#whos chuckie gonna choose

[littlemagicalstardust]

I hope Chuckie T chooses Orange tonight

[blissfali]

happy new year :] !!

HAPPYYYY NEW YEARRRR Im so excited but im nervous.School in 3 days + bday!1 im becomin a big boy

[lazyneonrabbitt]

Rabbitt's not-so-monstrous oxtober fics.

Not-so-spooky movie night.

Gallzatto x reader

A little halloween shopping here, a little trick-or-treating there. Add some movies, what a perfect day!

A/N: This one's a day early because I'm too busy getting married tomorrow and I dislike queueing posts! Enjoy!!

🎃 🐻 🍬 🎬 🎃

October meant spooky decorations and pumpkin everything.

Little costumes for the girls that you let them pick themselves when you took them shopping.

Every free day you had led to more decorations put up in the house, from little skeleton candle holders to ghost lamps and bat window stickers.

“Mommy I wanna have!” Lily came running up to you with a plush Jack Skellington almost half her size. “Pweeaase?”

Her big, pleading eyes and good behavior today made you give in, telling Rose to go find something as well which had both of the girls run off to the large bin at the end of the aisle that you slowly made your way to, grabbing all kinds of knick knacks and scary themed candies.

You found your girls digging through the plushies like savages, holding up every single one to inspect, giving them a little test huggie with mumbles of disagreement untill Rose emerged from almost toppling over into the bin with a little black and white guy that she cuddled close, happily running to you and dumping it in your hand. “Dis one!”

Upon closer inspection, she had found a Ghostface plush that you almost wanted to get for yourself as well. You caved and took a quick look through the bin yourself and snagged a flannel wearing fuzzy werewolf and sent the kids on their way to the costume rack on a quest for something nice that didn’t give their dads a heart attack.

“Batty!”

You made your way to where the voice came from and saw Lily holding a soft black onesie with wings attached to the arms. You let out a chuckle at her excitement and took it from her hands. “This is cute! But lets look for one in your size, okay?” A quick nod was her answer before zooming off the rack she got it from. “More here!”

Going through the rack to find the right size you swapped the too big one she grabbed for a fitting size before making your way over to your other daughter who was going back and forth between three different sections.

“Hey Rosy, found something?”

She shook her head, not being able to choose. Showing you her three options you she shared her love for each one with a pouty look. You checked each one and quickly removing one from the list already because her size wasn’t available, and one needed a mask so you double checked with her if she wanted to wear that the whole time and no, after some thinking she decided that she didn’t.

So here you were, a Chucky costume in hand as you walked back to your overfilled cart and mentally cursing yourself out for coming here in the first place.

The contents ended up taking up almost the whole checkout belt and cost you over double of what you had wanted to spend so you kindly declined the offered receipt. With everything put in bags you loaded it in the car and strapped in the girls before heading back home and praying you were gonna be able to get all of the bags up in one go because your two little helpers were too busy carrying their plushies.

Bags in hand you elbowed the elevator button and instructed the girls to press the right floor button for you and you made it to your home without falling over or any bags breaking.

Today was halloween and your girls had been nagging since early in the morning to go put on their costumes for trick or treating. Which you were blamed for by their dads. “Your halloween obsession is rubbing off on them.” Stated Lip, who was snacking on some jelly eyeballs as he walked into the living room. “He’s right sweetheart.” Carmen chimed in. “They’ve been begging me to make ‘spooky foods’ all week.” You watched as he dried his hands on he purple and orange pumpkin patterned towel that had sneakily replaced the normal kitchen towels and would not be swapped back out after this month. You sighed in defeat and mumbled on your way to the coffee maker. “Can’t believe I’m dating such party poopers.”

“Yeah! Party poopers!” “Daddies is meanies.”

Your laughter was heard over the loud coffee maker noise, not believing how they heard specifically that part of your conversation. The glares you were given would have sent anyone else running, but you knew your boys loved you no matter what so you shrugged them off as you snickered behind your large coffee mug.

“Spooky foods?” Carmen gaze was pulled from you by a tug on his pant leg. A soft laugh left him a he promised there would be spooky foods later today. He didn’t enjoy trick or treating at all and opted to stay in and prepare for your little movie night.

With the kids all dresses up and Lip’s face painted in stitches and fake blood you went underwhelmingly dressed in reds, dark makeup and a set on horns on your head. You two stayed back on the sidewalk as your kids went to the doors to collect all the candy and dump it in your bag when heir little pumpkin buckets were full. From time to time you’d snap pictures and sent them to Carmy with little loving notes. Once you were on your way back you shot Carmy a text to get the mood set at home and get the movie ready so the girls could throw themselves onto the large lounge chairs and snack on all the spooky foods they could eat.

There were brain cupcakes you had gotten from Marcus, fruity drinks with skull ice cubes, spider licorice candies and white chocolate ghosts. Finger hotdogs and a bowl of skeleton crisps and decorated cookies the girls made with Carmy yesterday were set out on the table over a spiderwebbed tableclcoth.

You placed the candy bags down and moved the kids to the couch, hyping hem up for the movie you had picked for them. Something Halloween themed but not scary, but not childish enough to bore your boys.

With everyone settled you grabbed the remote and pressed play, after a moment hearing the all too familiar into tune to the Nightmare before Christmas begin paying. Lip and Carmen spent more time watching their daughters react to the movie than watching it themselves, enjoying how Lily would excitingly cheer as soon as Jack appeared on the screen and Rose would excitedly swing to the songs.

After the movie was done all three parents made an effort to help the girls to bed. It took promises of candy for breakfast to make them cooperate but after some time they were in bed and asleep.

With most of the snack gone or packed away for tomorrow Lip spoke up. “So, now what?”

“Oh my god fryer snacks and a movie, please.” You dramatically clung to the freezer before grabbing a box of snacks and going your way to prepare them. 

From the kitchen counter you could hear your boys talking.

“We missed you earlier.” Lip casually confessing these little things still made your heart melt right out of your chest. You stood there, listening to them praising each other on their respective tasks today while the snacks warmed up.

“So, have you boys picked a move yet?” With food in hand you returned to the couch and wiggled yourself in between them. “Nah, you’re the halloween lover here, so you pick.” And some agreeing nods were your sign to open op Prime video and dig through your library to find the right movie to watch and settling for the original Scream.

“You find this way too hot, dear.” Lip commented on your lovey dovey smile whenever Ghostface stabbed someone. Carmen stared a your blushing self and jokingly suggested to have the kids stay with Sugar for a weekend so they can indulge in your murder fantasies, but seeing your reaction he almost thought he had to talk to Lip and start planning something.

Lip couldn’t keep the grin off his face while Carmy went on and on about how it was obvious this was something you would enjoy and it being perfect since there was two of them, just like this Ghostface.

A hand had snuck around your waist, a whisper in your ear sending shivers down your spine. “Would you like that, baby? Us pretending to come and kill you?” You were beet red and almost screamed as fingers dug into your side. A hand quickly coming up to silence you as they began their attack. Your back was against Carmy’s chest with your arms held behind your back and shoulders pulled up to your ears to protect our neck. Legs quickly being grabbed and locked in their grasp as your sides were being tortured with tickles. One of Carmy’s hands wiggling his way underneath your jaw to get to your neck as you tried to escape, causing you to scoot to the edge of the seat and dropping yourself off. Your back hitting the carpet while your lower legs were still stuck underneath Lip’s. One hand raised up in defeat while to other covered your mouth to quiet down your laughs looking up at the two boys who were shaking their heads at you. “Baby, we really love you,” Carmen started before Lip finished the sentence for him. “but you’re a fucking idiot.”

Shrugging you agreed with them. “At least I’m you guys’ idiot.”

[simping-on-the-daily]

https://www.instagram.com/reel/C1-wBx_Nymc/?igsh=dms3bGFlejBpeHk=

Damn, why does the live version of “Poison” sound so much better than the original? Maybe bc it’s stripped down to focus more on the vocals rather than generic pop music? Also I think Blake sounds better when he’s just singing as himself and not trying to sound like Michael’s version of Angel. I get why that doesn’t work in terms of voice acting since he needs to sound like the character he’s playing in the show, but this version of the song still is much better to listen to imo.

I think one of the stuff with getting a new voice actor is putting your own spin on your character. Doing your own little thing can help bring a character to life while also respecting the previous VA. I think they just asked Blake to soundly like Kovach, I think his name is??? But Blake isn't Kovach, he's Blake and he's gonna sound different and because he's trying do hard to be Kovach if sounds really weird, I think. You need to respect your VA's while allowing them to do their thing if you think it's good for the character. Like how Brad Douriff and Jennifer Tilly were in the same room when they did the lines for Bride of Chucky, allowing them to improv off each other and creating a great performance from both

Some actors are good at animation, some actors are good for love action, and some are good for theatre, and you need to choose actors who can do well at that medium you're trying to do. In MLP, some actors had voices for when they talked and seperate actors for when then win. Fuck, didn't Charlie have a singing and speaking voice in the pilot??? I fail to understand why they couldn't have just made Blake Angel's singing voice and Kovach the speaking VA. But apparently Viv wanted her Broadway dream, so we're stuck with it.

On the live, yay he didn't sing the fucking 'yeah yeah yeah's'! And the piano makes it sound more somber and personal rather then the typical radio pop it was as the soundtrack!! Could imagine him singing it to himself and Fat Nuggets,, Yeah I agree with you anon this one feels better

On another note is Fat Nuggets still in the show or did they just fucking nuke him?? Is the emotional support pig still present

[kemetic-dreams]

Why is it every move I make turns out to be a bad one? Where's my guardian angel? Need one, wish I had one I'm right here, shorty, and I'ma hold you down You trying to fuck all these bitches? I'ma show you how But who-? (Name's D, like you, but my friends call me Damien) And I'ma put you hip to something (uh-huh) about this game we in You and me could take it there, and you'll be The hottest nigga ever living (that's a given?) You'll see Hmm, that's what I've been wanting all my life Thinkin' about my little man, so I call my wife Well, your dada is about to make it happen (What you mean, my nigga?) I'm about to make it rapping Today I met this cat, he said his name was Damien He thinks that we're a lot alike and wants to be my friend (You mean like Chuckie?) Ha ha, yeah, just like Chuckie (Dada, looks like we both lucky) Yeah

The snake, the rat, the cat, the dog How you gon' see him if you living in the fog? The snake, the rat, the cat, the dog How you gon' see him if you living in the fog? The snake, the rat, the cat, the dog How you gon' see him if you living in the fog? The snake, the rat, the cat, the dog How you gon' see him if you living in the fog?

Ay-yo, D (What up, D?) You's a smooth nigga I seen you when nobody knew who pulled the trigger Yeah, you know, it's always over dough You sure? I could have swore it was over a hoe Nah, nah, that ain't my style (igga, you stay fronting) But you're still my man, and I ain't gonna say nothin' Got some weed? Go 'head, smoke it (what?) Go 'head, drink it (what?) Go 'head and fuck shorty, you know I can keep a secret (aight) I'm about to have you driving, probably a Benz But we gotta stay friends, blood out, blood in Sounds good to me, fuck it, what I got to lose? Hmm, nothin' I can think of, any nigga would choose Got me pushing the whips, takin' trips across seas Pockets stay laced, nigga, I floss Gs For that nigga I would bleed, give him my right hand Now that I think about it, yo, that's my man!

The snake, the rat, the cat, the dog How you gon' see him if you living in the fog? The snake, the rat, the cat, the dog How you gon' see him if you living in the fog? The snake, the rat, the cat, the dog How you gon' see him if you living in the fog? The snake, the rat, the cat, the dog How you gon' see him if you living in the fog?

You like how everything is going? You like what I gave ya? You know if you was going down, I'd be the one to save ya But yo, I need a favor, these cats across town hate me Plus their behavior hasn't been too good lately What? Anything for you, dog, where them niggas at? 38th from Broadway (aight, let me get the gat) Run up on 'em strapped, bust off caps in four niggas Laid low for 'bout a month then killed two more niggas Now I'm ready to chill, but you still want me to kill Look at what I did for you! Dog, come on, keep it real! Aight, fuck it, I'ma do it, who is it this time? Ayy-yo, remember that kid Sean you used to be with in '89? Nah, that's my man! (I thought I was your man?) But yo, that's my nigga (hey, who's your biggest fan?) Either do it or give me your right hand, that's what you said I see now, it ain't nothing but trouble ahead (uh-huh)

The snake, the rat, the cat, the dog How you gon' see him if you living in the fog? The snake, the rat, the cat, the dog How you gon' see him if you living in the fog? The snake, the rat, the cat, the dog How you gon' see him if you living in the fog? The snake, the rat, the cat, the dog How you gon' see him if you living in the fog?

In the fog, the fog, living in the fog How you gon' see him if you living in the fog? How you gon' see him if you living in the fog? The snake, the rat, the cat, the dog To be continued, motherfuckers Ah-hahahahaha

[kingofscoops]

8, 14, and 25 for the horror movie asks?

8. Favourite horror filmmaker(s)?

Oh there's so many to choose from erm, one of my faves is Don Mancini who created the Chucky franchise (probably my fave fave horror movie franchise), Wes Craven too behind so many good horror movies I love, there's a few others too but I can't remember them all lol

14. Favourite 70s film?

I can't recall having watched many 70s horror films so I'm gonna go with Halloween, or maybe The Wicker Man?

25. Favourite Horror Comedy?

Shaun of the Dead, true classic and what I think made me first love Simon Pegg and Nick Frost as actors

📼🍿 send me a horror movie ask 🍿📼

[slashingdisneypasta]

HIIIII I LOVE UR WORK, especially when it comes to horror house,so i was wondering what it would be like if all the residents of the horror house swapped bodies??ur like my fav fav favvvvvv Tumblr blog and I wish u the best day/evening/night everr💗💗💗💗💗💗💗💗

Oh boy, i'm sorry this has taken so long- I believe I was on placement when this was sent in and I'm just getting to placement time asks now! 😅

First of all thank you so much!! ^^ Second of all- the short answer to your question- it would be c h a o s XD Haha XD

I'm gonna use a random picker website to choose who would swap bodies with who... so lets see what happens XD

~

Audrey II & Stu Macher

Audrey II's Reaction: Well well well! So this is what its like havin legs?? I've never felt so mobile! Not bad not bad! Lets test these out~ Audrey:

Stu's Reaction, stuck in the quiet greenhouse outside: *sighhhhhhh he's so bored* ... why do I have a bad feeling. Stu: ... whatever, its probably nothing. I wonder if this thing has balls-

Billy Loomis & Jason Voorhees

Billy's Reaction: ... *Refuses to talk. It will ruin the illusion for him XDD But he is a lot more animated than Jason has ever been! XD* Jason's Reaction: *Is an even more feral looking version of Billy, except silent* * Bonus: Billy: Fuck it I'm taking this off *Goes for the mask* Jason, in Billy's body: *Lunges*

Carrie White & Bubba Sawyer

Carrie's Reaction: *Tries to do something simple like close the oven door and slams it* I'm so sorry!! I- I'm not usually this strong!! I'll try to be gentler!! Bubba how do you sew with these hands?? Help, p- please! Bubba's Reaction: *A f r a i d to b r e a k h e r. She is so itty bitty! He will be walking around helping Carrie like he's made of glass for the entire experience XD*

Chucky Lee Ray & Tiffany Valentine

Chucky's Reaction: This is getting fucken ridiculous. But, uh... *finers wriggling towards chest* there are perks!~ Tiffany's Reaction: *Evil grin* I think its a bout time I had a haircut!

Freddy Krueger & Patrick Bateman

Freddy's Reaction: ... Well, time to go to work!~ *Trying to ruin Patricks entire life* Patrick's Reaction: I don't even fucken know where half these aches and pains are coming from... when was the last time this ugly bastard stood straight- *hears his Cadillac start up* *Bolts outside*

Jennifer Check & Jerry Dandridge

Jennifer's Reaction: *Furious* It had to be a dude... Jerry's Reaction: *Cool with it* What moisturiser do you use, Jen?

The Leprechaun & Pennywise

These two... are gonna be trouble.

Michael Myers & Pamela Voorhees

Michael's Reaction: *Furiously trying to stop Pam from bathing him* Pam's Reaction: *Locked in the bathroom* Goodness when was the last time this boy scrubbed these nails?

[marvelmaniac715]

Chucky characters finding out they’re fictional (guest starring me!):

————————————————————-

Chucky:

Chucky: Wait a minute, the franchise is about me, right? So that means, I’m virtually invincible. I can’t die cause then the franchise would be over. In that case… I have plot armour!

Author: I don’t think that’s how any of this works-

Chucky: You hear that? I’ve got fuckin’ plot armour! I’m gonna go play with some lions at the zoo, they can’t kill me, I’m gonna live forever!

Author: Chucky, this isn’t a movie or tv episode, I don’t think you should-

Chucky runs into the distance, whooping and hollering.

Author: This won’t end well.

————————————————————-

Andy:

Andy (crying): W-why? What kind of monster would choose this? I was a child.

Author: They couldn’t make an evil toy movie about some random adult guy, it just wouldn’t be right. Not that I have anything against adult toy collectors, but, y’know.

Andy: I exist for entertainment? And you watch it?

Author: Hey, don’t get mad at me, none of this is my fault. I mean, sure, watching the movies and show gives money to the studios who fund more Chucky projects based on the success, but I didn’t personally cause your trauma-

Andy: So who is to blame?

Author: Well, I can’t remember all the scriptwriters and directors off the top of my head, but I guess you could start with Don Mancini-

Andy runs into the distance.

Author: I should probably stop him. Oh well, he’ll come back soon. Probably…

————————————————————-

Tiffany:

Tiffany: This is crazy. So, Jennifer Tilly’s real and plays me, but I’m not. But I’m in her body, which makes me Jennifer Tilly. So technically, I’m real.

Author: I have no words. Just- no.

Tiffany: The logic’s there.

Author: You’re more flexible than I thought you were. You have to be, cause those are some insane mental gymnastics, girl.

Tiffany begins to laugh maniacally as Author watches with growing concern.

Author: She is not okay.

————————————————————-

Kyle:

Kyle: So basically, I’m a sequel final girl?

Author: I guess so.

Kyle: The writers love K names, don’t they? I mean, ‘Karen’ and ‘Kyle’? What’s the final girl in film three? ‘Katie’?

Author: Close, it’s Kristin. Wow, how have I never realised this before?

Kyle: I told you, it’s a trend! What about film four?

Author: Jade.

Kyle: Huh, maybe someone pointed out the similarities?

Author: But now that you mention it…

Kyle: Go on…

Author: Her last name is Kincaid… Oh my god.

Kyle: So what have we learned today? Sometimes writers pick a theme and stick to it. For example, Chucky writers and creators picked the K name theme for their final girls and stuck to it.

Author: Seed of Chucky technically doesn’t have a final girl. And the final girl in the series is called Lexi. Not to mention Nica Pierce, who is an icon.

Kyle: They finally broke the trend? So proud of them.

————————————————————-

Jake:

Jake: The only reason I exist is to act as  a foil to a murderous doll. As if I didn’t have enough issues already…

Author: Jake, are you okay?

Jake: Would you be okay if you were only brought into existence in order to suffer?

Author: I mean… I guess not.

————————————————————-

Glen and Glenda (GG doesn’t exist in this magical fourth-wall breaking universe):

Glenda: And people like you choose to watch this? There are some messed up people in the world, who hurt you guys?

Author: At first I watched for the novelty, but your father has a surprisingly magnetic personality for a psychopathic killer doll.

Glen: This does explain everything that we’ve ever wondered about ourselves. But why bring a talented actor into the franchise to essentially create us only to kill them off and combine our two souls into a doll.

Author: Two words. Billy Boyd. The man’s a legend. Sorry about the whole GG situation, but you’ve gotta admit, Billy has a nice voice.

Glen and Glenda look at each other and nod, unable to deny it.

————————————————————

Andy:

Author has tracked Andy down to his apartment, they are tired and panic stricken. Andy has a gun.

Author: Andy… put the gun down.

Andy: No, you can’t stop me from killing Don Mancini. I’m gonna do it!

Author: But if he dies you may die as well! 

Andy: Trust me, death is welcome after the shit I’ve been through!

Author: Andy, no. Do you need to talk to a licensed professional?

Andy: Desperately.

————————————————————-

Chucky:

Chucky: And my franchise makes how much money?

Author gives the estimated figure but is too lazy to actually google the number so *insert number here*.

Chucky: Okay, where do I sign up to get my cut of the profit? They’d be nothing without me, I deserve the cash.

————————————————————-

Nica:

Nica: So my actor is the daughter of Chucky’s voice actor? Are the creators implying that I’m Chucky’s kid?

Author: Nica, nobody knows. I mean, there’s been some hints, and I wrote a couple of fanfics/theories about it on Tumblr (check my profile if you’re new) but it’s all speculation.

Nica: But it’s a possibility?

Author: …Maybe?

Nica: My life sucks.

Author: We all know, you don’t have to tell us.

————————————————————-

Tiffany:

Tiffany is still cackling. Author decides to stand up and gently usher Glen and Glenda (who’ve been there the whole time) out of the room.

Author: C’mon kids. She’s- she’s too far gone…

————————————————————-

Parting words:

Author: I’ve gathered all of you here in the same room (probably a bad idea) to ask if you have any parting words for your fans.

Andy: The other survivors and I have coordinated this response.

Andy, Kyle, Nica, Glen, Glenda and Jake: Why do you like watching us suffer?

Author: I’m just gonna jump in and answer for the fandom here. Nobody enjoys it exactly, but the movies and tv show would be super boring if it was just Chucky stabbing at the air or something. Horror movies need victims otherwise it’s just some guy in a disguise of some sort cackling manically and attacking thin air with a variety of weapons. Let’s move on to the people that I’m low-key terrified of sitting so close to. Chucky, Tiffany, any parting words for your fans?

Tiffany: Thank you all for being so sweet, from the google searches I did a couple minutes ago, I gathered that a lot of people like me, and I’m touched that I’m still considered hot.

Author: Tiffany, you could never not be good looking, you’re my favourite character, I love you, platonically obviously, but you’re a literal icon, and I need you to know that.

Tiffany: Duly noted.

Chucky: Hey, we’re all here cause of me, don’t I get to say anything?

Author: Of course Chucky, what’s on your mind?

Chucky: Okay, first thing’s first, I found the Kill Count and I’m obsessed. Secondly, I hate most people, but I guess my fans aren’t the worst people in the world. You’re still not safe though…

Author (becoming anxious and suddenly realising that they’re sitting right next to Chucky with an exposed neck and they’re in strangling range): That’s about all we have time for, join us next time for a Q and A session with the characters! That’s enough now Chucky, please stop looking at me like that… Wait- ARGGH!-

Author is strangled offscreen, but due to the magic of plot armour, will miraculously be alive for the next fic.

[eatmarcus]

i wanna make a bunch of lab rats ocs and make their face claims ppl who played in the chucky series

like I already made Kit’s face claim Zackary Arthur

debating on stealing lachlan watson or björgvin arnarson next but i can’t choose..

i’m gonna make way to many ocs and idc

[marinerainbow]

Fuck, Marry, Kill- Harper Alexander, the Driller Killer, and Tiffany Valentine

You really trying to make my heart explode from having to choose between my top three crushes, huh?

Ok, ok, SO-

Fuck: Driller Killer. In the movie he can't really die (I think they actually tried to kill him, but he wound up coming back) and... Well, he certainly looks like a guy who knows how to have a good time I'm so sorry

Marry: Tiffany. No I do not care about Chucky becoming a problem, I'll make it work. I also do not care about her being crazy. I just want to bbie in a domestic relationship with this woman and help raise the twins.

Kill: ... Harper. I SWEAR THIS WAS NOT AN EASY DECISION. I can't kill DK, and Harper is technically already dead, and I know he won't want me since I ain't southern (at least I don't think), so Harper, you're gonna go meet the lord a second time.

Thank you for asking! This was fun ^^

[leverage-ot3]

even MORE notable moments from The Boiler Room Job

Eliot: Where's- whe- are we waiting on Parker?

Hardison: Oh, man. She's at that damn chocolate festival. It's like sending a crack addict to a cocaine convention. Girl texted me about an hour ago, misspelled every damn word. Look. (pulls phone and speaks gibberish) Probably got chocolate all over the buttons.

- - - - -

also does eliot just live in flannel ??? like dude, we get it, you’re bi

- - - - -

Hardison: Well, you picked a good one for us this time, Nate. Real good one. This Greg Sherman, he's not just any old con man. He is a direct descendant of the Yellow Kid.

Eliot: Who's the Yellow Kid?

Sophie: Quite possibly the greatest grifter of all time.

Nate: Between 1900 and 1940, he swindled people out of more than $10 million.

Hardison: Which is like a gazillion in today's market. Look. Some of my people know Sherman. They say the boy works without scruples and without conscience. His new scam is something called the inverted pyramid.

Eliot: Inverted pyramid is where you call 20 people and tell 10 the stock's going up, tell the other 10 it's going down. Whichever one you get right, you call those 10 people back and do it all over again, and you've just convinced five people you can predict the market.

Hardison: Yeah, except he's not calling 10 people. In every city, he sets up a boiler room and hires a bunch of hot shots, and they're calling a thousand people at a time.

- - - - -

Eliot: Nate, this guy probably knows every con in the book. How are we gonna nail him?

Sophie: I'm thinking the Peruvian Slide.

Hardison: No, you need two old people and a banana peel for that.

Sophie: Unh-unh. That's the Boca Backlash.

Hardison: Boca Backlash is a roper with a glass eye.

Eliot: That's the Oklahoma Little Chucky, and it's not a glass eye, it's a cue ball.

Hardison: The Oklahoma Little Chucky is a Rottweiler with some fireworks

Eliot: No.

Nate: No, guys. No, no. Here's the thing. Here's the problem, though. You know, of course you can't con a con artist. We're just gonna have to steal from him.

can john rogers please, please, PLEASE make a book of the different cons with what they entail, we need it for science (and for fics)

- - - - -

Sophie: Don't look away, but keep your eyes soft. You need to project strength but without challenging him.

- - - - -

Parker: Nate. (hitting chocolate bars against the table) Nate. Nate!

Nate: Parker.

Parker: What else did I miss in the briefing?

Nate: Nothing. Nothing at all. I told you.

Sophie: Oh, would you please just stop that hammering?

Parker (drops the chocolate bars): Why'd Eliot go home?

Nate: Because he doesn't need to be here, just like you don't need to be here.

Parker: I don't mind. I'm still energized from Le Festival Du Chocolat! Oh, my God! Sophie, you should've been there. Sophie. Sophie. Sophie!

Sophie: What?! What?! What?!

Parker: I tasted like 12 different kinds of chocolates. They had a white chocolate mocha espresso. I could not stop drinking it! So good!

- - - - -

Parker: Nate won't tell me what the name of the job is.

Nate: Parker, not now. Please?

Parker: Yeah, but what are we stealing? Is it "let's go steal a mountain" or a potato or a funeral or a panda or...?

[Boiler Room]

Hardison: I told y'all not to let her go to that festival unsupervised.

- - - - -

Greg: What's the angle?

Hardison: Angle?

Greg: Repeating the question to buy time to think of a lie? I was doing that in the second grade.

- - - - -

Greg: "Count Chocula"? That's a stupid moniker.

Hardison: It is stupid, real stupid but he didn't choose it. He's not one of those guys who gives himself a dumb nickname, you know? (winks)

roasted

- - - - -

Sophie: Mr. Travers, of Travers Global?

Travers: Yes. Who are you?

Nate: Ah, Mr. Travers, I'm agent Loynd with the Internal Revenue Service.

Travers: What?

Nate: Loynd. Like "loin" with a "d."

- - - - -

(Nate and Hardison are watching the monitors where they have a map and several cameras showing the Chocolate Festival)

Nate: Okay. Sophie, you're doing great. Sherman's still on your tail. I want you to head for the Chocolate Festival.

Nate: Parker, everything ready there? Parker?

Parker (on monitor): I'm working on it (chocolate is all over her face as she continues eating some more. hardison laughs)

- - - - -

(Sophie walks away as Parker realizes that her phone has been stolen. She turns to look at Greg)

Nate: Parker? Parker, let it go.

[Leverage HQ]

Nate: We need him to check us out.

(on the monitors, Parker goes after the driver)

Nate: No, no. Par... Parker, no. You can't... no...

[Chocolate Festival]

(Parker takes a heart shaped box from a table)

Hardison: Too late, man. It's in her DNA.

(Parker puts the box behind her back and stands back to back with the driver)

[Leverage HQ]

(on the screen, Parker looks at the camera and opens the box, showing a wallet and cell phone. hardison is grinning)

Nate: Put it back, Parker.

[Chocolate Festival]

(Parker makes a face and takes a credit card from the wallet before putting it back and moving away)

- - - - -

Hardison: I got all the origins on these chocolates, but there's no way to tell which ones they're tasting.

Nate: That's okay. Now, S-Sophie, this is no different than Belgium in '99.

WHAT HAPPENED IN BELGIUM OF ‘99

- - - - -

Announcer: Whoa, whoa, and whoa! 84%! Let's hear it for the Chocolate Whisperer, Clarissa Dubois!

(Sophie stands with her arms full of flowers and takes the award)

[Leverage HQ]

Hardison: Just from a piece of chocolate?

Nate: That's my girl.

Hardison: She's scary.

someone make a compilation of everyone thinking sophie is terrifying

- - - - -

Sophie: Nate, Eliot's in position.

[Stairway]

Eliot: Just say the word, Nate, and I'll come in there and tear their lungs out.

HE JUST WANTS HIS FAMILY SAFE

- - - - -

Greg: Who told you this, your Chocolate Whisperer?

Nate: No, no. She's legit. She has nothing to do with this.

Greg (scoffs): That's funny, 'cause you're sleeping with her. I see it.

[Leverage HQ]

(Hardison and Parker look at Sophie in surprise)

[Boiler Room]

Greg: It's in your body language when you're together. It's in your eyes when you look at her. You two have a carnal relationship.

[Leverage HQ]

Sophie: See, h-h-he's just trying to rattle Nate.

Parker: You did say he reads people better than anyone you know.

Hardison: Y'all nasty.

Sophie: I..

+

(Sophie places an ice pack on the back of Nate’s neck)

Sophie: How's that?

Nate: Yeah.

Sophie: Okay.

Parker: Why didn't you say anything?

Nate: Parker.

Hardison: Hey, Nate, she's just saying, man.

Sophie: Look, we'll discuss it later. Okay, right now we've got to worry about Sherman.

- - - - -

JUNGLE GUIDE ELIOT THO

- - - - -

Ms Cox: Mr. Ford.

Nate: Yes, Ms...?

Ms Cox: Cox, with an "x."

Nate: Of course.

Ms Cox: Yeah, that Sophie woman, I don't think her crackers are quite toasted. She wants me to moonwalk with a bear.

Nate: No, no. See, we're doing a version of the Moonwalking Bear. I.B., Inattentional Blindness. Basically, what it is, is if a person is so focused on something that, you know, they don't, they can't see the obvious thing right in front of them, like, like a moonwalking bear.

Ms Cox: But what if the bear eats me?

- - - - -

Eliot: It's not about the cocoa fields. It's about the nature.

Greg: Nature, yeah.

Eliot: All right. Not "nature." "The Nature." The nature of a man. (steps closer) The nature of darkness.

(Eliot’s face goes hard and he swings the machete across the front of Greg’s body)

Greg: Aah!

(Eliot straightens holding a beheaded snake)

Eliot: See the snake?

(Eliot turns and digs into the snake’s body with the machete. When he turns, he’s got something in his mouth, chewing it)

Eliot: You eat a snake heart, you consume its soul. (moves away)

+

somewhere at a later time when they all come together and chat about the con:

“And then I looked him in the eye and said ‘you eat a snake heart, you consume its soul.’”

Sophie’s face is a cross between surprised and horrified, Parker looks downright delighted, and Hardison looks taken aback. Nate looks like he expected nothing less. He doesn’t question any of the kids anymore.

Hardison looked at the ceiling then closed his eyes, “But, like, you didn’t actually eat the snake heart, right, Eliot?”

Eliot gave a noncommittal shrug and took a sip of his beer.

Hardison’s expression dropped.

Parker watched the exchange in front of her with a grin on her face.

“E-E-Eliot, come on man, you didn’t though, right? You didn’t actually take a bite out of a live, living, ALIVE snake, right, Eliot?” Hardison turned to Sophie with wide eyes, “He wouldn’t do that, right? He wouldn’t.”

Parker’s grin widens as Eliot continues to ignore Hardison’s flailing.

She thrives on the chaos of her boys.

- - - - -

Nate: Okay. And, people, please, do not stare at the mark.

Sophie: Golden... golden rule, do not stare at the mark.

- - - - -

-Eliot: She's staring at me, right here.-

-eliot literally always thinks someone is staring at him he says that all the time lmao-

also he’s wearing flannel again

- - - - -

Nate: Back outside. Back to one. Hardison--

[Boiler Room]

Nate: --you got anything?

Hardison: Um, nothing, man. Just a tired, overworked hacker who's actually sick of orange soda.

- - - - -

McSweeten: If y... Hello? Hung up the phone. Rude. I hate guys that give themselves their own nickname.

- - - - -

(the Driver looks at Nate, then makes a break for the door, pushing his way through the crowd. He runs into Eliot but only pushes him back a few feet. The Driver swings twice at Eliot who avoids the blows, then manages to punch Eliot in the face)

Eliot: Thanks, man. That's awesome. I hadn't hit anybody in over two weeks.

(Eliot avoids another blow then punches the driver twice in the stomach and once in the face before throwing him back onto a desktop. Eliot smiles at a nearby woman. Three FBI agents walk into the room)

- - - - -

Agent: Are you Special Agent Hagen?

Parker: Mm-hmm.

Agent: Agent McSweeten sends his best. And he also sends a, uh haiku. (hands Parker a note)

Parker: That's so nice. Say "hi" back.

Agent: I will.

Greg: Special agent? Are you kidding me?

Agent: That's right, genius. She's an undercover FBI agent.

Greg: No, she is not. She's a thief. They're all thieves and-and con men and grifters!

Agent: Sure, Mr. Limpet. We're all thieves and grifters and con men.

Greg: They are! They just...

(Agents drag Greg from the room)

Agent: Get him out of here.

we love the scenes where their marks try to point out that the leverage team’s aliases aren’t legit but no one questions them

- - - - -

Sheila (brings cake to the team’s table): I can't thank you enough. But...

Nate: What is it, Sheila?

Sheila: Well, when I checked the school account, the $72,000 wasn't there. There was over a million in it.

Nate: I'd say your school's gonna be all right for a while.

Sheila: Thank you

- - - - -

Hardison: So, w-who's gonna point out the big pink argyle elephant in the room?

(Nate and Sophie look at each other, obviously uncomfortable)

Eliot: Listen, it's not that you're not two consenting adults.

Parker: But we need to be able to rely on each other.

Hardison: And we need to be aware of each other's emotional states.

Nate: Our emotional states are-are fine.

Sophie: It's not like we're having a real relationship. No. It's just s...

Hardison: Friends with bennies.

Nate: Well, I- I'd say it's, uh...

Sophie: Yeah. That's not a bad way of looking at it.

Nate: Okay.

- - - - -

we love to see the family sitting and eating together

- - - - -

number of times/when they said greg sherman’s name wrong:

- parker- craig

- parker- mr. sherlock

- nate- marco

- hardison/mcsweeten- the blowfish

- parker- crappie

- beluga

- sophie- gefilte fish

- trout

- angler fish

- crayfish

- mr. limpet

notable moments from The Boiler Job

leverage 4.08

Eliot: “Thanks man, that’s awesome. I haven’t hit anybody in over two weeks.”

*proceeds to beat the shit out of him*

- - - - -

everyone purposely getting the mako wrong

highlights:

the blowfish

the glowfish

the angler fish

the crawfish

sophie: gavilderfish

parker: crappy fish

mr. limpet

- - - - -

agent mcsweeten sent parker a haiku

HES BABY YOUR HONOR

- - - - -

“Special agent? Are you kidding me?”

“That’s right genius! She’s an undercover FBI agent!”

he’s so cute defending parker’s honor like bitch me too

[casicroaks]

Tiffany Valentine has two things in her mind: love and murder. The origins of the brains behind the infamous Lakeshore Strangler and the string of broken hearts she left along her way to Chicago, interwoven with the development of the tempestuous relationship between her and a certain Charles Lee Ray.

CHAPTER 8

[ CHAPTER 1 // CHAPTER 2 // CHAPTER 3 // CHAPTER 4 // CHAPTER 5 // CHAPTER 6 // CHAPTER 7 // CHAPTER 8 // CHAPTER 9 // CHAPTER 10 // CHAPTER 11 // CHAPTER 12 // CHAPTER 13 // CHAPTER 14 // CHAPTER 15 // CHAPTER 16 ]

NEW JERSEY, 1985

Halloween was just around the bend and, for the first time in almost a decade, I had an invitation to celebrate it. Molly had heard from a friend about a costume party taking place at a bar downtown, and she had told me she would love for me to come. She had even told me I could bring a plus one, so I was even more excited to break the news to Chucky. Certainly, I didn’t know whether he would even want to go, but in any case, I was thrilled –and I was going, no doubt about it.

“You already know what you’re gonna go as?” I asked Molly that Sunday, while wandering around the stores already all decked out in their best spooky décor.

“As a witch,” she said with a shrug. “Like every Halloween. This year I’ve thought of changing things up, painting myself green and going as that one hag from ‘The Wizard Of Oz’… but I guess there’s a reason my younger brother was terrified of her for years.”

I laughed. “What, is your brother coming to the party too?”

“No, I mean…” She rolled her eyes and made a hand gesture. “I don’t think guys will find me particularly ravishing when we step out of the dance floor and onto the street to suddenly realize they’ve been making out with a woman slathered in paint.”

“Well, that’s their problem, not yours.”

Molly laughed as well. “So, what about you?”

“Vampire queen,” I said proudly. “I’d really love to dress up as Elvira, you know, from TV?”

“Yes, of course I know who Elvira is!”

“The problem is getting a good wig…”

“Bah, that’s not really an issue –you work at a hair salon, for God’s sake!” Molly said. “Even though I’m great at styling wigs I’m pretty bad at applying acrylic nails… I’m used to working with my hands.”

We got inside a little shop Molly said she bought almost her entire wardrobe in. There was a holiday sale, and it was crawling with people, all of them clearly knowing that the place was their best bet for creepy fashion garments to build up their costumes.

“Do you think Elvira did rip off Vampira?” Molly asked me, tossing me several black dresses to choose from. “Assuming you know who Vampira is.”

“Of course I know who Vampira is,” I said, almost buried in the growing pile. “I think the more the merrier. Besides, Vampira, Elvira, Morticia, Lily Munster –they’re all rather similar anyways.”

“Oh –Lily Munster, that’d be a good Halloween costume too,” she said with a big smile, briefly distracted by a display of metallic belts.

I put the pile down for a moment, on a nearby velvet chair, and examined each dress while Molly went to look for accessories. It had to be something I liked and would wear, but not something that I’d get too attached to and would be sad to put under the needle of my sewing machine. All of the dresses were pretty, but none were exactly what I was looking for. I had to settle for a simple one with bell sleeves, which all it was really needing were some snips and slits to get to look just right.

I turned around and sighed, watching Molly’s tall, backcombed black hair bobbing in the crowd, as she continued her search for some baubles with which to adorn what was otherwise a pretty plain costume.

“I’ve decided I’m gonna ask Annie to dress up as the Good Witch of the North,” she declared, now carrying several jingling bangles in her wrists. “At least so she doesn’t come as a cat again. Cats aren’t scary…”

It was Molly’s turn to go through the pile of dresses. I watched her in silence, thinking about when I had gone to see that Madonna movie with Annie. Now, I had the feeling Molly’s tastes were probably closer to my own.

“Hey, uh, there’s this movie that came out last week,” I commented, once Molly seemed satisfied with her choice. “Fright Night—”

“Ah, yes, I’ve been itching to check it out!”

“What’d you say, if we go watch it next week?” I said with a shrug and a smile.

“Sure!”

I smiled even wider. Last time it had been Annie who had asked me to go to the cinema, since another friend of hers couldn’t make it. It had been a good time, but as kind as Annie was, I could tell we didn’t have that much in common besides being coworkers. Inviting Molly to come along with me, though, and having her accept, felt like a real confirmation of us being friends, or at least friendly enough. It was just the polite thing to do after she suggested I come to the Halloween party; but still, I did like that warm feeling of knowing that maybe this could be the beginning of a true friendship.

“You know, Tiffany,” Molly said with a little smile, getting in line to pay. “If I had known you were so cool, I’d have started talking to you sooner.”

I looked down at the long black dress I had picked. Whose fault was it, that she didn’t know how cool I was earlier?

“Oh –very important –you know how to make fake blood?” Molly asked me.

“Fake blood?”

“Yes, with corn syrup. For your vampire costume.”

“Oh, um, no…”

“No worries. I used to be quite the go-getter back at community theater. Makeup, costuming, set designing sometimes… Guess that explains a lot about me.”

I laughed. “Alright, you teach me how to make blood, I can teach you how to make really good fake nails for your witch costume.”

“Deal.”

We both repressed a grin and shook hands in mock seriousness. The line was moving slowly. I gave the dress another look, up and down and around, just to make sure I had made a good choice.

“… Why didn’t you or Annie ever talk to me before, though?” I asked her.

“We did!” she replied with a frown. “We invited you to stuff, to go out for drinks after work –but you always said you were busy. And besides, you always seemed so bitter and upset over your breakup, even after we gave you that makeover to try and cheer you up…”

I touched my now-blonde curls. The red had washed off completely, and I was back to bleached. It had been gradual, over the course of a few months, with just a decision to stop dyeing it crimson: but one morning I had looked at myself at the bathroom mirror, and saw the same happy moonstruck girl that had fallen in love last time. It was nice to see my reflection so happy again, and yet I was unnerved by remembering how that had turned out…

Molly smiled at me again. “Anyway, I am glad you’re feeling better now, though.”

I smiled back at her, hoping I looked thankful enough, and made an effort to push those gloomy thoughts off my mind, at least long enough so I could enjoy myself on the shopping trip with my newly appointed friend. All I needed was a distraction. And, thankfully, once I got back home, I had my baby to keep me distracted.

“Honey, I’m home!” I said in a sing-song voice, locking the door and kicking my heels off. “You here?”

He didn’t answer, but I saw his mop of dark hair hanging by the armrest of our little couch. That was what we had forgotten about, that time we went to the Ikea. We really needed an actual lounging chair, or something, so we could watch TV without having to find complicated ways to drape ourselves over that sorry excuse of a sofa.

“I got news!” I continued saying in a lilt, with a big smile, raising the bag with my purchases. “One of my coworkers told me about this Halloween party at The Raven’s Nest –a costume party! So we went buying things for our costumes…” I pulled the long black dress from the bag, dropping it and unfolding the garment for Chucky to see. “I got this on sale, isn’t it perfect? Though I’m planning to do some modifications…”

I waited for him to say something. He blew some smoke, still looking at the TV, which I then realized was not even on. A few seconds passed, in which none of us said anything. I finally huffed, losing my smile.

“You can at least pretend to be excited, you know,” I grumbled, folding the dress and stuffing it back in the bag. “I was thinking of inviting you to be my plus one, though I don’t think I’d want you to come along if you’re gonna go as Oscar the goddamn Grouch.”

He snorted a laugh, but didn’t do anything else. Typical of him.

“Alright, that’s enough. Why the silent treatment?” I asked. “What’s wrong?”

Chucky finally turned towards me, giving me a look as if he had just realized I was there. “I just thought you’d be home by now, that’s all.”

“Geez, do I need to tell you when I go out and when I don’t, now? What are you, my mom?”

He took a drag and grumbled something under his breath. “What’s for dinner?”

I huffed. “I don’t know. See if there’s some leftovers in the fridge that we could heat up.”

“You could have brought something, since you were out shopping…”

“I was out with a friend,” I said, crossing my arms. “And the H-Mart isn’t exactly a hot spot, I gotta say. Not that you would know –you probably haven’t stepped into one in your life.”

At least before he met me, Chucky had a pretty shitty diet, consisting mostly of fast food and drugstore snacks. It was a miracle he was so skinny –though there was also the fact that he often forgot to eat his meals. He simply wasn’t hungry until he was reminded of it, for some weird reason. And, when he was hungry, he was usually straight-up starving. And an empty stomach didn’t help with a bad mood.

“There’s a food court at the mall, I don’t know if you’ve noticed,” he said. “People go there to eat, sometimes. You can even bring boxes of the stuff back with you! Does that ring a bell?”

I closed my hand in a fist. I had grown pretty thick skin over the years, but something that always particularly irritated me was when someone treated me like I was stupid. Of course, Chucky knew that very well. “Excuse me if I wasn’t feeling like having that crappy cardboard pizza again.”

After a whole afternoon of being out and about, I needed some coffee, pronto. Unlike Chucky who, despite everything, could be pretty fussy at times, I knew that a good quick rinse of hot water was enough to get the grime off old used coffee mugs –dirty dishes and cutlery were a different matter, of course, since they accumulated grease and crumbs –but with mugs and glasses, one could be a bit more forgiving. At its most difficult, the worst stain a glass could have was lipstick. I fished the mug that I always used, one that Chucky had gifted me for our first Valentine’s Day. It was the cutest thing, a creamy white with a fluffy grey cartoon kitten drawn on the side in the style of those pretty Hallmark card illustrations, a big blue bow tied around her neck. He had told me he had thought of getting me earrings or something like that at first, but that when he saw it at the store it reminded him of me, and that he liked to think it matched with his own Garfield mug. I still think it was the sweetest, most adorable present anyone has ever given me for Valentine’s. At the sight of it, I smiled a little, against my best efforts to stay angry.

“Where’s the sugar?” I asked out loud, opening the sugar bowl in the cabinet and finding it empty.

Chucky shrugged. “How should I know? Guess it would have been nice if you bought some on your way back, huh?”

“Don’t you work at a goddamn store?” I asked, slamming the cabinet door for emphasis. “Why don’t you take care of groceries for a change?”

“It’s a convenience store, not a grocery store!” he claimed. “And you’re the one who’s always saying we should eat healthier. What’d you want me to do, bring home a bag of Cheetos for dinner?”

“You know, it’d be something!”

“It’s not my fault you’re the one who knows how to cook,” he said, crossing his arms like a sulky brat.

“You can make a grilled cheese,” I replied. “You’re not that clueless around the kitchen.”

“There’s no cheese,” he said, pointing at the fridge.

“Then make scrambled eggs! Improvise!”

“I thought you liked cooking!”

I scoffed. “Like my mother used to say, ‘there’s such a thing as too much of a good thing’. Just because I like cooking doesn’t mean I dream of being chained to a stove for the rest of my damn life.”

“Jesus, you’re so dramatic…”

“I’d like to see you do it every single day, and then try and call me dramatic!”

He rolled his eyes at me. I think that was the last straw. I could reply to his teasing and his bitching, but when he decided that he had had enough, that I was the one being ridiculous, and that he wouldn’t even argue with me anymore –when I was clearly in the right –and assume a silent victory –that was when I would lose it.

“For God’s sake, I do everything here –I cook, I clean, I work the most hours –what do you do?” I yelled and stomped, demanding his attention. “You don’t even chip in! You just slack around, doing nothing—”

“Oh, sure, it’s really clear how much you’re breaking your damn back!” he yelled back at me, gesturing towards the sink, where the dirty dishes had begun to pile up. “And that’s without even mentioning the dirty laundry that’s begun to stink up the bedroom!”

I laughed out loud. “These are your dirty socks, baby! I should know –I’m the one who’s left having to darn them!” I cried. “Besides, you said you’d take it to the laundromat! You promised!”

“And I’ll do it—!”

“When? Huh? When?”

“I’ll –I’ll do it, eventually!” he stammered. “Right about when you wash one damn dish! I always have to end up doing it!”

“I’m the one who cooks here –it’s just fair that you at the very least help out with that! Like my mother always said—”

“Shut up with your goddamn mother’s sayings!” he yelled, covering his ears with his hands. “You’re fucking insufferable! It’s all bitching from you, twenty-four-seven!”

“Oh, so says Mister Happy Camper!”

“Aw, go get fucked, Tiff,” he said finally, opening his eyes wide and furious, in that way he did when he was about to lose whatever patience he had left. “Maybe that way you’ll loosen the fuck up!”

What could I even say to that? I was left speechless. Chucky had cursed me out a couple times before, so it wasn’t like it was unprecedented or out of nowhere; but it always felt like a particularly hurtful thing to do. I wished I had something half as hurtful to hurl back.

“How dare you speak to me like that!?” With everything that I did for him! “God, you can be so… So immature!”

He let out a mighty cackle. “Oh, I know you are… But what am I?”

I opened my mouth, but I didn’t have a reply. I knew that he’d just repeat that over and over, I knew him well enough to know that he had no shame to do such a thing. And, knowing he had won the argument by default, Chucky laughed at me, triumphant.

“Shut up! Shut up for once!” I yelled. He kept laughing, and laughing, and laughing… And I finally let out a scream, as loud as I could, loud enough to be louder than him, and in my anger I slammed my hands against the counter—

We both went quiet. We both looked down. My favorite mug laid shattered and in pieces, some still trembling on the counter, others in a brown puddle on the floor. The kitten’s face was cracked in half, still more or less recognizable as part of the ceramic puzzle. But it was certainly not just a little chip on the side.

“Sheesh.”

I brought my hands, holding the larger pieces, closer to my face. And I began sobbing. I wished I could say it was just out of anger, like I sometimes do when I get too mad; but I was truly sad, I can’t deny it. I really loved that mug.

Chucky clicked his tongue. “Come on, Tiff, it’s just a mug…” he said, rubbing my shoulder. “It’s no big deal. I’ll get you another one, an even nicer one.”

“It’s not just a mug!” I snapped, shrugging his hand off me, and a tear rolled down my cheek. “It’s the one you gifted me. For Valentine’s…”

“Well… You glue together dolls, right? China dolls?” he asked, and pointed to the collection on the mantle. “Aren’t china dolls and mugs made out of more or less the same thing?”

I wiped my runny nose. “Yeah… I guess.”

“So, you can put it back together,” Chucky said. He cupped my cheek with his hand, and wiped a tear away with his thumb. “Babe, come on, don’t cry. It’s okay.”

I sighed, exhausted at him and at myself, and leaned my head against his chest.

“… You know, I just miss you all the time, when you’re away,” I said to his heart. “When I have to be alone here.”

Chucky put his hand on my shoulder, stroking it gently, and slowly moved away to kneel and pick up the pieces of my mug. I kneeled too, and picked a few myself, careful not to get a cut.

“I miss you too.”

That’s all I wanted to hear. I just wanted to make sure he still loved me.

“Look, I’m… I’m sorry for not helping around,” he finally said, dropping the pieces on a little blue dish by the coffeepot.

“I’m sorry for not being around as often,” I said, dropping mine along.

“Is this gonna change anything?”

I looked up at him. Chucky kept his sights square on the blue dish, staring down the pieces I was going to have to glue back together. I wondered if he was really thinking about getting me a new one. A fixed mug might still be pretty leaky, after all. Still, even with one exactly like it, it wouldn’t be the same.

“No… No, probably not,” I admitted with a little chuckle. “I don’t think so.”

He gave me one of his half-smiles. “Yeah, I don’t think so either.”

We both chuckled bitterly, looking down at the now-cold puddle of coffee at our feet, and we sighed.

“Know what?” he said suddenly. “I think I still have an old werewolf mask I wore for a few Halloweens, back when I was a kid.”

I smiled. “You think it’ll still fit you and your big dumb head?”

He snickered. “I haven’t changed that much since then.”

“Boy, don’t I know that.”

He laughed. I giggled along, wiping away my last tears. It made no sense to argue so much, especially over such silly things. But we still did it, and it didn’t last long, but we could really hurt each other. Even if we managed to forget about it, I still had to wonder how much I could take before I really snapped. Or, on the other hand, how much Chucky could take himself, before he lost all patience with me.

As long as we loved each other, though, I had to believe that everything would be alright.

“Got any money left from your shopping trip?” Chucky asked, picking up the tie he had left hanging from the chair.

“Yeah, a couple bucks…”

“Ah, never mind that,” he said, tying the knot of his tie around his neck. “I’m treating us both to dinner tonight. What’re you in the mood for?”

I tapped my chin with the tip of my finger, pretending to give it some deep thought. “… Remember that little Italian place by Franklin Avenue, with the great food and the awful service?”

Chucky grinned, circling his arm around my waist and pulling me to him. “You took the words right out of my mouth.”

I laughed, pulling him by his shirt collar for a kiss. “Let me put on my shoes and we’ll get going.”

“Don’t forget about your switchblade,” he said, putting on his coat. “I’m not sharing my knife again.”

“That was just one time! I never even take it out of my bag,” I exclaimed, holding onto his shoulder for balance and squeezing my feet into the heels. “And sharing won’t kill you, you know?”

He rolled his eyes. I huffed, but decided not to keep at it. It was nothing that couldn’t be fixed with a good meal and some fun for dessert.

“Ready to blow off some steam?” he asked with the keys in one hand, the other stretched out to me, his fingers twitching and hurrying me.

I nodded, skipping towards him, and grabbed his hand. I noticed there was a quiet buzzing in the air. I saw, just before we closed the door and left the apartment in the dark, a big fat fly hovering around the sink.

As we walked back home that night, hand in hand, sticky with strawberry ice cream and warm blood, I had the brilliant idea to suggest we played a few rounds of poker so we could decide who was gonna do the dishes, at least for the month. Chucky accepted, obviously; he never refused a game or a dare. He was quite better at it than I had expected, though of course, even as I turned a blind eye to a couple cards, I ended up winning by a landslide. He did manage to convince me to be the one to dry and put it all back into the cabinets, and, for extra measure, he also threw in a deal that he would choose what we had for dinner for the next two months or so. He already kind of did, though, so I didn’t mind much. So, while Chucky scrubbed the grease off the spoons, I dried what he had cleaned and put it back into the cabinets. When we worked together, it didn’t feel like the daunting mountain of waste it always seemed to be. If only we could find a way to keep it up, just like when, once in a blue moon, he would help me cook by chopping garlic and onions (since, for God knows what reason, he was the only person I had ever met who somehow didn’t tear up), I knew we could be so much happier together.

Not that happiness was in short supply that month, certainly.

I was really excited for the Halloween party, of course, but it wasn’t the only reason for celebration that month: our anniversary was coming up, too. Sitting on the kitchen table, with the TV keeping me company the Thursdays-to-Saturdays evenings in which I was home alone, I glued my mug back together in parts, building it up over the days, waiting patiently for the glue to dry fully before adding the next batch of pieces, while thinking about what we should do to observe the occasion. I considered booking us a table at some fancy restaurant, or preparing a picnic at Foschini Park, before finally deciding that it would be much nicer to just spend the day by ourselves at our apartment, enjoying a good homecooked dinner and each other’s company. I certainly liked big gestures, like last Valentine’s Day, in which Chucky got us a room at a swanky hotel; but sometimes smaller things were wonderful, too.

I prepared Swedish meatballs, his favorite, to eat along with that type of ribbon-like, flat wide pasta noodles, my favorite. Something wonderful about cooking was how the place would warm up, how it made what was otherwise our little, rather messy apartment, into something that felt much like a home. The water had already boiled and I had strained the pasta, now waiting in the pot to be served, while the sauce was bubbling and simmering on the stove. While he set the table, I changed into my nightdress and fixed my hair in front of the bedroom mirror, humming to myself.

“Don’t let the sauce burn, hun,” I called, breaking the silence.

“Alright…”

I took one last drag of the cigarette on our dresser, turning my head to see how my hair was looking. It was a truly lovely afternoon. The sun was setting, the last light of the day was streaming through the windows, and he was choosing a record to put on.

“I’m not in the mood for Alice Cooper again,” I said out loud, carefully taking out my curlers. “Put something else—”

Right on cue, Robert Plant’s wails came to me from the living room. I smiled. I left the pins on the box and walked in to have a better listen –and Chucky surprised me from the other side of the doorframe and hugged me from behind, picking me up and spinning around, and I let out a happy little squeal, grabbing onto his arms, before he lowered me back onto the floor. I leaned my head back, and he swayed his head to the music, mouthing the words against my cheek.

“I said, I can't quit you, babe…” I sang along. He laid a little kiss under my jaw. “I guess I got to put you down for a while…”

“Good choice?”

“Yeah,” I smiled, stroking his face. “Good choice.”

“This was my first record,” he said. I turned around just enough to shoot him a curious glance. “The oldest one.”

“Figures,” I said, closing my eyes. “I can imagine you so clearly… A little boy, having his whole world rocked, listening to this for the first time.”

Much like the books on his shelf, the record sleeve was so worn and cracked, and there was so much age and scrapes on the record itself, it made perfect sense it had some real nostalgic value. I wanted to ask him if it had been back when he lived with his family, or when he was already an orphan, living with other kids. Maybe a schoolfriend had come over and brought the record. Maybe it was a gift from his parents. Maybe an older kid at the orphanage had smuggled it in, and all the other children gathered round like they were listening to horror stories around a campfire, mesmerized by this hot new music, unlike anything they had experienced before.

I imagined that was probably a lot like what his first time had been like. A normal setting, a daily situation, interrupted by something life-changing.

“A year already…” I said, turning around to face him and resting my arms on his shoulders. “It’s amazing how time flies, huh?”

He nodded, his smile just the littlest bit weaker. I noticed it, though.

“What’s wrong?”

“… Is something burning?”

“Oh –shit.”

Chucky laughed while I ran to the stove to turn it off, and quickly checked on the tomato sauce.

“I told you to watch it,” I said, clicking my tongue. “Anyway –it’s done.”

“Good, good…” he chuckled, as I came back from the kitchen. “Hey, Tiff,” He took a paper-wrapped object out of his pocket. “This little toy seems to have your name on it.”

“Oh?” I perked up. “For me? What is it?”

Chucky grinned and tossed it at me. I caught it and ripped the paper as quick as I could. It was an absolutely beautiful nail file, shiny and silver, with a sharp edge on the side, sharp enough to slice. I gasped in delight, running the edge of it against my thumb, making the thinnest, most delicate cut, enough to break skin but not enough to draw blood. Beautiful. And miles better than my old rusty switchblade.

“Happy one year, babe,” he said, wrapping an arm around me and planting a kiss on my temple.

“Oh, Chucky… I love it,” I said, trying it out, filing one of my chipped nails. It was pretty good –heavy duty. With a bit of care, it should last me quite some time. “It’s exactly what I was needing.”

“It’s not the same as stabbing, you know,” Chucky commented. “But throat slicing’s an art you already master, after all.”

“Flatterer,” I said, turning my eyes towards him, pressing the nail file against my lips, feeling its perfect metal coldness, before smiling again and giving him a smooch. “It’s the perfect gift, darling.”

This reminded me of my own purchase. Giving him another quick little peck and slipping the nail file under the elastic of my stocking for safekeeping, I hurried back towards the doorway, where the coatrack was and where I hang my jackets and my black leather bag.

“I like to think that today’s special dinner is my present, but… I also got you this little something.”

I pulled a bag out of my jacket pocket, and carefully handed it to him. Chucky glanced at me, curious and excited, before opening the little colorful plastic bag and peeking inside. His reaction though, was, let’s say, underwhelming. He frowned, in what seemed to be confusion. For a moment I wondered if it had broken when I had brought it home.

“What is it?” I asked him.

“You tell me…”

“Well, take it out!” I chuckled. “Take a good look at it!”

Chucky picked it out from the bag and held it carefully in the palm of his hand. I smiled at the sight of it. It was this cute little porcelain clown doll, in a yellow outfit and hat, with little bells sewn to the tips of his shoes. It had this cheeky grin painted on, and half-closed eyes looking sideways, as if he knew some sort of naughty secret.

“Isn’t he the cutest?”

He kept examining it for a few seconds more –I swear, he just wanted to mess with me –but finally he let out a snicker. “It’s… Yeah. It’s the cutest little bastard of your collection so far.”

“My collection?” I repeated, putting my hands over his. “This one’s yours, sweetface…”

He shot me a confused look. “Really?”

I laughed. “Of course! It’s your present!”

“Oh… Okay,” he said, turning it around again. “Uh… Well, y’know, I have no idea what I should do with it. You’re the one who puts them around, sets them in their place…”

“Well, this one’s yours, so you get to decide all that.”

“Huh…” he muttered, inspecting the toy again, as if waiting for it to do a dance or say a joke or something. I began to wonder if it had been a good idea in the first place.

“Don’t… Don’t you like it?” I asked him.

“Yes, I do, Tiff, it’s just that… I don’t know –what am I supposed to do with a weird little clown?”

“Don’t I ask myself that question every other day,” I joked. He rolled his eyes. “You can just keep him around, like with any other toy. You can put it on the shelf with the rest of them, or you can put him in the closet to look after your shirts, or in the kitchen cabinet so he can watch out for rats—”

“Well, he looks pretty fragile,” he said. “Bet a determined rat could do a number on him.”

“Maybe he’s tougher than he seems,” I shrugged. “What would you name him?”

Chucky looked up at me, then back at the little clown. I could see how his face lit up as he was coming up with an idea. And, finally, he smiled. “I’ll keep him on the nightstand. He can watch over us… And we can call him Peeping Tommy.”

I burst out laughing. “Oh, so he’s an impish little one!”

“I bet he is,” he grinned. “Bet all the things he does when we’re not looking—”

“So, you do like it,” I said brightly. “I’m so glad.”

“Yeah, I like it… It’s just a really fucking weird gift, is the thing, Tiff.”

“What would you have liked, then?” I asked him, raising my eyebrows, while he leaned to the side and left little Tommy on the coffee table, next to the heart-shaped ashtray. “So I know what to be on the lookout for by Christmas.”

Chucky simply shrugged. “I don’t know… A pack of gum. A tie clip. A ham sandwich… Really, Tiff, I’m not that hard to buy for.”

 “Alright, then,” I said with a laugh. “We’re gonna have the best ham sandwiches available for our Christmas dinner.”

“That’d be just terrific,” Chucky smiled, and kissed me again.

I wrapped my arms around him, pulling him closer. As we kissed, deeper and deeper, as his hand got closer and closer to the nail file on my thigh, my unfocused thoughts went to how full he made me feel, how I had never fit somewhere as perfectly as I did in his arms, how after a year, regardless of how short or how long a time it had felt, there was this knowledge that this was the love I was searching for, the only love in which I felt myself. Whoever I was when I was with him, it was the closest thing to a real me than there ever was. I think that back when we first met, when Chucky held the back of my neck and a butcher knife over my head, and I smiled at him and welcomed it, that was the first time I felt I was truly understood. I held him tighter, pressing myself against him fully, wanting to lose myself in him, all the while needing to breathe and needing the kiss to last a little longer. A year was not enough –I needed a lifetime. God, I wanted to be the one to bury him so badly. I wanted him to be the one to bury me.

“Did you ever think we’d end up like this?” I asked him, breaking the kiss, almost in a whisper. “A whole year together?”

“Did you?”

“I asked you first.”

“I asked you second.”

I scoffed, wiping his lips with the tip of my fingers –he had my lipstick all over his mouth, like a big red stain. Chucky scrunched his nose, playfully dodging my hand. “I think… I did. You know, I’d almost given up on dating by the time I met you. I had this really clear image in my mind, when I was a kid… Of this beautiful home, and this beautiful spouse, and these beautiful children, and this fairytale life… It was as if everything I did was just killing time till that dream came true. And then, then I had my last breakup,” I sighed.

He smiled proudly. I rolled my eyes.

“Yeah, good for you, asshole, but back then I was devastated.”

“Good thing nobody ever broke up with me, then.”

“Nobody ever broke up with me either,” I pointed out. “That didn’t mean it was any easier on me. I was so hopeless, I felt like giving up completely.”

He frowned, still smiling. “Really? What were you gonna do with your life, then, before meeting me?”

I shrugged, clicking my nails. “I don’t know… Guess I was aimless. What about you? Did you have a plan?”

“No… Never,” he replied. I should have imagined it. “Like I told you, Tiff, best thing you can do is live for the day,” Chucky insisted, laying his hands on my shoulders. “You gotta get some fun out of life. Don’t you know? Every day above ground is a good day.”

“You ever thought of becoming a motivational speaker? You’d make a fortune,” I joked. “Back when I lived for the day, it felt more like I was chasing an early grave.”

“Guess that’s part of the fun,” Chucky said, looking away from my face and playing with one of my curlers. I tried to slap his hand off, but he laughed and kept trying to pull one off my hair. “The closest you are to the edge…”

“Guess you’re right,” I said. And I smiled to myself, thinking back of how we met. “Guess I’m the one who knows that best.”

“Bet you are.”

“Stop it,” I said, though I did let out a little giggle when he finally managed to pull a curler off, letting down a thick curl of bleached hair over my face. Chucky laughed too, tucking it away from over my eyes and to the back of my head.

“Don’t overthink it, Tiff. You overthink it, you drain all the fun from it. You’re thinking about what you should have done better, what you should have done instead… As long as you’re in control of the situation, what the hell does it matter?”

“Right,” I remembered his gift, the nail file that I had safely stored in my stocking, and pulled it out, holding it between our faces. “Can’t fear death when you’re the one holding the knife.”

Leaning forward just a bit, I ran the dull side of the file across his face, using the hooked end of it to pull a strand of hair off his face, just like he had done with mine. He stayed still, perfectly still, looking down at my lips, allowing me to stroke his cheek with his gift.

“Live for the day… That’s a good philosophy,” I whispered. I wondered if he was at the very least a little afraid of me right then. If he was, he was really good at not showing it. “What do you live for, Chucky?”

He took a deep breath and thought about it for a second. “I think… I live for that small moment of recognition just before someone’s killed. You know what they say, about your life flashing before your eyes… I think that’s bullshit. I think that the last thing passing through someone’s mind is the realization that there is no way out of this. That you are completely powerless to save yourself.”

Pontificating again. Sometimes I wondered if Chucky ever wanted to be a preacher. Or a Bond villain.

“And you like that?” I had never really cared about whatever went through people’s last moments. I just found their dying, oh-shit faces hilarious.

“I love that,” he smiled. But then he thought it over. “… I love when that happens to someone else.”

I wanted to ask him, is that why he didn’t kill me, that night when we first met? Did I not have that look in my eyes when he threatened me with that knife? Was that why he spared me? But I thought of a better, more straightforward question. One I didn’t quite remember having ever asked him before.

“Why didn’t you kill me?” I asked him, lowering my nail file. “Yet, at least.”

Chucky frowned, his hands holding my hips just a little bit tighter, pulling me closer. “Well, why didn’t you kill me either? God knows you had your fair share of chances.”

I laughed out loud. Certainly, right then and there, I was holding a sharp object dangerously close to his neck. One he had handed me himself, no less. “Isn’t it obvious? Because I—”

But I stopped myself right there. I usually don’t even think about it, when I tell someone I love them. And, besides, we had been a full year together. Still, even though I was sure I had told him, probably more than once, at some point or another, that I loved him, something made me change my mind at the last second.

“… Because I have fun with you.”

Chucky shrugged. “Same back at you.”

That felt good enough. I grinned and pressed my forehead against his, closing my eyes, focusing on the music, on the pressure of his body against mine. We both swayed to the music, kind of like dancing, softly, holding each other close. I wondered why I couldn’t just say it, that I loved him, right then and there. Maybe it was because I knew he knew already. He had to know –I showed him so every single day we were together.

“If you killed me, how would you do it?” I asked quietly. “Top three ways, don’t think too hard about it, just go.”

“Oh, um…!” He threw his head back, going through what was probably a list he already had made up in his mind. “Electrocution, because that’s always a blast… Second, maybe a classic stabbing –or maybe hanging –no, definitely, stabbing’s better—” I rolled my eyes with a little laugh. Of course he would go with stabbing. “… And I’ve always wanted to try splitting someone with an axe or something like that, right down the middle. See what’s inside.”

I raised an eyebrow. “So, being an axe murderer is still on your to-do list?”

“Yeah,” he sighed longingly. “Someday, I know it.” Having said that, Chucky pulled aside a strand of hair that I hadn’t managed to wrap around my curlers. “What about you, Tiff? How would you kill me?”

“Do I have to answer?” I asked him back with a little grin. “After all, now I got a heads up on what you might try to pull on me.”

“Yes, you have to answer,” he insisted. “I already told you mine, now you gotta tell me yours, it’s only fair—”

“Alright, alright,” I huffed, and looked up at the ceiling like he had done. “Hmm…” I did have to think it over. Chucky had obviously just listed the things he wanted to do and hadn’t had a chance yet. But I wanted mine to be more personal. “… I always thought maiming was an interesting approach.”

“C’mon, that’s not a real way to kill someone—”

“Yes, it is! If you make them bleed out—”

“But then that’d be death by blood loss,” he pointed out. “Not death by maiming.”

“Well, beheading, then. The most lethal maiming of the bunch. Then I might be able to keep your head in a shoebox in my fridge,” I said, twirling a lock of his hair around my finger. “Now wouldn’t that be nice.”

He chuckled. “Always the romantic, Tiff—”

“Okay, but second on the list, it would be burning…” I said. “Because I do really want to try that out sometime, too.”

“Jesus—”

“What? Too extreme?”

“You’re choosing all the ones that would keep me dying for longer.”

I laughed. “Oh, come on, as if electrocuting was nice, quick and easy.”

“And your last one?”

“… A shot to the heart. Truly nice, quick and easy,” I said lovingly, patting his chest. “I’d make sure it wouldn’t hurt.”

He smiled and kissed my nose. “How sweet of you.”

I smiled and kissed him back. I rested my head in the small of his neck, pressing my cheek against his shoulder. One of his hands went up and rested on my back, just between my shoulder blades. It was almost like a hug. I felt I could stay like that forever.

“… You know something I am pretty bummed by, Tiff?”

“Yeah?”

“That I wasn’t there to see your first kill,” he said wistfully. “It’s something important. Life changing.”

I giggled as I moved back from his shoulder, facing him again. “Don’t worry about it. He was just an asshole I was sort-of dating.” As with everything that had happened before us, he didn’t really need to know the details of our relationship. Just bringing up my last breakup made me feel a bit sick.

Still, Chucky was now intrigued. “Mm… But how did you do it? Shot to the heart?”

“Well, he asked me to shave him, because he was kind of high and wasn’t very lucid,” I explained with a tilt of my head, as I tried to remember the details. “He handed me the straight razor –I had done this a few times before. And, y’know, one thing led to another...”

He let out a little snicker. “You sliced his throat?”

I smiled to myself. Indeed I did. My first time. “Yes. Slowly at first, until he began screaming… Then I stabbed his throat to keep him quiet, before ending the slit just under his ear.”

“And did he keep quiet?”

“No, he kept doing this… This gurgling sound…” I said, furrowing my brow in concentration, looking back up at the ceiling, trying to remember what it was like. “I don’t know what did him in, really, the blood loss or the choking.”

“Mm… What else?”

I looked down back at him. He was grinning that familiar smirk, gazing at me with that smug look in his face. I huffed. “Alright, listen, just because I didn’t stab him fifty times doesn’t mean it’s not pretty good for a fourteen-year-old—”

He suddenly pulled me to him and kissed me, a different kiss, and then I realized what he had meant with ‘what else’. I closed my eyes and kissed him back, and after a moment I giggled, tugging at his hair to keep him a few inches away, just enough to answer.

“While he kept bleeding out, and trying to say something, I was still holding the razor…” I whispered. “And I had done it slowly enough that it was, you know, soaked—”

He moved down to kiss my neck. A moan slipped from my lips. It took a couple of seconds for me to remember what I was saying.

“… Soaked with blood. And his body went limp, and I knew it was over… And the blood dripped down to my hand –and trickled between my fingers –and it was this warm, thick thing going down my arm, as I kept looking at the razor…”

That seemed to do the trick. He kept kissing, now with a bit of teeth, moving down to my collarbone. I sighed, dropping my new nail file. His hand went down my hips and to my thighs, groping and pressing his fingers against my skin, and I bent a knee, welcoming him between my legs. And, as he pulled down my bra, licking his lips, I thought…

“—Wait –I got an idea, baby.”

Chucky groaned and grumbled, but I pulled my bra strap back up and hurried to my drawers. I had forgotten where I had put those things, if I still had kept them at all… But they had cost me a pretty penny, so I should have better not thrown them away by accident.

He eventually followed me into the bedroom, sulking, with his hands in his pockets. “Are you gonna share it with the class, or…?”

“Just look for a rope I got, they might be in there with the rest of the dolls,” I told him, still searching, making a gesture towards the nightstand.

“Rope?”

I turned to him. “Yeah, and handcuffs.”

His eyebrows shot up in what I could only describe as some kind of thrilled shock. “Handcuffs?”

I took a deep breath and put my hands on my hips. “Are you deaf? Yes, handcuffs, that’s what I said—”

“Are those for what I think they’re for?”

I gave him a smile. “Why else would I have handcuffs for?”

He nodded, looking around the room, and rummaged through the drawers of the nightstand, now slightly more hurried. I stifled a laugh at his sudden excitement. I went on through the drawers, until I finally found them among some old fetish outfits.

“Ah, here’s the sneaky little thing—”

Chucky practically jumped to my side. “So, is that your idea?” he asked, glancing at the stuff in the drawer, then at me, then back at the stuff. His fingers were twitching, as if he had received an electric jolt.

I nodded. “Are you interested?”

He let out a breathless scoff.

“Would this be your first time?” I asked him.

“Uh… I’ve tried it once or twice, but I think it never…” Chucky shrugged with something more or less similar to embarrassment. Or, rather, as close as embarrassment as someone like him could ever get. “It never quite worked out as it’s supposed to.”

“Shame,” I sighed, though, undeniably, this made the whole thing more exciting. “Guess I’ll have to teach you, then. We’ll go straight to the basics, first level, so you don’t get too overwhelmed too quickly,” I said, picking out one of my gloves. But I looked back at him and raised one finger. “Only as long as I’m in charge, Chucky. Got it?”

He let out a deep annoyed groan, like he did when he was about to throw a tantrum. To my surprise, though, he managed to strain through it, and soon was smiling his crooked smile again. “Alright. But next time we switch.”

“Of course,” I said. I pulled out the drawer and emptied it on the bed. “Now: what caught your eye?”

Chucky really had no idea at all. I ended up deciding for us, since he clearly didn’t know the first thing about what to expect. Since fully tying him up could get sticky pretty quickly, handcuffs would do. I gave him a quick explanation of what I had in mind, since I could see just how impatient he was for us to start; and, lastly, I told him about the concept of a safe word, since apparently in those previous attempts he hadn’t had become familiar with it.

“Alright… So, what’s the word?”

“‘Buttons’?” I suggested as I picked up the things we would use, and put the rest away back in the drawer. “You can say it at any moment you find yourself uncomfortable or afraid, and we’ll stop.”

“Afraid, sure—”

“There’s no shame in admitting you’re scared,” I told him with a straight face.

He just laughed, and, at my request, began undressing.

“Ah, ah –you’ll have to take it all off for it, darling,” I said once he stopped. “Briefs too.”

“What?” he frowned. “Why? What for?”

“I need to have full access to you,” I explained with an innocent shrug, as if it was obvious. “And besides, it’ll be much easier if there’s nothing between me and you.”

Chucky huffed, but complied. In the meantime, I watched him, dangling the handcuffs with one hand and holding my getup in the other. Only once he was done and fully naked in front of me, I noticed how awkward he felt by it. I was still clothed. It finally dawned on me. This was a first.

“… You okay, darling?” I asked him gently.

“Yeah,” he replied. The anxiety was obvious in his voice. “When do we start?”

“Almost there,” I smiled, and patted the bed. “Now, lie down.”

He shot me a quick glance that veered a bit too close to uncertainty for my taste, but once again, he complied. I took his wrists carefully and handcuffed them to the bedframe, and then moved down and did the same with his ankles.

“Remember, ‘buttons’,” I said right after the familiar little clicking noise that confirmed it was nice and locked. “Plural.”

“You sure you know how to do this?”

“Are you hesitating, Chucky?”

He scoffed at this. “Of course not. I’m just asking—”

“Don’t worry,” I said, going back to him, and leaving a little kiss on his forehead. “I got some experience.”

And, now with him immobilized, I gave him a wink and disappeared into the bathroom.

“Hey! Where are you going?” he cried.

“You’re ready, but I’m not!”

He groaned. “How long is it gonna take?”

“Just a minute!” I answered in a sing-song voice, taking off the curlers from my hair. I had left the bathroom door open, but I knew that, from where he was lying (and immobilized as he was), Chucky wouldn’t get a single peek.

There was some excitement in finally being able to wear those black knee-high boots for what I had gotten them for. Apart from them, I hadn’t worn any of the stuff for a couple years now, but fortunately everything still fit perfectly. Maybe the corset was a bit tighter than before, but that’s how it was meant to be worn, regardless. I went back and forth on whether I would wear stockings or not, but decided against it. The long black gloves were enough, and since the boots would be staying on, stockings would just be a bother. It may not seem like it, but there really was a lot of thought put into looking that good. Not that Chucky could ever really appreciate it, anyways.

“Hey, Tiff!” he called from the bedroom.

“What?”

“How much longer? My nose’s itching.”

I snorted. “If you can’t be a little patient, then you won’t be able to enjoy it!”

“Well, it better be worth it.”

I finished the lacing, threw on the spiked collar just for old times’ sake, checked myself in the mirror and made sure my makeup was right. I put up my hair and retouched my lipstick, taking a little longer than needed, grinning to myself while thinking of Chucky being bored to death all tied up back in the bedroom. Indeed, a couple seconds later, I heard what sounded like him banging the frame of the bed with the back of his head. I snickered, not even trying to remain serious, and I went back to the bedroom –and he immediately stopped banging his head when he laid eyes on me.

“Tell me, sweetheart,” I smiled, leaning on the doorframe, making sure he could see all of it. “Was it worth it?”

“… We're off to a good start.”

I walked closer to the bed, in no hurry. He automatically tried to move forward –pulling from the handcuffs, as if he had forgotten I had him restrained. I giggled. I think it was only then that the full situation finally hit him.

“Shit.”

“Now we start,” I declared, standing by the end of the bed. “Now, remember, one last time. The safe word is ‘buttons’. Are you gonna remember that, dear?”

 “Yes,” Chucky grumbled. “I’ve already fucking told you—”

“Hey, be polite, now,” I said, raising my eyebrows and a gloved finger. “You’re in no situation to be rude.”

He scoffed, shaking his head. “Don’t push it, Tiff…”

“Pushing it is what it’s all about,” I said. “Unless you’d rather we just had dinner—”

“I didn’t say that,” he interrupted me. “I didn’t say anything like that.”

“Alright, then,” I sighed. This would be a true test of patience, it seemed. I only had one previous partner in this, but it had always gone quite smoothly. It would be stupid of me to think it would go like that with Chucky, though, of course. He always had to put up a fight.

Still, I thought with a smile, maybe that was what would make this the more fun.

“I’m gonna go soft on you, but you can always ask me to tone it down,” I said, climbing onto the bed, managing to keep my balance as I stood on the mattress on my high heels. “Okay?”

He nodded, but I wasn’t quite sure he heard me. He seemed a bit too distracted.

I smiled wider, down at him. And, slowly, stepped on his thigh, leaning my weight onto my heel. This was usually bad enough for a beginner to start to hurt. For some reason, though, he didn’t even flinch. I frowned. I let almost my whole weight on the heel in one go –and that he definitely felt.

“Fuck—!”

“That bad already, huh?” I giggled and raised my foot. “Baby, we’re just starting—”

“What, now I can’t even swear?” he snapped with a nervous grin. “You’re really being cruel…”

“Oh, I do try,” I smiled. I stepped on his thigh again, pressing a bit slower now. Without me saying anything, he did just try his best to grit his teeth and bear it, staring right up at me, without blinking once. I tilted my head. I pressed down harder. Chucky trembled just slightly. He was breaking. I went down harder, raised my chin, still staring him down.

“… Fuck –shit!”

I laughed and stepped off, dropping to my knees, sitting on his waist. “I win.”

“Congrats,” he muttered.

“Thank you,” I said with a smug smile, playfully drumming my fingers on his chest with my gloved hand, stroking his neck, his collarbone, his shoulders.

His expression softened a bit.

“Help me here a bit,” I said softly as I touched his lips. He shot me a puzzled look, but understood soon enough. He opened his mouth and bit the tip of my fingers. I smiled and pulled my hand off the glove. “Thanks, dear.”

He almost spit the glove to the side. I just had to laugh. There was something delightful in Chucky being restrained like that, he who always had restless hands, who didn’t like being still for long. Even then, just having to take the glove off his face, he was moving his hands in the handcuffs as if, if he just wriggled hard enough, he could get himself free. It was kind of cute.

I leaned down and touched noses. Chucky stretched his neck forward, trying to steal a kiss, but I moved back. He was so predictable. I knew fully well what he would try to pull.

“You really have a problem with patience, you know,” I said, pulling my other glove off and throwing it to the floor. Now, with both hands free, I ran my hands comfortably across his chest. “It’s kind of a pity.”

“Can you blame me?” he smiled.

I smiled back, slinking across him. “No, I guess I can’t.”

I reached down to his thigh, and felt the slight dent on his skin that was still there after I had stepped on it. I looked at it, curious to see whether it would bruise, and then back up to his face. If it still hurt him, it didn’t show. So, I went with the next best thing: I grabbed his thigh, just as he did with mine so many times, only that I had nails I could sink in. He let out a little groan.

“What, too sharp?”

He shook his head, swallowing a curse. “Just sharp enough.”

“Good.”

I dragged my nails up to his hip, scratching hard, feeling how he tensed under me. All of him was taut as a stretched rope, shifting all his weight forward.

“Tiff—"

“Hmm?"

Chucky opened his mouth, but couldn’t say anything. For once, he was speechless. I felt my pulse quickening. I had worked a miracle. I smiled and grabbed his dick. His jaw tensed as he gritted his teeth, with just a few muffled groans.

“You can be as loud as you want, baby,” I cooed in his ear. “I’m not gonna judge—”

“Fuck off, Tiff."

I grabbed him tighter. He let out something quite similar to a yelp.

“Then I’ll have to ask you politely, then,” I said, scratching it ever so slightly with my nails. “Could you please be a bit louder? Just for me. I’d like to hear you moan… It would help me, you know.”

“Jesus—”

“Won’t you give me a little help?” I said now, in a mocking plea.

He barely managed to smile. “If you want it so bad…”

It just had to be on his terms. He finally relaxed just a bit, as I kissed him deep, and he let out a small moan. But I wanted loud.

“Louder,” I ordered, and slapped his thigh. He groaned. “C’mon, darling, loosen up…"

“Make me.”

I slapped his thigh again, harder. “It’s such a boring game if you don’t play along,” I whined.

But I wanted to keep him guessing. I leaned down and kissed him, softer –to then surprise him with a little controlled bite on his lower lip. I tasted the tiniest bit of blood, and licked his lips with the tip of my tongue. He liked that. I sucked his bottom lip, tasting it more. He really liked that. I could tell by the rattling of the handcuffs.

“Such a pity you’re all… Tied up…” I grinned, moving away from him for a moment and kneeling again on the bed. He snorted a laugh. “… Bet you’d wanna do this yourself.”

I pulled down my panties, slowly, staring into his eyes, daring him to hold my gaze. He just couldn’t do it. Almost immediately he looked down, lips parting, as my hands went down my thighs, dragging the panties along.

“Bet you’d like to help.”

I sat on the space between his legs, and took the panties off from mine, off from my boots, and tossed them to the floor along with the forgotten gloves. I allowed him a moment to look down and enjoy it.

“Wouldn’t you?”

He chewed his upper lip. I smiled to myself, getting back on my knees, and sighed as I ran my hands over his arms.

“Such a pity—”

“Then let me loose, if it makes you so sad,” he said quickly, glancing back up to my face.

“So you wanna stop?”

“… No,” he said, after a few seconds of hesitation. “No. Keep going.”

We were really going soft this first time, only restraining him, barely doing anything else. The biting was usual for us. The scratching was a bit rarer, but I had nails, and I used them liberally. The slapping, that was new. But that was enough. Just to know I could do whatever I wanted to him, and that his pride would get too in the way for him to protest, was quite enough.

“Chucky…”

He looked up. I stroked his cheek, gently at first, before beginning to dig my nails onto his skin.

“Does it scare you, that I can do anything to you right now? Anything –and you can’t stop it?”

There was more metal clinking. I laughed. He really couldn’t get the whole being handcuffed thing through his head.

“I’m not scared.”

“You sure?”

I dragged my hand from his cheek to his throat. He stretched his neck, knowing what I had in mind. I sank my nails on his skin before opening my hand, stretching my fingers, and closing them around his neck.

“… You sure, Chucky?”

It was delightful, to see that little bit of fear in his eyes. I snickered, letting go. While unlacing the first few eyelets of the corset, I stared him down again. I wasn’t sure yet if he liked that half as much as I did –but God, it felt good to me. Focusing on his eyes, on his face, as I stood over him, was priceless. I just needed to hear the handcuffs rattling against the bedframe to know just how much he wanted to do things himself. Moving my hips forward and shifting my weight, and taking one deep breath, I slipped a hand down the front of the loosened top of the corset and grabbed my tit. Gazing at him, it was too easy to pretend it was his hand.

“Fuck…”

I smiled, closing my eyes for a moment, unlacing a few eyelets more. I felt his thighs moving from under my legs, trying to get closer. I sighed, freeing my chest from the corset, and heard a little shaky sigh coming from him as well.

“Tiff—”

Finally I smiled, opened my eyes and decided Chucky had enough to watch. I stretched my arms around his head and leaned down slowly, face to face. My chest barely grazed his. He looked down, his pulse racing, his mouth watering. I finally pressed myself against him, my chest against his, my hips against his, feeling him tensing up under me, and rested my head in the small of his neck. He gave me that nice moan I had been wanting so bad.

“Oh, hun—” I moaned in return.

He breathed against my ear. He wanted to say something –anything –he was desperate to have the last word –but his mind was blank. Me, I knew where his mind was.

I kissed his neck, softly at first, then biting down. He gave a little cry. I bit harder. I arched my back, making him focus on the pain. I couldn’t hear his breathing anymore –he was holding it. I pulled away ever so slowly, pulling the skin with my teeth. If I pressed just a little more, I could do some serious damage, I thought. I could rip the skin. I could rip out his throat like a wild dog. It took a lot of effort not to do it just out of sheer curiosity.

I let go. He breathed freely. I smiled and kissed again, just to keep him on edge. I went up, to his jaw, leaving little kisses all over it, while he pushed his head back, encouraging me to go ahead. I kissed and sucked and nibbled, thinking of all the marks I was gonna leave on him. My love. My Chucky.

I was getting wet already.

Finally, I threw my head back. He moved along with me, not wanting me to stop yet –but once he got to have a good look at me, he smiled again.

“God, look at you, babe…”

I grinned as I tilted my head to the side. “You haven’t had that view before, had you?”

He glanced over all of me again before fixing his gaze into my eyes. I ran my hand from his neck, to his chest, to his waist, to my thigh, up my waist and onto my chest. My other hand rested on his naked hip, holding him down and as still as I could.

“Easy…”

I stretched my hand towards his mouth. Right on cue, he opened up and sucked on two fingers hungrily, licking them, still staring into my eyes. He was finally doing as he was told without protesting. I pulled my wet fingers from between his lips and stroked my nipple, moaning quietly. He sighed. More rattling. I closed my eyes.

“You’re thinking that’s me…”

I smiled and nodded, biting my lip. My other hand travelled down and stroked, just barely, just over my pussy. He wouldn’t do that, though, I reminded myself. He always hurried a bit too much. He wasn’t a teaser. Not like that, at least.

“Tiff, you can’t fuck yourself like I can.”

I opened my eyes and looked down at him. Chucky was smiling his usual crooked grin. I don’t know why, but something about his tone just pushed me to it.

I slapped him, hard, right across the face. He looked at me in surprise, too shocked to even curse me out in response.

“Don’t get too cocky, dear,” I said coldly. Suddenly I wasn’t in the mood to smile. “Remember who’s handcuffed, and who’s on top.”

And, to my surprise, he grinned even wider. He gulped before talking back.

“Then act like it.”

A chill went down my spine. I slapped him again –he laughed –there were three thin red lines now crossing his cheek, where I had accidentally scratched him. I didn’t mean to do that. For a moment I was nervous, for just a couple of seconds, before he opened his mouth…

“You hit like a girl, Tiff—”

Again, harder. There was red dripping out his nose. He threw his head back and cackled, his eyes shining, and licked a bit of blood that had splattered over his lip.

“Now that’s more like it—”

I cupped his face, leaned down and kissed him hard. I couldn’t stop myself any longer. I grabbed his knee, still kissing him, and forced it higher, even though I could hear the metallic scraping of the handcuffs against the bedframe. I straddled his thigh. I grunted –it was warm where I had slapped him –and I began riding it.

Chucky let out a long groan. More rattling, more kicking, writhing furiously like a captured snake. He was tensing up to a dangerous degree.

“You’re gonna dislocate your shoulder, baby, if you keep at it,” I warned him gently, pushing him down with my hand on his chest. “And the pain of relocating it… It might be too much for one night.”

He let out a sudden laugh between gritted teeth.

“Stop squirming… Just relax,” I insisted, slowing down for a moment. “It’ll be easier.”

He closed his mouth, gazing at me with wide open eyes, and just nodded. There was a throbbing vein popping on his temple. But, slowly, through quiet breaths, he managed to loosen up a bit.

“… Good boy.”

I couldn’t have ever expected the result that would have on him. As soon as I said these words, Chucky got as flustered as a nun at a strip club.

“J-Jesus fuck, Tiff—” he managed to mumble.

My eyebrows shot right up. He never blushed before, even less this bright red. It looked like he was almost glowing. That, added to the blood smeared on his face, the scratches and the slapping…

“You really like this, huh, darling?” I hummed, grinding slow but steady on his thigh, just for him to get a taste of what was coming. “You look so cute like that…”

He whimpered, shutting his eyes tight, turning his face to his shoulder and hiding under his hair. The whimpering I liked, but not so much that he could still move enough to hide from me. Running my hand across his warm and reddened cheek, I got to his scalp, grabbed his hair and yanked it.

“Look at me,” I ordered. “Wasn’t that what you wanted?”

He still couldn’t say a word –just panted, just whined, like a little tortured animal. It was the loudest he had been in the year we had been together.

“You’re such a brat,” I said with a smile.

I reached for his dick. I barely had to graze it with the tip of my nails for it to stand on edge.

I giggled. “Well, that was quick—”

“Fuck—”

“Ah, ah, don’t you dare close your eyes,” I said, patting his cheek. “I want to see those baby blues.”

Whatever sort of release of tension he had managed, he got back in a second. Whatever, I thought. I liked watching him writhing regardless. I kept grinding against his thigh, harder and faster, pulling and stroking his dick along. Chucky groaned. It wasn’t easy for him to keep his eyes open.

“You like that, don’t you?”

Raising his sight to the ceiling, he took a deep breath and smiled, humming quietly. I stopped. He looked back at me with a sudden frown and a flash of anger in his eyes.

“Why d’you stop?”

“I asked you,” I repeated softly but firmly, leaning forward to him and brushing some hair off his face. “You like that?”

His expression softened a bit. “… Yes.”

“Does it feel good?”

“Yes…”

“Does it hurt?”

“Just… Just a little.”

“Want to keep going?”

He was so impatient. I could see him gathering all his strength not to curse me out. I just smiled, like he always did when he teased me. After a moment, he finally gritted his teeth and nodded.

“Use your words,” I ordered.

“I want to keep going,” he said quietly.

“I can’t hear you, hun.”

“I said, I want to keep going,” he repeated as he raised his voice.

“Then you better be good,” I said. “Tell me you’ll be good.”

Something had changed in the way he looked at me. There was still that flash of pure white-hot anger, which I had seen so many times before. There was something else there now, though. Chucky had been needy and desperate countless times –but never so clearly –it had never been so plainly reflected on his face. He was unraveling. The smug mask that was his face was cracking to reveal those little peeks I could only get a few times, when he couldn’t manage to keep himself quiet and composed, and showed his hunger. He knew he was good at making me tremble and moan and shriek (he knew and was proud of it), but too often he forgot I knew exactly what got him ticking, too. The big difference between us was that he was always too eager, too hurried to get to the good stuff. Me, I could be patient. I could undo him slowly, carefully, like unwrapping a present, or gutting a fish. If I wanted, I could have him begging for it.

Charles Lee Ray, begging. It was a lot less rare than it sounded.

“I’ll… Be good.”

I smiled at him, leaned down and let him have a tiny peck on the lips, as a reward. He leaned forward and managed to get me to linger on a kiss a moment longer. I giggled into his mouth.

“You said you’d be good…”

I reached for the nightstand and picked a condom, quickly ripped it open, and slipped it on him. He let out a delighted little breath of relief.

“We’re not done, baby,” I said. “Not yet.”

Pushing myself forward with my knees, I moved away from his thigh –he let out the tiniest, most adorable cry –and gripped his dick. He began breathing heavier, his chest and shoulders moving up and down with each pant. The rattling returned. I pushed it between my wet lips, spreading my thighs to the sides so he could see exactly what I was doing to him, how I was taking him in. But he wouldn’t get in yet. Not yet.

I leaned a little bit forward, resting my weight on my hand and my hand on his chest. He was hard, he was wanting, but I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction yet. I still wanted to have a little bit more fun.

“You really are fucking cruel—”

“But don’t you like it?” I asked with the biggest grin.

“God… I love it.”

I smiled, stroking his cheek. He leaned against my hand, pressing the side of his face to my palm. All I wanted was to look at him, to keep watching how he looked back up at me with that special type of affection that was so close to admiration. As if I was divine.

Just one more kiss, I told myself, breaking character. I leaned forward across the few inches that were still between us and kissed him long, and deep, and laughed against his mouth when his wrists rattled again, and I reached out for his right hand and intertwined our fingers. His hands were cold. Maybe there was little blood running through them. Whatever the case, Chucky didn’t complain. He kissed me back, and meanwhile, holding onto his hand, I moved ahead and began rocking my hips, pressing my pussy against his dick. Slowly at first, slow enough that, even with the condom on, he could feel how wet I was. But I was eager, probably just as eager as him, and it didn’t take long before I got moving faster, and by then I needed to throw my head back and take in a deep breath, and as much as I might have wanted to keep kissing him, we both knew this was coming.

I loved Chucky, of course I did, but I don’t think he ever looked as beautiful, as angelic as he did then: his face blushed, his mouth open and moaning and red from my smudged lipstick, his face shiny with sweat, his eyes tightly shut and his usually angry eyebrows, this time, raised and furrowed in needy despair. It was like falling in love with him all over again.

I was getting impatient, too.

Once I was more or less sure this was as far as we could both go while holding back, I finally reached behind me, turning around a little bit, like one would when parking a car. Feeling my way underneath my butt I grabbed his dick and, gently, pushed it up with my thumb and helped it find its way inside. I closed my eyes. Slowly, very slowly, I moved back down, feeling him sliding right in.

“Oh –that’s the spot,” I sighed with a smile and a shudder. “Mm…”

Chucky pressed the back of his head against the pillow, as I closed my thighs just a bit –clenching harder –letting myself fall on him, on my knees, against his legs. Then up again, slowly, before going down, and up, and down, savoring it. He looked like he was about to cry out. I grinned even bigger and closed my eyes again, wanting so badly to free his hands so he could hold me. Now, though, what could I do to make this one special? It was becoming hard to think clearly.

“Look up at me,” I ordered, my voice cracking.

He didn’t seem to hear me anymore. I slid my fingers through his hair, the top of his head, and yanked hard to call his attention.

“Look at me… Look at me, dammit.”

At last, he opened his eyes. They were glassy, and tired, but he smiled, and raised his chin, and looked at me. His eyes were so clear and light, I could see myself in them. I could see him seeing me. I had been wanting that so badly. In these eyes, I was glorious. I was the most beautiful creature that ever existed. I was wanted, and loved. I was finally seen.

I grinded harder against him, panting, faster, pressing down. Soon enough, I was moaning, and he was writhing, and the bed was creaking and we were at that point in which it was just a matter of time.

“Tiff—”

“Not yet…” I said between gritted teeth. My voice went higher as my heart beat faster and my mind was clouded to the point I could barely form a sentence. “J-just a little longer…”

“Tiff, please—”

“Just a little…”

He had never sounded like that before. God, it was so hard for me to pretend I wasn’t being torn to pieces by it. I understood how Chucky felt. Pressing himself to stay in character, to put on a front and adjust his mask. But it was slipping. And mine was next.

It was a game, like always. Who blinked first. Who laughed first. Who came first.

And he finally closed his eyes and came. The begging had lasted too little for my taste, but it always felt good to win. It was just a little bit longer before I came too, with a big smile, triumphant. And, as we both tried to breathe again, I noticed my arms trembling, and how Chucky himself was trembling ever so slightly. It definitely didn’t happen like that often. I knew I would love for it to happen often.

“Alright…”

I stood up on my wobbly knees and got off the bed. The corset, which at first was like a second skin, now felt too tight for comfort. I ripped it off me and dropped it to the side. Only then, once I managed to regulate my breathing, I decided I deserved a few seconds more in the afterglow, and, taking off the spiked collar, plopped right beside him on the mattress, lying my head on his left arm. Chucky’s face was still slightly blushed, red from my slapping, a mess of smudged lipstick (and I was probably not much better), and crossed by the bright red scratches I had left on him. I moved closer to examine them, and touched them with the tip of my finger, just to make sure I hadn’t hurt him too badly. It didn’t seem to sting anymore. It would heal quickly and nicely.

“Did you have fun?” I asked him.

Chucky smiled, his eyes closed. “… What d’you think?”

“I think you took it like a champ.”

I uncuffed him, carefully, and checked he didn’t get a cut or something.

“Tiff…” he mumbled, gazing up at me, still taking shaky breaths. “… I love you.”

I smiled at him. “I know, sweetface.”

And I kissed him once, sweetly, and snuggled against him, his warm cheek against my forehead, and with my ear against his heart, comforted in its steadying rhythm.

[xhellodollyx]

Im gonna give Don major props — he's done some things with the series that Im not a huge fan of (mostly relating to backstory and characterizations of Chucky and Tiffany and making them one note, when in Bride and Seed they had spice 🤌 aka moments of real human emotions), but he's done a really great job with Glen and Glenda and both their internal struggles of being separated, not feeling whole, and struggling with who they are, who they used to be and what they can be now. With Glenda especially. Don could have easily made Glenda side with Chucky and be one note chaotic character who's only character trait is being a killer (the way ultimately Chucky and Tiffany ended up being) but no. He added struggle to their character, with the tendencies to become a killer like their parents, and killing only when its necessary, but not out of joy or because they were "born to be a killer". Glenda has accepted that they are the way they are but they can choose to not be like their parents, and I for one am deeply surprises Don actually went that route with Glenda's character arch this season.

[streets-in-paradise]

Best Friends Till the End - Andy Barclay x (Fem)Childhood Friend!Reader - Part 3

Masterlist

Word Count 5K

Relationships: Andy x Reader (romantical), glimpses of the sibling dynamic of Andy and Kyle. 

Warnings: Mentions of blood (an implied intense chucky hunting scene) 

Summary: The chaze after Chucky leads to certain inconvenients making Andy and Kyle accept staying with you, but some strange findings at your house split their opinions about trusting you.

Notes: Part 4 is on the way, i choose to split what I got for this one in two because otherwise it would have been over 10K. On a couple of days I’m gonna upload the next part because it’s not edited. 

Tags: @losersclubisms​

There was not much time to point out all the details that he would have preferred to, but Andy owed you an explanation. He felt so particularly strongly because he was imagining you seeing your life getting ruined in a matter of moments since his appearance and the incredible amount of guilt he was feeling for that was inconfessable. His most immediate instinct was thinking that Chucky found the way back to you through him. The doll head he kept in his place for years saw a picture of you playing together as kids put in a portrait next to the ones of everyone Andy cared for. He found out then that your friend never forgot you, that you were his last happy childhood memory. From time to time Chucky would make mention of you as part of the psycological torture, his favorite game being making him doubt about your survivor condition claiming that he could have killed you years ago and he wouldn’t even know. 

If he avoided reaching you for so long, that was only because he was convinced of being protecting you. Andy liked to imagine that being so little at the time played in your favor and you could have forgotten everything, turning it into a repressed traumatic memory. When thinking of his past and all the people who suffered from it, you were the only one who got away in time. Perhaps you two were too little to understand that it was the best for you, but time helped him to get convinced that he had to disappear from your life for you to have one. Keeping the memories of happier times was enough for him, stuff to get back from time to time when life would feel crushing. He wished you all the normal bliss he would never have and hated to realize his and Chucky’s arrival could be interrupting it. 

“ I’m so sorry, you shouldn’t have to be part of this ever again.” He was barely able to look at you, shame mixed with some of his usual survivor's guilt making it unnecessarily hard. “ It’s my fault, I brought the son of a bitch back to you again. I should be the last person you shall want to see.” 

Careless for the passing of time, you comforted him in the same way he would have done with you as kids, by tenderly kissing his forehead before directing him reassuring words. 

“ Would you believe me if I tell you that I have been waiting for this all my life? I am not scared, I am relieved. I knew he was going to come back, now I can finally stop waiting.” 

He was very confused, the cluelessness in his expression was a consequence of the crash between his assumptions and your reality. 

“ All this time?” 

“ I am only glad that he brought you back to me.” You sweetly confessed. “ I never forgot:  doctors, teachers, friends … partners. The whole world wanted me to but I didn´t, I refused to do it. My mother was one of the few exceptions, she had a peculiar way to process things. If we survive, I will make some time to tell you.” 

At that point he had to correct you, he didn’t like your use of plural. 

“ There is no ‘us’ on this: you take the kids out and let me handle it. “ Andy stopped you. “ I brought backup, we are going to be alright.” 

In that command you recognized the little boy who once told you to stay hidden in the closet as he was getting ready for a fight with a baseball bat. 

“ Some things never change.” You teased him. “ I am not a little girl anymore and my job is strategic from many standpoints. Around ten percent of it consists of searching for stuff the kids loose, I have an eye trained to find toys in uncommon places. I can help, you just have to trust me.” 

It wasn’t an option, Andy wasn’t going to take the risk. 

“ I trust you, I’m sure you must be a champion at Where is Wally: toy edition; but we are talking of Chucky. “ He insisted. “ Kyle has gone through this with me before, Chucky was back when we met in foster care. She is my eldest sister, she has fought by my side many times and I can assure you we will get the situation under control.” 

Exactly as he was finishing the sentence you got to hear the sound of the fire alarm, excuse his sister must have found to evacuate the place. 

“ Andrew William Barclay, you are not getting away with this.” You complained, knowing that your job would force you to stay away from the hunting ground. “ Not again, I’m not going to stay in the freakin closet! ” 

There was no way ever in which he could have forced you to stay completely at margin. Once you got your kids out you rushed back inside under a partially true excuse. Camila was distressed because her toy could be trapped in a fire, although the glances you shared helped you see she was perhaps a bit scared that he could be the one causing it. The girl was begging to understand there was something wrong with it and that tale about the toy sickness you came up with helped a bit on that part. You impulsively got back, excusing yourself to one of your colleagues so she would watch over your group under the claim of trying to fix the problem of the little girl. 

A very personal motive was impulsing you to make such a reckless choice, you craved to find the ginger bastard for a resolution of your issues. You always knew he once spotted you as the weakest, the trembling tag along little friend of Andy who used to be too scared to present resistance. You were his terrified assistant from the very first crime: you helped him out of the boy’s bed so he could get to kill Maggie. Andy would deny it to make you feel better but you were sure that, if Chucky would have shown himself to you first, he would have got the human body he wanted simply because you were too scared of him to do better. You wanted to help, but you also wanted to stop feeling powerless. To prove yourself that the doll wouldn’t paralyze you of fear anymore, that you were strong and he was wrong. 

The scene you found didn’t provide you the space to get what you wanted because you got there too late. The fight had already started and was reaching its end. All you got to do was share a certain shock with the only remaining witness aside from you, a woman that you guessed was his sister. 

There were no gunshots, a silent attack was preferable in that context but convenience wasn’t his reason for it. Andy let it get way too personal, even more than usual, because that time he had reasons to believe the doll was coming for you. He practically handled the killing all on his own, fury overcame him to a point in which he simply couldn’t stop himself despite being aware Kyle was looking. He wanted Chucky gone in the messiest, goriest way for daring to get close to you. The doll was long gone, head smashed into an unrecognizable mess after he stomped it with his feet, but Andy kept stabbing the body out of rage and rejoicing on the tons of blood coming out of it. 

Only the sound of your voice got him out of the trance. 

“ Andy… are you alright?” You asked him out of quick impulse, even when the visual evidence would prove otherwise. “ Jesus Christ, there is blood all over you.” 

He stopped immediately, horrified to find out you discovered him on action. 

“ Don’t worry, it's not mine.” Was all he managed to come up with. “ It comes out of him, remember?” 

You laughed at the answer and gave a few steps towards him, standing there to curiously observe the scene. 

“ Is that all that's left of Chucky?” 

“ At least this one. We haven't got to that part yet, but you have to know there are many out there now and we can’t know for sure if that was the only one he sent. ” He patiently informed you. “ You shouldn’t be here, this is just … plain disgusting.” 

You bent down to reach him, held his hand and used the red stain left in your fingertips to draw a smiley face on the back of your only clean hand. It was a dark act of reassurance still implying some light within. 

“ Would you mind staying in my house later so you can explain to me all I need to know?” You calmly asked, giggling a bit afterwards because he seemed more shocked than you.“ You need to take a shower and I don’t think any hotel will allow you to check in like this.” 

Observing you got Kyle convinced that, one way or another, the youngest kids who stumbled across Chucky had to be the most damaged no matter the numbers in their encounter count. Her brother briefly told her during the search that you were teaching there and she knew of your existence from the beginning in the foster home, when her teenage self ended up asking a seven years old Andy who gave him the bracelet he seemed to protect over many other of his possessions. She was, saving the circumstances, pleased to know she would get to know you but the oddities in your first meeting were significant. 

There was a horrifying complicity on your part regarding the atrocity committed, which made her wonder if you shared with Andy some desensitization to violence product of being exposed to it since before you could even process it. Her brother, however, looked fascinated as if he would have found a soulmate.  

You may have managed to become better adjusted, but you were far from normal. For instance, you allowed them to reach your place ahead of you so Andy would get clean. No questions needed, no explanations required: you were inviting them to hide there just for the sake of your old friendship with Andy. 

“ Are you sure that’s not a bit too much?” Kyle tried to convince you against it. “ I understand you are grateful, but we don’t want to cross any weird limit.” 

His clumsy attempt of refusal was accidentally accompanied by some more assumptions. 

“ It’s really kind of you, but we can’t accept that. “ Andy followed her. “ What would your family say if they found a man covered in blood in their bathroom?” 

The comment was quite odd to you, since you felt it implied a particular definition of family.

“ My only family living there is my sister and she is currently out of town.” 

Andy was very surprised to hear that because it went against all his predictions. 

 “Really? I just thought that maybe…” 

You weren’t sure of why he would assume right away that you were a married woman having children. Perhaps because your profession involved taking care of kids? There was no way to know, but it flattered you.  

“ You are the only husband I ever had. “ 

He knew you were talking of your childhood games playing pretend to be a family using your toys as children. The mere mention got a shy smile out of him, which was an incredible contrast with the expression and demeanor shown briefly before. 

All the hate he had for Chucky was directly proportional to his sweetness with you. 

“ Well, thank you!” He answered, hoping the splats of blood were helping to cover up from another sort of red on his face. “ It's cute that you remember that. I only hope I was a good husband. “ 

He would have never been ready for your even sweeter comeback. 

“ The best ever, you saved my life.” You said before proceeding to give his sister context. “ When we were kids we used to play being a married couple, among many other games. It was the first game Chucky saw us play. Andy wanted him to play his coworker, but I wanted him to be my baby. I will never forget that moment, the very first words he said to me : ‘No fucking way, bitch’ “ 

Kyle didn’t want to laugh, but it escaped out of her because the anecdote was cute and awful at equal amounts. What didn’t escape to her was the effect you had on her brother. You two were extremely weird, but it seemed to be making him good. 

In her reasonable concern awakened by the unusual situation, she indulged in a bit of harmless searching across your house once they got there. There would be some time left before you would come back from work, since you were probably stuck dealing with the mess left behind and waiting for the parents to pick up their children. She made sure  Andy would go directly to the shower, using that time to figure out more of who you were. The first detail that she noticed were some weird signs placed close to every entrance of the place, windows included. It looked like some sort of witchcraft that made her fear they could have walked into a trap. A black cat sleeping in the biggest couch of your living room felt like a sign of confirmation for something suspicious. 

For the first time, he was the one refusing to acknowledge any issues. She later tried to bring up the observations but he wasn’t listening. 

“ We don’t know anything about this woman and she doesn’t know anything about us yet here we are, crashing at her place like long time pals. I hate to be saying this but.. Since when do you trust people, Andy? What’s wrong with you?” 

He wasn’t acting like himself and he was aware of it. 

“ She is very special to me.” Was his first, most imminent reply. “ We discovered Chucky together, but even before that we once were each other’s best friend.” 

“ I get it, you have good memories from when you were kids, but that was decades ago. If those feelings wouldn’t be involved you would see how suspicious that looks like. If that is actually witchcraft, then she could be connected to Chucky.” 

The questioning seemed to get him a bit irritable. 

“ For fuck’s sake, trust me in this! “ Andy complained, still trying to avoid shouting. “ She picked a career out of wanting to avoid more children to end up like us. Do you wanna know how I found out it was her? She kept the Scooby Doo plush that was her favorite back then and she shows it to the kids. She is exactly as sweet as she used to be.” 

That conviction came from more than just some observed facts. Andy was sure that watching him kill that Chucky should have scared you away, but it didn't. Instead, you reassured him in the sweetest way. Despite being an accidental witness of his darkest side emerging you didn’t rush out in fright for what he did and that was wonderful. 

“ Nothing else in my life is as it used to be, Kyle, but she is. One moment in her classroom and I was already feeling like a kid again.” 

The words implied that, but he didn’t dare to say the word happy. That was what happened: for an instant he got a reminder of how it was to be a happy kid, untouched by Chucky. While being with you his inner child found a special comfort at the same time his adult self was freaking out about feeling that peculiar attraction towards the woman you have become. He felt guilty because of how hopeful he was when you denied his assumptions about your relationship status. 

“ Alright, let’s do this. '' Kyle concluded, in a more relaxed tone. “ First we figure out that she isn’t some murderous witch about to offer us in sacrifice, then we get you a date.” 

The jump to conclusions surprised him and they were about to enter into some silly bickering about the tease. 

“ I never said I like her that way.” 

“ Andy, I am the eldest and you honestly ain’t fooling anyone. “ His sister snarked back. “ You can’t fake even when your life depends on it, that’s why I always handle the interviews.” 

They searched up carefully and under very different criteria. While she wanted to find anything to help confirm or reject her theory about you, he was trying to figure out things to get to know you personally. What things you liked or disliked, your habits, anything that the information in your house would allow him to find out. He was paying attention to your decoration, searching for portraits showing any photos, then looked at your old CDs and the dvd collection in the living room. Of course, some could belong to someone else living there with you, but it was fun trying to make guesses on which stuff could be yours. 

There was a characteristic mix of adult, sometimes dark, and childish elements all over your things. Stuff like the weird symbols Kyle noticed was being balanced with your use of light colors on the walls. Plushies were placed as random decoration tokens and there was a cute scratcher house for your cat. You had a collection of horror movies mixed with children cartoons; a Backstreet Boys CD old enough to belong in your teenage years three titles away from some equally old goth rock records. The living room had portraits on display, which made him stop caring about those minor oddities into solving one particular wonder going on in his mind. 

Family, friends, pets you had over the years; the pictures were information about events in your life. The intrigue of knowing if there was a space still saved there for him was killing him, but the answer he found was greater than what he could have ever imagined. On top of a shelf, there was a portrait displayed next to your old Strawberry Shortcake doll and following an empty space. He imagined that it must be Scooby’s normal place in your house, the two toys looking like guardians of that photo. It was taken on your fourth birthday, the last one of yours you shared with him, and you two were smiling in front of the cake. 

Not only it showed that you never forgot him, that small corner of your house was like a psychological altar to the innocence that you lost. Nostalgia, pain and hope all combined made him break and he let go some silent sobbing until his contemplation finished with a distraction caused by the irruption of the housecat reaching out to inspect him. 

By the time you arrived back home that suspicious approach became intense interaction. You had terrible news for everyone, but coming to see what you found made everything worthy. Andy was laying on your living room’s biggest couch and your cat was on top of him, getting comfy against his chest. It was extremely unusual and it got you in the purest awe. 

“ We were watching TV because we got a bit bored waiting, but your little buddy had other plans and felt like letting me know I was usurping his couch.” He innocently explained to you. “ I couldn’t refuse, he is adorable.” 

Your face was bright of happiness, unable to properly process what the scene was making you feel. 

“ Freddy! That’s not how we treat our guests, let Andy have the couch. He must be exhausted from hunting and, unlike you, he killed the prey instead of wound it to play with it.” You mockfully reprimanded your cat while reaching out to caress the top of his head. You also bent down a bit to salute Andy with a kiss on the cheek. “ Mind if I take a picture? He is never like this with strangers, you don’t know how lucky you are. I am amazed.” 

“ We are two, you don’t know how hard it is to see this one with his guard down.” Kyle commented, but about her brother. “ He is making me feel paranoid when usually he is the untrustful one.” 

You dropped some bags to grab your phone and, after getting your old friend’s permission, you took a few pictures of the curious episode. Andy smiled shyly for the camera and the overall cuteness in him was making your heart race. 

“ Don’t worry, if you wanna talk about paranoia you came to the right place.” You answered back at the blond woman on the individual seat beside. “ Most of my resting furniture is Chucky proof, nothing bigger than my little boy gets to hide underneath beds or couches. The systems are self designed, I got too many years of that fantasy about getting stabbed from underneath my bed.” 

“ Do you get those too?” Andy asked, showing an evident amazement that kept growing. “ Shit, that’s horrible. Although being strangled from behind is a strong competition for that one.” 

“ I made peace with the strangling part. When we were teens my cousins were about to get rid of their Good Guys and I asked to keep those ‘ for closure reasons’. “ You began to confess yourself. “ My eldest cousin used to be a bitch, she locked me in a closet with the dolls as a joke when we were 8. When I finally got hands on those bastards I destroyed them and made a necklace with their shoelaces. I called it a Chucky Choker.” 

The funny disturbing anecdote got a few laughs despite the implicancies. 

“ It’s common sense, not paranoia.” Andy followed you. “ Nothing is being too careful, you will never be ready.” 

“... and fuck chimneys!” 

The inside joke was about the way in which Chucky broke into Andy’s old apartment when you were running away from him. 

“ Feeling unprepared pisses me off: when I finally have the upper hand the asshole flips the board and switches the rules!”  You continued, actual frustration mixing on your speech. “ Suddenly he decided to go body positive, embrace his doll form, and now we get tons of him instead of one kid being chased for a body. I spoke with Camila and I have awful news. Do you wanna get those now or after eating? I brought some takeaway.” 

Kyle answered for both, showing herself slightly more relaxed. 

“ Bad news first. Spit it out.” 

“ She said ‘Oscar’ told her about his many friends and was ‘making weird jokes’ about convincing her to kill me.” You explained, more indignated than scared. “ WHY? Since WHEN does he need kids to do his dirty work?” 

Andy was as surprised as Kyle regarding that last part, but he also saw his worst fears confirmed: you were a target. 

“ Never before, that’s new.” He replicated. “ If he wants you dead, he comes to get you.”  

“ As far as i know, Camila has no babysitters and there is no housekeeper. Chucky must have run out of potential victims in her house. Killing the parents is not an option if he wants to manipulate the kid.” 

“ Heading to school to kill teachers seems reasonable from his perspective. “ Kyle joined you in the theorization. “ I don’t get why getting the girl involved, but he is Chucky. Traumatizing children is his hobby.” 

“ You both still think this is casual?” Andy interrupted, guilt making him angry. “ (y/n), he picked a girl in your classroom. He left a message for you: this has to be personal.” 

“ Then why am I not dead? He could have mixed with the classroom’s toys and made his strike on his own the very first day he arrived here. “ You insisted, keeping the thread of your point. “ Did he ever wait this long to kill anyone he really wants to? Chucky? The same asshole who killed your babysitter ON THE SAME NIGHT just because she turned off the TV? He has no patience, I doubt time changed that.” 

Andy proceeded to do the question he must have done from the start. 

“ Have you got any strange packages prior to this? Even if you refused to receive those.” 

“ A mysterious Chucky size package? Nop, not at all. He is like my father: he ruined my childhood and doesn’t even call for Christmas.” 

Bittersweet jokes were your thing and those weren’t necessarily bad.

“ I know what it looks like: I’m the connection, but we can’t be sure of that yet.” You attempted to tranquilize him. “ He had over two decades to come for me and didn’t. I took some precautions I was taught to, but I don’t think those could have made me invisible.” 

“ Is that what the shit over there is supposed to mean?” Kyle asked you, pointing out at the odd marks on your entrances. “ I gotta be honest, it’s shady as fuck.” 

“ Of course, I forgot to explain that part! I bet you thought I was a witch about to kill you.” You apologized, actually feeling bad under the possibility of making them worry. “ Nadia taught me that it keeps bad spirits away. Assuming Chucky counts as a dark entity, that should keep him out.” 

“ Did you tell someone else about Chucky?” Andy recalled, with curiosity. “.. and they believed you?” 

“ She was a friend of the family, a medium that my mom befriended some time after the mess. “ You sweetly clarified. “ When I get to tell you how it happened, you are not going to believe it.” 

He wasn’t seeing that coming, your life has been apparently way weirder than in his idealizations of you. 

“ That’s not fair, I’m supposed to have the weirdest stories for catching up! ” He playfully complained. '' I was chased four times by Chucky, winning in each and every single one of those, but each one gets weirder.” 

“ Let me awaken this little troublemaker so you can get up and tell me everything during our meal.” You proposed, sneaking close to pick up your cat. He didn’t want to be taken away from the comfy position receiving heat from the new human. “ He is fuzzy because he apparently likes to sleep with you, but I bet some wet food is gonna solve that.” 

“ Is he a Freddy for Fred Jones?” Kyle asked you. “ Andy talks about you every time I watch Scooby Doo with him.” 

“ Scooby Doo was my copying mechanism when I was being kidnapped by a serial killer threatening with killing my pregnant mother if i would dissobey him. That franchise is my life.” You affirmed for her. “ That being said, Freddy was rescued from a fire. During his first times here he used to scratch everything and wouldn’t let us sleep. He is a Krueger, not a Jones.” 

Andy laughed a bit harder with that last punchline. 

“ That 's growth, we are so old.” 

[raptorific]

Nobody's asking you to be a petty tyrant or an authoritarian. If you have kids you will have to choose between having Rules and having A Dead Kid, because "you must sometimes eat" and "do not run into traffic" are also rules. This isn't tyranny, this is parenting. You are responsible for teaching them how to behave in a way that does not result in a dead, injured, or otherwise maladjusted kid, and, where possible, to protect them from more serious consequences such as "death," "injury," and "maladjustment."

So no, you don't need to be a tyrant, but you do need to make and enforce rules for your kid. It's not an exercise in power, but a responsibility you have, as the person in charge of their upbringing, to someone who's too New Here to be able to understand what will and will not hurt or kill them.

And whatever rules you do have— and yes, again, you MUST have them— your child will eventually break. They will likely break them BECAUSE you set them. Sometimes they will be wrong. Sometimes they will be right. At a certain point, no matter how permissive or supportive you are, you will not know they're breaking the rules. It is your responsibility to prepare them to make these decisions safely when— not if— they make them.

Enforcing rules like "you must go to bed approximately eight hours before you need to wake up" and "you may not watch a Chucky movie, you're nine years old" where the stakes are as low as "they're sleepy the next day" and "they have puppet nightmares for a few weeks, is not Petty Tyranny or Mind-Games, it's just responsible parenting. Nonetheless, even your reasonable rules will be broken, no matter how well you've explained the sound logic behind them. When— again, not if— they break these rules, they will not be killed or injured or maladjusted, they'll just be kinda sleepy or scared. And now they've learned an important lesson about what level of risk they're willing to engage in.

Your comment has this interesting pie-in-the-sky attitude that you seem to think they'll wait to practice rebellion against you until they have a legitimate grievance, when in reality the most common time for rebellious behavior to start is over issues like "I don't want to eat, bathe, or go to sleep."

As for waiting for actual authoritarian adults to teach them lessons about actions and consequences: anyone who does that is a coward and a shitty parent, who wants a friend, not a child. You're gonna let your kid get all the way to someone with unfair rules, high stakes, and disproportionate punishments without preparing them with the skills to lie to that person and do what's right without them noticing? You're gonna let some power-tripping teacher abuse your kid with arbitrary displays of power, because you think taking away their Gameboy when they're playing it after bedtime and telling them they're too young to watch John Wick is a "communication-killing Mind-Game" and not just basic parental discipline and structure? Legitimately, how dare you do that to a child, letting them learn this lesson from real authoritarians who will respond to transgressions with real abuse, and not from a loving parent who respond to rule-breaking with "send the kid to their room and tell them to think about what they've done, and they can come out when they're ready to apologize and discuss it reasonably." Anyone who parents like that ought to be ashamed of themselves.

Because again, they will learn to break rules, and if they don't do it with a parent attentive enough that they have to learn to get away with it, they will do it with a teacher who will abuse their authority, or a cop who will kill them.

The kids with authoritarian, controlling parents will learn to avoid detection as a matter of course. It is ESPECIALLY important for kids who have REGULAR, NONCONTROLLING parents to have their "I'm watching a movie my parents said I couldn't watch, and I won't be telling them I watched it" moments, because otherwise when they encounter UNFAIR rules with UNFAIR penalties for breaking them, you end up with a kid who either "blindly follows unfair rules" or "regularly ends up unfairly punished."

Anyway, I looked at your bio, and you're far too old to be this bad at reading, so this response was really more for the benefit of the next person checking the notes than yours. I won't be needing a response from you, so I'm just gonna block and move on.

The posts fearmongering about the possibility of kids and teens consuming media that's inappropriate for their age always make me feel like a space alien, especially when the people grant that it's okay for kids to like Adult things as long as they're not too "inappropriate" or "graphic" (sexual content, violence, scary stuff)

Because like, I really think my honest and genuine take would spin these people into a rage at me, because not only do I think it's "not a bad thing" when kids read stuff for adults, I think it is actively beneficial to them to read the Inappropriate and Graphic stuff, and specifically I think it is imperative to their development that, at a point, they start to do so against their parents' wishes and without their parents' knowledge