#funnel mapping

[milalabsus]

Unveiling the Benefits and Meaning of Funnel Mapping

In the world of marketing, understanding customer behavior and optimizing the sales process is crucial for success. One powerful tool that aids in this endeavor is funnel mapping. Funnel mapping provides a visual representation of the customer journey, allowing businesses to identify bottlenecks, optimize conversions, and enhance overall marketing strategies. In this blog post, we will delve into the benefits and meaning of funnel mapping, exploring how it can revolutionize your marketing efforts.

Meaning of Funnel Mapping: Funnel mapping, also known as sales funnel mapping or customer journey mapping, is the process of visually representing the steps a customer takes from initial awareness to final conversion. It involves breaking down the customer journey into distinct stages or touchpoints, such as awareness, consideration, decision-making, and retention. By mapping out these stages, businesses gain a comprehensive understanding of their customers' interactions and can identify areas for improvement.

Benefits of Funnel Mapping:

1. Enhanced Customer Understanding: Funnel mapping allows businesses to gain valuable insights into their customers' behavior and preferences at each stage of the buying process. By analyzing data such as website traffic, click-through rates, and conversion rates, marketers can identify patterns and trends that help them understand what motivates customers to move through the funnel. This knowledge enables businesses to tailor their marketing strategies to meet customers' needs more effectively.

2. Improved Conversion Rates: One of the primary benefits of funnel mapping is its ability to optimize conversion rates. By identifying potential bottlenecks or drop-off points in the customer journey, businesses can implement targeted strategies to address these issues. For example, if a significant number of customers abandon their shopping carts during the checkout process, funnel mapping can highlight this problem. Marketers can then focus on improving the checkout experience by streamlining the process or offering incentives to complete the purchase.

3. Streamlined Marketing Strategies: Funnel mapping provides a holistic view of the customer journey, enabling businesses to align their marketing efforts with each stage. By understanding where customers are in the funnel, marketers can deliver personalized and relevant content that guides them towards conversion. This targeted approach ensures that marketing resources are allocated efficiently, resulting in higher engagement and better ROI.

[lambda-core]

I am way too tired/jetlagged to make this post right now, but the reason Armada Starscream is so specifically well done to me actually isn't just the way he's got more depth than just wanting to take over Megatron. It's the way he falls back on this image he has of himself as someone who is solely focused on Megatron. And he is obsessed with Megatron, but the disconnect between Starscream and his image of himself is what gives him actual depth.

The reason this is so cool to me is like, that self-image--that he is single-mindedly obsessed with Megatron and will sacrifice everything else for that goal, no matter who gets hurt--is pretty close to what every other Starscream is. (The selfishness you associate with Starscream is a little more subtle, but it's there in the "no matter who gets hurt" clause imo.)

So if you go into this as a Transformers fan, you're already expecting Starscream to betray Megatron and try to best him and rule the Decepticons. But so does Starscream, even when he's demonstrably proven to both his peers and the audience that he's more than that. It's almost like his past incarnations--or the audience's expectation of him--haunt him. It turns his own internal man-versus-self conflict into this really cool man-versus-narrative conflict.

And what's crazy about this is, through the last moments of this arc, Starscream does grow beyond the narrative we'd expect from other Starscreams! But he never admits that to himself, because it's easier for him to cling to the idea that he's laser-focused on his hatred of Megatron. Every time he helps the minicons--every time he helps the humans--even in his last words, he LIES to himself and everyone around him that everything he did was always about Megatron. Because it's easier to simplify himself than to grasp that he might be a complex character. Because he's a person and he has all the messy conflicts that come with that. He falls back on the same ideas every single other Starscream did, and THAT is his undoing. Not that he is self-centered because he's Starscream. Not that he is obsessed with Megatron because he's Starscream. That he THINKS he is all of those things and he will not LET himself be anything else.

I would argue that that's a bigger theme in Armada, as well. Optimus and Megatron more or less spend their final fight coming to terms with their story roles in Transformers. I really feel like if you sneezed on them, they would realize they do this in every universe and in every timeline. Starscream's is the most interesting example to me, though, because he's such a departure from other versions of Starscream; hell, he acts (and looks, lol) a lot more like some incarnations of Thundercracker. But he's still got classic Starscream in him in this roundabout meta reference. He's like an homage to his namesake. It's so cool! And it works perfectly with the story he's a part of.

[tabletopgayventures]

Things have been happening!

First: I have sooooooooo many ttrpgs... I really need to update my list @~@;;; I also need to run more of them...

Second: I ran Never Stop Blowing Up on Monday! It was a lot of fun. I think I want to run it a couple more times... Maybe do a short campaign. I also want to edit my oneshot and maybe publish it. I call it the "Millennium Heist". I also want to try the system with DCC's zocchi dice.

Third: I played DCC with a leveled character for the first time. It was interesting... I didn't enjoy the gauntlet so much, partly because I didn't know it was a gauntlet and partly because my first 4 characters died VERY quickly. But this was a full game with a leveled character. Not sure how I feel about the how the dice chain works yet but, I'm still new to the system and I want to see where it goes. My current character did almost get killed last game so uh-oh! XD

Fourth: Currently playing Suicide Squad Descent into Avernus using DnD 2014. I enjoy my group and the adventure but yall I don't like 5e... I am talking with my group about switching to another system but I don't know which one. I don't want to go to Pathfinder 1e since it's my main and I want to try something else. Maybe Tales of the Valiant... but I'm also thinking Dungeon World... I need to do some looking.

Fifth: Still planning my Cairn campaign I just need to figure out how to draw the map.

[arctic-hands]

Confirmed tornado, estimated EF1, confirmed by NWS to have touched down in Baltimore and made it's way into Dundalk

[reasonsforhope]

When self-described “ocean custodian” Boyan Slat took the stage at TED 2025 in Vancouver this week, he showed viewers a reality many of us are already heartbreakingly familiar with: There is a lot of trash in the ocean.

“If we allow current trends to continue, the amount of plastic that’s entering the ocean is actually set to double by 2060,” Slat said in his TED Talk, which will be published online at a later date. 

Plus, once plastic is in the ocean, it accumulates in “giant circular currents” called gyres, which Slat said operate a lot like the drain of the bathtub, meaning that plastic can enter these currents but cannot leave.

That’s how we get enormous build-ups like the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a giant collection of plastic pollution in the ocean that is roughly twice the size of Texas.

As the founder and CEO of The Ocean Cleanup, Slat’s goal is to return our oceans to their original, clean state before 2040. To accomplish this, two things must be done.

First: Stop more plastic from entering the ocean. Second: Clean up the “legacy” pollution that is already out there and doesn’t go away by itself.

And Slat is well on his way.

Pictured: Kingston Harbour in Jamaica. Photo courtesy of The Ocean Cleanup Project

When Slat’s first TEDx Talk went viral in 2012, he was able to organize research teams to create the first-ever map of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. From there, they created a technology to collect plastic from the most garbage-heavy areas in the ocean.

“We imagined a very long, u-shaped barrier … that would be pushed by wind and waves,” Slat explained in his Talk. 

This barrier would act as a funnel to collect garbage and be emptied out for recycling. 

But there was a problem.

“We took it out in the ocean, and deployed it, and it didn’t collect plastic,” Slat said, “which is a pretty important requirement for an ocean cleanup system.”

Soon after, this first system broke into two. But a few days later, his team was already back to the drawing board. 

From here, they added vessels that would tow the system forward, allowing it to sweep a larger area and move more methodically through the water. Mesh attached to the barrier would gather plastic and guide it to a retention area, where it would be extracted and loaded onto a ship for sorting, processing, and recycling. 

It worked. 

“For 60 years, humanity had been putting plastic into the ocean, but from that day onwards, we were also taking it back out again,” Slat said, with a video of the technology in action playing on screen behind him.

To applause, he said: “It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen, honestly.”

Over the years, Ocean Cleanup has scaled up this cleanup barrier, now measuring almost 2.5 kilometers — or about 1.5 miles — in length. And it cleans up an area of the ocean the size of a football field every five seconds.

Pictured: The Ocean Cleanup's System 002 deployed in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Photo courtesy of The Ocean Cleanup

The system is designed to be safe for marine life, and once plastic is brought to land, it is recycled into new products, like sunglasses, accessories for electric vehicles, and even Coldplay’s latest vinyl record, according to Slat. 

These products fund the continuation of the cleanup. The next step of the project is to use drones to target areas of the ocean that have the highest plastic concentration. 

In September 2024, Ocean Cleanup predicted the Patch would be cleaned up within 10 years. 

However, on April 8, Slat estimated “that this fleet of systems can clean up the Great Pacific Garbage Patch in as little as five years’ time.”

With ongoing support from MCS, a Netherlands-based Nokia company, Ocean Cleanup can quickly scale its reliable, real-time data and video communication to best target the problem. 

It’s the largest ocean cleanup in history.

But what about the plastic pollution coming into the ocean through rivers across the world? Ocean Cleanup is working on that, too. 

To study plastic pollution in other waterways, Ocean Cleanup attached AI cameras to bridges, measuring the flow of trash in dozens of rivers around the world, creating the first global model to predict where plastic is entering oceans.

“We discovered: Just 1% of the world’s rivers are responsible for about 80% of the plastic entering our oceans,” Slat said.

His team found that coastal cities in middle-income countries were primarily responsible, as people living in these areas have enough wealth to buy things packaged in plastic, but governments can’t afford robust waste management infrastructure. 

Ocean Cleanup now tackles those 1% of rivers to capture the plastic before it reaches oceans.

Pictured: Interceptor 007 in Los Angeles. Photo courtesy of The Ocean Cleanup

“It’s not a replacement for the slow but important work that’s being done to fix a broken system upstream,” Slat said. “But we believe that tackling this 1% of rivers provides us with the only way to rapidly close the gap.”

To clean up plastic waste in rivers, Ocean Cleanup has implemented technology called “interceptors,” which include solar-powered trash collectors and mobile systems in eight countries worldwide.

In Guatemala, an interceptor captured 1.4 million kilograms (or over 3 million pounds) of trash in under two hours. Now, this kind of collection happens up to three times a week.

“All of that would have ended up in the sea,” Slat said.

Now, interceptors are being brought to 30 cities around the world, targeting waterways that bring the most trash into our oceans. GPS trackers also mimic the flow of the plastic to help strategically deploy the systems for the most impact.

“We can already stop up to one-third of all the plastic entering our oceans once these are deployed,” Slat said.

And as soon as he finished his Talk on the TED stage, Slat was told that TED’s Audacious Project would be funding the deployment of Ocean Cleanup’s efforts in those 30 cities as part of the organization’s next cohort of grantees. 

While it is unclear how much support Ocean Cleanup will receive from the Audacious Project, Head of TED Chris Anderson told Slat: “We’re inspired. We’re determined in this community to raise the money you need to make that 30-city project happen.”

And Slat himself is determined to clean the oceans for good.

“For humanity to thrive, we need to be optimistic about the future,” Slat said, closing out his Talk.

“Once the oceans are clean again, it can be this example of how, through hard work and ingenuity, we can solve the big problems of our time.”

-via GoodGoodGood, April 9, 2025

[orangeoctopi7]

Hey! On and off again Colorado resident here! One possible explanation is that Alamosa has a small University so there is probably a small concentration of traffic just going in and out for Adams State.

Also, concerning the smaller highways (route 160 and 285) something that I think people from outside the Rockies area don't always realize is just how BIG the mountains here are and how DIFFICULT driving a mountain pass can be, even in good weather. I looked this up to confirm that route 160 is the road I think it is, and YEP. That's Wolf Creek Pass. First related search Google shows me? "Is Wolf Creek Pass hard to drive?" And an article from the Colorado DOT saying there were 47 semi truck crashes from 2015 to 2019.

None of these photos are in icy conditions (except MAYBE the one on the far right). Driving on a steep grade is dangerous. So yeah, the terrain definitely has something to do with it. When you're in the Rockies, you stick to the main interstates unless you live on those back roads or you HAVE to take that route.

Commuter Mega Regions of the United States of America

[nemo-writes]

𝗮𝗯𝘀𝗼𝗹𝘂𝘁𝗲𝗹𝘆 𝘀𝗺𝗶𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗻 I chapter twelve

(dr. jack abbot x nurse!reader)

⤿ chapter summary: jack's day off begins with memory and ritual, a quiet reckoning between breath and bone. but peace never lingers long—not in his world.

⤿ warning(s): graphic depictions of violence

⟡ story masterlist ; previous I next

✦ word count: 2.3k

Jack’s day off is always thin ice—too much space for thoughts to echo—but he marks Veterans Day anyway, the way a believer keeps holy water near the door.

Morning, he rides the bus to the granite memorial by Point State Park, prosthetic ticking softly on the pavement. He traces eight letters on Panel 19—men who joked about Pittsburgh pierogis during chow, who died clearing a road Jack still sees in dreams. He presses his forehead to the cold stone and bargains, same as every year: I’m still here; I’ll make it count.

By noon he’s walking the river trail while herons lift off the water, but for once the sharp November air feels more like medicine than punishment. He times his breathing to the slap of sneakers behind him—old habit, mapping threats even in a city park—then forces himself to look up, catalog the living: a kid chasing leaves, a couple arguing about grocery lists. No IEDs, no snipers, just ordinary chaos. He reminds his heartbeat that it’s allowed to slow.

Late afternoon finds him at a hole-in-the-wall diner with Ahmad from the old unit, the only friend who doesn’t flinch when Jack jumps at slammed doors. They swap dad jokes, dissect the Steelers’ offensive line, but eventually the talk slides where it always does: how silence isn’t peace, just camouflage.

“Quiet stretches never last,” Ahmad says around a mouthful of pie. “Stay frosty, Doc.”

Jack laughs, but it sticks halfway down. He knows Ahmad is right; something in him is always measuring exits—even now, even home.

His day back, he strides back into the lobby expecting the usual routine end-of-shift bustle. Instead he walks straight into a wall of flashing reds and blues. Police radios hiss under the vaulted ceiling; security tape cords off the east service stairwell. A cluster of officers in ballistic vests crowds the information desk while hospital staff hover at the margins, faces blanched with dread.

His heart slams once, hard. Quiet stretches never last.

“Jack!” Dana’s voice slices through the clamor. She barrels toward him, Robby a half-step behind. Her icy blond hair is half out of its clip, cheeks blotched; Robby’s normally playful grin is gone, jaw set tight.

He takes one step, then another, heart punching up into his throat. The din narrows to a single question: Where is she?

“What the hell happened?!” he snaps out instead, voice already half-feral.

Dana intercepts him, fingers biting into his bicep. “It’s the stalker, they’re both on the roof,” she pants. “He’s a lab doc—pathology—has her pinned with a scalpel. SWAT’s staging now.”

The vowels barely register; the meaning detonates. Your rooftop—your shared sanctuary—has been turned into a kill ring. He lunges for the stairwell entrance, but Robby is suddenly there, forearm across Jack’s chest, muscles corded.

“Brother, stop.” Robby’s voice quavers—he never shakes. “Negotiator’s already up. Gloria’s locked down every route.”

Every instinct in Jack’s body screams breach, clear, extract—the algorithm seared into him overseas—but here he’s hemmed in by Kevlar and assault rifles, a medic with shaking, empty hands while the woman he loves is upstairs at knife-point.

Robby and Dana funnel him toward what used to be the reception bay, now a hive of armor and jargon. The Pitt— chronically understaffed on a calm day— was buckling under the strain. Orderlies hustle bewildered patients toward side exits for ambulance transfers; wheelchairs clog the corridor like abandoned shopping carts. A charge nurse argues with two uniformed cops who won’t let her retrieve a critical drug from Pyxis; an elderly visitor sobs into a cellphone, begging for updates on her husband still in radiology. Above the din, overhead pages stutter with diversion orders—all inbound trauma rerouted to Mercy, all code strokes diverted to Presby—clogging an already overloaded city grid.

The admissions desk is gone, buried beneath stacked monitors, tangle of ethernet cables, and a glowing tactical map where insurance forms once sat. Rifles sway inches from IV poles; the stench of gun oil mixes with disinfectant and sour adrenaline. Nurses hover at the perimeter, eyes round, shrinking from the foreign clink of magazine plates in a place built for scalpels.

At the center of it all stands Gloria, white blouse damp with sweat, headset skewed, radio pinned to her shoulder as if it’s grafted to bone. She barks orders like suppressing fire:

“Seal Imaging elevators. Trauma One hot; C-arm standing by. No one but ESU touches the roof hatch— copy that?”

As if on cue, an ESU lieutenant stomps over, ready to clear them out, and Jack is more than ready to square up to any attempt to have him removed. But instead, Gloria plants her palm on the desk and meets his eyes without blinking. “He’s my trauma doctor,” she snaps. “He stays until I say otherwise.”

The lieutenant’s jaw works—unused to hospital brass talking back—but he nods. Gloria rounds on Jack. Her pupils are pinpoints of battle focus. “Stay sharp, but stay here. When they need medical intel you’re their lifeline. We do this by the book.”

Jack’s fingernails bite crescents into his palms. The urge to charge the stairwell is a live current under his skin, but Gloria’s steel sinks into his spine: Hold the line, doctor.

He gulps air that tastes of ammonia and fear, forcing combat breaths—four in, four out—until the roar in his ears recedes enough to think. Around him, chaos snarls: a respiratory therapist yells for security clearance to reach NICU; a porter tries to wheel an intubated patient through a knot of shields; Dana pleads with a patrol sergeant for scraps of information but gets stonewalled. Everyone is starved for intel, and the cops are sealing it up tight.

Robby presses a lukewarm coffee into Jack’s fist—a flimsy anchor—and plants himself like a guard tower. Dana rubs rough circles between Jack’s shoulders, her own tears biting the corners of her eyes. Code tones ripple overhead—someone in Ortho crashing, another ward running out of ventilators—ordinary disasters threading through the extraordinary and present one.

Time stretches like piano wire ready to snap. Jack’s gaze nails the stairwell doors where helmeted officers flow in and out with reptilian precision. Every slight change in their posture dumps a fresh flood of adrenaline into his blood. He counts respirations, memorizes the tremor of the coffee lid, fights the terror that tells him any minute now could be the last minute for the woman he loves.

A fresh stir ripples the phalanx of shields: the ESU incident commander had arrived. Broad-shouldered in matte armor, visor up, he scans the overflowed lobby once, then motions Gloria away from her makeshift desk. She follows, radio muted, and the two disappear behind a bank of wheeled charts—privacy in a sea of chaos.

Jack can’t hear them, but he reads the body language as if it’s vital signs: the commander gesturing upward, two fingers stabbing roof-ward; Gloria folding her arms, shaking her head, jaw a hard slash. He leans in again, she slices the air with a flat palm—No. He answers with an open hand—Option?—then draws an invisible blade across his own throat. Jack’s stomach knots. Gloria’s shoulders sag; she rubs her temples, then finally nods, clipped and furious.

They re-emerge. The commander’s voice is low but carries across the hush of stalled stretchers. “Doctor Abbott,” he says, visor eyes meeting Jack’s. “Subject on the roof is naming you. Only you. He’s threatening to advance if anyone else breaches.”

A collective inhale shudders through nearby nurses. Gloria steps beside the commander, spine rigid. “You’ll go wired—live audio, vest cam,” she orders, not asks. “Hands visible. If the blade lifts, you step back. ESU owns the follow-through.”

Dana’s grip tightens on Jack’s sleeve; Robby’s jaw clenches so hard the muscle jumps. Jack answers before either can object.

“Copy. Get me a mic and a vest.”

An operator hustles forward with Kevlar and a throat mike. As Jack cinches straps, he catches the brief lift of the commander’s brow at the service tattoo on Jack’s bicep, the soft clack of the prosthetic knee. Respect, or recalibration—either way, the tech’s voice gentles while threading the comm line.

Gloria hovers for a single heartbeat, eyes burning. “Slow tone,” she warns. “Open palms. Bring her home.”

“I will,” Jack says, the promise flat as bedrock.

He turns to Dana and Robby—fear and faith sharing their faces—and nods once. Then the tactical wedge folds around him, shields raised, and they move in concert down the corridor toward the familiar stairwell that climbs into November dark, where a scalpel gleams beside the only heartbeat he cares about.

The rooftop is a slab of charcoal under a moonless sky, rimmed only by the faint orange wash of parking-lot lamps below. Jack steps through the access door in a slow, deliberate silhouette—palms open, fingers spread, nothing but night air between him and the man crouched beside the east parapet.

You’re half-folded in the stranger’s lap, knees and elbows scraped. He’s coiled around you like barbed wire—one arm cinched at your waist, the other gripping a scalpel so close to your throat Jack can see your pulse banging beneath the blade. Your tears have carved messy tracks over your cheeks; your chest jerks with soundless panic.

All the bright spirit that greeted sunrise twelve hours earlier is crushed into this trembling knot of terror.

Jack’s heart lurches hard enough to bruise, but his voice comes out steady—field-medic calm. “Dorian. Hands are up and empty, just like you asked.”

Dorian looks over at him, cheek is a blistered patch of red where something scalding had probably struck; sweat beads at his hairline, eyes glittering fever-bright. “I should’ve been first,” he hisses, tightening his grip until you flinch. “If only you hadn’t shown up in her life, she’d have seen me sooner.”

“It’s not a competition,” Jack answers, taking a measured step forward. Every inch he moves is a war against the urge to sprint, tackle, bleed. “No one’s against you here.”

“Liar.” Dorian’s voice cracks, half sob, half rage. “You barge in with your soldier heroics—she was perfect before you muddied it. My notes, my gifts—she understood order. Now look!” He shakes the scalpel in wild emphasis; the blade flashes, too near your skin. Your sob becomes a choking whimper.

Jack’s fingers curl, then flatten. Show no threat. “She’s exhausted, Dorian. Let her breathe. Then we can talk about what went wrong.”

“You went wrong!” he spits. He nestles the edge under your jaw; you freeze. Jack feels his own vision blaze white then narrow to a single target: that trembling wrist. He exhales, forces every molecule of fury down into his boots.

“We both care about her,” he says—voice dropping to that steady frequency meant to slow hemorrhages and heart rates. “And caring means easing her fear. You can do that—right now—by moving the blade away.” He nods at your tear-streaked face.

Dorian’s eyes flick to the knife, conflicted. Jack inches closer, keeping shoulders square, hands still high.

“She’s crying because I disappointed her,” Dorian whimpers, the certainty of his delusion buckling. “Tell him,” he orders you, shaking your shoulders. You sob harder, unable to speak.

Jack’s muscles bunch. The comm in his ear hisses: Seven feet. Clear head-shot. But he breathes, Not yet.

“This isn’t disappointment; it’s exhaustion,” Jack says, voice softening. “Fourteen hours on her feet, then a rooftop wind at night. She needs rest. We can give her that. Slide the blade to the ground, Dorian. Let me check her vitals.”

Dorian’s grip falters—a micro-tremor. He licks cracked lips, gaze darting between Jack’s calm stance and the dark slit of sky beyond the rail, as if weighing two horizons.

Jack takes another half step, almost within reach. Fury climbs his throat—your bruised arm, the tremor in your lower lip—but he buries it beneath the medic’s vow: first, do no harm.

“Dorian,” he murmurs, voice a thread anchoring three frantic heartbeats in the dark, “you’ve got control. Show me.”

The rooftop wind gusts, snapping stale hospital air into their faces. For one suspended moment, the blade wavers—hesitation shining like a crack in glass. And Jack readies every fiber of nerve to slip through that fracture and pull you back to daylight.

Dorian’s wrist trembles. Then—like a circuit finally sparking—he exhales and lets the scalpel slip from his fingers. It clicks against concrete, spins once, comes to rest.

“Good,” Jack murmurs, stepping closer. The night wind cuts between them, smelling of river ice and asphalt. He sees the decision glazing over Dorian’s eyes half a heartbeat too late.

“No one understands balance,” Dorian whispers, almost serene. “But maybe they’ll understand gravity.”

Before the words fully register, he surges upright, hauling you with him. His arm locks across your collarbones, iron-strong despite his wiry frame. Your ragged gasp rips the stillness apart.

Jack reacts—voice lost to roaring blood—but Dorian is already backing toward the parapet. ESU shouts behind him; boots thunder. The rooftop seems to tilt, time shearing into jagged frames: Dorian’s heel hitting the low ledge, your eyes huge with terror.

“Jack!” you scream—the single syllable shredding to panic.

And then he does the unthinkable: with a final, almost tender squeeze, he pitches himself backward, hauling you over the edge into black vacancy. Your cry knifes through the night just as Jack pushes, arms outstretched, heart detonating, every instinct pulverizing the distance between life and a twenty-story fall—

— and the world cuts to white noise and freefall.

divider credit

[after-witch]

Death by Stereo [Yandere Chrollo x Reader] [Vampire AU]

Title: Death by Stereo [Yandere Vampire Chrollo x Reader]

Synopsis: You’re just a nobody living in a small town when a mysterious stranger with a leather jacket, good looks and a penchant for kissing your hand rolls in, just in time for the ever-popular summer carnival. Things are going great, until dead bodies start piling up. 

Word count: 17,510

Notes: yandere, vampire AU, descriptions of dead bodies, some violence, gore, abuse

Thursday

Is there anything more wearisome than a small town? Small towns grind you down so slowly that you don’t realize your feet have been eroded into useless nubs before it’s too late, and you have nowhere to run, even if you had the inkling to get away. 

A small town has its charms, as they say--but it has its burdens, too. You know all the faces, but all the faces know you; some of them have even known you since you were just an ultrasound picture carried dutifully in your mother’s purse, pulled out at coffee shops and book clubs. 

They know when you got your first period (age 13, in the middle of gym class--you were wearing white shorts); when your first boyfriend dumped you (at the school dance, right before he made out with the third most popular girl in school); what colleges you applied to, and later--why you dropped out (your dad got sick) and how he was doing (not so great but getting better) and where you worked, how you liked your coffee, and all these impersonal and personal details that made up the monotony of your life. 

It was a trap, this small town life. A faux bubble of intimacy that your parents embraced, but you’d never fully believed. Because despite knowing so much about you, no one here really knew you. They could tell you that you looked just like your mom at her age; they could sling down a mug with your coffee order without you opening your mouth (black, 1 sugar, 1 cream, no milk)--but they didn’t want to hear about how much you wanted to travel; how much you wanted to see.

Did it matter? You weren’t getting out anytime soon, anyway.

Like all small towns, yours had a claim to fame. While others might boast being the hometown of some B-list celebrity or the site of an all-you-get-eat seafood festival, your particular small town had one edge over the others: a summer carnival right on the beach, designed to appeal to nearby tourists who came to much larger, resort-friendly beaches for the summer season. 

The tourists loved to flock here on that singular summer weekend, pretending they were enjoying a quaint local carnival where they got drunk on cheap beer and sampled funnel cake until they puked. And if the locals hustled them as much as possible, overcharging for drinks and parking and sightseeing maps, was that so bad? Small towns needed to leech off new blood once in a while, after all.

The carnival was four days long--Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. Sunday was, of course, the grand finale. There was a massive fireworks show on the beach, a huge concert with local and sometimes vaguely familiar bands. A lot more booze traded hands on Saturdays, and the beach was lit up with more than just fireworks; the local volunteers always spent the next week picking up cigarette butts and discarded joints in the sand.

The carnival can be fun. Although like anything that happens every single year in a small town you’ve lived in your entire life (save the one year of college you managed before your dad’s test results came back) it gets wearisome.

Still--you go. What else is there to do? Besides, you’d be stupid to deny that it’s more fun to spend your summer weekend wandering the carnival, riding a few rides, speaking to people, than to sit at home or pick up an extra shift at the diner. 

That’s why you’ve wandered into the carnival today--Thursday. Thursday is your favorite day of the carnival, because it’s the most quiet, relatively speaking. There are tourists here, sure, but they’re not rowdy yet. Not as overcrowded. There aren’t gaggles of kids running around with lobster-red faces and arms because they’re parents didn’t understand the necessity of sunscreen; there aren’t groups of women traveling in packs with matching sunglasses and hats, enjoying a summer break away from their rich and distant husbands.

It’s mostly locals on Thursday. People like you, bored coffee shop workers with nothing better to do on a Thursday evening.

Or people like Jake Jenson over there, currently aiming a colorful dart at a row of balloons in one of many carnival games that would hustle drunk tourists out of their money this weekend.

Jake was the town drunk--a title he gave himself, and others were only too happy to oblige him. He stuck to himself most of the time. During the carnival, he won as many carnival prizes as possible, and traded them to tourists with shitty aim for beers or cigarettes. 

And over there--the early birds. They’ve come three years in a row, you think from somewhere in New  York. They’re attached at the hip, constantly rubbing their noses together like some twee movie couple, and you’ve heard them complain that the boardwalks in their part of the country are a lot more “authentic.’ 

Sure, there’s the familiar faces, but unfamiliar ones, too. An older gentleman and his wife, who walks next to him more slowly, with a cane. He’s balancing a plastic plate with a fresh funnel cake in his hand. They’ll find a bench to sit down and enjoy it, maybe people watch, like you.

It’s time for one of your favorite games: making up stories for the various tourists you probably won’t ever see again. This couple--this is the last trip they’ll take together, because the wife got an awful diagnosis, and they’re spending what would have been the rest of their retirement savings on the dream vacation she always wanted to take. They met during the war, decades ago… he was a soldier and she was a nurse, and he hurt his leg, maybe, and wound up in a field hospital.

It would have been terribly romantic. 

Your eyes shift away from the couple and onto a few other new faces. 

Maybe that’s why you liked the carnival. It was nice to look at new people and imagine where they came from, what they did. The kind of life they had, which was surely more interesting and worldly than yours.

With people watching in mind,  you abandon your bench in front of the games and head deeper into the carnival, weaving yourself in between snack and ticket booths, stepping over large black cables that kept the rides running. 

Dusk had already settled in, and the warm glow of the summer had been replaced with a deepening sense of evening. The carnival lights had already begun to play against the darkening sky, creating that magical atmosphere that couldn’t be replicated during the day.

You don’t notice the stranger at first. It’s dark, the lights are a bit dizzying, and there are plenty of people simply wandering around and taking in the sights. What’s one more stranger, when over the course of the next few hours and days, the summer will be increasingly filled with them?

But this particular stranger shows up in the corner of your vision and immediately strikes you as… odd. He’s just standing there.

Watching you. Staring--right at you. What the fuck?

He’s wearing all black, and there’s some sort of scarf or cowl over his face. His eyes look impassive but there’s something awful in them, even in the brief glances you get from catching him from the corner of your gaze.

What a creep. 

It sours the mood, and you decide to leave, or at least take a break and shake off whatever out-of-towner decided to pull off his best edgy horror movie impression to creep you out. It wouldn’t be the first time a tourist behaved like a jerk, or a weirdo, especially if they’d be drinking. 

Something about nighttime at the carnival made people go wild. 

So you head away from it all, from the couples trying to win stuffed animals, from the giggling shrieks of people on rides that spun them upside down until they wanted to puke. And maybe you should just head right home, but it’s not fair to waste a night of good weather.

Cool, but not too cool. Pleasant. The moon is out and the stars twinkle overhead.

Heading out on the dock might be nice. Tourists don’t bother with it, at least not on Thursday, when the beach isn’t lit-up and there’s no particular reason to head out this way. 

But you’d been to this beach in the evening before; you weren’t scared of the dark. By contrast, you liked the way the beach sounded at night. The water moving in and out, slow and sure. The occasional sound of wildlife splashing in the water. And the din of the carnival behind you, all rainbow lights and indiscernible human happiness.

Your joy is cut off by the sound of footsteps. Your heart leaps in your chest and your hands slam into your pocket instinctively, fumbling for your keys. Fuck, how were you supposed to use these in self-defense again? Put them between your fingers?

Your heart hammers and you slowly turn around, squinting as you make out a figure approaching you in the dark.

“I’m sorry,” a voice calls out, penitent. “Did I scare you? I’m trying to get reception.” The man wiggles a small silver object in the air, raising it above his head. A small LED screen lights up and your heart rate begins to calm, slowly but surely.

After a few beats, he sighs, and shoves the phone in his pocket. 

He turns, apparently to leave, but then looks back at you. “Are you all right? I really didn’t mean to startle you.”

You swallow, lick your lips. Feel stupid for the keys in your fingers. He seems nice enough. A typical tourist. “Um, yeah.” You laugh, an empty sound. “I guess I’m just a little jumpy tonight.”

The moonlight doesn’t give you a clear view of the man’s features, but you can see him tilt his head a little. “Jumpy?”

The keys in your pocket rattle when you let them go, and pull your hands out to point back towards the carnival. The man follows your finger with an almost studious interest.

“Someone was following me, maybe? Or he just seemed a bit creepy.” You laugh again, a habit ingrained after years of dealing with men in odd situations--defuse, tread lightly, always. “He was staring at me, but I couldn’t see his face. He had a scarf over it, I think.”

The man in front of you hums in acknowledgement after a moment. He almost seems a little amused, which is both irritating and relieving in its own way. You were just being silly, jumpy, overreacting, weren’t you? Maybe the guy wasn’t even looking at you in the first place.

“Can I walk you back to the carnival? It doesn’t feel right to leave you here alone.” 

Ah, no, you think. Sure, the man in front of you might just be a tourist in search of reception, but that doesn’t mean you’re stupid. This is how people get murdered. Or attacked. Or like, hoisted into white vans and never seen again.

“No, that’s okay. I was going to stay out here longer and look at the stars. I’m going home soon, anyway.” Not a complete lie, since you did really want to go home. Something like this is usually enough for most people to take the hint, right? 

The man doesn’t turn around. Instead, you see the shape of his smile, lit only by the moon in the sky above.

“You want me to walk you back to the carnival,” he says simply, and offers his arm out, like some kind of old-fashioned gentleman. 

Oh. Of course you do. What were you thinking, staying out here on the dock at night? Mosquitoes would eat you up, anyway. 

You smile in return and take his offered arm, stepping lightly as you make your way back to the carnival with a complete stranger.

Only by the time you make it back to the threshold of the carnival, which seems to be eaten up by the darkness surrounding all of the twinkling lights, he’s not really a stranger, is he? 

And as you get closer to the carnival, the natural darkness of the beach gives way to an abundance of artificial lights that allow you to see him better. He’s cute--no doubting that, with dark hair that frames his face, and a bandage around his forehead. Maybe an accident, or an unfortunate birthmark. 

Even if you weren’t familiar with most of the town’s residents in one way or another,  you’d know he was an outsider from the way he’s dressed. A slim motorcycle jacket and dark jeans… not the type of guy that hangs around here for long.

As you stop at the border of the carnival, he asks where you live, and you tell him--”around.” He admits that he’s only in town for the carnival week. 

“I figured,” you say lightly enough.

He raises his eyebrows. “Is it that easy to tell?”

You put your hands into your pockets and look around you. 

“I mean, it’s a small town, right? Everyone knows everyone, after a while. A new face stands out pretty easily.”

His smile is charming. Practiced, but charming. Or maybe being practiced is how it’s so charming in the first place.  “That makes sense.” He considers you for a moment. “You like to watch the tourists, then?”

You shrug and gesture with your chin towards a mom with a toddler clinging to her hand, pulling her along towards one of the games with enormous stuffed animals.

“I like people watching, I guess. Sometimes,” and as you’re saying it, you don’t know why you’re telling him this so openly. “Sometimes I like to make up stories about people I see. Like, where they’re from or what they do or a backstory like they’re from a movie or whatever.” 

Your cheeks feel suddenly, stupidly hot. Christ, you meet a handsome stranger on the beach and your first major conversation involves you admitting you make up stories about people? You’ve got to get out of this town more.

But he doesn’t seem like he’s judging you. If anything, he looks interested. 

“And what would you imagine for me?”

The question is unexpected. 

“I think…” You try to force your mind to wander like it does when you people watch organically. What would you imagine, if you came across him walking around the carnival in the evening? He’d be on his own, surely, maybe his hands in his pockets. Quiet. A soft smile on his face, maybe? 

“I think you’re some sort of… librarian. Or a curator. A collector?” You shake your head, unsure of exactly where you want to go with this one. “The point is, you’re traveling around the country, looking for things to add to a museum or library or something like that. And you came across an ad for a summer carnival and thought you’d take in some local culture.” You gesture towards the carnival--the lights, the crowd of people, the humanity on display. “But walking around here makes you feel lonely. So you walk down to the beach in the hopes of distracting yourself. Only,” you add, with a cheeky grin. “To come across the most amazing small town waitress in 100 miles standing on the dock like a weirdo.” 

He doesn’t smile at your story. Not exactly. Instead--and you look away when you notice, feeling too rude for staring--his eyes widen just a smidge and he purses his lips in a thoughtful way. 

“My name is Chrollo,” he says. “May I have yours?”

Chrollo is kind of old-fashioned, you decide. Perhaps you were more spot-on than you realized with your story. 

Maybe you shouldn’t give your name. But there’s a giddy feeling inside your chest. Something akin to what you used to feel when you were a teen and you snuck out in the middle of the night for bonfire drinking parties.

I mean… a handsome stranger in a motorcycle jacket who escorted you back from the beach wants your name? You’d be stupid to say no. 

So you give it. 

At that, he finally smiles again.

“Well, then,” he says softly, saying your name in such a way that makes you hope he’ll say it again in the future, “I hope I’ll see you tomorrow night.”

--

“Help! Someone help me! For God’s sake!”

Jake Jensen cried out these words as loudly as he could--as clearly as he could, with booze slurring his words and making his mouth all mumbly. But he wasn’t loud enough. No one heard him. Not over the music and delighted screams of the carnival.

He had been chased away from the beach, past the dock, into a little storage shed used for kayaks rented to tourists during the summer. His worn out body protested with every movement, his lungs hacking from years of cigarettes. 

His attackers, who blocked the door frame, said nothing. They only looked at one another, silent words passed between them, and the taller of the two grinned in the darkness. 

Jake Jensen died screaming.

--

Friday

You tell yourself that you’re only sitting here on this bench, munching on fresh hot popcorn, because you had a hankering for carnival food. Definitely didn’t come here in the hopes of seeing a certain someone. You tell yourself this even as your eyes dart here and there, looking for any sign of the not-quite-a-stranger from last night. 

The sun has just set, and it’s a bit hard making out faces in the glow of the early evening. There are a lot more people here tonight, a new wave of tourists drowning out the familiar faces. Not that the locals shy away from the carnival--you spot your former best friend from high school, your old math teacher, one of the regulars at the diner… Jake Jensen isn’t in his usual spot at the games, but maybe he’s sleeping off a hangover. He never misses a summer carnival.

“Hello again.”

Oh--you choke on your current handful of popcorn just as Chrollo appears suddenly in your line of sight, hands in the pockets of his motorcycle jacket, a casual smile on his face.

“Hey,” you say, coolly, like you didn’t just nearly spit chewed popcorn kernels in his face when he approached. The silence between you doesn’t last long, but you fill it anyway. “You um, want some popcorn?”

But when you hold out the now half-filled container, Chrollo only looks at it curiously. Like he’s never seen popcorn before or something? But then he takes a small handful and pops it in his mouth. Chews--but he might as well be chewing broccoli, for all he seems to enjoy it. Oddly, he watches you while he chews, seemingly studying your face. Did you have popcorn in your teeth?

Better to fill the silence again.

“Well, what do you think?” You ask, grinning, popping another handful in your mouth. “It’s my favorite because it’s fresh, and that booth actually uses real butter. Not the fake oil stuff.”

Chrollo hums in agreement. “I see. I thought that tasted like real butter. Thank you for sharing.” 

You decide on the spot that you’re going to make the most of this evening, popcorn-in-teeth or no. So you shrug and give your best smile. “No biggie. Buuut… you will owe me.”

He raises his eyebrows. “Oh? And what will I owe you?”

It’s your turn to hum as you look out towards the carnival, scanning past the numerous faces, the booths, children running with balloons and sticks of cotton candy. “A ride on the Ferris wheel once it’s properly dark would be nice.”

A snort, though his nose. “I think I can manage that.”

He offers his arm again, and you take it, not minding how old fashioned it was. Somehow, despite his jacket, his sleek hair, the hint of motorcycle oil mixed with cologne, old-fashioned seemed to suit him.

Lots of things seemed to suit him, actually. You learn this as the evening wears on. He’s great at carnival games, choosing only a select few that he claims to be an expert in. He wins you a few stuffed animals that you pass on to little kids, save a smaller teddy bear that you can shoved inside your purse. 

You learn other things, too. Like, he’s a great listener. He lets you talk--about yourself, about the town--and doesn’t interrupt or tell you that you talk too much or make it clear he’s not listening to a thing you say. He even asks you questions, which shows he’s actually listening, and not just thinking about other things and waiting to ask you to go somewhere “private” like some other guys.

It’s nice, surprisingly nice, to find someone from out of town who’s so thoughtful.

The line for the Ferris wheel is always long once the sun goes down, and you’re one of the last rides of the night. 

When the carnival worker locks the bar down over your waists, you kick your legs and wait for the strange rush of adrenaline and pleasure that comes with the Ferris wheel. It’s a beautiful sight--all colored lights contrasted against the night sky, whisking you high into the air and giving you a view of the entire carnival and the ocean beyond.

But your body always reacts to the imagined danger of being carried so far away from the safety of the ground, and when the Ferris wheel reaches the top and begins to circle over for the first time, your stomach lurches and you gasp.

“Are you scared?” Chrollo’s voice is low--you could swear he’s teasing, but there’s something else in there, too. 

“Yeah,” you say, breath catching as you're brought back closer to the ground, only to be whisked away again. “Of course. What if something goes wrong, and I fall off and break my neck?”

Chrollo tilts his head. “You’d be dead.” 

You can’t help but grin. He’s so to-the-point sometimes. It’s charming in its own way, although you can’t exactly describe what “its own way” means with Chrollo. It’s like he stepped out of some old fashioned film but also came out of a cooler city. A biker who carries around an embroidered handkerchief, or something like that.

“And I don’t want to die, hence--the stomach flipping.” 

Chrollo looks ahead, then, taking in the view as the Ferris wheel carries you over again. “No? How long do you want to live, then?”

The snort is involuntary. A philosophical question on the Ferris wheel--not exactly what you expected from tonight. But maybe it’s not so bad. He’s good company. And Chrollo looks earnest in his question, too, which makes you feel guilty for snorting in the first place. 

Maybe it’s the lights of the Ferris wheel that dazzle you; maybe it’s the way being on the Ferris wheel at night makes you feel like you’re in some wonderful haze of a dream. 

Whatever it is, you fling your hand into the air, towards the carnival, towards the stars.

“Long enough to achieve my dreams,” you breathe out, earnest, almost sing-song. “Whatever they might be. I haven’t figured them out yet.”

Chrollo turns his head to look at you. His eyes almost seem magnetic against the night sky, with the lights of the carnival playing in them. 

Then, as the Ferris wheel brings the two of you down towards the ground, you see him. The man from yesterday, with the cowl over his face. He’s looking right at you, and it’s no mistake or figment of your imagination.

Your head swivels to the side and you grip the bar of the Ferris wheel until your knuckles hurt. You jerk one hand out and point to the stranger on the ground with a trembling finger. 

“There--look! Look!” 

Chrollo takes a moment to respond, and follows the sight line of your finger.

But now--there’s no one there.

“What do you see?” He asks, clearly unknowing that the object of your terror has vanished into thin air.

“The man… the man from yesterday. He was right there. I swear.” Your chest hurts; fear hurts. 

Unbidden, Chrollo pulls you close to him, and you let him hold you tight.

“You’re all right. I’m here.” 

He holds your chin in his fingers. “You’re safe, do you understand?”

The fear in your chest seems fuzzy now, like it had almost never been there in the first place. How silly of you to be scared, when Chrollo was right here. It doesn’t even seem strange that he’s touching you so intimately, does it? So you nod--yes, yes, you understand. 

Chrollo smiles. 

“Let me kiss you,” he says simply.

And you will. Of course you will. What else would you want to do? 

But as you lean forward, eyes already closing, he pulls himself away.

“Wait.” You blink, head clearing, and he continues, words slow, careful. “Would you like to kiss me?”

Now, you think about it. Maybe it was too hasty. But the lights of the carnival are beautiful and Chrollo is beautiful, and he’s been so thoughtful all day, and now he’s here, holding you, promising to keep you safe from carnival creeps.

A summer carnival is the time for a flirty romance, after all. 

“Yes,” you answer, simply. “I would.”

Chrollo’s finger strokes your chin as you lean in and share your first kiss on the Ferris wheel, glittering lights and carnival music dancing in your mind. 

--

The wife died first. Too quickly, but perhaps it was all the alcohol in her system; $1 margaritas at a local watering hole on a Friday night did nothing to make her more agile when being chased by predators while running in black city heels that had no place in a small town carnival.

Well, to the dying woman’s credit: it was the heels and alcohol and the sliced tendons in her ankle. Taut wires cut through her flesh like butter and she was down for the count, crawling, sobbing, begging for her husband, for God, for anyone to help her.

No one did.

Those pitiful cries, too, were cut down by a wire pressed into her throat; silencing her vocal chords, yes, but spilling blood over her neck that was as pretty as a sight as anything to those watching her choke and scrabble her hands against the ground, eyes wide, gaping, wondering--how is this happening to me? 

The margaritas may have hindered her before her unfortunate ankle accident. But they did make her blood taste sweet and tangy. Metallic, rich, with a twist of lime. All that was missing was a miniature umbrella.

This joke was said aloud, once everyone had a taste of her. A few laughed, blood on their teeth. 

Her husband didn’t seem to find it funny, but perhaps he was more preoccupied with his own current slow death. An arc of his blood spurted into the air--”Don’t fucking waste it, Uvo”--before a greedy mouth latched onto the wound, beginning to suck him dry.

The husband, like the wife, would be shared.

Soon, though, there would be no need for sharing.

There would be enough for everyone to have their fill--and beyond that.

There would be enough to gorge.

--

Saturday:

Three people are dead. 

You didn’t know them know them, but the shock is still there, making your hands tremble a little as you pour morning coffees and deliver plates of steaming eggs and overcooked bacon to tables of locals and tourists in almost equal measure.

Jake Jensen is one of those people. The identities of the other two are unknown--”Due to the state of the bodies, no identification could be provided at this time,” said the sheriff, above a rolling news ticker that had been on the diner’s singular TV all morning--but they might be a couple. A man and a woman.

People die all the time. Sure. But…  dead bodies are not often found in your small town, where gossip typically revolves around couples breaking up or a local store not putting up enough holiday decorations to appease the older crowd. 

Yet now, in one morning, there are three. 

Jake Jensen, who was found near the beach.

And an unknown man and woman (John and Jane Doe) who were found in a wooded area near the carnival.

“Mighta been a bear,” says one of your regulars, gnawing on a piece of his burnt bacon. He liked it that way.

“I heard they were drained of blood!” Your head--and others’ too, you suspect--turns to the voice. It’s not a local. Someone who’s far too dressy for the diner, sipping on a coffee they brought from home while they sample your diner’s less than stellar fruit salad option. He’s oblivious to the stares, to the eye rolls, to the immediate dismissal that his outsiderness earns him. “Two puncture wounds on the neck. Heard it from a cop while I was walking in this morning.”

Someone murmurs a joke about vampires and the locals chuckle, then go back to their coffee, their eggs, their eyes now and then glancing up at the old TV screen.

Your eyes roll, too, but then you wonder.

If they were murdered--and it’s an if, of course, because it could have been animals and Jake Jensen could have gotten so plastered that he fell off the dock or something, murders just don’t happen in your town--then… could it have been that creepy guy from before? The one who’s been following you around the carnival?

Shit, maybe he was waiting for the chance to get you alone, so he could drag you off to the dock or the woods and slit your throat. The thought gives you goosebumps, and acrid coffee tries to climb its way up your throat, before you swallow it down.

It was a good thing you had Chrollo around for the past two days.

And you’d be seeing him again tonight.

They weren’t canceling the carnival--it brings in too much money. And while a part of you is all sore and soft for poor Jake Jensen (who was never mean, just drunk) you try to brush it away. It’s sad. But life is sad. 

You don’t want to be sad tonight. You want to look nice--for Chrollo? He wasn’t the first out-of-towner that had flirted with you, that you’d flirted with back. He was the first one that you’d ever genuinely looked forward to seeing again, though.

So.

You want to be wearing your best smile when you meet Chrollo again tonight. 

And you can’t do that if you’re thinking about Jake Jensen’s body washing up on the beach or if there’s a small, tickling question dancing through your mind--

What sort of animal leaves two pretty little puncture wounds on the neck?

--

You sit on the same bench as before; the bench, in your mind, where you and Chrollo have taken to meeting up these past few days. 

There’s no room in your stomach for popcorn tonight, though. Or rather, there’s room--your stomach growls--but you can’t imagine chewing anything rich, hot and buttery right now. Your thoughts flit between horror (poor Jake Jensen, one time, when you were younger, he helped you fix a flat bike tire) and romance (Chrollo’s lips on yours, warm, the breeze tickling your neck, the lights of the Ferris wheel twinkling around you).

You feel bad for wanting to enjoy tonight. But that’s not fair, is it? Another small town tragedy: caring too much about someone you didn’t really know as anything more than a passing familiar face that you can’t even focus on a hot date. 

Fuck. 

“Daydreaming again?” 

The evening sky above you is a wash of deepening colors, devoid of actual sunlight but clinging to the last vestiges of it like a child refusing to let go of his mother’s hand on the first day of school. 

He’s holding up a stick of bright pink cotton candy in one hand, while the other arm is offered for you to take--the contrast between his leather jacket, the ball of fluffy sugar he’s holding, and the way he sometimes acts like an old timey gentleman out of the movies is enough to make you smile.

Perhaps there’s bitterness in it, because as soon as you’re standing, Chrollo regards you with a measured look.

“Are you all right?” 

Well. You don’t want to ruin your evening, but it would be stupid to pretend everything was all sweetness and sunshine, wouldn’t it? It’s better to get it out of the way. 

“Sorry, it’s… I don’t know if you saw the news?” He says nothing, and you continue. “Those people that they found dead this morning.” Your lips press together. “I mean, the guy--I knew him, sort of? Everyone did. He was drunk all the time, yeah, but he wasn’t a jerk about it.”

Chrollo hums.

“I can imagine that would be shocking for you to hear.” 

Your smile is shaky, and you nab a piece of cotton candy from the stick and shove it in your mouth. The sweetness contrasts awfully with the words that pass through your lips. “For you too though, right? I mean, it’s not every day three people turn up dead at some small town carnival.”

Chrollo raises an eyebrow in a way that seems to say that he is not particularly shocked by the news. 

“Shit, really? What are you in your non-touristy life, a mortician or something?” A sudden realization washes over you, that Chrollo has an entire life outside of you and these carnival evenings; he has a past, and family, and friends, and a job. Hopes, dreams, the whole nine yards.

“Something like that,” he says. When you move to apologize, he shakes his head. “It’s alright. I’m not terribly shocked by these things, I suppose, because of what I see in my day to day.” He looks at you a little curiously. “But I can see how it would rattle you.”

You open your mouth, but you don’t know what to say. Sugar sticks to your teeth.

“Come on.” Chrollo drops the cotton candy into a nearby trash can, and leads you towards a row of carnival games. “I know what might take your mind off things.”

For once, you’re glad to see the carnival games; the fast-paced spitting words of the barkers trying to hustle money from kids and couples, the sound of darts popping balloons, the triumphant music that plays before the obnoxiously difficult water shooting game. 

You’re even glad to see the tourists in all of their Saturday glory, which isn’t so much “glory” as it is a sort of restlessness. Saturdays were always a strange day at the carnival; the last middle day before the grand finale. An unusual mixture of sleepiness, anticipation, and a buzz that held everyone together until tomorrow.

Strange day, strange faces. Some stranger than others. Staring up at the bell at the top of the Test Your Strength game is an exceptionally tall man with wild dirty blonde hair. By the size of his muscles, he might just break the game, which hadn’t been replaced in the many years you’d been coming here in the summer.

You tug on Chrollo’s arm and point the man out. “What do you want to bet the carnie will try to get him not to play? He might just break the thing…”

“I don’t doubt it.” Beside you, Chrollo snorts, but doesn’t linger on the man as he leads you further into the carnival. 

The two of you walk, and talk. About nothing and everything. He asks you to come up with stories for a few tourists, and you do. Light ones. It really does take your mind off things. At some point, Chrollo buys you fries, which taste slightly sweet; probably cooked in the same oil as the funnel cakes. 

You dig in your heels in front of the fun house, but Chrollo shakes his head, and won’t go in.

“Are you scared?” You tease. At night, the fun house was all lit up, and the clowns painted on the front had a ridiculously sinister air to them.

But Chrollo doesn’t smile or laugh. “They make me dizzy,” he says, quietly. There’s something behind his words, but you don’t know what. A medical problem? A bad experience? You apologize and then he does smile, shaking his head, at himself, or you, you’re not sure. “Think nothing of it, dear.”

Dear.

You want to hold onto that bit of affection like the sky holds onto the sunset on summer evenings. At least as long as you can, which tonight, seems to be until Chrollo takes you on the Ferris wheel again. 

This time, he holds your hand as soon as the attendant locks the bar down. Your fingers interlock and squeeze and it sends butterflies rushing through your chest. What was there to worry about, to think about, when you were sitting next to him? 

It takes a few turns around the Ferris wheel to remember what you were supposed to worry about, because on the trip down, your stomach fluttering from romance and gravity alike, you see him: the strange man. The stalker. The maybe-serial-killer-on-the-loose. 

He’s standing still in the crowd walking here-and-there around the Ferris wheel, couples intent on getting in line, children running from tired parents as they beg for another carnival game.

And he’s staring straight up at you.

You don’t think this time. You grab Chrollo and point straight down and practically screech out the words: “There! He’s there! Look, look--look!” 

And the stars must be aligned, because Chrollo actually sees him. His grip on your other hand tightens and he pulls you closer to him as you make your way back around the Ferris wheel and the man goes out of sight. By the time the two of you are at the top again, the stranger is gone.

Your goosebumps remain.

“We should talk to the police,” you murmur, a quiet, scratchy whisper.

Chrollo turns towards you. You recognize the look. The “Do you really think the police will do anything about this?” sort of look. 

“I’ve been thinking…” You squeeze Chrollo’s hand and he squeezes back and that’s all you need to keep going. “That maybe he might have something to do with those people? The ones they found this morning?”

Chrollo’s eyes widen just a little. It’s both comforting and worrying to see him look taken aback, even if it’s only a bit. 

“I heard…” You feel stupid saying this. But you shouldn’t feel stupid, not with Chrollo. He hasn’t given you a reason to feel like you can’t tell him things. “Someone at the diner today said they were found with puncture wounds on them. I was thinking, maybe… like an ice pick? Or a screwdriver or--I don’t know. But maybe they were killed.”

“Perhaps he’s a vampire,” Chrollo offers, voice low, lips curled into a smile, and your face must reflect the flash of offended shame that rushes into your chest, because he immediately apologizes. His sigh flutters against your cheek. “Well. He wouldn’t be the first killer to prey on crowds or small towns, would he?”

At least he didn’t say you were crazy to connect the two things, vampire joke aside.

He keeps you close once the ride is over, and you wouldn’t have it any other way. 

“I’ll inform the police,” he insists, when the two of you finally stumble on a pair of deputies patrolling the carnival. He leaves you standing next to the Test Your Strength game, where the carnival barker has agreed to keep an eye on you. It made you feel like a child, but for once, maybe that wasn’t a bad thing--to be watched and protected.

You watch, biting your nails now and then, as Chrollo and the deputies talk. In the end, they shake his hand, and you feel cool relief in your stomach. The police will know what to do with the information. If this guy’s a killer, they’ll catch him. If he’s not, well. The carnival was almost over, and you wouldn’t have to worry about him much longer.

Things will be normal soon.

When Chrollo returns, you take his arm without hesitation, but this time he begins to lead you away from the carnival.

“I was thinking,” he says, “that we might go for a walk. Get away for a bit. If you don’t mind, that is.”

You don’t mind at all. 

“Do you like trails?” You ask, steering him towards a trail that leads from the beach to a popular hiking spot for locals. “It’d be a bit more private. As long as you’re not scared of the dark.”

Chrollo chuckles. It’s a warm, dark, rich sound, and it sends a delightful thrill right through you. 

“I’m not if you aren’t,” is all he says, and that’s enough for you to point out the way.

Thoughts of dead bodies and stalkers fade away with the carnival, whose sights and sounds fade bit by bit as you and Chrollo leave the beach and begin making your way into a wooded area with a paved hiking path lit on the other side by electric trail lights. 

“I’m surprised to see these,” Chrollo says, quietly. He pulled his phone out at the start of the trail to give the two of you more light, though the trail lights were decent enough, especially since you’d been up here more times than you could count.

“Mm,” you murmur. “Locals come up here all the time at night. Especially teens. Usually to make out and stuff.” Chrollo gives you a look and your cheeks hit up, but you don’t elaborate. He doesn’t need to know about your high school escapades. “They added them to avoid the inevitable lost-teen-in-the-woods-at-night rescue scenario, I think.”

“Clever,” he says. 

--

The waterfall is loud when you’re this close; so loud you can’t hear anything in the moment but your own thoughts, which have grown louder and louder somewhere between the hiking trail and this popular waterfall spot. So popular that it’s lit with a flood light near the top--supposedly a teenager slipped in one night and drowned in the shallow pool, though you’ve never been certain if it was a true story or not.

Regardless, you’re not sure you want to stay. No--you know you don’t want to stay. 

This is a bit much, is what your thoughts are starting to scream. Chrollo is nice, but you don’t really know him, do you? And you just walked somewhere alone with him in the dark after being surprised by a maybe-stalker, the day that three people were found dead around here.

Yeah. A bit much might be an understatement. You should really get back to where there’s more lights and people and civilization in general. If Chrollo is a nice person (and he is, you insist, you’re just being smart!) he won’t mind. 

“I think we should go back,” you say, but Chrollo can’t hear you. So you cup your hands around your mouth and lean closer to his ears. “I think we should go back!”

You expect him to nod and take your arm and lead you carefully down the lantern-lit trail, perhaps still using his phone to guide the way. Instead, he takes your chin in his hands--you move to jerk it out, you’d rather wait until you’re back at the carnival to kiss again--but his grip is impossibly strong.

“It’s all right,” he says, and it’s the strangest thing, you can hear him so clearly despite the roaring waterfall just a few feet in front of you. “You know that you’re safe with me. You don’t want to go back yet.”

How strange. How silly. Why did you want to leave, when you just got here? You didn’t even show him the best part yet.

“Come on!” It’s your turn to pull him along as you carefully walk the path leading to the front of the waterfall, which has already begun to soak water through your clothes. 

“Is there a cave?” Chrollo asks--and again, you’re struck by how easy it is to hear him, despite the water rushing down in front of you. 

“You sure know your way around local watering holes,” you jest. 

He merely smiles. “I travel a lot.”

With that, you grip his arm tighter and run through the waterfall, shrieking in delight. Both of you emerge on the other side soaked; you, grinning, and Chrollo, looking around with interest.

The inside of the cave was lined with endless rows of fairy lights, courtesy of a local high school group. They had also brought in the two couches--used leather, frayed and flecking, but good enough for a hang out. When you were younger, there were only folding chairs; which were great for sitting, not so much for much less. 

“Do you like it?” You ask, then feel stupid. Why do you care so much what he thinks of some local hang out spot, especially one you hadn’t been in for ages? The same reason why you’d spent all day telling him about your daydreams, about small town memories, bits and pieces of local lore that he didn’t brush aside but seemed to enjoy hearing.

Chrollo was so different from the others you’ve met at the summer carnival. 

Maybe that’s why your heart begins to beat fast the moment you catch his eye again. His skin looks almost dewy in the glow of the lights, thanks to the water; his eyes shine, reflecting a soft, warm twinkling glow.

It’s just the two of you. No tourists, no locals, no would-be stalkers. Even the carnival itself seems far away; the lights blocked from view by the rushing water and canopy of the forest, even the wafting smell of popcorn and stale beer was long gone out here.

It was just you and Chrollo in a cave at the end of the evening. 

But… it didn’t have to be the end of the evening, did it? 

You ask him, this time. 

“Do you want to kiss me?” 

“I do,” he says. “Very much so.”

This time, your kiss is tinged with the tang of river water.

--

Five bodies lay scattered in the grass. Young men, young women. Teens that had been giggling and stumbling through the forest, flasks of pilfered whiskey in their bags. 

Now some dead and going cold, their limbs twisted, their mouths open in silent screams.

Two were still alive, whimpering, weak hands beating against monsters’ chests as open mouths hungrily lapped up their life blood. They had screamed, all of them, but no one could hear them in the woods--over the water. 

“This is a lovely spot,” said a woman, brushing back her blonde hair. A bit of red gore had stuck to the strands and she tsked at the sight of it.  “The waterfall adds a nice touch.” 

The man hummed, and stuck his hands in his pockets. The slightest touch of red showed on his lips; like a woman pressing her lipstick-covered mouth onto a bit of tissue to get rid of the excess. 

The carnage made him indifferent; the whimpers of the dying, even more so. But as he looked around at the carefully placed lights on the trail, the way they flickered against the waterfall and its hidden cavern like delicate stars, he smiled. 

“It came highly recommended.” 

--

Sunday: The Final Day

Chrollo was in your bed last night, and you thought he’d be there in the morning. But when the sound of birds pulls you delightfully out of a restful sleep and you blink your eyes open to dappled sunlight through your blinds, you realize that the bed is half-empty.

Just you and the sheets and the leftover smell of Chrollo--cologne and, more faintly, sweat and sex. 

You freeze, listening for the sound of someone meandering about an unfamiliar kitchen. He could be up and about already--making coffee or breakfast. The image of him serving up a plate of bacon and eggs almost makes you laugh.

But the apartment is silent, save for your breathing, the sound of a clock ticking in the living room. 

Your heart lurches and shame pricks at the back of your eyelids. He fucked you and ran, didn’t he? Just like the others, just like--

But just when you’re about to give into the temptation to scrub yourself all over with hot water and erase every trace of Chrollo that ever existed in your presence, you see it: a piece of paper, torn from a notebook you keep on your dresser. Carefully folded over and placed on the side table next to the bed.

Your name is on it, written in a surprisingly beautiful, scrawling hand. 

Curiosity and leftover shame-tinged dread curl together in  your stomach as you sit up and slowly pick up the note. 

Dear--

Your heart lurches again, for a different reason this time.

I apologize that I did not give you a proper farewell. I had an urgent matter to attend to. Forgive me, won’t you? We will see each other tonight, I hope, for a memorable and unforgettable evening.

Of course he didn’t fuck and run. He wouldn’t do that. And tonight would be--well, memorable and unforgettable, just as he said.

The pitter-pattering inside your chest takes on a new delightful cadence as you get yourself ready for the day. No work--you had Sundays off, thank God, maybe literally, for that. It was a shame Chrollo didn’t tell you where he was staying; presumably, the only hotel in town. But maybe he was at one of the B&Bs or was shacking up at a room for rent.

It would be nice to see him in the daytime, too.

But he didn’t, so you’re left with nothing to do but flick on the TV and make yourself a cereal bowl. Well, that’s wrong.  That’s not the only thing you could do. You could go to your parent’s house and help out your mom; she could use a break with caring for your dad.

But… was it wrong to be selfish, just a little, for just one day? You didn’t want to see Chrollo tonight with something unpleasant sticking inside you, on the potential chance that your dad was having a not-so-great day.

It was better to approach your last evening together with a sunnier attitude.

Although you don’t really have a choice, because the first thing you see when the news returns from a commercial break is a giant banner scrolling across the screen: TWO MISSING TEENS FOUND DEAD AT LOCAL WATERFALL. POPULAR TRAIL CLOSED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE.

In the background, the sheriff recites familiar lines about respecting the privacy of the dead, about putting the full energy of the police force into finding the investigation, about how there is no need to panic. He says that it may not have even been foul play.

Somehow, you don’t believe that.  You just know. 

Sugary cereal seems to lodge itself inside your throat. You were just there. You were just there, kissing Chrollo, holding his hand, and now two teenagers are dead and lifeless and, and--

And if it was that same man… the one who was staring at you, stalking you… how close did you and Chrollo come to dying last night?

Tears prick at your eyes and you grab your purse. Maybe you would spend the day with your parents, after all. 

--

You should be more excited to see Chrollo. And you are, truly. But between the news this morning and the dull realization that this would be your last evening together ever, it’s hard to feel too enthused. 

Chrollo would be going home after tonight. Tourist trap over, no need to stick around. Something childish in you thinks: maybe I can convince him to stay a little longer. And if he stays a little longer, he’ll see how nice it is here (it’s not) and maybe he’ll want to settle down (he won’t). 

Oh, how stupid. It’s like when you’d meet the endless stream of New Best Friends every summer weekend as a kid, and you’d beg their parents together to extend their vacation.

It wasn’t going to happen. You’ll never see him again after tonight, and you’ll go your separate ways, and that’s that. 

Reality sucks sometimes.

You’re still stuck in the dreary shit cloud that is reality when Chrollo’s now somewhat familiar footsteps approach you on the bench. The bench, your spot--your spot? As if you and Chrollo had anything that could be called an actual relationship that warranted the use of “your” plural. 

You shake your head, hoping it shakes those silly childish delusions, and force yourself to smile.

Chrollo, to your surprise, doesn’t smile back.

Instead, he leans down, and takes your hand. His eyes roam over your fingers like they’re something special and it makes your stomach flutter stupidly.

“You seem a bit sad,” he says, bringing your knuckles to his lips for a kiss. The way that makes you feel is something you love and hate in almost equal measure. It’s not fair, is it, that he makes you feel this way--when he has to leave, and you’ll never see him again.

Perhaps it’s the knowledge that you will part ways after tonight that makes you speak freely.

“I’m just sad that you’ll be leaving.” He blinks at you, and turns his head a little. “That we won’t see each other after tonight,” you clarify. 

You expect him to nod and agree, and perhaps say something trite but comforting, like, “We’ll just make the most of it.” 

Instead, he gives your hand a squeeze.

“We don’t have to part, you know.”

It’s your turn to blink. A silly, little-kid-in-you hope does a twirl. He could stay--and this could maybe, possibly, in some far off millimeter of a chance, turn into something more serious than a summer fling. “You could extend your vacation? Your job would do that?”

Chrollo finally smiles at you. 

“My life is flexible. But,” and now he pulls you up so that you’re standing. It’s a fluid, easy gesture for him, almost too easy--he’s stronger than he looks. “I was thinking that instead of staying here, you would come with me.”

The world around you is not silent. The carnival is always producing an eternal cacophony of sounds--screaming patrons hung upside down on the more thrilling of rides, cheery carousel music, laughter, popcorn endlessly beating like a fast paced drum, everything and anything all mixed together into a swirl of sound.

But it might as well be silent, because you feel like all you can hear is your heartbeat in your eyes for a few stretched moments. 

“What? You’re not serious.” You smile, too, but it feels fake. Like it’s plastered on and cracking underneath. There’s a brief thought--maybe he means, like, for a weekend?--but you instantly know that’s not what he’s talking about.

This is too much, too fast. Too out of the blue. 

Chrollo looks at you in a way that almost makes you uncomfortable. Like he wants to see something inside you that you’re keeping for yourself. Then that gaze is gone and he’s smiling softly, charming, a little bittersweet.

Bittersweet is familiar territory, and the ringing in your ears fades in favor of a carnival barker offering 2-for-1 prizes on the Test-Your-Strength game. 

Chrollo’s voice cuts through it all, jovial, unassuming. 

“We can talk about it later, if you’d like. Let’s go enjoy the carnival a bit more before the concert.” 

That would be nice.

“I’d like that.” 

And you mean it--you do. You shake your head and let Chrollo intertwine his fingers in yours, and it doesn’t take long for his question to fade away from your mind as you weave in and out of the crowds.

If you weren’t so distracted, so disarmed, you might have noticed an uncomfortably familiar figure clad in black watching the pair of you intently.

--

The Ferris Wheel worker should have kicked you off several spins ago, but Chrollo had slipped him a twenty as he buckled the safety bar down. It’s nice, this extra time with him--it’ll be the last time you ride the Ferris wheel together, after all. 

What did it say about the state of your love life--or your life in general, actually--that slipping a carnie 20 bucks made your heart soar (and twist, and ache) even a little bit?

The night is prettier from the Ferris wheel. The world, too. Up here, you can’t see the grit and grime. The fermenting candy apples littering the ground, dropped two days ago by careless kids; the too-drunk couples arguing about whether they should stay for the concert or not; the exhausted carnival workers smiling hard no matter how much they get yelled at for their rigged games.

All you can take in from up here is the broad vantage point. Crowds and happy sounds--squeals and music interplaying above crowds of people, including a growing crowd on the beach in front of the black stage, waiting for the concert to start.

Chrollo’s grip on your hand tightens and draws your attention back to him. Even he looks more beautiful from up here, with the rainbow lights of the Ferris wheel playing on his face. 

“I’ve enjoyed our time together,” he says softly.

Ah, you realize. The extra spins were for the inevitable “we’ll never see each other again but it was a blast” speech. You knew it was coming. Doesn’t make it any less bitter in your mouth. But what good is holding bitterness against your tongue?

“Me too,” you say, and it’s not a lie, even if you hate the way the conversation must end. You try to focus less on the sourness and more on the sweet that came before. After all, Chrollo was… well. Handsome, yes, magnetic, yes. But more than that. He seemed thoughtful. He listened to you prattle on about yourself and your small town, and he didn’t even make fun of you for knowing so many local stories.

He was good in bed, too, wasn’t he? You blink and realize you don’t actually remember all that much about last night, except that he wasn’t there in the morning. Vague snatches rush through your memory. You remember his mouth on your lips, his hand trailing against your skin, removing your clothes. You remember his mouth against your neck, then this teeth, nipping, and--

It’s all fuzzy. But you weren’t drunk. So why--

“Have you thought about what I said?” He asks, and once again you’re pulled away from your thoughts, although this time you’d like to focus on them. Why couldn’t you fully remember last night?

When you don’t answer, he raises his eyebrows.

“About coming with me,” he says, a bit louder, as if you can’t hear him over the carnival din.

You let out a soft puff of a breath, then, and force yourself to focus on the current conversation. For now.

“You’re serious?” You don’t mean to sound so flippant, but you do. Chrollo frowns, just a little, and you feel like a bitch for it. “Sorry. I just--I didn’t know if you really meant it.”

“I am,” is all he says.

You didn’t like the idea of the conversation headed towards Chrollo leaving, but you like the idea of him genuinely asking you to come with him even less. Partly because you know you never could, and partly because there’s some small, stupid, fantasy-of-your-hair-blowing-in-the-wind-wearing-a-leather-jacket-on-a-motorcycle part of you that wants to say yes.

“Chrollo, I can’t do that. I have a job here. A life.”

Chrollo doesn’t let go of your hand, but you can sense the way his muscles tense. 

“A job at a local diner slinging hash browns,” he says, voice dry and almost hurtful. You must look offended--are you? You can’t tell--because he turns a little in the seat, trapping you with his gaze. His voice is earnest now, drawing you in.

“Don’t you want more out of life? The ability to pursue your dreams--to figure out your dreams?” One hand goes to your cheek, and his knuckle brushes against your skin. “You could travel. See so much more than your little town. Imagine it.” 

An image starts to build in your mind. Unbidden by you, but there, somehow, nonetheless. Of you riding behind him on a motorcycle, holding onto his waist as he takes you wherever you want to go--wherever he wants to go, together. Life would be wild and unpredictable, but easy and fun and--

“My family,” you murmur, and Chrollo seems surprised that you’ve spoken. 

His lips press thinner. “You could write to them, call them. No matter at all.”

Whatever fantasy has built in your head gets swept away and the Ferris wheel finally comes to a stop. The seat rocks back and forth and the bored (but $20 richer) carnie lets you off. Chrollo helps you as he’s done every time.

You wait until he’s escorted you away from the Ferris wheel to turn and address him. 

“Chrollo, I can’t--” You try to find the right words, but there are no right words. “I don’t know you. Not… really. Not enough to give up my life here.”

Chrollo is quiet. He considers you, turning his head a little. You feel awful--maybe you should just end the night here, on this shitty, sour note, because you’ve probably ruined the rest of the evening anyway.  You wish he hadn’t asked again before the night was over, but there’s no way to fix it now.

You’re ready to leave, to bite your cheek so tears don’t come. You’re prepared for Chrollo to say something low and insulting, to dismiss you, because why should he waste another minute on someone who would rather stay here in this shitpot of a town than--

“Come along,” is what he says, finally, holding out his hand--to your utter confusion. He still wants to go to the concert? With you? Now?

But you take his hand anyway. 

“It would be wasteful to end our evening early and miss the concert.” 

His grip is harder than it has been, but maybe you’re imagining it as he pulls you along, weaving in and out as the crowds grow larger and a little more drunk the closer the pair of you get to the beach.

This doesn’t feel right, suddenly. He’s upset, that’s why he’s holding you so tightly. Or maybe you’re upset and imagining it. Either way, it doesn’t feel good. Your primal gut instincts are telling you that it’s better to cut your losses and leave now, then to spend the night with a flipping stomach. 

“Maybe I should just go home,” you yell over the crowd. 

Chrollo stops, and you stumble forward a little, but he catches you in both arms before you make an ungraceful acquaintance with the ground. The hand not gripping your own gently grasps your chin and he leans in, not quite kissing you. His breath smells off, like rust. 

“And miss the grand finale?”

You should insist on going home. Everything’s gone shitty. It’s too crowded and the music will be too loud, and Chrollo is clearly irritated with you--

“Come to the concert,” he whispers, and none of that seems to matter anymore. Of course, you’ll go to the concert. What else would you do? 

He keeps his grip on your hand as you walk onto the warm, crowded sands of the beach, even though you have no intention of leaving. 

--

Booze, sweat, and popcorn. That’s all you can really smell now, surrounded as you are by crowds of people jumping and swaying to some rock band you’ve never heard of before; but no one really cares what the music sounds like on a night like this, when alcohol has been flowing and summer is at its peak.

Even Chrollo seems to be enjoying himself, although he’s not dancing. Just holding you, his arm around your waist, pressing his lips now and then to your forehead.

You feel bad. That must be why there’s a pit in your stomach. You were being rude to him. Of course he’d ask you to come with him--if he’s the type to live so freely, he wouldn’t think twice about making the offer. He just doesn’t understand what it means to be rooted down, willingly or not, the way you are.

You can’t hold something like that against him, so you don’t. 

Instead, you sway to the music, hips bumping against Chrollo now and then. Maybe after this, he could come back to your apartment again, for one last…

All thoughts in your head are stomped into the stand when you spot the strange man with the cowl in the crowd. He’s standing stock still while everyone around him jumps and dances and flaps their drunken arms. 

And he’s looking right at you.

“Chrollo--” There’s no time to waste, and you grab his arm and jerk him towards the direction of the stranger.

But he’s gone. He’s just fucking gone. Cold terror seizes your chest.

“What is it, love?” 

The nickname doesn’t even register.

“That--the man--the guy from before--he was there.” Your voice begins to tremble, frightened tears welling in your eyes. “Can we leave? Please?” 

Chrollo pulls you closer to him and you feel dim comfort as he wraps his arms around you and presses his lips against your head. But he doesn’t tell you that of course, we’ll leave, of course, I’ll get you somewhere safe, of course, let’s talk to the police. 

“Hush.” One hand begins to pet your hair. “Not much longer now. It’ll be over soon.” 

“What do you…”

Behind Chrollo, you see another familiar face. Vaguely familiar. The tall man with wild blonde hair, the one who looked like he could snap the Test Your Strength Game in half if he really wanted to--he’s standing still, like the man from before, while everyone jostles happily around him. He’s not looking at you, but that doesn’t make it any less unnerving. 

Your eyes dart over the crowd.

There are others, standing still. Others who seem out of place immediately, either because of their appearance or something awful you can’t describe. A woman with pink hair looking impassively as she scans the crowded beach, keeping her body perfectly still. A man with long black hair and something shiny and thin strapped to his shoulder. A woman with blonde hair in a smart black tailored suit that no one in their right mind would wear to a summer night carnival concert. Others, too, all out of place and making you want to be anywhere but here.

And then in a few blinks, they’re all gone. Like they were never there.

Dizziness overtakes you, along with a strange sort of fuzzy fear. Is this what a heart attack feels like, maybe? No, it’s just panic. Understandable but undeniably awful panic. 

“Chrollo,” you manage, voice shaky. “Something’s wrong. There’s people, they seem--it’s---I don’t know how to explain, we should--I think we ought to--”

Chrollo doesn’t say anything. Instead, he turns you around, keeping you in his arms as he makes you face the stage.

“You’ll miss the concert,” he whispers in your ear.

Helpless irritation courses through you. Who cares about the concert right now? You have half a mind to ask him why he’s not listening to you, but that impulse is gone the moment you see the tall man with blonde hair and impossibly large muscles leap onto the stage.

The guitars and drums come to a confusing, stuttered halt. The lead singer, clad in an oversized black t-shirt with a skull on it, looks like he wants to throw his guitar at the intruder.

“Dude, what the fuck, we’re playing up here, you can’t just--”

Even from your vantage point, you can see the large grin the blonde man sports on his face as he raises his fist and knocks the lead singer’s head off with a single punch. 

The body remains standing for a moment before collapsing without grace onto the stage. Blood spurts from the wound, spritzing high enough that it sprinkles the faces of those closest to the stage. 

There’s a noise from the crowd that almost, for a moment, sounds like a burst of startled laughter.

And then the blonde man leaps onto the corpse, opens his mouth until it’s gaping far too wide to be human, and begins to suck on the headless neck like a crawfish.

It’s that moment when people finally begin to scream.

Your head jerks towards one of the screams, and she’s there--the woman with the pink hair. Latched onto someone’s neck while blood dribbles from her mouth and the person, eyes bugged out, cries out in wordless pain. His body is cross-crossed with strange cuts, like someone pressed him through a sieve. 

You spin around, looking away from horror, only to see it again: the man with the long hair swings something out--a sword?--and strikes someone’s arm clean off his body, then pins that person down and begins to suck at the spurting blood. 

That’s not all he hit.  The person in front of them, a woman holding two drinks, staggers to the ground. Half her face slides off, revealing bone and brain. Lukewarm beer and gore meet the ground together.

You’re not entirely sure if you said Chrollo’s name, or when he let you go, or what you should do. All you know is that when you finally pull yourself together enough to look at him, he’s simply watching the events around you like a boring television show.

Like people aren’t screaming and running and bumping into you. Like blood isn’t flying. Like you aren’t seeing things that you’ve only seen in shitty horror movies. 

He’s in shock. Fuck. So are you, maybe? But it will be up to you to get the pair of you to safety, so you grab his arm and shake him hard.

“Chrollo! We have to go! Now!” 

He doesn’t move. You shake him again, and he finally looks at you. 

He smiles, and holds out his hand, ignoring your jostling.

“You’ve had time to think about it, haven’t you? Will you stay with me?” 

Oh, he’s definitely in shock. That doesn’t stop the impulsive words that flee your mouth as quickly as the people around you are trying--some not successfully--to flee the beach. 

“You’ve lost your fucking mind. Let’s go!” 

You don’t register what’s happened until you’ve hit the ground. Someone finally ran smack into you, and something--their elbow, maybe--strikes your head, hard. Pain blossoms in your knees and the side of your head when you hit the ground, then explodes when someone steps right on your hand.

There’s a feeling of lost gravity when someone yanks you up--Chrollo--but when you’re on your own two feet, he’s not there anymore.

You call his name. Once. Twice. Three times, four. He might not be able to even hear you over the din, if he’s nearby. Maybe he got swept away by the panicked people. Maybe his shock wore off and he ran to get help. Or ran--and left you.

There are a few moments where you almost run deeper into the crowd to look for him. A stupid thought. But then the wild, shock of fear inside you turns to complete ice and you’re not sure of anything in the world because he’s there. 

Standing in front of you.

Close enough to touch. 

Your stalker. The man with the cowl. Only the cowl is down, now, and his mouth is covered in a smear of blood. He smiles at you, and it’s not a nice smile at all. His smile grows wider, and you have to blink several times to realize what you’re seeing.

He’s got fangs.

Two of them, red tinged. Sharp enough to puncture your neck. 

They’re vampires. Actual vampires. Actual, damn bloodsucking vampires. 

There’s a brief, panicked thought--where’s Chrollo?--before your flight kicks in, and you’re scrambling through the crowd like everyone else. You stumble, of course you do. Over bodies, some dead, and you almost fall flat on your face when you make it off the beach and your ankle rolls on the uneven grass-covered ground.

If you were thinking logically, you might have run to the car park, and hopped into your car. You might have run in the direction of the crowds thinking the same, and gotten lost in them.

But there was no logic. Only pure primal panic, the realization that you people were being murdered all around you like animals, and you were one of those animals because one of the monsters was chasing you.

You didn’t dare to look back to see how far away he was; you just knew, deep down, that he was following you now. Running wouldn’t work: you couldn’t run forever, not with the pain in your ankle, and he’d catch up with you even if you weren’t panicked and in pain.

You had to hide.  But where? The carnival was all lit up at night, and the beautiful lights that had been fun to see just a day before now made you want to scream. He could see you, just about clear as day, no matter where you ran.

Unless you can find somewhere to hide inside.

It’s this thought that pushes you to dash inside the fun house, sneakers pounding on the silver ramp leading into the entrance painted over like a mouth devouring any children who enter.

The stillness inside startles you more than anything else. The lights are on. The music is playing, quiet, delightful. It’s hard to hear it over the dulled screams coming from outside, and from the awful, pounding rush inside your ears.

You follow the short hallway until it leads to something which you’d forgotten about; but it wasn’t your fault. Panic made you stupid, and you hadn’t actually been inside a fun house in years. 

The glass maze. All-see through panels that you’d smash into on an ordinary day, much less this one, where your mind is fried from panic and adrenaline keeps your body from coordinating properly. You smash against the panels a few times before you see it… something, behind you. 

No. Not something. Someone behind you. Or near you. Or far away. 

You can’t tell exactly where this person is, because of the fucking glass maze, but the fact remains:

He’s there--he’s here--he’s going to get you and kill you and it will hurt so bad.

You scream, at some point, and it’s dumb because the sound simply bounces off your current glass predicament and hurts your ears.

Maybe panic pushes you through, or maybe you’re just good at completing mazes when you’re in fear for your life; whatever the reason,  you make it out. You stumble through a hallway made of rollers that nearly send you sprawling, until you’re at the end of the hallway. 

A small red spiral staircase, barely usable for adults, is your only hope. 

You don’t try to be quiet now and the metal stairs clang under your feet as you run up them, feeling dizzy, feeling like this might be the last thing you ever do in your short, stupid life.

The second floor isn’t entirely enclosed. It opens out onto the carnival in the front, and there’s a slide to take you down near the end. The wall behind you is covered in a series of mirrors--the kind that make you tall or short or wide or impossibly thin.

It’s not the mirrors that catch your eye, though. It’s what’s down below. 

They’re all down there. The monsters from the beach. All covered in various amounts of blood and gore. Splatters. Smears. Like they’ve all gotten into different scrapes--killed people different ways. 

All of them have blood around their mouths. 

Fear rings in your ears. You want to wake up, more than anything. This is a nightmare and you want to wake up. 

You don’t wake up.

Instead, you hear a metal clang.

Then another.

And another.

Someone is coming up the stairs.

Thoughts dart here and there, but there’s nowhere for them to go. If you go down the slide, well. There’s a gang of monsters waiting to kill you down below. If you stay up here, well. There’s still a monster waiting to kill you.

The metal clangs again, and again, and again.

He’s coming up the stairs and he’s going to kill you. You’re going to die. Today. Now. 

Warm urine runs down your leg and thoughts come, too quick to really process: Mom-dad-school-work-never-did-anything-my-childhood-dog-that-one-time-we-went-to-Canada-to-visit-my-aunt-I-kissed-a-boy-under-the-bleachers-I-forgot-to-tell-dad-I-loved-him-yesterday-I-I-I--

It’s not the monster with the cowl who comes walking up the landing of the stairs. 

It’s Chrollo.

It’s like you blink and you’re in his arms, clinging to his shirt and sobbing like a child. He presses a kiss to your hair and you realize, gratefully, that he doesn’t look hurt. No blood on him, no scrapes, no bruises. 

“Thank God you’re here. Thank God you’re okay,” you say, reflexively. “Thank God, thank God, thank God.”

Chrollo pulls you tighter against his chest, and murmurs, “God? An interesting choice, my dear, considering…”

You aren’t even really listening. You’re just happy. Delirious, even. Chrollo’s here. He’ll help you. You can make it out together. Somehow. 

There’s an almost giddy sort of hope in your chest--until you hear the metal stairs clang again. And again. And again.

You whimper stupidly and pull on Chrollo’s arm. 

“We have to get out of here. Somehow. I don’t--maybe we can distract them?” Your eyes glance down at the monsters below you, who only seem to be watching more intently. The man with the blonde hair, which is now caked in blood, has an awful grin on his face. You imagine you can see his fangs, even if he’s too far away for you to properly make them out.

Chrollo doesn’t move. Shock again? Or he sees them, too, and knows the two of you won’t make it a step off the slide before being attacked.

The footsteps on the stairs stop. You look behind you, and your bowels clench at the sight of the monster with the cowl, pulled down, that same small, mean smile on his face.

Your hand tightens on Chrollo’s arm. A sentimental, if selfish, thought: At least I won’t die alone.

Chrollo turns, too, and looks at the man who’s been haunting you for days. Looks at the monster who has already killed people and feasted on their blood; at the creature who will now undoubtedly kill the both of you. Lovers for only a few days, but forever in death.

Chrollo sighs, and inclines his head towards the man. 

“Wait a moment, will you, Feitan?”

There were many things you might have said in this moment.  Eloquent things. Meaningful things. Things borne from inner betrayal and horror and anger. But all that comes out of your mouth, which gapes ridiculously, is: 

“Huh?”

And then something clicks, and realization dawns like a morning you don’t think you’ll live to see. The idea comes naturally, somehow. Borne of a childhood reading books and watching movies about vampires. Bloodsuckers. 

Your head turns, and you look over towards the wall of mirrors. You’re stretched thin like taffy about to break, your features a jumble in the dirty, cheap material. 

In the mirror in front of Chrollo, which should make him ridiculously short, there is nothing at all. 

When you look back at him, your eyes wide and pupils blown, he’s no longer the person you met a few days ago; the person you took to your bed, the person you were lamenting leaving. The person who kissed you and made you feel good, inside and out, if only for a while. 

He’s a vampire. 

“I advise you not to run,” he says quietly, if not, perhaps, a bit sympathetically. 

You do, because you aren’t a fucking moron. Though you don’t make it far, as it doesn’t do you any good to run towards the staircase. You run right towards the other monster--Feitan--who grabs you with ease.

He’s faster and stronger than he looks. Maybe they all are. Your body and brain don’t care about that, though, so you struggle with all of your might.

In response, your arm is deftly twisted behind your back and you expect this monster to stop, you expect your arm to meet its natural resistance while you struggle.

He doesn’t. It doesn’t. Your arm snaps and the pain is so sharp, so sudden, that your vision goes blind for a few seconds. In those few seconds, you scream.

When you’re aware of the world again, there’s still the pain. Sharp and awful and renewed every time you jostle your body in any direction.

Chrollo, walking up to you, hums in sympathy. 

“I know it hurts, dear. But this is what happens when you don’t listen to my orders. Do you understand?” 

The strangest thing (and in a world where the man you fucked last night is currently standing in front of you with fangs, that is saying something) is that Chrollo’s expression is not wild or monstrous at all. If you thought about it, and you’re having a hard time thinking with the pain of your arm and fear of impending death, you might say he looks hopeful. That you will understand. That you have learned something.

And you have. You’ve learned that he’s a liar, that everything he ever said and did was just to keep you around long enough to literally eat you, that he has no morals, no empathy, that he’s not even a person.

“I understand,” you manage, voice tinged and weak with pain, “that you’re a fucking monster.” You spit at him. Or try to. Your mouth is too dry to manage more than a stringy dribble that sticks to your chin. 

At this, Chrollo sighs. He shoves his hands in his pockets and frowns.

“You didn’t speak so crudely to me earlier this week.” A little smile. “Last night notwithstanding.” 

Bitter tears well up in your eyes. It was all just a game to him. Cat and mouse. Every smile, every thoughtful word. Every kiss. Your bodies pressed together, his mouth on yours--

“I didn’t know you were a… a… fucking vampire earlier this week.” 

Chuckles, from down below. Feitan, behind you, snorts. 

Chrollo doesn’t look angry, but you can feel a flash of it ripple through the air. It quiets the chuckles. Feitan tightens his grip on you, and the flash of pain makes you groan and slump forward.

“Regardless,” Chrollo says, “respect must be maintained. I expect you to refrain from these little outbursts. Do you understand?” There’s still a tinge of cooing sympathy in his voice--it makes anger bubble up in your chest. 

“Fuck you.” This time, the spit flies, and hits his cheek.

The gestures are slow. Unassuming. He wipes the spit off with the back of his hand. He wipes the back of his hand on his pants. And then he nods at Feitan.

Feitan’s hand reaches around your throat and when you glance down, you see that his nails grow. And sharpen. Sharp enough to cut, sharp enough to--

He drags his hand down your collarbone, and you feel the awful, deep sting of it before you see the blood spill out from your flesh. It coats the bare skin between your collar and the top of your shirt like some sort of morbid camisole. 

You cry out, you shriek, but he doesn’t let you go until Chrollo gives him another nod. You’re shoved towards Chrollo, who doesn’t grip you, but merely lets you stand, swaying, in front of you.

When you finally get the courage to look up at him, his pupils are blown up like a shark’s. 

“I’d like you to stay put this time,” he tells you, voice deeper, richer, at the sight of your blood. “And not run away from me. I’d like you to listen, and refrain from being… impulsive.” 

He leans in, and the scent of rust hits you, but this time you know what it means. “I could make you do it, you know. I don’t have to ask.”

Realization hits you again, and it hurts even more this time. That night, on the dock. And on the Ferris wheel. And how many other times he’d told you to do something, feel something. What was really you, and what was him? 

And now, despite all this, despite the scent of blood in the air and the wails of horror coming from the beach, he wanted you to listen to him? The audacity of vampires--it might have been funny, if you were in the mood to laugh.

“Like hell,” you mutter.

Chrollo breathes out through his nose. Impatient.

“I don’t believe I heard you, dear.”

You look up at him, gaze sharper. Heart sharper. 

“Like. Hell.” 

The slap you give him is weak. You’re surprised your good arm even managed it, all things considered. 

But the shock of the act that ripples from Chrollo to Feitan and even down below is what gives you a few microseconds to escape, to run, ears ringing from the pain of your jostled broken arm, and throw yourself down the slide.

You don’t have a plan. How could you? As soon as you get to the bottom, you’ll just run. Run and maybe die but maybe you’ll get away, someway, somehow.

You don’t get more than a few steps before you fall. Not fall, exactly. Trip. You trip over something that shouldn’t be there, something taught and thin. A wire? 

You see, from the corner of your vision, the woman with pink hair yank her hand backwards and the wire that shouldn’t be there slices deeply into both your ankles. Blood seeps through your socks before you even hit the ground. 

Your ankles burn and bleed, and new sparks explode behind your eyes when your broken arm smacks the ground at the worst possible ankle. You think you scream, but it’s hard to tell, over the pain.

Chrollo and Feitan jump down from the second story of the fun house. It should break their ankles--it does not. 

Someone turns you over on your back with their boot and you’re left staring up at the sky, ink black and throbbing with stars. It was such a pretty night, before all this. 

Above you, Chrollo and Feitan look down with decidedly different expressions. Chrollo regards you coolly, with no real expression on his face; it’s like a porcelain mask, indifferent, never-changing. Feitan, on the other hand, is smiling--he’s looking not at you, exactly, but at your blood.

It’s Chrollo who speaks.

“I would like an apology for your behavior.”

If your eyes were not safely attached to their retinas, they might bug out of your face entirely. You are laying on your back with bleeding, mangled ankles; your arm is broken, flopping, useless; a collar of blood adorns your neck. Vampires are standing above you, fangs at the ready, having already spread carnage through an entire beach of concert-goers.

And he wants an apology?

You want him to go away. To not be real.

You want your mom, and your dad, and your childhood bed with covers big enough to hide you.

So you shake your head, helpless, like an infant lying on their back.

Above you, Chrollo says your name. Sternly. Just once. 

When you muster up the words, you taste copper. You must have bitten your tongue after tripping. 

“F…fuck you.” 

Stupid words, you know. But you’d rather your last words be this than pointless begging. Now that would be stupid, begging for your life in front of grotesque creatures who want nothing more than to devour your blood. 

Somewhere above you, a gruff voice says, with a hint of glee in his voice:

“Want me to do it, boss?”

Your eyes dart around, but you can’t see anyone else. Even Feitan seems to have stepped back, leaving you with no one but Chrollo in your line of sight.

Chrollo tilts his head a little, considering.

“No,” he says, finally. “Feitan will handle it. I appreciate your methods, but you might break something a little beyond repair.”

Whoever spoke chuckles, but doesn’t disagree.

The words reach you, but you don’t take them in for a slow moment. 

Break… break… what else can they break, what else can they possibly do--

There’s a weight above you. A dark one that smells of blood and metal. It’s Feitan. He blocks out everything else, just for a moment, staring into your eyes with their big pupils and blurring tears.

When he pulls back, you see him move, but don’t know what it means until you feel an explosion of red hot pain in your hand--the hand you slapped Chrollo with. Your fingers crunch and break and you try to pull your hand away, but Feitan’s boot keeps it pinned down, grinding his heel until you shriek so loud that you think the inside of your throat will blister.

Time itself is hot and painful. You’re not sure how long it goes. You’re only sure that when you try to move your mangled fingers, they don’t move. Hot, thick pain shoots down them and it makes you stop trying to get up. 

It’s not like you could run, anyway.

At some point, you hear a new sound. Sirens in the distance. Police? Ambulances? There’s no hope in your chest, no thought that they’ll save you. Even if they got here in time, the monsters would kill them. 

Somewhere above you, Chrollo talks, though his words sound like they’re being spoken through water. 

“Take care of them, will you? We’ll meet up near the waterfall before we head out.” A question from someone. A pause. “Yes, I’ll handle her.” 

The voices fade away. Either because they’ve walked away, or you’re finally going to die from the shock. That might be a mercy compared to whatever grisly end Chrollo has in store for you. Is this how he planned for you to die, after all? Or was it meant to be swifter? You might have screwed it all up with your running and spitting.

Before Feitan broke your hand, you might have been proud of the spitting. Now you just wish you’d let them kill you quick. 

Finally, Chrollo returns to your line of vision. He’s a bit blurry from your tears, from your pain. Probably a bit from your blood loss, too.

He kneels down next to you, and you tense. Even tensing hurts, and you whimper. 

“Are you going to kill me now?”

Beside you, Chrollo coos. A soft, sticky sound. He takes your broken hand and your voice wants to shriek, but all you can manage is a strangled cry. He kisses your broken fingers like a gentleman.

“Kill you? Of course not.” He presses a last kiss to your mangled hand. “I do want to see that sweet girl from before.. the one who daydreams about strangers and holds onto my hand so tightly on the Ferris wheel.” An indulgent look crosses his face and he gives your broken fingers a painful squeeze that has you groaning.

“She’s still in there, no doubt.” His thumb brushes against your cheek, pushing away the dried salt of your tears. “Buried under fear and pain and newfound knowledge, no doubt.” He smiles nostalgically. “But those can be remedied with time.”

He’s crazy. I mean, you know he’s a vampire, sure. But he’s also fucking crazy.

“I want to go home,” you croak. Even though you can’t reason with crazy.  “Please. Please.”

His eyes blink down at you. How old is he, anyway? Centuries? Longer? To him, you must be nothing. Insignificant. Ridiculous. 

He doesn’t mock you, though. He only continues stroking your cheek with his thumb. “I’ll be your home now, wherever we go. And we will go so many places.” There’s some sort of dulled excitement in his expression that turns your stomach. “And from now on, you’ll do what I say, won’t you?”

Tears spill over your eyes, trickling down over his thumb. You don’t have the energy or the lack of survival instinct to say no. But you won’t say yes, either. You can’t. 

“Well. I can make you obedient, if you’d rather be stubborn.”

You’re about to ask--”What?”--when he kisses you, shutting you up entirely. 

You’re afraid to move. Your lips tremble against his, thinking only of death--of his fangs. His lips move and brush against your neck, and a mocking forgotten memory of last night flashes through you. He kissed your neck last night, too, a wet, sucking kiss that had your toes curling. Your toes curl now, too, out of fear. The blood from your ankle makes your toes slick inside your shoes. 

And then his fangs sink into your neck and hot, searing pain shoots through your entire body, masking everything else. Your ankles. Your broken hand.  Your brutalized arm. The cut on your collar. None of them matter compared to this pain, which is not localized at the sight of the bite but spreads throughout your bloodstream, making it impossible to think of anything but how much it hurts.

You’re dimly aware of your screaming. A helpless sound you heard from countless others tonight. Your legs kick, and you realize, vaguely, that you can’t really feel them anymore. They hurt, yes, but there’s a numbness behind it. Are you really moving them at all?

There are more screams now--from the beach. You don’t know how you know, but you do. It’s like you can see it in your mind although you’re flat on your back in front of the fun house with a monster draining you of blood. 

The world spins as you imagine how the first responders must be dying right now, while you’re dying. Are they wishing they never responded to the emergency calls? Are they thinking about their families, their friends, and their little dogs, too? 

Chrollo’s mouth is against yours again, and you taste yourself on him. Bitter metal, still warm. He’s blurry as he pulls back and bites against his wrist. What should be vivid red blood is dark and ugly--dead. He hovers his wrist above your mouth and the substance drips onto your lips. It’s cold, vile.

A final insult before you die, making you drink this nasty stuff. Vampires have a sick sense of humor.

But what did you know about vampires, anyway? 

You black out as Chrollo murmurs something above you.

At least, you think, this is finally over. 

--

You do not wake up in heaven or in darkness, either.

You wake up in a man made clearing, sitting against a tree, with a blanket draped over you. In front of you there is a fire, not roaring but alive enough in the night; a pot with spilled chili lay on the ground. Behind the fire is a camper van with its door wide open. 

The corpse of a man is propped against the door of the van, keeping it open. His mouth is slack and ah, he’s not dead yet, is he? There are two glaring puncture wounds on his neck, but he’s still around. His fingers twitch  and seem to register you with tired eyes, that drift from your face over to the far end of the camp.

You follow the look, and oh. There are two dead teens piled next to the fire. Already drained, already dead. His children, you think. 

The world seems to come into more focus then.

You are, as far as you can tell, alive. You’re propped up against a tree. It’s night time. The people--the monsters, the vampires--are here, in this campsite. Some of them glance at you once they realize you’re awake, but no one says anything.

Strangely enough, you’re not in much pain. Soreness, yes. But you should be in agony. Your hand feels okay--sore fingers, but no longer blinding pain, and you can bend them almost normally. Your arm, too, feels sore but mended. Your hands reach up to your collar, your neck, but there’s no trace of the wounds except a thin scar on your collar and two small bumps on your neck.

How did it heal so fast? Did they bring you here to hurt you again? Keep you like some sort of blood bag?

Your eyes travel down to the blanket draped around you. It’s heavy, comfortable, and stained with blood. 

You jerk like you’ve been electrocuted and throw the soiled blanket from your body.

Someone nearby laughs. “Picky princess, huh?” You vaguely recognize the voice--the tall man with wild hair. The one who knocked a man’s head off at the beach.

Just as renewed panic begins to awaken inside you, Chrollo appears from seemingly nowhere.

“You’re finally awake, I see.”

You shrink against the tree, and look around. Could you run into the woods? Were you still in the trail by the beach? How far could you run? 

Chrollo smiles, and sits down next to you like this isn’t horrifying or unusual at all. “Don’t be ridiculous, dear. There’s nowhere to go.”

Your throat is dry and your words stick to your mouth several times before you can speak.

“Where… are we?”

If you’re close enough to home, you might still get out of this. Somehow. Find a gas station or a rest stop and beg for help. 

“Far away from that little town, I assure you.” Chrollo jerks his head back and you finally see the row of motorcycles parked near the campsite. “We won’t stay here for long. We rarely do. Just long enough for you to get healed up, this time.”

Which means he plans to take you with him--with them. For how long? And where? And why? Why take you? Why not kill you, why not drain you dry in front of the fun house and leave your corpse for survivors to find? 

You could ask all of these things, but you’re not sure you want the answer. Instead, you give the only answer your mind can manage, which is to curl up against yourself and cry. 

“I want to go home.” You whisper, out of practicality more than anything. Your mouth is so damn dry. 

“None of that,” he says, a little sternly. His expression softens when you flinch, and he brushes the hair from your face. “Don’t waste your breath on such a silly sentiment. You’re not going anywhere I don’t want you to go.”

“You said you didn’t know me well enough to leave with me,” he continues, pressing a chaste kiss to your cheek, then a warmer one to your unwilling lips. “You said you hadn’t had time to figure out your dreams. Now, you can take all the time you need for both of those things. We’ll have eternity, after all.” 

Dull, cold horror pools in your gut.

Eternity.

“Did you… am I… did you make me--” 

Your hands shoot to your mouth, to your teeth, feeling for fangs. But there’s nothing new inside your mouth, unless you count the awful cotton dryness that blankets your tongue and teeth like film. 

He smiles indulgently, and you hear someone nearby snort. 

“No.” A pause. “Not yet, not quite.” He smiles at your ignorance and takes your hand away from your teeth, giving it a kiss that feels like mockery even if you get the sense that he isn’t trying to make fun. “That may come later, if you behave. For now, I’ve made you…” Another kiss, this time with a smile on his lips, as he seems to debate on what to say. “… let’s say, mine.”

You shiver. From fear, and from cold.

Chrollo presses another kiss to your lips, until he can shove his tongue in between your teeth and run it against your own. You taste yourself on him, still, that rusty taste. It makes you gag, and he pulls away.

“You must be cold. I don’t want you catching a chill so soon. Why don’t you go sit in front of the fire and warm up?” 

You shake your head, wanting to spit out the taste in your mouth, but not having the courage to do so.

He watches you for a moment. Calculating, cold. He makes you think of an animal, in this moment. An animal thinking on what to do when his prey does something odd in the wilderness. 

“Go sit in front of the fire,” he tells you. 

And without wanting to, without meaning to, you do. Your body jerks up and you walk over to the fire, with its spilled chili and corpses left in its wake, and sit down. 

It’s like before, at the carnival, but different now. There’s no warm suggestion, no soothing manipulation. Only an order that you obey, and that’s that. When you try to push yourself up,  you find that you simply can’t make your body do it.  You can flex your fingers, your toes. You can move your arms up and down. But you cannot, in any way, stop sitting in front of that fire.

“I’d prefer you to do things willingly,” Chrollo says from his spot near the tree. “But I don’t mind giving orders either, love.”

Love.

You’re not sure he knows the meaning of the word.

But neither do you.

Despite the fact that there are two dead kids and their dying father just feet away from you, you find the fire comforting. It’s warm. It’s bright. It’s everything that the monsters around you aren’t; and you aren’t one of them, not exactly (not yet, your brain screams, he said not yet) and maybe you can cling to that. Cling to your humanity, to get you through this. 

The fire crackles in front of you. At some point, Chrollo sits down, and offers you a bowl of chili that they must have set aside for you before knocking the pot down. 

It’s lukewarm, and a bit bland. The dying man wasn’t a great cook. But you eat it, slowly, carefully, while Chrollo watches with an almost serene expression on his face. Like watching you eat was the most endearing thing in the world. 

Above you, the night sky watches the scene with indifference. 

[highprettybabyy]

Seeing Red

Part 8 - Breaking Bread

jenna ortega x fem!reader apocalypse au

summary: Y/N recovers from her injuries

warnings: enemies to lovers, typical apocalypse stuff, violence, blood, zombies, gore, maybe angst... some fluff...

AN: i love domestic fluff

word count: 3k

Part 7

—//—

(Jenna's POV)

Y/N hadn’t moved in hours.

Not since you stitched her up, hands shaking, blood caked in your fingernails. Not since her body had gone terrifyingly still. You’d cried into your knuckles until your ribs ached, until the nausea passed, until the only thing you had left was focus.

Now… all you had was waiting.

You sat on the edge of the coffee table with your elbows on your knees, rifle across your lap. Every few minutes, you stood. Paced to the window. Checked the barricade. Looked through the cracks in the boards. There was nothing out there. Nothing. You still checked.

Y/N had said this place was clear. She’d said she cleared it out herself. But how could it be? She was attacked just five minutes from here. Five minutes. You couldn’t stop replaying it - the way she collapsed, the sound she made, the blood. God, the blood.

Your chest felt like it might cave in.

You leaned over her again. Checked her pulse. Still there. Still steady. Her face was flushed but calm, lashes twitching slightly as she breathed. She didn’t look like she was in pain.

That helped. A little.

You sat back down. Ran a hand over your face. Then, without really thinking, you reached out and gently brushed a strand of hair off her forehead.

It was softer than you expected. Tacky with sweat.

She didn’t stir.

You let out a breath.

Okay. Okay. She was okay. You could breathe. You could-

You needed to move.

You stood up and started wandering. Quietly. Careful not to step on anything too loud. You didn’t know what you were looking for. Just needed to do something.

The house was a strange mix of fortress and memory. There were barricades, yes - but there were also photos on the walls. Drawings on the fridge. A little ceramic owl on the bookcase by the stairs.

It was her home.

And she’d kept it standing.

You found a stack of notes in the dining room. Maps, lists, inventory logs. Dozens of watches in a plastic container marked “SYNCHRONISED.” A line of entries detailed times, alarms, and distances. Another page showed rough sketches of what looked like a toy car circuit.

You stared.

No wonder the streets had been so quiet.

She’d used the watches. Set the alarms. Mounted them to something that could move. Lured the zombies away on purpose.

You felt your chest rise, then fall.

She hadn’t just been surviving. She’d been planning.

Somehow it felt safer.

Years of disagreeing on stupid topics and petty arguments should've made it feel like the opposite- but it didn't.

You moved through to the kitchen. Checked the cupboards. A decent stash of canned goods, some dried fruit, a university student appropriate amount of instant noodles. You peeked into the fridge - and actually smiled when you found a covered pan of what looked like stir fry. Cold. Slightly wilted. But edible.

You hesitated.

Then you ate it. Quietly. Slowly. Every bite tasting like something sacred. You were sure she wouldn’t mind. Probably.

Outside, the sun was dipping lower. You headed into the backyard through the kitchen door and stared at the rain collector. It was rudimentary - a couple of tarps strung over poles, funnelling into a barrel - but it worked. There was plenty enough water inside to wash with.

You found a pot and took it outside to fill. Found a clean rag. Set the pot on the stove, pressed the button to turn it on. It turned on.

You clapped a hand over your mouth to stop yourself from cheering.

You boiled the water to sterilise it, then let it cool until it was barely warm. Dipped the cloth in, wrung it out carefully, and returned to the couch.

You cleaned her wounds one by one. Silent. Focused. Trying not to breathe too loudly.

When her face twitched in her sleep, you gentled your hand immediately. Soothing in strokes. Whispering nothings like she could hear you- except, you'd probably not say anything if she was awake.

“It’s okay. You’re safe. Just a little longer.”

The cuts across her shoulder. The gash near her ribs. The bruises blooming over her thigh. You did what you could. Bandaged. Re-bandaged. Checked for infection. No heat. No smell. Not yet.

You wiped her face last.

Her lips were dry. Skin pale.

But she looked… peaceful.

God, she was beautiful.

You shook that thought away. You’d already let too many things slip.

You dragged two blankets and a stack of pillows off the nearby armchair and set up on the floor beside her. Laid your Glock within reach. Turned your body toward hers.

And for the first time in a long, long while-

You slept.

Not with one eye open. Not with your hand on a trigger. Just… slept.

-

(Y/N's POV)

You woke to pain.

Sharp, raw, bone-deep pain that throbbed behind your ribs and across your temple. You groaned before your eyes even opened, the sound dry and broken in your throat.

Everything hurt. Your head, your gut, your chest. You could barely move. Something was wrapped tight around your midsection. The air smelled faintly of antiseptic. And something else - something warm.

Blankets.

You blinked your eyes open and tried to sit up.

Bad idea.

You gasped through gritted teeth, muscles spasming in your stomach. Stars danced across your vision. You slumped back with a strangled whimper, forehead damp with sweat.

Then-

“Don’t move.”

A voice. Right above you. Steady. Firm. Familiar.

You turned your head slightly and saw her.

Jenna.

She was kneeling beside you on the floor, hair mussed, shirt wrinkled. Her eyes were wide - too wide - and her jaw was clenched so tightly it made your own teeth ache.

She looked like she hadn’t breathed in hours.

“Wha…” You licked your lips. Your voice was barely there.

She reached out - slowly - and placed two fingers against your wrist.

Checking your pulse.

Her eyes searched yours like she was looking for something behind them. Then her lips parted, and she asked:

“What was the name of that professor we had for public speaking?”

You blinked.

“What…?”

“Just answer the question.” Her voice cracked slightly, like she was holding something back.

You frowned. Memory was fuzzy, but not that fuzzy. “Uh… Dr. Vesnik. The one who looked like a wax candle and spat when he talked.”

A pause.

Jenna exhaled hard and sat back on her heels.

“Thank fuck,” she whispered.

You stared at her.

Then it hit you.

The question. The way she was watching you. The fear in her posture.

“Oh my God,” you rasped. “You thought I was-”

“You passed out,” she snapped, voice wobbling. “You stopped breathing for a second. You were bleeding everywhere. You-” She broke off. Rubbed the back of her hand across her mouth. “I didn’t know if you were gonna wake up.”

Something twisted in your chest. Not pain. Not exactly.

“Jenna-”

“No, don’t,” she said quickly. “Don’t do the thing where you pretend it doesn’t matter. It does.”

You swallowed.

The silence between you buzzed like static.

You shifted slightly, trying not to cry out as the pain lanced through your abdomen again.

She noticed. Of course she did.

“Here,” she murmured, moving closer. “Let me help.”

She adjusted the blanket around you, slipping a pillow under your shoulder. Her touch was careful, featherlight. Like she thought you’d shatter if she was too rough.

“I cleaned your wounds,” she said quietly. “Boiled water from the collector. Changed the bandages.”

You looked at her, blinking slow.

“You stayed.”

She shrugged, but the motion was stiff. “You would’ve died otherwise.”

“No.” You shook your head. “You stayed.”

Her lips parted, but nothing came out.

You stared at her for a long time.

“You didn’t have to.”

Her eyes darted away.

“Maybe I wanted to.”

The words hung in the air like smoke.

You weren’t sure what to say. Neither was she.

So instead, you reached for her hand - slow, tentative - and rested your fingers over hers.

She didn’t pull away this time.

-

The days passed in pieces.

Pain first. Then sleep. Then the hazy in-between, where time was soup and your body was glass. It was a blur of soft footsteps, rustling blankets, quiet humming, and the faint click of your front door locking and unlocking as Jenna came and went.

She never stayed gone long.

Sometimes you woke to her checking your bandages or replacing the damp cloth against your forehead. Other times you heard her muttering to herself while sweeping broken glass from the hallway, or rearranging the canned goods in the pantry like she needed them to be just right.

She was always doing something. Restless. Efficient. Calm on the outside.

You weren’t fooled.

On the third day, you finally managed to sit up on your own.

The movement made your side scream, and your ankle was still swollen and bruised. But you didn’t black out. That counted as a win. You hobbled slowly from the couch to the window, leaning your weight on the walls, and pulled back the curtain to peek outside.

Empty streets. Motionless trees. No snarls. No groans. Still safe.

She came back five minutes later, arms full of laundry from the upstairs bedrooms.

“You’re up,” she said, somewhere between surprise and scolding.

You gave her a tired smile. “Only took me three days.”

She didn’t smile back. Not yet. But she did set the laundry down and walk to your side.

“You should’ve called me,” she murmured, checking your stitches. “What if you ripped something?”

You shrugged, biting back a wince. “Then you’d get to sew me back up again. Your favourite.”

That earned you a very small, very reluctant eye roll.

You counted that as another win.

-

By the fourth day, you were able to walk the full length of the hallway and back. Jenna hovered like a mother hen. You made fun of her for it. She threatened to tie you to the couch.

Somehow, it worked.

When the pain dulled enough for longer conversation, you sat at the dining table with a heating pad against your ribs and let her talk you through gun handling. She broke down every part of her rifle, named each piece like she’d known them all her life. You’d held weapons before. You weren’t a stranger to fighting. But watching her talk about the tools that kept her alive - the reverence, the calm precision - it felt like seeing something sacred.

Later, you taught her how you’d lured away the zombies. Explained the watches, the race car, the alarm syncing. She asked questions. Smart ones. Took notes in your scavenged journal. She got it right away.

It was strange. How easily you fit. Like puzzle pieces that had spent years jammed into the wrong box.

She didn’t joke as much as she used to. But when she did - when she let it slip - it was quiet and sincere. And when she smiled, it reached her eyes now.

You caught yourself watching her too long more than once.

-

It was near sunset when it happened.

You were trying to fix the rain tarp outside - badly, slowly, but trying - and Jenna was sitting on the porch steps, fiddling with a knot of rope and listening to your instructions.

“Maybe I am a burden,” you said suddenly, wincing as you shifted your leg. “You haven’t said it, but I know what it looks like.”

Jenna looked up at you, eyes sharp. “Don’t start.”

“I’m not trying to guilt trip you. I just…” You shook your head. “You didn’t sign up for this. For me.”

“No,” she said slowly, “I didn’t.”

Your heart sank a little before she continued.

“But I’m here anyway. You didn’t sign up for me either.”

You met her gaze. It was steady. Grounding.

“I don’t think you’re a burden,” she said, voice softer now. “And even if I did - I think I’d still be here.”

You didn’t know what to say.

She took a breath. Looked down at the rope again.

“I never hated you, you know.”

You blinked. “Could’ve fooled me.”

“I know. I wanted you to think that.” She gave a half-smile, but it didn’t last. “You were the only person who could actually keep up with me. In class. In debates. Hell, even at parties. Everyone else just… fell in line. Not you.”

“I thought you were just trying to crush me,” you murmured.

“I was. But not the way you think.”

You stared at her.

She glanced up again, and this time her voice dropped.

“When I found you in that mall... I thought it was a dream. I thought I was losing it. I’d been alone so long. After what happened with my family… I didn’t think I’d ever feel okay again. But then you were there. Bloody. Snarky. Breathing.”

She paused. Her voice caught a little.

“I don’t know if I could’ve kept going if I hadn’t found you.”

You felt something deep and fragile in your chest begin to ache.

“Jenna…”

She stood quickly, brushing her hands on her jeans. “Anyway. That’s all I’m saying. Come inside before you pass out again.”

But her ears were pink.

And when you brushed past her on your way back in - just barely - her hand steadied your arm.

She didn’t let go right away.

-

By day five, the pain had faded to a dull hum, still loud enough to slow you, but no longer the tyrant it had been. You could move around the kitchen now, cautiously, hands bracing countertops, hips bumping drawers as you navigated the space like someone relearning their own home. You hadn’t realised how much you missed just… moving. Doing.

Jenna had claimed a corner of the kitchen table as her “tactical HQ.” A map of the area sat there now, covered in scribbles and markings that made sense to no one but her. Beside it: an old rag she used to polish her weapons, your lighter, and a pack of gum she insisted tasted like cardboard but kept chewing anyway.

It was weirdly domestic. The way she moved through your space without breaking it. The way you’d started finishing each other’s thoughts without trying.

That morning, you caught her staring out the living room window, arms crossed, lips slightly parted. You didn’t speak. You just passed her a cup of coffee - not great, but warm - and she took it without looking, murmuring a quiet “Thanks.”

You didn’t ask what she was thinking.

She didn’t offer.

But she sat closer after that.

-

By the afternoon, you were itching for something to do. So, bread.

Jenna, for all her stoicism, was surprisingly eager when you offered to teach her.

“You just want me to get flour in my hair,” she muttered, tying your old apron around her waist.

“I want you to do something stupid with your hands for once,” you said. “Let go of being hyper-competent.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Wow. Flirting’s gotten weird since the world ended.”

You smirked. “You wish.”

The dough was sticky. Jenna kneaded like she was trying to kill it. Flour exploded across the counter.

“God, it’s like a crime scene,” you wheezed, laughing despite yourself - which, in hindsight, was a mistake.

Pain shot through your ribs. You doubled over slightly, clutching your side, still laughing.

Jenna panicked. “Shit, shit-are you okay?”

You nodded, wheezing. “No- yes- I think- I think I’m dying of laughter.”

She groaned, but you caught the ghost of a smile before she turned away to find a cloth to wipe her hands. The bread ended up dense and dry.

You cut it anyway, slathered it in whatever preserved butter you had, and ate it like royalty.

It was perfect.

-

That night, while Jenna cleaned up, you made a plan.

You weren’t the kind of person who owed people things. Not like this. But she’d been there for you - really there - when you’d barely had the strength to breathe. And you’d promised her a warm meal, didn’t you?

You waited until she disappeared upstairs to check the traps on the window screens. Then you moved fast.

You pulled a thick cut of ribeye from the bottom drawer of the freezer earlier - one you’d hidden behind bags of frozen berries and forgotten veggie mix. You’d tucked it there days ago, when you first started planning this.

Now, it had thawed perfectly in the makeshift basin near the radiator.

You seasoned it simply - salt, pepper, a little oil - and pan-seared it until it hissed golden on both sides and tender . Avocado came next, mashed with salt and cracked red pepper, spread over toasted slices of bread.

Hashbrowns crisped in another pan. Coffee brewed low and slow in the French press. You moved on muscle memory alone, hands steady, heart oddly light. Ankle - aching.

By the time she came downstairs, everything was plated. Two mismatched forks. Two mugs of fresh coffee. The table cleared of maps and weapons. Just food. Warm, real, and waiting.

You heard her feet on the stairs before her voice floated in-

“Okay, so I’ve been smelling something for the past twenty minutes and I didn’t know if I was hallucinating or if you’d actually poisoned me in my sleep-"

She rounded the corner and froze.

You turned, already grinning.

She gasped. “No fucking way. Y/N.”

You said nothing. Just gestured to the table.

She covered her mouth with one hand. “This is- holy shit.”

You shrugged. “Told you I’d cook. You didn’t believe me?”

Jenna walked forward slowly, like you’d just built her a shrine.

“You made steak,” she whispered.

“You’ve earned steak.”

She sat down across from you like the meal might vanish if she blinked. Her eyes went wide as she picked up a fork, practically bouncing in place.

“This is insane. You didn’t have to-”

“I wanted to,” you said simply.

She looked at you. Really looked.

Then smiled. Wide. Unfiltered. Almost childlike.

It hit you like a truck.

You’d never seen her like this.

You hoped you’d get to see it again.

--//--

AN: see? it's fine! Y/N survived today :D

...

today.

Part 9

[milalabsus]

Unlocking the Power of Data Analytics: A Comprehensive Guide to Mila Labs' Consulting Services

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[nappingmoon]

ex!sukuna x reader - nsfw

wc: 3.1k

you get stuck on the side of the road with no gas and the only one who comes to your rescue is your ex sukuna <3

this can't be fucking real. your car sputters as you pull onto the side of the road before it comes to a halt. your roommate had borrowed your car earlier and returned it with just enough time to drive to your date on time. she didn't tell you, however, that the tank was nearly empty, and you had to ignore the small light that went on as you neared the small bar, not wanting to be rude and arrive late.

the date was alright, and at least he asked you a question or two instead of droning on and on alone for an hour and a half like your last date did. he was handsome and seemed kind enough that you could see him making a great boyfriend for someone else, but there was an unfortunate lack of chemistry between the two of you. there was a promise to talk again soon– one that would surely be broken-- and then you found yourself on your way. driving always gave you time to think and apparently, all the thinking drowned out any warning signs that the car tried to send you before giving out.

you try your roommate first, calling her with the hopes that she's with her boyfriend and he'd be willing to drive to you and at least get you to a gas station. the blaring music in the background of the call gives you an idea of what they're up to and when she turns the camera to her boyfriend with a funnel in his mouth, you cross them off the list.

next you try your date, crossing your fingers that he's still in the area. it goes straight to voicemail. you call again, maybe it was just bad connection or something. voicemail again. "dickhead" you mutter.

your only other friend who would be willing to come pick you up without holding the favor over your head works always works a double on saturdays. you know she'd come pick you up in a heartbeat, but she needs her rest and you decide against calling.

and so you come upon your last option. you and sukuna broke up two months ago and you hadn't seen him since. it was a stupid spat- you don't even remember what the source of the problem was but at some point you just started insulting each other like fucking middle school children. he called you an overbearing bitch, you called him a jealous dickhead who couldn't get over his mommy and daddy issues. things just got away from the two of you and neither of you called to mend things. about a month ago, you just assumed you were now single and when your roommate made you a profile on a stupid dating app, you didn't delete it right away.

and so, here you are now. an empty tank, with no one except him to call. you wince as you type his number in and his contact name appears as scumbag. deciding that calling him is a better option than staying alone in a car on the side of the road all night, you close your eyes and tap the green call icon. it rings once.

"hello?" his voice is gruff and the one word squeezes your heart, making you remember how much you actually miss him, despite hating him sometimes too.

"hi sukuna, i'm sorry to bother. is this a bad time?" you hear voices in the background, he might be at a friend's. even as you ask that, you know he'd drop everything if he knew you were in need.

"what's up princess? you need something?" he uses your old nickname and the heartstrings tug even more. he ignores your question and you know that you were right.

"well, it's not an emergency, but, i ran out of gas and-" you start but don't get to finish your sentence.

"send me your location." is all he says before he hangs up.

you send it. you still had his from when you were dating, but you had stopped sharing yours a week after the argument. you knew he was liable to show up at a club if he knew you were there and didn't want to give him the satisfaction of being able to do that. you were free to do as you please. the map said that he was 22 minutes away.

within 15 minutes, you see a pair of headlights slow. you get out of your car, ready to scold him for speeding but eager to see him again, even if the last time you saw him was on bad terms. confusion enters you, though, when you see an unfamiliar car. out comes a man that you don’t recognize. “hello sweetcheeks,” says the man, walking towards you and grinning far too much for your liking. “you get lost or something?” 

you head back towards your car reaching in to grab your phone but never taking your eyes off the man. “no, I’m not. I am waiting for a friend.” you try to keep your voice assertive and steady but it is difficult when this creep keeps coming towards you. you click sukuna’s contact and send him a text, ‘creepy guy here, please come quick.’ 

“can i wait with ya? you look like you could use a friend and I am great company.” he says, getting too close to the car and too close to you. he responds to your ‘no, thank you.’ with a “aw come on, i’m not gonna do anything to ya. why don’t you want to hang out with me? don’t be a bitch.” 

“sir, i’m really gonna need you to back up right now please.” you’re cornered into your car door and you curse yourself for forgetting to replace the pepper spray on your keychain. your heart seems to be beating through your chest but you can see headlights to a much bigger car turning onto the road over the man’s shoulder. sukuna’s truck roars closer and you could almost cry in gratitude. the man in front of you doesn’t seem to notice the lights nor the man bounding towards the two of you. just as he goes to reach your hand, sukuna grabs the man’s shoulder and pulls him away from you, bending his arm behind his back so far you are sure it’s going to snap at any moment. 

“listen here you degenerate piece of lowlife scum. the only reason you have your face still intact is because i’m on fucking probation and I don’t need to go to jail over some fucking incel who can’t take no for an answer. now you’re going to walk back to your car and drive on the fuck home and if i ever catch you around here creeping again, you won’t have enough limbs or teeth to try it a third time. got it?” the man nods and whimpers as sukuna releases his arm, running over to his car and speeding off.

sukuna turns to you to ask you if you’re alright but lets out a small ‘umph’ in surprise when you run into his chest and wrap your arms around him. he places a hand on your head and rubs it back and forth, muttering a “yeah, yeah” as you thank him over and over. he grabs your chin to tilt your head up to him and looks into your glassy eyes as he asks “you alright, princess?”

you nod, but don’t unwrap your arms from his torso– refusing to release your lifeline. you burrow your head into his chest again, needing a moment to ground yourself before returning to reality. he huffs, but squeezes you tight, rubbing his thumb on your shoulder. you stand like that for a minute or two before he pushes you back. “come on, let's fix your car and get you warmed up. it’s cold out here.” then he takes a look at your outfit. “hold on, where the fuck were you?”

your cheeks warm, remembering that you really tried to look cute for this date. you paired a cute slip dress with a cardigan and some short strappy heels. an outfit wasted on a man who showed up in shorts and a graphic tee but you suppose sukuna seeing you in it is at least a plus. “just a bar.” you say, while looking to the side.

he grabs your chin and brings your eyes back to him, a favorite move of his apparently, and scans your face. “you were with a guy, huh? what the fuck? are you cheating on me?” he asks incredulously.

“what? you haven’t talked to me in two months. I thought we broke up!” you reply, equally confused.

“I thought you were doing your fucking ‘healing’ or whatever the fuck you girls do! I gave you space because i was trying to be mature and let you calm down.”

“who lets someone calm down for two months? you didn’t think to call me and ask? what is wrong with you?” 

“you! you are fucking wrong with me. whenever it comes to you its like all fucking reasonable thought goes out the window! how the fuck was I supposed to know it was okay to reach out? and, what, we don’t talk for a little and you think it’s okay to go talk to other guys? you’re mine, don’t you remember that? or did our dry spell fuck with your head? did you think you could get over me by dressing up for some loser and getting mediocre dick?” 

yes. “no! it wasn’t like that kuna. I just, i don’t know. you were so mean and then you didn’t reach out and i thought that was it between us. I thought i needed to move on.” 

he bends over so that you are eye level with each other. “there’s no fucking ‘moving on’ baby. you’re stuck with me forever.”

upon hearing those words, it’s like all the sentiment from before truly comes flooding back into you. your body seems to move on its own, surprising the both of you when you close the gap between your lips. his fist finds its way into your hair and the other grabs your waist, pulling you closer. these months were the longest you have gone without sex and you didn’t know how much you had missed it until you were back in sukunas hands with his tongue in your mouth. he moves his knee between your thighs as much as your dress will let him. the friction isn’t enough and you whine and squirm in his arms. “aw, is my baby all needy? do you need more?” he teases, the words leaving his mouth and meeting yours. 

you drag your hands down his back and then slip them under his shirt to roam around his abs. fuck, you’ve missed this. “please, please kuna, need more.” 

sukuna growls and pulls you back, closing the door to the driver’s seat and opening the door to the back row. he tugs your arm and maneuvers you like a doll until you’re laid across your back seats. sukuna kneels on the floor outside the car and tugs your hips to the edge of the outermost seat before hiking up your dress to your waist. he growls when he realizes you aren’t wearing panties. “are you fucking kidding me? you had this pretty pussy ready and open on a first date? like some slut?” 

he bites the inside of your thigh and you cry out “no, ryo, the lines just ruin the dress. I promise.” he’s looking up at your frown and your watery eyes and you look so sincere and so adorable and he can’t take it anymore. he sticks his head into your heat, lapping at you like he hasn’t had a meal since the last time you saw him.

“fuck, baby. I’ve missed your taste so much. his fingers dig into your hips, keeping you in place as your back arches and your head digs into the seat. you can’t stop your squirming as sukuna sucks at your clit and your hands claw at your sides and the seat in search of something to grasp. sukuna grips your left leg and adjusts it so that it lays over his right shoulder. he brings your hand into his hair before dipping to play with your clit, his head lowering to kiss and swirl his tongue all around your pussy. with his other hand, he intertwines his fingers with yours, not even needing to look up to find your hand. of course he doesn’t look away– he’s entirely focused on using his tongue to make you forget anyone but him exists. he uses the palm of the hand that’s intertwined with yours to press on your tummy, making you see stars.

“fuck, ryomen, i’m gonna cum. please pleasepleasepleaseplease” your words blend together as the pleasure gets to your head. the fingers over your clit have found a deadly rhythm and when paired with his tongue that pushes in and out of you, you truly don’t stand a chance. he lets out small words that you can’t hear but the vibrations are enough to send you over the edge, crying out and squeezing your thighs around him like a vice. as you come down from your high you let sukuna move you up, making space for him to get into the car and close the door behind him. 

you’re dazed as you watch him unbuckle his belt and pull the waistband of his boxers down. His dick slaps his abdomen, hard and pulsing. he fists himself as he licks his lips, smirking. “delicious as always princess. now are you gonna let me in?” and you don’t think you could nod faster. you’re almost positive that there are hearts in your eyes as you watch him line himself up with you, fingers playing with your clit a little before spreading you for his tip. he rolls his hips forwards just enough so the tip catches and the stretch is already dizzyingly good. he curses, “holy fuck, did you not touch yourself at all while you were alone?”

“I did, my fingers just weren’t enough.” you whine, and the image of you in bed horny and frustrated because your little fingers weren’t hitting all the spots that he could makes him impossibly harder. 

“fuck, baby, I didn’t just ruin you for any other guy, I ruined you for yourself too, huh? nothing else will do for this pretty pussy but my cock or my fingers or my mouth. what a spoiled little cunt you have.” he laughs. you have had enough of his teasing and try to roll your hips to get more in. “alright alright I get it. easy baby, easy. by the way, what did you have for dinner tonight?” 

confused, you reply “chicken francaise, wh–” but you don’t get to finish your sentence, interrupted by sukuna fully thrusting into you. you gasp, the sting of your walls stretching to accommodate him intense even after cumming once already.

“I figured a distraction might help you relax a little better but holy fuck you’re tighter than I could have imagined. you really must have barely touched yourself while I was gone. don’t worry, this pussy won’t get neglected again.” he says, and rolls his hips again. sweat drips down your forehead as he leans over to kiss you, working his hips into yours in a delicious rhythm. as soon as you notice that his thumb has started rubbing your clit, he bites your bottom lip and the pain and pleasure mix into a mind numbing, all encompassing haze. he brings his other hand to pinch your nipple and it is enough to send you over the edge again.

being the man that he is, however, he does not let you catch a break before flipping you over to be on your hands and knees. you’re crouched and you’re sweaty and it’s hot as he slides against you but nothing has been more erotic and you find that you love it. he’s merciless now, hips snapping into yours as he chases his own pleasure. there’s just one thing he can’t get out of his mind. “did you like having your fun? was going out with those losers everything you had hoped for and more?” he spits the words into your ear, the smack of his hips getting rougher and rougher as he speaks.

it’s all you can do to turn your head and whine out “n-no! only wanted you ryo, hated going out with other guys.” you pout just remembering it. “please make me forget about them. I only ever want you.” the request is enough to send him into overdrive, and he sticks his fingers into your mouth to shut you up, knowing that he was going to be seconds away from coming if you uttered another word. you moan at the taste of yourself and at the feeling of him so deep inside you. you suck his fingers clean running your tongue across his digits. some of the spit escapes and drips down the side of your mouth and the sukuna goes wild at the debauchery of it all. 

“fuck, fuck fuck fuck i’m gonna cum, where do you want it princess?” he groans, hips stuttering as he tries to hold his release back.

there is, of course, only one right answer. “inside!” you keen, pushing your hips back to try to give him nowhere to escape to. 

“dirty fucking girl.” he snarls. “I’ll give you my cum– don’t worry princess, it’s all yours.” he says before groaning and stilling inside you. you feel the warmth fill you and grin, knowing that it is where it’s supposed to be. he turns your head and kisses you with fervor before pulling you back and sitting you on his lap. you lay your head on his chest, catching your breath and basking in the feeling of being in his arms once again. 

...

“so, are you really on probation?” you ask, rubbing your thumb in circles over one of the tattoos on his chest.

“yeah, I told you, i go crazy when it comes to you. after our argument i went out and got into a fight with the first person who was stupid enough to respond to my antagonizing. got caught kicking the shit out of him because I was so in my head. don’t fucking leave me again, I don’t think i’d survive the next one. well, i might, but the next guy I fight probably wouldn’t.”

[lxvvie]

i work at a theme park, so every day i see dads with their little kids carrying them, giving them a high five, lifting them when there’s a parade so they can see ☹️✨ it makes me so happy, it makes me think of the boysss. how would they be in a theme park as parents? you can do only the one-four-one boys if you want to

I see Price as the dad getting all the compliments when he's out with his child(ren), ranging from how darling they are, how calm and well-behaved they are, how at ease he is with them, and oh, is he seeing someone? Currently? Right in front of you and your funnel cake...?

Soap is the dad who 110% does just about everything with his wee little ones. Scared to get on that one ride? S'okay, he's right there with ya. Want that one toy in that game? Sure thing, he'll win it for them. That one dickhead dad and his kid cut in front of Soap and his own? Best believe he'll fight for his and his wee one's honor.

Gaz and his kid(s) are the ones who really go for the food so they'll be trying just about anything they can, honestly. Oh, and the games! They like a good game. As a whole, they tend to stay FAR away from the mascots and clowns. Once Gaz was dared to go on the highest roller coaster in the park by his kid(s) and daredevil that he can be sometimes, um... we'll leave it at that.

Ghost is the dad his kid(s) use to carry the stuffed animals won so he's almost always walking out of the theme park with an arm full of them. Is usually seen standing to the side, arms crossed, and keeping his eye on you and the little ones as you wait in line to get on a ride or grab food or whatever. Will also have his kids on his shoulders or in his arms, too, if they want to see the parade.

Rudy is the mom dad who keeps water, sunscreen, and a park map on hand; if you and he split up so you can take the kids to do their thing, it's check-ups galore via the cell and a designated meet-up spot to reconvene.

Alejandro and his children are just there to have fun. He's the dad whose kids make him get a caricature drawing that you will frame and hang up at home, some face painting done, and it's pictures galore. Too many to count but it's worth it to him. He remembers you and your children's smiles and laughter the best.

Köthulhu and his Köthulhi may or may not give the mascots hell. Probably. As a dare. Which earns him and the kids a stern look from you. But really, you all use Mount Königmanjaro as the personal crowd-parter guy because he's massive, you use him to win those dart balloon games, and you make him stand in line for food or something when you have to step out to attend to the kids because... who gone check him?

[storieswithvenus]

Weather girl - Tyler Owen’s x Fem! Reader

°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･ 𝘷𝘦𝘯𝘶𝘴 𝘴𝘱𝘦𝘢𝘬𝘴

hey! sorry for taking so long off, i’ve been super busy and getting back into the swing of everything. hope you guys enjoy, it’s a bit of a rollercoaster;)

TW!!

use of y/n, reader and tyler being somewhat surprised by a tornado even though they are chasing it???, quick love confession cause i got tired lmao

─ ⊹ ⊱ ☆ ⊰ ⊹ ─

As the cloud started to swirl, the one supercell storm now forming a small funnel, you stood watching from the beginning of the dirt path a mile away.

You stood there with your high definition camera, snapping away photos of the upcoming storm, just a few feet behind you stood Tyler Owen’s.

─ ⊹ ⊱ ☆ ⊰ ⊹ ─

You two had an unusual relationship, the two of you had grown up together. Frankly, he was your older brother’s best friend. Growing up together, you had always had some sort of tension, he had grown close to your older brother Mason in their sophomore year of school while you were a freshman. As they grew close, he was always at your house with Mason, either playing football in the back garden or playing video games in your brothers room while screaming at the screen.

You were a bit of a nerd, you knew from a young age that you wanted to work in something to do with the weather. So when you were trying to study the weather patterns around you and all you could hear was the screaming of your brother and Tyler, you did lose your mind. Stomping your way towards his room and slamming the door open, banging off the wall.

Both of them staring up at you with disbelief, watching as you throw one of your massive textbooks at them. The book smashing off the head of Tyler and as you reach for the handle of the door slamming it closed.

By the time you had graduated from university, you hadn’t been home to Texas in years. You hadn’t seen your family in years because you were too focused on your career, and it worked in your favour too.

“If we look towards the Joplin area here,” you say standing infront of the map which is covering the massive screen behind you, pointing towards that area, “you can see that there is a storm heading towards this area. Right now, it doesn’t look like anything too bad, however I will report back if it does gain the attributes to form a tornado that would touch down.” You carry on speaking before your cameraman gives you the thumbs up to finish so they can wrap up. “That’s it folks, please do keep checking the weather app for any possible updates! This is Y/N L/N signing off.”

You walk out of frame just as the director cuts. Walking straight over to your assistant who has your phone and a bottle of water waiting for you. “There’s been this number blowing your phone up, I haven’t answered of course - but they literally won’t stop phoning. I’m starting to think a fan has gotten your number.” Your assistant, Mark, says as you open the bottle of water and start drowning it to coat your throat. “There’s not much we can do if it is leaked, but i’ll check it out. You’re free to go home, I know your little ones are probably looking for you to come home” You say before leaning in to give him a hug, he thanks you profusely before running out the massive door to the carpark.

Looking down at your phone, you decide that you’re gonna phone the number back. You tap the number on your phone and put it up to your ear as it begins to ring. After 5 rings you consider hanging up, that was until you heard the number pick up.

“Hey! Is this Y/N?” the deep voice spoke after a few seconds of silence, “Hi! Uhm yeah this is she… Who is this? Why have you been spamming my phone?” You voice slightly breaking, confusion evident in your voice. “It’s.. uh-“ the voice on the phone stumbles, “It’s Tyler, you know Tyler Owen’s”.

Then it all clicked, the voice, the way he spoke, everything made sense. “Tyler, I haven’t heard from you in years..” your voice lower. “Yeah, listen, I see you on the news now, and well.. I was wondering if you’d maybe wanna join us for a few weeks storm chasing. So you can get your own experience.”

─ ⊹ ⊱ ☆ ⊰ ⊹ ─

“Are you sure this is safe?” you screamed at him from the passenger side of the truck, your hands gripping onto the side of the chair. He looks at you with a little laugh, as he speeds up, watching you squirm in your seat. You turn to look out the front windscreen, just as you look, you see the massive tornado cross the dirt road in front of the truck.

Your head quickly turns to his as he speeds up towards the twister. “Tyler, are you fucking crazy?” You scream over the sound of the truck speeding down the dirt path, the sound of destruction coming from the tornado. Suddenly he turns the wheel to his left, the car turning sharply down another smaller path, your body being thrown to the left as you held on for dear life.

“We need to get in front of it before we deploy the rods to hold us into the ground”, his voice still drowned out with the noise around the car. Looking out the side window, you watch as the tornado seems to be standing still.

Panic fills your body, you feel the world go into slow motion. You know what’s coming. “Tyler, deploy the rods.” Your voice quiet, close to a whisper as you couldn’t take your eyes off the storm beside you. “What?”, he questions you, before looking over to see what you were saying. His eyes moving from you to out the window your eyes were glued to, his eyes widening at what the two of you were seeing.

The truck hauls to a stop, the two of you being slightly flung forward. His hand quickly slamming down on the red button in the middle of your two seats to deploy the rods into the dirt ground below the truck.

You finally come back to earth, turning to him as you feel the truck get closer to the ground, the rods securing you into the floor. Your hand reaches for his, intertwining, before you throw your head between your legs in a brace position. Tyler’s hand squeezes yours, a last sense of safety before the tornado hit the truck.

The force of the 90mph wind hits your side of the truck first, your mouth let out a scream as the violent shaking begins to cover the entire truck. The colour of the sky outside goes from a light grey to a dark grey, close to black, in seconds.

You hear smaller items of debris hitting all around the truck, a branch hitting the window with such force you thought the window would give out and crash in on top of you. With all of your focus on the storm now surrounding you, you didn’t realise you had began to cry. The tears streaming down your face as you hold your head down and cover it with your other hand incase of something breaking a window.

You feel the violent shakes begin to slow down, becoming more gentle. Your curiosity for the better of you, your head turning up to look out the front window screen. The storm had just passed you, all the trapped air in your lungs finally cleared as you let out the biggest sigh of relief.

You look over to Tyler, he was already watching you. His smile spreading across his face, “What did you think of that?” His voice full of cheekiness, giving you a slight wink.

And all you could do, was give him a slight laugh back.

─ ⊹ ⊱ ☆ ⊰ ⊹ ─

And that’s how you ended up here, watching the now EF1 cross the field in front of you. Taking your own photos of it, and just taking in the sight of mother nature.

You feel Tyler walk up behind you, his hand making contact with your lower back. Turning to look at him, you smile as he begins to speak, “Hey weather girl, did you get any good pictures?” You smile widens, turning your head to look down at your camera as you go through the pictures to pick your best one, “Yeah I did. Got this amazing one here”, you say in a soft voice, showing the small camera screen to him.

He reaches out to your camera, his hand touching yours, a spark of electricity connecting between you two. You both look up at each other, eyes connecting, both of you looking at each other with love.

“I’m glad you decided to stay with me and the team after what I put you through in our first week”, his voice was full of truth. Your hand lays on his arm, “I would never leave after that.”

“Can I kiss you?” Your eyes slightly widen at the question he sprung into you. He could tell he surprised you, just before he was about to apologise you pulled him in. Your hand laying on his jaw as you kissed him.

You slightly pull back to make eye contact, smiling at him. His voice soft and low,

“I have loved you ever since we were kids, ever since you threw that book at us.”

[lame-cameoliob]

The Narritive Potential of lower level! Kallus

Alright literally nobody asked and this is totally just me thinking way too much, but I NEEEEEEDDD to talk about the Kallus from the lower levels headcanon and just how much narrative potential it has

(also If you see anything spelled wrong or phrased weirdly NO YOU DIDN’T)

To be completely frank I think that Kallus’ character is almost out of place in a children's TV show– DO NOT GET ME WRONG, he is a fantastic character that is integral to the Rebels plot, but many implications made by his character are much more fitting in shows with higher ratings– that’s why he comes of so fucking ridiculous half of the time, he is a character with massive implications, but he has to be readable to a younger audience. PLUSSS Rebels was made on a tiny budget compared to other Star Wars animated projects, so the producers could not put time or money into further delving into his arc because they needed to focus on the main cast. They couldn’t afford to go into smaller character-centric arcs like in the clone wars. Now, taking that into account, it is no doubt that Kallus has an incredible character arc (tbh I’d say the best in Star Wars, but i might be glazing idk) but there are aspects of that arc that could not be explored more due to the aforementioned restrictions on the production side.

Thing is, Star Wars is all about making connections to the real world (ex. Return of the Jedi was an allegory for the vietnam war– or also THE ENTIRETY OF ANDOR) And although Kallus’ arc already does that on a baseline level, its potential for drawing these connections was for sure not explored to its fullest. 

Now, I know you didn’t sign up for a lesson in world history and politics when you started reading this but you’re gonna have to stick with me to see where I’m coming from; 

It is no secret that the greatest defense against propaganda is education. That’s why maps that show which states have less extensive education and maps that show which states are conservative look nearly identical. That’s why conservative states are far more likely to pass legislation that bans books with political content; they need people to continue to be uneducated in order to keep the state conservative. Even if we omit nefarious political intent, in order for educational institutions to truly thrive they need funding (which tends to be severely lacking in conservative communities) State legislation aside, some school systems literally cannot afford to give their students an all encompassing education. And next to that, in many impoverished rural communities, you end up having kids that need to start working early on in order to make money to support themselves and their families OR they start working early just cause they want to (bootstraps mentally and all that); these kids do not have a reason to set aside their time to sit down and think about the politics of the world around them, which is why a lot of people end up just falling in line with the conservative mindset that surrounds them. 

“What about the people who aren’t conservative / patriotic? How do they play into this?” You may ask– AND LET ME TELL YOU– it’s not really a huge secret that the United States Military does this quirky little thing where they pay for your college and give you financial benefits while you’re an active service member. That’s actually a MASSIVE recruitment tactic that they use in schools! IN FACT, (as someone who grew up in a blue state) wherever military recruiters would come to my school to yk…recruit people, they would almost ALWAYS stress the financial benefits more than promoting the whole “SERVE YOUR COUNTRY RAHHH AMERICA” thing . 

So basically it’s a system that sets children up for failure by leaving them broke and struggling, and some of those children grow up in areas where they are funneled into having certain political beliefs without the resources needed to form their own opinion, OR you have kids that just want to reap financial benefits because living is too damn expensive. (And of course there are people who fit into BOTH or neither of the categories; I’m generalizing a little bit for the sake of keeping this post shorter than it could be) (This is a very nuanced subject and I know that, I just don't want to make you all read an entire essay)

The issue comes when these misinformed children grow into adults, and those adults become dangerous. 

BACK TO STAR WARS

So there’s not really a whole lot of extensive canon lore (at least that I’ve seen) about how the Coruscant economic system works, but I think it's fairly obvious that it is operating on a capitalistic system not unlike the united states, where the richest of the rich own most of the wealth, and the rest of the population are left living paycheck to paycheck; it’s just that some paychecks are bigger than others. 

It is this system that allows for the lower levels to fall into complete poverty. None of the wealth from the top is trickling down (literally) and the people in the lower levels are left fighting for scraps. 

Most areas in the lower levels are controlled by money hungry gangs, and corrupt law enforcement does what these gangs want just because they’re paid to. The further down you go the less control The Republic has; at some point you reach a depth where the Republic has zero influence. And even if they did, at this point in history, most of the senate no longer represents the people.

THIS IS WHERE KALLUS COMES IN 

I want you to imagine being a kid in the lower levels. You’re fighting for your next paycheck so that you can help pay rent, you’re shoplifting and picking pockets just so that you can eat. You cannot afford to live. And not only that; you’re suffering from intense vitamin deficiencies, the air is undoubtedly toxic, the water probably isn’t good to drink. You are exhausted. Physically, mentally, even subconsciously, you are a kind of bone-deep tired that nobody– ESPECIALLY A KID– should ever have to feel. If you can even afford to go to school you’re not leaving with a better understanding of the galaxy, because all you’re worried about is finding something to eat and going the fuck to sleep. But that's your normal, you’ve never known anything different. 

You’re not thinking of ways to question the system, you’re too tired to. 

And you don’t care about The Republic because The Republic doesn’t care about you. 

But then The Empire rolls around. And the Republic didn’t give a fuck about you, but maybe the Empire will– besides you don’t really care about the politics of it all, because you see that they offer free room and board to those who enlist, and that is your one way ticket out of the fucking hell hole that you’ve had to endure for your entire life. 

And so you enlist. And even if you didn’t care about politics before, the people around you do, and they are telling you exactly what to think without giving you the resources to form an opinion of your own. 

If Kallus grew up in the lower levels, that would have been his reality. He would have been the perfect person to indoctrinate because he came from a system that wouldn’t have allowed him to know any better.

This is especially palpable when we think about why he became Fulcrum in the first place;

He educated himself in ways that the empire did not allow him to be educated before. He asked questions and he did not like the answers that he got. 

He realizes that he’s been fed lies and propaganda that have made him complacent in a system that had done immeasurable evil, and he HATES that. He realizes that he does NOT believe what the empire believes and that he has to align his actions with HIS opinions, not the empires.

He realizes that harm that his ignorance has done and he takes it upon himself to lock THE FUCK IN in an attempt to help and rebalance the scales. 

(And this bit is kind of a side note, but idk where else to put this:if Kallus comes from a background like the one listed above where he is constantly fighting for survival, he becomes a narrative foil of EZRA!!! They become two sides of the same coin; a kid whos impoverished because of the Empires cruelty, only looking out for himself until his worldview is changed for the better by the kindness of the people around him VERSUS a kid whos impoverished because of the Republics failures, only looking out for himself and CONTINUing TO DO SO as his worldview is changed for the worse by the greed of the people around him.) (DO YALL GET WHAT IM SAYING??? I FEEL LIKE IM ONTO SOMETHING THERE??)(I MIGHT BE CRAZY BUT LIKE I FEEL LIKE THATS ⁉️⁉️)

All of this is really just to say that Kallus is the perfect example of the dangers of complacency. He is the bystander effect at its worst. He admits that he “never asked questions,” simply because the empire told him not to, and he becomes dangerous because of it. He does evil shit just ‘cause he’s told to. The empire says that a certain number of civilian deaths fall within an “acceptable margin” and he just shrugs his shoulders and goes “yeah, okay, if you say so.” 

Already in canon, he is an example of what people can become if they refuse to question the systems in power, but when you take into account the possibility that he’s from the lower levels, he also becomes an example of how people end up in a system where they are set up for failure so that they don’t end up questioning those systems in the first place. He’s an example of how the Empire benefits from systematic suffering because the people who suffer without even realizing it are the people most easily shaped into pawns. 

End of rant

[amaris-whisperer]

The Quiet Storm l Bucky Barnes x Reporter!Reader

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Reporter!Reader Setting: Thunderbolts, Washington D.C. Genre: Action-thriller, angst, slow-burn romance

-- People said Congressman James Buchanan Barnes was a changed man.

They didn't say it with hope—they said it like a warning.

Clad in tailored suits now instead of combat gear, he walked the corridors of power like a ghost barely permitted to exist. The world called him the Thunderbolts' handler, the government's weapon-turned-savior. The quiet one. The one who kept Valentina Allegra de Fontaine's dark empire running smooth without anyone getting their hands too bloody.

But I didn't buy it.

Because I watched him in the margins—never in the spotlight. I saw the way his jaw tensed when her name was mentioned. How his eyes hardened when civilians asked too many questions. How he never stayed in one place too long. And maybe, just maybe, I was the only one who noticed the weight he carried behind that stillness.

So I followed him. Because someone had to.

And that night in the alley, I got too close.

He had me pinned before I even registered the motion—my back slammed against cold brick, his vibranium arm glinting in the dim streetlight, breath brushing my skin like a memory of war. Not a man. A storm.

"You need to stop," he said, voice low and razor-sharp.

But I didn't. Couldn't. So I looked him in the eye and said, "Then give me a reason to."

He held my gaze a little too long. Long enough to see something shift in the shadows of his past. Long enough for something soft to twitch behind the steel.

He stepped back, tension still humming in the air between us like aftershock. And without another word, he vanished into the dark.

But that wasn't the end.

That was the beginning.

-- The next morning, I left the files at his door.

Everything I had on Valentina—classified intel, backdoor deals, off-the-books facilities, dead assets who should've never been involved. Names that weren't supposed to exist anymore.

I expected silence.

What I got was a figure sliding onto the park bench beside me two days later, like he'd just stepped out of another lifetime.

"You don't know what you've started," he murmured.

"Maybe," I said. "But I think you're tired of finishing things alone."

That was all it took.

We never called it a partnership. Never defined what we were doing, because words felt too dangerous. Instead, we worked in shadows. Mornings spent at neutral drop points, nights decoding encrypted reports over coffee grown cold. Whispers under flickering streetlights. A brush of shoulders in an elevator we never took together.

He let me in—but only just. Enough to see the edges of the man behind the mission. Enough to know that the Winter Soldier still lived in the lines of his silence, but so did James.

Sometimes I caught him watching me when he thought I wasn't looking—eyes filled with something between curiosity and caution. Like he was trying to remember how to trust someone. How to be someone.

-- And then came the night it all fell apart.

We were in a warehouse by the docks, blueprints and maps spread across a rusted crate, fingers tracing routes and names that should never meet. We were closing in on a weapons facility—one Valentina had quietly funneled assets into for months. Our lead had gone dark. The place smelled like cold metal and betrayal.

He was pacing like a caged animal.

"She's too deep in," he said. "Even if we burn this place, she's already building the next one."

"You're the one who said she could bleed," I snapped. "That we could cut through the smoke."

He turned on me so fast I instinctively backed up a step. His eyes weren't cold—they were ablaze.

"You think this is a story? A Pulitzer? You think I'm some tragic headline with a redemption arc?"

I stared at him, stunned. "That's not fair—"

"You want the truth?" he cut in, his voice cracking at the edges. "You're a distraction. You slow me down. You make me care."

The words hit like bullets. Sharp. Intentional. Cruel in their clarity.

He saw it in my face—saw the way I flinched. Regret flickered in his eyes for the briefest second, but he didn't take them back.

"I'm not going to watch someone else die because they got too close to me," he said, quieter now. "So go. Before this takes you too."

I gathered my things, blinking fast against the sting in my chest. My fingers trembled, but I didn't let him see me cry. I left before the first tear fell.

He didn't follow.

I didn't expect to survive the week.

Didn't expect the black van parked outside my apartment. Didn't expect the two men who dragged me into a garage, zip-tied my wrists, and pressed a needle to my neck.

But apparently, he did.

The moment the syringe grazed my skin, he was there.

Silent. Precise. Devastating.

One man hit the ground with a bone-crunching snap. The other barely had time to draw his weapon before Bucky had disarmed him, turned him into a projectile, and sent him through a car windshield.

When it was over, he stood there—vibranium arm slick with blood, chest heaving, face pale with fury and something dangerously close to fear.

He knelt beside me, cutting the plastic ties with a blade I never saw.

"Are you okay?" he asked, voice ragged.

"You came back," I whispered.

"I never left," he said.

I stared at him. "Then why did you push me away?"

His jaw flexed, and for a moment, I thought he wouldn't answer. Then he exhaled sharply.

"Because I felt something. And I didn't want it to be the reason you ended up dead."

"I'm not afraid of dying," I said.

"You should be."

"I'm afraid of never mattering to someone who does."

That broke something in him.

His gaze softened. The steel melted into something else—something almost vulnerable. He reached out like he didn't know how to, fingers brushing my cheek with a hesitance that cracked me open more than any words ever could.

He leaned in, slower this time. The kiss was hesitant—testing. No fire or frenzy, just something real. Something long-denied.

His lips were warm against mine. Gentle. Apologetic. A silent promise he couldn't say out loud.

When he pulled back, his forehead rested against mine.

"This isn't the end," he murmured.

"No," I whispered. "It's the beginning."

-- The next morning, we were already on the move.

Whatever veil had separated us—professionalism, caution, fear—it was gone. Burned away by the realization that we had already chosen each other somewhere along the way.

He didn't apologize for the things he'd said. Not directly. But he stayed close now. He called me by my name instead of "reporter." He let his fingers brush mine when he handed me files. And when I woke from nightmares of syringes and blood, I found him sitting in a chair nearby, eyes watchful and unsleeping.

Valentina was still out there. Still too powerful. But the moment we stood together, we weren't outnumbered.

Because he wasn't just the Winter Soldier anymore.

And I wasn't just chasing the story.

We were two people who'd stopped running.

Two people building something in the ashes of what came before.

[razorblade180]

9 days of Lancaster Day3: Oblivious

Ruby:*playing games*

Weiss:Ruby, isn’t almost time for you to go to the carnival with Jaune?

Ruby:Yeah in a hour. Why? Need something?

Weiss:No, but shouldn’t you be wearing something nicer than your normal clothes? I get you two are comfortable with each other but shouldn’t you put a little effort into your date?

Ruby:Date? Pfft, we’re hanging out. Jaune and I have never been on a date.

Weiss:You go to the movies together alone.

Ruby:It’s cheaper that way.

Weiss:He’s taking you out to eat.

Ruby:So? That’s normal.

Weiss:You both spent Valentine’s Day together.

Ruby:Y-Yeah, because we’re both single so we decided to make plans.

Weiss:Did you make plans, or did he come to you with plans ready?

Ruby:….Let’s entertain that you’re right-

Weiss:You can borrow my white and red sundress. Also my flats.

Ruby:You could be projecting.

Weiss:There’s a Tunnel of Love.

Ruby:Who said we’ll go on it!?

xxxxxx

Jaune, in a nice blue collard shirt and gray jeans, looks at the carnival map while Ruby eats her cotton candy in deep thought.

Ruby:(This all seems pretty normal. Ugh, can’t believe I let Weiss get in my head.)

Jaune:Any other rides you have your eyes on?

Ruby:I’m fine eating funnel cake all day. Anything is okay in my book.

Jaune:In that case…why don’t we try Tunnel of Love since it’s here?

Ruby:….Jaune is this a date?

Jaune:H-Huh!? I mean- sorta? If that’s fine with you.

Ruby:Why didn’t you phrase it like one then when we made plans!? *waves cotton candy at him*

Jaune:We both wanted to go and I didn’t want to say something stupid and make it feel weird.

Ruby:What’s weird and stupid about a date with you! I’d be over the shattered moon to date y-….. *red*

Jaune:*blushing*……

xxxxxxx

Ruby:*walks into dorm slowly*

Weiss:*studying* How was the carnival?

Ruby:We made out behind the funnel cake stand.

Weiss:*drops pen*…..I beg your pardon?

Ruby:May I keep this dress?

Weiss:I beg your pardon!?