around you, closing out the modicum of distance that separates you as two beings. He tucks you under his chin, securing you to his body. 

You barely surpass sixty percent of his overall body weight, and the fact quells the little fear inside of you, the one digs in deep and says, oh no, you're going to crush him. Michael seems more than content to use you as a weighted blanket, his body lying supine on the bed that feels much cosier with him in it. 

Weeks of fretting over his safety are dulled under the steady rhythm of his heartbeat, and the feverish heat of him that seeps into your marrow, making you repose in the unintentional succour his arms bring you when they wind around your back, locking you against his chest. 

There is no escape from the prison of his arms.

This gilded cage sometimes feels too overwhelming, too stifling, too much, but he wasn't the one who locked you inside. You shut the doors of your accord and handed him the key - free to come and go as you tended to your plumage and your strays. 

All thoughts and fears are adrift in the somnolent haze that fills the anxious flurry of your mind. Who cares about the linen? About morality and the consequences of lying with a devil. Does any of it matter when his arms around you feel like home. 

You nuzzle your cheek into the coarse hair on his chest, pressing your ear against the steady beat of his heart. Your pericardium pickles. Ataraxia floods your being.

"Welcome home," you murmur. 

And under you, Michael sighs. 

[anthonyed]

Title: Rinse and Repeat (Part 2)

Relationship: Bucky/Tony

Mood: Dark

TW: Infidelity, rough sex, nsfk-ish, mild struggle to stop intercourse, gratuitous use of swear words

Dedication: for @meredithraw

-//-

There is no other way to describe how Barnes fucks Tony; he uses him.

There is nothing stopping him from being brutal and cruel.

Because he knows, the only person that could stop him is Tony and Tony wouldn't.

Maybe it's masochism, maybe it's the tiny flicker of hope every time Barnes comes back to him that he's back for good.

Yes, Tony has a wife. Yes, Tony is about to be a dad. But fuck, dammit. Tony is the worst when it comes to James Barnes.

That's why Barnes calls him his 'favourite doll'.

Because Tony is only one of his many. Part of his sick collection.

"You're so good, Tony." He pants, breathless from the forceful way he's driving into Tony; ruthless.

"Billionaire or someone else's husband, you just can't resist me now, can you?" He thrusts; hard.

Shoving Tony a few inches up the hood of his car. In his own fucking garage because Tony is pathetic.

Barnes pushes Tony's face against the hood, one hand fisting his cock roughly as he fucks.

"Do you even love her?" He growls? "Do you?"

Tony whimpers, the pain and the pleasure bursting like firecrackers all down his blood stream. Flooding. Overwhelming every single cell in his being until he couldn't think, couldn't breathe; all of his focus is zeroed-in on Barnes and Barnes only.

Drowned in the way he absolutely takes, takes and takes from Tony.

Fucks Tony like an animal; no love, just a wicked possesive game of fucking ever since the first time he came back looking.

"Breathe," he hisses into Tony's ear and Tony obeys.

Like his little pet. Going wherever Barnes takes him.

The mental imagery of that; Tony in a collar and a leash, bound to Barnes, yanks him straight out of the high he is so lost in.

Suddenly, all of his demons crowd in on him. All his worst thoughts, darkest emotions crash and he -

Fuck.

He should stop.

He should - He -

Fuck. This is not fair. Someone took an oath to love him in sick and in health and he's fucking behind her back while she's three months pregnant with his fucking child. Fuck -

"Stop!" He gasps (in his mind, he yells), clawing at his behind where Barnes is attached. "Stop, stop, stop."

But Barnes bats him away.

Tony clambers, nails scratching down the sleek paint of his Audi. He has to stop this. He has to get away.

"What the fuck are you doing?" Barnes growls, pissed. His fingers dig painfully into Tony's hip and he pulls.

Tony trashes, kicking out blindly.

"Fuck!" Barnes curses.

This time he stops. He shoves Tony hard against the hood of the car. Tony's front crushed by the metal and he groans.

"Fuck! Shit! Dammit, doll, what the fuck?"

He's angry. Livid even. Fuming with his face red and sweaty from the fucking or anger, Tony doesn't know. Nor does he care.

He's escaped and that's all that matters.

Wincing, he stumbles back a step and pulls up his pants. The place below his belly aches more than the burn in his ass.

Tony takes a shuddering deep breath and zips up his pants. His hands are shaky.

Hell, he is shaking.

Couldn't stop shaking even when he tries to.

Fuck.

"Hey?" Barnes calls, uncharacteristically soft. Like they are young and dumb again.

Like Tony is 16 and losing his virginity to Barnes all over again.

"You okay?" He reaches out, fingers an inch away from grazing Tony's shoulder and Tony jerks away.

There's no space left behind him; the car too close to his back, blocking his path, but Tony steps back still.

Even if it means the back of his knees collides with the car and they buckle and he falls.

He just wants to get away from Barnes as far as he can.

As long as he still has that presence of mind; he wants to flee.

Wants to tuck his heart in his sleeve and bolt thousands of miles away where Barnes will never find him.

Where Barnes will never look at him like he's the most precious fucking thing in the world; won't touch his face and call him doll. Won't christen him as his most favourite doll and fucks him like he means it.

Won't abandon him the second he finishes, tucking his tail in between his legs; cigarette stick between his teeth and fucking thanks Tony for the 'fun'. As if Tony is running some sex service.

Won't not look at Tony a second time as he peels away like a bandaid from an unhealed wound; taking the scab and skin with him. Leaving Tony to bleed.

Then there is his marriage...

"Tony? Doll?" Barnes calls, like he is James again.

Like is 17 and he's looking at Tony as if he's the sun and the star. The moon and the entire fucking universe and he's in fucking love.

Like he is young and his best friend hasn't died, his father hasn't fucked over their life and eloped and his mother hasn't lost her mind.

Like he is James; hopeful, vibrant and ambitious. Tony's James.

"No," Tony breathes out. Feeling his very core quaking.

He's on the ground, can't get up. But he's never going to take that hand Barnes holds out for him.

Barnes knows. He gives up.

Instead, he tugs his still open pants up to some modesty and he crouches next to Tony.

Tony turns away from him.

He can't look at those eyes without falling. He can't.

"Cherry," Barnes sighs, voice caressing soft.

Tony's final straw snaps and he breaks.

"You can't do this to me," he pleads, hot tears streaming down his cheeks.

Anger boils along with despair and pain. "You can't."

Fuck, he curses. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

He can't speak. Can't stop shaking, can't breathe, can't even fucking stand up. For or by himself.

He sniffles, willing the tears to stop. Forcing them when they won't. He presses the heels of his shaky palms to his closed lids and he breathes; in and out and in -

He can do this, he tells himself. He can do -

He can do this.

"C'mere," cigarette stench and sex musk fill in his space and -

And he can't.

"Shush, baby doll, shh," James coos, rocking them both back and forth.

He got Tony wrapped in a weird hug; both of them on the floor, limbs tangled where their pants fell once not too long ago.

He kisses the top of Tony's head and hums a tune under his breath; a lullaby his mother sang for him when he was a kid and he used to cuddle Tony and sing it to him when they dated.

It works.

Because even when the world is ending, Tony knows for a fact that this would calm him down.

It was the dearest memory to him; the moonlight and the warmth of James' hug. Their innocent little thoughts and dreams that never came to life.

Tony hates him for doing this; bringing back memories he couldn't turn away from.

Bringing Tony back to those days.

Remember that time?

Remember that time when we were young and in love?

Lets go back to that.

[asexual-fandom-queen]

So Many Topics Left To Touch

I don’t know why this happened. Sometimes your brain just has an idea and who are you to stand in its way? Set in a world where John Mulaney & The Sack Lunch Bunch is a real TV show, and John Mulaney and Jake Gyllenhaal are still John Mulaney and Jake Gyllenhaal, but not the real John Mulaney and Jake Gyllenhaal. The Sack Lunch Bunch just had big show within a show energy, and I wanted to do something with that. This is in no way intended to be RPF. As far as I’m concerned, the actors are playing characters inspired by themselves in the Netflix special, they’re not actually themselves, but if it’s close enough to RPF that it still squicks you, completely understandable, you can scroll right past this post, no hard feelings. 

[tw for swearing, bipolar disorder, manic episodes, discussions of mental health stigma, and a character stopping their medication without medical advice]

John hesitates with his knuckles poised an inch above the smooth, cherry-red surface of the dressing room door. The soft sound of shuffling and gratuitous vulgarity bleeds through the thin particle board, and he sighs, unfurling his fingers to scratch at the creases that have developed in his brow.

“Jake,” John announces with three quick, staccato taps. “It’s John. I’m coming in, okay?”

John waits for a second, in case Jake wants to protest, but when he gets no response, he turns the handle and swings open the door.

Jake’s dressing room is little more than a hole in the wall, something that might once have been a janitorial closet before the studio snapped up the property to film The Sack Lunch Bunch and realized they needed more star rooms than were already available.  It’s an understated kind of chaos inside, scripts with highlighted lines plied haphazardly across the undersized vanity pushed against the right wall, a metal rod of half-empty hangers to the back, a rumpled pile of clothes balled up on the armchair to the room’s left. The speckled laminate floors scuffed black with shoe marks and concrete masonry walls painted khaki beige do as much to make the room drab as the dull, yellow incandescent light dangling from the ceiling overhead.

Jake, seated at the vanity in a rickety folding chair, doesn’t look up when John slides through the narrow gap he makes in the door frame, the loose fabric of his sweater catching and tugging on the curved edge of the brassy-gold strike plate, or when he closes it shut again with a small, sharp click. He stays with his head in his hands, tugging at the long, disheveled strands where the styling gel’s let go, leaving it limp and unpleasantly shiny.

John stands with his back pressed to the door, handle digging against his spine, the nip of pain just enough to keep him grounded.

READ MORE BELOW THE CUT, OR HERE ON AO3!

“I fucked everything up, didn’t I?” Jake asks, forcing the heels of his hands against his eyes and scrubbing hard enough that John nearly steps forward to stop him.

John shrugs, not that Jake can see. “They’ll cut something together in editing,” he replies. “You’re fine.”

Jake laughs, bitter and humorless. “This seems fine to you?”

John’s feet finally unglue from the floor. He moves to perch on the edge of the vanity, long, spindly legs stretching out in his jeans and crossing at the ankles. The table shifts on its hinges, but ultimately bears his weight. He dips his head, hoping to make eye contact, but Jake keeps his bowed. His whole body jostles as his legs bounce rapidly up and down, an ocean of chaos to John’s calm waters.

“How much sleep did you get last night?” John asks.

Jake’s grip on the hair at the front of his scalp looks ironclad, knuckles almost white with it, as he shakes his head vigorously enough that John feels the pang of sympathy pain at his own hairline. “I thought everything was gonna be so perfect. I had all these ideas, all these sounds rattling around in my head. And then once I started thinking about Mr. Music, all I could think about was the costume, and how it wasn’t good enough, and if I just tried enough stuff on I could find the piece that would blow the whole thing wide open. And then my wheels just started spinning, man. I don’t know.”

Hunched over with his head in his hands, Jake looks small, even though he’s broader than John, and nearly as tall. John uncrosses his ankles and nudges Jake’s jackrabbiting shin with his own. Jake stills abruptly, finally looks up.

“How many hours?” John asks again.

Jake sighs. “I think Friday was the last time,” he admits, fingers scratching anxiously at the back of his neck.

“Jake,” John says with a harsh exhale, like the confession’s knocked the wind out of him. He tries to land somewhere in the realm of concern with his tone, and not judgmental. He knows it’s the last thing Jake needs. “It’s Tuesday.”

Jake chews the skin under his thumb. His legs bounce again, and John feels every vibration where they’re still pressed shin to shin.

“Someone’s gonna fire me,” Jake mutters.

John laughs, a quick, harsh chuckle. “Doubtful,” he says. “Since they’d have to run it by me first, and you know I wouldn’t stand for that shit at all.”

“You should fire me,” Jake says, sitting suddenly ramrod straight and fixing John with a hard, frim look that catches him off guard. “Sack Lunch is your baby and sooner or later, I’m gonna ruin it. I can’t– I don’t think right, when I’m like this. I’m gonna do something fucking stupid and everything you made here’s gonna come crashing down.”

John takes a surreptitious deep breath and feigns as much levity as he can in his expression as he rolls his eyes and bumps Jake’s leg with the top of his foot. “Don’t be melodramatic.”

Jake doesn’t flinch. “I’m serious, John,” he says.

“So am I,” John replies. He locks eyes with Jake, and the other man’s legs still, even though the nervous energy still buzzes under his skin in a way that’s palpable, that electrifies the room. “You are Mr. Music. I don’t wanna write you off, or recast you. I don’t need anybody else. Just you.”

Jake sucks in a sharp breath through his nose. Eye to eye like this, John can see the dark circles where the foundation’s rubbed away.

“When’d you stop taking your meds?”

Jake tenses. “Who said I–”

“Don’t lie, Jake,” John interrupts, holding up a hand. He rears back as Jake springs from his seat, pacing the six-step line from one end of the room to the other. John doesn’t miss the way hobbles, just barely perceptible under the manic energy driving him forward like business as usual. He leaves a smear of blood behind him, and John sees the purpling of his ankle even from a distance.

“I’m not gonna ream you out, man,” he promises, straightening from his leaning position to give Jake more space. “So, don’t lie to me.”

Jake scratches the back of his neck. “About a week.”

John nods. “Does your doctor know?”

A flinch. “I can’t tell her,” Jake says. “All she wants to do is keep me drugged up.”

“She wants to keep you safe,” John counters, the exasperation he’s trying so desperately to keep at bay slipping into his tone. “And functioning. She wants you to be able to come to work and do your job. Or, I don’t know, go home and actually sleep at night.”

Jake shakes his head. He’s still pacing. John wants to step in front of him, make him stop, but he knows that won’t help. “I fucking hate being on lithium,” he spits.

“Well,” John says, plain and matter-of-fact. “I don’t think you like this very much, either.”

Jake stills, flicks his eyes up from the floor where he’s been watching himself pace and track blood.

“Also,” John adds. “I happen to know for a fact that’s absolutely not true. You don’t hate being on lithium, you just think you do when your dose is too low to manage your mania. Then you start feeling just the right combination of paranoid and invincible to stop taking it altogether. That’s when you hate it. When the mental illness is the one in the driver’s seat. But that’s not what you really think.”

Jake shakes his head. His whole body’s trembling. “Doesn’t matter,” he says. “This is the third time. I can’t tell her I stopped taking it again. Can’t ask her to put me back on if I’m too fucking stupid to stay on.”

John frowns. “Sure you can,” he says, loud and brassy, with a quick toss of his head. “You make an appointment, and you waltz into her office, and you say put me back on my medication, please. You can do that so many times.”

“She’s gonna be mad at me,” Jake argues.

“She’s going to caution you,” John says. “Against the health risks of stopping your medication without medical advice. That’s her job as a doctor. But she’s not going to be mad at you. And if she is, then it’s because she’s a shitty psychiatrist. It’s got nothing to do with you.”  

Jake is quiet for a breath, and eerily still. “Are you mad at me?” he asks.

John sighs. He steps forward and reaches out, clasping Jake by the forearms and holding him still, the canary yellow silk of the Mr. Music costume cool and slippery to the touch under his hands.

“You’re not just a colleague to me,” John says emphatically, holding Jake’s eyes, even as his break off every so often to dart from place to place to place around the room. “You are my friend. One of the most important people in my life. I am concerned for you. And I am frustrated that I can’t do more to help. So I might seem a little mad. But I am never, ever, mad at you. Do you know that?”

Jake hesitates a moment, then shakes his head.

John frowns. “Remember that,” he says, solid and firm, with no room to argue.

He waits until Jake nods in response, then tugs on his forearms, leading him toward the armchair. John grabs the pile of clothes in one hand and tosses it to the floor under the clothes rack. He corrals Jake into the seat, then crouches in front of him, grabbing his right leg by the shin.

“You’re walking on it too much for it to be broken,” John muses aloud, looking the purplish skin and the swelling around Jake's ankle. He pinches his fingers around the back of Jake’s Achilles tendon, the pads pressing into the inflammation. He barely sucks in a breath.

“Does that hurt?” John asks anyway.

Jake shakes his head. “Who knows,” he says. “Everything feels like it’s up here.” He raises a hand over his head to emphasize his point.

John lets out a heavy breath through his nose. His shoulders slump. “Please,” he says, tracing gentle circles against Jake’s ankle with his thumb. “Let me take you to the hospital.”

Jake shakes his head. “The glass,” he says. “They’re gonna think I did it on purpose. What if they put me on a hold?”

“Then I will be there in seventy-two hours to pick you up,” John promises.

Jake swallows. “And if the press gets wind?”

“They can fuck themselves.”

“I want Mr. Music to be bipolar.”

Jake looks at John over his plate of takeout, a fresh spring roll bisected messily in a semi-circular bite held aloft between his chopsticks. They’re sitting on the couch in John’s apartment, the nicer residence of the two. John’s the big household name, he’s got the Manhattan money.

Jake never made it quite as big. A few appearances on SNL – where they met – a few standup tours. John never understood why. He’s funny, but Jake’s hilarious, unhinged and high energy in a way that feels more engaging than John’s own deadpan, dad next door schtick. When he was looking for regular guest stars for Sack Lunch Bunch, he hadn’t even thought twice. Of course, it was Jake. It was always going to be Jake.

“Well,” Jake says with a wry, sardonic smile. “Want no more.”

John rolls his eyes. “I mean on the show,” he says.

Jake frowns. He sets his half-eaten spring roll back on his plate, then sets the plate on the coffee table.

“Obviously not without your blessing,” John hastens to add. The couch is expansive, but John’s mostly on the middle cushion, and turned like they are, their knees knock together when he shuffles a half-inch closer.

“Would the network even let you do that?” Jake asks, scrunching up his face.

“Well, they’d better,” John says. “I’m the executive producer. Half the financing comes from my money, and yeah, I make that money back and then some, but that doesn't mean people shouldn’t still have to defer to me. Hell, it’s my IP. If they don’t like it, I’ll say fuck you very much and take the show someplace else.”

Jake scoffs and rolls his eyes. He settles back against the cushion. The way his legs stretch out as he relaxes tangles their shins together, and a shiver runs up the long column of John’s spine.

“You’re such a drama queen sometimes,” Jake teases.

John frowns. “Hey,” he says. “I’m serious.”

Jake swallows. John tracks the movement of his Adam’s apple. “You don’t have to do that just for me.”

“Except it wouldn’t be just for you,” John says. “There’s something like 2.3 million Americans diagnosed with bipolar disorder. I guarantee you, kids know someone who’s bipolar. Or they know someone who has schizophrenia, or depression, or even a generalized anxiety disorder.”

John shifts forward again on the sofa. He worries for a second that he’s crowding Jake out when both their knees press flush together, but Jake doesn’t pull back. Instead, he slides his arm across the back of the couch, and though they’re not quite touching, John swears he can feel the warmth of him through the sleeve of his shirt.

“I created The Sack Lunch Bunch for a reason,” John continues. “Because I saw what was available for kids nowadays and it’s all bullshit. It either teaches them nothing, or it teaches them to be little assholes to each other. There used to be a message to kid’s programming. Be nice, be generous, understand your neighbor. Not make fun of your neighbor for being fat, or stupid, or whatever we’re still deeming acceptable to make fun of people for.

“I wanted The Sack Lunch Bunch to be different,” John says. “And when I signed on to the network, they promised it would be. At first, it was just get past the first season, John. Then, shows struggle in their sophomore year, John; better not rock the boat. But it’s been three years, and they’re still censoring my content. They cut Sasha’s Dad Does Drag from the show last month without even consulting me.”

Jake’s fingers brush against the curve of John’s shoulder. The pad of his pointer catches at the collar. John feels it against his skin. It loosens his muscles where they pull taught between his scapulas.

“I’m just tired,” John says. “I care about this show. I wanna do it in a way that does right by the audience I meant it for. Not One Million Moms, or whatever shitstains are in office, or heading the network, or running the FCC. I swear to God, I’ll make a YouTube channel and upload the whole thing as shaky cell phone footage if I have to.”

A soft smile tugs at the corner of Jake’s mouth.

“And yeah,” John adds, sagging against the backrest so his shoulder presses squarely against Jake’s arm. He tilts his head, and Jake’s fingers brush against the corner of his jaw. “I wanna do right by you, too. I wanna give you that platform. That space to be yourself, openly and honestly. If that’s what you want.”

Jake’s fingers twitch against his skin. “Yeah, okay,” he whispers. “I’m in.”

Things are different since taking season four independent.

For all that John was ready to pay the whole show’s budget out of pocket and suffer the consequences, a surprising amount of money came their way by donation, first from fellow actors, comedians, and general entertainment media types, then through public fundraising campaigns set up by viewers, and finally, politicians, once the consensus was finally in on the general public opinion of The Sack Lunch Bunch’s solo move.

The state of Jake’s dressing room, however, is much the same.  

“I feel like if I hit refresh one more time, I might unintentionally complete some kind of Sisyphean ritual and end up stuck on Twitter forever,” John says, staring down at the tablet in his hand. He has a flute of sparkling apple juice in the other, which Jake opts to chug from the bottle.

The first episode of season four dropped to a handful of contracted streaming services earlier in the day, and John and Jake have been in Jake’s dressing room reading over reviews for the last hour, two more celebratory bottles piled by the trash to go in recycling later.

They just wrapped the day filming their penultimate episode of thirteen, and John’s still buzzing with post-performance adrenaline. The sugar in the juice and the heat of Jake pressed up against his side as he reads over John’s shoulder does nothing to help with his jitters.  

“Just one more time,” Jake urges, and, helpless to say no to him, John hits refresh. “Poignant and emotional,” he reads, breath ghosting across sensitive skin on the side of John’s neck, just over his pulse. “John Mulaney & The Sack Lunch Bunch tackles mental health awareness with new Mr. Music storyline.”

“Reviews seem to be half-decent,” John agrees.

Jake scoffs. More warm air tickles the hair at the nape of John’s neck. “Reviews are great,” he says. Then, softer, “you’re great.”

John takes a step back. He places the tablet and his glass of juice down on the vanity and, sensing the sudden shift in mood, Jake does the same with the bottle.

“Thank you for doing this with me,” John says, warm and soft and sincere.

Jake smiles. “I should be thanking you,” he says. “Most people would have kicked me out on my ass day one.”  

“I was never gonna be able to do that, though, was I?” John replies in an atypical moment of honesty. The room is still so small. Too small for a recurring guest star. Too small for two grown men. Too small for all of John’s feelings.

Jake licks his lips, and John can’t help but track the movement with his eyes. When he snaps them back up, Jake is looking at him like he’s the only thing in the room. “Why not, exactly?” he asks.

John swallows thick. “Come on, man,” he says. He takes a small, automatic step forward. Jake doesn’t pull away. “You know why.”

“Do I?” Jake asks. He inches forward, too, like he’s on autopilot. John sees his fingers twitch from the corner of his eye, his hand reaching out, then drawing back, like he’s unsure. But how could he not know? John’s always been so sure.

He takes a step forward. They’re pressed nearly chest to chest.

“I am technically your boss,” John whispers. It comes out thick and raspy and raw. “So feel free to knee me in the balls if this is crossing a line but I really just wanna–”

He doesn’t get the rest of the sentence out. He kisses Jake on an exhale, like John’s breathing everything he has into him, giving Jake everything he is. He curls his fist in Jake’s shirt and tugs him close, and Jake opens under him like he’s in bloom. He slips his tongue into Jake’s mouth and the other man carves out space for him like he belongs there, the same way he hauls John’s body closer with hands on his waist to press them flush from knees to hips to chest. John slides his hand from Jake’s shirt and curls both around the base of his neck to cradle him like he’s precious.

“John,” Jake pants against his lips. His breath is fire-hot, and it sets the nerve endings on John’s lips alight. “I wanted– for so long. And I didn’t know–”

“I know,” he replies, pressing another slow, steady kiss to Jake’s mouth. “Me too.”

“Am I still coming over tonight?” Jake wonders. Their noses brush, like they haven’t figured out how to stop moving together yet, even with their lips apart.

Another soft, plush kiss. “Do you still want to?” John asks.

Jake nods. “If you still want me to.”

“From the second I met you,” John says, brushing a long strand of hair behind Jake’s ear where it’s fallen loose. “I have always wanted you.”

I am always going to want you.

[nym-wibbly]

Love Lies Bleeding by Nym #7

Toe to heel, toe to heel, Jimmy Novak's bare feet fit eighty-one times across the diagonal of this cell. Castiel watches the feet and counts the steps, bright blood dripping steadily down his nose to splatter along his carefully trodden path. It gradually smears with each precise footstep until the bright white, doorless space is slashed across in scarlet.

[cooperjones2020]

What’s Past is Prologue, What to Come

The first in a series of interrelated vignettes from Jughead Jones’s obsession with Betty Cooper. Can be read with Marked, part 1 and part 2.

Starts in childhood and will go partway through season 1. If I don’t get bored.

Dark!Jug, Creepy!Jug, Stalker!Jug, generally Sociopathic!Jug

TW for implied abuse, and, as always, gratuitous Shakespeare references

(ao3-->http://archiveofourown.org/works/11394858/chapters/25519734)

The day he met Betty was the day he discovered the monster in his chest.

He stared at her through the boughs of the shrub he’d been sitting in for the last five minutes.

Now that the sun had sunk below the eaves of the house, the underside of the boxwood hedge was dark and cool. The shiny leaves brushed against him, tickling his skin and snagging on his hat. He heard Archie, still counting, through the open bedroom window, but he knew the other boy wouldn’t find him here. Even then Jughead Jones knew Archie Andrews wasn’t very smart. For starters, he hadn’t actually meant that Archie should count to a hundred when he said count to a hundred. Archie kept messing up thirty-three and thirty-four and having to go back.

But that was okay. Archie always had new comic books and he didn’t mind sharing his legos. Plus, when they went over to the Andrews for dinner, there was always enough for seconds. Usually thirds too.

In his green and dappled fortress, Jughead hunkered down for a nice quiet wait. He had a dead frog in his pocket that he’d picked up on the walk over.

Then the gate opened and what he could only describe as a cartoon character come to life walked through. The little girl had curled blonde pigtails, a stiff pink dress, and saddle shoes with ruffled socks. She was the cleanest thing he’d ever seen. She actually glowed.

She also had a tupperware container.

Jughead debated whether or not to come out. On the one hand, Archie was almost done counting and if he came out, he’d almost certainly lose. On the other hand, if he didn’t come out he might not get to eat whatever was in the tupperware. He’d already eaten two hot dogs but he also knew he’d eaten the end of the cereal at their house that morning.

Then the back door opened and Archie ran out, his orange head almost as strong a beacon as her yellow one. “Betty, you came!”

“Of course I did, Archie! And look, my mom sent us brownies!”

Brownies. Okay he was coming out.

He emerged from his crouch in the hedge and the girl—Betty—looked startled.

“Wow, that was a good hiding place, Jug! I never would have found you.”

Jughead shrugged at Archie, but stayed in his place in the bush, his hand around the frog in his pocket.

“Come meet Betty! She’s my new neighbour and she has a sister and a cat and her parents are putting a swimming pool in their yard!”

The girl rolled her eyes. “Archie, I said that was a secret!”

“Jughead’s my best friend, Betty. Secrets don’t count with best friends.” Jughead didn’t think that was true. He was pretty sure there were things his dad hadn’t told Mr. Andrews. Like for instance, he was pretty sure Mr. Andrews didn’t know about the stuff his dad brought home from work. But this didn’t seem to be the moment to point it out.

She moved forward. “Hi Jughead, I’m Betty. Do you want a brownie?”

“Yes.” He stepped out of the shrub and reached up a hand to make sure his hat was on tightly.

He ate three brownies and drank a glass of milk while Archie and Betty argued about what they should play. Archie insisted girls couldn’t play with GI Joes. Betty insisted he was wrong. GI Joe looked exactly like Ken so if Archie wouldn’t share a GI Joe with her, she’d just go bring one of her Ken dolls over. And maybe she’d bring Barbie too.

Archie’s eyes widened in horror. Jughead watched their exchange. The sheer speed with which words left her mouth was disorienting. He didn’t think he’d ever heard either of his parents talk that fast. Or that much.

But he was also fascinated by her hands. She kept making fists and releasing them. They curled so tightly he knew they had to be hurting her. But she kept them by her sides. She never raised them like his father sometimes did late at night.

Archie called him back to the present. “Jug, tell her a Ken doll is not the same as a GI Joe. Ken is for girls.”

Jughead had never seen a Ken doll, but he also didn’t want Betty to leave. So he sided with Betty. Archie only looked hurt for a moment before shrugging and running upstairs for the basket of toys.

He didn’t understand why he couldn’t stop staring at her.

He watched her from his place to her left on the grass. For all Archie’s complaining, as soon as they’d started playing, he’d let Betty take charge of the game. She was currently collecting rocks from around her and ordering Archie to fetch extra food. The GI Joes were going on a stakeout in the desert.

She turned big green eyes on him and asked if he wanted to help her build their fort. He scooted a little bit closer.

When her mother called her home, a sharp Elizabeth traveling over the tall, white fence, Betty had looked scared. Immediately, Jughead had a vision of her mom as a fire-breathing dragon. Or as the evil stepmother wanting to lock Betty away in a tower. Something black and foreign clawed its way up his throat and for a moment his vision tunneled. The thing roared in his ears. Jughead had never wanted to play knight before, but he wanted to protect Betty Cooper. He wanted a sword to swing and charge and whack at her mother.

He watched her slip back through the gate and into her own yard. Through the slats of the fence, he could see her mother yelling, saying things like You knew what time you had to be home and where is my tupperware and how did you get grass stains on your dress. Betty stared at her shoes. Jughead wished again for a sword. He wished the thing inside him could come out. Archie kept playing with his GI Joe.

That night, when Archie fell asleep, Jughead rolled out of his sleeping bag and crept to the windowsill. Her curtains were open. A nightlight illuminated a tiny figure hunched on the bed. If he didn’t breathe, he could hear the strangled sound of her crying.

Without thinking, he pulled the head off the GI Joe that had been on the floor next to him.

He wanted to hit whoever made Betty cry. He wanted to hit Betty so she’d keep crying.

When his mother left for Toledo the first time, taking a black eye and a ten month-old Jellybean with her, when his father said he was too young to be left alone and dropped him off at the Andrews for a couple hours that turned into five days, Betty Cooper baked him cookies.

By then, he was used to her feeding him.  The instances in which Betty appeared at the Andrews house unaccompanied by baked goods were few and far between. She seemed to use them to unlock the magic door that kept her imprisoned. She used them cut a path in the tangled forest that isolated her tower. She used them like an excuse so her mother would let her come over.

The times Archie wasn’t home, the times his parents would fight and Jughead would sneak his way past them or out his window, and would run and run and climb until he could fling himself into the treehouse in the corner of Archie’s yard, Betty’s blonde head would appear, quickly followed a small plastic bag or a tupperware container. When he was really lucky, she’d also bring a sandwich.

On the third day of Gladys and FP’s absence, when Jughead was beginning to wonder if he was an orphan, Betty had arrived.

Betty told him these cookies were special. Polly, older than them and so infinitely wise, had helped bake them. Archie was made to promise not to eat any. They had chocolate chips but no walnuts, which her mom normally put in. They had reese’s pieces. They had pretzels. And they were as big as two of his hands.

He ate four while Betty took off her coat.

As usual, he noted how clean she was. He wasn’t sure if pink was her favourite color — he’d never asked her — but she sure wore it a lot. Today, though, she had a white gauze bandage wrapped around her right forearm.

Polly the infinitely wise hadn’t been able to find the oven mitts. “So I used a dish towel, only it didn’t work as good. So when my hands got too hot — well I’m not sure cause it happened so fast — but I think I must have tried to balance the tray on my arm instead and then I burned myself.” Tears sprung to her eyes and her lower lip wobbled. “Juggie, it hurt.”

The black thing in his chest, the monster, shifted in its cage. He hugged Betty, because that’s what you were supposed to do. That’s what Mrs. Andrews had done the day before when Jughead had stubbed his toe and said a word that made Archie turn as red as his hair.

Betty sighed and turned her face into his neck.

“What if I sign it? We can color it and draw pictures.”

“It’s not a cast, Juggie.”

“So? It looks the same. And then when you look at it, you can remember how much fun coloring is instead of how much it hurt.” She looked at him the way baby Jellybean sometimes did.

Betty had been right, though. A gauze bandage was not the same as a cast. He’d picked a red marker and Betty had picked a pink one — maybe that really was her favorite color — but soon after they started, the colors began to bleed together, and Betty winced and then she started to cry for real. Something darker than the red marker reached up and swallowed the letters of their names.

Mrs. Andrews wasn’t mad. Mrs. Andrews was never mad. Jughead had never even heard her yell. She just took Betty into the bathroom and sat her on the toilet and pulled out a first aid kit.

Jughead hovered in the doorway, shifting from foot to foot. His eyes bugged out when she unwrapped the bandage.

A red, shiny patch as big as a baseball covered the inside of Betty’s forearm. But in the middle of that, old, brown blood had crusted, and something yellow and oozing seeped around it. The red of the fresh blood flowed in and through the the raised yellow bits, making tracks like water between tiles. Tiny blisters ringed the whole mess. He couldn’t tear his eyes away from it.

It was made up of brighter versions of the same colors Betty’s fists made when she clenched them.

But soon enough, Mary had it rewrapped, with a fresh layer of neosporin under the bandage. Betty smiled at him through the droplets that clung to her eyelashes.

“It’s probably time for you to go home now, Betty. We don’t want your mom to be mad.”

“Okay,” said Betty in a small voice. She hugged Jughead and ran out.

When Betty left, Jughead retreated to the treehouse with his cookies. Mr. and Mrs. Andrews had been making Archie leave him alone unless he said he wanted company. He didn’t.

He’d discovered he could see into Betty’s room. She’d forgotten her Nancy Drew binoculars the week before and he could use them to see through her window to the mirror above her dresser. And then he could usually see her sitting on her bed. It wasn’t as good as the view from Archie’s window, but it was good enough.

Jughead took the red and yellow markers out of his pocket. He used his right arm to draw on his left.

When it had been nine days, FP returned. He smelled and his beard had grown in and Jughead was pretty sure he was wearing the same clothes. Mr. Andrews had given him a look, a look Jughead had noticed passing between the two men increasingly often, but ultimately, Jughead had been bundled into his coat and sent back to the trailer park.

He went inside but his dad stopped to sit on the steps. When Jughead came back to check on him a while later, he had fallen asleep. Jughead sidled around to his front. There was a small, familiar lump in FP’s front shirt pocket. He reached in and removed the lump gingerly, then snuck back inside with it clutched in his hand. Curled up in his bed with his back to the door, he cupped a palm around the lighter and flicked the flame on and off.

[ophiedokes]

If you don't mind can you explain what you mean by your post about 13 reasons why? I would like to hear your opinion on it

i don’t mind but im hiding it under a read more to TW for description suicide, examplse of suicidal ideation, and for self harm in the form of cutting. 

So, I’ve read 13 Reasons Why and just finished watching it (and literally want to throw up, having seen that suicide porn scene in the last episode. “We didn’t want it to be gratuitous,” says the male director, after I just watched a beautiful girl cut herself and bleed out while her breasts heaved and she gasped) and I feel the exact same discomfort that I felt when I first read it.

So, like. I have been suicidal since I was 12. And I have a hefty bag full of trauma I’m lugging around constantly, but I’m not thinking about that when I’m actively contemplating. Usually in the middle of the sort of breakdown spiral that’s attempted to be portrayed in 13RW, my head is so consumed with “wanna die. I wanna die. Hey? You know what I want to do? Die” that I’m not thinking as rationally as she seems to in the last few moments, which is, like, something that comes after YEARS of therapy. X did Y and it made me feel Z and because I feel Z I want to A and I want to A because B did C, etc etc.

“This is what you do instead of killing yourself,” the literally unexplainable 35 year old looking woman who is, a sophomore?????? somehow?????? covered in tattoos and piercings says, not even slightly ashamed when someone points out the cuts on her wrists.

No???????? it’s not ????????????? thats.... a different thing???????

Anyway, all the characters in 13RW grow out of their suicide and depression once they graduate, and it manages to be a Mental Illness Book that’s really just Manic Pixie Dream Girl Sadboy narrative about how if you’re nice to people they won’t kill themselves. which is... also a lie.

Yes, be nice to people. But to have the only people saying “Hey, uh, she did make that choice�� be the villain coded characters is icky.

[eldritch-spouse]

Wait… Pinnie, honey, are you really telling me that Mori fucked y/n with cucumbers? I need more details…

In fact, I have so many questions and so few answers.

[Ahaha, someone paid attention! I plead the fifth...]

(Minors dni)

TW: Foodplay(?); Primal (predator/prey); kidnapping.

Of course he has, the dude is a pervert. Come on, get with the program already, always assume the worst when it comes to my ocs. Always. (The worst within reason, but you know...)

Morell may be unwilling to eat you, but he sure as Hell makes up for it by indulging almost every other desire he has with you.

You've been fucked on a platter by now. It's just going to happen. Morell will hog tie you and go to town because he simply cannot help himself. I hope you're into gratuitous amounts of food play, because this monster considers it gospel during intimacy. It's just not fun if you're not gagging on an apple or covered in sauces that he'll happily slurp off your juicy body. Careful here, Morell does bite- And even if his teeth are all flat, there's still a lot of power behind that jaw.

You can't possibly blame him for getting distracted by his little piglet, can you? Big monsters like him know that it takes time before a human's orifices adapt to their size. And while Morell is certainly not the most gentle of lovers out there, he's well-aware that he can't simply force himself. You'll bleed a little too much- Which is a shame, because the taste of your ichor is unparalleled and Mori would drink it from a goblet everyday if he could. This means that you have to be trained. Worked up to his size. And well, there's no harm in adding a little flavor to your discipline, is there? It doesn't have to be a cucumber, but it might be.

And really, there's no use squealing about it, sweetiepie- Morell has to keep you stretched so all his hard work to open you up isn't in vain. You make such pretty sounds, the monster cleans your slick off the vegetable and does it all over again just to keep you so fucked out of your mind you won't even move a muscle when he unties you.

Aside from the uh... Dubious use of cooking ingredients, Morell also has a pretty big primal kink that flares to life every now and then. He has just a pinch of sadism beneath all that sugar. Such is seen when he lets you out of the warehouse during closing hours. Morell pulls your naked, unbound body close to him and tells you that if you reach one of the elevators in his floor before he catches you- You can leave.

You never make it.

But it's always fun. You should see the rabid look on his face as he thunders after you, the way his breathing picks up everytime your pace wanes or you scream in terror. A dangerous feedback of adrenaline that turns him into the real sickfuck he is as Morell barrels through tables and grabs you by the ankles- Dragging you back to his kitchen every single time. You never even get to touch the elevator doors. Sometimes, it feels as if the floor elongates to keep you further away from your goal.

To taunt you.

To please the mushroom giant.