#anton's feelings for reader morphed from one to another

[babyjinsu]

https://www.tumblr.com/babyjinsu/781348765321904128/bystander-pairing-bulliedanton-x-femreader

woah i would love to know more ments from their past, yn and toni have such an interesting relationship in the past i feel like

and they do! i’d like to think that they had nothing in common or in relations. the only thing that stringed them along was the three bullies :)) 

their relationship was full of these unspoken things of guilt, powerlessness, fear… for reader (u guys <3),,, anton was like this unsettling presence, or maybe even a reflection of what you used to be like. a victim. that’s why you cldn’t look him in the eye. it’s not what you did or didn’t do, it’s what he represented. 

to anton, you were the coward one. you made everything worse by being there. you didn’t laugh, didn’t throw things, didn’t spit in his food, but also didn’t do anything to stop it. anton hated you because you were safe behind them. he didn’t hate you the way he hated his bullies—raw and hot rage—but in a colder and more complicated way. almost internally. like something’s ill n wrong with him,,, but he quickly justifies and validates himself with the fact that you're a bully (are you?), and he's a victim. 

like anton doesn’t know why you were just there, always watching and doing nothing. even as i’m writing this i don’t know how to explain the ‘relationship’ that they had between one another. anton hates you for what? you didn’t do anything. you didn’t add onto the pain he was already suffering. but you were also the one person who could have done something. 

so anton doesn’t know where to place you in the mosaic of his suffering. he hates you because you didn’t join in. because that makes it feel like you thought you were better than him.

they have this really complex relationship that as the writer myself i don’t know how to word and comprehend it. the pain between the two of you doesn’t come from what was done, but what wasn’t. 

hopefully this is understandable lolol. let me know what kind of relationship do u think they had then! bystander was so interesting to write because i can’t explain it! so it kinda just doesn’t make sense to me.

[reckoningss]

Torment

Summary: Frank’s demons catch up to him in the worst possible way - by getting to you.

Pairing: Frank Castle x Reader

Warnings: Angst. Descriptions of physical violence, blood and torture.  Reader discretion is advised

Wordcount: 5.8k

A/N: I just wanted to try something new and this was the result, not sure if that’s a good thing or not. Feedback is welcome. 

You don’t hear them coming. Don’t notice the shuffle of too many feet until the footsteps are on top of you like the rumble of thunder and there’s a hand over your eyes and another over your mouth and nose. Your breathing goes shallow - heartbeat kicking up to a sprint - feet just beginning to mill wildly in retaliation as you’re lifted off the ground. Blood is rushing in your ears - blood like river rapids and fear like an ice floe in your veins. Max’s leash slips from your fingers; you let it go to claw at the hands that hold you, tearing at calloused skin with your fingernails in a desperate, losing fight to get free. You can only barely hear him growling over the rush of blood and the grunts of strange men. He coughs a vicious bark and someone swears and screams and then there’s a wet tearing and the sound of something sinking into flesh and a whimper.

They - whoever they are - throw you into a trunk, not even bothering to bind your hands and feet. You’re tossed like a duffel bag full of guns - like a dead body instead of a girl still kicking and screaming, the sound tearing violently from your throat without a hand to hold it in. The door is slammed before you can make any sort of move, slammed with enough force to take off your fingers if you’d so much as tried to climb out. Now you’re in the dark.

It’s cold. You can’t tell if it’s the weather or the panic as the car takes off at a screeching pace and you tumble like a corpse inside a coffin. Stupid. The word comes harsh and unbidden into your head. Stupid to be so unaware. Stupid to be caught off guard like that. So stupid so helpless and, and... Dead. How many times had you had this very thought, this very fear? How many times had Frank clamped warm palms down over your shoulders and shaken you and told you to be careful? You almost see his face in the dark - olive skin populating the shadows, one cheek bruised, the thick bridge of his nose sporting a cut, dark eyes pensive on yours.

“I don’t have a lot of friends.” he says and you smile, lift a hand to smooth the unease from his beautiful, drawn face.

“You have me.”

He takes your hand in his, squeezes it, like a lifeline but like an admonishment too. “There are people who will want to hurt you because I have you.” Chapped lips touch down on your knuckle. “You always have to be careful.”

In the dark, you almost feel the ghostly fan of his breath over your skin. It isn’t real. The car takes a speed bump at an incomprehensible speed and your shoulder slams mercilessly into metal.  That is real - the pain, the dark, the fear - it’s all too real and you sink into it. You feel inky blackness creeping over every inch of your tender skin, feel it seeping over your scalp and breaching your nostrils.

If they ever get you, fight.

The words come to you out of the dark and you cling to them. Take hold of the gritty rise of Frank’s voice and breathe what little air you have left.

You fight like hell - kick, bite, spit - I don’t give a shit. You fight and stay alive until I can get to you.

Stay alive. The words shimmer with warm light of their own. Fight.

You have no way of knowing where they’re taking you; every turn sends you rolling through the blackness, unsure of which way is up, head reeling, so you breathe, deep and deliberately like your air is being taken and you are fighting for every gasp. You lean into the turns, bracing yourself for every impact and when you finally come screaming to a stop, resurfacing to the sound of slamming car doors and heavy feet, you’re ready.

The kick connects with a man’s face the moment he opens the trunk, his flesh molding to the tread of your sneakers, the cartilage of his nose snapping against the ball of your foot.

“Fuck!”

A jet of blood pours from his broken nose like a faucet turned wide open and you just keep kicking. You’ve pressed your back down into the grimy mat of the trunk, far more confident in your ability to kick your way out than claw. And while you’ve succeeded in catching the first man off guard, the others can see you coming. A hand closes down around your ankle but you shake it off, another kick planting solidly in someone’s abdomen, forcing their breath out in a gust. You lash out wildly, uncaring of who you hurt and how just knowing you have to hurt them before they can hurt you. There are more hands on you now - too many hands. They hoist you out the trunk like a fresh kill, still trashing. You’re shrieking, screams falling on deaf, uncaring ears as arms struggle to hold you upside down and then a knee meets your temple and blackness falls over you like a curtain.

You wake to the even keen of a zip tie tightening and then - not pain - but sharp discomfort. They’ve bound you to a chair, arms behind your back, legs bound at the ankle - all too tight for comfort. You feel the bite of plastic too close to skin and the slow, thick churning of blood beneath constricted flesh and you shudder. There’s a hollowness in your head, every sound amplified and reverberating painfully. You make yourself blink, choke down a dry swallow.

“Good to see you’re awake.” 

For a moment, there’s more than one man in front of you - one and a half men in off white button downs with grey hair. The fuzzy ghost man slinks into his shell and then there’s only one. Your eyes feel heavy in your head. “I was worried Albin hit you too hard.”

“Anton,” comes a voice from off to your right. You crane your head as much as your bonds allow to look at him. This man - Albin - is younger - and ugly, a condition only exacerbated by his recently broken nose. He glowers at you as he rounds to stand near Anton, Addressing the older man in a language you don’t recognize. Something throaty and Slavic that you can’t parse. You snort, the closest thing to a laugh that you can muster. There’s malice in his pinched voice, pain barely masked by anger and you’re fairly certain he’s talking about you.

Anton waves him off, turning his attention fully back to you. He eyes your face, no doubt considering your left eye beginning to swell shut. “You’re a pretty girl.” He frowns. “Much too pretty for a dog like Frank Castle.”

You say nothing, staying silent because you’ve never been any good with words and right now you don’t trust your voice not to quaver. All things considered, if you open your mouth, you might find yourself begging so you clench your jaw and do your best Frank Castle instead.

“Too pretty to take the fall for him.” Something in the quirk of Anton’s brow reads as feigned sympathy and if you could feel anything but dread right now, you’d feel anger. “Where is he?”

“Fuck you.” It comes out weak, like a whisper or a plea instead of an insult but Anton hears it and scowls condescendingly at you. The way one might look at a child.

He kneels on the cement in front of, strokes your cheek with fat fingers as he looks up into your face. The way he says your name makes you sick to your stomach, the syllables mingling with what feels like tar sliding out of his throat.  “I don’t want you, I want Castle. Tell me where he is.”

You don’t have to think very hard to know that telling him where Frank is isn’t going to improve your situation. They wouldn’t have abducted you if they didn’t want you, wouldn’t have nearly caved your skull in if they only wanted to get to Frank. You’re a part of this, whether or not you want to be. So you lie.

“I don’t know where he is. I haven’t seen him in days.”

Anton scowls again and behind him, Albin bristles. It’s not going to take much for the injured man to hurt you, he already wants to. He man takes a step forward, but Anton holds a hand out, warning him off. His face morphs into something sincere for a moment - a candle’s light flickering in the dark. “I don’t want to hurt you.” You almost believe him. “But I will.”

A quiet, shuddering sob shakes your shoulders, but you tamp it down enough to respond. “Do what you have to.”

Disappointment colors Anton’s weathered face as he stands. He steps to the side, no longer shielding you from Albin and his disrespected fury like a cornered dog.

The first blow cracks across your face like a bullet, snapping your head to the side. You choke on your own breath, throat straining as your lip splits open like a water balloon and you struggle to right your reeling head so you can breathe again. Albin smiles at you menacingly, sadistic glee apparent in his eyes despite the bruises beginning to purple into view beneath them.  

“Tell me,” he growls, “where is Castle.? He grins into your labored silence. “Or don’t tell me. Yet.”

The next blow fills your mouth with blood and the one after sends it spraying across your cheeks and Albin’s fist. He grimaces in disgust, wiping his already reddening knuckles on his white shirt, leaving streaks of your vivid pain behind. You  just cry thick, ugly sobs as red, ropey strings of it dribble down your chin.

You’ve let go of your pretended bravery, because even your best Frank impression is no good. Because ‘afraid’ isn’t a sensation Frank recognizes. ‘Afraid’ isn’t a state Frank ever experiences, but it’s one that you live in, inhabiting it fully as though it were a home. Fear, to you, isn’t just an emotion or a thing you sometimes feel - fear is like water and you’re the fish. Fear is the atmosphere and you are lost and breathless without it. You don’t know how to be without being afraid.

“Where is he?” Albin doesn’t even wait for you to deny any knowledge of Frank’s whereabouts before he hits you again. You don’t hear your eye socket fracture as much as you feel it, pain radiating out across your face like a million tongues of lightning forking through the muscle and bone. Your vision goes blurry, red smudging everything you see into a violent abstract image. A scream rings through your head like a caged bird until you realize that your split lips are parted in a horrible shuddering sound unlike anything you’ve ever heard - or made - before.

Max makes it home and climbs up onto the stoop and whines like a broken little soldier until Frank Opens the door. He notices that you’re not with Max first; then he notices the blood - thick patches of Max’s slate fur tinged brown. There’s a knife protruding from the dog’s shoulder - buried to the hilt. Frank goes cold. You see, you were wrong about him. Frank doesn’t feel fear often - that’s true - but right now, with an injured dog on his stoop and you nowhere to be seen, he feels panic sweeping over him like he’s never known.

The broken eye socket throbs but that’s nothing compared to the three missing fingernails, and even those pale in comparison to the fractured tooth screaming from the depths of your blood-filled mouth. Albin has graduated to gloves now, having had his fill of striking you with his bare hands - his desire to feel your bruised flesh on his seemingly sated. The gloves don’t help. Your head tips forward, eyes fluttering as you wheeze laboriously. Blood and saliva and God knows what else dribble from your mouth and nose onto your lap, the polyester of your leggings encrusted with the stuff, and your head is clouded with pain. You’re not sure how long it’s been - since you lost Max, since he first hit you, since he stopped. Since you last saw Frank.

Frank. 

Something crawls out of the wreckage of your raw throat - half a laugh, half a whimper. It feels like days since you woke up beside him - months since a calloused finger found the waistband of your leggings at the door and pulled you back into his chest - you, a catch all too happy to be reeled in as he leaned over your shoulder and you craned your neck back to meet him in the middle. His lips were soft against yours, his hands gentle on your hips. No urgency there - only contentment. Only Frank. Only you.

You’ve never felt further away from a point in time than you feel from this morning.

The memory is muddled and warped around the edges - the images and sensations fuzzier than they ought to be - but it’s warm, so you fall into it. Seep the way blood seeps through your chipped teeth and nestle into the fading memory of Frank’s caring grasp - letting the pain and the warmth take you.

Someone says your name - one voice but two - the word sounding the way a double exposed photograph looks. You hear Frank there but another person too. They say your name again - Frank and this stranger - together and a rough hand finds your face, the palm slapping your cheek sharply yet gentle. You flinch away though you recognize the feeling. Like the way Frank roused you when you slipped on the tiled kitchen floor, striking your head. Your name again, the voice laced with concern. Your eyes flutter, fighting back against the pain and the desire to sleep, leaning into Frank’s phantom touch. You win the battle, heavy eyelids flying open and Frank is gone.

Anton’s face fills your field of vision, each line and wrinkle worming through his skin defined. The sympathy is back in his eyes - false sympathy - the kind of sympathy a man feels when he’s the one inflicting the harm. He says your name again almost like he cares and in spite of yourself, you’re touched by it. Your battered, weakened mind is moved by the kindness in his voice, maybe because you know it’s the last time you’ll ever experience it - kindness - real or feigned. You gasp a quiet sob and he rubs the pad of his thumb beneath your eye to sweep away the tears. His hand comes away ruddy and smelling of iron.

“Albin..he gets carried away. I apologize.” As he speaks he busies himself tidying you up. Tidying the way one sweeps a dirt floor. “ You must understand he is grieving.”

He gently tucks a loose braid away behind your ear.

“He’s not very mature, he does not know how to handle his pain.”

Albin is wearing a navy blue blazer now and from the breast pocket he produces a silk handkerchief, snapping it in the air to unfurl it. He folds the cloth over the tip of his index finger and cups your cheek as he runs it along the skin beneath your nose.

“My Stanis though...My Stanis had good head on his shoulders. He was strong and smart. He knew how to talk about things. Many things. You’re a nice girl, you would like my Stanis.”

The handkerchief makes its way up to the split brow leaking blood into your swollen left eye. You hiss at the sensation, wincing away from Anton’s careful touch as he presses the kerchief to the laceration to clean away the blood.

“He was my pride.” Anton’s tone balloons sorrowfully and you realize that he’s speaking around barely suppressed tears. “My boy.”

He grips your chin now, a bit too roughly, his patience wearing thin at your pained squirming.  You still, alarmed at the suddenness, eyes locked anxiously on his.

“I wanted to give him everything. Everything I do I did for my boy. So he could take care of his family. His brother, his mother.”

Anton lowers his ministering hand from your face, though his other still grips you like a vice. Flat - his gaze is flat on yours. Placid. Like a snake as he opens his mouth again.

“Your Frank took Stanis away from me. From us. Albin is all I have left now and I need to know, where is Frank Castle?”

You’re taking quick, jerking gasps through your nose now, fear paralyzing you and making you capable of little else. Anton’s eyes are boring into you, peeling away all of your layers and looking for the truth. You’re afraid he’ll find it in your expression, but you can’t look away. You know he’ll strike when you do.

Anton is unimpressed with your silence, though he recognizes the fear that motivates it. He shakes you a little - stars and orbs of light sailing across your vision.

“There is no need for you to die - only Castle. Tell me.” The handkerchief rises again, this time scrubbing across your stinging bottom lip. “Where is he?”

Something - bigger than fear, deeper and colder and more potent - takes you, violently, like an earthquake shaking the home where you live. Like it will vibrate you right out of this chair, the whole thing shaken to disassembled pieces of wood and a scattering of screws across the cement. Then a wave of calm passes over you - a lukewarm peace that belies the situation settling comfortably around your shoulders and your hammering heart.

It’s a peace that comes from knowing that you no longer have control - that you never did. It’s the silent rush of letting go and falling into oblivion.

It’s when you know you’re going to die.

“I’m sorry.” Your voice comes out like the thin skeleton of a whisper, though you still try to pour as much empathy into it as you possibly can. “I just don’t know.”

Anton’s face goes stony, any bit of humanity forced out by a dark storm front of animal rage. Blood runs cold in your veins, despite your acceptance. There’s no sympathy left now, only rage, only the will to hurt you to hurt Frank.

“Albin!”

The younger man steps into view, his white tee shirt painted haphazardly with sprays of your blood. A dingy rag hangs lazily in his grip, flopping as he wipes his fists as.

“Yeah?”

He keeps his eyes on you, even as his father yells something harsh and quick to him. You see the smile beginning to spread across his face first and then the rag rippling through air as it drops to the floor and with it, your heart. Then he descends on you in a flurry of fists and feet.

“Wake up!”

A shower of frigid water crashes over you, pulling you back from the inky mire of whatever unconscious plain you’ve inhabited. You’re gasping, shivering, sobbing again in spite of yourself. Tears of exhaustion, of shock. You come to yourself enough to look up at Albin standing in front of you. He holds a phone in his hand, the camera aimed at your blubbering form as he glares at you over-top it.

Anton kneels beside you, arranging implements neatly on a little table to your right. There lie the pair of pliers his son used to rip out your fingernails, the tips still dappled red.

“Look, sweetheart,” Anton coos, pausing his ministrations to point toward his son holding the camera, “pay attention, draga.” He raises his voice performatively.  “I want you to know - both of you - that I gave you a chance.”

He lifts the pliers, gesturing with them. He turns to the camera.

“I gave your girlfriend plenty of chances, Castle, she didn’t take them. So all of this.” He gestures again with the pliers, flinging drops of blood. “I consider it your fault.”

Anton reaches down with the pliers and clips a zip tie, freeing your right arm. It shoots up immediately, your trembling hand finding Anton’s wrinkled face and attempting to claw at the loose skin but you do little more than streak it with blood. You’re weak and he knows it.

“Ah ah ah.” Anton grabs your wrist easily and guides your hand to the table, the metal cool against your open palm as his positions it flat upon the surface. He places the pliers down with his other hand, this time selecting the knife. It glints with a flex of his wrist as though he’s testing its weight. “I need you to look at the camera, darling.”

He leans up on his knees, bringing his lips close to your ear. “I want you to beg.”

You lock eyes with this man - your captor, your tormentor - and you see in his eyes that he knows. You won’t beg. You’re not getting out of this alive and you won’t take part in this snuff video - this attempt to harm Frank more than he’s already been harmed. He’s going to lose you regardless. 

Not taking his eyes off of yours, Anton places the tip of the knife into the back of your hand - not hard enough to break skin, but enough to sting. Your breath catches in your throat.

“Beg him to come and save you.”

You say nothing. Anton applies more pressure  to the knife, the tip digging further into your flesh. You grit your teeth so hard you’re sure they’ll shatter. More tears well in your eyes.  

“Tell him.” The knife splits your skin and sinks a few millimeters deeper, blood blooming fresh and bright from the new wound. Your stomach writhes, sick threatening to claw its way out of your throat. “Tell him to save you.”

The knife sinks deeper, the double-edged blade widening the hole in your hand and you feel every searing inch. Anton still holds your wrist in a vice grip, holding you there as he tears into you, your hand jerking futilely of its own volition - a spider running from the boot on broken legs.  You feel blood trickle between your spasming fingers. A groan starts deep, deep in the pits of your stomach and grows, roiling up your throat like magma and leaking from between your clenched teeth and tight lips.

“Tell him.” Anton’s eyes are hot on your face. Five yards away, Albin grins evilly from behind the phone. “Tell Castle goodbye.”

The tip of the knife touches down on something not meant to be touched. White hot pain arcs through your hand and down every finger and up your arm into your shoulder and chest and you let go, the scream exploding out of you like a smoldering fire exposed to a draft of pure air. It’s ear-splitting and agonizing but it feels like being emptied out and you can’t think of anything you want more.

“Frank!”  your voice breaks, shoulders shuddering with sobs  as you look tearily toward the waiting camera. “I love you.”

Anton hisses and leans into his work, putting more weight on the knife and forcing it deeper. You scream another sob, feeling your flesh and muscle splitting, feeling the knife sever things inside your hand.

“I’m sorry, Frank. I’m so sorry.” For a moment the pain overwhelms you, sweeping you along in an undertow of screaming nerves too hot and loud to do anything but tremble. You fight through the shock beginning to creep through your veins and threatening to numb you. “Don’t come for me, Frank. I love you so much.”

Albin yells something to his father - something angry - and Anton yells something back, their conversation too fast and heated for you to hope to understand. You hope they’re deciding how to finally take care of you. Anton barks some words with a tone of finality, punctuating the declaration by ripping the blade from your skewered hand. You barely feel the pain anymore, though your body jerks with it. Blood goes flying in the knife’s wake and wells up in the open gash. You blink through a fresh wave of tears.

Albin’s head blossoms like a flower in spring.

The skin of his left temple opens up in a bloom of petals, pistils and stamens of blood spraying out in between and all of it speckled with white flecks of bone and pink bits of gristle and brain. You watch it happen in slow motion - this head deconstructing like a bloody lily in slow motion. Only after do you hear the ringing echo of a gunshot, and then Anton’s horrible screams.

He raises the knife in a shaking hand, its bloody surface shimmering in the sparse light until a bullet tears through his shoulder - another flower blooming from distended flesh and hot air - and the blade goes clattering onto the cold cement. Anton tumbles over, his hand grasping you on the way down. The chair tips into the tiny metal table, sending both clattering onto the floor and you with them. You land hard on top of Anton, forcing the older man’s breath from his lungs. Already blood has started to pool beneath him from the wound in his shoulder and he reaches up, one rough hand clamping down on your shoulders and arms again. To push you off or cause more harm, you don’t know. You don’t plan on finding out either.

You ignore the shrieking pain in your hand as you reach out, sliding it uselessly along the dirty, bloody floor until you find it, your red fingers closing down around the grip of the needle nose pliers. You grasp them with some effort and then, your dead weight still pinning a struggling Anton, you drive them into his eye.

You’ve done - and heard - a lot of screaming today, but nothing quite like this. Nothing like the terrified keening that pours out of Anton’s mouth and you can’t deny the thrill you feel climbing your spine. This, you realize, is what Frank feels - this power, this vindication - as bloody pink mixture bubbles out the recently vacated eye socket.

The feeling takes hold of you, Anton’s wails still ringing shrilly in your ears, and you press deeper. The screams ascend higher and higher on the scale until his mouth is open, lips quivering with pained vibrato but nothing is coming out - only hissing air. You press until something gives, something deep inside his skull cracking wetly like an egg and his entire body jerks like a galvanized corpse then he goes still and quiet and he’s gone.

The feeling doesn’t leave. You rip the pliers free and plunge them into Anton’s throat and then again into his chest and shoulder. Again and again opening up tunnel after gaping tunnel inside of this body who was a man only moments ago.

Frank is on you now, leaning over you. His rough hands gripping your bruised arms. He’s shouting your name though you don’t hear him. You’re not completely you - not anymore. You rear back again with the pliers, this blow directed toward Anton’s lifeless face, but Frank stays your hand, wrenching the tool out of your grip painfully. He doesn’t mean to hurt you, no, but he recognizes the sensation directing your movements - the rage, the all-encompassing hurt, the feeling. He knows that if you chase it, there’s no coming back, so he holds you.

Something leaves you when the pliers slip from your grasp, the feeling fleeing your body through the hole in your dripping hand. Frank says your name, low and frantic as he busies himself with cutting your restraints and when he’s done, you go limp in his arms.

“Hey, hey. Stay with me.” Frank cradles you carefully to his chest like a china doll, like you’ll break. You don’t have the energy to tell him that you’re already broken. You reach up, trembling fingers brushing Frank’s cheek, leaving blood behind. A bruise is beginning to purple into view across the side of his face and you open your mouth to say something but cough up a tiny spray of blood instead.

Frank rocks you as you start to sob, in earnest this time, dark eyes warily scoping the room around you. “Shh. I got you.”

You sit there like that for God knows how long. Frank holding you and rocking and you crying, struggling just to breathe. The shock has started to set in by now; you feel it creeping over you, growing over your prone body like moss. There’s no fighting the rising tide of numbness, so you sink into it and going under instead.

Frank wishes you would sleep. It wouldn’t ease his worry, but if you slept he’d know how to worry about you. But like this, your glassy eyes wide and staring off into nothing in particular as he guns the gas, he’s not sure what to do with you. You’re leaking onto the seat, silence thickening in the air between you as asphalt flies away behind you, and a burning warehouse belches black smoke into the sky in the rear-view mirror.

Frank knows pain, he’s used to it. He knows how to deal with it, patching himself up and putting on a brave, angry face. But you... your softness doesn’t make you weak but it makes him unsure of how to care for you. He’s out of practice you see. Frank doesn’t have much softness left, but now, neither do you.

Frank is careful unbuckling you, careful up the steps with you in his careful arms. He kicks the door shut behind you and carries you into the back where he sets you carefully on the toilet and draws the blinds shut.  He leans into the tub, lowering the stopper and running hot water into the basin. Then he leaves you there, shivering and empty on the toilet as he makes his way around the house and locks you both inside.

Steam is beginning to rise into the air when he returns, the humidity clinging to your grimy skin and curling the exposed roots of your hair, though you don’t notice. You’re still lost in there somewhere, letting the shock hold you, letting it keep the pain and the horror at bay. Frank shuts the door and stands at the opposite end of the bathroom from you. Not very far - not enough room- but giving you as much space as he can. He lets the warm mist billow up between you before he crossed to the tub, closing off the tap and then turning to you. He kneels between your knees, taking your hands ever so gently in his own, noting the involuntary jerk your right gives from the pain. Just holding you, for a second, just the contact, just Frank. He looks up into your face and hopes that he can fix this - whatever this is.

He undresses you - carefully - pulling every article of clothing off of you softly like peeling away petals - she loves me, she loves me not - each item dropped in an unimportant heap like the rind of an orange. Your garments crack and peel away from your skin, sprinkling brown flakes of your dried blood onto the slick whiteness of the tiled floor. Then, naked and empty, Frank scoops you up in steady arms and lowers you into the tub. The water fizzes quietly, pressing tiny kisses to your filthy, tender skin.

You slide down, bringing your back down to the textured floor of the tub so you’re completely submerged. With stinging eyes you make out Frank peering down at you, face rippling slowly. You feel as though you’re lying on the ocean floor, tons of pressure caving your chest in to make room for the fish and the monsters.

You stay like that far longer than you should, until your lungs burn and your head is buzzing with static that sounds like lapping water. Go up, something inside you pleads, breathe. You press your back more firmly into the pebbled bottom of the tub, fighting the cogs and springs inside you straining tightly. You could drown like this, you think.

The bathroom is quiet when your head breaches the surface of the now pink water, heavy silence punctuated by your thumping heartbeat and the singing of the water. Frank sits beside the tub looking at you, arms slung across his knees, thick fingers dangling. He waits for your breathing to level before reaching into the tub, the sleeves of his hoodie already gathered around his elbows. He cups water over your back, warmth trickling along the ridge of your spine the way it might down a window pane. Over and over like a baptism. After a while, he reaches for a rag and the soap and scrubs away the filth - hard - like a snake shedding its skin against a rock.

“Frank.”

It’s the first time Frank has heard your voice since this morning when you were a very different person. The sound halts his movements and he just looks at you, old soldier’s eyes studying your face.

“Frank.”

You say his name because you don’t know how to say anything else. You don’t know how to tell him what parts of you were taken and what parts were added and don’t fit - new appendages tacked onto your emotional anatomy - Frankenstein’s monster cobbled together from trauma and pain.

He hears you and understands all the same, so he reaches into the tub for your hand - skin already beginning to prune - and he kisses every fingertip. When he’s done he reaches back into the lukewarm water for the other and does the same.

All the while, you say his name and nothing else.

Frank like a confession.

Frank - a benediction.

Frank - an invocation.

Frank - a prayer.  

[stormyrecords-blog]

new arrivals 7-13-17

glenn jones plays this week on thursday night at trinosophes. also - this week is the first week of the east dearborn musical event - tunes at noon. full desription and schedule just below the list of this week's new arrivals. items in stock thursday - july 13th 2017 Love Theme: S/T LP $21.99If there's a single guiding motif to this debut recording from Love Theme, it's the melancholic throb of love learnt and love lost, a descent that tumbles and slips through the overall feeling of looking back. As intimately and carefully as its parts cohesively lament a narrative, it's the after-image that catches your breath, like a memory morphing as it is observed. Comprised of Alex Zhang Hungtai, of the now defunct project Dirty Beaches, along with Austin Milne, and Simon Frank, Love Theme is arranged from an improvised session with twin saxophones, synthesizer, percussion, drum machine, and voice. The aching wane of the saxophone arrangements frisk the propulsive aggro of the mixed percussion, forcing a melancholic halo upon the queasy stupor of the synthetic swing that closes each side of the record. It's a bizarre lust for life that's being divined from equal parts dislocation and invigoration, a potent remedy which perhaps Love Theme can call their own. Percolating and finding form over time, the record instinctively follows a travel narrative, moving across a series of landscapes, reflecting the innate experiences of the expressions and voices that were first collected in South London back in February 2015. Mitchell, Nicole : Mandorla CD $15.99"Mandorla Awakening II: Emerging Worlds is Nicole Mitchell's second album for Chicago-based FPE Records. Recorded in May of 2015 at Chicago's Museum of Contemporary Art, it features her longtime collaborators Renee Baker (violin), Tomeka Reid (cello, banjo), Alex Wing (electric guitar, oud) and Jovia Armstrong (percussion), along with new members Tatsu Aoki (bass, shamisen, taiko) and Kojiro Umezaki (shakuhachi). Also in the mix is Chicago artist, scholar and poet Avery R Young, who brings her lyrics to life with visceral humanity. Composer and flutist Nicole Mitchell, once hailed by Chicago Reader music critic Peter Margasak as the 'greatest living flutist in jazz', continues the work begun when jazz visionary Sun Ra and his Arkestra first touched down on Planet Earth and told humanity that space (outer and inner) is indeed the place. As with contemporary Afrofuturist pioneers like cosmic jazz saxophonist Kamasi Washington, post-everything beat maker Flying Lotus, R&B cyborg Janelle Monáe and dystopian noise-rappers Death Grips, she uses Afrofuturism as a platform to launch her own, unique vision. Her vast sound often encompasses contemporary classical, globally oriented fusion, gospel, spoken word, funk-inspired groove research and even brittle shards of avant-rock. Mandorla Awakening II collides dualities such as acoustic vs electric, country vs urban, simple vs complex, while also sounding through intercultural dialogue between Black, European and Pan-Asian improvisational languages. The outcome is a creative music suite that blurs musical styles into recognizable fragments that weave a unique sound fabric, where human emotion and the struggles of today swim." Baroncini/D'Amario: Music for Movement  LP $32.99Sonor Music Editions present a reissue Angelo Baroncini and Bruno Battisti D'amario's Music For Movement, originally released in 1969. Another terrific jam and a very obscure Italian library record, originally released on Roman Record Company label, the label responsible for Droga (1972), Traffico (1972), and the Viaggio Attraverso I Problemi Dell'Uomo series. The music is signed by the great guitar players and composers Angelo Baroncini and Bruno Battisti D'Amario, D'Amario being the unmissable guitar man of maestro Ennio Morricone. Crazy early fuzz beats with fast western swings, experimental rock distractions, rhythmic movements, with totally insane acid guitar and sitar riffs and a huge underground psychedelic mood. A truly inspired and deep session recorded for some impossible TV synchronization purpose. Holy grail alert. Original sleazy stereo recording restored sound. Edition of 500 Watson, Chris: El Tren Fantasma CD $15.992017 repress. "Take the ghost train from Los Mochis to Veracruz and travel cross country, coast to coast, Pacific to Atlantic. Ride the rhythm of the rails on board the Ferrocarriles Nacionales de México (FNM) and the music of a journey that has now passed into history." --Chris Watson Kawai, Kenji: Ghost In The Shell  OST LP $27.99We Release Whatever The Fuck We Want Records present the first ever official vinyl pressing of the soundtrack for Mamoru Oshii's critically acclaimed and all around legendary science fiction anime film Ghost In The Shell (1995), adapted from Masamune Shirow's groundbreaking manga series of the same name. The haunting score is composed by Kenji Kawai, one of Japan's most celebrated soundtrack composers alongside Joe Hisaishi and Ryuichi Sakamoto, whose work includes Hideo Nakata's Ring (1998) and Ring 2 (1999), Death Note (2006), Hong Kong films Seven Swords by Tsui Hark (2005) and Ip Man by Wilson Yip (2008), and countless others. Kawai's compositions see ancient harmonies and percussions uncannily mesh with synthesized sounds of the modern world to convey a sumptuous balance between folklore tradition and futuristic outlook. For its iconic main theme "Making Of Cyborg", Kawai had a choir chant a wedding song in ancient Japanese following Bulgarian folk harmonies, setting the standard for a timeless and unparalleled soundtrack that admirably echoes the film's musings on the nature of humanity in a technologically advanced world. Ghost In The Shell is widely considered one of the best anime films of all time and its influence has been felt in the work of numerous movie directors, including James Cameron's Avatar (2009), the Wachowskis's The Matrix (1999), and Steven Spielberg's AI: Artificial Intelligence (2001). For fans of anime, manga, movie soundtracks, science fiction, ambient, folklore, Japan, Akira (1988), artificial intelligence, Midori Takada. Cut from the original master reels at Emil Berliner Studios (formerly the in-house recording department of renowned classical record label Deutsche Grammophon). Trost, Heather : Agistri LP $20.99LP version. "Heather Trost is best known for her work composing and performing as one half of A Hawk And A Hacksaw. She has also played with Neutral Milk Hotel, Beirut, Josephine Foster, and most recently Thor Harris of Swans. She has arranged and performed with the BBC Concert Orchestra, as well as conductor Andre De Ridder and his Stargaze Orchestra, and toured throughout the world. In 2014 she released her first solo project, a 7-inch on Ba Da Bing Records, followed in 2015 by Ourobouros, a limited edition cassette of expansive electronic ambient compositions influenced by Basil Kirchin, Terry Riley and Angelo Badalamenti on Cimiotti Recordings. These two projects propelled a full length album: named after a Greek Island, Agistri is a song cycle of freely formed pop songs touching upon soul, samba, and pop music of the '60s and '70s, with a subtle shade of psychedelia. Ambient and melancholic sounds interweave with Hammond organs and '70s Italian synthesizers, reflecting the desert landscapes of New Mexico, and the sparse shrubbery and turquoise water of the Aegean Sea and its islands. Bolstered by contributions from Neutral Milk Hotel's Jeremy Barnes on drums and bass, Deerhoof's John Dieterich on guitar, and Drake Hardin and Rosie Hutchinson of cult New Mexico band Mammal Eggs, Trost's talents as a songwriter and arranger explode on this wonderful, often surreal album." Wire #402: Aug 17 MAG/CD  $10.50"Stuck to the cover of this month's issue: The Wire Tapper 44 CD, featuring 20 tracks by AGF + Werkstatt, Sarah Angliss, Paul Rooney, Susanna, Hear In Now, Bonaventure, and more. Meanwhile, inside the issue: Finland's postmodern metal masters Circle; New York underground hiphop veteran Scotty Hard; Anton Lukoszevieze, leader of UK chamber music ensemble Apartment House; a report on the electronic explorers and pop-punk mavericks of Sapporo's DIY microscene; and more." TUNES AT NOONevery thursday at 12 noon in dearborn city hall park at the corner of michigan ave and schaeferone hour of free music - bring your lunch and enjoy some fun in the sun!! 7/13 Dearborn School of MusicWe are a music school that offers private lessons on all instruments and all styles of music to students of all ages. We also have group lessons for preschoolers called "music for little mozarts." For the summer concert we have put together a rock band comprised of students and instructors that will be playing some classic rock and modern rock and punk rock songs. 7/20 Lac La BelleLocal musicians Jennie Knaggs & Nick Schillace create music that blends history with the present via accordion, mandolin, banjo, ukulele, harmonizing vocals, and fingerpicking resonator guitar. With their separate experiences learning folk and blues in Appalachia, American roots bind Lac La Belle’s compositions with a heavy thread. For this performance enjoy some of their favorite old time, bluegrass and western swing favorites, alongside their original tunes. 7/27 Detroit Pleasure SocietyDetroit Pleasure Society plays the traditional jazz of New Orleans with a fresh twist and raucous candor. 8/3 Libby DeCamp"Libby DeCamp makes dusty folk and American Roots-inspired music with a lyrical edge and a classic three-piece energy, delivered with a haunting vocal closeness that reaches listeners of all kinds. Sweetly soulful "Broken Folk." 8/10 Michael Malis TrioMichael Malis is a pianist and composer based in Detroit, MI. Malis bridges the gap between original composed, complex material and the spontaneity of improvisation. His trio (piano, bass, drums),   featured on his latest album, has toured in the United States and Canada, and in September 2016, they performed at the Detroit International Jazz Festival. 8/17 Viands "Viands is a spontaneous collaboration between two auteurs of Detroit's underground music scene: Joel Peterson and David Shettler. The music they create is a deep, reflective and fearless alternate-reality keyboard meditation that draws on the pair's broad musical vision to explore new vistas.