#but then marie kidnaps them lmao

[yeyinde]

dangle on the leash | Simon "Ghost" Riley x F!Reader

The flimsy sarcophagus housing all his wants, his desires, cracks open when Price announces that his missus is pregnant. Ghost cocks his head in consideration. Intentionally knocking you up is amoral. Probably illegal. Somehow, even more dastardly when the reason for it is simply selfishness. Want. Greed. Hunger. But he's a rabid dog burning with the urge to bite. No one should really be surprised when he finally decides to sink his teeth into you. Unfortunately, that hail mary Price sent into the aether never reached you.

(your bird is too big for a cage— —but maybe a collar would do.)

this is a babytrapping fic lmao but please read the tags carefully. a companion piece to this (Price + babytrapping).

DEAD DOVE. SMUT. 18+

HARD WARNINGS—coercion. dependency. intentional alienation. unsafe, unprotected sex. this very much toes the line of noncon (that is still very dubcon even when consent is given) in many ways, notably: somnophilia, and condom/contraceptive tampering. intrusive, violent thoughts. mentions of violence. manipulation; slight gaslighting. implied kidnapping. references to past abuse (Ghost), brief mention of drugging/threats of drugging (ambiguous as to if it was ever followed through on or not, mostly just Ghost's internal monologue unfiltered). ADDITIONAL TAGS—smut. rough sex. unsafe sex. dom!Ghost. mean, obsessive, unhinged!Ghost. spit kink. dacryphilia.

he's feral, but he's yours. too bad for you, no one is really sure if that's a good thing or not.

One of the things Price often tells new recruits is to shove their old life into a box. 

“There's home,” he huffs, fingers twitching as if he's subconsciously flexing around the hilt of a lit cigar. “And then there's work. Whatever box you decide to put this, or your family, your personal life, into is your choice. But for fuck’s sake. Keep them separate.” 

Most of the new recruits are fresh off selection, shaded sickly chartreuse, and take his words as a literal gospel. Work, this; home, them. They don't start to unravel the second part of his gruff speech until much later. Until they can't wash the blood from their hands, and the scent of their mum’s eucalyptus hand soap is nauseating. Unfamiliar. When being in civvies feels like wearing skin that doesn't fit, and everyone around you is alien, foreign. They don't know. They'll never know. 

It's only when they find themselves gazing at the clock on the wall of their family home, counting down the minutes until their mandatory leave is over do they realise that home is the barracks. 

That's something Ghost has always understood. Maybe it was because his home life was already in ruins, tatters. Beer soaking into the knock-off Persian rug a cousin nicked from a flea market when he was nine. No fine china in the cupboards because it'll end up in shards on the floor. Plastic plates and forks and cups. Always. Howling in his head. Screaming from down the hall in his mum's room. His bedroom door creaking open at night. The anger, the curdling fear (shameful—be a man; punch him back, hit him before he hits you, you useless prick—), of not knowing whether or not it was his dad, high as hell and itching for a fight after busting their mum’s lip wide open, or Tommy sneaking into his bed at night because his is soaked in piss and he can’t sleep when they scream at each other like this.  

(Funny that, he always found; neither of them could ever sleep when it was silent, either.)

Blood on the linoleum. Trying to eat burnt toast and overcooked beans with a busted lip and a twinge in his jaw—

(Fractured, they'll say later, years later, during his mandatory medical checkup when he's first recruited. Healed all wrong. Son, didn't anyone take you to hospital?) 

He understands the separation between home and work—even if the former lost all relevancy nearly a decade ago. Back when he buried them all. Was buried himself—

What Ghost never really understood was the box. 

Shove it into a box. 

When he asks over cheap whisky somewhere in Siberia, Price tightens his fingers around his glass before bringing it up to his head. His index finger juts out. He knocks the tip of that bruised, scabbed knuckle against his temple. Once, thrice. Levels Simon with a pointed look he both can’t understand and somehow knows all too well. 

“Up here."

“Paid nearly fifty quid for that,” he grouses, shaking his head. “Think I've been ripped-off, Price.” 

Price scoffs, places the glass down with a hollow thud. “Don't be a fuckin’ muppet, Simon—” his real name makes his shoulders tense. Around the barracks, they know him only as the Ghost. “You put it away somewhere. Hide it. I don't fuckin’ know. But if it keeps you goin’, keeps you sane, and doesn't become a mess I gotta clean up, well—”

The implication is stark. Heavy. 

Price was always good at chiselling through layers of accumulated indifference to get to the madness within, but considering Ghost’s past and his mile-long rap sheet, the warning digging into his words like a dull blade isn't unwarranted. 

Old dogs, he'd called the pair of them when they first met. There was a sharp keenness in his eye when he lifted his hand, waved his cigar toward the tangled mess of scar tissue crisscrossing his face (made with a dull, rusted knife, one that gouged out deep pocks of skin, ugly fuck, looks like the badlands, don't he? like a postcard from the Grand Canyon, sweetheart. not so cute anymore, are ya, pretty boy—), and said, “well, you're fuckin’ rabid, ain't you? Better put a muzzle on that before it becomes a problem, mm.”

His problem, specifically. 

And Ghost gets it. Thinks Price might understand that particular brand of madness—despite growing up on literal opposite sides of the track, his Manchester to the others Liverpool; poverty and prestige—if only just. Because Price seems to be able to curb those baser impulses in a way Ghost hadn't yet mastered (and won't for quite some time yet). He's put together. Sort of. Respected. Normal.

The men in the barracks don't look at him and flinch. 

But he sees the way the man's eyes linger in the crowd, shrewd and careless, before falling on the pretty bartender in the back. The one with roses in her eyes and a smile full of dandelions. Soft, like butterscotch. It's here when they darken. When he reaches, almost angrily, for his whisky. Pats his chest with a heavy fist searching for his cigar. 

She's a sweet thing, he reckons. All pretty and trusting. Birds like her make his head itch—

“Don't even think about it, Simon,” Price grumbles, and it feels like territorial posturing, a challenge he almost raises to meet with his chin, if only to make Price fluster, but it's hollow. Empty. He denies himself, too. The prick. 

“How'd you do it?” He asks, and doesn't specify. Doesn't think he needs to. 

When Price swallows, it looks like a grimace. “Years of practice.” 

He considers the weight of it, his eyes straying back to the woman behind the bar. She's tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, wrist delicate like bone china, the kind they could never afford, and for a moment, the intrusive thoughts, the ones he gets sometimes about wanting to tear things to bloody pieces, rears—

It's stamped down in a swig of flat lager You stupid fuckin’ mutt, Price would say tomorrow morning, shaking his head. You always think with your prick? 

Simon cranks his head sharply to the side instead. The resounding crack seems to echo through the empty pub. 

Price just shakes his head. “Christ. No one ever house break you, yet?” 

“Yeah, they did,” he rasps, staring at the bartender who gazes back at him now. Skittish, unsure. Not so sweet after all. She looks away, cowed. Her hands tremble. He leans back, and hums. “And now I piss outside, like a good ‘ol boy.” “Ain't nothin’ good about you, Simon. Fuckin' Christ—”

And he's not wrong. 

The Ghost has a reputation of being a cold-hearted bastard. A Frankensteinian beast cobbled together with spare parts robbed from a jailhouse graveyard. Worst of the worst. An arm from a mass murder. The leg from a spree killer. Heart a patchwork mess of ichor and sulphur. Sutured together with barbed wire. 

It's all sort of macabre. Rather trite, too. 

The rumour mill in the barracks is insatiable.

But sometimes, he wakes up and he's still buried. Still dead. Dirt in his throat, lodged in his nose. He breathes in and feels pebbles scraping his lungs. Feels worms in his ears. Maggots in his head. 

They crawl through his grey matter. Leeches burrowing into his thoughts, sucking the good in him dry. 

Or, whatever's left of it, anyway. 

He thinks with his teeth because it's easier that way. Cold, calculative instinct. Just barely boxed into a neat package slapped on the desk of Price's higher-ups. 

A good man, they say, and turn him loose on the streets. One of the best we have, as he breaks jaws, and tears through jugulars. A force to be reckoned with. 

They hand him a gun, a rifle, when the bloodied footprints leading back to camp become too much of a hassle to clean. Shoot from a distance. He takes to it like the bulk of metal was made for his scarred hands. Scythe to a Reaper. 

It feels like bloodletting. Draining him of his anger, his fury, until a cold, gnarled indifference curls in the basin left behind. Icy, frigid. Down to the bone. 

Sometimes, he doesn't remember what it felt like to be warm, even buried under a thick balaclava and layers of military fatigues. 

Frankenstein’s monster. Patched together from the rotten remains of horrible men. 

And as he stares in the mirror at the patchwork ruins of his face, his body, he wonders if there's some truth to it, after all. He's pretty sure if someone cracked his skull open—again—they’d find rot. Tumulus. Infested with maggots and worms. Cobwebs behind his eyes. In his nose. His brain perfectly preserved: a zombified tombstone. And oh, how it hungers. 

Wants. 

But in a box it goes. One shaped like a coffin. Placed pretty in the back of his broken head. 

He stares in the mirror and thinks he sees something moving under his eye. Wriggling around. The temptation to claw it out rears, but the shredded tissue on his thighs reminds him of what happens when he listens to that insidious hiss in the back of his head (some amalgamation of his old man, and that bastard—) and goes searching for gold in bone marrow. 

He huffs. Fingers curling around the porcelain. His head is rotten. Putrefied. He can feel the decomposing sludge press against his temples. It grows teeth sharp like a razor blade and hacks away at jaundiced bone. Ghost lifts his hand, digs his fingers into his temple. Down boy—

(Simon doesn't even want to consider what his heart must look like, then.)

Cold-hearted, sure—

But he likes sweet things. 

The kind that will undoubtedly give him cavities. A spillover, perhaps, when candy bars were too expensive, and the only dessert he was given was a toffee by the neighbour when she wasn't moaning to his old man about all the shit he and Tommy got up to. 

(Bruises came afterwards, the colour of liquorice. Sour cherries.)

Unfortunately for him, sweet things don't like him much—a shame, really. Simon has always had a sweet tooth. 

His rough edges are too sharp for their liking, and Simon's—

Intense. Like a dog with a bone, he doesn't know when to let go. When to unhinge his jaw from the morsel between his teeth. He bites hard. Shakes his head. Tears into the things he wants until it's bloodied meat pinched in his incisors. 

And so, they keep their distance. Like they can smell the rot on him. The funeral dirt. The stench of an unearthed sarcophagi. 

Sometimes, though, the wiley ones will inch closer, looking to get messed up badly by a bad man, and it makes something inside his head howl when he turns them down. Following Price’s creed. Can't give in to the pretty ones, he'd said. Nothin’ but trouble. 

Trouble, like a pair of shackles. A noose. Trouble, like gentle, clean hands and fragile bones. Fine china. Fine powder. The marshmallow soft kind of trouble that will melt in the acid that leaks from his pores. Aqua regia. Attacking anything that gets close. 

(Breakable, is what Price means. Pretty chew toys that are beyond repair once he's finished with them.

He must think Ghost is some sort of psychopath—)

But still. He stays away. It's easier on base, in safe houses, too far out from the general public to have to worry about doe eyes and soft touches. He doesn't need it, anyway—

Then comes you. 

And the forfeiture of his self-control. 

You're trouble of a different kind. 

Trouble, like the end of a sledgehammer. Trouble, like the grill of a car. The barrel of a gun. 

In the shape of a battering ram, one strong enough to dislodge the madness in the back of his head. Where the corrosive acid should ruin you, eat you alive, it doesn't. Not with your tantalum skin. 

But oh, do you pack a punch—

At first, you think he's homeless. 

Some scruffed-up man sleeping on a park bench outside of your apartment. 

In another life, he might have been. He isn't a stranger to bad habits, and had the military not been his only choice in life for some semblance of good (laughable, considering what he does for a living), he could see the threads of his life leading him here. Drugs. Manchester is good for it, this he knows all too well. Especially the shithole neighbourhood he's from. 

He doesn't clue into this, though, until you glance at him, warily, and then shuffle into the cafè he’s holed outside of, the place where his current target gorges himself on steeped tea and crumpets. 

(Price's dry text sits, open, on his burner phone: and don't fuck this up—)

It feels a bit like an omen. Made worse when you meet his gaze through the glass, and—

Well. Shit. 

The impact is a collision. Hitting a pole at top speed. Metal bent around concrete. 

His teeth ache (so, so bad—).

You emerge from the small building a few minutes later—the faded eggshell with chocolate trim is nauseatingly sweet against your pastel yellow raincoat—holding a takeaway bag, and balancing a tray of coffees in your hand. 

He tenses. It's instinctual. There's nothing about you that's an immediate threat to his person—unless you plan on adding to his scars with the tip of your umbrella, the scalding coffee in your hand—but it's odd, isn’t it? No one approaches him. Not unless they have a reason to. 

And no one, in his experience, ever has a good one. 

“Hi,” you chirp, disarmingly sweet, as you come to stand in front of him. His jaw aches. Even sprawled across a bench, you're barely looking down at him. Sticky, cold fingers tap a strange rhythm down his spine. “I, um, hope this isn't weird, but I saw you sitting here, and—well. I got this—”

You wiggle the bag. He smells something greasy. A breakfast sandwich, he's sure.

It's an unusual assassination attempt. Price will be livid. 

“What for?” He rumbles, sitting up in the seat. The shift of his bulk seems to make you nervous. You take a step back, and he fights the urge to follow. To back you into a corner. No escape. 

You regain your footing, even if the smile on your face wobbles. Weakens under his flat stare. Some people can smell the rot on him. 

He wonders if you can, too. 

(Pity that. You're a pretty bird, ain't you?)

And the way you take him in lacks a distinct thrum of hesitation, fear that’s normally there. It occurs to him, then, that you see him as just another man. Just another person. 

(“deader than a doorknob, this one. such a goddamn waste, boss. he was a fun one, wasn’t he? should we burn ‘em?” 

nah. bury him out back—)

It's laughable, really. A joke. He has the urge to crack one—sick and awful enough to make that little smile on your face wilt. Wither away. Almost does, too, but it get tangled in his throat when he feels the weight of your stare on him. 

The easy sweep of your eyes is barely discrete, but it's clinical. Pitying. But the softened edges of that empathy dissolve as your pretty head adds up all the numbers on him, coming to a standstill. Your eyes linger on his wrist. The gold of his wristwatch peeks out beneath the black sleeve of his hoodie. An intricate web of complex timekeeping that only he's privy to. A little luxury he picked up in Italy when the cash he'd been given was getting too tiresome to carry around. 

Dead men, after all, don't need bank accounts. 

And then—

You fluster. “Sorry, I just thought—”

It clicks, then. The pity. The soft words. The goddamn coffee— 

His gums itch. He has the sudden urge to be mean about it. Pick you apart in this street until nothing but embarrassment and humiliation remains. 

“That I was homeless? ‘nd you brought me, what? A coffee? ‘ow sweet of you. Some breakfast, too. Well, aren't you a lovely girl?” 

You are embarrassed. It blisters across your expression. Has your hands trembling around the cardboard tray, spilling droplets of coffee down the side. Your head is bowed, cowed in shame. It reminds him of that bartender some years prior. Pulling away when the bad dog growls—

But there's a thin sheen of intrigue in your eyes, burrowing holes into the shoes in front of you; a tangled knot of want coiling in the heat of your embarrassment over this blunder. Over offending him. 

Well—

That's new. 

Some get off on it. On humiliation. Specifically, of the public variety. He didn't take you as the type. The way you twist, squirming in place, is odd, though. It doesn't fit as well as he originally thought. No. It's not the public shame, but—

Him. 

Ah. 

Sweet, sweet girl. 

(So naïve.)

He reckons he could get you to do just about anything to make it up to him. You would, too. You're soft enough to be submissive, to bow your head in contrition, but there's a flicker of defiance in the jut of your chin when you lift your head. 

This is a blunder and you're sweetly embarrassed, sure, but it isn't enough to break you. 

And now Simon just wants to ruin you. Teach you a lesson about bad, vile men—

(Something you'd welcome with open arms, wouldn't you?)

“Didn’t know Manchester was so charitable,” he rasps. His throat is dry. Parched. He reaches for the coffee—black, with extra creamer and sugar on the side, tucked neatly in a little bag; fuckin’ hell. Ain't you just adorable—and places it on the spot beside him. “I’ll be takin’ this. Will need it for later.” 

You look like you want to protest. Fight back. His hackles rise, ready for it—eager. Something anticipatory, dark, bleeds through the moulted mess of his head. Sickly. Terrible. He thinks about what you'd look like sprawled under him, shaking and begging for more, for him to stop—

Fuck. Birds usually make his head itch, but you make his fucking skin crawl. 

In the end, you just huff. Roll your eyes. He wants to chew them out of your head. Pop them between his teeth. He bet you'd taste divine. 

You walk away from him before he can. You don't look back once. 

Pity, he thinks. Someone's gonna snatch you clean off the streets like that—

Hours later, he sends Price a text message with the coordinates for where to pick up the package Ghost left. 

He considers it a blessing when the man sends him back, good job, now get a pint from me as a little reward. Can't say I don't treat my team well. 

A reward, huh? 

Well. With your stature in comparison to his own, Ghost easily can see you being considered a pint. 

So, he follows you home, and tallies this one as being on Price. 

It's easy. Too easy. He slips deftly behind you, tucked away from view, and masks his footsteps under the echo of yours until he's standing in the shadows outside of your house. This, too, feels like a blessing. It's a duplex. He waits for one of the lights to flicker on, and—

The window brightens. Room number two. 

He hums, and palms his pockets for the pack of smokes he nicked off the man. Needing something to take the edge off. To quell the urge to bite. 

It's even easier to engineer meetings. Random run-ins. All blamed on happenstance, chance. Of course. This towering mountain of a man with his thick manc twang—the sort of gallows humour that can only be found in the blue-collar streets of Salford from the nasty old men squatting on the corners—must have better things to do than stalk you. Surely. You're not special enough to be hunted, right? 

Still. You're a touch wary of him. Distrustful. You keep your distance—six inches for Jesus Christ, aren’t you a peach?—and try to skirt the line between neutrally polite to the strange man loitering outside of the shops you frequent (your schedule burned to his memory, naturally) and that fascinating skittish intrigue from before. All simmering heat. Blunt want. The kind wrapped up in silk threads. 

It's interesting to watch it play out when he steps closer and all those long-forgotten instincts in the back of your head flare up. The shaky step you take back. The inward frown of confusion when you're not sure why your body craves space, acting almost on its own. And then the sweet defiance that breaks over you. The intentional step closer. The feigned warmth in your tone as you talk to him.

It's easy to pocket the uglier aspects of his personality. The coldness. The indifference. The flat, droll insincerity that leaks into his tone. All of it shelved, locked away, and he's not sure if Price would be happy that he listened to what he said, followed his example, or furious that he's bastardising it to lure this pretty fish in.

)The latter, undoubtedly. But Simon gets a sick kick from it all.)

Especially when it brings you closer to him. Thaws you as you rationalise his reaction during the first meeting, gears spinning. Kicking up excuses. 

Anyone would be angry, offended. It's natural. He's alright now—

It makes you look at him differently as you forcefully fight the urge to flee. 

Silly bird. 

Wary eyes rake over his massive bulk. Brows furrow at the series of black medical masks he wears in public. Always. That, in addition to the heavy black of his wardrobe—black jacket, black hoodie, black leather gloves—sometimes makes you glance at him with a touch of worry. Fear. Probably wondering if you brought home a delinquent. 

But it changes when he rolls up his sleeves one day after you've been moaning about your broken beach cruiser (the, I don't know, chain—or something—keeps catching—), and crouches down to fix it. 

There's a hitch in your breath. A distinct swallow. A guilty tinge of something shy, deliciously so, shading your eyes ruby-red when you look down at him. 

And ah—

Sweet little treat snagged on the line. Ain't he a lucky lad? 

It's all the better when you do the work for him. Reeling yourself in, practically throwing yourself in his cooler when you ask about his tattoos, carefully—considerately—nudging the topic away from his ugly scars. 

He guts you clean as he tells you he's in the military. Top secret, pet. Don't ask because I'd hate to ‘ave to hurt a pretty face like yours—

You preen under it. Pet. Pretty. You don't even notice when he slides his knife over your scales, dices you up on his chopping board. 

You're the picture of sweetness when he unkinks the chain in your bike, and sets it straight. All happiness. Smiles. Appreciative glances. You flutter your pretty eyes at him as you say—

“Thank you—”

You're waiting for a name. His belly rumbles. He could eat, he thinks, and licks his teeth. 

“Simon. Simon Riley.” 

The risk-reward ratio is balanced when you breathe it out between plump lips, chasing the end of it with your tongue. He wants to eat it out of your mouth. Swallow it down. 

You touch his arm, hand warm, soft. “If there's anything I can do to pay you back—”

He takes you out for a kebab later on. Nudges you out of the way when you open your wallet to pay. Draft girl. Naïve, too, because he can feel the heat in your cheeks from where he stands, reaching over to snatch the bag from the man with a grunt. 

You must think him quite the gentleman. So trusting. 

Doesn't matter. He lets it take root. Especially when you shyly invite him back to yours to eat. 

He makes a feast of it, and fucks you on your mint green chaisse after he's finished. 

(Not on birth control, you say, and hand him a box of condoms, suddenly shy. It's unopened. He hums, and burns that to memory.) 

He keeps his distance—an easy feat when he's halfway around the world, and you're stuck in the gloom of Manchester. 

It's purposeful, of course. He made a promise to Price not to give him a reason to worry, but fuck—

You're proving hard to quit. He's never had anyone cuff him upside the head on his bullshit. Not anymore, anyway. Not as the Ghost. He likes the thrill of it, of this chase. 

You don't let him steamroll you when he's in a mood to fight. You punch back, hitting him right in the mess of his guts, and fuck. Fuck. He's a little bit obsessed with it. With you. This wily little fish that acts so shy when he's got three fingers buried in your cunt, but rides him after like you're starving for it. Clawing at his chest. Scratching his arms. It's raw. Primal. He wants to break you—this fiery little kitten that bites his fingers until they bleed, and then purrs in his lap as he drives a pickaxe through your head, shredding logic into pieces. Rummaging around until he nicks the optic nerve that lets you see red. 

You’re everywhere. In everything. In the back of his head, under the howling that hadn't stopped since you trailed your finger down the jagged topography of his bare chest, digging your nail into the crude x across his heart, and whispered, soft and sweet: you're all kinds of fucked up, aren't you? 

A bludgeon to his self-control—

He resists. Has to. Is mean about it, too. Doesn't tell you where he's going (it's need to know), or what he's doing (would ‘ave to bash your pretty ‘ead in if I told you), but keeps you strung on the line (keep thinkin’ about that pretty cunt of yours; can't wait to come ‘ome and ‘ave you sit on my ugly mug—). 

It's dangerous, this game of his. Thrilling for all the wrong reasons. 

But he’s a good mutt. Good—

Until the text. 

The one you send to him when you're out with friends. A picture. You're in a pub somewhere in Moss Side, a drink in hand. A gaggle of nobodies crowded around you. It makes sense, he supposes. There's that old idiom—you’ll trap more flies with honey—and he doesn't know anyone nearly as sweet as you. 

His sweet girl.

(you fuckin’ mutt—)

Ghost stares at you for a moment, teeth aching. The little ensemble—a crop top and jeans—is a vision, he reckons. But it's spoiled when he catches more eyes on you than pointed at the camera. Practically spilling out of your top, aren't you? 

He breathes heavily through his nose. Tastes guncotton in his throat. 

Ghost commits every face to memory, and then calls you. 

You're drunk. Too drunk to remember it tomorrow. Stuck in a pub on what's supposedly a bad part of town. Chatting away about going to your friend’s house. He gets the address, and something sour twits in his stomach. Shit council houses. 

“That safe?” He asks, leaning back in his chair. He's already chubbed up in his slacks at the slur in your voice. “And dressed like that? Didn't take you for a slag—”

It makes you sputter on the line. “I'm—I’m not—”

You're so quick to placate him. So hasty to make him happy. Please don't be angry with me, Simon. I'm just having some fun—

The claws and fangs are tucked away when you're drunk. He shoves the information in the cache, eyes burning. Head aching. He's feverish. Hot under the collar.

Odd considering he's dead—

“Sounds like you will be.”

“It's not like that—”

“‘ow would you know? Might meet a nice fellow. Might take him home.”

“I don’t—I wouldn't—”

The sniffle makes him throb. Fuck. “Yeah? Well, ain't none of my business, I reckon—”

“It is.”

“Oh? How's tha’?”

“I—I like you, Simon—” he can taste your embarrassment through the phone. He didn't even need to bring you flowers and you're already boxing him into monogamy, confessing to him. So sweet. So tender. If he were a better man, he might have told you to sober up. To talk about this tomorrow. 

Too bad for you, he isn't. And what’s worse is that he’s a loyal bastard, too. 

But that's later, and right now—

He's halfway across the world, and you're vulnerable. In the den of hungry mutts. 

It’s charr in his throat. Anger in his veins. “You like me? An’ you go out dressed like that?”

“There's nothing wrong with how I'm dressed—”

He sucks his teeth. “Dunno ‘bout tha’, pet. You look like you're achin’ to get fucked.”

You take a shuddering breath. “I just want you—”

“Yeah?” It's a growl. His cock spits prespend in his trousers. “Then be my good girl. Go home and wait for me.”

It's quiet on the line. He catches the hitch in your throat, the sharp exhale, like you can't really be sure if he's serious or not. He says nothing. Waits. 

Where there would have been a fight—fists and teeth and snarling words—you quieten in the silence. Docile. Submissive. It's in you, he knows. He saw the glimpses back when you first met, when he'd bent down and fixed the bike he broke. All it needs is a little—

“Jus’ worried about my sweet girl, is all.” 

And you relent. 

Corrosive oil spills out of the necrosed holes in his head. It curls over his thoughts, liquid sin. He takes himself in his hand, blood pulsing in his veins, white-hot, damning, and bares his teeth at the urge to come to you, to push you down on the floor, and mount you like a snarling beast—

“Good girl,” he growls when you tell him you'll call a taxi, that you'll go home and have some wine with your friend instead.

Friend. Friends. 

He'll have to do something about that. 

(The thing about deprivation is that it bleeds into a vicious sense of possession when it's finally obtained. Greed. His wants have wants, have wants—

A perfect ouroboros. One you feed into almost destructively.)

Because the thing is—

Simon wants to tie you to his bed. Keep you locked up in the safe house he has in Manchester. Chained, shackled. A prisoner with him as your iron guard. 

It isn't just fantasy, either. 

The flies that congregate around you are an annoying, incessant buzzing in his ears. Remora clinging to the biggest fish. 

But they're easy to scatter when he waves his hand. 

(Waves off. Threatens with bodily harm, with physical aggression—

Same thing.)

The sting in his knuckles and the blood on his shoes are worth it in the end when your tantalum skin cracks. An aggregate of beautiful lines, pretty in their fragility, their brokenness. He wedges his fingers between the splints, widening the chasm to pet at the sticky-soft centre hiding beneath all that rough rock. Sweet girl. Hard candy enclosing taffy-softness. 

His coos melt you to the consistency of mercury. Liquid silver pebbles along your lash line, spilling over in a dizzying display of raw vulnerability. 

It makes every predatory instinct inside of him bristle. Locking onto the sweet lines of crystalline sadness that run down your cheeks. It has his heart racing. Eager, anticipatory. The thrill of the chase, of running you down into the ground until you're fine powder under him. 

And it’s there, it's in his arms—the maw of a beast—where you seek comfort, lamenting the loss of your friends, your coworkers. No one wants to hang out with you anymore. They don't return your calls or answer your texts. 

What did I do? You sniffle, throat bared. Belly turned up. 

Flooded with tears. The lachrymal face that peers up at him makes his teeth ache. He rolls his head back, feels himself thicken in his pants. 

Simon loves it when you cry.

“Fuck ‘em,” he rasps, words sticking to his dry throat. “If they can't see what a catch you are, then they don't even deserve to breathe the same air as you.”

It makes you cry harder, makes you mumble into his chest about how lucky you are to have someone like him. Someone who cares. 

His breath hitches. Warm floods his veins, fever-hot. 

“Thank you, Simon—”

And then you, smooth silver and wickedly sweet, cradle him in your palms as if you could hold all the broken pieces of him together. 

He thinks it's cute. 

Doesn't really have the heart to tell you it's a lost cause.

“Anytime, pet.”

And you're perfect, too.

You take this mangy mutt into your house, and let it eat your food, sleep in your bed. You let him fuck you stupid, and listen so prettily when he convinces you to let him spoil you. Let him pay your rent, your bills. Let Simon dote on you the only way he knows how—mercilessly possessive, and a touch cruel, mean—but you roll over, showing your belly. Submissive and sweet. 

It's even better when you try to lash out at him with a collar in the shape of his teeth branding your neck, spitting and hissing like a feral cat who doesn't know yet that's claws have been clipped. Only to then curl up in his lap, purring as he strokes your fur, and carves out a place for himself in your life. 

He wants to sink his teeth into you, and you think he's a big dog. Undomesticated. One who comes and goes as he pleases. A stray. A mutt. 

It's said fondly. Full of love—

His mouth is full of cavities. His teeth ache. His gums bleed. 

(do you know he's rabid? that the faded name on his dog tags once read cujo—)

Everything about you makes that sludge flood behind his eyes, pounding rotten fists against his temple. take, take, take; mine, mine—

The howling doesn't stop. It tells him to press you into the mattress and fuck you stupid. Tie you to the bedposts and never let you go—

He throws fists in the dark, trying to hit the madness in his head. Ends up with bloody knuckles and laughter in his ears. 

(a voice of reason says, your bird is too big for a cage—)

He clings to it. 

You're warm beside him. Burning hot. He syphons it from your veins when you're asleep, pulling you close just to feel something on his skin other than dirt. Other than blood. 

It's easy to pretend he's fine with these little nips. Leaving teeth marks in your neck. Bloody rings snaking up your thighs. 

He wraps one hand around both of your wrists, holds them high above your head, and tells himself it's enough. Shackled by him, under him, as he takes you apart, pulling at your sense of independence like the gnarled fingers of winter bringing defoliation to summer's bloom, but even with this, all of it, he still aches. Still wants. Needs—

Stupid fuckin’ mutt. 

Then you bring his hands up to your throat, letting him wrap his bearish paws around your delicate neck, and he knows these little bites will never satiate the hunger in his guts. 

He wakes up the next morning feeling warm. Full. Edges softened, if only just, by the sticky sweetness of your breath ghosting over his chest. 

Simon curls his arm around you, holding tight.  He won't let go. Won't—

Hide it. Put it away. 

Ghost does neither of those things. He buries it, instead.  

But in doing so, you find cracks in the foundation. Ones that are just big enough for your willfulness to slip through. To hand him back the cash he gave with a scoff, and a, i work, too, you know? i don't need your money, Simon. that's not why i’m with you—

(All he hears is, I don't need you.)

And then you send him a text. I'm going out with friends from work tonight. We're going drinking. I'll talk to you tomorrow! 

In the zombified remains of his head, a new howling starts. The hisses tell him you're pulling away, running from him—

It's a big world out there. It'll eat you whole—

Like Tommy.

The thing about want is that sometimes it grows teeth, hands. Claws. Without a body of its own, it tends to mould itself after its maker because that's all it knows how to do: devour, consume. Yearn. 

He shouldn't be too surprised to find that this need of his has dug itself out of the grave he buried it in. 

(he did, too—)

The flimsy sarcophagus cracks open when Price announces that his missus is pregnant.

The howling in the back of his head stops abruptly. The pulsing ache in his temple abates. It's heavy, this weight. This absolute, utter emptiness—

No. It's not hollow. The chasm isn't drained, it's—

(In the silence, something growls. Feral. Possessed.)

—full. Perfect equilibrium. All of the patchwork parts of himself, the ones that don't quite fit, suddenly find synergy. 

Communion. 

Ghost cocks his head in consideration.

(your bird is too big for a cage—

—but maybe a collar would do.)

—after all, could you ever leave him with his name etched into your womb—

In leaving the key under the mat for him to come and go as he pleases, you've left yourself vulnerable. But—

Not anymore. 

He has a safehouse he'll take you to. You'll let him, too, because it'll be the best choice for you. The three of you.

He's never entertained any ideas of family, not when the closest approximation he has is drenched in gun oil and smells of smoke from artillery fire, but the howling in his head quietens at the idea of it. He can't shackle you to the bed—stupid fucking mutt—but he can tie you down all the same. Make you his. Wholly. Always. 

And the thing is—despite a pickaxe making figure-eights out of his grey matter; lead poisoning and rust giving him these sour, awful thoughts about locking you up in his house, leaving you a needy mess, dependent only on him—Simon supposes he knows right from wrong. 

Intentionally knocking you up is amoral. Probably illegal. Somehow, even more dastardly when the reason for it is simply selfishness. Want. Greed. Hunger. 

But in carving himself a place in your life, he failed to realise that the walls behind him closed in. No way out. And so, his only option is to go forward. To keep moving.

He'll be crucified for this, but that's fine. 

He doesn't intend for you to find out, anyway. It'll be an accident. He came home early, and found you drunk. Drank with you. Your drunken idiocy merged, creating a terrible, noxious cocktail of awful, bad choices. Permanent ones. Irreversible. 

(You're so sweet, so docile when you're drunk—)

It'll be easy to convince you. To play the part of a stoic man suddenly in turmoil. You'll offer to get rid of it, a suggestion that he'll flinch at—a cornered dog, a hand raising in the air. You'll whimper. Shake in his arms as you tentatively smooth over the wrinkles in his brow, murmuring out your options in a stilted breath.

You'll be a Riley before the end of your term. It's only proper, he'll mutter, stiff and uncomfortable, and you'll melt. Liquid tantalum in his palm. The fruits of his labour laid bare, seeping from the corners of his mouth. Tucked tight between his teeth. Mercury he can swallow down, keep in the bracket of his rotten ribs. Safekeeping from this world that just takes. Devours. 

But not if he eats you first. 

The mere notion alone serves as an anchor, locking him to the seafloor. The tumult in his head calmed at the promise of owning. Biting to claim. To have. Greedy for it. For you, and the strange sense of quiet your proximity brings him. The warmth, too. 

He's a rabid dog. This he knows—has known—for quite some time. Indisputable. It pools in his mouth. Liquid sin. Makes him ache for just a sip. Unquenchable, though, because he's wary of water. Hydrophobia, but only for how it washes his efforts away. Cleanses. 

The urge inside of him to bite, to infect, quietens when he gets closer to you. 

(a rabid mutt licking at the window you're on the opposite side of, dreaming of just a taste—)

A byproduct of that maddening virus in his veins, the one he must have picked up six feet in the ground. Bite, bitebite—

—and give you a collar in the shape of his teeth.

He finds you in bed. A bottle of wine on the end table beside you, courtesy of your friend. The one lingering remora he couldn't snap at—one who sends you messages about how you are being manipulated. Taken advantage of. Fuck that loser, the latest one says when he picks up your phone, scrolling through the dwindling conversations housed within. Just him now, and them. 

It preaches about empowerment. About how you shouldn't let a man pay your bills (textbook manipulation. he's putting you in a position of dependency. making you feel obligated to stay. it's all on Google, babes. like, fucking get a clue!!!!), or how it's moving so quickly (maybe you should come stay with me in Durham for a bit, hun. get away for a weekend. i worry about ya, is all). He hums, thumbing through the old chats. 

You told her to fuck off about the manipulation, but it came after a lot of, oh, yeah. well, he's just. you know. he's different, and you haven't declined the invitation. i’ll think about it, is what you write. 

It simmers under his skin. That independence he plans on stomping out under his heel. With his kin. 

(sick, sick sick, wrong—)

It's desperation, this. Clawing at the walls—the dirt—until his nails are torn off his fingers. Until his skin splits, peels. Broken under rock and rubble. That animalistic need for air. To breathe. Basic training tells him not to save the person drowning unless he's sure they won't kill him in their struggle to live. But what's he supposed to do when that person is his rotting body, sinking down to unfathomable depths? When all he has is you to cling to—

Damnation built by his own hands. 

You'll die together, he reckons, and tosses your phone on the hamper in the corner of the room. 

Ghost can't remember the last time someone made him feel anything at all other than impartiality. Indifference. Casual apathy. 

Price is the exception to this on the grounds of being consanguineous to him.

And you—

An outlier. 

One he intends on sinking as deep as he can with. Anchored, maybe, by this little plan that beats and pulses in the back of his head. That clogs his throat with a want so thick, he can already taste the brine from the ocean. Water in his nose. Down his esophagus—

Better than dirt, he supposes. And it spurns him forward.

You're malleable like this. Tensile. He bends you easily with just a touch until you're flat on your back, a pillow shoved beneath your tailbone, and stripped. The loose shirt you wear to sleep is hiked up under your neck. Panties are pulled off until your sweet, bare cunt is revealed to him. All pretty and soft, and his. Untouched, he notes, and gives an appreciative stroke over your clit with his thumb. 

It was something you were whining about the other day, panting in his ear as if he wasn't a continent away. Pleading with him on the phone to please, please let you come. 

Simon likes the way you cling to him when it's been a while since something has wrecked you as thoroughly as his cock. When your spoiled pussy was neglected for a few days, weeks, and starved for attention. You were so sweet to him then, cooing in his ear how good you've been, how much you want him and only him, need him. Begging so prettily for it. 

He's almost sad to spoil himself in your cunt when you can't weep for it. Can't bully him closer. Try to claw his eyes out. That delicious push-pull where you hiss at him for pulling away, but whine when he gets too close. 

Sad, but—

Not enough to stop himself. 

You're not wet enough for him to slide inside unprepared—his cock too big, something that makes his bones tremble—and he rectifies it by leaning down, letting saliva pool between his teeth and lips. He holds it there for a moment as he spreads your folds apart with his thumb and forefinger. 

And then he spits on your bare cunt. 

It hits your clit, the thick glob siding down your slit. He reaches between your thighs, pawing at you. Slides his fingers through the slick mess he made, teases around your tight rim. 

Simon usually likes to take his time with you. Lapping at your pussy for hours until you're a weeping, snot-nosed mess whining in the sheets. Spoiled rotten. Begging him to fuck you already, Simon, you can't take it anymore—

He's mean. Cruel. Edges you for hours until your legs shake, trembling around his ears. He never lets you reach that peak—doesn’t let you come until he's buried inside of you. 

Coming on his tongue, his fingers, is rarely a privilege you ever earn. Too much of a spitfire, a spiteful little kitten, to give in and do what he demands. So he keeps you on the precipice until he's ready to fuck you, ignoring your bribes, your bargains. Simon doesn't give in even when you beg, when you relent and tell him you'll finally be good. 

You never are. 

Spoiled, he always huffs. Down to the fuckin’ bone. 

Like now. Pulling away from him. Him, the only person in your life who stuck around. A little bullying (bones breaking, splintering under his fists; the wet, hot smear of blood on his hands, skulls smacking against the pavement—an’ if you tell anyone, he cracks his battered fists and it sounds like a snarl, a gunshot, your parents will be cryin’ over an empty grave—) shooed the gnats away. He took a more clandestine approach to others. Birds that kept circling you tight. Protective, shrill. They made his head ache, but—

(don't want to start nothin’, but i don't want to be alone wit’ ‘er. tried to kiss me, is all. ain't like that, pet—)

It was a test. And they all failed. All but him. 

Yet—

come to Durham. 

i’ll think about it. 

Ungrateful. It's his fault, though. Simon doted on you too much, cosseted by his affection, when he should have clipped your wings from the beginning. 

Ah, well—

Lesson learned. 

You're wet enough now. He pushes in two fingers, scissoring them apart. You'd be yowling at him, kicking up a fuss if you'd been awake. But you're not. It thrums through him. Thick, heady. He likes you like this—probably more than he should. The heat simmering in his veins bubbles. Pops. Sap on charring wood. It clogs his throat with his smoke until it burns, a dry forest fire. 

He needs you. Needs to be in you. He's tired of waiting. Impatience burrows into him like a maelstrom. 

Simon adjusts his hold on your leg, fingers curling behind your kneecap. Steadying himself. His fingers slip out of your cunt with a sloppy squelch that ghosts across his spine. Anticipatory. A touch anxious. He wants you. Wants you bad—

He takes himself in his hand, and slides the weeping tip over your slit. Taps it once, thrice on your clit. And then guides it to your centre. Your warmth bleeds into him. Eager, he shuffles forward. Feeds you his cock. Eyes drilling into the place where his head slips in, swallowed by your sloppy, wet hole. The glands make you stretch around him. Rim pulled taut. 

The sight alone must have been crafted by some Luciferian dream, dangled before him in the shade of nirvana. 

take a bite, it urges. and then take more—

Like this, passed out with your legs hitched over his shoulders, drooling into the pillow unawares, you're just a doll. 

Made for him, and—

“Fuckin’ hell—” He presses into you—cock splitting tight, warm heat—and tries not to lose himself to the sensation of being bare, raw, inside of you. 

—“A perfect fit.”

It's always been condoms. You're not on birth control. Ink blots in his eyes. He goes a little feral with it. Instincts unleashed. Unfettered. 

Simon bullies his fat cock into you until his hips tap the back of your thighs, buried as deep as he can go. It's molten heat cocooning him—a warm embrace. For the first time, ever, he thinks he understands the meaning of home. Sliding home, in particular. 

(Welcome home. Home. Home. He'll make a house out of your body. Sleep inside the brackets of your thighs, head pillowed on your chest—)

As good as you feel around him—slick, wet, and tight—and as much as he wants to saviour the sight of you, passed out on the pillow, cunt split by his cock, he has a goal, a mission, to see through. 

His hand falls, slick and tacky, to your lower belly. Palm pressing against the subtle bulge in your abdomen, the outline of his cock. You always whine and hiss that he's too big for you. That you can't take him to the root. 

Hurts, you complain, hand against your naval. Fingers knotting over the place that aches. 

He presses his fingers there instead, feeling himself under your skin. Changing your anatomy to make room for him to fit—

It lights him in fire. Spurns him on. He bucks into you, pace sloppy, clumsy. Selfish. He's unrelenting as he splits you apart, drilling the full length of himself into your supine body, supple flesh relaxed under him, practically melting into the sheets. 

The thread keeping his resolve, his self-control, sprung up tight begins to quiver. Each piston into you has delicate fingers drumming across the strings of a harpsichord. It reverberates through him, echoing in the stifling, suffocating, silence of the bedroom, overtaking it. Clouding it with the musk of his desire, his devotion to you, to this dream blooming in the prison of his mind. 

Everything narrows into a needlepoint. 

There's just your burning flesh beneath him, softer than it's ever been; pillowy. Welcoming. And the sounds of him fucking into you—lewd squelches, slick and wet; the sound of his cock finding home in the basin of your spread thighs; his heavy breaths, his groans and growls that seem to rattle the bed. The noise breaks, an incomplete requiem of sin in his head, and he loses himself in the lulling notes, dragged under in the bestial beat of taking what his—

A sudden noise shatters through the room. Beneath him, you stir, gasping wetly. The sound mangled in your throat. 

There's confusion in your sleepy, hazy gaze when you peer up at him, lashes clumping together. You moan, whimpering, as you struggle to latch on to the threads of cognisance that he's content to fuck out of you. Your hand lifts, falls to his wrist still pressed against your lower belly. The grip is lax, loose. You’re not pushing him away, but clinging to him. Centring yourself. 

It makes his blood thicken. Has him burning red-hot. 

“Wha’s a’matter, pet?” He taunts, grinding his cock into you hard enough to make your dazed eyes water. Your hand tightens around him, holding steady. “Don't like it? Not fuckin’ you hard enough?”

“Simon—”

His name tapers off into a keen when he angles hips, and starts pistoning into you with a mean, merciless fury. The desperate noises that spill, unhindered, from your slack mouth is the perfect accompaniment to the lewd sound of him fucking your sopping cunt; the piece he was missing when this started. His requiem, complete. 

It's a serrated blade to his self-control, already frayed and threadbare as it is. The pressure makes it snap.

“C'mon, sweet thing. Thought you wanted this?” 

There's a place in hell just for him. It's sealed when you blink your tired, sleepy eyes up at him, mind a slurry of lingering somnolence and the heady alcohol on your breath, and offer a shuddering whimper. Always so soft for him, so agreeable when you’re drunk. 

“So’ry, Simon—”

You can barely string words together. Poor, pitiful you—vulnerable under him. Breakable. Malleable. Anyone else could have tricked you into this same position when he was away. Got you beneath them like this, compliant and unawares, and took what belongs to him. 

(The only thing in this destitute existence he claims for himself—)

Not anymore. Not ever again. 

It's almost callous when he grinds into you. Hateful. Brutish. Furious. And dazed as you are, you barely even flinch at the snarls that spill, unfettered, from the back of his throat. The low groans of him making promises with devils unknown; constructing shackles from brass, iron. 

Entrenching his future in motion, cupped protectively between the parentheses your thighs make around his hips. It's almost a vicious sort of poetry, one laid bare in the odious ruins of that broken thing he calls a heart. Etched into his rotten pericardium. Necrosed devotion. He'll see it through—however noxious, and putrid, you might find the miasmal stench of it spun tight in his web. 

It's for your own good.

And as if you agree, you answer him in perfect euphony, moaning sweetly as you tilt your hips up for more. 

Ghost groans low in his throat, bestial and spinning rapidly out of his control. He feels everything spinning, slipping; the trudge to the finish line narrows into a pinprink. He needs something to cling to, to hold on to with broken hands—

The only purchase he finds is in your demise. 

His hand lifts, shaking yours loose. He reaches up, fingers dig into your chin, forcing your pouty mouth open. You blink at him, sluggish, but he catches the thin gossamer of awareness spooling thin cobwebs over darkened crevasses, covering the canyons in your eyes with cognisance. It makes him leer. 

“Stick your tongue out, pretty girl,” he rasps, words sticking together, muffled under the mask. Crushed aggregate stone under the weight of his own desire. “Tha’s it. Open up nice and wide—”

He lets spit gather again, pooling on his tongue. It's degrading, you always say. Gross. But you swallow it down like a good girl, anyway. Always. You come at him with fangs and claws, but somehow, you always merge in a perfectly dizzying polyphony. 

Ghost spits on your tongue. Lets it land right in the middle of fleshy pink. A sick, twisted pleasure thrums in his veins at the sight. 

There's checking the boxes of an established kink, and this. Horrifically proprietary. Ownership that ignites a fire in his marrow, setting him alight from the inside out. Turns bone into blackened char, cinder. He can almost taste it on his tongue. 

It's made worse, turned frenzied, when you—sweet, perfect, you—bracket it protectively in the curve of your tongue. Completely dazed, head filled with a heady slurry of somnolence and alcohol, but still aware enough to know, even if only through muscle memory, what you're meant to do when he spits in your mouth. 

If anything, you're more obedient like this. Little doll. Coddling it lovingly, this little piece of him that he gives you. 

And it might be the madness speaking—these fraying thoughts take on a vitriolic edge, corrosive aqua regia pooling in his throat—but Christ. He's been stabbed in the guts, repeatedly, and it somehow packed less of a punch than this. 

He wants, wants—

Family never crossed his mind, was never even on the table or something to be considered, but with you it brims. Blooms in rot. Roots in tenebrous. 

He has this insatiable urge to devour you whole so you'll always be with him. The waves of his desire are monstrous. The waters below are rapacious. A gaping maw eager to eat you up—

Pity it’s not an option. 

But he’ll make do. Buy a ring tomorrow. Something pretty that matches your eyes. The curve of your smile. Sanctioned ownership. A collar in gemstones and gold, glimmering and shining bright enough that should any light fade from your gaze, it’ll illuminate in the gloom; twilight made in sorrow. The prettiest blues—

Said eyes water. Ghost’s hold on your face relaxes when you give a muffled keen, cheeks bubbling up against the pressure. Tongue still stuck out even as he takes his pleasure from your supine flesh. Suspended in motion, stasis. Such a good girl for him—

He swallows. Tastes poison, rot, on his tongue. “Swallow.” 

You're a little sluggish, a little slow, but you follow his command all the same. He knows, then, that it could only ever be you. 

No one gets under his skin like this. No one makes him itch, want, crave, as much as you do—

You make a face, twisted up in some amalgamation of pleasure and confusion. It nudges the ruins of his chest and feels almost like a heartbeat when it pulses in his flesh. 

“Simon, Simon—”

His name is all you can say, and he's not sure if you're begging for mercy, or muttering it out into the scant air between your heaving breaths like an obsecration, an orison, but he eats it all the same. Bites down on your pleas, your cries, your prayers, and chews them up between fangled teeth. Takes them down into the swirling pits of his belly where they're eaten alive by what grows in the decay.

(belly full of dirt:

he heaves, and heaves, but nothing comes out even though he can taste humus in his throat, feel worms using his organs like a playground—)

“Somethin’ you want, pet?” He taunts, and shifts his hips back just enough to drag a few inches of his cock out of your drenched cunt. A tease—cruel and mean. He’d get lobbed upside the head for this had you been in your right mind. A tap to his temple, shaking the cobwebs loose. He would have bent down, and sunk broken teeth into your jugular. Merging violence with love until bloody knuckles feel like a kiss. “All you ‘ave to do is ask. Use your words, pretty thing—”

You whine, low and drawn out. A lazy whimper in the back of your throat. “Pl’se—”

You can barely speak. Tongue too thick. Sleep too heavy in your veins. Alcohol, too. A lesson, perhaps, for his willful little pet come the morning when you struggle to measure just how deep into his gullet you’ve let yourself fall. 

He can’t help rubbing salt into the shallow cuts, if only because he likes the way you pout. 

“C’mon, sweetheart. You can do better’n that.”

And damn him—damn you—you do. Your hand curls over his wrist, pulling it close to your mouth where you place a kiss against his palm. Tender. Chaste. Midnight blooms in your eyes, casts shadows under pale moonlight. His breath stutters in his chest when you lean your head back, letting his hand fall to your bared neck. 

Your heavy, lidded eyes gaze back at him, cutting through the shade of night that sews the air like satin. Etched in the file silk is threads of trust in stark white. The kind that bleeds for him; hungers. One that aches, always tender like a bruise. The throb of it echoes between mouldering ribs. Booms between his ears. 

Ghost doesn’t fall into pieces. Doesn’t shatter. No. Something in the splintered remains shifts. Settles. He wraps his fingers around the thick of your throat, thumb notched tight against your pulse, and he feels complete. Whole. Remade from the ruins. 

Your breath hitches. The sound is a gunshot in his ears. He squeezes down, a gentle press. Just enough to make the air spill out of your lungs, to let your eyes water. Lachrymose, eager. It does something to him when you cry. He feels tipped upside down, torn inside out. Left all askew, asunder. He wants to drown in the pebbling river growing against your lashline. Wants to drink it down until it quenches his neverending thirst. Wants, wants—

He feels his name spill from your lips. Brassy and broken, trembling against his palm. A plea—

More.

And he gives it to you. 

Simon hitches your ankle on his shoulder. Adjusts the grip he has on your throat. He settles over your body, blanketing you under his bulk. Stygian beast devouring the maiden whole. The thought amuses him even as it knocks the air from his lungs. 

He anchors himself into the mattress with his knees, steadying himself, curls his other hand around the iron ring of the headboard. All the while, you look up at him—glossy eyes burning coals in the dark, in the gloom. Wanting, hungry. Mouth held open as if you’re waiting for his scraps—

And then he bucks into you, the leverage giving his thrust a savage edge. 

The whines are snuffed out under his palm. Your eyes widen, tears now spilling down your temple, soaking the pillow below your head. 

He groans, head rolling back. “Fuckin’ hell—ain’t you a pretty sight?”

Tucked under him, throat swallowed by his palm. Split on his cock, slick and wet. The tears streaming down your face makes him feel wicked, foul; but the spit running down your slackened jaw quells any doubt. The hand on his wrist holds him tight, tighter still, to your flesh. 

You want this. His spoiled rotten bird.

So, he gives it to you.

Simon’s almost ruthless when he snaps his hips into yours, cooing viciously into your ear about how you feel, how you look, how you sound—so pretty wrapped around him, under him; his little doll—

“S’where you belong, pet—” guttural words spill, flintlike and savage, from his mangled throat. Reinforced with the hateful way he blugeons his cock into you. Times it perfectly with the firm squeezes against your jugular, never letting you catch your breath. Your eyes roll back, legs trembling. Shaking. But you don’t move, don’t struggle. The hand on his wrist is a shackle, and it makes him smirk, scars pulling up in a gnarled mess of mirth; ugly and mean. “Right where you belong. Ain’t tha’ right?”

He leans down, babbles nonsense into your temple. Promises you the heads of gods, the ichor they bleed. Swears he’ll build a shrine for you in Durham.

But for as mocking as these words he murmurs into your ear are, they’re tremulous. Raw. A current roars beneath; a steady stream, a plea, all full of need: stay, stay staystay—

(please)

He buries his nose into your hairline to stem the ravening ache in his guts, breathes in the heady scent of you—of sex, and wine, and sweat. Drags it into his lungs in harsh, angry gasps to stain his skin with the smell of you. Of him. 

It goes right to his head in a heavy rush until he’s dizzy, almost sick, with the swell of it flooding in. An animal, he thinks, drunk on merging pheromones that make him mindless. Unfettered. 

It’s as if he’s driven on instinct alone; his frenzied pace ebbs, grows sloppy. The air around him feels thick. Syrupy. Stifling. The balmy breath in his chest is nearly as unbearable as it is addicting. Sickeningly sweet. Still—

His chest expands, taking as much of the potent miasma into his lungs as he can, filling them up, up, until he feels the edges threaten to brust. It’s only then, when ink moults across his vision, that he lifts his head just enough to shove his mouth against yours, a broken snarl ripping free from his throat as he forces the infectious air into your mouth, down to your lungs. Polluting you with the same sickness. The same rot. 

Little hiccups tumble past your lips as you swallow it down, taking everything he gives you, and he catches them on his tongue. Plays with them between his teeth, basking in the salty tang of you—brine, loam; peatsalt. Ashes, guncotton. Molasses. He’s not sure if he wants to drown you in him, or crawl into the warm, wet cavern of your mouth that pulses around his tongue like a heartbeat. 

Both, maybe. Everything. All of it. 

Always—

But he’s chasing pleasure on fumes. Trying to run with broken legs. There’s nothing refined about this. About the way he cudgels the head of his cock into the places that make your mouth twist away from his greedy lips in a silent scream. His weight is crushing you, he’s sure, but you cling to him harder, holding him tighter. Almost afraid to let go. And fuck—the notion alone is a kick to the chest, harsh and heavy. He nearly gags on the litany of broken moans spiling out of his mouth, landing on your tongue. 

Driven mad, maybe (or pussy-drunk, and high off of his own poison); but in that madness, he discovers this:

Nirvana exists between your thighs. 

Home, too. 

(well—

not yet.)

Pleasure fissions down his spine. The paroxysm taking him deeper into the battle-worn depths of his demise until the walls narrow, closing in. Crushing. No escape. But—

He won’t climb out of his hole he dug. Not until he makes a bed from your flesh; shelter out of your bones. He wants to ingrain himself as deep within you as he can, arsenic subsumed down to your marrow. Poisoned with the fill of him, too sick to let go. 

(Bone nausea. 

A death sentence.)

It metastasises inside of him, filling the barren spaces up until it leaks from his pores. 

He wants it: this dream so tantalisingly close. 

Simon lifts his hand from your throat, and reaches out, grasps at it with a shaking paw—

All it takes is a few crass, careless swipes of his calloused thumb across your clit, cock angled toward that spot that makes you rake your broken nails down his back, yowling in his ear for more, there, please, Simon, please—

You clench like a vice around him. A pretty bow tied up at the base of his cock. He bows over you, grunts spilling from his chest as he sinks his teeth into your nape, splitting skin btween his teeth. The warm, ozonous tang of your blood flooding his tongue is euphoric, eclipsing his mind in a haze of pleasure that crackles and burns at the base of his spine, spitting smoke up his body and into his skull. 

The harsh whine you let out—all prey, all animal; wounded, stuck under his muzzle—has some part of him, basal and inborn, rearing up. Roaring in his ears, ripping talons across the jagged remains of his head. 

(mine, mine, mine—)

He answers your scream with a growl, one caught in the smoke clogging his throat. It sounds inhuman when its wrenched out of his mouth—more animal than man: the devastating howl of a forest on fire—but the feel of it vibrating between his teeth is connatural. Innate. It belongs between his incisors; fits like a puzzle piece in his broken muzzle. Unleashed now. Finally free from this ill-fitting cage he housed it, this goddamn box—

Cobbled together from palm ash and brimstone, ichor and salt. Sewed up with copper sutures in the shape of a man for a perfect fit. 

Every cell in his body screams that he was made for this. To be over you, in you. Maw filled with your blood. Pussy stuffed full of his cock. 

He might not have clawed out of the dirt for you, but this mossy, gnarled lump in his chest beats now only for you. Apodictic. Ironclad. His teeth in your jugular, your life pulsing wetly on his tongue. 

It’s his apotheosis. His end. 

His hips stutter. White noise in his head. It drowns out the shrill screams, the hisses. Everything is just—static. Pleasure of a silent kind, humming, buzzing, and molten. Ghost buries himself inside of you as deep as he can, until his cock is fit snug against the plug of your womb, and lays his claim by branding it with the potency of his name. 

Tidally locked, you’re dragged down the summit with him, tumbling to your demise. Too dazed, too wound tight in his arms, his embrace, to see the jagged rock at the bottom of the hungry chasm thirsting for your blood, you just cling to him. Refusing to let go. 

(silly girl—

His pretty little perigee.)

His body aches in ways that cruelly remind him of his age. Joints stiff, stomach quivering. His knuckles sting when he unfurls it from the headboard, skin pink and raw from the tight hold he had around the metal. 

It’s made worse when he heaves a harsh breath, and pulls away from you with a long, drawn out groan. He settles back on his haunches, eyes searing into the space between your thighs. Messy with his spend. It dribbles down your slit, your ass, pools on the sheets below. 

Your chest shudders, legs splayed out how he left you. He thinks, viciously, of gazelles, and wonders if the blood he feels drying on his mouth looks anything like the muddied mane of a lion after eating its fill. 

“Fuckin’ hell—”

He should clean you up, hide his crime, but he burns the image of you into his head (another tattoo over scar tissue), and drops to a heap beside you. The moment his back hits the mattress and all thoughts of moving are erased in silk, in smoke and clover. 

Chest heaving, slick with sweat, he feels the thrum of his victory in his veins. The high of the chase abates, and he nearly purrs with contentment. Hangs his pride on a pedestal, and doesn’t think about the absence of any guilt. Doesn’t even entertain the thought, not when victory dries between your thighs. When you roll over with a huff, reaching out for him. 

It's as if you're trying to bury yourself inside of him, crawl into the safety of his ribs. 

Ghost grunts, feels his sensitive, spent cock give a feeble twitch on his sticky thigh. The idea of you, blissfully unaware, seeking comfort from the man who writ your body with his virile spend, irrevocably changing your life and entwining it so deeply and so messily with his own that to severe either of you from each other is nearly impossible, floods him with satisfaction so deep, euphorically heady, that his chest seems to shudder. Resounding with some amalgamation of a purr, a grow, so utterly primal, that he sounds more beast than man. 

His roots run deep within you, now, and every misaligned piece of his patchwork body seems to sag and shiver in an almost perfect parallelism. Congruence ascertained with the cupping of you between its mismatched maw. Shackled in a baleen prison. Nestled, safe and sound, between white teeth. 

Ghost pulls you close, holding tight, and hums. As you drool on his shoulder, dripping with his spend, he knows he'll keep you there forever, until you're nothing but bones. 

There's a cloud of confusion hanging over you the next morning, a twinge of uncertainty gnarling across the gaps in your memory. The pieces of a puzzle that belong to a different set. He watches you scramble through them, filling in blanks. Oscillating so deliciously between wariness and discontent. 

“‘morning,” he greets, as if his spend hasn’t dried on your thigh last night. Tucked up nice and tight against your fertile, unprotected womb. As if he couldn't taste brimstone in the back of his throat when you wince as you walk, achy and battle-worn from the weight of his desire crushing you all night. 

“Morning,” it's a sticky rasp in your throat. He wonders if you taste him on your tongue. “When did you get in?”

“Las’ night.”

You nod, but it's absent. Flickering through the timeline of events that aren’t drenched in black, shaded over like a heavy bruise. Your expression is fractured. Raw. Pensive. Something untouchable, unchartable, and yet he reads you as plainly as the tea leaves at the bottom of his cup. 

You don’t remember. Don’t know what to make of this chasm, this fissure, that looms, icy and deep, before you. There’s no anger, though. You don’t demand recompense for what he stole, what he took. The lashings he deserves are tucked quietly between your teeth. Hidden under layers of normalcy to prevent yourself from seeing him as is: a beast. 

“Well, um. Some homecoming, huh?” You joke, but it's hollow. Flat. Fragile like fine glass. You're digging for more. Rooting around to connect these vague, absent dots that linger, lost in the vacancy of your memory. 

He almost purrs. 

He wants to chew you up. Spit you in the palm of his hand. Maybe tuck you in his breast pocket, nestled against the lump in his chest—the one those silly enough to dream might call a heart. Keep you there forever. Hidden in the barrel of his loaded gun. 

“Bit rowdy.” 

It’s horrifically vague, but you cling to the prevacation he proffers to you; a lifeline in the turbulent sea, letting it overwrite the absence, the itching in your skull that must be clanging on the walls, begging for you to run. 

“Sorry,” it's sheepish. He knows the ferality in which you sometimes come at him when he's buried deep inside you is something that makes you twinge with embarrassment. Little kitten clawing at the old dog trying to get it to play. Rolling over immediately when it growls. Docile, sickeningly sweet.

But even naive kittens know to watch out for the frothing, foaming maw. 

“Did you use a—?”

He dips his chin. “I might ‘ave.”

And you take it as gospel. As truth. Why would Simon have any reason to lie to you about this? 

Relief shudders over your shoulders. You relax, inching toward the seat across from him. Gazelle making a home for itself in the lion’s den. 

The spell of unease is broken, now, and you quickly fill the chasm with chatter about your day. Your plans. Asking him how he’s been. 

You shove at the warning signs until they’re hidden away, and ignore the bones of your brethren scattered around you. All because you trust him. 

He aches with the urge to crush it between his teeth. 

And he will one day soon, he’s sure, because it’s just as easy to enact his plan as it was to get you to open the door. 

It starts with him convincing you to drink with him after dinner. Jus’ a glass. Got this fancy bottle. Reckon we should ‘ave some. 

But—

Can’t drink forever—no matter what his dogshit dad thought. 

So, he pokes holes in the condoms you hide in the bedside table, a little wary now. A touch fretful about your contraceptives in a way that makes him preen. You have good instincts, but rarely do you listen to them. Your head must be filled with sirens, but it's futile, he supposes. He's already stuffed cotton into your ears. 

It only feeds into that gaping chasm that bellows up from the depths that this world is not good for you. That it will tear you into pieces, into shreds. You need him. Need the Ghost to protect you. 

Case in point:

You’re needy beneath him, panting and mewling into the sheets as he teases your clit with his thumb. So wet, it almost feels like hot oil on his skin. Syrupy thick. 

In your desperation, you cling to him, throat bared. Fragile fine china. Belly up. Vulnerable. 

You barely notice when he pulls off the condom, crumpling it up into a ball and shoving it in the pocket of his slacks.. Don’t even react when he shoves his bare, raw cock into you. 

You don't even notice. 

(or when he slurs in your ear about how badly he wants to knock you up—breed his pretty girl until she’s stuffed full of him, making life with what he offers. salvation in the form of creation. ain’ tha’ a thought? he huffs into your ear, humid mirth curling over your skin. a stain. and the way it unfetters you—tightening around him, gushing slick—he finds his answer, one reinforced in the rolling of your eyes as your common sense, independence, trickle out of your ears and down your slackened jaw—)

And when that fails, he just slips you a sleeping pill. There's always an easier way to the finish line, he finds. 

(stupid fuckin’ mutt—)

Nothing bleeds from the cracks he wrought, or slinks from the shadows cast by his machinations until weeks later. 

Life just goes back to what it once was—Simon coming and going, letting himself into your home with the door you leave unlocked. You go to work, and chatter aimlessly about this vision you have about a home in the countryside, near the ocean. Saving up—uselessly—for sheep and goats, and the sought-after Highland cows. Chickens and ducks first, you say, and barely notice when his gaze drops, drilling holes into your stomach. Watchful. Leering. 

He can almost scent the change on you. Nose pressed to your skin; bloodhound sniffing the ground. 

Ghost keeps time in the slow, susurrus drawl of your voice sifting through the cotton in his ears, waiting for those precious decibels to catch on, to tilt up at the end as your eyes skim the calendar he keeps scratching x’s across in red, almost delicate, innocent even though it's from his sanguinary hand. A countdown to something you haven’t yet caught on to. 

And it’s all so sweet. 

—the waiting game, the subtle changes, the desperate way you cling to normalcy—

Sweet, like the way you carve this life out for yourself, filled with stuffed animals full of idealism. So much so, that it's almost bitter. Acrid. He watches the light glow in your eyes as your plans take shape, moulding putty between your hands, and like a pit viper, he coils in on himself. Frenzied. Fearful—

But only just. 

The excitation has run its course. He’s drifting, languid, into his scheme. Content. The notion of you slipping from his fingers is a thought that rarely crosses his mind these days, especially when that house on the prairie grows from an occupant of one to two—

“And, you know… when you're not out saving the world—” your eye roll and air quotes make his lips twitch, tugging at the scar tissue, the acid burns, splashed across his mouth. An ugly fucking Pollock. “—maybe you can come visit.”

“Never fancied myself a rancher,” he drawls, just to watch you squirm. Brow furrowing into a deep ravine as you struggle to make your intentions known without actually giving them sound. Skirting around the issue of wanting him there, of planning a home with him. 

(Too much, maybe? Or too soon—? 

if only you knew—)

He finds it charming, really. 

Still—

“It's just a thought,” you mutter, downcast. He wants to choke on your misery. Your sadness. Drown himself in your anger. Float in your happiness. 

Fuckin' Christ—

All this playing daddy in his head has thrown him off his rocker. Made him soft. Sentimental. It's probably why he yields to you. Offers a lazy shrug and another smarmy twitch of his lips. 

“Sounds like a plan,” and the way you brighten is a dagger to his chest. 

And the thing is. It does. It sounds like a dream, a perfect vision. Just—

Maybe not in the way you'd want. 

He's been looking into places unmarred by human hands. Ghost towns, uncharted territories. His home here isn't perfect for it, not like the vast geography of Mexico. The uninhabited wilderness of Canada, places so remote that it's almost untethered to modern civilisation. Islands of forest, mountains, all on their own. 

Vast corners and crevasses where someone can disappear and never be found. 

But those won't work in tandem with his flighty lifestyle. While he plans on keeping you barefoot and pregnant (common sense in the back of his head screams that he's foul, vile, monstrous—), he will continue to work. Has to, really, to avoid suspicion. 

So—

Home it is. 

But he gets inspiration from the Highland cows you coo on about and purchases a plot of land in the Western Isles. Gives this whim of his—yours, really—a concrete foundation made of the abstract. The filament provided by his newly christened Sergeant—an overeager mutt that bleeds warning signs from his pores. 

(don’t get close, reactive dog. will bite—

the little mutt is a great pyrenees, ain’t he?)

But bless Johnny’s bleedin’ heart, he thought as the man prattled on about this cabin he owns. A place of solitude. Could fire a gun and no one would even peek out the curtains. Beautiful, the way all of Scotland is. The highlands, he breathes in that shade of catholic madness only the dutiful soldiers of god's right-handed wrath can be, is where he keeps his home. A place chiselled from stone, surrounded by wilderness that eats tourists alive. 

(he didn’t ask at the time why Johnny was so keen on finding these places scattered around Scotland, ones with little traffic and a nearly negligible amount of souls within the vicinity, but he finds its best not to get too close to mutts crossbred with wolves.)

But Simon is nothing if not devoted, and so. 

You’ll get your fantasy ranch in the middle of nowhere. Your highland cows, your billy goats, your chicken, sheep, and ducks. A baby in your arms, too. One that shows its hand the next morning, dashing all your carefully laid plans. These paths of independence of yours run parallel to his whims but never converge. There’s the potential in this for these fraying threads to split, and diverge. Separate. 

(But it’s all put to rest at the sound of you heaving in the adjoining washroom. His path eats yours until it’s overtaken. Consumed. 

The evasive, unfettered little bird trammelled, caught. Wing-clipped, and all his.) 

Any misgivings the part of his gyri not buried under the frothing mess of his polluted grey matter might have is vitiated by the unwavering certitude that, despite his own gains in this, it really is in your best interest. 

And maybe it's something that should have come earlier in your relationship—however threadbare that word is in conjunction with the unhinged desire blooming in the pit of his chest; madness masquerading as love or some obsessive, desperate facsimile of it. Maybe a proper man, a better one, might have dug down and fully laid out the reality of intertwining your life with the living dead. That the idea of danger, death, and revenge are all everpresent threats scratching at the walls of this sickeningly sweet fantasy you wrap around yourself. 

He’s a dangerous man. A creature of devastation—manmade, bent into, or congenital is yet to be unearthed—which, in itself, brings about a certain lifestyle. One with fewer people around, and always shrouded in secrecy. Friends, family—none of that matters when death curdles gnarled fingers around his jugular. 

You’ll get used to it. Eventually. The only other choice is to let you, his now flightless bird, go. Released back into the wild vulnerable and reeking of his stench. 

You’ll be devoured before daylight, ripped into pieces—only if they’re feeling generous, that is. 

Simon has his own twisted remora. Ones with claws and fangs and a hunger that runs deep. Insatiable. Any scraps that fall from his mouth are devoured before they can touch the sea floor. They’ll crush you in their maw and dangle your mangled body from the gaps between their teeth. 

You’re not made for the wild. Not anymore. You’re meant to be protected. You—this fragile, delicate thing. He’ll hold you close, keep you secure and safe in a mausoleum of your own making. 

This little glass jar domicile. 

A billet in the mountains. 

He’ll fill it with the finest things—silk linens, fine china; mahogany and teak, pink ivory; a bed of soft, downy feathers, sherpa, Egyptian cotton; (sticks and stones and grass and moss). Buy you whatever you need. Chickens and ducks. Sheep and goats. 

They’ll keep you company when he’s away. 

(and if that fails, he can always plan playdates for you with whatever dirty secret Johnny’s been keeping tucked away in the woods.)

He draws an x in the empty, white box of the calendar, the tip of his red marker gliding silkily across the glossy surface. Something unfurls in his guts. Blossoms in his bones. There’s an almost indescribable sense of satisfaction—primal and animalistic—that grows from the upturned dirt in his head. Life composted from rot. 

Ghost hums to himself when he turns, the sound nearly a purr—bestial as it is, suffocated under sulphur. It reverberates through his chest, trembling across the brackets of his ribs that expand with his deep, heavy inhale—breathing in the sight that greets him like a lover’s kiss

The kebab he ordered lays untouched on the table across from the television—some trashy reality show playing in the background while you tried to eat; a dating show, you’d said when he merely shrugged, having other things on his mind over what to watch while you ate. It all seems to be preserved in time. Frozen in on the exact moment when you’d sniffed the döner kebab he got for you—the same thing you order each time—and then promptly wrenched yourself back, gagging. The sandwich was flung back in the takeaway box before you slapped your hand over your mouth, rushing into the washroom. 

If his phone wasn’t in the other room, he might have taken a picture. A little memento to remember this moment. Framed it in iron and perched it on the desk they gave him back in Hereford, the one just down the hall from Price. 

(ah, speaking of—he’ll have to send that caustic bastard a fruit basket, or something, won’t he? maybe some pretty flowers for his lady.)

His reverie is shaken when the door to the washroom creaks open slowly, and you emerge through the gap with sweat on your brow, knots across your forehead, and a shaking hand resting over your churning stomach. 

Shame, he thinks. He really should have brought his phone—

You lean against the wall, taking in deep, shuddering breaths to steady yourself, confusion and worry knitting over you like a thundercloud. It tastes of ozone when he inhales. An approaching storm. In the blue gloom of the living room, illuminated only by the light flooding out from the washroom behind you and the static glow of the television, you look etiolated. A wilting flower. 

His budding rose. 

He coos. “You alright?”

You glance sideways at the kebab on the table, mouth pinching into a grimace as if to stem the nausea still rippling through you. You stare at it for a long moment, seemingly trying to make sense of the reality sitting in front of you on scratched, old pine; confusion runs laps over the dawn cresting in your eyes. This puzzle is too unfathomable for you to piece together; the keys and slots all askew. 

The air around him grows still. Silent. Anticipatory. A tiger crouched low in the tussock. A little fawn roaming too close. 

There’s a heaviness in your eyes when they flicker back to the wall where he stands, drilling holes into the x. Something implacable frissons over your threadbare expression, fracturing across sallow cheeks. 

The air is electric. It pulses across his bare flesh, irritating scar tissue, acid burns, and scorch marks. His skin prickles at its whisper. 

“Feelin’ sick, pet?” He ponders, playing pretend. He’s viciously, deeply amused at the desperate denial splashing across your cheeks. The thin shade of askance that unfurls like the leaves of a flytrap when you look at him. “Mus’t’a been the kebab. Bad meat, I reckon?”

You offer a weak nod in response, pinching your lips tight together. The matter seemingly concluded, brushed aside. Pocketed for later. 

And you say nothing else for the rest of the night—gaze unseeing, turned inward; pensive—but he purrs in contentment as if everything was alright, sprawled across the couch with his head pillowed against your churning stomach as if he could hear the whisper of another heartbeat from within. 

In the saturated blue light, he catches your eyes listing toward the calendar every so often. Wary. Nervous. He thinks you might say something, might ask, but you don’t. It’s caught on a stilted breath. A harsh swallow. 

All you do is bring your hand to his shorn head, and raze the stumps of your clipped claws against his scalp. It’s almost as if you’re trying to soothe the madness from within. Scratching that itch deep inside until it goes away. Gentle hands play pretend and dress up as a panacea. Affection to scrape the illness away. 

He thinks you should know better than that, even as he leans into it with a soft exhale, more relaxed than he'd ever been his entire life. Content. Unassailable in his conquest. 

Simon has always been more scar tissue than man, and no place is damaged more than the upturned tumulus inside his head. 

But oh. How you try—

His sweet, sweet girl. 

The look you give him the next evening is, in parts, brumous. 

A polynya of dread, worry, guilt, fear that frissons across the deep valleys in your eyes, shaded in plumes of darkness, filled in deliciously with the weight of your beleaguered uncertainty. It yawns out before him, this heavy gloom. 

So close he catch the embers in his hand. 

“Simon… We should—talk. I, uh—”

You hold up a little rectangle, dismay, misery, etched in the blue tinge spreading across your face. It seems to steal the words from your throat, turn them into ash. What else are you meant to say, he supposes, when you look out at the world now from the gape in his maw? 

But there’s a veil of wonderment that hides below the tidal wave; this precious, deadly, undercurrent that rents the air, splits his chest in two.

The happiness, however meagre, thin, it is right now (just a sunken boat on the seafloor), is there. Ripe for salvage, and he sees that it’s handled with care. Cupped between his palms, nurtured by his own conviction to do what’s right, an’—fuck, pet—know this ain’t what we planned, but—

but:

The howling quiets, turns to a low growl, and then a susurrus hum, when you shakily utter the words he was waiting for. 

“Yes, Simon—”

You shudder when his fist closes over your wrist, pulling you into his purring chest. Shaking like a prey animal in the jowls of a beast, bested and ensnared. It has a profound, almost predatory, sense of satisfaction curling over his bones. He knows this was the right choice, and is sure, in time, you'll come to realise that, too. You’re in the early stages, he knows. Prodromal. You need to be handled with care to curb the lacrimation, the hyperesthesia. 

And there’s no one better than him to guide you through the throes of it. To lead you to the unequivocal end. 

He leans down, and whispers in your crown—

“Good girl—”

—and the sound of his voice is gravel encased in sticky, sweet honey. Dark, smokey molasses. The very same cadence as a key sliding inside of a lock; metal grazing metal. Turning—

“If it’s a boy, we’ll name him Tommy.”

Click. 

(he gives you that ring he promised when he takes you to the mountains. you smile wide, and tell him it fits like a gyve.)

Simon stops shovelling his want under the cold dirt and starts burying it inside you instead. Makes a domicile from your flesh; a place where he can rest his aching head every night until the howling scraping down fractured bone stops— (paralytic)

[sickvictorianangel]

My "hot takes" about RDR2:

All the characters are well written, complex and well played. But that doesn't mean I need to like every one of them or defend them.

We all love John because of own bias (thanks to RDR1). His only redeemable point is after the end of the Epilogue. This man was irresponsible, a deadbeat, didn't listen to Abigail even at the end and caused his own death, leaving Abigail and Jack alone.

Abigail, Mary-Beth, Karen, Tilly and Sadie are the best women in the whole game and I will always stand up for them. Abigail fought for her son with teeth and nails, she always did her best for the ones she loved. Mary-Beth, Karen and Tilly were soulmates, who always defended each other and had each other's back all the time. They stood up for themselves many many times and were a girls girl. Being there for Abigail all the time when Jack was kidnapped and trying to pull Karen out of the hole she was burying herself. And of course, Sadie was a strong woman. She didn't just devote herself to avenge her late husband, but she devoted her time to stand up and move on. She was loyal to Arthur and such a good friend to Abigail, John and Charles. Her loyalty carried the love she felt even when the people she loved died.

Which also brings me to: I will always defend Molly! She abandoned everything she was and had for a narcissist that stole her youth and will to live. She tried to salvage her broken "relationship" in every way she could, always receiving the bad hand of Dutch's attitude. In the end, dying trying to show her feelings that were constantly dismissed. Molly deserved better.

Susan Grimshaw wasn't a bad woman, she lived for the well being of the gang and loyalty to Dutch. She was hard and cold, but because she learned that was the only way for survival. She died being loyal to the Van Der Linde gang. She died siding with Arthur and John.

Reverend Swanson was a sick man. Addiction is a disease! I will always love that man and defend him. And in the end, he also reached his redemption.

Hosea was the glue that kept everyone together, the gang only existed for so long and succeeded because of him. Until Dutch's ego talked louder and louder, putting everyone in such a fragile position that ended up taking his own life.

No, Dutch didn't get crazy. Dutch was always a narcissist and didn't want to carry the responsibility of his actions, always blaming everyone and pointing fingers around trying to frame someone for the downfall of the gang. For him to be happy and satisfied, you had to side with him and his decision no matter how crazy they were. Micah was just a mirror for his own actions to come to life. Making Arthur and John question if that was a "new Dutch" or if he was already like that. And don't make me even talk about how this man became a whole rap!st in RDR1.

Mary is a complex character and necessary for Arthur's growth. But, Mary is just a rich woman from the 1800s. The way she treated the other girls from the gang with such disdain, treating them like they were inferior? Fuck you, girl. She was always a red flag for me for the simple fact that Karen, Mary-Beth and Tilly didn't like her at all. Only Abigail talking positive about her once. And no, I don't care that she "used Arthur" lmao That part is extremely important to Arthur's path of redemption, so get over that already (to all the annoying men in the fandom).

Charles, Lenny and Kieran are literal angels. Victims of their circumstances but acted with honor till the end of everything. Always ready to help. I've never seen these boys harassing anyone.

Javier was blind loyal, his ideals weren't real and depended on Dutch's empty words to hold it. When everything fell apart, Javier became the opposite of what he preached so much.

Bill was never a good person. Bill was a big drunk bully. He was always a coward, even before RDR1. His loyalty was with some of the members of the gang (as long as they were white... Tilly got his ass during the stagecoach mission and I love that).

Arthur is one of the best written characters I've ever seen. We see someone who was hurt since a child, who was forced to become a "hard man" by every person in his life. He was made to believe by everyone that he was just a strong and ugly motherfucker, whose only use was to do someone's dirty work. But in reality, he was soft. Arthur was an artist, and the people that actually knew that soft side of him, knew how reliable he was. His redemption story is actually beautiful. Arthur is the base of the gang and the pivotal point in the story. His actions and sacrifice started a butterfly effect so strong that it change the course of everyone's life.

And to end this huge mountain of nothing lol I just wanna say that those are MY OWN OPINIONS. I love that game so much and I hope we can see even more of the whole gang and other characters some day again.

[dr-spectre]

Hello everyone, I got some announcements to share and some plans for the future of this blog now that the Grand Fest is over and the news drought begins.

(LONG POST AHEAD!!!!)

I think going forward I'm gonna change how I approach myself acting online and be less "OH MY GOD HOLY SHITENWIOEDISIWIEOE GUYYS!!!"

Because to be honest with you all... I've been feeling very self conscious about the way that I've been acting online and I feel like I gotta channel my passion for Splatoon in a much more healthy and less EXTREMEEEEE way.

I am aware that um.... people have blocked me... and you know, that's to be expected of course when you are online and you're slowly building a following. Still really stings, though, and I think it's due to the fact that sometimes I can be sorta- "This is what happened, and if you disagree with me, you're an idiot and you're wrong!!!!!" When I make posts. And I don't wanna do that, and I don't want to come off as a gatekeeping fan that thinks lower of other people who might not know my stances very well. I wanna educate people and present my stuff as more of "Hey guys, this is what I think actually happened in this event. Feel free to take a look! I think this is really cool and I wonder what you guys think of this perspective that i have?"

And sometimes I can be pretty loud mouthed and stuff and I have talked shit towards certain characters. I remember one time I made a post where I said "what the fuck is wrong with Marie?" And said some stuff... I probably rubbed a lot of people the wrong way with that post... and other posts. I'm so sorry if I have made some of you upset in the past or have said some awful things about your favourite characters in the series...

As you guys probably know, I am passionate about Hypno Callie and I have very strong stances and opinions on her. And that leads to me get a bit... out of control. Callie is my biggest comfort character and to see certain people try and push this vile and disgusting event that happened to her... that she was kidnapped by Octavio and the Octarians when she was alone, and that he brainwashed her and forcibly put the shades on her, or he tricked her and he removed her memories too...

and I try to see the same event in a completely different lens... I see it as more of Octavio manipulating her in a more subtle way and due to Callie's poor mental state and desperation, she heard him out. Octavio used the shades as a way to control her more easily but he doesnt have full direct control over her because her influence helped motivate the Octarians. Octavio still wanted Callie to be... well... Callie. Plus, Callie was more than willing to help the Octarians as well, as she thinks they are cute. I do have evidence to back it up as well as articles and definitions explaining how hypnosis actually works and its limitations.

But this perspective gets compromised and put into question in my head when people keep pushing and pushing and PUSHING the other thing. Then it feels like I have to yell and get mad.... I've seen it as recently as when Blushing Tide came out and I looked at the YouTube comment section on one of the uploads and I just kept seeing people say "oh it's like Tidal Rush but without the brainwashing" or some shit like that idk. I dont remember it well but i know I saw the word floating around. (Don't look at YouTube comment sections. You won't get anything of value from them.)

Anyways, I also wanna cut back on swearing too because sometimes I border on being a hazbin hotel character and I DO NOT want myself to get to that level LMAO!

So what shall I be doing now that Splatoon 3 is officially wrapped up? Well... I wanna do more creative projects and fun stuff like that. I got good reception from my haikus for the Grand Fest and I think doing more stuff like that sounds really really fun!!! And it might actually give me a reason to finish stuff as well lol...

Like I have a God damn Splatoon 2 hero mode finale rewrite that's nearly done and it's been sitting on my Google docs since JULY!!!! I have also made plans to do a fan sequel to the Squid Sisters Stories that takes place in between Splatoon 2 and 3 because that time frame for the Squid Sisters has been barely touched upon. I'm also doing a personal project where it's basically what I want to see out of a Splatoon 4 and I've been really enjoying making that. I dont know if I would ever share it but... it's something to do for me at least.

I also wanna involve myself in the community more, I received an ask where someone said (I forgot who asked I'm so sorry) if I could do a thing where I receive Splatoon OCs and critique them. That sounds really fun!!!

Maybe i can do photo mode competitions or showcases!!! Where I choose a theme (Callie, water, Splatsville, etc) and people submit their photos and I critique them and showcase them to everyone!!! Does that sound like something people would be interested in?! I would love to know as virtual photography is a hobby I love to partake in and I wanna encourage more people to try it!

There is also other stuff i can do like going over the Idols outfits and rating them, but I don't have the motivation to do that at the moment and I know it's not gonna be as in-depth as the one I did for Callie.

Anyhow, that's basically what I have so far. I think im gonna slow down on posting and I'm gonna chill out. Or at least I'll try to chill out.

I've just been feeling incredibly guilty and kinda... sad that I've been acting in a certain way for a while. And I really wanna change that. I dont like making people upset and I don't wanna be the kind of Splatoon fan that puts down others who don't even know any better and don't know who I am....

But enough being sad, I wanna focus on the present and make sure that my future on here is bright!!!

[viridwns]

The foreign darling not knowing what oni is is so funny.

But also my only exposure to oni growing up was from. lego ninjago. like the kids cartoon. and I think if my only exposure was lego ninjago and then I met oni who like. Can’t even go out in sunlight. I’d literally be like “wow you guys are so lame.”

I think I’m just mean and like associating things with my childhood though.

Lmao, I get it tho.

You are kidnapped by someone who calls himself the demon king. He is terrifying even with his composed composure.

And then you find out that this overlypowerful creature can't go in the sun and is allergic to a tree. Just like the rest of his oni's.

That just earns you the right to bully them.

-

"Why can't I go outside in the sun with one of you guarding me? If you're so afraid of me running away, it seems like a logic option."

You look up at Muzan with pleading eyes. Your hands are intertwined and you're on your knees; like you're praying in church to virgin Mary.

Muzan looks at your begging form with disinterest.

"No. How many times do I have to refuse your request until you give up?" Muzan says with annoyance lacing every word. You ignore the warning sign to not push him further.

"But why? I'm allowed to go out at night with one of you with me." You stood up, hands crossed over your chest like a child who's refusing to eat their vegetables.

You knew Muzan had a strong dislike to questions. He never answered them, unless when it meant that you were going to praise him...or to terrify you into silence.

"You're getting on my nerves now." He warned you. Something he only did with you. He never gave a heads up to anyone, instead he always chose to get rid of them immediately. It spared him a migrain or two.

"Just answer me! It's not like you're a vampire who can't go out in the sun." You laughed, Muzan stiffened.

Your eyes widened and your mouth fell open.

"You are playing games with me." You said in disbelief.

Muzan didn't give you a response, the only thing indicating you had found out his weakness was the deepened frown and the harsher glare on his face.

You couldn't help but laugh.

"That is so lame! You, the demon king himself, can die by a bit of sun!" It was all comedical to you.

Muzan didn't appreciate your display of emotions to his weakness. He thought you were looking down upon him.

"I could still give you the worst death imaginable if you continue like this."

You stiffeled a giggle.

"Yeah but I can atleast go out in the sun without dying from sunburn."

RIP your legs because you can't use them anymore after that comment.

You don't stop joking about their situations though, even Douma was annoyed by you.

Muzan just prays that you, his little menance, don't find out about his distaste to wisteria...

[arins-art-alley]

about the hypnoshades in the werekraken au...

in the werekraken au, it runs like this

DJ Octavio kidnaps Callie as normally and puts on the hypnoshades

doesn't know she has a werekraken form. suffers the consequences. the octarian army no longer has an king, or some of their soliders for that matter. She's not on the best terms with octolings unlike canon.

Marie goes out to find Callie ( as usual ). when she does with agent four, her werekraken form is also hypnoshaded, maybe her even more hostile, thus the following interaction plays out! and by the way, her left eye is gone lmao

to protect four and herself, she also switches into werekraken from to knock the shades off and get her back to normal, leaving Callie with a diagonal scar across her face from the fight

agent four in this au is very uh... indifferent to the squisters. Captain is much closer with them and knows how the werekraken goes, but agent four meets Callie for the first time in werekraken form, and doesn't even know it exists in the first place

after this whole event, the Squid Sisters as a whole are still together, covering up their big ass boo boos when performing, but their personalities take a bit of a swap. Callie is more reserved now, a bit constantly wracked with guilt and has a very poor self-eesteem. She's getting better in s3 though.

Marie overcompensates, becoming more active socially to try and distract herself from the fact that Callie will always feel horrible when she looks at her. Even with covering up scars, Marie's glass eye still shows what happened that night.

By s3, the squid sisters aren't as popular as they are in canon ( example: Liquid Sunshine doesn't exist, nor does their performances in Inkopolis Plaza ) but they're working on making their relationship as good as it was before s2.

[mulders-too-large-shirt]

s4 episode 4 thoughts

woohoo!! it feels, again, like our separation has been so long, but it has been about… 3 whole days. oh, how i miss the earlier months in which i had time to post episode thoughts every day… 

this episode sounds interesting!!! no idea how someone’s thoughts could be captured on film, but we do a lot of disbelief suspension around these parts, with varying levels of success.

wait. hold on. i just saw the description for the episode after this one. what the hell is mulder getting himself into with that. do we need more mulder ex lore? i don’t need that. it doesn’t make me feel warm and fuzzy inside. 

putting aside my many questions on that matter to focus on what is here in front of us.

(author’s note post-episode: …. woaghhh. scully…)

in all honesty, having processed my thoughts, i think this one was just a LITTLE bit too intense for me. which i recognize is okay, and to each their own. but i need to speak my Truth.

liveblogging commences below 

we begin with this sketchy looking dude, who is being rude as hell to a woman putting on lipstick before getting a passport photo taken. god forbid a woman want to serve… then he says to act natural while not acting natural himself. HYPOCRITE!

she goes in for a passport photo and…. she left her money in the car! she must return to this unfortunate man and go get it. but someone is following her…. 

he did something to her… and she gets back to the car to “billy”, but someone did something to him, too!! he appears to be dead and bleeding from the ear!! then she falls to the ground and tries to crawl to safety, but the mystery man in the yellow rain jacket comes back for her…. 

and the man in the photo store looks at the passport photos, but despite taking just a standard headshot, he sees the woman’s dying face in the images!!

oh. that is an unpleasant day on the job for such a nice seeming man.

this intro always makes me laugh... i’m sorrrrryyy the ufo pictures just remind me that this show is fundamentally unserious 

scully and mulder are rolling up to a town in michigan, while he asks her for any thoughts on the case. it appears this woman was abducted three days ago. and billy was punctured in the brain. yuck.

okay, so her name is mary. and this poor pharmacist…. he has to take people’s pictures, and give them drugs, AND deal with this nonsense 

they are at the pharmacy where the “druggist” (they keep using that term which i have never heard before) is showing them his camera, which he keeps under lock and key, and i notice he has some fun candy in the background. but i assume things are not fun at this time for him. 

scully wants to see the camera, and mulder takes a step back to let her pass. it kinda looks like he does that thing where he touches her back, but it’s hard to tell. and once again for all readers, that thing where men touch your back is only attractive when it’s mulder to scully and not between some randos!

scully notices something on the pharmacist’s foot, and also that the film is out of date. she is always noticing things. one of her many lovely qualities. 

mulder calls the pharmacist “bruno hauptman” and i don’t get that reference so i do what i do best: go to wikipedia. oh! bruno is the guy that was executed for kidnapping the lindbergh baby. i don’t know why i thought that mystery was unsolved. i guess it’s because the article is saying it was a heavily criticized and debated case. huh, a mystery for another time.

anyway, mulder is saying this all tauntingly with his stupid beautiful mulder smile, but scully is saying yeah, this nice old pharmacist doesn’t look like a usual suspect.

but she does point out that the film has heat damage, and a heater is right there… “so you think that would make it look like she posed screaming for a passport photo?” <- LMAO MAN LET HER FINISH

BAHAHA she is onto nothing 🔥🔥 

“plus, the film is two years out of date” “oh” the- the photographic chemistry could have changed” (mulder nodding) “uh-huh” “the- the dyes fade… they… alright, what’s your theory?” <- BAHAHA love that… you have to admit when you don’t know wtf is going on! i had full confidence she would pull something out of her science-y brain, but sometimes you just don’t know!

(this stupid scene had me giggling, as did her face of resignation)

mulder seems to ALSO have no idea wtf is going on, but as they discuss this, a police officer walks in and says they might have wasted the agents’ time…. what does that mean? did they figure it out that quick?

back at the house of the victims, they meet a postal inspector. okay!!! that’s fun and different. and i pause to write this down, and scully is SO beautiful, i actually might blow up. a full on explosion where once stood me is liable to go down. oh my gooooood.

okay: postal inspector is investigating a mail theft. mary had been working at the postal office, stealing people’s credit cards, and her boyfriend was signing them! oh! very illegal. inspector seems to think she faked her disappearance, but mulder points out that would not explain the stabbing of the boyfriend. also, they have this creepy ass broccoli magnet on their fridge which. bleugh. it did not spark joy.

mulder wants a camera from their house, and he finds one! did he just. take a picture of scully…? oh my god. he said “stand back, scully, it’s loaded” and took one… he didn’t even let her pose or anything… that's so cute... even if it's a little weird to use a dead person's camera from a crime scene... he wanted to take her picture

no, i am all wrong, for it appears he is just… taking random photos. because someone in the 60’s once claimed that he could concentrate really hard on undeveloped film and show his thoughts. uh. press f to doubt.

(man, i want to live in that very brief and exciting moment where i thought he was taking a cute little candid of her again… it was so blissful there)

wait. what da hell. he just clicked the camera a bunch of times and it comes up with the screaming mary photo again and again.

oh… he thinks that someone was stalking mary, and the stalker’s psychic energy altered the film by him coming in its proximity. i didn't realize that was how psychic powers worked but i am listening and learning

scully says that these images had to be doctored, which is, again, a reasonable conclusion, but he asks her to “what if” the situation and just think about it!!! just imagine!!!

cutscene to… someone crawling on the side of the road. it’s mary!!! she’s bleeding from her eyes (?) and not responding at all to the police car arriving behind her.

now she is in a stretcher at the hospital that our agents are helping to steer. they are kind like that. she had a “painkiller cocktail” in her system, but that wouldn’t account for her condition. scully orders a PET scan for her, a term i have never heard before. i love when she uses terms i have never heard before.

they’re putting mary in what looks like an MRI sort of thing to look at her brain. whatever it is, it is clearly very bad, as told by scully’s visible reaction and audible declaration of “oh my god”, while mulder looks at her and asks “what is it”? 

(and while i appreciate that this is a sensitive moment for our story, mulder not knowing wtf is going on with these medical things always is a favorite trope of mine, 1. because me too, and 2. he is usually such an insufferable know-it-all i love watching him admit when he knows nothing. humility!)

oh my god… “she has been given what’s called a transorbital lobotomy” <- oh that does NOT sound good… it used to be known as an ice pick lobotomy!!! oh my gosh i’ve heard of that one!! ice pick… eye sockets… i can feel myself growing faint…

but whoever did it, did it wrong… who would do a lobotomy without knowing how to do it the right way???

in the machine, mary is mumbling!! she is saying “unruhe” according to the closed captioning, but it just sounds like faint groaning to me. however, given that this phrase is the title of the episode, i venture to guess that it IS in fact relevant.

a policeman bursts in and says there has been a second abduction, and our agents look deeply sorrowful at this news, seeming to know what will happen next if they cannot crack the case.

oh! now we are seeing the new victim, and whoever took her is in fact saying “unruhe”, and other stuff in german! NO! he pulls out a pick…. fade to black. 

WHO in this small seeming town speaks german and has a psychic effect on cameras… ?? i hope this can be narrowed down to a slim pool of candidates!!

scully is going into the next crime scene, where mulder reports that a man has been murdered, and his secretary alice taken. this is not good.

mulder has been looking into what that word alice was mumbling means- first in a phone book, but then as a translation, i guess, because it means “trouble” in german.

WOAH, WHAT?

! SCULLY LORE REVEAL ! she took german in college!!! and knows that the word is more accurately translated as “unrest”! 

(oh my gosh, i need to get back into compiling lore reveals at the end of each season like i did for s1…. good thing i take such detailed notes so i can go back and do them for s2 and s3)

((we didn’t get a ton in the last 2 seasons, so i thought of doing one post for both seasons- but the organization freak in me wants to do 1 per season, so i’ll go through them again and see what i can find when i get bored someday))

scully hands him a photo from the first crime scene, but mulder says the criminal wasn’t there, because if he was, he would have altered the photos. scully seems annoyed that he’s looking for psychic photos and not crime scene evidence, but he explains that whoever did this has to be very good, and photos may be their only lead since he doesn’t seem to know he is doing it. but then scully sees something and her eyes go SUPER wide… and she says she wants to show him something. 

oh! they find a construction company’s logo at both sites. so maybe the criminal worked at places under construction and was able to kidnap the women…? this theory is brought to you by scully.

he says she might be right, but he is going back to DC to get analysis on the photo. she still is skeptical, but he says that since the woman’s time is running out, that’s all the more reason to analyze the one piece of hard evidence they do have, and that he’ll be in touch. 

he must have really cared if he said he’ll be in touch, because usually he just runs off to god knows where to do god knows what. 

(and how much time would they even HAVE if he has to drive all the way back??? that isn’t a quick trip, is it???)

the same criminal dude from before is now saying stuff in german and taping alice’s mouth shut, while mulder is back in the photo lab sitting practically on top of this nerdy yet attractive fellow, asking for the blurriness in the image to be reduced. and it reveals very scary looking demon things! 

mulder sees someone in the back of the photo… and they get a more enhanced image on the face, but it isn’t clear to me who it is. i felt like i was supposed to know who it was, but luckily i wasn't!

scully is ordering people out to canvas and investigate the employees who may have been working at both construction sites. i like when she does that.

mulder and the lab guy figure out that there is a shadow in the background of the photo from the kidnapper. “he’s standing over her, he means to pass judgement on her, like a god” <- an unsettling thing to say, mr. spooky

scully rolls up to one of the construction sites and i’m thinking, oh please, do not get kidnapped, please please, it’s not something we need today. she’s yelling “hello” and no one is answering... but she hears something….. 

it’s a… guy on stilts? it’s the foreman named gerry. oh… could he have made the big shadow in the picture his stilts? but he doesn’t sound german…

mulder calls and says the kidnapper’s legs are unusual, either he’s very tall or he wants to be. stilts man?!?! is it you?!

instead of playing it chill upon hearing this news, she hangs up on mulder, and turns to gerry and says “unruhe”, pulling out her gun. but he uses his stilts to jump across the building! only to collapse and fall. his getaway is thwarted as scully tells him to stop or she’ll shoot, and to prove her seriousness, she does so. but i’m not buying he’s the guy!! sorry my queen!!

NO!! I WAS FOOLED, WASN’T I??? she reaches into his pocket and pricks her finger!!! NOOO! it’s a huge pick in there! like we saw before at the kidnapping!!

is she gonna be drugged from that….

(thankfully, the pick itself did not contain the drugs)

they’re interrogating the dude, and he denies everything. i mean, i guess a lot of people could have stilts and a pick at construction sites. maybe they didn't grab the right fellow.

he says that tool is used to start keyholes in the sheetrock and all fixtures. a good excuse…

but he really does seem confused. 

however, mulder brings up that gerry was arrested before, for attacking his father with an axe handle until he spent the rest of his life in a wheelchair. OH! this is not promising.

gerry says that he was institutionalized, which mulder reveals was for a schizophrenic disorder. gerry claims that since his release, he had been taking care of his father 24/7, until he passed away in january. well i’m not entirely sure if that makes amends, but i guess it’s better than nothing?

“and how did you feel about that?” asks mulder about gerry's father's death, sounding very much like the psychology expert i sometimes forget that he is. then he reveals that the same year gerry attacked his father, gerry’s sister passed. connected….?

gerry is staring intently back at scully, saying that she looks troubled. oh! do not talk to her that way.

then mulder comes in with the enhanced photo from earlier, and asks if it shows gerry’s father. he seems taken aback, like it really is his father, and then further taken aback when he pulls out the full photo and asks if those demons figures are what he sees when he closes his eyes. this finally gets gerry to crack and say that he knows where alice is, and that she is safe, “from the howlers”. HUH? 

(is it bad my thoughts went straight to a howler monkey when he said that? i was thinking man, monkeys do not look like that at all. you and i have seen some different monkeys, gerry. but no, he does not refer to those types of howlers)

a ton of cop cars are arriving in the woods, to find alice, who is bleeding from the eyes, which can only mean one thing in this context. oh noooo. scully seems horrified and as if she is blaming herself 

oh, we get a very charged exchange here. she says it doesn’t matter what is in the photos, or if it shows gerry’s dreams or nightmares, because it’s over, and they couldn’t save alice. she starts the engine, and when i think she’s gonna drive off without mulder, he hops in. i bet that guilt that doctors feel when that cannot save a patient is even worse in her than in usual doctors, because she also has to deal with trying to rescue people from crime. :(

gerry is being taken in and photographed by the cops. but instead of a mugshot, when we see the picture, it’s the guy who was taking him in with a bullet hole in his head. oh! so that seems to confirm earlier suspicions on behalf of mulder. 

OH NO!! gerry reaches out and grabs the gun from the cop! NOOO! 

mulder points out that the image from that interaction showed the man shot in the head, but in reality, he was shot in his throat. so i guess it’s not based on reality as much as his intentions? sure, why not. and scully says there was a robbery at the pharmacy back where the very first photo was taken. no! our druggist friend!

gerry took all of the film in the store and a ton of drugs for more “twilight sleep”, which is a bad sign. i think i’ve seen this film before…

scully thinks that perhaps he was stalking his next victim at the construction site, and i’m thinking, girl i think he picked out his victim alright, but i don’t think she’s in the apartments.

mulder wants to wait a bit for his photo to come out. so he sends her to pull the car around and i’m screaming NO, NO, DON’T SEPARATE, NOT WITH A GUY ON THE LOOSE WHO LOOKED AT HER AND SAID “YOU LOOK TROUBLED” AFTER DOING 2 DIY LOBOTOMIES ON OTHER WOMEN AND KILLING 2 OTHER MEN! JUST WAIT A MINUTE AND WALK TO THE CAR TOGETHER!!!

but she cannot hear me….

NO! as she unlocks the car, a hand from beneath reaches out and pierces her foot with a needle NOOOO… and it’s gerry and she’s going down and NOOOOOO!!!!

AND MULDER PULLS THE PHOTO OUT TO FIND GERRY WAS THINKING OF SCULLY WHEN IT WAS TAKEN!

he is RUNNING after that car. despite his best efforts, even trackstar mulder is not as fast as a car, yet he follows her and screams her name regardless. until he realizes he will not win this race.

back at the police office, mulder is STARING at that photograph, the one showing scully being taken by these horrific creatures known as “the howlers”. he’s asking for any leads, including “does he have a summer house? a winter house?” which could be seen as desperation for answers or mulder being out of touch with how many people grew up with summer houses, take your pick.

OH! in gerry’s wallet was his father’s obituary. and his father was a dentist… and the name sounds german… 

so they go to his old dentist’s office, where they did an ad for the pain medicine cocktail he’s been cooking up. and mulder finds a footprint and a missing dentist’s chair. 

NO!! scully is in the dentist’s chair at some undisclosed location. waking up to find her arms and legs bound with a pick on the table and gerry in the distance. she’s watching him…. and she says to let her go. 

he begins his german ranting that has happened before the other lobotomies, and she… RESPONDS???? in clumsy german??? she says she has no unrest and doesn’t need saving, but he insists she does??? WHAT!!!

good on her for remembering some words after all those years :,)

he says everyone has some unrest, but especially her. she thinks she must remind him of his sister, and they talk about “the howlers”, who live inside your head, and make you say and do things you don’t mean.

so she turns the tables on this, and says maybe there are no such thing as howlers, and maybe he made them up to justify what his father did to his sister, which sets him off further. OH… so she thinks gerry attacking his father and his sister’s death were related. damn… that’s heavy

she tries to convince him that the “howlers” are just in HIS head, and no one else’s, as he approaches with a camera to try and prove they do exist. because cameras cannot lie!!

back at the dentist’s office, mulder appears to be losing it. mumbling about the 6 fingers the howler had in the photos, and yelling “WHY are there 6?” to no one in particular, as if he can find an answer through sheer willpower. one of the cops is asking him what to do while he looks at the obituary and counts five headstones…. and the father makes 6? sure, if that makes sense to you king!

they’re off to the graveyard while scully is still in a mystery location, with tears in her eyes as gerry shows her the photos he took. he takes the photos to mean he doesn’t have much time left, and tapes her mouth… and oh my gosh, i think of what would go down here if i knew she wasn’t gonna pull through… until gerry hears a tapping and MULDER IS LOOKING IN!! YES!!!

gerry is doing this in a camper van! by the graveyard!!! mulder is peeking in, sees a tooth keychain, and realizes she’s in there!!!! he’s yelling her name, and she’s yelling that she’s in here, while gerry tries to hold her down!!!

mulder’s BEATING on the window of the camper with his hands, and when that doesn’t work, he finds a giant metal pipe and SLAMS it into the window, goes in, and shoots gerry. this escalated quickly, but it was almost not quick enough.

mulder asks if she’s hurt, and neither of them say anything as she walks out, with mulder kneeling down to see that the last photos gerry had taken were of himself dead on the floor. it’s a terribly thick tension that reminds me of the ending to irresistible, but without the tension bursting like it did in that episode with her finally revealing her fear to him. i wish that she did it again this time. 

scully is doing the episode wrap up, sounding terribly solemn. she is reporting that gerry had written a diary intended as a letter for his father, including the list of the women he hoped to “save”. and her name is the last entry. she has no explanation for the photographs. but she empathized with him, which her survival depended upon.

“i see now the value of such insight. for truly to pursue monsters, we must understand them. we must venture into their minds. only in doing so, do we risk letting them venture into ours?” (said while there are tears in her eyes, as she looks at the photograph of her being pulled by the howlers)

WHAT THE HELL.

okay, so chris carter… you and i need to have some words. 

i have a lot of thoughts. perhaps number one: what if mulder had been 5 minutes later… can you imagine him never being able to cope with that….? oh my gosh. oh my gosh. no, i shan’t imagine. but i’m sure they both were imagining it. and that is probably why she couldn’t say anything as she walked out of the camper van. it was too horrific.

second. this was a dark one. i was giggling at first and then it got really dark. lobotomies… are a hard subject.

third. when the writers make the bad guy have a mental illness, i do feel it to be insulting, because we don’t often get a character where a guy with schizophrenia is just a guy doing normal things like working at the store or going to get his oil changed. no, he’s gotta be up to something nefarious. i wish that wasn’t the case and that these episodes didn’t use mental illness in that way, and i understand that things were kind of Like That in the 90’s and arguably still are in media, but it has been observed with distaste. 

okay, final thoughts? like i’ve said before, i believe in gender equality when it comes to kidnapping and rescuing, and i hope that will be evened out at some point. i understand that gerry had a fixation on women for his own personal reasons, but that’s the doyleist vs watsonian debate thing. and i want a 1:1 ratio on who goes about saving the day. although the ratio was uneven in s2, i’m not recalling the ratio from s3, and we’re 4 episodes into s4 with a 1:1 ratio. so i hope that overall, the entire series ratio evens out eventually. damsel in distress is gender neutral

i was actually really invested in this episode, probably because it let us look into scully deeper, and also because the stakes were high, the pacing fast, and the horror a new kind rather than a standard serial killer we get in a lot of episodes. 

but… while i appreciate that, i’m not sure i can say i enjoyed it, you know? because even a “scully speaks german” lore reveal cannot save me from the feeling of… something adjacent to fear? not horror as in “ahhh i’m so scared” but maybe a sort of horror as in “stop putting her into these fuckass situations, let my girl have a day off” and also a bit of terrible grief in knowing that lobotomies were a very real thing and did untold harm. and to be clear, i’m not saying that fact shouldn’t be explored and discussed, i just think that for me it seems to provoke some intense feelings that make me want some fluff. now. 

deliver it. to my door. as we speak. in fact, here is an incomplete list of things i want to read our agents doing in fanfiction form:

apple picking and apple cider sipping, hiking and sharing weird facts they know about the things they encounter (scully will be all “this type of spider has a unique silk production gland” and he’ll be all “this type of wildflower is used to induce hallucinogenic states” while they look at a pretty view), ice skating (can they ice skate? need to explore that), getting ice cream cones, a visit to the beach, decorating for various holidays, a very serious game night- perhaps uno or some sort of trivia where it turns into a real nerd-off, arguing over unsolved mysteries, more implications of them starting a family together if you feel bold and brave, even, but for those who like it more reserved we can just have an aquarium date, watching a meteor shower, scully attempting to understand his fascination with the various sports of the world by tagging along on an anthropological expedition to a knicks game with him, baking, movie theater trip, etc

well! i have gotten myself so enthused at the idea of them doing silly stuff like handing out halloween candy that i have forgotten all about my initial feelings, which shall surely resurface soon when i go through and edit my notes, but you’re gonna sit there and tell me you don’t want to play dolls in your head of them getting hot chocolate together? 

canon? what is canon? c’mere, kid. let’s daydream about them eloping without ever having the “what are we” conversation and ignore the suffering 

[girltigerclaw]

breaking into ur house rn

top ten characters and bottom ten. reasons are optional

I just finished this chart thing i think i actually stole from your blog a few months ago <3 Slightly edited to my own prefs.

If anyone wants the template check the reblogs, and feel free to add you own. I'd love to see. I'm just rambling under here:

Leafpool: She is more special and sacred than the virgin mary. She has everything. Daughter of the first protagonist, ex boyfriend for me to hate, TONS of wlw situationships<3, a lifetime of tragedy, and some of the most gorgeous canon art to exist.

Crookedstar: Crookedstar is a trans woman to me. Her life is genuinely just so tragic and fucked, I love it. The erins asked: “How much truama, death and misfortune can you fit into a single cat?” and then they wrote Crookedstar’s promise.

Tawnypelt: GIRLS WHO HATE THEIR FATHERS. The erins dont love her like I do.

Tallstar: I love old men… I fucking love seeing older characters and how much they’ve changed from their younger selves. Tallstar is considered one of, if not the most peaceful leader in the clans. But also when he was like 19 he went on a quest to fucking murder a guy :3

Cloudstar: I rlly do not care abt anyone in Skyclan(I like Leafstar but she's not a fav yknow?) Cloudstar... he was based as fuck. Why did Starclan get away with this shit for real??

Scourge: It’s fucking Scourge. He’s awesome

Briarlight: I’m disabled and I love her. She has such a consistent fun, sweet personality and she makes me happy!!<3

RavenBarley: It deserves all the attention and hype it gets. Though I wish mlm ships didn’t overshadow wlw ones in this fandom, RavenBarley is genuinely well written and makes me very emotional even if the publisher didnt allow it to be explicitly canon.

CrookedBlue: TRANS WOMEN CROOKEDSTAR YURI. Two leaders having a forbidden relationship and kits is way more interesting than Oakheart. The angst of Crooked and Blue sitting next to eachother every gathering while the entire forest has their eyes on them. Don’t look for too long, don’t let the mourning slip into your voice. You have to pretend your lover is a stranger. You… have become strangers. You can never be together again. You're enemies now. This is what we wanted, isn’t it? …We’ll never be happy again.

Mothwing: Her novella delving into her relationship with Hawkfrost was so good and heartbreaking.

Heathertail: Daughter of leader, sister of a major villian, and former love interest of a protagonist! Why did she fall off the second po3 ended. She’s shown to be very compassionate and willing to put her own feelings aside for the sake of others. Would’ve honestly prefered her as a mate to Lionblaze or get a pov herself over the nothing we got.

Blackstar: *Murders an elderly woman trying to stop me from kidnapping children. Supports a dictator openly abusing/neglecting children and the elderly. Murders a man for refusing to kill mixed raced children- then tells said man’s sister that she will never be safe.* Man…. i sure do feel bad for abusing and killing all of those people…. Good thing I will face no consequences and proceed to be made leader, where I will have even more power over the wellbeing of others.

I hate. This guy.

The New Prophecy: A classic. My first series was actually tnp! i feel more attached to first arc cats tho, if you couldn't already tell by my list lmao

Johanna Map- Best Tawnypelt content out there

BlueQuince: My personal handcrafted, homemade Yuri. Bluefur feels terrible about Tiny going missing and promises Quince she’ll help her find him. They never did, but they had a very… fleeting but intimate relationship. Quince is grieving and Bluefur feels so overwhelmed by the duties in her clan. They’ve always thought of eachother since but never met again.

Tigerclaw: My name sake<3 The angst of his earlier life is so, so facinating to me. Starclan being straight fucked up and decided killing him is their only option? He was a kid and they saw him as a lost cause from the start. They never tried any other methods, never tried to steer him in the right direction or… even just take it into their own hands and kill him themself, which they have SHOWN they’re capable of.

They watched all the the horrific crimes he commited, entirely aware they were going to happen. Thats. Fucking. Horrifying. Starclan is scary as shit… and his death? FANTASTIC. I only wish he’d gotten lives from cats he killed so that him coming back to life to suffer over and over was an actual curse from Starclan and not blessings. They knew how he would die and they gave him the lives to torture him for his sins…

Flywhisker: Adhd girlies. Painfully relate to that feeling of the constant scolding for never being “good enough” because I prefer to do things a certain way or struggle to focus. So, SO happy for her when she left the clans! You don’t have to prove yourself to anyone! Hope she’s happy and warm indoors with her brother💕

(P.S. I was very suprised to find she actually had an official art piece!)

Bluestar: Get behind me women with mental disorders. I will defend you. Beautifully complex and tragic character, my favorite written in the series. Literally can't think of a single other female character in handled as seriously and with the complexity of Bluestar. (Although her super edition was a bit of an L with how others treated her, it ultimately makes her breakdown even more painful.)

Exile from Shaodwclan: Nightstar my beloved! He's such a great guy. The rightful leader of Shadowclan, always and forever.

Ravenpaw's Farewell: HE DIED IN BARLEY'S ARMS, TELLING HIM HE WILL FIND HIM, NO MATTER WHERE HE IS. FUCK.

Crookedstar art: So beautiful. I genuinely think she's one of the prettiest cats in the series. This along with her official art by Wayne Mcloughlin.

Leopardstar: As a kid I hated her and loved Blackfoot, now I hate Blackfoot and love her. #feminism. But seriously I think she has way more going for her than he ever has. Her father is a medicine cat who hates violence, the DRASTIC change in Riverclan's view of outsiders upon Crookedstar's death and her leadership. Her already having a position of power before proving she's unworthy of it. (Unlike Blackstar who gets rewarded for his racism and violence by being made leader afterwards) and the fact she has to interact with her victims on a daily basis after what she did.

The writings attempts to redeem her are really lame and dismissive of the actually damage she did, but at the very least they TRIED to do something else with her. Personally, I would have loved to see her assassinated by Mistyfoot. Just like her mother Bluestar was almost killed all those moons ago by Tigerclaw... The parallels of violence for power and violence for peace. A victim repeating the actions of the very man who killed her brother to put an end to what he started in Riverclan.... A shadow in Riverclan, if you will. (<-Pretending erin hunter has hired me to rewrite their series)

Windclan: Tunneling as a concept and inviting outsiders into their clan so friendly and casual makes the clan seems so much more diverse than the others. It always stuck out to me!

Andddd there are my current warrior cat options as of 2023! If someone actually read this whole ramble ily<3

[sadbigemini]

SUPERNATURAL MY BELOVED!!! Sorry, lol... I have some SPN fic prompts today. Let's get started!

What If Dean Winchester Killed John Before The Pilot?

I saw this post talk about how the initial pilot script implied that Dean killed John instead of hunting down Yellow Eyes (Azazel).

And like just imagine!

John went 'too far' (Dean's opinion) in his abuse and Dean had to kill him. But he felt guilty even after everything that the bastard did to him and Sammy. And he couldn't be alone bc what is Dean Winchester without family, without a purpose?? 😭

So, he went to Stanford and told Sammy that Dad was on a hunting trip.

WHAT IF SAM KNEW?!?!

What if Sam knew? Whether it be from the moment Dean said something or he figured it out during the first hunt (the White Woman/Weeping Woman).

But he let Dean have his whole charade bc he knew he was working through his guilt or for some other reason??? Idk

Also in the post was during their 'first' meeting Cas was like "Dean Winchester I need you to help me kill my father" and like that can happen too lmao

It would be interesting

⛧

What if John Winchester died instead of Mary Winchester?

!!!

Patchwork Souls (title rec)

John went into the nursery instead because Mary was going to follow through with the deal she made with Azazel.

Mary would still want revenge against the demon though. Especially since she only agreed that she wouldn't enter the nursery and demons are all about technicality. Only when it doesn't apply to themselves apparently (meaning John's entry shouldn't have mattered, Yellow Eyes could have just teleported away).

So, I think she would start hunting again but she would definitely not let her grief control her. Like someone else we know (side-eyes John 😒).

Now I'm going off of Past Mary's personality bc I hate Brought Back Mary (or whatever you wanna call her lol).

Mary raises the boys and still teaches them to hunt but only for self-defense and as a precaution.

She doesn't take Dean on a hunt until he's like sixteen maybe eighteen and only because he wants to. Same with Sam. She also starts them out easy.

Dean definitely would have probably tried hunting on his own tho.

Bobby or Ellen would watch them a lot when Mary went on hunts.

Would that mean that Ellen's husband is still alive??? Whatever you want ig?

She would never leave them alone in a motel until Dean is like at least fourteen. And she would always leave them with enough money. Even if there wasn't quite enough for herself.

But when she wanted to spend some time with her boys she would hand off the case to someone else through Bobby or Ellen.

Jo would be like their little sister and Ash would be like their weird brother lmao

Bobby kinda became like a father figure to Mary and a grandfather like figure to the boys (don't get me started on that while weird relationship in the show please).

Mary makes money by becoming a private detective and solves mostly supernatural crimes. Sometimes it's just cheating husbands.

But when work is slow she works at the Roadhouse for extra cash and also hustles the hunters there.

Bobby/Jody or Jody/Donna??

Dean/Castiel in the future?

Mary encouraged Sam to pursue his dreams of a more normal safe life and becoming a lawyer. She also encouraged Dean's dreams of becoming a hunter even if she wishes he chose a different route.

The story might start with Mary being kidnapped because the demons want the colt? And Dean pulls Sam away from his more apple pie life to find her. Or maybe she went dark because she caught Yellow Eyes’ (Azazel’s) trail?

Maybe she wants to shield her boys from the demon and try to keep them safe?

What about John's deal with Azazel? Would Mary make it instead? Or would that not happen??

⛧

Dad Bobby ♡

Bobby adopts the Winchester boys legally.

When Bobby meets the Winchesters he's reminded of his father and he does something about it.

First he goes to rehab, talks to Dean (first about John not his plan yet, when he does it's a year after Dean was sent to the boy's home), starts getting friendlier with the locals, and asks Ellen and some hunters to help fix up his house. Making it not look so blatantly like a hunter's.

They hide it all in his panic room which he then makes a secret passage to so the social worker won't see it. But he keeps his guns locked up in his room.

He also takes a step back from hunting but still helps from pretending to be a FBI superior to giving hunting advice to finding hunts for others to help research lore. He focuses on his car business.

SPN has so SO many plot holes ranging from big to small so some the ages for certain things have been changed.

So, Dean went to the boy's home at 14 instead of 16. Sam was 10. Sam learned about monsters when he was 8 like in canon. Dean learned about them a little younger maybe. Currently Dean is 15 and Sam is 11???

⛧

The FBI Has A Secret Task Force Of Hunters

Supernatural and Criminal Minds crossover!!

Dean and Sam are forced to join if they don't want to go to jail. They'd also get paid a salary and have more stability. But it throws the Winchester brothers into a whole new world.

They have mandatory therapy and training tho– HA!

They'd also probably have to share their knowledge and train agents. Obviously the BAU is assigned to them.

So, the BAU works with them and gets brought into a whole new world too.

Maybe Bobby joins later and helps recruit more hunters, so they all could get paid or???

The new hunters have to probably pass a psych eval and stuff though, so???

OH MY GOD CHARLIE AND GARCIA!!!! they would bond over their VERY similar pasts and their VERY similar personalities! Dead parents bc of a car crash? Check. Sunshine nerdy personality? Check. Fangirls? Check. Tech geeks who dabbled in the illegal side of things? Check. Bright colors? Check. Fruity? Check.

THERE ARE DIFFERENCES THO SO THAT'S GOOD

Sam and Reid!

DEAN AND MORGAN!!!!

Sam And Emily!!

Sam and JJ!!!

OMG Rossi would uncle the hell out of them and I think Bobby would be jealous lmao but they would probably become drinking buddies.

CAS AND REID!!!!!!!

[benrybenrybenry-chr]

Could you explain how bbc ruined john? I grew up with that sherlock

yeah sure!

basically, to put it simplest, BBC's John Watson is not anything like John Watson as a character. As a standalone character I think I wouldn't have cared nearly as much? I mean I still personally wouldn't like him cuz he was kind of a piece of shit at times but I can still find the appeal in that. no the main issue I face is that he just acts nothing like Watson and tbh like- a lot of his actions even go against Watson's ideals??

first of all his relationship with Holmes (im gonna be using their last names here because calling them by their first names feels wrong to me) is just- weirdly negative? I don't know, him constantly making Holmes out to be a total asshole and a villain in his life is SO out of character. (though to be honest it's warranted given how out of character Holmes is in that show too, he's a total asshole for no good reason)

I think honestly the best example of this change with Watson's personality and how drastic it is, is The Empty Hearse/The Empty House

in The Empty Hearse, John's immediate reaction is to PHYSICALLY HARM Sherlock

in The Empty House, Watson's immediate reaction is (and I'm not even kidding) to faint, be woken up, and be incredibly starstruck and just happy that his best friend is alive

(I don't have a clip of BBC Sherlock but I do have one of Granada Holmes, which is the most accurate to ACD/book canon)

this also very much highlights the difference between BBC Sherlock and ACD Holmes, but that's besides the point

I'd also like to mention something that really especially annoyed me and that's that he?? is literally useless in that show???? Watson in the books is really intelligent and helps Holmes in numerous cases as well as gives his input (WHICH HOLMES TAKES TO HEART AND DOESNT JUST COMPLETELY IGNORE, BTW 🙄🙄 that always ticked me off with BBC) and does more than just get kidnapped a couple times and take notes.

ALSO ACD WATSON WOULD NEVER CHEAT ON HIS WIFE!!! OR BLAME HOLMES FOR MARY'S DEATH!!! NEVER!! would absolutely never happen. (though to be fair, ACD's equivalent of Mary's death happened in the 3 year gap between The Final Problem and The Empty House, so, yk)

if they met BBC Watson would not leave that room without broken bones lmao

idunnoidunno its a lot of "WATSON WOULD NEVER DO THAT" moments and gut feelings, it's difficult to describe properly, I found it very difficult to root for him when I felt like he was an un-likeable protagonist idkidk

(additionally they removed his fucking mustache and that is their worst offense /hj)

[melonteee]

I think you're one of the only YouTubers I know who are willing to give Dragon the benefit of the doubt for not doing anything so far in the story. Seems like it all started ever since we found out nothing was done to save Ginny from the Celestial Dragons and that's where the comparisons with Fisher Tiger began (what FT did Vs what Dragon did in the story)

When it comes down to it, there are two big things about the situation that makes them very different. Firstly, FT did his raid exactly one year before Ginny was kidnapped (trying anything right after him was going to be more complicated unless you get extensive intel on the new security systems at Marie Geoise) and he relied heavily on what he knew of the place he's been enslaved in for years to pull an escape then a raid. Secondly, Ginny wasn't an ordinary slave, she was forcefully made the wife of a Celestial Dragon (perhaps even a god knight) and Saturn's own well kept test subject. So even if the Revolutionary Army tried anything right away or one to two years later after getting enough intel (in between the war they were helping out in at the time) and managed to succeed in freeing the slaves of Marie Geoise... Ginny might not have been one of them as she would have been kept elsewhere due to her "importance"

I also thought about the explosive collars and wondered if they haven't actually started being used within Marie Geoise AFTER Fisher Tiger's raid ? Boa's flashback only showed her and her sisters with them at the auction house while neither Kuma or his parents had those on in his flashback of Marie Geoise. Only in present time did we see slaves with the explosive collar on AFTER being brought (CB introduction at Sabaody) so unless you're a Haki user on Rayleigh's level (which would make manually removing every single one of them take forever and be super noisy) or have keys for all the collared slaves at MG, those things might explode before any slave could leave the place in any hasty raid (Camie's collar was very sensible to any removal attempt)

I'm giving Dragon the benefit of the doubt because, for One Piece, we just all have to be patient LMAO.

Oda doesn't like showing his whole hand when he writes, he's not a writer who rushes to get to the good bits, and Dragon will definitely have a point to everything he's doing. If we all just sit back and wait, we will get our answers and reasonings at some point.

Also good read! I don't really have anything to add though HAHA

[angelsdean]

john saying he's known abt sam and the other special children for "awhile" in 2x01

and the demon calling him out saying he's been "playing dumb" like uhh, how he got mad at dean for not calling him (they did) to tell him that all this psychic stuff was happening with sam when john was literally at missouri's house when they were visiting and she directly told john abt sam's abilities.

but also, he's definitely known for much longer imo, and if you take the john journal companion book as canon / semi-canon then it definitely supports the idea that john Knew to some extent about sam's abilities:

these are just two passages from '91 but there are others about how demons are after sam, how sam is special. and if john was hearing this stuff abt sam in '91, there's no way he didn't start digging into things more over the years.

other people have spoken abt headcanons that john was even hunting other special children over the years. which brings me to the crunchy, tastey, AU that i've been rotating around in my mind this morning where john's not only been hunting the thing that killed mary all these years, but also been busy unraveling the sam-psychic-children plot by hunting, kidnapping, and studying other Special Children.

In this AU john isn't as incompetent as he is in canon lmao. In the 20+ years since mary's death he's discovered a whole lot, including his Men of Letters roots. In fact, he discovered the bunker and that's been his "home base" and Special Children Experimentation Lab for years. He's been studying all sorts of things. Watching footage of old MoL experiments. He connected the dots: mothers died in fires at 6 months, kids grew up to develop psychic abilities. He knows the same fate is waiting for sam and john thinks he can fix sam. He has to! That's his son. He won't let his son become some kind of supernatural thing, some kind of monster. In true john fashion he justifies all his actions as an act of love. He's trying to protect sam. Because demons are after these special children. Because these children have been corrupted. He's helping them, actually.

So john conducts experiments to try to draw out the demon blood, to purify them. Similar to how sam later tries to turn crowley human and also forcefully purifies demon dean. It's a very juicy parallel. And it draws on how sam and john hold many similar black-and-white views abt good and bad + what makes someone a monster, and how sam internalized a lot of these ideas re: becoming a monster and how the demon blood led to an obsession with "becoming pure."

John spends more and more time away from the boys, spends so much time tracking down these special children and studying them. Why does his revenge quest take over 20 yrs? Why does it seem like he's nowhere near close to tracking down Azazel until s1 rolls around? Because he's been spending so many years on this subplot. Because in his mind this is him being a good father, this is him looking out for his kids, particularly sam. He's doing all this for sam.

But then, John's never able to find a cure. And then he catches Azazel's trail again and he's off on that hunt. He "goes missing." Sam starts developing psychic powers, just as john always feared. John's aware of all this happening but still projects onto dean, still blames dean for not informing him of something he's known abt for years at this point. John's terrified because he's failed. He hasn't been able to save sam, and now sam might turn into a monster. He might go "dark side" and john can't let that happen. But he also can't kill him. He doesn't have the guts, so he puts that burden on Dean. And he trades his life for Dean's to ensure that someone will be there to carry out John's mission. Either find a way to save Sam, or kill the monster he becomes.

Edit to add two more excerpts from John's journal:

in the canon that includes this journal, john definitely was aware to some extent of sam being Special (or other people insisting he is) and he has been keeping an eye out for any strangeness manifesting in sam and worrying about sam's strange dreams and his bottled up emotions becoming dangerous

[toontails]

I'm backreading all these mf tumblr asks and I just finished and oh my GOD???? I have so many things to say ogbsjfbs

Firstly, Pib having a pet bunny that Slicer gave to them???? Slicer and Pib matching?? THEY'RE SO CUTE WAAAAA

ALSO I'M FUCKING SOBBING AA WE ALL LOVE YOU AND THE COMMUNITY WE ALL BUILT TOGETHER I LITERALLY CAN'T IMAGINE WHERE I'D BE IN LIFE WITHOUT Y'ALL LIKE YOU GUYS ARE MY EVERYTHING🫶🫶🫶

And womp womp to Felix imagine having daddy issues and (probably) getting jumped by your own dad L bozo (me n Felix both got daddy issues)

I wanna come up with theories so badly but I don't have any theories to craft and it is pissing me OFF

I'm just sayin that reader has so much potential bro like they're genuinely such a good reader insert/main character because they aren't annoying, they aren't THAT embarrassing to read and they aren't a Mary Sue either; they make mistakes and the way they behave and act makes sense for their age. I think reader and her family are such an interesting group of characters (aside from the dad LMAO) and that the Vendolez characters such as Ruck, Hector and reader are just so cool??? Reader being a fast learner is such a GODSENT character trait btw like if reader wasn't able to figure out how to use a bow as quickly as she did the entire cast would probably be SO FUCKKEDDDDD

Btw I know y'all be hatin Bendy for a multitude of reasons (including what Alice Angel said in chapter 4 I believe) but bro is such a mystery despite is seemingly knowing so much about him??? Like yeah bro is way in over his head n allat but he isn't NEARLY as bad as I think he could be- he would be an absolute BEAST if it weren't for Joey/Henry watering the mf down and making him chill tf out💀 it's so clear how much Bendy genuinely likes and cares for reader, seeing as how he's done thing after thing to ensure her safety (ranging from when he saved her from those crocodiles or whatever in that one chapter after reader frolicked off with Cups and Mugs and got kidnapped to cuddling her on the boat while they slept after reader got her ass beat by Pib) like yeah Bendy has his flaws but I do think bro is still a fairly good guy😭 (at least for the time being he is)

Ykw you right you right 😭 he good. A lil bit, But trust. We blaming Joey now for letting him be a little BITCH. Poor Bendy, if only he knew what he was capable of.

[dr-spectre]

hello!

I've seen your hypnoshades callie stuff alot on my feed, and I just kinda had a question for ya.

if the hypnoshades were, indeed, a metaphor for drug abuse by celebrities...would that not make Octavio an enabler, as he allowed Callie to utilise the hypnoshades (and most likely aided in the creation of them) ??

(this does not make Octavio a totally irredeemable bad person, at least not in my opinion. Perhaps it's the only way he knows that he can help Callie, maybe . It's just something that I've noticed that's never really been brought up in the other stuff that you've written).

Okay.... here's the thing about the hypnoshades. it's pretty obvious that Splatoon 2 in someway was rushed and that includes the story mode. It came out 2 years after Splatoon 1 and it launched with not a lot of content. Unlike something like Octo Expansion or ROTM where there is lots of explanations on things and how things work, in Splatoon 2 there isn't that and it's incredibly rushed. We don't fully know the circumstances of what happened to Callie and how Octavio gave her the shades, all we know is that Callie was like "ok fine I'll hear you out" and joined the Octarians cause of reasons I've said a trillion times lmao.

Octavio for sure did some bad shit let's not kid ourselves. He is the antagonist and he's not gonna be all sunshine and rainbows. In some way yeah he enabled Callie to use the shades and therefore she ended up getting addicted to them. Her rematch dialogue in other languages shows that Callie is attached to the shades and is a bad coping mechanism for her because well... She's still doing the acting gig and it's still hurting her.

Heck even Marie in the Russian translation says "why are you so attached to those stupid glasses? Callie, those glasses are only getting in your way!"

However this addiction is actually kinda treated like a joke and makes Callie seem more like an idiot and that.... pisses me the fuck off to no end. I get that Splatoon is silly but this is just near character assassination to me tbh.... Especially how the community treated her in that time.... But i digress.

I still don't think that Octavio is some vile monster that abused Callie in some way shape or form. He treated her as best as he could in that scenario, he didn't restrain her, he didn't force her into anything. He let her decorate bases and do other things because it helped boost the morale of the Octarians, hell the Octarians got inspired by her and made music with her vocals and stuff like that.

I truly believe that the hypnoshades are just that, hypnosis shades. Octavio probably made them for Callie so that she's less likely to just suddenly run off, which is still fucking bad mind you. Callie was willing to stay and yet Octavio was like "just in case....." But here's the thing also, hypnosis isn't mind control and you can't brainwash people with them. The term "brainwashing" is only found in the English translation of the Japanese script and so far we don't have retranslation of the original script and I'm not gonna fully trust the English translation. As a Sonic the Hedgehog fan, i know that some English translations can fuck up important details and completely change the tone of the story so easily lol.

Octavio is more of a caring person than he is not. He has been shown that he does care for troops but he's just a little bossy towards them and he has to be because his race is on the brink of collapse. He has to make these quick and bad decisions to save his people. When his people got kidnapped by Mr. Grizz, he immediately went looking for them and wanted to get revenge. And when he finds out Mr. Grizz did it, he drops his hatred for the New Squidbeak Splatoon and helps them out. His people are his top priority.

Hell if you want the ultimate proof that Octavio isn't the worst person in the world, Callie went with him to the Low Water Party after Octo Expansion, Octavio would not bring a hypnotized Callie that was missing during the events of Splatoon 2 to a fucking rave party, everyone would get his ass lol. So yeah, a Callie not under the influence of any shades went "yeah I'll rave with you!!!!"

She even smiled when Octavio came down to rescue Neo Agent 3 when everyone else was shocked, if that doesn't scream that they are good terms then i don't know what will.

Sorry if this seemed very rambly, when people talk about Hypno/ Octo Callie in any form i lock THE FUCK IN lol!

[cdyssey]

Yellowjackets 2.04 Reactions:

Past!Taivan being divided over how they feel about Lottie. :(

Adult Tai experiencing whatever Shadow Tai is doing like an out-of-body, dissociative experience. So, so harrowing. The quick VHR static edits really help to emphasize the jarring nature of it too.

ALSO, Jessica Roberts, my beloved!!!! I miss her.

I SAW SOMEWHERE THAT ALANIS MORISSETTE COVERED THE NEW INTRO. ICONIC. SMASHING. STELLAR!! Lauren Ambrose and Simone in the intro now!! Yes!!!

Shauna not being able to look Jeff in the eye while she’s lying to him is so funny, lmao. And then Jeff lying to her about overhearing cops at the gym. Fail marriage. <3 They’re falling to their old habits of not communicating with each other.

“You’re right. I should have just run around in a ski mask—also in public. Blackmailing people.” Melanie Lynskey, I love you.

NATALIE LEANING IN THE DOOR JUMPSCARE, HELP. MA’AM. WHY ARE YOU STANDING LIKE THAT. Lmfao, Nat has been in that outfit for, like, three days now. Those leather pants cannot be comfortable. My god.

That lingering shot of Lottie and Nat’s hands as Lottie gave her the keys. 😵‍💫 I’m actually quite delusional about them now. I think they should tenderly kiss and/or hatefuck.

“If Taissa and Shauna have both been kidnapped, I’m going to be very, very annoyed.” ANDNNSSNSJWJSIDS.

“I’m honored that I seem to be your favorite Yellowjacket.” QKOQWKJDKWWJ.

YES AT MISTY BEING A SWEENEY TODD ENJOYER. That is so right.

I don’t think Walter is making it out of this season alive, lmfao, but what he and Misty have going on is so good. OH, GOD, Misty and Crystal singing the same song. 😭 For the record, I don’t think she’s making it out of the woods either.

NOT MARI ACCUSING COACH BEN. GIRL, YOU’RE NEVER BEATING THE PIT GIRL ALLEGATIONS.

Ben just straight up asking if the girls would have ate him.

Oooogh, more tensions in the cabin over the supernatural vs. rationality split. It’s important to note that Lottie is very uncomfortable at being thrust into the fore by Mari. This is also the first time that Shauna verbally stakes her claim in the skeptics side. God, poor Lottie—she doesn’t want this.

Nat being really gentle with Lisa and trying to help her see through some of the compound’s bullshit. Ugh, it reminds me of that moment last season when she coached Kevyn’s kid during his game. I love her.

Lottie at the therapist/psychiatrist’s(?) office. The way she so nervously plays with her fingers. The slight crack in her voice. The tears in her eyes. God, I’m so fucking unwell.

“Lottie doesn’t need a gun.” Mari, shut up. 😭

Both adult Lottie and teen Lottie being utterly unmoored the way they are in this episode is horribly sad. As of right now, some of the girls are looking to teen Lottie for guidance, while adult Lottie is desperately wanting something to ground her.

LMFAO, the cut from Shauna realizing that Callie’s been lying to her about going to Iliana’s to immediately snooping through her daughter’s closet. So dirty. So unhinged. Ooh, at her finding the burnt Adam ID.

Ugh, that fucking detective is still flirting with her, EVEN THOUGH HE KNOWS SHE’S UNDERAGED. I hope Shauna roasts him on a spit. He’s probably going to be the reason why Shauna/Jeff get away bc of how stupid he’s being.

Mommy-daughter bonding time!!! This is all I’ve ever wanted!!!!!!!!!

Misty being so disgusted by Walter’s condiment habits. So, so funny.

“Excuse me. Do you know about the cult with the purple people?” AKQKQKSJSNSJWIEDJSJ.

“Yes, they’re awful tippers.” KQOQOQOQIEDUDJDID.

Oh, God. Tai is just straight up walking the roads now. I fear for her. She is SO unwell. And I think about her progression from S1, Ep. 1 to now. She used to be the most outwardly put together of the core four. Had the family. Had the money. Had the lucrative career. And now look at her—you can see it in her lined eyes and the unfocused way that she walks. She has gone past the point of spiraling. She is in the abyss.

Mari continuing to hear things that the others don’t... love her and Akilah’s friendship. ���

A little mouse!!! Now Akilah has an animal emblem! Rabbits for Shauna. The moose for Nat. Wolves and Tai. Deers and Lottie. Birds and Misty?

Lottie making a blood sacrifice to the hollow. Hhhgh. That musical sting while she was doing so was brutal.

The Fourteenth Gilly!!! ANAJJDJDNSND, NATALIE CUPPING HER FACE ON THE COUCH.

Shauna taking her daughter out to the middle of nowhere with no cellphone reception. <33 Just mother-daughter things.

Shauna being truthful about killing Adam. God. HER TEMPORARILY FORGETTING THAT HE WASN’T THE BLACKMAILER. It’s kind of funny and kind of harrowing, the way that these events are blurred to her. It speaks so much to the way she processes trauma.

“Shoot, yes. Kind of.” AKQKWOOQOQOWJDJDJENS. Melanie Lynskey, we’re getting you that Emmy.

“They did… we did things out there that… we’re really ashamed of. And sorry, I know—maybe one day I can talk to you about it, but for now, um, can that just be enough?” Oh, God. This line. The way that Shauna distances herself from the Yellowjackets at first because compartmentalizing is historically how she copes, but then she revisits the statement. She includes herself, but it’s too hard to talk about. You can see the utter pain in her face as she looks away. And you can also see in Callie’s microgestures that this is genuinely one of the first—if not the very first—time her mother has every willingly broached what happened in those woods. And she’s so hurt for her mom. She’s one of the few people who has identified that Shauna is hurting. I’m sick.

God, poor Callie Sadecki. Her mom’s a killer and her father is a blackmailer. No one is allowed to hate this very normal teenaged girl with fucked up parents.

The symbol-marked trees aligning to actually form the symbol. Oh, God.

Ben and Paul. 😭 Oh, Paul is Ben’s first boyfriend. I’m so tender. LET COACH LIVE.

Lisa at her mom: “I love you even when you try to control me.” Jesus fucking Christ.

NAT FUCKING PUTTING THAT GOLDFISH IN HER FUCKING MOUTH. I LOVE AN UNHINGED QUEEN.

“Is this where the purple people are?” WKWKWOWOOWIEJDWJ.

“Tell her I didn’t want us to fucking starve!” GO, MISTY!!!

Leonard. 😭😭

The direction in this episode is so stunning. Lottie going through that arch of white light and then it become elevator doors closing. So good.

THE MUTED THEME SONG IN THE MALL. ALL THE GIRLS EATING TOGETHER. I’M SO UPSET,

LAURA LEE. THAT’S HER GIRLFRIEND.

“Lottie, if you don’t get out of here, you’re gonna die.” 😭 Laura Lee still trying to protect her beyond the grave. I actually have tears in my eyes.

GODDAMMIT, THE MOOSE. NATALIE CRYING. I’M SO FUCKED UP. SO FUCKED UP.

Natalie pushing away the shot. 😭 She’s invested in Lisa. Oh, I’m so, so tender.

MISTY AND WALTER SPLIT SCREEN PARALLELS. SO GOOD. I JUST KNOW THIS MAN ISN’T LIVING. GOD.

“We only have one kid, and as parents, it’s part of our job, we have to protect her, we have to shield her from making the same shitty mistakes we made, Shauna. To throw our fucking bodies in front of her if that’s what we have to do, and what, you’re telling me that you’ve… you’ve made her an accomplice?” THIS MAN DOES NOT KNOW ABOUT THE BABY IN THE WOODS. OTHERWISE, HE WOULDN’T BE FUCKING SAYING THAT, RIGHT? IF HE DOES KNOW, DUDE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

“We are lying to everyone, okay, everyone we know. I don’t want to do that to our own daughter.” The vulnerability in Shauna’s voice. So many fascinating layers here. Objectively, Jeff is right—making Callie an accomplice is harrowing. But what’s happening in the subtext is that Callie wants to desperately to connect with her parents, her mom especially, and vice fucking versa!! So it’s fucked up that it’s happening this way, and it’s fucked up that Shauna sounded more like a teenager in that conversation by the car, and it’s fucked up that Callie is so accepting, but that is the literal point here. This family was founded upon deep and unspeakable trauma, and they have to continually grapple with that.

Anyway, Sadecki family bonding moments. <33 I love a family who does crime together and they’re all messed up beyond comprehension.

Shauna tenderly filling Nat’s tub with water. 😭

Oh, my fucking God. The Lottie and Nat tub scene. Sobbing. They’re just kids.

Lottie having a reaction to a Queen card with the eyes scratched out. The girls 100% drew cards to see who the fuck was gonna be hunted.

LOTTIE, LOVE, WHERE ARE YOU TAKING THAT BIG ASS KNIFE?

OH, GOD, SHE’S OFFERING BLOOD SACRIFICES AGAIN. The tears in her eyes.

“Can this just be enough? Please?”

FUCKING JAVI?!

Van exposing Taissa’s preternatural ability. Hhhhgh. Things aren’t looking good for Vantai in the woods.

WHILE YOU WERE STREAMING. AaqkqkkwkqowsksniwiwJQJEJD.

Tai adjusting her hair, even though she clearly hasn’t seen a bed in a week. Go, girl failure. Get ur woman.

ADULT VAN. SOBBING. CRYING SCREAMING. SHE LOOKS SO GOOD.

[sea-owl]

Mary: This reminds me of something that happened back in India.

Violet: Oh, Mary, stop! Mary, why is it that every time one of us makes an observation, the first thing we hear from you is "Back in India?" I mean, did it ever occur to you that maybe we're tired of hearing "Back in India," "Back in India," "Back in India!"

Mary: Gee, no, I... I'm sorry.

Violet: Oh... that's okay.

Mary: [pauses for a moment to rethink her approach] Back in that country whose name you're tired of hearing...

Violet: Mary!

Lmao. Imagine this happening in the Gothic Featheringtons AU. So you have Mary going, "Back in India," and Portia going "Back in Spain." It drives Violet insane.

Mary does work arounds like this while Portia just switches to Spanish.

They do it on purpose sometimes because seeing Violet wound up from time to time is funny.

Once Violet has completed her life goal of marrying off every single member of her brood Mary and Portia kidnap, I mean, bring Violet on a surprise tour with them. They start in Spain and make their way to India.

Violet has to begrudgingly admit she had a nice time in both countries when they come back to England.

[charlieslowartsies]

I read the newest chapter of Lies Within and a few things I loved:

DJ casually kidnapping Max bc his good friend asked and a love of headphones

Glitchtrap's creepy possessiveness over Goldy. (Also wondering if Ness is truly discarded bc Mike is rotting away.)

Gregory and Glamfred now have a third member! You can also see a bit under Gregory's tough guy exterior and realize that he's just a kid who is delighted by a lot of things (something I think a lot of fans forget)

Vanessa and Daycare Attendant's dynamic as a meant to be pairing that got twisted. It feels like to me that Moondrop's mostly written her off in favor of Max (has a small spark of hope however) but Sunnydrop still wants her. Makes me wonder what it would've been like if Glitchtrap hadn't screwed things up.

I'm so glad you liked the recent chapter! While it didn't give me the same fight that chap 14 did, for some reason I was a little nervous with it. But I hit all the topics I wanted to on the outline, so we should be good for the upcoming climax. I commented on some of your bullet points, but since I ramble, tossing them under a RM lmao:

I LOVED writing DJ, mostly because he's one of the few Animatronics that is, more or less, seated in the middle of the Good/Bad line. He's not evil or controlled, but he's not able to be incredibly active or involved. He does, however, end up making a lil bond with Max!

Yep~ It's been brought up a few times, but Glitchtrap's obsession with getting what he can't have seems to be over riding some common sense or smarts he previously used to manipulate the Pizza Plex. Glitchtrap's obsessiveness is meant to parallel what the Marionette went through before Devil's Spine and during--so focused with finding the perfect Suit and not caring how many lives it ruined as it searched for a way to protect the restaurant.

Some of my favorite parts to work on are the scenes where Gregory breaks down and feels his emotions. Obviously this has been a terribly long, terrible night, though it hasn't been his first awful night. But he is still a kid. His concern over Glambear, the gang feeding him, and his small cry sessions and short naps are things I wanted to see in Security Breach. And just as important are the things that still turn him into a kid--wide eyed and wondrous at the world, be it Mari or DJ or even just a simple candy bar being given to him.

Moon feels very cheated by the system, haha. So does Sunny, but he's more open minded. It also might mean that Vanessa (should she choose too, of course) has to work to earn the DCA's trust if she wants to stay in her position as Head Guard. After all, she was only given the job due to Glitchtrap's meddling and controlling. Moony doesn't feel she's earned it, maybe, nor does he trust her due to Glitchtrap. (Of course, how many don't trust Moon either because of his erratic actions?) But trust and friendship can be rebuilt in some cases! It will certainly come down to communication (and perhaps Vanessa's trust colors being shown.) Moon didn't engage with the Marionette until he thought about all the ways the Puppet could be of use to the Mega Pizza Plex.