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toxicanonymity · 24 days ago

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The Night

THOMAS HEWITT X F! READER | THE SPREAD one shot

LENGTH: 3100 words | GIRTH: Huge

SUMMARY: Another trespasser meets a violent end. You admit your fears to Tommy, and he shows he cares.

WARNINGS: 18+ Canon-typical violence/horror, angst, dark fluff, protective!Tommy, light somno, unsafe dubcon PIV, creampie, fainting, no use of yn, the usual size kink, captivity.

NOTES: Tysm for your interest and enthusiasm for this fic ♥️ I appreciate your comments and asks.

THE SPREAD FAM: @milla-frenchy @aurorawritestoescape @ankkumi @slut4acotar @stickywinnertale @megangovier @xdaddysprincessxx @im-his-druidess @your-favblondie @ahoeformando @consultingskeletondetective

The Hewitts had gone to bed, and Tommy had brought you into his work area to sit in his lap while he disassembled dolls. He lined up the plastic heads and arms and legs and tossed their soft bodies into a pile.

“Where did these come from?” you asked. He looked up toward the upstairs of the main house, then hunched over to work again, and shrugged. When he was done with the last doll, he slid his hands under your arms and stood up, setting you on his desk. Then he bent down to pick up a big flour sack off the floor.

Something clattered outside, and Tommy froze. It was a small sound, like a can being kicked. After a few seconds of silence, a man’s voice cut through the silence. “Hillbillies,” he cursed under his breath.

Tommy turned off the dim worklight.

“Fuckin’ psychos.” The stranger’s voice sounded closer.

He was approaching the garage, with no sign he would turn away. Tommy held onto the chair as he stood up without making a noise, then he pointed under the desk.

You hesitated, and he tightly gripped your arms, pulling you off the desk.

“Ow,” you mouthed. He pushed you down and you obeyed. Under the desk, you hugged your knees to your chest.

Tommy’s bare foot–calloused and enormous– scraped against the dusty floor as he looked around to choose his weapon. His axe was too far–that was his own fault. He lifted a chainsaw, and held it, waiting in the shadows for the intruder to approach.

“What the hell is this junk,” the intruder asked himself, halfway into the garage.

When the man reached for something that hung from the ceiling, Tommy charged at him.

“What the fuck!” The man yelled, and scurried away.

Tommy lumbered after the man until they were out of the garage, and you came out from under the desk to see what was going on. From the shadows, you watched Tommy’s hulking silhouette as he revved and raised the chainsaw, then let it die before thwacking the man with the flat edge of the saw.

The man’s body was sprawled on the dirt. Tommy looked back toward the house, chest heaving, and you ducked back under the desk as he came back.

He came about halfway into the garage, glanced to make sure you were safe, set down his chainsaw, then returned outside. Tommy’s posture was tense. His hands were balled into big fists, which he opened and flexed as he approached the man on the ground. He braced one hand on his thigh as he grabbed a fist-full of the man’s shirt, then dragged him away.

With the man limp on the ground, Tommy reached toward the ceiling. He could have touched the ceiling, and he nearly did. He tugged at chains that hung there, separated two that were tangled, and let them down. Then he bent down and picked the man up with little effort. As Tommy strung him up in chains, the man groaned to life and spat blood on the ground. When Tommy was done tugging at the chains, the man was securely off the ground. Tommy punched at the man. It looked too easy for him. What appeared to be a lazy swing landed a devastating blow to the man’s eye, making the chains shake and the body swing. The man spat more.

You crawled out from under the desk to watch Tommy pull and hack at the man’s clothes with his hands, then a cleaver, pulling the fabric off his body. The man wriggled and thrashed.

“Lemme down, freak!” The man demanded.

Tommy paused to inspect the man’s crotch as he took down his pants and underwear. He sniffed and then pulled his underwear back up. Then Tommy caught sight of you in the corner of his eye. You had crept almost all the way to the front of the garage. The man turned his head, following Tommy’s line of sight, and coughed, then weakly asked, “Hey, you okay?”

Tommy’s head snapped back toward the man and he landed a blow that forced the man’s head in the opposite direction. Then, Tommy grabbed him by the neck and squeezed until he was limp, head bowed, body swinging gently off the ground.

Tommy took a leather apron off the wall and put it on, then grabbed his chainsaw and you asked, “What are you doing??”

With his chainsaw in one hand, he put you over his shoulder and took you back to his sewing desk, manhandling you under it once again. He glared at you with fire in his eyes, then marched back toward where the man was hanging.

Tommy took him down from the chains, and dragged him out of the garage and around the house. After a minute, a reddish light poured onto the dirt and grass, and you emerged from under the desk once again.

It was scary being alone in that place, with your protector out of sight. What if someone came downstairs?

Through a dirty window, you could see Tommy spear the man onto a hook in the meat shed. Then, the chainsaw revved to life, and it made your stomach sick. You retreated under the desk, curling into a tighter ball, tuning it all out.

“TOMMY,” his mother cawed.

Having come out through the front door, she shuffled along the edge of the garage, into the red light. “Are you alright? Do you need help?”

The skirt of her long nightgown was gathered in one hand, and she held a lantern in the other.

She went around the house, toward the light, and the light turned off.

“Good boy,” she said. “Now leave this ‘til tomorrow, so your father can get back to sleep.”

Tommy left the chainsaw behind. placed a hand on his mother’s back, and rushed her toward the front door, pausing to steal a glance in your direction.

“Look at you,” his mother held the lantern up toward his chest while they were paused. “Let’s get you cleaned up.”

She looked tiny, with her head turned up to look up at Thomas’s face. He brought her toward the door, and she made him promise he’d come in and wash up before going back to bed.

Tommy set you down in the wood shed, swaddled tightly in a blanket. He situated you on the floor, then stood up. Still fuming, his chest heaved, his eyes were wild, and his hands twitched by his side. “I'm sorry,” you apologized, not completely sure for what. For not staying under the desk? That was the main thing, but you also felt guilty for thoughts he didn't know about. Thoughts of leaving, getting rescued. You were conflicted. Could he sense it?

“I can't,” you began, unsure how to explain this to him. “Thank you for saving me,” you said. “I want to stay with you… but sometimes…” You freed your hands from the blanket, and began to resituated it around yourself.

His watched and squinted.

“I get scared,” you went on. “There's so much danger here… I don't know.”

Tommy huffed and turned his back on you. He shut the door behind him. You heard the chain scraping as he locked up. You curled up on your side, leaving the blanket tightly wrapped around you, and cried yourself to sleep.

It was a deep sleep, with fatigue in your bones. Ever since he’d been keeping you in the shed, your sleep was frequently disturbed by noises of the night, physical discomforts, and the eerie air about the property. If you woke up in the night, your heart would thump and it’d take time to get back to sleep. Sometimes it’d take until dawn. It wasn’t a real life, but you were lucky to be alive. That was more than you could say for your friends. But this sleep was different… this sleep was so deep that even when disturbed, you hesitated to wake up…

Even when the chains and padlock scraped against the shed door in the middle of the night again, it took you time to register what was happening, and even then, your heart rate didn’t shoot up as it normally would, but your heart did thump with dread. What would you do if there were another trespasser? What if he got in? There seemed to be no good answer. You couldn’t stay there forever, but you couldn’t bear to leave Tommy. Resigned to the grim reality, your temples ached and your throat was sore with tears you dared not shed out loud. You would pretend to be asleep or dead. You wouldn’t risk an escape going wrong.

As the shed door was forced open, you heard the familiar rasp of his breathing. Still, you didn't open your eyes until he shut the door behind him and thudded heavily over to your corner. He had made a pillow out of the big flour sack and he had a patchwork quilt with him.

He draped the quilt over you, then held the pillow and observed you sleeping, considering whether to lift your head or let you be.

He lay down on the floor next to you, under the quilt, with the pillow under his freshly washed hair. Then he pressed his warm hand against your back. He pet your back through your button-down shirt-dress, then held his palm still against your back. After a long moment, he moved his hand down your side, lightening his touch.

You rolled over and looked at him.

“Good,” you said. “Good, Tommy. Thank you.” He was there to protect you in the night.

He laid on his side and held you close to his chest under the quilt. Then, when you were asleep again, began to pick at the blanket you were wrapped in under the quilt. He loosened the blanket, unswaddling it, and your loins began to tingle as the layer was removed.

He held you close to him again, then rolled into his back.

He adjusted you so you were hugging his thick torso.

He was the best pillow you could have asked for in that moment. The most comfortable sleep you'd had since ending up on that property. His stomach rose and fell under you, lulling you to sleep with him.

Two heavy hands held you against the mass of his strong body- one hand on your back, and one on your rear.

When the sun began to hint at coming out but while it was still below the horizon, you woke up throbbing between your legs.

Tommy had shifted you and adjusted himself so his dick was wedged between your bodies as it thickened and hardened in his slumber. The massive shape of it against your belly made you tingle. It made you weak with arousal.

Lulled by the rhythm of his breathing, your fatigue overpowered your desire, and you fell back to sleep.

When you woke up again, there was another rhythm.

He was moving you against his cock.

Perhaps without thinking, but your shirt-dress had rode up, and his had been unbuttoned, tugged out from under you so the smooth naked skin of his shaft was hot against your belly.

Hugging his barrel chest, you found comfort in his skin on yours and the softness of his chest hair under your cheek.

You didn't look at him.

He felt even bigger with your eyes closed. It was a mountain of a man you slept on, with your head tucked into his neck.

You couldn't be certain exactly when he woke up, but at some point, his breathing became heavy with want, and his fingers roamed. They pressed into the backs of your thighs, prodded at the pool between your legs, and you were nudged upward on his body.

He fumbled with his erection, nudging at your entrance. You gasped, and a growl escaped

his chest. When he had himself lined up, he eased you onto him, moving his hips, thrusting. At the same time, he braced you by your hips and pushed you down his shaft.

Even in your most aroused state, the intrusion was massive, almost too much.

You held your breath as the tip breached the first inch of your cunt, pushing you open as he sheathed himself in your warmth.

Then he thrust in quick pulses, easing his heft into your tight pussy, splitting you open with his girth. And when he was fully buried in your wet pussy, he let out a ragged breath and stopped moving. His sturdy torso relaxed under you and his cock twitched, snug in your warmth.

He growled, and it was more of a purr, like a big cat. Remaining perfectly still in the warmth of your cunt, his chest rose and fell under you and reached a rhythm so steady it told you he was back asleep.

With your bodies joined and his big hands on your back cradling your much smaller frame against him, you felt safe.

The man who could snap you like a twig, sturdy as a tree, instead was your protector.

You dreamed you were riding a horse in the Hewitt field, and the dry yellow grass was stained red and black, matted to the dirt in some parts.

There was a rusty bicycle on its side with a wheel spinning and a girl running her hands through the wheat that swayed in the wind. In a little white dress, the girl looked up with a smile, then ran away, dragging her fingers against the wheat as she skipped.

You had the sense that she was skipping toward danger. But what were you supposed to do about it? It wasn't your land. It hardly felt like you belonged.

You could put her on the horse with you and gallop somewhere, but where? To the city? What would you do with her?

Her dress was old and white like the house, and the hem scraped the dirt at the edge of the wheat field. She seemed to know what she was doing more than you. She was comfortable and confident.

Then, an older woman called out, “dinner's ready.”

The girl's smile fell, but it was too late for you to help. She put on a brave face, held her head high, and began to skip again - slower, feet dragging.

You couldn't make your horse move. They disappeared into the distance.

Then, you dreamed that you were on vacation, Tommy. A normal vacation.

His face was bare, handsome and freckled, with a strong jaw and long hair in a ponytail. He held your small hand in his, led you toward a beach, and watched your face.

You relaxed and smiled.

‘Let's go in,’ he said, but not out loud. You heard a voice in your head, husky, deep, and kind, but it didn't come from his mouth.

“Where?” you asked.

‘In the water,’ he said. “I've got you.” He put his hands on your waist and hoisted you against him, hugging you to the chest as he waded into the water.

His fat fingers were in your hair when you woke up, and his cock, as thick and stiff as ever, was hugged tight by your pussy.

You lifted your head and shifted your hips, earning a slow thrust in response. You moaned and looked up at him and he stroked your face with his big thumb.

Pushing yourself up on him, you whimpered as you sank deeper onto his cock. His broad chest was framed by each side of his open shirt, and his middle was littered with nicks, cuts, and raised scars.

“Good morning,” you whispered, and a glint came alive in his blue eyes. You moved your hands to his tummy as you sat more upright. His hands went to your hips, holding you firmly, making sure you weren't going anywhere.

“I'm not going,” you said. He relaxed, but kept his hands there. You placed your own hand firmly against your belly, curious if you could feel the shape of him from the outside. He was so big, it felt like he took up all your space.

Your thighs were spread wide.

He grunted with a slow thrust.

There was nothing left but you and him.

The way he looked at you gave you the confidence to play with him. The way he looked at you, like he'd never seen a woman sitting on his cock.

It made you want to give him a show.

You unfastened the remaining buttons on your shirt carefully as he watched, shifting his hips a couple of times, making you gasp as his erection nudged your cervix.

With your blouse fully open, you massaged your breasts, moved your hips. Using your hands for leverage, you bounced yourself on his cock, starting slowly. You did it just a few times, enough to see the animal behind his eyes come alive. He reached for your breasts. His eyes poured over you like he didn't know what to do where to start.

You lifted and bounced yourself, keeping your quads tensed, hands pressed into his hairy flesh, pulsing up and down. Leaning forward, you grinded yourself against his stomach and let some of his length out to relieve your cervix. His middle moved with each grind of your hips, and his nostrils flared. His breath became more labored. His eyes darkened and he grabbed your ass with a bruising possessiveness. Then, he began to manhandle you on his cock like you were an extension of his hands, wrapped around his dick. When pleasure spread across your face, his wild eyes were captivated.

He grunted, and you gushed. The pale light of the pre-dawn hours had grown as the sun rose.

The sunrise was visible in his eyes.

With his hands holding you steady, you bent forward, rolled your hips, and the pressure burst in your depths. Your mouth fell open with a breathy moan, conscious of your volume. Scared to make noise. Terrified of everything but him, and everyone but him in that moment.

He growled and sat up, gripping your hips and pulling himself up by pulling you closer to him. He wrapped his arms around you, and his cock twitched, pulsing warmth that made you sigh and swoon, weakening in his arms with the overwhelming pleasure.

When you opened your eyes again, Tommy had laid you down with your head on the pillow and was thumbing at your face. Seeing you awake, relief softened his eyes. He looked at you like he didn't know how such a pretty thing could be his. Like he hoped he wouldn’t break you.

***

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I don't do real tag lists, but i did tag a few people who have been rly enthusiastic. If you wanna be part of the spread fam lmk! I remove lurkers in case they don't wanna be tagged anymore. About

#thomas hewitt x reader #thomas hewitt #thomas hewitt smut #slasher fucker #cw dubcon #toxicanonymity ☠️#thomas hewitt x female reader #thomas hewitt x you #tommy hewitt #slasher smut #x reader #darkfic #dark fic #x you #leatherface x reader #leatherface #texas chainsaw massacre

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ladybirdswritings · 6 months ago

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INVISIBLE STRING, AU — clark kent x reader.

DESCRIPTION: you lock eyes with a charming stranger at a party you’d rather not be at. NOTES - leave me all your thoughts and opinions. i love them <33 | next part

one…

What am I doing here? The words echoed in your head like a pulsing poison, eating away at your brain like ants to honeycomb.

Your brother was off sitting in a circle, fawning over cars, football, and all else that fueled testosterone and silly male enjoyment.

And then there was you, hugging the corner like an old lover, its shadows mirroring your open embrace.

“We should go over there,” declared Kate, a ringlet of her curl dancing with the springtime breeze. “You know, to see what the boys are talking about.”

No. No no no no no no—

“Yeah, we should!” Oh, if people wouldn’t see it as odd for you to slam a hand against your cheek…

There was a glaze over your pretty, fretting eyes and restless mind, a honeyed glaze slick with doubt and dissociation. You’d pushed yourself enough by coming here, and now you were being led like lamb to cleaver—ready to face your slaughter at the hands of—oh.

So busy was your mind that you might have kept your head bowed if not for subconscious pleasure.

His boots were shiny, and his denim tailored—and it’s all you paid attention to before your gaze shifted upward to find two remarkable blue-gray eyes peering in curiosity.

“Clark!” he blurted, offering a strong hand, and if you had half a mind, you would have realized it wasn’t politeness but interest.

You, always so caught up in doubts and hyperfocusing on imperfections. So caught up that you never quite saw what mirrored in men’s eyes when they gazed hungry at you: intimidation. You were strong, intelligent—and God—so pretty. Yet you could only breathe in your lack.

So no, when the handsome flannel boy with glasses far too big for his chiseled face and unruly raven hair—when his southern-kissed greeting met your ears, you had no idea it was a game.

A game between the men.

First to catch her interest would be first to have her.

But Clark was different. He wasn’t interested in feeding off the competition, he wanted to beat them to it. To offer you what they could not. But you knew none of this. You only knew that he greeted women as if a fire was forcing his hand.

“Y/N,” you warmed with a smile, shaking his hand in turn. He pulled back, gazing at his palm for a moment before a pinch settled between his brows.

“This is my sister, everyone. And this is my girlfriend, Kate.” Your brother strung Kate to him like a fly to spiderweb. She became smiley again, saying, “We got bored and decided to eavesdrop.”

“Be our guest,” Clark offered, the southern tang to his voice so soft you had to drown out the world to catch it. His eyes were on you, but your head was too bowed to realize.

Your gaze flickered to Kate sitting atop your brother’s lap. You shifted on your feet.

Vance, your brother’s friend, whom you had an insufferable crush on, stood in unison with Clark.

Their gazes locked in a silent contest you were too innocent to realize before Vance, frustrated, laughed breathily and sat back down.

“Oh no, it’s fine—” you began, but Clark shook his head, stepped aside, and motioned to the armchair. His gaze was so severe you had no choice but to comply.

You shuffled over awkwardly, finding your seat—only Clark stood beside you. He smelled of honeyed whiskey, chai, old books, and firewood. You stared at his veined hand on the arm of your seat, your mind wandering for a moment… What might that hand feel like against your skin?

“Surprised you guys aren’t over there yapping about books,” Vance began, his coal-colored eyes blanketing your face like a sinful dare.

It would never work. He was the moon, and you were the sun, warm and bright opposed to cold encased by darkness. But for months, his subtle flirtations evoked a lonesome part of your heart. Perhaps it was the lesser part of you, used to unhealthy men, that made you bend toward his attention like a starved flower. Regardless, you did, and it never made you feel less awful after parting.

When your gaze broke from his, you giggled shyly in unison with Kate, but that strong voice sliced through, commanding your attention again.

“You like to read?” he asked.

You flicked upward to Kate, only to find her chocolate stare upon you.

Oh… he was asking you.

“Um—” you began, nervous to have attention on your voice. “Well, yeah, sort of.”

“Sort of?” he tested with the lazy beginnings of a smile. You realized then how silly you sounded.

“Do you read?” you asked Clark, allowing your curiosity to bring your eyes back to him. As if he were a marionette, and you his new puppet, being pulled by an invisible string so he might study your pretty eyes. Were they always so warm and doe-like? Or had the wine made them more gentle? He wondered as you turned the question onto him.

“I do,” he replied, but when you grew shy and quiet again, he winced at himself. His icy gaze stuttered toward Vance, and he knew then that he’d have to open his mouth if he wanted your attention. He’d just have to work a little harder, and that was okay.

Usually, pretty girls like you would flock to him with no effort needed. Something about him looking like a Pinterest boyfriend, and all he had to do was sit and attract. But you… something about you told him you weren’t like the rest.

“I uh— I do.” He continued, breaking the stretched silence. “Sally Rooney—” he began, but you cut him off immediately.

“You read romance?” Your eyes widened, and your body turned toward him, and for a moment, you were completely lost in his words.

He didn’t pause or flicker with annoyance at your enthusiasm but instead gave you a lopsided grin.

“I do,” he confirmed. Though not a lie, he found himself a fisherman who’d hooked you with the most irresistible bait. Pretty, mysterious, shy girl you were—now he’d get you to talk. “Do you?”

Kate cut in, “We read about fairies and dragon riders.” You flushed a pretty pink with an embarrassed laugh. He peered down at you, giving Kate only a ghostly laugh of acknowledgment.

“You like fantasy, then?” he said so low it was as if the conversation was reserved for only the two of you.

As if fate were aiding his hand, the others fell into comfortable conversation. Not you, though. You were pinned under his grayed gaze.

“I read anything with a good love story,” you answered, so honestly, it surprised you.

“I like that,” he said simply, as if he were talking to himself. When he realized it, a pinch snaked between his brows, and you couldn’t help but softly laugh. He mirrored you. “What?”

“You’re likely the only man alive who does, if you’re telling the truth.”

“Well I—” he began, but your brother cut in.

“Ready to head out, Y/N?” You noticed just how entranced you’d been in this handsome stranger, not for his pretty face or interests, but for his words. The rest never mattered—not for you anyway. You often found it hard to capture any man’s attention, let alone the handsome ones. Even so, a lick of disappointment thrummed in your heart.

You dared to wonder what might happen if you offered your social media so he could contact you again. But the idea sped your heart and widened your eyes, so you stood with a nod.

Vance offered you a warm hug, and you merely waved at the others before turning to Clark—well, Clark’s chest. He towered over you, his honeyed whiskey scent licking your senses as he pulled you into a warm embrace. Gentle, curious, as if testing the feel of your body against his. Stranger to stranger—but he was so warm, so confusingly familiar.

“It was nice to meet you, Y/N,” he spoke first, pulling away. Swayed by his warmth, you could only nod.

Now was your chance. Your once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to ask for a way to keep in contact with this mysterious stranger. But you cowered when you glanced up at his pretty face.

Fate wasn’t kind, and in your mind, you decided there was a model waiting for his warmth at home—and you were only allowed to entangle with him for a moment, never again.

“You too, Clark…”

Then you were off, never to see the mysterious stranger ever again.

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bunny-jpeg · 7 months ago

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heirloom tomatoes

simon "ghost" riley

tags: smut/pwp, farmer!au, romance/intimacy, size difference/kink, proposal, fruits and vegetables, sweet & gentle sex, slice of life

a/n: i've been playing too much stardw valley... (there may be more to this)

wilby port was there you got sent to. you had been living in england for some time now, but you were used to the hustle and bustle of london. the constant grind of the day to day. and now you were grabbing your two suitcases off the bus to the small harbour town.

the little house near the edge of town was your new home after your great aunt passed away. you know you could've sold the house and the land around it. but, after years of working so hard in the city. the idea of an escape felt exciting. so you took it as a chance and ended up in the quiet town.

that was where you met simon riley.

the first spring in the town, you had to figure out how to kill time. you had tried a few hobbies here and there, but with the season in bloom. you wanted to try gardening. and while you could've planted strawberries or even some peppers. you decided on heirloom tomatoes, and with poor internet connection in the town and an excitement that left you with little patience.

you had to ask those in town.

johnny shrugged, "i'd say go to ghost." he placed both hands on the bar and leaned forward to look at you, "he lives closer to the river. i'd say be careful. he likes to bite." the snapped his jaws playfully before he laughed.

"ah, ghost." price said when you asked him, "yeah he'd be your best bed." as he had the cleaver in one hand, "quite man, but if you're direct in your questions he'll give you everythin' ya need." then chopped at the meat on the table.

kyle replied when you asked him while he was doing research at the beach, "i'd say ghost, honestly. he has some kind of green thumb that i couldn't imagine. you know it's possible to kill a cactus." he laughed as he got more of the sand into the test tube, "your best bet would be him. ghost."

it left you with one question, who the hell was ghost?

it took a little while before you found ghost's house. you don't know why you expected to find a haunted house at the end of your adventures. something to match this so-called ghost. but instead you found a small farm house, crowded with various plants.

while it was in abundance, every plant looked healthy and well maintained. this looked like someone who would know how to grow heirloom tomatoes. you knocked on the door and when the door opened, you took a step back from the man who answered it.

he stood over six feet, he was broad all over. he was in a red long sleeve shirt with the sleeves rolled up. as a result you could see his arm full of tattoos. it made you swallow as you tried to maintain eye contact with him.

"can i help you?" he asked as he eyed you up and down.

you swallowed, "um hi! i was wondering if ghost was here?" it sounded weird in your head but you straightened up a little, "i was told by others that he could help me grow tomatoes."

the man looked intimidating. he was curly blond hair, dark brown eyes, his nose was crooked probably from multiple breakages. he had tattoos and scars that lined his body. his voice was a rumble as he replied, "name's simon. no need to call me ghost." then held out his hand. you smiled and shook it.

what you thought would have been an easy few tips turned into a pretty hard-core lesson about not just heirloom tomatoes, but all tomatoes. you tried to take notes on your phone, but ended up having to go old school and writing everything down by hand with a notebook and pen that simon gave you.

"no one usually listens this long." he chuckled a little as he took a sip of his water, "likes of johnny get bored after about five minutes." he crossed his strong arms and you felt something quiver inside of you.

you replied, "well, i want to do it right. it's not fair to the plant that i kill it." you tapped the pen against the paper, "so what was that about cherry tomatoes." and you watched him smile a little.

while you didn't have a huge piece of land like simon. but you had enough to build your little garden. it felt weird rewarding as the seasons changed, it grew warmer. and simon came to visit you more often to check on the plants.

johnny made a joke that simon was your shadow now, even referring to him as "the shadow" and you tried not to think too hard about it. simon was just a good friend.

when simon caught wind of this, he had to be a little more forward. over the time you had spent together, he had grown fond for you. so one sunny summer's day, he picked up flowers from the local shop and went to your house.

when you answered the door, you looked at him. and he looked at you. you were in a purple checkered apron with flour on your face.

"what are you doing?" he asked as he looked past you into the house. he could see the mess in the kitchen and the smell of cookies wafting in the air.

you looked at the bouquet of tulips in his hand, "what are you doing?"

"i was bringing you flowers.. to ask you out." "i was making cookies... to also ask you out."

you both looked at one another in the eye before he handed you the flowers and you looked at them then him again. you felt a leap in your chest and felt a heat in your cheek.

in unison you both said, "will you go out with me?"and then both of you smiled at one another. simon gave you that quiet smile he had and you broke into a wide grin. next thing he knew, you were pulling him into the house just as the timer went off for the cookies.

they were your attempt at shortbread cookies in the shape of hearts. but simon thought they were delicious. especially when you sat in his lap and chased every bite of a cookie with a kiss. simon soon learned that he loved your kisses.

"how does it taste?" you asked as you leaned in a little closer.

"perfect." he placed his large, rough hand on your soft cheek and leaned in to kiss you on the lips. you melted a little at the feeling. you felt comfortable with simon.

he was a protective force in your life. he didn't make you feel small, in a bad way. there was an obvious size difference so you were physically smaller. but simon would never make you feel weak. after that, simon was over every day.

he brought vegetables and fruits from the farm. sometimes he'd bring wild flowers from around the property and on weekends eggs for breakfast.

"simon! simon!" during the middle of a warm summer, you called your boyfriend frantically. he instantly was on high alert from your tone. when he asked you what was wrong, you replied, "the tomatoes! they're here!" and as soon as simon hung up the phone, he instantly was getting his boots on to head to your home.

you waved him over when he got there and he saw them. he saw the heirloom tomatoes, his eyes went wide at the sight of them before he pulled you in close to him. you two looked at each other before you leaned up towards simon and kissed him deeply on the lips. you held onto the front of his black t-shirt .

you pressed your face against his chest soon after and said, "thank you so much, simon." you felt heat radiate through you, a deep love for your partner. simon held you close and peppered your face with more kisses.

the kisses got a little deeper and simon held you closer. you smiled against his lips before you pulled away. he looked as red as the tomatoes you were trying to grow.

he swallowed, "as much as i would love to make love to ya out on the grass. i don't think ya want grain stains on everything."he chuckled as he held you face once more in his large hand. he watched you shift a little before you got out of his grasp and took hold of his hand.

once again you were leading him into your home. and simon barely had time to kick off his work boots before you were kissing him passionately on the lips. his arms wrapped around you as he pulled you up against him. your hands in his t-shirt as you both tried to navigate through the small house towards your bedroom.

eventually you pushed you much larger lover onto the bed and he hastily took off his shirt. you had seen him nude before. both in intimate photos he sent, and also when he'd walk out of the shower with just a towel around his waist. but to see his heavy cock one he got his bottoms off and exposed his heavy cock to you.

you licked your lips at the sight of it and got out of your clothes. before you could get onto the bed, he placed a hand on your lower back and pressed his scratchy cheek against your middle. he sighed, visibly relaxing.

"so soft." he said, as he groped your ass. you giggled and combed your fingers through his curled hair. eventually you ended up on top of him in bed. you helped remove his clothes as well, his socks and t-shirt. and you ended up in bed with you. his broad hands mapped your body perfectly, he wanted to feel every inch of warm soft skin.

you looked beautiful when you eventually ended up under him. your head in the pillows and simon was between your legs. his hefty cock was at full attention as he gazed lovingly at your figure. how could a woman so beautiful want to date a man like him? but,he realized a long time ago not to question you. if you wanted to date him, then he'd happily accept your love.

but only if he could give it back in a tenfold. he rubbed his achy cock up against you. it was painfully stiff and he loved the sight of it up against your smaller slit. he was so big compared to you, a fact that turned both of you.

simon had to admit as he sank into you, he liked feeling like a protector. to know that you were safe because of him. that nothing would hurt his darling girl. it made him feel a tug of pride as he slotted himself into your cunt.

the feeling made him shudder for a moment and the stretch made you arched your back a little. he watched your nipples grow hard which only made his cock twitch with lustful want.

he placed his hand over your chest for a moment, but didn't apply much pressure against you. his palm over your heart as he said, "your mine and i'm yours. you, me and all the tomatoes." he smiled down at you before he leaned in further to kiss you square on the lips. his words made you core feel gooey, you felt his love for you in your blood, raising the temperature of it.

he kissed you as he put both hands on your hips and moved against you. he was cautious about hurting you, causing you pain as his cock nudged against you. you moaned against the heated kiss, you shifted a little and he pressed further into you.

when the kiss broke, you looked at one another while the air in the room grew warmer. you felt the heat between your legs as he moved. his gaze was hungry as he moved against you. he admired every inch of skin he could. he couldn't deny it, he never could, but you were the most beautiful woman he ever had the pleasure to love. he wasn't known for being a lady's man, but to know that he had you. he didn't need anyone else.

when perfection was in front of him, he'd never waste you. the pace continued as did the pleasure. the heat between you two as he moved against you. you tightened your legs around him and reached out for him. you were soon chest to chest with simon making sure that he wasn't crushing you.

the last thing he wanted was to hurt you. it would be like crushing a flower, it would break simon. but you soothed any anxiety as you held his face and kissed him passionately with each of his movements.

the pleasure bloomed through both of you as the two of you continued to move against one another. you started to pick up his pace and the kisses became deeper. it felt amazing, you felt like you were on cloud nine thanks to his pleasure. there was something undeniable about him. there was something heated and needy about his movements as you pushed up against him.

"glad i fit." he remarked, "was worried for a moment that she wasn't gonna fit me." he patted your middle for a moment, the action made you squirm and clench around him a little tighter his heart hammered in his chest the more he moved against you. there was a slice of heaven under him and he wanted to make sure his girl felt good.

you giggled a little, "you're not that big. nothing i can't take. i'm strong enough." and let out a sharp moan when simon pressed into you further which made you feel snaps of pleasure in your head.

he chuckled and held onto you a little tighter, he pushed himself further into you and let himself enjoy the sweet, tender feeling of his beloved. he loved you, it was clear from the moment he asked you out. his affection for you only grew with time, he needed you daily. he was constantly around because you made him feel needed and wanted. you were perfect for him.

he kissed you once more and continued his hold on you. he rocked against you sweet cunt and felt the wraps of pleasure in his core. he loved the feeling, being so close to climax with his beloved under him.

you deepened the kiss and threw your arms around his shoulders. he thrusted up into you, his pace steady but not too rough. once again, the idea of hurting you, even by accident, pained him. he never wanted that, he only wanted your sweet moans in his ear and your smiles to brighten up his day.

you two moved against one another, the pleasure continued to course through you. the two of you made love on your creaky bed, but enjoyed each other's gentle company. you tensed up a little bit as you felt the heat of climax was over you. you moaned into the kiss, and quietly said 'i love you' under your breath as orgasm took hold. the thump in your chest made you feel hot all over.

"i love you too.' he said softly as he continued to move against you. you clenched onto him and he loved the feeling of your nails against his skin. he felt extremely hot as he bucked his hips against you. the hammering in his chest only fueled his want for you.

he soon climaxed and felt the shudder through his body. the blossom of heat in his core as he finished inside of you. with a few more heavy thrusts, he slowed his pace to a stop to catch his breath. however that was made hard because you pulled him in for another searing kiss.

you both got under the covers and kissed deeply with one another. you felt connected to him, so close to him. so loving for him. you moaned into the kiss and simon cuddled up against you.

you said i love you to each other many times as you laid comfortable in each other's arms. the love flowed between you two. simon knew and you knew that you'd be together for a long time.

simon looked at you as you laid there comfrotably. you looked like someone special to him. you looked like the future mrs. simon riley.

it was a hot summer day two years later, you had come by to visit simon and found him working away at the blueberry plants on the farm. eventually you got him back inside his home. you moved around the kitchen like it was your own home.

you were giving simon a stern talking to while you got him a glass of water to help cool down. simon just watched you from his spot at the kitchen table.

"and you know what happens if you don't drink water! i don't need you passing out and crows peckin you-", when you turned around you noticed a small box on the table. the glass of watr almost fell out of your hand as he opened it. shock marked your expression and he chuckled.

he took a hold of the velvet box and opened it with a smile on his lips. your scarred, famer's tan having boyfriend with a love for heirloom tomatoes, was proposing to you.

"will you-"

"yes!" you squeaked before you quickly put the glass down and went over to him. he grabbed you and seated you on his lap. you held his face for a moment to look into his brown eyes before you laid a kiss on his lips.

he only pulled away to slip the ring on your finger (it was a big too big, but that could be fixed). you looked at the emerald in the ring and felt tears in your eyes. you kissed him once more.

you had everything, a home, a husband and heirloom tomatoes. <3

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beloveds-embrace · 8 months ago

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shifter au makes me so happy and giddy what makes me even happier and giddier is poly!141 with small, nerdy cyber security/hacker partner who has the biggest, scariest shifter form and they dont know until their threatened. Like they're all injured and weak and their other s/o just lets out the most pained, animalistic scream as they finally release their shifter form (for the first time since meeting the guys) and tears the attackers apart. When they all turn back, the boys are all a little shocked and also a little turned on

Throwing silent hill and pyramid head into this bc imagine ur cute hacker turning into a massive, scary, flat out unbeatable manifestation of guilt and is just basically rawdogging through enemy lines with a freaky ass cleaver?

Hot as fuck. They can see your chest/tits, too, strong muscles rippling as they basically skin one of the enemies. What more could they possibly want?

On a more serious note, I can imagine reader having always harbored fears and worries about their shifter form being far, far too scary and big to be accepted even by the 141 men. So you had hidden that tidbit and only John and Laswell knew about it, and only Laswell had ever actually seen that form of yours. Sure each of them is a shifter as well, but… it’s not the same.

But in situations like this, them injured and weak and with enemies closing in quickly, it doesn’t take much thought before you let all human pretenses fall away and show this terrible, monstrous side of you, accepting that they will no doubt look at you with disgust for the abomination that you’ve always been.

Until you shift back, and despite all his injuries, Soap pounces on you, panting and tail wagging furiously. He’s flushed, and you can immediately feel his hard-on on your ass.

“That was the hottest thing Ah’ve ever seen.”

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betweenstorms · 9 months ago

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butcher!simon… he’s so husband… his big rugged calloused arms… you know how those men are… arms the thick and strong, veiny but not in a way a nurse/vampire would love, but in a way you can see subtle long bump of it through the length of his tattooed sleeve… my gosh. i despise going to a butcher shop bcs i'm sensitive to the smell and loud noises scare me but for butcher!simon ? i'd deliberately buy just enough meat for one day worth of my meal + extra portion to give to him the next day as i go for another cut of meat… i'd bat my lashes and sweetly ask "i want to make soup… which cut do you think will cook quickly ?" ARGH. and like use scrap bones and veggies to make cream mushroom soup at the end of the week and pack it nicely with fresh sourdough… and on thanksgiving of christmas i’d take it as my chance to ask “celebrating christmas with your family ?” as a way to invite him to my homeeee aaaaa 😫😫😫😫😫😫😫

I love this so much anon! This is how I imagine the situation...

Part Two of What's Between Fridays (previous part) (next part) (masterlist) Butcher!Simon x fem!Reader

The scent of the small butcher shop never quite sat well with you.

It clung to the air, thick and metallic, mingling with the cold chill of the room. No matter how many times you stepped through the door, the sharp tang of raw meat always hit you, a sour note that made your nose twitch. And yet, you found yourself there almost every Friday afternoon, drawn by something far stronger—something that had nothing to do with the cuts of meat behind the glass.

Simon Riley.

He always stood behind the counter when you came in, broad and imposing. His bulky arms marked with the same ink that wrapped around his soul like a storm cloud, curling up his forearms like violent vines, disappeared beneath the rolled-up sleeves of his worn shirt. You had traced them in your mind a hundred times, wondering where they began and where they ended.

His presence commanded the room without a word, the quiet strength of a man who had spent years carving through flesh and bone. He moved with the ease of someone who knew his power but never flaunted it, his hands deft and skilled as they handled the cleaver with a precision that was almost artful.

You were never sure how to explain the pull that kept you coming back, your heart a little too quick in your chest every time he glanced up, those dark hazel eyes catching yours with an intensity that almost made your breath hitch.

Perhaps it was the way his silence spoke louder than words, the way he listened without speaking, as if he could hear the questions you didn’t dare ask. Or maybe it was the way his presence lingered, even after you’d left, a shadow that clung to your thoughts like the scent of the butcher shop clung to your clothes.

You came back that Friday afternoon too, the bell above the door chiming softly as you stepped in.

The air was cool and hard, and there was Simon—his name stitched onto the apron that hugged his broad chest. You murmured a soft hi as you neared the counter, your eyes drifting over the display, but you felt his gaze settle on you, intense and unyielding. His eyes were sharp, like the blade he held, cutting through your flesh and bones, leaving you exposed and raw.

“I want to make soup... which cut do you think would cook quickly?” you had asked him once, your voice barely above a whisper, breaking the heavy silence between you, your wide eyes filled with quiet devotion as you waited for his answer.

Simon’s head tilted slightly, those sharp eyes narrowing just a fraction, like he was studying you, as though your question held layers he hadn’t yet peeled back.

His hand moved to the display, selecting a small cut of meat with the same deliberation he used in everything.

“These'll do,” he said, his voice low, a rumble that seemed to fill the quiet space between you.

When he handed you the package, your fingers brushed his, and the warmth of his skin against yours was enough to send a shiver down your spine, despite the cold of the shop.

You took the package, your heart fluttering in a way that had nothing to do with the cold. For a moment, you stood there, unsure of what to say, but then his gaze softened, just slightly, and you felt the tension ease from your shoulders. You smiled, murmuring your thanks, the sound of his voice still echoing in your ears as you left, feeling the weight of his gaze linger on your back long after the door closed behind you.

Weeks had passed since then, and yet, like clockwork, you returned every week. The butcher shop had become more than just a place to buy meat. Visiting him, Simon, was a quiet ritual, one that you couldn’t seem to break.

You hadn’t known how it started, but after a while, you began bringing him food. At first, it was just a small gesture—a way to thank him for the beautiful cuts he’d handpicked for you, the subtle nods and quiet exchanges that had started to feel more personal than professional. He always seemed reluctant, a slight hesitation in his movements when you handed him a carefully wrapped package of the food you had made. But he accepted it nonetheless, those hard lines in his face softening just a touch when your eyes met his.

As time went on, it became a silent exchange between the two of you. You’d bring him food, and in return, he’d set aside the best cuts for you—the most tender meats, the freshest products, pieces that were meant to be savoured. It felt intimate, in a way that neither of you acknowledged, but both understood.

And with each passing week, the quiet between you grew less suffocating, replaced by something that hummed just beneath the surface of your interactions—an attraction, a connection, but still undefined, still lingering in the unsaid.

Then came that particular afternoon.

You had made cream mushroom soup this time, the rich scent of it filling your small kitchen as you prepared the dish with more care than usual. The holiday season was approaching, and the streets outside had already begun to sparkle with festive lights, the world around you glowing with a soft anticipation. There was something about the air, something about the warmth that wrapped itself around you as you stepped into the shop that made you bold.

He looked up when you walked in, his hazel eyes meeting yours, and for a brief moment, the world outside seemed to fall away, leaving only the two of you standing in the dim light of the shop.

After exchanging your usual greetings, you handed him the small container of soup, your gloved fingers brushing his for just a second longer than necessary. And then, before you could stop yourself, the words slipped from your lips.

“Are you… visiting anyone during the holidays?” Your voice was soft, almost a whisper, the question hanging in the air between you. “I mean, celebrating with your family or…?” You winced at your own awkwardness, feeling the weight of the silence that followed. But you couldn’t stop now. “If not, I was thinking, maybe… you could join me for dinner this week? At my place.”

For a moment, Simon didn’t speak.

His eyes searched yours, unreadable, his expression as steady as ever, though you thought you caught the faintest flicker of surprise in those hazel depths. The rain outside tapped softly against the windows, filling the quiet space with its gentle rhythm, and you could feel your heart pounding in your chest, waiting for his answer.

He exhaled slowly, his gaze still fixed on you, and then, to your surprise, he nodded. Just a small tilt of his head, but enough to send warmth flooding through you, enough to light something in your chest that you hadn’t expected to feel.

“Okay,” he said, his voice low, a quiet promise whispered between raindrops.

You smiled, feeling lighter than you had in weeks, the weight of your nerves lifting as you took your package from the counter.

The cold winter air wrapped around you as you stepped out into the street, but it felt different now—like a secret you were carrying with you, a warmth that Simon had unknowingly placed in your hands.

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felikatze · 2 years ago

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ISAT and Ludonarrative Harmony: Combat is a Storytelling Tool

Or: How Siffrin is stuck in the endgame grind, forever

Please Note: This is primarily aimed at an audience that already played In Stars and Time, because I am bad at explaining things, and it's good to already know what the fuck I'm talking about. I tend to only bring up game elements as I want to talk about them.

Spoilers for.... all of ISAT! Especially Act 5!

(image to show how i feel posting this and as an attention grabber over my wall of text)

To pull a definition of ludonarrative harmony out of a hat, game writer Lauryn Ash defines it as follows:

Ludonarrative harmony is when gameplay and story work together to create a meaningful and immersive experience. From a design implementation perspective, it is the synchronized interactions between in-game actions (mechanics) and in-world context (story).

It is, generally speaking, how well game mechanics work hand in hand with the story. I, personally, think ISAT is an absolute masterclass of it, so I want to take a look at how ISAT specifically uses its battle system to emphasize Siffrin's character arc and create organic story moments. I want you to keep this in mind when I talk here.

So, skills, right? If you've played any turn-based RPG, you know your Fire spells, your "BACKSLASH! AIRSLASH! BACKSLASH!" and the many ways to style those.

Well, what does casting "Fire" say about your character? Not all that much, does it? Perhaps you'll have typical divisions. The smart one is the mage, the big brawny one is your tank, the petite one's the healer. And that's the barebones of ISAT's main party, but it's much more than that.

Every character's style of combat tells you something about them. Odile, the Researcher, is the most well-travelled and knowledgable of the bunch. She's the one with the expertise to keep a cool head and analyze the enemy, yet also able to use all three of the Rock-Paper-Scissors craft types.

To reflect her analytical view of things, all her skill names are just descriptive, the closest to your most bog-standard RPG. "Slow IV" or "Paper III" serve well to describe their purpose. The high number of the skills gives the impression there were three other Slow skills beforehand - fitting, considering the party starts at level 45, about to head into the final dungeon. She's also the oldest, so she's the slowest of the bunch.

Isabea, the Fighter, has all his skills in exclamation points. "YOUR TURN!!!" "SO WEAK!!!" "SMASH!!!" they're straightforward, but excited. He's a purposefully cheerfull guy, so his skills revolve around cheering on his allies. He's absolutely pumped to be here, and you see that from his skill names alone.

Mirabelle, the Housemaiden, is an interesting case. She's by all means the true protagonist of this tale - She's the one "Chosen by the Change God," the only one who survived the King's first attack, the only one immune to his ability to freeze time, the only dual-craft type of the game - just a lot of things. And her skill names reflect that facade she puts on herself - she can do this, she can win! She has to believe it, or else she starts doubting. This is how you get "Jolly Round Rondo" and "Mega Sparkle Heal" or "Adorable Moving Cure." She's styled every bit a sailor scout shojo heroine, and her moveset replicates the naming conventions of "In the name of the moon, I'll punish you!"

Even Bonnie, the Kid, who can't be controlled in combat, has named craft skills. And they very much reflect that Bonnie is, well, a kid. "Wolf Speed Technique" or "Thousand Blows Technique" are very much the phrasings of a child who learned one complicated word and now wants to use it in everything to seem cooler than they are, which is none, because they're twelve.

Siffrin's skills are all puns.

You have an IMMEDIATE feel for personality here. Between "Knife to Meet You!" and "Too Cleaver by Half," you know Siffrin's the type to always crack a joke no matter the situation, slinging witticisms around to put Sonic the Hedgehog to shame. It's just such a clever way to establish character using a game mechanic as old as the entire history of RPGs.

This is only the baseline of the way the combat system feeds into the story, though.

The timeloop, of course, feeds into it. Siffrin is the only character who retains experience upon looping, whereas all other characters are reset to their base level and skills. And it sucks (affectionate).

You're extremely likely to battle more often the earlier in the game you are - after all, you need the experience (for now.) Every party member contributes, and Siffrin isn't all that strong on their own, since they focus on raw scissor type damage with the addition of one speed buff. (Of course it's a speed buff. They're a speedy fucker. Just look at him).

At first, the difference in level between Siffrin and the rest of the group is rather negligible. Just a level or two. Just a bit more speed and attack. And then Siffrin grows further and further apart. Siffrin keeps learning new skills. He gets a healing skill that doubles as an attack boost, taking away from both Mirabelle's and Isabeau's usefullness. He gets Craft skills of every type that even give you two jackpot points instead of one - thus obliterating Odile's niche. Siffrin turns into a one-person army capable of clearing most encounters all on their own.

Siffrin's combat progression is an exact mirror of story progression - as their experience inside the loops grows, they also grow further and further away from their party. The party seems... weaker, slower, clumsier. Always back at their starting point, just as all of their character arcs are reset each loop. Never advancing, always stagnant. And you have Siffrin as the comparison post right next to them.

I also want to point out here a change from Act 2 to Act 3 - Siffrin's battle portrait. He stops smiling.

Battles keep getting easier. This is true both for the reason that Siffrin keeps growing stronger even when all enemies stay the same, but also for the reason that you, the player, learn more about the battle system and the various encounters, until you've learned perfect boss clear strategies just from repetition. Have you ever watched a speedrunner play Pokemon? They've played this game so many times, they could do it blindfolded and sleeping. Your own knowledge and Siffrin's new strength work in tandem to trivialize the game's entire combat system as the game progresses.

(Is it still fun? Playing it over, and over, and over again? Is it?)

You and Siffrin are in sync, your experience making everything trivial.

As time goes on, Siffrin grows to care less and less about performing right for their party and more and more about going fast. A huge moment in his character is marked by the end of Act 3; because of story events I won't delve too deeply into, Siffrin has grown afraid of trying something new. And his options of escape are closing in. They need an answer, and they need it fast. He doesn't have the time or patience to dumb himself down, so you unlock one new skill.

It doesn't occur with level up, or with a quest, or anything at all. At the start of Act 4, it simply appears in Siffrin's Craft skills.

(Just attack.)

No pun. No joke. Just attack. Once you notice, the effect is immediate - here you have it, a clear sign of how jaded Siffrin has become, right at every encounter. And it's a damn good attack, too! The only available attack in the game that deals "massive" damage against all enemies. Because it doesn't add any jackpot points (at least, it's not supposed to), you set up a combo with everybody else, but Siffrin simply tears away at the enemy with wild abandon. Seperated from the rest of the party by the virtue of no longer needing to contribute to team attacks (most of the time. It's still useful if they do, though).

Once again, an aspect of the battle system enhances the degree of separation between Siffrin and the static characters of his play. You're incentivized to separate him, even.

Additionally, there are two more skills to learn. They're the only skills that replace previous skills. You only get them at extremely high levels, the latter of which I didn't even reach on both of my playthroughs.

The first, somewhere in the level 70 range, Rose Printed Glasses, a paper type craft skill, is replaced by Tear You Apart. It's still a pun about paper, but remarkedly more vicious.

The second is even more on the nose. At level 80, In A While, Rockodile!, a rock type craft skill, is replaced by the more powerful Rock Bottom.

I didn't get to level 80. If you do, you pretty much have to do it on purpose. You have to keep going much longer than necessary, as Siffrin is just done. And the last skill he learns is literally called Rock Bottom.

What do I even need to say, really.

Your party doesn't stay static forever, though.

By doing their hangout quests, side quests throughout the loops that result in Siffrin and the character having a heart to heart, all of them unlock what I'd call an "ultimate" skill. You know the type - the character achieved self-fulfillment, hit rank 10 on their confidant, maxed out their skill tree, and received a reward for their trouble.

These skills are massively useful. My favorite is Odile's - it makes one enemy weak to all Craft types for several turns, which basically allows you to invalidate the first and third boss, as well as just clown on the King, especially once Siffrin starts racking up damage.

But the thing is. In Act 3, when you first get them, yeah, they're useful. But... do you need them? After all, they're such a hassle to get. You need to do the whole character quest again, you can't loop forward in the House or you'll lose them. If you want to take these skills to the King, you need to commit. Go the full nine-yards and be nice to your friends and not die and not skip forward or skip back. Which is annoying, right?

Well, I sure did think so during Act 4. After all, a base level party can still defeat the King, just with a few more tricky pieces involved. Siffrin can oneshot almost all basic enemies by the time of Act 4. It's this exact evalutation that you, the player, go through everytime you return to Dormont. Do I want this skill, still? Would it not be faster to go on without it? I'm repeating myself, but that's the thing! That's what Siffrin is thinking, too!

I also want to take a quick moment to note, here - all skills gained from hangouts have art associated with them, which no other skills do. This feature, the nifty art, hammers home these as "special" skills, besides just how they're unlocked.

Siffrin also has one skill with associated art.

Yeah, you guessed it, it's (Just attack.)

At first, helping the characters is tied to a hefty in-game reward, but that reward loses its value, and in return devalues helping Siffrin's friends every loop. It's too tedious for a skill that'll make a boss go by one turn faster. You, the player, grow jaded with the battle system. Grinding experience isn't worth it, everybody's highest levels are already recorded. Fighting bosses isn't worth it, it's much faster to loop forward.

Isn't this what all endgame in video games looks like? You already beat the final boss, and now... what challenge is left? Is there a point to keep playing? Most games will have some post-game content. A superboss to test your skills against, but ISAT doesn't have any of that. You're forever left chasing to the post-game. That's the whole point - to escape the game.

As most games get more difficult as time passes, ISAT only gets easier. The game becomes disinterested in expanding its own mechanics just as I ran out of new things to fight after 100%-ing Kingdom Hearts 3. Every encounter becomes a simple game of "press button to win."

The final boss just takes that one up a notch.

Spoilers for Act 5 ahead boys!

In Act 5, Siffrin utterly loses it. His last possible hope for escape failed him, told him there's nothing she can do, and Siffrin is trapped for eternity. So of course, they go insane and run up the entire House without their party.

This just proves what you already knew - you dont need the party to proceed. Siffrin alone is strong enough. And here, Siffrin has entirely shed the facade of the jokester they used to be. Every single skill now follows the (Just attack.) naming conventions. Your skills are: (Paper.) (Rock.) (Scissors.) (Breathe.)

To the point. Not a moment wasted, because Siffrin can't take a moment longer of any of this. Additionally, his level is set to 99 and his equipment becomes fixed. You can't even pick up items anymore! Not that you needed them at this point anyway, right? Honestly, I never used any items besides the Salty Broth since Act 2, so I stopped picking items up a long time ago. Now you just literally can't.

Something I've not talked about until now - one of the main equipment types in this game are Memories, gained for completing subquests or specific interactions and events. They all by and large have little effects - make Odile's tonics heal more, or have Mirabelle cast a shield at the start of combat. For the hangout events, you also gain an associated memory that boosts the characters' stats by 30. It lets them keep up with Siffrin again! A fresh wind! Finally, your party members feel on par with you again!

...For a time. And just like that, they're irrelevant again, just as helping them gave Siffrin a brief moment of hope that the power of friendship could fix everything.

In Act 5, your memory is set to "Memory of Emptiness." It allows you to loop back in the middle of combat. You literally can't die anymore. Not that Siffrin could've died by this point in the first place, unless you forgot about the King's instant-kill attack. This one memory takes away the false pretense that combat ever had any stakes. Siffrin's level being set to 99 means even the scant exp you get is completely wasted on them. All stakes and benefits from combat have been removed. It has become utterly pointless.

Frustrating, right? It's an artistic frustration, though. It traps you right here in Siffrin's shoes, because he hates that all these blinding Sadnesses are still walking around just as much. It all inspires just a tiny fraction of that deep rolling anger Siffrin experiences here in the player.

And listen, it was cathartic, that one time Siffrin snapped and stabbed the tutorial Sadness, wasn't it? Because who enjoys sitting through the tutorial that often? Siffrin doesn't. I don't, either.

So, since combat is an useless obstacle now meant to inspire frustration, what do you do for a boss? You can't well make it a gameplay challenge now, no. The bosses of Act 5 are an emotional challenge: a painful wait.

First, Siffrin fights the King, alone. This is already nervewracking because of one factor - in every other run, you need Mirabelle's shield skill, or else you're scripted to die. You're actually forced to fight the King multiple times in Act 3, and have to do it at least once in Act 4, though you'll likely do it more. Point is: you know how this fight works.

You know Siffrin's fight is doomed from the outset, but all you can do is keep slinging attacks. Siffrin is enough of a powerhouse to take the King's HP down, what with the healing and buff skills they have now, not to even mention you can just go all in on damage and then loop back.

(And no matter which way you play it, whether you just loop or use strategically, it reflects on Siffrin, too. Has he grown callous enough not even death will stop their mission? Or does he still avoid pain, as much as he can?)

This fight still allows you the artifice of even that much choice, not that it matters. The other shoe drops eventually - Siffrin becomes slower, and slower. Unsettling, considering this game works on an Action Gauge system. You barely get turns anymore. The screen gets darker, and darker. Until Siffrin is frozen in time, just as you knew he had to be, because you know how this encounter works, know it can't be cleared without Mirabelle.

And, then, a void.

Siffrin awakens to nothingness. The only way to tell you've hit a wall is if Siffrin has no walking animation to match your button inputs. You walk, and walk, until you're approached by.... you. The next enemy encounter of the game, and Siffrin's absolute lowest point: Mal Du Pays.

Or, "Homesickness," in english. If you know the game, you know why it's named this, but that's not the point at the moment.

Thing is, where you could damage the King and are damaged in turn, giving you at least a proper combat experience, even if its doomed to fail, Mal Du Pays has no such thing.

You can attack. You can defend. But it is immune to all attacks. And in return, it does nothing. It's common, at least, for undefeatable enemies to be a "survive" challenge, but nope. The entire fight is "press button and wait." Except, remember the previous fight against the King? The entire time, you were waiting for the big instant death attack to drop. That feeling, at least for me, carried forward. I was incredibly on edge just waiting for the other shoe to drop. And, as is a pattern, Siffrin is, too. As Siffrin's attacks fail to connect, they start talking to Mal Du Pays.

But he gets no response, as you get no attacks to strategize around. The wait for anything to happen is utterly agonizing. You and Siffrin are both waiting for something to happen. This isn't a fight. It just pretends to be. It's an utter rugpull, because Siffrin was so undefeatable for most of Act 4 and all of Act 5 so far. It's kind of terrifying!

and it does. It finally does something. Ma Du Pays speaks, in the voice of Siffrin's friends, listing out their deepest fears. I think it's honestly fantastic. You're forced to just sit here and listen to Siffrin's deepest doubts, things you know the characters could not say because it references the timeloops they're all utterly unaware of. This is all Siffrin, talking to himself. And all you, all Siffrin, can do, is keep wailing away on the enemy to no effect whatsoever.

So of course this ends with Siffrin giving up. What else can you do?

And then Siffrin's friends show up and unfreeze them and it's all very cool yay. The pure narrative scenes aren't really the main focus but I want to point out here:

A) Mirabelle is in the first party slot here, referencing how she's the de facto protagonist, and Bonnie fills in the fourth slot left empty, which shows all characters uniting to save Siffrin

B) this is the only instance of the other party members having act specific battle icons: they're all smiling brightly, further pushed by the upbeat music

C) the reflecting shield Mirabelle uses to freeze the King uses a variation of her hangout skill cut in, marking it as her true "final" skill and giving the whole fight a more climatic feeling.

It's also a short gameplay sequence with Siffrin utterly uninvolved in the battle. You can't even see them onscreen. But... it feels warm, doesn't it? Everybody coming together. Siffrin doesn't have to fight anymore.

At last, the King is defeated. Siffrin and co. make for the Head Housemaiden, to have her look at Siffrin's sudden illness. Siffrin is utterly exhausted, famished, running a fever. And this isn't unexpected - after all, their skills in Act 5 had no cooldown. For context, instead of featuring any sort of MP system, all skills work on a cooldown basis, where a character can't use it for a certain number of turns. The lowest cooldown is actually Siffrin's Knife to Meet You, which has a cooldown of 1. In universe, this is reasoned as the characters needing a break from spamming craft in order to not exhaust themselves.

Siffrin's skills in Act 5 having no cooldown/being infinitely spammable isn't a sign of their strength - it's a sign that he refuses to let himself rest in order to rush through as fast as possible.

Moving on, Siffrin panics when seeing the Head Housemaiden, because seeing her means one thing: the end. Prior to this in the game, every single time you beat the King, the loop ends when you talk to the Head Housemaiden.

Reality breaks down, the whole shebang. It's here that Siffrin realizes - they don't want the loops to end, because the end of their journey means their family will leave, and he'll be alone again. The happiest time of his life will be over.

Siffrin goes totally ballistic, to say the least.

As it turns out (and was heavily foreshadowed narratively), Siffrin has been using Wish Craft to subconciously cause the timeloop because of their abandonment issues. It's rather predictable if you paid attention to literally anything, but it's extremely notable how heavily Siffrin is paralleled to the King, the antagonist they swore to kill by themself at the start of Act 5. The King wants to freeze Vaugarde in time because it is, in his mind, "perfect," for accepting him after he lost his home - a backstory he shares with Siffrin.

Siffrin has become the exact antagonist he swore to kill, and it's shown by how the next fight utterly flips everything on its head.

Siffrin is the final boss.

In a towering form made of stars, Siffrin looks down at their friends. His face is terrified, because of his internal conflict; he can't hurt his friends, but he can't let them go, either. The combat prompt is simply changed to "END IT!"

This fight is similar to the previous, in that you just need to wait a certain number of turns until its over. However, this time, it's not dreadful suspense. It's... confusion, and hesitance.

You have two options for combat: Attack your friends, or attack yourself.

And... you don't really want to do either, I think. I certainly don't. But what else can you do? It's Siffrin's desires clashing in full force. Attack your friends, and force them to stay? Or attack yourself, and let them go safely without you?

Worth noting, here - when you attack Siffrin's friends, you can't harm them. Isabeau will shield all attacks. And when you attack yourself, Mirabelle will heal you back to full. And the friends don't... do anything, either. How could they? Occasionally, Mirabelle heals you and Isabeau shouts words of motivation, but the main thing is...

(Your friends don't know what to do.)

None of them want to harm Siffrin. Both sides simply stare at each other, resolute in their conviction but unwilling to end it with violence. It's of note that this loop, the last one, is the only loop where the King isn't killed. Just frozen. And now here is Siffrin, clamoring for the same eternity the King was. Of course everything ends in a tearfilled conversation as Siffrin sees their friends won't leave him, even after the journey ends, but I still have to appreciate this moment.

Siffrin is directly put in the position with their friends as his enemies, forced to physically reckon that keeping them in this loop is an act of violence, against both their friends, and against himself.

It's a happy ending. But... what does it mean?

Of course, ISAT is obviously about the fear of change. Siffrin is afraid of the journey ending, and of being alone. However, ISAT is also a game about games. Siffrin is playing the same game, over and over, because it's comforting. It's familiar. It's nice, to know exactly what happens next. These characters might just be predictable lines of dialogue, but... they feel like friends. Have you ever played a game, loved it, put countless hours into it, but you never finished it? Because you just couldn't bear to see it end? For the characters to leave your life, for there to be a void in your heart where the game used to be?

After all, maybe it became part of your routine! You play the game every day, slowly chipping away at it for weeks at a time. For me, I beat ISAT in four days. It utterly consumed me during this time. I had 36 hours of playtime by the end. Yeah, in that week, I did not do much more than play ISAT.

And once i beat it, i beat it, again. I restarted the game to see the few scenes I missed, most specifically the secret boss I won't talk about here. I... couldn't let go of the game yet. I wanted to see every scrap I could. I still do. I'm writing this, in part because I still do. It's scary to let go.

Ever heard the joke term of "Postgame Depression?" It's when you just beat a game, and you're suddenly sad. Maybe because the ending affected you emotionally and you need to process the feelings it invoked, or you search for something that can now fill your time with it gone.

The game ends, for real this time, the last time you talk to the Head Housemaiden. But Siffrin gets... scared. What if everything loops back again? And so, his family offers to hold his hand. They face the end, together.

For all loops, including the ending, you never see what happens after. After they leave the loop for good. Because the loop is the game itself. It's asking you to trust that life goes on for these characters, and it holds your hand as it asks you to let go. There's a reason for Siffrin's theater metaphors. He is the actor, and the director, asking everyone to do it over one more time. He's a character within the game, and its player.

There's a reason I talked about endgame content. This, the way it all repeats, there's nothing new, difficulty and stakes bleed away as you snap the game over your knee - it's my copy of White 2 with two hundred hours in it. It's me playing Fire Emblem Awakening in under 3 hours while skipping every cutscene. Are you playing for the sake of play, for the sake of indulging in your memories, because you're afraid of the hole it'll leave when you stop?

Of note: the narrative never condemns Siffrin for unwittingly causing their own suffering. He's a victim of circumstance. It's seen as endearing, even, that Siffrin loves their friends to the point of rather seeing the world destroyed than them gone. But Siffrin is also told: we'll stay with you for now, but we'll part ways eventually. And one day, you'll have to be okay with it.

Stop draining the things you love of every ounce of enjoyment just because you're afraid of what happens next. I'm not saying to never play your favorite games again. Playing ISAT a second time, I still had a lot of fun! I saw so many new things I didn't before, and I enjoyed myself immensely, reading the same dialogue over and over. But... it makes me look at other games I love and still play, and makes me ask... is this still fun? Do I still need to play this game to enjoy it? Even writing this is an afterimage of my enjoyment, but it's a new way to interact with the game, to analyze it through this lens. Fuck, man, I write fanfiction. Look at me.

All of this, fanart, fanfic, analysis, is a way to prolong that enjoyment without making yourself suffer for it. Without just going through the motions of enjoyment without actually experiencing any. But one day, the thing you love won't be fun to talk and write and draw about. And it's okay. You'll have new things to love. I promise.

In the end.... I'm certain I'll replay ISAT one day. Between great writing, art, puzzles and unresolved mysteries, it's my shoe-in for game of the year.

But I won't replay it for quite some time. I've had enough, for now, so I let my love take other forms.

Siffrin is never condemned, because love is no evil. Be it love for another person, or for a game. And please, if you're overempathetic - it's still a game, at the end of the day. The great thing about games is that you can always boot them up again, no matter how long its been.

A circle within a circle indeed.

To summarize:

The repetitiveness of ISAT's combat, lack of new enemies, and Siffrin's ever increasing strength eventually allows you to snap the combat over your knee, rendering it irrelevant and boring. Though this may seem counterproductive at first, it perfectly mirrors how Siffrin has also grown bored with these repeated encounters and views them only as an obstacle to get past. The reflection of Siffrin's own tiredness with the player's annoyance increases the compassion the player has for Siffrin as a character.

Additionally, the endgame state of the combat system serves as commentary on the state of a favorite game played too often, much like how Siffrin has unwittingly trapped themself in the loop. Despite the game having no more challenge or content left to over, a player might return to their favorite game anyway, solely to try and recreate the early experience of actually having fun with it. This ties into ISAT's metanarrative about the fear of change and refusal to let go of comfort even when the object (here, your favorite video game) offering that comfort has become utterly bereft of any substance to actually engage with. Playing for the sake of playing, with no actual investment to keep going besides your own memories.

Later on, stripping away even the pretense of strategy for a "press button and wait" format of final bosses highlights the lack of options at Siffrin's disposal and truly forces the player into their shoes. Truly, the only way to win is to stop playing.

#feli speaks #in stars and time #isat #isat spoilers #lays down on floor. it's done. it's done #i actually narrowed down in scope to just focus on the combat by the way. and this is like. several thousand words

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aikawa-kazuki · 4 months ago

Text

ok let me have my smart ass moment for once and use my 7,5 years of art schools

the scene that got me in "ooOHOUH 🫵" and wanting to kiss cinematographer on the mouth was this one:

all of the boys are out of school and as usual heading to snack stands. chian is in the middle of the scene between choices/ options.

this scene is amazing use of rule of thirds (i love using this one when i work on my artworks lmao; to those unfamiliar it's basically a composition rule based around golden ratio and in order to draw your eyes to important stuff you put the important stuff more less were the line cross (so for example faces/eyes) but also you divide scene to fit in those rectangles to create nice and balanced compostion - see the picture below; i generally do the rule of thirds by hand/eye so they aren't very correct but i was complemented on nice compostion multiple times so)

and also cleaver use of red as accent colours to draw our eyes even more

also rather simple note but amount of layering is 🤌‍

3 layers + background may not seem like a lot but when watch dramas and are a cinematography junkie like me you will notice how many dramas will choose just 1 layer + background (ofc not every scene needs endless amount of layers but especially in gelboys it adds to the overall maximalism of the whole series).

another scene that also caught my eye during ep 3 was this one:

rule of thirds and the sheer dominance of lines is just amazing.

soon after we get this scene:

baabin being obvious third wheel. again we got rule of thirds to draw our attention to baabin, despite 4mod and chian being there. (extra points for the red double decker in background :P it very much wasn't intentional the way they filmed all of it but it draws our attention to baabin even more).

and i really liked this scene too, it looks really nice for same reasons i mentioned earlier

#kino is being smart #gelboys #asian bl #hope you guys appreciate it #i spend hour on this 😭#i don't usually get to be the smart one #gelboys the series #GELBOYS สถานะกั๊กใจ #thai bls

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heartfullofleeches · 2 months ago

Note

I need to make out with lambchop sloppy style

Yan Mascot + Fast Food Reader

Two slices left-

Of all the calorific slop served at your marvelous place of employment, the apple halves included in the kids meals have to be the healthiest thing by far. The subtle hint of pure liquid sugar casting every bite is not lost on you, but there's still more nutritional and moral gain than the undisclosed meats customers, fellow employees, and even the company mascot themselves shove in their face on the daily.

Wedging the first between your lips, you raise your arm - waving the remaining piece of fruit in front of Lambchop's face like a hypnotist's beckon to their next victim.

"Want the last one?"

The demon remains a silent statute in your presence - chest extending with small breathes as their unblinking eyes burrow deeper into your psyche.

Pointing at your lips, your cheeks hollow as you suck on the wedge of fruit, teeth hooking in as you again ask. "Apple slice, you want?"

Like a sleeper agent, the goat lunges forward- activated by the apparent offer of your mouth and the juicy treat seat on your tongue. Catching your shirt by its collar, Lambchop presses it's stocky frame against your body as they hoist you up on the counter. Some may come to the assumption the close proximity was to prevent choking you out akin to previous times they've swooped you up like a kitten by its neck, but you know better than that.

The chunk of apple barrels down your throat from the sudden, abrupt jerking - caught by the invading tongue of the residential devil on the property as the muscle works its way past your parted lips.

Their hands path down to your hips - second handles to that cleaver and meat hook glued to their mitts at all hours. The honeyed flavor of the apple melts away to a faint note of raw meat and mint on their breath. So they had been using that toothbrush they pawned off of you all those weeks ago-

Riding with the flow, you slug your arms around their neck as your back connects with the surface of the counter - shirt crawling up your spine as rough finger draw beneath its bunched hem. You really don't mind sucking face with your personal guardian angel - demon, but they truly picked the worst of times to seek your affection. In the corner of your eye, you catch a glimpse of a face pale as snow - food and the tray that held it scattered across the floor.

Annnnddd the tally for mentality scarring customers goes right back down to day zero.

#Fast Food Reader #yandere x reader #yandere #yandere imagines #yandere x you #yandere insert #yandere scenarios #yandere oc #yandere headcanons #yandere blurb #yandere teratophilia #yandere monster

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rainrot4me · 10 days ago

Text

It's Not The Same Without You

── ⟢ ・⸝⸝

───────────────────────────────────── alice - peggy

── .✦ do not copy, translate, or plagiarize any of my works. dividers by me.

CONTAINS NSFW, MINORS DNI

✦ . Summary: Words hurt. Alice knows what it’s like to be the brunt of the joke. So, when an easy mission turns into a disaster that reopens old wounds, she spirals. Jeff doesn’t understand, worries he did something wrong, and seeks help from the only person he can think of—Ben. Wise words and a knock on the head are all Jeff needs to swoop Alice back into his arms and prove to her just how perfect she really is—in the language they both speak best.

✦ . Characters: Jeff the Killer x Alice Peggy (OC)

✦ . Warning: Blood, gore, weapons, violence, vaginal, cunnilingus, vaginal fingering, biting, dirty talk, rough sex, slapping, choking, overstimulation, praises, friends with benefits to lovers, fat shaming (non-sexual), mental distress, crying, miscommunication

✦ . Words: 12.5k

✦ . Note: This is a gift for @z0l0fft and her lovely Creepypasta OC, Alice Peggy! I don’t do oc x canon much, but I wanted to gift her something nice after being such a lovely moot <3 Alice’s design and backstory belong to solely Angie, so be respectful! Thank you again for letting me write for you!!!

────────────────────────────────────────────

“You need to be quiet.”

The woods breathed like a beast around her. Heavy fog slithered through the trees, curling around roots and swallowing sound whole. Branches above twisted like ribcages, and the air smelled of copper, damp soil, and something old—something rotting.

Alice Peggy moved like a shadow through it, quiet, unhurried, blade in hand. Her knife, a long, stiff-handled thing with a cleaver’s weight, swung lightly at her side. The edge gleamed where it caught the moonlight through the breaks in the canopy, shining like a beacon through the heavy brush.

Beside her, Jeff was humming.

Not a tune, not really. Just a low, careless string of noise like static in a human throat. His hoodie was dark with dried blood at the sleeves. His machete, long, crude, and chipped from overuse, dragged along the bark of a tree trunk as they passed, screaming out a long metal whine that set Alice’s teeth gritted tight in her jaw.

Alice looked like she’d wandered out of a black-and-white film and never quite returned to color. Her black hair hung in soft, uneven curtains around her face, dull with forest damp. Her skin, tan, scar-dusted, and worn like old leather in places, looked ghostly in the moonlight. And her eyes, always half-lidded and heavy, held a sadness so old it didn’t even ache anymore. Just watched. Just waited. She dressed like someone who didn’t care if her clothes bled with her—thick jacket, flared jeans, boots heavy enough to crush bone.

Jeff, by contrast, was all chaos in a hoodie—grinning like a slit throat, eyes wide with the permanent gleam of someone who stopped blinking at the word “mercy.” His skin was pale, corpse-pale, smeared with dirt and blood and God knows what else. Hair black, jagged, unwashed. He moved with a jester’s energy—light, fast, and too loud, but his shadow stretched long and mean when the moon caught him just right.

Together, they looked like different flavors of the same nightmare.

“Four of them,” Jeff said after a moment, almost absently. “Two guys, two girls. All carrying gear. Night vision, heat sensors, some low-rent EVP crap. Think they’re doing a docuseries. They’ve just got a lot of shit packed on them.”

“Like filming for a movie?”

“More like a shitty YouTube video.”

Alice didn’t respond right away. She didn’t have to. She was already listening, already tracking every rustle of moss and leaves underfoot as the group moved. The poor hikers had no clue they were being herded, purposeful noises made by the duo to guide them one way or the other. They had no clue they were walking into a trap.

Jeff stomped his foot, a twig cracked, the group halted, fast breathing and panicked chattering. Someone muttered, “Did you hear that?” in a nervous, nasal tone.

“They’re close to the clearing,” she murmured, voice flat with uninterest, as always.

Jeff grinned, wide and toothy. “You take the talky ones, I’ll handle the one in the beanie. He’s got a nic-vape. Can’t stand that sissy shit.”

“It’s better than smelling like cigarettes all the time.”

“Fuck off.”

Jeff snugged his hood up over his head, adjusting the fabric so it hid his face in the shadows of moonlight. Alice tugged her pig mask over her face, her signature item wrapping her in like a casing. Her dark hair coiled down her shoulders, messy and tangled from the night air, but she didn’t have time to worry about it right now.

They split with practiced routine, Jeff vanishing left into the underbrush with a feral bounce in his step. Alice slipped right, near-silent, boots barely brushing the ferns. They moved in tandem, swiftly and quietly, like a terrified cattle herd being swept up by coyotes with only the moonlight to guide them.

Alice saw them before they saw her.

Four kids. Early twenties, maybe. Flashlights bobbing, cameras rolling, and one was narrating something shaky into a mic—words about legends and disappearances, about an area “known for strange phenomena and brutal violence.” Her voice was thin with forced enthusiasm, but her eyes betrayed her courage. Every idiot in this group was seconds away from pissing their pants.

From what she gathered, they were documenting the Slender Woods. They had bright flashlights and loud-whirring equipment that echoed off the tree bark. They had no respect for where they were treading. Alice thought if her and Jeff didn’t take them out, the monsters in these woods would’ve gotten to them first.

Alice watched them from the dark, studying them like a butcher examines meat. She tilted her head slightly, the way she did when she was calculating weight, muscle, cut depth. They looked soft. This would be easy.

She moved.

One of them, a guy with a smug mouth and a too-tight jacket, caught the glint of her knife first. “Holy sh—!”

He didn’t finish. She was on him in two strides, slamming the handle of her blade into his temple. He dropped with a grunt, lights out. His camera tumbled into the leaves.

Screams started immediately.

Another girl tried to run, but tripped over her own equipment bag. Alice’s boot came down hard on her back, slamming the air from her lungs against the hard ground. The girl wheezed. Alice leaned low, knife in hand, eyes empty.

“You shouldn’t have come here.”

The girl whimpered something like ‘please’, and Alice rolled her eyes. She hated the begging part, couldn’t stand when people pleaded for their life like it had any value to begin with. Alice tangled her fist into the girl’s hair and craned her neck, giving her access to slice her throat open with gargled sobs.

Jeff evidently didn’t hold the same beliefs.

Behind her, there was a high-pitched shriek, then wet, rhythmic sounds. Jeff was somewhere in the trees carving chunks out of someone’s ribcage, hollering curses for them to beg more, daring them to fight back. She didn’t turn to look.

The guy she’d knocked out was starting to groan, shuffling forwards atop the fallen leaves. She stepped off the girl and turned toward him, wiping the bloody blade on her pant leg.

It happened faster than Alice could really process.

“You’re a big girl,” he spat, coughing blood that had begun to trickle from his nose. He chuckled to himself. “Shouldn’t sneak up on people—could’ve mistaken you for a fuckin’ bear.”

Time paused.

Alice barely blinked.

Something in her face shifted behind her mask, barely. The calm remained, but it calcified, cold and cutting. She didn’t speak, she simply knelt beside him and drove the knife into his thigh, hard and deep.

He screamed. Obnoxiously loud.

“You mistake me for anything else,” she said, voice like a scalpel dragging across skin, “and I’ll start pulling parts off until I find something useful.”

Blood frothed, soaking into the fabric of his ugly jeans. His hands flailed, fists gripping into his skin as he tried to kick and flail. His fear turned to anger in a blink, fists flying and curses screamed as the pain skyrocketed.

She didn’t flinch. Alice shoved his shoulders back, climbing up to his torso and driving her knee down into his chest. He tried to fight as she lifted him by the collar of his too-tight jacket, before slamming his head back against the forest floor. Then again. And again. And again. Until his wails of pain disappeared and blood began to pool from the back of his now-opened skull.

Behind her, Jeff’s laughter echoed through the trees, high, delighted, ragged with leftover adrenaline. It was evident he had had his fun.

Videoing equipment and camping materials were strewn across the clearing for yards, backpacks and clothes torn and flailing in the wind. The grass smelled like blood and rot, electricity filling the air from the events that the forest had just witnessed.

“Alice!” he called, still laughing. “You done already? Damn, leave some for me next time!” The two campers Jeff had dealt with were unrecognizable now, entrails and blood smeared across rocks and trees dozens of feet from them. Alice had always thought him to be very performative with his killings.

But Alice didn’t answer. She wiped her blade on the man’s jacket, and for just a moment, despite the gore, despite the screaming, despite the way her fingers curled with practiced ease around the knife handle… she felt smaller.

Heavy.

Ugly.

She stood without a word and walked back into the trees, leaving red footprints in the moss. The two left the massacre behind them, it was the wolves and whatever other creatures were out here’s job to clean them up. After a bit, the forest didn’t smell like blood anymore. It just smelled like wet dirt and home. It could’ve been peaceful.

Jeff wouldn’t shut up.

“Come on, that was fun, right? You got the jump on that one guy—bam, lights out. I was gonna steal the girl, you know, but you didn’t even give me a chance.” He was walking beside her, machete slung over one shoulder, his hoodie wet with someone else’s last breath. “You’re not even gonna gloat? Not even a smirk? You always smirk when they scream like that.”

Alice didn’t look at him, just tugged her pig mask over her chin and held it like a purse.

Her hands were sticky. The blood was drying in patches, itching at the skin under her sleeves. Her blade hung limp in her hand, point brushing against her worn jeans with every step. It might cut her, oh well.

Jeff slowed, peering sideways at her. “Did one of them bite you or something? You’re acting all… weird.” A pause. “Weirder.”

Still, she said nothing.

He gave a mock gasp. “Oh no. Did they offend you? Did someone insult how you stabbed them?”

She stopped walking.

Just for a second, long enough for Jeff to nearly trip over her before she kept moving again, faster this time. The mansion’s outline was visible through the trees now—dark and jagged, like a wound torn in the earth. The gaudy thing was horrifying, but to the duo, it was a sigh of relief to be home.

Her voice was quiet when it finally came.

“Shut the fuck up, Jeff.”

He blinked. Mouth halfway open for another joke. Then his brows knit together, just a little. But he didn’t respond, just scoffed and followed her in silence the rest of the way.

── .✦

The mansion greeted them like it always did—cold, looming, half-alive. A breathless thing in the dark.

Eyeless Jack was waiting just inside the front foyer, gloves already on, arms crossed.

“Anyone get clipped?” he asked, voice like gravel under velvet. His masked face turned toward them with its usual calm disinterest, but Alice knew Jack. He didn’t miss anything.

Jeff grinned and held out his arms theatrically. “No holes in me! Made plenty in them, though.”

Alice didn’t say a word. She moved past both of them, not even glancing Jack’s way. Her shoulders were stiff, her grip on the blade tighter than necessary.

“Alice?” Jack asked.

She didn’t answer. She just walked down the hall and disappeared.

Jeff cocked his head, a bewildered look on his face. “How the fuck does she just get to slip by?” He tried to take a step away, but Jack’s claw was already grabbing the back of his neck and dragging him back to his spot at the door.

“Because she doesn’t wait until a cut is infected to tell me about it,” he grumbled. “Now, let me check you without your whining.”

── .✦

Her door shut behind her with a soft click. No slam, no theatrics, just… done.

Her room was dark. She didn’t turn the light on, just leaned against the door and let her back slide down until she was sitting on the floor, blood drying on her skin like a second, heavier layer of flesh.

She was used to this part. Episodes like this always happened after a mission. It’s just the adrenaline, she’d say, calm down. She was used to keeping the noise inside, but tonight it was worse. Louder.

You’re a big girl, he’d said.

Like she didn’t already know. Like her own skin wasn’t a magnifying glass trained on her every time she moved, or breathed, or tried to take up any goddamn space in a world that only made room for girls who vanished when they turned sideways.

She could still hear them, not just the idiot in the jacket, but the others, too. The laughter, the comments, the way they’d look at her in gym class and nudge each other like it was funny—like she wasn’t standing right there.

Fatass. Freak. Creep.

They’d call her that and then flinch when she talked about the movies she liked—slasher flicks, monster films, anything with gore. It wasn’t just that they hated her body, they hated what lived in her head. The way she didn’t want to be like them. Didn’t even try.

That’s the thing about ‘normal’ people. They taunt and tease and make people feel little, but the moment they have something different from someone, they begin to fear. And fear turns into hate and disdain as a way to mask their terror.

And then her mom—her only tether, the only person who saw Alice as something good, was gone. Crushed metal, broken glass, blood on the steering wheel. She could still see everything. It was just a spiral from there, violence and terror and no fear of bringing the world down with her.

After that, it was all static. Until he came.

Slenderman didn’t speak, but he didn’t have to. He just stood there—in her hallway, her room, her mind. Until she broke open, walked into the woods, and never came back.

And still—after all that—some idiot with a camera and a weak chin could drag her right back down with one goddamn sentence. It didn’t matter that his brain-matter was leaking onto the earth right now, his words still echoed like he was speaking them directly into her ear. Like everyone—those girls, her father, her mother—were still whispering all of her flaws to her one by one.

She dug her fingernails into her thigh until the sting gave her something real. Alice didn’t cry, that wasn’t how this worked. She just stared at the floor, eyes flat, as if daring it to swallow her whole.

She wouldn’t let Jeff, or anybody, see this. Not the ugly parts, not the part she hadn’t killed off yet, not the part that still wanted her to be smaller. Invisible. Gone.

The quiet was worse than the blood.

It clawed at the corners of her room like something with teeth, pressing against the dark, curling underneath her skin. Alice moved to her bed, hunched on the edge, elbows to knees, chin resting in her palm. She hadn’t changed out of her ruined clothes, the dried blood on her hoodie cracked when she shifted, flaking like old rust.

Her mind wouldn’t shut up no matter how hard she tried.

Big girl.

She scoffed to herself.

As if she hadn’t heard that a thousand times already. As if it hadn’t followed her since she was old enough to be looked at like a problem. Her stomach twisted, not with hunger (she hadn’t eaten since yesterday), but with that old, sour sting of shame. The kind that latches onto your ribs and never lets go.

Her reflection in the window stared back at her. Drooped eyes, expression blank, mouth a line. She looked like she’d already died and just didn’t realize it yet.

The knock came sharp.

Thud-thud-thud.

“Alice?”

Of course. Jeff.

“Alice, open the door. What the fuck is going on with you?”

No answer.

She didn’t even blink. Just leaned her cheek against her palm and watched her own ghost float in the glass across the room.

Another knock, louder this time. “Seriously. This moody silent treatment isn’t cute, so what the hell happened? You mad at me?”

Still nothing.

She heard him shift outside the door, pacing, probably running his hand through his greasy hair and making that stupid irritated grunt he did when people didn’t immediately give him what he wanted.

“You looked fine earlier, so what—what, did I say something wrong? Did I miss something? Talk to me, dammit.”

That’s when she heard a new sound—quiet footsteps, smooth as someone who was used to being silent. A lower voice cut through the air.

“Move, Jeff.”

Jeff made an annoyed scoff. “What, now you’re babysitting her?”

“No. You’re just making it worse.”

There was a sharp thud as something hit the wall—probably Jeff, elbowed aside. Then silence. Then the softest knock yet.

“Alice,” Jack said, voice just on the edge of calm. “You alright?”

For a second, she didn’t say anything.

Then, finally, a word—gritty and short, like dragging gravel from her throat:

“Fine.”

Jack didn’t push, didn’t prod, she liked that about him. Jack cared, but he knew when and where his business was meant to be. He just waited a second longer, then gave a quiet nod she could almost hear through the door.

“Okay.”

She heard the turn of his boots as he started walking off—and Jeff’s loud, indignant voice trailing after him.

“Oh, so she talks to you? That’s fucking rich.”

“Grow up.”

“I am grown—grown enough to know when someone’s being a bitch for no reason—”

“Jeff.”

“What?! I’m just saying—she shuts me out, but for you it’s all ‘yes, daddy, I’m fine—’”

“Enough.”

Their voices faded down the hallway.

Alice exhaled slowly, but there was no relief in it, just air. In and out.

Then the silence returned. And she was alone again with her shadow and the rotted feeling under her skin.

── .✦

Call it holding a grudge, but Jeff doesn’t take the silent treatment kindly. He begins to exhaust his efforts, blissfully unaware the answers are smacking him in the face.

On Sunday, Alice sat on the cracked leather couch in the common room, folding laundry with robotic precision. Her hoodie, still bloodstained from the last mission, laid bundled at her side. She doesn't wear it now, too heavy, too tight across the stomach. The shirt she had on was baggy, long enough to hide the soft curve of her hips, sleeves pulled over her hands.

Jeff sauntered in mid-sentence, as always.

“—so then Toby tries to throw the hatchet and nearly takes his own damn toe off. Like, I told him, ‘you’re not Katniss, buddy, put the thing down’—oh, hey.”

No reaction.

He plopped down on the couch next to her, Nina followed in behind him, hanging into every word of his story until Jeff’s attention locked onto something different. Nina gives Alice a smile, but it’s not returned, so she waves herself off and heads into the kitchen.

“Hey, laundry gremlin. Say something.” Jeff throws his arms across the back of the creaky sofa, taking up as much space as possible, like usual.

Alice blinked slowly, didn’t turn her head, but folded another shirt. One of Jeff’s, actually.

He waited.

But when nothing came, he stood up with an irritated huff. “Okay. Ghost treatment continues. Cool.”

He stormed off.

The shirt she was folding stilled in her lap.

She exhaled shakily, stilling herself.

On Monday, Alice stood over the stove, stirring a pot of ramen she wasn’t going to eat. It was well after midnight, the only light illuminating the dusty kitchen coming from the overhead exhaust hood. The smell turned her stomach, but the sound of the water boiling gave her something to anchor herself with. She wasn’t hungry, she just… didn’t want to feel empty.

Behind her, the door creaked.

Jeff again.

“Did you make enough for two, or are you still living your weird no-talking fantasy?”

She didn’t answer. Just kept stirring, slow, clockwise, like the ramen might reveal something if she did it long enough.

Jeff watched her for a second. “…You know I’ve seen you puke after missions and still laugh at my jokes. So, what is this?”

Alice set the spoon down gently and turned off the stove. She walked out without taking the bowl, Jeff made sure it got eaten, though.

On Tuesday, a bad storm hit through the forest. Leaves and pellets of rain danced around in the wind, a low howl of energy thrumming through the soaked ground. Rain lashed against the mansion’s windows loud enough to make the foundation creak.

Alice sat on the front steps in a damp hoodie, hunched over like the sky had done something personal to her. The damp clung to her like guilt.

Jeff watched from inside, chewing the inside of his gashed cheek. Ben floated close behind, the two of them watching Alice like worried parents.

“What’s up with her?”

“Fuck knows.”

Ben floated closer, resting his chin on Jeff’s shoulder as he flicked his eyes between the two of them. “You do something?” He said it with a teasing tone, but Jeff didn’t take it that way.

“No.”

“Then don’t take it personally. She’s ignoring everyone.”

Jeff didn’t care. She was normal before their mission, and now she’s not. Something happened, his fault or else.

He shrugged Ben off, the elf rolling his eyes and floating back to the couch.

He opened the door halfway.

“You’ll catch pneumonia and die out there,” he muttered.

Alice didn’t flinch, didn’t even look at him.

After a moment, Jeff muttered, “Whatever. Get pneumonia, then,” and slammed the door shut.

She didn’t even blink. Jeff was becoming upset with her. But in Alice’s book, any emotion toward her besides pity was a good one.

On Wednesday, Alice was assigned a mission.

She stood in the hallway, tying her boots. Her coat was longer, buttoned up all the way. She wore it like armor.

Jeff clomped down the stairs, gear slung over his shoulder. He paused when he saw her.

“Hey. So you’re talking to Jack and Kate now, huh? Everyone but me.”

It was only to finalize the plans for their mission, but she didn’t have the effort to tell Jeff that. She didn’t respond, just pulled on her gloves and grabbed her pig mask. Its face was cracked and stained with countless fluids, but right now, it looked exactly how Alice felt on the inside.

Big girl.

She flinched.

Jeff stepped closer, staring at her face like he was trying to solve a puzzle with missing pieces. She half stared back, half unfocused her eyes so she wouldn’t have to meet the anger in his gaze. Nonetheless, she held that dead expression.

“You know I didn’t say anything to piss you off, right? Like—if you’re mad, just fucking say it.”

Alice brushed past him, shoulder barely grazing him.

“Jesus Christ,” he muttered, watching her walk out into the dark. “Be like that, then.”

Thursday, she was in the mirror, brushing her hair. Trying, anyway. The strands were knotty, frizzed from rain and sweat and sleep deprivation. She winced as the bristles caught again, dragging too hard.

She stared at her face, the bags under her eyes, the slight puff of her cheeks, the way the shirt clung wrong today. It didn’t yesterday.

Something inside her itched.

A knock at the door.

Jeff again. Always Jeff.

She froze.

“Hey. I know you’re in there.”

Silence.

“…I was thinking—maybe we could go hunting in town later. You and me. I’ll even let you pick the target. Some guy gave you a dirty look at the gas-station the other day. We could track him down. Let off some steam, yeah?”

Still silence.

Jeff let out a loud sigh, she heard him lean against the doorframe.

“You’re killing me, Al.”

She stared at her reflection. And said nothing.

On Thursday, Alice sat across from Jack, picking at a slice of toast with a fork. Jeff slouched at the far end of the table, watching her like she was a ghost he hadn’t learned how to exorcise.

Jack, calm as ever, chewed something unidentifiable.

Jeff finally broke.

“I don’t get it,” he growled. “You eat, you sleep, you bleed like the rest of us. But the second I walk into the room, you’re suddenly the goddamn Black Lodge.”

Jack didn’t flinch.

Alice didn’t respond.

Jeff stood up, chair scraping loudly across the floor as it was knocked back. “Fine. Keep your little depression cosplay going. I’ll figure it out without your help.”

He left, hard footsteps clambering down the hallway. Upstairs, you could hear his door slam.

Alice’s fork scratched her plate. She didn’t finish the toast.

Friday, Alice sat in the weapons room, polishing the blade she’d used last week. It still had blood crusted into the grooves of the handle, but nothing a little soak in warm water couldn’t fix. The metal hissed softly under the cloth, back and forth, back and forth.

Jeff stood in the doorway. He didn’t say anything, just looked at her. He was utterly defeated. Nothing had worked. Not interrogation, not bargaining, not even anger could get her to speak her mind to him. He was all out of tricks.

She looked tired. Not just physically—soul-tired. Like something was pressing down on her from the inside.

He opened his mouth. Then closed it again. And walked away.

Alice stopped polishing. She stared down at the blade in her lap, her reflection warped in the steel. She didn’t even realize tears were prickling in her eyes until a drop landed onto the shining metal.

She wiped it off immediately.

── .✦

Seven days. No answers. No emotions. Just silence.

And Jeff—frustrated, stewing, growing louder in his head while she grew quieter in hers.

Jeff kicked open Ben’s bedroom door like the building had insulted his mother.

“Alright, fuck this.”

Ben didn’t flinch.

He was on the bed, one leg draped over the edge, a game controller in one hand and a half-empty Red Bull in the other. His glowing eyes flicked lazily toward Jeff, then back to the television screen where some poor NPC was getting eviscerated in 16-bit glory.

“Didn’t know you were scheduled for a tantrum today.”

Jeff started pacing, hard. Like the floor had done something to him.

“She hasn’t said more than five words to me in a week. A week, Ben. And they weren’t even, like… real words. It was more like a grumble and a fucking blink.”

Ben snorted, eyes still on the screen.

“Tragic. Has the side chick stopped texting, too?”

Jeff growled. “Shut up.”

“I’m just saying, for someone who’s supposedly not dating her, you sure look like your favorite toy got taken away.”

Jeff stopped pacing long enough to glare at him.

“She’s not my—”

Ben held up a finger. “Yeah, yeah. ‘It’s just physical.’ Spare me. You guys have been screwing each other’s brains out and pretending not to feel anything since, what, March?”

“It’s not like that.”

Ben finally paused the game and turned to face him fully.

“Oh?” he said, fake surprise heavy in his voice. “So you don’t get jealous when she laughs at Jack’s jokes? You didn’t almost kill Clockwork that one time she complimented her boots? You don’t stay up all night sulking every time she gets cold with you?”

Jeff’s mouth opened. Then closed.

Ben leaned forward slightly, elbows on his knees, voice lower now. Quieter.

“You like her. And you’re too goddamn scared to admit that maybe it’s not just sex. Maybe you like the way she talks shit to you. Maybe you like that she sees the monster and still crawls into your bed some nights like you’re not a walking corpse with a knife addiction.”

Jeff looked away, jaw flexing.

“And maybe,” Ben continued, “just maybe, you like her so much that you didn’t even notice what’s right in front of you.”

A beat of silence.

Then Jeff turned back, frustration exploding.

“I didn’t do anything! That’s the problem! She just started shutting me out out of nowhere. One minute we’re slicing up some idiot campers, the next she’s got this weird haunted look in her eye and she won’t even fucking look at me.”

Ben clicked his tongue.

“Jeff.”

“What?”

Ben leaned back, folding his arms behind his head like he was settling in for the punchline.

“She thinks she’s ugly. One of the campers said something.”

Jeff blinked.

“…What?”

Ben arched a brow. “You heard me. The guys you offed last week? One of them said some nasty shit to her before she knocked his brains out. Real high school mean-girl garbage. And you know what Alice is like—she’ll ignore bullets, but say something about her body?”

Silence.

Jeff’s stomach dropped.

He remembered the guy—some smug dick with a camera and bones like twigs. He’d made a joke, Jeff could hear the idiot laughing before Alice had jumped him. What had he said?

Big girl.

The words hit like a cold splash of water to the face. How had he missed that?

Ben watched the realization settle in.

“She’s not mad at you,” he said, softer now. “She’s mad at herself. She thinks she’s weak for letting it get to her. And she’s too proud to fall apart in front of you.”

Jeff’s face was blank. No smirk. No snarl. Just… quiet.

And in that stillness, Ben grinned.

“God,” he said, stretching lazily. “It’s so entertaining watching you be the emotional idiot in this situationship.”

“Shut the fuck up.”

“I mean, it’s kind of romantic in a murdery, trauma-bonded, we-don’t-know-how-to-cope-with-our-own-feelings kind of way.”

“Ben—”

“She’s clearly in love with you, by the way.”

Jeff snapped his gaze toward him.

“She’s not—”

Ben just grinned wider, eyes glowing.

“You gonna prove me wrong, Romeo? Or are you gonna keep waiting for her to snap out of it by herself while you cry in my arms?”

Jeff stared at him a second longer, then turned on his heel and stormed toward the door.

“Tell her I sent you,” Ben called sweetly after him. “And to stop writing all of her thoughts and feelings in her notes app where I can easily get to them.”

The door slammed behind him and Ben unpaused the game. “God,” he muttered to himself, smiling. “They’re so fucked.”

── .✦

The halls were quieter than usual. For once, no bickering, no blood trail, no screaming from the basement.

Jeff wandered like a man with a mission.

He found her in the back garden.

Alice was sitting on the cold stone bench behind the mansion, legs tucked under her, eyes tilted toward the sky. The late dusk washed her skin in blue. Her black hair was braided back in a loose knot, and there was a faint trace of soot on her cheek—residue from whatever she’d just burned in the fire pit nearby.

She looked… better. Not fixed. Not bright. But present.

Jeff hesitated, then walked up, hands stuffed in his hoodie pocket.

“…You finally decided to stop playing dead, huh?”

Alice didn’t look at him, but the faintest twitch of her mouth betrayed her.

“That depends,” she murmured. “Are you going to keep talking?”

Jeff grinned, tension melting off his shoulders like melting snow. There she was.

“I missed that smart tongue,” he said, easing down beside her. “You’ve been acting like a kicked dog all week.”

She side-eyed him, “Don’t project.”

“Don’t deflect, then.”

They sat in silence for a moment.

Then Jeff leaned in, close enough for his breath to warm her cheek.

“…Come back to my room.”

Alice blinked.

Her expression cooled instantly. “Why?”

Jeff shrugged. “Because you’re clearly bored. And I have a six-pack of stolen beer and that one horror movie you like—y’know, the one where everyone gets slaughtered in the first twenty minutes?”

She narrowed her eyes. “Chainsaw Massacre? That’s a terrible movie.”

“Yeah. But you love it.”

She studied him.

Then sighed.

“…Fine.”

── .✦

His room was dim, cluttered, and warm—faint smell of copper and gunpowder, just like normal. A lamp flickered on the desk, bathing the walls in soft amber. Jeff’s room was always messy, but right now, it was a little tidier than usual. Stress cleaning? Alice could’ve laughed.

Alice moved cautiously, like a cat entering a dog’s territory. Jeff flopped onto his bed, legs splayed, arms behind his head, as the springs creaked.

Alice hovered near the wall.

He watched her.

“You gonna stand there like you’re waiting for a firing squad, or…?”

She rolled her eyes, but padded over and sat at the edge of the bed, stiff-backed and quiet.

Jeff sat up slowly.

“You really weren’t gonna tell me, huh?”

Alice’s spine straightened.

“…Tell you what?”

He moved closer, voice lowering. “What that guy said.”

Silence.

The words dropped like a guillotine.

“I didn’t care,” she said sharply, too quickly.

Jeff tilted his head. “That’s not what your eyes said.”

Her jaw tightened. She looked away. “I didn’t want to talk to anyone about it.”

“You didn’t want to talk to me in general.” He said it without venom, just fact. That somehow stung more.

Alice scoffed. “You don’t care about feelings.”

“Yours I do.”

That froze her.

Jeff reached out, slowly, and brushed her hair back behind her ear. She flinched away. “You think I haven’t noticed the way you hide yourself lately? Like you’re trying to disappear into your clothes. Like you’re ashamed of your body.”

Her breathing hitched, almost imperceptibly.

“You’re wrong.”

“Then why won’t you let me touch you like I used to?”

Her eyes flitted to his, panic flickering.

“I didn’t want you to see me like this. Not until I could feel okay again.”

Jeff’s hands moved, gently pressing against her hips, his thumbs curling into the dips of her waist through the fabric.

“Like what? Human? Real? Not airbrushed and starving like those assholes said you should be?”

He leaned in, lips brushing just under her ear.

“I’ve seen you. Every inch. Every mark. Every scar. Don’t you think I would’ve stopped after the first time if I didn’t like what I saw?”

His hands slid slowly down her sides.

“You think I’d keep crawling back if I didn’t want all of you?”

Alice clenched her fists in her lap. “You just want my body.”

Jeff snorted. “Damn right I do. But not because it’s some perfect fantasy.”

He leaned back just enough to look her in the eye.

“I want it because it’s yours.”

Silence.

Her façade cracked—just a little.

He saw the flicker of something underneath: a deep-rooted ache, bruised pride, the faint shimmer of disbelief.

He pulled her gently to him, hands gliding up under her shirt, resting just beneath her ribs.

“Your stomach,” he whispered, lips grazing hers, “is soft and warm. I fall asleep with my hand right here because it’s safe.”

He kissed the curve of her jaw.

“Your thighs? Fucking lethal. You could crush a man. And you have.”

His hands moved again—along her back, tracing the curve of her spine.

“Your arms, your chest, your neck… I love them because they’re yours. Not because they’re perfect.”

Alice shuddered under him.

“Stop.”

Jeff froze.

Then, “…Why?”

“Because if you keep talking like that, you might pop a boner.” She grinned.

He smiled—genuinely. A rare, fleeting thing.

“Good.”

And then his lips were on hers—hard, insistent, tasting the bitterness and the hunger and everything she refused to say out loud. His hands stayed where they were: firm, grounding, reverent. They gripped at each other’s clothes like an anchor.

When they pulled apart, Alice was breathless, eyes glassy.

Jeff had the worst shit-eating grin. “Fuck you for ignoring me all week.”

“You deserved it. It’s nice to see you humbled.”

“Humbled? Oh, I’ll show you a humbling.

His lips are crashing against hers like they’re magnetized, and it’s sloppy, a mess of teeth and lips and their tongues tasting every inch of each other like they couldn’t get enough. Like he didn’t even want to breathe for fear of losing out on her pretty mouth.

“Fuck-” Jeff hisses, delicate strings of spit snapping as he pulls away ever-so-slightly to take in the delicious sight of Alice all glossy eyed with swollen lips. “Fuck you’re so beautiful. You don’t know how terrible this last week has been.”

He grabbed her hips, swinging her body off the edge of the bed and slamming her back down against the mattress. Alice let out a huff of air, tangling her fingers into Jeff’s hair as she drug him back into a kiss, legs opening for him to slot himself between.

Jeff chuckled lowly, kissing her over and over like he couldn’t get enough. Like he didn’t want to get enough. She’s moaning when Jeff slips his tongue past the seam of her lips, addicted to the distinct taste of him and those nasty cigarettes she always nagged him about smoking so often.

He’s drawing back in a way that has him drinking in her soft noises, palms kneading her body over her thick layered clothes.

“Je-Jeff-” she’s gasping out when he presses his hands up her hoodie, dragging it over her shoulders to reveal the smooth skin underneath. He nearly growls, mouth practically watering at the sight of her tits cupped into her bra. He moves back down to her bruised lips with heated peck after peck. “You don’t- don’t have to-”

He groans, lips moving to kiss down the quivering column of her throat, “Shut up- Just shut up and kiss me. God, for how much I love that brain of yours, you think way too much, sweetheart.”

“You-” she sputters, the cool chill of the bedroom pebbles her sensitive nipples as Jeff unclips the back of her bra, sliding it off her arms. Alice is met with the hungry look she knows and loves, Jeff going in for another sloppy kiss before she grabs his jaw and levels him with a narrow look, “How many times did you jerk off by yourself?”

He flashes her a sheepish grin, palms groping her tits. “Would ya believe me if I told you it was none?”

“Absolutely not.”

This earns her a sharp smack gifted onto the dimple of her cheek, the palm of Jeff’s fingers burning onto where he was now gripping her chin.

“Always need to talk back, don’t you?” he spits, shoving a thigh between her legs. Such a feral grin shines across his face at the soft moan Alice lets out, grinding purposefully against that damp mound of her needy cunt still trapped behind the fabric of her jeans. “Always so quiet until you know I’m about to get in your pants.” He has one hand massaging her tit, the other dragging her sloppy hips up his muscled thigh.

“Again-”

Jeff’s palm meets her other cheek, a sharp slap that has Alice whining against him. Her hips writhe against his thigh, clothed cunt aching and sopping as she humps against him. Jeff gives her one more hard smack just for good measure, and Alice moans deep and throaty.

Her cheeks are dark, firstly from the hand-sized splotch on her skin, but also from the devastating gush of arousal that’s flowing through her every fiber. She’s like crackling electricity, a live wire that’s been left drowning in water and is ready to shock someone again.

He’s kissing her pulseline now, canines hovering over the erratic little cadence, breathing her in like she was pure heroine.

“Are you gonna shut up long enough for me to fuck you?” he licks a long, languid stripe up her neck, pressing hot, open-mouthed kisses down every inch of skin he could reach. Leaving marks on her skin is like his personal love language.

Alice grins, coaxing her hand back into his hair and tugging so hard Jeff jerks his head back with a groan. “We’ll see if you can make me cum, first. Then you’ll get yours.” A deep chuckle erupted between the two of them.

He’s capturing her lips with his again, nipping at her bottom ones. She whines as he pulls, suddenly forgetting exactly why she had ignored him in the first place.

But Jeff wasn’t done yet, far from it. He chuckles, kissing down her neck again and admiring the flowered bruises beginning to appear there. He fumbles with the button of her jeans, “Remember when I asked if you wanted to go hunting the other day?” Worshiping the valley between her breasts as he hastily tugs down the zipper. “That night, I was so angry with the world that I tracked down that guy myself. He’s buried somewhere in the backyard right now.”

Alice moans, deep and loud, gripping the sheets in her fist as Jeff bites at her abdomen.

And she’s reeling from both his words and the way Jeff rocks his hips into hers now, something hot, and so achingly hard pressing in the damp area between her legs. “Thought I was gonna die when you wouldn’t even look at me.”

“Really?” her breath hitches.

“Nah.”

Alice kicks her leg into his side, knocking the air from his lungs with a huff. “Kidding.” He continues his nips down her body, quicker now, tugging her jeans down her hips with jerky movements until he shackled them off her ankles.

“Every single day,” Fingers dancing across the hem of her panties, “Felt like being punched in the face every time you looked away without sayin’ anything.”

Jeff’s licks down her navel now, humming in confirmation into her skin. “It sucked…” he groans, taking in the first sinful sight of her drenched panties, so damp and flimsy (and after just a few kisses, really?) “The real topper was you talkin’ to the eyeless fucker while you were mopin’, really pissed me off.”

Alice watched, heart racing as Jeff gripped a bruising hand into her hip, nails digging into her skin. His darkened gaze locked on the way her slick built up on the apex of her legs, bare thighs trying to close, to give herself some semblance of dignity. Jeff wouldn’t let her, especially when he’s holding them apart.

“I thought…” He slides his index underneath her panties, up and down, grazing her swollen folds. Her sweet juices pool on his fingertip before he’s popping the digit into his mouth, eyes rolling at the taste, and she’s never seen him look so hungry. “How much of a tease you are.”

Rip.

The cold air brushes against her before she even knew what happened, only when she feels Jeff’s hot breath against her dripping cunt does it hit—this bastard just ripped her panties off. He tore them off her hips, flinging the trashed material somewhere unknown in his room.

Her lips wobble as he just admires her pussy, the way it glistens and clenches around nothing. “Hah- please.”

“Please what?” he grins, and she can feel him licking little circles around her inner thigh, nipping against the muscle at her hip rotator. So close. “Someone so smart has got to know how to use their words.”

“You’re awful.”

“And yet you’re soaked.”

With such a desperate groan that makes Jeff’s cock twitch so painfully in his jeans, she bucks her hips closer to his smug mouth. “Want your mouth on me. Want you to eat me out. Please, Jeffrey.”

He lets out a shuddering breath, “That’s my girl.”

Alice gasps when he surges forward, burying his face nose-deep in her pussy. She holds her breath as he lazily licks up her folds, long, sloppy movements of his tongue all the way from her entrance to her swollen clit, swirling deftly around the sensitive nub.

“Jesus Christ.”

He could be mistaken to be drunk off her pussy with the way he’s so messy, seemingly unable to decide between sucking harshly on her poor, ravaged clit or dipping into her sloppy hole. All the while, his hands are pushing her thighs apart, digging his nails into her soft skin like an anchor. It’s driving her mad, keening and pulling at the sheets beneath her.

Jeff was well and fully intending on ruining Alice for all the stress she had caused both him and herself.

“Shhh, don’t worry, baby,” words muffled into her cunt, “Gonna take real good care of you.” He’s throwing her legs over his broad shoulders, gripping either side of her thighs and pressing the skin tight in his palms.

“Real good care.” Then he’s plunging knuckle-deep into her cunt, the tips of his long fingers massaging her warm walls. It’s messy enough that her slick is trailing down his knuckles, wet noises with every pump. He’s searching for that one spot he knows will have her moaning deliciously, then pressing down, hard. “Gonna have you screamin’ so loud the whole damn mansion hears.”

Alice lets her grip off of the sheets, laying her shoulders back against the mattress while both hands wrap into his hair like a vice. She snags his hair, hard, urging Jeff’s mouth towards her cunt again. Partially because she wanted him there, partially because she really needed him to shut up right now.

And shit, how could he ever say no to his pretty girl?

Jeff is grinning, she can feel it on her throbbing clit as he wraps his lips around it. He’s pumping his fingers in and out, hitting that little spot each and every time, looking like he was absolutely in heaven as he rolls and swirls his tongue against her clit over and over and-

“Sh-shit. Jeffrey-”

“Mmm, yes- fuck, love it when you call me that,” he groans, and oh he’s looking at her like a man half-starved, eyes half-lidded, and such a pretty blush dusting his cheeks. Alice jerks his hair, a wild moan erupting against her core, deep groans following.

“Fuck,” she squirms, shaking, bucking her hips into his touch so desperately. “Missed this so bad.”

He’s becoming frenzied now, drinking in her cute little whimpers like he's never heard them before. But it wasn’t enough, it’s never enough with Jeff.

“Move your hips, yeah- just like that, baby,” Jeff’s grunting and sucking his lips against her own, letting her pull and angle him just as she pleases. Her legs have shifted off his shoulders, feet now pressed into the bedding as she ruts and angles her hips against his mouth.

“You’re too fuckin’ stingy with this body of yours,” the vibrations have her legs jerking violently. “If I had it my way, you’d be cumming downstairs for everyone to see.”

And with that, he’s alternating between lapping at her clit and bullying his tongue through her swollen folds, fingers holding her puffy lips open. Stretching her, thrusting in and out of her sloppy hole, jaw grinding deeper into her as he eats her out like his last meal. “Ngh- fuck, yeah, yeah-”

“Beg for it, c’mon Al, c’mon pretty girl.”

“Wanna cum- Ah! Please, I wanna cum, Jeff.”

One hand is so messy toying with her dripping entrance, not having the patience or the sanity to even draw circles anymore—just quick, hurried patterns to get her off. The other is digging into her hip so hard she was sure it’d leave marks for tomorrow. Jeff makes her drag her sloppy pussy senselessly all over his mouth, using him.

“Hngh- Jeffrey! Ah- fuck- Jeff-” She’s shaking, crying out as she cums—a guttural, strangled moan of Jeff’s name. It’s so violent and hard that she doesn't even realize at first, just that she’s rocking her hips into Jeff, white-hot pleasure behind her movements, blood roaring in her ears.

And he doesn’t stop, not even once. If she were in any better state of mind she’d wonder whether it hurt, whether his fingers were cramping up, whether his tongue was tired. If they were, he didn’t show, only letting her chase her high as roughly as she wanted with growled strings of approval.

Jeff greedily lapped up all her arousal. Even when she’s blinking her vision back, chest heaving as she tries to regain her breath. “J-Jeffrey,” she mewls, stars behind her eyes with each flick of his tongue.

“Just a bit more. Wanna taste all of you, sweetheart.”

Big, fat tears pricked at her eyes from the overstimulation as Jeff finally rose from between her legs. “All done. Now, keep them pretty lil’ legs open for me, baby.”

She’s almost unravelled all over again by the look of pure evil on his face. His hair’s a dishevelled mess thanks to her rough treatment. His nose, mouth, and chin are all glistening with her release, and his lips are set in the smuggest smirk she’s ever seen.

He withdraws his fingers slowly, and Alice whimpers at the loss. His eyes flick down to the bedsheets. “You’ve made a mess,” he says haughtily.

She doesn’t doubt it, she can feel how damp the fabric is beneath her ass.

“What do you have to say for yourself?”

“Fuck me already.”

“Yes ma’am.”

Jeff crawls back up her body, knocking her knees wide as he slots himself back in his favorite position. One hand comes up to wrap itself around her throat, gripping roughly as he pulls her into a filthy kiss, tongues and teeth covered in the taste of her.

Alice whines, gasping through the tension around her airway as Jeff’s free hand reaches down to tear the clasp of his jeans open, tugging the zipper down. He lifts up onto his knees, grabbing the hem of his hoodie and throwing it over his shoulders to somewhere unseen. Alice could never get over that sight—the bulging veins running up his arms, the scar-littered skin from countless nights out, and the hard-earned muscles from wrestling people to the ground in every fight. He was a sight to see.

“Jeff…” she trails off, hand reaching out to brush his waistband. Alice wraps her fingers around both his jeans and boxers, tugging just enough that his throbbing cock springs out, hitting his tight abdomen. Red, and so, so angry, fat tip weeping down his length, already so soaked in precum. He was so intimidatingly long, and after so many times of taking it, still wondered if she could this time.

Jeff hums, raking his eyes across Alice’s naked body with all the reverence of a saint at Sunday service, viewing something holier than he should be.

He slips off the mattress, kicking his jeans down his legs before he’s crawling back onto his girl, kissing every inch of skin he can on his way up.

“You’re so gorgeous, Al,” he mumbles, pushing her bare thighs as far apart as they’d go. He spreads her cunt so shamefully with his thumb, spitting once, twice. Some of it splatters against her thigh as Jeff mixes his saliva with her slick. “Don’t worry, baby, gonna take care of everything.”

Alice flinches as he uses her like some object, quickly liking it more and more as he drags his fat head down her soft folds, wetting himself. It was all the preparation he was going to give her because fuck he needed to be inside her pretty lil’ pussy right now.

Alice groans as Jeff wraps his fist around her throat again, gripping her airway as she wraps her hands around his wrist. Then she feels like she’s being split apart, as if Jeff’s cock was pushing all the way to her lungs as he presses through the first ring of muscle.

“Ah! Ngh- Jeff, what the fuck-” she groans, eyes locked on the way her cunt was stretching so lewdly around his tip, clamping and quivering as he keeps pushing in, inch by fucking inch. No mercy. Absolutely none at all.

And while he sounded like he was on cloud nine, she was having her head spin, torn between wanting to run away from his massive cock and just push herself down for more. His lips claimed hers again, absolutely animalistic because God, he needed to shut up her pretty whines or else Jeff was going to cum right here, right now.

“Breathe, sweetheart, breathe. Ngh- You’ve got it.” Jeff groans into her mouth, fucking into her in mindless, shallow little thrusts just to fit inside her snug cunt. She could’ve laughed, him telling her to ‘breathe’ as if he wasn’t choking her. He sounded like he was losing his sanity each time her heavenly walls sucked him back in. “So fuckin’ tight. Just relax, baby. Oh yeah, just like that. Practically made for me-”

Alice gasps for air when he finally bottoms out inside her, tears streaming down her face and clawing at his shoulders while Jeff’s grip on her throat tightens. Her head is swimming with numbness, the shallow breaths she’s getting making the pressure build in her skull.

Jeff only hums, letting her mark him up all she wants.

“Jeffrey-” she’s moaning through strangled breaths like a mantra, once his angry tip is nudging against the spongy wall of her cervix. The stretch is too much, his cock so thick that she could feel every sweet spot being dragged down his length. “F-fuck, Jeff!”

He chuckles, gritting out through those long, determined grinds. His hand tightens against her throat while the other tugs at her nipples, having himself now fully stuffed inside her cunt, abdomen rubbing against her needy clit. “Can’t hah- keep quiet, can you? Fuckin’ love how needy you are.”

“Sh-shut up-” she mewls, narrowing her eyes.

“Hah- I would.” Jeff grins out so smugly, tilting her chin up as he leans down over top of her, nose inches from hers. “But you can’t.”

And of course, he’s proving his own point by rocking his hips in a heady, fast tandem, abs burning with the ache to fuck her so hard. Jeff bullies two of his long fingers into her mouth, soaking the digits in her saliva, and letting this lewd coating smear down to his knuckles before dipping them down to spread her puffy folds even farther.

“Fuuuck, just look at yourself,” he rasps, the deep gravel of his voice having her gummy walls mold even harder onto the shape of his cock. Jeff tightens one last, hard grip against Alice’s throat, hard enough to make her cough, before releasing her airway. “Let me hear you, baby,” were the only words she got before he was diving down against the red-flushed bruising of her throat. He gave one kiss against her pulseline before he bared his teeth, biting hard against the meat of her shoulder.

Shit, the pain had her grinding and stuttering her hips up to meet Jeff’s unforgiving cadence, arching her body into him like she couldn’t get enough. She tangled her hand into the back of his head, gripping his hair and pulling with all her force. Her legs wrapped around his hips, heels digging into the divots of his back and pressing him deeper into her while her free hand scratched red marks into his shoulder blades.

“You just got- hngh- so impossibly harder at that,” she gasped, throat burning with the previous lack of air. Alice found herself curling around Jeff, limbs clinging to him like a prayer, refusing to let him get too far. “And you call me needy.”

He scoffs, “I’m not the only one.” The fingers still lingering on her cunt moving to toy with her pulsing clit, teasing and toying her nub between two fingers. “Can you just h-hear how loud this pussy of yours is? Bet Jack can hear it, too.”

And it was true, the wet smacks were only getting louder, sloppier, squelching with the push and pull of Jeff’s pounding cock in the same maddening rhythm.

But still, Alice wasn't going to be compliant that easily. Feeling the familiar tingles of her high edging closer, she wanted to break him just one more time. “Nah- I don’t think he can.”

“Oh you’re gonna regret that, pretty girl.”

In all of two seconds, maybe even less than, Jeff’s using his practiced strength to his advantage, prying Alice’s limbs off of him and flipping her over so her front is hitting the soaked sheets, exhausted legs kicked wide to plow into her in such a mean press he has her folded into. Face-down into the mattress, Alice squeals as Jeff’s hand grips at the back of her neck, the other splaying wide in between her shoulder-blades. Her back is arched so painfully low, Jeff’s entire weight pressing down onto her.

The new change in angle makes it even easier for him to slam his hips down, bruising, branding his name onto the swell of her ass. Every snap of his hips leaves a wet slap of skin-on-skin, the noises crude enough to make Alice groan into the sheets, dark hair spilling across the bedding.

“F-fuck, Jeff-” she’s letting out staggered gasps every time he rams his hefty cock into her, fingers latching back on her clit as Jeff reaches underneath her stomach to swipe the pads against her bud of nerves, playing around with it as much as he was playing with her sanity. “I’m so-” she muffles into the sheets.

“What was that?” he interrupts through sloppy, stuttering thrusts, free hand sliding up her neck and into the mess of her hair to turn her head roughly, ‘Can’t hear you, sweetheart.“

“Jeff-” she’s squealing over his rapidly accelerating movements, fighting to babble out coherently, “Jeffrey m’close-”

“Louder.” he’s grinning meanly, hips burning with slowly fatiguing effort because he’s so close, her slick walls gripping him so tight. But where’s the fun if there’s no teasing? “Still can’t hear ya.”

Alice’s voice is shot at this point, “Jeff, m’gonna cum-”

“Louder or m’not gonna let you.”

“Je- Jeffrey- Oh, god- I’m cumming-” It hits him before those loud moans are even leaving her mouth, because her velvety walls are clamping down so snug, molding to the shape of him. Her hands reach back to claw at his hips, nails raking red patterns down the pale skin. “M’cumming- ngh-”

And fuck each and every slam of his hips sends electricity up her spine, bullying her through her high, dragging it out till she thinks she could go insane.

“God- fuck you’re so-” It’s the only hoarse grunt leaving Jeff’s lips before he’s spilling thick ropes of cum into warmth of her cunt. “So perfect-”

Two hands of his lace around her biceps, gripping her arms and pulling her back so impossibly deep onto his thick hilt. He’s cumming and cumming hard like he never has in his life, body out of control with the way he’s stuffing her with every drop of seed. He can’t help himself, his mouth is practically watering by the time he latches his canines around the roundness of her shoulder. He latches down, teeth sinking into the warm flesh until he feels the pop and warm gushes of blood fill his mouth.

Alice cries out, craning her body to the pain and pleasure wrecking her all at once, senses on overdrive.

Jeff shivers at the overspill, gushing out of the corners of her ravaged cunt, painting a creamy ring around his pulsing base. Too much, and yet mindlessly thrusting even sloppier, lapping at the blood that spilling down her collarbone and onto the fabric below.

Jeff almost mistakes the shaky breaths underneath him for laughing until he cranes his neck, and catches an eyeful of Alice’s pretty face soaked in heavy tears. His heart seizes, letting go of her arms before leaning closer to press soft, sinful kisses across her wet cheek.

Alice hiccups, hands reaching back to tug his face down to hers, twisting her body to catch hungry, pitiful kisses. Jeff obliges, holding her chin as he shifts his knees wider. He holds her hips steady, a stern grip as he slides himself from her walls with a crude pop.

Alice whines, hips immediately falling to the mattress as Jeff kisses against the back of her neck, running his fingers through her folds and feeling as his cum dribbles from her cunt onto his bedsheets.

The air was thick with heat and the slow, lingering scent of skin on skin—salt, sweat, and something deeper. Something safe.

Alice was completely still except for the slow, erratic rise and fall of her chest. Her body trembled—not violently, but in tiny, exhausted flinches, like a machine that had run itself into the ground and hadn’t yet realized it could rest.

The tears hadn’t stopped despite Jeff’s kissing them away, beading along her lashes, slipping down her nose and into her hair.

She didn’t make a sound. Not a whimper, not a sob, just silent. Like she was trying to pretend she wasn’t crying at all.

Jeff moved slowly above her, voice low and rough from use.

“Hey…”

He gently rolled her over, hands gentle but stern as Alice limply allowed him to. His fingertips brushed her cheek, wiping away a tear she didn’t acknowledge. His skin was raw with scratches, skin burning with nips and bruises.

“You’re alright,” he murmured. “You’re alright now.”

He kissed her, lightly, just at the corner of her mouth. Then her chin. Then her throat.

Little, reverent touches like she was something sacred, because to him, she was. Always had been.

“You were so good,” he whispered, voice like smoke. “So perfect. Took everything I gave you. Let me see all of you…” He lifted off for just a moment, disappearing and reappearing quickly before she could even wonder where he had gone.

His hand moved between her legs with gentle, practiced ease, cleaning her up with a warm rag he’d gotten from the bathroom. He handled her like something precious—like even though he’d just been inside her, certainly bruising her cervix, he understood the fragility of this afterward.

Alice flinched when the cloth brushed against her, overstimulated nerves twitching under his touch.

“I know, baby,” he whispered. “I know. I got you.”

He leaned in again, kissing across her stomach, the soft skin she’d once tried to hide from him. He didn’t skip an inch. Pressed his lips to every dip, every stretch, every curve like it was a vow.

“You’re beautiful,” he breathed. “You hear me?”

She didn’t respond, but her hands slid around his shoulders when he began to wipe at the bite-marks bruised deep into her skin on either side of her neck.

Another tear slid down. Not from pain, though.

Jeff followed it with his mouth, kissing up her ribcage, her sternum, her collarbone, gently murmuring between every touch.

“Every part of you… all of it’s mine. Got it?”

His hands rested on her thighs, warm and steady.

“You’re beautiful, Alice. Every fucking inch.”

That name—her name—sounded different in his voice. Less like a warning or plea, more like a promise.

Alice blinked slowly, breathing shallow. Her voice was barely audible.

“I feel ugly when I cry.”

Jeff smiled, soft and crooked.

“Then lucky me, I get to watch the most beautiful girl be wrong.” He leaned forward, brushing his lips against her eyelids, tasting the salt of her vulnerability.

Alice’s fingers curled weakly into his shoulders. She was still trembling.

Even as Jeff pulled her into the curve of his chest up towards the top of the bed, even as he stroked a slow hand along her spine, her breath came in quiet, shallow pulls, like she didn’t know how to stop. He grabbed a blanket from the end of the bed, throwing it over the two of them as they lay back onto his pillows.

He hated that. Hated that someone had taken something so divine and made her feel unworthy of it.

“You did so good,” he whispered again, lips against her temple. “Took everything I gave you. Gave so much back.”

His voice was low, warm with a kind of wonder he never let anyone hear.

“Let me see you. Let me feel you.”

Alice shifted weakly in his arms, pressing her nose to his throat. He could feel her lashes flutter against his skin. Her hand moved slowly across his chest, fingers trailing faint lines over the raised scars and sinew.

Then, like an instinct she hadn’t bothered to think about, she tilted her face and pressed a soft kiss against his jaw.

Jeff relaxed, melting into the feel as she planted another. Then another.

“…You didn’t have to do that,” she murmured, voice hoarse and low.

“Do what?” he rasped, unsure whether to tease or be serious.

“All of this. The… words. The way you…” She swallowed hard. “Touched me.”

“I wanted to. You’d think after hooking up for so long you’d get the hint.”

Alice smiled against his collarbone, huffing a quiet laugh. He pulled her closer, her leg hooking across his hips as he buried his face in her hair.

“I wanted to take care of you, Alice.” The name came like a breath, a plea, a goddamn prayer. “I wanted to show you what I see when I look at you.”

Alice was quiet.

Then, barely audible, “…Thank you.”

She curled deeper into his chest, her body softening in small, measured degrees. Like every heartbeat she counted between them gave her permission to relax.

Jeff held her like he was terrified she’d vanish if he let go. Like all the progress they had just made might undo itself if he breathed wrong.

And as her breathing slowed, as her grip on him loosened and her mouth went slack against his collarbone, Jeff stared at the ceiling with wide, unblinking eyes.

Ben’s words came crashing back like a bat to the ribs:

“She’s clearly in love with you, by the way.”

Jeff looked down at her—at the girl he killed with, the girl he fucked senseless, and the girl he held now.

The one who cried silently in his bed and let him clean the pieces no one else ever saw.

“…Fuck,” he whispered to himself.

He was in love with her. And it terrified him more than anything he’d ever done.

── .✦

The mission was easy. Too easy.

Two amateur hunters, barely old enough to rent a motel room, armed with night vision cameras and an inflated sense of invincibility. They’d crossed the wrong tree line, set up shop too close to the mansion with whispered tales of “that haunted mansion” and grainy YouTube clips.

Now they were cooling in the dirt—faces frozen in terror, limbs bent the wrong way, blood soaking the underbrush in arterial sprays.

Alice stood over one of them, boot on his chest like it was a paperweight.

She looked calm, collected. That eerie, aloof detachment that always came after the high. Black hair wild, sticking to her cheeks in the humidity, sad eyes sharp with fresh adrenaline.

Jeff watched her, wiping a smear of blood from the curve of his jaw with the edge of his sleeve.

“God, you’re hot when you’re violent,” he drawled, humor heavy in his words.

Alice rolled her eyes, but her mouth twitched—barely. The hint of a smirk.

“Keep talking and I’ll use your spine to roast marshmallows.”

“There she is,” Jeff muttered under his breath, low and pleased.

He fell in step beside her as they started the trek back to the mansion. Trees creaked above them, wind slipping through the canopy, the smell of metal and earth following in their wake.

It should’ve felt like every other mission.

It didn’t.

Not with the way her jacket hood had shifted just enough for him to glimpse a familiar bite mark blooming purple and red against her throat—something he’d left there, mouth drunk on her skin the night before. His stomach flipped, eyes burned.

Alice caught the way he faltered. And worse—she smirked.

“You’re staring,” she said dryly.

“Sue me,” Jeff muttered, yanking at his hoodie, suddenly all too aware of the claw marks slicing across the back of his neck. His nerves buzzed with the ghost of her nails, the way she’d dug into him, how she held on.

God, it was killing him.

But Alice?

She was smiling now like herself again. Laughing at his snarky commentary, blood spattered on her cheek like war paint, shoulders loose. The fog that had wrapped around her for the last week had lifted.

He wanted to believe he’d helped with that.

As they neared the edge of the woods, silence fell between them—not awkward, but electric.

Then, casually—so casually it nearly knocked the wind out of him—Alice reached over and slid her hand into his.

Jeff stopped breathing.

Her fingers laced through his like she’d done it a thousand times. Her hand was cold, steady.

He looked down at her, heart slamming against his ribs like a caged animal.

“Thanks for last night,” she said, voice low and honest.

And before he could even blink, she leaned up and pressed a soft, fleeting kiss against his cheek.

That did it.

Jeff turned to her, something feral and human crashing together behind his eyes.

“Fuck it,” he muttered.

He grabbed her wrist, yanked her toward him, and spun her around into his arms. Alice let out a surprised sound—half-gasp, half-laugh—before his mouth was on hers.

The kiss was deep, hungry, slow at first, then messy, desperate, like he didn’t know how to say it with words yet, so he used his teeth and his tongue instead.

Alice melted into him.

Her hands slid up under his hoodie, clutching at his sides, fingernails brushing old wounds like second nature.

When he finally pulled back, they were both breathless.

“Yeah,” Jeff said, still holding her jaw. “You’re mine, now. Got it?”

Alice raised an eyebrow, cheeks flushed. But her eyes were soft.

“…I’ll think about it.”

── .✦

The mansion came into view just as the last of the blood dried under their fingernails.

Jeff still hadn’t let go of her hand. Alice didn’t pull away.

The heavy wooden door creaked open under Jeff’s boot, the warmth of the mansion spilling out with the scent of iron, damp wood, and cigarette smoke. It smelled like home—if your home was crawling with violent psychopaths and ghost-thin things that watched from the stairwells.

Eyeless Jack was waiting for them in the foyer like some undead receptionist, arms crossed, head tilted.

“You’re late,” he said flatly.

Jeff rolled his eyes. “Sorry, Doc. Got caught up. You know, the usual.”

Jack’s gaze flicked to Alice—and stopped.

Jeff felt her stiffen beside him just slightly, but not from fear.

Jack’s mask turned subtly, and though his face was nothing but empty black voids, his presence oozed that keen awareness that made your skin itch.

“You look… healthier,” he said to her, voice low. Observant. “Back to normal?”

Alice shrugged, casual as ever. “Had a good night.”

A beat of silence.

Then Jack’s eyeless face turned just enough toward Jeff, and Jeff swore he could feel the bastard smirking under the mask.

“Must’ve been something in the air.”

Jeff grunted. “You done playing shrink?”

But before Jack could respond, a familiar digital glitch cracked through the hallway light—followed by an obnoxious, echoey voice.

“Well, well, well… would you look at this shit.”

Ben floated down the hallway, smirking like the smug little pixel demon he was, green hoodie loose around his frame, eyes practically glowing. He circled them like a vulture smelling sex and secrets.

“What’s the matter, Jeff? Couldn’t keep it in your pants again?”

Jeff growled, but Ben ignored him.

“And Alice,” Ben said, grin wide. “Nice to see your resting bitch face upgraded to post-orgasm serenity.”

Alice didn’t blink. “Nice to see you’re still trying to be relevant as a 2000’s pixie prince.”

Ben clutched his chest like she’d stabbed him. “Oof. Damn. No pillow talk defense from your boy?”

Jeff took a threatening step forward.

Ben raised both hands innocently. “Hey, hey—no need to get all territorial. Just happy to see you two finally admitting you’re more than just murder buddies with benefits.”

“We’re not—” Jeff started.

Ben cut him off with a look so knowing it made Jeff want to strangle him with his own controller cord.

“Sure, sure,” Ben said dryly. “Just make sure you take care of her properly, okay? She’s not like the others. She doesn’t need you to be perfect. She just needs you to stop being a coward.”

That hit deeper than Jeff wanted it to.

Ben gave Alice a short nod—an unspoken “you okay?” that passed between them like a secret code. She gave the faintest tilt of her head.

Then Ben turned, pixelated for half a second, and vanished back into the hallway.

Silence returned like a held breath.

Jeff looked at Jack.

Jack looked at Alice.

Alice looked bored.

“…I fucking hate it here,” Jeff muttered.

Jack clapped a hand on his shoulder as he passed. “Careful, Jeff. You’re starting to sound like someone with feelings.”

── .✦

The bathroom light buzzed overhead, flickering once before settling into a dim, hazy glow.

Alice stood at the sink in a bra and jeans, blood splattered along her arms like abstract art, the edge of a cut curling near her ribcage. The water ran pink down the drain as she cleaned up the wound. Steam fogged the mirror. Her black hair clung damply to her neck.

Jeff stood behind her, shirtless, a towel slung over his shoulder as he cleaned the gash on his collarbone. The claw marks on his back were deep, angry red. Her doing. Neither of them had said a word in minutes.

The quiet wasn’t uncomfortable, but it was heavy.

Jeff set the towel down and stepped toward her, catching her eye in the mirror. His hand brushed her waist gently, reverently.

“You okay?” he asked.

Alice met his gaze in the mirror. Something soft flickered there—quiet, unsure, but she gave a small nod.

“Yeah,” she said. “I am now.”

Jeff swallowed. His fingers curled just a little tighter at her side.

“You were scaring the shit outta me, y’know,” he muttered, eyes still locked on hers. “Thought I broke something I couldn’t fix.”

She turned then, slowly, to face him.

“You didn’t break anything,” she whispered. “I was already broken. I just… refused to let you see it.”

He stared at her.

Then he kissed her.

It wasn’t hungry this time. Wasn’t rough or teasing or laced with tension. It was slow. Intentional. Warm.

He kissed her like he was memorizing her—like maybe, if he tried hard enough, he could make her believe what the mirror never had. What the people around her convinced her to think wasn’t true.

When they pulled apart, Alice exhaled shakily, hands pressed to his bare chest.

Jeff leaned his forehead against hers. Voice low.

“I like every inch of you. Every scar. Every look. Every fucked-up, sharp-edged part.”

Alice’s throat bobbed. Her lashes fluttered.

“I know,” she whispered. “And that’s so scary.”

Jeff smiled.

“Good,” he said. “Let’s be scared together.”

She let out a breath that could’ve been a laugh—or the sound of something beginning to heal.

Then she leaned in and kissed his jaw.

And just like that, they finished cleaning up—blood washed down the drain, but something else left behind, unseen, lingering in the steam and the quiet touch of their fingers brushing once more.

Something real. Something new.

Something good.

Thank you for reading! Comments and reblogs are appreciated!

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