#wip to wob

[whumpiary]

technically a follow on from this piece. could probably stand alone. this piece has been 80% done in my google docs for three years so if you see any big holes in it uhhh. no you didn't.

if you've ever wanted some vague exposition on cass' powers or choices, then this is for you

content warning: mentions of death, victim blaming, aftermath of violence/assault, referenced dubcon/noncon, brief mind control

-

The common room at Bergen Estate gets quiet at night. Most of the charges prefer their own rooms as it gets dark. Hiding from the bogeyman.

But Harley liked the large, dark emptiness of the common room.

The curved chairs, the pillars, the rows of books and video games lined up along the shelves. The big oak tables. Bean bags in the corner. Rugs here and there. The whole place had the energy of some sort of bizarre combination between a kid’s playroom and a university library. But Harley wanted a space to think, and this was the easiest one.

Their intuition had been right and wrong in equal amounts tonight. They’d known they would be called to Christopher’s lounge tonight. And they were. And they knew that they would be fine after. And they are. But… if they were so fine why do they feel so God fucking awful?

“Harley can go, right? It’s not like we need them.”

Every time they try to push the memory from their head, it bobs to the surface again like an apple in water.

“I have to say, Harley… I really am so disappointed in you.”

They stare out the large bay window, at the leafless trees silhouetted in the mix of light from the garden and from the moon. The whole thing looks ghostly. Gothic. The dark through the glass makes the whole window reflective; a giant mirror just waiting to show them their face. But it’s dark in here too. It’s a dark room reflected on a dark night. That’s why it’s so obvious when there’s a shuffling flash of light behind them, making their heart skip.

The door opens, someone steps through, and then it closes. Dark again. Harley stiffens, freezes, trying to catch another glimpse of who it is in the reflection of the window but it's back to shadows on shadows on shadows.

They listen as the person shuffles to one of the cushioned seats. Shuffles. Like it hurts to move. They sit so carefully that Harley can barely hear them. Then there's quiet. Stillness. An exhale.

Harley doesn’t move. They know stillness. They know silence. Have known it for longer than they’ve been here.

But then there’s another exhale.

And another.

Any hitch of breath that might be happening in between is more or less silent.  Which means, usually… crying. 

Harley feels themself cringe. The Bergen Boys don't cry. Those are the rules. Not Christopher's rules but the deeper, unspoken ones between the lot of them. You don’t complain, you don’t ask for help, you don’t cry. Or if you did, it got beaten out of you quicksmart. Everything else was a free for all as far as Harley has ever been able to tell. 

So the shadow person has come to the common room in the middle of the night. Assuming, like Harley had, that it would be empty. That it would be safe.

Guilt washes over them all at once, guttural and nauseating and they realise all of a sudden that intentionally or not just by sitting here, listening, they're imposing. Intruding. Doing the wrong thing. And then the fear beneath that, on top of that, around that, that if they wait too long and the shadow person notices them, they may well end up on the wrong side of thrown fists. Again.

Harley shifts on the couch where they sit, exaggerating the whisper scrape of fabric on fabric, and leans back on the left side where they know the leg creaks.

The shadow person's breathing stops immediately and Harley hears them stand.

"Who's there?" 

Harley freezes again, regretting making their presence known. Cassius. 

"I can see you. On the couch. Get over here." His voice is sharp and violent. Deeper than usual. There's a childish part of Harley, not as far beneath the surface as they’d like, that wishes desperately they’d just stay silent and hidden. Safe.

But, like they were told, they uncurl their legs. Stand. Turn. Start to walk. 

Harley can see the moment that the light from the window must catch their face. Cassius' face softens, eyes fluttering closed and body sagging with what was maybe relief. 

“Harls,” he says, running a hand over his face as he sits back down. Harley doesn’t miss the wince. “Jesus Christ, man, you scared me.”

“Sorry.” The apology flies out of them like a verbal flinch. “I’ll leave.”

“No, ple-” Cassius stops himself, eyes shuttering closed. Harley watches him take a deep breath, brow furrowing briefly. You don’t cry. You don’t complain. You don’t ask for help. “You can stay. If you want. I don't mind.”

Harley hesitates for a moment, glancing around half-uselessly, before choosing a seat across from the other charge and folding into it. 

“What are you doing up so late?” Cassius asks, as though they’ve bumped into each other at a truck stop. At a bar. Fancy seeing you here. 

Harley shrugs. “I don’t know. I couldn’t sleep. I kept…” thinking about what you were doing. They bite down on their tongue to keep themselves from saying more. It’s stupid. 

They trail off as Cassius looks up at them and the dull light from the window catches the shape of his brow. At the blood smeared along his temple. The bruising already flaring up along his cheek. “Did… did Beauche do that to you?”

Cassius huffs out a half laugh, running his tongue between his teeth and the obviously bruised tissue of his cheek. He drags his hand up, knuckle brushing softly against his brow. “Yep. What a gentleman, huh?”

“But Christopher said he wouldn’t be violent.”

Cassius scoffs, “Yeah and Christopher’s such a shining beacon of truth, huh?”

Cassius sits back in his chair, eyes hard, and Harley holds their breath. With the shadows of the trees outside dancing across his face, the shading of the bruises and the swelling there, Cassius looks half monster.

Then his expression softens, his body relaxes. “Nah, it was my fault." He lets out a sigh, hand running back through his hair. "The guy wanted me to cry.”

“And did you?” Cassius’ glare is immediate. Has Harley slamming their jaw shut so quickly their teeth click together. “Sorry.”

Cassius shrugs a shoulder in acceptance of the apology and leans back in the chair. He closes his eyes and all at once it’s like some mask comes down. He looks exhausted and hurt and… young, actually. Harley always forgets that. He’s younger than them. About a three year gap between them.

“Why are you up?” Harley says, after the silence gets unbearably fragile. “Here, I mean. I thought you’d be…” They struggle for a tactful way to put it. “In the other wing.”

“Nah, he didn’t want me to stay, thank fuck. And Christopher doesn’t like me coming in af-... Um. He doesn’t like me coming in too late,” Cassius says, picking non-existent dirt out from under his finger nails. He clears his throat a little as his face flinches in and out of a frown. “Plus, the sooner I see him, the sooner I have to… you know…”

He gestures loosely at his face and Harley frowns. The sooner he’d have to do what? Get rid of the bruises? Get rid of the pain that keeps making him flinch and close his eyes? None of them talked about it but they’d all seen it. Bruises fading on Cassius just to bloom on his brother in minutes. Always after a visit to Christopher. Always without a word spoken.

Harley can’t help their own contempt, “Isn’t that a good thing for you?”

Cassius looks at them with an expression Harley can’t place, dark eyes flicking between both of Harley’s, as though searching for something. He looks angry. Murderous. Violent. Then he snorts and it’s gone. “Yeah. Sure.”

He drops his head, hands fidgeting between his knees. With the angle and the shadows, Harley can only just make out the shape of his nose, his eyes half hidden behind his hair. It sticks out at awkward angles around his head like a terrible crown. Frizzy waves in some parts, kinked curls in others.

It'll suit him more when he leaves and he grows it longer.

The thought comes unprompted, unbidden and with the utmost certainty. Like the predictions always do. Just a slice of truth falling into the head with the right prompt. An understanding that that's just… how things will be.

It's not the first time Harley's thought something like it. That Cassius will do much better once he leaves. The notion of it is almost horrifying. Cassius has been here longer than they have. It’s hard to imagine Bergen Estate without its golden boy. 

Harley chews on their cheek and “If I ask you something, will you answer truthfully?” 

Cassius shrugs. Smirks. “Probably not.”

Harley rolls their eyes and looks away, annoyance settling in their gut. They don’t even know why they bother with Cassius. He’s always the exact same. They're about to stand up to leave when Cassius clears his throat and-

“I’ll trade you for it,” he says softly, dark eyes shining with something unnameable in the dim light. “You ask me something, I ask you something. No lies.”

“Promise?”

Cassius just shrugs. Which is probably as good a promise as Harley’s going to get, really. They sigh and trace the patterning of the rug with their eyes before pursing their lips together and looking back up at Cassius with a focussed sincerity.

They swallow. Inhale. Hands grip the arms of the chair. "You hate it here.”

Cass’ eyes skitter to the side and back. "That's… not a question."

"Why don't you leave?"

“Same as you, dumbass. Legally binding contract.”

“No, I mean-” Harley bites down on their cheek and tries to figure out the right words to say what they mean. “You can make him do whatever you want, right? You can make anyone do what you want. So why don’t you just… make him get rid of you."

Cassius exhales in a way that could almost be a laugh. But probably isn’t. “It’s… complicated.”

“Because of Henri?”

He shrugs, looking bored as he meets their gaze. “Sure.”

“No lies.”

Cassius sighs, leaning back slouched in the chair. He shrugs. “Just because I can make someone want to do something, it doesn’t mean they’ll do it.”

“Like… he’d resist you?”

“No.” Cassius pulls a face. “I mean yes, maybe. But no… It’s like…” He makes a sound hallway between a sigh and a groan. He rolls his neck, eyes roaming around the room like he’s trying to figure something out. He leans his chin on his hand, fingers skirting over his lips before looking back to Harley. “Hᴀʀʟᴇʏ, sᴏʟᴠᴇ ᴡᴏʀʟᴅ ʜᴜɴɢᴇʀ.”

Harley stands instantly. They turn on their foot and move to the door and for the first time in their life everything is certain. Everything is clear. Everything makes so much sense and all they have to do is… Is to… 

“Um…”

Cass half smiles. There's something vicious and cruel behind his eyes. “Dᴏ ɪᴛ, Hᴀʀʟᴇʏ. Sᴏʟᴠᴇ ᴡᴏʀʟᴅ ʜᴜɴɢᴇʀ.”

They step forward, compulsively, and for some bizarre reason they start raising their arms in front of them, as though their body can’t figure out a way to solve the issue even though they want to and as soon as that thought hits them the frantic desire starts to dissipate, filling instead with deep dread and panic. 

They turn their head towards him, eyes wide. Frozen. "I…" 

Cassius’ gaze is dark and heavy. Hungry and calculating. His jaw sets. “Hᴀʀʟᴇʏ, ɢᴏ ᴋɪʟʟ Cʜʀɪsᴛᴏᴘʜᴇʀ.”

The feeling that floods them is white hot and immediate. Desire and rage running through them like lava. They’re not sure they’ve ever moved so fast, wheeling on a foot, making it to the door, but no sooner are they reaching for the handle then-

“Nah, ꜰᴏʀɢᴇᴛ ɪᴛ. Cᴏᴍᴇ sɪᴛ ᴅᴏᴡɴ.”

All at once the desire dissipates, and the panic sets in like shame. Like failure. They come back over. They sit back down. Then their thoughts catch up and they look at Cassius with fury. How dare he do that? How dare he go into their head and make them feel that? 

Cassius just smiles. Shrugs. “Sorry. Figured I’d show not tell.”

‘’I could’ve killed him.”

Cassius shrugs, unshaded and unconvinced. “Nah. You would’ve got halfway down the hall and changed your mind.”

“But what if I didn’t?”

“Then you would’ve gotten to his room and realised you didn’t know how. You wouldn’t have killed him.”

“I might’ve,” they protest, still indignant.

Cass shrugs, smile lazy and tired, “But you didn’t.”

They try, for a few moments, to hold on to the anger. The indignation. It’s so, so easy to hate him when he’s far away. When they can’t see him or only see him at a distance. It’s much much harder three feet away from him, where the moonlight show the bags under his eyes as dark as the bruise blossoming above his temple.

“He takes you away from here sometimes,” they say eventually. “You could… when you were away from here. You could leave. Make him let you leave. That’s not that hard.”

Cassius just looks at them, chin resting on his hand, fingers covering his mouth. He raises his eyebrows at them expectantly, foot bouncing like a motor. He’s probably trying to look annoyed. Sarcastic. But he just looks like a sad little boy.

Understanding clicks in.

“But Henri…” Harley voices for him.

Cassius shrugs a shoulder. A tear manages to make it all the way to his cheekbone before he swipes it away with the side of his fist. The Bergen Boys don’t cry. “Told you. Complicated.”

This isn’t how things are meant to be. Cassius is meant to stay in the other wing, up on his damn pedestal and away in Christopher’s bedroom. He’s not meant to cry in the common room. He’s meant to be the golden boy in his golden room. It’s meant to be easy to hate him. He’s meant to be arrogant and selfish and mean and rude and-

“Your French isn’t better than mine,” they say suddenly. They can’t quite say where the compulsion to say it comes from.

Cassius blinks, “What?”

“In the office before, you said your French was better than mine. It’s not.”

He looks at them for a moment, frowning and annoyed and then suddenly he’s laughing, eyebrows shooting up in exhausted amusement, “You’re weird as fuck, you know that?”

“What? No I’m not,” Harley spits, suddenly self-conscious and antsy.

“Yes you are,” Cassius says. “I did you a fucking favour and a half tonight-“

“I didn’t ask you to do that.”

“And you know what, you’re welcome by the way.”

“I never asked you to-”

“Oh, save it. Yes you fucking did. You know what I can do. You know what I can feel. You were basically fucking screaming at me.”

And that, they do remember. Closing their eyes. Drowning Christopher’s voice out in their head. The huge loud static of I don’t want this, I don’t want this, I don’t want this.

The air stills. The atmosphere between them settles like dust in the shadows and darkens again. Guilt creeps over Harley's shoulders and rests with heavy claws. They shouldn’t have said anything. 

“My French is more usable than yours,” Cass mutters.

They’re truly unsure if he’s being genuine or just trying to break the ice that’s frosted over. They try for the latter, “Your grammar sucks.”

“Yeah, well we didn’t get much further than ‘voulez-vous coucher avec moi’, so I don’t think I did fine,” he gives them a dead-eyed smile that they assume is meant to cast the comment in humour. They don’t really find it very funny.

After a few awkward beats, Cassius gives up the ghost. He clears his throat, “Alright. My turn,” 

Harley readjusts in their seat, straightening their spine, tucking their hair behind their ears to listen for the question. They wait one moment. And then two. The whole time the golden boy seems to scrutinise them, looking into their eyes as he sizes them up, makes some sort of assessment.

Cassius’ voice is low and jarringly sad as he finally lands on a question, “Why do you hate me so much?”

If it was possible for Harley to feel every cell in their body crystallise… that was what this feeling was. “I don’t hate you.”

Cassius smiles. Tilts his head. The blood along his temple catches in the light. “No lies.”

Harley frowns and looks away, turning their head to look out the window across the other side of the room. They wonder if he remembers the day they met as well as they do. It was in this room. Just a few feet from where they were sitting now. He’d been sitting on the arm of the couch making some smart mouth comment to someone and they’d thought he looked friendly. And then his eyes had met theirs and prediction hit like an epiphany:

You’re going to kill me one day.

Unprompted, unbidden and with the utmost certainty. A slice of truth falling into their head.

You’re going to kill me one day to save yourself.

They knit their fingers together in their lap, pressing knuckle to knuckle. They press their lips into a thin line. Something with wings — a bird or a bat, they can’t tell — takes flight from one of the trees outside the window. Darkness reflects darkness back.

After it becomes clear they’re not going to answer, Cassius prompts again, “Was it something I did?”

They shrug one shoulder. Like he does. Look down at their hands. The shadows across the room dance and shimmer.

“Is it because of…” out of the corner of their eye, Harley sees him wave a hand at himself. “You know. What I do.” A pause. They see his Adam’s apple bob. “The way I do it.”

Harley frowns, ducks their head lower so they don’t have to look at him, even in periphery. They manage to shake their head this time. 

“Is it…” Cassius stops and starts. Stalls. Clears his throat. “Is it something I’m going to do?”

Harley finds themself looking up, despite themself.

They meet his eyes. Time stops for a second.

Cass looks so full of grief for a moment that Harley’s certain the rest of the world must’ve been robbed of it. All shoved into one person to hold for a second. His voice sounds wrecked, “I’m sorry.”

They almost believe him, too. And they hate him all the more for it.

Did he have to be so perfect at this, too? Did he have to be forgivable for this, too? Can’t they just hate him? Can’t they just hate his guts and let him get whadt he’s owed for the things that he’s done, does, is going to do? They want to ask him. They want to tell him. All of it. They want to see his face as he tries to figure out how to respond. They want to know how he feels when he finds out he’s gonna be a murderer.

“It’s okay,” is what tumbles out of their mouth instead.

“Yeah,” Cass laughs and another tear makes it out of him. They hate him for it. He swipes at it with the side of a closed fist. “No it isn’t.”

They hate him as he stands up. 

They hate him as he cuts the conversation short.

They hate him as he passes and gives the back of their chair a pat.

“See you around, Harls.”

They watch the window for the flash of light as the door opens, a yellow glow spilling into the room for a moment like blood from a cut. And then the door shuts with a click. And the room is back to its inky darkness. And the golden boy is gone. And Harley isn’t.

And their hatred is an unspooled ball of yarn in the middle of the floor.

[steelycunt]

WE’RE SO BACKKKKKKKKK

[goredoesstuff]

some random little things from the sketchbook

the unicorns were from when i was doing a storyboard/animatic for school

a tiny vent art thingy

aaaaand last but not least, a planning sketch of my next mask project :)

[justalittlebeekeeper]

All Tumblr Days Of The Week I Have Seen

A while ago I started making a compilation (without links unfortunately, because I am lazy) of all the Tumblr Days of the Week I have seen cross my dash, because I think it's silly and interesting and I wanted to catalog it. I didn't have any intention of sharing it, but I realized it had gotten pretty long, and who knows, maybe someone else would be interested. So, without further ado, in the order of the week:

Stupid fucking slut Sunday

Fingers in his ass Sunday

Six sentence Sunday

Suck her silly Sunday

Jungle Sunday

Shawty like a melody Sunday

Swipe him Sunday

Break stuff Sunday

Girlbulge Sunday

Polar bear Sunday

Sluggish Sunday

Somebody Else Is Gonna Have To Do It Sunday

Send me on my way Sunday

Smooch Shark Sunday

Smooth Shark Sunday

Yes Snakes Sunday

Al Pacino girl look at that rat Sunday

Kiss your mutual Monday

Sad ant with a bindle Monday

Exploding money Monday

Let's get it on cunts Monday

Maim him Monday

Sparkle on it's Wednesday Monday

We're just normal men Wednesday Monday

The missile knows where it is Monday

ps5 brain Monday

Mimir Monday

Bare Minimum Monday

Simply don't Monday

Me if I was lobsta🦞 Monday

Mole interest Monday

Safe to leave the bog Tuesday

Twelve bricks Tuesday

I thought it was Wednesday Tuesday

Tuesday light me up

End of my rope Tuesday

Wednesday is tomorrow innit Tuesday

Funky fellow Tuesday

Trash him Tuesday

Meeting on the turret stairs Tuesday

Turn off Tumblr Live Tuesday

Tired Tuesday

Trying Not To Feel Doomed Tuesday

Too Tired to Care Tuesday

tdick Tuesday

Unethical science Tuesday

Toss him Tuesday (one piece)

No Snakes Tuesday

Tuesday again? No Problem

Toasting him Tuesday

Tumblr Tuesday: National Nothing Day (by staff)

You rockin with time theft tuesday?!

This thing Tuesday

Tuck him in Tuesday

Wedical Wystery Wednesday

White Boy Wednesday

WIP Wednesday

Wet Beast Wednesday

Wob Wednesday (mp100)

End of my rope tuesday Wednesday

Wednesday Wednesday (Addams family)

It's Wednesday or as I like to call it Thursday

WAAAAAAAAAAA Wednesday (mp100)

Whoop him Wednesday

The massive "It is Wednesday" post

El woowoo Wednesday

It's Wednesday, or as I like to call it, the Ides of March

Weary Wednesday

Whatever I can get away with Wednesday

Wet rat Wednesday

We're just normal men Wednesday

Woodcock Wednesday

White Girl Wednesday

Remembering the passage of time Wednesday

Do it weird Wednesday

Dry beast Wednesday

Bigweld Wednesday

Weevil Wednesday

Its Comes Fucks Me Wednesday

Out of Touch Thursday

Thottie Thursday, or as I like to call it, Sunday

Lord Foog the 2st Thursday

Present Mic's concave ass Thursday (bnha)

We put the they in them Thursday

Thumping him Thursday

Out of touch Touya Thursday (bnha)

Unlimited brutality 5 for $5 on Thursdays

Onto better things Thursday

Tuckered out Thursday

This job sucks Thursday

Fire Gator Thursday

Very specific archive Thursday

Flat fuck Friday

Thank Gnome it's Friday

Frankie Friday (one piece fandom)

Bean Hole Bfriday

Flatworm Friday

Fuck him on the forest floor Friday

Fuck your mutual from behind Friday

Frilled shark Friday

Fuck him up Friday

Bully your mutuals Friday

Big Dumb Idiot Baby Apple Fight Friday

Electric phallus Friday

Faint Friday

Fat fuck Friday

Fuck it Friday

Lesbian Friday

Frigate friggin' Friday

Street fighter fuck her from behind Friday

Stroganoff Saturday

Slapping him Saturday

Sad slav Saturday

Snoozy Saturday

Say on my ass Saturday

Dragon Saturday

Sludge Saturday Baby

Small joys Saturday

Beat the shit out of him Saturday

Saturday shorts

Bonuses:

Penisula thurtueswednesday

happy woke up thinking it was wednesday sunday but it was actually fucking friday tuesday

[glitchpatch-ren]

Unfinished animation thing

[glitchpatch-batch]

*actually already dying*

[wallofblood]

Novak (Wall of Blood)

Novak had found his way down the stairs and was fast approaching. His black hair bounced and his smile grew larger with every step he took. Everything about him whispered of warmth and reassurance, like he could fit someone between his narrow shoulders and lift their spirit up with only the strength of his embrace.

[carpisuns]

thank u for the tag @anna-scribbles i wob u

Rules: It’s time to love yourselves! Choose your 8 (ish) favorite works you created in the past year (fics, art, edits, etc.) and link them below to reflect on the amazing things you brought into the world in 2020. Tag as many writers/artists/etc. as you want (fan or original) so we can spread the love and link each other to awesome work!

uh i will do half fic half art i suppose :) these are not necessarily in a particular order

1. lucky (we’re in love in every way)

this is probably the most self-indulgent thing I’ve ever created and it’s for precisely that reason that it’s also my favorite djdjdkdk. I set out to feed myself exactly the way I wanted to be fed and that’s exactly what I did. just 8k of Marinette and Adrien being spiraling disaster children in love with a very sappy reveal and heaps of secondhand embarrassment lmao

2. tell me something I don’t know

I feel kind of bad for putting this on the list bc it’s just a wip but the fact that I have written 10 chapters and haven’t given up yet is a miracle !! so I am proud of myself! In the beginning I even had a semi-consistent posting schedule 😭 wow. wish that were me now lol

And the fact that there are a few people consistently reading/commenting on every chapter as I post sends me over the moon omgsh 😭 I am used to posting only oneshots so I’m like “you’re still here?? aaa bless u 😭���💜” lol

And surprise surprise this one is also super self-indulgent so;; :) and i am proud of how some of the scenes/chapters turned out

3.  Dirt-y Little Secret

listen this one is SO DUMB but it’s one of my fav things I’ve written bc I am pretty picky about how the marichat dynamic is portrayed and I feel like I got it right in this and also I wrote a fic about marichat literally eating dirt and more than one person read it and said they liked it so :’) wow lmao

4. holding hands (and stuff)

i just wrote this one for secret santa and it’s not much but im proud bc writing kisses is the WORST it’s SO HARD and i usually use this Method where i go off to metaphor land and simple Do Not Mention what their lips are actually doing lmao but i committed on this one and i forced myself to like be there and write the kisses askldjffj also i made them really dumb as always and it’s really not hard at all to make them incredible dumb and awkward but that’s how i like em so it is always pleasing to me lol

5. dabdrien ft. caprisun

can u tell that all of my content is of the Clown variety :’) I am still managing to be proud of this one after 6 months bc it was one of the few times I forced myself to draw people with like legs and arms and such in a dynamic pose and that’s something I really struggle with even now lol but I feel like I did ok here and it was like :’) wow I can do something if I try really hard at it BDMSMS

6.  Sokka sketch dump

Again I drew some Human Bodies :) also I drew something other than adrien agreste and it was like WOW!! I can do that?? yes I can 😌i love sokka so much and this was like my Ode To Sokka <33 i put a lot into it and im still happy with how the poses and expressions turned out

7. ladybug simps

tbh i dont even know why i like this one so much like there is really nothing impressive about the art i just like the vibes i guess lol im just like YEAH. they cool kids and they simpin 😎👉👉 and what is the point of art if not to convey vibes lol

8. dtiys

this one was really fun to do and i like it cause chat hair is possibly even harder than adrien hair lol and i like how it turned out here. also i like the coloring/lighting on this :) and how baby i managed to make him because that is important 2 me

also maybe i just wanted 2/4 of my selected pieces to be adrien with a caprisun. and what about it

P.S. the dtiys is ongoing if anyone wants to join 👀 there’s no deadline so feel free to jump in any time! it brings me unspeakable joy to see people other than me drawing adrien with caprisun aslkfjadjsklf

tagging @botherkupo @gabriel-agreste-has-no-rights @bugaboo-n-bananoir @landturtlealyce @amiraculousplatypus @leviaana @jarl-deathwolf @bugabisous​ @janaikam​ @snacc-noir​ @adrienscroissantx​ and anyone else who would like to! consider yourself tagged :D

[omg-casualbeardstudent]

AudioSGNL - Wob Knob (WIP) by Beast Sounds https://ift.tt/37mLzzp

[whumpiary]

Chook! Where is he now!!

An interesting question! Cass learned that Henri died shortly after Cass moved to the Facility. For another answer…

Have a piece that I’ve been hoarding since July 2020 because I felt like I needed to write more context. For those that care about timeline, this set during the Missing Year, before Present Timeline.

content warning: captivity, drugging, force feeding, uncertain of reality

-

Cass’ head lolls backwards in the chair like it’s a bowling ball attached to fucking cooked spaghetti. His eyes won’t focus, can’t focus, and no matter what he does he can’t seem to move his legs. There’s a shadow in the doorway that he can barely stand to look at. It makes his heart race. Confuses his head. He screws his eyes shut.

“Breakfast time, Ace,” Tucker sings and he's shaking his head before the man even makes contact with him, or at least he's trying to. He can’t remember if he was hit or if he was drugged or if he’s just too tired for this. He just knows his stomach is churning, his head is pounding. The shadow in the doorway shifts and moves. Disappears. Comes back.

Cass blinks and cringes, "I don't wan- I d'n't want anym-"

Tucker grabs him by the hair and maneuvers his head slowly, a slow roll led by a tightening grip. Cass groans, closes his eyes against the nausea that comes from the movement.

“Shhh. None of that,” his minder says. Ex-minder, Cass tries to remind himself. He holds up the bowl of porridge to Cass’ nose and Cass wants to gag at the smell of cinnamon and honey. “Got you your favourite kind and everything. Say thank you, Cassius.”

“No,” he whines. “I don’t- I don’t want-”

Without warning, Tucker snaps Cass’ head back with unmistakable violence. Cass doesn’t bother, can’t, to hold back the cry that falls out of him. He used to, he thinks, be better at holding those back. That feels far away now. He whines. Pants.

“No one gives a fuck what you want, Ace,” he says, voice sugar sweet. He settles himself over Cass’ legs, straddling him, and even through the pain and the fog and the world-tilting vertigo that has him spinning, he can’t help but think about how fuckin’ extra that is. How fuckin’ unecessary. Just feed him the fucking porridge.

Cass’ eyes slide over Tucker’s shoulder as he’s fed and for the third time, the fourth time, the millionth time his eyes focus on the shape in the doorway. And when he blinks the shape is still there. And when he blinks the shape is still there. And when he blinks… He feels his own breath hitch, pick up on it’s own rhythm and he whines, even as Tucker shushes him and tries to feed him another spoon.

“Tucker, is’e… please… is’e real?”

Tucker raises his chin, holds the other man’s gaze. “Is who real?”

“Don’ pretend,” he gets out. He tries desperately to get his eyes to focus. “Please don’t pretend, m’not gonna remember anyway. Please.”

Tucker smiles in a lazy way and tosses a glance over his shoulder at the man against the doorframe with his arms crossed. Thick dark curls and high cheekbones, pink, twisting scars along exposed forearms.

“I dunno, Henri, are you real?”

The man shrugs and his lips twitch up in a little smirk. “Haven’t decided yet.”

“Well there we go then.”

[hobdrawblin]

Getting closer!! No pupils seem to have wob the day. I'll give my next monster more than two pupils to make up for it. #drawing #art #artwork #darkart #stipple #pen #ink #monster #creature #bat #rat #horror #horrorart #demon #evil #wip #workinprogress #processkiller — view on Instagram https://ift.tt/2ttHIwv

[goredoesstuff]

wip of my next mask project! ive already gotten the faux fur for him hehehehe

this was also my first time working with expanding foam, which was really fun actually! i might work with it again on different projects :D

[whumpiary]

10 or 28 for the ask game! (Any character)

dark timeline au. 10 (from this prompt list): left for dead. a rather generous interpretation to get this relic out of the drafts. enjoy!

content warning: death, blood, murder, referenced abuse

-

It had been surprisingly easy to kill him. In the end. 

Just Cʜʀɪsᴛᴏᴘʜᴇʀ, ᴅᴏɴ'ᴛ ᴍᴏᴠᴇ

And then a knife across his throat. Across the major veins. Across the arteries.

Jugular. Carotid. Cervical.

It had sprayed up in an arc. It had splattered his face. Stained his hands. Stained everything. Leaking out and leaching out while Christopher’s eyes stayed wide and locked on his face. His boy and his blood. His last sight. His last thought.

After everything Cassius had been planning. After all the fantasies. After thoughts and hopes and daydreams of drawing it out, making it last, keeping the man in the den for weeks and months until he was begging for death and then denying it until Cassius decided it was time…

After all of that, all it had taken in the end was a wrong look, a wrong word, and he’d picked up the knife, and — Cʜʀɪsᴛᴏᴘʜᴇʀ, ᴅᴏɴ'ᴛ ᴍᴏᴠᴇ — made the man choke to death on his own gorgeous blood.

It’d surprisingly easy to wash it all away, too. From his skin anyway.

He’d spent time before stepping into the shower, before shedding everything, just inspecting his own face in the mirror, trying to see his own features beneath the blood. Trying to see what had changed, even though nothing had.

It was almost tempting not to wash it off. Not to clean it. Just leave it there until it soaked in. Until it made him something new. Something horrifying. Something dangerous.

Teeth and claws and blood.

Those were not the clothes of prey.

He’ll wear teeth and claws and blood.

But this, he washes away.

It felt good. Clean. Watching as it ran down his body and his legs and across his feet and across the tiling and down the drain.

The last of Christopher.

As it washed off his skin, he washed away all the weak things too. 

Every touch he’d leaned into, every affection he sought out.

Every time he’d begged. 

Every time he’d cried.

Every kiss, every cut, every promise, each betrayal.

Every time he’d loved him.

Each time he didn’t.

Away.

Down the drain.

He’d spent time before stepping into the shower, before shedding everything away, just inspecting his own face in the mirror, trying to see his own features beneath the blood. Trying to see what had changed even though nothing had. It was almost tempting not to wash it off. Not to clean it. Just leave it there until it soaked in. Made him something new, something horrifying, something dangerous.

Teeth and claws and blood.

Those were not the clothes of prey.

He’ll wear teeth and claws and blood.

But this, he washes away.

He dresses in something clean and white, something pure – he always liked a little irony and maybe this new him does even more – and he pours himself a drink and sits on the couch across the room, looking at the blood painted pretty across the sheets, on the canopy of the bed, on the floorboards.

It’s still very slowly moving. Like lava. At some point, he imagines, it’ll congeal.

It’ll be a bitch to clean up. But the staff could do that. After all, they’d been complicit in everything else, hadn’t they? They would be complicit in this too.

Christopher’s eyes are still open. They’re still looking at him. Beautiful and crystalline. Glassy and dead. He can still see that last look of fondness twisted to betrayal in the expression, mouth gaping a little in shock.

He sips on his glass of bourbon. He feels it burn down his chest.

He feels all of him burn.

By the time the fire burns out, by the time the blood congeals, Cassius Burgen is sure will have burned out and congealed into something entirely new.

[whumpiary]

Look look look I know I'm late but

"He couldn't stop staring at it."

definitely used this as an excuse to revamp one that’s been languishing in the drafts. hell yeah.

dark timeline au

content warnings: alcohol, self hatred, self destructive behaviour

-

The large mirror in the parlour takes up most of one wall, reflecting the light back to him at haunting angles that would be beautiful if he didn’t fucking hate it. He can’t stop staring at it.

There in the centre, slung in shadows, is the spectre of himself. Sat low in a chair, glass sparkling one his hand. His reflection is unrecognisable. His reflection is exactly as it should be.

Look at yourself, darling boy, look how beautiful you are.

He throws his glass in an arc and it hits the corner of the bureau instead of the wall but it doesn't matter because it shatters gloriously. Crystalline glitter in shards across the rug.

Cassius doesn’t often get drunk by himself. Not usually. There were easier ways to lose yourself more thoroughly, much faster. Cleaner ways. But tonight…

He couldn’t say what about tonight compelled him to reach for the whiskey instead of the gin, the red wine instead of the white, but here he is, too many drinks in to walk backwards from it now and he’s bitter and he’s angry and he can’t remember why when he cut the bastard’s throat he didn’t burn this whole place down along with everything inside of it.

He wipes his hand over his face. Through his hair.

He has a meeting tomorrow with people twice his age and half his money and he can already feel the blood under his fingernails from trying to claw for even an ounce of the respect he deserves from them. Most days of the week he doesn’t know what he’s doing. And they all seem to smell it on him.

Tonight is made of salt and full of claws. And Cassius is an open wound. He stares at himself in the mirror. For a moment, he fits his own hand around his throat, tilting his chin up to see the extension, see the fingers wrapping around. He drops it.

He wants someone in his arms. He wants to be in someone’s arms. He wants certainty and surety. He wants to know what he is.

If he wanted to feel whole he’d call Lev.

If he wanted to be talked off the ledge he’d call Ellis.

And Mal is always easy grab but Mal can’t turn his fucking care off.

Tonight Cassius has a voice in his head. A dangerous, hungry voice in his head. A voice that promises hurt and misery and the kind of dangerous satiation that nothing else can even touch. And he wants and he wants and he wants. And Lev is busy tonight anyway.

So he doesn’t call Lev.

He doesn’t call Ellis.

He doesn’t call Mal.

He calls the voice he’s missing. Four rings and a pick up.

“Hello, Trouble.” Low and smooth and dangerous and wonderful. “Miss me already?”

He calls Harvey Crossland.

-

(lev is @evermetnotforgotten’s. ellis and harvey are @comfy-whumpee’s)

[whumpiary]

content warning: noncon/dubcon vibes, intimate whumper, sensory deprivation

-

Cassius’ knees have long since gone numb, kneeling in the center of the bedroom like this. His shoulders are shaking from holding his hands so tensely behind himself, his spine aches from keeping himself upright. His thighs had been cramping, earlier. Whether they’ve stopped now or he’s just stopped feeling it, he can’t really be sure.

He could rest. If he wanted. Sit back on his calves instead of kneeling up. But… that wasn't the agreement.

“Would you like to kneel or be strung up?”

He hasn’t seen it, but he’d bet another hour on the floor here that the ribbon he holds between his fingers matches the one around his eyes. Red silk. Or satin maybe. To be honest, he doesn’t know the difference. Shiny and slippery and soft. He rubs it between his thumb and forefinger, little circles over and over, as he holds it taught, the change of grain in the fabric oddly soothing and the one solid thing he has left to hold on to.

“Would you like me to tie your wrists together or would you like to hold the ribbon in place?”

It’s freezing in here. He keeps shaking. Bone-deep cold. He’d assumed, maybe stupidly, that the fire would be left going while Christopher was gone. That the heating in the room would stay on. That the fucking window was going to stay closed. Maybe it would’ve if he’d chosen differently.

“Naked for an hour, or clothed for two?”

There’s a part of him that’s glad for the noise cancelling headphones. For one thing, at least, his ears are still warm. Which is more than he can say for any other part of him. For another, the white noise isn’t as bad as he’d expected. He loathes the blindfold usually. Hates that he can’t see anything, can’t track anything, every noise a could-be-threat that he can’t help but stay hyper vigilant to. The static is a relief in comparison, a neutral wash that fades everything out to grey. Well, almost everything. 

“Shame we can’t take away that last little sense of yours, isn’t it?”

There’s only a small part of him that’s startled by Christopher’s return. The rest has been waiting for him patiently the whole time, tiny shreds of sensory information filtering through the grey wash of the cold and the dark and the static. The vibrating creak through a floorboard shifting. The deepening of shadow behind the blindfold. And louder, brighter, more vibrant than all of it, the thrum, thrum, thrum of all the things Christopher wants. Fucking ravenous. Cass has never understood how one person could be so hungry all the time and not starve.

I’ll be what you want, I’ll be what you need.

Let me feed you, let me feed you, let me feed you. 

He feels himself readjust, spine straightening automatically much to the protest of the muscles in his back. His breath picks up, sitting high in his chest. His nostrils glare, blindfold A shiver runs over his skin, sets it on fire, reminds each cell to wake up. Spike of adrenaline preparing him to run from the tiger that he can’t see. As though he could run now, on the long-numb legs. 

Christopher doesn't touch him at first. Cassius feels himself bristling with the need for it. 

The first thing that happens is a light bump of the headphones that makes him flinch in fright. Then a pause. Then they’re lifted away and the deafening cacophony of roomtone and the rest of the world floods his ears and makes him gasp, nearly in pain with it. He can’t tell if everything’s louder without the static or just horribly, horribly silent but his whole body sways with the dizzy nausea it sets through him. 

He whimpers. Christopher shushes him gently. He tries to tilt his cheek into a nonexistent hand, desperate for the reality of touch. 

“Did you move, darling boy?”

It takes him a minute to remember to respond, to shake his head. But when he does, he does so with fervour. 

No, he didn’t move. He was good today. Wasn’t he good today? Please.

“Did he move?”

A question over his head, to the back of the room, to someone Cassius hadn’t been given the privilege of knowing was there. He nearly turns his head to look. He catches himself a few millimetres to the right and stills, clenching his jaw.

He was good today. Wasn’t he good today?

There must be an answer in the affirmative Cassius doesn’t hear because Christopher’s fingers press into the soft patch of skin just under his jaw and tilt his head up. He’s kissed tenderly, deeply, softly, violently. He doesn’t drop the ribbon.

He can imagine Christopher’s smile against his lips, his glittering eyes.

“I’m so proud of you”

He wishes the praise didn’t make his heart sing. Wishes, too, that it wasn’t just his heart the words set alight.

Christopher’s hand pushes back lazily through his hair and he tries not to lean into it but he does all the same. The man’s fingers trail down along his neck, across his shoulders. The touch is like a prayer. Like he’s being prayed to. Like he’s something holy.

Venerated. Sacrosanct. Divine.

“You know one of my friends has his boy do this for hours and hours on end. Usually with a gag of some description…” The man’s fingers brush against Cassius’ lips and he parts them just a little, jaw soft and slack. Christopher presses his fingers past his boy’s teeth, pressing down on his tongue. Pushing in further. “It’s quite the sight.” 

Cassius opens his mouth wider. Relaxes his tongue. Sucks. He can hear the soft gasp of Christopher’s breath, the tug of his lust. What he wants. What he restrains from. The man’s fingers press further in. 

“His boy doesn’t need incentive, though,” Christopher continues, voice thick with desire. “He’ll wait and wait like a good boy with nothing but the promise that it’ll be over soon. Isn’t that lovely?”

Are you going to be good for me today? Are you going to earn it?

Cass wonders if his lips have gone purple in the cold or if they’re still the plump pink Christopher adores so much. When he was a kid his lips were always going purple. Cass used to secretly like the look of it. 

"You’ve been so good for me today, haven’t you? Indulging me like this,” Christopher says. He runs his fingers through Cassius’ hair, back and back until they’re tangled loosely at the back of his skull, ready to tug and pull and push as he pleases. He’s been good. He’s been good. Please, he’s been so good.

It’s the retreating of Christopher’s fingers, rather than the pressing in, that threaten to make Cass gag. He nearly does. Nearly. He doesn’t. 

“M’sorry,” he says, pressing forward into the hand at his cheek. The word comes from nowhere, falling from his lips unbidden. His head feels full of the static that left. “Sorry, I’m so sorry”

Christopher hums in his throat, thumb running across Cassius’ cheek to catch a tear that’s slid down past the blindfold. “What are you sorry for, my love?”

He shakes his head and turns his face until he can press it into the man’s palm. He holds back a useless whine. His body shakes with a voiceless sob instead.

What the fuck? What the fuck, what the fuck? Why was he being like this? He wasn’t even hurt today. 

Please, for the love of God. Wasn’t he good?

“Oh, darling, you’ve gotten yourself all worked up for nothing, haven’t you?”

He whines, cries, sobs. “Please.”

“Please what?”

Tell me I’m good.

“Please ju-” he gags on nothing and his breath hitches. Even behind the blindfold, he screws his eyes shut. He wants the static back. “Help me.”

Christopher hums and cards fingers through Cassus’ hair again, settles a warm palm on his cheek. “Of course,” he says. “Always.”

Bullshit. Still, Cass accepts the kiss that’s laid to his lips like it’s his last chance for air before drowning. Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit. 

Christopher tilts Cassius’ head up with two fingers under his jaw, both still slick with spit. “Now, would you like to see Henri now or-"

“Tomorrow,” Cass says, all but cries out. He can’t say why he feels so desperate. “Please. Tomorrow.”

“Are you sure, darling?” the man asks, lips like hot coals against the curve of his shoulder. “That wasn’t what you wanted earlier.”

“Please, don’t. I don’t want to see him. Please, I don’t want him to see me like thi-”

“Shhh, it’s okay,” his voice is so careful and soft. Like a whisper. His fingers skirt the blindfold and don’t lift it. “Tomorrow, then.”

Don’t touch me, don’t look at me, don’t come near me. 

“What do you need, my love?”

Stay with me, hold me, don’t leave. 

“You,” he says, unbidden, unprompted, unburdened right now of the shame that comes with admitting it. “Please. For fuck’s sake. I need you.”

Christopher hums again, the self satisfaction so thick in his voice it’s practically dripping.

I hate you, I hate you, I hate you.

“Come on, darling boy, let’s get you to bed.” 

I love you, I love you, please love me too.

“For what it’s worth, I think you look divine.”

[whumpiary]

36: bite my muse for tucker cause i’d definitely bite him or let him bite me…🧍🏽‍♀️

I know this was a while back anon but just for you, a bite and a bite back. From the unnecessary Tucker backstory archives. Which makes this baby’s first beating 🥰

content warnings: hostage situation, intimate whumper, mixed gender violence

-

“Please.”

Tucker doesn’t even pause scrolling let alone look up from his phone. She’s been trying it for about twenty minutes now.

“Please, please, please, just let me go.”

She’s gone through the cycle now. Sweet talking, bargaining, fear-mongering, and now she’s straight on to begging, voice pitched high and pathetic.

“Please, I want to go home. I just want to go home. I’ll do anything you want. Pl-“

“You say please one more time and I’m gonna tie you up tighter just out of spite.”

Becks gives up on the shtick quick, head lolling back against the back of the chair in frustrated defeat. She’s never really been great at perseverance in all the time Tucker’s known her. Never really been very good at playing sweet either. It’s cute that she gave it a try all the same.

Instead, she goes back to bargaining, “Don’t suppose there’s any point in me trying to seduce you?”

Tucker laughs without looking up. At least she has a sense of humour about the whole thing.

He likes Becks. Always did. But she was a dumbshit and now she had to face the consequences. Simple as that.

And part of those consequences meant Tucker wasn’t gonna give her shit. Not least of all because he was having to give up is Saturday night to babysit because Mal was too soft hearted to be left alone with his ex.

She’s still trying it on though. Over and over and over again…

“TJ, come on.”

He hums. “I’d watch yourself with that one if I were you.”

“Just tell them we were fighting or some shit and I got away.”

“They won’t believe that.”

“Why not? They know I fight.”

“Yeah and they know I don’t,” he sighs. “I don’t do violence.”

Becks snorts. “How very moral of you.”

“Not really, I just don’t like getting my hands dirty.”

“Won’t get your hands dirty but you’ll do their accounts.”

“I just get the numbers,” he shrugs. “As far as I know— ” He splays a hand out to gesture to the empty unit they’re sitting in, pristine but for the gutted kitchen. “—all they’re selling is houses.”

“As if the cops are gonna believe that.”

“Well you’d know a bit more than me about what the cops would and wouldn’t believe, wouldn’t you Becks?”

She glares at him a moment but rolls her eyes not long after. She’s getting a little exasperated now. Cute.

“Fine. No fight,” Becks concedes. “Just say I lied about needing the bathroom or something then kicked you in the dick and got away that way.”

“Mmm, you’re right, it’ll be so much better for me if I come across as incompetent and incapable as well as weak.”

Becks groans, head rolling back again in frustration. “Come on, TJ.”

“Strike two.”

“You’re her son. It’s not like you’re gonna be the one facing the consequences.”

He snorts and finally glances up at her over his glasses, “You have actually met Lillian, right?”

Becks scoffs and sighs and from the corner of his eye Tucker can see her flexing her arms against the tension of the zip ties holding her. The muscle tee she’s wearing is doing shit all to hide the strain in the tendons. Must be aching like a bitch.

“TJ-”

“Rebecca,” he mocks back in a sing-song.

“Don’t.”

He shrugs, “You started it.”

He hears another groan, sees a put-upon flip back of her head from his periphery. “Tucker.”

He responds as though he’s only just heard her, thumb sliding away the whole time. “Mm?”

It seems to take a beat for her to realise that she’s going to have to keep competing for his attention with his phone screen. She tuts her tongue and kicks her foot out, too far away from the nearby table to actually hit it. They were lucky there was still a bit of furniture in this joint, actually. Last owner must’ve died or something. Kids couldn't be bothered selling everything.

“C’mon I’ve been like this for hours.”

“Uh-huh.”

“My arms are cramping.”

“I bet.”

“And my butt is numb.”

“So?”

“So it would be really nice to stretch for five minutes.”

He glances up again, lips curling in a smirk. “You really do think I’m stupid, don’t you?”

“I was just hoping for a bit of fuckin’ empathy.”

Tucker tuts his tongue disapprovingly and pouts. “Wrong twin, Becks, you know that.”

Becks glares at him. “Mal’s about as empathetic as period cramps.”

Tucker laughs and goes back to his phone. Most people’d probably gawk at that call but Becks, of all people, would know, wouldn’t she? He always hated that. Smile and a wink and Mal could get away with anything. He could steal a baby and eat it on camera and people would still defend him.

What? You mean the shining, go-lucky golden child has a selfish side? A mean streak? Drinks too much and steals from homeless shelters? Convinces your kid to do the same drugs he’s doing for a laugh and then pockets the profit? Surely that wouldn’t be Mal. Not smiling, joking, sunshiney Mal. Definition of a good guy. Just there for a good time.

At least with Becks there was very little pretense.

“Can I use the bathroom at least?”

“You can piss yourself for all I care.”

“Yeah but then you’ll have to clean it up.”

Tucker glances up over his glasses. Becks raises a you wanna try me? eyebrow. He sighs rolls his eyes. For fucks sake. Fine.

He stands. Pockets his phone. Closes the gap across the near-empty living room.

Everything happens ridiculously fast.

The second he cuts the cable ties around Becks’ wrists, she’s punching him in the gut. Tucker grunts and shoves, the heel of Becks hand slams up towards his nose. He grabs at her arm. She grabs at his middle finger. She wrenches it back until he yelps and lets her go.

He just barely manages to grab her by a fistful of her tee as she runs, the cheap fabric tearing at the seam on one side as he yanks her back against the chair. He can already feel blood stuffing his nose, overflowing, running down over his lip. If she’s broken his fucking nose he’s going to gut her on the kitchen floor.

She stamps his foot. He slams his knee into her gut. He grabs her hair. She grabs his arm. Her teeth sink into the flesh below his elbow.

“You fucking-“

Rage, pure and white hot, burns right in the centre of his chest in a brilliant flare as he slaps her. She bit him? She fucking bit him? Ferocious little shit. Fucking animal.

He twists the hand in her hair and yanks her head to the side. He brings his mouth to the juncture of her neck. He doesn’t think. Just retaliates. Sinks his teeth in.

Becks’ yell is piercing and too close to his ear but it makes him feel electric. He pins her thigh with his knee, one hand in her hair, one hand clawed over her shoulder, keeping her seated. She thrashes like something dying. He keeps his jaws clamped tight. Feels his teeth break skin. Tastes blood. Hears grunt turn to scream.

It’s sharp and hot. It’s metallic and shining.

It lights him the fuck up. Toes to teeth.

“Stop,” Becks’ voice is shrill and girlish, completely unlike the apathetic, low monotone she usually keeps it at. She beats at his chest. “Stopstopstop. You’re hurting me, you’re fuck- You’re hurting me.”

He releases his jaw and pulls back, grabbing her wrist while she grabs at her neck.

“You’re fucking feral.”

Tucker grins and shoves his arm in her face in manic defence, the bite mark she gave him a pitiful indentation compared to the wound on her neck. “You started it.”

Becks recoils from her own handwork. “Your face is fucked up, shit lord.”

Tucker frowns, bringing his hand up to touch under his nose, smudging blood with his fingers as he pulls them back to see it, red and glistening. His tongue flicks out to taste it, leaking down onto his top lip. Sharp, metallic, hot.

Fucking hot.

He hadn’t even felt it.

He laughs and licks the blood clean from his lips, from his fingers. What a rush. What a fucking treat. Without a glance in her direction, he curls his hand, still glistening with blood and saliva, into a fist and punches Becks in the face. It’s hard enough that the chair knocks backwards, onto two legs then to one, then to none, crashing to the floor spectacularly.

Tucker's fist hurts. His face hurts. He can’t stop grinning. He hasn’t felt this buzzed in months. Years. Ever.

Shit he feels good.

On the ground, Becks has her head tilted back against the tiles, gravity craning her neck along the back on the chair. Tucker crosses the few steps between them and crouches down by her face, taking her in. It’s like drinking good wine without knowing what’s meant to be the good parts. Just knowing that it’s fucking delicious.

Blood is smeared down Becks’ neck, over her hand where she’d held the wound before falling. Her wrists are red from pulling against the zipties for hours. Her hair, dark and choppy, splays out behind her like a dead bird. Her mouth gapes wide, desperately searching for air that was clearly locked out of her when she fell.

His thoughts flash briefly to Billy Laudner back in high school. On his knees behind the bike shed, cheeks flushed and lips parted. It’s nearly the same thrill. Something you know you shouldn’t be doing with someone you know you shouldn’t be touching. Flesh on flesh. Blood running hot.

He brushes Becks’ hair back from her forehead like he’d brushed Billy’s back before pushing him onto his back on the tanbark. Unlike Billy Laudner, Becks recoils from his touch. How fun.

To Tucker’s dismay, her nose isn’t quite bleeding, though her sinuses are probably clogged with it, gravity against him. Instead he dips too fingers down to where her neck is still bleeding from his teeth. She hisses at the contact and he breathes that in, smiling as he draws the blood up to draw under her nose, over her lip. For good measure he smears some on her cheek too.

He smiles down at her, saccharine. “Now we match.”

“F-fuck you,” she spits, trying for a snarl. But Tucker sees it. He sees right through her. Into her. Beneath, to what she’s hiding.

Becks is afraid of him.

Terrified of what he’ll do next.

And fuck if that doesn’t that feel good.

He taps her nose with his finger, a dot of blood left on the tip of it like an obscene Rudolph dress up, before he pulls her chair upright, grabbing at her wrists to zip tie back to the chair again.

“You look good bloody, Becks,” he says, murmuring it in her ear as he locks her hands in place. “Mal ever tell you that?”

She huffs, shaky from the fight, and whatever fear she’s still got in her system. “Thought you didn’t d-do violence.”

She clearly means it as some sort of gotcha but Tucker laughs, the sound high and tinkling. He looks up and catche his own reflection of a picture frame hanging on the wall opposite. The picture itself shows a picket fence, 2.5 kids family, a display picture for a display home, white bread as they come. His own face is shown in ghostly reflection, smeared bloody and bright from the fight.

On the one hand, Becks has a good point. On the other hand…

Well, he didn’t do boys until he met Billy Laudner.